3rd Person POV at School

About 10 minutes of riding later, Morro pulled up to the high school and took Aeria's helmet from her as she got off.

"Have a good day, Riri." Morro gave his sister a side hug calling her by the nickname their mom used, before he revved the engine and rode off to work.

"I'll try…" She mumbled to herself as she watched her brother leave, knowing that he knew today was the day of the accident a year ago.

Pulling it out from her backpack and putting away Lloyd's present in her jacket's inner pocket for safekeeping, she went into the school to look for her friends.

A few minutes of walking through the halls, she saw up ahead that all her friends, Kai, Jay, Cole, Nya, Zane, and Xia, were all gathered around Lloyd, Kai, Xia, and Zane having wished him happy birthday already from the way he was clutching his arms.

As Aeria was making her way over to them, she saw that the cheerleaders were also on their way over to Lloyd, no doubt to make fun of him again.

"Not again…" She mumbled as hurried over there.

"Hey, everyone, look!" The head cheerleader Chen started to mock them, "It's Garma-dork and the dork squad! You wanna hear our new cheer?"

?"L-L-O-Y-D.

His dad is bad and so is he.

Boo, Lloyd!

Boo, Lloyd!

Boo, Lloyd!"?

"Great chant! I'll bet you got a number one hit on your hands." Lloyd let it slide, or tried to at least, with a slightly forced grin.

"Or you guys can be number one to leave or you get hit." Aeria announced from behind them as she punched her fist to her palm, scaring the cheerleaders.

"Let's go before the Garma-freak sics us!" Chen and his posse ran away with their pom-poms waving in the air.

"Too bad her Mommy and Daddy aren't here to ground her." Aeria could hear one of the cheerleaders and she just scoffed while rolling her eyes before going over to her friends.

"Thanks, those guys were getting annoying." Nya thanked Aeria as she went to give her a fist bump.

"Indeed." Xia added with a stiff nod.

"No problem, no one treats my friends like that and gets away with it." Aeria declared in a dark voice, making everyone, but Cole, lean back slightly.

"I'm simultaneously flattered and terrified." Jay cowered further behind Cole as he continued to listen to his boombox the whole time.

"And that last comment was a serious blow, you alright?" Cole asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Aeria responded a bit pointedly causing no further questions to be asked about the obviously painful matter.

"Aeria, hey…!" Lloyd waved a bit awkwardly to his friend.

"Hey," Aeria went over to Lloyd and pulled out her present and card before saying, "Happy Birthday Lloyd." She handed them to him with a smile.

"W-wow thanks I uhh…" Lloyd thanked her but was interrupted from saying anything more when the school bell rang.

"Uh I better get to Physics, see you guys later." Aeria waved to the rest of the group before walking away to her class.

"Can't believe she threatened Chen like that, she rocked." Cole complimented impressed.

"I can't believe he actually ran away." Jay admitted.

"He must have believed Aeria was actually going to make him sick."

"That's not what he meant Zane."

"Then of what sickness did he mean?"

"Nothing Xia…"

All his friends' voices blended in the background as Lloyd watched Aeria leave and disappear around a hallway corner with a lopsidedly shy smile on his face.

After a few seconds, he looked down to the present and card in his hand, also looking to his right wrist where the bracelet she made him a year ago was still attached, the leather a bit scuffed in a few spots and the beads were slightly scratched, but still intact.

He thought about the day she gave him the bracelet until he felt someone pound on his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"C'mon Lloyd we gotta get to class too." Kai reminded him, patting his shoulder as they all walked off to their class.

Short Time Skip

As the teacher was lecturing on the importance of social studies, Lloyd decided to open Aeria's gift.

Looking down at the present in his hand, he opened the card with a green swirled cover first; inside, the quote "Friends become our chosen family" was written in purple handwriting with the team's respective colors in decorative swirls around it and little, color-coded comments from everyone.

"Aeria made the card, but we all signed it." Jay whispered from the seat next to him.

"Wow…" Lloyd whispered seeing how much detail was put into the card, but right before he could open the box, sirens were heard from outside making the teacher drop her pointer stick and say,

"Uh-oh. It's Garmadon!"

"Thanks, Lloyd." All the students chorused from behind him sarcastically.

"You know what to do. Duck and cover!" All the students did as they were told, but Nya, Xia, Zane, Cole, Kai, Jay, and Lloyd all jumped up raising their hands and asking in unison,

"Can I have a bathroom pass?"

"I think you mean, 'May I.' 'May I have a bathroom pass?' You know what? Do whatever you want." The teacher tried to correct them from where she was cowering under her desk before she relented and let them go.

