(A/N: Doing a pre-chapter A/N because there's going to be a long one afterwards that I'm going to need your input on! Anyway, thanks to ABC for telling me what Garmadon's name is derived from [it will come up later], and to all of you for leaving me awesome reviews :D Now, onto the chapter!)

The few hours before Morro woke up were the most awkward of my life. Correction— they were more awkward than any in my life that I could think of. Since the ghost boy had slept in late, Garmadon and I had to make breakfast in the kitchen in a tense state of waiting. The waffles turned out okay, if not a little burned due to my inexperience, but it was mostly the silence that was hard to take. Garmadon seemed to be having trouble enough coping with the knowledge that he'd have to put his pride behind him, and he wasn't much in the mood for conversation.

Finally, after we'd had our fill and set aside the rest for Morro, the teenager on the couch stirred. I knew physical appearances couldn't change, but somehow the shadows under his eyes seemed worse than ever before. I nodded to Garmadon and we walked into the room as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Good morning, Morro," I said softly. He glanced up in a slight bout of confusion as he regained consciousness and then answered with a quiet, tired moan. He ran a hand over his hair, slicking down a bad bedhead, and then noticed Garmadon.

"Whad'ya want?" he asked, in a slightly annoyed but mostly confused voice. I didn't blame him; it wasn't normal for us to sit by the couch when he woke up. We usually just waited for him to join whatever activity we were doing.

Garmadon cleared his throat. "About last night…" he started.

Morro blinked, remembering the night before, and then leaned back with an expression that suggested he was expecting a fight but wasn't really in the mood for one. "Yeah?"

"I, um…" The older man coughed. "I wanted to say… I'm sorry. I was a bit rough on you."

Morro blinked in surprise, then cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "…'s this a joke?"

I caught his attention with a small shake of my head. He looked back at Garmadon, seeming very shaken and slightly uncomfortable.

"Um… thanks," he said, his weak morning voice still intact. Then on second thought, he added, "I 's kinda rough too. Sorry."

Garmadon seemed surprised at the returned apology, although I had suspected it. The two were awkwardly quiet for a moment, and I realized they needed help in getting things back to normal.

"We left you waffles on the table," I said to Morro. He perked up a little at both the mention of food and the change of topic from the night before.

"Oh, good, food," he said, sounding a bit more awake. He pushed the rest of the blue blanket off of himself and got to his feet, walking into the kitchen to retrieve his breakfast.

Once he was in the other room, Garmadon looked over at me hesitantly, in a manner almost like a dog after performing a trick.

"You did well," I said with a reassuring smile. "Not as bad as you thought it'd be?"

He returned a faint grin and nodded.

We both got to our feet and followed into the kitchen, where Morro was scarfing down waffles and looking much better for doing so.

"After breakfast," I said casually, "how would you two feel about a redo of the game?"

Morro glanced up with some mild interest, but Garmadon looked the more surprised of the two. I hadn't told him that I'd try to rekindle the game.

"I'm not sure if—" Garmadon started, but he spoke simultaneously with Morro, who said,

"Sure."

The two paused in awkward surprise, then Garmadon sheepishly looked at me and said, "Well, if he's okay with it, I am." I smiled triumphantly.

"I'll go get the box," I said, walking over to the games closet.

It only took about fifteen minutes to set up the game… and even less time for us to utterly and completely doom ourselves on a rapidly sinking island.

"You gotta come over here and help me!" Morro cried. "I ain't gonna be able to reach the fire temple in time!"

"But I can't leave the last water temple," Garmadon insisted. "If it sinks, we automatically lose the game! We need all the chalices before we can fly off the island!" He turned to me. "I don't like being the engineer."

"Sorry, the roles are random," I said, shrugging. "I'm not very good at this whole messenger thing, either. I haven't even used my power yet."

"I just can't believe I got explorer again," Morro complained as Garmadon ended his turn. "It's like a curse."

"It's only happened twice," I pointed out.

"Well it feels like a curse," he muttered, "and I know all about curses."

I flipped over four flood cards to start my turn. "We have to flood the Forest of Shadows, the Pits of Evil, the Secondary Temple of Earth, and the Resting Place of the Glowing, Talking Ball of Light."

"I thought the Resting Place of the Glowing, Talking Ball of Light was already sunk," Morro said, frowning.

"So do we take the card out of the flood pile?" Garmadon asked.

"Uhh… I'm not sure," I admitted truthfully. "We didn't get this far last time." I handed him the instruction manual to look through. As he did so, Morro overturned the other tiles so the purple sides were showing.

