(A/N):Hey hey, I'm back again! Halloween in May, how fun.
First of all, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to lloydskywalkers, whose writing is absolutely incredible and you should read if you haven't done so already. Also may or may not be the reason I got up my butt and published this, finally.
And on that note ... I really appreciate every single one of you who reviews and holds out for updates. Like I mentioned last chapter, I get caught up in revising because I want it to be as good as possible, but ... you can just keep going forever that way. And this is supposed to be fun, isn't it? So even if some nagging part of me insists that this still isn't good enough, or if I feel like this short chapter wasn't worth the wait, I'm publishing it anyway - because it's not fair to keep you waiting so long, because I'm not being fair to myself or the people who help me with this fic by stagnating. Thank you so much to all of you for being so patient with me and leaving reviews; you're all the reason I keep going with this. And thank you to the people who help me with ideas and trying to plan this fic out, particularly my beta Park/artcanary.
... I dunno, I'm just in kind of a pensive mood right now. Feel free to not mind this A/N, heh.

Response to guest review, next! Hello there, SerpentineKing, nice to have you along for the ride! Hope you'll stick around. The ninja in a haunted house is a fun trope idea, except there's not much fun being had. And as for when the next chapter'll be out ... now P:
In all seriousness, I'm abysmally bad at keeping a consistent schedule; stuff just comes out when I feel like it's ready. I try to keep the gap between chapters no longer than a month, but considering I haven't posted since March ... oops.

We're back with our favorite really nervous ex-ghost and some Thoughts! I hope you like internal monologues 'cuz that's aaall this is.

Cole zipped up his backpack, sighing quietly. He'd decided to take inventory while he had the time. Part of it was the fact that he was up and no one else was, part of it was that he'd hoped the mundanity of the task would distract him — from the small tremor in his hands and the ever-persistent knot in his stomach.

He'd tried earlier to stay calm and not let on about his feelings too much, but his crippling fear was trying to come rushing back, had been as soon as he learned that the spirit wasn't dead and it had attacked Lloyd. He thought back to how Lloyd had been trembling with exertion when Cole patted his shoulder, and how cut up and sore he was …

It was very lucky that Zane noticed and jumped in when he did.

Luck was what it had come down to.

And Cole wasn't sure he liked that.

After all, how much longer would luck last them? It was a fickle thing; if they had another close call and weren't so fortunate…

And there was plenty of opportunity for that to come to pass. They were trapped like caged animals. There was a sinister beast slinking through the halls, ready at any moment to pounce on them — and to make things even better, any triumph over it was only temporary, meaning they were never fully safe. All this while they were tired, on-edge, and physically weakened.

How were they ever going to get out?

Lloyd had attacked the door with his powers and it still wouldn't break! How could they search for Kai and Karlof with the threat of being attacked out of nowhere constantly breathing down their necks—?

Oh no.

That was another thing, he realized, stomach twisting itself into uncomfortable knots.

Kai!

They'd only managed to keep their cool because they reasoned that with the spirit defeated, he couldn't have fallen into its clutches.

But that wasn't true, was it? If that thing was still out there, and Kai and Karlof were both still unaccounted for … they were still in danger.

Anything could happen. Heck, what was to say that nothing had already happened? Alone, they were all so vulnerable. If Kai was really okay, he'd have found his way back to the room by now; it wasn't like he didn't know where it was.

Yet here they were, an hour or so after waking up to an empty bed where Kai should have been, and still nothing. Not to mention that Karlof had essentially disappeared into the clouds.

What if they weren't okay, then? What if one or both of them had gotten hurt, or worse —

Cole took a few breaths, as deep as he could make them.

In.

Hold for seven seconds.

Then out.

He couldn't think like that.

He'd already panicked once yesterday, and he couldn't afford to lose his head again. He'd be utterly useless if he did.

What was wrong with him, anyway? He had no reason to be this wound-up and flighty. None.

Cole was getting frustrated with himself by now. As soon as they'd walked in, he'd been buffeted by a terrible sense of wrongness, but it shouldn't have had this much of an effect on him. He felt a little bit like he had back when he'd first turned into a ghost — more scared than he'd ever been, and incredibly helpless to do anything about it. Come to think of it, he'd never been quite so anxious since.

And here he'd thought he'd worked through his ghost problems by now. After all, he hardly had a problem with sharing the same space as Sensei Yang.

Even if the cantankerous old ghost made for … interesting company.

But then, this was no ordinary ghost they were up against, here.

Was it super creepy and probably capable of killing them? Yes, but so were … lots of other things they'd fought. And those hadn't instantly sent him panicking — that was Jay's job.

But there was something so wrong about the noises it made and the way it moved and its very presence that chilled him down to the bone. The grotesque spirit seemed worse than a hundred ghosts, combined. And they didn't even have Nya to test if drowning it would work this time.

… Nya. For a few seconds, he wished the last ninja was here with them; then he thought it over and grimaced. All things considered, it was probably for the best that she wasn't, although her presence would've been greatly appreciated.

Was she worried that they hadn't given her any word in … almost an entire day, now?

Cole felt a brief stab of guilt at the idea, but then made himself dismiss it. It was likely, but what could they do? Magical interference meant that they couldn't contact anyone. Not Nya, not Sensei or Misako, not any of the other elemental masters, nobody.

Speaking of which, magic.

Cole huffed and pulled on a hoodie he'd packed (it only ever seemed to get colder in this stupid mansion, which wasn't doing him any favors).

