Me: Work on Raising Hell, work on Raising Hell, work on literally any of the fics you already have going.
Me: What if...I wrote about...Garmadad pain...
It's a cruel world that refuses to let him return the shaking embrace his son gives him. Lloyd's light is the only warmth he's encountered in the cold darkness of the Cursed Realm, and he wants nothing more than to tell him everything is going to be alright. He doesn't let himself dwell on that, focusing instead on his son's face.
The grief he'd seen written on that face when he'd banished him in the first place has set in now, permanently etched into his eyes. There are new scars there, too - perhaps not physical, but his son's eyes are heavier, darker, older. Lloyd knows more about the cruelty of the world than he did before, and he'd give anything he could to have been there for him. He'd trade anything for Lloyd never to have learned sorrow and suffering this way.
But he can't, and their time is running out. The Cursed Realm has reached it's end, and so has he. All he can do now is beg his son to return, to leave without him. Lloyd doesn't belong in a place like this - he belongs in the light, in the warmth, amongst other things like him. He can already see a new chapter of grief opening in his son's heart, another hurt left by a father who's only inheritance seems to be pain.
If he could change it, he would. If he could spare Lloyd-
But he can't, and their time is up. Lloyd dons the robes of a master and shoulders his grandfather's sword, and he's never been more proud of someone.
He's never loved someone so much in his life, and he hopes - if he could have one last, dying hope - it's that Lloyd never forgets how much his father loves him.
The boy was foolish to come.
She had told him he would, so confident in her plans. She is confident about a good many things, and Garmadon could care less. He cares only that she will take him where he needs to go. That she will give him the power he needs to fulfill his destiny.
And this - this child, this boy who dares still stand in his way - she has given him a way to glory, and it is through this boy's destruction.
It will be easy. The boy is desperately naive, his eyes still bright as he looks on him, calls him father. Garmadon's lip curls. He is no father anymore. He is nothing but who he was always meant to be - a god.
The boy is nothing to him, only a stepping stone for his own purpose. His source of power, and nothing more.
Lloyd is lying to him.
It's not hard to tell - Lloyd has never been particularly good at lying, not to him. He can see it in the twitch of his hands, the furtive way Lloyd's eyes flit around the room, scarcely daring to meet his. Yet he lies boldly to his face, and he can't help but be somewhat impressed, if disappointed. He'd thought better of his son.
As he still can, he soon finds. His son lied to him, but only because Lloyd is Lloyd, and he'd never forsake a friend - even a dead one. Lloyd lives on hope - fragile, fraying hope, quite often, hope that seems a wavering candle flame in the face of a howling storm. Hope that his family will come back for him, hope that he can be better, hope that his father isn't lost to darkness, hope that his friends will come through.
Hope that his dead friend is not so dead after all. Hope that he can regain what's lost.
Lloyd makes it through life on hope. It is a foolish way to live, especially for someone of their family. And yet. Lloyd surprises him again and again, with his hope rewarded. He finds a way to weather the worst of storms, still burning bright as ever where others would sputter and die.
Perhaps the world is not so cruel as to crush such pure-intentioned hopes, he thinks. Perhaps this venture is not as foolish as he had previously judged.
He should know by now, that naive as his son may be, he is anything but foolish.
So he chooses to hope, instead, that Lloyd is right, and it's with no little satisfaction that he sends one of Chen's men flailing into the water, sliding pass Clouse as if their history means nothing to him.
He's simply here to look after his interests, after all.
The boy's power is desperate to protect him, flashing and lashing out vainly at Garmadon as he holds the boy in place. He's weakened from the battle, blood and bruises already darkening.
"I'm your son," the boy still says, with wavering strength but quiet sincerity. "You'd never hurt me."
Garmadon knows no such promise. The boy in front of him is nothing to him, is he not?
"I have no son."
The light in the boy's eyes flickers out. His power is soon to follow.
Walls crack, stone shattering in the force of his fall. Screaming echoes around him as green explodes into in the night, bursting across the dark sky like a damaged bolt of lightning, or the trailing tail of a dying star.
Garmadon listens until the screaming cuts off to silence.
Watches until the light finally dies.
This was never what he wanted for Lloyd. He had thought, after everything, that he could give him a better life now, that he could give him normalcy, perhaps a life of peace.
Life, apparently has other intentions, and now his son is left constantly running, hunted like a mere trophy. A power source, a thing for someone to use for their own betterment.
His lips curl in disgust. He knows why they hunt him so desperately. The Overlord plans to use use his son to bring his own power to full potential, to drain Lloyd of whatever power he may have and leave him empty. He'll take the power Lloyd uses for good and turn it dark, turn it hateful. Everything his son has done with his grandfather's power, everything gold he's made good - the Overlord will ruin it, use it for death and destruction instead.
He cannot let that happen. Whatever is thrown at them, he cannot allow his son to be used in a such a way, for such a purpose.
But perhaps…for now, traipsing through the jungle with his son, he will let such dark thoughts wait a second longer. Lloyd remains cheerfully optimistic despite the circumstances, taking enough joy from his surroundings - and, possibly, from simply being in his father's presence.
He's spent far too little time with Lloyd as it is, he muses. That's something he ought to remedy. Lloyd is the greatest light in his life, and he can't afford to take that for granted. He won't waste the time they have together, though he hopes there will be plenty of it.
It's the least he owes his son.
He watches the city in ruins beneath him, screams echoing across the streets as smoke curls across the skyline, painting the city a dusky grey. His city, now.
