Chapter Text
Lloyd
“We already know where ‘The Blade of Elements’ is, that’s our first thing. The problem is the three keys, needed to get access to the blade. We know the first one’s location, the other two are unknown, by now.” Lloyd explained like he was holding a presentation at school. “So, any ideas how to track the other ones down?”
No one raised their arm. No one made a sound.
There were two rows of chairs in front of Lloyd. The first row was by far more crowded with Zane, Cole, Kai, Jay and Nya lined up. Ronin and Jude looked more like outsiders in the row behind compared to the trained Ninja.
“We could… ask the people for their keys?” Jay suggested in a low sarcastic undertone, making the other Ninja worried he was actually serious.
“We can’t do that, dummy.” Nya said. “We can’t just tell everyone in Ninjago that they should go ahead and give us all their keys. Those keys sure aren’t just laying around in anyone’s home.”
“Well… good, you have the master of treasures among you.” Ronin boasted himself as he arose from the wooden chair and drew everyone’s eyes on him and him only. “I feel like I know where one key is hidden.”
Jude felt nauseous, like throwing up. He kept gulping his guilt down his throat and picked some skin around his fingers to calm himself down. After all, Ronin just did his job .
“The maze of ivy.” Ronin exclaimed and dragged a wave of silence across the room.
“An ivy maze? I’m sure we have more than just one ivy maze in Ninjago.” Kai argued.
“Actually, we have around three hundred ivy mazes in Ninjago.” Zane roughly calculated. “There’s no way we can go through all of these mazes.”
“You need to trust me on that one, guys.” Ronin said. “Let me give you the coordinates and prove you wrong, nindroid.”
“What about enemies?” Kai asked, genuinely invested, stopping everyone from getting up for the coordinates, "We‘re not the only ones chasing after the blade, aren't we?"
“There were some hints on who that could be.” Lloyd explained.
“Oh my god, oh my god. Who is it?” Jay jumped with the creaking sound of the wooden chair, making everyone except for him anxious that it would break.
“The Time Twins.”
Even Jay stopped jumping and started to feel anxious along with everyone else. Everybody seemed confused about the sudden return of the Time Twins. They basically just defeated them and sent them into the Time Vortex with no signs of returning in near future again. Would they really have escaped so soon again and get their revenge?
“This is practically impossible, Lloyd.” Zane argued. “They’re no longer among us. How would they have escaped? They had no time blades, right?”
“I thought so too.” Lloyd admitted. “But the Time Vortex was supposedly opened again, two months ago over Jamanakai. Witnesses had told me that they didn’t see anyone enter nor escape but they said, there was a weird, evil vibe among them, ever since. They feel restless, and so do I.“
“I gotta ask though,” Ronin spoke up, entering the center of the room again, “why would y’all even need this blade?”
As Ronin asked this question, Lloyd sighed and looked on the floor as if he was trying to form his words in his head. Almost, as if he couldn’t find the right words. “To find Master Wu.”
“Oh, right. He isn’t here.” Ronin suddenly realized, his voice cold and almost obviously too cold.
“He was lost in the Time Vortex. We hoped maybe he was the one who found a way out, when this incident happened. But now we need to try this option too.” Lloyd sat on the floor and looked up to Ronin. “This blade has the ability to awaken origin powers within someone. We hoped, this way, we could awaken him through my powers, if that makes sense… Or at least get a hint where he might have gone.”
Ronin and Jude listened thoroughly while Lloyd was getting vulnerable. He looked upset and still so insecure even with the creative plan he came up with himself. Kind of helpless. There was a hint of discomfort in the air, rushing through everyone present, seemingly from Lloyd‘s nostalgia wave and awkwardness when he mentioned the Sensei. They hadn’t said a thing about the Sensei for days now.
„Well… that‘s awkward.“ Jay mentioned. „Why don’t we get started on the ivy maze? Ronin? Kai? Let‘s get going.“ Jay dragged the other two by their wrist to the cockpit of the Bounty, leaving Zane, Lloyd, Nya, Cole and Jude in the room.
„What if…“ Lloyd silenced right away, „… nevermind.“
„Lloyd, don’t worry. We will find Sensei again. And even if not, he‘ll find us everywhere. It’s always been like this.“ Nya smiled as Lloyd felt a little better. She followed group Jay into the control center, as did Zane and Cole, leaving Lloyd and Jude alone in the team room.
