Peace is fun, from what I've heard

by Rioskis

Summary:

So Lloyd is ANGRY and then he yells at himself and then someone appears and then everything explodes on his face.

Explanation; Lloyd gets in a fight and it ends in him being kidnapped

Notes:

So this fic is a few days after Dragons Rising season 2 ending and I've just written how it continues in my head. I'm trying to make this as canon to the show as possible so if something doesn't match you're more than welcome to rage at me in the comments.

Chapter 1

“You selfish coward!” he punched air aggressively while yelling at himself. “You failed him! You drove Arin away! Can a teacher get worse!?” Lloyd hit a wall with his fist covered in purple flames. Everything started shaking, then a small crack appeared on the mountain and soon the small crack wasn't just a small crack.

In just a moment the whole mountain was split in half. Luckily Lloyd had gone to a deserted area, far from the monastery to calm down from losing Arin to Ras. If that mountain had been the mountain the monastery was on, well… Lloyd and all the other ninja would’ve had a rather large mess to clean up.

“Wonderful”, he barked at no one in particular. “The legendary green ninja and the First spinjitzu master’s grandson, Lloyd Garmadon can't even keep his powers in check. How am I supposed to teach Arin and Sora to keep everyone safe if all I do is destroy mountains and relationships between best friends?”

“You simply don't”, Lloyd spinned around to see a dark figure with a sandogasa hat on that covered their face, dressed in a dark colored robe. One of the Forbidden five. “You seemingly have the power and brains to make decisions for yourself. Why not be smart and choose the winning side?”

“Why are you here and what do you want from me?” Lloyd yelled, already in a fighting stance and checking the surroundings, it was a familiar routine by now. If one of the Forbidden five was here, then the others wouldn't be too far.

Maybe it was a bad idea after all to come in the middle of nowhere all by himself when there was something threatening the source dragons, basically the concept of existence, and he was the leader of the group that was fighting against it.

However, the sandogasa hat guy didn't seem phased at all and took a calm step towards Lloyd, keeping their hands calm on their sides. “The Legendary green ninja and the grandson of the First spinjitzu master? Sounds like a lot of weight on a kid’s shoulders, and did you mention your last name is Garmadon? The green gi belongs to Lord Garmadon’s son? What's kept you from jumping sides all this time?”

Lloyd took a step to the left, away from them. He hadn’t spoken with this guy for even a minute and he could already tell this wasn't going to be anything pleasant, if you could even expect that from someone who wants to destroy the world. “What do you want? Or are you just here to have a nice little chat? And I'm not a kid!”

“Don't lie to me, I can practically smell the magic tea making you physically older”, the sandogasa hat guy, actually let's just call them ‘Hattie’ from this point on. So, Hattie took another two steps towards Lloyd, to which Lloyd also took two steps backwards. “I've heard stories of you from different people while wandering in this new world. Some only know how you stopped the mergequakes and others, those from the original ninjago, know about your other battles too. It's funny, seeing how much they trust you, an overpowered child, with their whole world.”

“Oh so you came all this way to just tell me you've heard stories of me?” Lloyd really wished he had at least taken his phone or a panic button or something to warn the ninjas with, but no, Lloyd had to repeat his uncle's mistakes and come here all alone and not even tell where he was going. “I'm going to count to three and you're either going to leave or fight me and lose, because this is getting annoying.”

Hattie barked out a laugh. “I think I'll pick the third option”, they took out a remote and pressed an unreasonably big, bright red button on it.

Lloyd dodged a falling cage at the last moment and spintjitzued his way to Hattie. How had the cage just appeared from thin air? He took a hold of Hattie’s collar and threw them on the ground. He kicked Hattie further away and ran to them while shooting balls of green energy at them. Hattie ducked and turned to shadderspin, but Lloyd reacted quickly and stopped it with his rising dragon.

However, as Lloyd came into contact with Hattie, they took a hold of Lloyd and smashed him to the ground. Lloyd kicked Hattie off him and did a backflip back up.

“Nokt, a little help with the green baby?” Hattie spoke, probably to an earpiece, and seemed to get a pleasing response, as they focused back on the battle and barely dodged Lloyd’s punch.

“Green baby?” Lloyd was getting fed up with this age stuff.

“It's fitting. Don't you agree?” Hattie lifted their sandogasa hat just enough to see their grin spread wide across their face as they dodged one attack after another.

“No”, Lloyd deadpanned and looked around. He needed to end this battle soon or he would have to likely fight the other members of the Forbidden five too. Unfortunately, there were only big rocks.

Wait, rock.

It was always a huge stretch to try and control other elements since it took a lot of focus, but Lloyd could do it if he tried hard enough. He was the green ninja after all.

So, he kicked Hattie away and threw his hands outwards, trying to get the feel of the earth around him. “Come on Lloyd, you can do this”, he whispered to himself.

…

“Is something supposed to happen?” Hattie asked, sounding confused and amuzed. Fine, he’ll do it another way.

He approached the nearest rock, lifted it up and threw it at Hattie with the intention of getting them to not move for some time so Lloyd could make an escape. They dodged, of course. Lloyd shot balls of energy at him until one hit and then tried again with another rock. That attempt also failed, Hattie being saved by Nokt this time.

Nice, now Lloyd is screwed.

“Long time no see, Lloyd”, Nokt greeted like they were some old friends. “It’s so sad we have to meet up like this, on the opposite sides.” Nokt helped Hattie up and Lloyd heard three thumps behind him. He began thinking of any possible escape at all, but before he could even look away from Nokt, he felt a blinding pain in his back.

“Why does everyone always want to kidnap me?” was his last thought before everything went dark.

Chapter 2: Findings

Summary:

Nya is trying to read and the Forbidden Five are saying hi to Lloyd.

Notes:

WAZZUP I'M BACK!

Lloyd hadn't said where he was going. In fact, Lloyd hadn't said anything. He just left a note for them, stuck to the fridge with a green magnet, shaped like the letter ‘L’. “No, I haven't been kidnapped. I need some time alone. Prolly coming back tomorrow”, it had said.

 

 A bad idea to go out alone as the green ninja right now if you asked Nya, but Lloyd had already left and she was sure Lloyd could take care of himself. Or at least she had been sure Lloyd could take care of himself, before it had been three days since Zane had found the short letter when he had gone to make breakfast that morning.

 

 Right now Nya couldn't do anything about her and the other ninja’s worries though, none of them knew where to even start looking for Lloyd. He hadn't had a habit of leaving the monastery alone without warning, or actually he didn't leave much at all outside of ninja work.

 

 So she tried distracting herself. She trained and spent time with the ninja and trained and read books and trained. A lot of training, but you can never train too much.

 

 Currently she was reading a book about a love story between a knight and a princess. It was a children’s book, but she often saw Lloyd reading it so she had thought that it couldn't be that boring.

 

 Right now as she was reading it though, she realized Lloyd was probably just reading it because of what happened between him and Harumi. Lloyd wanted to see what they could’ve been instead of their relationship ending in absolute betrayal from Harumi that hit Lloyd hard, harder than he would ever admit.   

 

 Harumi did kind of start her redemption when she switched to the ninja’s side and against Overlord the time he tried to take over the world again with those weird crystals, but from what Nya had heard, Harumi had still only wanted revenge.

 

 She heard Kai's signature knock on her bedroom door. 

 

 “Nya, Zane found something and he wants us to go look at it right now”, he informed from the other side. “He said it's important.” 

 

 “I'll be there in a second!” Nya answered and put the kid’s book down.

_ _ 

 

 The elevator doors opened to show the rest of the team already there.

 

 “So what was the important thing you found?” Nya asked.

 

 Zane didn't turn away from the large screen. “My sensors detected a tragic change in the environment a couple days ago, so I started looking for more information about it”, the screen showed a clip of the newspaper. It was a picture of a mountain cut in half in a deserted area and signs of a battle around it.

 

 “Woah! How can a mountain just be cut in half!?” Wyldfyre exclaimed with her mouth hanging open.

 

 “Are you guys thinking about what I'm thinking about?” Cole asked, looking at Zane, Kai and Nya.

 

 “That our Green bean is in trouble? Yeah, definitely”, Kai answered. “Let's go check it out.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

Waking up on a cold stone floor was never a pleasant experience, especially when right after you realize you're in a cage, again. 

 

 Lloyd stood up and checked the surroundings. The cage was fairly big, reminding him of the one he was in when Harumi had kidnapped him the last time and tried to kill the other ninja in front of him and then he used his oni powers and broke it.

 

 Ah, nice memories. 

 

 The cage itself was hanging from a high ceiling of some kind of evil sorcerer of darkness lord’s throne room or something. Definitely seemed like it was made for some kind of ritual. There was a large pentagram carved on the floor and everything. And of course Lloyd’s new home was right above it all.

 

 On the opposite side of the hall was a staircase. The whole thing was blood red and black colored and lit up by some torches. 

 

 The scary vibe was ruined by the blacksmith workplaces all around the hall, though.

 

 Then, like they had sensed Lloyd waking up, the Forbidden Five walked slowly down the stairs with some wolf masked people behind them. As the siblings got down, the wolf masked left to hurry with their evil work, having the dramatic entrance of the Forbidden Five completed.

 

 “Oh hey! The baby has awakened!” Nokt told the others with a big grin on his face.

 

 Lloyd decided to just not mention the ‘baby’. That’s what they want, a reaction. But it did get on his nerves, Nokt hadn't called Sora a baby or anything like that while fighting her in the tournament, and Lloyd was definitely older than her!

 

 “Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon”, Rox started. “The grandson of the First Spinjitzu Master himself. What a delight to officially meet you!”

 

 “What do you want?” Lloyd barked.

 

 “Oh nothing much, just for you to join us”, Nokt said it like it was the simplest thing in the world.

 

 “You know that's never going to happen, right?” Lloyd snorted. These people were bold and their ideas were stretched. Can someone please remind him of how these five almost destroyed the whole world?

 

 “Well, maybe not in your current state”, he looked Lloyd up and down and then straight in the eyes. “but it will happen, whether you like it or not. We'll just need to make a couple of… small changes.”

 

 Lloyd laughed. “In your dreams, maybe.”

 

 Rox giggled. “I love that attitude. I wonder how long it’ll last.”

 

 A wolf masked person came in through the stairs. They whispered something to Hattie and he nodded to the other members of the Forbidden Five and they turned to leave.

 

 “You know the ninja are coming to save me, right?” Lloyd yelled after them.

 

 “Oh yes”, Nokt laughed. “We're counting on that.”

 

 “What? Hey! Come back!” Lloyd made a ball of energy and shot it towards the Forbidden Five, but it got caught up on the cage’s bars and it got shot back to him in a flash of red.

 

 Oh why, why did he have to go out?

Notes:

I think I made this chapter a bit boring, but it will get more interesting I swear.

Chapter 3: Professional guide on going snooping

Summary:

Arin is sneaky with Ras and Kai does not respect privacy.

Notes:

Yes, it is me, Rioskis. You thought I'd given up, but you can't get rid of me that easily!
Also I thought you guys would like to know the ages of these characters so:

Zane - physically like 23 but his real age is closer to 103 since he's a nindroid
Cole - 23
Kai - 22
Jay - 21
Nya - 20
Lloyd - physically about 18/19/20 due to tomorrow's tea but his real age is younger than that
Sora - 16
Arin - 15
Wyldfyre - 15
The Forbidden Five - these people are so old it doesn't even matter anymore, but physically they're like 30-35 due to being in the Never-Realm

 “Hide”, Ras pushed Arin behind a big bush as some wolf masked people stomped past them, carrying an unconscious person in a cage. Arin remembered the person from somewhere, but wasn't sure where.

 

 “Let's follow them”, Ras whispered and in the blink of an eye he had already sneaked to the next best hiding spot and the next, going behind the wolf masked, just far enough not to be heard. Arin hurried to catch up.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

Kai was not in a good mood. He had just gotten back to everyone from that fucked up place and now he lost Lloyd, again. 

 

 They hadn't found anything from the deserted area where Lloyd had fought someone, who was most likely the Forbidden Five. Well, Cole had sensed Lloyd had tried to connect with the earth there, but it didn't get them closer to answers in any way.

 

 After that, the team was getting into petty fights, no one was capable enough to train Sora and Kai could only help improve Wyldfyre’s abilities in controlling her elemental power. Not like Sora had any motivation to train anyway.

 

 All other times Lloyd had been kidnapped, they all focused on getting him back and saving the world at the last moment and everything was chaotic and hurried, however right now nothing was happening. Shit wasn't coming down and that threw him off. It threw them all off.

 

 There was tension in the air because of the Forbidden Five being free and planning something, but they hadn't made a move yet outside of kidnapping Lloyd, leaving no trace other than a literal mountain cut in half. No one knew where to look for shit and no one knew how Lloyd was doing, or if he was even capable of “doing” anymore.

 

 Lloyd's chosen actions didn't do any help in getting closer to finding him, either.

 

 Why didn't Lloyd tell anyone where he was going? Why did he go alone? Why did he go in the first place? If he had asked for some alone time Kai and the others would have left him be… maybe.

 

 Kai had thought meditating on Lloyd’s meditation mat in front of the pictures of sensei Wu and Arin would have helped get a glance at Lloyd's perspective, or at least get a clue of what to do now, but staying put was harder than Lloyd and Wu had made it look like.

 

 How else could he find answers?

 

 He stood up and decided to break Lloyd's privacy and go snooping into his room. Maybe he had left something useful there.

_ _

 

 Lloyd's room was exactly like he remembered it, maybe because he had last been there just a couple of days before Lloyd got kidnapped.

 

 This was the first time Kai would actually go snooping on Lloyd's stuff though, all the ninja had the silent rule that no one would go and invade someone's privacy in their room. That was basically the one boundary they never broke. Until now, Kai guessed. 

 

 But this was an emergency and done for Lloyd's safety, so it was obviously justified! Lloyd had just gone and hadn't told anyone anything, so Kai had an opportunity to victim blame.

 

 The first logical place to look from was Lloyd's desk, Kai figured. It was covered with ancient scrolls and… colored pencils? Last time Kai checked the scrolls didn't have mystical coloring pictures in them.

 

 Kai opened the first drawer of many and inside was… drawings? He didn't know Lloyd could draw. But the drawings were good! Lloyd had drawn a picture of his desk from his perspective, dragons and super realistic people! Wow, why didn't Lloyd tell anyone he was challenging Picasso with his art?

 

 Kai could see Lloyd's drawing skills get better right before his eyes, from a Nya with a way too big head and a weird face to almost a photo taken of Nya and printed on paper.

 

 The next drawer also had drawings in it, but the third drawer was full of candy. Huh, Lloyd hadn't dropped his obsession for candy like he thought.

 

 He imagined Lloyd drawing innocently with sparkly eyes, dangling his feet and eating candy and drinking coke with a curved straw. Awww, that would've been so cute!

 

 After finding the fourth and last drawer on the left side of Lloyd's desk full of comics, Kai realized that there most likely wasn't going to be any useful information on finding Lloyd in the rest of the drawers either.

 

 He also had dug deeper to Lloyd's little secrets than he had meant to. Lloyd never talked about his hobbies. Being used to no one knowing anything about them and then Kai just suddenly finding everything out without permission could be a very, very not good thing for his already weak capability to trust.

 

 Kai was curious, though. He had already with just a small look found three hobbies Lloyd had, two of which Kai hadn't even known the existence of! Or, if eating candy could be counted as a hobby, but either way, there could be so much more. There could be a ukulele or something in the next drawer! There's no way Kai’d just leave it and not check!

 

Wait, no! Kai was supposed to be a good big brother. If Lloyd wanted to keep stuff secret or was just not ready to talk about it for some reason, then Kai needed to respect that, from this point on of course.

 

 Yes, Kai left the drawers alone and left Lloyd's room, but not before laying down on his bed. It smelled like Lloyd. If Kai closed his eyes and stretched his imagination, he could swear Lloyd was right beside him.

 

 First Spinjitzu Master, he missed Lloyd.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 The wolf masked people had led them to the Shadow Dojo. The Forbidden Five had built a staircase to some underground base or something. The staircase was too long to tell what the place was. Arin could guess by the creepy decorations around the staircase and people hustling in and out though.

 

 The unconscious person was moved inside the Shadow Dojo and one wolf masked person went down the blood red staircase and came back a few moments later, Rox walking proudly behind them to the dojo.

 

“Are we gonna go investigate?” Arin asked.

 

“Yes. We will go when there's less people watching”, Ras answered. “We'll just need to get a disguise.”

 

 

Chapter 4: How to not be a good brother

Summary:

Kai didn't learn to respect privacy from the last time, Ras and Arin do some agent stuff and find familiar people and Lloyd is enjoying his time.

Notes:

Hello! It is me again!

 Kai was officially a bad brother. He just couldn't help it. He was not able to handle the curiosity taking over his mind every second he wasn't going through all the other drawers. He could almost say they were calling him.

 

 So, here he was again, at Lloyd's desk, sitting on his chair and going through the drawings more carefully this time. He discovered Lloyd had written notes behind the drawings.

 

 Behind the weird looking Nya Kai had looked at last time was; “Nya, if you ever see this, I hope you won't be offended. I tried my best, okay?”

 

 He read some of the notes in an order he thought was from the oldest to the newest.

 

 Lloyd had written behind a drawing of master Wu's face. “I don't have anyone to talk to right now, so you, my dearest paper, will be my victim. 

 I miss the others. It's only been a few weeks since I woke up, but the monastery has never, ever been this quiet. It's creeping me out.”

 

Kai found a drawing of himself, so of course he had to read what Lloyd had to say about it. “Kai showed up a while ago. It gave me hope. At least I'm not the only one who survived. He left soon after, though. He said he's going to go look for the others. And of course someone has to stay and stop the mergequakes and keep up the monastery, so guess who is all alone again?”

 

 There was a drawing of the kitchen of the monastery, the whole family doing stuff, but you could see through them all, except Lloyd. Like everyone else were ghosts and Lloyd was the only one left. "I thought the human species is supposed to adjust quickly, so why don't I? The quietness feels louder than Jay and the empty space is haunting me. Is this where my dragon and oni blood come to work?”

 

 A drawing of Lloyd stopping a mergequake. “I feel like the mergequakes are happening more often. It's not draining me, I'm the green ninja after all, I'm supposed to be the savior of Ninjago, and now the savior of the Merged lands. That reminded me that I need to be strong and get through this all with or without the others. It's not just about me, the whole world is depending on this.”

 

 The notes were mostly Lloyd's updates on everything. He had basically been keeping a diary. Then, after Kai supposed three months had passed, Lloyd's notes got shorter and blunt. One of the last ones just said; “I'm going insane”.

 

 That made Kai pause, he had known Lloyd didn't like being alone. Hell, no one liked being alone, but he hadn't realized that being all alone for almost two years, not knowing what's happening around you and not being able to leave and see for yourself because of the mergequakes would be that soul wrenching.

 

 Kai looked at the last four drawers on the right side of the desk. His morals were fighting with his curiosity.

 

 On one hand, Kai had already broken Lloyd's privacy by… a lot, and the chance of him finding anything useful to find Lloyd was frail. Also if Lloyd found out, it wouldn't do much good to his already weak capability of trusting.

 

 On the other hand though, the chance was still there and Kai would do anything to get Lloyd to safety. If there wasn't going to be anything Kai needed to talk about, then Lloyd would never find out. If there was, then Kai had made the right choice and this was a nessecary part of finding Lloyd.

 

 So, privacy be damned, he opened the first drawer of the four.

 

 …

 

 Glowsticks? And glow in the dark nail polish? And glow in the dark stickers? Well that was surprising. Not like Kai was surprised by it being surprising.

 

The next drawer was full of ancient scrolls. Finally something Kai knew Lloyd had besides the comics he had found earlier.

 

The third drawer contained master Wu’s old lesson journal and Lloyd's new lesson journal by the looks of it. These could help in training Sora and Wyldfyre while Lloyd was gone.

 

 Kai took Lloyd's journal and read some of it.

 

 “So, this is my new lesson journal. Uncle Wu had one, so I thought I'd make one too.”

 

He flipped the page.

 

 “Today was Sora and Arin’s first day of training and my first day of teaching. I did the exact same stuff Uncle Wu always did, but I burned the tea and the big reveal of the training track was ruined, because I didn't know I was supposed to CLEAN THE THING! 

 

So it started off with a bit of chaos, but we got over it.

 

Then they asked me if they could go to a carnival and I told them no, because that's what Uncle Wu would’ve said. Well they went anyway and we had to fight an oversized doll and a crazy magic guy, but we all were fine.

 

From that I learned to not continue the cycle of boring and to let my students do fun stuff so they won't need to keep secrets from me. I'll also try to not push them too hard in the future.”

 

 Welp, sounds like Lloyd's first day on the job went better than his did when he trained kids martial arts after Nya turned into water.

 

 He read a couple pages more and put the journal back and turned to the last drawer.

 

 He took a hold of the handle and opened it calmly, expecting for it to contain something else related to Lloyd's new title as the master of their monastery, like the watering plan for all the plants and stuff.

 

 And it was revealed to be… a red knife?

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 As some wolf masked were stomping in a strict straight line, away from the dojo and to the woods at night, Ras and Arin knocked the last two out, making them lose consciousness and stole their clothes. It was time to see what these five idiots were planning on.

 

 Ras led Arin first to the dojo. He was nervous and the cold air of the quiet night was not giving “don't worry no one’s dead” vibes.

 

 They walked the stairs up and discovered four cages inside, all occupied.

 

 The first person to catch Arin's eye was Lord Garmadon himself. He was talking to a woman in another cage with a beige shirt and a green scarf and pants. She had gray hair with a white strike neatly in a braid, some of it cut to bangs falling on her forehead.

 

 In the third cage was a white haired girl with heavy bangs and… red sharpie on her forehead or something. Her clothes were pretty punk, all black with violet accents and spikes. Oh my First Spinjitzu Master, it was the Jade princess who had revived Garmadon with some oni masks and tried to destroy Ninjago! What was her name, Harumi?

 

 The last cage was taken by a girl with shoulder length, black, messy hair and a white wolf hat. This one’s forehead was clean, but she did have some red sharpie on her cheeks. She had a white fur coat and some bright red pants.

 

 They all turned to look at Ras and Arin, expecting them to start doing some evil tasks quietly, since that's what the wolf masked always did. 

 

 “Uhm”, Arin started. This was one the most awkward situations he had ever been in. “Hello?”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Lloyd's elemental power hurt more than he thought. Had all his enemies gone through this pain after fighting him or did the magic cast on the cage strengthen it? It had been pretty long and he still felt it in his chest and face.

 

 He had been laying in the cage for at least four days. There were many people watching over him while doing their work 24/7, including the Forbidden Five.

 

 No, let's just call them the double F:s, it gets tiring to repeat ‘the Forbidden five’ over and over again in his thoughts. The name is annoying and too long.

 

 Anyway, they all mostly ignored him, only the double F:s taunting and giving him electric shocks with a tech piece from time to time. Lloyd figured they had put the tech piece on him when he was unconscious.

 

 Nokt also gave him a water bottle yesterday, it did nothing to cure his hunger though.

 

 During his time, he did his best to analyze the double F:s. 

 

 Rox was obviously the main spellcaster, she had the magic of the wolf masks figured out, casted the spell on Lloyd's cage, was going to be the main part in some kind of ritual they had planned and even had her own crystal ball.

 

 Nokt was the impulsive and raging fighter, also the most annoying one. He seemingly trained the wolf masked and got to lead all the crusades.

 

 Hattie, or Kur, was a master in the emotions department and could somehow make hallucinations. They knew exactly how to get on people’s nerves and inside their mind.

 

 The one with the straw hat similar to Uncle Wu’s, Drix, took care of all the technical stuff. While others made crazy plans, Drix made sure to list the resources and got stuff done and built with the wolf masked.

 

 The one with the rōningasa, Zarkt, was the planner of the group. He knew how to use everyone’s skills in the best way and apparently was the one to make the plan that included kidnapping Lloyd. Not an original idea, but you do you, Lloyd guessed.

_ _

 

 “Hello again, Lloyd”, Nokt was standing at the bottom of the stairs with a familiar remote, pressing a button on it.

 

 Lloyd felt blinding pain from the tech piece on his neck. Luckily he was already laying down, so he couldn't fall to the floor and hurt his head.

 

 “You must’ve missed me. And guess what? It's your lucky day! I've brought you another water bottle!”

 

 Lloyd groaned in response to show how excited he was. “Why are you doing this?”

 

 Nokt walked over to Lloyd's cage. “You will find out soon enough”, he pulled a lever, lowering the cage for him to dump the bottle in. “Look at you! Such a small little ninja in such a massive amount of pain. Just how I like it. But don't worry, it'll end soon enough”, Nokt crouched next to him and ran his fingers through Lloyd's hair. “We'll just need to finish making some stuff and it'll be over.”

 

 

 

Chapter 5: One step back and one forward

Summary:

Arin has a quick little moral crisis and then does what the ninja weren't able to do accidentally.

Notes:

Hello! Your beloved Rioskis is here again with another chapter!

 “Hello?”

 

 “Oh hey! They can talk!” The sharpie cheeks exclaimed from her cage in the far left corner, pointing her finger towards Arin, her mouth forming a childish grin.

 

 “Thanks”, Harumi glared at her. “I couldn't notice myself.”

 

 “Shhh”, Arin hushed. “We’re undercover”, he took his mask off. “I'm Arin and this is Ras.”

 

 “Well nice to meet you both”, the gray haired woman greeted. “My name is Misako and these are Garmadon, Harumi and Akita.”

 

 “Wait”, Arin gasped. “You're Misako, like, Lloyd's mom Misako?” How hadn't Arin recognized her? Well, probably because she was in the cage behind Garmadon's one, in the far right corner, so Arin couldn't see her clearly.

 

 “Nice”, Harumi grunted. “A ninja fan.”

 

 “Well, actu-”

 

“Arin”, Ras interrupted Arin, ignoring the whole conversation and looked Arin straight in the eyes. “You stay here on guard. I have to get some possessions of mine. Tell me immediately if something happens”, he proceeded to walk away and up the stairs, everyone watching him in silence.

 

 “Is it just me or does that not sound very ‘we’re here undercover and are not with these people’?” Akita asked. “Why and how does he have his stuff here?”

 

 “Well”, Arin scratched the back of his neck, then took a deep breath, readying himself to explain it as quickly as possible. “Basically, he wanted to take over the world and he's the one who released one of the Forbidden five, but Nokt betrayed Ras and released the other ones too and I don't want to do evil stuff, but he knows where my parents are and wants to somehow cancel the Merge and Lloyd is full of empty promises of finding my parents and didn't believe me when I told him that Wu is the one who caused this all so I'm with Ras. Any questions?”

 

 Everyone was silent for a moment, processing all the information.

 

 “That doesn't sound like Lloyd”, was the first thing said by Akita. “He always makes sure to help in all the ways he can. And he clearly has trust issues from a certain someone in here, so don't blame him too much for not believing you."

 

 “Do you know how he is going to ‘cancel the Merge’?” Garmadon asked.

 

 “Well he didn't help me. In his training I didn't get much better than I was before that. Also he didn't do anything to find my parents”, he argued, ignoring Garmadon. He hadn't even heard of Akita before. Who was this random girl to tell how his master-, or former master was like? “How do you know him anyway?”

 

 “Lloyd teaches now?” Garmadon asked. And got ignored by everyone.

 

 “He saved my life”, she simply stated. Not like it helped a lot. Lloyd had saved everyone at least once. “And my brother’s, and he saved my world from chaos and destruction. Also I helped.”

 

 “Arin, was it?” Harumi spoke up. “How do you think Lloyd would've had time to look for two random people and train you when he was busy saving the world from the guy you're siding with? You think he could've just paused time, searched all of the Merged lands, recognized your parents without ever having seen them before, brought them home, unpaused time and defeated the great evil in a minute or two and then trained you to a full ninja in a couple of days when the other ninja’s training lasted for years? You think that's realistic?”

 

 “A bit rich coming from you, but I agree”, Misako said. “There's no possible way to do all of those in so little time.”

 

 Arin paused. He hadn't thought of it like that. “Okay, maybe I was expecting a bit much from him.”

 

 “Yeah, definitely”, Akita agreed. “Could you free us now that we've turned you into a ninja in training again?”

 

 “First of all, I'm still on Ras’ side because he knows where my parents are and Lloyd doesn't. Second of all, yes, I will free you as soon as possible”, Arin had totally forgotten about that. “Uhm, does anyone know where the keys are?”

