#and like let’s not forget that nadakhan still got to him

[chebyshevptera]

personally i don’t think that jay losing his fuckin marbles in hunted was out of character, at least not right now . he genuinely thought there wasn’t any hope for them .

jay has always been quick to panic and catastrophize any situation they’re in . the reason he didn’t go crazy during skybound is because he wasn’t trapped in another dimension without anyone to come rescue him . he had faith that his friends would come to get him , and that was literally the only thing keeping him from losing it all . yes, sure, jay was snarky and making jokes and whatnot during skybound but he was also obviously scared and, like nadakhan said, he was doing that to COPE . to hide that he was afraid . he was trying to keep himself stable by making light of the situation

notice how he became despondent and went “maybe you shouldn’t have come” when they were stuck in his cell on the misfortune’s keep …. notice how he wanted to give up at his parents’ house when all of his friends were captured , and he only had a sliver of hope when he was reminded that there were still people out there who could help him …

in s9 they had no way of getting out , no way to contact their friends, they were trapped, starving, and being hunted by the inhabitants of the first realm . they were all freaking out . jay just couldn’t psychologically handle their situation anymore and fully accepted that they were going to die , and then he started experiencing psychosis . he couldn’t use jokes to cope when there was nothing waiting for him in the future, as he thought . there was nothing point . he thought it was over for them

also like even if he hadn’t started to succumb to this belief that he couldn’t do it on his own in skybound , that doesn’t make hunted out of character for him . the situation in hunted goes beyond him just “giving up” or something similar … he was literally delusional . he was actively trying to get himself KILLED . he was hearing things and seeing things that weren’t there .

and . generally . some people just snap when things become too much pressure . you could argue jay isn’t the type of person to do that just because of skybound but personally i fully understand him cracking after having all of those experiences wearing him down mentally . in fact i think it’s way more realistic for him to crack out of anyone , especially since out of the five of them in the first realm during hunted, jay was the only one who remembered the torture and horrors that he experienced during skybound . idk i know it’s a tv show but i feel like people put way too much pressure on jay’s character to be this 100% strong unwavering person when he’s not… not unwavering . strong, yes, but even the strongest person on the planet is gonna crumble when enough weight is piled on them

[rainbow-flavoured-skittles]

Can you tell me more about your bad endings au? Like, from where in the timeline are each of them? Cole is probably either from the day of the departed or that fall from season 10 but I don't know about the others lol

dlfahslhfjhkehjkhldfds yes! and you're absolutely right about where Cole's timline split lol

Cole - during DotD, the ninja forget about him as in canon, but he doesn't go after Yang. this means they don't get attacked by any of their past villains, but Cole also doesn't go through the rift because it's never opened in the first place. so he spends a few years wandering around ninjago forgotten, until he finally snaps and goes after Yang. the details after that are a bit blurry, but he uses dark magic to become human again and "kill" Yang. after that he goes after the ninja and becomes one of their enemies, though they still can't remember him

Kai - his timeline splits the earliest out of all the ninja, meaning that he is the baby of the group. during the volcano scene in s1, where he would have saved Lloyd and gained his true potential, he doesn't. he went after the fangblade instead, but that meant his version of Lloyd died. they still manage to defeat Pythor and the Great Devourer, after that the ninja basically shun/reject him because of what happened to Lloyd. he ends up running away and becomes this lone vigilante-type figure who stops crime in hopes of "atoning" for Lloyd's death

Nya - during s6, Nadakhan kills Jay. she ends up going through through the rest of the season alone as the rest of the group are picked off until she's the only one left. she doesn't go to the lighthouse or gather up people to help her though, and goes after Nadakhan on her own. she pretends to be his bride and kills him at the wedding with the venom. then she escapes, or maybe sinks the ship and kills the rest of the crew. either way, she continues being the last remaining ninja, since the rest of them were in the sword when the ship sank, and is still doing that when multiverse shenanigans happen

Jay - also from a s6 timeline! the season goes exactly as it did in canon, but he doesn't use his final wish to reverse the timeline. he uses it to wish he was far away from Nadakhan. so he gets his wish and immediately regrets it because the rest of the ninja are still with Nadakhan. when he finally finds his way back to the ship he learns that the rest of the ninja are also dead. he tries to start a resistance to stop Nadakhan but fails and ends up doing it on his own. he's still trying and failing when the time twins arrive, who cause the entirety of ninjago to go to ruin, which is also about the time he'd meet the rest of the alternate ninja

Zane - the ninja don't go after him in s4. they assume it was a prank or joke. so Chen's plan fails and he keeps being held prisoner for years. eventually he escapes, somehow, kills Chen, and gets off the island. at that point the oni trilogy has passed and he realises how long it's been. he becomes really bitter towards the ninja for not even trying to find out if he was alive and actually starts to hate them, though he can't force himself to become a villain, so he just. doesn't let them know he's alive. he doesn't go to the monastery or help behind the scenes, he just goes back to his father's old workshop and lives there. he probably got a decently happy ending compared to the others actually

Lloyd - Garmadon actually succeeds in killing the ninja when he destroys the Bounty, so the earlier parts of the season just play out as in canon. they gather up a resistance and try to fight back against him, but then Nya gets executed and he's the last remaining ninja. he continues with the resistance, and when he finds the remains of the Bounty also finds that his brothers are dead rather than evidence that they're alive. this doesn't go well, obviously, and he starts bordering on insanity and vowing to kill Garmadon. he shuts out Misako and the rest of the resistance and is just about to go after Garmadon when he gets pulled into the multiverse

and now we arrive at when these versions of the ninja would meet each other. I'm still not sure on the details, but they end up in some sort of multiverse in-between space and attempt murder on each other before they sort everything out. none of them particularly want to stick together, but Lloyd convinces them. they figure out a way to go to different universes/timelines together and try to find one to live in, as well as going back to some of their original universes to cause chaos

[ataraxixx]

How did roleswap citrus meet each other? 0: also how are some of their conflicts reversed? if this is stuff you can share lol :)

HI ok so im still working out a lot of this au in my brain bc i am kind of bad at aus so sorry if some of this seems kind of bad or makes no sense….. This is also gonna be a long one and answer a lot more than just ur question so sorry. But i need to infodump it somewhere </3 ill put it under a break bc this is a LONG One sorry

So for morro ive talked abt how i think hes a robot who was built to fulfill the green ninja prophecy and his is his sole purpose/directive. To defeat the dark lord. Kind of how zane/echo are ‘built to protect’ and live by that (or try to lol). So morro is created a long time before the ninja come together and he seeks out wu in order to figure out how to get to Garmadon. Because his purpose is to defeat garmadon. And wu is like.(who the fuck is this guy) and basically takes him in under the impression that. Maybe he could actually be the green ninja? And even though wu realizes its  definitely not morro he does keep trying to train him bc he doesnt want morro to go off on his own to try and find garmadon. But eventually he has to come clean and morro is annoyed bc he thinks wu has put everyone in danger by stalling the prophecy (he obviously doesnt believe it when wu tells him hes not the green ninja because he *is*!) and he tries to leave as wu predicted, but wu doesnt let him and instead shuts him off for his own protection. Morro gets to live in the monastery basement for awhile and wu always thinks abt powering him back on but doesnt bc hes like. This guy is going to try and do stupid shit (hes right). So he just stays in the basement until obv the ninja arrive and the shows events happen as normal but the monastery gets burned down and in the rush to get out and the move to the bounty, wu forgets abt morro being there… and when he does remember hes there, he ultimately decides its probably for the best if he isnt powered on again bc there IS a green ninja now and he doesnt know what morro would do if he met lloyd. And doesnt want lloyd to get hurt. So cue skybound when nya and jay are on the run from nadakhan, instead of going to the lighthouse they instead go to the ruins of the monastery because jay remembers wu had this cryptic ass basement he would never let the ninja go into, and jay thinks maybe theres some kind of crazy secret weapon in there or something that can stop nadakhan. Instead they find morro, and they power him on. And hes like. Oh! Youre the other ninja from the prophecy. and agrees to help them although hes a little confused on whats going on bc hes like shouldnt we be fighting garmadon… but he joins the substitute ninja in the fight against nadakhan. 

Echo was Dr. Julien’s original son who was alive and like. A #real boy. I think maybe dr. julien wife(??) died in childbirth and echo was born very sickly so dr. julien sought out a magical way to heal him. I think this is probably how he got involved with the skeletons in the first place bc them seeking him out always felt random to me i feel like they should have some history mb. So maybe like samukai or another skeleton was like oh i totally know a spell that will make your son healthy and normal. And dr julien was like . Hm. but kind of desperate so he went with it and of course it  did make his son healthy and normal. Except the price of the spell is that it curses the soul of the person its used on. So echo lived normally with his father for many years until he was outside late collecting firewood one evening and was attacked by treehorns (this was before dr. julien built the guard robot) and A) discovered he had the ability to control the wind which was cool. Except he didnt know how to use it and just kind of fucked up badly and got lost in the woods while trying to run from the treehorns. And B) was still injured in the fight and now Also Lost and basically died trying to get home from both injuries + hypothermia. Rip bozo!. And of course dr. julien was devastated and like pinocchio-core i guess decided to build a new son and that is the  Current Zane. he is a copy but he was never told about that of course bc dr julien didnt want to think abt the son he lost. But yea echos soul was cursed and he went to the cursed realm which  um. Hardened him so to speak. He learned he was cursed because of his father and it pissed him off a little bit but only mildly. But i think the cursed realm is like hell or whatevr so the ghosts go through bullshit all the time bc like. Theyre the souls of the damned or whatever right. So by time echo manages to get out hes become apart of the pre eminents ranks and her plans and what not and hes like sure  whatever. I want revenge on my dad for cursing me (<-- guy who has gone through the ringer) but he gets out at the end of s4 and discovers. Oh. my dad didnt just curse me. When i died he replaced me with a stupid machine! Ok! And he possesses zane and also does pre eminent plan and etc….average s5 stuff i think. Idk im not the best at rewriting seasons if anyone has any ideas for this let me know.

I think at the end of s5 echo doesnt get his shit rocked because i like him. And i think it would be nice if he could get along with zane a little. So maybe he stays as a ghost and maybe nya or borg or whoever builds him a robot body he can possess and use instead of being a ghost all the time:) and he doesnt necessarily join the team bc hes not . a ninja nor does he want to be but hes still the master of wind so hes a useful ally to the ninja and helps them out with bigger threats. LIKE. the sons of garmadon. Transition…. (PS. i also think that echo and morro would meet in skybound bc echo would also be on the substitute ninja team but this would be undone by jay. Of course)

So. the SoG go to the ruined monastery at some point or other to try and find some dirt on the ninja and also just to find old wu scrolls or whatever they can scrounge up. And What they DO scrounge up is this fuckass robot whos been here for however long bc. Obviously skybound didnt happen! And jay and nya never went back for morro bc they were like. Umm he was weird and also would probably try to kill lloyd if he met him maybe. And also like lets be real they just wanted to ignore this shit ever happened why else would they leave echo in canon lol. So the SoG find Morro and power him on and hes like ummm. Hey. its me. The green ninja. Who are you. And harumis like…??? Are you sane or what. But she sees an opportunity here. Bc this robot solely wants to fight garmadon. And shes like. Ok. well we’re gonna get garmadon here. If you help us you can fight him. This is your destiny. And hes like damn ok sure sounds good to me! (nobody is gonna tell him that the destiny already happened and theres Another Guy who is the green ninja btw). So morro joins the SoG idk what his name should be. Mr. M is fucking stupid sorry. If anyone has any ideas for morro biker name lmk. But hes there or whatever and then when lloyd goes undercover in the SoG and snake jaguar fight a la mutt malamute style. Morro and lloyd fight and morro reveals his identity to lloyd as the green ninja (he thinks hes very cool) and lloyd is like. What. lmfao. And is like. Youre  not the green ninja …? I am…? And they get into a fight abt it and morro beats up lloyd bc hes annoyed at all the lies this guy is saying to him about how his destinys already been fulfilled and wu lied and etc etc. lloyd loses the fight rip bozo. 

I am a wojira duo fan and i think that persists here except  its echo and nya instead so im gonna talk abt that. I think theyre friends. So i think nya would confide in echo about the events of skybound and so i think echo remembers what happened (in my mind skybound is like. Everyone can remember it but they have to be reminded what happened for it to be recalled? Bc splinter implies lloyd and clancee have vague impressions of it in their minds. Idk its interesting). So he remembers morro and when lloyd is like yea some fuckass robot is saying hes the green ninja  jay nya and echo all collectively just kind of look at each other about it. Like thats OUR fuckass robot saying hes the green ninja. And because i am not limited by pacing i can do whatever i want and have jaya tell the team abt skybound finally (things that shouldve happened in s8 originally lol) and theyre all like. Oh. what girl. And jay insists that if they can get to morro and tell him what happened in the lost timeline he will remember it and join them bc hes a good person at heart. (probably). So the next time they encounter him would actually be when pixal finds the SoG in ‘the quiet one’ so i think. Echo and her went together to go stall them since echo can also just fly over w the mech using powers lol. So they find killow morro uv and  echo and morro fight 1v1 . yuri btw. And echo reminds him of what happened and morros like. Hm. I do remember this. But i need to help the SoG so i can defeat garmadon and prove im the green ninja. So fuck off? But i think obv when the  SoG DO revive garmadon morro immediately tries to fight him and gets his ass kicked……I dont think he gets destroyed but i do think he gets fucked up enough (the ninja probably fix him) that he realizes lloyd wasnt lying and that he isnt supposed to be the one to fight garmadon. Like theyve all been saying. Which kind of fucks him up a bit bc like. Thats literally his sole purpose and wtf is he existing for if he cant even do that. Youve given the perfectly good robot anxiety oh no. but also i could probably talk abt this for another like 4 paragraphs i need to put an end here bc this is already like 3 pages on google docs…….Sorry you did not ask for all this. But i needed to explain the context

[prisms-writing]

Ficmas Day Seven - Stories

Word Count: 796

AU: Ninjago Rewrite

Characters: Nya, Delara

How in the Cursed Realm had she ended up here? Nya thought to herself as she looked out the window of the makeshift room she had been given, looking out at the floating land masses that had once been part of Ninjago.

