Ninjago Lava Ship - It's messed up

Who follows, they starve

Cole, Zane and Nya also arrived to the destination where the black ninja was attacked. They got out of their vehicles, walked towards the old building and got to the window of the basement. The window was just few inches above the ground with broken glass and a lot of spider webs around the corners.

"Here it is.. The cursed basement." Cole, who was between Nya and Zane, gestures with his hands to add some spookiness in his words. Water and Ice ninja were looking at him in silence for few seconds then just decided at the same time to get into that basement.

"W-woah, woah, hey! You can't just go in there! The rats could be still hiding around the room. And not to mention the smell.." Cole was holding onto his nose while questioning if he should go in there with them or not.

"There is no weird or disgusting smell here, Cole." Nya speaks from the basement while looking around for anything suspicious. "Maybe just unpleasant smell like the old buildings have, but nothing strong in unusual way."

"I wouldn't agree so much with you, Nya." Zane was talking back to Nya while analyzing the area with his sensors. "There might not be any unusual smell right now, but there sure was some kind of gas here. Probably not the good fragrant, or even ordinary substance."

"You can tell all that out of nothing?" Cole finally decided to get inside the basement, mostly because he didn't want to stay outside all by himself.

"No." Zane then picked up a little weird device shaped like a little egg-bomb. "I found this. And my searching tells me some kind of chemical was in this thing. It still has some traces of it left." He looks towards Cole. "Someone probably threw this thing here so that chemical could be spread around the room, making that awful smell and make you hallucinate and see things, specifically, rats."

"Aah..!" Nya raises her right index finger up. "So you want to say that rats didn't actually attack him, but that it was something else. Or someone."

"Precisely." Zane answered.

Cole stayed silent for few moments then spoke. "Well that was too easy.."

"It's true that was a fast search, but we still didn't get all the answers." Zane proclaimed, going back to searching around the room, just in case he missed something.

"Yeah.." Nya crosses her arms. "Like who did this then and why? Are there few people in this or probably some evil organization? If so, why would they all be against us, ninjas? How did they know Cole will end up here and that Jay will end up in an abandoned amusement park to make traps for them in those places. They are experts in chemicals, so some of those guys should be scientists. But then again, how did they make Cole and Jay pass out?"

"That is a lot of questions and for now, I only have one answer, and that is on the last question." Zane was holding an injection in his hand. "This was thrown in this old barrel." He pointed to a barrel next to him which was in the corner of the room. "Seems like someone tried to cover their tracks in a hurry. They probably gave Cole a sedative with this to pass him out."

Cole gets chills "I somehow don't like this anymore.." then he clenches his fist. "I don't like when people mess with my mind..! And even better, how did they do that when I didn't feel any sting."

There was a long silence before Nya decided to finally break it off. "Hmm.. Well.. We came here to find something and we have at least some of the information. What now?"

"I suggest we go back to the base and let everyone know what we gathered." Zane answered on Nya's question, going back outside through the window, Nya and Cole following after him.

Once when they got out, Nya went into her mac and started flying off. Zane was about to do the same thing going inside his vehicle, but Cole stopped him in his track by placing his left hand on Zane's right shoulder from behind.

Zane turned to face him. "What is it, Cole?"

Cole stayed silent for few moments with a really serious expression on his face then he finally said. "I need a favour to ask you."

Back at the monastery, Jay, Kai and Lloyd already came back and now they are only waiting for Cole's group to come to the base. During that time, Lloyd explained his theory that everything what Jay was seeing were delusions, probably caused by that fog which probably wasn't even a fog, but some sort of gas which makes you delusional.

"So what do you think about that, uncle?" Lloyd turned to master Wu after getting his story straight.

"Hmm.." Wu was stroking his beard, having closed eyes while also holding onto his staff. He then looked at Lloyd with a stern expression which was followed with a nod of approval. "That is right, my young nephew. Well, at least that's what I have been thinking. That's the best conclusion after all."

"But we still don't know the other details." Pixal began. "Who are those people, what to they want, why, how did they.."

In that moment, before Pixal had a chance to finish all of her questions, Misako interrupted her. "True, there is much more that we need to know, but this is also a good start. The more informations we pick up, the more closer we will get to the truth. Step by step."

In that moment, the giant mechanic door, down at the base, started opening as Nya went inside with a mac. She placed the mac on its spot and got out, walking towards the others.

"Hey. Where are Zane and Cole?" Lloyd was first to ask that.

Nya waved at them then, as she heard Lloyd's question, she raised her eyebrows and looked towards an opened door, expecting for them to get inside any time soon. But as they didn't, she just turned towards the others and shrugged "Not sure.. I thought they were behind me."

"Pixal." Wu began speaking in a serious tone. "Get a hold of them and check where they are."

"On it, sensei Wu." Pixal turned around with her chair towards the computer, typing something on it and speaking trough the earbud at the same time. "Zane. Cole. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, we hear you loud and clear, Pixal." Zane answered back. "Is everything alright?"

"We should be asking you that. You let Nya go back to the base by herself without warning anyone first. Something could have happened to her. And we already thought something happened to you two."

"Sorry about that, Pixal. It was my fault." Cole began talking trough the earbud. "You're all at the base, right? Can you put this conversation on some sort of speaker on computer so everyone can hear me?"

Pixal raised her eyebrow in confusion, but then shrugged, still being curious of what Cole's about to say. "Well alright." She then transferred the conversation from the communication earbud onto the computer. "You can speak now."

"Great." Cole starts. "Guys, I know what Zane and I did could have let Nya in danger, but since I knew Nya wouldn't have been able to stand what I wanted to do, I thought it was better this way."

Kai clenches his fist in front of himself. "Well it better was worth it in the end at least!"

"Kai, I'm fine." Nya was looking at Kai with crossed arms, having that expression like he is overreacting for nothing.

"Well I don't know if it was worth it that much, but I think this was also important to know."

"Know what, Cole?" Master Wu asked.

Then Zane began explaining. "Cole asked me to show him where Harumi and I found the body of a human so I took him there."

"Ugh.." Nya put her hand on her mouth while with other one holding onto her stomach "Yep. He made a great choice.."

"The reason why he asked me that was because he wanted to know the cause of death." Zane continued. "This is something I forgot to do earlier so I apologize for that. But with my sensors, I concluded this person died from hunger."

Nya's eyes widened. "They starved to death? That must be the worst way of dying.."

"And from what it seems, based on their clothing and wallet full of cash, they had no reason to starve." Zane finished.

There was silence, everyone was looking at each other, then master Wu spoke. "First come back here. We will discuss about it then."