Chapter Text
The Ninjago City Museum of Ancient History had exactly forty-two security guards on a Friday night.
Lloyd knew because he'd counted.
There were now six.
"Three on your left, Kai," he said into the comm, dropping from the skylight and landing silently on the marble floor below. The atrium stretched wide around him, glass cases glinting under emergency red lighting, shadows pooling between the exhibits like dark water. Somewhere in the east wing an alarm was screaming. "Don't let them reach the stairwell."
"Already on it." Kai's voice crackled through, bright and unbothered. "Actually I'm a little offended they only sent three."
"Focus."
"I am focused. Focusedly offended."
Lloyd exhaled through his nose and moved.
The museum's main hall was a disaster — display cases shattered, ancient pottery ground to dust underfoot, a priceless tapestry hanging half torn from the wall. Whoever had hit this place hadn't cared about the collection. They'd come in fast and mean and with one destination in mind.
The east wing. The restricted vault. The Book of Destiny.
Lloyd had read exactly one paragraph about it in Wu's library before tonight happened. Old. Powerful. Something about elemental records — a living document that supposedly tracked the lineage of every elemental master since the First Spinjitzu Master himself. He hadn't thought much of it at the time.
He was thinking plenty of it now.
A goon rounded the corner ahead — big, armored, moving fast. Lloyd didn't slow down. He dropped low, let the green energy crackle up through his palms and released it in a short sharp burst that caught the man square in the chest. He hit the wall and didn't get back up.
"Two down in the west corridor," Cole's voice came through the comm, solid and certain as stone. Lloyd could hear the dull crunch of impact behind the words. "Make that three. Anyone else feeling a little underdressed? These guys have gear."
"Matching uniforms too," Zane noted. Calm. Almost conversational. "Black with silver threading. The insignia on the shoulder is not in any database I currently have access to. I am running a cross-reference now. Whoever organized this operation planned it carefully and has resources."
"Great," Jay said. "Love that for us. Hey question — does anyone else think it's weird that a book called the Book of Destiny exists and nobody told us about it until tonight or is that just — OKAY EXCUSE ME —" a sharp crackling sound, the distinct snap of lightning, a yelp from someone who was not Jay — "sorry, you were in my way, anyway as I was SAYING —"
"Jay." Lloyd turned the corner into the east wing and the scene opened up in front of him. "Later."
The vault doors were open. Blown clean off the hinges, twisted metal curled outward like paper. Whatever had done that hadn't bothered with subtlety.
And in the center of the vault, surrounded by four remaining goons in identical black armor, standing completely still with the Book of Destiny held against their chest —
Was someone Lloyd had never seen before.
Cloaked. Head to toe in deep charcoal fabric that seemed to absorb the red emergency light rather than reflect it. A mask covering everything above the jaw — smooth, pale, shaped faintly like a crescent moon lying on its side. No insignia. No markings. The jaw beneath the mask was sharp and gave nothing away.
Lloyd couldn't tell if they were a man or a woman. Couldn't tell if they were young or old. Couldn't tell anything except that they were completely, utterly unbothered by his arrival.
They tilted their head slightly. Like he was mildly interesting.
"Green Ninja," they said. The voice was low and deliberately even. Modulated maybe. "Right on time."
"Put the book down."
"No."
The goons moved.
They were good — better than the ones in the corridor, coordinated and fast — but Lloyd was already spinning, green energy flaring up both arms as he caught the first one mid-lunge and redirected the momentum hard into the second. He hit the ground rolling and came up just in time to see Cole crash through the doorway like a very enthusiastic boulder.
"Finally," Cole said cheerfully, and headbutted the third goon's charge with enough force to rattle the display shelves. No hesitation. No wasted movement. Pure forward momentum, a battering ram with a black gi. He grinned at Lloyd over the chaos. "Vault, cool, nice, what'd I miss?"
"The book," Lloyd said. "Cloaked person. Mask."
Cole's eyes found the figure. His grin sharpened. "Got it."
Zane came in through the ventilation shaft above — of course he did — and landed with mechanical precision between two goons before either of them had processed he was there. One clean strike to the pressure point at the neck. One controlled sweep of the legs. He straightened up, assessed, moved to the next without a word. No wasted energy. No unnecessary force. Just efficiency dressed in white.
Nya came in low through the side entrance, water already coiling off her in twin streams that she used to yank the feet out from under the last two armored goons simultaneously. They hit the ground hard and she stood over them with her arms crossed looking deeply unimpressed.
"Vault was too easy to breach," she said to no one in particular, sharp eyes moving over the blown doors. "They had inside information about the lock system. This was planned weeks in advance, minimum."
