So, when it comes to talking about villains that I've fought, talking about Krux and Acronix is probably the weirdest one to talk about. It's not like they did anything that makes it hard to talk about, like Morro, or that they got so close to me that it hurt to have it ripped away, like Harumi. The reason why is kinda strange when I say it out loud, but I can't not mention it while talking about the Time Twins. The Time Twins were the first villains that I've faced that didn't care about me specifically.
I was the one that let out the Serpentine, and Pythor made a point of attacking me specifically. Obviously the stuff with my dad were situations where he cared about me a lot. Both Chen and the Golden Master wanted my power and to defeat me to prove themselves. Morro, of course, wanted my body because he thought of himself as the true Green Ninja. Everything that happened with Harumi were all things she did because she hated me. I guess Master Yang technically would be the one that has the least to do with me, since he was after Cole, but I remember fighting Pythor that day more than anything. All of the villains I'd faced up to that point had some personal investment in me.
The Time Twins didn't. Krux and Acronix didn't care if I was alive or dead. Sure, they hated having their plans foiled, but their plans all centered around Master Wu. To them, I was just another obstacle to push over. If I hadn't been there for everything that happened, then nothing would have really changed. For the first time, the villains didn't actually care about whether or not I was there to stop them.
Honestly, the more I think about it, when I talk about Acronix and Krux, I don't have much to say about them as people. I mean, I was able to write entire chapters about Morro and Chen, and the Overlord and my father were both big parts of how I became the person I am today. I can talk more about Sensei Yang simply because we started living in his floating temple. But when I think about the Time Twins as people… I literally have almost nothing to say about them.
So, I guess I'll just go ahead and talk about them up front. Most of you might have remembered that Dr. Sanders Saunders disappeared from the museum a year before the Sons of Garmadon started their rampage. If you don't, then you might remember him as that guy with the silly long mustache and really weird voice that loved giving tours and talking about the past. That was Dr. Saunders. I first met him during the whole scrap with Yang, though it wasn't until recently my mother told me that she had actually met him when she was working at the museum. She said that he was a very nice man and really loved talking about Ninjago before the events of the Serpentine Wars and how the individual cities developed. She said it was almost like he actually used to live back then.
It turns out, he did. Dr. Saunders was actually Krux, one of the two former Masters of Time (another element that I guess Chen's spell didn't need). Krux had fought Master Wu and my dad after the Serpentine Wars and lost. Wu and dad used Chronosteel to strip the Twins of their powers and then open up a Time Vortex in order to make sure the Twins could never get their hands on their powers again. The Twins jumped in afterwards to try to get them back, resulting in Krux being thrown out of the vortex minutes after he'd jumped inside, while Acronix was left to travel time indefinitely.
Maybe it's a little weird to go ahead and talk about all that upfront, but it's kinda what made all of this entire situation happen. Since Acronix was still lost to time, Krux decided to hide his identity and later start working at the museum to hide his true identity. I'm not quite sure why he did, but I guess part of it was because he really liked history. That's all I can even think to say about him. He was old, cranky, and he was a big fan of the 'good old days.' I'm pretty sure half the reason he even did all of this stuff was because he wanted to go back to a time before 'modern technology' had started to seep into things.
Acronix was a little different. Because of how the Time Vortex worked, Acronix emerged from the vortex 40 years after he'd fought Wu and my dad. It's somewhat ironic calling them the Time Twins when Krux is very visibly older than Acronix. While Krux was usually always annoyed and constantly upset at everything, Acronix was more… happy, I guess? He was always smiling and fiddling around with his MP3 player and Borg Watch. I'm pretty sure that he was listening to music most of the time. He loved seeing all of the modern technology that Krux hated and stuff. The only reason I know about it was because Borg told me Acronix demanded to be given the more recent models of everything, just to be able to enjoy it all. Actually, come to think about it, Borg is the reason we even know much about who the Time Twins were as people.
Now, as the Time Twins went, they honestly came pretty close to almost achieving their goal. I think the thing that set the Twins apart from every other villain was their ambition. They didn't want to defeat me, or take over Ninjago, or any of that. Well, okay, I think at some point taking over Ninjago was something they wanted to do, but that wasn't their main goal. In truth, all they wanted was to go back in time and right the wrong of being defeated. They wanted to defeat Wu on the day they challenged him. The lengths they went to for that goal were pretty big, but, well, I guess I at least have to say that they had ambition.
...See, I'm already out of things to talk about with the Time Twins. Since they didn't care about me as a person, I remember more about their plan than I do about them specifically. Kai and Nya spent more time with them, so I guess I could ask them about it. But even then, I don't know what I'd really get from that. It's just really hard to talk about the Time Twins without talking about what actually happened!
