Salt: A Ninjago story

47: Catch Me Up - Edited

Nya moved away from Lloyd. No matter how well she handled it, her eyes could not hide the lingering pain of The Quiet Ones games. Her mind had been twisted, broken and scarred and Nya would kill her. Lloyd believed it, but a murderer she was not and if she followed through, she would regret it.

Nya slid through the crowd, swift and agile; like a silverfish she had reached the front easily. Lloyd had followed but was now stuck amid the throng. As the crowd moved through the tight and complex roads of the settlement Lloyd asked himself 'how in Wu's name did they manage to lock off part of a city?' He was truly astounded at the scale and wanted answers.

'Cole' Lloyd shouted pushing through to fall into a run beside him 'these shadows...' He looked around at the small army 'How are they with us now?'

Cole released a respectful laugh 'you'll have to talk to Jay about that, though maybe when his jaw's been reset!'

'Man, I need some info, I'm running around blind here!' Lloyd implored his friend.

The swarm turned a corner and suddenly a vast high-sided thoroughfare stretched away in front of them. Cole broke away and pulled Lloyd aside. He scrabbled up the looming wall, the render crumbling as he swiftly pushed upwards, latching his hammer on the lip to pull him-self up. Lloyd followed and Cole reached his hand down to allow Lloyd to scale the great wall without activating his powers. Standing at the top they saw the thoroughfare before them, wide and high sided, it's substantial build was like a fortification and painted a deep red.

'This must be the main artery Nat talked about' said Cole 'if The Quiet One and Hutchins were heading here what was it for?'

'Who's Nat?' Lloyd asked.

Cole started jogging along the wall 'There are a couple of shadows that helped Kai. They happen to be the Quiet Ones sisters'

'...And we trust them?'

'Well, yeah! Or at least Nya does, she seems to believe in Kai's estimation of them. But...'

'But?'

'Well, I'm not sure how much we can actually trust Kai's judgement'

Lloyd furrowed his brow, this was a new sentiment he did not expect from Cole and carefully asked 'How so?'

'I'm pretty sure his brains are located way south of where they should be!'

'Well, yeah' Lloyd replied sarcastically 'I think we've always known that, so what's new?'

Cole flicked his eyes back to Lloyd 'It's Skylor' he said.

'What do you mean?'

'She played him. She wasn't who he thought she was' Lloyd looked at Cole with a confused look and Cole continued 'she may have been Chens Daughter, but she served only herself. She ousted her own father, using us to do it and took over daddies business, sailing his ship under her own sails and used Kai to keep an outsiders eye on her dealings, to make sure she was never rumbled'

'Shit! Well I see what you mean... That's harsh. Kai must be... oh, so that was the shock?'

'Yep. We can't blame him, we were all fooled'

'But what you're really saying is, did we follow his trust blindly?'

'Yeah, kind of... It's just, I feel like maybe we need to start looking at things differently. The world is changing, we're older and we can't trust like children anymore...'

'... Nothing is black and white' Lloyd added.

'... And nothing is quite as straightforward as Yin and Yang would have us believe' Cole turned back to his friend to see he was no longer behind him and had slowed to a stop, a look of deep concentration on his face 'are you ok Lloyd?' Cole called back to him, but Lloyd continued his faraway look of confusion and so Cole went back 'Lloyd!' he shouted sharply and Lloyd looked up abruptly.