an au set after the end of season ten (spoilers for 10-13, pt2 of what if)

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in which Lloyd Garmadon chooses to go with the First Spinjitzu Master, leaving behind his beloved city and friends, simply because he can

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he took the escape with a breathe between the offer and his acceptance

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can you blame him, really? blame a boy for wanting everything to stop, even for just a moment?

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but what else did the first spinjitzu master say?

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lloyd

It was awfully warm in this paradise. Well, 'paradise'. It was hard to shake off years of ninja training after all, and suspicion clung to Lloyd. With a yelp of surprise, he tore at his gi as it shimmered, the green turning to white, black cuffing the lining, and his dragon remaining the same winking gold. His grandfather remained standing still, his hands resting behind him, the braid of his white hair cut off by the hat his uncle wore too.

His uncle. And—his family. He'd left them behind without a single, sickening thought to escape the burden that hounded him.

"Come, my grandson." his grandfather beckoned him with a snap of his fingers. Lloyd scrambled to stand by his side, not daring to move his eyes from where he stared at the magnificent dragon prowling before him.

"You should call me by my true name. Poino."

"Poi-no." said Lloyd carefully, drawing out the syllables.

"Yes."

He said nothing more, and Lloyd scuffed at the ground with the heel of his shoes uncomfortably. The dragon before him looked nothing like Firstbourne. She commanded immediate attention with her blaring red scales and smouldering eyes. This dragon was smaller - stealthier, his pale orange scales almost shimmering into the sun-warmed sky behind him.

"He is extraordinary, no?"

Lloyd sucked in a breath as Poino's dragon stalked forwards, bowing his head. He reached up, gently brushing the tips of his fingers on the straight bone of his nose. He responded by lightly nuzzling against his hand, flipping it so his palm was pushed against his nose. Still Lloyd did not face his grandfather. Perhaps in fear and awe mixed to a troublesome concoction.

"Does he have a name?"

Poino cocked his head. Lloyd could sense it, his Oni heritage jumped at the slight movement from behind him.

"Does he need one?"

"So you just...call him...Dragon?"

Poino seemed miffed.

Lloyd stayed there, swaying slowly in time with the long blades of grass tickling his legs through his gi. The sun hadn't moved, he noticed with great interest. The clouds just lowered and lifted themselves, fluttering of their own accord. 'Dragon' stepped away, pawing at the ground with a low whine. Poino sighed, very loudly.

"Fine, Dragon. We'll go."

"Uh, go where?"

The First Spinjitzu Master snapped his fingers again, and suddenly, Lloyd was falling through a void of pure darkness.

His scream was locked into his chest, he was plummeting far too fast to bellow out in fear, risking loss of oxygen and his training had him controlling his breathing, assessing the situation, and balking at the nothingness staring back at him. He barely contained a swear as he twisted back around, where Poino was sitting calmly on the back of Dragon, simply staring ahead.

It took a combined tactic of doggy paddling and pure guessing to get over to Dragon, clinging onto a spike jutting out of his back. Dragon continued his mindless flap through nothing for a good five minutes in which Lloyd was contemplating annoying Poino into telling him their destination when they were spiralling again, and they landed in a meadow of ticklish grass.

The same world as before, just all the islands had been connected together. Dragon, in doggish nature, padded around in a circle as the grass bent around his gigantic figure, then settled down in a curl to sleep. Poino sat down, and suddenly there was a teapot steaming over a campfire, and he settled down with his grandfather, crossing his legs in meditation.

His eyes closed, and Lloyd let the breeze wind through their tiny makeshift campfire and he didn't see the flames die out and snap back to life because his eyes were respectfully shut. But Lloyd was never a patient child, or teenager. Maybe being the Green Ninja should have given him a good dose of patience, in fact, it did the opposite. He just wanted to fight and fight until everything was over so he could relax, read comics and binge eat candy.

His leg began to jiggle to give him something to do, and it had been jiggling relentlessly showing no signs of stopping when Poino released another long suffering sigh, and Lloyd peeled one eye open.

"Your father raised a very irritating child."

"My father didn't raise me at all. Maybe because he wasn't raised all that well either." he snapped back, eyes widened at the direct insult. Poino didn't reply.

"Sorry." Lloyd muttered, though he didn't feel sorry at all.

