Story #5: A Glitch in Time
Ninjago—Hands of Time (AU)
writing prompt: Airjitzu; temporal displacement
Summary: Master Wu isn't the only one to face Acronix when the younger of the two Time Twins returns, forty years after being pulled into the timestream. Morro is there too, and he has no discretion of when to stay out of a fight—especially when he's insulted and called a "glitch"—a living mistake in the Elemental system. After being badly injured, knocked out, and almost roasted alive, however, he's unsure what to think about the strange visions he keeps experiencing of the timestream and the glimpse of the future that comes from those. And he can't help but sense that Wu's hiding something…
TW: mention of blood, vomiting
The calm, pink-tinted evening sky was dotted here and there with lazily drifting, wispy, cottony clouds as a little amber-hued butterfly fluttered near to where Morro was laying on his stomach behind a leafy bush full of white lilies and lush leaves as green as his emerald-green hair streak. A small coffee-brown-and-white bunny approached his hiding spot and chomped down on a white blossom, missing the butterfly by mere inches. But then, as the wind-child's fingers began to twitch with impatience and his leg thudded slightly up and down on the cobblestones, he bit back a hiss of boredom and restlessness as he struggled to stay perfectly still and silent and unseen. He'd been laying here for hours, just waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen.
If Master Wu wasn't sitting cross-legged in the lotus position just a few feet from his hiding place, the wind-wielder would have wiggled out into the open right then and there. But Master Wu hadn't wanted any of the Ninja to come with him to the old Dojo of Spinjitzu, saying that there was something he had to do—a battle that he needed to finish alone. Of course, Morro had tagged along secretly, not about to let his former/renewed sensei face…whatever he was waiting for all by himself. He just wished that whatever Wu was anticipating would show up soon. He was getting fidgety and bored ridiculously quickly, and it was getting downright annoying to be laying in the same position for hours on end.
As he stirred around on the ground, struggling to get comfortable, his emerald-green eyes—no longer shrouded by the sage-green mist of bitterness and cruel hatred—darted around curiously to his broken, charred, blackened, splintered surroundings. He'd extracted vague memories of when this place had been burned to the ground by Serpentine from when he'd been poking around unbidden in Lloyd's captive mind, looking for any sort of leverage he could use in obtaining his selfish, ambitious goals of finding the Realm Crystal to unleash the Preeminent on Ninjago. From what he'd found, it was poignantly, obviously clear that the other Ninja—of whom he was now allies with and an official member of the team following the Day of the Departed debacle with his father, Yang—had neither had the time nor the necessary supplies to fix the old place up.
His legs were already beginning to go numb from pins and needles, and he was feeling so relaxed and sleepy and snoozy that he was on the verge of curling up into a ball and dozing the rest of the evening away. But before he could do so, the ground began to shake with humming chords of disturbance far greater than any natural force in normal existence. The vibrations grew louder and stronger until he was sure that the entire mountain might collapse from the sheer power of their throes. As he looked up, his lip quivering in sudden, stunning worry and anxiety, the sky began to buzz and spark and vibrate as a very, very intriguing and…hauntingly familiar vortex opened up almost right above him.
Had Morro's jaw not been attached, it would have fallen off his face and onto the cobblestones. Something about that dual whirlwind seemed familiar…but before he could pinpoint why, a lone figure wearing a green hood and cloak, a red-yellow-and-blue gi, and a black face mask dropped out of the bizarre maelstrom and landed feet-first on the ground before gazing up to take in his surroundings. His piercing obsidian-black eyes took in everything around him, and Morro instinctively scooted backwards on his belly, snake-fashion, feeling the air around him quiver and pulse with frigid dagger-like shards of frosty cold, as if the very world itself was shuddering fearfully at the arrival of this mysterious stranger. Thankfully, the figure did not seem to notice Morro. And he did not notice Wu at all, until the ninja master's smooth, humbly calm and confident voice murmured just loud enough to get his attention, "Right on time."
"Huh?" the figure exclaimed, blinking in sheer shock at the realization that he wasn't alone. Wu then took the chance to, slightly cheekily, add, "Long time, no see."
"Master…Wu?" At first glance, the figure seemed to have been someone who hadn't been around in a very long time. And his next words confirmed Morro's suspicions—he hadn't been around for decades. And Morro knew what decades were like all too well.
"You look old…" the figure commented, his voice a mixture of surprise, subtle malice, and solemn matter-of-factness. "Like your best days have…already passed…" he finished his thought coolly with that ever-lingering shock that comes when someone finds himself temporally displaced into a time not his own. Morro, despite feeling crawling goosebumps sprouting on his arms, every hair on the back of his neck standing erect, his haunches rising, and his shoulder blades tensing for action, strangely felt that he could understand what this stranger—whoever he may be—was going through. The confusion, the surprise, the uncertainty—all were familiar territory to the former ghost. And he understood better than anyone how it felt to be out of place in a world more advanced than he'd been able to keep up with.
But Master Wu wasn't fooled by the figure's show of bewilderment and fright. "I still have plenty of days left." the sensei replied, scrabbling to his feet and holding out his bo-staff in a defensive position that Morro remembered quite clearly was only used in the gravest of circumstances, when the battle might very well end in injury or destruction.
"Shall we finish what we started?" Wu offered, still wryly mirthful in his tone and timbre. "I've been waiting decades."
"It's about time!" the stranger agreed, shifting into a very aggressive-looking offensive stance. With a start, Morro suddenly realized who the stranger was.
That man in the multicolored clothing, hood, and cape was none other than Acronix, one of the two Time Twins. But what was he doing here? And why now? More to the point, how did he even get here?!
