Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Most people would say that the best friends are the ones you can tell anything, the ones you can take off your masks around and just be yourself, and they will still accept you just as you are.

For the green ninja, it was the exact opposite. His best - and only - friends were the ones he always wore a mask around.

That was also the only reason they even were his friends.

Because when your real identity is Lloyd Garmadon, the son of evil Lord Garmadon, the crazy warlord who attacks the city more often than it rains, finding people that accept you just as you are becomes nearly impossible. When you're Lloyd Garmadon, wearing a mask is as close as you can get to having a normal life. When you're Lloyd Garmadon, the only way to have friends is to not be Lloyd Garmadon.

And the Secret Ninja Force gave him that opportunity.

The ninja collectively decided to keep their identities secret the very day his uncle Wu first brought them together, six students he trained separately until that fateful night 18 months ago, when Black and Red accidentally crossed paths in the middle of a training mission and nearly killed each other in the ensuing battle.

They all wore their hoods on their first meeting, despite Wu saying nothing on the subject of secret identities, and they were happy to keep them on. Lloyd suspected his new teammates too had burdens they would rather leave in their civilian life.

Master Wu didn't protest, only saying their identities will be revealed once destiny sees it fit to do so. Still, Lloyd was pretty sure he saw a mischievous twinkle in his eyes whenever the old master watched them interact. It made him wonder whether Black and Red's meeting was truly accidental.

In the past year, ninja life had become a bright light in Lloyd's otherwise dark life. He would push through the hell that was school only because he knew that afterwards he had a few hours of training, laughing, and playing with his friends (friends!), the name Garmadon no longer a weight on his shoulders. More often than not, he'd be the first to arrive to their warehouse base and the last to leave, and his mom could not be happier when he excitedly told her (a highly edited version of) what he'd been doing. Rinse and repeat and that was his life, save the occasional Garmadon attack.

Speaking of which.

Green came out of his daydream just in time to plant his knee in the groin of a crab general, who was trying to impale him with a sushi themed sword. As the man doubled over in pain, Green effortlessly flipped him over his shoulder and off the roof they were fighting on, immediately moving on to the next enemy.

All around him the other ninja were engaged in fights of their own, some on the same roof, others a few houses away.

The battle had dragged on for several hours and it was evident that both sides were getting tired. The fighting was so sluggish by now that even the normally skittish Blue was chatting away about the last comic he read, which he only did whenever he was feeling relaxed.

Green was actually slowly starting to recognise the comic he was describing.

"...and once he collected all of the pieces, the whole thing just-"

"Hang on, are you talking about the last issue of Starfarer? I've been trying to get my hands on it since it came out, but it's almost impossible to find!"

Even though he was almost a full block away, Green could almost see the lightning ninja blush.

"He he, well, y-you can say that I know someone very-"

"Blue, above you!"

Blue yelped and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a barrage of explosive rice balls. The ninja groaned as a fleet of jellyfish mechs flew over them, dropping a fresh batch of enemies on their head for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.

"Doesn't Garmadon ever run out of these guys?!" Cyan groaned as she slid back into full battle mode, "Look out for the sharks!"

"What shar- OUCH! Get it off! Get it off!"

"Please hold while I detach this unidentified species of the Chondrichthyes class from you."

"The chorowha- Crabs! So many crabs!"

"Oh nononono please!"*splat* "Nooooo! Not sashimi, I hate sashimi!"

And just like that the comms descended back into their usual fighting chaos.

Green was just in the process of dispatching one of the jellyfish mechs when he felt the lower strap of his hood loosen. It was nothing more than a minuscule shift, but it was enough to nearly give him a heart attack. No longer caring about playing the good guy, he grabbed a discarded shell spear and hurled it into the mech's engine, causing it to spin out of control.

Making sure no one was looking, he reached up and tugged at the treacherous fabric, tightening it so much it nearly hurt.

It's alright. he kept telling himself, You're alright, no one saw, everything's alright. Keep your head in the game, Lloyd Green.

But that momentary distraction was enough. The shark general who was piloting the mech, jumped out as it flailed through the air and landed right on top of him. The ninja let out a surprised squawk and tried to fight back, but it was too late. In the next second he was held in the air by the scruff of his neck like an unruly cat.

The others were still immersed in their own fights, when Green's startled yell carried over the comms. It didn't take long for all of them to converge on his location.

Quickly understanding the situation, they surrounded the shark general, who now had his sword on Green's neck. Said ninja could almost taste the hate radiating through the air. And for once it wasn't directed at him.

"One more step and your precious leader will be a head shorter," the shark general growled when Red shifted in their direction, and Green felt the blade, shaped somewhat like a fish bone, press against the fabric on his neck.

The other ninja literally froze in place, sending murderous glares at his captor, but they didn't dare to try anything in case they wouldn't be fast enough.

"Now, be good ninjas and put your weapons down. I'm sure Lord Garmadon is eager to meet this little green menace, and you wouldn't want him to go alone, would you?"

The ninja hesitated, but when the general's hold on their leader tightened, they reluctantly did as he said. With a smirk, he gestured for them to throw the weapons off the roof, which they begrudgingly did.

Hearing the weapons hit the ground below, Green slumped in defeat. He could feel the concerned gazes of his teammates shift to him, so he briefly looked up... and winked. Their faces morphed into surprise as he slumped again, dropping his head as much as he could... and slammed it back, right into the general's face. He heard a satisfying crunch, and the man dropped his sword with a pained cry, hands flying up to his now broken nose. That gave Green ample time to jump out of his reach and into the safety of his team.

In seconds, Red and Cyan descended on the general like hungry vultures, while the others flocked protectively around their leader. When the two finally pulled back, the general was unconscious, but White still covered him in ice for good measure.

"Green, are you ok?" five voices asked in different volumes as their owners crowded him.

"I swear if that sentient crab stick hurt you..." Red growled, fire crackling around his clenched fists.

"Guys, guys, relax. I'm fine," Green assured them, hand ghosting over his neck. Not even the fabric was cut.

Red still pulled him into a mandatory hug, which he gladly accepted. Red's hugs weren't something you would willingly forfeit.

Just then, approaching police sirens cut through the air. Before long the street below was transformed into a kaleidoscope of red and blue lights, and moments later the roof was flooded with police officers. They only stopped for a second to survey the scene, before moving to handcuff the downed generals. This was far from their first rodeo, by now some of them knew the ninja better than their actual coworkers.

One such officer stepped forward, giving them a salute and a wink, "Thanks for the help, guys. We weren't expecting an attack so early in the morning, so it took a while to get everyone together. It's good to know the city has at least some heroes that never sleep."

"All in a day's work, Simon" Lloyd responded, inwardly sighing at the mention of sleep, "How's you wife and kid?"

"Aww, you remembered. They're doing better now, Lu even said her first word! Jessica doesn't want to admit it, but that's only because it was papa instead of mama."

The officer, Simon, continued rambling until they reached the bottom floor (they didn't have the heart to tell him they didn't actually need to use the stairs).

"You know, I admire you ninjas' dedication. I can't even tie my shoes right if I have to get up before 7, and you guys have been at this since, what, 5 o'clock?"

"4:39 to be exact. Although Red only arrived at 5:47," White specified in a cheerful tone.

Red threw his hands up, "I was mentally preparing, ok?! I can be pretty cranky in the morning, and you do not want to see me cranky."

Simon chuckled as he watched the ninja bicker among themselves. He often wondered how many people got the chance to watch the great protectors of Ninjago act like the teenagers they were.

"Boy, Garmadon sure doesn't give you lot a break, huh? Must be tough."

"Eh, you get used to it," Black waved dismissively, his signature headphones placed over his hood.

"Speaking of Garmadon, has anyone seen him? He wasn't in the middle of the battle like he usually is."

Simon frowned, only now realising the warlord's absence.

"For better or worse, no. And with the remains of the attackers already fleeing back to the volcano, I doubt he'll show up at all this time."

Green frowned. That wasn't at all like the Garmadon they knew. He never missed a chance to fight and throw bad puns around, even if the battle was obviously lost, and yet it had happened multiple times in the past few days. Now that he thought about it, the attacks were also becoming much more frequent, happening almost every day for the past week, even if they were much smaller in scale. The forces also didn't attack all at once like usual, instead they kept pouring in in smaller numbers, stretching the battles for hours.

Something fishy was going on, and it wasn't just Garmadon's weird new obsession with sea life.

He was just about to bring it up with his team, when-

"8 o'clock. We're off duty everyone!" a young officer called from one of the cars.

"Wait, 8 o'clock? Oh shoot, I'm so late!" Green yelped, his voice echoed by Blue. The other four didn't react as loudly, but there was visible urgency in their movements as they scrambled for their discarded weapons.

After a few weeks together, they decided to include their age in the short list of things they actually revealed from their ordinary lives; It turned out Green and Cyan were roughly the same age, with Black a bit over a year older, and the other three spread in between within few months intervals. This meant that all of them were currently in high school, and the revelation startled Green. He really didn't want his friends to find out who he was, and school was about the worst place for that to happen.

Seeing his panic, White reminded him that there were around 2,000 schools in Ninjago city with over 600 students in Ninjago High alone. Even if they did go to the same school, the chance they'd meet was pretty slim, and the chance they'd recognise each other even slimmer.

That however didn't change the fact that they were all currently late for their first class.

"I'll see you guys later!" Green yelled into the comm, earning a few pained shouts and a cheerful "Goodbye, Green. Have a good day!" from White.

He took to the roofs, his teammates soon doing the same in other directions, and before long, he was well on his way to school. A few people cheered and waved at him as he passed by and Green enjoyed it as long as he could, before he would once again become the center of everyone's hate.

A few blocks away from his school, he slipped into the only unblocked window of a building that had been under construction longer than he was alive. He'd been using it as kind of an outpost, where he could change when he was going to the warehouse from school, or whenever they had morning missions like today.

Slipping out of his gi, he took out a pair of jeans, a green hoodie, and a plain white shirt from a dusty cabinet he was using as closet. Seeing that those were the last clothes he stored there, he made a mental note to bring new ones after school.

Throwing on the change of clothes and grabbing the spare backpack he left there, he stuffed his gi inside the cabinet and once again took off, this time actually using the streets instead of the roofs.

He got to school shortly before the bell rang, and just barely made it to his locker when the halls flooded with students. Trying to blend in as much as possible, he opened it and started stuffing his textbooks inside the bag. He thanked his past self for deciding to start leaving them at school, otherwise missing the first period wouldn't be the only thing he was going to get in trouble for.

But even as he stifled a yawn, he was almost glad Garmadon attacked so outrageously early, instead of his usual afternoon raid. Now the adrenaline from the fight and the memory of the concern of his team made it somewhat easier to ignore the hate-filled stares and whispers.

He just had to brave through it until he could go back to being the green ninja. It was nothing more than his usual school day.

Until, of course, it wasn't.

Now, being the son of Lord Garmadon, and just being a high school student in general, Lloyd had seen and experienced his fair share of weird things in the hallways. However even he had yet to be nearly run over by a motorcycle while trying to get to class, which was actually quite surprising considering what he did in his spare time.

So when a brightly painted motorcycle missed him by mere inches, Lloyd wasn't exactly sure how to react. Even less so when a girl in a blue shirt and black jacket, who was apparently the owner of said motorcycle, practically threw a boy off the back seat and straight into the row of lockers.

"Hey, what was that for?!" the boy yelled over the roar of the motorcycle as he struggled to get up.

"For getting up so late. Again. You really need to learn some responsibility, bro."

"But you're just as late as I am!" the boy snapped back. The girl apparently deemed him unworthy of a response and raced off deeper inside the school, the angry yells of the staff already echoing after her.

The whole ordeal left Lloyd so confused that he didn't notice the person approaching him until he was directly next to him.

"Uh, excuse me?"

"Uh hah?" Lloyd scrambled back, instinctively tensing up for a beating.

It was the boy who was thrown off the motorcycle. He was wearing a white undershirt with a red jacket and pants, and his hair looked like he dumped a full container of hair gel on it. But the most notable thing for Lloyd was the long scar across the right side of his face. He couldn't shake the feeling he'd seen it before.

"I think you're blocking my locker," the boy pointed out when Lloyd didn't move.

"O-oh. Sorry..."

Lloyd shuffled to the side, absolutely dumbfounded when the boy only gave him a smile, before throwing open the locker and staring inside. He paused for a second, and his brows scrunched up before he let out a soft "Oh."

"Heh, I forgot. New school, no stuff in locker," he said and proceeded to slam the door shut again, turning to Lloyd with the most You know how it goes look he'd ever seen.

"Sooo, you wouldn't happen to have a spare social study textbook on you, would you?"

Lloyd, still wondering whether this was some elaborate plan to embarrass him, shook his head hesitantly, "Well... no, but... I guess you can borrow my non-spare one."

He was prepared for a lot, but not for the boy to look at him like his new savior.

"Wait, seriously?"

"Uh yeah... I'm getting in trouble for missing my first class anyways, one more thing won't make it much worse."

"No way, you too? Guess Garmadon's attacks just make good background noise, I just couldn't wa-wake..." Lloyd stared as the boy produced the longest, widest yawn he'd seen since he and Red had to pull two all-nighter in a row.

"So, can I really borrow your textbook then? I can give it back to you at lunch."

Lloyd just wordlessly handed him the correct book, half expecting him to tear it up and start laughing.

"Thanks, kid, you're a lifesaver!" the boy said before dashing off, leaving a dumbfounded Lloyd in his wake.

But just after a few steps, he stopped again. After looking around for a bit, he pulled something out of his pocket, looked at it, then at the doors around him, and back to his hand. Then he turned back to Lloyd with a sheepish smile on his face.

"Actually, do you think you could show me where classroom 204 is? Me and my sis are kinda new here," he said, waving the thing in his hand in front of Lloyd. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a crumpled class schedule.

Lloyd's brain short circuited, and he just stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Someone actually wanted his help? And not as a joke? Was he still dreaming? He should check whether Garmadon wasn't contemplating turning good.

The boy however took his silence as a sign of reluctance and his smile faded a bit.

"I mean, if you don't have time..."

Lloyd finally snapped out of his daze, "No! I don't... What I mean is... wouldn't you rather have someone else show you around?"

Now the boy was the one looking confused.

"Why? Are you that bad at directions?"

"Well... no, but..." Don't you know who I am? Don't you hate me?

"Great! Then let's get going before we miss the second period too," the kid grinned.

Lloyd hesitated only for a second before nodding and leading him towards the right class. Either this was a very elaborate prank, or this kid really didn't know who he was, and Lloyd was going to prolong that ignorance as long as he could.

All around, the other students were staring at the two of them with surprise and growing disdain, but the boy didn't even seem to notice.

"Thanks for this, dude. You're really saving my life here. The name's Kai by the way."

"Oh uh, I'm... Lloyd," Lloyd squeezed out, gauging Kai's reaction. To his surprise, he only smiled wider.

"Oh cool, I had a friend called Lloyd back at the orphanage, but he moved away shortly after Garmadon started attacking. I always wondered why."

Lloyd thought he had a pretty good idea why, but before he could muster up the courage to say anything, they reached classroom 204. He actually had to grab Kai's jacket to get him to stop with how lost the other boy was in telling him all about the orphanage he grew up in.

"Thanks again for the help! See ya around, kid," Kai waved before entering the classroom.

"Y-yeah... see you," Lloyd answered weakly, still quite stunned from the interaction.

That shock lasted even as he entered his own classroom, only realising the bell already rang when the teacher started yelling at him.

In his confusion, he didn't really feel the stares of his classmates. He braved the teacher's berating without actually hearing any of it, and when he finally sat down, he had no problem ignoring the crumpled pieces of paper that bounced off his back. The interaction with Kai kept replaying in his head, and he found himself having the slightest sliver of hope. Hope that maybe, Kai could become his very first friend without a mask.

It was about twenty minutes later when he was called to the board.

That didn't happen as much as in his other classes, where the teachers constantly tried to make him embarrass himself.

That was because while he was average in everything else, usually he was surprisingly good at math, much to his classmates' and teacher's dismay. It was like strategy with his team; just a matter of putting the numbers in the right places and use the right strategy to get the result he wanted. That was something White had taught him.

But to properly strategize, you need to know the battlefield and the kind of enemy you'd be fighting, so that you can use the right tactic. And now it seemed the teacher thrust Lloyd in the middle of a battle he'd never seen before.

He was set to fail and his classmates knew it. Great, all he needed was insults about his academic skills to be added to the bunch.

He gritted his teeth, mentally steeling himself, and opened his mouth to admit his loss.

WEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWW

The sharp wail of the attack siren cut through the air, drowning out his words, and for the first time in his life, Lloyd was actually glad to hear it. Despite the usual "Thanks, Lloyd!" that echoed through the classroom, he made a small fist pump. Now not only was he going to ditch the rest of the school day, he was also going to spend the time with his most favorite people in the world. Granted, they were going to be fighting for their lives (again), but anything was better than this.

He was about to ask to be excused, when the entire building shook. And it wasn't the usual Garmadon-has-a-giant-new-mech shaking. This was a Garmadon-has-a-giant-new-mech-and-is-dancing-on-your-roof shaking. Lloyd actually felt himself jump a little with the next tremor.

"HELLOOOO NINJAGO CIT-AAAAY!"

He felt like someone had just yelled through a megaphone right into his ear, and judging by the pained cries around him, his classmates had similar opinions.

A part of him mentally apologized to his teammates for subjecting them to the same torture an hour prior, but he had no time dwell on it. Because judging by the volume and direction the amplified sound was coming from, Garmadon was close. In fact, he could very well be sitting right outside the window.

He turned his head and his jaw dropped. Garmadon was in fact sitting right outside the window. Him and an enormous shark mech with equally enormous speakers, and rows of soldiers in various ocean themed costumes forming up to block their escape, and seriously what was up with this obsession with sea life?

"That's right, your new overlord is back, baby! And he goes by the name ooooof-" Lloyd rolled his eyes and tried to cover his ears as best as he could as Garmadon (he refused to call him father), went through his usual What's my name?! routine.

