A/N: Do not own LEGO Ninjago
Hey! As you've noticed, the size of my chapters has decreased, but, hopefully, the quality is not decreasing, also! :) I've had less time lately to write, and that will likely continue, so to keep fairly regular with bimonthly updates, the chappies will be smaller. I wish I could get more out sooner. Sorry!
I am so grateful for my readers and the feedback I got from those of you who reviewed! Thanks so much to Anonymous, Sketchrex, Firelce, ForestBornNinjaGirl, stupidvariousreasons, Loveekar3, Solidground, and Lilly for throwing me a bone and keeping me on my toes!
You all seem to prefer first-person, so I'll leave it at that unless the situation changes. It made sense to do this chapter in Cole's POV to give more insight into what was happening to him. I think it came out alright, although it doesn't cover a lot of ground.
Rated T for harm to a character (WHICH I AM NOT ADVOCATING) and language.
Please read, hopefully enjoy, and review!
Chapter 12: Crescendo
STORAGE ROOM IN THE HOLD OF DESTINY'S BOUNTY
**Cole's POV
~YOU…OR HER~
…
Nothingness…
~DEMAND~
~RANSOM~
Cacophony of rising voices…
~YOU~
…howling…
~FOR~
…menacing…
~HER~
…from the oblivion…
Better…me…
Slowly…physical stimuli…where there had been none…
Memory of a young loved one…
Lloyd…
Hazy shard of silver…
Sharp, slicing pain…
Taiko drumbeats…
Pounding…
Banging…
Barking…
"Cole! Holy shit!"
Kai…
"What the frick are you doing?!"
More light…
"What the hell?!"
Welcomed voice…
"Put down the knife!"
Glimpsed him…from the corner of my eye…
Nearby…ready to lunge…
Help…
Stiff shake of my head…
I…can't…
All I could do. Needed all of my energy. Focused on that cutting edge. Had to focus on it. To keep it out of my arm. Millimeters above the burning. The bleeding.
As though the bones were magnetized, the tip of the blade was being pulled toward them.
No…pushed…
As if someone or something had me by the wrists.
Can't…control…
Every muscle was spasmodically contracting. I couldn't stand, could barely breathe from my abs cramping so much.
But I still had a small amount of control, enough to slow the point's descent and draw it back the painful instant it contacted my flesh as 'He' forced me to repeatedly bury it in my arm.
Each time the metal cut through my skin, just inside the elbow, I was barely able to limit its depth, avoiding the deeper artery even while I was opening veins, spilling their fluids. I could tilt its angle so that it was incising the rock-hard tendons and muscles lengthwise instead of severing them.
All the while, unrelentingly, the damned phantom voice continued to rumble, demanding submission.
~BLADE THIRSTS…BOW…TO THE INEVITABLE…BATTLE IS LOST…~
No! As long as I can…I will fight!
Sweat was dripping, pouring, from my aching, tiring body even as tears ran from my eyes.
I am not…without help…
A-Cappella's commotion had brought a chance of salvation. But could the Masters pull me through something impervious to Spinjitzu and the elements?
"Seriously, man, I know you said you're having a hard time, but nothing's this bad!" Putting out his hand, Kai urgently tried again to get me to relinquish the dagger. "All you gotta do is give it to me!"
Another shake was all I could manage.
Blue pant legs came into the edge of my view, circling around to my right. Jay's voice. "Kai's right! There's no reason to hurt yourself like this! Look at all that blood, Cole! You need to stop, let us help you, or you'll bleed to death!"
Briefly my eyes flickered down to the shiny, maroon patch on the floor around my foot. My nostrils had already caught the pungent, metallic tang of it.
They don't understand…
My short response was strained, shuddering. "I…can't…"
Zane's white gi adorned with his pink, frilly apron moved in front of me. "Cole, my brother…" I was praying he could sense what was going on, but I doubted that he did.
"C'mon, dude. What do you mean you can't?" Jay speech was nervous, but he was trying. "You can do anything you want to do! You've got the power! Just stop and give us the knife."
How could I get them to comprehend? "It…won't…can't…"
~DEEPER~
No!
The dagger lifted several centimeters, then rapidly plunged downward, coming to within a scant hairsbreadth of being buried in my arm again before I brought it to a standstill. From the outcries of my teammates, it must have startled them.
"Eehh! Don't do that, Cole!" Kai cautiously inched closer, as did Jay and Zane. "Please stop, okay?"
"Help…me…" My breathing and words sounded labored and desperate to my ears—the same way I felt.
"Of course! We are here to help you." Zane's tone was nonthreatening, trying to seem sedate, but with an edge. "You know we care greatly for you, Cole. That is why we—"
~FINISH THIS~
NO!
