The Jade City

Chapter 31: Corruption

Morro's POV

I instinctively reached for the dagger at my belt, only to find thick, black, cloudy tendrils twisting around my arms and torso, winding so tightly it was near impossible to move. Gasping, I hissed as a wave of cold washed through my body, and in that moment, I wondered if I was going to die. I opened my mouth to shout, but before I could make a sound, one of the tentacle things shoved its way between my teeth.

At once it felt like a million thin, ice-cold daggers were jamming into my brain through the roof of my mouth, slicing my bones into fragments. The pain was blinding and I twisted in agony before I realized the more I resisted, the worse it got, not that not resisting made things any better. As I fought every muscle in my body to not grimace, I looked up at Ruby's smiling face, wondering how I was able to see anything.

"Do you like it?" she asked, in a voice so sugary sweet I wanted to gag. Somehow I could still breathe, though the tendrils, which seemed to be repeatedly stabbing me with thousands and thousands of needles, were making that simple task increasingly difficult.

"It's okay, I'll just wait." Ruby, or more accurately, the Shadow Knight, leaned against a tree with her arms crossed over her chest as she watched me struggle, her sapphire blue eyes gleaming.

I wanted to ask "wait for what?" but couldn't as the tentacles wrapped around me even tighter. My arms, torso, and head felt as if they were being slowly sliced in half. It was torturous, especially when I thought about how utterly helpless I was. How long would she keep me here, and how could I escape to warn the others?

The Shadow Knight and my surroundings began disappearing and fading into black. Memories flashed before my eyes, memories of Ninjago that might not even be my own. I watched how Lloyd Garmadon, the stupid brat that released hordes of Serpertine to attack everyone, got handed the Green Ninja gi with no prior training whatsoever. He didn't even know what it meant until the others had to explain.

I saw myself as a child, pulling an endless number of all-nighters to perfect my skills in the training course so that I could show him new stunts I'd learned the next day. Once, when I was ten, I broke my arm, and though Wu insisted on making me take care of it, once nightfall came I resumed my training. I watched myself hissing and writhing on the ground after getting struck down but refusing to cry out in case I woke my master.

It was naive of me to assume that my grit and determination and refusal to give up could've meant anything to destiny.

Switch to another shot of Lloyd marching around with a wheelbarrow of candy, laughing his wannabe evil laugh and yelling about how his plan was pure genius.

Then I realized that this must be what they meant when they said kissing the Shadow Knight would lead to corruption... I tried to push the thoughts out of my head, but they weren't going anywhere. I saw Lloyd standing in his tree house with his stupid cape, proudly showing off the sign that said "no ninja allowed." Lloyd whining over his barrel of candy that had been knocked over. Lloyd screaming "retreat" every time the Ninja had the slightest upper hand...

I tried to turn away from the scenes, but my body, which was frozen in place, refused to play its part.

With that came more scenes of myself getting thrown across the training course, standing up again every time even when I was bleeding and refusing to stop until at least an hour had passed after time was up. Wu told me I needed to get rest, but with the title of "the Green Ninja" at stake, I didn't listen.

But nothing I did was ever enough.

Lloyd stomped around making faces as he talked about how stupid the Ninja were, of how they'd ruined his "master plan," whatever that was. The kid laughed "evilly" as he pulled out a can and began muttering to himself about how they were actually filled with rubber snakes that looked "so real you can't tell the difference."