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Lloyd leaned back against the wall of his cage, wondering if he screamed from boredom it would give Morro a migraine. But since this was technically his head, it would probably just be him who got the headache. Not like he had any actual information on how this worked- Morro seemed determined to never acknowledge him again, for all that he went on about that basically amounted to rubbing whatever the plan was in his face. Lloyd had been locked in some corner of Morro’s- his? Their? - mind for-
Was that a torch in that passageway?
“HEY! Hey, lemme out!” In the time he had been here, Lloyd had occasionally seen various lizards and insects, which meant not everything had to be real. His captor may not be willing to come down, but maybe his memories were.
“I don’t suppose you’re the treasure that’s supposed to be here?” The figure’s face was kind of blocked out by the torch they were holding, but their voice was strangely familiar. “Let me try this..” There was a click, and the cage popped open, apparently having had a door and keyhole the whole time.
Lloyd swung himself over the edge and onto the floor of the cavern. “Thanks, I-” He finally registered who his rescuer was and nearly stumbled, catching himself at the last second. “ Morro? ”
It was Morro, but different, his face unmarred, his clothes clean and whole, his voice light and genuinely humorous. He also seemed not to recognise Lloyd at all. “Have we met somewhere?”
“Uh, not exactly.” That was basically true- running into someone at a museum and jumping into their body didn’t really count as ‘meeting’ so much as ‘kidnapping’.
For some reason, saying that they had never met but that he somehow knew his name actually seemed to give Morro a sense of relief. “Ah, that’s it! You’re a seer. Perfect! I guess you are the treasure I was looking for.”
Lloyd wasn’t sure what to say. Was he supposed to play along? Did this Morro actually not know who he was? There was a sort of atmosphere about him that reminded Lloyd of old movies he had been shown as a kid, the kind of character that they would all boo and throw popcorn at at Darkly’s.
Morro seemed to interpret his slit-eyed stare and the nervous smile that had been frozen on his face since he landed as confirmation and turned away, heading out the passage he had entered from, apparently expecting Lloyd to go with him. Considering he had been stuck in an imaginary cage in an imaginary cave for who knows how long doing absolutely nothing, going on a walk with the amnesiac indianna jones version of someone who wanted to kill him still seemed better, so he followed the light.
In the short time that they had been above ground, Lloyd had figured out that Morro was dreaming. This version of him seemed to be some time after he had left the monastery, judging from his disparaging references to ‘someone who didn’t believe in him’. Apparently he was going to prove himself, which translated to travelling ninjago, exploring every corner in his search for the First Spinjitzu Master’s tomb. Admittedly, it sounded pretty cool. Morro was cool too, funny and easy to get along with, handsome in that same old-fashioned way. There was still a sharp bitterness in him, but it wasn’t tied into desperation like the current Morro, more like the way Nya would sometimes talk when she didn’t know someone was listening.
…
...Is this fucked up?? This might be Lloyd’s one chance to actually stop Morro from his end, but doing something and not doing something both felt almost exploitative. Getting a free tour of Morro’s inner mind when Morro didn’t even technically know seemed bad, but he did want to kill him. He did want to kill him, but he was giving Lloyd a free tour of his inner mind and didn’t even technically know. I guess it’s fine for now?
Suddenly, Morro stopped and turned around to face him, gesturing expansively at the mountain they had been approaching for what should have been hours but were dream-warped into minutes. “Ta-daa,” he announced, leaning hard into the same sardonic tone that would characterise nearly everything his future(?) self said.
“The caves of despair. You think the tomb of the Golden Master is here ?” Lloyd intentionally used the more archaic serpentine term, as Morro seemed to expect it from a ‘seer’. Morro just laughed.
“What better place to hide it? If he went in there alone and died, it’s not like anyone would be able to just pull out a map and go find him. But now that I have you, that’s basically what I’m going to do.”
It was worth a try- both here and in real life. It would be a really good place to hide a tomb, or practically anything else for that matter.
After a while of wandering around the caves, Morro suddenly snuffed out his torch. “Do you smell that?”
Lloyd almost rolled his eyes, but considering they were currently the only source of light in the tunnel he thought better of it. “Here.” Focusing what little power he had, he formed a small, glowing ball of golden power in front of him. Unintentionally teaching him how to do this was perhaps the only useful thing the Overlord had ever done, and he could typically pull it off even on an empty tank. “It’s, uh, a spirit thing. You know, wisps. If there is gas, we won’t set it off.” It bobbed off and started gently orbiting Morro’s head, since he needed the light more.
As they approached the next cavern, an orange glow started bleeding into the tunnel. The closer they got, the more they could hear occasional low rumblings, and Lloyd nervously reabsorbed his little wisp of golden power. Wasn’t this where Wu was going to put the staff of quakes ?
