Lloyd loves the ninja. Really, he does. They took him in when no one else would, practically raised him on their backs, and shaped him into who he is today. He owes his everything to them.
That doesn't mean that he isn't about ready to chuck them all underneath a bus.
It's been three weeks. Three weeks- that's nearly an entire month. An entire month of being forced to live, cramped together, in this tiny shoebox of an apartment. An entire month of stepping on each other's toes and getting into each other's hair. An entire month without seeing his family- his real family, not these imitations.
Lloyd feels guilty the second he thinks it. But he can't make himself take it back either.
It's not like the ninja are making it easy to. Just yesterday, Jay left his dirty laundry on his bed and got it mixed up with Lloyd's clean, borrowed clothes. Zane and Cole have been snippy with each other going on three days now after getting into an argument at the grocery store over the merits of cup ramen. On Sunday, Nya blasted All Star on repeat for four hours straight. Lloyd's still not sure what the inciting incident for that one was.
Now that he thinks about it, maybe that one didn't have an inciting incident.
But the worst of these offenders, by far, is Kai. He's snappy and impatient, and above all, frustrated. Lloyd knows it must be hard for him to be so still. Normally, he'd be able to work out his energy through training and work. But his injured ankle has got him stuck- stuck in the apartment and worse, stuck with Lloyd.
It's like putting a kettle on the stove and cranking up the flame. Sooner or later it's going to boil over, and Lloyd is not looking forward to the eruption.
Lloyd rounds the corner of the apartment, heading for the kitchen. He stumbles into Kai, who's leaving the kitchen, and the fire ninja trips and spills some of his pop onto his shirt.
Kai groans low in his throat. "Can you watch where you're going?"
"Maybe if your hair wasn't blocking my vision, I actually could," Lloyd snaps back.
Kai bristles and takes a step towards him. "What did you say?" he demands.
"Okayyy," cuts in a new voice. "And I think that's enough macho bullshit for now."
Lloyd and Kai spin around. Nya is standing several feet away in the main room, hand on her hip and an unamused expression on her face.
"Sorry," she says, unapologetic as always. "But I'll be stealing Lloyd away for the afternoon." Before Lloyd can say anything, she's already tugging him by the hand towards the door.
"What?" says Kai, hobbling with his ankle after them. "Nya, why?"
"To get him away from you meatheads, of course." Nya pauses by her bed to dig up two helmets. She keeps one and tosses the other to Lloyd. "Don't worry, I'll have him back by seven, dad."
She pulls them out of the door before Lloyd can hear Kai's response. They start down the stairs to the parking lot.
"Thanks," Lloyd says. "If I stayed in there one more second, I think I might have exploded."
Nya snorts. "Believe me, it's a favor for everyone, not just you." She glances over at him, and when she does, her face softens. "Hey, but forget about it now, okay? You want to know something?" She doesn't wait for him to answer. "You've been here for nearly a whole month, and somehow, I still haven't taken you out for a joyride!"
"Oh?" Lloyd perks up. "You mean on your motorcycle?"
"What did you think these helmets were for?" Nya asks, but her smile is amused. "Yeah, of course. C'mon, kid. It's over this way."
They've reached the parking lot now, and immediately Nya takes the lead. Her motorcycle is chained next to a pole, and after removing the chain and disabling the alarm, she climbs on and pats the seat behind her. Lloyd straddles the bike, wrapping his arms around her waist.
She starts the engine. "Hold on tight!"
Nya is a skilled driver. Heck, she's one of the best Lloyd's ever ridden with, with her ability to navigate traffic, adjust on the fly, and miraculously predict when cops are near.
That doesn't make her driving any less terrifying, though.
"Where are we going?" Lloyd shouts, over the blaring of yet another car driver laying on his horn.
"Just someplace," she shouts back. "You'll see!"
All Lloyd can see is that he's getting nothing out of her. He decides to just give up and grips the fabric of her jacket tighter.
The pavement of the city gives way to dirt, then sand. The desert opens up before them, a sea of sand and towering canyon walls. Nya presses some button on her handle and the thick back-wheel splits down the center and extends out to either side of the bike.
"Nifty, huh?" she asks.
They continue on like that, drawing closer to the canyons with every minute that passes. Nya navagates them through the twisting walls with confidence. When they emerge, they emerge into a near-empty clearing, occupied only by the bony remains of some large animal that jutt from the ground. They shine starkly against the dull sand.
Lloyd dismounts the bike. He whips his helmet off, shaking his hair out like a dog. "Wait, this is your cave!"
"You've been here before?" Nya asks. When Lloyd glances over at her, he catches a flash of disappointment before she schools her face into a smile.
Lloyd bobs his head. "Yeah, but I didn't know you were working on this all the way back- well, now. This is so cool!"
Nya shrugs one shoulder. "Amazing what you can get done when no one pays attention to you," she says lightly, but she does look pleased at his compliment. Before Lloyd can say anything else, she's ushering him forward. "C'mon. It's hot out here, and I don't fancy getting turned into a piece of barbeque."
The interior of the cave is basic, even when compared to the first time Lloyd had seen it during the Digital Overlord crisis. He turns in a slow circle, smiling at the empty space and remembering the different things that eventually fill it up.
"Make yourself at home," Nya says, coming up behind him. "I'm gonna be working over here, but don't hesitate to interrupt me if you need anything."
"Gotcha."
Lloyd walks around the room for a bit, poking at gadgets and playing with knick-knacks. It's kinda neat to see all the half-finished stuff lying around. He finds the shell of something that looks like the fire mech and even a little display case of the previous iterations of her samurai bodysuit. But soon enough looking at hunks of metal and scraps of paper gets boring, and he meanders over to Nya. She's bent over with a welding stick, mask blocking out her face as sparks fly. He knows better than to interrupt her when she's handling 10,000 degree heat, so he waits to the side until she finishes the section and then taps her on the shoulder.
She takes off her mask, and then removes her earplugs. "What's up?"
"Can we put LED strips up on the ceiling?" Lloyd asks hopefully. "They're definitely there in the future."
Nya gives him an amused look. "Uh huh," she says, switching off her stick and setting it aside. "And I'm a ninja with fire powers in the future too, I bet."
"Water," Lloyd says automatically. He slaps a hand over his mouth.
"What?" Nya says.
Lloyd blinks his best innocent look. "Water you talking about?"
Nya stares at him a second longer. Then she rolls her eyes. "Yeah. I knew it was a mistake to let you hang out with Jay."
"Ha ha," Lloyd says. Once her back is turned, he slumps in relief.
Maybe I have been hanging out with Jay too much.
"So tell me," Nya begins, rummaging around in her stuff. "what's been the weirdest part of being in the past?"
Lloyd drags her chair out and flops into it. "Easy," he says. "Seeing all of you guys like this again."
"Do we really change that much?"
Lloyd frowns. "I mean, yes? But also no. A lot of stuff's the same, just- different."
Nya laughs. "Thank you, for that enlightening perspective."
"Hey, I'm trying my best." Lloyd glares at her, but without any real heat. He tips his head back, thinking. "It's like- like I have all these memories of how it was back then. Back now, I guess. And it was just facts, you know?" Nya nods. "But now that I'm living it again, everything's so different from how I remember! Like, Jay was always so tall, but now that I'm back, it's like no he wasn't. I was just that short!"
Nya cracks up. "I'm sure he'd be thrilled to hear you say that. He's been holding out that he's not technically the shortest on the team ever since you joined." She grins widely. "I'm sure seeing you now has been a slap in the face."
Lloyd laughs too. "Serves him right for all those short jokes. Kai too. Did you know that he used to buy stuff clearly in my size and say that he got it for himself, but that it didn't fit and that 'really, only a shrimp with noodle arms could fit into this'?"
"Oh, of course!" Nya sets down her tool so she can wave her hands around. "He used to pull that same crap with me too, until my arms got too big for it to work." She snorts. "A bit harder to argue that the silky red qipao was for himself, but he's nothing if not committed."
