Happy 10th Anniversy, Ninjago! So, a couple months ago, I decided to participate in Ninjago angst week; however, most of the stories ended up being not angsty for some reason? I still had a lot of fun writing according to the prompts though, except that they also kind of don't follow the prompts for some reason. Instead, here is my 10th Anniversary project: "nine," a collection of stories about nine characters and their childhoods. Enjoy!
the city falls
A little boy with blonde hair and a very bad bowl cut pressed his face up to the bakery window. He couldn't smell the pastries, but he could feel their warmth on the window. It took everything in him not to open the door and walk inside. Street rats like him weren't exactly welcome to loiter in places where deliciously sticky honey rolls were made. He forced himself to turn away from the welcoming glow emanating from the window.
He didn't know why he was still standing there. The kids that side of the city said they would hunt him down if he ever dared to come back. He ran far away to another section of the city that time. But eventually, he wandered back to the bakery on the street that turned him away so cruelly in the first place. This would have never happened if he'd chosen to idle at the candy store instead. But candy doesn't ward off the cold of a winter evening like fresh bread and coffee do.
He sunk to the pavement beneath the shop window and rummaged in his pocket for something to eat. He had scavenged a few bites of leftovers from the dumpster of an adjacent restaurant. Soggy vegetables and half-eaten bones of meat from the night before. Not bad, he thought to himself. He'd had worse dinners before. A customer swung open the door of the bakery and the smell of chocolate-laced croissants seeped out onto the sidewalk. The things he would do to just be inside.
A bitter rush of wind swept through the street, sending newspapers flying into the air. It only caused him to cling tighter to his tattered jacket, the one he was thrown out of his home with. Bright green eyes flashed red as he mentally recited the names of the people who hurt him in his nine years of living. His mother who left him for who knows where before he barely even knew what she looked like. She might as well have left him on the streets. That's where he ended up anyways.
The boys at Darkley's who pranked him endlessly and made fun of him when he couldn't bring himself to harm the pitiful creatures by the muddy pond they played at. He possessed more "amoral ambition" than all of them combined, whatever that meant. No one called Lloyd Garmadon, son of the most feared villain in all of Ninjago, some kind of wimp who cared for helpless animals and shared with useless babies. He would show them.
He stood up, resolved to look for a spot to cause trouble. The more trouble the better. He would be the biggest troublemaker in all of Ninjago. Then they would realize that they were wrong about him all this time. His father would hear about the son he hadn't seen in nine years. His mother would regret ever leaving him behind. They would never throw him out onto the streets again. No one would. He braced himself on the windowsill, shivering in the cold.
"Look who's decided to come back." The nearby street light cast three twisted shadows followed by the kids who had driven him away from that corner of the city. Lloyd visibly jumped backwards when he saw them approaching. "If it isn't the little troublemaker, Lloyd Garmadon," their leader thundered at him. He towered over him like a giant who was nine-feet tall. The small boy quivered, almost frozen in place.
His first instinct was to run through the narrow spaces in between the businesses on the street. That was how he escaped last time. He tried to get away from them, but the biggest of the three grabbed his shoulder so tightly that Lloyd instinctively cried out in pain. Then they laughed so loudly that his ears hurt even when he held his free hand over one of them. The leader swung Lloyd around to face him. "You don't belong here," he snarled as Lloyd took rapid breaths, now hanging from the hood of his already torn jacket.
The door of the bakery swung open and a woman in a cloth apron walked out with a steaming coffee pot in hand. From the gleaming doorway, she swung out her free hand toward the three kids. "Get away from the little one. Shoo! Shoo! What would your mother say if she heard about this? Such disgrace." The biggest one dropped Lloyd onto the pavement and scattered into the darkness with the other two kids.
Lloyd stayed there, sitting in the cold and rubbing his arms where his tormenters had held him up. He looked up to see the woman still standing in the light of the doorway. She made a rough gesture, motioning him inside. "Are you coming or not?" Surprised, he stared at her for a moment before stumbling through the glowing door.
The woman shuffled to the countertop and brought out a mug of hot cocoa. She pushed the cocoa into Lloyd's hands and pointed to a chair next to a space heater. "Drink." Lloyd numbly walked over from the door and sat down. He was too cold to process what had happened. All that mattered to him was that the bakery was warm and so was the steaming mug in front of him.
He breathed in the smell of dark chocolate as he took a sip. He sat there in silence for a few moments before the woman joined him at the table with a basket of fresh muffins. "Those kids are no good. Always causing trouble around here." She slid a pastry to Lloyd with her wrinkled hands. He didn't take it immediately. "My family recipe," she offered again. Lloyd only looked at her, his hands still rested on the side of his mug.
The woman continued despite the silence of the boy in front of her. "There is an old proverb my mother taught me. I will teach it to you: 'the cold seeps in, unless the warmth drives it away; the darkness fills the night, unless the light shines brighter; the city falls unless its people rise up.' I see many orphans wander on this street. I have helped every one of them. You are no different."
She took the basket away and walked away, fading into the brightness of the bakery displays. Lloyd took another sip of hot cocoa. Minutes passed before the woman spoke again. "Stay as long as you like. My door is always open." The door of the bakery swung open, and a gust of wind rushed inside. The clock in the bakery chimed nine. Closing time. The woman looked at the table where the boy was sitting only moments ago. Although his cup still had a little bit of cocoa left, he took the muffin. The others didn't.
…
A ninja with a mop of wavy blonde hair crossed the network of alleyways that he once called home. He darted left and right, ducking under piping and jumping over puddles of water that boiled in the summer heat. He stopped at the corner of an abandoned street before peeling his mask off, revealing a boy who had grown up long before his time had come. He looked back and forth between the possible exits, then breathed a sigh of relief when all was silent except for the chirping of the morning birds.
He leaned against the graffiti-covered brick wall of an empty building and sat on the pavement. It wasn't his day to gather food for the Resistance; it was never his day as long as Nya was concerned. He was lucky he was able to slip out of there without her noticing, although she would have a lot to say when he returned. It didn't help that he couldn't find anything remotely edible, that is without going through the garbage like a street rat would. At this point, he almost wanted to take that chance.
He stood up slowly as the sun started to glisten overhead. Searching for any signs of his pursuers, he reassured himself that he had lost them a couple streets ago, near the old candy store. He began to leave when he heard the all-familiar sounds of motorcycles approaching. He listened long enough to know that they were surrounding him like the cold surrounded winter or like the darkness surrounded night.
As he weighed the possibility of his escaping over the skyline of the waking city, he was pulled further into the alleyway by an old woman holding a basket of muffins. "Go. I will deal with them." She pushed the basket into his hands and walked out of the alleyway and into the light. Lloyd ran as far away as he could.
The woman didn't recognize him as the one who proved her wrong that winter night, but he did. It had been a long time since he was nine, but he never forgot. It taunted him when he tried his best to follow in his father's footsteps only a little while after. It condemned the deeds of the villains that challenged him. And even in his darkest moments, it shined brighter than ever. Because ninja never quit—he would never quit. And the city would never truly fall as long as the Resistance continued to rise.