I sighed with a groan, the Sons of Garmadon had caught us, took over the bounty, tied us up and were now on their way to the Oni Temple where the Mask of Hatred was located.
Right now I was squished between Jay and Cole, I did have a perfect time to reveal myself, but I wasn't sure if the Quiet One still needed me to infiltrate the ninja after this.
"If you harm one hair on his head-" Cole started after looking at Wu, who was merrily walking around the bounty, unaware of the danger he was in.
"You'll what?" Killow cut off with a chuckle knowing that none of us could do anything.
Cole scowled before Killow started talking again.
"Where is he? Where's the Green ninja?"
"Ha, like we'll ever tell you." Cole scoffed.
"Uh, Cole? You don't argue with a man who's navel is that close." Jay said to him anxiously, leaning over me.
"Mr E found them." One of the goons said, emerging from the bridge..
"Ah, good eye Mr E." Praised Killow. "The Oni temple is just 15 miles north of here. Set a course for the Quiet One."
"You don't have to call her that." Nya started. "We know it's Harumi."
Everyone chuckled and looked between each other.
"Do you guys have any idea what you're doing? She's planning on resurrecting Garmadon. Lord Garmadon!" Kai asked.
"I think they would know if their name is the 'Sons of Garmadon', Kai." I retorted.
"I'm gonna guess you've never had the chance of meeting him." He continued, ignoring me.
"No, but we look forward to it." Killow butted in with a grin.
"In our experience when the bad guys try to unearth an ancient evil, it never ends well for them." Zane said.
"Yeah, just ask Pythor, Master Chen, Morro, or even Garmadon himself." Jay added.
"Hmmm, but it's a good thing the Quiet One isn't a bad guy, but a bad girl." UV input, laughing along with the goons.
'True.' I thought, but leant back onto the pole, considering to break the chains binding us but that would just blow my cover.
"Careful ninja, I wouldn't want to upset the child." I heard UV say with Wu laughing after.
"Let's just hope Lloyd discovers Harumi's secret before her help arrives." Cole whispered quietly to me and Jay as we continued on our way to the temple.
After awhile I felt something brush my left hand.
"Hey, (Y/n)?" Jay whispered.
"Yeah?" I asked, looking over to him.
"Ummm...it's probably not the right time to ask you this....but you seem like a great person." Jay muttered to me, face turning a slight shade of pink. "I was wondering...after all of this is over...do you want to go on a date?"
I blinked, what was a 'date'?
Seemed like something romantic....and I doubt that I would be around them after all of this is over.
"Um.." I started trying to find the right words. "I mean...no one's ever asked me to go on a date with them before...." I admitted, looking away.
"What? Really? Then I'll make it the best date ever...if you want to?"
I hesitated before nodding, giving him a small grin. "Sure, once this is all over." Though deep down I knew it was most likely never going to happen.
He grinned. "Great! We'll talk about it later."
We fell into a silence before Jay spoke up again. "Hey, you did say that the Quiet One threatened you, was it when she pulled you out of the kitchen?"
I nodded. "Yeah." I lied. "Sorry I didn't tell you about it earlier."
"It's fine, you were scared." He said in reassurance.
"I've got an itch, would you mind coming over to scratch it?" Kai asked UV with a smirk.
"Shut it, hair gel." She replied, threatening him with her sai.
I smothered a giggle, we were docked outside the waterfalls to the temple, waiting for Harumi to come back with the Mask of Hatred.
I sighed before seeing Wu try to jump onto a goons back, laughing, before seeing the keys to the chains left on a table.
"Huh." I heard Nya say, as she was directly opposite from where the keys were placed before starting to formulate a plan.
"Ultra Violet, get over here." Killow said from somewhere off the boat.
"Watch over them for me will ya?" She asked the goon who was now giving Wu a piggyback ride before putting him down.
"Glow little glow worm, glimmer, glimmer. Shine little glow worm, glimmer, glimmer." Cole sang in his horrible voice to distract the guard as Nya tried to convince Wu to give her the keys.
"Pssst, the keys." Nya whispered to Wu, who grabbed the teapot instead. "Not the tea, the keys, there, please?" Wu frowned and drank out from the spout of the teapot before putting it down and grabbing the keys.
He quickly walked over to her and unlocked the chains binding us.
Everyone jumped up and took out the guard before smiling to themselves.
———
We saw the others walking back to the boat, Harumi in the centre with the Mask of Hatred and no Lloyd.
They went to get back onto the boat before Kai stopped them.
"Not so fast." He said cockily before another goon put a knife to his neck.
