Chapter Text
Red slitted eyes stare unblinkingly back at him from the bathroom's mirror.
Some people might say it's stupid to have what amounts to a staring contest with your own reflection. But Lloyd figured he'd use the half hour of free time before he had to leave for school to practice the new shapeshifting technique Mistaké suggested he try.
So far? Nada.
His eyes trace over his face again from the tips of his ears, drooping with disappointment, to the pale markings painting his face, the black scales trailing a bit too close to his shirt's neck line for comfort and back again to his eye bag heavy eyes.
Mistaké said he’s supposed to detach himself from his reflection but what does that even mean? His tail swishes behind him in frustration, lips pulling back in a slight snarl, light glints off of sharp fangs as a growl shakes the air.
Lloyd snaps his mouth shut.
This isn't working. He's clearly way too tired for this, what was he even thinking? He should’ve taken a nap instead of thinking really hard at a mirror, he’s such an idiot.
His phone lights up with a groupchat notification.
-----
Frosty
Due to yesterday’s longer than expected schedule I am stopping by a coffee shop, what would everyone like?
Rock Music
Oreo Frappe thx 👍
shocking amiright?
Justa latte thanks zqne
Zane*
-----
Lloyd’s eyes caught the time, 07:21, dang it. He has to get going if he wants to make it to school on time.
Shapeshifting was clearly not happening today, low tech it is then.
Lloyd grabs his contacts, hastily puts them in, blinking a few times to get them to align properly.
His hoodie goes over his head covering his t-shirt but more importantly the scales forming patches on his torso.
Foundation next, he makes sure he applies it evenly so no one can tell he's wearing it before dousing his face in fixer, the last thing he needs is to get extra bullying for wearing makeup.
Double sided tape behind his ears so they don't move from under the protective cover of his hair.
He slips his tail down one of his pant legs, wraps it around the leg. An armband goes on top like an anklet, keeping his tail from moving too much.
He checks his hands, his claws are short, they pass for nails if you don't look too closely.
Lloyd leaves the bathroom and walks to the kitchen while opening the groupchat again.
-----
Fire-Fighter
2 Americanos plz
shocking amiright?
Since when foes Nya drink coffe???
Lady Water Dragon
They’re both for him
I’d like an iced macha
Thanks Zane
Frosty
👍
shocking amiright?
Hii Nya <3
-----
Something is suddenly thrust into his face blocking his view of the screen, he jumps back with a yelp, teeth bared.
His mom laughs, apple still held towards him and his backpack in her other hand. “You need to work on your spacial awareness bud, who knows I could've been a seagull trying to attack.”
She passes him his bag, apple now in it, as he whines– “Moooooomm.”
Koko tries to ruffle his hair but he ducks under her arm and runs for the front door getting his shoes on as quickly as possible.
She calls out to him, “Have a good day at school sweetie!”
He calls back, "I'll try.” and he's out the door before she can reply.
Lloyd types a quick text on his way down.
-----
Lady Water Dragon
Hey Jay <3
Fire-Fighter
ew
minty
A hot latte with that mint syrup?
Fire-Fighter
Never would’ve guessed
-----
Maybe today will be a good day.
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
Lloyd is pretty sure his grandfather isn’t dead and is instead sticking around just to mess with him specifically. He hadn’t even made it to the bus stop before the alarms started.
A jelly fish mech rams into the side of his dragon. Green veers down dodging a building, before coming back up and catching the mech in his dragon's mechanical jaws, he shakes it around before throwing it towards the ocean.
His eyes scan the array of screens that surround him inside the dragon's cockpit skull, no sign of his father yet. It's making him paranoid. Garmadon is many things but subtle is not one of them.
He unmutes his com, “Does anyone have eyes on Garmadon?”
Immediately chatter fills the channel. “Waterways are almost clear, no sign of him here.” Teal’s voice garbled by her still water damaged mic.
“Negative.” , “Nope.” White and Black’s voices, one accompanied by cracking ice and the other by instrumental remixes of root rock.
