It was beautiful in this meadow, filled to the brim with life and energy. Birds chirped in the air; a gentle breeze tickled our noses with the fresh smell of wildflowers. I had never been to this meadow for reasons other than playing or picnicking, but Father insisted this was the perfect place to train with my elemental power. He stood in front of me, gesturing to the slim trees and the radiant blue skies.

     "It's safe to practice here," he said.

     I squared myself, mentally preparing for the lesson.

     Father used a match to light several of the candles he had brought, placing them around me in a circle. They were small with even smaller fires, but that was all I could handle. I was still learning how to control my powers, after all. When Father lit the last candle, I drew on power from my core.

     "Extinguish them." Father said, stepping a considerable distance away.

     I thrust out my right hand, trying to locate the energy in my mind. I closed my eyes to the different types of warmth.

     The sun's warmth.

     The warmth of my own heart and blood.

     The warmth of tiny flames, testing my developing power by twisting and growing.

     They were spreading and lengthening, mocking my still form with their blazing movement.

     "Shade!" Father's voice cut through my concentration, more panicked than usual.

     I opened my eyes to see a couple of the short candles had fallen over, igniting the grass on fire. As I jumped back from the approaching flames, I accidentally knocked over more candles.

     "Forget the danger!" Father yelled, digging through his supply bag for our water bottles. "Concentrate and extinguish it! You are in control!"

     I was only twelve years old, and my elemental power was still developing. I could barely take out ten different candle flames, much less a spreading forest fire. As the flames climbed higher and spread further, I felt instinct ignite inside me as the potent fear of death took hold. It was easy to open my mind to the warmth since there was so much of it. Once again, I closed my eyes and thrust out my hand.

     Warmth, so much warmth.

     I wrapped my mind around it, encasing the growing energy in the snare of my elemental power. As the fire got bigger, so did my bubble of energy. So did my bubble of range. Right as I felt the flames touch my skin, I snapped my fingers.

     The warmth disappeared, leaving me only with an inseparable cold.

     The sun's light did not touch me anymore.

     My own blood and heart didn't produce enough heat for my senses to pick up.

     And the flames were gone.

     I opened my eyes to see my father's astonished face. He was standing right next to a barrier of life and death. It was then I realized how powerful I could be. Not only had the flames been extinguished, but everything around them had been sucked of life. The grass had faded into black, limp strands. The leaves of the now grey trees had turned brown and fallen off. Even the birds had stopped singing.

     I stumbled backwards, only then realizing how close I had been to sucking the life force out of my father. If he had been only one step closer, then he would have been caught in the energy depletion. Tears streamed down my young face as I rubbed my arms. I was colder than life itself. I was devoid of energy. My only purpose was to sedate the flame, to strip this world of the energy it deserved.

     I hated it.

     "Shade," the voice beside me whined, "why are you staring into space? We need to go!"

     I clenched my teeth, trying my best not to shudder at the sound. It wasn't that Alicia had an annoying tone of voice, or that she had some sort of accent, it was just that she was being overprotective. Again. Of a boyfriend she'd literally had for a week. Of a boyfriend she'd already gotten together and broken up with three times during her four years in high school. Of a boyfriend she knew wasn't going to stay with her.

     My grip tightened on the locker door as I pretended to be scanning through my books. It wasn't that I particularly hated Alicia. I didn't particularly hate any of them. I just needed a trophy girlfriend to keep the stalkers off my back.

     I still wasn't sure why Mother and Father made us go to high school. They claimed it was so we could 'know the people we were protecting', as if Ninjago actually needed protection. The only threats that had arisen in the past twenty years were minor gang bosses, and those were beaten so quickly by Samurai X that no one even knew they existed until they were behind bars.

     My entire life had been devoted to learning battle techniques, dueling with other elemental masters, and training in the arts of the ninja, all so that my friends and I could one day take Samurai X's place. I was as supportive of it as I could be, but still I wondered, what was the point? The days of the Ninja were gone. Peace had returned, and it looked like it was going to last.

     Alicia muttered something about other students watching us, then turned her attention to her phone. My gaze flickered up, just once, to the reflective glass on the back of my locker.

