Return of an Old Foe

Late Night Talk

Disclaimer: I don't own Ninjago, just the story.

Jay was laying down in his cell.  He was looking up and saw the moon through the bars of the cell.  He has only been there for a couple of days so far and it has been complete torture.  Nadakhan wants to have the satisfaction of seeing Jay finally break, but Jay won't give in.  Nadakhan has been letting the entire crew beat Jay up while making him scrub the ship.  Every part of him was hurting and he was glad that everyone was sleeping because it gave him a break, if only for a little while.  He wished that he could also get to sleep, but it evaded him for a whatever reason.  He sighed.  "Please hurry up, guys."

The Bounty

Nya laid awake on her bed in the room that all the ninja shared on the Bounty.  She couldn't sleep.  They still had no sign of where Nadakhan took Jay and she was extremely worried.  They had made a plan before going to bed that they would head to Tiger Widow Island in the morning to get the Tiger Widow's venom.  They may not have a map, but Nya remembers the way.  Since the timeline reset, the Tiger Widow should still be alive.

She looked around at everyone else's beds.  She couldn't understand how all of them could sleep when Jay was still missing and probably being tortured.  She took a second glance around and noticed that Jay's bed wasn't the only one that was empty.

She sat up and walked out to the kitchen and wasn't surprised that the light was on.  "Couldn't sleep?"

"Nya!" Cole shrieked.  "Don't scare me like that!"

"Sorry," Nya apologized.  "I noticed you weren't in your bed, so I decided to see where you were."

"You couldn't sleep either, I'm guessing."

"No.  I can't believe that the others are sleeping so easily."  Nya sat down next to Cole at the table.

"I'm not sure either."  They sat there in silence for a few minutes before Cole spoke again.  "I'm sorry."

Nya looked at him confused.  "For what?"

"For forcing Jay to pick dare and causing all of this."

Nya sighed.  "It's not your fault.  I'll admit, I did blame you and Kai immediately after Nadakhan took Jay, but you didn't know that would happen, none of us did.  I just can't believe that Nadakhan is back."

There was a question Cole wanted to ask and knew it might be a sensitive topic, but it was bugging him too much.  "What exactly did happen to Jay on Nadakhan's ship back in the erased timeline?"

Nya sighed again.  "I don't know.  I knew it was bad because of the injuries he received, but he never actually told me what happened.  I tried to press him to tell me whenever he had a nightmare about it, but he just shrugged it off and told me it's not important.  I always told him that it is important, but he still wouldn't tell me."

"He had nightmares?"

"Yeah."  Nya looked away.  "We both did."

"You both know you could've told us, right?"

Nya looked back at Cole.  "At the time, none of you knew what had happened.  We were the only ones to keep the memories and we didn't want to burden any of you by telling you about Nadakhan."

Cole was confused.  "Burden us?  It wouldn't have been a burden on us to know, but I don't think that's the real reason."

"Fine," she conceeded.  "We just weren't ready to tell you guys at the time."

"What are you guys doing up?"  Both of them looked up at the sound of Lloyd's voice.

"Couldn't sleep," Cole answered simply.

"You both really should get some rest."

"If it was that easy, don't you think we would?" Nya asked.

"And if you believe we should be sleeping, why are you up?" Cole asked.

"Well, I was sleeping," Lloyd said.  "I just couldn't anymore, but I'm pretty sure neither of you have slept at all."  Lloyd sat down with them.

"No, we couldn't even if we tried," Nya said.

"Does anyone know what time it is?"

Cole looked at the clock they had on the wall.  "3am," he responded.  "The others won't be up for a few hours."

The three ninja sat in silence for a few minutes until Lloyd spoke up again.  "Nya, you know where we're going tomo-, or later today, right?"

"Yeah," Nya said.  "Tiger Widow Island.  We should find the spider there, but we also need to be careful.  Just one drop of the venom can kill us."

"But it's the only thing that can slow down a djinn, right?" Cole asked.

"Yeah."  Nya sighed.  "I'll be honest, I don't want to go back there, but getting the Tiger Widow's venom is the only way we'll be able to stop Nadakhan and save Jay."

"Don't worry," Lloyd said.  "We'll get Jay back and bring him home.  You said we defeated Nadakhan before."

"Jay beat him before with his final wish."

"Wait," Cole said.  "If everything that happened with Nadakhan before didn't actually happen, do we each have three wishes again?"

"That's a good question," Lloyd said.

"It doesn't matter!" Nya exclaimed.  "We aren't going to start using wishes willy-nilly even if we did have them!  The only time we can try using a wish is once we hit Nadakhan with the venom and even then, we would need to be careful about the way we word it.  Nadakhan loves to twist our words."

"Got it.  No wishes.  You also know about his crew.  We may not be sure if he got them back, but is there anything we should know."

"There are a few members who we mainly dealt with," Nya began to explain.  "First is Flintlocke.  He is a very accurate shot and Nadakhan's second-in command.  Next is Doubloon.  He can't talk, but he is a skilled fighter and knows Spinjitzu.  Then, there's Clancee.  He's not much of a threat.  He's actually a nice Serpentine and I don't know why he's part of Nadakhan's crew.  He really doesn't fit in with the Sky Pirates.  Next up is Monkey Wretch.  He's a mechanic and one mean monkey."

"He's a monkey?" Cole asked confused.

"Yes.  He is.  Don't ask.  Anyway, the final member to watch out for is Dogshank.  She's definitely the strongest physically."

"Good to know."  Lloyd stood up.  "I don't know about you guys, but if I'm gonna be up, might as well start getting ready for our mission."  He started walking towards the control room and Cole and Nya followed suit.  They were going to have a long day ahead of them.

A/N: Sorry this took so long.  I had a lot going on and got stumped at one part.  I hope you enjoyed!