Pitter-patter,
Pitter-patter,
Pitter-patter.
The continuous song of the raindrops showering upon the grass stirred at Nya's heart as she, the other Ninja, and the Ninja Pups were happily enjoying the many traditions and customs of the Night of the Dragon. The dim light of the full moon's rays shone through the misty screen of the rain, making the rain glisten in its light. The Water Ninja smiled to herself. Considering that this lunar year was the Year of the Dragon, having an impromptu rainstorm seemed to be the icing on the cake. After all, hadn't Nya herself once been a sea dragon?
Of course, she had thoroughly enjoyed the traditional practices that only came into play once a year on this night. The traditional "reunion dinner" of fish, dumplings, sweet golden rice cakes, fruit, and noodles, courtesy of Zane (and Cole, if you count buying to-go boxes of noodles as cooking), was absolutely scrumptious. The most hilarious part had been when Arin accidentally spilled one overflowing to-go box all over Riyu, making the slightly-bigger-than-before-but-still-somewhat-little dragon look like a mophead with draconic wings and small clawed feet. The red-and-gold lanterns and banners that decked the Dojo of Spinjitzu seemed bright and cheerful in the grey mist of the storm. And the fireworks that Kai, Wyldfire, Marshal, and Kijo had crafted earlier that day had been an absolute blast (no pun intended).
But even the joy of the holiday didn't keep Nya from noticing that there was one Ninja who hadn't exactly been enjoying it as much as the others. All day, Lloyd had spent most of his time staring off into space while the others prepared for that night's celebration. Twinkle had sat with him a while but hadn't been able to maintain conversation for long.
It didn't help matters that just a few days previous, Lloyd had been zapped by the Reversal Blade and now was a lot younger than he was supposed to be. To be fair, the incident had been accidental, and Marshal had apologized repeatedly for his literal trip-up which had sent the Blade flying in Lloyd's direction before the Green Ninja could react. And at least he hadn't been de-aged into a baby, like Master Wu had.
Fortunately, this time the team had been a little more prepared, and Marshal, Zuma, and Gracie had all gotten him with their own Time Powers just seconds after the Reversal Blade's power took effect—halting the de-aging and giving him accelerated growth so it wouldn't take a lifetime for him to revert back to his proper age. By now he had successfully shot from being only eight years old to being around fourteen. Nya shook her head in wonder. Like Tomorrow's Tea all over again—except now he had no choice whatsoever. Hopefully, it would only be a matter of time before Lloyd's mind and body finished playing catch-up.
As Nya turned to look at the green-clad sensei-turned-child sitting next to her, she gave a startled flinch when she realized that he was gone. He must have slipped out quietly amidst the joyous celebration when no one else was looking. It's okay, Nya told herself as she struggled to not panic, he's probably just taking a walk around the Dojo or something. No need to alert the others just yet. She then ever-so-inconspicuously slipped out of the room herself and did a quick walkaround of the Dojo to figure out where he was. He wasn't in his bedroom, or in the TV room, or on the training course. At first, Nya simply kept telling herself, No need to panic, no need to panic, no need to panic. But when she realized that he wasn't anywhere in the Dojo, her heart started to flutter with sheer panic. Had someone kidnapped Lloyd while the others were busy celebrating? It wouldn't be the first time someone had. As she stood there, wondering what to do, she suddenly jumped when she heard someone come up behind her. She whirled around to find Zuma standing directly behind her.
"Zuma! Don't just sneak up behind me like that!" she hissed softly.
"Sorry, dude." the Water Ninja pup whispered. "When I looked up, I saw you weren't there, so I started looking for you."
"Do the others know?" Nya asked nervously. If her overprotective brother, Kai, thought for a moment that his sister had somehow been kidnapped…
"Not yet." Zuma answered. "Too focused on the celebrations, I guess." Then he cocked his head to one side and followed up with, "What were you doing in here, anyway?"
