Chapter Text
The sun in his eyes brought Jay back to himself. He could hardly remember where he was, it was just... good. He felt elated. He was pretty sure he was laughing about something, but he couldn't, for the life of him, recall what. Maybe Ronin said something funny.
"And there I was, feeling bad, but it's like," Ronin paused to take a swig of some drink, and a puff of something else. Jay hadn't the slightest clue what it was, but given the way Ronin's face twisted at the taste, it was strong. Jay wasn't sure if it was the same as what he'd taken. Now that he thought about it, what had he taken? "You guys are fucking ninjas!"
He felt Maeve laugh at that and couldn't help but giggle in response. She was curled up, leaning against him, facing the arm of the brown leather couch they were sitting on. His feelings might change when he sobers up, but he felt closer to her, as though they'd been friends for years. Ever since he'd started his routine visits to her and Ronin, they'd felt more like family than business partners. They'd shared stories. And now, they were telling jokes.
Ronin continued to laugh at his own joke from his matching brown recliner across from them.
"Who're you telling? I tried to- I can't- I can't even get them to act like adults!" Jay chuckled, stammering, suddenly aware that his thoughts weren't running straight. The thought made him anxious, like he was forgetting something. He couldn't focus. What was he doing? He was supposed to be somewhere.
Still, they all burst out laughing.
"The literal- the literal power of the First Spinjitzu Master, and they act like a bunch of fucking- "
A ringing from under him cut Jay off. He was almost positive he'd forgotten something now. He shifted his hips just enough to pull his phone from his back pocket. Out with it came his keys and some loose change. The sound of his phone seemed to be drowned out by the sight of a small silver box on the end of his keyring. It might've been his mental state, but to Jay, it glimmered almost like it was covered in stardust. It unscrewed easily, the top coming off to reveal a delicate miniature spoon. It was covered in a pale-colored powder. Before he fully even registered what he was doing, he'd snorted another scoop.
Jay tried not to react as he realized Maeve had already clicked to answer the call for him. "Hello? This is Jay Walker speaking." He said, his voice strained, barely avoiding a sneeze.
Maeve tried to stifle her snickering away from the phone's microphone.
"Jay. You're supposed to be here," a robotic voice came through the speaker.
"Where?"
"We're meeting with Mr. Brookstone and his lawyer about our next steps."
"Tell him to get his ass over here before Kai gets back! I can't keep him away forever and I don't need him throwing a fucking temper tantrum in front of Cole's dad!" another voice whisper-shouted over the phone.
"What? Nya? Zane? I thought the meeting was Wednesday." Jay sputtered, getting up to throw on his jacket and grab his backpack.
"It is Wednesday. I know Pixal said you've been going out to do whatever it is you're doing to 'process', but we really need you to be here when you say you'll be," Nya scolded. "I can't do this by myself." She let the last part out barely above a whisper.
"I- I'm so- I'm on my way," Jay sputtered, cursing himself for not being able to stick to a thought.
A beep ended the call.
"I've got to- I have- I need to go," Jay blurted, reaching into his wallet to slam down a wad of bills as he rounded the table and headed for the door. Before he could leave the room, a hand grabbed his wrist.
"Wait!" Maeve exclaimed, before placing a small rectangular perfume bottle in his hands. "They can't smell the other stuff, but you might want this." The glass was cool in his warm hands. A rose pink liquid swished inside. "For the weed."
"Uh- yeah, thanks!" Jay quickly sprayed himself down and pocketed the rest. "You're a lifesaver." He gave her a hug, absentmindedly sweeping her chestnut hair back to plant a quick kiss on her forehead before darting out of the back room and through the store front to his motorcycle.
Behind him, behind the ring of the front door, in a smoky room, Maeve's ears turned a shade of bright pink.
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The cold, humid air was moist against his already slightly sweaty skin. The entire sky was shrouded in a cool gray, like a thick blanket threatening a storm. Loud, booming cracks echoed through the air. From a distance they may have sounded like thunder.
Lloyd couldn't hear it over the searing pain in his leg.