"Now I'm sure you're all wondering what ingenious diabolical plan I cooked up today, and I must say, it's really ingenious and really really diabolical. I'm sure your ninja are going to love it. Oh and with this totally unintended mention of the ninja, I would like to give them a little message."

Garmadon turned away from the school, at least slightly reducing the abuse on Lloyd's ears, and started yelling towards the streets.

"With this school - it is a school, right? Ok, - With this school now under my control, I'm the one holding all the cards. I'm going to give you ninja one chance to surrender. If you refuse, well I'm running out of generals to fire, so I can always use the students as practice ammo. And since I'm such a benevolent tyrant, I suppose the lucky ones can join my army. And really, isn't that so much better than school? Well, once you forget the whole gruesome training and mandatory shark tattoo, it's a reward, really."

Lloyd growled as he watched Garmadon pace around on the head of his mech, acting like he wasn't just threatening to take an entire school to a military boot camp.

"Now that I think about it, maybe I should threaten you with not being accepted into my army. I'll have to run this through my marketing team - after I reassemble it because I'm firing the old one. The clock is ticking, ninjnerds!"

Garmadon's yelling finally stopped.

Chaos ensued.

Chapter Text

With the morning Garmadon attack dealt with, Kai wasn't really expecting that much excitement on his first day in a new school.

He did meet a kid who somewhat reminded him of Blue, after Nya good-naturedly flung him off her bike and nearly on top of said kid's head. He felt a strange urge to protect the kid, mainly after seeing how he flinched away whenever Kai moved too fast. Perhaps he could sit with him during lunch, judging by how awed Lloyd was at his 'overfriendliness', as Nya would call it, he probably didn't have a lot of friends to sit with.

After getting scolded for arriving late on his first day, Kai introduced himself in the usual way ("What's up, everyone? The name's Kai Smith, and you better remember that name, because I'm gonna set this school on Fiyaaaa!" "Mister Smith!"), he sat down behind a black-haired kid with headphones, and readied himself for the most boring part of the day.

That is of course until the attack siren announced the second beginning of the most fun part of his day. Then came Garmadon's speech and message, which actually made his blood boil. Hopefully no one would ask him to explain the newly added scorch marks on his table.

He could tolerate a lot of things Garmadon did. Taking hostages was not one of them.

At that moment, all he could think about was how to best pummel Garmadon once he got to him.

Nya, despite being in a different classroom, had pretty much the same thoughts as Kai, except hers concentrated more on the how portion of the Get to Garmadon plan.

She watched the cordon the generals formed around the school, sending murderous glares at any that dared to look at her. It was clear Garmadon didn't want anyone getting in or out. Now the real question was how long it would take for the trigger-happy warlord to get bored and start smashing stuff.

Nya wrecked her brain, trying to figure out a solution, but quickly came to the conclusion that as long as she was trapped inside the classroom, there was no way short of exposing her identity to get out of the school. And so she took out her phone and turned to the only people she knew could help in this situation.

Zane came to the same conclusion as Nya, albeit with a bit more analyzing.

After scanning the cordon and finding no weaknesses he could exploit without revealing himself as a ninja, he put the escape plan on pause. He would have to wait until his current teacher saw it fit to move the class elsewhere and then try again.

In the meantime he focused on analyzing the attack itself. Judging by the message, Garmadon's priorities were drastically different from his usual attacks, and Zane was starting to see the logic behind that morning's seemingly nonsensical attack and the pattern he saw in the attacks preceding it.

It was all leading up to this.

He had to hope his team would be able to give him an opening to escape, after which they could figure out a counterattack together.

His phone buzzed and he hurried to share his thoughts with the others.

Cole and Jay, who were the only ones in the Secret Ninja Force who were friends outside the mask (Kai and Nya didn't count), were sitting next to each other during Garmadon's speech.

Cole paused his music just in time to hear the tail end of the message. It alarmed him, but the only way it showed was the slight tensing of his shoulders.

Jay on the other hand went rigid. His hands started fumbling with his scarf, nervous sparks dancing across his fingers, fizzling out just before anyone could see them. His breathing came out in short, shallow gasps, and his heart felt like it would jump out of his chest any moment.

Cole, already familiar with the symptoms of Jay's panic attacks, reached over and started rubbing soothing circles on his back.

"Hey, look at me, Jay. Just look at me. It's gonna be ok."

Jay could barely decipher what he was saying over the roaring in his ears, but he did as he said, zeroing in on the calm deep brown eyes of his friend.

"You're doing great, bud. Now focus on me and breathe. In. And out. In. And out."

Again, Jay did as he said. His mind slowly calmed down, and his hands dropped to his sides.

Cole nodded at him approvingly.

"Stay with me, ok? We're going to get through this." Then after a moment of hesitation he added, "I'm sure the ninja will be here any second to take care of this."

Or at least most of them. both boys thought, eych hoping that their teammates were already working on a plan.

Lloyd was seething. He thought he'd seen his father at his worst, but he was beginning to realise it barely scratched the surface. Sure, he'd been attacked by some of his generals while holding a baby, but that technically wasn't Garmadon's order. Actually taking children hostage was a new low, even for Garmadon.

All the more reason to get his team together and stop him as soon as possible.

He could see the teacher was holding a phone to her ear and speaking hurriedly to the person on the other end, most likely a police officer. He glanced around to see most of his classmates were also on their phones, calling their parents, recording the generals outside, or even searching online for any mention on the ninja's whereabouts.

Though he was getting an occasional stink eye, it seemed most people had forgotten about him for now, so he took the opportunity to quickly get onto their team's group chat.

7 unread messages

Cyan
Two attacks in one day? Garmadon is working overtime

And apparently he wants us to surrender

What happened to conquering the city?

White
It is possible the previous attack was meant to tire us out and get our guard down, as were the many smaller attacks before it.

Perhaps Garmadon has realised that with us present he will have a harder time reaching his ultimate goal, therefore he is trying to get us out of the picture.

Blue
Oh great now he's getting smarter too?

Red
garmadon? yeah right the day he gets smarter is the day he moves to an iceberg

------------------------------------------------

Green
Red's got a point, he probably scored an intelligent general for once

but we can discuss that later

So far it looks like Ninjago high is the only target where are you guys?

Red
sorta preoccupied at the moment

Blue
Same here

White 
I am ashamed to admit I too find myself in what you would call a pickle

Black
Stuck

Cyan
Looks like you'll have to take care of this on your own for a while, Green

Green
Yeah about that....

We have a problem

Lloyd glanced around to make sure no one was seeing what he was typing. Those ten seconds were all it took for the chat to spiral out of control.

Red
i told you this chat was gonna be useful

Blue
Red, I don't think now's the time for this

Red
im just sayin

maybe if youd listen to me more often we would have beated garmadon ages ago

White
The correct word would be beaten, Red, and the probability of that is quite low

Cyan
Red I swear to god if you don't take this seriously I'll find out your identity just to stuff a sock in your mouth

This message was deleted

Red
?wait you got a brother cyan

if i really remind you of him he must be cool

Cyan
just... don't

Black
?guys, the Garmadon attack

Green
Thank you Black at least someone here has common sense

Red
look whos talking

Green
Look since we're all trapped there's not much we can do right now

Just try to get out of wherever you are and meet up at ninjago high but stay out of sight!

I'm looking at you, Red

Red
oh come on that was ONE TIME!

After receiving various confirmations from his team, Lloyd turned his attention back to the people around him, failing to notice the girl with a black ponytail sitting two rows in front of him, who put her phone down at the same time. Deciding to stick with his original plan, Lloyd tried again to ask to be excused, but this time, he was interrupted by that very girl.

"'Scuse me? Can I have a bathroom pass?"

Ms. Owsinski's eyes narrowed.

"Miss Smith, you may be new here, but I still expected you to at least know the basics. Let me remind you, it is 'May I have a bathroom pass'. And I will hear no abbreviations from now on, is that clear?"

Lloyd could see the girl glare back at the teacher, but after a second she gave a begrudging nod.

"Very good. As for your questions, normally I would allow you to go, but with Garmadon directly threatening our school, I won't risk letting any of you out of my sight. The ninja will surely resolve this soon, so just hang on until then."

"But-"

"If your... need becomes unbearable, I'm sure your classmates will give you enough privacy to relieve yourself as per invacuation protocol."

Snickers rose around the class and the girl immediately went red in the face and sunk back into her chair. Lloyd groaned inwardly.

As similar exchanges took place in other classrooms, all the ninja shared one thought.

I just hope the others are doing better than me.

Chapter Text

For a Garmadon attack, this is getting a bit boring. Lloyd thought as he rolled a pencil up and down his desk. Maybe it was the fact that normally he would already be in the middle of battle by now, but he was really itching for some action. In his peripheral, he could see the girl who stood up earlier, absentmindedly twirling a pocketknife in her fingers, looking about as bored as he was feeling. Long minutes ticked by, accompanied by nervous whispers of the other students.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the speaker mounted above the door crackled, signaling a school-wide announcement.

"Good morning, students," the principal's voice came through, a couple octaves higher than usual, "As you may have noticed, our school is currently under a hostile takeover by Lord Garmadon." Nya noticed, to her confusion, that a lot of the kids turned to glare at the blond boy who came in late, as if the takeover was his fault, "There is no reason to panic of course. The Secret Ninja Force will handle things as always... but as they haven't made an appearance yet, we will ask all personnel to report to the auditorium along with their students. Thank you for your attention."

The last two sentences were hurried, and following that, the voice abruptly cut out. The explosion of whispers that followed was almost as loud as yelling.

"All right, everyone, settle down, please. Quiet. Quiet! I said SHUT IT!" the infamous screech of Ms. Owsinski was the equivalent of someone pushing the mute button. All the students turned to stare at her like flock of owlets, and even some of the generals outside peeked in through the window to see who was capable of producing such an unholy sound.

"Alright, I want everyone to pair up, form a line, and follow me to the auditorium. Quietly."

The students were quick to follow her command and pick a partner. The wrath of the math teacher was not to be underestimated.

Lloyd was left alone, as always, since there was an odd number of students in his class and the teacher always conveniently overlooked him. He didn't really mind though. He was used to it and having a partner would only make sneaking away harder.

As he was waiting for the classroom to empty so that he could get out without all the pushing, he noticed the girl from earlier heading towards him. Thinking she was just looking for a friend, he went back to flicking the pencil and thinking of an escape plan.

"Do you have a pair?"

Lloyd jumped and looked up. The girl was now standing in front of him. He looked over his shoulder to make sure she wasn't just talking over him, only to remember he sat in the last row.

"M-me?"

The girl rolled her eyes, but there was an amused smile tugging at her lips.

"No, I meant the flower pot behind you. Of course you. Do you have a pair?"

"Uh, n-no?"

"Great," she plopped down on the empty chair in front of him, "Smart of you to wait. It'll take a while for all the others to waddle out, so no sense in trying to get in front."

Lloyd stared as she calmly whipped out her phone and checked on some group chat. He was getting a strong sense of déjà vu.

When the girl noticed Lloyd's stunned expression, she snapped her fingers as if she just remembered something.

"Oh, right, the name's Nya. I just transferred so I introduced myself at the start of the class, but since you came even later than me, you didn't hear."

Something in Lloyd's brain clicked and he realised why she seemed so familiar; she was the one who threw Kai off her motorcycle that morning. Kai did mention his sister was new at the school too. The family resemblance was definitely there, especially personality-vise. That also explained why she didn't ignore him like everyone else, she simply didn't know who he was.

"Why is the new girl talking to him?"

"Is he threatening her?"

"Is she threatening him?"

Lloyd flinched when the harsh whispers reached his ears. He glanced at Nya. She must have realised he wasn't exactly the most popular kid in class, right? Kai didn't have time to see how others treated him, but now that Nya knew, she definitely wouldn't want to stick around.

But instead, Nya just looked confused.

"Why are they all staring like that? What's so wrong about talking to you?"

Lloyd gulped. He could try to talk around his name, prolong this moment of naive hope for a friend, but that would only backfire once someone else inevitably told her who he was, and she would only be angrier because he deceived her. It was one of the reasons his team could never find out who he was; he'd probably be lucky to survive if they did.

"That's because my name is Lloyd... Garmadon," he finished slowly.

Nya stopped. Blinked. Slowly looked from Lloyd to the window, and back to Lloyd. And blinked again.

Then she shot up, sending her chair careening back.

"Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me that guy," she jabbed a finger in the direction of the window, "has a son?!"

Lloyd nodded.

"And that's you?!"

He nodded again.

Here it comes.

Nya's jaw dropped and her expression morphed into a mix of confused and disturbed, as if she had trouble even accepting the concept of Garmadon being a parent. Then a bit of suspicion creeped in and she looked Lloyd dead in the eyes.

"So, are you his informant or something? Do you agree with what he's doing?"

"No! Of course not, I would never... I've never even talked to him! I doubt he even remembers I exist," Lloyd stammered, the last part coming out choked, more to himself than Nya.

Nya stared at him, bringing her face inched from his, as if she was trying to look all the way to his soul. By now their conversation was the center of everyone's attention, even Ms. Owsinski was listening, the invacuation forgotten.

And then, to Lloyd's absolute astonishment, Nya... smiled. And it didn't end there, she sat back down and threw her legs on his table, still grinning.

"Great, then I see no reason not to pair up with you."

A collective gasp went up around the classroom and the whispers immediately followed.

"He's definitely threatening her."

"Nah, Garmadon probably sent her to be his lackey."

"Maybe she's one of those Sons of Garmadon freaks."

"I can't believe I almost invited her to sit with us."

Lloyd instinctively curled into himself, eyes burrowing into the table. There was no way Nya would stay after hearing all that, right?

And yet she stayed, and did even more than that. She turned around, fixed each one of the slanderers with a glare and proceeded to give them the finger. In the silence that followed, she turned back, looking quite proud of herself, only to see Lloyd looking at her with wide eyes.

She raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Well, uh... usually everyone hates me just... because. Everyone thinks I'll eventually join my father... or something. But you..."

He trailed off and Nya's other eyebrow shot up to join the first.

"And? I don't care what some pampered high schooler thinks, I only believe what I see with my own two eyes. And so far, I just see a kid who's getting bullied for something he can't control."

Lloyd paused. That sentence was familiar to him. But where did he-

"I don't care about statistics, White. I'll only believe he's gone when I see it with my own two eyes."

That's right, Cyan said a similar thing around their second month of joint missions. Back then, during one of Garmadon's attacks, Red had gotten overwhelmed and separated from the rest of the team. His comm soon shut off, and they assumed he was either dead or captured, but Cyan refused to give up. It was only thanks to her determination that they saved him before either actually happened.

It was one of the reasons Green picked her as his second-in-command when he was appointed leader.

Lloyd shook his head. Just the fact that they said somewhat similar things didn't mean Nya was Cyan. People often said similar things, it was just a coincidence. But even her voice and tone sounded so similar...

He looked the girl up and down. She would be about Cyan's height and build, and her eyes had the same shape and blue-grey color. He and Cyan were also roughly the same age so it would make sense they were in the same class.

But could he really be so lucky? Could one of his teammates actually like him not just as Green but as Lloyd Garmadon too? Even so, that was one thing, but how would she react if she found out the two were actually the same person? And what if this was all just some very elaborate plan by her and Kai to get his trust before dragging him through the mud?

No, he shouldn't be thinking about this at all! They promised each other that they wouldn't go after their real identities. But if they were really in the same class, wouldn't it be better to know, just so they wouldn't accidentally reveal each other's identities?

Before he could tangle himself up in his thoughts even more, Ms. Owsinski's shrill voice once again pierced the air.

"Smith! Garmadon! If you two wouldn't mind, we're in the middle of an invacuation here! And in case you hadn't heard, I said to go quietly!"

Her pestering was enough to get the other students moving in the direction of the door again. Some tried to glare their way, but the moment they were met with Nya's cold stare, they quickly looked away. Ms. Owsinski wasn't as easily intimidated.

"What's up with her?" Nya asked, only bothering to lower her voice a little, despite being locked in a staring contest with the math teacher. She noticed the faucet in the sink shaking a little and forced her hands to uncurl. The last thing she needed while being trapped was to be uncovered as a ninja.

"I, uh, I'm pretty sure my father destroyed her favorite coffee shop in one of last year's attacks. She's never been the same since." Lloyd whispered back, making Nya bark out a laugh. It felt surprisingly good to make someone other than his teammates laugh.

Finally, most of the students were out of the classroom, and Nya stood up, gesturing for him to follow. Lloyd, knowing full well he would just be pushed back anyways, waited until the last few stragglers exited the classroom before joining the line. He took one last look at Garmadon, who seemed to be practicing his victory dance.

Just you wait, you won't be dancing when I'm done with you.

But when he got out, all of his classmates, including Nya, were long gone in the sea of students pouring from every room in the hallway.

Good, that made things easier. He did feel a little bad for disappearing on Nya after she was so nice to him, but he would have to sneak away eventually, so this served to speed up his plan. He'd find a way to explain it to her later... that is if she'll still want to talk to him by then.

Quickly pulling his hood up, he let himself be carried by the students in the direction of (hopefully) the auditorium, all the while looking around for any possible way out. In the chaos, he accidentally bumped into someone, but before he could apologize or even see who it was, he was carried further down the hallway.

Chapter Text

Jay yelped when a green blur almost knocked him over, and hurried to catch up to Cole.

The two of them were pushing through the crowd that had gathered in the hallways, and Jay's anxiety was quickly picking up.

Noticing his friend's discomfort, Cole put himself between Jay and the current of bodies, and slowly guided the younger boy away from the crowd. They ended up in a bay that housed rows of smaller cube lockers stacked on top of each other, and was somewhat less crowded.

"You good?" Cole asked as Jay took a couple deep breaths, hands on his knees. Wordlessly, he nodded.

Letting him catch his breath, Cole took a quick look around.

The bay was out of the way of the main crowd, but many students still deviated here to try and get as much stuff as they could out of their lockers. Cole was thankfully too lazy to bring anything special to school, so he didn't have anything other than a few notebooks and a spare jacket in his locker, which was a few hallways away. As far as he knew, Jay didn't have anything important in his either.

