https://youtu.be/SF84c-Ehxls

FALSE CONFIDENCE | Noah Kahan 

don't take yourself so seriously 

look at you all dressed up for someone you never see 

you're here for a reason but you don't know why

you're split and uneven your hands to the sky 

surrender yourself

the title of this chapter is the same chapter title i used over two years ago because of a joke i wrote two years ago. the joke was bad, so i have removed it. the title, i have not. 

ok have fun you nerds

"I'd like to think," Jay began, puffing as they broke into a full sprint, "that one day, this city will see that we are busy, and think 'oh not today, they don't need that today'."

Cole flipped his hood back on. "Keep on dreamin', buddy."

"Well it's nice to see nothing's changed," Morro called, "we still can't catch a fucking break!"

Sky caught up. "Maybe the First Spinjitzu Master is homophobic."

"What, like you?" Harper shouted over their shoulder.

He opened his mouth to retaliate but Ally interrupted them. "Wait..." She hurried to get closer, having started last. "If I'm a Garmadon, and Lloyd's a Garmadon, and we aren't siblings–"

Zane shrugged the hood of his gi over his head. "That is yet to be confirmed, actually. There is a slim, but noteworthy, chance you are indeed siblings. But yes, do continue."

Ally almost stopped running, taken aback by his genuine politeness. It was a foreign concept among her own team. "Ah- yes. Well, if we aren't siblings but apparently both the 'Green Ninja'- Also unconfirmed, by the way. I don't know if I buy it." She narrowed her eyes at the boy leading the group. "Are there multiple direct descendants of the First Spinjitzu Master or multiple First Spinjitzu Masters?!"

The Zenjago team all looked at Harper at the same time, who tugged her hood on to avoid their eye contact. "Please," she sighed, "don't make me think about this, or literally anything else, until I can punch something."

"Oka-"

"Hard," she added firmly. "Punch something very hard."

"O-kay," Zap said slowly. She looked at the Ninjago Ninja. "So you guys get trouble a lot?"

Kai shrugged as though he had long ago accepted his fate. "Comes with the job, doesn't it?"

Realm regarded him with a kind smile. "It's rewarding though, right?"

"Sure it is!" Cole called.

"But then the city's Mayor condemns you as vigilantes for something you didn't even do wrong and then you're in jail having to fend for yourselves as the city slowly falls to shit as it always has and you've just been preventing the inevitable for like seven years!"

Ally tilted her head to the side. "What timeline even is this?"

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

The author hasn't decided and probably won't. I have zero fucking clue what season this takes place after or in or where either sit in their individual timelines. I have no idea what villains each have and haven't faced. What I do know is that I write whatever is convenient the moment that I write it. I constantly sew plot holes into this story purely for the sake of one liners and I'm okay with that.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

"A fucking crazy one," Kai responded.

Morro breathed in deeply. "Ah," he exhaled with a look of pure serenity, "feels like home already."

The others regarded him amusedly as they continued onwards. The shouting did not stop, nor did the crashes that rang out. They pushed faster, light mood sobering to seriousness as they each threw the hood of their gi's on. This solemn quiet of concentration fell over them all in preparation for whatever monster lay ahead. With their experience, especially combined, how hard could it really be? Such an inquiry could be simply answered when they turned the final corner and came face to face with-

"The PREEMINENT?!" Zap screamed, first to lay eyes upon the monster.

"The Preemin-a-WHAT?!" Jay yelled, somehow matching her energy.

Cole, a little further behind, rolled his eyes amusedly. "Yeah, okay guys, nice try. We beat the Preeminent years a..." His words slowed until he had entirely stopped, as did his running.

As the others caught up, each of their faces dropped into similar expressions of shock and horror. They now found themselves situated in a large intersection. In the middle, as Zap had aptly recognised, sat none other than the Preeminent. The undead mass of tentacles and pulsing glands—secreting a slimy, green goo they preferred not to think about—squealed, making the ninja cringe.

Kai shook his head. "How the hell..."

Harper turned to her brother tiredly and sighed.