Red asks, “He’s not at the tower?” Green looks around again. “No.”
A cut off high pitched screech comes over the coms followed by Blue’s fast and shaky voice. “I haven’t r-really looked but I don't s-see him a-anywhere, even from up here.”
“Incredibly strange, we’ll keep an eye out.”
“Thanks White”
He doesn't like this, not one bit. Something is wrong.
Switching the mech’s screens to heat vision, a feature they usually only use for finding trapped civilians in the aftermath of battles, he scans the city again.
He sees the yellow and red heated air tower stretching from Red’s area as well as the sharp flashes of white in the sky where Blue is frying the rest of the jelly mechs. In the opposite corner of the coast there's the purple lined black void of White’s snowstorm and– what.
An orange and red blob of heat is climbing the mayoral tower by wrapping its tentacally limbs around it as it pulls itself upward.
Huh, Green never thought he’d see the day his father would use actually competent battle strategies.
A tentacle attaches to the edge of the roof and begins pulling the rest of the mech up. Fuck no no no!
His hand steers the console's wheel towards the invisible mech, pedal pressed all the way to the floor, his other hand finds the joystick for the dragon’s front legs and as he rushes by clipping the skyscraper slightly with one of his dragon’s horns as he rips his father’s mech off of the side of the building, talons gauging the medal.
Alerts pop up on his diagnostics screen, [WARNING! Foreign Object Constricting: Torso].
Not good, Green pulls his dragon to an abrupt stop, going tail over tea kettle, and using the momentum to grip the machine in his mech’s back talons, as he flips back over he releases the moment the warning disappears.
Garmadon’s now visible mech, an octopus of some kind, goes flying and is only stopped by one of the surrounding government buildings. Shit.
“Black when you're done with the shopping district I need you to search and rescue the collapsing building on Saint Vania.”
Red’s voice comes over the channel before Black has a chance to respond. “You found Garmadon?” Lloyd winces, Red probably assumes Garmadon destroyed the building, “He was climbing the mayoral building using this camouflage octopus mech and I panicked.”
I panicked? What a stupid excuse for possibly killing people.
“I got you Greenie, making my way over now.” As Black says this Green watches as his father’s mech picks itself up from the crumbling building and for the second time that day red eyes are staring directly at Lloyd.
The moment is broken by Garmadon's booming voice, “Well well well, Green ninja, how did you see through my nerds state of the art cloaking tech thingy?”
Green responds with what he hopes is a convincing answer, wouldn’t want Garmadon's engineers to somehow find a way to circumvent the actual flaw– “Your trail of destruction gave it away, like seriously how much does that thing weigh? 8-9 tons? Not exactly good for sneaking around a crammed city.” –while he starts positioning his mech to align with the street below.
Garmadon's eyes track him through his mech's reinforced glass window but he makes no move that indicates he knows what the ninja is planning.
He visibly scoffs “I’ll have you know I made sure to–” His eyes stray away and in the next second Green’s mech is ramming into Garmadon’s and throwing him into the nearby canal, with the press of a button one of the dragon’s rockets follows him and explodes at the same time as the octopus touches the water.
Protective panels and machinery fly away while water floods into the delicate circuits of the mech. Green watches as the mechanical tentacles lock and spasm.
“Teal I need you to haul Garmadon’s mech out to sea, it’s in the east canal.” Green would love nothing more than for the warlord to be put behind bars but unfortunately the purple destructive power that Garmadon is famous for has scared off every prison on the continent.
After all, how do you contain something that can destroy any wall or restraint with the flick of a hand?
Teal’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts, “Roger that.” and a second later her water strider mech comes surfing along the canal, towing hook embedding in the ruined octopus and hauling it away.
Garmodon’s forces should start retreating as soon as they realise their leader has been defeated which means Green should go help Black with the search and rescue. At least that way he'll be doing something other than destroying fighting.