Lloyd looked around as he found Ronin's younger brother sitting there, doing nothing but rocking his upper body back and forth on the chair, a universal sign of nervousness that especially Lloyd could read very well. He even kind of forgot that Jude was still there. Even though he had not been in the mood to start a convo, he knew he had his duties as their „temporary master Lloyd in training“.
“Hey.” Lloyd greeted the young little boy.
Jude immediately looked up and glanced at the Green Ninja who was just walking over to him. His eyes seemed restless, nervous even, his fingers never stopped stimming for just a bit.
“Hi, are you okay?”
Jude nodded quickly. He even slightly smiled but broke their eye contact at the same time.
„Okay.“ Lloyd awkwardly chuckled as he felt a wave of cringe rush through his spine.
There was one other thing: when Lloyd was emotional, it was hard for him to keep the conversation going. Just like that moment. Nevertheless, he still tried because he wanted to and because it was his duty .
“Well, are you planning to support the team during the mission?”
He nodded.
“That's great! Are going to do some shadow work or are you more into fighting?”
No physical response. Both of them froze in their motion, awkwardly. Another wave of cringe reached The Green Ninja.
“Oh, sorry, my mistake. Shadow work?”
Jude shook his head.
“Fighting?”
He nodded.
“Wow, that's great. Have you been to any fighting courses before?”
Jude nodded eagerly.
“Karate?”
He shook his head in no.
“Judo?”
He shook his head again.
“Ah, Taekwondo?”
He nodded as he smiled brightly.
“Ah, very good choice. I've been to Taekwondo lessons once too. I stopped though, because I joined the team, you know? Taekwondo is usually a good starter before you come here, so I guess you already know the basics.“
A smile was Jude’s short but only response.
A ring tone suddenly chimed. Jude must've immediately known, it was his as he looked for it and pushed the screen against his chest, mysteriously. Jude‘s hands were exposed from underneath his oversized sweater, showing the inflamed cuts on his hand back, immediately drawing Lloyd‘s attention to them, forgetting everything surrounding Master Wu for a hot minute. He had seen wounds like these before. He didn’t remember where from.
“Well, I should probably go. You must be busy.” Lloyd scratched his neck, trying to think where he had the scars from and withdraw from any awkward conversations. „I should probably meditate or something… something that Master Wu would do right now.“
Jude smiled at him and faded as soon as Lloyd walked past him.
Jude
He looked at his cell phone.
New message from Morro!
His heart skipped a beat when he saw his name on his phone screen. If Lloyd hadn't gone away by then, he would've been caught immediately, he thought. His finger hit the push notification as a new window on his phone opened.
'Have a fight with me, in case we meet each other.'
-
To the Ninja’s surprise, they had no long trip to the coordinates, Ronin gave them. Just a quick ten minute ride took them to their desired destination. As they had arrived at the coordinates of the first key, the whole team lined up to enter the maze together. Even though Jude thought about staying on the Bounty, he was too scared to be alone.
It was a huge maze, consisting of ivy and other plants that were definitely more irrelevant than ivy. For a maze, it was too easy. There was only one straight way. Turnings would immediately show a dead end. It was too easy, Jude thought, why would Ronin lead the team here? He thought of a trap of Morro. Morro wouldn't miss the chance to do this. But could he influence this whole maze? Jude definitely thought too much, as he would always do. In the team, he couldn’t really trust anyone, not even his older brother at the moment. He got sick, thinking of betraying innocent people, no — the Ninja that saved Ninjago over and over again and protected its people, technically him and Ronin too.
"We found it!" Cole shouted out loud, as he started running to the room that was at the end of the straight way. “Hah, that was easy.”
A small key, hanging in the center of a sand colored wall. The key on the wall could be compared to an ant on kitchen tiles, so tiny was the key. That Cole even recognized the key from that distance had Jude impressed.
“Told ya.” Ronin bragged ahead of himself.
"Are you sure?" Zane asked. “I can’t imagine that this is the real key. Why was it presented that way in the maze?”
"It looks so tiny. Aww." Jay said and moved closer to the key.
"It's just a piece of iron, Jay." Kai rolled his eyes. "My room key looks way bigger than this piece of dust."
