Normally, when Monty opened a portal, it would open inside of a building that had people inside of it. The only exception thus far had been when they had arrived in a warehouse, but that had backed up right into Dareth's place, and that no longer existed. Thus, when the portal opened up against a wall that had been half blown apart, the looks of Lloyd and Harumi as they exited into this new place were ones of people that thought something was very, very wrong.
"Is this the right place?" Lloyd asked Monty as both he and Over stepped out of the portal behind them.
"I got Lulloyd and Mage right, so clearly I got you right," Monty crossed his arms and yawned, "Go on. You have things to do. I need to go take care of my own things."
"Like you did when we needed you before?" Harumi frowned, "Don't leave us stranded here. If Prime finds us here…"
"I know what'll happen, I'm more acquainted with the concept of death than you are," Monty rolled his eyes, "Just get what you need to get done. Alright?"
Lloyd and Harumi shared a look, then nodded. Over said nothing, his words already spent on Mage and without need to repeat them. Monty and Over disappeared into the portal, allowing Lloyd and Harumi to turn around and truly take stock of their surroundings.
The building that the two were in wasn't simply missing half the wall, but was rather almost completely destroyed. The concrete framing of the second floor could be seen in the one remaining corner above them, but otherwise most of the building looked as though it'd been blown apart. The only sign that this was, in fact, owned by Dareth was the fact the floor they stood on was brown and tan. Yet even that was covered in chunks of rocky rubble, obscuring a large amount of it.
Without other walls around them to block their view, the view of the immediate street was all they could see. The sky above them was dark with clouds, framing the destroyed street for them. Not one building was left fully standing. The entire street was cracked and split, with part of it sunk into the ground to create a massive ledge between the split pieces. Massive scorch marks were burned into almost every standing structure they could see, radiating outwards from the main street on the pieces that carried the marks.
"Did… something happen here?" Lloyd asked. Harumi slowly got down on one knee and placed her hand against the scorch marks on one of the pieces of rubble in front of them.
"There was an explosion in the street," Harumi assessed, "From the patterns, it looks like multiple ones. It might be bombs," She slowly stood up, "...I, can't believe this is Dareth's Dojo."
Lloyd looked up and pointed to the bit of second floor that remained above them, "We can see it better from up there," Lloyd extended his hand to Harumi. She reached out and took it, allowing Lloyd to twist into Airjitzu and send them shooting up into the air. By now, he'd grown quite used to doing it. Once they landed on the floor, the two looked out into the streets.
Normally, there would be massive buildings that would mean the two couldn't see the entire city. The two were able to look all the way out across the landscape. The very sight was enough to make Lloyd freeze. There was nothing to block their view, because there were no more buildings left standing. All across the city, there was nothing but destruction. Once mighty tall skyscrapers were torn down and left to crumble against the ground. No structure greater than two stories seemed to have survived the destruction. The patterns of blast marks were present all throughout the city. There was hardly anything that even made it look like it was Ninjago City.
"It's… it's been razed to the ground…" Harumi spoke first, breaking the silence, "The whole city…"
"I, I don't understand," Lloyd turned around, seeing that the destruction continued behind him, "None of the places that we've been to have been like.. .like this! Where is everyone?"
Harumi pulled her watch out, scanning the area. The dimensional wavelengths diverged a fair bit from the baseline, but the baseline was still there. This was indeed an alternate version of their world. Yet nothing about it even looked the same. Her watch wasn't able to discern any road layouts or make a rough map due to so many roads being totally covered in fallen builds of concrete and glass. The cloudy sky wasn't anything like Over's unnatural shroud, and indeed a small patch of dampness covered many structures from a recent rain. But wherever they tried to look, there were no signs of life in sight.
"...There!" Lloyd turned and pointed off in the distance. Harumi turned towards it, putting her watch away. A massive washer-shaped structure broke up the landscape of ruin. It appeared to be a massive dome, one that was militaristic in its design. Large doors were spaced out among its perimeter and were set recessed a fair amount inside. Between those doors were the unmistakable sight of massive cannons, spaced out in defensive formations. The structure stood out amongst the ruins both for its size and the lights that poured from the top of it, indicating potential life.
"I think that's where we should go," Lloyd pointed towards it, "That might be where Prime is from."
"Yeah… it, must be," Harumi bit her lip, "I wouldn't have thought Prime would be from a place like this…"
Lloyd didn't want to comment on that. Instead, he moved to once more take Harumi in Airjitzu and help the two get back down to the ground. They slowly climbed their way out of what was once the entrance to the place and down onto the street. While both of them had walked down many streets, ones in both the sky and on the ground, it was unlike anything they'd actually seen before. Even seeing the aftermath of his father's gigantic Oni Titan when it rampaged through Ninjago City was nothing compared to this. That had only damaged what the Titan had struck. This was as if it had been trying to destroy everything that it saw.
The walk towards the large structure took a lot longer than the two had anticipated. Several streets were completely covered by fallen structures, and others had massive holes in them from the impact of them. They ended up having to take several detours. Lloyd's Airjitzu could only take them so high, and Harumi had instead asked him to save his energy. Their elemental dragons would be too flashy on the approach, and draw too much attention. Thus, the trek that it took to go through the rubble was far more painful than anything else.
"I don't see anyone…" Harumi muttered as they walked by what used to be an apartment complex, "Where do you think they are?"
"I don't want to think about it," Lloyd looked over a restaurant that had been caved in by a chunk of flooring, "I don't think we'll like the answer."