All these questions were beginning to make Morro's head spin, so he simply hunkered down into a ball on the ground, watching the skirmish out of the corner of his eye, unsure when he should make his presence known. Not to his surprise, though, Wu seemed to be holding his own just fine. From what the wind-child could tell, Acronix had only his fists and feet to use as weapons. He'd never learned Spinjitzu, and if the way he was fighting was any indication, he didn't seem to be able to use his Elemental Powers. If he still had them, that is—which with every passing moment that Morro waited and watched silent and still as a ghost, was becoming more and more unlikely by the second.
Wu, on the other hand, was doing splendidly. His blows were precise and would have been deadly or, at the very least, disabling had they hit their mark. But for Acronix, what he lacked in strength (and apparently power), he was poignantly making up for in speed and agility. And though Morro hated to admit it, he was starting to think that Wu was having difficulty keeping up with Acronix's moves as the ninja master continued to block, parry, thrust, and lunge with his staff.
Come on, Master Wu, come on! Morro begged in his mind, every nerve within him on edge, longing to see what would happen. He wished he could cry out a warning when Wu just barely missed being tackled to the ground or thrown into a pile of blackened wooden debris. But the wind-child simply resorted to chewing on the inside of his cheek from sheer petrified terror and staying perfectly, perfectly still as he watched from his hiding place behind the bush.
A sudden, small, ragged cough burst out of him before he could hold it back, and Acronix, distracted and intrigued, gazed over in Morro's direction. Morro held his breath, willing himself not to be seen. But Acronix's break in concentration meant that Wu had enough time to strike out, trying to knock the Time Twin off his feet. Unfortunately, Acronix's reflexes were much more cutting-edge than Morro realized. And that's when the Time Twin decided to speak once again, completely losing the confused edge to his voice he'd had earlier. Now his voice was filled with nothing but hatred and bitter mockery of Wu's continued defense.
"I never would have thought you would ever screw up the courage to face me again." Acronix taunted. "After all the mistakes you'd made…the snake bite, failing to win Misako's heart…oh, what am I forgetting? Oh, yes, that little glitch in the Elemental system, Morro."
At the sound of that, Morro was taken aback with pain and melancholy sorrow and anger all brewing into a great tempest within his heart, threatening to blow at any second. A wolfish, husky growl began to curl on his lips, and his whole body was trembling with rage. His churning, frothing, stormy emotions began to rise up in him, and he bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.
A glitch? That is what Acronix viewed him as? Nothing but a glitch? An accident of chance? Worse yet, nothing more than a mistake?!
His hearing grew steamy and foggy with mind-shattering hurt, agony, anguish, and bottled-up aggression. His hands curled and uncurled into fist subconsciously as his swimming thoughts and skewed comprehension just barely captured the malicious, snarling tones of Acronix's continued monologue—"The supposed Chosen One who ran away and got himself banished to the Cursed Realm after you told him that he wasn't worthy to wear that elusive green gi. What do you think he would say right now if he saw you trying to do just one thing right in your life?"
In that moment, Morro completely, utterly lost it. With a great spring, he dove out of the bushes with a hoarse, raw, wild scream of shrieking frustration and furiousness. "YOU'RE WRONG!" he screeched at the top of his lungs as Wu gasped in shock and anxious trepidation at the realization that he'd been followed.
"I'm not a glitch! I've never been a glitch!" Morro continued to wail howlingly, his pitch rising steadily higher as his cheeks flushed more and more crimson with each passing heartthrob of time. "And you're not going anywhere, Acronix—until you deal with me!" he finished, practically hissing the words at the mindless, inconsiderate Time Twin whom he had once called a friend.
"Oh, I'm so glad you remember my name, old-timer!" Acronix snarked sarcastically, and Morro couldn't help but bristle at being called old-timer. "Not!" the Time Twin exclaimed a second later, pausing in the fight to face Morro and spit out, "I don't really care what you and your pathetic Wind Powers are capable of. I can beat you, and Wu too, any day of the week!"
"We'll see about that!" Morro cried out, forming an orb of Wind Power in his outstretched palm, and then the real battle began. Wu and Morro, apparently now pitted alongside each other, both charged Acronix at the same time, Wu using his bo staff, Morro his gusts of Wind Power, both fighting for each other, both fighting as one—for Ninjago.
"You might as well give up, Wu." Acronix exclaimed, blocking yet another staff blow from Wu with his fists as he stepped backward to gain more leverage. "I'm the superior fighter. And your brother isn't here to bail you out!"
Wu jumped back as well, and he and Morro began to circle in unison to face Acronix as the Time Twin readjusted his stance and prepared to come at them again. It was then that Wu spoke for the first time since the skirmish had begun. "Yes…" he agreed with Acronix, "My brother isn't here, but neither is yours."
"And whose fault is that?" Acronix cried out accusingly, leaping forward with an uppercut to Morro's jaw, which Morro promptly dodged, jumping back far enough to be out of Acronix's line of fire, but close enough to blow him off his feet, given half a chance.
"Garmadon and I did what we had to do in order to save Ninjago. Your choice to enter the timestream was your fault and yours alone." Wu answered Acronix's accusation, still cool and calm as ever. Morro was swiftly getting the feeling that Acronix wasn't about to give up fighting so easily and so stepped ever so slightly closer, just in case the Time Twin tried something.
Which was exactly what the slimy time-wielder was planning on doing. All of a sudden, Acronix rushed Morro, trying to barrel him off his feet. Morro let out a yelp of panic and instantly Airjitzued up into the air, landing perfectly on a support rafter high above the courtyard pavers. He risked a look behind him and gulped as he realized that he was just a few steps away from nothingness and instant doom. Whoever had gotten the inkling that building a training dojo for martial arts high on a mountain top had definitely not had his head on straight. And if Morro wasn't careful and quick on his feet, he'd go plummeting over the edge straight to his death. Not the way he wanted to go after being a literal ghost for decades on end.
