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Jay was back with the ninja, that was… great, it really was.
He had wanted his memory back so badly, his entire life was stolen from him by the memory-loss (however that happened), The Administration, and Ras, all the people using his empty shell as a vessel for their desires. A part of it was himself, who - when reunited with the ninja, and Nya, his own Yang - didn't remember them, and refused to believe anyone but the tiger man that wanted nothing for him, but everything for himself.
Why would he be so foolish?
He was back now, that's all that mattered.
While he ended up believing the ninja eventually, his memories still wouldn't return, nothing ever felt familiar. The only reason he knew Nya told the truth was because, for once, there was something different in her words, genuine love and concern that no one else had.
Kai and Nya, while in the Land of Madness, told him that he didn't need to risk it all to regain his memories, but he did it anyway, despite how they said they can make new ones, better ones, and they'll still love him.
But he found it hard to love himself now, because he still remembered everything from his life after the Merge, and it didn't feel right. He wanted to claim the person he was before the Merge again, but it would forever be tarnished, known as the Bounty Hunter with some big reputation, and even though he remained anonymous, he knew, and he didn't want to know.
Jay would prefer to forget about all that.
All the crimes he committed, the things that went against the ninja way.
But maybe his goodness is… less shattered now that he knows the truth, and have the memories of being a good person in his own will, and not some "strangers" begging him to be that way.
So eventually, he'd forget that side of himself.
Except, in the Crossroads, he'd gained quite the reputation, and even though he was unmasked and shouldn't be recognised as "Rogue", he could swear he felt the glares digging into his head.
"You been much to the Crossroads since the Merge, Jay?" Kai asked, sipping a noodle up, a traditional dish from the never-realm, he forgot the name, but it was spicy. Kind of ironic for the coldest realm of all.
The team were all hanging out, just the seven of them, as it was before. Lloyd had wanted the others to come from some guilt, but Arin and Sora had insisted they get some time together. That was nice of them, he wasn't as comfortable as he'd like to be with the new ninja.
He'd been to the Crossroads more times than he can count, at times, it was his home, but that place was never the same - until now.
"Yeah, did some…" he tapped his chin and chuckled, sipping one long noodle to prepare himself "some jobs around here."
Many of their faces blanked, and they froze with their noodle eating, the dish they all heavily enjoyed. "Jobs?" Lloyd muttered, looking around the streets.
It was a bustling place, much busier in the day obviously, he spent a lot of time here sneaking to his clients at night.
He was afraid to take off his mask when he hid out here for weeks at a time. He was a Bounty Hunter trying to get by, and would do anything for some money, but being spotted by anyone with his true face scared him. 'What if those ninja spotted him?' worst of all, what if Ras or the Administration did.
Now, he found it ironic that the place he called home the most resided in Ninjago, his home realm, his subconscious knew where he really belonged.
"Oh, right, bounty hunting/mercenary thing." Cole realised and stabbed an egg from his noodles, then dropped it into his mouth.
All six ninja finally together, he realised, as they walked through the busiest place in the Merged Lands. It must be a weird sight to see the blue ninja after so long, or maybe the world had forgotten him.
They were actually on their way to a specific restaurant, a new branch of Chen's Noodle House that they described as being much more extravegent after the Merge, but they couldn't resist an authentic Never-Realm dish, a reminder of a place they'd once been.
Except, he didn't remember that place too well.
"Yeah, but- but you know I wasn't that bad, I only stole like… ancient artefacts." He stammered, rubbing the back of his head.
Nya pointed her chopsticks at him, she was by his side holding his hand, "You almost blew up the jet Arin was riding."
He quipped back, "To get Ras." He snapped his chopsticks together and Nya flinched back, but laughed. She had surely been under a lot of distress with how he was acting, his constant appearances and disappearances, Jay didn't know how she handled it, how she didn't give up on him completely.
"I do wonder where he is and what he is planning right now." Zane joined, Pixal was there too, a hand over his waist.
