75Hey! Thank you, everyone, for the kind comments asking me to continue this! Don't worry, it was never abandoned. I just fell out of habit for like... a year... (sorry.) I took a break writing some other things for a while, but I think I've improved because of it. Enjoy~!
What a day, Lloyd thinks as his backpack slides off and he tumbles onto the couch. His fingers interlace over his chest and twitch restlessly as he examines the ceiling. Briefly reviewing the events of his exhausting, but more or less average, school day, his mind wanders to the encounter with Chad and Kai three days ago. He hasn't seen Chad since Kai showed up to teach him a lesson… he hasn't seen much of Kai either, actually. Lloyd grimaces before putting the subject firmly from his mind. Rolling over, he dangles one arm off the edge of the couch.
Lloyd can see the kitchen from here, the table almost too big for the room strewn with blueprints and machine parts. Sugarsnap sits on top of it all, powered off but looking, in Lloyd's mind, eager. He's not in much a mood to build, though.
The look of Kai's cold eyes drifts into his thoughts, and Lloyd shoves it away hurriedly. He lets out a long, loud sigh, flipping onto his back again to relieve some of the tension. Kai isn't a bad person. Lloyd tells himself, like he's been doing for days. He just doesn't know.
The sensation of having his arm grabbed, fingers applying pressure like a vice, as Kai leans in, his breath tickling Lloyd's nose.
"NO!" Lloyd shouts, abruptly sitting up and forcing deep breaths into his lungs. "Kai just doesn't know," he reassures himself aloud, pushing aside the feeling of betrayal that's wrapping his heart like thick, stifling cotton. "That's all. If Kai knew, things would be different…"
But he doesn't know, a small voice creeps into Lloyd's mind, and he acts like this. What does that say about him?
Oh yeah? Then what's that say about this dragons-forsaken city? Lloyd grumbles back to himself, putting his feet down on the floor and standing up. He retrieves his shoes from where they were kicked across the room when he first got home and dons a warm, waterproof coat. Opening the sliding glass door to his balcony, Lloyd locks it behind him before making his way downtown.
Sneaking into the Ninja Force's warehouse is child's play; Lloyd's built several hidden entrances for that express purpose. He also always parks Green Dragon in an obscure, cluttered corner where no one will know it's missing if they don't look too closely. Granted, anybody on his team would just assume "Green" had come in and taken it out for a spin, and they'd be right; but he still doesn't want to draw attention to his coming or going.
Luckily, their secret base was empty today. Lloyd turned on Dragon's stealth mode and left the harbor with little trouble, steering a course for the Volcano. If there was anyone who could tell Lloyd about betrayal, it was his dad.
Making its way around the volcano and past Garmadon's security, Green Dragon dips into the jungle foliage that's scattered in pockets on the volcano, following a small, green inlet towards the island's center. This arm of seawater eventually leads into a cave blocked by a sturdy iron grate, where both Lloyd and his mech are scanned. After confirmation, the grate guarding the cave entrance rises above the water with a grinding sound, allowing Lloyd and his mech through. As soon as he's clear, it falls with a ploosh! back into the water.
This is Lloyd's private dock, unknown to anyone but him, his dad and Dareth. Green Dragon alights on the surface of the underground bay much like a sea bird, two wings of white spray rising up on either side as it comes to rest next to the platform.
Crawling through air ducts, slipping past henchmen dressed in various sea life costumes in the hallways, and traversing the numerous secret passages harbored by the volcano (built when Garmadon went through a phase,) Lloyd infiltrates his Dad's private rooms. He knocks on the door a few times but receives no answer. Since this means Garmadon must be elsewhere in the volcano, Lloyd lets himself in to wait.
Garmadon's "house" is quiet with no one else there, even peaceful, so Lloyd sinks onto the couch in the living room with a sigh of relief. Eyes wandering from the plush, navy-blue rug, to the matching furniture, to the starkly contrasting view of oozing lava outside the window that bathes the room in red light. The blue sky is visible, barely, above the rim of the caldera, and Lloyd spends a few minutes watching white clouds scud across the small sliver of the outside world.
He's hit with a pang of nostalgia, watching those clouds, and tears his gaze away to look at the various photographs covering the walls. The pictures run the gamut, from fish to wastelands, to volcanic landscapes to images of the Garmadon family, Lloyd's younger self grinning back, gap-toothed, while receiving a "lesson" in the volcano's chemistry lab.
Lloyd examines the photo disinterestedly, his gaze moving down from the red eyes and proud hands holding up a beaker full of a likely dangerous fluid to his outfit, a black hoodie with bones painted on it to look like a rib cage. It was his favorite, back in the day; Lloyd practically lived in that thing.
