Hey everyone, happy Friday, time for an update. I know I left you all in a cliffhanger in the last update, so now you'll get to see what happens to Cole now. Wonder what happens now. Oh and I keep forgetting to add that this is an AU story but I can't add it to my summary since I'm out of space to it, but anyway enjoy.

Chapter 22: The Cure

Sterns lead the way through the lab with Cole and Betty behind him, holding hands. When the three reached a small section of the lab, the scientist removed the plastic sheet to reveal a medical chair with straps. Cole looked at the chair as it was reclined while it had arm rests stretching out. Kind of reminind him being strapped to the gureny in the base after Blolasky beaten him into unconsciousness. Sterns flipped a switch to cause the chair to rise and expand to a bed while turning on the equipment and turned to Cole. "Ready?" he asked.

Cole looked at the chair then at the purple serum attached to a machine. The Cure, he thought. He has one chance to see if he'll ever be cured and never become the Hulk again. He looked at Betty, who looked unsure but gave him a sympathy smile, then looked at Sterns. "Can you give us a few minutes?" he asked.

Sterns looked at them to nod. Cole lead Betty away to walk behind a wooden beam and both held their hands together. "Cole, what if it doesn't work?" Betty wondered scaredly. "What will happen when you change and can't change back?"

Cole looked down at her to shrug his shoulders. He doesn't know how to reply the question. "We only got one chance at this." he said. "I'm not sure what will happen, but with your research and his help, I'm ready to take the chance. I just need my family here now." Betty nodded and handed Cole his comm-link and the earth ninja used his finger to move the beacon switch to hear a small snap as it was turned on; sending the distress call.

...

Zane sat on the mahogany table while having his legs crossed as he meditated in quietness as the bridge was empty while eveyone else was either training or socializing. He would join them, but was worried for Cole since he's been gone for almost two days. Everyone was. They all hoped that Betty's father didn't capture him again and could be hidden anywhere in Ninjago. They would've lost Cole forever then. For being ninjas, the white ninja knows that Cole would be using his skills and arts to blend in and avoid being captured. But where though?

The Ninja of Ice drew in a deep breath and his eyes snapped open as he heard the computer alerting a distress call. He quickly unfolded his legs to have his white socks touching the hardwood floor and rushed over to the computer to type on the computer to see the call. He looked up to smile in almost pure joy to the name that appeared on the screen. Cole M. Brookstone. Location: Ninjago City Cellular Biology Laboratory.

Without glancing at the name twice, the ice ninja quickly turned on his heels and ran straight out the bridge to run down the first flight of stairs to see everyone on the deck training and all eyes were trained on him. "I found Cole." he announced.

...

"Sir," Haruko announced. "We found him."

Ross' ears perked up on the news and walked up to the laptop his captain was stationed at and looked at the screen. He couldn't help but smirk. He figured the Ninja would suspect them bugging their systems, but which was why he sent the tiny drone to place a bug on the earth ninja's comm-link. That's where he had a second chance to capture the Hulk. Now here was the chance. "Have Blolasky ready." he ordered. "We leave at twenty hundred hours."

...

Blolsaky walked out of the metal hanger of an airfield and towards the transport helicopter. He never mentioned to the general about his recently grown bones, but rather keep it a secret to himself. He rather keep the power to himself. He may be going against the general's orders, but he doesn't care about him. The lieutenant slung a duffel bag over his shoulder and walked up the ramp to enter the transporter to reach Ninjago City as night was coming and took a seat on the bench.

"How do you feel, sir?" a soldier's voice boomed through the engine roaring.

Blolasky looked up to smirk. "Like a monster." he replied.

...

Cole's ears perked at the sound of a window opening and turned his head with Betty to see flashes of red, orange, blue, white, green, and grey climb in. He slowly walked up and around a fridge that held blood samples and grabbed a scapel quietly off the counter. He may have seen the colors of his team, but had a suspicion that Ross was tricking him to capture him. The earth ninja held the surgical tool tightly behind his back and waited quietly to hear the quiet footfalls creep up and could feel his heart racing.

Once the footfalls crept closer, Cole drew in a deep breath and quickly turned the corner and brought the knife down. He felt the blade strike something while struggling to bring the blade down, like someone was defending themselves. The Ninja of Earth felt the tool slip from his grip and tripped on his own feet. Pain racked through his head and stared at the ceiling lights. "For being the Ninja of Earth," a calm, wise voice spoke. "I thought you would prefer the scythe as your weapon and not just some surgical tool as a way to assassinate your brother."

