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It was an unusual morning inside the monastery.
Unusual meaning there were no emergencies; no resurrected overlords threatening to destroy/take over Ninjago, no long-lost enemies wanting to take revenge, and no realms trying to cross over to theirs. It was, dare I say, peaceful. With Sensei Wu away on his long awaited meditation trip, and Pixal unwillingly accompanying him, the ninja were using the unexpected break as efficiently as possible... to sleep in, collectively deciding to take their sweet time to get to the training said Sensei assigned them in his absence.
But that sleep wouldn't last long; an alluring scent was already starting to spread through the monastery, tickling the sleeping ninjas' senses.
Cole was the first to wake up, his keen nose pulling him closer to the source of the smell, and ultimately face-first into the floor next to his bed. That however didn't stop him from reaching the dining area before everyone else.
"Oh man, I love it when it's Zane's turn to cook!" Jay squealed, practically jumping with anticipation.
"So you've said. So many times I've lost count," a sleepy looking Lloyd deadpanned.
"My databanks have approximately 83,457 instances of Jay saying this sentence. Would you like me to play a compilation of it?" Zane asked as he exited the kitchen, two plates topped with breakfast burritos in each hand.
"You have a compilation of Jay's cooking compliments?" Nya asked, eyeing the food hungrily. The question wasn't really out of disbelief, but more because she wanted to hear it out loud. She'd been living with the other ninja long enough to not be surprised by their (her included) combined weirdness.
"I have just created it in the time we were talking. I am making a file on Jay's most embarrassing moments. From what I have gathered, it is customary for close friends to embarrass the groom on his wedding, I thought I would prepare in advance."
Cole, and Lloyd started snickering while Jay and Nya went equally red in the face, the color clashing with the blue and turquoise of their gi's.
"Come on, guys! We've barely made it official!" Jay fumed, glancing at the suspiciously quiet water ninja, partially to make sure he wouldn't be caught up in the crossfire of her inevitable revenge.
"I think Zane's right, never too soon to start preparing. Oh, maybe we should start constructing a nursery in here while we're at it," Cole continued teasing.
The table immediately burst into laughter, mixed with the indignant squawks of the two ninja in blue. Before things could escalate further, Zane, knowing full well how it would end, passed the plates around, and the food successfully drew everyone's attention.
From here, there was about a 50-50 chance of it becoming either a food fight or a nice family breakfast. Luckily, Zane's cooking tended to defy the odds, since even a fired up Nya didn't want to waste even one burrito.
And she didn't regret her decision.
"Wow, Zane, you've done it again, buddy. These things have fire!" Cole laughed, eagerly wolfing down his portion and reaching for more. The other ninja all gave agreeing hums.
The peace-making ability of Zane's cooking saved the day yet again.
"Speaking of fire; Where's Kai? He's never missed Zane's breakfast."
"Haven't seen him. He was already out when I got up," Jay responded, mouth stuffed nearly to the point of exploding.
"Wasn't everyone?" Cole snickered, but Jay was too busy trying to steal Lloyd's burrito to snap back.
"Maybe he just wanted to get in some early training?" said green ninja suggested while casually flicking a small orb of green energy in Jay's face.
"Negative, my scanners don't pick up his signature anywhere in the monastery." Zane called from the entrance to the kitchen.
Any other time this would have gotten the ninja at least slightly worried, but the warm food, carefree atmosphere, and lack of danger in the past few days put them a little too much at ease. They were practically masters of their elements now, and as far as they knew, there wasn't much that could pose a significant threat to them. In other words, they'd gotten overconfident.
"Don't worry, Nya, he was probably bored and just ran off again to find something to fight. I'm sure he'll be back by lunch; dinner, tops," Lloyd smiled reassuringly at his female teammate and grabbed another burrito.
The red ninja was not in fact back by lunch, or dinner, and the carefree atmosphere was slowly drifting away.