If he remembered correctly, Pixal had only reunited with the ninja very soon before he did, and eventually, the same hunt that led them to her had led them to him in the First Realm, trying to capture Ras admits a deathly, ravaging sand-storm.
Nya sighed, "Let's not think about that right now, let's just explore." She ran forward still holding his hand, bags and noodles in the other - she'd done a little shopping, bought some intricate china dishes for her parents, she was easily influenced by people on the sidelines calling her into their stores.
Like right now, a serpentine was calling them to the side, cunning voice, already plotting the word. He paused, then they all groaned, it was Fedulian.
"Ninja, so good to see you again." He slithered, his fingers tapping together like a conniving villain coming up with their evil plan, but this guy was barely anything, just a bit dodgy at most.
"Oh, you've got a new addition." He exclaimed and jogged to the middle of the group, right where he stood.
He knew the guy, he'd done a few deals with him already. After many, maybe a dozen, he underpaid him, which really grinded his gears. "Oh-" he stuttered, whisking the noodles in his bowl around, trying to avoid eye contact and making his voice low. Voice changers were great when he was a Bounty Hunter, but he rarely didn't have it on, so he was scared of how recognisable his voice would be without the robot-like overlay. "Hey, what've you got here?" He tried to distract.
A mask on the front table, be cringed at how he recognised. He stole the thing from the First Realm when he was sent on a scavenger hunt around there to collect many ancient objects.
"You seem to be interested in my ancient oni mask!" It was clearly not one of the three only oni masks he knew of, but he let him speak, just leaning back a little when him (and his slithering tongue) got too close to his face. "From the first Realm, now called the Land of Oni and Dragons, it was what the Oni and Drafons fought over, it gave the one who wore it ultimate power, it was the ultimate weapon in the war, and in the end, the dragons prevail—"
Nya grabbed the mask and glared menacingly, "We don't care about the mask, it's fake anyway, and if it was real, us ninja would just have to take it away - too dangerous to be in your hands." She smirked and flopped it back into the box.
"Yeah, we really need to be on our way." Jay joined and turned around, pointing to an ice cream truck on the other side of the street, hopefully he'd get to try many foods he'd never had the chance to try today.
Yes, he could have stole whatever he wanted to, but he would have rathered steal when he'd get money in return, so oftentimes he'd actually buy some food - but this was usually instant noodles, chips, or store bought sandwiches.
His time as a Bounty Hunter was rough.
"You know…" Fedulian got even closer, his green eyes and glowing green scales making his eyes flinch close. The other ninja looked at them, "You sound awfully familiar… it's peculiar." He put his hands to his chin and got even closer, more and more each seconds, the others looking closer as he began to sweat.
Suddenly, just as he was about to zip away to that said ice-cream truck, he gasped and covered his mouth - but gleefully, very cunningly, "You sound an awful lot like that—"
Then Jay grabbed Nya and ran away, whime Fedulian - awfully protective of his artefacts - had no choice but to stay behind.
"Did you do deals with that guy?" Nya asked, concerned in her chuckle, "Jay, you really shouldn't mess him him, he's super sketchy!" She complained, looking back at him, and now, the others trailing a little behind as they stopped by the opposite side of the street, dodging a car on the way.
"Yeah, we hate him." Lloyd added, crossing his arms.
Suddenly, the Crossroads was only a reminder. With it being a poking pit of all the realms, every realm he commited such crimes in was implanted here, whether through the architecture, or the literal objects he had stolen littered around.
Like now, even the alleyway he made the deal with a "Zeatrix", the lights hanging from roof to roof, the laundry just below it. It reminded him how he mainly snuck around at night, trying to hide, always needing to get away from something.
He kept the appearance of something as mysterious and dark as the back of an alleyway, where only the rats scurried around.
He grabbed his ears, removing all their voices and the bustling off the street for a moment, until he slapped them down and stomped his foot. "Well, I don't do that anymore. I'm good now!" He paused, collected a breath and jogged to the front of the group, desperately, he spoke more and looked into their eyes because they needed to see he was someone different. "I'm not Rogue."
