AN: Welcome to the tenth chapter of "Nature Versus Nurture!" Herein lies the return of Schrödinger's shoes. The key song and its selection for this chapter is "Photograph" by Ed Sheeran, "We keep this love in a photograph, we keep these memories for ourselves." The other songs and their sections for this chapter are "Naughty" by Matilda, "Mustn't let a little thing like little stop you"; "Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood, "It's not where I belong"; and "Walk A Little Straighter" by Billy Currington, "I remember looking up to look up to him, and I remember most the time he wasn't there."
"I don't want to take a picture," Kai complained, standing in the middle of the room in only his underwear, socks, a white t-shirt, and a massive pout.
"You don't want to train, you don't want to take a break from training, you don't want to play board games, you don't want to play card games, you don't want to nap, you don't want to stop napping, you don't want to go to bed, you don't want to get out of bed… Blood, I'm starting to think you don't want to do anything," Cole pointed out mildly. "Or really, I think you do and you just like to complain."
"Yeah, well, yeah, well, yeah, well," Kai searched for a suitable insult and seized upon one, "you got hit in the head by Bytar!"
"W-what does that have to do wwwith anything?" Jay wondered.
"Blood's just being silly," Cole said knowledgeably, and he turned to Lord Garmadon, tugging on the man's sleeve. "Dad, can you make Blood get dressed? He's distracting me from helping Ghost, and he's supposed to already be dressed to help Storm anyway."
"I don't need help!" Jay said predictably.
"Your shoes are on the wrong feet," Lord Garmadon said mildly. "And the shoelaces are tied to each other. It's okay to need help, Storm."
Jay scowled, an adorable expression when done by him, but he turned to Kai readily to await help in dressing up.
"Blood, put on your fancy clothes!" Lord Garmadon ordered, putting as much authority into the statement as possible.
Not budging, Kai stuck out his tongue and blew a loud raspberry.
"So that's the way you want to play it, hmm?" Lord Garmadon said mildly, and he took a fighting stance. "Battle me for it."
Gulping, Kai said quickly, "I don't think we're quite far enough in our training for that."
"If you want to challenge me, you are," Lord Garmadon stated, crooking a finger at Kai.
Kai nodded slowly. He began circling his father, eyeing the man up and down.
Lord Garmadon let him do so, figuring it wouldn't give the boy much of an advantage.
Suddenly, Kai lunged. One socked foot came up and kicked Lord Garmadon in the shin.
Cole and Jay ooohed, stopping what they were doing to watch. Ghost watched too, but he didn't verbally wince in response to the hit.
Lord Garmadon staggered sideways a smidge, simultaneously sweeping his non-injured leg toward Kai's base leg.
The root of Kai's stance was knocked back and Kai wobbled, quickly putting down his kicking leg and getting into a steadier fighting form.
Lord Garmadon didn't let him take a break, rotating around him and going for a jab at Kai's shoulder.
Kai dodged and returned a punch at Lord Garmadon's side. He didn't connect.
Lord Garmadon danced back just in time, twirling away.
"Get him!" Jay cheered, not making it clear who he was talking to and perhaps not even sure himself.
"Get him!" Cole repeated.
Maybe responding to his brothers, or maybe just caught up in the battle, Kai ran forward, meeting Lord Garmadon at the end of his avoidant spin with a slap to the stomach.
"Was that supposed to hurt?" Lord Garmadon teased, not even breathing harder from the hit.
"Kinda, but more it was supposed to distract you from THIS!" Kai crowed, going for a uppercut punch to the chin.
Lord Garmadon leaned back, then immediately leaned forward as soon as Kai's hand had gone out of his space. Raising both upper hands, Lord Garmadon delivered a hearty smack to Kai's shoulders.
The boy crumpled to the floor, but he rolled away as Lord Garmadon tried to pin him with a foot to the chest. Kai boasted, "Can't catch me!"
