When I woke up from being knocked out, we'd already made our way to Ninjago City. I'm not quite sure how everyone manages to have vengestone for locking us up whenever they capture us, but I wasn't able to fight back with them on. For a while, Harumi kept me blindfolded so I wasn't sure where we were. All I was really able to hear was Ultraviolet making weird noises and Killow laughing as he pushed me around. Even if I did manage to get away, I wasn't going to make it far since they all had the masks.

Harumi let me see where we were when we started climbing stairs up some weird tunnel. Harumi had destroyed the palace to expose the Temple of Resurrection hidden inside of it. I'm, not really sure where that temple was inside the palace, but to me it was just a reminder that Harumi had murdered her adopted family, Hutchins and at least some of the palace staff that didn't make it out in time. The fact that she didn't seem phased by it just told me how horrible she really was deep down. And made me hate the fact I never saw it before.

Once we were up at the actual altar to resurrect my father, Harumi revealed that she had a bit of insurance on me. Apparently, she found my mother when she went looking for the Oni, and had set up a device so that if the ninja tried to rescue us, either me or mom would get dropped into the water to drown. She kept calling it a family reunion, which made me even angrier. She hadn't met my real father. She didn't know how hard he'd struggled against the venom inside of him. She didn't know what I'd had to do to help him. She didn't know what it took for me to actually finally send him off, and how much I both wanted him back and didn't want him back.

While I was there, all Harumi did was taunt me. She taunted me over how I'd let her get so close, how I'd let her get right into my heart. There was nothing more painful than a blow to the heart, she said. And she was right. I'd felt it when I'd sent my father away. I felt it when we lost Master Wu. And now, I was feeling it knowing she'd intentionally made me fall for her. Everytime I would get angry with her, she'd just laugh at me. She acted like I was just a child. I guess I really was. No matter what she said, I was just a child that had fallen for a pretty girl, and she'd used me to get what she wanted.

Once I was shoved in that cage, I was given more time to think. I didn't want to talk to mom. She kept trying to help us escape, but I didn't feel like it. I knew the Oni Masks were there, and it was pointless. But I just felt like trying wasn't worth it. She'd already gotten what she wanted. I was angry, yes, but I was also hurt. I didn't want to admit to them just how much Harumi had hurt me. I didn't want them to see that I was hurt over some girl I hardly knew. They already knew, so it wasn't worth it. But I was so upset, I just didn't want to care.

Harumi waited until it was nighttime to actually start the ceremony. Whenever she came to talk to me, I'd try to talk to her. I told her that she wasn't going to get anything from revenge. That trying to bring my father back wasn't going to bring her family back. Hurting me wouldn't make her feel better. But she didn't care. No matter what I said, she just would laugh and keep going. She really had planned for everything, and she was enjoying this. I think that was what really hurt. The fact that I could tell Harumi was enjoying just how hurt I was by her betraying me like that. I knew I couldn't stop her with words, but that was all I could do. Just talk to her. And talking was what had hurt me so much already.

I thought about trying to go into detail about the ceremony, but so much of it is a blur to me, kinda because the ninja let me drown for a good half of it. The only parts that I really remember are the start, where Harumi opened the portal, and the end where we knocked her off the altar. There isn't that much for me to say about it, because it wasn't the ceremony itself that was important. It was that I thought that I finally won. I thought I finally had a chance to stop Harumi. I thought that we'd managed to stop her. When I pushed through that ceremony and knocked her back, I thought I stopped her.

There's one thing about the ceremony that I want to say. I remember hearing him, the few times I was out of the water. I could hear the voice from the strange portal she was opening. I could hear his voice. But, the voice I heard was wrong. Everything about it was wrong. It was too deep, too angry. I thought that maybe I was hearing things. Maybe that wasn't him. I wanted it to not be him. So when that portal shut, and it failed, I thought we'd won.

