Possession

Chapter 1:

One Year Later...

The Endless Sea

Laughter. 

Laughter is where our next story begins. 

Not just any laughter; his laughter. 

It echoed above the bottomless waters as our dragons overlapped each other. 

"Getting ahead of yourself, Kai?" Lloyd queried tauntingly, "I'm leading this charge!" 

Water splashed as the brunet yelped; I giggled at the boys' antics. 

"That's one way to cool off a hothead!" 

"Hey, no one messes up my hair!" 

It had been a year since Chen had come to his defeat; Skylor continued to run the noodle shop as normal, and the guys and I continued to keep Ninjago City safe from harm. 

Things....Things were okay. 

....Currently. 

Speaking of current events, we had been busy soaring above the Endless Sea; reports had been going around of some mutant fish terrorizing some fishermen, and we had been put in charge of finding the creature. 

I could hear a bit of muffling from Zane's end, before he called out to the rest of us as we flew on our Elemental Dragons. 

"Pixal says this is the one!" 

"And now he's taken the bait!" Lloyd added. "Let's reel him in and get him to the aquarium!" 

Jay noticed the smirk on Kai's face. 

"Let me guess, Kai!" the ginger butted in, "You caught one that big once?" 

"Heck no! He was twice the size!" 

With the exception of Jay and Lloyd, the rest of us couldn't help but laugh. 

"It's time for the catch of the day!" Our blond leader called. "In-line formation!" 

We did as told, trying to bait the fish. It seemed to find itself lured by the pretty colors of the dragons. 

"It's right behind us!" Cole called. 

"Now!" 

Everyone split up at the last second, causing a riot as the giant fish landed in a boat. A few sailors groaned as we all cheered. 

Mission accomplished; Jay and I shared a grin from across different sides of the dock. 

"Now that's what I call hook, line and stinker!" 

***

Ninjago City Docks: 

Kai and Lloyd had been talking at a side of the docks; I couldn't help but throw a few glances to the brunet as a passerby spoke with me about the events of today. 

Her words flew past my head; it was like I was entranced. The reality is that since last year, I couldn't forget how I fumbled the bag in the Corridor of Elders. He was right there, and I had been so close to just throwing everything on the table, telling him how I felt, telling him how I'd always felt. 

Instead, I chose the coward's way out and blamed a game console. 
I was such a coward. 

While he said he would think on things, the reality was that we just...stopped talking a few days later. Sure, we would laugh together at someone else's jokes while on missions, or he would ask for directions whenever we were commissioned for certain requests here and there. Other than that, however...nothing.