Now, of everything that's happened in Ninjago, Morro's attempt to curse it is the one that I know you all are familiar with. Normally, the people of Ninjago seem to forget about all the dangers they face as soon as they're over. Chen literally took over most of Ninjago, but I know a lot of kids that don't even know Chen's name. The Overlord I think most people don't remember due to me kinda purifying everything at the end. Ninjago City especially seems to just move on after each disaster and just forget about everything that's happened afterwards. I guess that's how you have to be to live in a town that gets attacked at least once a year.
At first, I wasn't sure why everybody remembered Morro's invasion. It was probably one of the shortest ones. He attacked the city of Stiix, and we stopped him. Specifically, Nya stopped him. I guess it has something to do with the fact so much of Stiix was destroyed that it was all over the news. The Preeminent used all of Stiix's buildings to create a way for it to chase us in the ocean. Almost every house was actually ripped apart by it's rampage. The news ran with that, and I also know that many horror films used the images of the Preeminent for a lot of weird monsters. For some reason, what happened in Stixx is something that all of Ninjago just… remembers.
A few chapters ago, I called Chen one of my most personal villains. I still stand by that. Chen hit me home in ways that made me question my very existence. He made me ask myself how easily destiny could be manipulated to produce someone that did the things I did. It made me question my father and have to address sides of him that I had always thought was just there when he was Lord Garmadon. Most of you know, however, that Morro was possessing me for a long time. Why I didn't name Morro my post personal villains simple:
Morro is someone that I have never been able to think about the way I think about any other villain, even Harumi and Chen. Morro is on another level compared to everyone else that I've fought.
In the prologue, I said that sometimes I thought that Morro had a point. Specifically, when Morro was talking about how destiny works. Morro has made me think about what it means to be the Green Ninja. He made me question who I was as a person in a different way then Chen did. Chen made me ask why I was even in this world. Morro… Morro forced me to ask if who I became was someone that was meant to be the way I was. Even now, the things that Morro said to me still haunt me. They still hang in my head and make me wonder if I've ever done the right thing.
One thing I need to get out of the way right now, is that my recollection of events for this part of the story is going to be foggy. You'll see what I mean when I talk about what it was like to be possessed, but a lot of what I'll be talking about, I was only getting little bits of flashes of. I didn't know what was happening to me most of the time. That was deliberate on Morro's part. Morro knew that if I was able to see what was happening, I'd try to influence what was happening. The only times that I managed to do that always followed with Morro forcing me further down inside my own head. I know that some of the events I recounted in the previous chapters were somewhat rapid-fire and didn't have that much detail in them. With everything leading up to the Corridor of Elders, it was because it happened so fast I didn't have much time to think. With all of this… I literally didn't have the chance to know what was going on enough to think.
What most of you all know about this story is that Morro opened a gateway to the Cursed Realm and brought the manifestation of the Cursed Realm, the Preeminent, into Ninjago near the city of Stiix and completely destroyed the city before a massive tidal wave took it down. The path to getting there, however, was a lot more complicated. Now that I've had time to think, I know what I'm going to say. So, I want to go ahead and start from the beginning.
In the months after what happened with Chen, I knew that I couldn't stop and let myself look sad and upset. I'd already berated the ninja for doing that when they lost Zane. I threw myself into being the best team leader that I could, for the sake of my father. I knew that my dad wouldn't want me to stop being a ninja. My father had taught me that I could move on and become something great, no matter what happened. So, that's what I did. I worked on being the best Green Ninja I could be.
I know that I talked about how angry and withdrawn I got when Zane sacrificed himself. When I finally returned to the Monastery my dad built after what happened with Chen, I thought that I'd do the same thing. I wanted to, actually. I wanted to go and curl up inside of my room and get angry again. I even went as far as to actually tell my mom that I might do it, and to come and get me if I did. The night that I got there, I went up to the room I stayed in, sat down on the bed and waited for it to happen.