Wu must have realized Morro's vulnerability, for he too clambered up to what was left of the rooftop, poised on the beam beside the wind-wielder. Acronix hummed in curiously buzzing amazement at Wu's ingenuity and Morro's light-footedness.
"More spry than I would have thought." he murmured half under his breath. "Let's see if you can keep up!" With that, he too clambered and scrambled up onto the rafters, coming headlong at both Wu and Morro, who both continued to fight back with all their might and spirit and strength. When Acronix lunged towards them, Wu jumped up onto a higher support beam and Morro flipped over Acronix's head so that the wind-child was behind the time-wielder. Then Morro began driving Acronix back towards Wu so that the ninja master could easily take him down if need be. With every wind-blast, Acronix grew more and more overwhelmed and involuntarily began to back down.
"That. Is. For. Calling. Me. A. Glitch!" Morro exclaimed, punctuating every word with another particularly strong wind-blast. Soon, Acronix found himself being pushed closer and closer to the edge of the mountain cliff. But then he realized that Morro was vulnerably close to a rotten, damp beam and smirked underneath his hood mask as he held his hand out and beckoned to Morro, telling him silently come-and-get-me-if-you-dare. Morro fell for the ploy and lunged forward. But before he could clobber Acronix, he felt the Time Twin grab his collar and fling him down towards the beam.
CRASH! The rotten, lichen-coated beam partially crumbled under Morro's weight and he let out a wolfish howling wail of pain as his body suddenly bent in half like a pretzel, his head painfully smacking the wooden beam head-on, his frame sagging down between two sopping wet pieces of wood, held up only by his ankles and his elbows. He tried to lift himself out of the hole, but he suddenly found that he couldn't move. Though the water could no longer burn him, he suddenly felt strangely dizzy, drained, and drowsy as the scar on his forehead—partially hidden under his wispy mop of silky, raven-black locks—blazed with white-cold fire and his nerves began to grow sleepy and numb.
Acronix guffawed mercilessly at the wind-wielder's feeble attempts to lift himself out of the hole and scoffed at both Wu and Morro, "Give it up, old-timers! I've got decades on you! I'm faster, stronger!"
"That's your mistake." Wu chided him. "You assume your youth is greater than our experience."
"Yeah, you may think you're big stuff…" Morro rasped, feeling dizzier and more lightheaded by the moment, "but your cockiness will get you nowhere! Take it from someone who knows…" He tried again to lift himself up, but he still couldn't move. Dark shadows were closing in on him…he felt so languid, so listless, so greatly fatigued…
Suddenly, his foggy hearing caught a subtle, vibrating thud behind him as a blurry, gray-auraed shadow appeared over him, and then a strong set of arms pulled him out of the hole, setting him firmly back on his feet. He swayed suddenly and his legs buckled underneath him as he all but collapsed into Wu's arms, a thin, wiry stream of blood beginning to trickle down his face. As Wu lowered him much more gently down to the rafters, Morro couldn't help but notice his hands were shaking, his nerves shuddering, every fiber in his frame shivering and trembling from a sudden, unexplainable cold, so frosty and frigid and dagger-sharp that it felt like shards of corrupted ice were piercing deep into his core and twisting taut. His eyelids fluttered incessantly as he struggled to stay awake, to stay alert, to stay bold…strong…vigilant…aware…
But then he felt a tingling, pulsing, glowing warmth flooding into his veins, bringing his waning, wavering alertness back into focus, and as he sucked in a sharp breath, the throbbing in his head gradually settled into a dull ache. A new surge of strength flooded his mind, and he slowly opened his eyes to see a soft, airy, ethereal golden glow cocoon him in light and tenderness and then fade slowly away as Wu's Creation power healed his head wound.
"Don't worry. I have your back, wind-kit." Wu whispered softly in his ear, as Acronix simply looked on in stunned amazement at the sight in front of him.
"And I…have yours…" Morro slurred slushily, still struggling to make sense of what was happening. He just wanted so badly to curl into a little ball and snooze the rest of the day away…But he shook his head vigorously to whip his alertness back into shape. He had to stay strong! He had to keep fighting!
It was then that Acronix decided enough was enough. Suddenly, Morro's eyes shot wide open as Wu dropped him and began fighting Acronix anew. Still fighting through continual waves of dizziness and lingering exhaustion, Morro scrambled to his feet, brushed the splinters off his clothes, and leaped back into the fray.
The three fighters—Acronix, Wu, and Morro—quickly scaled the small perch that was all that was left of the Dojo's garrets after the Dojo had been burned. Several times, Morro found that he had to stop and rest for a second. But he kept going, despite the fuzzy cocoon of dazed disorientation and enticing slumber-song threatening to cloak him in dreamless unconsciousness. The fighters climbed and fought and climbed and fought some more, until they were almost to the top.
"Arrogant to the finish! Just like your brother!" Wu scolded from his position a few beams higher up than Acronix. Morro was all the way at the top now, staring down aimlessly as his vision flickered in and out of focus. Dizziness and numbness were creeping over him again, and black spots were dancing in front of his eyes as he gazed downward. What is wrong with me? he wondered to himself, his lip quivering in worry.
"Arrogant?" Acronix's swimmily distant voice came through the fog of bleary eyesight and weariness of Morro's mind. "No. Confident!" the Time Twin finished, lunging at Wu once more. The two quickly scaled upward the rest of the way to the top, and Morro shrank back, trying not to get pummeled or pulverized by the swiftly swinging blows of both warriors. All the while, Acronix was getting dangerously close to the edge—and then he suddenly slipped. Morro couldn't help but let out a shriek of fright as the time-wielder nearly fell clean off the roof and into the misty abyss below. Wu caught Acronix just in time, holding his squirming, thrashing, writhing frame, pinwheeling arms and all, by his green cape, keeping him from falling straight to a dark and dismal death.
