Revisit

Down, Cafeteria

11:47 AM

Azamat was asleep in his chair, his head in the crook of his elbow, snoring softly.

If the circumstances had been different, he would probably have become a victim of his own prank. Certainly, his face was unguarded; the opportunity to draw a mustache on it was unparallelled.

And Lloyd might have done it, if he didn't feel so bad for the teenager.

The others were taking their turn in the Physical Training Room. Kai was in his room getting rest, and Amilia was in the infirmary with London, Gahiji, and Dr. Julien.

Lloyd's forehead was on the metal tabletop, his thoughts in guilty chaos. Guilty, because he was reflecting on Kai's words, spoken to him earlier that day.

"Don't you pity me, Lloyd!"

Lloyd bit his lip.

"All of you - you're all pitying me and I hate it!"

He closed his eyes. What Kai had said... He hadn't said it because of the Whisperer's spell. Kai - the real Kai - really did feel sick of his condition. He really did feel sick of being so afraid of everything. Sick of not having control.

Which made him hate his friends for pitying him. For trying to be sympathetic, when all he wanted was to forget that he was even under the spell.

That he was crazy.

It hurt. More than Lloyd thought it would.

He lifted his head from the table, and jumped when he saw a dark-skinned face sitting across from him.

"Hi," December said. Her eyebrows raised; Lloyd pressed his forehead back to the tabletop, running his fingers through his hair and sighing.

"You and your cousin both show up at the most alarming of times," he said dryly.

December gave a short chuckle. "Sorry," she said, absently unwrapping a chocolate bar. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Lloyd's insides twisted as he watched her bite into her chocolate bar, realizing just how much he wanted one, too. He took his hands away from his hair and peeked up at her.

She noticed. "Want one?" she asked, pulling another snickers bar from the pocket of her cargo pants and sliding it across the table. He snatched it as soon as her fingers left it.

"Thanks," he said quickly.

December shrugged and smiled, her attention shifting from him to Azamat, who slept two chairs away from her. Lloyd watched him, too, as he unwrapped the candy bar and bit into it.

Azamat's chair was pulled almost all the way out from the table, so that he was barely sitting on the edge of it. His thick brown hair was unkempt, his sleeping expression soft.

"You have no idea how much I want to draw a mustache on him right now," December said.

Lloyd laughed gently. "I was just thinking the same thing," he said. "It'd be great to give him a taste of his own medicine. What do you think? Permanent, or washable?"

"Permanent, for sure," December said. "One of those big fat pink sharpies."

They both got a good chuckle out of that. When their giggles subsided, and Lloyd's candy bar was half-eaten, Lloyd examined December carefully.

Her eyes were puffy, he realized. Had she been... crying?

Could Gahiji's sister actually cry? The thought was strange. He was about to ask her if she was okay, when he remembered.

Of course she would have been crying... tears of joy. Her uncle was alive, and had returned to her - he was perhaps the only family that December had, apart from Zane and Gahiji.

At least, as far as Lloyd knew, Nik was their only family. He hadn't heard what had happened to their father or their mother, but the fact that they hadn't been mentioned at all made it clear that both were good and gone. December and Gahiji would speak about them if they weren't.

... At least, December would. Lloyd was beginning to doubt that Gahiji could even speak without bossing someone around.

Lloyd frowned. If Dr. Julien really was her only family, why wasn't she with him?

"Hey," he said. "Why aren't you in with Dr. Julien? He's your uncle, right?"

December looked at him. Her expression was suddenly sober.

"I... didn't want to stay." December shrugged, as if she didn't know how to explain. "I mean... Gahiji was talking about... stuff... and I just couldn't listen. I'll have time with my uncle later."

Lloyd's brow furrowed. He was about to press her, when December said, "So why are you in here?"

Lloyd shook his head and smiled half-heartedly. "I just... can't get Kai's words out of my head. What he said about us pitying him."

"We're both pretty troubled, then, huh?"

