I don't own Ninjago, Star Wars, or any songs used in this chapter. I only own my OCs and AUs.


I can't help it. It's like shooting lonely, angsty fish in a barrel.

~Black Hat Guy, xkcd: "Journal"

~CHAPTER NINE: SECURITY, TOM~

Seconds after Carnegie decapitated a frozen snake training dummy (who Jay had affectionately dubbed "Buster The Second") with a swish of her lightsaber and I removed all of the ice from it with a loud G note on my EDV, Nya flicked on the deck spotlight above us and commented on how the boys' powers were getting stronger.

And then she asked Carnegie where Kai was.

Well, this isn't too spoilerish so I think it's safe to tell them, my sister thought at me before saying, "He's in Sensei's room screwing with some of his stuff." The boys didn't believe it until she led them downstairs and silently opened the door to reveal Kai dressed in the Green Ninja suit, screaming out painful one-liners and doing over-dramatic karate moves.

In spite of myself, I laughed a little. "Very nice," Cole said sarcastically. "Perhaps if you tried the phrase fire dork! it might work."

"How long have you all been watching?" Kai sputtered, turning around and taking off the green mask.

"I've known about this for over three years, Kai," I said, pushing my braid back over my shoulder. "In fact, I've got the cartoon clip saved on my laptop."

"She sends it to her friends at inappropriate times," my sister added unhelpfully. "It's a good conversation piece." Kai's jaw dropped. Was that necessary?!

Jay gasped. "The Green Ninja suit! That's awesome!" he squealed. Not on Kai it's not, I thought at my sister. She snickered.

Kai started to stutter: "Well, I-I was looking for some kind of… clue from Sensei, and then I found this…"

Zane cut in with, "But you know only he who was foretold to face Lord Garmadon is destined to be the Green Ninja, and only he should wear the Green Ninja outfit. So Sensei will most likely be very-"

"I know, I know, but I thought if I just tried it on, it might help me see my true potential. It's not fair that you guys have unlocked your cool powers and I still haven't, and Carmen and her sister refuse to spill on who's going to be the chosen one," Kai lamented, walking to the window. It was true; compared to everyone else, Kai had asked about the Green Ninja the most, and we had always refused his questions. "Besides, Sensei's gone and we don't know when he's coming back-"

"Hello? I'm home!" Sensei's voice rang throughout the ship. Thank the Maker he's back. Maybe now they'll stop pestering me about their futures. Jay, Cole, and Zane screamed their teacher's name giddily and ran outside to meet him. I picked up Kai's regular red gi from a nearby chair, threw it at him with the Force, and said, "Meet us upstairs when you're dressed." Then my sister and I left to meet Wu on deck.

"... the mysterious Samurai, Cole and Carnegie are both dancers, Carmen plays the piano like a goddess, and-"

"Zane is a what?!" Wu gasped, looking like he was about to have a heart attack.

"You've been gone for a long time; we'll give you a full recap later," I said. "By the way, all of the boys but Kai have found their true potentials."

"Have they now?" Wu said with a smile. Then he frowned a bit. "Where is Kai?"

"Right here!" Kai called, running up the steps. "So glad you're back safe."

And then Lord Armadon - whoops, sorry, I meant Garmadon (dammit, Tumblr!) - showed up, and things got kind of ugly anyway as Kai screeched out a warning and lunged at him with his sword.

Zane threw himself in front of his teacher, screaming his name as Kai swung his sword at Garmadon and shouted the obvious - "Oh my God, he's got four arms!" - and pinned his enemy to the deck. The two grappled for a few seconds, Garmadon used that old stock phrase of "we meet again", and then Wu told Kai, "He is the reason I left." Kai looked at me for confirmation; I nodded slightly as Wu told everyone that, until Lloyd was free, Garmadon would be our guest.

Disbelieving, Cole cried, "We have to live with this guy?!"

"But Sensei, he has four arms!" Excellent observation, Zane. Your magical robot scanners are picking up on such minute details. Unbelievable.

