Hey, I have alas brought a new chappie for you guys... I will be posting on this story around once or twice a week now that summer is here. I apologize for my long leave once again. Here's the new chappie!

I do not own Ninjago

Chapter 37: Stay or Trust?

Cole's POV

"All of Zane's hard work will be for naught," Tara frowned while shaking her golden mop of curls at the pamphlet. I felt sorrow, not jealousy course through my veins as my eyes trailed from Tara to the oil drops bleeding onto the grass, to Tara's spotless willow tree, to the tattered leaflet. Even Jay and Kai were scuffling their feet along the ground, feeling hopeless.

"Come on team," I encouraged, trying to raise the moral with a series of gestures, "Zane's work could lead to Tara's salvation if we try, all we need to do is a little landscaping and plant Tara safely elsewhere!"

"I would feel quite violated," Tara shuddered at the thought of being uprooted, she'd seen it happen to others, they must have had nightmares for centuries.

Kai stared at her incredulously, "That's what you're worried about?! How about how are we going to unearth you and move you mountains away?" I stared at Kai blankly as if he was missing a few bricks in his brain.

"We dig her out. Then we lift her up," I simplified with a sigh, sometimes hard work and determination was the only answer. Jay begged to differ.

"What!" Jay shrieked, "Unlike you, we don't control the earth or have inhuman strength. Even if all of us worked till dawn, actuary science shows that statistically there is a dismally minute chance of success! You're like a brickin' superman! Where is your kryptonite?" I felt my gaze subconsciously shift over to Tara perched on one of her branches swinging her legs before looking back to Jay. Ruffling through my ninja outfit, I retrieved three shovels and nodded for them to take it and get to work. Kai griped under his breath of trying to even the score of Tara saving his life before snatching a shovel. Jay perpetually whined about numbers and probability of success until I swung a shovel in his direction, catching him cleanly in the side of the head. Tara hopped off her observance point and walked over and gazing her grey-blue eyes into mine while shielding them with an arm over her head.

"Hear that, I'm going to be your superman today," I winked and gave a lopsided grin to Tara while reaching out an pulling at a blonde curl, watching it spring back into place, "Now normally I'm a very benevolent man and share with everyone. But today's special, you get me all to yourself." Tara looked down so that her locks shifted to cover her face, making her expression unreadable, but her ears began glowing a soft pint hue.

"Can you really save me?" Tara inquired in a small voice, uncharacteristic to her normal feisty attitude before perking up, "More importantly, where did you hide those shovels in your uniform?" I chuckled, as Tara seemed to confuse her matters of importance.

"A man's secret," I enlightened her trying to make her forget the question she had asked before. Truthfully, I had no idea if Tara would live through this. Looking at the gorgeous setting sun set the ravaged landscape on fire with an orange glow. We were running out of time.

Gently encapsulating Tara's hands around the third shovel, I unlatched my scythe from my back and struck the ground while yelling out my element firmly, "Earth!"

The ground began to shake, and the seismic waves began to reverberate throughout my being. Fighting against my stubborn element, I channeled the waves to the natural microscopic fault lines of the earth, watching as the once rich soil began to crack and split beneath my feet. Tara's willow seemed to be the epicenter of the fault lines to where they rushed out and infinitely divided into a network of trails and veins. Tara had rushed a hand to her head and stumbled a bit, but other than that, seemed to be unharmed.

"Those fault lines indicate where Tara's roots are, if we follow and uncover them, it should be relatively easy to move her," I called out before reaching into my black hole of a ninja suit and conjuring another shovel. It was totally a man's secret.

I craned my head up to gaze at a glittering midnight sky that seemed to mock us like that rabbit from the tale "Alice in Brickland". Wiping the sweat off my brow, all I could hear in my brain was that I was going to be late, and it was indeed a very important date. We had been working for five hours straight already, Jay collapsed about thirty minutes ago, tripping over his shovel and falling into a sweet slumber. I could just make out Kai returning in the distance, he had been following a fault line to see how far it would stretch. Tara, on the other hand, seemed completely unfazed by the wants of sleep. Her eyes were fixated upon the ground as she displaced shovelful after shovelful. In total, we had already cleared two tons of dirt. Kai tapped me on the shoulder urgently, to which I accidentally sent a shovelful in his direction before turning around.

