Spbnr Aus - Tumblr Posts

FREE HIM

You’ve seen Lloyd and Brad, now time for Lloyd and Gene!

Yeah this one didn’t end as well.

YOOOOOO THAT’S SO COOL!!!!! Mind if I just-

—————

Zane didn’t know what to think.

And that was saying something, considering his processors brain never stalled blanked before, not during any Garmadon attack or history lesson or even when someone asked him to divide by zero that one time.

Because all he could figure though the security video was that this ‘Smith Doppelgänger‘ had no information on him. Same as Smith.

Was he a creation of Garmadon or some other scientist? A secret twin who remained off grid? Or was he like Zane, different in a way no one realized?

Whoever he was, he smelt of trouble. Zane was glad Smith had been there to help Lloyd. Who knew what could have happened otherwise?

So when Zane found himself staring through the window of his favourite cafe at Smith & Not-Smith, well, he hit the record audio button.

Just in case.

—————

haha bridging @fangirl-616 ‘s awesome fic and @kittydemon9000’s awesome fic go brrrrrr

Ok but something with Into the Kaiverse where Smith still ends up befriending the ninja as a civilian and then we get a scene like-

—

—

Lloyd keeps his gaze low as he walks through the city. The fewer people that notice him, the better. He doesn’t need to get the attention of another person with a vendetta against his dad.

For a brief moment, he glances up, just to make sure that he’s going in the right direction- but then he notices someone there that he’d be happy to talk to.

“Smith!” He calls, half-jogging over to him.

Instantly, Smith is staring at him- he thinks, anyway. The bulky sunglasses make it kind of hard to tell.

Smith tilts his head slightly, an unreadable expression on his face. He cocks an eyebrow, and Lloyd feels some of his excitement fading.

“It- it’s me. It’s Lloyd.” He can feel his smile dropping as he waits for a response. Does Smith not recognize him? What-

“Oh!” Smith stands up a little straighter, and Lloyd feels an odd chill go down his spine for reasons he can’t quite explain.

“Lloyd,” he repeats, a tone that the blond can’t quite identify in his voice.

“Yeah,” Lloyd nods, feeling a wave of relief hit him at the recognition. But then he frowns, a new thought hitting him. “Uh, are you okay? You look really pale.”

Smith looks down at himself for a moment before returning his gaze to Lloyd. He opens his mouth, looking like he’s going to say something- but then a new voice speaks up.

“Lloyd! Hey!”

Frowning, Lloyd turns to look at the speaker, because the voice sounds familiar, but that wouldn’t make any sense, because-

Smith comes up to him.

Smith.

Who’s already standing right in front of him.

Flinching, Lloyd takes a step back, gaze flickering between the two. What the heck? How can there be two-

Smith- the new one- stops in his tracks as he looks at the one in sunglasses.

The first one freezes too, and Lloyd feels an odd tension rippling between them as they both stare at each other.

It stretches on for a few moments, and Lloyd quickly decides to speak up.

With a nervous laugh, he backs away from the guy in sunglasses. “Heh, sorry. I- I mistook you for my friend.”

Not-Smith tilts his head again. “What a funny mix up,” he smiles. But… there’s something off about it. Lloyd can’t quite put his finger on what, but something about him is just… uncanny.

“Ha, I guess it is.” Smith speaks through gritted teeth, and Lloyd almost flinches at the sudden tight grip he has on his shoulder.

“But the two of us were just leaving.”

There’s another spark of tension that flickers between them. “Oh? I’m sorry to hear that.” Not-Smith’s smile takes on a new quality that’s even more indecipherable than before. “I would’ve loved to stay and chat.”

Smith’s smile is clearly forced. “Yeah, well, maybe some other time. We’re kinda busy right now.”

Lloyd glances between the two of them again. Yeah, okay, the guy in sunglasses seems a little weird, but to be honest, their entire friend group looks like that from the outside. And the guy hadn’t seemed upset when Lloyd introduced himself, so… maybe he’s not all that bad?

He glances at Smith for a moment before he speaks. “Well, I don’t think we’re actually all that-”

The grip on his shoulder tightens to the point where it’s borderline painful. “We’re busy,” he repeats, voice firm. There’s no room for argument, and… wow. Smith looks intense. Even more than he does when he’s dealing with Chen. What-

“Goodbye.” Smith practically snarls the word out. Tugging on Lloyd to signal that he should follow, he walks away.

His eyes stay firmly pinned on the guy in sunglasses.

Lloyd quickly follows. Glancing back at the guy, he catches a glimpse of a cocky smirk before he turns away, adjusting the sunglasses for a moment as he heads off.

The moment he’s out of sight, Smith visibly relaxes. He quickly turns to Lloyd, concern that’s borderline panicked on his face as he looks him over. “Are you okay?” He demands.

Lloyd blinks. “Y- yeah?” He glances off to where he last saw the guy for a moment. “Why do you ask?” A sudden realization hits him, and Lloyd feels himself tense.

“Do you know him or something? Is he- is he dangerous?”

Alright, since Lloyd’s the green ninja, his version of dangerous is probably a lot different than Smith’s version, but it would definitely be better for him to know- especially if Smith is still at risk.

Smith hesitates for a few moments before he speaks. “Or something,” he settles on. “And… well. If you see him again, go find the others and give me a call, okay?” There’s still visible concern on his face as he glances back after where the guy was. “I don’t want you anywhere near him,” he admits.

“Why not?”

Opening his mouth, Smith looks like he’s about to say something- but then he stops. After a moment, he breathes out a low breath and just pleads, “Lloyd, please just trust me on this, okay? You shouldn’t get too close to him.”

For a moment, Lloyd feels a protest forming- but then it dies in his throat as he sees the look Smith has.

He looks… scared. There’s so many emotions mixed, and none of them are good, but that’s the one that stands out the most.

Slowly, Lloyd nods. “Okay,” he agrees.

Visibly relaxing, Smith sighs. “Thank you,” he smiles, but the action is still kind of strained.

And Lloyd just… lets it go. This is clearly something he’s stressing about, and pushing it probably won’t help.

He’ll just have to ask Zane to look into it.

—

—

Or something even worse where Smith doesn’t show up and Bizarro Kai takes advantage of the confusion-

OOOOOOOO YESSSSSSSS THIS WAS SO COOL!!!!

The Start of Smith Shark-Pup Forge

I LIVE!!!! And for my grand return to Tumblr, may I present... This fic for the SPBNR Sharp-Pup AU :3

Enjoy

---*--- Kai was going to kill Garmadon, revive him with his own stupid Mega Weapon, and kill him again.

That is, he would, if he could just get out of this bag-

Seriously, how had the Mega Weapon transformed the bag previously stuffed over his head into a bag that covered his entire body? And why was he struggling so much to get it off, it was just a cloth bag, it shouldn’t be this hard-

In a fit of frustration, he bit into the fabric and was pleasantly surprised when it shredded and he was able to worm his way out of the hole.

He gaped at the sight around him. Ninjago City. Or, at least he thought it was Ninjago city. It was lit with every colour of the rainbow, drowning out the stars above. But that wasn’t the part that threw him off.

It was how big everything was.

The smallest buildings around him were the size of the tallest buildings in Ninjago City, but they didn’t even come close to the tower in the middle of the city. Kai nearly got dizzy looking at it, and he wasn’t even standing close to it. 

Heck, just the night lamppost was taller than any lamppost he’d seen before. And that alley dumpster- it was taller than him! Taller… by a lot. A weird amount, actually.

…

So either everything was so much taller than normal in this weird Not-Quite-Ninjago-City, or… 

Or he was smaller than normal. A lot smaller.

His question was quickly confirmed when he tried to stand, only to overbalance and fall forward on his paws.

Paws. Not hands.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE FSM-

Kai stared at his hands (or lack thereof), and finally got a good look at himself.

Oh. Oh no. Oh nonononnononono, what- 

What was he, some kind of shark… puppy… mix? Pinkish red splotches on small, smooth scales secretly rough as sandpaper, mostly blue with an underbelly of white, a fin spiked up on the top of his head with smaller fins spiked like his hair, and a red collar. A collar. Like he was nothing more than a common house-pet.

Kai growled, then balked at how weird that felt. He ran his tongue over sharpened teeth; definitely some kind of Shark… Pup… thing.

He would ask why, but the answer was ‘The Universe was fucking with him, as always’. 

“H-heh, c’mon. L-let’s talk this out.”

Kai’s head snapped up. The voice sounded familiar in a way, though he couldn’t quite place it. Still, they sounded panicked. Scared. 

His instincts were firing at him.

Stumbling over his paws, Kai immediately fell face-first (snout-first?) into a puddle of mud. When he stood, shaking the dirt from his eyes, he fumbled over to a dumpster and tripped over an open garbage bag. Ewwww… just his stupid luck.

“Th-that’s a nice l-looking knife you have there.”

Kai shook off the garbage and bounded down the street, growing more confident with every step. His movements were fuelled by fire, little sparks and melted paw prints in the asphalt trailing in his wake. Someone was in trouble. A knife. An alleyway. His problems could wait.

“You like it?” A different voice. “It’s my father’s.”

Kai growled again, picking up the pace. The conversation seemed so close, but because of his small size (and general lack of control over his new form, despite getting better at it as adrenaline and protectiveness shoved him forward), the empty street took forever to cross. The streetlamp flickered overhead, casting his shadow across the alley.

“Or, rather it was, before Lord Garmadon’s last attack put him in the hospital.”

That almost threw Kai off balance, but he quickly corrected his movement before he could go skittering into the storm drain- the way he was right now, he might actually slip in- and kept running.

“L-look, I’m sorry, I really am, but hurting me isn’t gonna help hi-” 

A strangled yelp. Kai felt hot fire building in his throat, smoke slipping through his clenched teeth. Almost… there…!

“Oh I know that. Doesn’t mean it won’t make me feel better.”

Kai skittered into the alleyway, snarling. A person holding a knife whipped around to see what had just happened but kept their hand firmly around the throat of a teen in a green hoodie. With mud covering many of his spots, the darkness of night covering the rest, and patches of garbage visible in the splotches of moonlight, he surely was quite the sight even without his new shark pup form. 

Despite the smoke curling out of Kai’s mouth (if the people could even see it in the dim alleyway), the stranger with the knife didn’t seem to be intimidated. They merely laughed. “What, brought your little puppy with you? Your stupid sea dog?”  

As the green teen squirmed, knife flashing too close to their skin, what little patience Kai had evaporated. A jet of fire burst from his mouth. It roared across the alleyway, licking at the walls and charging toward the stranger. 

The stranger screamed and dropped the knife, blocking the fire with their arms. The flames washed over the green teen without burning them. Kai was across the alley by the time the flames flickered away, leaping at the stranger and biting their leg. 

“MOTHERF-“

Kai leapt away from the stranger as they hopped on one foot in pain, finally crashing into the far wall. Ignoring them, Kai grabbed the edge of the green teen’s pant leg (the closest thing he could reach from the ground) and dragged him toward the alleyway exist,

Together they ran for several minutes through the streets away from the alley, until Kai’s stubby little legs outweighed his ninja training stamina. He tumbled as he missed a step, rolling several feet before coming to a whining stop on his back. Ouch, his feet hurt. No, that was right… paws. 

The questions of where was he, what was he, how did he get back to his family and form crashed back into him, tearing at his mind and threatening to strangle his lungs. He buried the feelings down but they kept rising back up, bubbling under his skin and grabbing at his chest, his heart, his head, his thoughts. Stop it, get a hold of yourself, figure out the situation first-

Someone scooped him up. Kai let out a startled noise, weakly pawing at fabric until he realized it was just the green-wearing teen. He calmed a little (just a little; he didn’t like getting picked up, and certainly not by someone this much taller than him at the moment), and finally got a good look at the kid. 

Dear FSM, it was like looking at an older Lloyd. Fix his hair, change his eye colour, and boom, it was like staring at a mirror of the future. Kai could see Lloyd looking like this teen, and it wasn’t just the green hoodie. 

“So, um, hi there…” The teen said. Kai stared at him. “Thank you. For saving me, I mean. Nobody else would have done that. Figures; I’m about to get stabbed and the only one willing to help is a stray shark pup-“

The teen noticed his collar. “Or, not a stray. Let’s see-“

Kai squirmed a little as the teen grabbed the tag on his collar, but the grip, despite being firm, was incredibly soft and gentle. 

The teen flipped the charred name tag; it must have gotten burnt in the alleyway. “All I can make out is Smith… is that your name?”  

Smith? No, his name was Kai. His last name was Smith. But there wasn’t exactly a way he could communicate that right now…

The teen was annoyingly yet understandably oblivious to Kai’s struggles. They ducked their head, the ground suddenly very interesting. “My name’s Lloyd… Lloyd Garmadon.”

No, he couldn’t be Lloyd. Lloyd was, for starters, short. And younger. And- and-

And didn’t get nearly killed in an alleyway by a stranger seeking revenge for something Garmadon didn’t. There was no way the others would let that happen, even with Kai’s disappearance. Cole wouldn’t. Zane wouldn’t. Jay wouldn’t. Nya wouldn’t. Sensei Wu wouldn’t. And yet…

Was… Was this Lloyd after all? Had he’d travelled into the future, landing in this strange form? He stared into Lloyd’s eyes, desperately trying to convey who he was. But Lloyd just looked at him with stinging unfamiliarity, a wariness in his eyes that broke Kai’s heart and tore the pieces to shreds. 

The teen- Lloyd- put Kai back down. “So, uh, in case you didn’t know who I was, you can run now…”

Kai stayed put.

The teen blinked. “Oh, uh, I guess… well, it probably wouldn’t matter to you, huh? Besides, my father-“ the word was said with venom- “Likes sharks, so I guess that means they like me.”

After a moment of thinking, Kai head-butted Lloyd’s leg to mimic how he would give his younger brother one-armed hugs. Lloyd smiled a little; his first smile of the night. “So, uh, Smith, got anywhere to go? I better get home, my mom’ll be worried…”

MOM??? 

Kai filed that away into the ‘freak out about it later’ folder in his brain, right next to ‘repressed feelings’. He stuck close to Lloyd; the chances of running into him in the city while stuck in this form would be impossible, and there was no way he was letting his brother out of sight after the knife incident. 

Lloyd scooped him up again. “Well, uh, I guess if you insist… No promises Mom will let me keep you, but you can stay at my house for the night I guess. I’ve never seen a shark pup that can breathe fire…”

Came with the territory of being the Master of Fire, apparently. Kai scanned the streets for dangers as Lloyd started down the sidewalk. No matter what, he was determined to protect his not-so-much-younger-right-now younger brother in this strange city.

And nothing, not even his strange new form, could stop him.

:D Glad you liked it!

The Beginning of Heatstroke, aka Red’s Villain Origin

* crashes down from the ceiling * I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED ONE OF MY 5+ CURRENT WRITING PROJECTS! BEHOLD, A WRITTEN VERSION OF THE ‘Red’s Villain Origin AU’, also known as RVO / Heatstroke AU

To summarize the AU for SPBNR for those that don’t now it: 

“Who’d be the biggest conspiracy theorist out of the M!Ninja? The one who drinks 5 hour energy at 3am and spits off the craziest theories and then actually gets it right but nobody gives the theory any merit because the rest of the theories are too crazy?”

