Lloyd's POV

"You're so tense. Sit down," my girlfriend tells me as I stand next to her. She's sitting on the couch, watching a movie while I try to think of backup plans in case our original plan fails. It's already taken PIXAL over a day to reach out to us, making me believe that she's not converted, and since we're hoping to convert Chamille through PIXAL, it's one of the most vital parts of our plan.

Additionally, if Kai can't convert Skylor, it's game over. With her ability to mimic others' elemental powers, she's easily the strongest out of all the girls, so having her as an ally would help significantly. If we can't get her, which is a negative in itself, we also lose Kai, which I don't think we can make up.

"I'm fi..."

"Sit in front of me. I want to braid your hair," she looks up at me with her emerald eyes. She slightly juts out her lower lip and bats her eyelashes. "Please Lloyd."

"Alright," I give in just like she knows I will. She claps her hands together as I take a seat in front of her. Leaning forward, she runs her hands through my hair.

"Your hair is so soft," she compliments me.

"Thank you." There's a brief pause.

"How do you think we are going to rebuild Ninjago after all of this is over?" she asks me, curiously. "Tremendous amounts of damage have already taken place. The city is falling apart more every minute. Villages have fled and made refugee camps for those displaced by the stone warriors taking hold of their homes. The Overlord stuck fast and hard, so the city was primarily affected. Now, however, all of Ninjago is hurting."

"We'll find a way. I just...I haven't thought about the aftermath yet. I'm mostly focused on trying to defeat them in the first place," I admit. Harumi hums slightly behind me.

"I bet you all don't deal with that stuff though. You are the great heroes who save the day, after all. Other people can clean it all up," she continues to weave my hair.

"We like to help as much as we can. The guys helped with the aftermath of the Great Devourer by helping reconstruct the city..."

"But what about the people affected by the attacks, those who lost their homes and families?" Harumi accidentally pulls my hair a bit hard, making me wince.

"I've donated money to charities helping them, but I've never directly gone to anything. After the Great Devourer, I had to focus on my dad making things even worse, and then after the defeat of the Overlord, the team and I were toured around Ninjago before this all happened."

Once again, Harumi hums, this time in the tune of a little song. I watch the screen as her delicate fingers go through my hair. When she's finally done, she pulls a tie off her wrist to keep my hair together.

"Come up here. You need to be cuddled. You're still so tense," Harumi insists, so I move onto the couch next to her. Immediately, she wraps her small arms around my torso and pulls me closer to her. I engulf her in my embrace.

I try to watch the movie, but it's boring, so I turn back to Rumi. All of her features are so delicate and soft. Her lips, a shade of ruby red due to her lipstick, are slightly parted as she watches it. Her emerald eyes glimmer.

"About what you asked earlier, about rebuilding Ninjago..." I break the silence, my thoughts wandering, "I have no idea how we're going to do it, but with a ruler like you, there's no way everything won't fall back into place."

"What do you mean by that?" she raises one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

"Well, you are the heir to the throne, so when Mara is defeated, you'll be ruling, and you're exactly what Ninjago needs. You're so selfless and are willing to put the needs of Ninjago in front of what you want. You'll do anything to protect your people, even if it means losing something for yourself. I admire it a lot," I twirl a strand of her platinum hair.

"I...I'm touched, Lloyd," she places a hand over her heart.

"And I'll do anything to protect you and make sure that you can lead Ninjago back into an era of greatness," I make clear. She sits up and faces me.

"Ninjago needs you far more than they need me," she tells me, cupping my face in her hand.

"That's not true," I inform her. She raises an eyebrow at me.

"You're Lloyd Garmadon, the green ninja; the people adore you, and I definitely can't blame them," she throws in a little laugh at the end that warms my heart.

"And you're Harumi Jade, the future empress of Ninjago. Your power lies in your people."

"And with mixing that with your actual powers, we're the dream team," she laces our fingers with the hand that's not on my face.

We sit there looking at each other. Tension slowly builds up before it's unbearable. My eyes keep flickering between her eyes and lips, never being able to settle on either. Her hand that's on my face migrates to the back of my head, playing with the hair that didn't fit in the braid.

