Chapter Text
It was Lloyd Garmadon's birthday today.
Zane had seen it on Good Morning Ninjago that morning when he had returned from his battle against Garmadon.
Usually, he would just catalogue this and would only really think of it passively when he saw the boy passing in the hallways. Or from the corner of his eye when in class.
Today could be seen as an abnormality though, because he could barely get into the school before the previously mentioned blonde dramatically fell into the center of his attention.
He would end up staying there for… well, a while.
It all started the second he had reached the school grounds that morning. Some acquaintances and old classmates had caught up with him to talk about what his new classes were and whether he would be offering tutoring services.
He would have liked to say he’d been paying attention to the conversation around him. But, he was more focused on the fact that Nya would be waiting just inside the doorway, so he threw out some murmurs of agreement and quickened his pace.
This usually wouldn’t have him so distracted but he, and the rest of the crime fighting group, would be waiting to debrief about the day before. Technically this morning- if he was being nitpicky.
A cold sweat had broken out on the back of his neck. The dampness of his shirt collar caused by how out of everything he faced as a ninja, he had never been more scared until this very moment.
A moment that involved him being late to a very impatient Nya Smith.
This was a complete failure on his part though.
One could say he had an internal clock in his brain, one that clearly seemed to be broken.
So broken in fact, that he was seven minutes late.
Those seven minutes caused him to get stuck in commuter traffic. Which was especially worse when the streets were littered by rubble and broken robot legs- or fins depending on the type of sea animal.
Looking back to when he had gotten home hours before… he may have shutten it off. Although definitely not to spite the terrifying woman waiting within the school.
It was just that if the totally human male was being honest, he found their post-attack meetings to serve no real purpose.
He found it quite hard for his friends/teammates to have an organized conversation without their leader.
Zane would often compare their debriefs to a series of monkeys screaming over each other, hoping that they’d inevitably start saying the words to one of Shakespeare’s plays. Or more realistically, a play written by Jimmy the 3rd grader.
Ideally, the Green Ninja would be there to help guide them.
The only problem being that unlike his teammates- whose identities were way out in the open- they had no knowledge of anything involved with Green's personal life.
There were even some arguments over what his hair colour was based on his “vibe.”
The majority of them were on team brown hair. However, Zane could only really picture him as blonde.
On occasion, he’s even heard bickering on Green’s eye colour. He had personally registered them to be a vibrant green, but Jay stood firm on his stance that he had seen them emit a purple colour once.
They would never really know though.
Because no matter how hard the Red Ninja -or Kai- pestered Green about revealing his identity, the boy refused to show even an inch of his face.
Normally, Zane would completely respect their leader's privacy. Especially due to the fact that when their group first formed, Sensei Wu had suggested for them to keep their identities hidden.
Although, once the identities of the other ninja were revealed, he couldn't help but be slightly curious.
He still remembered the day when the first ninja's identity came out. Of course, he had tried to wipe it from his memory and pretend it didn't happen, but it slowly got out of hand as time went on.
Weirdly enough, it had been Cole to set off the domino effect.
During an evening patrol, he and Blue had been crossing rooftops, surveying the city. And -of course- distracting one another by trying to one up each other with their parkour abilities.
During a “super sick flip thingy” (according to Jay) Black’s mask came off, revealing him to be Cole.
After spending an hour calming down Blue, the two agreed to stay silent.
Until Jay immediately broke the next day.
It was right after one of their weekly training sessions, one where Green had immediately ran off the second it was over, claiming he had to go deal with something personal.
As they walked out a few minutes after him, Cyan had said something along the lines of, “How was your guy's patrol last night?”
Obvious glances were exchanged between the two, and a small murmur of”I can’t do this,” came from Jay.
Cole sighed, and began to say, “It was pretty good,” until he was interrupted by the nervous wreck next to him.