The answer: Red / M!Kai

Red: Okay hear me out: Smith is actually an alternative version of one of us sent here from another dimension.

The other M!Ninja: You’re just saying that because Smith’s cool and you want him to be your counterpart

Based on the M!ninja making red cork boards trying to figure out ‘What Is Up With Smith’: Red gets increasingly accurate and nobody will believe him (all pre shogun reveal) and he eventually snaps and takes up a secret villain persona to fight Shogun like 'if they won’t believe me I’ll do it myself’ and it gets awkward when he accidentally does too much damage and catches not only Shogun’s attention like planned, but also the rest of the Ninjaforce, and now he has to keep his own identity a secret

So, without further ado, I present… Heatstroke

————

Red blamed the 5-hour energy coffee blend at 3:00am for this.

It was no surprise that between ‘Operation: What’s Going on with Smith’ & the sudden appearance of Shogun that the resident Bounty red-stringed ‘joke’ cork-board doubled in size and seriousness. It also was no surprise that Red had a corner all to himself and that his theories were… in the words of the others, ‘wildly inaccurate and implausible’.

But this time, he was sure he’d gotten it right.

Smith is Shogun sent here from another continent/planet/dimension with the goal of protecting Ninjago City.

The latest string of laughs and scoffs at his theory was the last straw. He’d show them. He’d prove it!

Which was why he was currently standing on the roof of a noodle house, awkwardly adjusting the spare motorcycle helmet he’d ‘borrowed’ from Nya and painted black and orangey-yellow (red had seemed too obvious). He’d exchanged his Ninjaforce outfit for a soot-burned cross between a bomber jacket and a leather jacket. Down his back jutted a row of flames like the spines of a monster, courtesy of one of Nya & Jay’s unfinished inventions Red had modified- surely nothing bad would come of that!

For tonight, the Red Ninja was off-duty. For tonight, it was Heatstroke’s turn.

He fiddled with one of the weapons he’d ‘lent out’ from Master Wu. It resembled a small arm canon, like a smaller version of the Ultimate Weapon. The plaque under its post had read ‘Elemental Focuser’, which, in cryptic Wu speak, probably translated to ‘you can use an elemental power like something out of Avatar: The Last Airbender’. So far he’d only figured out how to activate a focused jet of fire. Well, at least it was on brand. He hoped it would help him catch Shogun’s attention so he could unmask him.

He’d tried confronting Smith at school, of course. But there were only so many ways of saying ‘are you the new vigilante helping the ninjas’, and Smith has a genuine talent for dancing around the topic. Red could confront him with the name Shogun to get a proper reaction, but that would mean explaining how he knew the name and outing himself as the Red Ninja.

So fake villainy really was the only way.

His plan was to use the Elemental Focuser to cause some minor petty damage, just enough to attract the new vigilante. Perhaps set a trash can on fire, block an alleyway with rocks (if he figured out how to change the setting from fire to earth), small things that could easily be repaired.

Of course, plans were never actually stuck to. One way or another, something was always improvised.

Red’s improvisation just happened to involve him accidentally setting the entire alleyway on fire.

He’d only been aiming for one dumpster, honest! And maybe he’d spotted a couple fliers for a SoG meeting on the ground and happened to burn those too. And a newspaper article blaming Lloyd for the recent Garmadon attack, again. And an article about those ‘Damn Ninja Menaces’ by a S. Sonah Sameson. And-

Okay, so maybe Red had aimed the fire at a few small targets. But just a few! And with good reason and good care, but…

Well, fire liked to burn. Give it enough kindle and it’ll continue to grow, stretching like reaching branches towards each other to join in a massive bonfire. 

So now the entire alleyway was on fire, and Red was panicking. 

He’d luckily chosen an abandoned part of town near the beaches where Shogun sightings seemed most frequent, but with the stupid Elemental Focuser not switching from fire mode to water mode or ice mode or something that didn’t have the potential to burn Ninjago City to the ground, Red had no way of stopping the flames.

And more flames meant more destruction which meant a bigger audience.

Which was why his previously muted comm suddenly flared to life, the only warning Red had before Nya’s water strider mech slid around the corner.

Red scrambled onto a roof as the mech drove past, spraying water at the bonfire to dose it. His sigh of relief was just as quickly dosed as Lloyd’s voice came over the comms; “Status, Grey?”

“Flames are out,” Nya replied. “Pursing the joker that set it ablaze.”

Uh oh. Red took off across the roof, leaping from building to building. Tiles creaked, pebbled and dust scattering underfoot. The sounds of the mech’s engine roaring behind him echoed through alleyways below to create the illusion the mech was everywhere at once. 

As the chase grew on, more mechs started to join in. Red ducked into a narrow avenue to avoid Zane’s tank, then under a cafe overhang to throw off Jay and Lloyd. His heart hammered in his chest and he groaned, filling the inside of the motorcycle helmet with steam. Saying this was going ‘bad’ would be the understatement of the century. 

What had he been thinking? Oh wait: he hadn’t. Seriously? ‘Oh I’ll just pretend to be a villain real quick, that should get Shogun’s attention and not the attention of literally my entire team of fellow ninjas!’ Stupid, impulsive, this was why everyone was always calling the red ninja the ‘hothead’ when he really tried not to be- Lloyd’s voice over the comms snapped him from his thoughts. “I can’t catch them! It’s like they know our every move!”

Red winced as he climbed up a banister and leapt from balcony to balcony. Sorry, Lloyd. 

He didn’t miss how the others asked Nya where Red was. And how she made up excuses the others bought so easily- granted, he’d told those excuses to his sister before setting his plan into motion, but still, ouch. They acted like he was simply being at best too busy and at worst lazy and selfish.

He just wanted them to know the truth! Why couldn’t they at least try to believe him when-

Of course, that was when Shogun dropped out of the sky and tackled him.

Red shouted with surprise as he tumbled down from the second floor, slamming into a few softer bags of garbage to break his fall before rolling and slamming into the unforgiving concrete. A crack formed in his vision as the visor of his motorbike helmet smacked into the concrete ground. One of the fire jets on his back sputtered and sparked, sending a thin wisp of smoke into the air.

Shogun pinned his wrists to the ground and growled. “Who are you?”

Red tried to break free, agony turning his muscles and bones to fire with the movement after his fall, but the vigilante was too strong. Damn, how often did this guy train?

“Who am I?” Red said, a nervous tinge to his voice. He quickly smoothed it over with faked confidence. “Who are you? Who are all of us, really?”

Shogun narrowed his eyes behind his hood. “Did Garmadon send you? Or someone else?”

Red sputtered. Really, the nerve! Garmadon? The thought turned his insides to disgusting mud. “Nobody sent me!”

“Then why are you here?” Shogun spat.

“Why am I here?” Why was he here again? Oh right, the bright idea on how to reveal that Shogun was Smith. “It’s, uh… a valid reason! That I don’t have to tell you!” He tried for a villainous laugh. Stay in character, don’t blow your cover, you got this!

Shogun was unimpressed. “Nearly burning down my home was a valid reason?”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to set everything on- wait, WHAT?” Uh oh. “You LIVE here?”

Now it was Shogun’s turn to look uncomfortable, though the expression was quickly wiped from his face. “Nothing wrong with this district.” 

Red nodded. “‘Course not. Uh, sorry about that… wasn’t my intention, I swear.”

Shoot, he could hear Jay’s jet getting closer. He had to get out of here, but Shogun, annoyingly, didn’t seem to be in the mood to simply let him go. “Then what is your intention?”

“Well, for starters, it’s getting out of here. This really isn’t going to plan and I’d rather just be home right now, or even inventing a time machine like in that book ‘Hands of Time’ to slap my past self in the face for even thinking about this stupid idea in the first place-“

Jay wasn’t the only one that could ramble under pressure, it seemed.

Shogun leaned closer. “What idea?”

Red shrugged as best he could with how he was pinned to the ground. “Well, for starters, I just wanted to prove to my friends that you’re Smith, and things just kinda escalated from-”

The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he said. 

Shogun lurched back, letting go of him. His eyes betrayed a kaleidoscope of emotions; surprise, worry, suspicious, hurt, fear, realization. 

“…Kai?”

Well, f!ck.

“I-“

Red was about to badly attempt to bullsh!t his way out of his identity reveal before it suddenly dawned on him that Shogun had not denied his theory. 

Which meant Shogun was Smith.

And it also meant Smith instantly recognized him as Kai, which, considering his disguise, was aptly concerning. Sure, he was the first one in his group of friends people would think to do something this extreme but give him some credit! Zane was a regular detective, he’d do the same if it meant answers! Or, well, at least something similar. And Nya could be an adrenaline seeker. And Lloyd- well, maybe not Lloyd. Or Jay, either. Cole had his head just enough on his shoulders that he probably wouldn’t do this either.

But come on, instantly guessing it?

Well, at least Smith/Shogun didn’t know Kai was the Red Ninja. That would be a catastrophe.

Right. Back to the current catastrophe at hand.

Shogun- Smith- still had a look as if he’d been slapped, and Red hated it. He hadn’t meant to hurt his friend. Shogun… Shogun hadn’t wanted them to find out his identity. And then Red had gone and done it, just to prove that he could be the smart one, or a leader, or the protector so they didn’t get hurt, or literally anything but just the ‘hotheaded one’. 

…And he’d done it in the most hotheaded, impulsive way possible.

He really was an idiot.

The cracked helmet hid the look on his face, a twisted mess of distraught and shame. But it didn’t help hide how he took stumbled to his feet and away from Smith, nervous that any second he’d spill another mistake and mess up again, like how he always freaking messed up on everything. Don’t pick this fight, interject there instead, no, not there, idiot, there, FMS why are you so useless-

Focus, focus.

Lloyd’s voice, sharp in the intercom and full of static from his tumble, snapped him from his thoughts. “Anyone got eyes on the arsonist?”

Red caught Smith’s eye as he raised his hand to his own communicator. He was so screwed, so busted, so doomed… Smith would report it, and the others would know, and they’d think he was just messing around in an alleyway with some stolen devices and weapons out of curiosity or rage, - and-

“None yet, still looking.”

…What?

Smith stared at him, gaze searching. He looked shaken, more so than Red- who’d just taken a fall from a second story, mind you, it was a miracle he wasn’t more injured than a couple small scrapes and some future bruises-, yet everything from the set of his jaw to the softening of his furrowed brows suggested a change in emotions. Well, not quite change; more like repress and replace.

“You wanted to prove yourself, didn’t you.”

Red flushed, hand instinctually clamping into a tight fist at his side. The still-working fire jets on his back ignited without him pressing any buttons; faulty activation from the fall or something. 

Palms up and hands raised, Smith silently asked to defuse the situation. “Didn’t mean it as an insult. This wasn’t about venting some anger, was it.”

Red’s lack of response only confirmed it. Smith continued. “I won’t say anything about this if you don’t tell anyone my identity. Deal? I know finding it out was important to you, but-“

“Deal,” Red interrupted. Guilt ate away at his core, like a wave of water dousing a candle. “Smith, I-“ He swallowed hard and stared at the alley floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… to…”

Smith’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder and he flinched before relaxing as Smith didn’t move further, nor did the grip tighten. “I’m a little hurt, you’re right. But I’m not mad. And I won’t tell the others, so you can relax. But you better get out of here and get yourself an alibi. We can talk at school or something.”

Wow, he was handling this rather calmly. Red was struck by the sudden memory of- what did Jay call the word? Right. Compartmentalizing. That… wasn’t healthy. But at the roar of Lloyd’s mech somewhere nearby, he didn’t comment further. Instead, he shot Smith a grateful nod and ran down the alley, sticking to the shadows and blind spots of the flying mechs and the tight alleyways where the land mechs couldn’t reach him. 

When he got home, miraculously without further incident (though Shogun leading the others on a wild goose chase over the comms certainly helped there), he ditched the outfit in a bag hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the shed. He’d return the weapon to Master Wu’s ship later, and… well, hope Nya never searched for the missing supplies. There wasn’t a way of fixing it without involving her or Jay, and neither was an option.

Heatstroke was back off duty, and so was the Red Ninja.

For now, he could just be Kai Smith. And there wasn’t any issue with that.

…

Right?

—————

yooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

THIS IS AMAZING REHJJGFHDESFXJVZ

and ah yes, good ol trauma and compartmentalizing, we love to see it

Shattered Dreams & Broken Phones (Smith Garmadon)

So you guys remember the ‘Smith Garmadon AU’ from SPBNR? Where Smith wakes up on M!Garmadon’s volcano with amnesia and proceeds to get adopted by the Dark Lord & his generals? And he has a phone with a ton of videos & pictures of his original family that he can’t remember? So there were some ideas thrown around in the Discord server, and (credit to Mink, who’s amazing comic directly inspired this) yeah, now we got this. Enjoy :3 credit to @kittydemon9000 for the original SPBNR

———

The plan, as plans often were, was crude yet simple. Smith Garmadon, adoptive(?) son of Lord Garmadon, had a phone. A phone full of recordings. 

The problem was, nobody knew what those recordings were. And the danger was that those were recordings and photos for Garmadon, including clues onto the ninja's identities.

And for the safety of the group, Nya and Zane couldn't let those get back to the Dark Lord or his generals. So they devised a plan.

It took a lot of convincing to get Jay to 'accidentally' bump into Smith, hoping that they could retrieve the phone under the guise of repairing or returning it, deleting the videos with evidence, and subtly returning it. And the plan didn't even work the first time; nothing broke, and Smith was quick to retrieve it.

When Zane and Nya went for attempt number two, Jay wasn't having it. "Why do I have to do it?" He asked, fingers fraying the ends of his scarf. "Why do we even have to do it all? Maybe he's friendly, we don't know. He's got this look when he stares at the phone, I don't think we should mess with it, you know? And what if he gets mad, or we actually do some damage, or-"

"That's why you gotta do it," Nya assured before he could spiral. "You're one of the closest to him. My brother would spill the beans or refuse, and Lloyd couldn't lie his way out of a paper bag."

Jay squared his shoulders back for once. "No. No, this is a terrible plan. I won't do it. Smith's our friend, and whatever he has on information isn't worth it-"

"And what if he has our identities on tape?" Nya countered, throwing her arms in the arm. "What then? We have to get rid of that evidence, or else we could all be in some serious danger!"

Despite the look of panic on Jay's face at her words, he merely ducked his head into his scarf. His rambled excuses grew muffled.

Zane, who'd been keeping an eye on the hallway, suddenly snapped his head to the side. Smith turned the corner, phone clutched in one hand as he watched something with a small smile. It was now or never; the last period of the day, and if Smith left the school, the data would be in Garmadon's hands. 

That. Couldn't. Happen.

Seeing their plan about to fail, Zane made a split-second decision and a mental apology. 

He tripped Jay.

