Chapter Text
Nya really doesn’t know what to make of it all.
Hearing the words “If it's the last thing I ever do” come out of your baby brother’s mouth right after you potentially just lost your older brother after just being reunited with both of them after years while he is trying to process this power that is unknown by everyone is not really something you want to hear in general.
She should say something to stop him, to spare his life to show that it doesn’t have to be him, that we can find another way to stop it. But she doesn’t, she has no idea what other way they can stop it all. She just saw her older brother get sucked into what seems to be an endless void destroying all in its path. She should stop Lloyd from doing something so reckless but she doesn’t.
And no one else does because facing the facts and the facts only they are all fucked.
Nothing really makes sense, it's all new territory for all involved, and she's been in a lot of situations. Nothing like this one if she’s being completely honest. And she has been in a lot of weird situations that have emotionally, physically and magically affected her in different ways.
So she can do nothing but watch as Lloyd tries his best to concentrate to save everyone.
She can tell he is struggling and who could blame him as people are being sucked into rifts, the wind is destroying houses and debris is being swept around.
“I- There's too much chaos..! I can't focus. I can't do this!”
Lloyd yells out in despair, she wants to say something to comfort him to tell him it will all be okay or anything but she can't muster up the words to.
She can’t do it and she doesn’t know he can do it.
“If you were me or Sora, What would you tell us?”
Arin says looking at Lloyd like he is his last hope, which he pretty much is. She knows it must freak him out having someone so innocent and pure look at him like that.
Lloyd used to look at her like that.
It’s hard to believe that Lloyd used to be this little brat of a kid who just wanted to eat candy and read comics all day. It’s weird knowing now all that happened thinking of that kid. She remembers being so annoyed that she was left to take care of this kid that to everyone else was an annoyance. It took a while for him to warm up to her but after a while he would follow her everywhere she went like she was some type of light and he was a moth.
He misses that kid sometimes but she can see him in the adult Lloyd grew into.
That advice seems to help Lloyd because he closes his eyes and feels the cores and smiles.
“Ninja never quit.”
It's a corny line if she’s being completely honest, she never realized when it became the main thing for them. She doesn’t hate it by any means, it's sweet and simple. She's glad it gives people the strength they need to keep going. Ninja never quit, she knows a lot of really stubborn ninja who don't know when to quit, including herself. You will find her six feet under before she gives up on something she thinks is worth it.
Ninja never quit.
Lloyd rises up to the air as the dragon cores float around him.
He is glowing and the cores begin to rapidly spin around him.
It has to be working!
She stares up to the sky to see him in a way similar to when he first became conduit.
Green and glowing.
He should probably trademark that.
Lloyd! The green and glowing ninja! Has a nice ring to it if you put on a facial cleanser ad or something. She will tell him about it after this is all over. He will laugh about how dumb the idea is and Kai will pitch in that if anything he would be the ninja with the glowing skin. Nya would laugh and say some snarky comeback. Jay would probably just agree with whatever Nya said and comment on what a good comeback it was.
She misses Jay a lot. She misses his perfect brown curls that she would run her hands through every morning. She misses his freckles that she can count on the back of her hand. She misses his dumb jokes and dumb smile and dumb hair and dumb freckles. She misses everything about him. She hopes that wherever he is he misses the same things that she misses. That he never forgets how much she loves him.
She is almost lost in that thought of peace that she forgets that they are in the middle of some sort of crisis.
She looks up to the dragon cores spinning rapidly around Lloyd. And Boom.
The Dragon cores hit Lloyd's core.
“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Lloyd yells out in what she can only assume in pain. It's terrifying.
She hears a yell that she never wanted to hear. It sounds like he’s in a type of pain that no one could even fathom. The scream he let out is sickening and it makes her want to throw up.
She looks with eyes of terror to see what seems to look like hands, clawing its way out of Lloyd’s body. Green glowing hands clawing its way out of Lloyd’s body.
The green glow that Lloyd had a second ago drains as the green glowing figure claws its way free.
The glowing green figure looks exactly like Lloyd.
She can only stare in horror as Lloyd’s body drops from fifty feet off the ground to the cold and hard concrete floor as she hears the bone cracks on impact.
Thud.
Crack.
Crack.
“Lloyd!”
She screams in horror as she and everyone else rushes to his body.
His skin is a sick pale color. His eyes wide open, grey and dead.
Empty.
Zane grabs his hand to check for any sign of life but his face gives away any sense of hope she had that he was still alive.
She yells out in pain as everyone else just stares and cries confused on what just happened.
She looks up to see the figure of green glowing transparent energy that wears Lloyd’s face staring right down at them.
Eyes so confused and so empty.
Like a house that has a full meal ready for everyone to eat with the lights all turned on but nobody inside.
The figure stops staring and puts his hands up and the world flashes for less than a second like a camera taking a picture.
Everyone opens their eyes to see that the storm is gone, all the merge quakes have been closed.
She still is just looking up at the figure while holding her brother’s cold and dead hand in her hands.
