Chapter Text

Introductions

Entry One - 12/06/xxxx

My name is Jay Walker. I’m a human. My favorite color is dark blue. And I have lightning powers. So far, that’s all the facts I’m sure of. Well, the name part is technically still up for debate. 

You might be wondering why I’m trying to write a journal about someone I know so little about. More importantly, you might be wondering why I know so little about the person I should presumably be the most knowledgeable about, myself. Well, I can at least tell you about that.

I seem to have retrograde amnesia. Or not. I probably shouldn’t be diagnosing myself with these things. But it seems to be the only thing that really fits.

I just woke up one day, like people are normally supposed to, right? Well, that would be wrong. Because I had no memory of anything that ever happened in my life. Isn’t that stupid?

And it wasn’t like I could retrace my steps or anything, because the entire world was still reeling from a catastrophic land-scrambling earthquake-inducing mega-storm called the Merge. 

Apparently, before the Merge, the world was split into sixteen—was it seventeen?—different realms, which were all inaccessible to each other except in very specific circumstances, so few people even knew other realms existed. And then the storm brought them all together, with the realm of Ninjago in the dead center of it. I had landed in a place referred to as the Land of Madness, which was—how shocking!—driving me mad.

So there’s some context for what I was working with back then. 

After a little bit of wandering, I came across these people in suits. They hailed themselves as from the Administration, and they informed me I was an agent there, too. I believed them, because suits. I followed them through one of their portals and officially became the manager of the Department of Reassignment.

Huge mistake. One of the worst parts of my life. But I’ll get to that later.  For now, I’ll fill you in on the present. 

The present isn’t that much better. As of writing this, I’m in the Monastery of Spinning, or whatever they call it, getting stared down by a bunch of delusional, dressed-up samurai who think I’m their long-lost friend.

I will admit, their efforts are impressive. They’ve managed to superimpose my face onto a bunch of old photos, and they even have a room decorated in my favorite colors that they claim belonged to me back then. Still, I’m not falling for any of their tricks. Fool me twice, shame on me, or something.

So now here I am, lounging in their rooms, eating their food, while they pointlessly try to convince me that I’m somebody I’m not.

There’s Greenie, who is constantly getting on my nerves about something. I think he feels a need to be involved in everything. Somehow, being the Ultimate Chosen One Master ninja wasn’t enough for him.

The other ninja are okay, I guess. The earth one was also kinda annoying, but he eventually left to go take care of his wife and kids or something, so he isn’t much of a problem anymore.

And then there’s the water ninja, Nya, who seems really desperate, more than the others, so much so that I start to feel bad for her. But she’s also kind of annoying.

Every time we speak, I can tell she’s just itching to pull out the “you’re a ninja” card. Just when I think she’s starting to get interesting, she devolves into a ten-minute-long speech about who we were and who I’m supposed to be. 

“That’s not what a ninja would do!”

“The old you wouldn’t have done that.”

“You really did shatter your goodness, didn’t you?”

I can still hear her nagging in my head. You’d think she’d have given up by now. Well, you’d probably think they all would’ve kicked me out by now. I’m not exactly paying rent here.

I’ll give it to them; they haven’t asked me for much, unlike my previous hosts. But then again, they might just be buttering me up for a discount on some hit they want me to land. Greenie’s been eyeing me ever since I told them that I knew where that Arin kid’s parents were. Guess he really wants that kid back. 

Anyways, enough about them. This journal is about me.

I was kinda lying when I said those were the only facts I knew about myself. There are a few more, like my hair. It’s auburn and goes down to my waist. I only let it down when I’m alone, though. I don’t really know how it grew so fast; a few months ago, it was only at my chin. I think it’s reached its terminal length by now. Still, I’m not cutting it any shorter. I don't want to resemble that pathetic guy in the photos the Ninja show me even more.

My lightning power is pretty much what you would expect from your average lightning power. Not that you would expect the average person to have lightning powers in the first place. The longer I go without using it, the more volatile it gets. In the Administration, where I couldn’t reveal my powers at any cost, I could sometimes feel the electricity building up in my veins, and it was extremely unpleasant. Now that I can use them without consequence, I usually just zap something to make the feeling go away.

I’ve also done a few experiments on my abilities. It seems I can produce new lightning from thin air, but drawing it from an external source, like a generator or power line, is easier and provides more volts. The lightning itself is a mix of yellow and blue; yellow seems to be more powerful, while blue is easier and faster to summon. 

