(A.N) I'll update quicker this time, my ass. I apologize for taking such a long time with this, because the trials of life don't really give much inspiration for writing. :^
While I'm at it, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, y'all.

I'd like to give fair warning that this fic will … kinda drag. For a while. Because the reveal that really pushes the plot forward comes a good deal later and I've got to build up to that.

The walls were a dull off-white color, yellowed with age where they would have once been stark white. In a few places, if he looked hard enough, he could see hints of the design that had undoubtedly once adorned them. (There were very suspicious-looking brownish stains on some parts of the walls. He chose to ignore them.) The floor was wooden, marred with scuff marks and scratches and rotting floorboards, and he chose to stare at a random patch of wood a little distance off, near an old shelf, pushing down a sudden wave of sharp fear surfacing seemingly out of nowhere.

"Whoa, creepy ..." Kai murmured aloud, awed. "It's even bigger than I thought it'd be from the outside."

This place didn't look nearly as bad as the last abandoned building they'd stepped foot in. Sure, it was a little dark, but the sun hadn't set just yet. It looked enough like it was meant to be lived in, instead of being a temple. Were he to actually pay attention to the furniture, it was quite pretty, in an old-fashioned way. There were several windows throughout, but oddly enough, every single one was broken and barred off, with shattered glass from them scattered across the floor.

(Another wave of unease. He pointedly tried to ignore it, ignored the gaping space he was standing at the edge of, and wished the ceiling were at least a little lower. Suddenly, everything felt larger than him, everything. As though he could just phase through the floor and it wouldn't matter. As though he wasn't even standing on the ground. As though he could just … disappear, meaningless, into the darkness that crept at the corners where the walls met.)

A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie. Turning to his side, his eyes met Jay's concerned face. Jay chose to shoot him a sympathetic smile, not saying anything for once.

(He didn't need to. He knew what Jay wanted to hear from him.)

A quick breath, in and out. "I … thanks, Jay. I'm okay." And then, it was a little easier to remember that his feet were solid, planted on the ground.

Jay's smiled widened a little.

"Cole, if it's too much for you … it's alright if you choose to leave," Zane said calmly. "The rest of us should be okay with handling this."

"I'm not leaving." It was said firmly. "If you're here, I'm here with you. Splitting up is out of the question. Especially with what happened … last time." Cole had brought it upon himself, too. There was no way he'd make the same mistake twice. And no way he'd subject his teammates to the same thing.

"Why'd you bother asking, Zane," Kai deadpanned, rummaging through the contents of the bag he'd carried with him.

"Right, anyways. Is it just me or is it kinda dark in here? Sun must be setting," Jay announced dramatically. "Maybe we can do something about it …" With a flourish, a small spark appeared between his fingers.

It didn't last very long, crackling and buzzing with energy before fizzling out between his fingers.

A beat.

"Huh?"

Brow furrowed, Jay tried again, a miniature lightning bolt materializing with a blue flash between his palms before dying out.

"Heh, nice going, Jay. Real flashy," Kai said.

"Hey! Give me a moment to warm up; I've got it ... " Jay shot a defensive look towards everyone else, and tried again to summon anything, with no success. Now he looked appropriately nervous. "Come on, work with me here ..."

Still nothing.

"Why ... aren't your powers working?" Cole quietly cursed to himself at the way his voice wavered at the end. The nervousness sitting in a tight ball in his stomach wouldn't go away, no matter how much he willed it, and it was starting to frustrate him. What was he so scared for, anyway? He'd laid his fears to rest. An old creepy mansion shouldn't have put him so on-edge.

"I-I dunno! I keep trying but I can't channel anything!"

Zane opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Kai proclaiming, "Alright, I'll show you how it's done," and lighting his hand in a flash of searing orange light. An evanescent flame smoldered for a few seconds before fading into smoke and a surprised cry found itself out of his mouth.

Zane quickly made an attempt to use his own power, and frowned when the chilly mist and miniscule crystals of ice melted into the air within seconds.

A different chill ran down Cole's spine.

Before he could say or try anything, though, Zane spoke up. "It … would appear that our powers do not work."

"Yeah, we got that," Kai hissed. "If anything happens, how are we supposed to defend ourselves?"

"Come on, we brought weapons with us," Cole tried to reason, trying to ignore the all-too-real possibility of anything supernatural. (That would be the absolute icing on the cake.) "And we can just do Spinjitzu!" Then something occurred to him. Experimentally, he tested his hands - the tell-tale orange glow shot up his arms, but it was faint. Abruptly, a leg he hadn't even noticed he'd moved buckled, and he was left an ungracious heap on the floor.

"You okay there, Cole? I thought it was the hands giving you problems, not the legs." A nervous laugh escaped Jay as he leaned down and offered Cole a hand. He took it and helped himself up, grunting.

