61"I've read about those," Cole stated matter-of-factly. "They're some type of cognitive malfunction arising from head trauma." As if to emphasize his point, the earth ninja waved his arms around, almost smacking Jay upside the head.
"Now you're starting to sound like Zane," Jay bit out, brushing Cole's hands away from his face.
"Is that a compliment?" Cole asked innocently, shooting Jay an imploring look.
"I don't know," Jay answered honestly, shifting his gaze so that he was looking at the endless stretch of highway that ran before them. The sun was rising impossibly higher in the desert sky, and Jay could feel it beating down on his backside.
"I like Zane," Cole admitted congenially. "So I guess it's a compliment."
"Guess so," Jay added in gruffly, attempting to tune in on his parents' conversation in the front seats.
"Are you angry with me?" Cole tossed out suddenly, startling the blue ninja.
Jay spun back around to catch the earth ninja gazing up at him with the human equivalent of doe eyes. "Why would you think that?" he inquired, tilting his head to one side.
"You told me that I had a concussion and then you just… I don't know, looked angry." Cole explained, running a hand through his glowing hair.
"You shouldn't even have a concussion," Jay roared, jabbing an accusing finger in Cole's direction. "You're a ghost! Can ghosts even get concussions?"
"Beats me," Cole put in unhelpfully. The earth ninja shrugged his shoulders amicably, not at all affected by his brother's sudden outburst.
Jay dragged a hand down his face. "Some help you are," he commented sourly.
A small, sad smile encompassed Cole's features. "I'm sorry," he stated morosely, attempting to scoot closer to the blue ninja. Jay backed up against the metal door of the old jalopy as the earth ninja moved closer. "I don't want to be a burden."
"You're not," Jay jutted in tiredly, wincing as the hot steel stung through his gi and onto his skin.
Cole leapt forward upon catching sight of Jay's slight grimace, enveloping the blue ninja in his arms. Jay let out a rather unmanly squeak as Cole gathered the blue ninja to his chest and pinned him to the seat cushions.
"Get off me," Jay demanded, squirming against Cole's tight hold.
"Where does it hurt?" Cole asked worriedly, darting his eyes around to look for any blood.
"Nowhere," Jay insisted.
"You were injured," Cole reminded him, desperation coloring his tone. "And so it has to hurt somewhere. I want to fix it."
"You already did," Jay assured him, sighing.
Note to self, Jay added in his thoughts, ghosts with concussions are no fun.
"But I was scared," Cole admitted.
Jay's heart skipped a beat. Cole was rarely ever truly honest about his innermost feelings. He normally wanted the team to see him as a physical representation of his element – strong, unbreakable, and practically invincible. To hear the earth ninja reveal that he was scared… It made a small part of Jay want to run far away and never look back. "Of what?" he asked.
"Losing you," the earth ninja stated bluntly, ducking his head as a slight blush took over his cheeks.
Jay could almost hear the blood roaring in his ears. His heart prickled with some type of emotion that he couldn't place as he reached out and gently brushed a strand of dark, greenish hair out of Cole's eyes.
"You didn't," he told the earth ninja softly. "You saved me."
"You were in pain," Cole choked out. "I didn't like it."
"Yeah, well neither did I!" Jay tossed out, chuckling lightly.
Cole dug his face into Jay's chest, careful of the nearby bandages. "Don't do that to me ever again," he demanded. "I promise that I'll never let you get kidnapped again if you never get hurt ever again."
"I can't promise that," Jay protested. "I'm a ninja. I'm bound to get hurt eventually. It's all part of the job."
Cole shook his head fiercely, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. "I won't let you," he stated decisively.
"You won't let me get hurt?" the blue ninja inquired curiously, raising an eyebrow. "I don't think you can do anything about that."
"I can," the earth ninja insisted, raising his head slightly so as to fix Jay with a firm stare.
Jay smiled fondly, placing a hand on Cole's shoulder and nudging him to the side. The earth ninja reluctantly rolled onto the floor, allowing Jay to sit up and rub at his eyes.
"How far are we from New Ninjago City?" Jay asked his parents, leaning on the back of his father's chair.
"No more than a couple more minutes, son," Ed chirped, letting his gaze drift from the gray asphalt so that he could offer Jay an encouraging grin. "We'll be there in no time."
