Chapter Text
The green Ninja wasn’t pleased at all.
He hadn’t managed to finish the simulation: just a bunch of robots and of traps and still he got out of the game almost at the end. He definitely had to work on it.
He was the green ninja after all. He had to protect the people… especially now that there weren’t much ninja around patrolling Ninjago city. Well, actually there were none, without counting himself. He had to be strong.
“You arrived closer than I thought you would” Borg's voice announced, gentle “ but then again, I didn’t thing you’d be quite so rough on my security droids”
Ups. Lloyd started pushing the man’s wheelchair.
“If I can’t steal the golden armour, I’d be surprised if anyone else could.” Not without knowing all “the security staff”, at least. “It’s secure, but where is the real one?”
“Some secret are best kept safe.”
Well, right. Got it.
Sensei Wu intruded in the conversation.
‘And here it comes.’
“Lloyd, where are the other ninja? I asked for all of them to be part of this test.” Why aren’t they here? Why you didn’t brought them?
‘Stop. Asking. Me.’, Lloyd wanted to scream, ‘I know I’m not I good leader. I know I’m loosing this battle.’
Or even, ‘They are anywhere else but here. Because they had lost their brother. We had lost our brother. And if they were here, they would probably start fighting each other until I was the only one left alive.’
‘Because they are bloody sick of the whole ninja thing. They always lose something for the greater good, they would had died for it… but having Zane dead? No, that was too much, even for them’
‘Because they don’t want to see neither you or me or themselves’
‘Because I’m the only one who hasn’t given up yet’
‘Deep breaths, Lloyd, deep breaths.’
“Uh, they… uh… really wanted to be there… but they, uh-”, ‘they actually didn’t’ oh FSM he had to work on his lies too “-but… they all had other plans.”
“I understand perfectly well.”, said the man catiously.
‘Do you? Really?’
“The loss of Zane has affected us all. It’s heartbreaking.”
Sensei Wu spoke again. “If we dwell too long on what’s missing, we fail to see what can be gained. The absence of Zane will either tear the four of you apart-”
Oh, did you notice, didn’t you?
“-or bring you closer than ever. The choice it’s yours.”
“I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be easy.”
“The greatest lessons never are.”
Well, it seemed like there was a new mission for the green ninja.
And he, Lloyd Garmadon, would succeed this time. Oh, yeah, he would. He was the green ninja, after all. He could manage four- oh, FSM, not again… - three idiots. He had done that since he was eight.
Lloyd smiled internally.
They won’t escape him. Not again.
-----Jay-------
Jay peered out on the stage. Lights, paid crowd, all ready.
And he? Was he?
Suit? Alright, check.
Hair? Fine (given the circumstances of course- one had to adapt himself… and after all he had seen much worse, like that time he had by mistake given his “super-energy” shampoo to Kay and… NO. Jay. Concentrate yourself.) The hair, yeah, check.
Uhm… what else? Voice? Still here. (Not like he had lost it that often. He had always had fear of loosing his voice, so he paid always double attention not to get a cold- in facts, he had lost his voice probably twice in his life and the last one was because Cole...No. Not now. Focused, Jay, focused. Do not think about him… him and- NO) … voice check then.
‘Fine. Right. Time to go.
Kind of. Do I have to? Well…’
‘Go Jay, they love you.’
‘Okay, but this is stupid.’
‘Well, yeah. But still. It’s your life now. They appreciate you.’
‘Mum and dad…’
‘They are always proud of you, you know it. And they don’t watch the telly, anyway.’
‘I really would like to go home and- Oh. Time to go. Already?
Alright, Jay you can do this.
Faster than a lightening, then home.’
Smile… almost forgot this, this time… yeah, here we are. Smiley idiot face, check.
And...action.
“MOST! ULTIMATE! EXTREME! NINJA! CHALLENGE! EVER!”
‘oh my god I hate you all and your stupid challenge.’
‘smile, Jay, smile’
Alright.