The two went silent after that. They continued their trek, a feeling of confused anxiety filling them both. The fact that there was almost no sign of life at all in the rubble was, worrying. What sort of place was this? They moved to start climbing up the ruins of an office building, walking horizontally over what used to be vertical walls. The action carried them almost three stories into the air, forcing them to awkwardly climb down the side of the building. Several times, Lloyd almost cut his hands on glass trying to find a perch. Eventually, Harumi had resorted to forming two Rhotatae discs in her hands to plunge into the side of the building while Lloyd used Airjitzu to go down.
It was almost two hours before the two found their way at a point they could start to make out more fine details of the structure. It seemed not even that had been spared from the attack, with what looked like large symbols being obscured by the scorch marks. Several of the cannons were actually broken, and either just locked in place or hanging limp. One of the massive recessed doors was covered in rubble. By the time they saw all of this, they found a road that appeared to have been cleared of rubble. It led straight towards the dome.
"Wait a minute," Harumi pointed to a broken storefront. Underneath all the rubble were racks of clothes, partially decayed from being left in the elements. The rack was underneath a large chunk of concrete, half covering the ruined coats. Harumi looked around and found a broken pipe small enough for her to wedge under the rubble. Gathering her elemental power in hands, she moved to the end of the pole and let her power burst against it. The rod went down and, with the added leverage, caused the piece of rubble to slide slightly. Harumi dragged the rack out, finding that the half that had been under the rubble was spared from the elements.
"Here," Harumi tossed Lulloyd a large coat and took one herself, "Smear some dirt on your face too. You look like Prime and, well. We don't want him knowing that we were here."
"Good find," Lloyd paused, "How, often do you need to disguise yourself?"
"Me? Not much," Harumi shook her head, "Everyone knows who I am. But I am a ninja… even if, well, I don't always do the most ninja of things."
"Trust me, neither do I," Lloyd smiled awkwardly, "Plus, it's kinda hard to be a ninja in a city that's, well, like yours. Or, mine really," The two shared a small laugh, a moment of respite from the dreary atmosphere they were in.
Lloyd slid the coat on, shaking off bits of rock and dirt from it in the process. He ran his hands through it and then put them to his face, covering his cheeks in it and then intentionally messing and running it through his hair. It wasn't a perfect disguise, but if one didn't look too hard, it would work. Harumi didn't need to mess up her hair, but she did the same to her face as she threw on the oversized coat. Lloyd was forced to abandon his katanas so they didn't show through the coat.
The two began their walk up the road. The further along they went, the more the area looked cleared of debris. Large machines were inside the rubble, stopped in the process of shoveling away pieces of the broken buildings. A small distance was cleared on either side of the street, just leaving the broken foundation for them to see. For some reason, that was almost more depressing to see than the actual ruined structures. Nobody was manning the machines at present.
Harumi's eyes widened as she heard something moving, turning to see what it was. Lloyd turned to see something that immediately put him on edge. A small mech, perhaps ten feet tall, was holding a massive shovel and moving rubble aside. The mech was a dull gray, almost industrial in its design, with spindly arms and legs and a more massive center section that was filled with pistons and wires. The cockpit, unlike Invictus, was exposed, and instead of the holographic display that Over had described, it was instead a person sitting down controlling two handles that swiveled around them in circles to control the mech's arms. They were unable to identify the man that was inside of it.
For now, the two decided to walk past it. Further up the road, they saw another, this one a light blue, using what looked like a laser cutter to take apart a large piece of metal. Yet another small mech was working to help carrying chunks into a large machine that drove away to dump them somewhere else. There were perhaps five of these mechs around, all of them piloted by people that none of them recognized. They were working hard, almost like construction workers.
"Hey! You two!" Lloyd and Harumi froze as a voice stopped them. The mech with the laser cutter walked towards them, stepping over the mounds to stand beside them. For a moment, Lloyd considered running. Harumi reached out and gripped his hand, holding it to tell him not to move. When the two saw who was driving it, Lloyd's eyes widened in recognition.
"Are you with the cleanup crew?" Nelson asked them, "It's dangerous to be outside the Shelter." The boy was no longer such, now a teenager with messy brown hair and wearing a deep gray working jumpsuit that was stained with oil and bits of rock from his work. His gloves he wore were half caked in mud and dirt.
"We're… we're not, from around here…" Harumi spoke up, acting timid for the moment, "What's… the shelter?"
"Wait, you two are survivors?" Nelson' eyes widened, "Wow. I haven't seen any for… You two must have been tough to make it here," Nelson moved to lift the mech's arm to point towards one of the massive doors to the dome they now knew as the Shelter, "Head there and tell them. We're always happy to have more people. They'll get you set up."
"Thank you, Nelson!" Lloyd responded without thinking.
"...Do I know you two?" Nelson asked, making the mech stand up.
"Y-you uhm, you remind me of someone that I used to know," Lloyd quickly lied, "He… he was named Nelson too." Nelson looked a bit skeptical for a moment, but then his face softened considerably.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Nelson sighed, "We've all lost people, don't worry. If anyone knows what that's like in what's left of Ninjago, it's us. Well, just follow the road and you'll get to where you need to go. You're safe now, don't worry. We have Prime guarding this city, nothing is gonna get in on his watch."
"We'll remember that," Lloyd forced himself not to react to the name, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it," Nelson moved to pick back up the laser cutter and turn back to where he'd been working, "We're all in this together."
Lloyd just smiled at Nelson and decided not to comment further on what was going on. Just seeing someone like him working here, and looking nothing like a kid anymore, it left him at a feeling that wasn't good. Just seeing him going back to look like he was picking through the rubble for things to cut apart, it left him with a feeling that was closer to sickening than anything else.
