For Bad Things Happen Bingo: "Spinal Injury" Being the master of Earth came with incredible strength. Cole appreciated that because it got him out of a plethora of problems. But it never occurred to him that one day his powers would fail him and cause even bigger problems.

Being the master of Earth came with incredible strength. Cole appreciated that. It got him out of a plethora of problems, from lifting up rubble to get himself and others out of it, to merely destroying anyone who gets in the way of his cake (Don't worry, he'd never harm his friends… as much as a random stranger.).

But it never occurred to him that one day his powers would fail him and cause even bigger problems. Not until the day he went mountain climbing with the other ninja. Maybe what happened to him happened as a punishment for showing off his strength. Or maybe it was just a horrible coincidence.

Cole was racing to the top of the mountain against his friends.

"It's pathetic!" He called out to them. "We all know I'm gonna win because I'm the master of the mountain! You might as well give up!"

But like any normal person, Cole had gotten tired from running on a steep surface for so long. He decided to watch over the other ninja's vain attempts at surpassing him while he tried to catch his breath. The distance between himself and the others was the culprit of making them look like bugs.

All of them were lucky that Cole got bored of the sight and started looking around for something more interesting, as otherwise nobody would have noticed how close they were to an excavation sight just behind the mountain they were climbing. Cole wouldn't have been panicking if it wasn't for the bomb the workers had dropped to dig up the ground easier.

Cole started yelling at the other ninja to get off the mountain and run away from it as fast as they could, but they couldn't hear him very well.

"Are you saying something?" Jay asked.

"I believe he said, 'Get off the mountain now'," Zane said.

"That's what I heard too," Kai chimed in. "but it's probably a trick to slow us down."

"I don't think he'd also be running down if he had to slow us down," Lloyd argued, pointing at Cole who was waving his arms at them.

Cole didn't know when the bomb would blast but judging by the fact that he had seen the workers already inside the protective room that would prevent them from getting hurt by the explosion, it was very soon.

The banging noise that suddenly boomed from the other side of the mountain proved his theory.

The good news was that none of the ninja, including Cole, were caught in the explosion. The bad news was that the bomb caused huge rocks to tumble down the mountain, heading in their way.

"Oh crap, he wasn't messing around!" Kai turned around to face the other ninja. "Run!"

Contrasting the other ninja, Cole stayed at the top of the mountain. He was the master of earth. He was strong, and he could stop the rocks from killing himself and his friends. It wasn't like they were gonna make it far enough from danger anyways, so in a way it was necessary for him to stop the rocks.

His best option was to break the rocks into much smaller, harmless pieces by punching them so that was what he resorted to. He made sure no rock was left and completed his mission successfully. He looked below to find his friends still running away.

"Guys, it's okay! I've dealt with the rocks!" Cole hollered as he slid down the mountain.

"Cole! You're okay!"

"Yeah! I guess I am the true master of the mountain!"

In hindsight, Cole shouldn't have said that with the second wave of rocks falling behind him. The first to notice was Nya.

"Cole! Behind you!"

In the blink of an eye, he had gone back to punching and destroying rocks. But this time they were rolling too fast for him. In the middle of breaking a rock, another had collided with it and Cole's hand. His bones were definitely shattered. But he wouldn't give up now. He wasn't going to fail the others, his family, as a ninja. He would save them from this mess.

He used his other hand alone to complete his task but it wasn't enough. He was only able to break two more rocks before his body was crushed by a huge boulder.

His last thoughts were about how he had failed to keep the others safe. He was a failure.

The ninja watched helplessly in horror as their friend got crushed in layers of rock. There was nothing any of them could do except wait for the landslide to end before collecting (what was left of) his body. It took an agonising two minutes or so, but once they were certain that no more rocks would fall down they ran towards the rock that Cole was buried under. Kai tried pushing it off but it was pointless.

"D-damn it…" he said, before pushing harder. "Damn it…"

The other ninja assisted him in rolling the rock off, and once they had succeeded they were rewarded with a gruesome sight.

Cole lay on the ground, back, arms and legs coated in blood but head miraculously unaffected. His eyes were understandably shut.

"Call the ambulance," Nya managed to say. "Now!"

They didn't say a word to each other for the next few hours. They were ashamed of themselves, because if they had worked together instead of running away like the cowards they had become, Cole would have surely been okay.

But instead, they sat outside the operating room in the emergency department at the hospital in suspense, praying that Cole would make it.

They had failed both Cole and themselves as ninja and as people.

When the doctor finally came out of the room the dark expression he wore didn't make anything better.

"Your friend is alive," he assured them after looking above the brown clipboard in his hand. "But still in a coma. His spinal cord was badly injured, but we're not sure about the complications yet. Sadly, the chances of him healing without any permanent damage is close to zero. He probably won't wake up for at least two months. However, you may see him now."

One by one, the ninja hesitantly entered the room which Cole was in. The sight of him wrapped in bandages like a mummy broke their hearts, a painful reminder of their failure. It was no one but their fault that Cole was in bed, the only thing keeping him alive being huge machines that were connected to his body by hundreds of invading tubes. His spinal cord had been damaged when he should have been reminiscing about his trip to the mountain from earlier that day. Now his body was permanently damaged.

The ninja had failed at their task and Cole was suffering the consequences.