Lloyd's POV
I slammed the striped suitcase in front of me shut. "Why did you have to do that?"
Cole didn't move from his position across the room. "I can handle Morro if he tries anything—"
"And I can't?"
"—and you two have a bit of a past. He might be less likely to do anything evil around me."
"You've left me with Harumi. Do you even realize how hard I've been trying to avoid her?" She left me too vulnerable. I didn't have the energy to deal with Harumi and try to save the world. On one hand, the idea of spending time with her again brought back so many wonderful memories of sweet smiles and warm blushes. On the other, all I could hear in my head was her cruel voice making me watch my life fall apart over and over and over.
Cole zipped up his duffel bag. "You are the one who has been the most affected by her. You'll be able to see it if she tries to manipulate you again."
I tore my hands through my unbrushed hair. "I'm stuck with her for days, Cole, days. I can't do this."
Cole looked sympathetic. "She is a girl, which means she can't be a 'son.' You'll have more time to devote to your past."
"This is a vague prophecy we're going off of. 'Son' could mean anything." I huffed, looking around the room to see if I forgot anything.
"Okay, but her ancestors were probably a bunch of farmers. That means you can knock her out of the equation early."
"Fine." I zipped up my suitcase, letting the noise fill up the silence. Cole made some really good points. I couldn't let my eagerness to get away from Harumi stop me from doing what was necessary. I felt like a little kid being resistant, but Harumi made me feel like I was going soft. I didn't want to let my guard down just so she could tear me apart all over again.
Somewhere within me, I knew they weren't lying.
I was just too afraid to open up.
The pounding in my chest started up again, making me flinch. I ignored the pain and prepared to leave the room. Cole had noticed my discomfort and crossed the room to put a hand on my shoulder. He was a comforting older brother, always knowing when any of us needed support.
"It's not going to be that long. Perhaps you'll find out something useful about the First Spinjitzu Master." Cole said quietly when I refused to talk about anything that was bothering me.
"Yeah," I shrugged, gingerly rubbing the ache once again. I don't think it was going to go away any time soon.
Out in the monastery's training area, the Ninja were saying goodbye. I looked at my friends, all packed and ready to go. Despite their injuries, they were going to pull through to make this journey. The stale air of the monastery was suffocating when I realized how important the success of this mission was. We had to find answers within this short period of time, or all of Ninjago would fall to the master of shadows.
I had wished for a normal life for as long as I could remember. Even when I told myself nothing could convince me to drop this life that I loved, there was still a part of me that wished that one day we could live a life where we didn't have to fight to keep the peace. A day where when we parted, it was with smiling children and promises of another playdate instead of a cold, bitter morning, with the fate of the world upon our already aching shoulders.
"Just update me if you find anything," Kai said to Nya as I limped into the swarm of bodies. "I'll look into our past so you can help Jay out. The guy's got so much mystery in his past it's probably going to require him to raid the Cloud Kingdom for answers."
Nya nodded, smiling at her brother's humorous tone. "I'm sure we'll find out something. We plan to start at his father's mansion. Maybe we can find clues there."
Kai wrapped his arms around her, careful to avoid the noticeably large bandage bump on her right side. "Stay safe."
"DUDE, IS THIS ALL HAIR GEL?" Cole shrieked from across the area. Kai swiveled to the scene faster than I could blink. The earth ninja and Zane were examining a very large red bag packed tightly with identical bottles.
"It appears so." Zane replied. "But my sensors also indicate that this duffel bag contains—"
"It isn't what it looks like!" Kai flushed redder than his gi. "And get out of my stuff!"
Cole ignored him, diving deeper into the bag. Kai yelped and managed to sprint over to him faster than any injured person should be able to go. Cole was physically stronger than Kai, so Kai's attempts to wrestle the embarrassing object out of Cole's hands turned out to be pointless.
"Aww," Cole said very loudly, "you've got a giant picture of Skylor you're hiding in here? Do you take her with you everywhere you go?"
"We're engaged!" Kai yelped, finally snatching the bigger-than-usual picture frame out of Cole's hands.
"The future of Ninjago, ladies and gentlemen." I heard a sour voice mutter from behind me.
