(Warning. This chapter contains mild descriptions of gore and violence, and mentions of death.)

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Once again, Jay had been thrown headfirst into action and conflict, with not much prior warning.

Instantly dragging him out of an important conversation, crushing his hopes for the evening.

The universe truly had something against him, didn't it.

Jay noticed that Cole was running a lot slower than his usual pace, and was having a lot of difficulty too. He almost collapsed after reaching the Junkyard alone, and this run back to the Bounty was proving to be a little too much for him.

The earth ninja was possibly the strongest member of the team, and most well rounded fighter by far. The glue that kept them held together. The backbone.

If he wasn't in his best condition... then... they really didn't stand much of a chance at all.

He didn't even know what exactly had happened at the police station, how severe it was, how many people were involved. Not even the casualties. Anything could be going on.

All he knew for certain, was that he was scared. For his own safety, and most of all, for the safety of his friends.

Lloyd was on the deck waiting for them, helping them up the side, and the moment that Cole's feet left the sandy ground, the boat lifted off, speeding in the direction of Ninjago city.

The three of them entered the bridge, where Nya was steering.

"Wh- What the hell is going on? What happened?!" Jay spluttered, slightly out of breath, but nothing compared to Cole. His friend had doubled over, and had to cling to the table to stay upright.

"No time to explain! Go get your suit on and we'll fill you in after that!"

Useless arguing wouldn't provide any help, and Jay knew that. He jogged towards Lloyd's room and threw on his gi, forcing himself to breathe steadily the entire time.

He couldn't panic right now.

He couldn't.

He almost tripped over in his rush to get back to the bridge, and reached it, panting still.

Zane was the first to notice his return, and made his way over to him to explain.

"The police station has been attacked by Dei Noctis, and, there has been a lot of damage. We don't know the full extent of it, as all we received was a panicked phone call, that was cut short. It seems that the person calling may have been attacked midway through it."

"... so, we know, nothing?"

"Unfortunately. We will have to be extremely careful, and have each other's backs. We can not afford to get hurt."

Staying upright was difficult, as Nya pushed the Bounty to its limit. Speeding as fast as the engines possibly could.

Kai and Cole had already opted to sit down, or cling onto something to get rid of the need to constantly balance. Jay was considering it as well, but, the darkening outline of Ninjago City was approaching fast.

The evening had advanced like a prowling cat, stalking it's way across the afternoon sky in absolute silence.

Fighting in the dark was not something that any of the ninja looked forward to.

"Everybody hold on! It's going to be a rough landing!" Nya shouted, and everybody in earshot clung onto the nearest fixed object.

It was. The flying vehicle came to a stop in the middle of a road, the closest road to the police station that it could actually fit into. They were going to have to make a run for it.

"Everybody ready?" Lloyd called.

They all slid down the side of the ship, and send themselves sprinting in the appropriate direction.

"Remember, do not split apart when we get there! We need to stay together!"

Jay - just alike the previous incident at the mall - noticed that the rest were all... slow. Compared to a normal person's running speed, they would definitely be faster, but, they were so much slower than a few months previously.

So so much slower.

The group turned a corner, and found themselves on the street of the station, filled with smoke and smog.

Ambulances blaring their sirens littered the streets, ready to leap into action, the only barrier keeping them from doing so, being safety. None of them knew what waited for them behind the police station doors, and nobody was overly anxious to find out.

A stench of dust lingered in the air, along with an overwhelming sense that something was deeply, deeply wrong.

"... let's go."

Running turned into light footsteps, the ninja settling into what they did best. Sneaking around silently, without making a sound.

However, nearing the front, and seeing what lay on the ground around it, made it near impossible to not gasp in shock, or make some other audible reaction.

It was... awful.

Blue clad bodies littered the ground closer to the structure, dotting sadistic splashes of colour onto the grey landscape.

Stepping over them, was far from colourful.

"... a-are they dead?" Cole choked out.

"Looks like it."

"... what the hell happened here...?" Kai whispered, muffling his voice through his mask and his cupped palm.

"Nothing good." Nya replied.

Jay took the lead, entering the station first. It was eerily quiet, aside from the constant sirens in the background, and each accidental crunch of broken glass, or gross squelch as he stepped on the rain-soaked carpet, sent his senses skyrocketing.

Carnage and destruction spread down each and every corridor, showing clearly that some sort of psychotic rampage took place. Huge claw-shaped chunks had been gouged out of the walls, carpets ripped up, windows shattered. Doors were ripped off their hinges, and the pathetic remnants of human attempts to subdue the force, littered the place. Empty guns, scattered bullets.

Whatever had come through here, had been able fo take out an entire workforce full of the best officers on the continent.

This was more than just taking hostages and breaking windows.

This wasn't just some terrorist stunt.

This was... inhuman.

"... is... anybody still alive?"

"... there has to be some survivors. Somewhere."

Jay started to feel sick. The gravity of the situation finally came crashing down on him with full force, sapping all his energy instantaneously.

"... Jay, are you doing ok?" Cole asked, and only got a shrug for an answer.

He started to sweat, and the fingers on his left hand started to spasm in a nervous tick.

"... s-something's not right here..." he muttered, barely even breathing the words, but due to the abject silence of the abandoned corridors, the rest of the group picked it up with ease.

"No sh*t. Look at the place." Kai huffed, gritting his teeth.

"No. Something else. I... I don't feel right here."

The familiar feeling of dread crept its way up Jay's back, trickling down the sides of his head and burrowing into his skull. Paranoia clutched at his throat, squeezing, squeezing harder and harder.

There was something deeply, deeply wrong.

"... we need to carry on searching. Let's get a move on." Lloyd spoke, and took the lead in Jay's stead.

