Chapter Text
Jay sat bolt upright once more, breathing hard and clutching at his chest. His mind came around before the rest of his senses, so his vision was still blurry as he scanned the room to find the same consistencies as the last two times he woke.
Much to Jay's displeasure, he was suddenly pretty willing to bet that none of this was a dream, and he was just enough of a movie buff to make a guess at what was going on here.
A time loop, like in those movies he'd watched with his parents. Although, he was pretty sure that death hadn't been a common occurrence in those.
Wasn't the day supposed to reset at, y'know, the end of the day? Instead, it seemed that his was resetting when one of the other ninja got themselves killed in some freak accident.
Jay listened a little closer to the noises around him, managing to pick up on the sounds of chatter down the hall, distinctly Kai and Lloyd's voices.
Kai was okay, for now at least. And Nya was still next to him, her chest slowly rising and falling as she slept.
He didn't bother waking her before getting out of bed this time. He knew she'd want him to, so she'd have more time to eat and relax before training started, but he just couldn't stomach that repetition right now.
He stopped at the bathroom first, taking a few deep breaths and splashing water on his face a few times.
“Everything's gonna be fine, Jay..” He mumbled to himself, drying his face on a towel and stepping back out of the bathroom. “There's gotta be some way to fix this.”
“Good morning, Jay.” Zane said as Jay walked into the kitchen. Exactly the same as the last two mornings, minus the mention of Nya. “Would you like something to eat before we begin today's training?”
Jay simply nodded, making himself a small plate and sitting down between Kai and Lloyd, with one empty seat next to him where Nya would be. He didn't look for the soot on Kai's face this time (in fact, he did his best not to look at Kai at all thanks to yesterday), but he could vaguely smell something burnt, and it wasn't Zane's cooking.
“I hope everything is satisfactory.” Zane turned off the stove and hung up his apron, before heading out of the kitchen. “I will go and retrieve Cole and Nya.”
The small differences in each day were almost enough to provide Jay a little bit of solace. Today Nya wasn't up yet, yesterday Kai bandaged his ankle for him. And also yesterday.. Kai fell through a roof.
That part wasn't so comforting.
This time, a pair of footsteps followed Zane's back into the kitchen. Cole's footsteps didn't make noise anymore thanks to him being a ghost, but Nya's still did.
Cole and Nya both made their plates and sat down at the table, one next to Jay and one across from him.
“Morning.” Nya yawned, stretching and taking a bite of her eggs.
Cole's response sounded like ‘good morning’ as well, but it was hard to tell through the food in his mouth.
Nya ran a hand through her hair while she chewed her food, clearly not having brushed it yet. Jay did his best to take in the beauty of her in this state, the way she was perfect in his eyes even having just tumbled out of bed, but it was hard to look into those chocolate brown eyes without remembering how they looked when the light faded out of them.
Jay quickly shoved the rest of his food into his mouth, before standing from the table and bringing his plate to the sink to be washed sometime later. He hurried to his room next, changing from his loose fitting pajamas into his gi, and staring at himself in the mirror for a few seconds.
The cloudy look in his brown eye, the new freckles that were born from all the sunburns he earned aboard The Misfortune's Keep. The healing bruises, and the tired look in his eyes that had gotten way more noticeable thanks to these past few days.
Why was he always the one getting involved in some weird time mishap thing that no one else remembered!? And.. wait, why hadn't he told anyone about the time loop?
Ugh, not that they'd believe him anyways.. how was he supposed to figure this out all by himself? Jay stopped in front of his closed door, thunking his head against it instead of opening it just yet.
“Jaaay, you okay?” Came a voice from the other side of the wooden door. The voice had a strange and hollow sort of echo, but was homely and familiar nonetheless. That thunk must have been louder than he thought.
“Yeah, I'm good, Cole.” Jay affirmed, opening the door and stepping out into the hall. “Just dropped something.”
Once everyone was fed, dressed, and had brushed their teeth (except Jay), the group went out to the courtyard to train.
Jay landed on his bad ankle even more today than before, thanks to his frazzled state of mind. He could only suck it up for about ten minutes before it finally got the best of him.
“OW!” Jay hopped onto his other foot, tears nearly springing to his eyes with the pain shooting up his leg. “Frick, frick!”