The weapon I clutched changed targets without warning as I was made to abruptly sit bolt upright. "I…can't…stop!"
My face was raised to the ceiling, and my right arm went out to the side, taking aim, gearing up for a final slash at the side of my bared throat.
Like a missile, I knew the dagger was homing in on my jugular and carotid when my team, without being given a command, dove forward in unison, all laying hands on me at the same moment. With their combined weight, the three dogpiled me to the floor from my seat on the chest, knocking the wind out of me briefly, but not relaxing my fist's hold on the knife.
They had ganged up on me, with Zane straddling my waist, his hands around my right forearm along with Jay's around my wrist. Kai was attempting to handle my wounded arm alone. Still, my body was indifferent to their attempts at disarming me, edging the knife ever closer to the exposed vital vessels while we all wrestled on the floor.
"Crap, Cole! *ugh* Cut us some slack here! We're trying *aah* to help you!"
"Yeah, man! *oomph* Just lemme have the stupid knife! Open your hand! *augh* Just a little! That's all I need! *ugh* Damn! I can't even move his frickin' little pinkie!"
During sparring, I usually held back some, not exposing my brothers to my full force, saving that for battle. Now, however, my powerhouse frame was being used against them—and me. It was quickly sinking in that my strength might successfully thwart their efforts to prevent me from seriously harming myself.
~USELESS~
They can't help…
With that disheartening flash of insight, I was beginning to lose the steam to continue fighting 'Him'—and the hope that I would get out of this alive.
Arwyn…will never understand…she'll think I wanted this…
I was funneling what little remaining energy I had left into keeping the weapon from getting any closer when Zane started yelling at me with a lot more concern than he usually expressed.
"Cole, stop this, please, before you *aah* hurt yourself worse! You must think of what this would do to Arwyn! Your father! Us!"
His near-panic almost had me taking my eyes off of the dagger in my hand, which I couldn't afford to do.
"Should I shock him?" Jay asked hesitantly, continuing to work on my rigid digits.
Zane's response was immediate and adamant. "No! It will only cause his muscles to spasm more!"
Kai had thrown his full weight on my left arm and was more or less in a bear hug. "Want me to heat the knife…or his hand?" he grunted out.
"You want to burn him?!" The ice ninja seemed a bit appalled at that idea.
"Hey, he's already trying to cut his own frickin' throat!" Kai shouted back indignantly. "What's a little scorching gonna hurt?!"
Zane didn't answer him, and I couldn't as I watched the blade inch closer no matter how hard any of us tried to keep it from advancing.
We all lack the strength to fight this…
I was about to commend myself to my fate when the tide turned unexpectedly as my nindroid brother threw himself onto my right shoulder, occluding my view of the dagger. With his white-clad back suddenly pressing against the side of my face I could see nothing but the shadowy ceiling and Kai's spiky head, but it came to me that he had just put himself in the path of the blade.
"Zane! What're you doing?! *uhh* He's gonna stab you! Get up!"
"Yeah! Move *augh* before you get skewered! Jay, look around *ah* for a shield of some kind!"
"We do not have time for that!"
"Zane! Don't!"
"…Z…"
You can't let me hurt you…
Within a moment, he was stiffening against me, muting a short, painful groan as the tip of the knife apparently began to penetrate his synthetic skin and made contact with his emergency-warning system.
…but you will…
That was the nudge I seemed to need. Knowing I was injuring a beloved brother who was trying to protect me somehow bolstered my strength of will.
And gave me the tiniest bit of control over my own body.
"Hey! His fingers are loosening up!" Jay's surprised cry brought a mental sigh of relief as I felt his energetic hands working on mine before the dagger's hilt was pulled from it. "I've got it!"
At the moment of his cry, my entire body relaxed. My extremities went limp and fell, like my bones had turned to dust. While I was physically and emotionally drained, at least I was finally able to take deep breaths, even with Kai and Zane still lying on either side of my chest.
And, thankfully, 'He' was down to quieter white noise.
A-Cappella's barking had also been reduced to simply his licking of my forehead as I lay gasping with my eyes closed.
"Hoo boy! That wasn't fun!" I cracked my lids open to see Jay standing up near my feet to momentarily examine the bloodied, antique dagger he held. He then raised a brow when his eye moved to the heap of ninja on the floor. "Uh…Kai, Zane, maybe you two oughta get off of him. Looks a little…odd…with the three of you cuddled together like…You know…like you're in Cole's arms…and he's holding you—"
"Is now an appropriate time for that, Jay?!" Kai snapped, sitting up awkwardly and gingerly handling my arm as he did so. "Son of a… Your arm's bleeding like stink, Cole! It's getting everywhere!"
