Cole internally chuckled at Lloyd's astonished stare. Sparring match now forgotten, Cole's technical superior was just blinking at him, jaw slightly slack. The techno black ninja was no stranger to the bands on their wrists. He knew full well that they were constantly transmitting info to a command deck somewhere else on base.
That included vocal recordings.
"Surely you've heard of me." Cole suavely picked up the slack, making the pause seem natural. "I was top lumbermill guy of the year."
"Hey nimrods. Who're you convincing?' Ronin's voice echoed from both of their wrist bands. Lloyd face palmed, and Cole narrowed his eyes, lips pressing into a thin line. Well so much for being Snazzy. Crap. They had a problem now.
"You got us covered?" Lloyd knew that if Ronin was linked into their bracelets, it was his turn to monitor them, meaning he could probably do something about it. In fact, Lloyd was counting on it. Knowing Ronin, he probably hadn't have needed to say anything at all. According to Wu, Ronin was a master of hiding things. Cole blinked.
"Yeah yeah… As of… Now. You have five minutes before I gotta turn 'em back on. We don't want Garmy to get suspicious."
Cole quirked an eyebrow.
"Agent Ronin." Lloyd supplied. "One of Wu's top guns in the elites. He's been planted here for decades. The others don't know yet, and quite frankly I don't plan on telling them."
"Probably better." Cole nodded, placing a hand on his chin. So the guy who threw them all in there worked for Wu. Of course he did.
"So you're Yang." Not a question at this point. To think he and Cole had met all that time ago was really astonishing. Heck, they'd trained together once or twice on the rare occasions they saw each other. Pixal had been right about the lack of contact Yang, or rather Cole, had with the resistance in general.
"Yup."
"I honestly have a lot of questions." Lloyd admitted, brow furrowing. "Did you know… about any of this?" He wanted to know if Cole had been aware of the second major elemental culling. From the look of irrational anger on Cole's face, the answer was probably no. The look vanished, and the master of earth took a calming breath.
"This?" Cole gestured vaguely at the pit. "You mean you don't know?"
"Know?"
"I dropped out of the resistance a year ago… family problems.' Family problems. Pixal said that he did indeed have a life.
"I noticed your name didn't show up on the roster, but I figured Wu might have used your lone wolf tendencies to his advantage and put you deep under cover."
"No… But I can understand why you might think that. I didn't touch home base very often. I kinda regret that; but between my work at the lumber mill, fooling my dad, and working for Wu, I had my hands kinda full." Cole rubbed his brow. "I didn't know that all this was going to happen. If I had, I would've gone underground." He shrugged his shoulders heavily and cast a glare at the ground. "I can kinda guess what you're gonna ask next. Yes, I was angry with you earlier this week. Not because you kept a secret, but because you should have at least given me a warning."
"I didn't know who you were, or even that you had powers." Lloyd pointed out. "I didn't even know what Un- what Wu had planned."
"I know." Brushing his hands off, Cole grabbed a towel off the bench and wiped his face down. "I know. Which is why I forgave you as soon as the others did. Well technically I forgave you way before that, but I couldn't give it away. They don't need to know about me. I can't let it come back to bite my dad."
"Speaking of which-"
"I unlocked my true potential the day he found out what I did for a hobby. Then I retired for reasons I'd rather not talk about. That's a story for another time; because we're out of time."
Lloyd nodded, glancing down at his band as a red button flashed, indicating that Ronin had the recorders back online.
{BREAK}
"Ahem." Jay figited slightly, something clutched behind his back in a tight fist. Nya was sitting at the dinner table alone, finally giving Jay a chance to approach her. As far as he knew Kai was dozing upstairs… He'd only checked about five times.
His raven haired beauty raised her glassy blue eyes up to face him. He nearly fainted right there. She was so… gorgeous! Clearing his throat, he opened his mouth… And no noise came out. Stupid throat muscles! Stupid Stupid stupid! What was he thinking? He couldn't do this! She clearly spotted the rosy tint to his freckled cheeks and stifled a giggle.
"U-um… Ahem… Nya." He stuttered. "I was wondering i-if you might want to… uh..." He shifted his weight from one foot the other, eyes darting nervously from the table to her face, a little lower, and then bashfully away. "Go… out?"
"Out?" Nya asked slowly. "Uh y-yeah… you know… I um..." He could feel his gift crumpling in his fingers, working to unfold them before he destroyed it entirely. He pointed to the door and shot her a weak smile. "Jimmied it."
Her eyes sparked with comprehension as a wry smile crossed her lips. "I'd love to!"
"Really!?" He didn't mean to sound so surprised; it just sort of happened. She seemed to notice how nervous he was, standing up and planting a kiss on his cheek before he could really process it.
{BREAK}
Kai stood by the door to the uppermost dorm room. Sound bounced effortlessly off the metal walls, the round constructs bouncing voices up like a funnel. He wasn't sure whether or not he really approved of this guy dating his sister. Sure, he'd grown a bit fond of the freckled teen; but was he good enough for Nya? Eh, that was still being debated. Well no. He wasn't good enough. The real question is whether or not Kai would let him give it a shot.
"Jay has only the best intentions for Nya." Zane stated from his bunk. "In fact, your interest in Skylor is far more what's the word? Uh, Scandalous."
"Scandalous!?" Kai yelped defensively, planting his foot and spinning to face Zane. "Who said I was interested!?"
"The chemical changes in your body are a clear indication." Zane replied shrewdly. " I believe you humans refer to it as being 'turned on.' This leads me to conclude that-"
"Okay okay!" Kai placed his hands palm up to stop Zane. "I get the point. So she's good looking. Doesn't mean I'm gonna pursue it or anything."