“Woah, Jay..” Lloyd came to Jay's side, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Maybe you should sit this one out.”
Just as Jay was about to argue, an idea popped into his head.
Maybe Lloyd was right! Maybe this whole thing was just some sick and twisted lesson in resting his injuries, and everything would be okay if he stayed back at the monastery.
Or.. maybe he was just a bad luck charm. He didn't like thinking about that, sure, but the evidence was pointing to it. Either way, sitting out of the mission was worth a shot.
“Yeah.. maybe you're right.” Jay nodded, limping his way to the sidelines so he could sit down and watch the others continue their training. “I'll take a break.”
The rest of the ninja seemed shocked to see Jay cooperate so easily. He'd been acting weird all week, and now this? Everyone but Nya was starting to wonder if their Jay had been replaced with some clone, or a secret evil twin.
Despite how weird it was, Jay seemed content on the sidelines, and the rest of the ninja continued their training until the inevitable appearance from Master Wu.
“Jay, are you gonna be alright here by yourself?” Lloyd asked, before leading the rest of the team to prepare for their mission.
“Don't worry about me, I'll just play video games while you're gone.” Jay promised, heading back into the monastery while the others got ready to leave.
Unfortunately, the video games only did so much to distract him. He beat a couple high scores, but it wasn't long at all before he was pacing back and forth around the relaxation room, listening closely for the sound of the others coming home.
First master, this was almost worse than just going on the mission. Sure, he didn't have to watch whatever was going on, but the paranoia was eating him alive!
“Worrying myself sick won't make it go away..” He murmured to himself, sitting back down on the couch and propping his injured foot up on the table.
He waited, and waited, and waited for the sound of vehicles pulling in at the monastery, or someone opening the front door, but nothing ever came.
Instead, Jay woke up in bed again. He hadn't fallen asleep on the couch, so it wasn't as if someone had carried him to bed. And once again, everything was the same as before.
So, maybe his absence wasn't the key after all. That would have been comforting, if it didn't mean that he was still trapped in this stupid cycle.
Jay flung the covers off himself, rushing out of his room and down the hall.
“Good morning Jay, would you..?” Zane trailed off as Jay rushed past him, clearly looking for something.. or someone. “Jay? What are you in search of?”
“Master Wu, I need to talk to him.” Jay stopped in his tracks, shaking his hands at his sides. “Have you seen him?”
“I'm.. pretty sure he's meditating right now.” Lloyd said, raising an eyebrow. “Jay, is everything alright?”
“Never better!” Jay turned on his heels, rushing off to Master Wu's room.
Jay nearly busted down the door with how hard he slammed it open, which he quickly apologized for.
“Master Wu! I'm really sorry for interrupting but this is really important!” Jay rambled, flailing his hands around.
“Alright.. what is it then, Jay?” Wu asked with a sigh, clearly not thrilled to have his meditation disturbed.
“This is gonna sound really crazy, but I really need you to believe me.” Jay rushed over to sit on the floor, facing Wu. “We're stuck in a time loop. Or- I'm stuck in one. Nobody else is remembering it, but this is the fourth time I've relived this day and stuff keeps going really badly! People dying kind of badly!”
“People dying?” Wu raised an eyebrow. He didn't seem entirely disbelieving though, which was a good sign for Jay.
“Yeah, people like Nya! And then Kai, and then.. I don't even know who it was last time!” He flailed his hands around. “This is-”
“Jay.”
“..yeah?”
“Please, breathe.”
Oh.. right, he should probably do that. Jay took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before he started speaking again.
“This is serious!” He continued, throwing his hands up. “Look, the commissioner is gonna call today, and you have to tell him we can't go check out that bank robbery!”
“Alright.. if what you are saying is true, I will do so.” Master Wu sighed. “I did think that something felt off today..”
“Oh gosh, thank you Master Wu!” Jay finally let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't totally in the clear, but this gave him a way better shot. “You're a life saver!”
“I am trusting your judgment on this, Jay.” Wu hummed, closing his eyes as he began his meditation again.
Jay left to join the rest of the team, and breakfast went relatively normal. Training went a bit better than it had the last two days as well, since Jay had mustered up enough composure to not land on his bad ankle so much.