Morro furrowed his eyebrows indignantly. "Don't look at me, how could I have done this?!"

She glared at the Realm Blade in his hands. "It seems this blade opened more than one portal between multiple realms."

His mouth fell open. "Ah."

They pinched the bridge of their nose. "First Master, kill me now."

Realm pushed Harper's shoulder lightly, a call to action. "If we don't beat this thing, you might well get that wish."

Sky rolled his shoulders as Zap bounced on the tips of their toes. "So, we just... kill it?" Skylar looked at Realm expectantly.

Ally looked to be on the verge of (her ever-dramatic) tears. "You make it sound so easy. Like it isn't, I don't fucking know, the fuCKING PREEIMINENT!"

"She's got a point," Lloyd nodded, equally as exasperated at the sight he was yet to release his vision from. "I don't know how easy the Preeminent was to beat for you guys, but-"

"But it sure as shit wasn't easy for us," Nya finished. "This is insane."

Morro crossed his arms with a hint of a smirk curling his lips. The son of a bitch almost looked proud. "Insane is my middle name," he said cockily.

Harper rolled her eyes. "I thought you didn't even know your name, 'boring ass white kid'."

The boy faltered. "Hey!"

"Guys," Realm snapped, eyes wide as they surveyed the increasing damage. "We have to sort this out, fast."

Zap went to shove Morro in front of them. "I volunteer Morro as tribute."

He tried to wiggle from her grip, but they grasped him tighter. "What the fuck, man?! Tribute for what?!"

"Literally anything," Ally egged on.

"Realm! I'm being bullied!" Morro pushed himself away from Zap.

"Maybe don't get us into messes like these in the first place!" Sky exclaimed.

"Guys!" Realm called again, eyes going even wider as they watched a slimy tentacle wrap itself around a (thankfully) empty car and begin to lift.

"Yeah, fine, not the time," Ally resolved.

"No!" Realm shouted. "That!" She pointed to the vehicle now sailing toward them. The ninja dove out of the way, all just in time to escape the car that smashed and skidded along the road behind them.

"Alright," Lloyd puffed as he heaved himself back off the ground, the others doing the same. "What's the plan?"

Ally was yet to get off the ground, instead electing to remain lying on the cracked concrete. "Accept our fate and die at the tentacles of the Preeminent."

"Maybe not that one," said Cole.

Zap did a stressed lap in a small circle. "Okay. This is bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. Very, very, very bad. Very, very, very, ve-"

"We did, in fact, gather that," Skylar interrupted. "It's very, very bad."

"You don't say." Kai arched an eyebrow.

"Does anybody have a plan?!" Jay shouted, as another car was flung in their direction, forcing them to doge once more.

Zap held up both their hands in defeat. "Well, we've never had to face the Preeminent in an ENTIRELY FOREIGN REALM WHERE WE ARE ENTIRELY STRANDED WITH ENTIRELY NO WAY HOME!"

"But, we have all faced the Preeminent," Lloyd pointed out. "We at least know she can be defeated."

"I've got my water." Nya held up a hand from which an orb of water appeared. Morro notably took a step away from her.

"And it seems the Preeminent doesn't have all those pesky ghosts either," Skylar added before suddenly looking to Morro. "Right?"

The boy went serious, the first time those from Ninjago had witnessed such a thing. Morro's gaze dropped to a depth that went seemingly beyond any of them. His eyes grew wide as his pupils faded, a dark fog creeping across them until they were a swirling pool of ink-black darkness. Everybody waited as Morro scanned the area.

"Nope!" he exclaimed cheerily, snapping the trance. The fog dissipated as quickly as it had appeared as he shook his head to rid himself of the rest. Those from Ninjago glanced at each other.

"I have so many questions-" Jay began. He was cut off by Zane, however, who pushed him down just in time to escape decapitation from a flying bike this time.

"We're out of time to bicker!" Realm called over the increasing crashes. "Lloyd's right, we all know that the Preeminent isn't an impossible match, especially when she doesn't have all her ghoul-lackeys. I say we weaken her, attacking from all angles, then decide from there."

