the other side | ninjago

search for a friend

The team gathered together to discuss how they would find their friend. Currently, no options were on the table for how they would begin this process, but they knew time was running out. They decided their first option would be to split up around the city and search from there. They split into twos and spread out across the city to find their friend.

Lloyd ended up with Kai, who was eager to find Cole, Lloyd could tell that he was off. They found themselves walking the streets looking for anyone that they knew that might be able to provide them with something. After walking for a while, they came across Chen's noodle house, where they knew they could find Skylor. Before they went inside, though, Lloyd wanted to talk to Kai since he had been so silent on the walk before.

"Hey Kai, Are you okay?" asked Lloyd.

Kai picked up his head from the slump it had been in and took a second to respond.

"Yeah, I'm okay. It just sucks to lose a friend again. I feel incomplete, " said Kai.

"I know, but Cole is strong. He will be fine and we will find him," said Lloyd.

"Yeah, I know, I just have to get out of this funk," said Kai.

The two pushed open the large doors to Chen's noodles and proceeded through the crowded restaurant in search of Skylor. She was nowhere to be seen in the front of the restaurant. They thought she might have been sitting in one of the booths, so they walked over to the seating side to see if she was there. As they peered over to the side, Lloyd caught a glimpse of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had long blonde hair and could catch his eye from anywhere. There was something about her, she almost seemed familiar.

"Hey Kai, do you recognize that girl?" asked Lloyd, clearly puzzled by the situation at hand.

"No, I have never seen her in my life. Why?" Kai responded.

"She just looks familiar, I might talk to her," said Lloyd.

"Lloyd, this isn't the time for you to be flirting with girls. We have bigger problems at hand," said Kai.

"I'm not flirting! I just want to know why she looks so familiar, " said Lloyd.

"Cole is missing and Skylor is not here. We need to go," said Kai, obviously getting annoyed that they have no eyes on Cole or Skylor at the present moment.

"You're right, let's go," said Lloyd, who was taken back by this news.

He knew he knew her. How did he know her, though? This was just not sitting right with him, but he decided to bury it inside so that he could focus on the task at hand, finding Cole.

They met up with the group around the center of the city to see if anyone had any news. No one had gotten anything, any clues as to where he could be. Not even a lead. The team felt distraught; they felt useless to their friend. They decided that they would head back to the bounty and try another plan from there.

Just as they began to pick up and walk away, a large vine shot from the ground beneath where Zane stood and grabbed ahold of his foot. He tried to shoot it off of his foot, but his ice only bounced right off of the vines. The rest of the team shot back as they noticed Zane was now stuck where he stood. They began to attack the vines that surrounded him, but nothing would work. Everything that they did seemed to not help. 

The masked figure suddenly appeared in front of the team. They were getting bolder and were only trapping one member of the team instead of all of them. They walked slowly forward, but the team did not know how to approach them because the figure in front of them currently held their friend, and they did not know what they were capable of. Kai, being the hothead, decided that he had had enough and decided to attempt to strike first.

As he ran towards the figure, the ground began to shake. Well, this is new.

Small cracks in the ground began to form underneath the team as the vines slowly creeped out from underneath them. The masked figure was not able to move around the land before. How can they now?

"Cole's powers! They have Cole's powers!" shouted Nya from the spot she stood, unable to move because the ground below her was heavily cracked.

Kai began to run forward but was cut short by more vines shooting from the ground. They were everywhere.

"Where is our friend!" shouted Kai.

"He's mine now." responded the figure.

From where the figure stood, now emerged a familiar face.

"Cole!" said Nya, excited to finally see her friend.

He did not respond, instead of walking forward to stand next to the figure. He remained silent, and his movements were almost fake. His head lay low, and no one was able to see his face.

"Cole? Is everything okay, buddy?" Jay was just happy to see his friend was okay.

Again, no response came from Cole.

Just then, he lifted his head, and his eyes now lit up a bright green. His eyes were very dark before, but now they could light up the night sky. His friends now knew he was no longer on their side.