kai

No one was allowed to read the prophecy except Lloyd, Misako, and Garmadon.

No one was happy about that either, especially when Svanna let slip that the others were involved in this too. Kai knew he had to get away from all the arguing - one wrong move, one wrong word, and he'd be a human torch ablaze in an underground room - so he visited his father. Ray had nearly recovered, spending the majority of his time slowly regaining his strength, exploring headquarters, and coming to terms with the fact that his ideas of good and evil, Montgomery and Wu, had been turned upside down.

Also that they were being actively hunted, and that his wife was in captivity.

"Anything?" Ray asked, slowly rising from his armchair. When Kai shook his head, his sigh was loud enough to shake the foundations of Borg Tower. "I'm not surprised. Garm–Monty was always secretive."

"What do you mean by that?" interest piqued, Kai flopped into the unoccupied chair.

Ray's answer was vague. "From what I know of him, he always acted like...that."

"Okay, but in more detail?"

"It's unlikely you have much recollection of this, but many years ago, the Shadow Wars took place. Elemental Masters live longer, and it couldn't have been a few years after Wu—the Emperor found us and began training us with his brother's help. The Stone Army rose with no signal, forcing us into battle as barely experienced fighters — as you are now."

Kai stiffened slightly at this offhand comment. Of course his father didn't know how battle-hardened they had become, he was stuck underground while Kai was throwing his life out the window every day above ground. Still, it felt like a dig that only poked at his pride.

"We never found out who was behind the Army, always suspected it was Montgomery who secretly wielded the Helmet of Shadows without our knowledge. He just...acted off. He was withdrawn, sulky, barely attended war councils. It's odd to see him this assertive now, is all I'm saying." Ray shrugged.

"I can't believe you fought in the Shadow Wars. I mean, I saw you fight that day when they attacked our house, but it's still so weird." Kai gave a light chuckle which fell sober at the thought of his mother. "Both of you fighting."

It was clear who Kai meant by both."She was, is a menace with a trident. The day I laid eyes on her..." Ray trailed off wistfully, eyes glossing over. Kai waited for his father to continue, but Ray remained lost in thought with no sign of returning.

"She'll be fine," Kai said, trying and failing to inject some reassurance into his voice. These days, positivity was in short supply. Nightmares had continued to plague him despite the few hours each night that barely counted as sleep. The short snippets that left his bed drenched in the early morning rotated. Most often it was the tormenting question of what if, what if Nya hadn't outrun the fire, what if both his father and mother had been captured, what if they hadn't found Svanna? It was like a running loop of thoughts interbroken by the jarring question of what if?

With his father lapsed into silence, Kai slipped out of the room quietly, making his way to the war room, thoughts clouded. Svanna's arrival had sparked a frenzy of activity in the Sons of Garmadon's inner circle. Wherever he went, Kai could feel the clued-in agents staring at him and his friends. Sure, she'd let slip that the other elemental masters were involved with the whole prophecy ordeal, but suddenly everyone thought that meant he knew what was going on.

Before this shit storm of a war, Kai Smith had always known what he was going to do.

The plan was pretty simple.

Pass his classes, get a sports scholarship to NCU, play any of his sports professionally, make enough that his parents didn't have to work and could finally spend time with him.

That went out the window months ago. Now he was faced with revenge or rage and in all honestly, it felt good to embrace the both of them. Harumi had been lucky she hadn't run into him yet. She was lucky he hadn't had the time to hunt her down himself and make her see how she'd fucked them all over. She was lucky that she was alive, if anything. Kai's thoughts were burning through his mind as he slouched in his chair, Garmadon's words nothing more than background noise.

Flames swirled around his hands, manipulated with the barest of thoughts as he combed over every whispered mention of the prophecy. He and the other elemental masters were involved. Lloyd was essential to defeating the Great Devourer. A small flame materialised in the shape of a snake, fangs tiny beams of fire. Maybe there's some way we can trap it, keep it at bay. If we don't find the Fangblades.

"—nowhere in Ninjago will be perfectly safe for the weapons, I'm afraid. I worry that Wu will be disinterested in the Fangblades, and after the Serpentine Civil War finishes, they'll focus on getting the Fangblades, and that Wu will remain fixated on the weapons. For him, they are essential. The Great Devourer is simply a by-product of his plan . If we strike, I believe we strike now." Pixal's voice broke through Kai's distracted thoughts.

"Wait, we're moving the weapons?"

"I told you he wasn't listening," Astra drawled. At Kai's scowl, she continued with a smirk, "A few of us think moving the weapons to a more secure location is a good idea. Less chance of being discovered in a remote spot."

Kai probed the topic with a raised brow. "Do you agree?"

"At this point, the more random our moves are, the less likely it is that Wu will find them." Astra shrugged. "Like Pix said, nowhere is perfect. Everything we do is a gamble."

Nya, Cole, Zane, Kade, and Rema were nodding their heads in agreement. The only ones who seemed to be against the suggestion were Lloyd, Skylor, and Jay, surprisingly. The last boy had his hands wrapped around his nunchucks tightly, as if they'd have to pry it out of his hands before he agreed.

"I don't—I don't think this is a good idea." There it was. Jay never liked to outwardly negate anything unless he was feeling panicked. "Who will look after them? I mean, what if Wu does actually find them? What are we gonna do then?"

Just as Jay's voice grew high-pitched, Nya whispered something in his ear. The lightning master took a breath, nervously looking away from the silent table. Kai's eyes were fixed on his sister's hand over Jay's. Look, he knew they'd grown close after everything that had happened. But still, it was weird as hell to see one of his best friends and his sister together. Though it was marginally better than Cole and Nya.