Lloyd shrugged. There seemed to be a lot of shrugging in this conversation.

December folded up her candy wrapper, making a crease in the middle of it. "Don't worry," she said. "He'll get better."

"It's not him I'm worried about," Lloyd said. "I know he's gonna get better. I just... don't know what to do. I can't pretend like he's not sick and just treat him how I normally would. I can't sympathize with him without him hating me for it." He slumped in his chair, taking another bite of the snickers bar. "I don't know what to do with him. I don't think any of the others do, either."

December was silent. She was folding her wrapper into an airplane. Lloyd watched her.

"I don't know, either," she said finally.

Lloyd let his chin rest on the tabletop. He didn't know why he had expected December to know. It had just seemed like she would.

"I do know one thing, though," December said. She flipped the airplane's wings up, then flicked it into the air. It crash landed into Lloyd's nose.

Lloyd, startled, brushed the candy wrapper away. Then he picked it up and sent it soaring back to December.

The material the plane was made of wasn't great for flying. It went tumbling out of the air to land by December's hand.

"I don't want to talk about sad things," she said.

"Me neither," Lloyd admitted.

"But what should we talk about?"

"... Who said we had to talk?"

December's face split into a wide grin. Lloyd smiled back, and she threw the candy wrapper airplane at him.

Scrap and Junk

9:43 AM

Nya was beginning to wonder how hard it was to assemble a wrist communicator. Surely it didn't require a Jay-ish tantrum as Mr. Walker practically tore apart the Junkyard.

It was quite impressive to watch, actually. Apparently, Ed needed one more piece before the communicator could function. Junk went flying left and right. Pretty soon it wasn't safe to stay outside, as Ed had no regard for safety as tricycles and rubber flamingos came very near to crippling Garmadon twice.

And so the rest of them retreated inside, where they could have a conversation without yelling at one another over Ed's frustrated hollering.

"We can't sit around any more," Garmadon said from his seat on the couch next to Misako. Both of them were staring out the window at the piles of junk being shifted around outside.

"We aren't sitting around," Edna said, running a plate beneath the hot water from the faucet. "Or, at least, I'm not sitting around. There are dishes to be done." She was indeed standing at the sink.

Garmadon closed his eyes. Nya watched with some amusement as he attempted to compose himself, and Wu, who stood beside Nya, chuckled.

"What I meant," Garmadon said, "was that we can't wait for Ed to finish this wrist communicator of his. We can't wait to contact the Five or whatever it's called. We have to find some way to attack this organization."

"I know what you meant, dear. I was just messing with you," Edna said smoothly. She put a stack of plates in a cupboard. They clacked quietly together. "What do you propose we do? You're not Shautei."

Sensei Wu spoke. "As Misako said," he began, "even though we are not Shautei, you and Ed are. And she's right. The Vengestone may be a good weapon against the Whisperers."

Nya recalled what Misako had talked about over breakfast that morning, that Vengestone might be a key oppressing force against these monsters. She nodded, and Garmadon did the same.

Edna's was shaking, though. She turned from the sink, drying her hands with a white towel.

"Here's the thing," she said. "We don't know what Whisperers are, exactly, or why they exist. And about their powers, their ability to wield Elements... well, we don't know how all that works, either."

"But do you really have to know what they are to fight them?" Garmadon said.

"No. Not with Shauto, at least..." Edna raised her hands in the air. "I'm just putting it out there. The only way that we've discovered to effectively fight and kill a Whisperer is by using Shauto. I just don't know if this Vengestone thing is going to work."

"Why wouldn't it?" Nya said. She glanced at Misako, then back to Edna. "I mean, if anyone knows about Vengestone, it's Misako."

"It's true." Misako wasn't abashed. Nya noticed the vial she was turning over in her hands. It was full of what looked like black sand - Vengestone. "I've been researching it since the Overlord's defeat. It's an alien material, probably deposited onto NinjaGo when an asteroid hit it over a hundred years ago. Everyone knows about the Element theory, right?"