The blue ninja pinwheeled his arms, surprise and hurt flashing across his face like lightning. He slammed into Smith, who barely caught him with nearly inhuman reflexes before they could both tumble to the floor. The phone tumbled from his hands and-

Landed on his shoe, bounced off, and skidded down the hallway, completely fine. No, no, that wouldn't be enough-

Lloyd, Cole, and Kai rounded the corner just as Smith said, "Whoa, Jay, careful! You okay?"

Jay stuttered out an unintelligible response, a thousand words tumbling over themselves and meshing into one jargoned mess. 

"Hey, no worries, no harm no foul, right? Here-" Smith helped Jay back to his feet, and slowly started to turn. "My phone's okay, it just landed on my foot, I'll grab-"

His head turned in time to see Nya stomp on the technical device hard, shattering the screen and spilling the wires and broken chips across the floor. Shattering like Smith's heart in a single moment, broken memories dropping to the ground and splintering into unrepairable pieces.

His phone. His phone. All the memories of his... his family... 

Gone. 

And it wasn't an accident.

Behind him, through the crackling and roaring in his ears, he heard a quiet, hissed "What?" from Kai, heard the sharp intake of air from Jay who looked like he couldn't breath, heard a faltered misstep from Lloyd, heard Cole's footstep's freeze, heard no movements from Zane, and heard the crunch of the final few tech pieces of his phone under Nya's shoe.

Smith took two steps toward Nya and dropped to the ground at her feet, hand shaking as he reached toward the broken device as if his hand would be crushed next if he wasn't careful. Tears, too hot for normal water, filled his vision and broke over his cheeks, turning to steam as it hit the bottom of his jaw. He slowly tilted his head up to look at Nya, who looked-

Unapologetic. 

"...why."

Nya didn't say anything. Her gaze darted over to catch Zane's eye. With heightened senses, Smith was aware of Cole barely holding Kai back from storming over, of Lloyd standing there slack, of Zane's blank, oh so terribly blank expression, and of Jay, who was much too quiet other than a few choked attempts at breath.

At that moment, Smith's full attention went from grief and disbelief to fiery anger, a cold, burning anger not too unlike the sounds of Kai struggling to butt in behind him. 

He stood, hands clutched in tight, shaking fists at his side. Nya finally looked at him, eyes wide, as he held his shattered phone, his shattered memories, in one hand. "Let's be clear," he bit out, snapping as harshly as a wildfire consuming a smouldering tree. "I did absolutely NOTHING WRONG. And you-"

The words grew thick with emotion, and Smith exploded. Nya jerked back, not from his yelling, but from the way his eyes glowed with fire. 

"YOU DESTROYED THE ONE THING I HAVE LEFT OF MY FAMILY! OF THE LIFE I HAD BEFORE I WOKE UP ON THAT VOLCANO WITH NOTHING! NOTHING! I HAD A FAMILY, PEOPLE WHO LOVE ME, AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THEY ARE OR WHERE THEY ARE. EVERYTHING I KNEW ABOUT THEM WAS ON THAT PHONE, SCRAPS OF VIDEOS AND PHOTOS THAT I THOUGHT WOULD SPARK MY MEMORY. BUT IT HASN'T YET, AND THANKS TO YOU, IT NEVER WILL! THOSE VIDEOS ARE GONE. EVERY SCRAP OF MEMORY OF MY FAMILY IS GONE.”

His voice died, and he laughed once, lacking humour or emotion. "Gone. It's gone. I don't know where home is, and I never will."

Behind him, Jay bolted, a blur of blue so fast no one could catch him as he rounded the corner in a blink and vanished. Kai broke from Cole's hold, and Smith didn't even have the energy to turn to face the attack he'd face for yelling at one of the Smith siblings-

Kai stormed past him and shoved Nya. "What the F!CK did you do?"

Nya opened her mouth, then closed it without a sound. Her expression reeled at Smith's words.

It was Zane who spoke for her. "We- we just-"

Kai whirled on him, entire posture ablaze with his anger. "Just what? What excuse could you possibly have?"

"We just wanted to protect-" Zane's voice cracked for a moment on the word protect. "We were trying to protect ourselves from Garmadon."

Kai's hand was suddenly on Smith's shoulder, surprisingly gentle despite the amount of fury hissing in his throat. "Well, congratulations. Come’on, Smith, let's get out of here."

"I know a shop where we can try to repair the phone," Lloyd jumped in suddenly. "I've broken a ton of phones and they're great at fixing them."

Cole looked indecisive on which side to join, eyes flicking from Nya and Zane to Kai and Lloyd. He stepped back, avoiding both sides, and awkwardly gestured to one of the hallways. "I'm gonna... try to find Jay."

He slunk out of the hallway. Kai shot him, Nya, and Zane a scathing look before guiding Smith, who'd gone cold and nearly slack as the full extent of his own words hit him, down the other hallway, Lloyd joining on Smith's other side.

Zane walked to Nya's side. Both didn't look happy with their actions, but what was done was done.

Their identities were safe, if they ever even were in danger. 

But at what cost?

And a continuation of this! Tw/the Lego Ninjago Movie Arm Scene

-----*-----

Red's first thought when he first woke up was 'Wow, that's a bright light in my face'. 

His second was 'Holy FSM, that hurts so bad'.

His third was ‘I'm cold.'

The third was particularly concerning, because Red did not get cold. He didn't walk outside in winter without a jacket (because snow was wet and icky and made his skin feel weird), but he also didn't shiver when standing in an ice rink (do not ask him to skate. Him and ice skates did not mix). Even after he'd slipped while jumping over stones in a river one summer, he'd scrambled out soaked but not as cold as now. 

...no, he had not looked like a cat trying to scramble out of a bathtub, shut up.

This time, however... this time he couldn't stop shaking. Violent shivers wracked his whole body, disrupting various bandages (and stitches in his face, he could feel it like an old itch, an unforgettable feeling from when he'd gotten his famous scar) and generally causing discomfort and pain. His arm felt numb, yet... loose. The oddest comparison of a frayed fishing line flashed across his mind, where the hook barely stayed clinging on.

White and blue light flooded his vision when he opened his eyes and he winced, trying to blink through it. It felt like someone shining a flashlight directly in his eyes. 

As he shuffled and shivered, he realized he was tied to a chair. The ropes- no, more like chains- weren't cutting into his skin, but they weren't loose either. His arms were thankfully only pinned to his sides inside of pulled behind him, but his legs were bound rather fiercely to keep him from running away even if he got his arms free. 

A scarf was wrapped around his neck, a mercy to the shivering, and he glanced down to see if it was orange. To no surprise, it wasn't (what was he thinking, there's no way his Not-Friends would have Jay's scarf, and if they did, he'd be a million times more concerned than he already was because that meant his real friends were hurt or worse), but soft regardless.

The bright light grabbed his focus again and he shied away, trying to see. The shock of missing his mask was duller than before, but it still struck him all the same as the heat from the bulb warmed his cheek. He was missing his wet gi too, swapped for a similar gi but different. So the Not-Friends knew who he was- 

Wait. They'd been calling him Kai all week. While he had his mask on. They'd known the whole time.

He really was an idiot.

An overwhelming fear pressed down on his chest: that if they knew his identity, then they might know his friend's true identities- and why shouldn't they, if there was a Not-Nya and a Not-Cole and a Not-Zane and a Not-Jay. They knew.

He had to double-check the scarf colour. Nope. Still yellow. Or- or was that just the lightbulb? What if... what if...

The violent shivers were more than just from the cold.

"Hey. We know you're awake." 

Red startled, squinting under the light. "W-Wh-h-o...?"

The light moved, thankfully not blinding him as much, and he caught sight of Not-Cole and Not-Zane sitting in front of him. His first thought, instead of panic, was again at how weird Not-Cole looked without the headband. The hair was so different. Not-Zane looked similar to Zane, but for him it was his eyes that were wrong, nothing like the bright arctic blue LED pupils of his friend. 

"Kai Smith," Not-Zane said, his tone neutral. Much too neutral.

"Otherwise known as the Doppelgänger in the Red Suit," Not-Cole added. In front of him was a cup of some steaming drink- tea, maybe, or hot cocoa.

Not-Zane tilted the light again. "We would like some information regarding who you work for, 'Kai'."

Red clammed up immediately, stubbornness and determination locking his jaw shut despite the clatter of his teeth from the ocean shivers.

The ocean-

No, no, shove it away. Worry about it later. He needed to focus. He would not give up any information about Master Wu or the other ninja. No matter what happened, he wasn't spilling a word.

Not-Cole pushed the drink toward him. "We have a cup of hot tea that could warm you up."

The 'if you want to talk' was heavily implied. 

Red remained silent. Don't get him wrong, the temptation of warmth was nearly overpowering. It felt as though the chills of the oc- the unnamed  had seeped into his very soul, like a wave trying to douse a candle held in a fragile bubble of glass. 

He knew the shivers were a good sign; it meant he was warm enough that his body kept shivering. 

Despite the offer, Red refused. He stared at the ground- they were inside the dull of the ship, probably- and didn't spare a peep.

"Look," Not- Cole said, and suddenly he was a lot closer. His tight frown held agitation and defensiveness, but his eyes help flickers of concern. "We just want to know who you are and why you tried to kidnap Lloyd."

"K-Kai-i S-Sm-mit-th-h," was the only answer Red gave them, the answer they already knew. 

The answer didn't seem to satisfy the two Not-Friends. Not-Cole put one hand on Red's shoulder- FSM's sake, did this guy rock-climb or something up literal mountains? He was built, and it was honestly a little intimidating up close. 

"I don't think he's gonna tell us," Not-Cole said, turning to look at Not-Zane. "Not like this."

Not-Zane stood and joined Not-Cole on Red's other side, holding the lamp in his hands now. "It is concerning... Aside from the possibility he is still disoriented from hypothermia, which does not appear to be the case as his temperature is steadily starting to recover, he seems uncooperative. His heart rate spiked at our approach and upon first waking up, but has not changed at our words. The light hasn't found any contacts, but we can't be certain, nor do we know if the wish has improved since our first encounter. It was strong enough to separate us from the real Kai. We must be prepared for any outcome."

The real Kai? They meant Not-Kai... the supposed 'perfect version' of Red he'd been trying to impersonate for a week.

Red flinched as Not-Zane pinched his cheek suddenly. "Colour is starting to return. Blood flow is returning to normal despite not moving as much. Good. The cut from the docks is clean and stitched, and seems to have stopped bleeding. Injury wise-"

Red turned his head sharply, ignoring the dull buzzing around his neck as he did (from where he'd taken that strange green energy-like blast), and bit Not-Zane's hand.

Ow. Ow, ow, he was an idiot, Not-Zane was still made of metal- skin-like metal, yes, but still metal. Anything past the softer material layer hurt his teeth.

Still, Not-Zane yanked his hand back. His tone turned a little clipped, more on the side of caution and slight hostility like earlier. "Attitude-wise, some similarities with the doubles."

"Hey," Not-Cole almost barked out. "We're trying to help you. Stop making things so difficult."

Red, of course, continued making things difficult. 

When Not-Cole got too close to his face again- too close, too close, way too close- he bared his teeth in warning. It felt... weird, fighting these people(?) who looked like his friends, but weren't. But he had to find and protect Lloyd, had to figure out how much the Not-Friends knew about his friends- his family.

Now it was Not-Cole's turn to tip closer on the hostility scale. "Zane, this guy starting to remind you of the other double? I felt bad for him before, worried even, but now I'm starting to get a little annoyed. What if they've done something with our Kai?"

Ironic, considering Red was sitting there worried they'd done something to his friends.

The room was starting to get warm. 

More thoughts of the ocean crept at the corners of his mind and he mentally shoved them away. At the same time, he physically tried to shove Not-Cole and Not-Zane away.

Red stopped shivering.

"Please, we just want to know where our friend is," Not-Zane said gently, though Red guessed it was forced. It felt forced- sounded forced- tasted forced.

That- was odd... an odd description...

Everything was getting warmer. 

"I don't- I don't know," Red spat out, blinking as his head started feeling woozy. 

Cole- no, wait, wrong hairstyle, he... it was missing something, right? What... right. The hairband. Not-Cole leaned in closer until they were face to face. His eyes had gone back to concern, and honestly the constant back and forth between worry and hostilely was sending Red's mind spinning. "Whoa, stay with us. You fell into the water and I had to pull you out."

Right, right, Cole had saved his life. 

Zane stared at him with fluorescent blue eyes- right? "Temperatures are rising at an abnormally high rate... Chances of fever are increasing. Cole, perhaps it would be wise to reassess our assessment-" 

Red tasted iron in his mouth and realized sometime during that statement he had bit his tongue. Weird. He didn't feel it. What he did feel was a clash in his chest, like his insides were both frozen and on fire at the same time, and the frozen bits were fighting the flaming bits. He didn't like how the warmth was turning to hot- was this what burning felt like?- but he had the strangest sense it was better than the cold in his system, more natural. Like something was trying to help him fight off... what was it again? Hypo... something...

Zane suddenly had his arms around him. There was the sound of air escaping vents, a tiny bit of steam in the air, and suddenly everything felt cold again. No, no, the heat was good, bring it back-

Wait. No, don't do that. The ice inside was gone- at least, he hoped- and he could think a little clearer.

Clear enough that he realized Not-Zane held him in a tight grip. Sure, it was something akin to a hug, but it was also a hold. A hold he very much wanted to break out of, so he started to struggle.

And suddenly Not-Cole was there, and damn, the guy must have an insane workout routine because his hold was just as strong as the guy secretly made of metal next to him. 

Didn't stop Red from kicking up a fuss, headbutting and flailing and biting and shouting. The two Not-Friends had him in a pretty strong grip, but he could feel the chains on his arms start to soften like putty. It took a wiggle, a sharp turn, and-

Suddenly his arms were freed. He fought against the two, swinging and punching and clawing and aiming for eyes and joints and anything he could reach, just get him out of there, he had to find Lloyd, find the others-

Not-Cole grabbed one arm and twisted it to the side as Not-Zane grabbed his other arm. And the arm that Not-Cole grabbed... it burned. The next yell out of his mouth wasn't a warning, or threat, or question, but instead just a pure yelp of pain. He pulled, and Not-Cole pulled back, saying something about '-hey bud, just calm down-'  that Red couldn't understand.

It hit him how dangerous this was. Here he was, captured, interrogated, no mask, no mech, no friends. This never happened before in a Garmadon Attack. None of them had ever been... captured like these. Of course, there had been terrifying moments- crashed mechs, broken communicators, interrupted signals, getting cornered. But they'd always still had the mask, had the knowledge that the others were close.

Red didn't even know if Lloyd was safe. All he had was the words of these Not-Friends who, while nice, were also hostile as he showed hostility back. Perhaps there was some way to deescalate the tension, just talk it out and figure out what was going on, but Red didn't have the energy to figure out what was blocking their communication. Maybe they could have talked it out. Maybe they really could've talked it out.

