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When Lloyd saw the green ship, he froze. He knew that ship, and it shouldn’t be here. He ran over to the rest of the gems. “Is it just me, or is there a giant green hand shaped ship on the horizon?” Lloyd said nervously, just praying to all the gods that he was hallucinating. Nya said “Nope, it isn’t just you. I wonder why it's coming towards us?” Kai was the only other person who recognized the ship.
“GUYS, that isn’t just a ship. It’s Morro’s ship” Kai yelled. He looks just as panicked as Lloyd is. After all, they both were hurt under Morro, though Kai had only faced him once. As soon as Lloyd heard the name Morro, he began to panic. ‘How did he find me? Oh god, what is he going to do if he finds me? Or when he finds out who I've been with!’ He thought in his head as he panicked.
He calls out to his teammates, desperate to tell them to evacuate. ”Guys! We have to evacuate!”
“Why? I’m sure we can handle it!” Jay asks.
“Yeah! We're the crystal Ninja! Surely it’s not that bad!” Cole agrees
Nya chimes in “ No, he’s right, we should evacuate” The lapis points at the ship “ Morro is known as the diamond commander for a reason. He’s never been defeated in battle before, even by the previous forces of the Crystal gems. We need to leave immediately”
They all prepared to evacuate, but they were too late, as the ship got closer and closer until it landed on the starlit beach. The entire beach was soon bathed with a green and sickly light, and the ship opened up. The people who walked out were the ones who scared Lloyd the most. There was a peridot, a lapis, and last of all Morro himself.
“Well, what do we have here? A sapphire, ruby, lapis, 2 opals, and is that a quartz? How interesting.” Morro squinted, as if trying to find someone in a crowd. Then he sees him. “ Lapis, Peridot, grab the green one.”
Lloyd tries to run, he really does. He tries to fly away but Lapis grabs him and drags him back to Morro.
“NO, let me GO!” Lloyd yelled, panicked “ No, please, PLEASE.”
He thinks to himself ‘ I should have hidden the other gems, at least they’d be safe.’ Even through all the begging and pleading, Lapis didn’t budge an inch, keeping a firm hold on his shoulder. He was dragged up to Morro and forced him to kneel. “Well-well-well my sweet. ‘Suppose you didn’t forsea seeing me again” Morro smiled menacingly “ and this is where you’ve been. This … ramshackle dirty planet” . He chuckled “I’m so glad I found you. Who knows how much lower you would have sunk.”
Morro proceeded to look towards the other gems, seemingly pacified by the presence of Lloyd, “My name is Morro, might I ask how you found my possession?”
“He’s NOT A POSSESSION YOU BASTARD!!!” Kai yells, as the rest of the ninja chime in with agreements. “Either way we wouldn’t tell you how we found him, after all, it’s none of your business!”
“But it is my business, everything to do with my dear old emerald here is my business.” As Morro said this his eyes widened, as he looked towards Kai, as if recognizing him. Kai flinched minutely and straightened himself up. The ninja pulled out their main weapons and prepared to attack Morro and rescue Lloyd. Morro proceeded to signal Peridot to put a piece of cloth over Lloyds mouth. Lloyd tried to hold his breath for as long as he could, but was kicked in the stomach and forced to breath in a lot. He collapsed and Morro said “ Lapis, transfer Emerald to his old room, and don’t forget to return the collar.”
Lapis picked Lloyd up, then boarded the ship and Morro turned his attention back to the ninja. “ I’ve got to go, but it was lovely of you all to return Emerald to me, I do hope I can see you again” But as he turned to walk up the gangplank, the ninja attacked. Zane shot ice towards Peridot while Kai shot flames toward Morro. Morro turned around and manifested his famous weapon; the bladed whip. As the ninja charged, Morro spun his whip around, using his wind powers to propel the dagger on the end into Jay’s skin. Morro then spun around and sent a ball of wind towards Zane, propelling him into a wall. Zane poofed into his gem form and Morro chuckled.
“Guess I shouldn’t have expected anything from you sullied gems. I don’t know why my dear Emerald chose to be around you.” Morro said as he blocked another fireball from Kai and engaged in close combat with Nya. Nya took a hit to her abdomen, and then sent a large pool of water to distract him from the others, but instead of getting distracted, he sent his whip toward her and hit her straight on her gem, and she poofed into her lapis. Morro was close enough to grab her and Zane’s gems. After doing so he turned around and blocked a sword strike from Kai, and jumped over a large spike rock that Cole sent his way. He landed softly on the rock and sent 3 large bursts of wind towards them both, and as they were distracted, he attacked, sending his throwing daggers toward them. As they lay on the ground about to poof, Morro commented “ I learned that one from my sweet, I’me surprised that he never taught you how to dodge it.” That was the last thing that they heard before the world went black.
