Suddenly, he charged forward, spear launching like a snake with a powerful thrust between the black and blue ninja. They jump away from the blade, now separated by the weapon, ready to be picked off. Jay falls back on to his yang, and she catches him without a word with a hand on his shoulder.

"That won't do," The voice tutted. So he swung the spear at them in a raging arc, a line cut into the air as they danced to dodge it. Nya grabs Jay's hands with her own, pulling him away from the swipe. She pushes him back once the weapon is drawn back to Lloyds side, and he swallows dryly.

Again, he swipes the spear at them, powerful enough to cut through flesh in an instant, but together they duck to dodge. A jab to Jay's side, but Nya pulls him away. A jab to hers, and Jay does the same. They push and pull each other like dancers, trained to dodge his weapon as one. They rely on each other to miss the spear that aims to stab- slash, incapacitate, anything but miss- but under Lloyds trained eye he could see that Jay was lagging behind, too many close calls, too many mistakes, he was scared, and Lloyd would take advantage of that.

First, he needs to separate them.

He takes a sharp intake of air, allowing his oni powers to flow from his lungs and into his veins to strengthen him, aid him in his mission. They do just that; he feels his muscles twitch under the influence of the still building power.

Quickly, the three get back into their sick dance, Lloyds strikes quick and easily calculated, deadly and fear inducing, stronger than before. One too many times, the spear comes close to skewering the lightning ninja, and every moment of mistakes Lloyd sees that look of pure unbridled emotion that flashes in his eyes, affecting the fight. It pleases the voice in his head as it screams for the boy's blood to be doused on the weapon. It makes Lloyd feel like vomiting.

Nya shoves Jay out of the way of yet another strike, the spear going in between their bodies. The hands still clutch at each other, and Lloyd takes the chance to swipe the spear up like lightning, forcing their hands apart with the body of the spear. They separated.

He feels the corners of his lips tug slightly at the success, but he had hardly won yet.

Jay's knees buckle, and Lloyd recognizes the move. He's going to roll under the spear to get back to Nya, back to safety.

Lloyd swings the spear back in an arch behind him, dissuading whoever it was that he'd felt the presence of, and using the momentum to set himself into a swinging back fist that collides heavily with Jays chest, knocking him down with a thud that resembles thunder.

He hears Jays hiss of pain cut short as his neck tenses, not allowing his head to hit the ground as the rest of him tumbles. It was an instinct, ingrained into their muscle memory by their sensei. It had saved them from many concussions, this time was no different.

Jay was already moving into a kip-up, hands pressed flat either side of his head, so Lloyd jumped forward to kick at his chest again, boot leaning heavily against his ribs. Jay wheezes into a cough, hands clasping at Lloyds leg desperately, shoving and pushing him away, but oni power ran through his muscles and he pushed harder, cringing at the feeling of the ribs almost giving way beneath him.

His heart palpitates in his chest, hands clenching the spear in his hands. He raises it high above his head, ready to answer the voices prayers, and-

A jet of water hurtles into his side, knocking his footing from under him and drenching him in water so hot it may as well be boiling. One foot gave way beneath him, and he toppled to the right of Jay's collapsed body, his leg caught in Jay's painful grip, not letting go despite how Lloyd kicked and swung his leg to be freed.

Their eyes met, and Jay glared, electric blue eyes glowering back at him.

Oh, sh-

Volts of startling blue wracked up his leg, attacking his muscles and travelling up to his torso, his arms, his neck. His body convulses, his leg spasms and contracts in the others grip, his jaw clenching at biting down unwillingly hard on his gums: He bleeds. The spear feels too tight in his hands as they-too contract under the electricity, and his breath is taken from him. He screams silently from his throat as his vision goes black, even for just a second.

His body feels blurry, for a second. As if he's floating in a dark, peacefully liminal space. The pain of electrocution doesn't reach him, not even the temperature of the volcanic air reaches him. His muscles relax, so nicely he almost doesn't want consciousness to have its way with him ever again.