It didn't. I didn't get angry or trash the room. I didn't stop eating, I didn't yell at my mother, or even at myself. I was angry at myself, but I wasn't able to bring myself to do anything. Each time that I felt myself ready to lash out, something stopped me. I kept waiting for it to happen. I kept just, getting ready to blow up. I never did. No matter how long I waited, I never did anything. And, the more that happened, the more I started to get more upset than angry.
I'd cried for weeks when Zane was gone. I'd been so devastated that I made my parents worry that I was going to break down completely. Now I'd lost my father and I couldn't even bring myself to get angry. That wasn't to say I wasn't crying. I was crying a lot. Whenever a memory of him started to surface, I couldn't help but cry. But I wasn't getting upset with anyone or anything. I wasn't cursing myself, or cursing Chen or anything. I was just… upset. I almost managed to get myself mad enough by asking if I was a bad son for not crying. I wanted to be angry, but I was just sad.
I think the reason why is because this time I was the one that did it. With Zane, it'd been so sudden and therefore devastating to me because of that. With my father, he'd looked me in the eyes while I read out the rest of the spell. My dad had asked for it. While he was gone, I had some closure with it. If Wu had just read out the rest of the spell and that'd been it, then I don't think that I'd have been able to force myself to work past it so quickly. But, knowing that my dad wanted me to do it… knowing that he was proud of me, and that his last words had told me that, was enough to get me going.
None of the ninja asked me to get back to helping the people. Wu didn't even ask me either. I was the one that came back to them. I took about a week to get to a state I could start helping people in again. I wasn't completely okay, and I think they noticed that. But I wouldn't give up on my duties to Ninjago. The ninja had disbanded the last time I wasn't there to keep them together. Even if I had to get back to it quickly, I couldn't let them go it alone again.
Without a big massive threat to Ninjago, I suggested that we instead start roaming the villages across Ninjago and seeing what we could do to help them. We'd spent so much time in Ninjago City that I was beginning to worry about the places that had been hit when Chen started his invasion. The others were a little confused by it at first, but after we showed up to see Jamankai Village worse for wear, they started to see what I meant.
In the meanwhile, Wu, after everything that had happened, said that his emotional outburst at his brother told him it was time for him to finally retire from being a Sensei. Wu and Misako pulled together their money -which I don't know where they got it from- and designed a tea shop called Steep Wisdom. I was always a little confused at that. It reminded me of when Wu opened that School of his, and then promptly forgot about it. I guess a tea shop is a better investment, but it was a big one. It's also really weird to think about now, since Wu ended up selling it not that long after he actually opened it. It really made the entire shop feel kinda pointless.
I never had anything against the tea shop, but I never really liked it. I'm not the biggest fan of tea. I like it, but it's not something I really want to drink all the time. I also didn't see how a shop like that could stay in business. If it was more like a cafe then, I guess I could see that working. But, a big shop that only sold tea? I guess that Wu had a lot of faith in it. The other ninja seemed to feel the same way I did, since we all forget about it a lot.
While Wu wanted us to help out in the shop, I insisted that we needed to help Ninjago first. We went around from village to village for a few months. It gave us time to really get good control over our new Elemental Dragon and train out powers. Moving around so much made it a little easier to work through everything I was feeling too. Whenever I got sad, I could always find some new task to go and do, or some place to go and explore. I knew a lot of the island from my tour from after the Overlord incident, so I was able to guide the ninja pretty well.
All of this started several months after Chen's entire plan. The ninja and I were off to help capture a mutant fangfish that was terrorizing some fishing villages. It was just a regular job. I just remember it being pretty huge, but outside of all of that, I don't remember much about the job in particular. The one thing that I do remember is something that would be important later. We'd gotten the fish captured and loaded into a tank to be sent off to a sanctuary of some kind, when I let slip to Kai that I still missed my father.
Kai said something to me that I would hold onto. He said that when his parents were gone, he had Nya to help watch over him and keep him on track. So, he said that he would watch over me. I thought it was just another little reassurance from Kai. Kai was just doing that to make me feel better, I thought. I didn't realize just how important it would be.
