Oo I can't even handle all the reviews I suddenly have XD thanks so much for all the support, especially as this story comes to a close. This and the next chapter were going to be all inclusive, but for sake of flow I've split them into two parts. So sorry for the delay, but you'll have to wait for the last chapter XD Anyways, in regards to the sequel. I have decided to spread my rewriting party to The Queen Who Fell to Ashes, given the fact that it's basically been dead and looking at it there are a THOUSAND continuity errors that make me cry inside, so be prepared for the completely rebooted TQWFTA coming to you soon! :D

Anyway, enough announcements. I hope you enjoy :)

- Fell_and_Fallen -

It's hard to tell how much time passes before my eyes open again. Minutes, hours, days- time seems to blur together as I fade in and out of darkness and murky colors, grasping at consciousness with weak fingers that quickly slip backward into insentience. I stop trying, instead settling back against the cushion of blackness and regaining my strength.

Strange things whisper to me from the void, unsettling voices that brush against me and tug at my exhausted form. A thousand years seem to pass, filled with probing, prodding, unintelligible questions until I finally try to break free of the voices' pull. My stomach strains with pain and sour nausea as I struggle against their hold, fighting to pull my head above water. Something tries to tug me back down, to drag me back into the depths, but I plant my resolve and resist.

Breath explodes in my chest like a crashing car, crumpling my lungs and impaling my ribs with stabs of excruciating pain. I cough violently with a wild spatter of blood that scatters onto my already stain-smeared shirt. My ears pop painfully and sound returns in a brutal, slapping wall. Someone shouts nearby, their voice sounding a million miles away. As my eyes quickly scan my surroundings, I realize with a start that I'm lying in the center of a jagged, dark crater spread around me like an ugly scar. Something tumbles down the side of the crater and a bright-colored shape clatters toward me, scattering rock and dirt that aggravates my lungs into another excruciating coughing fit. My vision blurs as warm hands grasp at my arms and help me sit up despite the agony that wracks my entire body like a freight train.

"-sh, can you he-ar me?"

I struggle to focus on the face above me, blinking until I can make out Kai's familiar, concerned gaze. I try to nod, but my throat is swollen and pulsing with a thousand deep-set bruises and welts. I cough again, spattering blood on my already reddened arms.

Kai struggles to help me straighten up. He looks at me with a stunned grimace. "What did he do to you?"

More shapes move into the light overhead, blistering to look at as painful sunlight sears into my eyes. I shift my gaze, cringing as every muscle in my body twists back. Someone shouts, "You found her?"

Kai's grip shifts on me to wave to the others. The movement crunches my shoulder in its joint, and a strangled scream warbles from my throat. He quickly readjusts. "Down here!"

The other shapes join us, solidifying into the other ninja. They look like they've been through hell. Their faces are painted with scratches and nasty bruises that have barely started to heal, forming mottled patterns against their skin. Zane is missing half a sleeve, Jay favors his left foot, Cole's hair is wild and tangled with who-knows-what-

A barely perceptible chuckle shudders through my chest, setting off another agonizing coughing fit. If they're in such bad shape, I wonder how I must look.

Jay's eyes widen. "Holy sh-"

"Nice to see you too," my voice is strangled as another chuckle rattles my throat, and I barely stop the well-up of blood to my mouth. My lips are numb with blistering cuts, but I manage a tight-lipped smile that no one returns. "How are you?"

"Fine," Cole shakes his head. "Sensei's helping people snap out of the spell. Lloyd's fine, and Nya's trying to get the ship back under control. The giant robot kind of just disappeared."

"Good that everyone's okay," I cringe as each word crawls its way from my mouth. Cole's eyes harden.

"We have to get you back to the Bounty," he says as he drops beside me with the most serious look I've ever seen him muster. He gently grasps my arm and a gurgled scream slips between my lips. He pauses as his gaze falls to my mangled shoulder.

"Looks dislocated," he mutters half to himself. He holds my hand gently. "Sorry, Ash. This is going to hurt." He grimaces. "A lot."