Lord Garmadon lightly jogged after the rolling boy, catching up before Kai could even reach the opposite side of the room. Jumping over the child, Lord Garmadon stopped him with a planted foot and pinned Kai down by the chest with the other foot.
Kai wriggled around and smacked the man's foot, trying to free himself in vain. Finally, he tapped the ground with one hand and said breathlessly, "I give, I give. Lemme up!"
Lord Garmadon smirked and did so, complimenting, "Well done."
"Learned from the best," Kai said, still huffing a little. "Did I do well enough to not hafta put on fancy clothes? Huh? Did I?"
Lord Garmadon let him wait for a moment, then said simply, "No."
"Awwww," Kai scowled.
"Go put on your good clothes, then help Storm with his shoes," Lord Garmadon said simply, then turned to the resident babysitter Serpentine, Lasha. "Go get Mezmo, wherever he is. We're almost ready for the picture."
Lasha snapped off a poorly-done mock salute and dashed out of the room.
"Midnight, are you and Ghost done?" Lord Garmadon asked, turning the oldest of his boys.
"Nearly done," Cole chirped, gently pulling Ghost's arms through the sleeves of a dress shirt.
Ghost flashed a grin at Lord Garmadon as his response.
"Very good," Lord Garmadon praised, ruffling Cole's hair. Trusting the duo to get ready on time, Lord Garmadon went to stand beside the middle two boys. "Storm? Blood? What. What are you doing?"
Kai gave a yowl of frustration, fully dressed but with his shirt bundled around his head and his arms up in the air.
"B-blood didn't unbutton his shirt bbbefore he p-put it on, so now he's stuck and tangled up, and he's scared of the dark, an' it's dark in there with all the fabric over his eyes, so now he's j-just freaking out," Jay explained eagerly, watching his brother with interest.
"'M not scared of the dark!" Kai protested, but his voice was choked with unshed tears.
Lord Garmadon sighed, but he kneeled and began untangling the boy. It took a minute of unbuttoning and straightening and re-buttoning, but he got Kai's shirt put on properly and Kai's tears wiped away on a spare sock.
"Look, Dad!" Jay exclaimed as soon as the man patted Kai on the head and stood up. The second-smallest boy pointed at his feet. "I got my shoes on right all b-by myself. Are you ppproud of me?"
"No, you didn't, I did it," Cole interjected. "He should be proud of me instead."
Jay wilted.
"I'm proud of you for accepting help, Storm, and I'm proud of you for giving help, Midnight," Lord Garmadon said quickly, wanting to keep his boys from fighting.
Jay and Cole both straightened up happily.
"What is taking Lasha and Mezmo so long?" Lord Garmadon mused. "We already have all the photographer equipment, so it shouldn't be taking them so long."
He looked at the door, then at his boys, then at the door again, then, finally, back at his boys.
Slowly, Lord Garmadon said, "Boys, would you be okay on your own for a few minutes while I find Mezmo? It would just be for a moment."
"Can we play while we wait?" Kai asked quickly.
"You may, but you may only do things that have zero chance of ruining your fancy clothes," Lord Garmadon responded.
"But that takes out all the good stuff," Kai complained.
"Would you rather stand around and do nothing?" Lord Garmadon said mildly.
Kai frowned. "Nah. I guess I could play cars or something, just with crouching and not sitting or lying on the ground."
"I'll p-play with you!" Jay volunteered.
"I think I'm gonna read," Cole decided. "What about you, Ghost?"
Ghost pointed at Kai and Jay.
"Cars for three, then," Jay said with relish. "C'mon, let's get started."
Lord Garmadon watched as his boys got settled, Cole on the couch and the other three crouching over a box of toy cars on the rug, then he nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him and calling over his shoulder, "See you in a few!"
"I want that red sports car you've got. It looks like something you could use on a spy mission and I wanna do a spy mission," Kai told Jay.
"Okay, then I'll take this one and b-be the b-bad guy to your spy," Jay said, handing over the red car and picking up a purple van.
