Some time in the future…
The only sound in the empty field was the crunching of freshly laid snow. As far as Kai knew, he was alone and – even more important – he wasn't being followed. He hated every reason why he was here. The worst part was that he had to explain everything when he got home, and where on earth would he even begin?
Tonight was such a beautiful night- not a cloud in sight and the full moon shining bright on the snow to guide the way. What stopped him from admiring it a bit more was the silhouette of Lloyd Garmadon on the horizon. The Green Ninja was bent over a small basket, tending to it in a soft, but somber manner as Kai came over to him.
"You don't have to do this." Kai reminded him. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't." Lloyd replied in a calm, quiet voice as he made sure the bundle was still warm and comfortable. Giving the small bundle a small smile, Lloyd then brought out a Serpentine fang on onto a long silver chain. "You're the only one I can trust to do this."
Kai wasn't quite listening at this point- eyeballing the fang with some measure of unpleasantness. The duo remained in silence as Lloyd twisted off a top portion of the fang, revealing the inside to be hollow. Lloyd then handed the fang to Kai before pulling out a small kunai from his belt. Motioning for Kai to move the fang under Lloyd's wrist, the Green Ninja then cut himself and let the blood drip into the hollow fang. He waited until his blood congealed before carefully taking the fang from Kai. The Master of Fire let out a shaking breath as he took the kunai from Lloyd and held out his own wrist.
Once Kai's blood congealed, Lloyd replaced the top of the Serpentine fang- taking care to make sure that it was closed completely.
"As brother sharpens brother, blood sharpens bonds." he said in a firm tone, despite no one else being there but them, as he held the fang high enough that the moon cast a soft glint across it. "With this promise, her future will be certain and her protection sound."
"You know, she wouldn't need to be protected if you would just let us come with you." Kai nervously joked before looking at Lloyd. But the Green Ninja refused to answer. Instead, he gave the fang to his friend and started to make his leave.
"You know I'll never forgive you for this!" Kai shouted. "And neither will she when she finds out!"
Hearing this halted Lloyd dead in his tracks.
"I wouldn't expect you to." were the last words of the Green Ninja before disappearing into the night. If Kai knew what was going to happen, he would have tried harder to stop Lloyd, but for now other things needed his attention.
Kai moved to the basket that Lloyd left behind and bent down the get a better look at the bundle. Still asleep- and completely unaware of the events that had transpired. Moving a bit of the blanket to get a good look at the bundle's face, Kai realized with a horrible pit that she looked a lot like Lloyd.
"You deserve better than this Min..." the ninja mumbled to himself as he picked up the basket. The child didn't stir, and with a heavy sigh from Kai, he started to walk home with Lloyd's only daughter.
. . .
Many, many years later…
There were about three things that Minerva Florence was sure about herself: She was an orphan, she wasn't allowed to fight- verbally or physically, and (coincidentally enough) she no longer had an adult guardian to not tell her to fight- verbally or physically. It took her a good ten months before she realized that she could do the one thing she was never allowed to do. Since then, she came to realize two more things about herself: she preferred a reserve grip and Monty had obviously never been told he couldn't fight with weapons like she had been.
"Let's go over the routine again." Monty callously told her as he tossed a bo staff her way. "Remember your footing- when you get worked up, you tend to misjudge your steps."
"Right." Mina agreed with a nod as she got into her preparation stance. But Monty didn't start the routine; instead he glared at her until she picked up on it.
"What?" she questioned.
"Your thumb." came the reply. "If you insist on holding a bo staff like a katana, the least you could do is remove your thumb from the base."
"Huh?" the young teen questioned before looking down at the staff. Sure enough, her thumb rested at the base of the staff. A bit annoyed at such an amateur mistake, Minerva changed her hand position a bit before getting back down to business.
"Now are we ready?" she asked him. The stoic, nerd-like Montgomery Walker gave a small shrug of indifference before starting their fight.
Monty held nothing back at his fought with Minerva, using a bo staff of his own to counter her attacks. While dodging a lot of her swipes and jabs, he gave his opinion on each one- none of them were particularly nice.
