Chapter Text
Zane was on his feet before his systems were completely online. The shaking ground made it harder for his gyroscopic functions to stabilize himself properly, but he ran to the hallway the moment he felt danger. He needed to check on his family.
Everyone had woken up with the Earthquake. Zane’s systems always took a bit to come on fully, but by the time everything was online and running, he was already by the end of the hall. Pixal popping up not much after. He immediately did a headcount, spotting his family in the shaking walls. Kai, Jay & Nya, Lloyd, his processor provided. All half awake in their pajamas. Misako and Cole were nowhere to be seen.
“Is everyone alright?” He asked, trying to maintain his voice module as calm and collected as possible. He might not be human, but being woken up in your own home, a place of safety, by sudden shaking movements was not a situation he powered up to with joy. The thing is, Earthquakes were not common in the west region of Ninjago. The one time the earth trembled in the lands near the Sea of Sand, it had been due to The Great Devourer being awoken. Not an event any of them wanted to relive.
Nya seemed to still be gaining consciousness. Clearly having been dragged out of bed by a frantic Jay. Zane could see Pixal’s systems start to do calculations up from his head. The ground shaked with aggression. A sudden tug that left the 5 present ninja on the floor. Porcelain bases shattered around; Kai moved quickly, so that a falling lamp would not hit him in the head.
They tried to stand, Kai helping Lloyd stay on his feet, now more aware of the missing member. Jay yelled “Where is Cole!?”
This seemed to finish waking up Nya. Their heads shouting in the direction of the Black ninja’s room, the door tightly shut. The ground agitated every step they took, making it harder to stand, but they ran as fast as they could. Dropping to the carpet when the seismic wave struck harder. Jay let out a yelp of pain when his head ricocheted on the floor.
“Kids! Are you alright!?” Misako's voice came from the stairs at the end of the hall.
“Don’t come closer!” Kai yelled when he saw the furniture fall over. Zane silently agreed, his scanners detecting pieces of broken glass scattered across the floor. He quickly went and grabbed Lloyd by his shoulder so he wouldn’t step on it with his bare feet.
“There is no way he is sleeping through this!” The scream broke through the cracking of the wood and crashing furniture. Kai was clearly having a hard time staying on his feet, grabbing to the wall for dear life. He tried to call “Cole!”
He saw Pixal doing scans, but Zane’s worries were not on what she was doing, rather in getting all of his family out of their home and to safety. Zane cursed internally. The Airjitzu temple was big. Big enough that for the first time they all were able to have their own rooms. Had it been the bounty, or their old tea shop, they would have dragged Cole out of their shared bedroom the moment they opened their eyes. But no… Cole’s room was at the opposite end, the furthest down from the stairs (where they should be heading), something about “The view of the desert” and “There is no way I am sleeping next to Kai’s snores again. I can finally listen to music in peace.”
“Are you serious!” He heard Jay scream as the ground shaked. Oh, but this time it was different . No matter how big the others had seemed, this one wave made the past ones look like foreshocks. Hitting the foundations of the temple so hard, it dropped. One, two meters. It was hard to tell when gravity pushed them all to the ceiling, only to drop them to the floor not two seconds later.
That's when they noticed the crack.
Zane felt himself short circuit. Effect of the fall or the realization? He would worry about it later. It came from the stairs. Misako was there, holding like death to the rail. She was looking at the same thing he did, the orange glow that escaped through the crack. The familiar heat it emitted.
He looked around, Nya and Jay’s surprised expression, Kai’s concern. He knew before any of them said anything that they all shared the sinking feeling on their guts. Cole was not in his room.
Whatever Pixal had calculated it was done, but Zane was sure they all knew. She compared seismograms of the temple to those common Ninjago. Next was a chart depicting the usage of Earth's elemental energy. “It's Cole.” Zane is not sure who whispered it. But that did not matter. Kai seemed to get to action before any of them, “We have to find him.”
Zane felt Kai’s hand grab him. Burning, melding. Earthquake protocols told him the safest way was to go slow, to hold themselves by the wall, look for a place to lay where the debris and furniture falling wouldn’t hurt them. They followed the crack. Zane helped Misako go down as they all but jumped down the stairs. Because they were no regular people, and this was no regular earthquake.
The cracks all seemed to sprout out of one place. A door. Zane felt his processor overheat… He never noticed that door before.
They had been living in the Temple for 6 months, yet, very little time was spent at the premises. They said they wouldn’t rest until they found Wu, and his family was living up to that promise. Coming back at least once a month to check on the others, share leads, and take a breath, if only for a second before continuing their search. The Temple of Airjitzu, even when underutilized, was their home, their safe haven after weeks of sleeping around and traveling alone to uncharted places… One was supposed to know their haven. A reward and a privilege most of them had not had for most of their lives.
