~~~*~~~
The skyline falls as I try to make sense of it all,
I'd thought I'd uncovered your secrets,
But turns out, there's more
~~~*~~~
"[Y/n], slow down. Where is Lloyd?" His mum asked me, her hands guiding me inside of the monastery.
"I don't know, I had to run away. All I know about the ghost is that his name must begin with M, because he didn't want me to know his name."
Wu and Lloyd's mum shared a look, "Morro..." Wu muttered.
"Is that who you thought was going to put us in danger?"
"Yes."
Fresh tears fell from my eyes with the realisation that I was the one to put Lloyd in danger, not Morro. His mum took me to a room and sat me down.
"[Y/n], it's okay. No one blames you. You couldn't have known what was going to happen."
"But, I should've-"
"Nonsense, I have to alert the others. Stay right here, you're safe."
She had the same comforting aura as Lloyd, he must've learnt from her. As she left, Wu came in and sat on the chair next to me.
"Are you mad at me?"
"If I was angry with you, this staff would be hitting you on the head." He laughed.
I smiled a little. "What about Lloyd's mum?"
"Misako doesn't have room in her heart for any such emotion as anger. She is still completely in love with my brother, she has spent most of her life looking for a cure for the evilness inside of him."
"What are we going to do?" I looked down at my hands, fiddling with the zip on Lloyd's hoodie. I hadn't given him it back, now I was glad I hadn't. He made me feel calm, and this was the closest thing I could get to him at the moment.
"We can't be sure, until we know what Morro wants."
"I'm sorry, he didn't give me any clues as to what he wanted."
"Don't apologise. The Ninja will figure it out, they're good at what they do."
Misako came back into the room, a troubled look etched on her face.
"They said they can't use their powers."
"Is that bad?"
"Very." Wu muttered.
***
By the time everyone else had gotten to the monastery it was beginning to grow dark. Wu had briefed them all on what had happened, also giving away that I had figured out their identities.
We were beginning to think that Morro wasn't going to show up, that he didn't want to hurt any of us... yet. Wu checked outside once more, and a gust of wind went through the monastery, blowing out some candles that were acting as light.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Morro."
On the other side of the courtyard stood Lloyd, however his usual golden hair had been replaced with dark black and his eyes were now grey. His skin was almost void of all colour, a faded, grey version of himself.
The others rushed out, leaving me and the adults to watch from the doorway.
"What do you want from us?"
"Give us our friend back!"
Morro laughed that same laugh, echoed and dead. I could feel it reverberating in my skull.
"I want a word with your master." He stated.
"Look, I don't care about whatever beef you have with Sensei. Just leave Lloyd out of it." Kai shouted at the ghost possessing their leader.
"How are we supposed to fight him? He's still our friend."
"You'll fight, like this!" He ran towards them, he jumped and another, aimed attack of wind blew them back a few feet onto their backs.
"Oh great so he has his powers and we don't." Jay complained.
They got back up and tried to fight, but for lack of a better description- they got their asses handed to them. Not even their spinjitzu worked against his control over the wind, anytime they got close Morro would just send them away.
"We need to leave. We can't stay here." Wu suddenly stated.
"I'll go pack some things." Misako rushed into what I assumed was the kitchen and began taking things out of the cupboards.
"Where are we going to go? What about my mum?"
"I don't know where we should go... I suppose we'll just have to stay on the Bounty for a while. You can use your phone to alert your mother of your where-abouts."
I sighed and looked back outside, Morro had broken a nearby windmill and had smashed it on top of the Ninja. They were pretty much out of commission by this point and Morro was aware. He began walking toward the Monastery door. I couldn't look at him, it was still Lloyd's body that he was using.
I went to close the door, but he just blew it open again- sending me across the room.
"What do you want from me?" Wu asked, standing in front of me. Thankfully he was blocking my view of Lloyd's possessed body.
"Your father's staff."
"I see you've found the Allied Amour, Morro, yet you haven't summoned your friends."
