Ninjago - One-shots and short Stories

The Ones That Got Away

"Uhm..." Skylor didn't know how to start the conversation.

"My father is back." Lloyd blurted out.

"He is not your father." Misako told her son. "This... monster is not my husband."

It sounded like they had been telling this themselves and each other ever since the Dark Lord's resurrection.

"Anyway, it was all my fault." Lloyd continued undeterred. "Harumi has played me, I fell for her pretty face, her silky hair, her sparkling eyes, the way she pretended to care for the poor,..."

It was painfully obvious that the Green Ninja was still very much in love with the evil Jade Princess.

Nya placed a hand onto his. "Stop blaming yourself." She told him.

"Nya is right, it is very easy to trick someone who cares for you." Skylor confirmed, ashamed of how she herself used to play the red Ninja.

"You were different." Lloyd told her, correctly guessing the other's thoughts. "Harumi made her own choice."

"But you are not the only person in Ninjago who has ever been blinded by their affections. We've all done stupid things for love..." Nya stated, tears pooling in her chocolate brown eyes again as she thought of her brother and boyfriend. "Just remember how Jay and Cole were figh..."

"Jay and Cole are gone." Lloyd cried. "All of them are gone. And I got away."

"Gone?" Skylor asked in a shaking voice.

"Gone." Nya confirmed.But it was more the look on the Water Ninja's face than the word she spoke that made Skylor realise what this meant.

Everything suddenly blurred before her eyes, and the Master of Amber struggled to fight down the bile she could feel rise up her throat. And had she accidentally put on the heating in the restaurant?

"Drink." A robotic yet gentle voice instructed her as something hard and cold was carefully placed into her hands. Skylor raised the item to her lips. As the cool water touched her lips and ran down her throat, she could feel herself calm down a bit.

"Thank you." She smiled at the Nindroid who had handed her her own glass of water.

"You are welcome." PIXAL replied. "I do not need hydration. But you do."

"You are PIXAL, right?"

"This is correct." The android in the Samurai armour said. "How do you know?"

"Kai called me like two days ago. He told me what had happened, and he invited me to a party at Dareth's karaoke bar. But at the very short notice, I couldn't find anyone to take over my shift for me here." She sighed. "I really have to stop putting noodles before my life." Well, whatever is left of it now...

"Kai has always admired your sense of responsibility." The girl that Skylor had hoped to become her sister-in-law one day spoke in a quiet voice. "My brother loved you a lot. You know that, right?"

"I do. And I love him as well." Skylor just couldn't use the past tense for him yet. "Please, what happened to them?" She needed to know, no matter how painful it was for all of them.

"It was my fa- I mean Emperor Garmadon's colossus [colossi is wrong grammar], he just crunched the Bounty as if he was crumbling a sheet of paper. And they were all on it - Kai, Cole, Jay, Zane, and Wu."

"Wu?" Skylor wondered. "You found him?" That must have been the surprise Kai had mentioned on the phone.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter now. He was with them. I even threw him to Cole, to keep him safe from Harumi's grasp."

"And this is what he wanted." His mother stated. "Wu would rather die with his students than become a pawn in his bro- the Emperor's game."

"Then, why did we get away?" Lloyd wondered. "Maybe I should have been with them as well..."

"Because Ninjago still needs you." Nya told him. "Remember, they-we were all willing to give up our powers to heal you. You are still our biggest hope."

"What are you going to do now?" Skylor wanted to know.

"We need to lay low for a while, maybe get a few more people on board." Nya said. "But after that... I honestly don't know what we're gonna do. I just know that we have to do something."

"You could hide at my father's island." Skylor suggested.

"Thanks, but we are not leaving the city. We can't abandon the people." Lloyd said firmly. "Not this time."

"And we don't want to drag you into this." Nya added. "We just wanted to tell you ourselves. It wouldn't have been fair to let you find out about... you know... from the news."

"Oh, the telly isn't working anyway." Skylor pointed at the corner, where the broken TV set was laying on the floor, having been expertly shot down by a crossbow arrow. "The program has gotten a bit too... dark recently."

TV and radio stations as well as the newspapers had all been taken over by the Emperor's henchmen.

"But I want to get involved." She added. "Garmadon wouldn't be like this if it hadn't been for my father. And even if it's too late to put my own life before noodles, it's not too late for Ninjago." She jumped up, pulling down her orange hood. "No matter how few are left of us,

Ninja never quit."

——-

Skylor's minifigure appears in one of the S9 sets, so I guess the 'ones that got away' (i.e. the Ninja and Samurai that were left in Ninjago) will recruit her to help fight Garmadon and Harumi in the new season.