He chuckled when the song playing in his headphones ended and was replaced by a slow ambient song from the playlist he composed for Jay's panic attacks. It really didn't fit the scene he was currently watching.

It seemed some of the students mistook the takeover for the apocalypse and were currently raiding the lockers not too far from them. They at least didn't seem interested in hurting other students, except for chasing them away when they tried to stop them, which not many did.

Still, he and Jay should probably leave quickly, because the methods they were using to get inside those lockers didn't seem very- *crash!* Yep, there goes the door... straight through the window.

Momentarily, Cole considered giving them a piece of his mind, but decided against it. It would only attract unnecessary attention, waste precious time, and could also potentially worsen Jay's anxiety. They would get caught anyways, since there were cameras throughout the school.

"Ready to go?" he turned to Jay, who was now standing upright, his breathing a lot more even.

"Yeah... I-I should be fine... for a b-bit." the younger boy stammered, clutching his bag close.

Cole tried to reassure him with a smile, before leading them back towards the main hallway, carefully passing by the raiding teens.

Just as he was about to rejoin the crowd, he felt it. A subtle shift in the metal around him, distantly resonating with his earth powers. That was the only warning.

"Look out!" he yelled and leaped out of the way just as the lockers that the rogue students were currently trying to get into toppled over, burying a part of the hallway in metal. Some were falling right onto him, but a small burst of his power was enough to send them crashing into the wall instead.

He froze when he realised what he'd just done and glanced around. His shout was at least enough of a warning to prevent any students from getting crushed. Some were sending him weird looks at the feat he just performed, but they were still more interested in getting to the auditorium than investigating him.

When he was certain no more lockers were about to squash him, and that no one was about to start accusing him of being a ninja, Cole took a deep breath and let his muscles relax. The world around him suddenly felt a lot louder than before, and he quickly realised that his headphones were gone.

Looking around, he could just about see a cracked piece of black plastic peeking out from under one of the fallen lockers. He groaned when he realised what that meant.

His headphones were gone gone. That meant no more music for the rest of the day.

Now he really had to find a way out of here as fast as possible and join the other ninja.

"Jay, maybe we can-" he started, but the younger boy wasn't next to him anymore. He looked around over the heads of other students, for once thankful for his unusual height, but couldn't see Jay's signature orange scarf anywhere.

"Jay? Jay?!" he called out with growing urgency, wading through the sea of bodies, but his voice was lost in the cacophony of similar calls.

His eyes flew back to the pile of metal his headphones found their demise in. Could it be that Jay... NO! They just got separated in the crowd, that's all. Jay may be small and incredibly jittery, but he was also one of the nimblest people Cole knew, there was no way those lockers could have... he just had to keep looking. The crowd probably carried Jay further down the hallway and he couldn't have lost him that long ago, so he had to be somewhere close.

But as he continued searching, he noticed someone else. A white-haired kid, sitting on the ground in between two lockers. He would occasionally look around, shooting glances at passing students. From so far away, Cole couldn't see that well, but he could swear his eyes were glowing. But at that moment, what mattered more was the obvious fear those eyes had in them.

He knew he shouldn't be doing this, the time was short, he had to find Jay, get him to the auditorium, and then find a way out. But the look that kid had reminded Cole way too much of when he first met Jay. It was the look of someone scared, overwhelmed by the world, and completely lost.

So, against his better judgement, Cole slowly approached him.

"Hey," he said, crouching to the kid's level, "you ok there?"

The kid's head snapped up and Cole froze. They weren't glowing per se; they were just the bright pale blue of the purest ice. A highly unusual, but to Cole very familiar, color.

"Hello, fellow teenager. If you are here to engage in some idle chatter, I'm afraid I can't be of much help as there is currently an emergency that requires me to find a way outside," the boy said, plastering an abnormally wide smile on his face.

That robotic voice. Those animated movements.

There was no way he got this (un?)lucky.

Zane wasn't used to being in crowds. Or at least not without his mask and his team.

Ever since his father put him to school to get him better integrated into society, he did everything to avoid large gatherings. He didn't take the school bus, didn't have lunch in the cafeteria like everyone else, and between classes, he took extra care to take routes with less people, even if they took longer. It was a bit counterproductive considering the reason he was in school in the first place.

It was all because, in his calculations, every person that got withing a three meter radius from him increased the chance of him being uncovered as a nindroid by 0.3 - 2.68%, depending on how much attention they decided to give him.

That's why when his class finally left the classroom and joined the crowd headed in the direction of auditorium, Zane took the first chance he could to escape. Or he tried at least. Unfortunately, the teacher was like a hawk, and always ushered him back in line. It was in fact quite irritating.

Just as he was coming to terms with it, telling himself being with his class made him less suspicious, a distant shout of "Look out!" made him jump back into an empty space between two lockers. Some ways behind him, he could hear the sound of something metallic falling, and the students rushing past him paused for a second to look back, before being once again pushed forward by the crowd.

Once his scanners confirmed there was nothing dangerous around, Zane went to rejoin his class.

They were gone.

That was good, right? It gave him a chance to escape.

No, a quick scan told him his situation wasn't any different from when he was in the classroom. The windows here were also blocked by rows of Garmadon's cordon, there were again no other openings he could use while maintaining the image of a normal teenager.

The students were rushing by like water and Zane suddenly became aware of just how many there were. The chance of him getting discovered flew way over 100%, making Zane shrink back into his new hiding place.

He felt trapped, the crowd looking like another wall, blocking his only escape. Was his team already outside? Were they looking for him? There were no new messages on his phone though. Then what if they realised they didn't need him and were going to cast him out? He would loose the only friends he ever had.

Something in his head started buzzing and he slid to the ground, head darting around, before he buried it in his hands. What was he going to do now? What would happen if he was discovered as either ninja or nindroid? Would they have to move again? Would his father deactivate, or worse, disassemble him? Zane didn't want that, he liked this life.

"Hey, you ok there?"

Zane's head shot up.

In front of him was crouching a tall, strong-looking boy with black hair and kind brown eyes. He looked somewhat apathetic, but Zane could tell underneath that was a great deal of concern, and also exhaustion. He completely ignored the countless people tripping over him in the chaos, in favor of directing all his attention on Zane.

When Zane looked at him, the boy's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and Zane noticed a bit of suspicion creeping into his body language. Although it didn't seem to be the hostile kind of suspicion, it still set off alarms in his head (literally).

Was he really about to be discovered? Maybe there was still time to avert disaster. He had to act normal.

He put on the best smile he could.

"Hello, fellow teenager. If you are here to engage in some idle chatter, I'm afraid I can't be of much help as there is currently an emergency that requires me to find a way outside."

The boy only looked more surprised, and Zane cursed inwardly for the very first time in his life.

All calculations he made for specifically this scenario suddenly vanished from his head, and he... he wasn't sure what to do. This never happened to him, never!

"Hey, hey! Calm down, kid. I'm not going to hurt you. I just wanted to know if you're ok."

Zane snapped back to reality and realised he'd started shaking. Was there something wrong with his processor? None of this should be happening.

The boy was now looking more concerned than anything.

"Are you scared of the generals outside?"

Zane shook his head.

"According to my assessment, it would take a great number of such low-skilled individuals to severely wound me," One of the boy's eyebrows shot up. "...Though I admit my prog-personality may not be optimal for handling crowds of this magnitude,"

He stuttered! He actually experiencing an error in his speech. Something was definitely wrong. But it seemed it happened at the right time, because some of the boy's suspicion transformed into understanding.

"Ah, I see. My friend has the same problem," he started, but cut himself off when another student almost knocked him over.

"How about I get you to the auditorium? It should be a bit less chaotic in there," he offered.

Zane hesitated.

He originally had no intention of actually reaching the auditorium. With such a high number of students and teachers around, it was statistically about the worst place to try and get out of undetected. Not to mention the risk of being discove- No! Don't think about that!

But then he remembered one of the backup escape plans he created in case Garmadon ever discovered his identity and sent his generals to the school. In the scenario that all ground exits were blocked, he would just go the aerial way.

Pulling up the school blueprints in his head, he once again confirmed that the auditorium had a staircase connected to it, only blocked by a door that would be easily unlocked with his hidden gadgets (perks of being a nindroid). Through there, he could get to the roof, and from there he could use the trees in the school yard to get to the surrounding buildings, hopefully undetected.

Granted, the plan didn't account for the auditorium to be flooded with students, but he was a ninja and a nindroid at that. A couple hundred people wouldn't be that much of a problem.

"If you would be so kind, I would greatly appreciate it."

The boy simply nodded and pulled Zane to his feet, before gesturing for him to follow.

As they walked, Zane studied his new companion.

There was a calmness about him, like a great stone pillar holding up the world. He seemed a little tense around Zane, always glancing at his eyes, like he was trying to solve a puzzle in them, but the way he walked and the low volume of his voice... it reminded Zane of a certain black ninja.

It was a theory not supported by any data, since he promised himself not to commit any of the ninja's voice patterns or medical scans to memory. He had to remind himself that such an action would greatly disturb the trust their team had.

The team he urgently had to get to.

This was no time to make speculations. For now he should try to solidify his image of a normal teenager with this boy.

"I thank you for your kindness, fellow teenager."

"It's Cole," the boy informed him shortly, sounding rather amused.

"I see. My name is Zane Julien. I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves."

Cole stopped abruptly, causing Zane to bump into him, which set of a chain reaction in the crowd behind them. Ignoring it, Cole whipped around to face him, his mouth opening and closing, as if he wanted to ask something.

"Did I say something wrong?" Zane asked, utterly confused.

The theory about Cole being part of his team resurfaced in his mind. He did introduce himself in a similar way when meeting them. Did he just accidentally reveal his identity with such a foolish error? He would really have to ask his father to update his subtlety software.

The angry shouts from the students behind them started multiplying, and so did the pressure on Zane's back. He had to subtly freeze himself to the floor and lock his joints just to prevent them from knocking him and Cole over.

The boy seemed to notice his struggle, and started walking again, muttering something under his breath.

Zane waited before there was a couple meters between them, and the proceeded to reactive his joints. He leaped forward, ripping free of the ice, and just barely avoided the domino effect that took place behind him.

Despite that, it wasn't long before they had to stop again.

They reached a section where two smaller streams of students from classrooms directly across each other were joining the main mob, effectively creating a jam. They slowed down to a near stop, and Zane had a hard time making sure he and Cole weren't separated with all the students trying to push their way forward.

He noticed the other boy looking around, eyes searching the crowd, and tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

"You seem to be distressed. Are you looking for the friend you mentioned?"

Cole seemed reluctant to answer for a bit, but then nodded.

"...Yeah, I lost him a while ago. He has anxiety and this crowd is pretty much the ultimate trigger for a panic attack."

It took Zane 2.34 seconds to search up and understand the danger of a panic attack in such conditions.

"I see, that is bad. If you can give me his description, perhaps I can help you look. It is the least I can do after the aid you've provided me."

Cole hummed and after some thought pulled out his phone to show Zane a photo of him next to a short, shy looking boy. They were both standing in front of a crude looking go-kart, and judging by the oil grease and smudges on the two boys' clothing and skin, they must have built it themselves shortly before the photo was taken.

The shorter boy was practically beaming, and even Cole had a small smile on his face. Zane felt a pang of loneliness in his core.

He missed his team.

Scanning the picture, Zane straightened again and slowly turned around in a full circle. His eyes scanned the crowd, searching for anyone that could match the boy's description.

After triple checking his results, he turned back to Cole.

"I do not believe he is in our immediate vicinity."

Cole's shoulders dropped slightly, but other than that he only responded with a short nod.

Finally, they got through the jam and Cole picked up speed again, still looking around. The students parted in front of him like water, and Zane followed him, conducting scan after scan.

"I am sure we will find your friend in the auditorium. All students were asked to gather there," Zane spoke up, hoping to give Cole the same comfort he had given him.

"Yeah... I just hope he's ok."

Jay was panicking.

When the lockers fell down, he had already been swept up by the crowd and several meters down the hall. He could see Cole jump out of the way and tried to call out to him, but couldn't get a word out around the lump that formed in his throat.

It took him a while to fight his way out of the crowd and he ended up practically falling into an empty classroom. There was no Cole, no help, no way out.

The world started fading and he felt as if he was about to throw up. As fast as he could, he squeezed himself between a cabinet and a wall as far from the door as he could, trying to control the sobs wrecking his body. He could feel a panic attack kicking in and it only made him cry harder. This was far worse than his usual anxiety attack.

Deep inside he knew he couldn't fall apart; there was no one around to help him and he was surrounded by enemies. He had to go out and help his team.

But the suffocating feeling quickly chased away any coherent thoughts and he was left in darkness.

He didn't hear when the door opened and someone walked in.

Nya was pushing her way through the crowd, when she thought she saw someone stumbling into one of the emptied classroom. She was hoping it was Lloyd, trying to find a place to hide. She was searching for him ever since they lost each other in the crowd, worried that someone could take the confusion as a chance to hurt the son of Lord Garmadon.

She knew she should be searching for a way out instead, but she hated the thought of Lloyd surrounded by people who despised him, with no one around to protect him. She tried not to think about the fact that that must have been the case for years.

She opened the door and entered the seemingly empty classroom.

"Lloyd, are you in here?"

There was no answer, but as the door behind her closed, stifling the sounds from outside, she could hear quiet sobs coming from the far end of the classroom.

"Lloyd?"

Again, no answer.

Nya slowly made her way over to the source. When she saw it, she sucked in a startled breath. The boy she saw was most definitely not Lloyd, he was even shorter, with red hair, wearing mostly blue except an orange scarf. In any other scenario, Nya would simply leave to continue her search, but the boy was most definitely having a panic attack. Nya had seen enough of those to recognise one.

Sitting down in front of the boy, she gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He was shaking. When she touched him, he jerked violently and his head shot up, but his eyes weren't focused on her. She heard him mutter something about coal, but ignored it.

"Hey there. I know you don't know me, but I'm here to help. You're having a panic attack, I know how to deal with that so just follow my lead, ok?"

Jay didn't hear her. He was lost in the darkness with no control over his body, fear gripping every part of his mind. It was a state he was unfortunately very familiar with, and he knew he couldn't find a way out on his own. With no one to show him the way, he could only wait when it felt like letting him go on its own.

Then there was something. A feeling, like a small heartbeat that resonated through the darkness.

Jay grabbed onto that feeling and didn't let go, knowing this could be his way out.

Slowly he became aware of his body again. The feeling shrunk and traveled down to his hands. Someone was clenching and unclenching his fists, simultaneously repeating "In. Out. In. Out." in a low voice, and Jay realised his breathing was following the pattern.

He allowed his eyes to open for a second, and saw a girl kneeling in front of him. Her hands were wrapped around his, gently squeezing them in sync with her chant. When she noticed him looking, she smiled.

"You're doing great. Just tell me when you want me to stop."

Jay nodded and closed his eyes again, now consciously matching his breathing to her rhythm.

Several minutes later, the last remnants of the attack faded and he opened his eyes again.

"Feeling better?" the girl asked, not letting go of his hands.

Jay nodded again.

"Y-yeah actually. Thank you. How did... how did you know to do that?"

The girl's smile grew slightly sad.

"My brother. He used to have panic and anxiety attacks quite often after our parents disappeared. The caretakers at the orphanage couldn't be with him all the time, so I learned how to calm him down on my own."

Jay sucked in a breath, now overcome with guilt.

"Oh... I-I'm s-sorry I d-didn't-"

"Hey, it's okay. It was a long time ago, I was just four so I barely remember them and Kai... Kai is Kai."

She frowned a little in what Jay assumed was worry for her brother.

"How about we head over to the auditorium together? It's probably not a good idea for you to be alone."

"O-oh, um, i-if you want to g-go search for your brother... I shouldn't slow you d-down..." Jay stammered, fingering the edge of his scarf.

The girl smiled again.

"Nah, Kai will be fine. He's a hothead, but he can get out of pretty much anything. He's already survived his fair share of Garmadon attacks. Besides, he's probably headed to the auditorium like everyone else," she added, but judging by her expression, Jay wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him or herself.

Before he could protest again, she grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the classroom.

Chapter Text

The auditorium was packed.

Chaos reined supreme.

The room may have been designed to hold large amounts of people during school events, but it was not designed for several hundred mildly panicked teenagers running around with variously crazy goals. The teachers' desperate attempts to bring some sort of order into the invacuation had little success with most of them.

Looks like all those drills were useless after all. Lloyd thought as he watched two teachers desperately trying to separate their mixed up groups of students and usher them back to their designated parts of the room. So far they had little success.

He didn't bother to try and find his own class, instead he found himself a spot near one of the doors. Since he couldn't find a good opportunity to escape on his way here, he was intending to wait until all the students arrived and then slip back out and search for an emergency exit or a poorly guarded window. And really, why didn't he have a plan for this situation? With how often Garmadon attacked while he was in school, you would think he'd have some sort of a secret exit by now. Maybe he could ask Cyan to help him build one under the guise of it being for attacks like today.

Then again, what if Cyan is Nya? How long until she stars using it too?

"..lo..oo...oooOOOO..."

What the-?

"OOOOOOOOYD!"

Without a warning, he was tackled by a red blur yelling his name. Before the blur could do anything else, and before Lloyd could even properly process what was going in, his ninja instincts took over.  He twisted his body and kicked the assailant off, using the momentum to launch himself back upright. The blur crashed into the seats behind him, his yell cut off in a pained groan.

There was a pause as they both recomposed themselves.

"Man, you're stronger than you look," a familiar voice said breathlessly.

"Kai?!"

Lloyd rushed over to the blur, who was in fact the very boy from that morning.

"OhmyFirstMasterI'msosorry, I didn't know it was you, I thought... Oh please don't hate me, I'll make it up to you, I promise."

Kai, obviously startled by Lloyd's desperate pleas, raised his hands in a placating manner.

