*5 days later*

Skylor's POV

I drive a small car through the middle of nowhere for the third day in a row. That day that I got the message from Kai, I left the palace non-discreetly, with Mother and Auntie's consent, and got a car from the royal garage. I chose one of the less elaborate ones as to not draw attention.

The first two days of my journey, there were constantly villages and people, but now, it's there's no one else in sight. You can see miles in every direction, so when I finally see a little figure in the distance, my heart starts to race. I find myself pressing down on the pedal a bit harder to get there faster.

I pull over on the side of the road when I get close enough. Kai sits on his BorgPhone, on the ground in the middle of a patch of nothingness. He's wearing a fitted red t shirt and black jeans, a contrast from the gi I usually see him wearing. I try to conceal the excitement of seeing him.

When I open the the door to go retrieve him, his head darts up. "You really chose the most secluded location, didn't you?" I walk near him, a vengestone cuff in my hand to put around his wrist.

"I had to make sure no one would see me driving by," he admits casually before looking at the vengestone with distaste. "Are you really going to put that on me?"

"I can't have you pulling anything," I try to keep a straight face. When I'm finally in front of him, he's on his feet. Slung over one of his shoulders, he has a duffel bag. "Let me check your bag."

"It's just clothes, hygiene things, and snacks," he hands the bag over easily. I unzip it and ruffle through it, and it's simply just clothes, snacks, hair product, deodorant, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. "Jay was an absolute mess every time he came back; the guy was stuck in a wetsuit for several days. I wasn't going to have that happen."

"Stick out your wrists," I instruct him. He tilts his head, sighs, and looks into my eyes. I'm absolutely mesmerized by him, but I'm able to hide it.

"Skylor, please don't. Why would I try anything when I literally turned myself in? There's no one else around, you can see miles in every direction," he reasons, slowly reaching his hand out and touching my fingers. His element rushes through me, heat and warmth reaching every inch of my body. However, a second feeling accompanies it, a tingle that resonates in my fingers and chest.

"Alright, you don't have to wear it when we're in the middle of nowhere, just don't touch me," I pull my hand out of his grasp, frustrated at how easily he makes me lose focus.

"I was just giving you my element, so you could counter me at any time," he sticks his hands in the air in defense. By the smirk on his face, I can tell he's bluffing, but I don't call him out.

"Now, let's go. It already took five days to get here from the city, and it'll take five days to get back," I say, turning away and walking to the car. He looks at the car skeptically.

"Can I drive?" he asks. I raise an eyebrow.

"You're the one who turned yourself in; there's no way you're going to drive."

"Do you even..."

"I learned how to drive back in the prison realm. Nya made us vehicles, and Auntie had us practice with your rules for when we got here," I answer the question I knew he was about to ask. "Just get in, Kai."

---

Several hours later, we're still in the middle of nowhere. Kai has been trying to make conversation the entire car ride, but I haven't responded to a single thing he's said. When I talk to him, my guard falls too much. If I try to ignore him, it's easier to keep focus.

His mere presence is distracting. The sound of his voice pulls me to an entirely different realm. Seeing him in my peripheral vision makes me want to just turn and look at him. Simply being around him makes me want to immerse myself in everything about him.

"Hot cheetos?" he offers, sticking out a bag of some sort of chips. I don't waver in my vision, staying silent with my eyes on the road. When I don't answer, he groans. "Pull over."

"Why?" I answer dryly.

"Just do it," when I do so on the middle of the deserted highway, he gets out, walking down the side of the road with his bag over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"Walking back to Ninjago City. If you're going to ignore me, I might as well make the journey take longer and enjoy my freedom," he keeps walking. I sit and watch, sure that he's going to walk back. However, he never does, so I start up the car again and drive next to him.

"Kai, get back in the car," I tell him.

"Are you actually going to talk to me?" he asks, head facing forward, not even looking at me.

"I'm just focusing on driving," I lie, looking over at his determined walk.

"Bullshit. Why won't you actually talk to me? I chose you for a reason, you know," he crosses his arms, still walking.

"Last time I saw you, you called me evil," I tell him, trying to not show how much it stung. While it's not the real reason, it's still good to get some of that pressure off of me. "Why would I want to talk to someone who sees me as evil?"

