Lloyd had managed to hold it together during their battle with the preeminent. Running off a combination of the painkillers he had taken beforehand, and the adrenaline his body was overproducing from having to face Morro again.
In the end he had let Morro go, seeing how it would end in the sword of sanctuary. He waited patiently for Wu to retrieve the realm crystal and bring him back to Ninjago. Once there, he was overwhelmed with pride in his team, and comfort at seeing them safe. He said something heartfelt which must have sounded wise, as he was dubbed a master in training.
The robes he wore were master's robes, the last thing his father would ever give him.
Then came the long tedious work of helping the civilians that had just lost their homes. Zane lists out instructions, what needed to be done, how to prioritise things, but it was getting harder to make out what he was saying. Lloyd becomes dizzy, swaying on his feet, Kai barely catching him before he hits the deck.
"Lloyd? Are you ok?" Multiple worried voices echo around him.
"Yeah, m'fine, just…" He tries to push himself up off Kai's support, but the dizziness comes back.
"You're not fine." Declares Kai. "Come on, let's go sit down."
Kai guides/drags him to a secluded corner of the paddle boat, and places Lloyd sitting back against the wall.
"We need to help the people!" Complains Lloyd.
"No, the others can handle it. All you need to do is rest. And tell me what hurts."
Lloyd winces as Kai starts patting him down, looking for injuries.
"I'm fine… just my head."
"Your head is pretty important, you know? How bad?" Kai starts moving a finger in front of Lloyd's face, checking his eyes can track it.
Lloyd shrugs. "I've had worse. It just hurts a bit."
"Dude, you can barely stand right now! Eesh, I can't believe we let you fight with a concussion…"
"We didn't have a choice."
"Well, we do now. So now you need to rest, and tell me how bad it is."
Lloyd sighs. "I just got dizzy all of a sudden, like all my bottled up fatigue decided it didn't want to be bottled up anymore." It was a terrible metaphor, but he couldn't think of a better way to describe it with the current pain pulsing through his head.
"Your adrenaline probably wore off." Says Kai. "I've been there. One minute you're like totally fine and ready to take on the world. The next you are bent over gasping for breath and apparently need to be treated for smoke inhalation." He sighs. "I'm actually impressed you lasted this long, Jay didn't dose you up with the good stuff before we left?"
"If he used the good stuff, I wouldn't have been lucid enough to fight." Grumbles Lloyd.
"Ha! Well, either way, right now you just need to rest."
Lloyd clutches at his robes. He doesn't want to rest. Resting meant he would have time to think, and he doesn't want to do that. Not yet. It doesn't matter how broken his body feels, or how much pain it would cause him to move, because sitting still and thinking was going to hurt worse. Lloyd starts pushing himself up. "Please Kai, I need to help. I need to do something!"
Kai's hands firmly grip Lloyd's shoulders, pushing him back down. "Dammit Lloyd! Don't make me tie you up."
Lloyd starts sniffling, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "Kai, please!"
Kai's tone softens, "Hey, hey! It's ok, the team has it covered, everyone's going to be ok."
Lloyd shakes his head, clutching at his robes. "Not everyone." Kai's face falls, eyes dropping to his clothes as he realises why Lloyd is upset. "So please Kai, let me help, let me do something, I need something good to come of today, I need to remember doing something good…"
Kai's arms wrap around the boy as he gently whispers "You could save 100 people, and you will still remember this day as the day you lost your father."
Lloyd stops struggling and lets out a choked sob, leaning into Kai's embrace. Body shaking as grief leaks out.
Kai holds him for a moment, awkwardly crouched in front, and then repositions, so he is sitting down next to Lloyd, still with his arms wrapped around the younger one's shoulders. Lloyd leans over, burying his face into Kai's chest.
While it was a more secluded spot on the ferry, there were so many evacuees that no corner was truly empty. If some started taking notice of the loud display, Kai shot them a glare which made them quickly turn the other way.
"It's not fair." Sobs Lloyd. "I already lost him, I already accepted it… and then, I-I what, have to do it all over again? You think I would be used to this by now," Lloyd scoffs, "he's always leaving me, but then why? Why does it hurt so much?"
Kai gives Lloyd a comforting squeeze. "Because this time, you know he isn't coming back." He feels Lloyd shudder at the statement.
"I just want my dad…"
"I know." Kai rubs Lloyd's back. It was easy to forget how young he was. Forced to grow up way too fast, body aged by tomorrow's tea. The responsibilities of leadership and prophecies cast upon his shoulders. He was just a kid. A kid who wanted his dad. Kai knew what that felt like, oh how he wished he didn't.
All of a sudden Lloyd stops crying, extracting himself from Kai, sitting back up against the wall. He wipes sleeves over his sticky face, suppressing the exaggerated breaths of deep sadness. "I need to be strong." He says firmly.
Kai frowns. "Who told you that?"
"He did."
Kai breathes out as his frown melts away. "I don't think he meant you're not allowed to be sad. He meant you needed to be strong and finish the fight, while people were in danger, while the world was in danger, you needed to be strong, and act. And you did. You did great. But it's finished, you don't need to be strong right now. Right now, it's ok to be sad."