Cole stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, "Yes, Jay, we know, calm down, let's—" his eyes lit up while Jay's fell down at his cautious words like he was something to be afraid around, "Lobbo's Arcade, let's go before dinner."
Lloyd shook his head and tut while he laughed, "Heh, yeah, you'd love it there, Jay."
He had in fact been there many times before, mainly after close so he could have a machine all to himself all night long.
But the ninja had been without him for so long, and surely Cole out of all had plans to show him around this place; the new game spots in town, new architecture to waltz around on during a patrol, more interesting than the plainer roofs of the Ninjago City skyscrapers.
So be could lie here, let them have this, and he could see the joy on their faces knowing that they're experiencing something together, and not actually having experienced it before. Back then, he was on his own, alone, trying to find something that felt like him when there was someone so clearly a part of him constantly begging for him to come back.
"I haven't, it's…" he pretended ro look closer to read the front, "Lobbo's Totally Rad Arcade, Lobbo-Lobbo?"
"It'll make sense when you meet the guy." Kai laughed, and they went inside.
—
Of course, he knew the inside like the back of his hand.
Even now, more than he knew the insides of the Monastery, many of his memories still being foggy or having not returned at all. He didn't know what he didn't know, which was honestly scary.
Left in the dark by his own mind, like everyone was in on some joke but him; except, they had explained the joke, and he still couldn't get it.
Dumb mind.
And dumb for still thinking about it too!
Kai led him to a cabinet on a pedestal, the Galamorph X cabinet. He still held the high score, which made him remember the stressful memory of the person that stole it from him, his name was, what was it again?
"Kai! You stole my high score." The fact finally clicked into his brain.
"You already knew that, I put my name."
He did know that, and had complained about it while he was being "held hostage" in the Momastedy, but that side of him felt a little detached, both his pre and post-Merge self did.
"Back then I didn't know who you were!" they raced to the cabinet, and Nya being curious, gave it a go too.
She smiled softly and looked back, her skill level of this game was good enough for someone who had never played it, so it was probably due to all his yapping that she knew the Mechanics, "It was to get you back, Kai thought that if he beat your high-score, you'd sense it and come straight here."
The others were at various other places in the Arcade, with Zane and Pixal pulling Cole away from the casserole that he questioned how he could even think about eating.
Kai imitated what he spoke about with a smirk, "Then we were gonna capture you, and bring you back to the Monastery until we got through that thick skull of yours." He bonged his head.
"I did 'sense' it," he recalled, "but your plan didn't work, I took my high-score back remotely, bet you didn't expect that."
Unfortunately, Nya died and immediately slammed the console, but she composed herself and leaned back when she joined the conversation again, "We were going to use that to track you, but…" she fiddled with the buttons and joystick behind her, looking to her side. "We got busy with the Forbidden Five, Thunderfang, Ras, and then- well, then you swooped in and sent Arin on a wild goose chase."
"Sorry about that."
Kai jumped onto him and nearly sent him tumbling, but he was caught by his firm grip of his shoulders, "Don't worry, buddy, that's all in the past now."
Silently, he nodded, and looked to the arcade he knew so well, and the people he felt so close to, but still knew so little.
Then he thought; when will things be completely normal?
And, would they ever?
—
On the way home, they encountered something, the very thing he least wanted to come across.
As a Bounty Hunter, he needed a lot of stuff, from the clothes on his back, bags of weapons, mechs and vehicles, ones either attached to his body or ones he rode on. So, he needed a place for all those things.
And what better place than the Crossroads, where most of his clients resided? The place was the quickest way to make a name for yourself, and a quick buck.
As Ninja, trouble always came their way, or they came their way into trouble, which was how they ended up fighting some thugs mugging an old lady in an alleyway.
Truth be told, he enjoyed the fight; the ninja were still one, they hadn't lost the spark of being seperated for so long after the Merge, and they still had their youth and enthusiasm for the job. He wasn't exactly in sync with them, having actually still not got the gist of spinjitzu back, but it was better than having no memories of them.
Worse than the small faults he made while fighting, there was a familiar feeling about the alleyway.