With them so close to the Shelter, as Nelson called it, Lloyd decided not to talk further. As he approached the massive door, he noticed that the door itself was partially open. It appeared to slide in two sections into the wall, and a gap about ten feet wide was currently opened up. There were a few people waiting around the outside, all of which looked like Ninjago citizens, but far more war weary. There was a lot about this situation that was ending Lloyd's spine in shivers.
When the two approached the gap, there was someone there to greet them. It looked like the Police commissioner, but his mustache was far less groomed and he wasn't wearing his police uniform. Instead, he was standing with a large holographic pad, tapping away at things and grumbling as he went about looking at whatever was on it with an annoyed intent.
"Jimmy isn't working his shift again…" The 'Commissioner' grumbled up until the two approached, at which point he looked up, "Hrmm… haven't seen you two before. Are you coming back from a shift?"
"We're, survivors," Harumi clutched her coat tightly, "We were sent here by Nelson."
"Survivors!?" The Commissioner perked up quickly, "You must have come a long way, haven't you? Well, come with me, I'll take you to get registered," He turned towards a man standing on top of a small guard post up further on the wall, "Jimmy! Get down here and watch the door! I got to handle something!"
"What, sir?" Jimmy called down, "I don't see anything!"
"That wasn't what I!" The Commissioner's eye twitched, "Ugh, nevermind! Come on, you two. Welcome to the Shelter." Lloyd wasn't sure if his tone was meant to be welcoming or annoyed; in an odd way, it was a mix of both.
Once beyond the wall, the sight in front of them was unlike anything they expected. The Shelter, as it turned out, did not look like a place of living. Instead, it looked like a massive compound. Past the wall, the ground was entirely metal as far as the eye could see. The entire space was several hundreds of feet in diameter, large enough to house an entire city inside of itself alone. A massive building with slanted walls took up almost half the space, with large glass windows that looked over the remaining space. At the end of one of the sides of the building, the building seemed to be built into the large door that was covered by rubble. There were hardly any defining features of the building, other than its massive size. It appeared to be a space capable of storing Invictus itself, ten times over. Lloyd saw some of the mechs that Nelson was piloting walking in a large garage-style door, and inside he saw racks where they were grabbed, raised up and stored in slots on the wall.
On the other side of the compound, meaning the side that wasn't dominated by the strange structure, was what looked like apartments. The buildings were built into the curve of the wall, and stretched up towards the very top of the wall. On top of each building was a large satellite dish. There looked to be almost two hundred apartments there, and with how deep the buildings were, it was likely even more. The buildings were very plain, each one without any color other than the blue of the glass and gray of the material used to build them. Several of them looked as though they had been recently built. They all seemed to frame a small approximation of a town square, with a comically small patch of grass for a 'park' with several vibrant flowers to make one of the only bright splotches of color in the entire complex. Sitting firmly behind this patch was a large sheet draped over something, most likely a statue.
"This way," The Commissioner turned towards one of the apartments. It was a rather long walk across the complex. If Harumi had to guess, it was likely the size of the Shelter's washer-shaped wall could fitf the downtown area of Ninjago City, and reached at least twenty stories tall. The Commissioner caught the two looking towards the apartments and sighed.
"It's probably not as glamorous as you were imagining," The Commissioner sighed, "This wasn't originally built for people. This is where Prime's squad was built and such, sure you've heard of them. Those apartments used to just be for the personnel here that actually worked on the things. I'm a guard for this facility myself. After the Razing, this was the only place left standing just 'cause those things didn't get inside. They started moving the people that were left in here. They've got food and a good water system, though, so it's better than whatever you had out there, I'm sure."
"The… Razing?" Harumi asked, "What are you referring to?"
"Pretty sure that's clear, but I've heard people call it other things," The Commissioner sighed, "That thing that happened at the end of the invasion. When all of his minions all blew up. You probably saw them. Pretty sure he figured the best way to get back at us for winning was to make it the worst victory possible."
"Right… him," Lloyd nodded, "Is, he the one that Prime defeated?" Lloyd was taking a long leap here.
"Yeah, exactly the one," The Commissioner brought them towards the bottom floor of one of the apartment buildings, which looked to be more like a large cafeteria. A large line of trays and cooking equipment betrayed its purpose, but the Commissioner instead brought them through a mess of poorly organized tables and towards a small office. The door was open, letting them see a mess of papers, computers and some other things. Notably, there was a scanner made for their hands.
"Alright," The Commissioner pointed towards the scanner, "Just pop your hands on that and we'll get this thing moving along. Just gotta get you into the system here, then we can assign you a good place to live and show you around."
"Is that a biometric scanner?" Harumi asked. The Commissioner blinked at her.
"I uh, think so, they just told me to use it," The Commissioner shrugged, "Just go ahead and scan it all and we'll get you in here."
Lloyd and Harumi looked at one another, realizing what this could mean. Given that Lloyd was an analogue to Prime, the fact the system might pick up on that and store it would be a dead giveaway of the fact they were here. For a long few moments, the two looked and tried to figure out an excuse to get them out of the situation. Their escort was none the wiser as they both racked their brains for something that wouldn't put any suspicion on their heads.
Instead, the heavens seemed to answer their plea in the form of a small siren. The siren wasn't shrill and loud, but a quiet sound that was more like a bell at a school. The Commissioner perked up when he heard it, pulling his tablet back out and tapping it to see the time. When he did, his eyes widened.
