The encounter with his former team left Jay to face a dilemma.

He was cold, wet, injured, and possibly sick, left to stick to the shadows and duck from alley to alley lest the people he used to call friends track him down. He had no food, no supplies, and no one to talk to or help him through the situation.

Home would be warm and dry. Home would have welcoming faces that could dry his tears and hold him tight. Home would help him get back on his feet and help him choose his next path.

Yet, the ninjas wanted to find him. They knew every place he frequented, every place he sought shelter. If they really wanted to use him, they would wait for him there; trap him there. He could not return.

It would be almost impossible to get everything he needed on his own. Medicine was expensive, he had no money, and wasn't in the proper health to work. That in and of itself was an almost unbreakable cycle, and that didn't even take into consideration where he could dry off and warm up and sleep, or what he could eat or drink or how he would get dry clothes.

But he wouldn't go where the ninja could find him.

That would only kill him faster.

When the ninja were in the Samurai X cave, it would usually be filled with amiable chatter and good-natured teasing, even if there were only a few of them.

Now though, although only one was missing from the group, the cavernous space was dead silent.

They carried Zane's lifeless form to the counter by the monitors and gently set him down as if he was made of glass. They then backed up in a circle around the monitor, none daring to break the silence.

Each of them gazed upon his face, frozen still in the twisted shock that had adorned it when he'd been struck down.

Some of the ninja's gazes were direct and watery, others distant and unfeeling.

It was a respectful, mournful silence. They could have been teleported away to a park at that very moment and passers-by would have avoided them, unwilling to disturb the apparent funeral.

Lloyd felt as if he was right back there in the park the first time they'd had to mourn Zane, underneath his statue's gaze that didn't do justice to the nindroid's eyes that felt too deeply caring to be robotic at all.

The same gaze was blank and cold, staring up at the cave's ceiling without seeing anything at all.

It was Nya who first broke the stillness, tiptoeing over to the monitors to grab a cord from underneath one of them. She brought the cord over to the table and lifted Zane's head, plugging it into the back of his neck before setting his head down again. "I'm going to run a diagnostic. Electric shock tends to damage circuitry beyond repair, but maybe… maybe I can do something. I… wouldn't count on it, though."

The room fell silent again.

BAM.

Cole pounded his fists on the counter. He leaned over it, over Zane's unmoving form, with a roar. "I can't believe he'd do that!"

Lloyd put a hand on his shoulder. "None of us can, Cole. But it's not like it's nothing we've never been through before. People turn on us."

"Not him, though!" Cole punched the counter again, and Lloyd distantly wondered if his knuckles would be okay. "He's been through everything with us! He's my best friend! He didn't even tell us his reason!"

"And now he's out there, doing who-knows-what while we have to figure out how to save all of Ninjago City without him and Zane," Kai added. "How are we going to take care of him, and stop the Storm of Ruins from destroying everything?" He turned to Lloyd. "And please don't say we're going to fight him." He hugged himself, staring off to the side. "I- I know he's out of control, but I don't really think I'd be able to bring myself to hurt him."

"How do we even know he's that far-gone?" Nya asked. "Fighting him isn't on the table; for all we know, he could be a conversation away from calming down."

"How do we even know he's-!" Pixal sputtered. She jabbed a hand at Zane. "This isn't the work of someone who's just a conversation away from being A-okay! Maybe it's easier for you to go blind to that fact, seeing whose partner it was that attacked and whose was beaten!"

"Right," Nya shot back, "We just immediately assume the worst of everyone who does anything wrong! Because Zane never turned and attacked Jay!"

The silence that followed was deafening.

Kai gaped at them.

Cole averted his gaze.

Lloyd hid his watering eyes behind cupped hands.

Pixal bristled, hands balled into fists at her sides. She turned to Lloyd. "We need a plan of action. Jay has proven himself dangerous. He must be stopped, for the good of the city."

Nya waved a hand in front of Pixal to cut her off, addressing Lloyd as well. "No. We do need to find him, but we need to help him. Whatever's going on in his head, we've worked through worse."

Kai turned to Lloyd. "Maybe it's still too early to tell. We should be focusing on the health of the city."

"Of course not!" Cole said. "The city can wait until we've figured out what to do about Jay. Ninjas first!"

