Chapter 4: Repercussions

AN: So I know this is a big break from canon already. Hopefully you guys will stick with me. I've got a lot of ideas to make this story great and I hope I can keep an audience, because I'm really proud of what I've come up with. Thank you to everyone who's followed and favorited and thank you for hanging around long enough to read this!

Lloyd had been missing for over twelve hours since the incident with his father. The ninja were frantic. The Bounty hovered over the streets of Ninjago City, and the four outfitted ninja leaned over the sides of the ship with binoculars, searching the shifting midday crowds for the familiar head of white blonde hair.

"I don't understand," Kai, said, pulling his binoculars away from his eyes. "Why would Lloyd run away from us?"

Jay straightened up and lowered his own binoculars. "Well, you saw him last night. He nearly burned Garmadon alive. And he couldn't even stop himself."

"Yeah, he seemed pretty freaked. And it's like Sensei said: he wasn't ready for that fight last night," Cole reminded them, letting his binoculars hang from the string around his neck.

Zane, who had been standing motionless, eyes glowing blue as he searched the city with his Falcon Vision, blinked his eyes back to their normal color and walked over the other ninja.

"Despite what has been foretold about the Green Ninja, Lloyd still cares for his father. He most likely needs some time to himself to come to terms with his destiny of defeating Lord Garmadon."

Kai sighed. "You're right. I just wish he didn't feel like he needs to get away from us to do that," he said.

The door to the interior of the ship opened, and Nya walked over to the ninja, looking worried.

"Any sign of him yet?" she asked.

"None so far, sis," Kai told her with a frown and a shrug.

Nya let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry, Nya. We will keep searching," Zane reassured her before he went rigid again, eyes turning blue as switched back to Falcon Vision.

"I just feel so helpless. More than half of our equipment is still down after those snakes tore up all our electrical connections," Nya said. "We could be finding him so much faster if I wasn't having such a hard time repairing everything."

Jay moved closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's not your fault, Nya. Those snakes really did a number on the Bounty. It's a heck of a job for anyone to fix." He gave her a shy smile, which she returned.

"Besides, we can find him just fine the old-fashioned way, right guys?" Cole encouraged, leaning over the ship again to search.

"I guess we're just lucky they didn't mess with any of the engines," Nya said. "If we were stuck on the ground we'd never find him."

"As long as we all work together, we'll find him no matter how we have to search," Kai told them.

"Agreed," Jay said, and went back to the edge of the ship to continue searching.

"C'mon, Nya," Kai said, "let's go see if Sensei has any ideas about where to search next." He put his arm around her as they walked back into the ship.

When the siblings were out of earshot, Cole lowered his binoculars and asked, "You guys really think we'll find Lloyd searching the way we're searching?"

Zane blinked his eyes back to their normal color and said, "I regret to say it seems highly unlikely. Realistically, Lloyd could be anywhere in Ninjago at any time, and we only have eyes on a few blocks of Ninjago City. If no one can think of a better way to search for him, it will be difficult to find him this way. We may just have to wait for him to come back to us."

"No way," interjected Jay. "We can't just wait for Lloyd to come back. What if something happened to him and he can't come back? Not to mention he left on the Ultra Dragon. He can't be that hard to find when he's lugging that cargo around." He gestured a little too wildly with his arms and accidentally flung his binoculars over the side of the ship. He lunged after them and missed, and then groaned, mumbling to himself, "Sure hope no one is standing under those on the street."

"Well, either way, we can't just float up here all day waiting for Lloyd to stroll into our sights," Cole said. "Let's go talk to Sensei."

"I just hope he has a few good ideas up his sleeve," Jay wished aloud, wincing as he heard a faint, "Ouch!" from the street down below the ship. He leaned over the edge and shouted, "Sorry!" before rushing after the others to get some much needed advice from Sensei Wu.

Lloyd couldn't believe the terrible shape the monastery was in now. Though he had spent much of his childhood at Darkley's, he could still remember living at the monastery with his uncle, his mother and his father. He hadn't been back since his father had sent him to boarding school, and his stomach had dropped when, from the saddle of the Ultra Dragon in the sky, he'd realized the blackened mess on the top of the mountain was his former home.

The dragon had landed in the courtyard, where he could remember his father and uncle training together, and Lloyd left him there to fall asleep as he carefully made his way through a few of the rooms within the charred framework of the building. He had to pass through the structure a few times before he recognized his old room. His throat felt tight as he scooped up a handful of ashes and let it sift through his fingers, realizing with a surprising amount of emotion that there was nothing left from his childhood. His dusted the ashes from his hand on the leg of his gi, and began walking again, following the familiar route from his bedroom to the kitchen with his eyes closed, pretending for a moment that he was still a little kid surrounded by walls with a mother and a father in a normal household.