But now was not that moment, because a terrible ripping sensation, like tearing a piece of fabric down a seam, filled his shoulder. His arm gave a horrible, squelching pop, and suddenly the tug-o-war tension between him and Not-Cole snapped like a piece of string. The pain in his arm stopped. Stopped in such a nauseating way that it felt even worse than when it had been caught between him and Not-Cole.

The action in the room froze at once. Red slowly turned his head to see-

Where his left arm had connected to his body was just a hole. A circular hole, impossibly smooth. The scarf around it stained orange as small patches of red and yellow mixed. Wasn’t there something about an orange scarf? He couldn’t remember right now. All he could think was that Not-Cole held the rest of his detached arm.

Not-Cole held the rest of his detached arm.

Red laughed once, a hiccuped laugh he'd heard once from Jay over the comms after a particularly bad battle where his plane had crashed into the side of a building. 

Then he laughed again, more fake, like Zane when he was truly hurt and trying to hide it under the guise of being a 'normal human teen'. An icy underline, a desperate subtly to it.

Then came a silent shuttered laugh, the kind Cole did when he was scared for the group, almost missable except for a shaking of the shoulders. The kind that almost stopped the records from spinning.

And finally the laughter bubbled over like a flooding stream, a tumble head of heels in a series of rapids. Nya, trying to cover her pain with the roaring of a waterfall.

It slowed down to a strangled laugh, Lloyd trying to find an unfunny joke funny, trying to lessen the impact of words and insults and shoves and bruises. 

His arm was off. Detached. Un-socketed. 

Plain clean off.

A Tiny Spark Leads to a Roaring Flame (But Flames Can Always be Doused by Water)

Heeyyyyy so y’all know the Reverse Thanos Snap AU for SPBNR? Basically everyone but Smith/S!Kai gets sent to the M!verse. Everyone. The entire population of S!verse Ninjago City & a few surrounding areas. Except poor Smith. Essentially it happens because S!Garmadon tries to send Smith to a place where he can’t mess with his plans, and ends up sending everyone away from Smith to take him out of the equation. 

The second part to this AU is that the S!Ninja end up searching for Kai in the chaos and grab the Red Ninja before jetting out of there with the Bounty. Except… they didn’t grab Smith (who’s still home), but rather Red (M!Kai).

Red thinks the S!Ninja are babysitter clones created by Garmadon after he somehow turned Lloyd younger without his memories & is trying to raise him to be his new General #1. With this in mind, he pretends to be S!Kai, and waits for the moment he can rescue Lloyd.

What would happen in the S!Ninja discovered his deception/their mistake of grabbing a wrong Kai and mistake Red for a recreated Aki (aka Bizarro Evil Clone Kai) before he could enact his plan?

Well, this is that idea. (Title inspired by how a crack AU spiralled into a beautiful angst-fest)

Enjoy. :3

—–*—–

Red was going to get Lloyd out of here tonight. 

Away from these Not-Friends made by Garmadon to emulate the Ninjaforce. Away from this flying ship built to emulate Master Wu’s ship, so familiar and yet so off. Away from this false reality and back to the real everything where they could hopefully get his memories back and his age back and everything back to the way it was before the city descended into chaos.

He just had to… bide his time. Be patient. 

FSM, he was bad at being patient. 

His hands itched to grab Lloyd and run now, but he was horribly outnumbered and without his mech. No matter how badly he wanted to, he couldn’t rush this. If he did, he would make everything worse. Like he always did.

But fate- or rather, Lloyd- had other plans.

The little version of his younger brother- yes, they were roughly the same age normally, shut up, Lloyd was still his younger brother- had been… eying him weird all morning. Not like Not-Jay and Not-Cole and Not-Zane, but like Not-Nya. Like he actually knew instead of suspected. These babysitter clones seemed to think he was the Not-Kai, and if that was the opportunity the universe was going to give him, then by the flames of the departed world was he going to skip this chance to save Lloyd.

Currently he stood on the deck of the ship as they parked in the sky a few meters above the docks on the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t the docks with the Bounty warehouse, curse his luck, but it wasn’t the endless sky or the empty ocean (though it was still too close to that murky, haunting water for his liking. Water was his sister’s domain for a reason). At least he could sneak Lloyd off in the cover of night, maybe find someone in the city who wouldn’t recognize the Son of Garmadon this way and would be willing to help them hide until they could make it back to the real ninja.

“Kai,” Not-Zane spoke suddenly next to him. 

Red would never get used to the way his voice… lacked the same effect the real Zane’s had. The effect that Kai and the rest of his team had assured their friend over and over was unique, special, but in a good way. To embrace it. That it wasn’t noticeable, but when it was, that it was so Zane that his friends didn’t care that it was different. 

This ‘Zane’ sounded much too different than his own. He hadn’t recognized Kai’s tested line of ‘road work ahead’ when they passed one of the many construction signs littering the city (even more so since the chaos happened a week ago), and instead had responded with 'a great deal of work to fix in the city’. 

Seriously, Garmadon, do better research on your clones.

Not-Zane was also much too… calm. Too 'wise’ compared to the wild teen that was Zane. And he walked without heelies or whatever Zane used to slide around like a boss, though he was still silent. And that meant, like now, he snuck up on Red fairly often- and Red was training to be a Ninja, so that took serious talent. 

“Kai,” Not-Zane said again, and Red finally broke his gaze from where he’d been staring over the railing, planning tonight’s escape route. “Lunch has been made for over an hour. Are you alright?”

Red forced his brightest smile. “Course I’m alright! Just trying to figure out what happened, as usual.”

Why Lloyd was suddenly like, 8, and without his memories. Why the Not-Friends were on this Not-Ship and had mistaken him for Not-Kai. Why the city was in a state of disarray and chaos. 

Not-Zane studied him, then turned to give the city a sad look. “I’m not sure myself. My scanners can’t seem to figure out what is happening. It is as if… blocked by some force.”

Red winced, then expertly disguised the move by leaning against the rail. Zane never would use 'my scanners’, despite how often Red and the others assured him it was okay. Yet another reason why this wasn’t his friend.

“You know Ninjago City,” Red said with a weak laugh. “Always one crisis or another. Always those annoying Garmadon Attacks”

This seemed to satisfy Not-Zane, who nodded thoughtfully. “This event definitely seems to have Garmadon’s hand in the mess.”

He patted Red on the back. “Well, don’t worry yourself ragged, Kai. Come in for lunch soon, alright? We have training for Lloyd later.”

Ah, right. Training. AKA what Red assumed was how Garmadon was planning to shape this impressionable version of his friend into his new General #1.  

“I’m ready for training now, Zane!”

Speaking of Lloyd- 

The little gremlin came up from the hull with the rest of the Not-Ninja. Red hated when the entire group was together; it was way more difficult to act as Not-Kai around them, especially around Not-Nya. 

For starters, Not-Jay had a notch in his eyebrow that the real Jay never had. He was missing the iconic freckles, and the scarf, and the fluffy hair, though you could always say it was just a wardrobe change. What you couldn’t change was the personality differences. This couldn’t be Jay. Jay was anxious and quiet, his jokes (while plentiful) said more timidly and his newest ideas shared with hesitance that only shrank after years of encouragement. He would never be this loud, ever. 

Not-Cole was the leader, probably because Lloyd was so young. But even then, in Red’s team, Nya would probably take second-command. Cole was their sturdy support, yes, but he was chill, laid-back. Ready to follow and support his friends to the ends of the earth with his tunes and occasional sarcastic wit, but not lead. Not like Not-Cole, who was more serious and commanding and didn’t. listen. to. music. Red hadn’t spotted a single record or boombox in the room in the hull. That was a tragic oversight on Garmadon’s part. The members of his research team should be Fired.

And then there was Not-Nya. Who wore a dress with confidence that his sister would love but never publicly wear. Who had short hair- Nya had tried that style once, and decided it itched around her neck too much- and jewelry, and a giant flying Samurai mech suit. His sister had the Water Strider Mech, and Not-Nya had a flying combat suit. Sure. Close enough. Personality-wise they were similar. 

Similar at first glance. Nya was fluid and adaptable to whatever role she needed filling. She was spunky, and as fiery as him when it came to tempers, though she knew how to keep hers in check (she had to, right? No one called her hot-headed and impulsive and reckless and blamed her temper for mistakes or damage or whatever the news comments liked to say about the Fire Mech). Not-Nya was also adaptable and independent-minded, but she seemed more rigid. More doing her own thing. 

Point was, everyone wasn’t actually his friends, despite how much they tried to prove they were. And they kept acting like he was this Not-Kai, who was just as hot-headed but apparently more mature and training-oriented and basically the better, cooler (or hotter, perhaps, for the fire theme of the red ninja) him, since his acting never seemed to fully convince them. Trying to impersonate a standard he couldn’t seem to reach, some legendary hero he wasn’t- er, wasn’t yet! Yeah! He just needed to prove himself, be better, and he’d be fine. Just… fine. Yeah.

Mini-Lloyd (Red was tempted to call him L'ilyod in his head, but that felt wrong somehow, like he was infringing on some kind of copyright law) stared at him like a goddamn falcon, and he wasn’t talking about the bird that circled the ship. He had this bowl-cut Red would tease him about endlessly after all this was over- seriously, how had Mr. Fabulous Hair started with this mess? Garmadon probably didn’t even have hair, so there was no way the guy knew how to style it, and it was very evident based on Mini-Lloyd’s hairdo. 

Red noticed that all of them were staring, actually. Despite his relaxed rest against the rails, his fingers behind his back clutched the cool bar with a dull shake. He didn’t notice how the metal seemed to glow red under his touch. 

“Training, right, we should get onto that,” Red tried. “What do you want to start with, Lloyd?“ 

"How about a little game?” Lloyd asked with complete innocence. “What we were playing last week before we got interrupted.”

Oh sh!t. 

“I-I don’t know, shouldn’t we start with stretches? Or how about some sparring, that’s always more fun than a game!”

“But I wanted to continue our game…” Mini Lloyd said, and FSM’s sake, he couldn’t deal with that pouting look.

Okay. Okay, don’t panic. Think logically. What kind of game would an 8-year-old Lloyd like to play with him? Something physical, so no board games- he liked to test his mettle against Zane on those, and sometimes he would almost not-lose. Logic puzzles also fell more on Jay’s area. Trivia, especially music trivia, was a bubble between the anxious motormouth and Cole. Video games fell on team building, and wouldn’t classify as a training warmup.

“Well,” Red said, taking a hopeful stab in the dark. “There’s not too much space on the deck for… tag…”

Lloyd nodded, looking satisfied. The Not-Ninja looked- well, their expressions were hard to read because of how different it was compared to his friends. But Red was a master of deception (well, fire, but eh, technicalities), and he had them fooled, and he just had to keep it up until nightfall so he could rescue Lloyd and explain in a safe location-

“HE’S NOT KAI!”

Orrrrr improvise. Okay, yep, he could improvise. 

Red lunged forward and grabbed Mini Lloyd’s wrist from where he had his hand extended in an accusatory point. He ducked under Not-Jay’s attempts to grab him- fast, but not as fast as his Jay, his Jay who could disappear from an awkward social interaction in the span of a flickering lightbulb- and dragged his younger brother with him as he vaulted over the railing. Not-Zane almost managed to yank him back onto the Not-ship, but his icy grip caught only empty air as Red pulled Lloyd into a tight hold and ducked.

He hit the dock below with a stumble, rolling back onto his feet and taking off with a very stubborn green ninja in tow. It took all his strength to drag Lloyd (kicking and screaming like he was being kidnapped or something when Red was just trying to rescue him, for FSM’s sake. Lloyd didn’t know that, but he could still try to be at least a little more considerate.)

The wooden docks creaked and shuddered underfoot and Red grimaced; whoever rebuilt them after the latest Garmadon attack had shredded them like newspaper clearly hadn’t wasted any unnecessary change. It certainly didn’t help that Lloyd packed quite the punch for someone so small. Red definitely would come out of this with bruised shins and arms from where Mini Lloyd tried to push him away, but it would be worth it to keep his teammate, his younger brother, safe.

Then green filled his vision and broke his hold on Lloyd’s wrist, sending him skidding across the dock planks as he was sent flying. When he finally rolled to a stop, neck and shoulder stinging from where the blast had caught him (no burns, just jitters like he’d been shocked), he had to take a few seconds to re-orient himself. Did the Not-Ship have cannons or something? What hit him from behind, so close it could have hit Lloyd?

Lloyd. Was Lloyd okay?

Red pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the bleeding scrapes on his hands and legs from where he’d gotten banged up by the splintered docks. His gaze, sharp and frantic, searched for signs of green. The warning of more blasts, the flash of the fabric of a gi, anything.

He spotted his brother in the arms of Not-Cole. No, no, no-

And suddenly Not-Nya was there, given a boost by Not-Jay. Her grip was as if she were wearing the robotic mech suit, harsh and powerful and near in-human. She threw Red back to the dock floor as her face twisted with the fury of a storming ocean. A resounding crack rang out over the harbour.

Red couldn’t tell if it came from the planks under him or his own shoulder.

She pinned him to the wood, barking accusations and threats in his face faster than Not-Jay could talk. Red blinked through a haze of pain, trying to focus on her face and words. She was missing the beauty mark on her face, he noticed. Yet another tell she wasn’t his sister.

“-scar on the wrong side-” And it was hard to hear again over the ringing in his ears. He tried to throw her off, get back to Lloyd, anything, but he was-

Useless. 

Her hands suddenly got in his face, slamming his left cheek to the wood. She was close- close to his face, close to his eye, close to his scar- pushing and prying as she tried to do something. Red picked up in his struggling, his attempts to free himself turning to desperate shoves and wild clawing like a trapped animal. He wouldn’t let this creation of Garmadon’s finish the job that teen had started all those years ago. 

“Or better yet, he needs to shut his damn mouth.”

The flash of a knife. His vision half-blurry. Blood- so much blood- and a lasting scar.

“-contacts-” “-red-” “-struggling-” “-we know what he- it- is already-” “-not the real Kai-” “-wish-” “-Garmadon-”

He had to get away. Get Lloyd away from them now.

In one surge of strength- and yep, his shoulder definitely wasn’t okay after that move, as if he’d ripped it not just from its socket but from its very attachment to his body- he knocked Not-Nya aside. If he could’ve seen through the red haze, he might have noticed red embers dancing around his fingertips as his desperation and fear tapped into something deep in his soul.

He tried to shoot to his feet, tried to run for Lloyd (held so tight in Not-Cole’s grip, surely they were hurting him, he couldn’t let that happen-). He roared, “LEAVE MY BROTHER ALONE!”, but before he could take another step through Not-Jay and Not-Zane in his path, the docks gave one last ominous shudder  before deciding it had finally had enough.

The planks crumbled underfoot like charred firewood in a crackling campfire, and Red was sent tumbling into the frigid ocean water below.

Hey look, there’s a part four :3

Tw/blood, panic

Sorry Red, it’ll hopefully get better soon? Also please don’t kidnap- oh. Well. That’s certainly not going to help the misunderstanding. 

