The Haunting
••• Skins •••
i need no introduction
welcome to the greatest show
i can teach you how to ruin your relationships
with everyone important that you know
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TW: panic attack, impalement, blood
sorry for the wait, hopefully 9k words makes up for it
also we're now over 200k words! (send help)
I stared at Misako, silent in my shocked stupor. Garmadon was first to respond, stepping around his wife and leaving for the bridge with Wu and Ronin hot on his heels. Misako followed. I was the last one out of the training room.
The hallway wavered as I sped at the back of the pack, my bewildered brain turning my surroundings to something incoherent. I could barely comprehend what Misako just said - Simon Gessei didn't exist? That couldn't be right. I shook my head to reorientate myself and left it spinning faster.
"Wait!" I caught up to the rushing adults. "Wait - what do you mean Simon doesn't exist?"
"It means what I said it does," Misako answered. She shouldered open the door to the bridge where Skylor was still on a video call from her laptop in her bedroom. Her brown eyes immediately landed on me and turned with worry. I was about to rip my hair out from all this external pressure.
"That's impossible," I said. "I've known Simon my entire life."
"What about your aunt-?" Ronin asked.
"She's normal!" I insisted shrilly, and only took pause to calm my voice when Wu placed a hand on my shoulder. "Aunt Rose has nothing to do with any of this."
"Do you have an idea why your cousin wouldn't have any records?" Skylor asked. In the background stood Pixal, who flipped through a manila folder that looked to have been stolen from somewhere official. "I couldn't even find a photo of him - and I checked all of your family's social media accounts."
"Because he's insane?" I said with sarcastic annoyance. I stilled for a beat before pulling out my phone. "I have a photo of him. Mum made me take a family selfie on Christmas."
They crowded around me as I pulled up my phone's selfie album. My cheeks warmed considerably as I scrolled past the cliché couple photos I'd taken with Lloyd on the New Years trip, and my heart sunk when I continued past the hundreds of crudely-taken selfies of himself when he stole my phone. I could feel Misako and Garmadon's anguish bloom at the rare images of their once carefree son.
"Here." I located the photo and zoomed into Simon's face for them to see. He was scowling as usual, half-hiding behind Rose and I but caught in frame before he could disappear completely. His yellow eyes glared at Lloyd. The retrospective realisation made me sick.
Misako grabbed Garmadon's arm with a face that paled. The brothers both went stony. Only Ronin and I continued to be clueless, and Skylor, who couldn't see the photo. I startled at their reactions.
"Y/n, honey." Misako had gone a touch breathless. "Are you certain that's your cousin?"
My eyes jumped between them. "Yes?"
Misako's grip tightened until her knuckles turned white. Garmadon's gaze turned from the photo of Simon to me, and the weight within them felt like holding the very sky. I had to remind myself to breathe.
"He doesn't look... different to you? A little unusual?" Garmadon carefully asked. "His eyes, perhaps?"
I turned the photo to me. It was just Simon. "No."
"Y/n... what colour are his eyes?" Wu asked.
I pulled a confused look. It was a weird question, but I stared closer at the photo of Simon and answered. "Brown? They've always been brown."
Misako sucked in a sharp breath that frightened me further. She turned to her husband and Wu.
"He's put a block on her," she whispered in horror. Garmadon stepped around her and marched towards Skylor at the console.
A spike of fear stroked up my spine. "What? What do you mean?"
"Skylor, it is imperative that we find his location immediately," Garmadon ordered. She went firm at his words, rigid with a seriousness that added fuel to my mounting panic. "Do anything you can, use all the resources you have. He must be found."
Skylor nodded and ended the call. Wu and Misako talked beneath their breath to one another. I still felt so lost, and it was growing infinitely worse.
"If he... memories..." I managed to catch Misako whisper. My phone went dark with inactivity. Helpless, I dropped my arm to my side.
"What's going on?" Ronin asked. Garmadon picked up a book from beneath the console and flicked through it, and the bounty hunter's annoyance grew. "Hey - you're freakin' the both of us out, here. An answer would be nice."
Garmadon pulled his eyes from the book and shared a loaded look with the others, a silent conversation in which they discussed how much they thought I should know. My frustration surged upon me strong and swift.
I wanted to shout at them, but I knew I could never. I wanted to beg them to tell me what it was, to finally let me in on the know, but I could only shake on my spot and await the charity of their decision. Their intense reaction had thrown me right into a pit of terror.
Mercifully, they threw me a bone. Wu turned from his sister-in-law and brother and sent me a look of great grief. My insides turned themselves into knots, or maybe something like pretzels.
"He is not your cousin," he said gravely. "That is Axon, Nuro's brother. He is an Elemental Master."
My cluelessness prevailed. My panic grew. "I don't understand. He's Simon."
"He is not Simon Gessei," Garmadon said carefully. "Simon never existed. He is a character Axon created to..." He paused for a second to gather himself. " He was a persona he used to get closer to you."
I shook my head, weak with shock. "How?"
"He is an Elemental Master," Wu repeated grimly. "A Master of the Mind. He has taken your memories to weave himself into them, and he has blocked you and your family from figuring out his true self. That is why you do not see him as he truly is."
The world went sideways. I stumbled into the table beside me, breathless with how fast my heart was racing. My clammy hands clutched at the edge of the wood with a death grip. Misako reached out and squeezed my forearm in support, but it did nothing.
I shakily lifted the phone again. It was strange now that I knew about his eyes, it was as though a spell had been broken - every time I blinked his yellow eyes bled back into brown, like the block was still trying to cling onto me.