I can still hear you just so you know. The voice said, ringing in her head. Curse that wish, that stupid wish Nadakhan had forced one of the nameless crewmates to make, to bring her, Delara, back.

Only it somehow hadn't worked fully, Nadakhan having twisted the words he wanted to hear so badly that he had forced another to say them on himself, leaving her with the spirit of his dead girlfriend in her mind.

Was this how it was for Lloyd with Morro? Because if it was, it sucked.

"Yeah, I know you can hear me, don't worry." Nya finally responded, though Delara, didn't sound too happy.

No need to get snarky, I'm just trying to let you know.

"Why do you care? You're probably just happy to finally be back with Nadakhan, I'm just a means to an end after all."

Happy? Do you think I'm happy about this? I was free of him, finally able to live how I wanted, sure I died pretty young considering I was in a realm I knew nothing about and was on my own. But I was free, free and rid of him. Now look at me, stuck in the mind of some kid.

"Kid? Really?"

What? You're young-looking, and it's been a while since I've seen another person from Ninjago, for all I know people look different nowadays to how they used to.

She did have a point Nya guessed. She had to stop forgetting that this was Soto's sister, of course, she hadn't been around for a while, Soto and his crew had died years ago after all. Though knowing that Delara was sent to another realm? Yeah, that didn't sit right with her, it felt like another Elira situation.

And they all saw how that ended up last time.

Elira?

Right, damnit, Delara could hear her.

"Don't worry about it, she was just another ghost was all."

You've been in the same situation as this before?

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," Nya said with a slight shrug. "It wasn't the exact same, but kind of similar."

Was it you that it happened to as well?

"No, a friend."

I'm sorry to hear that, I can tell that you aren't comfortable, which is completely fair on your part, I don't think I would be either. I just had to deal with Nadakhan, I can't imagine dealing with something like this on top of it as well… I'm… I'm sorry this has happened.

Sorry? She was actually sorry? Wasn't this meant to be Nadakhan's 'beloved' or however he put it?

How was she this nice in comparison to him?

"You said you hated him, right? Can I ask about that? Mostly because he seems so infatuated by you."

Sure. I'd rather people know the truth anyway. But basically, I was taken as a prize, something for Nadakhan to hold over my brother's head all because they hated each other, were constantly at one another thoats. Soto tried everything to get back at him, but with how hectic everything was, I knew I was going to have to help. So I went along with everything, pretended to fall, and that's how I got just enough of Nadakhan's trust to find out about the Tiger Widow's venom, to learn about where it was.

And that's how I found out about the map, and though it was a pain to, we found a way to communicate, and Soto managed to get the lamp with the map on it from Nadakhan's ship. Then it was just a simple case of trapping him in that teapot.

Not to say that I didn't try my hand at ending him without it, but nothing ever worked. Thankfully he didn't think someone like his 'love' was capable of something like that, so the blame and punishment always fell on someone else in the crew.

But even with him finally gone, it was too late for me. I was deemed part of his crew and thrown off into some realm I didn't even know. I was able to survive for a while, but I didn't last as long as I wanted

Spirits of the departed, she really was just like Elira.

Though minus the murderous intent—

Ok well, less obvious murderous intent.

"I'm sorry that happened to you, I couldn't imagine losing my brother, Kai, like that."

Well then, looks like I have a lot more to tell you then if you aren't to meet the same fate I did.

[destinysbounty]

Listen I KNOW that it's a cheap trick to keep reusing Zane's death theme any time something particularly tragic happens to him, but dammit it WORKS! Every time! I straight up can't get through his farewell recording in season 11 without getting at least a little teary-eyed. I KNOW they're doing it to play with my emotions but I can't help it 😭

To my knowledge, there are three instances of Zane's death theme being used (if I'm missing any, feel free to correct me!) First when he died in season 3, then in his fight with Mr. E in season 8, and lastly during his farewell recording in season 11. And while I'm sure this was entirely coincidental, I noticed that the one connecting thread between all three scenes - aside from something bad happening to Zane - is a theme of isolation.

Take Zane's battle against the Overlord, for instance. In Decoded, Zane confesses to having felt 'alone' when he died, to such an extent that he locked away that trauma and that loneliness in a digital puzzle-box in his head so it wouldn't hurt him anymore. Sure, Zane was empowered and comforted by memories of his friends in his final moments, but he was still all by himself up there.

And when he fought Mr. E, the final shot the camera focuses on as the music begins, is of Zane lying lifeless at the bottom of a canyon, all by himself, with all his friends too far away to help him. He'd done everything he could to help his friends, to further their investigation, even going so far as to intercept a coded message in his final moments of consciousness, but he'd failed. And as he lays there, unconscious and shut off, his distress beacon flashes to notify his friends of his location. They're coming, but they're all still far away. Until then, he is helplessly on his own.

And when he was recording his farewell message, he was definitely alone (I mean Vex was there but he didn't exactly know about that). He recorded that message as a farewell in the hopes that someone, anyone would see it and know who he was. Remember, he wasn't specifically addressing his friends in the message, just whoever happened to find the recording. He wasn't saying goodbye to his friends, necessarily, he was just....he just wanted to be known. He wanted someone, somewhere out there to know his name and know that he existed, and that he loved his friends. Using their memory to comfort him, even if he can't have their presence.

It makes sense though, right? For about 40 years, Dr. Julien and the falcon served as Zane's only company. And we don't know how long Zane wandered with amnesia, but we can reasonably assume that was a pretty lonely period of his life - especially since he very quickly adopted the ninja as his family, like by episode two he was already emotionally attached, yall this guy is so lonely. Then there's the months he spent imprisoned on Chen's island, separated from all his friends and unable to even remember their names (or his own for that matter). And how he struggled in the wake of Pixal's disappearance from his systems during HoT. And how poorly Zane handled Cole's perceived death. His literal decades spent lost in the Never Realm. Him and Pixal being the only ones left while everyone else got trapped in Prime Empire.

And let's not forget that the moment Nadakhan deleted Pixal's data files from his neural drive, Zane wished himself away then and there. This guy is so lonely, yall.

Just....I could make a full freakin thesis paper on Zane and loneliness, but I don't want this post to get too long. Rest assured I am crying about this either way

[lunarifie]

Rewatching Ninjago

(With no context other than the episode)

Skybound 3-4

Nya: (holds onto jay because shes scared of the jail prisoners)

Jay: :D

Jay: (falls on his fucking face)

Smooth Jay.

Cole: yeah? Well are these cuffs good enough against my SUPER STRENGTH

Cole (trying his best): just wait, almost got it-

Nya: Theyre not gonna break.

ITS HIM

THE SHITBAG WHO TRIED TO TAKE APART ZANE. FUCK HIM.

Zane: by my observations, that was your own fault by working for a crime boss 🤨

Cant believe Lloyd went to prison at what, 16? 17???

How is the warden not even a little mad that this engineer over here can open all the prison cells with the push of a button????

Nice of them to put all the ninja in one singular cell

Dareth (after failing at one attempt at breaking the ninja out): welp, your on your own!

Its hilarious how some prison-mates have ninja favorites

Like some guy just spit in Coles direction because he’s a Jay fan

Jay: Hey! Its captain Soto! The first captain of the destiny’s bounty!

Captain Soto: And its Jay! The whiny sniveling blue pajama man who says everything obvious.

Honestly though, If wishing for love was something you could do. And something Jay planned on doing. That would end up really fucked up.

Kryptorium is like, the baddest and most secure prison of them all right?

So why tf do all the prisoners have weapons.

This prison is a load of shit

THE GUARDS ARENT EVEN DOING ANYTHING

I remember being so scared as they held Zane down and tried to take his spare parts

This is so disturbing they even opened him up

THANK YOU PIXAL!!!

Lloyd, with a guard holding onto him: We could break out tonight…

The guard: 😮

The guard: lol jk idgaf

The side characters are so unbothered

Nadakhan: I want to return to my home realm. Djinjago.

Ooooo new realm!!!

Wait wait wait

Need to type this down so i dont forget

So, ever since the ninja killed the preeminent and basically making the cursed realm non existent. Due to all the 16 realms being interlocked, djinjago is crumbling into non existence as well?

SO NOW THERES 14 ALIVE REALMS????

Well, that gives nadakhan a motive to hunt the ninja I guess

His plan is to overtake ninjago.

How original.

The ninja escaped!!!!!

The cops are so incompetent.

Kai holding Cole above water as they traverse the sewers 🥺

I love them.

I would also laugh like captain soto if i realized some girl who was gonna fight the djinn looked exactly like his past lover

Hilarious irony

Police chief: I want to find those ninja!!! They could be under our noses for gods sake!

Nya (in a police uniform): im in! Right under their noses… now I need the password to get in.

Jay (also undercover): got it!

Jay (his whiny voice drastically changing to a deep steady one): uhhh whats the password?

Hfjsjbejsntnjw that took me so off guard

Honestly, imagine the amount of ninjago civilians who are still ninja fans and are also ACAB after the police but the ninja in prison. Not to mention how incompetent these cops are 💀

Kai (gets zapped by the junkyard fence): caraful zane! This things electrocuted!

Zane: Yes kai, I think that was abundantly clear by all the ‘danger’ and ‘electricity’ signs 😄

Kai: Hurry up!

Zane: these chains will take me a while. You could keep interrupting me or you could start making yourself USEFUL🙄

Zanes so sassy with Kai

Nadakhan and his ship are in the sky!!!!

Its funny how the ninja are searching for Nadakhan and nadakhan is searching for the ninja but neither can find the other

I remember this episode. Im not ready.

Im crossing my fingers for Jay not to fuck anything up but I already know what happens 😭

Jay: let me! A gentleman- uh i mean uh, a superior! Always pays!

You already fucked up by saying superior 🤨

Jay: (cant find his wallet) oh uh wrong pants…

Nya: (pays for them both)

Aaaand you didnt check if you could even pay beforehand

HFBSJFNSJNRNWJRBEB

THE SMOOTH JAZZ AS NADAKHAN WATCHED NYA TAKE OFF HER HAT AND MUSTACHE DISGUISE IM DYIIING

Nya is speaking fact’s honestly.

Shes trying to convey how she feels about him constantly showcasing that he harbors feelings for her

And hes like “Its because im from a junkyard isnt it 😒”

Like dude i get your insecure but dont come off like that

Nya: (CONTINUES to spit fucking facts about how shes already seen as the ‘girl’ ninja and doesnt wanna be seen as the ninjas ‘girlfriend’)

She let him down so nicely too

she explained why that it wasnt him. It was HER. She cant be tied to ANYONE. It doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with Jay.

Jays apology was actually really nice tho.

Hes forgiven.

I dont blame jay too much. He said ‘I wished I never saw my future’. And its kinda hinted that if he never saw his future he would probably stay friends with Nya and not have a problem with it.

Honestly, if I saw I was fated with someone. Like, LITERAL destiny. I would get a little obsessed too.

Jay. You KNOW Nya looks like Nadakhans lover. Its been CONFIRMED that you guys know this information. So why would he help you get with Nya.

These two are literally in the middle of the street how is nobody seeing a djinn and the blue ninja just waltzing around

Jays wish is actually sorta sweet

“I wish I wasn’t born in a junkyard- I wish I wasnt poor! And I wish, I could give Nya anything she wanted…”

Yeah, it makes me sad that he isnt proud of of where he was raised. But its a sweet thought to want to give Nya only the best.

God. Jays voice sounded so broken when he read the letter, believing Ed and Edna died...

HE LOVES HIS PARENTS SM 😭😭😭

Edna (seeing her son in a police disguise with ketchup on his shirt after breaking out of prison): what's wrong honey? What's all the fuss?

This is it. The part that shattered younger me’s brain.

Ed: Jay... You're adopted.

BOOM.

MIC DROP.

Does Jay EVER return to the fritz donnegan/Cliff Gs mansion after this season? I mean, he inherited it. Did he sell it? Is it just, like, out there?

Jay: that must mean... My real names Jay Gordon?

Nope. Hate it. Youre still Jay walker.

HOW IS JAY THIS LUCKY HFJDJSNFJS

All of Jays wishes have been going his way

Jay wished to not be alone with the djinn, do you know HOW easy it would have been for Nadakhan to trick him

Office lady civilian: So, they finally fixed our office huh :)

(Rockets come shooting from Nadakhans ship)

Office lady: NOT AGAIN

Just another day in ninjago

Nya. There was no reason for you to take off your ninja mask. All that did was show the djinns crew members that you looked like Delara.

Its crazy that some people other than the ninja know spinjitzu

Honestly though, Jay never sought out nadakhan. Hes quite literally being cautious about it too. Making sure nobody is by themselves, that no one says anything about wishes.

Djinn literally did Jays wishes perfect to a T. Why is he screwing Kai over so hard 😭

Kai. you better word your third wish perfectly.

NFNSJFNSJNRR

HIS BULLET WENT STRAIGHT THROUGH GHOST COLE. FIVE TIMES. 💀💀💀

thats literally the funniest way for the realm crystal to break

Kai: I WISH FOR IT ALL TO GO AWAY

Goddammit Kai.

They got Kai trapped in the sword :/

I honestly didnt think he’d get captured

He was the ‘main’ ninja for so long. To take him out this early in the season is new.

Love ninjago for trying new things.

[knowledgequeenabc]

you belong to me, my snow white queen, there’s nowhere to run

I’ve been so dead inside I never posted my NNQ fics but, happy belated tenth, Ninjago! the fandom has been wonderful and I’ve made so many friends, seen so much beautiful work, made it through so much because of this silly little plastic ninja show. <3 This fic’s title comes from “Snow White Queen” by Evanescence (yeah I know don’t @ me), if you wanna. set the mood for this one. We’re gonna be following Nya after Skybound for a bit and it won’t be pretty.

Nya remembers it all.

It never happened, of course. That was the condition of Jay’s last wish: that none of it had ever happened in the first place. 

Yet she remembers.

It’s good that she does, honestly. She’ll recognize the threat if it ever presents itself again. Plus, the others don’t remember, so they can’t worry themselves about it.

