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01 – Shintaro
Lloyd was talking to Wu. His uncle has been acting weird lately. He wants to figure out how. As Lloyd was talking with Wu, Garmadon walked in.
“I’ve noticed it too, brother.”
“Garmadon?”
“Dad!”
“You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“Perhaps I’m… how should I put it? Feeling my age, a little bit.”
“Your age? But, uncle, that’s ridiculous! Dad’s older than you and he’s fine!”
The brothers looked at the blonde with matching unimpressed expressions on their faces.
Lloyd proceeds to give his uncle a pep talk, trying his best to cheer him up.
Outside the ninja, and Morro, were looking at an invitation. They had been invated to the ivory city Shintaro! Well, Morro wasn’t but he’d join them anyway. It’s not like they could stop him if they tried.
This was a great opportunity to get Wu out of this low too! If they could get him to join. Luckily Garmadon was truly done with his brothers’ antics.
“WU! I’ve had enough of you moping around! You are going to join them!”
“I can’t go charging off to far flung places! Adventures and legendary kingdoms are for the young, You of all people should understand that.”
Garmadon glares at his brother, he knew he was old, but at least he wasn’t in a funk like Wu.
“Why should I?”
“Uh… What I meant to say was… um”
“You are going to Shintaro and you are going to enjoy it! Did I make myself clear?”
“But… But… I- The chicken need-“
“Brother.”
The brothers seemed to have a silent argument after that. After a few minutes, Garmadon smiled a little and turned to Lloyd.
“He’s in.”, he said while ruffling his son’s hair, “Enjoy your trip, son.”
“YES! Thanks, dad!”
Neither noticed Wu mumbling to himself.
“He’s more similar to father then I ever imagined…”
02 – Into the Dark
Shintaro was a truly beautiful city. Inside the throne room, they were greeted by the King. He seemed nice enough. Though Morro had to admit, something was off about him, something in his posture was telling Morro that he wasn’t all that happy to have them here. Hopefully that was just his paranoia.
For some odd reason though, Lloyd seemed to be suspicions of Vania. Morro wasn’t exactly sure why, she seemed like a nice kid to him. Could it be that Lloyd had something against princesses because of this Harumi girl? Morro never really wrapped his head around the situation regarding the Sons of Garmadon, it sounded like a fever dream to him.
In the middle of the night, Cole called all of them to a meeting.
Apparently Cole saw a purple creature in his room, and it had his mother’s necklace. Cole looked deflated because the others didn’t believe him, aside from Morro that it. Morro put a comforting hand on Cole’s shoulder and said: “I believe you.”
Cole smiled, at least Morro believed him.
As they walked back to Cole’s room, they noticed someone following them, both believed it was the purple guy. It wasn’t, it was the princess.
She believed Cole too; she had an idea where they could find answers. She led them to the gardens to a closed of gate.
All three of them went in.
As they explored the tunnels, Vania told them legends and stories about the mines beneath Shintaro, she sounded more excited about this then any child should. It was almost as if she was shut out from everyone and everything, never knowing much outside the castle walls.
Looks like the mines weren’t just stories. There were very real and very active mines within the mountain. There were many of those purple people as well as many green people and some weird looking rhinos. They seemed to be mining something. It looked awfully familiar to Morro; he had defiantly seen it before.
Cole told Vania to get out and tell the others, Morro and him could take care of this, for now at least.
It didn’t work out too well, their powers didn’t respond and the skeletons outnumbered them by a long shot. At least Morro got a closer look at the material that they were mining.
“Great, were surrounded by Vengestone!”, he mumbled as he fought of skeletons.
It didn’t take long for both elemental masters to be bested by the skeletons.
03 – The Worst Rescue Ever
Within the mines Morro and Cole were, much like everyone else, put to work, mining the very stone that cancels out their powers, Vengestone. They were in such a sticky situation and yet, it didn’t stop Cole from flirting with his boyfriend.
“Are you a magician? Because whenever I look at you, everyone else disappears.”
Morro loved those dumb pick-up lines, but now really wasn’t the time.
“You know what you would really look beautiful in? My arms.“
„Cole. Please, now is not the time.”
“Aww, but you love my pick-up lines.”
