My joints were killing me. And that was saying something, considering the circumstances. As Garmadon and I entered the large gate to the park, we both stopped to catch our breath, although I was ready to collapse and my companion seemed mildly winded at worst.

"FINALLY! GET OVER HERE, YOU OLD GEEZERS!"

I glanced around for the familiar voice, but the green-clad teenager was nowhere in sight. Then I noticed that the other park-goers were all glancing upward with awestruck faces. With a vague realization of what I was about to see, I looked into the sky to see the expected Master of Wind soaring through the air, using a huge kite as a makeshift hang-glider. Once he saw me notice him, he swooped down for a landing, causing a couple gasps from the other onlookers.

"You're late," he said, but his smirk gave him away: he'd been all too glad for the opportunity of a dramatic entrance.

"Sorry. We had to head back to the house to fetch our kites," I said, glancing over at Garmadon. He was giving the stink-eye to the others in the park who were still staring at us (although they all quickly looked away once his glare made contact).

"Our kites?" Morro asked, cocking his head to the side. "I thought Sensei G—"

Garmadon's death stare fixed itself on Morro, preventing him from making an offensive pun on his name.

"I thought Sensei wasn't part of the competition."

The gray-haired man looked down at the kites he'd been carrying. "I wasn't going to be. Doctor Julien decided it was completely necessary for me to join your little contest," he said, with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice.

"Well, nobody beats me in kite-flying— nobody. So don't expect to win," Morro scoffed.

"I don't," said Garmdon, handing me a yellow dragon-shaped kite to untangle. "I've never flown a kite before. I don't even know how."

"What?!" Morro and I exclaimed simultaneously (causing an awkward pause for several seconds thereafter).

"How come you didn't tell me?" I continued.

"I tried to, but you didn't really let me finish," Garmadon said. "You talked the whole trip about the mechanics of kites and the wind."

"Oh. Well." I coughed. "Sorry about that."

"Well, fine. Let me and the Doc finish this first, and then I'll teach you," Morro said casually, preparing his kite. Garmadon and I exchanged a look of surprise. It wasn't normal of him to offer things like that, right?

"Um… I'm not so sure an old soul like myself is up to learning—" Garmadon started, but Morro cut him off.

"Back out now, old man, and you lose the privilege of learning from the kite-flying MASTER. Be thankful that I was hungry this morning and that I'm in a good mood today," he scoffed. It looked like Garmadon was going to say something else, but I motioned for him to be silent.

"You aren't the master yet," I reminded him. "We haven't started the competition."

"I'm already the Master of Wind, I think I can already safely claim the title of the Master of Kites." Suddenly, he turned to the surrounding ghosts in the park and raised his voice— okay, yelled— at the startled folk.

"Clear some space!" he shouted, probably not intentionally trying to sound harsh, but overachieving his goal of clearing the others away. A few curious children glanced backwards as their parents dragged them off, which I was thankful for. As an inventor, I knew that all the parts of any invention needed to be fully functioning before the thing as a whole could accomplish its purpose— and I was pretty certain that the secret invention I was working on required a crowd in order to work. (Well, it was more of a project than an invention, but 'same difference,' as my teenage companion said.)

"So how exactly does this little contest of yours work, anyway?" asked Garmadon. I was a bit surprised he hadn't commented on Morro's… unnecessarily high volume, but then I remembered that in life, that had always been a vice of the Sensei's, as well. I checked the string on my kite while Morro started explaining the rules that he seemingly just made up.

"Simple. When kite-flying, there are three main goals: to get your kite the highest you can, while staying in the air as long as you can, and to make it look as cool as you can," he explained. I still found it amusing— though not in a degrading way— how seriously he took the matter.

"I don't think 'looking cool' is a very reliable standard of measurement. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Garmadon said, evoking an eye-roll from Morro.

"We ain't talking about beauty, Gramps," Morro started, continuing quickly so that the insulted party didn't have time to argue the comment about his age. "We're talking coolness. Totally different things. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but coolness is a very reliable standard of measurement… one that you don't understand, apparently."

"Now, now, leave him be," I said, choosing my tone carefully so I didn't upset either party. "Understanding how to be cool isn't really in the job description of a Sensei, now is it?"

Morro considered my comment, then gave a half-smirk— apparently my explanation was good enough to quiet his remarks— and lifted his kite behind his back.

"On my mark, start running," he instructed. "Catch as much wind as you need to get your kite at least twice as high as that tree." He pointed to the tallest tree in the vicinity (which was only slightly-taller-than-average, really), and I was suddenly very glad that our location was not the center of the park, where the Central Willow was located.

"You earn points by doing tricks— loop-de-loops and shapes and stuff like that— and your kite can't hit the ground or you're out. The first person to a hundred points wins." He flipped back his hair proudly, as if he'd just come up with a new, foolproof government system that was going to bring world peace.

