3rd Person POV
After escaping the Village of Fired General Number One's, the ninja and Garmadon figured it would take a while to get to the Temple so Nya decided she would take the first shift of flying while the others lounged around the ship. Aeria was sitting on the tail of the helicopter, just out of the way of the propellers, looking at the small cluster of lights that was Ninjago, wondering how her brother was doing when Lloyd came over to her and sat down next to her.
"I'm sure he's fine..." Lloyd assured her as if reading her mind.
"I know, it's just… *sigh* I never really knew that much about my parents than I thought I did. I thought they were the perfect, happy couple who everyone envied since they were 'made for each other', but now I find out my dad was an element master and he kept that from me and my brother, maybe even my mom..."
"Wow that's uh… some pretty heavy stuff..." Lloyd admitted.
"I mean it's my own fault for thinking everyone in my family is perfect when we're...not…and now I don't know what to think or believe anymore..."
"You see the best in people and that's nothing to be ashamed of, I know all these family secrets may be hard to handle and trust me they don't get any easier the more you learn, but like you wrote in that card, 'Friends become our chosen family' and we'll be here to help you through that stuff, the way family does… or should have." Lloyd grumbled the last part under his breath, but Aeria smiled ruefully and slid her hand out from under Lloyd's to place it on top to say,
"You gotta admit he is making a lot of progress as a dad."
"I guess, but where was all this when I was growing up?" Lloyd asked a bit moodily.
"Well, you have the chance now."
"Switch!" Nya called out from her seat next to Garmadon for the next shift.
"You should take it." Aeria nudged his side while motioning with her head to take the next shift and Lloyd smiled his 'alright alright I got it' smile.
"I'm coming!" He announced as he got up and went to switch with Nya.
"Least I got some quiet time now." Aeria whispered to herself reaching a hand up to stroke her hair out of her face when she noticed that her mom's hair clip was missing.
"Oh no..." Aeria hopped off the tail and back onto the main center of the helicopter as eyes started to tear up, panicking while searching the floor for any trace of a purple sparkle.
"Am I correct to assume you are looking for this?" Xia came up to Aeria with her hand outstretched. In her palm rested the jeweled dragonfly and Aeria sighed before taking it and clipping her bangs back up.
"Thanks Xi." Aeria thanked her gratefully.
"You are welcome, Riri. It fell to the ground after you tackled the woman who attacked Lloyd."
"Well I'm glad your mechanical eyes saw it or I would have never noticed." Aeria gave her friend a hug before she rolled back over to her brother to plug back into the wall.
Aeria looked over to the driver and passenger seat to see Lloyd talking to his dad and smiled before gazing off into the distance again.
3rd Person POV
"Hey, La Loyd, let me show you how to fly this thing. Hands, 10 and two." Garmadon tried to teach his son motioning with his hands the positions.
"I build and drive mechs all the time. I think I'm good." Lloyd told his dad after chuckling a bit.
"Oh. Okay. Yeah, you're probably right." Garmadon answered dejectedly and Lloyd noticed the down look on his dad's face as he remembered Aeria's words,
Give him a chance...
"Um... What, uh… What were you saying? 10 and…" Lloyd motioned with his hands, but making sure to keep one hand on the steering wheel.
"Oh, two! 10 and two." Garmadon answered excitedly.
"Two. Two."
"Yeah, just 10 and two."
"Okay, all right, all right."
"That's kind of a rule of thumb in driving." Garmadon explained and Lloyd answered,
"That's good to know."
"And don't forget to check your rear view. You wanna see what's back there. You have blind spots everywhere."
"Rear view, check."
"Keep your eyes peeled. You really wanna be looking ahead."
"Noted, thank you. You want me to really open this thing up?" Lloyd asked excitedly.
"Sure. Yeah, let's see what it can do."
"Okay." Lloyd hit the accelerator and the helicopter went shooting through the sky with unbelievable speed with everyone either whooping in joy or screaming in fear, like Garmadon was doing,
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Okay, that's enough! That's too fast."
Lloyd hit the brakes, making everyone on board lurch forward before continuing at a slower pace over the mountains.
"You didn't like that?" Lloyd asked his dad jokingly.
"I mean, I liked it. If I was driving, I would be fine with it."
"Sure, sure. Right. I felt a little scared. Were you scared?"