Cole picked himself up to recognize the voice and watched the white ninja remove his mask to see blonde hair and dark blue eyes. He smiled as everyone was pulling their masks off and watched Nya climb in through the window. "You guys got me worked up for a second there." he said relieved. "But I'm glad to see all of you again."

"Hey so are we." Kai agreed. He looked around the lab in wonder. "So why are you here?"

"We'll explain everything." Cole answered. "But Betty will fill you in on the large details. I...need to get prepared." and walked away back to Sterns. Everyone watched him confused. Prepared?

...

Everyone watched in wonder as the cell biologist began strapping Cole to the bed. The earth ninja only wore the purple pants Betty bought him and remained calm as Sterns strapped his ankles down. Everyone now understood why Cole and Betty would head for the city while being hunted down. They needed his help to develop a cure for Cole. But they all kept wondering if it'll work.

"So in order for the serum to work," Sterns explained while tugging the leather straps tightly around Cole's left wrist. He grabbed a thin needle attached to a glass vile with a clear hose and inserted it through the leather cuff. Red blood began to trail in the clear hose to a machine that had the serum. "Your blood must mix with the serum and they'll compound together to hopefully fix you." He strapped Cole's other wrist tightly while the black ninja stared at the ceiling. "With that work, you'll be your normal-self."

Cole took a calm breath and turned his head to see Betty by his side while his family was out of the way and held her hand. He could tell she was nervous by the way her hand was shaking. He looked away to see his blood disappearing into the machine while some appeared in glass tubes. He felt something cold touch his chest and looked away to see a clear, circular piece of paper with wires attached on his chest and knew it was those heart rate monitors he seen at the hospital. He felt two more pieces pressed to his forehead while Betty was handed a box. The raven-haired girl looked in to see it was a hard, rubber bite guard for Cole and picked it up by the small handle and brought it closer to Cole. He nodded and opened his mouth to feel the rubber in his mouth and bit down hard.

"Right then." Sterns continued. "So in order for this to work, we need to...trigger you." He saw Cole nod and picked up a defibulator that looked like pinchers with soft tips. They gave off a soft hum of electricity once the machine was switched on. He stood over Cole and looked at Betty's still held hand. "You might not want to hold on." he adviced her. Betty looked at him to nod and softly lets go of Cole's hand. Sterns brought the ends together to hear a loud hum and brought them to the sides of his head to deliver the discharge.

Cole clenched his eyes tightly to the high voltage shock while screaming through his bite guard and slammed his back to the bed. It was like being shocked by Jay when he had his elemental powers. He kept screaming while feeling his body changing and opened his eyes to reveal the bright green irises. "Oh my gawd." Sterns said, amazed.

The earth ninja felt his body being ripped to shreds as his veins were visible and green to spat out the bite guard. He screamed while he felt his shoulders popping out of place while his bones grew larger and his fingers growing larger for his left hand to snap free. Betty watched, scared, as Cole was starting to growl as he was changing to the Hulk. "Cole, it's alright!" she said as she climbed onto his chest. "Look at me. It's gonna be alright." Sterns watched what she was doing and felt something bump him to knock him to the floor and noticed the center piston was beginning to bend from his weight and slowly picked himself up and slowly reached out to touch his green arm in amazement. "Just relax, Cole." Betty said quickly and grabbed Sterns by his shirt. "Stuart, do it now! Do it!"

Sterns nodded and rushed over to the main computer to type on the keyboard to deliver the serum, but was flashed with a error warning. "For crying out!" he shouted in frustration. "Stupid college graduates!" He quickly hopped over to the other side and used his foot to kick the machine while stumbling back. The plunger then began to push the thick purple liquid up.

Cole gave out a deep throaty gasp as something entered his veins and slowly closed his eyes. Everyone watched as his body was slowly began shrinking to his normal-self. They cringed at the sound of his ankles giving wet sounds as they slowly constructed themselves together as well as his legs and other bones. Betty was stunned as Cole's face was returning to his normal shape and watched his shoulders shrink and popped back into his sockets and skin and veins weren't green. But to his normal tan skin. But his eyes were still closed and his chest wasn't rising and falling. "Cole?" she called to him, but no response. "Cole?" her voiced cracked.

Cole suddenly opened his eyes to jolt up gasping and looked around. What just happened? Betty and the Ninja smiled to see him awake and saw that the cure worked. He felt his heart beat down and swallowed a lump in his throat. "D-did it work?" he asked shakingly.

...

Outside the building, police cars lined up and surround while an armoured vehicle cruised down and stopped at the entrance and the back doors opened. Blolasky was the first to step out and with a small group of milita and lead the way into the building. "Blolasky, hold." Ross' voice commanded from the stealth helicopter above him. "We don't want to spook him away. Advance in and wait on my order." The lieutenant stopped and sighed in a low growl and held a fist up to stop his men and waited in the lobby.