The blue ninja nodded once, satisfied. "You need to get us to the police station when we arrive," he instructed, reaching out a hand to prevent Cole from leaping out of the car. "I need to wrangle up some allies of ours."
"What for?" Cole piped up, leaning heavily on Jay's arm.
Annoyed, the lightning ninja attempted to wriggle his way out of the earth ninja's overly affectionate grip, but to no avail.
"We need to storm Djinjago," Jay explained with a sigh. "And without the others, we don't stand a chance against Nadakhan and his motley crew. We'll be needing help."
"Alright!" Cole bellowed excitedly, tugging incessantly on Jay's arm. "I get first dibs on Nadakhan!"
"No, you don't," the blue ninja interjected. "He's mine. I need to make my wish and heroically rescue Nya, remember?"
"Very heroic," Cole echoed dazedly. "But I want to fight Nadakhan."
"Do you have a personal vendetta against the creep or something?" the lightning ninja questioned, exasperation swimming in his peerless blue eyes. Cole's mindless rambling was really starting to get to him.
"Yes," Cole growled. A sinister, murderous look crawled up his face.
Jay involuntarily shivered at the sight. He was certainly glad that he was on Cole's good side.
"We can see the city now, dear!" Edna announced grandly, spinning around in her seat to poke at her son's uninjured shoulder.
Jay whipped his head around to catch sight of several clustered skyscrapers standing proudly in the distance. Cyrus Borg's telltale, misshapen headquarters loomed over the other buildings, almost as if it was providing a giant arrow for the two ninja to follow. The sun was positioned directly behind the twisted structure, and Jay had to shield his eyes against the brightness.
The old jalopy sputtered giddily along the smooth asphalt, picking up speed as it neared New Ninjago City.
Jay allowed his tense shoulders to sag with relief. They were going to make it.
"Looks like Flintlocke and his pitiful band of miscreants failed to give chase," the lightning ninja announced haughtily, crossing his arms over his chest. A triumphant smirk edged its way into his expression.
"That's one way of putting it," Cole murmured nervously.
"What do you mean?" Jay shot back, narrowing his eyes.
In turn, the earth ninja began frantically gesturing at the horizon.
"Give me a break already!" Jay groaned. Through the sweltering heat of the desert, the lightning ninja caught sight of two solitary motorcycles rapidly gaining on them.
"Not a problem," Cole laughed maliciously, drawing one of his gold katanas. The earth ninja climbed atop the back of the rusting jalopy, only swaying slightly as he steadied himself.
Jay reached for his own weapon, faltering slightly when he remembered that it wasn't there. He'd left Doubloon's silver cutlass back at the junkyard.
"Blast it," the blue ninja muttered angrily.
"Come at me, you sorry excuses for pirates!" Cole roared, brandishing his sword with a confident air.
The distant hum of motorcycle engines gradually intensified until Jay was certain that he would go deaf from the noise.
"Your katana!" he screeched, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Cole, I need your katana!"
The earth ninja didn't seem to hear him.
Jay's heart dropped straight down to his shoes as Cole let out an animalistic war cry and launched himself off of the back of the car, cannonballing onto Flintlocke's ride.
The pirate shrieked, startled, and veered the motorcycle dangerously to one side. Its front tire hit sand, and the vehicle started spinning out of control, catapulting stinging grains of sand in all directions.
"Cole!" Jay screamed, desperately trying to peer through the cloud of dust that masked the sight of his friend.
A roar of pain was all that answered Jay's call, and the lightning ninja felt relief course through him as he recognized the cry to be Flintlocke's.
Seconds later, the motorcycle burst through the windswept sand, sporting an elated ghost as its driver.
The jalopy careened forward, leaving an infuriated Flintlocke behind, literally in the dust.
Doubloon rocketed closer to the old car, and Jay caught sight of his foe's silver cutlass aimed high above the two-faced pirate's head.
Jay gathered his legs beneath him and prepared to fight, clenching his fists together.
No weapon? No problem, he insisted, attempting to drown out the cries of 'this is not good' that were clamoring for attention at the forefront of his mind.
Cole rear-ended Doubloon's motorcycle with his own stolen vehicle, yelling obscenities that Jay wished he couldn't hear.
Not that word…!
Doubloon spun his cycle around, and the tires screeched in protest as they rubbed against the burning asphalt.
Jay winced.
