~~ CHAPTER ONE ~~
I awoke to the smell of flowers, the sound of birds, and the sight of green.
Green grass, green vines, green leaves, strange green sparks and swirls dancing around the hand directly in my line of sight.
I was smooshed to the ground, belly down and face turned to the side. My hand with the green light show going on was not six inches from my nose. My other arm was beneath me, and my legs were sprawled.
I must have crash landed. Concussion. That explained the dancing green lights, though not the magically growing flowers and grass around me. As I laid there, the cushion below me and canopy above me grew thicker and thicker.
That's bad. They won't find me.
Who's they? Why do I want to be found? Was I injured? I certainly was tired. Tired. Yeah. Sleep sounded good. So what if the canopy hid me - I'd be safe. Safe sounded good.
I slipped back into unconsciousness.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
The next time I awoke, it was dark and I was thirsty. The only light was coming from the green sparks and swirls from last time, glowing and dancing and heh, they're kinda pretty.
I wasn't so tired anymore, and, though my head still hurt, it didn't seem such an impossibility to move. I'd have to move to get water.
With a push I was on my knees, and from there I carefully stood upright.
I was in the forest, though now it looked more like a jungle. The green lighting showed nearly three feet of wildflowers and grass that had served as a decent bed. It looked weird. Like it had grown right underneath me while I slept, but that's not possible. Right? Right.
The trees above looked extra dense, and vines and bushes of all sorts wove up and through and between. I actually couldn't see the sky, though there was plenty of air. A lot of people would say it was impassible, that I was trapped, but I knew better somehow. My eyes were already scanning for footholds, handholds, which vines and branches looked like they could support my weight, any gaps in the foliage.
Ugh, I was thirsty. I could hear water somewhere though, a river or stream. The forest had plenty of water. It had to be close.
I quickly checked myself over for injury. With my brain still fuzzy, knowing some things but glitching on others, I needed to be careful. My clothing was torn and stained, but my legs seemed fine. Arms were okay except for those green lights, which I was rather grateful for at the moment. It would've been much harder to check myself over in full dark. Didn't feel anything painful on my torso.
Huh. The state of my clothing was terrible, but I seemed unharmed. I remembered earlier thinking something about crash landing, but that seemed unlikely now. I didn't even have any bruises that I could feel. Though I couldn't quite tell what was up with my clothing in the green lighting. The stains were barely visible against the black cloth, and despite the tears the fabric was fine and soft. Silk, I think.
Concussion. I'd earlier thought I had a concussion, which means I must have hit my head. I rose my hands to check, and that wasn't right.
I'd been searching for bumps, and I found two alright, but they were much too large and hard. They weren't under the skin, but neither were they scabs or wounds. They actually felt smooth, like bone or something, and seemed to be perfectly symmetrical. Starting just in my hairline, maybe an inch or so in diameter, and arching smoothly up and back. Mostly hidden by my hair. Ended in points, but not sharp.
Like horns? On an antelope or something, but way smaller? That didn't sound right. I was fairly sure I wasn't supposed to have horns, just like I was fairly sure my hands weren't supposed to have green swirls around them.
But, on the other hand, could I say anything for sure?
Ugh. I hated not knowing. But I also hated being thirsty, so time to get some water.
I leaped forward to clear a few bushes, but was abruptly jerked back by something on my back. Something that hurt when it got yanked on. Checking over my shoulder, I groaned.
Ok, I don't think I'm supposed to have glowing lights around my hands. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to have horns. But I am positive that I am not supposed to have wings!
That just made no sense! Nothing in my head accounted for wings! And, while my brain wasn't too worried about the tiny horns, it was absolutely screaming that wings were not right.
I couldn't fly! No, something with that thought wasn't quite right. I... rode? I flew... something. I could vaguely remember being up high, cold wind biting my face, my hands on controls of some sort and something huge and strong beneath me. But no, I never flew on my own wings before. I was certain that had never been an option.
And these things were going to make travel much more difficult. I'd have to account for them with every leap and flip.
But doable. I was awfully thirsty.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
Today had started out bad and gotten worse from there.
First thing that morning, before they'd even gotten out of bed, the city alarms had gone off blaring a Garmadon Alert. So they'd had to take care of that.
Wouldn't have been so bad, except halfway through the fight a literal rip in space had torn its way into their world and a monster that looked an awful lot like Garmadon, just as large as a mech, had burst through carrying some ginormous gun thing on its back.
It had aimed at Garmadon, who, being an idiot, had roared in challenge and charged straight toward it.
Naturally Lloyd, also being an idiot, had charged forward on his Green Dragon mech to shove his father out of the way of the blast. And got blasted himself.
