Okay, so, I know that it was weird that I kept glossing over the fact Cole was a ghost during everything that happened with Morro. When the ninja needed to learn Airjitzu, they went to Sensei Yang's temple. Yang was the one that wrote the scrolls, so they figured they could get another one from him. The thing was, there was a curse that said that if you were inside the temple when the sun rose, you would be turned into a ghost. One of them dropped the scroll, so Cole hesitated for just a few seconds to grab the scroll. That meant when he left the building, he was turned into a ghost by Yang.

There are really two reasons why I didn't talk about it during the previous bit of chapters. The first was that I only was around Cole as a ghost during everything that happened with Morro for a day at most. The other reason was that it didn't really change anything. Cole was a ghost, but his whole ghost powers didn't actually help or hurt us. Like, I think the most he did was possess a megaphone to distract ghosts to let me get closer to Morro. That's really it. Everything else would have been the same if Cole was a human. But, there's another reason why I saved talking about it to this chapter:

When I look back overall, I literally forget that Cole was a ghost.

Okay, okay. This is the point I have to say something. Jay and Nya have both tried to claim to us that, at some point, Clouse escaped the Cursed Realm before it was destroyed, found a lamp and unleashed someone called Nadakhan. They swear that there was an entire thing where Nadakhan, who was basically an evil genie called a Djinn, went around and reassembled this pirate crew from hundreds of years ago, made an airship called Misfortune's something, and then started ripping out chunks of Ninjago to make this land called Djinnjago in the sky and… I don't even know. At some point he claims I was even turned into an old man?

The thing is, I have no memory of this. Jay says that's because he made a wish that meant everything that happened never did and time reversed itself, but somehow he and Nya have memories of it. They even forced us to paint Nadakhan on the wall of the Monastery with all of our villains we'd fought. Jay thought if I saw him, I'd remember him. I don't. I literally have no memory of this happening.

Jay begged me to write chapters about this. He wanted me to try to recount everything I remembered. The thing is, when Morro was in my head I was still doing things and I can remember what happened to some extent. With this whole Nadakhan thing, I just don't. I mean, even if I did, wouldn't the fact that time got reversed mean that it was all pointless? If nothing happened that mattered, then clearly there was some issue with the whole thing. If the only way Jay could think of solving that was to actually wish to do that, then… I don't know. To me it just feels like a really dumb way to solve everything. You could solve all of our problems with just making it so it never happened. Plus, Jay could have wished for anything! Why not wish for me to have my Golden Power back? I could literally have moved Ninjago that way! And saved everything. I don't know why he couldn't think of that. Or anything!

The reason why I mention this, is because if it did happen, that would be the only thing that was between when Morro was defeated, and the next Day of the Departed that was actually of note. The reason that I forget that Cole was actually a ghost for so long was because he went right back to being human really fast. I guess if this whole 'Skybound' thing Jay talks about happened then sure, I'd remember it happening a lot more. But, as it stands all that I really remember changing was that we had to make sure we were careful on rainy days.

I really don't want to insult Cole in saying that I don't actually think it was hard for him. I understand what it's like to deal with ghosts. I can only imagine being a ghost. Cole said he couldn't feel anything unless he focused his body enough to do it, and even then that had limitations too. Cole also couldn't get wet at all, which I actually realize now is a lot harder than it sounds. On top of that, he started having issues with him fading in and out of existence. I don't know if that was because of his weird invisibility thing, or something else. I just know that for a few weeks, Cole started getting worried about that. Oh, and Cole couldn't sleep and eating didn't do anything for him. I also think I said before that ghosts can drink something if it's not water based, but drinking didn't do anything for him either.

...That's really all I can say about it. I mean, again I'm not saying it wasn't hard on Cole, and I understand it was a big deal for him. It just wasn't something that really left an impact on me. I really wanted to find more to say but, this is all that really came to mind. It's like talking about when Nya first joined our team: in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't as big a deal as I thought it would be. But, I needed to mention it here because Cole would probably be angry at me if I didn't. Well, maybe not angry but at least upset.

Now, I mentioned that whole fading in and out of existence thing. That was really starting to become a problem around the time of the Day of the Departed two years ago. I think it had something to do with either the fact Cole was turned into a ghost by a curse, or that the Cursed Realm was gone. It might have also had something to do with Sensei Yang too. When it happened, Cole would start to flicker like he was going to turn invisible. Ghosts can do that, but none of the ghosts that we fought during Morro's invasion did. I think by now I've talked about the inconsistency of powers in my life enough to not need to say more.

Now, leading up to that day, it'd become something we were just dealing with. Cole had to focus or else he would start to fade away. I don't know what that is like, but I know that it was freaking him out. I mean, it was freaking me out too, since one of my friends was literally disappearing. It was getting worse and worse leading up to the day, which might have something to do with the Ying-Yang eclipse that was happening.