“Ahahahah. I’m Jay, Ninjago’s most lovable ninja” ‘Well, this isn’t a lie, at least… I mean It’s not like I have much concurrence’ “...here before the Gauntlet of Humility to see who will be Ninjago’s next hero! And whose dreams will be gone… IN A FLASH!”
‘Go cringe, they love it, go cringe’
‘I really hope Nya isn’t watching telly tonight…’
‘Oh, shut up’
‘Oh no, that Caty-I’m-so-pink one again . I hate her’
Later in the dressing room.
Jay was alone. Finally.
‘Oh god, that was an awful one.’
‘Like it always is since-’
“oh, shut up. You’re just a voice in my head.”
‘you’re boooring’
Jay sighed. He couldn’t stand his reflection in the mirror. He really couldn’t. He let his eyes slip on the old photo.
Why on earth he still had it there? Full of people he better didn’t think about… right. Yeah. It was the only photo he had of him.
“Ninja never quit, huh, Zane?”
“The team needs you now, more than ever”
‘What?’
Jay got up. And here he came, that green little bastard. Lloyd.
“How did you get in here??”
Silly question.
“I’m a ninja” right. “...And you are wearing makeup”
‘yeah, right. I forgot how annoying you were, boy’
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s concealer. A time-honored tool of the ninja.”
Lloyd just glared at him triumphally.
“And what do you mean, ““team””? I refuse to fight beside Cole. There’s nothing you can say that will get me back with that girl-stealing, black-hearted, rock-punding--” he was starting getting hysteric now.
‘Uh, oh. Better calm him down before he someone gets struck by a lighting…’
“Jay, she still speaks of you.” ‘and well, isn’t this the truth?’
Now the green ninja wasn’t mockingly, but calm and comprehensive. Trustworthy.
The anger was gone. If it ever had been there, after all.
The ex-master of lightning turned his face. Couldn’t let him see. Never let them see. Never. Trust. Them.
“You don’t belong here, Jay. This isn’t you!”
“You’re the master of lightning, not the Master of Lighting”
Jay just couldn’t think of an answer. Lloyd didn’t wait for one.
“You know where I’ll be if you change your mind.”
And he was gone. In a flash.
Jay took his concealer and brush.
The show must go on.
He looked at his reflection.
No. Don’t look. Don’t… STUPID FACE. (‘oh god hope I didn’t ruin the mirror. Enough unlucky years as it is’)
He sighed. The green nightmare was right. He always was. Well, almost.
He hoped he was, at least. Just for once.
He couldn’t be just this. Right?
-------Cole-------
TCHACK. Breath. TCHACK. Breath. TCHACK. The branch cracked.
Cole perceived a movement behind him, but he didn’t get alarmed. He’d just pretended not to see the green boy hanging and staring at him. He was surprised the kid hadn’t announced himself yet, actually. But still no point of rushing him. The boy will speak when he’s ready.
He calmly moved his head when Lloyd smoothly jumped on a branch slightly over him.
“The team needs you now more than ever”
He had aspected this, actually. Not much to answer, they had already had this conversation. Plenty of time. Still good to see the greenie, though.
“I though I was good with a scythe. HA!” another beat “Turns out, I’m even better with an ax. HA.” another beat.
Cole sighed. He was determined to be honest. There was no point of treat the kid badly, after all. Nothing of this was his fault. He was just doing his best.
“I’m tired of fighting, Lloyd. Tired of serpentine, tired of nindroids, tired of…” here he hesitated “ Jay”
‘tired of me’ he didn’t say. ‘Tired of paying for my mistakes, not to be able to fix things.’
Why couldn’t Lloyd understand?
He gestured his co-workers. “Out here, no one knows who you are. No one expects anything of you.”
He had often been defined the basement of the team. Solid as a rock, he remembered Sensei Wu saying. He liked that role, until he didn’t anymore. The pillars cracked, the rock crumbled.
