why the princess?

- very shitty pt.3 but this au is fun :))

Astra spat out a mouthful of blood, smearing the cut across her cheek with a grim smile. These mercenaries weren't good fighters apart from the odd few - the only reason they were giving her and Skylor trouble was sheer numbers. Two of the fighters were already down, another was staggering away with a stab wound in her chest courtesy of Astra, and Skylor was currently dueling two fighters at once while Astra distracted the rest.

A merc leaped forward, as if fencing clumsily, the words attempting to sound devilish, "Commish sends her regards."

The words meant nothing to Astra as her katana slashed in the air, creating a sphere of protected space around Astra and Skylor. One merc dared to slip past her blades, but she made quick work of them, dropping her katana to disarm them, and picking it back up to drive the blade home into their shoulder. Long ago, Astra had reeled at the thought of killing someone, but now, the fear had been driven out of her, making space for the cold hearted rage that filled her chest. The Jade Empire was not a friend of the Kingdom. Their alliance was fragile at best, one wrong move from being shattered.

The fact that a Jade Empire assassin had killed her mother was only one reason Astra was able to keep fighting, her fuel of revenge enough to continue. It was parallel Astra had seen the moment Lloyd had read out the letter from Uncle Wu - she had seen the realisation in his eyes too, and then the decision that they could say nothing about the strange events. The rest of the team thought Queen Misako had died of an illness.

Astra knew better.

She whirled back around, delivered a solid punch to a merc's nose, dodging the poorly thrown punch and snapping the merc's arm easily. The itch to use her powers was growing, but her uncle's instructions were clear: the Jade Empire was not to know that it was elementals who had snuck in and taken their princess. The only person in the Empire who would know the truth was Chamille, and she had been trained well enough to understand the severity of the situation. Hell, if anything went to plan, no one would notice that the shapshifter had taken Princess Prissy's place.

Her fighting fell into a blur of space and time; adrenaline shooting through her veins, lust for blood quenched by her katana. Her uncle said it was a weakness, her downfall. If her downfall protected everyone for another day, Astra was more than happy to use it. No matter how it all ended, if, as she suspected, Lloyd was crowned King, she served her days out on the task force and inevitably died, tensions remained high, and that was that.

ASTRA—

Warned by Skylor's mental shout, Astra ducked on instinct, the slice of a blade narrowly missing the top of her head. Seeing red, she dived forwards, tumbling into a practiced corkscrew movement that ended with the merc on the ground with a dagger through his heart and Astra lending Skylor a hand with the last guy.

Skylor blew out a puff of air, visible in the frigid night, withdrawing her tachi from a merc's arm. Handing her a cloth to clean off her blade, Astra inspected the site of the attack. Ten bodies scattered around the street would be a mess to discover, but they didn't have time to clean up and run. The shouting in the direction of the docks had died down, so she assumed that Lloyd was either dead or they had successfully escaped. She'd know if the doofus had been stabbed a little too hard though, not just because of the enigmatic twin bond, but because of her powers. She could sense any death she wanted to. Which is how she knew the guy on her left was not dead, and that she had to stab him yet again.

"We need to regroup with the others." Skylor said, sheathing her tachi as Astra did with her sword.

Nodding, Astra unslung her bow and nocked an arrow. It would make running harder, but if she needed to do long-range fighting, she'd best come prepared. Skylor and Astra fled through the night, searching for the signs of the other group, tracking blood stains, shouts, and dropped weapons. They snuck into the docks and found evident signs of a fight, and a gaping space between two ships where she assumed Lloyd and the princess had gotten away. Eventually, they arrived at the scene of a warehouse, where the others were carefully cleaning up the scene with precision only they had been trained to do. Reg teleported through the smoking remains of a fire near Astra, dusting off his hands with his usual charismatic smirk plastered to his face.

"Did they get away?"

"I believe so," Astra gave the warehouse a once-over, raising a brow. "What happened here?"

"Unfortunately, you were right. We pretended Jay was the princess and they tracked us all the way here. Gave us enough time to prepare for their attack, but we didn't escape completely unscathed." Reggie gestured to Kade, whose hands were covered in a peachy-gold glow as he healed Kai. What looked to be a nasty slash ran down the fire elemental's right leg, but with Skylor by his side now he was pretending to be in much less pain than he actually was.

"We need to get to the Bullet as fast as possible. Lloyd should be taking Princess Prissy to Hollow's Bluff. The rock formations there should give them enough cover, if the Ninjagen assassin lacks the assets to send ships after them." Astra calculated the journey mentally, "By horse, if we push them, it should take a day. Less, hopefully."

"We better get going now, then." Reg flicked out his comb and tidied a loose lock of hair. "I'll try and find us some horses. Tell Skylor to contact me every ten minutes."

Astra nodded, and with that, Reggie disappeared into the smoke and left. Informing Skylor of the smoke elemental's request, she then helped Kade construct a make-shift splint for Jay's arm.

"Are you okay?" Kade whispered, knowing full well that Astra would never own up to any injury unless she was bleeding out right in front of him. Astra tilted her head from side to side wordlessly, tying the cloth tightly around the wood on Jay's arm. His auburn curls seemed just as droopy as his mood - Jay detested being injured, especially if it was his hands or arms, it just made using his element that much harder.

"I don't know if Lloyd is free." Astra admitted quietly, once Jay had gone to laugh off his injury with Nya, Kai, Zane, and Cole. The others were gathered around the fire with Skylor, awaiting Reggie's news. "This assassin has enough funds to send nearly double the number of mercs I was expecting. They've either run out of money, or have plenty more. My uncle severely understated the Ninjagen."