I'd never felt so violated in my entire life. The stun of realisation left me trembling with a feeling that made me ill.
In retrospect I knew, instinctually. He'd never felt quite right, always an outlier at family functions like the blurred edge of a memory you couldn't quite grasp. He always made me feel uneasy, as if I were a goat stuck in a lion's cage that couldn't see the danger but knew it was prowling the shadows. I couldn't even find a point in time where my fabricated memories of him had become real.
"Why would he do this?" Ronin asked when it was clear I couldn't.
"Perhaps he knew about Y/n," Wu answered. His own shock was dull in comparison to my sharp horror of it, and the pity in his gaze made me want to hurl. "Perhaps he figured out who was in the prophecy before any of us."
My ears had begun to ring. Everything had gone watery.
"That doesn't exactly answer why," Ronin pointed out.
"He's always hated us," Misako said quietly. "He's always tried to get revenge since his mother died in the war - but I never expected him to go this far. To use Y/n to get close to Lloyd..." She looked as sick as I felt.
"I thought he was dead," Garmadon hissed. "Centuries of silence only for this. I should have made sure of his passing myself."
"He's trying destroy us the way losing his mother destroyed him," Wu murmured greyly. "Morro's possession, the threat of the Departed Realm - it was all his design."
Simon used to steal my toys. He used to call me names and insult my outfits and rip pages from my favourite books. When we were older, he'd make fun of the way I couldn't look people in the eyes when I spoke or the way I tripped over my words or the way my brain would drift from the conversation. I was his favourite emotional punching bag.
All that, only to learn that those memories were never real? And what of my Aunt Rose? Simon was awful, but she still loved her son. Did he live under her roof and made a fool out of my poor aunt just because I was the one beside the green ninja? How long had this sick game of his been going on for?
I wanted my mother. I wanted Lloyd. I wanted it to be over so I could forget about all of this. I wanted to go back to being naive.
While the adults discussed exactly how it was that Axon had manipulated my brain, I slipped from the room and fled.
🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃
My head leant against the glass above the window seat I'd hidden myself away on. The living room was barely used, and it provided a secluded escape necessary for my confused sobs.
I was exhausted by the time my cries stopped, but my head couldn't stop spinning from the revelation. It'd be easier if I had Lloyd to console my sick fright, or Jay or Nya or any of the other ninja, but I didn't. I held myself tight and told myself the things I'd want to hear - that it's okay, that it was fine because it was all fate's plan, that the infiltration of my own brain wasn't as bad as it seemed. They were all lies.
"It's a lot to take in."
I lifted my head and found Misako at the entrance. She wore a smile dripping with sympathy, and held two steaming cups of cocoa. I wiped the tears from my cheeks with a sniffle.
She crossed the room and held out a cup for me to take. I picked it up from her hands with a stuffy-nosed thanks and took a sip. Strange that I was drinking hot chocolate in summer again. The last time I did that was the first time I saw Lloyd.
"May I sit?" Misako asked. I nodded.
She folded her legs on the seat before me and followed my gaze out to the mountain. We couldn't see the peak or the Blind Man's Eye, hidden by a layer of cloud so thick that it seemed almost impenetrable. I hoped the team was doing okay.
"I'm sorry," Misako said softly. "I've been where you are. I should have prepared you better for this life - I did not expect anything of this magnitude to fall upon us so quickly."
"It's okay," I murmured, but it was said in reflex. None of this was okay, but I wasn't about to lay the blame on her.
I'd forgotten that Misako was once human, too. We'd walked similar paths; a mundane existence until fate swerved the roads. How did she meet Garmadon? I wondered if she'd hesitated when Uchū offered her immortality to be with his son, or if she dove in without another thought. I'd do the same if he were Lloyd and it were me.
The clouds rolled over the glistening snow-cap. Inside Lloyd's hoodie pocket was the dragon figurine of which I gingerly cradled between in my palm. If I rubbed at it for much longer, I feared I'd smooth the details right out of it.
"Would you like to talk about it?" Misako gently prompted.
"Not really," I confessed. I'd done enough contemplating to last a decade worth of mental energy.
"Would you like me to speak, instead?"
I did like it when Misako spoke. She was a living history book, there for every event I'd studied and era I'd drawn myself into. She was a greek tragedy and the most interesting biography come to life. I think she liked to talk about things, too. It must've been hard to keep friends when you no longer aged.
"Yes, please." I nodded.
Misako repositioned herself and took a sip of her drink with a small sigh. We both watched the empty mountainside.
"Aden was my best friend."
I peeked over at her. She smiled softly back.
"Axon's mother," she answered my unspoken question. "She was the first of the Elemental Masters to welcome me into their side of the world. I was still human then, and courting between Masters and humans was rare - and especially never done before by the sons of Uchū."
Just as her stories always did, I was pulled in. She was an image of who I could become. I took mental notes of every word she spoke.
"It was a little lonely, at first," Misako said, a little curtly and amused. "If I was not around the brothers, then I was at home or tending to my studies. My peers were not happy by my disregard of my own kind. Aden was my first friend in many, many years."
"What did your parents think?" I interrupted.
"Oh!" Misako chuckled at my quick query, and I blushed at my rudeness. She didn't seem to mind. "Oh, they were appalled. If I had to be courted by one of Uchū's sons, then why on earth did it have to be the one who'd been poisoned by evil? They were not pleased, but I didn't care. We were in love."
So, she and Garmadon had been pitted against the world even before he'd been consumed by evil and turned into Lord Garmadon. The unfairness made my heart throb with sympathy.