At this, Kai stops walking, causing me to abruptly stop the car. His expression changes to a significantly softer one, his features loosening up, "I'm sorry, Skylor. I was upset that you threw a fireball and nearly hurt Lloyd, but after the fact I realized that you weren't even trying to hit Lloyd, you were just trying to upset me. It worked."

"I...," I'm at a loss for words at the fact he actually realized what I did. He opens the car door, coming back in and sitting down.

"I don't think you're evil. You're a girl who knows nothing else, and I can't blame you for that," he says softly. His voice calms any agitation in my body.

"How does one know that what they know is the truth? What's to say their whole life isn't a massive lie?" I ask out in the open, something I've been wondering in general, looking at him.

"You don't, that's the tricky part. I've found that when something just doesn't feel right, something is wrong," he admits, leaning back in his seat and looking at me. The car is still stopped, and the two of us jut look at each other. "You were in the museum when I was there, weren't you? I knew I heard something."

"Yeah I was. We were on the balcony right above you," I admit, making him sigh.

"Of course. The guys and I have hidden on that balcony ourselves," he sighs, shaking his head. Thinking back to the museum, a question comes to my mind.

"I'm sorry if this is an obvious question, but what's a 'kisser'?" I ask. Kai's eyebrows furrow, and he sits up a bit straighter.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well, when you and Cole left the room at the museum, Jay and Nya stayed in there and started doing some weird thing with their mouths, and then Jay said that he didn't think Nya would be that good of a kisser after 16 years of isolation, but that she's really good at it," I explain. Kai looks mildly grossed out. "Is being a kisser a bad thing?"

"No, no, no. I'm just still not used to Jay and Nya," Kai says quickly. "A kisser is someone who kisses, which is what Jay and Nya were doing with their lips. You do it in the way they were doing it when you're attracted to someone romantically, but people kiss their families and stuff, but it's quick and probably not what they were doing. It's a sign of affection," he answers, and from the ease of his words, I believe him.

"How is Nya?" I ask, knowing that no matter what he says that the answer is going to hurt me.

"She's good, but she misses you all a lot. It's obvious. She loves the four of you tons, but you especially. It's clear you two were close. Thank you for taking care of her, by the way," he says with legitimate gratitude in his voice.

"And thank you for taking care of her now," I tell him genuinely.

"We care about her, Jay and I especially. If anything happened to her, the two of us would probably lose it," Kai admits, slightly confusing me.

"Clearly Jay and Nya are close cause they're kissing, but why are you and Nya so close already?" I wonder. He looks over at me, a small smile on his lips.

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," he tells me, brushing it off. His eyes scan over me, pausing on my face and eventually stopping at my right hand. When I realize what he's looking at, I pull my hand away. "Is that from the Explorer's Club?"

Once I realize I can't hide the scar that spreads across my hand and wrist, I sigh. "No, it's from when I was a kid," I answer simply.

"I've never seen one like that. What happened?" he asks, but instead of the disgust I expected, there's empathy in his voice.

"When I was little, we were training against elemental robots. Nya got zapped by the lightning one, so I looked over at her. I wasn't paying attention, and the fire robot shot a fireball at me," I give the abridged version. Kai reaches over and grabs my hand, and I let him. His power resurges inside of me, and the same tingling as earlier returns.

"I would have died when I was little if I wasn't the master of fire. My dad and I would have burned to death," he admits softly, his eyes still on my hand. His hands are slightly rough, worn most likely from all of the weapons being a ninja comes with.

"What happened?" I ask, looking at his light brown eyes. Although I don't know what a dad is, I can tell they mean a lot to Kai, so I don't question anything.

"A woman wanted to kidnap my baby sister, so she waited until my dad and I went into our forge. When we did, she barricaded the doors and caught it on fire. I was too young to remember, but my dad told me how terrified he was because he didn't know if I was the master of fire yet," he admits, and my heart hurts for him.

"I'm so, so sorry," I tell him, admiring the fact that he opened up to me. "Did you ever get your sister back?"

"Yeah I did, thankfully. It took a long time, though," he admits, his thumb running over the back of my hand.

"I didn't tell you the full story about my burn," I admit. He looks up at me now, confused.

