[Secrets Unfold]

'Good morning, Nya!! I've noticed those dances yesterday, it would be a shame if anything were to change to them... xoxo Stacy <3'

Nya groaned before she put her phone back onto her nightstand. Luckily she hadn't woken up due to it ringing in the middle of the night, but it being the first thing she read in the morning wasn't anything great either.

The Water Ninja then scoffed as she got up and went to get dressed. She was positive that Stacy wouldn't be able to steal her boyfriend, even though there was still that little voice in her head she always tried to ignore.

The Bounty ride to school wasn't anything eventful, they all ate their breakfast while Pixal flew the ship.

Many hours passed before the bell rang for one last time for the day, dismissing all classes at the same time.

The students rushed through the corridors left and right. The ninja, despite having been in different classes, took their time before meeting in front of their lockers one after the other.

With Nya, Lloyd and Skylor arriving last, they all decided to leave the school building together.

The Bounty was already waiting for them on a rooftop across the school grounds, so they waited for the red traffic light to turn green before walking across the road.

"I've gotta go now, guys." Seliel said, going through her smooth, pink hair with her fingers, making her blue streak disappear under the pink.

"We can fly you home." Cole offered, pointing up at the Bounty, making her look up at it as well.

But she just shook her head. "It isn't that far away, but thanks anyway." She smiled before waving at all of them and walking away.

As the others were climbing up the anchor, Cole watched Seliel as she was just walking further away from him. He bit his tongue, he had a weird feeling in his stomach, and he wanted to find out what it was about.

So he looked back at the anchor to see that everyone except for Jay was already up on deck.

Cole grabbed Jay's shoulder, stopping him before he could begin to climb up. "Jay, can you... tell the others I'm on my way to the bakery?" He asked slowly, making up a lie.

Jay sighed as he rolled his eyes. "Jeez, Cole. It's like what, the fifth time this week?"

"Well, sorry, not sorry. You know how much I love cake." He reminded.

His friend in blue clicked his teeth. "At least bring me some blueberry cake on your way home."

Cole nodded. "I will. Thanks, buddy!" He said before he walked away from him and into the direction of where Seliel had just gone to.

"Huh." Jay said before climbing up the anchor.

Cole looked up at the anchor to see Jay disappearing from his view. He let out a breath before smiling to himself. Then he ran across the street after looking to his left and right before hiding behind a white van.

Luckily for him, Seliel hadn't gone too far so it wasn't difficult to find her. He snuck up from behind her every time she was far enough away, hiding behind anything that was able to hide his entire body.

She took a turn to the left, making Cole turn left as well. When she turned left again, so did he.

Cole hid behind a yellow postbox as he frowned to himself, watching Seliel move closer to the school grounds again.

Then he watched as she walked up the few stairs before opening the back door of the school and stepping inside.

"Why would she go back?" Cole asked himself before he snuck over to the door.

He tried to push it and realized it was left unlocked, so he stepped inside as well. As the door was closing behind him, he held onto the door handle and prevented it from falling into the lock and creating loud noise.

Then he turned back around to look at a black silhouette disappearing in the far end of the corridor, so he stealthily followed that person, thinking it was Seliel.

Once he hid behind the corner of the staircase, he realized the silhouette did belong to Seliel. He watched as she went down the stairs and opened the door which led to the basement of the school.

Cole raised his eyebrow before pulling out his phone and quickly pulling up the security footage from inside the base.

Ever since they had installed security cameras inside and outside their base, every nine of them had the option to look at already recorded footage or live footage on their cell phones.

The Master of Earth turned up the brightness of his phone before sitting down on the stairs. Nothing happened for a few seconds before the motion detection went off, so he watched as Seliel was currently standing in front of the door of the base before disappearing in a cloud of gray smoke.

Cole smiled before switching to the one camera inside the base, seeing Seliel already inside.

She looked around, seemingly looking for something, he assumed.

Then she walked up to the countertop before putting her school bag on top of it. She rummaged around the bag before pulling out a book.

Cole frowned. He had never seen that book, especially not on her person.

It was smaller than normal books, but still not as small. Its cover was all brown, and Cole could see it had something carved on, but couldn't make out what it was saying.

He watched as Seliel opened the book and looked inside before closing it abruptly and then staring at the mini fridge.

Cole hummed. There wasn't anything too special inside, he had eaten the last piece of strawberry cake that was in there during the lunch break that day.

The Master of Earth frowned when seeing her walking up to the refrigerator. Then a pang of guilt hit him; what if she was hungry and craving for the cake he had eaten?

Those thoughts quickly vanished out of his head once he watched Seliel putting the book down on the countertop and grabbing the fridge. Then she began to pull it out of its place. She picked the book up again and then started kneeling before she got on all fours.

Then she... disappeared.

And no, not by using her powers. She crawled behind the fridge and was not coming out.