Jay could hardly get himself to keep walking, his eyes darting around in all directions, convinced that they weren't safe. None of them were.

"... I underestimated the size of this building. Not to follow cliqués, but, we need to split into groups. Before we can bring in paramedics and start the search for survivors, we must make sure that the station is devoid of any potential threats. I suggest that we split into three teams of two, to assure backup, but also cover space."

Jay's heart started to thunder at Zane's words. Split up? In here?

He... he couldn't.

"Good plan. I'll go with Zane, Nya and Kai, you two go together, and that leaves Cole and Jay. Will you two be alright?" Lloyd turned.

Cole gave him a confident thumbs up, while Jay was sort of lost. He managed to give a half hearted shrug, which Lloyd questioned, but didn't look too deeply into.

The group arranged which pairs would tackle which floors, and they all set off on their personalised tasks.

"... we'll all be ok. You don't need to worry. It looks like Dei Noctis is long gone." Cole said as they made their way through the ground floor, checking out office rooms and temporary cells alike.

Nothing overly suspicious had arisen, yet.

It didn't stop Jay's crippling sense of fear and uneasiness. He was constantly on alert, checking things twice, thrice, four times on an occasion.

"... Cole... how are you so... so calm right now...?" He asked, genuinely taken aback by his friend's apparent lack of fear.

Cole hesitated, checking another office door.

"... Truth be told... I'm terrified. I just... I'm trying to look at this objectively. We're here to save people, and I'll do anything to make sure I do that."

The two of them entered back onto a main hallway, and began walking towards the exit, to inform the paramedics that the ground floor was safe.

"Looks like there's nothing here, on the ground floor anyway."

"There are three other floors."

"I know Jay, I'm just... I'm trying to be positive."

Cole's footsteps lost their lightness as he became less on guard, sending small echoes with every impact on the floor.

Jay's paranoia went through the roof, ricocheting off every surrounding wall.

"... Cole..."

He turned to him, puzzled.

"Are you alright?"

"Cole we need to get out."

Jay stopped walking, listening intently to the surroundings.

He swore he could hear something, a strangle crackling. Sort of like wet popping candy.

If he strained his ears enough, maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to...

BANG.

All of a sudden, there was a flash of light accompanied by a piercing noise, followed by an explosion of smoke, instantly filling the corridor with dark grey. Jay and Cole yelled out in shock, as each of them panicking in their own way.

Cole stumbled backwards and was instantly disorientated, while Jay fell back against a wall, squeezing his eyes closed to stop the acrid smoke from entering them.

"J-Jay!" Cold coughed, then instantly started wheezing and spluttering as he inhaled the air.

Jay kept all his airways tightly sealed, and began to edge his way along the wall, feeling his way with his hands and his back.

Holding his breath began to strain his lungs, and at the worst time, he remembered his newfound condition concerning them, and started to stumble faster, not understanding how the smoke hadn't cleared out yet.

"J-J-Jay, are you alright?" Cole wheezed, sounding extremely far away. Too far away.

Where did this smoke come from? How did it feel both hot and cold at the same time?

"C-Cole!" Jay chanced, immediately regretting opening his mouth, as the smoke immediately flooded his lungs, turning him into a spluttering mess. A hacking cough made his chest feel like fire, burning, splitting apart.

What the hell was going on?

What the hell was happening?

Jay started to feel faint, breathing in nothing but the new poisoned air, not a shred of oxygen in sight.

Though, even through the sheen of half consciousness, he could hear the new pair of feet speeding down the hallway towards him.

For a moment, he felt relief. Surely, this was another of the ninja, having heard their cries and come to help... but... Jay didn't recognise those footfalls.

Over the years, he had been able to build up a memory of how each of his friends ran. Cole was slightly more heavy footed, Zane was perfectly periodic, Kai's had a lot more purposeful force put into them.

This pair, was not familiar.

Not in the slightest.

He froze up, then started clumsily stumbling away from the noise as quickly as he could, almost tripping over his own feet in an effort to head back into the thickness of the smog. He breathed in yet another huge lungful of carbon, and couldn't resist the reflex to keel over and cough.

The steps got faster, more determined, demanding, flying down the corridor.

"... C... Cole-"

Faster, faster, faster faster faster faster-

He had to warn him, he had to warn Cole that he needed to drop everything and run. He used his last scrap of breath to yell out, begging that it would do something. Anything.

Anything.

"C... c-cOLE, YOU NEED TO GET OU-"

Not even a full sentence breached his lips, before he was slammed into the wall, and an excruciating, blinding pain shot through his left abdomen.

The initial impact against the bricks knocked the wind out of him, but, the true agony came a couple of seconds later, when what had happened lower down came to light.

It was boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time, searing, as if a white hot stick of iron had empaled him. Stinging and aching, piercing and tight, black and white dots fazed in and out across his eyes. The object it worked so incredibly deep, yet so near the surface.

Easily, the most excruciating pain the blue ninja had ever been unlucky enough to endure.

All of this, as he still choked on the acrid gas, confused beyond all belief.

Mind went foggy, thought processes stopped...

He felt blood pouring down his side, and staining the electric blue fabric dark purple.

All time stopped, sound stopped teaching his ears.

Simple processes faded in and out of importance.

In the midst of his delirious daze, the hot sensation of the smoke started to clear. Eyes flickered open, the hallway cleared, and the face of a girl slowly swam into view.

They locked eyes for a second, blanking out all else, even if just for a moment.

It didn't last long.

She snarled, yanked her weapon out of the injury, and shot back down the corridor the way she came.

The back of her head as she turned a corner, was the last thing Jay saw, before he slipped out of consciousness...

... and crumpled to the floor.