When we got back to the tea shop, Wu said that he had something for us to do. The shop had just recently opened for business, and the shop wasn't turning up customers. Personally, I think it was because Wu picked a location in the middle of nowhere. He wanted the five of us to go and drum up business by handing out flyers. I don't know when we agreed to be Wu's employees, and I didn't want to start working there. I had just agreed to help Wu, though, when my mom got off the phone with the police. It was pretty weird that my mom was willing to stay around in one place for so long, especially after hearing about how she'd fell in love with my dad. Then again… I've never been able to figure out what sort of relationship those two have.
I was being called to the Ninjago Museum of History. I didn't stop to think about how odd it was that someone had asked for me specifically. All I was thinking about was that I should get over there and help. I'd been helping Ninjago out, so it wasn't like this wasn't up my alley. I told my mom I'd give her a rain check on a kiss, and told everyone I'd be back to help them soon. I left without even thinking about what was going to happen to me. That was the last time that I saw them before it all happened.
The weird thing about this, is that my memory leading up to the moment that Morro attacked me is very clear. It's almost like my mind saved everything that I'd normally forget. I can remember the faces of the two cops that greeted me. I can remember the exact look of the night guard that wanted to talk to me. I can remember the time of day, the exact minute I walked into the museum, even the direction we took when the guard grabbed me. I remember that he looked tired. It wasn't tired in the way that you would get when you didn't sleep, but more like when you'd just worked out for a really long time. He was panting and shivering, his eyes were unfocused, and he was covering himself hard with the blanket he had over him.
The second I told him I was here to help, he grabbed me and dragged me back into a storage room in the museum. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I didn't protest. He felt strong, which was weird given how old he looked. The second we entered the room, he shut the doors too. I didn't know what to think until I saw the open crate. He told me that something had been stolen, specifically the Allied Armor of Azure. I had no idea what he was talking about. Something felt off about it all, though.
As I was looking in the box, I had the suspicious feeling something wasn't right. The room felt cold to me. The guard mentioned that the armor could be used to summon allies in times of need, most specifically from the Cursed Realm. That sparked a memory of the spell I'd read, and made me turn around to ask what the guard meant.
I narrowly avoided having the guard smash my head in with a hammer. Suddenly, that feeling of something being off had turned into nothing adding up. He was slow and I had no issues dodging him, but something about him all felt wrong. He was jerking about, and while he was shouting at me, I felt like he wasn't acting like a night guard. I didn't want to hurt him, so I toppled some boxes over him. I stunned him enough to try to talk to him, and that was when I saw something leaving his body.
The pain of being knocked down had weakened Morro's hold over the guard. He drifted up into a nearby painting, and that was when I heard his voice for the first time. He'd been speaking through the guard, but now I was hearing it for real. It was young, nothing like the villains that I'd faced so far. I don't know why I noticed that right away, but it stuck out to me. What stuck out to me more was the shadow that went into the painting I smashed drifting to a Serpentine statue nearby and using it to suddenly constrict me. The metal held me tightly, and seeing this statue moving like a real thing, and then talking to me… it was wrong.
Once he'd gotten me trapped, Morro possessed the sand that had fallen out of the crate to swirl around me and blind me with it. I think he was taunting me, showing me that I couldn't hurt a ghost even if he tried. It was in that cloud of sand I first saw him. I didn't see much, but I could see his eyes and head, floating among the sand in an unnatural way. I felt something prickling at me in a way that I hadn't before. It wasn't the feeling of the sand on my body… it was the feeling of something pressing inside my head.
I heard the security guard saying that he'd felt Morro's thoughts, and that the 'world would be cursed,' or something like that. In a panic, I told the guard to throw me the Allied Armor he still had on. With it in hand, I prepared to break it apart using my Green Power. The result was instead that Morro took the armor from me and let me go from the statue in order to stop me from doing that. When I got up from the ground, Morro was floating in the sand, the armor on him.
What Morro did next would change my life forever. I'd faced villains that wanted to kill me. I'd faced villains that wanted to hurt everyone around me. Morro, however, wanted something else. He didn't want to hurt me. He wanted me. I didn't know what he meant at first, but Morro's sandy form came flying straight towards me. Before I could summon my shield, his body had struck me, and then he was gone. The armor clattered to the floor, and for a few seconds, I didn't know what to expect.