"Tell you what, why don't we do this after the speech?" The Commissioner put the tablet down, "You two mentioned you heard of Prime, right? Here's your chance to see him in the flesh. He's giving a speech to commemorate the new statue we made!"
"Prime is here?" Lloyd asked. He tried to make his voice sound excited, but it came out as worried.
"Come on, it's just outside the building," The Commissioner stretched his back out and ushered them out.
Neither of them could figure out a reason not to go, especially since it got them out of this situation. The two followed the suddenly energized guard as he led them back out the building and towards the town square. People from all around were filtering towards the covered statue, streaming from all areas of the compound. Lloyd took note that several of them descended from stairs leading into the large building taking up the other side of the compound. By the time they arrived, a crowd of perhaps two hundred people had already formed, and Lloyd intentionally slowed his step so he and Harumi would be towards the back of the group. In doing so, they lost the Commissioner to the others.
"Is he really here, do you think?" Lloyd asked Harumi in a whisper, pulling the hood up on his coat.
"We don't have any way of tracking him right now anyways," Harumi pulled her own coat hood up, "Even if we did, we wouldn't know when he was-"
Harumi stopped talking as soon as she saw him. Prime was talking towards the large crowd, causing a hushed murmur to fall over the people. He was still in the jumpsuit that the two had met him in, but its color had changed to blue. Lloyd looked around to see if Invictus was anywhere, but he saw no sign of the mech. Instead, Prime walked across the space towards the statue, where he saw a small step was erected for him to stand on.
Looking at Prime like this was a strange feeling. Until now, Lloyd had only the image of Prime hunting them down in Invictus and blasting Overlloyd through the air with his mech. Seeing him standing in front of a group of people like this, with his hands laxxd and his hair combed to the side, gave him a strange feeling of deja vu. When he was like this, Prime looked far more like who he was meant to be: Lloyd.
Harumi took the chance to look around the group. Everyone around them was silent and hushed over. Despite coming from almost every area they could, none of them looked ready to speak up. They gave Prime looks of adoration, looks that were normally reserved for heros. Nothing about how they looked at him was anything like they knew him. Prime stood there, completely silent, for several minutes. He let people come in, filtering in still. Several of the mechs they'd seen outside the Shelter walked inside, their pilots coming to stand a distance behind the crowd, Nelson among them. After almost ten minutes of waiting, Prime's voice cut the silence.
"Each of us are here today because of ourselves," Prime began, his voice carrying through the crowd effortlessly, "Each of us have put in our time and effort to do our part for Ninjago. You all standing here in front of me today have made everything that I have been able to do possible. Without you, working to keep the spirit of Ninjago alive, I would have nothing to fight for. It wasn't my actions that drove away the invasion, but each of you."
"In choosing to fight, we accept the fact that those that are beside us might not come home," Prime continued, his tone unwavering, "We chose to accept that what we want to fight for is worth everything, even our lives. For those of us that put our lives forward and lose them to the battlefield, it is a sacrifice that we can't forget. We can't let the deeds of those that came before us go without remembering them. Everything we have today is thanks to them. And for that reason, today is a day to honor everyone that fell to the invasion."
"Five years ago, I was approached by the men that founded the Core Program to become part of something far larger than who I was," Prime continued further, taking a step forward, "I didn't know what I was going to do. When I saw what they wanted me to use, I was scared. We had all seen what the Overlord's forces were capable of. We'd all lost someone by then. I was just a child who knew nothing about what was happening. But that was the day that I met my team, the ones that would eventually become my friends."
"Invictus," Prime lowered his head, "Fervidus. Immortalis. Fidelis. Arcanus. Impetus. Those were the names that we later gave to the cores that the program developed. Cores that would bond to only those that carried with them the soul of the ones that helped create them. These machines were built to help us fight against something none of us knew how to fight. I was designated their leader. And when we went into battle, there was nothing that felt as though it could best us."
"As you all know, the threats kept coming," Prime raised his head, his voice growing deeper, "They fought harder to take us down. They wanted to rip us from the land and shroud it in darkness. But we continued to fight for our home. We fought until the day we finally forced the Overlord himself to show his face. It was that battle that decided our future. If we lost, it would mean all of our fighting was for nothing. If we won, it meant the future we'd been fighting for was finally ours." Prime stopped talking. A long moment of silence filled the air. Everyone looked down.
"The Razing was an event none of us knew was coming," Prime finally continued, "Everything we had built was gone. All of us that fought watched it happen. We saw our homes destroyed. We saw our allies fall. The Overlord wished to deal us one final blow. One final way to make our victory into a defeat…" Prime inhaled, "But we survived."
Prime's voice suddenly raised to a thunderous level, "Despite everything he threw at us, we survived! We fought for our right to exist! Our right to live without someone threatening to take those lives away! And this, the symbol of our will to fight, was left standing. We honor those that fell during the Razing by continuing to live on! To show the Overlord that no matter what he wished for us, he couldn't control us! What he wished to make our end, we made our victory. And today, we honor those that fell, not because they are gone, but because it is thanks to them that we are able to stand and shout that we live!" Prime reached back to grip hold of the cover on the statue, "This day is for those that won!"
The curtain pulled away. As soon as Lloyd saw what was there, his entire body went cold. The statue was of five people, each of them styled in jumpsuits that were identical to that Prime wore. They were five familiar faces, cast as standing together in one formation, as a team. Five members left in a memorial to those that had fallen. Prime turned to look at the statue, his face suddenly becoming unreadable. His hand gripped into a fist for the briefest of moments before he turned back to the crowd.