A sudden gust of freezing wind blew a cloud of ashes into his face and chased away the illusion. He stopped in what was formerly the kitchen, opening his eyes with a sigh, reminding himself that his old life wasn't reality anymore. His mother was out of the picture, his childhood home was destroyed and his father was evil. He rubbed at his cheek where his father had cut him with the weapon last night as the cold wind irritated the deep slash. The cut had taken a while to stop bleeding and had yet to stop hurting, and Lloyd had a feeling that even when the cut was gone a scar would remain, forever a reminder of what his relationship with his father had become. The right shoulder of his gi was stained red from where he had pressed his face into the cloth to stop the bleeding. The gash still felt like it was gaping open, and he knew he would need Nya or one of the other ninja to stitch him up when he finally reunited with them.

With a sigh, Lloyd slowly made his way from one end of the monastery to the other, allowing himself to remember what each room had looked like and relive moments he had shared with his family before they had all been torn apart. He inspected the vertical beams until he found one with enough footholds in it, and then climbed to the top to walk along the beams parallel to the ground, nearly tripping over his large feet and falling to the ground more than once. Sitting down on one of the sturdier beams, he stared out over the horizon at the setting sun, legs dangling and feet swinging absently.

A shape emerging from the clouds caught Lloyd's attention, and he watched as the obvious outline of the Destiny's Bounty drew closer to the monastery. It came to a floating stop next to the gates, and Lloyd could see Zane and Kai watching him from over the side of the ship. Sensei came out onto the deck, and moved to the edge of the ship as well, tossing a rope over the side and sliding down to the rocky ground just outside the monastery gates.

Lloyd turned his attention back to the setting sun, to the clouds tinted pink and orange, and sooner than should have been possible his uncle was settling down next to Lloyd, pulling out his teapot from whichever mysterious place he kept it.

A moment of silence passed, and Lloyd, knowing that his uncle would not be the first to speak, broke the silence, saying, "You never told me this happened to our home, Uncle."

"I did not think it necessary to distress you with such news," his uncle answered easily, lowering his teacup. "You were still a young child only recently."

"And when I aged up? What about then?" Lloyd asked, knowing it wasn't necessary to push the issue even as he did so.

"Telling you would only have served to distract you from your destiny."

"I could've handled it," Lloyd insisted in a pouting voice that sounded too much like his childhood self for his own liking.

Sensei sighed and put away his teapot. "Lloyd," he began, prompting the young ninja to look up at his uncle, "you have always been very focused and very passionate, but you have also always loved with all of your heart. You were, and still are, having trouble accepting that it is you who must defeat your father, whatever that may entail. Telling you that this had happened to your childhood home… to our home… would have served no purpose other than to upset you when our family's future and history had already become so complex. I did not think this important enough to tell you when you have already become so troubled by your burdens."

Lloyd looked down at his hands, and then out again at the falling sun. "You should've told me," he muttered in a last-ditch attempt to be right.

"Perhaps I made a mistake in not telling you," Sensei conceded, "but now that you know you must not let this knowledge affect your training."

"I won't, Uncle," Lloyd assured him, clenching his fists around the fabric of his pant legs. "I can stay focused."

Sensei nodded in silence, and then produced his teapot again, this time offering a cup to Lloyd, who took it gratefully. After a moment his uncle chuckled to himself, and Lloyd looked at him questioningly.

"Do you remember how often you used to sneak out here to try to train with your father?" Sensei reminisced.

Lloyd laughed. "He would put me on his shoulders and spin us around, and called it Spinjitsu."

"And even after your mother pulled you off his back and took you inside, you would sit in front of the window and watch him."

Lloyd smiled gently at the memories. As silently as his uncle had appeared, the other ninja and Nya joined them sitting on the bones of the monastery. And as Nya stitched him up, Lloyd and Sensei shared their memories from a time of peace and normalcy.

After countless dreams of black dragons and his son with red eyes gripping his forearms and slowly igniting his entire body in burning gold light, Garmadon awoke to an insistent tugging on his top left arm in a blindingly bright room made of tan stone. He clamped his eyes shut again and grimaced as his head throbbed, and then tried to groan as he became aware of the throbbing ache in the rest of his body. What came out instead of a groan of pain was a pathetic croak, and immediately afterwards a cold glass of water was brought up to his mouth and tipped towards him, a hissing voice commanding him to "Just drink it."

Garmadon gulped at the water greedily, feeling some running down the sides of his mouth and nearly choking as he drank too quickly. The glass was pulled away as he began coughing, eyes still closed, and he immediately tried to stop coughing as his head and body throbbed more.

"Where am I?" he rasped, opening his eyes slowly to adjust to the light. The tugging began again on his top left arm, but the noises caused by whatever his caretaker was doing began to sound muffled as his vision blurred. His eyelids grew heavy, and he couldn't seem to move his head to look at what was being done to his arm.

"Ouroboros. Now, My Lord, go to sleep," the voice commanded again. And as if his body listened only to this voice, Garmadon fell asleep again.

AN: Sorry if Sensei Wu is out of character. He's so hard to write for.