Chapter Text
Lloyd frowned. The ninja were in there too long. He didn’t see them from atop Sprout. Not that he wanted to keep staring at this First-forsaken building, but he made the choice to stay outside.
‘Is everything okay?’ Sprout asked.
“I dunno,” he said. He heaved a deep breath. Oh, he could not believe he was actually considering this. “Bring me down, Sprout.”
‘Okay!’
As they soared down to a safe spot, Lloyd heard a wary stream of thoughts in the back of his mind - now that he was aware of the other… person, in his head, he could now identify that voice as Knife’s. He’d heard it for a while, but never knew why, or who it was. Their worry was comforting now. It meant he hadn’t lost his touch.
He landed, and immediately debated changing into his ninja gi. Sure, it would mean that the Green Ninja took his petty vengeance on a school, which would tie him to this building forever. His classmates could even piece two and two together - not to mention the staff. They’d force him back here, while knowing about his Destiny.
But the Green Ninja gi had become a lifeline for him, a shield that could protect him from the most dire of challenges. It could help him through this place. Yes. No one would be able to tell it was him.
…No. He couldn’t risk people connecting Lloyd to the Green Ninja. Especially not Darkley’s.
So the gi stayed on under his black coat and pants. Just in case.
It turned out he made the right choice, as the second he stepped around the corner, he saw one of his classmates. Brad. Watering flowers. And Brad saw him.
The kid’s face morphed into shock as he approached him. “Lloyd? You came after all! It’s so good to see you!”
Lloyd backed away from him. “It is? You put fire ants in my bed once.”
A cute little prank from the other kids, to “punish” Lloyd for his heritage. And for when he (Knife, really) punched a hole in an older kid’s teeth.
Brad’s face softened artificially. “Please forgive me, I wasn’t myself! Besides, it was Jake’s idea!”
“Right.” Lloyd heaved a sigh. “What happened to the teenagers that went in here earlier?”
Brad froze minutely. “Probably still talking to the principal.” He put a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder and began to lead him into Darkley’s. He could feel his limbs locking up as he walked, but he forced himself to go in anyways. “Come on, I’ll take you to the main ceremony area! We were expecting you!”
The kids walked through Darkley’s halls. It was brighter than it used to be, Lloyd could admit, but he knew these walls - he could tell when there’s just a facade put up. And he could tell that he was not being led to the auditorium.
“Where are we going, Brad?” Lloyd asked warily.
“To the ceremony!” Brad said.
“Uhuh,” Lloyd scoffed, “which is held in one of the upstairs classrooms?”
Brad looked away nervously. “Indeed!”
“Cut the bullshit, Brad, where are you taking me?” Lloyd snapped.
Brad continued to look away. “Someplace we need you.”
The fuck does that mean? Lloyd furrowed his brow.
They stopped in front of one of the teacher conference rooms. Lloyd tensed up, but Brad calmly opened the door. They walked through, and…
“Welcome back, Lloyd,” sneered a familiar voice. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Lloyd’s mouth dropped open at the sight of Gene, one of his main bullies and a kid with absolutely no empathy. Instinctively, he backed away.
And felt something hit his head, and was knocked unconscious.
-=-
He came to some time later - enough time to have been tied up and left attached to a chair, before all of his former classmates and bullies. His stomach dropped. Shit. How could he have let them get the upper hand? He was too worried about the ninja, about if they were okay or not, or if-
“Time for your welcome back ceremony, Lloyd!” Gene’s voice broke through his thoughts again, and he squinted at the sudden light pointed at him. “Or, should I say, the beginning of our evil plan!”
Lloyd grimaced and forced himself to squint into the light. Gene’s form barely showed through the harsh beam. “Fuck off, Gene,” he spat.
After a second, his eyes focused better, and he saw what was probably the entire student body of Darkley’s gathered in this room. Not everyone, but certainly everyone in his grade. It wasn’t exactly a large school.
Yes it was tall, but that was mostly to force children to climb stairs all day. That elevator’s been broken since he got here.
“You don’t understand, Lloyd,” Brad spoke up from somewhere on his left. “We want to destroy this place.”
This gave Lloyd pause. “What?”
“I don’t exactly like you,” Finn, another one of his favorite bullies, crossed his arms and scoffed. “But you’re Lord Garmadon’s kid. You know how to topple this shithole.”
“You think we like Darkley’s either?” Gene frowned. “You think we have fun here? It was only best for us to bully you cuz it meant attention wasn’t on us as much.”
“Gee, thanks for the logical explanation,” Lloyd snarked. “Now I feel so much better about the torment you put me through for my entire life.”
“At least we use your name,” a girl named Jasmine said. “The teachers sure don’t.”
That was a good point. When Lloyd decided on his new name and pronouns, he got bullied so much, he nearly ran away right then. Presumably, Knife came in and retaliated so hard that the other kids learned to drop it. Also potentially they gendered him correctly just to piss off the teachers - who they hated more than they hated Lloyd, at times. It was hard to tell.
“We have them trapped in another room,” Jake jerked a thumb in the direction of the room (presumably). “We can go in and beat them up if you want.”
“If I want?” Lloyd repeated.
“We heard Principal Noble was trying to find you,” Brad explained. “He had sent out letters to your relatives to summon you back here. Any chance he could take to bring you home.”
“This isn’t home,” Lloyd snapped. “It’s a prison.”
