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After overcoming the 'super-long and incredibly annoying but eventually, there's an end to it' maze, as Nya called it, the three ninja, tired of the monotonous challenge, found themselves in front of the huge door of a brown building, resembling a temple from the outside. The team hoped that this was the end of the challenges and that they would soon find the last sword and be able to get out of the game and save their friends. Lloyd opened the double doors decisively, stepping inside with his friends close behind him, looking around for the next challenge or potential danger.
When everyone was inside, the door behind them closed with a thud, and an irritating lively melody began to play in the room, a characteristic sign for players that means more problems.
“The music again? How can it get harder?” Nya asked, making it clear that she didn't like the situation, which was shared by the other two.
“This must be the final boss battle.” Jay explained, and three icons with their pixelated avatars appeared before their eyes.
“Choose your champion.” announced a robotic anonymous voice from the ceiling.
“So now it's an old-school fighting game?! Make up your mind, dude!” Jay shouted, venting his frustration by waving his arms.
“What does 'choose your champion' mean?” Nya asked thoughtfully, ignoring her partner.
“Choose your champion.” repeated the mysterious voice, without emotion.
“Okay, I think one of us has to fight the boss.” replied Jay, to the water master.
“I'll take this one.” Lloyd announced firmly, taking a step forward, wanting to get this whole fight over with.
"Are you sure? You only have one life left.” Nya asked, stopping him, reminding him of the upcoming end of the game if something went wrong.
“Same as you.” the energy master replied and after nodding from his friends, the green ninja pressed his avatar and entered the designated fighting arena.
“The champion has been chosen.” a voice announced, and in front of Lloyd an animation appeared, showing a pixelated version of himself on the left, and on the other, constantly changing forms of various villains and characters perfectly familiar to ninjas. “Unagami will now choose your opponent.”
Lloyd drew his sword, getting ready to fight. He didn't care who the machine picked, he believed that he would be able to defeat the enemy and get the key to get out of the game with his friends and save Kai and Cole and hundreds of other trapped players.
“Fighter two will be…” the voice spoke again and suddenly the drawing animation disappeared and a well-known figure appeared in front of the energy master.
Kai smiled at him rather crookedly, gently running his hand over the elemental staff, vibrating with the power it contained, letting his glowing red eyes scan the younger from top to bottom. The fire master was dressed in his red, sleeveless outfit in which he fought on Chen's Island. He also looked younger than he does now, as if Unagami had simply pulled him out of the elemental tournament and transported him to the game world. However, the stunned energy master paid no attention to it.
“Kai? But what are you doing here? How did you get here?" the surprised green ninja began to bombard the red ninja with a barrage of questions, not understanding what was happening, but he was happy to see his friend again who had sacrificed himself during the race with Cole so that the rest could win.
Jay and Nya immediately ran to the line separating them from the battlefield, happily watching their friend, only after a moment becoming aware that something was wrong and exchanging concerned glances, unable to pinpoint exactly what was wrong.
“Oh Lloyd, I missed you, you know?” Kai asked in a voice that sent shivers down the younger man's spine as he approached him, and despite his doubts, the green ninja began to approach as well
“But how is that possible? I thought it was impossible to resurrect a character after losing all their lives. Did you discover anything with Cole? Where is he anyway?” the energy master asked further, disbelieving what he was seeing.
“Lloyd something's wrong, don't come any closer!” Nya screamed, a cold shiver running down her spine as she saw the look on her older brother's face and rushed to forcibly stop her younger brother from getting any further towards the suspicious individual, but was stopped by the orange walls that glowed, blocking her passage.
“It's a force field.” Jay, who was also starting to have a bad feeling, said as he walked closer and checked the stability of the orange wall.
“Lloyd, don't come closer!” Nya screamed, but the teenager ignored her screams, almost inaudible through the barrier, in favor of the figure who was like a real brother to him.
“How did you get here? I saw you die..." Lloyd spoke again, unconsciously allowing a sense of guilt to creep into his words that the fire master would never have allowed him to do.
“And you didn't do anything. You just watched and let me die.” Kai replied immediately, seemingly nonchalantly, looking away and smiling with half of his mouth, out of Lloyd's view.
“I didn't want to! It was your and Cole's idea! If I had known, I wouldn't have let you do this!” the green ninja replied in desperation, ignoring the elder's unusual behavior.
“Something is very wrong.” Nya whispered terrified, knowing her brother enough to know he would never say something like that, starting to fight the orange barrier with renewed vigor.
“Wouldn't you let me? Just like you wouldn't let me take care of it, saying it had a bad effect on me?” Kai asked pointing to the elemental staff in his hands and Lloyd seemed to have just noticed it.
“Where did you get it?” the energy master asked in surprise, taking the first step back. “But we destroyed it…”
“Destroyed? This is mine, Lloyd. And with it all its power.” Kai replied venomously, moments before firing a green beam of his own power at Lloyd.
The surprised green ninja was hit and the force of the impact knocked him back into the force field as his health points dropped, reducing the red fill on his bar that appeared just above his head. A filled red bar also appeared above Kai's head, and the red ninja just snorted at the hurt and shocked look on the younger man's face.
“Lloyd!” Nya and Jay screamed in unison, hands on the force field right next to the green ninja.
“Everyone around you is dying so that you can live! Everyone sacrifices everything for you, but it's not enough.” Kai shook his head, looking at him with contempt and shooting ice at him, which the teenager dodged at the last moment, jumping away and rolling to the side.
“Kai, please wake up, it's not you.” Lloyd pleaded, trying to blame his brother's behavior on the elemental staff while he was on the verge of a panic attack.
