There is a reason that I never will fly in a plane unless I know exactly where I can find the parachute or failsafe system, and that's thanks to Chen too. The tournament had been so strange, all of us piling into a big zeppelin was just normal by that point. None of us had any reason to suspect something was up. We didn't know yet that Nya had been found out on the island, so we were instead still rolling along with the tournament. We figured we'd be taking us somewhere new, but instead he flew up several hundred feet up over the island.

Everyone inside of the seats was tense. Jay had broken his leg and everyone, Griffin especially, was gunning for him. Everyone was still on edge after the entire bit with the spy, and we'd gone from being trusted to hated even more than we were before. I wasn't exactly feeling good either, since Chen was being coy and we hadn't heard from Nya yet. We all assumed Shade was the spy, and it didn't help that he didn't deny Kai provoking him either. It was a very awkward ride with all of us thinking, for better or worse, that we were going to get knocked out of the tournament soon. Even my father told me I should be wary of what was going to happen next. He always gave the practical advice that I needed.

Neuro panicked after seeing how high we were, and I admit I wasn't exactly feeling good about it either. We were so high I could cover the island with my hand in front of my face. And when Neuro finally snapped and threw the cockpit open, we got ourselves another surprise from Chen: it was empty. Chen came on the console and told us that the next round had started, and the objective had changed. Rather than fighting for a jadeblade, we were going to be sent off into the island to go and search for an 'intruder:' Nya.

As soon as Chen told us this, the floor to the entire zeppelin started to open up. There were 8 finalists, and there were 8 parachutes. We all scrambled to go and grab a parachute… until I realized that my dad had come along with us. Chen casually said he wasn't good at math, and then cut out his feed. I've never seen someone be so calm about telling someoen they were going to murder them, but Chen didn't even blink. Even the other villains that said they were going to kill us at least acted like it was something important!

But we didn't get another chance to think about it. We were all spilled out with our parachutes, right into the open air. If I hadn't already been used to flying on a dragon for months during my tour of Ninjago, I would have probably developed a phobia of the sky or something. Everyone was being whipped around in the sky until we could get ourselves steady enough to focus on getting a parachute. My father was right behind me. The wind was so loud I could barely hear my dad yelling at me as loud as he could. I'd flown before, but I was so rattled, terrified, I couldn't think straight.

One of the others said I should use my energy dragon. After I lost my golden power, I'd tested to see if I could make a golden dragon. It turns out that I could, but it wasn't golden anymore. It was now completely green, and I thought I was the only one that could. The others couldn't, even with their full elemental powers. But as soon as I tried to summon it, it wouldn't form!

My dad shouted that I wasn't controlling my fear. I had to center myself if I wanted to use it. At the time, I didn't know what he meant, but it was true. Elemental dragons require you to focus hard and put aside all your fear to control them. Think of it like balancing a plate on your head. If you get scared or tense up, you'll drop it and shatter it. You have to be able to hold still and stay calm if you want to use one. That's the biggest disadvantage to them, alongside the fact they took a lot of energy to make. Using a dragon feels like running a marathon after awhile, so you had to pace using them. But of course, I was falling down to my imminent demise, so I wasn't thinking about that at all. I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do about my dad!

By the time that I got a chance to even grab a parachute, everyone else had already opened theirs. I kept trying to form my dragon, but every time I looked at the ground that was moving up to splatter me across the ground I couldn't do it. It feels like when you do a pushup, and you get halfway up before you feel that big push you gotta do to get all the way up. Only that push was me forming a dragon of energy, and the pushup was me rapidly hurtling towards the ground.

My dad and I both grabbed onto one. We were close enough now, I knew if we waited longer we wouldn't have enough time to land. They were only built for one. My dad looked me dead in the eyes and told me the choice was obvious. I didn't need to even think to know what he was saying. As soon as he said that, I must have felt something snap in me. I realized immediately that there was no way I could take it. It gave me those few moments I needed to finally get my head on straight. So I opened it and shoved it into my dad. He screamed at me in terror as it looked like I'd just committed suicide for him.

I didn't, of course. As soon as I knew that I had to do this, that I couldn't afford to not do it, I felt that push inside me clear up. I was able to get over my fear as soon as I knew that I knew what I was looking towards. I wasn't doing it to save myself, I was doing it to save him. So, right before I hit the ground, I formed my dragon and shot myself up into the air. I won't lie and say that I didn't immediately collapse as I realized how close I'd just come to dying once I landed.

The others all landed in random locations, so I decided to fly off towards my dad. I didn't get to see where the others were, instead I was focused on my dad. The first thing he did was immediately smack me for making him think that I had just killed myself, then hug me and warn that even if he was proud of me for overcoming my fear, I shouldn't give it all right back to him. That hug gave me a lot of time to really feel the gravity of what I'd just pulled off. I promised him I wouldn't go trying that again, and I wouldn't do anything to pull us apart like that. I… wish I hadn't said that, given what I was about to learn.