"What if the city gets crushed with him in it?" Kai said. "The only thing left of Jay to figure out would be whether or not he's been pancaked thin enough to call a crepe."

Lloyd's head swivelled from one friend to the next, trying desperately to process their words but getting lost in the noise.

"We can save him when we-"

"-Zane is an example enough of what he's willing to do. Do you really think the people are safe if-?"

"We need to have him fighting alongside us. If it's not enough that he's our friend, then maybe it'll get through your head that he could help save-"

"We don't have much time left, and-"

"Lloyd, you understand, right?"

"Lloyd, we need your orders."

"You know what the right choice is."

"Obviously our leader isn't going to-"

Lloyd's tearful gasp cut through their overlapping voices and silenced them all at once. He tried to bite back the sobs that welled up in his throat, but all that accomplished was to make them more strangled when they burst forth.

Lloyd darted for the exit, chased away by the overlapping voices of his friends calling him back.

Pixal roared and stomped away.

Nya huffed and walked over to the monitors, loudly typing away at the keyboards.

Kai looked at Cole from where they stood over Zane.

Cole was trembling with contained cries, his lips pressed together and his face contorted to hold back tears.

Kai hesitantly draped an arm over Cole's shoulders.

Cole silently leaned against him, ducking his head.

If Kai saw a few drops of water hit the ground, he didn't say anything.

It didn't take long for Cole to find Lloyd.

The green ninja was curled up on one of the cots on the Bounty, sniffling, turned against the wall.

Cole sighed and tiptoed over to the cot, making just enough sound with his footfalls to make his presence known. He settled on the half of the cot that didn't contain the sniffling ball of blankets, and gingerly rested his hand on Lloyd's concealed form. When Lloyd didn't shrink away, he soothingly rubbed the green ninja's back. "Hey, buddy."

Lloyd said nothing.

"I'm sorry I put so much pressure on you like that; you're upset about Jay as much as the rest of us."

Lloyd still refused to speak, but shifted around so that he could lean against Cole.

The ghost of a smile graced Cole's lips. "We'll all work together to figure out what we can do next; I'm sorry we all got so carried away. You're our leader and we should be following you, not pushing you."

They remained in a comfortable quiet for a few minutes, Cole still rubbing Lloyd's back as the younger ninja steadily regained control of his breaths.

Cole was about to get up and insist that they go back to the cave to work things out with the others, when Lloyd's voice cut through the silence.

"Maybe I shouldn't be the leader."

Cole started. "What?"

Lloyd stared at the ground, sweeping a lock of hair out of his face. His hair had become quite unsettled when he'd been crying. "I obviously can't tell who I can trust. Who's to say it won't happen again?"

Cole shook his head. "Jay's sudden turn surprised all of us. It's not like anyone else on the team would have seen it coming."

"But you all knew I wouldn't be able to talk Garmadon down when he came back, and I tried anyway. Look what happened. The whole world saw me beaten on live TV and lost faith when my dad started the apocalypse. If I'd just listened to you, people wouldn't have seen him beat me. They'd still have faith and would have fought back against Garmadon's forces."

"He's your father; of course you were going to put more faith in him than the average person. And he did eventually come down from his power trip; who's to say you didn't cause that, even if it was just planting a seed in his mind for later?"

"Or what about Pixal? I trusted her when I met her, even though she was working against us at the time. Or what about Zane in the Never realm, or- or Harumi?"

Cole tensed at the name. He and the other ninjas had secretly made an agreement not to bring up that name, and he had to steel himself from instinctively seeking out and sending a glare at whoever had said it.

It wasn't another slip-up this time, though. Despite their best efforts, Lloyd was still hurt and no amount of steering around the topic could just make him forget what Harumi had done to him.

Cole let out a heavy sigh. "People who have things to hide often go to great lengths to hide them. The bigger the secret, the more they'll hide it. If you didn't sense that they had ulterior motives, that's on them, not on you. They actively went to hide what they were doing; the only way you could have actively searched and prevented them from surprising you would be to be suspicious of everyone until you knew everything about them, which just isn't healthy."

Lloyd sighed. "I guess you're right."