 

 “They don't need to know, because no one is getting out”, Ras had a backpack full of stuff and was walking towards Arin. “Arin, if you free them, it will be noticed and we will get caught.”

 

 “What?” Arin furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you suggesting that we just leave them here to die?”

 

 Ras growled. “I'm not suggesting anything, I'm telling you what we are going to do.”

 

 “No! We can't just let the Forbidden Five do what they want to them. Those are Lloyd's parents. They're clearly planning on something big, we need to do something about it!” 

 

 “No, the ninja need to do something about it and you're no ninja anymore”, Ras stated. “I am going now, are you coming with me to find your parents or are you staying here and dying too?”

 

 … 

 

 What was he supposed to do? 

 

 His parents were his everything, his support pillars. Ras was the only one who knew where they were. 

 

 The Forbidden Five were like, the evilest evil in the whole world and they had kidnapped Lloyd's parents. They clearly had something coming. Something horrible.

 

 And Arin had to choose between saving his or Lloyd's parents. Him or Lloyd. Lloyd or Arin. Ugh, why does he have to decide?

 

 If he stuck with Ras, the guy who wanted to take over the world, he could find his parents. But if he didn't, he could save Lloyd's parents and help save the world. 

 

 Ras could be lying, though. He could've been telling Arin he knew about Arin's parents when he actually didn't know anything just to have Arin do stuff for him. How hadn't he thought of that before?

 

 So, the decision was clear.

 

 “Who said I'm not a ninja anymore?” Arin asked, disregarding the fact that just a moment ago he was making it clear that he was with Ras and not the ninja. He could almost see the anger on Ras’ face through the mask.

 

 “Fine! Stay here and die! I'm leaving”, Ras turned around and stomped away, until he was able to be seen by the wolf masked, then he started walking normally away, like he was just another wolf masked and was goign on a mission.

 

 Arin turned to the others. “So, the keys?”

 

 Misako smiled. She had that same expression as his mom had when she wanted to say “I'm so proud of you”, but couldn't because of some kind of situation going on.

 

 “I'm not sure, but it's probably somewhere down that creepy staircase outside”, Akita answered. 

_ _

 

 Arin could hear all the hustle and bustle from the top of the stairs and it only got louder as he took more steps down, getting more and more nervous by the second.

 

 On the final step, he could see the Forbidden Five's plans coming together right in front of him.

 

 The floor was black tiles of stone and the walls were blood red like the staircase. Black pillars supported the triangle shaped ceiling that curved outwards. Lanterns hung from the ceiling and torches were placed across the walls, lighting up the place just enough to see clearly even with the wolf mask on. How had the Forbidden Five built this in just a week or so?

 

 On the floor, in the middle of the hall, was a huge carved pentagram with a big lever next to it. Right above it was hanging a black stone cage. It was a bit bigger than the ones Lloyd's parents, Harumi and Akita had. From Arin's perspective it was impossible to see if anyone was locked up there.

 

 All around were hastily put together workplaces, wolf masked people hurrying weapons and armor ready. 

 

 He heard footsteps from behind him, coming down the stairs. He speedwalked to the nearest workplace and pretended to do something productive.

 

 “Hello again, Lloyd”, Nokt said as he stepped down the last stairs.

 

 Wait, Lloyd!? 

 

 Nokt was holding a water bottle and a remote with a big red button on it. He pressed it and a sound was heard from the cage.

 

 “You must’ve missed me. And guess what? It's your lucky day! I've brought you another water bottle!”

 

 A groan from apparently Lloyd in the cage. “Why are you doing this?”

 

 Yep, definitely Lloyd. Arin almost couldn't believe it. They had gotten Lloyd! How is that even possible?

 

 Nokt slowly walked over to the cage. “You will find out soon enough”, he pulled a lever, lowering the cage for him to dump the bottle in, showing Arin a painful version of Lloyd to look at and even more painful to be. 

 

 His skin was pale and he was laying on the stone floor helplessly. He was shaking in pain and his normally golden hair almost looked gray. Lloyd's clothes were torn and dirty. Arin was lucky he couldn't see Lloyd's face due to him facing the opposite direction. 

 

 “Look at you! Such a small little ninja in such a massive amount of pain. Just how I like it. But don't worry, it'll end soon enough”, Nokt crouched next to Lloyd and had the nerve to run his fingers through Lloyd's hair. How dare he! “We'll just need to finish some stuff and it'll be over.”

 

 Nokt stood up and left. Arin saw the keys dangling from a ring tied to his belt with a string.

 

 Yeah, he was beyond doubt going to need the ninja’s help with this one.

Notes:

WAZZUUUUUUUP! I updated the age list. I didn't add it to the fourth chapter because technically Misako and Akita weren't revealed yet since Arin didn't recognize Misako and Akita is a completely new person to Arin. Anyway here it is:

Zane - physically like 23 but his real age is closer to 103 since he's a nindroid
Cole - 23
Kai - 22
Jay - 21
Nya - 20
Lloyd - physically about 18/19/20 due to tomorrow's tea but his real age is younger than that
Sora - 16
Arin - 15
Wyldfyre - 15
The Forbidden Five - these people are so old it doesn't even matter anymore, but physically they're like 30-35 due to being in the Never-Realm
Garmadon - about 400
Misako - 54
Harumi - 17
Akita - 17

Chapter 6: Making plans

Summary:

Kai showed the ninja his foundings and Arin meets kind people.

Notes:

Hello people! Here's a bit calmer chapter for you.

Cole, Zane, Nya, Sora, Riyu and Wyldfyre were all hanging out in the living room of the monastery when- “GUYS!” Cole almost fell off the sofa as Kai rushed in. “I FOUND SOMETHING!”

 

 “Okay okay!” Cole sighed. “No need to be so loud.”

 

 “What is it?” Nya asked. “Better be something good. I almost lost the game because of you!”

 

 “Okay so, first of all”, Kai took out two journals. One was master Wu’s old lesson journal and the other one was unfamiliar, but similar looking. “I found master Wu and Lloyd's lesson journals. Now we can train Sora and Wyldfyre! And second”, Kai whipped out a… red kitchen knife? “I found this.”

 

 “Well, what is it?” Sora asked. It looked important, all shiny with a golden handle.

 

 “I don't know”, Kai spoke in an upbeat tone, not matching the others’ energy. “But we'll figure it out. Lloyd was keeping it in his desk drawer so it could be the key to finding him.”

 

 “You went snooping on Lloyd's stuff!?” Nya yelled. Kai couldn't be serious, right? 

 

 “Well, yeah”, great. Cole’s going to doublelock his room’s door. “But I did it for Lloyd's safety! If anything, it's Lloyd's fault for just disappearing and getting kidnapped!”

 

 “Kai's right, for once”, Zane admitted. “Wouldn't we all do the same if we got the idea?”

 

 Everyone went silent. Riyu stepped towards the knife, sniffed it and said something.

 

 Wyldfyre gasped. “That knife is a gift from the Source Dragon of Motion herself! She probably gave it to Lloyd after the tournament.”

 

 “It is?” Sora turned to look at the weapon. “What does it do?”

 

 Riyu shook his head.

 

 “Maybe Egalt and Rontu would know”, Kai offered. “They seem to know a lot about source dragons.”

 

 “A mission! Finally!” Wyldfyre cheered, jumping up from the old sofa. “It was so boring just walking around the monastery.”

 

 “I'll stay here”, Nya informed. “If Lloyd, Arin or Jay show up it would be better if one of us was here.”

 

 “I’ll stay with you”, Kai offered. “If the Forbidden Five show up you have no chance of escaping alone.”

 

 “Kai, no”, Nya said. “You went snooping, you found the knife, you got the idea of going to see Egalt and Rontu and you will go on your mission.”

 

 “I coul-”

 

 “No, you can't do the rising dragon yet and Egalt and Rontu are the only ones who can teach it. That's why Sora can't stay either”, Nya cut Cole off. “C’mon guys, I can do this! The possibility of the Forbidden Five attacking the monastery is tiny. They don't know you're out so they wouldn't dare.”

 

 Kai sighed. “Okay then, if you're sure.”

 

 “Thank you, I am.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “Lloyd~” Nokt called, again, from the bottom of the stairs. He once again came to the cage and lowered it.

 

 This time Nokt had a plate of food with the water bottle, though. He also didn’t have the remote. He slid them both through the bars and left them on the floor next to Lloyd.

 

 “So, how are you feeling?” Nokt asked.

 

 “This is the first time you've given me food since you literally kidnapped me. How do you think I'm feeling?” Lloyd sat up barely with his shaky hands and felt like passing out. He pushed through it and started eating, not pausing to look at what the food was and only knowing it was plain rice once he put it in his mouth.

 

 “I think you've been holding up well! “ Nokt chimed. He watched Lloyd's every move as he ate.

 

 Lloyd just sighed and continued eating. Nokt left him alone and the cage down after realizing Lloyd was not up to talk, going to check up on the work of the wolf masked. 

 

 When Lloyd was ready, Nokt took the plate and the empty water bottle from yesterday. “Have a good day!” he pushed the lever and the cage rose up again and Lloyd was left alone without any electricity involved.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Arin had been walking for a long time. Or not, actually it had been just a few hours, but the situation at hand was making him feel like it. 

 

 He was thirsty and hungry and his feet hurt, but the sun had risen, so at least he could see where he was going.

 

 Right now he was walking through a small village in the middle of the woods.

 

 The people here had been staring at him and giving him second looks. Some teenagers passed him some time ago. One of them said hi to him and they all giggled and ran off.

 

 Some boy came out of his house as he was walking by. The boy gasped as he saw him and immediately went inside. He came back before Arin had left, though. Following him was an older boy, probably his big brother. They both stared at him and then the younger boy took the older’s arm and pulled him towards Arin.

 

 Arin stopped at this. “Uh, hi?” 

 

 The older boy froze, but the younger brother got even more excited. “Hello! Are you a ninja?”

 

 “Oh!” so the town’s people had recognized him! First Spinjitzu Master, Arin had thought he looked somehow weird. “Well… it's complicated, but yeah.”

 

 “I told you, Theo!” the younger boy beamed. “He's the orange ninja from that cat video!”

 

 The older brother, Theo it seemed, was reluctant. He looked Arin straight in the eye. “Why are you here? Why would a ninja be in a small town in the middle of nowhere? Are we in danger?”

 

 “Uhm”, should Arin tell the truth? Theo clearly wasn't stupid and wouldn't believe him if he just told them he had gone on a trip or something. But should the information that the green ninja had been kidnapped? Lloyd was basically everyone's beacon of hope. It would cause havo-

 

 “What are you waiting for? HM?” This boy really was impatient, and angry.

 

 “Okay okay!” Arin sighed. “You asked for it. The green ninja is in trouble. I followed a bad guy to find my parents and we found the main villains base and there was four other people held captive and the green ninja and I need to get the other ninja to save them all, but I don't have a car or anything like that so I need to walk”, he gasped for air once he had his explanation finished.

 

 The siblings were both quiet for a moment. Then the little one spoke up. “That's so cool! Maybe daddy and mommy could give you a ride!” 

 

 “Matthew, we can't just promise stuff like that”, Theo scolded him. “But… they would kinda have to agree, since it's the green ninja. We all owe that and more to him.”

 

 Arin could practically see Matthew’s eyes shining like stars. “YAY! Let's go ask them!” Then Arin and Theo were both pulled into the house.

 

 Theo closed the door behind them and Matthew took Arin to the kitchen, where Arin supposed their mom was baking something.

 

 “Mom! Mom! Look who we found!” Matthew ran up to her and tugged her sleeve.

 

 She turned around. “Is that the ninja from that one cat video? Why is he here?”

 

 “The green ninja has apparently been kidnapped”, Theo informed. “He said he doesn't have a ride to get to the other ninja to save him.”

 

 “Let me guess. You promised that dad or I could give him a ride?” she didn't seem faced at all by the literal ninja in her kitchen. Does having kids do that to you? At both siblings nodding, she sighed. “I could drive him to the Crossroads, since I'm going there to visit Maria later today, but I need to make the pie first and it's not going well. Isn’t the monastery around there somewhere? I'm assuming, because that's where all the drama happened before the Merge.”

 

 “Yeah, it's next to Crossroads. And it's your lucky day! I happen to be a pie expert. I'll help you with it!” Arin moved over to wash his hands.

 

 “Oh thank you!”

Chapter 7: Getting closer

Summary:

The ninja have a little talk with Egalt and Rontu and Lloyd is confused and Nya gets a visitor.

Notes:

Hi people! I've brought you a chapter again!

 “Egalt! Rontu! Long time no see! How are you?” Kai greeted them as he walked to the training area with the other ninja.

 

 “Good. Egalt’s eye has completely healed now”, Rontu answered. “What brought you here?”

 

 “Well”, Kai took out the knife Lloyd had gotten from the Source Dragon of Motion. The two dragons gasped at the sight of it, immediately knowing what it was. “Could you tell us about this? We know Lloyd got it from the Source Dragon of Motion as a gift, probably for what we did at the Tournament of The Sources. He's been kidnapped by the Forbidden Five and I found this in his desk drawer. Could it help us in finding him?”

 

 “Let me see”, Kai gave the knife to Egalt. He hummed after inspecting the carvings on it. “This knife is capable of summoning the Source Dragon of Motion for one time. I don't think she can help in finding Lloyd, but I suggest keeping it close for an emergency when you do find him and go save him. Use it wisely.”

 

 “Well, how do we summon her?” Sora asked.

 

 “You point it at the sky, tell who you are and why you need her there”, Rontu stated. “The knife will disappear when she arrives. And now that that's out of the way, why don't we teach you four the rising dragon?” Rontu gestured to Cole, Sora, Wyldfyre and Riyu.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 He was in the void, again.

 

 All the other ninja rose from the ground, surrounding him. They were ready to fight, some of their eyes blinded by anger, some by worry and some by fear. At once, they all charged towards him, forcing him to fight them.

 

 The ninja disappeared right when they were about to get into battle, except Arin. He didn't fight, but stood in front of him, tears falling from his eyes. “You failed me!” he raged. “You weren't good enough! You never are!”

 

 At that last sentence, Arin's voice mutated into Lloyd's own and soon he saw himself. He had a wolf mask on, but this one was black instead of red or blue. His hair looked more silver than gold and his hands were lit up in purple flames. “When will you stop bringing chaos into the world? When is it enough? You claim you're protecting people, yet you couldn't even protect yourself.”

 

 The other version of him turned into the Gong of Shattering. The Mallet of Shattering hit the gong and he heard someone scream. Maybe himself? His mother? Maybe both.

 

 Then he saw his father in his oni form. He was ready to charge and looked at him like he didn't recognize his own son.

 

 Lloyd woke up and accidentally used spinjitzu and crashed himself into the bars of the cage. Ouch.

 

 Huh, it seems the visions came back. The Source Dragon of Motion did say she could only help with them for a limited amount of time.

 

 The ninja were going to turn on him? Or was he going to turn on the ninja? He wouldn't do that. Or would he? He had a wolf mask on in the vision. Can he trust anyone? Even better, can he trust himself?

 

 Also he was going to meet Arin and his father at some point. It wasn't going to be anything pleasant, though.

 

 “Hello again, Lloyd!” Nokt greeted, again, from the bottom of the stairs. This time Rox was with him. “Look what we brought you!”

 

 Nokt was holding a tray of all kinds of food. It looked to be well cooked and nutritious. Lloyd could smell it from his cage hanging from the ceiling. He had to wipe some drool off his face after staring at it for a moment.

 

 Nokt and Rox walked with the tray of food to the lever and Nokt pulled it, lowering Lloyd's cage, again.

 

 Nokt looked at Rox and she did a spell with her crystal ball, freezing Lloyd. Nokt unlocked the door of the cage and put the tray in with the water bottle he had also brought. When he was finished, Rox ended the spell and Lloyd could move again.

 

 “Why are you suddenly feeding me?” Lloyd asked, hesitating to eat.

 

 Rox shook her head at Nokt and Nokt smiled at Lloyd. “We're just pitying you! Also we need to keep you alive. We don't want our prisoner to die, then we'd have no one to torture.”

 

 “Uh huh”, did these people think Lloyd was an idiot? There was no way he was eating the food now. They needed Lloyd for something physical or energy draining. If he didn't eat, then their plan wouldn't work. And he could die, but the world was better off without him, if it meant the double F:s didn't get their plan across… Not that it wasn't better off without him either way.

 

 “Welp”, Nokt said. “We'll leave you to eat. Take care!” He lifted the cage again, leaving Lloyd together with the tray of food.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 A knock on Nya’s door. She opened it and was met with Frohicky. “Hello?”

 

 “Oh hello!” Frohicky greeted her. “Excuse My disturbance. It is an important matter. Young Arin has come back and is waiting for you outside.”

 

 Arin was back? He had so confidently followed the Forbidden Five to the portal to save Ras. What could he want?

 

 “Thank you, mr. Frohicky. I'll go talk to him”, Nya thanked and walked past him towards the training track.

_ _

 

 “Hi”, Nya tried her best to sound caring, even though she was annoyed, lightly said. Arin was the reason Nya was here alone while others were on a mission to unravel Lloyd's secrets in the first place. 

 

 Arin swiftly turned around from where he had been sitting on Lloyd's meditation carpet, looking at a framed picture of himself. “Oh, hi, Nya”, he stood up and walked over to her. “Look, I know I kind of abandoned you guys and all that stuff, but I found the Shadow Dojo and Lloyd and I need your help to save him!”

 

 “You know where Lloyd is?” This is something worth listening to. Seemed like Arin was on their side after all.

 

 “Yes! And they have his parents and princess Harumi and some random Akita girl! And they're torturing Lloyd! And preparing an army!” Arin told Nya with wide eyes, like he almost couldn't believe it himself. “Nya you should've seen him!”

 

 “Wait!” Nya was processing too much information at the same time. “They have Akita, Harumi, Garmadon, Misako and Lloyd!?”

 

 “Yes! We need to tell the others too! Where are they?” At that moment Arin realized that the monastery was empty of people, except for Nya and Frohicky.

 

 “Long story short, they went on a mission to find out about a magic item that could help in saving Lloyd”, Nya answered. “Enough about that, let's go inside and you'll tell me more."

Chapter 8: The get together (minus Lloyd)

Summary:

Lloyd complains in his mind and the ninja meet someone and Nokt has a tea party with Lloyd.

 Lloyd ended up eating some of the food. He couldn't deal with his hunger when there was such a delicious looking meal right next to him, its smell invading his nostrils, which were more sensitive than a human's due to his dragon and oni heritage.

 

 So, he ate until he could keep himself in check and not drool on his gi. The poor thing deserved a break, much like Lloyd. He was hurting everywhere. His both sides and back were hurting from sleeping on the cold stone floor, his head, chest and arms were hurting from the accidental spinjitzu he did after the vision and his brain was hurting from Nokt being so annoying.

 

 Also he was cold. Lloyd had never liked the cold, the opposite actually. When he was at Drakley’s, he used to steal other kids’ uniform jackets to stay warm on cold nights, always getting beat up later for it. When he was taken in by Uncle Wu, he used his first money he earned from chores to buy more blankets. Wu had told him he didn't need to work for warmth and that he could've just asked, but it had already been too late, since he had already bought the blankets. When winter came, Lloyd was always the one to wear the most layers of clothing out of all the ninja, getting a few laughs every time they went out.

 

 Right now, it was autumn and the double F:s had put him into a cage made of stone, with his only source of warmth being his ripped gi that should've been green.

_ _

 

“Lloyd!” Nokt yelled from his usual spot and like any other time, he walked over to the lever and lowered the cage. When he saw the barely eaten food, he frowned. “Why are you not eating? Do you want to starve?” 

 

 The tech piece got to work and gave Lloyd three long electric shocks, which had Lloyd on the floor in pain and screaming.

 

 Nokt poked Lloyd through the bars. When Lloyd didn't do anything, he opened the cage, took the tray of food and walked over to Lloyd, making sure to close the cage before crouching next to him. He set the tray aside for a moment and lifted Lloyd to a sitting position. Then he took a spoon and started feeding Lloyd.

 

 At first Lloyd spat the food out, but Nokt began pushing his jaw so his mouth was shut and didn't let go until Lloyd swallowed and spitting it out became impossible.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

“What was that?” Cole immediately moved into a fighting position, looking all around them. He had heard someone's footsteps near their group.

 

 Even though it was a bad thing to think, he kind of hoped it was someone who was going to try and use shatter spin, since he had just learned how to do rising dragon and wanted to test it out. And Wyldfyre could try using the spinjitzu she had learned to use. “Who’s there?”

 

 Kai looked around. Then he heard it too. Someone was trying to leave. He launched himself into the direction and landed on top of someone, making them both fall.

 

 “Ouch! Man, what's your problem!?” Wait, that sounded familiar. Kai looked down.

 

 “Jay!? What are you doing here?”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “You can't be serious! These texts are in a foreign language!” Nya threw her hands up like she was raging at the First Spinjitzu Master.

 

 While Arin and Nya were waiting for the others, they had decided to train. Nya insisted on looking for a lesson from Master Wu’s old lesson journal. Arin hadn't liked the thought of learning the lessons of someone who caused his parents’ disappearance, but reluctantly agreed after some bargaining.

 

 “Let me see”, Arin asked. Nya gave him the book and he tried reading with the tactic of just assuming the symbols represented the letters they looked the most like. It didn't work at all. “Nope.” He gave the book back to Nya. 

 

 “NYA WE'RE BA-” Kai yelled, but stopped at the sight of Arin. He tried his best not to scowl like Arin was a sick rat. Lloyd leaving and getting kidnapped wasn't technically Arin's fault, and he was just a kid. “What's he doing here?”

 

 “He found Lloyd”, everyone froze at Nya's answer, but their jaws dropped at the next sentence. “Also Garmadon, Misako, Harumi and Akita.”

 

 “Wha- how!? Where!?” Cole almost dropped the tied up Jay in his arms. Wait- Jay.

 

 “You found Jay?” Nya asked, her eyes were glassy, but she kept her composure and looked away from Jay, she knew it would only hurt more if she kept watching him. “Where was he?”

 

 “He was lost in the woods”, Kai answered. He looked at the unconscious Jay who he had knocked out. “But enough about this fucker. How did you find Green bean?”

 

 “And where is he?” Zane added.

 

 “And is he okay?” Sora spoke, stepping forward from behind the other ninja. “And are you okay? And what happened to you? And why did you go with Ras? And wh-”

 

 “Sora”, Arin stopped her from spitting out even more questions with much too complicated answers. “Calm down. I'll answer one question at a time. There's no rush.”

 

 “Wait what? No rush?” Cole was confused. “Lloyd was literally kidnapped!”

 

 “Okay maybe there is a slight rush”, Arin agreed, blushing and scratching the back of his neck.

 

 “C'mon guys”, Nya waved them over while walking away. “Let's go inside for this.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “See? It wasn't that hard”, Nokt put the spoon down and let go of Lloyd. “Next time just eat it and I won't have to help you this much.”

 

 Nokt had made him finish the whole tray, a couple of electric shocks on the side.

 

 Help Lloyd? This guy clearly needed to update his english. Lloyd was pretty sure helping doesn't include forcing other people to eat so you could use them for some kind of dark ritual or something to take over the world.

 

 “Next time just don't kidnap me”, Lloyd barely breathed out. He was weak, but even the weak could be humorous.

 

 Nokt laughed. “You got some nerve, Green bean!” he closed the cage with the tray in hand and pushed the lever, lifting Lloyd to the ceiling again.

 

… 

 

 How dare Nokt? Green bean!? How did he even know that nickname!? Great, now it was ruined. Lloyd could never hear it again without remembering the time he got kidnapped once again by his greatest enemy at the moment.

Chapter 9: The beginning of the end

Summary:

The ninja talk and Lloyd is scared.

Notes:

Guys I don't know how many of you read the characters before reading this fic, but it you did you know there was also the Ultra Dragon included in that list. I didn't know at first what happened to it when it just dissapeared from the show and never came back and I wanted to make room for it in this fic because it's just SO CUTE AND INNOCENT AND PERFECT but as I was writing this I was like "dude if I want to make this as canonically accurate as possible I'm gonna need to know what the f happened to Ultra Dragon" and then I went and googled it and I WAS HORRIFIED!!!! THE ULTRA DRAGON NEVER DESERVED ANY OF THAT!!! So that's why it isn't there anymore and it won't be in this fic sadly if someone was here just for the Ultra Dragon or was expecting it to be in this.

“And that is how I ended up here”, Arin finished his story.

 

 He had explained his unexpected betrayal of the ninja, how he found Lloyd and the others, how he switched sides again and how he got to the monastery, all in the last hour or so, decidingly not describing how Lloyd looked when Arin had found him in the cage. They didn’t need any more worries in their mind than what they already had. He had convinced the ninja to keep their questions to themselves until he’d finished.

 

 Now they were free to ask whatever they wanted and Arin would answer to the best of his abilities.

 

 “Did Ras tell you how he was going to do that… reverse canceling thing with the Merge?” Cole asked, hesitantly. How could the Merged lands be separated again?

 

 “No”, Arin sighed. “Ras needed some of his stuff from the Shadow Dojo for it, though. We were going to go there before the wolf masked marched past us, but we were kinda lost ‘cause Ras’ old brains couldn't remember where the dojo was in the forest and ‘cause it was so dark even he had trouble seeing. That's why we needed to follow them instead of just waiting for them to pass.”

 

 “That makes sense”, Sora said, sounding surprised for some reason. “Guys, I think the world is ending. Something Arin said makes sense.”

 

 Everyone else laughed.

 

 “Haha. How funny”, Arin crossed his arms.

 

 “Hey I know you're having a fun moment and shit, but Lloyd is still out there being tortured”, Kai interjected. “So we better get going right now.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 The whole group of The double F:s came down the stairs with some wolf masked behind them. They were giving their servants instructions of where to put the filming gear they had brought with them.

 

 Huh, Lloyd had believed the double F:s didn't even know what that kind of stuff is. Why do they even need it? Harumi had filmed his battle with Garmadon at Kryptarium to cause fear in the people of Ninjago and take away their hope. Were the double F:s doing the same? Filming some torture session for the people of the Merged Lands to see? Wouldn't that be a bad idea, since all the nations would then know what's coming and have a chance to get ready to defend themselves? What were these people thinking?

 

 Kur was approaching him. It had been a while since their last talk. After a couple of conversations with Lloyd everyone except Nokt got tired of taunting him and had started to ignore him whenever they came down here. 

 

 “What do you want?” Lloyd demanded, gripping the bars of the cage and sticking his head out to watch him walk to the lever.

 

 “Just came to catch up with you, that's all”, Kur was calm and collected, their eyes studying Lloyd like he was a lab rat and his hands behind his back. They lowered the cage. “So, how is everything? Feeling good?”

 

 “What do you think?” Why were the double F:s always asking him that? “Do I look like I'm doing good?”

 

 Kur hummed. “At least you look like you don't have an impossibly heavy weight on your shoulders.”

 

 “What's that supposed to mean?”

 

 “Don't you feel better without all that responsibility?” Kur crouched, their face now being right in front of Lloyd’s. “Doesn't it feel good not to have to worry about training kids and leading a difficult team and taking care of the monastery? With us you don't have to be the green ninja who is destined to save everyone, or Master Lloyd who has to keep calm and inspire others, or Lloyd the leader of the ninja and the one always responsible for everyone else’s mistakes. With us you can just be Lloyd Garmadon, the boy who got revenge. The boy who refused to live under the pressure everyone else was expecting him to endure. Doesn't that sound nice? Right now you're our prisoner, but you still worry so much less than what you normally do.”

 

 Lloyd bit his cheek. Kur was getting to him. He couldn't let that happen. “I can't just let my family down like that. I agreed to be Master Lloyd and I agreed to be the leader of the ninja.”

 

 “No you didn't”, Kur argued. “You were forced to be the green ninja and with that came all the other responsibilities you didn't ask for.”

 

 “Maybe I was forced to be the green ninja, but that doesn't change the fact that I would do it all again if it meant having my family with me.”

 

 Kur sighed. “Believe what you want.” They walked away– without raising the cage again –to talk to their four siblings, who were now testing the strength of four thick vengestone chains coming from the walls and all of them ending in the middle of the pentagram on the floor. The chains were almost thicker than Lloyd's leg. Rox was putting a spell on them all, making them glow red.

 

 Well, that didn't look good.

