Chapter Text
Nya was too young to remember her parents. She remembered sitting in the forge while her father worked in the forge and her mother letting her help out in the kitchen, even though she was more trouble than help. But the most memorable thing about them was their love for their children. There wasn’t a single moment where Nya was truly unhappy living at home with her parents and brother.
At least it had been like that until one day they just disappeared out of nowhere, leaving Kai and Nya to fend for themselves.
Life hadn’t been easy for them since then, but the two of them managed to get by with food on the table and a roof over their heads by keeping their parents’ forge to make a living for themselves. Kai was the main reason they didn’t end up in an orphanage and get separated from each other. At first, the villagers helped them, but as time passed by and the two siblings got older, the support of the other villagers dwindled until they had to work for their food and money.
As the older sibling, Kai had been the one working the most. He took over the forge and worked day and night until he became a decent blacksmith. Nya helped him as much as she could, but Kai always insisted he was fine on his own and that Nya should focus more on her education and being a kid. Back then, it always annoyed her when he used to say that, because she believed he was saying that she was useless and immature, but after actually maturing, she realised that he was trying to protect her in his own way and give her the childhood he never had. Even if that meant overworking himself and sacrificing his own needs and wants.
After a particularly exhausting day, Kai stumbled home and immediately plopped down on the worn down couch in the living room. Days like these weren’t uncommon in the Smith household, but shortly after Kai’s fifteenth birthday, those days started increasing. Kai would stay in the forge longer, making more weapons and armour to sell. That day Nya finally asked him why he didn’t just ask for help, why he was spending what were supposed to be the best years of one's life working himself to the bone, why he didn’t give up like their parents did.
At the last part, he winced and looked away, “What matters now is staying together and if that means working a couple of extra hours at the forge to make ends meet, then so be it.”
“What’s the point of that if I practically never see you outside of work?” Nya huffed.
“Come on Nya, it’s just for a while until the business picks up again. You’re the only family I have left and I’d be damned if I let us get seperated,” he replied with an unusual tone of seriousness.
“Don’t you want to do anything else? I can’t imagine the oh so great Kai is satisfied with being a blacksmith for the rest of his life. Remember when you used to talk about becoming a celebrity and living in Ninjago City, where, according to you, all of life’s exciting stuff happens?”
“That’s just one of those unrealistic dreams and there is nothing wrong with being a blacksmith. Our dad was one and he is the coolest person I know. Not to mention, there is one thing here that Ninjago doesn’t have.”
“What does our small village in the middle of nowhere have that the capital city doesn’t? The charm of having no technology or living like we are twenty years behind every other place?” Nya sarcastically asked.
“Our charming little home. It’s way cosier than any apartment in Ninjago City. And you.”
She stared at him a little stunned, before asking, “Me?”
“Yes, you. Although you’re annoying-” Nya bumped his shoulder, “you’re still my sister. And I don’t plan on leaving like mom and dad did. You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not and that’s a promise.” Whilst Kai sounded like he was joking, Nya could tell he meant it. It reassured and unexpectedly reassured her from the worries she didn’t even know she had.
Too bad he broke that promise after only a couple of months…
///
One thing Kai didn’t lie about was that the apartments in Ninjago City were less than ideal.
She was sharing a three bedroom apartment with two other girls. Her meagre pay from the mechanics shop barely covered the rent, because unlike on the land where she and Kai are from, in the city it’s unusual for teenagers to work like adults. So by law, teenagers could only work full-time if work was combined with training. Fortunately, her employer didn’t strictly follow every rule, so after some pleading, he employed her as a trainee who was legally learning about engineering and mechanics on site, but in reality, she just did the same work as everybody else. Not that it mattered anyway, as she also rarely visited school in her hometown.
Besides, she could always take her exams later in life to be qualified to study. Surviving was more important now anyways.
Seriously, how Kai handled all that while also looking after her was a mystery to Nya and she regrets never having shown Kai how grateful she was for him always being by her side. However, now that he wasn’t there anymore, she was forced to make her own path in her life and being a mechanic came surprisingly easy to her. Studying books at home was one thing, but actually taking vehicles and machinery apart and fixing them up again was nothing like she had imagined and it was also way more fun. So much fun that she started working on her own little devices with spare parts from her work.
