Chapter Text
The hours sped by quickly and before he knew it, the sound of multiple somethings popping out of a suction tube pulled Lloyd’s attention away from the ice tank he was currently inspecting and over to a row of lockers against the wall that he hadn’t noticed before. The doors opened and his friends stepped out of them, faces displaying a wide range of relief and excitement.
“Finally! Base sweet base. Who’s ready for-” Jay started, then squeaked and ducked behind his thick orange scarf as the blond slid to the ground and made his way toward them. “Oh Lloyd! I-I didn’t realize you were already here. You almost gave me a heart attack!”
Lloyd rubbed the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that, I just wanted to look at the mechs. They’re all so cool! I assume Nya built them?”
The raven-haired girl dismounted a motorcycle (did she ride that through the locker??) and bobbed her head. “Sure did! With help from you, Zane and Jay, of course.” She gestured to the other two, and Zane gave his signature cheesy grin while Jay shyly rubbed his head. However, her smile faded a bit as she glanced over to the green mech. “Sorry we haven’t gotten yours up and running yet. Garmadon sure did a number on it.”
That prompted him to shake his head. “It’s fine. You guys were busy helping me, and I say helping a friend is much more important than fixing a mech.” His eyes sparkled as he looked at the dragon on the other side of the warehouse. “And besides, I’m good with just looking at it right now. I’ve never seen a mech so detailed; it doesn’t seem right to actually use it.” Catching a glimpse of the others’ wistful looks to each other, he grimaced. “Er, sorry. I still don’t remember…”
A hand was placed on his shoulder, and he looked over to see Cole giving an awkward smile. “Don’t worry about it. After all, that’s why we’re here, right? We’re gonna help you remember everything.” The black ninja patted his shoulder before guiding the blond over to the clearing by the main door. “Starting with katas. Hopefully you at least have the muscle memory for these.”
As Cole began to lead the movements of the first kata, the other ninja made their way over and joined them. Some reluctantly, some more eagerly, but all of them participated for the sake of their friend.
Lloyd was relieved to learn that the kata was the same as one he remembered from the dream world, and he was able to follow along easily. As the son of a dancer, Cole had a natural flow through the different stretches and forms while the others’ movements were more stiff and hesitant, making the blond curious as to how long ago they started learning these.
They worked through several katas; most of them were familiar, but a couple of them had slight variations that he didn’t recognize and had to adjust for. As the session drew to a close, Lloyd shook out his limbs and did some light cooldown stretching. The others followed suit soon after, and Jay went to a small refrigerator and brought back sports drinks for everyone.
“You’ve gotten really good at those, Lloyd! Have you been practicing on your own time?” Cole gave him a thump on the back. “Whenever you remember, that is.”
The blond shook his head and gave his friend a reassuring smile. “It’s all right. Actually, I think I worked through them in the dream world a lot. Sometimes with you guys, sometimes with Wu, sometimes by myself.” The smile pressed down into a thoughtful line and his eyebrows lowered. “We did a lot of training together there. Then again, we also did a lot of fighting there too, so I guess it makes sense.”
“You know, we’ve told you a lot of stories about us here, but you haven’t said much of anything about us in your dream.” Jay handed Lloyd a drink and fidgeted with his own bottle’s cap. “What was it like? What were we like?”
Kai gulped down half his bottle at once and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m interested too. There have to be some differences, based on how you reacted when you woke up.”
The blond teen’s frown grew deeper as he tried to find the right words. “Well, I guess Jay was the biggest difference. I don’t think he even knew what shy meant; he was not afraid to speak his mind and speak it loudly. Kai and Nya are pretty similar, but Cole was nowhere near as into music and Zane didn’t hide the fact that he’s a nindroid.”
Zane suddenly looked very scared, and a few moments of silence passed before Cole’s voice echoed through the room. “I knew it!”
The two blue members whipped around to look at the black ninja. “Wait, you weren’t sure? We’ve been a team for almost six months and you couldn’t tell?” Jay’s jaw dropped as he stared.
The raven-haired boy crossed his arms and scowled at the curly-haired brunet. “Well excuse me! No one ever specifically said he was, so I didn’t want to assume.”
“I just thought he was weird…” Kai mumbled quietly, his eyes wide with surprise. Lloyd watched as the others turned on him too, sparking an argument about the obvious robotic characteristics of their friend all while said friend’s face flashed through various expressions of fear and uncertainty.
“Zane? Were we not supposed to know that? I’m sorry for accidentally revealing your secret without permission…”
The nindroid’s facial expression finally rested on a concerned look as he made eye contact with the green ninja. “My father told me not to tell anyone I was an android, but he never told me what to do if they found out on their own.” He looked around at the other ninja, who had all gone quiet by now. “Can I trust you all to keep this a secret? I would rather my father not have reason to pull me out of school and extracurriculars.”