Lloyd grins. He can so clearly imagine Kai arguing that he could rock a dress, thank you very much, but it just won't zip over his wide, manly shoulders and hey, it shouldn't go to waste, now should it? It's such a classic Kai move, but he can't help but love him for it.
Lloyd's laughter trails off. He loves them, doesn't he? For all their faults, for every single way they drive him up the wall, they're still his brothers. They're still his family. He loves them, and not just who they represent and who they become, but who they are right now.
He loves them. He's going to leave them.
Nya hasn't picked up on his mood. She's still laughing to herself, nose scrunched lightly between her eyes. Lloyd feels a swell of affection for her. She's been looking out for him the whole time he's been here, intervening when she thinks he's getting too overwhelmed, interjecting with her own brand of confidence and charisma to smooth over any rough edges between him and the others. He loves her for it. He'd love her, even if she didn't do any of those things, just because she's Nya. And he's going to leave her too.
Lloyd doesn't want to- can't- think about it any longer. Avoidance has gotten him many places, and it's about to get him one more. He tamps down those feelings and reaches back for the original conversation thread, pasting his best sly grin on his face. "Hey, so about those strips…"
Nya snorts. "Those again? Not a chance, green bean."
And just like that, they fall into easy bickering again, and Lloyd breathes out a secret sigh of relief. They return to the apartment sometime past midnight, bellies full with some cheap noodles they grabbed on the way in. All the beds are full, but two mugs wait surreptitiously on the table. When Lloyd picks one up, he finds that it's filled to the brim with marshmallowed-hot chocolate. The ceramic is still warm.
(He drinks it and very studiously does not think about his feelings At All.)
"Um, hey?"
Lloyd gnaws at the end of his pen. Realm crystal- nope. Still won't work, just like the last three times he's thought about it. He time travelled, but he's still in the same realm. At least he hopes he is. Even thinking about it gives him too much of a headache. Idly, he scribbles down "diff. realm?" on a post-it note to his side.
"Hello?"
What if I use my dragon? But that runs into the same problem with realm-hopping. Although- He takes the pen from his mouth to write "time works different" beneath his last note. He underlines it twice, then draws action lines around the words for fun.
"Hey!"
Lloyd fumbles for a different scroll and spreads it on top of the others. He traces down the words about the realm of the Underworld with the capped end of his pen- yes! But as quickly as his elation appears, it's snuffed out. Time does work differently in the Underworld, but it's slower, not faster. He sits back and takes a large gulp of lukewarm hot chocolate, swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing. Which puts him back at square one.
A snake drops onto his notes.
Lloyd- well, he doesn't shriek. Jay shrieks, but he doesn't. He shouts, springing back from the table. Then his brain kicks in and realizes that the snake's scales are rubber and that confetti is now floating down around his head.
Someone snickers.
Lloyd whips around. His younger self stands several feet away, one of those prank cans detonated in his hands. He straightens up when he sees Lloyd looking, a stupid grin on his face.
"Sorry," kid Lloyd says, wiping tears from his eyes. "You just looked so stupid."
Lloyd shakes his head. The fog of the last few hours is starting to clear from his head, and when he blinks, he feels like he's seeing his desk for the first time. It's an absolute mess of hot chocolate mugs, yellow sticky notes, and almost a mountain of research papers. Yeah, no wonder the kid decided to prank him. Lloyd wouldn't have been able to resist at that age, either.
He blinks one last time and turns away from the table. Kid Lloyd still is standing there, which is the first flashing indicator that there might be more than a stupid prank beyond this visit. Lloyd leans back against his chair. "What are you here for?"
"Me?" kid Lloyd says, far too quickly. "Nothing. I just wanted to see what you were doing."
Ya huh, Lloyd thinks. Kid him is dressed up- well, dressed up for him, which means that his sweats with the hole in the waist have been swapped out for hole-less ones. He's wearing an innocent smile, the one where he shuts his eyes because he thinks it makes him look cuter.
Clearly, he has something planned. Something that he needs Lloyd for, if his being here is anything to go by. Lloyd looks back to the heap of unappealing research, nearly buried under a swarm of his little yellow post-it notes. What the heck, he thinks, why not. He may as well see where this is going. His back would certainly appreciate it.
He yawns, loudly, and cracks his spine in an actually worrying fashion. "Wow, do I need to stretch," he says. "And take a break from all this paperwork."
Kid Lloyd perks up. "Maybe you should go outside to clear your head," he suggests immediately.
"Oh yeah?" asks Lloyd, settling into his acting. "That's a good idea. You wouldn't happen to have any suggestions on where to go, would you?"
Kid Lloyd brightens and immediately tries to hide it. Lloyd suppresses a fond eye-roll. Honestly, it's no wonder that this kid got kicked out of bad boy school. He couldn't hold a poker face if his life depended on it.
"Well, the city is really nice!" his baby self says enthusiastically. "It's nice to walk around down there, especially now that the pavement isn't trying to roast you alive." He ducks his head in a calculated move and glances at Lloyd from under his eyelashes. "And, I mean, if we're already in the area, there is this new issue of a comic series I wanted to check out. Maybe we could just pop in there really quickly."
Memories rush back to Lloyd: the nostalgia-tinged memories of hours spent among bookshelves and throwing money at gashapon machines. Heck yeah. Originally he was down to do anything just for a break, but now he finds himself getting excited at the prospect.
"Okay."
Kid Lloyd's face breaks into a huge grin. "Really?"
"Really," Lloyd says, grinning back. "Yeah, let's do that. You wanna go right now?"
Kid Lloyd doesn't need to be asked twice.
The weather has turned decidedly colder outside. As they walk down the sidewalk, Lloyd finds himself calling on his inner fire to warm himself- a technique this Lloyd hasn't learned yet. He offers the kid his coat out of principle, but the stubborn brat refuses it. Lloyd laughs, shaking his head softly to himself.
They come to a crosswalk. Lloyd keeps walking, but a tug on his hand has him stilling. Kid Lloyd looks pointedly at the red "pedestrians crossing" sign across from them. It startles Lloyd, who's so used to fighting the villain of the month that little things like traffic violations don't even register for him anymore. He grins a little, watching how kid him checks both ways before tugging him along.
Ha. Just a boy who finds the world too big.
Doomsday Comix, on the other hand, feels like the world is shrinking in on itself. Stepping through the doors is like stepping back through time, again, and Lloyd has to stop and stand in the entrance for several seconds just to take it all in.
"Fritz Donnegan stuff is over here," kid Lloyd says, pulling him from his reverie and into the store. Lloyd lets himself be tugged along and follows him to the back. The glowy swords are displayed in their case on the wall and make him look twice as he passes them.
"Those are cool lightsabers," he says with a nod.
Kid him makes a face. "They're not lightsabers, they're illumaswords," he says, with the air of someone who's explained detailed comic book lore many a time before. "Fritz Donnegan uses them in issue 17 to fight the space vampire king." The duh, you idiot, goes unsaid.
"Lloyd Hemorrhoid Garmadon!"
Ouch. Lloyd has not been called a pain in the butt so literally in years. In fact, the only person he knows who preferred that nickname was-
"Mother Doomsday!" kid Lloyd exclaims.
Lloyd turns. The comic store owner is approaching them, a grin stretching his face. "Are you here for the newest issue of Starfarer?" he asks with a knowing light in his eyes. He appraises Lloyd, still standing next to his kid self. "Who's your friend, little guy?"
"I'm his cousin," Lloyd says, giving in to the sudden urge to ruffle his younger self's hair.
"He doesn't know what illumaswords are," kid Lloyd snitches.
"I knew!" Lloyd protests before he can stop himself. "I just didn't want to embarrass you if you didn't! I was trying to be cool!"
Mother Doomsday laughs his big belly laugh. "It sounds like you both know exactly what you're doing. Come find me if you need anything, alrighty?"
He saunters off, and kid Lloyd drags him to the section near the back of the store. Again, Lloyd is struck with the memory of coming here over and over again.