Kai would have loved the small gadgets he made. He would have also nagged her about working too much and ignoring school, but even so, she wished that he were there with her and not gone like their parents. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that she was the one who suddenly disappeared. Was he waiting for her at home or was he searching for her everywhere? Or was he glad that she disappeared? After all, she was nothing but a burden for him. Maybe he was secretly overjoyed with finally being away from her and having the opportunity to live for himself instead of spending his whole life taking care of a little sister.
No she shouldn’t think that way. That’s not the kind of person Kai was, but that's the same she would have said about their parents and they left without ever looking back. Did he even know if she was al-
“Nya!” her roommate called out, stopping Nya from thinking any further about that topic, “There is a call for you.”
“Coming!” she yelled while hastily changing, throwing herself off her bed.
She quickly took the call and heard the voice of her boss on the other side. “Nya! I need you for an emergency call. An acquaintance of mine works in the museum and the recent water damage messed with the props, making them do spooky sounds. They are currently dealing with getting all the water out, but they’d like to open back up this week. That's why they need to take care of the electronics as soon as possible.”
“How did so much water even get in?”
“Apparently the ninja dealt with some criminal over there and the robot of the group overdid it with his ice.”
“I don’t know, boss. It’s pretty late and I’m not even sure if I’m good enough with wiring and all that stuff,” she replied.
She heard a low sigh on the other side before her boss spoke again, “Nya, I’ve seen what you can do. You’re one of my best employees. You solve every assignment in record time and you have no problem dealing with those new, overcomplicated cars, not to mention you have a real knack with technology. Fixing some talking figures or lights will be child's play for you.”
Nya chewed on her bottom lip, unsure of what to do. “Maybe you ask Gayle and I can stand in for her if she can’t.”
“Nya, please. You're the only one willing to work on Sundays and holidays. I’ll even give you an early bonus if you agree to at least try it. That acquaintance of mine is a really important person. It'll look good for the business if we take on this job.”
Nya sighed before finally agreeing and hanging up the call. She went back to her room to change out of the pyjamas. Now she feels kinda bad about moping in her bed until the afternoon. She quickly put on some comfortable jeans and a teal T-shirt, which had become too light after multiple washes. Before she went out, she grabbed a red short sleeved button up shirt and put it over her shirt. It seemed like a shirt Kai would wear if he had access to the cheap retail stores in Ninjago City.
Nya stepped out with her shoulder bag, which contained her tools for work and everyday stuff she might need, like a bottle of water, her wallet or just some chapstick. She jogged over to the bus station and waited patiently for it to arrive.
When she finally arrived, the sun was about to set, so she quickly made her way to the entrance and introduced herself to the security guard, who unlocked various rooms for her. Most of the room looked like they had been flooded and some of them were still full of shallow water that reached no further than the soles of her shoes. The workers were really lucky that the ground was made up of marble tiles or else the drying process would take an eternity.
Nya swiftly started working on the first room. It was an exhibition about the serpentine and most of the display items had a little screen with headphones next to them. Although there was some sound playing from the headphones, the display screens weren’t working. Fortunately, the water had just loosened some cables from their ports. After drying everything and reconnecting everything, the display screen started working flawlessly.
Shortly after, she moved on to the next room, working on other problems as she found the perfect rhythm to methodically go through her work. Everything else became a blur as she solely focused on her work.
Before she knew it Nya had already reached the last room as the sun had set, leaving her only with the weak light of her flashlight and the moonlight shining through the glass ceiling.
The room was strange, half flooded and half dry. Big dinosaur bones were displayed in the middle of the room with an animatronic of the green ninja, the most famous ninja due to his relationship with his father, Lord Garmadon. The rest of the room was rather unremarkable. At the first glance there was nothing that looked like it needed fixing, but she still went around the room trying various things to see if they were damaged or not. As she was working, she swore she felt eyes on the back of her watching her every move, but as soon as she turned around, she was greeted by nothing.