Kai put a hand on Zane’s shoulder. “We gotchu, man! Just like with our ninja identities, our lips are zipped.” He pulled his forefinger and thumb across his mouth for emphasis.
The others all joined in, sharing their promises to keep his secret. Zane only visibly relaxed once each person had given confirmation, but he looked satisfied at his friends’ loyalty and his exaggerated smile came back. “Thank you all for your promises. Although, am I really that obvious? I thought I was doing a good job at normal teenager things.”
Lloyd smiled and put a hand on Zane’s shoulder. He realized that the nindroid wasn’t even simulating breathing, although whether he even could was a different question. “Let’s just say you’ve still got a ways to go.”
That got a chuckle out of everyone. Then Jay, tired of standing after running through katas, decided to make his way to the living area where everyone followed him to.
Once they were all seated somewhere, Nya poked Lloyd for more information. “So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, what else is different? You mentioned we fought a lot. Did we fight any weird aliens?”
“No aliens, although we did go against the eldritch embodiment of a whole realm, so there’s that.” Ignoring the horrified looks that statement received, he continued. “Well, we fought pirates, Serpentine, ghosts, even the Oni.”
“Wait wait wait,” Kai started as he held up his hand. “You mean like the Oni from legend? The dark bringers of doom whose presence spells the destruction of a world??”
The blond nodded his head. “Yup, exactly them. In fact, they were the last enemies we fought before I woke up. Master Wu said he’d look into it; he thinks it might be an omen of some kind.” Having ended up in the middle of the couch, he stretched his arms over the back and his feet onto the coffee table as he groaned. “Why am I stuck with these memories and not my own? I just want things to be normal already…”
The team sat in silence for several minutes, each mulling over their own thoughts. The sound of a flute got their attention and Lloyd looked over at the now-open main warehouse door to see Master Wu doing a little dance shuffle toward them as he played his staff.
Weird, but okay?
Everyone jumped up from their seats and rushed over to the old man, who put his staff-flute down and started chuckling. “Hello students!” The blond blinked and next thing he knew, a flash of black and green was being plopped into his arms. “Lloyd, your gi and hood have been cleaned and mended. They should be ready for your next fight. Cole, thank you for leading training while I was absent.”
The black ninja gave a quick nod of the head, and Lloyd briefly looked over his suit before tucking it under his arm. “Master Wu, were you able to find out anything about my dream and the Oni? Or any of the other villains for that matter.”
The master shook his head. “I could not. The Ninjago City Library had nothing more than the fairy tale stories used to scare kids with, and even my own collection at the old dojo is sorely lacking.” An expression of annoyance flickered on his face for a bit as he plucked off a feather that had stuck on his robes. “That obnoxious chicken didn’t make looking any easier…”
Deciding to ignore the whole chicken thing, Lloyd gave a single firm nod. “I’m sure there’s something out there about them. We’ll just have to look harder for it.” He regarded the other ninja, who all nodded in agreement.
“We’ll dig up every ancient library there is if we have to,” Kai added. “If it completely replaced my lil’ bro’s memories, it’s worth finding out why.”
Jay’s soft voice piped up not long after Kai’s promise. “Hopefully there’s also a shot at getting his own memories back too…”
The others all nodded or hummed in agreement with the blue ninja. It seemed Mission: Lloyd’s Memories was far from over, and training was likely just one part of it.
Before anyone could suggest a next activity though, Master Wu tossed a bundle to each ninja. “Since you have already warmed up, it’s time to start with some new training: weapons.” A groan escaped half of the ninja while the other half gave excited gasps. “You cannot always rely on your mechs to fight. In those situations it is important to know other fighting styles. Each of you will learn how to use the weapons I gave you and make them your signature weapon.”
Unwrapping his bundle, Lloyd found a dao sword very similar to the one he had used in the dream memories. The curved silver blade shone brightly in the ambient sunlight, and the handle was wrapped in green leather strips. As he made to grab the handle and test it out, it was pulled from his hands and replaced with a wooden version of the sword. Sounds of disappointment filled the air and he looked around to find that the rest of the ninja had the same happen with their weapons.
“Only when you master the wooden weapons will you earn the right to hold these. They are not toys, and must be treated with care.” After rewrapping each of the weapons, the ninja master put them into a large duffel bag which he slung over his shoulder.
As he walked back out of the warehouse, six books flew into the air and landed by the ninjas’ feet. “Read and learn!”
Zane reached down first and picked up one of the books. “I for one do not see the purpose in learning additional weapons. We are three hundred percent more effective with our mechs. Why would we ever be without them?”