"I, Prime, the wielder of Invictus, declare this memorial for all those that have passed," Prime stepped back, "And to the future that we have as the people of Ninjago."
The crowd gave a small round of applause. It was not a thunderous sound that showed their support. It wasn't a sound that was meant to simply give their half-hearted praise. It was a sound that fit Prime's speech perfectly. It was a sound that echoed through the compound. It echoed through Lloyd's heart as he looked upon those faces. Five faces that he knew far too well. Harumi knew them too.
Prime slowly stepped down from the spot. The crowd lingered for a long few moments, muttering and moving to closely examine the statue. Lloyd looked down at the ground, gripping his fists. This wasn't his world. This wasn't anything like the Ninjago he knew. This wasn't the dark outlook of Over's empire. It wasn't the reality of Monty's fate. It was a world that was broken. A world that he now knew why the Twins had come to.
Harumi gave Lloyd's sleeve a tug. A sad look was on her face, one that betrayed the emotions that she was feeling being similar to his own. She pointed towards where Prime had gone to, specifically towards the large building whose purpose was unknown. While Lloyd at first hesitated, Harumi tugged more insistently, directing his gaze towards the bushy facial hair of their escort still inside the crowd. Reluctantly, Lloyd decided to follow after her.
Prime made his way towards the strange building. As he approached, he was looking around for someone, someone rather expectantly. When he got closer to the massive structure, he turned to see a construction worker tapping away on a tablet. When he saw the man, Prime changed his course for him. Lloyd and Harumi followed him at a distance, using the crowd for as long as they could so as not to look suspicious.
When Prime reached the worker, he reached out and grabbed hold of his collar roughly. The man gasped in shock as Prime dragged him around the side of one of the triangular support for the building, out of the public eye. The two rushed up to press themselves against one of the nearby supports to hear what was going on. Prime dragged the man up until he pulled him into the air and slammed him into the wall, causing the breath to be knocked from the man's lungs.
"P-Prime!" The man gasped, "W-What's going on?"
"The statue," Prime growled, "You worked on the statue, right?! That's the wrong statue!"
"S-Sir, we followed the order we were given!" The worker gasped, "W-What's wrong with it?! We made sure the faces of your team were identical to their IDs!"
"She isn't there!" Prime spat, "Why isn't she there?!"
"S-She?" The man asked in confusion. Prime felt the anger suddenly melt from his body and turn to a cold lump inside him. He let the terrified man down, taking his hands from him and stepping away.
"I'm sorry," Prime shook his head, "I don't know what got to me. I, need to be alone right now," Prime sighed, "You were just doing your job. It wasn't your fault."
Prime turned and slowly walked away from the startled worker, who quickly looked around and then hurried off, confused as to what had just happened. Harumi turned to Lloyd to mouth the word 'She?" Lloyd just shook his head back at her. Whoever Prime was talking about, the two didn't know of them.
For now, the two followed him. Prime made his way up to a door that looked like a side exit. One of the scanners that they had narrowly avoided using was there. Prime reached his hand up and scanned it on the glass. A small hologram formed over it, scanning over his arm and the top of his hand at the same time. There was a small click as the door rotated open, revealing a large green hallway in front of Prime. He stepped inside, the door immediately moving to close again. Just before the door shut in full, the pair slid inside and pressed themselves up to the nearest wall to hide.
Prime was nowhere to be seen. The two took steps down the hallway, looking for any form of surveillance. There didn't seem to be cameras in place, making their trip slightly easier. The hallways were very plain, with almost nothing on the walls other than the occasional door or branch to another section. There wasn't much of anything to indicate this was a place that was for anything other than building something.
Just before the two turned a corner, Harumi saw a shadow and quickly pulled Lloyd back. The two pressed up against the adjacent wall as Prime walked directly by them, his gaze focused forward. The two held their breath as he moved over to a small panel in the wall with another scanner on it. He repeated the process of scanning, but instead of something clicking open, when he pulled his hand back a small set of buttons had appeared. He hit one button, causing a sound wave to appear on the screen.
"Send a message to Professor Julien," Prime stated formally, "We need to talk about the statue. I told you I wanted Akita in it. I know you put the order in. Meet me in room 313."
Prime removed his hand from the scanner, causing it to turn off and display the prompt for scanning his hand once more. He went down the hallway across from where Lloyd and Harumi were hiding. The two gave a small nod and waited for him to be far enough down so they could dart across the small space and into the hallway after him. Prime made his way to an elevator, taking it up. The two found a nearby stairwell and rushed to reach the top before he did.
The two followed Prime for some time. They weren't sure how deep they were into this facility, and the hallways seemed to keep going on and on. What was going on in this place, they had a few guesses, but none of them really said anything. Thankfully, Prime had a destination in mind. He found his way to a hallway filled with several doors arranged evenly across both walls. When he saw this, Prime stopped and gave a small inhale, then turned towards one that was marked with a small green stripe on the door. This door simply slid open with the press of a button on the wall, at which point he went inside. After a minute of waiting, Prime walked out, holding several papers in his hand. He walked off down the hall. Lloyd pointed at the door Prime went into, and Harumi gave a small nod to him. The two waited for him to be far away before Lloyd pressed the button and caused the door to open.
The room itself looked to be something of a living space. It wasn't large, perhaps the size of two small bedrooms put together. On one end was a large bed built into the wall that folded up into the wall, the sheets messy from now being remade after sleeping in it. A small couch was in the middle of the room, set up in front of a small table. A bathroom was in one corner of the room behind a small door. There was an area that looked like some sort of kitchen, with a sink and something approximating a stove. Despite seeming to be some sort of living space, other than the bed, it looked as though nobody lived here at all.