Looking at the open door, with the cracks that kept extending from it, words like “Heaven” “Reward” and “Privilege” were the last on Zane’s list. A sick feeling went up his throat. He squeezed Kai’s hand. The door went down to a basement, a fog emitted from it, suffocating him. It made walking down all that much harder. There was a voice in his head; It sounded suspiciously like Morro, Yang, Clouse, they laughed. At their painted walls, fixed doors, portraits, and family pictures decorating the place. Because how could they be so stupid? Zane felt a chill go up his spinal strut when he saw him, a shock so bad his joints locked for a second. They could paint and fix all they wanted, but the place that had once killed Cole was no less cursed because they changed the carpets.
Kai squeezed his hand, it felt burning but that didn’t matter. All of them marched down.
Sometimes, Zane found it so easy to forget when they first went inside the temple. The corpses of Yang’s students laying around, the ghosts coming after them… Cole’s body falling limp on the floor as his soul separated from it.
When they moved in he had wondered where the corpses had gone.
He is not wondering anymore.
As it turns out, the basement. That had not been there yesterday. That Zane was not even aware existed. Right under their living room. Two nights ago they had hosted a movie night, on top of this burial. On top of the rot and the death. Jay, Nay and himself had sat down on the couch, Pixal picked the movie. They had felt safe, because their home was theirs and it was safe. It was only them, but it was okay, because for the following days their home would be full again. His systems kept popping up warnings about the smell, the decaying skin. He ignored it, because he had too, every time that his feet touched something -too soft, slimy, slippery- or he heard something crack under his path. They had priorities right now,
He cursed his ability to see so clearly in the dark.
Cadavers dressed on white gis covered the room, wall to wall, all seated, kneeling, as if observing a demonstration. Closer to the center it got more unnerving. Zane is very much aware that he doesn’t puke, he can’t do it, -not currently, his old body once could- but the feeling of disgust that filled him upon seeing the other bodies was close enough to that. They knew it, the first time they did. When they first came in. Legend has it many had once disappeared in the Airjitzu Temple. Yet, is one thing to know the legend, is something else entirely to see the decaying corpse of a child that had overstayed his welcome. Civilians, kids, pilled one next to the other, people that had been trapped. They were rotting. Maggots resting on the eyeless sockets, eating away skin.
And in the middle of it all, there he was.
The origin of the cracks stood so still, had they not known better they might have confused him with the death… But still… How alive could he truly be?
“…Cole.” He only knows Kai is the one that called because his hand squeezed him again, the heat starting to hurt his circuits. The Earth Master rested on his knees, not unlike the students in white gis by the walls. But front and center, -the main attraction- surrounded by the rot and the smell and the suffocated aura that made him feel pushed and compressed. Oh because they were not alone, the ninja were not the only ones in the basement. Cole’s nails dug into the cement, the cracks going up his arms, shining in a familiar pattern, but with the colors all twisted. Where there once was warm yellows that faded to red, the usual colors turned a sickening green the higher they went. His hands, digging, grabbing onto the concrete -Was that blood smeared on the scratch marks?- were the only place where the usual color remained.
Yet, there was something more terrifying than finding their friend in the middle of a basement that was not there yesterday, surrounded by the corpses of all the people the temple once trapped.
Kai let go of Zane’s hand. Lighting his palms on fire so that the rest of them could see Cole clearly. Zane wished he hadn’t. Cole was trembling, -subtly, it seemed all his bodily movement were being sucked by the earth- spasms now and then, making it clear he was the fault line of the seismics crumbling the Temple. Cole’s face was wet, tears tracks covered his cheeks, while more fell down his chin. Snot fell down his nose as his lips trembled, be it sobs or whispers, maybe both, none of them were close enough to hear. But the thing that made Zane feel like there was a hole in his chest was looking into Cole’s gaze.
Agitated. Frantic. A glossy look covered Cole’s eyes as they moved rapidly across the room. Fear looked so wrong in a face that despite being young had shown them nothing but strength. His irises, once brown and warm, shone orange and a cursed green reminiscent of the scar he had just closed. Kai tried to catch his gaze moving the flame in front of his face, before another seismic made it clear. Cole was not aware they were there.
His gaze traveled rapidly, but not without curse, he was seeing something. The same voices that laughed at Zane told him “Someone” instead. “Cole, do you hear me?” no module could have made his voice sound even at that moment. A sob escaped him, and with it came a wave that made the ninjas lose what little stability they had. The walls cracked, the fissure coming from Cole grew bigger, making the foundations of the place weaken.
