Okie dokie, here it is. Apologies again for being a few hours later than normal, but school happens. And meh.
Great Devourer timeline thing yay.
Chapter Twelve: Suspicion
The cooled air felt nice on Laurie's skin as she traversed the ornate lobby of the building. She had, of course, heard about Cyrus Borg. She was pretty sure there was not a single person in Ninjago that had not. The evidence of his rise to power was all around them, integrated into every nook and cranny of New Ninjago City. Rise to power really isn't the right way to put it, the former ninja thought, rubbing her thin fingers up and down along her arms. Did the building really need to be this cold? It was starting to feel like the onset of winter was arriving early. Cyrus Borg was not a threat in any way, quite the opposite. He had engineered many ways to make life easier for everyone. If he had extended an invitation for Jay to help him design new technologies, then he definitely had a good head on his shoulders. Jay had the creativity and know-how to make anything he set his mind too.
"You okay?" Kai was suddenly by Laurie's side, an arm draped around her shoulders. "You're shaking like a leaf, Laurie."
She noticed it now, her muscles trembling uncontrollably as she tried to keep pace with the rest of her friends. Her teeth clattered against one another painfully, sending a harsh shiver down her spine. "I-I-I'm f-f-fine," Laurie barely managed, not even feeling the usual warmth radiating off of Kai's body. She could feel the constant and reassuring pressure of his arm around her, but it did not feel like Kai. Sneaking a glance over her shoulder, the former ninja saw that it was, in fact, her boyfriend that was trying to comfort her. "I-It's just so-o-o c-cold in here."
"It's not that cold at all," the brunet stressed, pressing the back of his head up against Laurie's forehead, feeling for the presence of a fever. She felt fine, despite the constant shaking of her body. "Maybe we can step back outside to warm you up?" The suggestion seemed to be the only real choice in the matter. Laurie was fine before they had entered the building. "Just stay here for a minute and I'll go tell the guys that you're not feeling well." Kai shot the red head a sad glance before picking up the pace to catch up with the others.
Her eyes drifted to the floor as she gave a small nod. The polished, black marble of the floor was gone, replaced by the unmistakable sight of something that did not belong in a building. "S-Snow?" Laurie took a few steps backwards, feeling the snow clinging desperately to her feet and ankles. "Why is there snow?" She looked up, feeling a sudden burst of wind blow past her from behind. A horrendous torrent of flurries obscured the former ninja's vision. "Kai," she shouted, noticing the visibility in front of her becoming increasingly worse. The chill of the snow was seeping through Laurie's jeans and her trembling only worsened. What's happening?
Embraced by the absolute frigidness of the snow, Laurie stumbled forward, beginning to feel numb. The snow was piling up quickly, clawing up Laurie's thighs and halting her progression forward. "Guys, where are you?" The teenager fell to the ground and tried to push herself back up, get back on her feet, but it felt fruitless. She was exhausted and confused, her eyelids wavering. It would be death to fall asleep in the middle of a snow storm. Black dots wavered on the edge of her vision and Laurie struggled to keep her eyes open, until the darkness finally consumed her.
Surrounded. They were completed surrounded.
"There's too many! We'll never get out," Cole shouted from the other side of the intersection. Laurie stood close to her cousin and uncle, watching the ever growing number of enemies approaching slowly. If they were quick enough, they could probably just plow their way through the horde, though the chances of that actually working were very slim. Gripping the weapon in her hands tightly, Laurie felt a sense of dread creep up inside of her. They had not come this far to be stopped now. There had to be a way out of this. A large projectile flew through the air, taking out a few of the enemies that had been targeting Jay, relief evident on the blue ninja's face.
"Just keep fighting," Kai rebutted, trying to stay confident in the face of doom.
Closer. All of the enemies were getting closer. Laurie's back hit her cousin's and she swallowed hard, focused on a few of the things that were targeting them. "Now or never," she whispered to herself, narrowing her eyes. Feeling the muscles in her legs protest as she sprung forward, the orange ninja suddenly stopped her attack as a bright light illuminated everything around them. Shielding her gaze from the intensity, she felt a small smile adorn her freckled face. There was only one thing in this world, one person, that held power like that. "Lloyd…"
"She keeps mumbling stuff, like my name."
Having all her awareness come flooding back at once was disorienting. Opening her eyes very slightly, Laurie could see that she was in a room, out of the snow, but the light was almost painful to look at, forcing her eyes closed once more. A pounding started above her brow, frustrating and sudden. Shifting her body around, the girl realized she was bound, her arms stuck down by her sides. Panicking, the girl struggled, reluctantly opening her eyes to see what was happening around her.
A large, patch-work quilt was wrapped tightly around her body, pulled up towards her chin. Squinting her eyes against the light and the increasingly unbearable headache, Laurie really tried to get a better sense of her surroundings. She was in a bed, that much was obvious, and when she let her eyes drift towards the ceiling, she noticed how tall the room was. A spiraling staircase snaked its way up several stories before ending entirely. Where was she? Once more, Laurie struggled against the blanket.
"Hey, you're fine," came a familiar voice. Laurie shifted her attention over towards Kai, his face an emotionless mask. She calmed herself briefly at the sight of the ninja, realization spreading over her like a tidal wave. There was no immediate danger or threat. "Seems like you have a knack for getting yourself wrapped up in bad situations," the brunet continued, folding his arms across his chest and just staring. "Care to explain why you were stumbling around in a blizzard? I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation."