The kids were silent for a moment. Then, Brad continued. “When we heard he would do that, we realized that we had to formulate a plan.”
“That’s where I came in,” Gene pushed his glasses up his face dramatically. “I devised a devious plan - if you actually came here, we would capture the teachers and make you our leader. So that your evil instincts could help us properly destroy Darkley’s forever!”
Lloyd opened his mouth to rebuke that, but closed it. He had been doing a lot more destroying the last while, instead of saving. Was Gene right? Was he supposed to lead the Darkley’s kids into a proper rebellion? Was destroying the school that tormented him for his entire life what he was really meant to do? Was his destiny leading him to destruction?
He really hoped not.
-=-
Nya groaned and opened her eyes. Shit. What just-
Her eyes flew all the way open when she remembered what happened. Oh fuck. The Jay impostor. He got the location of the ninja and was likely on his way to hurt them. And judging from how he had Jay’s phone, it was probably the correct assumption to make that he forgot his phone at the dojo. And her phone was-
The second she pushed herself up off the floor to get a better look at things, she was met face to face with her clone.
Both Nyas yelped and backed away, the real Nya scooting back and Not-Nya jumping back. They were silent for just a moment, staring at each other.
It was… eerie. Not-Nya looked identical to her real counterpart. The same bob of dark hair, the same brown-blue eyes, the same round face and body. She even wore Nya’s old dress that got left behind on their ship before it crashed.
It was her facial expression that set her apart. Where Nya’s face was hardened with confusion and slowly morphing into a determined sort of worry, Not-Nya looked seconds away from crying, looking down at Nya with wobbly wet eyes and a quivering lip. As expected, the mole under her eye was under the opposite one.
“You’re one of those impostor clones,” Nya said, breaking the ice.
Not-Nya jumped. “Um… y-yes, I am…” she mumbled.
Oh boy. Direct opposites, huh. Nya sighed. “That fake Jay just came in here to get information from me, then knocked me out so I wouldn’t go after him,” she explained, in a careful and measured tone. “Do you know anything about that?”
“Oh, yea! J-Jay’s pretty cool,” Not-Nya’s face went ditzy and dreamy, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “He’s so gruff and strict a-and, um, cute…” She sighed wistfully.
Dear First Ones. “Why did he want to know where the ninja were?” Nya pressed.
Not-Nya blinked, shaking herself from her daydreams. “Oh… we’re supposed to defeat them?” She shuffled nervously. “Um… Lord G-Garmadon m-m-made us, said we h-had to defeat our counterparts to b-be real…”
“So that Not-Jay and the rest of his team are after the ninja?!” Nya exclaimed. Then, she paused. “Wait. Are you here to defeat me?”
Not-Nya bit her lip and shrunk back, hands balling into her dress. She nodded shyly. “I don’t wanna though. That sounds s-scary…”
Oh, good! She could be reasoned with! That’s a relief. Nya nearly sighed from the feeling. “You don’t have to! You can help me get to Darkley’s and defeat the ninja impostors!”
Not-Nya’s eyes widened. “I can’t do that! I don’t like to fight! B-besides, I don’t wanna hurt Jay… he’ll be mad at me if I do, and h-he’s scary when he’s mad…” She blushed anyway.
Nya fought the urge to groan. “W-well, maybe you can come with me anyway to convince them not to fight my ninja?”
Not-Nya looked thoughtful. “Mmmmmaybe? I dunno…”
“Here, come on.” Nya walked over to the garage door. “You can sit in the Sam X spare seat and we can fly over to the school. Might be a bit of a bumpy ride, but it’s way faster than going by bus or bike-”
Just the barest hint of air swooping down to her neck was all the warning she got. It was enough.
Nya ducked out of the way of a knife aimed directly at her nerve cluster. She turned around, as if in slow motion, to see Not-Nya, watery eyes and fear in every inch of her, attempting to assassinate her.
Thankfully, she was quick enough to dodge, pressing against the door. She grabbed a spare quarterstaff she had stashed by the door for emergencies, swiftly pointing it at Not-Nya.
“What was that about not wanting to fight me?” she snapped.
Not-Nya clutched her knife with shaky hands. “I have to…” she whispered. “It’s the only way… Jay asked me to…”
Nya’s face hardened and her grip on the quarterstaff tightened. Looks like she’s dealing with her evil twin after all.
-=-
Meanwhile, the other evil twins arrived at Darkley’s. Turns out, threatening taxi drivers worked well enough to go 20 over the speed limit on country roads to Darkley’s - even beyond the point where buses don’t go. They left the driver alive, but not without a serious bruise and cut to nurse. Either way, no longer their problem.
The evil ninja looked up at Darkley’s. “Looks like a dream school,” Not-Zane sighed.
“You wanna be miserable?” Not-Kai said quietly.
“I’d make the staff miserable!” Not-Zane smiled widely.
“That sounds right,” Not-Cole hummed absently.
“Focus,” Not-Jay snapped his fingers. “We go in, kill the good ninja, and get out. Nya’s dealing with her counterpart.”
“Like she can get the job done,” Not-Kai muttered, uncharacteristically darkly.
“They’re still in there,” Not-Cole scratched his head.
“How can you tell?” Not-Kai asked.
“Vibes.”
Not-Jay sighed and started walking inside. Not-Zane noticed and followed behind, skipping. “What’s the plan? Can I stab my double?”