He called the Crossroads home for a while, but not in the typical way, he hid out in alleys, woods, sleeping in the trees or on a rooftop, basically, just anywhere no one would find him, or accidently stumble across him.
But of course they found a group of criminals hiding out in the exact alleyway he once called home, or more like his dirty corner. "They're knocked out ma'am, you should go home." Kai scurried her away, then kicked the limp leg of one of the crooks, the others looking over them, everyone except for Jay.
He looked at the corner.
Peaking out the darkness was a tent, his tent, and he wondered how it hadn't been stolen by anyone, but they were in the ourtskirts of the crossroads now, where the nights were dark from people sleeping and not thousands partying or celebrating the night away like they did in the centre.
This is what he called home, but for so long, all home had been was a moment of escape from the day, but a place he'd eventually lose.
Only now was he realising that he really didn't have any place to call home back then, because this shack he used to call just that wasn't a home at all, it was just him, the plans of which clients he would meet with next, the terror of avoiding life looming over him for the next day.
Maybe all he did was avoid everything; because a constant thing in his mind was - when will I belong? Would this bounty hunting thing last forever? Which he knew it wouldn't, even though he so desperately claimed that it was exactly who he was meant to be over the titles given to him by Ras, and the Administration.
"What'cha looking at, Jay?" Nya stepped to him, leaning against her sword perched on the ground.
She paused, then looked up at him, and he knew that she knew, so he had to speak.
"This was my…" he trembled, but didn't let that mean he'd crumble, he would keep showing no emotion at all - that didn't work, so he bit his lip to contain himself, and it just got worse when Nya squeezed his shoulder.
"It was my…" he kneeled down and picked up a prototype of a wing-suit, the first attempt, if he remembers correctly, but much better than the first attempt of wings he did way back as a kid. Despite having no memories, his brain did its best on natural instincts. "These are my things, from when I was… on my own."
The others were behind him now, kneeling down or hanging cautiously behind, the whole thing was a sensitive topic that they knew Jay would rather shove into the past.
But it was still his things, the wings he made with his bare hands, carved from pieces he worked hard to collect.
He didn't make them because it was what he needed for the job, but because he saw the birds and dragons in the sky and wanted to do just that. It was passion when his life had no time for it, so he worked it into the one thing he needed to do to survive. Jay could smile at the craftsmanship, but all he saw was a lonely version of him.
Not even a version of him, just him, when he didn't know what he didn't have.
"The wings," Lloyd knelt down last, the person always hanging just a little too far from him, but this time he smiled, "you did this all yourself?" He asked, but it was more of a statement, he believed he could have actually done it.
Jay looked around more, opened the tent and braced for the loneliness inside… and there it was.
Stacks od games he'd leff behind for the Ras job, then never returned to, because the him that needed to hide out there was here now, with the ninja, his family, and saying that would have left an awful taste on his tongue just a few months ago.
But the games were all played, the prototype sketches on the ground, the games being used as paper weights for them. The plans were precise and detailed, he didn't miss a single thing, aside from a few miscalculations- so that's why his wings worked so shockingly well the first time he tried, he could be proud of just that at least.
Nya held him tighter, then let him go when he rushed to the corner, a drawing.
Cole squeezed next to him and picked it up, then handed it to him. Now, him, Cole, Nya, and Kai were squished under the tent, pinned from one side of the alleyway to the next, dead string lights hanging from those same places, the battery depleted or ruined by the rain he could barely hide from.
"Looks like your GI." Cole traced the drawing up and down.
It was a sketch of a new GI, but not the usual one, the anonymous one he'd made all himself, and had worked for him well. Even now, he was impressed with his design and wished the same lightning strike patterns ran down the front of his regular GI.
He smiled. "Yeah, but… it's the other thing." He traced his fingers over the hat he had drawn, "I guess it does look kind of cool."
"Cooler than our dragon forms?" Kai chuckled.
"Ha, almost." He picked up the sketches, with Cole to the side now looking through the games. He'd grown quite the collection over the past few years, his interest in gaming persisting through his memory loss and shattered goodness.