"They still have it!" kid Lloyd cheers. He swipes up the comic- one of the last three on the shelf- and immediately begins flipping through it.
"Hey, you're going to spoil yourself," Lloyd chides.
Kid Lloyd shakes his head. "Nah, I'm just looking quick." He finishes his flip-through and tucks the comic under his arm, grinning widely.
"Anything else?" Lloyd asks.
Kid Lloyd deliberates for a while over an older issue he doesn't have yet but read while at the store. Ultimately he decides on just the first comic, citing that he'll use the rest of his money on the gashapon vending machines. They head to the register and wait for the cashier to ring them up.
"That'll be ¥525," she tells them.
"I can pay," kid Lloyd says. He digs out his coin purse, spilling the contents uncaring across the counter. Lloyd winces at the clatter. The kid has all kinds of coins, collected no doubt from the other ninja's spare change. Kid Lloyd picks up a coin and discards it. At first glance it looks like a ¥5 coin, but the embossment of a bus makes him take a second look.
Lloyd fishes it from the pile. "Oh, look," he says, turning it over in his fingers. "Where'd you get a bus token?" As far as he can remember, he never spent his hard-earned (hoarded) money on such mundane things as transport. The ninja were always the ones to pay for his trips to and from the arcade.
Kid Lloyd does a double take. His eyebrows get a shifty look to them. "Oh, that?" he says, laughing nervously. "I just found it on the table earlier. I didn't want it to go bad."
Lloyd's eyes narrow. He was ready to write it off as just one of the ninja's tokens getting mixed up with his change, which had happened before, but then his kid self went and lied about it. It wasn't even a good lie- bus tokens don't expire, the little idiot. "Yeah, okay, what?" he asks, setting the token back on the counter. "Why are you lying to me?"
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are," Lloyd says, in the drawn-out way one might speak to a toddler. "Just tell me and get it over with."
Kid him glares. "You're being mean."
Lloyd levels his own glare back. "Tell me," he repeats.
"Fine!" explodes kid Lloyd. "I didn't think you'd actually agree to bring me and I wanted to be ready if you didn't." He crosses his arms with a mullish set to his jaw. "There. Are you happy now?"
No. Lloyd is not happy. His mind flashes to all the potential ways that his kid self could be kidnapped alone- the green ninja, isolated and without his powers? He can think of several people who'd jump on that chance immediately. "So you were just planning to go by yourself?" he asks incredulously. "Without even telling anyone?"
"I told Jay!"
"Uh huh. And was he playing video games when you told him?"
Kid Lloyd's silence is answer enough. Lloyd groans and rakes his fingers through his hair. "Kid," he says, "you can't do that. You know it's too dangerous to go out without the others to protect you."
Kid Lloyd snorts. "I don't need protecting," he says, taking his purchase bag and sweeping all his change into it. "And if I waited for them, I'd never go." He glares up at Lloyd suddenly, so intensely that Lloyd almost takes a step back. "It's not like I'm important. Not like you."
He shoves his hands in his pockets and stalks out the door.
Lloyd stands there like an idiot, gawking uselessly for several seconds. Someone clears their throat- the poor cashier's eyes are wide. Oh, right. He's standing by the register. They just had this showdown inside his childhood comic book store.
If Lloyd wasn't losing his younger self the longer he stood here, he might take a second to appreciate the sheer drama of it all.
He dashes out of the comic book shop. Quickly, he scans the sidewalks. There- further upstreet is a small figure stomping towards the crosswalk, hands still jammed in the pockets of their hoodie.
Almost like he'd been summoned, kid Lloyd looks back over his shoulder. His eyes lock with Lloyd's. Scowling, he spins around again and picks up his pace.
Unluckily for him, Lloyd has much longer legs. "Hold on a minute," he says, falling into step beside him. "What were you talking about back there? Did Skales' kidnapping attempt not happen in this timeline, or am I missing something?"
Kid Lloyd drags his shoes against the sidewalk. "That was at our own apartment, and it wasn't like they were there then, either." He sighs, long and drawn out. "It's like- just because I'm younger than all of them, I don't matter. I hate it."
"You know that's not true," Lloyd says.
Kid Lloyd looks balefully at him. "Really? Then why did you take that tea?"
Lloyd trips over his own feet and nearly eats concrete. He catches himself just in time with a hand against a building. Kid him forges on ahead. Lloyd rights himself, mind whirring like a jammed dvd player. How in the world does he know that? The only time Lloyd's brought the tomorrow's tea up was that night when-
"Wait!" Lloyd shouts, sprinting to catch up to him. "You heard that?"
Kid Lloyd scoffs. "You know for ninja, you guys sure are loud."
"I didn't know you were awake then," Lloyd says, stupidly, even as he speedruns through his memories and realizes that, yeah, kid Lloyd probably had been awake for most of that discussion. "I didn't- It's not like that." His brain finally latches onto the trailing conversation thread. "I'm not more important just because I'm older now."
"Really?" says kid him skeptically. "I've been doing everything I can think of to get them to include me: being good, being 'bad'"- here he makes air quotes with his fingers- "talking, shutting up." He scoffs. "And then you appear, and suddenly they're falling all over themselves to talk with you."
Lloyd starts to defend the ninja. It's practically instinct at this point when he hears someone bad-mouthing one of his teammates. But kid Lloyd isn't just anybody. His words resonate with something deep within Lloyd, something he'd thought he'd forgotten. All too suddenly he can remember being in his shoes, and what it was like being constantly left behind.
"I'm sorry," he says sincerely. "I know how much that sucks."
Kid him looks taken aback at being apologized to. "It's really not that big of a deal," he says, starting to backpedal.
"It is because it's bothering you," Lloyd says. "You matter, okay? It's okay that you're mad. I would be too." He pauses. "I was."
Kid Lloyd tries to purse his lips, but it just comes out looking like a pout. "They never play with me," he says. "I mean- not that I need them to play with me. I'm not a little kid."
The irony of that statement, to hear it coming from a Lloyd who barely reaches his chest height.
"But they never include me in anything," kid Lloyd continues. "They talk about me like I'm not even there. Like I don't matter."
He glances up at Lloyd, eyes pleading. Pleading for him to understand, pleading for him to make it better somehow. In this moment, Lloyd is acutely aware of the power he holds. He's everything that this Lloyd wants and more: attention, approval, acceptance. Belonging. Whatever he says or does next, kid Lloyd will remember forever.
Slowly, Lloyd crouches down in front of him. "You matter so much. So much, okay? You're just as important, and wanted, and- and loved-" The word trips off his tongue. He has to take a moment to recover himself. "Right now, exactly how you are. All of them would take a bullet for you in a heartbeat."
Kid Lloyd stares at him, eyes bright. Practically shining. Lloyd pauses to consider his next words. "The problem is- is that even though they love you, they don't - can't- see you as a contributor to the team yet." He sighs. "You know and I know that you're more grown up than you look, but they don't. It took them months after I grew up before that happened for me." He watches the light dim in kid Lloyd's eyes and winces. "It will probably be the same for you."
"It's not fair," kid Lloyd says, but without the whininess any other kid would have at his age. Instead, he sounds resigned. "Why do I have to grow up if I still can't do anything anyway?"
"It's not fair," Lloyd agrees. It's a lesson he's had hammered into him since birth- since his mother left him on the doorstep of Darkley's without a second glance back. "But fair isn't a word where we come from, huh?" He rests one hand awkwardly on his younger self's shoulder. "It'll change. Soon. I promise."
"Promises are stupid," kid Lloyd says. He shrugs Lloyd's hand off his shoulder, but there's understanding in his eyes when he meets Lloyd's gaze. "But okay. I guess I can wait for them a little bit longer."
"Good," Lloyd says.
He stands again, partially to stretch out his legs, partially to avoid having to look at his kid self more. Awkwardness threatens to settle, now that they're not talking and it feels like their conversation has wrapped up. And Lloyd hates awkwardness. "Hey," he says quickly, eyes catching on a familiar store sign. "What do you say we go get ice cream? There's a really good place just down the road from here, and they have-"
"Matcha and lavender ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and extra cherries," kid Lloyd says with him. They freeze and stare at each other for several long seconds. Then they break out in simultaneous laughter.