I thought about trying to find the others, but my dad told me it would be smarter to cover ground alone. That was when we found footprints. Now, Nya was smart, and had a lot of our ninja training, so we instead found they were a distraction that led us to find the symbols she was carving through the forest. They were her Samurai X symbols, so it wasn't like the others would know what it was. We started to look for more of them to find where she was going.

While we were covering ground, I realized that this was the first time I'd been alone with my father since this entire island thing had started. Yes, he snuck into my room at night to have a place to sleep, but that was us being asleep and not really talking. Most other times that we'd talked, it was always either at a tournament or with someone else. This was just me and him, alone together. Given that we were in a jungle, I remembered the last time we'd been alone together in a jungle. I got a bit sick when I thought that.

The more we walked, the more things started to pop up in my head. I was able to think clearly for the first time in… a long time. I'd been focused on staying in the tournament, making plans, worrying about where Zane was, how Cole was doing, I realized that I hadn't really thought about something my dad had told us when we got to the island: he had trained under Chen. It didn't make sense to me. I had assumed my dad had been bitten and stayed with Wu until he met my mother, and then hada me. I hadn't really thought about how Chen fit into that equation. And when I asked him about it… I felt like everything changed.

First, the title of Lord, which I mentioned before I think, was gained when he beat Clouse in a duel one day at Chen's random declaration that he'd grant his lordship to whoever won a mock battle. He won by cheating and using Spinjitzu, which began the longstanding hatred that he and Clouse still had for one another. After that, Chen felt he could share his plans to Garmadon, about his plans to start the Serpentine Wars after peace negotiations had hit a snag.

I don't know why Chen did it. He seems like the person that simply wanted to see how everything was going to end up. He wanted to see how the flames would burn, I think. My dad was horrified by this. Given that he was a son of the First Spinjitzu Master, he felt a desire for peace above all else. Even the venom that was still inside of him tempting him wasn't enough to make him stand beside Chen. But, even before that, Chen did something that… still makes me unsure how to feel about to this day.

Chen intercepted a love letter from Wu to Misako and found Wu hadn't signed it. As a reward for winning the battle, Chen presented him that letter and said he knew Garmadon was in love with her. All he had to do was sign that letter and, that was it. Misako would fall in love with him. And… he did.

I… I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I found out that the love between my parents, was built on a lie. My father said he wasn't proud of his past, but he didn't have any regrets. He'd been tricking my mother with the reason she fell for him, for years. Their entire relationship, was built on Chen's deception. And that meant… I was here because of Chen. If Chen hadn't, then I wouldn't have been born. Ninjago's destiny, the whole thing with the Green Ninja, the prophecy, it was all only fulfilled, because of Chen. I… in a way, I owe my life, to Chen.

I felt horrified at first. I mean… how do you react to your dad saying that he's lied to your mother since before you were born? How do you even react to that? I… I didn't even feel comfortable saying anything. I can't… I still can't really figure out how I feel about it. I was shocked knowing that this man Chen that I'd never met before, that I might not have ever met if he hadn't started this tournament, was so… so personal to me.

But on the other hand… I felt scared. I mean… it was that easy to have me of everyone in Ninjago. It was that easy to make, the savior of Ninjago. I didn't like to think of myself as this, person to be put on a high pedestal. I always have tried to look at myself as just a guy that stood up when he was needed. But… but I can't just ignore the fact I was destined to become what I am today. I still sometimes like to think that destiny is something that just influences you in little ways to make your choices, but when I think about that letter… Is destiny that easy to influence?

I got a chance to read that letter, one day. After the island, I told my mom I wanted to see it. She let me read it. It… was beautiful. You could tell that Wu had poured his heart into that letter. He'd worked hard to make sure that he'd shown everything he had to Misako. He'd detailed everything to her. It was honestly, amazing. If I was a girl, I'd probably have fallen for the writer too. Wu never really does do much writing… I wonder if this is the reason why.

And then… at the end, right after the line asking her if she would be his, was my dad's signature. When I saw it, it felt wrong. It was like ink spilled on the page and, had made that signature instead. It was something so… so wrong. I wanted to scrub it off. But, I couldn't. It was like if I tried to, I'd stop being there. It wasn't meant to be there, even if I was there because of it.

My dad went on further to tell that after that, he'd been ashamed at both his own actions and the way that Chen had thrust Ninjago into war, that he left to go and help his brother in fighting back. The first Elemental Alliance, made up of all the elemental masters of the past, was led by them into battle. They had some victories at first, but that they couldn't overcome the Anacondrai. They were the strongest tribe. Having fought Pythor, who probably isn't even that good a representation of the tribe as a whole, I could only imagine what fighting an army of him was like. I know now, and it's terrifying.

