It's been a year since The Liberators have been defeated, a year since Lilly and I split from the team so we could go do our own thing, like everyone else had. Since then, I've gotten much more used to my powers, turned eighteen, and even learned how to summon my dragon! My dragon's pretty cool looking, I must say. I never knew a dragon could look so awesome in fuchsia and purple. So far, everything's been pretty good since the split, though, despite being a contact on Lilly's cellphone, Lloyd never answers any calls or texts. We tried to call him once to see if we could tell him and Sensei Garmadon about my progress so far. Maybe his cell phone broke? I'll never know.
Lilly's year on the other hand has been filled with a lot of sleeping. You see, I thought she'd always be the early rising person, but she literally sleeps until noon! Even to 4 pm sometimes! Instead of Tomato, I should probably call her Sloth.
Overall, our year has been pretty good. Today, though, today was special. Today was the day Lilly said we were gonna go back. Today was the day I'd see all my other friends again.
"That waitress was pretty cool," Lilly chatted as we flew above the city on our dragons. We just had lunch at Chen's Noodlehouse. I'll have to remind myself to go home at some point, bow and say to my parents "Forgive me for I have sinned. I ate at the comptetion's restaurant."
Though, one good thing came out of going there. I got to see Lilly become a tomato again. She had a crush on our waitress, a girl with eyes the color of malachite and bright red hair pulled up in a ponytail. Her skin was a dark tan and she looked to be Lilly's age. I wanted to laugh every time Lilly stuttered and blushed when talking to her.
"By cool you mean you totally had the hots for her," I giggled. Lilly's face started to turn red.
"I do not. You can't fall in love with a stranger you just met!" Lilly argued, her face the color of a tomato. God, she's a hypocrite. She says not to fall in love with a stranger you just met when she just did that a few minutes ago. Logic, am I right?
"Um, you just did that a few minutes ago, idiot," I said, wanting to laugh.
"Shut up..." I heard the blonde mumble. I decided to not go farther with my teasings, that way I wouldn't tick her off too much. We were going to see the Ninja again today, so I didn't want to ruin her good mood.
"So, when are we gonna go see the Ninja today?" I asked, excited.
"We're heading there now, but remember we need to stop by Xavier's shop afterwards, so we can find out how exactly you are using the Dark Arts without a spellbook," Lilly informed me. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It's been a while since I've seen Xavier too, anyway.
"I also think Cole's birthday is coming up here soon," Lilly said, scratching her head. Oh joy, his birthday is coming up. Watch him annihilate the cake. I got a random thought just then.
"Hey, I don't know if I've ever asked, but when's your birthday?" I asked Lilly. I've never really found it out. I mean, she knows mine, but I've never known hers.
"I was born on August 29th, but I've never really celebrated it," Lilly said. So, her birthday already happened two months ago!? Why didn't I know before!? I could have gotten her a cake and everything! (Though, I'd think Cole would be able to smell the cake from miles away and he'd run all the way here to devour it.)
I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Lilly call "I think we're here!"
My heart beat fast. I was going to see my friends again.
Come to find out, they moved to a higher mountain and started a tea shop business called Steep Wisdom. I can already tell it was named by Sensei Wu. How, you ask? It has a lame ass name. Only he'd name it something like that. Can't he come up with something like "Shop of PosibiliTEA" or "InfiniTEA"!?
We took the directions given to us to Steep Wisdom. It wasn't a long ride, but a boring one at the most. Not as boring as the tea shop's name though. Once we got there, the place looked empty on the outside.
"You sure that old lady wasn't playing a prank on us?" I asked Lilly as we walked up to the door of the place. I heard voices behind the door once we reached it.
"Well, here's your answer," Lilly said, opening the door. Two boys and girl stood at the counter, chatting with whoever was behind it. The two boys looked oddly familiar.
"Hey, so I heard you put extra things in your customers' bags here. It's candy, isn't it? How about you give us a little bit of that something?" one of the boys asked. His hair was a light brown. I recognized him as the boy I saw in the village last year who gave the other boy his seal of approval.
"If it's cake I call it. I'm not sharing either," the girl declared. Is she Cole part 2?
"Hey, does he...Hey! I'll fight you for the candy!" I heard the seal-of-approval boy yell. Who is he yelling at exactly?
"Why would you fight him?" the starlight-kick boy asked.
"The real question is, how much will you pay me to fight him?" the seal of approval boy asked the other.