When the next day rolled around and there was still no sign of their missing teammate, the other ninja started getting restless. It wasn't that unusual for one of them to unexpectedly go on a longer mission, but they would always at least leave a message to let the others know where they'd gone. There are only so many times one of your team gets kidnapped before you become paranoid.
The following morning, when Kai still wasn't back and didn't answer their calls, they were quick to form search parties and spread into every corner of Ninjago.
It was late afternoon three days later when the last of the impromptu search teams returned to Destiny's Bounty, which they were using as a mobile base in the search.
As they walked onto the bridge, Nya put her phone down with a sigh.
"Still no sign of him in Jamanakai or Serpentine village, and Master Wu still isn't back from his meditation trip. Any luck with you guys?"
Lloyd shook his head before collapsing on a free chair, Cole following suit. Both of them were at the edge of passing out from exhaustion; keeping an elemental dragon summoned almost nonstop for three days would tire out anyone.
"We've checked everywhere, from Kryptarium prison to Chen's island. Nothing. Still no requests for ransom or surrender?"
"I am monitoring all incoming communication to Ninjago city, nothing so far," Zane announced, his voice lined with exhaustion.
The ninja collectively sighed in disappointment. Even though knowing Kai was kidnapped wouldn't be good, it would be better than not knowing anything at all.
Nya looked over the exhausted faces of her friends and stood up.
"Alright, enough for today, you guys go get some rest. I'll go make one last lap to make sure you didn't miss anything and we can continue together tomorrow."
That was enough to shake Jay from his half-sleep.
"No, Nya, you shouldn't go out alone, I'll come with y-" he started, but the moment he got up, his knees buckled and Cole barely managed to catch him before he fell.
Nya shook her head and helped them both back into their seats.
"Jay's right, Nya," Lloyd called from where he was icing his swollen feet, "Until we know what happened to Kai, we shouldn't be out alone."
The water ninja huffed in annoyance.
"I've been stuck here for almost two days! That's my brother out there, Lloyd, no way am I just going to sit here doing nothing while he's who knows where. I can take on any creep that sneaks up on me."
Lloyd wanted to protest, to make some argument to keep his team close, but he knew there was nothing, not even endangering her own safety, that could stop Nya when it came to family.
Noticing his desperate look, Nya's expression softened.
"Hey, don't worry, there's nothing in this realm that could keep me away from you guys for long. Besides, I'll be back by sunrise, and I'll keep my beacon active so you know where I am. It'll be fine."
She waved at them before jumping off the ship. Her dragon roared as it flashed into existence, and before they knew it, she was nothing more than a blue dot on the horizon.
It was closer to noon than morning when the ninja woke up the next day and restarted their search. There was still no word from Kai or Wu and Pixal, who were probably still too far from civilization to get their messages. The ninja were slowly getting desperate.
As they were going over the locations they had yet to search, Lloyd gasped, earning himself three questioning looks.
"Guys... where's Nya?"
It took a few seconds for the others to understand what he was saying, but the shift in atmosphere was immediate. They started frantically searching for the water ninja, eventually finding the list of coordinates they received from her search throughout the night, but her beacon had been inactive for hours. When they didn't find her on the ship and she didn't answer her communicator, they looked to the sky for any sign of her dragon, but again found nothing.
Without another warning, Jay bolted to the side of the ship.
"Jay, what are you doing?!"
"What do you think?" Jay yelled, one leg already on the railing, "If Kai's gone missing and Nya's not back yet, what if she's the next target? I have to get to her before it's too late."
He was just about to jump over the side when Cole grabbed his hand.
"Cole, I swear if you'll try to-"
"I'm not trying to stop you. I'm coming with you. Look at the coordinates, Nya was last at Hiroshi's Labyrinth, that's miles and miles of, well, labyrinth. The two of us will be able to search it much faster. Plus, if Nya and Kai were taken by someone, we're most likely targets too. None of us should be alone."
Jay stared at Cole's hand for a second and then squeezed it with a smile.
