A/N: On my hands and knees begging you guys to read this on AO3 if you can, that chapter has art :) (And the formatting isn't all weird on AO3 after I took the hammer to it)
But even if you read it here, I really appreciate it! I hope you enjoy. Will put up chapter 10 in a few days.
The room was very green. Way more green that Lloyd had expected, considering how deep the cave had led them. It was bright, too. A massive orb rested within the maw of a massive statue of a dragon on the ceiling, and it glowed in such a way that made the room feel as though it were bathed in sunlight. A tall waterfall crashed into a very speedy-looking river that then flowed off a cliff into an endless dark pit.
Ignoring that, in the very center of the room was a large deciduous tree. Its branches created a canopy over the pedestal on which it was planted. Roots spiraled outward, just controlled enough to appear intentional. Even the air, which had previously been stale and smelled faintly of metal and stone, seemed fresh and pleasant.
A small pond surrounded the pedestal. The roots passed through it and surfaced again on the other side, and lilypads floated within. The entire room felt peaceful. Lloyd wouldn't have minded having a picnic here.
Of course, it wasn't all happy. Morro really didn't like the carvings on the wall. Lloyd felt his face scowl as the ghost possessing him took them all in. They were of Lloyd. About his life, like in the Temple of Light.
Lloyd was, of course, curious about what they showed. But all it took was one look at a wall of Lloyd when he was little, surrounded on all sides by the Golden Weapons, for Morro to lose it.
Morro squeezed Lloyd's fist into a ball and sent a blast of wind at the wall; of course, it was Deepstone, so that did very little to erode the carving. Even a strike from Ghoultar did little to affect it.
Lucky spoon-fed bastard, came Morro's voice in Lloyd's head. You always did have your rewards set in stone.
-Totally- Lloyd replied. At this point, he couldn't even be bothered to play that verbal game of ghost tennis. Morro looked around the room- it seemed like a dead-end. Which would be wonderful, if that were the case. If the Sword had been leading Morro and his ghosts on some big snipe hunt. Lloyd would give up sweets for a year if the First Spinjitzu Master would just pop out from behind the tree and say "hah get pranked, your crystal is in another tomb" or whatever.
Didn't seem like that would be the case, but what harm could a little pipe dreaming do?
Anyway, Morro tightened his grip on the Sword of Sanctuary as another guiding vision came to them. This time, Lloyd saw himself, meditating underneath the tree.
"Figures," Morro grunted. He turned to his ghost posse. "Keep watch. The ninja could be here any minute."
Bansha floated around the room in a slow, halfhearted loop. "If they were coming, we would have seen them by now. Perhaps they didn't figure out the clues without the sword."
Morro rolled his eyes. "Just don't let your guard down."
-Should have asked Ronin what the ninja knew. Oh wait, you were a little busy torturing him like some kind of amateur- Lloyd thought with all the condescension he could muster.
He wasn't ever going to talk, Morro replied, smirking to himself, or something.
-Not if he thought it wouldn't affect the outcome- Lloyd explained. Morro hopped over the pool of lilypads to reach the tree. -That's like, interrogation 101. Literally. I took a class on it, you know. You move on to torture after getting the information. People aren't going to talk if they think they'll die no matter what…-
To nobody's surprise, Morro cut Lloyd's little sidebar off. Not with words, though. Rather, with this frustrating sense of being shoved down into his own head, making everything feel muddled and weird. Lloyd decided to take that as a win. He had a knack for being annoying when he wanted to be. Although this definitely wasn't how he expected to use his schooling from Darkley's.
Things were a little fuzzy, like Lloyd was watching a movie half-asleep. Hell, with how long it had been since a proper night of sleep, maybe he was. But Morro took his place underneath the tree. It would have been pleasant if it weren't for the whole "unholy offspring of hell manipulating his every move" thing he had going on. He's certainly had to meditate in worse places.
Morro was, however, not great at meditating. He was fidgety, for one. And bad about keeping his eyes shut. Lloyd wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised. On the one hand, he'd had plenty of years to stew in his own thoughts before crossing over to piss in Lloyd's breakfast. On the other hand, Morro's head was certainly maddening to listen to. Almost made him pity its owner.
Almost.
You don't exactly help the matter, Morro added; Lloyd could keep that infamous scowl on his face again.
-Aw, thanks-
What was weird was that, after a moment, Lloyd heard a voice.
"You can open your eyes, now."
The young-ness of it was enough to make his eyes flutter open in pure surprise. His hand flew to his chest.
"I… what…?"
Maybe he had fallen asleep, because Lloyd was currently moving with no ghost to control him. And also, he was in a sprawling, seemingly endless green field.
In front of him was… himself. A younger version of himself. The "him" that had gone around in black clothes painted with bones, declaring himself to be an evil overlord that longed to steal all the world's candy.
"Oh great, my sleep paralysis demon," he groaned.
His younger self did that stupid evil laugh that gave Lloyd retroactive-slash-secondhand-some kind of embarrassment. "Muwahahaha! That's right! And I'm here to torment you for all eternity!"
When Lloyd didn't react with more than a withering glare, his younger self pouted and kicked at the dirt. "Man, you got boring when you got older."
"I'd probably find it funnier if I weren't so confused, to be honest." And also if his younger self weren't so… his younger self. But he didn't mention that.
His younger self pulled his hood down, revealing that awful bowl cut he used to sport. "Okay, so, long story short, Morro was pulled from your body, but you're both still in the same room. We're just buying time."
Lloyd looked around. He could feel a breeze on his face. This most definitely was not the weird underground tree room. "Never was good at explaining things, was I?"
Small evil overlord Lloyd pouted and crossed his arms. "Ugh, fine, I'll show you!"
Lloyd felt no small sense of vertigo as his surroundings wavered and shifted, and suddenly he was viewing the room he was pretty sure he had been in a moment before. Except, as he looked at his own hand, it was transparent. As was Little Lloyd. Less in a "you're a ghost now" way and more of a "you're not really here" way. How his brain drew the distinction was beyond him. He could still see the grassy field overlaid on top of the room like an afterimage burned into a television.
Morro's ghosts were surrounding Lloyd. The Soul Archer had an arrow pointed at his chest, which was nice and comforting to know was happening. Surprisingly, Lloyd looked like he was meditating rather than taking some feverish nap.
Half of the beautiful tree had withered, though. And under that half's dead branches sat Morro, locked in his own meditation pose with an uneasy, tormented expression.
"Alright! Making more sense?" asked his younger self.
Lloyd experimentally waved a hand in front of the Soul Archer's face. Probably not a good idea with the arrow pointed at his heart, but that didn't really occur to him until after he had sufficiently proven that the ghosts could, in fact, not see him.
"I guess?" Lloyd decided with a shrug. "And what are you? My ghost of Festival's past?"
He felt that dizzying vertigo again as his surroundings shifted back to that of the large sunny field. Lloyd did a double-take when he saw that the smaller Lloyd's clothes had changed- he was wearing the first, ill-fitting Green Ninja gi. "Ooh, that'd be cool. Nah, I'm just a reflection of you made by Grandad."
Ah, yeah. "Just" a reflection made by the First Master. Why not.
Honestly though? Not even like, top fifty weirdest things to happen to him. Easier to just accept it and move on.
"Alright, so what am I here for? What's going on?"
His child self scoffed. "Like I said, we're buying you some time. Oh, and we have some advice, I guess. But right now, mainly, we're slowing Morro down until your family can get here."
My family is coming, Lloyd thought as a little flicker of elation flooded his chest. He didn't know what their plan was, but it was amazing how much hope just knowing they were on their way could inspire.
"Duh, of course they are! You've saved them tons of time, why wouldn't they rush to save you? Wanna see?"
More of that vertigo and shifting environment. Then he- he saw them. His team, walking down a corridor made of the same blueish stone as the one Lloyd was in.
Zane was leading, lighting the way. Kai was close behind him- his hand was twitchy, ready to reach for his sword at a moment's notice. Nya was there too, even. She held a spear tight in her fist, walking with it like his uncle did with his staff.
"Man, those ghosts had better watch out if Nya is here," Lloyd whispered under his breath.
"I know right?" echoed his younger self.
Behind Nya was, naturally, Jay. He bounced back and forth even as he walked forward, leading to a very strange, jumpy, and familiar gait. Like he was just itching to break into a sprint.
And behind Jay was… Cole.
Lloyd bit his lip. Cole was trailing a little ways behind the group, saying something to the group that he couldn't hear. Just like last time, he was see-through. And his eyes appeared sunken in, like he hadn't slept in centuries. Said eyes still looked like they had been dipped in black paint. Those irises were still neon green. And his pupils were still white pricks.
"You still feel bad about that, huh?" asked the younger Lloyd. "You know you shouldn't."
Lloyd didn't say anything.
There was the sound of cracking porcelain, like a cup being shattered. Lloyd lurched back as a small puff of gas formed around and concealed the other Lloyd. When it faded, Lloyd was staring at someone much more similar to his current self. Older. It was him after inhaling the fumes from the Tomorrow's Tea.
"Then again, you know how disorienting it can be, don't you? To have change thrust upon you, even when you accepted it as a possibility." The childlike demeanor was gone, and his voice was deeper. He had his own bags under his eyes from all the training Lloyd had endured at the time. "When Uncle Wu said you'd grow into the gi, you didn't think it'd be quite so abrupt."
He looked away, though there wasn't much except sky to focus on.
"...Yeah, I get it," the other Lloyd continued. "And of course, turning into a ghost seems a little more extreme than growing a few years older."