"The theory that our world is composed of magical Elements? The very same Elements that the Ninja possess and wield?" Edna said. "Of course. It's a fundamental principle of Shauto. Shauto is fueled by those elements."

Misako nodded. "Exactly. And the reason why Vengestone will harm the Ninja is that it doesn't exist."

Edna paused. She set the towel down on the counter, eyes searching the refrigerator door as she mulled it over. "Makes sense," she said finally.

Nya cut in. "Wait," she said. "It doesn't make sense to me. How can it hurt the Ninja if it doesn't exist? It clearly does - it's right there in your hand."

Misako's eyes shone as she explained. "It doesn't exist in NinjaGo. It's an alien material, right?"

Nya, Sensei Wu, and Garmadon all followed her carefully. "Yes," Nya said.

"NinjaGo has its own system of Elements. Vengestone is a foreign element, one that isn't in NinjaGo's system, and therefore harms the Elemental Masters it comes into contact with. Does that make more sense?"

"Ohhh," Nya said. She nodded slowly. "So it doesn't exist, in terms of NinjaGo's system. Okay. Makes more sense... but if Vengestone really contradicts its own existence like that, how come when a regular Ninjagian touches it, it doesn't harm them?"

"I'm sure it does," Misako said. "But in a much less noticeable way. It probably seeps our energy away, but slower than it does an Elemental Master's."

Everyone exchanged disturbed looks. The vial in Misako's hands returned to her pocket.

"This is all fine and dandy," Garmadon said finally, sarcasm evident in his tone. "But I do have to point out that we still haven't done anything with this information. When push comes to shove, after all of this talking, Eboni still has our ship, we still don't know where the Ninja are, and we still haven't done anything about it."

Garmadon sure knew how to make things depressing. Nya found herself wishing that Kai was here - that Jay was here - that everyone was here.

"Where could the Ninja be?" she said.

There was silence.

Edna's hands came down on the countertop with a thud, and everyone's attention was instantly caught.

Her gray eyes were uncharacteristically grave, her lips pulled tightly downwards in a frown. "Garmadon is right," she said.

Garmadon's eyebrows shot up. He obviously hadn't been expecting that.

"We can't sit around anymore. My son is missing. Your son is missing." Here she looked the Garmadons. She turned next to Nya. "Your brother is missing."

Nya closed her eyes and bowed her head. Oh, Kai, where are you?

"Wu, your nephew, along with all your students are missing. There is no way we can let this go on. We have to find them, and we have to stop the Hidein."

Edna sighed. Her expression transitioned as smoothly as water over a duck's feathers, from serious to strangely nostalgic. "I don't know why I thought we could just walk away from this," she murmured to herself. "These Whisperers... these abominations... are the same monsters that existed seventeen years ago... the same monsters that killed Dobryak."

There was another intense silence.

"So what do we do?" Nya asked quietly.

Edna took a minute to breathe in deeply. Nya had never seen such a forlorn expression on Edna's bright features before. "Tell Ed that he's going to need to find that part on the way... We need more than one Shautei if we're going to do this."

"Do... what?" Misako said.

Edna dug around in her pocket. At last, she pulled out a rubber band from her overalls, and ran her hands through her hair.

They all watched her tie her hair back into a ponytail. She let go of the rubber band, then turned to face them, grinning broadly.

"We're gonna go looking for trouble."

Down, PTR

1:00 PM

Jay slowed to a stop, the sparks from his Spinjitzu tornado swirling in the still-circulating air. His element fizzed and puffed out.

Jay felt he might just do the same.

"You alright there, thundercracker?" Cole said, amused, as Jay leaned over and put his hands on his knees. The Master of Lightning waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm - fine," he huffed. "Just - gaahh - taking a breather. This is so tiring."

Zane, in the box next to Jay's, halted. He stumbled, then regained his footing.