“Do whatever,” Not-Jay shrugged. He looked over at a row of lockers and slammed his electrified hammer, stolen from Nya’s work, against them. The lockers exploded and crackled at the impact.
“Niiiiice,” Not-Zane whistled, then stabbed at the drywall with his knife.
Pointless destruction was bound to get the good ninjas’ attention, right?
-=-
Unfortunately, they didn’t account for the fact that the good ninja were stuck in a small room with adults that they were trying to restrain themselves from hurting. The teens were gathered in a corner, phoneless and unable to use their powers without revealing themselves to the teachers. Wu, sitting before them, sighed.
“Lloyd is most likely already inside, and has most likely been taken by the students that kidnapped us,” their teacher reasoned. “If the teachers are correct, then the students plan to take their revenge on them for their treatment over the past… however many years.”
“And we’re supposed to want to stop them?” Cole muttered.
“Did you hear how Principal Noble was talking about Lloyd!?” Jay hissed angrily. “It’sss evil!”
“I am not in the interest of stopping the kids from what they will do,” Wu confessed, “but I would like to ensure that they don’t kill them. As well as that, I want to ensure Lloyd’s safety, and whether he wants to assist them or not.”
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Kai decided. “But Cole’s the only one strong enough to break the door down, and there aren’t any windows here.”
“I noticed a vent above us,” Zane pointed at the vent in question. It was just big enough for the ninja to squeeze through.
“We need a distraction to get out of here,” Cole reasoned.
Wu cleared his throat. “Leave that to me. Ninja, you four get out of here, find Lloyd, and learn of the students’ plan.”
“Yes, Master Wu!” the ninja chorused quietly.
They slunk over to where the vent was as Wu moved to the crowd of teachers, deliberately standing where they could all look at him and not see four teenagers escaping through a vent. He opened his mouth…
Those teachers were not surviving his fury. Thankfully, all attention was on him, and the teachers didn’t look up from their reaming to notice the ninja escaping.
-=-
Lloyd was still having a crisis when the kids all heard a strange noise in the distance. Their heads turned to where the sound came from. Downstairs, close to the entrance. “What was that?” Gene asked.
“I’ll go check,” Brad offered, already moving out the door.
“I hope it’s nothing bad,” Jake scoffed. “We need our plan to go off without a hitch.”
“Lloyd,” Gene addressed his old classmate, who flinched and looked at him. “Are you in? We need you.”
“I…” Lloyd buffered. What was he supposed to do?
On one hand, he did want revenge. He wanted to make those teachers pay for the years of torment he went through since he got here. He wanted to show them that he wasn’t weak, that he was able to fight back, that they were nothing before him.
But isn’t that what the son of Lord Garmadon would want? They would just look at him and think “he’s exactly as we thought he was,” just a devil spawn here to destroy them. It wouldn’t change their minds about him.
So what was he to do? Conform to expectation, or just say fuck it and take his revenge as he had dreamed of for years?
…Why did he have to make the choice anyway? He didn’t… He didn’t want to. He really, really didn’t.
-=-
Brad barely managed to reach the stairs before he saw something he wasn’t expecting - the ninja! What could he say to them? That they were cool? That they dropped down one day to take Lloyd away but leave the entire school in ruins? That he was thankful they did that?
He didn’t have a chance to say anything before gray piercing eyes locked with his. He couldn’t even scream in alarm when the Blue Ninja rocketed towards him and pinned him against the wall.
“Where are they?” Blue asked.
“Wh-who?” Brad gasped.
“The ninja,” Black said, sidling up next to Blue.
“Wh- what?” Now Brad was confused. Were these not the ninja?
“Forget it, he’s useless,” White snarked, flicking Brad on the forehead. “Those bastards can’t be far! The building is only so tall!”
“I’ll keep looking up there,” Red mumbled as he walked past, hugging his arms.
Brad breathed shallowly, still pinned to the wall by the Blue Ninja. He looked him over a few times, then decided White was right and let him go. Brad fell to his knees, holding his shoulder.
“Call for help, child,” Blue said icily. “It’s the only use you’ll have for us.”
Brad nodded fiercely and sprinted back up the stairs into their meeting room. “HELP!” he shouted. He barreled past the Red Ninja, who yelped and ducked out of his way. “NINJA! HELP ME!”
-=-
The ninja, freshly out of their entrapment, jumped at the echoed screams for help. “What was that?” Cole exclaimed.
“Brad, the boy we talked to outside Darkley’s,” Zane identified the voice. “Something is wrong.”
“He’s calling for the ninja,” Jay’s ears twitched.
Kai looked around quickly. “No one’s around.” He spun into a spinjutsu tornado, hearing the others do the same, and emerged quickly with his hood up and outside clothes off. They piled them in a spare open locker and sprinted towards the sound.
Brad ran around the corner and nearly crashed into them.
“Kid!” Cole exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”
Brad’s eyes widened and he backed away. “You- you’re here! You really are here!”
“What’s going on?” Kai demanded.
The kid flinched. “There’s- you- they were looking for you!”
The ninja exchanged glances. “Ok, kid,” Cole nodded. “We’ll deal with whatever’s going on over there. You get to safety.”
“Can you and the other students evacuate at all?” Zane asked.