"Weeks!" Jay announced, swinging in through the doorway with his nunchucks live and crackling, lightning skittering up his arms in bright arcs. He pointed at the cloaked figure. "You've been plotting against us for weeks and you couldn't even put a better lock on the goon budget?? These guys were mid at best, like genuinely I am asking for a stronger challenge, I have been doing cardio —"
"Jay," four voices said simultaneously.
"RIGHT, yes, villain, focusing."
The cloaked figure had not moved through any of it.
They stood in the center of the cleared vault with the book still pressed to their chest, surrounded by groaning unconscious goons, watching the six ninja arrange themselves in a loose arc in front of them. Unhurried. Unbothered.
Lloyd stepped forward.
"Last chance," he said. His voice was even. Leader-steady. Whatever was moving underneath it — the unease, the strange cold feeling that had settled in his chest the moment he'd seen the book's title — didn't make it to the surface. "Put it down and we can do this the easy way."
The figure looked at him for a long moment.
Then they looked down at the book in their hands. Ran one gloved thumb across the cover almost gently.
"You don't even know what this is," they said quietly. Almost like they pitied him.
They moved.
Not toward the ninja — away, spinning on their heel with a speed that didn't seem possible, a device in their free hand already throwing out a blinding white flash that swallowed the vault whole.
Lloyd lunged anyway.
His fingers caught the edge of the cloak —
And closed on empty air.
When his vision cleared the vault was silent. The goons were still down. The blown door hung crooked on one hinge.
The cloaked figure was gone.
And so was the Book of Destiny.
The dream dissolves the way bad ones always do — all at once, leaving nothing behind except the phantom sensation of fabric between his fingers and the echo of a voice saying you don't even know what this is.
Lloyd woke up gasping.
He lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling, chest working overtime, waiting for his heart to remember that it lived in a body and not in a museum vault. Slowly the room settled around him. His room. His ceiling. The familiar water stain above his desk that looked vaguely like a dragon if you tilted your head and squinted.
He turned his head.
9:04 AM.
He groaned at the alarm clock like it had personally wronged him, dragged himself upright, and grabbed the first shirt he could reach from the chair in the corner. He didn't look at it. It didn't matter. One foot in front of the other, that was the mission right now. Basic human functioning. Hallway. Kitchen. Coffee if there was a God.
He shuffled out of his room with his eyes at about forty percent operational capacity, blinking slowly against the morning light coming through the corridor windows. The smell of something cooking reached him first — eggs, maybe — and he followed it on autopilot.
He pushed open the kitchen door.
He stopped.
He looked at the scene in front of him and genuinely considered returning to bed.
Nya and Jay were at the island counter, which was normal. The fact that Nya was asleep with her cheek pressed flat against the marble and Jay was using her as a headrest, eyes barely cracked, was less normal but honestly not surprising for a Saturday morning after a mission. Zane was at the counter talking to Pixal while she stood at the stove, which was fine, perfectly fine —
Cole was fanning himself with a paper plate.
Not gently. Aggressively. His shirt was completely gone, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and there was a very visible sheen of sweat across his shoulders. He was fanning like a man whose life depended on it.
Lloyd stared.
"Cole," he said slowly. "What are you doing?"
"It's so hot!!" Cole said, not pausing the fanning for even a second. "I'm literally dying Lloyd. I'm dying in this kitchen. Someone call a doctor."
Lloyd was awake now. Properly awake. He looked closer because something about Cole's face was —
He was sweating through a normal April morning. His skin was flushed and his breathing was the labored kind of breathing you did when it was the middle of July and the AC had given up on life. Lloyd looked at the thermometer on the wall. Twenty-six degrees.
"Cole," he said carefully. "It's April. It cannot physically be that hot in here."
Cole fanned faster. This was apparently his entire response.
Lloyd turned to the nindroid corner of the kitchen and slid himself up onto the counter next to Jay, who stirred slightly and then went back to resting on Nya's shoulder.
"Pixal, I can do it," Zane was saying, with the specific strained patience of someone who had been saying it for a while.
"Zane." Pixal flipped an egg with practiced ease, not looking at him. "I know you like to be good at everything. It comes with the being legendary thing. But it is okay to not be perfect at some things. Accept it and let others help."
"The legendary —"
Whatever Zane's feelings were about the legendary thing, they were cut off by the sound of a groan from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
Kai shuffled in wearing a hoodie. Hood up. Sleeves down. Gloves on. Both arms wrapped around himself like he was trying to physically hold his own warmth inside his body. He looked like a man who had just trekked across the tundra and had opinions about it.
"Did someone break the temperature system?" he rasped, squinting at the kitchen like it had personally betrayed him. "It's freezing."
