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We can't all be mountains all the time. Sometimes, we need to be small enough to be held in both hands . . .
-Caputvulpinum (Tumblr)
Cole was a ghost. He was intangible and almost drifted out of the memories of his friends and family like they had mourned him and were ready to move on.
Then after the Day of the Departed, he was back. He was mortal again and could feel the ground beneath his feet. He could taste cake and feel the warmth of hugs again. Cole could feel the sunshine on his skin. He was alive.
He was grateful to no longer be in limbo. The in-between of incorporeal but not dead. Not really. Could he be a ghost without being dead? There must have been a reason he wasn’t pulled to the Departed Realm for a long time.
Now, he has a stronger connection with his elemental powers. He could pound his fists together and feel the molten earth light up his veins. He felt stronger with this connection. Like he could do anything.
However, it was difficult to control his hands when they went from barely able to hold a weapon to crushing glasses like they were made from paper.
Then they had to fight Acronix at the destroyed Monastery of Spinjitzu. Cole spent a good portion of the fight trying to pry his hand out of a wooden barrier that he launched himself into. Before that, Acronix had caught his sloppy punch and launched him back at his fellow ninja.
Acronix had gotten away and they found Master Wu dangling by one hand on a branch over the cliff edge.
Cole felt his earth energy send smelted rock through his veins which he channeled to pull Master Wu up. He looked at his glowing hands. If he had one moment of hesitation, he would have dropped Master Wu to his death. He knew it. One flicker of his mind forgetting he wasn’t a ghost and it was all over.
He was so distracted he didn’t realize how hot his hands and arms had gotten. Jay reached over to pull him into standing and also away from the cliff’s edge. But as soon as Jay’s palm came in contact with Cole’s, Jay cried out and snatched it away.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Oh, fricken first! Hot hot hot!” Jay held his right wrist with his left hand, the skin of his palm an angry red, ugly bubbling blisters already formed. He had tears streaming down his face from the pain.
“Nya, get some water on that. I’ve got to take Wu to the Bounty,” Lloyd told them, supporting Wu’s weight.
“Shouldn’t we try some of Zane’s ice?” Cole asked worriedly. He didn’t mean to burn Jay! He hadn’t realized how much his power warmed up his arms. It doesn’t hurt him at all, so why could he hurt Jay?
“Actually, ice is not recommended for burns since it can cause additional damage to the skin tissue and increase the risk of an infection,” Zane informed him.
Oh, great, now Cole was basically trying to hurt Jay.
Nya cradled Jay’s hand in a water bubble between her palms. Cole moved forward to comfort Jay, but Jay flinched out of the way of Cole’s hand, leaving it hovering awkwardly in the air where Jay’s shoulder was.
“Sorry, I, I can’t -” Jay broke off into more sniffles.
“It’s ok. Kai will get you patched up,” Nya soothed. “He’s had a lot of experience with burns.”
Cole never wanted to hurt his best friend. These powers were supposed to make it easier to protect everyone, not cause them pain.
Maybe these powers are a curse. A punishment for not staying a ghost.
Maybe it would be better if he stopped touching people until he could figure out how to control himself.
Then they were downtown Ninjago City responding to the new samurai attacking civilians at the BorgWatch release.
“Hang on, guys! There’s been something I’ve wanted to try again,” Cole told them.
“Oh, what, that earth punch thing? Like it worked so well last time,” Jay said with sarcasm and bitterness.
“No problem,” Cole assured him. He will not mess this up. He can control himself and not hurt anyone or his team.
The molten rock lit up his arms and he launched an attack on the samurai. After a loud boom from the reverberation of the impact, the samurai burst into a dozen pieces and snakes.
“Woah.”
“Gross.”
“You - you totally disintegrated him!” Jay cried out.
“It - it -it was an accident!” Cole cried out. Did he just punch this guy to death? Cole felt all the rocks settle in his stomach before the samurai reformed and launched another attack.
