Chapter Text
The ninja had been apart for a while now, Zane's death had driven a wedge of grief into the team's hearts. For Cole, however, it was more than that that pushed him from his comrades, Jays made up love feud with him over Nya cost them their friendship, making Cole feel more alone than anything when their Nindroid friend sacrificed himself. The fact that his teammates had seemingly next to no issues leaving really pissed him off. Jay left first, scoring a contract for a gameshow. Kai left soon after, first spinjitzu master knows where in Ninjago he fucked off to. Cole left last, taking to the woods to become a logger, no one knows him there, it's quiet enough he can sort through his grief without the interruption of Jay trying to fight him for Nya, or the fate of the world resting on his shoulders. That is until Llyod shows up out of nowhere.
"The team needs you now more than ever." The green ninja speaks, dropping out from nowhere and on to a tree branch just in front, and up a bit, of Cole.
Cole rolls his eyes.
"I thought I was good with a scythe, turns out I'm even better with an axe." Cole asserts as he takes another swing at the branch with said axe. "I'm tired of fighting, Llyod."
"Tired of Serpentine, tired of nindroids, tired of.." the former black ninja pauses, tightening his grip on his axe as he says his former best friend's name. "Jay."
"Out here," Cole gestures to the forest, "no one knows who you are. No one expects anything from you."
"But what would Zane expect?" Cole turns back towards Llyod quickly, a frown evident on the older boy's face as he takes another swing at the branch below his feet. "You're the Master of Earth, Cole. You don't belong in trees! Your feet should be on the ground!"
"You can't hide who you are." Llyod tries to comfort his brother while climbing down to a closer branch.
"Sorry, Green Machine, this is my life now." Cole replies somewhat solemnly, gesturing to his axe.
Suddenly a logger calls out from the ground, Cole whips around to see the log pile rolling loose. He immediately jumps down from the tree, away from Llyod, slamming his fists into the ground to stop the logs. The logging crew cheers for him, numerous of the men clearly piecing together his identity. Cole heads to the tree he was at and packs away his stuff.
"If you change your mind, Cole," Llyod calls from the treetops as Cole begins to walk off. "you know where I'll be."
—
Cole takes a few hours to consider Lloyds offer as he hikes back to New Ninjago City. Who cares if the team needs him? Jay, his best friend in the whole world, doesn't want him around. Zane's dead. Kai became angry and cold hearted. Who cares, right?
"Zane cared." He reminds himself outloud. He quickens his pace tenfold, running towards the city to meet with Llyod.
—
They meet at Cole's favorite noodle house, Chen's! Cole can't believe Llyod chose this place, albeit being the Ninjas top spot for lunch back before the Overlord fucked the city up. Cole looks around the restaurant, a smile spreading across his face when he sees Llyod, a frown immediately replacing it, his fists clenching around his bags handles, as he sees Jay. Jay scowls at him as he approaches the table and sits down. Llyod looks between the two, almost like he's reconsidering bringing the two here. Cole reaches for some food only for Llyod to smack his hand.
"Not until Kai gets here."
Cole groans, propping his head up with his elbow. He's hungry, there's food just in front of them and he's not allowed to eat any until Kai gets there. Kai's typically late to things like this unless it involves whatever girl he's chasing after at the time. It feels like eternity passes as they wait for Kai, Cole keeps his eyes fixated on the food as it goes around the kitchen on its conveyor belt, avoiding Jays piercing blue eyed daggers digging into Cole. Soon enough the bell dings at the front, Lloyds head snaps towards the door. Kai walks in, a frown on his face and his hands burrowed into his red sweater.
"Jay? Cole?" The fire ninja questions as he sits down at the table. Cole turns his head slowly towards him, scoffing. Typical Kai, late as always. Cole had called it.
"Ha, you too?" Cole groans, turning his head back towards the food. FSM was he hungry.
Something stirs in his stomach that's not hunger as the ninja of fire sits next to him, a wave of familiarity washing over him. He remembers when they'd all sit around the table on the bounty for meals, Kai always sat right next to him, Zane on his other side, Jay sat with Nya across from them. The laughter that filled their dining area just a year ago made Cole's heart hurt. He hates to admit it, but he missed the ninja, even Jay who declared him his enemy last they spoke. Coles stomach growls, drawing him out of his thoughts.
"The runt tricked us all." Jay complained. When wasn't he complaining, Cole thought to himself, it's all he ever seemed to do.
Kai sits next to the Master of Earth, immediately reaching for some sushi rolls passing by their table only for Llyod to grab his wrist and 'tsk' at him sternly.
"We talk first, then eat." Llyod says for the second time this evening, earning an annoyed groan from the whole table.
"Ugh, trust me, do you know what kind of restraint I've had to have staring at all this noodle goodness?" Cole says, gesturing at all of the delicious food to their sides, "You're late!"
Kai rolls his eyes at the black haired boys remark. "Make it quick."