Before anyone else can say anything else, Kai,Wyldfire and Riyu pop right into existence.
Crack.
Falling directly on Lloyd’s cold dead body.
”Get off him! Please!”
She yells out as tears finally roll out.
Kai, unaware of what happened, sees everyone’s eyes of terror and the cold unconscious body of Lloyd.
His eyes say a thousand words.
“Lloyd? Buddy? Wake up.. Come on kid, you gotta wake up!”
It’s ironic, trying to wake him up, but his eyes are wide open. They are only lifeless and empty.
As Kai yells and slightly shakes Lloyd’s body, the figure slowly comes down and stands over everyone.
She gets closer to her older brother, her hand tightening on his.
Arin, Sora and Wyldfire just stare in horror, these kids weren’t supposed to see this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Would it be the first time they saw a dead body? She’s seen a lot of things die but never like this. For the longest time she saw death as something that just happened. She’d seen dead bodies before, it seemed like people were just going to sleep, but they just never woke up. Sure some bodies seemed more disturbing than others but nothing like this.
He doesn’t look like himself. Anything good and beautiful about him is gone, all that is left is an empty shell of who he was. Grey and pale and eyes empty.
She can’t take her eyes away from his face, his eyes wide open, he looks terrified. But she knows that isn’t feeling anything. He died scared. It breaks her heart.
She slowly comes to realize that the green glowing figure is staring right at them. It, he ? Whatever it is standing over them, staring at a copy of himself. A dead and empty version of himself. She tries to say something at it or anything to make sense of it all. Could that be Lloyd?
“Lloyd….? Is that you?”
Zane asks, Zane always has been the most logical one but deep down everyone knows that’s not true. Even if he’s a robot he feels and loves and grieves like anybody else. But if anyone is going to address whatever is going on, it is going to be him.
The figure had different shades of green swirling all around his body. It looked like a carbon copy of Lloyd. Lloyd usually has his hair that has gotten fairly long after the merge in a neat braid with a green ribbon adorned at the bottom. This figure had his hair down and loose, it was flowing around like it wasn’t quite hair. It only had the shape of everything Lloyd had but it was made up of some type of energy. His eyes were green but a yellow lime color, glowing like Lloyd’s eyes did when he had first become the conduit.
The figure's face is hard to read, it looks confused. The figure looks at them with piercing eyes, calmed and relaxed yet confused and curious.
He gets closer to the body and everyone backs away a bit to let the figure get closer to Lloyd. It lays its hand on Lloyd’s face. Examining it touching his facial features, at the same time he puts his hand on his own face touching his own features.
No one says a word. It seems like the figure wasn’t fully aware of what he is. Slowly realizing that he is the same as this dead body that used to be Lloyd. Is he the same? She doesn’t know.
“Lloyd?”
Sora musters up, a quiet soft voice hoping that maybe it’s him. Maybe it will all go back to normal. That’s what everyone is hoping, holding their breath waiting for the figure to say anything.
The figure stops touching Lloyd’s body and puts his hands over Lloyd’s eyes, closing them. The haunting look that the body had was gone. Even if his pale skin and his cold body still stayed the same it made her feel better to have his eyes closed. He was just sleeping. He would wake up any second now.
The figure looks up to Sora and then looks at everyone surrounding him.
“No…. No… I am….”
The figure finally speaks, its voice is exactly like Lloyd’s. Soft and warm but echoing. The figure looks down to his own hands stretching to analyze himself. The figure looks up to look at everyone,
“I am The Conduit.”
The figure says as it studies everyone's face. She would do anything to know what it’s thinking in that second.
“No- No you're more than that! Your Lloyd! You have to be..- Lloyd the green Ninja! Our teacher”
Arin yells out, the figure is noticeably concerned and steps back a little away from everyone. His mannerisms seemed more nervous and confused than before.
“I don't- I'm not-..”
The Conduit says as he fidgets with his fingers, like Lloyd would do. It has to be Lloyd. Everything it does is what Lloyd would do, she doesn’t know if she’s just making things up just to convince herself that Lloyd isn’t gone just yet. And honestly, who could blame her. Seeing a figure come out of your baby brother's body before dropping dead. Hoping maybe that that figure is what remains of Lloyd.
“I am something. I am The Conduit. And that is all I've ever been. That's all I will ever be. Whoever your Lloyd is… I am unfamiliar with it.”
The Conduit says before turning away and walking the opposite way of the body.
“No- Lloyd no come back wait-”
Kai yelled out as he stood up and ran towards the conduit.
The Conduit turns around and smiles at them all.
“I have to go, I hope you all feel…. Saved…. I think that's what you're supposed to feel.”
The conduit says, before flying up to the sky and just like that, he was gone. The sky flashed green a second before the Conduit, No, Lloyd disappeared. It has to be him. He needs to remember.
Everyone just stares up to the sky wondering what to do now. She doesnt take her eyes away from Lloyd’s body.
What the fuck do they do now?