And before you say Red’s stunt is impossible, may I remind you of the scene in the movie where he fully picks up and carries M!Cole for a good distance while sprinting. Thank you, canon, for making angst possible :D

-------------------------------------------------------

Cole was 95% sure arms weren't supposed to come off like that. 

The only reason it wasn't at 100 was because Zane's arm had detached once while he was following the different controls on the blueprints, and it had been somewhat similar, except there had still been wires, and connectors, and anything but just a smooth hole.

The guy wasn't a nindroid. Which meant Cole was holding an actual arm that he'd just pulled off.

Cole was holding an actual arm that he'd just pulled off.

He yelped and fumbled with it, shoving it into Zane's arms in a panic. Zane, in turn, just stared in utter shock. If this were a humorous situation, which it defiantly was not, he (or maybe Jay, he always tried for a joke, especially when he was nervous, which was always), might have attempted a 'wow Zane, I can almost see the error message behind your eyes.' He was pretty sure he had the same message in his head, because normal arms did not just come off like that.

The Fake Kai (or Red, as Cole had been calling him internally, for Real E'ffing Difficult) was still laughing, or maybe crying, or both. Cole wanted to help him breath, but he had no clue what to do, and he was still panicking himself, especially since Zane had just handed him the arm back.

"Did you guys get it to talk ye-"

Cole panicked, okay. He turned and accidentally threw the arm at the same time, which meant Nya caught it as she entered the room. She, in turn, took one look at it, looked at Fake Red Kai, looked back at the arm, screamed, and threw it back at Cole. He threw it at Zane, who threw it back at Jay, and now there were definitely more screaming. 

And now they were playing hot potato with an arm. The poor Fake Kai, possible evil clone or no. 

"What the HELL DID YOU GUYS DO?" Nya yelled.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Cole yelled back. "I- We- it was just an interrogation, and then a bit of a struggle and suddenly it just came off in the fight!"

"Right, because that's such a normal thing to happen." Jay, on cue. "Because it's so normal for something like this to happen. For someone's ARM TO COME OFF, PEOPLE!"

The fight continued for several more minutes.

“Alright, alright, let's just... figure this out," Zane finally said. "We- we can handle this. It came off so easily. It should go back on easily too, right?"

Cole's face paled. "Guys-"

“Again, I think we’re forgetting that this isn’t some scrape or bruise but an ARM!” Jay shot back. His agitation came from his panic. 

“Guys-“ “An arm that Cole shouldn’t have been able to pull off that way, Master of Earth or not,” Zane countered, his hands trembling. “We might as well try to put it back on, because whatever magic the wish did-” “Guys, I think that might be real difficult right now.”

Everyone turned to see what Cole was pointing to. The chains lay in smoking heaps around the empty chair.

Red was gone.

-------------------------------------------------------

Red was genuinely not having a good time. 

Wow. Understatement of the century, considering he was missing a goddamn arm.

Right. Focus. Focus, focus, focus.

Please FSM just let him focus this once, let him be useful this once, because he could not afford to make everything worse again right now. Not when he needed to get out, get Lloyd out, and get back to the others.

Everything else could wait. The- the worries, the oc... the ocean, the a-r-m... it could wait. No matter how much worse it made later, he needed to make now a little more bearable.

He needed to get to Lloyd.

The chains had fallen away from his legs while all the Not-Friends were arguing about his arm and he'd slipped off the chair, biting into his other only hand for a moment to keep his breathing quiet before switching to using the fabric of the fake similar gi. He crawled across the floor- honestly, it was a miracle no one saw him, considering his previous stealth records, but it was probably because of the other flash of red being flung around the room at high speeds.

When he made it through the door, he bolted. His sneakers (his Zane would make a joke out of it, surely, and that made him miss his real friends so much more, missed the memes, missed the inside jokes, missed Zane’s in-zane moves and stunts and presence) muffled the sound as he stepped down the hallway. He didn't allow himself to take fearful glances over his right shoulder in case he tripped or fell or made too much noise or something that caught the Not-Friends attention because honestly they were so goddamn terrifying, especially Not-Cole and Not-Nya and he really had to stop thinking and just go back to impulse. Yes. Impulse. He was good at impulse.

He stumbled upon the open door by accident, in a way, though he was glad it was unlocked because his hand was shaking so bad he might not have been able to open it otherwise.

Lloyd. Lloyd, lying still and not moving, knocked out or worse-

Red was running on pure adrenaline right now, a burning worry that consumed all of his pain and worries and fear. The nauseating feeling of emptiness in his shoulder both subsided and pulsed, a lack of pain yet shocks that racked his nerves and spread throughout his upper body. 

He scooped up Lloyd- Lloyd, so still, was he okay? Had they hurt him? If they'd hurt him, he'd burn this f!cking Not-Ship to the ground- and carefully balanced him onto his back. The kid was mercifully light, enough that he was able to carry him with one arm in an odd mix of piggyback and fireman's carry. It took one terrifying long minute to secure the kid using the scarf- thank the First Master that he was ambidextrous and that the wall offered enough support- but he was ready to go.

The sounds of shouting down the hall were starting to lessen.

And the overwhelming flood of panic slammed into the edges of his mind. He was a high schooler. Lloyd was- normally- a high schooler. They weren't... this wasn't... he- breathing- sppiiiinnng- lig ht-   f    u̸  c̴̕

k̴̡͗͐́

Red slapped himself in the face with one hand. He had to keep it together for Lloyd for just a little while longer. He- he could do this. Right. He was determined. He was impulsive. He was- he was the Red Ninja. He got this!

He carried Lloyd out of the room, muttering “I got you, bro, I got you,” over and over again. Hopefully, it would reassure Lloyd. It reassured him, a mantra to keep going.

It was when he was standing on the deck that he realized two problems.

The sound of yelling had completely stopped, and not just because he was out of earshot.

How the hell was he going to use the ladder.

The answer to the second problem, apparently, was to say ‘screw it’ and parkour his way down. He may have sucked at the ‘stealth’ part of ninjaing, but he was surprisingly good at the ‘move around real cool’ part. Granted, he’d never tried with a child slung over his back and his centre of gravity thrown off, but it was amazing how much the sound of footsteps echoing toward him could propel him.

He was further than last time before the first shout of alarm raised behind him. The cry nearly had him stumble into the same hole in the dock but he leapt over it the ocean closing over his head, the horrible thought of sinking this time too deep for Not-Cole to pull him out as the space where his arm was filled with water- and kept running.

He’d gotten caught last time and lost an- an- f!ck, he felt nauseous, bile rising in the back of his throat-

He couldn’t get caught again. Not when they could hurt Lloyd instead. 

The horrible idea of Lloyd, young or normal, lying there with a missing arm. With that void-like hold in his side where his shoulder was.

He. Would. Not. Let. It. Happen.

Red had the added advantage of time and knowledge of the city. He burst off the docks, sprinting for the nearest alley so hard he slipped and banged into the side of it. The jarring motion sent shocks up and down his chest, so sudden his lungs almost, almost managed to constrict on him, but he forced air down his throat and kept running. Left, right, another right, left and straight, just away.

He had no idea that the void had started dripping blood, a spotted crimson trail starting at the wooden docks, splashed across the wall of the entrance of the alley, and sporadic in its placement along the concrete ground. 

Halfway into the city. He rushed past people as they whipped their heads around to stare after him, some random city-goers, others as if from another world. More people than usual- more strange people, so nobody tried to stop him. Those that even paid him enough attention only did so out of bewilderment, not able to see enough of what was going on to be concerned. 

He ducked into a side alley and climbed up the dumpster. His breath came in steamed puffs, lungs heaving and- 

Oh. His lungs weren’t the only thing heaving.

He climbed out of the alleyway onto a roof a minute later, wiping the taste of bile from his mouth with one sleeve before continuing. His head spun, spun and spun and spun like some kind of record, which made him think of Cole, and how much he missed him, and how much he needed a steady rock right now, a calming beat, something- 

Not-Cole pinning him, yanking his arm to the side, back, sharp, pulling, ripping, popping-

He kept running. 

His legs burned; not a good burn, a ‘you’re gonna collapse soon’ burn. His breath came in wheezed gasps at this point, each punctured by another drip of red soaking into the once-yellow scarf. The scarf (and Lloyd, draped across his back and still miraculously asleep) was the only thing keeping the, uh, ‘wound’ from view, thanks to the lack of sleeves of the baggy tank. The black fabric did well to hide the trails of red snaking down his side like water running down a cliffside. 

All this running sent a pang through his heart, yet another feverous stab of longing for his friends. This time he thought of Jay, and how he could keep running and going for miles as if he’d never run out of energy, the same way he could run his mouth in an endearing way for hours if given the space and support to. FSM, to have Jay’s endless energy right now.

Oh f!ck, were the edges of his vision going blurry? Nonono, he couldn’t- 

He slammed into a roof ventilation system and stumbled back, reeling. Lloyd slipped from his back and he had to awkwardly readjust as the scarf tightened around his chest and throat, ow, nope, not fun, not fun-

With a yank on the fabric, Lloyd was pushed back into a cartable position. Red rubbed at the skin of his neck- holy FSM, was that a burn? He never got those. How- right. The green energy thing. It felt more like a weird mixture of torn and rippled skin, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be an icy ridge, a blackened bruise, lichtenburg-like scars, or a fiery burn. 

Great. Just great. Boy, he was so grateful for his string of luck. Totally grateful. 

Screw this week. Actually, screw this day in particular. There wasn’t any way he could jinx it worse at this point if he said it couldn’t get any wor-

A flash of blue and white somewhere behind him.

Red bolted from the roof, tumbling down the fire escape with blind panic as the only thing he could see before his eyes was a blaring red RUN outlined in bold marker. Metal collided with his skin, beams and rails and at one point the stairs themselves as he tried, but never Lloyd, no, he would take every hit before it Lloyd would get a scrape.

They were searching the city. For him. With a flying Not-Ship and a flying combat mech suit and dressed up like the-

Like the Ninja force. Even if nobody recognized Lloyd as the son of Garmadon, anyone Kai went to for help now would turn him over to them in an instant. And he was too far away from his home, from the Bounty, from any of his friend’s apartments and houses and trailer homes and- and-

Stupid broken comm. 

How had they found him? Sure, they were still fanning out and searching, but how had they narrowed down the area so quickly? They- they couldn’t be that good, or else he’d never- he’d- he’d never-

He looked up and froze. Oh. Maybe the kaleidoscope of red blood, like rust on the dark steel, painting the fire escape had something to do with it. He’d been leaving a scattered trail throughout the whole city. The only saving grace was that most spots weren’t that bad, with only major patches even visible, but it wouldn’t buy him enough time if he couldn’t find a safe spot for him and Lloyd.

The blare of engines in the sky got him back to his feet and moving again, ignoring how his upper body was ablaze with- to call it pain wasn’t accurate. It was like the false sense of pain, nerves firing confused signals of shocks and sharp tingling. Each step only irritated the feeling more, pounding at the edge of his vision. 

He was pretty sure he’d started hallucinating slightly because he started seeing his sister everywhere. On her bike, sitting on the ledge of the rooftop, standing by the bubble tea line- even with the city in chaos from whatever happened last week, stalls like that were still going strong. FSM, he missed his twin. He could really use her right now. He’d give anything- he’d make a joke about his arm, but it felt too soon- to see her right now. But she wasn’t here, and he shook off the hallucinations. 

Just one familiar, friendly face. Please. Someone to help him right now, because his legs were starting to fail, and his lungs didn’t want to take in any more air, and he just wanted to go home, please FSM, let him just go home-

He crashed into someone. 

For one terrifying second, as he scrambled to catch Lloyd as he fell off, he thought it was Not-Jay. All he saw was brown hair and blue. No, no, please, h-he couldn’t, h-he co-ul -dn’ t b re- a th e-

“-ai? KAI!”

He snapped back to focus, lungs still choking on air, every muscle screaming and shouting at him to stop, trying to centre his blurring vision. A- A familiar voice? Someone, anyone-

It wasn’t one of his friends. But it wasn’t one of the Not-Friends, either.

Standing in front of him, a disposable cup of bubble tea spilled on the ground from where it had been dropped, with a look of panic and worry, was-

…Chen?

A Tiny Spark Leads to a Roaring Flame (But Flames Can Always be Doused by Water)

Heeyyyyy so y’all know the Reverse Thanos Snap AU for SPBNR? Basically everyone but Smith/S!Kai gets sent to the M!verse. Everyone. The entire population of S!verse Ninjago City & a few surrounding areas. Except poor Smith. Essentially it happens because S!Garmadon tries to send Smith to a place where he can’t mess with his plans, and ends up sending everyone away from Smith to take him out of the equation. 

The second part to this AU is that the S!Ninja end up searching for Kai in the chaos and grab the Red Ninja before jetting out of there with the Bounty. Except… they didn’t grab Smith (who’s still home), but rather Red (M!Kai).

Red thinks the S!Ninja are babysitter clones created by Garmadon after he somehow turned Lloyd younger without his memories & is trying to raise him to be his new General #1. With this in mind, he pretends to be S!Kai, and waits for the moment he can rescue Lloyd.

What would happen in the S!Ninja discovered his deception/their mistake of grabbing a wrong Kai and mistake Red for a recreated Aki (aka Bizarro Evil Clone Kai) before he could enact his plan?

Well, this is that idea. (Title inspired by how a crack AU spiralled into a beautiful angst-fest)

Enjoy. :3

—–*—–

Red was going to get Lloyd out of here tonight. 

Away from these Not-Friends made by Garmadon to emulate the Ninjaforce. Away from this flying ship built to emulate Master Wu’s ship, so familiar and yet so off. Away from this false reality and back to the real everything where they could hopefully get his memories back and his age back and everything back to the way it was before the city descended into chaos.

He just had to… bide his time. Be patient. 

FSM, he was bad at being patient. 

His hands itched to grab Lloyd and run now, but he was horribly outnumbered and without his mech. No matter how badly he wanted to, he couldn’t rush this. If he did, he would make everything worse. Like he always did.

But fate- or rather, Lloyd- had other plans.

The little version of his younger brother- yes, they were roughly the same age normally, shut up, Lloyd was still his younger brother- had been… eying him weird all morning. Not like Not-Jay and Not-Cole and Not-Zane, but like Not-Nya. Like he actually knew instead of suspected. These babysitter clones seemed to think he was the Not-Kai, and if that was the opportunity the universe was going to give him, then by the flames of the departed world was he going to skip this chance to save Lloyd.

Currently he stood on the deck of the ship as they parked in the sky a few meters above the docks on the outskirts of the city. It wasn’t the docks with the Bounty warehouse, curse his luck, but it wasn’t the endless sky or the empty ocean (though it was still too close to that murky, haunting water for his liking. Water was his sister’s domain for a reason). At least he could sneak Lloyd off in the cover of night, maybe find someone in the city who wouldn’t recognize the Son of Garmadon this way and would be willing to help them hide until they could make it back to the real ninja.

“Kai,” Not-Zane spoke suddenly next to him. 