My head started throbbing. The world around me started spinning. My throat felt like it closed off, and I had to force down air. I stumbled around, and remember tripping over the broken bit of box. I hit the floor, and started heaving. I felt my limbs starting to twitch and jerk on their own. I tried to move them, but each time I did I felt like they were getting heavier. My vision started to go hazy. I remember the room feeling dark, dark like the lights had been broken. The guard came over to see if he could help, and my arm jerked up on its own and smacked him into the wall. I tried to tell him to run, but nothing came out of my mouth. I tried to yell at him to run away again, but while my lips moved, my voice didn't work. Something was happening to me.
Then, I felt it. I felt a jab that went right into my brain. It didn't hurt, oddly. Instead, it felt like something was hammering down at me. Each time that I felt it, it was like all of the things happening to my body increased. I felt everything getting dimmer. My arms felt heavier. My breath was squeezed more out of my lungs. Each time that jab went down, it was a hammer that was pushing down on my mind. It was at that moment I realized what Morro was doing. Morro was trying to take over my body.
Have you ever been pushed under the water and held down? There's a certain point where you feel a big panic. It's this, white hot feeling in your chest that makes you suddenly realize that you have to get up and swim to the surface. You usually only feel that feeling when you're in a dangerous situation and realize that you might actually die from it. I don't know why we get that feeling, but whenever I've felt it before, it's been because I'm about to get hurt. I felt it when I faced down the Overlord on top of the Garmatron tower, and when the Golden Master had us all trapped in front of Borg Tower.
When Morro was forcing his way into my head, I felt that panic. I wasn't in pain. Being possessed doesn't feel like anything physically. You felt your body getting weaker, but those were just the symptoms. I can't fully think of how to describe it. It's like… it's like someone is taking your thoughts, your feelings, your personality, and pushing it down. They're forcing it down into your own head. The only thing I can think of like it, is when you space out when studying and then snap out of it to realize you've been sitting there for a long time. You aren't in control of yourself during that time. Somehow, you know when it's happening that if you stop fighting it, you won't be in control anymore. That triggered the panic inside of me, and let me fight him long enough to realize that something was very wrong.
When this was all happening, I started seeing memories flash through my head. At first, I had no idea what was going on. I was fighting so hard to keep whatever was happening out, that I at first ignored it. The memories all flashed by one by one, getting faster and faster. I realized that Morro was forcibly drawing out my memories. He was reading my memories for some reason. I was already feeling my body going numb at that point, so I wasn't thinking about it. I was just pushing back as hard as I could, without even feeling like I was pushing at all.
Then, Morro dredged up the memory of my dad. He pushed the image of my father being sent into the Cursed Realm while I read out the words right into my head. The second that I felt that, all of the emotions that I felt that day came back. I'd worked for weeks to work through all of them. I felt the anger of having my father taken away from me, the guilt over the time that I hadn't spent with him while he was alive, and the rage at myself for not finding a solution. I couldn't stop those feelings. I remember having it all being brought up inside my head, since that was the last thing I remembered feeling for a very long time.
I think when a ghost possesses someone, they look for a way in. Morro probed my memories to find something that he could use to break my concentration. Since he was drawing directly from my memories, I didn't have time to process the emotions that were attached to them. I remember feeling like I'd just opened my mouth underwater, and something was rushing inside. I let out one last scream before I felt my connection to my body snap, and then I was in darkness.
The entire time that I was possessed, it wasn't like I was asleep. In fact, I was awake for it the entire time. Morro didn't just block off my ability to move my own body, it was like he surrounded my mind with his own. When I opened my eyes, I was floating inside of something. I was surrounded by nothing. I was able to think, and I was able to talk and move around. No matter how much I moved, though, I didn't get anywhere. No matter how much I talked, I didn't make any sound. Nothing I did actually did what I thought it would.
I remember at first feeling terrified. I tried to run around and figure out what was going on. What I quickly came to realize, was that I wasn't anywhere. I wasn't trapped in some place I could escape from. I was literally trapped inside of my own mind, There was nowhere I could go, because I wasn't gone from anywhere. I was still inside my own body… just locked up in it.
