#skylor was awake the whole time

[hawkflame999]

Ninjago headcanons 17-19

#17:

The word “Spin” is an inside joke among the Ninja and their friends. 

Like once, they’ll be spying on some random… let’s say gang, that’s been doing stuff besides living in the streets and stealing food. 

Lloyd: “Soooo….” Zane: “Spin?” Jay: *nodding* “Spin.” Kai: “Let’s just spin this out…..” Cole: “SPIN!”

Nya: *Facepalm* The other five:

Nya:

The other five: “Come on…….” Nya: *sighs* “Fine.”

Nya: “Spin.”

#18:

All ninja, every single one, and every single Elemental in existence knows Japanese. 

Even if they don’t have parents around or anything. They just instinctively know the tongue. 

The six and Wu will often just speak in Japanese to each other, and they use this during missions.

Like once, The Six + Skylor and Pixal were in a street fight (somehow) and the six were yelling at each other in Japanese. The gang thought they were warning each other or saying something along the lines of “Ok, how do we get out of this?”.

But Sky and Pix were trying very hard not to laugh because they could understand and knew that the Six were actually yelling insults at the gang leader. 

#19:

Wu will sometimes just Abandon English and go full Japanese when he’s stressed or angry or something like that.

Once, sometime after the Hands of Time, Ray, Maya, and Wu caught all six awake at like 4:AM and discovered they were up the whole night.

They got grounded. (XD, yes, Wu has the authority to ground them now)

The next day the six were bored so they snuck out and were just fooling around in the woods near the monastery.

Cole may have gotten a sprained wrist after a rabid bear came at them.  All six might have gotten a 30-minute lecture in Japanese from three people.

And grounded for a longer time

[kkangkkangie]

Pretty Girl vs. Pretty Boy

     Somewhere under the decks of the Bounty, Nya, Jay, and Cole were outside the TV room, peering through the window. “I knew they were gonna get together.” Nya stated matter-of-factly. “I told you so. Cough up the 10 bucks, Jay.” She put her hand out expectantly. 

     “It’s so not fair—she told you, didn’t she? You guys have your girl talk.” Jay whined but giving Nya the money. “Rigged.” He added with a side glare. 

     “She told me first actually.” Lloyd walked into the conversation, popping a jellybean into his mouth. “Ha.” He added to their surprised looks. 

     “Of course, her “little greenie,” how could we forget?” Cole put Lloyd in a headlock and gave a noogie. Lloyd extricated himself from the hold before sticking his tongue out like a child. 

     “Like you’re any better, Kirby.” Lloyd retorted with another nickname. Cole crossed his arms.

     “The one time I inhaled the chocolate cake—that’s the nickname I get.” He muttered, casting a mock glare to the person inside of the room, who had created the nickname in the first place. 

     “What’s going on?” Kai walked through the hallway, raising his eyebrows at the crowd in front of the room. “Why’re all out here?”

     Nya motioned for Kai to peer through the window of the Bounty. When he peered in, the sight of Minne and Skylor intertwined with each other greeted him. Both were motionless, only the rise and fall of the chest signified their sleeping state. 

     “Wait—are they dating?” Kai interjects with his eyebrows furrowed. “Wait—huh? I thought Skylor was—”

     “Kai, Kai, Kai.” Nya clucked while shaking her head. “Boys. Always so egotistical.” 

     “Hey!” The other ninjas shouted at that statement. 

     “I mean, I thought she was into you too.” Jay relented. “I mean come on, Kai’s decent looking enough.” There was an offended gasp from Kai at the statement, but Nya shushed him.

     “He’s a pretty boy,” Cole relented with a nod of his head. “But Minne—” He turns to the window.

     “She has the mysterious and the hot factor you don’t have.” Nya adds in. “I mean Minne’s pretty and can beat anyone up.”

     “I’m pretty! I can beat people up too!” Kai retorted, spluttering. “I’m literally a ninja!”

     “No—you just cause property damage. Minne’s like—pretty when she’s beating people up.” Nya interjected. The others nod in assent. “Have you seen her? She beats everyone up with like those dance moves—even Cole says she’s the real thing.”

     “Hey—Minne’s got my father’s seal of approval on the first time. She’s 100% the real thing.” Cole interrupted, cracking a smile at Kai’s face. “Come on, hedgehog. They were into each other during the tournament. Everyone saw that.”

     “I was into her during the tournament.” The door opened with Skylor smirking at the group. “She wasn’t till the end.” Everyone jumped at the sudden newcomer. “Hello, boys. Hey, Nya.” 

     “How much did you hear?” 

     “Enough to know that Nya got 10 dollars.” 

     “So everything.”

     “Yep.”

     “Then, Minne—”

     “Oh, you’re not gonna wanna move after training tomorrow.”

     “FSM.”

[ihavenosoul12]

My little Ninjago headcanons <3 mostly Season Four bc it's the season I got up to, my favourite and most nostalgic and I care them.

the ninjas start dating (NOT LLOYD HE IS THE DOG /j). starts with Jay and Cole, then Zane and then Kai. Nya prefers this over her friends killing each other for her heart.

Jay is a he/they meow meow. Starts using them in S5 but IDed as trans since before the show

Neuro lied to Jay and Cole about what they were thinking about each other because he's petty. No one calls him Nerdo <3

Shade is a they/them. Like me. Am I projecting? yea. didn't ask

Kai is also transgender and in my essay I will

Skylor aroace. She was raised by Chen of course she's going to show interest in the first guy to not immediately use her for her powers even if it's Kai.

After S4, Griffin and Shade live together. Having All or Nothing flashbacks. Karloff moves in a bit later.

Not a headcanon myself, more like an anti-headcanon but I saw a fanfic once where it claimed Neuro's mother was called Margaret and I've never financially recovered.

Neuro's hair is naturally white bc hearing everyone's thoughts is stressful ESPECIALLY when it's the S4 cast good God. Has to dye his hair to not look 70

Jacob should have kept the serpent that bitch didn't need to die.

Ash isn't mute he's just a rat goblin. jk but hc he's not talkative. Not quiet.

Gravis probably had the worst time controlling his powers.

Tox is a she/they and in lesbians with Chamille. They knew each other before but didn't start dating until after they helped stop a war.

Karloff likes dogs. Enough to sneak them into Shade and Griffin's apartment despite not allowed being pets.

Chen's Noodle House is the equivalent of McDonald's imagine if Ronald McDonald took over America- wait that happened but through capitalism.

Torn on whether Paleman (what the fuck is his name) should either:

not have a form bc of his powers and even when they've been snatched still not have a body

have a form this whole time that he is able to make appear and disappear at will and decides not to because it's funny

He is also Bolobo's ex

bolobo from my shows

There's probably some sort of communication between the Elemental Masters. I think it'd be a group chat because it's funny but also a book club is really funny

Clouse and Garmadon are exes. This makes Garmadon sending him to Lego Super Hell even funnier and more valid

Mindroid is in a juvenile detention center

Griffin was an iPad kid even before iPads were relevant. iBorgs?

They're all on TikTok and they're ALL gay as hell

I can't think of anymore because I am half awake.

[goldenavenger02]

I can't be alone with all that's on my mind

But the hatred took over, after all. He should've been the green ninja. He should've been the one who was chosen to defeat The Overlord. "I don't want to control it! This isn't anything I don't already feel!"

Takes place after The Forgotten Element

•••

Kai's stomach convulsed as he gripped onto the toilet seat tightly, his knuckles going white.

As soon as the horror had sunk in that Skylor and Lloyd were injured by his greed and that Skylor had been taken, he had bolted to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet in time before his stomach spilled over.

Which brought him to where he was now, bent over sick in the small bathroom just outside of the main room.

•••

"You have to destroy the staff, Kai!" Lloyd pleaded, running up to him as he continued to blast Chen's lackies.

"Chen was right! This thing's awesome!"

"Kai, it holds too much power! Destroy it!" He heard Lloyd say to someone "if we don't get that staff out of his hands-!"

"No one is taking my staff!" He yelled, anger in his voice. This was his now. He deserved it, after all. Lloyd just wanted to be the special one again. "You had all the power, now it's my turn!"

He shook the thoughts out of his head briefly, glaring at the offending object. "What am I saying? I can't… I can't control it!"

But the hatred took over, after all. He should've been the green ninja. He should've been the one who was chosen to defeat The Overlord. "I don't want to control it! This isn't anything I don't already feel!"

"No, Kai! Don't!" Lloyd pleaded, his arm in front of Skylor. A pathetic attempt to stop him, really, as he started to use the powers, the rush flowing through his body

"I should've been the green ninja!"

And with that, he launched the blast, watching the terror in their faces. He relished it with a grin.

•••

"Kai?" A voice broke him out of his thoughts, resulting in a shudder. He couldn't quite place who it was, but then it came again. "Kai, can I come in?"

A cough cut him off from responding to Cole, but he swallowed it back. "Yeah."

The door opened and Cole sat on the floor next to him, setting his hand against his back, "FSM, you're sweating through your gi." He heard him mutter under his breath, "I brought some water if you're up to it."

Kai shook his head; he wasn't very nauseous anymore, but he also wasn't sure he could keep anything down just yet since the nausea was now being replaced by the sinking feeling of guilt.

"Sensei G's got Lloyd," Cole spoke, clearly knowing exactly what Kai was thinking, "He's got some burns, and he's kinda weak from the whole "powers being sucked out of him" thing, but he's gonna be okay."

Kai nodded, but then the second thought came to his head. 'Nya still thinks I betrayed her and everyone else.'

Once again, Cole cut him off before he could even speak. "Lloyd explained the whole thing, they're not mad. Nya said your plan was dumb, but that was it."

Kai couldn't hold back his chuckle at the mental image of Nya critiquing his plan, but it was short-lived. 'Skylor's still hurt. And missing.'

"No one blames you, you did what you thought was right." Cole spoke softly, gently setting his hand on Kai's shoulder, who finally mustered up the strength to move away from the toilet and take the cup of water from Cole's hand, muttering under his breath as he drank.

"Don't think telling Lloyd that I should've been the green ninja before blasting him was right."

"You weren't in your right mind, the staff-"

"The staff brought out my subconscious thoughts that I've had since we found out about the prophecy." Kai interrupted, setting the empty glass down on the floor.

"The staff makes one greedy, power hungry. I don't know how it does it, but it obviously does. The reason it had no effect on Chen was because the dude was already cuckoo for cocoa puffs," Kai couldn't hold back a snort at the ridiculous phrasing, "and if you don't believe me, you can go ask Lloyd for his two cents."

Kai sighed. He knew he should talk to Lloyd, at least see that he was okay for himself, but at the same time, he had hurt Lloyd, the one he swore to protect when he was fully aware of what he was doing.

"It's up to you. Alternatively, you could help us try to find Chen, but considering you just threw up your guts, I'd go with the safer choice of talking to Lloyd."

Kai used the wall to pull himself to his feet, hitting the knob on the toilet before allowing Cole to support some of his weight since his legs were still shaking before speaking.

"Take me to Lloyd."

•••

Lloyd winced as Nya wiped at the cut on the side of his cheek.

While most of his injuries were from his fight with Chen, that one had occurred when the jet crashed into the basement and the staff hit him across the face as it flew out of Kai's hand.

Although, if he was being completely honest, he didn't remember much of the whole situation.

•••

Lloyd winced as he was pulled to his feet by two of the lackies who kept referring to themselves as Kapow and Chop, his side throbbing horrendously from his fight with Chen.

Despite trying to fight back, he was weak both physically and emotionally, not to mention the vengestone keeping his hands behind his back.

As he was forced down the halls and the echoes of the large serpent hit his ears, he fought back the tears that wanted to stream down his face.

'How could Kai do this? How could he hurt the team like this?' He tried to push back the selfish thought of 'how could he hurt me like this?' and tried to replace it with 'how could he do this to Nya?' but he couldn't do it.

As the chanting grew louder, he tried one more time to break out of the two men's hold, but one just kicked him in the leg, forcing him forward into the large room all four of them had snuck into on their first night here.

But Cole and Jay were nowhere to be seen, and as he looked at Chen, Clouse and Skylor who were surrounded by guards, he swallowed harshly, seeing Kai standing next to them.

The chanting rang in his ears as he was forced to kneel, the vengestone quickly being replaced by two giant chains attached to the floor.

He looked up as footsteps approached, seeing Kai grow nearer; the sadness and fury consumed him as he demanded, his voice thick with tears. "Why would you help them?"

"Don't worry," Kai insisted in a hushed tone, but as Clouse approached, he raised his voice, "it won't hurt. Much." Before walking away from him with a cackle, the chanting stopped altogether.

Lloyd watched as Skylor offered herself willingly to the spell, a pit growing in his stomach as she cried out in agony.

He had to shut his eyes.