He discovered the weight of expectations. He wasn’t allowed of doing wrong.
The other never understood him, not really. He didn’t himself, too.
But the greenie wouldn’t give up that easily. He never did, and he know it well.
“But what would Zane expect?”
Zane would have understood. He knew what meant to feel different, out of place.
If Zane would have been there, maybe the team would had had a chance. At least for their favourite nindroid’s sake.
But Zane wasn’t there anymore. That was the problem.
“You’re the Master of Earth, Cole. You don’t belong to trees. Your feet should be on the ground! You can’t hide who you are”
“Sorry Green machine, this is my life now.” He really was sorry. For him at least. But this was better for everyone: far from neverending quarrels, from dealing with the consequences of every breath he took, he would stop hurting and being hurt. He himself had gained some serenity, eventually.
A noise caught his attention. Something wrong.
The man on the camion started screaming.
“IT’S FALLING!”
Easy enough to get what was wrong: the load of woods was collapsing, overrunning the lumberjacks.
He turned to Lloyd, alarmed. He appeared on “emergency mode” altough he clearly hadn’t realized the situation yet.
They had to do something. Quickly.
There was no time to think of a plan. He had to relied on instinct.
In a fraction of second he was in action. He jumped down the tree, on the ground, right in front of the danger. It took just a look to evaluate the situation.
Without even realizing it, he had erected a barrier of earth and stone, stopped the woods, and here he was, a lifesaver again.
There was silence, then the workers started applauding and cheering.
“Who is he?”
“Not one of us”
Not one of them. Here he was again. He had revealed himself. He wasn’t just a woodcutter anymore.
He had to leave. Start again somewhere else.
“If you change your mind, Cole, you know where I’ll be” called the boy from a tree, before vanishing away.
“Nice to see you too, Greenbean.” said the Master of Earth, resigned. That boy kept getting cleverer- and always more troublesome. Their boy.
------ Kay--------
Kay was drinking his ninth drink of the day after so-many useless fightings when the Green Ninja approached him.
“You shouldn’t drink too much juice. It’s filled with more sugar than you realize.”
Juice? And oh, hear who speaks, kiddo. The one who woke up three whole clans of serpentines just to get candies.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Kay looked down. He didn’t know why he had said this. Or who expected it would be, actually.
He hoped for a distraction, that’s it. An enemy for a fight. A hottie for a flirt. Or a friend for a chat. But surely not for responsibilities.
“The team needs you now more than ever”
The team? Sure. He hadn’t heard of Cole and Jay since the funeral. He had barely seen Nya too. But in the end she had her own life, now. They weren’t kids anymore, she was an independent woman. She had to think about her own troubles and inventions.
And she still had Lloyd. Her little brother.
They didn’t need him.
“Who says the great and powerful Green Ninja needs a team? You seems to be holding down the fort on your own”, the answer slipped snaky out of his mouth. Lloyd looked offended. Kai pretended he didn’t notice. He didn’t.
The Green Ninja, -no, the kid-, didn’t start yelling at him, even though he should have. But of course the boy knew better than answering to the taunt from that hothead the red ninja was.
Instead he remained calm and his voice comprehensive.
“I get it Kai. You’ve run out of bad guys to fight out there. You’ve got to come to a place like this.” he gestured the place, disgusted “But where’s the honour in that? Where’s the Master of Fire?”
Oh, he knew he was pathetic. He knew it. And of course the boy was right. He couldn’t stay without fighting. He needed the adrenaline, the excitement of the battle. He needed the feeling of doing something, to be worth something. He needed to prove himself.
He needed the danger, to push away the dull life and the knowledge he wasn’t much else than a fighter.
But the honour? He had lost his long ago.
He couldn’t keep the team together and safe. Zane had sacrificed himself and he had just stood there and watched. He had failed.
And afterwards, there was no place for him in the team. He had no role. He couldn’t avoid everyone to fall apart. He should have died. The team would have survived without him. And he would have died in honour. Not like this. The Master of Fire had died with the Master of Ice.