Kai, his brother, his hero, his guardian watched him with such contempt and hatred that the younger one felt sick, and the constant attacks with the elemental staff did not help. Lloyd knew that this scene would remain in his nightmares forever, like his fear of Morro or his complicated relationship with Harumi, who had betrayed him to bring about Garmadon's rebirth. It was then that Kai tried to lift his spirits, save him, help him, together with Nya doing everything to distract his thoughts from unpleasant memories.
“No matter how many times we save Ninjago, the threat always returns. So it was with your father, so it was with Phytor, and so it was with the dark lord. And you know what they all have in common?” Kai asked in a sweet tone, casually attacking him with lightning as he circled around the arena.
Lloyd narrowly dodged the attacks while listening to Kai with his heart pounding. The boy knew he had to take his staff, but he couldn't even get close to the fire master, who held him at a distance, slowly taking away his health points and reducing his red life bar. However, this was not what occupied young Garmadon's thoughts, but his friend's words, which made their way directly to his brain and heart, arousing a lot of remorse and fear in him.
"You. If it weren't for you, no one would have freed the snakes, the devourer of worlds wouldn't have arisen, and Garmadon wouldn't have gained the golden weapons. If it weren't for you, the dark lord would never have returned. You are the problem!” with Kai's scream, the entire arena filled with fire.
“Lloyd you have to fight him to beat him!” Jay shouted as Lloyd found himself at the orange barrier right next to the ninjas nervously watching the skirmish.
“I have no intention of fighting him! He is under the influence of the elemental staff like on Chen's island, I just need to take it away from him and everything will be fine.” the green ninja assured his friend, trying to believe it himself and trying to ignore the fire master's words that hurt him like daggers stuck straight into his heart.
“This is a simulation, this is not the real Kai!” Nya added, seeing her younger brother's behavior.
“You're just a naive child who should never have had access to power.” Kai growled, finally losing his patience and attacking Lloyd without the aid of the staff, which he immediately tried to take from him.
Kai was a skilled warrior, after all, he, along with Jay, Zane and Cole, taught the green ninja how to fight. The energy master knew that in order to have any chance of winning, he had to not only get rid of the staff, but also start fighting seriously instead of just running away and dodging. 'Pretend it's just training. Pretend you're fighting over the choice of a game or a character in it.' Lloyd repeated in his mind, hoping that it would do something. However, the hateful look in the terrifying crimson eyes prevented him from pretending that this was just innocent training.
"Kai, please don't do this..." the green ninja began, seeing how Kai was using his staff to slowly charge the green, well-known power of energy to attack the younger one with it, ending the fight.
“Besides, I already told you that once.” the red ninja spoke up as he finally managed to reach Lloyd after his next attack, which was blocked, and with a solid kick he sent him to the ground with the younger man groaning in pain.
"No no no! You're not like that!” the energy master whined, rising from the ground with less than half his life left while Kai's was mostly intact.
“I should've been the Green Ninja!” Kai shouted, charging again, at Lloyd, who was mainly blocking, not holding back his blows and putting all his strength and aggression into them. “I deserve this power more than anyone else! Definitely more than some stupid unwanted kid!”
Lloyd couldn't hold back the tears that came to his eyes upon hearing this. His older brother, his almost fatherly figure, shouted at him everything he was thinking in his darkest moments. Everything he blamed himself for was all thrown in his face by one of the people he trusted the most. Lloyd bowed his head, letting the tears flow, and at the last moment he drew his sword, not only blocking the elder's attack, but also inflicting more serious damage on him at last, preventing him from hurting him any further.
“Come on Lloyd!” Nya and Jay's screams were barely audible in the middle of the arena, but the green ninja didn't need to hear them to know they were counting on him.
They hope that he will defeat his brother, just as he defeated his father many years ago.
Wiping his face with his sleeve, Lloyd charged into the fight with the energy he lacked before, parrying the blows, but even that didn't help, because Kai, apart from having the advantage, was still a skilled ninja, and with the elemental staff, the energy master didn't believe he had any chance against him.
The opportunity presented itself when Kai made a mistake, and Lloyd took his staff from him, immediately breaking it in half, causing it to dissolve in white light, much to Kai's distress, which the energy master began to use effectively. He focused on defeating the brown-haired man, who had finally lost his biggest advantage at that moment and began to lose, mainly due to his own rage, which in his case caused him to make even more mistakes before he knew it.
“Lloyd I'm sorry, you know I don't think so. It's this elemental staff and this game..." Kai began nervously, turning his head in mock sadness and shame, but a sword silently materialized in the hand he had hidden behind his back.
“Don't listen to him Lloyd, it's a trap!” Nya shouted, hopelessly hoping that the younger would hear her.
“He's trying to get into your head!” Jay shouted, but their shouts seemed to have no effect as the green ninja hesitantly lowered his weapon.
“Kai, tell me what I asked when you saved me in the volcano?” Lloyd continued with a tearful face, moving closer but stopping at a reasonable distance.
“Why did I do it?” Kai replied hesitantly and Lloyd just shook his head, getting back into his fighting stance as the firemaster continued to fire. “About escaping?”
“I asked you about the fang blade. You told me to forget about it and focused on getting me out of there. The real Kai would remember this because he always thought that the fang blade was what would allow him to become a green ninja. And letting go of it allowed him to realize that I was going to be the green ninja, not him." Lloyd confessed, attacking Kai, who at the last moment pulled out his sword from behind his back, causing them both to impale each other and the green ninja anxiously watched to see if this attack would be enough to get rid of the simulation.
“But even the real Kai told you that he should have become the green ninja instead of you.” whispered the fake Kai before he stood up, lazily drawing his sword, with the last of his life left as Lloyd, his face once again streaked with fresh tears, turned to his terrified friends to smile softly a moment before he turned into orange blocks, and with the last what he thought was that maybe the simulation was right.
It would be better if he never became a green ninja.