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None of them had expected to go fight the Skull Sorcerer and his army of Awakened Warriors and...not everyone to return to Ninjago.
“Why am I the only one to survive every single time? What does destiny have against me?” Lloyd questioned angrily when he and Wu stood out in the courtyard. He was the only Ninja to survive the fight.
“I do not know, nephew, perhaps destiny still has a plan for you in the future?” Wu told him as they watched Skylor and Pixal train with the equipment.
“A plan?! And what would that be? I am sick and tired of destiny! Why can’t all this-” he flung his arms out to show everything, “-happen to someone else for once?”
The two girls deactivated the training equipment and made their way across the courtyard to inside to get ready for the funeral. Wu was at a loss for words for once, what was he to say back to that? Skylor wasn’t.
“That’s not how destiny works, Lloyd. You know that,” said Skylor as she passed him to get inside.
She was right, unfortunately.
The next day, the eighth of August (which was also D2K Day, unironically) and a sombre occasion. Only Wu, Lloyd, Skylor, Pixel, and the fallen Ninjas’ parents were allowed at the actual funeral, the rest of Ninjago would view it via live video. There was a viral pandemic still around, after all.
There were a lot of tears shed that day.
Pixel had lost her boyfriend, Lloyd had also lost his boyfriend, Ed and Edna had lost their adopted son, Ray and Maya had lost both their children and their honorary son, Lou had been so sure that Cole would outlive him.
While they were at Ninjago City Park later that week for the unveiling of the Ninjas’ remembrance statues, Wu realized that his nephew could have been among them (and almost was).
Pixel kept being the Samurai X, Lloyd kept being the Green Ninja, Skylor became the Orange/Amber Ninja, and they were joined by Echo Julien, Zane’s ‘younger brother’ who Pixal found at an abandoned lighthouse which had been included in his final letter. Echo had ‘inherited’ the elemental powers of ice.
They had all made a silent agreement to give all they had to protect Ninjago, for this time, no one was coming back.
Pixel spent her spare time and nights trying to recover any data from Zane’s hard drive, which Cyrus had deemed unrecoverable. Lloyd didn’t sleep much, only about an hour every night as he was kept up by horrid nightmares. Skylor took it upon herself to train Echo after he had been rebuilt/fixed up.
Why Wu decided that now was a good time to leave on some journey, leaving Lloyd in both the role of leader and Master, no one knew.