Nya sighed to herself, remembering how she'd never been able to hide anything from this pup. "Looking for Lloyd." she answered. "I noticed he was gone, and I didn't want to cause any panic, so…" Her voice trailed off, and Zuma nodded silently as he filled in the blanks. Just then, a brilliant flash of lightning startled Nya, and she jumped a little, her panic rising even more. If Lloyd was caught in the storm and wound up electrocuted, she would never forgive herself. Suddenly, a roughly sketched drawing on the floor caught Nya's eye. She picked it up and gazed at it in the light of the lanterns illuminating the room. Light and shadow danced on the page, making the drawing difficult to decipher. But she gasped softly as she realized what the picture was of—and just who had sketched it.
"I know where he is." she then stated.
Several moments later, Nya and Zuma were standing in wet, knee-deep grass in the middle of a field, looking at Lloyd standing just a few feet from them with his right arm cradled in his left hand and his face turned upward at the moon. The sky was a dim gray as the last rays of the sunset began to fade away. The chilly wind whipped around the two as they simply stood there for a few seconds, not wanting to startle Lloyd, who was clearly lost in his thoughts again. Since he was part dragon, his keen hearing and uncanny sense of another's presence would most likely tell him he was not alone. Then a sisterly worry over Lloyd's state overrode Nya's common sense as she suddenly blurted out, "Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon, what are you doing out here—in the middle of a rainstorm?! You're going to catch your death—" She suddenly slapped a hand over her mouth as she realized why he was standing there like that.
His dragon scales. Nya could see the patch of jade-green scales on his right arm—the mark that he'd been hiding ever since the final battle against the Crystal King (aka the Overlord—yikes!)—faintly glistening in the pale moonlight. Slowly, Nya put two and two together and made four. This hadn't been the first time a Ninja had gained a mysterious physical mark from some sort of transformation. While Cole's and Rubble's scars from when they had entered the rift on the Day of the Departed and Nya's and Zuma's own mysterious sea-blue markings on their arms/front legs were no longer visible, they would still light up whenever the four used their Supercharged powers. But Lloyd's mark was different. Instead of viewing it as super-duper cool like the others did, he seemed to be ashamed of it. When the boy slowly turned around to face Nya, her heart quelled as she realized that those weren't just raindrops she saw running down his cheeks. She slowly pulled her hand away from her mouth, face flushing hot with embarrassment.
For several seconds, Lloyd just stood there, his mop of blond hair all stringy and wet from the rain, his naturally pale complexion looking ghostly white in the mist and pale moonlight, his jade-green eyes welling with tears. Hot, stinging tears sprang to Nya's own eyes as she looked at him, standing there silently. Beside her, she could hear Zuma shifting his paws nervously as he struggled to process the scene unfolding before him.
Then the Green Ninja softly spoke. "Isn't the rain beautiful?" His voice was strangely quiet, strained, almost devoid of all emotion—as if the one standing before Nya and Zuma now was merely a burned-out shell and not a living, breathing boy of fourteen/twenty-five years of age.
Nya was dumbstruck—simply dumbstruck. Her mouth twitched uncontrollably as she tried to answer, but only short, breathy gasps came out. Lloyd simply continued, "It's intriguing to me. Without water, life can't exist. Plants dry up and die. Whole villages suffer from hunger. Intense heat sparks uncontrollable fires. And yet, combine rain with gale-force winds and sudden lightning strikes, and mass destruction can ensue."
Nya gazed upward at the storm clouds in wonder. This kid couldn't even use water power, and yet his mysterious insight into the two-edged nature of rain baffled even her. When she looked back at Lloyd, he started to blink rapidly, as if struggling to stay calm. Was it just her, or was he trembling? He then spoke in his eerily calm voice, "You know, some legends say that sea dragons can control rain and storms."
Nya shuddered silently and grimaced. There was only one sea dragon that she knew of that could actually do that, and she was gone now—much to Nya's relief. A sudden shiver rippled through her body, as she sensed Zuma's fear at the thought of those memories. When she turned to look at him, he shook with silent sobs. Try as he might, he'd never truly gotten over Nya's merge with the sea so long ago. How long exactly had it been, Nya wondered. Seven and a half years, perhaps? Her memory of that time definitely had some severe gaps in it. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she stammered, "You-you know, not all legends are true, Lloyd."
