A/N: Hey, look who's dubiously alive! Happy Thanksgiving.
Man, I feel like shit. Hope you guys are faring better.
But hey, at least NaNoWriMo's chugging along! I haven't thrown in the towel yet, go me. Skimped out on and half-assed a lot of days, but I'm still trying.
RandomDragon: Man, same. I'm a huge wimp. These guys are way braver than me. :')
Thank you! I love Kai, too. So much. My favorite is Jay, but Kai's a really close second.
Doesn't make him any easier to write, tho
The grand foyer was massive.
The space was punctuated by small tables, and empty vases, and damaged items strewn about. The dim light streaming in through barred windows glinted off the broken crystals of a damaged chandelier hanging from the tall ceiling, and illuminated the old room. It was easy to tell that the whole place had been quite grand, once upon a time, yet everything around them now was run-down and not quite right and Lloyd only found his wariness spiking.
"You feel that too?" Skylor asked.
Lloyd nodded. "I dunno what it is, but something's definitely off. Stay alert, guys. I know the plan was to split up to cover more ground, but we're probably safer sticking together."
Next to him, Karlof tightened his heavy, gleaming gauntlets.
"Cole! Cole, wake up!" A frantic whisper and a hand shaking his arm snapped him awake. His heart skipped a beat, spiking fearfully, before he recognized the hazy shape in front of him and calmed himself.
Cole had already had a rough night. He'd fallen asleep fast and deep, but later in the night, he'd woken up, stomach all in knots and sweat beading on his forehead, before closing his eyes and trying to fall asleep again. And now, Jay was hurriedly shaking the life out of him trying to wake him up. Confusion quickly gave way to irritation.
He groaned and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Whaddya want, Jay?"
The blue ninja was talking a mile a minute, voice high-pitched and nervous, and it was difficult to make out much of what he was saying. A small ball of lightning in his hand was the only thing letting Cole's eyes see — the fireplace had gone out overnight. A faint worry started to replace the annoyance he'd felt at being woken up.
"Whoa, okay. Slow down; I can't understand a thing you're saying! Actually, no," he said, fumbling his way onto the floor, "wake Kai and get Zane up and running first. Whatever it is, I'm sure they want to hear, too."
"Already on it." Jay had teased open the panel on Zane's chest and, carefully bringing his lit palm close enough to see the internal wiring and controls, he rebooted the system. With a sharp, mechanical whirr, Zane's processors came reanimated, and glowing blue eyes snapped open.
"Morning, Zane," Jay said hurriedly as he pressed the panel shut again, not giving Zane a chance to even ask any questions. "I know, your alarm didn't go off yet and all, but we don't have time to sleep."
"What's wrong, Jay?" Cole asked, wishing he would just cut to the chase. "And where's Kai? Any reason that this doesn't concern him?"
"That's the problem," Jay fretted. "I can't find Kai!"
"What!?" This in unison.
"What do you mean, you 'can't find Kai'?" Cole asked, his rising dread kicking him awake in earnest. "Weren't you the one who stayed up to keep watch!?"
"Yes," Zane agreed, "you should have been able to see anything that happened to Kai, right?"
"I waaas," Jay whimpered. "I was! But Kai woke up halfway through the night and tried to take over my shift."
"And you let him!?" Cole howled. Jay flinched at his rising voice.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry! But he basically coerced me into it!"
"Coerced?" Zane asked, bewildered.
"He said something about his arm keeping him up. And he was really insistent about it." Jay murmured.
"I told him to rest it … But where could he have gone?" Zane pondered. "It's not at all safe to be wandering around alone. Even the time I spent by myself yesterday was highly risky."
"So he just vanished into the night! Great. Why would he do that? What if something happened to him? Jay, how could you let him do that?" Cole almost felt bad for being so pushy when Jay clearly felt bad, but his incredulousness won.
"I tried to tell him to go back to bed!" Jay insisted. "But he wouldn't listen to me!" He sighed. "And I tried to stay awake anyway so I could watch him, but I … guess I really was tired after all. I missed him leaving."
"So how come you're up now?" Cole asked.
" … Nightmare woke me."
Oh. That he could actually sympathize with.
For a moment, they were all silent, Jay's nervously quick breathing punctuating the quiet. Cole wondered— he'd been quick to close his eyes and try to fall back asleep when he'd startled awake, but how could he have possibly missed that?
