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Chapter 28: Parallels

Gene stood idly at the foot of the Dark Throne. Surrounding the Throne Room were the 11 other Ninja in his personal enforcement group, though he didn't bother to learn their names; attachment would be a weakness, one which he delightfully exploited back when he was the spy. Ah, good times.

He walked to the side of the throne room, to the outer balcony as he looked onto the gaping crowds below. Still standing frozen in place with their eyes white, not a sound could be heard throughout the city. Beside him on the balcony was one of the machines that Cryptor had designed for the Prime Protocol, currently turned on as it transmitted the signal to the others across the realm.

"I tell ya, guys, this is WAAAY more boring than I expected it to be!" The quiet nods and grunts that exited the mouths of his 11 comrades filled Gene up with a soft annoyance. Their time at the Dark Army Academy devoided all signs of personality and individuality. Though useful for him on the battlefield, it made his Ninja terrible conversationalists.

"Y'know what? Bring the prisoner in here! I'm sure our Emperor wouldn't mind if we had a little fun with him." The closest two nodded and left the throne room, returning with Cyrus Borg being dragged by his limp legs.

"Let me go!" His arms flayed helplessly in the air as the two hooded warriors dropped his legs at Gene's feet, leaving him lying on his back facing the former pupil. "what the hell do you want, Gene?"

"Entertainment, old man. Even though I was expressly forbidden from harming you, I thought you'd want to see this. Boys?" On command, the two that dragged Cyrus picked him up by the arms, following Gene out to the balcony. There, he saw the aura emitting from the machines spread over every person below, causing his eyes to widen.

"Is... Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes, Cyrus. Though General Cryptor perfected your technology to spread a MUCH wider range. All across the realm, in fact. After the Dark Army has killed what's left of the Resistance, yours will be the only free mind in Ninjago that's not loyal. Hopefully not for too long though, I do so ever want to see you dead-"

A loud CRACK turned all heads to the Dark Throne, where a portal formed. Gene smiled in satisfaction. "Ah, it seems our illustrious master is already back." But his thoughts of victory were quickly cut off as the Overlord fell through the portal with Lloyd, Pythor, Brad, and a familiar stranger with blue robes.

"BRAD?! My Ninja, get them!" The two dropped Cyrus, knocking him unconscious before he could turn to see who was there. Gene and all 11 other Ninja ran forward with their weapons bared. Brad, who was still getting up as Pythor and the Overlord were fighting Lloyd, failed to notice Gene's sword swing down towards his head.

Until it stopped in midair, causing Gene and his men to look at the familiar stranger, who was extending his hand towards the sword. "Who are you? How are you doing this?"

The one-eyed man sighed disappointingly. "How far you have fallen, Gene." The Dark Army lieutenant's eyes widened in surprise as the man ignited his blade. That voice...

"N-no... That's impossible! You're dead!"

"Hey, Gene." The ginger looked back to see Brad standing in front of him. "Fuck you."

The young man sent a punch that knocked his former best friend onto his back, bloodying his nose. "NINJA! Kill him!" Baring their swords, axes, and blasters, the 11 others ran at Brad with the intent to kill. Jay started to run to help him, but Brad immediately spun to deflect the first flurry of lasers into another Dark Ninja, killing him instantly. Brad turned to Jay.

"I've got this! Help Lloyd!" Jay nodded and ran towards the others as Brad spun towards the closest Dark Ninja, who in turn spun into a dark red tornado.

Lloyd, though quick and agile, was no match against both the Overlord and Pythor, and they could tell. He was beginning to slow down from exhaustion, swinging his blade wildly to avoid getting hit by them. But it was not enough as the Dark Dragon Blade cut alongside his arm, creating a dark purple gash. "AUGH!"

Unfortunately, he also failed to notice Pythor's tail wrap around his leg, pulling him onto his back on the ground.

The Overlod towered over him with pride as he stared at the Green Ninja's tired body. "Pythor… feast."

Pythor's jaw unhinged, revealing his gargantuan mouth as he approached Lloyd. The young Sensei backed up slowly on his one good arm, as the Anacondrai was slithering towards him teasingly. "Oh, old chum, we both knew it would have ended like this for you eventually. I can't wait to-EEEAAUGH!"

The Anacondrai's entire body sparked bright blew as a jolt of lightning wrapped around his body, knocking him unconscious. As he fell onto his Back, Jay walked forward with his Elemental Blade pointed at the Overlord in one hand, and the ther used the Force to pull Lloyd onto his feet next to him. "It's over, Overlord. Surrender!"

As his purple eyes darted to the sides, the Dark Master saw Brad overpowering his Dark Ninja. Then, he noticed the machine on the balcony, and grinned. "I think not, Jay!"

