This intro is for the people who asked who the character Aryan is and how she plays into the story. In this universe I am creating, Aryan is the Ninja of Energy, the fifth ninja to join the team, and the second female protagonist introduced, after Nya. Though I try not to involve Aryan as much as I involve the actual canon characters (I know you guys are really here for them), she acts as Lloyd's mentor/caregiver, and helps him through the transition of his morals in the first season. She and Lloyd both went through the same issue of expectation vs. what they actually wanted for themselves, and therefore they understand one another. That is why she is mentioned as much as she is during this particular "origin story", because she is the character that helped Lloyd discover who he really was. He also considers her to be the most trustworthy. If you want to learn more about her, and how she arrives and fits into the story, The Origin of the Silver Ninja of Energy is up on my page and and the first part of her origin story, what happened before she came to Ninjago, titled Legion will be up before the end of the month.
•••
"If you're lost, the whore house is that way." I may have been a bit battered, but boldness of the boy's words, whose name I had never actually bothered to learn, came as an absolute shock to me. I quickly tried to retract the thought. Of course he would say that: It was the evil thing to do. The subject of his insult, an older girl who had just appeared from the other side of the quarry, let her eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
"Excuse me?" Her tone came off as surprised, with the additive of disbelieving laughter. My tormentor smirked, and turned to face the girl, balancing all of his weight on one hip, imitating her girlish stance.
"You heard me." He said with a disrespectful nod. "Beat it, tramp." The girl sneered and crossed her arms. Her dark eyes made quick movement over towards one of the boy's cronies, but quickly moved back over to the boy himself.
"What are you?" She asked. "Nine?" She uncrossed her arms and gestured towards me, the first notion that she had actually noticed my presence. "Now, how about you leave the boy alone, and I won't have to call your parents." Her tone was condescending, and I could tell she had no intention of calling any of their parents.
It was almost like she was looking for a fight.
The rest of the scene went by like a blur for me; I got hit in the head by a rock, the girl punched the boy and took me to get ice cream. To be honest, I couldn't even remember why the next day. All I remembered was her, her demeanor, her courage. The way she was ready for the fight, the way the possibility of it had excited her.
I hadn't known it then, but that one moment had set the example for the path I wished to take. I was a coward, and was always known to be one, but this girl had shown me what I truly wanted to be: A fighter. And unbeknownst to me, a hero.
And I was a stranger, a tormented boy she had happened upon in a quarry. She owed me nothing, but all the same, she saved me. Saved me because I was in distress, and it was the right thing to do, but more than that, she had cared for me. Checked my injury, asked me if I was alright. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, someone had shown me kindness. Another amazing thing happened that day, once again unbeknownst:
"I'm Aryan, by the way." I didn't say anything for a moment, before hearing my voice shakily escape my mouth.
"My family isn't exactly… well received around here." I hung my head at the prospect that I might lose the only friend I had made in years. The girl, Aryan, didn't even take a moment to consider this before responding.
"Well, good thing I'm not from around here." This excited me, and my smile grew before I could even consider swallowing it down.
"In that case, I'm Lloyd. Lloyd Garmadon." She gently smiled back at me, another action of kindness that made me giddy beyond belief. She stuck out her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Lloyd." I took her hand and shook it gently. I couldn't get my stupid smile to go away.
"You too." I replied.
Even after all the crap I took from my unfortunate first meeting with her "friends," my decision still remained sound in my head. My mother had abandoned me, my father had never even met me, but I had found the perfect subject to fit the mother-sized hole in my life.
And I filled it.
•••
You can't pull that shit. Everyone knows your father doesn't want you.
In hindsight, I should have known trying to weasel my way out of punishment by claiming my birthright was a bad thing to do, but hey, that's what we're all about, right? But what he said next, though it was a completely provoked reaction.
Even your own mother abandoned you here.
A student at Darkley's was trained, with questionable methods, not to show fear. Not to show pain or empathy. The older boys, the eighteen year olds that were graduating this year, they scared me. Brad Tudabone, my personal tormentor/only friend, he called them "inhuman."
By my current age of nine, you were long since trained to hide your fear, but I had failed every exam, no matter how hard I practiced and studied.
Everyone knows your father doesn't want you. Even your own mother abandoned you here.