He was right. We were all smeared with hemoglobin to some extent. Like we'd been paintballing with machine guns.
"Za—"
He hadn't finished speaking our brother's name before Zane was ripping the ruffled apron from around his upper body and tearing the ties from the bib. Reaching over me, he swiftly used one of the narrow strips of fabric as a tourniquet around my upper arm. The other was utilized to secure the rest of the wadded apron as a pressure dressing he was packing down over my multiple, hemorrhaging lacerations with Kai's assistance.
Jay came around, removing A-Cappella to the hallway, and the room fell silent as Zane went about his work. On his snowy jacket, high on his right upper chest, I eyed a palm-sized, scarlet stain that wasn't mine—his 'life-fluid', which he'd explained to me ages ago, was tinted with alizarin.
"Z…your shoulder…" My dry, raspy voice rose through a throat that was sore and tight. "I'm so sorry…"
Not looking at me, he kept his attention on the bandaging, saying gruffly with a crease between his brows, "It is nothing compared to what you have done to your arm."
I inhaled sharply through my clamped teeth when he vigorously pulled the apron tie taut around my mutilated arm with a jerk that had to be for emphasis.
"I didn't do this." I knew that sounded like a cop out to him, like I was in serious denial. He threw me a cynical look out of the corner of his eye and finished tying the strap around my forearm, offering no rebuttal, demanding no explanation.
Kai's incredulous stare at me barely warned me ahead of time that, unlike his tactful teammate, he wasn't gonna pull any punches and go easy on me. "How the hell can you say that?! I just witnessed you carving yourself up like a Christmas ham, and you admitted this morning that you're messed up over something, thinking about hurting yourself or Ar—"
"Kai." Zane's glance of surprise at me must've caught the mortified expression I couldn't hide as he stopped our steaming brother's tirade. "Save it. We must get him swiftly to the infirmary. And Arwyn."
"But he—"
"Cole is obviously going through a considerable amount of extreme emotional turmoil. Something he has failed to confess to me." I looked away as my confidant said the last with a touch of hurt feelings. "He can explain to us what brought this on when he feels ready to do so. First, we must get him up and out of here."
Getting slowly to my feet, even with the aid of Kai and Zane, was not the most pleasant experience of my life. Having full control of my muscles again was liberating, but those same muscles felt like I'd been training for three days straight—or clobbered by a tower of stone—and my vision got dark and sparkly when I got upright.
One look at me, and Kai changed his tune to one of concern. "You look a little pale—"
"I'm alright," I broke in, determined to walk into the infirmary on my own two feet, not be carried in by my brothers. It was going to be enough of an ordeal for Arwyn to see me like this, I didn't need to make it any worse by seeming totally incapacitated.
Unwilling to soil Zane's normally-pristine gi with more of my blood, I tucked my injured arm protectively against my abdomen and accepted Kai's offer of an arm for support. From there, we started into the dimly-lit hallway, following the gory, stamped trail Jay had left when the toe of his moccasin had dipped into the puddle by the sea chest.
The creeping, cloying shadows in the passageway felt like friable, sheer curtains that moved with every draft of air, barely separating rational thought from the other side. They had me catching my breath and halting my steps a few feet into the corridor.
Kai stopped short beside me, giving me a questioning look. "You okay?" I knew Zane was right behind us, probably with the same thought in his head.
"Yeah, sure." I shook my head and kept it at that. I couldn't tell him that I had a nearly-overwhelming feeling that scaly, twisted hands were still clawing for me, that the hateful voice intent on driving me insane was coiling to strike again, that my grasp on reality, on myself, felt threatened.
Fighting for control, I ignored my bounding pulse and placed a foot forward, followed by another. Kai started along next to me. Under my breath, I told him, "Don't leave me alone with her."
"Wha—?"
"Just don't."
From our previous conversation, he understood just enough not to argue with me and kept quiet the rest of the way up to the next level.
Thanks to the almost-staggering feeling of Arwyn's elements at the level of my diaphragm, I was certain she had some idea about what had been going on, either from her perception of the Masters' combined elemental turmoil or from a report by Jay. I knew he had made it to the infirmary ahead of us, his tracks in my blood led straight to it, and I was fully expecting her to meet us well before we reached the room. I was sorta disappointed when she didn't.
Not able to lay eyes on her until we shuffled in there, when I did, I spotted Arwyn leaning over the sink, splashing her face with water, with Nya beside her, a consoling hand on her back. Turned away from them, Jay hung out with an uncomfortable air near the cupboards that were braced against the right wall. Lloyd and A-Cappella were nowhere in sight. And I already knew Sensei Wu would be absent.
