Heeey!
The only thing left to do now was to track down that literal snake and the last stragglers of his cult before he could conjure up some other form of mischief.
Teams were sent out throughout the jungle to find him. Kai was charged with finding Skylor after she had disappeared. Cole and the other elemental masters stayed at the temple to guard the prisoners until help from the mainland arrived. Zane and Jay took the search to find whatever rock Chen and Clouse were hiding under. And Yuki would be darned if he was letting his human out of his sight again.
"No, Yuki. You're still hurt and malnourished. Stay with Cole, he'll take care of you." Zane managed to pry the cat's claws off of him and handed him over to the black ninja. Yuki gave him an innocent look like the little angel he was and curled his tail around the master of earth's forearm as if to say I'm not going anywhere.
Zane nodded in satisfaction, slipping neatly into one of the stolen automobiles from Chen's arsenal, "We'll be back soon."
Jay followed his example in his blue mech.
As soon as he closed to glass seal on the driver's side, Yuki jumped down from Cole's arms and stalked toward the cover of the balcony overhang, presumably to find some food. He made sure Cole had turned back to his work of watching the captives before ducking behind a line of thick fern leaves and cutting across the green cover back to the revving vehicle. It was no problem jumping up the rear wheels and finding a crevice among the screws and coils. All he had to do was hold on as Zane took off.
And took off he did.
It was slightly more difficult than he first thought, but once he clung to the odd-shaped parts surrounding his hiding place, he could comfortably watch the greenery zip by to the rhythmic pounding of Jay's mech beside him.
"You know, it would be nice if the guys gave us something to go on besides 'find and capture Chen,' you know?" Jay panted as he struggled to keep up with the nindroid's haphazard fast pace through the overgrown foliage. "I mean, not that I'm complaining or anything, but could they at least give us a place to start instead of a wild goose chase?"
Yuki couldn't hear Zane's response inside the car, but he felt the engine surge forward even faster. He had to dig his claws into any nook and groove he could find purchase on.
"Um, maybe we should, like, slow down a little?" Jay read his mind and he fell slightly behind the vehicle, letting Yuki see the lightning ninja's flushed face. "I mean, it's not like Chen's going anywhere on this island for pete's sa-Zane look out!"
Yuki barely had any time to cry out as the force of the collision sent him flying through the air and bashing into a tree trunk. The breath whooshed out of his lungs as he growled and shook himself. As far as being bodily thrown, this wasn't the worst he'd experienced, but he knew he'd wake up with a fair amount of bruises tomorrow.
The crash threw metal projectiles flying in all directions as Zane abandoned the wreck. The engine collided with the shattered tree trunk and burst into flames.
Jay gasped and skidded to a halt beside the burning vehicle. Zane seemed alright, rising to his elbows with a groan and looking disdainfully at the burning wreckage.
Yuki's sigh of relief caught in his throat as Zane tried to find his footing, foot catching on a root and sending him tumbling backward into a gaping crack in the earth.
Jay squeaked out something intelligible that may or may not have been a swear word as he jumped out of his mech and leaned heavily over the edge. "Zane! Are you ok?"
From down inside the narrow cave entrance, heard Zane answer, sounding more annoyed with himself than anything else. "I'm fine, I was being reckless in my haste to get home. Go without me, alright? I'll find my own way out." He called up at the blue silhouette.
Jay hesitated a moment before nodding, "I promise I'll come back, just hang on, ok?"
Yuki listened to the heavy clank of the blue ninja leaving, cautiously making his way over to peer over the edge.
Zane had reached over and clicked his broken arm back into place as he scanned his surroundings, sighing. the rocky cliff he fell down was slick with moss and cave humidity, dangerous to climb down.
He didn't really care. He mewed down, starting to hear his echo retort back at him. Zane stiffened and looked up at the significantly smaller silhouette staring back at him.
Yuki wasn't expecting his reaction.
"No no no no no, Yuki! You cannot be here!" Zane sounded scared, running his hand through his hair and pacing back and forth. Yuki recoiled slightly at his tone but refused to comply, beginning to make his way down to the distressed nindroid. He remembered the first time he found Zane in his cell, how he had sounded so similar and he began climbing faster.
His claws slipped on a slick patch of moss, leaving him scrambling for a grip as he free-fell the rest of the way. He shrieked, bracing for a painful landing, and was surprised to feel the ice master's cold metal hands catch him and lower him to the ground.
"Oh, Yuki, what am I going to do with you?" The cat knew he meant it to sound fond, but it came out strained. Yuki could smell the fear wafting off him.
Zane's head abruptly snapped up as he looked back into the murky black of the cave, stalactites dripping down like teeth in a mouth. He stopped breathing, slowly backing away from the dark until his back pressed against the slippery cliff face.
Yuki dropped to the ground in confusion, the only thing he could smell was the humid breeze drifting from the opening above and the dank smell of the earth beneath his paws. Other than that, there was nothing. What was Zane sensing?
