The air was thick inside the moving vehicle as everyone was staring at one another silently.
Nya, who was driving the getaway bus, threw a glance back at the bunch and rolled her eyes. "Can you guys cut it out?"
"You could have warned us about the extra company, Nya," her brother sneered. "Why are they even here?"
"They helped me in getting out," Nya answered vaguely.
As Jay tried to focus on watching Nya's side profile from across the row, he felt air being blown onto his neck. He slowly turned around and rolled his eyes. "Leave me alone," he told the wannabe bird.
"How can you say that, Jay?" Fugi-Dove said, feigning hurt. "You're my brother!"
"I am not."
"Yes, you are. You're my arch-nemesis as well as my brother."
"How is that even possible?"
Fugi-Dove leaned against Jay's seat and looked him straight into his eyes. "You went missing after birth. Happens to the best of us."
Jay slowly side-eyed him, deciding that questioning him would only cause him to lose more braincells than get an answer from a man in a bird costume.
Just keep ignoring him, Jay. Maybe he'll disturb one of the others.
"Jay?" Fugi-Dove poked his ear. "Hello?"
"Gah!" Scooting away from the man, Jay officially gave up and tried to focus on the others.
"You're staring, Smith."
"I am aware, Violet."
Ultra Violet, who was sitting right across from Kai, scoffed. "What is it with you Smiths disrespecting my name?"
"You're the one who named herself after a color," Kai spat, crossing his arms defensively. He couldn't help but question his sister's intentions when she had thought it'd be a good idea to bring three criminals with them.
Not that he wasn't a criminal himself, but still.
The bus was driving across the Sea of Sand at full speed. It was still dark outside but the sun was slowly but surely peeking up from the horizon, creating a beautiful scenery for the ones appreciative of it. No animals or other people were seen during the several-hour long journey — the ninja were on their own. Finally.
"I actually used cranberry juice to finger-paint," Killow told Zane, a soft expression on his face. The giant was always happy to talk about his newfound hobby, even if he was talking to one of his former enemies. "They refused to give us brushes so I needed to improvise."
He pulled a small canvas out of seemingly nowhere and handed it over to Zane, who took it gratefully and admired it.
It was a painting of a blooming poppy flower in a sea of dead flowers of its own kind.
"Does it have a meaning?"
"It does," Killow answered proudly. "It means that you can be different from the others, even though you don't look like it. It's a metaphor." A large grin formed on his face, almost taking up the lower half of it entirely.
Cole sat up in his seat and threw a glance at the painting. "It's good, dude."
"Thanks," Killow told him. He wasn't ready to admit it (not that he felt like he needed to), but he was secretly loving the compliments he got for his own work.
On the other side of the bus, Lloyd stood up from his seat near the window and made his way to the front. He cast Jay a weird look upon noticing Fugi-Dove desperately trying to gain his attention, to which Jay only sighed and shook his head.
Shaking his own head, Lloyd gripped the bar next to the door and leaned down to the driver. "What's this about, Nya?"
"What are you talking about?" Nya asked back, adjusting the convex mirror and checking on their safety.
"I'm talking about them," Lloyd said, sneakily stealing a glance at the two former Sons of Garmadon members and the criminal whose name was publicly unknown. "Have you gone mad?"
"Relax," his friend told him calmly. "They found out about the plan and the only way to keep them quiet was to break them out with us. Besides," Nya sighed, "we've talked it out, and it really does seem like they've changed for the better."
Lloyd's eyes almost popped out of their sockets as he began to sputter scrambled words.
"You have to give them a chance," Nya continued, gripping the steering wheel tighter, an oriented look on her face. "I know I have. Everyone deserves a second chance, Lloyd."
This time she looked at him and kept eye contact for as long as it took for him to understand the double meaning behind her words.
Taking her eyes off the road was a usual no-go, obviously, but since they were driving through a literal desert, Nya could risk it all she wanted. It was not like there were any obstacles in her way. Or traffic rules, really.
