Heart of steel (a Ninjago fanfic)

Fog

Kai's POV

We got about three days until everything started going downhill.

By Thursday, everyone was pretty used to Kyra. Sure, having another person onboard was really weird, but she was... oddly familiar, really. She had qualities everyone admired, like how she could beat Jay stone-dead in Just Dance every time they played, and how she didn't wince when it was Cole's turn to cook. She still clammed up every time somebody tried to guess her element, and it didn't help that she had started getting up really early so that we couldn't see her train. She finally named her black, creepy dagger Kage, and even though we had no idea what it meant, it sounded ominous. And when she finally got her gray gi, to say she was happy was an understatement. She went with us to take down any rogue nindroids or serpentine that were still causing trouble. She wasn't the greatest Spinjitzu master, but she could hold her own, even if her ash-grey tornado wobbled a bit.

And then, on Wednesday, like I said, things went downhill really fast.

First of all, it was storming (really, really badly) and we couldn't go out on the deck to train. That left us training belowdecks, which always smells mildewy when it rains. Then Nya said that she was getting a lot of strange readings a few miles west, so we all went to check them out.

That was mistake number one.

Kyra's POV

Everyone piled onto Nya's exoskeleton . Except me, of course. I decided to fly down and run the risk of getting hit by lightning. I hadn't gotten to fly in days! The wind whistled over my back and rain pelted my feathers with such force that it was a struggle to stay in the sky, but I  was flying again. I reached the wet field  around the same time as Nya. The boys queasily climbed off the suit. Lloyd actually looked like he might throw up for a second there. The exoskeleton deactivated and Nya climbed out. She grabbed a scanner out of her backpack, and it dinged to life, blinking and whirring. Nya nodded. "I'm definitely picking up on something. The scanners registering high amounts of dark matter, higher than usual, but I'm not sure..." She was cut off by a rumble from the ground. The earth split in two as, I kid you not, huge, brown beasts climbed out. They looked like wolves, but they looked like they were made of dirt, with granite claws and fangs. Their eyes burned empty, sparks of void and fear. They formed a circle and began to pace around us, snarling. A voice manifested in the air. It chuckled throatily as twin expressions of fear and fury ghosted over Lloyd and Zanes faces.

"Look who finally came. My friends have been so eagerly awaiting your arrival." Kai drew his sword. "Where are you, you stupid Overlord? Too cowardly to show yourself?" The voice laughed again as a dark mist clouded around us. I coughed as it slid into my lungs- it tasted of blood, of burnt tar, of snow. "Well, if you insist. But enough with the pleasantries." The fog thickened around me and the others stopped being visible. A dirt-wolf snarled somewhere on my right- much too close for comfort. Nya's voice rang out. "We're not afraid of you!" The Overlord hissed. "You are. You are deathly afraid." My heart pounded in my ears as I raised Kage in order to try to cut through the mist, but to no avail. The darkness just concentrated itself around the blade. I closed my eyes and let the dagger drop to my side as a shriek and a growl pierced the air. How do you fight fog?

Answer: you can't.