Ah dang, I was a little worried this would happen. ^_^'' The meme in the previous chapter title was just supposed to be a reference to Jay watching for Nash for a long time, I wasn't fishing for reviews or anything! But thank you very much to everyone who let me know they're still here. I really appreciate it!

Hope y'all are staying healthy, what with current events. Have a chapter to keep busy while you're holed up at home, I guess? Although I feel kind of bad that it's not more uplifting content. ^_^''

As usual, be forewarned. Upcoming violence, and a lot of it.


SpiritDragon: Ah man, pressure to write a good fight scene now! :P Heh, well, hope I can deliver.
That's a pretty good tactic if you ever meet a hidden whispering person. Although I sure hope you don't. XD Ugh, I know, right? And these are still growing boys, they need their rest or Jay's gonna be short forever! :P Let's hope nobody was asleep . . . Although on the bright side, the flare is loud, so maybe it would wake any sleepers if they weren't too far under.
Hmmmm . . . does writing a lot in Nash's POV count? :B
Thanks for the review!

Guest: He's at least okay enough to send flares, at the moment! So that's something.

Rick Riordan1: Haha, thank you! I'm sure the ninja all appreciate your concern for their health. They might appreciate my decisions as an author a bit less, though. :P

caughtbyfire: Thanks for the review! Break, what's a break? Are ninja allowed to have those? :P As to Lloyd . . . bad news, he is beyond Zane Hugs by now. :(
Well thank you! I'd like to take the credit, but it might just be how infrequently I update. ;P
Hahaaaaaa . . . I can tell you, but I don't know if you'll believe me. XD See, there was this guy on DeviantArt who used to draw a lot of art for Ninjago and other LEGO series. One of his favorite characters was Vanda Darkflame, a warrior from the "LEGO Universe" online game. I drew her once for an art trade, got to like her a bit, and somehow decided it would be an interesting crossover for Cole to have met her once on a solo mission. They got to really like each other, then decided that, because both their lives were so dangerous and either of them could die any day, they wanted to go ahead and get married right friggin' now. Just so they wouldn't have to die thinking "oh shoot, I never got to marry the love of my life!" The others only find out when they catch Vanda secretly visiting Cole while he's in the hospital with that leg injury. It was going to be tied in with that whole running gag with "don't leave us!" and everyone complaining Cole is no fun these days. All this time, he'd gotten serious because he'd realized shoot, I'm married now, I'm an actual grown-up, what the frick? Admittedly it kinda makes the others look at him differently too.
So yeah. That was the backstory. Don't ask what I was thinking, 'cos I don't know. XD
It totally still would fit into the story right now, but I've kinda just decided to ditch it. Over time I've grown to like more and more the idea of Cole being permanently single. He seems happy; let him be. Besides, based on more recent seasons and comments from the production team, I'm starting to think that I overestimated the ninjas' ages in this story! And here I thought I was being all rebellious by ranging the ninja from 16 to almost-20 when everyone believed they were full adults. Gee whiz. XD

CrystalKunoichi: Let's hope indeed! They are indeed disaster ninja.
Just think, all of Ninjago might be lost without those sandwiches! :P

the-shipper/Ultimate-shipper: Thanks for the reviews! Hmmmmm, not sure why, but I'm getting the strangest feeling you like Jaya? ;P


Oct 22

12:43 AM

Status conditions: Well, Nash is here. There's that.


If Nash had to guess, he'd say the stub on his left leg had probably started bleeding again. He was beyond feeling it, but he could certainly smell blood. Then again, hard to say if that was his own or just the ongoing hallucination of ninja blood. Ohhhhh, he could taste it. His crooked lope took on even more energy, guiding him swiftly through alleyways, narrow and still so he could almost hear the echo of his heart pounding off the walls. He knew this neighborhood. The hospital was two blocks away. So close. So close. Five minutes from now his lust would finally be sated, finally

The drunken fixation clouded his senses. Normally he would have had more warning. As it was, his sixth sense only began to tingle half a second before a shuriken plunged into his back.