Morro walked up the gangplank, handed off the gems to Peridot. “Ugh,” Morro lamented, “ I hate touching those dirty gems.” Morro headed up towards his emerald’s room. Hopefully it would be up, so that maybe he could convince it to come back willingly. If it chose to rebel… well … There was always fusion. Either way, his sweetheart would be back where he belonged. Even if he didn’t want to be.
{ TIME SKIP 2 Hours }
Lloyd woke up in an unfamiliar place. He yawned and looked around, only then recalling the events of the last afternoon. He really needed to find a way back to earth, preferably before they got to Homeworld. He tried to swing his legs to the side, so that he could get off the bed and start finding all the other gems, but soon found out that each leg was completely tied to the bed. He couldn't get up. He knew Morro was going to come by sooner or later, so he’d bide his time., and hopefully, keep his attention off the other ninja.
With Kai and the other Ninja, Zane and Kai were the only ones out of their gems, and were inspecting the cages. The cages were made by a normally gem proof laser field, but Zanes’s techno-wizardry would be able to open them. Kai noticed that his cell was more enforced than all the others, and for a moment felt proud. He’d escaped once, and that had been noticed. That pride soon turned into a fear because, if he didn't get out and get to Lloyd, Morro would most likely do what he’d done to him a million times before. Morro’d block Lloyd’s magic or he’d Force Fuse with his little brother.
So Kai would make a plan. He’d serve as a distraction, staying in that prison. Zane would hack into all the other prisons, and would collect all the other gems. Then Zane would fuse with the rest of the gems, to get them out of their gems as soon as possible. Then they’d find a way to break his cage, and they’d go to crash the ship. How they’d crash the ship, Kai didn’t know, but all he knew was that Lapis and Peridot would be easier to deal with than Morro himself. All he needed was to wait for the others to wake up.
Lloyd was planning something very similar upstairs, when he heard booming footsteps coming down the hall. He began to thrash around and try to get out of his binds quickly. He thought he’d have more time!! The door opened and out walked Morro, calm and collected, although there was a hidden spark of madness in his eyes. Lloyd froze, scared of what would happen. After years of living with him, it was very easy to discern his feelings under the facade he wore. He was pissed.
“Welcome back my dear. Did you have fun on your little excursion? Did you enjoy leaving your poor master alone and bleeding?” Morro said, his voice growing harsh.
“ N-n-no, I-i- well, um” Lloyd stammered, “I couldn’t live like I-I-”
“ Oh I see, you left because you couldn’t deal with me any longer.” Morro surges up to grab Lloyd’s wrists, and proceeds to yank them up hard.
“ I wish you wouldn’t try anymore, I know you know that you can’t live on your own.” He puts pressure on Lloyd’s wrists, and Lloyd can feel the bones creak under the pressure. “ After all,” Morro continues “ you couldn’t even get away from being a prisoner when you left”
“ H-how do you e-even know that?!” Lloyd stammered out.
Morro chuckled “ You really thought that I didn’t have spies? See this just proves what I was saying. You’re just a gullible,” He punctuates every adjective with more pressure on his wrists “ useless, little, defective gem, who has no use, other than being a battery”.
Lloyd flinched with every word. He knew in his heart that he wasn’t just a gem, but the screaming in his wrists and Morro’s words said otherwise. He might have escaped Morro, but he hadn’t healed enough for Morro’s words to not affect him.
“ But don’t worry pet,” Morro crooned “ I still love you, even though no one else will.”
He untied him and told him to get dressed. Lloyd knew what he meant, and even though he was ‘free’ from his chains and seemingly unsupervised, if he disobeyed, he would be punished. So he got changed into the clothes that he wore in court, even though it hurt like hell. His wrists were definitely broken. After he changed, he laid down, wishing he was somewhere else and that this was all a dream.
Meanwhile Morro was walking down to the prisons. He was very glad to get his Emerald back. Lloyd really didn’t have a clue of what he was doing, and he was really naive. After so long of being away on his “vacation” he really needed to get back into court life. Once they got back to Homeworld, he’d have to punish him well. Morro couldn’t wait to fuse again. It had been so long since he’d felt that rush. Besides, he had the perfect bodyguard returned to him as well. Since he and that defected ruby were close, with a little bit of shaping. The ruby would be perfect. Besides, what better way to break his pet, then to brainwash his closest friend.
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