"Is this Prime's room?" Lloyd asked. Harumi looked around until she found a scanner on the wall. She moved to plug her watch into it and began to siphon information from it. After a moment, she nodded her head.
"Yeah, this is his room, it's registered under Lloyd," Harumi unplugged her watch, "I don't see anything here that looks like it, though. Doesn't he at least have a picture frame, or some weapons to decorate the walls?"
"I mean that's what I have, but-" Lloyd blinked, "Wait, are you saying your dad didn't change how he decorated his room?"
"He didn't care about how it looked, just that it worked," Harumi shook her head, "Anyway, just look around and see if you can find anything."
Lloyd nodded to acknowledgement and began looking around. The bed didn't have anything unusual about it. There wasn't a journal or diary to speak of in the room either. There were shelves against one wall, but other than some standard clothes, there wasn't anything in there either. The jumpsuits that Prime wore also weren't in the room either. The bathroom and kitchen were both clean and looked hardly used. It wasn't until Lloyd found a closet by fiddling around with a section of wall that he found something.
"Who's Akita?" Harumi asked Lloyd, "I've read a lot about my dad's adventures but, I don't remember that name. He might have mentioned her but… I don't know."
"I've never met her," Lloyd shook his head, "But, she must be important to me? Prime sounded really upset that she wasn't there."
"Remind me when we get back to my world, I'll look into the databases there," Harumi nodded, "She must be from someone further on my dad's timeline." Lloyd left the topic at that for now.
"What's this?" Lloyd reached out and picked something up. The only thing inside the small space was a large metal orb that had a slight yellowish-red tint to it. The orb wasn't very heavy, but it also felt like it was vibrating in his hands. He tried to run it around, but the only defining feature was a small pure yellow stripe that was slightly recessed into the orb running along its circumference to give it any real defining feature.
"Let me see that," Harumi took her time to run her hands along the length of the thing. When she found nothing, she paused and moved to pull up some notes on her watch. As she scanned over them, she gave a long nod and hefted the ball up.
"This seems like it matches the description of what Monty said was inside that machine that kicked him, him too," Harumi paused, "If this is a core… I need to take this home with me and see how it works. I might be able to do something with this. I'm not sure how these mechs here run on these things but, well. Over said they felt like elemental powers, so maybe…"
Harumi gave her hands a small charge of green power. As soon as she did, the core in hand began to glow yellow with a bright flare from the stripe. Harumi pulled her power back, causing it to stop. That alone caused her to smile widely.
"Should we really take this from him, though?" Lloyd asked, "Why would Prime be keeping a core around in his room? And, how could a mech that large run on something that small?"
"We need a way to start moving around without worrying about Prime," Harumi shook her head, "I don't feel good about stealing this from him, but… he's working with the Time Twins. We need to start getting our footing back. If the price for that is stealing something from our enemies, I think that's okay. At least, for now."
"I guess so," Lloyd paused, "Before we go, can you download any information from that scanner thing? I want to know what happened in this place. I want to know why that statue was of…" Lloyd lowered his eyes, "...them."
"Yeah," Harumi looked back to the panel, "Let me see what I can get."
Harumi plugged back in and tried to siphon some data from the system. Unfortunately, the stream of data that came back to her was nothing that she could make sense of. After a good two minutes of that, she shook her head.
"I need to get to a better computer terminal," Harumi frowned, "I got that we're in a living quarters area, but that's about it. If we go down the way Prime went, we should come to an area where I can get to a better computer."
With their destination set, the pair left the room, careful not to leave any signs that they'd been inside. Harumi stuffed the orb she was carrying with her under her coat. Thankfully, the thing was rather lightweight for something that looked pure metal. Once they reached the end of the hallway, they found themselves at a staircase that either went up or down. Harumi pointed up, and the two ascended the stairs.
Just as they reached the top of the stairs, the wall to their left became a massive pane of glass. Once they walked by, the sight that they saw was unlike anything they had ever seen. The glass appeared to be a viewing port into a massive hanger. The hanger was comparable to that for airplanes. There were six massive stations, filled with massive wires, raising and lowering platforms, and people rushing around with various tools on carts and trucks. The walls had to be at least eight stories tall, with catwalks spanning almost the entirety of the ceiling. It was immediately clear what the purpose of the bay was when they turned to see what was stored in one of the massive racks.
Invictus, the massive mech that the group had been running from, was currently suspended in the air on massive metal hooks. People on various platforms moved to repair sections of it and plug wires into its frame. The hatch to the cockpit was opened up, showing the lack of a pilot. It fit perfectly inside the rack it was in. The other racks were completely empty. Despite how large the mech was, it almost looked tiny when shown in a room that large. The wall opposite of the viewing window the pair were looking at was one of the massive doors of the Shelter. From the way it was bent and crushed in, it was clear it was the one filled with rubble. Instead, the ceiling was partially open, letting in light and showing how Invictus was able to deploy with this place in this state.
"Okay… so it looks like this place was built for repairing mechs like Prime's," Lloyd pointed out, "This isn't anything like the Ninjago we know, though. Is this place like Mage's world?"
"Yeah, but without the weird design," Harumi pointed out, "This looks more like… a warzone than anything. We need to find out more about this place."