...

"That was truely amazing!" Sterns exclaimed. "I have never seen anything like that in my entire life! And I seen many things before in my biology career, but that was something to be amazed with my eyes."

Betty and Cole sat on the two chairs with the others behind them that faced the front of the scientist. A moment after the black ninja was cured and changed, he sat nervously with Betty holding his hand over his to comfort him. The raven-haired girl didn't know why he was nervous but gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Yes we understand what we seen was amazing, but what about the cure?" she asked.

"Right." Sterns agreed. He scratched the back of his head to ponder his words. "So we may or may not have entirely cured you, but due to the serum changing you back to normal, we have isolated the gamma in your cells to prevent that from ever happening. But my question though is what is more deadly? Your blood or the amount of gamma you were exposed to. I've been wondering about that from my other subjects when I looked for the cure..."

Cole quickly lifted his head on what he said. Other subjects? "Wait wait wait." he stopped him. "Other subjects? What are you talking about?"

Sterns stopped pacing and looked at them. He has to know. he thought to himself. "Follow me." he said while waving them over to lead the way to two large glass doors and pushed them open. Everyone gazed around the room to see it was full of fridges with bags of blood in them. "With the blood you gave me, it wasn't enough. I needed more." he explained. "Luckily your blood was O-positive and allowed me to mix these bags as well and the blood cells accepted it. Take a look."

Cole gazed around in horror to the bags of blood in the rows of the glass windowed fridges to see racks of blood with his name on it. It was a complete nightmare now to him. His deadly blood was mixed in every bag there was. He could see Betty with her hand over her mouth to hide her gasp and looked over his shoulder to his brothers and sisters looking around in horror. He looked down at a lab table to see a drained blood bag that was covering something and slowly moved it aside to reveal a misformed lab-rat with with large muscles on its arms or neck area. The earth ninja could feel the blood drain from his face and his stomach doing somersaults and looked at Sterns. "You have to listen." he said shakingly. "We need to destroy it. And now."

Sterns stopped and turned to him. "What why?" he wondered estatic a littl. "Your blood is something special to marvel to."

...

Blolasky was beginning to become impatient in the lobby. He's been waiting for the general's orders, but they never came. They were gonna lose the target if they kept stalling and waiting around while he finds an escape route. He started to become annoyed even more because he wanted to capture his target and took more of his power. Ignoring the general's halt, the lieutenant ripped his earpiece off and started running up the marble stairs and jumped onto the railing to launch himself to the next floor while ignoring his team's shout.

The soldier next to him before he left grabbed his radio to alert the general. "Sir," he said. "Blolasky just left his post and is going after the target. Should we follow him?"

There was a long silence till there wasn't any static. "Engage but stay low." Ross' voice commanded. "Snipers, take position." The soldiers heard the command and followed after Blolasky.

...

"You don't understand." said Cole, arguing. "My blood isn't something to marvel to."

Sterns met him across the lab table to pick up the blood bag. "But your blood is rare and can cure all diseases." he pointed out. "You can get an award for this, Cole. Your blood can help."

"And kill!" Cole stated and swat the bag out of his hand. "You may be a biologist but I know that my blood can kill anyone it comes into contact with. Zane, here, even told me it's too dangerous. Even with all of these, it's deadly." The scientist turned to the nindroid to see him nod in agreement and turned to Cole. "We need to destroy it. All of it. Burn it if we have to. Throw it in the Fire Temple's lava or Torchfire Mountain. We need to get rid of it before it falls into the wrong hands!" He heard glass break and something pinch his shoulder to gasp and start to lose his balance.

Everyone was taken by surprise to stutter back as they see a needle in Cole's shoulder while Betty caught him and removed the needle to cradle him. Suddenly the Ninja heard the door break down to see soldiers swarming in and held their hands up as their weapons were aimed on them and Blolasky stormed past them to reach for Cole. He forcefully pulled Betty off of him to throw her aside and grabbed him by his shirt. "Where is it!?" he demanded and slapped him across the face. "Where is it!?" He could see Cole was losing control of his body from the sedative shot and lost his patients and slammed his fist into his temple to put him into unconsciousness.

And Cole could see was his world turning black.

Duh-duh-duhh! XD I got you all again! I love leaving you in cliffhangers and this was a great one again. Now what? Is Cole cured or not, who knows. You'll have to wait next week and see what happen. Have a great weekend, because I know I will because of prom tomorrow, but I'll see you all next week. :)