And was suddenly startled when Lloyd's legs buckled and he collapsed face-first into the grass. "Lloyd!" Nya and Zuma cried out at the exact same time as they rushed over to him. Nya fell to her knees in the wet grass, ignoring the blades jabbing into her knees as she did so, and rolled him over so that he wouldn't suffocate. Pulling him up so that he was laying against her breast, she saw that his eyes were tightly closed and he was breathing heavily. This hadn't been the first time this week that he'd collapsed like this, though fortunately Nya, Zane, Everest, and Zuma were the only ones on the team to have witnessed it. The young boy murmured, "Merged Realms…blood moon…wolf warriors." Nya blinked in surprise. Apparently, his newfound ability to sense the condition of the realms was kicking in again. However, she had no clue what those last two phrases meant. And she wasn't dumb enough to ask. If he wanted to talk about it, he'd do so on his own time, not hers.
The Green Ninja then opened his eyes, which were milky at first but then slowly reverted to their normal jade-green hue. Zuma let out an audible sigh of relief, and Nya breathed more easily as well. Then, out of curiosity, she asked, "Does Twinkle know about this?"
"No." Lloyd answered, his voice still strangled. "And…please…don't tell Rumi or Morro—'cause if you do, they will never let me hear the end of it."
Nya knew exactly what Lloyd meant. Kai, who despite knowing that Nya could hold her own in a fight was still rather overprotective, would hit the roof if he even thought Nya was in trouble. And Morro and Harumi, who now both considered Lloyd to be their adopted brother, were turning out to be the exact same way. If they knew that Lloyd was having these sort of episodes, both of them would insist on acting as his personal bodyguards. And if there was one thing Lloyd hated, it was people going helicopter on him. Having to fend for himself several times in his life had done that to him, and some habits were just impossible to break.
He grasped his right arm again, and once again Nya saw the jade-green scales glimmering in the moonlight. For a few moments, she sat there with Lloyd in her arms, thinking about how close they were to each other—almost like twins. Being the youngest members of the Ninja, the two had always had a close relationship to each other, but it had grown even stronger after the Merge. Perhaps it was because the two of them were the first to (temporarily) transform into dragons. For several weeks now, the other Ninja had often wondered aloud if they would be able to become dragons too. But Nya felt that that was just wishful thinking—and she really hoped it would stay that way. (Wishes had never appealed to Nya after what happened with Nadakhan, but with Jay missing, she was the only Ninja who even remembered that.) All the same, becoming dragons had really brought them closer to each other than they were before.
Kind of like how Zuma and Skye were really close after becoming the first pups to obtain Merpup form.
Suddenly, Lloyd started to tremble again, and Nya then realized that he was soaked to the skin and definitely starting to run a temperature. How long had he been out here in the rain exactly? Hours? Or simply several minutes? She pulled him in closer and started rubbing his back in a gesture of comfort. Then she thought, I need to get him inside. She tried to pull Lloyd to his feet, but he desperately shook his head and wouldn't budge from his position.
Okay, something was wrong. Lloyd might've never liked admitting illness, but he wasn't foolish enough to risk worsening his condition when he really was ill. "What's wrong, Lloyd?" Nya asked, concerned. Zuma snuggled close to Nya, and she could feel nervous fear radiating from him in waves of emotion.
"I can't go back in there." he answered in a small, tight voice. "I can't face them."
What? Nya thought to herself. Can't face them? Who can't he face? The other Ninja? The pups? This was all very confusing for her, but she simply asked, "Why?"
"The moon. My powers. All of it." he answered. Nya scrunched her brow in bewilderment. That made no sense. Then he turned his face to her, and it was then that she saw tiny flecks of purple in his jade-green eyes.
The sickly purple of an Oni's power.
So that was it then. He was scared that he wouldn't be able to control his Oni powers and might end up hurting someone. But she still didn't get why he was out here in the first place. "Tell me, Lloyd—what exactly is going on? Why are you so afraid?"
"Too many…memories." he stammered. He looked down at his scales again, quietly saying, "The only reason I have these scales is because…" His voice cracked before he took a shuddering breath and stammered, "Because of my Oni powers awakening."
