So, there are two things about this chapter that I want to say first: the first thing is that I have never heard of the Mega Weapon, I don't remember my dad having it, and I don't even know what it is. The ninja and even my father have insisted that it existed, and Zane has even done tests to see if it is somewhere locked inside my memory. It isn't. So, if I mention the Mega Weapon here, I don't specifically remember it or what it did, so I might be kinda vague.
The second thing is that arguably, this chapter is one of the most important in my entire life. This was when I grew up. While physically I'm an adult, I think if I were to do the math of how many years the Tomorrow's Tea actually aged me up, I would be closer to a teenager. I'm not sure how long it was exactly, but I know that I was thrust right into the middle of puberty and was put far closer to the ninja age wise. It was my choice, so that's not to say I regret it at all. Just that the others have pointed out how young I am compared to them before.
To start, I don't blame Ninjago City for giving the credit for the Devourer to my dad. I mean, he was the one that actually killed it, so it makes sense that the news would say he was the one that did it. But the fact that the city wasn't willing to acknowledge how hard we fought it was honestly kinda cruel. I wouldn't have cared at all, really, if it hadn't meant we were officially homeless after the incident. The Monastery was gone (partially thanks to me) and the Bounty was eaten, so we have nowhere to go. What we ended up finding to live in was honestly… lame. I know I'd helped unleash the Devourer, but I'd also helped to stop it! At the very least, we should have had someone willing to give us a break!
I've asked Kai before where all the money from his blacksmith shop went, and according to Nya when the two had left to train with Wu, they'd shut it down but held onto the lease, using the money they had to repair the Bounty. Jay's parents didn't have any cash to spare, and while Lou was more than willing to give Cole a recommendation, he refused to give his son any money (and obviously we wouldn't ask Zane). The apartments we were shown were either too small, too scummy or too expensive. Given that there were seven of us to house, the ninja decided to go for the expensive one. It was nice, but apparently being a ninja master like Wu doesn't produce income. So, the ninja got jobs.
I didn't ask about the ninja's jobs, mainly because I'd tried to throw myself into training again. Wu managed to salvage some of the equipment from the Bounty for Spinjitzu, so I decided to throw myself into that again. After almost a month of getting thrown right back out of that same training course, I felt like I was finally getting closer. I wouldn't have known, however, since the ninja were always too tired to train me. Even Zane, somehow! So I naturally stopped training and started playing video games. Wu and Nya weren't around, so I was often alone. Which, given that I was already targeted as the Green Ninja and the Serpentine were still around, wasn't the smartest move.
Skales attempting to capture me and use it to gain acceptance with my father was, all things considered, not a bad plan, at least for me. If he went to my dad with me, my dad would have punished Skales and just let me go I think. Wu and Nya managed to show him what for, and looking back on it, this meant I never personally repaid Skales for betraying me. I'd managed to kick Pythor in the face, I kinda wish I'd gotten to do the same to Skales. He went to prison, and after realizing the fact I couldn't even take down Skales, the ninja moved us into that crowded apartment. I'll just say this: there is a reason on the new Bounty, Borg made it a point to give us individual rooms.
Now, this is where my memory gets, weird. According to Zane, this was when my father took the Golden Weapons and created the Mega Weapon. The Mega Weapon was able to grant any with that Garmadon asked of it, but drained him of his energy when he did, so he was limited to one wish per day. This is also when my father first began to try to interfere with my training to stop me from becoming the Green Ninja. It was a strange time for me, given that I was torn between being taught how to face my father, while also distinctly not wanting to face my father. Everytime I become stronger, it meant that the battle was drawing closer.
That isn't to say I didn't like training. In fact, I love training. I love getting stronger, seeing how I'm able to do things that before would have taken me forever to do. Training to be strong, however, is different from training for a battle. I didn't know how I would fight my father, why I would fight him, or really anything. It was sort of like a raincloud hanging over me, and I never knew when it would rain or for how long. So, I stopped focusing on it, even if I always was in its shadow. (I'm kinda proud of that metaphor.)