With the snap of his fingers, a portal popped below him, and reopened right next to the machine. Before Jay or Lloyd could react, he placed all four hands on the machine, causing it to glow purple. "I win, NINJA!"

Dropping the Dark Dragon Blade, the Overlord's purple eyes glowed brightly before his entire body went limp, falling onto his back next to Cyrus's unconscious form. Lloyd stared at the scene with bewilderment. "Did he just... commit suicide?"

But Jay shook his head begrudgingly. "No, I'm afraid I know exactly what happened. Come on." The pair ran up to the machine, and Jay immediately picked up Cyrus's body and hunched it against the short wall of the balcony. Lloyd, on the other hand, stared down at the city at all of the citizens.

"What did they do to them?"

As he placed Cyrus's body against the wall carefully and took notice of Brad kicking the collective asses of Gene's Dark Ninja, the Master of Lightninging then looked down at the crowd below. "I'm not sure... but let's find out."

He placed his left hand on the machine just as they watched the Overlord do, and extended his right one to Lloyd. "Take it."

"What are you doing?"

With a smile, he gave his friend a determined look. "Saving our home. Like I said, I have discovered many new powers, and if this machine is what I think it is... It's time we finish this." Lloyd could see the resolve in his eye, just as he could hear it in his voice. Without further hesitation, he clasped his left hand with Jay's right one. "What now?"

"Prepare yourself... It's about to get trippy." As Jay let out a surge of lighting into his left hand, it began to glow bright blue and the aura surrounded his body, then spread into a green aura around Lloyd's. But before the Green Sensei could question or protest, everything went black.

With four of the Dark Ninja already dead, Brad was quickly utilizing all of his skills to get through the others. Between tornadoes, Gene could see the anger in his eyes, noticing an advantage: He was too blinded by his rage to focus on his surrounding.

Gene quickly grabbed one of the only two Dark Ninja that were still standing next to him, as the remaining five were spinning around Brad. "YOU! Throw a grenade, NOW!" The Dark Ninja nodded, almost to Gene's surprise; he had half-expected some protest that it would surely kill their fellow Dark Ninja as well, but it seems Sensei Yang's training at the Dark Academy had turned them into effective killing machines.

The Explosives Ninja took out a grenade from his belt and pressed the ignition button, waiting three seconds before he tossed it towards the base of Brad's tornado. The young man fortunately took notice of it at the last second, just as the five surrounding tornadoes came in to collectively attack him. With a quick shift to airjitzu, Brad glided above the explosion that incinerated the five Dark Ninja.

The blast also pushed Gene and the remaining two Dark Ninja back, as well as caused the closest two pillars to crumble. As Brad landed back down onto the ground, the pillar next to him fell to the side, followed by pieces of the ceiling. The young man covered his head from the debris, noticing the balcony where the unconscious bodies of Cyrus, Lloyd, and Jay lay down. Pythor's body was near theirs.

But where is the Overlord?

"BRAD!" The familiar voice brought him back to the present situation, as he looked through the dust to see Gene standing 20 feet away from him, his twin katanas fully extended. On his right side, a Dark Ninja stood with explosives around his belt took out a short spear in an defensive position. One Gene's left side, the other Dark Ninja was bearing a Cole-style hammer aimed forward towards him. The traitorous friend aimed his right blade high at Brad's head.

"It's time we finish this. Time to end any hope for the enemy's future, here and now."

Brad let a small curl form at the edge of his lip. "I couldn't agree more."

Lloyd woke up standing in the same place he just was... but different. The sky wasn't pitch black from Darkmatter smog, it was a teal blue. So were all the buildings. On the side of every structure, lines of white light hummed with soft glows. He turned to one side to see that the Machine wasn't there, nor was Cyrus's unconscious body. But on his other side...

"Jay?"

The Blue Ninja turned to him. "Yea- whoa! Lloyd, you look younger!" The Green Ninja looked down to see he was wearing his Rebooted Gi. He felt his hair; it was cut back in its old shape. "Yeah, Jay... so do you!"

Jay's scars were no longer present on his face. His goatee and eyepatch were gone as well, reverting his appearance back to when they thought he had originally died. Like Lloyd, he was also wearing his Rebooted Gi, seemingly to his confusion as he felt his hairless face.

"Yeah... it's been a while since I put myself into a digital plane."

"Wait... you've done this before?"

"Oh, yeah, I can do this manually; though it's never changed my appearance before. Huh. Anyway, it's one of the new powers I learned about in my time away. But in actuality, the first time I did it was back when we were facing the digital Overlord."

Lloyd's eyes widened with realization. "Are you telling me... we're in the digiverse?!"