“I saw Col- no, um Black's identity,” Jay blurted out, much to everyone's shocked faces,”I mean.. No, I didn't…”
Jay caved in on himself, holding his red face in his hands while the rest of them stared at Cole in silence.
The darkly cladded ninja’s head shook, pinching his nose through his mask's fabric. He had seemed to be fighting some sort of internal conflict, perhaps talking it through with The First Spinjitzo Master himself.
‘“Uh, yeah. I'm Cole,” his hand came up, pulling the mask off, letting his dark curls and tan skin spring free.
The four of them had stared blankly -including himself- with the imprint of gaping mouths being evident through their masks.
Jay stood there, his head bouncing back and forth between Cole and them. Most likely giving himself whiplash.
His shaky voice said, “And, uh, I’m Jay.”
Not to embarrass his friend, but there may or may not have been a voice crack thrown in there somewhere as well.
More silence had followed.
Jay eventually pulled his mask off, revealing the red frizz sprouting from his head, and the sheen of stress sweat along his forehead.
A sheepish grin formed, and his eyes continued to look at each member around him.
Thankfully, someone eventually broke the tight silence in the air.
“I know you,” Nya’s eyes squinted, “You’re in my Science class.”
Jay had squeaked in recognition, “Nya?”
His face went from what Zane would call tomato red, to something akin to Kai’s mask.
Nya had merely nodded, then pulled off her own face covering.
Kai followed, and after a moment, he did too.
The five of them all spent what felt like hours analyzing and cataloging each other, then began to talk.
They had all apparently been in various classes together in previous years, and even in their current semester now. The exception being Kai and Nya, who had been sharing spaces since the womb.
Numbers were swapped and a group chat had been formed. Kai, of course named it “I want to be a neenja!!!!”
Zane wasn’t particularly surprised by the boy's naming skills.
They of course had had a plan to tell Green, but every time one of them slightly brought it up he would freak out and distance himself.
They realised they’d rather not know his identity at all than lose him. So, they eventually stopped trying.
Besides, it’s not like there was an evil demon under the mask, it was just their friend after all.
The only exception to this understanding being Kai’s persistent bugging.
No one took this seriously though, each time he did, Green would just roll his eyes and shove the boy away.
At school however, they drifted together into a group, and had stayed together since.
That was six months ago, and now Zane was currently rushing into the doors of the school in order to not get gutted like a fish by said wonderful friend, Nya.
He was moving at a steady pace, and would have continued to do so, until he heard the thump.
Turning around, he saw Lloyd Garmadon sprawled on the school's courtyard.
The belongings of his bag were spewed across the ground, while a soccer ball slowly rolled away from the scene.
Zane distantly noted that those around him had either pulled out their phones or completely run off.
He probably should have followed the latter. He knew that gossip and incidents surrounding Lloyd appeared often, and he usually left it no mind.
He was a busy person, with a busy schedule, especially with his secret night life. So the school's scandalous events did not concern him.
Now though, it was almost like he was glued to the steps.
Because, well… he felt bad.
For someone who scared the entirety of the general population, he looked like a kitten that got kicked into a puddle.
His chin quivered, eyes darting throughout the crowd around him.
Then, those eyes latched onto him.
Purple eyes that looked almost empty, like the fight had been pulled out of him a long time ago.
Maybe if Zane didn’t need to rely on his mask in order to be a good samaritain, he’d go up to Lloyd.
Maybe he would pull him up and help him gather his stuff, grab his arm and navigate with him into the school.
But he was Zane the human male right now, not the White Ninja.
Instead, he heard Nya’s curt voice call for him from the entrance.
He gave Lloyd one last look, and turned away.
“What was that about?”
He shrugged,”Lloyd fell in the courtyard.”
“Oh, you mean Garmadon?” Nya asked.
For some reason, the idea of calling Lloyd, “Garmadon” felt so derogatory.
Because the boy he saw crumpled on the pavement was nothing like the evil, four armed Garmadon they faced earlier. Let alone the teenager who was painted to be a delinquent and scoundrel.