He twisted involuntarily, a primal scream of pain and rage clawing up his throat. Mingled with it was the screech of Zane's flare, followed by a searing flash of white light, briefly illuminating the blood-smeared shuriken clattering off across the asphalt. Nash whirled in place, blinded and crazed.

He heard the slam of titanium feet striking the ground, but even as he lunged for the sound, a metal fist was already coming to meet him. He felt the impact shoot up and down his jaw, but he shook it off, undamaged. His vision was beginning to return. He caught sight of the dim glint of metal and plunged for it.

Zane wove furiously. Nash's teeth had scraped his shoulder, spewing trails of sparks, but they hadn't caught. He kicked for the wounded leg he'd already noticed—he was so much in Nindroid mode he hadn't even thought to be horrified—but Nash drew it back, again snapping his dripping jaws at Zane's arm. He just barely missed. Nindroid reflexes were good. Unfortunately so were snake reflexes. When a second blow came for Nash's jaw, he darted easily away.

Zane threw himself back and rolled to gain a little space. Nash dropped to all fours and leaped after him, slamming sideways into a wall as the Nindroid frantically tumbled the other way. Catching himself on one elbow, Zane hurled a blast of freezing cold from one hand, crusting Nash's jaws in ice. The snake rattled his skull madly, twisted aside from Zane's second shot, then dashed his own head against the same wall, shattering the ice. Then he lunged again. The two of them whirled circles around the alleyway, a tangle of scales and flashing metal. Ice splattered in pools across the ground and jingled in shards off Nash's hide.

Finally Zane miscalculated. Nash bit for his arm and caught. Gasping, Zane hurled himself backwards, but the snake was heavy and had good purchase. Zane had planned to throw him, but he only made them both stumble.

Nash was groping for his body now, searching for leverage as his teeth continued to creak over Zane's titanium shell. Snatching for his other shuriken with his free hand, Zane stabbed—but mid-slash his wrist was caught in a scaly grip. As the Nindroid struggled helplessly, Nash brought up his other hand, deliberately levered the shuriken out of Zane's fingers, and embedded it point-first in Zane's eye.

The crunching of shattered glass was drowned out by Zane's startled cry. With both arms now immobile, he brought up his legs and kicked, hammering his metal feet into Nash's ribs. He probably cracked a few, but he was giving Nash what he wanted. Now it was an easy matter to hurl him to the ground and pin him.

For a moment it almost seemed like the battle had stopped. Really it had only become more measured. Nash kept his full weight atop Zane's quivering form, his claws sparking across his chest, and threw every muscle in his sinewy neck into hauling on Zane's arm. Metal groaned warningly.

At the same time, Nash felt a wave of cold creep up his back. Ice. He rolled his yellow eyes downwards to meet the Nindroid's face: single eye blazing in terror, but expression hotly defiant. Ice crystals were blooming around him, working their way up Nash's body, threatening to entomb them both in a glassy shell. Already Nash's hands were frozen to Zane's skin, already his back was fixed in a permanent arch—

CRACK.

Zane's arm tore away. Something inside Nash seemed to unlock. Spitting out the dead limb, he coiled his muscles, shattered the ice cage with one shuddering twist, and went feral.

It was the purest kind of catharsis. Everything inside him flowed towards his teeth and his claws, as if they were the only parts of him to go on existing. They were certainly the only parts that mattered. There was no blood, but he tasted it anyway. He sank into a blissful animal plane, slashing, tearing, scrabbling, shredding, tumbling his prey over and over to find new purchase, ripping out wires like sinews, ignoring the glass biting into his palms as he clawed out the other eye. It had gone dark long ago.

He wasn't finished yet, but without warning his entire body sang out in searing pain. An overwhelming force hit him, half electric shock, half physical blow, hurling him off Zane's carcass and tumbling him down the alleyway. By all rights he should have died, but that was something that had been said about him many times before.

He lifted his head, knocked back into some degree of rationality, and saw a blazing figure at the end of the alley. The little one, Lloyd. He was coated in green energy, his hair whipping around his face and additional globes of power swirling around his hands. Grinning derangedly, Nash rolled to all fours and leaped.