"I have to agree with Jay," he admitted breathlessly. "Sensei didn't expect us to perform Spinjitzu for such long periods of time. This is a new experience."

"I had no clue that Spinjitzu was so hard!" Jay said. He sighed, and stood up straight. His muscles protested earnestly, sore legs rebuking him with a sharp pain. He moaned. "My legs kill."

Despite this, however, he found the strength to walk over to where Cole sat, watching them. Next to the Master of Earth was four plastic water containers.

"You're like the keeper of the water bottles over here," Jay said absently to Cole as he picked up his bottle and twisted the cap off.

Jay drank deeply, but took the bottle from his lips when it spurted from the opening and dribbled down his chin, wetting his shirt. He coughed.

Cole was studying some of his mother's handwritten notes on Shauto, his legs crossed and his lips pulled up in a crooked smile. "Do you need to switch out?" he said.

Jay shook his head and rubbed his hands together. They crackled with electricity. "I'll tell you when I've run out of steam," he said. "I could go for ten more minutes."

"I could use a break," Zane said, and stepped over the line marking the edge of the box. London had taken a can of black paint to the thin lines of the Spinjitzu box earlier that day, to make it easier to see the boundaries.

Cole handed Zane the stack of papers and traded places with him, rolling up his sleeves. "Let's get this show on the road," he mumbled. Within moments, he was spinning in a cloudy, earthen tornado.

Jay exhaled, supposing he should do the same, when a thought occurred to him.

"Where's Lloyd?" he asked.

"I don't know," Zane responded. He sat down where Cole had been sitting previously, tipping water from his own container into his mouth and shuffling London's papers.

Cole emerged from his tornado. "He said that he needed to think. He's in the cafeteria, I think?"

Jay blinked. His brow furrowed. "Do you think we should go get him?" he asked.

Cole shrugged. "The kid probably just needs some time to himself. We should let him be."

"You're right." Jay scratched his head. It was easy to forget that the kid was... well, a kid. Their team had done some weird stuff before, but they normally had guidance from their Sensei.

Jay tensed, then spun. His element crackled around him as his Spinjitzu tornado grew brighter.

He missed their Sensei. They all did. As of yet, they had not been able to make contact with home; Kai had tried multiple times with no luck. None of the Ninja's cellphones worked, either. Maybe technology just didn't agree with Shauto - something must have jammed them when they teleported from NinjaGo City three nights ago.

Three nights ago... three nights ago, the Ninja were coming home from a movie. A really good one, too.

Jay exhaled in bitter amusement. Now, here they all were, learning an obscure magic with a secret agency called the Five, saving the world from elemental ghosts, if indeed one could call a Whisperer that.

Not only that, but about half of the Ninja's parents were involved in the Five's secret agency. Talk about destiny. Jay called up the memory of his conversation with Kai and Azamat, about it being destiny that the Ninja were all involved in this together.

It made Jay wonder about things. A lot of things. For one, his ma and pa both knew Dr. Julien and his brother Dobryak. It might be just possible that Jay had known them, too. Heck, he might have even known Gahiji and December, as kids.

The thought was a little disconcerting. December would have been around his age, maybe a little older. Jay wondered how much older Gahiji was than his sister. His guess was probably around five or six years, which would have made Gahiji a little younger than Lloyd was before he became the Green Ninja.

Jay also wondered about the destiny theory's effect on Amilia and Azamat. Jay had proved all of the Ninja's destinies were intertwined with the the Five's. Gahiji and December, as Dobryak's children, obviously fit in the puzzle.

The only thing that remained a mystery to Jay was the twin's parents. He would have to ask Azamat who they were - and if they fit into the puzzle of destiny that Jay had decided existed, then there could be no doubt that their involvement together was no mistake.

Jay slowed. He wiped sweat from his forehead, trying to blink away the ache in his muscles. Here he was, theorizing about destiny. Everyone would beat him to learning Shauto if he carried on like this.

"I've been thinking," said Cole suddenly. Jay turned to look at him.

