Vzzzn, vzzzn...
"Mmm?"
Koko was surprised to find that she had fallen asleep on the couch in the lounge area behind the dojo. She had only sat down to rest for a moment. Maybe it had been that relaxing tea Master Wu had given her. There was even a little bit left in the bottom of the cup where she had left it on the arm of the couch, though she did not figure that out just yet.
It was dark— perhaps just before dawn. She could barely make out the cup much less what was in it. The silence surprised her more than anything, but the sound of her cell phone humming broke it again.
She picked it up from where it rested next to the tea cup.
There was a text from Garmadon: "Hey, Koks! Picked up the trail and I'm hot in pursuit! I'm thinkin' we'll have that cure-all by noon."
Koko smiled.
There was a selfie of Garmadon grinning widely as he displayed an assortment of empty banana peels.
"Be careful, Garm," she texted back. "I'm checking on Lloyd."
Then slowly she got up. It was a little chilly, and she rubbed her arms as she made her way down the corridor to where Lloyd was sleeping. Very slowly she opened the door for a peak.
"He's not in there."
Koko let out a gasp and turned to Wu standing further in the corridor.
"Oh, Uncle Wu," she said, and smiled. "You're good at that."
"Yes," said Wu gravely. "I know, but this is no time for compliments. Last night, the other ninja left. I did not know until just now that Lloyd also went with them."
"What?" demanded Koko.
Vzzzn, vzzzn.
She picked up her phone.
"More bananas!" it read.
Pursing her lip, Koko instantly typed, "Garm, Lloyd left."
Pause.
Vzzzn, vzzzn.
"Where'd he go?"
"To stop Kinkomi with his friends," she texted back
Another pause.
"Why didn't you stop them?" Koko demanded of Wu.
Wu jumped. "W—well, if they were gunna disobey my orders after I fully explained to them why I did not want them to go until we had a plan then they had to face the consequences on their own. I didn't know that Lloyd was with them. They should be smarter than that."
"Unless they were chasing him down and he was the one who ran away himself!" said Koko.
Vzzzn, vzzzn.
"Hmm, that's exactly what I was thinking," Wu admitted. "It wouldn't be the first time; though it has been a while."
Garmadon texted, "Then I'll text him and make him tell me where he is, and I'll go get him."
"Oh, right," Koko whispered.
Vzzzn, vzzzn.
Koko jumped. It did not come from her phone. She looked at Wu.
"It isn't mine," he said.
She knew that it wasn't, though. It was coming from behind the door she had opened a crack before meeting with Wu. Lloyd's phone was on a table right next to the cot.
Koko frowned. She lifted up her phone and texted back to Garmadon, "He didn't bring his phone."
A third pause.
Vzzzn, vzzzn.
"D:<"
"Uncle Wu," said Koko. "We have to get him back."
"Well," said Wu with a shrug, and he pulled out a remote. "That's why this craft has the capability of transforming into an airship."
With just a press of the button, the entire ship transformed as fast as anything from Transformers Prime. One moment it was in the water and the next it was hovering with wings spread at the ready, and the two people inside no more than tousled just a little from the change.
Wu closed his eyes and wrapped his hands behind his back.
"Meet you in the bridge, Lady Iron Dragon," he said.
#
There was a shuffling in the trees above.
"Mph?"
Maybe it was just squirrel or a bird, but whatever it was did not bother Lloyd as he lifted his head to the light coming in between the leaves of the trees in the gentle breeze. He happened to be in a patch of mostly sunlight, and it felt good on his back and even better on his bare face as he lifted it a little higher and soaked it in.
He felt much better than last night. In fact everything felt much clearer like a morning after a storm. He looked about at the others still mostly asleep, though it seemed they were slowly rousing as well. He smiled and was about to wake them, but he stopped as he looked at the shadows and sunshine shifting along the ground from the leafy shadows. It was almost like glistening magic, and a word formed on his lips as he cocked his head thoughtfully.
"Komorebi..."