"What else could there be?"

"It wasn't that severe of a burn, only second degree, but when my mother went to clean it, I accidentally absorbed some of her powers before she could do so. She got mad at me, and instead of cleaning it, she put a vengestone cuff on it and sent me to my room for the night. The next day, my auntie saw and took the cuff off, which peeled some skin off with it, and disinfected it, but it was too late.

Soon after, I got a fever, and everything went downhill. My mother didn't care though and made me train. Then, I began breathing quickly all the time, but my mother said that I was out of shape and made me do more runs. It finally reached the point where I was completely mentally confused in conjunction with everything else for my auntie to realize something was wrong.

I had contracted sepsis, a blood infection, because the burn wasn't properly cared for. I had to fight for my life. Auntie brought back antibiotics from here that were able to save me, thankfully. The only thing I have to show from it is this, which I'm thankful for," I explain, wiggling my fingers. Kai intertwines our fingers, and although the red flags go up, I let him, the lightness and comfort trumping it.

"That's terrible. I'm so, so sorry. Mara is awful," he says, sincerity across all of his features.

"Ironically, my little kid logic didn't put her at fault, but you, or at least the 'master of fire' who I was thoroughly convinced was a girl. I convinced myself that if the master of fire didn't exist, I wouldn't have gotten burned, and then none of that would have happened," I admit, partially embarrassed.

"But now?" he asks, his light brown eyes gazing into mine. There's a deepness in them, a deepness that I've longed for since the day we stole the final gemstone.

"But now I know it's all Mara's fault."

---

Seliel's POV

"And then you move your hands like this," I instruct PIXAL, teaching her a dance, so she can do a Brick Tok with me. She moves her hands around, but it looks stiff. "Try to loosen up."

"I cannot loosen up, unless you want me to to loosen my screws," PIXAL tells me. I sigh.

"You look tortured. The people want to see a smile," I say. She gives an obviously forced smile. I sigh in response, the air leaving my lungs.

Suddenly, Chamille opens the door, walking in, "Mother says she knows where some elemental masters are. She wants us to go capture them," she informs us, pulling her purple hair back into a ponytail.

"The ninja? I thought they were out of the city," I ask, putting the dance lesson on hold.

"No, not the ninja. Others." Chamille says, making my eyes widen.

"There are more elemental masters?" I ask, completely shocked. I was under the impression that there were only nine of us.

"Apparently. Mother is scared that they're going to try to defeat us in the absence of the ninja, so we need to try to capture them," Chamille explains. I sigh, turning off my phone.

"Let's get a move on," I say, not wanting to think much about it.

"Who is going to be the temporary leader, considering Skylor isn't here?" PIXAL asks, clearly grateful for the break from dancing.

"I vote Seliel. She does have the most useful powers out of everyone left," Chamille says, and PIXAL nods in agreement.

"Then it's settled. Let's go."

---

We run through the shadows of the city, staying out of the light. Currently, the city is full of mayhem and chaos. The citizens of Ninjago are split, those for and those against turning in the ninja. The different sides are attacking each other, ransacking stores whose owners are on the other side.

The streets are flooded with violence. Violence is everywhere. The stone warriors keep trying to stop it, but it flares up in enclaves. When one person acts up, several more follow.

Throughout this entire time, the ninja have been off the map. Since their sighting in Ninjago City the day we got here, no one has seen them since. Jay, Nya, and Zane have all been silent on social media since the first day we got here. Kai and Cole both posted that day, with Kai telling everyone that the ninja weren't going to let them get bombed, which lines up with him turning himself in, and with Cole saying that everything will be fixed in time. Lloyd is the only one who has posted anything since that day, giving out a message yesterday for the people to stay united, since the division only weakens them.

In order to get as much information as possible, I looked through each of the ninja's social medias to try to find any weaknesses, but I found none. Lloyd typically posts pictures with the other guys, seldom ever posting any pictures of himself. In addition, he also posts information about charity events. Kai is constantly posting pictures of just himself, things I've learnt are called "selfies" with the occasional picture of him with one of the other ninja or Nya. Nya has very few posts, probably because of how short she's been in this realm, but the ones she has typically have Jay and/or Kai in them. One of her posts, one with her and Kai, made me feel uneasy since the two were posing, making the same face, and they looked unsettlingly similar. Jay posts lots of pictures with other people, having lots of selfies with the other ninja, Nya, an old couple that reappears, or an older man that looks slightly like him. Zane doesn't post frequently, but his posts are usually of a falcon or pictures with the rest of his teammates.