A seemingly impenetrable door; no way to open it or alternate exits that they knew of; magic tamping coldly down on their powers, their bodies, their strength, their tech, and seemingly time itself; and a spirit that didn't stay down and could very possibly take them out if they weren't careful.

What a situation they'd gotten themselves into!

At any rate, they couldn't look for Kai or Karlof right now. There weren't enough of them who could — Lloyd and Skylor were both resting, and Zane had powered down again. What with their night being cut short, he hadn't recharged nearly as much as he should've, so he was catching up on lost ZZZs now. Jay was pretty much fine, but he'd followed Zane's lead and decided to sleep, too.

And going alone? Out of the question.

He'd have joined them, but for now, he was way too nervous, and someone had to stay alert. Although with the way things were going, Cole was gonna have to hope he didn't disappear into thin air, geez.

He lazily surveyed the room from where he was sitting, and Zane caught his eye fast. His titanium shell glinted in the light of the small fire they'd tried to coax life back into.

Ohhh, tincan.

He'd kept his head screwed on incredibly tight thus far, trying to keep them sane even when he couldn't be feeling good about any of this, either. With more than a little guilt, he realized that up 'til now, Zane had basically acted as their glue. And it wasn't even his job!

And what had Cole done?

Worked his nerves up into a froth and spent the entire rest of the day trying to recover from it. Let the utter wrongness of the place paralyze him instead of doing anything to get them out of it faster.

Yikes.

He was … going to have to work on that. He had to be better.

It wasn't right to make Zane keep everything together. Having Lloyd with them now was definitely going to help matters, but that didn't mean he couldn't take some of the responsibility on his shoulders. Stupid anxiety; he'd show it.

Huh. The breathing seemed to be working, at least — he legitimately felt a little better. Just keep trying to calm himself down and he'd be golden. Hopefully.

Good start, at any rate.

Pressing his back to the wall and properly settling in, he looked now to Jay. The blue ninja was curled up near Zane, having unceremoniously plopped onto the floor and passed out without even a blanket (which was some feat, when you took into account how cold it was).

Jay was … the most erratic out of all of them so far. Yeah, he'd run off, but then he'd been good about helping Zane fight the spirit (when he hadn't been any use himself), and he'd seemed like his normal self, joking around and helping lighten the mood; but then he'd let Kai talk him into giving up his shift … Trying to guess what to expect from him at any time was like reaching into a grab bag and not knowing whether you'd get candy or a handful of rocks.

Not that there was anything wrong with rocks, of course.

It was worrisome. Jay seemed to be walking around in a subdued daze, voice sounding strained whenever he talked. He was trying to act silly as usual and shoot off witticisms like everything was fine (Or as fine as it got in a place like this).

But at the drop of a hat, he got snippish, and irritable. Cole'd seen that in his outburst that morning — and it'd only gotten worse.

And he knew he couldn't be the only one who'd noticed, either. From the look on both their faces when they left the room, Zane and Jay hadn't just been having a nice chat earlier. And Jay had walked back in with his eyes suspiciously puffy.

He'd asked no questions. Being nosy would just make him defensive, so he minded his own business.

Plus, it would have just been plain rude. Especially considering that Jay had been surprisingly nice about Cole's own troubles so far, sticking close whenever they were together, subtly checking up on him every now and then, and never once making a joke about him being afraid. He appreciated it.

He'd tried to reciprocate earlier; worried that Jay had more on his mind then he was letting on. Afraid he'd made Jay think it was his fault Kai was missing, he'd grabbed Jay while they were alone and made it clear that he didn't feel that way. The master of lightning had been discouragingly closed-off.

If Zane had somehow managed to get through to him in a way that Cole hadn't, then well. He was gonna be grateful for it, because he totally didn't feel a little wounded by that.

Then Lloyd, snoozing away on a bed. He was wiped from that fight on top of hours of walking; he really needed the rest. Cole had been about ready to have a heart attack when he saw what a close call Lloyd had been in. Thank goodness he was okay, though. And it was nice to finally have him accounted for.

Poor kid hadn't taken Kai's disappearance well, though. He was trying to be tough about it, but it was easy to tell he was worried. Already, the gravity of the situation was beginning to weigh his shoulders down; if Cole was feeling bad, he could only imagine how Lloyd felt about it.

And he was clearly guilty over letting Karlof get lost and not being able to protect Skylor from getting such a serious injury, too. Cole sighed; he was familiar with how it felt to blame yourself for what happened to others, but it really hadn't been Lloyd's fault.

… Though he had a feeling he hadn't quite gotten through to Lloyd on that, if the twitching scowl on his face before he'd gone to sleep was any indication.

And for that matter, Skylor.

Ouch.

Having had a few concussions in his life, Cole felt sympathetic to her current plight. Chances were, she wouldn't be moving much for a while, and she'd be hard-pressed to defend herself if there were ever a situation where she'd need to. So they'd probably need someone to keep a consistent look-out …

Gears began to turn in his head, and he latched onto that. Now that he thought about it, they hadn't ever decided what to do once they'd had their rest. Think about that instead of concentrating too much on the persistent little voices whispering of their doom in his ears, and he wouldn't have as much room to psych himself out. That was good.

And of course, the first course of action would be to keep looking for Kai and Karlof.

Maybe they'd found each other? But if that were the case, there was no reason that Kai wouldn't have led him to the room they were currently huddled up in … he sighed softly, the sound barely disturbing the air in front of him.

Wherever you are, you'd better be okay. Cole traced the small flames still clinging onto fiery life with his eyes, sending out a mental plea.

Find us soon, alright? … It's not safe here.

We're worried.