Jay nodded slowly. "Yeah, but... it's not like I remember. For starters, THEY weren't here!" He pointed down towards the city streets, where they could both see hundreds of people walking around, going about their daily lives:

The mailman was smiling as he delivered a package to a happy civilian.

The Commissioner waved to a fellow Officer across the street as he was getting an ice cream.

Hundreds upon thousands of other civilians were also seemingly oblivious to their whereabouts.

"What's wrong with them?"

"I can answer that for you." Both Ninja turned to see a black skinned figure with a white beard and long white hair wrapped into a single long bun approach them from the throne room behind the balcony. His robes had teal-blue and red outlining, just as his skin did with his yellow eyes.

Jay reached for his Elemental Blade, before realizing he didn't have it in this digital realm. "Who are you?"

The figure mocked disappointment. "Come now, boys. This is hardly the first time I've changed appearances before you. Here, I am Emperor Unagami, divine ruler, but I'm still the same old Overlord." With a quick shift, his disguised appearance reverted back to his current self, with his eyes shifting back to their purple-red hue, and two other arms sprouting out as his golden armor mesh formed around his chest.

Lloyd kept his fists raised defensively as he motioned his head down to the citizens below. "What did you do to them?"

The Overlord barked out a laugh. "HA! You speak so accusingly, yet I gave them what you never could: pure bliss! They are now subjects of my Prime Empire, my new-and-advanced digiverse world, which has encompassed all of Ninjago's subjects. Of course, they don't even realize this place isn't real, or that so long as they are here, their life force is slowly drained to give me more power!"

"WHAT?"

"Oh, yes, yes. All part of my Prime Protocol, a last-resort plan to help give me power if all else fails. It also works as a way to keep my subjects in line without worrying about any talks of riots. But how did you two get here, I wonder?"

Before either Ninja could react, two tendrils sprung out of the Overlord's back and wrapped around them, keeping them from moving. The tendril around Jay slowly crawled into his ear, and projected a screen above the Blue Ninja's head for Lloyd and the Overlord to see.

"Time for me to get my answers."

Using one of the axes from a dead Dark Ninja, Brad deflected blows from Gene's Katanas and the hammer. The third Dark Ninja with the explosives circled around as he engaged them, hoping to avoid detection. The hammer Ninja swung forward, Brad dropped the axe and used the kinetic force from the motion to grab the hammer out of his enemy's hand. Before he or Gene could do anything to stop him, Brad twisted both hands counterclockwise, swinging the hammer down onto the Dark Ninja's head, killing him instantly.

As the pillars and ceiling around them continued to crumble, Gene motioned at the explosives Ninja to wait as he stared at Brad. "So, old friend... It seems I failed to kill you, and now you've killed my new friends. How did you survive, I wonder?"

Through huffs, Brad picked himself back up, fury still entirely visible in his eyes. "I would be dead if it wasn't for Karlof."

"Ah, yes, the meddlesome Master of Metal. Once we're done here, I should find him and finally finish the job myself."

"He's already dead. The Overlord killed him."

With faint disappointment, Gene raised his twin blades. "A shame. But at least it saves me the trouble; now all I have to deal with is you."

The young student of Lloyd raised the hammer in response. "How could you, Gene? They gave us a home, a family, and you betrayed them! Betrayed me! You killed our friends."

"DON'T YOU DARE get sentimental with me, Bradley. I didn't want them on the ship, remember? I wanted you dead, because as you've clearly demonstrated, you were the best of them. Without you, they would have been lost. But to acknowledge you point, yes, I killed our former Darkeley fellows. They had lost their way, just as you had; correction was necessary. And Sensei Garmadon's former students needed to go, too."

"And Nelson?"

Gene paused momentarily. "His death was... unfortunate. But I would do it all over again in service to my one Master and Emperor!"

Losing the fury for a moment, Brad hung his head in a sad shame. With a single tear streaming down his cheek, he looked back up with the hammer aimed high, angered.

"I believe you."

Gene ran forward with his swords held high, yelling. As Brad stayed in place, the explosives Ninja also ran forward from behind, closer to him than his leader. Brad, fully aware of his surroundings, dropped the hammer and spun as the Dark Ninja was within an arms reach, kicking his spear out-of-hand and grabbing him by the torso. The Ginger Dark Ninja stopped in his tracks, realizing what was about to happen.

"NO..."

Within the tornado, Brad pressed firmly on the ring of grenades around the Ninja's belt, then threw him towards Gene. The traitor ran to the side, but was to slow to avoid the flaying Ninja's legs, knocking him down onto his knees. He looked up to the side to see the last of his Dark Ninja only ten feet away from him, struggling to get the explosives off his belt. "AAUGH!"