Suddenly, she heard someone talking and her heart jumped to her throat before realising it was just the animatronic of the green ninja. Strange, it was on the dry side of the room. Nevertheless, Nya picked up her screwdriver to open the control panel and check the animatronic only to suddenly turn to her and say some random ninja related saying.
As Nya was getting her heart rate back to normal after getting jumpscared by a robot, something fell to the ground, making a clattering noise. Nya whipped her head around and that’s when she saw him.
An older boy who towered over her, not because he was tall, but because he was floating. Not only that, he was also glowing a faint green and he was too transparent to be human.
For a moment they just stared at each other. Nya because she was too shocked to stay face to face with an actual ghost. The ghost boy with middle long hair looked confused, almost like he could see something in her that she couldn’t.
However, that moment ended as soon as it started and the ghost boy slowly drifted closer before diving in her direction. Nya let out a squeak as she ducked down and shielded her head with her hands. The ghost narrowly missed her, but he was not about to give up. She reached for her again just for Nya to get out of the way and land roughly on her shoulder.
“Just give up! This is pointless. I just want to borrow your body for a second and then you’re free to do as you please,” he said with a low chuckle as he slowly approached her again, but it seemed more like he wanted to intimidate her than finding this situation entertaining.
Nya crawled away from him, still lying on the ground. She reached for her shoulder bag to get her hands on something she could use to defend herself with. Her clothes started feeling wet and Nya realised she was getting to where she had left her bag. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him hesitating for a second before continuing to get closer to her.
Finally, she reached her bag and yanked out the first thing she touched and swung it at the ghost with all her might. She failed to calculate that this would have little to no effect on him since he was a ghost. A loud crash rang out as her weapon of choice, her glass water bottle, went straight through the ghost and roughly collided with the floor, smashing into pieces.
This time the ghost actually laughed, clutching his stomach as he tried calming down to speak, “That pitiful attempt would have worked on anybody else. Too bad I'm not just anybody.”
“Stay back!” Nya yelled trying to mask her fear but the tremble in her voice betrayed her.
“Or what?” The ghost sarcastically asked. Amusement etched on his face as he took another step towards her.
“I- I’ll-” she started, but was unable to actually form a sentence. Still holding the non broken end of her water bottle, she swung again and as expected it went right through him, but at the same time a decent amount of water followed her movement and grazed the ghost for a second before he quickly backed up and let out a hiss of pain. Realisation quickly dawned on her.
The ghost came from the dry side of the room and when she crawled into the wet puddle on the ground to reach her bag he hesitated for a second and now this. This guy was clearly afraid of water and sizzling has just shown that the water damages him.
“You can’t touch water!” Nya exclaimed, pointing at him with the sharp end of her broken end of her bottle “As long as I stay here you can’t get to me.”
The rage was evident on the boy's face as he narrowed his eyes on her.
“Oh you don’t know what I am capable of,” he lowly warned, his eyes not leaving her. Not even for a second.
“I don’t need to know cause you can’t get near me even if you tried,” she replied
The ghost took another step forward. “Are you sure about that?” he challenged hoping that Nya wouldn’t call him out on his bluff.
Nya defiantly looked him in the eyes, refusing to be the first one to look away. But as the boy got closer she started feeling anxious.
“Wait,” he started, “maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I am Morro, the elemental master of Wind.”
“Never heard of you or an elemental master,” Nya quickly replied not taking her eyes off him
“Seriously? Those ninja everyone here worships are elemental masters. The red one is the elemental master of fire, the blue is the master lightning. Each ninja ha-”
“I know that much! Just the term elemental master was foreign to me. What do you want then Morro?”
He took another step forward leering down at her “What I need is a human body. As you already found out, I can't touch water or I’ll start dissolving.”
“Well you’re not getting mine or anyone else. What do you even want to do with a new body?” Nya tried to back up further, not wanting to be in the arms reach of that ghost incase he tries swiping for her again.
“Well as a ghost there are certain things you can’t enjoy anymore like the feeling of eating a hot meal or taking a long nap. As a ghost eating, sleeping, stuff like that is not possible.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. What do you really want to do? And no lying or I’ll dissolve right here and now.”
Morro let out a sigh, “Fine, I want to be alive again.”