"Hey, calm down. It's ok, really. I've had worse, like way worse. Trust me you do not want to know what Nya did to me when I woke her up early on a weekend," he shuddered at the long-suppressed memory.

Lloyd helped him up and quickly looked him over. Luckily, Kai looked only a bit ruffled, except for-

"What is that on your forehead?"

"Oh this?" Kai reached up to tap the newly added white bandage above his eyebrow, "Some idiot threw a locker he was trying to break into on my head. It's only a little cut though, I actually think the bandage looks pretty cool. I might keep it... if Nya doesn't kill me for it"

He looked around, noticing the empty space that surrounded them.

"So, what's up with your 'quarantine circle' over here?"

Lloyd rubbed his arm self-consciously.

It seemed that even when the rest of the room was in chaos, the students still refused to approach the son of Lord Garmadon within less than a five meter radius. Of course he wasn't exactly eager to explain that to Kai. But his sister's reaction was good enough, perhaps it would be the same with him?

Before he could make a decision, Kai spotted a blue blur behind him and a giant grin split his face.

"Nya! Over here!" he yelled, waving his hands like crazy.

Not a second later, a familiar girl emerged from the crowd, practically dragging someone behind her. When she saw the two of them, her shoulders dropped in relief.

"Hey bro! Garmadon's lackey didn't cut your head off after all, huh? Oh, I see you've already met Lloyd. Glad you're ok, kid," she added in Lloyd's direction, who smiled and nodded, "But unless you can pull out two more guys, I still win in the friend making contest," she grinned and presented the boy who until then was hiding behind her.

Kai cursed and fell back into his seat.

"H-hi, I... I'm J-Jay," the boy greeted but shrunk back slightly at the sight of Lloyd. Unlike Cole, who generally didn't care about the school rumour mill, Jay had heard only the worst things about Lloyd Garmadon. He'd only caught glimpses of the actual boy, but the slander was enough to implant an image of a miniature Lord Garmadon into his brain.

Unaware of this, Kai sidled over to Jay and threw a hand over his shoulder, failing to notice how tense he'd become.

"Nice to meet ya, Jay. I'm Kai, Nya's older brother, and that Greenbean over there is Lloyd," he said, ignoring Lloyd's confused grimace at the nickname.

"Lay off, Kai. Remember, people here aren't used to your overfriendliness yet. Give him some space," Nya shoved her brother off, giving Jay a nod. He returned it, looking grateful.

"This is a smart place to be. We have the high ground," a cheery robotic voice said behind them.

They all whirled around to see a tall boy with white hair staring at them with a smile so wide it seemed humanely impossible. Behind him was another, even taller boy with black hair, who only gave them a short nod. However, when he saw Jay, he seemed to sag a little in relief.

Jay on the other hand was practically beaming at the sight of him.

"Cole! Thank the First Master. I-I was worried you wouldn't be able to find me."

"Hm, it probably would have taken me a while, but frosty here is better at tracking than a bloodhound,"

Zane turned to him, looking confused.

"Frosty? That is not my name. My name is Zane Julien, I am here to protect those who cannot protect themselves."

"It's a nickname, Zane. You know, because your skin is so cold and you have white hair?"

When Zane only cocked his head, Cole sighed, "Nevermind."

Jay let out a startled laugh.

"What?"

"Nothing," Jay continued giggling, "I've just never heard you say so much in one go."

Cole looked thoughtful at the realization, but then he returned the smirk.

"And you've only stuttered once in two sentences. Today is full of miracles."

Jay started fiddling with his scarf, a small blush spreading across his cheeks.

"Y-yeah. I've actually been feeling a lot better since Nya helped me out of a p-panic attack," he said, grimacing at the last two words.

A flash of concern flew across Cole's face, before he turned to Nya, his expression grateful.

"Thank you," he said quietly, his voice warm. Nya responded with a wink and a smile, before turning back to the others.

"You have cool eyes. They look like they're glowing," Kai said rather loudly, bringing his face close to Zane's.

"Thank you, they are normal human eyes," the boy responded in the same cheery tone as before.

With the other four preoccupied, Lloyd was the only one to notice Jay was beginning to visibly shake. He buried half his face in his scarf and kept warily glancing Lloyd's way.

It didn't take long for him to figure out the reason.

"Are you ok?" he asked, trying to make his voice as soft as possible. Jay still flinched.

"Y-yeah, I'm... S-s-sorry, I'm n-not good at t-talking to new people," Jay stuttered, not quite meeting Lloyd's eyes.

Lloyd, being used to much worse treatment, slowly approached him and carefully patted him on the shoulder, trying to pretend he didn't notice when flinched again.

"It's ok, I get it. I have a... friend who's a lot like you, you know," Too much like you his mind whispered, "He's pretty shy and a bit paranoid, so people often see him as weak and underestimate him. He underestimates himself quite often too, but he's actually one of the smartest people I know. He loves to build stuff and talk about all kinds of things, but it's hard for him to feel safe enough to do so. But that just makes us appreciate it more when he does."

Noticing he actually got Jay's attention, he added a tad more quietly, "I'm not my father. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. If you want me to leave, just say the word."

Jay looked up at Lloyd trying to compare the boy before him with the bully from the rumours.

Then he frowned a little when he saw the forest green of his eyes, before a hint of recognition flew over his face. He gasped and opened his mouth to say something, but his voice was drowned out by a much louder shout.

"Well, look at this. Creating your own army already, are we, Garmadork? What did this loser do to get you five on his side?"

The six teenagers looked up. The one who said that was, unsurprisingly, Chen, his cheering squad close behind.

"What do you mean?" Nya asked, her tone holding a silent warning.

Her defensiveness surprised Chen. Shaking himself off, he managed a smirk.

"Don't you know? That's Lloyd Garmadon, the son of the guy who is currently trying to kill all of us! And you're chatting with him like he's normal."

His revelation didn't have as much of an effect as he'd hoped, since only half of the group didn't actually know Lloyd's identity.

Nya, who already knew what was up, simply rolled her eyes and placed herself between Chen and Lloyd, cracking her knuckles menacingly. Jay, also aware of who Lloyd was, but still not quite sure what was the truth, seemed torn between joining her and hiding behind Cole, whose eyebrows went to visit his hair. He looked over to Lloyd, noticing how dejected but unsurprised he looked at what was happening.

This was supposed to be Garmadon's son? Judging by the short conversation he overheard him having with Jay, the name Garmadon was about the only thing this kid would share with his father, and yet no one was coming to his defense. It actually seemed more like they approved of the other boy's behavior.

Was this always happening around him and he just never noticed?

Zane, who never witnessed Lloyd's mistreatment because of his... special condition and the introversion that came with it, simply tilted his head to the side and said "Shock." in the most animated voice any of them had ever heard.

On the inside however, he was going through hundreds of videos, news reports, blogs, and hours of security footage, looking for anything containing concrete proof on Lloyd's involvement with Lord Garmadon. Comparing those with the stories and rumours floating around about Lloyd, he quickly discovered that pretty much the entire public image of Lloyd Garmadon was wrong.

Following this discovery, and his oath to protect the helpless, he joined Nya in shielding Lloyd from Chen's stare, making the latter gape in surprise again.

Kai took it arguably the hardest. His brows scrunched up again, several emotions flying over his face; surprise, confusion, and finally, a hint of aversion.

He turned to Lloyd.

"Is that true?"

Lloyd couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes, but nodded.

"Oh, you actually didn't know? Have you been living under a rock or something?" Chen laughed, finally able to scorn at least one like he hoped he could the whole group.

"Well, I guess that kind of gives you a pardon. Tell you what, if you help us put Garmadork in his place right now, we'll forget today ever happened and you can go on living with us normal people. Deal?"

Kai didn't answer, but his hands clenched into fists.

Cole on the other hand had enough.

"Hey, pal, if you got a problem, share it with the class," he growled, placing himself right in front of Chen to shield the rest of his friends.

Chen seemed to hesitate at the sight of the strongest of the group taking Lloyd's side, but only for a second. The students closest to them now stopped talking entirely and watched the exchanged with bated breath.

"Problem? Oh, I'll tell you what my problem is. He's Garmadon's son, but they still allow him to be in here with the rest of us. I wouldn't be surprised if he went to this school just to tell his dad who the best candidates for his army are."

Lloyd shrunk back even more, hands shaking in anger and frustration. He may have been hearing similiar accusations for years, but they still hurt.

Nya stepped forward, eyes ablaze.

"And I assume you would also be blind and deaf? Because if you aren't, you should have noticed that Garmadon is currently taking over the school we're all in, including Lloyd. If he's really working for him, why doesn't he just run out and join his father, now that his supposed mission is done? And why does Garmadon put him in danger so recklessly? Did you even stop to think about this at all?"

Chen scrambled for an answer, but didn't even get a chance to open his mouth.

"Back off, buddy. Don't pick on Lloyd unless you think you can take on all of us too," Kai joined, seemingly coming to a decision.

The other boy stared for a second, having never experienced so many (or any) people taking Lloyd's side. He glanced around at the other students, who were obviously expecting him to 'put Lloyd in his place' like unusual.

"Fine! Enjoy your life as outcasts, dorks," he spat and stormed away with his squad, leaving a trail of stunned students in his wake.

This was the first time Chen didn't walk away from bullying Lloyd victorious.

Nya stuck her tongue out at Chen's back and turned away with a scowl.

"Wow, now that guy is a jerk. You alright, Lloyd?"

"Yeah... I'm used to this. Chen's been bullying me like this since middle school," he said absentmindedly, failing to notice the horrified look on Nya's face. He was instead focused on her brother.

"Kai, I..." he started, but Kai raised a hand to stop him.

"I just... need a second a to think, ok?" he said before walking a few meters away.

Lloyd watched him with a sickening feeling in his stomach. This was exactly what he was afraid of.

"Don't mind my brother. It takes him a while to get it through his thick skull that not everyone people say is evil is actually evil," Nya said, patting his shoulder, "This is especially hard for him since he blames Garmadon for our parent's disappearance."

Lloyd turned to her with a startled expression.

"Say what now?"

Nya shrugged, trying to seem indifferent, but Lloyd could clearly see the pain in her eyes.

"Well, since Garmadon started attacking right after our parents disappeared, Kai kind of figured they were killed in one of his earliest attacks. There was never any concrete evidence, but Kai still thinks it was him."

Lloyd wasn't sure what he was feeling anymore.

"Then... why did he help me?"

"Because he would never leave a kid to fend for himself in the middle of a murderous crowd. He wouldn't be Kai if he did. He'll come around sooner than you think, don't you worry," Nya said, her heart swelling with pride.

And sure enough-

"She's right, I'm just a softie like that," Kai said a second later, as he leaned on Lloyd's shoulder, making the smaller boy jump.

"What... When did you... You were just... Y-you don't hate me?"

Kai feigned looking horrified at that sentence.

"What? No! I let it go through my head and I've decided you're chill. It doesn't matter who your pops is, you don't strike me as a bad kid. Though I'll be keeping an eye on you in case you start sprouting four arms," he winked.

"Making decisions in such a short time span does not seem very logi-" Zane piped up, but Cole quickly covered his mouth.

"Not the time for logic, buddy."

The rest of the group gathered around Lloyd, and it felt like they'd completely shielded him from all the hate and fear radiating off the students in the auditorium.

"You... all want to stay?" he asked hesitantly.

Cole, Zane, and Jay all nodded. Nya grinned and slung her arm over Lloyd's free shoulder.

"Like hell we're going anywhere. You're stuck with us now, Greenbean."

Outside the school, time was passing by very slowly. The only entertainment was provided by the occasional police car or ten that tried to break through the blockade, but with the sheer number of Garmadon's troops, they were quickly overpowered and taken hostage as well.

Garmadon, who was running out of victory dances and speeches to practice, was growing restless.

"I'm boooored. I do all this planning, put the whole thing together, and the ninja don't even bother to show up? That's just not fair."

With a whine, he lifted the shark mech's leg and proceeded to kick the side of the school building. He only realised his mistake when giant cracks started spreading across the dented wall.

"Oops..."

Chapter Text

Lloyd was slowly falling asleep.

The ninja leader part of his brain knew this was illogical on so many levels, and that Master Wu would most definitely clobber him if he was there, but the stream of students coming through the door seemed endless and the early wake-up call was finally starting to take its toll.

His newfound friends (Lloyd was still reeling from what happened just minutes before), seemed to be in a similar state. Some had their eyes closed, others were fighting to keep them open, and Kai was straight up asleep.

Then the building shook.

It was different from what they felt two hours before, different than any Garmadon-has-a-new-mech type shaking. This was coming directly from the structure around them.

"M-maybe it was an e-earthquake?" Jay peeped, but even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true.

Unlike the others, Cole didn't need to guess what was going on. He could sense the cracks spreading through the walls and ceilings. He felt when the classroom closest to the source of the destruction collapsed in on itself. As he focused more on the building itself to survey the damage, he quickly realised that it should have been torn down at least two decades ago. With how fragile its foundations were, it was clearly a safety hazard, not a place to house a school.

"This place won't hold. It'll come down on us any second," he said, forcing his voice to stay even.

The others turned to him, not even thinking to ask how he knew with such certainty. They were all in this situation before, and right now, they were already half in ninja mode.

"Well, how do w-" Nya started but was cut off by another, even stronger tremor, that send dust falling from the ceiling.

This made many students realise what was happening, and, unsurprisingly, mass panic broke out. The students who just minutes before pushed their way inside the auditorium, were now almost fighting their way out.

The ninja instinctively banded together to not get separated by the crowd, that no longer cared about keeping their distance from Lloyd.

"We have to get out of here!" Kai yelled over the panicked screams, just as another tremor shook the floor.

"How?! We'll get trampled!" Lloyd yelled back, pointing to the doors that were quickly becoming the gates to a battlefield.

Zane weighed his options.

Logically, this would be the perfect opportunity to slip out undetected via his escape route. The shaking could very well be the result of his team engaging in a fight with Garmadon, and he had to go help them immediately.

But that would mean leaving his new friends(?) in the chaos, and they didn't have powers like his team. It wouldn't be right to leave them to fend for themselves, that's not what a friend should do. But his team...

"Not that way! Follow me!" he called to the rest of the group and took off towards the podium.

The others shared a skeptical look, but followed after him.

Pushing their way through a crowd that was frantically running in the opposite direction wasn't exactly easy, but it was still easier than the many times they had to fight their way through Garmadon's army. After some hard shoving and nearly loosing someone a couple of times, they successfully reached the backstage entrance.

"This way, quickly," Zane urged them on as he pushed open the door and took off down the hallway.

"How come you know your way around so well? There are barely any classes in this part of the school," Jay asked, his curiosity overpowering his shyness and the stress of the situation.

"In case of an emergency such as today's Garmadon attack of course," Zane answered mechanically without missing a beat, "There is an exit not too far from here. If you-"

A loud cracking sound drowned out the rest of the sentence. Six pairs of eyes looked up to the ominous cracks forming on the ceiling above them. A few loose rocks fell down.

Then the cracks stopped and they all held their breath.

"...Is it over?"

Her answer was a loud rumble as the ceiling started sinking.

"In here, quick!" Cole yelled as a large slab shattered the tiles inches from Kai.

They all tumbled through the doorway he pointed out just seconds before it collapsed, blocking their only way out, as well as any light coming from the hallway.

"Is everyone alright?" Lloyd's voice sounded from the darkness.

"Yeah."

"Barely."

"I-I think so?"

"Affirmative."

"Ouch! Can someone get the lights?"

"That may take a while with no light," Zane said in the most innocent voice he could simulate. Then he simply activated his night vision and made a show of feeling along the wall before "finding" the light switch and flipping it.

The room flooded with light, and once their eyes finally adjusted (Zane sort of forgot what happens when light comes on when he's in night vision. Ouch), they could see that it was one of the laboratory classrooms.

Judging by the various pieces of equipment laid out on the tables, opened cabinets, and the fact that the classroom was even unlocked in the first place, a class must have been held here at the time of the invacuation.

"All that shaking must have hit this place hard," Nya pointed to the broken glass, papers, and various samples, all scattered on the ground. One of the lamps was even partially ripped from the ceiling, sparkling wires hanging dangerously close to their heads.

Anther tremor sent more glass tumbling from shelves. Small spiderweb cracks started spreading from one corner of the ceiling.

"Still is, judging by that," Kai said, holding on to Zane for support.

"We n-need to find a way out. B-before we also end up like those vials," Jay stammered, practically glued to Cole's side

"Unfortunately, that collapse just blocked our only exit. Unless one of us possesses superhuman strength, we are not getting out of here without outside assistance," Zane said, gauging Cole's reaction.

Except for a slightly elevated heartbeat, the boy remained passive.

"Well, I'd rather not wait and see how long that ceiling holds. Look around, there's got to be something we can use," Lloyd decided, already searching through the cabinets.

The others followed his lead, only Jay stopped for a moment to wonder how did a boy that seemed nearly as shy as him slip so easily into the position of leader. He chalked it up to being the Garmadon family genes. As in the good ones of course.

They searched for a long while, trying to ignore the occasional tremor that rattled the beakers still miraculously on their shelves. The lab was full of the standard school equipment, and while Zane was pretty sure he could whip up a mild acid with what he found, it would be nowhere close to strong enough to get them out.

"Wait, I think I have an idea!" Kai suddenly called out.

But whatever idea it was, the others would never know.

The entire classroom shook, much harder than before, causing a large part of the ceiling to cave in, crushing many of the tables and cabinets beneath it. Streams of multicolored liquids only Zane could hope to identify started leaking through the rocks, dangerously close to the sparkling wires.

"Look out it's gonna-!"

Flames in colors the ninja thought fire neither should or could have shot up all around them.

They formed a tight huddle, trying to get as far away from the heat as possible in the limited space. Kai, never the one to be good at managing his temper, turned to Cole with a sneer.

"Great idea, Cole! Hide in the room full of highly flammable material! I'm sure there will be no fire when the school is literally falling apart!"

"We were about to be crushed, I didn't exactly have time to check if this room was safe. And I didn't hear you coming up with any better ideas," Cole snapped back, his voice even but with an edge to it.