"I know without Zane things have been different,but we have to move on." Llyod begins a small speech he's probably been practising the whole time he's been waiting for them all to show up. "The reason I brought you all here is because… maybe we should add someone new to our team."
"A new ninja!?" Kai questions with offence clear in his voice, his eyes going wide and his brows furrowing even more than when the brunette had walked in.
"Are you crazy?" Jay exclaims, slamming his palms into the table.
"Come on, Zane's irreplaceable!" Cole basically yells at the younger boy, crossing his arms over himself and shaking his head in disbelief. How could Llyod even suggest that. Zane was their family, their brother in arms. He was not just a thing that could be replaced.
"I cared for him too," Llyod looks down at the table for a moment, sadness in the young ninjas eyes. "But maybe it's time we started caring about his team."
"Maybe without Zane there is no team." Kai states his opinion on the subject, furrowing his brows even more. Everyone stares down at the table with bitterness and sadness alike.
Maybe Kai has a point.
The doors to the restaurant swing open and two thugs walk on in like they own the place, immediately going to the cashier and intimidating the poor restaurant host into giving them everything from the cash register. The thugs still want more from him though as they pick him up and rough him up, bringing the poor sap to the conveyor belt and giving him the beat down with laughter.
"Looks like we got trouble." Jay says, pointing to the thugs as they disrupt the food distribution.
"Alright," Cole starts to stand up from his seat, clutching his chopsticks with anger. He draws the line at messing with HIS food. "Now they're our problem."
The ninja follow his lead as Cole moseys on up to the thugs with his arms crossed over his chest, chopsticks in hand. "Excuse me, it's not polite to touch someone else's food."
"I'd listen to him if I were you." Kai warns the thugs, leaning on a small table just behind him with one of his token smug looks. "He's no fun to be around when he's hangry."
One thug takes a swing at Cole only to be blocked cleverly with chopsticks. The thug keeps going for him, but each time Cole catches him with the utensils, much to the thugs annoyance. Soon enough Kai's up on the conveyor belt and he and Cole are kicking thug ass, noodle house style. They pile the thugs up on the belt as Llyod and Jay watch their teammates with wonder.
"How can you just walk away from this?" Llyod gestures to the boys as the thugs get up and run away, not before a lady hits the thugs with her bag though.
The lead one makes a rude gesture at the Ninjas, causing them to instinctively take after them. The ninja follow them through the back door, into a backlane where the thugs seemingly disappeared.
"Ugh, where did they go?" Kai asks, looking around the empty alley, his gaze falling on some sort of shrine with a paper pinned above it.
"What's this?" Llyod questions as they all approach the pedestal with two lit candles and a bowl with some fortune cookies in it. They all gasp at the image on the paper, eyes wide.
"It's Zane." Kai mummers almost inaudibly.
"What does it say?" Cole asks as Llyod takes the paper off the alley wall. He misses Zane a lot, any lead is a lead when it comes to their beloved nindroid brother. Someone could be toying with them though, some sort of elaborate lure to hurt the ninja.
"It says he's alive." Llyod says with a smile. That smiles spreads to each of the Ninjas faces.
"Those thugs werent delivering a message to the noodle house," Kai explains, piecing everything that had just happened together. "They were delivering a message to us."
"This has to be some cruel joke!" Cole grumbles, not believing this shit for more than one FSM damned second. He puts his hand on his hips and shakes his head in disapproval. "And I'm not laughing."
"Look," Llyod points to the bowl in front of them, "I think this was meant for us too."
"Fortune cookies?" Jay ponders the cookies as he grabs one of the pastries. "Very peculiar?"
"Should we?" Llyod asks as Cole takes one and scarfs it back, paper and all. The ninja all look at him with concern.
"Uh, you do know there's a fortune inside, right?" Kai asks him, taking one for himself and breaking it in half to reveal the fortune.
Cole swallows hard, an aloof smile on his face. That would make the most sense, given the name. Cole bad always wondered.
"Ohhhhh, so that's why they're called that." Kai facepalms at the his remark.
"Listen to this," Llyod announces, getting the conversation back on track, reading from the flier with their apparently not dead friends face on it. "Master Chen has personally invited you to participate in his Tournament of Elements."
"Wait a minute!" Cole shouts, his mouth agape as hes coming to a conclusion. "Are you saying that Mr. Chen, the same guy filling MY belly with delicious goodness, is actually Master Chen?"
"Secrecy is of the utmost importance. Tell no one, or suffer the consequences." Kai reads off his fortune.
"If you ever want to see your friend again, meet on the pier at midnight and leave your weapons behind." Jay reads off his fortune next, more and more concern befall the Ninjas faces.
The messages all disappear in little puffs of smoke, Coles going off inside his stomach causing him to yelp in slight pain. He clutches his tummy and then belches.
"At least I know I was invited!" He jokes, earning a laugh from his fellow ninja. He missed the sound of their laughter.
They mill over the possibility it could be a trap set up to capture them all, Jay arguing that Zane could actually be alive. Eventually the four agree on going. Even if it's a trap, Zane's important and they'd take any chance to get him back.