"Easy. We move it to a location where Wu would never go near." Kai's brain felt like it was the size of a watermelon when everyone looked at him strangely. "The Fire Temple. Duh."

For the first time that meeting (at least the first time Kai was listening), Lloyd spoke, only a sigh at first. "It could work. It's dangerous enough that he might not risk sending troops there, which means we can't put troops at risk there. But it's also dangerous enough that we might lose the weapons if the volcano erupts. Who knows how long it'll take to fish out the weapons?"

"I believe we may be able to come up with some sort of trigger system. Additionally, setting up a surveillance tower near the volcano so we can monitor its stability more accurately than satellites would be beneficial." Pixal suggested.

Astra traced some invisible pattern through the air, trails of darkness following her fingertips. "The veil between the Underworld and Ninjago is thinnest there. I can set some sort of trap that'll trigger if Wu does decide to pay the weapons a visit."

Kai said nothing. Parting with his sword seemed like a bad idea; it was like an extra shot of elemental-adrenaline that boosted his fighting even though he rarely took it above ground. His mouth was half-open when Arsyn burst in, waving a leaflet of papers frantically. Huh, wasn't Arsyn supposed to be monitoring the palace?

The SOG agent was out of breath, slamming the papers down in front of Garmadon. "Reports, of a breakout at—"

"A breakout where?" Kai leapt up, knocking his seat over.

Arsyn gave Kai a look that said shut up, stupid, gulping in air. "The palace. There's been a breakout at the Palace of Secrets."

o o o

The Sword of Fire was burning in his hands as he stood outside the palace.

Darkness had fallen upon the city, turning the weapon into a beacon for the Legion assembled outside. He knew they were preparing to track down his mother. It would be the last thing they'd do.

To his right, Nya stood stone-faced, her trident tightly gripped in her right hand.

"We'll find her." she said, without moving.

All Kai did was nod, and pull up his mask. The first ranks of the squadron sent to delay them marched forward, their metal helmets masking their expressions. Kai didn't hesitate, leaping straight into the square of soldiers, slashing out with the Sword of Fire in one hand, his katana in the other. A whirlwind of blades that melted through bone, sinew and armour, metal drenched in blood. The only thought in his mind was finding his mother, and Nya's water hounds fighting along her single-mindedly seemed to believe the same thing.

Kai formed his blades in a cross, pushing back against three soldiers and releasing a burst of fire that sent them scattering.

"We need to find her," he yelled above the chaos, tapping into his comms. "Troya, where is she?"

"Take a left, there's a squad of about fifteen heading to track down your mother. Our drones are picking up visuals that she may be trying to head for your house."

Nya turned briefly, giving Kai a sharp nod before grouping her element around her in a fluid movement. She stomped one foot on the ground, and the water shot out in a circle of powerful waves, clearing a path to the left. Kai ran through, driving a wedge of fire as he spotted his mother, limping, her dark hair matted, her legs slowing as she tried to stumble away. Not again. He recalled his fire, preparing to unleash the flames, but Nya's water whip barricaded him. Not again.

"We need to work together, we can't risk hurting her. I'll put up a shield, you focus on deterring the attackers. I'll get rid of any runaways." Nya's eyes glinted with a dangerous edge. She formed the water into a thick, rippling wall and pushed it between Maya and her pursuing soldiers. She sprinted towards them, diverting the arrows with chunks of water from the wall. Kai took his chance to mold his fire into a sphere, sending it directly into the heart of the pack of soldiers. He spilt the burning flames into smaller spheres, each one attacking an individual soldier. His mind seemed to burn out any semblance of logical thought, Nya's advice long gone as he intensified the heat.

Blazing gauntlets appeared on his hands as he sheathed his katana, relying solely on the power in him and in the sword. Nya's cry of surprise wrenched him around, heart beating wildly as he registered ten soldiers arriving on the scene, their gold helmets marking them as members of the Emperor's Elite. His sister's wall had metamorphosed into a clear shield around herself and Maya, who lay unmoving behind Nya. His swords punched in and out mercilessly, but everyone where he looked, every step in every direction, more soldiers flooded in.

Kai switched directions, plunging his way through the chaos toward Nya's shield. The water was beginning to weaken, the dome growing smaller and smaller as his sister desperately tried to maintain the bulwark and fight off the approaching soldiers. He didn't even notice the odd, numb feeling on his right arm until he saw the blood drenching the right hand side of his gi. His head snapped up, finding the culprit - an Elite, gold helmet mocking him in tandem with a gold blade slick with blood. His blood.

The Sword of Fire turned into a swirling inferno, sucking the last of his energy that was already depleted from the day's earlier fighting. The Elite didn't stumble, didn't balk. Kai parried their blade, counter attacking as fast as he could to slip through the soldier's defenses. No matter how many times he attempted to slide his katana through his counters, the Elite's knife was there poised to strike. Kai dropped back, summoning the remnants of heat in the air to focus on the Sword of Fire. He stepped in, pressing the elemental weapon closer and closer to melt the soldier's blade. The katana's transformation into a disfigured lump of metal finally broke something in the Elite. They began slashing back, raising the useless sword like a club to swing at Kai.

The roar in his ears defined everything, the fire around the sword flickering in and out of control, the flames tearing up the woods around him - everything but Nya's scream.

"Nya!"

That one second, that one look away to check on his sister, and the Elite raised their sword and brought it smashing down on Kai's head. It was like an out of body experience, feeling himself drop to the ground, his weapons rolling out of his hands, the blood from his right arm gushing out. For a moment, he thought that he'd inhaled something strange. The last thing he saw was green and purple light exploding in front of him.

And then?

Darkness.