Lloyd looked at Cole, who was fanning sweat off his forehead.
He looked at Kai, who was bundled up for an arctic expedition.
He looked at the thermometer. Twenty-six degrees. Unchanged.
What is happening right now.
"Kai," he said, in the measured tone he used when he needed to stay calm so everyone else would stay calm. "It is April. It is neither cold nor hot."
"Well I'm burning alive," Cole said, waving his paper plate in Kai's direction. "Someone fix the AC before I actually combust."
"Absolutely not," Kai said, pulling his hood tighter. "I'd rather combust than turn into a human popsicle. The heater needs attention, that's what needs to happen."
"AC."
"Heater."
Cole and Kai locked eyes across the kitchen with the unified energy of two people who had forgotten they liked each other.
"JAY!" they both said at the exact same time, pivoting to the counter. "NYA!"
The effect was instantaneous. Jay's head shot up, arms swinging out in a defensive stance from pure reflex. Nya jolted upright with wide eyes, already scanning the room for threats.
"Wha— what's happening!!" Jay yelped, looking around wildly. "Are we under attack?? Where's my— where are my—"
"No one's under attack," Cole said. "The AC is broken, fix it."
"Heater," Kai corrected through his teeth.
"What's wrong with the temperature?" Nya said, blinking slowly, pressing the heel of her hand against her eye. "It's fine."
"That's what I'm saying!" Lloyd said, gesturing at the thermometer.
Nya squinted at him. Jay squinted at the room. Neither of them looked particularly moved by the ongoing temperature civil war.
Zane and Pixal had both turned from the stove to watch the proceedings. Pixal had the quietly unimpressed expression of someone whose argument had been derailed before it could reach a conclusion. Zane looked like he was categorizing this in a mental file labeled things I will not be addressing right now.
"Regardless," Pixal said, cutting through it cleanly, "the most important thing this morning — Zane, the mayor's office called. They want a statement about the museum break-in. There was a press briefing this morning and word got out that the Book of Destiny is missing."
Zane's expression shifted slightly. "Why me?"
"Well, I could do it — I know you hate the publicity side of things, and you haven't made a public statement in quite some time. I do get it." Pixal considered the pan thoughtfully. "The public respects Samurai X. They may not know who I am behind the helmet, but they listen. Perks of dating the Green Ninja, I suppose, but —"
"WHAT?!" six voices exclaimed simultaneously.
The kitchen went completely silent.
Pixal continued plating eggs, confused by the ninja but unbothered by her own statement.
The silence stretched. Usually when Pixal made a joke there was a beat — a small tell, something in the eyes or the slight uptick at the corner of her mouth. Lloyd had gotten good at reading it.
There was nothing. She was just standing there serving breakfast.
Everyone slowly turned to look at Jay.
Jay held both hands up. "I did not touch her humor indicators."
"Why would Jay touch my humor indicators?" Pixal asked pleasantly.
"Jay," Kai said, in a tone that had already decided guilt.
"I DIDN'T —"
"Okay, Pix," Nya said, in the gentle voice she used for situations that needed handling carefully. "The statement was a bit strange rather than funny, but we'll figure it out, it's fine —"
"Which part was strange?" Pixal asked.
"The part where you said you're dating Lloyd," Kai said.
Pixal turned around fully now, looking at the assembled ninja with something that scanned as genuine confusion.
"When did I say that?"
The silence that followed was a different kind.
"Right now?" Jay said. "Just now. Ten seconds ago."
"No I did not."
"Pixal," Lloyd said slowly. "Yes you did."
"I did not."
"You literally just said —" Lloyd paused, because you had to be precise with Pixal, she would find the gap in imprecise — "I am dating the Green Ninja."
Pixal raised an eyebrow. "What does that have to do with you, Lloyd?"
The kitchen went so quiet they could hear the eggs cooling on the plate.
Lloyd opened his mouth. Closed it.
Zane was looking at Pixal with an expression that had moved past concerned into something quieter and more focused. The look he got when something wasn't adding up and he was trying very hard not to show how much that bothered him.
"Pixal," he said carefully. "Are you feeling okay? Is you’re—"
But he was cut off by Cole’s scream.
It wasn't a yelp or a shout — it was a full, genuine scream, the kind that meant something was actually wrong, and every head snapped toward him in an instant.
Cole was on fire.
Not metaphorically. Not a small accident. Cole was on fire — flames racing up both arms, catching the edge of the counter, spreading to the paper plate he'd been fanning himself with, flickering up toward the cabinets with a speed and hunger that made Lloyd's stomach drop straight through the floor.
Cole was staring at his own hands like he had never seen them before in his life.