AN: Sorry for the long break between chapters, all! Hope you enjoy this one!
"This would be so much easier if we had Master Wu," Lloyd sighed, putting down the stack of papers he had been looking through from Wu's old records.
Jay laughed. "Yeah, because all that would happen is he'd say 'there's something I haven't told you yet,' and then he'd tell us what to do and we'd do it and it'd be done. Easy!"
"But we don't have Master Wu," Nya reminded them, leaning further back in her chair. "So we'll have to do it all ourselves."
"Should we read the note again?" Cole asked, looking over to where the note from the mysterious figure sat in front of Jay and Zane. "Could that help?"
Kai shrugged. "I mean, I don't think it could hurt."
"Okay, cool, pass it over, Kai," Cole said.
Kai gave Cole an unimpressed look. "I can't reach it. It's over by Jay."
Cole paused and turned to face Jay. "Right. Right, yeah, okay, wrong bodies, got it. Pass it over, Jay."
Jay slid the note down the table, saying, "Sure thing."
"'Dear Kai and Jay,'" Cole read aloud. "'This meant as a lesson to you, I hope this somewhat spirited mystery of how you ended up like this and how you might go back will bring you closer together. When you know, you'll know.' And the name, Emos, all capitalized for some reason, like they think they're important."
"It doesn't make any more sense than the first time we read it," Jay sighed, propping his chin up in one hand.
"Would you attempt talking us through what happened again?" Zane asked. "While avoiding coughing as much as possible, of course."
"We can try," Kai said. "We chased the guy with the evidence down, but by the time we found him, he was already tied upside down to a lamp pole."
"We tried to figure out what happened," Jay added.
"And then-" Kai began, and he broke down coughing.
Lloyd patted him on the back. "Don't forget to breathe."
"Wow, thanks for the advice," Kai wheezed.
Jay picked up the story, carefully phrasing his words and gesturing at Kai. "And then a bunch of words were said, not all from us, some from somebody else entirely, and somebody got kind of feisty."
"And somebody else didn't help at all," Kai shot back.
"And the first somebody was useless," Jay said. "And didn't stop the second somebody from passing out."
"Because the first somebody was passing out too!" Kai protested.
"How about we focus less on the two somebodies passing out and more than the somebody else entirely?" Cole suggested.
"That's the hardest part to talk about, though," Kai complained. "We'll cough so much."
"What if you aren't the ones to talk, then?" Cole asked.
"That is an excellent idea," Zane said. "We can ask questions, and you can respond by nodding or shaking your heads."
"We can try it," Jay agreed.
"Was the somebody else someone we knew?" Cole asked.
Jay and Kai looked at each other, then they both shook their heads.
"Didn't think so," Cole said.
"Did you see the somebody else?" Nya asked.
Jay and Kai shook their heads.
"But you did hear the somebody else," Zane checked.
Jay and Kai nodded.
"What did the somebody else sound like?" Lloyd asked.
"Like a-" Jay started before starting to choke on his words.
"Right, sorry, questions that can answered without words," Lloyd said. "Um, did the somebody else sound like a guy?"
Kai hesitated as Jay coughed loudly.
"A girl?" Lloyd asked.
Kai still hesitated.
"Maybe a-" Lloyd began.
Kai held up both hands at his sides.
"You couldn't tell," Nya checked.
Kai nodded.
"But it did say-" Jay began as his coughing stopped, then his coughing started up again even louder.
"Something," Kai finished. "Something weird."
"Something about what?" Lloyd asked, then he quickly added, "Sorry, um, something about being a man?"
Kai nodded then shook his head.
"I don't know what that means," Lloyd admitted. "Yes then no?"
"We'll have to keep trying," Nya said.
"Something about being a child?" Zane asked. "Male, but not a man?"
Kai shook his head. He paused, then he nodded, then he pointed at Zane and shook his head again.
"Something about me? Or not about me?" Zane asked, sounding confused.
Now finished coughing, Jay nodded eagerly. He pointed at Zane too, then he paused and pointed at Cole and shook his head.
"Something about Zane, but not something about Cole," Lloyd said slowly.
Jay stood and leaned toward Zane, poking him in the torso. Then Jay leaned back and swept an arm out from his own chest. He walked over to Cole and poked Cole in the forehead.
"Hey!" Cole complained, shoving Jay away. "Right in the scar, you jerk!"
"Exactly," Jay said. "Exactly there."
"Oooh," Lloyd said. "I think I get it."
"You do?" Kai asked.
"Something kind of like Zane, but not like Cole," Lloyd said. He mimicked Jay's arm movement from before, sweeping a hand out from his chest. "Zane, do this."
Zane blinked at him for a moment but then did as he was told, bringing an arm to his chest and then sweeping that arm out in front of him.
"When Zane does that, what does it make you think of?" Lloyd asked.
Nya sat up straighter. "Oh! Zane, that's the door to your chest panel! Right?"
"Yes!" Jay cheered.
"And then when he poked Cole, where did he poked him?" Lloyd asked.
"In the scar," Cole said, scowling.
"In the post-ghost scar," Lloyd pointed out. "Jay poked the two of us who aren't or weren't human. And what's another way of putting that?"
"Not a man," Cole realized. "So we might be facing somebody else entirely."
"There are quite a few options in that case," Zane said. "Cole, may I see the note? Perhaps our mysterious figure left a clue there to their form or identity."
