Astra really was trying not to turn around into Morro's personal space and strangle the gods-damn guy in his chair right then and there, but man was it hard.

"Morro, get your fucking shit together and stop trying to get me to crash into the Lord." she yelled, jerking the jet over to the right, the exact opposite of the sulky aviator's instructions. The entire day of training, Morro had been giving her info based on a route that would definitely have caused an ugly mid-air collision, and she didn't feel like being burnt chicken right now either. Nya and Jay shot past in their N-35, starting the line-up for the training course.

Her father had finally settled on a flight plan - more or less. Nya and Jay flew together, Kai and Skylor, Harumi and Lloyd, Zane and Pixal, and finally Cole in a solo N-35. The Lord really was excellent when it came to picking partners - two couples and two couples of exes. Maybe he was feeling the matchmaker vibe, but right now, aside from comms and the occasional good morning, Lloyd didn't exchange a single word with Harumi.

They'd won the pool game. And three games after that.

Then maybe he'd had a bit too much to drink and tried to explain what had happened all those years ago in slurred words.

"Lloyd," Harumi had said, taking his glass out of his hand. "I think you should go home."

"I want—I need to explain, Rumi, I—"

"Astra's taking you back." she'd said, her eyes softening briefly at her nickname. "We can talk later."

When was later? She'd had to stand and watch her brother awkwardly stumble over his own feet and words, support his out-of-control limbs on the way to the car, and shove him into the passenger seat before slamming the door close.

"What happened?" she'd said, twisting to face her twin. Lloyd had never told her what had happened on their graduation night. Even when she'd pestered him for months, his face had always taken a sour turn that rarely afflicted his good-natured smile. "After graduation."

Lloyd had leaned his head back on the seat, a frown crossing his face. "I broke up with her by accident."

"By accident?"

"I said I wasn't ready. She thought I meant I wasn't ready for us. I was trying to say that I wasn't ready to graduate. To be a Lieutenant."

"Great job." Astra had patted her brother on the shoulder, but the glassy look in his eyes made her stop her usual sardonic form of comfort. "Talk to her, Lloyd. You guys were sickeningly in love. Like, worse than Nya and Jay. You made me want to throw up most of the time, sure, but that was fine because you were happy. And you're not now, that's painfully clear. Talk to her."

Her brother still hadn't talked to Harumi, and she wasn't feeling another rousing speech for a while, so she returned to training and tried to keep her head down. Morro was a good pilot, when he wasn't being impulsive or letting his head get caught up with Kai's teasing. The morning of their third practice in the desert, with a make-shift replication of the course laid out between sand dunes and craggy stone structures. The journey across the Two-Tailed river to the Sea of Sand itself took a good hour or two depending on weather conditions.

"Vortex, you ready?" Astra guided the N-18 into position behind Lloyd and Zane, in front of Kai and Jay. Navigating the N-18s had become habit now, so accustomed to the high-tech N-35s, she'd been a bit out of place at the start. But Astra was never a fish out of water for long. Why be a fish when you can be a shark?

"Systems engaged, sensors on lock. Ready for countdown, Reaper." Morro's gravelly voice confirmed. Through her tiny rearview mirror she could only see his deadset swamp-green eyes hidden behind his visor. Wavering, only slightly.

"Reaper and Vortex, ready. Nightwing Beta ready." Astra relayed, settling into her seat. They had less than two weeks to be ready, and judging by Admiral Mystake's troubled expression, the one that never left her face, they'd have even less. Admiral Vaim and the Iluna Military were dead-set on acquiring the ankosa.

Kai's voice came in loud and clear over comms, "Forge and Bica, ready. Nightwing Alpha ready."

"Junior and Kesho, ready. Nightwing Charlie ready." Lloyd affirmed, securing the final of the trio. Alpha, Beta, and Charlie would complete the first half of the mission: navigating the canyon, destroying the facility, escaping the tight mountain range and staying alive. Zane, Pixal, Nya, Jay, and Cole would be tackling the second half: destroying the smaller, but more numerous facilities outside the mountain range that contained resources, equipment, and most importantly, pre-refined ankosa, guarded heavily. The facility itself turned the raw stuff into its most potent form. It's most dangerous form.

Capable of crippling a man and possessing him, a sickening disease that could turn half a town into a zombie-like squadron.

"Alright, aviators, let's get going. Your two minutes thirty start in three, two, one, now!" ordered the Lord. Her father's advice from previous trainings rang in her ears, a rapid fire chant. Stick as close to the ground as you can, build up your speed, use the new DRS system, stay fast, don't die.

Kai and Skylor took off instantly, Astra following without a second's hesitation. Her hands were light on the controls, moving them barely a centimetre left or right to steer the N-18 through the outlined canyon. Astra's eyes flicked to the clock, watching the seconds tick down. The slightest of mistakes they'd be over the time limit.

