Chapter Text
They had almost made it. Kai nearly collapsed from relief as Zane's hand touched the handle of the temple door, and with nearly three strikes till dawn.
He was safe. They were all safe. He fell to his knees outside the temple door and stared as the translucent tips of his fingers slowly regained corporeality.
Jay had begun to laugh just ahead of him, the slight tremors of his bubbling alleviation pulling at the rope tying the four of them together. It was tugged even harder as he bent forward, leaning down to kiss the ground where they had landed. It scooted Kai forward as well and the rope behind him flopped flaccidly in suit with a notable brushing sound against the dirt. It moved as though disconnected. As though...
Kai's head whipped around. Behind him, where Cole should've been, sat a twisted, untethered rope and a scroll rolling down the temple steps after it.
He scrambled towards the temple, stumbling, tripping and nearly kicking Jay as the rope held him back. "COLE!!" he shouted, one hand struggling with the rope at his waist while the other reached out for where he hoped Cole would magically appear.
A cool, metallic hand grabbed Kai's wrist just as the rope had begun to slip loose. It was calm, yet firm, as if warning him to stop. "Kai... " Zane breathed, a waver to his voice. "I don't think he's..."
Kai refused to hear another word. He jerked his arm back and continued trying to run back to the temple, but he couldn't shake Zane's grip. "NO!!" Kai couldn't breathe. His eyes begun to well up with tears. "HE'S- HE'S NOT GONE!".
Zane adjusted his hold, all but fighting Kai to get an arm around his chest. "We don't know how the curse works. It's too dangerous to go back inside."
"LET ME GO!" Kai roared, tears streaming down his face. His heart beat in his head faster than his lungs could keep up with. His throat stung with each rapid and ragged breath. The very air around him seemed hot and almost sharp on his skin.
Another hand, warmer and slightly grounding in a way, wrapped around his ankle. "Kai... you can't help him right now... You have to stop."
A jolt sparked from Kai's ankle to the rest of his body, frying each nerve with energy before leaving an empty disconnection in it's place. "No..." Kai wheezed, barely above a whisper, as his body shut down and the whole world went dark around him.
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Lloyd awoke to the splash of cold wet droplets on his skin and the pitter patter of rain resonating on the bars of his cage. It was pitch dark, only lit by the ethereal and otherworldly glow of the ghosts resting in the corner.
The cage was flush against the very rim of the cave Morro and his ghouls had chosen for shelter. It's bars were a rusted brown, peeling in small fragments that splintered into Lloyd's skin at awkward angles. Nevertheless, they were thick, too thick to break in any feasible way before his captors would notice.
His neck ached as he craned his head to get a better look at the outside waiting for him. He tried to remember where he was. He clutched his head as he thought, brain foggy and head heavy as he attempted to sift through whatever memories might've remained from when Morro possessed him.
He saw unhelpful flashes of leaves and trees alongside even less helpful flashes of attacking his friends, sending them flying and falling this way and that. He'd tried to hurt them. No- not him, Morro. He needed to remember that.
Suddenly, like the strike of a match, a memory sizzled into his mind, sharp and stinging. It was a hill. It was the hill they had climbed to get here.
He focused his eyes and, sure enough, just past the first few rows of trees, the ground dropped off. He couldn't quite see to where, but he was sure it was the direction from which they came. He hoped it would lead back to the city.
He gripped the bars closest to the cave wall and jerked his whole body in the opposite direction, lifting the edge of the cage. It teetered on its edge for a moment before falling back with a bang, this time precariously leaning against the wall at a diagonal.
The lights in the cave pulsed and flickered as the ghosts stirred at the noise. There wasn't even time to think. Lloyd jerked the cage back one more time, the effort straining his shoulder as his muscles nearly locked up. The cage crashed onto its side, much louder than the first time.
Morro jolted upright, eyes wide. He lunged after him as Lloyd began to roll out into the forest, fingers nearly brushing the edge of the cage before flying back as he screeched in pain as the water sizzled on his arm.
"No, no, no, no, NOOOOOO! I'M THE-"
And as the rolling cage sped up through the forest and down the hill, Lloyd could faintly hear Morro's voice carrying through the trees, calling after him. He wondered if it was the last thing he'd ever hear.
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Cole couldn't quite hear his feet hit the ground as he stepped out of Yang's temple. He couldn't quite hear much at all at first. Everything sounded muffled and wrong.
The one thing he could hear was Kai. He was screaming. Cole couldn't tell what he was saying, but he looked devastated. His face was scrunched up as tears poured down his face and he fought the rope at his waist. He was reaching out at him, calling to him, Cole realized.
He rushed over to him and kneeled beside a sobbing Kai.
"Kai, I'm okay," he tried to console him. "I untied the rope to make sure we got the scroll, but it will never- never happen again." He leaned in for a hug, but Kai didn't seem receptive, still hysterically crying and reaching out for who knows what behind him.
"We have to go back," Kai muttered.
Cole stood up, taking a step back only to see Zane standing behind Kai with a firm hold on his hand. Kai was still trying to shake him loose, but it didn't appear to have much effect.
"Zane, what's going on? What happened?" Cole asked, brows slightly furrowing at his hold on Kai's wrist.
"Kai... " Zane breathed, a waver to his voice. "I don't think he's..."
"Don't think he's what?" Cole interjected. "What's happening?!" He looked Kai over just to be sure he wasn't injured somehow. He looked fine, and yet they were all acting so strange. Even Jay, who would normally be more talkative than ever in an instance like this, sat still as a statue, not even looking at them.
"NO!! HE'S- HE'S NOT GONE!" Kai screamed, fighting Zane more forcefully now. Zane adjusted his hold from Kai's wrist to his chest, seeming more or less about to cry himself.
"Who? Yang?" Cole puzzled. Nothing made sense. Was something happening happening to Kai? Did something happen to Kai? Was this part of the curse?
"We don't know how the curse works. It's too dangerous to go back inside."
"For what?!", it took all of Cole's effort not to shout.
"LET ME GO!" Kai roared. He started to hyperventilate. He looked almost sick from crying, his eyes reddening and his voice growing hoarse.
"Kai!" Cole insisted, lightly resting a hand on his shoulder, "You're going to be okay. You just-"
"Kai... you can't help him right now... You have to stop." Jay interrupted ominously.
Cole turned back just in time to see Jay's hand spark with electricity on Kai's ankle. Kai fell into Zane's hold on him, muscles twitching slightly.
"What the hell, man?!" Cole seethed. "You see your friend having a hard time and you just what? TAZE HIM?"
Before Cole could finish, Jay began to break down as well. He crumpled into a ball on the floor while Zane shifted Kai into the proper approximation of a piggy back.
"We have to go, Jay," Zane sighed, turning to pick up the scroll before helping Jay to his feet.
"I- I don't know what we're going to do," Jay sniffled as they began to walk back towards the monastery.
"If you could just tell me what-" Cole started.
"He was good." Zane choked, the cracks in his calm facade becoming evermore apparent. "He won't go to the Cursed Realm like Morro. I'm sure- ", his breath hitched. "I'm sure that wherever he is, Cole's in a better place."
That was the last thing Cole heard before Kai, his friends, his entire life, and quite possibly his entire perception of reality, walked away. And it felt like it might be forever before he got them, any of them, back.