But the cries stopped shortly afterwards and he opened his eyes, only to see Chen approaching him with a wicked grin on his face and his stomach dropped in fear.

"And now for the final element," the staff was pointed towards him and out of the corner of his eye, Lloyd saw Kai turn away, "only one can remain."

The white light surrounded him, and he was immediately hit with a searing pain in his chest that sent him to his knees before forcing a scream from his throat.

It was over fairly quickly, but he collapsed onto his hands and knees, trying to regain his breath as his body, now weaker than ever and heaved harshly.

•••

"Alright, that's the last injury," Nya announced, bringing Lloyd out of his thought process to see a joking smile on her face, "unless you're hiding something from me."

"No, you got everything. Thank you." Lloyd smiled softly, receiving a hand in his hair and he couldn't hold back his laughter because of just how normal that was.

"I'm gonna go help them find Chen, but your dad is right outside if you need anything. Get some rest."

Lloyd nodded, watching as Nya exited the room before laying down on his back, biting back the sharpness of the bruising from where he was thrown by Chen with his own abilities directly into the leaderboard.

The pain dulled out enough for him to close his eyes and try to let sleep take him when the door opened and two sets of slow footsteps approached him.

He couldn't stop from flinching due to the sting as a hand gently touched his burned wrist, but he instantly regretted it when he heard the voice. "Lloyd? Are you awake?"

'Kai'

Lloyd opened his eyes, blinking away the blurriness to see Cole and Kai standing over him. "Yeah, I'm awake," he noticed the guilty look on Kai's face, as well as the paleness, "you okay?"

"I should be the one asking you that."

"I will be," Lloyd nodded, getting a good look at Kai's face and already knowing that if he was gonna get any information out of him, they needed to be alone, "Cole, can you-"

"Yeah, I need to talk to your dad anyways," Cole smiled, winking to ensure he got the hint before making his way out of the room.

The door barely closed before Kai spoke up, "Lloyd, I am so sorry about all of this."

"You did what you thought was best, I can't blame-" Lloyd started, but he was cut off quickly.

"I meant the staff."

'Oh'

"Kai, that wasn't your fault-"

"I could have killed you!" Kai shouted, cutting Lloyd off again, "I could've killed you and Skylor, I said things to you that I haven't believed in years!" He had tears coming down his face now even though his cheeks were still red with frustration, "I hurt Skylor, I hurt Nya… I hurt you."

Lloyd wasn't thinking when he wrapped his arms around him, all he knew in that moment was that he needed Kai to stop crying, to stop feeling so bad for something that wasn't even his fault.

He felt hot tears soaking his shoulder as Kai's body shook against him, like he had been holding this in for a long time. 'How do I make him see that it isn't his fault?'

•••

Garmadon wasn't sure what he was expecting when Kai came out of the small room that his son was currently residing in while he recovered.

He definitely wasn't expecting him to come out with tears in his eyes and bright red cheeks though.

"Kai, are you alright?" He asked softly, in order to avoid startling the obviously in distress teenager.

"Yeah," he stopped to wipe his face on his sleeve, "yeah, I'm okay?"

Garmadon raised an eyebrow before motioning him closer. "Take a walk with me, Kai."

"No, you need to stay with Lloyd-"

"Just down the hall and back," Garmadon didn't like the idea of leaving his son, but he also knew that the majority of the elemental masters were nearby, and if there was an emergency, they would be informed before anything could happen to Lloyd, "Lloyd will be fine."

Kai relented after that and the two of them started walking at a steady pace with only the silence lingering in between them.

"You know, Kai," Garmadon spoke softly, watching as the fire elemental's gaze met his, "when I was bitten, I did a lot of things that I didn't have control over. I became corrupted and hurt a lot of people I care about. My brother, my wife, you four ninja, even Lloyd."

Garmadon heard Kai's breath hitch and saw a few tears forming in his eyes. "But after my son saved me, you all forgave me even though I didn't feel as though I deserved it. I still don't know how all of you did that so easily."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, it took me awhile to forgive you for all of that." Kai said in a joking tone, even if his voice was thick from crying and the tear stains on his cheeks were becoming fresh again.

Garmadon shot him a soft smile before continuing, "there are things in this world that we cannot control, things that have to balance out. Although it takes time to heal from those things, to forgive ourselves for those things, that doesn't mean we can't let others forgive us for them and to give us a second chance."

Kai wiped his face on his sleeve again and Garmadon put his hand on his shoulder, feeling his body shake under his touch.

"You don't have to forgive yourself right away from what happened with the corruption from the staff. In fact, I wouldn't expect you to do so. But letting the others in, letting them give you a second chance… It's a good place to start."

Kai nodded, tears rushing down his cheeks at full speed now, "I'll do that."

"Good man," Garmadon smiled as the two of them turned to make their way back down the hall, "and if you need someone to talk to about this again, my door is always open."

"You don't have to-"

"I'll have none of that," Garmadon shook his head, "You will come to me if you need someone to talk to about this again."

"Is that an order?" Kai smiled, the tears finally starting to slow and his mood was clearly starting to brighten, given that his sass was coming back.

"Yes, it is." Garmadon nodded, seeing that he had accomplished what he set out to do, "do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Sensei Garmadon." Kai winked as the two stopped in front of the door, his demeanor growing serious again, "I'm gonna go help them find Chen."

"Very well." Garmadon smiled, watching as Kai pulled his hood over his head before running to join the others outside.

[rosiehunterwolf]

This request is the result of a very awake mind at 2 am. How about a part crack, part tooth-rotting fluff fic about and interview with characters of your choice.

I tried my best with this... it's difficult to do crack in such a short piece (hence this one ended up being a little longer) and although I think writing crack is really fun, I have no experience in the field XD. So... hope this is what you were looking for XD.

The Case of the Forgotten Birthday Gift

Summary: When the ninja are invited to the Ivory City of Shintaro for Princess Vania’s birthday, they find themselves in the most devastating predicament of all- they forgot to bring a birthday gift for Vania. In a panic, Cole offers her a chance to interview them as compensation. Not everyone is thrilled about the idea.

“We thank you for attending Princess Vania’s birthday,” King Vangelis said, hovering before the ninja with two winged guardsmen at his sides. “We ask that you leave any gifts on this table.” He gestured towards a table that was practically groaning under the weight of all the presents atop it.

“Um.” Cole blanched. “Gift?”

“Cole!” Jay whispered harshly in his ear. “Don’t tell me. That you didn’t bring a present for the princess. On her birthday.”

“I didn’t bring one? Last time I checked, we were all invited! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, I didn’t, so you better come up with something now or they’ll never invite us back here again!”

“Uh…” Cole’s brain felt like it was whirring a mile a minute, and he reluctantly turned back to the king. “Thank you, your majesty, but our gift to the princess is not something material.”

King Vangelis raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“No, it’s a… it’s um… we’re giving you a free interview.”

“What?!” the other ninja all yelped, at the same time that Vania beamed, clapping her hands together.

“I get to interview the ninja? The ninja? Truly, this is the best birthday present ever!”

“Cole,” Kai groaned, putting his head in his hands, “what have you done?”

---

“When I told you to come up with something to give the princess, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Jay grumbled from where he was sitting stiffly in a chair next to Cole. “Did you really have to offer the girl who’s obviously a bit bonkers about us an interview?”

“I didn’t see you coming up with anything better,” Cole snapped. “Besides, she may be a bit obsessed, but she seems nice enough. Just go along with it. She’s like any other fan.”

“Any other fan, you say? I wouldn’t be so sure!”

Cole sighed, glancing back at where Lloyd was standing atop his chair, glaring down at them. “Lloyd, sit down.”

“She’s no normal fan, I’m telling you! I don’t trust her! She was too excited about this interview! She’s out to get us, she just wants to trick us into giving away information so she can exploit our weaknesses!”

Kai glanced back and forth between Lloyd and Cole. “Seriously, does no one else see what an obvious cry for therapy this is?”

“Lloyd!” Cole hissed. “For the last time! Sit. Down.”

“Don’t worry, Lloyd,” Zane said as the teen plopped down grumpily in his seat. “The odds of our team member’s princess girlfriend turning out to be the leader of a criminal gang for the second time in our lives are practically nonexistent! Under seventy percent, at least.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Cole snapped.

Zane blinked. “Well, then whose is she?”

“Not mine,” Jay told them, grabbing Nya’s hand. “I’m already engaged!”

Kai laughed. “No thanks, she’s not my type. Plus, I already have a girlfriend who stabbed me in the back, although luckily for me, mine came around, eventually.”

“For the last time, Vania is not going to betray us!”

“It’s not our fault we have trust issues,” Lloyd sniffed. “You’d think someone would book us therapy, but apparently that’s not a priority.”

“Well, if she herself isn’t evil, maybe she’s related to someone evil!” Kai said. “Skylor’s evil, psychotic father influenced her to turn on me. Do you think Vania has an evil, psychotic father?”

“Definitely,” Lloyd agreed, at the same time Nya said “No way.”

Nya shook her head. “Do you know how ridiculous you guys sound? How many evil, psychotic fathers can there be out there?”

“Um. There’s Chen, Milton Dyer, Skales, my father- need I go on?”

“Don’t forget Nadakhan’s evil djinn father!” Jay chimed. Lloyd blinked at him. “Who?”

“See? That’s barely any!” Nya exclaimed. “Besides, like half of those people are good now, so they don’t count.”

“But they were, which means there’s a high chance of King Vangelis being evil and psychotic-”

“Who’s evil and psychotic?” A cheery voice interrupted them as Princess Vania pushed open the doors.

“Oh, uh… just an old villain we faced,” Cole covered quickly.

“Oh, you must tell me all about them!” Vania smiled, pushing the doors closed behind her and clicking the lock.

Kai blinked. “Did you just lock us in?”

“Of course! I can’t have anyone else breaking in here and trying to eavesdrop on my very special interview!”

“Do people break into your room often?” Nya laughed.

“Not at all! Only a few times a week.”

“Um… you do realize that we’re crime-fighting ninja, right?” Jay told her. “We have lots of enemies. Maybe you should have some people guarding us while we’re here.”

“Oh, don’t worry! If anyone attacks you, Chompy will scare them off!” The ninja looked to where she was pointing to see a tiny dragon snoozing on Vania’s bed.

“Oh, how reassuring,” Kai said dryly. “The overgrown gecko can keep us safe.”

Vania raised an eyebrow. “You’re lucky he’s asleep. Mr. Chompy does not play nice when he’s angry.”

“Oh yeah, I’m so scared,” Kai grinned, leaning back.

Vania narrowed her eyes at him. “He killed a dire bat once.”

“Yeah, well, we fought off an entire flock of them from our ship.”

“First of all, it’s called a colony of bats, not a flock. Second, I know that a squadron of our guards had to go save you.”

“We didn’t need saving! They interrupted us just as I was about to use my mighty fire powers to burn them to a crisp!” “Chompy would knock them out of the sky before you could do that.”

“Yeah, well, I could squish Chompy under my foot.”

“Chompy could gouge out your eyes.”

“Oookay, as fun as this is,” Cole interrupted, pushing them apart, “Let’s just get this interview over with. Vania, what questions did you want to ask us?”

“Hold on.” Vania jogged over to the wall and pulled over a small table, setting up a camera on top of it.

Jay stared at it. “What is that.”

“I need to record this, silly!”

“What’s the point of locking us in here and not letting anyone else listen in if you’re just going to broadcast this whole thing to everyone, anyway?” Nya asked.

“Because seeing it live isn’t half as fun as watching a recording!”

“Then why record it at all?”

“How else am I going to rub it in all my friends’ faces that I met the ninja?”

“This is a non-consensual violation of my privacy,” Jay grumbled.

“Oh please, your face is over half the city,” Cole sighed.

“Welcome back to Truthful Tidbits! I’m your host, Vania, and I’m here with an exclusive episode today- with me, I have the famous ninja!” “What,” Lloyd said slowly, “are you doing?”

“It’s for my TV show,” Vania whispered.

“You have a TV show?” Nya spluttered.

“Wait, no one told me this was going to be on TV!” Kai yelped. “The camera’s not getting my good side!”

“Wait, if this is a TV show, shouldn’t we have makeup artists or something?”

“Jay’s right!” Kai agreed. “I can’t go on television without a makeover!”

“My database shows no recollection of the show ‘Truthful Tidbits.’”

“It’s not on mainstream television,” Vania grumbled. “I just show them to my videography class.”

“Oh.” Jay relaxed in his chair. “That’s it?”

“What do you mean, that’s it? People are still going to see me without makeup! Just because it’s a small group doesn’t make this any less of a disaster!”

“I’m hoping to change that,” Vania beamed. “This is the big break I need! An interview with the ninja? Everyone will want to see it!”

“Andddd we’re back to privacy invasion again,” Jay groaned.