Garmadon had seemed more than happy to take on the monster himself after that, shouting that only He was allowed to KO the Green Ninja and take over Ninjago, so the rest of the Ninja had run off in the direction Green Dragon had been blasted in.
The rest of the day had been spent searching for Lloyd in a panic. They hadn't stopped to consult Master Wu or grabbed something to eat or anything. After hours of searching the forest, they'd finally found Lloyd's dragon mech... or what remained of it.
It was totaled. Whatever that beam had been, it was powerful. Not only had the mech been blown miles and miles away, not only had it crashed with an enormous impact that should have made it easier to find, the paint was even stripped from it and parts looked liked they'd been sandblasted. A few pieces looked like they'd been on fire, even.
On catching sight of the devastation, they'd been sure their friend was dead. But there was no body. And Zane informed them his scanners picked up no traces of remains.
Which was good.
It meant he had been thrown from the mech. There was a good chance that Green Dragon had taken the brunt of the beam, and if Lloyd had been thrown from the wreckage, he could still be alive. Surely injured and in pain, needing help, but alive.
Zane and Nya worked up a search grid and sent it to everyone's mech's computers. They would find him. They had to find him.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
Garmadon would never, ever, admit it, but he was actually getting tired. His shark mech had long since been totaled, the Ninja had ditched him with the monster of the day, and the thing just would not die!
And it kind of bothered him how the Green Ninja had taken the blast meant for him. He didn't know why - that guy was just weird. He didn't know why that guy did or said most things. If anything, the wack job seemed to have an incredibly personal grudge against him. He should have been delighted to have Garmadon blown up or whatever.
He certainly should not have, ugh, saved him. Freak.
Apparently the thing he was fighting only had the one blast, at least. And Garmadon was slowly and steadily forcing it back towards the jagged purple rip in midair.
Certainly any progress wasn't because his brother had shown up a couple hours ago to help. Not that he was turning down the help, cause the guy was stupid enough to offer it, but you know. On principle. For the record, he would've been just fine.
Wu whistled for his attention and, catching on as easily as when they'd worked together last time around forty years ago, Garmadon charged for the thing's forehead. He struck the exact center at the same time Wu rammed the back of one of the thing's knees.
Finally, it went down. Right into the tear, which began closing behind it.
And then it was over.
"Finally we're rid of that ugly thing! I mean, hideous, am I right or am I right!"
Wu had been leaning against his staff wearily, but started snickering at the comment.
"Seriously? What now?"
Wu folded his arms and just tilted his head, looking his brother up and down.
"That's just rude!" Garmadon huffed, folding his lower set of arms and gesticulating wildly with the upper. "After saving this city, admittedly so I can take it over myself later!"
"You have to admit..." began Wu, then he trailed off, snickering again.
"You know very well that these horns are just part of my helmet!"
Wu just shrugged, letting the matter go. "Thank you for saving the city, Garmadon. With my help, of course."
"Shut up! You're not welcome!" grumbled Garmadon, straightening his helmet - which he was NOT suddenly feeling self-conscious about. "Don't you have a ninja to find?! Now get!"
Wu smiled that all-knowing smirk that drove Garmadon up the wall. "Hmm? Are you worried about the Green Ninja?"
Garmadon scoffed. "Of course not! Like, if he wants to be a self-sacrificing goody two shoe MORON, what business is it of mine?! I just figured, like, you would be worried. Is all. Not me. Nope."
"I suppose I should go help the others find him." He glanced over at his elder brother, pretending not to be paying any attention to Garmadon's fretting. "He is only 15, after all."
Then he spun on his heels and set off.
"WHAT?! Why would you bring that up?! Why does that matter?! And how are you so stupid that your best ninja is still a BABY!"
Wu smirked, refusing to look back. It was almost time for Garmadon to find out about Lloyd anyway. But quickly the smirk turned into a frown.
He'd seen the footage on the news, and while he certainly didn't think Lloyd was dead, he worried about what that beam was. Why an Oni would try to shoot Garmadon with it. And what would happen to Lloyd, having been struck by it instead. There was no way they had chosen to cross realms and target Garmadon just to kill him.
He'd have to meditate on this. After he found his nephew, of course.
~~ ! Go Ninja Go ! ~~
Author's Notes: Hope everyone enjoyed! Special thanks to Sunny Lighter for beta-reading and all her help with ideas for the cultures and biology of Dragon and Oni! She also deserves credit for the title!
If you're worried that I'll be focusing on this story instead of My Dad is Bad, please don't be. I'm simply posting chapters I've already written as a bit of an apology for taking so long while finishing up my current main story. I actually have 17 chapters of this already written, however I may take a hiatus after chapter 9, the end of part one.
Next up, the meeting between Lloyd and his uncle and the rest of the ninja... doesn't go so well.
