Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for an update. I got nothing much to say as usual but enjoy the update.
Chapter 9: Rise of a Lightning Storm
Thunder rumbled softly across the darkened skies over Ninjago City, but any rain didn't precipitate from the clouds. Jay glanced out from the bay window of his aunt and uncle's family room to watch the lightning scatter across the sky to smile to it softly and turned back to his sketch pad on his lap. It was a small and simple pencil sketch of him leaning against a bay window with Nya lying against his chest. Serenity flooded his mind as he drew it in more to jump a little to the unannounced rolling thunder outside to sigh in the end. Shouldn't be scared of his element, right? He blinked to groan as a large graphite slashed over his drawing and tore it off the pad to toss it aside. So much for that. he grimaced and turned to a fresh page.
As the quiet scratches of graphite and paper filled the family room, there was a small knock on the doorway from the hall to make the blue ninja stop and lift his head to his aunt and uncle. His sketching eased and set it aside as he could tell they looked worried from their shadowing looks and straightened himself as they walk over to him. "Jay, can we ask you about something?" Mary asked.
The room and air became quiet and still as his relatives sat between him. He started to feel a bit nervous. "Uh...what is there you want to know?" he wondered while trying to remain calm.
His uncle sighed while resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Jay raised his scarred eyebrow to look at him confused. "Jay, we're starting to become concern for you." he began to receive an odd look from it. "You've been here for a couple days now and also glad to come with me for a memorial service for Maxwell since you didn't know him well. But that's beside the point. But the point is that we're concerned, and so are your parents, for you since haven't told us what happened with your friends. You say it's complicated but we want you to know we're here for you. Right?" He gazed at his nephew's wrists to see large blisters adorn visibly. "And where did these blisters come from too?" he wondered while gently grabbing his hands to examine them.
In an instant response, Jay quickly pulled his hands away to jump to his feet. His relatives became a little surprised at first to his reaction, then a bit worried. The lightning ninja furrowed his brows while rubbing his temples to slowly collect himself. A small verge of panic was all he felt. "I'm going through difficult times that you wouldn't understand. I just can't explain it really. And these blisters, they'll go away like all blisters do." His adrenaline was running his heart to have him panicking more. "Stop treating me as if my parents are dead and you're my new guardians. I can take care of myself."
Utter quietness filled the room to have it become still with the air becoming heavy. Jay was taking deep breaths to calm himself and realized what he just said to feel his heart become heavy with guilt swelling his throat to a lump. He carefully unstitched his brows to see his aunt and uncle becoming frightened to quickly turn away to the foyer and out the door to start sprinting on the streets and head for the city to feel his heart become more heavy with stray tears slipping down his face. But inside the complex, Ben watched his nephew leave to now feel his chest become heavy to look at his wife worriedly. In hesitation, he took off in pursuit to the streets to find his nephew while Mary stayed. "Jay, come back!" he called out for him. "We're sorry." He had to wonder that it may have been his fault. He felt it that it was.
His breathing was labored and ragged as he paced down the secluded streets of Ninjago City. Hands were hidden and dug deep into his pockets with the hood of the sweatshirt he had to take to hide himself from being noticed. He felt like a stalker as he walked in incognito, but it was to hide himself from the world to not spread panic to his form. The blue skinned man kept his head bowed after he had escaped from Oscorp days ago, living off on electricity that he found to feast and store on. He started to feel more controlled of it as he went. But he needed to leave the city or at least hide before anything could go worse for him.
The air was cold inside the small convenience store as Jay absentmindly browsed through the small shelf of chips. Course his mind wasn't focused on a snack, but mostly what he shouted out to his aunt and uncle. That was unlike him and he knew it. He talked to them darkly and rude when he's really childish and talkative. But still, he couldn't expose of himself as a new teen with spider powers. But guilt kept consuming his body the more he thought about it. Sighing, the Ninja of Lightning grabbed the first bag of chips he spotted, paid the cashier, and left.
As he stepped out on the streets, he stopped to feel the familiar tingling feel buzz in the back of his head to what he called his spider senses and looked over his shoulders to gasp. The cashier was being held at gunpoint from a man in dark clothing with a tattoo over his right wrist and watched the scene unfold as the mugger was given the cash and bolted out while shoving Jay away to fall onto the cement roughly. Normally for him being a ninja, he would've jumped to his feet to chase down the foe. But with the guilt and condition he was in, he was distracted to do anything to help the man that was just robbed. Sighing, Jay ignored the comments of those that wondered of his well-being and the robbed man to pull himself to his own feet, dust himself off, and walked the same direction where the thief ran off to.
