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They come for Kai in the dead of night, during the constant snow storms that sweep the realm, erasing the ever-gray horizon into a vicious flurry of blinding snow and hail, heavy and sharp enough to cut your skin to shreds.
They’re huddled in the dead mech car, preserving energy as best as they can— Nya hooks up something vaguely related to a heater until it knocks out near midnight, spluttering up black smoke that curls into their lungs, and then they drift away into the corners to huddle together as much body heat as they can.
Then the soldiers find them, drenched in melting slush and dripping with iron armor that freezes at a touch. They wrench the long-broken mechanical door open, letting it fly into the storm, and drag Kai out and into the storm before he can even open his mouth to protest.
One twists his arms behind him and locks them together, shoving him face first into the ground— no, wood, or something like a sled, because the next second they’re launching into the ice, and he watches the rest of his family disappear into the white landscape before he can even begin to piece together what happened.
Kidnapping, definitely, but why leave everyone else behind? Why not even bother to try and just kill them all, for the matter?
Kai stares at the feet of the guard-slash-soldier steering the sled, wriggling against the feeling of frozen wood digging into his back, and blindly works at his bonds until he feels the now-familiar feeling of cold air burning at open wounds on his skin, dragging and tearing against the ice.
Ice. It feels like ice. He’s an idiot. Kai draws a breath and calls the fire to his fingertips, prepared to blast his way out his impromptu kidnapping and make his way back to his team.
It snakes up his arms before fizzling out dimly at his palms, and he gasps at the pain snapping up his wrists. Vengestone— made out of ice, dark veins glazing over the immutable material. The only way out of them is either dislocating his thumbs and probably tearing his skin completely against the sharp edges, and desperate as he is, Kai isn’t willing to risk his hands to escape.
Yet.
The piercing wind rushes over his face, forcing his eyes burning as the sled rushes into the darkness, further than they’ve ever travelled in this realm.
When the sled ride finally bumps to an end, Kai feels like his ribs are about to be shaken out of his chest completely, and the feeling at the tips of his fingers have gone completely numb, no matter how he rubs at them, trying to regain control.
The soldiers drag him, unrelenting, up the snowdrift covered stairs of the palace looming over his head, and Kai barely gets one last glance out the doors before they toss him onto the palace floor, icy floor fracturing beneath his knees.
A figure shifts above him, dark and emanating ice with every movement, and Kai finally squints up at the looming figure, the insane Ice Emperor who got them into this huge mess in the first place by kidnapping—
“Zane?”
His vision flickers, brief and dizzy.
Above his head, Zane doesn’t move. He stands and stares at him with the same blue eyes he’s known for what feels like his entire life, and there is not the barest hint of recognition in his expression.
No.
“Zane?”
Ice fills his veins, creeping down his chest slowly and steadily.
Kai knows this is Zane.
He knows it is. That face has been the only one he’s been able to see every time he closed his eyes in the past month, and he can’t be mistaken, not about this.
His heart threatens to burst out of his chest as he takes in the nindroid for the first time in weeks.
Zane’s painfully familiar face is scratched and exposed, parts of the metal peeling away with iron rust to show long-dead wires snaking into his cheek, tinted white with frost.
Jagged ice decorates his body, building to piercing peaks across his shoulders. It looks like it would cut him if he touched it. Shed blood, most certainly.
Kai thinks the worst part of it all are his eyes, dull and dark like black ice. Gone is the bright, inquisitive gaze he’d used to long to see from across the room, replaced by uncannily sharp blue eyes cutting into him. Taking him apart, piece by piece.
“What did you call me?” Zane rasps, slow and painfully raw, as if he hasn’t spoken in years. Kai almost thinks he can hear the rust building in his throat.
“Zane.” He croaks. “Zane, you know who I am. I know you do.”
I’m Kai, he wants to scream. The same Kai who played stupid pranks on you so many years ago, the same person who taught you how to make pancakes, who you make coffee for every morning, wake up for training, the same one who you said I love you to, so long ago before any of this happened—
“Zane, what did they do to you?”
“Shut your mouth.” Vex sneers at him, voice scraping along the walls of the ice fortress, and looks up towards the stairway, where Zane is still standing stiffly, eyes flicking between the both of them. “My lord, this is the…dangerous individual I was informing you of— he possesses fire powers, and he has come to overtake your throne. I took the liberty of bringing him here, for you.”
“That’s not true!” Kai sweeps around, tamping down the fire he feels itching to escape at his palms, now that the shackles are gone. “You did something, I know you did, you monster.” His voice shakes as he shouts and he hates it, he hates everything right now.
Vex merely bows his head, lips twitching. “Your accusation falls flat. I would never betray my master.”
“You—“ Kai chokes, and twists towards him, lighting up handfuls of blazing fire.