"It was hard adjusting to immortality, I must admit," Misako continued, "but I wouldn't change my decision for the world."
My voice went quiet. "What happened to your friend?"
Misako's face wrinkled with a bittersweet smile. "She died in the wars a few centuries ago, when humans finally turned on us and we had to go into hiding." She paused, and her brown eyes dropped to her cocoa to watch the steam curl in the cool air between us. Her gaze was doing that thing again; living in a memory. "She died to save me. I didn't know how to fight at the time, I hadn't seen a reason why I should until it was too late." She paused to release a sigh that shook. "After Aden, Garm taught me to fight. I couldn't let my inaction cost somebody their life. Not again."
Maybe letting Misako talk wasn't the greatest of ideas.
"Despite all our best attempts against it, I had to watch my best friend's youngest turn into something cruel and bitter, and now he is after my son." She raised her face to the ceiling and closed her teary eyes. "He looks so much like her."
I stared at the surface of my cocoa with a heavy heart. It sat like a rock in the cage of my ribs, and grew evermore weary as her tale sunk in. I hadn't considered that some Elemental Masters wouldn't stand with the ninja, but it was foolish of me to think that there wasn't any point of contention within them. Their history was long and painful.
"I'm sorry," I murmured.
Misako appreciatively squeezed my knee. Understanding bloomed between us. We both knew each other's pain well, and the lacking of something that lied within ourselves that we tried hard to rectify. For her, it was fighting because of her friend. For me, it was embracing my powers to help save Lloyd. I'm sure we'd both had 'if only...' repeating in our heads.
I looked up at Misako again as she watched the mountain. How could she be so strong? She turned her back on her parents and her people for love, and then was villainised for being his wife. She lost precious time with Lloyd in an attempt to find a way to avoid a prophesied fight between her family that she couldn't even stop. Her best friend was killed before her. Her best friend's son wants her own dead.
I felt like breaking with every minute that passed, and each new development sent me spiralling further into despair. My shield was cracking. How was she still even sane?
"How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you persevere when the world's against you? How... how do you not break?"
Misako looked at me with a tired smile. "I've broken plenty of times, Y/n. I'm breaking as we speak. I feel lost and I'm sick with worry over my son, and I kick myself for not being able to see into the future and avoid all these instances that have hurt my family. But if somebody ever tells you that they've never once cracked, then they're lying. Everyone breaks. It's whether you can put yourself back together that makes you strong."
She reached forward and wiped away the slow tears from my cheeks. I hadn't realised I'd started crying again, silent weeping that took me by surprise. It was like the pain in my chest - I'd cried so much that I'd gotten used to the thickness of it, the hard sting.
"The tribulations this family faces are worse than most, but we love one another fiercely. We pick each other's pieces up," Misako softly continued, and swept away the new wave of weary tears that overtook me with a sad smile. "That's how we all remain steadfast. That's how I persevere. You will, too."
Misako squeezed my cheek before sitting back and continued sipping her cocoa. We stared out at the mountain again.
I wished I had the same confidence in myself as she had in me, but I wasn't predisposed to such things. Was it an age thing? Would it grow as I did? At this rate, it felt like I'd be this fickle forever.
"Do you think he'll recover from this?" My question was meek and uncertain. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.
Misako's patient look slipped into a face of anguish. "I don't know. Lloyd's had to face some serious things, but..."
Nothing as bad as this. She didn't need to finish her sentence.
"We'll pick up his pieces, too," Misako reassured. "And then I'll get to see my son all sappy and doting again."
My face blushed hot.
"Sorry," she chuckled. "I don't mean to embarrass you. I just love how happy he's been since you two met." She leant forward to take my hand again. "After years of being mistreated by other people-"
She cut herself off when a large snowball the size of a car zoomed past the window with the sound of distant screaming. The conversation fizzled out. We sent each other baffled looks.
"Ghost!" Ronin yelled from the deck above. Our eyes widened.
"Perhaps we should see what's going on," Misako suggested, and rose to her feet. I followed, cradling my hot cocoa close.
By the time we got to the bridge, a cage had been flung from the ship and imprisoned the ghost. It rose to the hull with clinks of iron chain. The ghost wailed something both somehow goofy and bone-chilling, and it made my cocoa seem ice-cold to sip on.
"It came from the mountain," Ronin said, and winced when he let out another scream. "Safe to say that Morro's caught up."
"And even better that they've managed to shed Morro of one of his allies," Wu said sternly.
My gaze flew to the console screen, where only Zane's mech seemed to be online. "Where are the others?" I nervously asked.
"Their mechs went offline a while back," Garmadon answered, "but Zane is ascending swiftly and no distress calls have been made, so I must assume that they have been forced to hitch a ride." He patted my back and started toward the exit. "Let us interrogate a ghost."
I didn't particularly want to be in the same room as a ghost that wasn't Cole, but I followed the adults down to the hull anyway. I hung back as they approached the cage without a flinch, even as the ghost pinned them with haunting screams. I could feel my pulse banging in my eardrums. Everything in me was yelling to run.
Only Ronin stayed back, standing beside me with a cold set to his frown and his arms crossed. He looked intimidating. I crossed my arms.
"How is the ghost staying in the cage?" I asked him from under my breath. "Can't he just phase through it?"
"This cage is made from deepstone," Garmadon replied before Ronin could, and I jumped, baffled, before recalling his super-hearing. "We loaded it into the hull back at the tea shop."
The ghost unhappily harrumphed. He didn't seem too jazzed to be shut in a cage that would banish him back home if he so grazed a bar. The green, misty spectre of him drifted about the cage and peered for an escape in vain.