"Jay? Jay? Where are you?" Ben called out for his nephew. The elderly scientist kept turning his head in every direction to find the boy clad in blue, but sighed for he couldn't find the teen. He grew worried for he couldn't find him in the largest city in all of Ninjago. He needed to find him so he could apologize for invading his privacy and wanted to rekindle with his nephew. But where? Turning the corner, Ben stopped to see two people struggling in the streets with one hold a gun in hand and other with blue hands. He gasped to what was happening and rushed over to them to help break the fight. "Hey!" he shouted.
BANG!
Jay paused in his tracks to the roaring shout of a gun firing to have his heart racing. That thief he was following but not give chase to had used his weapon to hurt someone or worse. He had no idea he was going to use it in the first place. He thought it was only used for a threat. The sound of the gun echoed in the air and then a woman screaming for help to have the blue ninja quickly rush over to the source. Someone needed help. And as a ninja, he was going to help. But who needed it? When the auburn teen turned the corner to where the screaming was, his heart stopped to what he saw.
His body was shaking in fear to what his hazel eyes laid upon on. Bystanders surrounded the familiar body lying on the cement sidewalk to where he became more worried. His eyes turned away to watch the thief run off and turn the corner in panic. But he didn't care to give chase after him, his main concern was the one who fallen. "UNCLE BEN!" he cried out and rushed over to his fallen uncle. Once he reached the surrounding uncle, he managed to shove past them to feel more scared engulfing him as he reached his uncle and knelt to his side quickly. "Uncle Ben?" he cried to him worriedly and carefully examined his body. He began to panic to hear his uncle's ragged breathing.
His uncle drew in a ragged breath to pry his eyes open to see his vision blur his surroundings but only could see his nephew clearly. "Jay?" he wheezed to cough a bit. Jay replied to him with quivering lips to make a tiny smile to hold his hand tightly. Ben heard him speak something but couldn't hear it to give him teary frown to see his world turn black slowly. "Jay. I'm-*wheeze*-sorry. Really sorry." He coughed a little. "For everything. I love you, my brother, and Mary. Don't forget that." He drew in a deep breath to slowly exhale while closing his eyes to the darkness.
Tears began to escape from the hazel orbs to sniffle as they cascade down his cheeks and to the cement to wet the stone ground. A loud cry of pain and anguish escaped from his throat to have the salty tears pool more with thunder crashing above him loudly to feel its rumble like it was in pain. His body raked with grief and sorrow to cry out his pain to the person who had fallen in front of him. Mourning more, Jay gently laid his uncle's hand down to his chest and wrapped his arms around him to give him one last hug to cry into his shoulder as he was gone.
Many scenarios began to flash into his head as he heard bystanders calling for the paramedics, but he knew it was too late for that. How was his aunt going to bear the news? His father even? This was his older brother lying before him. But the more he thought about them, the more tears it brought down. This wasn't only affecting him, but it was going to affect his entire family very, very deeply. It reminded him when Sensei Wu lost Lucas in his arms, they all felt grief and sorrow, but in the end for a miracle he came back with a new life. But to the blue ninja, he knew it wasn't going to happen to him. Which made his heart tug more.
He heard the sound of glass breaking with the sound of a woman screaming for help with tires screeching on the asphalt to have his head snap to glare in the distance. A new bolt of lightning struck his heart to blossom the anger and hatred to the one who killed his uncle. Normally, he doesn't show his anger or hatred to anything except when fighting beside his teammates. But this new current of rage couldn't be contained. It made him hungry for revenge. Feeling the newly rage consume him to where he couldn't stop himself, he pulled himself to his feet and took off in pursuit to the one who committed the murder.
He even screamed enraged.
Footfalls echoed down the quietness as the auburn haired teen ran down the alley he had turn into as he sprinted to the source. As he ran, he spun into his electrical blue Spinjitzu to change from his jeans and blue tee shirt to his armorize gi and donned his mask over his face, But a sudden thought came to him if he was going to use his new powers to take pursuit, people would know the lightning ninja would be Spiderman if he ever becomes him. He scanned around to see a red sweatshirt dangling on a clothesline to quickly snatch it off from the pin to throw it over his gi; seeing his costume color scheme come to reality now. Once Jay threw the hood over his masked face, he began to sprint faster as he could and jumped onto the brick wall of a dead end to scale on the wall by his fingertips.