"Can't be worse than-" I cut off with a wild shriek as Cole shifts my arm, snapping my shoulder back into place with an agonizing crack. Zane drops beside me, placing comfortingly cold hands against my screaming joint. Another strangled cough bubbles in my throat.

"Thanks," I gurgle as I swallow the sour bile that tingles the nerves in my teeth like tinfoil. My shoulder relaxes against Zane's cool touch, but still pulses like a raw wound. "That feels… better?"

"Well this is going to feel a lot worse," Cole mutters as he and Kai set their arms under mine and pull me to my feet. I bite down a scream as every bone and muscle in my body explodes with blistering pain. Spitfire lets out a sputtering growl, coughing streams of acrid smoke that smell like I feel. Jay grimaces as he looks at me.

"How bad is it?"

His eyes shift. "I shouldn't answer that-"

"Jay."

He lets out a sigh. "You look like Cole's meatloaf."

Cole gives the blue ninja a glare as I stifle a spluttering snort that clatters through my chest. "Funny," I cringe. "But you should see the other guy."

"What happened to him?" Kai asks, glancing around the decimated crater. His eyes return to mine. "Did you…?"

I shake my head and immediately regret the movement as something snaps inside and numbs my jaw. "No," I speak through slow lips. "He's gone, but not dead."

"Then how-"

"I sent him to the underworld."

They all pause, looking at me with stunned, confused, and disbelieving faces that almost push me to sigh. But the sour, iron taste that pervades my mouth keeps me from doing anything more than take a deeper breath.

"We can talk about it later," I mutter. A rib shifts uncomfortably as I struggle to move forward, lancing into my side with a stab of pain. I wince. "Let's go before I break something else."

A thousand questions hang in the air between us, but thankfully no one asks as we start to struggle from the crater. I move agonizingly slowly, carefully placing each foot against the steep face and groaning every time my hips twist. Jay slips and nearly tumbles back into the crater, but thankfully we make it to the top mostly unscathed.

Zane pauses at the rim of the crater, his clear eyes clouding as he spots something. He holds a hand out for us to stop. The rest of us slow, and I try not to show my overwhelming relief.

"What's up?" Kai asks as we approach. Sweat and blood congeal together on my face and arms, making me feel extremely stifled and hot as we come to a stop against the gratefully cooler ninja. I try not to lean closer to him.

"It seems we have an audience."

I blink through the murky stream that trickles into my vision and realize with a start that a crowd has gathered around the crater. Some of their faces are agonizingly familiar, curious, terrified, and as silently furious as they were four years ago. I shuffle imperceptibly back as I fight the overpowering sense to run, to escape from their accusing stares the way I did four years ago. Cole's arm tightens around me, comforting despite the pain.

"You defeated the monster," someone breathes from the crowd, a young man that I remember used to run a store in the village. He's taller, older, but no less distraught as he was all those years ago.

"Desmond has been defeated," Zane nods carefully. He stands before us cautiously, and Jay moves imperceptibly toward him. "You are safe now."

"Desmond?" another person's face twists in confusion, a woman. She used to do music lessons. I'd nearly taken some from her, but Desmond had decided it would be safer for me to stay home and work on my power instead. "What about the girl? She's the real monster!"

"What?"

I lift my head and a dozen people lurch back. My stomach roils as I remember each of their faces, the way they'd screamed when I destroyed everything they loved-

"Ash isn't a monster," Kai shakes his head, brushing my face with a few strands of his falling hair. The touch doesn't help my frantic nerves. "She's the one who-"

"I lost everything four years ago because of her!" an old man shouts, his eyes wide and furious as they focus on me. He was the mayor, someone I'd only met on a couple of occasions, all of them bad. Whenever I 'stepped out of line' he was the one who came to talk to Desmond, who was the first to point the accusing finger. Turned out he was right.

I try to stumble back away from the crowd as more people start to shout, pounding my head with the terrifying phantoms of the memories I've tried so hard to bury. They explode to life behind my eyelids, no less excruciating than they were four years ago.

