CHAPTER FOURTEEN- TWISTED FATES

NOW

Cole watched in silence as Jay patched up his bleeding arm.

They didn't exactly have a first aid kit at hand. So, Jay had ripped up Cole sleeves into strips, and had used those as makeshift bandages. Like in the movies! Jay had joked, trying to make Cole smile. Cole had.

"Does it hurt?" Jay dropped his hands from Cole's arm. He leaned back to get a better look at his handy work. "I'm not going to lie. It looked pretty gross."

"It's okay." Cole said, moving his arm slowly. He flexed his fingers. Open. Close. "It doesn't hurt too bad."

"Tough boy," Jay teased.

"I try." Cole smiled.

The expression faded quickly, as Cole's eyes drifted to the time machine. He couldn't begin to think of how things might be fixed. They were so far gone from normal, there was no clear path back.

But he didn't have to fix things alone. He had to remember that. Had to remember that Jay had, well, grown. A lot. Jay was no longer someone for Cole to protect. Jay was an equal. Someone that had his back.

Cole had always thought he was selfless. He never put himself first. He carried every burden. But what he'd never realized was that- that was all a little selfish, too. He'd never stopped to think that Jay might want to share the weight of things.

"I think I'll try to scout around the city." Cole said at last, looking back toward Jay. His hair, ruffled against the rising sun, had a soft glow. "Try to think of a plan. You can try and see if there's any way we can salvage the machine."

"Why do you get to go out?" Jay said. "I mean, not that I want to but-"

"Because," Cole said, as his body shimmered out of view. "Ghost."

"Oh. Yeah. Good point. Heh."

"I'll be back then. Be safe."

"Safe as a firefly on a summer night," Jay responded with some small nods of his head.

Cole rolled his eyes. "Whatever that means."

As Cole moved through what was left of OverCorp he became increasingly surprised at the fact that the building was somehow still standing. It was nothing short of a miracle that they both hadn't been crushed.

The thought brought with it a rush of anxiety. What if something happens when I'm gone? Maybe I should go back. Cole's steps slowed.

And do what? Hide in a broken building together? That's not going to help anyone.

Jay can take care of himself, Cole let out a slow breath, forcing himself to move a little faster. He reached the street, the morning sun almost blinding. Jay can take care of himself.

He repeated the words. The steady loop was pretty soothing.

Ninjago city was nothing like what Cole had grown up in. He recognized nothing. Nothing was as it should have been. Shops were shut, streets were empty. What could Krux and Acronix possibly get out of making the city like this?

Cole's feet automatically guided him to the park, where he and Jay had spotted the oversized factories. They were even more imposing in person, slanting menacingly over him.

Well, let's see what the dear old twins have done with their time, Cole rolled his eyes. Pun absolutely not intended.

Peeking through the windows, Cole saw the factory was mostly filled with assembly lines. Pieces moved through, stopping every so often to allow the workers to add or twist some of the parts. It looked senseless. Busy work.

Cole stepped back. Nothing helpful there. He began to walk around the buildings, spotting more than his fair share of armored vermillion warriors.

As he turned a corner, a house came into view. It was perfectly nestled in the center of the factories, looking very much out of place. Cole stepped closer. He had a feeling that the twins resided somewhere inside. But how to get in?

Cole looked around for a few seconds, before realizing that he was a ghost.

He stepped through the door as if it wasn't there. He then gave himself a disappointed sigh. Ugh. I'm such a dummy.

The house was oddly furnished. Cole moved through the halls, eyes moving through all the different artifacts that decorated the place. There was no rhyme or reason to where each thing was. The twins clearly did not care about the look of things.

All in all, the house was a minefield. If the twins got the slightest whiff of a threat, they could undoubtedly wipe him and Jay from the map without much effort. Cole shuddered.

"-thinking way too small. You've never stopped being stubborn and I don't know why I still listen to you."

Cole stopped.

"Why do you insist on continuing this research? You've learned nothing from the boy in years. Face it. It's all a big waste of time." Cole followed the voices, slipping into the room they originated from. "Technology was Dr. Gordon's downfall. You want it to be yours too? We don't need it. Progress will only strengthen our enemies."

Krux and Acronix stood on opposite ends of the room. Cole couldn't tell them apart. This time, they'd aged together.

"Progress will strengthen us, Krux." Acronix helpfully labeled his brother. He pointed forward. Cole followed the movement. A pair of gauntlets sat within a crystal box. "If we place the technology of time travel within us, we won't be held back by needing those things."

"And if things go wrong? And we lose everything?" Krux shook his head. "You've always had to leap too high. If it wasn't for me, you would have driven us to ruin long ago. We have everything. Ninjago is ours. Wu is gone. What more can there be?"

Acronix threw his arms up in the air, words of frustration tripping each other as they struggled to exit his lips. The result was a frustrated groan, followed by a quick shake of his head. "We can't lose. Not with all we have. But fine."

Krux shrugged. Acronix stomped out of the room. Cole moved closer to the gauntlets.