Lloyd hugged his elbows tight enough for his fingers to hurt. "Yeah." He took a shuddering breath. "I mean… they've worked so hard to try and save me. To stop Morro. But this happened. What if- what if worse happens to Cole? Isn't the Preeminent after him? What if-"
He felt a gentle nudge from his reflection. "Hey, hey, take a breath, bud. This isn't the first time you guys have faced impossible odds." There was what seemed to be an explosion of gold, then he was wearing his golden gi.
Man, I used to be impressive.
"You'd think I could handle a ghost if I could handle the living embodiment of doom and gloom," Lloyd snarked at nobody in particular.
Not that I could even really handle that.
"Oh come on, none of that," his shiny golden self chided. "Would you put any stock in it if Kai were the one saying it?"
"No, but Kai wasn't the one destined to defeat the Overlord. And I couldn't even do that much."
His reflection sighed- the golden glow petered away until all that remained was his green gi he wore when fighting the Nindroids. "The world is no weight to place upon a lone child. That's why you agreed to share it in the first place."
He scowled. "Right, five children is much better."
It was a dark spiral of thoughts to go down, but recent events had Lloyd's head in a dark place. Because honestly. What was he supposed to think?
His reflection glanced in Lloyd's direction, then just put his hands in his gi sleeves and looked up at the sky. "Yeah, it really isn't fair. Do you resent the destiny placed upon you?"
Lloyd pondered the idea, flipping it over and over in his head. "I don't know," was all he could settle on. "Parts of it, I guess. Hard not to feel like they got the wrong guy. Or that I came out wrong. Like I'm not the Green Ninja the world needs."
The other Lloyd looked at the ground, at the grass below them. "You're not being fair to yourself. I'm inclined to think it's something of a pattern with your family. But you like saving people, don't you? You're much better at that than you ever were at being a supervillain."
Lloyd choked out some kind of broken chuckle. "True enough. But it never lasts. And it feels like for every person I save, someone else is lost."
"It's much easier to be the sacrifice than the survivor."
He cringed. "When you put it like that…"
Makes me sound pretty damn selfish.
"You're not selfish," his reflection said, as though Lloyd had voiced his thoughts aloud. "The idea of saving everyone, cleanly and perfectly, it's sickly and alluring, but rarely is that ever the case. The idea of everything being cleaned up perfectly if just one person does the one right thing… Man, that'd be something." He smiled and closed his eyes. "It's an amazing thing to aspire to."
Lloyd didn't have much of a reply to that. He opened his mouth, only to close it a moment later.
"I think you and Zane are a lot alike, in that regard."
Lloyd recoiled as golden tendrils erupted from the ground, creating a network of spiderwebs that stretched infinitely into the sky. His reflection was caught in the web, the Stone Armor gi he now wore doing very little to protect him.
It was a wave of snow and ice that destroyed the spiderwebs, freeing his reflection. Lloyd himself just felt sort of prickly and numb at the bad memory, like the itch of an old wound that hadn't quite healed right. "He was finishing what I should have done right the first time."
"And what's that?"
Lloyd caught a lingering snowflake in his palm. "I don't know. Destroy the Overlord, I guess."
"That simply isn't possible," his reflection sighed. Lloyd whipped around to face his reflection.
"What?" Was the Overlord still out there? After everything they'd done to stop him?
"The Overlord is an embodiment of evil. You can destroy his form, his consciousness, but some new evil will eventually take its place."
He couldn't help the bitter laugh in his throat when he noticed that his reflection had, at some point, changed to his gi from the tournament. "Great. Save the world, and it's always just going to need saving again? Except the next time evil popped up, we got to be down a team member and I lost my dad. Lot of good we're doing, then."
"Do you really think your efforts were all for nothing?" his reflection asked. "If you hadn't defeated the Overlord, then you never would have gotten to reconnect with your father. Not to mention the apocalypse you stopped."
Lloyd grunted and looked away. "And I did such a great job of protecting my dad."
His reflection took a few steps so that he was now in front of Lloyd, now wearing the gi he wore when he banished his own dad to the Cursed Realm. "So should you have let the world end the first time?"
"Obviously not. Stop twisting my words."
"But what's the point, if your time with your father was going to be finite, anyway?"
Lloyd didn't have an answer to that. His reflection put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, Lloyd. There's only one way to wipe out evil. And that's to wipe out good with it. Bad things are going to happen. Bad things are never going to stop happening, and they're never going to stop being unfair. The world is not karmic. It's just an indiscriminate mess of good and bad twisting all around."
Lloyd groaned and let himself sink into the grass. He flopped backwards with a melodramatic sigh and put his arm over his face. "You gotta admit that things are kind of ridiculously unfair for us, though."
His reflection joined him on the grass. If his outfit was still changing, Lloyd didn't see it. "That's the problem with being a powerful force for good. It puts you in the path of powerful forces for evil. And that's exactly why you can't be the only one to bear that burden."
He couldn't help the frustrated scream as he let his palms dig into his eyes. "Agh! So now I have an evil ghost controlling me, and Cole is dead! I don't get it! On the one hand, I wish I hadn't ever put on this stupid gi because I keep just losing things while I wear it! But on the other hand, I want to help people!"
He heard his reflection hum pensively, perhaps even nervously. "I… will skip the fancy talk for now. Look, I really do understand. You love helping people, but you're afraid of the cost that comes with that. You'd rather be the only one to be punished for putting your neck on the line. But also, your family is what motivates you to keep fighting. You don't want to fight for the same reason you do want to fight. It's contradictory. Without your family, you cannot fight. But without your family, you have nothing to fight for."
He barked a single laugh. "If that isn't the story of my life right there."
Just an absolutely broken mess of a human being.
"Hey, come on. Everyone's a bit of a broken mess," his reflection said with some humor in his voice. He held a hand out for Lloyd to grasp. "It's just that you also have some pretty contradictory and weird superpowers that exacerbate it all."
His reflection was wearing a gi he didn't recognize, now. Lloyd just groaned and pawed his hand away.
"You've lost a lot in your life. More than most kids your age could even comprehend. And bad things are going to keep happening."
Thanks for the pep talk.
Lloyd heard something large crack behind him. He craned his neck, but all he could see were some falling rocks and rubble.
"But so many good things are going to happen, too. You're not fighting for nothing."
"Well, that's encouraging. I guess. How many bad guys do I take out?" Lloyd asked, allowing himself a smirk. He accepted his reflection's hand, and let him be pulled to his feet.
"It's about more than that. You do more than fight. You're a hero to so many people."
Lloyd heard something echo around him-
"The resistance never quits!"
"I cannot fight you, but I can resist you."
When he looked around, Lloyd saw, bizarrely, a television. One with a child in front of it. One with dark skin and darker hair that poofed upward a bit. He was holding what appeared to be one of Lloyd's green hoods. He was staring at the screen, completely enchanted, though the screen glared too much for Lloyd to actually make out any pictures.
"More than a hero, you're a symbol for hope. The moment you give up, the moment you accept that there's no point in opposing the evil of the world, that's when the world dies. That's when good and evil cease to have meaning, and all that's left is despairing apathy."
Lloyd felt pretty tight in the chest at hearing that. Yeah, no pressure.
"And this," his reflection said, tapping Lloyd's chest with his fist, "is why you need to let others worry about you. Nobody can be perfectly strong all the time. And your family wants to share that burden with you."
Lloyd bit the inside of his cheek. "But… I just can't lose Cole. I can't."
He saw his reflection flicker. Lloyd felt his heart go cold- whatever it was didn't look human, it looked like some kind of gold-colored monster. "We cannot fear loss. It is an inevitable part of existence."
Then the monster erupted into what appeared to be a miniature sun, and when the spots finally faded from Lloyd's vision, his reflection was wearing a golden gi once more. A massive, four-headed, golden dragon circled overhead. "However, you can push against it. You can hold on with all you have. It will hurt, losing something to which you cling so tightly. However, is that not what love is? Caring so much about someone, that you're willing to risk the pain of having them ripped away?"
The ground quaked. And suddenly, a dragon, larger than anything Lloyd had ever seen, towered overhead. It was so large, that a single claw seemed to be several feet taller than him. It peered down at him, watching him with what appeared to be interest. Just looking at it felt immense and important.
His reflection pulled his head back down to face him at eye-level. "And that risk is precisely one your family takes for each other. Let them help you, and help them in kind. Stay hopeful that it will all be okay, even dark times. A world without hope is a doomed one."
Lloyd felt something new, some sort of feeling. Vague and difficult to pinpoint. Maybe a kind of tugging.
His reflection watched him with sad eyes. "Ah, it seems like our time is up. Fight hard, Lloyd Garmadon. Morro will not be your undoing."
Lloyd smirked. "Is that a prophecy?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Just some hope of my own."
Nya had a room. It was more than a little surreal. One with a Deepstone door that was covered with a steady flow of water clinging to its surface, pooling until it could finally meander off through some cracks in the cave.
"See?" Jay smiled and nudged her with his elbow. "I told you there was a room for you! If anyone deserves one, it's you!"
She shook her head, and placed a finger on the stone, feeling the water soak through her glove onto her hand. "It's not a matter of deserving one. It's just… weird. Water isn't an Element of Creation."
"I see no reason for the First Spinjitzu Master to arbitrarily refuse to provide you a room simply because you don't wield one of the Core Elements," Zane said.
"Especially when you made the trip all the way down here, same as us!" Jay continued, nudging her forward. "Come on, open it!"
Nya made a bit of a sidestep away from Jay's prodding. "I can barely control my power; I'm not sure that I can open the door."
Cole, who had been tailing the group, crossed his arms with an easygoing smile on his face as he stepped over a small stream of water. "Ah, you'll be fine. All of our powers are pretty weak right now, but something about this place tugs at you. Just concentrate."