“So you want to steal somebody's body cause you died and don't feel like staying dead anymore.”
“I didn't die!” Morro hissed, “I was banished. I was unfairly banished to the Cursed Realm. A realm for the worst of the worst.”
“Really? How does one get unfairly banished to a place like that. It sounds like a pretty serious punishment for errors like that to happen.”
“The details don't matter. I was searching for something to prove myself, but this happened and now I am trapped as a ghost.” Morro started to get slightly frustrated by all the questions.
“To prove yourself,” she muttered and Morro saw a slight shift in her expression before she dropped the thought and continued her interrogation, “Well I am sorry that happened, but I am not letting you possess me or anyone else to steal their life.”
“Listen. You’re like twelve, you didn’t know what an elemental master is and based on those baseless assumptions-
“They are not baseless,” she interrupted.
He gave her an unimpressed look before continuing talking, “like I said based on those baseless assumptions you I am forced to conclude that you’re an idiot who doesn’t even know what she is talking about. There is more than just one way to get back to life especially if you didn’t really die like me.” He hoped this would be enough to stop her endless questions and make her leave or put down her guard so he could get it over with.
However Nya didn’t back down from pressing on for further information, “Yeah right! And what would be another way where you didn’t ultimately have to harm another person?”
“I don’t need to tell you anything. It’s not like you’d understand anyways.”
“Really? The way I see it you need me to even step outside of this building. If you haven’t noticed outside it’s raining and here it doesn’t look so dry either. Plus what stops me from just running out of here and calling for the police or worse for the ninja. They’ll know for sure how to get rid of a ghost.”
“Fine,” Morro gritted out, clenching his fist as anger overtook him, “The realm crystal hidden in the tomb of the first Spinjitzu master. That’s what I am searching for. With it one can travel through different realms or even let someone from another realm enter Ninjago.”
“How does that help you?”
“I want to open a passage to the Preeminent the Queen of the Cursed-”
“That doesn’t sound good”
“It’s not supposed to. Her name should inspire dread and fear, but as the Queen of the Cursed she could release souls like me. Souls that didn’t really die. She could give me back my mortal form. And this time I’ll prove to Wu he made a mistake by making me believe I could be the green ninja just for him to cast me aside when the golden weapons rejected me,” he said with contempt evident in his voice.
And when he took another step towards her, she didn’t feel the need to put distance between them. No, Nya felt something like pity or maybe it was sympathy and a feeling of being able to relate to his emotions.
///
Somehow that moment of sympathy ended with her stealing or as he said it borrowing some artifact from the museum called the Allied Armor of Azure. When she asked him why he couldn’t just use that to call for the Preeminent, he rolled his eyes at her and started explaining like he was talking to preschooler that the Preeminent was too special for a simple artifact like the Allied Armor of Azure to be able to summon her.
With the armor in her bag she quickly left the museum in fear of being caught by the security guard, but not before throwing her red button up towards Morro and ushering him under her old blue umbrella she bought when she first arrived in Ninjago.
They had to walk back all the way to her shared apartment as riding the bus with a half transparent person who could float would draw more attention to them than needed. When they finally arrived Nya’s left side was dripping wet. All her focus lay in covering Morro from the rain which was harder than expected as he was a head taller than her and floated above the ground, making him even taller and harder to cover with a single umbrella. Not to mention the ghost hasn’t been in the living world for what she assumed to have been multiple years, which led to him getting distracted at almost every corner to inspect the new technology and changes around the city, which didn’t exist when he was alive.
Nya carefully turned the door knob, trying to be as silent as possible. If her two roommates were sleeping, then she didn’t want to accidentally wake them, leading to Morro being discovered. She tiptoed to her tiny room with Morro hot on her heels.
She barely closed the door when he threw a wet flyer at her, asking, “What’s this?”
“An advertisement flyer.”
“I know that much! Read the fine print.”
She did as she was told and realised the tea shop on the flyer was owned by the ninja and their team. “Huh, looks like they decided to open a tea shop. I guess after the second serpentine war crime rates started sinking.”
“A tea shop? They’re ninjas, but instead of training them or sending them on missions, master Wu makes them work at a tea shop,” he sneered.
