Transgender Jay : A Ninjago Story

7 - Cult

Jay's period had ended after two days of consecutive bleeding, emotional roller coasters and cramps. It took up a lot of energy to act like he was ok, as if he wasn't actively shedding the lining of one of his internal organs.

It seemed as though he was in luck for once, as his cramps and bleeding cleared up a couple of hours before the ninja were called into action. They hadn't been needed for so long that they were a little rusty while getting ready, and by the time the Bounty had flown low enough for the Ninja to hop off, Kai still hadn't managed to get his Ninja hood on and Cole's belt was untied, leaving his suit flapping in the breeze as he frantically tried to fix it.

"It seems like you need a haircut, Kai. You can't even get your hood over your head!" Cole laughed.

"You can talk, Mr. Broken Belt." Kai returned, yanking his hood over his head at last.

The problem seemed to be a group of protesters, part of the Dei Noctis organisation that had recently been gaining a decent amount of members. A group of them were marching down a street, causing general havoc and preaching their nonsense. Police's attempts to disperse and disengage them had been met with violence, and this violence had grown into their general behaviour.

"These idiots? Some sort of Cult, right?"

"Well, they call themselves followers of the Dei Noctis faith. Uses of the word 'Cult' upset them." Zane explained.

"That's literally what every Cult in existence has said."

"Let's just... get this over with. We don't want to hurt them, just try to take them out without weapons or serious injury." Lloyd stated, and the other four nodded in agreement.

Jay was the first to engage, others following suit, tackling a young man in his twenties and using the man's own shoelace to tie his hands behind his back. It wasn't that hard of a fight, as none of them even had a fraction of the training that the Ninja had received.

Soon enough, they were all taken care of and the police had started escorting them to the police station.

All taken care of, or, so they thought.

A last member of the group leaped out from the shadows of an alleyway and grabbed Jay's arm, gripping onto it like a vice.

"You... you're one of the sick! YOU'RE DEEP IN A SICKNESS! DEI NOCTIS WILL BRING JUDGEMENT ON YOU, FOUL, DISGUSTING HEATHEEEEN!!!"

Jay yanked his arm out of her grip and stepped away, watching in abject horror as she grabbed two fistfuls of her hair, and started screaming incoherently at the sky, her eyes stretching almost impossibly wide.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and she fell to her knees, soon to be taken away by the police and guided into the back of a police van. The officers thanked the ninja, then drove away.

Even a few minutes after it was over, Jay was still a little shaken up.

"You ok Jay? She was just a crazy cult woman, they're all bonkers." Kai reassured as they walked back to the anchor, where they'd be lifted back onto the deck of the Bounty.

"Yeaaaah... crazy."

For some reason her outburst had stuck in his head. The Dei Noctis followers, though only existing for a year or so, had already made their bigoted views very widely known. But... she couldn't have known that he was trans, could she? No, no way.

He was worrying about nothing. Just a crazy woman yelling crazy things.

"What do these people even believe in?" Cole asked. He was a little bit miffed, because one of the preachers had hit him in the face with her handbag and his eye still hurt.

The ninja were sitting on the deck of the Bounty as the sun had come out and it was a pleasant light, all sat in a circle so that conversation was easier.

"They believe that the end of the world is coming soon, and only truly pure human beings will be saved by Dei Noctis and will go on to live in heaven." Zane explained.

"Dei Noctis?"

Everybody expected Zane to answer that as well, but Nya popped out of the door and onto the deck.

"It means God of the Night in Latin." She said.

The boys were speechless for a second.

"What? Surprised? This is a male dominated world, and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Knowing a language can get you far, and I can confidently say that I'm quite good at Latin."

"Well... that's uh... impressive."

Nya shrugged and sat down next to Jay.

"As I was saying, they do not think that anybody other than the purest people will be saved. Their idea of purest people being white, cisgender and straight." Zane carried on.

Cole rolled his eyes.

"So they're basically just delusional racists." He huffed.

"Delusional, Homophobic, Transphobic Racists." Lloyd corrected.

Jay noticed him looking at Kai, waiting for a reaction, and had a strong impulse to ruffle his hair again. He was just like a cute little brother looking for validation.

Kai didn't really react. Just the same sort of grimace that he always had while discussing issues.

"... what do you think of them, Kai?" Jay asked, hoping for Lloyd to get the information he wanted, but Kai just shrugged.

"Crazy cult people. What more is there to them?"

Both Jay and Lloyd dropped it then, realising their attempts had been and would be fruitless.

"They don't seem to be much trouble though. Just the occasional street protest like that one. 'Spreading the Word of Dei Noctis'."

Jay had a bad feeling. A feeling that these people weren't as simple as cult members who believed in fiction.

But as the rest of the team seemed to forget about it, he went along and tried to forget it too.

Even so, the lingering sense of unease and suspicion hovered at the back of his mind, and refused to disperse.

His gut told him something was wrong, and as a way to try and quench his suspicion, he promised himself to do some research at some point, to find out about the movement and if anything dodgy was related to it.

If there was, then the ninja might have to be called back into regular action.