"What do you wanna have, Ghost?" Kai asked. "You could have the gold truck, or the white convertible, or the brown car."
Ghost considered his options, then he picked up a pink motorcycle.
"Or you could pick the one that isn't even a car. Of course you would," Kai said resignedly.
"Forget Ghost's not-car, get your car over here and b-battle my b-bad guy! He's gonna take over the wwworld if you let him!" Jay insisted, wheeling his van in circles around his own feet.
"Do you think Wu's gonna take over the world?" Cole said abruptly.
Kai, Jay, and Ghost looked up from their toys.
"Where did that thought come from?" Kai asked, wrinkling his face up in confusion.
Cole shrugged from behind his book. "Dunno. Storm just said that his bad guy's gonna take over the world, and in this book there's a bad guy, so I was thinking about bad guys, and now I'm thinking about Wu, 'cause he's the real bad guy in real life."
Kai considered that, then he dropped his car. "Yeah, okay, I can see that. I've been thinking about Wu too. When are we gonna be ready to face him?"
"W-we've b-been training for w-what feels like forever," Jay said thoughtfully. "Almost as long as w-we've known Dad."
"And like, how are we, a bunch of kids supposed to fight a bad guy?" Cole said, dropping his book and throwing his hands up in the air.
Ghost pointed at Cole, as if to say "that's a good point."
"Dad said we're destined to stop him, so we're gonna," Kai said firmly.
"But shouldn't we know more about him before we fight him? In books and movies, they're always going on about 'gathering intelligence' and 'studying the villain' and stuff like that. We should learn all we can about Wu before we face him," Cole figured.
"Mmmaybe w-we can ask some of the Serpentine," Jay suggested.
Kai's face lit up. "Or maybe, we can spy on them."
Jay gasped. "Yeah! Let's b-be spies!"
"I don't know if that's a good idea. How would we even do it?" Cole doubted.
"Like this," Kai said confidently, and he walked to the door and opened it.
"Whoa, where are you going?" Cole asked.
"There's that storage room that Snappa told Dad about, the one that holds all the stuff we need. I bet the Serpentine are in and out of there all the time, refreshing and moving stuff. All we gotta do is get in there and hide for long enough to hear some of 'em talking," Kai stated.
Jay bounced up and down all the way to the Kai's side. "I like this ppplan. Let's do it!"
"Uh, maybe we should wait for a time when we know we'll be alone for longer? I don't want Dad coming back to an empty room and freaking out," Cole said, then he paused. "But then again, we're never alone, and while we could maybe trick Lasha or Spitta into leaving us for a bit, it wouldn't be long enough to get to the supply room, hide, overhear a conversation, unhide, and get back without them getting suspicious. Y'know what, I agree with Storm. Let's do it."
Cole walked to the door, then he looked back. "Ghost, c'mon."
Ghost looked unconvinced.
"You don't have to come. We could just leave you here, alone, for Dad to come back to, alone, and get mad and sad at," Kai pointed out.
"W-we need you to come," Jay added. "It's gotta b-be all of us."
Finally, Ghost nodded and joined them at the door.
"Okay. So that supply room should be really close. Left or right?" Cole asked.
"Left," Jay said.
At the same time, Kai said, "Right."
Cole closed his eyes and began pointing back and forth between the two sides of the hallway. "Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a Grundle by the toe, if it hollers let it go, eenie meenie miney moe, my dad says to pick the very best one and you are it!"
He opened his eyes to see himself pointing at the left hall. "Left it is."
"We're letting our awesome spy mission be directed by eenie meenie miney moe?" Kai said, sounding slightly disgusted.
"Yup," Cole said firmly, and he began walking left, disappearing around a corner.
Jay and Ghost followed him.
Kai sighed, then he began jogging after them to the left, hissing, "Wait up!"
He didn't have to jog for long. Just around the corner, his three brothers were standing in front of a door.
"Is that the storage room?" Kai asked loudly.
Cole shushed him.