"May I remind you that ever since he's turned evil, he's been trying to get our golden weapons?!" Jay butted in, pushing his teammates aside.

With a shout of "Enough!" from Wu, the boys went silent.

"This isn't about the weapons," Garmadon claimed, pushing himself off of the deck. "It's about my son!"

"From here on out," Wu said, glaring at his students, "you will obey me and respect my brother." Garmadon crossed his top set of arms, and the deal was sealed.


"So where are we at with the four Fang Blades?" Wu asked a short while later when all of us were gathered on the bridge.

"Pythor's managed to take the first two, but there's still two left," Jay answered.

"And we only need one to prevent him from unleashing the Great Devourer," Cole continued.

"Any luck finding their whereabouts?"

"No, but the Falcon is programmed to alert us if he sees any suspicious activity," Zane said.

Wu nodded. "Good. If we find the Fang Blades, we find Lloyd." At the mention of his son's name, I sensed Garmadon's tension rising. "Kai, Nya, prepare the deck and double-check the anchor. We need to be ready when we first get word of activity." The two of them bowed respectfully and headed outside - but only Nya got there without incident.

"Did you say the Falcon was... programmed?" Sensei asked, turning to us.

Jay laughed a little. "Okay, Sensei, I don't know where to start. So much has happened recently, and I'm still not entirely used to it." He looked at me hopefully.

"I guess I can tell you everything," I said with a sigh. "Take a seat, everyone, this could take a while.

"About a week and a half ago, we went to this one town to put up missing posters for the Fang Blades. Not my idea, obviously… but forget that. Anyway, so we're doing our thing when Zane freezes up. Why? Well, the Falcon was swooping around, and I knew how the boys like to chase it. So I gave them the green light, and we chased that bird. Zane and I were the only two who didn't give in to exhaustion and we made it to this hollow tree workshop in the middle of Birchwood Forest. And, you know, it was all dusty - obviously it'd been a long time since anyone had been there. Zane found two sets of blueprints; one was the Falcon's, and the other was his." Right on cue, Zane swung open his chest panel. At the same time, Wu and Garmadon's jaws dropped.

"But don't worry; he could still fight. In fact, less than ten minutes after that, he unlocked his true potential while saving the rest of the team from sentient tree monsters. Really, I should have brought a camera with me; it was amazing.

"So on to the next thing. If you weren't aware, Sensei, Jay has a huge crush on Nya." Jay blushed as I went on. "At some point his lovebird instincts fired up and decided, 'Hey, I should totally go on a date with her!' At first this seemed like a solid plan. Then we found out that, oh no, the snakes were active at the amusement park and we had to get over there before anything caught on fire or something. Jay tweaked his plans in order to be available there in case we needed him. And Kai was kind of nervous, so he had Carnegie tail the two from a distance to make sure nothing went too horribly wrong. Car, you want to pick this up?" I said, and she smiled and started talking. She told us about the rollercoaster scene, about how Jay unlocked his true potential, and how she'd forgotten to bring a camera and was kicking herself to that day. She also concisely explained the whole "you're in a cartoon and we're here to keep the plot on track" thing to Garmadon, which was nice. He put up a good show of being entirely confident about the situation, pretending to understand everything.. This was a lie, however; I could sense that he didn't entirely trust either of us. I decided that it was not the time to attempt to get him to fully believe us, so I moved along.

"The next part involved a talent show. Yeah, you heard that right - a talent show. I won't get too detailed, because I was unconscious for the important stuff…"


"Psst. Carmen."

In the middle of the night a few nights after Garmadon showed up, I was woken up by Kai whispering my name.

I rolled over; in the moonlight streaming through the window, I could see him leaning on the doorframe.

"What is it?" I mumbled, groping for my glasses and sitting up.

"Garmadon wants to talk to you," he said.