I guess we should just move on and start talking about what happened. Now, of all the villain schemes that Ninjago has been put through, I'd say the Time Twins plan is likely one most of you don't really know about. The only thing many people remember is a bunch of snake people stealing metal, a few people were kidnapped, and then it was all back to normal by the end of the week. Honestly, when it came to making their plan a secret, the Twins probably were the best at it. We didn't even know about what their true plan was until they'd already started getting away with it. They knew what they were doing. But, I guess I should start off with the beginning of all of this, since that's what really started all of this:
It was all Wu's fault.
I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, or in some weird roundabout explanation kinda way. I mean that all of this literally was Wu's fault. Everything that happened, from the start of the Time Twins' plan all the way to how it ended, was entirely Wu's fault. This entire situation could have been avoided had Wu decided to just tell us where he was going that evening.
It wasn't too long after we'd obtained Yang's temple as our new home base that this all started. After we found out that we were actually fighting possessed mannequins of the villains, the museum tried to bill us for the damages. We tried telling them that we were fighting for our lives, but the guy that came to talk to us said we didn't have any physical proof that was the case, so we had to pay up. It turns out that those mannequins were actually super expensive with how much research they'd poured into making them accurate, so instead we offered to repair them and then help clean up the museum after Dareth had destroyed a good deal of the storeroom while being chased by General Kozu. Thankfully, they were willing to accept that.
Since I fought the actual living Pythor, we only had to handle the ones that the others had faced. Samukai and his Skulkin were somewhat easy to fix, but Chen and his sidekicks were just completely toast. We ended up having to just pay to fix those. The Nindroids were actually fine enough to just put back on display. After we spent time remaking Chen -something that I do not want to ever have to do again- we were at the museum one day to help put everything back in its place. Since we were already there, I offered for us to help clean up some other areas of the museum as a show of good faith. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so generous.
Before we'd set out to the museum, Master Wu had said he had some business to take care of. At the same time, Ronin was helping Dareth and mom unpack our things at Yang's temple. Mom had said she planned to live with us now that we had a more permanent home, which marked the first time that my mom was actually going to be living with me. We were still living in the Bounty while Wu had the tea shop, or rather the Samurai X Cave where it was being worked on. Honestly, it was weirder than I thought it would be to know I was going to be living with my mother. That sounds really weird, but it's true. My mom was actually going to be living with us. Yeah she was at the shop but, this was our actual home. I'm pretty sure Ronin was there that day since he planned to steal something pretty high profile later that week, so helping us out would at least give him something to stand on if we caught him. Dareth was always willing to help us our it we asked… plus, we were living in a floating temple, which was hard not to want to see.
None of us had questioned where Wu was going that day. If we had, we might have been able to stop all of this. Before Acronix had fully disappeared into the Time Vortex, Wu had seen an image inside of it that told him the day that Acronix would return. Wu had gone back to the old Monastery to wait for Acronix to emerge and fight him alone. He thought it was just him 'tying up loose ends' and fixing something he felt he needed to fix.
None of us are really sure what happened at that battle. Wu didn't have the strength to tell us about what exactly happened -for reasons that were directly tied to it- but what we do know is that he managed to fight Acronix to a standstill before something happened. That something was the emergence of the Time Blade.
Before all of this, though, we were still at the museum. While we were cleaning, Kai and Nya stumbled upon a portrait of their parents. While they were looking at it, we found a painting nearby that depicted a battle between my dad and Wu when they were in their prime versus the Time Twins. Dr. Saunders came over and told us that there were no records of the Time Twins that were shown in the image, meaning that he presumed the entire thing was just made up. Part of what drew us into that picture was the fact that it looked so real. Most people wouldn't remember what my father looked like before he turned evil, so to see him looking just as my mother had told me about was weird. The ninja also said that the Monastery was picture perfect, meaning that someone had to have studied it in order to paint it.
Personally, I think that Krux painted it. I know it sounds weird, but the only person that would have known what that battle was truly like were the people that were there. It was too lifelike to be fake and too accurate to just be made up. I've never heard of Krux painting before, but nothing about him says that he can't do it. After thinking about why that painting was there in the first place, I'm pretty sure Krux put it there as a sort of sneaky way of showing everyone a moment of the past that he took part in, like hiding a clue in plain sight.
The reason I bring the painting up was because it tied into what happened right after. We had just left the museum when suddenly we blinked and found ourselves standing on the Bounty's control room. Just before that happened, the first Time Blade had emerged from the Time Vortex and landed where Wu and Acronix were fighting. That one was the Forward Blade, which had the ability to speed up time, which was why we went from on our way to the Bounty to actually being in the Bounty.
After dealing with a rather loud alarm -something that drove Jay almost crazy- Zane and Nya discovered that it was due to 'temporal energy;' basically, something had happened to time. Time had skipped forward an entire minute, but nobody could remember what happened when we did. While Jay was trying to do everything he could to make us not go and investigate, Zane and Pixal figured out it came from the Monastery. That was when I remembered that Wu said he was going there to 'finish an old fight' and it was decided we would go.