He was alone at this time of his life, but he was still undoubtedly himself. Joining Cole at the stack of games, he took more notice to the surroundings.
Despite his past appearance as a cunning and mysterious mercenary, the place was actually pretty colourful. Many pillows, ones that were comfy enough to make a mattress with and stay up all night to play games, or keep track of the Galamorph X high score he got quite paranoid of losing again after the "incident" with Kai.
Jay smiled.
It couldn't be as large as it was before all this, or if the Merge didn't have the devastating effects on him as it did, but it was good enough, and he was okay for now.
He had a home now, a home that lasted more than this shabby location.
But, while he was trying to get his memories back, he had thought he'd lost himself too - when his memories returned, he'd transform into someone new. A part of him was anticipating to grieve the person he was then, scared that his past memory wiping had removed the man he was and birthed the new one.
But it didn't, the memories of returning to this little "base" were still clear, and he was lonely, as he'd been many times as a ninja, but he was also ready to do some inventing or gaming, build some models or well…. earn some cash that he'd spent on the most ridiculous things.
Still, he didn't know how he would feel about that side of himself in a few years time.
What if he faded away? Now, he didn't think he wanted that… maybe he could love that version of himself that was so alone, it may give his past self hope that he'd find the family he needs that can nerd out on all these games and appreciate the wings that finallg worked.
Today, he was a ninja, but he'd always have his shattered goodness, so it meant that man was always him, so he couldn't chuck all this away like he'd anticipated he'd do when he first stumbled across it.
"Let's go, but-" he held the sketches to his chest, "I'm gonna take this."
Cole nodded and bergrudingly left the games behind, but Jay decided to grab a few.
He looked back at it, it wasn't really a tent at all, but a fort of waterproof sheets hanging from corner to corner, a mess at first glance, but organised when you got close to those piles.
Kai ducked out and grabbed his hand, "Jay, you're not alone like this anymore." He held a sketchbook in his hand, one he hadn't noticed in there. "But you've always been pretty talented, though, that's one thing that's never changed."
Jay flipped through the pages, sheets and sheets of designs, equations, or some doodles of a monster that looked very similar to ones he had faced as ninja - his memories were gone, but the smallest fragments always shone through during this time.
"You should get back into inventing." Nya flipped a page with him, leaning on his shoulder.
"Yes, Pixal and Sora would love your input." Zane smiled. "You were the one who made the Bounty first fly, your idea, we'd be most interested to see what you make next."
Pixal joined too. "I was very impressed by the design of the wing-suits, but we are sorry for stealing your design for our own." She chuckled, "we didn't know they were yours."
He traced his hand over a drawing of a dragon, a lightning dragon with small coloured areas dotted around.
"That's fine." He chuckled back and closed the sketchbook, at the front there was a drawing… of himself, the ponytail he thought made him look more like a warrior at the time, and maybe… he still liked the look of it, but he remembered how much the ninja made fun of it while he was cooped up in the Monastery, and shuddered at the thought of it continuing. Kai does enough bickering as it is.
"I'm gonna keep this, I'll finish the pages." He bounced, and the others softly looked back at him.
Lloyd stepped out of the corner last, holding a few comic books. Since returning, he noticed Lloyd has the most striking difference, trying to be so mature to train his students, but right now he has the giddiest and smiley face he'd seen on him since he returned, "And we can read these together!"
Kai scurried him out and grabbed both him and Jay by the shoulder, making them hunch over at his weight.
"Yeah, yeah, we'll do all that, but…" He turned to the criminals still half-conscious in the alleyway, "let's get these guys to a police station first"
"Oh, right, I forgot." He kicked his leg again and grinned. He was glad to be taking down crooks again.
Zane and Pixal hauled the few criminals onto their backs, and they made their way there, then after, they would go home.
He took one final look at that corner, the alleyway that didn't feel like a secret anymore. His memories were too fresh, parts of himself still exactly like he was now, he couldn't let this part of himself go.
Turning for the Monastery, he held onto the sketchbook, comics and games - he wouldn't run away anymore.