"Come on, come on!" Kai yelled excitedly as they all ran out, or in Nya, Xia, and Zane's cases rolled out, as they arrived to their lockers, they saw that Aeria was already there, leaning against them before she jokingly asked,

"What took you guys so long?" Before they all put their hands together and announced,

"Ninja, go!"

"Ninja team, shout out your call signs." Lloyd shouted out to everyone as they all went to their respective mechs after changing into their gi's and their computer system prepared their mechs (computer speech will be bold).

"Kai, light it up!"

"Whoo! Fire mech! So ninja!" Kai announced from his mech that got up off a giant chair and prepped its blasters.

"Fire mech ignited."

"All right, take it away, sis!" Kai told Nya as she jumped up to her Water Strider mech that was perched on the ceiling of their headquarters.

"Water mech. Ready and standing by."

"Zane and Xia! Your turn, guys!"

"Ice mech." Zane and Xia chorused as Zane was seated at the steering wheel of the Ice Tank Mech while Xia sat in the back where she controlled the ice blasters.

"Loading. Loading. Loading…" Zane and Xia's eyes blipped out to loading icons before they announced,

"Ready!"

"Ready, Jay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got this. Lightning mech, ready." Jay struggled a bit to get into his Lighting Jet Mech, but managed to get in before pulling down his hood, "Wait! No, not ready. Ready."

"Cole, do you wanna kick Garmadon's butt?" Nya asked Cole as he finished tying his hair up and let his one-wheeled Quake Mech lift him into the cockpit where his turntables were waiting.

"Earth mech."

"Turntables at 33 and a third RPM."

"Ready and standing by." Cole laid down a track as the lights in his mech changed colors.

"Ari, you ready for some action?"

"Let's throw caution to the wind." Aeria declared after she parkoured her way up to her purple Dragonfly Mech, which was parked right next to Nya's mech.

"Wind mech, ready and standing by."

"Green Ninja. Ready and standing by." Lloyd announced from his green dragon with gold highlights mech.

Everyone finished preparing as Cole intensified the music for dramatic effect.

"All ninjas, hit it!" Lloyd's mech blew out some green flames and everyone drove, flew, or swam their mechs out of the recycling center to battle.

"All right, ninjas, follow me!"

"As long as we have these mechs, we're unstoppable!" Jay announced excitedly as he and Aeria flew through the roof out into the open air.

"If we were the Beatles, you would be John, you would be Paul, you would be George, and I would be their computer." Zane told the guys as they all rolled out.

As the gang headed toward the city, the people were running around in a frenzied panic yelling and screaming to stay away from certain places that had already been invaded by Garmadon's forces, until the ninja came in and started to destroy a couple of the enemies' machines as they made their way through the city in their giant mechs: Cole, Zane, Xia, Kai, and Nya on the ground while Jay, Lloyd, and Aeria flew through the air.

Lloyd waved down to the citizens as they all cheered enthusiastically and one child could be heard yelling,

"We love you, Green Ninja!" Which seemed to give Lloyd a sense of pride as he began to direct his team,

"Jay and Aeria, you guys take the air."

"10-4, good buddy." Jay announced from his position over the city.

"Got it." Aeria responded as she stunned two henchmen who were attacking a hot dog stand with her dragonfly's tail blaster.

"And take it easy on the stun blasts!"

"Fine…"

"Nya, water."

"It's a dangerous and fascinating environment." Nya stated as she made her mech do a full flip over a bridge on the water.

"I know, right?"

"Kai, Zane, Xia, and Cole, you guys take downtown."

"Already here, dude. Taking some heavy fire." Kai responded making his mech dodge enemy fire.

"Hold on, Kai. I got you covered!" Cole came to Kai's aid by making his Quake Mech smash the ground sending a shockwave to the mini shark mechs, "Have you heard my latest track? It's a smash."

"Thanks, Cole."

"Jay, you've got bogeys on your six."

You've also got them on your three, one, seven, five, six, eight, nine, and two.

"Oh, crabs! Crabs!" Jay yelped as Garmadon's flying forces tried to strike him down using crabs.

"Get your affairs in order, Lightning Ninja!" The lead of the force yelled to Jay until Aeria flew her dragonfly over and yelled,

Hang on buddy, I got you... Aeria thought as she flew her mech around Jay.

"You mess with my friends, you get the stinger!" She yelled, knocking some of the flyers away to follow her before she stunned all their drivers, but some still stuck to Jay.

"Ah! I gotta charge up my supersonic dynamo. Come on, charge!" Jay yelled at the charge meter in front of him to hurry up, "Charge! Hurry up! Charge, charge, charge! Charge! Hurry up! Charge, charge! Clear!"

Every henchman within the range of Jay's sonic glider were electrocuted as he and everyone continued to defeat Garmadon's forces one by one.