Sure enough, Master Wu never came outside to alert the ninja of the commissioner's request. Albeit still cautious, Jay thought that maybe things were starting to look up.
That was, until Cole accidentally walked a little too close to where Nya and Kai were training. Normally, this wouldn't have been so bad.. but two things that certainly don't mix are ghosts and elemental masters of water.
Sure enough, one poorly timed splash of water and Cole dissolved like sugar. By the time Jay even registered the cloud of green smoke that was his best friend, he was already back in bed and clutching at his chest again.
“Oh.. frick!” He spat under his breath, biting back various curses as he slammed his fist into the bed. Had Nya not been asleep next to him, he would have had a far larger reaction.
After taking a few deep breaths, Jay grabbed one of the notebooks on his desk that he used to sketch out inventions, and flipped to an empty page to write out his plan on.
He scribbled it out quickly, his handwriting much more jumbled and hard to read than it was on his best days.
It read,
1: stop master wu from sending us to the bank
2: keep cole away from nya during training
3: keep everyone alive until midnight
It seemed like a solid plan, at least to him. That was the standard way of beating a time loop, right? By outsmarting and outlasting it!
His only other idea was to find the root of the problem and stop it there, but.. he had no idea where to even start looking for that, so this was his best idea. He tore out the page, stuffing it in his pocket and rushing to Master Wu's room.
The conversation wasn't verbatim of yesterday's, mostly because of Jay's considerably more frenzied state, but the same end goal was achieved. Master Wu agreed to deny the commissioner's request, and that issue was taken care of.
Breakfast, however, was almost exactly the same as every other day. Eggs and bacon, the burnt smell radiating off of Kai, Cole and Nya joining the table last.
Training followed afterwards, though this time Jay opted out before they even started.
“I think you guys are right, I should take some time off and let my injuries rest.” He told them. It wasn't his best acting by any means, considering the jittery tremble in his voice and hands.
The others let him resign to the sidelines, though, and the time dragged on as he watched Cole like a hawk as he slowly drifted closer to Nya.
“Cole!” Jay called out. “You're gonna get splashed, buddy!”
“Oh!” Cole seemed to realize just how close he was to being taken out by a gush of water, and moved back over to a safer spot of the courtyard. “Whoops, thanks Jay.”
Jay gave him a thumbs up, closing his eyes for a few moments. He knew better than to let his guard down, but this was a step in the right direction.
Everything went smoothly for a few hours, other than Jay's constantly heightening anxiety, which was pushing him to the brink of completely freaking out. He was helping Nya wash dishes when Zane walked up behind him, a little too quietly for him to hear.
“Jay, would you-” He started.
“AAH!” Jay yelped, jumping up like he'd been jabbed with a hot poker. Without thinking, his hands lit up in a fury of blue sparks, unfortunately directed at Zane.
Zane seized up and fell to the floor as the sparks trailed up and down his body, making his limbs twitch involuntarily as the blue light of his eyes faded out.
After a collective few moments of stunned silence, Jay's eye twitched and his fists clenched at his sides, signaling that he'd finally snapped.
He had been getting so much closer, and now he'd have to do it all over again just because Zane snuck up with him! This whole thing was driving him crazy!
“Oh COME ON!” Jay stomped, much to the surprise of the rest of the ninja. As soon as his foot hit the floor, he found himself in his bed again. All the noises surrounding him were the same, and the paper he'd crumpled up in his pocket was gone.
He didn't hesitate to fling the blankets off himself, climbing out of bed and storming down the hall to Master Wu's room again.
“We are NOT going to the bank today!” He demanded as he flung the door open, his hands shaking as frustrated tears welled up in his eyes. He was well aware of how he resembled an angry toddler right now, but that was nowhere near his biggest concern.
“..pardon me?” Master Wu raised an eyebrow, clearly less than pleased to have his meditation so rudely disturbed.
“The commissioner is gonna call and ask us to go to the bank, and we CAN'T!” Jay insisted, before walking away without shutting the door.
Breakfast went as usual, as did the beginning of training, until Master Wu came into the courtyard with a request from the commissioner.
“What-? But we can't, I told you that!” Jay threw his hands up, the desperation clear in his eyes.
“You are not making any sense, Jay.” Master Wu sighed, his hands clasped behind his back. “Why exactly can you not assist with the bank robbery?”