I flopped back against the pillow. "Right now?" Sure, the two of us had been fairly civil to each other ever since we'd met, but we weren't on those kind of terms yet. Even if it had been one of my best friends asking if we could talk at two in the morning, it still would have been unreasonable. With my regular bouts of insomnia, I needed all the sleep I could get.

"And he says it's urgent, if that helps any," Kai added. "If you don't mind, I'm headed back to bed. He's on deck." Kai left the room then, right as something in the back of my mind told me that maybe I should go. Really, what could it hurt?

As Kai walked back down the hallway to his room, I sat up, pulled on my slippers and robe, and started up to the deck.

It was a particularly chilly night, and weirdly dark; when insomnia struck, standard procedure was to go up to the deck, but it had never been this dark. Luckily, I didn't crash into the mast or fall on my face as I made my way to where I could just barely see Garmadon's silhouette standing at the bow.

The second I arrived, Garmadon fired off a pretty strange question: "What's my summer day job?" No "Hi, glad you could come and chat" or "Hey, sorry I woke you up, but I need to talk to you"; just "What's my summer day job?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You don't have one. Unless trying to rule the world counts, but it really doesn't."

He kept going. "Are you here because of my sister?"

And then I got what he was doing. Now, I have to admit, that was clever - asking trick questions, questions that anyone could BS their way through if they didn't know the truth. Of all the ways to test a person's validity, that was pretty solid.

"You don't have a sister," I answered. "The only living woman you're related to is your wife, but that's by marriage, not blood."

You could see the gears turning in Garmadon's head as he tried to come up with another security question. What was he going to ask next? "What street did I grow up on?" "What kind of Granny apple do I like, ones that are green or ones that are yellow mixed with blue?" Maybe he was going to hand me a Captcha and ask if I was a robot.

Sure enough, he started up again. "Least favorite author?"

"You don't have any preferences."

"Favorite cheese?"

"White cheddar, aged."

"Favorite band?"

"You love Imagine Dragons. Fun fact: I like them, too."

He went silent for a moment, then asked one last question: "How many arms do I currently have?"

I gave him the once-over, looked into his nervous eyes, and said, "Okay, now you're just getting desperate."

He fainted. I reacted quickly and managed to catch him with the Force, carefully lowering him to the deck. After that, I sat down on a nearby bench to wait for him to wake up.

About a minute or so later, Garmadon was conscious again and staring at me suspiciously from where he lay on the deck.

"For fate's sake, Garmadon," I interrupted him as he opened his mouth to speak, "if you ask one more security question, I might be tempted to slap you. Now, are you going to tell me why you called me down here, or am I going to have to find out myself?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Just how would you do that?" He cockily positioned his two upper arms behind his head and folded the other two over his stomach.

Oh, you. I got off the bench and took two steps over to where he was, knelt by his head, and held my hand an inch from his ear. Then I reached into his mind with the Force. (A/N: Think Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens.) He flinched a little when I started, but eventually relaxed.

I soon managed to figure out why I'd been called here:

"You're afraid."

Garmadon flinched again. "How did you…" he began, trailing off as I continued my mental analysis.

"Wu's told you of my abilities," I said, "and you think that maybe I can alleviate your fears. Oh, I see it now- you're scared of your own son." I took a deep, shaky breath; combing Garmadon's mind was strangely exhausting (maybe because mind-reading wasn't a skill I used very often - it wasn't like I had any reason to). "You're not just scared, actually; you're terrified. You think he's going to succeed and kill you, and that's bad enough, but when you imagine the opposite - his failure after you kill him - you can't take it."

A moment of silence passed before he responded. "That's not true."

Immediately, I could sense that he was using denial to keep himself from falling apart. I told him so, adding, "You can't hide that from me, you know."

"So my brother was right about you. Who are your parents?"

I looked at him. "Why do you ask?"

"I know that the element of mind exists, I just haven't met a master of it in years. Decades, even. Are you related to the master of mind?"

So he thinks I'm an elemental master. "I am not. Similar abilities, yes, but I didn't come by them the same way."