But what if my room is even worse off than yours?
It wasn't like she had done much as the Master of Water, after all. And at her current rate, she wasn't sure she could ever fulfill some grand destiny.
"Sure, concentrate," she mumbled. "Easy."
She placed her palms against the door, instantly soaking her gloves.
"All I feel are wet gloves," she grunted.
As always, Jay was her cheerleader. "Don't worry! It takes a sec. You got this!"
All it takes is a sec, huh? Maybe for you, she thought with a bit more envy than she expected. Jay had always been so fast on the uptake with anything.
But also, everyone was staring at her, watching her make a fool of herself. It was in moments like these that Jay's eagerness was a bit less helpful.
"I feel my power just under my skin," Jay said after a few moments of nothing happening. "You gotta find it and grab it."
"How do I grab something inside me," she groaned. "Why does all this have to be so metaphorical.
Zane hummed. "I don't think it's entirely such. Attunement with one's body is, in a sense, like taking control of yourself and being aware of your own state. My powers are centralized largely in my processor- that is my mind. They react best when I am in full control of my emotions."
Nya huffed, and glanced at Kai. "And I suppose you're going to say that your fire comes from your heart or something?"
Kai startled, like he wasn't fully expecting to be addressed. He just fumbled out a shrug. "I guess so. My powers react to my feelings."
I was being sarcastic, Moron.
How utterly unhelpful. Three completely different means by which to try and "locate" her powers, whatever that meant.
Nya furrowed her brow and eventually took off her gloves. She tossed the soaking wet things at Kai, flecking water on him. He yelped. Jay giggled.
That didn't really feel like it helped.
It was Cole that put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about how we did it."
Nya bit back some frankly unwarranted and needlessly provocative retort. "What do you mean?"
"I mean our powers are all different. And we all unlock them in a different way. I feel mine in my gut, deep inside me. But water is its own thing, right? So you just gotta march to the beat of your own drum. If that whole metaphor 'searching inside yourself' thing doesn't work for you, then maybe try another angle."
Nya paused and processed what Cole was saying. "What kind of angle could I possibly hope to find down here, right now? she asked. "I don't really have time to meditate on it, you know."
Kai snickered.
"And what's so funny?" she demanded, letting her head swivel to face her asshole brother.
"I'm pretty sure none of us ever had time when unlocking our powers," he said. "We were fighting the Skulkin when we first used Spinjitzu."
Jay huffed. "You mean when I first used it, and you all copied me," he accused without malice.
Zane continued without dignifying that. "I got my True Potential during a fight with some forest monsters."
"And you saw mine," Jay added. "I was definitely on a clock."
Cole raised his misty green hand. "Was nearly crushed by stage equipment."
"Volcano," was all Kai deigned to include in his explanation. "Point is, I don't think you gotta think so hard."
"Sounds like you're just trying to justify your 'incinerate first, ask questions never' mentality," Nya retorted. Kai just rolled his eyes.
"Yeah sure. Say that to me after you escape from a water volcano as a water meteor."
Zane gave Kai a thoroughly confused look. "A… water meteor? Is that a metaphor of some kind?"
"Nah. It's just Kai being Kai," Cole explained. He turned back to Nya. "Anyway, give it another try. Don't worry about us. We made way bigger fools of ourselves trying to tap into our powers."
"Especially Jay," Kai added.
Jay guffawed. "Ex-cuse me? Who was the first one here to learn both Spinjitzu and Airjitzu?"
"And how many electrical fires have you started on the Bounty during training?" Cole pressed.
"That you try to blame me for!" Kai accused.
"Irrelevant!"
Nya allowed herself a light laugh before taking a deep breath and sitting in front of the wall.
Come on… they all believe in me.
Once she had adopted that awkward-feeling meditation pose that even Kai seemed to take so naturally, she placed both her palms on the wall.
Of course, she didn't feel anything. Why did it seem like all she could do was accidentally create thunderstorms?
"Don't overthink it," Cole said softly, placing his cold hand on her shoulder.
She sighed and tried to stop "overthinking," but that was really easier said than done. She set her forehead against the door, feeling as the water trickled down her face and past her neck, sending a bit of a chill down her spine.
Water… water water water…
She wasn't good at that whole "search inside yourself" deal, so instead she tried to focus on the feeling of it running down her back, dampening her clothes. She was supposed to feel a connection to it, but at this point, all she had managed to do was accidentally create some rain here and there. To fail and fill that damn bucket. To need a ghost to give her a hand hopping across a river.
She clenched and unclenched her fists, and for the time being, put a pin in that thought. She was supposed to have a connection to water. What made water special? All living things needed it. And for some reason, its fluid nature was detrimental to the not-living. Although Cole seemed able to eat and drink, and such things obviously contained water, it was something about the transient nature of water itself that could act like a billion little arrows that could pierce right through a ghost. Even ghost blood was viscous and-
Blood.
The thought came to her so suddenly, that she couldn't help but snap her head up. She stared at the door again. She pressed her fingers against the Deepstone, feeling them scrape against the cold rock. Her excitement at the revelation left her heart beating a bit harder.
Her heart, pumping blood through her body. That was something unique to water. Sure, lightning and earth had a place in forming a person, as did fire and ice in maintaining homeostasis, but humans were made of water. In some sense, a living person was the opposite of a ghost, and the existence of water flowing through their body in a complex ecosystem was the differentiating factor.
Maybe that had something to do with why water specifically was so powerful a weapon against ghosts, even compared to the Elements of Creation. Because, while the Elements of Creation played a part in making life, water was the culmination of that life.
There was a soft blue light. Nya pulled her hands away from the wall, only to realize it wasn't the door that was glowing, it was her own hands, glowing in the same way the others' had. It was soft, but definitely present. The glow trailed along her veins like rivers of energy, and she could undoubtedly feel something inside her.
She placed her hands against the door. The water on the wall seemed to collect around her hands, swirling briefly until gravity pulled it back along its intended course. Slowly, she spread her hands outward, and to her surprise, the water followed. It trailed after her like a magnet, redirecting to create a partition of dry wall. When she moved to pull her hands away, a crack she hadn't noticed in the rocks began to shine blue. She took a step back as the flat segment of the wall separated, finally opening her door.
Jay whooped. "I knew you could do it!"
Kai pressed his fist into his palm. "Now we're talking!" He led the way into the room, already circling it, checking it.
Nya stared down at her hands- she could still feel that strange, unspecific sense of power flowing through her, and it was starting to make a little bit more sense just what she was doing. If she'd still had any doubts about her being the Master of Water, it was hard to be in denial any longer. Even if being the Master of Water hadn't yet translated to her being the master of being the Master of Water.
She glanced back at Cole and Zane. The latter was eyeing the former cautiously; Cole was smiling.
"Awesome job! Knew you had it in ya!"
Still, he couldn't hide the way he glanced up nervously at what had once been pouring water.
"I hate to say it, but your advice helped."
Nya stuck a hand out under the doorway. She smiled back at Cole and gestured for him to follow. That seemed to be all the encouragement he needed to pass into the room, seemingly unharmed. Zane followed suit immediately after, though he didn't neglect to give an encouraging nod to Nya.
More than anything, she was just relieved she pulled it off.
Now, she wasn't sure what she was expecting from her room. She hadn't even been expecting that she'd have one. Forget it being quite this large. And yet, it was identical in size to the other rooms. Like the others, a large carving of a dragon circled up top. It was a long thing with horns that reminded her of coral. It also appeared to be made of Deepstone, as did the rest of the room.
It was… pretty. Very blue. Small waterfalls foamed around them on all sides. The center of the room had a pool of water that shined, casting rippling reflections all over the room.
There were intricate carvings on the walls, much like the others. And, like the other rooms, the pictures seemed to shimmer and glow. The light seemed to come from tiny rivets carved into the wall like tiny rivers, flowing with water that shone blue and teal similarly to her own hands.
Unlike Kai, she couldn't help but take a look, even though she thought there wouldn't be much. Once again, she was wrong.
The earliest carvings were of her and Kai. Of him, toiling over their forge while she tried to do what she could to help. At the time, that meant studying.
After that was her capture by Samukai. Downright embarrassing, that whole mess. But it was after being saved that she had met the others, and when her brother had finally seemed happy for the first time she could remember, so she couldn't complain much.
A bit after that was… her Samurai X suit. Which was… surprising, seeing as that didn't really have anything to do with being the Master of Water. And yet here it was, massive and taking up an entire wall.
There was… a surprising amount there. Her fight with the others in Ouroboros. Kai discovering her identity. Her attempts at fighting the Stone Army. Her contributions in the second Overlord fight. There were even some murals of her on Chen's island.
"Woah! Nya! Check this out!" Jay called, gesturing her over to another wall. She began to walk that way, but got distracted.
The wall grabbing her attention featured the same strange, four-armed looking ghost that she had seen in Jay's room. She was holding a spear, standing atop what appeared to be clouds with Jay at her side. She wondered why that appeared to be the only ghost on any of the walls. Nya shook her head and continued walking.
She noticed briefly that she passed by one of what appeared to be her and Lloyd fighting some horde of enemies. It hadn't been destroyed like all future depictions of Cole, though whether she found that reassuring for Lloyd or damning for Cole, she wasn't sure.
There was another one that caught her eye before reaching the wall Jay was beckoning her to. One of her piloting the Bounty, pulling the thrust lever. That wall was damaged, strangely enough. Then there was another of…
It was Jay, kneeling in front of her.
She bit the inside of her cheek and moved to meet Jay. He gestured to a mural of him in some bizarre outfit, where she seemed to be balanced on his hands in some elaborate dance. "I think there's some dance lessons in our future."