Lloyd grins wide. "'llI take that as a yes." He holds out his hand. After a moment, kid Lloyd takes it. "Alright! Let's get it!"
The vendor at the ice cream shop gives them a barely-disguised look of disgust when they give him their orders, which sets them off into giggles again. They're still laughing as they return to the apartment. Lloyd opens the door, letting kid him enter first. The ninja are sprawled around the room, or as much as they can be within the cramped walls. Cole perks up seeing them.
"Hey, Lloyd-" he says immediately, popping up from his chair. "When you use opposite powers together or right after each other, how does that affect them?"
Lloyd can practically see the gears turning in his head. Cole is first and foremost the leader of their team, and he's always focused on improving the way they work together. Lloyd almost starts to answer, but then his eyes slide over him to kid Lloyd, standing a bit beyond. He doesn't look angry or sad to see Lloyd monopolized. Just has a look of resignation across his face.
And Lloyd- Lloyd realizes something. He wasn't included-included until months after the Tomorrow's Tea. He never had anyone on his side to argue for him before, to stand up for him.
But just because something was one way for him doesn't mean it has to be the same for this Lloyd.
Lloyd winces. "I'm actually in the middle of something," he says with a glance to the table, still covered by sticky-notes. "But the kid can probably help you with that." He gestures to where kid Lloyd is watching their conversation with wide eyes that only widen further when they both look at him.
Cole blinks at him. "Oh, right," he says, like it'd never crossed his mind to ask before. "Duh."
It's not anything earth-shattering. But the way that kid him looks at Lloyd when Cole's back is turned is more than enough to make Lloyd feel like he's done something right.
The day after finds them all gathered around their rickety table with books and scrolls sprawled every which way. Well, all of them sans kid Lloyd, who's out on Sensei-distraction-duty for the one day that his uncle is back in town.
(They still haven't told him that Lloyd's here, and at this point, it feels a bit too late to bring up. Lloyd's sure that it will make a great story once he's gone. When he goes. The uncertainty hangs over his head, the unknown of how he's going to get back.)
Hence, this meeting.
"I feel like we've looked through everything," Kai says, banging his head against the table. "This is useless. Can't I just, I don't know, go out and punch something for the answer?"
"Oh, no you don't, mister," says Nya. "Is your ankle even healed from the last time?"
Kai gets that look on his face that he always has when he's about to bullshit. "Of course," he says.
"In two weeks?" Nya deadpans.
"Totally!"
Cole pats his back in sympathy. "If it makes you feel any better, I could go out and punch something for you."
Zane sighs, stopping that train of thought before it has a chance to derail. "You know that isn't how this works," he says. "We need to find something to reverse the effects of Lloyd's time travel, and the best way to do that is by looking for relics capable of doing so."
A sudden crash has them all jerking away from the table. Lloyd looks up to find Jay, hands slammed against the table, looking as if he's had an epiphany.
"Wait a minute," he says, a wild light in his eyes. "Guys, what if we're going about this all the wrong way?"
"What do you mean?" asks Zane.
"I mean-" Jay says, excitement slowly spreading across his face- "instead of looking for things that fit our description of what we need, why don't we fit what we need to something else?"
"I don't follow," says Cole.
Jay groans. "Okay- look," he says, seizing a piece of paper and beginning to draw. "We're killing ourselves by combing through these dusty old things for very specific time-travel wack-a-doos, right? But we have something that fits the bill to the 't' just sitting on our doorstep."
"No," Nya says. "You don't mean-"
"I completely mean." With a flourish, Jay tosses his paper onto the table. "Behold, gentlemen, the solution to all our problems. Garmadon's megaweapon."
Cole groans and drops his head in his hands.
"What?" demands Jay. "It's a good idea!"
"It'll never work."
"It could! You just don't want to admit it's a good idea because you didn't think of it!"
"That's not it at all!"
They continue bickering, the familiar sound of it washing over him as Lloyd tunes them out. He leans forward, spinning the paper around. Jay's drawn a strange-looking… weapon? It's a staff, he thinks, with a big head and pointed tip. "Garmadon's what now?" he asks.
Everything goes deathly silent. Lloyd glances up, startled, to find the rest of the ninja stare at him like he's grown a second head.
"Megaweapon?" Kai says slowly. "Big gold staff thing, forged from the Golden Weapons?" He looks at Lloyd like he's almost insulted he doesn't remember. "That doesn't ring any bells?"
Lloyd chews his lip, frustrated. "No, not really."
"This thing's like, magic, Lloyd. Your dad used it to bring back pirates from the dead." Jay's eyes go wide. "Oh, and he also created evil versions of us!"
"Oh!" Lloyd slaps his hands against the table. "Wait a minute! That's the thing we went to space for!"
This time, the staring is accompanied by loud squawking.
"Space?" Cole says faintly. "How in the world- actually, I don't want to know."
"It's not that important," Lloyd says, ignoring Jay's shout of "uh, no, I think it very much is?" "But I do remember it now. Or, like, know what it is."
"It's super powerful, Lloyd," Nya weighs in. "Sensei Wu says it has the power of creation."
"The megaweapon did revive the dead," Zane muses. "It's not so strange to reason that it could also manipulate time and space."
"We don't have to reason," Lloyd says, excitement pulsing through his veins. "It can. The way it got destroyed in my world was when my dad went back in time to kill baby you or something. Or something!" he protests, as the ninja make noises of alarm. "I wasn't there! And obviously it didn't work, you're still here!"
The rest of the ninja quiet down.
"So that's our plan, then?" Nya asks. "Steal Garmadon's megaweapon?" She twirls her pen in her fingers. "Hmm. That's a lot you're asking for, but it's not like we haven't done crazier."
"Wait- Lloyd." says Cole, before she can continue. "Even if we get that thing, none of us can use it. It too powerful and burns up anyone who tries." He sends a glare at Jay. "That's what I was talking about earlier, bolthead."
Jay scoffs. "Well, why didn't you just say so?"
Lloyd suddenly feels like crying. Even now, when he's so much older than them, they're still trying to take care of him. "Ahem," he says loudly, before his eyes can start watering. "This thing's made with Golden Power, right?"
"You mean the Golden Weapons?" Zane asks. Beside him, Cole mouths the words 'golden power' to himself. "It was forged from all four after Garmadon took them post the battle with the Devourer."
Those were the same thing, right? Lloyd nods decisively to himself. "Yeah, that won't be an issue."
"So that's our plan," Cole repeats, a little faintly. "Stealing the megaweapon."
That makes the group settle down. Even Jay looks a bit more subdued now, slouching down in his chair. "I mean- it's kind of like our only chance at this point. We're running out of options, Cole."
Kai sighs. When Lloyd looks to him, the fire ninja has a resignated-yet-determined light simmering in his eyes. "I hate to admit it, but Jay's right," he says. "It checks all the boxes."
"Sometimes I worry about our combined sanity," Nya quips. "But I meant what I said earlier. It's crazy, but isn't that what we do best?"
"Alright," says Cole, shaking his head slowly. "I hear what you're saying. But-" he says, holding up his hand before anyone can interrupt- "we're not going to do something this dangerous unless everyone agrees to the risks." He looks at Zane and Lloyd, expression solemn. "Don't say yes just because everyone else is. Please actually think about it."
To his credit, the ice ninja doesn't look unnerved by the pressure placed on him. But that's Zane for you: reliable, sincere, and trustworthy. "It surely is risky," he says slowly. "But I'm willing to accept that risk if it means Lloyd gets to go home."
Cole nods, expression still just as unreadable as before. "Lloyd?"
"Huh?" It takes Lloyd a moment to register his name.
"I need your okay too."
"Mine?" Lloyd points to himself, confused. "But I'm the one you're doing it for."
"You're still part of this team," Cole says, face softening. "You'll be risking your life too. It's only right that you get a vote."