As he climbed, he felt his anger increase to where he could hear the stolen car nearby him to climb faster and launched himself to the next building to land in a crouch on the ledge and corner of the building. His hazel eyes burned and furrowed as he scanned the streets and caught sight of a silver car speeding and winding its way through the tight traffic. There you are. he grimaced and averted his eyes to a building across the street to clench his left fist to have his fingers patterned to their stances and fired a strand of webs. He grabbed thick thread to slowly draw in a deep breath as he stood to gaze at the streets below him. This was going to be the second time he has done this and he need to start chasing down the culprit from the skies. But if he failed, he could end up as a splattered bug. He shook his head to push all scenarios away to draw in a deep breath and jumped while gripping the thread tightly.
As he swung, the auburn could feel his velocity accelerating to have his eyes widen and yelped in panic as he was heading straight for the building wall. In a quick response, he held his right hand free to fire another thread toward another building and his speed just stopped; leaving him suspended over the middle of the street. Jay nervously swallowed the lump he had in his throat to the street below him and gazed around to how he had stopped him. He noticed that his right hand had fired to a building far across from him while the other was behind him. He realized to know what had to do now, swing from building to building like if he was Tarzan with vines or when he and Kai had to swing through the Toxic Bogs of the Venomari Tomb. He nodded to himself in determination on what had to happen and released the grip on his left hand to start swinging down.
The lightning ninja began to feel his velocity and momentum regain as he swung down the street and once he felt his body rising up, he fired another thread from his left wrist and released his grip on his right to swing back down. As he continued to swing from building to building, he began to feel more controlled in his swinging, but staggered to keep his legs straight to build more momentum. But he had it going so far as long he kept firing and swinging from his webs to maintain his acceleration. As he swung, Jay glanced down to see the car weave through the tight traffic with police cars following it to glare at his uncle's murderer to involve him swinging faster. Once the blue ninja got close, he pulled the thread as hard as he could while tucking himself to a tight ball and exert himself to launch in the air and landed on the roof of the fleeing car in a crouch
He had him now.
He felt his storm in his body become enraged like a hurricane to scream in anger and slam his fist through the metal roof without cutting himself and the velvet interior. Another thing he noticed was that had similar strength as Cole or even stronger than him. He felt around to grab a hold of the murder's clothes and struggled to reach for his throat as he thrashed while swerving the car to make Jay stabilize himself. His spider senses tingled the back of his head to dodge his head as he watched white flashes penetrate the roof to know the gun was being fired at him to make him release his grip and jumped off the car to land on a fuel tank truck. He grimaced to snarl as his target was making it harder. But panicked instead as his hazel eyes were being brushed by the wind rushing and caught glimpse of a small bridge to quickly hunch his legs and launched himself over from his jumping spider powers to land back on the cab of the truck. The lightning bolt in his chest made him growl more to leap off and flip while twisting his body to land on the hood of the car. He even the driver react panicky.
He smirked underneath his mask as he had him now this time.
He again screamed to his throw his fist through the windshield to watch it shatter like ice and grabbed the steering wheel tightly. He felt the car swerve as he struggled with its driver, but thanks to the barbed hairs on his fingertips, he was latched onto it tightly. As they struggled, Jay winced as his uncle's murder kept using the end of the gun as a blunt instrument to release the wheel, but ignored to care to have broken fingers. He wanted his target so badly. His sixth sense buzzed in his skull to quickly glance over his shoulder to have his hazel eyes widen and jumped to latch himself to a warehouse as the car crashed into the gate below him.
Sirens whined while their pursuit lights flashed to make Jay crawl into the shadows to hide. He snorted as the murderer escaped from the idled car unscaved and watched him run in to hide from him and the police. But he saw him trapped, cornered now. There was no escape from this warehouse as its other exit was Ninjago City Port; riverside that ran its current into the ocean. He sneered wickedly under his blue mask as he had him now and quietly crawled his way along the building and into a broken window.
Two things flashed in the Ninja of Lightning's mind as he waited for his target. One, he had him trapped and there was no escape for him. And two, he will fulfill his revenge.
This one was personal now.
Oh suspense suspense... What could happen now? Oh you'll just have to find out next time. I don't have much else to say but have a good weekend, leave a review if you wish to, and I'll see you all next week. :)