...The greatest enemy is the one that gets away. Harumi told me that. I thought when we put her in jail, when we arrested all of those bikers, that it was over. I wanted it to be over. I knew it wasn't over, though. Somehow, deep down, I knew something wasn't right. I didn't know the ceremony had actually finished, but somehow I knew Harumi wasn't done. And I think that's why while the others were celebrating, and thinking they'd won, I couldn't relax. Because I was thinking about her. I was thinking about Harumi.

I think maybe why I don't think about the ceremony is because it wasn't actually important. What was important was the fact I let Harumi get what she wanted. I let her twist me over again. I let her keep making me upset, knowing that something wasn't right. I don't know if she planned that, but she'd said she wanted to hurt me. The fact I knew I wasn't able to celebrate with the others made me think she'd won, even if she didn't. I wish, above all else, she didn't.

Seeing my father had broken Harumi out was like watching your greatest fear play out on screen. Ever since Harumi had put it in my head she could bring back my father, I'd hoped that she couldn't do it. I didn't want him back. Even if part of me did, I knew it wasn't right. I'd fought and fought ,and thought I'd finally won. Instead, I sat there, watching him run away on the TV. I watched him take Harumi out. I watched everything I thought I'd managed to stop playing out right before me. It was like I was in some horror movie.

From the moment I saw Harumi leaving with my father, I knew that I couldn't let him get away. I knew that everything had been because of me. The others wanted to go and make a plan, but I didn't care. We got on the Bounty and started making our way to Kryptarium. I wasn't thinking about anything like a plan, or what I was going to do. All of that anger that Harumi had been building in me from the moment she turned on me was coming to a head. After I thought I stopped that ceremony, I was watching everything just, unravel. And I couldn't let it stand.

My father was my responsibility. I'd let Harumi get close to me. I'd let her use me to take the Mask of Hatred. I'd let her use me in the ceremony and bring back my father. It was all my fault. My friends tried to talk some sense into me, but I wasn't listening. I was angry. I was angrier at myself than I'd ever been before. I'd been angry on the Dark Island. I'd been beaten down and hurt by Chen. I'd been tortured inside my own head by Morro. But Harumi had guided me to making my own mistakes. Everything that happened next, was because of me. I couldn't let that happen.

They say when you get angry, you make dumb mistakes. My mistake was thinking that I had to do this on my own. The others wanted to hold back and think of a plan. He was held up in that prison with Harumi and all the SOG, so we couldn't just run in. We stayed there for hours trying to debate things. I don't remember what they said. Whenever someone came up with a plan, someone else figured out the problem with it. That was the situation we were in. That was what was going on. And eventually, I decided it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth letting my friends try to solve all of this for me.

So, I made a choice. I locked the Bounty's navigation to send it to some random place in Ninjago. Then, I gathered each of my friends down in the ship and told them Nya had a plan for them. When I finally got Nya in there… I locked them inside. I locked them inside and told them that I had to do this. They begged me not to go, but I knew they couldn't get out. Not in time to stop me. They shouted at me to stay, told me it was stupid, and all I did was turn and run to go and call my car to go to the prison. That was the reason I was alone in that footage.

I don't even need to ask what would have happened if my friends had been there. It wasn't like I didn't know. I knew from the moment I left the Bounty what was going to happen. I wanted to save my father, ye. But more than anything, I wanted to stop Harumi. This wasn't about just saving Ninjago anymore. I was angry. I was hurt. I wanted to show Harumi that she couldn't get away with her plans. I think my friends saw that. They saw I wasn't in my right mind. But they weren't going to stop me. They tried calling me as I drove there, and it just made me angrier. Every word they said to get me to turn around just felt like I was hearing Harumi's laughter in my head. I smashed the entire console just to shut them up. I knew that, if I really took the time to listen, I'd be forced to turn back.