"Arrogant." Wu mused aloud. "It was Krux's downfall! And now it shall be yours."
"Unless you give up right now, that is!" Morro couldn't help but interject, though his head was definitely spinning right now. He shook his head vigorously again, hearing tiny alarm bells jangling phantom-like in his ears as his body began once again to convulse and tremble.
"Do you yield?" Wu asked, clearly running out of patience with the time-wielder he was trying to both defeat and save.
"Never." Acronix snarled, looking back at Wu with his eyebrows furrowed in a biting, bitter glare. But then Wu let go of his cape for just a second, and Acronix pitched forward momentarily before the ninja master snatched his cape again. Morro shuffled upright and staggered over to help him, his balance shockingly out of whack and his focus rippling in and out of clarion understanding before he pitched forward himself and caught Acronix's cape in his own two shaking hands.
"Do. You. Yield?" Wu asked yet another time, making it crystalline-clear that he would not take no for an answer. At first, Acronix seemed resistant—but then the time-wielder caved and sighed heavily, "I…yield."
Wu checked his pocket watch and spoke again as he and Morro slowly began to pull the Time Twin back onto solid ground, "So, the battle that began forty years ago between the Elemental Masters and the Hands of Time ends today at precisely six p.m."
But then, before anyone could say another word, something terrible happened. The ground began to hum and quake again, and Morro looked up in horror as yet another swirling, cataclysmic vortex opened up in the sky. A glowing, crackling, lightning-strike-energized blade came crashing down into the courtyard—and then, the worst nightmare of all broke loose.
Suddenly, Morro felt as if time itself was turning inside out. Time and space itself folded and unfolded and folded again, and he was caught in it, trapped deep within its folds. He tried to scream, but a mere speck of conscious thought can't scream. Blackness greeted his vision as time itself blinked out into bleak nonexistence…and then everything surged into fast-forward, and he felt his living body be pushed back together, and suddenly he was back in the courtyard with Acronix and Wu standing, dazed and discombobulated, beside him.
It was Acronix who first recognized what had just happened. He let out a sinister chuckle and then exclaimed boldly, "And at 6:01, the battle began again!"
He lunged at Morro, and the wind-wielder instantly crumpled onto his back with a sharp cry of anguish. Sounds seemed to bounce from one side of his skull to the other, and his vision was blurring in and out of focus again. A sea of kaleidoscopic shades of red, green, blue, and yellow suddenly flashed into his mind as his head struck the ground again, causing his headache to spike. To his surprise, the streams of color seemed to be morphing, humming, vibrating, tingling, breathing with a life of their own. Could this be the timestream? Or was it just a figment of his skewed imagination?
As he shook his head, trying to rid himself of his odd migraine, Acronix scoffed at his sudden clumsiness and growled huskily, "You had your chance, old-timers!" as he pranced over to the strange, pulsing green blade still sticking up out of the ground. "You should have let me drop!" he finished, picking it up and facing Wu once more, seeming to pay Morro no mind.
"Are you kidding me?!" Morro choked out, his voice strangely echoey in his murky hearing. "We just saved your sorry hide!" he couldn't help adding as he scrambled back onto his feet a third time and Acronix prepared to fight again.
"Now," the time-wielder continued mockingly, "let's see if your experience is any match for…the Time Blade."
Time Blade? Morro couldn't help but squawk mentally in confusion and dismay.
"Time Blade? What is he talking about?!" he asked, turning to Wu. But then he was forced to jump back several feet as Acronix lunged for his unprotected chest. Wu blocked the time-wielder's attack and yelled to the wind-child, "Morro! Get to shelter! Now! I'll handle this!"
Too drained and disorientated to protest, Morro scurried away before Airjitzuing back up onto the roof, lying tiredly down on his stomach to watch. Though he could barely see anything with his grey-clouded vision and his warped, distorted, hazy focus, he couldn't help but bite his lip in terror as he watched Wu be slowly driven back by Acronix and his Time Blade. Acronix swiped repeatedly at Wu's beard, looking to slice it, but the Blade wasn't sharp enough to clip Wu's excessively long facial hair. Or so Morro hoped.
"That's right! Flee, Master Wu!" Acronix taunted as he drove Wu farther and farther back. Morro's breath caught in his throat repeatedly as it sank into him just how much trouble Wu was in. But despite Acronix's clear advantage, Wu kept on fighting. As they fought, lightning flashed through the sky right above Morro, and shortly after a rolling peal of thunder heard the lightning's cry and answered with its own deafening roar. The wind was beginning to pick up, blustery and fierce, whirling and whipping all about the Dojo, its wolfishly whimpering, wailing howl grating tumultuously on Morro's ringing ears as he curled into a ball and sobbed in great and immense fear.
But then he felt a strange calmness in his heart—a serene peace in his mind—a purring, thrumming vibration in his chest—a soothing sleepiness and numbness creeping over him, as the dream world beckoned to him to come away, to let the waking world drift silently away…
When there is no calm outside of you, find the calm inside…
Then all of a sudden, Acronix disappeared, vanishing into thin air. Morro's attention was caught instantly, just as his breath hitched in his throat, and his head panged sharply as he let out a wraith-thin, tight, dry, ragged cough, clutching at his chest in fright and panic. Then Acronix reappeared a few feet away from Wu. Morro couldn't believe his vision—blurry as it was. Acronix had just jumped forward in time!
"Master! Ha! To think my brother and I ever took orders from you!" Acronix scoffed, before disappearing and reappearing again directly in front of Wu. Then the Time Twin swiped at Wu's beard again, and Wu jumped back accordingly.
"Weak! Afraid! Lacking any ambition!" Acronix accused, circling Wu like a wolfhound, like a panther readying to pounce for the kill.