Jay wanted to tell them. “No more secrets,” he said. She’s proud of him, she really is, at least he’s learned from dragging them through hell and back …

But she can’t do it.

She remembers Jay’s eyes, glinting bright and worried in a dim room, as he asks if she’s sure about this; Nya remembers her voice hardening to keep vulnerability from bleeding through as she nods. She’s well aware it’s unwise to keep a secret this heavy, thank you, but they’re both heart-wrenchingly familiar with secrets. What’s one more?

Getting angry at Jay for keeping secrets and then turning around and asking to keep this one … it’s hypocritical. She sees the recognition of the fact in his eyes, but there’s understanding mixed with it; it’s his secret, too. It’s their burden to shoulder behind closed doors, afraid to face their family. After losing Zane and getting him back, after Chen and Garmadon, after Morro, peace feels fraught, like walking a tightrope over another storm. How would the others react to knowing they’d broken again? She doesn’t want to deal with the answer to that question.

So Nya does what she does best. She squares her shoulders and marches through each day, reminding herself with each skip of her heart, each flash of her life before her eyes, each time the world blurs that it’s over now. It spits in the face of every lesson life’s beaten into her bones, reverting to stubbornness and pride and the kind of independence that would rather see her amputate an injured limb than get help for it, but it’s a twisted kind of easier to wrestle her pain in silence. The sky pirates made it clear that she needs to stop being afraid to rely on her team, and with a distant sense of guilt it occurs to her that applies to her emotions about this situation, too, but ...

But that fight’s over. And Nya honestly wants nothing more than to take the lesson to heart and put the rest behind her. Let sleeping dogs lie, and all.

Slight problem with that plan: she’s beginning to get the feeling they don’t want to stay asleep. Nya’s good at compartmentalizing, and has been ever since she was an orphan child balancing school and keeping the forge afloat, but the neat dividers are starting to give.

All she can do is watch as the cracks spider out like the Tiger Widow’s web.

~~~~

Lloyd sits on the edge of the ship’s deck at night, sometimes.

Who knows what he’s thinking. Nya knows her little brother would rather sort through his feelings behind curtains, and they’re all working on helping him open up, but sometimes there’s nothing to do but be there with someone while they watch the world turn.

Tonight, thoughts zipping through her head with manic intensity and no distraction to stop them, she joins him, letting her legs hang over the edge of the Bounty. He acknowledges her with a smile and inches closer, then turns back to face the clouds, eyes searching the scene like there’s a cosmic answer somewhere in the moonlight poking through the blanket of grey. The sky roils in dark, angry sheets, air thick enough to slice with a knife. Nya remembers another storm out at churning sea, splinters from a shipwreck, a missing friend and her bubbling fury in the aftermath, and shudders.

Lloyd doesn’t speak, but he’s gripping a photo of his father with white knuckles and a pinched face. And she understands.

Never once has Lloyd gotten to choose his path. His only crime was wanting Garmadon in his life, and the gift he received in return for it was becoming fated to finish his father off, once, then twice. It’s a painful game, to be destiny’s plaything.

Self-centered as it is, Nya wants to think she gets it. Rarely does she get to choose, either. Being folded into the fate of Ninjago via kidnapping from blacksmith shop had been exciting until she was relegated to damsel in distress and left on the wayside. Then when she’d forged her own path as Samurai X, she had to give it up and be the water ninja instead. Water ninja. Kai’s sister. Jay’s love interest. The girl. Nadakhan’s prize.

Never a thought for what Nya wants to be. Just roles and labels to live up to whether she likes it or not, forced upon her like a wedding dress sewn for someone else.

And the one choice she could make ended up …

Her chest tightens until she’s dizzy.

Once the world sharpens back into focus, Nya casts Lloyd a sympathetic glance and quietly traces the feathery outlines of the clouds with her eyes. It’s a good night for commiserating, and she’s not feeling talkative, either.

She wonders what she is now, and her throat tightens.

~~~~

Nya catches, out of the corner of her eye, the breathless headline on the tabloid lining the rack at the grocery store—“DEVASTATING FACTS ABOUT THE GIRL NINJA!!” —and bites back the urge to scream herself hoarse.

The public eye is an unforgiving one, she knows that, she’s long since resigned herself to it. But sometimes it grates, the way everyone seems to presume they can weigh in on Nya.

The people out there don’t know anything about her.  All they care about is that she’s the girl, and there’s drama behind her they can gobble up like starved mutts.

She doesn’t let on about it much, because being imperfect is kind of one of her worst nightmares, but she knows she’s made mistakes in the past. She was prideful, even haughty. She strung Jay and Cole along for way too long because the attention got to her head, and the paparazzi will never let her forget it. Nya should have been the bigger person and cut it short, instead of letting Cole keep going with it because he was mad Jay didn’t trust him, or letting Jay’s jealousy fester as long as it did. Bit late for that, though.

It’s hardly like her faults stop there. Being hunted by Nadakhan and upset by Jay’s refusal to understand her “no” meant no, on top of the fact that her independence would only ever be conditional sinking in from becoming the water ninja … it was a perfect storm of stress, and it made her nasty. Jay keeping secrets and endangering them all was the last straw. She blew up, lashed out, furious that she couldn’t trust anything to go right.

She still regrets it. The bruises on his skin after his rescue are still imprinted on her eyelids when she wakes up, sometimes.

So she’s not perfect, by a long shot. But …

(Greedy eyes following her every movement, wanting her as she runs. Blinking to find another family member gone. Fighting for her life as the pirates capture her. Being wrestled into someone else’s gown. Pushing desperately against Dilara’s spirit snatching away her autonomy. Venom seeping into her gown, frigid then BURNING, the ability to think slipping—)

Nya loosens the death grip she has on her basket. Takes a deep breath in, then out.

They don’t know anything about her. Tabloids and TV hosts and publicists can gossip all they want about Nya’s mistakes; they’ll never convince her she deserved to die for them.

~~~~

Kai is many things, and stupid is definitely one of them, sometimes. But he isn’t stupid when it comes to how Nya’s doing, and she knows this. If anything, she’s the idiot for thinking she could keep herself under wraps from him for long. Kai must have noticed the tough veneer she’s painted over herself, and how secretive she’s being with them, because Kai knows she doesn’t like to be open about feeling unwell, and Nya knows that it worries him.

Ironically enough, that worry is why she knows she can’t ever tell Kai what happened. Ever since she revealed herself as Samurai X, he’d learned not to hover, and Nya’s endlessly grateful that he’s understanding enough to trust in her strength. Nowadays, Kai’s concern manifests in significant glances, questioning hands on her shoulder, hugs a little tighter and lingering longer than normal, discreetly asking if there’s anything she wants to tell him.

He’s taken to all that behavior in hyperdrive, of course, because there is no way Nya’s snippiness and constant tension and nights in the kitchen making tea after nightmares slipped his notice.

But that’s fine. Nya would rather deal with the quiet apprehension radiating off him now than the full-blown panic she’s bound to have on her hands if Kai ever found out that she’d lost her life and he’d been helpless to do anything but watch.

She has an idea what it’ll look like, too. He’d taken Lloyd’s possession hard enough—Nya had caught him pummeling punching bags in the training room until his knuckles bled, noticed the heaviness in his eyes when he looked at their little brother, or at Cole, and no matter how much she insisted that he hadn’t failed, Kai refused to let himself believe it. Uttering a word about the Sky Pirates to her older brother, Kai who had practically raised them both, Kai who had only ever become a ninja to save her, Kai who had blamed himself so ruthlessly for Zane and Lloyd and Cole?

It would break him.

She just can’t do that to him. She’ll stitch her lips shut if that’s what it takes to make sure he never finds out.

So when Kai fixes them both mugs of chamomile tea at 2 in the morning, and casually remarks on the strange amount of repairs she’s been doing on the perfectly intact Bounty, Nya just smiles tiredly at him and fires off some sarcastic retort that’s sure to rile him up.

She loves her older brother, which is why she made the decision to take this secret to her grave.

~~~~

Nya notices while brushing her hair, one day, that she’s neglected to pay attention to it; the sleek black strands are almost to her shoulder, rather than brushing against her chin like she’s used to. Once she’s teased out every last snarl, she goes to cut her hair, but hesitates right before the scissors snip.

When she looks in the mirror, sometimes it’s Dilara’s face flashing before her eyes, not her own. She has to look for the minutiae, the details that count, like the flinty sharpness in her own eyes, the scar near her chin, the odd mark forming on her cheek, obsessively contrasting them to wide, sweet eyes on a deceptively cherubic face.

Nya wishes—no, not wishes, look where wishing had gotten them all—that Nadakhan had cared to see the differences. Maybe that way, she wouldn’t have felt the eyes on her back, always following her, waiting for her to fall into his grasp. Maybe she could have avoided the desperate game of cat-and-mouse. And just maybe, she wouldn’t have been grappled into a suffocating gown, or had her agency ripped from her as Dilara took her face, or died—

Right, that had happened. How Cole and Zane go about their days knowing they’ve walked through the doors of death, she can't begin to fathom. Nya wonders when she’ll stop feeling like she has to hide in her own home from eyes that are no longer watching, wonders when she’ll stop feeling the white-hot burn of venom leaching into her blood, and it’s Dilara’s face that brought it upon her.

Nya sets the scissors down, and tries not to flinch at the way they klink against the counter. She doesn’t want Dilara’s face anymore.

Maybe she’ll let it grow out.

~~~~~

It wasn’t even that rough of a touch, Nya despairs later. Cole, even in spars, always knew his strength, and he barely glanced her sternum with a ghostly hand as she knocked him off balance.

Apparently, on a bad day, that chilly touch was enough to send the phantom shock of Tiger Widow venom racing through her system; Nya forgot how to breathe for a second, and the next she broke her stance and pushed. Already off-kilter, Cole stumbled, his back hitting the ground with a heavy thud. In the instant before the others could be alarmed, they locked eyes, concerned meeting terrified. She forced her voice to stay even as she said, “I think that’s enough training for today.” Then she ran.

Now, here she is, her door slammed shut and locked, and her back’s pressed against it as she tries to remember what it feels like not to buzz like an entire hornet’s nest. She’s fine, she repeats to herself. The mantra is soothing simply in its repetitiveness; it gets her mind off of the sensation that won’t leave her alone ever since she lived it. She’s fine, she’s alive, and she’s not losing her grip on consciousness because all her organs are shutting down. Nya is fine, not actually feeling the venom seep into her skin through the coarse fabric of the wedding dress, cold for just a millisecond before erupting into white-hot pain across her skin. If her vision is off, it’s because of the tears welling up despite her stubborn efforts to blink them away, not the spots that danced across her world as Flintlocke’s fatal accident slowly claimed her life-

Her breath catches in a sob. Nya furiously muffles it behind her hand.

It didn’t even happen. She’s been through so much, she’s been in danger so many times, and this is the one that sticks? So it killed her, yeah, admittedly that’s a big step above the other times, but it hadn’t happened to anyone else except her, and Jay, and she can’t, won’t, make those words leave her lips. Every other problem in her life, she’d risen above, she’d fixed and wrestled back into her control, and then she’d gotten to square her shoulders and quip to the boys how easy it had been.

How does she fix something that’s only broken in her memories?

~~~~~

Nya remembers it all.

She almost wishes she didn’t.

[sibillascribbles08]

If you could take creative control of ninjago what would you change

Christ...

WELL

Actually no idk where to start with this there’s so much anon there’S SO M U C H I guess I’ll do a run of MINIMAL changes tho (for as long as I can)

I don’t think I have to change much in the first two seasons, thankfully, since the writers actually sat down to think about what they were writing at the time but g o d did it go to hell afterwards

Season 3 - This Zane focused season is going to be ZANE FOCUSED DAMN IT. We’re focusing on his loss over his Father, having salt rubbed in the wound by having his father’s work turned into an evil army, and being faced with the fact he’s obsolete compared to it all. He keeps trying to stack up numbers to win, recalculate things, and it’s why his line at the ending ACTUALLY has impact. The thing that sets him apart from the nindroids, his ability to love, is what allows him to defeat the Overlord.

Jay, Cole and Nya love triangle is DESTROYED. Pixal, Zane and Cole is the new love triangle and later OT3

Season 4 - The explanation for the other EMs being around is far less stupid. Garmadon establishes that oh yeah all of your parents had elemental powers and even talks about a few of them because holy SHIT. Cole mentions his mom because he should have done that a g e s ago. Is this supposed to be a Kai season doesn’t feel like it. Open the season with better explanations of why the ninja split. Emphasis the fact that Kai blames himself for what happened to Zane, and continues to do so throughout the season. Add that to why he’s so desperate to save Skylor from her dad (not willing to lose someone else). We still lose Garmadon, Kai and Lloyd have a talk at the end of the season. Also ZANE IMMEDIATELY GOES TO GET PIXAL A NEW BODY WTHHH????

Season 5 - Idk this season was pretty good over all I think. A bit better lore established into the cloud kingdom, hints that they don’t actually control fate they just think they do. Explain where the FUCK NIMBUS CAME FROM?? Water can still beat up ghosts but idk feel like there should be some other factors involved, some magic. Kai and Zane figure out they can make water a LOT sooner. Also why doesn’t Kai just set the preeminent’s house armor on fire??? Should have. OH I did forget since this season is supposed to be for NYA GETTING HER WATER ELEMENT how about she actually GO WITH THE NINJA AND DO SOME SHIT SOMETIMES??? I don’t mind her training, specially Ronin helping her but like??? Wtf why not have her ENGAGE, idiots.

Season 6 - I’m the weirdo who actually likes season 6 but that doesn’t mean it’s not without its issues. I don’t mind Jay wondering about where he stands with Nya but his behavior throughout the season has to stay consistent. When he agrees with Nya he needs to let it go he needs to LET IT GO. IT LITERALLY SHOULDN’T BE BROUGHT UP AGAIN UNTIL THE LIGHTHOUSE. He also needs to linger more on his birth father (and besides he should have suspected he’s adopted since season 4 cause he knows neither of his parents had lightning powers). Zane doesn’t ignore Pixal’s warning about Nadakhan but if she’s off somewhere else idk how she gets threatened I’m sure Nadakhan could figure it out. OH and time can still reset and stuff idc but like, Jay and Nya need to talk about it and they need to GO BACK FOR ECHO. EVEN IF THEY DON’T FIND HIM THERE.