But his eyes shot open anyways.

Or, they did for a second. But it was too bright, and his ears were ringing, and he was still numb all over but the pain and the heat was there, so he clasped them shut, head resting hard against the wooden floor.

He'd collapsed, he realises. His body was a limp mess on the floor, and his friends stood above him, breathing hard and staring disapprovingly, the glint of betrayal in their eyes. If Lloyd felt like it, he could pretend he'd just lost a friendly sparring match between teammates.

I brought this on myself, he notes. So he pries his eyes open, tugging his aching body up to lean on his elbows. He stares at them, glaring eyes meeting watery ones. He sucks air back into his body through his teeth, hissing as the air seems to sting at his lungs. He'd been electrocuted before, plenty of times, but never to the point of incapacitation.

The thought makes his brow furrow, and his breath deepens. It huffs through his throat horsley, and stings like nothing before, but what hurt more was the shame. The shame of being defeated so quickly by his teammates, the humiliation burning him harder than any lightning ever could . It ignites utter rage within him, that seeps from his bones as his fingers clench against the wooden deck.

The voice says nothing, tutting at him like a disappointed mentor.

Nya steps forward, face scrunched. "Why are you doing this?" She asks. Her voice shakes, and her composure is running thin. Lloyd can tell she wants to do nothing but hit him, yank the spear from his hands and use on him, send him back to his own version of the cursed realm. He can tell she's pissed off, and frankly, he is too.

She takes another step forward, looming over him, aggression emanating off her. "What happened to you?"

Lloyd doesn't respond. He just breathes, spreading oxygen through his aching bones.

Her jaw tightens, jutting forward as she held herself back from cursing profanities at the traitor.

To all of their surprise, Jay ends up beside her, a hand at her shoulder. Usually it acts to calm her down, but this time it felt more like he was telling her to wait. For what, Lloyd wouldn't find out.

Jay frowns at him, expression masked to hide his bone-chilling fear. "What happened on the island, Lloyd?"

Laughter, deep and bitter, loud and at his shoulder. "Yes, what happened on the island Lloyd?" It mocked.

"Shut up," He hisses. To whom, he doesn't know.

Nya takes it personally, and Jay holds her back as she leans forward, fists clenching at her sides. "Just tell us what happened Lloyd, we can fix this! Whatever happened, we can help you fix it-"

"Can't exactly bring people back from the dead, can you?" He interrupts.

The air goes silent between them as he glares up at the other three, nose scrunched and jaw clenched, just waiting for them to react. But they hardly do. He knew they wouldn't: They practically already knew. Jay had told them, and even if he didn't know the whole story, it was safe to assume that in a room covered in blood, someone had died, and it was pretty clear that out of the two suspects, the one covered in blood was probably the killer. By the way they sighed deeply, eyes filling with some angry kind of pity, he assumed they'd reached the conclusion.

His eyes stopped scanning between the three of them, instead fixating on the earth ninja.

Cole had hardly moved throughout the exchange. While they were fighting, he'd swung once, that was all. Now, he stood slightly behind the yin and yang, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. His brow was knotted, mouth drawn tight and his eyes glared anywhere but at Lloyd.

So he stared, insistently and silent, until their gazes met.

He watched Cole's facade crumble.

The knot in his brow arches, and his pursing lips pull in and his almost squinting. His expression was complicated. He mutters, quiet and shaky. "What did you do to Master Wu?"

Lloyd doesn't respond. He just stares up, past Nya and Jay, at Cole's horrified expression.

It morphs, suddenly, into rage.

The black ninja trudges at him, pushing past the others as one foot lands hard with a thump beside his chest, his arm reaching down and his fingers yanking at the lapel, pulling Lloyd away from the ground in a strangling hold. Cole hunches over him, fuming with fury. "What did you do?!"