"G-guys, please... d-don't fight..." Jay tried to calm them down, but his voice was barely audible in the overall chaos.

"If we continue to fight, our chances of survival will rapidly decre-"

Yet another tremor cut him off.

"I'd say they can't exactly go much lower, Zane," Nya said, grabbing Jay's hand to try and stop him from hyperventilating.

The sounds and shouting were getting too much and as the ceiling fell another few inches, every single thought, all theories, fears, and doubts vanished...

And Lloyd snapped.

"ENOUGH!"

Everything stopped, even the flames seemed to flinch back, and all eyes turned to him. In the flickering fire that was all Lloyd could see - the eyes, so obviously belonging to his teammates that he wondered how he could ever doubt it was them.

"Look, if we want to get out of here alive, we have to work together. Just like we always do," he said, letting the green ninja fully take over.

The confusion the last sentence elicited was lost in another tremor. The cracks widened and the fire flared so high up the flames licked the ceiling.

Seeing this, the others turned to Green, eyes fearful, but full of determination.

"Well, what do we do?" Cyan asked.

"We need to take care of those fires first, before they roast us alive. White, Cyan, that's up to you. Red, you make sure it doesn't reach us before they put it out."

They only stopped at their code names for a second before they also turned to their ninja instincts and hurried to fulfill their given tasks.

Green turned to his other two teammates.

"Black, use your powers to get through that collapse, but be careful. One wrong move and you bring this whole room down on top of us. Blue, you have the best eyes out of all of us, give him some light and help him look for the fastest and safest way through."

The two didn't question his instructions and just made their way to the blocked exit. Green himself trained his eyes on the ceiling, making sure no falling debris threatened to flatten any of them as they worked.

Cyan quickly realised that her powers made things better about as often as they made them worse, so she left the fires to White and joined Green in guarding the ceiling. However even White's ice was only effective to a certain degree, and the increasing heat quickly melted it away, replacing it with more fire.

Red's powers proved invaluable in keeping the fire away, but he was quickly becoming exhausted.

The next few minutes went by painfully slow, as the fire got closer, and the cracks wider. The smoke was getting thicker and Green knew inhaling any of it probably wasn't going to do them much good. Then...

"We got it!" Blue's excited yell tore through the air.

Following that was the sound of falling rocks and when Green turned around, he could see a big enough gap at the top of the pile for them to crawl through.

"Everybody out!"

They didn't need to be told twice. One by one they hurriedly crawled through the opening. Green could feel the flames lick at his boots as he scrambled to follow them.

Once they were all safely on the other side and some ways away from the burning classroom, they collapsed around the hallway, taking deep breaths of the (relatively) clean air.

Red, who was the first to recover, approached Green and offered him a hand.

"Thanks for getting us out. Good to see you can keep your head in an emergency even without the mask, Green."

He didn't think when he took his hand, a grin on his face.

And then he realised what was wrong.

Red didn't have his mask.

None of the others had their masks.

He didn't have his mask.

He tore his hand free from Kai's grasp and took a couple steps back. The others were staring at him, eyes wide, long out of their ninja trances. It was obvious all of them had realised who he was.

"W-wait. You're telling me... Lloyd Garmadon is our Green?"

And there it was, the emotions he never wanted to see on his teammates' faces; bewilderment, suspicion, anger, and, in Jay's case, fear.

No, please...

The looks shifted into harsh, piercing glares.

Don't look at me like that...

The whispers filled his ears.

I'm not my father, don't say those things!

Green's (no he was no longer Green, he ruined that, they won't allow him to be Green anymore) Lloyd's heartbeat started picking up. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't breathe. 

"I... I-I gave to go," he blurted out and bolted.

He heard shouts that he couldn't decipher, but he knew they were threats and insults. That's all they ever were. And this time he had the sickening feeling they were deserved.

He deceived them. Their identities were harmless, but he was Lloyd Garmadon, of course they'd hate him for not telling them. Even being seen with him without masks most likely destroyed any chance they had at normal student life, but fighting with him for months? People would despise them if they knew.

Lloyd ran blindly through the winding corridors. The lights overhead buzzed, sparks of electricity flying off and mixing with clouds of dust falling from rapidly spreading cracks. When the building shook again, he only ran faster, ignoring the ominous rumbling.

He had to get away, away from the hate, away from the betrayed looks, away from-"

"GREEN!"

He was yanked back just as the ceiling in the whole corridor collapsed.

The lights flickered and sputtered out as their cables were ripped and light bulbs shattered. Lloyd's world was plunged into darkness and loud rumbling, and soon after, an oppressive weight piled on top of him.

He started struggling, desperate not to get crushed.

But then he noticed how different the weight felt. It wasn't hard and cold like he imagined concrete slabs threatening to flatten him would be. This weight was warm, and soft, and almost... comforting.

Was the 'cold' embrace of death supposed to feel so much like a hug?

When the world stopped shaking, Lloyd opened his eyes.

It was dark, except for when the sparks coming from the severed cables momentarily illuminated his surroundings. He couldn't see much except five bodies wrapped protectively around his own, shielding him from the fallen debris.

With a strained groan one of them slowly stood up and the darkness surrounding him seemed to shift with them. The other four hesitantly unwrapped Lloyd and two of them moved to help the first.

The remaining two turned to Lloyd and he instinctively scrambled back, his mind showing him sharp blades and red eyes glowing in the darkness.

But no, the eyes weren't red. They were the cool icy blue belonging to White-Zane, the red coming from the fire that was now flickering in Red's-Kai's outstretched hand. And the metallic glint wasn't that of a knife, it belonged to a disfigured locker that Blue-Jay and Cyan-Nya were pushing beneath the large concrete slab that had nearly crushed them, and that Black-Cole was currently holding up.

That meant...

Oh.

"What? You look like you've seen a ghost," Cole huffed through clenched teeth. Even with his superhuman strength, holding up solid concrete for so long wasn't really a piece of cake.

"What the hell were you thinking, running off like that?! You almost got crushed!" Nya pestered him, her voice cracking slightly.

"You... you saved my life," he said quietly.

"Of course we did. You're our leader, and, more importantly, our friend," Kai said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"But back there, you all looked so... angry and hurt," Lloyd flinched at the memory, still fresh in his mind.

"Well, it was a bit of a shock to find out our leader was the son of the guy we've been fighting for over a year," Nya admitted, looking apologetic, "But we already knew you're nothing like your dad. What kind of friends would we be if we abandoned you just because of your parentage?"

"You... still want to be my friends?"

They all nodded.

"B-but, my name... I lied to you you."

"Technically, since we agreed not to share our names, you did not lie to us about it," Zane piped up, for once looking completely serious.

"But everyone hates me. If you become my friends... they will hate you too," he tried again.

"W-we know. We can't let you go through that alone anymore," Jay's voice was quiet but firm.

"You would be outcasts! Everyone would avoid you and slander you," he practically yelled. Making them experience what he did was the last thing he wanted.

"So what?" Cole said simply.

"But-"

"No more buts," Kai interrupted him, "From now on, we're in this together. It's like we said back in the auditorium; You're stuck with us now, Greenbean."

Lloyd looked around. There was no hate in his friends' expressions, no fear or resentment. Just love and an immense urge to protect.

His eyes started stinging and the world became blurry.

"S-sorry, there's just... s-so much dust," he sniffled as he wiped at his eyes.

"Here, hold this," Kai said to Jay, thoughtlessly throwing the fireball he was using as a lamp his way.

The blue ninja squawked in surprise and scrambled out of the projectile's way. It hit the wall and sizzled out, momentarily submerging them in darkness again, before it was replaced by the bluish light of Jay's lightning.

In that momentary darkness, Lloyd felt something warm and soft wrap around him.

When the light came back, it turned out to be Kai, giving him a hug. A hug unlike any hug anyone (meaning his mom) ever gave him. It was almost magical, and he suddenly felt like everything was going to be alright.

"W-what's going on? I feel so... warm."

"It's your first Kai Hug™." Nya grinned from behind the red ninja, "The best hugs on the market. I did the poll."

Lloyd didn't question why there was even a poll in the first place, he simply let himself melt into the hug, bawling his eyes out. At some point the light went out again, as the other ninja joined the hug too, relishing in the warmth only a Kai Hug™ could bring.

And so, in the middle of a collapsing school, surrounded by Garmadon's army, underneath a collapsed ceiling in total darkness, stood the legendary green ninja, crying like a child, while sandwiched between his five teammates.

It was one of the best moments of his life.

Chapter Text

It was a while before Lloyd or the other ninja were ready to let go. There was just something about this so called Kai Hug™ that made Lloyd (and everyone else) want to hold on forever.

Even after he pried himself away, and the space around them was reignited by Kai's fire, he could still feel the warmth from the hug spreading throughout his body. He assured his friends he was really fine now, but they still sat as close as possible without squeezing him, with Kai constantly hovering over him, waiting for any sign he needed another hug.

"Well, now that we no longer need to hide our identities from each other, I believe we should address the Garmadon attack still in progress outside," Nya pointed out, but everyone could see the concerned glances she kept shooting Lloyd's way.

"Nya's right," Lloyd said, his voice slightly hoarse, "This whole collapse is most likely his doing. Who knows how long until he gets bored and does something stupid. Bl- Cole, do you think you can get us out like you did from that classroom?"

Cole shook his head.

"Not when the collapse is all around us. It's all too unstable. I might get us out, or I might destabilize it and kill us all, I'm not taking that chance,"

"S-so then what? We just... sit here until we get rescued?" Jay whimpered and looked around the dark walls, his anxiety rearing its head again. In two second, the ninjas' doting turned to him. Nya tugged him against her side, and Cole pressed himself against the other, effectively stopping the panic attack threatening to take over.

"Hey, we've already been pretty much buried alive twice today, and we're still fine. Not like it's our first time either," the ninja all grimaced at the various unpleasant memories.

"So we won't be the ones to stop Garmadon this one time, big deal. The city survived even before we came along. And it's about time the police force started earning their pay again. Ever since we started taking on Garmadon, they've become a bit too hands-off for my taste," Kai continued whilst casually tossing a small fireball in the air and catching it inches from his face.

"Statistically, it was the most logical decision. Before we formed the Secret Ninja Force and started pushing Garmadon back, the infrastructural damages nearly toppled the city budget. And that was when Master Wu was in his prime and protecting the city in our stead. I don't even want to calculate what damage such an event would cause now."

"Oh yeah, remember when we had like two weeks of online school every time Garmadon attacked, just so they could finish all the repairs. Hold on, why did we even start fighting Garmadon in the first place? Those breaks were awesome!" Kai joked, making the others burst out laughing.

Jay couldn't stop giggling, earning himself a concerned look from the two currently sandwiching him.

"S-sorry. It's just... looking back, it was so obvious who we were. I mean, you guys just barely met, but I can't believe I never realised Cole was Black, even though I was friends with him for years."

Most of the ninja nodded in agreement.

"You're right. Seriously, how did we not immediately figure out each other's identities? There are so many signs, and I'm only seeing them now. I feel like I failed as a ninja," Lloyd grumbled.

"Honestly, I kinda figured out Zane was White when I saw his eyes. And the way he was talking pretty much gave it away," Cole interjected. He raised an eyebrow at the incredulous looks the others, minus a confused Zane, were giving him.

"Wait, did none of you seriously notice?" when they all shook their heads, he facepalmed, "I'm surrounded by idiots."

Nya snorted, "You can say that again. Kai here was throwing his gi's in the laundry since day one. And no, we did not share our secret identities with each other."

When all eyes turned to Kai, the fire ninja turned the color of his element and threw his hands up.

"It's a force of habit, ok?! You nearly killed me whenever I left my dirty clothes on the floor, I was traumatized. And hang on! If you knew I was Red, why didn't you tell me you were Cyan? It could have spared me a lot of sneaking around, you know."

"See, unlike you, I can actually keep a secret," Nya said smugly.

"I too pondered the possibility of Cole being one of my teammates, but I decided against looking into it as to not betray our team's trust. You could say I sensed a great disturbance in the Force upon meeting him," Zane added over Kai's offended mumbling, looking pleased with himself.

"I suspected Nya a bit when she said 'I only believe what I see with my own two eyes.' You know, like when we rescued Kai back when we barely started working together?"

At the wide-eyed looks the others were giving him, Lloyd raised his hands in a defensive motion.

"What? It stuck with me, ok?"

"I, um... I thought I recognised Lloyd's eyes, but I wasn't 100% sure," Jay said hesitantly.

When all eyes turned to the still grumpy Kai, he deflated a bit.

"Wait, you mean I'm seriously the only one who didn't notice anything?"

"You were never very observant," Nya said, patting her brother's back in mock comfort.

Lloyd cleared his throat to get their attention again.

"So, if we're already sharing our deepest darkest secrets with each other," "No, we're not." "I have to know; Why did you guys agree to become ninja?"

"I wanted to outdo my bro/sis," the Smith siblings said without hesitation, and proceeded to glare at each other.

"That's it?" Cole asked, sensing there was more to the story.

The two paused in their staring contest, and it seemed like they exchanged a whole conversation with only their eyes.

"Well, normal life was pretty boring, and... I guess neither of us ever really fit in. And ninja are supposed to be different, you know? So it kinda made us feel normal."

"Also, cool elemental powers! Anyways, what about you, Jay?" Kai quickly jumped in, not wanting Nya to relieve painful memories. He knew from experience how hard it was to push them back down again.

The blue ninja didn't answer as quickly. He fumbled with his scarf, small sparks flying off and adding a dim blue light to the red of Kai's flickering fire.

"I, um... I was always so... useless in life. Always just scaredy-cat Jay, the guy who can't stand up for himself, who has to be protected and can't help anyone. With the mask... i-it just felt like I could really do something more. Be something more than just a coward."

Cole reached over and flicked Jay's forehead.

"Don't say that. You might not be the most courageous of the group, but we couldn't have made it this far without you, Jay. Don't try to change who you are."

"B-but it's true. Like with Lloyd. I k-know you never noticed because you always had your headphones on, b-but I knew what was happening t-to him. I saw Chen and others pick on him so many times a-and... I never did anything. I was t-too s-scared."

Lloyd followed Cole's example and reached over to flick the boy's forehead, albeit a bit gentler.

"Hey, I get it. It already means a lot that you didn't join in just to get in favor with Chen. You'd be surprised how many people did that. And it's like Cole said; I doubt we would have gotten this far without your brain"

When Jay stopped sniffling and gave him a short nod, Nya pumped her fist.

"Yes! another trauma resolved! At this rate we can hang up our hoods and get into therapy. Alright Zane, what about you?"

"The reason I am here is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. With Master Wu honing my powers and a capable team, I could do much more good than as a mere civilian."

The other ninjas chuckled. Classic Zane.

"...However," Zane continued, and his voice suddenly sounded a lot less robotic, "I admit the concept of having a mask and the possibility of starting anew was inviting to me. The possibilities it presented were... appealing"

When he didn't elaborate further, and none of the five could really understand what he meant, Kai simply sidled up to him and, for once mindful of the fire in his hand, squeezed him in another Kai Hug™, getting a couple jealous looks from the others.

"There there, we'll cure your trauma one day. Cole?"

The oldest ninja shrugged.

"My dad always decided my future. Being a ninja sort of felt like making my first steps on my own. And," he glanced at Jay, "like Zane, I wanted to protect those who can't protect themselves. Though I guess not every one of those people was as helpless as I thought."

Kai, appointing himself the moderator of their discussion, nodded approvingly.

"Yes, truly a noble goal. And don't worry, we'll have a word with your dad about that future control stuff. Now for the golden finish, Lloyd?" he continued, ignoring Cole's alarmed look at his second sentence.

Lloyd looked at the faces of his friends, all giving him encouraging looks. The thought of uncovering such a deep part of himself made him uncomfortable, but they already saw him cry his eyes out and beg them not to be his friends so that they wouldn't have to suffer like him. Was there really that much left to uncover?

A little wouldn't hurt, right?

"Well, uh... uncle Wu trained me since I was strong enough to pick up a training sword," and then it all came tumbling out, "First it was just to defend myself from anyone who wanted to take their anger on Garmadon out on me, but as uncle got older and my father's attacks stronger, he offered me the green gi and told me I had the power to defeat my father once and for all. And I... I guess I kind of felt like I owed it to the city... You know, since my dad attacks it, it would be only right for me to protect it.

"And then uncle Wu brought in you guys. You were the first people who didn't push me away. We started going on missions and other people actually liked me, and it felt... amazing. I don't know since when, but I couldn't imagine life without being a ninja anymore. Without you guys. That's why I freaked out so much when you discovered who I was. I thought I was going to lose my life as a ninja. Losing you guys..." he trailed off.

In seconds, he was once again in the center of a giant Kai Hug™, his friends talking over each other, all trying to reassure him they would never do such a thing.

Who would think that a day when you nearly die several times could be so heartwarming.

Chapter Text

After so much hear-to-heart talk, there wasn't much more to say, and the ninja descended into comfortable silence. But as minutes went by, they became painfully aware of how disconnected they were from the outside world. Not knowing what exactly was going on, while also knowing Garmadon was loose in the city and capable of even just accidentally crushing them, wasn't the best feeling.

Then Jay got an idea.

"Good Morning Ninjago!"

The other ninja looked at him like he'd just grown a second head.

"Uh, hate to break it to you, bud, but it's almost noon."

Jay blushed a deep red.

"No, I meant the news channel! They're a bit over the top, but they always cover Garmadon attacks."

There was a momentary pause as they slowly realised what he was saying.

"Jay, you're a genius!" Nya exclaimed, ruffling the boy's hair, "We can tune into their broadcast and see how the attack is progressing!"

"Definitely beats sitting here and not knowing anything at all. Good idea," Cole added, smiling proudly at Jay.

All the praise made the boy blush even more, as he fumbled for his phone. They all gathered around the lightning ninja as he hastily pulled up the latest broadcast from the forementioned news channel. It was a bit sluggish due to the poor reception underneath the collapse, but trapped ninja can't be choosers.

