Work Text:
“That’s cheating!”
Lloyd offers Garmadon a wry look from across the street. Maybe it’s the deadpan, worn-out eyes or the quirk of Lloyd’s lips into what could be interpreted as half of a smile, but Garmadon can’t help but think that Lloyd is enjoying this far more than he should.
“Listen, I don’t know how you did it,” Garmadon huffs, crossing his arms—just one pair this time—over his chest. “But that's cheating. You're cheating.”
Lloyd lets out a hellish gremlin laugh that Garmadon can barely pinpoint to those few adventures they had together during Lloyd’s formative years. His memories are still hazy like that, even after all this time. But some things will always stick out with perfect clarity.
“I’m not cheating—“
“You’re cheating.”
“How can I cheat at being an Oni?”
“I don’t know but you’re still doing it.”
“My dad? Admit to not knowing something?” Lloyd puts his hands up to his head in feigned shock, grinning the most shit-eating grin Garmadon’s ever seen. “Hold up, lemme get my phone out, I’m gonna need to record you saying that to my face.”
“In your dreams, child-“
“No, in my dreams you’re a good dad.”
“Lloyd Montgo-“ Garmadon cuts himself off mid-scolding while Lloyd turns a different sort of look on him—one of furrowed brows and narrowed eyes piercing into him as if to scream his disapproval.
Right. No more middle name privileges.
Garmadon lets out a reluctant sigh.
Normally, he wouldn’t give a damn what kind of boundaries Lloyd sets. Not only does Garmadon do whatever he pleases, he’s also Lloyd’s father and somewhat of a mentor to him. He’s supposed to steer Lloyd in the right direction even if it's the opposite of where Lloyd wants to go. It shouldn’t matter what Lloyd wants, and it wouldn’t, if it hadn’t been for two things:
One, the last time Garmadon tried to push any sort of authority, Lloyd promptly refused to even breathe the same air as him for a month. And that isn’t even an exaggeration—for a month straight, whenever Garmadon spent time around his once estranged family, Lloyd would hold his breath until his lips turned blue and his body hit the ground. As Garmadon found out the hard way, Lloyd would rather force himself to pass out than spend time with his father.
As for point two, for the last several months—or years perhaps—Vinny had been coaching Garmadon on reconnecting with both his humanity and former loved ones. He’d taken great pains to instill that he should learn about and respect every feeling and need, no matter how simple or complicated they may be.
Garmadon can’t overstate how much of a saint Vinny is for putting up with his family drama, more patient than any being in the world. There comes a great deal of respect for the man.
And Garmadon would be damned if he hurled all his hard work out the window.
“Okay, look,” Garmadon grinds out. “I know you think you’re funny-“
“I’m hilarious.”
“But what you’re doing right now steps outside the bounds of being an Oni. It’s not biologically possible.”
“Then why am I doing it?”
‘It,’ Garmadon thinks with the utmost visceral loathing. How did he describe it?
If his son had somehow managed to swallow a glowing disco ball and then absorb it into his bloodstream, Garmadon reckons that it still would not compare to the way Lloyd currently wields his power in front of him. This is to say, with asinine amounts of color emanating from every inch of him, bleeding into all the surrounding buildings and alleyways, and searing Garmadon’s retinas to ash.
To make matters worse, upon first showing Garmadon this ability—the ability to create rainbow energy apparently—Lloyd had insisted it was connected to his Oni powers.
‘On my father’s tomb,’ Garmadon swears. If Lloyd had not been his flesh and blood, he would have picked him up and thrown him head over kneecaps into the harbor—to conceal their location if nothing else, but more because Lloyd keeps annoying the desire to live out of him.
“Go ahead, say it,” Lloyd pipes up. “My phone is recording- HEY!”
“You and this fangled device,” Garmadon seethes, having snatched the phone from Lloyd’s hand. “Keep it out of your training or I’m gonna throw it over the next building.”
“Alright, alright, fine.”
Lloyd snatches his phone back far too quickly for Garmadon’s tastes. Under his breath, he mutters some less-than-charitable words.
‘Pick your battles,’ Garmadon wisely reminds himself. ‘And pick less than you usually do.’
“Alright, now turn off those ridiculous flashing colors, I swear you’re going to burn my eyes out.”
“Do you ever not complain? Seriously, it’s like you’re always unhappy.”