“Wanna bounce, Jay?” Lloyd asked.

“Do I ever-”

“Count me in, guys, I’m not doing this without a proper makeup job-”

“If you guys are all leaving, I’m not going to stay!” Nya insisted. “Zane?”

“It seems futile to stay if you all are leaving.” “You can’t leave!” Vania cried. “This is my present! Besides, you’re locked in here!”

Lloyd stared her dead in the eyes. “I will literally jump out the window to get out of this.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ll die!”

“Then tell Chumpy to catch me,” he told her, already climbing into the window.

“It’s Chompy!”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Kai reached out a hand, snatching the back of Lloyd’s gi before he could jump. “I don’t want to spend the rest of our stay in a hospital. What did you think was going to happen, you were going to sprout wings?”

“I’m part dragon,” Lloyd grumbled. “It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility.”

“I have a much less life-threatening way. Stand back.” Kai’s fist lit up in flames.

“I swear, Kai, if you burn down anything, we are never coming back here,” Cole warned.

“A little arson never hurt anyone.” Hurtling a fireball at the door, it burst into flames. Quickly, it burned a human-sized hole in the door, and Kai, Jay, and Lloyd quickly darted through.

“What about my interview?” Vania protested. “You promised!”

“Technically, Cole was the one who promised you the interview,” Zane pointed out. “He never specified which of us you would be interviewing.”

“And since Cole’s staying, we’re technically not breaking that promise!” Nya added.

Cole blinked. “I’m what?”

“Staying. Have fun, you two!” Nya waved, and the two of them shot out the door, spraying ice and water as they passed to extinguish the flames.

“Sorry about that, princess,” Cole said, scratching the back of his neck.

Vania narrowed her eyes. “This better be the best interview ever.”

Cole grinned. “Mark my words, it will be. Fire away.”

“Speaking of fire, you’re paying for my door.”

“... Yeah, I figured.”

[razzle-zazzle]

Whumptober Day 10: Look so pretty when they bleed

Blood loss with a pinch of Trail of Blood

806 Words; Powerless AU

TW for blood

Skylor was not having a good day.

Her father had completed his spell—and she was now an Anacondrai, which was just great—because of course he did. Chen always got his way, even when it should have been impossible. Even when there was no Master of Earth to complete the spell.

“I’m starting to wonder if they really needed that much blood.” Cole said, sitting heavily.

This was the third time they’d had to stop and rest. At this point, Skylor was wondering if she couldn’t just use the powers of metal to give herself enough of a buff to carry him. Cole probably shouldn’t be walking, even if they had fashioned a makeshift tourniquet.

Not that it had helped all that much. A little trail of red, mostly in small dots and blotches in the dirt, marked their path through the jungle from the cave they’d escaped from.

“Okay, that’s long enough.” Skylor said, moving to help Cole up. Cole winced, but allowed her to support him as they started the trek again.

Their progress was slow, Cole stumbling over what felt like almost every step. But they were making progress, slow as it was, and every step brought them closer to the medical attention Cole was in desperate need of.

Skylor’s side was already damp with Cole’s blood.

“Oh wow,” He said breathlessly, “Is it just me or is everything spinning? Are you dizzy? I feel like I’m about to fall over, oh fuck—”

Cole stumbled forwards, Skylor barely catching him from falling. He trembled.

“This is bad.” Skylor moved to lift Cole up before he could fall again. “This is really really bad.” She hoisted him onto her shoulders, using the powers she’d copied from Karloff to reinforce her body. A fireman’s carry should work best for this situation.

“You okay up there?” She asked, not exactly respecting a reply. Maybe if she’d trained with Bolobo’s powers more then she could clear a path.

No. Skylor needed to focus. Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about what-ifs. She had to warn the rest of the alliance, and get Cole to safety.

Cole mumbled something.

“Come again?”

“‘M tired…”

That wasn’t good. That was the opposite of good. “C’mon, dumbass, you gotta stay awake.” What was Skylor supposed to do in this situation? How did she keep this idiot awake? Was she supposed to talk to him?

Yeah, that sounded right.

“You’ve gotta stay awake, Cole.” She said, trying to maneuver over a log without jostling him too much. “Talk to me or something, just—stay awake.” She stopped for a moment to readjust her grip. “Why are you even with the ninja if you don’t have any powers?”

“Oh, that?” Cole asked. “Wu found me climbing the Wailing Alps and recruited me from there. Though I was my aunt’s son.”

Who was Wu? The ninjas’ sensei? Was that his name? Skylor thought their sensei was Garmadon. “Wu’s your sensei?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty cool. Took me in when my father and I weren’t talking. He’s a bit odd, but I trust him.”

Skylor had the feeling that, were Cole not so woozy from blood loss, he wouldn’t be talking about this. At least, not so openly. It felt almost wrong to be hearing it, like Skylor didn’t have the right to be privy to such information.

But maybe that was just her nerves talking.

Either way, Cole continued, undeterred by the lack of response. “So Wu thought that I was my aunt’s son, and would get her powers. By the time he realized it was a little too late to just send me home, so he kept quiet about it. He keeps telling me that, with the Overlord defeated, there’s no need for me to be a ninja anymore, but he doesn’t tell the others that when they’re in the same boat as me, except they have powers. The whole reason Wu gathered us together in the first place was because of the green ninja prophecy, and that’s already been fulfilled, so technically none of us need to stick around.”

“But you do anyway?” Skylor understood about half the things Cole just said.

Cole snorted. “Obviously. The others are family. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

Skylor was navigating a particularly treacherous patch of undergrowth when Cole spoke up again. “It’s why we came to this tournament.” He said softly. “Zane is—Zane is our brother and knowing that he’s alive—”

“I’m sorry.” Skylor said, before she even realized.

“What do you have to be sorry for? It’s your father who had the bright idea to pull all this shit.”

Skylor nodded, but the words were just words. But she couldn’t change the past—she’d just have to do better moving forwards.

And she could start by getting Cole and herself out of this jungle alive.

[that-is-where-they-wait]

That is Where They Wait Ch 14: The Letter

previous / next all chapters AO3 FFN

[so funny story I actually posted this on FFN and ao3 forever ago but not here. oops. but posting here is a hassle, in my defense. hope everyone is doing okay? also check the notes for some Haha Funny Jokes because I don't want to add them to the. actual post.]

Perhaps the way to answer the present is with the past.

The metal of the hinge was cool under his finger, intricate design branching onto the actual door. It should've been smooth, but instead it was rough and red.

Rust.

Kai frowned. Rusty metal was usually brittle — but the door hadn't come down, even when he and Karlof rammed into it repeatedly. That plan of ripping at its hinges and hoping it came down was starting to look flimsy.

Ech. Well, they had to keep trying and hope for the best. It wasn't like they could stay in the small, dark room much longer. Kai had cobbled together a makeshift flame with pieces of rope and cloth from his gi, but it would definitely not last much longer.

Plus, he was getting really antsy, and it'd be just plain stupid to be so isolated when they weren't safe. When he'd asked about Lloyd and found out he was, in fact, both inside the mansion and unaccounted for, he had been about ready to knock Karlof's helmet off of his head.

… In hindsight, maybe he'd been a little forceful.

But hey, in return, he'd informed Karlof about everything they knew on the mansion and the spirit so far. So he didn't feel too bad about it.

"Psst." He went over to where he'd left Karlof and poked. "We gotta go."

No response.

Ohhhh, perfect. The guy had to go and fall asleep on him. They'd already spent so much time staying put! He was itching to get moving again, and Lloyd and Skylor were still out there, who knew where! Not to mention, if the others woke up and noticed him missing … (It occurred to him, a little belatedly, that they might blame Jay for that. Another twinge of guilt. But he could apologize for that when they went back.)

But it had been an exhausting trek just to get here. Karlof had endured that, and no sleep to recharge afterwards …

Kai sighed, seating himself next to him. Yeah, they weren't going anywhere until Karlof finished his beauty sleep. But then there came the issue of having nothing to distract himself with. Already he could just feel himself tiredly debating whether to indulge the pessimistic trains of thought forming in his head in all their bleak glory.

Abruptly, something slammed against him. Okay, so it didn't slam into him, but it definitely felt that way, because oof! It was heavy. Kai squirmed briefly, but a moment later, he realized he shouldn't even bother. Instead, he hissed an irritated puff of air through his teeth and tried to pull an overly-cuddly Karlof off of him. Why in the name of the First Spinjitzu Master was he—

An exposed part of his bandaged arm made contact with Karlof's for a second, before Kai drew it away and grimaced at how cold it was.

… Oh.

The way Karlof's arm was draped on him, Kai couldn't reach his face with his hand. He settled for a drawn-out groan instead. Just because he was the human toaster … and now he couldn't move!

Oh well. If nothing else, he could totally hold it over Karlof's head later. Blackmail material or something. But what was he supposed to do now?

A bleary yawn escaped his mouth.

There was one idea.

Nope, he thought to himself immediately. No way, José, someone had to stay awake, and he'd already bailed out on that once. But the door was locked, and the whole day and the effects of staying up so long were finally catching up to him …

Kai tried to debate the point a little longer, but as it turned out, he was pretty tired. Too tired to properly argue with himself, and before he could, he'd already fallen asleep.

The tiny flame winked out and left the room engulfed in black.

Lloyd wrapped up a summary of the search he'd just gotten back from.

Considering that depressingly little had changed since the last time they'd looked, it didn't take very long. The ever-encroaching cocktail of panic and despair clawed at his guts and his chest, made his throat tight, and he could feel it radiating off of Jay and Cole near him, optimistic as they tried to remain. At least Skylor had gotten some work in on fixing her bow while they'd been gone, although she hopefully wouldn't be needing it anytime soon.

The light trickling from the windows had become thin, silvery moonlight and long, fragmented shadows streaking across the floor and cutting into each other. Cole glanced at everyone in the room and declared that it was probably about time they slept; both searches had taken quite a while, even with how much of the mansion was still closed off to them. It didn't seem likely that much more would happen that day.

Zane took in everything they said solemnly, then pulled something out from beside him.

"It's disheartening to know that the two of them are still missing. But perhaps I can offer something else to think about before we rest for tonight?"

On closer inspection, it appeared to be a faded eggplant-colored satchel.

"I found this on the mantle while you were investigating in the tunnels. I didn't want to look through it without you …"

"Can I?" Lloyd reached out, opening the bag and peering into it for a moment. Then, as the rest of them watched, he stuck his hand in and, one by one, set its contents onto the floor for better examination.

On the carpet, there currently sat a small black inkwell, a quill stand, a bound book, a faded set of folded purple clothes, an assortment of large and small weapons, and a few loose pieces of parchment with writing on them. Maybe it all belonged to the person that owned the place, ages ago?

Evidently, they were all wondering a similar thing.

Lloyd set aside the empty bag and stared at the various items he'd placed down. "Hm. They were carrying weapons …"

"Whose stuff is all this?" Skylor finally voiced the question.

"It likely dates back to the Serpentine war," Zane said. "The antiquity of all the items would fit."

"Well, then, we should find out, shouldn't we?" Jay grabbed the book, slowly teasing open the binding and riffling through the pages. Lloyd caught a glimpse of inky letters over paper lightly yellowed with time; all things considered, it was pretty well-preserved.

"Careful, Jay, that looks heavy. Wouldn't wanna pull a muscle lifting that thing." Cole's mouth twitched up in a smirk, Jay briefly peering over the book with narrow eyes.

"… I mishandle an empty packing crate one time."

"Yeah, well," Lloyd huffed. "You nearly dropped it right on my foot. I still get splinters from that crate when I'm not watching my step."

"Thanks, Lloyd!" Jay looked supremely offended. "I didn't ask!" Still a little sullen from the disappointing results of the day, Lloyd didn't bother sassing him back. He scoffed when he noticed Jay looking helplessly at Zane — they all knew full well that never worked, so when the nindroid minutely shook his head there was hardly any surprise.

"Silly zaptrap," Cole shook his head and tsked. "Once is all it takes on this team. You of all people should know better."

Jay hmphed and nearly went back to skimming the book he'd picked up, but his head popped up curiously when Skylor spoke.

"Isn't it kind of late? If we're going to look at anything, maybe we should read one of the loose sheets instead. I feel like trying to get into something that long when we need to sleep isn't the best idea. I want to stay in-the-know, but I'm not sure how much longer I can pay attention to anything right now …" She shrugged, looking a little self-conscious. "Sorry."

Oh, right. It was usually Lloyd's job to be one of the voices of reason.

Looking around, he was certain that last sentence didn't pertain to just Skylor, though. The banter was being tossed rather lazily and there was a sluggishness to everyone's movements, even Zane's. As for himself, the temptation to just plonk onto the next piece of bedding he picked up while cleaning up the aftermath of the pillow-and-assorted-accessories fight and sleep on it right there had been overwhelming.

