Getting up, Lloyd followed Wu across the deck of the ship, back down the stairs, and into the hallway from before.
Wu opened a door that Lloyd hadn't tried to open before and went in.
Hesitating for a moment, Lloyd glanced over his shoulder at the three teens from before, who had followed him and Wu back downstairs.
"Go on," the ponytailed girl encouraged. Beside her, the spiky-haired guy made shooing motions with his hands and the black-haired guy nodded in agreement.
"I'm going," Lloyd said, but for some reason he couldn't make himself move. He couldn't quite see what was in the room Wu had entered, and though he now knew the rebels these people worked with were actually in favor of saving Ninjago (from his parents? That didn't make sense, Lloyd must've heard wrong), he still was suspicious, and yeah, okay, a little scared. "I- How am I supposed to know this'll be safe? You guys go first."
"Our master already went in there, so it's obviously safe." the black-haired guy said reasonably. "Now you go."
"Wait, my Uncle Wu is the master you were talking about? He's the head of the rebels?" Lloyd wondered, not moving. "But he's supposed to be evil, and also in another realm, how is he here and in charge of a group that thinks it's going to save Ninjago?"
The spiky-haired guy shook his head with a smirk. Stepping forward without answering any of Lloyd's questions, he grabbed Lloyd's arm and tugged him forward through the hall and into the room Wu had entered.
Startled, Lloyd let him.
Once in the room, the spiky-haired guy let Lloyd's arm go and swept his own arm around the room, announcing, "Ta-daaa! It was safe all along."
"Yeah, I see that now, but being kidnapped doesn't give you great faith in your safety with the people around you," Lloyd said dryly, glancing around at the table surrounded by chairs (one of which already held Wu), the counter covered in various kitchen items plus what strongly resembled a large treasure chest, and the wall plastered over with pieces of paper.
"He's got a point, bro," the ponytailed girl pointed out as she entered the room.
"Yeah, I guess," the spiky-haired guy admitted.
"Sit down, you two," the black-haired guy told the other two, flopping down in a chair and leaning against the table. "The sooner we're sitting and silent, the sooner Master Wu will start talking, and the sooner we can get going with the endgame plan."
The ponytailed girl and the spiky-haired guy quickly sat.
"Lloyd, you may sit as well," Wu spoke up.
Tentatively, Lloyd sat as far from the three kidnappers and his uncle as possible, which wasn't very far. "So. Uh. How about that explanation?"
Wu nodded. "Let me start by asking you a question. What do you know about the Battle of Meowthra?"
"A lot. Mom and Dad tell me that story all the time, and we've learned about it in school too," Lloyd stated. "You, um, attacked Ninjago City with this really weird, really big creature you called Meowthra and got banished for it. My parents saved the city and were made the rulers, and soon everybody else wanted to be ruled by them too, and that's how we got the awesome world we have today."
The three teens burst out laughing.
"Why you laughing?" Lloyd asked the teenagers, completely and utterly bewildered, before turning to his uncle. "Why are they laughing?"
"They're laughing because they know the true story of the Battle of Meowthra and hearing the lies Lord and Lady Garmadon have been telling is absurd to them," Wu said calmly. He gave the three teens a stern looks. "However, given the fact you still believe those lies, they should be taking things more seriously."
"Sorry, Master," the ponytailed girl said, stopping mid-laugh.
"Sorry," the spiky-haired guy repeated.
The black-haired guy bowed his head sheepishly. "Sorry, Master."
"Now, students, since you know the true story, perhaps you could relate it to Lloyd?" Wu said lightly.
"I thought you were going to do it," the spiky-haired guy protested.
Wu raised an eyebrow.
The ponytailed girl elbowed the spiky-haired guy in the side and said pointedly over the spiky-haired guy's pained exclamation, "We'd be happy to tell him the true story, Master Wu. It started about sixteen years ago, when Master Wu was in Ninjago City. Well, actually it started over a hundred years ago, with a very powerful master and a battle between brothers and a bunch of realm-crossing and a lot of confusing stuff."
"But all you really need to know about that is that there are a bunch of realms that are really hard to get back and forth between, and that Ninjago's history and timeline are pretty confusing," the black-haired guy added.
"Very confusing," the spiky-haired guy corrected.
"Very confusing," the ponytailed girl agreed fervently. "And also you need to know that there are prophecies that foretell things that are going to happen."
Lloyd nodded, getting what had been said already and eager to hear more.
"Anyway, all that stuff happened over a hundred years ago, and then about sixteen years ago there were a pair of skilled warriors who had teamed up to fight battle after battle for several years earlier. One used to fight for good, the other had fought for evil, and then when they met they came to some sort of villainous agreement and basically started fighting anyone and everyone and trying to conquer them," the black-haired guy explained.