"Is that the storage room?" Kai asked at a medium volume.
Jay shushed him.
"Is that the storage room?" Kai asked quietly.
Ghost put a hand over his own mouth then pointed meaningfully at Kai.
"What are you doing?" Kai hissed.
Cole turned to him and said, so quietly that Kai could barely hear it, "I don't know if it's the storage room, but there are Serpentine inside. We saw them walk in, but they didn't see us, I don't think. It's Snappa and Skales, and if you're quiet you'll hear 'em talking."
Kai was quiet, and after a second faint voices reached him from through the door.
"-you really should try taking care of the boysss, you'd enjoy it," Snappa was saying.
"Not me," Skales responded. "It was hard enough not ssspeaking up about the truth when Lord Garmadon had me bring them thingsss at the beginning, I wouldn't be able to keep quiet now."
"The truth?" Kai repeated under his breath.
"I find that hard myssself, when faced with thossse sssweet little facesss," Snappa admitted. "But if you keep telling yourssself you're doing it for the sssake of evil and getting back at the people of Ninjago, then it'sss much easssier."
"Evil?" Jay gasped.
"Yeah, at firssst I thought kidnapping the boysss and making them fight Wu, really the top good guy, asss if he wasss the top bad guy, wasss a terrible idea, but now it might jussst be worth it. Lord Garmadon'sss a jerk, but he'sss a fantastic villain," Skales replied.
There was silence, inside the room and outside it.
Slowly, Ghost began backing away from the door. Then Jay followed suit, then Kai, then Cole. Ever so slowly, the four boys made their way back to their room in silence, went inside in silence, and closed the door in silence.
Then the freak-out began.
"Dad's the villain!" Kai screeched.
"I can't deal with this, I can't deal with this, I can't deal with this!" Jay moaned, dropping to the ground and curling up in a ball.
Ghost's eyes were squeezed shut in horror and his hands were over his mouth.
"Guys, we gotta be quiet still. Who knows when Dad's coming back," Cole hissed. "We don't want him discovering we know the truth, if that is the truth."
"How can you say that what we heard might not be the truth when it's straight from the fangs of the villain's underlings?" Kai scoffed.
"Dad's evil, Dad's evil!" Jay said hysterically.
"First, you're both assuming Dad's the bad guy based on a conversation we totally could've heard out of context. One time, I heard my first dad talking out of context and I thought he hated me when really he hated what one of my couches was having me do for a routine," Cole pointed out.
"Wwwhat context wwwould explain a conversation like that?" Jay questioned from his spot on the ground.
Cole paused. "...I don't know, but we've gotta look at the facts and keep our cool, just in case Dad really is the bad guy, which I don't think he is. So let's go back to our spots where we were playing and pick a conversation topic for when we hear Dad coming back."
"Okay, fine, we'll do this your way," Kai relented, returning to the place and position where he had been driving his sports car around and taking that car from the ground.
"If Dad or a Serpentine comes bbback, Kai and I can talk about our cars bbbeing spies, but I wwwant bbboth of us to be good guys this time," Jay said firmly, picking up his own car and sitting up before dusting himself off.
Ghost trotted over to his pink motorcycle, picked it up, and crouched, then looked up at Cole.
"So. The facts. Fact one: we heard two Serpentine talking about Dad being evil, Wu being good, and us being kidnapped. That sounds bad, but if it's the only thing that Dad has against him, we shouldn't trust it," Cole stated, sitting on the couch and picking up his book but not looking at it.
"Fact two: Dad named us Ghost, Storm, Blood, and Midnight. Those are scary things and classic villain names," Kai pointed out.
"Fact three: Dad is named Lord Garmadon. That's a villain name too, and he has wwweird assistants, wwwhich is a typical villain thing," Jay added.
"Fact four: Dad is having us train to fight some guy based on the fact that Dad says he's bad and we're supposed to stop him, when we're kids," Cole mused, frowning.
