Chapter Text
“You said once we finish all of the errands we can go get candy.”
“Crystal, you’re whining again.” Cole tried to calm her down as he paid for the groceries.
“Well, we’re done aren’t we? Can we just go get it now? I came with you cause you said we can get it, but it’s been five hours and we still haven’t gotten it.” She tugged on Cole’s arm like a child would while they were throwing a hissy fit. Crystal treated Cole like he was her mother, and he acted like her mother. Although, he didn’t have much of a choice.
“It’s been three hours, stop being dramatic, and yes now we can go. Only if you stop whining though.”
“Yes yes I promise I’ll stop.” She dragged him out of the grocery store as he clung onto the bags in his hands and rolled his eyes.
“You’re fifteen, you should start acting like it. And not like you’re seven… you’re acting like Lloyd.”
She paused and turned to him slowly, “Don’t ever say that again.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yuh huh. He’s immature, you are acting very very immature right now for candy .”
“Because you’re practically starving me! I wanted to eat five hours ago.”
“You had a sandwich like an hour ago.”
“Yeah but I want candy. Let's go.” She took him by the hand and continued to drag him down the street and wouldn’t stop for any kid quietly fangirling when they saw Cole pass by. The ninja were famous. Crystal…not as much. Kids didn’t like her anyways, her appearance was slightly unsettling for them; her eyes were a bit scary for them since they were yellow, her extremely sharp canine teeth were off putting, and quite often they thought she was a grandma vampire because of her unfortunate hair color. She knew that the cause for her lack of color in both her skin and hair was because of her powers, but she had no idea why her eyes were more of a yellow-gold color now, and her teeth had been this way for her whole life but she never knew why. She wasn’t particularly concerned about it, sometimes she would just wonder why she looked like a demon even though she wasn’t one. So as they walked down the street kids stopped Cole for an autograph and coward away when they saw Crystal, a few cried when she smiled at them.
“Kids cry at mall Santas, it’s not just you, I promise,” Cole told her. He knew they were afraid of her though. He couldn’t tell her that.
“Whatever, I don’t really care.” She did care. She cared a lot. But showing that she cared would ruin her she-demon with limited feelings vibe that she seemed to have going for her when she wasn’t acting like a child. “But what I do care about is how far away we are from that candy store.”
“Half a mile.” Cole looked at his phone with the directions. They both had horrible sense of direction and would get lost in a second without the waze app.
Crystal stopped walking, “I know this place is renovated and shit now but it still gives me the creeps.”
Cole stopped too and looked at what she was looking at, “What? The Palace of Secrets?”
“Yeah...” She stared at it. It’s not that its architecture was hauntingly beautiful but it felt haunted in a way to her. “I find it sad that Harumi died so young.”
“She wasn’t a good person, Crystal. She hurt so many people.”
“Do you ever think that maybe she didn’t mean for it to go that far?”
“…no? Why wouldn’t she mean to? She brought back Lord Garmadon and tortured Lloyd in the process.”
“Lord Garmadon didn’t give her much of a choice did he?”
“Listen, you weren’t there and you didn’t know her. You can’t judge that.”
“Fair. This place just feels so… sad though, like I can just feel it.”
“Feel it?”
“Like its energy is haunting.”
“It seems that Harumi and her family weren’t the only tragedies that happened to this place, now knowing that Emily was in fact murdered.”
“I still don’t get what I saw down there… I don’t think I was meant to see that.”
“We can figure that out another time.” He could tell she was getting in her head too much, or that whatever this ‘energy’ was that she was talking about was overpowering her feelings, so he helped her away from staring at the old palace. “Let's just go get your candy now, yeah?”
“Yeah, that sounds good-” she stopped speaking when she felt someone standing behind her but when she turned around no one was there.
“Hey are you alright?”
“…yeah…yeah I’m okay.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought I heard something.”
“We gotta get you away from here, you’re starting to act insane.”
“Am not.”
“Yes you are, come on.” He put his arm on her back and started to walk away with her. She looked back over her shoulder and still nothing was there. She could have sworn she felt someone breathing on the back of her neck, like someone was standing extremely close to her.
As they walked down the street Cole went on and on about some story of when everyone thought that they were going to have to call Lloyd “The Royal Green Ninja,” when he liked Harumi before she turned on him. Crystal didn’t care; she was still thinking about what she felt back there, and why she felt it so strongly, and about what was behind her.
Cole was just talking to himself at this point, “It was so funny, we teased him for so long and wouldn’t let it go-” He was cut off when a police officer walked up behind them, he seemed like he was running to catch up to them.
“The commissioner needs at least two of you to go to Kryptarium immediately! He says it’s urgent.”
“Are you okay?” Crystal asked as she noticed he was out of breath.
“I’ve been trying to find you guys. Something weird is going on with one of the inmates. The commissioner thinks you guys could help us figure it out since you know him.”
Cole looked at Crystal quickly then back to the officer, “Who is it?”
“Pace, Pace McCavity.”