He met a wave of green energy head-on. It threw him back, forcing him to stumble for balance. Even as he finished jerking himself upright, he was already twisting violently left and right, dodging another two energy spheres.

This round was a more long-distance affair. Nash couldn't get close; it was already hard enough not to get incinerated. Spheres and beams of deadly energy crashed around him, always just a little too slow, always just a millisecond behind a crazed Venomari's reflexes. But every time he wove between shots and lunged close, Lloyd would draw a bubble of energy around himself and explode it, hurling Nash back again.

Nash didn't let it go on too long. Somewhere in the padlocked sane regions of his brain, he was distantly aware that the more he dragged this out, the more likely the rest of the morsels would show up and make this trickier. Or that a stray energy ball would hit a little too true. As he rolled under another wave of crackling light, he snatched for his utility belt and pulled out a small handgun.

Lloyd's instincts really were excellent. It only took a well-practiced second for Nash to bring up the gun and pull the trigger, but Lloyd had already snapped back his element and again formed a protective shield. Nash fired off two shots before he realized the bullets were disintegrating against a web of green energy.

For a second everything ground to a halt. Nash lowered his gun, chagrined, and fixed Lloyd with a predatory stare. If bullets couldn't get through that shield, he couldn't either. As long as Lloyd didn't drop the shield to fire, they could stand here like this forever.

Not to his surprise, though, Lloyd fired.

Now the exchange went in both directions. Nash's shots were significantly more limited than Lloyd's, though, so he still focused more on keeping himself clear, waiting for an opportunity to aim again when Lloyd was off-guard. How long did this idiot's element last, anyway? Time was ticking.

Ah, there—an opening. In the millisecond during which Lloyd charged his next shot, when he wouldn't be able to change it to a shield, Nash whipped up the handgun and fired.

He'd misjudged how long Lloyd's charge took; the shot went wild as a beam of energy slammed into him. He was tumbled back across the alley and pinned between the wall and the ground, unable to scrabble out of the onslaught of devouring energy. For a second time his senses slipped away fully, leaving only a writhing, howling will to survive, to escape the source of the pain. If there had ever been any question about whether Lloyd was shooting to kill, there wasn't now.

Everything was hot, burning light. For the first time in his life Nash glimpsed the face of Death flickering in the distance; for the first time he truly believed that this leering visage knew his name. Be damned. Looked too much like his own face to suit him.

His claws tore at the asphalt uselessly. Wherever he shifted the energy followed. His scales were dissolving, layer by slow layer. Tendrils of energy wormed in between, seeking the flesh underneath. Death drew close enough for him to meet its eyes now, empty black eyes that knew everything. Somehow he clawed his will together, rolled over, and fired his gun.

Lloyd went down with a scream. The energy beam winked out like a shattering bulb. Nash instantly reared back from the ground, possessed now that the crushing pressure of green light was gone, then dropped to all fours and heaved for air, grasped frantically at the scattering tendrils of his life. He couldn't move. He actually couldn't move.

It only lasted a second, though. He sensed that Lloyd wasn't dead, only wounded. In a moment he would recover from the shock and fire again.

Heaving himself off the ground, Nash lunged first.

He didn't bother with the gun. Now that he could get close he needed to taste. The brief satisfaction of tearing apart Zane had dissipated, the pain and adrenaline of fighting this one had only whetted his appetite. He didn't even look before plunging in his jaws.

The smell of blood must have guided him—he bit the same leg he'd shot. His vision exploded into multicolored lights as he finally tasted blood, real blood, sweeter and hotter and more beautiful than even his wildest dreams, flooding his tongue, melting into an orgasm of teeth on bone, the faraway music of Lloyd's second scream.

He got that one instant of ecstasy before a missile struck them both.

The Samurai X mech stood frozen in the firing position for a moment, Nya's hands quivering on the controls. Then she reanimated, throwing herself to Lloyd's side.

"Lloyd, no! Oh my god no, please be alive, please—"

He was breathing. Out cold, his gi singed, his leg covered in blood, but breathing. Nya trembled in a mixture of shock and self-loathing. She'd panicked; she had arrived just in time to see Nash sinking his teeth into her little brother's leg, and she'd panicked. Nash was lying fifteen feet away—if he hadn't opened his jaws on impact Lloyd's leg would probably have been with him. It was a pure miracle the missile hadn't just straight-up killed Lloyd.