Cole slung an arm around Lloyd's shoulders. "Lloyd, you're a great leader. You're compassionate and collected and a good strategist. Finding people along the way who want to stop you is just part of being a leader. It doesn't mean you're a bad leader for not sniffing them out, it just means you don't have a ridiculously high sense of intuition and they managed to slip past you. That doesn't make you a bad leader, that just makes them…" Cole trailed off and averted his eyes. "That just makes them a bad friend." Cole swallowed a lump in his throat, and clenched his teeth.

Lloyd hugged himself. "Do you think we can save him?"

"Ye-" Cole cut himself off. Lloyd had just broken down because everyone tried to pull him in every direction for the exact same situation. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to sound so assured at the moment. Listening to his own words, Cole was even beginning to doubt it himself.

Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea not to go through with his words, either. Lloyd had definitely caught his stumble, and now shifted his gaze onto the ground.

Cole fumbled with the words in his head. Going through with his originally planned, "Yes of course we can save him" would only sound fake now.

Cole wasn't exactly sure how to reassure the young ninja otherwise, though. He didn't even know what to think, himself.

Originally, he would have thought that Jay was just a few steps away from saving, but Pixal was right. He couldn't just ignore what he'd done to Zane.

His own words replayed in his head. Could Jay really have been planning this for such a long time? Could he have charmed them into thinking he was their friend, only to now pull off an elaborate scheme to shatter them at the brink of all of Ninjago City's downfall?

But no, that couldn't be it. Something in Jay had changed; Cole had felt it. Something had been different about him after he'd woken up on the ship. Whatever had pushed him over the edge, it hadn't been there for long.

"I think so," Cole replied honestly. "Call me crazy, but I think whatever made Jay go crazy, it's recent. I… I can feel it. The air around him… shifted. Something's on his mind."

Lloyd nodded and stood.

Cole raised his gaze to the green ninja. "Are you gonna be okay?"

Lloyd paused, hand on the doorknob. "Not really." He turned to Cole. "But we've worked through trials just as bad, as a team. And the team needs leading, right?"

Though it didn't reach his eyes, a smile still graced Cole's face. "Right. Way to go, green ninja."

Kai yelped and narrowly dodged a wrench sailing through the air. "H-hey, sis! You, uh…" He picked the tool off the ground. "You gonna need this again?"

"No," Nya deadpanned, fiddling with the base of an unfinished mech.

"O-okay. I'll just put it over here then." He set it down on the counter by Zane's head. As much as he tried to avoid it, the sight of his lifeless friend drew his attention, and he found himself once again staring into the cold, unseeing eyes.

He pried his gaze off of Zane's form to read the main monitor, which indicated the diagnostic was still loading, and would be for a while.

His peripheral vision caught motion, and he ducked just in time for a loose bolt to go sailing over his head.

Kai shifted on his feet, returning his attention to his working little sister, who fiddled with the mech with a lot more force than necessary. "Sooo, how are you doing?"

Nya responded by taking a hammer to the mech with a yell, denting the chassis in a way that definitely did not belong in its design.

"Ah," Kai mumbled. "That great, huh?"

Nya had the compassion to aim away from Kai when she threw the hammer, then she clutched onto the mech, panting.

After checking for potential projectiles within her reach, Kai approached her and knelt beside her. He rested one arm on her opposite shoulder and laid his hand on her head.

Nya wasted no time in burying her face in his chest.

Kai wrapped his other arm around her back and let her do the same.

"I can't believe I let the entire thing just slip through my fingers!" Nya's muffled voice cried into his gi. She backed up a little, still holding him, so that he could hear her better. "He was right there; I could have done something, or said something, or- gah! We're supposed to talk to each other! We're supposed to understand each other! And I couldn't see this coming. It was probably right in front of my face the entire time, and I couldn't do anything! I was supposed to be there for him! He was supposed to be able to tell me anything, and I blew it! How could I-" she lost momentum. "How could I have let this fall so far?"

Nya let Kai rock her slightly and mutter soothing nonsense like he would after she'd had a nightmare when they were kids.

"I don't understand."

"It's okay," Kai mumbled to her over and over again.

If it had been the first time he'd done it, Nya would have pushed him away and screamed. He was crazy for telling her that; he had no proof.