"Just like old times, huh Rockhead?"
"Just like old times, Zaptrap."
Zane and Lloyd exchanged concerned looks.
"The two of us should stay here to look for more clues. We will contact you in case either of them comes back."
"You guys be careful out there, and keep your comms and beacons active. We have no idea what we're up against here, and we can't afford to loose more people."
Jay looked at him, his humorous expression completely gone.
"Don't worry, Lloyd, we'll be back before you know it. With Nya."
The green ninja forced a smile on his face and nodded, but as he watched the two dragons fly off, he couldn't shake the feeling that no matter what they did, something was about to go wrong.
Two days later, when Jay's signal blinked off, the air on the Bounty grew cold.
In the 28 hours it took Cole to get back, the three ninja stayed in constant contact. Zane and Lloyd could have taken turns in staying on the comms, but neither was willing to leave. As a result, when the exhausted Cole finally landed on deck and his dragon dissolved underneath him, it was all they could do to drag him out of the elements before they too collapsed.
They woke up in a tangle of limbs, and there was a moment of panic before they made sure all three of them were still there. As they made their way to the bridge, all they could think about was how in less than ten days, their team had lost half its members.
After they made sure there were still no news about their missing teammates or messages from Wu, the three ninja discussed in detail everything that happened while Cole and Jay were out searching.
"Whoever is after us seems to be going after anyone they suspect is an elemental master." Zane said pensively, "Shortly after you left, Dareth went missing from his dojo and they found him hours later extremely disoriented in a back alley downtown. We assume that was after the kidnappers found out he doesn't actually possess elemental powers."
Cole perked up.
"Well let's go talk to him! Maybe he can remember something useful."
The tiny bubble of hope growing in his chest burst when Lloyd shook his head dejectedly.
"We already spoke to him; he doesn't remember a thing. Just darkness, a mask, and something he called - and I quote - a glowy boom-zab-kapow-thingy."
"Yep, sounds like Dareth alright," Cole sighed and flopped back into his chair, a dry cough shaking his body.
Zane briefly left the room and returned with a glass of water, which the earth ninja accepted with a grateful nod.
"What exactly happened out there? You said Jay just... vanished?" the nindroid asked.
Cole downed the glass in one gulp and his expression turned gloomy.
"Vanish is the only way to describe it. We were staying as close together as we could to make sure we wouldn't get picked off. We were searching deeper into the labyrinth and there was this bottleneck we had to pass through. Jay went first, I only lost sight of him for a second, but when I came through he was just... gone."
Cole trailed off and Lloyd moved closer to the two, squeezing his shoulder.
"At least you made it back. After this I think we can safely assume the others didn't just get lost, someone made them disappear. And that someone somehow snuck inside the monastery, kidnapped Kai without alerting us, tracked down Nya inside Hiroshi's labyrinth, did the same with Cole and Jay, somehow took Jay within a second, and did that all without leaving a trace..."
The ninja descended into silence, each trying to come up with a course of action. After a long while, Cole stood up, wincing at the strain on his sore muscles.
"Well, if whoever we're facing thinks we'll just sit here and wait to get taken, he's got another thing coming."
That short sentence was enough for some of the fire to return to Lloyd's eyes, "Right, we've beaten worse guys than this, guys that didn't have to hide in the shadows. We'll take the day to gather our strength, and tomorrow we're going out there to bring everyone home."
His two teammates nodded resolutely.
"I will get to work on triangulating the possible positions of the enemy base."
"And I'm getting a few hours of sleep on something that isn't the floor. After that, whoever took those three is gonna be sorry."
Cole gave them a mock salute and limped out of the door.
Lloyd joined Zane next to the large screen he hooked himself to, rows of data flying by faster than he could read them.
"This isn't going to be easy, but we can't give up, our friends are counting on us. We need to stay on guard, probably take turns on night watch, whoever this person is, he managed to take the others within seconds, and I doubt he's planning to stop until he has all of us."