"You know what?" Cole sighed at length. "Zane, there was some kinda lamp on that table there, right? Can we use it?" Zane checked, informing them that it was a kerosene lamp and that the oil, while not the clearest, would probably burn well enough for their purposes. Jay quickly pulled a match out under the light of Zane's eyes and lit it.
"Alright. Obviously, we can't go back to sleep, so we're gonna have to figure out something from here. It's time for that plan."
With a sigh, Lloyd pulled shut the door to what looked like it had been a kitchen.
"No one here, either."
"Why Shade come to stupid, far-away mansion, anyway?" Karlof questioned impatiently. "Just worry his friends and waste our time …"
"He has a point," Skylor said. "I had to postpone the reunion because of Shade. And I spent months accounting for everyone's schedules." She shook her head and sighed.
"Whatever his reason, it better have been a good one." Lloyd definitely understood the irritation. "Let's just … keep looking."
And so they did. This floor seemed to be mostly expansive corridors and halls, but aside from that there was the kitchen Lloyd had just finished going through, a nearby dining hall, a small room that looked to be some kind of study, and an absolutely huge room, consisting of smaller rooms, lined with paintings and statues and any other type of art that you could think of. That one was actually pretty impressive, and as a cool bonus he could recognize some of the scenes and people of old depicted, although the state of disarray it was in dampened its glory a little.
There were a few doors that wouldn't budge no matter how much they pulled, though. And this seemed to be another one of them — even Karlof couldn't seem to get it open.
Brushing it off, Lloyd swept their surroundings and stiffened, before looking back, relaxing, and continuing onwards with a sigh.
More than once, he could've sworn he'd seen something laying around, could've sworn he caught something moving out of the corner of the eyes, or a person, or something. But there was always nothing — or at least, nothing worth touching or taking special note of.
He was acutely aware of Skylor and Karlof exchanging glances every time he did it — sure, after the first few times they'd gotten used to it and stopped asking questions, but he was pretty certain they thought he was losing it.
Honestly, he wouldn't be awfully surprised if he was.
Idly, he noticed how dim the light streaming in had gotten, and hummed, considering something.
"Say, it's getting pretty late, right?"
"Yes, and?"
"So … maybe he's spending the night? There was a huge staircase in the main room, we could go up there."
"You could be onto something," Skylor said. "Sound like a plan, Karlof?"
No response.
"... Karlof?" Lloyd called tentatively.
"Oh no." Skylor's eyes widened. A sweep of the hallway they were in showed no sign of the man.
"This is incredible," Lloyd said, shaking his head and throwing his hands up. "I knew something was really off about this place, but I didn't think anything'd happen this quickly."
"And yet," Skylor sighed. "How does a person his size just vanish, anyway?"
"And where could he have gone? We already scoured this entire floor. Twice!" Once per each missing elemental master. At this rate, Lloyd was really hoping no one else decided to go missing.
"What do you think the chances are that he just decided to leave?" Skylor said sardonically.
"I doubt it," Lloyd sighed. "If he's not here, then we find the nearest stairs and go up. Who knows, we might find Shade there, too." The shadows had lengthened considerably — it must've been close to nightfall. He formed a small green energy ball in his hands. It came to life with a faint hum, power wobbling unsteadily for a moment before stabilizing and brightening.
Hm. Odd. For now, he ignored it.
They walked quietly for a bit, alert and looking around, on the off chance that Karlof popped up from behind a wall and, oh, maybe threw confetti in their faces. (No such thing happened.) Then Lloyd came to an abrupt stop.
"Hey, what —" Skylor started, but he held up a hand to silence her and strained his ears.
There. He'd thought at first he was just hearing things that weren't there again, or reacting to the sound of their footsteps, but the same low rumble he'd picked up before vibrated in the air, pausing and then growing louder.
From the way she tensed up next to him, Skylor had definitely caught it this time. She exchanged an unsettled glance with Lloyd, and there was a subtle k-shhink! and assorted clicks and scrapes as they readied their respective weapons.