“I do, but now is really not the time. We should figure out how to get out of here. We can flirt once we’re free.”
Cole pounded a little, but he would be able to work with it. They really had to get out, after all.
Seems like the ninja were less capable than one would imagine, this was the worst rescue mission anyone had ever seen. Every mission Morro attends with them makes him wonder how they managed to beat him. Then again, they won because Nya unlocked her true potential, but even without her they seemed a lot more capable than they do now.
07 – The Skull Sorcerer
A massive spider was attacking Cole, it wanted to eat him, luckily Vania showed up just in time to help him. As the spider was edging closer to them a strong gust of wind, knocking the spider away, causing it to run off.
Cole knew that wind.
“Morro!”
“Missed me?”
Vania and Morro moved to get Cole out of the spiderweb.
Vania looked at the two men in front of her.
When they reached the surface again they ran into Wu and immediately made their way to the throne room. They had to warn King Vangelis.
Turns out the king was the Skull Sorcerer and he botted Wu, Cole and Morro down the mountain and Vania followed them, hoping she could help them.
08 – The Real Fall
As they were falling further and further down the mountain, Morro tried to use his powers to, at the very least, slow down their descent. It didn’t work his powers weren’t strong enough to slow them down.
Vania tried to help them too, but soon she was falling along with them.
The landed, on a giant spider web. They were stuck. Morro wasn’t quite sure what was worse, the falling or being stuck in a spider web. At least Vania seemed a little more optimistic them the master of wind.
“I read in a book by the highly acclaimed adventurer and explorer Clutch Powers-“
She was cut off my Morro.
“No! Don’t listen to anything that utter buffoon writes, kid.”
Then the spiders decided it was a good time to come out, they wanted to eat Cole, enclosing him in a cocoon of web.
Morro wanted to use his powers to get them out but if he did that he could possibly destroy the web underneath them. He really hoped they could avoid that and get Cole out of there.
They got Cole out, but now the spiders were surrounding them. Cole grabbed the spear from Wu’s hands and cut the web, they were falling again.
“And here I was, trying to avoid that.”, said Morro.
They fell into a pool of water. The water was drawing them closer to the center, it would eventually pull them under. Luckily, Cole managed to pluck the hole and stop the water from pulling them down.
They pulled themselves up onto the rock, exhausted. Morro leaned closer to Cole and kissed his cheek.
“Good job.”
The relieve didn’t last long, the rock burst and they were pulled underwater again, eventually dropping into another pool of water.
Cole was the only one conscious, he pulled the other three out of the water.
12 – Masters Never Quit
They found a temple, apparently it was a temple of the masters of earth. Inside they saw statues of different people, one of them being Lilly, Cole’s mother. She was the hero that the Munce and Geckles had talked about. She had saved them from the Grief Bringer.
As Cole was trying to do the Spinjitzu Burst, Morro excused himself.
He kneeled down in front of Lilly’s statue. He wanted to light a candle for her but he didn’t have one with him. Instead, Morro pulled out a fabric tissue.
Morro folded an origami flower. Normally he would leave actual flowers, but he can’t really get them here, so this will have to do. Once he finished he placed the flower on top of the statue. Morro looked up at the statue again and whispered: “I wish we could have met. I promise to look after your son now.”
Cole was getting fed up. He couldn’t do it. He wasn’t his mother. He can’t do the Burst. He stomped out of the temple. Why do things have to be this complicated?!
Morro followed Cole; Morro saw Cole sitting on the steps. He sat down next to him and pulled him into a hug. Cole didn’t need his words of comfort right now, he needed those of their Sensei. If only Wu would get out of his funk.
Luckily enough, Wu had seemed to come back to his senses and he was back to being their Sensei, the one they needed now.
“Welcome back, Sensei.”
14 – The Ascent
Cole had a plan, an insane one but a plan. Nonetheless, Morro was in. It’s the best shot they’ve got anyway.
Before they started going up the tracks again, Cole and Vania talked. She was worried about confronting her father. She knew they had too, but she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She doesn’t know if she can do it.
“Yeah, but you’re not alone. You have us! And I’m sure Morro will get a kick out of punching him.”
Vania chuckled. She had only spent a short amount of time with them but she grew to admire both Cole and Morro greatly. If one good thing came out of this mess, it was meeting them.
