Chapter Text
Lloyd stared at the criminals with a deadpan look. “Drop the goddamn rocks before I blast your face off.”
Normally, the ninja would tone it down with the violent threats, especially Lloyd, but no one blamed Lloyd for using such a threat this time. This week in Ninjago City had been busy for the ninja. Vengestone has been on the market for criminals for a while now, but the number of vengestone thefts jumped seemingly out of nowhere. The kicker is, not only has vengestone thefts increased, uranium is being stolen too. Last week, there was not a single soul that uttered the word “uranium” in the streets, but now, it’s all anyone is talking about in the criminal underworld, much to the ninja’s dismay. They do not want to deal with a radioactive group of criminals that also have vengestone that could cancel out their powers.
As of now, the ninja have busted another vengestone seeking criminal, thankfully, without blasting anyone’s face off.
“UGHHHHH”
“Me too Jay, me too.” Kai groaned out beside Jay.
Cole walked up to the two exhausted ninja standing next to the ramp of the Destiny’s bounty. “This whole week isn’t funny.”
“Maybe Cole is onto something, this is all probably just a bad joke, EH HEH” Jay gasped out.
Kai smirked. “Yeah! And Jay’s probably right because Jay knows all about bad jokes!”
Jay jumped onto Kai’s back, taking both of them down, and they decided to just stay on the floor. After Jay and Kai refused to move, Cole dragged them both by their legs to the bounty.
On the bounty, Wu called a group meeting. “Ninja! Meet up in the hangar in 2 minutes!”
A simultaneous groan echoed through the bounty from all the ninja as they all begrudgingly made their way to the hangar.
“Ninja, I see that you have been tasked with many duties in the past week, so I have decided to cancel our evening training session to give you a well deserved night off.”
The ninja all cheered. “YES!”
“THANK YOU SENSEI WU!”
“FINALLY!”
The ninja all ran to the gaming room to make a plan for their time off.
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Jay felt his anxiety rise as the team sped through the city in their car. They were on their way to the bar, much to Jay’s protests. Jay has never been one to party while drunk, but Cole and Kai were too excited to get wasted and dance away. If he told them that he didn’t want to do this, what would they say? They’d probably think he was a loser, that’s what. And how can Jay ever say no to Cole?
They finally arrived, and the closer they walked to the bar, the more Jay felt his anxiety rising. What if a criminal finds them here and catches them off guard? The ninja would be too delirious to fight and they will all get kidnapped and tortured and no one will save them because the ninja are who usually do the saving and the criminals will take over Ninjago City and then move onto ALL THE REALMS AND TAKE OVER THOSE AND THEN-
Jay’s anxiety tangent was cut off by an hand grabbing his arm. Just as Jay was about to kick into his anxiety driven instinct and floor this unknown person touching him, he heard Cole’s voice come from the direction of the arm. “You doing okay bluebell?”
Jay immediately felt calmer. “Yes”
“Don’t worry, I will stay next to you the entire night, so just relax! This is the first time in weeks we had time off and after this past week, we definitely deserve it!”
Jay with his newfound confidence (Cole next to him) was actually able to have fun for once. That is until Jay’s worst nightmare came true.
“Bitch get off of me!” A man in all black shouted at Nya, who was tackling him to the ground.
“Only after you tell me why the hell you were following us all night with a gun in your pocket.” Nya hissed at him with a death stare.
So, maybe it wasn’t his worst nightmare, but it still wasn’t a favorable event.
Nya’s death stare must have broken something in the man on the floor because he instantly looked pale and begun rapping his entire plan to the ninja.
“I was sent to capture one of you guys by someone who was going to pay me money to bring you guys in! I was going to shoot one of you in the arm and cuff vengestone around that person’s wrist and bring them to the warehouse before the rest of you idiots realized. I was just about to-”
Kai had kicked the guy and the guy quieted as his eyes closed. “Kai! Why would you do that!”