My professors were told to berate their students, it builds our character, but I was unprepared for what he was willing to say. His voice sounded large and far away, and his words reverberated through my skull. My shock and fear was clearly displayed on my face.
Maybe because it was true.
My mother, I had to have one, but I had never known her. I lived with her for five years, but as soon as I was old enough, she dropped me here. I assume I chose to forget her, instead filling my memories with the stories I had been told about my legend of a father, and I was extremely proud. My father had never been in the picture, but by that logic, that meant he couldn't have abandoned me. I assumed for the longest time that he might not have known about me, but my professor erased every daydream I had conjured to fill the parental hole.
I was not wanted.
I was a failure.
I was not good enough.
•••
It was a new feeling for me, being tense all the time, but I knew I'd develop the trait. I saw the way the others kept their backs and shoulders rigid at all times, even around only one another. I think it's been a long time since any of them had the chance to relax. But how could they? Forgive my language, but the five of us have been fucked ever since the day we were born. It was fate. It was destiny. I didn't hear her enter the room, and I especially didn't expect her hand on my shoulder. It was cold and fragile with age, and it nearly made me jump out of my skin. It was the second time in the last hour, and I felt my face burn with shame.
"Lloyd?" She said, her voice soft with guilt. For a moment, I almost reached a hand up to comfort her, before I came to my senses. I wrenched my shoulder out from her grasp.
"Go away." I said, trying to cover the awkward break in my voice. Completely skipping over the process of puberty was not doing my body any favors. The woman let out a sigh, pulling her slumping arm back to her body.
"You know," she said after a moment of deafening silence, "I always knew you were destined for greater things." She began to walk towards the side of the chasm. "I knew you were to become the legendary Green Ninja." She gave me a gentle smile and turned her body so she could begin edging her way around the circumference of the chasm, but her smile faltered when she reached the other side. "That's why I left, to set you on a greater path." I bit down on my bottom lip.
"'Left' wouldn't be the word I used for it." I felt the words slip out through my gritted teeth. Getting angry probably wasn't the best idea at this time. I could almost hear Zane's voice.
"When people get a taste of power, it makes them feel invincible. Powerful people while angry are the greatest danger, it is then when they cannot control their actions. "
My mother turned towards me, shock showing clearly on her face. It looked fake. "Everything I've done, I've done for your own good." I raised my hand to my face and pressed it against my mouth, trying to control whatever violent outburst had just bubbled up in the back of my throat like bile. If she noticed, she said nothing and turned towards the banners on the back wall. "A long time ago, the first Spinjutzu master, your grandfather, protected the land of Ninjago with the four Golden Weapons." I pressed my hand hander into my mouth. "And for a while, everything was at peace, but one day, a powerful evil arrived in Ninjago, one that proved to be more than an equal to the power of the Golden Weapons." She gestured to the third banner. "Only the power of the Golden Master proved to be powerful enough to defeat the evil. The resulting explosion split the land of Ninjago in half, and banished the evil to one half: The Dark Island." My mother's face was bright with a smile, one more genuine than any I had seen her with so far, especially towards me. I bit my thumb, reeling from the obvious avoidance of the real problem. My mother walked back around towards me, placing her hands on my shoulders when she reached me. I felt my teeth sink into the pad of my thumb with the pressure in was applying.
The fake smile was back, but it was soon replaced by a dark scowl. "And though your grandfather tried, he could not manage to collect all of the essence the evil left behind, and as a result, one of our own was effected. His thoughts became dark and unchained. He opposed your father and uncle, and violently resisted them during the Anacondrai War."
"What?" I asked, quickly wiping the blood off the pad of my thumb with my pointer finger. My mother made a dismissing gesture.
"It doesn't matter, my dear." She laughed lightly, pulling my stiff shoulders into her body for a hug. "All that matters now is that you are the next Golden Master, and now… now I'm here for you." Her words sounded full of everything, but not a single piece of what I wanted to hear: Guilt, sadness, fear for my safety. My body felt cold everywhere she was touching me, and I knew she felt that I was not returning her embrace. My hands hung limply at my sides, until she finally loosened her arms, and I backed away.
She looked at me. I looked at her. I remembered the gentleness and emotion in her voice when she greeted my uncle. The falseness in her voice when she talked to me. The way she had measured up my friends when she saw them, no doubt comparing them to their predecessors. The only emotion she showed toward me in any way was how bitter she acted toward Aryan, and it was Aryan who was there. Not her. Not Misako Garmadon, the woman who gave birth to me. I was raised by abusive teachers and five teenagers. And it dawned on me; I wasn't bitter towards my mother.