“Um…” Brad looked around uncertainly. “We still have a plan…”
“Forget about whatever plan you have,” Jay said sharply. “You gotta get to safety! Hide in a classroom or something!”
Brad breathed in shakily, then nodded, breathing out. He ran around the ninja and vanished into a nearby classroom.
Someone was looking for them. Not a good sign. So the ninja nodded determinedly to each other and went onwards through the hall.
But the last thing they expected to see when they rounded the corner was… themselves.
Their old dragon gi, the gold designs glistening in the overhead lights. Weapons, makeshift and real, held tight in their hands. A callous look in their eyes.
Their first thoughts, obviously, were “oh, some jerks stole our old gi and decided to prank them.” But the longer they looked at these fake ninja, the more they realized how these were not just random jerks. Their eyes, peeking out from behind the masks, were the same shapes and colors, their skin tones were identical, their heights were the same, and the fake Jay’s tail was the exact same as the real Jay’s.
And besides, there was no way normal pranksters would know where the ninja would be, and there’s no way someone would give them the information. The only one who knew where they were going was Nya, who stayed at work in the city. And she wouldn’t give up that information without a fight. Plus, the dragon gi were left behind on their old airship - the very one that Garmadon now piloted.
The ninja got into fighting positions. “Guys, why are we staring at ourselves?” Kai asked, still feeling confused.
Not-Kai yelped and hid behind Not-Zane. “I’m not ready for this!”
“Stop hiding, pussy!” Not-Zane snapped. “The ninja are here!” His tone turned gleeful, looking at the good ninja with manic delight in his eyes.
Zane stiffened. “That is a very rude thing to call your teammate,” he said.
Not-Zane rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips playfully. “Oh, and you’re the knower of all things nice and unrude?”
“Unrude isn’t a word,” Not-Cole commented.
“Ninja,” Not-Jay broke the chatter. His hand tightened on his hammer. “We’re here to kill you.”
“Garmadon sent you, didn’t he,” Cole realized. “He summoned pirates last week, and now he made evil clones?”
“Lord Garmadon wants you out of the way!” Not-Zane explained, twirling his knife in his hands. “And we’re more than happy to take your place!”
“Like we’ll let you do that,” Kai growled. And so he charged, his team not far behind.
The evil ninja readied themselves and charged forward, intent on meeting the good ninja and fulfilling their evil goals.
-=-
Nya dodged out of the way of another knife swing. “You don’t have to do this!” she tried to reason one last time.
“Just let me kill you!” Not-Nya sobbed, stabbing through a waterfall of tears.
“Can’t do that!” Nya quipped. “I like living, actually!”
She swung her staff at her counterpart, catching her on the head and sending her reeling with a cry. She immediately burst into tears.
“It’s the only way!” she wailed. “If I- if I kill you, then-” she hiccupped, “then Jay’ll like me back, and- and Lord Garmadon won’t see me as a failure, and- and- and- and I’ll be useful and good and liked and strong-” She didn’t get to finish her ramble before she broke down crying again.
Nya cringed. “You’re a bit pathetic, you know?”
Not-Nya sobbed. “Yea…”
“I keep telling you you don’t have to kill me,” Nya sighed. She didn’t lower her guard, though. She learned by now that Not-Nya liked taking advantage when guards were down. “You can live with us, be part of the team, on the good side! Lord Garmadon made you, right?” Not-Nya nodded. “You don’t have to go back to him. You can stay with us.”
The impostor was silent for a while, crying quietly. “I don’t think I can…”
“Is this really about impressing your Jay?” Nya rolled her eyes. “He’s a jerk! He kissed me without consent and lied to me about who he was. That doesn’t sound like good boyfriend material to me.”
Not-Nya shook her head. “He’s sweet, deep down. He can be mean… but he… he’s cute…”
That cannot be her only reason for liking him. This girl…
“Really? Is he really who you wanna be with? Someone who’s a massive jerk but is kind of cute?” Nya snapped. “You can’t do this, Nya.”
Not-Nya went silent. Fully silent, no longer sobbing.
Then, she looked up at her counterpart. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to live if I fail.”
Nya’s breath caught in her throat. “Garmadon doesn’t have to know.”
“He will,” Not-Nya whispered.
The room was quiet for a while.
“Do you think your friends will win?” Nya hazarded an ask. “You think they’ll beat the ninja?”
“...I want to believe…” Not-Nya murmured. “I want to- I want to have hope they will. But… I think I know they won’t.”
“What makes you say that?” the samurai asked softly.
“Good always beats evil, right?” She smiled sadly at her counterpart. “Lord Garmadon wanted us to beat the good versions of ourselves. He said it was the only way we could really be real. Our existence relies on yours.”
Nya didn’t know what to say. These reflection ninja were made to defeat their good versions, but… they deserved to live too. If they didn’t succeed, Garmadon would kill them anyway. That is…
“I see two options out of this,” Nya began. Her clone looked up curiously. “Three, if we include you killing me, but I’m vetoing that, personally. Doesn’t look like you want to anyway.” Not-Nya bit her lip but nodded. “So. Option one. I let you go, you run off and don’t bother me or the ninja ever again.”
“But- won’t Garmadon find me?” Not-Nya stammered. “He’ll know I failed and try and find me and then he’ll kill me and then-”
“How’s he gonna know?” Nya shrugged. “Cuz here’s option two.” She swung her staff at Not-Nya. She flinched, but the staff hovered right above her head, not hitting her. “I can defeat you.”