"Fact five: Skales said wwwe wwwere kidnapped. To get kidnapped bbby someone, you gotta get kidnapped from someone," Jay said quietly.
Kai put together the pieces mentally. "Which means our families are probably still alive. And Dad lied about that."
The other three boys froze.
"That's it. That's all the facts," Cole said heavily. "What do you guys think?"
"Dad's a bbbad guy, a villain, and he's trying to mmmake us bbbe villains too, to hurt some guy named Wu who ppprobably never did a thing to Dad," Jay said tearfully.
Ghost's lower lip was trembling heavily, but he nodded.
Kai nodded, his hands clenched tightly into fists.
Cole nodded at them. "I think so too. I can't think of any other way around it."
"Should we even call him 'Dad'?" Jay wondered fretfully. "I don't want to be a bad guy, and I don't want to bbbe a bbbad guy's son either. Maybe he's not our dad anymore?"
"He lied about everything, he's bad, and he's trying to make us be bad too. A dad wouldn't do that," Cole said firmly. "He's not our dad."
"What do we even do, then?" Kai thought out loud. "We can't stop training to fight Wu, 'cause then Da- Garmadon would get suspicious. We can't run away, 'cause we're in the middle of a desert. We can't call for help, 'cause we're surrounded by Garmadon's assistants. We can't even plan for long, 'cause soon Snappa and Garmadon are gonna come back with the photos and then we're gonna have to call him 'Dad' again."
"We wait," Cole said firmly. "We wait, we, uh, bide our time, like heroes do, not like villains. And, when we get the chance, we go to Wu."
At that moment, the boys heard voices outside the room.
Cole looked down at his book intensely.
Ghost clutched his motorcycle to his chest.
Quickly, Jay said, "And then mmmy car drives to the spy headquarters to p-pick up his next m-mission, vroom vroom vrooooom."
"Well, my car is waiting there, and he says that he and your car are going on a mission together, to, uh, Ninjago City," Kai shot back.
The door opened and Lord Garmadon and Mezmo walked in.
"Hey, boysss," Mezmo greeted coolly.
"Hi, Mmmezmo," Jay said fearfully.
"Hi, Mezmo," Kai and Cole repeated nervously.
"Why ssso jittery? Do you not like picturesss?" Mezmo asked.
"Not a big fan," Cole admitted.
"It'll be fine, kiddos," Lord Garmadon assured, and he clapped his hands. "Let's do this."
"Sssit on the couch, Lord Garmadon," Mezmo instructed, and Lord Garmadon did so. "Midnight, you go on hisss right ssside. Blood, you go on hisss left. Ssstorm, go next to Midnight. Ghossst, you go next to Blood."
Slowly, the boys did as they were told.
Mezmo peered through the camera that was already set up for him and nodded in approval. "Yesss, that'sss it. Looking good. Sssit up ssstraight, everyone. Look at me. Okay, now sssmile!"
The boys did so, smiling as naturally as they could.
Mezmo clicked a button, and the camera flashed. "Perfect on the firssst try. Wow."
"Thank you, Mezmo. Please make five copies of that photo, one for me and one for each of my boys," Lord Garmadon said happily, smiling warmly down at the quartet.
Cole and Jay returned the smile hesitantly, Ghost did a crooked little half-smile, and Kai barely even tried.
"It's fine, boys, we don't have to do another picture," Lord Garmadon reassured, incorrectly assuming the reason for the boys' unresponsiveness. "In fact, you can get changed back into your normal clothes."
Kai gave a large, genuine smile at that and hopped off the couch, running to the pile of casual clothes he had left behind what felt like so long ago. His brothers followed suit.
"Once you're changed, we can have a little fun before training. I'm thinking a card game, but I'll be open to suggestion," Lord Garmadon allowed to a chorus of cheers.
But as they changed, and as they played the card game they selected, and as they trained, and even onward, one thought echoed through the minds of Cole, Kai, Jay, and Ghost.
"We wait, and we go to Wu."