“You don’t give me much of a reason to be otherwise-“
“Focus on the mission!”
Garmadon growls at the sound of Pixal’s voice scraping through his headpiece—damn this scratchy, wretched thing. How did any of the ninja deal with it?
Lloyd lets out a noise not unlike a thin stream of air rushing from a pressure valve.
“Don’t hiss at me,” Pixal remarks.
“That hurt,” Lloyd grinds out, rubbing his ear against his shoulder.
“My apologies, I know your ears are more sensitive since your transformation—“
“Wehh, my transformation,” Lloyd mocks. “It still hurts.”
“I am aware. If you give me time, I can make you a communicator that’s easier on your hearing—“
“Mee, mee-mee, mee-mee, mee-mee—“
“Lloyd Garmadon, I will make your life worse.” The snapping of something thin—like a pen or pencil—comes through the communicator. Pixal makes a noise that Garmadon hadn’t known nindroids could make, something like a choked laugh or a huff of potentially fond exasperation. “Whatever. Your targets are en route. The other ninja have effectively chased them out of their headquarters. They will arrive at your location in about three minutes.”
A flickering of colors—red, gold, and green—dances out across Lloyd’s shoulders as he lets out a single laugh. It’s a solitary sound, toeing the line between amused and agitated. It’s a state of being that Garmadon has learned is quite common for Lloyd to be in.
“Bossy, bossy,” he murmurs. Pixal spits out another—seemingly lighthearted—threat. Lloyd chuckles at that then takes a running start and gracefully leaps onto the roof of the nearest building. “Alright, I’m going.”
Garmadon follows closely behind, bounding first off the pavement, then a bench, and finally landing on top of the next door building. The roof shakes violently beneath his feet and Lloyd offers him a glare of fundamental disdain over the noise—both things that Garmadon snorts at.
As if Lloyd’s any better, Rainbow Brite Crayon Ninja that he is, or whatever adjective Vinny would propose to describe the situation.
Thankfully, Lloyd does them both the service of not pursuing that particular scuffle. He takes off, springing over the rooftops with a trail of green, indigo, and pink following after. He seems to take flight every time his featherlight feet touch down and dart up again. With practiced precision, he latches onto a flagpole and flips himself up onto the ledge of a billboard, stone-like silence accompanying him.
"Targets approaching in one minute…"
Lloyd slinks closer to the edge of the billboard, a burst of color glimmering over his head as he zeroes in on the street below. He secures one hand around his right side while the other taps an impatient rhythm against the catwalk. He occasionally glimpses behind himself, especially as Garmadon rattles the plating while climbing up to join him.
Some unknown feeling spikes in Garmadon’s chest at the sight.
For as long as Garmadon can remember, and even through times he can’t, Lloyd has always been a hero. Stalwart, mighty, protective. He reaches out for the good in people, even when it's nigh untouchable, even when it’s not there. He looks over Ninjago in much the same way he and Wu might have in their youth.
And that’s precisely the problem.
Lloyd has held the title of Green Ninja ever since he was a child, and while he certainly isn’t a child now —far from it in fact, Garmadon had unintentionally eliminated that aspect of his son when he hurled him through several prison walls—it doesn’t change the fact that Lloyd had thrown in his chance for a peaceful life so many years ago.
Once Garmadon had been just like him. He wanted to protect Ninjago and live up to the legacy his father had left for him and his brother. He’d been miserable for it.
He was always aching, always hungry, always empty. He’d been desperate for even a shred of the love and admiration his brother seemed to receive so effortlessly—both from his father and the world he’d created. Certainly, he can attribute so much of that suffering to the venom of the Great Devourer, but deep down he knows he bears some if not most of that responsibility.
At some point, the weight of the world had broken Garmadon’s shoulders. He had stopped believing there was something worth saving in Ninjago and in himself.
He had fulfilled his own prophecy.
And choosing to walk away from it had ultimately been what brought him peace.
Protectiveness—that’s what that feeling is, isn’t it?
Despite Garmadon’s misgivings—his penchant for violence and his embracement of his oni heritage—he doesn’t want Lloyd to turn out like him. He doesn’t want Lloyd to become the raging, angry cynic he became all those years ago.
Maybe that’s why Lloyd keeps pushing back against his Oni side, staving it away with all his might, finding ways to remove its teeth and claws (or, more literally, turn it into a rainbow-colored squeaky toy). Somewhere in time, Lloyd had decided he didn’t want to be like his father either.