“Wait the same master Wu you have a grudge against? No way! That guy is great. I mean he trained the ninjas and saved Ninjago like a dozen times these last two years.”
Morro whipped his head around, glaring at her, “You don’t know him like I do. He convinced me that I was special, he convinced me that I could be the green ninja just to pull the rug under me and abandon me.”
“Geez, sorry. I didn’t want to come off as insensitive,” she put up her hands mockingly, apparently spending two hours together was enough for her to stop fearing him.
Did nobody teach her that that’s not nearly enough to trust someone, let alone let them in their house and steal valuable artefacts for? Where even are her parents? Maybe if he was still alive he would have felt bad for tricking and manipulating her, but if there was anything he learned in the cursed realm it was that there was enough evil in the world and small evil deeds like these won’t make a difference. And if his hunch about her was right then it was better to make her believe he didn’t truly want to harm someone. Kinda ironic for the master of wind being a ghost having to fear the master of water. Who in this scenario was child with no training of her element and knowledge of the power she possessed
He was brought out of his thoughts by the voice of Nya continuing talking, “It’s just right now he along with the ninja are seen as heroes for ending the second serpentine war and all the other dangers they managed before that.”
Morro rolled his eyes at her, “Yeah yeah I get it the ninjas are the greatest heroes to ever live.”
She winced slightly and looked away embarrassed. Morro took a seat on the chair next to her workbench, where all kinds of gadgets he wasn’t familiar with lay. When he looked back at her she was already watching him again.
“What?” he asked irritatedly.
The girl just shrugged her shoulders saying she wasn’t about to let out a stranger who had unknown powers out of her sight. Which was the smartest thing she said today. When he asked her what her plan was, she just shrugged again. He sighed and turned his gaze towards the window letting his thoughts drift again.
If he could just get his hands on the Realm Crystal, but the first Spinjitzu master hid it somewhere and even after spending his short mortal life dedicated to finding it, he failed. But there is one thing he found out about the location of the Realm Crystal. That master Wu’s staff had the clues leading to it. Tomorrow he’d visit his old master’s little tea shop and show him that he’d made a mistake treating Morro the way he did.
“-ack then?” the kid broke him out of his thoughts once again.
“What?”
“I asked what it was like back then. You know when you were a non ghost,” she purposely tried to avoid saying dead aloud to him as he didn’t react particularly positively to that in the museum.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Well, like I said, I am not just gonna let a stranger like you out of my sight, so it’ll be a long night if I can’t sleep. So why not fill the boring silence with some light conversation? I am sure you have lots of interesting stuff to talk about from the old times, like when dinosaurs were around or photography didn’t exist.”
“I am not that old,” he said, annoyed at her poor attempt at humour to which she just shrugged, “fine, I can tell you about what it was like to train with Wu in the monastery. His demanding training schedule made it quite hard for me to forget it.”
He started off slowly, talking about basic stuff and then he got to the part where master Wu started to make him believe he was the green ninja. Every word was full of bitterness and just barely two sentences in his mind drew blank and words refused to come out of his mouth.
He looked towards Nya who had become suspiciously quiet during the second part of his retellings. Her eyes were shut and her head was resting against her knees in what looked like to be a painful position for her neck. Relief immediately flooded his chest when Morro realized she didn’t listen to him embarrassingly talk about his insecurities, but at the same time he felt a strange stinging sensation, making feel slightly uncomfortable. He definitely shouldn’t have even started talking about his time in the monastery. Maybe he should have just made something up to satisfy her curiosity. Not that it mattered.
As he was planning to leave the next day and take care of the staff. Whether this kid was the master of water or not it wouldn’t matter anyway. As long as she had no idea about her possessing elemental powers, she wouldn’t be a threat. Besides, the kid lacked training unless she suddenly learned Spinjitzu and all the other basic stuff one has to learn before being able to properly access their elemental power, then there was no chance in hell she could put up in a fight against or even against brainless low level ghosts. There was no reason to waste his time any longer on her.
Little did he know that the very next day he’d have a new body, able to properly interact with the mortal world, and a student he reluctantly taught everything he himself learned as Wu’s former pupil.