"And who, exactly, will award the points?" Garmadon grunted. I noticed he seemed a little extra jaded, perhaps because of Morro's current conduct. "It obviously wouldn't be very wise for you or Doctor Julien to hand them out."

"Um— just Julien is fine—" I started, before Morro cut me off.

"There are other ghosts here. We'll just have them do it," he said. I winced a little, knowing I wasn't going to be able to stop what came next.

"HEY, STALKERS!" Morro shouted, presumably to the one or two people who had been watching our discussion from afar, "WE NEED JUDGES FOR OUR KITE-FLYING CONTEST. JOIN THE PARTY OR SUFFER MY WRATH— Ow!"

I ribbed him, knowing he didn't truly mean any harm but also not wishing the other park guests to be scared. That would be unfair to them, not to mention counterintuitive to my plan.

"Okay, okay. JOIN THE PARTY OR SUFFER AS YOU WATCH EVERYONE ELSE BE COOLER THAN YOU," he amended. To my surprise, I noticed several younger kids try to slip away from their parents; a couple of them made it away in time for Morro to notice them.

I fully expected him to tell the children to scram, but to my surprise, he simply looked over and said, "Oh, hey," to the extremely young group. Then he turned his glance back to the surrounding adults and shouted again, "ANYONE ELSE WANT TO JOIN?"

One mom came rushing over and told her kids they had to go— I didn't blame her— but the others were either too afraid to get close to Morro, elsewhere in the park, or simply not present at all. One kid raised his hand as if he were in a classroom.

"Yea?" Morro asked the boy, still surprisingly unbothered by the age group of the apparent judges.

"How many points can we give?" he asked, likewise unfazed by Morro's dark and commanding demeanor. As I focused on the children more, I realized that only two or three of them were hiding behind the other kids nervously; the others all seemed perfectly unaware of Morro's… well… Morro-ness.

"As many as you want," the teen responded casually. "Rules are dumb. The less of them, the better." Then to me, he said without warning, "Ready? GO!" and took off running, lifting his kite in a gust of wind. The kids cheered, and I realized I'd better start running, too. I was remarkably slower than him, of course, but my kite still started soaring upward in fine time. Once I caught up enough to catch Morro's tailwind, my bright yellow dragon shot upwards, swirling around itself for a moment before I tugged on the string and steadied it again.

"Ten points!" shouted one kid from the back. It hadn't occurred to me that that might've been seen as an intentional kite trick, but then again, most of them didn't know any better.

Having heard the comment and upset that I'd drawn first blood, so to speak, Morro suddenly reversed the direction of his airstream, causing his kite to go in reverse. He ran backwards underneath it, his arms outstretched to the sky. A couple kids cheered.

"Ten points," I heard a shyer kid whisper, apparently deciding that ten was the standard set by the previous commenter. I sent a confident smirk Morro's way, which he noticed.

"Oh, I'm just getting warmed up," he laughed, and with an extremely cocky grin on his face, sent up another several patterned blasts of wind, causing his kite to draw a big star in the sky. The jury of children giggled and squealed as he repeated the trick again and again, faster each time.

"Well, it may be no sky star," I said, drawing the childrens' attention to myself, "but I do have a little something called… THE DANCING DRAGON!" Running in Morro's direction, I tugged down the kite string forcefully and quickly, then let go, leaving my kite to soar back up in the air. After repeating the motions, my dragon-shaped kite pranced about in the sky, dipping up and down like a swimming dolphin. Several kids shouted their "ten points!" in at the same time.

"Dragon dancing, dragon prancing," Morro said in a mocking voice, unaware that he'd just stated pretty much exactly what my kite had been doing. "I'll show you what REAL kiting looks like!"

"Kiting? Is that a word?" I heard one boy ask. The oldest of the group— a girl of maybe 12 at the oldest— promptly responded by yelling, "TEN POINTS OFF FOR BAD GRAMMAR!" (I wasn't looking, but I'm pretty sure Garmadon— who was watching a distance from the kids— smiled at her comment.)

"Wha— kiting is TOO a word!" Morro cried, losing his focus momentarily. The kids gasped as his kite fell towards the ground, but it quickly soared back up again.

"Hey, they're the judges," I said playfully, even though I knew that kiting was a word, and with several different meanings at that.

"Fine," Morro huffed. "It doesn't matter anyway. Prepare to be amazed!" Then, with a single, wind-powered leap, he jumped into the oak tree which we were using for height measurement. A few kids who hadn't seen his earlier feats gasped. Using his kite once again as a glider, he jumped off his branch and powered a gust of wind with his feet, shooting him into the air where he started flying around. The judges whooped and hollered and shouted tricks for him to perform ("do a loop!" "go upside-down!"), all of which he happily obliged to.