“H-huh?” Not-Nya’s eyes widened in confusion.
“Your existence depends on ours, right?” Nya reasoned. “So, I figured, you don’t really exist as a physical flesh-and-blood human yet. Defeating you will send you back to where you were, in whatever reflection space you came from. And if I let you go, then Garmadon’ll think that you’ve been defeated by me anyway. No doubt the other ninja will defeat their counterparts and send them back, so you could join them.”
“You don’t know that they’ll really be defeated!” the fake Nya cried.
“You’re the one without faith in them,” Nya shrugged. “I know my ninja will succeed.”
Not-Nya’s lip quivered, but after a while, she sighed and hung her head. “Do it.”
Nya’s heart sank. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t know if I can live on my own,” she laughed sadly. “At least I know I’ll go home otherwise.” She made eye contact with her counterpart. “I never wanted to do this.”
Nya hesitated, then lifted her staff. “I hope you have a good trip home. Goodbye, Nya.”
“Goodbye, Nya,” Not-Nya smiled. “Thank you for talking to me.”
“Yea,” Nya smiled back.
She swung her staff down with all the strength she could muster. She hit the back of Not-Nya’s neck, and she cried out in pain.
Then, it was like the world shimmered and folded in on itself. Not-Nya’s body wiggled, like when you poke the surface of water. In a flurry of ripples and particles, she dissipated into the air and vanished.
The studio only held one Nya now, panting and breathing heavily. She felt a tear prick the corner of her eye. She blinked it away before it had a chance to form. Her grip tightened on her staff.
“Hope you find someone better for you,” she murmured.
-=-
Brad rushed back into the classroom, yelling something about evil ninja, before telling the other kids to get somewhere higher. The entire room evacuated, and one green ninja was left behind.
“They forgot us again,” Knife drawled sardonically.
Sometimes, the Darkley’s kids would tie them up and leave them in a closet or something, to get him punished for missing class. No amount of telling the teachers they didn’t miss class on purpose convinced them. The teachers probably didn’t care - they just wanted an excuse to punish Lloyd.
Knife squirmed in their bonds. “You’d think we’d be pretty good with knots by now,” they said.
‘Why do we always get tied up?’ Lloyd grumbled from the back of their head.
“Tell me about it,” Knife huffed a laugh. “Anyway, the kids left.”
They felt a wave of resentment and relief, complicated sorts of emotions, from their headmate. Then, ‘Wait, what did Brad mean by evil ninja?!’
“Fuck if I know,” Knife huffed. “You still need me to make that decision?”
Lloyd poked his way back to front, and it felt somewhat like being pat on the shoulder. “I gotta go help my friends,” he said.
Back in his own body, realizing the room was empty, Lloyd wiggled in his chair. Unfortunately, the Darkley’s kids knew about his claws, and kept the ropes pretty far from his fingertips. Great.
Knife nudged a thought of “up” at him, and he glanced up. All that hung above him was the lightbulb Gene used to spotlight him.
…The same lightbulb as the ones he was breaking earlier today! He grinned.
“Okay, you can do this, Lloyd,” he told himself. Knife sent supportive waves from the back.
He closed his eyes and focused on the energy in the bulb. He could feel the power coursing through the building, he could feel bright spots all around, and he could feel the weight of power that he could only assume was his uncle. But he focused on the bulb hanging above him. He focused on its power only.
He heard it buzz. It hummed unnaturally. He channeled more power into it. It hummed louder. Okay, okay! It’s working! More power-
It exploded. Lloyd turned his head away from the burst, though thankfully all the glass shards landed on the floor.
“Haha, YES!” he cheered. He maneuvered his chair over to the shards and flopped down (not without that bit of alarm when his chair fell to the side). He rubbed his ropes against a shard, and felt great relief when he heard the telltale sounds of rope being cut. It was working! And so when the ropes snapped off, he hurriedly stood up and shook himself off. “I’m FREE!”
Right as he was celebrating, the door opened and Gene walked back in. They blinked at each other owlishly. “I thought you were supposed to be tied up,” Gene said.
“Changed my mind,” Lloyd shrugged. “Did you leave me here on purpose, or on accident?”
“Accident, I swear,” Gene said, though he didn’t sound particularly convincing. “Come on, we gotta get out of here.”
“What’s that about evil ninja?” Lloyd didn’t move.
Gene sideyed the direction that they probably were. “Uh, Brad said there were evil ninja in the building. Good ones too. I think they’re fighting.”
“What?!” Lloyd rushed out of the room and down the corridor, where- oh. Yep. That sure was the ninja fighting themselves. “What the…”
Almost naturally, the ninja all gravitated towards their counterpart. Zane fought Not-Zane, Cole fought Not-Cole, et cetera. While the fighting wasn’t exactly equal, they were all moving slightly differently, it was still obvious one couldn’t land a move on the other without it being blocked or dodged.
“Fascinating,” Gene mused, rubbing his chin as he watched them fight. “It’s like fighting a mirror. No one appears to be able to be able to land a blow!”
“We’ve got to help them,” Lloyd frowned in determination, taking a step towards them.
“Uh, you and what ninja powers?” Gene snorted. “Unless you somehow got your father’s powers of destruction, you couldn’t help the ninja if you tried.”