The nindroid shook his head as if blocking out an unheard voice. Yuki backed away, the ice master's behavior beginning to frighten him a little. He grunted, clutched his head, and turned this way and that as if multiple assailants were attacking, but Yuki still saw nothing.
"Sto—stop," Zane gasped, sending an arc of ice shards digging into the empty air, shattering harmlessly against the mossy stone.
He crumpled to his knees, eyes clenched shut and fists clamped to the side of his face. His breathing became ragged gasps as his head sank forward so low it was almost touching the ground.
He couldn't go anymore.
Yuki circled the unresponsive nindroid, ears flattened and heart thumping faster the longer he examined him. He stood on his hind legs and pushed, batted him, even scratching him (gently) with his claws, but they just bounced harmlessly off his titanium skin. C'mon, Zane, you gotta get up. We have to go.
Zane's shoulders shook with a silent sob, arms drawn in protectively around his middle, grounded in place. Nothing Yuki did seemed to get through to him. What was wrong with him?
"I-he's, he's going to get me. He's coming,"
Yuki growled in frustration. Who? Tell me who and I'll protect you-
Oh.
Oh.
Zane needs to be protected too.
He needs to be protected from himself.
Yuki stopped, flicked his tail, and settled on his haunches in front of the trembling nindroid. The only noise was his muffled breathing and the summer zephyr whistling through the crack high above them, stirring up tendrils of dust around the two. Letting out a sigh, Yuki pressed his warm forehead against the nindroid's deathly cold one. Feeling a slight shift, he rumbled deep in his throat, evoking an order to look at him.
Slowly, the master of ice peeled his eyes open, swiping a tear off his face with the back of his hand. With a shuttering breath, he reached out a finger and tiredly stroked his cheek and Yuki let him.
He let him come to him.
"I can't do it anymore," he rasped, whether he was talking to Pixal or Yuki he couldn't tell. "He's too strong. I can't keep fighting him."
At that moment, Zane's gaze shifted from the cat in front of him to just beyond at the yawning cavern at his back. He stopped breathing again, and Yuki could have sworn if the blood could drain from his face it would've. Yuki turned to look too.
Well, that was weird.
Zane's sheet of ice coating the ground flickered an inky black. Just a quick flash, so quick Yuki thought it was just his imagination until it happened again. Then again. Then again. Then it actually moved, spider web fissures cracking and shifting in the ice like snapping bones. Yuki's hair bristled in alarm as the ice broke and melded together, taking on a shape less like a mound of glass shards and more like a twisted figure of a massive man.
The way the ice contorted, the darkness trapped inside blinking in and out, made Yuki tremble, but in a way, it seemed like it wasn't fully there, as if it was struggling to manifest itself. It took a lurching step forward, claws dragging against themselves, a frosty breath of air snaking between its teeth.
Yuki hissed but stood his ground. He was not letting this thing get to Zane. He failed him once, not again.
Planting himself resolutely in its path, he looked steadily into the monster's empty eye sockets. He wasn't afraid, not even when he heard a whisper in his head.
Get out of my way, fool.
No. You will not hurt him anymore. Do what you want to me, but you're not touching him.
The Overlord heaved himself a step closer, the force sent a tremor through the ground and up Yuki's paws. Still, he didn't waver. What are you going to do, little one? You are just as alone as he is.
For the first time, the cat glanced back at Zane. The nindroid knelt where he collapsed, arms supporting him and expression set in shock at the spectacle. If Yuki was being honest, it probably was a funny sight: An animated being of evil ice and a cat held in a sort of stalemate. Zane held out a shaky hand and motioned him over. "C—c'mon Yuki, come to me," he shivered.
Yuki looked at him hard for a moment before calmly turning back to the monster. Yes, but it's not about me. I'm going to protect him from you with everything I've got, just like he's protected me.
Then you can die with him, it snarled, drawing back a quivering club of a fist with razor-sharp talons to match. Yuki felt the wind part in his fur as the Overlord bought down his twisted hand, missing him by the skin of his teeth as he dove out of the way and rolled between its massive feet.
It flickered again as Yuki scrambled around the rear of the monster and scurried up its flank, paws numb against the unnaturally cold ice. He yowled and dug his claws into the Overlord's vacant sockets, evoking a raw cry from inside the ice.
Confidence rushed the cat as he scratched away at its face, an ink-black substance leaking out of the fissures and dripping into the earth.
The Overlord screeched, reared its head back, and clamped its fingers around Yuki in a crushing grip, forcing all the air out of his lung with a sickening crunch.
Yuki forgot how to breathe. White-hot pain erupted from his middle as he was dropped to the floor like a rag doll. He thought he heard someone scream, maybe it was him, not having the will to curl in on himself as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of silver and ice. Through the pain, he heard a garbled conversation.
"That's going to be the last thing you'll ever do." Zane, but the fear in his voice was replaced with... rage. That deathly, cold, calm tone that sent a chill down his spine. It was like the few times Kai got on his nerves, only a thousand times more potent. It was the kind of tone that made it clear death was in sight.