"You're never getting out of here." Garmadon stepped forward with a dark scowl that looked worthy of an evil lord. "Now tell us; what's in the tomb that's so important?"
"What does Morro want?" Wu asked.
"Is my son okay?" Misako added.
The ghost snarled, baring his teeth as his livid gaze scrolled across us. I took a frightened step back without meaning to, only to stop when Ronin placed his hand on my back in support.
"It's okay," he reassured. "He can't get through the bars."
"Ghoultar never talk!" he exclaimed, before realising his mistake and wincing. "Oop, Ghoultar talked. Uh... Ghoultar never talk from now on."
Ah. He's stupid. The adults looked to one another in confusion. Ronin's cautious expression dropped before firming with a hard grin. He unhooked an aeroblade from his belt and stalked towards the cage.
"Oh, I'll get him talking," he threatened, and Ghoultar squealed something shrill and horrible in fear. I pressed my hands over my ears with a grimace.
Wu stopped Ronin with a hand out in front of him. Ghoultar peeked over his shielded arms.
"No, Ronin." He shook his head. "We must find another way to get answers out of him."
Scowling in disappointment, Ronin clipped the aeroblade back onto his belt. Ghoultar beamed with a mocking laugh that made his scowl darken. Misako frowned at the ghost's childish joy.
"Let him laugh," she said, and raised her chin. "The ninja are already well ahead of Morro. Let's just hope they can find the Sword of Sanctuary before it's too late."
I wasn't sure how much of that was true, but it made Ghoultar's expression slip.
"We must use our time wisely." Wu nodded in agreement. "We'll try to decipher the last of the clues. As for Ghoultar..." He turned to Ronin and I. "Keep an eye on him, you two."
My body tensed with reluctance. Oh, great. Now I have to be stuck in the room with a ghost. My anxiety was having a field day. Still, I couldn't find it in me to fall to my knees and beg not to stay, so I nodded.
Ronin waved them off. "Don't worry, old man. Caspar ain't doing anythin' while I'm here."
They filed out of the hull to return to the bridge. I nervously sipped on my cocoa. Ronin took a seat on one of the storage boxes and stared at the ghost with a bored frown, who watched him right back suspiciously.
After a few minutes of boring silence, Ronin glanced at me. "D'ya wanna play a round of poker?"
"I don't know how to play."
"What about blackjack?" he asked. When I shook my head, he sighed. "What games do you know?"
I shrugged. "I know snap."
Ronin rolled his eyes. "Fine." He unzipped his waist bag and pulled out a pack of cards and began to shuffle. "How are you holdin' up after the whole 'cousin' thing?"
My grip on my cup tightened. "I'm okay."
"Really?"
"No."
He huffed. "That's what I thought." He began flicking the cards expertly into two piles so fast that they blurred.
"I do have a question for you, actually." I turned to face him with an inquisitive frown. "Why are you here?"
Ronin's paused at my question before scrunching his face. "That's a little rude-"
"No, I mean why are you here?" I emphasised. "You're not all the way up in a flying ship in the middle of a dangerous mission just because of some shares in a destroyed tea shop. Why are you here?"
Ronin leant back and sent me a frown. "You think I want Ninjago to fall to ruin?" At my unconvinced look, he hung his head with a sigh. "Look, I have a little girl, alright? Anabel. She's eight."
That was certainly not an answer I was expecting. My eyes widened with surprise. "Oh."
"Satisfied?" Ronin grumpily asked. "Pick up your cards."
I quickly finished my cocoa and picked up my cards. "I didn't know you were a dad."
"Yeah, well, I kinda keep it on the down-low." He sent me a strong look of emphasis. "You make a lotta enemies being a bounty hunter. I don't want that falling back on her."
He placed down a card. I put down mine.
"Why are you a bounty hunter, then?" I asked.
Ronin shrugged. "I was broke and my girlfriend was studying when she got pregnant. I wasn't getting hired anytime soon and bounty hunting gave big cash quick." He sighed. "Problem is when you've got a target on your back, you can't stay in one place for long."
That sounded hard. I gave him a sympathetic look and he waved me off with a grunt.
"Stop looking at me like that," he muttered. "It worked out in the end. Yeah, we split, but she's married to a nice guy who treats them right. And we're on good terms. They let me visit whenever I want." He sent me another pointed look. "Besides, the green ninja is Anabel's favourite. Maybe I'll get Lloyd to come visit."
So that's what he meant by asking favours in exchange for keeping Lloyd's identity a secret. I smiled. This outcome was a lot more adorable than I had ever anticipated.
"I think he'd like that," I said.
"Then you can see whether he'd be a good dad or not," Ronin chuckled, and slapped his hand down on the pile of cards while I was frozen. "Snap! Ha-ha, gotcha."
"I'm too young to think about having a kid," I complained.
"Then just don't have one now, idiot." Ronin threw his pile of cards at me. "You are too young."
"Then why'd you tell me about it?!"
"Because I thought it'd be funny!" he snapped. Ghoultar wailed from his cage and Ronin flung the aeroblade at the bars. "Be quiet, you overgrown ass-stain."
Ghoultar slumped.
I picked up the cards around us dutifully. He told me his secret so easily - and it was a precious one, too. Why couldn't I do the same?
I tested it. "My dad's in the military. Only Zane knows."
Ronin dropped the cards he'd been gathering. I thought that spilling the truth of my dad's occupation would make me feel better, but I only felt as though a pile of concrete bricks had been placed upon my lungs. I paused with regret.