Lloyd worries his lip. The truth is that he doesn't know what he's getting into, not really. He knows what the others have said about this weapon, but he's never experienced it firsthand. But when he glances around the table, the determined faces of his team greets him. They believe in themselves. And Lloyd does too.
"In that case," he says, "yeah. I'm down too."
Cole nods. "Okay. Okay. So we're doing this." There's a split second, as short as a blink, when his mask cracks. And Cole looks terrified out of his mind. The very next second his mask is back, secure as ever, but Lloyd can't forget what he saw. The earth ninja squares his shoulders and breathes out. "Alright. We're gonna need a plan. I'm not leaving this up to chance."
Lloyd perks up. He may not know much about the megaweapon, but after years of observing Cole and making his own decisions for the team, he does know strategy. This is his time to shine.
"I can help with that," he says. "If- if you're okay with it, of course."
Cole makes a wide gesture towards him. "Take it away."
Lloyd smiles. "There's two things we have to consider here. First, whatever goes down, we've got to keep it as far away from civilians as possible." It's a lesson and a manta drilled into his head from the years he's lived and the horrors he's seen.
The ninja nod, somber. "We're still not fully recovered from the Devourer," Nya says.
"Yeah," Jay agrees. "Keep the magical all-in-one weapon away from the people, got it."
"And number two," says Lloyd. "We've got to be sure that my dad and the weapon will be there. That's why I'm thinking that we make the first move."
"You are saying that we should attack him," surmises Zane.
"Yeah. At Ouroboros. He won't be expecting us to attack the city, so we can use that to our advantage. And since he doesn't know that I'm here, he won't be expecting me either when I take the weapon."
They don't have a lot to go on, but it's far from the worst plan Lloyd's come up with. Then someone scoffs. Lloyd's eyes shoot up. Kai has his arms crossed over his chest, a frown on his face.
Lloyd feels his cheeks flush. Then he's immediately furious with himself for feeling that way. He's doing his best, damn it. He knows that if it were anything else, if the situation was normal and he was with his ninja, he wouldn't feel embarrassed. He might back down, or let Cole take over, or listen to what Kai has to say because he respects him.
But this is happening here and now, and Lloyd feels nothing but irritation when he snaps, "Do you have something to say?"
The idle chatter around the table dies as suddenly as a switched-off lightbulb.
Kai's eyes widen to the size of saucers. But then he's schooling his features, eyebrows flattening and mouth thinning into a line. "Um, yeah, actually, I do. Does nobody else have a problem with this?"
Lloyd stares at him flatly. "Problem with what, exactly?"
"This plan," Kai says, waving his hand vaguely. "Clearly, you don't know what you're talking about. It's not going to work. There's way too many things that can go wrong- and you can't just take the weapon, are you stupid? Garmadon's never gonna let that thing out of his sight, let alone his claws."
Lloyd can feel his nostrils flaring. He's baiting Kai, he knows it, leaning forward across the table, but it's like his body is moving without his permission. His eyes flash. "Oh, really? Do you want to say that again?"
Kai's eyes meet his. "Which part of it? The part about your plan being dumb, or how you clearly have no clue what you're talking about?"
And that-
That's the last straw.
Lloyd stands up calmly, rounding the table to dig his fingers into the front of Kai's gi. "Excuse us for a moment," he says, lips bared into a smile. He doesn't give them time to protest. Lloyd drags Kai into the hallway. The door slams shut behind them. A part of Lloyd worries about the noise, but the rest of him is too far gone to care.
When he whirls around, Kai has his arms crossed over his chest. His glare is fixed on the floor near Lloyd's feet.
"What is your problem?" Lloyd demands, crossing the hallway.
"There is no problem," Kai insists. "Your plan's dumb, so I said so."
Lloyd rolls his eyes. "Yeah, let's keep pretending this is about the plan. Cut the bullcrap, Kai, we both know that your issue is with me." He takes a step forward, vindictive satisfaction curling darkly in his chest when it forces Kai to step back. "What I don't understand is why! What have I done to make you so mad?" He snarls. "Can't you even look at me?"
Almost reluctantly, Kai's eyes drag up to meet Lloyd's. Lloyd huffs, hands resting on his hips. "I'm sick and tired of this hot-and-cold game," he says. "You've got to trust me by now- I know you! If you didn't, you'd never even let me near the others."
Kai's mouth twitches. His shoulders slump and he relaxes his grip on his arms. "I do trust you," he says, and Lloyd knows it but it's also nice to hear spoken aloud. "You're Lloyd." The way he says it- like it's a known fact of the universe, like it's something absolutely unquestionable-
Warmth swells in Lloyd's chest. He shoves it down. Kai is not getting out of this that easily. "Then what is your problem? Why is it that I'm still getting the cold shoulder?" He leans forward. "Huh?"
"I didn't protect you!" Kai bursts. "I swore to protect you, and I didn't!"
It feels like he's been slapped across the face. Lloyd reels back, blindsided by the rawness in Kai's outburst. "What are you talking about?" he asks, aggression draining from his voice.
Kai has never been good at hiding his feelings. He can't hold in his scoffs, his hums, his sharp barks of laughter. Now, his precariously-straight expression wavers. It starts as a single jaw jump. He swallows hard. "Back at the Fire Temple. When I realized you were the green ninja. I made a promise to you. I told you I would keep you safe. But now- look at you!" He uncrosses his arms, jabbing one hand towards Lloyd. "You had to grow up to fight our battles! You know too much- about how to fight, about- about how to fix wounds-"
It feels like there's a rubber band constricting around Lloyd's heart. He wants to go to Kai, to hug him tight, to fix his hurt and make him better, but something keeps him rooted to the spot. Even breathing feels like too much. Feels like it will shatter this moment, whatever it is, and it will never come around again.
Kai's face finally crumples. "And I didn't- I didn't do it, I know it. I couldn't protect you."
He hunches forward and buries his face in his hands.
Lloyd stands there uselessly for a second. Then he's reaching forward, hand hovering just short of Kai's shoulder. "No, Kai-" he says, heartbroken. "That's not your job."
Kai snorts without looking up. "No, it definitely is."
Lloyd bites his lip. He's not going to be able to change Kai's mind on that, he can already tell. "But the level of what you're expecting from yourself?" he says, changing approaches. "It's impossible! We're ninja. Danger comes with the job description. You can't protect me from everything."
Kai glares away. Lloyd takes it as a victory, a sign that Kai is forced to agree with him no matter how much he hates it. He presses in again. "All the stuff about fighting and your ankle and stuff?" He wraps his arms gently around Kai's shoulders. "It's all from you- from all of you, but especially you, Kai. And it's saved my life a thousand times over."
Kai's hands jump up to clutch at his shirt. He holds onto Lloyd like a lifeline, fingers turning white with his strength. Slowly, he lifts his head. His eyes are red, and they search Lloyd's face, scanning, with a furrow to his forehead and tightly clenched jaw. If his eyes are a little watery at the corners, neither of them mention it. "When did you get so insightful," he mumbles.
"I mean, I did grow up pretty fast," Lloyd says.
He means it as a joke. But apparently, the knowledge is still too fresh for this Kai. He grimaces visibly at the words. "It never should have happened."
"I chose to use the tea," Lloyd starts, but Kai cuts him off.
"No, it's not even just that," he says, squeezing his shoulders. "You were grown up long before you took that stupid tea, Lloyd. It's happening right now, with little you, and I can't do anything to stop it. You don't even realize just how wrong it is. I bet you think it's fine." He pauses, and his mouth turns aggressively downward. "Well, it's not. He's just a little kid, and he's already all grown up without knowing it."
Lloyd could argue with him. He could. He could point out that it's just the same with Kai- another boy forced to grow up fast for the responsibilities placed on him. But looking at Kai's face, something tells him that Kai already knows. That he's not looking so much for a solution, but for a way to vent his grief over the loss of something neither of them ever really had.