#
A pair of bright green eyes glowered sulkily from beneath a funny little blond bowl-cut of a hair piece. Lloyd stared out into the bonsai plants in the window of the airship. He was leaning over a small, low table with a cushion instead of a chair beneath him, and he scowled into those plants as though his glare could shrivel them up like a drought.
He sighed a sigh that was almost a growl.
"Oh, there you are," chirped a careless voice absently behind him.
Lloyd stiffened upright with a jolt and turned to Master Wu looking as though he was getting something to eat from the fridge, but despite how he appeared to be uninterested in Lloyd, it did not take a genius to know that he had been sincerely looking for him.
Lloyd rolled his eyes and looked away.
Wu did not speak. As Lloyd stole a raised-browed look back at him, Wu did not turn. He simply continued to take out the makings of a sandwich out of the fridge and put them onto the counter to begin it.
With a sigh and a shake of his head, Lloyd returned to the bonsai plants and glowered at them again.
"Oh, yes, they do look a little thirsty, don't they," said Wu suddenly.
See! Lloyd told himself. I knew Uncle Wu was paying attention to me.
He pretended not to notice, though.
Lloyd had been training with the other ninja not long before this. Cole and he and gotten into an argument like they often did. The others usually sided with Cole even though sometimes they tried to stand up for him too, but only because he was a little kid, not because they did not like Cole better.
He thought of getting back at Cole by putting something wet and squishy in his bed, and he could not help but smile at the thought, but he knew that would not help. He had been having to remind himself of that a lot since he came to live with the ninja for good and to become one of them. Well, since he learned he was the Green Ninja and that his father did not want him and that he himself had been an idiot for trying to be evil so that he looked like some weird cackling child Boba Fett from Attack of the Clones.
How long ago had he been still donning that skeleton hoodie and pretending to be Garmadon's protégé?
Only a week ago.
He bit his lip.
Wu took a watering pitcher and delicately watered the plants. His body blocked the light, and as Lloyd looked at them, he blinked at the sudden change of their appearance without the sun shining on them. It was like a lamp had been turned off. When Wu had finished, he returned to his sandwich. He was almost done.
As he began cleaning up and looked like he was about to leave, Lloyd let out a defeated sigh that was really a sigh this time and said, "How can I be the Green Ninja?"
Wu turned to Lloyd with full attention now.
"Honestly, Lloyd, even when I first saw you in your crib in Ninjago City, it did occur to me that you were him," said Wu with a shrug , "but then I thought to myself, that would be too easy. Just because you had green eyes where most babies have either brown of blue was not an indication of destiny."
"No, I mean, I know the prophesy. I knew it before when I used to spy on the ninja," said Lloyd, "but they don't want me to lead them! And I don't wanna lead them!"
He slammed his fist on the table.
There was a pause. Wu watched Lloyd a moment glaring heatedly again at the bonsai plants on the table.
"Komorebi," said Wu suddenly.
Lloyd winced. He spun around again with a very confused expression— so confused that all anger fell away.
"Is that a secret word that means something for learning about being a ninja?" asked Lloyd.
"You told me you wanted to do what needed to be done even if it wasn't your destiny. To make up for what you've done, to try to stop the evil that has befallen our family and I accepted. I did ask you if you wanted to be the Green Ninja and you hardly let me finish asking before you wanted it, but if you've changed your mind, I cannot force you to do anything you don't want to do. You are ready enough to return to your mother and live a quiet, normal life."
"Are you trying to trick me?" demanded Lloyd.
"No. I never force anyone to be my students," retorted Wu. "There's no point in teaching someone who doesn't want to learn."
He set the sandwich down for Lloyd, and Lloyd, quite surprised by the gesture, smiled just a little.
"I want to do what's right, Sensei."
"Then you have to decide for yourself what you want to do, nephew. What you feel you can do."
Lloyd nodded. Then he frowned.
"But what does 'komo...rebi' mean?"
"It is the sun filtering in through the leaves of a tree. It shifts in the wind and sometimes it is light and sometimes it is dark, but as long as the sun is shining there will be both the shady spots and the sunny ones."