But, he had no evidence for the innocence he saw in him. Just a look and a gut feeling.
Which was definitely not verifiable because he had no gut, just a circuit board that needed updating.
“Yeah.”
“Anyway,” He said, changing the subject,”My mom is on my case all the time..”
***
Nya hated men.
Specifically, her best friends that were all late to their morning meet up.
Even more specifically, she hated her brother, who had driven with her to school, and was somehow not even with her.
Kai, the absolute idiot that he was, had ran off to who-knows-where after she kindly drove him to school.
Apparently, she had a habit of driving ten times over the speed limit on her motorbike, leaving Kai’s face with a green tint when she eventually rolled to a stop.
Which, sure, she should probably stop doing that, but how could someone not drive her beautiful Lady Iron Dragon as fast as it could go.
Especially after she had spent weeks custom painting her hero on the side.
She was sure that the Lady Iron Dragon herself would definitely be disappointed in her if her driving didn’t break the majority of local traffic laws.
Obviously, her oh so lovely brother did not share the sentiment.
The literal hothead had dramatically said that he would need medical attention or else his head would “probably fall off or something”, and then stormed off in the opposite direction of the nurses office .
She couldn’t tell if it was because he was an idiot or he was a liar. To be honest, it was probably both.
It didn’t help that nobody else was there either.
Forcing her to sit all alone at their dingy table.
It had scratched all over it, a chunk of the corner was missing, and one of its chairs was an old, bent up locker.
(Which she was pretty sure was still in use)
But alas, it was tucked away in the corner of a hallway nobody ever went in, which was great when they wanted to be far away enough from listening ears.
The problem now though, was that she was stuck avoiding eye contact with the mysterious liquid opposite to her. And trying to tune out the sounds of it dripping down a stalactite of gum.
She was silently praying that the flickering lightbulb in the corner would die, and make it easier for her to ignore it.
Of course, with the whole ‘becoming a ninja’ thing, nothing should really faze her anymore. She’d probably been in more awkward and annoying situations in the last week alone, so sitting by herself at a table isn’t the worst thing she’s had to experience.
But, y’know, she felt kind of pathetic.
Which she obviously shouldn't.
Nya was a badass -and she knew it, she had literally kicked Garmaddon and his sad little army's butt less than 6 hours ago.
And that wasn’t even the best thing she’s ever done.
Her and Green had once knocked Garmaddon off the mayor’s building by using their mechs as a giant-sized cannonball, while backflipping.
Speaking of Green, maybe that’s why she was feeling like this.
Without their leader, the rest of them tended to dissolve into chaos.
So on days like this, or right after anything important happened as their alter egos, she took over Green’s role and led a group debrief.
Nya found it quite helpful actually, it was basically a free excuse to yell at Kai. It was also the only way she could find that allowed her to feel in control without Green.
Because otherwise, she felt -again- kind of pathetic, waiting around for Green to magically tell them what went wrong and how to fix it in seconds.
Just like how she was waiting at their stupid table.
The chasm between her eyebrows began to deepen, and she’d probably see an imprint when she’d eventually see her reflection.
She tapped her foot, matching the beat of the liquid falling to the ground. (Is it coffee? Barf? Snake venom that would awaken some evil army?)
Although her brother could be a pain in the ass, at this point she kind of expected him to be late.
The same with Cole and Jay. They were probably off doing something stupid, like the time they got stuck in a haunted house.
Which if you were interested, ended with Cole’s head through some portrait of a pirate in the middle of the night as he yelled about how he had become a ghost.
So, yeah, she completely expected the idiots to be somewhat late, bringing a dramatic and obviously fake story when they’d inevitably come.
But you know who wasn’t with her?
Zane.
The man that has the audacity to time her whenever she goes to the bathroom during class.