“Oh come on, it’s not like you guys weren’t thinking of doing that too, that guy was getting on my nerves~” Kai staggered towards Nya.
“Whatever, let’s just get back to the bounty and interrogate this guy in the morning. Let’s gooOooo~” Zane swayed.
“Zane, you can get drunk?”
“Yes.”
“Then who’s gonna drive us home…?”
Lloyd looked at the drunk team and then at himself and sighed. “Who here is the least drunk? Whoever it is, they are driving.”
That driver ended up being Jay and the other ninja piled into the back of the vehicle with Lloyd sitting in the passenger seat. They tied up the guy in all black and stuffed him into the trunk. The ninja team, except for Jay, fell asleep as soon as they sat down. Jay only drank one shot, so he was the most sober. They are all very well aware that none of them should be driving and that this is illegal. The ninja may be the protectors of the city, but they aren’t protectors of the law. If Jay had a dollar for every time the ninja broke the law, lets just say they wouldn’t be living on a flying ship that is holding on for dear life and their ninja uniforms would actually have pockets.
Jay was getting bored with no one to talk with, so he tried to count the number of times he stopped at a red light, but he lost count pretty quick with the sound of snoring in the backseat interrupting his train of thought. Just as Jay was about to wake up Lloyd who was in the passenger for some conversation, a car swerved in front of the ninja’s car a bit too close for comfort. Luckily, Jay managed to turn to the other lane, but not without going up the curb and into a street lamp. Somehow, the other ninja continued to snore through this crash. Jay groaned and then decided he could come back to fix the street lamp when it wasn’t 2am and there weren’t crazy drivers in the street. However, the car made a terrible hissing noise and shrieking noise before coming to a complete stop. He went to get his phone out of his pocket to call the bounty’s line when he saw his phone is dead. Just my luck, right!
Jay got out of the car and walked around it to find out what was wrong while cursing with such conviction that it would impress even Kai, the team’s most frequent swearer.
“…those lunatic shitstains covered in bitchshit horse’s ass shit looking idiot drivers-” Just as Jay was about to near the end of his “shitty monologue”, he looked down to see a flat tire. Jay knew there is definitely more that was wrong with the vehicle since only a flat tire wouldn’t make the whole thing stop, but he told himself to fix the tire first. A flat tire might seem normal, but this one is different, the place where the tire was punctured seemed to be blinking red, weird. Jay was too tired to question it. BEEP…He got the spare tire from the trunk by taking out the guy they were going to interrogate later and put him back in after getting the tire. He used a carjack to pick up the car and take off the tire. BEEP... What is that beeping? Whatever, he’ll deal with it later. Man, Sensei Wu would be disappointed, he thought. BEEP... “Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today…” Jay giggled to himself and continued despite the beeping.
He sat next to the wheel and put on the new tire. BEEP BEEP... He was about to tighten the lug nuts of the tire when he noticed that the beeping he had been hearing picked up the pace. BEEP BEEP... He was about to shrug it off again and continue working when he saw out of the corner of his eye a countdown timer that was in sync with the beeping hidden in the tire. 10… A beeping countdown. Inside of the punctured tire. With a blinking red light. 9… His eyes grew with realization and that woke up Jay in an instant. 8… 7… Jay stood up so fast that he felt like he was going to faint, but he ignored the lightheaded feeling. I could zap it! No, that might make it explode right here. 6… He kicked the tire, but probably not far enough, he couldn’t see the timer anymore, but he knew he was running out of time. Goddamn it, this tire is big and heavy. It was probably too close to the other ninja and Jay didn’t know how big the explosion would be. BEEP BEEP… BEEP BEEP… BEEP BEEP…Shit, I don’t know how much time is left. Jay ran as fast as he can to the tire and kicked it again. BEEP BEEP… The tire flew through the air and landed a few feet away. BEEP BEEP…Jay looked back at the car. Hopefully the car is far enough-
Jay felt the painful, burning impact hit him as he flew, in which way, he did not know. He saw a mix of blue, orange, and yellow, then nothing.