Soon enough, they jumped into their spinjitzu to try and take down the snake samurai. Cole kept an eye out for Jay since he had to do any punches with his left hand with his right having the bandaged burn under his glove.
The next day, he and Jay got paired up to try and stop the snake samurai from kidnapping citizens after Nya went to help her brother at the museum.
Cole spent most of the battle trying to fight his own momentum, but each throw launched him out of balance. Jay yelled at him to get control of them or at least focus the collateral on the snake samurai.
When Cole finally, finally was able to land a hit on one of them and send them flying, he knocked them into Jay who got knocked into a dumpster.
“Jay!” Cole cried out. He knew that Jay should have stayed back at the Airjitzu Temple until his hand was healed.
Cole went to help him out, moving trash out of the way.
“Hurry, Jay. Get out of there.”
“Just - just don’t hurt me,” Jay said, looking afraid of Cole.
Cole felt devastated. He knew Jay had a point. He melted a lamp post just recently. He was not improving his skill level at all.
Cole used both hands to hold up the dumpster lid while Jay hauled himself out with one hand.
“We’re going to need to re-disinfect your hand,” Cole told him gently, keeping out of arm's reach.
“Well, might as well head back to the temple. We couldn’t stop them from taking all those people,” Jay said sadly, not looking at Cole.
“We’ll get them back,” Cole tried to stay positive.
After the fight, they went back to the Airjitzu Temple. Cole didn’t offer to help with Jay’s wound, feeling bad enough that he caused it. It seemed like ever since becoming a solid human again, all he could do was mess things up and hurt the people he cared about.
Cole made sure to hold himself back from the others. Nya went to brush past him in the kitchen and Cole jumped out of the way like a cat touching tin foil. But she was so busy trying to get stuff for Zane that she didn’t notice.
Lloyd has spent most of his time with Master Wu while he was trying to recover. Cole was lucky his arms weren’t at their full molten temperature when he helped Wu up. Then Wu would be dealing with a burn as well as whatever drained his strength.
Who knows? Maybe it was Cole himself who did it. Drained Wu of his strength to fuel his own. But there was no basis for that. Still, the thought crossed his mind.
Kai was distracted by something. He was the type of person to get blinders on and not focus on anyone else when something has caught his interest.
It made it easy to avoid them.
“Let’s have you try normal punches,” Jay said.
Cole knew he was pushing himself to try and be comfortable around him again and to not flinch when Cole moved too close. He stopped going through the moving boxes and looked up at Jay.
“What?”
“Maybe if you practice with normal punches again with your back-to-solid hands, it’ll be easier to control your lava arms.”
“Lava arms?”
“That’s what they look like.” And feel like, but Jay wasn’t going to mention that.
Cole was reluctant but caved when he saw how earnest Jay was.
“C’mon. My hand is healing well and you could use something to take your mind off of it,” Jay said.
They went out to the front courtyard where Kai was abusing some training dummies. Jay put the sparing glove on his left hand and used his right arm to brace behind it.
“Just, try to be gentle?”
Cole figured that if he only touched the glove, he wouldn’t actually be touching Jay. Plus, maybe Jay’s theory had merit. If he can learn to control himself, he wouldn’t be putting his teammates in danger.
So Cole practiced punching normally.
Jay started the conversation about Acronix and Crux when he saw that Cole was still in his own head.
The complaining and theorizing helped Cole stay in the moment and not dwell on how close he was to Jay. The molten rock in his veins was cool as stone.
“You know they could be aliens!” Jay said.
Cole rolled his eyes and punched the training glove.
“Or maybe they came from a dimensional rift!”
Punch.
“Or Elvin magic portals!”
Punch, punch, punch. Cole was able to hit harder but still stay in control without turning on his powers. Maybe he was getting better.
When their conversation got flowing, Cole felt the frustration of everything heat up the stones in his blood and he let out a lava punch on the ground.
This, of course, launched Jay into the air and he landed hard.
“I’m so sorry!” Cole cried out and went to help him up, but hesitated on touching him.