     Sea green eyes, blonde hair, a defined jawline, and a toned body. I was the embodiment of my father and his legacy. The Green Ninja's son. Even I couldn't deny the resemblance, though I'd heard many people whisper about how my mother's traits somehow made me even more beautiful than Father. But that was all they cared about. I looked like Father. I was charismatic, friendly, and had been trained to protect the world. I was Mr. Perfect, the golden boy of Ninjago City, the one person boys wanted to be, and girls wanted to be with.

     I had a reputation to maintain.

     So, I carefully selected a book from my locker, closed it gently, and turned to my 'girlfriend'. She was on her phone, haughtily texting her friends about how she was hanging out with me. I could see from the reflection in her glasses that the girls weren't thrilled about it. They wanted to be in her place. They all did.

     Across the hall, Morro stalked off, yawning as quietly as he could. No one paid him any mind. I didn't envy my older twin; sometimes I thought he had it worse than I did. We used to look alike. When we were younger, outsiders couldn't tell us apart. Then, we both hit puberty and everything changed. I became Lloyd 2.0. Morro became a bit of a freak.

     He wasn't facing me as he walked away, but I knew he was probably rubbing his eyes. Morro was anything but a morning person, so school was his worst enemy when it came to that. Our eyes were the only true resemblance we shared anymore. While our faces held the same shape, Morro had grown to be lanky and awkward. His hair sprouted white with a singular black stripe that no one knew the origins of, not even our parents. Somehow, puberty had hit him so hard that some people couldn't even tell we were related.

     In some sense, Morro had it better than I did. No one followed him around because he wasn't the best at social interactions and almost always had his nose in a book. Meanwhile, I smiled and laughed and made small talk with whoever came close. Morro was some strange entity my parents produced. I, on the other hand, was the golden son of destiny.

     "Ha, they wish," Alicia sneered at her phone, shut it off, then turned to me with a brightly false smile. "When are we going, sweetie?"

     Sweetie.

     I never gagged in public, so I held it in. A few lockers down, a couple of girls shot us estranged glances. I knew at the other end of the hall a clique of students were whispering about me. My name was a murmur in the wind. There were downsides to being popular, of course; often times I caught other students following me around. They'd try to be discreet, but my family knew when it was happening. Father had taken to wearing a wig in public due to the massive amount of attention he accumulated.

     I tugged my jacket further over my arms as Alicia looped her arms through mine. It was getting colder in the halls, and it was almost summertime. Finals week was next week. It shouldn't have been getting colder, but I couldn't stop the temperature shifts. Neither could Morro. Whenever our emotions flickered, the temperature around us moved with it.

     For a brief second, I was glad Ver was still in class. The less she had to witness of these things, the better. She had her own battles to fight, and my trials could wait until we were studying together, or when she was sad and needed a good laugh.

     Alicia started complaining about the air conditioning being out of control, and I couldn't stop myself from shuddering her off. It'd only been a week, but I couldn't do this any longer. I'd find someone less clingy, someone who gave me a bit more space while still holding back the mobs of girls flirting after me.

     One more week, and the horror of high school would be over.

     Then, I could finally take a break from the world I was supposed to protect. 

"You can strengthen the flames, so why couldn't you amplify energy from the air?" Father paced around me; his arms spread wide. "You could learn to create energy, which would be very useful in many situations."

     "That goes against the First Law of Thermodynamics," twelve-year-old me stated, my eyebrows squeezed tight together in concentration. "Energy cannot be created or destroyed."

     Father gave me a look best described as, 'we are talking about magical powers why are you bothering me with science'.

     "That doesn't mean you can't amplify already existing energy," he finally said, adjusting my pose. I had my legs squared with one hand out and the other arm tucked into my side. "Feel the energy in the air and condense it into strips of light that you can use."

     I had made candle flames bigger, but I had never pulled energy out of thin air. I was still young, and the elemental power did not come as easily to me as it did my brother.

     "Close your eyes and feel the energy. Where is it strongest?"