And Garmadon finds he’s oddly at peace with that.
Mostly, anyway.
Logically, he wants Lloyd to be true to himself, even the parts of him that are flawed. He wants Lloyd to love himself the way the rest of his family does, to find balance and acceptance down to the foundations of his heart. He wants to push Lloyd to find it, even if he has no clue how.
Not that he can ever voice this to Lloyd. At least, not in the fifteen seconds it’ll take for their target to reach them.
Maybe he can say something else though.
“Son?” Garmadon says quietly.
Lloyd spares him a glance. “Hm?”
“Good luck out there.”
Lloyd turns to look at him with his eyes as wide as saucers and his mouth slightly agape.
“Wh- I-” He splutters. “Uh… you too-”
Pixal’s voice in their headpieces cuts him off.
“Prepare for assault in 3… 2… 1…”
Sure enough, their objective comes roaring down the street: an exceedingly bright double-decker bus spattered in neon paint with multicolored disco lights pouring out of the windows. On the open top, an elaborate DJ console with connecting 6-foot-tall speakers blasts out an almost volatile amount of electronic music. Two ninja assault vehicles race just behind it.
Lloyd kicks off the billboard at incredible speed for his human form and lands near flawlessly on the bus’s open top. Garmadon, not one to be outdone, snaps out the wings of his Oni form and shoots up into the night.
It’s about at this moment that everything goes perfectly right—or wrong, as Lloyd will vehemently tell him later down the line. Garmadon supposes that's to be expected when he and his son have two different definitions of right and wrong.
To the best of Garmadon’s recollection, the next few minutes go something like this:
He plunges out of the sky, falling hard and fast like a shooting star. The wind rakes it claws across his face. The stars and city lights coalesce into a blur. Not far below him, Lloyd gets a deer-in-headlights look. He dashes for the DJ manning the console and yanks them out of the way just as Garmadon shoots into the entrance hatch.
The entire bus rattles and veers on the road. The passengers within shriek, climbing over each other to get a look at Garmadon as he claws his way up toward the driver's seat.
“Hey.” Garmadon taps the driver—a lanky fella with his hair pulled into several multicolored spikes—on the shoulder. He whips around in his seat to gawk at Garmadon, who grins. “Eyes on the road.”
The driver doesn’t get a chance to respond as Garmadon hauls him out of the way, slips into the driver’s seat, and slams on the brakes. The entire bus lurches—shuddering, screaming—as he yanks the wheel entirely to one side. Chaos grabs hold of every inch of the situation, throwing neon lights and glow sticks every which way until the bus screeches, skids, and finally slams to a complete stop, perpendicular to the street.
Before anything else happens, half of the passengers spill out into the open. Some of them whine, others spew profanities.
“I’m gonna hurl!” One yells, throwing themselves out of the emergency exit.
Garmadon rolls his eyes as he picks his way through the crowd and out the door.
“What’s your problem?! Where’d you learn how to drive?!”
Garmadon whirls around to look up at his son. Lloyd—even with the way he curls over the railing, rocking back and forth with one hand securing the DJ by their shirt collar—doesn’t seem all too worse for wear. His disposition seems a little greener than usual and he sounds pissed but otherwise he looks fine.
Which is good.
Probably.
“We don’t need the bus to be moving, do we?” Garmadon asks him with a wicked smile.
“No but do you need to be a jackass?”
“NINJA!”
Garmadon and Lloyd turn to their targets at the same time. Hoardes of enemies prowl around them, each in different stages of rage and progressing with each passing second. Now that Garmadon has gathered a moment to analyze them properly, he finds that there are a lot more of their targets than even Pixal had predicted. Even with the ninja dismounting from their vehicles, it seems to be almost three of them to every one on the ninja’s side.
“Please proceed with caution,” Pixal tells them. “Remember, they’re called the Neon Light Rioters. They’re armed and dangerous and some may be acting under the influence.”
“Influence of what?” Jay asks.
“I think you know,” Cole replies.
In a collective burst of motion, the rioters charge for the ninja. Garmadon steps back as one rushes him head-on like a bull. He braces himself, swerves, and happily knocks them into the nearby trio that had gone to gang up on Nya. Another one seeks revenge for that move and sprints toward Garmadon with a serrated knife.