She wrinkled her nose. "I have two left feet with that kind of thing, I don't know if that's a good idea."
"Aw, come on! You've been doing great in training!"
Cole must have heard them and made his way over, though Nya noticed that he kept a bit more of a distance- she abruptly became aware of the gentle mist foaming from where the water hit a pond along the edge of the room. She took a few steps back to make him easier to hear.
"Hey, what's this about dancing? I know some places that give lessons that don't actually suck, as long as they haven't changed much since I last attended."
"Wasn't that like seven years ago?" Jay asked.
Cole wobbled his hand in a misty so-so gesture. "Give or take." Nya saw him wince as a stray droplet hit his hand. He took a few more steps back, but continued looking around.
"Cool dragon," he said, nodding to another mural. "I was wondering what your elemental dragon would look like."
Nya turned where he was looking. Indeed, there was a mural of what definitely looked like a water-dragon. It was long and sea-serpent-like, sporting the same wings and coral horns as the one carved into the room. Although, she didn't see herself riding it. First Master knew what that meant.
She saw Cole take even more steps toward the center. The entire room seemed to be making him antsy, and honestly, Nya couldn't blame him one bit. She decided to hurry this along.
Unlike the other rooms, she didn't get a pedestal. Instead, the center of the room contained that shimmery, shining pond. It glowed with the same energy as her palms. Hopefully with just, like, pure power rather than some poisonous algae or whatever.
Kai was already lingering around the pond, looking stuck between wanting to rush her and not wanting to annoy her. She decided to ignore him and stick a finger in the water. It felt pretty normal, if chilly. She sighed. Probably shouldn't have hoped that she could avoid getting completely soaked.
Now, she could have stepped into the questionably deep pool like a normal and safe person, but Kai was staring at her, and was so close to the water.
Cole saw what she was thinking and took several steps away.
Silently, she leapt into the water, leaving her spear beside the pool.
Even as she submerged, she could hear Kai's indignant yelp and Jay's laughter.
Now, she didn't like opening her eyes underwater, but she did so anyway. To her surprise, it wasn't uncomfortable at all, and she could see perfectly clearly. Which… didn't make too much sense, considering it definitely did when she was a kid. Then again, Kai had burned himself on their forge more than once as a kid, so whatever. Powers were weird.
She kept swimming down. She wasn't sure for how long. At some point, she lost a sense of what way was up, and what way was down. She just kept swimming through the shining light until, eventually, finally, she broke surface.
She wasn't nearly as out of breath as she expected to be, and now there was ground under her feet, leaving her only submerged by a few feet.
"Hello?" she called. "Is this- is this where I'm going to see my 'reflection' or whatever?"
She heard a child giggling. She tried to spin on her heel, but the water made her a bit sluggish. Indeed, it was a smaller version of her, short enough that the water was almost up to her neck. "Yep!" the little replica of herself said in a singsong voice. "You really hafta stop being so surprised at that!"
"Can you blame me?" Nya asked, looking around- she was in an underwater cave. More ripples cast aqua reflections on the walls. "I can barely control my element, and even then, water isn't an Element of Creation."
The child giggled again, putting a hand on her hip. "That doesn't mean you don't deserve a room. Come on, save the time you were basically mind controlled, which doesn't count, you've been there for every fight the others have. You've been supporting them, and they've been supporting you. Just because you're tapping into your powers a bit later, and just because they're not an Element of Creation doesn't mean anything."
"Huh…" was all Nya could settle on saying. "I don't follow, though. Are there rooms for elements like metal or amber?"
Nya lurched back as the small Nya glowed blue and seemed to dissolve into the water. A new Nya formed behind her, now wearing her usual clothes, though stained and charred from being stuck in the Temple of Fire. "No, they're not the ones that would be coming to the Tomb to try and save Lloyd. Come on. The First Spinjitzu Master wasn't some cold and calculated, otherworldly thing. He was a father, and he knew how much Wu cared for you. And he knew what an amazing person you are. And what amazing things you're capable of."
She crossed her arms and turned away from the reflection, opting instead to stare down at her actual reflection in the water. "Are you here to give me a pep talk about what a good Water Ninja I'd make?"
"Do you think you wouldn't?"
Okay, they were doing this. She'd play along, then. Who knows. Maybe it would help. It wasn't like she was making much progress on her own.
That was when she learned her reflection was, in some capacity, aware of her thoughts. It frowned at her. "You really think you haven't been making progress? That's dumb. You just made some."
"Yeah, I opened the door. When the others had no problem opening their doors. I'm just not good with water, okay?"
The reflection smirked. "You're better than Kai."
"Cole is better with water than Kai."
The reflection ceded that one. "True, but you just figured out how to tap into your powers!" It took her by the wrist and held up her glowing hands. "Stop holding yourself to the standards of someone that's been doing this for years. You're doing great."
Nya yanked her hands away by pressing against the reflection's thumbs, as though it were holding her in a death grip. "You know what I'm already great at? Being Samurai X. Why does that have to get taken from me?"
The reflection wavered, becoming pure water for a moment. Ripples spread through its form, then it was wearing her Samurai X outfit. "Samurai X has not been taken from you. If Wu wanted to take Samurai X-"
Nya scowled. "Oh, don't bring him into this. He just keeps secret after secret."
The reflection picked up where Nya had cut it off. "-he would have told you about your power a long time ago. But you became Samurai X, and you were good at it. Elemental powers don't usually manifest until later in life. He wasn't going to place yet another burden on you if he didn't have to."
"Then the ghosts," Nya sighed. "So he had to." Whatever. He still could have given her some kind of heads up.
Her reflection shook its head. "I can't tell you everything going on inside Wu's head. All I can say for certain is that he was hoping that you wouldn't need to access your powers until later. It wasn't such, although you were supposed to have at least a few more months until it became a necessity."
"Wouldn't sooner be better, though? In case something like this happened? So that I wouldn't be useless during it?"
She thought of that horribly hollowed out look in Cole's eyes when they had intercepted him. Of what he had to do since she couldn't stop Ronin from stealing the Sword of Sanctuary. Of what a disadvantage they were at, now that Morro had the sword.
"You're not useless," the reflection chided. Then, it rippled again, this time shifting to the lightly armored outfit she wore on Chen's island. "I'm not going to pretend like Wu was in the right for hiding your powers from you. Nor do I fully know why he did it. That is something you have to hear from him. But that's not what you're angriest about. That's the lesser thing you're choosing to focus on instead."
"Oh yeah?" Nya deadpanned.
"You're afraid of not being enough. It's as simple as that. I think you and your brother are a lot alike in that way."
Nya just huffed and crossed her arms.
"You're trying your best, and you're still not where you want to be. So you want to feel like this is an unfair burden placed upon you."
"Like it's not?!" Nya demanded. "You can't honestly be saying-"
Her reflection cut her off with a sharp shake of its head. "Of course I'm not saying you deserved this strife. But you chose to fight against it. You took up the Samurai X mantle to help people. You're training your elemental powers to try and save the world. It's not fair that the choice to fulfill this destiny falls on you, but it has always been your choice."
"Definitely feels like my choice, what with the carvings of my life laid out before me," she shot with an accusatory scowl.
"Destiny isn't laying out your choices. Destiny is based on the choices you would make." Her reflection began to ripple again, but still spoke in the meantime. "And you're afraid of not being able to live up to the destiny of the Master of Water. The idea of failing is unbearable."
"Yeah, killing Cole because I can't control my powers? Definitely an unbearable thought," she spat. Because you can't gain water powers at the same time your friend develops a glaring water allergy and then not envision accidentally melting him with said water.
Her reflection sighed. "You've always placed a large burden on yourself. However, it was never as immediately threatening as what the ninja faced, and you never failed a task in such a way that directly led to their harm. But you saw what happened when Zane died, and the thought of being in Jay or Kai or Cole or Lloyd's shoes there, where he's so close yet so far… that is what you're afraid of."
Nya felt… indignant. Which probably wasn't the reaction she was supposed to have, but having all these things about her just laid out bare and ugly? She wasn't a fan.
"You make it sound like it's a bad thing that I don't want to get my friends killed."
The reflection continued to ripple, but it was wearing a magenta and blue gi that Nya didn't recognize. It had a golden dragon coiling along the chest. Her hair was different, tied back in a ponytail. "If a surgeon operates on enough people, he will inevitably have one die underneath the knife. Likewise, if a hero fights enough villains, someone is going to get hurt." It rippled again, now back to matching her own gi and appearance. "But distancing yourself from that job, placing yourself in a less important role- it does not prevent loss of life or failure. It just means you're not there to save the people you otherwise could have."
"But I'm not running. I'm here, aren't I?"
"You're here physically, and you're doing fantastic. But any chance to acknowledge your process is undermined by your own self-deprecation. Emotionally, you're still resisting the idea that you are a capable Master of Water, just because you haven't mastered it yet."
"So what do you want from me!?" she demanded, more than a little frustrated.
Her reflection looked over its shoulder just in time for all the water in the cave to begin to drag itself into one spot. Nya took a few steps back as she felt the force of the water rushing around her, threatening to pull her right along.
She blinked once, twice, wondering if she was seeing things. But no, it was the dragon from the carvings, made of water and staring down at her. Despite the sheer power it exuded, Nya couldn't find it in her to be afraid.
"You must acknowledge who you are. You can be Samurai X. You can be the Master of Water. However, to fill those roles, you must believe you can. You made it this far. Whenever you stop doubting yourself, you're capable of parting the seas."
"But I'm just- I'm just Nya!"
