For the seventh time of the day Kai cursed 'rock, paper, scissors' under his breath. Look at the bright side, they said.You might get rid of some unresolved issues with unexplored pyramids, they said.You know, like with Aspheera, Jay had said before earning a slap on the back of his head from Cole. Kai scoffed. As if he'd still even so much as waste a second on someone as irrelevant as that snake. At least not while he was awake and able to successfully suppress any kind of memory he had of her. Nightmares were a different topic, sure, but everyone on the team had those. It wasn't like he had lost his appetite for weeks after the incident or anything. Even if Zane claimed to have seen so. And that time he had woken up in the middle of the night, shaking and sweating and ready to throw up was just because Cole had been preparing dinner the night before.

With all those counters in the back of his mind he had begrudgingly began to pack his things. All that, even though the invitation had clearly been for the whole team. But no, suddenly they had to stay back to look out for the monastery, do their daily patrols through the city, make sure the other ninja got provided with edible food, be live at the opening day of the new bakery in town and make sure the game console wasn't getting too cold. Leaving only him to go on this stupid mission.

Admittedly, Clutch Powers wasn't the most trustworthy employer. Or the most pleasant one to work with. But at least the mission turned out to be a lot simpler than expected. Almost too simple. This mission's biggest challenge up until now was making sure the moist climate of the cave didn't completely ruin his hair. Aside from that, easy. Just exploring some old cave. Meaning: Go in, walk around for a bit and get out again. No problem. It wasn't even a pyramid.

"Are you sure you're focused on the situation at hand?" Clutch's voice broke through his train of thoughts, as he shoved himself past his apprentices to walk next to Kai while he continued babbling: "You know my book 'Boobytraps and How to Survive Them' states all kinds of automatically activated traps caused by even a single misplaced step. If I'm not mistaken, you just-"

Another arrow shot out of the wall, only this time Clutch Powers was directly in its line of aim. The explorer's eyes widened, almost choking on his own spit, as he watched it getting caught just inches away from his own face, Kai's face saying enough even without words. He swallowed before chuckling nervously.

The apprentice at the front had stumbled. Over an almost invisible string Kai had just carefully overstepped.

He sighed. "I hate self-fulfilling prophecies."

Then he felt how the ground got swept away from under his feet and he plunged down into a dark hole.

Surprisingly for once it wasn't a neverending hole and neither were there any sharp spikes expecting him at the bottom. After he hit the ground - roughly but mostly unharmed - he sat up and lit a flame in his hand, not being able to fully suppress a quiet relieved sigh. At least this time his fire powers were still with him. The frown that had formed between his brows over the past few hours disappeared. His relief didn't last though, as he suddenly heard the rustling of clothes awfully close to him. It seemed like he wasn't as alone as he had hoped to be, after all.

"I'm warning you, if you're a crazy snake lady, I have to disappoint you. I've already lost my fire powers way too many times to have them taken away yet again", he yelled out into the dark that his flames couldn't reach.

He increased the light of the fire in his hand to look his - hopefully - unknown enemy even more menacingly into the eyes, ready to drop another comment. But instead the only thing dropping was his jaw as he saw them illuminated by his light.

He quickly collected himself and ran a hand through his hair with a charming smirk. "Damn. You can take me though."