Garmadon's response to this was nearly invisible, but I caught the flicker of confusion that slid across his face. "So, then how are you able to…" He trailed off.

I sighed. "Now isn't the time for an origin story. It's, like, what - two A.M. or something?" I glanced at my watch. It was two. "Yeah. It's too early for this. Anyway, just to satiate you for the moment, I have no elemental abilities, unlike basically everyone else on this ship. In case you were wondering, my sister doesn't either. If you'll excuse me." I got off the bench and headed back toward the steps.

Halfway there, I stopped and glanced back at Garmadon. He'd gotten up and was now leaning against the edge of the ship, looking at the moon. Or something like that, anyway; it was still dark, and even with my glasses on, I couldn't see him very well.

I went back inside, dropped my glasses on the nightstand, and fell back asleep.


I was meditating on the roof of the bridge the next day when I felt the tiniest shift. I opened my eyes, snapping myself out of the trance I was in, and glanced to my right. Garmadon had settled down next to me and met my gaze.

"I decided against asking my brother about your abilities," he said calmly, all four hands folded in his lap.

"And why would you do that?" I asked, watching Kai and Jay spar on the deck below.

"I determined that I would get a far more… accurate version of your story if I were to ask you myself."

Below, Jay managed to get Kai to trip over a training dummy. "Did you consider asking my sister? You aren't a terribly patient man, and you must know by now that I can draw things out longer than I need to, if you paid any attention at all last night," I said, readjusting my glasses.

"I asked her, and she directed me to you."

Maker almighty. I sighed, resigned to the fact that I would have to repeat my entire story all over again, and almost started to speak when I heard a voice in the back of my mind say, "Not yet. Wait until his son is safe."

You remember when I sensed that I should get up and talk to Garmadon, right? Well, this voice seemed to belong to that feeling in the back of my head. The voice didn't sound like my sister's voice, or any of my friends. If anything, it sounded suspiciously like my father's voice. I hadn't heard it in so long that it had started to fade, but later on, I thought about it and realized that it was definitely his voice.

At that moment, though, I didn't know whose voice it was, but I decided I should heed its advice. I looked directly into Garmadon's eyes and said, "I don't think I should tell you just yet."

"Why not?"

I shrugged and rose from the roof. "Oh, just a feeling." With that, I slid off the roof and went downstairs to my room, where I set about repairing a massive scratch on my EDV. We'd had an unexpected Serpentine encounter earlier that week, and I had kept on putting off fixing it. It had been bothering me all week, but I'd been fairly busy getting extra EDV practice in.

About two hours later, I was nearly done with a final buffer when the small intercom unit on my desk went off.

I pressed the button to accept the call. "Carmen speaking."

"Hey, this is your sister. We just arrived at Torchfire Mountain."

I quickly stood up, taking the unit with me, and started putting on my gi. "Well, I thought I heard a commotion down the hall."

"Nya's saying that the mountain is pretty unstable," Carnegie said, her voice crackly through the small speaker. "I wouldn't bring the EDV or a lightsaber - Nya's told me that they could set off some sort of explosion."

With a sigh, I clipped on my weapons belt and slid some basic daggers into the holsters. "What about the Force? Ask her if that's fine."

There was a moment of silence, and then Carnegie responded, "She says it should be fine as long as we don't do too much. Get yourself together and meet me up on the deck. The boys are already heading in." The unit went silent, and I dropped it on the desk on my way towards my weapons rack.

After all, it was showtime. And this time, I wasn't going to pass out.

(Probably, anyway.)


I've never really done New Year's resolutions, but after going through my Drive and seeing this half-finished document, I decided to try the whole resolution thing:

Before the end of this year, I intend to finish Stars Align and maybe start the sequel.

If it seems like I need a push, feel free to shove me (metaphorically, of course, not literally). Also, if you get the reference to the chapter title, you are a true frined.

I'm going to go shower now, but I will start another chapter tomorrow. Have a great day/night and God bless!

Signing off (but not for too long, I hope),

4nn4