"Your only ambition was to rule!" Wu exclaimed, speaking for the first time since Morro had hidden safely away from the skirmish.
"Because Krux and I deserved to rule!" Acronix protested, his tone turning contemplative as he added, "Do you recall what we said on this very ground, forty years ago?"
"'Control time…" Thunder and lightning. "Control everything.'"
"Excellent memory, old-timer!" Acronix replied with mock astonishment. "And look who controls time again! Just needed a moment for my Time Blade to recharge." he snarked, before charging forward and attacking Sensei Wu yet again, using both his natural agility and Forward powers to attempt to gain the upper hand. Morro's emerald-green eyes, slightly milky and mist-glassy and with the pupils frightfully dilating, darted back and forth between Acronix and Wu, unable to pick up who was winning or whether both of them were approaching a stalemate. The wood underneath the wind-child suddenly creaked and groaned, bending slightly forward, and Morro let out a dizzy, breathless moan of fright. What if the roof should give way entirely? What if he were to fall?!
But Wu was too preoccupied with facing Acronix to notice Morro's dire predicament, and as the battle began to wear on, Morro's only chance was to cling tightly to the roof shingles and hope against hope that he would not fall. He didn't realize that Wu and Acronix's scuffle was getting dangerously close to where he was taking shelter until Acronix disappeared yet again, reappearing just behind Wu, who was directly in front of one of the roof's bamboo supports.
"This…ends…now." Wu panted, exhaustion evident in his voice.
"It certainly does." Acronix concurred, disappearing right as Wu struck out with his staff, missing the time-wielder by mere seconds.
"No, no, no, I'm not there now. That's where I was before." the Time Twin snarked. Wu, without thinking, struck out again—and this time when Acronix disappeared, Wu's staff hit the support directly. The ninja master suddenly realized his mistake as the whole structure began to quiver and quake and shudder before the support—thin as a bamboo staff—gave way entirely.
Suddenly, before Morro could even blink or let out a scream, he pitched forward as the roof buckled and collapsed underneath him, sending him somersaulting smack into the middle of the debris. A sharp chord of pain lit up in his mind as something smacked him across the back of the head, causing his headache to spike yet again. Waves of midnight blackness began to wash over him as he sank further and further into the pile of dead, rotting, charred wood and smoky coal dust and gritty ash.
He slumped forward as the pile began to settle, feeling dampness seeping mysteriously into his veins, ebbing into his bones, sapping into his frazzled nerves and stilling them, sending numbness trickling into his joints, leaving him feeling sleepy and snoozy and dozy and drowsy and dreamy all at once. His eyelids felt heavier than Deepstone and Vengestone combined…his hearing was beginning to grow staticky and murky…his heartbeat was slow and sluggish…his pulse strong yet incredibly tired…his whole mind and core and body drained of all his remaining strength…the waking world slipping silently away as the dream world beckoned to him…
He heard someone screaming his name…a warm, fleshy hand clasped his own bony, white-cold one…he felt the drowsiness overtake him…and then, without warning, he sank headlong into a deep, long, healing slumber and a vast, dark, dreamless unconsciousness.
Hazy darkness slowly giving way to grayness before fading to blurry, washed-out colors…
Deepstone-heaviness cloaking his eyelids…
Deep-seated tiredness pressing on his mind, on his core…
Voices drifting lazily into his mind, as he drowsily pried his stubborn eyelids open…
"Excuse me…looking for…one. Two…ones, act…"
That voice seemed so familiar…but he couldn't remember who it belonged to…
He cracked open his eyes a little more…his head was pounding like a gong of shattering reverberating in his mind over and over…
He felt so frail…so feeble…so drained…so distant…so sleepy…so sluggish…so incredibly exhausted…
A bluebell-hued figure was coming close to him, at the same time talking to…A…A…Acronix…
Why was he speaking with Acronix?
What was his name…Jay, his name was Jay…
"That's no pirate."
Acronix's voice was so low, so echoey, so mysteriously faraway…
His vision was wavering in and out of focus…
His hearing was foggy and swimmy…
He couldn't think straight…
The world was dissolving into a warped, kaleidoscopic mass of color and sound and smells and dizziness and lightheadedness…
"Yeigh high…Master Wu…might have had a teen with him…shaggy black hair, emerald-green…hair streak…Morro…"
Jay was talking about him, wondering where he was…
He tried to call out, but his voice would not come to him…
All he could create was an inaudible, slushy, slurry, wolfishly whimpering sigh…
"Haven't seen either of them."
Acronix was lying…but did Jay know…
Oh, how he wished he could cry out and tell Jay, "I'm in here, and I'm stuck, and I can't get out!"
Jay's voice was morphing more and more into focus by the second…now the wind-child could make out full sentences…
"That's odd—'cause judging from all the slash marks around here, I think you have!"
Clank of chains against two halves of a pair of nunchucks…swinging noises…the sounds of a vicious scuffle…
Why couldn't he move?...something was pressing into his back…he couldn't get out from under it…
Unconsciousness was threatening to take him again…he could barely stay awake…
A crashing noise…a yelp of pain…sounds of trying to get out from under something…
He needed to cry out…why couldn't he cry out?
Pattering footsteps as Acronix approached Jay with the blade…the…Time…Blade…Time Blade…in hand…
"A moment ago…no quarrel with you. Unfortunately, now I do have one."
Grunting sound of someone leaping down…
A vibration of earth striking the ground…
Scintillating sound of five more figures sliding down a chain…an anchor chain…from the…the Bounty…
He had to get out…he had to get free…he had to be bold…he had to fight…
But he couldn't move…couldn't speak…was barely even breathing…
So tired…so weak…so worn-out…
"More ninja?"
His friends…they were here…oh, why couldn't he CRY OUT?!