"I wouldn't want you to upset the child." Cole said as we walked over to the group, pointing weapons towards them, well I was more like standing there, unsure who's side to take.
"Haha, looks like we have the upper-." Jay said triumphantly before some more goons surrounded us.
UV jumped down, chuckling before she and E surrounded Jay.
"Oh, come on." Jay groaned as he saw that we were outnumbered. "Zane, I thought you said that we had them outnumbered."
"Uh, that was before I knew how many of them there were." Zane said, pointing arrows towards Harumi.
Everyone fell silent, looking at each other to see who would strike first before Wu started laughing and walking around happily.
UV laughed and said something I did not quite understand before Kai turned to Harumi.
"Where's Lloyd?" He demanded.
"The Green ninja can't help you now." Harumi said ominously.
"Remember how I didn't care for her at first? Then she won me over with all that girl talk and we started to really get to know each other, well now I hate her!" Nya said angrily, venom dripping off her words near the end, but Harumi remained unfazed.
"Don't even think about it." Zane said, pointing arrows towards some goons who were planning on surprise attacking.
"This can end in one of two ways." Kai started. "You hand the masks over peacefully-" but one of the goons pointed their weapon towards his neck.
"I don't even know the rest of the choices, but I like that one." Jay said nervously.
"Or what?!" Harumi asked with a smirk, ignoring's Jay's comment.
"Or we'll have to get all ninja upon ya." Kai said, the entire bounty going silent.
"What does that even mean?" Harumi asked, the whole ship going silent.
"I don't know, I was improvising, usually Lloyd does all the talking, but he isn't here...but WHERE'S LLOYD!?" Kai said, yelling the last part.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Someone cried and everyone looked up to see a green figure falling from the sky.
"There he is." Cole pointed out.
"Lloyd!" Nya cried out before Lloyd flopped onto the deck, I was surprised he didn't break any bones from that.
"You guys, Harumi's the Quiet One!" Lloyd cried to the ninja.
"Yeah, we've worked that out before this." I said as a-matter-of-fact.
Harumi smiled since they were distracted to signal the goons to surround us before screaming.
I looked up and screamed along with everyone else to see a large crab creature towering above us.
We all ran off the bounty to a small island and looking around fearfully at the water as the creature sank in.
"What is that?" Killow asked.
'Doubt anyone knows.' I thought before the water started to bubble and the crab jumped out.
It went to chaos, everyone, except for me and Harumi, attacking the gigantic creature. I watched, E and Killow had their masks on to attack and the ninja spun around, doing weird actions, before becoming brightly coloured tornadoes.
I mentally noted the movements down as I heard UV yell to Harumi.
"We have to get you out of here Quiet One" She cried.
"Not without the masks!" Harumi said, whistling for everyone to get to the ship.
I was going to stay with the ninja before feeling something cold being place against my neck.
"Come on, I'm giving you an excuse to come with us." Harumi whispered into my ear. "Play along."
I nodded and walked backwards as Harumi grabbed me and pulled me back with her.
I looked over to the ninja to see Jay stop spinning and looking over to me.
"(Y/n)!" He cried, starting to run over but we already were at the entrance to the bounty.
"Jay!" I cried back fearfully, 'trying' to get out of Harumi's grip.
She pulled me onto the bounty as he watched helplessly before turning his attention back to the creature that was about to hit him.
I felt a weird twist in my gut but pushed it aside, watching as the ninja grew smaller and smaller as the bounty flew off.
I looked around to see E tying Lloyd up, who was being held down by a couple of goons.
"Get off me!" He cried, looking around before seeing me and Harumi. "Why do you have her too? This is between us!"
Harumi paused before taking the blade away from my neck and I stretched, letting out a laugh before turning to Lloyd.
"Oh, didn't you know?" I asked, walking over to him and transforming into my Shifter persona and grinning. "(Y/n) never existed."
His eyes widened. "Y-you were with them too? How could you?!"
"It was just my job." I stated, walking away and fist bumping UV.
"Good to have you back." She cackled.
"Feels good to be back." I replied, ignoring the twisting feeling in my gut.
———
"They have Lloyd." Kai said as he saw Killow grab him.
"They have the masks." Cole added.
"And (Y/N)." Jay input sadly.
"What?" Nya asked, turning to him. "How?"
"I saw Harumi grab a knife and force her onto the bounty."
"But why?"
"I"m not sure." Jay admitted.
"But they have the masks, they wouldn't have needed her...." Nya said suspiciously.
"Look, we'll talk about that later, but first we have trouble." Zane said as the giant crab towered over them.
Word count: 1802 words