The spiky-haired guy picked up the story and continued, "They had taken over several small villages, but apparently that wasn't enough for them, because they came to Ninjago City and began trying to take it over. Luckily for the people of Ninjago City, Master Wu was there at the time and he fought them off with help from this group of mech-using fighters called the Elemental Masters, which he was the leader of."
"So the two villainous warriors retreated, and the Elemental Masters and the people of Ninjago City celebrated, but it wasn't really over," the ponytailed girl stated. "The two warriors came back, and this time they had help: a bunch of snake-people, a bunch of skeletons, and a bunch of people dressed like sharks. Worst of all, they had a beast called Meowthra."
Two skilled warriors? An army of snake-people, skeletons, and people dressed like sharks? A battle in Ninjago City? Oh. Oh, Lloyd thought he knew where this was going, and it made him sick to his stomach.
"Meowthra was like nothing any of the Elemental Masters had fought before. They managed to banish it to another realm, but at the cost of that generation of Elemental Masters' powers," the black-haired guy said gravely. "Without their powers, the Elemental Masters fought their hardest in their mechs, but they were defeated. The two warriors and their army of snakes, skeletons, and sharks took over Ninjago City and soon, all of Ninjago."
"The Elemental Masters were all imprisoned or forced to help the warriors by being threatened. Only Master Wu escaped, and even he only barely got away. The rest of the citizens were put under the warriors' control, and things got really bad, really fast. There wasn't enough food because most of it went to the army, and there wasn't enough clean water because the battle had dirtied up a lot of it. To make things worse, the people were forced to do whatever the warriors wanted, and often it was stuff like begging the warriors for supplies or praising the warriors for the smallest things or being shot out of a volcano for forgetting to bow or curtsy to the warriors or the rulers when they passed by. To keep people from making things to help them fight back, warriors and special identity locks were placed outside places where people could try to make mechs to fight back, from junkyards to inventors' shops. To keep people obedient, the rulers fired them out of a volcano if they did anything 'wrong,' even the smallest thing, like not calling them by their titles. There seemed like there was nothing anyone could do. People started losing hope," the spiky-haired guy explained, frowning heavily.
The ponytailed girl had been looking sad, but then she began smiling as she spoke. "But then there came a prophecy, the prophecy of the Green Ninja."
"I've heard of that before," Lloyd blurted out. "One of the rebels mentioned it to my dad, and he got really, really mad. What does it mean?"
"Well, the Green Ninja is the one who's supposed to save Ninjago. With the help of some other new Elemental Masters, the Green Ninja will rise to fight the destruction that's been going on and create a new age for Ninjago. The Green Ninja is going to defeat the two villainous warriors," the ponytailed girl told him.
"And the two villainous warriors…" Lloyd's voice trailed off. He swallowed hard. "They're my parents, aren't they."
"That didn't sound like a question," the black-haired guy commented, raising his thick eyebrows.
Lloyd shook his head gravely. "I don't think it was. I mean, if I believe the story you're telling, that's the only thing that makes sense."
"And do you believe the story?" Wu asked, speaking up for the first time in a while as he gazed at Lloyd.
Lloyd met his uncle's eyes. "I don't know. I mean, yesterday some of the rebels said things that make more sense with what you're saying than with what I've been told. Plus the fact that you're here rather than in another realm means that at least some of what I know is wrong. And the stuff about firing people out of a volcano, I just learned about that and it kind of scares me that my mom and dad would do that, and it's confusing why people would keep wanting them to rule Ninjago if they do stuff like that, but it would fit if they were actually, like, evil conquerors. But I don't know. I've always thought of my parents as the beloved and benevolent lord and lady of Ninjago, chosen by the people to rule. What does it mean if they're not who I think they are?"
"All of us find out that our parents are flawed at some point. That's a large part of growing up," Wu said wisely.
"But your parents are a lot more flawed than most," the spiky-haired guy said helpfully.
Lloyd shook his head. "I just- I don't know. I don't know, okay? I want to believe that my parents are good. I want to believe that I haven't been living in some, like, dystopian world this whole time. I don't want to believe that there's a whole prophecy about my mom and dad needing to be defeated! I mean, if what you're saying is true, there's some person out there whose whole life has been leading up to stopping my parents from hurting people."
"Not some person out there," Wu corrected.
"Huh?" Lloyd wondered.
"The Green Ninja is not 'some person out there.' The Green Ninja is in here," Wu explained.
Lloyd's eyebrows shot up. He glanced with fervor between the three teens who had kidnapped him. "One of you is prophesied to defeat my parents?"
"Not me," the black-haired guy said quickly.
"Me neither," the ponytailed girl added.
"Not me either, although I wish it was me," the spiky-haired guy said slightly sullenly.
Lloyd slowly turned to face Wu. Hesitantly, he asked, "Is it you?"
Wu shook his head. With a fond smile on his face, he explained, "No, Lloyd. It's you. You are the Green Ninja."