I wondered at first if I even needed to go over this section. You all know what happened. Harumi made sure you all saw it. Everyone saw what happened when I confronted my newly reborn father. You all saw me fail, watched me get beaten to near death, watched me lose hope as he just took more and more from me while Harumi and the others just watched. It was the perfect way to make sure everyone in Ninjago lost hope. When they saw me, their symbol, their protector, get beaten up, it was the end. I don't know if I even have to get into it, really.

But I guess what I can do is explain what was going on when I fought him. When I first got there, I was expecting to fight Harumi, or any of the SOG. I was ready to take them down, and that's why I was so anxious. I was ready to show them how angry I was for trying to take me in like that. I was upset for how they'd all humiliated me. I wanted to make the mpay for what they'd done. I wanted to make them all pay for making me look like an idiot.

When I first saw him, I knew everything was wrong. He didn't look anything like what I thought he would. The only bit of him that even resembled the man that I used to call Lord Garmadon was his face. His body looked like it was being held together by magic and some sticky goo. The armor he wore was like something out of a twisted comic book. But his eyes were what stood out to me the most. My father's eyes were evil, but they were never filled with anger like that. I remember his eyes looking sad whenever we talked. I know it was because he didn't want to accept what destiny had laid out for us. But this… that thing I was looking at, his eyes were nothing but anger and rage. There wasn't anything left of my father. Just by looking at him… I knew it.

I tried to talk to him. I tried to reason with him. But I already knew from the first blow that it wasn't going to be him. I wanted to hold on, like I'd done so many times and try to push for him. He would show me later that he was indeed still capable of loving me. But I was already angry, and confused, and scared. All those times I'd fought with my father before on the Dark Island, even before that, felt like they never happened. It was like I was just a little kid again, being thrown around by someone that I couldn't even hope to hit. I realized from the minute it started that Garmadon wasn't fighting to win. He was fighting to kill me.

Even now, I can feel where he hurt me. I can remember each blow to me. I can remember how it felt to get hit by that dark power. The Overlord's power was like being hit with something that hurt you at your very core. Garmadon's power, wasn't even like that. It was like someone lighting a fire on you that just burns deeper the longer that you wait. It didn't go away after just one hit. It kept burning and burning, piling on like it was trying to eat me alive. Whenever he hit me, it was like getting smashed by a truck. I broke bones just trying to stop him. He just kept coming, and coming. He kept hurting me over, and over again.

And finally, I got angry. I was trying to stop him. I wanted to try to save him. But you can see the moment that I finally snapped and tried to attack him with my full power. The longer it went on, it felt like my body was getting weaker, while he got stronger. It just kept hurting more and more as he hit me. I was getting angry to try to just keep going. I thought that if I did that, maybe I could get Harumi to see I wasn't giving in. Maybe I'd show her I wasn't going to lose. All it did was just play right into her hand.

He called everything that I knew him as a mask. He said being mom's husband was one. Being Wu's brother was one. Being my teacher was one. But what hurt the most was hearing that being my father was one. I knew when he said that it was already too late. He had no son anymore. I knew whenever I fought my dad that he didn't want to hurt me. That he never wanted me to follow the path that he did. This thing… this, monster Harumi had created, wasn't him anymore. Harumi wanted me to feel the pain of seeing him like this, seeing someone I didn't recognize. It was when I heard that, I understood what she meant.

I know that in the footage, I was thrown through all the walls of the prison and then landed outside. But for me, all I remember was seeing his face curl into a grin before he grabbed me and threw me. By that point, I was in so much pain I barely felt it. I didn't feel the walls breaking apart. I must have broken even more bones by doing that. But I do remember when I hit the ground, I could hear Harumi's laughter in my head. I could hear her taunting me, about how I'd failed to even stop him when I was at my full power like that. I could feel her telling me that I'd failed.

I wanted to get away from it. Before I passed out, I was terrified for some reason. I didn't know why. I wanted to get away from it. I think, knowing I couldn't beat him, there wasn't any hope for me to stay around. If he came for me, I knew it was it. I only was able to drag myself a few feet before I finally couldn't move anymore. Harumi had done what she wanted. She'd gotten me to taste the pain of seeing my father come back and hurt me like that. And she'd done it, while also making sure everyone in Ninjago saw it.