"Your pathetic students haven't given me a reason to."
He slammed the door behind him before any of the Ninja could get in.
"If you want the staff, come and take it."
They began fighting in front of me, both holding onto the staff. Wu momentarily dropped the staff, causing it to roll through some dust that Morro had brought into the monastery. It revealed that there was something engraved on the staff. Wind swirled around the room, picking the staff up and floating it towards Morro.
I couldn't just sit on the floor and do nothing. When I was younger, before the accident, I had moderate control of my powers. Enough to move light objects. I just had to concentrate.
I closed my eyes tightly, if I looked at Lloyd's body I wouldn't be able to focus. I felt something hovering in front of me and heard a loud crash. I re-opened my eyes and the staff fell in front of me, Lloyd's possessed body was underneath a shelf.
"Come on [Y/n]." Misako held out her hand and helped me up.
"Sorry Lloyd, if you can hear me." I said as we rushed out of the door and into the courtyard, where the Bounty was waiting.
"I'm not running away from Lloyd!" Kai argued at our departure.
"Do you think I want to? No! Come on!" I couldn't help but scream at him as I tugged on his arm. He fought me off, ever stubborn, and continued to try and get Morro to leave Lloyd's body.
I looked at everyone else and back to Kai, who was now approaching the Monastery entrance. I stood conflicted, unsure of who to follow. I grumbled and ran to follow Kai.
"What are you doing? Go with the others." He protested.
"No can do. Sorry." I responded, walking back towards the monastery.
"You aren't even trained."
"Wrong. I was a little when I was a kid."
He sighed in annoyance, running a hand through his hair. "You two are made for each other, I'll tell you that."
I was going to hit him with one of my witty remarks, but the sound of a bookshelf being overturned stopped me with my mouth agape.
Morro had recovered from my hasty attack and was now back on his feet and approaching us, quickly.
Kai didn't hesitate to tackle the ghost unrightfully occupying my soulmate's body. Morro was unable to get Kai off of him and was struggling.
"Why are you trying so hard, fire ninja?" Morro grumbled, completely ignoring me.
"Because I promised to keep Lloyd safe! Now get out of his body!"
Colour momentarily returned to Lloyd's face and his hair shifted back to blond. His eyes changed from Morro's grey to his own bright red.
"Kai." He struggled, "Keep [Y/n] safe now."
I felt my heart drop once more as Morro regained control and threw Kai off. His eyes stared me down and he began to charge. I closed my eyes tight, a fear response I had picked up over years of bullying, and expected the worst.
Instead, I heard a deep grunt and an amazed exclamation from Kai. Gingerly, I reopened my eyes to see that a purple mist was surrounding me and Morro had been flung across the courtyard.
"I didn't know you could do that!" Kai shouted in excitement as the mist dissipated.
"Neither did I..."
"Let's go!" Nya shouted from above, the anchor lowering above our heads.
Kai looked unsure, glancing back over to Morro.
"We can save him, just not right now." I told him.
"I don't want to leave him."
"Neither do I, but I don't want to hurt him either."
I held out my hand which Kai reluctantly took and we climbed up onto the anchor. I watched as the courtyard shrunk, my view of my possessed soulmate becoming obscured. Once the anchor had been brought high enough, Kai helped me over onto the deck.
Nya ran up to us both, "That was so unbelievably stupid! But, [Y/n] that purple thing! How did you do that?"
"I have no idea."
I remembered my mum and quickly pulled my phone out of my back pocket. She had messaged me a few times, at first she was asking me what I wanted for dinner, then asking "Where the hell are you!" And then a series of panicked texts.
I rang her, unsure if I even had a signal this high up. She picked up almost immediately.
"[Y/n]! Are you okay?"
Everything that had happened in the past few hours filled my mind as I choked out a teary, "No."
"Baby, where are you?"
"I'm on the Bounty with the others."
"Is everyone okay?"
"Lloyd... He was... Oh mum!"