On top of that, Chen had turned the Master of Earth against the rest of the alliance and effectively started to turn the war against them. As soon as he did, everything changed. The Anacondrai were able to take a near flawless victory as the split crumbled the resolve of the alliance. The only reason the war was won was my dad seeing that someone had used a flute to charm an everyday snake. Using that flute, they were able to produce sacred flutes that could control the Serpentine. With that, the war reversed itself in days.

To punish the Anacondrai Generals that Chen had deceived into making the war happen so violently, my dad used the book of spells that Clouse now owned to banish the generals to the Cursed Realm. We didn't know about the other realms at that point, so hearing that was hard to understand. I only got that they were gone now, and had been banished for their crimes. Chen and Clouse were exiled to his island, where (somehow) he managed to build up his noodle and criminal empire.

In the span of maybe fifteen minutes of my dad telling me everything I asked, it felt like my entire life had changed. It… it felt wrong. My dad, he hadn't ever told me this. I had thought that he and my mother were simply ripped apart by the circumstance of the venom that was corrupting him… but knowing that this had apparently been this way from the beginning, just made me feel awful. I didn't know how I was meant to react to the fact that this had all just… happened.

What surprised me, though, was when I told my dad he should have told her, he just… agreed. It was like he knew what he had to do, and he hardly put up a fight. He agreed after we fought on the island, he would tell my mom what happened. I'd expected him to be a lot more angry, or say he didn't have to or… something. But instead he just, agreed like he hardly needed convincing. He was ready to make peace with his past, I guess.

It relaxed me to know that he wasn't going to try to argue that he didn't need to say anything to her. It… made me feel better enough at the time to get working on finding Nya again. It wasn't that long before we found more of her symbols. While I was grappling with all of this, Chen decided it was time that the tournament be over. He'd given everyone little 'gifts' ranging from a bow and arrow to a full on mech to track them. He used them to capture everyone, even Jay. Kai found out during it that Skylar could use the power of ice, which only meant one thing: she was the spy. On top of that, she was Chen's daughter, and had hidden her tattoo using the power of form. She called her father to her to have Chen capture Kai.

Nya found us by chance a bit after Jay had gotten caught. She was babbling about how I was the only one left and that I had to stop Chen. Chen had stolen Nya's DBX -the vehicle that she'd taken with Dareth to the island- and was using it to capture everyone. She finally managed to hand us the spell that she'd been fighting so hard to keep. My dad read it as soon as he got it, and realized the spell was made for transforming anyone with the mark on the spell into an Anacondrai. Chen needed all of the elemental powers in order to do it.

Well… most of them. It's a little weird that he didn't need wind -which Morro had stuck in the Cursed Realm- or water -which Nya hadn't found yet- or time -which was, well, stuck in the Time Blades. I guess, we all thought we were the only elemental powers, and those three weren't all in Ninjago when it happened. I guess the spell must have just needed a certain amount of power. Given that the Anacondrai were resistant to almost all elemental powers, I guess using those powers to turn people into them made sense from that perspective.

It was clear now that Chen's front hadn't been to just gain power. He wanted to restart the Serpentine Wars. He wanted to turn everyone in his cult into his servants, and then use them in order to fuel his own evil plans. If I hadn't known what I needed to before, I knew already. We immediately made a plan to instead find where Chen was keeping the others and find a way to break them out. We couldn't let Chen just take our powers like that! That morning, we'd all woken up ready for the next round in the Tournament of Elements. Right now, Chen had declared me as the one that made it to the Final Round. His motto that 'only one can remain' was coming true right before my eyes.

We made our way back to the compound, and while I wanted to go in right away, my dad told me something that made me stop. Chen got his power by taking it from others, but true power would be able to give it to others. If I just rushed in without thinking, well, I wouldn't be able to do that. We were forced to wait until the sun had set and we found a good place to sneak into the compound. I didn't know where Chen was, but I was sure I could find him without a lot of effort. I would end this right there and then stop this whole stupid plan he had.

I really wish I could say that it went smoothly and we took the staff without ever being spotted. We made our way in by zipline and snuck into the main compound. Chen had rigged the place, so as soon as we entered, we set off his alarms. It was almost like he'd specifically left one hole open for us to get our way into… which, I guess is just like him. Nya stayed behind to deal with the swarm of guys that came for us, while my dad took Clouse off of me. I was the only one that could deal with this, and I went ahead without thinking much on it.

This is another reason why I despise trapdoors. I don't know how Chen knew what hallway I was in, but he sent me right into those weird catacombs he had all over the island. As soon as I landed, I heard the sound of that giant snake coming towards me. It was a straight hallway, and so it made more sense to run. As soon as I started, though, I saw a light off in the distance. Then I heard Kai calling out, telling me that he would help me get out. I didn't think twice about it and ran with him away from that snake.

