I can't believe it's finally over. It felt like I started this reboot just a couple of weeks ago XD Thanks so much for sticking with me and leaving such wonderful feeback! From here on out, any and all updates on this story will be deleted scenes/ episodes from season 2 that I've always wanted to do/ prompts, so if there's anything and I mean anything at all that you want to read, hit me up because I'm ready to new ideas!

I hope you'll join me soon on the REBOOT of The Queen Who Fell to Ashes, with new drama, story, and much better writing!

- Fell_and_Fallen -

"Ash, you're okay!"

Cole barely sets me on the deck before Lloyd tackles me in a rib-shattering hug. I bite down a scream as I gently push him away from me, giving him as much of a smile as I can through the pain.

"Hey, kiddo. Glad to see you're in one piece, too."

"Thanks to you," he grimaces. "You were right, I shouldn't have come up when I lost Nya-"

"It isn't your fault, kid," I ruffle his hair a little. "I'm just glad you're okay." I return my hand to my mouth, heaving another bloody cough that makes everyone cringe.

"We need to get you looked at," Cole says. "Lloyd, where's Sensei?"

"Here," the old man rises from below deck and approaches, clicking his walking stick on the mangled deck. I greet him with a blood-tinged smile that makes his eyes widen. "What happened?"

"Long story short," I cough. "I sent Desmond to the Underworld."

"You did what?" he spits, looking as if I ran him over with a freight train. "By yourself?"

"Well, no," I shake my head and snap something that makes my shoulder go numb. "My ancestors helped. But he's gone now-"

"Ash, you are incredibly lucky to be alive," Sensei breathes, reaching out to wipe a smear of blood from my face. "Opening a portal to the Underworld is not easily done, especially for someone like yourself."

His eyes cloud with dark memories, but before I can press on them Kai speaks.

"What about Hale? Did he get sucked into the magic portal too?"

My heart stalls as I look up into their inquisitive eyes. I cough lightly to cover the pause as my next few words slip without thinking, "Uh, yeah. He did. They're gone."

Cole relaxes. "Then it's over," he breathes and gives me a smile I halfway return. "It's all over."

Sensei looks at me questioningly, but before he can ask what I hope isn't on his mind, Nya appears.

"Good, you're back! I just-" she pauses as she catches sight of us- the bedraggled ninja and my own broken form barely standing on its own. Her mouth snaps shut with a clack of teeth, and she coughs lightly to compose herself. "You look like hell."

"We feel it too," Kai shakes his head and scrubs a patch of dried blood from his wrist. "Can we save the chitchat for later and rest? I could sleep for a week."

"Of course," Sensei nods. He offers me his walking stick. "Here. You need this more than I do."

I scowl, but accept it. "Thanks."

Nya and Sensei work on me far into the evening- readjusting limbs, sewing stitches, cleaning blood. The hours tick by in a mixture of agony, Sensei's god-awful tea, and the occasional visit from one of the ninja as they wander wearing icepacks or bandages, but soon enough it calms to a semi-pleasant night.

Nya remarks on how much has already healed since I reached the Bounty. Just a few hours since we returned, my coughing has subsided and I've started to taste more of the sharp lemon of Sensei's tea and less of my blood's iron.

"It's just another gift you were given," Sensei says as he finishes applying a mint-smelling ointment to a gash on my neck. "You will heal exponentially in the next couple of days."

"Sounds good," I cringe as Nya tightens the stitches in my leg. "Though now would be nice."

Lloyd's my last visitor for the night, checking in as Nya helps me set up pillows to keep me propped up and pain free. He apologizes for his stunt earlier for the thousandth time and Nya shoos him out with a promise we'll talk later. I give her a thankful smile as she returns to my bed.

"Nya, what would this ship be without you?" I shake my head as she adjusts a pillow.

"Burning in a ditch somewhere," she chuckles. "Not that you'd hear anyone else admit it. You're the only exception to the boy's club."

"That isn't true. You know this ship better than any of us."

"That's because I'm here all the time," she sighs as she slumps in a chair. Dark strands of her short hair fall into her face, obscuring her cherry-red lips. "I wish I could do the stuff you do. Go out, hunt the bad guys, bring justice to the world- instead I'm cooped up here."

I grimace. "I never really thought of that…"

She looks up and bites her lip. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel bad-"

"No, Nya, you're right," I sit up despite the violent protest my back makes. "Here you are doing all this amazing stuff and no one's giving you props for it. I mean, look at me- I wouldn't be alive right now if you weren't there to pick up the pieces."

"Ash-"

"I mean, here you are with some of Ninjago's greatest warriors and none of us have even considered teaching you to fight," I shake my head. "What kind of jerk friends are we? Sure, I can understand Kai's whole sibling-rivalry type of thing, but the rest of the ninja? Me? Damn, Nya, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize-"

"We just kind of shackled you to Lloyd and maintaining the ship, but you're capable of more than that. Your program was what led us to Desmond in the first place, plus you got the ship back on its feet after the whole attack, and managed to return all of the people Desmond was controlling to their homes safely on top of that-"

"Wait-"

"I don't blame you for wanting something more. If I were in your position, I would've gone insane months ago-"

"ASH!"