Lloyd agreed with her, moving past the glass and towards another door. This one had a scanner to it, so the two were forced to improvise. Harumi plugged her watch in and began to send massive packets of information to the small scanner, causing its system to fill up with data. The result allowed her to press her gloved hand to the scanner and cause the door to open. The two slipped inside just before the door sealed shut again.
This room was far smaller, the size of a small office more than anything. The entire area was lined with computers, with simple stations that evenly lined each space along the wall and in two neat rows down the middle of the room. The left wall on entering was another massive viewing glass, but this had a large circular station of computers in front of it, almost like a command deck. All the computers around it seemed to be supporting the main station. Harumi frowned and ignored this for now, moving to sit down in one station and began the process of hacking the system's log-in credentials.
"Just give me a minute here… they got some good security," Harumi smirked as she saw the screen flash and brought up a simple interface, "Nothing future technology can't handle."
"Are you saying you're not actually hacking it?" Lloyd asked.
"The watch is doing most of the work," Harumi chuckled, "I just like to act like I'm the one doing it. Hacking was more Ren's thing, if you can believe it."
"Ren, as in your deputy?" Lloyd asked, "Huh, never saw her as that type."
"It's just a hobby she has," Harumi clarified, tapping away at the keys, "Alright, here we go. Documents on what happened in this place."
Slowly, Harumi began to read. The text scrolled down the page quickly, but Harumi kept reading. She read, and read, and read. And the more she read, the more that small smile she had on her face started to fade. She kept going, too fast for Lloyd to keep up. She was reading for so long that Lloyd felt his body going stiff with worry. She refused to say a word, continuing to go on despite how long what it was she was reading kept going. When she finally stopped, she took her hands off the keyboard and turned towards Lloyd. She kept her head down, as if everything she had just read was weighing on her quite physically.
"What is it?" Lloyd asked her, suddenly nervous.
"I… I know why Prime is after us now," Harumi muttered, "...He's, not doing this because he's evil. I know why the Time Twins recruited him."
"Well?" Lloyd asked, his tone going from insistent to worried, "Tell me what you saw."
"I copied the document so, if you want the full details I'll show you later," Harumi turned back to the screen, "But… these are military reports about everything. They talk about what happened. It looks like, instead of the Overlord being someone that was released because of Garmadon, he started attacking Ninjago directly."
"Six years ago, a series of massive beasts made of shadow attacked Ninjago," Harumi explained, "The initial attacks devastated entire cities. People disappeared from the cities, but no bodies were ever left behind. The monsters were driven away, but the attacks kept coming. The Emperor of Ninjago called upon everyone in the land that could help to create something to stop those attacks from happening again. The project was labeled the Advanced Auto-Immersion Mission. It looks like Wu came forward and shared what he knew about Ninjago along with Dr. Julien and created the core program.
"The cores are specialized devices that harvest raw energy from Ninjago," Harumi continued, "But they only will fully activate for one sepcific person. It, looks like that's why Prime and his team were sought out by Wu. They were the only ones that could activate the cores. They built the mechs to house the cores and fight the monsters the Overlord threw at Ninjago. Prime was Lloyd's callsign. The others are listed here too," Harumi scrolled up and pointed. On the screen, next to a headshot of five people Lloyd's friends were listed names: Prime, Degree, Power, Ray, Absolute, and Vector.
"It doesn't look like what they fought were exactly what we would see as our own villains…" Harumi frowned, "But, five months ago, the Overlord stepped foot in Ninjago to support all of the people he called out. He attacked everywhere he could in Ninjago at once. Prime went to fight the Overlord in Invictus. There's something here about him entering 'sync' with his mech. It looks like everyone else in his team were spread around Ninjago while he took on the Overlord."
"And, he won, right?" Lloyd asked. That was when Harumi's smile fully faded.
"...That's what the Razing is about," Harumi tapped the screen, her tone quieting down, "When Prime struck the final blow, the Overlord used his last moment of thought to command every monster he had to… to explode…" Harumi gripped her fist, "Prime's entire team was… they fell when that happened. That statue was to honor them for… it looks like almost every major city in Ninjago was destroyed in the blast. Prime won but… there was a reason they were so shocked to see survivors like us."
The weight of Harumi's words fully sunk in. Prime wasn't alone because he was going after them like Lloyd was. He was alone because he didn't have a team anymore. Prime had paid a cost for victory that Lloyd couldn't even imagine. This was far more than just losing someone close to him. Prime had lost almost all of Ninjago. It seemed that the Shelter had been one of the only things that was strong enough to survive the attack.
"Who… who does it say Akita is?" Lloyd asked nervously.
"It says that Akita was registered as coming from a remote village in the north that she claimed was hurt in the initial attacks, but no record of her village was found prior to her arriving," Harumi tapped away, "It, says she was labeled as part of Prime's team, as a support. She's listed as an engineer but, that's really about it."
"That's it?" Lloyd asked. Harumi just nodded her head.
"That's all," Harumi frowned, "But, this is what we needed. Prime… the Time Twins control time, right? He must want to go back in time and save his team before, all of that happened. The Razing didn't just take away his team… it, took away everything he was fighting for."
"So he won, but he lost too…" Lloyd frowned, "Make sure you have a copy of that. We need to show the others this."
"We should get going," Harumi informed him, "I got a map of the place while I was doing this too. It looks like there's a maintenance door we can go through near here. After that we can just sneak out the front gate."