"Agreed, I estimate our troubles to be far from over."
As if to confirm Zane's words, a loud crash below them shook the ship, nearly knocking them off their feet. They shared a look.
"Cole."
They made it to the sleeping quarters in seconds, weapons drawn, and it immediately became obvious what the crash was from. The door was blown clear off its hinges, the floorboards cracked, and all their belongings and anything that wasn't nailed down was scattered around, as if a tornado just ripped through the room. It was just like the time Cole accidentally earth punched a mosquito.
Except this time, the intruder definitely wasn't an insect.
"...Cole?"
"I have grave news. It appears that the masters of gravity, mind, sound, and speed are also missing."
Lloyd's grip went slack and his sword clattered to the ground.
"So you're saying... we're the last ones?"
Zane slowly nodded, his expression mirroring Lloyd's own hopelessness.
After Cole was taken, they gathered all their supplies and barricaded themselves inside the ship's bridge. They doubted it would do much, but it gave them at least some sense of security. Hours passed as Lloyd stood guard while Zane tried to contact the other elemental masters, but to no avail. Sometimes the families or friends of that particular master would tell them they'd disappeared in a similar way as their friends, other times they'd get no answer at all.
Now the sun was going down and their last contacts turned out the same.
No help was coming. They were alone.
When the last ray of light disappeared behind the horizon, the two ninja sat back to back in the middle of the room, weapons in hand, jumping at the slightest sound. Lloyd kept glancing at his watch, willing the night to go by faster, but seemed to be achieving the opposite result. After a particularly loud creek nearly made him cleave a nearby bookcase in half, he couldn't take the tense silence anymore.
"Zane... I'm scared."
"I am conducting periodic scans of our surroundings. There is nothing that would pose a threat to two highly trained ninja in our vicinity."
"Yeah, but for how long?"
A beat.
"I don't think I can sleep, Zane. If I wake up and you're not here... I'm not sure what to do."
Lloyd felt weak admitting it. It made him feel like he was a little child again, when the whole world felt like it was out to get him. Like he was alone again. But that was no longer the case. He had friends now, a family he could confide in, even if most of it wasn't with him at the moment.
Zane, sensing Lloyd's vulnerable state, kept his voice firm but gentle.
"I have enough energy to last the night. I will stand guard while you rest."
He paused for a bit and leaned against Lloyd's back.
"...and while I cannot promise I will be here once you wake, I can promise that I and the other ninja will always be by your side, no matter what. We may not be related by blood, but you are still my brother, just like the others. And family protects each other."
Lloyd raised his sword and watched the dim light of the various buttons around them gleam off the blade.
"Yeah, I just wish I could protect you guys like you protected me."
"And you have. This foe is proving to be more difficult to deal with than we anticipated, but we will prevail. Ninja never quit."
Even though Zane couldn't see it, Lloyd nodded.
"Right. Ninja never quit."
Slowly his eyes closed and he let the hum of the ship's engines lull him to sleep.
He was woken up by the sun drifting in through the gaps in the barricaded windows.
When he rolled over and saw the empty spot next to him, he could barely keep himself from crying. A mix of hopelessness, grief, and anger threatened to overwhelm him, and he had to bite his tongue to avoid screaming in frustration.
Because now he was truly alone.
There was no hope.
He failed them.
He should have done something, anything, to stop this from happening, he-
"Hey, Greenbean, what kind of trouble have we gotten ourselves into now?"
Lloyd nearly jumped out of his gi at the impossible, loud voice that filled the room.
"Kai?!" he exclaimed, frantically looking around.
"Look, if Zane's left you this message, it means that something really bad is happening and we're not there to smack you out of your depression and tell you to stop blaming yourself."
Lloyd's eyes landed on the screen Zane was using the day before. A titanium falcon was sitting on it, the voice coming from its opened beak. He felt his newfound hope dissipate.