"It's quite alright," Zane reassured her. "You have a point, at that. Perhaps something like this would suffice for tonight?" He held up a messily rolled piece of paper, and pulled it open. Lloyd eyed it and nodded; seemed interesting enough. Most likely, they could learn a thing or two, discuss, and then go to bed without too much further ado.

"Looks good to me," Cole said. "Let's see about this person, then."

Zane's eyes fell to the paper for a few seconds before freezing, glowing ever so faintly brighter, and doing a funny skip between Lloyd and the paper before settling back on the paper. Lloyd frowned, unsure he liked the new furrow in Zane's brow.

"What is it, buddy?"

Zane coughed awkwardly. Amazing how even nindroids did that when they were nervous.

"This appears to be a letter addressed to Garmadon."

Lloyd's eyes widened, breath hitching. Abruptly his heart felt less like it was beating and more like it was trying to break itself out of his chest.

Dad.

It had been, safe to say, a little while since he'd thought about his father. The same father he'd gone through hell and back to finally have by his side, only to banish and then drown for good.

He'd kept himself good and busy, helping the team move base to the abandoned Temple of Airjitzu. Warded off the lingering pain from remembering, during the Day of the Departed, pretty well with dusting and heavy lifting and organizing what needed to be packed.

Lloyd had always done his best to draw strength from his father's memory. Like he'd told his mother during Day of the Departed: "Sometimes it feels like he's still with me."

It sure didn't feel like he was with Lloyd now.

"Lloyd?"

He blinked.

"Lloyd, you good?"

He looked over. Cole and the others were all watching him with concern, trying to gauge his reaction.

Quietly, he took a deep breath. He was supposed to have gotten past this. It wasn't supposed to still sting so much when he'd moved onto something healthier, more bittersweet than the more raw, consuming pain he'd known for a while.

Maybe the mansion's atmosphere was digging deeper than he'd thought, ripping open old wounds on top of slashing new ones.

"Yeah." Then, to ensure they couldn't press him about it, "Are you sure, Zane? Lemme see." Zane obliged, handing him the letter. Lloyd took it and held it up to the firelight, careful not to wrinkle the aged parchment, and skimmed it silently, feeling everyone's eyes still on him.

Having caught his reaction to Garmadon's name, they were probably a little surprised when he chuckled.

"What is it?" Skylor tilted her head. "What did they say?"

"It's just the first paragraph. Listen to this!" Clearing his throat, all too glad to focus on the letter, he read it, the ninja going from attentive listening to confused snickering as he did.

"My dearest friend, Garmadon, it seems fitting to start with the most important subject here—thanks a lot for letting me blunder into that whole mess, you absolute withered honeysuckle. I was delayed two whole days trying to firstly explain how I accidentally deposed a chieftess, and then restore some semblance of normalcy to the village. I don't," Lloyd had to catch his breath, barely managing to stop snickering long enough to finish the sentence, "I don't even know why we're still friends." "What in the world is this talking about?" Cole wheezed.

"Absolute withered honeysuckle," Jay mimicked, cracking up himself.

"Well. They were friends, we've learned that much," Skylor stated, desperately trying to regain a straight face.

"Absolute chums, from the sound of it. Just the best of buddies. Like you and me, huh, Cole?"

"If this whole 'accidentally deposed a chieftess' stuff is anything to go by," Cole said, still laughing, "they were even better."

"I wonder what they got up to if this was forty years ago." Zane set about tidying up the remaining letters and the bound book earlier held by Jay, probably figuring he might as well get it over with while they were all distracted. "Or who this was, to be so evidently close to Garmadon."

"Uh, am I the only one wondering what a honeysuckle is?"

Metaphorical crickets, much to Jay's chagrin.

"Just me? Okay."

A sigh. "They're flowers, Jay."

As the room got quiet enough to hear the crackling fireplace again, Lloyd went back to skimming the letter. The little smile that had lingered on his face fell flat again as he took in the words.

"What's the holdup?" Jay complained after a moment.

"Honestly, with the way this is written, if I read it verbatim you'd probably fall asleep," Lloyd muttered over the page. "Shut up and let me summarize."

"I … okay."

Lloyd squinted at the words. "This is an awful lot to take in. What's a … Shhh … Shuuuuravansha?"

"A what?" A confused chorus met his ears; evidently the rest of the room only knew about as much as he did.

"Maybe the word comes from the local language," Cole suggested. "I did hear a lot of the villagers speaking something I didn't recognize."

"Probably. Zane, you wouldn't happen to have that language in your databases or anything, would you?" Jay asked.

"I'm afraid not," Zane said apologetically. "What is the rest of the sentence, Lloyd? Perhaps the proper context will make it easier to guess."

"'I spoke with the Shuravansha and revised the contingency plans based on the information I got from them, as well as reports from you and our spies on the Serpentine's movement.' How do you even say that?"

"I guess the jury stays out on that one," Cole replied. "But I don't think that's a person. It says 'the Shuravansha'. I don't call Jay 'the Jay'; it'd be weird."

"So a group of some sort?" Jay suggested. "The word 'the' implies more than one."

"But it could be a title," Skylor pointed out. "Like 'the chief' or 'the sensei'."

"Either way, it reveals little about the nature of this Shuravansha," Zane said. "All that sentence gave us is that they had information about the Serpentine relevant to the author of this letter."

"Whatever it is, it's probably important," Lloyd muttered, rubbing his eyes and going back to the letter. "But maybe we'll find more clues about them later."

"Then we should remember it," Skylor muttered. "How do you spell that?"

He spelled it out and kept reading. The room went back to quiet anticipation, until Lloyd sputtered, squinted at something on the page, then looked up at them.

"What the heck, Cole?"

"Huh?" All eyes were now on a flabbergasted Cole. "Wh-what'd I do?!"

"I, it's not you, it's just — since when was the last master of earth a traitor?"

"Whoa whoa whoa, what?" Jay piped up. "That's kinda a heavy accusation to just bandy around!"

"What is this coming from, Lloyd?" Zane asked.

"It literally says right there, 'Earth went traitor on us'! There's only one way to read that!"

Skylor was scribbling like mad.

"Wha—well, don't look at me!" Cole said. "I don't know anything about this!"

"Maybe that's not all there is to it." It was difficult to see Skylor's eyes behind the shades. "My father turned the Anacondrai and the other tribes against humans to start the whole war in the first place. Then he turned the elemental masters against themselves."

"Maybe that was the case here too. Is there anything else about the master of earth, Lloyd?" Zane spoke up.

"Full sentence is 'The Constrictai among them can burrow, and ever since Earth, the weasel, went traitor on us, we lost our best protection against that tactic.' So they're really still talking about the Serpentine."

"Hmm."

"Mmmaybe we should go back to the rest of the letter?" Jay said tentatively.

"I dunno. I kinda wanna hear about this." Cole curiously poked his head closer, wanting to get a look at the letter. Lloyd drew back and immediately felt bad when Cole regarded him a moment before scooting back, hiding a yawn behind his hand.

Right. It was late.

"I mean, there isn't anything else in the letter about them … just the one sentence."

"Fine. What's the rest of it say, then? We really don't have the rest of the night here."

He had a point. Lloyd was pretty ready to be done with the letter and get some rest, by now.

"Wait a sec," Jay said. "'Went traitor on us.' Who's 'us'?"

"Oh." Cole's eyes widened. "Oh my god, you actually have a point. Yeah, that sounds an awful lot like … they called him 'Earth', not his name."

"How do you know that's not his name? Maybe his mom had a weird taste in names."

"... I'm pretty sure that wasn't his name, Jay."

"The word 'us' does seem to suggest camaraderie," Zane mused. "Given that and their knowledge of elemental power, perhaps they were acquainted with the elemental masters, or worked alongside them in some manner."

"That makes sense," Lloyd agreed, not looking up from the paper he held. "Or maybe they even were a master!"

"There's nothing to confirm it yet …" Skylor pointed out. "I'll just write down that they probably knew about the elemental masters. I think that's a safe conclusion."

"Fair enough," Zane said. "I think we should hear the rest of the letter now, before it gets much later. Lloyd?"

"Okay, so. Basically, my dad sent this person, whoever they are, info about Serpentine movement in the area. There were more loose gangs causing trouble than anything, they were just harder to predict because they weren't associated with the Anacondrai commanders. But according to them, the Southern Woodlands were in too strategic a location to risk—"

"Southern Woodlands?" Jay interrupted.

"That's probably what this forest is called. The villagers called it that on our way here."

"Yeah, I think I remember hearing that from someone," Cole said.

"Anyway. Like I was saying." Lloyd coughed pointedly and continued. "The Woodlands were too risky to leave unprotected because the thick plant life would give the Serpentine a naturally-sheltered base to recover and hide in. And they didn't have a lot of time left because … wait." The loopy handwriting in thick black ink cut off abruptly near the middle of the page, the last sentence never to be finished. "It just cuts off mid-sentence."

"Why did I ever think I'd have an easy time of this." Skylor sounded disappointed. "There wouldn't happen to be a name or anything at the bottom, would there?"

Lloyd shook his head. Of course there wasn't; that'd be too easy for them, now, wouldn't it?

"So why didn't they have time, exactly?" Jay said.

"An abrupt end of that nature would suggest some kind of interruption, would it not?" Zane said. "They never had the chance to finish writing this letter."

"If this is from the same era as everything else we've been seeing, then there was a war on. I imagine that'd do it," Cole said.

"Okay, but there's no signs of a fight in this room," Jay pointed out.

"... Ah. That is. Also true."

If he were a little less tired, Lloyd would've chuckled at Cole being caught off-guard without even a witty defense.

"I wonder what they were expecting not to have a lot of time for …" Lloyd wondered. "There's no signs of a fight here, but it's super messy everywhere else, especially downstairs. Maybe something happened there."

"And maybe it's related to the spirit." Cole ran a hand through his thick, messy hair, eyes dark. "There's no way something like that came out of nowhere."

"Given what we know, it is still impossible to gauge exactly what took place in this mansion," Zane said. "It does seem likely that the Serpentine activity this person mentioned had something to do with it, though. The only way to know for sure would be to find more information"

"So we don't know that, either," Jay muttered. "Write that down as a solid 'maybe', I guess."

Skylor nodded. "Anything else I should put down?"

Lloyd shook his head, and Skylor gratefully flipped the notepad closed and set it aside. Her words had actually begun to slur together with tiredness, so even if there were, he wasn't about to put her through writing it.

"Well, if that's all, then." Cole yawned, again. "Let's call it a day. How long's it been?"

"My internal clock is completely frozen," Zane sighed. "And PIXAL says she can't start it up without any connection to the outside world. But according to my timer, it's been approximately 15 hours since Jay woke me and Cole up to inform us Kai was missing."

Yep. Definitely time to wind down.

The mood dipped briefly at the mention of Kai, but Cole determinedly moved on to the topic of keeping watch, and whether they should do it tonight.

Eventually they decided that it definitely needed to stay, but split it up into two equal shifts. Two of them weren't even options to be considered. Lloyd offered to take shift, but given that he'd gotten out of a tough scrape with the spirit earlier and gone on both search expeditions, everyone else refused to let him, arguing he needed the rest. That left just Cole and Jay, but Cole, having gone through the mansion both times, was tired too. Jay would have to keep watch first.

Then came sleeping arrangements, which also worked themselves out quickly enough. Zane, for whatever reason, stayed in a corner to recharge, Skylor was on one bed, and whoever wasn't on shift would be sharing a bed with Lloyd.

"Alright, Jay, don't do anything stupid this time," Cole ribbed Jay, who was shifting around burnt kindling and trying to keep the little bit of fire left alive.

Jay stuck his tongue out.

"You have sooo much faith in me. Come on, I've learned my lesson here."

"Your timer's working, right? Make sure to wake me in … four hours?"

"Four and a half," Jay corrected him. "And yeah, I will."

"Cool. Night." And with that, Cole left him to his current task: striking a match onto a pile of kindling and hoping for a fire big enough to last.

Soon enough, everyone had bid each other goodnight and settled down.

Lloyd pulled his blanket a little closer to himself, still feeling a residual chill seep into his bones. With nothing to keep preoccupied with, ugly thoughts about the mansion, the horrors of its obscure history, their current conditions, his own utter incompetence, the way he'd just let Karlof get lost, Kai came creeping in far too readily. He tried to push them away.

Not now. Couldn't think about all of those things now or he'd never rest. Even tired, falling asleep was a challenge with sore limbs and unceasing nerves scratching away at him and a bitter resentment towards it all beginning to sink into his bones.

Lloyd closed his eyes regardless, trying to empty his mind. He could faintly hear Jay's breathing under the familiar crackle of the flames that were only too reminiscent of their missing piece.

Shadows twisted and danced on the walls.

Exhaustion won out eventually.