He ran his dirt-caked fingers through his spikey hair, proceeded to shake off the sweat received on his hand before talking in a lowered voice, "I walked along that thing for a whole hour and it still gave no signs of ending. Even if we manage to save her, please know that I need to save her as much as you do, but we just can't save all of her, Cole, there's no way." I nose scrunched up fractionally before my face returned to a stoic expression.

"Well I will. You just aren't trying hard enough," I stubbornly grabbed my shovel and began digging out heaping piles of dirt, feeling my breath shorten under the exertion. Kai shook his head sadly before going over to Tara.

Tara's POV

Kai began marching over to me with his signature smirk plastered on his face. I shifted my weight and leaned over the handle of my shovel while the blade remained ingrained in the ground.

"I think I'm going to hit the hay, or dirt, for a little while," Kai informed me. I just stared blankly; he did not need to tell me this. He can just waltz over besides Jay, steal his teddy bear, and catch up on some z's. A light punch came to my arm and I rubbed instinctively before to arms reached around a hugged me.

"We'll get through this, we always do," he said with a small catch in his voice. My mind was immediately transported to the day Kai had been packing up the things in my room with depressed chocolate eyes and a hunched form. We could punch each other as much as we wanted, but I know he secretly cared for me in a begrudging manner. Did he know I did as well? I lifted my arms up and hugged Kai tightly back.

"You've always been like a big brother to me, Kai, I want you to know that," I tightened my grip on his crimson uniform, "And in case... and in case t-things don't work out, I just want to say thank you." Kai pulled back with and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

"No, thank you, little sis," his lip quivered as his facade began to falter, "Nya never has to know who the true siblings are." As he retreated to Jay's side, the notion that I could die through this process seemed to grow more real in my mind. No more seeing Kai, Jay, Zane, or Cole. No more Christmases. No more fighting. No more laughing. What if they would feel the guilt Jay and I felt? A shiver jolted through my spine and I lifted up my shovel and crashed it into the earth before I could think of retributions for me being me.

It must have only been an hour later when I backed up into a hard object, spinning around, I couldn't focus on much of anything in the darkness.

"Relax, it's just me," a black blob reassured in the darkness. A black blob named Cole. The tension I held in my shoulders visibly slackened as I began to make out his tired form barely illuminated by clouded moonlight. I frowned at his exhaustion and reached out to tuck a tuft of hair that stuck out behind his ear.

"Look, Cole," I started saying slowly, looking anywhere but his obsidian orbs, "You really need to sleep, this isn't good for your health." I silently pleaded he would give up, just stop trying, for my own guilty reason to hurt them less. I felt his eyes search my face for a long time, he stepped forward a moment, but then resumed back to his position.

"If you trust me, go into your tree so you conserve as much energy as you can, and not come out until I say you can. If you do that, I'll give up. Right now, on everything," he wagered. I wish I could have seen his expression in the darkness to know if he was telling the truth, but his proposition was a catch twenty-two. If I stayed out, which would indicate that I indeed did not want him to give up on everything would tell him that I don't trust him. And if I went into my tree would tell him that I wanted him to give up. Is that not what I wanted though? I felt like he was talking about more than just this construction issue. Trudging up to my willow tree, I pressed my hand against the bark and allowed for it to mesh into the tree. Looking back at Cole, he looked at me, saying nothing. Onyx eyes penetrated aquamarine ones until there was nothing left to look at albeit the chasm of silence we both had intended to fill with words.

And that's the end of today's chapter! Did you ever realize peanut butter pop-tarts are really delicious? But it's not as delicious as you guys clicking that review button! In, addition, if you would like to point out any typos or errors in my previous chappies to make a more enjoyable reading experience for every one, I will love you guys forever!