"Darn," Morro said as he flooded the areas, "now both Temples of Earth are flooded with pure evil. None of us have four earth chalice cards yet, do we?"

"Doesn't matter," Garmadon muttered, "I still can't leave the Ocean Temple to shore it up."

"I have a sandbag, but I'm nowhere near the Secondary Temple of Earth," I said with a frown. However, my exterior was, admittedly, slightly falsified: while we may have been doing poorly in the game, we'd managed to avoid any sort of a fight thus far. And in my book, that counted as its own kind of winning.

"Oh!" Morro suddenly exclaimed. "I've got it! Doc, if you use your helicopter card to fly over to me, I can give you my earth chalice cards, and you can go get that chalice while I take the fire one."

"You really like fire, huh?" Garmadon asked, but in a more teasing manner than a rebuking one. Morro ignored him.

"Then you head down to where Sensei is, and he can leave to go get the lightning chalice, which he's already got three out of four cards for. If you use your sandbags, he shouldn't have to stick around worrying about the Ocean Temple." The boy looked very proud of himself for his plan. I paused, stroking my chin.

"That… may work," I said slowly, as I studied his face. "But, dare I ask… why are you grinning like that?"

"I was just about to ask the same thing," Garmadon said, raising an eyebrow. Morro's smile got bigger— he'd evidently hoped we would ask.

"It's just that—" he pointed at me— "you're gonna use your sandbags, so he—" he pointed at Garmadon— "doesn't doom us all by standing around doing nothing all game."

"Meaning…?" I asked slowly, my curiosity too piqued not to ask. Morro grinned.

"Sand-jay is gonna save us all from Garma-geddon."

The teen burst out laughing as Garmadon slapped his forehead and I tried to contain my laughter. I was a little worried when I saw Garmadon's expression change, and was half-concerned that he would start another feud, when instead he said slowly:

"So… you're the leader who came up with this secret plan behind the scenes, right?"

Morro paused, then nodded. "Uh-huh. I'm the real hero of Garma-geddon. But nobody knows it."

"Meaning…" Garmadon's face broke into a smile. "One could call you the 'Mark of Morro.'"

The black-haired teen gave a long pause, then barked with laughter and grinned from ear to ear. "Hah! I'm rubbing off on you!"

"Oh, no," Garmadon snickered, backing away, "I guess you're contagious."

"Then I'm infecting Sand-jay next!" he squealed, and suddenly lunged at me from across the makeshift board of tiles. I dodged on instinct, then pretended to unsheathe a sword.

"Foul virus!" I cried, standing up, "You were supposed to help us get off this island! Now you've turned against us!"

Leaping several feet away onto the couch, Morro dramatically pointed a finger at Garmadon. "And he knew it all along! But you wouldn't listen! Now I'll infect you all with pure evil!"

"Not again!" Garmadon wailed in a melodramatic voice (to my complete and utter delight). Then, turning to me, he asked, "How do I stop him?"

"Leave it to me," I said, adjusting my spectacles, "I'll come up with a plan!" I flashed a grin at Morro. "For I am… the mighty Plan-jay! And no evil-infected villain is going to take us down!"

"We'll just see about that," Morro exclaimed as he ran towards the sliding-glass door, "once I unlock my final form! The— um— Tree of Great Darkness will give me all the strength I need!" He opened the door as Garmadon caught on and ran in his direction.

"We'll never let you get there! Garma-geddon shall not come to pass!" the sensei cried, chasing the Master of Wind into the backyard.

Yup, we were definitely winning.

(A/N: Okay, guys. SO. There's a ~certain chapter~ that I'm not really going to be able to include in SDLPC due to the fact that the story is told from Doctor Julien's POV. With that being said, I really want to write it and if I don't, it's going to feel like that one episode where the ninja are like "ah yes, Ronin, that one guy that we've totally met before" but like… there's no actual introduction and it feels confusing. X"D With that said, I've come up with four options for how I could go about this. I could:

1. Write the "special chapter" from another POV and add a disclaimer in the top A/N that it's deviating from the norm.

2. Write the chapter and post it /as another fanfic/ with a disclaimer in the description.

3. Not write it at all and just go with the "Ronin exists okay guess that's a thing" path.

4. Save it until after SDLPC is finished and then include it in a sort of "bonus features" fanfic. [I don't like this idea much, though, since the story would already be resolved.]

Anyway, sorry for the long A/N but please tell me your thoughts on what I should do! It won't be until after the next chapter anyway, so I have time to collect your feedback.)