I turned to see who had spoken when I found myself wrapped in a hug.
"I know it's only a few days, but I'm going to miss you." Jay whined, somehow managing to strangle me whilst using crutches.
Zane joined in, apparently having escaped the Cole-Kai chaos. "No matter how far we are apart, we're still brothers."
Nya wobbled over and patted us on the back. I was running out a breath because of the squeezing and the pain in my chest, but those weren't the reasons tears were in my eyes. It was because this was where I belonged. They were my family. I smiled, blinking away my stress and worry for these few precious seconds with them.
Slowly, one by one, they pulled away and began to drift out of the monastery in groups of two. Jay and Nya went first, both of them looking way too unsteady to be making their way down a lot of steps. Yet, both of them had insisted they could make the trip.
Zane went over to get Cole to give Kai his picture back, along with several hairbrushes Cole had 'confiscated' during the frantic scramble. Both the red and black ninja were laughing by the end of the ordeal, though Kai had that look in his eyes that said Cole would be punished for this.
The only thing that stopped Kai from attempting something now was Zane pointing out that he should help his sister down the mountain.
It turned out Harumi and Morro had been watching the whole ordeal, both of them unmoving statues void of expression. Morro looked a good deal paler, and Harumi didn't seem at all pleased at leaving her companion behind.
Yet, when Cole gestured for Morro to follow him down the mountain, the Master of Wind gently left Harumi behind. She watched him go, her face a mask of what she was truly feeling. She didn't look at me, and I didn't exactly want to acknowledge her.
It's not going to be that long.
I took a deep breath and went to face Harumi.
She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and had donned her ninja gi. It was odd to look at her dressed like that, it brought back way too many memories of her face smeared in red paint, singing that creepy spider song as I was locked away. I swallowed, slowly gesturing for her to follow me. Harumi seemed about as pleased with this arrangement as I was, so at least we could agree to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"Did you pack food?" I asked curtly, avoiding looking at her eyes.
"I packed enough." She replied as emotionless as a stone.
"Good."
A pink morning horizon greeted us with a gentle array of monochromic colors. The stone stairs outside of the monastery led down into a misty cloud of fog. I started to walk down them, then figured it would be easier to start our flight at the top of the mountain. I hoped Harumi wasn't the type to get airsick.
Harumi didn't say anything as I prepared my energy, she simply watched my friends disappear into the foggy haze below.
I carefully wove my powers through the air, creating the shape of something much larger. We would be flying for a couple of days to get to our destination, so I had to build this dragon with much more strength.
When it finally flickered into life and roared with energy, I started to climb onto its back.
"Lloyd?" Harumi's voice piped up immediately after she realized she was going to have to get on it with me. "Do you even know where we are going?"
I almost felt like smiling when I heard the hidden tremor in her voice. But then I realized if she was afraid of flying, then I was going to have to deal with that.
It was going to be a very long next couple of days.
"Yes," I said, holding out my hand to her. She frowned when I didn't elaborate, eventually inching her way towards the dragon. When she finally got situated on the dragon behind me, I commanded it to take off.
"Get prepared to fight nausea, because we're heading to the Dark Island."
>(<>)<
Jay's POV
"How can there literally be no record of your mother?" Nya said, tossing photo after photo on the floor. "All the females in these pictures are co-stars or journalists. There is no record of a wife or a baby. The only stuff he has related to you is all the fan pictures he's collected."
"Not to mention he somehow got his hands on one of my gis. As weird was that is, he was a master space magician, so I guess anything is possible." I said.
"Yeah... that was a little creepy. If he was so obsessed with you, then why didn't he ever ask you to visit?"
I didn't know. My birth parents had always been a touchy topic with me; I didn't want to know why they left me behind. My biological father obviously knew about me and was a fan of my work. If he knew I was his son, then why didn't he ever explain why he wouldn't raise me?
I knew I shouldn't be bitter about the ordeal; I was raised by some of the most loving parents to walk in Ninjago, but I still wished my bio-family's past wasn't so mysterious. I could have been raised in this amazing mansion, but they chose to give me away. There were too many questions and too few answers.