The one that literally always shows up to training sessions before the sun rises, and still finds a way to complain about how late he is.
So, if he wasn’t with her he was probably dead.
And if he wasn’t, she’d go kill him herself.
Maybe it was the dripping of the thing and the tapping of her foot. Or the flickering of the light, the chattering of other people who didn’t abandon their friends, and the tightness of her ponytail.
-Okay, maybe it was all of it-
But it all squished into her brain and formed a hammer, then proceeded to throw it at her face.
The last rational part of her brain quickly pulled out her phone, and navigated to Zane’s contact.
Freezie Boy
Nya:
Where tje hell are u man????
She waited a beat, and even a few more.
Zane’s lack of immediate response pushed her over the edge.
Her bag was thrown over her shoulder with a huff, and her chair moved back with an irritating screech as she began to stomp away from the table.
It helped that her overall vibe of “I’ll kill you if you don’t get the hell out of my way” really helped part the crowd of her fellow students as she stalked through the halls.
But as she walked around like a crazy person, her anger started to slowly dissolve.
Because although she hated to admit this… she had no idea where Zane could be.
So, now she was stuck wandering around the school until her friend hopefully fell out of the sky in front of her.
She was also pretty sure there weren’t 8 copies of the same torn up poster around the school.
Her feet froze, and she practically deflated against the wall next to her.
In her frantic search, she had apparently just been circling through the same hallway over and over.
Nya probably would have started banging her head on the aged drywall next to her, but all of a sudden, people started running.
It wasn’t like a riot, or even a stampede, because everyone was running in different directions.
It seemed like half of the student body was running into the school, while the other was running out with phones in hand.
If her sanity had returned by then, she probably would have analyzed this and gone full ninja mode.
Instead, she dragged her feet to the entryway and peered outside.
Nya couldn’t see anything, except one thing.
A vest cladded blond at the front of the crowd.
Zane.
She called for him -maybe a little rudely- but Zane still jumped around to face her. As his face turned away from the courtyard, it looked oddly… upset?
Seeing her, he pulled himself away from whatever was happening and threaded his way through the crowd in her direction.
Her eyebrow perched, what in the world could have happened that caused Zane to look like he saw a puppy die?
She couldn’t ask Zane that exact question, so when he finally walked up to her she asked,” What was that about?”
Zane’s answer was simply that Garmaddon had fallen in the courtyard.
That was it?
The son of their enemy had hilariously fallen, and it made Zane look like he’d never see the sun again.
The idea of that basically dislodged her brain, so much so that she didn’t even yell at Zane.
She. Didn’t. Yell. Insanity, truly.
Instead, she just listened to him talk about how his mom had been yelling at him lately.
She brushed it off, because it really just meant she could yell at the others more later.
And interestingly enough, when the two of them made it into the school’s foyer, the opportunity to do so came.
***
Kai was Cole’s saviour.
Sure, he had been late to their morning meeting, but, to be fair, so was he.
And sure, Kai was technically the reason he -and Jay- were late in the first place.
And double sure, once Nya saw them she was probably going to run them over on her bike until they looked like roadkill.
And triple sure, the whole reason for all of this was because Kai had dragged them to a specific coffeeshop 8 blocks away to flirt with the cashier.ugh.
But, he did buy Cole a danish, and a large snogfruit punch.
And in his books that pretty much made up for it.
It didn’t for Jay though.
“What the hell Kai,” Jay whined, as they walked through the school’s side entrance, ”We were supposed to all be here like 10 minutes ago."
Now, he could’ve listened to Kai spout nonsense about how, “It’s not that big of a deal,” but before he could, Cole spoke up.
“Oh relax man, you just wanted a chance to talk to Nya without getting detention.”
“No! Um, I- no, I just wanted to find my Ninjargon class. I’ve never had a class upstairs before.”
Rolling his eyes at Jay, he kept walking down the hall- or well, tried too.
Because Kai, and the stupid brick wall he was, completely froze in front of him.