"We'll come from behind," Lloyd jutted his chin at Ally, who had just risen from her spot of despair on the concrete.

"We will?"

"Realm and I can take the front," Cole added, glancing quickly at his new-found doppelgänger.

"Guess that leaves us for everywhere else," Skylar shrugged at the others. They all nodded in affirmation.

"Well, go team... I guess," Realm said.

Zap looked them each in the eye, their faces serious but alight with eagerness and the brilliance of the elements. "This is pretty badass." She couldn't help but smile.

"See," Morro smirked, "aren't we glad I-"

"Ninja, GO!" They all roared, completely ignoring him. The group of ninja drove from their small huddle and sprinted to take position around the creature.

"I assume you're the resident fire elemental?" Harper called to Kai as they lined up their first attacks.

Kai twitched his hand, sparking flames that licked at his fingers before he allowed them into a full blaze up his arm. "I'm the 'hot' one," he winked.

"First Master," Harper shook her head, unimpressed. "Okay then, pretty boy. Show me what you got."

Within seconds, blurs of blue, black, white, green, red and grey painted the make-shift battlefield (previously, intersection), as did blasts of elemental energy. The Preeminent was certainly ugly before, but now the undead mass was shrieking and bleeding with the sudden onslaught of strikes inflicted upon her. The ground shook as Cole drove his fists into it, leaving craters in his wake. Thunder brewed and lightning crackled from the sky, summoned by the calls of Zap and Jay. Radiant spheres of green energy exploded from the fists of Ally and Lloyd, each one larger and more powerful than the last. A rainbow of tornadoes left wound after wound; the twirling embodiments of the elements themselves.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

Now this– this is where their competency shone.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

Jay leapt into the air, landing atop one of the Preeminent large tendrils and struck her with bolt after bolt of electricity. She shrieked in pain, shaking her tentacle—and thus, him—until he was flung from it.

The ninja screamed as he went higher and higher into the air. "Uh oh," he whispered as he reached his peak and ceased for a comical moment before beginning the plummet back down, screaming once more.

"I've got him!" Skylar called, jogging to reach a spot under him. She released a wave of ice that caught him in his downfall, curving it under and around in the form of a slide. Jay reached the ground with impressive ease. He opened his mouth to thank them, but Sky beat his words. "Don't mention it," they smiled, turning back to send spears of ice into the eldritch horror's side once more.

Kai and Harper also found themselves on top of the Preeminent, slashing lines of flames into her top.

Harper, a show off in her own right, did a performative twist from an aerial to land back on the ground. She winked mockingly at Kai, who went to mimic her challenge of a movement. At the last second, however, he was swept into the grasp of a squirming tendril. "Fuck!"

Expression considerably sobered, Harper made to leap back up to the tentacle that clutched him. "I've got you!"

"I- I don't need your help," Kai grunted, struggling as its grip tightened like that of a boa constrictor, pressing his arms closer to his sides.

The fire ninja halted. "Okay then, have fun!" They saluted before turning away.

Morro looked on in amusement as his sister stepped once, twice, three times-

"Wait!"

Harper glanced back slyly. "Not so hot now, huh?"

Morro snorted before continuing his own fight against the Preeminent. He hurled hits against her with his mace—something the rest of the team were still regretting from when they allowed him to use it once. Though it was undeniable he knew how to use it. His competency came and went.

Nya dove beside him, nodding politely before sending a massive spurt of water at the mass. It screeched, the water singed across its skin as boiling water would normal skin. Morro shuddered, almost feeling bad for the creature under the water elemental's wrath. He intentionally moved away.

Lloyd and Ally turned out to be quite the team, when one half the 'Legendary Green Ninja' duo wasn't lying on the ground and wallowing in the endless disparities of their existence.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

Ally is the person I want to be every time something else goes wrong in my life. Living out my life not through the cool ninja embodiment of me (Harper) just the one who throws tantrums every so often. That's all I wanted to say.