Day of the Departed - just wish it was longer tbh, but major changes: Why do the ninja not seem to care that cole is FADING OUT OF EXISTENCE and Lou should be a lot more worried about his son.

Season 7 - I mean, it’s mostly a trash fire, but I think it’d be a lot more enjoyable if they actually had good sibling dynamics going on. Acronix following his brother because he always has, but starts questioning their plans as things go. At first their relationship is much better, which is why they best Kai and Nya, but by the end that flips over. Actually have Kai and Nya having an ISSUE. Kai thinks their parents could have been traitors, Nya seemingly doesn’t care because she’s so wrapped up with her samurai x stuff being stolen. They end up fighting and don’t make up until the boiling sea. ALSO GIVE RAY AND MAYA A BETTER FUCKING EXCUSE FOR BEING GONE THEY COULD HAVE FUCKING SHANKED KRUX WHEN HIS BACK WAS TURNED GET OUT OF HERE HE HAD NO LEVERAGE.

Also Machia isn’t dead okay she’s just in the past she WILL COME BACK

Seasons 8 and 9 I’d say are pretty solid honestly? My minor changes: Garmadon isn’t Garmadon he’s a fucking fake get out of here with that shit THE REAL GARMADON WOULD NEVER. We actually learn where Mr. E came from I don’t even care if it’s just Harumi and UV talking about how they found him in a scrap heap and got him fixed just give me something. Stop treating Dareth like SHIT. Ronin and The Commissioner plan a jail break long before they’re let out in season 9. Teen Wu is a lot less... air headed. Like seriously he seems to have more logic when he’s a child it doesn’t add up. I’m not saying he has to remember everything but wth?? Oh, and Mistaké isn’t dead fuck you.

Season 10 - ............................................ delete it and start over. Literally, hate all of it, get it out of here. Four episodes for villains you built up like FUCK in the last two seasons??? All of them fucking as big as people???????? cowardly, weak, uninspired, I don’t want it I’m just going to have to redo this whole gd season. A) Oni leader is a QUEEN now and she can be up to 30 feet tall no I do not give a FUCK B) Fake ass Garmadon is revealed to be a different oni entirely he was an agent for the queen the whole time but never finished his mission C) She can still paralyze a bunch of people but man Lloyd you’re going to need more than a shiny tornado to fight her off. D) In fact you need to summon your other great grandma so the two of them can get over their divorce spat. E) Where’s the mask of vengeance bring that back into play. F) Mistaké shows back up to help. I suppose plot wise it can?? Mostly run the same but I think they’re going to have to run much farther than the city with how fast she spreads her reach. Also she’s weak for Lloyd because he’s the smol great grandson and he has to use that to his advantage to slow her down. Mistaké makes something that can unparalyze people and they get some of their allies back before the finale thank god. Faith isn’t just in a coma the whole GD time.

Season 11 - Fire half? Good. I need a much better reason why the ninja go to the never realm tho because wow did they just make everyone out of character in that last episode. The ninja have no reason to just ignore Wu and shove him out like that. Wu has no reason to NOT NOTICE LLOYD IS BREAKING INTO HIS ROOM WHEN HE WAS KICKING THE NINJAS ASSES IN THE FIRST EPISODE. Ice half?? ... h Yeah no they should have known Zane was the emperor from the start LMAO. Or at least suspected the possibility. The decades of time passing??? Deleted. Maybe give it a year. Idk why it’s just Lloyd snapping Zane out if why aren’t the other ninja involved like p l e a s e. Also kill Vex with an ice spike, thanks.

Season 12 - Over all I liked what this season had going but there... should have been more. And that ending felt so crunched together like damn... Unagami was a p cool villain at least BUT idk, despite all the focus on the plot so much of it didn’t feel tangible enough. Even if we’re going to focus more on the video game world I want to see more of what these NPCs are up to. Should have tossed in a couple of filler episodes. Also can someone just kill the Mechanic too SMH (and they should have tied Wu up in something sturdier how did he not just break out of that WHATEVER)

Suppose I’ll stop there I haven’t season season 13 yet.

Oh, the timeline itself needs some fucking work too. At least establish Wu and Garmadon’s sudden aging. At least establish how old Zane is (I’d believe he was built 40 years ago but I find it hard to believe he was active for all of it). Establish that yeah the FSM really did basically fuck off like idk 14 years ago and idk why the show acts like it was so long ago it couldn’t have been based on the other facts we know have Wu learn that his dad is a bitch ass motherfucker and he needs to ditch.

Honestly there’s more but like................. this is the simple version

[lloydskywalkers]

skywalker syndrome, pt. II

*sweats nervously* this is...so long. This is so, so long and it’s not even the last part, but i just have a loT OF FEELINGS about it okay T-T 

Anyways! here is the continuation of my extensively angsty, s9-Lloyd-loses-an-arm-AU that i posted about a year ago, now featuring four whole over-concerned siblings who are finally back in the same realm. 

The funny thing about life as a ninja extraordinaire, is that there are certain things that you can totally suppress, and never deal with ever. Like, they might still be there, lurking in the dark corners of your mind like vaguely threatening mold or something, and sure, one of these days they could blossom into actual issues, and then threaten to destabilize whatever’s left of your emotional stability, but you can at least ignore them for a while. And if you’re Lloyd —which he is — you can get really good at ignoring them, to the point where you almost forget they’re there half the time. Bam, problems solved.

But as it turns out, unfortunately, there are also some things that you just can’t.

One of those, even more unfortunately, happens to be losing, say, an entire limb. And to top off the entire stack of unfortunateness — the unfortunatetest — most unfortunate? — part about the whole thing: Lloyd currently happens to fall into the second category.

(Will always fall into the second category, he doesn’t know why he’s saying currently, it’s not like his arm is gonna grow back—)

Anyways. Lloyd has finally met an issue that he can’t ignore, and that’s…another issue, he guesses. Oh, he’s tried, but walking off a lost arm is just a lot more difficult than ignoring trauma, or a broken rib or something.

“But I mean, it also could have been a leg, and then I’d have real trouble walking it off, haha, get it?”

“There are so many concerning things in that essay’s worth of words you just threw at me, I don’t even know where to start,” Nya sighs.

“Aw, c’mon,” Lloyd nudges her shoulder with his fist from where he sits in the battle wagon next to her, metal fingers clanking oddly against her shoulder armor. “That wasn’t even my worst pun.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to, and you know it,” Nya side-eyes him. Then, after a beat— “And that one was low-hanging fruit. I know you can do better.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll come up with something better when we’re not running on zero hours of sleep,” Lloyd yawns, propping his elbows up on the dashboard and leaning against them, scrubbing at his eyes. He flinches back at the cold of his metal hand, and scowls at it instead, as if its inability to create heat like a normal limb is a personal insult. He lets it fall limp against the dashboard with a dull clank, laying his normal, warm human arm on top, and using that as a pillow.

He then squeezes his eyes shut, enjoying the brief relief from the thundering headache he’s had the last few days, before screwing them back open. Nya is staring at him fully now, face pinched in concern. Lloyd thinks that’s rather unfair, because her eyes are every bit as bloodshot as his, and he’s definitely caught her wincing from a headache of her own like, six times today already.

“Lloyd.”

“What.”

Nya sighs again — she’s been doing that a lot lately — and finally takes her hands off the wheel, leaning back in her seat, pulling her leg up and wrapping her arm around her knee. “You can’t do that.”

“Do what?” Lloyd says petulantly, knowing full well what she’s talking about.

Nya knows too, because she gives him a look. “Ignore that kind of stuff,” she says, waving a hand absently in the air. “Trauma, and whatnot.”

“I’m not ignoring my trauma,” Lloyd rolls his eyes, because they’ve had this conversation a minimum of sixty times now, so he’s ready for it. “I’m just waiting until I have a thing of ice cream big enough to cry it all out over.”

He’s probably going to need an entire ice cream parlor at this point, he muses—

“I’m serious, Lloyd.”

“Uh-huh,” he mutters, burying his face in his arms. “Sure. You wanna talk about Nadakhan while we’re at it, then?”

Nya sucks in a breath, and Lloyd feels a hot flash of guilt for having brought it up.

But like — it’s true. If he’s gotta sort out his issues, then Nya needs to, as well. Fair’s fair, and she needs someone looking out for her. Even if Lloyd’s been doing a pretty terrible job of it lately.

“Sorry,” he murmurs anyways.

Nya presses her lips together, then shakes her head. Her eyes are far away, staring out across the ruined city through the windshield. “No,” she says, her voice a whisper. “No, you’re right. I — you’re right.”

“Well, I’m sorry for that, too.”

Because he wishes he wasn’t right. He’d love to be wrong, about this. He’d love it if they were all just fine, and the guys were back and cracking jokes with them, and Nya had never died after being nearly forced into some twisted marriage, and the city wasn’t crumbling down around them because his sort-of-ex brought back his dead dad, and Lloyd still had both whole arms, and they were all drinking like, strawberry lemonade on the beach right now or something.

“We’re a real mess, huh,” Nya says, and there’s a sniffled edge in her voice that Lloyd doesn’t like.

Lloyd bites his lip, then reaches out, uncurling her fingers from where they’ve gone white around the steering wheel, and squeezing her hand lightly instead. “Kai would say we’re hot messes, though.”

Nya snorts, squeezing his hand back, ad Lloyd feels a bubble of warmth at her smile. They sit there in silence for a bit, watching the smokey clouds drift past above, waiting on Pixal or Skylor to finally call in on the radio, and tell them they can move out already.

Lloyd’s just considering trying for another nap, when Nya speaks up again.

“Really through. Lloyd, we gotta talk it all out eventually. You don’t wanna end up all emotionally suppressed, like your uncle, do you?”

Lloyd sputters, then glares at her. “You take that back. I’m not gonna end up like Uncle Wu.”

“Oh yeah? Just wait, any day now you’re gonna walk in on us, with a big straw hat on, and say ‘terribly sorry, my loyal ninja, but there’s something I haven’t told you’—“

Lloyd throws his mask at her, even as he breaks into snickers at the deep-toned voice she’s using. “I am not!”

“—you’ll have a beard, too,” Nya continues, grinning. “Like, ten feet long—“

“Ten, please, have you seen my hair? I bet I can do twenty—“

“Oh yeah, Rapunzel? What’cha gonna do then, trip over it into your enemies?”

“No, I’m — I’m gonna strangle them with it.”

That mental image is the final straw for Nya, and she doubles over in loud cackling, stuffing her fist against her mouth to try and silence her laughter. Lloyd’s already dissolved into giggles, but his attempt to keep them quiet sounds a whole lot more like rheumatic wheezing, which only makes them laugh harder.

“Please,” Nya breathes, when they’ve finally wound down. “Never grow a beard.”

“I dunno,” Lloyd says, stroking his chin, in what he hopes looks like an accurate impression of Uncle Wu. “I think I got the face for it—”

“You don’t.”

“Ouch, right in the heart.”

“It’s for your own good, bud.”

“We’ll see what Kai says.”

“He’s gonna agree with me, and you know it.”

“Hmph.”

“…and Lloyd?”

“Hm?”

“ ‘Unfortunatetest’ isn’t a word.”

“You aren’t a word.”

The other funny thing about life, though, is that no matter how miserable it gets, it’s always bearable with Nya.

************************

Which is probably why Lloyd doesn’t really start to crack until Nya goes down.

“Oh no — oh no, Nya, you’re okay, you’re fine, you’re all good, just — you’re okay—”

“I’m fine, stop telling me what I already know,” Nya gets out, through gritted teeth against the pain. She couldn’t be more clearly not fine, but between the two of them, they seem to believe that if they can say it’s fine enough, it’ll all work out. It’ll be just fine. Nya just had a car fall on her and probably shattered her arm but it’s — it’s fine, she hasn’t lost it yet, and if it comes down to it, she can have his other arm, because Nya is not losing a limb today.

Between him and Dareth, they finally manage to get the car — the entire car, Lloyd is losing the battle to panic by the second — off Nya, and Lloyd’s right back at her side to worry more. Nya shrugs him off, squeezing her eyes shut against the pain as she struggles to rise, wobbling in place.  

But she still pushes herself up, on her feet, and picks up her spear with her good arm, and Lloyd decides for like, the tenth time this week, that Nya is the strongest person he knows. Right up there with Skylor, who’s actually insane, as it turns out, holding off an entire Colossi with his father’s stolen power — Skylor’s incredible.

But Skylor’s also currently unconscious in the battle wagon, and now Nya’s in severe pain and down an arm, and she doesn’t have a handy — aha —replacement like Lloyd does. And Pixal’s in Kryptarium so all that’s left of the ninja is Lloyd, and Dareth looking to him for answers, and Lloyd should be used to this, he’s leader, he could practically write the book on being in desperate, all-consuming-panic situations like this, but—

Harumi’s dead. Lloyd’s powers are gone, and people are dying now. Because of his dad, because of this stupid vengeance spree, because of him.

Lloyd’s eyes smart painfully, and he tightens his grip on Nya’s good arm, wondering, not for the first time, how in the world it had all come to this.

“We need to — we need to—” Nya cuts off, biting the inside of her cheek. Her composure falters, and Lloyd can see the same hopeless sort of exhaustion in her eyes, the weeks of running on fumes taking their toll. They need to get moving, they need to regroup, but there’s no one to regroup with. It’s just them, Lloyd and Nya, and they might be able to function independently better than anyone else but they’re also chronic younger siblings. The reminder that they’re not supposed to be alone is driven so deeply into their heads that it’s not even annoying anymore.

Not when they’re so very, very alone now.

“We can fall back,” Lloyd suggests, his voice wavering. “We can—” He swallows. Hide feels cowardly, but even he knows it’d be useless to suggest, anyways. They’ve run out of hiding places from Garmadon. He’d find them, Lloyd knows he will. His father is a lot of things right now, and relentless is one of the stronger ones.

“We can move, at least,” Dareth says, panic tinging his voice. “Those Sons of Garmadon will be on us any minute.”