“LET ME GO!” The hypo-center of the calamity spoke between sobs, each syllabus breaking into a new tremor. “L-Let me go!” There was something in Cole's eyes, a green glow of absolute terror… Someone was causing this, someone they could not see. Another sob - Painful, as if claws were digging into his skin- and it was decided. Screw the cadavers, they were dead, maggots would not hurt as long as they got out of there, the priority had been the same all night. Grab Cole. Get out of sight.
They crawled, because the ground was too shaky to even attempt to stand, -through the rot, the mud and maggots- as fast as they could. The closer they got, the stronger its presence. It, them . Because Zane felt them, the ghost of hundreds that had not escaped, but he could not care to learn their names. Kai looked at him for a second, Nya was at his side. He grabbed Cole’s face.
Kai flinched, as if making contact with him had physically hurt, maybe it had. Cole’s body emanated a heat proper of the lava he commanded. Kai’s voice was shaky. “Hey, buddy.” Their glances had not met once. Cole kept sobbing, a full body tremor that was then sended into the ground. The temple would not last much longer.
“Hey, Cole, is us.” Nya’s hands were shaking, but she talked slowly. A big drop of water appeared in her hands and she was slowly passing it through his wounds. Zane copied the motion, with small enough pieces of ice that would melt in the contant.
Kai kept trying “Buddy, you need to wake up.” Zane kept cooling Cole’s arms, hoping to bring some relief, his processor unit did spins. Cole had scratches, cuts, open wounds. Sings that someone had dragged their nails deep into his skin. “Cole, you need to listen, we need to leave.” Pixal send a pin, a request for him to look into the corpse lying besides Cole. Its hands grabbed onto his shirt… The blood on its fingers was fresh.
“Kai, we need to leave.” Is the most straightforward he spoke all night. Kai looked at him angry, still trying for Cole to calm down. The Fire hands -Dirty, from crawling on the floor- did their best to wipe away Cole’s tears, then clear the snot. To give their rock some resemblance of the stability he gave them.
Zane heard a yelp. Barely distinguishable from the rumble of the building. He turned back to look at Jay. He and Misako were holding onto Lloyd, trying to calm down his erratic breaths. The Green Ninja stared at Cole with fear in his eyes. An horror Zane had only seen twice; When he died… and when they freed him from Morro.
“Kai…” There seemed to be a pause in the air when Cole spoke. A collective relive filled the basement when glassy eyes met the fire elemental. Yet, his gaze was not less troubled. The tremors had not stopped. There was begging in Cole’s eyes as he stared into Kai, his lips moving, the only indication that he wanted to speak but words would not come out.
“Hey, hey, Buddy, we- we’re here. We will get you out. We’re here” Kai’s hands grabbed the sides of Cole’s head, tight, directing Cole’s eyes into his own. -To think months ago Kai’s hands would have phased right trough- But shaky hands could only do so much.
Zane was painfully aware the moment Cole’s eyes turned green. The second the whites turned black. But even as he tries to replay the memories in his processor, even when he follows time stamp by time stamp, he is not sure how it happened; His processor glitches at the attempt to open the file.
But there are some things he gatered. Hands -skiny, rotten, too many- were holding him, them. There were screams. His processor glitched at the memory of the cadavers dragging them to the floor, but what else could have been ensuring they didn’t get up. Warnings popped up. Maybe the earlier fall, maybe the daggers he felt digged his insides.
The temperature dropped. He -did he?- Froze something. A hand- familiar, whole, not decaying. Was dragging him. Cole’s scream was more clear. Though his vision glitched, he could distinguish Nya. Hand slammed on Cole’s mouth as water rapidly flowed through him to the point it came out of his nose.
Something pushed him. He now knows Jay was the one dragging him. Because Kai was in front of him, because Nya held a Cole that was lying limp. Static filled his vision. He was at the bounty, looking out the deck as they flew away. He saw the temple fall down.
And he tries to piece it all together, to make it make sense, but it all just hurts his processor. There is a memory he cannot fit, as much as he tries to get it all to make sense. A corpse held him. Zane knows this, because it felt familiar, it didn’t feel foreign. The decaying hand stopped his escape; it belonged to a corpse wearing a black gi, curly hair covering its face but the eyes… Warm brown that had yet to be consumed by magma orange, that had not yet been corrupted ghostly green.
He took a step back. His home crumbling in his eyes. There were voices. He couldn’t- were they calling him? The Bounty flew away, and with a hush of wind Zane’s processor crashed to the darkest shades of gray.