“It’s the Red Shogun now. And where’s the Master of Ice, huh? He’s gone, but I’m still here. Who cares about honour? It should’ve been me. I should’ve been the one-” Ouch. Was he really saying all that out loud? Maybe he wasn’t as sober as he thought he was…
“You always thought you should’ve been the one.” Now he had managed to get Lloyd angry, apparently. But why, exactly? “First it was being the Green Ninja, now this. When you’re gonna start thinking of someone other than yourself?”
Kai looked up from his drink, but Lloyd had already gone. He felt like he should have answered something, but the kiddo didn’t give him the chance.
“If your change your mind, you know where I’ll be.”, the boy added. And then he was gone.
After that, Kai couldn’t stay there any longer. It just felt wrong be there, drinking, pretending to… -what, exactly? Having a life to carry on? -, even more wrong than usual.
He just went home. Or better, the two-room flat he called home. The best luxury he could afford. Empty.
He discovered he couldn’t stay there, either. Pathetic.
‘Now what?’
Everything seemed senseless. Dull. Old. Dead.
He had to do something. Get somewhere. To escape. The air felt suddenly weighing on him. He couldn’t breath. Like a candle in a jar of glass. He needed fresh air. He had to go away. Out. Now.
He reached for some casual clothes, the first he found, without even checking if they were cleaned. It didn’t matter. He didn’t even remember the last time he did the laundry.
Who cared anyway. He just had to get out. No matter what.
As he stepped out of the building he lived in he felt immediately relief.
It didn’t last. The same feeling of hopelessness weighted on him just after the first step.
He had nowhere to go, not really.
No one to meet.
He just started walking aimless, trying to brush off the oppression he felt.
So the Lloyd kid thought he was being selfish, huh? What, the Green Ninja was the only one allowed to feel responsible of things? He, Kai Smith, wasn’t important enough to take part of it? He just was an extra to use when there was legwork needed?
It’s not like he needed to be the only one. He just had to be useful. To do something he could be proud of. Otherwise how could he watch the other in the eyes again? If he just stayed aside like a coward, what use would he be?
The team needed him, huh. He didn’t stay because they didn’t. He should have been the one who had died. At least he would have done some good.
His powers weren’t even slightly powerful as the Green Ninja’s (and Lloyd could use fire too- he was really talented for it, even he was just a little boy, the kiddo). He wasn’t strong like Cole, nor could he build cool things like Jay or his sister. He wasn’t intelligent like Zane.
He was neither self disciplined, solid, funny or caring like the others were. He was just the hotheaded, impulsive, red boy.
He was nothing. He had to prove he was worthed of being a Ninja. He had to prove he was of some use. And he had failed. Like always.
He left and no one tried to stop him. So why should them need him?
No one tried to reach out for him. He understood them, after all. He couldn’t suffer himself too, after all.
He should have been the one gone. Zane would have done better than him.
Zane.
He slightly took his eyes off the ground when he passed under the arch of the park’s gate. He hadn’t realized were was he going until that very moment. It had been a bit until the last time he had been there, he realized lightly ashamed of himself, too long.
A bird flapped. Not a bird, the bird.
Kai looked up and there it was. The statue refiguring his old friend. Zane.
He couldn’t avoid noticing how shabby and dirty it was. The city had already forgotten him.
He put a hand on the cold titanium.
‘Hey Zane, old machine. Been a long time, huh? I really miss you, you know. We all do.- You always wanted to protect who couldn’t defend himself. But who did protect you?’
He sighed.
The kiddo was right.
He had been an idiot.
He just gave up. The truth was, he terribly missed them. All of them. His family.
First of them Zane. He was gone forever and nothing would bring him back.
But the other were still there. And Zane would never have wanted them to be like this.
He hadn’t saved them all for this.
Kai straighted his shoulder. He would honour Zane’s memory. No more self-pity.
The Master of Fire was back.