Suddenly a spark of curiosity ignites in his mind and forces Lloyd up, wandering through the kitchen to the hallway in the back. He casually flicks on the light and turns the knob on a door just across from his Dad's bedroom, labeled "Lloyd" in letters cut out of colorful, deteriorating construction paper.
The room is bare, mostly; Lloyd took his belongings with him when he moved out. However, no dust coats the surface of the nightstand or hides the color of the bedspread. The carpet is vacuumed, and the mirror polished clean. A few of his old toys, things he was already outgrowing when Lloyd moved into his current apartment, are lined up neatly on a black shelf.
He takes one down, one of those wind-up shark toys that swim around in the bathtub, and idly turns the knob a few times before releasing. The shark's tail flaps wildly, writhing in his hands almost like an actual fish, and suddenly Lloyd sees the bluegills he and his mom caught one summer, in a pond far away in the wilds of Ninjago. That was shortly after he had to leave.
I wonder if she's found anything, Lloyd wonders, though he's careful to restrain the hope sprouting in his chest. Misako had spent a lifetime running in circles all over the world, Lloyd having been present for only a small portion of that. After the first few disappointments, he learned to hold his emotions in; after all, there were no meaningful discoveries until they found it—the cure that would remove the venom for good.
It was talking again.
Garmadon always hated when It talked.
This is taking too long, the voice hissed, wrathful but beguiling. Garmadon wasn't sure who it was, who said these things. He knew it was real, though, and not some hallucination of his crazed mind. Sometimes, when its influence was particularly strong, he glimpsed ocean waves, and saw a jungle with sandy beaches.
Unless those were a hallucination, too. Garmadon tried not to think about that too much.
"Like you have the right to complain," he hissed back under his breath in irritation. Some of his minions scurried nervously out of his way, recognizing his foul mood, but Garmadon paid them no mind.
We must hurry! It snarled back as Garmadon punched the number for his private floor on the elevator. We have little time before the Descendant awakens to his full power. You must—
"Yeah, yeah. Seize the initiative, stamp out resistance, whatever," Garmadon grumbled back.
The voice writhed in fury inside his head, and Garmadon fought for control of his thoughts as a primal, fearful urge rose within him—a kind of fight or flight instinct; the need to kill or be killed. Why do you resist!? The voice, It, screamed. With my help, you could have it all—land, money, power beyond your wildest dreams! You will remake the world, just as you've always wanted!
"Because I am Garmadon, Lord of Destruction!" He snarled as he pushed open the door to his home, which lay at the end of a hallway opposite the elevator, "and I will conquer this world myself!"
Suddenly the world came rushing back, quiet and potent all at once. Here was his kitchen, the walls royal blue. The island in its center was clear, one of his four hands resting atop it.
The living room was to his left, the only division between the two spaces the change from tile to carpet. Couches facing a large, black tv sat there, in the same place as they've always been.
Lava bubbled far below the large windows outside, slow and glowing.
Everything was in its place. The pictures, the photographs, all the same. The quiet entered Garmadon's ears, but not his mind.
Something subconscious shifted deep down; a primal sort of thing—electricity was in the air, invisible but stimulating.
Someone was here.
"Dad?" The voice came from behind him, and something snapped.
NOW! The voice shouted at the same time as Garmadon let out a cry—of surprise or rage, he couldn't tell. Dark energy not willed by himself flickered to life in his hands as he spun around and blew up the portion of the wall where Lloyd's head had been.
"Woah!" Lloyd cried out, having ducked and rolled just in time. He brought up his elemental Green shield to block the debris that was raining down on him. At the sight of it, Garmadon lost control of himself.
He's growing stronger! It shrieked, we must act before it is too late!
It took all of Garmadon's willpower to turn around and blast the tv to smithereens.
"Dad!" Lloyd was shouting, somewhere distant. Tiny arms wrapped around his waist and hugged with far more strength than they should possess. "Dad, it's okay!" He called, "it's just me!"
Deep breaths. Slowly, color returned to Garnadon's sight.
"S-sorry," he choked after several minutes. "You, uh… startled me."
"Yeah, no kidding," Lloyd huffed, his arms still wrapped around his dad like a living belt.
Some parent he was. Garmadon couldn't bring himself to turn back around. Couldn't even keep his own freakin' son safe from himself. Yeah, father of the century right here. Lloyd ducked under his lower arms to come in front of him, still hugging as he squinted up with red eyes so much like Garmadon's own…
He could tell his son had hastily wiped tears from his eyes. Lloyd was putting on a brave face, but the telltale signs were there. The tight edges of his smile, the upward crease in his eyebrows, the way his pupils flicked back and forth, preparing to spring either toward or away from danger.
Great Dragons, he'd scared his own son to the point of tears.
Again.
Why did this sweet, crazy kid insist on sticking around? He must be insane!