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
The average person thinks Ninjago city only has one villain, Lord Garmadon, a feared warlord that tries to conquer the place at least once a month but the truth is that most of the ninja's time is spent dealing with more quiet crime.
Like chasing down Chen’s latest heist or stopping Pythor’s new plan on how to get the serpentine tribes to go to war with each other or even regular crime committed by regular people! So even after the ninja have defeated Garmadon and helped with the rescue efforts their work is not done.
Which is how Lloyd finds himself staring holes into the maps laid out on the warehouse's splintering coffee table despite the horrible headache currently plaguing him.
The biggest map, showing Ninjago city, was on top of the other smaller maps, showing the countryside and villages surrounding the city, its laminated surface decked out in old marker smudges and sharp red lines depicting the chase that had occurred throughout the city last night.
The ninja had been alerted to a break in at the National Museum of History, via their tap in the police radios, and had made it just in time to see some of Chen’s gang members and Clouse get into a noodle van and drive off.
The team had then proceeded to chase the vehicle through Ninjago city for three hours, anytime they were about to corner them or cut them off the van swerved onto another street.
More than once White –whose powers were the only ones who wouldn't damage the infrastructure or possibly severely harm the van's occupants– had tried to freeze their tires to the ground but no such luck as they simply swerved before the ice ray had even hit the ground, it was infuriating.
By the time they gave up it was six am, school was starting in two hours and the team had to physically drag Green back to base. Because apparently evil never sleeps but good had to abide by school schedules.
Lloyd signed, his forehead falling against the table with a resounding thunk as he sat on the floor, his back against the warehouse's beat up couch.
It doesn’t make any sense, he’s sure Clouse couldn’t even see them from the van but he was reading their moves perfectly.
Or maybe it does make sense and he's simply too exhausted to figure it out. And his contacts were bothering him, great.
Lloyd straightened back up and rubbed his eyes as the couch’s springs squealed behind him and a hand finds its way into his hair.
“If you use that brain any harder you'll set it on fire and that's supposed to be my job!” Kai said, as Lloyd turned around he saw him holding two cups that smelled suspiciously of coffee. “It’s your job to set my brain on fire? Also what’s with the cups, it's nearly 4 pm.”
He looked up at Kai's smiley face as he put one arm up to rest his elbow on the cushions. “Zane says that we’ll all crash by five pm and then we'll mess up our sleep schedules even harder but if we do a little pick me up now we’ll crash at nine and be back on the streets by one am.”
Kai handed over the antique tea cup with a dragon handle that Lloyd uses as a mug. “Why are we starting patrol at one instead of midnight?”
The red ninja leans back into the couch throwing his mug back like a shot glass before wiping leftover coffee from his lips with his sleeve. “Something something circadian rhythm I didn't care to listen.” Lloyd sipped his own coffee, it’s just as he likes it, with almost more sugar than coffee and enough milk to make a calf faint.
Lloyd thinks about starting patrol before the others, it’s not like he hasn’t done so before, but almost as if in disagreement his headache pounds sharply against his skull. Maybe more sleep will help, after all that’s what doctors recommend for sleep deprivation induced headaches, go figure.
He was content to sit in silence but apparently Kai had enough energy to continue their conversation.
“He had an octopus mech, right?” Lloyd hummed in confirmation as Kai set his empty mug down and gestured animatedly with his hands as he talked.
“It was pretty banged up by the time Nya hauled him out to sea and I got the joy of watching him while you all dealt with the sharks, we were just glaring at each other for 10 minutes.”
Lloyd doesn't often get what they call ‘babysitting duty’ since his mech is more equipped for searches but on the rare times that he did, it was pretty unbearable.
Just sitting there to make sure Garmadon didn't pull out a rocket launcher or get into another mech, it’s happened before.
“It was down right creepy, i don’t know how you throw one liners at him while he stares you down with those beddy red eyes–”, Lloyd almost flinched but stopped himself at the last second, he’s sure he pulled a face but Kai was too deep in his rant to notice, ”-- I swear he knows what he's doing. He bared his teeth at me like he was trying to smirk or something! Gave me shivers. Hell you could tell me he was from a horror movie and I’d believe you.”