Lloyd rips his hands from the ground under him, abandoning the spear and further depending on Coles grip to keep him upright. He clasps them up his arm, one at his elbow, the other at his wrists, holding him firmly and digging his nails into the fabric. He lets the rage of defeat run through his veins, fuelling the metallic essence he'd grown accustomed to too quickly.

He's mimicking what Jay had just done to him, he notices. Only, this would not be defeating him.

Lloyd meets Cole's eyes again, staring up through his brow as his grimace melts into something else, something vicious. He shouldn't be finding this so satisfying, he shouldn't even be doing this, but his actions were blurring into instincts, the world slowly tinting purple. He goes cold, and he takes a deep breath.

"You really wanna know?"

His lips curl delightfully up his face, in an arch that feels unfitting for the situation.

His palms are near freezing against Coles arm, and his eyes must be dispensing the eerie purple glow of the oni as Jays eyes grow wide, and he reaches forward, probably to tug Cole away, to safety, but Lloyd acts quicker.

"Then let me show you!"

His hands explode with purple glare, Cole flinches hard as it digs into his skin like glass, running up his arms in invisible tendrils of stinging nettles. He tugs, trying to escape Lloyds deathly grip, but he won't let him, no, he was trapped. Lloyd let the power continue to tumble from his fingertips, and he felt it digging into Coles arm. Cole had screamed at first, pained and sudden and hearty, but he'd silenced himself with a biting clench of his jaw and his nose scrunched, putting his focus into trying to get away from the searing cold, but lloyd just wouldn't let go.

Instead of trying to escape, Cole leans back, prying himself and Lloyd up, his arm now in the grip of just one hand as Lloyds other stretches out to grab the abandoned spear before it was out of reach.

From behind Cole, Lloyd can see Nya charging forward, Jay behind her charging up a second attack, and Lloyd points the spear at them, his power focussing through the material and shooting in a burst from the head. It misses Nya by an inch, but it smashes into Jays arm, knocking him off balance and into a roll. It distracts Nya long enough for Lloyd to pool his focus back into his situation with Cole.

With Coles wrist still held captive by Lloyds venomous hand, he's at a disadvantage, so he yanks it down across his torso, trying to break free from the grip, but he inadvertently traps himself in the process.

Lloyd devours the opportunity, tightening his hold on the spear and dragging it back, before stabbing it into Coles abdomen. The earth ninja saw thos, however, and spun around to avoid it, but the blade still nicked his side in a painful laceration that quickly began to soak his gi inblood. It was hardly a deadly injury, but the exposed tissue and muscle the poked through the tear in the fabric and skin was enough to make the other two gasp.

The situation is finally set in stone: Lloyd isn't just fighting, he's fighting to win.

Lloyd finally lets go of Coles wrist, and dodges an arc of lightning that shoots his way. It flies overhead, exploding into the wall of the cabin behind him. Jay charges forward again, electricity flickering between flexed fingers as he uses it to aid his speed and strength, swiping punches at Lloyd that he expertly dodges, aided by his own powers that dances around his palms, shooting out in tendrils whenever someone got too close to him.

Lloyd goes on the offensive, using the spear like a staff, saving the jabs for when Jay was too far to reach in hand-to-hand. It works well for him, and he notices Jays immense stamina is beginning to slow down once more as he lands one-too many hits at his unprotected shoulders.

"Look out," A glowing fist flies over his shoulder, where his head had once been before he'd listened to the voices advice, and it retracts, leaving Lloyd to turn around and fall back into the defensive as Coles earth-powered fists swing at him with the power of an elemental master. For the most part, the flaxen-haired boy can dodge them, but the ones he can't he parrays with his armoured fore-arms, hitting them away with purple aid before bringing them back towards him to protect his torso.

With his opponent weakened by a bloody laceration, and his own abilities strengthened, it was easy enough to knock him down, but not to keep him down.

A second fist flies past his head, and he swings the spear in an arch behind him to clear the threat. It's Nya: She parrays the spear with her hand, and Lloyd puts his attention back to her. She's pulled her hood on, hiding her expression, but her body language says it all: She's stiff, shoulders hunched, and her movements have some kind of hesitation in them which she covers with a blow to the shoulder which Lloyd fails to dodge.

