A/N:
Hails: What do you mean I write for Ninjago when I procrastinate on my other projects? That would imply I procrastinate on my other projects all the time. ...Wait. Egh, fine, sue me. I haven't recorded my progress for NaNoWriMo so, oops? Maybe next year?
Aaaaanyway, the following is just kind of speculation on that one scene in Season 9 where Mystaké warns Lloyd about the power of Oni magic. A whole bunch of what-ifs spawned in my head upon watching it and I finally decided to write about it.
Content Warning Ahead: Blood, Violence, Implied Gore. It kind of dips into the darker side of content I've written but it's still rated T.
Also, I don't own these characters or this universe. That's all LEGO's.
Lloyd tastes blood—thick and metallic and suffocating on his palate as it shocks him back to the present. Harumi stares him down, eyes gleaming in the single shaft of light tearing through Garmadon's lair. Her soft pink lips wrap around the muted syllables of what could be a threat or perhaps a honeyed attempt to persuade him to surrender. His fingers curl around the Mask of Hatred, gripped tightly as he faintly recalls ripping it off Harumi's face with a vehemence he hasn't displayed in battle since the Anacondrai Warriors challenged his team in the Corridor of Elders.
All the Sons of Garmadon gather from higher places, glaring down on Lloyd's admittedly poorly thought out plan to infiltrate their headquarters with the resistance at his side.
Nya and Skylor and Pixal have all slipped into fighting positions and he doesn't need to see the look on Ronin's face to know he's trying to stay his tongue from swearing. Mystaké made the right choice and disappeared before everything could go south. Lord Garmadon lounges on his throne, flanked by Killow and Ultraviolet, and they're all content to let Harumi handle the situation. She's the scheming daughter of calamity, who could possibly stand up to her?
"Easy, now," Harumi says in her silver-sweet tongue. She all but glides towards him, hips swaying, her long, beautiful hair falling to frame her face in a way that is just so right. Lloyd curses himself for being so weak to it. Two years ago he wouldn't have fallen for this, two years ago his romance-repulsed brain would have seen right through her.
Lloyd shifts a bit, just enough to give Harumi pause as she anticipates his next action. When he does nothing, the tension in her shoulders releases and she dares move another step, holding herself so delicately. She adjusts her footing but not with enough subtlety to hide the dagger she's wielding behind her back.
"Come on, now, Lloyd," Harumi continues. She flashes him the smile that steals all the air from his lungs, makes him feel like crumbling to his knees just to please her. "Put the mask down. We both know you won't use it."
She bites her lips, then knowingly, smugly adds: "It's not really your style."
She reaches her weaponless hand out to take the mask from him. Lloyd pulls it back, gaze flashing down to it, then back to her. He can hear Mystaké's words whispered to him in the shade of their hideout.
"Oni power is dark magic. Wield it only at your own peril."
The unspoken warnings are simple. Oni magic is strong, Oni magic is untamable, Oni magic is vindictive. It is power—plain and simple—the element of which Lloyd is the master—and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He'd only needed that caveat from his father once to never make his element so advantageous to himself.
"That's how a warlord thinks," Sensei Garmadon had said, gesturing to the scarring bite mark on the back of his hand. "I would know."
And Lloyd… Lloyd's not so foolish as to take one look at his father as he is now—not a single drop of good in him, smirking at his son making a tool out of himself in front of his followers—just to decide he wants to disregard that. He still has the barest remains of his dignity and all of his honor. Harumi hasn't taken that from him thus far. But master's grave, Lloyd thinks, tracing over the violet-hued designs on the mask's exterior. Throw all caution to the wind? Give Harumi a taste of her own medicine?
It's so tempting. So, so tempting.
He could end it all. Right here, right now. Make quick work of every single one of these people, these imposters who think they can steal his title, his father, and his purpose, and crush that last one into dust. A lighter flicks and sparks, click, click, threatening to light the oil roiling in his stomach on fire, threatening to unleash the beast within and let it go wild. He licks his lips, deep in thought even as time is running out.
Nya places a hand on his shoulder and a cold splash of clarity washes over him. She doesn't want him to hurt himself this way, the guys wouldn't want him to hurt himself this way. All their lessons in fortitude and patience and resilience ring in memories, reminding him there's always another way. Yes, it's tempting but he has to think of his family. He could protect them with the mask, he knows that. But is it protection they'd want?
Then Harumi lunges at him, silver blade catching the light, and that ends that argument. Before Lloyd can register what he's doing, he lifts the mask up to his face and plunges into the deep pool of dark matter waiting for him on the other side.
The first thing Lloyd feels is Harumi's dagger as it shatters against his skin. The next is a comforting coolness, suffusing deep into his bones, bracing and black as it sweeps him into the darkness. The next is a rather violent and vengeful lurching as it punches through his body. He chokes, staggers forward, and wraps his arms around himself in a last-ditch effort to contain the beast.
Nya calls out for him, voice strangled by panic.
The lighter clicks, clicks.
Lloyd drops onto all fours, shuddering as a blood-curdling shriek rips out of his throat and devours all the noise in the room in a cacophony of frothing rage and lust. He convulses and jerks around on the floor, rife with immediate regret as he desperately carves at the ground with the black claws bursting out of his gloves, and when that doesn't seem to solve his problem, he turns to his arms and gashes them with little hesitation. The marked scent of copper floods his nose and clouds his mind with a sharp, seething chill.
The lighter clicks, clicks.