 

 A wolf masked came down the stairs and gave Rox a black wolf mask. Black instead of blue. That must've had some special effect. And it must've been meant for Lloyd, since Rox looked over to him right as she got the mask in her hands.

 

 Rox nodded to her siblings and they all abandoned their duties and made their way to Lloyd's cage.

 

 “What-, what are you doing?” Lloyd took a step back, but his wrist was harshly grabbed by Zarkt and he was pulled back to the edge of the cage. 

 

 Lloyd could see Zarkt grin widely under his hat. “Where are you going so fast?”

 

 Drix got a hold of Lloyd's other wrist and they kept his back against the bars of the cage, giving him little to no room to move. If they needed for him to stay in place, why didn't Rox just do the freeze spell again? Did she need to charge up? 

 

 Rox opened the cage and walked over in front of Lloyd, the black wolf mask on hand facing her, ready to put it on Lloyd.

 

 “Please!” Lloyd tried to move his head away, but Nokt gripped his hair hard. “I'll do anything! Just don't do it!”

 

 But it was already too late for destiny to change her mind.

 

 “Don't worry”, Nokt assured. “It won't hurt if you don't struggle.”

 

 Tears were threatening to fall, but Lloyd blinked them back. And before he knew it, the black mask was on his face, sealing his fate.

 

 But the pain wasn't over yet. It never was for him.

 

 A wolf masked smashed the Mallet of Shattering into the Gong of Shattering. Lloyd's mind was crowded with pain and suffering in milliseconds. Zarkt, Drix and Nokt let go of him and he fell on his knees, trying desperately to get the mask off his face and failing miserably.

 

 Nokt joined Lloyd and Rox in the cage. He lifted Lloyd by his neck and dragged him to the chains. Soon after he could feel the cuffs on his wrists and legs.

 

 “Bring them in!” Zarkt barked at the wolf masked and they hurried up the stairs.

 

 “Them? You-, you took others too?!” How many people had been living this nightmare? Who? How much longer had they been here than Lloyd? What were these psychopaths doing!?

 

 “Of course we did!” Rox laughed. “We need more people for this. You're never enough after all!”

 

 Lloyd's blood ran cold. He was sure his face was white under the cursed mask. He didn't know this could get worse, yet somehow every turn was more and more painful. What was next?

 

The wolf masked came back with four cages like Lloyd's, but smaller. Crouching and standing were the only options for positions in those, while Lloyd could lay flat in his one and could walk around a little.

 

 In the first cage they brought in was his father, his mother in the second, Harumi in the third and in the last one was Akita. Akita!? 

 

 “How do you even know who Akita is!?” Lloyd wanted to cry. He really did, but he needed to be strong, even if his tears wouldn't be seen from under the mask. 

 

 “The Cloud Kingdom Archives hold more information than you’d think”, Zarkt answered calmly, his raspy voice low even when Lloyd was practically screaming.

 

 That explained a lot. That also meant the double F:s knew more about Lloyd than he had expected. They knew absolutely everything. 

 

 “Okay, we're live in just a couple of minutes. Start the ritual!” Zarkt commanded.

 

 Rox started reading a spell from an ancient looking scroll. Nokt grinned. “Lloyd, do you want to say hi to your dear old parents?”

 

 Garmadon took that as his turn to speak. “My son! They want your oni form! Whatever they do, do not let that happen!”

 

 “I won't!”

 

 “Small talk time is over now!” Nokt informed. “Now the fun part! Who should we take first?” he looked in between the four for a while, the wolf masked getting their weapons ready.

 

 

Chapter 10: Anger? Yeah, I know him.

Summary:

The ninja are having fun, but Lloyd doesn't like this game anymore.

ALSO WARNING THERE'S BLOOD!!!

Notes:

Wazzup giussss! New month old me!

  The ninja were traveling with dragons, since they seemed like the best way to get there. They were fast, could defend themselves if needed and could be more easily hidden than the new Destiny’s Bounty. However, for some people fast wasn't fast enough.

 

“Are we there yet?” Jay asked in a bored tone for at least the fifth time in the last ten minutes, earning a couple of irritated sighs.

 

 Yes, they took Jay with them. Zane had told them that if he's around a lot of familiar stuff, then he might have a déjà vu and remember something. And what were the ninja more familiar with than going on a dangerous mission to save someone, who half the time was Lloyd who got kidnapped?

 

 “It's very close. Just a couple of minutes”, Arin answered.

 

 Everyone was quiet for a moment. Worry was in the air. Arin hadn't told them how in pain Lloyd looked like, but the lack of description said more than enough to the older ninja and Sora had known Arin for long enough to know exactly what was going on. Wyldfyre hadn't realized how bad Lloyd's situation was and no one was planning on telling her.

 

 “Why do you guys think he just went out like that?” Kai asked. “Or do you think he had a reason at all?”

 

 “... I'm not sure”, Nya started. “But he must've had a really good reason for it. He's sensible, unlike you.”

 

 “Hey!”

 

 “Or what if he got too comfortable being a master that he just pulled Wu's?” Cole wondered, remembering their master going out alone and doing stupid stuff more than once without a solid explanation. “Maybe it's genetic.”

 

 “I sure hope not…” Arin had come back to the ninja. He had realized they hadn't done anything wrong and that he'd have much better chances of survival with them than with Ras. That didn't mean he had forgiven Wu, though. He was still mad that the ninja’s master did such idiotic things like that and he really didn't want Lloyd to turn out like him.

 

 The others didn't catch that he was serious about it and Kai went on to what he thought was a joke. “Yeah, me too. Imagine if we went there and the first thing he would say is”, Kai did his best funny imitation of Wu. “‘NINJA! ThErE’s SoMeThInG I HaVeN’t ToLd YoU!!!”

 

 Everyone else laughed, but something in Jay snapped. It was like something was being pushed into his mind all of the sudden. Like an empty part of him was being filled with something he hadn't known the existence of. “Ninja! There's something I haven't told you!”

 

 Nya was the first to notice Jay's movements stopping, the rope tied around him loosening just a little by the lack of struggle. “Jay? Is everything alright?”

 

 Jay didn't answer. He was gasping for air, feeling suffocated as everything dawned on him all at once.

 

 “Jay? What's wrong?” Zane turned his head about 180° from the front of their line of dragons where he was guiding Zanth to the direction Arin was pointing at.

 

 “I-”, Jay’s eyes were wide, like he just realized what's the meaning of life. He took a deep breath. “I remember everything. Nya I'm so so so so so so so so so-”

 

 “We got the message about a hundred ‘so’s back already”, Kai interrupted him, sighing. “Why did the personality also come back?”

 

 “It's not your fault, Jay”, Nya untied the rope and put her hands comfortingly on his shoulder. “Ras manipulated you. But now we got you back!”

 

 “The elemental master of blabber is back!” Cole cheered. “Good timing.”

 

 “The WHAT NOW?” Jay screeched and everyone just cackled their eyes out.

 

 “Hey! I see the Shadow Dojo!” Arin called to everyone.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Lloyd hated being weak.

 

 He had been taught– or forced –from a very young age to fend for himself, to always be strong and to never get himself in a situation where others had the control. That's what he needed to learn to survive at Drakley's, with all the kids targeting him and teachers being extra pushy to him for being the son of Garmadon, thinking he was going to be their star student. (Look how that turned out.)

 

 Everything else in his life just hammered it more into his brain after he ran away from Drakley's. The Great devourer wouldn't have been woken up if he had been stronger. The Overlord wouldn't have temporarily taken over Ninjago City if he had been better and later on wouldn't have gotten most of his golden powers. Zane wouldn't have “died” saving everyone from Overlord and Lloyd's father wouldn't have had to sacrifice himself to save everyone from Chen if Lloyd had been better. The list could go on and on about all the bad and terrifying things that wouldn't have happened if he had just been strong and good enough.

 

 And the list was getting longer every minute and every second. It was getting much longer right now! 

 

 Nokt had decided to torture Akita and Misako first, knowing they would be the least likely to have at least a tiny chance of being able to defend themselves, even if they were amazing at fighting. Luckily Lloyd hadn't seen much of what he did to them due to fighting the gong in his head, but it was still very clear that something horrible was happening got them, the screams being heard even through the constant noise of the Gong of Shattering and his blurry eyes still being able to see a puddle of red liquid on the floor as they both collapsed on the floor, one at a time.

 

 It was getting harder and harder to control his anger with the gong getting louder and louder in his mind and clearing out his peace slowly, leaving only chaos and destruction behind it, his mind beginning to turn on his morals or… maybe getting rid of them completely.

 

 The thoughts of just turning full oni and getting revenge was getting more appealing and less petrifying by the second. These people were filming this! Lloyd was currently on live television, the people of the Merged Realms watching his suffering with popcorn in hand!

 

 “How can this tiny helpless kid in a green pajama be called a savior?” Zarkt wondered out loud, his voice somehow carrying through all the pained screams and the gong and Rox reading a spell from her scroll, practically yelling. “He's so useless!”

 

 Lloyd needed to hold it in, but it was so painful. He was trying to hold his own heritage back while a magical gong was trying to help it. He couldn't even think straight. He was so focused on not letting his anger out and growing two more arms and horns, but he didn't remember why he needed to not let that happen anymore. Why was he keeping it in in the first place? His mother and… acquaintance were screaming in pain right in front of him and he couldn't do anything about it unless he turned oni and everything was so loud and Nokt kept torturing them and Zarkt kept making insults towards him and the gong kept destroying his mind and-... 

 

 Lloyd remembered the camera.

 

 They were filming him like this was all a joke. A joke. 

 

 Lloyd lost it.

 

 The lanterns and torches turned purple and in the blink of an eye and the pentagram Lloyd was in the middle of lit up with purple flames as Rox got her spell done just then.

 

 The sweet golden boy who was always caring for everyone turned into a symbol of fear and destruction, ready to kill everyone in his way.

Notes:

I was having gtrouble writing this chapter, if you didn't notice already. I didn't really know how I'd do the whole 'Lloyd slowly losing his mind and getting angry' thing and I'm also not very familiar with amnesia and I couldn't bother to read much about it for this fic. I do hope it still turned out at least somehow nice and you weren't crying out of anger towards me while reading this.

Chapter 11: It's always nice to meet your little brother, right?

Summary:

Cole is a little coward and they all have a nice get together later.

Notes:

Guys I think I'm falling behind my skechule

When the ninja got down near the Shadow Dojo, they were ready to sneak past rows and rows of the wolf masked. They hoped that they wouldn't be immediately noticed and feared that they had to fight their way in.

 

 To their surprise, the outside was completely empty. They could hear the Gong of Shattering somewhere and that meant something bad was happening somewhere else, but all they saw was a peaceful dojo of darkness and some random stairs where the sound of the gong came from.

 

 “Does everyone have their earpieces?” Zane quietly asked from his spot behind a massive bush and nodded to himself when he heard a bunch of conformations.

 

 “I'll go check out the dojo with Arin, Sora and Wyldfyre while you guys go check the stairs”, Cole knew the dojo would most likely be completely empty. Every time someone did a dark ritual they would arrange maximum security to the place of the ritual and would leave everything else completely unwatched, practically leaving a note for the ninja that said; "COME TO THIS LOCATION SO YOUR JOBS WILL BE EASIER!!!" No idea why every bad guy did the same mistake. That's just how it always had been and always would be and the ninja needed to accept that.

 

 He wasn't going to tell that to the younger ones, though. If something had happened to Lloyd and now was the time for the Forbidden Five's ultimate power up to happen, they shouldn't be seeing such horrible things happen to their master, even though Arin had already seen Lloyd in a bad state earlier when he found Lloyd in the cage.

 

 Cole admitted to himself that he was cowardly right now, not wanting to see it and going somewhere else to watch the kiddies while others would be fighting their urges to throw up, but he just couldn't help it. Cole remembered every time something like this had happened to Lloyd and how he looked like aftereards. He wasn't ready to see his little brother so sickly again.

 

 The other ninja immediately knew what was going on. “Sure. We'll tell you if we need you”, Nya said. The others jumped out of the bush and ran over to the stairs.

 

 Cole sighed. He hoped it wasn't going to Be as bad as he thought, for the sake of the others. “Let's go.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Kai’s ears had begun to hurt from the constant noise of the gong as they were running down the stairs and closer to it. He could only imagine how much pain Lloyd was in, since he was more sensitive to loud sounds.

 

 Zane, the first in their line, held out his hand as he got down enough to see what was happening, gesturing for everyone to stop and stay silent. Everyone else came down the stairs next to him and looked too.

 

 A large hall in complete chaos. Torches and lanterns lighting up the place, the only resemblance to warmth down here.

 

 A pentagram was on the ground and Lloyd was chained in the middle of it with the thickest vengestone chains Kai had ever seen and a black wolf mask on his face, his hands lit up in purple flames without Lloyd noticing, or maybe he was just too tired to do anything about it. The Lloyd Kai knew would've immediately shaked his hands in panic until the fire went out. What had the Forbidden Five done to him? One cage made of black stone behind Lloyd was left open, he had probably been kept there while preparing the ritual.

 

 Four smaller cages were in front of Lloyd, Garmadon inside one and Harumi inside the other and the last two were empty and left open.

 

 Misako and Akita were on the ground, bleeding and screaming insults while Nokt was having a fun time torturing them. Kai made a mental note that lnce they got out of here, those two would be hurried off to the monastery's medbay.

 

 Rox was next to the pentagram reading a spell from an ancient looking scroll, which was almost finished, to the ninja's horror. 

 

 To the right corner was a filming setup and one of the Forbidden Five was looking through the camera and another one was watching a screen. Were they livestreaming this!? Oh, how Kai would show them a piece of his mind when he had the chance.

 

 The last member of the Forbidden Five was next to the setup and yelling insults at Lloyd through the Gong of Shattering, which some wolf masked were constantly hitting with the Mallet of Shattering.

 

 Garmadon was trying to warn Nokt, the closest member of the Forbidden Five, about something, but Kai couldn't hear it over everything else.

 

 An army of wolf masked were standing to the sides, watching it all come down emotionlessly. They had newly made armor and weapons made out of vengestone. How had the siblings gotten their hands on so much vengestone? Guess one of the realms had a big vengestone mine and they just raided it.

 

 “How can this tiny helpless kid in a green pajama be called a savior?” the Forbidden Five member next to the setup wondered, looking at Lloyd with a wicked grin on his face. “He's so useless!”

 

 Kai could see Lloyd's last nerve hanging on for dear life to not get ripped apart.

 

 “We need to stop this!” Jay screamed to the others, not being heard by anyone else because of all the noise.

 

 “As surprised as I am by this, I agree with Jay”, Kai said. “We need to end this!”

 

 “Ninjaaaago!” Nya yelled and they all got to work with their spinjitzu tornadoes, Zane yelling to his earpiece at the same time.

 

 If only they had stopped the ritual just a few seconds before.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “Cole! We need you down here! Right now!” Cole could hear screaming, the sound of the Gong of Shattering and yells from his earpiece. So the fun had begun.

 

 Cole hesitated in calling the kids to work. While at Rontu and Egalt's, Wyldfyre and Sora only learned perfect from spinjitzu, the dragon masters having told them that it would be enough for now and that they needed to focus on saving Lloyd. Would it be better to leave them here to safety, or would the kids just come anyway? Wait, Cole knew them, and he knew that they wouldn't even think of obeying him if he denied them going to battle.  “Come on kiddies! We gotta go!”

 

 They couldn't even get to the stairs before the rest of the ninja got thrown out with force. Cole changed their course to the other side of the clearing in the woods, where the ninja had fallen on their butts.

 

 “They-, he's-”, Kai gasped for air. All the color had drained from his face and his eyes were wide with horror. “They did-, they did something to him, Cole!”

 

 “He's gone full oni!” Nya added. “And is not on our-”

 

 A four armed, golden and green oni, apparently Lloyd, jumped out of the cave and the Forbidden Five followed with their wolf mask army.

 

 “That’s not Lloyd! I don't believe it!” Arin protested.

 

 “What did they do to Lloyd!?” 

 

 “Why does he have four arms?”

 

 “Wait”, Cole held his hands up. “Lloyd doesn't have an oni form. Garmadon tried to get it out of him and failed!”

 

 “No I didn't!” Garmadon jumped out and in front of the ninja, dropping Misako and Akita next to them and stopping Lloyd's lunge towards them, Harumi hurrying to the ninja's side silently. “He didn't tell you!?”

 

 The battle began before any of them could process what Garmadon said and everyone started moving.

Notes:

Like I said in the beginning in the notes, I think I'M FALLING BEHIND!!! To this point I've tried to always have three more chapters ready than what I've posted so if I make some changes to the story I have time to rewrite the chapter that I'm supposed to be posting next and the fic actually makes at least some sense, but right now I don't have ANYTHING done for the future, so I might have to change my posting skechule and you won't be getting a chapter every other day. I'll try to write myself back on track, but don't be surprised if I'm late at some point; it's because I've been too lazy.

ALSO I got a new fanfic idea! It's going to be Lloyd centric and an AU of the movie verse. I'm not sure when I'll have the plot figured out and I have no idea what genre it's gonna be. I only have the contents of the first chapter figured out, so if you're interested and want to have your voice heard while I'm writing it make sure to tell me in the comments. I could also post a separate work with the idea and questions, so if this sounds nice you could also comment there if I post it.

Chapter 12: Meeting an old friend

Summary:

The ninja are in a mess and get an escape plan after the first and second go wrong and the kiddies have a little discussion.

Notes:

GUYS I DID IT!!!! I got this chapter done and am Working on the next one! Also I'm planning on oicking uo the oace I had when I started this fic so close calls like this won't happen again, 'cause I'm pretty sure that if I miss one day it'll be more appealing to miss more out of laziness and then I'll drop this completely and we don't want that to happen.🐢

 “Lloyd! Fight it!” Kai yelled as he was keeping at least ten wolf masked busy. Or actually they were keeping him busy and away from his little brother who needed help right now. “You're stronger than your anger!”

 

 “But is he stronger than our newest invention?” Nokt asked, laughing.

 

 “What did you do to him!?” Nya punched Nokt in the face, or tried to before he ducked.

 

 “We didn't do anything! The remodeled wolf mask and the gong did”, he looked at Lloyd who was fighting Garmadon and winning easily, proud of what the Forbidden Five had achieved. They had gotten the Legendary Green ninja on their side. “The wolf mask cleared Lloyd's mind of almost everything and filled it with power, something you call evil. Also the spell Rox cast on him preve-”

 

 “Nokt stop spilling our secrets and focus on not fucking up!” a Forbidden Five member yelled at him, one of the three shitheads Kai didn't know the names of yet.

 

 The ninja had sent the youngsters to carry Akita and Misako to the dragons and get them ready to fly the hell out of here the second the others got there. The older ninja plus Garmadon and Harumi stayed behind to fight, or rather get beat up by Kai’s little brother. You know, the one Kai swore to protect and failed miserably and now they had to fight him?

 

 Thankfully Garmadon was uninjured, since he was the only one who could put up a challenge for Lloyd's untrained oni powers and younger oni form. Even he wasn't a match for Lloyd's skills and his elemental power, though, and no one could help him overpower Lloyd because of the fucking annoying wolf cunts.

 

 The wolf soldiers had weapons made of vengestone and strong armor. Also the Forbidden Five had trained them extremely well considering the time since they last fought. The ninja were lucky the soldiers couldn't do shatterspin yet.

 

 So yeah, the ninja were getting their asses beat up and shitting their pants at the same time, if you asked Kai.

 

 “We have to go!” Zane yelled and sprinted to the direction where the dragons were waiting, only to be stopped by more wolf masked.

 

 Great, now they were cornered.

 

 Nokt sent some wolf warriors to the direction Zane tried to run to, knowing the kids would be waiting for the ninja.

 

 “Sora, Arin and Wyldfyre, you have to go now! They're coming your way! Leave without us!” Nya screamed into her earpiece as they were backing up. And soon they saw their only way of escaping fly across the sky and return to the monastery far away.

 

 “Guys”, Kai raised his fists. “If this is our last fight, just know that I'm proud of you all.”

 

 “Not so fast”, Nya grinned and took the gifted knife from the Source Dragon of Motion. She lifted it up and said; “Source Dragon of Motion! I am Nya Smith, the elemental master o-”

 

… 

 

 The knife got knocked out of her hand by Lloyd's purple ball of fire.

 

… Nice.

 

 “Well fuck this shit”, Kai whispered so only Cole, who was right next to him, could hear. He turned to the slowly approaching army of darkness and got ready to fight, again.

 

 A huge shadow covered everyone in the clearing and the loud roar of a dragon could be heard, coming from the sky.

 

 It was a big red and black dragon, so not the Source Dragon of Motion, since Kai got told she was red and gold, not black. No, it was-

 

 Everyone gasped.

 

 Firstbourne.

 

 Jay smiled, watching her majestic form glide across the sky and get closer to the clearing. “Not so fast.”

 

 Firstbourne used the element of ‘OMG IT'S A FUCKING HUGE DRAGON I'M GONNA DIE’ and flipped over the whole wolf warrior army with one flick of her tail and landed on front of the ninja, gesturing for them to climb on.

 

 “This is so cool”, Jay gasped and practically jumped on her back, others following behind and Nya grabbing the red dagger from the ground. Then, before Kai knew it, they were flying fast towards the monastery.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “What was that!?” Sora gasped while they were flying. “There's no way that was Lloyd like the weird guy said. Did you see he had four arms! And that other guy had too! What in the First Spinjitzu Master!?”

 

 “Yeah”, Wyldfyre agreed. “That thing looked like a statue with all the gold! But the power was cool, I gotta admit. There's no way it was Lloyd, he doesn't have that purplely stuff.”

 

 “Also that thing was tall”, Sora pointed out. “Lloyd is almost as short as I am.”

 

 “Which is very short”, Arin stretched out his hand and put it on Sora’s head’s level, making it obvious who was the taller one of them.

 

 Sora pouted. “Come on, I'm average and you're just a few inches taller!” Then she looked at Akita and Misako, who were riding unconsciously with Arin. “Anyway, I'm guessing that's Misako? Lloyd's mom?”

 

“Yeah”, Arin answered. “The other one is Akita. I don't know how she's related to the ninja, though. Never even heard of the name.”

 

 “I mean, they're ninja”, Wyldfyre interjected, leaning forward. “Surely they've gone on missions without anyone knowing anything.”

 

 At that Arin paused. He hadn't even realized the ninja had probably saved everyone's butts even more times than they'd let the public understand. There were already too many won battles for Arin to count and there could've been even more!? “I… guess that makes sense. Why didn't Lloyd tell us?”

 

 “He doesn't tell us a lot of stuff…” Sora seemed thoughtful, her eyes staring into space and her movements changing to unconsciously fiddling with her sleeve. 

 

 Arin didn't dare interrupt, since she was the smart one and could be making up a reasonable explanation for everything. If she was, then her answer would be right, one way or another. So, he just stared as the gears in her head moved.

 

 Wyldfyre didn't get the memo, though. “Uhh… Sora? You okay? Did someone invade your mind!?”

 

 Sora laughed. “I'm alright. I was just thinking.”

 

 “About what?”

 

 “Lloyd”, she said. “He doesn't tell us much about anything besides good training techniques. The one big thing about him that we know is that his grandpa is the freaking First Spinjitzu Master! And he didn't even tell us until it became useful information to save the world. We don't know what else he could be hiding, intentionally or not, which means there's a great chance he really is that golden guy.”

 

Arin hummed. “Wait! If I remember right, Lloyd was the Golden ninja at some point. I heard he could move mountains then. It was supposed to be the First Spinjitzu Master's full power or something. And the ninja are all about balance, ‘there is no light without darkness’ and stuff. What if that cool power had a bad power to get balance?”

 

 “The Golden ninja!?” Wyldfyre and Sora both gasped and looked at him like he'd grown another head. “Arin, what!?”

 

 “Well it's just a theory”, Arin said, shifting uncomfortably on Zanth’s back. Now he understood why Lloyd didn't like talking about stuff. Arin was just talking about another person and what was common information for him and his friends thought he was going crazy.

 

 “Arin, dear”, Sora started. “I don't care about your theory. It might be right or wrong, I don't know. What I want to know is what is the Golden ninja?”

 

 And the rest of their flight to home was spent with Arin telling them the story of the finale battle of the Golden ninja against Overlord.

Notes:

Guys I noticed that on the comments someone was like 'YAAAHHHH LLORUMI' and someone else was like 'NOOO NOT LLORUMI' and that led me to think about Lloyd's possible future lover in this fic. Like, why should I write a fanfic if there's no ships at all? So please comment If you want Lloyd or someone else on a relationship with someone or you explicitly want someone to be a single pringle and if I can fit it in the plot I'll try writing it. 💚🐸

Chapter 13: Explanations

Summary:

Nya is a wonderful teacher and Garmadon just drops bombs.

Notes:

Hello people! Thanks to everyone for the comments! It seems our beloved Lloyd will be a single pringle for this story, like mostly everyone else too. I'll only be writing canon ships like Jay/Nya and Zane/Pixal. Sorry for everyone who were hoping for Lloyrumi for example. But I also think the fic will be better this way, since I've never written anything close to romance ever in my entire life + the fic isn't really a romance type, like many pointed out in the comments. I hope everyone will still enjoy the fic or find another one that has the ship you want!🐢🦄🐸

 “Hi gu-” Kai was interrupted by Wyldfyre throwing herself into him, both of them falling off the massive dragon and Kai's back hitting the ground painfully. He smiled. “Nice to see you too.”

 

 “We thought you were dead!” Sora exclaimed. “Where did you find a dragon this big?”

 

 “This”, Nya started, jumping off of the dragon's back. “is Firstbourne, the mother of all mortal dragons, from the First realm, First Spinjitzu Master’s home realm.”

 

 “Dude”, Arin gasped as he stood next to Sora and held Firstbourne’s gaze. “You're so cool!”

 

 “Why is she here?” Wyldfyre had seemingly let Kai go, having gotten interested in the conversation. 

 

 Garmadon flipped down. “My father befriended her while still living in the Realm of Oni and Dragons. They formed a connection and she recognized Wu as his kid when I had taken over Ninjago and they became besties too. I guess at some point my son got to meet her too and they too formed a connection and now that Lloyd's turned oni and seemingly can't change back, Firstbourne sensed his balance off and came to check what's up and saved us in the process.”

 

 …

 

 “You knew this all this whole time?”

 

 “How do you know Lloyd can't change back!?”

 

 “What’s an oni?”

 

 “Why did you not te-”

 

 “No one asked”, Garmadon simply stated, cutting Nya off. Arin couldn't help, but remember the time they found out that Lloyd's grandpa was literally god.

 

“Eh, it never came up.”

 

“But I know Lloyd can't change back, because when he turned oni the last time due to me pretending to be dead, he got scared of his own reflection and turned right back. That kid would never willingly go full oni- or oni at all -much less stay that way for longer than two seconds.”

 

 “... So what you're telling me is,” Jay started calmly and took a deep breath. “ That you made Lloyd think you're dead and he turned oni and got even more trauma and didn't tell us and now he's somewhere in pain with our ENEMY and WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT AND HAVE NO WAY OF WINNING AND WE'RE DOOMED!? ‘Cause that sounds ABSOLUTELY AMAZING thank you, you oversized cockroach!” Oh yeah, Arin had almost forgotten Jay returned to himself.

 

 “Uhm… Were we supposed to understand something or are you guys just gonna leave us in the dark?” Sora asked. “And where’s Zane? He was here just a moment ago.”

 

 Nya looked around. “He must’ve gone to the med bay to help Misako and Akita already.”

 

 “Okay”, Arin said. “Now that that’s out of the way, could someone explain this whole oni-Lloyd-thing?”

 

 All the ninja looked at each other, silently arguing which one needed to drop the bomb. Nya sighed. “Alright. But let’s go inside first.”

_ _

 

 As everyone got out of the elevator to the underground base, they took chairs and made a half circle around a whiteboard as Nya requested.

 

 “Alright. everyone listen up, ‘cause I’m not explaining this a second time”, she drew an oni and a dragon to the top of the board. 

 

“Everyone knows dragons represent creation. Elemental powers come from them. But this”, Nya pointed to the oni to the right of the dragon after she wrote ‘creation’ next to it. 

 

“This is an oni. The oni represent destruction and chaos, basically the complete opposite of dragons. These species were always at war." She wrote ‘destruction’ next to the oni.