Bingo, he thought. If the time machine couldn't be fixed, they could probably use them to get back.

Satisfied with what he'd found, Cole decided it was time to head back. He couldn't take the gauntlets now, anyway. Not with Krux still hovering nearby.

A sudden, sharp pain dug itself against Cole's head.

Cole faltered, gritting his teeth to keep himself from making a sound. He watched as his hands, already visible to no one but himself, began to flicker in an out of sight. As if he- as if he was ceasing to exist.

The house around him disappeared, replaced by a pressing darkness. The darkness was then pierced by bright white light. Two. Headlights! Cole flinched as they rushed right into him. There was an explosion of pain he'd felt only once before. The crash. Two years ago.

Except this time, there was no connection to tug him back from death.

Hospital lights flashed in his vision. Voices and faces muddled together through a sheet of agony.

Slowly, reality settled back around him. Cole pressed his hands against his eyes, trying to breathe. He was laying on his back. His body was still that of a ghost, but he couldn't be sure if he'd made a sound or not.

He struggled, forcing his breathing to settle into a steady rhythm.

"Whatever that means."

"It means I'm not going anywhere. I'm not dumb you know. I mean, just because I made poor choices once or twice doesn't-" Jay squinted his eyes at the empty space where Cole had been. " . . . Cole?"

There was no other sound other than Jay's breathing. With a huff, he looked back down. "Sure. Leave a guy talking to himself, why don't you? At least I'm nice company. I wouldn't leave myself."

Because you literally can't, you dingbat.

"Shut up, me. We've got some focusing to do."

Easier said than done. There were so many questions dancing through his mind, about the world they were currently in. How had things turned out so badly? What had happened to the people he knew? Kai, Nya . . . Jay even wondered about Zane.

Time and time again, he found himself pacing over to the window. He had no desire to actually go out there (Trouble found him just fine. He didn't need to go and tempt it) but watching the streets gave him a bizarre fascination.

People never traveled alone. They also all seemed to wear the same type of clothes, a set of monochromatic grays spread over shirts, jeans, and shoes. There was a loud clock chiming somewhere in the city, but Jay couldn't see it.

Once the clock rang for the second time, Jay pushed himself away from the window. "Cole's sure taking his sweet time. I guess I better have something to show for it."

Jay plopped down in front of the time machine. "Okay. So how do you work?"

The pattern of cables wasn't too difficult to follow. Jay could easily imagine the things that could fill in the blanks. Problem was, he'd still have to program it properly. Without the right information shooting through those cables, it wouldn't really matter if the machine was able to turn on.

Jay let out a breath. It was time to be honest. He had no actual clue on how the machine worked. He might have been Dr. Gordon's child, but they didn't exactly share the same knowledge.

"What use is information forcefully implanted in your brain if you can't use it?" Jay shook his head. "I'm-"

Jay's words caught in his throat as the world gave a small spin. Suddenly nauseated, he pressed both hands against his eyes.

An array of unfamiliar memories flashed behind his eyelids. A brightly lid lab. Machines. Around him. Within him. Charts filled with facts and information that he could not read.

And lightning. Lots and lots of lightning.

"If we can figure out how Gordon made the kid tick- . . . the possibilities are endless."

"I know what the possibilities are. But you're not exactly getting anywhere."

"Yet!"

Jay shut his eyes tighter. More voices came, but they were garbled together, and he couldn't make them make sense. Then, in a sudden move that almost felt physical, silence fell around him.

Jay opened his eyes. For a moment, Jay saw two things at once. He could see the shapes of the broken building, but he could also see a bright white room. In a blink, everything returned to normal.

He shuddered, rubbing his arm to wash away the feeling of needles and restraints that the false memories had left.

If he had to guess, Jay would say the things he'd seen were all the things he'd lived through in this timeline. They'd felt so real. How long could two versions of himself co-exist in the same space? Jay didn't know. But he had no doubt that, ultimately, whoever he'd become here would wipe away who he was now.

The thought terrified him.

"Are you okay?"

Jay's head snapped up, blue eyes wide. "Cole! You took forever. Are you okay? You don't look too hot yourself."

"Just the arm," Cole said with a shrug. "What's the veredict on the time machine?"

"No way I'm fixing that thing. Even if we could gather the missing parts, I don't know that I'd be able to make it work right. Not without at least a few months. And that's being generous to my intellect."

"Well, I-"

Jay held up his hand, silencing Cole's words. "Wait. Before you tell me anything else . . . I think you're falling back on your bad lying habits again, Mister."

"What?"

"You saw memories, didn't you? Some that weren't yours?"

Cole shifted his eyes. "Something like that."

"So it's not your arm! It's that."

"My arm does hurt. And don't yell." Cole protested, dropping down on a slab of broken concrete across from Jay. "But yeah. It's maybe a little bit of what your said, too."

"I'm guessing that we're starting to merge with the people we are here. And if it's happening so soon, I'm guessing we don't have a month or two to fix the machine."

"Yeah. I'd rather stay as myself."