Red would never get used to the way his voice… lacked the same effect the real Zane’s had. The effect that Kai and the rest of his team had assured their friend over and over was unique, special, but in a good way. To embrace it. That it wasn’t noticeable, but when it was, that it was so Zane that his friends didn’t care that it was different. 

This ‘Zane’ sounded much too different than his own. He hadn’t recognized Kai’s tested line of ‘road work ahead’ when they passed one of the many construction signs littering the city (even more so since the chaos happened a week ago), and instead had responded with ‘a great deal of work to fix in the city’. 

Seriously, Garmadon, do better research on your clones.

Not-Zane was also much too… calm. Too 'wise’ compared to the wild teen that was Zane. And he walked without heelies or whatever Zane used to slide around like a boss, though he was still silent. And that meant, like now, he snuck up on Red fairly often- and Red was training to be a Ninja, so that took serious talent. 

“Kai,” Not-Zane said again, and Red finally broke his gaze from where he’d been staring over the railing, planning tonight’s escape route. “Lunch has been made for over an hour. Are you alright?”

Red forced his brightest smile. “Course I’m alright! Just trying to figure out what happened, as usual.”

Why Lloyd was suddenly like, 8, and without his memories. Why the Not-Friends were on this Not-Ship and had mistaken him for Not-Kai. Why the city was in a state of disarray and chaos. 

Not-Zane studied him, then turned to give the city a sad look. “I’m not sure myself. My scanners can’t seem to figure out what is happening. It is as if… blocked by some force.”

Red winced, then expertly disguised the move by leaning against the rail. Zane never would use 'my scanners’, despite how often Red and the others assured him it was okay. Yet another reason why this wasn’t his friend.

“You know Ninjago City,” Red said with a weak laugh. “Always one crisis or another. Always those annoying Garmadon Attacks”

This seemed to satisfy Not-Zane, who nodded thoughtfully. “This event definitely seems to have Garmadon’s hand in the mess.”

He patted Red on the back. “Well, don’t worry yourself ragged, Kai. Come in for lunch soon, alright? We have training for Lloyd later.”

Ah, right. Training. AKA what Red assumed was how Garmadon was planning to shape this impressionable version of his friend into his new General #1.  

“I’m ready for training now, Zane!”

Speaking of Lloyd- 

The little gremlin came up from the hull with the rest of the Not-Ninja. Red hated when the entire group was together; it was way more difficult to act as Not-Kai around them, especially around Not-Nya. 

For starters, Not-Jay had a notch in his eyebrow that the real Jay never had. He was missing the iconic freckles, and the scarf, and the fluffy hair, though you could always say it was just a wardrobe change. What you couldn’t change was the personality differences. This couldn’t be Jay. Jay was anxious and quiet, his jokes (while plentiful) said more timidly and his newest ideas shared with hesitance that only shrank after years of encouragement. He would never be this loud, ever. 

Not-Cole was the leader, probably because Lloyd was so young. But even then, in Red’s team, Nya would probably take second-command. Cole was their sturdy support, yes, but he was chill, laid-back. Ready to follow and support his friends to the ends of the earth with his tunes and occasional sarcastic wit, but not lead. Not like Not-Cole, who was more serious and commanding and didn’t. listen. to. music. Red hadn’t spotted a single record or boombox in the room in the hull. That was a tragic oversight on Garmadon’s part. The members of his research team should be Fired.

And then there was Not-Nya. Who wore a dress with confidence that his sister would love but never publicly wear. Who had short hair- Nya had tried that style once, and decided it itched around her neck too much- and jewelry, and a giant flying Samurai mech suit. His sister had the Water Strider Mech, and Not-Nya had a flying combat suit. Sure. Close enough. Personality-wise they were similar. 

Similar at first glance. Nya was fluid and adaptable to whatever role she needed filling. She was spunky, and as fiery as him when it came to tempers, though she knew how to keep hers in check (she had to, right? No one called her hot-headed and impulsive and reckless and blamed her temper for mistakes or damage or whatever the news comments liked to say about the Fire Mech). Not-Nya was also adaptable and independent-minded, but she seemed more rigid. More doing her own thing. 

Point was, everyone wasn’t actually his friends, despite how much they tried to prove they were. And they kept acting like he was this Not-Kai, who was just as hot-headed but apparently more mature and training-oriented and basically the better, cooler (or hotter, perhaps, for the fire theme of the red ninja) him, since his acting never seemed to fully convince them. Trying to impersonate a standard he couldn’t seem to reach, some legendary hero he wasn’t- er, wasn’t yet! Yeah! He just needed to prove himself, be better, and he’d be fine. Just… fine. Yeah.

Mini-Lloyd (Red was tempted to call him L'ilyod in his head, but that felt wrong somehow, like he was infringing on some kind of copyright law) stared at him like a goddamn falcon, and he wasn’t talking about the bird that circled the ship. He had this bowl-cut Red would tease him about endlessly after all this was over- seriously, how had Mr. Fabulous Hair started with this mess? Garmadon probably didn’t even have hair, so there was no way the guy knew how to style it, and it was very evident based on Mini-Lloyd’s hairdo. 

Red noticed that all of them were staring, actually. Despite his relaxed rest against the rails, his fingers behind his back clutched the cool bar with a dull shake. He didn’t notice how the metal seemed to glow red under his touch. 

“Training, right, we should get onto that,” Red tried. “What do you want to start with, Lloyd?“ 

“How about a little game?” Lloyd asked with complete innocence. “What we were playing last week before we got interrupted.”

Oh sh!t. 

“I-I don’t know, shouldn’t we start with stretches? Or how about some sparring, that’s always more fun than a game!”

“But I wanted to continue our game…” Mini Lloyd said, and FSM’s sake, he couldn’t deal with that pouting look.

Okay. Okay, don’t panic. Think logically. What kind of game would an 8-year-old Lloyd like to play with him? Something physical, so no board games- he liked to test his mettle against Zane on those, and sometimes he would almost not-lose. Logic puzzles also fell more on Jay’s area. Trivia, especially music trivia, was a bubble between the anxious motormouth and Cole. Video games fell on team building, and wouldn’t classify as a training warmup.

“Well,” Red said, taking a hopeful stab in the dark. “There’s not too much space on the deck for… tag…”

Lloyd nodded, looking satisfied. The Not-Ninja looked- well, their expressions were hard to read because of how different it was compared to his friends. But Red was a master of deception (well, fire, but eh, technicalities), and he had them fooled, and he just had to keep it up until nightfall so he could rescue Lloyd and explain in a safe location-

“HE’S NOT KAI!”

Orrrrr improvise. Okay, yep, he could improvise. 

Red lunged forward and grabbed Mini Lloyd’s wrist from where he had his hand extended in an accusatory point. He ducked under Not-Jay’s attempts to grab him- fast, but not as fast as his Jay, his Jay who could disappear from an awkward social interaction in the span of a flickering lightbulb- and dragged his younger brother with him as he vaulted over the railing. Not-Zane almost managed to yank him back onto the Not-ship, but his icy grip caught only empty air as Red pulled Lloyd into a tight hold and ducked.

He hit the dock below with a stumble, rolling back onto his feet and taking off with a very stubborn green ninja in tow. It took all his strength to drag Lloyd (kicking and screaming like he was being kidnapped or something when Red was just trying to rescue him, for FSM’s sake. Lloyd didn’t know that, but he could still try to be at least a little more considerate.)

The wooden docks creaked and shuddered underfoot and Red grimaced; whoever rebuilt them after the latest Garmadon attack had shredded them like newspaper clearly hadn’t wasted any unnecessary change. It certainly didn’t help that Lloyd packed quite the punch for someone so small. Red definitely would come out of this with bruised shins and arms from where Mini Lloyd tried to push him away, but it would be worth it to keep his teammate, his younger brother, safe.

Then green filled his vision and broke his hold on Lloyd’s wrist, sending him skidding across the dock planks as he was sent flying. When he finally rolled to a stop, neck and shoulder stinging from where the blast had caught him (no burns, just jitters like he’d been shocked), he had to take a few seconds to re-orient himself. Did the Not-Ship have cannons or something? What hit him from behind, so close it could have hit Lloyd?

Lloyd. Was Lloyd okay?

Red pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the bleeding scrapes on his hands and legs from where he’d gotten banged up by the splintered docks. His gaze, sharp and frantic, searched for signs of green. The warning of more blasts, the flash of the fabric of a gi, anything.

He spotted his brother in the arms of Not-Cole. No, no, no-

And suddenly Not-Nya was there, given a boost by Not-Jay. Her grip was as if she were wearing the robotic mech suit, harsh and powerful and near in-human. She threw Red back to the dock floor as her face twisted with the fury of a storming ocean. A resounding crack rang out over the harbour.

Red couldn’t tell if it came from the planks under him or his own shoulder.

She pinned him to the wood, barking accusations and threats in his face faster than Not-Jay could talk. Red blinked through a haze of pain, trying to focus on her face and words. She was missing the beauty mark on her face, he noticed. Yet another tell she wasn’t his sister.

“-scar on the wrong side-” And it was hard to hear again over the ringing in his ears. He tried to throw her off, get back to Lloyd, anything, but he was-

Useless. 

Her hands suddenly got in his face, slamming his left cheek to the wood. She was close- close to his face, close to his eye, close to his scar- pushing and prying as she tried to do something. Red picked up in his struggling, his attempts to free himself turning to desperate shoves and wild clawing like a trapped animal. He wouldn’t let this creation of Garmadon’s finish the job that teen had started all those years ago. 

“Or better yet, he needs to shut his damn mouth.”

The flash of a knife. His vision half-blurry. Blood- so much blood- and a lasting scar.

“-contacts-” “-red-” “-struggling-” “-we know what he- it- is already-” “-not the real Kai-” “-wish-” “-Garmadon-”

He had to get away. Get Lloyd away from them now.

In one surge of strength- and yep, his shoulder definitely wasn’t okay after that move, as if he’d ripped it not just from its socket but from its very attachment to his body- he knocked Not-Nya aside. If he could’ve seen through the red haze, he might have noticed red embers dancing around his fingertips as his desperation and fear tapped into something deep in his soul.

He tried to shoot to his feet, tried to run for Lloyd (held so tight in Not-Cole’s grip, surely they were hurting him, he couldn’t let that happen-). He roared, “LEAVE MY BROTHER ALONE!”, but before he could take another step through Not-Jay and Not-Zane in his path, the docks gave one last ominous shudder  before deciding it had finally had enough.

The planks crumbled underfoot like charred firewood in a crackling campfire, and Red was sent tumbling into the frigid ocean water below.

Blog Masterpost for Ninjago & SPBNR AUs, Fics, Art, Theories, Translated Comics, etc.

Art Fight: Imp-ulsive_Artist

ART COMMISSIONS OPEN

Guess who’s learning how to operate Tumblr~~~

Gonna update this with the list of fics for easy access around my blog because I only learned today how to add the ‘read more’ button to reduce the insanely long posts when scrolling. 

You can also find things through the tags “Imp’s Writing”, “Imp’s Theories”, "Imp's AUs", “Imp’s Art”, and "Translated Ninjago Comics" (for the translated magazine comics)

Under the "keep reading" is easy-access links to all my stuff :D

Ninjago Magazine Comics Translated

Issue 85, Post-Seabound -- The Sea Monster

Issue 98, Post-Crystalized -- The Kidnapping

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General Ninjago Theories, Challenges, and AUs

The Fuchsia Ninja Theory (Movie Headcanon/Theory)

Fuchsia Ninja Pt. 2

What’s the Deal with Chen the Cheerleader? A TLNM Theory

Timeline Shuffle AU Challenge

Ninjago Focus Season Shuffle Challenge!

Vessel AU (Crystalized AU)

Other Emperors AU

Other Emperors AU 2 (Kai-Focus)

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General Ninjago Analysis, Headcanons, and Ideas

Name Lingistics Headcanons

Show vs. Movie Ninja Analysis

5 vs. 1 Ninja Analysis

Jay's a Cockroach Analysis

Jay's Powers Analysis

Lack of Elemental Dragons Analysis

Other Enemy Options

Other Enemy Options Pt. 2

The Nindroid Obsession with Tits-Out

"Ninja are Cryptids" Rumours (Headcanon)

Dragon's Rising Merge

Movieverse!Bruiseshipping Hcs

Bizarro Ninja Name Hcs

Red & Green Duo Poll Tournament Ninjago Sweep (Art)

Ninjago Fic Rec Week Day 1 - Canon &/or Lloyd

Ninjago Fic Rec Week Day 2 - Movieverse, AUs, &/or Jay

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General Ninjago (Show or Movie) Snippets

A Flipped Scar (Movie)

Movie!Ice Emperor Zane

Icedcoffee Prompt (m!Kai x s!Zane)

Kai Prompt (Show)

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Evil Ninjaforce AU

Evil Dorksquad (Art & Explanation)

Wu & Koko (Ask)

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Dorksquad Forced to be Evil AU

m!Kai of the Fire Snakes (Art)

m!Nya of the Wojira Cult (Art)

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Movieverse Detroit: Become Human AU

The Original Summary

More Rambles

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SPBNR (Same People But Not Really) Ninjago Snippets

Slip of the Tongue

Lava Fall (Old)

Lava Fall (Remastered)

The Great Camping Incident, AKA Why to Never Take Smith Camping Again

The Start of Smith ‘Shark-Pup’ Forge

The Beginning of Heatstroke, AKA Red’s Villain Origin Story

Shattered Dreams & Broken Phones (Smith Garmadon AU)

A Tiny Spark Can Lead to a Roaring Flame (But Flames Can Always Be Doused by Water) (Reverse Thanos Snap AU) Pt. 1, 3, and 4

Same Bugs (SPBNR Hollow Knight AU)

Fire Spirit (Fs! AU)

A Pair of Sunglasses (Aki/Bizarro AU)

First Arrival (Monty + Shark Pack AU)

The Great B-A-T-H Incident (Monty + Shark Pack AU)

That Time At Least Four Kais Met (SPBNR & tGiAG Kaiverse Crossover)

That Time At Least Four Kais Met (Podfic)

One Wrong Word (Calypso AU)

Watch Your Mouth (Cryptid AU)

Hush Now (Cryptid AU)

Red-Eyed Rival (Love Rival AU)

Green Gets Kidnapped (Prompt)

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Other Snippets for Other Ninjago Creators

Twig-Sprigs' Ninjago Sonic AU

demm-210's Morro & Kai Drawing

galaxyhanart's Cabinet Man AU

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My Ninjago OCs

Jayden (movie!Bizarro Jay & an Oni)

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Art of my OCs/AUs by Myself & Others

Dimitri (Mer AU) by angeldrawsstuff

Shiro (Mer AU) by angeldrawsstuff

Bruno (Mer AU) by angeldrawsstuff

Pixal (Mer AU) by angeldrawsstuff

Evil Dorksquad AU by fishybehavior

movie!verse Mural by lavandaray

Elemental Beasts AU Cyan/Nya by drawnasour-ray

Elemental Beasts AU Chen the Cheerleader by angeldrawsstuff

Kaigami (Secret Summer) by ammo0648

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Not Ninjago

Art Fight

Ace (OC)

Fire Spirit

Aye look, a snippet for the Fire Spirit Smith AU for SPBNR! 