"Ninja-GO!"
Powerful energy tornados…seven of them…whipping into action…
Sudden cries and yelps of agony as his friends all crashed into one huge dog-pile…
"Only missed me…a few seconds."
Moan of discomfort…girlish in its tones…
"Sometimes I wish I was still Samurai X instead of a ninja."
Nya? Was that Nya?
Sounds of his friends scrambling to their feet…
His eyelids, so heavy…his face, so frigidly numb…his ears, so white-hot…frame, so stiff…so limp…so sore…
"You may be fast, but are you faster than this?"
Kai…
Blasting noise…
Why was the air getting so hot?
Wait a minute…what was the crackling sound…
Why did he feel so hazy and tired and drowsy all of a sudden?
Was that acrid smell smoke?
Why were his ankles sweltering?
Why was his gi glued to his body with sweat?
Why did he feel like a roasted potato?
Was that fire?!
"Elemental Master of Fire. I've encountered one of you before."
It was…
He had to cry out! He had to cry out! HE HAD TO CRY OUT!
"You met my father?"
He was panting now…cry out…cry out…cry out…
Don't be a glitch! Don't be a glitch!
"Help…me!" his raspy, breathy voice croaked out, choking up in his throat momentarily before bursting out like a foghorn.
He'd cried out. He'd cried out!
The tiredness was growing…misty, clouded, obscured understanding was sinking in…he felt so warm…so soothed…he was so exhausted and drained…
"MORRO!" another girlish voice screamed so frightfully close to his ears. He pried open his eyes. It was Tasha!
"Ta…sha!" he slurred sleepily and frightfully at the same time. He sucked in a breath, and his lungs seemed to burn within him as he let out a sickly, ragged cough. He had to get out! Why couldn't he get out?!
"There he is!" It was Nya. But was she talking about him or Acronix? He couldn't tell…he was fading into slumber again…
No, he had to stay awake! He had to breathe! To breathe was to live; to sleep was to die!
"Tasha…" he moaned listlessly, rolling blurry-eyed, languidly sick eyes up at her as he struggled to see what was happening. The air was getting hotter and foggier by the second…he was running out of air…and time…
"Nin-ja, come out and play." Acronix baited, his voice rippling and echoey in the wind-child's limited comprehension and fuzzy, hazy hearing. A white-hot, searing pain began to coarse through his veins, and his ankles were starting to feel crackly and scaly and sticky from pussy blisters rising up underneath his thin cloth shoes, the fabric of which was beginning to adhere to his feet as he just lay there, subconscious and unable to move.
"Tasha, you get Morro!" Lloyd's clarion, cadencing timbrel tone rang out through the air, ebbing and flowing on the tide of the wind. "Jay, Cole, Kai, you're with me! Nya, Zane, you two put out this fire!"
Morro tried to raise himself up—to speak—to move—to get just one more breath before he fell unconscious from the heat and smoke. But his back was stiff and sore, his muscles cramping, his whole body completely drained of strength. Darkness was creeping into the corners of his vision…sooner or later, he would succumb to death's chilling embrace and whispers of perpetual slumber…
"Nin-ja!" Acronix sing-sang from his perch. "Come out and play-ay!"
There was a beat of stillness—a spell of silence—and then Jay's voice rippled uncertainly, "Wait, who put you in charge? Why can't I help with the flames?!"
"You seriously think lightning is better than water and ice for stopping flames?" Morro faintly heard Lloyd protest. If he could just hang on a little longer…but he was beginning to fall unconscious again already.
"Good point!" Jay finally agreed. "Let's go!"
There was a flurry of activity—Morro could feel someone pulling boards and debris off of his limp, languid body—a hand grasped his own and yanked him out just before there was a deafening, dust-raising CRASH—
And he instantly tumbled headlong into Tasha's warm, tender embrace, feeling dizzy, faint, and thoroughly exhausted. "Tasha." he whimpered breezily under his breath over and over. "Tasha, oh, Tasha, Tasha…Tasha…"
"Morro, oh, Morro!" he heard his girlfriend sob shyly and softly under her breath. He struggled to open his eyes and answer her—but he could barely hear anything…his hearing was so fuzzy and misty and foggy and sleepy…
Sounds and sensations seemed to bounce from one side of his skull to the other as he just lay there, taking comfort in the warmth of Tasha's touch as Tasha gently sat up with him in her arms, rubbing his back in soothing circular motions and occasionally running a gentle hand through his sweaty mop of raven-black hair, pierced only by his unique emerald-green hair streak. He could barely see or hear or understand what was going on around him, and when he cracked open his eyes, the last light of day seemed to blind him. He shut his eyes again and let out a wolfish howling mewl of deep pain and despair. Voices floated in and out of focus as he opened his eyes and peeked through his eyelashes, struggling desperately to comprehend, to understand, to think. But he was so weary he couldn't make out much, and he simply let his eyelids droop closed and listened as the battle wore on.
Acronix's mocking voice—"You got lucky last time."
A crash of wood and a yelp of surprise as Cole aimed for Acronix and missed.
"Clumsy. Like a fawn on her new legs." Acronix again, still making fun of Cole. But then—
"One!" Kai.
"Two!" Jay.
"THREE!" Lloyd.
The sound of Elemental Powers being unleashed—fire, lightning, and energy in the air, aimed at Acronix (who instantly jumped through time), and water and ice spraying towards the still-smoldering wood and ash that had once been the Dojo of Spinjitzu.
Three sets of feet hitting the ground startled Morro, and he opened his eyes with a start, before yelping and squeezing them shut again. Why did that lingering sun have to be so monstrously bright?!
"Keep pushing him back!" he heard Lloyd command. "He's going to have to surrender, or else the flames are gonna get him!"
But what if he didn't? What if this battle went on forever?