The dragon circled around her, movements fluid and gentle. "And what a wonderful thing to be. Nya kept her brother going when he lost his way. Nya built her own suit with which to fight. Nya helped save her family from a cruel game. Nya is here to save her little brother. Nya is the one who, with nothing but some encouragement from her friends, figured out, just now, how to tap into her powers."
Nya stared down at her scarred hands that still shone like the dragon in front of her. She wasn't sure she had a retort for that. The dragon lowered itself, and she could feel the water as it nuzzled her. "And Nya is going to make many mistakes, same as the other ninja. But for every droplet of mistake, there is an ocean of good that only she can do. Please, Nya. Do not fear what you cannot do. Just strive to do the best you can."
He was surrounded by sand. It swirled around him on all sides, an absolute torrent of pale grains lit only by his own bright green aura. Lloyd was nowhere to be seen.
Morro scowled. "Who did this?! Where am I?!"
He heard a young voice. "You're still in the Tomb of the First Spinjitzu Master."
Morro spun around, half floating, half actually standing. He tried to command the wind to blow whoever that was away, but his powers weren't working.
"Why can't I use my wind?! Who are you?!"
Even over the gale, he could hear a quiet sigh- could feel the breath of air. "I was made by the First Master in the case that you'd be dumb enough to start some shit."
He felt fury boil inside of his typically numb form. "Show yourself and say that to my face!"
And they did. It took a moment, but the swirling of sand around him intensified, completely encasing him on all sides in a way that not even his own glow could penetrate. He didn't need to shield his eyes, but still found himself squinting regardless.
When he could see again, he recoiled. He tried to clench his fist and summon his spectral weapons, but even those weren't working in this place.
He was staring at himself, young and dressed in rags and very much so alive.
The mockery of him looked him top to bottom with a withering scrutiny. Morro tried to lunge, but he couldn't make himself solid enough to land a blow.
"I'm a reflection of you, here to give you some advice."
"I don't need your advice, I need to get back to what I was doing!"
"You're killing Lloyd. Why would I let you get back to that?" the fake child said with crossed arms and a deeply furrowed brow.
"If you actually knew me, you wouldn't need to ask such a stupid question," Morro scoffed. "Now let me go before I make you."
He could feel the wind howling around him, deep inside him.
The child circled him, and Morro decided to root himself to the spot and glare. "You're making a mistake. What are you hoping to achieve from releasing the Mother?"
Morro didn't reply, the pathetic imitation of him knew full well what he wanted.
Instead of saying something accusatory, the child just took a deep breath. The wind around them seemed to pulse and wane in kind. "It's not worth it. It's not worth your life."
He rolled his eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't have one of those anymore. I have nothing to lose by chasing what I deserve."
The sandstorm once again grew too dense for him to see beyond. He screamed and tried to dispel it, but it seemed content to block his vision for the next several seconds. When he finally could see again, he saw the imitation of him- now a little older, a little less gaunt, and wearing a gi. "The Green Ninja was destined to rise above the others. Is this how the wind rises? By lowering all those who may challenge him?"
He wasn't listening to this. "I don't need some illusion to try and tell me off. I have risen higher! If Wu's ninja were really so great, they would have beaten me the first time."
"Is compassion for their brother the same thing as weakness? Is using their brother to ward their attacks the same thing as strength?"
Something in the environment began to shift. He heard his imitation talk down to him. "Lloyd Garmadon stands opposed to evil. He does not join it, even when it whispers promises of family in his ear."
He saw Lloyd, the damn golden child construct himself from the sand. He faced Morro, leg splinted but in a combat pose. Morro prepared himself for an attack, only for a fearsome roar behind him to nearly scatter his very body. He recoiled back as he processed the massive black dragon behind him. It was a golden glow from behind him, from that precious chosen one, that scattered the monster to the dust.
"That was supposed to be my destiny!" Morro yelled. The environment shifted again. He could still hear himself.
"Even when he was young and terrified, Jay Walker fought to save rather than to conquer!" He saw a sandy visage of the Lightning Ninja running frantically to a mound of sand that seemed to represent rubble. From it, he fished out a civilian just in time for a massive serpent to narrowly miss where they had once been. Morro recoiled as the creature passed right through him, painting his vision dark.
Morro spun on his heel, only to be faced with a nearly unbearable elemental cold. Towering above him was the Ice Ninja, locked in combat with a spider-like, demonic figure. "Zane Julien acted to protect out of love and compassion! He was willing to give up everything to save others!" The ice spewing from his attack slammed into Morro and dissolved back into sand.
"Well, I guess not all of us are lucky enough to get such a grand destiny!" Morro screamed back into the sandy void around him.
When he could next see, it was the girl he had stolen the Samurai X suit from; still in costume, she flew overhead to combat dark, metallic constructs bearing a distinct resemblance to the ninja. "Nya Smith didn't need a grand power and grander destiny to do what was right!"
"Enough!" he roared, lifting himself up just in time for the ground to become impossibly hot. The sand began to ripple and bubble like a viscous liquid.
"Kai!" called a voice Morro had heard within his vessel's memories. He saw the Fire Ninja, leaping from rock to rock in order to reach a much smaller Lloyd. The wind howled on all sides, and he could feel the howling gale inside his core.
His own voice was screaming back at him now, yelling yet louder than the maelstrom around him. "Kai Smith longed for the same destiny as you, and yet, when given a choice between being the Green Ninja and saving the Green Ninja, he chose to save!" A great ball of fire erupted around the imitation of the Fire Ninja. Was it fire? Or was it sand? He couldn't tell and couldn't hear-
"Stop this!" Morro demanded, and this time, when he waved his arms, the tempest halted, the sand falling to the ground all at once. "You're not going to change my mind," he said quietly, and with resolution in his voice. He had chosen this path long ago. "I will take the destiny I deserve."
The false Morro stood before him, back to wearing the rags he had scavenged on his quest to find the Tomb. "Wu's ninja all acted like more of a Green Ninja than you ever have."
"Because I wasn't lucky enough to be recognized until the Mother found me. And by then it was too late. So I'll take what I deserve now."
"By stealing the destiny of everyone else?" It asked in a much softer, much sadder voice. "Why do you reject your own destiny in favor of a burden that doesn't belong to you?"
Morro just scowled.
"Do you want to know what your destiny was?"
Morro whipped his head around as another figure clawed its way out of the sand. He saw a withered man with white hair and a navy blue gi.
"You're destined to learn how to cook from Bryce. To meditate with him as wind and snow swept through the fields."
Bryce never cared for me, he merely tolerated me.
More figures were appearing, surrounding him, boxing Morro in, and yet he felt as though he could not move, no matter how hard he tried.
"You and Libber would pull pranks on Master Wu." This time it was a woman, watching him with sad eyes. She had blonde hair and a gi with a lightning pattern embroidered on. "She would fix your uniform while you watched movies together."
I don't need her help with something so stupid!
Then he saw Maya, dressed in pastel blues holding hands with Ray. "Maya thought of you like a brother and would have wanted you present for her Yin-Yang ceremony. Ray would have loved to let you test the weapons he learned to forge."
And why should I care about them? They seemed perfectly happy just having each other.
Then he saw her- a woman with black hair and a black gi. Lilly Brookstone. She was turned away from him; Morro could feel his own scowl deepen. "You and Lilly would have trained together. Fought together. Conquered mountains together."
All of the old, long-gone Elemental Masters faded away, and Morro just saw another ghost. "But instead of that, her only son is equally as cursed as you are."
"It's not my fault he went to a haunted temple!" Morro said, and he could have sworn he tasted something bitter. "It's not my fault I-"
"You were going to be a hero, Morro!" the imitation yelled, and it had the audacity to look like it was near tears. "You could have been known for saving, side-by-side with the other Elemental Masters! Instead, you've doomed one!"
Morro didn't feel like dignifying the accusation. "Well, all that went away the moment I had my destiny stolen!"
The imitation of him gestured frantically. "Nobody stole your destiny! You forfeited it!"
"Well, it's a little late to backtrack, isn't it?" he spat, crossing his arms and turning away. "The previous masters are long gone."
"Is it? You don't have to side with the Mother. You may not have Ray, or Maya, or Bryce or Libber or Lilly, but you don't have to be alone! You can still fulfill your destiny, even if it doesn't look quite the same as-"
"Let me out!" Morro screeched. "I'm not interested in what you have to say! It is too late! It was too late the moment I died in that cave and nobody came to look for me!"
He was alone, and that was fine with him. At least he'd be on top.
"So is it too late for Cole Brookstone, then?" the fake Morro asked in a dark voice.
"Why should I care about him? He damned himself."
The sandy ghost reappeared, this time glaring at Morro with some intense expression. Morro could feel the ground around him solidify, compacting itself into a much more solid surface as the Master of Earth walked towards him.
"He hears the Mother, and he knows his fate. And yet, with the time he has, he seeks to save."
"He's just delaying the inevitable," Morro scoffed. "He can't save himself."
"It's not himself that he's desperate to save. And that is what makes him greater than you. When faced with the end, when his destiny is stolen, he seeks to build others up rather than drag them down with him. That's why he's going to succeed, and you're going to fail."
"Tell me that once he's finally anchored to the Mother." It could only be a matter of time at this point.
"Should that come to pass, I have a feeling he'll tell you himself."
"If anything, he's lucky. The Preeminent can give him what he wants. All he'll have to do is join her, and he didn't even have to slowly die alone in a cave," Morro spat. "We'll see how picture perfect the First Master's legion of chosen ones is when she comes for them."