     I opened my mind to the constant heat in my mind, letting instinct take over. Waves of warmth spread over my surroundings, locating the most potent sources of heat. My father and I were in the training yard behind my house, so there were a lot of rocks and metal around.

     The easiest source of warmth was my own body.

     I could feel my Father's warmth as he paced around me.

     I could even sense the distant warmth in the thin blades of grass that grew beneath my feet.

     Was there energy in the air? Of course, everything was filled with that life-giving sustenance. It was just easier to amplify if the heat was concentrated. The air was constantly shifting and changing, making the warmth harder to focus on.

     Sweat dripped down my face as I struggled to grab onto the air's energy.

     Amplifying wasn't the same as controlling.

     "You can do this," my father encouraged from beyond the mist of my own mind.

     My skin grew hotter and hotter as the air grew suffocating. I was subconsciously altering the temperature, as I always did when I got stressed.

     "Feel the energy."

     I pleaded with the still air to feed me some sort of warmth. This was the fifth day of training, and I still hadn't produced any visible light.

     "Grab it, amplify it."

     Beads of sweat hit the ground, sinking into the dirt.

     "Control it."

     I felt like I was being baked in my own body. The air became too suffocating, and I collapsed on the ground, happy to let go of all of the heat to surrender to the darkness of unconsciousness.

     I had failed again.

     Failed.

     I rubbed my eyes, blinking rapidly before returning to the book in front of me. I had read the same sentence five times and still had no idea what it said. Yawning, I rubbed my forehead and tried again.

     If any of these devices are allowed to go off, then the machine will have failed its operation.

     An Intermediate's Guide to Understanding Borg Industries. It was a dream of mine to one day work there, so I'd been reading every book I could find on the topic. I knew I had a chance; I was reasonably intelligent, and my father's friend's wife was the owner of Borg Industries. I had the contacts to land myself a job there after college, but I needed to make sure I was knowledgeable enough to get a good position.

     "Hey, can I sit here?" a brunette smiled at me, holding a tray filled with whatever slop the cafeteria was serving today. I shrugged; there was a spot open anyway. I ignored the brunette's flirtatious looks and returned to my reading. Girls didn't like me, even though they acted like they did. I had learned that lesson the hard way. The first time I found myself a girlfriend, it took me all of thirty minutes to learn she was only after Shade. I had never dated one since. I shook the intruding memories back by focusing on my book.

     Finals week was of little concern to me. I didn't have the heavy social life Shade did, which gave me more time to study. I was certain that I'd do fine; school did seem to be the only thing I could outperform Shade at.

     The girl across from me stiffened when Shade passed by the table. Gaggles of students watched him with hopeful stares as he tried to figure out where to sit. Shade had told me he wasn't the biggest fan of the attention, but he bore with more patience than I could ever muster. The best sort of friendliness I could conjure towards Green Ninja admirers was incoherent muttering. Even the girl in front of me had lost interest in less than two seconds.

     All of Ninjago knew the tales of the Ninja and what their team accomplished. Shade and I had grown up on Father's epic stories of adventures; it sometimes seemed like he could tell us a new story every night. I remembered the times when Shade, Ver, and I would curl up under blankets and watch Father chronicle his adventures with wide-eyed fascination.

     The world heralded the Ninja as heroes. For about twenty years Ninjago had been peaceful, without a realm-breaking threat in sight. Sure, there had been viruses and forest fires, but none of those compared to the vices posed by Master Chen, the treacherous Oni, or the wicked Ghost Ninja. The generation of the Ninja remembered their great deeds, and the generation after only heard spotless tales of glory. It seemed the whole world thought them to be angels shrouded in saturated colors who could take on anything, or anyone, that evil threw at them.

     Such expectations were not easy for the Ninja's descendants. I rather thought most of the school upon meeting Shade, Ver, and I for the first time expected us to walk in and perform and exorcism or something. Shade was quick to make friends, Ver made up a group of acquaintances, and I avoided everyone because no one seemed interested in sudoku. Over time the expectations of us doing something great slowly lessened, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone faked a great evil arising just to see us beat it.