In order to train me, the ninja took me to meet him: Grand Sensei Dareth. A lot of you probably know Dareth for two things: putting on the Helmet of Shadows, and fighting alongside me in the Resistance. While we'll eventually get to those, I personally have always seen Dareth as one of our oldest allies. In fact, I'd go as far as to say he's our most important ally!
I know Dareth is, strange. In fact, there were times where I wondered how he had ever become a teacher in the first place. But the thing about Dareth, is that if you take a step back to look at him, you realize just how put together he is. I never noticed how good of a teacher he was until I met his students. Dareth may not know how to fight, but he knows how to teach others how to fight. His students love him! And none of the parents we encountered while using his Dojo ever complained about him. In fact, I never noticed how many people Dareth knew until we started noticing how many people he talked to outside of the Dojo. Granted, we mainly saw him in the Dojo, but all things considered, I totally see why he opened that bar.
Dareth is one of the most important people in my story. If we hadn't had his Dojo, I wouldn't have been trained as I was. That would mean he likely would never have tried to put on the Helmet of Shadows, he would never have saved my life as I went to fight the Overlord, and all of Ninjago would have been doomed. I'm getting ahead of myself here, but when we say that the Brown Ninja is an honorary member of our team, we mean it. Dareth is one of our closest friends and I wouldn't trade him out for anyone in Ninjago. But, I'm getting off track here.
Many of you remember the attack of the pirates, which strangely was not the only flying pirate ship attack on Ninjago City. Soto and his crew was revived by either my dad or something else, and they ran amok. Dareth was captured, and so of course we immediately sprung into action. I think that technically was my first ninja mission where I was actually strong enough to consider myself apart of the ninja, all things considered. I don't really remember much about the Pirates, but it was the first time I ever did Spinjitzu! If you ever get the chance to learn it, do it. It's so satisfying to pull off and being able to use it is such a rush. Just don't do what I did and get so excited you pulled it off you let yourself get attacked.
Nya ended up bailing us out, and once the Pirates were defeated by her Samurai X Suit -which I still will always say was her coolest invention ever- we were happy to actually have our home back. We really didn't care how the Bounty was back, or why, as Kai put it, it'd gone 'emo,' but that really didn't matter. Then, my father showed up and took control of the ship from us. He said that I'd never be strong enough to defeat him, and revealed to us that he had taken command of the Serpentine. As he flew away, cackling that he'd never let me get stronger, it marked the strange few months where all my father did was send creations after us to try and stop me from training. It was… weird.
One thing I forgot to mention earlier was the fact that at this time, the ninja's elemental powers were mostly gone. From what I understand from Wu, the ninja all still had the powers inside them, and the Golden Weapons had been a way for them to use them. Wu said that without the weapons, while they could still use their powers, it was like trying to suck water through a straw versus a cup. I myself was taught how to use all four of their elemental powers as apart of my training. After I came into my own, they all sort of merged together into the green power I hold now, but before I could use that green power, I learned the others. This became very important later.
This is where I have to start relying on what the ninja told me. Since all the things that happened here were because of the supposed Mega Weapon, no one in Ninjago knows how all of this happened. I can remember key events, but not that much else. My training was all happening during this, so I remember enough that I'm not confused, but I'm going to have to skim some of this until the Grundle so I stick to what I know.
I actually thought I'd have more to say about going back to Darkley's Boarding School after everything that happened with me growing up there, but I don't think I have that much. Brad and the others were still the same jerks, really all I think about is that somehow the kids managed to overpower the ninja, which seems somewhat pathetic even if I didn't get to see it. I… think they wanted me to lead them? I'd already decided to become the Green Ninja by that point, so I didn't have anything to say to them. I know the ninja were fighting… something? I think it was a copy of themselves? Somehow Jay managed to beat his copy without any help? I'm not exactly sure.