[violetwolfraven]

Ninjago Playlists

(Playlists of songs that remind me of each character and short excerpts from the lyrics of each)

Kai:

Natural by Imagine Dragons (Tell me, will the stars align, will heaven step in will it save us from our sin will it cause this house of mine, stands strong. That’s the price you pay, leave behind your heartache, cast away. Just another product of today.)

Hey Brother by Avicci (Hey, Brother. Do you still believe in one another? Hey, Sister. Know the water’s thick, but blood is thicker. Oh, and if the sky comes falling down, for you, there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do.)

Wings by Little Mix (Mama told me not to waste my life. She said spread your wings, my little butterfly. Don’t let what they say keep you up at night. And if they give you shhh... then they can walk on by.)

Zane:

See You Again by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth (It’s been a long day without you, my friend. And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again. We’ve come a long way, from where we began. Oh, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.)

Titanium by David Guetta (I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose. Fire away, fire away. Riccochet, you take your aim. Fire away, fire away. Shoot me down, but I won’t fall. I am titanium.)

No Light, No Light by Florence + The Machine (You are the hole in my head. You are the space in my bed. You are the silence in between what I thought and what I said. You are the nighttime fear, you are the morning when it’s clear. When it’s over, you’re the start. You’re in my head, you’re in my heart.)

Jay:

I Lived by One Republic (Hope when the moment comes, you say, I, I did it all. And I, I did it all. I owned every second that this world could give. I saw so many places and things that I did, yeah with every broken bone, I swear I lived.)

To the Sky by Owl City (Bird’s eye view. Awake the stars cause they’re all around you. Wide eyes will always brighten the blue. Chase your dreams, and remember me, sweet bravery, cause, after all, those dreams will take you up so high, so bid the forest floor goodbye as you race the wind and, take to the sky.)

Thunder by Imagine Dragons (Just a young gun, with a quick fuse. I was uptight, wanna let loose. I was dreaming of bigger things and wanna leave my old life behind. Not have a yes-sir. Not a follower. Fit the box, fit the mold, have a seat in the foyer, take a number. I was lightning, before the thunder.)

Cole:

Who We Are by Imagine Dragons (It’s who we are, doesn’t matter if we’ve gone too far, doesn’t matter if it’s all okay, doesn’t matter if it’s not our day. Won’t you save us, what we are, don’t look clear it’s all uphill from here.)

Noah’s Ark by Young Heretics (Noah’s ark can’t save us all. Binary against the squall. And in its wake, good men will fall. And finally we can move on.)

100 Bad Days by AJR (When all is going wrong and you’re scared as hell, whatcha gonna do, who you gonna tell? Maybe, 100 bad days made 100 good stories. 100 good stories make me interesting at parties.)

Lloyd:

Whatever it Takes by Imagine Dragons (Looking at my years like a martyrdom, everybody needs to be a part of them, never be enough, I’m the prodigal son, I was born to run, I was born for this.)

Explosions by Ellie Goulding (Explosions, on the day you wake up, needing somebody and you’ve learned... it’s okay to be afraid. But it will never be the same.)

Centuries by Fall Out Boy (Some legends are gold. Some turn to dust or to gold. But you will remember me. Remember me for centuries. And just one mistake, is all it will take. To go down in history. Remember me for centuries.)

Nya:

Alive by Sia (I was born in a thunderstorm. I grew up overnight. I played alone. I played on my own. I survived.)

Natural by Imagine Dragons (Will you hold the line? When every one of them is giving up or giving in, tell me, in this house of mine. Nothing ever comes without a consequence, a cost, tell me, will the stars align?)

I See Fire by Jasmine Thompson (Oh, misty eye of the mountain below. Keep careful watch o’er my brothers’ souls. And if the sky be filled with fire and smoke, keep watching over Durin’s sons.)

Wu:

When We Were Young by Lost Kings (For a second, for a minute can we go? For a second, for a minute can we go, can we go back when we were young? And didn’t care if we messed up. We have forever, so we got lost in each other cause time wasn’t catching, time wasn’t catching us.)

Good Old Days by Macklemore, feat. Kesha (I wish somebody would have told me then, that someday these would be the good old days. All the love you won’t forget, and all these reckless nights you won’t regret. Someday soon your whole life’s gonna change. You’ll miss the magic of the good old days.)

Lean on Me by Bill Withers (Lean on me, when you’re not strong. I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry on. Just call on me, brother, when you need a hand. We all need somebody to lean on.)

Garmadon:

Control by Halsey (I’m bigger than my body. I’m colder than this home. I’m meaner than my demons. I’m bigger than these bones. And all the kids cried out, please stop you’re scaring me, I can’t help this awful energy, goddamn right you should be scared of me, who is in control?)

Nightmare by NateWantsToBattle (We’re only kids who lost our way. But if we wait long enough, we will be saved. Just sleep, just dream. This isn’t fair, no we’re not just what we seem. We want to fly but our souls are trapped inside. It’s not a game, not to blame, we’re forced to hide. Just sleep, just dream. It’s only a nightmare and soon we’ll be set free.)

Monster by Imagine Dragons (I’m only a man with a candle to guide me. I’m taking a stand to escape what’s inside me. A monster, a monster, I’ve turned into a monster. A monster, a monster, and it keeps getting stronger.)

Pixal:

Never Be Alone by Shawn Mendes (Take a piece of my heart, so when we are apart, you’ll never be alone. You’ll never be alone.)

Gasoline by Halsey (You can’t wake up, this is not a dream. You’re part of a machine, you are not a human being. With your face all made up, living on a screen. Low on self-esteem, so you run on gasoline.)

Radioactive by Imagine Dragons (I feel it in my bones, enough to make my systems blow. Welcome to the new age, to the new age, welcome to the new age, to the new age.)

Skylor:

Glory and Gore by Lorde (You could try and take us, but we’re the gladiators, everyone a rager, but secretly they’re saviors. Glory and gore go hand in hand. That’s why we’re making headlines. You could try and take us, but victory’s contagious.)

Try by P!nk (Where there is a fire, there is gonna be a flame. Where there is a flame, someone’s bound to get burned. Well, just because it burns, doesn’t mean you’re gonna die. You gotta get up and try, try, try.)

I Walk The Line by Halsey (I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds. Because you’re mine...I walk the line.)

Harumi:

The Devil Within by Digital Daggers (I’ll keep quiet, you won’t even know I’m here, you won’t suspect a thing, you won’t see me in the mirror. But I’ve crept into your heart, you can’t make me disappear, till I make you.)

you should see me in a crown by Billie Eilish (Bite my tongue, bide my time. Wearing a warning sign. Wait till the world is mine. Visions I vandalize. Cold in my kingdom size. Fell for my ocean eyes.)

Angry Too by Lola Blanc (And does it get your blood boiling? And does it make you see red? Do you want to destroy it? And does it get in your head? Cause it gets my blood boiling. And I’m coming unglued. It would hit you like poison, if you knew what I knew. You would be angry, too.)

[knowledgequeenabc]

That is Where They Wait Ch 6: Bellua

previous / next all chapters AO3 FFN

(There’s another fight scene in this one! woohoo. not sure if I need to warn for that, but if it bothers anyone I can tag)

Whatsamatter, Lloyd? Thought you liked ghosts.

The grand foyer was massive.

The space was punctuated by small tables, and empty vases, and damaged items strewn about. The dim light streaming in through barred windows glinted off the broken crystals of a damaged chandelier hanging from the tall ceiling, and illuminated the old room. It was easy to tell that the whole place had been quite grand, once upon a time, yet everything around them now was run-down and not quite right and Lloyd only found his wariness spiking.

"You feel that too?" Skylor asked.

Lloyd nodded. "I dunno what it is, but something's definitely off. Stay alert, guys. I know the plan was to split up to cover more ground, but we're probably safer sticking together."

Next to him, Karlof tightened his heavy, gleaming gauntlets.

"Cole! Cole, wake up!" A frantic whisper and a hand shaking his arm snapped him awake. His heart skipped a beat, spiking fearfully, before he recognized the hazy shape in front of him and calmed himself.

Cole had already had a rough night. He'd fallen asleep fast and deep, but later in the night, he'd woken up, stomach all in knots and sweat beading on his forehead, before closing his eyes and trying to fall asleep again. And now, Jay was hurriedly shaking the life out of him trying to wake him up. Confusion quickly gave way to irritation.

He groaned and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Whaddya want, Jay?"

The blue ninja was talking a mile a minute, voice high-pitched and nervous, and it was difficult to make out much of what he was saying. A small ball of lightning in his hand was the only thing letting Cole's eyes see — the fireplace had gone out overnight. A faint worry started to replace the annoyance he'd felt at being woken up.

"Whoa, okay. Slow down; I can't understand a thing you're saying! Actually, no," he said, fumbling his way onto the floor, "wake Kai and get Zane up and running first. Whatever it is, I'm sure they want to hear, too."

"Already on it." Jay had teased open the panel on Zane's chest and, carefully bringing his lit palm close enough to see the internal wiring and controls, he rebooted the system. With a sharp, mechanical whirr, Zane's processors came reanimated, and glowing blue eyes snapped open.

"Morning, Zane," Jay said hurriedly as he pressed the panel shut again, not giving Zane a chance to even ask any questions. "I know, your alarm didn't go off yet and all, but we don't have time to sleep."

"What's wrong, Jay?" Cole asked, wishing he would just cut to the chase. "And where's Kai? Any reason that this doesn't concern him?"

"That's the problem," Jay fretted. "I can't find Kai!"

"What!?" This in unison.

"What do you mean, you 'can't find Kai'?" Cole asked, his rising dread kicking him awake in earnest. "Weren't you the one who stayed up to keep watch!?"

"Yes," Zane agreed, "you should have been able to see anything that happened to Kai, right?"

"I waaas," Jay whimpered. "I was! But Kai woke up halfway through the night and tried to take over my shift."

"And you let him!?" Cole howled. Jay flinched at his rising voice.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry! But he basically coerced me into it!"

"Coerced?" Zane asked, bewildered.

"He said something about his arm keeping him up. And he was really insistent about it." Jay murmured.

"I told him to rest it … But where could he have gone?" Zane pondered. "It's not at all safe to be wandering around alone. Even the time I spent by myself yesterday was highly risky."

"So he just vanished into the night! Great. Why would he do that? What if something happened to him? Jay, how could you let him do that?" Cole almost felt bad for being so pushy when Jay clearly felt bad, but his incredulousness won.

"I tried to tell him to go back to bed!" Jay insisted. "But he wouldn't listen to me!" He sighed. "And I tried to stay awake anyway so I could watch him, but I … guess I really was tired after all. I missed him leaving."

"So how come you're up now?" Cole asked.

" … Nightmare woke me."

Oh. That he could actually sympathize with.

For a moment, they were all silent, Jay's nervously quick breathing punctuating the quiet. Cole wondered— he'd been quick to close his eyes and try to fall back asleep when he'd startled awake, but how could he have possibly missed that?

"You know what?" Cole sighed at length. "Zane, there was some kinda lamp on that table there, right? Can we use it?" Zane checked, informing them that it was a kerosene lamp and that the oil, while not the clearest, would probably burn well enough for their purposes. Jay quickly pulled a match out under the light of Zane's eyes and lit it.

"Alright. Obviously, we can't go back to sleep, so we're gonna have to figure out something from here. It's time for that plan."

With a sigh, Lloyd pulled shut the door to what looked like it had been a kitchen.

"No one here, either."

"Why Shade come to stupid, far-away mansion, anyway?" Karlof questioned impatiently. "Just worry his friends and waste our time …"

"He has a point," Skylor said. "I had to postpone the reunion because of Shade. And I spent months accounting for everyone's schedules." She shook her head and sighed.

"Whatever his reason, it better have been a good one." Lloyd definitely understood the irritation. "Let's just … keep looking."

And so they did. This floor seemed to be mostly expansive corridors and halls, but aside from that there was the kitchen Lloyd had just finished going through, a nearby dining hall, a small room that looked to be some kind of study, and an absolutely huge room, consisting of smaller rooms, lined with paintings and statues and any other type of art that you could think of. That one was actually pretty impressive, and as a cool bonus he could recognize some of the scenes and people of old depicted, although the state of disarray it was in dampened its glory a little.

There were a few doors that wouldn't budge no matter how much they pulled, though. And this seemed to be another one of them — even Karlof couldn't seem to get it open. Brushing it off, Lloyd swept their surroundings and stiffened, before looking back, relaxing, and continuing onwards with a sigh. 

More than once, he could've sworn he'd seen something laying around, could've sworn he caught something moving out of the corner of the eyes, or a person. But there was always nothing, other than maybe a piece of junk not worth touching. 

He was acutely aware of Skylor and Karlof exchanging glances every time he did it — sure, after the first few times they'd gotten used to it and stopped asking questions, but he was pretty certain they thought he was losing it. Honestly, he wouldn't be awfully surprised if he was.