Lloyd blinks through blurred eyes, taking in the words. He nods meekly drawing in another sniffling breath as he leans over onto Kai once more.
Much later that evening, when everyone is back on the bounty, Nya heads up to the deck, unable to sleep. So much had happened that day. Reaching her full potential, battling hundreds of ghosts, and helping to settle the evacuees into what was left of their village. She needed some air, some quiet. Her mind was buzzing far too much for sleep. When she gets on deck she sees Cole standing there, staring at the moon.
She walks on over to him. "It's beautiful tonight, isn't it?"
"Huh?" Says Cole, snapping out of his trance and looking over to her. "What is?"
"The moon? Sorry, I thought that's what you were looking at?"
Cole runs a hand through his hair. "Oh, I probably was, but that doesn't mean I was thinking about it."
"So, what were you thinking about?"
Cole blinks, considering his answer. She asked it so innocently. He had been so worried they were never going to be friends again, after the fiasco that was 'perfect match', so it meant a lot that she would come and talk to him like this instead of just walking on by.
"It's not finished." Cole sighs. "We just won a huge battle, took down probably the biggest bad guy we've faced yet. We should be celebrating right now. We should be having the biggest feast imaginable. We should be laughing, and cheering, and enjoying the knowledge that Ninjago is safe, but lately it feels like every time we win, we still lose."
Nya nods. "After the overlord we lost Zane. After Chen we lost Garmadon. And now…" she looks up at him with pity.
"I'm still a ghost."
"We haven't lost you yet!" Says Nya cheerfully, "Which means we're not finished, not until all of us are ok. At least now Sensei Wu might have a bit of time to research your options?"
"I hope so." Says Cole, eyes drawn back to the moon.
A couple days later they are back on the bounty, parked on land so they could work on fixing the giant hole in the hull. It would take time. Nya, Jay and Zane had been arguing about the most efficient solution earlier. Cole felt more useless than normal. Typically he would be the muscle on any repair job, but even lifting a cup was hard. His weapon? Workable at best. Heavy construction supplies? Yeah that wasn't going to happen. He did what he could, passing tools and what not, but it felt more like busy work than his presence was actually helping to speed things along. Especially with how often he dropped things, slipping right through his fingers.
That evening everyone was sleeping, even Lloyd, who had been banned from work duty thanks to his lingering concussion. Kai had his hands full trying to make the kid rest. Right now they all lay in their bunks, even breathing indicating restful slumber. Cole lay in his bed too, bottom bunk under Jay. He hadn't slept since he got ghosted, but wasn't sure if he just didn't need sleep, or couldn't sleep at all. There had been too much going on over the last couple weeks to really settle down and try, so tonight was the night. Cole was going to sleep, or die trying. He thought with morbid amusement.
He closes his eyes, and takes a deep not-breath through his not-lungs. He empties his mind, or tries to, letting go of thoughts as they pass on through. Letting go of his surroundings, welcoming in the nothingness, the emptiness that was the precursor to sleep. He feels like it might be working, and then pressure flares through his entire body.
He opens his eyes in alarm, but it is just darkness, which makes his panic grow. This wasn't sleep, this wasn't at all what sleep felt like. The pressure is constant, like a weight crushing him slowly. He can't breathe, calm down, you don't need to breathe! Think it through, the pressure flares when your body is overlapping with something, like when you walk through a wall. You just need to get out of the wall. Cole picks a direction and tries to walk or swim, but it feels like he isn't moving at all. The pressure remains, and it's still dark.
He's disorientated, he doesn't know which way is up, or where he could be? None of the walls were this thick, and he had been lying on his bed… I'm underground.
The realisation at least gives him some options, he calls upon his elemental powers, sensing the earth around him and pushes it back, creating an air bubble, a small cave for him to try and figure this out. The pressure evaporates, and he lets out a sigh of relief as he lowers his feet, feeling the fuzzy gentle pressure of a surface underneath. He blinks his eyes, seeing something, it was very dim, but his ghostly glow lit up the cave a little.
"Ok, so sleeping was a terrible idea." He mutters to himself, tracing a hand around the edge of the small space. "If my feet are down there, then up must be the way out, right?" He scratches his head, ghosts could float a little, was he sure that was down? He tries to move his feet to the wall, and immediately falls over. "Yup, that way is down." He declares with confidence.
He glares at the ceiling, wondering how deep he was, how much earth he would need to pass through. It would be much faster to leap through it, than try to dig his way out with his powers. Cole lets out a sigh before getting ready for the jump. It was getting a mite claustrophobic in here, but being completely buried in dirt was going to be worse… "Pull yourself together! You got into this mess, so you can get out of it!"
He leaps, like he would to get up on deck from one of the lower rooms. The pressure flares as he is thrust into darkness once more. It takes much longer than expected. One second, two seconds, three seconds… Cole starts to wonder how long he should wait before making another cave, was he still going up, or falling back down?
Brightness floods his vision as the pressure finally fades. It takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust after being in darkness so long. He is outside, the bounty is a little way off to his right. He lets out a sigh of relief. "Ok, let's not do that again." He grumbles to himself as he makes his way back to the ship.