Nya's POV

"A creature that's been dead for thousands of years has been revived. It's trying to hunt you and your team down and eat you. What do you do?" Jay starts another round of our game. I was bored, considering I finished my invention hours ago, and he has nothing to do, so we made up a game where we give the other a scenario, and they explain what they'd do in that situation.

"Try to hunt it and beat it at its own game," I answer.

"But it's skin is impenetrable," he adds. I raise an eyebrow.

"You changed it."

"I didn't change it. I forgot to say it before," he reasons, shrugging.

"Well in that case, I'd try to research to find out what can defeat it since everything has some sort of weakness," I admit. "Alright, my turn. You're on the edge of a cliff. Hanging off the cliff is one of my teammates and one of those fancy cards you can use to buy stuff, except this one has no limit. You can only choose one. The other either dies or is gone forever."

"I'd save whichever one of you guys it is," he says without hesitation. I furrow my eyebrows, confused.

"But we're your enemy, and with that card you can get whatever you want," I reason, looking at his swollen eye, now feeling a wave of guilt.

"You guys are brainwashed. I can't blame you for that. Besides, when the guys and I became ninja, we swore to always do the right thing. A life is always more important than greed," he explains thoughtfully. Seliel scoffs.

"We're not the brainwashed ones, bud. You're the ones who grew up under a dictatorship and are now the royal family's lap dogs," Seliel counters. He rolls his eyes.

"We are not. We're not even affiliated with the royal family. Plus, Ninjago is not controlled by a dictatorship," he tells her matter of factly.

"If you're not affiliated with the royal family then..." she drifts off, browsing through her magazines. When she can't find the one she's looking for, she groans. "I have a magazine that was published the day after we got here. It has a picture of you and your team with the royal family. Skylor must've taken it."

"Skylor? Why does she want your magazines? She's never shown interest in them before," I ask Seliel. While Seliel and Chamille were always more absorbed into the popular culture of Ninjago, Skylor and I never were. We were always absorbed in our training.

"I'm not sure. Maybe it's cause she has nothing else to do," she shrugs.

"Hey Seliel, you should play this game with us," I suggest. She looks at me skeptically.

"No thanks, but if you want you can join me over here and look through magazines," she offers, patting the spot next to her.

"Come on, Seliel. Don't be a party pooper," Jay taunts her.

"I don't know what that means, but I don't like it," she glares at him before pulling up a seat next to me.

"So the game is simple. One person comes up with a scenario, and the others answer what they'd do in that situation," I explain. Seliel nods.

---

"You're in a cave looking for the exit. You come across a fork in the path. Which way do you go?" I ask.

"You go right. Right is always right," Jay answers easily.

"You go back the way you came. There's surely an exit that way," Seliel yawns, stretching her arms behind her head.

"Alright, my turn," Jay says, a small smile on his face. "You have a captive. This captive hasn't had food or water for over twelve hours, and his eye hurts really, really bad. What do you do?"

"Let him suffer cause he's annoying," Seliel answers within seconds, a smirk on her face. "Gosh, I'm tired. It has to be past ten, and PIX and Chamille were supposed to come in here by ten to switch shifts." She looks down at her watch. "It's nearly midnight! I'm going to get Chamille and PIXAL."

"It's alright. You can all sleep. I'll watch him," I tell Seliel as she goes to walk out of the room.

"Are you sure? We had a long day," she asks, skeptically. I nod.

"I'm positive. Can I just go get some stuff so I can last the rest of the night?" I ask. She nods.

"Of course. I can watch him til then."

---

I walk back in about fifteen minutes. I switched into more comfortable clothes instead of my gi, and I have a basket of stuff ranging from food to things that will keep me busy, along with an ice pack and food for Jay. When I walk back in, Seliel is already dozing off on the couch.

"Seliel," I gently shake her. She slowly opens her eyes. "You can go to bed now."

"Thank you," she stands up. After giving me a quick hug, she leaves the room.

"Can I ask you a question?" I sit down across from Jay, bringing all of my stuff with me. He seems a bit dazed, looking at me, but his mind is elsewhere. "Jay?"

"Y-yeah? Sorry," he nervously apologizes.

"It's fine. I asked if I could ask you a question."

"Well you already did, but you might as well ask another one."

"How did you know my name? Back at the Explorer's Club, after I used my powers, you said my name. You were shocked," I ask, watching his face for any sign of recognition.

"I want to tell you, I really do, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you," he tells me nervously, looking anywhere but my eyes.

"Please," I nearly beg. "I'm going to find out one way or another. It's just easiest to tell me."

"Kai told me," he answers quickly.

"Kai, who's Kai?"

"The red ninja, the master of fire," he elaborates, slightly moving the muscles around his eye and wincing.

"How the hell does he know my name?" I ask, while reaching into my basket. I pull out an ice pack I grabbed while in the kitchen. "Here you go. It looked painful." I try to hand it to him.

"My hands are tied behind my back, but thank you anyways," he tells me, giving me a small but sweet smile.

Instinctively, I grab it and lightly press it to his eye. I keep my hand up, holding it in place,"Is that fine?"

"Y-yeah, it's great. Thank you," he says nervously. "A-anyways, Kai knows because he's your brother." I watch his muscular chest rise and fall at a quick pace.

"What's a brother?" I ask him, turning his expression into one of shock.

"You don't know what a brother is?"

"No, but in my defense, my Mother and Auntie didn't tell us that boys were a thing until we got here," I admit, causing him to look at me confused.