Logically, Lloyd knows Kai is talking about his father.
Emotionally, he can't help but take the words his brother is saying and apply them to himself. It’s not like Kai is wrong.
Rants like this aren’t uncommon, the ninja tend to trash talk and insult every recurring villain but every time it’s his dad on the chopping block it’s always stuff like this. He hopes knows his family wouldn’t say this stuff about him. But it still hurts whenever they shiver theatrically or worse actually shiver in horror.
The subject of his fathers appearance is as theorized as the secret ninja forces members' identities. Most common is the theory that whatever dark magic allows the warlord to destroy anything he touches corrupted him inside and out. Lord Garmadon is the monster in every kids closet, including Lloyd's although for vastly different reasons.
He’s saved from Kai’s ranting by the rest of the team making their way to the entertainment slash planing area of the warehouse.
Zane settles across from Lloyd at the table, sitting properly on the floor, next to him Cole dragged the bean bag closer and plopped down in it as Nya sat down on the couch next to her brother putting her directly behind Lloyd, finally Jay climbed over the back of the couch sitting more on the arm of it than on the actual thing.
Zane set a newspaper on the coffee table, next to him Cole snorted “You actually bought a newspaper for this?”
The nindroid blinked at him “Yes, it makes me feel professional.”
Jay cut in. “They still make ne-newspapers?”
Lloyd saw Zane’s mouth open in answer but spoke over him before this could go on for any longer.
“Nevermind that.” His eyes traced over the article's title ‘BREAK IN AT NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY: mythical sword stolen!’
“Why would they steal a random sword of all things?” Lloyd questioned.
“Acording to my research the sword of sanctuary is not any random sword but instead a legendary artifact gifted to the Cloud Kingdom by the First Spinjitzu Master, it is said that anything seen within its blade will come to pass.” Zane explains.
Kai scoffs. “Really, a future telling sword?”
Nya smacks him on the back of the head. “We fight a snake guy that can turn invisible, two wizards that constantly try to kill people, a sea serpent that sometimes decides to stir trouble and a monster that runs around in a mech and can destroy literally anything he touches, no offence Lloyd,--” Lloyd winced, he did not want to be associated with that, not even in an apology. “–and you draw the line at ‘magic oracle sword’?”
Jay slowly raises his hand and starts speaking before Kai has a chance to defend himself.
“Not to be that guy but if the sword was gifted to the Cloud Kingdom then shouldn’t it be, you know, in the Cloud Kingdom?” Lloyd had been wandering that too actually.
“The wider archeological consensus is that the sword of sanctuary was an actually real non-magical sword that was gifted to the Ninave Empire by the Northern Kingdom of Shintaro as a peace offering, the legend having simply sprung up around it over the years.”
Cole picks up the newspaper and begins going over the article in detail as he asks. “So what are the chances the sword is actually magic?”
Lloyd looked back at the map. “Given how they evaded us last night, I'm leaning towards very.”
Jay groans. “Why would-d Chen even want a future s-sword?”
Nya sighed, throwing her hands up. “Why would he want any of the weird stuff he steals? Cuz he’s weird and power hungry, also the fact that it can apparently help him avoid us is a nice bonus.”
“For him maybe” Cole muttered.
“How do we get a sword back from a guy who knows every move we’re about to make?” Kai whines.
Lloyd hums in thought, the sword must have rules right? “First of all if the legend is true then they can only see the future while looking at the blade. Secondly it probably only shows specific things, a sword that shows all of the future everywhere at once would be useless.”
He wipes the map clean with the dry eraser next to it and picks up one of the markers, circling Chen’s noodle shops and his warehouses as well as his private residence located on a small island connected to the city by a bridge.
“First order of business is figuring out where it is, my money is on Clouse carrying it around so he can steal other artifacts more easily.” Lloyd explains.