It’s then that Lloyd drops down from the top of the bus. He grabs the rioter mid-attack and sends him flying into the vehicle’s side face-first. Hard.
Garmadon sucks in a breath between clenched teeth.
Never let it be said that Lloyd didn’t know how to fight.
“Hey!” Kai calls from across the street. “I could use a little help over here!”
Several rioters creep toward him in a steadily shrinking circle, caging him in.
“Ninja, GO!”
A golden-brown tornado rips through the street, snatching rioters up and tossing them into the air. It snags half of the ones targeting Kai and dropkicks them across the asphalt, buying Kai enough space and time to light his fists on fire and drive back the others.
Not far from their scuffle, a remarkably ripped-looking rioter digs their hands into the ground and wrenches a manhole cover straight up off of a sewer entrance. He locks eyes with Garmadon— ‘Do it, I dare you,’— then turns to Lloyd.
“Don’t even think about it,” Garmadon hisses.
The rioter either can’t hear or doesn’t care because he winds up, rockets off into an excellent discus throw, and shoots the manhole cover across the street. Garmadon moves faster than he can ever recall doing. He launches himself right in front of Lloyd—who spins around to see the threat.
Garmadon flashes into his Oni form. All four arms break out to intercept the cover. As soon as he does, a series of things happen almost too quickly for him to process.
The cover collides with him. A shockwave of light explodes out. An overpowering wave of Oni magic nearly knocks Garmadon off of his feet. For a moment, the world goes completely white, then fades into a myriad of soft, sweeping colors.
Red, orange, gold, green, blue, indigo.
Lloyd heaves in a breath right next to him. One of his hands digs into Garmadon’s arm like the hooked edge of an old dagger. A faint trembling travels through Lloyd’s body, so quiet that Garmadon can’t be sure it’s even there.
When Garmadon finally clears his vision, he manages to catche a glimpse of Lloyd standing strong in his Oni form. His chest shudders repeatedly, a noise like the beginnings of a thunderstorm rumbles deeply from inside it. Half of his hands tightly grip the manhole cover, same as his father—like they’d both caught it.
Garmadon doesn’t realize it for a moment but at some point in the crash, one of his arms had protectively found its way over Lloyd’s chest.
“Are-“ Garmadon clears his throat. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Lloyd breathes out. “Yeah, I’m good,” he says more assertively. Slowly, painfully, he shifts his extra pair of arms out of existence, pushes his fangs back into his mouth, and shrinks his horns down until they're invisible. He winces at what can only be the foreign sensation of it all, gritting his teeth.
Garmadon stares for a good long while, taking in all of Lloyd's actions as he steadily morphs out of his oni form. That protective feeling from earlier on the billboard plummets down onto him—like sheets of rain bearing sorrow and rage and panic. Without a warning, Garmadon coils back and prepares to return fire with the manhole cover. The rioter, for his part, backs up in rightful terror.
“No, don’t! You’ll kill them!” Lloyd scrambles to Garmadon’s side, all but crawling on top of Garmadon to put a stop to him.
“And?”
“We’re supposed to knock them out and confiscate anything illegal,” Lloyd explains. He summons a blazing ball of green energy to his palm and fires it at a rioter coming at Zane. “Don’t hurt them too much, they’re still people.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Garmadon hollers, watching as Lloyd races off toward his teammate.
“You were doing it earlier, weren’t you?” Lloyd yells back. “Get creative!”
Garmadon scowls. What an asinine phrase. He runs out of time to rage about it as a nearby pair of rioters plow toward him. In a few swift movements, he trips them both and whacks them hard with the manhole cover. They go down in a heap at his feet, still alive.
He’s pretty sure, anyway.
“Jeez, these guys really don’t know when to give up, do they?”
Jay backflips into Garmadon’s field of view, dodging a rioter as he wildly flails around with a metal pipe. He claps his hands together and pulls them apart, gathering a lightning bolt from thin air. The rioter stops dead in their tracks, shoulders going slack as they stare at Jay.
“Oooh,” they slur out. “Pretty light.”
Jay grins beneath his mask. “Oh, you like that, big guy? You like the pretty colors? Alley-oop!”
He then flips into a roundhouse kick and sends the rioter flying over the pavement. Lloyd jerks to the side just in time to miss being hit—an all too common occurrence among the ninja’s brawls, judging by his unbothered reaction.