And so Lloyd simply says, "Yeah. Yeah, I know." Tears jump to the corners of his eyes. He shifts his arms from holding Kai's shoulders to wrapping around his chest. Kai's hands squeeze against his shoulder blades. "I know. It's okay. He'll come out okay on the other side. Just like me and you did."
Kai breaks down and weeps. Lloyd follows him close behind.
They hug each other tightly, and they don't let go for a long time afterward.
It's amazing, what wonders just talking about something can do. Nothing is changed, not really. Lloyd is still the same age, and he still knows all the things he knows. Kai is still hot-blooded, reactionary, and prone to every single 'oldest sibling' trope in the book. Both of their stories are still the same, and both of their histories are unchanged.
Nothing is changed. And yet, everything is.
Kai stops aggravating Lloyd. The little gestures he made before, like the cups of hot chocolate and candies on his pillow, come out in full force now. Lloyd can't go a training session without compliments pouring in from the fire ninja, enough to make him blush and hiss at Kai to stop.
In return, Lloyd stops avoiding Kai. He starts seeking out the fire ninja to ask him his opinions on things, from the right way to make a roundhouse kick to the best frozen french fries in the supermarket. He pesters him without fear, and rejoices when Kai play-fights back
Repairing comes slowly. But it's happening, and Lloyd couldn't be happier.
The other ninja know that something went down. If Lloyd was a betting person, he'd wager they had their ears to the door the entirety of their argument in the hallway. But for once, they don't pry. Either Kai told them not to himself, or they're respecting the dance the two of them are doing.
They finalize their plan, deciding to go with the idea of attacking Ouroboros. The operation will go down in a week's worth of time.
"It's short-term notice," Cole says, "but I don't want to risk Garmadon attacking the city if we wait any longer. It's already been over a month since he last tried something, and I'm sure he's getting just as antsy as we are."
"But what if Garmadon attacks the city before then?" asks Kai. "Do we try and take him?"
"He'll be weaker," muses Zane, "but also more prepared and on-guard for our retaliation."
"Let's just hope it doesn't come to that," says Cole. He regards the notes he's taken, jaw clenched. "Spinjitzu Master, I hope this works."
"It's going to work," Nya says firmly.
Butterflies erupt in Lloyd's stomach. He stares down at the notes on the table, fingers clenching and unclenching on top of his thighs.
The next days are spent prepping- repairing vehicles, polishing weapons, and training. So much training. Lloyd spends his time teaching the ninja as much as he can about their elements and everything he's learned about them over the years, both through his own experience and his observations of the others. Jay whoops when he figures out how to do Lloyd's super-speed trick, and Kai flies around the dojo like Iron Man until Dareth threatens to smack him out of the air with his broom.
The night before it all goes down, by some unspoken agreement or another they find themselves pushing all the beds into the center of the room together.
Lloyd pulls his kid self into his side. "I remember when we moved in here," he says. "Kai dropped a box on his toe."
"Hey," Kai protests. "Jay dropped the box on my toe. It wasn't my fault."
Lloyd rolls his eyes. "Yeah, that's what you said too when you got tied up in that rocketship."
The ninja perk up unsubtly, the way they always do when he mentions the future.
"Yeah, we went to space, that's right!" says Jay. He puts on his best pleading expression (it's not that good, Lloyd would know as the youngest himself) and whines. "C'mon, can't you tell us something about it? It doesn't have to be about space if you don't want. Just something."
And Lloyd- Lloyd finds himself wanting to give in. Maybe it's the moment they're living in, the pocket bubble of time that seems suspended between one hour and the next. Maybe it's because this is the last night he'll be here, and there's nothing he can mess up anymore. Maybe it's because he has the stability blanket of the megaweapon setting everything right that he could possibly mess up.
Maybe it's because he's feeling homesick for the very group of people he's sitting with.
Lloyd opens his mouth. "So there was this one time," he begins, "that Kai was driving a rambooni-"
"Wait," says Nya. "I already have so many questions."
"-and it turns out the guy he got out to yell at was the same guy he had scorched bald like a week earlier-"
"WHAT?"
Jay laughs so hard he falls off the bed.
From there, the words spill out. He tells them about the adventures they go on- about the places they see, about the friends they make. Zane perks up when he hears about Pixal, and Cole looks intrigued at a man who can turn himself into metal.
He talks about Zane's new metal skin, about going to space and the metal-eating bugs on the asteroid. He talks about the digitalization of New Ninjago. He skips over Morro and the ghosts, but he talks about the way it feels to soar through the sky with airjitzu. He talks about the fame they start picking up after each battle, the recognition they have now each time they go out into the streets.
At some point, kid Lloyd drifts off to sleep. Lloyd can feel his slow, measured breaths against his side, can feel the way he shifts and stirs in a way he rarely allows himself to do while awake, still too afraid of reprimand despite the other ways he acts out. Lloyd shifts the kid to lay down with his head in his lap, stroking absently through his hair.
He glances around the tiny room. Jay is asleep, head lolled onto Kai's shoulder and mouth hanging open and drooling; Nya mirrors him on Kai's other side. Kai makes a noise of disgust but makes no move to actually dislodge them. Farther away, Zane is puttering around in the kitchen, making tea even though it's probably close to two.
Cole meets his eyes in the dark. The earth ninja reads something in Lloyd's gaze, because a moment later he's gently standing and crossing the floor to Lloyd's cot. Wordlessly, he looks down and wordlessly, Lloyd adjusts so there's room beside him. The cot dips as Cole sits.
Lloyd looks down. His hands still their petting through kid Lloyd's hair. His scarred fingers look out of place in the soft locks.
"I'm scared," he confesses.
Cole hums quietly. "That it won't work?"
"Yeah." And that it will.
Lloyd leans into Cole's side, the earth ninja's body a warm, comforting presence he hasn't felt in months. A hand lands in his hair, scratching slightly at the base of his neck. He nearly purrs, relaxing into the touch.
Above him, Cole laughs softly. "I always knew you were a cat." Lloyd can hear the smile in his voice as he continues to scratch. "Don't worry, kiddo. We can deal with anything, you know that? It'll all turn out okay."
No amount of petting is going to fix anything. It can't delay the inevitable; Lloyd knows this. But for now, he indulges himself and lets his mind drift.
In the night, things feel less real.
In the morning, everything will be different.
The day of the attack dawns deceivingly bright, cloudless sky belying the cutting autumn chill.
For once, they all get ready in silence. Barely twelve words are spoken between them as they don armor and check their weapons and finally, ultimately, load up for takeoff.
They still don't have the Bounty back in this timeline, so they take the Ultra Sonic Raider in her place. The vehicle is designed for the sand, having been born there. She cuts through the desert like an arrow, each turn of her tracks carrying them closer to their destination. Carrying them closer to the end.
It takes them about two hours to reach the outcropping of rocks from which they will launch the next part of the operation. The city of Ouroboros is still a small mark on the horizon as they climb out of the Raider and stretch their legs. They unload Nya's samurai mech. Nya starts prepping it and the adjusted cage on the back, designed to hold them all in as she takes them for the last leg of the trip.
Lloyd's wearing a borrowed training gi. It has less armor than he's used to, but he figures he has enough power to make up for that. The white fabric is cool against his skin in the desert.
"Little Lloyd, what are you going to do?" asks Cole, in a tone of voice that makes it clear that there is a right answer.
"Wait here for you guys to come back, and make sure the Raider is ready if we need to take off," kid Lloyd recites, jaw clenched. "But I can help-"
"Absolutely not," Cole says firmly. "This is going to be dangerous enough already, breaking into the city. But attempting to take the megaweapon? No. You're staying here."
Kid Lloyd pouts.
"Zane," says Jay, sidling up to the ice ninja, "got anything yet? What does your falcon see?"
Zane blinks. His eye color shifts to blue, and his expression slackens as he sees things miles off. "There are two guards at the city gate," he reports. "Besides that, my falcon finds most of the serpentine clustered near the city center."
Cole nods. It's as much as they had expected. He gathers everyone into a circle and gives them all a serious look. "Remember: our job here is to keep Garmadon's attention. Everything else is secondary, understood? He can't know that something's up, otherwise Lloyd's mission is as good as screwed."