In all fairness, I should've died from that. I really should have. The only reason I didn't was because Harumi let my friends pick me up. She and her goons left for the city, but they had to have seen the Bounty. She didn't act like she was surprised to see me alive. She almost seemed happy to. I hadn't suffered enough for her already. I hadn't done enough.

My first time fighting my father was like no other fight that I'd had before. I couldn't do anything to stop Harumi. I couldn't do anything to help my father. I felt like everything had failed me. All my anger had finally been used up. I'd been angry at Harumi, I'd been angry at my father, but now I didn't have that anymore. I had just lost. I'd lost. And I think part of me, just gave up. Feeling that, feeling that I'd somehow failed to save my father, even when I'd done it before, just made me want to give up. And so, while my friends tried to help me, I was slowly fading away. According to them, it was like my life was fading.

Harumi had wanted to give me a family reunion, and she had. She'd shown me the taste of what she was going to be giving me for a long time to come. I'd met Emperor Garmadon, and now… now I was going to see that was only the first blow I was going to feel.


"...And, scene…" Lloyd sighed, "I'm… I'm done for now. I don't want to talk anymore."

Jay blinked. This was the first time that Lloyd hadn't been angry. He'd been expecting something a lot more than this, but he hadn't gotten it. Instead, Lloyd just seemed… tired.

"Hey, you don't have to talk anymore than you need to," Jay moved forward a bit, "You okay?"

"...I uhm, I think I am," Lloyd nodded, "Yeah, I'm good. I'm, I'm good. I'm gonna be okay…. I'm, uhm, sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry for being sad!" Jay pointed out quickly, "Everyone gets sad!"

"No, I mean… for, what I did," Lloyd gripped his fists, "I locked you all up and went off on my own. I let… I let Harumi get to me. I shouldn't have. I made you all watch me…" Lloyd shuddered, "...Watch me fail."

"Hey, we all make mistakes, and it wasn't like you weren't making an easy choice," Jay frowned, "None of us knew what to do! We were all just as worried as you were. If we maybe just had some answers, you wouldn't have had to do that!"

"It's… It's still not right," Lloyd sighed, "I just… I know that it was my fault. All of this was my fault. If I hadn't gotten hurt, you all might not have gotten stuck in the Realm of Oni and Dragon."

"And then we wouldn't have been able to come back and use our awesome new dragon riding skills to help you out!" Jay pointed out, "That's why Mystake gave us the tea, remember? She knew that we'd need it. It all worked out, Lloyd. You don't have to beat yourself up about it."

"Thanks, Jay…" Lloyd sighed, "I don't know why but, I'm glad I told you all this. I know you wanted something more, well less all me being weird like this. I uh… I'm sorry I never really ended up doing anything with you outside of the chapters like I did with Cole and Kai."

"Don't sweat it!" Jay informed him, "It's more important to us that you're good. And it looks like they're doing a good job of making sure you stay good. Besides, we've been playing video games!"

"So?" Lloyd asked.

"So, you look happy when we do," Jay smiled reassuringly, "That's all I need to know that you're alright."

"Wow… thanks, Jay," Lloyd blinked, "That's, thank you. That really helps. I think, I'm doing a little better now just hearing that."

"Well, good!" Jay stood up, "Because I've been practicing at the arcade! I'm going to take you down now!"

"Take me…?" Lloyd blinked, "Wait, you're still upset that I beat you?" Lloyd sighed, "Fine, fine, we'll get going. If we go now we'll have time before dinner."

Jay let Lloyd leave the room, smiling at him as he did. For a moment, Jay thought of saying something, but it was better left here. Thoughts like that weren't suited for gaming. For now, it was just about him, Lloyd, and making up for losing at the arcade. It was just about making up for lost time.