It’s not Dareth’s fault, but it certainly feels a lot like karma as, at that very second, the sound of motorcycles echoes down the street, mixed with the familiar cries of the Sons of Garmadon.

They all go tense. Nya and Lloyd look at each other, and Lloyd wonders if the expression of fear on her face is mirrored on his, or if he looks closer to terror.

Either way, he’s frozen in place, and that’s bad, because they’re all frozen now. Maybe this is it. Maybe they’ve finally run out of the will to keep going. Maybe this is for the better. At least it’s not his father.

But then he remembers that they’ll probably take him to his father anyways, and if Lloyd didn’t have terror on his face before, he does now.

The loud roars of the motorcycles are circling now, and if Lloyd’s right, they’ve got barely a minute left before they’re surrounded. That’s not enough time to make it out. Not with everyone, not with the condition they’re in.

And Lloyd’s not about to leave anyone behind.

Nya sucks in a shaky breath, her face white from pain as her bad arm shifts. “Lloyd, do you — do you have any ideas?”

Lloyd stares up at the smoke rising above the city, his city, and the skin that meets his prosthetic throbs. His head does too, exhaustion mixed with pain mixed with dying adrenaline leaving him sick.

You’ve failed, Green Ninja. Your father won this round.

Like he does every round, Lloyd thinks bitterly. Morro had it right, back in Styx. He doesn’t deserve to be the Green Ninja. Not when he can’t win the fights that matter.

But he’s still Lloyd. He’s still Nya’s little brother, and even Garmadon can’t take that from him if he tried. So he shakes his head, croaking out, “Sorry, I’m stumped.”

It takes Nya a minute longer than usual, her eyes confused in her pale and dirt-stained face, but then—

She slumps against him, wheezing out what could be a laugh. “If that was an another arm pun, I swear—”

Lloyd tries to keep his face passively blank, but he can’t help the breathless huff of laughter that escapes. It very quickly threatens to turn into hyperventilating, so he cuts it off quickly. They all step closer to each other, forming a tight circle as the motorcycles roar into view, and Lloyd’s knuckles turn white with the fist he’s making.

He almost says I’m sorry, because it feels like what he should say right now, him and his whole sorry bloodline and everything that’s led to this. But Nya would probably hit him if he did that, and get that sad look on her face, so he doesn’t.

“This would be a really good time for the guys to get back,” Lloyd finally says instead, a bit hollowly. Nya gives him a weak smile that threatens to crack into despair as they’re surrounded, the blinding headlights from the Sons of Garmadon pinning them in place.

But maybe, just maybe, karma is on their side after all. Because, not half a second after Lloyd’s said those words, the sky opens up and roaring out from the bright portal, filthy and battered but alive, come the super late — like so late, for real, Lloyd’s gonna give them heck for this — rest of their family.

Lloyd doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see his big brother’s ridiculous, spiky head of hair in his whole entire life.

************************

In the euphoria of reuniting with the guys and his uncle, Lloyd kind of forgets that he’s lost an arm for a second. He also forgets that the last time the guys saw him, he might have been a half-dead mess on Mystaké’s kitchen table, but he also had both arms. So it’s probably not — not the best of welcome back surprises he could’ve offered.

But the thing is, Lloyd’s at least been thinking his arm looked fine now. Like, it’s obviously not his arm arm anymore, but it’s a whole lot better than the ugly empty space that was there. And Nya put the dragon on and everything, so he can look sick when he either defeats his father or dies horribly.

But for all that it looks fine, the guys’ faces still go ten shades of white when they finally catch sight of it.

Lloyd thinks that’s rather unfair, considering they just burst out of the sky on a bunch of dragons after having been presumed dead, but he’s not gonna pick now to argue with them.

“Wha — how — what — is that—” Kai, predictably, is the first to go to pieces, his eyes wide as dinner plates in his dirt-stained face, his fingers hovering shakily over the metal arm as if touching it will make it real.

“Your arm,” Jay informs him blankly, gaping at him. “It’s gone?”

Oh, Lloyd’s aware.

“Yeah, it’s uh, it’s gone,” he explains, quickly. Then, because he needs to see a different expression on their faces than horrified shock— “It’s — it’s pretty disarming, haha, right?”

Kai looks like he’s either going to combust on the spot or physically smack him.

In the end, he makes this heartbreaking kind of “oh Lloyd” at him before throwing his arms around him, then immediately jumping to the absolute worst conclusions possible.

“Was it your dad — it was your dad, right? Was it Harumi? It must’ve been your dad, oh I’ll kill him, I’ll slaughter him for you Lloyd, I swear to FSM—”

This is followed by a general meltdown of “if only I’d been here,” which spirals into self-blame pretty fast, which Lloyd neither wants nor needs to happen right now (nor thinks is accurate, what could any of them have done anyways), so he throws Nya a desperate look.

“Look, stuff happened, okay?” she says, shouldering her way between Lloyd and the guys, wincing as her wrapped arm pulls. “The city’s on fire and Lloyd’s down an arm, we dealt with it. Right now we need to focus, because Garmadon and the Colossi are still out there, so please tell me those dragons are going to help us out.”

Again, Nya is one of Lloyd’s favorite people in the entire universe.

This distracts them enough that they momentarily get off Lloyd’s back, though he has a feeling he’s either gonna have to answer two hundred questions later or find a really good hiding spot.

But that’s a problem for a different Lloyd to worry about, and this one needs to focus on his father. And the fact that his uncle now looks ten times younger and is, much more importantly, about to let him ride on his dragon.

Lloyd’s halfway to the dragon when Cole catches him. He doesn’t grab him or anything, just touches his arm gently, his eyes horribly sad. “Lloyd,” he murmurs.

Something in Lloyd’s chest twists. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. How is he supposed to pretend he’s not sad when they’ve all got this look on their faces?

“It’s fine,” he blusters, with a smile that is only half-forced. Fortunately, he has this part rehearsed by now. “It’s not a big deal — it doesn’t even hurt or anything. Don’t worry about it.”

Cole looks like he has every single intention of worrying about it, because Cole is Cole, but Lloyd can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed because he’s missed them so, so much. Sure, he’s mad at himself for giving them something to immediately worry about the second they even get back to the realm, but Lloyd’s too happy to see them at all to mind that much.

Plus, there’s like, a fifty-fifty chance his father is about to kill him pretty soon anyways, so he tries to enjoy it while he can. He’s sure Uncle Wu will do his best, but unless he’s got something big up his sleeve — besides the, uh, age thing — Lloyd isn’t so sure.

Winning against Garmadon isn’t something he’s ever been particularly good at, even with both arms.

************************

Lloyd wins this round.

Somehow, somehow — bruised and bloodied and down an entire arm — he wins this one. It’s almost surreal, standing on top of Borg Tower, the wind whipping eerily around them as he stares down at his father, kneeling on the ground before him. His father, defeated. Lloyd didn’t have to break this time, he didn’t even have to bend. He defeated his father, without his powers, without any cursed venom fueling him, and without his arm.

Take that, you stupid snake.

Well — technically. Technically, he did defeat his father with his arm, because there are going to be some spectacular bruises on Garmadon where he got sucker-punched by a solid metal fist in the morning. But still.

Lloyd didn’t have to kill him. Not this time.

The relief that hits him is so dizzyingly crushing, he almost throws up.

But oh, it figures. The one time Lloyd can end things with his dad alive, and it’s the time his dad hates him.

But Lloyd knows a little too well that things could’ve ended a lot worse. He’s got his family back, his whole family, Kai and Jay and Cole and Zane and the people that have stuck through the worst of it with him, and that’s more than enough for Lloyd to be happy. He doesn’t die, they win back the city, and Kai only cries about it like three times, so honestly, it’s almost the best he could hope for. The worst part is out of the way now, so really — it should be smooth sailing from here. The guys are upset about the arm thing, obviously, but it’s not really that big a deal. Lloyd just has to convince them of that, which shouldn’t be a problem.

A piece of cake, compared to the last few weeks. Besides, he’s already been through the worst of it.

************************

As is his luck, Lloyd finds himself eating his words half a week later.

“First Master—“

Lloyd chokes back a curse, stumbling out from bed as quietly as he can, teeth clacking as he clenches them together to keep from making any more noise. The guys don’t move, still solidly asleep, but that’s going to change real quick if Lloyd starts cursing up a storm over his stupid arm.

He bumps into the doorway on the way out and almost screams, biting his lip hard instead and fleeing down the hallway. Ow, ow, ow. He must’ve rolled his shoulder into his sword sometime in the night, because that’s what it feels like, a horrible kind of deep ache that leaves him wanting to sever what’s left of his limb as he stumbles into the kitchen. At least then, there would be less to hurt.

Lloyd passes by the several large windows in the apartment they’ve been staying in, and his heart immediately sinks. It’s dark outside, but the city lights illuminate the growing clouds above, and he can spot the flash of lightning in the distance. If the slight buzz in his blood at the oncoming storm wasn’t enough to clue him in, the building pressure in the atmosphere certainly is.

And he used to like rain, Lloyd thinks miserably, leaning his head briefly against the wall.

There’s a distant roll of thunder, and something in his arm — his stump, there is no arm there to hurt, that should help — throbs, deep and aching. Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut, fighting back the budding tears of pain, and remembers his mission. They went shopping earlier, and he knows for a fact there’s pain killers somewhere in the kitchen. The promise of relief from the pain is enough to spur him from where he’s slumped against the wall, and he drags his feet down the rest of the hall, finally ducking into the kitchen, which is quiet and empty in the late-night hours.

Great. Now he’s just gotta find the stuff, and he can — well, he can try to go back to sleep. Maybe he’ll just watch cartoons instead, or stare blankly into oblivion, or something. His shoulder throbs again, and Lloyd forces himself to focus, blowing his breathe out. Right. Cole was the last one to take the meds, ‘cause he’s got all those nasty healing cuts. So if he was the one to put the bottle away last, that means it’s probably…on the…top shelf…

Lloyd carefully, quietly drowns the whine of despair in the back of his throat. He’d eat dirt before he admits he’s a shortie, but compared to Cole, everyone is, and Cole has a terrible habit of leaving all the meds on the highest shelf or cabinet possible when he’s done, which are always the ones Lloyd can’t reach. And right now, with the first drops of rain just starting to fleck on the windows, moving his arms anywhere above mid-waist sounds like death.

But sitting here with his arm on fire sounds even worse, so death it is.

Biting the bullet, Lloyd toes the handle on the drawer closest to the floor, bracing his good arm on the counter, and pushes himself up. He wobbles precariously, but he catches himself quickly, breathing out a huff of relief. Now comes the hard part. Gritting his teeth in determination, Lloyd swings his prosthetic arm up as quickly as he can, knocking against the uppermost cabinet and—

Lloyd’s vision blurs out as the pain in his shoulder decides to go nuclear, and he slips back down with a strangled choking sound, clutching the edge of his shoulder and desperately willing himself not to blast through the wall with his powers in agonized frustration. When the pain finally ebbs enough for him to think again, he slumps over the counter, bracing his good shoulder against it and letting the bad one hang loosely, where the pain pulses in and out like a heartbeat.

Like death, he thinks dully, hissing his breath out through his teeth. Right. Okay. He’ll just — take a nap on the counter then, until he can work himself back up to the cabinet.

Lloyd cracks an eye open, glaring hotly at the cabinet out of reach. Maybe if he like…rattles it? With his…leg, or something? He can do a pretty impressive high kick, if he tries. Anything not to move his stupid shoulders, because the pain radiating from the prosthetic port is — oh boy, it’s something.

…with hindsight, he should’ve been prepared for this. But still.

Lloyd kind of just….crashes on the counter, for as long as he can, but the pain finally gets bad enough that he’s willing to risk more for any kind of relief. Gritting his teeth again — his jaw is beginning to hurt — he squares his shoulders, instantly regretting the action as little lines of agony flare in his right side in tune with the thunder from outside. At that point, Lloyd’s brain finally decides it’s done with the situation on the whole, and he’s backing up to make a running jump for the cabinet, when—

“Who’s — stand down, I’ll blast you!”

Lloyd aborts his charge just in time to duck the bolt of lightning that flashes through the room with a yelp, sliding to the floor as his momentum sends him crashing into the lower drawers. His vision whites out for a good minute as he whacks his bad shoulder on the metal edge of a handle, and he might make some kind of muffled scream that sounds enough like him for Jay to recognize, because by the time it clears, Jay is staring at him with wide eyes, his face pale but clearly no longer registering Lloyd as a threat.

Still, just in case— “Don’t shoot,” Lloyd croaks out. “I’m unarmed.”

Jay’s expression spasms, but the crackle of electricity silences, and the blue light extinguishes as he lowers his hands. Lloyd notes the way they’re trembling, despite how hard Jay’s trying to stop it. “Lloyd, seriously,” he mutters, but he’s at Lloyd’s side in a beat, hovering anxiously.

“Are — are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd says, trying not to wince as he shoulder twinges. “I, uh, sorry if I scared you. I was just getting some water.”

Jay looks up to the cabinets, then back to Lloyd, where he’s yet to rise from the floor. He needs to get up already, because he’s got like, an image to keep here, but he’s also too scared that his stump of a limb is going to attempt murder again, and that’s keeping him pretty solidly rooted to the floor.

“You’re on the floor, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd shoots back, making a face. “Maybe I like it here.”

“Uh-huh.” Jay’s expression is narrow-eyed in skepticism, and Lloyd shrinks in on himself a bit. Still, though — the expression is better to see than the stark terror that had been written over Jay’s face when he’d walked in. The remnants of it are still there, if fading quick — Jay doesn’t look quite like Jay yet, bright and happy and quick on the uptake.

He looks tired, dark circles like bruises beneath his eyes, and his movements are slower than usual, as if perpetually lagging a step behind. Like he’s being dragged down by something, and it’s taking an extra amount of strength to fight it off that’d usually go toward bad jokes.

Which is sad, because Lloyd could really go for a bad joke right now. The atmosphere’s been heavy enough around their little apartment after everything, and it’s only worse now, with Lloyd curled up on the floor and Jay watching his arm with hollow eyes. And that’s not even talking about the actual atmosphere, which is currently trying to make Lloyd consider knocking himself out to escape the pain. Bad Jay jokes would be nice. Lloyd misses having something to laugh about.

