to rule the world | a ninjago au

[21] he's an icon (kinda), he's a legend, and he is a mercenary

cole

"Higher! Higher! Even higher!"

"I'm as high as I can go," Cole bellowed down, wobbling like an unstable jelly. "I'm coming down."

"Thirty more seconds," replied Thorn. "You can do it!"

Cole gritted his teeth and willed his left leg to straighten. His head was bumping at the ceiling of the elemental training hall, and the mound of earth he'd summoned beneath him was beginning to lose shape as he became more fatigued.

"Time!"

"Thanks the Gods," Cole sighed, pushing the earth down into the ground. It left a pot-hole sized gap in the ground, but he nudged a bit more rock over it and the hole was covered. "Can I go now?"

"You were very distracted today," Thorn critiqued, ignoring his request. "Anything on your mind."

My dad. Wu. Fangblades. The Golden Weapons. If Jay and Skylor are okay. The mole.

"The Quiet One."

"Ah. You heard about that, then." they said with a crooked smile. "Don't worry about it. We'll weasel them out soon enough."

"Have you been on the frontlines at all? Our casualties are at an all time high and more are coming back injured. Kade hasn't slept in a week."

Thorn snapped their tablet close and pinned Cole down with a glare. "I know enough to see what's happening. The Quiet One is a serious matter, but some things cannot be done about it."

"Battles are going wrong everyday! Yesterday, Reggie and Seliel—I mean, Nomus and Phantom nearly died. I nearly died! Reg had to remain in his total smoke form for the entire thing. The Quiet One is getting out of hand, Thorn." Cole pushed down on his rising anger and exhaled slowly. The rocks that had cropped up with his fury disappeared and Thorn nodded approvingly.

"I understand. We're all confused and irritated, but right now, we need to focus on the Weapons and the Fangblades. Troya wants to call an entire Task Force meeting in twenty minutes at your common room. Good job training today, those earth piles are getting bigger."

"Thanks," Cole mumbled, but he wasn't really listening. His heart hadn't been into training as much in the past few weeks since they'd been home. Home was a strange word for it even though he was pretty sure Wu had razed his childhood one to the ground looking for him. Cole's fingers were aching from keeping them crossed all the time - every night, the Lord had to read out the list of the injured. And the dead.

Lloyd and Astra's father personally gave his condolences to the agents who had given their lives to the cause, though Cole found it a bit strange to hear the ever stone-faced don't care, not even for my family, man whispering his condolences. Although the deaths weren't many, it was the increase that worried Cole.

People came home every day with new injuries, old ones opened up and began bleeding again. It would be hard to find one person here who hadn't gotten a new scar, because even if you were on laundry duty or kitchen rotation, everyone knew how to fight. Everyone knew their place and how important this all was, so they sucked it up, wound new bandages, sewed up stitches and cleaned their weapons.

Cole had barely seen Astra, Charlie and Troya in the last week or two, at least. Before that Obi had forced them all to either train indoors or heal their mission induced wounds. Cole's knee was nearly back to normal now with some time off and physio training, as well as Kade's ever-trustworthy healing abilities. The blonde's healing was mainly for elemental injuries, but he was working with Obi and Joker to expand his repertoire. Astra had even left a tub of this strange smelling poultice for him.