"Shit," Ronin said with surprise. "That's a tough one."
My panic rose. "Please don't say anything-"
"My lips are sealed," he vowed, and raised his palms in a placating manner. "Does dear old pa know that you're dating the green ninja?"
I shook my head. "Of course not."
"Does he know you're dating Lloyd?" he asked.
I paused, and dropped my gaze with guilt. Ronin's expression fell.
"Does he know you're dating anyone?"
"... no," I sheepishly answered.
Ronin chuckled dryly. "Good lord, kiddo. I don't envy you right now."
Our conversation was cut short by the comms system overhead crackling to life. Kai's voice burst from the speakers with a shout of staticky panic.
"Come in, Bounty, come in!" he yelled. "Hope your jets aren't cold, 'cause we're comin' in hot!"
Cards discarded, Ronin and I bolted for the bridge.
"We're here, Kai!" Wu answered as we entered. The console's screen showed the ninja sliding down the side of the mountain on makeshift skis and snowboards made of wooden planks. "Rerouting to your location."
Garmadon pushed the motor's lever up and the ship rumbled out of neutral with a roar. My legs staggered as the ship tilted forward with speed. In the console's screen, a small wooden boat appeared, skidding down the snowy side of the mountain with great momentum. Standing in it was Morro and his gang. In his hand was a gleaming, golden sword.
My heart leapt at Lloyd's face, and then crashed at Morro's cold smirk of victory. He got the sword.
"We know what Morro wants with the tomb," Kai continued. He yelped as he ducked beneath a tree's branch and then continued crouching to gather speed. Morro and his crew were still so far ahead of them. "He's after a crystal that can unleash the Preeminent to curse the Sixteen Realms."
"Then we must work together to make sure that doesn't happen," Garmadon said seriously. "Y/n, Ronin, beside the cannons on the deck are buckets of water balloons Nya prepared this morning. We'll need you to shoot. Wu, Misako, go with them. I'll steer."
"What's the Preeminent?" I asked Wu as we rushed out onto the deck. I startled at the chill in the air.
"It is the embodiment of the Departed Realm," he replied, and sat me down at a cannon. He flicked some switches and pushed some buttons, and it turned on with a low whir. "A living creature that harvests the souls of the damned."
I grabbed the handles with a nervous smile. "Sounds delightful."
"Load." Wu opened a circular hatch and slid a handful of water balloons into the chamber. "Aim." He pushed a button on top of one of the handles and the cannon turned from side to side. He tapped the button on the other one. "Fire."
I pursed my lips with determination. "Got it."
Ronin took the cannon beside me, with Wu and Misako controlling the ones from the opposite side of the deck.
"Time for a game of target," Ronin said. "First to shoot a ghost down wins fifty bucks."
"I'm broke."
"A crisp high five it is," Ronin amended, and began shooting water balloons at the descending ship. But water ballons were made for throwing, not shooting, and they all skewed wide. "Damn! Glad it's not for money."
I watched the ship through the focus and shot a balloon to test the velocity. It fell shorter than I intended it to due to the disturbance of the water and the mass of the balloon. I aimed higher, shot, and then dropped the focus to see my result. The balloon had split on the deck of Morro's boat and made him flinch back.
"Show off," Ronin muttered from beside me.
Morro's eyes rose to glare at me through the focus, and I stilled with terror. The fury on his face was palpable. His stare only got broken by Jay launching himself onto his small boat and starting a fight for the sword.
I steeled my resolve, aimed, and began to fire.
"Argh - these stupid cannons aren't fit for water balloon combat," Ronin complained from beside me. I continued to fire and recheck my position, but all I succeeded in doing was being an annoyance and making the boat's floor wet.
Commotion behind us made Ronin look back faster than I. He yelped, and leapt from his cannon with his aeroblade raised. I peeked over my shoulder before ducking with a squeak just as a ghostly scythe passed overhead.
"Ghoultar turn you into ghost!" our former prisoner cheered, and dodged a swipe by Wu's staff. "Ghost for Morro! Ghost for Morro!"
"How did you escape?" Wu yelled.
"Hey!" Ronin lobbed his aeroblade at Ghoultar, who dodged the weapon with a squeal. "I was promised a green ninja at a birthday party and I can't get that if he's upset because his girlfriend is dead!"
"That's why you'd save me?!" I shrieked incredulously.
Ghoultar harrumphed, stuck his tongue out at us, and dove over the side of the Bounty to reunite with Morro's crew. Ronin hung his head back and caught his breath.
"'Ghost for Morro,'" Misako echoed grimly. She looked at me with a frown. "That doesn't sound good."
I didn't get a chance to think about the implications of that before the next crisis took our attention.
"The ninja are approaching a cliff," Garmadon's voice crackled over the intercom. "We need to get them off the mountain!"
Ronin cursed beneath his breath. "How are we meant to do that? And what about Morro, he's still got the sword! We just gonna let him go free?"
"I'd rather my kids get back alive!" Misako snapped. She turned to shout through the bridge's wall and catch Garmadon's super-hearing. "Drop the anchor! Tell them to grab on!"
It dropped hard with a rattle that sent a tremble through the ship. I planted my hands onto the rail and leant over, watching as each ninja realised the impending drop and leapt to grab onto the dangling anchor. Only Kai kept up the chase.
"What is he doing?!" I exclaimed.
"Is he gonna try fight them all alone?" Ronin asked in disbelief. "The guy's out of his mind!"
Wu groaned. "That boy is stubborn! Quick, we must stop his descent before it's too late."