"Whoo-hoo! Whoo! Bam!" Nya called out as she and her mech dove through the air to crash and destroy several shark mechs in a row.

"Zane, you are the man!" Kai complimented Zane after he and Xia managed to freeze out several crabs in a sliding move.

"Yes. I'm a normal human teenager."

"And Xia you're... the woman?"

"I am an ordinary adolescent female."

"Nice work, guys. I'm going after Garmadon." Lloyd announced to the gang before he noticed that a crab mech was trying to jostle a school bus off the highway.

"Somebody help us!"

"Classmates, hold on."

"I got your back, Lloyd." Aeria told him over the comms as she directed her mech to the crab and used her Stun Laser on the first crab to temporarily paralyze the driver while Lloyd sent a few missiles their way. Unfortunately, the missile explosion was all it took for the school bus to be pushed off.

"Oh, no!" Lloyd made his mech dive down toward the falling school bus. Aeria watched as the kids inside screamed as they fell, the memory of the crash flashing through her mind right before Lloyd caught the bus in his mech's claws and set it back down on the road, the crowd watching them cheering,

"N-I-N-J-A!"

"N-I-N-J-A! Ninjas!"

The kids inside cheering joyously as one child looked out the window in admiration and thanked Lloyd,

"Thank you, Green Ninja!"

"You're our hero!"

"I wanna be him when I grow up!"

"Hey, Lloyd, your dad… I mean, uh… Garmadon's almost at the mayor's office!" Kai informed Lloyd as Garmadon's shark mech was stomping through the street towards the mayor's office.

"I'm on it. Ari, you got me?"

"Huh… Y-yeah, right behind you." Aeria shook out of her daze and popped open her mech window to ready her bow for use.

"We've got you surrounded, Garmadon."

"You're too slow, Green Ninja." Garmadon made his shark mech scurry around the city, settling behind a building but with its tail sticking out, "You can't catch me. Where am I? Am I over here? Or am I over there?"

"You are right behind that building. I can see your shark tail sticking out."

"Oh, let me grab that. Where's Garmadon now?" Garmadon tried to make his voice sound like it was echoing from around Lloyd and Aeria, but they both looked at each other in disbelief, Aeria rolling her eyes around and waving her hands around her head in a "cuckoo" motion making Lloyd smile under his hood as Garmadon continued his charade,

"Am I over here, here, here? Or am I over there, there, there, there? It's like a house of mirrors in here. I-is your ninja friend mocking me?!"

"Uhhh… do you think you're hiding right now? Do you actually think we can't see you?" Lloyd got the attention off of Aeria by asking his dad right before he made his mech pop out from behind the building.

"Well, if you can see me, why don't you shoot me?"

"Gladly…" Aeria fired a stun arrow as Lloyd launched a small missile at his dad's mech, Aeria missed, but not Lloyd.

"Ow! That was, like, in my kidney!"

"Why do you want to conquer Ninjago so badly?" Lloyd demanded to know before Garmadon responded,

"Because there's something very, very special here."

"What...?" Lloyd's eyes widened a bit at the thought that maybe his dad cared more about him than he thought.

"I'm gonna let the walls down for just a second, Green Ninja… and Purple Ninja?"

"Violet!"

"Go... Go on." Lloyd interrupted Aeria's protest as Garmadon continued,

"About 16 years ago, I lost something I should have never given up..."

"What is it? Just say it. It's okay, you can say it."

"I had this guitar in college, and I traded it stupidly for, like, a jacket or something."

"Seriously?" Aeria questioned with a half-lidded glare.

"What? I legitimately thought I could play an instrument, but it turned out I'm actually not that musically inclined." Garmadon admitted to Aeria, making Lloyd ask in disbelief,

"That's what you were referring to?"

"Yeah. What else would I be referring to?"

"I don't know. Maybe something else. Think about it."

"What? No!"

"Are you sure there's not any other sort of connection you have to the city? Nothing?"

"There is someone in the city I love very much."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I remember when I first laid eyes on him."

"Go on."

"The last time I saw him was, uh, I guess about 16 years ago, too."

"Yeah?"

"I was just an irresponsible kid and…"

"Uh-huh."

"There was this… guy who made, probably, the best sushi I've ever had in my life. You never knew what was coming next. And you didn't even order. It was one of those places where you don't even get a menu."

"Omakase." Lloyd supplied helpfully despite his initial frustration.

"Is that the name of the place?"

"No, that just means he brings it to you…"

"That is!"

"That's the name of the place."

"...and you don't choose, he chooses."

"That's the place."

"Omakase."

"Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the uni roll." Aeria muttered, but Garmadon heard her and told them,

"Right?! They say you have to develop a refined palette to eat that stuff but it's just gross." Garmadon turned up his nose and pinched his hand up in a snobbish manner as he said that sentence.