Lloyd paused, then looked down at his hands. These lousy powers have mostly been used for destruction, at least as long as he’s had them. Maybe he was meant for destroying…
“Regardless,” Gene continued, “we need you to execute our plan. While they’re distracted here, we could take down the teachers and show them our pain!”
Lloyd faltered in his step. He really didn’t have a choice here. It was either help the ninja, or get his revenge. And as much as he wanted to help the ninja, he could sense that that wasn’t going to be possible. Not with the entire student body paying attention to him. They wanted him to lead their rebellion.
He looked over at Kai, trying desperately to land a hit on his counterpart, who was doing an impressively good job dodging every single blow. He and Kai made eye contact. The red ninja paused in his combat to jerk his head to the corner away from the fight.
He didn’t want to leave them alone. But he didn’t have a choice. “Okay, let’s go,” Lloyd nodded, turning around and sprinting down the hall away from the fight.
Kai watched Lloyd disappear down the corridor and nodded to himself. Good, the kid was out of the fight.
But that didn’t mean he was.
Unfortunately, the ninja were just unable to hit the evil ninja, and vice versa. Kai’s double constantly ducked out of the way, almost like he was running away, and so had no time to swing back. Zane’s clone was practically dancing around him, while his stiffer battle movements couldn’t make contact - though it didn’t stop Not-Zane from missing every shot because of how much fun he was having. Cole’s counterpart managed to block every hit without even realizing it, which just made him more frustrated and miss more shots. And Jay’s reflection was relentlessly attacking, forcing Jay to be the one dodging the entire time, barely managing to attempt a hit before being forced to dodge.
All that to say, they weren’t having a very good time.
So while they kept fighting, Lloyd and Gene ran to find the other students mostly gone, but some hung around where they were keeping the teachers. “Where is everyone?” Gene narrowed his eyes.
“Too scared of the evil ninja, I guess,” Finn scoffed. “Not me. This is the perfect chance to get our revenge.”
A cheer of YEA! rang out from the students, and Lloyd frowned. “What exactly is the plan here?”
The students raised various makeshift weapons, including baseball bats, hammers, and scissors.
Lloyd sighed. “We’re not gonna kill them, guys.”
The scissors went down.
“They’re all still in there?” Gene asked. At Finn’s nod, he puffed out his chest and looked at Lloyd. “It’s time.”
Lloyd bit his lip but nodded. “Yea.”
To be honest, he did want to get his revenge. Physically. With a lot of weapons. He’s just sad he didn’t bring his gun. (His uncle told him not to.)
So he watched Jasmine unlock the door and turn the doorknob, letting them see the teachers and principal…
…on the ground, looking like they were contemplating their life choices. Wu sat before them, sipping tea. He looked up and saw his nephew, smiled, and got up. The staff immediately parted to let him through.
“Uh, uncle?” Lloyd furrowed his brows. “Why are all the teachers…”
Wu smiled mysteriously. “Oh, I merely took the time to reeducate them. This is a school, after all.”
The teachers looked up at him with no shortage of fear and mollification. Whatever Wu told them, they weren’t about to act out against him any time soon.
Still, Mrs. Lopez pointed at him. “The devil spawn did come back!”
Lloyd tried not to flinch or shrink back. Wu turned to glare at her. “Watch your tongue.”
She didn’t meet his eye and looked down at her clenched hands.
Wu turned back to Lloyd. “Safe to say, I believe every member of the staff here, aside from one, will be fired. You will never see them again.”
“What!?” Gene exclaimed. “But we wanted to take our revenge on them!”
“YEA!” cheered the rest of the students.
Wu breathed in deeply. “Well, I won’t stop you from doing so, as they are all still here, but I think they’ve learned their lessons.”
“But- but we wanted to get our revenge,” Jake scoffed. “You can’t take that from us!”
“True,” Wu nodded. “Though I do not like to see children committing violence.”
“P-please, Mister Wu!” Principal Noble spoke up. “Don’t let them hurt us!”
“Uncle-” Lloyd began, “-you know how much they’ve hurt us!” Was he really going to make that choice for them? “You can’t just-”
Wu smirked, closed his eyes, and walked out the door. “Oh dear, it seems I cannot see any children committing violence. What a shame. I can only hope they don’t kill those poor defenseless teachers.”
He walked away, standing just outside the crowd of children. He winked at Lloyd, who grinned and winked back. Then, he turned around. “Alright. You call me a devil spawn? You say I’m pure evil?” He cracked his knuckles. “Then I guess I can’t feel bad for my uncle putting the fear of the First One in you. He was just the warmup.”
The teachers stammered out something at the same time, voices overlapping. Calling him a name that wasn’t his, ordering him to stop, flexing their authority, and outright trying to get up to stop him physically.
But twice their number of extremely angry students with weapons and aggressive intent forced them all back. Lloyd allowed himself one last evil laugh, different than his older “mwa-ha-ha”s - this one was real, tinged with vengeance and a painful grief - and the students were let loose.
They all heard the threats. “Stop, or we’ll call your parents.” “They’ll hear how badly you’re misbehaving.” “They’ll punish you.” Some said that Darkley’s was a school for bad kids, for those who acted out in society and needed to be corrected. But all this school did was punish them for existing, tell them off for doing things that come naturally to kids. It almost felt, sometimes, like it was fostering evil intent, keeping its students “bad” to keep punishing them forever, to keep them trapped.