Out of all of the ninja, I definitely spent the most on Cole's page. His recent pictures are a lot like the other ninja's, but it was his old pictures that intrigued me. There were many of him, a younger and less buff him, atop mountains, or hanging off the side of mountains. While it looked exiting, the captions of the pictures were all rather bland, but as the rest of the ninja begin to appear in his pictures, his tone started to change to a more positive one.

Additionally, the day we came back to Ninjago and I got my BorgPhone, I noticed that myself, Skylor, and PIXAL were all 'trending'. Apparently, pictures were taken of us near the ninja at the banquet, and for the past two months, the people of Ninjago were trying to find our identities and our relations to the boys. When we appeared on their televisions, they realized it was us in the pictures and trended it.

Looking through the tags introduced me to a lot I didn't know about Ninjago, such as "relationships" and "shipping". Apparently, when you're attracted to someone, you can get into a relationship together where you commit to each other and do certain things with that person, like how Jay and Nya were "kissing" in the museum. When you "ship" two people, you want them to get into a relationship together. Because of the pictures from the banquet, people "ship" me with Cole, Skylor with Kai, and PIXAL with Zane. It's entertaining to look at, considering we're enemies with the boys, but they claim if Jay and Nya did it, the rest of us can too.

"We have arrived," PIXAL breaks me out of my thoughts. Looking at the building, there are subtle flashes of light, most likely from an element.

"Do you have the vengestone?" I ask PIXAL, the only one of us that can hold it without it affecting us. She nods. "Perfect, in and out."

I grab onto them and smoke to the ground, arriving in front of the door. In an attempt to peer through one of the windows, I slightly lean over, but the windows are tinted. I sigh, grabbing my sisters again, before smoking into the building.

"Aah!" a chorus of high pitched screams fill my ears as soon as we appear. I need to cover my ears. When I look around the dimly lit room, I see a dozen children.

"Where are they?" Chamille asks, glaring at them.

"We're sorry, Ms. Seliel, and Ms. PIXAL, and Ms. Chamille. We were playing flashlight tag. We didn't know that was a problem," a girl with a high and quiet voice says, looking down. Her hair is up in pig tails, curled into tight ringlets.

"Why are you all in an abandoned warehouse?" I ask her, squatting down, so I'm her height. I try to be as gentle as possible.

"The park we usually play at is overran by those big scary guys that attacked the city a while ago. They're gonna crush us if we play there," she says with a sadness and sincerity in her voice that makes me think she's telling the truth.

"We need to check here for some people, but once we're done, you can keep playing," I tell her, a small smile on my face. The little girl quickly nods. My sisters take that as their cue to check the building, and they do so thoroughly, but there is nothing here.

Suddenly, the whole ground starts to shake, knocking all of us over. At the familiar, controlled feeling, my eyes widen. A crack in the ground forms under the door, spreading with the rumbling towards us and stopping at my feet.

"It's Cole," I say out loud, making my sisters' heads shoot up. "The earthquake, it's him. We need to go get him!"

My sisters run toward me, and we smoke out of the warehouse. The three of us sprint, following the crack in the ground. We run for one or two minutes before we hit a dead end, the an alleyway that the crack suddenly stops in. I cautiously walk in there alone, in case there's a trap, but I'm only met with something on the ground.

I bend over, picking it up. At close examination, I see that the object is a chocolate cake, and that there's a note next to it.

Hey Seliel, I got you a cake from that same bakery as the first time. Hopefully you don't slam a plate against my head this time.

Truce?

- Cole

A/N yaaaay! Another update! Shipping other than Jaya? Wild amiright?

My social life has been busier than usual so I have less time to write, but oh well. Hopefully I can get out another update soon 

Also, Kailor shippers, next chapter is for you 😉

Thoughts on the chapter?

Predictions?

Well I need to go now, but I hope you all enjoy! Sorry if the notifications were weird, wattpad is being dumb like usual