I scrambled back to my cannon just as Wu and Misako did the same. The anchor's motor whined as it brought the ninja onto the deck. With them they brought shouts of confusion and panic.
Ronin kept shooting at Morro instead. "If we let him get away with the sword, Lloyd's as good as gone! You can kiss Ninjago goodbye!"
My cannon shooting faltered. Morro lifted his head over the arm he'd raised in defence and sent me a withering glare through the focus once more. As if this was personal - as if this was a fight just between us.
"These stupid cannons aren't accurate enough!" Ronin cursed, before sending me a poignant look. "You're a prophecy girl, do something!"
Like what?! I couldn't fight! I couldn't even use my powers properly! But if nobody did anything, then Kai would die, Morro would escape with the sword, and Lloyd would be lost to us. The ninja looked beat. Nya seemed to barely be able to stand, let alone summon water or a dragon.
I stepped from my cannon and approached the rail. The others were busy, tending to serious wounds or shouting at Kai to jump onto the lowering anchor. He wasn't listening. He wouldn't listen. Kai was operating on a totally one-track objective; get the sword no matter what.
Ronin was right. I had to do something.
My gaze fell to the snow rushing beneath us and that familiar tug on my stomach almost sent me tumbling over the side. I held my breath. I hadn't felt the tug since it warned me about Lloyd's possession.
It wasn't a massive drop...
Prayer, Garmadon's lesson from earlier that morning echoed in my head. Try prayer.
"I know I've never prayed to you," I whispered, and stepped one foot onto the railing, "but little tugging parasite, or Uchū, or whoever is listening to me; please don't let me die. Amen."
"Wait, don't jump-" Ronin barked, and then shouted when I threw myself over the side. "Y/n!"
The brief lapse of bravery dissipated as soon as my shoe left the rail. I screamed as I fell, yelped when I grabbed the chain of the anchor and almost yanked my arm loose from its socket, and then fell a little more. My back hit the soft snow hard and knocked the wind from my lungs.
"Oh, fuck," I wheezed. I turned onto my side and gasped for breath just as Morro's ship went hurtling by. That spectacularly failed. "Oh, my god." Thanks for nothing, you stupid parasite.
Dazed, my head lifted to watch Morro's getaway and this time when our eyes met, his expression wasn't one of fury - he was concerned. My vision swam. My brows furrowed at his reaction.
Lloyd? Or was it really Morro? Who cared. My back ached.
I yelped when a hand grabbed the back of my shirt and snagged me from the snow, and my orientation collapsed as I was yanked into the air and landed heavily on someone's shoulder. My stomach hurt. The air in my lungs was kicked out once again. My vision briefly went dim.
"Are you crazy?!" Kai shouted. How he managed to keep our balance on his makeshift snowboard was beyond me. My wooziness sharpened with the help of adrenaline. "What do you think you're doing?!"
"Are you?!" I breathlessly exclaimed. "There's a cliff up ahead!"
"I need to get that sword!"
"You'll die!"
Kai laughed bitterly. "So will you, genius!"
Ughh! I wanted to rip my hair out. Thanks for the tug, parasite! What was I supposed to do now?!
Morro's ship continued its descent, and the golden Sword of Sanctuary in his grasp glistened against the sun's reflection on the snow, almost mockingly. I had to squint my eyes against the glare. Morro wasn't worried any more.
Why aren't his entourage doing anything? They just watched us, a bizarre duo of a girl slung over the shoulders of a ninja snowboarding down the side of the Wailing Alps, and didn't even draw a weapon. Their inaction was eerie.
"Any grand ideas?" Kai shouted from over the wind. "You're supposed to be the smart one!"
Think, Y/n, think! How do you get a sword from a guy who can see your every move?
And then I did get an idea. One. One very grand, very ludicrous idea.
"Get me in close," I said, and wiggled my way around Kai's shoulders so I was facing forward. It felt like I was playing on the tops of the monkey bars when I was in elementary school, balancing precariously. It was a shocker I hadn't fallen onto my face again.
"No way!" he said incredulously.
"Do you want Lloyd back or not?!" I yelled. "Get me in close!"
Kai made a sound of frustration and crouched lower to gain more speed. I could see the cliff fast approaching, and balled my nerves into the back of my head. I didn't have the time to baulk.
We were skidding alongside the boat. My face had grown numb from the chilly air whipping against my cheeks, and I was beginning to fear that my limbs were growing frozen, too. I had to make my move before my body couldn't.
My gaze was met by Morro's dry glare, and he silently shook his head in warning. I promptly ignored it.
"I'm gonna jump," I warned.
Kai groaned. "Lloyd's gonna kill me."
"At least he'll be back to do it," I said, and leapt for the boat.
I fell short, my stomach hitting the snow and my hands latching onto the boat's rim. The intense cold almost made me lose my grip, and I cursed myself for not stealing a jacket before jumping off the side of a flying ship. If my mother could see me now - I'd be dead twice over.
I struggled to pull myself up onto the boat. The friction of the snow zipping beneath me kept tugging against my legs and pulling back any progress I'd made. I gritted my teeth against the effort of my shaking arms. Come on, minuscule upper body strength. Don't fail me, now.
"Ghost for Morro!"
I lifted my eyes in time to see Ghoultar bringing his scythe down upon me. I pushed myself to the side with a yelp. The scythe bit into the boat's rim where my head had just been and sent up a cascade of wood splinters.
"Y/n!" Kai yelled.
"Are you deaf?!" Morro pushed Ghoultar aside with a furious sneer. "I told you not to hurt her!"
"Then how are we supposed to get rid of it?" the archer asked.