His father, his wonderful evilness, hardly felt like his father anymore. Lloyd was sick of hoping, sick of fighting for him when he wouldn't even remember those precious moments. It was tiring. And if you dwindled it down, it was really Poino's fault. He was too busy, letting the Great Devourer slither around the monastery backyard, he was too busy with his work to care for his boys, and he was too busy to watch a boy consume himself with evil venom.

But Lloyd was tired of fighting, so he didn't put up a fight, and hoped Poino would have a better explanation in due time.

The tea was ready, and Poino took a lengthy minute, drawing out the steeping and the pouring into one cup for himself. He noticed Lloyd uncomfortably loitering around and snapped his fingers once more. Two rolls of tent gear and a pile of camping stuff crashed to the ground.

"There you go." Poino turned to settle against the curve of Dragon's wing, sipping on his tea. "I don't feel like sleeping out in the open tonight. It gets quite chilly."

Lloyd huffed to himself, drawing the pile of camping gear over to him. There were rolls for two spacious one man tents, thick sleeping bags and mats amongst the other things. Unfortunately, the tents did not come with instructions. Despite what many may think, ninja don't camp. They either stay in the monastery, their flying ship or are far too busy running for their lives to learn how to set up a beastly tent.

Lloyd got himself caught on a peg a total of twenty three times, got an extendable pole up his sleeve and whacked himself in the face with the blunt end of a hammer. Ninja coordination skills were not helping here. He did, eventually, manage to win the match with the tents and had wrestled the two one mans into their finished form. He even unrolled the mats and sleeping bags inside.

His hair mussed and hanging in his eyes, the low glow of the fire died down to mere embers. Poino was still sipping from his tea, extremely slow and measured mouthfuls, and Dragon was still napping. Lloyd missed Ultra. The four headed dragon, although it pooped a lot, had been one of many responsibilities he'd had to manage around being a kid, Ultra was a treasured memory. When Lloyd found out from Kai, Cole, Jay and Zane that Ultra had been captured - and killed by the hunters in the First Realm, he had been tempted to rip a portal open with his bare hands to find his pet.

Dragons were ethereal, eternal beings there were to be respected as companions. To kill them and to use them as slaves was a direct insult to Lloyd. Even only a quarter Dragon still meant he had a link to that lineage. Then there was his other side. His Oni side. Which had protected him for the little time he'd spent in the Oni-infested city he'd abandoned.

A sad smile crossed his face, illuminated by flickers of the dying fire. He'd been thrust into a destiny he never wanted. Maybe he should have let Morro take complete form. He wouldn't have to deal with this - with any of this. He'd been a whiny, bratty kid who'd wanted to take over the world just like his old man, starting small with candy, progressing to commanding tribes of legendary snakes. And then Kai had rescued him from another life-threatening situation, revealing his future as the Green Ninja.

A position his friends, teammates, brothers all had been vying for. He would have happily given it up after the first few tragedies. The Great Devourer tormenting the city - he'd been a powerless child with a powerful destiny - and his father, then aging and fighting the pains of his new physical body and how his head had hurt so much all the time. Losing Zane, then finding him as a hoarse-throated boy in a too-big body. The Tournament of Elements and the pain that came with his powers benign ripped from his body, he would gladly have died there to stop the pain tearing at his body. It was like being struck by lighting, burned by fire, buried under rocks and frozen by ice all at once. A curse of the core elements.

Being possessed from Morro was...strangely freeing. He could do nothing but thrash around in the small cage of his mind that he was restricted to, only for his family and friends. Not because the world needed him, not because he'd given everything to defeat the Overlord, but because he couldn't stand seeing their broken faces. Morro, in the times he actually hadn't been a jerk, was unnervingly fragile. Determined to let his boss through to Ninjago, his mind was focused on that. And snips of his thoughts and memories has slotted through the bars of Lloyd's mental cage to poke at experimentally.

Morro wanted to be the Green Ninja so badly, and Lloyd couldn't deny that the non-corrupted version of him would have been good. Maybe better than him, even. And he cursed the writers in the Cloud Kingdom for writing Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon into that fated prophecy's meaning like it meant nothing to them. It didn't. As far as Lloyd was concerned, they were pompous pricks high up in the sky dilly-dallying about saving the world and he hated them.

Crux and Acronix, two time stealing brothers, had the most impact on Kai and Nya. But losing his mentor and uncle in a void of space and time was yet another reason why Lloyd Garmadon hated being the Green Ninja. The universe had a habit of taking the people he loved to spite him. The Great Devourer - and his father - had come back to bite him in the butt when the Sons of Garmadon finally struck. And Harumi. White haired, princess, innocent, his crush Harumi.