“Pretty colors?” Lloyd echoes.
His gaze slides from one end of the fight to the other, taking in the whole thing. He glances back over at the guy who almost hit him, deep in thought, and then slowly, surely his expression changes. One of his eyebrows furrows downward while the other arches upward. The corners of his eyes crinkle, a mischievous simper pulls at lips. A lightbulb only visible to Garmadon clicks on above his head.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, no, no.
“Lloyd, you stop that right now!” Garmadon shouts. “I know what you’re doing. You’re planning something. That’s your planning face!”
“You bet it is!” Lloyd yells back. He turns back to the battle with a grin. “Ninja, I have an idea! I’m going to distract the rioters, you guys start rounding them up!”
Lloyd darts off back toward the bus, leaps on top where the dj console is, and before Garmadon can even pretend to threaten to ground him, flicks on one of the most abhorrent EDM tracks Garmadon has ever heard in his life. A high-pitched warble travels from the speakers and into the ground before bursting into an excitable, whining, ear-ringing rhythm.
Forget not having middle name privileges. “Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon,” Garmadon grinds out.
Lloyd pretends not to hear him and instead lets out a shrill whistle. Everyone—rioters and heroes alike—turns to him like a field of alarmed meerkats with bugged-out eyes.
“Hey! You guys like pretty colors? Check this out!”
With a wink, Lloyd hops back onto one foot, shoots the rioters a pair of finger guns, and throws a volley of glowing lights into the air—radiant, blinking, glittering through every color beneath the moon and stars. Rainbow balls of energy float around in steady, rippling patterns.
One by one, the rioters drop their weapons and gravitate to Lloyd.
“Come on!” Lloyd gestures with his hands for them to come closer, bouncing on his feet to the rhythm. Then, before anyone can say another word, the rioters mob around him, flooding to him into a wild, flailing circle of dancing people. Lloyd throws his hands up kind of pathetically, as if trying to signal his location in a weird drowning-on-an-impromptu-dance-floor kind of way.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Garmadon groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can’t even look at his son right now. He could be at home, turning down the covers with Vinny and watching one of his over-dramatic soap operas. He could be having quiet night in, enjoying a hot cup of tea and taking jabs from Vinny about stealing his robe again.
But no.
He had decided to go out and spend time with his son, subjecting himself to all manner of obnoxious sights and sounds— ‘Blast those stupid colors.’ They might as well have gone to a club or whatever it is young people do these days.
As the music suddenly diminishes, one of the rioters pops their head out and beckons Garmadon toward them. “Come on! Join us, big guy!”
Garmadon lowers his hand from his face, scowling. “Absolutely not.”
With all the sudden vehemence of a ferret popping its head out of the depths of hell, Lloyd squeezes his way out of the crowd and aims a death stare at him.
“Get over here and dance or I’m never talking to you again.” He hisses out.
“Wha- that’s not fair,” Garmadon says —he doesn’t whine, which he feels is an entirely valid assumption to correct.
“Fair’s not a word where I come from!” Lloyd chirps gleefully, disappearing back into what has essentially now become a mosh pit
Of course, what did Garmadon expect?
He debates for a good minute—or two or five—mulling over the past several years between his resurrection, his encounters with the ninja, and the battle with the Crystal King, and ultimately comes to a conclusion: he’s a man who makes things even. If Lloyd can put up with him for this long, Garmadon can do the same for him.
Mutual tolerance.
With that in mind, Garmadon effortlessly cuts thought into the crowd. He moves people out of his path as gently as someone like him can manage before finally entering the middle. It’s somewhat peculiar. In comparison to the outer ring of people, which bobs and lumps together in regular waves, the innermost part is a little more clear. Garmadon would call it almost calm—like the eye of a storm.
And of course, in the center of it all, Lloyd jumps up and down, banging his head to the beat of the song and wildly windmilling his arms in some hilarious imitation of dancing. A pair of horns spike out of his head and a fluffy, blonde tail thrashes out behind him, he seems almost… fluffy. Huggable.
The people around him cheer and rock and wheel about, knocking elbows and shoulders and hips and more than once falling into Garmadon’s much larger frame. Something about the scene—a little absurd and strangely out of the ordinary for what he knows of Lloyd’s behavior—makes a soft, fluffy feeling well up in his chest.
The Emperor he once was would have called it repulsive.