"No ghost for Morro?" Ghoultar pouted.
Morro shouted with anger. "Just do as I say!"
While they were bickering, I'd managed to bring myself up onto the boat's side and rolled aboard with breathless relief. My skin tingled from cold rash. My clothes were soaked with molten snow. I wanted to stay down forever, but I stubbornly forced my aching body upright.
Maybe I was the Mistress of Stubbornness. That suited me just fine.
Kai leapt onto the boat with far more power and grace than I, and his impromptu snowboard went skidding down the mountain. He pushed me behind him with an aeroblade at the ready.
"Okay, what now?" Kai asked.
Morro turned to us with thinly-controlled rage. His face was creased by fury, the pale visage of him flustered red. The chill of his murky eyes were always a startling thing.
"God, you're annoying!" Morro spat. "Why can't you quit?"
"Why do you keep asking the same question?" I countered between gasps for breath. "Are you purposefully ignorant or just forgetful?"
"Why are you taunting the possessed demigod?" Kai asked lowly.
Because I was piss-scared and being bratty was the only way I could fool myself into thinking I wasn't as frightened as I was.
"Curse this standstill!" the archer suddenly shouted, and drew his bow. "I shall take them both out myself!"
Kai pulled me aside just as the arrow embedded itself into the deck of where I had once stood. He threw his aeroblade at the archer and caught it again with a grunt - it didn't meet its mark.
"Some water would be really helpful right about now!" Kai shouted into the comms.
"You insolent-!" Morro seethed. I regained my senses just as his dark glare turned from the archer to me. "Why must you throw yourself into danger time and again?!"
I didn't even bring a weapon to defend myself with. The foolishness of my actions had finally settled in, and I felt monumentally stupid. But hopefully, if my plan worked, then I wouldn't have needed to bring a weapon at all.
Come on, come on. Look at the magic sword.
"This is ridiculous," the woman ghost snapped at her leader. "You said she wouldn't get in the way of the mission."
"Leave her to me," Morro ordered, and nodded his head to Kai. "Have your fun with that excuse of an Elemental Master."
As if waiting for his word, the archer released an arrow and Ghoultar swiped his scythe at Kai. He dodged by a hair's breadth, and though I worried for his three-on-one fight, I forced my attention to remain on Morro.
He leisurely strode toward me and swung the sword in his grip, thumbing the hilt with a look of furious contemplation. His brows twitched at whatever thoughts drove through his mind, or perhaps at Lloyd's irrefutable struggles to regain control. He didn't give the fight on the other side of the deck a second look.
I shifted my weight and repeatedly dug my nails into the flesh of my palm. I'd never been so keyed up before being faced by Morro that first time, and this encounter was no different. All my senses had been dialled to eleven.
Look at the sword.
"Do you wish to talk again?" Morro said. He planted the tip of the golden sword into the wood beneath our feet and rested his wrists on the hilt. He tilted his head. His black hair fluttered in the cold wind. "Do you wish to again ask for your pathetic boyfriend back?"
The cliff was growing nearer. Look at the sword. Please, please, Uchū or God or whoever it is that writes my fate, please make him look at the sword.
"I'm predictable," I admitted. I flinched at the scythe being dug into the floorboards right beside me.
Morro's smile was curt. "That makes a pair of us."
He was so brazen in his intentions that it was sickening. Was this truly just the effect of the prophecy, or was there something else at play that I couldn't bear to think of?
I glanced at the sword. "You wish."
"Maybe." He followed my gaze to the blade and faltered.
I didn't have time to pat myself on the back for leading his eyes to the future in the Sword of Sanctuary. His face blushed bright pink, and the moment he lifted his gaze was the moment I quickly changed my mind. I shoulder checked him off-balance instead.
"Kai!" I crudely kicked the blade of the sword towards him just as our momentum sent us tumbling over the side of the boat.
Morro's hand released the hilt from the impact, and he landed hard on his back upon the snow witha grunt, tumbling alongside me through the soft chill and being swiftly left behind. My heart was racing. I couldn't believe that worked.
I found myself winded and woozy once again, half-buried in snow that froze me. I lifted my head with a groan and stilled at the unbridled ball of wrath that laid before me.
I staggered to my feet quickly, though Morro was swifter and more sure on his feet even in this unstable terrain. Now was the time to panic. I certainly hadn't planned this far ahead. I rasied my hands with the hope of placating his anger.
"You still wanna talk?" I weakly asked.
He began toward me with a storming pace that had me scrambling backwards. "I warned you-!"
He cut himself off when his shoulder was thrown back by an arrow sticking from his deltoid. We both froze, watching as blood dripped down his arm and stained the snow red. My pulse thundered against my eardrums.
He didn't speak for a while, and neither did I. I was vaguely aware of the need to escape while I could, but I worried that any movement from me would spur Morro back into action. I couldn't hope to outrun him.
"... that was pretty smart move with the sword," he whispered. My gaze shot to his face.
He wasn't so angry. He wasn't so sharp with cruelty. His eyes had softened, and the colour was something more familiar. His entire countenance was now something I'd cherished.
"Lloyd?" I dared to ask. His crooked smile answered me and I felt wobbly with how my adrenaline quickly faded. "Lloyd."
"The shock was enough to regain control." Lloyd lifted a hand and gripped it around the arrow with a shaky hiss of pain. "What are you doing here? I- I told you to go home."
I was hyperaware of the shivering of my body, and the frost freezing the soaked hoodie to my arms and neck. I had no weapons nor a way back to the ship, and not even a way to contact them. He must've thought I was so stupid.