"Lloyd."

"Yeah?"

"Please kiss me," at those words, my chest tightens with anticipation.

"I haven't done this before..." I warn her in advance.

"I haven't either, don't worry," she starts to lean in, and I mimic her actions. Her lips hover briefly over mine, her hot breath gently fanning my face. When I finally am ready, I press my lips against hers.

Kissing her feels right. Her lips are soft and delicate, just like the rest of her. Neither of us use much force considering neither of us have kissed before, but her lips still feel magical against mine.

"Hey guys, I..." at the sound of another voice in the room, Harumi and I pull apart. When I see it's Nya standing in the doorway disapprovingly, I groan.

"What is it, Nya?" Harumi asks politely, acting like what happened right before was completely normal.

"Jay and Cole are both not here, so I wanted to tell you to go to Zane if anything comes up," she states, her arms folded.

"Why not my mom and dad?" I raise an eyebrow.

"They're talking with Wu, and I'd assume that it's not a conversation worth interrupting," she advises.

"What are you going to be doing now that Jay is gone?" Harumi asks her curiously.

"I'm going to hang out with Zane because I enjoy hanging out with everyone," she says passive aggressively.

"Clearly not," Harumi murmurs to herself, making Nya roll her eyes.

"I was just trying to be helpful. I'll leave you two to yourselves."

---

Seliel's POV

When I walk into the bakery, a wave of nostalgia hits me. The warm, sweet scents fill my nostrils and send me back to the first night I spent in Ninjago. The same old woman, Miss Rogers, stands behind the counter. This time, however, she gives me a cold glare as opposed to a warm smile.

"Seliel," at the sound of his voice, my head whips to the right. Cole is sitting at a booth waving me over. Instead if the gi I expected, he's wearing black mesh shorts and a fitted black t shirt.

I walk over and sit down across from him, "I'm sorry for the gi. I didn't know we were wearing casual clothes."

"It's alright. I'm glad you made it. Miss Rogers closed down the shop for a few hours, so it can just be us," he gives me a warm smile. "I already got you a triple chocolate cake."

"Thank you," I pick up the fork next to my plate, eager to start. "Does your team know you're here?"

"Yeah, with the exception of Kai of course. Is he doing good?" he asks before taking a bite of his own cake.

"He's actually not back with Skylor yet, interestingly enough. They've had some complications along the way, but they should be back soon," I inform him. He nods. "How did it happen, Kai deciding to give himself up?" I question, curious how it all went down.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he brushes it off, which I respect. "I've been watching some of your Brick Toks."

"Oh have you now?" I raise an eyebrow. "What are your thoughts?"

"You're a really good dancer, definitely better than Kai. I always find them amusing," he tells me, putting a smile on my face.

"Thank you. As I suggested at the banquet, we should definitely make one together."

"I'm fairly certain that Mara and Ciara wouldn't be a fan of that," he raises an eyebrow, letting out a small laugh.

"What they don't know doesn't hurt them. They're the definition of 'smothers'. They wouldn't even let Chamille and I out shopping," I explain, venting a bit.

"Look at you being all sneaky," he takes a sip of the water in front of him. I watch his jawline as he does so. "So I'm taking it that they don't know that you're here?"

"They have no idea. Chamille is covering for me," I take another bite of cake.

"I'm still upset she pretended to be me at the Explorer's Club," he shakes his head.

Thinking back to that night, I look down at the plate my cake is on. It's a paper plate, "I see you went with a plate that I couldn't use as a weapon."

"I had to be cautious. Miss Rogers insisted, considering she watched it happen last time and didn't want a repeat," he explains.

"She doesn't like me, does she?"

"Not in the slightest," Cole chuckles, "You knocked her best customer unconscious after eating her cake. That's a low blow."

"Whoops," I make my "oh no" face as my sisters call it. "In my defense, I was very socially inept then. I'd like to think I'm a bit better now."

Cole raises an eyebrow, amused, "I doubt that you wouldn't do it again."

"Hey I'd like to think that we're friends in an odd kind of way, and friends don't hit each other with plates."