No. I was pissed. And the thought of what a shitty mother she'd been compared to kids five or six years older than myself; it was funny. I felt a smile spread across my face, but my mother's fell into concern.
"What?" She asked. I chuckled.
"You haven't said a thing about my age." My mother's face fell.
"W..what?" She asked again, a look of surprise on her face. "What about your age?" Another laugh escaped my lips.
"Honestly, Mother," I said, feeling the plastic words slide across my tongue as they had across hers, "You think you would have noticed five extra years of age on your own son." Her face crumpled.
"Five…extra years?" She asked slowly. I saw it in her face, she was confused, and with that look, all the cockiness that had graced me moments ago vanished. I bit my lip to stop it from shaking.
"You… you really don't know how old I am?" I asked, my volume rising a bit at the end. My mother opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off. "It's been only seven years, and you really have no idea how old I am?!" I was shouting now, and my mother gestured to me, attempting to quiet me down.
"Shh, Lloyd! My co-workers will hear you!" She whispered desperately.
"You think I give a damn if your co-workers hear you?" I shouted back. "I'm your son! My needs take priority! They SHOULD HAVE taken priority!" My mother only stared. Her eyes grew wide, her irises skirted around, looking for a place to escape. To escape the conversation. To escape me. It was in that one moment of her desperation that I realized why. Why she had sent me away. Why she had never contacted me in all the years I spent alone at Darkley's. I shook my head slowly.
"But they didn't, because you were afraid." My voice was barely a whisper. "Of me, you were always afraid."
•••
"You! You!" I shouted. "You just made me your nemesis!" My words were a bit labored, as I was hanging from my cape, and it was cutting into my neck, but I tried to sound confident. I tried to sound menacing. "You'll pay for this!" My face felt wet, and I knew I was crying. I always cried when I got frustrated. I found my mind wandering once again. Maybe that's the reason they kicked me out, because I cried when I got frustrated.
I heard someone laugh below me, and I glared down at the group of people below me. The butt-faces who put me up here, the ninja, five of them. Four had removed their hoods, having bought the candy that was supposed to be mine. I wanted to kick the smug looks off their faces, but my legs wouldn't reach that far down.
"Crime doesn't pay, muchacho!" The red one shouted up to me. "You can take that to the bank!" I didn't know what that meant, but I had a feeling they were making fun of me, so I yelled the worse word I could think of in the moment.
"You assholes!" They just laughed, and I wanted to scream, thrashing my body around in a vain attempt to get down. The fifth ninja, though she hadn't taken her hood off, was quite obviously a girl. About two heads shorter than the shortest boy, she ran over and grabbed the arm of the black-clad ninja.
"We need to get him down." Her voice was firm and commanding, and I could have sworn that I recognized it. The boy she had touched yanked his arm out of her grasp.
"No. The brat deserves what he got." The corners of the girl's eyes scrunched, and she glanced towards the other three, who just stared at her. For a moment, I felt like I was intruding on something.
"Nothing?" She said to them. "He's just a kid!" She gestured towards me. Nobody reacted, and the girl took a deep breath, looking angrily at the first ninja she had addressed. "May I remind you, that kid is not your enemy, Cole," she hissed through her teeth, "and neither am I." Her head tilted upwards, "Now, go be an ass somewhere else. If you're not gonna play the hero, then I guess I'll do it." All four of them looked at her, before slowly turning their backs and walking away. At the end of the street, the white-clad ninja turned back to look at her, but she was already on her way up the side of the building to retrieve me. I had been uncharacteristically still during this exchange, and as she reached me, I began to squirm and shout again.
"No! No! Don't touch me! I hate you! I can get down myself!" I thrashed and threw weak punches in her direction, but she just hung off the gutter and gave me a look.
"I'm sure you can," she said, "but without breaking your neck? I'm not so sure about that." Wrapping her legs around the gutter as to free up her hands, she reached over and began to toy with the end of my cape, tangled up in the corner of the building. I continued to thrash, but the rough fabric of my cape was rubbing against my neck, and I eventually just hung limply.
"Why do you wanna help me, anyway?" I mumbled. I was pouting just a bit. The girl laughed.