Going into that DoTD wasn't exactly the easiest for me. My father had just died recently, and it'd been because of me. I know that he'd passed on in peace, and I'd come to terms with the fact that he was gone. After everything that happened with Morro, I wasn't about to start worrying about how it all happened. I'd been given my chance already to see my father, so it was more of a day of mourning for me. That doesn't mean that the day is easy, though. It also doesn't help that I never really got to experience all of the little things kids do on DoTD since… you know.

None of us knew what was going on with Cole, so we were dealing with it as it came up. Having Cole as a ghost in the first place didn't require that much transition for us outside of the rainy day thing I mentioned already. Whenever he'd start fading, we'd talk him through it until he was able to get a grip again. I don't know if it was linked to his emotions or whatever, but it was something that we all knew we had to help him with. In the weeks leading up to that day, it was happening almost once a day.

On the actual DoTD, we had to go and deal with a little thing on the northern coast. It meant that we were literally on the other side of Ninjago when we realized something important: we hadn't bought our lanterns yet. Normally we're better about this, but it was a surprise call and we had to get there fast. That was why Nya decided to roll out three new vehicles that she'd finished working on: the Rock Raider, Titanium Tumbler and Ultra Stealth Raider. Yes, those vehicles also fell into the trap of us using them once or twice before we forgot… wait, no. No, we actually used the Stealth Raider pretty often now that I think about it. We used it more than the Ultra Sonic Raider, since we could split it up into different sections to use independently. I mean, I wasn't using it that much but I know the others did.

Well, either way the fact we were literally racing to Ninjago City just to buy lanterns meant that I didn't get much time to think about the day at first. I was keeping busy, so it didn't hit me what the day meant to me. Nowadays I can handle the feelings a lot better, but I was glad that I was at least busy the first time. My mother was still sticking to being around at that point, so the two of us had made plans to go visit the statue we carved of my father into the Corridor of Elders. We had to get to the museum to buy lanterns before it closed for the night's festivities, so we were booking it pretty hard.

We got there in time, despite Cole starting to fade again. When we got to the museum, we were literally a minute away from the store closing, and were able to buy the lanterns we needed. It's, kinda silly that we were racing to get there in time now that I think about it. The only reason we even needed to go to the museum itself was because Wu decided it was a good place for us all to meet up. We could have bought it from almost any other place in Ninjago City, but we were also going because we were going to be given a special preview tour of the new Hall of Villainy that was just opened up.

Actually, I think that was the first time we ever met Dr. Sanders Saunders. Or, was it Saunders Sanders? I'm going with Dr. Saunders. Well, he was actually Krux in disguise, but we didn't know that yet. Krux is someone that was important later. He offered to give us a tour.

I've never liked the idea of a Hall of Villainy, if I'm being honest. It seems weird that someone could do something horrible and still end up being honored in a museum. I mean, I know that they're in a section for villains but all of them got their own displays before they even put ours up! It just seems a little strange to me that you'd want to go and have people learn about villains like that. I know they even wanted to add something about the Golden Master, but I asked them not to do that and instead just mention that with the Overlord. I didn't want there to be two displays to the same person. They did anyway.

I know I'm probably alone in thinking that, so I'll just go ahead and move on. Now, during the tour Yang started using some sort of magic on us that made us forget that Cole was with us. It wasn't that we didn't have memories of Cole, since we were able to remember him once someone mentioned it to us. It was more like we were just physically unable to see that Cole was there. It was all part of Yang's plan to do something to Cole to make him come and unleash the spirits of all of our slain villains.

I wasn't really paying attention during the tour to begin with, since I was eager to get going with mom to go see the statue of my dad. I vaguely remember Dr. Saunders showing us this thing called a Yin Blade that Cole stole after Yang manipulated him. By that point, though, we didn't even know that he wasn't there anymore. If it feels like I'm breezing through some of this, it's really because there wasn't much important happening at that time.

We all left the museum and my mom and I used the bottom part of the Stealth Raider to make it out to the Corridor of Elders. It was a pretty silent drive over there, the more I think about it. It was starting to hit me at the time that we were honoring the dead. I wasn't really upset, but I was more so just… down, I guess. I don't honor the day that my dad actually died, so I pushed all of that to the DoTD. My mom was feeling the same way, so none of us really wanted to try to comfort each other when we weren't all that way ourselves.

Seeing my father's statue again brought me a little comfort. We filled up our lanterns and let them lose in front of the statue. I watched them float up and illuminate my father's face to me. Whenever I look back at that statue, I feel glad that we decided to do that for him. My father saved Ninjago, and carving him alongside all of the other great men that helped protect Ninjago is my way of honoring that. Going there helps me to feel closer to him in some way.