"Too slow," he informed after she attempted to block one of his hits. "Not even close," he declared after she tried to deliver an upper cut from the left. It was when Minerva tried to hit him up high, leading Montgomery to duck below and give a nasty kick at her legs. "Told you to watch your footing," he told her in a flat tone after she had fallen square on her back. If she wasn't in pain right now, you know she would have had some choice words for him.
"Are we done for today?" Monty asked her, not in the least bit sounding concerned for her hurting back. "I promised Mother I would be back at the junkyard before noon."
Mina didn't answer at first. Instead, she pushed past the pain to get herself back up, taking the bo staff and giving the middle a hard twist. The bo staff now becoming two, Mina prepared herself once more and glared at the older teen in determination.
Giving a snide smirk, Monty noted, "So you had breakfast today. Perfect. I suppose it's time for ranged defense then?"
His answer came in the form of a frustrated growl before Minerva launched herself at him. It didn't phase Montgomery in the slightest, easily being able to bound to another portion of the room to avoid her attack.
"Watch your footing Minerva!" he warned in a stern voice before sending five kunais in Minerva's direction. Dodging three and stopping the other two with her twin staffs, Mina then tried to move closer to Monty's location. However, he had anticipated this, leading him to continuously move across the room out of Minerva's range. To the outside viewer it could have been seen as a game- like siblings playing keep-away.
Unknown to the both of them, the door to the training room started to open.
"Minerva? Montgomery? Are you in here?" the newcomer questioned just as Mina moved in front of the door. Before Monty could truly react, he fired a set of kunais at her without a second thought. Minerva was able to dodge the small projectiles- the newcomer was almost not as lucky, the kunais making their mark on the door frame.
"Mister Cyrus." Montgomery properly greeted. Minerva, who hadn't processed that someone was there until now, wildly spun around to look Cyrus Borg in the eye.
"O-oh my..." Cyrus himself noted as he stared at the kunais, careful to note that Monty had thrown them in a neat line. To the duo he said, "I'm so glad that you missed!"
"I never miss." Monty replied in a dark tone. Hearing this, Cyrus gave a small, nervous chuckle before remembering why he was there.
"Minerva," he said as he addressed the girl, "I have a gift for you."
"Another?" came his less than amused reply. There was even a less than interested raise of her eyebrow.
"This one will be far more interesting than the last," Cyrus promised. "Promise."
Mina looked at Cyrus for a moment before glancing at Montgomery. Every since Minerva started living with Cyrus, he had tried to make her comfortable and offered his sympathy in rather brilliantly well made inventions. The problem was that she didn't care for a single one of them; it wasn't Cyrus's inventions that she wanted, after all.
"Fine." she eventually agreed with an exhausted sigh. "But Cyrus, this has to be the last one. For real this time."
"Understandable." came the agreement. "If it's all the same to you, I believe that after this invention, I will no longer make something new for you; too much time and energy my dear! What this new machine can do will be worth it Minerva, trust me."
Hearing this, Mina and Monty gave each other a wary side glance. What could be so important that Cyrus was so sure that Minerva would like it?
A/N: After 3 years I'm finally doing good on what I promised; the rewrite of Time Window! If anyone's read the original, you'd know that toward the end it seemed to be all over the place and didn't make a lot of sense, but I'm changing that right now. This rewrite has an actual set plot! I have notes! AND I'm bringing back some scenes from the original (because I personally loved them). However, I'm sure you've noticed that three OCs are missing; RIP Alice and Cap. Kass wasn't needed, so good riddance, really. As we go on, you'll find that a certain ninja sits out this adventure by circumstance- this is because I really wanted to limit how many characters I had to juggle. Believe it or not, having too many characters can jumble up your story pretty quickly without you realizing it.
I'm not sure how long it will take for me to write each chapter, but (like i mentioned earlier) I'm not going in blind this time, so hopefully it will get done faster. It's more of a matter of willpower, you know? Finding the drive to just sit down and write is becoming harder each day...
Anyway, if you're coming in fresh or a veteran of the original Time Window, thank you for reading!