"Because, I don't want you to choke. Or fall to your death." Her eyes got a bit sad. "We're not all like Asshole and Company down there." She reached her arm around me and caught me underneath my arms as my cape came undone from the siding. "Ugh," she groaned, "you're heavier than you look."
"Or maybe," I said as she began her slow, one-handed descent down the drainage gutter, "you're just incredibly weak compared to me." Once she got close enough to the ground, she let go of the gutter and fell to the ground with a dull thud. She shook her head once and gently set me down, brushing off my shoulders once she let go of my arms.
"Well, that could be true." She said, pointing her thumb behind her in the direction the other four ninja left in. "Do you really think I'd need those idiots if I was strong enough to lift you without any complaint?" I stared at her as she gave me one final brush and straightened up.
"No offense, lady," I said, putting my hands on my hips in an attempt to make myself seem taller, "but I don't know you, and you are my enemy." Her eyes narrowed, and I could see her eyebrows knit in confusion under her mask.
"What do you mean you don't…" She instinctively touched her face, and her face relaxed. "Oh, sorry, sometimes I forget I have this damn thing on." With one fluid motion, she pulled the hood off her head and ran her hand down her dark braid. I stared at her for a moment before my face broke into an uncontrolled smile.
"Aryan!" She smiled back at me, pointing her thumb once again in the direction the ninja left.
"Come on, I'll buy you an ice cream."
•••
"So," I started, my feet swinging under the bench we had situated ourselves on, "how'd you end up with…" I made a stabbing gesture with my ice cream before quickly putting it back in my mouth.
"The boys?" Aryan asked, licking the ice cream she had gotten for herself. I nodded, and she shrugged. "I was always with them." She gestured towards me with her dessert, "Even when I met you the first time," she pondered for a moment, "but at that time, they had kidnapped me." I felt my mouth fall open a bit, and she must have sensed this because she quickly followed up. "But now I'm here of my own free will!" Her face once again fell into a look of confusion, "But that might count as Stockholm's syndrome." She seemed to think about this for a moment before shaking her head. "Who cares about me? I'm already messed up beyond repair! I wanna hear about you!"
I was a bit taken aback. Of course, this entire day has taken me a bit aback, but this was by far the strangest. No one had ever asked me about how I was. I don't think I'd ever asked another person how they were, I think people just told me. I smiled broadly. "Well, you'll be appalled to hear that I graduated top of my class from Darkley's School for Bad Boys." I crossed my arms in triumph and Aryan raised her eyebrow at me.
"Hmmm… no… I don't think so…" She said slowly, drawing out her consonants. "Last time we met you told me you were eleven, and by the constant changes of volume in your voice I guess you're about twelve now." She pressed her finger against her lips and nodded. "People don't graduate until they're 18." She paused. "I think. Am I right?" She glanced off into the distance. "I hate this place sometimes."
"Well, I got moved up classes because I was doing so well."
"You got kicked out." The truth of it stung, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. Standing up abruptly, I threw the ice cream she bought me and threw it down.
"What do you know?" I said, raising my voice. "You're just a stupid ninja who doesn't know anything about anything!" She didn't say anything, she just looked at me. That wasn't the reaction I was expecting. "I can't believe I thought you were my friend!" With those words, she stood up and walked a ways away before turning around.
"I know I'm not gonna convince you today, but I am going to tell you the same thing I told the others." She gave me a small smile. "I am not your enemy, Lloyd Garmadon. There are much bigger fish to fry than either me or you." She turned back around and continued to walk towards the edge of town. "And by the way," she shouted back at me, "I wouldn't stand in front of that store for too long! I kinda didn't pay for that ice cream!" I could practically hear the laugh in her voice. "If you ever need anything, just break into a store or something."
I don't think she saw it, but I couldn't help but smile.
•••
Well, this one-shot is becoming longer than I thought, as its going on three chapters. I just wanted to post this to let you all know I'm not dead. Just busy and having a lot of trouble writing Aryan's dialogue. Yeah, I'm working on it. Anyway, I also wanted to let everyone know that because I've been kind of unavailable lately, I've decided to start a tumblr under my pen name, LegionInfinity. Here I'll post story covers, mini-stories, updates on how these stories are going, and as an added bonus, anyone can ask me any question or give me any suggestion they like.
That's all. Talk to you all later, don't forget to read and review!
•••