AU context: Smith is sent to the M!verse in the form of a fire spirit (sometimes a will o’ wisp, sometimes a dragon made of flames, and sometimes as a humanoid elemental form (aka himself but on fire). This eventually becomes a buddy au with M!Nya and their adventures together, but this is a concept of how their first meeting might go...

Enjoy! 

----------*-----------

Nya Smith was late.

Of course, it wasn't her fault. Her bike, her precious baby, wouldn't start because some absolute dirtbag had been messing with it when she'd walked out of the grocery store. She'd promptly kicked their sorry behind into next week, but the damage had already been done, and it had taken her nearly an hour longer to get home. 

Luckily she'd had the foresight to call her brother, or else she would see the Fire Mech tearing frantically through the streets.

Though, judging by the column of smoke she spotted while driving her now-functioning bike, perhaps that was still an option.

Wheels skidding over concrete and asphalt, Nya pulled her bike over to what should have been a normal alleyway, if it wasn't engulfed in flames. One hand was already reaching for the backup hydro-pump she'd strapped to her bike, the other grabbing the tools to hook it up to a nearby fire hydrant. 

Before she could get far in her attempts to put it out, she spotted something. There was a distinct lump laying in the centre of the alley currently engulfed with flames.

Correction: there was a person lying in the centre of the flames.

There was a person lying in the centre of the flames.

...

OH FSM, THERE WAS A PERSON LYING IN THE CENTRE OF THE FLAMES!

Nya connected her hydro to the hydrant faster than any training attempt she'd practiced. The pressure wasn't strong, nor did a lot of water come out; more like a faulty garden hose than a genuine fire hose, but it was better than nothing. She used it to put out the flames blocking her from entering the alleyway, struggling toward the person that was starting to move.

She was about to wake them up with a splash of water when she realized they weren't on fire... it was like they were made of it.

The person(?) sat up, blinking, before staring at their hands and screaming. Nya screamed in response, which prompted the person(?) to whip around and scream again.

"WHY ARE YOU ON FIRE?!" Nya yelled, still holding the hydro.

"I DON'T KNOW!" The person(?) yelled back, stumbling to their feet. "I'M USUALLY FIREPROOF BUT NOT THIS MUCH!"

Nya was about to yell back 'WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???' when her hand slipped, splashing water over the person's foot. They leaped back with a startled hiss of pain, wisps of steam forming from where the water contacted them. 

Nya jerked back, focusing the hydro back on the alleyway. Her mind reeled with apologies, but the person shot them down immediately with a rushed "I'm okay!"

One eyebrow raised, Nya shot them an incredulous look. "You're okay. You're on fire- no, made of fire, but you're okay."

"...Yes?" The person rubbed a hand over their face. "No...? I don't know, I don't know anything, where-" Their tone grew more panicked. "Where am I? What's going on? Who-"

"Whoa, whoa, take a breather!" Nya eyed the alleyway floor, where flames licked at newspapers and trash bags and flared at the person's panic. "You're in Ninjago City, I'm not sure what's going on but I can, I don't know, help you figure it out or whatever as long as you aren't here to hurt anyone-"

She winced as hurt instantly flashed across the person's face. Okay, poor choice of words. "Here. We started on the wrong foot. Uh," she glanced at the fire making up the person's right foot, where she'd accidentally splashed them. "Literally. I'm Nya Smith."

That definitely got the person's attention. All the fire in the alleyway suddenly puffed out, leaving just a circle of embers around the person's feet. Without the haze of heat, their form was more visible; they looked to be about her age (if weird made of fire people could be teens), 'hair' spiky with jagged flames. 

"Nya...?" 

They stared at her a moment before their face morphed into a mixture of confusion and joy. "Oh FSM, am I glad to see you. Look, Garm did some crazy thing with the megaweapon, and now I'm on fire but don't panic! It doesn't hurt! A-and we can figure it out. How's Green Bean? Is he hurt? Did the snakes get him? Where's-"

Nya cut them off, a tad defensive as she clamped down on her bewilderment. "What are you talking about?"

The person put their hands to their chest, pointing to themselves. "Nya, it's me! Kai!"

...

WHAT.

Nya took a step back. "No, no, my brother is at home. You're... you're..."

The person's face crumbled with such intensity that guilt bit at Nya's throat. She swallowed hard and pulled out her phone, dialling home. "Come on, come on, pick up..."

"Nya," the person begged. "It's me! Your brother! Please, you gotta believe me. It's the megaweapon's doing-!"

"I've never heard of a megaweapon!" Nya countered, voice hitching as the phone pressed to her ear beeped in voice mail. Whazzup, you've reached the home of Kai Smith, leave a message after the FIYAH!

She had never been so panicked to hear that old dare recording. 

"I don't know who you are, but my brother isn't picking up his phone, and-"

Now it was the person's turn to look bewildered. "Phone? Nya, I don't have a phone. I have the comms, sure, but not a phone. What..." Flames erupted at their feet, growing more agitated. "What did that stupid wish do?"

Nya dialled the phone number again. "I don't know about any wish. But my brother is at home, pretending to study."

"Study? You mean train?"

Nya's gaze hardened, her mood drained even further by the second repeat of that blasted voicemail. She didn't like how that wording implied that... that this person knew about the Ninjaforce. "I meant studying. For school."

At that the person balked. "School? I- Nya, please, it's me, Kai. I don't know what's going on, or what the wish is making you believe, but it's me. Please, sis, you gotta believe me.”

Nya shook her head in denial. "The smoke is messing with your head or something. I'm not-"

"The skeleton kidnapping at our shop. The monastery. The fire temple. The Serpentine. Samurai X. The Fangblades. The Great Devourer. The megaweapon. Come on, sis, you gotta remember something. Please. Garmadon-"

"What about him, huh? Were you sent by him?"

The person jerked back as if they'd been shocked. "No! Nya, he kidnapped me while I was training with Lloyd-"

"You don't- My brother doesn't have training with Lloyd today! Or yesterday! I'm not stupid-"

"No, that's not what- URGH!" The flames roared and slammed into the alleyway walls. Nya backed up, clutching the hydro-pump. "Garmadon used the megaweapon against me! Said he was... I don't know, sending me to a place where I wouldn't pose a threat to his plans or whatever."

Nya hesitated. "Garmadon has a megaweapon? That's impossible, he would have won by now if he-"

"It can't be used to wish harm on others directly. And it drains his energy or whatever. The pirates, the evil doubles, saving the dojo with the Ninjaball run? Any of that ringing a bell? Please?"

It almost hurt to shake her head, the pleaded tone in the person's voice heart-wrenching. It wasn't hard to picture her brother using that tone in this kind of situation. And- and he wasn't answering his phone...

"It doesn't," Nya said slowly. She lowered the hydro-pump. "But… I want you to explain."

-----------------------------

Oh, and don’t worry! Red’s fine! ...probably. Maybe. Not necessarily.

:3

A little snippet that would lead into the rest of the Monty + Sharkpup SBPNR

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All Lloyd could see was gold. Bright golden sparkles, first around his eyes, then wrapping around his arms, legs, chest, brighter and brighter-

When he came to, he wasn't in his dad's lair anymore. No, the cavern walls were gone, and it was loud, and neon, and- and-

His head whipped back and forth, tears quickly pricking his eyes. He wiped them away immediately with his sleeve, but more came when he realized he was alone. Where- where was his family? The five ninja had been there- right there- rescuing him before his dad had made a wish. Where- where were they? What had his dad done?

Where was he? It kinda looked like Ninjago City, but he didn't recognize it. It was... too big. Tall. Different. He was sitting on asphalt, in the middle of an empty road. A streetlamp flickered, its twin on the opposite side of the street shattered; Lloyd must have popped the lightbulb in his panic.

O-okay, he could do this. He was a ninja now. He was strong! He could... he could figure this out! Yeah. Yeah, he just... um... had to contact the Bounty and his Uncle. A-and hope the ninja had been sent there. Yeah! O-Or find Dareth. Find the dojo. Yeah, he could do that! Find the dojo. Find the dojo. Find the- 

Whhaaaatttt are those.

A few meters away from his feet lay a pile of tiny... sharks? With legs? It was hard to tell in the lighting and with how they were tangled together, but there looked to be able five of them based on the colours Lloyd could see: red, blue, silvery white, blackish grey, and turquoise. 

Lloyd scooted back a little as the pile began to move, tiny legs and tails and fins flailing alongside high-pitched yips, barks, and growls that were mixes of pup-like and shark-like. Some kind of... pupshark. 

The red pupshark- no, wait, sharkpup sounded better- untangled first, popping out of the pile and rolling across the ground to land at Lloyd's feet. They shook themselves off rather indigently, a cloud of smoke puffing from their mouth, before they looked up.

Amberish red eyes blinked at Lloyd. Lloyd stared back. 

The red sharkpup stumbled to their feet, standing for a moment on their hindlegs before toppling over and correcting itself on four paws. They made a series of panicked, almost concerned sounding barks, then stopped. Stared at Lloyd.

What, were they asking for a response? Lloyd just stared at them back, then gave a little shrug. This was apparently the wrong- or maybe right, who knows- thing to do, because the sharkpup started yipping at him again. 

Before they could get far, a very high-pitched yelp sounded out. Lloyd rubbed at his ringing ears and looked over at the piles to see that one of the pups- the greyish black one, probably- had stepped on the tail of the blue one as they'd tried to shove each other off and untangle. The blue sharkpup was making a series of yips and barks so fast Lloyd could barely keep up.

Then there was a pause. A stretch of silence. One slow bark from the greyish black pup, almost like a question. And then the blue pup started yelping and yipping like someone had set their tail on fire or something. Something about it was strangely familiar. 

The red pup started to bark and growl, turning their head. They cut themselves off with a higher yelp, staring at the pile as if, like Lloyd,  they'd never seen a sharkpup before. The blue pup snapped their gaze to the red pup, paused, then continued to bark their head off. 

The turquoise and silvery white pups had untangled themselves now. The former looked down at their paws, holding one out and flipping it back and forth. The latter looked- well, almost mechanical in the light, and had the strangest expression of pure bafflement on their face. The greyish black pup let out a couple of sharp barks, the fin on their head flicking, and the blue pup began to quiet down. The red pup barked something out. 

Then, like something out of a horror film, all five pups turned to look at Lloyd. Lloyd leaned back instinctively. "Uh..."

All four pups from the pile made a single bark as one, a noise Lloyd could have sworn sounded like his name but not quite, and scrambled toward him. Lloyd flailed back and the red pup stopped the others, though a couple of them tripped and tumbled and didn’t stop right away, as if they weren’t used to their own paws. Who knows, maybe they weren’t. Lloyd didn’t know sharkpup biology. 

Great, now all the pups were looking at him expectingly. Lloyd swallowed and wiped his face with the sleeve of his black hoodie. “Uhhh…”

The red pup took a hesitant step forward, then another. When Lloyd didn’t move or make any motion of running off (he was tempted to- this was too weird- but they weren’t doing anything to harm him, and they were extremely adorable), the pup placed one warm paw on Lloyd’s leg and looked at him.

Something about the look in their eyes seemed… familiar. Lloyd squinted at them, leaning forward. He could see now a bit of fur in front of the fin on their head, spiked and ruffled like-

“…Kai?”

The pup let out an excited yet relieved bark, and- oh. Oh, he was right then. This tiny red sharkpup was- 

Lloyd started to grin. He couldn’t help it, honestly. Then he started to laugh, giggling and snorting and only falling into harder laughter at the pup- no, Kai’s deadpan look. “You’re… you’re tiny!”

Kai made a sound like ‘gee thanks Lloyd, I hadn’t noticed.’

Wait, if that was Kai, then-

Lloyd looked at the other four pups. Oh. It was rather obvious. Blue, greyish black, turquoise, silvery white (even mechanical, how had he missed that). “It’s you guys, right?”

The rest of his family surged forward to tackle him and Lloyd laughed again, less out of a joke and more in comfort. He hugged all of them tight as they fought to pile onto his chest and knock him over- he had been kidnapped by his dad before all this, after all, and they were rescuing him when the wish had been made. “Guys, stop it, I’m ticklish, get off!”

Zane complied, giving Lloyd a look that just screamed ‘I apologize for this gaggle of idiots’ when the others refused to follow Lloyd’s demands. Whatever. Lloyd was just happy he wasn’t alone here, even if his family had been turned into, uh… shark pups. Tiny adorable sharkpups, and holy FSM was he going to tease all of them about this. 

He was about to make one of those teasing jokes when a voice down the street cut him off; “H-heh, c’mon. L-let’s talk this out.”

Lloyd instantly quieted and turned his head, five pairs of eyes looking around him to follow suit. That sounded like it came from an alleyway. 

It sounded like it came from someone in trouble. 

Lloyd stood, the others hopping off his chest instantly. He wobbled for a moment, a little woozy from the wish sending him to wherever this place was, then corrected his balance and pulled up his hood.

“We gotta go help them!”

SHARK PUP PILE :DDDD

(I did not create Sharkpup, that honor goes to @vress-shark, I highly recommend checking out their stuff, they make amazing art)

That Time At Least Four Kais Met

So uhhh I was thinking about how cool a crossover between @sunnylighter ’s awesome fic series ‘The Grass is Always Greener’ and @kittydemon9000 ’s amazing fic ‘Same People But Not Really’ would be and then I realized that the Kaiverse AU exists so… uh…

I guess the moral of the story is ‘be the crossover you wanna see in the world’?

Smith: Show!Kai (SPBNR)

Red: Movie!Kai (SPBNR)

Spike: Show!Kai (GiAG)

Buddy: Movie!Kai (GiAG)

Aki: Show!BizarroEvilCloneKai

——————————————————

This day had officially gone weird, and there was one thing Buddy thought he was familiar with, it was weird.

Buddy knew the multiverse existed. The proof of it was walking next to him on Garmadon’s volcanic island after one of their shared body-guarding classes. If you would have told him he’d be taking security classes from Lord Garmadon with an alternative version a week before Lil’Loyd had crash-landed in their realm, he would have first laughed and then offered you a hug to see if you were alright. 

And yet, here he was.

Spike was just explaining to him that one move he hadn’t managed to figure out in class when a portal ripped into existence in front of them. Now, that wasn’t actually that uncommon; between the Ultra Dragon and Meowthra, travel between the two realms was remarkably smooth. The unusual part about this specific portal, however, was how much smaller it was compared to when one of the two giant creatures travelled. 

A figure flew out of the portal, stumbling in the sand before regaining his balance He slammed into Spike, shoving Buddy’s counterpart out of the way with a sharp growl and taking off in a sprint in a random direction Buddy recognized as the way to the underwater glass tunnel connecting the volcano and Ninjago City. 

Buddy stood there blinking as Spike yelled after the figure. For a moment he could have sworn the mysterious newcomer had looked a little like Spike, but with glowing red eyes and a paler, almost washed-out look to him. 