Then all of a sudden, Morro sucked in a breath, opened his eyes, and squinting profusely, pulled out of Tasha's embrace and staggered to his feet. I'm not a glitch, he thought to himself. I'm not a glitch!
"Here's Acronix!" the Time Twin taunted from his new perch above the flames.
"Lloyd." Morro moaned softly, swaying slightly yet still managing to keep his balance. Why was the world feeling like it was spinning around all of a sudden?
"What? What is it?" the Green Ninja inquired, staring deeply into Morro's dilated pupils and dim, glassy emerald-green irises.
"Powers." the wind-child choked out, and the energy-wielder understood.
"EVERYONE, FOCUS YOUR POWERS!" Lloyd screamed at the top of his lungs, and everyone (minus Tasha, who had no powers herself) followed his lead. Earth, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Water, and Energy shot up to meet the Time Blade, which began to glisten and pulse and glow so brightly Morro had to squint to keep from being blinded, his vision continuing to flicker in and out, in and out…
"It's gonna blow!" Kai screamed at the top of his lungs—just seconds before the powers of the Ninja became too much for the Time Blade to hold back. All of a sudden—
KA-BOOM!
As Morro was knocked backward to the hard cobblestones, feeling Tasha break his fall yet again, a flash of intertwining red, green, blue, and yellow lit up in his mental vision—and then there was nothing but darkness and stillness and silence as a dreamless unconsciousness beckoned him away from the waking world once again.
When Morro woke, at first it was hard to see anything. The sky was darkening fast, the last rays of sunlight beginning to fade as the full moon began to rise exactly at sunset, and a foggy line of black smoke could still be seen wafting upward to the heavens. He attempted to sit up and winced wheezily as his neck cricked and his burned feet bristled and crackled and prickled with agonizing anguish. Through his bleary vision, he could just barely see white puffy blisters and angry red sores forming on his ankles, and though it stung like wildfire, he was amazed that his feet hadn't been turned to ash or fried and crispy from the sheer heat of the kindling flames that had lapped mercilessly at his ankles.
"Burned down again!" Jay exclaimed, and Morro whipped his head around in surprise as the lightning-child continued, "Man, this place just cannot catch a break!"
Lloyd was the next to sit up, and flipping off his hood, he wryly replied, "Neither did Acronix."
"Well, good riddance—that's all I can say." Tasha piped up with her two cents as she too woke up and roused herself upright. She ruffled Morro's hair to reassure herself, and he winced as her butterfly-light fingers suddenly grazed a rapidly swelling, painful, sickishly purple lump on the back of his head. "Am I ever…glad of that!" he whispered breathlessly, feeling a wave of dizziness and of a sudden nausea wash over him.
"Yeah." Kai concurred. "You know me—I never back down from a challenge, but I really would not like to have to face that guy again."
"You're not the only one." Morro murmured half to himself, his voice rather wispy and frail. But it was then that the other Ninja noticed Morro's drooping eyelids, faraway voice, and off-kilter understanding.
"Morro…" Nya asked, one eyebrow cocking upward in concern. "Are you okay?"
"I…" Suddenly, his stomach gurgled warningly, and he let out a soft moan of "Excuse me…" before covering his mouth with one hand, crawling on the other hand and both knees over to a nearby bush, removing his hand from off his mouth, and sticking his head in—and not a moment too soon. Most of the Ninja buried their heads in their hands, and Lloyd covered his eyes in squeamishness and utter mortification. Only Tasha moved to rub Morro's back in soothing, reassuring circles as Morro's stomach rejected all the nothing that had been in him since breakfast.
Once Morro was able to pull his head back out of the bush and Tasha moved back towards the others, Zane wasted no time in scanning the wind-wielder as he sniffled and let out a small, slightly less ragged cough, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his head in his hands, moaning and rocking back and forth on his heels for several seconds before the scan was finished. "Hmm." Zane mused half to himself. "It seems that Morro is suffering from a minor head trauma caused by multiple blows to the posterior portion of his skull."
"Huh?" the wind-child slurred sluggishly, suddenly feeling as if he had cotton for a brain.
"He means you have a concussion, Morro, from hitting your head more than once in succession—and possibly from being buried under all that debris." Lloyd clarified for the sick, dizzy wind-wielder, patting his back encouragingly. "But anyway, yeah, I'm definitely glad that Acronix is gone. I can't imagine what you had to go through to face him."
"You're telling me!" Cole commented instantly, a hint of bitter annoyance in his voice at the mere inkling that Acronix could hurt Morro, of all people. "He moved at, like, the speed of time!"
"You got…that right." Morro mumbled drowsily and wistfully, as he slumped back into Tasha's arms, dazed and discombobulated and thoroughly dead tired. It had been a long day, and he just wanted to get back to the Bounty, collapse into his bed, and sleep for a whole week.
Luckily, it seemed Lloyd could read his mind just as easily as Morro had once controlled his. "Come on." the Green Ninja declared. "Let's get back to the Destiny's Bounty."
"But what about Master Wu?" Nya suddenly piped up, her voice strained with worry. It was then that Lloyd gasped, "Oh, NO! I forgot all about him!"
"Well, then we gotta find him!" Morro exclaimed in reply, swaying on his feet again, only to be caught by Tasha as Lloyd commanded, "Come on, everyone! Split up and spread out!"
With no time to lose, the Ninja fanned out and searched the grounds for any sign of Wu. Tasha quickly wrapped one arm around Morro's shoulder to support him, and the two scanned the northwest corner as best as they could with Morro's concussion frying his sense of direction and focus. As they searched, Morro could feel waves of confusion and fatigue seeping into him again, and he shook his head repeatedly, trying to dispel the frequent dizzy spells from his mind. Then, when he saw Wu hanging by a small branch from off the edge of a cliff, he let out a petrified scream at Wu's current predicament. Tearing away from Tasha, he attempted to climb down and rescue Wu—but then his balance faltered, and he slipped!