- 🐉🌪🐉 -

"I still have so many questions about you all," Lloyd said as he fought, sword dancing with a green flame that manifested into lucent orbs of energy.

Ally paused momentarily as she reared up for another attack, another forceful shock growing between her hands. "Believe me, so do I."

"What?"

"We be livin' that 'hashtag identity crisis' life!" She beamed over her shoulder before sending another massive explosion of her power at the Preeminent.

Cole and Realm fought in impressive unison, the pair working well as they utilised every move the other made to their own advantage. It was as if two were fighting rather than one; especially impressive for a duo who were yet to analyse or optimise the other's fighting style. The tornadoes of earth worked effectively, cleverly even.

Zane—equally as concentrated on his own movement—hurled shuriken after shuriken. Until suddenly, mid-throw, he looked up. "Realm!" He shouted, eyes bright with an intelligent glow. "You have mentioned a 'Realm Sense', yes?!"

She halted and turned, nodding at Cole who continued without her. "That's right! I can sense neighbouring realms!"

"But you cannot travel to them without the Realm Blade?"

Realm shook her head. "Not quite! We'll need actual time to explain everything, but I can travel between realms through my own powers!"

Zane's eyes shone. "Amazing!"

"Why do you ask?!" She ducked as a tentacle made a movement to grasp her.

"Is the Departed Realm a neighbouring realm to us?! Is it perhaps possible for you to send the Preeminent back?!"

Realm bit her lip as she considered the preposition. The portal required for such a task would be massive, one of the largest she had ever made. And she wasn't even entirely sure the Departed Realm was close enough for her to reach-

"Sister Realms!" Harper cried out, having overheard enough of the conversation for their own epiphany.

"Sister-what?" Kai listened on confusedly.

"Realm!" Harper called at her teammate. "The Equilibrated Realm Theory! Sister Realms!"

Realm's own eyes went wide. "That would mean-"

"You can reach the Departed Realm from here!"

Jay shook his head. "I'm officially lost."

"That was like half an hour ago, bud," said Cole.

"It's worth a shot!" Realm said decisively before turning to look at Cole. "You think you can cover me for a bit?"

Cole, completely and utterly confused—though nonetheless earnest, nodded in affirmation. "Whatever you need, I got you."

"Harper!" Realm yelled as she ran from the Preeminent, finding a spot behind some rubble for minimal, but some, protection.

"On it!" The fire ninja reached for her earpiece.

Harper: Skylar, Morro, need you over here now.

Skylar: Is everything okay?!

Zap: What's going on?!

Harper: Realm's going to try and send this thing back to where it came.

Ally: You mean, 'from whence it came'?

Harper: First Master.

Skylar: Can she even reach it?

Harper: We're riding on the Equilibrated Realm Theory and hoping for the best, I guess.

Zap: Are we even sure it's not just a theory?

Harper: No time like the present to conduct some scientific research, apparently.

Skylar: I guess it's worth a shot.

Zap: This feels bad.

Harper: It's all bad.

Skylar: Hey Morro, you're awfully quiet.

Morro remains silent for a long time.

Morro: It's called ghosting you.

Skylar: I'll ghost you in a second-

Harper: Skylar and Morro, Realm needs you guys at her side while she tries this insanity.

Morro: I don't want to stay and babysit Realm! I've been having fun, for once.

Skylar: You got to have your fun when you sent us to an entirely foreign realm. Need I remind you why we are facing the Preeminent in the first palace?!

Morro: Fine, but I won't be happy about it.

Harper: Great. Don't be. I'd actually prefer that.

Zap: What about me?

Ally: I'm here too!

Harper: We'll keep the Preeminent distracted, off Realm's back for as long as possible. This is going to be tricky as hell.

Zap: Concerning.

Skylar: We're Ninja, 'concerning' was in the job description.

Ally: I never read and signed any documents that warned me for this shit show!

Zap: You know you wouldn't have it any other way.

Ally: I disagree. I could've pursued my lifelong dream of being a wife who's rich husband suddenly dies and uh oh looks like I'm rich now, all this inheritance and nothing to do with it, such a shame Tony collapsed unexpectedly-

Skylar: As much as I do want to hear more about this, later.