Idly, he noticed how dim the light streaming in had gotten, and hummed, considering something.

"Say, it's getting pretty late, right?"

"Yes, and?"

"So … maybe he's spending the night? There was a huge staircase in the main room, we could go up there."

"You could be onto something," Skylor said. "Sound like a plan, Karlof?"

No response.

"... Karlof?" Lloyd called tentatively.

"Oh no." Skylor's eyes widened. A sweep of the hallway they were in showed no sign of the man.

"This is incredible," Lloyd said, shaking his head and throwing his hands up. "I knew something was really off about this place, but I didn't think anything'd happen this quickly."

"And yet," Skylor sighed. "How does a person his size just vanish, anyway?"

"And where could he have gone? We already scoured this entire floor. Twice!" Once per each missing elemental master. At this rate, Lloyd was really hoping no one else decided to go missing.

"What do you think the chances are that he just decided to leave?" Skylor said sardonically.

"I doubt it," Lloyd sighed. "If he's not here, then we find the nearest stairs and go up. Who knows, we might find Shade there, too." The shadows had lengthened considerably — it must've been close to nightfall. He formed a small green energy ball in his hands. It came to life with a faint hum, power wobbling unsteadily for a moment before stabilizing and brightening.

Hm. Odd. For now, he ignored it.

They walked quietly for a bit, alert and looking around, on the off chance that Karlof popped up from behind a wall and, oh, maybe threw confetti in their faces. (No such thing happened.) Then Lloyd came to an abrupt stop.

"Hey, what —" Skylor started, but he held up a hand to silence her and strained his ears.

There. He'd thought at first he was just hearing things that weren't there again, or reacting to the sound of their footsteps, but the same low rumble he'd picked up before vibrated in the air, pausing and then growing louder.

From the way she tensed up next to him, Skylor had definitely caught it this time. She exchanged an unsettled glance with Lloyd, and there was a subtle k-shhink! and assorted clicks and scrapes as they readied their respective weapons.

Whatever that noise had been, it definitely didn't sound human. And the ominous shadow starting to flit across the wall certainly didn't look the part, either. A low whistle pierced the suddenly-chilly air faintly tugging at their clothes. 

With little warning, swirling bursts of a dark matter he didn't recognize materialized into a huge, grotesque creature that looked vaguely ghost-like. That is, if you were to take a ghost, dunk it in all the colors of paint you had on hand, coat it in black glass, and give it a few extra … every external body part you could think of. The mangled wreck of eyes and mouths and limbs dripping bits of itself onto the floor was a little nauseating. On the list of the things that went bump in the night, this had to be pretty up there in terms of creepiness factor.

"What is that? Do you have any idea what it is?" Skylor asked from his right, quiet horror seeping into her voice. Lloyd shook his head.

"All I know is that it's probably not friendly."

It was advancing hostilely now, crouched animalistically on its legs with its back to the ceiling — next to it, they probably looked like ants. The rumble was now a tortured chorus of moaning and screeching, vaguely reminiscent of the Preeminent crossed with an entire room of Darkley's kids screaming at the top of their lungs.

Not a pleasant combination.

Lloyd's free hand went flying up, trying to block out the ear-grating sound, before he got accustomed and reluctantly peeled it away. And with each disfigured, claw-tipped hand that hit the floor and dragged it forward, it was speeding up — right towards them.

"The door, on three!" They both hurriedly counted down. On three, Skylor made a mad dash through the hallway, Lloyd on her heels and sneaking a glance behind him to check the abomination's location. Once they made it to the main door, they pushed it with force.

Only one problem: It wouldn't budge.

Throwing themselves against the door did precious little to help. As did trying to attack the hinges so it would break off. Lloyd was left dumbfounded when even straight-up firing a ball of green power into the door only left it damaged and a little charred.

"You cannot be serious right now!" Skylor hissed, nervously pulling at the handles.

"Well," Lloyd said grimly, "at least we know Karlof didn't ditch us."

"Comforting. What's plan B?"

"We gotta get away from it!" Wildly, Lloyd looked around. Where to go, where to go …

"The nearest corridor!" Skylor suggested. "Maybe we can find someplace to hide!"

Another harsh scream rang out, terrifyingly close. It was almost in striking distance and getting ready to attack.

"... No."

"What? Lloyd, have you lost your mind?"

"No, but think!" He backed away from the door and towards a corridor. "It's clearly bent on getting a piece of us. If we run, it'll keep chasing. If we hide, none of these doors have locks; it can break in on us. We'll have to face it eventually."

"So you're saying we should show it who's boss instead."

"Exactly." He took a breath to calm his nerves and let resolute focus settle in its place. "Get ready for a fight."

The hoods went up over their heads now, and Lloyd pulled on his mask, feeling the same rush of determination and adrenaline he always did when it was time to get down to business.

With barely any warning, an arm shot forward, narrowly missing the both of them. They leapt out of the way, landing on opposite sides of the creature, weapons drawn.

It was time to get serious.

A while later, things were looking much more grim, and they hadn't even been that optimistic to start with. Lloyd had discovered that his powers were actually quite effective in temporarily rebuffing the spirit and actually seemed to do some damage, but between attacking, deflecting its swipes at him with his katana, jumping out of the way, and occasionally leaping to Skylor's aid, he was beginning to tire.

Skylor, on the other hand, didn't even have the advantage of powers, but she'd been doggedly shooting arrows into the creature's eyes until it had knocked her crossbow down and broken it. Lloyd was stuck leaping in front of it and trying to distract it as Skylor made a beeline for the kitchen and rummaged around for knives to use as projectiles instead. 

She'd come out a while later holding a handful of slightly rusty and probably dull knives, and was making do, throwing them at its eyes and overall trying to hit as many weak spots as possible while Lloyd bombarded it with energy balls. It was going at them with everything it had, mouths snapping, arms and legs scratching and smacking and pushing, all the while screeching and groaning.

"I'm almost out of knives!" Skylor shouted over the spirit's moaning. "How much longer until we actually put a dent in this thing?"

"It already kinda looks like it's coming unglued! Maybe this won't be too much longer." It did, too. Every so often, its form shifted and stretched out in a pretty gross manner, like there was an animal inside it trying to free itself.

"I dunno, I kinda don't wanna make any bets on 'maybe'."

Lloyd just grunted and jumped away as an ugly hand came down on the spot he'd been standing on, hard. His arm was beginning to ache from the amount of swinging it was doing, just trying to keep himself from getting clawed open. 

Skylor got pushed back behind him, skidding to a stop and panting. His own breath was coming in short, sharp bursts. This wasn't good; if something didn't give soon, the fight felt like it might drag on an eternity, and he didn't have that kind of time or stamina.

Then, a knife whizzed past him and rather firmly lodged itself into a spot on their attacker's chest. Judging by the deafening racket the spirit was making, it was a sensitive area, and an incredible shot, considering how many arms there were defending its chest.

"Nice hit!" Lloyd called.

Skylor acknowledged it with a grunt, then lept out of the way of the spirit hitting back. But it was especially angry now, and no sooner had she landed than multiple arms lashed out. Skylor went flying, and before Lloyd had time to help her up, it rematerialized near her, roughly grabbing her by the hood and repeatedly flinging her into a wall. Lloyd winced as she screamed, straining to get up and then falling limp.

He was running now, twin spheres of energy flaring to life and being fired off as fast as he could make them. Jumping in front of Skylor and planting himself in a defensive position, he readied another attack and braced himself for the long haul against the beast about to bear down on him.

"Skylor?" He got a weak groan in response. Okay, good, she wasn't out cold; that meant that she probably wasn't severely injured. "I'll cover you, so stay put!"

"Trust me," she muttered, curling in on herself, "I wasn't about to do much else."

This wasn't good. He was wearing thin, and worse, having to protect Skylor meant he'd just lost most of his mobility. Muttering a word he probably shouldn't have known, he fired a blast of energy and felt a grim satisfaction at the way it stumbled back and yelled. The spirit only stayed still for a moment, regaining its bearings, before crawling forward, slowly at first and then with more determination. It never stopped growling, but it sounded more pained now.

Good. He was wearing it down, then.

Any sense of time passing was nonexistent as the battle dragged on, Lloyd dodging what he could and beating back what he couldn't. Sword in his right and fistful of energy in his left, he slashed at any arms that tried to get a chunk out of him, struck its eyes and fired beams of light into its mouths when it got a bit close for comfort. He was trying desperately to keep it from getting too close; after all, he was doing the fighting for two. But despite how banged up and unstable the spirit looked, it looked to be gaining the upper hand, encroaching closer and closer each time before being driven away by a mixture of Spinjitzu and his powers. His attacks were beginning to get sloppy, too, and an array of cuts and scratches littering his body stung fiercely, not helped by the sweat getting into them. The ugly shrieks it made each time he got a hit in were making his head hurt, too.

Puffing with exertion, he tucked into Spinjitzu and twirled right into the spirit. As it skidded back, he stepped away to catch his breath, pushing hair out of his eyes, and quickly looked down at Skylor, shooting her a sympathetic wince. Her hair was caked with blood — that was obviously going to smart in the morning.

A roar brought his attention shooting back to the creature rearing back up — it was clearly tired too, torn-up and ripped and fading in places where particularly strong attacks had made their marks, with translucent gashes dripping strange, misty essence where he and Skylor had stabbed. It was also stretching apart wildly, as if it'd come apart any moment now. But its aggression hadn't seemed to come down a single notch, and it came tromping back with unexpected speed, closing the small gap quickly. A second's stumble cost him, sending his katana clattering onto the floor, and ice-cold claws ripped through the fabric of his gi and scraped across his clavicle. Gasping, Lloyd jabbed outwards with his fists, sending bursts of green shooting all over the place, and crashed to the floor next to Skylor. Quickly, he scrambled back up, and lit his fists again, moving his arms around him and leaving sparkling trails of green light in their wake.

There was blood starting to well up where he'd been hit, and the sharp edge of pain was making his vision swim. Gritting his teeth, he tried to shake it off. The energy he'd put up around himself had singed the spirit and made it shy away, but now it was starting to come creeping back, and the rudimentary shield wouldn't last much longer.

And as much as he didn't want to admit it, neither would he.

At last, the spirit pushed back too hard for him to hold, and his knees buckled. Before it could nail him again, he scurried back like a crab, watching it loom ever-closer with its screech grating at his ears.

This was it. They could run, but his exhaustion would make him slow. Skylor was in the same boat but worse, and he'd walk into the Underworld backwards before he left her to be finished off. So there was only one thing left to do — fight like a madman.

He took as deep a breath as his heaving chest would let him, resigning himself to his fate.

Then a pair of shurikens descended right onto the spirit's head and exploded.

[kelphero47]

The Marvelous Adventures of Echo Zane - Chapter 1

Ta-da! There’s more!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TMAoEZ – Chapter 1:

Echo looked out the window of the lighthouse's top floor to a seemingly endless ocean surrounding the island from all sides. He had woken that day to a feeling he couldn't quite describe. Emotions were complicated things to him anyway but this was new. He felt empty. Not in the way he felt when one of his gears fell out or a limb came off. It felt as if he was missing something he couldn't think of no matter how hard he tried.

Yet he knew he to find whatever it was if he was going to fix this. He had already searched the entire lighthouse twice with the help of Gizmo, who didn't have the answer to his emptiness either. That meant that whatever was missing wasn't on the island. Or at least that's what Echo believed, "Boats are made from wood and so we shall use whatever wood we have to make one. Then another plank of wood can be our oar." He explained as he looked through the lighthouse's secret basement. Having already dragged out the wooden shelves and taken wood from the table upstairs he was still looking for an oar.

Gizmo nudged his leg before holding up a plank of wood. Echo smiled at his friends as he took the material, "Now we can set sail." He held the smaller robot under his arm as he raced out of the door and then down the many stairs in front of the building. A makeshift boat rested alongside the water, crafted out of various sized planks, rope and a tarp thing Echo had found in the basement. It wasn't the prettiest boat but he was proud of it. He carefully placed Gizmo into the boat before pushing it into the water.

After jumping into the boat himself Echo took one last look at the place he had called home his whole life. "Do you think where we are going has a lighthouse like this one?" His only answer was a series of beeps not really confirming anything. "Do you think Father will be there?" Echo had considered if his emptiness was caused by the loss of his only human contact suddenly going missing but he has accepted that his father must have had his reasons. After all he had a reason for everything, including making him to replace the original Zane. Who he talked about a lot but Echo couldn't blame him for that either, after all he wasn't the original and couldn't take that place in his father's heart away from his... Brother? Yeah, brother.