Kai said that he'd managed to slip away, even if Chen had gotten their powers already. I told him that I needed to get to Chen and his staff, but Kai didn't say anything. We hadn't been walking for long, and when he turned and gave me this, weird smile, I felt bad. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me that it'd make sense when it was over. Before I could ask him what that meant, he blew out the torch.

I was confused out of my mind, and when I heard him running away, I followed him. Somehow, that led me to walk right back out into that main room we'd first entered the tournament in. Chen greeted me, saying that the Final Round was beginning. He'd even put my face and his face on the big board for the tournament bracket. It was all of his powers he now had, versus my one.

I didn't get a chance to wonder what Kai had done, or why he'd done that. I was at my destination, and I had to beat him. I had one goal: destroy that staff and return everyone's powers. I readied myself for battle, ready to end this tournament and finally be declared the victor. The semifinals were over, and I was the last one to stop him.


"So let me get this straight," Lloyd huffed out as he lifted dumbbells, "The, entire time that we were fighting, you and Zane were working to build that Roto Jet?"

Cole pulled himself up from a deadlift, exhaling as he straightened his back out and held the weight up at his hips. He dropped the massive weight, giving a loud enough thud it made Lloyd slightly jump. He stretched his limbs out as he gave a long groan and sigh to him.

"I kept telling them, don't build a jet underground!" Cole rolled his eyes, "Over and over! It was a cool jet but like… they had to literally carry it everywhere just for it to be useful! Karlof could have built us literally anything else! Like… he turned noodle making machines into cannons! He could have made them for us to use on the guards!"

"The guards… would have… caught on a lot faster… than saying you were… fixing a machine," Lloyd huffed out between reps, "I just thought… you guys found the jet… underground!"

"And I thought Chen just took you out one by one instead of, you know, all of that," Cole rubbed his hands together to go down for another lift, "You never know what to think with that guy!"

"Y-Yeah, he's really… really bad!" Lloyd pulled his arm up one more time, "Forty… forty… shoot… no, was I on fourty?" He groaned, "I got messed up in thought. I'm just gonna call that forty and give my arms a break."

"Sounds good to me," Cole inhaled as he went down, gripping the bars and then lifting it up once more. He gave a hard exhale as the massive weights on either side strained against him, but he held firm. He let out a groan of exertion as he got it straight, then dropped it once more. The rumble shook Lloyd from the weight of it.

"How many more chapters are you thinking of doing with Chen?" Cole asked, moving over to get some water to squirt into his mouth, "If you're already there, then you only got like… a few more things, right?"

"Probably three or four more," Lloyd answered, cocking his head, "Any reason you ask?"

"Nah, I just, you know, wanted to know how many more sessions you'd like me sit down and, do with you," Cole chuckled, "I know you said you were thinking of having Kai do the next ones, so, I know you'll probably wanna do something else after them, you know?"

"...Are you asking if I'll still come work out with you, Cole?" Lloyd asked with a blink.

"What? Pssht, nah, I'm not asking that! You're already pretty strong. I mean, you've been moving up weights really well," Cole gestured to the large dumbbells he now held, "I just, you know, was wondering. I mean, it's probably healthy for you to at least, keep it up once a week or so, like, just to make sure you don't lose it all and stuff. I'd be happy to write you up something, if you'd want."

Lloyd smiled coyly, "How about we keep meeting like we've been doing so you can make my routine for me in person?" Lloyd lifted his arm up, looking at the defintion of it, "I'm not seeing much progress right now but, I'm sure that with a few more weeks I'll totally start getting results. Besides, it's easier to work out with someone than it is alone, right?"

Lloyd saw Cole smile hard for a few seconds. Then Cole shook himself slightly and went down to a more neutral smile, "Yeah, sure thing! I mean, it's good for this equipment to get used, you know?"

"I do know," Lloyd stretched his back out, "I still do Spinjitzu practice with Zane too. We started doing it after my chapters got a little more… intense. I moved it so I could work out with you, but you're welcome to come practice with us too if you want."

"Sure!" Cole stated eagerly, then reeled himself back in a bit more, "Sure, just let me know when and I'll be there."

"No problem," Lloyd looked over to his weight chart on the wall, "Think I'm ready to move up a set?"

"Easy there, tiger," Cole chuckled, "Let's go through the rest of your sets for today, then we can see next time if you can handle them. You don't wanna move up too fast. I'm already moving you up a bit faster than normal."

"You are the expert," Lloyd admitted, "I'll trust you on that."

"You can trust me on a lot of things," Cole pointed to himself, "Whatever I say is rock solid, just like me!"

"Of course it is," Lloyd chuckled, "Let's get to it."