With that, Wu left Lloyd to his sandwich.
Despite himself, Lloyd began playing with the lettuce, as he thought of sun and leaves and what in the world Wu was trying to tell him.
#
Lloyd nodded. There was always something positive even when there was more shade than not. The good things were always there as long as the sun was out, which meant as long as there was life. He had figured that out a long time ago, and he had needed it when he had fought Garmadon for years. It had helped him to this day.
Well, admittedly, he had been forgetting it until just now again, but he realized something else about it.
The others, he thought.
What Wu had been trying to tell him about this whole 'foundation' thing, and watching and listening to the others had all been still about komorebi. There were shadowing things and bright things about all of them. If he was to be a good leader, he had to know their strengths and weaknesses as well as his own. It was not as if this was a new concept in itself. Lloyd had always tried to encourage the others when they were down or needed help in some fashion, but now it was time for a new lesson in being the leader. He had to truly know what the team members as individuals could and could not do and to utilize that well into what would be best for the team while still keeping watch over himself all the while in an honest sort of way. It was a balance, not just when they were fighting some simple bad guys wrecking the city. The sparks of light between the shadows had to be found even when the wind was blowing its wildest and seemed to be ripping the tree from its very foundation.
Lloyd paused as that word popped up again in his thoughts by accident.
Yes, he mused, but what's the 'foundation'?
Well, whatever that was about, he had to work with what he had so far.
The others were waking up.
They probably would have to go back...
They had disobeyed a direct order from Master Wu. In the light and clarity of day everyone would have to know it.
"Don't worry, everyone!" said Zane suddenly (always the morning person) in the midst of the groggy moans. "I brought breakfast!"
"Oh, good!" said Nya.
"I'm starving!" said Kai
"What'd you bring?" asked Jay.
"I brought bananas, apples, and cinnamon muffins that I made myself," said Zane.
"Sounds like a good breakfast to me, Zane," said Lloyd even though after a moment of thought, he could not say that he felt very hungry for some reason even though, he certainly felt better than last night.
Cole was already going for a muffin. Kai grabbed one too. Nya had an apple, and Jay copied her. Lloyd was just about to go for a banana but just as he reached for one he found that he had only grabbed a green apple.
He scratched his head.
"These are great muffins, Zane," said Kai.
"Of course they are; they're Zane's," remarked Cole.
Zane was eating an apple so he did not say anything, but he beamed with pride.
"Hey, Zane?" asked Lloyd.
"Yes, Lloyd?" asked Zane after he swallowed.
"I thought you said you brought bananas."
"I did," declared Zane happily, he paused and looked around. "Hmm, they seem to have disa—"
Splat!
Everyone stopped. Eyes went wide upon the banana peel on the ground behind them.
A chill went through Lloyd as he suddenly remembered that sound of an animal in the tree he had heard when he had first woken up.
Slowly, everyone looked up to where the banana peel had fallen from, and for a few seconds no one moved a joint or made a sound. There were so many leering monkeys in the trees about them that they might have made up an entire murder of crows about to devour a cornfield had they been crows. The monkeys blinked their beady eyes.
Lloyd felt at his sheath.
At least he had remembered to bring his sword with him if nothing else.
But he wasn't fast enough.
One of the monkeys let out a high-pitched screech. Immediately the monkey faces turned dark and they leapt downwards.
Despite themselves, the ninja force screamed. Their initial reaction was to scatter in every direction. To be fair, even for a master ninja, to be overrun by an uncountable amount of savage monkeys was a little unnerving, but Lloyd was the first to stop as he realized that if they scattered and panicked, the monkeys would have an easier time of picking them off one by one.
Throwing his ninja mask over his face, he jumped into a nearby tree and swung at a monkey with his sword.
"Guys! We gotta organize!"
They heard him just barely over the screaming monkeys, but they all in unison agreed.
"Cole!" said Lloyd.