Harper: Appreciated if you would move your asses over here right now.

Morro: Fine, coming.

Skylar and Morro sprinted over to Realm, who they guided further from the fight. Her eyes were already closed in concentration, the same orange glow through her veins already present.

"You sure you can do this?" Skylar asked. "I don't doubt you, but I don't want you to hurt yourself either."

"It'll be fine," Realm muttered from a locked jaw.

Morro, despite his protests, was equally as serious. "Can you sense the Departed Realm?"

Realm didn't respond immediately. She clenched her fists tighter, the orange glow emanating from them growing brighter still. Then suddenly, she released the tension and opened her eyes. Her eyes glowed with the same vibrancy, pupils having become the orange that seemingly surrounded her. "It's here! I can reach it!"

"With a portal that big." Morro shook his head in disbelief as he pointed at the Preeminent. He'd never seen her create a gateway between dimensions so large.

Realm shrugged. "We'll find out." She heaved another breath, already exhausted. Still, she calmed herself before closing her eyes once more. It was almost like watching someone immerse themselves in water as Realm became encapsulated in the orange energy once more. This time, her clenched fists not only radiated an orange glow, but this developed further into pulsing waves that rattled the fabric of the realm itself.

Skylar and Morro each had a hand on her shoulders, doing their best to stabilise her.

Skylar: Time to get out of there.

Harper nodded from across the road, pulling on Kai's arm to alert him to step back. They also called to Zane and Nya. Ally did the same with Lloyd and Cole.

Zap and Jay—already debriefed on the general situation—nodded seriously before upping their own distractions. Lightning dispersed in all directions. Crackling, burning light struck the ground all around as the Preeminent attempted to divert her attention time and time again. They forced the lightning tighter, shocks of electricity branding her tendrils and causing more squeals of pain.

The Ninja noticed the beginnings of a portal beneath her. The orange energy, much like that which expelled from Realm's fists, pulsed in waves that shook the fabric of the dimension. The split in the ground continued to widen, expanding. It was not smooth, like when they had watched a portal form previously. It wasn't a swirling abyssal doorway that grew gradually, stabilised. Rather, as this portal grew, it drove out along the ground in sudden and uneven movements. It was more like a crack in the concrete, nonetheless, it widened and continued to do so. It was working.

Realm cried out, knees ready to buckle as she forced the gateway to continue to grow.

Zap: It's getting big enough!

Harper: Is Realm doing okay?

Morro: She's hanging on.

Skylar: Not sure for how much longer she can take it.

Ally: She's almost done it! 

With another cry of exertion, the fissure split like cracking ice, shattering the fabric between the realms entirely as Realm forced the Preeminent into it. The monster let out a final, high pitched squeal as she fell through. And, as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone. The portal slammed shut with a loud 'snap!' that rang out across the landscape, rebounding against buildings and along the ground.

Realm fell to her knees, exhausted. The silence among the Ninja was almost as loud as the constant shouting in the sudden disappearance of their opponent.

Kai was the first to speak. "Well, holy shit."

"That was insane!" Nya exclaimed, mouth agape with awe.

Zane nodded. "That was indeed an incredible demonstration of great power."

"You sent her back to the Departed Realm?! Just like that?!" Jay bounced on his toes excitedly.

Realm didn't seem to even process the questions, heaving deep breaths of air as the orange glow faded from her eyes and skin.

Skylar patted her on the shoulder before turning to the rest of the Ninja. "We'll answer all the questions we can, but first..."

"She needs rest- we all do," Cole affirmed. "'course."

"P.I.X.A.L.," Zane said. "Please send the bounty." He smiled at what was apparently a response the others couldn't hear. He turned back to them. "She is on her way."

The Ninja all collapsed onto the ground, exhausted by the impromptu battle.

"What a fucking day," Ally laid back, star-fish on the ground.

Zap sighed tiredly. "I have a feeling it's only the beginning."