The current him finds it—admittedly, a little, tiny bit—entertaining.
…
Fine. Garmadon admit's that it's immensly entertaining. Especially when Lloyd smiles at him as if forgetting, just for once, about all the things he hates about himself and his bloodline.
“What, are you just gonna stand there?” Lloyd says as he swings around to look at him.
“Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe it is.”
Garmadon doesn't wait for another second. He sways his hips and starts to, well, he’s not even sure it resembles dancing, especially as he balances on one leg awkwardly. But he does his job of trying to seem like he wants to be there, which is more than enough for him.
Lloyd doubles over in laughter. “Wh- ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- what are you doi-“ he breaks off mid-sentence to cackle-screech like a hyena.
Some bright and sweet feeling simmers in Garmadon’s soul as he drinks in the sound.
“What about you?” He makes several forceful gestures in Lloyd’s direction. “You’re just jumping up and down like a loon! That’s not dancing!”
“Oh, really? You wanna watch this then?”
Without waiting for an answer, Lloyd gradually shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back, wiggles his shoulders in a loosening motion, and falls back into a really— genuinely —impressive breakdancing routine. He twists his body around in what Garmadon later learns (via Lloyd info-dumping) is a flare, then rises into a handstand, and finally uses the momentum to tumble down onto his back and kick up onto his feet.
“How about that?” Lloyd asks, skipping around the circle of people to collect high-fives and fist bumps. He points at his father. “Can you beat that?”
Garmadon scoffs good-naturedly. “What do you think?”
He takes Lloyd up on the challenge. He opens by doing one part of a jumping, hip-swaying move that Vinny taught him—which makes Lloyd wildly crack up—then quickly drops into a head spin. He finishes by backflipping into an improvised moonwalk shuffle.
Lloyd makes a noise to summon the attention back to him. He bounces up onto his toes— ‘Ballet,’ Garmadon realizes—and glides across the ground. He arabesques then swoops into a pirouette.
And that’s when it really begins.
The two exchange blows, taking turns displaying their best dance moves, switching between genres. They go from jazz to disco to something Garmadon thinks he’s watched in an old-timey cowboy movie once. They go back and forth—flipping, swaying, waltzing.
This is… it’s better than Garmadon thought it would be. It’s worlds away better than staying home. He’s glad that he accepted Lloyd’s invitation to go on this mission.
The music subsumes their entire street and sense of time—thumping, wailing, singing.
Lloyd darts around the crowd in a vibrant green tornado and Garmadon finds himself joining him in a deep violet one. Two sides of the same fighting style.
They flip past each other and land in time with the beat—spinning, whirling, dancing.
Out of the corner of Garmadon’s eye, he spies each of the ninja streaking around the outside of the party circle, rounding up distracted rioters one by one. His son’s plan is working. The rioters don’t suspect a thing.
“Whoo, yeah, that’s it!” Lloyd yells into the crowd as they urge him on—pulsing, cheering, clapping.
That soft, odd sentimental feeling that’s haunted Garmadon the whole night grips him with a vengeance. It slinks into his bloodstream and travels to his heart and balloons up in his chest. He watches Lloyd with a sense of pride as he gyrates from place to place. Suddenly his eyes are wide open.
Garmadon sees him.
He sees Lloyd.
He sees every piece of Lloyd that has ever existed like it’s a chant or a prayer spoken again and again in every word Lloyd has ever said and every action he’s ever taken.
There’s the child Lloyd that the old Garmadon once saw: brilliant, passionate, determined.
There’s the teenage Lloyd that the old Garmadon once knew: sweet, optimistic, hopeful.
There’s Lloyd as the current Garmadon witnesses him now: creative, intelligent, kind.
He sees Lloyd—for who he is.
Genuine.
Compassionate.
Sensitive.
Heroic.
Kind.
Courageous.
Silly.
Stubborn, lively, bold.
Witty, temperamental, funny, vibrant.
Beautiful, strong, independent, persevering, good.
A little unmotivated, a little self-hating, a little doubtful of his capabilities.
Violent. Vindictive. Petty. Sarcastic. Things he might have inherited from the rougher parts of his life.
He’s a fantastic dancer, a hardened fighter, a protector of the people, a lover of the world for all its glory and faults at the same time. He’s someone who hates puzzles and sea urchins and soggy noodles, who loves video games and flowers and being a ninja.