Since Cliff Gordon was dead, I was technically the owner of this mansion now. Nya and I could live here if we wanted, but I didn't have the will to live where he once stood. The whole house was decorated with Fritz Donnegan merchandise in an exotic fanboy kind of way. My father obviously loved his career, so it felt kind of wrong to mess up everything he had spent his life adoring. The only reason we were here now was because Nya had pointed out this was the best place to start.
We were currently in Cliff's secret room, going through any and every photo/newspaper articles/propaganda we could find. All of them featured Cliff either winning an acting award, donating to the poor, or doing interviews with various people. There was no mention of a family anywhere. After three hours of searching every nook and cranny, we were exhausted.
"Maybe Nadakhan made all this up." Nya slumped against the bed. She winced and put a hand against her side. The spear hadn't lodged itself directly into her; so, the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. The sharp tip still made a decent sized cut, which caused a lot of discomfort that Nya tried to hide. She hated appearing weak and hated when people made her feel that way even more, so I kept my mouth shut. However, if her pain got any worse, I was going to force her to rest and take the medications I had packed.
"Why would my parents have the key to this mansion then?" I said gently, trying to calm her frustration. Nya, like her brother, often got fiery when they thought they were failing.
I limped around the room again, uselessly opening cabinets and drawers and going through their contents. Receipts, creams, and more paraphernalia filled each container. Clothes filled the dressers and closets. Makeup was scattered across the vanity station. I sat down in the vanity's chair to rest my throbbing ankle.
My reflection glowered right back at me.
My ginger hair had turned auburn over the past few years, and constant sun exposure had brought out freckles I didn't even know I had. Nya said that they made me look cuter, but all I could see now was Cliff. Seeing a picture of him, then looking at myself, I started to pick out the similarities. His hair was dyed black for the roles he played. In some pictures he had my color of hair. We shared the same eye shape, the same build, and the same wit. In the interviews I read he would often make comical comments that resembled my own.
I had a really hard time imagining my childhood celebrity hero was my father.
Except, when I looked in the mirror, it wasn't so unbelievable anymore.
That's when I noticed one of the edges of the mirror stuck out of its frame.
Nya noticed my silence. "Did you figure out something?"
I stood on my non-injured leg and leaned forward. My fingertips caressed the jutting mirror. "One of the edges is sticking out. It could be that this is an old and broken mirror. Or..."
"Or he's hiding something!" Nya shot up, immediately yelping from the pain. She gritted her teeth and made her way over to the mirror. I yanked at the edge, expecting the mirror to crack and our hopes to be dashed. Instead, the mirror unhooked smoothly.
The glass fell back on me, and it would have smashed over my head if Nya wasn't there to help catch it. We placed the mirror on the ground and stared at the mess of articles that had scattered all over the vanity stand. Apparently, there was been a massive amount of papers hidden behind the mirror.
Nya leaned down to scavenge through the mess.
"That's odd."
I picked up a newspaper article that had been cut out. The paper was turning yellow with age, and the pictures were in black and white. The headline read, "Serpentine War is Over! Elemental Heroes Returning to Their Homes!"
"Why would he keep these hidden?" Nya looked through a similar news story.
I leaned down to pick up a photo. A younger version of Cliff was laughing with a blonde in a wedding dress. I recognized Nya's parents and the Garmadons standing to the side.
"Is this a journal?" Nya pulled a leather-bound book out of the mess. She skimmed through the pages.
I pried it out of her fingers, motioned for her to join me sitting on the floor (it was more comfortable for our injuries), and opened the book up to the first page. The entry was brief, only a few sentences.
"War is expected to end soon. Income has increased to a decent amount. Hopefully, he'll say yes."
It wasn't dated. I turned to the next page.
"That went better than expected. Can't wait until you hear."
"This really helps us out." Nya grumbled after reading the passage over my shoulder. I felt the same way, frantically flipping through to the end.
"Why did you have to leave? I know it was for a good cause, but I still wish there were another way."
"I'm overjoyed that the latest event went well, but I still miss you."
"Have you found what you're looking for? I hope you return soon. For his sake and for my own."
On the last page there was a promise.
"You wanted to keep it secret. I hid everything away. I'll carry it to my grave, just as you carried it to yours."
We were silent. Nya took back the journal, looking for the answer to the question we were both thinking.