Cole passed the note down the table and continued speaking, saying, "So we've got Serpentine, nindroids, ghosts…"
"And we've got the name," Nya said. "Emos. What form of person uses that as a name? It doesn't sound very Serpentine to me."
"Not really," Lloyd said. "Familiar, somehow, but not Serpentine."
"And it doesn't sound particularly like a nindroid name, either," Nya said.
"So then…" Kai said, trailing off and gesturing toward Cole emphatically.
"Ghost, maybe?" Cole asked. "It would explain why Kai and Jay didn't see them."
"And maybe it would explain how Kai and Jay got switched," Nya said. "Ghosts sometimes have strange abilities."
"But still, being a ghost would mean they were alive once, so they'd still be some form of person originally. And what kind of a name is Emos?" Lloyd wondered.
"Says the guy named Lloyd Garmadon," Kai whispered.
Lloyd valiantly ignored him. "Emos. I mean, it's familiar to me for some reason, but it makes a pretty weird name."
Zane looked up from the note. "That may be because it does not make a name at all."
"That's rude," Lloyd said. "Just because somebody's name is strange doesn't mean it's not a name at all."
"Says the guy named Lloyd Garmadon," Kai whispered again, then he yelped and ducked as this time Lloyd did not ignore him but instead shot a ball of energy in his general direction.
"I am not saying it is not a name because it is strange," Zane said. "I am saying it is not a name because it is not a name at all."
"Well, yeah, it's a clue too," Jay said.
"I think Zane means something other than that," Nya said slowly. "What are you getting at, Zane?"
Zane set the note down. "It is an acronym."
"A what?" Kai asked.
"An acronym," Zane repeated. "A series of letters standing for a series of words."
"And how do you know that?" Jay asked.
Zane pushed the note out in front of him. "Look. Throughout the note, the capitalization is consistent. The first letter of the first word of each sentence is capitalized, and the word 'I' is capitalized, but the rest of the letters in the note are not, which holds up with grammatical rules. However, there are three exceptions."
"Kai's name, Jay's name, and Emos," Lloyd said, looking at the note.
"Precisely," Zane said. "The first letter of Kai's name is capitalized, even though it does not begin a sentence, as it is a name. The same is true for the first letter of Jay's name."
"But Emos isn't like that," Nya realized. "It's in all caps."
"Which is inconsistent if it is a name," Zane said. "However, if it is an acronym…"
"It makes perfect sense," Nya finished.
"So what kind of things make an acronym like EMOS?" Cole asked.
"Erasable Metal-Oxide Semiconductors," Jay offered. "They're used to reset sensors in some devices because they've got special electronic properties."
"I don't think that's how someone would sign a note," Kai said.
"Unless they were referring to resetting us to-" Jay said before coughing loudly.
"Resetting you two to your normal minds and bodies," Lloyd said. "Maybe?"
"Or it could mean Equipment Management Operations System, or Emergency Management Operations System," Nya said slowly. "But, like Kai said, I don't think that's how someone would sign a note."
"What would someone sign a note as, then?" Cole asked. "I mean-"
Lloyd groaned loudly, interrupting Cole. "Oh man. Oooh man."
"What?" Cole asked.
"I know why the name EMOS seemed familiar," Lloyd said. "Because it wasn't familiar."
"That makes zero sense," Jay said.
"But things like it are familiar," Lloyd said. "In some of Master Wu's notes, when he was first training me to be the Green Ninja, he showed me something similar. EMOE. EMOL. EMOI. EMOF. EMOE again. EMOW."
"And that still makes zero sense," Jay said.
"It should make sense, though," Lloyd said. "Because it's us. Like, EMOW, that's Nya."
"EMOW is me?" Nya asked.
"You're the elemental master of water, aren't you?" Lloyd asked.
"Yeah, and-" Nya began, then she gasped. "Oh! EMOW! Elemental Master Of Water. I'm EMOW! That's me!"
"EMOE," Lloyd said, pointing at Cole, then moving his hand around to motion to each of them in turn. "EMOL, EMOI, EMOF, and I'm another EMOE. It's not a perfect system, because there are many elements and a lot that overlap, but it's a system that's been in use for a really really long time. It used to be a way of showing skill and community and stuff, but it's kind of faded out of use."
"So when this note says EMOS…" Jay said slowly.
"It could mean a couple of things," Lloyd said. "Remember the Tournament of Elements? Griffin Turner was the elemental master of speed, Ash was smoke, Jacob was sound, and Shade was shadow."
"I don't think any of them would or even could do this, though," Cole said.
"But the elemental masters who showed up to the Tournament were not all there are," Zane realized. "They were only the ones Chen required for his spell."
"There's plenty of other elements," Lloyd agreed. "Luck, for example. And dreams, and ones like that. But I'm thinking of a certain element in particular, an element that's been mysteriously missing for a while."
"What element?" Jay and Kai asked at the same time.
Lloyd pointed at the note. "Read it again."
Jay and Kai reached for the note, but Cole grabbed it first and read, "This meant as a lesson to you, I hope this somewhat spirited mystery of how you ended up like this and how you might go back will bring you closer together. When you know, you'll know. EMOS."
"What did you hear in there that sounds like an element?" Lloyd asked.
"I believe I see now," Zane said. "The note was in fact multiple clues all along."
"And now we know," Lloyd said.
"What element?" Jay asked again.
"Yeah, and who's got it?" Kai asked.
Lloyd grinned. "We're up against EMOS, the Elemental Master of Spirit."