His reflection, despite appearing physical, seemed to have no issue grabbing Morro by the wrists. "She won't give you what you want, and you know it. It's not worth it, Morro. Please listen to me. You don't have to be the villain. Green Ninja- do you really think someone that releases the Mother would deserve that title? You can be so much more than this!"
Morro yanked his hands away. "Do not touch me!" he hissed. "I'm not interested in cozying up with those spoon-fed, over-glorified, weak excuses for Elemental Masters! I am Morro, Master of Wind, and I will be paid my dues!"
His reflection reached towards him, but withdrew his hand when Morro snarled at him. Its expression sobered and grew serious. "I see. I'm sorry I couldn't change your mind."
"Now let me go," Morro ordered, voice deadly and quiet.
The reflection dissolved into sand.
When he opened his eyes, it was chaos.
Things went a little crazy after Nya's room. Because the passageway that had opened up hadn't led to some other door. Instead, it had led to another damn waterfall. Cole was getting really sick of those.
The rub was that there was someone beyond the waterfall, according to Zane. Apparently, it opened up into another large room. There was just enough clearance along the edge of the waterfall that he could poke his head out and chance a look, after which he took several steps back. The crashing of the water did plenty to hide their voices as he spoke.
"Currently, the Soul Archer is holding an arrow to Lloyd's chest. Bansha and Ghoultar are circling overhead. They are avoiding the waterfall. Morro has the Sword of Sanctuary and a weapon I do not recognize on his back. He is currently out of Lloyd's body, but appears to be meditating.
"So what's the plan?!" Kai asked, looking two seconds away from jumping straight through the waterfall.
"And how is Cole supposed to get past the waterfall?" Jay asked. "The gap isn't large enough for him to avoid being sprayed."
Cole had been wondering that himself, when he realized something. Maybe it was his powers starting to come back, or maybe it was a ghost thing, but he realized the ground at his feet wasn't entirely Deepstone. It was like a patch of regular earth had been left here, for him.
He took a slow, false breath, and tried to focus on the humanity of the gesture. "Okay guys, here's the plan," he said. "I can possess the earth to create another golem. If we surprise the Soul Archer, we should be able to stop them from shooting Lloyd. He's going to be weak. Try to get him on the other side of the waterfall so Morro can't reach him. From there? Rip and tear."
The others nodded. Nya bit her lip and tightened her grip on her spear as the others drew their weapons. Cole didn't blame her for being nervous. This part never really did get easier.
"Good luck, guys," he said, tossing his Scythe to Zane. "We got this."
He closed his eyes and focused on the stone around him- he let his form scatter once more, to sink into the ground below. The earth began to respond to him.
There was no time to assemble his form. The moment he started moving the earth, the ghosts would probably notice. So he moved quickly. He held the boulders together like they were some snakelike chain and lurched through the waterfall.
He couldn't see, and he couldn't hear. But he could feel them- the things that were like him, and the person that he needed to protect. Cole went for the Soul Archer first. He couldn't possess the Deepstone; instead, he used the earth he could command to pick up and assimilate pieces of the stuff as though it were chunks of armor, like fangs on his creature's gaping maw.
It bit down on the Soul Archer. He could feel it take a chunk out of the ghost's arm.
This is for Ronin, he thought furiously.
He could feel the others start to move around him, the way they all lunged into battle. He was vaguely aware of Nya moving for Lloyd, while Kai went after Morro, who still hadn't moved.
The Soul Archer was moving, and Cole was too blind to know exactly how.
It was when he was forced from his rock-formed body that he realized what happened.
The Soul Archer had just released its bow- its arm had reformed in the split second since being hit, but it was wavery and unstable, jagged and mangled. But it had been enough to release an arrow that struck Cole, turning the rocks around him into ethereal energy.
"No!" Cole shouted, trying to stop the Soul Archer before he could string another arrow. But Cole didn't know how to float, so he plummeted to the ground and hit it with a thud. This one was aimed at Kai.
The arrow whistled like a screaming spirit, and hit Kai in the back as he charged after Morro.
Cole felt a moment of absolute utter terror as the impact launched Kai forward and onto his stomach. Which was followed by relief when it dissolved harmlessly, thanks to the Deepstone undershirt he was wearing.
But he was on the ground now, and the others were busy.
He saw blue sparks in his periphery- it was Jay; electricity sparked off his body that his nunchucks conducted. He was fighting off Bansha, striking her each time she dared to try and scream. Her sword clashed against Nya's spear as she stood in front of Lloyd.
Lloyd himself looked awful. Awful, but stuck in the same meditative trance as Morro. The same as all of them when they were talking to their reflections.
Zane was single handedly holding off Ghoular. The ghost outpaced the Nindroid in raw power, but Zane was smart, and good at diverting his attacks to keep him farther away from the fight. He was using his ice in small bursts, because that seemed to be all he could muster at the moment.
Cole rushed over. "Thanks for holding this!" he got out as he took his scythe out of the strap on Zane's back.
The Soul Archer was readying another arrow, this one probably not aimed for Kai's back.
Cole intercepted it, deflecting it with the flat of his blade. The Soul Archer scowled, their form wavering unstably after the damage from his attack. "Stupid unanchored ghost! You'd do well to listen to the Mother!"
He felt a gross horror worm through his chest.
Of course that's what they called her. "Never," he said with perfect calm.
And it was as simple as that. He would always fight them.
The wind began to blow.
He realized a moment too late what that meant.
He heard Nya gasp. "Lloyd!"
"Mm… Nya…?"
Kai whipped his head around to look at Lloyd, and it was a fatal distraction. Morro was conscious again, and attacked Kai.
Cole screamed and ran to Kai. "Watch out!"
Kai spun on his heel and lurched back just in time for something bright green to ricochet off his Aeroblade Sword.
"You ninja never know when to go down!" Morro screeched, eyes wide and wild and very angry. "Where is the Realm Crystal!?"
"We don't have it!" Kai shouted back. He held up a glowing fist- a small yet powerful ball of fire shot towards Morro, only to light the withering tree behind him instead when the ghost dodged effortlessly.
"He has the Sword of Sanctuary!" Cole reminded him. That would make this difficult. Zane was barely holding off Ghoultar, while Jay and Nya were locked in combat with Bansha and the Soul Archer. On the one hand, that meant they probably didn't have to worry about any stray attacks from that side of the room. On the other, it meant that it left Kai and Cole to fight Morro.
And Morro had some tricks. "I have much more than just a Sword!"
Now, Cole was expecting him to use whatever that weird-looking blade on his back was. What he actually used was probably worse.
Green blades erupted from his form, the same glowing neon hue as the other ghosts' weapons. They were small, floating kunai, four of them, all attached to Morro's own form by ethereal wires. He wrapped one such wire around his wrist and clasped it in his hand. With a practiced motion, he spun it like a rope-sword.
Cole and Kai didn't back down, of course. Even as the wind threatened to knock them off their feet.
"You're going to die here," he snarled at Kai; two of his Kunai launched towards Kai like speeding bullets. He dodged, reflecting one off his sword as he spun the blade around the wire to snag and slice it. The other blade narrowly missed his head as he craned his neck.
"And you," he added, pointing towards Cole with the Sword of Sanctuary, "Are going to the deepest, darkest pit of the Cursed Realm to rot for the rest of eternity!"
Cole spun his scythe to reflect one of the flying Kunai, only to be knocked off balance by a gust of wind. He hissed as the spinning Kunai sliced his shoulder, leaving an ugly, dark green gash. It hurt, but not more than the idea of losing one of his brothers to this fight.
"I'm not scared of you, your lackeys, or the Preeminent! And we are going to stop you!"
Morro effortlessly dodged another flurry of attacks from Kai between his sword, his flying kunai, and his wind.
"You should be!" Morro yelled. "The moment you leave this place, she'll be after you! And you can't run! There's no escaping the Mother!" All four kunai arched towards Cole, like little green wires of death.
"Watch me!" he screamed back, stomping a foot into the ground to launch a small rock that knocked one kunai off course- he deflected another with his blade and tangled the wire in his Aeroblade staff; with a swift jerking motion, he whipped the kunai in such a way that it entangled and knocked off the other two.
In that time, Kai counterattacked in a blazing vortex of fiery Spinjitzu. Morro screamed as the flames licked at his body, and it took a particularly strong gust of wind and Airjitzu to dispel Kai's momentum.
Morro taunted Cole from above, barely seeming to care about Kai. "Some ghost you are. What, are you afraid you'll end up like me? You could be stronger than all of them like this, you know. We're ghosts, and we're Elemental Masters. Now, if we just had the power-"
Cole interrupted that tangent- using his own Airjitzu cyclone, he lunged towards Morro and took a swipe at him with his scythe- it bounced harmlessly off the Sword of Sanctuary.
Nya screamed. Both Cole and Kai spun around. He heard Morro cackle. He wasn't sure how it had happened, maybe it was some attempt at getting Lloyd out of the way, maybe it was a stray attack, but somehow, Lloyd had ended up in the river as it flowed towards Cole and Kai.
Lloyd was drowning.
Here they all were, way below sea level, in an old tomb, having made it this far to save Lloyd, and he was drowning in a creek.
Okay, maybe "creek" was a bit of an understatement- that water was rushing to a precipitous drop alarmingly fast.
But Lloyd was right there, head barely above the water, frame gaunt and eyes sunken in- he almost looked like a ghost himself, even with Morro out of his body.
And well. Water isn't good for ghosts.
"No! Lloyd!" Nya screamed. She tried to jump into the water after him, only for Morro to shift his focus and intercept her. Before he could reclaim Lloyd's body, Zane launched an icicle towards his chest that he was forced to dodge. Jay was suddenly pulling triple-duty, fending off all three of Morro's lackeys in a way that only Jay could manage, weaving between them and drawing their attacks, interfering before they could fully avert their attention.