"-nd it seems despite all that, our Secret Ninja Force is still nowhere to be seen. Were it not for Garmadon's demands for their surrender, I would almost think he's already captured them," one of the moderators on screen was just saying.

"Indeed, Robin, and that begs the question; have our ninjas truly abandoned us, or is there another reason for their sudden absence?" his colleague continued.

"I sure hope not, Michael, because we need them now more than ever. Who knows how long until Garmadon grows bored and knocks down more than just the wall of the school."

The video shifted from the studio to a helicopter view of the school, still surrounded by Garmadon's troops. The small space they were in filled up with enraged shouts when the ninja saw the gaping hole in the side of the building, not too far from where Garmadon was lounging on top of his shark mech.

Lloyd felt a cold sweat pass over him when he realised the classroom that just gained the brand new window was the same one he was in just two hours earlier.

The abnormally smiling faces of the two moderators filled the screen again.

"My my, Ninjago, it seems today is truly not our day. And with most of our police force already captured by Garmadon after unsuccessful rescue attempts, the dark lord can just waltz right onto Ninjago Tower and take over Ninjago!"

"We really should have abolished that rule ages ago, Robin," Michael turned to her colleague with a blinding smile.

"Yes we should have, Michael," Robin answered, mirroring her expression, "Let us hope the Ninja Force shows up soon, or else this day may end in tragedy."

"And now over to Joey, who's in the field with the fluffiest kitten the world has ever seen!"

As the screen dissolved into a flurry of special effects, Jay turned the phone off, plunging the group into silence.

"That is not good." Zane said in a neutral tone. The other ninjas could only nod.

"For once I actually wish Master Wu was here, he'd know what to do," Lloyd sighed.

"Hello, students!"

"Master Wu!" they all shouted in surprise and jumped up, expecting to see him pop out of a crack in the ground, or some other illogical place.

Jay cleared his throat to get their attention, and waved his phone in the air.

"Sorry, no Wu, just my phone. But we've got a message from him, he's asking why he can't reach any of you and why we haven't kicked Garmadon out of the city yet."

That prompted a whole lot of cursing as the ninja started searching their pockets for their own phones, and one by one discovered they'd all left them behind in the auditorium or their classrooms.

"Tell him we're a bit boxed in at the moment." Kai groaned and plopped back on the ground, "Also, you have Master Wu's pop-up greeting as your text message notification?"

Jay's face turned bright red yet again.

"Only for Master Wu's messages. It seemed fitting..." he mumbled, hurrying to send a response. Almost immediately there was an answer.

"He says to get out of whatever box we're in and take care of Garmadon, or else he's doubling our training hours," he said, his embarrassment fading into a tone of disbelief.

"Nice to know our master cares about us," Cole grumbled, "Speaking of which, I wonder how he's going to react to us finding out each other's identities."

"Most likely the same way he reacted when we announced we would not be revealing them right away," Zane remarked and the other ninja sweatdropped. Master Wu was truly a... unique individual.

"He's right though," Lloyd said slowly.

"What, about the whole 'when fate sees it fit to reveal them' thing?" Nya asked incredulously.

"Heh, no. About us having to take action. I wish we could just stay here and let others handle things for once, but the fact remains that Garmadon is out there endangering the city we swore to protect. So I'm going out there. I'm not forcing anyone to come too, but-"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Kai clapped a hand on Lloyd's shoulder, "We're a team, remember? We do this together, or not at all, so get that through your thick skull already."

"Uh, question," Jay raised his hand, "How are we getting out of here? You heard what Cole said; he can't get us out of this without risking crushing us. And I would very much like to remain un-crushed, thank you."

Lloyd's face fell for a moment, before lighting up again.

"Alone maybe, but if we work together, that's a different story," he stopped and raised an eyebrow at the fond looks the others were giving him.

"What?" he asked with a confused half-smile.

They all smiled even wider.

"Nothing. It's just good to see you back to normal. Lead on, Greenbean."

Lloyd didn't quite understand what Kai meant, but shrugged it off as something that came with becoming a team without masks.

He turned to the earth ninja.

"Cole, do you think you can somehow punch away all the debris around us at once?"

Cole looked a bit surprised at the question, but slowly nodded.

"There is this technique I've been trying out, that could theoretically work, but it would literally launch everything in random directions. I can barely control how strong it is, much less where the stuff will fall. There's no way we'd all get out of that uninjured, and I told you I refuse to risk that."

"I would too. That's why we would create an ice shelter to shield us. We'll leave an opening in the middle for Cole to clear the rocks before he hides with us, and after we're in the clear, Kai can melt the ice, and boom! Rescue successful."

The water and ice ninja exchanged doubtful looks.

"That plan is very likely to fail, simply because the solidity of ice is not high enough to withstand a constant barrage of large rocks," Zane said matter-of-factly.

"That's why one layer won't do. But if we all lay down and Zane and Nya cover most of the remaining space with ice, it should be strong enough to protect us."

Lloyd looked around at the unsure faces of his team.

"Look, I know it's crazy, but does anyone have a better idea?"

"Yes actually, we could just sit here and wait to be rescued by someone who is actually qualified to do something like this. But we won't because logical is not a word in our team," Jay piped up, his voice slightly hysteric.

"Oh come on, where's the fun in doing things logically?" Kai slung his hand over the lightning ninja's shoulder before pulling him down with him, "Ready when you are, guys!"

Lloyd followed suit, while Cole hesitantly took his position in the middle of their circle.

"Alright, get icing you two, the more the better. If the layer's not enough it won't end well for us."

"Not. Helping. Green," Nya hissed as she and Zane got into position.

After a bit more hesitating, they nodded at each other and let their powers loose.

Layer by layer they encased their small space in ice.

It was becoming more and more difficult as they progressed, since they had to crouch lower and lower the more layers they added, until they were also laying flat on the ground. At that point, Nya left the work to Zane, who had the riveting task of adding the last few layers blind (except he had his sensors, but that wasn't something a normal teenager would openly announce), whilst having to worry about leaving enough space for Cole to hide in.

Lloyd clenched his teeth as the ice pressed closer and closer to his back. It stopped just short of obstructing his breathing. And breathing was pretty much the only thing he could do at the moment since the rest of his body was literally encased in ice.

"Is everyone okay?" he called, his voice a little shaky from the cold seeping into his bones.

Muffled confirmations echoed from the ice around him.

"Okay, Cole, your turn. Don't linger out there, just use your new technique and then hide. If you don't clear out enough on the first try, you'll get it the second time, no sense in risking getting crushed."

"Not sure if I prefer getting crushed by only rocks, or rocks and ice," Cole said flatly, but readied himself.

Here goes nothing, he thought as he channeled all his power into his hands, bringing them above his head in a single clap.

The effect was immediate. Rocks, glass, metal, and anything else in a ten meter radius was flung backwards, letting in streams of light that nearly blinded him. Had he done this outside, all of it would have been flung far away, and they would be home free. But like this, just as Cole expected, many of the projectiles crashed into the parts of walls and ceiling that were still intact, before falling back down with even more debris.

Cole didn't bother to look how many of them were about to crush his head, or if their ice shelter was starting to crack, he simply dove for cover in the small space Zane and Nya left for him in their ice bunker.

The incredibly loud cacophony of crumbling rocks, bending metal, and breaking windows, and the explosion of dust that followed, were easily mistaken by the people outside for just another collapsing room.

Chapter Text

The crows perching on top of the school roof scattered with startled caws as the rarely used door opened. Six teenagers, covered in dust and scratches, walked out, squinting in the harsh sunlight.

Despite that, it was immediately obvious these six weren't just any normal teenagers.

They didn't stop to look around or enjoy the warmth they hadn't felt for hours, instead they stealthily made their way to the edge of the roof and surveyed the scene below.

The sight they were met with was quite unsettling; the students that fled the collapsing school were gathered in front of the main entrance, which transformed the lawn into a sea of colors. Scattered throughout, a few police uniforms could be seen, and there were even members of a crew from a visiting news channel called NGTV News, trying to keep their last camera from getting taken.

They were all guarded by an army of men, who would look ridiculous in their ocean-themed costumes, if it weren't for the various weapons and smaller mechs, also ocean-themed, that each one of them was armed with.

"Well that certainly doesn't make our situation any better," Cole deadpanned.

"You'd think it couldn't get any worse after we almost got buried alive three times in less than twelve hours, but nooooo," Kai grumbled, brushing ice and dust out of his hair.

"We can't fight Garmadon when he's using all those people as human shields. We need to get them out of there," Jay said while surveying the scene.

"How?" Nya countered, "Judging by all the guards, he's not planing to let them just walk away. And we can't exactly hope to sneak off with such a massive group of untrained civilians undetected."

Lloyd quickly scanned over the crowd, and had to admit she was right.

The generals were no longer interested in guarding the school, instead they formed a new cordon to box all the people in. Some of them were even walking through the crowd and confiscating anything that looked dangerous or edible.

To be able to fight Garmadon, they first needed to get everyone out, and to get everyone out, they needed an actual plan.

"Let's take things one at a time. First, we need to get out of here and get our gear. We can worry about the rest afterwards," he said to the others.

"Getting through will be the easy part. They're not paying much attention to the school itself anymore, and I see a lot of gaps that we could go through, even if we didn't have Zane's emergency exit. Honestly, you'd think after all those years of being evil, Garmadon would know how to create a proper cordon," Kai shook his head in mock disappointment.

"To be fair, it is intended to keep the hostages in and incoming ninjas out, not the other way around," the nindroid remarked.

After they were sure they'd done enough reconnaissance and weren't going to spring any traps during their escape, Lloyd pulled his team back down for one last briefing.

"We all know what to do. Go home, grab your gear, and meet up on the roof of the construction site on the intersection of 28th and Lane street in 30 minutes. Oh right, Blue, Cyan?" the two looked at him questioningly, "You know that secret weapon we've been working on? I think now's the time to bring it out."

The devilish smirk that spread across Nya's face once he said that, reflecting in a much tamer form on Jay's face, was the subject of nightmares.

"It's about time you let us take it out for a test drive. But we'll need some time to get it   out of the warehouse."

Lloyd nodded.

"We'll buy you some time, but try to be quick. It won't be long until Garmadon decides to scrap his plan on capturing us and tries to conquer Ninjago again. Questions?"

Kai raised a hand.

"Only one. If we don't have to hide our identities anymore, do we keep using our code names, or do we just use our regular ones?"

At the incredulous looks the others gave him, he shrugged, "What? It's a relevant question. Do you know how confusing it's going to get?"

"I, uh, I guess we'll just go with the flow and see what sticks?"

Kai seemed satisfied with that answer and Lloyd shook his head in disbelief.

"Alright, any other important questions? Ok, be careful and stay out of sight. Ninja, go!"

With that, the ninja took to the trees surrounding the school, their careful movements barely making the branches move.

Lloyd quickly separated from them, and once he was sure he was out of sight, he retraced his steps back inside the school and into the auditorium to retrieve the bag he'd left behind. It was a very risky detour, but the generals seemed to think a thorough inspection of the school was unnecessary, so he didn't run into any complications.

He knew the others would scold him for such recklessness, but there was a very good reason for his actions.

There was a click as his mother answered the phone.

"Lloyd? Lloyd! Oh my goodness, are you ok? I saw the news, and what was happening in your school, and when I couldn't reach you I contacted the police, but they said they already sent everyone they had, but-"

As much as he didn't want to, Lloyd interrupted her, because he knew her fussing could otherwise go on for hours, hours he didn't currently have.

"Mom, I'm ok, really. I managed to get away with some friends. We're safe, all the way across town."

There was a long pause on the other side of the phone.

"Friends? Oh honey, you finally made friends! Mommy's so proud. Bring them over right now, you'll be much safer here," Koko squealed, the worry in her voice at least partially replaced with delight.

"Uh... I'll bring them over another time. We're actually already hiding at... Kai's place! It probably wouldn't be safe to go out now," Lloyd said quickly.

Koko clearly wanted to argue, but he didn't give her time to speak, "Mom, I'm so sorry, but we only have my phone and the others need to let their parents know they're ok too. I'll get home as soon as the ninja take care of this and it's safe to go back, ok?"

"I'm... not really sure the ninja are coming this time, sweetie. It's already been hours," Koko said cautiously, not wanting to alarm her son.

To her surprise, Lloyd didn't even hesitate with his answer.

"Don't worry, mom, they'll be here soon, I promise. I really have to go now. Love you."

And with that he hung up.

He took a moment to center himself, taking in the room of the construction building he used as an outpost. It felt like so long since he'd been here, even though it couldn't have been more than a few hours ago.

He threw his clothes, already dirty and torn from less than a day of use, into the cabinet, and for the second time that day, he donned his green gi. He paused for a moment when he got to the hood, his fingers skimming over the green fabric. How much had his life and the meaning of his mask changed in just one short morning.

Putting his turbulent feelings aside, he pulled the hood over his face and climbed out and onto the roof. Three other ninja were already waiting there, their hoods also in place. It almost made Lloyd question whether what happened back in the school was real.

"Took you long enough. Where have you been?" Kai - now Red - asked, his familiar voice dispelling any doubts.

"Letting my mom know I was ok," Lloyd answered truthfully, noting the strange look that passed over the fire ninja's eyes when he said it. He would have to ask about that later.

But now they had a job to do.

The four ninja took off, going in the direction they'd only recently came from, carefully avoid detection not just from the wandering soldiers, but from civilians as well. The element of surprise was their biggest advantage for now, and they wanted to keep it for as long as possible.

Speaking of advantages.

In the middle of a leap between two buildings, Lloyd raised his hand to his ear, activating his earpiece.

"Nya, Jay, do you copy? What's your status?"

"We copy. We're en route to you now, but keeping out of sight with this is harder than I expected, so it's taking a while. Do you have a plan of attack?" came Nya's - Cyan's? FSM Kai was actually right, this was getting confusing - response.

"We get down there, fight until you and Jay get there, and hope the surprise you're carrying is enough to push them back, because otherwise, we are pretty much screwed," Lloyd said flatly.

For a few moments all he could hear was the wind whipping past his ears.

Finally, Cole broke the silence.

"... ok... inspiring. What about the hostages then?"

"Actually, Zane said he's already got that handled."

"Indeed. Fret not, fellow teenage ninjas, for my plans have already been set in motion."

Before he could figure out whether he was disturbed or reassured by Zane's overly cheery voice, Kai had to grab Lloyd to stop him from jumping on top of Garmadon's head.

They had arrived.

Chapter Text

"...and that's the story of how I realised that evil is my one true calling and gave up my dream of becoming a professional wrestler. It's a shame really, the world truly lost a great talent that day. I mean, look at me! I've got the four arms and everything," Garmadon was saying while pacing back and forth on his mech. The hostages closest to him looked like they'd just gone through months of mental torture, and some of the generals even looked on with something akin to sympathy.

Garmadon's origin story was an infamous unofficial interrogation method, feared not only by the citizens of Ninjago, but by Garmadon's own people. It seemed by now Garmadon was the only one unaware of it.

"Alright, now's our chance," Lloyd whispered into his earpiece as the warlord continued monologuing, oblivious to their presence, "We'll sneak closer while they're distracted and then strike them from the back. Our best bet is to take out Garmadon first and then move on to his troops."

His three companions nodded.

They were now back on the school's rooftop, having taken a detour, so that they could strike Garmadon from the back, where he would least expect it. Until Jay and Nya arrived, they had to hold their ground against Garmadon's whole army, with groups of hostages left and rights, so the element of surprise was the best they could ask for.

"...so, as you can see, I was always destined to rule over Ninjago-"

"Hah! Was he also destined to get his ass kicked by us whenever he tries?" Kai asked loudly, immediately forgetting about their plan.

Zane was quite sure there shouldn't be that much of, if any, echo, and yet it was like Kai had screamed the last word. Everything went quiet and all eyes turned to them, as the endless string of "tries... tries... tries..." traveled over the crowd.

"Uh, he he... did I say that out loud?"

There was a slap as Lloyd's hand collided with his face.

"It's the ninja!" one of the generals yelled.

Someone in the crowd cheered.

And Garmadon laughed.

"Well, look who it is. The protectors of Ninjago city. Honestly, did no one tell you ninja it's rude to come late to a party? Fashionably late has it's limits, you know? Though I  suppose I can teach you that when I lock you up in the underground prison I've been saving for you. Ready to negotiate terms of surrender, green ninja?"

"Funny, I was actually about to ask you the same thing," Lloyd bit back, hand reaching for his weapon. In the corner of his eye, he could see the others do the same.

"Oooh, how scary! I'm shaking in my helmet!" Garmadon whined, while pretending to cower before them.

Lloyd rolled his eyes at the warlord's antics.

Disappointed at the lack of reaction, Garmadon stopped pretending and groaned.

"Ugh, you ninja are no fun. But you see, unfortunately for you, I'm the dealer in this game. And the cards are all in my favor," he gestured to the generals around, and hostages behind him. There was a wave of movement as all weapons were pointed towards them.

"So, about that surrender," he drawled, sounding like he was very much enjoying himself despite his earlier statement.

"Sorry, but my answer will be no. But there's something else I'd like to say."

Lloyd cleared his throat.

"Blue, Cyan, NOW!"

Garmadon's face morphed into surprise, and then pain as he was hit with a ball of blue electricity. The soldiers around him fell to the ground, laughing as the offshoots of the blast tickled them senseless. The smaller mechs closest to Garmadon's started malfunctioning, causing further chaos among Garmadon's forces.

Those who avoided the blast started pointing upwards, where a cobalt blue jet was turning around for another pass.

"Lightning mech has joined the fight," Cyan announced over the comms, voice filled with pride over her, Blue, and Green's joint creation.

"That's what you've been working on?" Black yelled when another blast hit the quickly recovering shark mech.

"Yeah, fight now, questions later. We have to get the people out while Garmadon's distracted," Green yelled back, already jumping down into the fray.

They joined the battle with fervor and the stress of that day quickly burned away in the heat of battle. The soldiers still hadn't recovered from the lightning jet's sudden appearance, so the three ninja on the ground were able to quickly work their way through the first wave. Almost immediately, they managed to open a gap in the cordon and started directing the hostages through it to safety.