He groans, taking a step back, before fixing his grip on the spear and charging back at her.

They fall into a dance of swiping and dodging, swapping and dodging, Lloyd on the offensive. Nya has the disadvantage of being weaponless, every single one of her attacks had to be precise and timed, so if it went wrong she could dodge the spear that would surely aim to wound.

Nya feigns a punch to his throat, and when he leans back, the spear goes with him. She takes this chance to use her outstretched arm to force herself into momentum. Her heel shoots up, and it meets the arm holding the spear.

He could almost imagine the sickening crunch that would have cut through the air at such a move, his humorous- and probably a few ribs- shattered, but Lloyd was hardly human anymore. The powerful kick hardly knocked him off balance, and all it took was a kick side step for him to take advantage of the water ninja's shock.

He powers his fist and launches it into her sternum, right below her neck, and she wheezes. It sends her back into the parapet, arms shoulder blades digging into the cherise wood as her arms dangle dangerously over the ledge behind her, threatening to plummet into the volcano below.

He watches as her eyes unfucos, for just a second. He winds the spear over his thumb, reaserting his grip and stepping forward. Nya stares back at him, before her hands press together in front of her. She separates them, and water vaper in the air concentrates around her palms. She kicks herself up from the parapet, and she forces herslef into spinjitsu, the water in the air magnetising to her as a tornado forms around her. It charges toward him, and he falls backwards to get out of her way, rolling over her shoulder and then to the side as a bolt of elemental lightning strikes the ground next to him.

Like a barrage, he barely dodges an earth punch directed to his temple, leaping to the side, but his attacker must have seen this coming as his fists swings to the side, connecting like a hammer with the side of his head.

The world seems to lag behind- just like Fist to Face Legend, he fondly compares- as his ears ring. His back thumps against the ground, and so does the other side of his head. The ringing doesn't stop, and his vision doesn't catch up either, but he rolls into a wobbly kip up. He huffs all the breath from his lungs as he moves, and as his feet land he breathes it all in again. It's warm, and unpleasant, but it is what it is.

Through the haze, he sees Cole figure lurking closer, and he blindly slashes the spear in an arc towards the sky across his abdomen. Cole dodges the swipe, but he steps forward, under the raised spear, and dooms himself.

Lloyd brings the spear down, muscles tensing with the force, and his palms feel bruised with the force that reverberates back into him as the spear lodges itself into the groove of Coles neck.

The feeling of the spear cutting through skin, muscle and bone vibrated up the body of the spear, into his fingers. He grimaced.

Cole screams through a clenched jaw, reflexively jumping back, away from the source, but the escape forces the spear to saw through more flesh, revealing stringy pieces of muscle and tissue that hung from the wound. The edges of his clavicle peeked through, starkly white against the bright red that burst out from the wound like drum-beats.

Coles arm hangs numbly by his side as he backed away, face sour and eyes tensly open, focussing on Lloyd, not letting him get the jump.

But Lloyd doesn't even look at Cole anymore. He hardly stutters before sending a blast of metallic indigo in Nya direction. Distracted by the situation, she fails to realise, and it hits her spot on. She's blasted back into the cabin wall, where her head knocks painfully against the wood and she collapses to the side, unmoving.

Jay, who had snapped out of his immense worry for Coles injury- which was now leaking some kind of purple dust- charges up a volt in the palms of his hand, ducking before arching his fingers at the attacker and shooting out bolt upon bolt.

Lloyd jumps between them, rolling and ducking and dodging each strike as they explode against the deck of The Bounty, leaving ebony burns in their wake.

Each of them fail to stop the son of Garmadon as he charges forward with a powerful swing that appears almost blurry as it cuts through the air, body battering against the lightning ninja's chest and slamming him into the floor.

Lloyd almost laughs. Triple combo.