Cole nodded and grabbed out his hammer. The other ninja quickly leapt off the ground and into the trees even as the monkeys kept descending after Cole who was out in the open now. The ninja held on tight as Cole aimed not at the barred teeth and swiping hands of the monkeys but right down at the ground.
The monkeys fell down from the mighty force than caused a tremor through the ground beneath them. Even if some had escaped from being still in the trees or from being too out of range, many monkey were disoriented enough for Nya to get one half good and wet as she jumped down. Kai started the other half on fire. Jay got the wet ones electrocuted and Zane confused the burning monkey bodies by freezing them cool but then solid.
Lloyd smiled, and he made a spinjitsu leap out of the way of another monkey trying to grab him from behind.
There were a lot of monkeys still coming, but Lloyd was confident that if they kept at this like a team they would defeat them easily.
Suddenly, the monkeys caught on, though. Mobbing together they climbed into the trees while some remained on the ground to trick Cole. Lloyd saw their plan and ran for Cole to get the monkeys off his back for his next swing into the ground, but just as he neared him Kai had a similar idea. He was leaping from his position as the fire man to blast the monkeys out of the way. He started the whole branch on fire, and Cole had to not only leap away from falling monkeys but from a fiery branch too.
"Nya!" called Lloyd, but Nya was already off by herself fending off a swarm of other monkeys and was unable to come to help.
"Rrr," said Lloyd to himself. He turned the other way as the fire started to spread. "Zane!"
But he was so occupied with the fire that even as he spoke a monkey grabbed him by the head and rammed him into a tree. He did not even have time to react.
"Lloyd!" cried Cole and Kai who were together as they leapt out of the way of the flames.
He was out cold in a second.
#
Fortunately Zane saw the fire enough to put it out with his ice before it could get any bigger, but it was big enough and taking up much of his time. Jay leapt down to watch his back with a few zaps.
Cole bashed a monkey square in the jaw as Kai grabbed Lloyd away from another.
Another monkey bit Kai in the hand.
"Ah!" cried Kai.
Cole bristled with rage and wiped sweat from his brow as he saw the monkeys take up Lloyd again.
They were getting further and further away from the others. In fact he was not sure if the others even knew where they had went, as they stayed to stop the rest of the fire and fight off monkeys. He grabbed Kai before a monkey could grab him too.
"You okay!?" Cole demanded, though his focus was still on Lloyd as they ran.
"Yeah," choked Kai. "Just as long as a monkey bite doesn't turn me into a monkey."
At least he was still in good humor, anyway, and Cole could not help a half-smile.
He took another sweep of monkeys down with a swing of his hammer and pounded the ground with it to take out some more, but the monkeys with Lloyd were already quite far ahead. Kai did not dare try to throw fire out that far after almost burning down the forest with his last sloppy shot.
We should have grabbed Nya, thought Cole.
All they could do now was to continue to make chase.
Suddenly, one of the monkeys made a screech and a sort of laugh. The monkeys stopped, and quickly and delightedly made a monkey ladder with Lloyd at the bottom. Cole bristled like an angry badger even though he knew what sort of Jungle Book prank they were trying to pull. He ran for them anyway trying to grab at Lloyd's upside-down form and dangling arms before they pulled him back up.
"Cole!" called Kai from behind.
He was not ready for the other monkey ladder with a stick held by the last monkey to smack Cole in the side of his head as they swung down towards him.
Cole went sailing.
Kai let out a fire blast at that swinging ladder, and the monkeys screamed and fell apart falling down all around him so that he could swing with his hot blades, but Cole went on tumbling.
Down, down, down he tumbled along a steep hill. The world spun ground to sky except when he bumped at times into rocks and stumps. At last he stopped at the bottom of the ravine in a patch of mud and leaves feeling dizzy and disoriented.
Silence.
Cole lay there, not much hurt physically, but he was furious as well as he glared up at the trees coming into focus. The bows shifted in the wind causing glittering sunlight in between their leafy shadows. He breathed heavily between clenched teeth in contrast to the slow and peaceful wind.
He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a huff.