"Will it? Or will it simply be the last thing you'll ever see?" The overlord sneered, mocking tone dripping vitriol. Yuki could vaguely feel it stepping over him towards Zane.
To his shock, the nindroid returned the gesture, the sharp sound of his shurikens whipping through the air hurting Yuki's ears. Why was everything so loud?
"You should have stayed dead with me," Zane said simply, charging him and ramming his iron fist into the Overlord's face, cracking and splintering the ice on its jaw. "I do not fear you."
The Overlord stumbled back from the blow and threw his own fist into the ice master, sending him dropping to his knee and struggling to hold up the monster's crushing weight.
"Yes you do," it snarled, pressing harder on Zane until it forced him to both knees and didn't let up.
"No... I do not," the ice master ground out, slowly but surely rising back up until he was face to face with the Overlord.
Yuki struggled desperately to stay awake, but he was fading fast. His vision fuzzed as he saw Zane unleash his ice on the Overlord, pure white penetrating the poisonous dark ice, leaving the monster screaming all sorts of curses at the nindroid.
Finally, Yuki's vision cleared just for a moment enough to see Zane take his shurikens and slash them across the ice figure's throat, darkness and shadow pouring out of the wound and pooling on the sparkling snow, vanishing from sight.
The ninja and monster stared at each other in silence, the Overlord shuttering out one last breath of black frost before crumpling into a thousand jagged shards, melting into Zane's ice, then into nothing.
He was gone.
Zane stood there, snowflakes fluttering around him in silence. He looked up to the crack where he fell through, seeming to notice the golden sunshine filtering through for the first time. He breathed in deeply.
The snowflakes began to swirl around him with greater velocity, stirring up the snow at his feet until he was surrounded by a column of glistening ice crystals. Then Yuki saw his power source glow with energy, humming with power. A blinding flash of light blinded the cat, making him whimper one last time before exhaustion and pain won the battle, and he closed his eyes.
It was a dragon.
A real, living, breathing dragon.
And he was on it.
When Yuki tried to move soft fabric enveloped him on all sides, a comforting presence that put light pressure on his ribs. Oh, but they hurt. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to think. All he could do was watch the clouds float by as the dragon soared high above, eyed betraying him to sleep once or twice.
He felt the arms around him tighten just ever so slightly and he mewed.
"Shh, it's alright Yuki. You're alright now. It's over."
Zane may have said something else after that but Yuki's addled mind honed in on a single thought. It's over. Is it really over? Zane wouldn't lie, but he was almost afraid to get his hopes up.
But the breeze carding through his fur, the chill of the dragon, the setting sun casting bronze ribbons across the sky, it felt real.
Zane placed a hand on his head, strong and reassuring. A promise that it was real.
And that was enough for him.
It was over.
It was finally done.
Sensei held up the lantern, its warm glow illuminating a halo of light on the main deck of the Bounty around a certain ice master leaning over the rim of the ship, arms crossed over the rail as his gaze was fixed on the silver stars dripping down to the earth a thousand feet beneath them.
The old master crossed over, put down the lantern, and rested his elbows with a tired sigh, exchanging a smile with the nindroid before looking back to the sky. A small part of him wondered if his father and Garmadon were watching them now.
He shook the thought, he came out here with a mission, albeit an unpleasant one.
"I'm sure your teammates are as happy to have you back as I am," Wu swallowed, moving the lantern between them so they could see each other.
Zane let out a bashful smile, "Jay and Lloyd haven't let me off the couch between them until they fell asleep just now. And Kai and Cole tried to make a cake."
Wu winced and chuckled, "We'll clean that up tomorrow."
They were quiet for a moment, enjoying the crisp October breeze weaving between the masts and sails.
"How is Yuki?" Wu broke the silence again, not used to having his louder students absent to interrupt.
Zane's smile fell. "He wasn't doing well when I first bought him home, I wasn't sure he would make it. But he seems to be doing better. I believe he will be alright with time." He brightened a little, "Lloyd stole him some time ago and I haven't seen him since, but his favorite hoodie is covered in cat hair."
Wu chuckled. Sometimes he wondered if his nephew would ever grow up. Part of him hoped not.
The sensei sobered, once again stealing his nerve about the cat.
"I know what you came out here to say," Zane stated, cutting off Wu's next sentence. The First Master's son shut his mouth with a click and swallowed. "I know he cannot stay here. Ninja's lives are always at risk and he's already been put through more danger than I ever wanted him to be," he continued slowly, not taking his eyes off the horizon. "But... I have been to the shelters in New Ninjago City," now he looked at his teacher, big electric eyes meeting old golden ones. "I cannot in clear conscious leave him in one of those places."
Wu stroked his beard thoughtfully, "No, I don't suppose you would." A thought came to him and he smiled, "But I believe I know someone who will take very good care of him."
Zane looked at him curiously.
*sniffles* Almost there!
Any guesses what they're gonna do?