#this idea popped in my head last night and i just couldn't stop thinkin ab it

[grimbeak]

,,,,I was thinking ab @elementalmasteroffandom ‘s villain Jay theory again ((also im so sorry queen i keep bothering you and tagging you hhhh)) and like. I was thinking about how mb Jay would die at the end of the season, probably killed by mostly accident by Kai, the one who tends to insult him most, or by all the ninja combined, confirming the fact that he thinks they all hate him. 

So, the ninja go back to their island home probably all depressed and more than a bit traumatized (although that isn’t new), while Jay is dead.

But...

We don’t know much about the tribe, so I was thinking ((this is mostly to vent my own ideas, I find this incredibly unlikely to actually happen.)), what if they have a way to bring back the dead?

But there’s a price. 

So Jay gets brought back as a ghost... with no memories of fighting the other ninja, going evil, or how he died. This would defin be very interesting to see, as all the ninja would kind of have to skirt around him and avoid telling him what actually happened on the island- he’d probably find out anyway, from his memory returning or a tribe member telling him towards the end of the season.

Anyway here’s some long drabbles for it

Just after Jay gets brought back: 

Jay blinks awake, squinting at the sun in his eyes. “What...” He pushes himself up, not exactly...

Not exactly sure how he got here.

Glancing around, he can see... the ocean. And sand. He’s probably on a beach, then, or Zane had gone haywire again and filled the training room with sand and water. That had been a weird Tuesday. 

He looks around. There isn’t anyone else there, which was weird, considering he has absolutely no memory of how he got here. There’s a sort of... numb feeling, to his entire body, and it’s starting to make Jay very uncomfortable. Plus, there’s the fact that he can’t exactly feel the sand underneath him, despite his entire back probably being covered in it. Oh, gosh, he hopes he doesn’t have sand in his hair. That takes forever to get out. 

He swipes at his head, and-

Nothing.

He can... Jay can feel his hand on his hair, feel the pressure of it, but not the texture. It’s like he’s-

His arm is green and see-through.

Jay looks down. He can see the sand through his gi, slightly darker tinted. 

He pats the sand. Nothing. He can see the imprint that his fingers left on it, but he can’t feel it.

...OK. This is fine. This is perfectly fine.

“Alright. OK. We can... we can figure this out.” Why is he saying we, there’s no one else here. 

There’s no one else here.

He’s alone.

Alone and a ghost, and how is he a ghost, and hey at least he’s far enough away from the water, and also why doesn’t he remember dying? Do you remember dying? Did he even die? Cole... Cole didn’t die, not really, he just became a ghost for a while. 

...Jay doesn’t even remember how he got here, and if that’s not concerning enough, the last thing he remembers is arriving on the island. Then it’s just a blank. He vaguely remembers something about lightning, a bunch of people, and a blonde woman that looked strangely familiar, but nothing really else. 

“OK. I’m talking to myself. Like Cole does. Is it just a ghost thing to talk to yourself? Must get lonely.” He pauses, for a moment. The others. He needs to find the others, somehow. 

Can he make his dragon as a ghost? Did Cole’s powers work when he was a ghost? Jay can’t really remember, but... hey, he’ll figure it out.

Now he just needs to get off this island.

When Jay eventually finds the other ninja: 

Kai brandishing a sword at him was definitely not what Jay expected to see after he popped through the temple wall. 

Terrified screaming, sure, maybe even a tearful reunion, but definitely not a sword pointed at his neck. 

Jay’s hands are up, his back is pressed against the wall (on his journey back to the temple, he’s begun to figure out exactly how being a ghost works, and how much strength it takes him to allow others to touch him. He nearly got evaporated a few times in sudden rainstorms, but it’s a good thing umbrellas exist. Also overhangs.), and his eyes are wide. “Ok, Ok! Calm down, it’s just me! Don’t stab me!” He pauses. “Wait, can you stab me? I mean, I’m a ghost, can you even- was Cole able to get stabbed when he was a ghost? ...I think he got shot and the bullet went though him, once, but you guys probably don’t remember that.”