The Master of Earth had his ninja mask pulled down, and he was gazing thoughtfully at the air in front of him.

"You've been thinking?" Jay repeated. "Spinjitzu Master forbid." He grinned at his friend, who rolled his eyes.

"I've just been thinking about all of this. About how strange it is. About how coincidental it is that we just happened to be attacked by that Whisperer, show up here, learning that half of our parents knew about Shauto and Whisperers... And I'm not sure that it sits well."

Cole's gaze shifted from the far wall to Jay, to Zane, then back to Jay. "I find it odd that we all just happened to get together - this secret agency led by my fourteen-years-dead mother fighting a secret band of elemental whatever-Whisperers-are, and us."

Jay chuckled. "You don't listen, do you?" he said. "I've already told you. It's destiny."

Cole eyed him dubiously. "I think it's more than that," he said. "I don't know about you guys, but all of this..."

"What are you saying?" Zane asked.

"I'm saying that I feel like we're being played." Cole dragged his foot across the black paint outlining the Spinjitzu box. "Not by the Five, but by the enemy. All this talk about Hidein, and how powerful they are, makes me wonder... No one is telling us what Hidoi can do - for good reasons, I guess - but I'm willing to bet that there are things that you can do with Hidoi that you can't do with Shauto. If Hidein are so powerful, and the Five are so wary of them..." He trailed off.

Jay was bemused. "You think that Hidein somehow... I don't know... read minds? See the future?"

Cole shook his head. "I don't know. But the Five - well, they have Shauto. You've seen what that can do. If they have all this power, but they're still scared of Hidein; well, that's gotta count for something."

Zane laid back across the floor. He put his hands over his chest, closing his eyes. "You are saying that you think the Hidein have been somehow controlling our actions?"

"It... happens," Cole said weakly.

Jay shook his head and laughed, relieved. "And I thought I had an overactive imagination," he said. "You had me going for a second, dirtclod."

"It could happen!" Cole retorted, face flushing. "If I were the Hidein, I'd make sure I'd have magical powers to see into the future and see what the Five are going to do..." He deflated. "Wow. I see what you're saying."

Jay laughed again and leaned over to shove Cole playfully. "I think that the water pressure is getting to you," the Master of Lightning remarked. "Dreaming up funny schemes. You're starting to sound like Kai."

"That's not funny, Jay," Cole said, but he shoved him back, grinning. "You and I both know that Down is depressurized."

"Do you hear this guy, Zane?" Jay said, turning to the Nindroid. "Making excuses for his poor, pressured brain. It'll be starting to squish out his ears any moment now."

"Shut up!" Cole exclaimed. His laughter died quickly, though, as he turned to look at Zane, too.

The Shauto notes were discarded and Zane sat with his eyes closed, chin in his hands, and legs crossed. His thin brow was heavy with thought.

"Zane?" Jay inquired. He and Cole shuffled over to the Master of Ice. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Zane mumbled. His eyes were closed, and he breathed in and out deeply, like he was trying to fall asleep.

"Hey," Cole said, crouching down beside his teammate. "What's the problem?"

"I'm just thinking."

"About what?" Jay inquired.

Zane sighed, and opened his eyes. Forlorn flakes of frost observed Jay's face.

"I just... can't help myself from worrying," he said. "Things have changed so fast. My processors have by far and away done their job, and yet I am still having trouble wrapping my head around this, so to say."

He opened his eyes. "My father is in the room just next to this one," he said softly. "Speaking to my cousins, whom I never even knew existed until just yesterday. He has kept the Whisperers and Shauto a secret... I can't help but wonder why he has kept all of this from me. I am itching to speak to him, and yet I fear that he does not trust me enough to tell me the answers to my questions."

Jay was shocked. "Zane," he said, sitting down next to his teammate. His furrowed brow matched Zane's. "Why wouldn't he trust you? You're his son!"