“I’m sorry, it’s just - I’m tired of speculating. We need to take action. Right, Kai?” He and Jay looked over to see Kai taking out his own aggression.
Eventually, Lloyd herded them back inside to come up with a plan.
“Psst, hey Cole, you seem out of it. Are you ok?” Kai whispered to him.
“Um, yeah, I’m fine. Seems to me like I should be asking you that,” Cole whispered back.
“He’s not fine. I’ve forgiven him for accidentally burning me and I’m working on being more comfortable around him, but he avoids me,” Jay butts in.
Llyod was still speculating and drawing out possible locations on the large paper in front of them.
“Yeah, well, excuse me for not wanting to hurt my best friend again,” Cole huffs.
“It’s fine! I’m used to being tossed around like a cheerleader with a team that has bad aim. Yeah, the burn really hurt, but I’ve been hurt worse.”
“That’s not the point,” Cole said. He couldn’t control himself. Who’s to say it won’t be worse next time?
“You’re afraid of burning us?” Kai asked.
“Of course I am. I’m a danger!” Cole’s whisper turned into a loud hiss.
Kai turned to Lloyd who was still mumbling at his drawings that he, Cole, and Jay were pretending to listen to.
“Hey, uh, Lloyd. We’re gonna go to the bathroom,” Kai said and grabbed his and Jay’s hands.
Cole was startled. He doesn’t think he’s had skin contact with any of his teammates in at least a week. Kai’s hand was warm. He looked over at Jay who was following at his side and gave him one of the many looks they shared: what’s up with this guy?
Kai dragged them into the kitchen and sat them both at the kitchen table while he stood across from them.
“Cole, you’re a big touchy-feely guy. Please tell me you haven’t been isolating yourself,” Kai said with his arms crossed, making Cole feel like he was being scolded.
“Um,” Cole said eloquently.
“He has! I forgave him but it still took so much convincing for us to spar together and even then we couldn’t do a full one, just punch practicing. He hasn’t given me a hug in days!” Jay whined.
“You were afraid of me,” Cole said to him quietly.
“Okay, I wasn’t afraid of you. I was a little intimidated about your powers.”
Cole went to respond but Jay did what he did best and talked over him.
“But! I trusted you. I trusted you would figure it out and that you would never hurt me again.” Then he thought back to the courtyard and the street fight where he was launched into the air. “Not on purpose anyway,” Jay amended.
“Cole, you’ve always been so careful with your strength. Always so gentle,” Kai told him and dropped his arms down to the table and tried to emphasize his point so that Cole didn’t misinterpret anything.
“You don’t think Jay hasn’t zapped us? Or that Zane almost gave any of us frostbite?” Kai asked.
A little quieter, “Or that I haven’t burned anyone?”
Cole met Kai’s eyes, then.
“But, you’re always so careful. You’ve never burned any of us,” Cole was confused. Kai was also very careful with his powers since he knew how dangerous they were.
“The point is,” Kai paused and tried to figure out how to word it. “We do better. We don’t lose sight of those around us. Hurting someone once is terrible. It’s something you don’t forget.
“But we can use it . Remember the look on their face when it was you that hurt them. And you take that, and you let it be a reminder to never hurt family again. That you will not let yourself hurt them again.
“Have you burned anyone since?” Kai finished with a question.
“No, but, I’m afraid I will,” Cole confessed.
“C’mere,” Kai grabbed his hand again and pulled him into a hug.
“You can’t burn me. I’m the elemental master of fire and I trust you,” Kai said.
And Cole just melted . He felt the warmth of Kai pressed against him and he gripped the back of his gi to pull him closer. Tears were pricking his eyes by the time Kai let go.
“Incoming!” Jay cried and launched himself at Cole.
Cole caught him. Of course he did.
And as Jay hugged him tight, Cole let the tears fall.
He will never hurt them again. He will remember Jay’s cry anytime he activates his lava arms and it will fuel his oath. His desire to protect.
He is the elemental master of earth. Of stone. Of rock. Of fossils. Of magma.
And he will protect his family.