Lloyd was ready to give her a piece of his angry mind, ready to criticize her actions, he really was. But when he looked back at the back rows of the bus and saw how Killow talked about his painting so lively with Cole and Zane and Ultra Violet had a partially friendly banter with Kai, he began to think about what Nya meant. Fugi-Dove, on the other hand, was just weird.
He turned back to Nya and let out a sigh. "I hope you're right about them," he settled to say before he went back to his seat and sat down, facing the window and drowning out all of the noise around him.
The nine runaways still had a long ride ahead of them. Their destination was unknown to them, because Nya refused to answer any questions about it, but at least the voyage wasn't entirely unpleasant.
The conversations began to die down as everyone buried themselves into their own thoughts. It gave Nya a chance to think about her own thoughts without having to force herself to keep her cool when the bus was too loud on a day like that.
When the bus began to slow down, everyone straightened up and looked ahead, curious to see where she had taken them to.
"Is that..." Kai started, trying to puzzle the loose pieces together.
Jay jumped up and grinned. "The Samurai X Cave!"
Indeed, the oversized skeleton that had been there for who-knows-how-long left little for the imagination. The guys stood up, ready for the bus to stop and for them to step out, but Nya seemed to have a different idea.
"Uh, Nya?" Cole asked, slowly realizing what she was about to do when she drove the bus closer to the open mouth cavity of the skeleton. "You're not thinking of driving down there, are you?"
Kai scoffed. "There's no way my sister would ever-"
Nya chuckled lowly.
Kai's eyes widened. He grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be Lloyd's head, and held tightly on to it as he screamed, "You're going to kill us all!"
Lloyd, feeling just as scared, quickly released his head from Kai's death grip and sat back down on his seat. He turned around so that his knees were against the backrest and clawed onto the seat.
Everyone else copied him since they really couldn't do much in a situation like that.
When Nya was sure that everybody was safely holding on, she took a deep breath, gripped the steering wheel tighter than before, and headed straight for the opening of the underground cave.
As the bus tumbled down the stairs, the passengers inside screamed, which sounded quite funny since the rattling caused them to scream in sync with shorter pauses to catch their breaths.
After the bus stopped when it reached the end, everyone let out a collective sigh. Slowly but surely, the people inside left the bus through the driver's door.
"Never again."
"I'm dying!"
"Shut up, we've made it."
"I think I'm going to throw up."
"I think I need a change of underpants."
Once everyone was on solid ground again, the bus roared back to life and they all watched in horror as Nya took a hard left turn, effectively driving the bus off the ground and making it fall down the side and into the deep abyss.
Before it completely fell down, however, Nya climbed out of the open driver's window and jumped back to the others with great mastery.
"That'll get rid of the evidence," she mumbled, looking down at the bus as it disappeared from her view.
Just as she turned to look at her friends, a body jumped against hers and clung to it, causing her to stumble back. She quickly caught herself and took in the familiar scent of her Yin, paired with the chocolate brown curls that were all she could see.
"Hey, Sparky," she whispered, brushing the hair that was stuck to his forehead away.
Jay's face was already buried in her left shoulder, and all she could feel was the choked emotions raking through his body. The fabric on her shoulder was getting wet, but she couldn't give any less of a care, because for the first time in more than a year, she was back in her boyfriend's arms.
Her own tears were now freely falling down and Nya didn't make a move to wipe them away, knowing it would be pointless anyway.
Lifting her head, Nya looked at the others and their reunion with their friends and loved ones.
Zane and Pixal were sharing a loving hug, and Nya was sure they were having a much-needed conversation while doing so. She smiled when they shared a cute kiss as well.
Master Wu was hugging Lloyd and Cole, all three of them having wide grins on their faces. Wu's hand was on Lloyd's shoulder as he told them something she couldn't hear.