But time and time again, her big brother had cradled her and told her that everything would be okay.

All throughout their childhood, this was their routine when Nya was upset.

When she scraped a knee, Kai rocked her and told her that everything was okay.

Her knee healed.

When she couldn't figure out how to smith swords, Kai put a hand on her shoulder and told her that everything was okay.

She found better things to do, than to smith swords.

When their parents left, he held her tight and told her that everything was okay.

Kai raised her himself, and eventually their parents returned.

When Jay left and took one of their closest friends with him, Kai held her close and told her everything was okay.

She buried her face in his shoulder and hoped he would be right once again.

Jay mentally cursed. He should have known he couldn't hide from the team forever. Not while he was in such poor condition.

The team was used to splitting up and tracking people down— dangerous criminals, at that, which was a category they now probably considered him to fit. He should have known that despite his efforts, they would sniff him out eventually.

Still, Pixal managed to catch him off-guard when she cornered him in a back alley where he'd been scavenging for anything of use.

It was a stray cat that announced Pixal's arrival with its yowl before fleeing in an instant just like Jay wished he could.

Pixal marched forward in the Samurai X mech. Even through the thin slit in her helmet, Jay could see the fire burning like electricity in her eyes; eyes that, like Zane's, showed more raw emotion than it felt should be possible from a robot— well, not that Zane could do that anymore.

Zane's power source crackled anticipatively in Jay's belt, still tucked away where it could not be seen. Jay made sure of that. No way he was letting Zane and Pixal get thrown into the fire he'd so narrowly escaped.

Jay slid off of the dumpster lid he'd been perched on, wincing as he knocked his injured shoulder on its lip, and landed on his feet.

The Samurai X mech stomped rhythmically closer. An unsteady streetlight by the alleyway's entrance flickered with the mech's every booming step.

Jay found himself backing up close to a brick wall behind him.

Pixal had really brought out the heavy machinery to confront him.

Something told Jay he wasn't leaving without a couple bruises, and that was if he was lucky.

Just when he thought he'd have to back up flat against the wall, Pixal stopped her approach.

The Samurai X helmet distorted her voice when she asked, "Who are you?"

Jay furrowed his brows. "What?"

"Cole was right. This isn't like Jay," She said. "What have you done with him?"

Jay couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Did the others really think he was dumb enough— weak enough that he wouldn't run from anyone trying to kill him? Did they really think that they were so convincing with their act that they thought he wouldn't defend himself against them? Was that what they thought— that it wasn't like Jay to see through their charade and resist what they wanted to do to him?

Jay laughed a cold, bitter laugh, lightning dancing across his fingertips. "Think again, sister. It's me."

Pixal's eyes lit up intermittently, momentarily abandoning their angry flame for something very much more robotic. She was processing something.

Jay gaped at her. Was she scanning him? Did she think it was more likely that he'd been taken over by some anomaly, than the possibility that he was just trying to protect himself from them?

As if to confirm, Pixal's eyes reverted to their more expressive state, and she gasped. "You really are Jay."

He snorted, fully letting surges of electricity wash through his wrists and over his hands. White-blue lights and shadows danced across his face with the rise and fall of each passing bolt. "Yeah. And in case you need any more proof, here's this!"

Jay punched an open palm out towards her, letting the rush of heat course through his wrist until a bolt of electricity shot forth from his hand.

Pixal dodged the bolt. The bulky Samurai X suit crashed into the building beside it in the process.

Jay hummed, a smile forming on his face. Maybe fighting in a cramped alleyway wasn't such a disadvantage, after all.

Jay shot a second bolt towards her, directly down the middle of the alley, where there was not enough room for her to dodge left or right.

This time, he felt a surge of power rise through him even as he expelled the electricity. It was… exhilarating. It was like no matter how much energy he put out, there would still be more coursing through him. Like he could charge the whole world and light it up with electricity, and still have more to keep on burning. He broke into a grin, one full of life and energy, like he would never get tired of smiling. Like he would never get tired at all.

Jay let the bolt die and glanced down by his hip, where Zane's power source crackled and glowed.

The little half-circle kept dancing with energy even after the moment had passed, seemingly alive with power.