Zane nods. “Sounds like a plan, we should end here for now and refine this later tonight. All of you need to sleep if we’re to have any chance of catching Clouse.”
The ninja all left their ‘mech gi’ –spare suits that don't have as much equipment or weaponry as their regular gi– in the warehouse, changing into their everyday clothes before exchanging goodbyes and leaving to hopefully catch enough sleep to not be dead on their feet.
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
Lloyd woke up with a horrible headache. He shut off his buzzing phone and rolled over burying his face in his nest of blankets. He felt absolutely terrible, his eyes were still itchy from his contacts and his tail was sore from being tied up all day not to mention the absolute exhaustion he felt.
With a sigh Lloyd threw his blankets off of himself and got up before the cold could make him reconsider. He stretched his arms above his head, shoulder giving a satisfying pop, and made his way over to his dresser.
Getting on his hands and knees he reached an arm under and pulled out his nicely folded gi, his sword along with a box containing his com, throwing knives, first aid kit, gloves, tabi shoes, shin and forearm sleeves.
He got dressed in record time: pants, shirt, jacket, sash, baldric and sword, tabi and leg sleeves keeping his pants from swishing along the ground. Putting his contacts in, the only part of his disguise he needs while in his gi, he puts his gloves and arm sleeves on after. And lastly his mask.
His eyes catch the moonlight glinting off of the full body mirror in the corner of his room. Lloyd turns, Green’s eyes stare back. Shame, guilt and pride paint his heart in a confusing cocktail of emotions.
He loves being the green ninja, feeling like he can finally fix all of the wrongdoings his father commits, feeling like he has friends that truly know him, that he’s finally doing something good.
The problem is that Green is as much of a lie as Lloyd Garmadon is. At least when he goes out as Lloyd people know to be weary, they know that his teeth are too sharp and that his nails aren't quite nails and they know he is a danger.
But as Green? People trust him with their children, people see him show up and they feel safer, unaware of the fact he’s just a wolf in sheep's clothing, a dagger in the bedsheets, a shapeshifting monster.
He is lying to his team, to everyone. Hell most days he’s lying to himself, hoping that if he simply wears his contacts for long enough, cuts his claws short enough that maybe just maybe he can be good. But Lloyd is an oni a liar and he will never be good.
He isn’t a good leader, his team doesn’t even know what he is. He isn’t a good person, he’s not even a person–
His eyes start to burn, it’s barely been a minute so why– oh no his eyes are tearing up, he can't cry he’ll ruin his contacts again, or worse yet set his mask on fire!
He tears his gaze away from the mirror, eyes tracing lines on the ceiling while he blinks in an effort to make the tears go away. A bit of rapid blinking and likely pointless hand flapping, his eyes start to feel less like they're about to try and melt his contacts.
Lloyd sighs, he should probably get going anyways, bad guys don't catch themselves.
He exits through his window silently using the widow ledges as a makeshift ladder.
Green makes it to the roof, taking a running start and jumping over to the next building, making his way towards the high rise the team had agreed on as a meeting point.
OOOooo-----------oooOOO
He jumps from roof to roof, scaling balconies and architectural decor, hitching a ride on the roof of a trolley to cross the canal, he makes it to the center of town.
The building is quite a bit taller than all the surrounding ones, some sort of fancy hotel, but its architecture makes it extremely easy to climb. He vaults the little handrail surrounding the roof and sees White already there.
The nindroid turns around a smile evident in his eyes. “Hello Green.”
The ninja nods in greeting, eyes catching on the frost clinging to the other’s gi. “You ran into trouble on the way here?”
White deliberately turns back around to observe the city instead of meeting Green’s eyes.
The silence stretches, Zane has never been good at lying. His usual method involving way too many details to be believable, his best bet has always been the silent treatment.
Unfortunately for him that stopped working on the team a long time ago.
Green makes his way next to Zane and leans into his peripheral vision, eyebrow raise imperceptible to someone not used to trying to communicate with others through their eyes and body language alone.
Zane cracks. “I’ve been on patrol since 12 am.”