The biting sarcasm hit Laurie square in the chest like a bullet. Feeling her hands clench into fists, she tried to alleviate her temper in the quickest way possible. "I don't know, maybe I was just getting back on track with the stuff I was doing prior to the Devourer incident," she spat, mentally reprimanding herself for not handling the situation better. Her ice blue eyes glided across the room, noticing spectators to the conversation. There were Jay and Zane, leaning back against a table covered in blue prints, joined by a guy clothed all in black. Cole, she thought, the name just seamlessly emerging from her memories. "I'm looking for my father and my brother, you know."
"I'm not entirely convinced that you're being honest with us," the brunet continued, now pacing back and forth along the side of the bed. "There's something off about you. You knew me, when we first spoke. You said my name and then acted like you had no clue that you had said it." Laurie recognized the glint of hatred in the boy's light brown eyes. "I pushed it aside, figured it wasn't really too much to worry about, but then you seemed to know a lot about the Great Devourer. Yeah, the people of Ninjago know that there's a massively large serpent roaming around, but you knew exactly what it was. That it shouldn't have existed because it was Serpentine mythology, so on and so forth."
What did this have to do with anything? "I don't get where you're going with this," Laurie argued, feeling really warm underneath the blanket now. "My mother is an archaeologist so I grew up learning about the myths and other nonsense that went along with ancient cultures. So what?"
"You kept mumbling my name while you were sleeping," piped up the voice that Laurie had first heard when she had regained consciousness. Kai pivoted his body to face the back wall of the circular room, giving Laurie a view of the person who had spoken. It was a small boy, dressed in a green gi and fiddling with the black gloves that adorned his hands. She felt her breath catch in her throat as he slowly approached, emerald eyes communicating indifference. Kai placed a solid hand on the boy's shoulder and he stopped a few feet from the bed. "How do you know my name too?"
This could not be happening. It all felt so surreal. "Lloyd…" the red head whispered, feeling her stomach twist into a knot with anticipation. He was just here, in front of her. It had been such a long time since they had seen one another and she just wanted to pull him into a hug and apologize for leaving him all alone. "I just- it's really you," she managed to say in between pauses. "I've been looking for so long. The principal of your boarding school didn't know where you'd gone but…you're right here."
"That's another thing then," the red ninja interrupted, noticing the expression of longing clear on the girl's face. "You just happen to know Lloyd. You've been looking for him? So you've been searching for Lloyd, you have a fair amount of knowledge on the Devourer, and you knew who I was, yet you expect us not to think you're a spy for the Serpentine or something? It all seems really convenient."
"No no no, I just feel like something like this has happened before," the teenager rebutted, slowly coming to the conclusion that she was no longer a guest out of the ninja's kindness, but more along the lines of a prisoner. "I know things that I feel have happened, but they haven't. The Devourer, i-it's supposed to be dead because I never came across it when I first met you guys. Or…that's not how it was supposed to happen if that makes any sense." It was evident on everyone's face that it most certainly did not make any sense. "Lloyd's my brother, he's the one I've been looking for. I'm not spying for a dead race of serpent creatures. I was just trying to find my family again."
He felt a small smirk tug at the edge of his mouth. "You did look really familiar," the blonde boy confessed, watching as Laurie argued back and forth with his brother. "It's just been a really long time and I didn't want to get my hopes up or anything. You went to Darkley's though, huh? How's the school doing after we all kind of destroyed it?"
"We're not going to just sit back and talk with this girl," Kai scoffed, pulling Lloyd back from the bed.
"She's my sister," the green ninja whined, crossing his arms over his chest. "She said she's been looking for me and everything! The least you could do would be to let us talk or something."
Laurie sat back and watched the easily angered red ninja argue with her brother for a few minutes before she decided to speak up and say something. "You can trust me, I promise. I'm not going to hurt him or anything if that's what you're worried about. We've kind of been through something like this before actually." Kai raised a scarred eyebrow as the green ninja stuck his tongue out at his friend in annoyance. "I showed up, you didn't trust me, my father's Mega Weapon caused problems, stone people attacked the city, blah blah blah. Everything ends up alright in the end though. I-I joined your team, the Master of Wind. My cousin, Lloyd's cousin, did too. He's back in Jamanakai Village, working at the tea shop. You guys have to believe me. I'm not the bad guy, you can trust me."
Silence spread out for a lot longer than anyone had anticipated. Zane was the one who finally spoke up. "It appears that hypothermia was not the only problem. I fear she has been having vivid dreams as well, ones that she believes actually occurred. It would be wise to keep an eye on her and make sure there's nothing wrong with her head."
To answer a review from "Guest", no the story isn't necessarily ending soon. I wasn't as clear with the author's note last chapter I guess. I meant that I was ending "it" there referring to the chapter, not the storyline. My bad. Whoops. No, I don't want this to end too soon, but I do feel like it won't go much farther than mid-20 chapters if it even gets that far. I'm just hoping that there's enough going on to keep people invested and I'm hoping (so much hoping) that the eventual end to this tale of complete shenanigans will actually shock the people reading it.
Because that would be amazing. :D
Okay. See you next week with more and then if you read my other on-going story, updates start back up on that one NEXT Friday. Thanks and see you next time. :)