When we got there, the only person we were able to find was someone in strange gray and red armor with a large hood on. Zane was able to use the painting he'd scanned and determined that the person was Acronix from the painting. Why he was still so young, we didn't know yet. Since Jay was just completely done with the idea of investigating this after an entire day of labor -which I admit wasn't exactly easy- he simply put down the anchor and moved to confront Acronix. He must have figured out that Acronix was evil, since he went right into the fight.
That was when we first got to see the Time Blades in action. The forward blade basically let Acronix teleport however he wanted by skipping forward in time, which made hitting him near impossible. We all went down to help Jay, and that was when Acronix truly showed off how good he was in battle.
Part of why we lost that first battle was because of the Time Blade, but the other part was just due to how good Acronix was at fighting. By that point, I had enough training to say I could hold my own in almost any fight. Acronix was able to switch back and forth between offense and defense with his blade. I'm not even sure how he figured out how to use the blade so quickly, but it was clear that he was used to fighting large groups of enemies… which made sense since he was a veteran of the Serpentine Wars.
During the fight, Kai ended up lighting what remained of the Monastery on fire. While it burned down, this led Acronix to say that he'd met a 'Master of Fire' before, which led Kai to realize that Acronix had known his father. I had Nya and Zane work on putting out the flames while Jay, Kai and I all attacked Acronix. It turns out that the Time Blade is really good at absorbing elemental energy and then exploding, which gave Acronix an opening to leave. He acted as though he just was done with the battle with us at that point and must have escaped using his Time Blade.
Once we'd all recovered from the explosion, we all rapidly went to search for Master Wu. Acronix had thrown Wu off the side of the Monastery, leaving him to be hanging on by a branch. Just before he fell, Cole found him and managed to grab him. We didn't know it then, but Acronix had hit Wu with the Time Blade in something called a 'Time Punch.' Wu had lost the battle with Acronix once the Time Blade had arrived, and we were the ones that had found out. Once we got him to the Bounty, we set course for the temple.
Just like that, the Hands of Time had started ticking, and we didn't even know there was a countdown.
"There," Lloyd paused, "You think that's enough for this chapter?"
"I believe so," Zane nodded his head, "Not all chapters need to be of a larger size. Smaller chapters can be easier for the reader to digest."
"Good," Lloyd sighed, "After doing all the chapters with Morro it's kinda nice to go back to just doing chapters that I actually took part in."
"The events that transpired were truly unique," Zane informed him, "Given your constraints, I say that you told your side of the story satisfactory."
Lloyd sighed as he leaned back to lay on his bed. Today was a bit more unique, as the room that he normally recorded in was being worked on by Nya and Jay after some electronics had gone off in the rooms around it. Thus, Lloyd was currently sitting on his bed in his own personal room, with Zane taking a writing desk chair to record in. The change of scenery was nice, but it left Lloyd's mind wandering somewhat.
"May I ask why it is that you decided to record these chapters with me?" Zane asked, "Given your desire to speak to everyone, it would seem that you have more reason to talk with Jay and Nya instead."
"I'm going to talk with Nya over the recent stuff when you guys were trapped in the First Realm," Lloyd frowned, "She's, the only one that really knows all that happened. And, well, that meant that I could do chapters with Jay on either the stuff with the Sons of Garmadon or this. Since you were going through all the stuff with Pixal and missed a bit of the action, I figured I'd do what I did with Cole and help fill you in on some things."
"I will happily help you with that," Zane smiled, "It had been a rather long while since we have recorded chapters together, though I suspect that these chapters will not be as involved as the others."
"Yeah… I don't really think much about all the stuff with the Time Twins, to be honest," Lloyd told his partner, "It's like, I don't really remember a lot of what happened unless I'm thinking about it. Like, I forgot that we fought Acronix at the start and all that happened there. I guess this was really more important to Kai and Nya since they were dealing with their own thing but… I still want to record them, you know? So I can have the whole story."
"The events were rather disconnected from most other events," Zane affirmed, "Unlike our previous enemies, the plan they had did not involve us directly. We were fighting to stop their plan, rather than being pulled into it."
"Yeah," Lloyd nodded, "I mean, something about everything just felt… kinda off. I'm not sure what it is. I'm kinda hoping by the time I finish these chapters I can kinda figure out why I don't remember them that well. I know it's not because of that time thing that happened in the end, since you were the only one that seemed to be caught in it."
"The last set of events was rather strange," Zane agreed, "I admit that my memory of them is not as comprehensive as I would like. I hope that our discussions will help to fill in the gaps on what I am unable to remember."
"Same here," Lloyd smiled, "I don't know if I'll be doing a lot of chapters for this one, though. I really wanna get to the stuff that happened after since… well, there's a lot more to talk about there."
"If that is what you wish," Zane stood up, "I believe that dinner should be ready soon. Shall we get ready for it?"
"Yeah," Lloyd smiled, "I think we should. Let's eat."