Not that he was out of the woods yet. Glancing to Nash's motionless form, Nya gave a despairing hiss and activated one of the small flamethrowers built into the X mech's arm. It was definitely not the ideal treatment, but she had to cauterize this leg wound before Lloyd ended up like Cole, almost bleeding out. Before she could let herself think too much about what she was doing, she dashed the flame back and forth over Lloyd's bite marks, searing them shut.

"Sorry Lloyd," she whispered, pulling back the flame the second she thought she could get away with it. There was still some oozing, but it shouldn't be immediately life-threatening. As Nya lowered the mech's arm and tried to settle her lurching stomach, a realization finally muscled its way to the front of her mind: that had been a Venomari bite. She could stop the bleeding all she wanted, Lloyd was dead anyway.

Before the jolt of that realization had fully passed, a reptilian form slammed into the X mech's shoulder. The battle was starting to take more toll on Nash than he liked, and he knew the time for messing around was over. He also knew his chances against a giant missile-equipped mech suit were . . . actually not entirely certain. But lastly, he knew the mech's weak spots. Now to just get to them.

He scrabbled for the mech's cockpit, reaching for his gun, then swore when he realized he no longer had it. It must have flown from his hand when the missile hit. Well, but he had other options—

—The half-second of hesitation caught up to him. Nya snatched him in one metal claw and pitched him at a wall. Twisting midair, he hit the brick with all fours and bounded off, leaping to the asphalt and tracing a broad circle around the whirling mech. Dammit, apparently he'd need to approach for a second round . . .

By now he was frankly running for his life. His motions were still calm and calculated, but they were directed more towards escaping than attacking. The mech's grinding metal seemed to be everywhere at once, giant claws raking and snatching, feet trampling dangerously close. It had surprising agility for something so bulky—it got too close more times than he liked to admit.

Finally he got an opening. Latching onto the mech's elbow, he let the momentum of the swinging arm throw him onto the shoulder again. Nya swiped, but he was expecting it this time. Worming his way around the grasping metallic hands, he curled himself over the cockpit and blew the last of his venom into Nya's face.

He had a lot to get past. The cockpit of the mech had metal bars across the front, and Nya was wearing the usual half-mask over her mouth. But her eyes, unfortunately, were still exposed, and the venom found its mark.

At the same time Nya found hers: one of the mech's hands closed around Nash again and smashed him into the asphalt. He convulsed, stunned, then rolled frantically and scrambled out of the way as one of the mech feet came slamming down, its deadly weight barely missing him. It was the last sane thing Nya managed before her eyes clouded with green and the mech went slack.


Meanwhile, Jay was one block away, his feet pounding the asphalt and his heart roaring in his ears. He had been stationed the farthest from Zane's flare. A sick terrified part of him knew he'd probably be among the last to join the battle. He'd already heard gunshots and missile fire ringing up ahead.

His mental state right now was not the greatest.

Kai came bursting out from a side street, matching his pace. They didn't exchange words or even a real glance; they just continued the final dash to the alleyway where they could still hear metal groaning.

They both froze at the entrance, petrified. For a second Jay thought he'd fallen asleep again and entered one of his most lavish nightmares. The alleyway was charred, pockmarked, splattered with red, glinting with melting ice and fragments of Zane. The Nindroid's gutted remains lay off in one corner, Lloyd lay in a pool of blood in the other. The Samurai X mech was canted crazily to one side, twitching.

In the midst of it all stood Nash, god of all this horror. His eyes glowed hot yellow against a slick crimson coat, pulses of thick liquid still sloshing from his various scrapes and slashes. One of his feet was missing. A broad swathe of his scales was singed black, peeling and crumbling to show patches of oozing pink flesh underneath. One arm hung twisted at his side, clearly broken.

He was standing nonchalantly on his one foot and one stub, loading a gun.

Jay reeled for a second, feeling flashes of hot and cold rush over him. For a few deranged moments he was convinced this snake really was immortal; this had to be a walking corpse. Beside him he heard Kai sucking in his breath, equally shaken.