But you know what, that’s quitter talk. Lloyd can make bad jokes, too.

“You uh, you wanna give me an arm up, here?” he says, grinning weakly at Jay. “Could really use a hand, if you get what I’m saying.”

“You — you’re terrible,” Jay sputters, but he cracks the edge of a smile, and Lloyd silently congratulates himself on that small victory.

“But you love me.”

It comes out too much of a question, and Lloyd bites his tongue. But Jay’s eyes soften as he pulls him up, and he’s gentle as he does it, so it barely hurts.

“Yeah, short stuff,” he says. “I do.”

And that’s — Lloyd swallows. That’s too much emotion for him to deal with in Jay’s voice right now, even if it is the kind of reassurance he clings to with a desperation these days.

“Short stuff,” he scowls instead. “You’re one to talk.”

“Nuh-uh,” Jay grins, a bit weaker than his usual one. “I grew a half an inch in the First Realm, bud. I’ve got you now.”

“No way,” Lloyd counters, squinting at him. “You look shorter, if anything. I’ve got you now.”

“I do not.” It’s Jay’s turn to scowl. “And please, the only height you’ve gained is your hair. Fluffing it up all crazy does not count.”

Lloyd snorts, despite himself. “My hair, you should see-ee—”

His voice abruptly pitches higher, strangling off mid-sentence as a fresh wave of bright pain sears through his shoulder, throbbing with the increased thudding of rain against the window. Lloyd almost bites his tongue in half as he dips forward, words momentarily lost as his teeth grind together.

Jay’s at his side in an instant. “It’s the storm, isn’t it,” he says, his eyes bright in concern. “Your arm is hurting extra.”

“T-technically, it’s not,” Lloyd breathes out. Words are back online again, that’s good. He exhales, shuddering. “S’just what’s left of it.”

Jay worries his lip, and then realization sparks in his eyes. “You were going for the top cabinet,” he says, slowly. Then— “Cole had the pain meds last, didn't he.”

Lloyd nods, his good hand clutching and un-clutching at his shoulder. Jay makes a sympathetic noise in his throat, then moves for the cabinet himself. He uses the same drawer handle as a step-up that Lloyd did, but he doesn’t wobble, snatching the bottle from the top shelf and stepping down neatly. Thunder shakes through the apartment, and Lloyd squeezes his eyes shut tight, barely conscious of the sound of running water. When he opens them, Jay is in front of him again, a glass of water and four larger pills held out.

“You look like you could use the extra,” he says, in explanation.

Lloyd nods gratefully, shoving the pills in his mouth before grabbing the glass and draining it. “Thanks,” he croaks out.

Jay nods, his eyes lingering on Lloyd’s prosthetic. He opens his mouth once, then closes it. Then opens it again, inhaling like he’s gonna say something, then shuts it again. Then again—

“Jay, spit it out.”

“CanIlookatit,” Jay blurts out, red immediately rising in his cheeks.

Lloyd blinks rapidly, trying to parse out the jumble of words. “Can you — huh?”

“Look at it,” Jay repeats, shifting awkwardly. “Your, uh, your arm? The prosthetic one, I mean. Just ‘cause I think I can help it! Help you, I think I can help you, ‘cause you kinda look like it’s hurting you, which would make sense, with the storm, and I might be able to — to help, if that’s not like, a problem with you — if it is that’s fine! I totally get it, I mean if my arm had got — was lost, I’d be—”

“J-Jay, slow — Jay,” Lloyd tries vainly to cut over him once, before succeeding the second time. Lloyd gives him a weak smile, then flops his arm out. He immediately regrets the action, as it feels like he’s shoved a knife or two into his arm. “It’s — ow — fine. You can look at it.”

“Oh! Cool,” Jay says, deflating in relief. “Ah, thanks for trusting me?”

Lloyd waves him off, with his good arm his time. “There’s like, six people left I trust, but I trust ‘em with my life. You’re one of them.”

“Oh,” Jay repeats, but he sounds sad this time. A little too understanding, too, and Lloyd wonders if their entire team isn’t suffering similar issues with putting faith in people, after everything.

“Here,” Jay says firmly, as if shaking that sobering thought off. He points to the couch, eyeing Lloyd as he winces with the thunder again. “Wanna lie down, so I can look at it?”

“Sure,” Lloyd mutters, flopping down on the couch (and immediately regretting the action, again, you’d think he’d learn by now), lying with his head at the left end so he can spread his prosthetic out on the edge of the cushioned footrest. Jay steps over, carefully sitting down on the floor by him, hands hovering hesitantly over the arm.

…his arm. His arm, just a bit different.

“I like the design here,” Jay says quietly, his fingers ghosting over the engraving Nya had put on one quieter day during the Resistance. It’s in the shape of a dragon, like the one of his other spare prosthetic, but this one is a little subtler, almost sketched into the metal. “It’s cool.”

“Nya did it,” Lloyd says. “And you can touch it, if you want.”

“Oh — yeah,” Jay gives a nervous laugh. “Um. Could I, like, see where it…attaches?”

Lloyd blinks, glancing to where the sleeves of his too-big (Kai’s) t-shirt fall well over where the metal arm meets his stump. He swallows, then nods, carefully rolling back the fabric until his shoulder’s exposed. “That good?”

Jay, to his credit, just gives a quiet, hissing little intake of breath, and nods. And it really is to his credit, because while Pixal did all she could, the surgery was — well, Lloyd was in and out during it, but it was haphazard at best, and the scarring it left all up to his shoulder is…

It’s not pretty. And Lloyd’s been thinking he doesn’t mind, but now that he actually has someone looking at it, he’s realizing he might.

Time to invest in a lot more long sleeves, he thinks dully.

Jay’s frozen for a second, and Lloyd bites his lip, trying not to squirm as he stares openly at the scarring. Then he shakes his head, bright eyes gaining the steady determination Lloyd knows, and sets to work, fingers carefully skimming one of the compartment edges.

“Lemme know if anything hurts.”

Lloyd just nods. It’s weird, at first, feeling but not really feeling as Jay fiddles with the arm. He still doesn’t like not being able to truly feel stuff with it, but right now, with the pulsing pain still lingering from the storm outside, he’s almost glad for it. To the point where the idea of feeling anything else in what’s left of his poor arm almost has him flinching away from Jay.

Jay’s fingers are careful, though, and he finally clicks something in the arm into place that shifts the whole thing, the throbbing pressure on a few particular nerves in Lloyd’s arm letting up some, and his shoulders go loose in relief, the tight rigidness he’s been holding them in easing off.

“Oh,” he exhales in relief, a bit shakily as he sits up. “That’s better. That — thank you. That’s a lot better.”

Jay beams, clearly pleased with himself. “No problem, green machine,” he says. “Just glad I can help. I mean, Nya did a great job with it, but the uh — the wires right here, you see? Those can get twisted up if you move around a lot, and that’ll create pressure on the nerves, and then you’ve got the gears here, and…”

Lloyd quickly loses track of Jay’s technical babble, nodding along like he understands instead. His brother’s stream of chatter is a nice sound against the rain in the background, warm and familiar, and Lloyd slowly relaxes further, his shoulders crying in relief as they lose their tension. The meds are kicking in now too, and the pain’s ebbed into something a lot easier to manage. Enough for Lloyd to start feeling guilty, anyways.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” he finally says, after Jay’s wound down from his explanation, ducking his head.  

Jay waves him off. “I was already up, anyways,” he shrugs. “The storm woke me. They…they do that a lot.”

Lightning flashes, as if to echo his statement, and Lloyd notices the twitch that runs through Jay this time, how he almost seems to vibrate with the thunder that follows.

“Does it bother you?” he asks, a little hesitantly. “The storm?”

It feels like a silly question, because Jay can practically create storms, he thrives in them, Lloyd’s seem him straight-up catch a lightning bolt in his hand and chuck it like a baseball without breaking a sweat. But even though Lloyd's definitely not the ninja of lightning, it is the element he found easiest to wield, when he’d had all four, and he remembers the way the connection would buzz at him.

Jay bites his lip, his fingers tapping some vaguely familiar beat on the table as he fidgets, turning the question over in his head.

“It’s — I feel it under my skin, you know?” he finally says, bouncing a bit in agitation. “I mean, it’s not bad, but I can — I can hear the lightning outside, like it’s talking to me, and I can’t sleep through it. I normally can, I mean, but — but normally it’s not this loud.”

He trails off, frustrated as he glares out the window. “Everything’s been loud since the First Realm,” he mutters, beneath his breath.

“Oh,” Lloyd says, quietly. The guys have told them about the First Realm, sure, but like — not really. The same way Lloyd and Nya have told them about the Resistance, but not really. An outline of the events, sure. A plot-like summary of important details, as detached as possible, sure. But all the worst parts, the crushing grief and despair and the awful headaches from too little sleep and too many held-back tears, all that? No way.

So while Lloyd knows they went through heck in the First Realm, he doesn’t really know. But with the way Jay’s eyes are shadowed, the dark circles beneath them and the way he looks like he’s years older as he stares at the storm out the window right now, he can guess.

“That must’ve been tough,” he finally says, hesitantly. “Being stranded, and everything. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I was cut off from everything like that.”

Jay blows his breath out, his fingers trembling slightly where they lace together. “It wasn’t fun,” he says, a little distantly. “I…I was kind of a mess, at first. I think I scared the guys. I wish I hadn’t, but it was just — it was a lot.”

Lloyd’s not sure what to say to that, so he just squeezes Jay’s forearm with his good hand, and hopes it’s worth something.

Jay shakes his head, almost as if to himself, “I just wish I’d been useful.”

Lloyd blinks at that, taken aback — and pretty concerned — at the gaping insecurity in Jay’s voice. He knows Jay struggles with that, but to see it this raw—

It hurts.

“Kai says you helped build that dragon,” he says, nudging Jay’s side with his knee. “That plan wouldn’t have worked without you. And you drew up the actual plans, and kept them secret and everything. And I saw you, when you guys came back. You saved us, right in the nick of time. It sounded like you were pretty crucial to the whole thing, to me.”

Jay gives a huff of laughter, but some of the tension in his expression eases. “You’re just saying that. Buttering me up,” he shakes his head, knocking his fist against Lloyd’s leg.

“Am not,” Lloyd says, kneeing him back. “I’m serious. You’re all kinds of useful. I’d totally hire you, if you came to me with your ninja resumé.”

“Yeah, ‘cause job number one on it would be ‘green ninja babysitter’. You’d have no choice."

Lloyd sputters. “I’m not — you guys don’t babysit me.”

“I have a whole lot of evidence that proves otherwise,” Jay says, grinning. “The others would agree, too.”

“This is mutiny,” Lloyd glares. “The nerve, the utter disrespect. I’m your leader.”

Jay actually laughs at that, further proving Lloyd’s point that his whole team is awful. But it’s a genuine laugh, one that softens the lines of stress at the corners of Jay’s eyes, so Lloyd figures he can let it go and laugh a little himself.

This time. They’re gonna have to talk about the babysitting thing later.

“We really missed you guys,” Lloyd finally says as his laughter ebbs, his traitor voice cracking in the middle. “A-a lot. I’m really glad you’re back. Like, you have no idea.”

“I think we kinda do,” Jay breathes out on dying laughter. “We missed you too, you know. We couldn’t even check if you were alright, we had no idea what was happening. You guys were realms away.”

Lloyd swallows back the ‘but you were dead’. Jay doesn’t need that knowledge right now. Jay needs to be able to relax, and to get more than three hours of sleep for once.

“Well, we’re in the same one now,” he says, with a wry smile. “Hopefully we can stay that way, for a while.”

“Do not jinx us,” Jay points his finger at him, and Lloyd manages a grin that feels genuine this time, shrugging. He’s beyond pleased to find out that the action doesn’t hurt so much, only feeling the faint twinges of pain this time. Lloyd stifles a yawn instead of replying, and Jay fixes him with a look, jerking his head back toward the bedroom.

“If your arm’s better, you should get back to sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lloyd mutters, biting back a groan as he stands, wobbling a bit as his arm swings loosely. “That goes for you, too.”

“I’m not the one with designer bags for eyes,” Jay says, even though he clearly has dark circles worse than Lloyd. He pauses, eyeing Lloyd’s arm. “You really shouldn’t sleep with this on, you know,” he adds, tapping his wrist, nails clacking oddly on the metal.

Lloyd cringes. “I know,” he mutters. “I’m just — I don’t wanna have to put it on, if we…”

“If we’re attacked in the middle of the night?” Jay says drily, but there’s understanding in his voice. “Yeah, I get that. But hey, how about this: you sleep with it off for tonight, and if anyone comes in to kill you, I’ll take ‘em out.”

Lloyd raises an eyebrow. “Lightning blast to the face?”

“Lightning blast to the face,” Jay nods solemnly.

Lloyd shifts, arms wrapped around himself, his real fingers clenching anxiously at the juncture where his prosthetic meets his arm. It’s tempting, the idea of having the heavy weight off for the night. Really tempting.

But that also means taking it off, and that sounds…less than fun, especially after all the pain he’s already been in tonight.

“I’ll consider it,” Lloyd says, smiling weakly. “But I have full faith in you.”

Jay’s eyes are understanding as he nods, knocking his fist gently against Lloyd’s arm again. “Good. Now, bed. Practice starts back tomorrow, remember? You don’t wanna be dead tired for that.”

Lloyd’s heart sinks. Oh, no. He’d forgotten.

“Aw, man,” he moans. “This is gonna be a disaster.”

“Don’t say that,” Jay says, clearly trying to sound optimistic. “It’ll go fine. Wait and see.”

************************

It is, in fact, a disaster.

The first practice with the guys after everything reminds him a whole lot of his first time sparring with Nya down one arm, and that — well, sucks. That’s about as cheerfully as he can put it.

“Do you need a hand?” Lloyd looks up at the voice, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun. Zane’s standing over him, looking slightly apologetic, his hand outstretched.

Lloyd takes the offered hand, pulling himself with a grunt of effort. “Yeah, a right one would be nice.”