Morro left me there for hours. I spent hours running around, trying to find my way out. I think it was hours, at least. It felt like it. I wasn't really 'running' since I wasn't actually going anywhere but I felt like I was. I had finally started to give up, when I felt my voice come back to me. I heard my words coming out of my mouth. That's when I saw someone walking towards me. When he got close enough for me to see him, I saw him for the first time. I saw what Morro looked like.
I don't think anyone ever saw what Morro looked like before he was a ghost. When Morro showed himself like that, he looked about as old as I was. He was wearing the first green gi I'd worn. He had the same face that he did as a ghost, only… kinder.. He didn't look evil to me. He looked like… a regular person. He looked like a ninja in training. I didn't know what to think of that.
Morro told me that since he was possessing me, it wasn't long before I'd start being able to read his thoughts. He was the one that called me here, and his goal all along had been to possess me. He needed a 'Spinjitzu Master' in order to complete his mission, and the first step of that was going to be taking Sensei Wu's staff from him. He was currently on his way to the tea shop he'd gotten from my memories. Apparently, as a ghost he could read each one of my memories whenever he wanted.
I asked Morro why he was doing that. He said that if I was smart, I could figure it out. I asked him why he was wearing my old outfit. When I phrased it like that, I saw him get angry. He told me that it was never mine to wear. I never deserved to wear it. I wanted to know more, but he told me that he had to tend to my friends. Before I could stop him, my voice was gone again.
I was back in the dark again. I didn't know what was happening. So many things were filling my head. Why was Morro doing this? He said I could read his thoughts, but I couldn't feel his thoughts or anything. I felt alone. I couldn't see anything. The only thing I'd been able to see was Morro, and he was gone. I was in the middle of a void. No matter what I did, I couldn't see anything. Nothing worked. Nothing… nothing was there for me to hold onto.
I was about to break down, when I heard Kai's words. I remembered him telling me that he'd look after me. For a moment, I thought that I was just thinking that. But, something was off about it. I heard it. It wasn't something I was thinking, I heard it. As soon as I did, I felt something. I felt a rush of power in me. Morro had pushed me down in order to take control. Kai was out there. I don't know how I really knew it, but I felt that Kai was out there saying that to me.
Pushing back against Morro felt like pushing a car. If you don't push hard enough, nothing moves. When you finally feel the car moving forward, you can't stop pushing or else it'll roll back. When I was fighting Morro, I felt that exact feeling. Morro's mind was a blanket that was pushing my own down. I wanted to push him off. I didn't physically push anything. Instead, I focused my thoughts and willed myself to get back into control. I willed my body to become my own again. I was willing myself like I would to get out of bed, only now it was to take control of myself once more. I pushed against him as hard as I could, I felt him shift, just for one moment.
I opened my eyes and realized I was looking at the tea shop.
I only got a small glimpse. I saw that my body wasn't like I remembered it. I saw my clothing had turned dark and ratty. I was standing in the middle of the tea shop courtyard. The wind was howling around me. Kai was bending over me, holding onto me like he'd just shaken me back to my senses. I didn't know how I'd gotten there. I wasn't able to move my body. All I could do was look up to see Kai, and get out a single plea for help.
Then, Morro pushed me back down.
Just asking Kai for help had taken away my focus. When Morro pushed my mind back down, he didn't do it kindly. He pushed me down hard. My head felt like it was screaming in pain. My thoughts were as jumbled as if I'd just run into a wall. I don't know what had just happened, but when I was able to see again, Morro was sitting on top of me. He told me that I'd just done something very, very bad, and that I wasn't going to be doing that again for a long time.
Then, Morro was gone again. I had no idea what had just happened. Somehow, I'd broken free of his possession. For a few seconds, I'd pushed back against him. I tried to push again, but Morro wasn't budging. He'd turned from a brick wall, into an iron fortress. Just getting the light for those few seconds had taken everything out of me. I was left drifting in the void again, and couldn't do anything about it.