Nash noted their presence. He looked up, gave them a placid smile, and swung up his gun to fire into the Samurai X's cockpit.

"NO!"

The X mech jerked and crashed over onto its side. Jay's hot and cold pulses shattered into a howling emptiness, at the center of which quivered an all-consuming compulsion to kill. He shot Nya. He shot Nya.

Nash knew his limits. He whirled aside and bounded frankly on all fours as matching floods of fire and lightning roared across the spot where he'd just stood. Swerving around the downed Samurai X mech, he leaped across the alleyway and stood straddling Lloyd, one hand on the green ninja's shoulder to channel any lightning strikes. With a smirk he met Jay and Kai's eyes again. What now?

Kai and Jay glanced at each other, then drew their weapons and charged. Maybe he could use their little brother's body as a shield from elements, but they still had ways to make him regret everything.

"Ah, ah!" Nash was unruffled. He pulled out the handgun he'd used on Nya, then leveled it at Lloyd's head. Kai and Jay came up short, eyes wide.

"Listen, kiddos," said Nash. He actually sounded rather out of breath. "He ain't dead. Yet."

They stood, motionless.

"Drop the weapons," said Nash. Jay swallowed, but complied. Kai began to obey as well, but hesitated mid-motion.

"How do we know you won't shoot anyway?" he said hoarsely.

"Ya don't." Nash's finger tightened on the trigger. "But what do you think the odds are if you don't drop it?"

Jay heard Kai's teeth crunching against each other. Still, he held out his arm and let his katana clatter to the asphalt.

"Good." Nash casually flicked the gun's safety on, then right back off again, toying with them. He studied the two ninja waiting silently for him to remove his aim from Lloyd. Eventually he gave a frustrated laugh.

"Damn, you take the fun out of it, Red Shogun. You know me too well."

Jay felt his stomach dropping out as Nash's finger once again tightened on the trigger—but then the second missile came along. This one was better managed, it actually didn't catch Lloyd this time.

"What the—" Kai and Jay stood frozen, registering that Nash had been standing here just a moment ago, but was now twitching in a cloud of brick rubble and dust at the end of the alley. Then they whirled to see where the missile had come from. Nya was sprawled back against the downed X mech, looking deeply inebriated and holding a detached lever in one hand. From the looks of it, she'd ripped the missile control switch clean off.

"Nya!"

"You're alive!"

They both bounded over. Nya blinked at them with hazy green eyes, then shuddered and hurled the lever at Jay's head. He yelped and ducked.

"Oh no," groaned Kai, seeing Nya's venom-coated eyes. "Worst possible time . . . "

Meanwhile Nya drew her sword and charged unsteadily in Kai's direction, evidently seeing who-knows-what in Kai's place.

"Sis, no. Sis, don't." Kai backed away helplessly—his katana was still lying halfway down the alley. "Hey. Nya! Snap out of it!"

"Can she snap out of it?" asked Jay, panicky.

"No, probably no, but do you have any better ide—"

"Look out!"

Nash had recovered, and was sailing for Nya, jaws wide. Jay hurled a desperate arc of lightning, but missed. At the very last second Kai lunged and pushed Nya out of the way. She stumbled backwards, while Nash rammed into Kai instead and drove them both to the ground, rolling across the alley in a tangle of red and leathery green.

"Kai! No!" Jay came up short, helpless strands of lightning crackling around his raised hands. He couldn't use his element now, it would channel into Kai as well. He couldn't move fast enough to intervene physically. He was about to see Kai get eviscerated, and there was nothing he could do.

The tangle ended with Nash on top. He braced his clawed hands wide and heaved himself off Kai's chest, blood and saliva arcing from his muzzle and splattering across Kai's face. As his three eyes locked onto Kai's two, a unique brand of hatred sparked between them. Jay waited for the snake's jaws to open and engulf Kai's head.