He loves his mother. He admires his Uncle Wu, whose “incontestable” advice he accepts and rebels against in the same hour. He helps plan the next week’s meals with Kai and Zane, tries every new experience Nya recommends to him, cracks jokes with Cole and Jay, and pesters Pixal while she’s working.
He reaches out to his father even when he doesn’t have to.
He’s someone who holds out for the good in all, even when it might never come through.
Creative, intelligent, kind, sweet-optimistic-hopeful-brilliant-passionate-determined.
A rainbow mosaic of all the care and affection his loved ones have for him, carrying the whole world—his family—on his shoulders.
That’s his boy. That’s Garmadon’s boy.
“Lloyd,” Garmadon breathes out.
“Dad?”
Garmadon comes back to reality, startled by the look Lloyd gives him: brows creased in worry, eyes shining in concern. Garmadon flounders for his words, desperate to say something. Anything, you twit. ‘Good job. I’m fine. I love you.’
A shrieking, crashing noise rips the air apart and eviscerates the music.
“Cole!”
“What? We’re supposed to get rid of the problem, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, get rid of it, not destroy it!”
Garmadon and Lloyd turn to look at their surroundings as if suddenly aware of it for the first time in ages. Lloyd squints against the rainbow balls of energy he has floating around and whines.
“Ahhhh, that’s starting to hurt my eyes.”
“See, what did I tell you?”
Lloyd grumbles and snaps his fingers, effectively killing the lights. The two of them blink away the afterimages, massaging the soreness in their eyelids away before zeroing in on the problem.
Mayhem springs to life all around them. Each of Lloyd’s teammates flocks around Cole, who stands somewhat awkwardly in front of what could have been one of the DJ speakers. None of them seem off nor have they been knocked out, a little bruised up but not perceptibly seriously injured. Though for some reason Cole has found possession of the manhole cover.
Bundles of shrieking, panicked rioters try to squirm their way out of the ropes the ninja have lassoed them into.
“Oh, boy,” Lloyd sighs. “I better go help them out.”
Just as he takes a step forward, a low groan makes its way out of the mouth of a stranger to Garmadon’s left.
“Ohhhhh, what happened?” She says. She stumbles over her feet, eyes dilated to the size of black holes. Her hair stands up on her head in a mohawk. When she spins around in a drunken stupor, everyone makes out the unmistakable word V.I.P. printed on the back of her jacket, marking her as the leader.
“Ah… I see we missed one,” Zane remarks aloud.
“Get her!” Nya hollers.
Everyone abruptly drops what they’re doing and rushes past Garmadon, effectively tackling the poor, dazed woman. Cole taps Garmadon on the shoulder before unceremoniously shoving the manhole cover into his hands.
“Hold this for me,” he says before dashing off to dogpile onto the ninja. “Cannonball!”
“Wait, wait, wait, Cole, NO— AAAGGH!”
“Owww, my back.”
“Why did you do that? Why—“
The next fifteen or so minutes are spent tightening the knots on the ropes looped around the rioters, threshing through all of the contraband, popping a Borg boot onto the bus, and contentedly patting each other on the back for a job well done.
“I have contacted the police, they’ll be here to collect the Neon Light Rioters in about ten minutes.”
“We’ll have to vamoose then if we don’t want to deal with the new commissioner,” Nya replies. “Thanks for your help, Pixal. Like always.”
“Of course.”
Garmadon can’t say he knows anything about what they’re talking about beyond surface-level city gossip. It’s something about the old commissioner’s shame over his inability to protect Ninjago and the ninja when everyone needed him most. He’d apparently stepped down and inaugurated a long-time head detective into his place, someone none of the ninja liked apparently.
“Man, I hope the neighborhood finally thanks us for putting a stop to these suckers,” Nya says.
Zane offers her a weary smile. “I’m sure they will after they finally get a good night’s sleep.”
“Yeah, no more breaking noise ordinances for these guys,” Jay adds on.
“Couldn’t have done it without you, though.” Nya taps Garmadon’s bicep. “Awesome moves, by the way, Lord G.”
“Ah-ah,” Jay tuts. “Do you perhaps mean, Lord G-Dawg?”
“NO,” everyone yells all at once.
Jay chuckles at the looks that the collective sends him over the atrocious nickname, somewhat taken aback that they’d all so forcefully disagree with him at once.