"Um, yeah. I'm not gonna lie, I might need a change of armor." Garmadon admitted, a bit mortified.
Lloyd chuckled before they settled back into silence that was shortly broken when his dad asked him,
"So what's the deal with your purple friend?"
"'Violet', dad."
"What's the difference?"
"I don't know, Ari's a bit sensitive about that, but I have no idea why."
"You know what I think?"
"What?"
"It's because her mom loved violet, saying it was 'calmer' than purple."
"Really?"
"Yeah Ronnie told me she hated it when people said there was no difference."
"Yeah… Hey, what were Ari's parents like when they were younger?"
"Where to begin? Ol' Ronnie was a real comedian, always cracking jokes, trying to get people to smile. We met after he was dared to make me smile, he succeeded of course, he called it his 'greatest accomplishment', but he used to say it was because he gained a new friend that day."
"He was really an element master?"
"Oh yeah, one of the best I'd ever known, he discovered he was an element master when we went mountain climbing and I almost fell. This was before I was bitten by the snake that was bitten by a spider." Garmadon held up his four hands in a climbing motion.
"Uh huh suuuuure..." Lloyd told him in a joking skeptical manner.
"Anyways, I was so sure I was a goner, but when I opened my eyes, Ronnie's holding his hand out toward me, controlling the wind to where I flew right over his head and landed safely at the top of the mountain."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"Coooool, and Ari's mom?"
"She was... something else, she and your mom were best friends as kids but she moved away along with Ronnie a few years before your mom and I met. When we all met back up for a short while, just long enough for their wedding, I could tell she and Ronnie were perfect for each other the way few opposites could be to each other."
"I guess that's why Ari grew up with that mentality about them…"
"How did they… you know…?" Garmadon asked sadly.
"The four of them got into a car accident on the one freeway leading into Ninjago last year."
"On what day?"
"Why?"
"No reason…" Garmadon looked away in clear discomfort before reminding his son, "I want you to guard the brake a little bit."
"Okay, okay, got it, got it." Lloyd listened, a little miffed that his dad was avoiding the subject, but it went away as he focused on getting to know him in the now.
"You're doing great, buddy, this is going real... Goat!" No sooner than he shouted it, Lloyd saw the goat on the mountaintop and pulled on the steering wheel to change course.
"Goat, goat, goat!"
Unfortunately, the back of the copter hit the mountain, narrowly missing the goat as it ran away, and steering it off course as it stopped in midair and crashed down onto a flat plane.
After skidding to a halt on the edge of the plane, everyone breathed a sigh of relief until it tilted down the edge further, cuing everyone to get out as fast as they could
"Guys!" Aeria cried out as her leg got tangled in the wires that the lanterns were hung on and was about to go down with the ship until Lloyd rapidly pulled her out and the ship balanced out again as the two of them made it back to the others.
"Is everyone okay?" Lloyd asked everyone else.
"Not really..." Jay admitted until Nya gave him a hug and he perked up a bit, but only a little as they all set their sights on the giant temple in front of them.
"Huh?" Everyone gasped as Garmadon introduced,
"Behold, the Temple of Fragile Foundations."
Right before a loud rumble from underfoot caught their attention and everyone struggled to stay upright before it stopped.
"The helicopter crash has destabilized the entire area. And I'm not blaming anyone, but if I ever see that goat again, he and I are gonna have words. And you can bet some of those words are gonna have four letters. And I'm not talking about 'goat.'" Garmadon huffed before fixing his cloak and they all started walking, or in Jay's case crawling, up the stairs leading up to the temple.
"This is my new least place I've ever been." Jay whimpered as they finally reached the front doors.
"I've spent a lot of time here, and trust me, doesn't get any better." Garmadon told them.
"Wait a minute. So, you know this place?" Lloyd questioned as he looked at the giant, looming front doors.
"Who doesn't know... their childhood home?" Garmadon answered as he brushed away some dust from a welcome mat that read "The Garmadons."
Everyone gasped before he stated,
"Yeah, this place is so unstable I had to move to a volcano just to feel safe."
Before pulling up the mat to reveal a key underneath,
"For once using a cliched idea actually pays off." Aeria shrugged before Garmadon gestured forward,
"Well, shall we?"
After unlocking the door, the doors creaked open to reveal a dark space inside that looked endless and foreboding.
