~~ Ch46:Fri3, Not Me ~~
It was getting kind of boring. Mom had come in a good fifteen minutes or so ago and asked to see what Green had revealed in the scroll. We had been training, no-one quite able to suggest returning to video games (especially since we'd have to move the scroll to do so), so for the first time I was using my powers while actually in my Green Ninja gi.
It probably should've felt symbolic, like some great step forward. It certainly had when I'd first put it on, when my friends had all cheered before we got down to practice. Instead, right now, it almost made me twitchy. I had been standing in this position way too long.
She had her notebook out and was taking notes. Back and forth. Notebook, scroll, notebook, scroll. And all I could do was stand here, arm extended with a glowing Green orb dancing around my fist. It was so boring, even my usual bit of a buzz from using my power had faded.
Now she was just staring at the scroll, tapping a pen against her lips, obviously deep, deep in thought. Dead silent. Not one of my friends dared make any noise - I guess she has too much presence.
Of course, I'm completely comfortable with my Dad's level of intensity, so really this is nothing.
"May I put my hand down?" I finally asked.
She blinked, coming out of whatever meditations she'd been deep in.
"Oh. Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, Lloyd." And then she returned back to her notebook.
I glanced to my worried looking friends, still looking almost too scared to speak up, then back to my recently returned mother.
"Are you going to explain anything?" I asked, trying to sound polite, but the strain in my voice was a little too pronounced.
She looked up, as if surprised I was still there.
"What Gold means?" I prompted, a little impatiently. "Who this Gold Ninja could be? Why Uncle Wu totally freaked out and ran away?"
Mom visibly pondered over my questions. Which, yeah, was making me a little angry. Since she obviously knew the answers. She was just pondering over whether I deserved the answers.
"Alright," she said finally.
All the tension I hadn't noticed building suddenly dropped out of me. Thank goodness. I'm so sick of secrets.
"Gold is an elemental power - the first of the elemental powers, even. According to legends, Gold was the power of the First Spinjitzu Master."
"The Gold Ninja is the FSM?! I thought he was dead!" burst Jay excitedly. "So we're going on a quest to find him or something?"
"He is dead," inserted Mom, killing the moment. "But I'll get back to that. For now, I'd like to get back to what this means for the other elemental messages."
"How can one word explain all these others?" asked Nya, confused.
Mom set down her book. "Do not lose hope. All become one. Anything is possible. Regain what was lost. Copy the Mirror. Gold," she recited. "I believe we can understand all of these lines now, in light of Gold. Knowing that they all lead to Gold."
"Do not lose hope. This is a message to all of us. What we most need to be focused on, rather than the doom of the prophecy. There will likely be a time when it seems all hope is lost, and this line reminds us that we must not give in to despair."
"All become one. This is a little obscure, but I do have a theory. All elements are descended from Gold, so perhaps it is speaking of the elements being combined to create Gold. Alternatively, it could simply mean we must cooperate to succeed."
"Anything is possible. This is the reason I believe you are meant to create Gold, actually. Gold is the ultimate power of creation, as well as destruction. You could say it is the power to, simply, make anything possible. Including..."
"Regain what was lost. I have my own hopes, which shouldn't be that transparent. I believe Gold can cure Garmadon somehow. Wu, however, believes this means something else, as apparently the FSM tried to cure Garmadon before, and even his power failed. Regardless, something we currently think of as lost, or impossible, will be regained, or become possible, by means of Gold."
"Copy the mirror. The last puzzle, and probably the reason you need every element to reveal the last secret. I believe this must be what you need to do to make 'all become one'. It is very possible that you simply need to 'mirror' whatever is shown."
I nodded. Ok. Everything seemed to connect pretty well. That just left one real question for me. "So why did Uncle Wu freak out?"
Mom hesitated, then sighed. She gestured to the scroll. Without prompting, I held a Green orb over it.
Once again, the Green Ninja turned into the Gold Ninja, the word Gold appeared, and the other five Ninja portraits become fuzzy.
Five ninja. If we were meant to find the Gold Ninja, why did the Green Ninja disappear? Instead of a new portrait appearing, why did it show the Green Ninja turning into...
Turning into...
Green snuffed out with an audible sort of slicing sound.
"You can't possibly think... That's ridiculous! I-!"
Mom didn't, couldn't meet my eyes. No. No! Come ON!
"It is called the Prophecy of the Green Ninja, not the Prophecy of the Gold Ninja. The Green Ninja is key. There is only one logical conclusion."
I turned tail and ran.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
Skales frowned thoughtfully as Lloyd, dressed in a green gi, ran out of the warehouse he'd disappeared into hours before. The Serpentine followed the boy through the eyes of the generals he'd enthralled previously, noticing the boy was once again crying. Such a child. Hadn't grown up at all.
The hood of the gi was down, and almost subconsciously the boy yanked it up and took off, not even calling out to his giant monster cat. The monster continued sleeping on the docks, unaware of her master's upset.
Through an amazingly acrobatic set of jumps and flips, soon Lloyd was taking off across the rooftops, keeping low and mostly to shadows. He unknowingly ran right past Skales' hiding place behind a rooftop air conditioning unit.
There was no way Garmadon's generals would be able to keep up with the brat in a mood like this. Past experience had taught Skales than when Lloyd took off, he was nearly uncatchable.
And, from what the generals were calling out desperately to each other, apparently the tracker they had on Lloyd was still in the warehouse. It must be with his bag and normal clothes.
No Ninja. No Meowthra. No Garmadon. No generals.
There wouldn't be another chance like this.
Skales released his hold on the generals and took off after Lloyd himself, calling Pythor on his communicator.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
Author's Notes: And here we go, off the diving board and into the final arc! I estimate less than 10 chapters left! The last chapter and epilogue is actually already written and will only need to be revised depending on the events that have to occur between now and then.
I've said this before, but to reassure those of you really worried about Garmadon, some of the stories in My Dad is Bad - Bonus Scenes actually take place after this story.
What did you guys think of Koko's explanations about the prophecy in light of Gold? Some of you guys were SO close in your guesses! There's a couple of you that are nearly reading my mind, and it's so hard not to leave all sorts of hints and spoilers in these endnotes!
Thanks so much to Sunny Lighter for her extra-amazing beta review of this chapter, the next, and the finale! It touched on so many points and was so reassuring on some other things I was worried about!