Cole jumped up and put his phone back into his pocket before taking the key to the base out of his pocket and holding it readily in his hand as he started walking to the base.

Once he was inside, he looked around. Everything was just where he had seen it on his phone a few seconds ago.

He walked up to her bag. He was curious of what was inside, but he knew he couldn't just touch her stuff without her permission, so he let go of that thought and turned to the fridge.

His eyes widened. There was something like a small crawling space behind it. He crouched down and inspected the tunnel, realizing it had to be quite long, based on the fact that he couldn't see what was on the other end.

Making a quick decision, he decided to come clean. He pulled out his phone and shot a picture of the tunnel and opened his private chat with Jay. He was too stunned to explain everything, so he sent a few separate messages.

'Jay'

'I lied about the cake'

'There's a tunnel in the base'

'Sel went through it'

'Don't tell the others about it yet, it could lead to anywhere'

Then he sent him the picture.

'I'll go in and look for her and find out about what she's up to'

'I'm only telling you in case anything happens'

'I'm gonna put my phone on silent so that she can't hear me'

'Don't come yet, okay? I'll tell you more once I can'

Without waiting for any responses, Cole left the chat and put his phone back into his pocket.

After taking a deep breath, he went inside. The space was neither too tight nor too big, it fit him just well enough. What was weird, though, was the fact that the entire way he was crawling through was covered in dirt. It didn't seem like it had been brought there by anyone due to it being way too much to be, like, stuck under someone's shoe or something. It seemed as if wherever Cole was heading to was a dirty place. 

He crawled and crawled, wondering why the heck anyone would build such a long tunnel. Who even built that tunnel? Seliel? Cole assumed she wouldn't have been able to with it being in school grounds, but seeing her sneaking inside the school when it was over for the day convinced him otherwise.

Maybe there was more to her than he had thought.

The crawling space seemed to fall down deeper, making Cole realize wherever he was going to was underneath the school, or at least under the school's level.

The Black Ninja widened his eyes in both relief and a hint of fear when he saw light on the other side of the tunnel. He had crawled for quite some time, probably for around five minutes at that point. He was glad he had been forced to wear knee pads by Wu because if it hadn't been for that old man lecturing the ninja about safety, his knees would've never forgiven Cole for the pain.

Once he was near the end, Cole stopped and looked inside the new area in front of him.

It seemed like a huge room. The floor and walls were covered in gray metal as it seemed, hiding the dirt which would've been the alternative.

There were many smaller tables around the round room, one big table in the middle that would probably let around twenty people have a seat around it and some workshop benches here and there. There was a brown pinboard next to a desk which had some colorful pictures hung on it, yet Cole couldn't make out what was on them since it was far away for pure eyesight. Lastly, there was a huge bookshelf in the far back with lots of books inside, all of them a darker color.

What caught his attention the most was the girl he had been wondering about turned away from his sight. She was looking at the pinboard.

Now he didn't know what to do. He could crawl back and act as if he had never seen anything, but that option was almost impossible to execute since he was far too stunned to just ignore it all.

Then he could just jump down and confront her, but he was scared of her reaction. Did he invade her privacy? Was she going to hate him? Probably.

But he didn't want her to hate him, yet he needed to know that whatever she was going to do wasn't anything illegal. This entire situation seemed as if she was planning on doing some drug dealing or assassination or something, Cole thought. But he was positive she wasn't involved in anything like that.

He sighed inaudibly and decided to head back. So he turned around and readied himself to crawl back.

"I know you're there."

Cole froze on the spot, his eyes wide. He slowly turned around to see Seliel still not turned to him.

He didn't know how to answer so he just stared at her, waiting for her to say something else.

"Jump down."

So he did. The Earth Ninja landed on his feet effortlessly and kept staring at her as he was walking up to her.

"I was hoping you'd follow me."

Cole frowned. "What, why? What is this place? And how did you know I was there?"

Seliel chuckled, turning around. "For a ninja, you're not that sneaky. Did you really think I didn't see you stalking me when I entered the school, or did you really expect me to not see the red dot on the cameras blinking? I know you saw me going through the tunnel, just like I wanted you to."

"Why would you want me to go after you? Sel, what's going on?"

"Cole..." Seliel paused. "There's something I had found out about a while ago, before you and the others attended school. And I think it was all part of someone's plan."

"What do you mean?" Cole softened his gaze.

Seliel went through her hair as she pointed at the pinboard Cole hadn't taken a closer look at yet. He looked at her finger before focusing on the pinboard.

"What the-" He said as he walked closer to it to look at the pictures attached to it.

He couldn't believe his eyes. There were many colorful pictures, the only difference now was that they weren't some blobs to him anymore but him and his friends.