I've always thought that, in some way, my father was looking out for me after he passed away. I know that he likely isn't, since he was in another realm that we can't even reach. Whenever people say that, however, I think it means that they've come to terms with what happened. I mean… I'm not saying that I'm an expert, but I know that whenever I started to feel guilty or worried about my father, I would start to think about how he was watching over me and I'd feel better. When I was under that statue, all of my worries at that point started to fade away. I knew my dad was proud of me, and I knew that he'd always watch over me if he could.

That was around the time that Pythor showed up. Yang's plan that night is one that most of you probably don't haven't heard of. Yang tricked Cole into taking the Yin Blade and releasing the souls of our villains to possess the statues in the Hall of Villainy to come and kill us and take our place among the living. The exception to that was Pythor, since he isn't (as far as I know) dead. Pythor simply showed up around the time that this was happening and decided to join in on it. Pythor decided to come and try to kill me… to kill time.

You know, I have to at least say that Pythor made himself an annoying opponent. The first thing he did when he showed up was taunt me that he'd gotten rid of 'the father' and now it was time to finish off 'the son.' If I'm being honest, I'd forgotten about Pythor by that point. After Chen, he just sort of vanished. The spirits of the generals undid the effects of the shrinking pill, so I wasn't fighting a tiny doll. I guess maybe the reason that he was such a tough opponent was because, even if he is the wrong color now, he's an Anacondrai. His first move was to knock the head off of one of the carvings to try to crush me, leaving me having to hold it up to avoid getting crushed.

I really want to say a lot more about the encounter with Pythor… but it all went by so fast. Pythor taunted me about my father, and I responded by remembering I wasn't alone and my father was always with me. I did some Spinjitzu to get out from under the rock and then Pythor and I fought a little bit around before he just… left. Well, to be more specific I kicked him off a small cliff and he just gave up. I think the fact he didn't even bother trying to come after us that seriously was why I say he was just killing time.

Maybe I expected the fight to be a little more… climactic? Like, Pythor was coming back to finally try to take his revenge on me after all of these years. He'd been the one to force me into becoming a ninja, and now he wanted to take me down after allying with us to stop Chen. He was right where he needed to be. It almost felt like the last fight that we should have ever had. It actually was, but it wasn't even a big one! Pythor acted like he wanted to kill me, but he gave up after I knocked him off a little cliff? I saw those cultists literally walk through us collapsing the sides of the Corridor of Elders!

I guess all in all I was just disappointed with it. I'm not saying that I want to have Pythor come in and beat me senseless -Chen already taught me how that felt- but I at least wanted to feel like it was worth my time. Maybe I'm just upset because it was during DoTD when I was supposed to be visiting my father's statue. I guess in the end it isn't important.

So, anyways. My mother and I figured something was wrong and we contacted the ninja to meet up at the museum. When we got there, we all started sharing stories. It turns out that all of them had faced their villains and defeated them. To be honest, it all sounded somewhat underwhelming. It was scary to have them returning, but it didn't take much to really defeat them.

Soon, however, Wu arrived with someone we didn't expect: Morro. The thought had crossed my head that he was in the hall when we arrived, and we of course were all ready to fight him. Seeing Morro again made it look like he'd followed Wu all the way there… but then Wu instead said that Morro had told him about what was really going on. That's how we learned that Yang was behind all of this and was planning something with Cole.

Seeing Morro back and helping Wu was… odd. I guess I should be grateful, since this meant that Morro wasn't going to make this difficult. I think what's odd is that I don't know why Morro did that. I know his last words were meant to absolve Wu of the guilt over failing him, but that didn't mean Morro went out a hero. I'm not sure what drove him to do that. Maybe he felt he had a debt to pay to Wu? I'm not complaining, but it was… odd, and I can't figure out why Morro did it. Still, we all loaded up the Bounty and made our way over to Yang's temple. Morro peacefully went back to his place in the hall and took it, allowing himself to go back to the Departed Realm.

When we arrived, Cole was fighting with Yang on top of his temple, underneath a massive rift. What we came to understand was that if Cole jumped through the rift, he'd become human again. I don't know what went down, and Cole told me he and Yang were fighting to make it through the rift.

I don't really understand what happened. I've never met Sensei Yang, so I don't know what to think about him. Cole says that he tried to give himself immortality, and in turn cursed himself so the temple would always have a ghost to remain as its 'Master' of some kind. That's really weird to me, because I've never seen Yang. If he was always in the temple, then why did I never get a chance to meet him? All I know is that Yang had some sort of change of heart and let Cole go through the rift at the last moment, letting him become human again.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I must not think of Cole being a ghost as such a big deal because I wasn't really involved in him becoming a ghost or coming back to life. Both times I was doing something completely different. The others remember it a lot more, since they were there. But I wasn't. I was fighting Pythor in a really short fight. I'm not trying to say it wasn't important to Cole, but… I just don't have much to say on it!