Quickly, he storms forward to once again incapacitate the boy, boots stomping against his forearms as they press against the floor either side of his head, stopping the kip up that he was bound to leap into. He misses one, and it clambers up and clutches as far up his leg as it can. Sparks of electricity shoot up his leg before he can even think to kick the hand away, but this time Lloyd is prepared. He infuses his very blood with oni power, giving himself the strength to kick at the arm until it flung from it's hold, electricity sparking around the air as it loses its conductor, kicking it again and again and ignoring Jays yells of pain until it was stuck securely under the weight of his boot, bones shifting over top one another under his foot.

Somewhere around the two, Cole and Nya struggle to stand, yelling for Jay as they watch Lloyd raise the spear above his head.

He pauses.

Jay stares up at him, an expression only akin to the fear one would have of a sorry god.

"You shouldn't have said anything."

He plunges the spear down.

He doesn't know what's louder; Cole and Nyas ear bleeding cries, or the sound of the spear hitting the Bounties deck behind Jay's neck. Or maybe it was the horrifying sound of Jays scream being muffled by blood that flooded his mouth, and would quickly suffocate his lungs. The liquid bubbles out of the boys mouth and- of course- the wound, spraying and pulsing in time to his heart beat. As Lloyd yanks the spear from where it had pierced his throat, he feels the vibrations of the golden material rubbing against the boy's spine, a sickening thing, too familiar to the way the spear had been pulled from his own chest. He could see the fleshy insides of Jay's throat, pooling with fresh red that ran down and stained the wooden floor, probably dripping below deck and staining down there as well.

Jay's arms tense and flinch below his boots as he tries and fails to bring them to cover the wound, his chest heaving up and down with his expanding lungs as he desperately tries to suck air into them, but no air could get to his lungs through the severed wind pipe, not to mention past the clots of blood that filled his airways.

Lloyd releases Jay's arm, allowing him to reach up and clutch at the fatal wound. He couldn't breath, it would only be a matter of time before the wound claimed his life.

But it was inflicted by the Spear of Concentration. Despite the brutality of it, Jay's body would be transferred to the tomb any second now, and he'd wake up free of physical injuries. At least he hoped assumed.

All too quickly, with shallow remorse, he turns away from Jays convulsing bloody body to face Cole, who leans heavily on the parapet, almost fully collapsed, staring frozen and teary eyed at the body of his best friend. Lloyd doubts he even notices the thick plumes of violet dust and gaseous stuff bleeding from the injury at his nape and abdomen, dissolving into the air and faintly streaming towards the stern, before disappearing without a trace.

I guess that's what it looks like when you get transported to the island, he concludes. A glance back at Jays figure- body still twitching with movement, but doused in purple dust that blew off in the same direction as Cole's- confirmed his suspicion.

Abruptly, he feels a powerful impact smash against his temple, and his head cracks to the side as he loses his footing and tumbles to the side. He half lands in the pool of blood dripping from Jay, and it soaks into his brand new gi, ruining it. He almost groans, not even at the pain bursting from his temple as a laceration leaks dark red blood down his face in a heavy stream, but at the fact that he'd have to once again pick out a new gi before confronting the rest of his team.

Lloyd focusses back on what was important, and that was getting back at his surrogate sister.

He twists his body on it's back, hair slopping into the red puddle, and forces his elbows up, jabbing the spear up and driving her violent attack of pummeling water to the side as she dodged. He felt the heat radiating off of the water beside him, and it made sense. They were above the hottest volcano in the realms, how could any water that survived the temperature be anything but boiling?

The spear swings in a gaping arch in front of him, forcing her to move away from him. It allowed him the safety to kip up, landing with a heavy thud against the soggy deck.

He charges forward with the spear again, body low as he thrusts and jabs it wherever she stood, not allowing a second of rest. She powerfully blocks the attacks that she can't dodge, the backs of her forearms most likely covered in angry bruises by now.