Suddenly, I felt my own kite string give a tug, as if it were trying to remind me of something. The sounds of "ten points!" and Morro's boasting were drowned out in a memory that overtook me rather violently.

"Father, my kite won't fly."

I looked down at my son and laughed, ruffling my fingers through his blond hair. "Of course it won't, Zane. Someone has to hold it behind you while you run before releasing. Otherwise, it won't catch the wind."

The tiny child looked up at me with innocent blue eyes. "Oh. Will you hold it for me, father?"

"Of course I will." I smiled and took hold of the simple kite, and my boy took off running. His agility and speed, even at his age, already outstripped mine by far. When he was going fast enough, I released his kite and watched it lift slowly into the sky. The android continued running for almost a solid minute before he looked behind him and realized what had happened.

"It's flying! Father, my kite is flying!" he squealed. His excitement and childish wonder never ceased to fill my heart with joy.

"Well, look at that," I said, with sincere pride. "It sure is."

"Doctor Julien?"

Hm. That was amiss. My son never called me by my formal title.

"Doctor Julien!"

I heard a nearby THUMP and turned to see that, in the midst of my reminiscing, my kite had hit the ground. I looked up, trying to remember where I was and what was happening. Morro, surprisingly enough, was on the ground, keeping one hand busy with an airstream for his kite and waving the other at me in large, sweeping motions.

"Helloooo? Earth to the doc', something's amok!" he sing-songed.

"I think it's pronounced 'uh-muk'—" I heard the grammar girl from earlier whisper, but another one of the kids motioned for her to be quiet. I hadn't noticed that the kids had also followed Morro over to me.

"Erm, terribly sorry," I said, once I had regained my bearings. "I got a little distracted."

"You don't say! Your kite hit the ground, that disqualifies you automatically!" Morro huffed. He seemed quite upset at the sudden resolution of the competition, although if my eyes didn't deceive me, he also looked a tiny bit worried for… me? My kite? Honestly, with him it was impossible to tell.

"You went all blank!" One little boy suddenly piped up. "Like a zombie!" He stuck his arms out and started making zombie noises. Some of the other kids giggled, but quickly turned sullen and tried to shush him as they realized I was still within earshot.

"Like a zombie, hmm?" I asked, my voice slightly condescending, as if I were offended by the remark. "Well, there's no need to worry about that. I'm a ghost, just like you… unless, of course, I'm actually a ZOMBIE-GHOST! RAUGHHHH!" I stuck my hands in front of me, mimicking the little boy's motions, and starting walking towards the kids slowly while making noises. Every child in the group shrieked and ran away laughing, dispersing across the park to escape my wrath. I smiled as I heard their tiny, gleeful screams fill the air, attracting back some of the parents who had left earlier.

"Huh." Morro looked over at me and cocked his head. "I gotta admit, I wouldn't have pegged you down as the type to make little kids run away screaming. Not that I'm complaining," he added quickly.

I chuckled. "Oh, there's a difference between screams of terror and screams of fun. No harm in a little screaming, so long as it's the fun kind," I said. "Besides," I added, "you can get just as many people to do you favors by making them like you as you would by making them afraid of you."

Morro looked like he was about to say something, but Garmadon walked up from behind us and asked loudly,

"So I suppose this competition of yours is over, then?"

Morro whipped around quickly, having not detected him coming. "I guess. I won, of course, like I said I would. Although I'd honestly hoped four-eyes here would have been more of a challenge," he grumbled, more so to me than to the other.

"I guess I might have just gotten a little caught up watching your stunts," I said, picking up my kite and winding the string back up. I winked at Garmadon, although I still wasn't sure he knew what I was doing. No matter. I'd explain later tonight, if I got the chance.

Morro was visibly thrown off-guard by my compliment, but quickly regained his posture. "Well, I AM the best kite-flyer there is. I suppose I can understand your beginner's mistake," he said. "But next time, don't let yourself get blinded by my sheer awesomeness, or you won't be much fun to compete with." (I personally thought his use of the word "awesomeness" made him sound much younger than he realized, but I didn't say anything on the matter.)

"So…" Garmadon started. He shifted his weight awkwardly and cleared his throat. "I guess you're supposed to teach me how to fly a kite or something now, right?"

Morro grinned, which unfortunately made him automatically look like he was scheming an evil plan, even if he were doing no such thing.

"I'm ready if you are, Gray-madon."

Garmadon swiftly jumped up a surprising distance, grabbed Morro's kite in midair, landed perfectly on his feet, and whacked him over the head with it.

—

(A/N: Woops, this chapter got longer than intended... probably because I wrote it over several days instead of in one sitting. Anyway, I hope you guys liked it! As always, reviews are highly appreciated and motivate me to keep writing! ^_^)