Jay and Nya groan in unison. Zane just flicks his eyes skywards, his mouth curving up slightly as he hauls Lloyd the rest of the way to his feet. Lloyd wobbles a bit, caught off guard, and Zane steadies him, grabbing for his prosthetic before he can lose balance. Zane’s hand lingers a little too long around it, his eyes flashing in concentration where they rest on the metal fingers. Lloyd’s about to ask him what’s up — growing slightly defensive — when Zane lets go, blinking once. The look of furrowed concentration stays on his face even as he steps back, though, and Lloyd’s not sure if he likes that.

“Sorry, Lloyd,” Cole says, interrupting his train of thought as he steps forward, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck in guilt. “I didn’t think you’d — I shouldn’t have been hitting that hard.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have,” Kai snaps testily, his eyes flashing in the dangerous kind of protectiveness Lloyd’s used to seeing against people not in their family. He quickly intervenes, waving his hands.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, chill out,” he says, hastily. “I wasn’t paying attention, it was my fault. Besides, it’s not any worse than what Nya gave me the first time we sparred with, uh…the arm.”

Nya rolls her eyes. “You kept tripping everywhere. That’s not my fault.”

Lloyd goes a bit red, but he doesn’t argue back. He’s pretty sure Pixal has video footage that would invalidate any argument he’d have, anyways.

Kai looks between the two of them, then seems to lose some of the fire, shoulders sagging. “Just…be more careful,” he mutters. “Lloyd’s arm is still pretty new.”

Lloyd’s head swivels to Kai, his mouth half-open, incredulous. He begs Kai’s pardon, who, again, lost their arm here and who definitely didn’t? Who knows what they’re talking about, and who knows absolutely nothing—

“Yeah, no, for sure,” Cole nods back, like Lloyd isn’t even here. “I’ll let up on the heavier attacks, too.”

Lloyd snaps his mouth shut tightly. He wants to scream. They’re all acting like Lloyd is glass, like he’s fragile. And that’s not the problem. The problem isn’t his arm. The problem isn’t even that he’s not used to the prosthetic, because at this point he kinda is. (He’s getting there.) No, the problem is that the guys are all walking on eggshells around him, to the point where the hits they do throw at him are so sporadic it’s completely throwing Lloyd off. Like he’s being attacked by uncoordinated chickens with no heart in their attacks, or something.

It’s actually a pretty good strategy to keep in mind, he muses, for another time when the target isn’t him.

“Um, no, you won’t,” he says instead, biting his cheek to keep the edge out of his voice. “You’re going to actually attack me. You’re holding back so much right now you’re handicapping yourself worse than me without a metal arm.”

Cole looks taken aback. “I just sent you to the ground, bud,” he says. “Hard.”

“You only sent me to the ground because I wasn’t expecting you to hit like Jay,” Lloyd shoots back.

“Hey!”

“If that’s the tactic you wanna use, fine, but only if you’ve got a plan for when I blast you right back from the ground.”

Cole blinks. “Do your powers even work with the prosthetic?”

“I do have another arm,” Lloyd growls. He immediately feels bad, because he sounds angrier than he should be, but that subject’s touchy. He hasn’t tried to use his powers with the prosthetic yet, apart from the blinding blast of energy he’d given off when he’d first gotten them back, and he doesn’t want to find out if another use will blow his arm to pieces or not.

“It should work with it, anyways,” Nya assures them, though there’s a spark of uncertainty in her eyes. “Your powers are pretty intuitive. They protect you, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to hurt you like that.”

Lloyd doesn’t say how completely unfounded this is, because his powers tried to protect him during the fight with his father and they sure as heck hurt him then, but she does have…a bit of a point. And again — there’s like, the glaring fact that his arm did not explode when he went supernova on top of Borg Tower. And Lloyd’s control is way better these days, so in all honesty, it’ll probably be fine.

But on the off chance. Lloyd is trying to be more careful, lately.

Now the guys, though. The guys are taking careful to a completely ridiculous level.

“Maybe we should tone it down for today, just to be safe,” Kai says, exchanging looks with Cole. A vein somewhere in Lloyd’s forehead begins to throb. “We don’t want to take any risks.”

“Oh, yeah, like we weren’t taking plenty of risks while you guys were gone in the First Realm. Oh wait, we did, and we were just fine then,” Lloyd snaps.

He immediately regrets it, because Kai’s expression does this awful crumpling thing, and Cole’s eyes widen painfully. Jay just looks down, and Lloyd hates himself.

“I-I didn’t mean—” he stammers, grasping desperately for the words to apologize, when Zane lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, silencing him.

“How about I train with Lloyd one on one for a bit,” he says. The corners of his mouth quirk up, humorlessly. “I think cooling down might be in order.”

Lloyd feels his cheeks heat, but he ducks his head, nodding. Kai looks like he want to protest, but he shuts his mouth, nodding as well, and Lloyd’s relieved to see a kind of understanding in his eyes.

He hopes he does, Lloyd thinks to himself, as Zane leads them away from the others, to the other side of the yard they’re using for training. He hopes, that Kai and Jay and Cole know he isn’t actually trying to attack them for getting yanked into another realm instead of being crushed to death, because that is definitely not something he would ever complain about—

“So, how strong is your arm?”

Lloyd blinks rapidly, yanked back to the present. “My — what?”

Zane repeats the question, patiently. “Your arm, the prosthetic one. Do you know how strong it is?”

“Like…as in durability, or how hard can I hit with it?” Lloyd asks, flexing a metal wrist.

“Ah. That’s a good question,” Zane tilts his head. “Both, I suppose.”

“Um, pretty strong, I guess,” Lloyd winces, remembering the last time he’d tested how strong it was, and he’d sent the punching bag through the wall instead. “Most of the strength is in my forearm, ‘cause it’s just metal and gears there. It gets a little dicey where it connects, up here, but it can take the heavy hits.”

His father had the honor of testing that part out, he thinks bitterly.

Zane nods, his eyes calculating. “Good. Then show me a heavy hit.”

It takes a second for the question to register, but when it does, Lloyd blanches. “No,” he says, firmly. “No way.” He remembers how the punching bag crumpled beneath his metal fist. He remembers too well how his father, full power, had actually buckled under several of his hits. The idea of hitting one of the guys with that same force makes him sick.

“Ah,” Zane says, and there’s a spark in his eyes. “So now you want to start holding back.”

“This — this is different,” Lloyd grinds out, trying not to go red in embarrassment. “It’s one thing to hold back entirely, but my arm is — its different, Zane, it’s way stronger now, and I don’t wanna hurt you guys with it.”

“I’m not going to break, Lloyd,” Zane says, cooly.

Lloyd bites his lip. “Look, I’m serious, you don’t understan—”

The end of Lloyd’s sentence cuts off with a yelp as Zane sweeps his leg out from beneath him, sending him sprawling to the ground. He looks up at him, wounded, and Zane just tilts his head.

“You said you want us to stop holding back,” he says, challenging. “You want a real fight, so fight back. Hit me.”

That’s all the warning Lloyd gets before Zane sweeps another kick toward him, forcing Lloyd to roll out of the way, somersaulting backwards before springing back to his feet. He opens his mouth to protest, but Zane’s elbow is already whistling toward his head, followed by his fist, and Lloyd’s too busy blocking and dodging to get any word out edgewise.

He’s not going to hit him with it, Lloyd tells himself fiercely. He’s not, but — but Zane is actually attacking him now, with all the cool calculation and devastating accuracy Zane is really good at, and if Lloyd doesn’t launch a counterattack soon, Zane’s going to obliterate him in full view of everyone.

Through the buzz of adrenaline, Lloyd bites back a curse. He’s forgotten, for a crippling moment, how smart Zane is. The way he’s pressing on him is leaving his left arm for blocking, which means the only way he’s gonna get a decent hit in is with his right. So either Lloyd sucks it up and hits Zane with the metal arm already, or he’s going to eat dirt the rest of the day.

Darn it, Zane, Lloyd thinks heatedly, barely dodging the next barrage of hits, wincing as one clips his shoulder. He’s just gonna have to do it. They both asked for this—

Lloyd suddenly ducks, darting beneath Zane’s blow then squaring back, bringing his fist up and swinging hard — just to crash right into Zane’s own blocked fist with a loud, screeching clang of metal.

Lloyd blinks. The hit he’d just thrown wasn’t holding back — it was way harder than he should’ve thrown, actually — but Zane just slides a few feet back, barely flinching. He flexes his wrist, a grin curving up the edge of his mouth.

“You aren’t the only one with a metal arm, you know,” he says evenly, and oh. Oh. Lloyd stops dead, staring at him.

So Lloyd’s just an idiot. Here he is, freaking out about how different his arm is now, how no one gets it, and Zane’s been metal this whole entire time.

“I…” Lloyd trails off, staring at him wordlessly. He feels so stupid, a total sham of the leader he’s supposed to be. He’s overlooked the most obvious fact ever, to the point where he’s been severely misjudging Zane, and that’s…that’s bad. That’s very bad, if he’s calling himself leader here.

And that, Lloyd realizes, with an unpleasant jolt, is the real problem with all this. Not the guys, not the arm. It’s Lloyd, failing to lead them against Harumi, failing to lead them against his father, and failing to lead them now. No wonder they can’t take him seriously, when Lloyd can’t even give them the decency of doing the same.

“Oh,” he whispers.

“It’s difficult,” Zane says, quietly. “To see yourself as one way, then suddenly as another. Even if it’s just one limb. Adjusting can be…difficult.”

Lloyd ducks his head, swallowing. “I’m sorry.”

Zane makes a noise that could be a huff of laughter, if it wasn’t so exasperated. “You don’t need to apologize. That is not the point I’m trying to make.”

Lloyd stares at the ground, not meeting his eyes. Zane’s footsteps draw close, until he’s right in front of him.

“Lloyd.” Zane’s hand is gentle on his shoulder, and Lloyd slowly looks up at him, feeling very much like he’s nine years old again, and Zane is the older brother who knows infinitely more about the world than he ever will.

“We are more than just a team for you to lead,” he says, gently. “We’re your family, above all else. We may not have been here when you needed us, but we are here now, and we want to be. We trust you. We just want you to trust us back.”

“I do,” Lloyd says, fervently. “I do, Zane, and I didn’t mean to — I never blamed—” He cuts off, shaking his head and swallowing. “I wanted to be there, too,” he rasps. “I — we couldn’t be there for you guys, either. You were alone, too. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to any of us.”

“No,” Zane says, sounding very tired. “No, it wasn’t.”

Not for the first time, Lloyd wonders how heavily the guys edited their own story of their time apart, and how much of the darker stuff they decided to leave out. The hollow look in Zane’s eyes leaves his stomach sinking. Probably a lot.

“B-but we’re together now,” Lloyd finally speaks up, cringing at the waver in his voice. “And, um. I know I’ve been most of the problem, but — but I trust you guys. I trust you, so — could you show me how to use my arm?”

Zane looks at him, and Lloyd offers him a tentative smile. “Since you’re the resident expert, and all.”

Zane’s mouth quirks up in a grin of amusement, and Lloyd feels a happy flare of victory at the action.  

“I wouldn’t call myself that,” he says, lightly. “But yes, I can help adjust your training. Provided, of course, you throw better hits. No offense intended, but that one was…pitiful, at best.”

Lloyd chokes on a laugh. “Okay, if that’s how it is. I’ll show you a real hit. Just don’t go crying to Cole when I wipe the floor with you.”

“I assure you,” and there’s an edge to Zane’s smile that promises Lloyd’s not leaving here without his fair share of bruises. “I have no intention of doing so.”

************************

Training with Zane helps even more than he’d thought it would. Not only does Lloyd start to learn how to better use his prosthetic to an advantage, the others pick up on it and start actually fighting Lloyd again, well-practiced moves and techniques that force him to fight back, and by the third week of practices they’ve all slid back into a steady routine, even if there is still the occasional hesitation when it comes to Lloyd’s right arm.

Except for Nya. She’s been sending him sprawling across the mat since day one, no problem, and even with her healing arm she’s never stopped threatening to do it again.

Lloyd’s beyond grateful, though — he’s starting to almost feel normal again, to feel a little like his old self, with his proper place on the team, and he finally, finally feels like he’s doing something right. So he’s got no right to complain whatsoever, when the increased training leaves his arm feeling so sore he may as well have gotten hit by a truck.

A throbbing ache shoots through his right wrist again, pulsing up through the bones of his arm. Lloyd’s fingers grasp on air, wavering once, twice before it clicks that there’s nothing there. A croaking laugh almost bubbles up in his throat. His arm is in agony and it’s not even there. There is no wrist there to hurt, he doesn’t even have his prosthetic on right now. So why—

Phantom pain, he reminds himself firmly, before clicking the prosthetic back into place, the motion slowly growing familiar. It’s just a ghost, like Morro. Lloyd survived him, he can survive this.

Besides, he doesn’t have time to be hallucinating an arm that’s not there. He’s gotta have his best face on right now, because this…this is going to take a lot out of him.

Lloyd stares at Kryptarium Prison with hollow eyes, trying to rid himself of the icy shiver that’s crawling up and down his spine. They’ve since fixed the damage to the walls, and he’s eternally grateful for that — but the stretch of stone that’s been recently repaired is obvious, and Lloyd can easily pick out exactly where he went bursting through when—

When Lloyd’s brain was an idiot, he scolds himself, as the shiver threatens to turn into a full-blown panic attack. Those memories need to go right back into the dark hole he’s shoved them in, where they can stay for the rest of his entire life.

Besides, the person he’s about to see is gonna bring back enough bad memories, as it is.

Lloyd swallows, forcing past the fear closing in around his throat as he finally starts walking again, his feet practically dragging toward the prison doors. His arm throbs in pain with every step, spreading to the aching twin points on the back of his right hand.

Which isn’t there, he reminds himself fiercely. There’s no hand to hurt, move past it, brain.

The doors slide open for him with a mechanical hiss, a chiming bell warning the guards of his entrance. Lloyd’s in full gi, hood pulled back, so no one stops him, the outermost guards just nodding to him as he passes. Lloyd barely manages a grimace of greeting for them, where he’d normally have at least something sincere. But it’s hard enough, trying to keep his expression impassive. Each step further into the prison feels like a step closer to his doom, and this is ridiculous because the only other time he’s felt this nervous walking up a set of stairs was the Overlord—

“Name, please?”