"Agreed." Jay nodded. He then turned to look at Cole with hopeful eyes. "So . . . what's he plan?"

"That's my line. You're the smart one." Cole protested.

"Oh, yeah? You're the secret agent." Jay shot back.

They each shot each other defiant looks, before simultaneously bursting into soft chuckles.

"We're really something else," Cole finally managed to say. He tightened the cloth around his arm.

"Power couple!" Jay said, in between giggles. "But really. Please come up with something. All I can think of is, well, we'll have to use whatever the time-crazy twins have been using."

"And yours truly knows exactly where that thing is. I found their place, that's what I wanted to tell you before. It's in between all those factories in the park. We could sneak in after dark."

"Sneak in is my middle name," Jay said, tossing small sparks into the air, proving the absolute opposite of his point. "We've got this whole thing in the bag, baby."

"Don't get too cocky." Cole warned. "The twins are still a threat. They can ruin our plans really easily. Don't forget, they've got time on their side."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Jay said, waving away Cole's concerns. "Come on, though. You've got to admit we're the best team."

"We need to be careful," Cole said. "But we are, without a doubt, the best team."

"Then let's do this!" Jay hopped up, finding that rushing blindly forward was the only way to outrun his what-if anxieties. He held his hand out in Cole's direction, palm out, demanding a high five.

Cole obliged. "Love the enthusiasm. But it's not exactly night yet. Relax, spark bug."

"Oh. Right. Yeah. I knew that."

Nightfall came a little too soon.

Jay had missed talking to Cole about nothing in particular. Before everything, one of Jay's favorite pastimes had been sitting with his boyfriend, spinning conversations with no end. One thing would always lead to another, and another- until they could no longer remember what had sparked the words to begin with.

With Cole's hand in Jay's own, and Cole's voice in his ear, even a dystopian future could sort of feel like home.

"As interesting as my mud-cake childhood recipe is, we should probably get going." Cole said, running his hand through Jay's hair. "Come on. We've got to get home."

"Get home. And deal with even more time twin shenanigans." Jay sighed. "The life of a hero is exhausting. I just want to cuddle. And take at least 7 naps."

"I've been thinking about that, actually."

" . . . Cuddling?"

"No," Cole said. "The twins back in our time. Your mo- Dr. Gordon mentioned a remote. Or something. To send us back, even after the machine is done with."

"Uh huh?"

"What if we used that to deal with all the threats Krux brought to the present? Without his little army, he's just a guy. And so is Acronix."

"It could work."

Cole nodded. "Not just that, but I've been thinking about Garmadon too."

"He is pretty handsome," Jay said, with a nod.

"Jay."

"Sorry."

"What I mean is, he said he'd had his eyes on me even before I could ghost in and out of existence. What if the reason for that is because he met us in the past?" Cole stood up. "So then . . .why don't we just give him a heads up? Ask him to help us in the future? If he sends help into Over-Corp, we could shut everything the twins have planned before they can even begin to guess we're a threat."

"That's . . . a good idea."

"Well, thank you." Cole smiled, holding out his hand to help Jay stand.

Together, they headed out of the building. The streets were completely empty. And dark. Most of the lights had been broken or simply burned out, leaving the city stuck in darkness. Jay took Cole's hand in his own.

Neither of them talked as they walked. Jay's eyes rushed around their surroundings, taking every sight, and comparing to the world he knew.

Once again he wondered about his friends. Then he wondered about his parents. Where had they ended up in a world like this? There had been no sign of them at all in the memories that had flashed through his mind earlier.

Who had he become, without their guidance?

"What if they know we're here?" Jay whispered, as they reached the house. Things had gone a little too smoothly, in Jay's opinion. The few guards they'd encountered had been easy to slip past. "I'm freaking out a little. Or a lot."

"We're close. We just need to hurry."

"Okay."

Jay let himself be guided forward. Cole opened the door to a room, letting the moonlight wash into it before stepping inside. He then gave a sigh of relief. "There they are."

"That's what they've been using?" Jay asked, stepping closer to a pair of gauntlets in a crystal box. In his curiosity, Jay forgot to be anxious. "It just looks like what Krux cut you with. How do they even work?"

"Not sure." Cole said, squinting at the crystal box. Jay wondered what he was looking for. "We'll just have to figure it out as we go."

"Yes, sir." Jay said, reaching out.

Before his hand could touch the glass, a voice came from behind them. It froze them on the spot, sending chills down Jay's spine. He knew it very well.

"Those don't belong to you."

It was his own.

Cole and Jay turned back to face the door. And there, coated in shadows, stood Jay himself. His skin was covered in Lichtenberg scars, eyes flashing in a dangerous blue.

"Step away." The voice of the other Jay was steely and heavy. "Or else."

With a twitch of his fingers, the other Jay made electricity swirl and wrap itself around his arms. Jay copied the gesture, standing in front of Cole in a protective manner.

"Well, you know what they say." Jay blew out a breath. "No time travel adventure is complete without having to fight yourself."