Even still, he couldn't fight three ghosts alone, and it was only getting more hectic on that side of the room. But for now, Morro was being kept at bay as Lloyd was swept away.
"Kai! Do something!" Cole shouted as they ran along the bank of the river. "I can't!"
"And you think I can?" Kai shot back, though he was already removing his heavy deepstone shoulder guards as they ran to catch up with Lloyd, who was approaching the waterfall way too quickly. Kai fumbled with the strap on one arm and growled in frustration as the latch snagged on some fabric.
"It's just water! You'll be fine!" Which, Cole would admit was a bit of a reductive way to paint Kai's massive phobia. That water was fast, and swimming was much easier when you weren't loaded down by clothes and equipment. Not to mention how dark the tomb was. On the other, Lloyd was drowning at best, and about to plummet to certain doom at worst.
"Like hell! This is crazy! This is insane!" Kai shouted again with eyes wide as saucers. "I can't swim, this is insane!" He ripped the rest of his deepstone armor off and threw it behind him. Then, frantically, he pulled his gi down and tore off the Deepstone undershirt that had been barely fastened to begin with.
There was shouting behind them. In his periphery, Cole saw a wall of ice and some sparks of electricity- their powers were starting to come back, but they were all still weak. As it stood, even with their extra experience, they were about equal in strength to Nya, who was unable to manifest more than brief bursts of water from the river to protect herself from Morro's ghostly Kunai.
He tried to command the earth in the river- but it was like moving in complete black, like his newfound ability to see in the dark had come at the cost of his ability to control the earth. He felt totally blind.
He had hoped that feeling of weightlessness that permeated his ethereal body would leave when he could reconnect with the earth, but what if he was just too weak as a ghost? His reflection had given him a pep talk, but that didn't really mean much when he was failing in combat.
Cole grunted to himself. "Not the time! Come on!"
He picked up the pace and passed Lloyd- at the same time, Kai dove into the water with an inelegant splash. Now, Kai couldn't swim, but he wasn't an idiot. Instead of trying to go straight for Lloyd, he let himself fall to the bottom of the river, which he then pushed off from to gain speed faster.
At least, Cole was pretty sure that was what happened- it was hard to make out in the murky rapids. Eventually, Kai resurfaced with a sputtering breath and an arm around Lloyd.
Yay! Now they're drowning twice as fast! Cole thought more than a little hysterically.
It was definitely a good thing Kai had removed his armor, because he was barely able to keep his own head above the water, much less Lloyd's
"Kai, over here!" Cole called. He had found an outcropping of stone that gave him just enough reach.
The Master of Fire looked like he wanted to reply, but instead he just floundered in Cole's direction, hair plastered to his face and blocking his sight. It was as if the very water was sapping his strength. Which wasn't true in a literal sense, but that hardly mattered.
Cole hissed as he approached the spray of the river as it flowed over the edge. It was like little flecks of acid on his skin.
What if he dropped them?
"You got this, Cole! Just concentrate!" he told himself.
Kai whipped an arm out and latched onto a flimsy root in the bed, only for it to come loose a moment later. He was getting close now, he'd have to concentrate, because there'd be no getting them back if they went over.
Come on, Master of Earth. Focus!
He felt his hands start to solidify. Cole gripped a boulder, his strength carving out his handhold, and then he reached out with his other, and please, please catch-
Cole felt Kai's hand in his grip. He held on, fighting the force of the waterfall as it fought to sweep all three of them over the edge and fighting himself to keep from going intangible.
Kai was frantic, and spoke between coughs and sputters. "Pull us in! Pull us in!"
"I'm trying! Hang on!"
Unfortunately, that was when everything got worse.
Morro had seen them, gotten a precious moment to try and enact more petty revenge, as if he hadn't already hurt them all so much.
A blast of wind slammed into them- unlike normal wind, it didn't pass through Cole, and the force on Lloyd and Kai was too much; his concentration slipped with his grip on the boulder, sending him flying forward.
"No!" In that moment, as he slid across the bank on his stomach, he did manage to manifest a small outcropping of stone, just large enough to be a handhold. He planted his palm on it, face inches from the water.
Time got a little weird after that. Because asking him, Cole would have said time literally slowed.
A few things happened back to back.
The first was that Cole's arm was yanked into the river.
Now. He tried to hold it together, but it was like having it sandblasted off. The water just sheared through the mist that made up his dumb body. Sure enough, he could feel Kai and Lloyd being yanked away, towards that probably infinite drop. There was probably a scream in there somewhere, though whether it was his or Kai's or someone else's, Cole couldn't really say.
Then, Cole heard Morro's taunts from moments earlier as they echoed in his skull. He saw that awful smirk flash in his eyes.
"Some ghost you are. What, are you afraid you'll end up like me? You could be stronger than all of them like this, you know. We're ghosts, and we're elemental masters. Now, if we just had the power-"
He needed power, or else his brothers would die too.
I'm sorry, Lloyd.
He died for these powers, he may as well use them.
The next thing he knew, everything exploded into a cacophony of sights and sounds and tastes and smells and pain.
The water slammed against him- suddenly, Kai was the one holding his arm as they fell over the edge.
"Ninja go!" Cole yelled in a voice that wasn't his, as he formed an Airjitzu cyclone with which he lifted him and Kai back onto solid ground. He deposited a sputtering Master of Fire on the rocky bluff, who stared at him with awe.
"Cole?!"
He nodded.
-Get out! Get OUT!- came Lloyd's voice in his head, equally met with a feeble sense of resistance pushing against Cole.
Cole didn't have time to think about that, because now he could feel it all. Lloyd's incredible, seemingly bottomless power fed into his own, and suddenly-
Cole felt like he could move mountains.
With a Lloyd-sounding battlecry, he asked the earth to move, and it did.
The ground quaked, and the waterfall itself stopped as the cavern erupted in spikes and boulders coming to their aid.
The fight between ice, lightning, water, and wind came to a screeching halt. One of the ghosts- Ghoultar, Cole realized, was unlucky enough to be immediately drenched with water and dissolved. Jay stared with an open mouth until Nya yanked him by the wrist out of the path of a stray boulder. Zane shouted something he couldn't quite hear.
It's me, Lloyd. It's me.
He heard Lloyd's voice in his head, sounding utterly exhausted. -Cole…-
He didn't need to walk, because the stone beneath him reshaped itself to carry him to Morro, granite and limestone and Deepstone climbing over each other to be the first to obey his command.
He could feel it beneath his feet, firm and solid. He could taste the blood in his mouth. He could see red.
"Morro! It's over!"
Several emotions crossed Morro's face at once, and fear was definitely one of them.
Reform the river, he told the earth.
The ground itself roared as a new path for the water carved itself out, flooding the room in wild rapids that slammed into itself in hostile waves. Vibrations echoed like shockwaves. Bansha and the Soul Archer were suddenly on the defensive as Zane and Jay used their Spinjitzu to re-engage. Morro took to the sky and protected himself with a veil of wind. He glanced desperately at the Sword of Sanctuary.
It doesn't matter if you can see the future if my attacks can't be dodged.
Cole felt a heartbeat in his chest- the adrenaline coursing through him- the sweat on his face- this was being alive, and the heat of battle plus knowledge that Lloyd was safe threw him into this manic state of euphoria as he fought. Everything was loud and present and so very real.
The ceiling above them began to quake and cave- Zane created a barrier of ice, under which he and Jay cowered. Nya was making frantic gestures towards the water, warding off the rapids that would sweep them away. Kai was on his feet now, climbing up the precarious course of rocks to rejoin the fight as he slipped his arms back into his gi's sleeves.
"It's over, Morro! Give it up!" Kai shouted as he stood beside Cole. Aside from an uneasy glance, Kai didn't react much to what Cole was doing.
Morro's expression shifted from panic into something else as a pillar of gravel lifted his scythe to him before scattering at his feet.
ART HERE
He knew then that he was outmatched.
"Hmm. I guess I didn't give you enough credit, Cole," he said in a smooth tone as he took a few steps back.
Oh, the little bastard was going to try to talk his way out of this. "Same to you. Can't say I knew you remembered my name." He stomped a foot into the ground, causing a thin, serrated blade to erupt forth, right in front of Kai, who snatched it up and pointed it at their enemy alongside his Aeroblade Sword.
"Of course I do," he grunted, sounding offended. "Lloyd would never shut up about any of you. He was pretty devastated to learn of your death."
Cole narrowed his eyes.
Don't blame yourself, Lloyd. It's fine.
There wasn't any response.
Lloyd?
Morro kept talking. He weaved around an erupting stalagmite just in time to avoid having the sword knocked from his grasp. "But it looks like you finally see how strong you really are! Mother would be proud!"
"Just strong enough to kick your ass for what you did to our brother!" Kai butt in, looking ready to spring.
The ghost looked unimpressed. "A bit hypocritical, don't you think?" He gestured to Cole, only to nearly have his arm taken off by a crashing wave of water that Nya had rerouted along one of Cole's new paths. "I mean, you were just telling me you wouldn't help the Preeminent, but you'll borrow her power?!"
Cole pushed it aside and didn't respond. Once again, he tapped into his old power as Lloyd's green energy spurred him on like wind on his back. He swung his blade at Morro- the ghost barely had the time to hit it with a Kunai, forcing Cole's grip to shift just enough that Morro was hit by the handle instead of the blade. He saved himself from being cut, but it was still like being hit with a superpowered baseball bat.