"I hope the Commissioner isn't too upset with us for ditching him," Lloyd pointed out.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," Harumi shook her head, "Let's just get back to the others and do it fast. Prime is still here and I don't want to run into him"
Harumi's maintenance door had been located inside the massive hanger that they now understood stored the mechs that Prime's team had used. Thanks to the massive amount of space and abundance of hiding places, they were able to sneak their way around the facility until they had found their way to the door. After letting two workers leave for their break, they slid out the door and found themselves near the massive wall that made up the Shelter. Following that massive wall lead them to the residential area they'd seen earlier, and more importantly to the statue. As they passed around it, they found themselves looking at it with a newfound melancholy.
After hiding away until the person at the gate changed shifts, the two slid back out into the desolation of the city. The thought of this city being gone because of a final attack by the Overlord was as depressing as it was revealing. Prime had fought for this place, just like they had for their own worlds. It had just been that the Overlord managed to take one last thing for Prime before he managed to stop him. Prime had truly been the perfect person to send after them.
That thought alone was worrying to Lloyd. The Twins had curated the perfect foes for them. They had found others that were the 'Lloyd' of that world to send against them, knowing they couldn't fight them in full force because of it. They found ones that had perfect motivation to go after them, and were strong enough to oppose all six of them. Invictus alone was more than any of them were equipped to handle besides Mage and Overlloyd. Ophiod just put even more of a power gap between them. Knowing more like this, almost made the situation worse.
With how long they had spent getting to the Shelter, Lloyd had assumed they would get back just in time for Monty to approach them. Instead, it had barely been over half a day since Monty had dropped them off, leaving them to have nothing to do but rest.
It had been an uneasy rest, but one that was appreciated after they had been taken hours trekking through a razed landscape. It was from this rest, though, that Lloyd felt a kick to the side of his head. He let out a hard groan and rolled to his feet, seeing Monty standing over him with one hand on the SoS and the other placed on his hip in an annoyed fashion.
"You know, Lulloyd and Mage barely even had time to get their stuff done, and here I find you two sleeping on the job," Monty groaned, "Did you two lazy ninja get what you were looking for?"
"Yea, we did…" Lloyd grumbled, "We spent hours just walking, Monty. We barely even slept.
"Sure, just like I'm sure you barely got what you were looking for," Monty turned to Harumi, holding on to the core she had, "What's that?"
"The core I was looking for…" Harumi stretched her back out, "Let's grab Lulloyd and Mage. We need to go to my world. I might be able to do something with this."
"Sure, your highness, would you like the express trip with that?" Monty waved his hand, "Let's go. You better make those transport things. I'm getting tired of ferrying you around. Ronin does that."
"You've only taken us a few places!" Lloyd protested.
"And that's already too many," Monty sighed, "Get in, or you'll have to sleep another day on these rocks."
Harumi's hands tightened around the orb she carried, but she held back from saying a word. Instead, she calmly stepped forward into the portal, carrying the core. Lloyd gave Monty a long look and stepped in after her. Monty gave a look around at the desolate landscape that was laid out before him, looked away, then stepped in after them.
"I'm not sure what happened, Prime," Dr. Julien sighed, "She should have been on that statue."
"Well she wasn't!" Prime shouted, hitting his hands on the conference table in front of him, "She wasn't there, Julien! Where is she?!"
"We'll have another one made for her," Dr. Julien assured him, "I promise you that."
Prime slowly looked up. The room the two were in was sterile and gray, with few signs of life present outside of the two men inside. The table in front of them was dusty from a lack of use. There were never enough people left behind to clean this facility anymore. Prime himself had to take care of most of the places that he used.
"This wasn't done intentionally, Prime," Dr. Julien informed him, sighing as he adjusted his glasses, "All of us know that she was important to you."
"Important to me?" Prime gripped his fists, "She was everything to me! The only reason that she should even have to have a statue made of her like this is because I… because I…" Prime shook his head, "...She fell in battle along everyone else. She, deserves it."
"Prime…" Dr. Julien's face fell, "You may have brought her into this, but she chose to fight. It was her own will that pushed her to fight alongside you. Do not forget that. What happened to her is not your fault alone."
"I know that," Prime shook his head, "But I can't get her out of my head!"
"I know," Dr. Julien frowned, "But, remember, my boy, you aren't the only one who lost people that day," Dr. Julien reached up to grip his shoulder, "...All of us, lost someone special to us."
Prime took a long moment to breathe. He focused on himself, then he fully stood up again. He straightened his back, and turned away from Julien. He focused, and focused, and pushed away his thoughts. When he turned back around, he was smiling once more, and he walked over to place his hand on Julien's shoulder.
"I know you did, he was one of our bravest and smartest," Prime informed him, bowing his head, "And truly one that never deserved to fall. I will make sure I honor his memory in how I carry myself."
"Ah… you put too much pressure on yourself for that, Prime," Dr. Julien sadly chuckled, "...I'm an old man. I don't have much life left in me to spare worrying about the past. All I can do now is build a future for you young ones… hopefully one that you can at least find some joy in."
"Wrong, we will build that future," Prime nodded, "You are a brilliant man, Dr. Julien. You will forever be remembered as a hero and a figure to us all. I won't let your sorrow or anyone's here go unanswered. I will forever remember it, and I will rectify it."
"Is this about this 'mission' of yours again?" Dr. Julien looked up at him.
"Indeed," Prime inhaled, "Forgive my outburst, please. I'll make sure it doesn't happen again. Just… get a statue of her made, and I'll make sure that I uphold the right to ask it."
"Take care of yourself, Prime," Dr. Julien shook his head, "And don't forget yourself. You would do well to remember it."
"I will, sir," Prime's eyes flashed, "And I won't ever forget what happened. I'll make sure that my mission is successful… no matter what."