Review Replies:
StoriesAreMagic: Glad I caught you by surprise!
Anonymous7: Yay! I like riddles too, but I'm almost never able to solve them on my own ::P As for everyone being safe... yeah, not so much.
TheAmberShadow: Yeah, that's where I got the idea from. And I suppose so, yes. They did that because they're evil bastards. Yeah, the 'exchange' had always been a trap. And oooo, you're so close! As for the Magnus/Ellie theory, I'm not too sure about it. I mean, they poofed and everything. Although it's certainly interesting.
Loki God of Evil: Heh, we share the same likings, my friend.
Nagasha: I hope you like everything else as much as you've been liking the previous chapters. Thanks so much!
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Trigger
Nya was silent as they turned down another corridor. It was dark again, and the little spark of electricity between Jay's thumb and index finger were providing very little light. If only Kai had been able to join them.
"I hope the others are okay," said Cole, leaving the silence to shatter into a million shards. Jay hummed in agreement.
"Lloyd's got Seamus with him," Nya reassured, "And Zane's got PIXAL. So at least they're not alone."
"And Kai's safe on the Bounty with Sensei and Misako," Jay added, "So at least none of us are alone."
Cole smiled, but it faltered and fell off his face. Nya sent him a worried glance.
"What's wrong?"
The earth master shook his head, "Nothing, it's just... Echo's alone."
A beat of silence followed the statement. Jay's shoulders slumped, his eyes not leaving the ground. Nya gave a mental sigh. Of course he'd still blame himself.
"Well, he won't be alone for long," she said, "We're going to find him, bring him home and forget any of this ever happened."
"I'm not sure it's going to be that simple, Nya," said Cole sadly, "You... you didn't see the video."
Jay sighed, "I should've brought my tools."
"Echo will be fine," Nya said firmly, trying to convince herself just as much as she was trying to convince them, "They wouldn't have killed him," she faltered, "... Right?"
Jay and Cole shared a look, but neither answered. The silence that came over them wasn't awkward, but it was tense, leaving them to fiddle about in their own minds, imagination taking them way to the worst scenarios they could come up with. Jay, perhaps unconsciously, reached out and wrapped his fingers around Nya's.
"Oh, you're joking," Cole groaned, once more breaking the silence. He came to a stop, glaring at the writing on the wall. Jay and Nya stopped a few steps ahead, then back tracked to stand next to him.
"Should we just keep going?" Nya asked, "These things don't seem to be leading us anyway."
"I've got a theory, actually," said Jay, "That the labyrinth is like a series of rings. There's the outer ring, the one we'd entered from the staircase, and with every riddle or puzzle, we go into the next ring, closer to the centre."
"Okay," said Cole, slowly, "Then how many rings do we have to go through."
Jay faltered, "That's, uh... I don't know."
"We'll just have to give it a try," said Nya, grimly, "What's it say?"
"Uh..." Cole squinted, taking a small step closer to the wall, "'I break the bones of the feeble. I enrage the heart of the vengeful. I'm a canvas of friendly masks and blatant lies.' Oh, Jesus Cracker."
"Okay, well," Jay scratched at the back of his neck, "It's, uh, a canvas, right? So a painting?"
Nya shook her head, "A work of art?"
"An art form!" Cole exclaimed, "Something that might be considered an art."
Jay blinked, "What?"
"Like Ninjitsu," Nya explained, "That's an art form. Or a dancer."
"But there're millions of things like that," Jay pointed out.
"We'll just have to narrow it down," said Cole, gesturing to the riddle on the wall, "What kind of art form involves masks and lies?"
"Ummm..." Nya tapped her bottom lip, "A mercenary?" she suggested, "Like Ronin?"
"Break the bones of the feeble," muttered Jay, "Enrage the heart of the vengeful... so it can hurt someone."
"And the lies are blatant," said Nya, "So it would be right under their nose."
"But one would be too dumb to see it," Cole crossed his arms, brow furrowed, "Like, uh... like a pirate?"
"A pirate?" echoed Nya. She would have expected the response from Jay.
Cole shrugged, "Yeah, you know. They steal, they lie, they get their way."
They turned to look at the wall hopefully. It didn't budge.
Nya sighed, "Okay, let's just keep- wait," her head shot up, eyes widening, and she spun to face the wall again, "Betrayal!"
Her voice bounced off the walls. There was a moment where nothing happened, her voice slowly fading in the dark corridor. Then, with the groan of rusted gears, the wall began to sperate.
"Yes!" exclaimed Jay, throwing a victorious fist in the air, "Let's get-"
His own scream cut him off. Cole and Nya spun around, startled, mouths opening and eyes wide as they spotted the newly made hole in the floor. Then Cole fell with a scream of his own, down a hole that hadn't been there before. Nya yelled, scrambling away. The floor vanished beneath her.
She fell.
Zane placed the smallest ring at the top. The door behind him clicked open.
Smiling, he checked his phone to see if anyone had answered his message. Nya had said that everything was going fine so far, but he'd texted them fifteen minutes ago and still had no reply from Lloyd. His smile fell, and he tucked his phone away, making sure to put it on high volume so he'd know immediately when someone answered.
He turned to face it, quickly making his way over. His frowned deepened upon tugging at the handle, only to discover it was still locked. Spotting the words engraved into the metal, he sighed.
"'If you yell," read PIXAL, "I'll yell too. If you whisper, I'll whisper back. But if you ask a question, I will not answer.' Hm. Curious."
Zane gave a nod of agreement, standing back to get a better view of the door's riddle. He would have possibly enjoyed all these riddles and puzzles and games, had his siblings and his own life not been in danger.
"A copycat?" Zane tried. The door didn't budge.
"Perhaps something like it," said PIXAL, "But what?"