"Do you think my brother will there?" He had given up hope of ever meeting the person his father spoke so much of. Yet there was something his father had spoken of with his brother and that was hope. His brother must be amazing to inspire their father enough to never give up despite his less than favourable situation. This musing of his went on for several hours as he rowed the boat away from the lighthouse. Then didn't really stop until his shoulder joints began to hurt causing him to cease rowing.

The sky was no longer the clear blue it was before but rather a near black expanse broken by the occasion star and the full moon. The ocean around him lay almost still as Echo lay down in the boat facing the stars, "I wonder what it's like up there..." He reached both of his hands out in front of him, "To be surrounded by such pretty things as stars constantly rather than the ocean like we are." He got no response out of Gizmo, who seemed to have powered down to conserve energy. "Do you think it's lonely in space?"

**The next day**

Echo awoke to the feeling of someone tapping him on the face. Which was followed by the sound of birds, the ocean and people? The material that lay under Echo's hand was colder than wood or tarp. Curiosity to his current situation led him to open his eyes to a cloudy blue sky and a pair of people standing over him. Both of them donning some form of worried expression as he slowly sat up.

One of them currently whispering to another unknown individual on a walkie-talkie, "It's awake... No, it hasn't said anythi-… You want me to talk to it?... I understand..." The man in question looked hesitantly at Echo as the other tilted his head to the side, "Um... Hi there?"

"Hello", Echo looked at the pair and at his surrounding to see that he was on a larger boat than his own. "Where am I?"

"The Chestnut... It's a boat."

"Why am I here? Where is my boat?"

"That piece of driftwood you and the bucket were sitting in? We left it in the ocean and it got dragged off by the current. That thing wasn't safe to sail in."

"Oh."

"If it makes you feel any better we saved your bucket." The other person stated before holding out Gizmo, who was still in sleep mode. Echo took his friend from her arms then tapped him on the head a couple times.

"He is not a bucket, he is Gizmo. A robot assistant created by my father." Echo explained to them as he persisted in trying to wake up his friend, "What's the matter with him?"

"Is he broken?"

"Most likely... Do any of you have tools?"

"Now hold on a second", the man spoke again, "Who are you anyway? Why were you out here in a boat? Where's this father you mentioned? Does he know where you are? Does anyone who where you are?"

"I am Zane, I was created to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I was trying find a way to an answer to my emptiness. My father is gone and therefore does not know my current location nor does anyone else. Except you people, of course."

"'Emptiness'?"

"I am not human but I can perhaps make it similar to watch people call 'loss'. I am missing something."

"And you were sailing to try and find it?"

"That was my intention, and yet I feel as if my lack of planning to make a safer boat has put my only friend in danger..." Echo sadly cradled Gizmo in his arms.

"I'm sure we can fix it, Sherly call the captain and let him know our guest here needs some tools." The woman stepped forward with her hand offering Echo help off the ground, "Now Zane, my name's Kim and this is Sherly."

"Sherwin", her companion said before whispering into his walkie-talkie. "His name is Zane... He needs help right now... He says 'tools' but I'm not sure which ones... Okay... Sure thing."

"Any luck?"

"Cap' wants to meet him... But we should have a toolbox lying around he can use to fix his friend."

"Does that sound okay?" She was addressing Echo at this point as her companion proceeded to walk off.

"That would be helpful, thank you."

"No need to thank me, it's the Cap' you gotta thank for not having you thrown over the side."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"Sherly thought you were an old fridge when we first fished you out the water."

"I look nothing like a fridge."

**Time skip 'cuz I'm lazy**

Later that evening, after Echo was introduced to the ship's captain 'Doug', he was sat below deck alongside the three-other people on board. He was still unable to figure out how Gizmo had broken in the first place and was beginning to lose hope of his friend ever coming online again. He sighed putting Gizmo on the table the four of them were sat around, as the others were watching TV.

Doug smiled sadly at him, "Any luck?" His answer was a shaking head before Echo rested defeatedly on the table, "Mind if I had a look at it?" Yet another head shake in response which allowed him to pick up Gizmo and begin tinkering with the small robot, "You know, I don't visit the city much now but I used to work for a tech company, pretty big one too. Not that I miss it all that much but I do enjoy fixing the odd piece of hardware, especially fine pieces like your friend here." He spoke happily before resting Gizmo back on the table upright, "Try him now."

Echo wasn't hoping for much when he tapped his friend on the head but was more than happy to see him finally come online, "How?"

"Cap's a man of many talents." Sherwin answered not removing his eyes from the TV.

"Shh, the Ninja are on TV." Kim waved her hand at the others, effectively quieting them.

"We freed the others, Nya got... Hurt badly and I kind of wished it all away to prevent it ever happening." Jay spoke on the TV followed by the presenter's comment.

"What they done now?" Sherwin questioned seeming completely uninterested.

"Nya and Jay finally got together after apparently resetting time or something." Kim answered quickly before returning her attention to the screen.

"So who was on this 'Backup Ninja Force', anyone we know?" The presenter spoke to the camera mostly, which Echo thought was weird since she wasn't addressing the audience but what did he know about show business.

"Well there was Ronin, Skylor, Darreth, Captain Soto, the Police Commisioner and..." Jay suddenly trailed off much to the confusion of the people on the ship. They continued to watch the Ninja's confusing exchange until Jay spoke three simple words, "He's Zane's brother." The camera then moved to said ninja who now held an emotionless expression on his face.

"Who's that?" Echo spoke up at this point as an all too familiar looking face came up on the TV.

"That's Zane, the ice nindroid..." Kim spoke slowly as she and the other two turned to face Echo, "You kind of look like him, you know."

"'Kind of'?" Sherwin interrupted, "He's the spitting image of Zane, minus the colour and general 'shiny-ness'."

"You don't think..."

**Back with the Ninja**

It had been anarchy after Jay's reveal of Zane's newly discovered brother with the nindroid in question having left the interview early. The presenter took pity on the remaining ninja, who were in just as much shock as their brother, by calling their interview to a close. The team, minus Zane, quietly made their way back to the Bounty. An awkward silence hung over them even as they all took a seat inside the games room.

Zane had been waiting for them to return home from his seat on the couch. His own silence had really been filled with PIXAL's voice and his own thousand-mile-an-hour thoughts. 'I have a brother?'

"...ne..."

'How is that possible? Father never mentioned him, even when we were at the lighthouse. Did he just forget about him?'

"...ane..."

'How could he? Was it because I was there? Did he feel that my brother wasn't important?'

"...Zane..."

'How could he think that? Is he there alone? For how long? How long has my brother been alone?'

"ZANE!"

'…?'

"Are you alright?"

'I'm not...'

"Do you want to talk about it?"

'Yes... I just don't know how to feel about...'

"About?"

'My brother... Oh PIXAL, I have a brother. A brother who's apparently alone on that lighthouse and has been since I took our father with me, away from him.'

"It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have known."

'But...'

"But nothing Zane, you couldn't of... Didn't know about him but now you do. What you do next is the thing you can control and know about."

'…You're right."

"I know I am." Their internal conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the other ninja as they entered the room. Zane watched silently as they sat down, with Cole on the other end of the couch and the others scattered around the table on the floor. Jay looked pale still and was avoiding looking in Zane's general direction, "You should talk to him."

'I know.' Zane smiled at the almost smug look on PIXAL's face at this point, "Jay?" The ninja in question visibly jumped before turning to look at his friend.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry about my distressing reaction to news of my brother's existence. I was surprised by the news and retreated into my own head, so to say, and did so without thinking."

"If anyone needs to apologise it's me, I should have remembered to tell you about something as important as your brother..." Jay rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, smiling meekly.

"It's my fault too", Nya spoke up at this point. "I was there as well so I could have told you as well."

"It's okay... Everyone makes mistakes, but we should be thinking about how to fix this." Zane smiled, "Starting with you two telling us what you left out of your story about my brother."

"Oh... Well it started after we had escaped Ninjago City and went to that lighthouse your dad was imprisoned in..."

**Back to the ship with Echo**

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe I'm one of the first people to meet Zane's long-lost brother!" Kim almost screamed as her three companions covered their ears, "How did I not see it before? You two look so much alike!"

"Stop yelling!" Sherwin yelled over her rambling, "You fangirls really need to know when to chill." He sighed when she finally stopped talking.

"What is a 'fangirl'?" Echo asked as he uncovered his ears and checked if Gizmo was alright after the loud noise.

"Terrifying beings that will stop at nothing to get the things they love and scream over." Sherwin laughed at how scared Echo looked at that statement, "But they're one of the side effects of being famous, your brother must deal with them all the time. Well him and his friends, they're kind of a package deal at this point."

"They sound amazing."

"They are! I can tell you everything about them if you want!" Kim smiled excitedly at Echo who was more than happy to hear about his brother, "I'll take that smile as a yes then. Well there's their mentor Sensei Wu who gathered the first four ninja: Jay the master of lightning, Cole the master of earth, Zane the master of ice and Kai master of fire... ….. ….."

By the time she was through with her story Echo was falling asleep on the table in front of him. Instead of waking him up the trio of sailors draped a blanket over him before leaving to get some sleep themselves, well after Kim took pictures of him on her phone. "He's so cute~", she whispered sweetly, "Can we keep him forever Cap'?"

"No... I think it's time he and his brother were finally united, don't you think?" Doug whispered back.

"Aww, that's going to be so cool!"

"Shh!" Sherwin called from his bed before rolling over to face away from the two. Kim giggled before going to sleep herself. Doug took one last look at Echo then closed his eyes. What the trio didn't know is that Echo was listening the entire time, "I can't wait." But how is meeting my brother going to be cold? Must be because he's the 'master of ice' or something like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed this. Tell me if you did, I’ll be sure to respond.

[goldenavenger02]

my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

5 times Zane took care of the team and 1 time the team took care of Zane

•••

1;

"You three are brothers now, and will become stronger together. But for now, you must get acquainted with each other." Sensei's words rang in Zane's head as he made his way into the kitchen of the monastery.

While Jay had been somewhat easy to get introduced to, with his passion for robotics and his tendency to talk, they had become close very quickly.

Cole, however, was a bit harder to speak to; Zane could tell that Cole was a good person, as he was extremely loyal to Sensei even though he had just started his training under him, but he was also closed off to Jay and Zane.

And while he didn't know why, Zane had a feeling it was more so due to some sort of pain in his past, and not him viewing himself and Jay as lower than him.

Which is why Zane was now in the kitchen; he could never quite place exactly why, but he always felt at peace when he was cooking. Something about making something out of nothing was soothing to him.

But before he had decided what exactly he was going to make, that's when Cole came in, a look of longing across his face.

"Hello, Cole," Zane greeted, offering him a smile, but it faded when Cole stiffened, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's alright, just startled me," Cole insisted, the look of longing came back before he asked, "are you making anything specific?"

"I have not decided. Do you have a request?" Zane asked, trying to read Cole's face.

"Can you make cake? Vanilla cake?"

"Absolutely," Zane smiled, going to grab the ingredients before asking, his back turned to Cole, "are we celebrating something, or is it just cake?"

He heard Cole take in a deep breath, almost as if he was trying to avoid crying, which didn't make much sense, since from what he knew, cake was never for sad things.

Zane turned around to see Cole staring at the counter before he responded.

"Yeah, it's…" he swallowed before locking eyes with Zane, "it would have been my mom's birthday. She passed away a few months ago."

"I am sorry for your loss, Cole." Zane spoke softly, unsure of how best to comfort someone he didn't know very well.

The room went quiet for a few moments, and Zane busied himself with grabbing the rest of the cooking supplies when Cole spoke up again, his voice cracking slightly from the tears.

"Can I help?"

Zane nodded, allowing Cole behind the counter before Zane got to work on the dry ingredients, watching as Cole started working on the wet ingredients.

And when Zane tripped over his own foot, resulting in Cole being covered in flour head to toe, he couldn't stop himself from laughing when Cole did, although he didn't fully understand exactly what was so funny.

2;

"Come on, you stupid hunk of junk!" Nya's shout rang through the Bounty, startling everyone that was aboard.

"How long has she been working on the thruster?" Zane asked, wondering just how long she had gone without food, sleep and water.

"Since yesterday afternoon, I can't pry her away from it." Jay explained, which led Zane to nod before making his way to the control room.

Nya was hunched over the thruster controls, screwdriver in her left hand and a screw hanging out of her mouth, her eyebrows scrunched in anger as she continued to twist the wrench with her right around a bolt.

"Nya?" Zane spoke softly, not wanting to provoke her, before gently putting his hand on her shoulder, "perhaps you should take a break. Jay said that you have been working on it since yesterday."

"I've gotta work on this," she shook her head after taking the screw out of her mouth, "we don't know when we'll have to make a getaway from...whatever Lord Garmadon is planning."

Zane nodded; since Garmadon had disappeared after the destruction of the golden weapons, they had all braced themselves for an attack, even Lloyd who had just started learning the full extent of his powers was getting ready for whatever his dad was going to throw at them.