     An oddly familiar girl burst into the cafeteria, overexaggerating her distress by loudly sobbing. Within seconds, murmurs rustled through the room that Shade had broken up with her. People were less concerned with how she was feeling and more about how Shade was now single. The brunette in front of me picked up her tray and went to find a spot closer to where my brother was sitting.

     I finally looked up from my book, a frown spreading over my face. It was saddening how much the school did and didn't care at the same time. Just because Shade looked like Father, the students practically worshiped him. They were all shallow; I wondered why Mother and Father thought it a good idea to send us here. We were supposed to know the type of people we might one day protect, but I sometimes I didn't see what was worth saving. If I were to save the world, I should like a have a decent reason for doing it.

     The temperature shifted, making me feel stuffy even though I had taken off my uniform's jacket.

     The rest of the school day followed about as boring as the first few hours. Everyone was talking about the end of the year dance (something I never attended) and stressing about how they would fail the finals. I trudged through the halls, trying to get my stringy hair out of my face so I could actually read. I could never seem to control the shifts in temperature that were caused by my powers. By the time the bell rang, I was halfway out to the car, ready to beg Shade to take all of my heat away.

     Shade never used his powers on human beings, so that plan wouldn't work.

     I guess I'd have to settle for the air-conditioner.

     Ver made it to the car only a few minutes after me, muttering angry things to no one in particular. She never seemed to be happy after school, I assumed it was because people only want to be friends with her to get closer to the 'Garmadon Legacy.' Ver might have had a circle of acquaintances, but she never expressed care for any of them.

     Shade took his usual half-hour to make it to the car, a time with which I was impressed. How he was even able to escape the mob of schoolkids all wanting to talk to him was incompressible. Shade used them as a source of humor for when we were alone, reminiscing over the events of the day. He did try to see the bright side of things.

     "So... how was everyone's day?" Shade asked after about fifteen minutes of silence.

     "Terrible," Ver flat out said from the backseat. After her answer she stuck her nose into a textbook, pretending to read so we wouldn't bother her.

     Shade winced, then glanced in my direction.

     "Okay," I said, mostly to lighten the mood.

     "My day was satisfactory," Shade said after a second. He slowed down the car as we entered the backroads that led to our house. "The teachers were giving tips on how to ace the finals, and I think I'll do a decent job."

     "Yeah."

     Shade glanced at me through the rearview mirror. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed with worry. He understood that we liked high school just as much as he did.

     "Hey," he said quietly, "at least tomorrow's the weekend. No school for two whole days!"

     That finally elicited a half-laugh from me, and Shade was satisfied.

     But weekends were a whole other beast.

     One I'd rather not think about until we got there.

"She's having hallucinations," Mother said quietly, gripping my arm. I angled myself so I was behind her; the therapist in front of me had wild hair and brown eyes so strange I didn't want to make eye contact. I didn't trust him. Frankly, I wasn't sure how much I trusted Mother after she told me this was the man who'd cure me.

     "What of?" the therapist asked, leaning down to inspect me. I inched further behind Mother, my grubby, little hands gripping at the edges of her jade-green kimono. I didn't want to get any closer to that man than I had to.

     All was silent, then Mother brusquely moved me forward. She needed me to cooperate, but even at six years old, I was more stubborn than she.

     "What are you seeing, little one?" the therapist asked again, kinder this time.

     "A pink, fluffy dragon!" I squeaked.

     Mother frowned, "You told me you were seeing a boy."

     "I'm seeing a dragon!" I insisted, attempting to back up again. Mother sighed, tucked her white hair behind her ears, and lifted me up onto one of the chairs.

     "She told us she's seeing a boy with dark hair. He doesn't talk to her; he's just in her field of vision every now and then," Mother's voice was agitated, like she wanted the therapist to deny these were hallucinations. She kept one hand on my wrist, squeezing gently as if to provide support. All I felt was a shackle keeping me in place. At once I wished I had never told her about the boy, at once I vowed never to tell anyone about him again.

     "Interesting," the therapist pulled out a crinkly pad of yellow paper. Clicking his pen, he started to scribble on the pages. "Have you noticed any other strange behaviors?"