Lloyd blinks, abruptly realizing he’s already reached the check-in gate. He shakes his head, trying to reorient himself. Name, please, he thinks drily, as he looks up. Like this guard doesn’t know who he is, entirely decked out in green, it isn’t like he’s been on TV a whole lot in the last month—

Anyways.

“Lloyd Garmadon,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound like a gasp for air. “I’d like to see my — um, Lord Garmadon. He should be in heavy lockdown.”

Private lockdown, somewhere dark and deep, probably, Lloyd thinks. He tells himself he doesn’t feel anything at that. His father probably likes it, anyways, being alone and in the dark. That’s all it seems he’d even wanted, except for maybe her—

Lloyd thrusts the hot flash of emotion down deep along with the rest of that thought, and tries to focus on the guard’s reply.

“—terribly sorry, but I can’t let you in.”

Lloyd’s brain stutters to a halt. “Sorry, could you repeat that?” he frowns, taken aback. He doesn’t like to throw his weight around, but Lloyd’s pretty sure that the ninja are supposed to have clearance to the entire prison. Especially after everything that’s happened, he and Nya practically have clearance to the entire city at this point.

“Your name’s been blacklisted,” the guard chews on the edge of his lip nervously. “Y-you aren’t allowed access to the prisoner in question.”

Lloyd blinks rapidly. “What?”

The guard is visibly sweating now. “The, uh, the records say I can’t let you in. To see him. Not without a signature.”

Lloyd’s stomach does a weird swooping thing, like he’s missed a step on the stairs. If he needs a signature, then someone had to go out of their way to block him — specifically him — from seeing Garmadon. Someone who the warden apparently decided had the right to make decisions for Lloyd.

“Who’s signature,” Lloyd grits out, fury barely held back.

The poor guard — because he really doesn’t deserve this, but oh, Lloyd is angry — shrinks even smaller in his seat, swallowing.

“Wu,” he finally says, stammering. “Your uncle, he — I’m sorry, but he technically has the right…”

Lloyd steps back, metal creaking as his fist forms. “Thank you,” he clips out tightly, then spins in place, hoping his eyes haven’t gone supernova yet.

No, he’s saving that for his uncle.

************************

“How could you do that.”

Sensei Wu barely stirs, visibly unaffected by the way Lloyd’s just slammed his door open, and is currently fuming in the doorway like a very angry part-Oni crime of nature.

“It was, at the moment, the correct course of action to take.” He sips evenly at his tea, not even attempting to pretend he doesn’t know exactly what Lloyd’s talking about.

Lloyd sees red. “You had no right.”

Sensei Wu finally looks at him, sighing wearily. “I’m your family, Lloyd. I have every right—”

“Not this one!”

Sensei’s eyes are sympathetic, but unrelenting. “Your mother told me what happened, Lloyd. What you did.”

Lloyd almost swallows his tongue at the shock of surprise, but it quickly mixes with a hot flare of betrayal in his chest. It’s his arm, it’s his story to tell.

“Cool.” The words scrape through his teeth. “That doesn’t mean you can block me from seeing him!”

“Your head isn’t in the right place to see him, Lloyd. Neither is your heart. I believe you know this, too.”

“My head—” Lloyd trips over his words in anger. “My head is fine! So’s my heart, thanks.”

Sensei Wu’s eyes narrow. “You’ve never been the best of liars, nephew.”

Lloyd is going to smash his stupid teapot. “Then maybe your perception is still off from the First Realm, uncle.”

A part of Lloyd’s soul dies at the sentence, because it’s the most dangerously rude thing he’s said to his uncle since he was like, eight. But he swallows it back, because he has a bad feeling it’s not going to be the worst thing he says in this conversation.

His uncle’s lips press tightly together, and Lloyd feels more than sees the crackle of anger in his eyes as the atmosphere heats, no longer a conversation between sensei and student. It’s a family conversation, now. “I hardly need much perception to see how traumatized you are from recent events. It’s not difficult to miss.”

“Traumatized—” Lloyd sputters, his own eyes narrowing. “You know what, fine, so what? It’s not like I haven’t been — been traumatized, or whatever, before,” he snaps. “Morro put my head pretty out of place, and you were fine with that.”

Sensei Wu’s eyes flash. “I was not ‘fine’ with that. I was nowhere near fine with that, but at that time you were equipped to deal with it. And you were not forcing yourself to face Morro on some shred of false hope you know will only hurt.”

Lloyd full-body flinches back at that last part. But it’s not that — it’s not because —

See, Lloyd knows. He’s had it physically beaten into him multiple times, that he’s not the father he knew. He knows that he’s not really him, that he will never be him, that he will never regain the father he lost no matter how much this one looks like him.

But — but Lloyd’s heart can only take so much at once, and he’s dangerously close to reaching a point where nothing will repair that kind of break. He can take a hundred prison walls and his arm cut off fifty times in a row, but that is something he’d rather die than have to face right now.

And to hear the phrase false hope coming from the one person he’d hoped would understand nearly breaks Lloyd on the spot.

So he gets angry instead.

“You taught me not to give in to fear,” his voice is icy, words measured and slow. “You taught me not to put off until tomorrow what I can deal with today, and you wanted me to make my own decisions.”

“Yet I do not recall teaching you to disregard any and all concerns for your wellbeing,” his uncle replies, his voice just as glacial. “Nor do I remember teaching you to argue back against my orders.”

“You made me master!” Lloyd nearly shouts back, barely restraining himself. “You told me to start giving the orders, how am I supposed to do that if you don’t trust me? You can’t keep doing this to me, either you trust me or you don’t!”

“I do trust you, but I will not lose another member of my family because they believe they’re stronger than they are!” Uncle Wu snaps, his eyes flashing, and for a beat Lloyd can almost see the Oni in his blood, as well. “I’ve forced you to face your father too many times, Lloyd. I will not let him continue to hurt you.”

“He isn’t hurting me!” Lloyd bursts out, despite knowing those words are a stone-cold lie. But— “He’s already hurt me, I almost died, what worse can he do from a prison cell?”

“More than you will acknowledge!” his uncle barks back. He exhales tightly, eyes closing briefly before re-opening. “Lloyd, I understand that you are upset with my decision. But in time, you will see that this was the right one. Your perception is clouded to the point where you can no longer see yourself properly, and a leader who continues to put themselves further into that state is not fit to be leader.”

Lloyd’s teeth snap together with an audible clack, and his fists tighten, fingernails biting into his palms and metal fingers creaking. “You’ve been gone for months,” he grinds out. “For a year, and I led just fine that whole time. You can’t just come back now and say I’m — I’m a screwup—”

“That is not what I—”

“And you keep talking about decisions, when you didn’t even ask me before—”

“Lloyd—”

“—going behind my back is way out of line and you know it!”

“This is not—”

“And my perception is fine, I do see myself—”

“Lloyd, I said—”

“—and I’m fine, Uncle Wu, I swear, I can face him I’m fine—”

“That is enough, Lloyd!”

Lloyd flinches back as his uncle’s voice cracks out, angrier than he’s heard it. Wu’s knuckles turn white around his cup handle, and his eyes glint with the steel of his glare. “This is my decision, and I will not move from it until you can prove that you are ready.”

Until he can prove he’s ready. Like Lloyd hasn’t had to prove again and again—

Like he doesn’t believe in Lloyd either when he was the one—

Like Lloyd wasn’t willing to lose an arm not to fail him—

Something dangerous in Lloyd snaps.

“You’re just as bad as him,” he spits, venomous like a snake. “You’re all the same, you think you know what’s best for me and you never care how I feel! You don’t even care about me, you just care about the stupid Green Ninja and your stupid prophecies and I’m sick of it, I’m so sick of being your Green Ninja, I hate it!”

Sensei Wu goes stark white. His fingers tremble and his teacup drops to the table, his eyes painfully wide. “Lloyd,” he whispers, weakly. “That’s not—”

“Fine,” Lloyd snaps over him, blinking back angry tears. “Fine, I’ll stay away from him. I’ll stay away from all of you. I hate being part of this family anyways.”

He turns on heel before he can look at his uncle a second longer, before the tears can start to fall and he has the chance to say anything else. There’s a high-pitched buzzing in his ears as he storms back down the hall, the lightbulbs above him sparking wildly in his wake before shorting out, exploding into tiny bits of glass that rain over the floor.

Lloyd darts past them, hurrying his footsteps as he tries to escape the apartment with the rest of the lights unscathed. Shoving open the stairwell door, Lloyd makes a break for the rooftop, where he at least knows it’ll be quiet, and there won’t be as many lights for him to burst, and his uncle can’t—

Lloyd pushes the rooftop door open and stumbles out with a heaving gasp, drawing air in desperately as if that’ll ground him. His heart is racing way too fast, way too angry, and his power is zinging all over his skin like a swarm of angry bees. He’s almost dizzy with how angry he is — except that’s not right, he’s not just angry, there’s a whole wave of emotion coming in from somewhere that’s threatening to — to drown him, and this is why Lloyd should always keep things bottled back where they belong—

A transformer across the street blows, and Lloyd jumps in alarm as it explodes, showering sparks down toward the street below. Lloyd blinks past the blurring tears, his stomach dropping. There’s a flickering of lights before the apartment complex below it goes dark, power lost as startled cries sound from the open windows. The power lines around him start thrumming dangerously, reaching a higher-pitched whine that prefaces bursting. Lloyd’s throat closes over in panic. Oh, no. He didn’t think — he can't be this bad. He doesn’t lose control like this, he — he needs to stop, right now, or the entire city’s going to lose power.

He clenches his fists again, trying to reign the power in, to pull it back to him, but it only sputters more wildly out of control. Lloyd’s hands are trembling now, shaking worse than before, and in a desperate attempt for it to stop he crumples to the rooftop, pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, burying his head in the crook of his flesh elbow and squeezing tight, metal digging painfully into his leg as he draws in tighter and tighter — like he can crush himself down into something small enough that he won’t feel so much anymore, and his power will stop, stop—

But it’s like he’s back in the prison, his power sparking wildly out of control and not listening to him. Just like her. Like his father, like his uncle, nothing he’s gotten from his family ever listens to him when it matters, and why should they. Why will they ever, when all Lloyd’s ever going to be is a weapon, a scribbled line in a prophecy or a stepping stone for power—

It’s his power. His power, and he can’t even get it to listen to him.

Lloyd listens to the power lines around him explode and lets his sweatshirt sleeve soak up the tears.

Lying to himself can only get him so far. He’s never going to be able to prove he’s ready to face his father.

Not when he doesn’t even know if he can.

[toastyships-moved]

Ninjago Insert Stuff

Regular

She's an elemental master of Space (listen if there can be elemental masters of Time, Metal, Mind, Speed etc then there can be one for Space)

She's in a poly with Zane and Pixal

She's Wu's adopted daughter

She's very protective of Lloyd

Almost tried fist fighting Morro

And Harumi

She was abandoned by her parents when she was a baby and then Wu found her and took her in

The previous EM of Space transfered their powers to her when she was a baby. They were going to adopt her after but they heard someone approaching and panicked, causing them to leave and forget to take her with them. They saw that it was Wu who had been the one approaching and had discovered her. They let Wu take her

She has a galaxy themed gi!

(Based off a hc of mine) she has pink-purple colored eyes after finding out about her powers

She was ecstatic and mad when she found out that Nya was the new elemental master of Water. Ecstatic bc she was no longer the only female ninja and mad bc Wu had told Nya a long while after Kai was revealed to be the EM of Fire

She was hesitant about Pixal joining their relationship, but Zane told her that it would be fine

Now she loves her ninja bf and samurai gf

She uses a bo staff as her weapon

She later gets it upgraded so that there is button she can press that unsheaths blades from the ends

Season 6 is a lot shorter bc she's the one who wished Nadakhan away rather than Jay doing it.

After 5 and before 6, she was very uncomfortable with the fame they had gotten, with the media and fans always hounding them.

During that time a movie got made about her and Zane called "The Titanium Lover" it was a stupid action romance fantasy movie that wasn't accurate.

She was grateful that Pixal was in Zane's head during this, she feared what would happened if they found out about their relationship. She feared that it would be some stupid love triangle thing where Pixal was the bitch character who was going to seduce Zane away from her or something like that. (I was thinking something like Twilight but different)

She has an Epic Showdown(tm) with Krux and Acronix at one point during season 7 (mostly bc of the whole "time & space" thing)

She was very much excited when Garmadon was purged of evil and she stayed at his monastery for a bit before going back to live with the ninja

When Misako came back she was very hostile towards her and didn't really forgive her for what she did to Lloyd and was kinda pissed at him for forgiving her so easily.

She very much threw down with Pythor after finding out what he did to Lloyd

AU

I have an au where she dies in season 2 and comes back in season 4, but doesn't have any memories till near the end

During the fight with the Overlord she had tried to slow down the evil-turned ninjas to try to buy Lloyd some time

She had promised him that they'll both make it out alive

She died by falling off the ramp.

Even though they got Garmadon back, they had lost someone important

Garmadon feels like it's his fault for her dying. That if he hadn't been bitten by the Devourer then she would still be alive or that if he hadn't gone to the island then she'd still be alive.

Lloyd felt betrayed when she died bc she had promised that they'll both make it out alive

Sometime before the events of season 3 Wu gets contacted by Cyrus and asks if he can open a planetarium in her honor. Wu is reluctant but eventually gives him his blessing.

She gets revived in season 3 but is stuck on Chen's island

He basically manipulates her into thinking that the ninja left her for dead on the Dark Island and secretly hated her.

She becomes very close to Skylor during her stay

She also gets the Andocondri tattoo on her back, which causes her to turn into one when Chen completes the spell

After gaining her memories back she tries to adjust back to Ninjago and being a ninja

Chen had her fight the ninjas during the Tournament in a bid of trying to get rid of them before they found out his true intentions

It fails, mostly in the fact that she couldn't bring herself to fight Lloyd

She got really sad when Garmadon sacrificed himself to stop Chen bc she never got the chance to spend time with him after he got the evil purged from his body.