So what if the students fought back against their teachers? So what if they were seen as bad? So what if they were villainized for wanting to be free? If wanting revenge for years of torment was bad, then they were bad fucking kids. Just the worst.
At this point, no one cared about all that. They just wanted to feel something good for the first time in years.
-=-
The ninja still weren’t getting any closer. “We’re evenly balanced,” Jay panted, them and their double both pausing to catch their breaths. “This fight could go on… forever!” They hastily dodged another hammer swing from Not-Jay. “Come on, at least quip! You’re… you’re so boring!”
Not-Jay narrowed his eyes. “I’m not interested in combat banter.”
“Combanter,” Jay automatically said.
“We can’t give up,” Kai encouraged. “Keep fighting!”
His counterpart, on the other hand… Not-Kai shrieked as Kai’s sword swung over his head. “Mercy!”
“I thought you and your friends were supposed to be killing us!” Kai snapped.
“That’s scaryyy,” Not-Kai whined.
“You’re so pathetic!” Not-Zane yelled at him, dodging a kunai from his good version. “Just kill that stupid red guy already!”
“I do not approve of this!” Zane snapped.
Meanwhile, Cole realized that his reflection barely knew where the fuck he was, so he took advantage of it by taking a moment to breathe. “Why- why are you doing this anyway?”
“Oh, something about… us being real?” Not-Cole wondered. He had a zoned out, faraway look in his eyes. “We can’t be real unless we kill you?”
“That’s your goal?!” Kai, overhearing, exclaimed.
“We gotta…” Not-Kai whimpered. “It’s the only way…” He loosed a miniscule bit of fire at Kai, who easily dodged it.
“It appears that the fake Kai and Cole do not wish to kill their good selves,” Zane reasoned.
“Oh, I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Not-Cole giggled. “Am I supposed to kill you?”
“...No, Garmadon lied,” Cole bluffed.
“Oh, okay,” Not-Cole smiled and sat down.
“Don’t listen to him,” Not-Jay snapped. “Lord Garmadon spoke the truth.”
“Oh, okay,” Not-Cole lost his smile and started to get back up again. Cole groaned.
-=-
The teachers didn’t escape without their fair share of bruises and cuts. They appeared to have wisened up and realized that they couldn’t convince the kids out of this, nor could they fight back - not with Wu still watching them. So that left only one option.
They ran away.
Not upstairs, for Wu was blocking that path. And they did not want to mess with him. The kids chased them down the hall, to where the exit should have been.
If not for the complication of the ninja fighting each other. Right.
A flood of terrified, screaming teachers ran down the hall. They skidded to a stop before the fighting duplicates, visibly confused, but continued yelling in alarm when what sounded like a swarm of children ran after them.
“Ninja!” Principal Noble exclaimed. “Please, help us! These kids are going crazy! They’re beating us up and being just- just horrible!”
“We’ve got bigger problems here!” Kai snapped.
Not-Kai cried out in alarm when one of the teachers decided that the best course of action was to run through the fight. Who knows what she was trying to do. Either way, this forced the red double against the wall, looking up at Kai in fear. “I don’t wanna fight you!” he screamed.
“Oh, good, that makes it easy for me.” Kai wasn’t exactly sure what possessed him to do this, but he swung his sword down, slashing across Not-Kai’s chest. Some sort of rash instinct due to adrenaline, he supposed.
Either way, it worked. The hit landed. Not-Kai clutched his chest, watching as his body started fading away like ash in the wind. He looked up at his counterpart gratefully. Then, he opened his mouth in a scream as he faded away into nothing. Kai stared at the space he was with wide eyes.
Somehow, the rest of the teachers took this as a sign to keep pushing, to run through the fight. The thought process that told them that a bunch of kids was more scary than the actively fighting ninja was a strange one, but it did work as a distraction.
Not-Cole hummed. “I think Kai just died.”
“Do you really wanna fight and kill me?” Cole asked.
“...Nah, I just do things people tell me,” Not-Cole shrugged.
“I see,” Cole nodded, then hit his evil clone over the head with his scythe. He barely even reacted, just crumbled into smaller and smaller particles until he was gone.
“What?!” Not-Zane shouted. “How did they lose?! Pathetic fucking guys, can’t even rely on them for a good killing!” He stopped stabbing at his good self, angrily swiping at the passing-by teachers.
“Keep your focus!” Zane called, spinning into a vortex and tackling his clone. Not-Zane slammed into the floor, glared up with such unbridled fury that Zane flinched, and shattered into a million tiny fractal pieces.
The destruction of his teammates didn’t dissuade Not-Jay from continuing his barrage, but it certainly helped when the ninja all surrounded him, readying their weapons and glaring down at him. “You and your friends lost!” Jay said. “Give up.”
Not-Jay’s eyes flickered to the surrounding ninja, then he sighed and dropped his hammer, brushing his gi off. “Fine. I know when I’m beat.” Then, he looked at his counterpart. “Your girlfriend is nice to kiss.”
It took a millisecond to process before Jay screamed “YOU WHAT!?” and kicked Not-Jay in the chest while slamming their nunchaku into his head. He smirked, laughed cruelly, then fizzled out like static.
“That asshole!” Kai growled. “If you didn’t just kill him dead, I’d do it myself.” Jay hissed under his breath in agreement.