"Do you two want anything else?" Miss Rogers asks from behind the counter.

Cole looks at me for a response. I shake my head. "No thank you."

"How do you all hide an entire team of elemental masters? We've been looking for you guys for so long, yet we can only find you when you want to be found," I question, genuinely curious.

"We're ninja with two...no three expert mechanics on our team. We could have a secret hideout beneath this very store, and you wouldn't know it. You did almost catch Lloyd and I one time, though. You were genuinely within feet of us."

I facepalm, feeling dumb,"When?"

"At the police station. Lloyd and I were in one of the interrogation rooms when you were on the phone with Skylor," he explains.

"What were you two there for?" I ask, trying to bait him into spilling some information.

"Those tricks won't work on me again, Seliel. I'm not going to accidental reveal how my teammates with elemental powers are in fact at the Explorer's Club to guard it from your team and to take the Scolecite of Ice," he tells me with a teasing smile.

"It was worth a try."

---

"The sheer amount of fan accounts you guys have dedicated to you are insane," I tell Cole. He looks amused.

"You were looking through our fan accounts?"

"I was bored," I shrug. "Besides, it's entertaining to see what they say about you guys."

"Like?"

"I can't think of anything off the top of my head... oh, there's a lot of threads on Chirp that are like 'your camera role if (insert one of your names) was your boyfriend' and those ones are amusing. Oh, and they have these little 'insert your name here' stories about you guys where the reader reads it as if they're in a love story with you guys. There was also a Kai and Skylor story."

"Jay found a really good story about me and an original character, so he would read me a chapter every night while we were going around Ninjago together after the defeat of the Overlord."

"Was there a happy ending?"

"No, she died at the hands of the villain that story us were facing. Story me watched her die and avenged her by defeating the villain. The last scene was story me going to her grave," he elaborates.

"Ouch. I..."

"Can you two wrap it up, please? It's nearly 6, and peak business comes in around 6:30?" Miss Rogers asks. Hearing the time makes my eyes widen.

"Of course. We just need to discuss one more thing."

Once she walks away, I take the chance to talk, "I've been gone for six hours! Mother is going to kill me."

"Well you don't need to go back there. She can't kill you if you're not there," he suggests. The look on his face is so hopeful, both warming and breaking my heart.

"Cole..."

"Here me out. Join us. You don't need to keep any secrets. You don't need to watch anyone else get killed simply for existing. You can be free and shop and do whatever you want to do. You don't need to be afraid of slipping up and getting punished," he reaches out and holds my hands, making my breath hitch.

"Cole, I..."

"I can tell you just want to be a normal teen girl. You don't want any of what we're going through. You want to experience everything, from prom to social media and just everything Ninjago has to offer, because you've been deprived from it your entire life. I can assure you that if Mara and Ciara succeed in defeating my team, life is going to change dramatically. Ninjago is going to change dramatically. They already censor all media against them, and they're already getting rid of people's freedoms. Lloyd and I saw it ourselves that the people are starting to starve because they're cutting off the food supply," he looks into my eyes with his deep brown ones.

"I can't leave my sisters," is my only defense to his points.

"Well, one of them is already with us. PIXAL currently has access to solid evidence that's going to persuade her and Chamille to switch sides within the next 24 hours. Skylor's been gone for how long, and she still isn't back. You and I both know that Kai probably converted her by now," he finds the flaws in my previous argument. While I try to think logically, I get too distracted by his touch.

"If I went with you guys, would you protect me from them, from Mother and Auntie?" I ask, letting the fear that's been instilled in me show. I know what Mother is capable of, and it's scary. It's what keeps all of us in line.

"Without hesitation," he comfortingly runs his thumb over the back of my hand. I close my eyes.

"I'm in."

A/N yaaayy, another chapter, and Seliel switched! 3/5 let's goooo

I'm probably gonna write a one shot before I post the next chapter of this but hey I'll see

We're nearing the end of the series, and I'm exicted! Buckle your seat belts!

Also I find it funny that in the original plan for this story Jaya weren't supposed to get together for 5 more chapters like dang that would've been such a slow burn

Thoughts on this chapter?

Thank you all so much! You're the best