"Aghhh!" he screamed as he slammed his shin into the Thai pad. It was bolted to one of the few non-rotating frames of the monastery's training setup. He'd started with the heavy bags and the obstacle course, but they moved too much. He just needed to hit something.
Having been at it all morning and part of the night before, the old pleather had already cracked under the force of his kicks. Nearly all the stuffing had deflated if it hadn't fallen away from the barrage of strikes. By now, he was only kicking the exposed wooden frame.
He switched to his right leg and roundhoused. The wood splintered. The slivers dug into the skin on his upper shin.
The sharpness of the pain offered enough clarity to vaguely regret the action, but not much more. Another thunderous crack sounded as he struck the post again, driving in new splinters and pushing the present ones deeper. He could feel the warm pinpricks of blood beginning to pool at the surface of his skin, but he couldn't bring himself to stop.
Crack! The adrenaline has practically swept away the pain by the time he registers it.
Crack! The wood divots inward as more sharp spears fray out.
Crack! It hurts in a way it feels it's supposed to.
Crack! He deserves this.
He wound back for a more powerful strike. A deep, tired part of him felt the need to break it. To feel his leg sweep clean through it. To break something on purpose for once.
His shin flew through the first layer or so of wood before coming into contact with something cooler and harder.
There was metal beneath the wooden frame.
By that point it was too late. His full force slammed into the metal rod beneath the wood. This time, the cracking sound of his strike resounded in his bones rather than the air.
He quickly drew his leg into his chest, stumbling as he tried, and failed, to keep his balance. He landed flat on his ass with a huff as some of the air was knocked out of him.
"FUCK!" he rolled onto his back, still holding his leg. "Maybe that's why they wouldn't let you go with them!" He cursed at the sky, shouting at himself. "Because you do stupid shit LIKE THIS!"
He sucked in a pained breath through his teeth as he scrambled to a wavering stand. His leg still buzzed with a combination of pain and static as he limped toward the door back inside.
He was halfway to it when a flash followed closely by a nearly deafening boom made him jump. He yelped as his foot twinged, limply smacking against the ground. He only barely managed to steady himself against a nearby pillar.
He hadn't noticed it was actually thundering. He hadn't really noticed much about his surroundings for all he'd been there. His eyes swept across the monastery's hexagonal courtyard, finally taking in the gloomy shadows swallowing the cloisters and the way the heavy clouds had ultimately succumbed to their weight, pouring out in drizzles over the mountainside. He, for the first time, began to notice the sharp contrast between the cool flashes of lightning and the warm flickers of what appeared to be a candle set on a small altar. It should have long since gone out by then.
He wouldn't have thought much of it if it weren't for the odd form on the table with it. It wasn't uncommon for them to put out the occasional offering whenever one of them was particularly missing someone or in the event that someone from the village had passed. He shouldn't have felt the need to pay it any mind.
The sight of a large black tarp caught his eye. It was draped over all but nearly a third of the table and glinting in the dim candlelight.
"Why would they...?" he muttered, soft but strained, tension building up in his chest.
He stumbled as fast he could, limping to the table.
When he got close, he could see the candle was fake. A small daylight sensor that must've been set off by the dark clouds connected it to its base. It illuminated a small alter setup with a petite photo frame of Ninjago City Park.
Cole sat on one of the swings, one hand in his hoodie pocket, the other rested on the chain, holding him steady as his head flew back with laughter. Lloyd remembered that day. It was his birthday. Cole, Zane, and Jay had taken him out while the others prepared the party. He was pretty sure Cole had been laughing that Jay had gotten stuck in some playground equipment. That was probably the hardest they'd all laughed in a while.
It couldn't have been from more than a few months ago, but it felt so distant. A lump formed in Lloyd's throat at the sight of it. Tears burned behind his eyes as he inspected the other items- the other memories- on the table.
The controller Cole painted and decorated himself to celebrate breaking the world record on his favorite game. The boater hat he wore when he got his true potential and came out to his dad as a ninja. One of Rocky's old harnesses. The recipe book he'd use whenever he insisted on cooking for the team.