 

 Then she drew two lines, one from each drawing, to connect under them. Under the two lines she drew a stick figure with a straw hat. “This is the First Spinjitzu Master. He was both an oni and a dragon. He wanted to stop the war with Firstbourne’s help and have peace. It didn’t work out so he created the sixteen realms with the Golden weapons and settled in Ninjago. Firstbourne stayed in her realm and hoped that the First Master would someday return. Spoiler alert; he didn’t, but Wu did”, Nya wrote ‘balance’ next to the First Spinjitzu Master.

 

 Two lines were drawn from the First Master and two other people were drawn to the ends of them. “Then he kinda just spawned two kids; Garmadon and Wu. Garmadon was more on the oni side and Wu on the dragon side. The bite of the Great Devourer was the tipping point. That was when the Green ninja’s destiny came into place.

 

 But before Garmadon turned fully evil, he had a kid with Misako." Another stick figure without any lines connecting it appeared on the board and a smaller stick figure was drawn at the very bottom of the board, two lines connecting it to Garmadon and Misako. “That kid was Lloyd. As the First Spinjitzu Master was the first dragon and oni hybrid, Lloyd is the first human, dragon and oni hybrid.” Nya wrote ‘green’ next to Lloyd and turned around to see if the kids understood.

 

 “But if Lloyd is all three”, Arin started after thinking in silence for a while. “Why does he only look human and only use his elemental power?”

 

 “I-... don’t know. We thought he only got the dragon and human genes for a long time before Overlord tried to take over with his crystal army”, Nya looked to the other ninja for help.

 

 No one expected Garmadon to answer. “He is scared.”

 

 “Scared of what?” Arin knew everyone feared something. He was still taken by surprise, though. He never thought his master would be scared of something, especially something related to his own heritage.

 

 It clicked for Nya. “Scared of becoming his father.” She could remember the time they found that fucking mirror. 

 

“What? What is this?” she watched as Lloyd continued to look at himself in the mirror, looking confused.

 

“It’s some kind of weird mirror”, Lloyd answered as Nya stepped in front of it to look for herself. She gasped as she was looking at herself, but without her gi. She was wearing just some random normal clothes. She looked like she never became a ninja or achieved her true potential, like she never got to be anything big, never became anything but a normal city girl. “But, why?”

 

 “It seems to show us our greatest fears”, something small ran past them and they both got spooked to their deaths. Must’ve been just a rat.

 

 “How do you know?”

 

 “Because when I look at it”, Lloyd sighed. “I see myself becoming my father.” he took the sight of his father in the mirror for the last time, then turned and walked away, letting Nya look at a ‘normal’ version of herself.

 

 “So if Lloyd can't change back, then the spell Rox cast on him must be the one keeping him in that state”, Cole spoke up, not wanting to let the awkward silence hang in the cave for too long. “Maybe Gandalaria has something to help with that.”

 

 “Nice”, Kai said. “While you go to that Gandalf guy I'll take the kids with me to Egalt and Rontu to learn the rising dragon.”

 

 “Hey, shouldn't I come too?” Jay asked. “Since I can't do it yet.”

 

 “Yeah you are”, Kai answered. “You're part of the kids.”

 

 “HEY!”

Notes:

HELLO PEOPLE! My birthday is tomorrow btw! Also I didn't have time to proofread this whole chapter and I was kinda rushed so it might've turned out yerrible but I still wanted to Post it in time. Also I accidentally called My dog Lloyd. Hope you enjoyed!!!

Chapter 14: Little adventures

Summary:

Cole goes to meet Gandalaria and Harumi is bored.

Notes:

GUYSSSSS GUESS WHO'S 14 NOW!!! No it's not Dave.

 Cole walked in the familiar monastery through the large ports. “Gandalaria? We need your help!”

 

 “No offense, Cole, but I think it would be a much better way of approaching if you just knocked on the door or rang the doorbell”, Bonzle deadpanned. Cole had called her to come along. He figured she would like to see her creator again, since they clicked so well when they first met.

 

 “Oh! Right”, Cole got outside of the monastery again and rang the doorbell, closing the ports.

 

 Soon after, the pair could hear indistinct yelling from inside. There was a crash. Cole hoped it wasn’t a potion or anything. They didn’t need to have to figure out how to turn the sorceress back to a human from a snail.

 

 He let out a relieved sigh as the ports were opened by Gandalaria in a human form. “Oh, hi! What brought you here? Did you get my package from the mailbox while you came here?” she held Bonzle in a quick, tight hug and gestured for them to come inside.

 

 “Uhm, I’m sorry. We didn’t take your package”, Cole apologized before getting to the point. “But we need your help! Our leader, Lloyd, AKA the Green ninja, has been captured by the Forbidden Five. He's been turned evil and Rox cast a spell on him that keeps him in that state. Do you have anything that could help with that?” 

 

“Well…” Gandalaria thought for a while, probably clawing at her many memories for a spell that could work on Rox’ magic. “I might know a receipt for a spell breaking potion, strong enough to overpower the one cast on Lloyd…”

 

 “But? Bonzle asked. She could feel it coming and knew Cole could too.

 

 “But I don't have all the ingredients and some grow in hard places to get to”, Gandalaria finished.

 

 Why did this always happen? Why couldn’t there be just one time the ninja didn't need to travel far for a flower to make a healing tea or a potion or something like that?

 

 Cole sighed. “I'll get them for you if you tell me where they are.”

 

 Gandalaria beamed. “What a nice man you are!”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Harumi wasn't happy about having to stay in the monastery with the ninja. She still considered them her enemies, even though she kind of sided with them to get revenge on Overlord. But she didn't have any other place to go to, so she needed to stay here in the middle of these assholes who’s leader didn't do anything to save her when she fell from a collapsing building.

 

 She had been given a dusty old guest room like Garmadon. Misako and Akita were still in the med bay, not having woken up yet.

 

 It was late and everyone else had gone to sleep, but Harumi stayed up, just laying in her temporary bed, looking up at the ceiling and thinking over everything that happened when she had been captured by those five fuckers. 

 

 It got boring, after thinking it over three times and still not remembering getting any important information, excluding the obvious facts that Lloyd had students now, was considered a master and the Forbidden Five had forcefully and successfully made him go full oni and change sides.

 

 So, Harumi decided to make the best of her time here and go snooping on someone's personal stuff, preferably Lloyd's. That bastard deserved it for everything he did and didn't do.

 

 She stood up, exited the guest room and made her way to one of the halls of the monastery.

 

 Harumi didn't know where Lloyd's room was. She didn't know where anything was, besides the ninja’s not so secret cave. That just meant she needed to look for it. Thankfully she had the rest of the night to find it.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 "The Garden of Peace grows in the middle of the Mountains of Panic. To get to the garden you need to first get to your inner peace. In the garden, flowers of happiness grow. I only need the amount you deem fit.”

 

 Cole wasn't expecting for the instructions from Gandalaria to be as ominous as Master Wu’s, but he could deal with it.

 

 Right now he was climbing- or walking, since someone had made a wooden lane to make Cole’s life easier -up the Mountains of Panic and to be honest, he didn't get where the name came from, since it was quite peaceful up here, if not counting the cold that would take his life if he stayed this far up for too long. 

 

 He saw a sign in the distance. It looked old and not so well made with a text written on it with deep red paint.

 

 Cole picked up his pace to read the sign. The snow had covered the top of it and it was a little frozen, but he could still read the bad handwriting. 

 

 “RUN!!!”

 

 …

 

 Cole did as told. 

 

 Why did he need to run? Was there something dangerous? Well, obviously there would be something dangerous if there was a sign telling him to run. Was whatever it was following him? Oh First Spinjitzu Master if it was he was going to die soon! 

 

 Cole heard someone running, oh hell no! He ran faster, but the steps also quickened. Oh fucking fuckidy fuck! He was going to die! This was it! Oh fu-

 

 “To get to the garden you need to first get to your inner peace.”

 

…

 

 Cole stopped. The steps he heard also stopped. He looked behind him to see who was following him and saw only his own footsteps in the snow and nothing else.

 

 Wait…

 

 Cole had only heard one person’s footsteps… oh.

 

 They were his own footsteps. How could Cole be so stupid? What had the sign meant if there was no one following him?

 

 Those were questions Cole would maybe never get an answer to, so he just ignored the whole thing and kept going.

_ _

 

 He saw an old house and a huge garden of yellow flowers around it. How were they able to live in these conditions? 

 

 He walked over to the house and knocked on the door.

 

 A short person with freckles, dark brown hair and forest green eyes opened the door. They beamed as they saw Cole. “Oh it's you! We've been waiting for you! Glad you finally made your way here! My name is Remy, by the way. Do you want tea?”

Notes:

Hello people! I went to the movies to watch Moana 2 with my friends and siblings for my birthday btw AND DUDE I LOVED THE BAT LADY! GIVE HER SOME RESPECT!!! Also I liked the fact that Moana got her first tattoo too. She really desrved it after saving the world two times already.

Chapter 15: Conversations

Summary:

Harumi meets Jay and Cole just wants some flowers but instead he gets an information blast.

 The first thing Harumi noticed when she opened the door was the familiar golden sword with a green handle, neatly put on a rack on the wall. To the left of it was a cabinet, its doors not being able to be fully closed due to clothes having been thrown in without any kind of order. Against the wall to her right was a messy desk, ancient scrolls all over it. The light of the moon shone through the window and onto the bed with green bedding.

 

 Ha! She found it.

 

 She walked inside and looked around more after shutting the door to get some privacy, unlike Lloyd.

 

 If the table had had eyes, Harumi would've met them now. She grinned and walked towards it.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “Avery! Cole's here!” Remy yelled into the house as they led him into the kitchen to sit at the table while they made tea. “Now, Cole. I'm sure you're wondering why I know who you are and that you were coming. I will explain, but I also have something to show you related to that answer, so you'll have to wait until I'm done with the tea and Avery, AKA my bestie-Boo, gets their ass dragged here.”

 

 “Okay”, Cole went over his options in his mind. “Well, what was that sign further away? The one that said to run.”

 

 “It's some trouble teenagers pranking newcomers again”, someone appeared in the kitchen. Literally. Cole just heard a ‘poof’ and a white haired, pink eyed person was standing a few feet away from him, wearing a big black hoodie, black shorts and white socks, looking like he'd just woken up at five A.M. to a boring office job. It was funny. They were talking about annoying teenagers, but they looked like one themself. “Their village is near and the new generation gets easily bored here, in the middle of nowhere.”

 

 “Wait. I'm sorry, how old are you two?” Cole asked. No way these two were living here together. The tea-making-one looked like they were 13 and the other looked barely 17. They hadn't mentioned anyone else living here and now that he looked, there were only two chairs at the table he was sitting at.

 

 “I stopped counting”, Remy told him as they placed three mugs of tea on the circular crocheted pink tablecloth. 

 

 “I didn't”, Avery raised their hand, like they were in school. “I'm 2067 and Remy is 2063.”

 

 “Oh. Well you look young for your age”, okay so these kids weren't actually kids. Noted.

 

 “Aww, thank you! Anyway, you're in a hurry to save Lloyd, so we gotta be quick”, Remy stated. The besties took their own tea mugs and left, looking back at Cole to see if he was following, which he was. Cole didn't bother to ask how they knew that.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Harumi had already gone through Lloyd's whole desk and was rummaging through his closet when she heard someone open the door.

 

 “What are you doing?” Jay. The one that never shut up.

 

 Harumi turned around to face him. “What does it look like?”

 

 Jay stared at her in silence, before sighing. “Harumi, you need to leave right now before I wake the others up.”

 

 He was letting her go this easily? Usually he would already be screaming his lungs out. No, there must've been something behind this. Wait… she grinned. “What, so you could have your own personal snooping session too?”

 

 “What!? No. Why wou-”

 

 “Oh come on! We all know you wouldn't have found me if you didn't mean to come in here, I was way too silent for you to be able to hear me. The only reason you would want to come here when Lloyd is away is to look through his stuff”, Harumi felt delighted when Jay seemed to be at a loss for words, finally.

 

 “I mean- I guess but… Well I just wanted to see what he's been up to for all the time I've been gone. And Kai did the same! I have my share of the big brother privileges. You aren't his sister or girlfriend or even a friend. You are his enemy and manipulator, even if he won't admit it. You don't have any right to be here, but I do”, nope. This guy always had to say something. Harumi made a mental note to never assume Jay didn't have anything to say ever again.

 

 “And I assume the others approve of your way of thinking, since you're here in the middle of the night, definitely not keeping it a secret”, Harumi walked past the brunet, leaving him struggling with his morals. She most likely wouldn't find anything actually important from there if Kai had already looked the room over before her. She had already gotten all the information she needed to blackmail them if necessary, anyway.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 They literally just turned a corner and went through a normal door and now they were in a godly library or something.

 

 The ceiling was so high that it was hard to see all the painted details on it. The three support pillars in the middle of the hall were covered in gold and carved out to represent the First Spinjitzu Master, Garmadon and Wu. Cole wondered if Lloyd would get his golden statue here at some point in the future.

 

 “This”, Avery waved around. “Is the family library of the First Spinjitzu Master and his descendants. Mostly stuff about Lloyd for now, though. He's the Legendary Green ninja after all. There's a lot of prophecies about him.”

 

 “We are the librarians”, Remy continued. “The First Spinjitzu Master trusts us with taking care of this library and updating him about Garmadon, Wu and Lloyd. We're old friends, you see.”

 

 “Trusts? In the present tense?” Was the First Spinjitzu Master alive or did these two have a connection to the dead?

 

 “Oh yeah, we can communicate with him. He's in heaven, kinda rules over it, and we can send letters back and forth”, Remy waved it off, like having any kind of connection to the First Master was everyday stuff. They turned away with Avery to go get sonething from somewhere in the library. Cole followed behind. “That's not why you're here, though. Lloyd's grandpa wrote him a letter and he wants us to give it to you and for you to give it to Lloyd. He said it's important for the future of reality or something like that.”

 

 Nice, no pressure at all. “Uh, I don't think Lloyd's in the right mindset right now to read it.”

 

 “You'll give it to him when you turn him back to his original self, dummy!” Remy flicked his forehead. 

 

 “Here it is!” Avery bowed to Cole for the dramatics as they gave him the letter. “And now we'll give you the flowers and you're good to go!”

_ _

 

 “Uhm, I wasn't given an exact amount to take. Gandalaria just told me to take however much I 'deem fit'”, he revealed, looking down at the flowers. How was he supposed to know how many she needed? Cole wasn't exactly an expert in potion making.

 

 “Well it's for Lloyd, right? How much happiness do you think he needs to return to his original self?” One thing Cole loved about Remy was that they didn't give ominous answers, they just answered everything clearly and as things were. From now on, every time he needed an answer for something badly, he would come here to ask Remy.

 

 How much did Lloyd need to turn back to himself? Cole kind of wanted to get him the whole garden, but he was pretty sure that's not what Remy or Gandalaria meant. 

 

 Hmmm… a different approach. How much would Lloyd take if he was given the freedom?

 

 That was easy to guess; he would take none and say that there's other people that need the flowers more. Or he'd take one for each member of the team.

 

 Hmmm, one for each huh?

 

 Cole picked up one single flower and put it in his pocket. “Okay, I'm ready.”

 

 “Good choice”, Avery said. “Well, goodbye!”

 

 “Tell Lloyd that he's welcome to visit us whenever he feels like it!” Remy piped up.

 

 “I will! Goodbye!”

Notes:

GUYSS I FAILED THIS CHAPTER SO BAD IT'S HORRIBLE🥺🥺🥺 I don't have time or motivation to rewrite it though, so you'll just get this mess of words.

Also what are your opinions on Lloyd's age? Like do you think tomorrow's tea made him entirely an adult/just older and he's gonna stay that way. Or do you think his soul or something is younger than his physical self and if so, how old do you think he really is?

Chapter 16: Finding fairies

Summary:

Cole has a walk in the forest and others have breakfast.

 “In the Woods of Thoughts exist truth trees. I need their leaves to make the potion. Be careful to not pick the leaves of the trees of lies, that could mess the whole thing up.”

 

 “How do I differentiate them from each other?”

 

 “Uhm… I can't remember, it's been so long since I last went there. You can ask from the fairies, though!”

 

 Fairies, huh? Cole wondered would they have wings of glitter as he approached the Woods of Thoughts. 

 

 It didn't seem like there were two different types of trees, but lies were also hard to differentiate from truths, so it made sense. The fairies would know which ones were which, anyways.

 

 That is if there were any fairies. All Cole saw was little, cute animals running around. There were more of them here than in other forests, maybe this place was better to live in? 

 

Anyway, why were there no fairies? What did they even look like? Cole should've asked that from Gandalaria before leaving for the second and last adventure. Maybe they lived deeper in the forest?

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Zane had made breakfast for them all and to say things were… pretty awkward, was the understatement of the year.

 

 Harumi was getting glared at from every direction. Lord Garmadon, apparently Lloyd's father, was the only one not mad at Harumi and seemed kind of close to her. That wolf girl, Akita if Sora remembered right, and Lloyd's mom had woken up. Zane had allowed them to get up and come eat breakfast with them, so they were glaring at Harumi too. Those two had probably the most terrifying expressions out of them all.

 

 Sora was just confused. What did this girl do to deserve all of their cold shoulders? Wyldfyre seemed to have the same thought as her and Arin had that same face as when he knew what was going on but wouldn't say anything because it was “adults’ business”.

 

 The kids also still had their minds on the fact that Lloyd, their beloved master, was not human. Or he was human, but not entirely. It wouldn't have been that much of a deal to Sora and Arin, since they were used to hybrids from the Crossroads, but the fact that Lloyd had the blood of two ancient legendary magic-species which were at war shook them up a little bit. They already knew Lloyd was basically a demigod, but a dragoni hybrid on top of that? Lloyd was like an anime character!

 

 “Uhm, could someone pass me the sugar?” Arin was brave enough to break the silence.

 

 Harumi was the first to react and gave it to him without a word.

 

 “Wait!” Jay interrupted. “Make sure it's not salt.”

 

 “Okay what IS IT with you and this… weird person with a red forehead?” Wyldfyre looked over to Kai, who just looked away. “I'm getting fed up, and not only in the physical way!”

 

 “Don't worry”, Garmadon reassured. “They're just mad that their little city got a bit shaken up.”

 

 Nya's last nerve couldn't take it anymore. “‘A bit shaken up’!? You two almost destroyed the whole city and tried to kill everyone! Harumi kidnapped Lloyd twice and awakened a major evil being twice! And don't even make me start on the manipulating part!”

 

 “But I had a redemption, remember? I helped you win against the Overlord”, Harumi pointed out. “And I spared Lloyd when I was told to destroy him.”

 

 “You were only there for revenge! You didn't care about any of us and you sure didn't care about Lloyd or his feelings!” Kai spoke up, slamming his fists on the table.

 

 “Guys! Can you stop fighting and explain this all?” Sora yelled before the fight got to another level. “You're leaving us in the dark.”

 

 The room went quiet again, until Zane broke it. “Get ready. Storytime!” He paused, letting everyone get comfortable before starting his rant.

 

 “When Lloyd first won the battle against the Overlord, he removed all evil from Garmadon's blood in the process.

 

 Later on Garmadon sacrificed himself for Ninjago. He went to the cursed realm. The cursed realm was defeated and Garmadon died in the process. 

 

 Harumi raised a bike gang called ‘The Sons of Garmadon’. With this group she collected the three oni masks, kidnapped Lloyd and Misako and raised Lord Garmadon from the dead, but with only his evil side.

 

 Garmadon became the group’s leader and they put Ninjago upside down, almost killing everyone and technically half killing Lloyd, his only way of healing being us using our elemental powers and magic tea to save him.

 

 At some point Harumi fell from a collapsing building and everyone thought she died. Surprise, she didn't! The Overlord gave her a ‘second chance’ and she made him an army made of vengestone and assembled the Ninja's worst enemies for him. Also she kidnapped Lloyd and according to him tried to turn Lloyd evil. 

 

 At the end of the battle, according to Lloyd, Overlord revealed he had sent the Great Devourer to do its evil duties. Harumi got pissed and helped Lloyd and Garmadon win the battle.

 

 Any questions?”

 

… 

 

 That was a lot of information.

 

 “You guys should really write a book about all this”, Wyldfyre said. “Or a series.”

 

 “Wait”, Sora paused. “At what point did Garmadon turn good again in the end?”

 

 “Aww man! My yogurt’s warmed up!” Jay complained.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “Fairies?” Cole called out. “If you can hear me, I need your help! I need to save my friend and to do that I need the leaves of a truth tree!”

 

 No answer. Just two brave bunnies came to eat some grass almost right in front of him. Were they not scared? Were there no beasts hunting them down here?

 

 “Well hello you two”, Cole greeted them. They were so cute! “I'm looking for fairies, do you know where they are?” 

 

 The bunnies just ignored him and kept eating, like there wasn't a random human who could kill them instantly. What was their deal?

 

 Cole looked around. None of the animals seemed to be scared of him. They didn't seem to even notice him. Just like the two bunnies. There were yellowish dots of light in the air, like fireflies. These didn't fly like fireflies did, though. They were just kind of… floating around. 

 

 Cole crouched down to pet the bunnies, but when he did, his hand passed right through the two. What?

 

 He walked over to every animal he saw and tested it. He passed through them all. What the fuck? 

 

 In the corner of his eye he saw a scared bunny jump away fastly. There weren't any dots of light surrounding it. That must have been a real one.

 

 Cole followed it to a darker area of the forest. This part of the woods looked normal; no dots of light and no small animals coming to eat grass right in front of him.

 

 “Uhm… fairies?” he called out.

 

 The dots of light came back and formed a person. They walked over to him.

 

 Cole took his chance. “Hi! You wouldn't know which of these trees are truth trees and which ones are trees of lies, would you?”

 

 The person nodded and took Cole's hand. They brought him back to the hologram area and put his hand against a tree. It felt weird. It wasn't wood. It was… plastic?

 

 Then Cole got it. The trees of lies were plastic trees! Now he'd only have to find a real tree and take some of its leaves.

Notes:

HI GUYS!!! Thanks for the comments! Illuadmit the end was very rushed. I also didn't have time to proofread this so there might be errors.

Chapter 17: Being locked up in your own mind isn't nice.

Summary:

Cole thinks and everyone else is having a bad time.

 Cole got the leaves to Gandalaria and she was currently working on the potion. While waiting, Cole discovered that this monastery also had a training course and decided to spend his time going it around and around.

 

 Gandalaria had told him that making the potion would take some time, since such a strong one required a lot of concentration. She couldn't predict exactly how long, though. That fact had Cole on his heels every time Bonzle came out to the training course. And every time he was disappointed when he realized Bonzle just came to check up on him, not to tell him that the potion was ready.

 

 He tried his hardest to keep his sanity in his grasp by telling himself that he could get home as fast as he wanted to with the portal, he just needed to get the potion first. It was hard, though, as the thought of Lloyd attacking the others in his oni form, unable to control his own actions, was always in the back of his mind.

 

 Cole slipped from a ring when he started imagining Lloyd beating them all up again. He fell flat on his face in an ‘x’ position. “Ow.”

 

 He heard the door open.

 

 “Mood, Cole”, Bonzle walked over to him. “You good? Gandalaria got her potion finished.”

 

 “Yep, I'm all right”, Cole got up, massaging his face. His nose was bleeding, probably broken. A little ice and a band-aid would fix that, though. "Anyway. The potion.”

_ _

 

 “Do you have it?” Cole looked around. The monastery was the same as theirs by the architexture, but Gandalaria had decorated it very differently from the ninja. It felt weird, seeing the monastery's twin so familiar looking, yet so different.

 

 “Oh hi, Cole! Yes, I have the potion. Here it is!” she raised a dark green circular glass bottle, Bonzle and Cole immediately getting ready to dodge. You never know when she was going to accidentally drop it on you. “This will cancel every active spell cast on him. All you have to do is throw it on him. Or that's the easiest way of doing it. He could also drink it or you could use a needle. I warn you though, it could cause an explosion if the active spell tries to struggle.”

 

 “How big of an explosion?” Bonzle asked. “Are they all gonna die?”

 

 “My options don't kill”, Gandalaria started confidently. Then her smile faltered. “It could throw you very far away, though. But that probably won't happen so you don't have to worry!”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Tensions were high in the Monastery of Spinjitzu. 

 

 The rest of the breakfast was suffered in silence by everyone. After that the ninja went to train the kids, or at least try. It was clear that they were rusty in teaching. It did make sense, last time they taught anyone anything was when Lloyd was training to be the Green ninja. Except for Kai, since he had his own little martial arts class when Nya had merged with water, but regular martial arts moves didn't help much when they were trying to teach someone to become an actual ninja. The kids had already learnt all the main moves with Lloyd anyway.

 

 So, for the whole time to this point, they were just trying to figure what to teach out of Lloyd's lesson journal. It didn't help much, as Lloyd had only written what they did in a day with his personal names for the practices. Things like “Sora's nightmare” or “the easy jumps”. Of course Arin and Sora had their guesses of what the practices were, but couldn't describe them to the older ninja in an understandable way. How could the ninja teach something if they didn't even know what they were teaching?

 

 “Didn't Kai find Master Wu's lesson journal too? What did you do with it?” Jay asked after the third attempt at an explanation of a lesson from Sora.

 

 “It's in another language”, Nya answered. “I asked Zane about it yesterday right after I explained Lloyd's heritage to you and even he couldn't figure it out, so I doubt we have any chance of getting something out of it.”

 

 Everything started shaking. There hadn't been any in a while. Did the mergequakes come back? No, they already had those stopped permanently with Lloyd and his conduit thing. 

 

 Lloyd jumped over the high wall of the monastery. There's the devil. He didn't look any nicer than the last time they met.

 

 “Oh fuck”, Kai turned to Sora, Arin and Wyldfyre. “Run. Don't look back.”

 

 “No way we're leaving you”, Arin bit back. “We have to stick together. That's what Lloyd would want”, in reality Arin didn't have any idea of what Lloyd would want them to do if he got the chance to communicate with them right now, but he wasn't going to leave any of the original ninja here to die. With him, Sora and Wyldfyre they'd at least have a little bit bigger chance of surviving.

 

 “A little help would be appreciated!” Nya yelled from the wall opposite of them, already having been tossed there by Lloyd.

 

 Arin could hear the dragons roaring and the march of the wolf warriors somewhere outside of the walls of the monastery. So the battle had already begun.

 

 “Lloyd!” Kai yelled after barely dodging one of Lloyd's attacks. “I know you're in there! Fight it!”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Lloyd could hear and feel and see everything. He couldn't control it, though. Yes I can. I'm doing this all willingly. Couldn't stop his own body from trying to kill everyone he cared for. He couldn't stop anything from happening, yet he was the one who had to watch, the one who had to feel his siblings and students’ flesh against his knuckles when he punched them so hard they coughed up blood.

 

 It was like he was being possessed all over again. He could feel another… thing inside of his brain, another mind living within his own. Like it was keeping him chained in a small corner of his mind, taking all the control and letting Lloyd feel the pain from the consequences. No, I'm doing this all on my own. Just like with Morro. The only difference was the fact that it didn't taunt him with its own voice. This time it was Lloyd's own mind turning against itself. It was hard to keep his mind clear when it was his own voice in his head that kept saying terrible things to him. Oh come on. I'm lying through my imaginary teeth.

 

 “Lloyd! You can do it! You're stronger than you think!” Nya screamed before getting thrown against a wall again. You're wrong, Nya. 

 

 Lloyd was trying to fight it with all his strength! He really was! No I'm not. I'm not even trying. But it was impossible to fight your own mind with your own mind. Wrong again. It's not “impossible”, I'm just too weak.

 

 Next for a beat up was Kai. He was also trying to tell something to him, but his own voice drowned it out. No, he wouldn't let himself hurt others anymore! 

 

 He struggled against it. He did his everything, even tried to call upon his powers to get whatever this thing was out of his mind. His powers did answer, but only physically and it ended up just powering his punch up. I'm only hurting them more. Why can't I just give up?

Notes:

Hello again! I'm not very oleased with how I wrote the wolf mask in doing stuff in Lloyd's mind, but I can't come up with a better idea for it so that's how it is now. I'll just refrain from writing Lloyd's pov at this state from now on, though. You've now seen how it is up there in that brain of his right now so there's no need for that anymore either way. Don't worry his pov will come back if the ninja succeed with the potion. If they don't, then Lloyd's just gonna gave his mind private.

Chapter 18: Thoughts

Summary:

There's just a lot of thinking. I can't really say much else.

