Legends of Ninjago Book 1: Brotherhood (Ninjago AU, Cole, Jay, Zane, Kai)

Chapter 21: Darkness

The cell was dirty and slimy, and a horrible stench hung around them. There were no benches or beds or even straw. Just hard floor and even harder bars.
Cole was currently being interrogated—the first of them all—and no one spoke a word, but they were all thinking the same thing: what was Cole enduring? And what would await them when it was their turn?
There were two guards stationed by the cell door, so Kai made sure to be very quiet when he asked, "Why don't we use our powers to escape?"
"And go where?" Ann whispered. "They'd just capture us again." She shifted on the ground and curled into a tight ball, her face turned toward the darkness.
"But shouldn't we try something? There's gotta be at least one thing we can do?" Jay asked, looking around hoping someone had an idea. The overwhelming quiet seemed to solidify the hopelessness of the situation.
"If there was, we'd already be doing it," Ann said quietly.
Kai let his head tilt back and hit the wall he was leaning against. Was this really how everything was going to end? All the time they spent collecting the weapons, fighting Garmadon, riding a dragon... and now this? Everything was such a mess. If Nya wasn't by his side now, he would never had trusted Wu in the first place.
The silence was becoming unbearable, and then a heavy door opened somewhere down the outside hall. Kai looked up and his chest tightened when he saw Cole being dragged forward by two Skulkens. He didn't seem to be conscious, which set off a whole new set of worries.
When the cell door opened, almost everyone moved closer to take Cole and lay him down gently before the Skulkens threw him to the ground.
Kai only caught a glimpse of whatever they had done to their earth ninja when one of the soldiers said, "Take the scrawny one." The two guards marched up to Jay and lifted him up off the floor by his chains and then they all walked out of sight, the cell door slamming shut behind them.
"He's not in good shape," Ann was saying, and Kai looked back over to the group surrounding Cole. "See, burn marks here... here... and over here. And those are bruises..."
"I thought they were just supposed to interrogate us," said Nya, clearly very scared.
"This is war. No one 'just interrogates,'" Ann explained, in an annoyed sort of way. As if she couldn't believe she needed to state the obvious. "Torture is always expected."  And she went back to leaning against the wall.
"Is there anything we can do for him?" Zane asked.
Ann sighed. "This," she said, and she summoned several blobs of water that covered Cole's burned skin and kept them in constant motion.
Then silence returned.
Everyone was simply waiting for the next minute, hoping that it would be shorter than the last, while the thought of what Jay must have been suffering swirled vividly in their minds.
When the doors opened again, they could hear Jay's voice, soft and groaning, growing louder as they approached. When he finally came into view, they could all see many, many cuts and bruises and other such bloody wounds all over Jay's body; his shozoku was mostly undone, and hung loosely around his frame, revealing even more damaged skin.
Nya was the first to catch him when the Skulkens tossed him back into the cell, and Zane and Keaton helped him over to where Ann was sitting so she could clean his wounds.
"You're becoming a regular nurse," Nya remarked to Ann, trying to lighten the mood a little, but the comment was not appreciated. Ann merely gave her a side glance that was very clearly not happy.
Kai felt something hard grasp his upper arm, then suddenly he was being pulled to his feet.
"Come on, human scum," the Skulken who was holding him said.
"Kai!" Nya cried. She hurried toward him, but by the time she had made it to the door, he was already on the other side. She grasped the metal bars and tears filled her eyes.
"Don't worry," Kai reassured her, as she became farther and farther away. "I'll be fine." He wished his voice hadn't caught as he said it, but even if it hadn't, he knew that nothing would stop his sister from worrying.
They half dragged Kai down the dark hallway and then passed two heavy doors, decorated in blood rubies and ivory. On the other side was a fairly wide room, lit with more purple fire and teeming with all sorts of strange and terrifying devices. They stopped somewhere in the middle of it all and a third Skulken appeared.
"Is this the one with the Fire Keromine?" The third skeleton asked.
"Yes," the soldier on Kai's left said. "And he's a fairly feisty one, too."
The third Skulken smiled. "That's good. The feistier they are, the more they squirm."
Kai swallowed hard and felt his knees turn to jello, along with a flurry of other tangled up emotions, but mostly he was terrified beyond all reason.
The three soldiers brought him over to a large tub filled with water, and that's when Kai truly began to panic. He found himself digging in his heels and trying to wrestle out of his captors' firm hold, to which the Skulkens replied by yanking him forward and punching him in the stomach.
"Relax, boy. We'll only hurt you if you don't give us what we want," said the third soldier.