     "No," I answered before Mother could. They had to believe I was fine. It was the only way I was going to get out of here fast.

     "She has been withdrawing a bit from family time," Mother worriedly reminisced on my behavior. "Not to mention she's had a shorter temper, and sometimes I wonder if she's getting enough sleep..."

     The therapist's bushy eyebrows furrowed. He furiously scribbled more notes, ripping through paper after paper, until he paled considerably. He looked afraid, and it made me want to cry. This was an awful place that smelled too sterile and looked too clean. I wished Mother had never taken me here.

     "Schizophrenia," he finally whispered, "it's the only thing I can come up with. It's unlikely to happen upon someone so young, but if anyone her immediate family has had mental troubles, then it's a possibility."

     From the way both the therapist and my mother were squirming, I knew, even at such a young age, that what he had said wasn't good. For some reason they both thought I was mentally challenged. They thought the boy was a hallucination.

     "Is there a cure?" Mother's voice was barely audible.

     To her relief, the therapist nodded. He straightened his crisp, white lab coat and returned to his notes. "I can prescribe antidepressants, and I'll refer to you to an individual therapist..."

     "Take that!" I hit the training dummy with a well-placed sidekick, sending it backwards a few feet. I dropped back into my original stance: feet squared but light, arms tucked in yet relaxed, back hunched over for easy dodging and maneuvering.

     As soon as I had regained my breath I ran to the dummy and started throwing punches. I sliced at its neck, dropped and slammed my fist against its side, then fake dodged and locked my punch with the back of its head. After three hits, I jumped back before going in again.

     After several rounds, I built up the last of my energy and delivered a perfect slice-kick to the dummy's stomach.

     I pulled myself to my feet easily, sweat dripping down my face.

     "You've been improving," the spirit said from a few feet away. I clenched my fists upon hearing his voice. It was the most aggravating sound in the universe. I missed the days where he didn't talk and just stood around watching me. His head titled to the side, exposing the green in his hair. "Yet I still don't understand why you have to practice in the middle of the night."

    I mentally repeated to myself that even though the world couldn't hear him, they could hear me. I had to suppress every nerve to yell at him because I would certainly get caught breaking my parents' rules. Then they would start to get worried about whether I was following my therapist's instructions or not, then they would send me back in for more frequent visits. The best I could do was shoot him a glare before returning to my fighting stance.

     "You have plenty of opportunities to train during the day, so why don't you get a good night's rest?"

     I bit my lip, giving the dummy light blows with my hands and feet. I had to keep the rising anger inside. He wasn't going to provoke me.

    "Besides, then you'd have your parents' supervision."

    "I don't want my parent's supervision," I shot back, unable to keep my emotions bottled up any longer. "I don't want to be constantly reminded of how lesser I am compared to my brothers' power and strength. And I certainly don't want your two cents on the matter!" 

    He raised an eyebrow, giving me the same look he always did when I got feisty. The look that said I didn't know what I was talking about. Anger bubbled beneath my skin as my blows struck harder. He didn't deserve to dictate my life. He didn't even deserve to be able to speak with me. He deserved to rot and die in wherever realm he came from.

    I lunged at the dummy, punching it so hard it flew back and hit the wall of our training room. It knocked over a shelf of metal sparring helmets, sending a loud clanging noise throughout the house.

     The spirit, in all of his cheeky ways, decided to half-smile at my situation.

     I was able to hide behind a small table before my parents came bursting into the room. My father, though dressed in his pajamas, put up a fearsome sight with his long katana raised. My mother stood behind him, twin daggers in hand. After a second, they seemed to relax.

     "It was probably the cat," my mother said softly.

     "No," Father said, pointing to the candle I had forgotten to blow out and hide, "someone is here."

     The spirit put a hand up to his mouth and whispered, "Just apologize; it'll make things easie—"

     "I don't need your stupid advice!" I burst out, shooting up so fast I slammed my head against the table. The sharp pain did nothing to buckle my resolve. I turned to my less-than-astonished parents, my eyes narrowed. This wasn't the first time they had caught me doing this. "And I get I'm in trouble now so there's no need for your chiding!"