"MORRO!" Tasha screamed as her boyfriend went sliding down the side of the cliff with a shrill shriek. Morro's hands were quick, though, and he was lucid enough to snag a long tree root to slow his fall. He landed on his side on a small ridge about fifteen feet down with a very loud oof, and he couldn't help but hiss in pain as he scrambled to his feet once more. Then he tripped on a pebble and landed belly-first back onto the ground, wincing and wheezing as he crawled over to where Wu still hung from one hand over the dark abyss of nothingness and instant doom that threatened to swallow him up forever. He held out one shaking hand, muttering slushily, "Sensei…take my hand."
Without saying a word, Master Wu took Morro's hand, his face a mixture of relief and melancholy nostalgia as he recalled the day that he had offered a saving hand to his first student—and Morro nearly rejected it. But then, the root that Wu was clinging to suddenly gave way, and both master and student went tumbling downward over the edge.
Or they would have, if someone hadn't caught Morro's foot and yelled, "I gotcha!" Morro gave a startled gasp. It was Tasha! Then Cole spoke up, grabbing Morro's other foot as he did so—"Gotta…hang…on."
The two fighters moved quickly to yank both Morro and Wu back over the edge, pulling them up and onto solid ground within mere moments. Morro collapsed to his knees, even more drained and dizzy and hazy than before. Tasha shyly wrapped her arms around him a moment later, and he whispered faintly, "Thank you." before nuzzling deep into her chest, looking through comfort through a cuddle.
But then he noticed something. Wu seemed to…not be entirely present. Like he was even more exhausted and wiped-out than Morro was. But…how was this possible? Wu was incredibly resilient. He never backed down from a fight, and he always bounced back faster than anyone else on the team. And yet, here he was, looking as if he had aged a thousand years within a mere moment of time.
His thoughts were interrupted when Cole mused thoughtfully with a slight frenzied quiver in his voice, "Barely made it." He then let his new Earth Punch powers fade back into his recently-restored core, and it was then that Wu turned and spoke to Morro for the first time since the wind-wielder had been knocked out by the roof completely collapsing underneath him.
"Morro."
"Sensei." the wind-wielder addressed him, and the two momentarily embraced. But as they hugged, Morro noticed yet another strange thing. He could sense some sort of energy coursing through Wu's veins, as if he'd been struck by lightning—and yet it seemed even more familiar than even that. But Morro couldn't pinpoint why exactly—until a flash of green shot through his mental vision, and he gasped breathlessly.
He was more than convinced now that these strange visions he was experiencing were somehow connected to the timestream. And as he simply knelt there, he saw in his mind a picture of four blades—red, blue, green, and yellow—coming together in a circle, before whirling around and around in a whirlwind of cataclysmic force, going faster and faster and faster, as time folded and unfolded and folded again, over and over.
Morro tried to break out of the vision—but then he heard a slight tick-tick-tick like that of a clock—he saw fire and water interfusing together into the form of a two-headed dragon—and then he heard a sharp cry like that of a very young infant. He shook his head, and then—the vision was gone.
Completely, utterly gone.
But why?
What did it mean?
How should he respond?
More to the point, what was Wu hiding?
"Are you all right, Master?" Zane interrupted Morro's thoughts once more.
"I…fear not." Wu murmured, his voice grave and solemn, lined with melancholy misery and woeful regret.
"Why was Acronix here?" Kai asked in like fashion.
"How did he do that?" Cole added.
"Why were you fighting him?" Jay put in his own question.
"More to the point," Morro ventured worriedly, as he slowly pulled away from Wu, "what is the Time Blade? And what did you mean by… 'control time, control everything'?"
"There is much to tell you…" Wu finally spoke after a long silence, "and not enough time."
That was when Morro first noticed it. Wu's hair was even whiter than normal, and his eyes, normally twinkling with light and life, were turning dull and glassy and grey. What was going on here? What was happening to his master? And why did it seem like Wu wasn't saying something?
And then he remembered what Acronix had said he was. He was nothing but a glitch in the system—a foreign anomaly that didn't belong.
And the thought—the mere thought—of it was enough to make his core shudder with sheer sadness and grief.
As the other Ninja headed back up to the Bounty, Tasha asked quietly, "Will you be okay heading back up on your own?"
"You guys go ahead. I…" Morro looked down, warm tears beginning to sting his eyes and trickle down his cheeks unbidden. "I just need some time."
"You…go on, Tasha." Wu murmured, beckoning her to go ahead. "The two of us will be up momentarily." With that, Tasha gave Morro one last loving, slightly anxious look and began to climb back up after the others.
"Are you sure you're all right, Sensei?" Morro asked incredulously. "You look really wiped-out. Are you really okay?"
"I'm…I'm not sure yet, my son." Wu answered wearily, his voice strangely strangled and strained and shallow. "But if anything happens to me, remember—you are not a glitch, no matter what anyone says."
Morro blinked in surprise, and then began to mull over these words. Wu didn't view him as a glitch? The thought was a little unexpected, but in that moment, Morro couldn't help but feel both concern and love for his master, the only father he had ever truly known. He flung himself into Wu's arms and began to weep incessantly, tears streaming mercilessly as the truth of what he had heard sunk in.
He was not a glitch.
He had never been a glitch.
He was Morro, Master of Wind.
And even though Acronix was gone, he would never doubt his worth again—he was sure of it.
And yet…
Wu was still hiding something. He could sense it.
The only question was…what?
A/N: To put Morro's new ability to see glimpses of the timestream (and consequently, the near future) into one sentence, Wind and Time have intertwined.
Let me know what you think! No flames please!