Each one oozed the positivity and comfort of Cole's presence like the sickeningly sweet aroma of a glue trap. Merely touching the table roiled Lloyd's stomach, but he couldn't help chasing the feeling.
A necklace he used to wear. An old sketchbook filled with doodles of small animals and friendly faces. A slice of his favorite cake. A beaded bracelet that had 5 matching counterparts kept by the rest of the ninja. A slightly scuffed copy of the fourth issue of the Starfarer comics, half covered by the tarp.
It was the one Lloyd would always lend him. He pulled up the edge of the tarp to see the rest of it, if they'd kept the little note he'd written about brothers still needing to ask before taking each other's stuff. No sooner than the sheet moving did the items stop making sense.
From the short few inches he'd moved the tarp, he could see the rest of the comics, a green gi belt, and handful of pillow mints. What was initially confusion jumped to something sharper as Lloyd's heart raced as fast as his mind to put the pieces together.
The rest of the tarp ripped harshly off the table, wind catching the folds with a clap in time with the ongoing thunder.
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Cole flew into the wooden wall of the small room with a crash. It was weird. He'd been a ghost for less than a week and it already surprised him whenever he was made to feel more corporeal by the cursed temple.
He heaved a breath he didn't need to take as he glanced around the room he'd been thrown in. It was dark, dimly lit by the green and ethereal glow that everything'd had since he became a ghost. It emanated slightly brighter where his shoulder had caught his fall. It pulsed in time with the twinging sensation of the impact. It wasn't painful. Not in the traditional sense. But the pins and needles feeling of being only partially corporeal was uncomfortable enough to make him wince.
That was what he deserved according to Sensei Yang and his students. Insubordination, they'd said. Cole knew it was a load of crap. He'd just gotten too close to Yang's ego. Despite having completely different foundations, he was closer to Airjitzu than any of the other students.
"Insubordination my ass," Cole muttered under his breath, gently rubbing at his shoulder as he floated up from his spot on the dusty temple floor.
"Ooh, I like that one," a voice echoed from somewhere above him. "The new students always use such interesting verbiage." Cole looked up to see a man- a ghost- a little younger than him. He had an athletic, but lither build draped in a slightly oversized gi. He seemed somewhat amused by Cole, floating as though he were lying down to watch a movie, feet kicked out behind him with his head resting casually in one hand. "Do you have another one?"
Cole stared at him, brows furrowed. He didn't know what to say to that, and he certainly would not be responding to being called Yang's student if he could help it. The moment didn't last very long before the ghost seemed to grow bored of waiting for a response.
"I am called Minato. And I am pleased to make your acquaintance," he smiled youthfully despite the overly formal tone. It was his most prominent facial feature. The rest of his face faded in and out of the matching faceless blur of the rest of Yang's students, but his smile was clear and bright. He floated down to greet Cole with a deep bow.
"Cole," he responded in turn, nearly forgetting to return the bow with a slightly smaller, slightly stiffer one of his own.
Minato laughed. The misty planes of his face where his eyes should've been seemed to crinkle with it. Cole got the sense he didn't get to do that often. "You don't have to. I understand that it's not as popular in today's Ninjago"
"No, I'm just- " Cole paused. "Today's Ninjago?" he quirked a brow at that. "How... how long have you been here?"
Minato seemed to ponder it for a second. He tilted his head and scratched his chin up until the point where he seemed to require the use of his fingers. "Maybe... three? Four? Hundred years."
Cole's eyes widened. He involuntarily scoffed as his breaths shallowed and he began to float back. "Centuries? With no way out? You must be kidding me."
"No," Minato sighed.
Cole could've sworn he felt the world drop from under him.
"There's a way out. For you, at least."
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Lloyd's hands buzzed with so much energy he couldn't feel the cool smooth ceramics beneath his fingertips. Eyes hot and blurry with tears, he didn't perceive them at all until he heard them crash to the floor, pieces scattering across the damp monastery pavement.
They were his own mugs but he didn't care. They shouldn't be here. He gripped the metal border of a framed photo of him and his mother and flung it at the nearest pillar.