“I saw what happened,” Master Wu suddenly spoke up, sauntering in behind them. “Or, at least the final battle. You dealt with your doubles handily.”
“Garmadon pulled a nasty trick,” Kai brushed off his suit, “but not nasty enough to get us down.”
“Are you alright?” Zane asked. “I notice you are no longer trapped in the classroom.”
“Ah, yes,” Wu chuckled. “I let the children have their revenge.”
He nodded at the swarm of kids running after the teachers, who were mostly all out of the building. Food was thrown at their heads, staining their clothes and hair, they were covered in bruises and bumps and scratches, and they all looked utterly humiliated and afraid.
The ninja, taking advantage of the lapse in attention, ran back to put their outer clothes on. Then they and Wu joined the crowd of cheering students as they watched the staff pile into a convenient bus and leave as fast as they could.
They spotted Lloyd at the front of the crowd, jumping for joy and whooping. Kai smiled and headed over to the kid, ruffling his hair. The kid grinned and tackled Kai in a big hug, which he was more than willing to return.
“They had this coming,” said the only teacher remaining, a younger woman with long hair in a ponytail and glasses. “I’ve wanted to quit for the longest time, but… well, you know how it is with blackmail.”
“I assume you have evidence of their wrongdoing, should they take it to legal proceedings?” Wu asked. In his harsh scolding of the staff, he learned that only one, the newest hire, wanted what was best for the students, but was unable to do anything due to the nature of the staff.
“Of course,” her eyes sparkled with well-deserved vengeance. “I’ve been compiling it since I got here.”
“Good,” Wu’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. He cleared his throat. “Children!” Everyone quieted down and looked at him. “I believe this calls for a real celebration!”
“Does that mean there’s gonna be cake?!” Cole excitedly asked, practically salivating.
“Oh, yes,” Wu smiled. “Lots of cake.”
“And pizza?” Lloyd asked, tail wagging.
“And soda?” Brad’s eyes were wide.
“I’ve never had pizza before…” Jasmine mused.
“Okay, we’re ordering pizza,” Jay said.
And so everyone celebrated, knowing that now, the school was free.
-=-
The party went on until the children naturally crashed, sometime around 10pm, shuffling off to their dorms and passing out wherever they could find a comfortable spot. That’s what happens when children get hyped on adrenaline and then eat like ten cakes. Wu’s wallet had seen better days.
Nya, in her Sam X mech, arrived just at the start of the party, where the ninja caught her up on their side of the story after she explained hers. Jay tried to apologize for their evil double’s evil ways, but she didn’t look like she wanted to talk about it, so they were forced to drop it.
And so the team headed home, thankful that the school was free and that Lloyd, most of all, was safe. He fell asleep in Wu’s arms on the way home.
Master Wu promised to do something with the school, as did that one remaining teacher. There will be legal troubles to follow, but nothing that the ninja had to concern themselves over. They just had to worry about Garmadon, and what he might throw at them next. Hopefully, it wouldn’t involve evil doubles again.
-=-
The air shimmered, then broke apart into several pieces. Reality warped as the air itself opened up, shimmering like fractals and static.
And Not-Jay fell onto the snow with a yelp.
“Oh, finally,” Not-Zane complained. “Took you long enough.”
“Saved you for last, huh,” Not-Cole noted.
Not-Jay looked around. The woods below Darkley’s cliff. Why were they here?
“I like the cold,” Not-Kai said from the ground, making snow angels. “It’s nice.”
“You’re just sayin that cuz you’re fire,” Not-Cole pointed out.
“Nooo, I just like it…” Not-Kai turned around and hid his face in the snow.
Not-Jay shook his head decisively. “Right. We’re alive.”
“So Garmadon did lie?” Not-Zane asked. “I thought it was just the good ninja fucking with Cole. Not that it’s hard to do.”
Not-Jay tried to summon lightning. Nothing. Completely inert. And yet… he felt more real than he did before. “We’re alive,” he repeated, somewhat in disbelief.
“...Now what?” Not-Kai sat up, hugging his knees.
“Not like we gotta do anything Garm asks us to do now,” Not-Zane decided. “I mean, we only took orders from him cuz we thought he was right. Turns out, he just straight up lied to us! What a dickbag!”
“No elements, no masters, no bonds,” Not-Jay began. “We are completely alone in this world.” He looked at the others. “We can do whatever we want.”
“...Do you guys wanna get an apartment and hang out?” Not-Cole suggested.
“I’d like that,” Not-Kai smiled softly.
“I can go steal us one!” Not-Zane offered giddily.
Not-Jay contemplated his options silently, then decided. “Find us one away from the main city action. We need to lie low.”
“Ah, the slums,” Not-Zane sighed dreamily.
“Guys! You’re alive!” a bubbly and cheerful voice piped up. They all looked up to see Not-Nya running towards them.
“Did you run all the way here on foot?” Not-Kai frowned.
She chose to answer that by collapsing in the snow. “I didn’t kill my Nya and she talked to me so nicely and now I don’t know what to doooooooo-”
“We’re getting a house,” Not-Cole said.
She pulled her face out of the snow. “Oh, really?” Then, she blinked. “Jay, your scales are red.”
He looked down in confusion. Huh. So they were.
“I want to get out of this snow,” he said. “So, team, let’s go.”
With various sounds of agreement, the warped reflections headed home.