"My grandmother died in the fire!"

These people, this town, the people I hurt-

"We're still getting back on our feet!"

I want to clamp my hands over my ears, to stop listening, but I can't. I'm melted to spot in agony and terrifying memories. I crush my eyes shut.

"She needs to be locked up!"

"She's good for nothing but destruction!"

I can't stay here. I can't listen to this, I have to-

"She's a freak!"

"A demon!"

"A monster!"

"ENOUGH!"

The crowd goes silent as Cole storms his way from me, letting my arm fall limply to my side with a cringe of sour pain. I ignore it as I watch him walk up to the crowd, his hands tightly clenched as he glares that them with eyes like stone.

"What the hell is wrong with all of you? Are you all completely blind?" a streak of blood drips down from a cut across his cheek, but he ignores it as he stares down each person in the crowd. "Ash just saved all of your lives and you call her a monster? For something she did four years ago?"

The mayor glowers at Cole. "You know nothing of what she's done, boy-"

"Actually, yeah, I do," the black ninja snaps back. "Because I've watched it tear her apart every day since we met her. I've seen what the nightmares and memories have done to her, we all have. She changed her own goddamn name so she would never forget what she did to all of you! But it was never her fault! Desmond was the one who set her off! He's the one you should hate, the one you should call a monster! Ash just wiped him off the face of the planet and saved your whole town! You should be thanking her right now for everything she's done for you!"

A woman reaches out and slaps Cole, hard, across the face. I nearly heave as an angry streak of red spreads across his cheek as he turns to face her, still angry, but carefully controlled as she glares up at him.

"I will never thank that bitch for killing my mother," she spits in my direction. I can't look her in the eye as the memories crash around my ears like a macabre song. I clench my eyes shut again as I struggle to force them back.

"Desmond killed her parents, too," Cole says. His voice is strained, and as I blink open my eyes I see he's speaking through tightly clenched teeth. "He used your people as his personal puppets to force her into destroying all of Ninjago, and she said no. She just saved the whole goddamn world and nearly killed herself in the process." He gets in the woman's face. "I'm sorry for your loss, but Ash isn't the one to blame."

"You expect us to forgive her for everything she's done to this town?" the mayor shakes his head derisively. "She's been a monster her entire life- she's proven that a thousand times over." His dark eyes meet mine and my chest tightens excruciatingly against my heart. "That will never change."

"Are you even listening-?"

"Cole," my voice is quiet, but almost explosive as the entire crowd recoils. "They're right."

"What?"

I start to tug myself from Kai, nearly collapsing as I wobble on numb legs. I manage to stay standing as I straighten and face the crowd, their faces flickering in and out of darkness and memory as I struggle to keep my focus.

"You're right," I breathe again, my chest rattling with knives of pain that nearly claw up my throat. "I am a monster."

"Ash-"

"I can never be forgiven for what I've done to all of you," I cough and wipe at my mouth as a glob of blood bubbles from my throat. Jay reaches toward me, but I push him away with a weak hand. "When I found out what Desmond did to my parents, I didn't want to forgive him either. What I did… I will never forget. There aren't any words to even come close to the guilt and absolute remorse for… what happened four years ago. For the people I hurt, killed… I can never be forgiven for that."

Another cough wracks my body and I almost double over as bright crimson blood wells up from my throat and streaks onto my arm. Mottled dots crowd the edges of my vision, but I take another clattering breath and shove them back.

"Desmond did push me over the edge four years ago. He is the one who started the fire," I speak through the film that invades my mouth. "But I was powerless to stop it. What I did is my responsibility alone."

"Ash, you don't know what you're saying-"

"I do," I take an agonizing step forward, a stab of guilt slicing through my heart as the crowd takes several terrified steps back. "It's about time I stopped running and face the facts. Desmond's faced his justice, and now I need to face mine." A smile strains at my lips as I face the others. "What kind of ruler would I be if I didn't?"