I mean, honestly, the biggest thing that came out of this was that Yang's temple was restored back to its full glory. Because of that, we decided to make it our base of operations. For some reason it was now permanently floating in the sky. Honestly? I think it's the best headquarters that we ever had. It's the coolest looking, and it was a lot bigger than the Monastery. We had enough space for all of us to have our own rooms and multiple places for us to train. It was also a lot safer than the Monastery… well, I mean that it wasn't burned down at least. It's really weird how we just seemed to forget about it later.

So, Cole was no longer a ghost, we now had a new base of operations, and my first DoTD without my dad was over. We were ready to fully move forward as ninja and train even harder than ever before. I know I said the future looked bright already, but at that point it looked even brighter. We were all about to begin our journey to becoming even stronger than ever.

I almost wish that we knew just how little time we had before it was all about to come crashing down on us.

"Huh… well, that was something," Cole spoke up after Lloyd had finished talking.

"Yeah… something," Lloyd muttered out. There was an awkwardness in the air, though whether or not it was only coming from Lloyd was something neither of them knew yet.

"If you wanted to talk to me about being a ghost," Cole broke the tension, "Then you should know I'm fine with what you said."

"Really?" Lloyd sighed in relief, "Ugh, all of these chapters about ghosts have felt so weird to me. And I didn't want to make it sound like I didn't care you were turned into a ghost, but I just couldn't figure out a lot to say I wanted to have in the book!"

"If you can't think of something to say, don't say it," Cole crossed his arms and smirked, "Easiest rule to live by."

"Yeah but just, I don't know! You weren't a ghost for that long the more I think about it! I mean, aside from Jay claiming all that weird stuff with pirates, but I don't wanna include things I don't' remember!"

"You gotta take everything Jay says with a grain of salt," Cole pointed out, "I'm not so sure it didn't happen, but if you can't say anything about it, better you not do anything people could take for lying. Kai said you were worried about that with the other stuff too."

"Yeah, well, I mean! It's really hard!" Lloyd sighed and leaned forward, "you know we're all glad that you stopped being a ghost, right?"

"I'd hope you would be!" Cole exclaimed, "I never had to watch the weather so much before in my whole life!" The two shared a chuckle at that.

"You know… there's something I wanna ask you," Lloyd pointed at Cole's forehead, "Didn't you used to have a scar there?"

"Huh?" Cole reached up and rubbed the area, "Oh, it's still there. Actually, here, I'll show you!"

Cole looked around the room for something, then sighed in defeat as he failed to find it. Instead, he reached up and rubbed his hand back and forth against the area. Lloyd watched as the scar was uncovered, almost like dredging up something buried in the sand. Cole moved his hand away to show he had something left on it. After thinking for a few minutes, Lloyd realized that Cole was using…

"Makeup?" Lloyd blinked.

"Yeah… turns out people don't trust you when you have a huge glowing green scar on your forehead," Cole brushed his hair aside to show the scar more clearly, "I asked Nya for some help with it and she showed me how to apply it. I just got tired of explaining it to everyone."

"I notice when you use your lava arms that it glows," Lloyd pointed out, "Actually, do you know what your lava arms actually are?"

"No clue," Cole answered honestly, "And to tell the truth, I've not really thought about it."

"Cool," Lloyd shrugged, "Well, I think that's pretty much everything I had to say. You want to go and work out again?"

"Do I ever!" Cole smirked, "I think you're ready to move up a size today!"

"Let's hope I don't throw my shoulder out doing it," Lloyd smiled, "Last time we tried I swear I heard my shoulder crack."

"I told you, that was just a pop!" Cole exclaimed, "A really loud, crackly pop!"

Lloyd rolled his eyes at Cole's statement but said nothing more. He soon was following Cole out of the room. A small tangent was closed on the previous chapter, and now it was time for him to move forward. It was about to be time for him to record the last story before everything had changed all over again.

Author's Note:

I take issue with Skybound's ending.

Greeting Autobiography Readers! Thank you for reading to this point.

One thing I need to clarify is I will not be covering the Dark Island Trilogy. While I am familiar with the events of the story, I have not gotten a chance to read the books myself. I primarily wish to stick to show continuity, and know some readers may not even know of what the DIT is. Thus, it is best for me to move forward and stick to the show. I also don't read Way of the Departed (nor consider it canon) so I won't touch on that either.

In the meantime, please check out The Furthest Realm and Enter the Ninjaverse, two other fanfics I've written I've poured a lot of time into. I would be very happy if you took the time to do that! Thank you again, and Ninja-GO!