Movement flashes in the corner of his eye, and he turns just to watch Zane twist the scepter across the room in a swift movement, sending razor sharp ice flying at his throat— Kai sends them up into smoke instantly, backing down the few steps he’d managed to advance up. Frost falls from his sleeves, the damp cloth smoking on his skin.
And for the first time, there’s a part of him that doesn’t recognize the person standing across from him.
Kai ducks under the next guard that swings his blade towards his chest and sending him into the wall. It’s a more vicious move than he’d usually use, but Zane is right— he’s right there, staring at the scene, and Kai can’t even see his expression change about it.
The Zane he knew would’ve never let him—
Never let him hurt someone, not like this, but—
“Zane, please, snap out of it!”
Zane’s blank stare bores down at him, cold gaze pinning him to the ground. “There is no ‘Zane’ you speak of,” he says, but his eyes flicker across the room to rest on Vex, scepter tilting towards the ground.
Kai snatches the second of opportunity, racing up the last few steps— Zane raises his staff, but the ice drags against his joints and slows him— and Kai presses a hand to his chest, glowing dangerously bright.
He can feel the nindroid’s power source buzzing under the armor, muffled by layers of ice and metal, but still there. Still alive.
Zane stares up at him, eyes wide. Frost steadily creeps up his fingers, constantly melting away from the place where Kai splays his fingers against his chest, heating to an uncomfortably warm temperature.
It wouldn’t kill him, Kai tells himself. Not permanently, not enough to do any lasting damage, nothing Nya or Jay couldn’t fix up in less than a day, even. He can hear Vex shouting at guards behind him, caught between forcing him off and running the risk of hurting, of killing their emperor in the same way— although they don’t know there’s not even a chance of losing Zane, not with him.
But Kai can feel his chance slipping away.
Then Zane looks at him, eyes bright, before he reaches up and locks a hand around his throat, slamming his head into the wall, hard. Ice splinters against the back of his head, shards cutting into his neck as it crumbles to the ground.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Kai shakes away the darkness gathering at the edge of his vision, throat rattling for air, and watches helplessly through bleary eyes. Somewhere, his head faintly twinges, and blood drips from his forehead, a warm trail of dark red trailing down to his chin.
Slowly, almost cautiously, Zane puts a hand to his chest where the ice has melted away from the part of armor over his power source, sending another layer of protection flurrying into a frosty layer over his heart.
Below him, the flames twitch and dance over his fingers, desperate for release. The nindroid glares at the heat dancing over from his fingers, unwilling to risk touching the flickering, burning heat. He doesn’t look fierce, not now, or blank like before. He looks scared, Kai thinks, almost dreamily. Zane looks scared.
Zane. Zane, who is gentle, who is kind, who loves his soft flames and all of his encompassing sharp edges, who would never hurt someone the way he did today. Kai swallows, and clenches his fist, feeling the bright flames sizzle out helplessly in his palm, smoke drifting thick and heavy into the air.
The nindroid stares at him.
“You—“ Zane cuts himself off, voice breaking. Still frozen in his hands, the icy blue fire of the Forbidden Staff flickers and winks, edges tampered by an invisible wind. “Why—you could have—“
“I’m Kai.” He repeats, softer than his earlier attempt. “And you know I would never hurt you. I promised you. And you promised me you’d never hurt me, either, Zane.”
Somewhere behind them, Vex is screaming something, inaudible rage echoing through the palace. Kill him, end him, end this. Zane stiffens at the mention of his name, again, but he doesn’t look away, not once. Tears well at the corner of his eyes, crystallizing almost instantly as they fall down his cheeks, and he barely even seems to notice.
“Kai,” Zane says hesitantly, like the word is alien to him, but the vowels slip through his mouth with an undeniably familiar sound. “I-I do not understand—“
From below them, Vex has finally gathered enough soldiers from somewhere else in the castle to encroach onto the staircase, stepping over the bodies of their unconscious comrades.
“Let me go and I’ll explain everything, I promise. Please, Zane, you know I wouldn’t lie to you, you know me.”
Zane looks down, his expression near desperate with confusion. The precious few seconds waste away, and Vex reaches the top of the stairs, face wild with anger.
“Do not listen to him. The ninja are all liars, they are here to steal your throne and your realm.” He barks, loud and cutting. Kai stares, momentarily silenced by the cold, pure, hate laced in his expression, and his voice quietens in the pause. “They are here to kill you, and he almost did.”
Zane looks back up, and the look in his eyes is long gone. A stab of panic rushes through Kai’s head, sharp and unstoppable. I didn’t, I would never— never hurt him—
“I wasn’t— Zane, please, no, you can’t—“ Kai cuts off, gagging, as the nindroid’s hand closes around his throat. It is impossible to pry his fingers off, frozen metal and unmovable, and the fire fails to come to his aid, not when he can barely even think straight.
He failed Zane.
And this time Kai can’t stop it as his vision fills with heavy, suffocating black, dragging him down into the ice.