"Maybe the Ninjagen underestimated us, only sending, what, thirty mercs to take care of us?" Kade earned himself a soft chuckle from Astra. Gently, he took her hand in his, allowing his element to heal the nicks that had begun bleeding again. "Lloyd will be fine, Astra. The assassin would be committing a crime against their own country if they killed a prince."

"Yeah, but they don't know he's a prince. I swear to the First Spirits, if he gets himself killed, I'm going to resurrect him and kill him myself, again."

Kade looked genuinely worried at her hyperbole. "Astra, the last time you tried to resurrect someone..."

"I know, I know. I'll need Rema if I want to successfully bring Lloyd back to pummel him."

A loud cry from the other side of the warehouse alerted Astra.

Skylor released a deep breath, sagging in Kai's arms. She would be absolutely exhausted from using the mind element, naturally. "It's Reggie. He's found us horses."

They rode through the night like the horses would never tire.

Astra constantly checked to see if there were any major shifts in the Underworld and the Departed Realm. If a spirit as powerful as Lloyd entered either realm, she'd know. The absence of his presence was worrying, yet also a relief. Lloyd could be very annoying unnecessarily. The horses were thoroughly exhausted by the time they reached the Bullet. Astra made sure each horse had enough to eat and rest, tipping off the farmer from before about several high-quality horses roaming the meadows.

The team wasted no time in preparing the Bullet for seafaring, with Jay, Nya, and Skylor taking the lead on nautical-related tasks, Astra was more than happy to sit back for once and think about the bizarre nature of their mission. Hollow's Bluff was roughly a two-day sail from this side of the Empire, giving Astra plenty of time to consider the motives of the assassin. Perhaps the war between the Kingdom and Empire had affected them, a parent or a sibling that had died, and so motivated the assassin to kill the princess.

That reasoning, however, seemed faulty. The war was long over, and the assassin would gain nothing from killing the princess. It was something more personal. The princess' death would hurt the entirety of the Jade Empire, as well as the reigning royalty. A logical person would hold her ransom. Someone seeking revenge would kill her. Astra mentally ran through the recent decade's worth of drama from the Jade Empire. There was a lot.

The attempted assassination of Uncle Wu, the assassination of that councillor, that campaign against Ninjagens, the weird sanctions that backfired on them, the food poisoning from the trade party, the diplomatic party that tried to—

Astra dropped the bucket of water, the contents splashing over Kai, who was on his belly trying to repair a hole in the ship.

"Astra, what the hell?" Kai spat out a mouthful of water, looking particularly sombre as his hair drooped, dripping wet.

"I think I know who the assassin is," Astra slapped a hand over Kai's mouth before he could complain more, "One of the mercs said Commish sends their regards. Commish, as in Commissioner. It's a long shot, but I was thinking about recent events and then the diplomatic party from the Empire came over ten years ago, the Commissioner died."

"That's...definitely a long shot." Kai mused, now that Astra had let him speak. "It makes sense, though."

Astra nodded. "The Commissioner only had a daughter. Everyone else in his family was already dead—don't you think that's enough motivation for her?"

"Why Princess Harumi, though? She's guarded as well as her parents, why not go after the Queen herself?"

"We'll need Zane for this. His photographic memory, at least." Astra mused, spotting Zane's white shock of hair disappearing below deck.

"Okay, are you going to ask him what the Commissioner's daughter's middle name was? I don't really see how that's going to help."

"No," Astra said, pulling Kai with her. "I'm going to ask him if my memory is correct. If Princess Prissy was part of the diplomatic party sent for negotiations."

Astra and Kai found Zane checking their food stores, and preparing their rations for the day. The task had completely slipped her mind with her potential discovery, something that had her jumping from foot to foot impatiently whilst Zane continued to organise the team's meals. If there was anything worse than having Astra restless, it was having Astra and Kai hopping around unflappable Zane.

Finally, Zane set down the knife and turned to Astra with his usual poker face, unamused and unaffected by their antics. "May I help you with anything?"

"Zane, you remember the diplomatic mission from the Empire, right? The one where the Commissioner died?" Kai butted in before Astra could explain anything. In one glare, he stopped talking.

"Yes, of course, I remember."

"Do you remember if Princess Pr—Harumi, was the royal accompaniment on that mission?"

Zane frowned momentarily, closing his eyes. "Yes. She was the only member of the party pardoned given her royal status. All the others were jailed in Ninjago before being transferred back to the Jade Empire, sentenced under Ninjagen law."

"So his daughter would have a proper motive. Perhaps she feels that the Princess got away scot-free, without any retribution." Astra proposed, tearing a bread roll to give her hands something to do. To clarify things for Zane (who would catch on easily anyway), she continued explaining. "It's only one, hypothetical explanation of course. The 'Commish' was mentioned to me beforehand, near the docks. If his daughter wants to avenge her father, it wouldn't make a terrible explanation."

"There are some weak spots, however. The Princess has plenty of enemies simply by being the Princess of the Jade Empire. We should keep that theory in mind, however, seeing as it is the most thought-out reasoning as of now." Zane said, glazing to the porthole. "It seems as though we have arrived in Hollow's Bluff. Perhaps the Princess can offer us more answers."

Astra stared at the fog rolling over the ocean waves, weaving between the tall spires of rocks. "If she's alive to do it."