"Okay, all three of you need to get out if you're not buying anything. And Lloyd, go put that stuff away," I recognized the voice immediately. That's Misako's voice! They really are here!
"Fine, I'll go get cake elsewhere," the cake girl said, turning and walking out of the shop, paying no mind to us. The two boys followed her, but the starlight kick boy accidentally tripped over my foot.
"Oops, sorry kid," he said before walking out. Did...did he just call me what I think he called me!? Oh, I'll show him what a REAL starlight kick is!
"Karma. Don't," Lilly said as I wound up a kick, aimed straight for the guy's back. I huffed and followed her to the counter. When Misako turned away from the shelf behind the counter, she immediately recognized us.
"Seiko! Lillian!" she said, smiling, "it's been a while."
"It indeed has. How have you all been?" Lilly said, not caring that she said both our actual first names.
Misako sighed, she sounded really upset. "Not very good, but we're healing," she said. Wait, what's wrong?
"Misako? What's wrong? What happened?" I asked, not meaning to pry, but at the same time I kinda did.
Misako wiped a small tear from her eye. "Garmadon died a few months ago."
It was then I realized why Lloyd hadn't talked to us all year, especially when we mentioned Sensei Garmadon. Lloyd was still sore from the loss of his father, someone he looked up to a lot. I can relate to how he feels. After all, I had dealt with the same thing last year, except it was my sister who had died. It's gotta be even harder on him, considering his actual age. Poor guy.
"But, in other news, we all are alright. We're pretty happy Zane's back," Misako smiled. Zane...that's their dead robot friend, right? Someone must have rebuilt him.
"Oh, is everyone here perhaps? I'd love to talk to everyone again, especially Zane," Lilly asked.
Misako nodded. "Let me go get them," she said, walking out of the room. I felt excitement building up inside me again. I'm going to see them again! I'm going to see Zane as well. I wonder what he's like.
Zane was the first one to walk into the room and, he looks different from what I remembered on TV. His skin was metallic and shiny. His hair was the color of chrome and was metallic as well. His eyes didn't glow a bright blue, but more of a lighter and neon blue instead.
"Lilly, is that you?" he asked, his voice monotonous at first, "And, who is this child?"
Oh my god! Is everyone going to refer to me as a child!? Even a goddamn robot!? I'm not that short! Geez!
"Yupp, and she's not a kid. That's Karma, the master of darkness," Lilly said. Well, at least someone here knows I'm not a kid.
"Oh, I apologize," Zane said. Okay, he's much more expressionless than I remember from TV. Zane then stared at me for a moment. Well, he's quite odd, too.
"You are...Clouse Zheng's niece?" Zane observed. Um, how would he know that?
"Uh, yeah. How do you know that?" I asked, bewildered.
"My scanners told me," Zane explained, tapping the side of his head. Well, I guess that's something you'd expect a robot to have. Though, Zane was giving a look of suspicion, mixed with surprise. I really want to ask him why he asked if I'm related to Uncle Clouse.
Just then, the others ran in. Well, everyone except Lloyd at least. It was good to see everyone again, and I was overjoyed when I saw that Jay and Cole were getting along even better than ever. Nya had gotten much taller. The only people who had not changed in the past year were Kai and Sensei Wu. Well, I think Sensei's beard has gotten longer...I can't tell. I don't even want to know anyway. Kai had told me before that Sensei Wu hides snakes and his leftover tea in his beard. Gross.
While Lilly was greeting everyone, Cole walked over by me with a look like he was debating something in his head.
"What's up, Cole?" I asked him, hoping I could help him with whatever he was debating.
"Nothing much, just..." his voice trailed off.
"Just what?" I asked, hoping to not sound too nosy.
"I...I'm wondering if I should tell Lilly something or not," he said, rubbing his chin.
"Tell her what?" I asked. This sounded a little suspicious.
Cole kneeled down and spoke in a whisper, "Now, I don't know if her and Kai are in a relationship or not (it sure seems like it though), but Kai was with another woman while you both were gone."
Despite knowing they probably weren't, since really a kiss doesn't suddenly make two people in a relationship, I still felt pissed. Did he just throw away her feelings!?
"Did he just act like her feelings were nothing!?" I whispered furiously to Cole. He shook his head.
"I doubt it. Kai's a huge jerk, but he's not that much of a jerk. I suppose he may have thought they would never see each other again or something, or he has a huge memory issue...or he really is that ignorant," Cole whispered. I saw Cole pull his phone out of his pocket and show me a picture of Kai and a red haired girl at some restaurant. The girl looked oddly familiar for some reason.