     "Ver, you aren't supposed to be out after curfew," Father started.

     "I'm going to my room now. You can yell at me in the morning," I seethed, pushing past them. The spirit rose to his feet to follow me.

     "Ver—" Mother tried to reach out to me, but I twisted away.

     "Goodnight."

     I knew Father held Mother back because they started to argue. I was so going to have to return to biweekly visits to the therapist after this. They always thought I was getting better until things like this happened. When I slipped and let them know I could still see him. I hated the stupid therapist. I hated how they thought I was crazy. I hated it all.

     The only thing keeping me from slamming the door was my respect for Shade, since he and Morro slept in the room across from mine. I loved my brothers too much to get them involved in my personal drama. Even though they were always the center of attention, they still looked out for me, which I appreciated.

     As soon as the door was shut, I slid down into the fetal position, trying to muffle the angry tears. My head throbbed from where I slammed it on the table. Why was I always stuck in the cycle of continuous reminding that I was lesser? I was the only powerless child. I was weaker than my brothers, only one to be cast aside. On top of that, everyone thought I was mentally crazy for yelling at a spirit they couldn't see. He always had to show up and tick me off. I don't know who I blamed more for this miserable life, him or my parents.

      "I still don't understand why you want to train at night. You could use the studio during the day when your brothers aren't using it."

     "I don't need your stupid advice!" I reached for the nearest object, a sandal, and threw it towards the spirit as hard as I could. It only passed through him as he winced for impact. Red spots appeared in my vision as my rage was fueled. "Why do you insist on making my life miserable? Mom is probably going to take me to the therapist tomorrow because you decided to show up and ruin everything. Then they're going to figure out that I haven't been taking my antidepressants—"

     "You were breaking the house rules—"

     "You don't exist, so you have no right to torture me with inane facts I already know!" I yelled, flinging another shoe in his direction.

     The spirit inched away from the next shoe, and the next. "I'm not a product of your imagination, Ver. You know that."

     "You have no right to even say my name!" my words whipped around the room, white hot, "since you never tell me yours."

     The spirit watched me for a second, then sighed. He slid off my bed onto the floor and crossed his legs. I gave him the most hateful glare I could muster.

     "I do have a name, as do I have a reason for being here," he finally said, attempting to play with fabric in the carpet. His fingers just passed through the beige strands.

     I scoffed, huddling back into my ball.

     "I'm tethered to you for a reason. No one could see me until you were born, and now you cannot only see me, but hear me too. There is something connecting us."

     "When you figure it out what it is," I drawled, getting to my feet. Like I believed a word of this nonsense. I was the mentally challenged, powerless child of the Green Ninja. Neither of my brothers had these sorts of issues. If that didn't prove I was defected, then I didn't know what did. "Let me know so I can utterly destroy that bond."

     The spirit winced again as I reached over to kick him out of the way. I crawled into my bed and pulled the covers over my head. When I felt him still watching me, I sat up angrily.

     "Why are you even still here?"

     "I can't leave you.," the spirit emphasized. "I've never been able to."

     "Go hide in the closet then... whatever your stupid name is," I laid back down, trying to steady my breaths.

     "I can't tell you who I am. Not yet. I'm sorry Ver; I wish you could know."

     I looked up slowly to see him pass through the wall into my closet. His voice wormed its way into my mind, a constant echo I could never rid myself of. Sleep seemed impossible.

     I had tried everything. A few years ago, I had started behaving, taking my antidepressants, and essentially telling my therapist everything (I stuck to my story about pink dragons). The spirit didn't fade. He didn't even flicker away once. After a few months of feeling overly giddy due to the aftereffects of my medicine, I decided it was pointless. Nothing was going to make him go away.

     Until I could figure out how to destroy what was tethering us, I was stuck with him. Which meant I was stuck with every problem he brought with him. After dwelling in those depressing thoughts whilst tossing and turning, I finally drifted off to a fitful sleep. Perhaps the weekend would bring a fruitful distraction.