The Colossi strides forward, concrete crumbling beneath it as it destroys anything in its path. It serves its purpose well, chasing after the rest of the pathetic resistance that dares stand in his way. He can see the vehicle trapped beneath its foot, tiny from where he stands, mere seconds away from being crushed to dust.
The boy is down there. He knows that.
Too far too see, but still close enough to feel. Something long-lost rears in his chest, faltering. Fighting back against the choking hatred that drowns his soul.
"Don't do this, father."
Garmadon snarls, and brings his foot down harder. His hesitation has cost him enough already. He cannot afford to hesitate again.
The boy means nothing to him. He's just another pawn to be crushed.
Lloyd is still trying.
He still reaches out to him, calls for him even as the Overlord continues his assault. Lloyd still believes in him, still wants him as a father, despite how far he's fallen.
It's more than he deserves. He finally has proof that his father didn't favor Wu best, because a world that gives him Lloyd as a son is clearly a world in his favor.
And the Overlord is threatening to take that from him. He buckles beneath the dark power drowning him, but he still fights back, straining desperately against the corrupting flood.
He has to fight. For his son, he has to fight. He cannot let whatever dark powers seeking to take him hurt Lloyd. It's not worth it. There is no power, no conquest, no victory that could possibly be worth hurting Lloyd so terribly in the process.
He fails. Unable to stop the Overlord from taking to control, he's forced to watch uselessly as Lloyd cries out, his green power sputtering out. He cries out himself, railing against the Overlord to spare his son. To break his fall, to keep him from crashing to the ground like a dying star.
All that's left is for him is to hope, to pray, that Lloyd defeats him in the upcoming battle.
Garmadon howls his rage to the city, even before the building she'd stood on has finished crumbling. She's gone, he knows that. She sealed her own fate as she fled the tower, put herself in the path of her own doom. A doom brought upon her by the same, infuriating boy.
That boy has gone and taken the one thing left loyal to him, and left a gaping absence in her wake.
He doesn't know how to mourn. Black as his soul is, sorrow is an emotion unfamiliar to him, something he's hardly capable of feeling.
He knows rage. He knows how to take revenge, how to hate. He knows how to destroy, so that's what he does. He sends the Colossi forward, stretching out as if his own fingertips are the ones that crush buildings.
He can see the boy, just a small figure in green, standing rooftops away from him. He watches as he jumps atop the Colossi, his friend clutched tightly as red eyes meet the glowing purple of the his giant.
There's an absence of fear in those eyes now, a loss of the awe he used to look at him with. He wonders, perhaps, if the boy has lost the love that used to be in those eyes as well.
It's no matter. He hardly cares how the boy looks at him anymore. Only that this time, the Colossi destroys him for good.
The wind screams around him at the top of the tower, raging against him as he lifts the Golden Weapons high. For so long he's sought to possess them, and now he does.
It's less of a victory than he'd wanted, but he has no time to dwell on gloating. Not when the Devourer has dared to threaten the one thing he would tear the world apart for.
His looks down - not toward the snake trapped below him, but to the tiny figure in green standing on a building, eyes turned toward him in faith. His hands tighten around the weapons, resolve strengthening.
He isn't doing this for Ninjago. He isn't going this for the people, for the ninja, for some sense of debt he owes his brother.
No, standing atop the tower, prepared to take his revenge against the snake that ruined so much of his life, he has one purpose, and that is for Lloyd.
Lloyd, who he's already lost so many times. Lloyd, who's lived a life of pain and abandonment so far, only to gain a future that promises more.
If he could rewrite destiny, he would. If he could spare his son that fate, he would. But as it stands, he cannot.
He can, however, make sure that nothing, nothing on this earth, touches his son before then.
The Devourer threatens to do that, so it has to die.
It sealed its fate years ago, of course, but threatening Lloyd never won anyone favors.
It's impossible.
Impossible, that he should lose now, when he's risen so far above everyone else. Wu couldn't stop him, the arrogant Firstbourne couldn't stop him - why should one boy who refuses to give up be any different?
But he is, and Garmadon watches in fury as the power in his hands flickers out. Watches, forced to shield his eyes as green bursts to life before him, sparking and glittering around the boy as if it had never left.
He's lost.
Garmadon falls to his knees before the boy, as lost in this world as he was the moment he came back into it.
He waits for the blow to fall. Waits for the boy to end it, to take his own revenge on the being that's sought only to cause him pain. It's only fair turn. He crushed the boy back at Kryptarium. Now it is simply his turn to do the same.
The blow never comes. Garmadon will never entirely understand, how the boy can still be so foolish.
A small part of him reminds him, though, that crushing his enemies was never Lloyd's way.
Lloyd wakes him up at the crack of dawn again, wailing his displeasure to the world. Garmadon is more than happy to take him, this time. The storm that rages against their home has already woken him hours ago. He's happy to have company in watching it.
Misako barely murmurs her thanks before slowly falling asleep again, watching hazy-eyed as he picks Lloyd up. She has the strangest ability to sleep through even the worst storms, he muses, glancing back at where she still lays tangled in their blankets. He shakes his head, smiling slightly as he turns back to the open doors.
Lightning flashes across the sky in front of the monastery, followed by a deafening cack of thunder, and the child in his arms squirms, eyes screwed up in fear of the noises he doesn't understand.
Garmadon cradles his son close to his chest, sheltering him from the worst of the wind. "Don't worry," he tells him, half-amused as Lloyd looks curiously up at him. "I'll protect you."
Lloyd likely has no idea what he's saying, but he gives him a gurgling smile nonetheless, tiny fingers reaching up to him happily. Something burns in his chest, and Garmadon pulls him closer.
"You're my son," he whispers. "I'll never let anything hurt you."