Notes:

Hi guys!! I think this is on eof the calmer chapters. Nothing greallu happens here so if you're reading this late at night and wondering when you can go to sleep now is the right time.

Sure, Cole was worried that Lloyd would attack the others while he was gone. He didn't think it would actually happen, though. He thought it was just one of those intrusive thoughts that try to ruin your day.

 

 Next time when he had a gut feeling like that, he wouldn't ignore it.

 

 The situation was bad, to say it nicely. All of the kids were down and Kai, Nya, Jay and Zane were barely holding up, getting tossed all around by Lloyd.

 

 “Guys!” Cole yelled, getting the attention of everyone, including Lloyd. “I got it! Keep him in place!”

 

 Before any of them could comprehend what Cole was saying, Lloyd had already jumped away from the monastery, having figured out their plan before they even knew they had one. 

 

 “We need to follow him!” Kai was already running to the ports, but Jay stopped him by grabbing his arm. “Wait up, hothead!”

 

 Cole heard the army, that had been seemingly fighting the dragons all this time, retreating. So the Forbidden Five, the people who almost destroyed a whole realm and managed to kidnap the ninja's strongest member, were able to be scared away this easily? All Cole did was whip a random glass bottle around and they left with their tails in between their legs!

 

 “Kai”, Zane said. “Our condition doesn't allow us to do that. We need to rest and go after him tomorrow.”

 

 “Uhm, no offense but…” Sora interrupted. “We weren't holding up that well. We almost got killed. How are we gonna hold him in one place when we find him?”

 

 “Nya still has the red knife thingy in the monastery, right?” Arin stood up with Jay and a pillar's help. He wasn't looking too good. He had small cuts all over him and his hair was messy and dusty from getting slammed into a wall, under a shelf that Frohicky hadn't cleaned yet. “We'll ask the Source Dragon of Motion for help.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Why wasn't anything good on the TV right when Garmadon was trying to watch it? He deserved a nice movie to watch after being kidnapped and thrown into that small cage for two days. Two days without a bed to sleep on! Two days without anything nice!

 

 Well, he supposed Lloyd had it worse and he should feel bad for him, empathy and all that, but Lloyd wasn't here right now so feeling bad for him didn't help anybody, especially when everyone else was already worrying over him. He had the right to be lazy in these friendship things after all he went through anyway.

 

 He did kind of… worry, though, just a little. He didn't know why, maybe it was those human genes again doing tricks on him. Or maybe it was because even the oni cared about their offspring on at least some level. Otherwise they wouldn't have survived so far.

 

That would be a good reason for this new feeling, worry, that he's been having around his head for the past years, separated from Lloyd. He was Garmadon's son, even if Garmadon couldn't remember most of their time together and even if their relationship was... tricky.

 

 Sure, he didn't remember anything from when he had apparently been human or from when he fought with the ninja against some snakes or something like that. Sure Lloyd had told him that he was scared of becoming his father. But he'd seen Lloyd's picture of himself as a human, standing at Lloyd's side. He'd seen the look on Lloyd's eyes when he tried to explain to him all the ways Christofer wasn't capable of caring. He saw Lloyd did care about all those things he talked about. Lloyd did care about Garmadon. And just maybe… Garmadon cared about Lloyd, as a son. Just maybe. Like a huge maybe.

 

 He knew the normality of their father-son relationship had been out the window from the very start and that he had some- a lot fixing to do, even after helping to build the monastery and saving Lloyd like, twice, thrice? 

 

 Was he willing to go through all that pain for just a green pajama-kid with an old sword, who just happened to be his blood? Uhhhh… He'd have to think about that.

 

 That's a start, his inner Vinny never seemed to let go, did he? When you talk to a wise man like him, his words never leave your mind again.

 

 Garmadon wanted to think of his awesone memories with Vinny more, but he couldn't, as a red chihuahua byrst through the door, looking like he'd been tossed all around the monastery just five seconds ago.

 

 "What the fuck Garmadon!?" Kai yelled. "Why didn't you come help us fight Lloyd!?"

 

 Oh. Maybe he had been tossed all around the monastery just five seconds ago.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Akita never thought Lloyd's useless ramblings about his life would actually someday become useful. Not that Akita wasn't all for Lloyd opening up and wouldn't remember every word he had said, she just never could imagine a situation where she actually needed any of that information.

 

 Now it proved to be handy. Now, as she was living with Lloyd's team of ninja and some other fuckers, she found very much use for all Lloyd said about these people. She had gotten a headstart in getting to know these people. She knew what they liked, what they hated and most importantly, who she could trust and who to spend time with.

 

 Harumi was an absolute nono. She lied and manipulated and couldn't be trusted in any way. She'd use you for some evil plan she made up and then try to take over your whole world.

 

 Garmadon had at some point of Lloyd's Life been an absolute yes, but right now he was a no. Not an absolute no, but a no still. She didn't really know what to think about him. He didn't lie and he wasn't… villainish in most ways. He seemed he was pretty much just living his life right now and even helped the ninja when those oni attacked. But he still had done too much bad to be considered good.

 

 Misako was in a completely gray area. From what Lloyd had told her, she was a shit mom, but had always been on the ninja's side. While she was in Lloyd's life, she had proved to be the best one to go to with problems and she was smart and could fight and all that. Considering her past actions, with leaving Lloyd in a bad boys’ school it leveled her out in the middle of good and bad.

 

 Any of the ninja were an absolute yes. They were the best family Lloyd had and always did what was best for him, even though they had a rough start and even though Zane had practically turned Akita's realm upside down.

 

 Akita didn't know anything about these new three kids, but considering the ninja liked them and were training them, they were an absolute yes too.

 

 That's why she was very, very uncomfortable with being inside the monastery with her past cage neighbours while everyone else was outside training. She was stuck with everyone who wasn't a yes on her list. Also everyone seemed to be awkward around each other.

 

 She did feel tempted to go look what the training looked like. She had actually been there for the first ten minutes, but got bored when they couldn't figure anything out of Lloyd's lesson journal. Did Akita mention Lloyd had made his way to the title of master? But anyway, at least she wasn't bored when she constantly felt the need to look over her shoulder every once in a while. 

 

 Right now she was in her temporary room in the monastery, the door locked. She was laying on her bed. She figured she should rest some more after that bad experience.

 

 The sounds of yelling and fighting had started almost immediately when she layed down. She had decided to just stay there instead of going to look how the ninja trained, she wasn't going to go back and forth. It did sound a little rough, though. Guess badass ninja need badass training.

 

 After a while she heard someone run above her, on the roof. They had probably switched to agility or something. Or that's what she thought until they came rushing in the living room, right outside Akita's room, and Kai started fighting with Garmadon. He was raging about Garmadon not coming to help them fight Lloyd or something. But Akita had heard he did help at the Shadow Dojo? Garmadon said something about not knowing it was Lloyd and that he thought they were just training a little more harshly than normal. Oh, Lloyd had been here just a moment ago… Oops.

Chapter 19: Plans

Summary:

Just everyone being like "what are we gonna do!?!?".

 “Why are we retreating!?” Nokt yelled as the army slowly walked away from the place they were planning to take down first. “We were winning!”

 

 They didn't want anyone on their way when the Forbidden Five would take over all of the Merged Realms. The ninja were the strongest and only thing keeping them from ultimate power, so obviously they needed to be destroyed first. 

 

 Nokt had desired the most to watch all the ninja's flames of life get snuffed out by their closest friend, leader and dear family member. He couldn't do that, because apparently the ninja had a dragon stable and a rather powerful dragon, ‘Firstbourne’ as the ninja called her, was currently visiting there for some unknown reason. Or unknown reason to Nokt. Zarkt and Kur had clearly known what was happening, but didn't care to tell the other three siblings about it.

 

 The wolf warriors were trained amazingly, Nokt would know, but they still weren't capable enough to fight a bunch of dragons. One of them even knew how to do rising dragon!

 

 Rox was still extremely weak from casting that spell on the booger ninja so she wasn't in fighting condition and Drix wasn't a fighter at all despite knowing shatterspin. That meant they were out of the picture so that only left Zarkt, Kur and Nokt to deal with elemental powers and rising dragon, only backup being the wolf warriors. That sadly meant he didn't get to watch the ninja's doom.

 

 At least he thought it was the ninja's doom, until their best weapon jumped down and told something to Rox. Rox told it to Zarkt and Zarkt made them all embarrassingly go back home without taking the easy win they could've had in just a couple of minutes of more fighting. 

 

 “Nokt, shut up before I make you”, Rox grunted. Understandably, she had a lot in her mind, having to upkeep the spell at all times, even while sleeping. “I can't deal with a worse headache than this.”

 

 “Well someone's gotta answer my question”, Nokt pouted like a small child. He still had the same manners even after all those years of his older siblings trying to hammer adultery into his mind. “Why are we escaping when we were the ones winning?”

 

 “We wouldn't have been for long if we didn't”, Zarkt growled out, looking down at the ground. Why did he always have to make things so dramatic and scary and big? Just say things how they are! “The ninja have gotten some kind of… potion. They wanted to keep Lloyd Garmadon in one place. That means it must be a powerful cancellation spell, no doubt from the one sorcerer or sorceress who created the reason we haven't conquered all the realms yet in the first place!” He sighed, regaining himself. “We need the young Garmadon to beat the ninja. No matter how much we'd like to deny not being all powerful. That's why we need to destroy the potion for good and hope they can't make a new one too soon.”

 

 “Or we could just kill the annoying sorcerer or sorceress”, Drix pointed out. “Then there would never again be anyone capable enough to do any magical thing against us. We could turn them into an example for the rest of the world.”

 

 “They're too powerful”, Zarkt answered. “We'd be the ones killed on that mission.”

 

 “So it's decided”, Kur said. “We'll have to sneak into the monastery, find the potion and destroy it. Then there's nothing stopping us.”

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “That's too dangerous!” Nya yelled. “Are you trying to get us all killed!? There's no way we're just going to march there and survive long enough to be able to turn Lloyd back! And how are we gonna get out of there after we’ve saved him!?”

 

 “Well what else are we supposed to do!?” Kai bit right back. “Wait for him to just decide to come to us alone and peacefully!? I’m telling you, a surprise attack is the best way to go! They won’t expect anything if we do it very soon. Besides, we have the knife!”

 

 “We should look for other ways to get to Lloyd safely”, Zane piped up. “Lloyd was hiding it from us. That is not like him. He wouldn't want to repeat Master Wu's mistakes. He clearly doesn’t want to use it until there’s no possible way of surviving without it.”

 

 “Well how are we gonna do it without a source dragon's help?” Jay asked. “There's no way for us to overpower them when they have Lloyd on their side and in his oni form. We all know he could easily beat Overlord like that.”

 

 “So that means we have to weaken him or confuse him enough to not dodge the potion”, Sora said, her mind already going over all the possibilities. She got over them fast, since there was only one idea. “So… if the oni’s weakness is creation and Lloyd is a quarter of a dragon, do you think we could somehow, like, awaken his dragon to fight the oni?”

 

 Everyone thought about it for a while. Cole was the first to come up with something. “The Temple of Light! If we get in the right positions and get Lloyd to strike the bell, maybe he unlocks the Golden dragon again and it overpowers his oni or at least counters it so we can throw the potion!”

 

 “That wouldn't work”, Misako interjected. “Lloyd already got the power from the bell and lost it.”

 

 “Lloyd did lose the golden power”, Garmadon agreed. “But everyone knows you can't just get rid of powers. They will always recharge after you've unlocked them. Also let's not forget that there's no light without darkness and no darkness without light. The golden power is the counterpower to Lloyd's power of destruction. If the power was actually really gone, Lloyd wouldn't have been walking in the land of the living after he shared it between you four”, Garmadon pointed to the four original ninja with his four hands. “Or he'd have turned into Overlord 2.0.”

 

 For once, Sora didn't have to ask anything about the subject at hand, since Arin had explained the concept of Golden ninja while they were flying home from the Shadow Dojo. It made her feel very knowledgeable. She was sure Wyldfyre felt the same way too, since she could see the younger girl smiling smugly from the corner of her eye.

 

 “Nice. That only leaves one problem”, Nya started. “How are we gonna get Lloyd to a whole other land and in the temple?”

Notes:

Hello! It is me, Rioskis!
I feel like I need to just clarify that Zarkt calling Lloyd "young Garmadon" doesn't mean anything more. I didn't put it there to Make a connection to Mystaké or anything. I just thought that since the Forbidden Five are old and stuff that they would use similar terms as Mystaké.
Also I wanted to ask how old are you all? I'm just curious. I want to know how old people are reading my stuff.
Also sorry this chapter might be a little rushed and stuff. I was lazy and put writing this chapter off and I just finished it before posting it.

Chapter 20: Being actors

Summary:

The ninja's plan is tested.

 Waiting wasn't Arin’s strongest feature. It may have been the worst, actually. Lloyd was the best master, yes, but he hadn't done a very good job in teaching patience, yet at least. He figured that was one of the things Lloyd wasn't very good at either and he'd have to learn it on his own, perhaps right now. Lloyd had said something about lessons not always being while training, or something like that. Arin doesn't remember it that well.

 

 Restlessness had Arin checking outside almost every ten minutes if the Forbidden Five had come. Everyone else was nervous too, but refrained from showing it in obvious ways. They couldn't afford to be suspicious at any time. If the Forbidden Five found out about their plan, all the brainstorming would have been for nothing and the goal of saving Lloyd would be even further away.

 

 Now, as he was laying on his bed, eyes closed and his blanket hugged tight, he couldn't sleep. Arin had met a lot of these nights in the past years of worrying about his biological parents, but he never suspected he'd someday have another parental figure to worry over at some point, especially not the Green ninja.

 

 What if their plan failed? What if they didn't even get to the start? They'd all be doomed and Lloyd would destroy the world and maybe never get out of whatever that mind control stuff was with the mask. Arin would lose everything for the second time.

 

 Maybe he should check again if the Forbidden Five were on their way, just so the plan won't get ruined if they notice the siblings’ arrival too late.

 

 And just like magic, Arin heard someone sneaking around right past his and Sora’s room’s door. It definitely wasn't any of the ninja, they'd agreed on not trying to sneak around when they were expecting a sneak attack from the enemy.

 

 He hurried to a sleeping Sora's side. “Sora, wake up!” He whispered. “I think they're here.”

 

 “They are?” Sora sat up quickly. “Then set off the alarm.”

 

 Arin took out the remote Sora had given to him. All of them had one. She had designed it to send just a small shockwave to its nearest person when someone activated them. That way the Forbidden Five wouldn't notice them waking up and they could get prepared.

 

 The two got into their ninja gear and went to wait next to the door, ready to open it the minute someone else got out of their room. As the not fully trained ninjas they weren't allowed to face the Forbidden Five alone unless they absolutely had to.

 

 A loud bang and yelling told them they could go. They both jumped out at the same time, almost landing on eachother, and went to fight to protect the potion.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Jay woke up to yelling and sounds of fighting outside his room. He took a little peek to confirm his suspicions. 

 

 Yep. The Forbidden Five were here.

 

 And the remote didn't wake him up because he's the master of electricity! He wouldn't wake up to some small shock from a remote. He should've considered that when Sora asked for any problems in her invention.

 

 He sighed and changed into his gi and jumped in the fight.

 

 He saw the green bottle get thrown around the room. The ninja were trying to protect it with all their might and the Forbidden Five were doing their best to break it.

 

 So their plan had actually worked. At least this far…

 

 “We need to leave!” Nya found it hard to yell over all the noise, but everyone heard her clearly.

 

 The ninja ran outside, each of the older five struggling with one of the Forbidden Five. They wouldn't be able to escape with them so close behind.

 

 “Kids, you go first! We'll hold them!” Kai said, his fists lighting up with fire.

 

 Wyldfyre wanted to stay, but Sora grabbed her hand and dragged her on the flying ship. 

 

 Jay took a deep breath. It was fun remembering his past and not being evil, but he couldn't say he missed always being in danger, or would've if he had remembered something while being away. Some of the ninja liked the adrenaline rush, like Kai and Nya, but Jay would have much more preferred to be dealing with smaller villains, like someone just trying to escape prison. Not a threat to the strings of the universe or something like that. Just so that he wouldn't have to be so damn scared all the time.

 

 Luckily for him, he didn't need to fight at full level today on purpose. He just needed to make it seem like he was desperate to protect the bottle.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Arin didn't have much to do while Sora set the ship up and ready to fly across the sky at light speed. He was just watching the battle below him.

 

 It was going along their plan nicely. The ninja were retreating slowly and trying to get the Forbidden Five off their tails. Cole was climbing on the anchor already.

 

 Arin had the potion in hand. He was ready in his position to help lift the ninja up when they were close enough.

 

 Cole got to the top first, then Jay, then Nya, then Zane and Kai was last. He had some struggle keeping the Forbidden Five at bay, having to shoot fireballs everywhere and to use his rising dragon a lot. It slowed up his process but he was able to get to the top, almost at least.

 

 Right as Arin was going to grab his hand, Nokt threw himself onto Kai and they went tumbling down.

 

 Arin managed to barely catch Kai's hand before it was too late, Cole holding onto his legs and Sora starting to direct the ship away as quickly as possible.

 

 He had to hold Kai with both hands, meaning he “accidentally” dropped the bottle on the ground, breaking it and green liquid covering the ground.

 

 The last thing the ninja heard before being out of earshot was the maniacal laughter of Zarkt and Rox.

 

 Cole pulled Arin and Kai up and everyone cheered.

 

 “Good job, everyone”, Zane congratulated, giving out high fives. “Your acting skills are impressive.”

 

 “I wonder how their faces will look when they find out that was the wrong bottle”, Nya had a smug grin plastered on her face when she pulled the real potion out of her pocket.

 

 “Hopefully Frohicky won't be too mad that he needs to clean up his precious tea”, Arin said. He was smiling widely. He had had little hope of their plan succeeding. He was almost sure they were going to fail in this somehow, but he was proved wrong for now.

Chapter 21: Chilling

Summary:

Everyone's safe in the New Destiny's Bounty and just chill.

 Harumi only went along with the plan because she owed Lloyd. Yes, the ninja had let her parents die and later on Lloyd let her almost die. Lloyd and his little team was always and would always be a thorn, or many, in her flesh.

 

 But if she thought about things logically, he had saved her life. He had also forgiven her so easily after all the chaos of the Overlord and the crystals. Lloyd had even pulled some strings to get her out of jail after that. So, at the end of the day, she did owe Lloyd at least this, even if she'd never let anyone hear it come out of her mouth.

 

 That's why she was now inside the New Destiny's Bounty. Garmadon, Misako and Akita were also somewhere here, waiting for the ninja to get on the ship and fly them away from the monastery.

 

 Harumi knew the plan was coming along at least on some level. She had heard Lloyd's students and that baby ninja dragon climb on and start readying the Bounty to fly a while ago. She just hoped they'd succeed, otherwise they'd all die, Harumi included.

 

 She let out a relieved sigh when she heard the ninja climb on, with a bit of drama of course, and celebrate after the ship had started flying across the sky. Soon the footsteps of Lloyd's parents and Akita passed the small storage room Harumi was staying in to join the ninja.

 

 Harumi didn't go along. She'd rather stay here, alone in her own thoughts than go there, in the middle of all the people that hated her the most. She'd ruin their mood instantly anyway.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Now that the first part of their plan was done, Kai had some time to himself. The flight to the Dark Island would take at least an hour or two. Firstbourne flew there before the Forbidden Five attempted their sneak attack, so none of the ninja had to worry about anything for a while.

 

 He was using his time wandering around the New Destiny's Bounty. It looked cool, the inside was almost identical to the original Bounty. Kai was thankful that Zane, Nya and Sora had found the time to rebuild it, again. 

 

 He stopped at the room the ninja used to share as their bedroom. This one hadn't been used even once, but the beds were still made and the sheets were still accurately colored. He smiled at that. Nya and Zane making sure everything was the same to the smallest of details made the ship more comfortable. He was almost surprised they hadn't gotten copies of all their family photos and put them on the walls.

 

 “Nya didn't let me help with this room”, Sora stood at the door, watching Kai brush his fingers against the fabrics of the bedsheets.

 

 “It holds memories”, Kai said. “It's nice to come here and remember all that we've been through together.”

 

 Silence clouded the air for a moment. Kai was living in his memories he had in here, going through all the times the ninja stayed up way too long playing games and the times they had to sleep in the same room after a fight and everything was so awkward and all the times he woke up in the middle of the night to comfort someone after a bad nightmare.

 

 Sora was the first to break it. “You know… I was wondering why there's no locks in any of the doors? I mean, I'd like my privacy at least in the bathroom.”

 

 “Oh”, Kai laughed. “It's so none of us can lock the rest in or out a room to go on a suicide mission. Mostly for me and Lloyd.”

 

 “Did that happen once?” Sora asked, eyes wide and a big smile on her face, knowing there's a story behind that.

 

 “Twice.”

 

 “Twice!? You gotta tell me!” Sora took a seat on a random bed and tapped on the spot next to her, gesturing for Kai to sit.

 

 “Okay”, Kai sat next to her. “But you can never let Lloyd know I told this to you.” 

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Arin was with Jay, Wyldfyre and Riyu in the living room, watching a Fritz Donnegan movie. Jay had asked for everyone else to come too, but they'd declined, having watched it too many times for their liking already. Akita almost accepted, but was more excited to train with Nya than anything else.

 

 Jay remembered every line in the movie even after all that time being away. At some cool moments he spoke along with the hero in the exact tone and perfect timing.

 

 He also mentioned that the main actor was his biological father or something like that. It was very hard to believe, though. Jay took all offense in the kids' doubt and dramatically pouted for half the movie. 

 

 Wyldfyre just wanted to focus on the movie, or at least had wanted to, until she found ways to complain about the plot. When she did find them, she let it be known loudly.

 

 Arin couldn't keep his mind on the movie. He had thought he was a huge ninja fan and knew everything about Lloyd and the other ninja because of that. He thought there were no more big surprises for Arin to find.

 

 Yet with almost every conversation recently he realized that he was missing some major Lloyd lore. He didn't think that was possible and here he was, in the same ship with a completely new person who seemed to know Lloyd better than he did. He had apparently saved her realm and Arin had had no clue until, like, yesterday!

 

 That led Arin to wonder what else was there to his master that he didn't know anything about. Ugh, he almost regretted not doing the same as Kai and just rummaging through all Lloyd's stuff and finding his diary or something. 

 

 Now it was too late for that, though. What it wasn't too late for was just asking Jay. That seemed like a good idea, knowing Jay was a blabbermouth, so he'd probably answer something without even realizing it.

 

 “Uhm, Jay?” When Jay hummed in acknowledgement, Arin continued. “Can you tell me more about Lloyd?”

 

 Jay scrunched his eyebrows together, his eyes not leaving the screen. “Why? What do you want to know?”

 

 “I dunno. Something. I just feel like I don't know him at all. Like there's so many more sides to him than I'd have never thought if he didn't become my master”, Arin said. 

 

 Wyldfyre decided to join in on it too. “Yeah. I mean like I just met him not too long ago and all but he doesn't really talk much about himself. He just tells us stories of you guys and gives us some inspirational speeches when in doubt and stuff like that.”

 

 “That's because you don't ask”, Jay concluded after thinking for a while. “You need to ask him and not wait for him to come around and just be like ‘hey guys guess what my first love interest was a princess who I swore to protect and then she turned out to be evil and tried to kill me multiple times’. And don't ask me or the others to tell you things abiut Lloyd. I'm in no place to talk about Lloyd's personal stuff.”

 

 “What!” Wyldfyre stood up. “That happened? Who was it!?”

 

 “Wait, Lloyd was in love with Harumi?” Wow… Luckily Arin asked Jay and not Nya for example.

 

 “Oh wait…” Jay came to the realization way too late. “Oops. Now I'm gonna get killed! Don't tell him you know this. It was pretty traumatic.”

 

 "Sure."

Notes:

Hello you people! This chapter doesn't really have much to do with the actual plot. I just wanted to include some not so stressful stuff before more serious stuff happens. Also merry christmas to everyone who celebrates it on 24th!

Chapter 22: The plan

Summary:

The ninja try out their plan.

WARNING:
There's thoughts of suicide. If you want to skip that Part I've marked IT with ((((( and )))))

Also in the last pov there's blood.

 “They're coming! Run!” Jay ran towards them from the other side of the beach with Nya. 

 

 The two had gone for a short walk to catch up properly now that they had some time. The short walk had been cut even shorter, though, as the Forbidden Five arrived earlier than expected.

 

 Kai looked over to the sea and, yep, there they were. He was surprised they got a boat big enough to carry the whole army this fast, but he was also glad that they knew the Forbidden Five well enough to predict they would come for the ninja the second the 'potion' was destroyed.

 

 “Arin, do you ha-” he couldn't even finish his question before Arin showed him he still had the potion by waving it around.

 

 The ship was already close to land. Kai checked everyone was running before following the team.

_ _

 

 “Faster!” Kai yelled after having to dodge yet another sword. The wolf warriors were dangerously close, too close for his liking.

 

 They were almost at the temple, they just needed to climb up the mountain. Easier said than done when they had to dodge the Forbidden Five's attacks while throwing their hooks further up.

 

 Kai didn't even need to look down to know Lloyd was getting closer and closer by the second with his wings making him faster. He didn't want to hurt the kid, but he would have to if it meant their plan would work. Their plan needed to work.

 

 They reached the top. They did it! Kai hoisted himself on the flat ground, taking a deep breath.

 

 “Kai! Watch out!” 

 

 Lloyd slammed himself into Kai.

 

 Now it was time for the harder part. Getting Lloyd to stand still in the middle of the temple and hit the bell.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

(((((((

 Lloyd had absolutely no idea what his teammates were trying to do. Their potion was crushed already, there was no saving him now.

 

 He had already accepted the fact that the only way to save everyone now was for him to die. It was that simple, even if it sounded horrible. Lloyd needed to die.

 

 He should've died when he was a kid to prevent himself from releasing the serpentine. If he had died the ninja wouldn't have had to go through so much. 

 

 He should've died then and he should've died now. So why were the others still trying so desperately to save him? They'd be better off without him anyway.

))))))))

 

 The voice pretending to be him in the subconscious part of his mind had left him alone at some point, leaving him to be visually tortured by his own actions of hurting the ones he cared about the most.

 

 What were they doing? Were they trying to awaken his golden power again? Didn't they know that would only bring more chaos? It did so last time. That's why Lloyd had been trying to keep it away when it had recharged itself some time ago.

 

 The power was too much for Lloyd. It made him inconsiderate, selfish and floppy. He didn't get a hold of himself with it. If he had, maybe Zane wouldn't have had to sacrifice himself, they wouldn't have gone to Chen’s island and his father wouldn't have sacrificed himself. Then his father wouldn't have been able to be resurrected and turned evil. So, shortly put, it was all Lloyd's fault because he couldn't control the power he was made for. Everything was Lloyd's fault. 

 

 He winced as someone got a hit on him. Right, he was still in the Temple of Light. And on the wrong side of the battle. 

 

 He didn't try to stop himself. Last time he did he only managed to make things worse.

 

 He was flying across the temple with his new wings Rox had learned to control. Funnily Zane, Cole, Kai and Jay were all in their marked places. This brought up memories. Too bad his body was in the control of the spell in the mask and the spell Rox had cast on him.

 

  Nya, Garmadon, and Sora were fighting him, or rather getting their butts beat up. Arin, Akita, Harumi, Misako and Riyu were holding off the wolf warriors. Arin and Riyu were using the rising dragons they had apparently learned while Lloyd was away. (Why was Arin learning everything when he wasn't there? Was he on Arin's way?) The original four ninja were just standing there and helping out with their elemental powers when they could, but they didn't move otherwise at all. Uncle Wu had taught them better than that, but it did make sense if they were actually trying to awaken his golden power. That required them to be in those positions.

 

 Arin came flying from outside, having been knocked off balance by one of the double F:s. Lloyd wasted no time in kicking him into his back, sending him flying into the bell and making a loud sound. Lloyd was just glad it didn't sound like the Gong of Shattering. He had had enough of that sound the moment he first heard it in his vision.

 

 He landed in the middle of the room, in his marked spot for the Green ninja. He watched as Nya helped Arin stand up and dragged him away from the golden and green light that now surrounded him.

 

Oh, so the ninja's plan had actually worked. 

 

Lloyd felt something ancient in him make its existence known. It was like someone had turned a very old machine on, but it wasn't a machine. It was the First Spinjitzu Master's power in him that was just given wings to rise from the bottom of his soul, where he had mentally pushed it long ago.