The rest of them nod. Looking at all of their determined faces, Lloyd is suddenly struck by a sense of rightness. This is how it's supposed to be: everyone a team and working together. He grins at Kai and Kai smirks back. Lloyd's heart soars.
"Are we all ready?" asks Zane.
"All set," Nya says.
"Wait," Lloyd says, suddenly, before his brain can catch up to his mouth. He doesn't know kny he's talking. He just know that it's important that they hear this. "I don't know if I'll see you guys at the end of this. But in case I don't, I just want to say thank you."
Nya pauses as she puts on her helmet. "For what?" she asks, perplexed.
Lloyd can feel his cheeks heating. "For taking care of me," he says, ducking his head.
Her face softens. "Lloyd. That's what we do." She dons her helmet and gives him a double thumbs-up. "Now, stop thinking such silly thoughts and get ready to kick some snake butt."
"Isn't that your job?" asks Lloyd, but he's laughing.
Even with her chin guard in the way, Lloyd can tell that she's smiling back. "I guess you have been paying attention."
"Alright," says Cole, clapping his hands. "Let's get a move on, people."
Jay makes a noise in the back of his throat. "Oh, Lloyd! Remember that when you wish, you have to be specific about it!"
Lloyd swears that Jay's said that before. When he tries to remember, though, he can't actually recall any specific instance. Huh. Deja Vu.
"Let's do this," says Kai.
One by one, the ninja climb into the cage. Lloyd goes last, latching the door behind him. Nya fires up the thrusters. Slowly, the mech rises into the sky. Kid Lloyd stares up at them, face stony, until his expression is obscured by the exhaust and his figure is lost to the sand.
Lloyd feels a pang of -sympathy? worry? for him. But then his attention is called away by other things and any thoughts of the kid are forcibly shoved from his mind. By Nya and Zane's estimations, they have twenty minutes until they reach the city, and only fifteen until they reach the dropoff point.
The ninja are the distraction. That means that he can't come in with them. That means that they'll be dropping him off at a rock outcropping a short distance from the city. And by 'dropping off', he means it quite literally. There will be no stopping for a pleasant, meandering disembarkment. He clenches the bars of the cage and stares out into the sand. All too soon, the city blooms in front of them.
Lloyd opens the cage. Wind jerks at his clothes and stings at his eyes. The outcropping is approaching at an alarming rate. Behind him, Zane is counting down numbers.
Five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds.
Lloyd takes a breath. He jumps.
This is the trickiest part of the operation, in his not-so-humble opinion. If he doesn't want to become a green-colored streak on the sand, he needs to conjure his elemental shield to protect himself. But he can't make it too soon, or any watching serpentine will know that he's here.
Three seconds. Two seconds. One second.
He throws up his elemental shield. Sand gushes around the energy sphere, spraying up like a fountain made of grit, and a violent rush of nausea sweeps through Lloyd's head, but the important thing is that he's alive and safe.
He lets himself lie there a moment to recover. Then he's back on his feet, scaling up the outcropping and crouching low over the rocks. The city gates are well within his sight. There are two guards like Zane said, although that number quickly drops to one as one of the snakes takes off at the sight of the Samurai mech streaking towards the city like a red bullet. Lloyd settles back to wait.
He doesn't have to wait long. Two, three minutes later, loud explosions rock the center of the city. An almost-cartoonish cloud of smoke puffs into the sky, and even from this far away, Lloyd thinks he can hear screaming. He grins to himself. For ninja, stealth isn't really their style.
And that's his cue to move.
Using his own superior stealth, he sneaks past the remaining guard at the gate and steals into the city. It's not hard to hide himself with the hullabaloo wrecking the center courtyard. Serpentine rush past the alley he hides himself in without a second glance. Lloyd creeps down the alley towards the center. He pauses beneath the overhang to take stock of the fight.
"Lloyd?" someone shouts.
Lloyd jerks towards the sound. Jay is staring right at him, eyebrows high on his forehead. For a moment, fear and frustration froth in Lloyd's chest. Is Jay crazy? Why is he blowing his cover? Then he realizes that the lightning ninja isn't looking at him, and actually seems to be focused on a scuffle several yards away from Lloyd. A scuffle between a hypnobrai and a little boy clad head-to-toe in green.
Another voice rises above the chaos to join Jay's. "Lloyd?" demands Kai. "You're supposed to be back on the Raider!"
Kid Lloyd huffs tersely. "Yeah, did you actually think I would listen?"
Lloyd has got to admit he has a point. It doesn't make him any calmer to see the boy going toe-to-toe with a hypnobrai double his size. He worries for a second, torn between protecting him and keeping his presence on the down-low. But then he sees Kai and Jay cutting their way across the courtyard to him and some of the stress leaves from his shoulders.
Hidden in the corridor, he takes a second to admire the skill of his teammates.
The ninja might be lacking in their elemental power, but all the training they do isn't just for show. And unlike in their match against Lloyd, their goal here isn't to defeat. Zane's shurikens zip like hummingbirds through the crowd. Jay's shouted sound effects and made-up words ring loud and clear even over the noise of the battle. Towering over them all is Nya in her Samurai mech, displacing clusters of serpentine with each broad swing of her sword.
"What is this rackus?" demands a voice from up above. A very familiar voice. Lloyd flattens himself against the wall, heart thudding in his chest. Craning his neck, he looks up.
The sun blots out the details of the person. But his shadow is unmistakable. Garmadon stands on the highest wall of the city, near directly above him. The silhouette of a long weapon is grasped in one of his four hands.
Dad. Out of nowhere, a wave of longing crashes through Lloyd. He slumps against the wall, risking a moment to close his eyes. It's his dad, alive. The last time he'd seen him, they'd both been in the Cursed Realm.
Lloyd shakes his head. No. The father he knew, the father he remembers, was purified of the Devourer's venom. Something this version hasn't had happened to him yet.
If he wants that to happen, he's got to get the timeline back in order.
He's got to get on that wall.
The venomari beneath him stirs. Lloyd stuns it with an earth attack. The motion causes a group of serpentine to notice his hiding spot. They close in on him without rush, confident in their power and number.
Lloyd's faced villains like this in his sleep. He smirks at them and claps his hands. A ring of ice shoots out from him, followed closely by a ring of fire that turns the whole thing into steam. The serpentine cry out. He takes advantage of the distraction to sprint out of his alcove and into the open. A quick stomp against the ground has a wall of rock caging them in, and then it's up the wall using handholds that hollow themselves out at the brush of his fingers.
He catapults on top of the wall. Snakes scream in surprise. Lloyd takes them out with quick blasts of energy. He sees Garmadon turn above him at the commotion and darts behind one of the looming snake statues.
When Garmadon glances down, he finds nothing. The snakes have all been knocked off the wall.
One more wall. Lloyd scales the statue, landing softly on the same level as Garmadon. He lightens his steps and approaches. Garmadon is confident- secure in his knowledge that no idiot would try and take the megaweapon from him. It gleams in his hand, held laxly off-balance.
Lloyd, however, is an idiot. He takes a running jump and dives for the weapon.
The battlefield shrinks down to just them.
The sun casts his shadow across his target.
Garmadon's face turns in slow motion.
Lloyd's fingers close around cool metal. He seizes it tightly, hugging the shaft towards his chest. The momentum of his jump rips the weapon free from Garmadon's hands and sends him careening to the ground. He has just enough presence of mind to cushion his fall with an eruption of sand.
Garmadon gawks. Lloyd grins. And then-
Pain. It flashes down his arms, burning like lightning. It's nothing like he's ever felt before. Nothing he's ever held. It's the power of the First Spinjitzu Master highly concentrated down into its elemental form, and the rawness burns more than the golden power did. He screams, arms shaking.
"Megaweapon," he tries, like the other ninja coached him to say, but the words won't come out. "Mega- augh!"
Pain splinters through his arms. He's crying now. He has to be. He thinks- this is it. This is how he goes.