For a moment the scales tipped in their favor.

Key word being 'moment'.

The soldiers didn't take long to recover from their shock, and then they pushed back. Hard.

The ninja were forced into the crowd of hostages, and the way out was quickly blocked. Trying to fight the soldiers, avoid hitting the civilians, rescue them from said soldiers, and direct them to safety all at the same time was just about as impossible as it sounded. The only reason the ninja weren't immediately overwhelmed were their elemental powers.

They fought back with tooth and nail, but just as it seemed they were once again gaining the upper hand, White felt something collide with his back and launch him forward.

He managed to twist his body and land upright, but almost wished he hadn't. Where he stood seconds before was a mech shaped like a hammerhead shark the size of a two-story building staring him down. The series of holes in the buildings behind the mech at least partially answered his question of how the heck did that thing get there while evading his scanners.

"I'm in danger," he chuckled when the mech charged towards him again.

"Hang on, White, I'm coming!" Green yelled.

And he really, really tried to, but he was blocked by yet another giant mech that seemingly came out of nowhere. This one in the shape of a black eel, and Green really didn't want to find out whether it also had the animals more shocking attributes.

It barreled towards him, ignoring the soldiers it knocked aside on the way, and Green suddenly felt like one of those movie hostages, tied up on the railway in front of an approaching train.

Then it stopped.

The front popped open.

And a lot of missiles shot out.

"Oh come on, that's just not fair!" he cursed and just barely managed to dodge the oncoming barrage.

The other ninja weren't faring much better. They were vastly outnumbered, and the lightning jet, although being their biggest advantage, wasn't always helpful.

"Hey! Watch where you're aiming that thing!" Red shouted when a ball of electricity fried the mech inches to his left, making his hair stand up on ends. The soldier he was fighting used the distraction to try and grab him, but flinched back when he got shocked by the leftover electricity on Red, which allowed the ninja to knock him out instead.

Cyan huffed in annoyance.

"Don't blame me! This is the first time we're actually flying this hunk of junk, it still needs some major calibrating. And air isn't exactly my element, you know. After I make my own mech, I'm calling dibs on the waterways."

Green laughed at the siblings' bickering, but his amusement was short lived.

He disarmed the shark general currently trying to dismember him and knocked the following two back, but was immediately swarmed by five others. It would have been relatively easy for him to take them out too, but he had to pull two of his classmates away from their jagged swords, which left him exposed to their attacks. He flinched when the blades cut through his gi and into his flesh, adding to his quickly growing collection of wounds.

"This is not good! We can't get the people out with all the soldiers targeting us, but we can't fight the soldiers with the people in the way!" Black's desperate voice carried over the comm.

Blue hissed as he watched White take a heavy blow to the face. He wanted to help, but they had to keep distracting Garmadon, otherwise with his new mech loose, the battle would really be lost.

As he turned them around and Cyan prepared for another shot, he scanned the battlefield.

Small groups of students, mostly led by the present adults, were fleeing the scene, but many were too panicked to think clearly. With the ninja all locked in combat, there was no one to direct the evacuation, so more often than not the remaining hostages were either hiding, or their escape was immediately stopped by the many soldiers who were not fighting his team.

Then he spotted something very out of place.

"Uh... guys? I think the lack of sleep is finally getting to me, because I see Master Wu floating down from the fire department building,"

The confusion that statement caused in their group was obvious even through the heated battle. But as they looked around, it became clear Blue was not imagining things.

There was in fact one Master Wu floating down from a very tall building.

The explanation came in the form of White, who was still locked in battle with the hammerhead shark mech, but somehow had no problem speaking calmly.

"That is not a hallucination. You are seeing the beginning of my evacuation plan. While getting my gear, I contacted Master Wu and asked him to help with the evacuation of the hostages. Unlike us, he is not the soldiers' main target, therefore he will be able to direct them to safety without as many interruptions. As long as we can keep Garmadon and his troops occupied, that is."

"And the floating?"

"I believe that is what you would call a 'ninja master thing'."

Not sure how to react, Green simply went with it. Any reinforcements of theirs were a good thing.

"New plan, everyone. Blue, Cyan, you two keep distracting Garmadon while the rest of us try to draw as many of them to one place as possible. We need to give Master Wu a better chance to evacuate everyone."

"I'm not sure we can handle that. You guys know I love a good fight, but with snakey and toothy over here, it's a bit too much even for me," came Red's slightly breathless answer.

He was the only one who got close enough to help White, and even with their combined powers, they had their hands full just keeping the hammerhead shark mech from crushing them.

"Red's right. With all those hostages everywhere, three of Garmadon's mechs and only one lightning jet, there's too much for us to handle, even with Master Wu's help. We can't take all of them on at once if we can't fight all out, and we already have our hands full with Garmadon as is," Cyan agreed as the lightning jet dodged a grab from the larger shark mech.

Green shoved a shark general in the way of an incoming shark and looked around the battlefield (or at least the small part he could see). Just like the others said, it looked grim.

Then he saw something charging at him, and a light bulb went off in his head.

"I've got an idea. I need you to buy me some time, keep holding them back!" he called into the comm before darting off.

"Like we have a choice," Black answered in a clearly irritated voice.

He alone was fighting against half a dozen shark and jellyfish generals, who barely gave him time to breathe, much less to properly use his power. Normally, that many enemies wouldn't a problem, he could take them down easy even without his powers. The real problem were the two new generals that replaced every single one he took down, and the ten or so cameramen that seemed to have no survival instincts and kept trying to film him from all directions, and constantly got in his way.

He finally managed to get away from them, and kept fighting, not even trying to pull his punches anymore. Eventually he lost himself in the endless circle, where the only difference between minutes was the increasing burn in his muscles.

Then he bumped into White and Red.

"Well hello, stranger. Fight here often?" the fire ninja joked, but his humor quickly disappeared when the ground shook for the umpteenth time that day.

When Black looked up and saw the mass of metal charging at him, he almost wished it was another collapsing building. Instead he was introduced to the madness that was fighting a giant, mechanic hammerhead shark.

At least the soldiers are no longer a problem. he thought dryly as he leapt out of the way of the twelfth charge attack directed at him, flinching when the sharp dorsal fin caught his side. Their enemies were about as eager to approach the charging machine as they were.

In the seven second (yes, he counted) it took for the mech to turn around and charge again, White managed to get a proper shot in and freeze its legs to the ground. That gave Black and Red enough time to finally use their abilities, and together they sent a wave of rock spikes coupled with fire crashing into the shark's side.

It barely made a dent.

If they could continuously attack the thing, they would eventually take it down, but there wasn't even time to try again since in the next second it ripped free of the ice and they had to dodge the next attack.

Black considered himself a fairly patient individual, but this was quickly getting on his nerves.

"If we don't take care of this guy soon-" he paused to dodge, "we'll need to fall back and regroup."

"The plating of this mech seems to be made from some sort of metal that can withstand elemental attacks. I doubt even the lightning jet would do much more than buy us time to escape," Zane said as he flipped over the mech, showering it with ice in the process.

"Then I hope Blue and Cyan are don-" a dodge, "done with Garmadon soon and figure out a plan, because-" a dodge, "I doubt we can survive much longer without their he-" another dodge, "FSM can I please finish a sentence?! Sis, get down here and help us!"

His answer was almost immediate.

"Doesn't this guy ever run out of his goddamn missiles?!" came Cyan's annoyed shout.

She and Blue had to switch to the defensive after Garmadon realised he had in fact equipped his mech with weapons. They were currently fleeing from the shark-shaped missiles that flooded the sky, and Cyan was not amused.

She and Black both got the idea at the same time.

"Black, you have to-"

"On it!"

The earth ninja dodged yet another charge, but instead of trying to get away from the mech and attack while it was turning as they did until then, he ran after it.

"Black, your course of action seems highly illogical, what exactly is your reason?"

"Following the plan," was his only response as he flipped over the mech's head and started waving his hands like crazy to get the pilot's attention.

"Black, it's great that you and Cyan learned telepathy, but could you please let the rest of us in on the plan?" Red shrieked as he ran after his teammate, against his better judgement.

"Just keep leading it this way. Trust me!"

Black bolted away as the mech eagerly charged after him. Above them, Blue and Cyan were practically dancing in the air, trying to avoid the missiles.

Not yet.

The mech missed him by mere inches and charged straight through the school's front entrance.

The lightning jet flew over it, leading a swarm of homing missiles behind it.

Not yet.

The mech didn't bother going through the hole it already created, instead it charged through the wall next to it in a burst of bricks.

Not yet...

It zeroed in on Red and even though he couldn't see him, he was pretty sure the pilot was smirking.

Garmadon's maniacal laughter filled the air as he watched the lightning jet flee from the growing swarm of missiles. He finally stopped sending out his seemingly endless supply, content with watching the chase.

Not. Yet.

The mech charged again and time slowed.

"NOW!"

"DIVE!" Cyan's shout carried over the comm in sync with his. Blue didn't think, he just did as she said and led the jet into a nosedive, and the missiles followed.

"Wait for it. Wait... Pull us up!" Cyan cried and he obliged. He yanked the steering upwards and the jet reluctantly followed his command. He felt it jerk as the tail grazed the ground, and for a second he expected all the alarms to go crazy, but by some stroke of luck, they shot away from the ground unharmed.

The rockets weren't so lucky.

The explosion behind them rocked the jet again, and White, Red, and Black had to shield their eyes and turn away from the blast. The battle paused as everyone watched the plume of smoke and fire rising up.

Blue on the other hand had his hands full with avoiding the fire and flying pieces of metal and dirt that the explosion hurled after them. Finally he managed to get them out of their range, with only a few small scratches on the jet's tail.

He and Cyan circled around, searching the ground below. Their friends seemed to be fine, having been far enough away from the blast. The smoke cleared, and the twisted remains of a now unidentifiable mech came into view. A blackened swordfish general slowly crawled out and was quickly carried away by two others.

Other than that, no one moved.

"...it worked? It worked!"

There was a bout of cheering over the comms as the ninja celebrated the mech's demise. Red, immediately forgetting the battle wasn't over, started his victory dance. He felt Black poking his back, probably to celebrate with him, so he turned around and - wait, when did Black join Garmadon's army?

The shark general snarled and shoved the spear he was holding in Red's face. Red fully intended to take it from him and shove it where the sun didn't shine, but he found his hands were being held behind his back.

He started struggling against his captor's hold, but other soldiers came to assist them, eventually tackling him to the ground. He could hear a commotion break out behind him, and echo over his comm, indicating that Black and White were probably in similar situations.

"Blue, get us down there!" Cyan commanded and readied the jet's cannons.

I'll teach them to tackle my brother.

"Hang on!" Blue said in a tense voice and led the jet into another nosedive.

He should have thought about it more, hesitated like he always did, but his teammates were in danger. He didn't have time to think. But maybe if he did, he would have realised they forgot.

The jet shook again as something collided with the hull, and all other sounds were drowned out by the beeping of alarms.

They forgot about Garmadon.

The jet started falling.

Chapter Text

It took the three ninja on the ground a few seconds to realise the explosion didn't come from any of the mechs around them, nor the mech they just downed. It took another few seconds for them to see the cobalt blue jet barrelling towards the ground.

They watched wordlessly as it passed over their heads, leaving behind a trail of smoke. A few parts fell away like tiny blue comets and spiraled to the ground around them. There was loud crash as the main body collided with the side of the school, and finally stopped, half buried in rubble.

"JAY!"

"NYA!"

Red didn't know where he got the strength, nor did he care. He flung off the soldiers holding him down and stood up to face them, eyes and hands blazing with fury.

Were his parents not enough? Now they had to take his sister too? Well he was going to show them how that loss felt. His ninja principles be damned, he won't stop until every last one of Garmadon's soldiers, including Garmadon himself, was nothing more than-

"If you're going to yell any louder than that, you might as well hand Garmadon our student IDs," a voice said over the comm.

Kai's flames sputtered out just as two of the pieces that fell off the jet crashed on top of the soldiers in front of him. Those pieces let off pained groans before shifting, revealing hands, legs, and masked faces.

Nya helped a dazed Jay to his feet, and looked at Kai with a wry smile her mask could only hide so much.

"So you do care after all."

Kai didn't answer, he just surged forward and pulled his sister in a hug, burring his face in her neck, ignoring the smell of burnt plastic and blood.

"Don't you dare do that again..."

She chuckled and patted his head, slumping a little as her injuries let themselves be known.

Cole and Zane rushed over to Jay who was patting parts of his body as if to make sure they were still attached.

"I... I'm alive? H-how did I... D-did w-we just..." he was muttering to himself.

Cole carefully laid a hand on his shoulder, worried that any harsh contact would cause another panic attack.

"Jay, you still in there?" he asked carefully.

The lightning ninja looked up at him, his eyes wide, but clear of the fog that clouded them whenever his anxiety threatened to take over.

"I... I think so. A-actually I... feel fine. Freaked out and banged up, but... fine."

Zane knelt down to them and, with the blue ninja's permission, gently squeezed his wrist. He pretended to check his pulse, but in reality he performed a full body scan to make sure he wasn't seriously injured from their fall.

"He is stable, only smaller cuts and a few bruises. There is no sign of an oncoming panic attack either," he reported once he finished.

Cole didn't inquire as to how Zane got all that from simply checking his pulse and nodded appreciatively. The boy obviously had his own secrets, and he wasn't going to pressure him to reveal them before he was ready. Right now he was just glad to know Jay was ok.

The lightning ninja just smiled at Zane appreciatively.

Then he froze.

"Uhh..."

He wordlessly pointed behind them.

Contrary to what movies made them believe, the soldiers didn't stand idly by during their reunion. They took the chance to completely box them in, blocking any possible way out or to their downed jet. The eel mech was towering over the crowd, curled around said jet, almost as if it was mocking them.

The ninja slowly moved closer together, standing back to back against a sea of hostile faces and sharp weapons.

That sea now parted for its overlord.

Garmadon was looking down at them from the head of his mech, a giant grin on his face.

"Well would you look at that? Five of the six great protectors of Ninjago city, trapped like mice. I admit you've been a bit more of a pain that I expected, but you end up like all the others that try to cross me. Guess that old fart Wu didn't teach you that well, huh? And where's your little green leader? Finally turned tail and ran? I always knew that one would be the first to snap."

The ninjas' faces hardened, and Cyan and Black had to hold Red back to stop him from attacking Garmadon head on.

"Don't you dare talk about him like that! He's worth ten times as much as your entire army!" the red ninja yelled, struggling against their hold.

Garmadon, seeing how riled up his enemies were getting, only smiled wider.

"Ah yes, how brave and noble you ninja are, protecting the innocent from big, bad Garmadon. I bet you think the world of your leader. He's probably coming to rescue you any minute now, huh?"

He turned away from them and called out to nowhere in particular.

"Come out, come out wherever you are, green ninja! Or else your little sidekicks are going to pay a nice long visit to my fired generals."

He paused to listen for an answer. The silence stretched and the ninja exchanged nervous looks.

"Huh, really thought that would make him show up. Guess he really did run away... Never mind! I'm bored now! You there," he pointed to the eel mech, "take these special guests back to the volcano. And take the scenic route, I want them to have front-row seats for my conquest of Ninjago."

Said mech slithered forward, enveloping itself around the ninja. Slowly, it lowered its head towards Red.

"Oh come on, of all the ways to go, did it really have to be a giant mechanical eel?" the red ninja lamented, backing away from the mech's head, until his back hit the black metal of its tail (body?).

But just as the iron teeth were about to grab his hood, the mech stopped.

"You know what? I've changed my mind. Being in this army sucks," a very familiar voice echoed across the comms.

"Green?" the five ninja exclaimed in surprise.

"Hey, guys. Missed me? You know for how horrible Garmadon is, his mechs aren't that bad."

They all looked up to the head of the mech. With enough squinting, they could just about make out a green figure waving at them through the cockpit's tinted canopy.

The ninja all laughed in relief. Their leader was ok.

"What took you so long?! We thought something happened to you," Cyan exclaimed, wiping away tears of relief.

"Hey, it took time to learn how to control this thing, you know. But now..."

Green tilted the steering, which was basically just a fancy joystick, and the mech shot forward, knocking rows of soldiers down on its way to Garmadon. The warlord barely had time to register the unexpected betrayal, before his mech was also knocked off its feet.

"Consider this my resignation letter," Green said, this time through the mech's own comms, straight to Garmadon.

"Well would you look at that? The green ninja. We were just talking about you. You know, I was offering your friends a very interesting vacation via volcano, and there's still a space open," Garmadon laughed nervously, sweating tiny beads of lava as the eel mech towered over him. He was desperately pushing any button that he could reach for, but Green had him completely pinned down.

"You're going down for this, Garmadon!" the ninja bit back with a sneer.

"Yes, I suppose you could take me down... Oooor you could go help your pathetic ninjnerd friends," Garmadon said, an evil smirk once again on his face, albeit a bit strained.

Green spun around to see his team once again struggling against waves of enemies, that were trying to stop them from getting to the downed lightning jet.

He only hesitated for a second.

Letting out a frustrated growl, he rushed the mech over to his team, but not before he let all the eel's remaining missiles loose at Garmadon. He didn't turn back to see how many hit their mark.

---

The ninja were quickly running out of whatever energy they managed to keep from the previous fight. Even Zane, who didn't really know what exhaustion felt like until that day, was running on the last remains of his backup power. They weren't just fighting for their lives anymore, they were fighting just to keep their eyes open.

At least with the two giant mechs gone, they actually stood some semblance of a fighting chance, needless to say Garmadon's generals weren't teeming with energy either. But as they were ever so slowly making their way towards the hopefully still salvageable lightning jet, it became clear that there is only so long a ninja can keep going. With how exhausted they were, they were starting to gain a pretty wide array of various wounds, and Blue and Cyan were by now more baggage than fighters. Their senses were wavering, and it made sneaking up on them ridiculously easy.

Cyan was pretty sure she slightly dozed off while running, when she was snapped to attention by the war cry of an octopus general, who jumped on her back with a sword in each hand.