He wishes she'd just stop moving and let him stab her already. Just a quick, clean injury that will send her away where he wouldn't have to worry about her stopping him.

Her attacks are quick, powerful, backed up by years of training, natural strength, and elemental power all in one, but she was only human. While she grew tired, her stamina running on adrenaline, anger, and grief, Lloyd grew stronger. The fight fuelled him more and more, each of his jabs moving with more speed, more power, and he knew she noticed it. She knew she had met her match, however she would not give up. She would not quit.

But the power of destruction and chaos ran through her surrogate brother veins, empowering his every move, and her years of training with him, learning each other's moves, was wearing thin, and she could only last against so many strikes of raw oni power before it became too much.

After a failed swipe at Lloyds stomach, he responded with a similarly placed punch, winding her to the point of partial unconsciousness. With thinning adrenaline and no strength left to hold her up, she finally fell, and unable to tense her neck to protect her, her skull connected with the ground, a cracking sound splitting the air.

She leans onto her side, arms folded together as she tries to move despite the way the world would surely be spinning around her, but Lloyd wastes no time pressing just one of his boots against the both of her forearms, oni powers helping to keep her from escaping.

Her eyes close for a second, and he breath hitches and putters as she gasps and cough, thick, yellow-ish blood splatting against her chin. She was suffering from a haemorrhage.

He grimaces.

But she hardly seems to take notice of her own situation. She just glances behind her attacker, presumably at Cole's disappearing figure, and then at Jay, who was on the verge of being completely gone. His entire body was shrouded in thick plumes of purple as it sprayed into the distance, all except his face. It resembled that of a corpse, the way blood dribbled down from his lips and nostrils, across pale skin to stain the whites of his eyes, which were blank as they fluttered and twitched. He would assume the boy was dead if not for the pump of blood leaking from his neck in time to his heart beat.

She glances back at Lloyd, just in time to see him shakily raise the spear.

But his arms tense, and a shiver wracks his spine as he stares down at his sister. He finds himself unable to finish the job he'd started. Unable to bring the spear down on her throat like he had done so easily with Jay- her yin, practically his brother.

But Nya- she wasn't practically his sister. She was his sister, even if not by blood. She'd always been there, she was there when he was sad, when he was happy, when he was hurt, when he lost his childhood, she was always there. She'd fight tooth and nail for him, she'd do anything just to see him safe- but Lloyd?

Once, he would have said he'd do the same. But here he was now, betraying her, about to stab her. Fatally wound her just so she wouldn't get in the way of his quest for power.

Their eyes meet.

"Why are you doing this, Lloyd?" She croaks through bloodied lips. He expected her to shout at him, with a rage filled tone as she cussed him out to the cursed realm.

But she had none of that. Instead, her eyes stared at him with some kind of sick forgiveness, her voice filled with nothing but pity, like she was speaking to a child who needed comforting.

Bitterness and rage found itself back into his system, and he felt his nose scrunch as he stared at her.

"She's always been like this, hasn't she?" The voice sneers. "Underestimating you. She thinks you won't do it, she thinks you are weak. Prove her wrong."

He feels strength course back into his arms.

"I'm sorry," He mutters, all remorse vanishing from his tone, and he breathes in before bringing the spear back down with a harsh breath out.

It clashes painfully against her ribs, shattering the protective blockade and shredding through her lung. The spear collided fully with the floor below her, lodging itself into the wood, skewering her to the ground just like he had done to Jay. She screamed, blood curdling and full of cracks as her ability was interrupted by harsh blood flow into her lungs, not to mention the foreign object currently invading her lung, burning it in pain. Her hyperventilation quickly dissolved into choking as blood, thick and slimy, poured from her mouth and nose.

Her head dangled uselessly to the side as her eyes widened: She could no longer breathe. She knew she would quickly suffocate to death, and the thought was incredibly panic inducing.

