Standing before Meowthra, listening to the cruel comments of the city's citizens, Lloyd figured out that Green was the color of life, connection, the force that pulls people and creatures and elements together. He realized it made him a natural leader, someone who could empathize with and encourage others to achieve their very best.
So close. But no.
Lloyd hadn't understood that, in the end, Green was the most important piece to the actual ultimate ultimate weapon. Combining all the elements and allowing them to be wielded as one. But Wu was happy to let his students think it was part of his needlessly complicated metaphor.
He really needed to collect those pieces Garmadon had tossed all over the place, though. Before, you know, something happened to the second most powerful weapon in existence.
Just as well, though! Since it turned out Meowthra really just needed some gentle words and a kind touch. That could have been messy!
Maybe empathy was a special part of Lloyd, but Green was so much more. Life, Energy, Power. A combination of all the elements, the potential to literally move mountains. True ultimate power, not just a metaphor, was within Lloyd's reach, should they ever have need of such a thing.
Wu said nothing, hoping there would never be a reason for Lloyd to have to know this. Hoping his nephew could live a simple life, free from the burdens of the First Spinjitzu Master. A simple life with good friends and a loving family.
He really should have spoken up. It was kind of arrogant to assume he was the only being in the world to have heard of the power of Green.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
Lloyd awoke screaming in excruciating pain. Whether it lasted hours or minutes, he didn't know, and when it finally ended all he could do was stare blankly up at the ceiling.
It took a while for him to process anything, between the shivering aftershocks and the tears. He was flat on his back, a smooth, hard surface below him, unbound.
Lloyd closed his blurry eyes, letting his other senses do their job as he gasped for air. There was a strange buzzing in the air, which tasted and smelled sort of... flat. Recycled? He wasn't outdoors or underground or in a prison or anywhere familiar. The smooth, flat surface below him wasn't metal or concrete or dirt.
He rubbed his eyes with his hands to clear them, then chanced looking around again.
Oh. That was weird. It looked like...
He rubbed his eyes some more and tried to sit up. His weakened body fought him, so instead he rolled to his stomach then pushed himself to his knees. From there he was able to sit back on his calves and reach out to the glass wall.
Yes, that was some sort of glass. Curving around and below him, like a giant glass jar, complete with some sort of metal lid far above him.
On the other side of that glass, a vaguely familiar redhead girl about his age was staring back at him with fear in her eyes. He really should recognize her. He was sure he knew her, but with his mind and body aching and all this weird stuff going on...
"Who...?" gasped Lloyd, but his throat seized and he could only cough for the next few seconds.
The girl set her hand against the glass and mouthed "I'm sorry." Was the glass soundproof?
Lloyd looked beyond the girl into what was unmistakably some sort of laboratory. Which he appeared to be the prize specimen of. Joy.
On the far end of the room were two men. One looked amazingly like the founder of the noodle shop he and his friends liked to hang out at. In some sort of evil samurai costume. The other looked like, well, a vampire mad scientist. It looked like the noodle shop guy was in charge.
As Lloyd wearily watched, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing, the noodle shop guy looked up and caught his eyes. He grinned with a malevolence that could match Garmadon's at his worst. Maybe worse, since his father's evil grins had always been tinted with his strange megalomanic humor.
The man approached the glass, his ridiculous cape flapping behind him, apparently not bothered by the weight of it or his enormous and equally ridiculous skull-themed hat. Who wants people to think they're wearing an animal skull on top of their heads? Even Lord Garmadon had better taste.
"Hello, little Green Ninja."
Not soundproof then.
"Or should I call you my little battery? Don't worry, pet, we'll take good care of you. Well, of your powers anyway. I'm Chen, by the way."
Lloyd glared, even as his mind raced. Chen, so it really was the noodle shop guy. So the girl must be Kai's crush, Skylor. And powers? Didn't his powers have to do with life and connection? They weren't something physical, so what was going on?
"Not going to say hi to your new owner? How rude, pet. I was once good friends with your father, after all. Before he BETRAYED ME!"
Yeah, not a surprise. His dad betrayed a lot of people. Pretty much everyone he'd ever met. That was in the past though.
Lloyd just continued glaring.
"How boring. At least your Green Power is interesting. Fascinating, really. If Clouse is correct, we can use your power to basically control all of Ninjago."
What nonsense was he...? Lloyd's eyes followed Chen as he gestured to a huge coil of some sort, as large as the glass prison Lloyd was trapped in, visibly glowing and crackling with green energy of some sort.
Okay. Well. Maybe not nonsense? Unless this is some really, really overcomplicated setup.
"Daughter, if you would?"
"Of course, father," said Skylor, stepping up to the coil. She reached out to touch the strange energy, which looked like a really bad idea. Sure enough, she screamed and jerked her hand away almost instantly.
"Skylor!" cried out Lloyd in a panic.
Her hand was badly burnt, green energy sparking and swirling around it before seemingly being absorbed into the wound. She cut off her scream, more deliberately than because of any end to her pain, but couldn't stop a few tears from leaking down her face. She impatiently wiped them with her uninjured hand.
"Well?" demanded Chen, not showing the slightest concern for his daughter's injury. "Can you use it?"
Skylor took a few shaky steps toward a machine before the mad scientist guy, probably the Clouse Chen mentioned. She took a deep breath and set her injured hand against the flat surface. It began humming, but died after just a few seconds.
"Barely anything," announced Clouse dismissively. "I told you, Master Chen, we need something larger to control the Green Energy."
Lloyd had heard more than enough. After a couple deep breaths to center himself as Master Wu had taught him, he rose to his feet. Remembering his spinjitzu lessons, he focused all his attention at a single point before him, pulled back a fist, and smashed it forward.
The glass cracked. Green sparks and swirls danced around Lloyd's fist, far brighter than they had around Skylor's, but there was no time to concern himself with that as he heard Chen shouting at Clouse to "STOP HIM!"
Lloyd refocused himself and threw another punch. The glass cracked further, spiderwebbing and splintering but still not broken through.
The Green Ninja, Lord Garmadon's son, Master Wu's nephew and student, leader of the now not so secret Ninja Force, readied a third punch. But he ran out of time.
The crippling pain that had woken him again seized him. His focus shattered and he collapsed to the floor. He tried not to scream but after a few seconds could no longer hold it in. After a few more seconds he was unconscious, though his body still visibly seized and trembled.
Clouse breathed out a sigh of relief, then looked back to his instruments. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and took another look. Then he began laughing in delight.
"WHAT could be so FUNNY?" demanded Chen. "My pet almost escaped! It took months to plan out his capture!"
"He recovered!"
Chen frowned thoughtfully. "What exactly do you mean?"
"We drained him completely, or at least to the limits of what our coil could hold. It should have taken him days, even weeks, to recover - instead it took minutes! And the energy readings I took just now are equal or even superior! I only regret we had no way to store all that power after draining it away."
A creepy smile slowly crept across Chen's face. "So, not just a battery, but a rechargeable battery?"
Clouse smirked. "I'd say one better, sir. I'd call your new pet a generator. He creates it, endlessly if I'm right. Limitless energy, just as the legends say. You'd best keep this one alive."
Skylor ducked her head to hide the surge of hope in her eyes. Maybe, just maybe, her father would not murder Kai's friend as he had so many others.