"Stay close. I will lead you through this perilous…"
"Oh, look, a light switch." Jay flipped a switch to reveal a surprisingly normal looking home, "Do you guys have a bathroom I could use?"
"Nope."
"Fresh fruit! Finally, food!" Nya rushed forward to the bowl of fruit that was set in the middle of a table.
"I'm starving!" Jay agreed until the sound of crunching came from Nya as she tried to take a bite out of an apple,
"Ow! I think I chipped a tooth."
"Yeah, my parents were really into plastic fruit."
"Whoa! Check out those old photos." Cole pointed to the wall where various old photos were hung up.
"Look at that!" Jay pointed to a photo of Wu and Garmadon as babies, Wu already with his signature hat and beard, while Garmadon had a small patch of black hair on his head and was bawling his eyes out, and everyone started commenting,
"Aw! They're so cute!"
"Look at his baby goatee!"
"I mean, Master Wu looks like a really old man."
"He even schooled you back then." Cole pointed to another picture of Wu defeating Garmadon in a tournament with both his arms behind his back and Ronnie in the background wincing.
"Pfft whatevz. Come on, let's go find the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon." Garmadon pushed the ninja along before Lloyd stopped at a photo of him as a baby, and his dad and a warrior lady were smiling down at him.
"Wait. That's... That's you. And that's…" Lloyd realized who the lady was right as Nya gasped and announced,
"It's Lady Iron Dragon, my hero!"
"Yes, Lady Iron Dragon, aka La Loyd's mom." Garmadon confirmed his son's thoughts.
"Wait, what? Mom was a ninja?"
"That's right. She was the most awesome ninja warrior I'd ever seen..."
Aeria's POV
As Garmadon started explaining how he met Koko, I wandered around the house, looking for any clue that would lead to the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon, still mocking the name in my head. I made it to a room where there was a bed on one side of the room, a fish tank, and a desk with a black colored journal.
On the wall, a picture of a young Garmadon and a boy with black hair with an orange stripe in it caught my eye.
"Dad?" I pried the photo off the wall and pulled the wedding photo I had out of my pocket to compare the two and realized that my dad must've hid his highlight for the wedding, but it was definitely him in the photo with Garmadon.
"Orange? Is that even possible, then again are green and purple really any more natural?" I asked myself as I fingered my own highlight and thought about my brother's.
"This must be Garmadon's room… hmm I was expecting more lava and maybe some skeletons." I looked around and my gaze fell on the book on the desk in the corner. I picked it up, only for another photo to fall out from its pages: one where my dad and Garmadon were posing in front of the Destiny's Bounty with their arms over their shoulders and Wu in the background, looking at them with a rueful smile. I smiled myself before looking to the book and contemplating whether or not I should read it,
"Ari?" I jumped a bit at Kai's voice and quickly tucked the book away into the pocket of my gi before turning to him,
"What are you doing in here?" He questioned crossing his arms.
"Looking for the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon." I answered straightforward.
"Find anything?" Nya asked as she walked in with the others, minus Lloyd and his dad.
"Well, if I wanted to hide something that had the potential to defeat a giant cat, I'd hide it in the least likely place." I put a hand to my chin in thought as I leaned against the bed edge, stumbling a bit when it moved.
"Well how 'bout that?" I pushed the bed frame up to reveal a secret compartment underneath with a chest in it.
"Lloyd! We found the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon!" The others called to Lloyd and Garmadon and within a minute they made it to the rest of us.
"Here, in the bedroom! We think it's in that chest." Zane explained to him.
"Open it, open it, open it!" Jay jumped up and down in excitement.
Lloyd opened the chest to reveal some building pieces within it.
"Whoa!"
"What a bunch of juuuunk." Nya commented.
"Maybe there's something important under it." Jay suggested so they poured the chest out onto the floor, but the pieces didn't look any more important and there was nothing else in the chest.
"This is the Ultimate Ultimate Disappointment."
"That is accurate." Xia stated before Lloyd took a closer look at the pieces and realized,
"No. Wait. There's a piece for each of our elements." He picked up each and handed them to the corresponding team member, the piece glowing for a second in their grasp.
"Fire."
"Whoa!"
"And Earth."
"This rocks!"
"And Water."
"H 2, oh yeah!"