“C’mon du-”
And he could see why; Nya had spotted them.
The flurry of ponytail and leather jacket stormed towards them in a blur. Followed by a somewhat sheepish Zane.
And before he could interject -or blink really- the sounds of her yelling quickly berated his ears.
“How dare you guys, you all decided to abandon me? And for what?” A stupid coffee from steeper wisdom?”
Oh FSM, he’d never make it to lunch. He had a cake too. A delicious one with a ganache filling and a little bit of espresso in the batter to elevate the flavour. One that would hopefully be put in his casket for his ghost to eat.
Thankfully, most of her anger seemed to be directed to Kai.
“-barista! He’s in college Kai! College! And you!”
She whirled towards him and Jay. Never mind then.
“What are you guys, sheep? Blindly following that idiot?” She hissed, gesturing to her brother, ”You guys couldn’t even send me a text?”
She probably wouldn’t have stopped, but the first bell rang, finally cutting her off.
After it finished, Cole winced, “We’re sorry Nya, it won’t happen again.”
Jay nodded his agreement as Nya slowly deflated.
“Well, now that you're done, I kinda don’t feel like getting a late slip first period.” Kai said, waving them off as he started his way down the hall.
They fortunately all had their first period together. Sure, it was math, which he had never exactly passed before. But now that he’d have easy access to Zane’s homework it’d be a breeze.
“Shouldn’t we talk about the… thing that happened this morning,” Jay murmured.
“Well, we can’t really, can we?”
Kai took a sip of his drink, and glancing at the order it seemed to be pure black coffee with “Extra coolness.”
“Sorry, I didn’t exactly get my 8 hours last night,” Kai rolled his eyes dramatically, “and what's there to talk about anyway?
Cole piped up, ”Don’t we have to talk about what we can do better or something?”
They had had enough of these meetings, and enough squabbles between the two siblings, that he could usually guess what would happen next.
Nya sighed, ”First of all Cole, don’t eat with food in your mouth,” Cole quickly swallowed his half eaten danish,”And yes, you’re right, we do have stuff to work on.”
“Like what?” Kai said exasperated.
“Oh, I don't know, maybe not crashing into walls because you’re too busy fixing your hair.”
This was usually the point where Kai decided it’d be a good idea to be smart ass.
“Oh my god Nya, we’ve talked about this, ”Kai said,” I was fixing my mask because, y’know, I didn't want to reveal what was under it.”
Yup, there it was.
Nya moved to stand beside him, probably to bash her brother’s head in, ”The glass in your mech can only be seen through one way. Your way!”
Cole put on his headphones to tune them out, a guy could only listen to so much at 8 in the morning. He then shifted to talk to Jay and Zane.
“How was y’alls morning?”
Jay perked up, ”I finally convinced my parents to let me get the new Fist to Face game.”
Cole perked up as well, because he was totally going to destroy his poor friend at the game, ”What did you have to do to get it?”
“Don’t remind me,” Jay facepalmed,” I have to organize the junk yard.”
“Worth it.”
Jay turned to him. ”You?”
He just shrugged, ”Besides our morning activities…Not much, I guess.”
He moved on, looking over at Zane.
“How ‘bout you man?”
The blonde shrugged, ”Nothing notable, I just observed Lloyd fall in the courtyard during the walk here.”
That somehow broke Kai out of his argument, “ugh, that guy.”
Cole could agree, maybe not that passionately, but still.
It’s not like he hated Lloyd Garmadon. Afterall, fighting his father was the reason they were all friends in the first place.
He still thought the Garmadon’s were evil though, one positive couldn’t change his mind that easily.
Besides food related positives, obviously.
He could see that Jay also agreed with him.
The ginger’s face had fallen at the mention of Lloyd. Apparently, a few years ago Garmadon had released a bunch of venomous snakes in his family’s junkyard.