He could see closeups of himself and the other five ninja in their respective gi's, and a lot of pictures of them doing their everyday chores around the monastery. For example Jay and Lloyd playing video games, Cole listening to music on his bed while scrolling through his phone, Nya and Pixal working on the Land Bounty, and Zane fixing his own wiring inside his room. All of those taken at different angles, as well as from places in which there were no security cameras inside the monastery.

That put Cole on high alert. He looked at Seliel. "What does all of this mean?"

She walked up next to him and looked at the pictures, herself. "I've known this underground place for around half a year now. It seemed like an abandoned place so at first I thought this was epic." She sighed. "But it wasn't. Everything in here is just like I had found it back then. All of these pictures were hung here when I first stepped in here."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Cole frowned at her, confusion lacing his tone.

She walked back to the desk and grabbed the small brown book Cole had seen earlier. "Because of this."

The Earth Ninja looked at the book. "What's written inside?"

"Cole, I think there's more to all of this than we think. I don't think it's a coincidence that you and the others were sent to school now."

"What makes you say that?" He asked.

She sighed. "I might be mistaken, I might be mistaken a lot, but I think this place was never supposed to be discovered."

"Why not?"

"Because this book is a diary of someone who's never mentioned anyone's name, not even his or her own name. I don't know who this belongs to, but it has to be at least a few decades old."

"Have you read it completely?" Cole asked, intrigued.

"I have. But I don't think it's from a good person or a hero." She looked deep into his eyes. "I think it's from one of your past enemies, or someone who doesn't like you and the others. But specifically elementals in general."

"What?"

"I know, I know, it's all just speculations. But think about it!" She hastily went through the pages before stopping on page fifty-three. She began to read out loud.

"Dear diary,
it has been many years ever since I've seen them now, but I have a very bad feeling about it. It's been awfully quiet. I don't think it's in my power to think about what's wrong or what's right, but all I know is that I have no other choice. My team has done a good job on designing the plan, and just in case anything were to go horribly wrong, we also have an excellent escape plan. I think the day has finally come. The enemy is strong, but I am stronger. All I need is to wait for the perfect moment to strike. Whether it takes ten days or ten years, I will always be ready. They will pay, all six of them."

Cole was left speechless, whereas Seliel looked at his shocked state. "Cole, someone has been watching you guys, someone has been stalking you, someone knows a lot about you."

"Who would-"

"I don't know! I didn't tell you because I've been trying to find out about at least something before telling you because I wanted to be helpful."

Cole smiled. "You've already helped us more than you think, Seliel."

"Have I now?" She raised an eyebrow, a cocky smile on her face.

"Mhm." Cole grabbed the book out of her hand and put it back on the table without breaking eye contact.

Seliel looked up at him intently. She hated the fact that her body was betraying her mind, hoping for him to make a move. Her heart skipped a beat once he averted his gaze from her eyes down to her lips and then back up to her eyes. The silence lingered in the air as they both seemed mesmerized by each other.

But once they heard faint noises coming from inside the tunnel, they stepped away from each other and looked at the opening in the distance.

They were both on high alert, Cole put his arm behind his back and pulled a throwing star out of his sleeve, holding it in his hand.

Seliel wasn't experienced in fighting, but she had seen too many karate films and had seen some techniques she was sure she could imitate.

"Get behind me." Cole said quietly while watching the hole the entire time.

Seliel scoffed just as quietly. "I can take care of myself."

"I'm not taking any chances." Cole said as he moved in front of her and had an arm around her waist without touching her.

Her eyebrows shot up at his fast actions and she herself didn't know how to feel about it, yet those thoughts left her mind once the sounds coming out of the tunnel became louder.

The seconds dragged on and on, making Cole remember how long the tunnel was when he had passed it, so he could tell the person must've been exhausted. He hoped their knees were done for.

It all then happened way too fast once they could hear grunting and panting, accompanied by what sounded like falling. Someone was tripping their way down... great.

Or was it? Because once the person came falling through the hole, Cole sighed, stepping away from Seliel and pulling the throwing star back into his sleeve.

"Jay, what are you doing here?" He asked, putting his hands on his hips.

Jay sat up as he held his head. "You didn't answer, Cole!"

Just then, another figure appeared in the hole. "Jay, are you okay?"

Cole's eyes widened before he slapped his forehead. "Jay, I told you to keep it a secret for now, what is Nya doing here?"

"Rude." Nya commented as she jumped down and helped Jay stand up.

"I couldn't help it, we were watching a video on my phone when your messages popped up on my screen." Jay explained. "Besides, I already had a feeling you weren't going to the bakery because you were walking into the wrong direction. Just wanted to remind you." He winked at his friend.

Cole made an 'o' shape with his mouth.

"What is this place?" Nya asked.

"And are you two okay?" Jay added.

Seliel looked around the room before looking at them. She pointed at the huge table. "Have a seat, we have a lot to explain to you."