"Aaaanyways," Lloyd rolled his eyes to look over to Aeria as she lifted her hands and shoulders in a shrugging motion before asking, "just to clarify, nothing, nothing else, if you really racked your brain, there's no other connection?"

"Yes. There was a boy that I had in my life."

"W-what happened to your child?"

"He was bald, had no teeth, couldn't chew, always crying, couldn't walk. Couldn't even walk. I mean, I was like, 'What are we gonna do with this kid?' I'll tell you now that I would've traded him for another kid, maybe your little purple friend here since she seems to get along just fine on her own without friends."

"What?!" Aeria shouted in disbelief before looking over to Lloyd as his anger started to boil over to where he yelled and pressed a red button on his console engaging Mega Missile Mode,

Mega missile mode.

Right claw missile.

Left claw missile.

Feet bombs.

Tongue rocket.

Spine missile one, two, three, four.

Tail rocket, one, two...

Eye missile.

Other eye missile.

Toenail missile.

Wrist Rocket.

Head missile.

Other head missile.

Backup head missile.

Metacarpal missile.

Butt torpedoes.

The explosion on Garmadon's shark mech made his henchmen's mechs fly back as well, signaling for the other ninja to come over to their leader and team member.

"Really? I can't stun a few henchmen and you get to blow up your own dad?" Aeria questioned Lloyd with another half-lidded stare. Until they turned back to see that Garmadon was alive and well with a bubble having shielded him from the blasts.

"Jeez, where did that come from? I did not see that coming." Garmadon made his mech rise out of the pit the missile strikes made before coughing and waving some smoke away,

"Your missiles are very accurate, Green Ninja. Too bad for you, I upgraded all of my shields! That's all I seem to have at the moment, just some upgraded shields." Garmadon muttered the last sentence a bit dejectedly while fiddling with a broken lever on his consoles.

"Face it, Garmadon. You will never take over Ninjago, so why don't you just give up and go away for good?" Lloyd declared out loud.

"Well, anything's open for discussion. Oh, yeah, except that. Shields down!" Garmadon turns off his shield long enough to chuck a mini cherry bomb out before reengaging the shield, "Here, catch! Shields up!"

"No!" Lloyd fumbled with the bomb in midair before it fell to his mech.

"Did you see that?!" Garmadon cackled in mockery, his henchmen following suit, before he asked,

"I mean, who taught you how to catch, man?"

"Nice catch, loser!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, take this!" Lloyd picked up the bomb and tried to throw it forward, but it somehow got thrown backward, falling down the tail of his mech to the ground.

"That's amazing! Who taught you how to throw?"

"It's funny you ask. Um, no one, because I, uh… I never had a dad to play catch with me." Lloyd responded pointedly.

"HAHA Well, it shows. 'Cause that was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life."

"Or, uh, you know, teach me how to ride a bike, or shave… Maybe tell a girl I like how I really feel about her…-"

*KABOOM*

"Or how to defuse a bomb!"

"You know what's funny? Is I know how to do all those things."

"Do you?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, good to know."

"And they're just sitting there, idle in my brain. Just wasted. Floating away. Never taught them to anybody."

"Mm-hmm."

"And they'll probably die with me."

"Really?"

"When I die, if I die."

"Just leave Ninjago already…" Lloyd finally lost his patience and yelled to his father in anger.

"Which will never happen."

"...please!"

"I will never die."

"And get out of my life!"

"I… Get out of your life? Garmadon paused before scoffing and asking,

"Weirdly kinda personal, isn't it?"

"Uh-oh." Jay commented from his mech in the sky.

"Oh, man." Kai put a hand to his forehead, not wanting to see what happened next.

"Um… N-no." Lloyd managed to stammer out.

"You've got a lot of issues, Green Ninja. I hope you get the chance to work 'em all out by the time I'm back." Garmadon's henchmen lifted his shark mech out of the hole and flew him away as he called out behind him to the ninja, "And when I return, I'll have something really wicked in store for you. Something big!"

"Uh, did he just say he's coming back?" One man asked as he popped his head out from the rubble.

"Can't those Ninjas get rid of him for good?" Another person commented.

"Oh, great. Now I have to rebuild my Pilates studio."

"That stinks."

"I don't know how, but I bet Lloyd Garmadon has something to do with this."

"You can sure say that again."

"I don't know how…"

The ninja finally got the cue to leave and they all drove their mechs towards the recycling center, but Aeria stayed back a little bit to watch Garmadon leave to his volcano lair, trying to figure out what his plan would be when a voice called up to her,

"Hey, shouldn't you be gone already, Purple Ninja?" The police officer asked, making Aeria glare her signature glare before stunning him and saying as she flew her mech away,

"Violet!"