"But why has he kept it from me?" Zane's pale eyes searched Jay's before they shifted to Cole's concerned gaze. "Why?"

Cole crossed his legs, and the three of them sat together. Silence seemed to buzz in the air around them.

"He has a reason, Zane," Cole said quietly. Jay looked at him; Cole's brow was heavy, too, but not with confusion or sadness. With strength. "My mama made me believe that she was dead for more than half my life. She had her reasons."

Zane rubbed his arms, closing his eyes. He looked more worried than Jay had ever seen him; his shoulders tense, his lips pursed, and his expression stretched so thin that Jay could clearly see his hurt.

"Don't worry, Zane," Cole said. He laid his hand on his teammate's shoulder, and smiled. "You'll speak to him, and he'll tell you. There's no way he won't."

The silence seemed less pressing now. Zane grimaced, but his hands came away from his arms. He looked up at his leader and managed a weak smile.

"Thank you, Cole," he said. "I believe you."

"Sure," Cole said. He glanced at Jay, who smiled back, relieved that Zane felt at least a little bit better.

The door to the PTR opened. It echoed throughout the chamber, and Cole, Zane and Jay all stood up. At the other end of the Physical Training Room stood Zane's father.

"Zane!" Nikolai called.

Zane didn't hesitate. He ran to his father, and he didn't stop until he embraced him. Soft laughter echoed through the room.

Jay and felt a grin spread across his face. He saw that Cole had one, too, which made his just grow wider.

"Ahh, let's just get training," he said at last. "And when we're done, we can go grate on Lloyd's nerves or something."

"I think not," hissed a voice in Jay's ear.

Jay screamed. He and Cole whirled around, raising their hands in a defensive gesture.

Lloyd and Azamat just about died with laughter.

The Masters of Earth and Lightning watched, shocked and frightened, as Lloyd pulled back from where he had stood next to Jay. The Green Ninja doubled over, guffawing, and Azamat's shoulders shook with laughter.

Jay realized what had happened, and punched Lloyd.

"Darn you, greenbean!" he exclaimed, while Lloyd just laughed harder. Jay launched more punches at Lloyd, who blocked the blows, but not without some difficulty, as he was laughing so uproariously. Cole put his hand over his heart and breathed in and out deeply.

"You guys," Lloyd choked out between shielding himself and giggling, "are great."

"How did you get behind me?" Jay demanded. "Tell me, you snot!"

Lloyd held up Azamat's teleportation coin. Jay's face contorted - Lloyd took one look at it and cracked up again.

Jay and Cole eventually did the same. "That was actually pretty clever," Jay admitted, chuckling. "But you got Cole more than me."

"Yeah, right!" Azamat said with a snicker. "You screamed!"

"You should have seen your face, Jay," Cole said.

"My face? What about yours? You fell for it twice as badly as I did!"

"Oh, right, and you stunning vocal range proves that. You could be a soprano in a woman's choir."

Everyone laughed, including Jay, who knew a witty line when he heard one.

"Alright, alright. The fun is over," Nikolai said. During the hysterical confusion, he and Zane had walked back over to where the Ninja were training. Jay and the others quieted their giggling. "There are some new developments we need to discuss as a group."

Jay's smile, which had lingered after he had stopped laughing, dimmed.

Nikolai's skin was sickly bleached. Though he smiled, it was transparent. His eyes were sunken and his brow heavy, and his age was ever more apparent. Zane held his hand, mirroring his father's papery smile - he was obviously concerned.

He was right to be. Jay didn't think that he had ever seen Zane's father so unhealthy looking.

"Dr. Julien?" Azamat said, his voice tentative. "Are you well?"

Nikolai shook his head, then gave a short sound. It was somewhere between an exhale, a breathy laugh, and a suppressed sob. "I'm fine," he said. "These developments... have stretched my heart a little thin. Follow me, and we'll discuss them."

Jay exchanged looks with Lloyd, Azamat, and Cole, and as Nikolai and his son turned, they all followed.