Whatever that noise had been, it definitely didn't sound human. And the ominous shadow starting to flit across the wall certainly didn't look the part, either. A low whistle pierced the suddenly-chilly air faintly tugging at their clothes. With little warning, swirling bursts of a dark matter he didn't recognize materialized into a huge, grotesque creature that looked vaguely ghost-like. That is, if you were to take a ghost, dunk it in all the colors of paint you had on hand, coat it in black glass, and give it a few extra … every external body part you could think of. The mangled wreck of eyes and mouths and limbs dripping bits of itself onto the floor was a little nauseating. On the list of the things that went bump in the night, this had to be pretty up there in terms of creepiness factor.
"What is that? Do you have any idea what it is?" Skylor asked from his right, quiet horror seeping into her voice. Lloyd shook his head.
"All I know is that it's probably not friendly."
It was advancing hostilely now, crouched animalistically on its legs with its back to the ceiling — next to it, they probably looked like ants. The rumble was now a tortured chorus of moaning and screeching, vaguely reminiscent of the Preeminent crossed with an entire room of Darkley's kids screaming at the top of their lungs.
Not a pleasant combination.
Lloyd's free hand went flying up, trying to block out the ear-grating sound, before he got accustomed and reluctantly peeled it away. And with each disfigured, claw-tipped hand that hit the floor and dragged it forward, it was speeding up — right towards them.
"The door, on three!" They both hurriedly counted down. On three, Skylor made a mad dash through the hallway, Lloyd on her heels and sneaking a glance behind him to check the abomination's location. Once they made it to the main door, they pushed it with force.
Only one problem: It wouldn't budge.
Throwing themselves against the door did precious little to help. As did trying to attack the hinges so it would break off. Lloyd was left dumbfounded when even straight-up firing a ball of green power into the door only left it damaged and a little charred.
"You cannot be serious right now!" Skylor hissed, nervously pulling at the handles.
"Well," Lloyd said grimly, "at least we know Karlof didn't ditch us."
"Comforting. What's plan B?"
"We gotta get away from it!" Wildly, Lloyd looked around. Where to go, where to go …
"The nearest corridor!" Skylor suggested. "Maybe we can find someplace to hide!"
Another harsh scream rang out, terrifyingly close. It was almost in striking distance and getting ready to attack.
"... No."
"What? Lloyd, have you lost your mind?"
"No, but I have changed it. Think!" He backed away from the door and towards a corridor. "It's clearly bent on getting a piece of us. If we run, it'll keep chasing. If we hide, none of these doors have locks; it can break in on us. We'll have to face it eventually."
"So you're saying we should show it who's boss instead."
"Exactly." He took a breath to calm his nerves and let resolute focus settle in its place. "Get ready for a fight."
The hoods went up over their heads now, and Lloyd pulled on his mask, feeling the same rush of determination and adrenaline he always did when it was time to get down to business.
With barely any warning, an arm shot forward, narrowly missing the both of them. They leapt out of the way, landing on opposite sides of the creature, weapons drawn.
It was time to get serious.
A while later, things were looking much more grim, and they hadn't even been that optimistic to start with. Lloyd had discovered that his powers were actually quite effective in temporarily rebuffing the spirit and actually seemed to do some damage, but between attacking, deflecting its swipes at him with his katana, jumping out of the way, and occasionally leaping to Skylor's aid, he was beginning to tire.
Skylor, on the other hand, didn't even have the advantage of powers, but she'd been doggedly shooting arrows into the creature's eyes until it had knocked her crossbow down and broken it. Lloyd was stuck leaping in front of it and trying to distract it as Skylor made a beeline for the kitchen and rummaged around for knives to use as projectiles instead. She'd come out a while later holding a handful of slightly rusty and probably dull knives, and was making do, throwing them at its eyes and overall trying to hit as many weak spots as possible while Lloyd bombarded it with energy balls. It was going at them with everything it had, mouths snapping, arms and legs scratching and smacking and pushing, all the while screeching and groaning.
"I'm almost out of knives!" Skylor shouted over the spirit's moaning. "How much longer until we actually put a dent in this thing?"
"It already kinda looks like it's coming unglued! Maybe this won't be too much longer." It did, too. Every so often, its form shifted and stretched out in a pretty gross manner, like there was an animal inside it trying to free itself.
"I dunno, I kinda don't wanna make any bets on 'maybe'."
Lloyd just grunted and jumped away as an ugly hand came down on the spot he'd been standing on, hard. His arm was beginning to ache from the amount of swinging it was doing, just trying to keep himself from getting clawed open. Skylor got pushed back behind him, skidding to a stop and panting. His own breath was coming in short, sharp bursts. This wasn't good; if something didn't give soon, the fight felt like it might drag on an eternity, and he didn't have that kind of time or stamina.