(He'd half-expected Jay's hand to slip right through his fingers. It was still a little difficult to remember that he didn't need to worry about that anymore.)

"Well, this ... still isn't good."

"Thanks for pointing that out, Jay," Kai snarked. "Never would've figured it out without you. This is just great. No elemental powers. All we have is a bunch of weapons, and those'll only work on actual living things."

Quick breath in, and out. "We'll … this isn't like last time. There probably won't be any ghosts. And if there are, well … we'll figure out something."

"It was a bit brash to bring up, but Kai does have a point," Zane acknowledged softly. "We will definitely be able to manage without our powers, but we should definitely be careful. Although ... I wonder how Lloyd's group is faring. I hope they're doing well."

Oh yeaaah. Lloyd and the other elemental masters were here; he'd nearly forgotten - although with the size of the mansion, they could easily be anywhere. He warily eyed the slightly curved staircase. Who knew how stable it was.

"Lloyd's smart," Kai muttered, pulling out a small pack of gummy bears and popping one in his mouth. "They all are. I bet they're fine." He held the pack out towards Cole. "Gummy bear?"

"That's all fine," Cole noted, "but we should probably find them soon anyway." A second later, he hummed, "Why not?" and took a few gummy bears for himself.

"Hey, gimme some of those." Jay had grabbed some out of Cole's hand before anyone could protest, save Kai's faint "Hey, this isn't a free for all! You brought your own snacks, eat those instead."

"Okay, whatever." Jay was starting to look impatient, twitching where he stood and tapping his foot. "So do we search around here or head straight upstairs?"

Zane turned his head in a wide sweep of the foyer. "There is a lot of ground for us to cover. We should check around here first before heading upstairs."

"Okay, then." Jay made a dramatic heel-turn towards the right. "I say we go this way."

Everyone was already walking left.

"... Or not."

"Well, I don't think they're here, either," Jay remarked, closing the door to a small, vacant room. Behind him, Kai and Zane finished looking in the kitchen and the surrounding rooms, confirming the lack of anything Lloyd-shaped. Or human-shaped. Cole shut one last door and called out that he hadn't seen anything, either.

"And this is a dead end. I guess that means we're moving on, then." Kai dusted his hands and warily glanced at the floor behind them. (Cole figured pretty quickly what he was looking at - their footsteps were the only thing that had disturbed the thin layer of dust settled on the floor, but now it was moving a little bit on its own, as if there was air moving it.)

Jay piped up as well. "Guess so- … Guys, do you feel that?"

"That chill? Yeah," Kai grumbled, rubbing his arms in annoyance.

"It is kinda cold in here," Cole agreed. "But it's weird. Wasn't it perfectly normal before?"

Zane looked a little confused - apparently he wasn't feeling it. "Is it not normal now? But I do sense something. I just can't tell what it is."

Cole was about to open his mouth and point out the dust on the floor when he caught something moving out of the corner of his eye. The words remained unspoken.

In, out.

Jay was rolling his eyes. "Of course you don't feel anything. Why am I surprised."

"Um, guys?" He must have sounded really scared, because he could feel everyone immediately turn to look at him. "Don't look now, but there's … something behind us."

"Wha-" Jay looked up and down the corridor they were currently in, and whimpered.

"I thought I told you not to look!"

"What the heck is that thing!?" Kai took a nervous step backwards, but didn't reach for his katana. Zane narrowed his eyes to scan it, presumably trying to figure out what it was they were looking at.

"Well!?" Cole demanded. "You got any ideas? Anyone?"

"I can't tell what it is," Zane responded, perplexed. "My guess would have been a spirit of some sort, but my scanners identify negative."

"Spirit, ghost, whatever, forget what it is!" Kai snapped. "The important thing is that it's coming right at us and we don't have our powers! We don't even know if our weapons'll work on something that big!"

Cole felt his heart drop to his stomach as the thing slowly drew nearer, translucent and almost glowing. As it came closer, he could make out a vaguely humanoid shape, chaotic and undefined, faded blues and purples and reds and other colors all enveloped by an ugly blackish-grey. It was absolutely massive, head almost touching the ceiling, bits of it seeming to slough off of its body and dissipating into smoke once they reached the ground. White, void-like eyes glowed faintly, and he realized that there were many more than two covering its ... face? If you could call the mask with its mouths twisted angrily a face.

"Wait, where are you going!?" Cole turned at the sound of Kai's indignant cry. Jay had dashed off and was now disappearing out of sight.

"Jay!" He groaned. "Jay, come back, you can't just run off and leave the rest of us here-"

"Apparently he can," Kai grumbled, stepping in front and drawing his katana. "We might not know if these work, but we can try."