I let out a sob that shook my whole body, Nya was by my side holding me tightly.
"[Y/n], honey, calm down a little."
"He was possessed and it was all my fault!"
"Possessed? [Y/n], don't ever say it's your fault again. I love you so much, but please pass the phone to Wu or Misako."
I obliged and handed my phone to Misako, who had overheard my crying and rushed out to help.
Nya led me to her room and comforted me some more.
"You couldn't have known, [Y/n]." Nya stated, plaiting my hair as we sat on her bed.
"But... God it was so obvious. He literally told me that I was close to his target. And who am I closest to, my soulmate!" I had stopped crying and was now just angry at myself.
Nya had loosely given me two pigtails in my hair as well as letting me borrow some of her pyjamas. It was late and there wasn't much we could do until we knew where Morro was going and what his intentions were.
"So, are you going to sleep in here with me, or do you want to sleep in Lloyd's room? I'm sure he won't mind."
"I think I'll sleep in his room... thanks for the offer though." I smiled at her.
"Oh, thanks for calling me cool by the way. You know, when you didn't know our identities."
I blushed in embarrassment, "Your welcome." I left her room and went into Lloyd's.
It was the same size as Nya's, but completely different in terms of decoration. Obviously, every piece of furniture was green or had a hint of green on it. His bedding was green, and every item of clothing was either green or white. I made a halfhearted smile, I was still completely shaken by this whole situation. I was still compiling all the blame on myself, no matter how many people said I shouldn't.
I opened his wardrobe and took everything in, the colour scheme, the smell, and the size of some of the clothes in there. He had obviously been calling this room his for a while.
I flicked through the clothes, I came across a very small t-shirt with a skeleton design on it. It was black, to my surprise, however, there was still a small hint of the signature green. A number five.
"Is that how old he was at the time or was it just random?" I muttered to myself.
I checked the label, it was size 9-10 so it definitely wasn't his age. Something didn't make sense in the back of my head, Lloyd became the Green Ninja when I was twelve and we're the same age, so did he live with his uncle before that?
I shook my head, it didn't matter, and put the t-shirt back in the wardrobe and closed the doors. I walked over to his bed and sat on it. I wasn't going to rummage through his drawers, but I did thumb through the bookshelf that was hung above it. It was mostly comics and a few training books, one thing stuck out to me, however. It was a leather book with no title. I opened it curious and realised that it was a diary.
"I shouldn't..." but I already was.
It was dated 2014-2015, so we were 10-11 when he was writing in this. I felt a bit guilty to be reading his childhood diary, but my eyes wouldn't leave the page.
We had been communicating via morse code back then, and I was curious as to if I had been written about in his diary.
He had neat handwriting for a kid, cute.
16th March 2014
Uncle Wu said it's my birthday in four days. I didn't even know. They didn't let me celebrat my birthday at darkleys. I'm happy I don't live there anymore. Everyone was mean to me anyway.
Okay, so his birthday is the 20th of March. Spring, I was right. That meant it was only 24 days away, Olly's was only 14 days away. I hope Lloyd was back to himself in time. I skipped a couple of pages. He wasn't a consistent diary entry writer so after turning a couple of pages I came across a familiar date.
17th November 2014
The day before he stopped.
Uncle Wu found out that me and [Y/n] were morse coding to each other. He wasn't happy. He told me to stop. How would someone bad even find [Y/n]! I don't even know where she is! Uncle Wu is so mean. I hate him. I hate training to fight my dad. I want to be normal!
I closed the book with a slam. He was only 10 when he first began training? I held the book close to me and began sobbing once more. He didn't deserve any of this. He was only a kid.
AN
2440 words.
9th September 2022 (was supposed to be the 8th but I forgot, sorry)
I told you there was going to be angst. >:).
Reminder Lloyd was actually 8, not 10 because of the way they were both aged at different times. Just to make that last part even more depressing.
Also yes this is all set in 2020 because that's the year I started writing :)
~Actuallyabiscuit0602