“We're in a time loop– don't look at me like that, you have to believe me!” He pleaded, waving his hands around. “We keep living the same day over and over and people keep dying! We have to be careful!”
The stunned silence that followed Jay's ramble was deafening, and all the eyes on him made his skin crawl. Jay fidgeted, glancing around as he waited for someone to say something, anything.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I'm serious.” Jay pleaded once more, though his tone was quickly growing heated. “How else would I have known that the commissioner would call? Why would I lie about this?!”
“It's not that we think you're lying, Jay..” Cole started, the tone in his voice clearly intended to bring Jay back down.
“It's that we think you're going bonkers.” Kai interjected.
“I'm not!” Jay threw his hands up. “Can't you guys just trust me? Just this once!”
The other ninja glanced at each other for a few moments, exchanging looks of confusion and concern.
“I trust you.” Nya assured, stepping forward to put a hand on Jay's shoulder. She could practically watch some of the tension roll off of him. “What do we need to do?”
“I'm.. trying to figure that out.” Jay sighed softly. “I think we need to just.. stay inside until the end of the day and be really really careful. That's the best idea I've got.”
Much to Jay's surprise, the others agreed to his plan. It was essentially just a day off, after all, and they'd be crazy not to accept an offer like that.
The evening rolled around without anyone dying, and the sun went down behind the hill that the monastery rested upon while the ninja watched a few movies to pass the time. None of them really understood what was going on, but it was clearly bringing Jay a little bit of solace.
That was worth it, in their eyes.
Soon, they all slowly left to get ready for bed until it was only Cole and Jay on the couch, watching a movie's credits roll. Jay supposed that ghosts probably didn't get tired the same way that living people did, and despite his own exhaustion, he was determined to stay awake until midnight struck.
“You gonna go to bed?” Cole asked, turning from the tv to look at Jay.
“I'm waiting for midnight.” Jay shook his head. “So I know it's over.”
“Want me to stay with you?”
“You don't have to stay up, it's getting pretty late.” Jay shook his head. “You should get some rest.”
“I'm not that tired.” Cole shrugged, before nudging Jay with his elbow. “And besides, what are you gonna do without me here?”
Jay snorted softly, rolling his eyes. The pair waited in near silence as the clock slowly inched closer to striking midnight. 11:30, then 11:45, then 11:59..
Until finally, once Jay's eyelids grew heavy, midnight. No reset, no death, and the little number on the clock that read the day's date went up a single number.
“Oh, thank the first master..” Jay practically melted as the tension left his body, dropping his head into his hands.
“C'mon Jaybird, let's get you to bed.” He hummed, patting Jay on the back and nudging him to stand up. Jay stood, not bothering to stop at the bathroom to brush his teeth before heading to his room.
“Thanks, Cole..” Jay didn't bother taking off his gi before climbing into bed, grabbing Mr Cuddlywomp and wrapping his arms around him. “Good night.”
“Sleep well, buddy.” Cole smiled, pulling Jay's door closed behind himself.
When Jay opened his eyes, there was rain pattering against his window in place of the sunshine he'd woken up to before. No one was in bed next to him, and he was still wearing his gi instead of his pajamas.
He rubbed his eyes, sitting up in bed as his door opened.
“Oh, you're awake already?” Nya questioned, sitting down in front of him and pressing her hand to his forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Better..” Jay sighed softly, running a hand through his messy curls. “You.. you don't think I'm crazy, right?”
“I gotta admit, it seems a little out there.” She hummed, leaning back on her hands. “But not any crazier than a pirate djinn, or an evil ghost sensei, or.. just about anything we've faced.”
“I guess you're right.” Jay managed a soft smile, leaning forward to let his forehead rest against Nya's. “I'm just glad it's over..”
“Me too.” Nya took his hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over it. “You had me worried, you know. Seeing you like that yesterday.”
“Yeah.. sorry.” He closed his eyes. “I spazzed out a little.”
“Just a little.” She smiled softly, the undertone of sarcasm seeping into her voice. “C'mon, Zane's making breakfast.”
Jay finally registered the smell that had drifted into his room, and (to both his and Nya's surprise), gagged.
“Sorry.. I think the time loop turned me off of bacon and eggs.” He murmured.
“..maybe toast?”
“Yes please.”