 

 He rose from the ground in a gold and green ball of energy without his or Rox' permission. It was like he was coded for this before he was born and nothing was stopping it now. Was this what Zane felt like with his robot side? Probably not, to be honest. 

 

 This time the four other ninja didn't get any special powers or have to share theirs with him. When he got down his gi had already turned golden, unlike last time when it was mostly black and green.

 

 He felt his oni side try to maintain its dominance and struggle against the power of creation. It hurt so much he couldn't feel anything besides it. He couldn't feel himself fall to the ground and couldn't feel the shards of glass dig their way into his flesh.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Their plan had worked! They saved Lloyd! 

 

 Or that was what Arin would've thought if Lloyd hadn't collapsed in front of him right after he threw the potion at Lloyd. 

 

 Lloyd was turning back to his human form, mostly. His wings didn't leave him for some reason and he grew a tail, coated in weird blood.

 

 Weird blood, because instead of just being red, it had some golden, green and purple in it. The different types didn't even seem to get mixed up at all so it stayed that way, the colors shining in the morning light. It would've been beautiful, if not for the knowledge that that was his Master's blood he was looking at.

 

 And if that wasn't worrying enough, the wolf mask exploded on Lloyd's face and all of them were thrown back from coming over to help him.

 

 Kai was a very unlucky man. He had been already running over to Lloyd and was in front of the open door, when the mask exploded and he was thrown outside to fall to his death with the wolf warriors and Forbidden Five.

 

 Or he was about to fall to his death, until a mountain, shaped like a hand rose from nowhere and saved him. A mountain. Shaped like a hand. Rose from nowhere. And saved Kai. What in the living room was happening?

 

 Lloyd's pained whimper drove Arin's gaze back to him, just in time to see that Lloyd was doing it. Lloyd was moving a literal mountain. He was laying on the floor in pain, bleeding, and moving a mountain. Okay. Arin would've loved to pass out. 

 

 Just then he realized that Lloyd looked… smaller than he had before. Well, obviously he was smaller now than in his oni form, but smaller than he had been before as a human.

 

 The master passed out right then and there. No one dared to move, most couldn't if they tried. Huh, so Arin hadn't imagined all that and hadn't been the only one surprised.

 

 “What-”, Arin gulped. “What happened?”

 

 Nya took a deep breath. “You know that when you learn to control your powers and stuff it's called reaching your full potential?” Arin nodded. “Yeah. That's Lloyd's full potential.”

Notes:

Hi guys! Merry christmas to everyone who celebrates on 25th!
I think I could've definitely tried to make the chapter better since it's an important one to the plot. I really had like a clear visual thought of what it should've felt like and I think my writing didn't bring that out and it was chaotic and stuff so a rewrite would've been a good thing for this. I didn't have enough time for that though. So this is what you get now.
Anyways, have a good day and we'll meet yet again in the next chapter!

Chapter 23: Wake up

Summary:

Lloyd get some not so wonderful news.

 “Kai, we need to go before the wolf warriors wake up again”, Akita grumbled. She seemed very annoyed by everyone hovering over Lloyd, especially Kai. That was understandable, since Cole couldn't get to the blond to lift him with everyone on his way. “I want to hug him too, but we need to wait.”

 

 “I know. Let me just…” Kai squeezed Lloyd's shaking and twitching body for the last time and let Cole take him.

 

 Even then he didn't leave Lloyd's side, though. He was constantly making sure Lloyd was still breathing and his heart was still pumping blood, even though most of it was escaping through the new wounds he had gotten. 

 

 Harumi wished she had someone like that too. Someone who cared even if she had just tried to kill them.

 

 Well, that would probably require not trying to kill them first and earning their trust without betraying them or pretending to be someone else. Something that wasn't going to happen very soon. 

 

 Garmadon turned into his oni form and flew to the New Destiny's Bounty to get it closer to them. They needed to get Lloyd to the medbay as soon as possible.

 

No one was commenting on Lloyd's new appearance out loud. Even the kids were keeping their mouths shut, which was a huge achievement in Harumi's opinion.

 

 Harumi hadn't gotten a closer look to Lloyd, but she was pretty sure Lloyd got shorter than he had been before. Why did Lloyd get shorter from an active spell canceling potion? Had Lloyd drunk some magic tea to make himself taller? If so, Harumi would laugh at him about it for the rest of their lives and more.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “You'll never be good enough!”

 

 Lloyd woke up with a gasp, eyes wide. He would've immediately sat up if his back wasn't hurting like the Cursed Realm. 

 

 A red figure was sitting in front of him. He couldn't see past it. 

 

 “Lloyd!” Ouch. A loud noise was not the first thing Lloyd would have wanted to hear when he woke up from his nightmares, which he luckily didn't remember this time. Except for that last line, but it was better than the whole deal. “Thank your grandpa, you're awake.”

 

 Lloyd was silent for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the bright white lights. Once he did, he noticed the red figure was Kai. Stupid Lloyd, why didn't he recognize his voice?

 

 “How long was I out for?” He mentally cringed at his croaky voice, Rox hadn't exactly put his vocal chords to practice while controlling him.

 

 “Not long. Zane barely got you patched up”, Kai pointed at the injury on Lloyd's forehead, then at the one on his jaw and the one on his shoulder and so on, until he relised it would take some time to point at each injury, so he ended up just waving his hand at Lloyd's bandage-covered body.

 

 Lloyd was barely able to move with his unbearable headache and nausea, both symptoms he got after getting possessed the last time too. He forced his head to move along Kai's finger anyway and looked through all his injuries he could see. He didn't know if it was better or worse that he couldn't feel the pain from under his overloaded powers, buzzing and tingling under his skin. It was the worst at his chest and at the tips of his fingers.

 

 He couldn't help but feel like his body was… different, somehow. What had happened to him? He could feel something on his back, weighing it down. But also something else was wrong. Had his hair always been this long? 

 

 “Did I hurt someone?” he asked. He couldn't look Kai in the eye for this one. If he had hurt one of the kids, he'd never forgive himself.

 

 Kai sighed. That was more than enough for Lloyd to know the answer. Actions speak louder than words indeed.

 

 “Who? How badly?”

 

 “Lloyd. It wasn't your fau-”

 

 “It doesn't matter”, Lloyd only raised his voice only a little bit, but he still regretted it immediately after. “Just answer my questions, please.”

 

 “Okay”, Kai raised his hands in surrender. “Arin got his shoulder dislocated, Nya got some small cuts and Garmadon broke his finger. But it was the pinky finger and that fucker totally deserved it anyway.”

 

 Lloyd listened and tried his best to nod along. That just ended up causing him a worse headache, if that was even possible at this point. 

 

 So, Lloyd had hurt his own student, sister and father. Nice going. He decided to deal with that information later, when he would be in a lesser amount of pain.

 

 Now, he needed to figure out why Kai was looking at him with maximum pity in his eyes. Lloyd could tell he wanted to address an apparent elephant in the room that Lloyd hadn't been aware of. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

 Kai stayed silent for some time. His gaze was torn between something behind Lloyd's back and his face.

 

 Lloyd scrunched his eyebrows together, even though it just caused another spike of pain throughout his head. “Kai, I need to know.”

 

 “Okay, but don't freak out”, he sighed. “Do you remember the spell canceling potion Arin threw on you?” Lloyd nodded. “Well… it canceled absolutely all active spells cast on you. That includes tomorrow's tea.”

 

 “Are you telling me I'm back to the physical state I was in when I used it?” Great. Just great. This was the last thing Lloyd needed right now. He was a child all over again!

 

 “No. You didn't go all the way back”, Kai took a mirror from the bedside table. “But you’re now in your ‘correct’ age. Zane said some stuff about, you know, time and that you would've aged since then and stuff. Also you still have your scars and all that.”

 

 Soon Lloyd was looking at a weird, younger version of himself. His hair did indeed look longer on his smaller head. The scar on his cheek looked bigger than before. Why didn't that shrink too? You would think Lloyd had enough of his skin covered in those already. It was like his younger and older self were molded together into one messed up teenager.

 

 Lloyd would've kept looking forever into his own eyes, but something else caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Something was behind him. Something that looked weirdly like wings... Oh wait.

 

 “When were you going to tell me about these?” Lloyd pointed at his new limbs. 

 

 Okay. Those were not supposed to be there. Lloyd never had wings, except in his oni for, which he wasn't in anymore. 

 

 “I was, really!” Lloyd winced at the loudness. Kai took the hint and quieted down. “I thought I'd get the kid thing out of the way first, ya know?”

 

 “Well”, he tried to think of anything positive about this situation, which turned out to be unnecessarily hard. “At least I can fly now.”

 

 “And you'll have a better balance”, Kai added. “And you can trip people.”

 

 “Wait, what?” He tried to sit up. Unfortunately, his attempt was cut short by the pain all over. “Pretty sure wings aren't equal to balance.”

 

 “Oh, you didn't- uhm…” Kai scratched the back of his head. “You also have a tail.”

 

 “You gotta be kidding me”, Lloyd closed his eyes and scrunched his eyebrows together again in annoyance. When would his road of pain end? “I'm tired. I'll try to sleep.”

 

 “Yeah. Do that. The kids wanna talk to you later by the way. And your parents. And Akita.” 

 

 Not very soon, it seemed.

 

Chapter 24: A ride

Summary:

Lloyd think while Arin gives him a chill ride.

 “You failed me, Lloyd”, Uncle Wu's voice rang in his ears.

 

 He couldn't move to help him when he was thrown off the Bounty and sucked into the giant ball of light where the rips in the sky seemed to come from.

 

 “Lloyd.”

 

 Everything disappeared from around him. He was floating in the red void now.

 

 His family appeared there too, but unlike Lloyd, they were each being killed by their own signature weapons. They were unconscious, so they couldn't protect themselves.

 

 “Lloyd, you gotta wake up.”

 

 Lloyd tried to go help them, but he still couldn't move. He tried yelling, but they didn't hear him.

 

 “Lloyd!”

 

 Someone shook him awake from his nightmares. Lloyd opened his eyes wide and gasped for air like he was drowning. The shaking stopped and instead the person hugged him loosely, trying not to hurt him too badly and avoiding the new wings.

 

 Lloyd hugged back, not really caring who it was. Could you blame him? He hadn't had any physical contact in a while without it being meant to hurt him.

 

 The person let go when Lloyd got his breathing in check, much to his dismay. He didn't cling on, though, he didn't want to be annoying.

 

 The person revealed himself to be Arin and Lloyd immediately blushed. He had just let his student see him, a teacher he should learn from and see as strong, in that state! Uncle Wu would've never made such a mistake.

 

 “Oh! Uhm-, hi? What brings you here?” He smiled. Lloyd tried to go for a relaxed one, one that looked like he was at peace, but assuming from Arin's worried face, he didn't succeed very well. 

 

 Wait… Arin was back! He came back. This was their first talk after all... that happened. “Nice to see you came back.”

 

 “Yeah we can talk about that later. Now, we're at the monastery”, Arin stepped aside to show a… wheelchair? “Would you like to get to your room?”

 

 “Sure! What's the wheelchair for?” Lloyd struggled his way to a sitting position. The new wings were trying to pull him back down with their weight. Those were going to need some training to master…

 

 “Uhm… for you?” Arin rolled the chair next to his bed for him to climb on easily. “We thought it'd be the safest way to escort you, since you’re kinda beat up right now.”

 

 “Thanks, really”, Lloyd went to stand up. “But I don't nee-” 

 

 Arin was quick to catch him before he fell. His skin buzzed with power where he fell into Arin's arms more harshly.

 

 Why couldn't he even walk? Sure, he was exhausted. The double F:s didn't give him any food after he turned into his oni for and wouldn't let him sleep. That didn't mean he should be weak, though. He's the Green ninja, he should carry the whole world on his shoulders, yet he couldn't even carry himself on his legs! What kind of teacher was he?

 

 “Wait. When did you get this tall?” he wondered aloud when he looked up. He was pretty sure Arin used to be an inch or two shorter than he was now.

 

 “I didn't get tall. You got short… er”, Arin placed him on the wheelchair. His tail and wings stayed nice and comfortable due to the holes in the back that probably Sora had added while making it.

 

 Right. Lloyd was physically smaller now. He would need to adjust to that soon.

 

 He wondered how young did he get. He didn't remember his actual age, since that's not really something he had ever needed. A brief look at the mirror while trying to process everything Kai told also didn't help much, with the wings distarcting him from staring for longer.

 

 Why did he even get those, anyway? Why did the First Spinjitzu Master want to make his life so chaotic? Wasn't making him be a Green and Golden ninja enough?

 

 “Hey, don't worry. It's fine if you’re a short king!” Oh. Seemed like Lloyd had been quiet for too long. They were already on the deck. How hadn't he noticed? “Most of us ninja are above average anyway, so you’re probably taller than you think! And you have your new wings and tail to make up for it!”

 

 “Thanks, Arin”, Well, at least Lloyd could spend his chaotic life with his family. 

 

 “No problem, Master Lloyd!” Master… Lloyd still didn't completely approve of that title.

 

 He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because he didn't feel ready for it, or maybe because that would mean admitting to Uncle Wu's passing, or maybe because he didn't want to carry even more responsibilities, or maybe just all three put together. 

 

 He'd need to get used to that soon too, though. He couldn't exactly refuse it at this point. Besides, he'd been over this many times already. When he became the Green ninja, the Golden ninja, the leader of the ninja and the conduit. He of all people should know to just go with it, since there's no backing out. When something like that gets pushed onto you, you can never push it back.

 

 Now he was… going down a ramp? They'd built a big ramp, just for him to get down safely? Why couldn't they just use the anchor? It had worked all the other times just fine. Were they scared the wheelchair would roll off too easily?

 

 Arin tripped on his own feet right in the middle of the metal ramp, sending Lloyd rolling down with dangerous speed. He tried to stop the wheels, but it didn't do much else than burn his hands.

 

 The ground was nearing too fast. Was this how Lloyd would die? Oh wait.

 

 He channeled his energy, which came out golden, and powered it forward, slowing his wheelchair down. It damaged the ground, but it would be an easy fix, since it didn't hit the training track. The usage of his powers made the uncomfortable buzzing under his skin lessen just a bit. 

 

 Arin came rushing down. “Oh I'm so sorry! I slipped an-” 

 

 “Arin”, Lloyd interrupted Arin's ramblings. “It's okay. It was just an accident.”

 

 Arin took a deep breath to steady himself. “Yeah. You’re right. Now let's get you to your room to rest.”

 

 He hated being treated like he couldn't take care of himself. He bit his lip to stop the ‘I can do it myself’ from coming out, because they all knew he couldn't right now.

 

 He tried to calm himself down by telling himself that once he healed, he could start caring for himself and everyone else again and not take a ‘no’ for an answer. Once he healed, he could meet everyone's expectations again with no problems. Maybe he could even get some tomorrow's tea from somewhere and find a way to get rid of his wings and tail.

 

They went inside and passed Garmadon, an unreadable expression on his face as always. Why did the resurrection have to take all his nice smiles away? Or did Garmadon just hate him so much he couldn't smile like that in front of him?

 

 Garmadon noticed Lloyd and Arin and gave them room. He opened his mouth to say something, but decided otherwise and just continued his walk to wherever he was going.

 

 “So… Kai told me you wanted to talk to me about something?” Lloyd had a feeling he knew. No, actually he was about 99% sure he knew what it was about, but he needed to hear it from Arin.

 

 “I do”, Arin said. “But I promised Sora and Wyldfyre that we'd talk with you together about it.”

 

 They were at Lloyd's bedroom's door. Arin opened it for them and rolled Lloyd inside.

 

 It looked wrong, somehow. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew something was off. Did someone come in here and mess up his room?

 

 Maybe he was just going crazy, though. He could just be paranoid after being kidnapped. That's something that happened more often than not when he had been kidnapped in the past.

 

 Huh, you'd think he would've learned how to not get kidnapped with how many times it's happened to him already, but here he was, being escorted to his room by his student in a wheelchair because he couldn't do it himself after being kidnapped and used.

 

 “I'll leave this here”, Arin stopped the chair right next to Lloyd's bed and helped him get up after Lloyd tried to do it by himself and fell right before he was about to get on the bed. He made sure Lloyd was somewhat comfortable and went back to the door. “I'll be off now. Get some rest”, with that the door was closed and Lloyd was left alone again.

 

Notes:

GASP. The year is ending soon!

Chapter 25: A wonderful mom

Summary:

Lloyd think again and Ari.and Sora talk to Misako.

 ‘Beat up’ was a good description of Lloyd's current state. 

 

 Although he had been a little dramatic when he first saw himself, he was still visibly younger. The change wasn't much, but it sure felt like his maturity had been taken from his body, thrown to the floor and burned. He still felt like an adult emotionally, but he was in a teenager's body. Even his long beard had disappeared! 

 

 It made Lloyd very uncomfortable. When he was stretching out his hand and it didn't go as far as it was supposed to. When he was able to stand up today with the power of Zane's dumplings and sleep, he had to double check he wasn't sitting anymore, since he was so short.

 

 Okay yeah, the difference wasn't a lot, just an inch or two, but again, it felt like it was much more, especially since he had previously been in his oni form. Going from a 7 feet tall, four armed golden oni warrior to a 5 '8 teenage boy who is bandaged up and can barely stand by himself was a “drastic change” as Zane had called it.

 

 As Lloyd was taking time to really look at himself in the mirror now, he realized it wasn't as bad as it felt, or at least it didn't look as bad as it felt. He was still the same person, he got to keep his scars and other characteristics showcasing his in real life experience points and he even got to keep his trusted muscles, not being as scrawny as he used to be once when he was actually this age. Or when he looked like he was this age. Man, it was going to take some time to accept that this was his ‘real’ age.

 

 The age stuff was pretty much okay. The wings and the tail weren't so lucky in Lloyd's books. No matter how cool they looked and how many new tricks he could learn with these, they weren't his, or at least they weren't supposed to be. He had never had wings or tail in his human form before, but now they just decided to appear out of nowhere? He'd need to ask Garmadon about it later and hope the old man could help in some ways.

 

 Someone knocked on his door. “Lloyd! Are you awake?” 

 

 Lloyd walked over to open the door for Jay. “Yeah. What's up?”

 

 “Well first of all, you shouldn't be up, but I'm gonna let it slide, since I'm clearly the best big brother ever”, Jay's loud voice brought Lloyd's headache back. He didn't mention it though, just smiled. He'd missed having Jay around to fill up any silent moments. “Second of all, can you help us train the kiddies? We can't make sense of your or Wu's lesson journals.” Jay lifted both of the journals up for Lloyd to see.

 

 “Wait, what?” Lloyd took the journals. “How did you get these? I left them in-...” now it was all coming together. Of course! That's why his room was messed up! How had he been so stupid? “Did someone go snooping in my room?”

 

 “It was Kai!” Jay blurted out as fast as the accusation left Lloyd's mouth. “And Harumi, I guess, but she didn't take anything. Oh and also he found the red dragon knife thing.”

 

 “... Did you use it?” When would Lloyd stop getting bad news all the time? He thought the ninja weren't allowed to go into each other's rooms without permission!

 

 “No, but the knife is not important right now”, Jay opened Lloyd's lesson journal and shoved it on his face. “You need to help us train the kids!”

 

 “Why can't I just train the kids myself?”

 

 “Because you can't even walk”, Jay said like it was rehearsed. Then he realized that what he said wasn't true anymore. “Or you couldn't walk. Now you can barely. Are you sure this is a good idea?” he didn't let Lloyd answer before continuing. “Actually, guess what? We're going to ask Zane.”

 

 With that Jay took Lloyd's hand and dragged him away from his room and to the courtyard.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “Soo…” Arin started. “How was Lloyd as a kid?” 

 

 Sora had no idea why they needed to be woken up so early even when all they did was go around the training track. The sun had barely even risen yet! 

 

 She had complained about it to the actual ninja and Jay had gotten an idea and ran off without saying anything.

 

 Zane had predicted that he was going to get Lloyd, but from what Sora had seen, he wasn't in any condition to get out of bed.

 

 So now they were waiting for Jay to come back. Misako was sitting at the side of the courtyard and Arin, the ninja fan he was, wanted to go talk to her.

 

 Misako smiled sadly at Arin's question. “I don't know.”

 

 “What!?” he exclaimed. “But you’re his mom!”

 

 “Yes, I am Lloyd's mother. But when Lloyd was born, I already knew just by looking at him that he was destined to be the Green ninja” Misako was looking at the ground. She looked to be lost in thought, probably going throughout the memory of having baby Lloyd in her arms. “I didn't want my son to have to fight his father, so I decided to do as much research on it as I could. I thought that maybe the final fight could be prevented. I thought I could save our family. So, I needed to leave Lloyd to focus on my research.”

 

 “So then I can ask the ninja what he was like when he was young!” Arin got excited again, but Sora felt suspicious. She hadn't seen any photos of Lloyd as a baby or a toddler hanging on the monastery's walls. 

 

 Misako's smile got awkward for some reason. “I'm afraid they don't know either. I didn't give Lloyd to Wu when I left. I dropped him off at a boarding school.”

 

 Wait. Why didn't Misako give Lloyd to Wu to care for? He lived in the monastery and taught children martial arts. Considering what the ninja had told Sora, he didn't have a problem with taking people in. Wu would've probably been happy to take care of mini Lloyd.

 

 “Oh hey! What was the name of it? I have a friend who was in a boarding school once. Maybe they went to the same one”, Misako's face at Arin's question told Sora something was off, again. How many bad turns could one story have?

 

 “Well, your friend probably didn't go there. The name of the school was Darkley's Boarding School for Bad Boys at the time Lloyd went there. I heard he was expelled at some point, though. I don't know when, so there's a chance he spent most of his childhood somewhere else” she explained. 

 

 Wait, Sora had heard of that school before. It was talked about at school as an example of how much better it was for them than to the kids elsewhere. And Lloyd was left to live there? What kind of mother was Misako? 

 

 “Wait, so you’re telling me you left a baby who you knew was supposed to become a legendary hero, to a school that turned kids evil? And you didn't care e-”

 

 “Good morning, everyone!” Lloyd called as he and Jay arrived at the courtyard, hand in hand. “I hope you haven't been slacking off on training when I was ki-... not here.”

 

 “Lloyd, you are in no condition to be teaching right now”, Zane warned. 

 

 “Chill, Zane. I'm almost fully healed. I've got this!”

 

Notes:

Okay first of all I didn't have time to prrofread this so there probably is some mistakes. Also I just realized I completely forgot about Firstbourne. I think I'll be editing her in some chapters, but the change won't be so big that you guys have to read it again. Just know that she was fighting at the Temple of light.
If you’re still alive, congratulations! You've survived to the end on 2024! Good luck on 2025!

Chapter 26: Memories

Summary:

Lloyd starts teaching again and everyone has a nice dinner.

 Lloyd wasn't so sure that he ‘got this’ anymore. He was trying hard not to start shaking and misstepping.

 

 The kids were following his movements. If they saw he was shaking or unrelaxed they'd immediately ask if he was alright, which he was, he really was, but they wouldn't believe him even if he told them that.

 

 Zane had left to cook, even though he had wanted to stay here and scan Lloyd every five minutes. Luckily for Lloyd no one else in the monastery could be trusted in the kitchen. Well, besides his mother, she had also wanted to stay to see her son teaching though.

 

 So, Zane left, but Cole, Kai, Jay and Nya stayed behind and went along with Lloyd's lesson. The motions were familiar to the five, so they would immediately kno- think Lloyd was not well yet if he misstepped and then they would send him to bed. 

 

 The others didn't know his nightmares had gotten more frequent after… that, and they didn't know the Source Dragon of Motion's magic to keep the visions away had worn off. They would think he was getting a good rest if he went to sleep. In reality it wasn't ‘sleep’ to Lloyd. It was torture. He couldn't tell them that, though. They'd just start feeling bad for him and throw a pity party.

 

 So, Lloyd's only choice right now was to just suck it up and teach until it was time to tell the kids to use the training track. When the time for that came, Lloyd could sit down and maybe drink some water to kick his nausea down, even if just a little. 

 

 Balancing without Jay supporting him was a little hard with the new limbs on his back, but he got over it quickly, being a ninja. He even learned to make his tail push down onto the ground to stop Lloyd's fall backwards in emergencies.

 

 After every sudden, more powerful wave of nausea he repeated the phrase ‘Keep going. Ninja never quit!’ to get over it.

 

 On the last move Lloyd got an especially painful spike of his headache, but he pushed through with gritted teeth and hoped no one saw the slight twitch in his movement. 

 

 He looked to the side to see if everyone was still alright and in the correct ending position. Everyone was, but with weird expressions. Lloyd decided not to read on them too much. “Alright. Sora, Arin, Wyldfyre, you can proceed to the training track. And Yes, Riyu, you can go too if you want to.”

 

 Lloyd went to his spot behind the table to watch his students and make sure everything was going well. Arin and Sora both stared at him for a suspicious amount of time before doing what they were told.

 

 Kai put a hand on his shoulder. “Boogers, I wouldn't mind taking over. You've worked plenty already in your condition.” 

 

 “Don't worry. I can do this”, Lloyd brushed his hand off, not looking Kai in the eyes. 

 

 The brunet looked over his tired form and his golden wings. “You can tell me if you’re not alright, ya know.”

 

 “Thanks, but I really am fine. Besides, I'll just be sitting here and making sure the kids are okay”, Lloyd shot Kai one of his kind smiles and closed his eyes. “You don't need to worry.” He really hoped that convinced Kai enough.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 Kai was very much not convinced with Lloyd's acting. 

 

 Everyone knew that if you had to say you’re fine, then that meant you’re not fine. If Lloyd was actually ‘fine’ he wouldn't have to be saying it and telling everyone to not worry. 

 

 What Lloyd didn't seem to know was that his new wings and tail told a pretty clear story with the way his wings never seemed to relax and were tight against his back and his tail kept curling around him. Kai had never bothered to learn much about wings or anything like that, but even he knew those signs were not good. 

 

 Not to mention the blond didn't notice when Arin's balance went a little off and he bumped into Cole. That was something he always made sure to scold the kids about and now he didn't even bat an eye!

 

 And there was also the fact that Lloyd literally looked like shit. The skin that wasn't covered in bandages was as pale as a vampire's, he had dark bags under his eyes despite having slept without the visions bothering him and his overall look told everyone that Lloyd was everything but ‘fine’.

 

 Kai was angry that Lloyd refused to just admit he was not alright and go rest. What he was even more angry about was that Lloyd's own mother had been right there, to the side of the courtyard, and she didn't say anything! Kai knew she could hear them talking and she didn't come and talk about a serious issue with her son. Even Garmadon was a better parent at this point! At least he had been there for Lloyd when he still could and done what he thought was best for his son.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 They were all at the dinner table, eating Zane's amazing food after practice. 

 

 Sora was happy to have Lloyd back. The formerly empty space in front of her that was Lloyd's spot had begun to make her feel very uncomfortable. 

 

 She, Arin and Wyldfyre had planned to make this dinner into a nice, warm conversation about the ninja's past to get some more insight.

 

 Sora wasn't as confident about the plan now, though, as Lloyd's mom turned out to be a terrible one. Arin, although he was a little nervous looking, was still determined to go through with it and Wyldfyre hadn't even been there when Misako revealed she had left Lloyd at the worst boarding school possible, so she was very confused about Sora not wanting to make Lloyd talk about it.

 

 The air was tense between them all as Harumi and Garmadon were at the table too. Their last conversation with the former hadn't ended that well, but they would manage this even with her there.

 

 They had been silently wnjoying their food for some time already when Arin spoke up. “So, uhm, how did you guys become a team?”

 

 Jay seemed excited to talk about it. He gulped some water before starting his story. “Master Wu collected me, Cole, Zane and Kai out of random spots. He saw our potential in us before we had even scraped the surface. He just appeared to us all one day and convinced us to train to be ninja.”

 

 “Yeah. He was so weird”, Kai smiled at the memories. “One day he just showed up to my and Nya's parents’ old shop that we were keeping up and started criticising me. Then I kicked him out ‘cause he was talking nonsense and right after that all these skeletons attacked us and kidnapped Nya. Then he told me how the First Spinjitzu Master created the world with the golden weapons and how I had my dad's fire and what his drama with Garmadon was about. Then I agreed to train to be a ninja to save Nya.”

 

 “For me, I was climbing up a mountain in my anger and he was just there at the top of it, drinking tea”, Cole added. 