"And Ice."
"Cool."
"And Lightning."
"Ah!"
"And Wind."
"Now I'm really a fan."
"And I'm... Green." Lloyd held up the green piece that looked like a tree branch before awkwardly stuttering out and chuckling, "B-but I'm so happy for you guys hehe Yay..."
Everyone put their pieces back into the chest and we started to head out but Lloyd and Garmadon fell behind so we waited for them so we all waited in the foyer as they seemed to engage in a conversation,
I decided to pull out the journal and read through it, reading about different adventures Garmadon went on with my dad, before the writing changed and it became clear they were written after my dad moved away. Soon, adventures were being replaced by ideas for Ninjago domination and one entry hit me in particular,
"Tested out new missiles on only road leading in or out of Ninjago. Caused mayhem and destruction, but far too weak. Caused only small car crashes."
My blood froze when I looked at the date it was written: one year ago. I wanted to drop the book to the floor in my frozen state until I was snapped out of it by Lloyd pleading,
"Dad, please don't. Come back to Ninjago with me and save the city."
"What?"
I finally looked up to see Garmadon holding the chest with our pieces in it and backing up as everyone approached him.
"What's going on?" I whispered to Xia and she responded,
"Garmadon wants Lloyd to rule Ninjago with him, but he does not seem to agree with that idea."
I looked over to Lloyd as he continued to plead with his father and I looked on, conflicted whether I should feel sorry or angry at them for fighting about this.
"Dad, please, don't go."
"If I couldn't change then, what makes you think I could change now?"
Cole was smacked away with the chest after he and Zane attempted to surround Garmadon, but he fought back.
"No, no." Lloyd urged them to stop, but they didn't as Zane was tossed away,
"Stop!"
"No, no, no!"
"Back off!"
Kai rushed forward to help Zane get the chest away, but they were both punched away with Garmadon's upper arms as the lower ones continued to hold onto the chest.
"No way!" Nya grabbed the chest and tried to tug it away, but was kicked back in the face.
"Hey, that's my sister!" Kai rose back up, fueled by his brotherly instinct, before flipping through the air to land on Garmadon's shoulders,
"Get off my face!"
Kai managed to flip Garmadon to the ground right before Jay snagged the chest from his grips.
"Bam! I got it!"
"Give that back!" Garmadon tossed a swivel stool at him, knocking him down and the chest landed on the ground, where Lloyd picked it up.
"I can help you. We can do it together."
"If you just give me the chest, we can talk about it."
"I can't. You'll just leave." Lloyd managed to toss it away to Xia before his dad swiped his feet off the ground where I helped him up and stayed with him as a full game of keep away had arisen, the winner deciding what would become of our pieces.
"Lloyd, catch it!" Nya readied the chest to be thrown as Garmadon charged toward her.
"Run, Lloyd! Run!"
"Come on!" I hurried right behind him as he readied to try and catch it.
"I got it! I got it! I got it!" Lloyd swiped his arms in the air too late as the chest landed a few feet away from where he landed on the floor, everyone groaning at his inability to catch.
"Predictable but regrettable."
"Bummer…"
"Don't worry, I'll get it." I notified Lloyd as I ran toward the chest.
"Oh, La Loyd." Garmadon charged right through the others all at once and pushing me back toward Lloyd as he tried to stop his dad, but we ended up butting heads before falling to the ground, only getting back up to see Garmadon about to close the doors with the key in hand saying,
"I should have taught you how to catch."
"No!" Lloyd made it to the door too late as the sound of the lock clicking sounded from the other side. He slid down to the floor, hands still on the door in despair before I helped him back up.
"Lloyd… I-" My sentence was interrupted when the whole building started to shake uncontrollably, signaling that it was about to collapse with us still inside.
"Get outta the way! This whole thing is coming down!" Jay threw himself under a table in a desperate attempt to hide.
"We don't have those pieces." Cole just stood in one place panicking as Kai yelled after avoiding a falling chandelier,
"Yeah, and we don't even have our mechs."
"We're doomed!"
"Oh, no! We're gonna die."
"What do we do?"
"Our chances of survival are 0.00…"
Pretty soon, everyone was huddled on the ground, slowly losing hope that we were going to make it out of this situation alive so I turned to Lloyd.