The other two thirds of the altar had been for him. It must've been been a semi-public one given the stack of letters addressed to the Green Ninja. It wasn't fair. Cole wouldn't get even half of this.
Lloyd's inhales were shallow and trembling. He couldn't breathe. His whole body shook with rage and he didn't know what else. He slammed his fists into the table, toppling photo frames and cracking the thin glass dish he used to set out on this very altar to hold offerings. It should've been there for Cole. He should've been there for Cole.
His thoughts were cyclical, and despite the confusion that was still present in his mind, they weren't questions.
They shouldn't have done this. He tore pages out of his own notebook.
They shouldn't be mourning him. He swept old figurines off the table.
Not when it was his fault Cole was gone. He reared his hands back to slam into the table once more.
It took him just a second too long to notice the flashes of faintly green light intermixing with the yellow candlelight and white lightning.
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"There are rules to the curse," Minato whispered, as though speaking it too loudly might close whatever loophole he'd found. "You aren't really dead. But you aren't alive either. You exist within the limbo."
"What?" Cole was as confused as he was concerned with the way Minato had begun to nervously glance around like someone was going to burst into the room and stop them.
"You never saw your body when you left the temple."
"Wh-"
"Shhh!" Something changed about Minato's demeanor. His mouth was pressed into a thin line that almost looked pained. "Things in limbo can be called. That's how Sensei Yang got you back here in the first place."
"How does that get me out?" Cole stressed.
The mist beneath Minato's brow ridge darkened as he hissed, "It doesn't! But it's important to know how to stay if you get called out." His hands rubbed at his temples in what appeared to be more genuine discomfort than annoyance. He was talking faster now, volume seeming to involuntarily raise from a whisper to a whisper-shout. "Answering a call is easy. It takes- it takes strength to resist Yang calling you back to-"
And then suddenly, Minato was gone. In the silence that remained, Cole could almost make out his name in Yang's voice.
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The shockwave of the blast rattled Lloyd's teeth as he flew back from the table. Whatever surge of power went through him when he struck the table was apparently enough to break it. He sat up from where he landed, catching his head in his palm. Blearily, he looked through his hair, now slick with rain and sweat. His heart dropped when he saw it.
Split in two, slightly singed, items crushed and in pieces in the center where it'd split, the table dipped in towards the ground, balancing precariously on its splinters.
Not too far from where he'd landed slid the photo of Cole, still ever so slightly spinning. It was cracked. The cardboard at the back of it was bent in just such a way that it pierced the image, right above Cole's smile.
"No..." His eyes flicked back to Cole's items on the table. "No, no, no, no ,no." Did they even have another copy of that photo? They certainly didn't have anything to replace the controller, the necklace, the hat, or the sketchbook, each of which were now in various states of ruin, parts scorched and parts cracked.
All Lloyd could hear was the blood rushing up to his ears. At every turn, he seemed to prove himself more and more of a fuckup. First, he let himself be captured and forced all the ninja to risk their lives to save him. And now that Cole was dead, he'd taken the last piece of him they had.
Hot tears sprung from his eyes. He wasn't sure he could've cried any harder before he began to heave. He could taste bile in his throat. "Cole," he sobbed, a sickeningly tight quality to his voice. "I'm- I'm so sorry".
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Before the last echoes of Minato's name had passed, Cole heard his own.
Faster than he could even react, he was enveloped by the sensation of every part of him being pulled somewhere he couldn't see. It itched in a peculiar, spiritual way, like the feeling of a million bugs crawling over his soul, each of their legs a cool pinprick just beneath his skin. Then they got deeper. They crawled through his muscles and along his bones. They crawled faster and faster. Maybe they were flying now.
It didn't take long, no more than seconds, for him to lose track of his own body. It was pins and needles across his whole being, an aggressive itching, scratching feeling that was taking him over. He'd have screamed if in the moment he could tell where his lungs began and the sensation ended, but just before he could take hold of an inhale-
It stopped.
Then he heard it.
Amidst rain and faint sobs, under the cloisters of a familiar courtyard, his name resounded more clearly than he'd ever heard it spoken.
"Cole... I'm- I'm so sorry".