Maybe that's a testament to how much I'd been forced to change in such a short amount of time? The semester wasn't even over at Darkley's, and I'd already turned my back on that childish notion of wanting to simply be taken seriously and be evil. The more I think about it that way, the more it seems to reinforce how important me becoming the Green Ninja was. Not just for destiny, but for me. I had completely changed as a person, and the fact that I saw Brad trying to convince me to be evil again as just annoying rather than actually listening to him might be profound? I don't know if that's right, so let's move on.
The Ninjaball Run, that was definitely weird. I think what was really important was that I started to form a bond with the Ultra Dragon. A lot of people forget the Ultra Dragon existed, and while I haven't, I don't entirely blame them. The race was won by the Ultra Sonic Raider, and in the end all I managed to do was knock the Skullkin out of the race. Which, now that I think more on it… how did they get out of the Underworld? And why didn't my dad just blow up Dareth's shop with the Black Bounty instead of entering the race? Actually, if the Mega Weapon could grant wishes just like Zane says it could, then why not just wish I didn't have anywhere to train? And why were the pirates that had just tried to destroy the city allowed in the race? How were kids like Brad and I allowed to compete?
I'm going to keep going just so I don't end up frying my brain thinking about this. Now we get to the important event: the Grundle. The ninja insist that Garmadon wished it alive by 'turning back the clock' and when they tried to stop it, they were turned into kids. Everytime I try to think of why the ninja were children -Zane especially!- I just get a headache. I wouldn't care so much if this wasn't one of the single most defining elements to the final battle.
The ninja were turned into kids, and so they came to me for help. After I had a good laugh at their expense given how ridiculous it was -and if that sounds rude, Kai has done that to me multiple times- we came up with a plan to defeat it. Now, I knew Mother Doomsday casually; when I wasn't training, I started to frequent the store with the free time I had. It was actually how I managed to binge read Starfarer so quickly. Without Mother Doomsday I would have likely started to read the spin offs, which I will point out are not labeled as spin offs, and then I might have accidentally picked up the reboot that died after just ten issues, and I might have even started to read some of the fan comics that people sold but again didn't label them as not canon… the point is, comics are complicated and I don't know how anybody starts them without having someone to tell you what to read. Actually, I think the point is I knew Mother Doomsday and the fact he had a bunch of weird highly specific knowledge about a comic that had the Grundle in it.
Sometimes I realize how weird my life is. Mother Doomsday had a replica of the ninja's suits and illumi-swords based off of the weapons in Starfarer. Since the Grundle was nocturnal, we needed something that would stop it, and Doomsday told us light would work well. However, to get those, we had to win a trivia competition. Nowadays, I could just walk in, show a small bit of green power and get whatever I wanted for free. There's no way I would do that, as that would be just, wrong, but it was annoying we had to jump through hoops to save our lives.
Of course, fighting a massive ancient beast with props we ended up having to just steal after the Grundle broke in anyhow was never going to work. It turned out they were just cheap replicas that he'd wired up to have lights in the sword part, so smacking them against things went as well as you think it would. The Grundle was easily able to overpower us, and once more I was facing that all-too-familiar feeling of knowing I was about to die.
That was when I saw the Tomorrow's Tea. I had a choice to make in that moment, a choice that became a defining moment in my life. If Wu used that tea, then the Grundle would be defeated, the ninja would be aged back up… and I'd be caught in the blast of it. I'd be giving up my childhood, the chance I would have to grow up, to save my friends.
At the time, it was a non choice. I wasn't going to selfishly say I wanted my own childhood over the lives of the ninja, Mother Doomsday, and everyone else in the city that could get hurt. So I didn't even let them hesitate and just told them to do it. I know a lot of people would regret that choice, giving up years of their life like that on a whim. I… don't. I really don't. I don't feel myself regretting it. I mean, how could I? What was the other option, get eaten and die right there? I say losing a few years versus losing, well, all of them was the right choice.