Then, a knife whizzed past him and rather firmly lodged itself into a spot on their attacker's chest. Judging by the deafening racket the spirit was making, it was a sensitive area, and an incredible shot, considering how many arms there were defending its chest.
"Nice hit!" Lloyd called.
Skylor acknowledged it with a grunt, then lept out of the way of the spirit hitting back. But it was especially angry now, and no sooner had she landed than multiple arms lashed out. Skylor went flying, and before Lloyd had time to help her up, it rematerialized near her, roughly grabbing her by the hood and repeatedly flinging her into a wall. Lloyd winced as she screamed, straining to get up and then falling limp.
He was running now, twin spheres of energy flaring to life and being fired off as fast as he could make them. Jumping in front of Skylor and planting himself in a defensive position, he readied another attack and braced himself for the long haul against the beast about to bear down on him.
"Skylor?" He got a weak groan in response. Okay, good, she wasn't out cold; that meant that she probably wasn't severely injured. "I'll cover you, so stay put!"
"Trust me," she muttered, curling in on herself, "I wasn't about to do much else."
This wasn't good. He was wearing thin, and worse, having to protect Skylor meant he'd just lost most of his mobility. Muttering a word he probably shouldn't have known, he fired a blast of energy and felt a grim satisfaction at the way it stumbled back and yelled. The spirit only stayed still for a moment, regaining its bearings, before crawling forward, slowly at first and then with more determination. It never stopped growling, but it sounded more pained now.
Good. He was wearing it down, then.
Any sense of time passing was nonexistent as the battle dragged on, Lloyd dodging what he could and beating back what he couldn't. Sword in his right and fistful of energy in his left, he slashed at any arms that tried to get a chunk out of him, struck its eyes and fired beams of light into its mouths when it got a bit close for comfort. He was trying desperately to keep it from getting too close; after all, he was doing the fighting for two. But despite how banged up and unstable the spirit looked, it looked to be gaining the upper hand, encroaching closer and closer each time before being driven away by a mixture of Spinjitzu and his powers. His attacks were beginning to get sloppy, too, and an array of cuts and scratches littering his body stung fiercely, not helped by the sweat getting into them. The ugly shrieks it made each time he got a hit in were making his head hurt, too.
Puffing with exertion, he tucked into Spinjitzu and twirled right into the spirit. As it skidded back, he stepped away to catch his breath, pushing hair out of his eyes, and quickly looked down at Skylor, shooting her a sympathetic wince. Her hair was caked with blood — that was obviously going to smart later.
A roar brought his attention shooting back to the creature rearing back up — it was clearly tired too, torn-up and ripped and fading in places where particularly strong attacks had made their marks, with translucent gashes dripping strange, misty essence where he and Skylor had stabbed. It was also stretching apart wildly, as if it'd come apart any moment now. But its aggression hadn't seemed to come down a single notch, and it came tromping back with unexpected speed, closing the small gap quickly. A second's stumble cost him, sending his katana clattering onto the floor, and ice-cold claws ripped through the fabric of his gi and scraped across his clavicle. Gasping, Lloyd swung his pack at it, temporarily knocking it back. Then he jabbed outwards with his fists, sending bursts of green shooting all over the place, and crashed to the floor next to Skylor. Quickly, he scrambled back up, and lit his fists again, moving his arms around him and leaving sparkling trails of green light in their wake.
There was blood starting to well up where he'd been hit, and the sharp edge of pain was making his vision swim. Gritting his teeth, he tried to shake it off. The energy he'd put up around himself had singed the spirit and made it shy away, but now it was starting to come creeping back, and the rudimentary shield wouldn't last much longer.
And as much as he didn't want to admit it, neither would he.
At last, the spirit pushed back too hard for him to hold, and his knees buckled. Before it could nail him again, he scurried back like a crab, watching it loom ever-closer with its screech grating at his ears.
This was it. They could run, but his exhaustion would make him slow. Skylor was in the same boat but worse, and he'd walk into the Underworld backwards before he left her to be finished off. So there was only one thing left to do — fight like a madman.
He took as deep a breath as his heaving chest would let him, resigning himself to his fate.
Then a pair of shurikens descended right onto the spirit's head and exploded.