All Lloyd can hear are the damning screams of the Sons of Garmadon as they mob toward him and soon even that is drowned out by the rapid beating of his heart as it rises into his ears. Lloyd digs his claws into the ground, stands upright, takes note of the white flames searing where his eyes should be, of the expression of horror on Harumi's face as she backs away from him.
The lighter clicks, clicks.
And it sets the oil in his stomach ablaze.
A pure and primal fury rushes through Lloyd, hot and burning in a way he can't ever recall. He feels it, pulsing and flaring in his gut as it climbs up through his chest, shoulders, throat. Fire crawls through his veins, unmatched and untempered as it explodes outward and eats his senses alive. He feels pain—harrowing and merciless as it rips through him, shooting spears into his heart and shattering it like glass, his father's hand just out of reach as he falls into the belly of the Fire Temple. He feels vengeance—sees and hears Brad commending him for dunking him in a vat of honey and setting a hive of bees after him. Most importantly, he feels hatred—vicious, seething, scorching hatred.
He sees Harumi first and recollects everything she ever said to him, everything she ever took from him, sees the terror on her face and thinks good, she should be scared, and pounces.
Everything goes dark.
He drowns in an ocean of his own hatred.
In his entire career as the Green Ninja, he couldn't recall a time in which he hated so viscerally. Dealt with inundating anger that sparked his powers? Yes. Had the overwhelming urge to punch someone in the face? Certainly. But his uncle always told him that time heals all wounds and with time, Lloyd learned to let the agony flow through him. He'd learn to release the pain and forgive their sources.
It shocks him the amount of past hatred the mask dredges out of him, forces him to relive.
He sees the double doors of Darkly's as they loom over him, sees the teachers and the headmaster as they hold him to the dubiously unreachable standards of the greatest villain to ever live. He sees his family, Kai and Jay and Cole and Zane surrounding him in Jamanakai, jeering that they're putting a stop to him, little Garmadon. He hated them at that moment, wanted to rip Kai's stupid head from his stupid shoulders. He sees Chen, gloating and swaggering around with the Staff of Elements, and imagines choking the life out of him because he's the reason Nya's fighting for her life and his father's fending off Clouse, the reason Kai betrayed him.
He hears Morro's cackling, feels the choking pull of Morro's grip on the collar of his gi, and the icy bitterness of the river consuming him after Morro shoves him in.
Lloyd sees Harumi, her gentle smile twisting into a loathing snarl, her soft hands reaching out to cup his cheeks tainted by her fingers curling around the hilt of a dagger. He hears her calling out-
"FATHER!"
He catches a glimpse of Lord Garmadon jackknifing to his feet. Lloyd's hands fist into Harumi's jacket and a sickening sense of glee fills him. He makes a sudden quick motion, once, twice, three times, four. Sometime in the future, he's only going to remember bits and pieces of the next several minutes and the straining, invigorating feeling of violent satisfaction. Ultraviolet and Killow race toward him with the Mask of Vengeance and the Mask of Deception respectively. His powers burst to life in his hands, tainted by darkness and conflict. His ears ring, guttural, euphoric laughter pouring out of him as he handles them with ease.
He spies Lord Garmadon as he practically wades through the carnage, violet energy alight on all four of his hands. Lloyd has enough time to remember Garmadon when he was good, smiling, telling Lloyd that he's his entire world, the greatest thing to ever happen to him. Then he dives at Garmadon, raising his claws wreathed in golden-green flames.
Nya fills his vision. Suddenly, it's her underneath him instead of Garmadon. Tears gush down her cheeks and her mouth is moving fast. She's blubbering, taken by a fit of hysteria and desperation. A flicker inside him wants to hate her for interrupting but it's quickly smothered by her heaving sobs as she reaches out to him.
"Lloyd, please!" She shouts, voice cracking.
Lloyd pauses, chest aching as the coolness of her ocean seeps through him, washes the oil away, douses the flames. Her powers are as calming and soothing as ever. He could never hate Nya, the only person who had any patience with him from the beginning. Faithful and protective and loving like no one else was.
"Take the mask off, Lloyd," she pleads. He flinches as her hands come up to the edges of the mask and she gingerly pulls it down. She brushes the wispy, platinum locks away from his face, startled by the years of childlike innocence it's taken out of him, how sunken and hollow it's made him look. Lloyd trembles head to toe, unfamiliar with the primal and terrifying power that had flooded through him and now left him empty and cold and shivering. The ringing in his ears subsides long enough for him to hear his father laughing in a state of delirious bliss—like he can't believe what he's just witnessed.
Remorsefully, Lloyd turns to find Lord Garmadon and the surrounding floor and walls around him coated in a thick layer of red. He glances at where he met Harumi, sees her perfect white hair soaked with blood, sees a handful of the Sons of Garmadon lying in heaps on the ground, unlikely to ever move again. Pixal and Skylor and Ronin are bunched up far away from him, horrified by him and the dark crimson swallowing up his once green gi.
A choked whine that he doesn't realize is his own pierces the air. He covers his mouth with his hands, the pressure of tears overwhelming behind his eyes.
"Lloyd…" Nya says.
He shakes his head, shying away from her gentle touch, undeserving of it. Regardless, Nya sits upright and envelopes him in a hug just as he breaks down, the dawning destruction finally catching up to him like a tsunami. The guys are going to kill him.
Garmadon laughs and laughs.
Lloyd weeps.
A/N:
Hails: ...oops? Okay, but in my defense, I really wanted to talk about my headcanons concerning the Mask of Hatred. (I'll, uh... edit those into the A/N if they get enough interest.)