Cole swung off of the handlebars of Flintlocke's motorcycle and executed a perfect flip onto Doubloon's ride, leaving the other cycle to wildly swerve off of the road without its driver.
You can tell that he was a dancer, Jay thought sardonically. But how is he doing all of this with that concussion of his?
The flip was almost perfect.
At the last second, the earth ninja's foot slipped, and he precariously wobbled over the edge of the small, leather seat as he fought to regain his footing.
Doubloon seized the opportunity and swung at Cole, hitting the earth ninja directly in the chest. Cole let out a gasp of pain and toppled backwards, barely managing to snag a quick hold on the front bumper, bracing his feet against the solitary headlight. The metal sizzled in the heat of the sun, but Cole barely felt it as his mind raced to come up with a way out of his current predicament.
The earth ninja's head pounded viciously, and not a single coherent thought drifted through his brain.
Jay stared desperately at Cole's frozen form, mind racing as he struggled to find a way to get Cole out of harm's way.
Doubloon snatched the handlebars back up, jerking them forwards so that the motorcycle was driving level with the old jalopy. With the black, threatening vehicle keeping pace with the Walker's car, Doubloon allowed himself a second to relinquish control of the cycle in order to take another swing at Cole.
Jay stalked closer to the pirate, balancing one foot on the edge of the doorframe as he contemplated jumping onto Doubloon's motorcycle.
Doubloon whirled his face around, and Jay took his chance.
The lightning ninja summoned a bolt of electricity and zapped Doubloon into oblivion, sending the unfortunate pirate skywards.
Without its driver, the motorcycle began to drop drastically in speed, trembling slightly as it swayed from side to side.
"Cole! Let go!" Jay commanded.
The earth ninja kept his death grip on the front bumper, arms clenched and jaw taut.
It was as if Cole's mind had just shut down.
"Cole, please!" Jay pleaded. "Cut the speed!" he cried, directing the furious demand at his parents.
Ed immediately complied, and the jalopy fell into pace with the motorcycle.
"Let go!" the blue ninja screeched, desperately trying to get through to his brother.
Cole lifted his gaze, locking eyes with Jay.
"Come on," Jay insisted, reaching out a hand. Relief tingled in the back of his mind.
Cole would be okay.
"Let's get to the city," Jay continued, feeling the need to keep talking. "And then we can stop Nadakhan together."
Cole kept his brown eyes trained on Jay's blue gaze. "Okay," he stated simply, letting go of the motorcycle with one hand. Refusing to let his strong grip falter, Cole tentatively stretched out his fingers, leaning impossibly closer to the lightning ninja.
"Almost there," Jay muttered, hanging over the side of the door as he reached out.
The motorcycle made a sharp veer to the right, and Cole dropped his hold, leaping forward and seizing Jay's hand in both of his own.
Grunting with exertion, Jay hauled the black ninja into the jalopy, panting as the two collapsed onto the faded seats.
"We should do this again sometime," Cole murmured deliriously, keeping Jay's hand tightly in his grasp.
It was almost as if he needed someone to hold on to.
"Please no," the lightning ninja groaned, straightening his blue gi with a flick of his wrist and maneuvering his tired body so that he was sitting up in his seat.
"You alright back there, son?" Ed called back.
Edna turned around to face the two boys, an exhilarated smile gracing her features. "I don't think those nasty pirates will be bothering you again anytime soon," she assured them, clasping her hands together.
"I wi-" Jay began, immediately cutting himself off.
Careful, he reminded himself sternly.
"If only that were so," Cole bemoaned, voicing Jay's own thoughts aloud.
"Good news, boys," Ed continued, not missing a beat. "New Ninjago City is just up ahead."
The two ninja turned their heads in unison to see the tall buildings lying directly ahead, mercifully blocking out the morning sun.
"We made it," Cole breathed, pressing a palm to his aching forehead.
Jay slung an arm around his brother's shoulder, offering Cole a grin.
"Nadakhan doesn't stand a chance," he practically sing-songed. "After all, what's more deadly than two battered and bruised ninja?"
"Nothing," Cole added in. "Because I'm ready to knock Djinjago right out of the sky."
"That's the spirit," the lightning ninja chuckled; his smile widening as the jalopy safely drove onto the familiar city streets.
Nothing could stand in the ninjas' way now.
Right?
Yeah, right.