"They didn't tell you about nearly half of the human population?" he asks.

"Well yeah, but they were doing it to protect us," I explain. He looks dumbfounded.

"How does keeping that information from you protect you from anything? If anything, it just hurt you all since they kept if from you for so long."

"They didn't want us concerning ourselves with boys since they both got hurt by them," I elaborate. He just seems confused.

"But they knew that you'd be battling a group of boys, right? I don't see how that makes sense. Like, I understand it more if the guys and I were a group of girls, but they knew you'd come in contact with us eventually. There was no point in it," he reasons. I shrug, letting out a sigh.

"I don't really know to be honest. Anyways, what's a brother?" I sway the conversation back to the initial topic.

"Do you know what a sister is?" he asks. I nod.

"I have four of them."

"Well a brother is like sisters, but with a boy," he tells me. I look at his face for any trace of a lie, but there's none there.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Why not? If girls can be related why can't..."

"No, not that. Kai isn't my brother. Mother didn't give birth to him. He was born here. I was born in another realm," I explain to him, briefly pulling the ice pack away from his eye to check it out. After a few seconds, I put it back on.

"Wait, you think that the rest of your team is your biological sisters?" he asks. I nod. He looks both confused and concerned.

"Yeah. Our mom gave birth to all of us, besides PIXAL of course, but she's still our sister," I explain. He sighs.

"Nya, if you were all siblings, wouldn't you look similar? Plus, how can a single person give birth to 4 different elemental masters when she's isolated," he brings up. His voice is soft and careful, as if he doesn't want to offend me.

"Well, Mother said that since we're elemental masters, we all look different. Plus, she said that since she has powers, all of her children have powers," I inform him. At this moment, I realize how close we are.

My chair is right in front of his, our knees touching. I'm leaned forward, holding the ice pack up to his eye. I could easily lean back, but I don't. The realization makes my chest tight and my stomach feel slightly off, but it's a good feeling, something that's never happened around any of my sisters.

"Nya, she lied to you," he tells me, causing me to lean back and take the ice off his eye. At the loss of contact, the feeling I have fades slightly, but it still lingers.

"No matter how mean she could be sometimes, my Mother isn't a liar," I tell him sternly, moving my chair away from him slightly.

"I know it's hard to take in, but I need you to listen. I did some research when I got bored, with the help of Zane, about dominant and recessive traits in elemental masters. All research shows that elemental masters pass down one dominant trait, with the exception of their powers, to their children.

For some it's hair color that passes down, for some it's hair type, and for others it's eye color, like mine. My mom had the exact same colored eyes as I do, and since she was the elemental master of lightning it passed down. Even you all inherited drastically different elemental traits, you should still look at least semi-similar because of regular genetics, which you definitely don't.

Plus, elemental powers are only passed on from generation to generation, meaning one of your parents, your actual mom, was the master of water. Your dad, which is like the boy version of a mom, was the master of fire, which explains why your brother is the master of fire," he explains. I try to fight his words in my mind, and when I find myself being even a bit doubtful, my eyes widen.

"You got inside my head," I stand up abruptly, moving away from him.

"What?" he asks, confused.

"You're lying to me, and since you got inside my head, you're trying to make me doubtful about my Mother and Auntie," I glare at him, feeling betrayed.

"Nya, I physically can't manipulate your thoughts. I'm only the master of lightning. Please, just listen to my words. You're a really kind person with a beautiful heart. I want to help you," he tells me softly, looking into my eyes. Looking into his bright blue eyes makes me want to sit back down, so I look away. There's no way that could happen without him being in my head.

"I don't need to be helped. You're the one who needs to be helped, Jay. Open your eyes. You don't seem evil, just misguided. I can see if Mother can not hurt you when we free her, but only if you give up now," I offer him.

 Although I don't know Mother's plans for when she gets out, I know it won't look good for the guardians. By taking one of them out of the equation permanently, the gemstones would be that much easier with no "what ifs" for if he escapes.

"Nya, Ciara is your 'Aunt', right?" he asks me. I nod, unsure of where he's going. "She killed my mom, Cole's mom, both of your parents, and countless other people. I could never side with someone who has killed so many people and stole 5 girls away from their parents. Besides, the rest of the ninja are like brothers to me. I could never abandon them," he turns down the offer while also accusing Auntie.

"Auntie wouldn't do that. She's been nothing but nice to us our whole lives. Stop lying," I glare at him, the fuzzy feelings I felt earlier replaced with anger. "I'm going to go get Chamille and PIXAL to watch you. I can't listen to you lie anymore, and to think, I brought you food and water."

"Nya, please stay," he begs, his features full of desperation. "I'll stop talking about it, and we can talk about something different."

Something about the look he's giving me causes me to cave in. I'm usually the best at sticking with my choices, but he erased it in seconds. "Do you promise to get out of my head?"

"I'm not in your head. If I was that'd be cool, but it's physically impossible for me to do and..." he starts to lie, so I glare at him. "I won't be in your head."

"Then, I'll stay."

A/N Woa, a chapter without a POV change? This might be the first time in this book

This chapter was hard to write, but I enjoyed it. I had to make sure I got the right balance of everything, and I hope that I did it well

Thoughts on the chapter?

How do you think Ciara will react when they pick her up from her errand, and she finds Jay there?

In case you guys are wondering, the whole acquisition of the next gemstone (its several chapters) is probably my favorite part of both books

I hope you guys have a wonderful day/night (it's the middle of the night where I am)