"Enough." Lloyd said, approaching the key before Jay and picking up the key that had been hanging on a hook. "We have the key, let’s go. Let’s worry about the other things later." Lloyd added, as Kai, Jay, Cole and Zane leaned over to look at the key too, delaying their time to leave, second-guessing if this was the real key even.
Meanwhile, Jude had turned around to the exit to look out for potential danger. He had a nauseous gut feeling that Morro was somewhere around. Like a bond that activated whenever he was near. His thoughts were proven true when he saw the ghostly silhouettes, approaching the open room with Morro among them. He froze in his motion, his eyes locked into Morro’s. Never ever has he held eye contact with him for that long. Never ever would he do again, what he was about to do.
"Guys!" Jay screamed as he made everyone turn around, looking at the ghosts and their sharp weapons, "We're being attacked!"
Everyone needed a moment to change their gears from expecting the Time Twins to the unexpected ghosts. It was like Zane froze them for a solid second, not leaving anyone out.
"Everyone protect the key!" Lloyd commanded and fell face first into the first fight, as the seemingly endless amount of ghosts swarmed into the room and attacked anyone they could get. Anyone, except for Jude. Morro looked at Jude only, not moving towards him nor attacking anyone else. Jude zoned out in his eyes halfway in. And when Morro indicated that he was going to attack him, the little boy wanted to disappear. He learned to read him a little too well.
Jude flinched when Morro started running towards him. Jude immediately started panicking, looking around where to go, tip-toeing in different spots but couldn‘t get himself to dodge the attack and froze again. As Morro jumped up, his foot up high, he kicked little Jude right into the chest and let his head and back hit the hard floor. He groaned in pain and rolled across the floor aching badly, gasping for air. When Morro suddenly kneeled above him, pushing his wrists on the cold hard stoney ground, he stopped breathing out loud and held his breath, consciously.
“Welcome to my playground, peasant.” Morro smirked, maliciously. “What are you holding your breath for? You can’t just decide when you want to die.” His hand wandered from his wrist to his throat, grabbing onto his sensitive skin, pressing so tightly that Jude’s automatism to breathe enabled again. Like a reflex, Jude used his free hand, trying to loosen the master’s tight clutch around his neck.
"Come on, Lucien . Show me what you’ve learned. Show me your best worst version of yourself." Morro smirked. Jude was barely breathing, focusing on taking a breath, trying not to relive the worst punishments Morro had given him. At this point, all he heard were random words, not even close to a full sentence. All he saw was Morro’s neck in a flickering blur. All he felt was Morro‘s crotch, pushed up against his leg. All he thought about was death.
"... show... learned... Lucien."
His eyelids were sinking, his vision slowly getting more and more blurry, his ears ringing an unbearable tinnitus, an overwhelming high frequency, making it harder and harder to understand anything that Morro said. His chest went colder and colder with every second passing, his head was too light, his fingertips were sizzling, his face burned from the coldness and went blue.
"Don‘t you wanna go ahead and try to bite my dick off again?" "... go... dick off...?"
"Where‘s the disobedient whore, you used to be? I would like to see him again.“ "disobedient... used... see him."
"Come on, tell me, Lucien ." "... tell … Lucien."
As Morro had enough of the process of choking Jude unconscious, he would push his wrist down again. Jude was desperately gasping for air, coughing up saliva and doing everything he could to keep his body working, even though, irrationally, he hoped he would’ve choked him unconscious. Alone the sight of Jude struggling satisfied the sadist in Morro.
“You’re such a great toy for me, aren’t you?” Morro chuckled.
A sudden flip switched inside of Jude as he kept trying to control his breath. Like a survival instinct, like the word “ toy ” awakened something inside of him. Jude’s wrist effortlessly lifted off the ground, grabbed those of Morro and pushed him off him with all the leftover force inside of the boy. Paramedics would call this event an adrenaline rush. It, for sure, caught the ghostly creature off guard to see his, usually reserved, captive being as reckless as he’s never seen him before. It did something unspeakable to him, probably between confirming his inner voice that told Morro about this boy’s potential and trying to hold his fragile ego back from doing impulsive mistakes. It made even the most selfish master freeze in his motion for a split second. Jude got up, using the moment of his inattentive authority to brace himself, in order to really fight.
That moment, the adrenaline rushed off, sending his body straight to the ground again.