"Ha! I've got you now, you-" he was cut off when a black-tinged aircraft canopy slammed into him and sent him flying over the school building.

"Seriously, how could anyone hope to see in that?" Green, who had just kicked the canopy off the eel mech's cockpit, pondered out loud, "Guess that's why it was so easy to sneak up on the pilot."

He smiled down on his teammates, "Need a ride?"

The five were already halfway on his mech.

Red squeezed himself next to Green, ignoring the fact the now open-air seat was fully intended for only one pilot.

"To the lightning jet, if you would be so kind," he winked at the younger ninja.

Green chuckled and directed his mech towards the downed jet. The soldiers in his way jumped aside, deciding rather to face Garmadon's wrath that get crushed.

Cyan sighed in relief and promptly hissed in pain, as she nestled herself between two segments of the mech's body and allowed her sore muscles to finally relax.

"That was some move, Green, hijacking Garmadon's own mech. Without this, I think the fight would be going a lot differently right now."

"Hey, we're still in training. I bet once we master our elements, we won't even need weapons to stop Garmadon's attacks. But for now, I think I'm gonna keep this. First Master knows Garmadon owes me a lot of birthday presents," Green said, patting the side of the mech affectionately.

"Yeeaah, but an eel isn't really your style, and the color pallet is just awful. I'm thinking something more imposing, like a giant snake or, oh! What about a dragon?"

"As long as it's green, can fly, and has missiles pretty much everywhere, I'm down," Green laughed, meaning it more as a joke. Later, when he saw the excited look in Cyan's eyes as she measured various parts of the mech, he realised just how big of a mistake he had made.

"Hang on, if Green's getting a mech, I want one too," Red protested, the other three ninjas voicing their agreement in various ways.

By then, they reached the downed jet, and Green carefully lowered his friends next to it. Some of the generals tried to approach them, but one look from Green and a threatening shift of his mech was enough to turn them back.

"I do not believe this craft will be able to fly," White said after a quick scan of the wreck.

"Think you two can fix it?" Black asked Blue and Cyan, who were checking the jet's systems, while leaning on each other for support.

"Not here, that's for sure. But if we get it back to the warehouse, we'll have it back in the air in no time."

They were interrupted by loud coughing and the sound of shifting metal. They jumped back to attention when they saw Garmadon struggling to lift up his heavily damaged mech from the small crater left by Green's rockets.

Despite the wrecked state of his strongest weapon, he was laughing.

"Nice trick, green ninja, but you forgot one tiny detail. The hostages are still mine, and I'm going to do very evil things if you-"

"You mean those hostages?" Green asked in a dry tone, pointing to an alley far behind him. There they spotted the last few escaping students before they too vanished out of sight. All except one, who, upon closer inspection, was most definitely not a student.

Master Wu turned to give them a bow before disappearing into thin air.

"What the- Wu?! But when did he... No fair! That stinky butt is retired, he's not allowed to help anymore!" Garmadon whined while stomping his feet.

"Oh beat it, Garmadon, this isn't a game. And it's not like you play fair either. Get it through your thick skull already that we will never let you claim Ninjago. Just admit you lost and get out of our city."

The two traded glares for a few seconds, before Garmadon finally relented.

"Fine, you win this time, green ninja. But I'll be back with more troops, more weapons, and bigger mechs, and one day... I will rule over Ninjago. FOREVER!"

Maniacal laughter carried through the streets as Garmadon and the remains of his mech were flown away and towards the volcano. The decimated remains of his army followed, dragging behind them their downed companions and destroyed mechs. The ninja watched them leave, and the moment the last of them disappeared from view, they all slumped down with tired groans.

The people started slowly filtering out onto the streets, checking whether the attack was truly over. Then came the cheering, but Lloyd could barely hear it. He just stared at the sky, trying to figure out why it seemed so red.

"Guys... did we seriously just win that?" came Nya's tired voice over the comm.

"I... think so? But like 90% of the time I was sure we were goners," answered Jay's surprisingly calm voice.

There was a loud rumbling next to Lloyd's ear and a snort from Cole.

"Looks like fire boy had too much excitement. He's out like a light."

Zane pointed towards the sky, "Perhaps the rest of us should follow his example. It is nearing time when it is recommended for a growing human to go to sleep, and our injuries will require rest to heal properly."

Lloyd squinted at the sun, only now realising that the red he was observing was actually from the fast approaching night. They must have been running and fighting in various ways the entire day. His body seemed to also realise this and loudly reminded him of every single mistake he made throughout the day.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm about ready to go to sleep for the next two months," he said, eliciting four agreeing groans.

"And you've earned it," their comms declared, "I will take care of the cleanup and get your new toys home. You six hurry up and get to bed, we're restarting training tomorrow. No excuses,"

The comm fell silent, leaving the six ninja in sleepy silence.

They didn't question how long Master Wu had been in their comm channel, nor how he got there in the first place. All they wanted to know at the moment was the fastest route to their beds.

Lloyd could hear the crowds of civilians getting closer, so he slowly picked himself up and shook Kai awake. After saying goodbyes to his teammates, he exchanged a few words with the police officers present and waved at the cameras, but didn't approach the reporters.

Simon, the officer from that morning (which felt like an eternity ago), who was apparently among the hostages earlier, also found him and was now on the verge of tears to see them alive. Lloyd made up some hurried excuse for their long absence and let him handle the press, while he quickly vanished after his teammates.

He jumped across the roofs towards his home, trying to be mindful of his injuries. The city around him started to light up, the ambience almost lulling him to sleep.

At some point, he must have changed out of his gi into the torn clothes he wore earlier, but he didn't remember when. What he did suddenly remember was that he never brought up his idea of a secret exit from the school with Nya. He had to laugh on the randomness of his mind.

He opened his door and was immediately tackled by a sobbing red blur. He heard something about worry and phone calls, and also briefly his own voice reassuring the blur. He was pretty sure he passed out after that, only waking up briefly as the red blur tucked him in.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Lloyd woke up thinking it must have all been just a wild dream. Or at least he did before he tried to get up and his body started hurting in places he didn't even know could hurt.

After contemplating genuinely staying in bed for the next two months, like he told his teammates, he convinced himself to actually start his morning early, despite there being no Garmadon attack.

His mother was still asleep, which didn't surprise him considering she must have been awake just as long as him, if not longer, while waiting for him. He left her a note, saying he had just gone out to run a quick errand, in case she woke up and started looking for him. He wanted to stop at the warehouse to see whether the eel mech from yesterday's fight was actually there. 

He didn't really want to admit it, but that wasn't the only reason either. He had to know whether everything that happened between him and his teammates was actually real, or just a figment of his dreams.

But sure enough, when he opened the door, mask firmly strapped over his face, he found much more than just a mech. All five of his teammates were spread out around the room, either working on the modifications to his own mech, or on the metal skeleton of something that looked like a pilot cabin with four long legs. None of them were wearing their masks.

"Lloyd!" Nya waved from the head of his new mech, which right now looked like some bizarre tadpole shedding its skin to uncover the green scales beneath. Scattered around were missiles. Lots and lost of missiles.

"Come on, take that hood off, and get over here and help us. This is your mech, you know."

"She does realise that we are working on her mech over here, right?" Cole stage whispered, earning himself a pointed glare from the water ninja. He was working on one of the giant leg's joints and gave Lloyd a friendly wink as he passed him. Jay, who was working close to Cole, waved absently at Lloyd, barely looking up from his work.

Zane was busying himself in the small kitchen in the living corner of the warehouse. Lloyd called out a greeting to him, which the boy returned while asking him what kind of refreshment he'd like. He seemed to be multitasking, with one of the kitchen counters dedicated to making drinks, and the other to his construction of a rather large ice canon.

Now an iced tea richer, Lloyd joined Nya on top of his mech and started removing the black plating. When she showed him the plans, he was pretty sure so many missiles in one mech weren't physically possible, but he loved it nonetheless.

They kept working until the sun fully rose and the warehouse door burst open, and in charged a mass of red and gold metal. Before any of them could even think about grabbing their weapons, Kai was jumping from somewhere in the middle of the mass, his gi was smeared with ash and soot and burned on ends, but the boy himself couldn't look happier as he threw back his hood and waved at them excitedly.

"Guys! Guys! Look! I found the base for my new mech!"

The other ninja stared at him.

"Kai... could you kindly explain where you found a giant robot?" Jay asked in a small voice.

"Oh, I snuck into Garmadon's lair last night and found some prototypes he never used in his raids," Kai waved dismissively, ignoring the horrified looks on their faces, "Can you believe he threw this one out because it was too red?! Now enough chatter. I want giant flamethrowers and I want them now."

Nya sighed and shook her head as Kai started digging through the piles of spare parts that were scattered around the warehouse. Still, there was a fond smile on her lips when she went to help him.

Their work resumed, enriched with Kai's occasional happy shouts whenever he found a part he needed for his flamethrowers, and the more frequent explosion when he tried to use the wrong one.

"Hello, students!"

The ninja jumped back, looking around wildly, At their questioning looks, Jay shook his head. His phone was set on silent.

Master Wu rolled his eyes.

"We'll need to increase your awareness training."

All of a sudden, he was sitting on the couch, drinking one of the iced teas Zane prepared. The ninja quickly dropped their work and converged around the old master, already used to his appearances.

"Good job on yesterday's mission. I must admit you've exceeded my expectations," Wu said calmly, taking a sip of his tea.

"We couldn't have done it without you, Master. If you hadn't gotten those hostages out of the way, we probably would have had to surrender," Lloyd remarked, and the other ninja nodded vigorously.

Master Wu hummed and took another sip, hiding his pleased smile behind the cup. It felt good to be back in action, even if only for a little while.

Then he turned serious again.

"It's good to see you're all handling the reveal well. I admit I was slightly worried how you'd all react to finding out the green ninja's identity."

The five other ninja shared a knowing look.

"Well it was a bit of a shock to be honest, so we may have reacted a bit harshly at first," Cole said, looking slightly apologetic "But we already knew Lloyd was a good kid, so after the initial surprise wore off, we immediately ran to find him. Of course by then he'd already got himself into life threatening danger."

Lloyd puffed out his cheeks.

"Well it wasn't my fault the school was collapsing," he pouted.

"True, yet you refused to look upwards and acknowledge the concrete ceiling that was about to crush you," Zane remarked cheerfully.

Wu watched the bickering teens with sparkling eyes.

"Then I can count on you to keep an eye on my nephew?"

The five exchanged another look, this time of determination.

"Don't worry, Master. Unless Lloyd summons some giant cat demon onto the city, we're always going to protect him," Kai joked, ruffling the green ninja's hair.

"The possibility of that is higher than you might think," Zane noted, but no one heard him.

"It's a good thing the school allowed you the day off, before starting your online learning while your school is being rebuilt," Wu muttered, eyeing the clock.

The ninja froze as their eyes also settled on the clock.

"How is it eight already?!" Jay shrieked, setting of a commotion of confused yelling and a desperate search for their bags and clothes. One by one the ninja bolted out of the warehouse, shouting hurried goodbyes towards their Master.

Wu watched them go with a fond smile before moving the clock back to the correct time.

"Have a good day, students," he hummed before going to check out the progress they'd made on their mechs.

It took nearly six months before the students of Ninjago High could physically come to school, and summer was almost upon them. By then most of the damage done in the battle with Garmadon had been fixed, although a lab in the back of the school was still barred off from the student body. There were rumours it had allegedly been set on fire and exploded multiple times, while also bearing signs of being briefly filled with ice.

The ninja took the somewhat free time during the repairs to get better acquainted with the concept of being a team without masks.

Kai and Nya didn't seem to have any problems adapting, and while Cole was a bit closed off at first, it didn't take long for him to accept his other four teammates into his family. Jay and Zane took a bit longer to adjust, but even they were quickly pulled in by the Smith siblings' warmth and love.

Lloyd unsurprisingly took the longest. He was struggling with the bare concept of having people accept him as Lloyd Garmadon, much less with actually having friends as someone else than Green. It took a while for him just to stop flinching when they ran towards him or moved too abruptly. Luckily, the other ninja were willing to give him as much time and support as he needed.

He could see the pain and hate in their faces when he eventually shared some of what had been happening to him over the years, and what led to him being this way. That compassion helped him slowly open up more, and just like they promised, his friends were there for him every step of the way.

Lloyd found his once dark and lonely world was suddenly filled with light and love.

The ninja force started spending more and more time in the warehouse, training and working on their mechs, and eventually they even set up a computer rig and wifi, so they could take their online classes there.

It went so far that Koko jokingly told Lloyd that if he was going to spend every waking minute with his friends, he should start sleeping over too. He was pretty sure she at least partially regretted saying it when they actually started having occasional sleepovers in the warehouse.

Even Garmadon had to take some time to salvage his forces, so it had been relatively peaceful. There had been an attack some four months after the reveal, but it was small and quickly dealt with, and merely provided the ninja with an opportunity to test out their new mechs. Needless to say, the city adored it. Garmadon less so.

Days flew by and Lloyd was once again standing in front of the building he'd nearly died in.

He'd almost forgotten what it felt like when he got off the bus and everything stopped. He'd almost forgotten the searing feeling in his stomach those looks gave him.

He looked pointedly to the brand new pathway and quickly made his way towards the door.

His friends however, were having none of it.

He didn't even notice when they moved in to shield him from the hateful glares, they were just suddenly there, greeting him and asking about his weekend, as if they hadn't seen each other just a few hours before. They ignored the surprised looks, the whispers branding them as new traitors to the city, and just continued chatting and goofing around as if they were in their warehouse.

And Lloyd was suddenly in the middle of the conversation, laughing and joking along with them. And somehow, he no longer felt the stares, no longer heard the whispers.

"Hey, everyone, look! Garmadork has a new dork squad."

Ok, that he heard.

He turned with a sigh to look at Chen and his cheering squad, snickering at what their leader just said. The boy's smirk faltered a bit when Lloyd's five companions fixed him with cold stares.

"What do you want, Chen?" Lloyd asked, his voice a mix of disinterest and annoyance. He didn't even remember when he stopped being afraid of Chen.

Chen, momentarily stunned by Lloyd's sudden confidence, hurried to regain his posture.

"O-oh, I want a lot of things. But for starters, you could get out of our city. There's no place here for people like you," he sneered.

"Oh yeah? People like who?" Cole asked coolly as he once again placed himself between the two groups, hands crossed on his chest. Kai and Nya joined him from both sides, the former cracking his knuckles. Jay and Zane gravitated towards Lloyd, eyeing the students surrounding them suspiciously.

Chen expected the new 'dork squad' to try protecting the hated son of Garmadon, but he definitely didn't expect them to be this devoted. But he sure as hell wouldn't be the one walking away defeated again.

"Like you don't know, music boy. He's a monster! Who knows when he's going to turn on us and join his father. He shouldn't even be allowed to go to school with normal people like-"

*Crash!*

Without any warning, a fist collided with the boy's face, sending him skidding across the dirt. All eyes turned from the boy, groaning weekly on the ground, to the furious looking Kai, who was standing over him, chest heaving, fist still raised.

"Say that again, I dare you!" he hissed through clenched teeth.

Stunned silence filled the hallway as Chen groaned and sat up, his hand flying up to his bruised nose. It came away bloody.

"Y-you hit me? You dare to hit me?!"

"Oh I dare. And I'm going to do it again if you say another word about Lloyd," Kai seethed, taking a step forward.

Lloyd, sensing an impending disaster, quickly pushed past Cole and Nya to stop Kai from advancing further.

"Re-Kai, don't do it, it's not worth it. Remember, we have to protect the weak not beat them senseless."

Chen stopped cowering and just stared for a few seconds.

"Did... did you just call me weak?"

Lloyd looked down with an expression of pity and disgust.

"I was merely reminding Kai of his principles. Unlike you, we're not bullies who pick on weaker students. Now if you'll excuse us, we have more important things to do."

And for the first time since middle school, Lloyd was the one to walk away, leaving a stunned Chen behind him. The other five ninja watched him with various expression.

Nya was the first to move.

"Well what do you know," she muttered with a smile and went after Lloyd. Cole wordlessly followed her with Jay close behind.

Kai started to leave too, but then turned around, fixed Chen with a glare, and pointed to his eyes and then to him, mouthing I'm watching you. Then he followed his teammates.

Just as Chen released the breath he was holding, he was met with a pair of glowing blue eyes, way too close to his own.

"Hello, fellow teenager. I am but a normal student, however I must warn you, should you cause any trouble for my friends, I will make your life a living hell," the strange white-haired teen announced with an almost maniacal smile.

"Now then, have a good day," he waved before speeding after the others. Chen could have sworn he wasn't moving his legs.

The ninja regrouped in their shared class. Due to the shortage of teachers after the mass quitting that followed the attack six months ago, many of their classes had newly been merged into one.

Lloyd was ready to put the event with Chen behind him, but his friends had other ideas.

"Lloyd, you did it! You just totally stood up to Chen!" Kai squealed and all but crushed Lloyd in a hug.

"Our Greenbean is finally sprouting some thorns," Nya said proudly as the rest of the team crowded around Lloyd's desk.

"That Chen guy though, he really makes me want to punch stuff," Cole growled in a rare show of anger. Kai, Nya, and Jay nodded, while Zane just continued smiling innocently.

The class began and the five ninja took their seats surrounding Lloyd. A few minutes in and Lloyd was pretty sure none of them were listening to the lecture. His leg felt like it was vibrating on its own from all the messages that were arriving on their group chat.

Later, when he read through them basically plotting mass murder, he felt like everything was how it was supposed to be. He never would have guessed a single Garmadon attack could have changed things for the better.

And sure, the city still hated Lloyd Garmadon's guts, but he didn't mind it nearly as much as before.  No longer did he only have companions as Green, now his friends were with him pretty much everywhere. They walked him home, always found him during lunch and recess, one or more were even in most of his classes. Things were perfect.

As he opened his eyes to the ringing of his phone on the morning of his sixteenth birthday, his only wish was for things to stay like that.

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