Of course, this had a side effect I didn't think about at the time: I had just accelerated the battle to fight my father. By aging my body, I was able to learn the elements far faster than I would have as a child. I was able to progress in my training at nearly triple the speed. I soon was taking on all four ninja at once to train, rather than struggling with just two. The growth I experienced, it changed everything. It didn't just change me, but it changed my dad. It sparked something in him, something that led directly to what happened to Ninjago City with the Overlord. I'd even go as far as to say that moment was when destiny fully tightened its grip around me and my father.
Now, according to Zane, this was the point where my dad tried to amass forces to go and attack us, and ended up wishing to go back in time to make it so I was never trained to begin with. This was when the Mega Weapon was also shot into space. I wish that I was kidding, but having been to the very meteor where it landed, I know that somehow, the metal of the Golden Weapons was there. I didn't care to ask at the time given how I was also trying not to get eaten by swarms of space bugs -long story- but I know that somehow the Golden Weapons ended up in space, and the timeline reset with events both happening, and not happening. That is all I'm going to say on that matter.
After more weeks of training, I was finally a competent fighter. I was able to summon the green power in small bits, or at least feel the elemental energy inside of me. I had a grasp on the elements, and I knew what I was doing. I was well on my way to finally growing into what destiny required me to become: the Green Ninja. My mind was on my training. For some reason, training to fight my dad, was far easier to do than thinking about fighting my dad. It was a weird time, but I had to put my mind on something. So I chose my training.
Of course, everything was about to change in my life again. I can trace the moment where everything in Ninjago began to accelerate towards the final battle to one specific day, and even more, one specific moment. We had been called in to aid in a situation at the Ninjago History Museum, specifically the fact that souvenirs of a recently unearthed Stone Warrior had come to life from the Great Deouver's venom. It was a simple job, if not somewhat annoying, and one managed to escape. Wu ran after it, determined to catch it and get this job over with.
When Wu introduced her to the group, that was when I saw her. The woman in my life that was perhaps just as important as my dad, even if I had never met her before. It was someone that I had heard about, and even had a vague image of in my head. She looked nothing like I remembered, and I bet I looked nothing like she remembered me. It was meeting her that started everything, from the awakening of the Stone Army, to the rising of the Dark Island, and eventually, the Overlord's return. Everything that happened can be traced down to that one moment.
It can all be traced to the day I finally met my mother.
"There…" Lloyd sighed, leaning forward and shaking his head, "I did my best to get everything out I remembered about those months. What do you think?"
"Interesting," Zane muttered partially to himself, "It appears that the Mega Weapon's effects were centered around preserving the core events to allow the timeline to proceed unhindered, while also ensuring that events origins were preserved such that those involved cannot remember them. Are you certain you have no explanation for the Grundle?"
"No, I don't remember how it happened. I just remember you all called me, said you were kids, and then we had the Tomorrow's Tea incident," Lloyd grimaced, "I've tried hard to remember it, Zane."
"I apologize if my repeated insistence is accusatory to you," Zane quickly backpedaled, "The others simply do not have the desire to research further into this. Given our dealings with time in the past have yielded strange results, I wanted a bit more information on the period. Forgive me."
"What? No, no, Zane!" Lloyd waved his hands, "I'm not mad! I just was kinda wondering that stuff myself. It's frustrating since, you know, how important it is!"
"It was a rather trying trime, if not strange as well," Zane pointed out, "Your father's behavior was rather, strange. He appeared to act less like a true villain and far more like something from a cartoon."
"So I'm not the only one that noticed," Lloyd stood up, "Well, I might do part of this next chapter on my own. The first time I recorded it… I wasn't, kind about my mom. And I don't want to make it sound like I hate her. I just, have mixed feelings."
"Like your father," Zane nodded, "Well, let me know when you wish to do the next one. Perhaps we should take some time to help clear you head, then?"
"I think I'm good," Lloyd stretched, "There's another award ceremony tonight I have to get to. I was gonna see if the car is fixed."
"I can provide transportation," Zane tapped his head, "Calling bike."
From the window on the wall, Zane's eagle-inspired bike appeared. Lloyd blinked at it and then slowly nodded.
"Then let us depart," Zane turned, leading the two out of the room once more.