“Ah-ha... worth a shot.”
“Aw, come on. They weren’t that awesome,” Lloyd remarks all of sudden. He folds his arms all prideful-like, preening like one of those silly birds of paradise Garmadon saw at a wildlife sanctuary once. His tail lashes out behind him—either because Lloyd hasn’t noticed it’s still there or is trying very hard to forget that it is. “Mine were way cooler.”
Nya fondly rolls her eyes and puts a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder. “They sure were, green machine.”
With a sudden, heavy vengeance, Garmadon feels the urge to correct these laughable claims about who outperformed the other back there. “Hardly,” he snorts. “All you did was jump in place half the time.”
Lloyd splutters, his cheeks blooming a hot red. “At least it’s better than you flapping around on one leg like a flamingo. Idiot."
“At least, I wasn’t headbanging so hard I could have given everyone watching me a headache.”
“At least I can dance.”
“Barely,” Garmadon says with a sense of finality. “I'd suggest you diminish that ego of yours, son. My brother did a terrible job teaching you and it’s made you look stupid.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, how about this: Rainbow Light Attack!”
A surge of rainbow lights flares up and slams into Garmadon so hard it nearly knocks him over. He violently windmills back and shoves his face into his hands. A litany of swears spills out of him at increasingly indignant speeds. Several of them he knows he’d get in trouble for voicing at the volume he is.
“Everyone, quick! Back to the assault vehicles.”
“Wh— Lloyd! Careful where you use those powers!”
“You’re gonna blind someone!”
Garmadon tries—really, he does this time—not to smack Lloyd upside the head. It’s a close battle, knowing that his son deserves it. However, upon realizing he’s still holding the manhole cover, he ultimately comes up with a better idea. Quickly, he rises to his feet and shouts over to his crime-against-nature, rainbow-bright son.
“Hey, Lloyd! Catch!”
Lloyd gawks at him.
It’s all the notice he receives before Garmadon pitches the sewer cover like a frisbee.
Lloyd, renowned high-class ninja extraordinaire that he is, takes approximately two seconds and thousands of years of zenith-degree evolutionary Oni instincts to do the exact opposite of what Garmadon thought he would.
He shoots his arm out to counter the manhole cover and launch it away at mach-FSM to take out a fire hydrant, ricochet off a car door, against a streetlight, and finally fly into the nearby harbor with a thundering splash. Immediately, the sounds of chaos reach Garmadon’s ears.
And it is glorious.
A fountain of water bursts from the sidewalk and floods out onto the street. The alarm on the assaulted car wails like an affronted banshee, the lights blinking on and off as if there’s no tomorrow. And the streetlight—in its poor dented state—gutters, sparks, and drops dramatically to the ground. Several lights in the surrounding buildings begin to flick on as people wake from their slumber and lean out their windows to yell at the ninja’s motley group.
“Hey, ninja! You were supposed to stop the noise, not make it louder!”
“Come on, I’m sleeping here!”
“What is wrong with you guys!?”
A patterned wave of winces, cringes, and pained looks washes over each of the ninja in rapid succession. Zane, in particular, seems to go through all five stages of grief in roughly seven seconds. Kai exhaustedly drops his head down onto Zane's shoulder, pulling a hand down his face.
After a couple of minutes, Lloyd summons the strength to lift his head out of his hands. How the sheer humiliation didn't kill him—
"Okay, it's time we got out of here. Let's report back to the Samurai X Cave," he pauses briefly as if thinking. "And if anyone asks, it was my dad's fault."
Garmadon chokes on the audacity. He admits it’s wholeheartedly, undoubtedly his fault. If the police come knocking on his door he'll gladly accept the arrest warrant. But nothing grabs his attention by the horns like Lloyd vocalizing how much blame he wants to lay on his father, especially as he scurries back to the assault vehicles like a frantic cat, tail wrapped tightly around one of his legs.
A desire for conflict beats in the back of Garmadon’s head. He listens to it, breathes, and lets it go. He got his revenge. And more importantly than that, he learned something new about his son tonight.
Several new things.
Things that Lloyd will refuse to embrace about himself. Not his oni side or his aggressive martial art style or all the negative things that he tries, with keening, reaching desperation, not to be. He hasn’t found himself ready to move in that direction just yet.
Garmadon thinks he’s happy to love all of Lloyd regardless.