“White!–” The other ninja cuts him off before he can continue.
“It is the objectively better way for the city to be patrolled while allowing you and the rest of the team adequate rest I–”
Green cuts him off in turn. “The reason we don’t patrol alone is because it's unsafe White! What if something had happened and no one was awake to offer back up?”
This isn’t the first time they've had this discussion, after all to be a ninja you have to be at least a bit self sacrificial. Zane knows this too as he doesn't try to defend his actions simply shrugging and looking away.
Green sighs. “At least promise me you'll inform us when you start a solo patrol?”
His eyes dart back over. “I Promise.”
“Promis-se what?” Lloyd jumps onto the handrail, growl catching in his throat when he sees Blue standing a few steps away.
He really must be tired to not have heard someone sneaking up behind him.
Judging by the way White was holding one of his kunai’s he wasn’t the only one startled. Blue was holding his hands up though his eyes showed he was more amused than anything.
White snapped out of it first. “Hello Blue, please don’t sneak up on teammates in the future.” He puts his knife away and leans back against the railing.
Which Lloyd should’ve gotten off of by now, he jumps down to stand next to White and hopes no-one mentions it.
Blue walks forward to be close enough for a normal conversation, one hand going up to rub sheepishly at his neck. “Y-Yeah ra-rather not end up s-stabbed.”
Green takes a deep breath calming his racing heart. Okay new topic, “Did you encounter Clouse or anything suspicious while you were patrolling?”
Blue cuts in with a disappointed look. “You we-were patrolling alone a-again?”
It’s White’s turn to look sheepish. “To answer your questions, yes I’ve been patrolling since 12 am and no, nothing suspicious.”
There’s a loud bang coming from the far side of the building and all three ninja turn towards it, hands immediately going to their weapons.
Over the railing tumbles Teal, landing on her back and using whatever air is left in her lungs to whoop loudly in victory.
Seconds later Red vaults the hand rail, bending over with his hands on his knees, in between deep breaths he gets out, “You… cheated...” ,Teal simply kicks at his ankles. He doesn’t fall but he stumbles away a bit as she moves to get up.
With way less noise and not nearly as out of breath, Black climbs onto the roof next. “I think you broke that air conditioning unit.”
Teal responds as she walks over to the more punctual ninja. “How would you even know? I had to teach you how to use the metro card reader, also those things are supposed to be making noise.”
Red swings an arm over Black’s shoulders and drags him to the group while the master of earth asks Teal. “Are you sure? Because I don't think tha-”
Green claps his hands together getting everyone's attention before the team can devolve into meaningless bickering.
“So! We will check all the areas that I've marked on the map in pairs, if any pair finds Clouse or any sign of the sword they will wait for the rest of the team before engaging, understood?”
Red, who was still using Black as an arm rest asks. “What about Chen’s mansion?”
“If we don't find anything in all the other locations then we’ll check the island tomorrow.” Green really hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He waits till Red nods in confirmation before continuing.
“White you’re with Teal, you two take the coast.” The nindroid gives the master of water a little smile and a wave which she both returns.
“Red and Blue, you’ll have the eastern half of the city center and the accompanying outskirts” Red finally detached from Black, stalked over to Blue and proceeded to jump him catching him in a noogie. The blue ninja screeched before flipping Red over his shoulder and fixing his mask with a hmph.
Ignoring that, Green continues. “That leaves me and Black to take the western half and its outskirts, we'll all meet back here in 2 hours if no-one finds anything and check the commercial district.”
He sees Teal trying to drag White off and rushes to say his part before she decides to pick him up. “And remember! Don’t engage without the rest of the team.”
Blue and Red both give mock salutes before running off and White allows himself to be pulled by Teal.
Black turns to Green with a cheeky grin visible in his eyes. “Race you to the one on Fangpyre boulevard!" He yelled before taking off. Lloyd has absolutely no clue how the others have enough energy to race but he’s never been one to pass off a challenge.
He runs after Black.