My favorite game in the whole world is Galamorph X-Post. I’ve held the global high score for about as long as I can remember now (which in retrospect isn't that long), so when ol’ water ninja and her costumed comrades tried to steal that record, you better believe I wasn’t going to let that slide. I wasn't about to take any risks by showing up in person, though, so I used an emulator to simulate the game from my computer, and of course, I easily beat their high score. Oh, to have seen their faces that day.

I’m practically starving as I’m writing this, by the way. Their food sucks. The only person who cooks around here is this frog guy who keeps trying to serve me insects! Imagine my surprise when I find out what my biscuits are made of. And when he does make normal food, it somehow tastes worse than the bug food.

Their monastery is quite nice, though, I will admit. And this room isn’t too shabby either. They have a ton of older games and consoles, and those are the best. But it’d be better if they didn’t come into my room and interrupt me every five seconds. 

In fact, earlier today, while I was playing the absolute masterpiece that is Prime Empire, Nya came in and started spouting some nonsense about us being trapped in that game together and saving its inhabitants from some evil code monster that controlled it and was using their life force as energy to power his portal to the real world…can you see why I don’t believe anything she says?

I mean, it gets to a point. Even if I did believe her, obviously by now she’s told me plenty enough about the past, she doesn’t need to keep repeating it to me like I’m a child, and obviously I don’t want—damn it, I keep going on tangents about the Ninja. Right after I said this was going to be about me. 

Well, I guess they are a pretty large part of my life as of right now. 

Besides them, though, I do some part-time bounty hunting. Yup, nothing too big. Just a little hunting for artifacts and people for money. It’s a pretty good way to make a buck. The lightning powers help, but my natural aptitude for machines is the real driving factor. So far, none of my targets have managed to evade my robotic wings for long. Well, besides Ras.

Ras is my latest target, assigned to me by some lady who wants revenge on him for some feud. I can’t say I disagree with her. That guy was a total jerk. But we’ll get to that later. I’m getting five times my usual pay for this, so I fully intend to finish the job. Too bad that kid Arin, the same one Lloyd is so desperately trying to get back, is helping Ras. And it’s incredibly irritating. Every time I finally get close to catching him, something gets in the way.

But as soon as my leg heals up (which it is definitely still broken as of now), I’m coming after him, and he won’t escape me this time. I’ll make sure of it. He manipulated me, took advantage of my amnesia, just like the Administration, and I’m going to make him pay.

But for now, I’m trapped in here with a bunch of pajama-wielding pushovers. All day, every day, something stupid has to happen, like the fire ninja blowing up the kitchen or something. I get zero sleep in this bed. I hate it. I guess part of the reason I’m writing this is to keep myself sane, to a degree. And maybe because I’m a little scared. Scared because what happened to me during the Merge might happen to me again.

I know that it’s stupid to think that something like that could happen twice. But then again, I don’t think my past self expected it to ever happen once. I just don’t want to be lied to like that ever again, when I was so vulnerable. If I keep this journal on me at all times, I could at least read it and learn a little bit about myself if I ever get amnesia (again). 

So if I ever do end up reading this later on, and I don’t have any memories, I’ve got just one important message for future me. Never trust anybody. Not a single person who will try to “help” you is genuine. I’ve learned that lesson very well. Trust me, whatever photos or videos they show you are fake. The only person you (we?) can rely on is yourself. Okay, that’s pretty much it.

Sometimes I wonder how it would’ve been if the old me had left some sort of message. Maybe then I’d have an idea of who I truly was. Maybe I did keep one, but lost it in the Merge. At least that isn’t ever going to happen again. Hope I didn’t jinx it by saying that sentence.

Well, I’m done writing for today. The frog guy is about to give me my dinner, and I’m praying it isn’t dragonfly-related this time around. Maybe I should just rob their pantry for all their cup noodles and survive off of that for the next few weeks. It’d be healthier than what I’ve got going on right now.

I can’t believe I’d ever say this, but I miss the stale bread the Administration had. It at least tasted bland, rather than violently abhorrent. I miss a lot of things the Administration had. The authority as a manager to get other people to shut up. Being able to play video games whilst on the job. Then again, there were a lot more things I absolutely despised about the Administration. I’m not going to pretend I’m not glad to be out of that hellhole once and for all. There is nothing that would ever convince me to go back to that place. Besides a ton of money. Like, a crap ton of money. And even then, I wouldn’t stay for long.

Now I’m actually going to stop writing. Frog Guy just plopped down a plate of lasagna. It actually doesn’t look that bad for once. Hopefully I’m not proven wrong when I dig in.