Skylor was there, too, and currently grabbing Kai's shoulders and pulling him into a hug. Kai smiled as he embraced her tightly, but Nya could also see tears rolling down his cheeks.
Once the two stopped hugging, Nya saw that Kai had his eyes on her, his sister, instead of the girl who was still not his because of his awful flirting skills. She saw the desperation behind his deep brown eyes, the same eyes they inherited from their parents.
Only her left shoulder was occupied by a crying man, so why not collect them all?
Opening her right arm, Nya motioned for her brother to come over and hug her. It was obvious that he was waiting for Jay to let go of her but Nya knew that wouldn't happen anytime soon.
Kai seemed to get the memo because he, at first, began to slowly walk up to them, but the closer he got, the faster his steps were until he embraced both Nya and Jay in a shared hug, his face immediately buried in her right shoulder. Jay also let go of Nya with one hand to wrap it around his soon-to-be in-law.
Nya murmured sweet things into their ears, things like "I've missed you" and "it's okay." She also threw in some words like "crybabies" to lighten the mood, which made it worse when the two only cried harder.
After a while she just gave up trying to get them to stop crying and did what she thought would soothe them. She rubbed their backs, played with their hair, held them tighter when she needed to.
She even kissed their temples, one after the other. First Jay, then Kai. Then Kai, then Jay. Back and forth, knowing for Jay it was romantically and for Kai it was sisterly.
"We okay?" she asked them after a while of silence on their part. She slowly let go of them and looked for any signs of continuous tear-leakage.
"Yeah," Kai sniffed and rubbed his cheeks with the sleeves of his prison suit. "I'm glad you're back, sis."
"Glad to be back, bro." Nya smiled, punching him in the shoulder. Then she looked at Jay and her eyes softened.
He looked like a mess, really, with tear stains practically everywhere on his face and the sclera of his eyes turning red. His nose was already red.
Nya pulled her sleeves over her thumbs and lovingly wiped away her Yin's tears. He smiled down at her and let her continue.
"You're okay, Jay," she whispered, placing a quick yet sweet kiss on his lips. Jay nodded and choked on a laugh, still trying to stop crying.
Nya then turned to the others. Cole, Zane and Lloyd were all standing next to the others and waiting for their rounds of hugs and encouraging words, so Nya stepped up to them and pulled Zane into a hug first.
"I have missed you a lot, Nya," Zane told her.
Nya's eyebrows furrowed. She pulled away from him and glanced at him weirdly. "I've missed you too but... why do you sound so... so lifeless?"
Zane stared at her for a second before he realized what she meant. "My emotion switch is still turned off," he said. He opened the latch in his heart and revealed the shiny blue source that kept him alive.
He tapped on it, and immediately something happened to him. His mood was lifted abruptly and his eyes somehow shone brighter than before.
Zane blinked repeatedly before looking at his friend. "Nya!" he exclaimed, pulling her into another hug that was so tight that it lifted her off the ground.
Nya squealed as she was squeezed tighter and tighter until Lloyd advised Zane that it would be better to keep Nya alive now that they had successfully reunited the group.
"My apologies," the Master of Ice told Nya whilst putting her back on solid ground.
Nya waved him off with a "pshh" before moving into the next person's arms, which happened to be Cole.
"I missed you, Waterlily," he told her, smiling down at her once they let go.
"I missed you too, Boulder Brain."
The both of them burst out in laughter. Nya then turned to Lloyd and gave him another hug, seeing as the one in Krypterium didn't count in their reunion standards.
After hugging Skylor and Pixal, Nya made her way over to Wu and pulled him into a hug. Then, when she pulled away, she frowned.
"What's with the staff?" she asked, noticing how Wu was heavily leaning on to his staff that almost looked like it was functioning like a crutch.
Wu and Pixal exchanged worried glances, and everyone in the room immediately sensed that something was wrong.
"Well," Wu said, "we have some bad news."
"Bad news?" Kai asked.