The glow turned out to be some kind of natural gas geyser. He had been right to put out the torch. The place just felt dangerous, and even if this was all in Morro’s mind, Lloyd extremely did not want to be here. “Uh, Morro-” But as he reached out to try and convince him to turn around, the rumbling picked up louder than ever, and a sudden rockslide buried what was rapidly becoming apparent as the only exit.
Morro turned, but he was deathly pale. Literally paling, in fact- the colour was rapidly draining from his body to be replaced with a thin green, his hair becoming limp and his clothes torn and soiled. Strange marking rose to the surface around his eyes, and his previously friendly expression twisted into a snarl.
He looked exactly like a ghost.
Lloyd gasped. This was how it happened? Trapped alone in a cave miles below the surface, suffocating? “Morro-” He tried reaching out to him again, but Morro was pulling away from him, rising in the centre of a whirling maelstrom of winds that were rapidly picking up speed. Lloyd had to fight just to keep his eyes open- there was no way he could move in this.
The master of wind’s gaze locked on Lloyd, and when he replied his voice was like his very element was speaking. “ YOU DID THIS TO ME. YOU STOLE MY DESTINY AND LEFT ME TO ROT ! ” The pain in his voice was genuine, yet vague, like this was happening for the first time but also a hundred thousand years ago. He wasn't conscious, or lucid, whatever, exactly. This was just a nightmare.
The sheer force of the wind made him have to shout, but Lloyd would have yelled back anyway. When would he get a better opportunity to vent than in the dreams of a dead guy? “I wasn’t even alive ! And when I was I didn’t have a choice!”
“ THAT’S RIGHT- THEY JUST HANDED YOU THE POWER I WORKED MY WHOLE LIFE FOR! YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE YOU WOULD HAVE SAID NO??? ” Morro swung his arm as emphasis, and Lloyd was shoved back against the wall of the cavern. He almost tripped on something, and looked down to find a pile of bones, strewn about by the winds with a scrap of green fabric streaming from one like a marker.
“When I was eight years old, Wu told me I had to kill my dad because of ‘destiny’. You think I said yes? If you were the green ninja he would have tried to take your family too!” Woah, going off script a little there, Lloyd.
“I NEVER had any family.” For a second, the winds died down a little, and it was just Morro speaking. “ JUST THIS! ” Annnd there they were, stronger than ever, their master’s every word like the screaming vortex of an infinite chasm.
Lloyd was knocked completely off his feet, barely able to move. Struggling to push himself up, Lloyd’s hand slipped roughly on some kind of bone and he fell again, the force against him making it almost as hard as the first time. This time he simply refused to let it stop him, forcing his way to his feet. It was like being in the wall of a tornado, but by basically moving on all fours, he managed to inch forward.
Morro directed the full power of the cyclone towards Lloyd, unintentionally dipping closer to the floor without noticing. “ THIS ISN’T ENOUGH FOR YOU? HERE? NOW? WHAT CAN YOU DO TO ME THAT HASN’T ALREADY BEEN DONE? ” His tone was mocking, which absolutely did not suit what he was actually saying.
There was no response, although mainly because Lloyd had his teeth clenched as tight as possible and was having to put all of his focus into still moving forward. Morro tried to inch backwards, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually hover over the geyser that had taken his life over a century ago. Finally Lloyd pulled himself up to his proper height, and they were nearly face to face. This is stupid Lloyd thought, drew back his fist, and slugged Morro directly in the chest.
It went straight through.
Morro dropped his gaze and tried to laugh- then Lloyd opened his hand. The wisp barely moved, stuck in the eye of the storm as it was, but it still hovered slightly above his palm. As a gift, it was basically worthless- the amount of golden power needed to make it was hardly more than you could extract from a rock or a fish or anything else in ninjago, but Morro had seemed happy to go by movie rules up to this point, and there was nothing more hollywood than Proving You Care.
The ghost stared at it, so focused he ended up unwittingly looking through his own chin. That was the nice macguffin part of the plan, but the actual sucker punch was “‘Master’ Wu’s been manipulating us our entire lives. You can stay in my head if you kick him out of yours.” Bam! One-liner! I might be about to actually die.
...
“That was corny as shit. Is that supposed to work?” It had clearly worked. The winds died down and Morro was gently lowered to the floor, not as ragged and emaciated as before, though he was still a ghost. This was apparently the real real Morro, judging by how quickly he relaxed. "I thought you were supposed to get what you want in dreams. You can't undo over a hundred years of waiting for revenge with one golden lightbulb."
Lloyd laughed, by now used to almost getting killed and then immediately palling around with whoever was about to kill him. "Hey, it worked with my dad. Besides, you can have your revenge. Just not on me."