Kai narrows his eyes. “What are you doing here, how are you here, you’re de-” he pauses, eyes widening. “You’re a ghost.”

Jay attempts to push Kai’s sword down, but the tip of it is shoved forward until it’s barely a breath away from impaling him (or... going through him, he supposes). “Yeah, I am. Don’t know how. Do you know how? Took a while to get here, y’know, nearly fell into the ocean a few times...” Jay pauses, as Kai’s face grows more and more bewildered. “Do you... weren’t you guys there? We were on an island, and-”

There’s a sudden noise from the other room, as Cole and Nya rush in, holding their appropriate weapons. “We heard you yell, Kai, what’s going-” Nya stops as her eyes land on Jay, her face changing from shocked to pained to utter hatred in the span of a few seconds. “You.” 

“Nya, wait, I-” Jay barely has time to speak before she’s rushing towards him, and just before he can get A: stabbed or B: splashed with water (hopefully not B), Nya stops suddenly. 

“You’re... you’re a ghost.”

“Yeah.” Jay decides this would be a good time to drop the other bombshell. “And I have no idea why or how.” 

***

“So,” Kai says, in a strained voice, “you don’t remember anything.” 

“No.” Jay glances around the room. “Last thing I remember is getting to the island with you guys, and then... nothing, really. Just a blank.”

It’s been about an hour since Jay’s first confrontation with Kai, and in that time he’s almost gotten killed four separate times. Or, well, whatever you can do to a ghost in the lines of killing. First by Kai, then by Nya, then by Lloyd and Zane, in that order. Master Wu had been more shocked rather than anything else, but at least he hadn’t tried to commit murder. Jay’s explained everything to the other ninja- what happened after he woke up on the beach, how he got back to the city (stowing away on ships is surprisingly easy), and how he has, in fact, zero memories of dying. 

“So,” Jay says after a moment of very awkward silence, “how did I die, anyway? You guys were on the island too, so...” 

The others freeze, and Jay has the distinct feeling that something happened that was very bad and very wrong. Kai, apparently deciding to take one for the team, speaks up. “You... you fell off a cliff.”

Jay considers this. “I know you’re lying,” he says eventually, “but it’s- it’s a very good lie. That definitely seems like something I would do.” He stands up, pretending not to notice the way Zane’s hand tightens on his bow, and how Lloyd’s fingers start to spark. “On that note, I’m tired, you guys probably want to talk in private, I want sleep. G’night.” He walks off to his room, secretly hoping that there aren’t any pictures of him with darts thrown at it. 

Kai and the other’s reactions to ghost Jay: 

“So Jay,” Nya eventually says, after the ghost version of her ex(?)-boyfriend makes his way towards his former room, “is dead. And a ghost. With no memories of him dying.” 

Master Wu, who has gone to make tea to deal with his shock, makes an exceptionally loud clanging sound, probably as a precaution so Jay doesn’t hear any of the conversation. Pixal is absent, having gone on a two-week long mission barely a few days before Jay showed up. 

“Yes,” Kai confirms. “This is bad.” 

Cole nods, biting his lip. “He doesn’t... do you think he’ll find out? That he went bad, I mean.”

“I hope not,” Lloyd mutters, speaking for the first time since he yelled at Jay around an hour ago. “Honestly, it’s better if he just doesn’t figure it out. We can just... make up a believable lie for him, and hopefully, if he doesn’t get turned back into a human, he won’t remember. I don’t want him to know that we were the reason he’s dead. Even though it was technically his fault.”

“Yes,” Zane adds. “The fact that Jay’s dead is, in fact, his own fault. We were merely trying to stop him from causing any more harm to us, himself, or the people of Ninjago.” The nindroid pauses, for a moment, likely remembering how they all combined their elemental powers (well... most of them) to take the lightning master down. “So, I suppose we’ll just have to keep him under close watch. Don’t let him go out alone, and I can see if I can attach a tracker to him- one that works on ghosts. Perhaps one with deepstone embedded in it, so we can detain him if necessary.”

“Yeah,” Kai says. “We can do this. We’ll handle Jay, protect Ninjago, and hope that he doesn’t remember anytime soon.”