I come to a screeching halt, staring up at Nya's wild eyes as she stands above me. She takes in a deep breath and sits back down.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she grimaces. "But… there's something you should know."

I blink. "What?"

She wrings her hands together, tapping one thumb against the other in a movement I've seen Kai do on a couple of occasions. She bites her lip and takes a long time to speak. "I know you're trying to be nice and all, and I really appreciate it, I do. But there's more about today that you should know."

"Alright," I cautiously sit back against my pillows. "What is it?"

Nya bites her lip again and glances around the room. "Well, you know how I was supposed to look after Lloyd during the attack?"

I nod. "You were trying to gain control of the ship and lost him in the chaos. It wasn't your fault."

She cringes. "Yes it was," she fumbles her hands and squeezes her eyes shut. "I ditched him."

I sit back up fast enough to pull a dozen muscles. "You what?"

"I left him in a safe place," she says hurriedly. "I didn't think he would try to find you. It was stupid, I know-"

I shake my head and try to sort out the tumult of emotions and thoughts that crashes through my head. "But why?"

"That's the thing," she bites her lip again. "You, uh, remember that mech that came to help you out?"

I nod, then something wriggles to the front of my mind. My eyes widen. "Nya, what did you do?"

She smiles sheepishly. "That was me."

"That was-" my mouth stalls, opening and closing a dozen times before I get my wits together. Nya was the person in that mech? Tiny, untrained, probably-too-smart-for-her-own-good Nya? "That was you? How even-?"

"I doodled blueprints when you were on missions, and thought 'hey, why not?'" she laughs humorlessly. "Granted I didn't have all the parts, but with a little scrounging I managed to slap it together just in time."

"Slap it together-" my mouth stalls again and I shake my head. She cringes.

"I know, I know, it was really stupid, I shouldn't have done it-"

"Nya, that is the single most amazing thing I've ever seen anyone do in my entire life!" I shake my head again. "How could you be ashamed of that?"

"Because if I hadn't left Lloyd, he wouldn't have gone on deck and you wouldn't be, well," she gestures to the bed. I roll my eyes.

"Honey, I would be in this position with or without your help, that's just the way it was going to end. But you saved countless lives today," I say. "You should be basking in the glory right now. I mean, when the boys find out-"

Her eyes widen. "You can't tell."

"But Nya-"

"But nothing," her face hardens, then softens again with a sigh. "I know you want to help, Ash, I appreciate it. But the boys can't know yet. Not even Sensei. I'm still trying to sort myself out on this whole… business, and I don't want today to be an excuse for them to take it away from me."

Her wide eyes settle on mine. "Please, Ash. You can't tell anyone."

"Nya-"

"Do I need to blackmail you?" her eyes harden again, only to immediately shut. She takes in another breath. "I saw what you did to Hale."

I bite my lip. "Oh?"

"You didn't throw him in the Underworld," she opens her eyes again. "You lied to the others."

I grimace. "Yeah, about that-"

"What did he say to you for you to let him go?" she asks. "What he did was unforgivable."

"I know, I know," I sigh and settle against my pillows. I fiddle with the bracelet around my wrist, turning it as Hale's final words crowd together and nearly explode from my hazy mind. "And honestly, I don't have an answer. I guess in the end I pitied him. Desmond broke him and manipulated his emotions as a tool to get me on his side." I cringe. "He thought he was doing the right thing. He was... He was trying to save me."

Her copper eyes widen with realization. "He said he loved you."

I don't answer, and the room goes painfully silent.

"It's funny," my voice sounds tinny and stale in the suddenly still room. "All this time hating the two of them, and right now all I feel is… empty. Like I've just run out of batteries."

"That might be the tea," Nya quips half-heartedly, biting her lip as she sits back in her chair. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

"This has been a really upsetting day in general, Nya," I shake my head. "Don't apologize."

I close my eyes for a second, then finally let out a deep breath and settle back against the pillows. "So I guess it's a deal. You keep my secret, I keep yours."

She nods a little and coughs. "The boys can't find out about any of this."

I crack a smile to try and recover the mood. "Because one or both of us will end up dead otherwise."

She laughs. "Team Estrogen's got quite the skeletons in its closet."

I let out a breath. "That it does, Nya, that it does."

I stare up at the empty sky just beyond the window, dotted with stars that seem like smudges on the glass. My mind turns for the first time away from Desmond, from Hale, from Arashi, from everything that's haunted me the past four years, and suddenly I find myself worried about things that have barely touched my thought in what feels like an eternity.

"There's still a lot of work to be done," I whisper as the candlelight pops with heat. I calm it with a gentle movement of my hand, but nearly smother it as my hand twitches with pain.

"The Serpentine are still out there," she nods. "And who knows what else."

"No rest for the weary, I guess," I crack a smile as I turn away from the endless night. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."

"We'll find a way to deal with them," she smiles. "We always do."

"Right," I nod as I raise my eyes to Spitfire. His color has returned in all its intensity, burning a brilliant crimson that shimmers in the low light. He releases a gentle ring of smoke as his blazing orange eyes meet mine, shining with a determination that I can feel through my entire being.

I raise my head. "Evil better watch itself, because now there's nothing holding us back."