They managed to get past the lava monster, and destroy it, as well as more Dire Bats. The mech and the cart burst through the ground, they were out.
Cole and Vania stumbled out of the mech.
“Cole! Kid!”
The two turned to see Morro. Before they could even say anything Morro pulled them both into a hug. He was relieved they had gotten out. Cole was quick to return the hug. Vania was more hesitant. She had an oddly familiar feeling in her chest; she didn’t know what it was but it was a nice feeling. She felt safe in a way she hasn’t felt since her mother left. She wanted to stay like this, hugging both Morro and Cole. But they couldn’t the needed to head to the throne room.
15 – The Upply Strike Back
In the throne room
Morro stayed behind with Wu and Vania.
After Vania had managed to convince the guards of the truth, she let out a sigh of relieve. They didn’t have to fight her people.
Morro stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Good job, kid.”
Before Vania could say anything Hailmar shot Morro a glare.
“Show some respect. That is the princess!”
“I can do what I want. She doesn’t seem to mind. If she wanted me to stop, she would have said something already.”
“She is still the princess. You should respect her!”
Morro was about to argue back when Vania said: “It’s fine Hailmar. I don’t mind.”
“Of course, your highness.”
Vania told the guards to get everything ready to go into the mines. They had a few minutes to catch a breath.
“Are you really fine with this?”
Vania turned to Morro.
“Yes, it’s nice that someone doesn’t treat me differently because I’m the princess.”
“Do people really do that?”
“Sadly yes.”
“If you ever need a change of pace, you can crash with us. Cole and I will show you Ninjago. Everything you want to see.”
“Really! That would be amazing!”
“Of course.”
Just as Vania wanted to ask about everything they could do, Hailmar came back. It was time to head out, time to face her father.
Morro got her attention one more time before hoping onto Chompy.
“Vania, I’m proud of you.”
That gave Vania the boost in confidence she needed. She always wanted to make her father proud, but hearing it from Morro felt so much more rewarding than anything her father ever said to her.
16 – The Son of Lilly
They flew in on top of Chompy. Wu stayed on the dragon while Morro jumped down to help the ninja.
Cole did it! He did the Burst!
“The Burst! He did it!”, Morro said.
He fought his way through the skeletons to get closer to Cole when he was suddenly picked up, Vania. She knew he wanted to get to Cole and decided to help the master of wind a little. When she dropped him Cole stumbled a little and Morro caught him before he would hit the ground.
“You are amazing.”, Morro said while smiling at Cole.
Cole was exhausted but happy.
Vanias birthday also turned into to her coronation. She was standing in her full royal regalia. She looked beautiful and something in Cole and Morro was so incredibly proud of her. They wanted to run up the her and hug her.
They had to say their goodbyes now. Cole and Morro stood next to the unlikely friends they made, the Upply. Maybe they would met again soon, hopefully under better circumstances.
Before they boarded the Bounty, they turned to Vania. She stood there, still in her royal attire, looking nervous.
She didn’t want Cole and Morro to leave. She wanted them to stay, but she knew they couldn’t. The couple reassured her, they would met again soon. When this time comes they would show Vania everything she wanted to see in Ninjago, from all the little things to all the big attractions she always dreamed about and Vania couldn’t wait to see everything.
“Happy Birthday, kid.”
“Happy Birthday, Vania.”
“Thank you, for everything.”
Vania pulled both men into a hug, they quickly returned the hug. They would miss her. She was a joy have around.
As they boarded the Bounty, Morro had a small realization.
“Did we- Did we just adopt a Queen?”
“I think we did.”
“How do we explain that to your dad?”
“No idea.”
Looks like they unintentionally became parents, not that they wanted to change that. Vania was a good kid; she was their kid.
Vania watched the ninja leave. She was already looking forward to seeing them again, especially Cole and Morro.
She would prepare a room, especially for them, if they ever decide to visit. Maybe one day, when they want to settle down, they would come live here. Then they could be like a family.
Wait- Did Vania view them as parental figures? She did, didn’t she?
Looks like she lost one father but gained to new dads instead. Two people that truly cared about her and wanted her to be happy, not locked up and safe.
Them being really cool too, was just a nice bonus.