#anyway. as much as i love dad cole even i can admit that pre-series cole... is not gonna get along with lloyd immediately

[razzle-zazzle]

would lloyd still free the serpentine in the runaways au? If cole is with him then the ninja wouldn't have hung him up and laughed at him, meaning that he wouldnt have had reason to free the serpentine. Also how does Cole end up a ninja in this au?

One way or another I'm going to free the Serpentine, they did not deserve being trapped in sunless tombs for an indeterminate time period.

Thinking... okay, so Lloyd actually makes it to Jamanakai Village before the sun even rises, while Cole's still at the little camp they settled in for the night. Because Lloyd's attempting to try and prank the town into thinking Lord Garmadon has returned, in an effort to get food. It uh... it doesn't work. The ninja are just about to hang him up on the roof when Cole shows up, upset for various reasons, and they back off.

Now Cole's annoyed and mortified and also not letting Lloyd out of his sight (he is also kinda lowkey proud of Lloyd's ingenuity, even if it didn't work all the way, but he's not like. super good with kids even if he and Lloyd are tentatively friends and in this journey of theirs together so he's not expressing anything other than annoyance and mortification), but Lloyd's upset enough that he manages to run off hours later regardless. He finds the Hypnobrai Tomb, opens it up, and immediately his mind lights up at the possibilities. Cole catches up to him, sees the chaos about to unfold, and for a moment, thinks "oh, good, the kid finally found someone willing to take care of him, I don't need to stick around anymore." So he turns to leave. He'll miss the brat, of course, but it's not like he's needed anymore, right?

Meanwhile, Wu is not only disappointed in his students for how they didn't take Lloyd seriously, but also suspects the "mean older brother" they described might be the missing Master of Earth he's been trying and failing to find. The moment he's done admonishing them he's got his head in his hands. Lily was never this hard to train, he swears, nor was she ever so hard to find.

The rest of the episode sort of progresses as in canon? Like, there's a bit where Lloyd notices Cole's absence and keeps hoping he'll pop up again, and Cole realizes that fuck, he really is going to miss Lloyd, and they definitely reunite at the end of the episode (with the map of the other tombs in hand) and realize they've grown too attached to each other to part just yet, and the ninja learn a whole lesson about not underestimating their enemy. But there's still a lot I need to work out...

I really need to rewatch Rise of the Snakes, huh 😅