"I understand your reasoning perfectly, but you are human, Nya. You will get burnt out if you work yourself too hard," he stopped to gently take the wrench out of her hand so she would look at him, "and if we have any chance at stopping Garmadon, we are going to need Samurai X."

Luckily, Nya nodded, and put up her tools, before wiping at her brow with her arm. "Thanks, Zane."

"You're welcome." Zane couldn't help but smile as he watched Nya make her way towards her quarters, and that's when he turned back to the thruster, and started to get to work with schematics pulled up in front of him.

"You will fly again, my friend."

3;

Despite the fact that it was called "The Dark Island", Zane had actually found the perfect place to sit on the beach and watch the sunrise, which was hidden by large rocks, even though he could see the ocean perfectly.

He knew that the others would wake up soon, and they would start working towards the final battle yet again, but for a brief moment, everything was peaceful.

Until he heard the footsteps.

Zane immediately drew his weapon, hearing the slight rustle of sand get louder and louder, until finally, he stood and yelled, ready to attack until the supposed assailant screamed, energy at both of their hands.

Zane immediately sheathed the weapon and took a deep breath, watching as Lloyd did the same, his hand against his chest. "You scared me, Lloyd."

"Likewise," Lloyd took a deep breath before raising an eyebrow, "what're you doing?"

"I'm watching the sunrise, it looks beautiful from here," Zane explained, sitting back down and watching Lloyd's face fall, "although, I could ask you the same thing."

"I just needed some time for myself," Lloyd told him, sitting next to Zane before letting out a sigh, "I don't think I'm ready."

"To fight your father?," Zane offered, resulting in a nod from Lloyd, "You have every reason to be upset about this situation. I just reunited with my father, and I can confidently say that I would be very distraught if we were on opposite sides."

"My entire life, I've lost people. My father got banished, my mother went to work on her research and left me at Darkley's, even my uncle didn't take me in for a long time," Zane watched as Lloyd took in a shaky breath before wiping his face against his sleeve, "I don't wanna lose him again."

"Again?" Zane asked softly, as to avoid provoking Lloyd.

"My dad has been the only one to come back for me. When I got taken by the Serpentine, he left whatever evil place he was in to come save me, and I know you guys came for me too, but…"

"You're scared of being abandoned again after you fulfill the prophecy." Zane spoke aloud as it clicked in his head, and when Lloyd nodded, he could feel his heart break slightly.

"I don't want to be alone again."

Zane nodded, before gently laying his hand on Lloyd's shoulder and he saw the tear streaks on Lloyd's cheeks. "You won't be alone again, because you have me and the others. We are your brothers, and even if you didn't have elemental abilities, we would still be your brothers."

Zane didn't prepare himself adquitally for the hug that Lloyd gave him, and he could feel his circuits and gears tightening under his grasp.

But hearing Lloyd's soft voice whisper, "thank you, Zane," made it all worth it, and he couldn't stop himself from returning the hug.

4;

"No sign of Chen or any of his warriors." PIXAL affirmed with a smile, which led Zane to repeat the message to Kai.

Now that he had been freed, he was fully able to explore exactly what his new body could do, and while he remembered big events clearly and flashes of small things, his memory was still foggy.

But he remembered his friends, and that was the biggest thing that mattered to him.

"Any sign of Skylor?" Kai begged, and Zane had no choice but to shake his head no, seeing the look of anguish on Kai's face grow more prominent.

"Let's keep looking. They couldn't have gotten off the island." Kai insisted, Zane following closely behind, watching as Kai's face went from anger to worry.

"You seem distraught, Kai. About more than Skylor," Zane reached forward and gently set his hand on Kai's shoulder, watching as he turned back to meet his eyes, "do you want to talk about it?"

Kai let out a sigh before turning back to the path and continued to walk, "I feel terrible for what happened. I had to trick Lloyd in order to get the staff from Chen, and then I almost hurt Lloyd and Skylor with the staff. Now she's missing, and...I feel like that's on me."

"No one blames you for that, Kai. Chen is the one who took her, not you." Zane reasoned softly.

"But I allowed myself to be corrupted by the staff. We all know how bad losing power is for Lloyd, and I allowed the power to consume me, to say things to him that...that I haven't believed in a long time."

"As soon as we get back, you two should talk and get everything out in the open," Zane stopped once again to put his hand on Kai's shoulder, "if we are going to fight as one, and stop Chen, we cannot have any harsh feelings towards each other."

"You're right," Kai nodded, before letting out another sigh, "I just hope Lloyd doesn't hate me."

"I think that would be impossible, Kai," Zane insisted, and when Kai turned to raise an eyebrow at him, he continued, "I do not remember everything, and my memories are still foggy, but I remember just how much Lloyd and you have bonded over the years. I have a feeling that after you two talk, he will forgive you."

Kai smiled, which made Zane's emotion levels spike with happiness, before the two continued walking deeper and deeper into Chen's island.

5;

Zane couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, like there was a gap in his memory drive, even if PIXAL insisted that there wasn't one.

So he was awake in the bridge, trying to double check; he really did trust PIXAL, but something had happened to his memories, and after the whole situation with his memory switch in the first place, something about forgetting just scared him.

But as he continued to go through his internal hard drive, and his memory drive, it seemed as though PIXAL was correct, and there was no gap.

As he went to close the files, that's when PIXAL popped up in his vision.

"Zane, there is someone in the general proximity of the bridge. Proceed with caution."

Zane straightened his back as he closed the files, even though the only sound he could hear was a slight sniffling that sounded a lot like crying, and grabbed one of the spare katanas that was out, turning slowly to see if he could scope out who was in the room, but that's when Jay turned the corner, a pint of ice cream in his hand that he almost threw at Zane when he screamed.

"What the heck are you doing up, Zane?!" Jay screeched as Zane set the katana on the table and approached him, "You're going to give me a heart attack if you're that quiet!"

"I'm sorry, I was just…" Zane trailed off before making eye contact with Jay, who now had the spoon from the pint of ice cream, that looked like it was Cole's ice cream, in his mouth; the tear streaks barely visible against Jay's cheeks, however, that's what Zane noticed, "What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Could ask you the same thing," Jay responded before sticking another spoonful in his mouth, "couldn't sleep, got hungry, and Cole's name isn't on his ice cream."

"I heard someone crying." Zane asked softly, watching as Jay nearly choked on a chunk of cookie dough before sputtering.

"Maybe it was Lloyd, you know he curls up under the wheel when he doesn't want anyone to know he's crying."

"Lloyd was snoring when I left our room, I would have seen him," he watched as Jay's body deflated slightly and he put the ice cream down on the console before sitting down, which led Zane to put his hand on his shoulder, "do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm just working through some things, things that...you wouldn't remember."

Zane swallowed as he made the connection that Jay knew exactly why he had a gap in his memory that PIXAL couldn't detect, but instead of freaking out, he sat next to Jay, and put his hand on his shoulder. "Maybe not, but I am willing to listen, even if you wanna erase this conversation afterwards."

"Nah, I'm not gonna do that," Jay wiped his hand across his face before taking a shaky breath and turning back to Zane, "You remember when we were trying to get to Stiix because of reports of Clouse being there?"

"Yes, that's when you and Nya resumed dating." Zane affirmed, watching as Jay's face fell slightly.

"Yeah, that's… not exactly what happened…"

6;

'Remember when I put Kai's clothes in with yours, and you had to dress up as the pink ninja? Remember?' The blonde boy pleaded, green eyes full of tears.

He had no idea what this liar was talking about, let alone who he was. Vex insisted he was some sort of liar or traitor, but there was something about the way…

'No.'

He had no idea who this was.

•••

Zane tried to shake the memory away as he made his way to his room, looking over at the photo on his dresser.

The picture that they had taken after finishing the mural on the monastery wall; where Kai was holding onto Nya and Lloyd and Nya was holding onto Jay and Jay was holding onto Cole and Lloyd was holding onto him and he was holding onto PIXAL.

And they were all happy; even though the Oni almost killed them all, there was a large gash next to Lloyd's eye and Cole looked like he had been through the underworld and back, they were happy.

Zane was anything but happy now.

When they returned from the Never-Realm, and they shared weary smiles and hugs with Master Wu and PIXAL, despite the frostbite, Lloyd's obvious concussion and the burns on Kai's hands that would definitely scar, they were happy.

The feeling in Zane's gut was not going away anytime soon. Watching as PIXAL stitched the cut on the back of Lloyd's head, applied bandages to Kai's hands, and treated the frostbite wasn't helping with that either.

Zane didn't deserve to feel happy after nearly killing the others. After nearly killing Lloyd.

While the others were eating dinner, courtesy of Nya, Zane was sitting outside on the steps of the monastery; he didn't need to eat, and even if he did, he didn't think he could stomach it.

'You were built to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You failed your purpose. Both as a ninja, and as yourself.'

Despite all that had happened with his memories, Zane was starting to consider asking Jay to wipe the archive of the Never-Realm. Maybe he wouldn't feel as bad then.

"Hey," a voice interrupted his thoughts, and he lifted his head to see Lloyd smiling at him, although it was more of a sympathetic smile than a genuine one, "mind if I sit here?"

"You're not supposed to be outside, or on stairs for that matter, without supervision," Zane reasoned, but still moved so Lloyd could sit beside him, "you still have a concussion."

"Well, you're here, so I'm being supervised," Lloyd reasoned while sitting, and Zane couldn't deny that logic, and the company was more welcome than the deafening silence, "besides, I need a break from Kai and Master Wu breathing down my neck."

Zane nodded as Lloyd adjusted to get comfortable; he had noticed how understandably protective both of them had grown since they had gotten back, and how Lloyd had insisted immediately that the concussion was Vex's fault, refusing to look Zane in the eye.

"So, are you leaving?" Lloyd's voice cracked, which jolted something in Zane's system as he nearly stood with the shock.

"No, no, I'm not leaving," he insisted, unable to ignore the relief on Lloyd's face as he spoke, "why would you ask that?"

"Because the last time you left the monastery at night, you found my treehouse," Lloyd kicked at a pebble before looking at Zane, "and when the Hypnobri burned down the old monastery-"

But Lloyd's voice cut out as the scene played out in his head.

'Flames, trapped dragons, no more training equipment, no home, nowhere to go, alone, everyone accusing him of causing this, insisting that it was a teaching moment, being ignored, seeing the falcon, following it, the feeling of being alone again.'

"I left because I saw the falcon, and you weren't even there." Zane tried to convince Lloyd that it hadn't been the guilt, feeling like he had screwed up, feeling like he was alone.

"You're right, I was busy being a brat," Lloyd reasoned before looking back at Zane, "but I know as well as anyone what guilt is, and you felt it then, like you feel it now."

Zane swallowed; did everyone know? Was he terrible at hiding this? Had they planned to send Lloyd out?

"I hurt people. A lot of people," Zane swallowed, knowing that there were tears in his eyes, "I hurt you."

"That was Vex-" Lloyd tried to insist, but Zane shook his head, unable to look at Lloyd and instead looked up at the glittering stars.

"You don't have to lie to me, Lloyd. They were my hands, I was the one who…" he couldn't even finish his sentence without choking on the emotions on his throat.

He felt Lloyd's hand on his shoulder, he couldn't look at him, but he couldn't reach over and pull his hand off either, 'what if I freeze him? What if I hurt him again?'

"You know, Master Wu has a saying for things like this, "we cannot change the past, but we can affect the future"," Lloyd quoted, leading Zane to swallow harshly as his master's words rang true in his head, "but I get it. Feeling like you hurt people because it was your hands."

'Morro.'

"Lloyd, I didn't-" Zane started, finally managing to look at Lloyd, but he was cut off by childlike wonder spreading across his face.

"A shooting star! Quick, make a wish!" Lloyd begged, and Zane wiped at his tears before closing his eyes, pretending to make a wish before turning back to Lloyd.

"What did you wish for?" He asked, fully indulging Lloyd at this point, who was standing up. 'Lloyd deserves this, after everything.'

"That you'll come back inside with me and the others," Lloyd held out his hand to Zane, making his head throb with worry.

'You'll hurt him, you'll hurt him, you'll hurt-' "You're not going to hurt me, Zane."

Zane took Lloyd's hand, and allowed him to lead him to the living room.

For the first time since they got back from the Never-Realm, as Cole and Kai went head to head in their video game, as Nya and Jay snuggled on the couch, as he sat in between Lloyd and PIXAL, things felt right again.

He let PIXAL hold his hand, he let Cole high five him, he let Jay give him a fist bump, he hit the empty bag of chips away from Lloyd's head. Even as Master Wu pulled Lloyd away from the TV due to the concussion and Cole took his spot, he still felt calm. Relaxed even. Maybe now, they could all start to heal together.