Grabbing a towel and sniffing hard, Arwyn scrubbed her face with the terrycloth, then hung it on its hook to the right of the stainless steel basin. Her shoulders rose and fell beneath her emerald undershirt, as she took a deep breath while gripping the lip of the sink before swiveling with a limp to face me.
My shamed eyes couldn't meet hers as she looked me over for a moment, taking in the broken mess I was, probably from the inside out. I could feel how shaken up she was over it from the spike in her elements, I didn't need to see her distraught countenance for that.
She'll think I'm so weak, that I can't handle things…
"Cole…" The tears in her voice forced me to look up at her right before my life's heart was pressing herself against me, wrapping her trembling arms around my shoulders and clinging to me, heedless of all the sticky blood I knew was soaking her clothes.
Parting from me quickly, she took me by the right hand, and began authoritatively directing. "Come to the exam counter. Here's a step stool. Kai, help him get his feet up while I take care of the pillow. Nya, please bring the prep table closer."
I was soon on my back on the padded examination counter by the sink. Our roles had reversed as I was exactly where she had been nearly twenty-four hours ago. Staring up into her grief-stricken, tear-stained face as she lovingly caressed my clammy cheek, I realized I was precisely where I wanted to be. I finally felt safe again.
Tearing her gaze away from mine, Arwyn grabbed her waiting bandage scissors from the table and began cutting Zane's pressure dressing away from my arm while addressing him. "Zane, I'll need your help in assessing any arterial damage as soon as I get this off and his arm is prepped. Anything venous or muscular, we can deal with later."
"I am prepared," he acknowledged as I closed my eyes.
Nearby, Nya spoke up. "Jay, go to Sensei and tell him we need his pain tea for this procedu—"
"He can't…help," I said, keeping my watery eyes closed and wincing against the fiery sting of the iodine being poured into my wounds.
"Why not?"
"He's in a deep trance…one controlled by someone else."
"What?"
All movement in the infirmary ceased for a second, then two sets of running footsteps left the room for Wu's quarters. Ever-respectful, Jay and Kai knocked on his door several times, requesting permission to enter, before they barged in and began worriedly and loudly calling his name.
Please, let him really just be in a trance…
Coming back to the door, Jay was already blathering in full panic mode. "Ithinkhe'shadaheartattackorsomethinghe'sbreathingbuthe'spassedoutonthemat!" He took a quick breath. "ZanecomequickandcheckouthisheartgivehimCPRwhileIshockhimorsomething!"
Opening my eyes at the clench of her hand on my shoulder, I answered Arwyn's anxious question before she asked it. "It's okay, baby, it's not his heart. He's alright physically, but during meditation…someone…lured him into a deeper state and is keeping him distracted there. So he can't help us."
Zane's pensive features appeared near hers. "How do you know this?"
I sighed with the memory of my conversation with 'Him', and didn't feel I could get into it yet, certainly didn't want to. "It's really hard to explain. I'm…still trying to sort it out—"
"Then it will wait." Turning toward the door, the always-controlled Master of Ice corralled all the cows the frazzled lightning ninja was having and gave him busy-work. "You heard Cole. You and Kai go to Sensei and make him comfortable on his bed. Count his pulse and respiratory rates and report to me. We will attend to Cole in the meantime."
The next hour or so went by in a fuzzy blur as Arwyn, Zane, and Nya worked on stitching my arm back together, and I worked on disassociating myself from the searing pain, as well as trying to stay mentally out of reach of…the one with no name.
Actually, the latter seemed to have eased up somewhat since the white noise stayed in the background, like it was accepting of the fact that I had won this battle, if not the war. Encouraged by that, I let my mind wander from the current happenings to analyze things for a minute.
I had broken free of 'His' control when I'd realized I was cutting Zane. Similarly, I showed restraint—three times—in not hurting Arwyn, even though the urge, the compulsion, was almost too great to be denied. Apparently, my reluctance to harm my loved ones was my most powerful weapon in beating this. 'He' couldn't make me hurt them.
Hurting myself, however, was a whole other story.
I'd said several times before that I'd do anything—I'd give my very life—to protect Arwyn from all harm. I now understood that, to some degree, that way of thinking pretty much applied to the rest of my family, too. It was the limiting factor in 'His' control of me.
On the other hand, there was nothing like that to stop me from harming myself as much as 'He' wanted. If it came down to who should suffer at my hands—me or another resident of the Bounty—there was absolutely no guessing about the conclusion.
Somehow, I had to figure out a way to stop this soon, or Arwyn would be widowed before she was even married.
A/N: Hope this cleared up some questions from previous chappies...Any thoughts, comments, other questions? Let me know! Namaste!