It drew even closer, excruciatingly slowly, as if challenging them. See if you dare to fight me.

In, out. His breath was shaky on the exhale. Nervously, he made to pull his scythe out. The temperature dropped even lower with each step closer it took.

He hated supernatural things with every fiber of his being. As if literally being turned into a ghost wasn't torturous enough, now this - whatever this was - was standing in front of them, imposing and terrifying.

Before he even had time to switch into fighting mode, Kai rashly attacked, twisting into a familiar tornado of red. Once he hit the spirit, it only held him a few seconds longer before growing fainter and dropping a dazed Kai on the ground.

"Wha ..."

"That doesn't make any sense! Powers or not, Spinjitzu should still work!" Cole said, dread worsening. If they couldn't rely on Spinjitzu, what could they rely on?

"Perhaps we should speculate later. Look out, Kai!" Zane warned. The creature swung with an arm-like appendage, tipped with sharp claws, and Kai narrowly managed to jump back and charged forward with his sword out, swiping upwards and hitting its torso. However, he'd made the mistake of coming too close and leaving himself open—

Cole's eyes widened, but the warning caught in his throat.

—Kai was bleeding heavily from his forearm, where the spirit had sliced into it. With a pained hiss, Kai dropped his sword and dropped to his knees. The spirit opened many mouths with jagged teeth and screeched, moaned, cried out words he couldn't quite make out with … he couldn't even count how many voices he thought he heard. Too many. The sound was grating on his ears, and momentarily his hands flew up to cover them.

The prospect of having to fight another spirit was unappealing, but he had no other choice. Swinging his scythe towards the spirit, he jumped in front of Kai, carefully staying out of reach of those horrible claws and swinging the scythe whenever it got too close for comfort. He didn't take any chance to jump forward and attack - making sure they didn't get hurt was more important.

Behind him, Zane helped Kai up. "Cole, we have to escape! We can't waste any energy trying to fight it."

"Yeah, but how are we gonna do that without— look out—" The monster had surprised Cole by rushing forward with another ear-piercing screech, and when he'd pinned himself to the wall to avoid being run into, it had advanced menacingly towards Kai and Zane.

Sensing how quickly the situation could become more dangerous than it already was, Zane pushed Kai a little down the corridor. "You should get away while you can," he advised, eyes glowing blue. "It would be bad for you to be injured worse than you already are."

Kai hesitated.

"Come on, Kai," Cole urged. "You made it nice and mad when you attacked it. Unless you wanna stick around and face its full wrath, scram."

"We'll catch up with you later," Zane promised. Kai narrowed his eyes for a moment, considering, but at Zane's insistent gaze, he nodded, turning and running off. Blood dripped onto the floor behind him.

(He wasn't running in the same direction Jay had gone in, Cole noted.)

"Now what?" Zane asked, raising his voice so it would carry.

"I … I dunno! We can't attack it head-on or we'll be toast," he cried back, swinging at an outstretched arm. Its other arm came swinging much faster than before, catching him off guard and slamming him into a wall (he could vaguely hear Zane yelling his name). His legs and breath were shaky when he got back up.

Zane had readied his shuriken and was alert, but he wasn't throwing them. His eyes met Cole's.

"Go."

"No way! Kai's injured, he's got an excuse. I'm not leaving you behind," he said lowly.

"Go. Its aim must be to injure us and split us up. Either way, we have little choice, but if you go now, you'll be okay and we may stand more of a chance when we reunite."

"What about you?"

"I won't try to stay and fight it," Zane reassured him. "I know I stand little chance on my own. Now, go."

Reluctantly, he took a step backwards. Then another. Then another. Faster, and faster, and then he was running, all his suppressed nerves coming back up with full force, blinding his reason, he just had to run.

Stairs, there were stairs. Blindly, he ran up them - anything to get away, and then he just kept running, grabbed the nearest door he could find, and all but slammed the door shut.

He very quickly realized he'd made a mistake. The room was completely dark without windows and he couldn't see anything.

In … out …

In …

It wasn't working. His breaths were too ragged from running, from the panic.

(It was dark, just like Yang's temple had been that night. He could feel his heart race, his blood pounding in his ears.)

Zane …he'd left Zane all alone, Kai was injured, he didn't know if anyone was okay and they were in a haunted mansion and the air was so stifling and some hellish creature had just burst out of nowhere and attacked them and his head felt like a giant screen of static every part of his body was tingling he couldn't breathe and his stomach roiled uncomfortably and he felt a little bit like crying. Every time he tried to breathe in, a shaky exhale stopped him.

(Was he tearing up? He couldn't tell.)

His knees gave out and he leaned his back against the wall, his quick, ragged breathing the only sound in the pitch-dark room.