A silence stretched on, Zane regarding the door with a frown. Why did it have to be riddles and puzzles and complicated things? Why did they have to take his Echo in the first place?
Why couldn't they have just taken him?
"Wait," Zane straightened, "Is it an echo?"
The door almost seemed to pause. Then there was a click of a lock, and the door swung open gently. Zane gave a relieved sigh and quickly made his way out into the new corridor.
"You were thinking about him."
Zane gave a small shrug, but no proper answer. PIXAL didn't speak for a long moment.
"He's going to be okay."
"Of course he is," said Zane, eyes starting to glow again as he activated his night vision. This corridor almost seemed darker than the last ones. "I'll make sure of it."
On his screen, PIXAL smiled, "As soon as-" her eyes widened, "Look out!"
Immediately, Zane spun on his heels, but he saw the net spinning towards him too late. It wrapped around his body, binding his arms and legs, and he fell to the uneven floor with a yell. Rocks dug into his mechanical spine, and not a moment after realising this did electricity shoot through his body.
A scream tore from his throat, raw and agonising, his limbs twitching and flaying uselessly. His eyes dulled, a ringing noise persisted in his ears. The electricity didn't stop, but kept zapping and zapping, leaving him twitching and screaming for what felt like hours but what could have only been seconds in reality.
His head snapped to the side as something solid connected with it. He didn't remember passing out.
Hands shoved him away, and he stumbled, almost falling to his hands and knees. Before he could regain himself, another pair of hands shoved him back to the first pair. He tripped, falling to the deck, mocking laughter erupting around him.
A scared sob forced its way out of Zane's throat, and this only seemed to make the skeletons laugh harder. The ship rocked back and forth against the waves, a storm brewing in the sky. The lighthouse had long since vanished on the horizon.
"Wha' ya doing, morons?" a rather menacing skeleton asked, pushing his way past the others to stand before the droid. Raising an unimpressed eye ridge, he looked about at the other skeletons and spoke to them as though he were a teacher telling young children that recess was almost over, "Alrigh', throw tha dumb bot in tha storage unit and ge' ba' to work!"
Hastily, the skeletons scrambled to obey. Two grabbed him around the arms and hauled him through a door and down a flight of stairs into what could only be the cellar.
Zane twisted in their grasp, sobbing, but their grip was unrelenting. He was thrown to the ground, where he curled into a trembling ball and continued to cry.
"How is this," an armoured boot poked him in the lower back, "Supposed to help Lord Garmadon?"
"Uh... train it?"
"Maybe we can reprogram it or something."
Zane gave a wail at the suggestion, curling tighter into his ball as though to shield himself. One of the skeletons gave an annoyed sigh, kicking him sharply in the back of the head.
"Shut up, tin can."
"I don't think we should hurt him."
A snort, "Him? It's a bloody robot."
"Well," a pause, "It still feels pain."
"You growing a heart in that shell, bub?" a sharp sound, of bone tapping on a bone, "It's just a dumb robot. It's not like you and me."
"Don't tap my ribs!" the skeleton snapped. Zane heard him shoving his companion, the boards creaking beneath the others stumble. He curled up even tighter, whimpering.
"Don't shove me!" Another shove. The first skeleton stumbled this time, and then there was the clang of objects falling as it slammed into a shelf. Startled, Zane peeked out from his ball, eyes widening as he saw the two skeletons begin punching each other.
Trembling, he dragged himself away from the fight, wincing as one of the skeletons screamed when their arm was twisted. His back hit the wall and, out the round window on the side of the ship, just above the two skeleton's heads, he realised something white was falling from the sky.
Snow.
He'd only ever read about snow.
One of the skeletons picked the other up by the bones of their ribs and rammed them into the shelf. Pots, pans, baskets and other trinkets fell to the floor in a mess of clanging metal and shattering glass.
There was the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs. The two skeletons didn't seem to one that had been slammed against the shelf raised a knife and stabbed the other in the head, causing them to grunt, skull cracking and the blade sticking itself inside.
It jutted out of the skeleton's skull, but he didn't seem to notice that either. He grabbed the other skeleton by the bony throat and threw them across the room, their body slamming into the wall and falling alongside a painting.
The menacing skeleton from before appeared, a look of pure rage on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, probably yell at them, but he never got the chance. The skeleton that had been thrown against the wall scrambled to his feet and charged, head ramming right into the other one's stomach and barrelling them into the wall.
Only Zane noticed the clear liquid gushing out of the red tank. Only Zane noticed the skeleton's metal boots sparking against the wood as the other tried to push him off with his feet.
The menacing skeleton stomped towards them, yelling something Zane couldn't hear. He was on his feet, couldn't even remember standing up, reaching towards them with metallic fingers.
"Stop-!"
The skeleton's boot slipped in the spilt liquid, twisting at just the right angle. The spark ignited, and it was just enough for the liquid to light up in a blazing flame.
With identical yells, the three skeletons scrambled away from the sudden fire. Zane leapt forward, grabbing a blanket and throwing it over the flames before it could properly spread. The blanket lit up as well, but helped to smother it.
Zane looked up, eyes widening when a gun was pulled to his face. The menacing skeleton glared at him, teeth gritted, "What," he spat, "Did you do?"
"W-What?" Zane stuttered, hands beginning to shake. They were starting to heat up, the fire licking at his fingers. "I-I didn't-"
He didn't get to finish the sentence.
Because the skeleton pulled the trigger.
Trust me when I say that Echo being shot in the head has had some lasting... damage.
I would say more, but I accidentally closed the tab while writing this out so it all could deleted (which is very, very annoying) and my sister's pestering me to get off the PC so she can play it, so... yeah.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
There's one more flashback left to go.