Lloyd hated everything. He hated how easily he'd fallen in love with a simple twist of affection, right into her clawed hands to play puppet with his heart on lovesick strings. He'd wanted to die again when he saw that his father was back. In that fight inside Kryptarium Prison, Lloyd had seriously considered giving up. Letting a demonised version of his father finish him off so he could meet the true him. His body was so tired, his mind so shattered and fractured, that Lloyd was prepared to lie there quietly, and let his father snap his body in two.

He was that done with saving the universe, and not having it save him.

He hated running from his home. He'd hated the idea of his brothers dying in the cursed fist of his father's Colossus, hated letting Skylor poison herself, hated having Pixal, Nya and Misako risk their necks, hated hiding and plotting when he should have ended it outright from the beginning. Wrung his own neck for the Sons of Garmadon to see that Lloyd Garmadon was fucking done with this.

And then, after defeating him in the slightest, by purely annoying his father into getting his elemental power back, Lloyd had to fight the Oni.

In that fight, he had silently succumbed in the moment, knowing no greater evil could touch Ninjago. Knowing all was well, and would continue to be with Lloyd Garmadon cursing their lands so that his destiny could let him keep saving them. That's all the Green Ninja was, really. It was his destiny to save things and emerge victorious, there always had to be a 'greater evil'. Now there wasn't, and Lloyd could stop. Pass peacefully.

Now, he was camping with the First Spinjitzu Master, his grandfather Poino, and his dragon, Dragon.

"Lloyd?"

"Hm?" sleepily raising his head, Lloyd found Poino on his feet again.

"Walk with me."

Lloyd stretched his legs, the gi fabric rippling with the moment. Then he joined Poino's side as they took a long walk of the outermost circumference of their campsite.

"Lloyd, do you know what Poino means?"

He shook his head, hoping this wasn't a philosophy lesson. That there was some ending to his journey, some finality.

"Poino means cursed."

Lloyd hid his surprised expression fairly well.

"For the bane of my existence, even the mere memory of me, I have been a living curse. In our universe, there must always be one. One being to shake a fist at. One being to lay your curses on. One being to blame for all your troubles. I have been that being, though it may not appear at first sight."

Lloyd realised he hadn't seen his grandfather's face the entire time he'd been...wherever this was.

His breath caught as Poino tipped the rim of his rice hat up.

It was a gruesome mess. Burnt flesh. Words scarred across his cheeks. Wrinkles. A horrifying sight so bad Lloyd wanted to puke, and he'd had his fair share of grotesque injuries. Poino laughed hollowly.

"You know another thing, boy? I am immortal. I may have died in that feeble mortal body, but so long as there is memory of my name, people will curse me. And I will hurt in ways most unimaginable, forever. That is, unless..."

A sinking feeling entered Lloyd's stomach. "Unless...what?"

"Unless my curse is passed on. And I seem to have found the perfect candidate to live in torture I will take pleasure in forever. Someone just as immortal as me, a legend and a hero."

Lloyd froze.

"He will watch his friends die, he will watch his city suffer, he will watch his city crumble, and he will watch as people curse his name for abandoning them."

They stopped their walk, and Poino's voice lowered to nothing but a whisper.

"That someone is you, Lloyd Montogomery Garmadon. Welcome to the curse of immortal eternity."

Dying is easy young man,

Living is harder

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Right Hand Man, Hamilton

4:09 ━━━━━━━━━ 5:21

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A/N: woah. That was one heck of a pt 2. Like i said in the first part, i kept thinking about lloyd's curse as the green ninja, all the opportunities he had, and so on. Then i thought of the fsm sitting up there, watching everything. Why didn't he show his face? How has he been alive for so long? I finally came to my own conclusion that legends are immortal so long as they are remembered. Poino (it does actually mean cursed btw) has been that 'legend' for so long, and he's roped lloyd into a spiteful game so he can truly rest. As long as people remember lloyd, hate him or love him, he'll live forever watching through a sort of glass, seeing his people suffer. Making him rethink his choices, y'know. I wrote the 1k words over three days and then i churned out 1.5k in one night like some butter mill idk anymore-

I don't really have much else to say tbh... so?

-dommie out