…Probably got it from his dad.
"Lloyd…" Garmadon's voice croaked, his throat suddenly as rough as if he'd caught the flu. I'm sorry, he wanted to say, and a million other things. I'm sorry I'm not stronger. I'm sorry I'm not here for you.
It had all been said before… or maybe it hadn't. Probably that other one.
"Next time," he instructed his son roughly, "you don't run toward the fireball-throwing egotistical maniac." Garmadon knew what he was, even if he wasn't repentant.
"Ha!" Lloyd laughed, pressing the side of his face against Garmadon's shirt like that was some kind of sarcastic joke. "Don't worry, Dad," he said. "I'll never run from you."
Garmadon had to swallow to stop the pressure imbalance from crushing his heart.
"Well, what are you doing here?" He asked in a lighter tone, suddenly breaking away from the hug. Garmadon went and busied himself making a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, walking through the soot-stained remains of his hallway corner as if they didn't exist. "You better not be slacking off on your homework! I know it's a school night, not that I'll stop you!" He laughed, loud and boisterous, like the noise would chase away the demons that lived in the corners of this house. He slid a bowl of ninja-themed marshmallow cereal across the table to Lloyd, the milk sloshing onto the counter as he did.
"Actually, I came to ask you something…" Lloyd's tone was hesitant, even as he eagerly scooped the cereal into his mouth.
"Well, what is it?" Garmadon asked, his voice unintentionally gruff as he sat down with a bowl of his own.
"Well…" Hoo boy, Lloyd was hesitant now. Dragons, he was doing this to his own son, Garmadon couldn't—
Lloyd's voice cut off his derailing train of thoughts. "I had an… unusual experience." Lloyd was clearly pained, bringing this up, and Garmadon stayed quiet as he worked it through. "Uh…" Lloyd took another bite of his cereal, pausing to chew. "Dad," he said, quickly and suddenly, "what do you do if someone betrays you without realizing it?"
"Betray?" Garmadon narrowed his eyes. "This doesn't have anything to do with Wu, does it?"
"No, no no!" Lloyd shouted, dropping his spoon to wave his hands frantically. He was aware of his uncles' (seemingly) mutual dislike. Wu was very open about Garmadon to Lloyd; his nephew had a very clear picture of the pain and regret Wu felt. That didn't mean he wasn't equally as petty to his brother in person, usually reflecting off Garmadon himself. Whenever the two clashed, it quickly became very personal. "Not Wu… it wasn't really betrayal either, I guess… you know Kai, right?"
"He's the ninja you like, isn't he?" Garmadon asked, thinking back. He always had a hard time keeping Wu's ridiculously colorful students straight.
"Yeah… but he doesn't know I'm the Green Ninja, so…" Lloyd sighed heavily. "Ah, he saved me from a bully at school, but… Dad… I think Kai hates me!" He swallowed, clenching his jaws, hands hidden under the table. "Or at least, the real me. He said straight-up that the only reason he helped me was Wu wanted him to."
"Tch," Garmadon clicked. "At least that old geezer can do one thing right in his life…" He caught himself, glancing at Lloyd and swallowing. "Sorry," Garmadon apologized while looking down at the table, at his freakish four arms, thinking.
Lloyd shook his head. "It's fine."
They were quiet for a moment, Garmadon tapping his fingers restlessly on the table. "Lloyd," he sighed finally, "it's all too often in life that the people closest to you are first to stab you in the back. You just… gotta be ready for it, you know?"
He watched Lloyd anxiously as his son sighed, pushing the empty cereal bowl away to put his forehead on the table. "…I was afraid of that," he said at last, turning his head to rest on his cheek.
Garmadon got up and came around the table, pulling Lloyd up into a backwards hug. "I'm sorry, kid," he said sadly. "I'll make this world better. For both of us."
"Heh," Lloyd smiled, putting a hand on one of Garmadon's big arms. "You do that."
After seeing Lloyd off at the secret dock, Garmadon took the elevator to his personal office/control room at the top of the volcano. Word must have gotten around about his mood, because his generals were already assembled.
"General Number One," Garmadon got to business without bothering to greet. "Prepare the invasion force!"
"Aye, sir!" Number One saluted, running off.
"Number Two," Garmadon barked, "I want the A-fleet ready to go by dawn; and get those machine nerds to set up The Big One. It's about time we took her out for a spin."
"As you command!" Number Two nodded, already pulling out her radio as she left.
"Number Three!" Garmadon turned to his aquarium overseer, "get those sharks fed and rested! Load the crab guns, too."
"It shall be done!" Darreth shouted, also saluting as he hurriedly left. Orders dispatched, Garmadon took a seat at his massive desk.
It was time to make this city pay for hurting his son.