Pixal steadied herself in her now-smoking mech. She removed her helmet and threw it at the ground. "Why are you doing this?" She roared.

"The others need to know where I stand," Jay shouted. "I am not their puppet! I am not the weakest link, and I am not some toy to be thrown around! There is so much more to me than they realize!"

"Why did you do that to Zane?"

Jay stopped. She didn't know. Maybe he could still get through to her. Maybe he could still have a friend fighting by his side. "Oh, Pixal," he replied, letting his barriers crumble for just a moment and allowing his voice to carry all the empathy he truly meant, "Zane was just a pawn."

Pixal froze, mouth agape and eyes wide, the exact same expression Zane had worn when Jay had saved him.

Jay smiled. Pixal would understand.

The fire returned to Pixal's eyes just as quickly as it had evaporated, and she flung the mech at him.

"How could you speak about him like that?" She screeched.

"Pixal!" Jay stopped her in her tracks with a gentle, continuous zap, just enough to glitch out the mech's circuitry. "You know all of this was just about power!"

"I cannot process what you've done to Zane! I cannot understand why you would-"

Just by the sound of her voice, Jay could tell Pixal was growing more and more unstable, and he wondered if she could muster enough strength to break through his grip.

He strengthened the voltage just in case.

Beside him, Zane's power source flickered, and its electricity surged through him.

What he had meant to make only a slight increase, turned into a whole electrical storm with tendrils of energy shooting every which way and latching onto the metal mech.

He could faintly hear the panicked beeping of the mech's computers, and smoke began to rise from the machine.

Jay struggled to cut off the electric surge, stumbling back when at last, it did come to a halt.

Pixal abandoned the mech and charged straight for him.

She was quick, swinging punches and kicks left and right that left him with hardly any time to regather himself before the next.

Jay reeled back and readied a fighting stance as she charged at him again. "Fine! Why did I think you would help me, anyway? It's all just about power! That's all it ever was!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something up above.

A breaker box perched on a telephone pole next to the wire.

He ducked under Pixal's incoming punch and it sailed over his head.

He rolled on the ground and tumbled onto his feet, using the momentum to get him running right away. He jumped and pushed off one building, then the one opposite of it, until he sailed over the tops of the buildings onto the rooftops.

Pixal followed his maneuver, hot on his heels.

Jay raced across the rooftop, telephone pole in sight, and jumped. He sailed over the sidewalk below and collided with the pole, holding it tight as he scrambled onto its top.

The breaker box was just an arm's length below.

Pixal skidded to a stop on the rooftop's ledge. "Zane deserved nothing that you did to him!"

Jay jammed a thumb at his own chest. "I didn't deserve anything that the team did to me! But you wanna make me the villain here? Fine!" He sat on his haunches and formed one hand into a claw before punching it through the breaker's metallic covering. The torn metal cut his fingers where they embedded into the box. Blood trickled around each digit, but it didn't matter. He could feel dozens of wires, wires that connected the power for the entire neighborhood at least, if not more of Ninjago City. "I just hope you're prepared to face me as one."

Zane's power sparkled at his side, connecting itself to him, and him to the breaker.

Jay summoned the power from the breaker.

The next second, he screamed, each of his bones taking on the full force of a bolt at once. His hair fizzled and he cried out. He just had so much… energy. He couldn't keep it all in.

Lights all over the neighborhood flickered on and off. Some fought stubbornly to keep to the buildings they lit, but within a few seconds, the entire city quarter was plunged into darkness, and Jay was left panting, doubled over on himself, residual bursts of electricity sparkling over his form.

There were only two lights in the city quarter: Pixal's robotic eyes, staring horrified at the second light source, and Jay's jolting, crackling form.

Currents lit his features in split seconds, enough for Pixal to gather what she was seeing.

She backed up, glancing down at the streets below, mapping her possible escape routes.

Jay's hair now sparked, singed and frizzled. The crimson blood that dripped from circles cut around his fingers glistened with blue light.

Jay stared at the gruesome sight for a while, fascinated with how the red drops buzzed blue just after they dripped from his fingertips. He laughed, then gazed up at his former friend, who still slowly retreated without turning her back to him.

"Heh. Guess the team has another electric storm to worry about."