"They broke up two months ago though. She wanted to focus more on her family's business. Though, I have no idea what they saw in each other. I mean, he had JUST met her when they got together," Cole said.
"What's her family's business?" I asked.
"Chen's Noodlehouse. Speaking of which, we have a lot to tell you guys about the original owner," Cole answered. I nearly died laughing right there. The girl Kai was with was the waitress with malachite-colored eyes that Lilly had a crush on. If I remember right, I think her name tag said "Skylor", but I couldn't tell. The o and a looked similar. Or maybe it was an e...
I'll never know. It could probably be a u.
"I don't know if I should tell Lilly though. I mean, I've already ruined one relationship. I don't want to ruin another," Cole sighed, looking at the floor. No! Cole it's not your fault!
"Just tell her at a later time. I already ticked her off once today. I'm afraid if she gets ticked off from this she'll probably rip off someone's arm," I advised him, patting his shoulder.
Cole smiled a little bit. "Okay, thanks for the advice," he said. I nodded. Hey, when a friend needs help, I won't hesitate to help them.
"By the way, do you know where Lloyd is?" I asked Cole.
"I thought I saw him sitting near the rock garden outside," he informed me. I thanked him and took the back way out of Steep Wisdom.
To be honest, the rock garden wasn't much of a garden. It was more of a pond with huge rocks rising above the water. I looked around for Lloyd, but I stopped when I heard a few sniffs. I turned to see Lloyd sitting on one of the rocks, staring into the water. I saw him wipe his eyes many times. I slowly approached him.
"Lloyd? Are you okay?" I asked him quietly. He looked startled for a moment, but he wiped his eyes and looked over at me.
"Karma?" he said.
"Yupp. I'm back, and so is Blondie," I smiled. I saw a slight smile grow on Lloyd's face. At the same time though, I noticed one of his eyes was a bright red, while the other was still the beautiful emerald color he usually had.
"Um, Lloyd...your eye..." I said, not knowing whether to be scared, worried, or curious.
"Hmm? Oh, one of my eyes must be red again. I'm surprised you never noticed," Lloyd said. Before!?
"You had it before!?" I asked. He nodded.
"My eyes change colors from time to time. They only change to green or red. Most of the time both of my eyes are green though. My mom says I have this because of the magic my dad had with him around the time I was born," Lloyd explained, "Though, how does dad pass on the magic he had in him to the stork that delivered me?"
Oh dear lord, Lloyd has no idea where children come from. You'd think that now he's 13 or 14 someone would have told him. Though, I think if someone told him now, it'd be awkward for everyone.
"Anyways, I noticed you were crying earlier. Are you okay?" I asked him, concerned. He looked a little surprised, then ashamed.
"I'm sorry you had to see that. I know that was pretty wimpy of me," Lloyd said, as if it was a bad thing.
"What are you talking about!? That wasn't wimpy at all, Lloyd! If it is, then everyone on Earth is wimpy, because everyone on Earth has cried at least two times. Regardless, you're a strong person, Lloyd," I said, a little mad about what he say. Who the hell told him crying was wimpy!?
"I just...I can't take it. Everyone's depending on me to save Ninjago without fail, everyone's expecting me to act grown up despite my age, I'm being hunted for my powers, I've been kidnapped many times, I watched my father die, and I feel like most people are just using me like an object instead of a human being!" Lloyd sobbed, "Why can't I just get a break!? Why can't I just live a normal life!?"
I felt sorry for him. Really sorry. He's been through so much, I wonder how he was able to hold in all these emotions for so long. Though The Liberators weren't hunting him down, I remember Lilly and the Ninja telling me what had happened before, all the way to before Lloyd had even become an adult. The whole deal with the Great Devourer, The Overlord, everything. I felt ashamed for even thinking my problems were far worse than his.
I wrapped my arms around him, giving him a hug. "To me, and the Ninja, you're no object. You're a special person, who brightens our lives. Victory or fail, Green Ninja or not, we all will still love you for you, Lloyd. Everything will get better, trust me," I said in a gentle voice. Lloyd said nothing after that, but I hoped what I had said made him feel better. I can't stand to think I had left a friend upset.
Everything I had said was true though, too. We all love Lloyd. I could care less if he's the Green Ninja or not, he's my best friend, not some weapon. Though I've never seen anyone really use him like an object, I felt like it had something to do with The Overlord.
I knew that better times were coming for Lloyd, and the road would get smoother for him, but I was wrong. I was very wrong.