Morro was chasing down my friends. In the span of a few hours, my life had changed the day I met a ghost. I thought that was it, but I had no idea just how much more I was going to learn about myself through this possession.
"Kai," Lloyd sighed as soon as he finished talking.
"Huh?" Kai sat up, "What's up? You done?"
"Yeah, I'm done," Lloyd looked him up and down, "You… didn't say anything."
"What?" Kai cocked his head, "You told me not to!"
"I know, I just… expected for you to talk during it," Lloyd pointed out, "I was kinda planning on it, actually."
"Oh c'mon! You asked me to come and help you record this story thing! Do you really think that I'd interrupt you while you were doing your own thing?" Kai asked sarcastically.
"Uh…" Lloyd didn't want to answer that question, "I'm just, well, thank you. I… really am glad that you aren't going to make this difficult."
"Heh, you make it sound like you were planning one me messing this up," Kai chuckled. Lloyd didn't say anything, and instead he leaned back in the chair.
"So… what do you think about all this?" Lloyd asked, "I mean, I know you sat in on one chapter already but… I know that it took Cole a little bit to get used to this idea. The point of all of this is to just, get to say my side of the story, you know? Ninjago always sees me in one way and… I wanna show them the other side of me."
"I'm not really sure what I think yet," Kai admitted, "I mean, I've never been into things like this. I wasn't sure at first why you wanted to do it but, well, after hearing that one chapter I think I get it. If you wanna do something like that, I think you should."
"Really?" Lloyd perked up, "Thanks, Kai!"
"No problem," Kai smirked, "I said I was always looking out for you, and that's still true," He paused, "Hey, have you been working out? Don't think I haven't seen that muscle there."
"Oh… yeah, I've been doing sparring sessions with Zane and working out with Cole. Kinda my way of cooling down after some of these sessions," Lloyd rubbed his neck, "Is it that noticeable."
"Well yeah!" Kai pointed to his upper arm, "You're really starting to fill out that suit! Master Wu might have to get you a new one."
"Uh… heh, thanks," Lloyd smiled gently, "Well… I mean, you're welcome to join us."
"Nah, I don't really do strength training," Kai stood up, "You want to come get some grub, though? I know a good place we can get food for cheap!"
"Isn't Zane cooking dinner tonight?" Lloyd asked.
"You can get dinner with Zane any night," Kai smirked, extending his hand, "Come on, I'm hungry! You wanna cool down after all that, right? Trust me, you're gonna love this place."
"Uh… sure," Lloyd nodded his head, "Oh! Uh, before that, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," Kai was already standing up, "What's up?"
"Do… you know what happened to that night guard?" Lloyd asked quietly, "I never saw him again, and I can't seem to find where he is."
Kai's body suddenly tensed up, "He… uh, I think the museum gave him time off after what happened?"
"Really?" Lloyd asked curiously, "Are you sure?"
"Positive," Kai grinned, "No need to look into it. Come on, let's go get dinner!"
"Sure," Lloyd smiled warmly. He quickly made his way out of the room, leaving behind the beginning of this difficult set of chapters. Kai gulped for a moment, then straightened himself up to put a smile back on his face before going after Lloyd himself.
Author's Note:
And so Autobiography of a Legend continues! These were by far the hardest batch of chapters for me to write. I've come to a point that I'm happy with what I've written, but I also know that of all the seasons, this will be most "semicanon" in terms of representation. My goal was to take the approach of something that could happen and expand on it from there. Either way, I'm glad to have this going once more.
I've also published a number of fics since then! If you want a high action chase story, I recommend my Enter the Ninjaverse fic. I've also done a one-shot called Number One Crime: Copyright Infringement, in which Skylor attempts to defeat the Mechanic due to him using her brand on his truck. Likewise, I've also started The Furthest Realm, a S12 fanfiction that explores what would happen if Akita asked Lloyd to stay in the Never Realm with her. If you have any interest in these, I would be grateful if you took a look at them!
Thank you all for being so patient. Posting will be regular from now on through (hopefully) the end of the S7 chapters. Until then, I hope you enjoy! Ninja-GO!