Who was he talking to?
"To the one person who made this life worth it." Nya read from the front cover. She picked up another article, this one quite brief. It featured the photo that I had found only minutes earlier. "Cliff Gordon overjoyed at his wedding with his new wife, Storm Gordon." She sighed. "So many clues, but none of it makes sense."
His obsession with me, yet he never told me the truth about my heritage.
The wedding photo.
The journal.
Why would Cliff hide those?
What if I have something to do with this?
"I think... I think he's hiding his relation to me and to my mother." I said slowly. "He kept tabs on the ninja for one reason. He knew I was his son. Yet, he didn't want anyone else to know. There was something—someone he had to keep that information hidden from. The person he was writing too was the only other person who knew why... my mother."
"Storm Gordon." Nya finished, gently rubbing circles on my back. I leaned into her support, not exactly sure how to feel about all of this.
"Yeah," I offered, tucking both the journal and the photo into my duffel bag. I had never put a lot of thought into who my mother was. The fact that she was dead was both something that didn't bother me and something that I needed to sit down and think about. My biological parents. One was a movie star; another was an elemental master. For some unknown reason they left me to live with adopted parents and hid their connection to me. Their pasts were shrouded with mystery. If we were going to find out my destiny, we needed to unlock their history.
Nya stared the wedding article. "My parents seemed to know your mother. Maybe they can guide us in the right direction."
"We need to know why my bio-parents were hiding me." I said. "I mean, I know I'm annoying and all—"
"More importantly," Nya cut off my forced joke, looking quite strained as she got to her feet, "we need to know who your mother really was and find some place to look up her parentage. Remember what Lloyd said—"
"—the Oni will leave a big blank line in the lineage." I finished for her, flashing a smile. She ruffled my hair as she crossed the room to get the rest of her things.
We left the mansion and locked the entryway. Nya started looking for a park to create a dragon in. I wouldn't be able to control one as well since navigating dragons was mostly leg work. Nya was the best candidate to make one, even though I thought it a pretty bad idea for her to be flying. However, that was one of the arguments I knew I wasn't going to win. My little phoenix could be quite stubborn.
We walked through about two blocks before reaching a suitable area. The amount of empty lots in Ninjago City was due to the amount of crushed buildings that were just now getting cleared off. I always felt a twinge of guilt looking at them. No matter how many villains we defeated, there always came more ready to destroy Ninjago. We couldn't build as fast as they broke the city. Nya opened a canteen of water and started working with it. She claimed it was easier on her side for her to use existing water instead of her trying to create new water out of the particles in the air.
"Where are your parents now?" I asked warily, watching her fling the water through the air. Despite the struggle that would ensue if I interceded for her health, I would bear that burden in an instant if it meant she wasn't overexerting herself.
Nya smiled as the water wove a form through the air, seemingly feeling better with each step she performed.
"Back where they started. Ignacia. Four Weapons isn't going to run itself."
>(<>)<
Cole's POV
I stepped up the hickory door, feeling odd for knocking on the door to my childhood home. Morro stood behind me, his careful gaze glossing over every little movement. It was odd how he changed when he wasn't around Harumi. Every friendly smile, every lighthearted gesture, it all left. He was as stoic as a statue, without a hint of emotion. It was unnerving.
My father opened the door with a wild smile. "Cole!"
I tried to explain what information we needed, but Lou never gave short answers. Minutes later, Morro and I sat on the designer couch sipping at cold tea while he rambled on about his latest Royal Blacksmiths news.
"Dad, we need to know what you know about your parentage. Any important figures? Any mysterious gaps?" I cut him off, knowing that we'd be there all day if I didn't.
Lou put a hand on his chin. "Well, my father was a farmer. A few years after I was born, my parents moved to the city because he got a job at a fancy factory. A little while later was when I started singing, you see, because music was becoming all the rage in a growing city—"
"What about my grandmother? Was there anything special about her?"
"Not really. She was something special to my dad though—"
"What do you know about your grandparents?"
Lou looked annoyed at being interrupted so many times. "I assume my grandparents were farmers too. Back in their day, there wasn't much else to do. It was only when I was a teenager that city life suddenly attracted so many people."