An excited smirk spread across Cole’s normally laid-back expression as he tested the weight of his giant wooden hammer. “I dunno, man. It might be kinda fun to smack around some shark generals with this thing.”
Jay let out a little pout as he held out the chain of what appeared to be some sort of flail. “That’s ’cause you got a good weapon. What’s this thing even supposed to be?” He experimentally shook the weapon a couple times before grabbing the book with the corresponding weapon on its cover.
“It’s a spiked flail. You swing it around and people either back away or get hurt.” Nya piped up as she started testing out her wooden spear with slashes and jabs. “Honestly, I think it suits you.”
The curly-haired brunet turned around so fast that Lloyd was worried he’d get whiplash. He stared at her with an expression that danced between offense and admiration until it finally settled on shy awe with a slight blush. “Really? Uh, w-what makes you say that, Nya?”
The girl, not even noticing his gaze, brushed by him to grab the book that went with her spear. “It’s ranged. Well, sort of. It at least has enough length that even if you just swing it around randomly, you’ll give yourself a small bubble of space. And because you’re so timid, that bubble is gonna help you in close combat.” Cracking open her manual, she began flipping through the diagrams. “Against ranged attacks it’s a little less effective, but it’s easier to swing around as a shield than, say, a sword.”
“Doesn’t that only really work in movies though?”
That made Nya pause. “Y’know what? That’s a good question; I don’t actually know.”
“You know what I want to know?” Kai spoke up, glowering at the twin katanas in his hands. “Why Master Wu thinks we need more work to do. We’ve already got school homework on top of stopping Garmadon. We don’t have time for more homework…”
“Maybe that’s exactly why, though,” Lloyd said, voice making the hothead go quiet. “We don’t have to worry about Garmadon for a while, if I understand my mom’s fury well enough.” He had already been running through some of the sword drills he learned in the dream, his movements jerky and off-centered as his muscles got used to the unfamiliar weight and effort of precision. “It’s not a bad idea, either. Say we have to abandon our mechs because a bomb got attached or something; we’d be toast.”
“Easy for you to say; you got cheat code training.” Still pouting, Kai experimentally swung one of the blades to get a feel for wielding the weapons. He soon was hit on the forehead by a crumpled paper ball, and his peripheral caught his sister with a hand on her hip. “Hey! Rude!”
“Come on guys, quit complaining already. Besides, Kai, you know you’ll look super cool double-wielding katanas and slicing through Garmamechs like butter.” Kai scrunched his nose at that but still paused to consider that statement while Nya shook her head then nodded it toward the other side of the warehouse. “I’m going to go practice over there. Where it’s quieter. You boys can just…figure things out on your own or something. Lloyd, Cole, with me.”
Lloyd shot the red ninja a sympathizing look as he walked past him to follow the girl. If there was one thing he knew about Nya, it was that you don’t make her more mad when she’s already frustrated.
Jay and Kai both started freaking out, Kai begging her to come back and help him and Jay looking like he wanted to do the same but staying silent. Zane, however, had begun flipping through his book and apparently found a website link because an instruction video for archery appeared on the TV screen after a short while. As soon as the red-blue duo realized there were videos, they scrambled to pull them up on their phones.
Once Nya and her entourage had resituated, Cole whipped out his own phone and started through his hammer’s training videos. Nya was still using the physical book as her reference, which she spread out on the floor as she worked through the movements illustrated on the pages. During a lull in the activity on the other side of the room, she decided to ask one more question from the conversation earlier. “Did we all have weapons in the dream too?”
The blond nodded. “We did. They’re all mostly the same, but not everyone started out with the weapon we each have now. Zane actually started out with shurikens then switched to a bow later, and Jay never had a flail; his weapon of choice was always nunchucks. Out of all of us, I think you were the one who used the most weapons until you finally settled on the spear.”
Intrigue flashed across the cyan ninja’s face as she hummed in acknowledgment. Silence fell among them as they each fell into a rhythm with their weapon, although Lloyd did eventually have to go over and help the other group as he noticed Kai having some issues with form.
The training went on until Kai, Nya, and Jay all got texts from their parents. The blond had completely lost track of time and the sun was already quite low in the sky; his mom was probably wondering where he was at. Maybe. He wasn’t sure what time he usually made it back, but if his friends’ parents were texting now, his mom likely wouldn’t be far behind. He decided to beat her to the punch and let her know he was on his way, smiling a little when she sent a relieved emoji and a short “love you, see you soon” message.
They all parted ways for the day; red, cyan, blue, and green leaving first while Cole and Zane stayed behind to lock up. The others went with him as far as the warehouse compound gate, and then Kai and Nya took off on her motorcycle toward their home. Jay had the same path for a few more blocks, but then he also had to part ways, leaving Lloyd alone with his phone GPS for the rest of his journey.