 

 “Oh my First Spinjitzu Master!” Jay exclaimed. “I was trying to fly and he was on top of the building I fell onto! And he was drinking tea! Twins!”

 

 “He was also drinking tea when I met him”, Zane told them. “He was waiting underwater for me when I was trying to test myself.”

 

 “Wait”, Wyldfyre held her hands up, eyes wide. “He was drinking tea underwater. How does that work? It doesn't make any sense.”

 

 “A lot of stuff doesn't make sense with him”, Nya said. “When I was training to be a water ninja, he told me to fill up a bucket with a hole in it. A hole!”

 

 Sora could see Misako chuckling from the corner of her eye, but she didn't mention it. “So how did you join the team, Lloyd?” 

 

 Lloyd smiled sadly at the table. “I was raised at Darkley's. It was a boarding school that raised kids to be evil. When I was there I was convinced that I needed to be like my father and that evil ran in my blood or something. I did get kicked out because I didn't have the immorality or something, but that's besides the point. I first met the ninja when I was trying to steal all the candy from my home village with prank snakes to prove to the school that they made a mistake with getting on my bad side or something. You know, those toy snakes that pop out of the box when you open it?”

 

 “We went there and were ready to fight Lord Garmadon, but it turned out we had misheard the name and it was actually Lloyd Garmadon”, Kai laughed. He remembered them racing down with their dragons and talking about their new moves they wanted to try.

 

 “Then we hung Lloyd up from his hoodie and ate candy that we paid for in front of him”, Jay continued. “I still remember his face when he looked at my cotton candy.”

 

 “But we made a mistake. We left something for tomorrow when we could've done it today”, Cole said. 

 

 “It wasn't your fault”, Lloyd objected. “You didn't know I'd release the serpentine. It was my fault for not learning from that.”

 

 Harumi stood up from the table and stormed out without a word when Lloyd started speakin gof the serpentine.

 

 “What's with her?” Arin asked. He seemed to be reading Sora's mind. 

 

 “It's nothing you should worry about”, Lloyd reassured him. 

 

 “Anyway, can we go on with the story and tell the kids about my bravery and how I'm the best?” Kai asked and didn't wait for an answer before continuing. “After Lloyd released the serpentine, Wu had enough and we practically kidnapped Lloyd and Wu read him a bedtime story and he turned… mostly good. Anyway, after that in a big battle of the last fangblade, you don't need to know what that is, the volcano we were in went active and everyone got out, except for me as I was going after the fangblade. When I was just about to reach it I heard Lloyd scream and I realized he was still in there. Then I needed to choose between him and the fangblade. It was at that moment that I, as the first one, realized that Lloyd was actually the Green ninja and that my destiny was to protect this big shot.” Kai elbowed Lloyd very, very lightly to not cause any more pain to the blond. Lloyd elbowed right back.

 

 “Woah, that's so cool!” Arin exclaimed. He looked at Lloyd, who had an unreadable expression on his face. “But how did you get off after the ninja hung you up?”

 

 Lloyd chuckled nervously. “Uhm, maybe that's a story for another time.”

 

 “Aww, but I wanna know”, Wyldfyre whined.

 

 “He doesn't need to talk about it if he doesn't want to”, Akita chimed up seriously. “It's his personal information.”

 

 Arin glared at her. He had voiced his annoyance of not having any idea of who Akita was to Sora a few days ago. It was understandable, it must've been a good hit on him mentally to suddenly find a completely new side to their master, the master Arin had been a huge fan of since he was a child.

 

 “Okay. I don't know about you, but I feel very sleepy”, Jay faked a yawn. “I'll be off to bed.”

 

 Sora looked at the clock. “Oh shoot. It's late. We should go to bed.”

 

Notes:

GUYS I HAVE NEWS. I think this fic has gone off the rails and I feel like I really could and should write better chapters than whatever this is. So I think I'll take a break and more time with the chapters, so I won't probably be postin that often. I'll try to still keep the flow steady, but maybe just once a week or something?

Chapter 27: The therapist is back

Summary:

Akita and Lloyd have a talk.

 What Lloyd had been expecting, perhaps even hoping for, was a dinner spent in utter, awkward silence. He assumed that that was how the others had been spending their meals now that his parents, Harumi and Akita had started temporarily living in the monastery after being rescued from the hands of-… him.

 

 At first, it had seemed like the universe had listened to him and actually given him some mercy for once, as the first dinner he had after being kidnapped had started off wordlessly. 

 

 Just when his hopes had gotten up, though, he was proved to be the unluckiest man alive once again. 

 

 Arin had decided that then was the time to bring up one of the most painful subjects for a conversation. Or at least it was painful for him, he couldn't really say the same about the other ninja. For them it was probably just one fun adventure story, no more special than the other ones. That's what he assumed when he saw the way all five smiled excitedly and got ready to tell the story of how each of them met their master and joined the team as ninja.

 

 After some time of listening, hope had again sparked to life in Lloyd's mind by everyone focusing on his uncle's borderline addiction to tea. He had believed he could survive the meal without getting attention brought to him and having to share his part of the story. 

 

 But again, as we all know, Lloyd was the unluckiest man in the world. 

 

 If he had been drinking his water, he would've most definitely choked on it when Sora shifted the attention on him. At that moment he had felt like he was part of the tech crew at the theatre and someone moved the spotlight on him right in the middle of the most impressive musical part.

 

 It wasn't Sora's fault. The poor girl had just wanted to know more about her teacher. She didn't know that it was a sore spot. In fact, not many people knew it was a sore spot.

 

 And to be specific, the ‘not many people’ was actually one person, a certain wolf girl he had briefly crossed paths with years ago. The same girl who had been sitting at the same dinner table as him just a couple of minutes ago.

 

 Anyone else was out of the question. He hadn't told anyone else about his… moments. Not even his siblings.

 

 No one else knew how that part of his past was still stuck on him like a tattoo, one that never got blurry or faded.

 

 A tattoo that sometimes crawled its way to his mind and made him go back to the time he was hanging off of his hoodie, crushing his lungs and making it hard to breathe. And to the time he was in the volcano, his skin feeling like it was going to melt and his mind telling him that he was going to die, because of course Kai was going to choose the fangblade, and rightfully so. And maybe the tattoo sometimes made him go back to other... events. If a tattoo like that could exist.

 

 But of course no one knew that, except him and Akita. It was their secret. So, at the dinner table he had just gulped down his fear, smiled and started explaining, forcing himself to live through it all again and hurting Harumi emotionally in the process.

 

 He almost had to also tell the story of how he got himself down after meeting the ninja for the first time. Akita had known that that was crossing the last line Lloyd had left, so she interjected and shut down the question. Which made Arin… not so happy.

 

 Great. Today he made Kai unnecessarily worry for him, hurt Harumi and to top it all off, made his friend's and student's potential friendship almost fall and break into pieces. Why was he always such a burden to everyone?

 

 He'd need to make up for it. He couldn't just be a weight on everyone's shoulders all the time. 

 

 So it was decided. He would start his own training tomorrow after the kids had their lesson.

 

 He would probably start on his golden powers first and ignore his wings and tail for the time being. He knew his power was hard to shut off after it was activated, but his new limbs weren't exactly his, so they could possibly be a different story. He'd just need to find some information on how to train the First Spinjitzu Master's power and on unnecessary limbs connected to your heritage.

 

 He was just about to leave his room and go to the library when someone knocked on his door.

 

 He waited a couple of seconds before opening the door. He didn't want to seem like he spent his freetime in front of his door, just waiting for someone to come see him. “Oh hi, Akita. It's been a long time.”

 

 “Yes it has...”, Akita whipped a plate of untouched food from behind her back and pushed it to Lloyd before slipping past him and entering his room. “...From when you last ate. Anyway, I also came to check that you’re not falling apart inside after that interrogation. So, are you okay?”

 

 He closed the door and went to lean against his desk. It was tiring to stand with the wings and tail, so he preferred to have support when he could, as pathetic as it was for the Green ninja to need it. He pursed his lips in a thin smile for Akita. “Yeah. I'm fine.”

 

 She stared at him suspiciously before letting it go and looking around the room. “For some reason I imagined your room to be… neater.”

 

 He could admit that the room was a little messed up. Kai and Harumi hadn't exactly paid attention to cleaning up after themselves while invading the privacy of his room. He hadn't bothered to clean it up yet, having his attention on more important things. A sudden, total physical change did that to you. “Yeah, a few people used my room while I was gone and I haven't gotten around to cleaning yet.”

 

 “That's understandable”, Akita sat herself on Lloyd's bed and bounced a little, testing the mattress. 

 

 Silence fell on them and filled the air with awkwardness. A silence like this would've been greatly appreciated at dinner. Thanks, universe!

 Lloyd had no idea what to say. It had been so long since the two last had a conversation and spent time together, not to mention the less than fortunate situation they had to go through while getting used to each other. 

 

 Akita seemed to be contemplating on something in her mind. Lloyd let her get her thoughts together and watched as she battled internally with herself. Then, after a while, she seemed to come to a conclusion and spoke up. “You know… you should open up to them.”

 

...

 

 Well, it's safe to say Lloyd wasn't expecting his first conversation with Akita after such a long time to be about him and his personal problems. “I am open?” 

 

 “That's a lie and you know it”, she patted the spot next to her. Lloyd was fast to comply and sit. “If you were open, the talk at dinner wouldn't have happened.”

 

 Lloyd was open! He told people everything they needed to know. There wasn't anything wrong with not bothering everyone by his… not ideal feelings about his past. What happened, happened. And no one could change that without going back in time, which was not on anyone's to do list at the time.

 

 Lloyd put the plate of food on his nightstand and turned to Akita again. “Akita, I'm thankful you care for me, but really, I am open. I tell them what they need to know.”

 

 “And that's exactly the problem”, huh? “You only tell them what they need to know. Look, I remember everything you told me back then. One of those things you said was that you don't usually ‘open up’ like that. I didn't think much of it then, but now…” She looked at Lloyd straight in the eyes. All he saw was pity in them, one of the things he hated the most. Probably not a rare opinion. “Now I realize the weight of that truth. They don't know how you suffer, none of them do. You’re carrying this burden all by yourself. They would help if you let them, but you don't.”

 

 Akita got it wrong. He wasn't carrying a burden, he was the burden. And no amount of talking could change that. In actuality, it would just bother everyone else more. He was the Green ninja, he wasn't supposed to bring problems on other people, he was supposed to solve them. “I'm not suffering. There isn't anything to help me with, really.”

 

 The girl raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Because it didn't sound like that when you told me your backstory”, she took a hold of his shoulders and her eyes briefly moved to something behind his back. Was she scared of his wings or something? If so, it was reasonable. “You need to understand. You've got to tell them, any one of them.”

 

 “... I don't want to”, what good would it even bring? The others would just have to deal with his self pity. Their work would be slowed down if he ‘opened up’. They'd have to worry and he'd have to be weak, which he couldn't afford to.

 

 “Lloyd, you can't lie to me. I thought I'd proved it already. Seriously, if you didn't want to talk, I wouldn't know everything I do”, she pointed her finger at Lloyd's face. “You want to talk”, then she moved it to his bedroom door. “And they want to listen to you. It's practically the their job as your family, by blood or not. It would also be your parents’, but they're kinda shit, not gonna lie. And those kids want to know you more anyway. To be honest, your whole team gives off the vibes that they desperately want to hear you out. And you want to be heard out. Let them hear you out.”

 

 He broke eye contact with her to look at the ground. It couldn't be that easy. He couldn't. He would be weak. He couldn't. And the fact that the ninja were his team, his family, didn't mean they'd actually want to hear him out.

 

 Knowing of the battle inside Lloyd's mind, Akita piped up. “I heard what Kai told you in the courtyard. Think of him.”

 

 “You can tell me if you’re not alright, ya know.”

 

… 

 

 Ugh, feelings. 

 

 Lloyd sighed, corrected his posture and said. “Okay, I'll do it. But I need time.”

 

 “That's fine with me”, Akita smiled at him proudly. Then took a more comfortable position on his bed. “So, what have you been up to these past years?”

Notes:

HELLO! I'm back from my break! It's now official that I will be posting only weekly from now on and this is the first chapter of my weekly era! Also does someone have like a specific day of the week they'd want to read a new chapter to this work? Also I hope this chap wasn't as bad as I think it is, honestly my brain is trying to stay in the empty void it has been in for these past few days. I literally have trouble understanding my own writing. I tried writing this chapter on paperi first and then rewriting on my phone posting it here and I don't know if this version is better or worse than the original one. I feel like if I read it next week it' gonna be either gold or trash.

PS: I want to make it clear that in this fic Lloyd and Akita's relationship is completely platonic. And as a warning for the next chapter, so is the one between him and Harumi.

Chapter 28: The double G; Garmadon and Garumi.

Summary:

Lloyd goes to the library and, surprise, finds someone.

 He paused after opening the door. “Harumi? What are you doing here?”

 

 She stopped reading the scroll she had in her hand.

 

 Lloyd could see from where he was standing that it was the prophecy of the Green ninja. Why would she need that? Didn't she know everything about it already?

 

 She turned around to look at Lloyd. “I could ask the same from you. Aren't you supposed to be resting?”

 

 “Since when did you start caring about my health?” He closed the door behind him and moved to the section of the oldest scrolls. If the library had any information on the First Spinjitzu Master's training routine, it would be there.

 

 It just happened to be very close to the section Harumi was in front of. They were practically standing next to each other. “Actually, guess what? It doesn't matter. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

 

 “And what would that something be?” Harumi rolled the scroll closed and put it back in its place. Then she took another one right next to it. What was she trying to find out?

 

 He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He couldn't rush this, he wanted Harumi to know he was being sincere and knew the weight of his actions. “I just wanted to apologize... For everything. I caused you so, so much harm and in the end, you had to pay for my mistakes. You wouldn't have to have gone through all that if I had done better”, he turned so he was facing Harumi and not the shelf. “And I know some words can't fix everything. I know nothing I do can fix everything that's happened to you. I just want you to know I know it was my fault and that I'm not blaming you for anything. So, I'm sorry.”

 

 He was sure Harumi had no idea why he was so out of nowhere apologizing for everything he'd put her and everyone else through. He wasn't even sure himself. He thought that maybe Harumi's extreme reaction to his brief mention of the serpentine caused him to finally realize how much he'd hurt the girl in reality. 

 

 And Akita had told him to open up, so here he was, pouring some of his guilt out.

 

 Yes, he knew Akita hadn't meant to go apologizing to people who resurrected the evil side of his dead father, but he could pretend he didn't. Akita should've been more specific anyway.

 

 After listening- or at least hopefully listening -to Lloyd's apology, Harumi didn't move a muscle. Her face had gotten an unreadable expression on itself during his small speech and her eyes didn't seem to be quickly skimming over the writings on the scroll anymore, like they had been when he started. “Lloyd, how many of my wrongdoings are your fault? In your opinion, of course.”

 

 He took note that Harumi didn't forgive him. She just ignored the whole apology part of his apology. That was understandable, though. He did just pull this one out of nowhere.

 

 Still, it was a strange question to ask. Wasn't the answer obvious? “Well, everything. Didn't you do all that because of me? Because I released the serpentine, who released the Great Devourer?”

 

 That was the first time Harumi looked him in the eye. She didn't say anything. She just watched, as if she was trying to read his mind. Unfortunately for her, that elemental power was occupied. Still, she looked like she'd succeeded after some time, hummed, put her scroll back and left. 

 

 Lloyd almost followed her. He didn't, knowing that if Harumi was the same person he had last seen after the battle with the Crystal King, she would not collaborate one bit. Instead, he focused on his search. She would probably appreciate some space anyway.

 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 “Lloyd? Shouldn't you be resting or something stupid like that?”

 

 Great. First he got to know Harumi was onto something again and now he had to deal with Garmadon. He didn't let Lloyd answer before speaking up again. “Actually, guess what? I don't care, you do you. But you gotta be quiet, I need complete silence while reading.”

 

 Funny how Garmadon felt the need to tell him to be silent, like he had been able to say a word since the old man arrived. He didn't voice his thoughts though, he wasn't in the mood to fight. “Sure.”

 

 Garmadon raised his other eyebrow. What was his problem now? Lloyd didn't think he said anything wrong with ‘sure’. Did Garmadon want him to say something else? What was he supposed to say other than that?

 

 He stood there for a moment, looking at Lloyd in the eyes. His expression changed when he shifted his gaze to Lloyd's wings and he turned to the shelves to find a scroll, completely discarding the suspicious look he had just a second ago.

 

 He was already getting tired of that. Of people looking at his wings. His eyes were on his face, not on them! Yeah, the limbs were a new thing and a weird one at that, but it didn't mean everyone had to stare at them all the time. 

 

 And what was Garmadon trying to find out? Lloyd was starting to see a pattern. First Harumi and now Garmadon. Both acting weird. Not like, ‘I've got a plan to destroy your whole life’ weird, just… weird. Like they knew something about him that he didn't. But neither of them looked smug. He knew they would if an evil plan coming together was the case.

 

 Seriously, what was going on?

 

 Lloyd made a mental note to be wary of them in the future. Maybe Garmadon had unlearned his lesson about empathy after the merge and Harumi had changed her mind of siding with the ninja. Maybe they were working together once again to take over the world, now that it was so much bigger than just the size of Ninjago. 

 

 On the other hand, it could've just been that they weren't used to living with this many people in the same monastery. Maybe they had trouble finding a calm spot to gather their thoughts in and the library was the only room no one went into that often. Maybe Lloyd had just broken their time of peace.

 

 He should know how uncomfortable it is to suddenly be thrown in the middle of a bunch of people who hate you and be expected to live with them. When Lloyd was taken in by the ninja, he at least had Wu on his side before the other five warmed up to him. Garmadon nor Harumi had anyone. Not even Wu to be there and understand them. Not like Harumi would've enjoyed having him there anyway. 

 

 He mentally discarded his first note and replaced it with; ‘figure out if those two are evil again, but don't push their boundaries’.

 

 It was kind of a hard task, but he could do both, he was the Green ninja after all. Or now he was the Golden ninja once again, which was an even bigger reason why he could do it. 

 

 “Your wings are annoying me, stop it”, Garmadon complained from the other side of the room. 

 

 “Wha- I can't make my wings disappear. What did they ever do wrong?” Sometimes, if Lloyd was being completely honest, he questioned Garmadon's sanity a little. No, a lot. Who replaces their own son with a plant? And who gets annoyed by two magical limbs just minding their own business? And who would think Lloyd was willingly keeping the wings on his back? The two with the tail messed up his whole balance!

 

 “They did a lot of things wrong. And are doing right now! Can't you stop moving them for even a second?” Garmadon fully turned to face him and waved both of his hands in the direction of his wings.

 

 Lloyd didn't know whether to be happy or sad that Garmadon had two hands. It showed that he wasn't completely lost to darkness, but it did also remind him of his human father, of sensei Garmadon, and of how he would never get that person back to his life. And every time he thought of that he couldn't help but think of the day he last saw his father. Of how-

 

 No. Not thinking of that.

 

 “Helloo! The Merged Lands to Lloyd!”

 

 He snapped back to the real world as Garmadon was beginning to wave his hands right in front of his face. When had he walked over to Lloyd? “Woah! Uhm. What were you saying?”

 

 Garmadon sighed exasperatedly and gave a summary of his whining. “I was just telling you that your control over your own body is pathetic, much like everything else about you."

 

 Lloyd did his best at not being hurt by being insulted. Even if he wanted to despise the man, his ‘critiques’ stung more than they should.

 

 “Seriously, did no one teach you to stay still? Your wings are making you an open book that yells everything it contains without me even wanting to know!”

 

 He tried very hard to remember exactly what he did and felt right before Garmadon told him about his wings. He hadn't paid attention to it before, but now that he thought of it, maybe the wings were moving without his permission.“I just got my wings! I'm still recovering! You can't expect me to suddenly know how to control them!”

 

 “Ha! I tried to teach you how to control you oni form before and you were the worst student alive. If you had done that well, then you’d know how to get rid of your wings!” As proof, Garmadon grew his wings, but without completely transforming into his full oni form. “I don't know about the tail, it's prolly your dragon, but the wings are easy!”

 

 "Wait", an idea sparked inside Lloyd's mind. “So can you teach me how to get rid of them?”

 

 “I mean, yeah if you want to.”

 

 “Yes!”

 

Notes:

Hiii! Can you tell I'm absolutrly amazing at coming up with names?

Also, guys, people, readers, whatever. Am I seeing things or did this work pass 200 kudos!? Thank you to everyone! Have a big heart.💚 Honestly before I began postin I thought this would get, like, 16 kudos max. And we've surpassed that by A LOT.

I have a question for you too! Which chapter has been the best so far? Actually, which chapter has been written in the best way and which is the most interesting?

Anyways, have a happy week!

Chapter 29: Like father like son

Summary:

Lloyd finally gets his letter and Garmadon is there too.

 His clothes and hair flowed behind him as Firstbourne exhaled through her nostrils. Lloyd could finally find the calmness he'd been looking for for the past few days in the warmth of the dragon's breath. He could feel the ancient connection between them better when he closed his eyes and his heartbeat matched hers. 

 

 It was a shame she had to leave so soon. Firstbourne just came to check that Lloyd was alright. Now that he was, mostly at least, she had to go back home to her nest.

 

 Lloyd tried to be happy to at least be able to say see her. Firstbourne had waited for Lloyd to come up and greet her before leaving him in the care of the ninja. She had had to wait outside, because she didn't fit in the dragon stable. That made Lloyd feel even worse. She had gone through trouble to just say hi to Lloyd and here he was, hoping for her to suffer just a little more for him.

 

 He knew a lot about responsibility. He knew that Firstbourne had to leave and he knew that he needed to accept it. So, he made their time special and opened the letter from the First Spinjitzu Master with her. 

 

 Cole had approached him yesterday after his time in the library and given the letter. Lloyd was a tad bit annoyed that Cole had waited for that long to let him in on this information he got from his journey. He tried to hide it as best as he could though, especially after Cole explained that he didn't want to stress Lloyd out even more after the sudden physical changes. 

 

 The envelope was a nice dark green colour with golden accents and Lloyd's whole name written on it in nice handwriting. 

 

 The letter in it was… smaller than he'd expected. Not that Lloyd had many expectations. It hadn't needed to be folded to fit in the envelope and to be honest, Lloyd would've just asked someone to say all the stuff to his grandkid if he had one. It only contained a few sentences;

 

 “Lloyd, you are key. You are life, there is no limit to you. The future is your decision.” 

 

 … Wow. Now Lloyd understood where Wu got his ominousness. 

 

 Also, he was the key? Again? Couldn't he catch a break for once? And life. Lloyd was life, confirmed by the First Spinjitzu Master. Ironic, since life in general seemed to like to treat him… roughly. 

 

 He looked to Firstbourne. She seemed calm as she looked at the letter. Lloyd wondered if she could read it. She definitely knew who it was from and who it was for.

 

 The dragon met his gaze and Lloyd knew it was her time to leave. 

 

 “Goodbye, Firstbourne. We'll meet again some day”, he opened his arms for a hug and Firstbourne leaned her head closer. It was a one sided hug, since Firstbourne was so big. The point of it was the meaningfulness rather than the physical contact, so neither of them minded. 

_ _

  

 “Something wrong, Boogers?” Kai approached him. “What's on your mind?”

 

 Lloyd sighed. “When Cole was away to get the potion you cured me with, he found some weird stuff”, he took out the letter, ignoring Kai's mention of it being the norm for them to find crazy things on their adventures. He let Kai read it before continuing. “Apparently, there is a library dedicated to the First Spinjitzu Master and his descendants. And the librarians were some magical people who had connections to the First Master. And he had sent me this letter.”

 

 “Can't say I'm surprised this is from Wu's dad. This is cryptic as fuck”, Kai laughed at the letter and ruffled Lloyd's hair. “Luckily he didn't pass it onto you. But what's with him? Do you know what this means?”

 

 “No”, Lloyd answered honestly. “It could be a warning for the future or it could also be just a late letter that was meant to be given to me before the final battle. Either way, we should watch out. The double F:s are still out there and we don't know what they're planning on.”

 

 “Right”, Kai said as he gave the letter back. Then he got this weird look on his face. “And maybe you could get ready for whatever this means by resting?”

 

 “Kai, I've healed almost completely. I can do this”, he waved him off and sat before the picture of Uncle Wu. 

 

 Kai seemed to get the message and left Lloyd to meditate, until he noticed Garmadon coming outside. “Garmadon.”

 

 “Kai”, Garmadon greeted and walked right past him to Lloyd. “Are you ready?” 

 

 “Yes”, Lloyd jumped up and did his best to conceal his excitement. The wings had been a bother for too long and he wanted to get rid of them so bad, but he needed to keep up the calm demeanor. 

 

 “Hold on”, Kai raised his hands like he had the elemental power of time and could stop it to get an explanation. “Ready for what?”

 

 “Garmadon offered to teach me to control my wings”, Lloyd explained. 

 

 “No offense, Greenie”, Kai started. “But I don't think it's a good idea to let him teach you, or anyone for that matter. Did you forget the time he tried to teach you to control your oni form? Oh and that brought to mind, why didn't you tell us you in fact do have an oni form?”

 

 “... Eh, never came up”, Lloyd shrugged. “But anyway, Garmadon is the best- and only -choice to help me with these”, he pointed to his wings, which, now that he had been paying attention, had been moving with every word he said, making his feelings much more see through and expressions stronger. Not something he found ideal.

 

 Kai crossed his arms.”Then I'll stay and watch that he doesn't cross the lines.”

 

 “Nope!” Garmadon interjected, already shooing Kai away. “We wouldn't want Lloyd's fragile ego over here to crumble to the ground when he fails.”

 

 “Wha-” Kai couldn't finish as the door was shut behind him after Garmadon shoved him inside the monastery. The door wasn't locked, but Kai seemed to get the message that he wasn't wanted here right now, at least by Garmadon, and no one wanted to get on his bad side. 

 

 The Garmadon turned to him and clapped his hands together. “Okay, we'll start with some stretches. Then we'll see if you can start flying anytime soon.”

 

 “Uhm, weren't we supposed to work on getting rid of the wings?” he asked. He didn't necessarily care about flying, even though Wyldfyre thought it was ‘super duper extra cool’ that on top of being able to do very cool stuff like lifting a mountain, he could also learn to fly. Flying would never be a thing Lloyd would do after this, since he wasn't planning on using his oni form at all.

 

 “Yes. To do that, you need to be in absolute control, unless you want to get rid of them for five minutes before they pop out of your back again on their own”, Okay. That was a good explanation. 

 

Notes:

What do you mean I skipped a week? I didn't! I would never ever do something like that! (is what I would say if I didn't skip a week)
My excuse is that I was sick. But I'll try to make it up to you and upload two chapters next week:D

Chapter 30: Not a nice morning

Summary:

Lloyd wakes up and everything goes to shit.

 Lloyd woke up with an uneasy feeling. He was an expert in the shades of uneasiness, but this specific way of the feeling wasn't usual for him. He had experienced it before, but couldn't recall when or where. This feeling was the kind of uneasiness where he could feel a part of himself be very angry and another part of himself be pleased. He felt emotional and irritable. The way he most hated to feel. 

 

 The training yesterday had gone impressively well. So well Lloyd had begun to think at one point that Garmadon wasn't actually Garmadon and he was a spy that pretended to be Garmadon. He hadn't yelled at Lloyd once, which was in itself very surprising. But on top of that, he actually helped Lloyd fix his form gently and spoke in a calm manner. There was no craziness and rage like before the Merge. 

 

 They had first stretched, then they went through the motions the wings needed to go through to fly and lastly Lloyd got in the air… for a couple of seconds. But Garmadon had said that Lloyd was learning it unnaturally fast, which he took as a compliment. 

 

 So maybe the uneasiness was just Lloyd connecting more with his oni side by learning to use his oni wings and his dragon side didn't like being the one in complete control anymore. That seemed reasonable enough, so he stuck with it and got out of bed.

 

He had never considered himself to be an ‘early bird’. Yeah, he always woke up before anyone else as the most responsible person in the monastery, but that didn't mean he liked getting out of bed before sunrise to tend to his duties. He just had been kind of forced to do it since he was about eight or nine to train for the title of the Green Ninja. Then it had been like that because he was the team leader and because he had to help Uncle Wu. Then it had been like that because he had to take Uncle Wu's place. 