But it was too late. The grenades ignited simultaneously at the entrance to the Throne room, causing the overhead ceiling and doorway to crumble onto him and sending Gene flying into the closest pillar, now bleeding from the impacts. The pillar he was now pinned against started to crumble behind him.

He looked up to see Brad towering over him, now holding his twin katanas, slowly raising one. Fear melted onto his face, causing him to shake his head violently as the rest of his body was too pained to move. "P-please... Brad. Don't... It's me! IT'S ME, BRAD!"

With the blade fully raised, Brad looked at Gene in the eyes, and almost dropped it as the face transformed into the dead face of Nelson. The blood leaking from his lip looked the same, and the wound on his chest was reminiscent of the Purple Ninja's killing blow, and even of the wound that killed Karlof. He was instantly reminded of them, the other Elemental Masters, and all of the other students Gene had killed for the Overlord.

THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY WOULD HAVE WANTED.

As Gene continued to stare in pure terror, Brad dropped both blades. "I'm not going to kill you, Gene." His former best friend sighed in relief, and extended his hand to let Brad help him up.

JUSTICE IS NEEDED.

He swatted the hand away, confusing Gene as the pillar behind him started to fall apart from the explosion's impact. "But I'm not going to save you, either." With solace, Brad turned away and walked towards the unconscious bodies of his friends and Pythor, leaving gene struggling to move.

"No... NO! BRAD, PLEASE! PLEAA-" The pained screams of Gene were cut off as the pillar behind him crumbled down, crushing him into paste. The New Regime of the Dark Army was no more.

"Hmmm, AH! Here we are!" As both Jay and Lloyd watched, images flashed onto the screen over them. They both recognized it instantly:

It was the moment Jay "died."

"Scouring one's memories may be time-consuming, but it pays off so well... Now let's see, after I was locked back into my dormant state and my armies retreated, you... were transported to another galaxy?" The images shifted, and Lloyd did his best to follow along:

Jay jumped through a portal in front of a large circular building, almost immediately knocked out by one of the warriors that he brought back to help him; the one called Anakin.

He fought a bunch of lean yellow robots, re-discovering his ability to use Spinjitzu, as well as discovering his ability to use the force.

He was tortured, losing his eye, but gaining a yellow-and-black demon friend and a new droid companion in the process.

He uses a cosmic power to destroy an entire cruiser in space.

He befriends pirates, warriors, droids, and clones alike.

Suddenly, the images shifted to show Jay's face, only it was different: He had both eyes, and they were yellow. He was wearing all black, and holding a red blade in his hand. Beside him was an old man dressed elegantly holding a similar red blade, and a hunched over figure in a black robe with his face covered.

The images showed the evil-Jay now fighting Jay, confusing Lloyd. Then a portal opened, showing Ninjago overhead.

"SO, the portal came from YOU!"

Evil Jay started to walk towards the portal, but the image showed Jay blast a raw bolt of lightning through his chest, going through the portal and turning it red as Evil-Jay had corrupted it.

"WOW, this just got better! The dark power that brought me back came from you as well, Jay! You and you're dark clone. Poetic."

The images now showed Jay stare at the portal close and Evil-jay die from the wound.

Now, the images showed him fighting alongside people of every background; pirates, clones, droids, Mandalorians, witches, bounty hunters, all fighting against a common enemy.

Then, it showed him kill an old man with his lightning, and peace was brought to the galaxy.

The images dissipated, leaving Lloyd staring at Jay in a new light. His friend was doing what they had been trying to do for the past ten years. The Overlord laughed at the situation, grabbing Jay by the neck with a smile.

"I see it now! Jay, when you defeated me ten years ago, it was a sign! It was meant to happen! We are alike, you and I! We are both Masters of our own games. You brought MILLIONS of people together to bring peace, just as I have! You secured your victory through swift strokes of power, just as I have! Don't you see it, Jay? The parallels between our paths? We are the same: We are not pawns, but players of the Great Game!"

The Master of Lightning shook his head in protest. "I am NOTHING like you!"

"HE IS RIGHT, OVERLORD." A calm voice echoed around them, immediately causing the Overlord to back up in surprised fear. "N-NO! Impossible!"

Lloyd stared at him confused, and looked to his side to see Jay's eyes wide open. "I don't believe it..."

As both ninja stared at the Overlord, an old man appeared before them, standing in the Ovelord's way. He worse a simple black Gi, a straw hat, and had a short white mustache. There was something oddly familiar about him.

"Jay, who is that?"

The Master of Lightning continued to stare in surprise. "Lloyd, I've never had the gift for introductions, but allow me to introduce your grandfather, The First Spinjitzu Master."

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