"What about your wife?" Morro said quietly from his corner of the sofa. He hadn't said a word since he left Harumi, so it was strangely unsettling to hear him speak. It made me wonder if the smiling façade he put on was solely for her, and the personification of him now was showing his true colors.
Lou's face twisted with a thousand emotions as I felt my own heart clench. Talking about my mother was still an emotional subject with my father, even after all these years. Her death had been the nail in the coffin of our close relationship, and even though my dad and I had made up, we had never been as close as we had been with her around.
"She was really something," Lou finally said after what seemed like an endless stretch of silence.
"Mother never talked much about her past." I murmured, fiddling with my gloves. They had gathered much dust and grime over the years. No amount of washing could ever take away the stains of battle.
"The only things she said about that were the mutterings of a crazy woman." Lou sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. I had never noticed the grey strands hidden in there before.
At Morro's confused look, I explained, "Her father, my grandfather, was put into an insane asylum years before his death. Father always believed that she had lost it a bit as well." I threw a look at Lou, but he didn't seem to notice.
"What kind of 'weird' things did she say?" Morro asked.
"She always told Cole he was part of some earth house and that he was traitorous or something." Lou sipped at his tea.
I shot my dad a glare when Morro's face started to agree with the whole 'mother was crazy' ordeal. "She said she may have been part of the traitorous house of earth, but I would never be part of it." I went back to fiddling with my gloves. "Mother never lived in a dirt home, and she never seemed traitorous, so her words never made sense."
"She told me she didn't come from much, but she would give all she had to offer." Lou sighed, sounding much more like a widower than a singer. "Sweet Lilly. She loved my music even when I wasn't known for it. She didn't care about popularity. She wanted a simple life, and I felt blessed to give one to her." His voice hardened. "It wasn't until after the wedding that she showed signs of insanity."
Morro's eyes flicked back and forth from my saddened father and my heated glares. Everything else about Mother had been completely normal. She cooked with a smile, she tucked me in at bedtime with a gentle song, she treated life like a blessing. The only reason Lou considered her crazy was because when she talked about the past, it sounded like a bunch of jargon. She stopped bringing it up after a while. I think it might have been the only bump in her and father's relationship. Other than that, they were some of the happiest people I'd ever seen.
"Her father," Morro got us back to the point. "What did he do for a living? Before he was put in the asylum, I mean."
"Lilly said he was the leader of a traitorous house that lost its status. She chose to come to the city after the war was over." Lou explained, doubt clouding his voice.
"The war?" Morro mused, resting a hand on his chin. "Do you mean the Serpentine War? That was the one that had all the Elemental Masters involved."
"Lilly? Fighting in the war?" Lou snorted from the opposite couch. "I can't even picture her in armor."
I frowned; my mother had done so much more than just fight in war. She had saved an entire mountain from falling to an evil entity. I guess she never told Lou about that, since even I had no clue about it until we arrived in Shintaro.
"You inherited your elemental power from your mother." Morro said to me. "I've heard stories that Master Chen convinced some of the Elemental Masters to turn on their allies. Perhaps she was referring to her father."
"That doesn't explain the whole 'houses' situation." I replied.
Morro thought about that for a minute. He placed his cup of tea down on the polished coffee table. "The only people who can explain this better were people who knew her or her father personally. We'll have to look to other Elemental Masters who fought in the war."
"Jay's mother is missing," I caught on, ignoring my dad's confused looks, "We have no idea what happened to the previous Master of Ice. Ray and Maya are still alive. We could go ask them."
Morro nodded, his eyes flashing with deep thought. He seemed to mentally be going over the plan, seeing if it was a good idea. He stood up and turned to my father, who was still perplexed by our recent outburst of inspiration. "Thank you for your time, sir."
Lou tilted his head. "You're leaving? Already? I never got to tell you about that one time I got my head stuck in a tuba."
"The Overlord is still out there," I said, feeling a bit bad behind my professional manner. I did need to come and spend more time with my father someday. We had our differences, but that didn't mean I didn't love him. "We need to cover as much ground as we can."
I turned to Morro, who looked ready to get out of my father's stuffy apartment.
"Let's go to Four Weapons!"