 

 While still healing, Zane had been making himself wake up at around the time Lloyd always got up just to shoo him back to rest with his still secret nightmares. (Even though they weren't so ‘secret’ at this point. All you had to do was look at his bloodshot eyes and the dark circles under them to have an idea of what was up.) And Lloyd hadn't been exactly worrying about his sleep while being kidnapped, so his routine had been totally messed up, which made it even harder for him to get his butt out of bed at this unreasonable hour. 

 

 So now, at barely five in the morning, he was making himself some tea with a little too much sugar for a normal human to handle. Little did he know that one of their new guests was an actual early bird, or just a very light sleeper who had woken up to Lloyd stomping around in his nervousness. 

 

 “My son”, Misako greeted him as she walked in. “It has been a while, hasn't it?”

 

 “Indeed”, Lloyd didn't look away from his mug. He wasn't going to scowl at his own mother for the First Spinjitzu Master's sake. It wasn't her fault Lloyd wasn't feeling up to it. So he just asked a question he knew there would be a long answer to so he wouldn't have to talk as much. “Where did you end up? After it happened.”

 

 “There are lots of stories to tell, but not at this time”, Oh yeah. Lloyd forgot that everyone in his biological family was too ominous for anyone's liking. “I just came to talk with you before leaving.”

 

 What could he say? Typical Misako. Always appearing and then making a sudden leave. He had gotten used to it, though. “Where are you going?”

 

 Lloyd's best guess was a library. Maybe the Cloud Kingdom's as it held a very large amount of information and was now much more reachable. 

 

 “To the Cloud Kingdom archives.”

 

 Bingo.

_ _

 

 “You feel it too, don't you?” Garmadon said as he adjusted Lloyd's wings’ position. 

 

 “Feel what?”

 

 “You’re tense. And quiet. You haven't been paying attention even though you’re so eager to get rid of these”, he wiggled Lloyd's wings a little before putting it back to its right position and stepping away slowly to make sure Lloyd was holding it there. “You feel something coming. And I do too.”

 

 “Do you know what it is?” Lloyd turned around to look at his fa- Garmadon in the eyes. The hesitation spoke more than words ever could. “Garmadon, what is it? Is It the Forbidden Five? Is It Ras? Dragon hu-”

 

 “Lloyd!” Zane all but kicked the door open, panting. “You need to see this.”

_ _

 

 Green. 

 

 That's all Lloyd saw at first as the picture popped up on the screen. Everyone at Crossroads was wearing bright green and gold. Some were wearing hoods that tried to mimic his one. There were signs up, though the picture was taken so far away that the texts were blurry. What he could see from the signs was the pictures of a too familiar setting and him in the middle of it… in his oni form. 

 

 It was a screenshot from the news. Or screenshots, as the place changed from the Crossroads to what was remaining of Ninjago City to The Cloud Kingdom and so on, one or two from each realm of green clothed people on the street with signs.

 

 Zane was talking about the people raising awareness and mourning him and the lands preparing for the end of the world and all that jazz, but Lloyd could only focus on the fact that the whole world had seen his oni form.

 

 Heck, he hadn't been able to bring himself to tell his own family that he had an oni form. Now the whole world, all the sixteen realms, had seen it. Their hero, savior, the Green ninja, was a bringer of destruction.

 

 “Lloyd”, Zane pulled him out of his thoughts by resting a hand on his shoulders. “You have to make an appearance to show that you aren't dead or turned evil. You have to restore their hope.”

 

 …

 

 Just his luck.

 

Notes:

I've done it again. Sorry guys. I'll try to posti two more chapters this week to catch up.
We're making it towards the end, btw. I'm guessing this fic won't make it to 45 chapters.
I'm pretty sure I'm losing my motivation, but I'm forcing myself to finish this off before continuing with another project so I'll get this done.

Chapter 31: Kai... Please

Summary:

Lloyd is Lloyd and Kai is Kai.

 He was eager to go outside and get to jump on buildings after being stuck in the cage and then being stuck to bed. He wanted to go outside and show off with his perfected moves to all the people who were vouching for him right now. He wanted it especially after he found out that people all over the Merged lands knew about him and the ninja and supported them this much, even after they found out Lloyd was a wolf in sheep's clothing. 

 

 What he did was walk around the monastery and do his chores as the Keeper of the Monastery of Spinjitzu. 

 

 (Though, he had to admit that Frohicky was kind of taking his place and he was becoming the assistant here. He really needed to catch up before the poor frogman had to take over the rest of his duties while he was slacking around.)

 

Lloyd couldn't go and give the people a show of his amazing parkour skills right now.

 

 The Forbidden Five were still out there, planning. They knew the crowd would pull him out of the safety of the monastery and would strike the moment that happened.

 

 As much as he liked to believe the ninja had the upper hand here, he knew they didn't.

 

 If the weird feeling he had been feeling that morning was anything to go by, the ninja definitely had the lower hand. No. They had the lower foot. That's how low they were compared to… whatever was coming their way.

 

 Maybe the feeling was made worse by the fact that Lloyd had no idea what he was afraid of. It was something evil and powerful and scary, but none of those adjectives ruled out many enemies. Or allies, for that matter. You never know when someone might betray you. 

 

Garmadon wasn't any help in finding out what that big evil was either. Lloyd had no idea what he was doing or where he went after they talked with Zane, but he was nowhere to be found. Lloyd hadn't even been able to speak with him before he hurried off. 

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 Kai had to tell him. He had to confess to Lloyd of what he had done.

 

 Kai had searched Lloyd's room because he didn't trust his own brother in all but blood to tell him everything that was on his mind. 

 

 However, Lloyd had proven him to be so wrong. 

 

 Kai was the first one of the ninja who had read the letter, besides Lloyd. (Yes, Kai had started talking about it without making sure that Lloyd had told the others and accidentally revealed some main points of the subject, and that was how he found out about being the first. Sue him!) Lloyd had come to him first and so soon after receiving such a mortifying letter. Lloyd trusted him with that information. He didn't hide secrets.

 

 Who knows, maybe he was just about to tell them about the knife before getting kidnapped. Maybe he was going on the trip to think things through and was planning on telling them everything after figuring out his thoughts on Arin.

 

 And Kai had believed that intruding in on Lloyd’s personal space was the right choice! What a dumbass he was. “Officially a bad brother”, he repeated in his head. 

 

 So he had to tell Lloyd. Lloyd trusted him and trust was only deserved if you were honest. Kai had hid this secret, he wasn't honest.

 

 Lloyd had been nervously running around the house and doing random stuff yesterday and barely talked to anyone about anything. He was pacing so fast that you could only tell he was near you by the flickering light bulbs. He had a habit of making the lights flicker while being restless, which Kai would think to be cute if it didn't mean that Lloyd was in some kind of distress. 

 

 When it had gone dark and the green crowd was still mostly there they had all realized it was a more passionate stand out and it wasn't going to end so soon. 

 

 Everyone went to sleep and all that jazz and then came morning. Lloyd, after doing the kids’ lesson and having his own with Garmadon (which he still wasn't allowed to watch, by the way), switched his running around to meditating.

 

 That's why Kai was now standing in front of the door to the courtyard. And he had been standing there for about ten minutes now. 

 

 How would he approach this?

 

 Usually Kai just stood shamelessly by his choices because he obviously had a good reason for all of them and they were all good choices in general. 

 

 Now though, he wasn't so sure. 

 

 Would he just go there and blurt it out? Would he go there and talk about something else first and then ease into the topic? That one sounded doable. It was decided, then. 

 

 Kai raised his hand to knock on the door, but then realized that would be an absolute mission failure. Knocking was just not something you do to your own front door. So he opened said door and his sight was immediately set on the green baby sitting at his usual spot, too in thought to notice someone entering the courtyard. 

 

 He made sure to walk louder so he wouldn't scare his Greenie while approaching him. 

 

 “Oh hi, Kai”, Lloyd greeted when Kai was just a few steps away. 

 

 “Hi! Is your smart brain meditating good?” Okay, could the time twins come back for a moment to reverse this? Kai had no idea what he'd talk about. How do you start a conversation like this?

 

 “Yeah”, Lloyd let a moment of silence pass them before speaking again. “Did you wanna talk about something?”

 

 “Yes! Yes, there is something I should tell you. It's a bit bad- I see that look, Lloyd. It's not that bad. It's just-”, he interrupted himself before starting to ramble. Rambling was Jay's thing. He looked at Lloyd, at those nervously eyes, just waiting for a bomb to drop. 

 

 He sighed. Guess he just had to say it. “I went through your stuff and found the red dagger you got from the Source Dragon of Motion. And your lesson journals. And some other stuff.”

 

 That earned Kai an amused look. “Yeah, I know. Jay told me.”

 

 “Of course”, fuck you Jay. “Mouth of lightning”, he mumbled under his breath. “But anyway. I apologize. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Are we good?” he wiggled his hand between the two.

 

 Lloyd chuckled. “Yeah. We're good.”

 

 “Nice”, another wave of silence. Then Kai broke the silence. These questions had been nagging at him for a long time now. “So… you like drawing? And stuff that glows in the dark? Can you draw me with this face?” he proceeded to make the funniest face he could muster. 

 

 Lloyd did a full on laugh that got him twisted in half. Oh how he missed that sight. “We'll see.”

 

Notes:

Okay I've give up on the extra chapter. Sorry guys. I just can't do it.
My dog of 11 years died unexpectedly, btw. Just saying. I'm sad. I didn't even get to say goodbye. My mom said he didn't have to suffer since he was fine the day before. I still miss him, though.
Also. I'm making another Ninjago fanfiction after this one. It's based on the movie and I don't even bother to try and make it entirely Canon since the whole plot has nothing to do with the movie's plot, it's just kinda in that world ya know? So if someone has a hc they'd like for me to use in that one I'd be happy to hear about them in the comments.
Thanks for those, btw. They really motivate me. They remind me that someone actually reads my trash. (you know who you are) 💚💚💚🥰

Chapter 32: I am running out of chapter titles

Summary:

Lloyd is like guys we gotta go.

Notes:

Helloooo! This hapter is VERY VERY VERY SHORT. I think at this point I have to admit that I've kinda been winging this whole fic since like chapter 3 and I have no idea how to end this so it's not hurried and actually fits the entirety of the rest of this work. But I know the end is near (or at least a big plot point) so I need to get it figure out. That means the next chapter light take a while and I will say that it's possibly maybe gonna be a longer one.

  The ninja were practising in the courtyard when Lloyd barged out of the monastery, the doors banging hard against the walls. He looked the most focused he had been in a long while. It brought past memories to Nya, memories of before the Merge. And she bet the sight did the same to the others too.

 

 “It's time to act”, he said in a hurried tone. “We can't just sit up here while the world around us is in chaos.”

 

 “Lloyd, the protest hasn't ended. You've just gone through a drastic physical change and the Forbidden Five are waiting for you. Going through with such a task at this time is simply too dangerous.”

 

 “But it's only going to get more dangerous the more we wait”, Lloyd objected. “There's something coming, something big. We don't have much time.”

 

 “What's coming?” Arin asked, stepping closer from the training track. “How do you know?”

 

 “I-, uhm-, well”, Lloyd sighed. “The visions are back. I don't know what's the threat, but I know there's gonna be a big battle at the center of the Crossroads.”

 

 “Well, what are we waiting for then?” Kai got down from the roof where he had landed to listen to Lloyd. He'd been previously teaching Wyldfyre to fly with her elemental power. “Let's get going!”

 

 

~•×•~

 

 

 

 When they got down from their dragons and onto a rooftop at the center of the Crossroads, Lloyd seemed to scan the area for something. The moment he found what he was looking for was revealed on his face.

 

 He turned to the team and started giving out orders. “I will go down there and give the people a show and explain to them that they are in danger and to evacuate. Sora, Arin and Wyldfyre, you will make sure everyone gets to safety. Keep everyone as far away from the fountain as possible, including yourselves", he pointed at a fountain in the middle of the sea of green. "Zane, Cole, you have to close off the area around the fountain with your elemental powers once everyone is out. Kai, Jay and Nya, you have to fight off the Forbidden Five when they show up. Everyone else will come and help you when they get their parts done. And when there is a big explosion, do not. I repeat, do not intervene unless you absolutely have to or I ask you to. I’ll handle whatever is the cause of that. Got it?”

 

 “Why do you need to deal with the evil thingy alone?” Kai asked. This sounded suspiciously like Lloyd was hiding something big from them. Was this one of his suicide missions? That was the only thing he could think of that Lloyd would feel the need to hide at this moment. His sense of responsibility overcame his logical thinking sometimes. “You know there’s always another way, right Boogers?”

 

 “Kai”, Lloyd began. “I know as little as you do. I just… the visions implied that I am the only one capable of enduring whatever it is that will happen.”

 

 Kai guessed that ‘implying’ meant that Lloyd had been shown them all dying in front of him, so he didn’t push more. “Okay. But promise me not to do anything too crazy?”

 

 Lloyd smiled sadly. “You know I can’t.” Then he turned and did a triple backflip off the roof. Kai couldn’t see him anymore, but he was sure his little Green Bean was doing the showiest moves he knew for the people of the Crossroads.

 

 Kai just sighed and began watching over the place for the Forbidden Five. They could show up at any moment.

Chapter 33: The ENNNNDDDDD

Summary:

Loydvs like see you on the other side.

Notes:

FORGIVE ME FOR WRITING THIS RUSHE DOUT TRASH. Sorry not sorry. I didn't bother to edut this at all I just wrote it in one go and I'm pretty sure that shows. I'll delete this soon so if you want to read this you can't put off until tomorrow what can be done today.

 

 “And before that, the unthinkable happened. A Source Dragon's very life was extinguished. ”

 

Lloyd stood in front of a familiar fountain. It was the one at the Crossroads, marking the center. 

 

 There was a noticeable new crack in it. Weird. The thing was new, it shouldn't be breaking apart so soon. The water could still run normally, though, so Lloyd didn’t pay it any mind. Or he wouldn’t have paid it any mind, if the crack didn't start getting bigger and bigger. 

 

 Soon something like pitch black mud found its way out of the crack. It changed the water to a purplish color before thickening it and overflowing to the ground. 

 

 The mud suspiciously flowed towards Lloyd, almost like it was a dying person trying desperately to cling on to life and crawl to help. He could feel a part of him react to the mud, too. What was it?

 

 “You are life.”

 

 “Woah! What's that!?” Kai appeared next to him right when he was dodging the ugly form of darkness. 

 

 The mud seemingly didn't like it. Lloyd could feel it affect his brain, like in a tingly way. He could only imagine what it would have done if it got to him.

 

 It wasn't interested in Kai. Instead it returned to the broken fountain and flowed back in the crack. Then the whole mountain began to glow and exploded.

 

 When Lloyd opened his eyes again, he was sitting, his back to a wall. 

 

 Kai was next to him with an off look. His head was blending and he seemed to not be there in a mental wa-... Oh. 

 

 “Kai!” Lloyd surged forward, only to blink and be in the desert and be looking at the too familiar gravestones and words and masks. 

 

 He dropped to his knees. The sight was not a one time for Lloyd, but it was always just as terrifying, if not more with each time the visions decided to show this to him. 

 

 “You decide the future.”

 

 Not even five seconds passed and he was back at the monastery. His cup of tea had fallen on the floor. Not too much of a loss, it would've probably been cold at this point, anyway. 

 

 What was going to happen? What was that dark mud? Would Kai di-

 

 Back at the Crossroads and right after the explosion, it seemed. 

 

 A dark cloud of smoke was in the place of the fountain. It was trying to keep some kind of form but was failing miserably. And was that just his imagination or did it have eyes? Why did it feel like the smoke was screaming in his ear? 

 

 He blasted his golden power at the smoke. Elemental powers had worked on mergequakes. Maybe they would work on… whatever this was, too. 

 

 It helped the thing gain some sort of physical form, but it only worked for a moment before the cloud of smoke exploded once again, more powerful than last time. 

 

 He blinked and found himself again in the desert. Now there was a noticeable amount of more graves. 

 

 “You are the conduit.”

 

  Lloyd had put his hand on the cold tea. Ew. Now, if the visions would leave him alone, he could cle-

 

 The dagger he got from the Source Dragon of Motion flashed in front of him. He was in the air. Different colored lights surrounded him and he couldn't see how far up in the sky he was. All he knew was that he was getting absolutely overloaded with energy. Something told him the receiving of energy was just about to start. 

 

 He directed his hands downward and just as he was about to blast someone or something, he was in the desert, again. 

 

 Now, though, there was only one grave. The terrifying part of it this time was the fact that a green mask, his mask, was resting on top of the gravestone. 

 

 “It's your destiny.”

 

 He could feel the tea on his hand again. He could feel himself breathing again and the buzzing of his powers made itself known once more. 

 

 … What was that? Did the visions just tell him it was his time to sacrifice himself? What was the big, Dark, ugly cloud of smoke? 

 

 Whatever it was, it was going to appear soon. At the Crossroads. There were a lot of people living there. And at the center, too. 

 

 Screw his tea break. He needed to tell the others about this. 

_ _

 

 The crowd's cheers quieted down as he landed on top of the imposter fountain and started screaming about them all being in danger. A good tip; if the crowd won't stop screaming, tell them they're all going to die soon. That always works. 

 

 “I am here to warn you all! There is something bad coming our way, something terrible! I ask of you to evacuate the Crossroads peacefully and let the ninja handle this so no one will get hurt!” he ignored the little voice in his head saying that yes, someone was going to get hurt today. 

 

 The people did almost as asked. They evacuated, but as usual, it wasn't done exactly peacefully. He could see Arin helping a toddler up from where someone had bumped into the kid in their panic. 

 

 Lloyd was so happy Arin decided to come back. Too bad he couldn’t stay and watch him grow into the best ninja with Sora and Wyldfyre. He would need to find peace in the fact that he bought them time to live long enough to become actual ninja. 

 

 The area was almost cleaned out and Cole and Zane got to work. He heard Kai yelling something like “Here they come!”. 

 

 The plan was going well. Now the only one who hadn't started on their part was him.

 

 When he was going to act was completely dependent on the fountain's desires. 

 

 Maybe he should have done more research on the subject rather than impulsively run to the ninja and scream that they were running out of time and that something was going to destroy them all if they didn't do something. He just felt like the thing in the visions was going to happen soon and now he was here. 

 

 He decided to spend his last moments watching his team and students work. 

 

 It felt crazy to watch the five trained ninja fight the Forbidden Five because he ordered them to and think that these same people despised him once. Almost as crazy was watching Sora, Arin and Wyldfyre and remembering their first days of training. 

 

 It was amazing how far the three had gotten in such a small time. He was so proud of them all. 

 

 He heard it. The crack. He turned around and it was already getting larger and the water was already getting dirty. 

 

 He stepped back just in time. This was happening much faster than it had in the visions. 

 

 “Woah! What's tha-”

 

 “Stay back!” Lloyd yelled before Kai could make his way over. “Trust me. I will handle this!”

 

 The fountain exploded and Lloyd was thrown to a wall. Zane and Cole's elemental barriers broke, but the ninja were safe. 

 

 Now he could do it. He got the dagger out of his overly big pocket and lifted it to the air. He had no idea how to describe the situation to the Source Dragon of Motion, but he guessed it didn't really matter as long as the dragon got the point.“I am Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon, the conduit. I ask of you, the Source Dragon of Motion and the other source dragons, to share your power with me so we can stop the end of the world. I am willing to give my life for it, but I ask you to lend your powers to me for a little bit of time.”

 

 Not his best speech by far, but it did the trick. The red dagger started immediately disappearing from his hand when he stopped talking and a massive portal opened itself in the sky.

 

 The Source Dragon of Motion got out first. Then the others. They seemed to know better than Lloyd about the situation and formed a circle in the sky above the cloud of smoke. 

 

 Lloyd considered parkouring up there, but decided on airjitzu. He hadn't used that in a while. 

 

 Turned out that airjitzu wasn't even needed. A ball covered him in light and he was brought to the middle of the circle. 

 

 He didn't have time to prepare himself for the power overload.

 

 At first it was painful, it felt like when he used the dragon cores. Then, after a moment of suffering, he suffered even more and his body began to twitch with the power like he was a glitch in a game. 

 

He lost track of time. It was overbearing. It made his entire body's screaming of pain drown out and all he could see was white. It was everywhere. 

 

 Hands. He needed to direct it at the thing. He could get rid of it then.

 

 He lowered his hands. At least he hoped he did, he couldn't feel or see anything. He blasted the energy out of him as quickly as possible.

 

 He couldn't feel anything anymore. The white got out of his way just in time for him to see ruins waiting for his falling body. 

 

 He closed his eyes. 

 

 He couldn't feel anything. Until

 “And before that, the unthinkable happened. A Source Dragon's very life was extinguished. ”

 

Lloyd stood in front of a familiar fountain. It was the one at the Crossroads, marking the center. 

 

 There was a noticeable new crack in it. Weird. The thing was new, it shouldn't be breaking apart so soon. The water could still run normally, though, so Lloyd didn’t pay it any mind. Or he wouldn’t have paid it any mind, if the crack didn't start getting bigger and bigger. 

 

 Soon something like pitch black mud found its way out of the crack. It changed the water to a purplish color before thickening it and overflowing to the ground. 

 

 The mud suspiciously flowed towards Lloyd, almost like it was a dying person trying desperately to cling on to life and crawl to help. He could feel a part of him react to the mud, too. What was it?

 

 “You are life.”

 

 “Woah! What's that!?” Kai appeared next to him right when he was dodging the ugly form of darkness. 

 

 The mud seemingly didn't like it. Lloyd could feel it affect his brain, like in a tingly way. He could only imagine what it would have done if it got to him.

 

 It wasn't interested in Kai. Instead it returned to the broken fountain and flowed back in the crack. Then the whole mountain began to glow and exploded.

 

 When Lloyd opened his eyes again, he was sitting, his back to a wall. 

 

 Kai was next to him with an off look. His head was blending and he seemed to not be there in a mental wa-... Oh. 

 

 “Kai!” Lloyd surged forward, only to blink and be in the desert and be looking at the too familiar gravestones and words and masks. 

 

 He dropped to his knees. The sight was not a one time for Lloyd, but it was always just as terrifying, if not more with each time the visions decided to show this to him. 

 

 “You decide the future.”

 

 Not even five seconds passed and he was back at the monastery. His cup of tea had fallen on the floor. Not too much of a loss, it would've probably been cold at this point, anyway. 

 

 What was going to happen? What was that dark mud? Would Kai di-

 

 Back at the Crossroads and right after the explosion, it seemed. 

 

 A dark cloud of smoke was in the place of the fountain. It was trying to keep some kind of form but was failing miserably. And was that just his imagination or did it have eyes? Why did it feel like the smoke was screaming in his ear? 

 

 He blasted his golden power at the smoke. Elemental powers had worked on mergequakes. Maybe they would work on… whatever this was, too. 

 

 It helped the thing gain some sort of physical form, but it only worked for a moment before the cloud of smoke exploded once again, more powerful than last time. 

 

 He blinked and found himself again in the desert. Now there was a noticeable amount of more graves. 

 

 “You are the conduit.”

 

  Lloyd had put his hand on the cold tea. Ew. Now, if the visions would leave him alone, he could cle-

 

 The dagger he got from the Source Dragon of Motion flashed in front of him. He was in the air. Different colored lights surrounded him and he couldn't see how far up in the sky he was. All he knew was that he was getting absolutely overloaded with energy. Something told him the receiving of energy was just about to start. 

 

 He directed his hands downward and just as he was about to blast someone or something, he was in the desert, again. 

 

 Now, though, there was only one grave. The terrifying part of it this time was the fact that a green mask, his mask, was resting on top of the gravestone. 

 

 “It's your destiny.”

 

 He could feel the tea on his hand again. He could feel himself breathing again and the buzzing of his powers made itself known once more. 

 

 … What was that? Did the visions just tell him it was his time to sacrifice himself? What was the big, Dark, ugly cloud of smoke? 

 

 Whatever it was, it was going to appear soon. At the Crossroads. There were a lot of people living there. And at the center, too. 

 

 Screw his tea break. He needed to tell the others about this. 

_ _

 

 The crowd's cheers quieted down as he landed on top of the imposter fountain and started screaming about them all being in danger. A good tip; if the crowd won't stop screaming, tell them they're all going to die soon. That always works. 

 

 “I am here to warn you all! There is something bad coming our way, something terrible! I ask of you to evacuate the Crossroads peacefully and let the ninja handle this so no one will get hurt!” he ignored the little voice in his head saying that yes, someone was going to get hurt today. 

 

 The people did almost as asked. They evacuated, but as usual, it wasn't done exactly peacefully. He could see Arin helping a toddler up from where someone had bumped into the kid in their panic. 

 

 Lloyd was so happy Arin decided to come back. Too bad he couldn’t stay and watch him grow into the best ninja with Sora and Wyldfyre. He would need to find peace in the fact that he bought them time to live long enough to become actual ninja. 

 

 The area was almost cleaned out and Cole and Zane got to work. He heard Kai yelling something like “Here they come!”. 

 

 The plan was going well. Now the only one who hadn't started on their part was him.

 

 When he was going to act was completely dependent on the fountain's desires. 

 

 Maybe he should have done more research on the subject rather than impulsively run to the ninja and scream that they were running out of time and that something was going to destroy them all if they didn't do something. He just felt like the thing in the visions was going to happen soon and now he was here. 

 

 He decided to spend his last moments watching his team and students work. 

 

 It felt crazy to watch the five trained ninja fight the Forbidden Five because he ordered them to and think that these same people despised him once. Almost as crazy was watching Sora, Arin and Wyldfyre and remembering their first days of training. 

 

 It was amazing how far the three had gotten in such a small time. He was so proud of them all. 

 

 He heard it. The crack. He turned around and it was already getting larger and the water was already getting dirty. 

 

 He stepped back just in time. This was happening much faster than it had in the visions. 

 

 “Woah! What's tha-”

 

 “Stay back!” Lloyd yelled before Kai could make his way over. “Trust me. I will handle this!”

 

 The fountain exploded and Lloyd was thrown to a wall. Zane and Cole's elemental barriers broke, but the ninja were safe. 

 

 Now he could do it. He got the dagger out of his overly big pocket and lifted it to the air. He had no idea how to describe the situation to the Source Dragon of Motion, but he guessed it didn't really matter as long as the dragon got the point.“I am Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon, the conduit. I ask of you, the Source Dragon of Motion and the other source dragons, to share your power with me so we can stop the end of the world. I am willing to give my life for it, but I ask you to lend your powers to me for a little bit of time.”

 

 Not his best speech by far, but it did the trick. The red dagger started immediately disappearing from his hand when he stopped talking and a massive portal opened itself in the sky.

 

 The Source Dragon of Motion got out first. Then the others. They seemed to know better than Lloyd about the situation and formed a circle in the sky above the cloud of smoke. 

 

 Lloyd considered parkouring up there, but decided on airjitzu. He hadn't used that in a while. 

 

 Turned out that airjitzu wasn't even needed. A ball covered him in light and he was brought to the middle of the circle. 

 

 He didn't have time to prepare himself for the power overload.

 

 At first it was painful, it felt like when he used the dragon cores. Then, after a moment of suffering, he suffered even more and his body began to twitch with the power like he was a glitch in a game. 

 

He lost track of time. It was overbearing. It made his entire body's screaming of pain drown out and all he could see was white. It was everywhere. 

 

 Hands. He needed to direct it at the thing. He could get rid of it then.

 

 He lowered his hands. At least he hoped he did, he couldn't feel or see anything. He blasted the energy out of him as quickly as possible.

 

 He couldn't feel anything anymore. The white got out of his way just in time for him to see ruins waiting for his falling body. 

 

 He closed his eyes. 

 

 He couldn't feel anything. Until he could. Then he felt the greatest pain anyone could ever feel. 

 

 “Long time no see, Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon.”

Notes:

So that's it. The dark cloud thing was the dead Source Dragon the Source Dragon of motion mentioned in the series and the last person who spoke was the first Spinjitzu Master and you don't know if Lloyd's dead of if he sent Lloyd to live again. I don't know either. I haven't decided. But maybe eif I go with this ending in the rewrite we'll all know.

Notes:

I hope you liked reading this as much as I liked the idea of writing this! I know my writing is kinda on the verge of complete chaos so if there's any mistakes or you have tips on getting better I would absolutely love to see in the comments. Also english is not my first language so if I used a word wrong make sure to bully me! ALSO I have no posting skechule, but I will try to upload chapters in a steady flow for you.