He still had a grudge, with him occasionally making a few snake related comments during attacks.
So whenever Green asked, Jay just had a very very strong affinity for snakes.
He did notice though, that Zane’s eyebrows tilted in confusion.
“What caused that reaction?” Zane asked accusatorily.
“Uh, Cause the guy sucks,” Kai scoffed, ”I mean, he’s Garmadon. The whole cause of this morning.”
“Actually,” Zane defended,”Lloyd was not the one to initiate the attack. Or any of them for that matter.”
Cole was surprised, actually.
During his whole time of knowing the blonde, he had never seen him be so…prickly.
Especially over someone like Lloyd Garmadon. The guy who apparently had a rap sheet so long that it could be a scarf for a giraffe.
“Oh come on, look at him, Zane, he’s literally evil incarnate,”
Zane’s mouth gaped open, and glanced around to the rest of them.
Jay spoke up, “He does look like a vampire, or the devil or something,” he shuttered, “and not like the ones in my mom’s novels.”
Nya nodded, and turned into a classroom next to them. Thank FSM for her, he’d probably have kept wandering around looking for it.
He could tell the teacher was lenient already, the chalkboard was covered with tic tac toe games, and the only actual writing from the teacher was a sloppy hand saying “Find a seat.”
Besides that, it wasn’t too bad, a few old math posters -that could only be made by a middle aged teacher- hung near the windows. Windows that Nya quickly strolled over too.
“What do you think?” Kai questioned, nudging his elbow into Cole’s side.
He chuckled, “Didn’t the guy literally steal from a candy shop when he was younger?”
That made them laugh, besides Zane, whose brows furrowed and quickly began to defend Garmaddon.
“Wasn’t that Brad Tud-”
“I call this seat!” Jay practically yelled as he reached for the desk next to Nya’s.
He snickered and sat down next to him. With Kai and Zane following behind him, just in time too, cause as they did the final bell rang.
Followed by a bunch of students scurrying in, as well as their teacher, Ms. Yang, who surprisingly didn't seem too laid back. She was wearing a blouse.
He shuffled through his bag as the teacher started talking about policies, or something like that.
Cole could already feel how monotonous their schedule would be now. He’d probably use this class for a good nap.
And his well deserved nap was already under way, until they were interrupted.
By Garmadon bursting through the door.
The blonde was a panting, sweaty mess, covered in what seemed to be… footprints? His arms gripped a series of papers and pens that were either completely ripped apart or squashed so badly that the ink dripped down the boy's sleeves.
“You’re late Mr. Garmadon. On the first day no less.”
“Yeah, I'm sorry miss, I got sorta stepped on,” Garmadon stuttered out, glancing around the room.
“What a wonderful excuse Mr. Garmadon, you’re getting detention,” Ms. Yang turned her back away from Garmadon, whose eyes practically popped out of his sockets.
“Its the first day,” he murmured, and then flushed deep red as he seemed to remember he was in front of a packed classroom.
His head lowered to his shoes, and he quickly made his way down the aisle.
Or whatever aisles they had at funerals, or jail? Was that just a normal aisle? Weddings, funerals, and Lloyd Garmadon should not all share an aisle.
Oh well, at least in this one, Lloyd got tripped before he could get to the end.
He heard Kai snicker, ”Deserved it," followed by a high five noise between him and Nya.
“I can’t believe he’s in this class,” Jay muttered from his left.
In horrifying fashion though, the blonde settled directly behind them. They clearly couldn’t talk about their ninja activities anymore, that was probably the idiots' plan.
To overhear his classmates' conversations in order to get intel on the ninja’s.
Ugh, he was the worst. The others probably thought the same, as he could hear a series of huffs and sighs come from his friends.
That thought buzzed in the back of his mind. Not too loudly though, as he still settled his head on his arms to resume his almost-nap from before.
Until he was interrupted again.
By the Garmadon alarm.
“Can we go to the bathroom?”