"Passing the first Jin missiles now." Morro warned, aptly timed. Astra nodded, increasing their speed when she saw the timer reach the orange zone. First thirty seconds down, majority of the weaving done. Now it was time to climb the mountain. They'd only managed it once and it was tough for Morro and Astra - she had to make sure they made it up and over alive, he had to prime the missiles for launch. Once Skylor locked in on the tiny weak spot, one her expert eyes would have less than a second to pin point, they'd have to flatten their steep dive, hit the target, and climb an impossible mountain face to get out.

Easy.

The first climb was the easier of the two - Astra had way more room to gradually start drifting upwards, one ear open to Morro as he read out the boundaries, eyes straight ahead. The N-18 seemed to stay levitating on its own for just a second as they reached the craggy tops, and then they were shooting downwards.

"Target acquired, Vortex, you're good to go!" Skylor cheered down the comms line. Morro just gave her a passing grunt, something Astra would usually pass off as grumpy Morro move, but on her screens, he hadn't engaged the missile. They were ten seconds away from missing the tiny box and Morro was caught between his stupid pride and his bitterness, just another one of his freezes.

"Morro!" Astra bellowed, slowing just enough so when he snapped out, he jammed the missiles and she pulled up just in time. "You fuckhead, what was that?"

She didn't have anymore time to yell at him. The Climb, what they'd nicknamed the impossible steep climb, had already approached them. She felt her neck snap back, tied down by the heavy G-Force. Astra knew what it was like to be weighed down by some invisible force, she'd been through the training, she'd done this mission twice already. But nothing could explain the pain shooting through her body, how her fingers went slack on the joystick, eyes rolling back as she fought off nausea and the pain. Morro needed to activate the second temp thrusters long enough to get them over the ridge.

Except Morro wasn't doing that.

Astra twisted in her seat just enough to see Morro frozen, on the edge of passing out when he own vision began to flicker.

"Morro! Morro!"

And then it was smoke and fire.

o o o

Astra hated being in the medbay.

She wasn't like those people who hated hospital smells or that kind of thing; it was the claustrophobic feeling. The oddly tight sheets designed to trap her there. Her neck lolled to one side, Morro in the bed next to her. Staring at the ceiling above him as if that would solve everything.

"You are so fucking stupid," she choked out, throat raw. "What was even going on in your head? Was there even stuff in your head?"

"I froze."

"Yeah, that's pretty fucking obvious."

"Your dad tried to put me on the no-fly list."

Astra paused, a sinking feeling pitted in her stomach. "What?"

"Your dad tried to put me on the no-fly list. He was on grad night. He told Admiral Mystake that I wasn't ready to fly, so she benched me. Two years I had to beg."

"It's been three since we last saw each other," she said hoarsely. Stating the obvious. By his dry chuckle, he knew the realisation was dawning on her. "Gods, I can't imagine not flying for that long."

"Sometimes I freeze. Like I forget how to fly. For a while I thought I wasn't good enough until I heard it was him who pushed me back. Is he punishing me, for what happened to my father? Is this his way of making me safe?" Morro left the questions hanging in the air, unanswerable. Astra had always stayed out of her father's past. She never really questioned what made him so reckless - a trait he'd passed down to her. The Lord was an infamous pilot. He'd taken her up on her first flight when she was two, and she'd been set on her career from then on. She could only imagine Morro was the same.

Flying was in a Garmadon's blood.

"What happened?" she finally said. Astra didn't need to say between my father and yours, or the Lord and the Master. She'd heard her dad's side of the story.

Morro coughed, silent. Then his stroppy eyes met hers, for the first time in a long while showing something other than anger or fear. Sadness.

"The way I heard it, my father and yours were chasing an I-12. The other jet couldn't lock on, so the Lord made 'em break off so he could move into firing position. But their plane flew through the other's jet wash and both engines flamed out. Flat spin. Your father ejected fine, but mine—" Morro swallowed, hesitating. "He snapped his neck when his head hit the N-14's canopy."

"I think I understand."

"What do you understand? The part where my father dies and suddenly I'm not allowed to fly?" he laughed morbidly, that blank look crossing his face again.

"I overheard something on grad night," she said, somewhat uncertainly. Maybe she was wrong. But based on what Morro had told her, this loose bit of memory. "Between my father and my—and Misako. Let's be honest, everyone had too much to drink that night. I guess they thought they were alone. He started saying something about making a promise to your mother, to protect you. She was scared."

Morro said nothing. It looked a bit like he hadn't heard anything she'd said by the look on his face. "Scared?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry about being a dickhead."

"S'alright. I'm sorry about being a jerk."

"Kind of a Garmadon thing, huh?"