Loosely tossing one eyebrow up, Zane crossed his arms and shook his head. Kai was good at fooling himself, but the android had done enough studies into the realm of love to know that Kai was more than likely the type to change Skylor's evil thinking.
"It's true, okay?"
"You see good in her." Zane added, stating it only because he himself saw it too. The kindness in her heart was buried in a quagmire of anger, self loathing, and indoctrination; but it was there, waiting to bubble over and make itself known.
"Would it be so bad if I did?"
{BREAK}
Their conversation done, Cole watched Lloyd take a long gulp of water and plop down on the bench. If it were possible, the dark circles under his eyes had only gotten deeper. Cole could practically read the internal conflict rolling off of Lloyd in waves.
"They believe you. I mean, you know that right?"
A scoff. "Yeah right. Jay's made it clear that I'm loony. Maybe he's right; maybe I am losing it."
"I don't think so." Cole replied slowly. "Zane has scientific evidence to back it up, and your dad seems to believe it. At least he didn't deny this ghost's presence."
"Okay. So you all believe me. Yay. What now? Why is he bothering me? Why won't he let me sleep, why go through all this trouble to drive me crazy?"
"You should be asking him that. Not me." Yang, Cole had chosen that name because he was ghost-like on missions; but Pixal had told him the story of ancient master Yang, supposed master of Airjitzu. After dawning the name, he'd been visited by the less than amused master in his dreams, but Cole shrugged it off. He hadn't had the Yang dream in… months. He'd often be attacked in his dreams, and wake up on the floor with bruises he couldn't remember getting. Pixal told him that eye witness reports said that Cole went flying inhumanly from time to time during these dreams.
In short, he had been haunted by the original Yang. That's why he had no problem whatsoever believing Lloyd's ghost hypothesis.
"Oh please. Like it's that simple!"
Cole watched as Lloyd threw his arms out in exasperation, knowing full well the green ninja was right. Name aside, agent Yang didn't have a clue how to commune with the ghosts.
{BREAK}
When Jay said he'd jimmied the lock, Nya learned he hadn't been joking. Oh no, he'd figured out a way to get the doors to slide open just a smidge, far enough for them to squirm through. Much to Jay's delight, Nya understood every word of his long winded techno babble. It wasn't often that he found someone with enough mechanical know-how to decipher his jargon filled rants.
That only added to Nya's allure, only made her prettier in his eyes. He knew he couldn't really claim her as anything aside from a friend; but perhaps, if she did actually like him, he could honestly say he got the brains and the beauty.
Wishful thinking. He just knew something would go wrong. His gift to her was a bouquet of dinner napkins (serviettes, for those like me who speak at least a little British English… I am not referring to diapers here).
Jay dabbled in lots of things, including origami. They didn't hold shape all that well; but if Nya squinted, she could see a tulip… maybe. She had laughed in delight at the little gift.
Jay's idea of a date was to sneak out of the pit and into the ground mission zone, since it was outdoors. They climbed through the dark winding hallways to the roof. Nya found an unbroken ventilation shaft jutting out of the wall and sat down next to Jay.
"It's really pretty isn't it?" Jay asked. Perhaps Nya's presence was only adding to his awe of the sky; perhaps it was the fact that she was sitting barely an inch away, staring into the same vast expanse that he was. Either way, the entire evening was surreal.
Of course his confrontation with Lloyd still lurked in the background, threatening to cast a shadow over it all. He could tell that Nya was suffering the same burden, bogged down by the same looming elephant in the room that seriously needed to be dealt with. Perhaps just moving on hadn't been the right thing to do, but Jay was experienced at just forgetting his problems and pretending they didn't exist. Cole had mentioned dealing with the problem, and Jay had let him.
That meant that Jay had essentially passed his responsibility onto Cole. It was his job to fix the problem, but being able to admit you were wrong wasn't an easy thing to do.
{AUTHOR'S NOTE}
Okay folks, I have returned from my four day Hiatus. I got really busy and just couldn't devote the time I needed to this fic. Anyway, hopefully I'll be mostly back for the time being. I've decided to officially post every other day, or possibly every three depending on when I'm able to find time to write. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and stay tuned for more!
Ps. wrote this on my computer, hence the different format.
{SHOUTOUTS- Steampunk Wilson}
Howdy there! I was honestly surprised to see your user ID. You used to review stories under an old semi-retired account of mine, but I'm pretty sure that was at least over a year ago. Nice to run into you after all this time. That being said, I'm glad you're enjoying my story. I've been working hard to develop this writing style, and it's definitely adapted over the years. As for the plot twists, I absolutely love tossing them in there to keep people wondering :)
{SHOUTOUTS- Hiiiiii (Guest)}
Yup. I was playing around with the idea of making Cole a member of the resistance, albeit I wound up making him retired. Still, it gives one of them History to explore. Thanks for the Happy Valentines. I know it's a day late, but right back at you.
{SHOUTOUTS- ama (Guest)}
I've been getting that a lot XD
{SHOUTOUTS- Northern Goshawk}
I figured I needed to add context, hence the memory. Honestly I was hoping that didn't give it away, and awesomely, it didn't. Thanks!
{SHOUTOUTS- Phoenix}
Congrats on the black belt! Taking Karate was definitely a learning experience for me!
{SHOUTOUTS- Nuppa Nuppa}
Thanks! Glad you like it!
{SHOUTOUTS- BookKeeper2004}
Glad to hear you didn't see it coming. I love surprising people!