Then-
Something tugs at the weapon. Lloyd shouts, or at least tries to. The sound rips from his throat like a sob. He clings to the weapon, but his arms shake and his fingers are numb and it slides easily through his hands as if he wasn't even trying to resist.
But the weapon isn't taken. It's pulled toward the ground, like some weight is attached to it, but though it slips from one of his hands he's allowed to keep his other wrapped around it.
The pain eases.
Lloyd forces his eyes open. His sight is blurry. His eyes throb in their sockets. Squinting through his tears, he sees- blond hair?
Small fingers cling to the other end of the megaweapon. Kid Lloyd has his arms wrapped around the staff, hugging it close to his chest. He lifts his head, and tears are streaming down his cheeks, but he glares defiantly at Lloyd through them.
"See!" he shouts. "I knew that you'd need me!"
Lloyd chokes on a gasp. "I guess you're right," he says, wheezing something that could be laughter. He traces the tear tracks down his double's face. Kid Lloyd grins watery at him.
Another wave of pain jolts through their arms. Kid Lloyd screams. Lloyd grits his teeth and rides it out. He makes eye contact with kid Lloyd and sees the same determination reflected back at him.
He breathes out a single, steadying breath. "Okay. On the count of three."
They stand the megaweapon up between them, the head pointing at the sky. "I wish to create the power to fix the timelines and send me home!" Lloyd shouts, kid Lloyd's voice ringing out a second after his own.
For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the ground trembles. A beam of light leaps from the head of the megaweapon, almost playful in the way it twists and weaves around their bodies. A golden portal opens up in front of them, swirling and sparking with glitter.
Lloyd's grip on the megaweapon loosens. It clatters to the ground, but the spell still holds. The rest of the battlefield melts into the background as he approaches the portal. He brushes his fingers against the shimmering light, feeling power that is gentle and careful caressing his fingers.
"It's beautiful," kid Lloyd breathes.
Lloyd stares into the light. His hand drops to his side again, fingernails biting dully into his palms. Standing in the face of the portal, everything that was only speculation becomes suddenly and viscerally real. He's going home.
He's going home, and leaving these ninja behind. For good.
"You've got to keep an eye on Cole," he's suddenly saying, spinning around and seeking wildly for his younger self. "He gets stuck in his head, you know? And sometimes he needs someone to draw him out again. Zane too." He's babbling, he knows it. The words tumble out of his mouth like vomit. "And Nya and Kai would rather eat a live bomb than talk about how they really feel, so make sure that you talk to them, alright? And Jay-"
There's a soft pressure on his hand. Small fingers wrap around his palm and squeeze. "I know," kid Lloyd says. His voice is gentle; he doesn't seem upset that Lloyd is giving him a hysterical lecture in the middle of a battlefield. "It's okay," he says, and his smile is so gentle and understanding that Lloyd feels like crying again but for a different reason. "You don't need to keep looking back. We all end up okay in the end, right?"
Looking at his younger self, so hopeful and kind and determined, Lloyd thinks he sees why the other ninja kept him around so long.
The other ninja aren't here. Lloyd spies their cacophony of colors on the wall above them, hears them holding Garmadon and his snakes back with a sword at his throat. They're too busy, too far away to say goodbye to.
But Lloyd- Lloyd's gonna see them again in a moment, anyway, isn't he.
There's only one person here that he's never going to see after today.
Lloyd drops to his knees. He reaches for his kid self and pulls him into a crushing hug. Kid Lloyd chokes, body awkwardly stiff. He stands there and lets Lloyd hug him, and after a moment, Lloyd feels a tentative hand come up to rest on his shoulder.
"You're right," Lloyd whispers into his hair. "It's all going to be alright, isn't it?"
The portal hums behind him. Lloyd can hear it speeding up, hears it swirling faster and faster with each second that passes. It's letting him know.
It's time to go.
Lloyd squeezes his younger self one last time, trying to put into the hug everything he doesn't have time to say out loud. When he draws back, kid Lloyd smiles at him. It scrunches up his eyes and lifts his cheeks. Lloyd smiles back, not caring how red his eyes or how swollen his cheeks must be.
"You're gonna do great, kiddo," he says firmly, gripping his shoulders. "You're doing such a great job already. I'm so proud of you."
Lloyd drops his hands from his younger self. He turns to face the portal and breathes in. Out. Kid Lloyd is still smiling at him, eyes shiny, but he stands proudly all by himself in the middle of the battlefield. That is the last push that Lloyd needs.
Breath in.
One step.
Breath out.
Two steps.
Lloyd walks. He walks, and he doesn't look back, and he keeps walking until he steps right through the curtain of gold.
The glitter swallows him up. His vision whites out with light.
Around him, the noise of the battlefield puffs out like a soft exhale.
Lloyd cracks open his eyes.
He's standing in the middle of a large room. The floor is warm wood beneath his feet, a far cry from the freezing concrete of their first crappy apartment. Pre-morning light filters in through a window, unobstructed by other buildings or passing traffic. Against the far wall, one large bed sits with a giant lumpy shape taking up the entire center.
A giddy smile breaks across Lloyd's face. He kicks off his boots and throws them to the floor. They tumble to a stop near a discarded hoodie with a scorched sleeve.
Lloyd takes a running leap. He flops on top of the lump, landing spread eagle in the center. Someone shrieks- Jay. Lloyd laughs out loud as he tries to buck him off, effectively waking the rest of the crew.
"What the heck? Lloyd?" That's Kai's voice, heavy and rough with sleep. And now Nya's stirring on his other side, coughing and trying to spit a piece of hair out of her mouth.
"Who is this gremlin and what has he done to Lloyd?" she grouses. "Kai?"
"Before sunrise he's your son," Kai says into his pillow.
Lloyd lets his full body weight drop on top of them. The bed is warm. He wants nothing more than to snuggle in. "Did you miss me?" he presses.
"Miss you?" comes Jay's voice. "You got up, like, two minutes ago to use the bathroom. Of course I didn't miss you. If anything, I appreciated the opportunity to let my poor appendix breathe without your bony knee cap digging into it-"
"Uuuuugh," Nya groans, cutting him off mid-sentence. She rolls over and tries to smother him with a pillow. "Shhh. No."
"But-"
"No."
"Motormouth," comes Zane's amused -synthesized- whisper from the edge of the bed.
Jay gasps. "So what if I am?" he demands. "Just because you've been blessed with the ability to have perfect vocabulary for any given situation doesn't mean the rest of us can also come out and just say what they mean…"
Nya raises one eyebrow at Lloyd. "Look at what you've done," her eyebrow raise says.
A light clicks on from the doorway. Cole stands there, misty green and translucent, a rumpled-up roll of reports in his hand.
"What is going on in here?" He does a double-take. "And what on earth are you wearing?" Cole looks him up and down with a confused-but-amused furrow to his brows. "Is… this one of our old gis? Were you rooting around in storage again, kiddo?"
Lloyd doesn't answer him. He focuses on burrowing into the blankets, finding -forcing- a space for himself near the center of the puppy pile. The ninja groan, but adjust for him all the same. Sandwiched between Kai's naturally-warm body and Zane's cooler, metal one, he doesn't think he's ever been happier.
He makes grabby hands for Cole. Usually the earth ninja is self-conscious of himself, but this time he only makes a token noise of protest before he's pulled, hovering, on top of them.
"What's got you in such a good mood, squirt?" asks Jay. "I mean, I like pooping as much as the next person, but this is a bit of an overreaction."
Nya's sleepy laugh rises from Lloyd's other side. "You like pooping as much as the next person? Dork."
Jay makes a faux noise of outrage.
"Nothing," Lloyd says. "Just… glad we're all here. Together."
There's a rock, heavy in his pocket, and over a month's worth of stories to share. Lloyd smiles, burying his face deeper into the puppy pile. There'll be time later. Right now, all he wants is to be here.
Outside of the window, the sun is rising.
Holy cow everyone, thank you for sticking with this fic till the end! I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing :D