Not even any warnings on this chapter, how d'ya like that?! That can't be a bad thing.


SpiritDragon: Admittedly, no, they are not. :/
It is disturbing! Kai's in shock. He's horrified by what he just did, and right now he's panicking that if he's capable of this, he must have crossed the line of no return and he's just gonna run around killing people without remorse now. He's having flashbacks of the stabbing because it traumatized him, but he's so convinced he's a monster, he thinks he must be re-experiencing the moment because he liked it. That and his brain is just kind of short-circuiting. Stable is not the word I'd use. :S
Can't get worse, can it?
. . . Can it?

Jens: Thanks for the review! Argh, I worry about their sanity myself. I gotta start easing up on these kids.
BINGO! Haha, glad someone caught that! Kai spent a lot of his life feeling like he's the cause of everything, good or bad
—probably from raising Nya and himself. Jay first introduced him to the idea that not everything happening in Kai's world is directly a result of Kai's actions. Kai took a lot of comfort in that, actually, and internalized it enough that he no longer snaps at the first suggestion that bad things are his fault. Jay prolly saved all their lives with that, go figure he was unconscious and didn't get to see it. :P
Yeah, it ain't fair, is it?
Oh man, that would be cool! If you do create an account, sling me a PM. ^_^
It has been years! I just found your first review somewhere around Chapter 64, my gosh. I think that was around January or February of 2017! It's so sweet of you to stick with this story for so long, I can't thank you enough. ^_^
As to Junior . . . how did you guess? :P

Fiiiyaaah: Even with Kai it took me 117 chapters to work him up to it. :/ You're probably right, most of the others would have had an even harder time than he did . . . When that desperate, though? Who knows. And Lloyd has the whole Cursed Realm spell thing going, and Mack already on his conscience. He'd actually have had an easier time of it than Kai. Sick as that is.
He is, tho. :S
Yikes, that's one I haven't heard before. Fair, though. Thanks for being honest. ^_^''
There used to be a schedule, very regularly once a week, but now I just post completely at random. I'm posting pretty much as I finish each chapter, and that can take a reeeeeeeally long time sometimes . . . Been pretty lively lately, though.
Thank you for the review!


Oct 22

1:49 AM

Status conditions: Hard to pin down just yet


Kai stabilized quickly. Overtly, anyway; Jay knew that on some level he'd never be fully stable again. Shaking Jay off, he clambered to his feet and limped over to check on Nya. Jay stumbled after him. He was getting more dizzy instead of less, and there was a screaming headache starting up on the same side Nash had hit.

"Look at this, look," said Kai quietly, pressing a finger to Nya's wrist. The pale bloodless spot he created rapidly turned pink again

"Is that good?" asked Jay. Kai nodded.

"They're gonna be okay?" Jay ventured. Kai leaned over to test Lloyd as well, then nodded again. Jay shuddered with relief and beamed over at him. By this point he was too far gone to care if it was through tears.

"Sh-should we go for help or something?" he asked.

"I don't want to leave them," said Kai. "Someone will come to check out all the noise eventually." He shook his head, disgusted. "All those gunshots and nobody's showed, let alone the police. Welcome to Ninjago City."

"I guess they're all still busy with the drug raids," said Jay.

Grunting, Kai got up again and went over to check Zane. He hissed when he got a better look at the extent of the damage.

"Jay . . . can you fix him?"

Feeling a rush of guilt at leaving the venom-proof Nindroid neglected, Jay hurried over to see. He gave a hiss matching Kai's.

"What?" Kai looked up sharply. "Is he too far gone?"

"No, no . . . " Jay fumbled gingerly through the mess of exposed machinery, trying to assess what was mangled or missing. "I don't think he's lost anything vital, it's just—it's gonna be hard. He's . . . kinda got pieces all over the place." Even as he talked he was beginning to cast about the alleyway, looking for scattered gears. "I gotta gather up all the pieces, as long as I get everything I can put it back in, it'll—it'll be okay."

He hoped.

Kai stood up to help, coming across Zane's detached arm. Grimacing, he set it delicately next to the Nindroid, as if handling amputated living flesh, and took stock of how badly mangled the other arm was as well.

"Sicko," he muttered.

"I know, r-right?" Jay spilled a double handful of gears into a pile next to Zane. He hesitated for a moment, picking up tiny scattered screws, then ventured to speak. "But I—i-it feels messed-up to say this, but . . . gosh. Good thing it was Zane. We can fix him good as new. C-could you imagine if Nash did this to any other one of us?"

Kai swore so abruptly and so violently that Jay nearly had a heart attack.

"This freaking Nindroid. He did that on purpose!"

"Wh-what?" stammered Jay, a little intimidated.

"I was trying to put Lloyd here! It looked so far away, I thought it would be the safest!" Kai was on his feet now, going in furious despairing circles. "And Zane made some stupid excuse about distance and fields of vision or whatever, he said only he could go in this spot—he knew Nash was going to come by here! He purposely put himself where he'd fight first and fight alone and get shredded so it wouldn't be one of us!"