It was then that Nya put two and two together. When Lloyd had attempted to use Aspheera's staff to drain Nya's power, the energy had been too much for him to handle. It had caused his Oni powers—the very powers later used to bring the Overlord back—to be awakened. These powers were only blocked after the other Ninja—including Morro and Nya—had transferred the power of the Golden Weapons to the Ninja Pups—who then transferred part of it to Lloyd as well. When the powers of all the pups hit Lloyd, it was then that he'd transformed into a dragon. His change in form had squashed his Oni powers down until they almost didn't exist anymore. Almost. Nya winced as she recalled the handful of times when Lloyd's Oni power had reared its ugly head and sent everyone scurrying for cover. Even now he still struggled to keep the Oni inside him from coming out and causing someone to get hurt.
Nya didn't think that Lloyd would say any more, but then he suddenly added, "You don't know what it was like, Nya. I just kept telling myself, 'Get it together. Control it. Don't let it out. You are calm. You are in control.' But I wasn't. I could feel it…calling to me. The—the anger, the hate, it—it overwhelmed me. It consumed me. I felt like, like I had to lash out—I had to destroy all those who were in my way! And it never left me satisfied when I gave in. It only wanted more—more destruction, more loss!"
As he spoke, his vocal pitch went up, and his voice was choked up with sobs. "I tried to stop it—to keep it from controlling me. But I couldn't—it wouldn't leave me alone. It wouldn't let me be!"
Lloyd hadn't expressed this much hurt since the time he'd fallen under Morro's control and unwillingly obtained the key to merging Ninjago with the Cursed Realm. But that had been a completely different situation. As Lloyd had confessed to Nya in the aftermath of the Battle of Stiix, being mind-controlled was like falling into a dreamless sleep even though your body was still active—kind of like sleepwalking. And in the few times he was able to break through the control, he would find himself dazed and confused about what was happening. Basically, he had no control over what he did and no memory of doing it.
But unleashing his Oni power was different—because he was aware of what was happening. He knew that he was lashing out as he did it. And when the power waned, he would remember exactly what he did when it was active. There was no hazy confusion—rather, his recollection was clear and poignant.
And it hurt. It hurt for him to see his friends get caught in the crossfire whenever he was angry or afraid. It hurt that he couldn't control his rage. It hurt that he couldn't put a cork on his power until one of his friends was critically injured—or until someone injured him.
Until now, though, Nya had had no clue how much it hurt.
"Oh, Lloyd." Nya exclaimed tearfully, feeling as if someone had just punched her in the stomach. Her chest tightened with anguish as she held the sobbing boy. The rain all around them blurred all other noise so that the only thing that could be heard clearly was Lloyd's traumatized sobs. The Green Ninja curled into a tight ball against Nya, and Zuma nuzzled against him, hoping to offer comfort—which he gladly accepted.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Nya whispered as the rain continued to go pitter-patter, pitter-patter all around them. "I had no idea!"
"Neither did I, dude." Zuma replied. Lloyd made no answer.
"Don't worry, Lloyd." Nya exclaimed. "No matter what, I will always be here for you. And so will Kai, and Zane, and Cole, and Morro, and Harumi, and Arin, and Sora, and Wyldfire, and the Ninja Pups. And if we have to, we'll even pull in the Young Elemental Force. And if Jay were here, I'm sure he'd say the same thing. I promise you—you will never have to go through this alone again."
"Ne-never?" Lloyd sobbed.
"Never!" Nya replied.
"Never!" Zuma echoed. Suddenly, another flash of lightning lit up the sky, and Lloyd let out a yelp as he realized that the three of them were still in the middle of a rainstorm. He looked down at his dragon scales once more and smiled. There was no longer any reason for him to be ashamed of them.
Knowing that Lloyd might still not want to come inside, Nya slowly and sorrowfully pulled away from him. Zuma seemed to recognize that Nya was headed back in, and he quickly got to his feet in turn. Then Nya turned to leave, looking back at Lloyd for a second and saying, "I'm headed back in—before Cole polishes off the rice cakes. You can come back in if—when—you feel ready." Then she turned to leave, with Zuma right on her heels. She had only gone a few feet when the faint pitter-patter of the rain was pierced by a different pitter-patter—the pitter-patter of Lloyd's feet as he raced towards her and threw his arms around her waist. She was a little startled at the embrace, but soon wrapped her own arms around the young boy, whose face now gleamed with tears of joy and sorrow combined.
"Thank you." he breathily whispered as the two stood there for several seemingly eternal moments—before they and Zuma began making their way back home together.