"But don't you dare give up, Lloyd! You have to keep going, like you always have. Remember, you were the one who pulled us back together after we lost Zane, you pushed through when you lost you dad, even when Sensei was lost in time and we in the First realm, you never gave up. You're the one holding this team together, and I know you can push through this too."
Lloyd looked up again, clinging desperately to every word, trying to find anything that would give him some semblance of hope.
"I know it's probably hard for you right now, and we might not be there to fight with you, but you can bet we'll always be by your side."
Lloyd let his tears fall as the combined voices of his friends - his family filled the room, shouting encouragements.
"You've got this, kid!"
"Go show them what we ninja are made of!"
"Statistically, it is impossible for 98% of Ninjago's population to defeat you."
"Go make us proud, Lloyd!"
Finally, Kai's voice rose above the others.
"You go out there and save the world so we can laugh about this message together, you got that?"
There was a pause, as if they were waiting for him to nod.
He did.
"Ninja, go!" his friends chorused and immediately started laughing.
The recording ended.
And Lloyd collapsed to his knees.
He was overwhelmed with emotions, his mind completely filled with memories of his friends. All they gave him, all they taught him, how many times they'd saved him, not just from their enemies, but from himself as well. He wouldn't give up, he would prevail, but how was he supposed to find them? Just what could he do they hadn't already tried? The kidnapper was elusive, the only people who saw them were the ones who disappeared.
Lloyd paused. An idea came to his mind; a foolish, reckless idea, that was so very Lloyd that the other ninja would tie him up in his room and take turns watching him just to make sure he wouldn't go through with it.
He smiled and wiped the tears off his face. It was perfect. But he couldn't act recklessly, there was too much at stake. If he was to go through with it, he would have to take precautions.
His eyes found the bookcase he nearly destroyed last night. It was holding the few books and scrolls that had escaped the constant destruction of the Bounty, and one of them caught his attention.
The idea slowly became a plan.
He was standing on the edge of a mountain, looking at the setting sun. It was a miracle that he was even able to see it; how he had not gone missing in the nine days since he lost Zane was a mystery to him, but he wasn't complaining.
The falcon perched on his hand chirped and Lloyd ran his hand over the hard titanium feather one last time. Then he let the bird soar away, straight to Destiny's Bounty, which was still docked back in Ninjago. The message he was carrying was intended for Sensei Wu, and while Lloyd didn't know whether his uncle was still on his trip or if he'd also been captured, it made him feel a little more at ease to know he'd left at least something for any potential rescuers, or, at worst, an explanation for any future elemental masters.
He glanced back to where the sun bathed the Temple of Light in fiery orange. An involuntary shiver passed through him as he remembered the feeling of his powers slowly draining from his body, the ringing of the golden bell filling his ears, bright light momentarily blinding him.
It was something he learned in the early days after they beat the Overlord, when he had barely gotten control of his newfound golden powers. Back then he read through dozens of books and scrolls, and learned many things, not just about his powers, but about the Temple of Light itself. One of those was that it didn't just pass powers between people, but between objects as well.
Granted, giving up his powers may not have been the best move when he was about to face an unknown enemy that somehow managed to capture every elemental master in Ninjago, but he remembered all too well what happened every time someone got their hands on all the elemental powers. He would rather be somewhat powerless than see what would happen this time.
He watched the sun melt into the ocean, but instead of the fear he was expecting, he felt only grim determination.
Hang in there, guys. I'm coming for you.
He sat down cross-legged, his sheathed sword laid on his knees, his back against one of the pillars supporting the temple's entrance. Whatever was coming for him, there was little sense in fighting it, so he should at least get as much sleep as possible. If he could get any that was.
He would need the energy for whatever came next.
The following morning the rising sun illuminated an empty cliff holding an abandoned ancient temple. There were no footprints, no sign of any struggle, and not a creature in sight. All in all it seemed like no one had been here in weeks.
It was a normal morning on the Dark island.