"I . . . " Jay looked over the mangled remains of Zane and groaned. "Yeahhhhhh . . . sounds like Zane."

"What does he think he is, cannon fodder?" Kai was raging to the sky at the other end of the alley by now. "Freaking Nindroid! Golden Master all over again! Just gonna throw himself in the shredder, why doesn't he—"

Jay laughed shakily and tuned Kai's ranting out, putting a little extra tenderness into piling up Zane's battered fragments.

"We don't deserve ya, buddy," he murmured. "Nya and I are gonna fix you up perfect, okay?"


Jay wasn't keeping track of time very well, but it seemed pretty soon afterwards that the alleyway began to dance with red and blue lights. He looked up eagerly from gathering Zane's pieces.

"I hope they brought an ambulance!"

Kai was already heading resolutely to the mouth of the alley. He met the police halfway there, but they looked less at him and more at the carnage all over the place. Young Rookie was there, and he was the first to freeze, grab one of the other officer's elbows, and point silently to Nash's body.

One of the other cops stepped over to assess. His eyes widened in realization, then flicked up to search over Kai and Jay. Jay shivered unintentionally, while Kai set his teeth and pulled himself up straight.

"It was me," he said.

The officers had some kind of silent exchange with their eyes. At last the one examining Nash shrugged and stepped away, looking to Kai meaningfully.

"We didn't see anything."

"Wh-what?" Kai started. "You—you can't just—I killed him—"

"Kiddo." The officer was staring pointedly off into the distance now. "C'mon now."

"But—" Kai scrabbled, then looked up to the officer with helpless eyes. " . . . Why?"

He shrugged, giving Kai a sympathetic look.

"Listen. Nobody's going to regret that he's dead. He was one of Ninjago's most wanted; we've been trying to catch him for years. You've done us a favor. Now let us do you a favor, and save you from standing in front of a judge for a couple hundred hours explaining why this was self-defense. The end result's gonna be the same either way—you won't be held accountable."

"But I—I should be held accountable—"

"Kiddo." The officer groaned. "You got me, okay? I'm sorry, but this is for us too. Don't make us go up there and admit to Ninjago that we depend on literal children to kill our drug lords for us. We have a hard enough time keeping the roughs under control as it is."

Kai said nothing for a moment. Jay could see every fiber in his being resisting, could see the struggle playing out behind his eyes. He finally slumped and turned away, defeated—but somehow Jay knew that wasn't the end of it. Kai wasn't going to let this go.

"There we go." The officer patted Kai's shoulder and nodded to the others. "Hey. What can we do for your friends?"

Jay continued to shuffle around dizzily, hunting for Zane's pieces and surreptitiously watching as the police assessed Nya and Lloyd. He tried to overhear the low, anxious-sounding discussions they were having, but the voices were competing with flashes of the headache, so severe they nearly blinded him. His head was all fuzzy . . .

There were indeed ambulances nearby. With Kai's help, Nya and Lloyd were loaded in quickly. Satisfied that they would soon be getting care, Jay turned new attention to gathering the gears—or tried to. Every time he bent over to pick up some fragment of metal, he saw stars. The pain was getting so bad he couldn't see what he was doing, could barely force himself to crouch and search again—but he had to keep going. He was running on mindless adrenaline now. If he didn't find all the pieces he couldn't fix Zane, he had to fix Zane, if he didn't make it—

—Too late he regained lucidity, only to realize that he was already halfway into an ambulance. Guttering indignantly, he tried to pull away from the EMS techs guiding him. Somebody said something urgent, and some of the techs closed in and nudged him back, as if planning to redirect him or force him into the ambulance if he didn't go willingly. Instinctively he struggled harder. The heck was this? When did he agree to go to the hospital? Didn't these people get it, he had to help Zane—

Kai's blurry form appeared in front of him. Jay reached out to him hoping for help, but to his chagrin Kai gently pushed his hand back, indicating he should go with the techs.

"Zane—" croaked Jay.

"I know, buddy." Kai squeezed his wrist, trying to make eye contact with Jay's rapidly unfocusing eyes. "Don't worry, I've got it. It's okay."

"But I . . . "

"Go on, Jay. I'll gather him up real good, okay? I promise."

Jay hesitated, processing dizzily. At last he sighed in defeat and let himself be ushered into the ambulance's bleach-scented interior. He slumped onto the bench built into the wall, looking blearily at Nya's still, pale form strapped to a stretcher in front of him. Dazedly he reached out to stroke her hand. It hit him, for the first time, that it was over. It was actually over. Nash was gone. They could be safe. They were going to get help.

The adrenaline slowly drained away as the ambulance started, and a dull sort of peace washed over him. The minute he relaxed, though, the headache suddenly hit him full-force—and it was brutal. Maybe it was the headache, or maybe it was everything from the past three days catching up to him at once, or maybe it was really both. Either way, he later estimated that if he came back for another three whole lifetimes, he'd done about enough throwing up for all of them.


Silica: CAPSLOCK

Silica: OH MY GOD

Silica: the police scanner

Silica: we're taost

Silica: oh my god

Silica: BLUE IS DEAD