"Midori Blaise is a two story building; the lower section is basically a warehouse -nothing but square footage for anything from a garage to small business- and the upper floor pretty much exists to be a bedroom and not much else. Despite the name, the exterior of the building is blue. A really nice shade of blue, mind you, but I'm still not sure why you choose to have the word 'green' in the name. And then the interior! Woo boy Kai, it's this really ugly light brown color that Mina always rants about being the same color as-"
"Alice, why are you telling me this?" Kai interrupted, not finding this exposition interesting at all. "Isn't it, like, spoilers or something?"
"Does it really matter anymore?" she questioned in return, the lack of emotion in her tone temporarily disarming the ninja for a second. Kai opened his mouth in rebut, but found that he didn't have anything to argue against.
"We're going to need this!" Alice cheerfully chimed as she picked up a hoodie sweatshirt and placed it over top of Kai's head. The Ninja of Fire shoved her away, and put the hoodie down himself, taking care that the hood covered his hair. The robot child took a step back to admire her quick disguise for Kai and gave a decisive little sigh. The longer she stared at him, the more Kai started to feel uneasy; Alice got really uncanny when she forgot to blink… or breathe… or… anything human-like. Scratch that, Kai just didn't like Alice at all- there, that's exactly what he thought of her.
"Perfect!" Alice declared, scaring Kai out of his thoughts. "Come on, let's get going before anyone realizes we left!"
"Just don't yank my arm again, please." Kai said to her as she made the motion of attempting to take hold of his hand again. The request stopped her in her tracks, and she nodded in agreement.
"Then you better be quick!" she agreed. "We have a long way to go!"
. . .
Home.
Just the word made her feel sick. Cyrus had tried (perhaps a bit too hard) to make the Borg Tower her home. But it never worked. She had been raised in Midori Blaise, despite its small size and ugly choice of color schemes inside and out. A one bedroom home, where Kai willingly let her sleep on the only bed when she insisted otherwise. He tried to raise her while keeping up with his business. She tried to help him if she thought he needed it, but most of the time he claimed it was too dangerous for her to even pick up a hammer.
She had been a pretty selfless kid at one point, even if she didn't think things through at first.
Oh no, she really was going to get sick. Quick, where's the closest window? Wait, she's on the deck, there isn't a window!
"You having fun over there Min?" Cap teased from the command room through the Bounty's intercom system.
"Shut up…!" Mina croaked loud enough for him to hear before heaving over the side of the Bounty again. This was not fun, nor was it ever going to be. Cap didn't waste much time making teasing her regardless, that's for sure.
"If you leave anything on the side of the ship, you'll have to clean it up." Cap continued to joke. A second later, something small hit the window at a fast pace- at the same time, Mina had let out a low growl to show how pleased she was with his humor.
"You need to desist." Montgomery scolded- he had been serving as Cap's second pilot, "She's a danger waiting to happen, making fun of her is not going to help that."
"Can't I have a little bit of fun 'til then Mont?" Cap teasingly whined, his mouth curling into a charming boyish smile.
"Do you want to be the one living a life of guilt when the world burns?"
Cap stopped for a moment. "Point taken..." he grudgingly agreed.
"We need to be on our toes with Minerva." Monty then went on. "Especially since we are taking her back home. Who knows what could happen when she gets emotionally charged any more. Her attitude is unstable enough as it is; Minerva's mind is on a timer that can go off at any moment. Even she isn't aware of when it will go off. Let's not rush it any further than it needs to be- got it?"
"I hear, I hear." Cap brushed off. "But seriously though Mont, what's a trip back home gonna do to her?"
. . .
Kai will never question why Alice had the ability to drive when she was underage in both literal and physical sense. But sure enough, the robot girl had access to a convertible white car that must have been designed by Cyrus and Zane combined. The two sped through the Ninjago countryside- Kai took extra note of where they were heading from the city.
"So… if Midori means green, what does Blaise mean?" he asked when they were almost there, "And why do I call my home that when it's anything but green and whatever the heck Blaise means?"
"No one's quite sure how you got the name; but if it helps, Blaise is a Latin boy name meaning f- oh! We're here!"
Kai looked up at the building that he now owned in this timeline- admittedly, he wasn't too disappointed, but he wasn't pleased either. Not quite as tacky as what he thought it was going to look like, it seemed decent enough to be distinguishable between the other buildings around it. He had yet to see the inside though…
"Come on!" Alice demanded as she got out of the car, forcing herself to not pull on Kai's arm again. Taking some amount of care, Kai got out of the car and followed Alice inside. The robot girl had found a key under the doormat in front, and placed it into a keyhole. With a sad little creak, the door opened up for them. Alice barged right on in, while Kai lingered behind, as the little robot set about turning the breakers back on for the lights.
"There." she decided as she brushed her hands off with satisfaction. "Everything should be up and running again." Smiling, Alice looked up at Kai, who was still lingering outside of Midori Blaise.
Rolling her eyes a bit, Alice went behind Kai and forcibly pushed him inside. "Welcome home Kai!" she then declared with a flourish. The rough transition from the outside light to the indoor lights made the red ninja blink a few times before adjusting, and when his eyes adjusted, he wondered if he had been dreaming.
The lower half of Midori Blaise was too reminiscent of his father's old shop that it was nearly uncanny. Walking through it all made Kai remember stupid childhood memories of him and Nya. Everyone was neatly organized, it seemed, a few rejects were near the furnace to be smelted back down to scrap, several completed armors were hanging up on display, weapons were spread across tables and organized by type simply sat there, waiting to be used. Kai gawked at it all. Had he really made those by himself? How many of them were from preorders, or did he make them in advance? Were any of them custom fit to something special after a certain command?
"It's not going to be down here..." Alice thoughtfully decided. "Let's go upstairs instead."
Absently nodding in agreement, Kai followed the robot girl up a pair of creaking wooden steps to the upper level. It didn't impress Kai the same way the lower level did. Only containing a small bed and a decent sized chest, the room felt… homely, but not friendly. In a small ping of remembrance, Kai thought back to Mina living with Cyrus while the whole ordeal of this timeline went down. The room likely was more crowded than what it was now, but no longer was because neither Mina or this timeline's Kai were living in it. Suddenly, the room's atmosphere made Kai feel sick and miserable.
Unknown to him, Alice had taken herself into raiding the chest for something. "Ah-ha!" she declared eventually, pulling something out that hung on a chain. "Just where I put it!"
"Put what?" the Ninja of Fire questioned as Alice brought the thing over to him. On closer inspection, there looked to be a tooth of some sort tied to the chain.
"It's the necklace you had wrapped with the note that ripped Mina's heart out." Alice informed him cheerfully enough. "You know, the note you wrote that said you were going to leave-"
"Yeah I get it." Kai huffed. "But what does that have to do with anything?"
"Well," Alice started, tilting her head to the side a bit, "This necklace is actually endowed with the power to-"
"WHAT…. ARE…. YOU… DOING?!" an angered voice suddenly screeched from the top of the steps. Kai and Alice whipped around to see a fuming Minerva.
"Oh, hello Minerva." Alice greeted as if nothing were wrong.
"I'm going to kill both you..." the girl told them darkly. "And it will not be pleasant."
"Alice, I don't think she's joking." Kai fearfully informed the robot girl, taking note of the pure darkness in Mina's eyes, and the growing pit in his stomach that could have lasted two timelines and then some. For the first time he'd known her, Alice frowned.
"I know." she agreed solemnly. If Kai wasn't terrified by Minerva earlier, he now was by Alice's sudden melancholy.
Minerva took one step closer toward them, then lunged into attack.