Unexpectedly, Nash dug his fists into Kai's shirt, hauled himself up the rest of the way, and hurled him across the alley. The red ninja rolled and caught himself on three points, completely unharmed. Jay didn't have time to question why Nash would do that; the snake was already heading for Nya again. And now that he was no longer in contact with someone Jay didn't want to electrocute—

Meanwhile Nya was still incapacitated. As Jay charged, lightning blazing, she attempted to lurch over and join the fight. Kai had been going to help Jay, but he rapidly detoured when he caught sight of her.

"Sis, no, I mean it. Back off. You're gonna get killed." He grabbed her arm desperately as she tried to shoulder past him. "Nya! Listen to me!"

She didn't respond to her name. When he shook her she gave a gutteral growl and turned on him instead. Biting out a steady stream of curses under his breath, Kai backed away, dodging her clumsy blows. Occasionally he had to dodge a stray arc of lightning for good measure. Jay was fighting Nash alone over there, he needed help, instead Kai was over here trying to keep Nya from killing herself and him in a venom-crazed fury—

—No, seriously. They couldn't afford this. With a miserable growl, Kai lunged, ducked under Nya's drunken haymaker, and slammed his fist into the chin of her mask. She wavered, then buckled. Kai caught her and lowered her to the ground.

"Sorry Nya," he murmured, as he dragged her back to the mech for a little shelter. "You've done enough already, promise . . . "

Nya's head lolled, her helmet loose from Kai's punch. As he adjusted his hold on her, the helmet slipped off entirely, clattering to the ground. Kai glanced up at the sound, then froze. Something was lodged in Nya's shoulder, perfectly aimed into the seam between the helmet and the armor. It didn't look like a bullet . . . it had little metal tailfins.

Throat tight, Kai pulled it out. It was a venom dart, like the ones from Base Zero. It was empty, except for a final drop of lurid green venom oozing from its tip.

"Nya!"

Jay faltered mid-battle. The shout hadn't been that loud, but something about it pierced straight through to him. Instinctively he knew something was terribly wrong.

Nash wasn't prone to such hesitations. The instant Jay stopped hounding him with lightning strikes, he whipped up his gun and fired. Jay fell back with a yelp as something bit into his side. Even as it happened, though, he subconsciously felt like that was anticlimactic, he'd thought a bullet to the gut would hurt more . . .

He reached to the site and felt metal. Slowly he began to realize what it was that was terribly wrong.

The venom dart he pulled out was still full. Like Zane had said almost two miserable weeks ago, they didn't discharge every time. Jay forgot to be relieved; he was registering why Nya hadn't had a bullet wound and why Kai had screamed.

Meanwhile Nash wasn't exactly setting out a picnic. When he saw this shot had failed, he fired again. This dart didn't even make it to Jay—the canister exploded on firing, sending a cone of glittering glass shards spewing from the gun's muzzle. Jay started out of his shock as a shower of the shrapnel reached him, taking tiny slashing bites out of his skin.

Now he was still not injected, but back in reality and ready to fight. Nash lost patience. Ripping the final venom dart out of the magazine, he threw aside the gun and launched himself at Jay. Mid-leap he was caught in a wash of electricity, but it was too late to break his momentum. Slamming into Jay, he turned the dart sideways and smashed the canister against the blue ninja's head.

Jay cried out inadvertantly, his lightning flickering out. Mixed with the pain of glass slicing his scalp and crunching against his skull, he felt near-simultaneous gushes of sticky warm and sticky cold. Blood and venom. Mixing.

Before he could do anything else, Nash's claws were digging into his chest. He kicked out—too late—his back was already slamming against a wall. Alternating floods of darkness and colorful light exploded across his vision as his head cracked against the brick.

Everything went foggy. He slid to the ground, his legs unresponsive, groping for support that wasn't there. Somewhere through the roar of static invading his battered brain, he could still hear a faint note of panic. He couldn't lie still like this. Nash was standing right over him. He had to move. He had to fight.

The lightning wouldn't come. Dizzily he reached up to the burning patch on the side of his head, as if he could rub it away and his consciousness would suddenly return. Glass bit his palm, and as he pulled it down to look at it, through swimming vision, he saw mingling dribbles of green and red. So. He was going to die, then.

Then a second blow exploded next to his ear, and everything went dark.