"Lloyd, what do we do?" I grabbed Lloyd's arms and shook him as he stared off, looking deep in thought before it looked like he realized something,
"Inner peace! Inner piece! Guys. Guys, we don't need those pieces. The Ultimate Ultimate Weapon is inside of you."
"What?" Everyone chorused at once before Lloyd started his speech,
"Yes, you have the power. Look within. Harness what you already have inside and let it out. I believe in each of you. Nya, you can create water. Kai, you can make fire."
"Okay. Alright. I can make a fire." Kai told himself before everyone got up and started doing the Spinjitzu motions as Lloyd continued to encourage us,
"The power is inside of all of you. Now, calm your mind. Concentrate. Build up your powers. Just think about earth, fire, water, wind, ice. And you, Jay, lightning, baby. Do it! Jay, you got the power! Say, 'I've got the power!'"
I looked over to notice that sparks were starting to fly around Jay before he yelled,
"I've got the power!"
And bust through the blocked door like it was nothing, allowing us to get out of the temple
"I've got the power." Cole made some more motions before clapping his hands upward to send out the force of an earthquake strong enough to knock away the falling pieces of ceiling that were about to crush us.
"Good work, Cole. Go, go, go!" Lloyd directed us to the stairs before they were destroyed by some more rubble,
"I've got the power."
"We too, have the power."
Nya and the Ice Twins stepped forward to create a bridge, Nya shooting out water from her fists before the twins froze it into a bridge
"Here we go. Come on, hurry up." Nya directed everyone as we continued to run. When we heard another loud *Boom* behind us, we saw the head of one of the statues rolling toward us.
"What now?" I asked as it got closer.
"Kai, your turn." Lloyd directed.
"Got it. I've got the power!" Kai made a forward punching motion before a clicking sound was heard.
Unfortunately, the head caught on fire and still rolled toward us, causing Kai to start panicking,
"I think I made it worse!"
"My turn! I got the power!"
I thrust a fist forward to send out a wind gust to put out the flames while holding my other hand up to hold the boulder in place with a constant wind vortex circling it.
"Jump, Lloyd. Jump."
"OK I wasn't the only one who heard that right?" I looked behind to see the other still running toward the cliff edge before jumping off. Seconds later, the Destiny's Bounty rose up from below the cliffside.
"Great jump, students." I heard Master Wu's voice through a megaphone and everyone exclaimed before I shouted up,
"Hey aren't you forgetting something?!"
"Aeria, get out of there!" Lloyd leaned over the railing to yell to me.
Nodding, I released the wind vortex and ran to the edge of the cliff before leaping up and using a wind gust to lift me into the air and land on the deck.
"That was awesome!" Lloyd praised before pulling me into a hug.
"Master Wu! You're alive!" I smiled up at our master as Lloyd continued to hug me.
"Of course. I'm a ninja master who lives life on the edge and cheats death at every turn." Wu told us, making the others chorus,
"Wow! Really?"
"No. I thought being dead would make you listen to me more. And I was right."
"Classic 'learn from your elders' move." I smirked a bit as Lloyd finally released me from the hug.
"Master Wu, we found our elemental powers." Jay informed him.
"All because Lloyd wouldn't give up on our training." Cole added.
"Lloyd saved us." Nya praised.
"He also decoded your needlessly cryptic metaphors." Xia added.
"Lloyd, I'm so proud of you. You helped your friends be great. And that makes you truly a ninja master. Now, let's go save the city from the giant kitty." Wu commended his nephew before directing the Bounty to fly toward Ninjago.
While the others prepared themselves for what we would find, I decided to take another look at the journal, steeling myself when I came to the journal entry from last year. I turned the page and the three words that were written before the whole thing ended made me catch my breath,
"I'm sorry Ronnie…"
"What uh whatcha reading there?" Lloyd came up to me and I wiped my eyes before telling him in a cracking voice,
"Your dad caused the accident that killed my parents…"
"What?"
"But I don't think he meant to… Lloyd…" I put my hand on his and I looked him in the eye before continuing, "Your dad has good inside him, it's just…been away for a while, but maybe you can bring it back."
"When we get to Ninjago, I'll do what I have to do…" Lloyd told me with no clue whether he meant that as a good or bad thing before he got called over by Wu.
He'll do the right thing, I know he will… I thought to myself as the city came into view.