"No!" Kai shouted, sending ribbons of flame shooting out from his hands, loosening the Skulkens' grip on him long enough for him break free. For a moment, he was on the floor, trying to scramble away, but they grabbed him again and dragged him over to the tub. First, they tightened the chains connected to his wrists, which were bound to his waist cuff by chains. So in short, his hands were clasped to his sides. Then, they picked him up and plopped him down in the water, letting it soak up to his shoulders as they got in next to him on either side. There was some sort of chain at the bottom of the tub which they attacked to his ankle cuffs, so he wasn't going anywhere.
"That should keep those pesky flames under control," said one Skulken.
His two escorts still had their hands firmly on him, prepared to.... Kai didn't want to finish the thought.
"Now, let's start with a simple question. How did you get down here?" asked the third one. He walked slowly around the tub, letting the eerie light rise and fall off of his face.
Kai tried to be brave, and with every ounce of strength he could find in his trembling body, he replied, "I... I-I'm not... entirely sure..." he looked down at the water for a moment and then continued. "Th-there was a dragon... he brought us here."
"A dragon?" The Skulken sneered.
"We saw dragons, Kurai," said the soldier on Kai's right. "One at every temple."
"Which temple?" Kurai asked.
"Fire," Kai replied quickly.
The Skulkens all nodded to each other. Kai breathed a small sigh of relief. He was doing well so far. Or, at the very least, they hadn't actually tortured him yet.
"And where in the Underworld did you arrive on said 'dragon?'" Kurai continued.
"Um... in a... big clearing... there wasn't much around," Kai answered, keeping his eyes on Kurai as he paced around the tub.
"Who was with you?"
"Ann, Zane—"
"Confound it all! Do I look like I care about your pathetic friends' names?!"
"There were... three others."
Kai watched Kurai carefully, hoping that he wouldn't make him mad again. He seemed satisfied with his answer, and proceeded with the interrogation.
"How are you affiliated with Master Wu?"
Kai wasn't sure how to answer. This didn't seem like the kind of thing Wu would want them to know.
"Answer the question!" Kurai yelled, and Kai could feel the hands of the other two soldiers tightening.
"I—I... I was recruited!" he blurted. That seemed to get their attention. "Master Wu... needed me to... to..." he felt the Skulkens stare at him intensely, and he knew that if he didn't speak up soon... "He needed me to help get the... Sword of Fire." After a quick glance around the room, he added, "Because of my... Kero...mine?"
Kurai's frown deepened, but he looked more lost in thought than angry. Again, Kai let out a silent sigh.
"Now, since you brought up your Keromine, where exactly did you get it from?" Kurai asked, standing in front of him and leaning in closely.
Now Kai knew he was doomed. If their confrontation with the king was any indication, the Skulkens apparently didn't believe that people could be born with elemental powers. How was he supposed to answer? After a moment of trying to come up with a convincing lie, he finally just admitted that he knew nothing about how these powers worked, and Kurai would undoubtedly see right through him.
"I..." he started and prepared for the worst. "I was born with it."
Kurai glowered and grabbed Kai by his shirt.
"Humans don't have elemental powers," he growled.
"Well, maybe you don't know everything about humans?" Kai asked, regretting the words the moment they left his big mouth.
"King Samukai has lived for thousands of years! He knows all! Including your kind. King Samukai has said that what you speak of is impossible!"
Kai closed his eyes and prayed for deliverance.
"Therefore, you are lying." Kurai looked extremely frustrated, and Kai suddenly wondered if he'd had this conversation with Cole and Jay. "I will give you one last chance, mortal. From where did you steal this power?"
There was no way out now. "I promise, I'm telling the truth! Apparently I was born with it!"
"Apparently?!" Kurai repeated.
"Well—I didn't know I had powers until Master Wu showed up!"
"And you expect me to believe that?!"
Suddenly, Kai was being pulled back. He barely had time to breathe before he was submerged. His head hit the hard bottom, and water filled his nose and ears. He wanted to scream, and he tried to get back up to the surface, but then the soldiers just pushed down harder. His chest was hurting and the more he panicked, the worse it got. Just when he thought he couldn't bare the suffocation any longer, they jerked him up and he gulped down a massive breath of air, along with a few sputtering coughs. He couldn't see anything with the water and hair in his eyes, and he barely heard Kurai's next question.
"Don't lie to me, human. Tell me where your powers came from! The Sword of Fire? Some other ancient relic? Black magic? The Corridor of Elders? Speak!"
"I swear, I don't know! Please, you have to believe me!" Kai cried, shakier than ever.
Then it was back into the ice cold darkness.
"No, please!"