Roots of Earth ~ A Ninjago Fanfiction

Chapter 38: OWCH.14

"Fox dung. Why aren't they coming out?" Irritably Eagle Talon paced the sidewalk.

"They've only been gone for fifteen minutes," Cole replied. He sat upon a bench placed by the entrance of the hospital. "Give them some time."

Talon scanned his surroundings. People were walking in and out to and fro the sidewalk, often casting him curious glances. Eagle Talon looked very much out of place wearing his ragged animal skins across his muscular frame. He stood out from the pedestrians in their colorful outfits with their bright, twittering devices. In bustling Ninjago City, he looked as out of place there as weed standing in a patch of orchids.

Cole found himself amused by Eagle Talon's evident anxiety. The werecat paced back and forth relentlessly, too restless to sit down. He kept fingering the jagged dagger he had strapped to his chest, and his eyes kept glancing at the enormous ambulance parked out front and the oblivious humans passing by. His entire body was tense and stiff, and he voiced a quiet, feline growl from his throat once in a while. If he were in one of his cat forms, both tails would most certainly had been twitching rapidly.

When a louder growl sounded from Talon's throat, Cole muttered, "Talon, why don't you just sit down? You're going to freak out someone if you keep pacing and growling like a wild animal."

"Bah," was Talon's only reply.

Cole sighed and glanced up the side of the tall, forbidding-looking building. His gaze wandered over the perfectly lined rows of dark windows and wondered which one had Jay in it. "I sure hope the doctors will be able to help him," he muttered.

Eagle Talon heard him and snorted with disdain. "Ha! Your 'doctors' are useless. There's nothing that can be done for Jay without his Lifesource."

Cole frowned at him. "His what-now?"

"His Lifesource." Talon arched his thick eyebrows at Cole. "What, you don't really think that the Seven Sorcerers have enough energy to keep up the spell by themselves, do you?"

"What are you talking about?"

Talon sighed, as if he had just been asked a stupid question by a little kid. "Look. When you use your powers of earth, do you feel a little tired after a while? Like, it drains your energy?"

Cole frowned as he thought about it. "Kind of... I mean, now that you mention it, but it's like I just did a bunch of pushups. It's not like I'm falling asleep or anything."

"Right, right. So tell me, Son of Earth, how long can you do pushups? Can you do it for an hour? Two hours? An entire day? How about a month?"

Cole opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Could you conjure a mound of earth and keep it hovering in air for weeks and weeks?" Talon shook his head, a slight smirk on his face. "No, I didn't think so. Well, neither can the sorcerers. They have powerful spells and clever tricks, but when it comes to things like the Dark Sleep, in which they slip into the minds of their victims and dig around for their worst memories, their darkest secrets, and their wildest dreams, it takes a lot of mind power and concentration. They could mess around with a human for a few minutes or even a couple of hours, but they're still mortal, and they can't hang around in your brain all day.

"So that's why they created the Lifesource. They figured out how to channel energy into crystal balls and maintain its activity, messing around with the victim under the sorcerer's instructions. It's like they connect a spell between their own minds, the Lifesource, and the victim's mind that can't be broken—unless the sorcerer deliberately breaks the enchantment or the Lifesource is destroyed."

Cole ran this through his head eagerly. "So, if the Lifesource maintains the Dark Sleep spell... then that means if we break it, Jay's free!"

"Either that, or it kills him," Eagle Talon retorted. "Shattering the crystal could very well end him. Of course," he added. "If you want to put him out of his misery, then by all means go ahead and finish him off. I'm sure he'll be glad to finally meet his treacherous ancestors in the Departed Realm."