Wu nodded. "While you were gone," he told Nya, "we made it our priority to locate for Aspheera. What we didn't expect, however, is that she would come to us instead."
"She... came to you?" Lloyd asked slowly. "What do you mean?"
"She broke into our base," Pixal explained. "We tried to stop her but she had the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu. During the altercation, she managed to strangle Master Wu and get away with the Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu."
The ninjas' mouths fell open.
"She did what?!" Kai yelled.
"There's no way!" Jay continued.
"She stole all four of the weapons?" Nya exclaimed.
"Are you alright?" Cole asked Wu, gesturing to his body.
Wu nodded, sending him an appreciative smile. "I am fine. It's nothing serious. What is serious is the fact that Aspheera got away with the weapons."
"I don't get it," Lloyd said, frowning. "The Golden Weapons have no powers— They're basically useless! What would Aspheera need those for?"
His uncle sighed. "We don't know." He shook his head.
"We do have one lead though," Pixal stated, steering clear from the topic of Aspheera and jumping to the next one. "We have been trying to track her down ever since it all happened, but while we haven't found her or the weapons yet, we have found another important thing. The Me-"
"Wait Pixal," Wu interrupted her, his staff loosely covering her mouth swiftly.
His gaze was set on something at the back, so the others turned around and found Ultra Violet, Killow and Fugi-Dove standing there, looking awkward.
"You've been followed," Wu speculated. He began to walk up to their enemies but was stopped by Nya standing in his way.
"Don't," she told him sternly. Then she explained everything to him; from what happened in Krypterium to what the bus ride was like.
Wu listened to every single detail he was told, trying to get behind the mind of his student and her actions, her intentions. He was aware of the fact that anyone could change; he'd seen lots of people who proved that to him.
Morro, the Serpentine tribes, Garmadon. Let alone the biggest example of them all: Lloyd.
So he wasn't necessarily angry with Nya for assuming the better in people who had wronged them in the past. It was in the past for a reason, and only the ones hanging on to that past wouldn't grow from it.
It was a piece of wisdom he always made sure to project onto his students.
"Very well," Wu answered after Nya finished telling her story. He turned to the three in the back and gave them a tight nod. "Welcome."
He had a lot more to say, a lot more to suspect and a lot more restrictions to put on them. They were in their territory so all they had to do was obey their rules. He just hoped they would prove themselves to have changed, otherwise they'd not be able to get out of that cave all willy-nilly.
Pixal took the further silence as her sign to tell more about the lead she discovered. "I have managed to hack into the old arcade's CCTV footage from a few days ago. Since it is the Mechanic's favorite hiding spot, we assumed we would at least find out what he was up to the days leading up to the coal factory robbery."
"What have you found?" Zane asked her.
Pixal turned around and pushed a few buttons on the keyboard of the large monitor screen. It lit up, and the ninja quickly recognized the familiar scenery. The camera was pointing just at the right angle that they could see a replica of the arcade machine that Jay had used to enter Prime Empire.
"This is a still image from three days ago," Pixal informed her friends. "I will put the following footage in two-times speed so that it is not as time consuming to watch."
When she did as she said, the footage showed nothing but a dead arcade place. At first, at least. For what was a few seconds for the ninja was a few hours for the video, so after a few seconds, something interesting occurred.
Two robotic spiders appeared on the screen, their legs moving around faster due to the sped up footage. They climbed on the machines, disappeared and reappeared, climbed on the walls in the back, stayed still, then did it all again.
Nya recognized the creatures with a frown. "What are those doing there?"
"Is it just me or does it look like they are waiting for something?" Cole wondered.
"Or someone," Lloyd added. "They must be waiting for the Mechanic. Otherwise, why would they linger in a place like that?"
"That is a great question," Kai said. He looked at his friends. "So, what do we do?"
While the team thought about a good plan, Jay looked at Lloyd and slowly began to smile.
The Green Ninja looked at him funnily. "Why're you looking at me like that?"
"I think I have an idea," Jay answered.