To Defeat Your Enemy

Equal and Opposite

Carrying Not-Kai over his shoulder, not bothering to be gentle, he turned to the door.

The ninja followed solemnly. Lloyd was weeping, carrying the golden dust in a jar he had found and holding it close to his chest. Even the Ultra Dragon seemed to be grieving. It had sensed that Kai was no longer here.

"...hey, the Ultra Sonic Raider is here," Jay mumbled quietly.

"I'll take it." Cole climbed into the vehicle, shoving Not-Kai roughly into the back seat. Zane hopped into the seat behind him silently.

No one spoke until they got home.

-X-

"Sensei," Zane said shakily, standing in the doorway to Dareth's dojo, "we... we lost Kai."

"What?" The sensei turned around in shock.

"We went to Darkley's- and it turns out it was a trap set by the kids to make Lloyd their evil leader, but then we were attacked by evil clones of ourselves and we managed to defeat ours, but- but Kai..." The lightning ninja trailed off, tears running down his already-tearstained face. "Kai didn't..."

"It's all my fault! If I hadn't distracted him the clone wouldn't have been able to get a hit in." Lloyd hugged a jar of golden dust closer to his chest and cried.

Was that all that was left of Kai?

"Kai is... gone?" Sensei Wu couldn't believe it. His student was gone.

Cole rounded the corner, angrily throwing something- the clone of Kai, Wu realised- to the ground.

"We caught the clone before he could get away."

Sensei Wu stepped closer to the unconscious figure. He looked so much like Kai, especially unconscious like he was, but his skin was a little too pale and Wu knew if his eyes were open, they would be red.

"What do we do?" Jay asked quietly.

"I..." Sensei Wu glanced at the jar of dust Lloyd was holding. "Is that... Kai?"

Lloyd burst into tears again and nodded, not even making an effort to speak. The tears rolled down his face silently, taking the path that had been carved by many other teardrops from earlier on.

The clone began to stir.

"Agh- what happened?" he said, in a voice that sounded eerily familiar and yet wasn't, an almost perfect imitation except for the distortion that kept him from sounding fully human.

"You killed Kai!" Lloyd yelled, tears still streaming down his face. He set the jar down carefully before launching himself at the Kai-clone. The clone tried to pull himself into a ball for protection- there was little else he could do with his hands tied up.

"Whoa! Lloyd, stop attacking my brother!" Nya ran to the clone's side and pulled Lloyd off. The green ninja immediately collapsed onto Nya, crying. The clone managed a cocky smirk from his position on the floor.

"That's not Kai!" Cole said. "Show her, Lloyd."

Lloyd reluctantly showed Nya the jar, then quickly pulled it back to his chest. "The clone got a hit on him," Lloyd sniffed.

"Clone?" Nya asked, looking at Kai. She gasped as blood-red eyes stared back at her, glowing with malice. "You're not Kai!"

"Congratulations. You've figured it out," Not-Kai growled, struggling against the ropes holding him. "What gave it away?"

"What have you done to my brother?" Nya exclaimed, taking a step back.

"The same thing your ninja did to my brothers." The clone glanced at the jar. "Reduced him to nothing but a pile of dust."