She tried to cough out the blood that choked her, hands flexing and unflexing under Lloyds crushing boot as she tried to escape, but neither to any avail. The moisture in the air seemed to gather around her finger tips as she tried to condense it, trying to save herself, a reflex, but it just soaked into her sleeves and the wood below her pale fingers.

Blood dripped from it as she howled, and like routine her hands shook to press against the injury around the spear. Lloyd tugged it out, nicking the palms of Nya's hands at the speed, and Nya choked on her shallow breath as she felt her organs shift at the exit of the spear.

She quickly pressed a hand against it, trying to close it, using her free arm to drag herself across the ground, away from the threat, away from her brother.

The green ninja stumbles away, the situation suddenly catching up to him as he tries to snap himself out of the gruesome mindset that enjoyed the horrific things he was doing, the very same mindset that had taken control of him when he'd killed the father and son, back in the tomb. The mindset that craved power, control, destruction.

But the voice- that damned voice- drags him right back, hollering cheers and congratulations, glorifying him, validating his actions in blurs and yells of words he can hardly begin to understand, but all he knows is that it sounded so proud. He couldn't help the fleeting feeling of accomplishment, that he'd done something right.

An explosion of purple and black dust beside him cuts off his thoughts. He turns in surprise, to stare at the source, but there was nothing- noone there. Nothing but a stain of thick blood left behind. The three stared at it in utter horror: Jay was gone.

The voice celebrates, hooting in his mind so loudly he can hardly hear Nyas choked sobs, or Coles shuddering muffled breaths. If it had hands, it would be clapping them, egging Lloyd on. But for now it beckoned him to turn around to face the last remaining enemy: Cole.

He leant against the parapet, legs played out in front of him as his hands clutched one injury each. The effort hardly stopped the streams of purple flurry that dripped out between his fingers. It was incredible, almost as if Cole's blood itself was turning into the strange violet material. Maybe it was.

But it didn't mean Cole had stopped bleeding.

His hands were coated with red, the one at his nape doused in bright red, while the one at his side was a much darker colour. It mixed grossly with the violet, dying it in hideous shades before it faded out.

Lloyds agonising stare was left unreciprocated as Cole's gaze flickered between Nya and the bloody patch where his best friend once lay. His chest heaved and stuttered as he tried to even his breathing through open lips, tried to stop the embarrassing tears that threatened to fall, but they escaped and they just kept rolling down as an angry sob escaped him.

Cole finally met his gaze, and Lloyd was met with pure, unbridled anger. It melted from his eyes, emotive and raw, and his facial expression was complicated yet Lloyd could see when the flip switched. He could see that exact moment when Cole declared revenge in his mind, exactly when Cole decided that all he wanted to do was get up and cave in Lloyds skull, beat him within an inch of consciousness and then pierce his skin and bone with the very spear he had used on them.

But Cole didn't move.

He just sighed, deep and shuddering, and closed his eyes, holding his breath. His nose scrunched and Lloyd knew he had given up. He knew what was going to happen, and there was no point in trying to do otherwise. The spear's abilities would take hold, and soon he would be fully claimed by the midnight dust, doomed to wake up trapped with the rest of the team. With Jay, who was already on his way, and Nya, whose body was already half consumed.

Lloyd felt his grip on the spear tighten as he stared at his friend.

He was suffering.

He was suffering now, and he would be the entire time he waited for the strange purple dust to take him away. Lloyd knew that if he just injured him further, he would be taken quicker. That's how it seemed to work: Cole had already been minorly sliced by the spear twice, but he was still here while Jay was gone and Nya was joining. If Lloyd just did it, severed another artery or two, punctured a lung, maybe a liver, he would be well on his way.

He raised the spear, and threw it into the far wall, far away from both of them. It embedded itself into the wood, stuck.

And there he stood, watching as Cole was slowly taken away, and watching as the last of Nyas' remains faded to midnight as well.

His knees shook, and his muscles cried out for rest, but he wouldn't crumble. Not in front of Cole, not in front of the voice, never.

He was strong, and he'd prove it.

They were just barriers in his way.

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