And even now, when it was Lloyd in front of me instead of Morro, I held back. Even when he was bleeding onto the snow, I couldn't move forward to help him. I was bolted into place, still so wary, so frightened.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I couldn't."
"Can-?" Lloyd took a single step toward me and I flinched backwards. He stilled. His brows creased, and the sick look that crossed his pallor face had my heart falling into the snow.
"Sorry," I choked out. "I'm sorry."
His gaze fell with a bitter smirk. "You're not the one who should be apologising."
"Neither should you," I said, and my voice broke halfway through.
The wind howled through the Alps. I shuddered, but I didn't dare part further. Not when I rarely saw Lloyd these days, and not when he looked so lost, so distraught. Not with the arrow sticking out his arm that seemed like he could barely even feel. What was Morro doing to him?
The last time I'd seen Lloyd, I had told him I loved him. Now I could barely stop myself from grimacing away. He wasn't the one who hurt me, but his body was, and there was a part of me that couldn't differentiate the two. I knew it. Lloyd knew it.
Kai. What about Kai? I tore my gaze from Lloyd and found the other ninja struggling through the snow toward us with a gleaming sword in hand. The boat was gone, as were the ghosts. I wasn't sure if they'd disappeared with it or were taken out by Kai's aeroblade.
"I need to get away before Morro gets control again," Lloyd murmured. My focus returned to the man before me. "And you should get warm before you catch sick."
I looked down at my goosebump-covered legs. I'd long gone numb.
"Wait." I cleared my throat and nodded at the arrow. Best that Lloyd would do is yank it out himself, if he even had the strength for it. Best Morro would do is snap the shaft and leave the arrowhead in his shoulder to get infected. "Let me help."
Lloyd peeked up at me. There was even a hint of a smile on his lips. "You're not squeamish?"
"Can't be worse than what I've already seen," I said, and struggled across the snow toward him. My pace slowed as I neared, hesitant with my survival instincts screaming from the back of my head, but I got there. I did it.
Lloyd dropped his bloodied palm from the wound. His hands balled into fists, and he didn't even flinch when I held his shoulder with one hand and tentatively wrapped the other around the base of the arrow. Luckily, it wasn't deep. Zane must've shot it to hit only as a shock and not to actually down him.
"On three." I tightened my grip. Lloyd closed his eyes with a tight jaw. "One."
I yanked the arrow out before I could say two, and dropped it to the snow. The blood bloomed from the tip like a rose beneath winter's frost. Lloyd groaned through clenched teeth, and I battled between keeping my distance or pulling him into a tight hug. Kai arrived before I could come to a decision with a roll of gauze half-unravelled, and he passed me the Sword of Sanctuary without a word. He eyed Lloyd warily before nudging me aside and starting to wrap his shoulder.
"Is he gone?" Kai asked.
"No," Lloyd muttered. "Just stunned."
"We can take you with us," Kai said. "We'll restrain you."
Lloyd shook his head. "He's too strong for that. Morro won't stop until the Realm Crystal is destroyed." He sent Kai a desperate look. "You have to destroy it."
Kai firmly knotted the bandage and Lloyd flinched. "We will."
Lloyd stepped back. He looked worse than before, and now that I was close I could see how dry his lips were, how deep the bags beneath his dim eyes were. He was becoming more and more like a dead man walking, and the sight made my stomach twist. I felt sick. I wanted him back, I wanted revenge - but I was still so weak.
I wrapped my arms around him instead. He froze for a second, unsure of his own control, before bringing his good arm around me firmly and pressing his lips to my hair.
"It'll be over soon," Lloyd promised.
But that's what scared me. It'd be over soon, but how? Would we get Lloyd back before the world fell to doom? Ronin said that the prophecies were a safeguard, but how true was it, really? Futures could change. Prophecies could be made redundant.
And Lloyd would be so broken. He already was broken. How could he continue to save the world like that? Misako said we'd help him pick his pieces up, but what if they were scattered too far? What if we couldn't put all of him back together? How could he still fulfil his prophecies?
I glared at the snow behind Lloyd. I wish I knew Airjitsu, if only so I could go up to The Cloud Kingdom and demand that they rewrite his future. I'd fight them if I had to. I'd do anything for him.
He felt so weak. The sword was too heavy in my hand.
"I have to go," Lloyd said quietly.
No. Stay. Stay with me on this mountain forever. "I know." I stepped back despite my yearning to keep him in my arms until the end of our days and sent him the strongest smile I could. It still wavered. It was still so weak.
Lloyd smiled back and it was a mirror image of my own. He wanted to stay, too. But time didn't stop, not even for a demigod. His blood was on my hoodie, passed from his hand. How cruel was it that his blood was all of him that I could take back with me?
"Get her back to the others," Lloyd said, and Kai pressed his hand to my shoulder. The look he sent was poignant. "Keep her safe."
"'Course," Kai mumbled, and there was a hint of regret in his voice that made me wither inside.
Lloyd nodded at him and glanced at me once more. He lingered, looked like he was going to say more, before knotting his brows and turning away.
I watched him go with myself in two minds. It's like I was being torn in two - half of me rooted where I stood beside Kai, and the other dragging behind Lloyd. The dichotomy ripped at my chest.
"Come on," Kai muttered unhappily, and pulled me around to where the Bounty had perched itself on the mountain's side. The team was racing towards us despite limps and bandages. The sword's tip left a line in the snow beside my footsteps. I still couldn't feel the cold.
I peeked up at Kai's face and flinched at the anger there.
I glanced back at Lloyd, but he was already gone.