Morro went flying into the ceiling. His body scattered as he slammed against Deepstone- he barely managed to hold onto the Sword of Sanctuary. The other strange weapon nearly seemed to fall from whatever strap secured it to his back. Several pieces of debris began to rain down above them, as did water. Their foe screeched as he narrowly avoided a sudden deluge from the cracks. He could see Nya managing to prod the Soul Archer with her spear, creating an opening for Jay to knock him into the water. He disappeared.
Morro used a gust of wind to slow his fall so that he landed just after Kai swung his Aeroblade sword. The stone blade clashed against the Sword of Sanctuary, sending sparks. He tried to use two Kunai to circle and backstab Kai, but two finely-aimed rocks from Cole knocked them off their course.
Morro wasn't having much luck as he fought off Kai's swords and Cole's scythe. It was an onslaught that even foresight couldn't defend against.
Then, another gust of wind slammed into them, sending them flying forward this time.
Cole flipped mid-air, forcing a chunk of rock into the air to catch him. He sprung off it, kicking it back towards Morro. Kai redirected himself, using a boulder as a springboard to shift his momentum. He dropped the stone sword and snatched the Sword of Sanctuary from Morro, tumbling through the ghost in the process.
Zane and Jay emerged from their cover as Cole launched a soaking-wet stone at Morro as a quick and small projectile. The Master of Wind dove out of the way, and seemed to realize something.
Morro smirked, and turned to Kai.
In one awful moment, Cole realized what he was doing.
"Kai! Watch out!"
Kai wasn't wearing his armor- the one that protected him from possession.
A familiar shadow cast itself over Kai's features- his smile evaporated, replaced with a tormented expression as he jerked from side to side. His hair turned dark, and his skin went pale. Kai now held both Swords firm in his twitching hands.
"No!" Zane tackled Kai to the ground, pinning him down. Kai thrashed, though whether it was Kai against Morro or Morro against Zane, Cole wasn't sure.
Jay moved to help, only to be intercepted by Bansha. He and Nya ended up stuck in a final clash with her- the ghost knew she didn't stand a chance, but that didn't matter when she only needed to buy time.
Now, Kai had burst into flames before. He had erupted into a vortex of fire. It was just a thing that the Elemental Master of Fire did sometimes.
Less common was literally exploding. Everyone was thrown back as an explosion threw them all back- even Bansha. She hit the water and vanished.
Cole screamed as he hit the rocks- it hurt, and he could feel Lloyd's heart beat wildly. Nothing seemed broken, miraculously, so Cole stood back up. The others weren't doing well, either, they were all pretty burned. Zane had taken the worst of it, with some of his wiring exposed and sparking and dented and damaged.
They were hurt, but they were alive.
They all took fighting stances.
Morro- it was definitely Morro- laughed and inspected Kai's hand. "It's no Green Ninja, but it'll have to do," he mused. He looked back at Cole. "It really is much better having a body, isn't it? Especially when you don't have to worry about accidentally killing yourself while using it."
Wait, what does he mean by-
Another explosion erupted from Morro's hand. Zane and Jay ducked behind stone, whereas Cole dug his hand into the wall and pulled his own cover from it. Even still, the heat was almost suffocating.
"Give Kai back!" Cole screamed, because he couldn't lose another member of his team. He rolled out from cover, only to stop dead.
Kai was injured. Not only that, he was burned. Kai could- he could take insanely high temperatures before his skin would start to smolder. So to see those burns- and considering how hot the explosions had been- Morro didn't seem to notice them at all.
It was like a slap across the face- like waking up from a daydream. The vague and nebulous pain Cole was feeling seemed to crystallize in his head. Suddenly, he was aware that Lloyd was very sick and injured. His throat was horribly parched, his stomach near empty and yet churning with bile. His head throbbed, gashes and bruises protested movement, and the chill of the tomb felt like it was freezing his lead limbs in place.
He was overexerted, to say the very least.
There was a feeble, tiny, and terribly childlike voice in his head. -Cole… Keep fighting… We need Kai back-
Cole kept fighting.
He kept fighting, kept borrowing Lloyd's power, because without it, he wasn't sure they could beat Morro. With the Sword of Sanctuary, it was near impossible to get the leg up. Forget the fact that he could just manifest explosions now.
Cole jerked Lloyd's arms up to create another outcropping of cover as another attack threatened to hit Jay. Except Morro pivoted at the last minute, and that sadistic smirk seemed so wrong on Kai's face- the way those markings on his face made his eyes look sunken in and wild. Instead of attacking Jay, he attacked Cole, and he could only put up his arms and create a thin layer of stone to soften the blow.
He went flying back, and he felt the wind be knocked out of him as his back slammed into the tree, which was now fully on fire.
He heard Nya and Jay scream, though his vision was a bit too fuzzy, and there was ringing in his ears.
Cole was fine, though. It was Lloyd that was hurt. He looked down with horror at the ugly burns on Lloyd's arms. Second degree at least. The air smelled rancid, like burning flesh.
"Look at you! Using your own brother as a shield after daring to try and preach to me about fighting her!"
He heard Lloyd's voice in his head. -You didn't do this! Morro did! Keep fighting him!-
Cole clenched his jaw. He… he would have to think about this later. -Okay, Lloyd…-
Now he remembered why he didn't like being the leader. Because it had always been this- been risking other people's lives with his own stupid plans. And it was all well and good until someone died. Like Zane had.
But, like or not, he was stuck with the role right now, so he pushed that awful guilt just a little further away for now, and kept fighting.
Morro barely cared about the others. And any time they tried to get close- well, the room was definitely in rough shape.
Even still, right now, at this very moment, Cole was the Green Ninja, and he was the Master of Earth, so he fought.
Any time Morro dared to attack, Cole reacted with his own onslaught- it didn't seem he could summon those kunai when possessing a body. And even with Kai's fire, he was plain outmatched by Cole.
However, he was in Kai's body, so Cole couldn't attack with lethal force. Instead, he made carefully calculated attacks- Kai's leg was his current target, as he swiped at it with his Scythe. The blade landed true, because Morro was too late to notice the outcropping Cole had summoned behind him, leaving him unable to dodge.
Morro screeched as the gash bled a vivid, smoky green. For a brief moment, his hold on Kai seemed to waver. The victory was, however, short-lived, because he just as quickly regained control. He made a stabbing motion with the Aeroblade Sword- Cole ducked and rolled just in time for the blade to embed itself into the smoldering tree and explode.
Morro stopped cold. Cole would have attacked, but his chest was burning as he gasped for breath.
"No!" Zane yelled, apparently seeing whatever Morro was looking at.
It was a moment later that Cole saw it too- a skeleton, petrified within the tree, its hands were clasped around a pink crystal, and whatever clothes it had been wearing had long since withered away with the rest of its body.
It was… it was the First Spinjitzu Master buried inside that tree, Cole realized. He wasn't sure how he knew- maybe it was just common sense, since they were in his tomb. But maybe it was that just looking at it carried a sense of significance. The room went nearly silent; the crashing waves of water seemed to fade into the background. Even Morro seemed briefly overcome with a sense of reverence.
It was, after all, the skeleton of the deity that had created their realm.
The moment didn't last long. Morro shook his head and removed the crystal from the corpse, sheathing Kai's Sword in the meantime. Somehow, that other black weapon was still on his back, as well. Because he didn't already have enough weapons.
"Well, this has been fun, but-" Morro held up what Cole realized must have been the Realm Crystal. "But I really need to go. The Preeminent awaits." There was a pulse in the air, like a single heartbeat. Something opened over that precipice Lloyd and Kai had nearly fallen over- a rift tore itself open.
A portal to another realm. Morro had the artifact that could release the Preeminent. And more importantly, he had Kai, and he was fleeing.
"No!" Cole screamed. He wasn't going to lose Kai like this, not after just getting Lloyd back. He wasn't going to let Morro summon the Preeminent.
It just wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let it.
"Zane! Jay! Nya! Get Lloyd out of here!" he called as they all ran after him.
-Cole!? What are you doing!?-
"It's not a portal to the Cursed Realm!" he yelled, just as much to Lloyd as it was for the other's.
Because it wasn't. Whether that was because Morro couldn't control it, or he didn't have time to be more precise, Cole wasn't sure. But that wasn't a portal to the Cursed Realm that was now roaring over that dark, infinite drop.
Because the Cursed Realm probably didn't have a Skeleton Ferris Wheel.
As he reached the edge, he released Lloyd's body. It was like entering a muffled room, suddenly everything was so familiarly dull, but that didn't matter. In his periphery, he saw Zane catch Lloyd as he collapsed. He heard Jay yell as he jumped over the edge, after Morro, after his brother.
Morro's eyes widened when he saw Cole was following him.
And that wasn't all Cole could do.
He could sense the change in temperature as they both passed through the portal into the Underworld. They hit the ground with a thud- Morro gasped for breath, having had the wind knocked out of him.
Cole didn't have a body. He didn't need to breathe.
Morro briefly let go of the Sword of Sanctuary, swinging an open, sparking palm towards Cole.
Cole grit his teeth, focused, grabbed Kai's wrist- the one with the Realm Crystal- and yanked it in front of him as a shield.
The explosion directly hit the Realm Crystal.
Morro screamed as it shattered.
As did an angry voice, deep within Cole's very core.
Ÿ̴̘́ȯ̸̝u̶̩͠'̶̨̆r̵̾e̵̛̹ ģ̸̏ȯ̸i̸̍ng̷̛ t̶͝õ̷ r̷̛e̵̍g̵̚r̴̒e̶͐t̵̍ t̷̉h̵͒a̷̿t̸̉, m̸̑y D̴̓ḯ̵ã̸m̴̎o̵͊ň̵d̸.̶
No, I really won't.