I turn back to the crowd. "You won't get a fight. Do what you need to."

The mayor steps forward. "You'll be judged brutally for your crimes-"

"Wait."

Another man muscles to the front of the crowd, tugging a small girl with him. His face is covered with stains and faint bruises as he steps between me and the mayor. He's agonizingly familiar, but I can't place him immediately. Not until he speaks again.

His blue eyes meet mine. "I'm not sure if you remember me, Iris," he pauses to wipe at a smear on his face. "I'm, uh, Caiden. We used to live near each other."

I blink as a thousand memories blast to the front of my mind. I barely manage a blank, "Caiden."

A tiny, humorless smile tugs at his lips as he faces the mayor. "Mr. Russo, I think you know that I understand everyone's pain," he cringes toward me. "I lost my sister in that fire."

I have to look away as he continues. "She was everything to me. After she died, I was completely lost. I… I thought about going after the monster who killed her, to make her feel what I felt… but I realized that isn't what Karina would want."

Everyone's head perks up in surprise, even my own. Caiden looks a little sheepish as everyone stares intensely at him, but continues. "No one deserved to die that day, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that none of them would have wanted revenge, especially not against the wrong person," his blue eyes meet mine. "Iris is telling the truth. What happened today was Desmond. I-I watched the whole thing happen, I watched him say god-knows-what and entrance half the people in town to follow him. Most of you probably don't want remember it or you were hiding, but I saw the truth."

His hand tightens on the girl's, who I'd nearly forgotten about, and his eyes soften. "She might not have been able to save Karina, but she did save my daughter," his gaze returns to mine. "I can't forgive you for what you did to my sister, but for saving my daughter… I can't thank you enough."

The crowd is completely silent as we take in Caiden's words, ones that rattle in my head over and over again until they've lost their meaning. The quiet breaks as he turns back to the mayor.

"I think we've all suffered enough," he says. "Let them go."

"But she-"

"Look at her! She needs medical attention!" Caiden takes a calming breath. "I think we should trust the ninja on this one. If they say she's more than paid for what she's done… then I believe them."

"Caiden-"

"You've heard the stories, Mr. Russo, just like we all did. Iris' power isn't normal, she's one of the rulers of Ninjago. Granted, I thought they were myths, but what she did to Desmond," he shakes his head. "I can't see how you wouldn't believe."

He turns back to me. "And it's not like we aren't at fault," he cringes. "What I said as a kid, what we all said and did-"

"You didn't know," I shake my head and bite back another cough. "None of you did. None of this was your fault-"

"It was Desmond's," Caiden nods. A small smile quirks his lips. "And you took care of him yourself."

"But-"

"Accept it, Iris," he turns to the mayor. "So what will it be?"

Hard lines crease into the older man's face as he frowns. He speaks slowly. "We've lost so much to this girl. And like you said, her acts are unforgivable," he lets out a breath. "But I've never been one to leave a debt unpaid. You did save our town today, so I will allow you to leave."

His dark eyes bore into mine. "But you can expect the full power of the law should you ever return. No amount of good words will save you."

"Thank you," Cole glowers as he takes hold of my arm. I fight the urge to collapse against him, instead looking to Caiden.

"I'm sorry about your sister-"

"Please, Iris," he shakes his head. "I'd rather not remember it. Just… thank you for saving us."

My chest opens a little wider for air before Kai takes my other arm and the ninja start to lead me away into the forest. Tidal waves of hostility and reluctance follows our every step, tainting the air like a heavy fog as we limp away from the crowd and the haunting buildings. I shuffle along as fast as I can, moving my legs as far as possible as every breath brings explosive bouts of pain, but eventually the atmosphere and sluggishness becomes too much.

"We have to get out of here," Cole grumbles as he suddenly lifts me into his arms with a barely contained scream from me. One of my ribs cracks and shifts as I settle against his body, gaining one last glimpse of the town and people of my haunting childhood before we rush into the curtain of trees and disappear.