But before he could get far in his train of thought, the portal rippled with new shapes, and Buddy’s brain promptly stuttered to a halt.

The first thing he recognized was a dragon- a big, red, freaking dragon that was NOT Ultra, with multiple people riding on their head and back. The second was that there was some kind of knight, and some kid that looked like the Kai-version of Lil’Loyd, and someone that vaguely resembled an Oni from that one book Buddy had read, and a guy with a headband and staff that Buddy had the strangest feeling he should recognize, and some bewildered guy that looked vastly different from the rest of the group and had some kind of… slug slinger? , and-

The dragon skidded to a halt, promptly launching one of the people off their head. The person catapulted into the sand- or, well, he would have, had Buddy not been standing in the way.

When the sand and dust cleared from his eyes, Buddy found himself staring into the eyes of… himself? And not in the ‘this guy is like Spike’ way, but in the ‘genuinely looks like me with the scar on the same side and hair styled like a really cool flame (NOT A BUNCH OF BANANAS, SERIOUSLY, NICK JAY?). The doppelgänger sat up with a groan, then looked down at Buddy. His face split with a wide smile.

“No way! Finally a Kai that looks like me and not Smith! You- are a Kai, right?”

Buddy nodded, too stunned to speak as he noticed that the rest of the entourage looked much too similar to him and Spike (mostly Spike, honestly) to be coincidence.

The doppel Buddy whooped and pumped one fist in the air. “Yes! I’m not the only one who knew this hairstyle was fire! Smith, hey Smith!” He craned his neck to look at another Spike-like Kai climbing off the dragon and hurrying over. “This realm’s Kai is like me!”

Smith- oh, like Kai Smith, clever- stared at Spike, who stared back. “Red? I think there might be two Kais in this realm.”

Red- for the red ninja, also clever- looked over at Spike and deflated in excitement slightly before shaking it off. “Still cool! They’re like us!” He turned back to Buddy. “Hi, I’m Kai Smith, so are most of them behind me, call me Red!”

Buddy sat up, starting to grin. He couldn’t help it, honestly. When it came to multiverse shenanigans, he’d learned to roll with it. “Kai Smith, but you can call me Buddy. That’s also Kai, but you can call him Spike.”

Red snorted. “The hair, right? Smith’s is the same.”

“It’s not that bad!” Spike protested. Smith just looked resigned. 

Red helped Buddy up. “Sorry about crashing into you. It’s a little hard holding onto Drake’s - he’s another Kai, by the way- horns when he hits the breaks. Mer and MK have gotten flung off once or twice. Elias got flung on when we crashed through his dimension for a few seconds and accidentally dragged him along- he’s not exactly a Kai, but we had him fill out the checklist and it lines up.”

“The checklist?” Buddy asked, only really registering the last part of that sentence.

Smith was the one to speak up this time. “Some kind of connection to fire, spiky-ish hair, a found family, pushing aside your trauma and insecurities for the sake of protecting the people you care about- don’t scowl, Spike, we compartmentalize and you know it, it’s not healthy-“

“He’s a hypocrite,” Red whispered to Buddy. “He gives Smith Advice™️ to everyone but himself, which is ironic, considering he technically has by giving it to me. Trust me: you got a problem, Smith can fix it.”

Spike interrupted Smith’s lecture. “Moving on, other than the obvious, who are you all and why are you here?”

Smith shot him a brief glare- they would be returning to the Smith Talk™️ later- before explaining. 

Buddy and Spike listened to a shortened story of how Smith had been wished into Red’s realm by his world’s Garmadon. The conniving lord had thought ahead about his attempts to escape and return home and had sent along an evil clone of Smith as a glorified babysitter, an arrangement neither Smith nor ‘Aki’ were happy with. When they got to that part of the story, Spike winced. “Yeah, I remember the clones. Ouch. Not a fun day of fights.”

Buddy looked at him with curiosity- he’d never had to deal with evil clones, and with the exception of Aki, neither had Red- and listened to the rest of the story. Apparently Aki had stolen Red’s world’s realm crystal and it had shattered during a fight, dragging Aki, Smith, and Red into another realm and allowing them to hop between dimensions. Smith and Red had been chasing Aki across the multiverse and gathering other Kais along the way, hence the small army.

Aki’s latest escapade had apparently led the group here, with Aki having run off after bumping into Spike. 

“He’s headed toward the tunnels.” Buddy realized at the same time Spike said, “If he makes it to Ninjago City-“

A four-letter word that Buddy would not be repeating in front of Lil’oyd rolled over the beach. All heads turned toward where the glass tunnel entrance was.

Red and Smith both took a step back in sync. “What is that??”

Buddy smiled in relief and waved to the giant demon cat that padded out of the tunnel. “That’s Meowthra! She’s friendly as long as you don’t threaten either Lloyd or point the Ultimate Weapon at the city.”

Squirming in the hold of the big cat like some disgruntled kitten was the very angry original figure who had burst out of the portal. Aki, right, that’s what Smith had called him. 

One of the other Kais (the normal looking one, like he had no elemental powers and instead had a- WAS THAT A GUN?- strapped to his belt) let out a long-suffering sigh. “I hate alternative dimensions.”

Meowthra plopped down on the beach next to the group, eyeing the dragon Kai (Drake, Buddy would later learn the name of) like she would Ultra. This squad (group? Gaggle? Flock?) of Kais better be ready to be kittened by her. It was easier once you got it through your skull that it was inevitable. 

“Well, we don’t have to worry about him getting away for now,” Spike said. “Once Meowthra grabs you, there is no escape.”

The evil clone hanging above them continued to swear and kick up a hissyfit. 

Red put one hand on his forehead to shade out the sun as he looked up. “What should we do with him?”

“How about you buttheads explain first?”

The entire group whirled around. Drake started growling, the normal-looking Kai flinched but ultimately looked tired and used to it, and the other Kais made various noises of anger and defence.

Lord Garmadon took a sip of his ‘World’s Worst Recently Remarried Dad’ mug and crossed two of his arms, unfazed. “One of you nerds better start fessing up before the press finds out and throws more fuel into the cloning theory fire.”

So yeah, all in all, a very weird day, if Buddy had to say so himself.

The Great B-A-T-H Incident

Back at it again with more SPBNR AU sharkpup nonsense! This is the Monty + Sharkpack AU where S!Lloyd (Monty) ends up in the M!verse with five shark pups that happen to be the S!ninja. After a bit of taking care on their own, the M!Ninja find the squad and help take care of them. This leads to... shenanigans, to put it lightly. 

Smith = S!Kai, Phoenix = S!Nya, Brook = S!Cole, Boreas = S!Zane, and Robin = S!Jay

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zane had made a mistake.

Honestly, he’d thought he’d been pretty smart. Monty was staying at his place today- an arrangement where the Ninjaforce made sure the kid was never left somewhere unsafe- and had been playing with Echo and the five sharkpups. Echo was cuddling the silvery white pup (Boreas)- the one Zane could have sworn looked almost mechanical- while Monty played with the turquoise pup (Phoenix) and the red pup (Smith). If Zane didn’t know any better, he would have said that the blue pup (Robin) was staring at Monty, Phoenix, and Smith with jealousy, though Zane couldn’t tell who the pup was truly jealous of. The brownish-black pup (Brook) rested on the carpet next to him.

It was around this time that Zane had noticed the state of the pups. As in, they were covered in dirt and dust and mud, especially Brook. So, being a good brother and a responsible (though still wild) teen, Zane decided to get Monty and Echo’s help with the matter.

“Hey Echo,” Zane had said. He wouldn’t learn his mistake for another minute. “Do you want to help me give those five a b-a-t-h?”

He’d read on the internet that spelling the word had better results when getting pets to avoid getting spooked by things they disliked. Then again, these were shark pups, and surely they would be fine with a little bit of water-

Five pups turned to look at him. Three immediately bolted. 

Zane didn’t even have a chance to blink. One moment, there were five pups in the living room. The next, the only ones left were Boreas in Echo’s arms and Phoenix by Monty. Boreas squirmed a little, though ultimately gave up as if resigned to his fate. 

Echo squealed. “Can we? Ooo, can we?”

Monty was grinning, and that looked a little too mischievous for Zane’s liking. “Yeah, why don’t we give them a b-a-t-h? Wanna help us catch the three loose pups, Phoenix?”

Zane really needed to check his optic sensors eyes, because Phoenix really looked like she was grinning in a ‘it would be my pleasure’ sort of way. He supposed it didn’t matter; they’d need all the help they could get wrangling the three escaped pups.

“Echo, could you draw a bath?” Zane asked. “We’ll start trying to catch them.”

Echo shot him a pleading look. “Can I help? I know every hiding spot in the house for hide n’ seek!”

Zane ruffled his brother’s hair. “Bath first so we have somewhere to put them. It’s really important.”

At this, Echo lit up. “Got it!”

He stood and carried Boreas to the bathroom. Good; Zane hadn’t been lying when he’d said they needed a drawn bath ready. He got the feeling that the three pups would not make it easy to catch them, and would be even harder to keep put. 

“N- Phoenix is good with water,” Monty said, letting the turquoise pup down and standing himself. “She’ll help us look!”

With six eyes on deck, with Echo (and perhaps Boreas) helping search, it shouldn’t be hard. Zane almost laughed to himself at how easily he had added the pups to the list; then again, with how intelligent they seemed, it was only natural. 

Still, it was a small house. How difficult could finding three brightly coloured shark pups be?

The answer, he discovered 20 minutes later with not a single sign of a tail anywhere, was very difficult. Especially when those three shark pups did not want to be found.

Monty was very good at hide n’ seek, but there was only so much he could do with an unfamiliar location. Zane too was having troubles because no matter where he looked (the cupboard, behind every day, his father’s workshop), he couldn’t find a single thing.

Luckily, Echo came to the rescue.

He emerged from the washroom, smelling of three different kinds of shampoo, with bubbles on his arms and his shirt sopping wet. Despite the mess, a bright grin stretched across his face. Boreas (with a freshly cleaned coat sparkling as if it were polished metal or shining snow) padded along at his feet. Echo listened to Zane and Monty list the places the’d already searched, put one hand on his chin, then walked back to the living room they’d started in. Curious, Zane followed.

Echo lifted up the couch- Zane would have to remind him both not to do that then Monty was over (not that the kid seemed to mind or notice, thankfully) and some better lifting techniques- and sure enough, three streaks scattered in every direction. Phoenix leapt in the path of the biggest pup, Brook, as he tried to run for the door. The blue pup Robin and the red pup Smith both managed to dodge Zane and Monty’s attempts to grab them- goodness, they were faster than lightning- and blazed out of the room. 

Phoenix barked a few times. The fin on Brook’s head flopped over in the same way a dog’s ears would lower. Zane was struck with the strangest sensation that Phoenix was making a deal of some kind. The pups did seem to communicate with each other like some kind of family-bound team. Smith and Brook took the leader positions, Boreas and Phoenix seemed to keep them in check, and Robin helped them remember to let loose and have fun. 

But that was ridiculous. They were shark pups.

Still, whatever Phoenix did seemed to work, because Brook wasn’t running anymore. It was as if he’d agreed to help in exchange for something. Bribery? A ‘get out of bath free’ pass? Whatever it was, at least they had one less pup to look for and one more pup helping to look.

Because by the FSM, the two remaining pups did not want to be found. 

Zane, Monty, and Echo searched everywhere. Echo’s calls were heard every few minutes as he found the pups but could never quite catch them before they vanished again; hidden in the kitchen cabinet behind the box of oatmeal, hidden in the trunk of Dr. Julien’s car, hidden in Monty’s spare hoodie lying on the bedroll he would use for the sleepover. Zane’s eye twitched. Damn, these two pups were smart. They always seemed to know how to sneak back into the rooms previously checked, causing Zane to have to backtrack more than once at the flash of blue and red darting around the corner. 

Jay and Cole swung not too much later (Kai was supposed to as well, but he was confined to bed after the, er, ‘incident’ when Nya found him chugging a pot of coffee that had been infused with 5 hour energy at 3:00am) and joined the hunt. Despite the odds being severely in their favour at this point, with five humans and three shark pups searching, those two blasted pups just were nowhere in sight. The shared utter despision the two had for baths was unfathomable and unrivalled. There was no way to catch them; the second someone had one cornered, the other would kick up enough of a fuss for them to escape. 

Heck, Zane had even found the two hidden in Jay’s scarf while he was still wearing it. What, were the two shark pups ninjas or something?

There finally came a point where the sightings stopped altogether and the two vanished. Jay got worried that the two had escaped to outside, and Zane couldn’t help but think what if? along with him. A quick check of all the windows and doors- yep, still closed, though one window might have been pushed on (luckily one you needed opposable thumbs to open)- disproved that theory, but the worry that the pups had gotten lost in the city under his watch persisted. He was supposed to protect those who could not protect themselves!

Though, judging by the skills of these pups, they certainly could protect themselves. 

For FSM sake, it was just a bath! And with how much the two had crawled behind every dusty cubby space and under every piece of furniture and into every grease-stained spot in the workshop, they needed it!

Cole leaned against the wall, clicking on the ceiling fan switch with his back. His headphones hung around his neck. “So how did this whole mess start?”

“I asked Echo if he wanted to help me give the pups and I quote, a b-a-t-h.”

Cole nodded. “Makes sense. Have you seen how smart they are? Wouldn’t be that surprised if they could read.”

Monty sat down on the couch, swinging his legs. “Did ya fall for the conspiracies too?”

Cole snorted. “Course not. Not like Red has. I swear, he’s usually not like this.”

“He’s like Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia!” Zane said cheerfully. 

“Yeah,” Cole said. “He fell off the deep end because of these pups, right, Jay? …Jay?”

Zane looked over to see Jay’s face had gone pale- well, paler than usually- his gaze fixated on something above them. Zane followed the line of sight up, up, to the ceiling and the-

There was a blur of purple zinging around the spinning ceiling fan. 

For a moment Zane (and the others in the room) could only stop and stare at the ceiling fan. Zane’s brain crashed, thoughts slamming to a halt, because the two pups had been hiding on the ceiling fan that was now currently on.

The thing was, Zane could perfectly reconstruct how the two shark pups had gotten up there. Boosting each other onto higher ledges, swinging each other by the tails to bridge gaps, climbing higher and higher until they reached the one spot no one would think to look because there shouldn’t be any plausible way for two shark pups to hide on the ceiling fan, and yet here they were.

And then Cole had accidentally turned it on.

The ground suddenly became a scramble of motion. Cole whirled around and slammed the switch so hard the plastic cracked. Everyone who wasn’t standing surged to their feet in a panic, spreading out in case one of the pups couldn’t hold on while the fan slowed to a stop-

And it seemed like one couldn’t.

Like flying out of a bench swing into a tree, the blue pup was yeeted off the fan and tumbled directly into Jay’s arms. The bullet actually knocked him off his feet, and a bolt of relief shot through Zane when he realized that neither Jay nor Robin had gotten hurt. 

Above them, the now-only-red blur was starting to slow down. The fan finally stopped moving and a very dizzy Smith rolled off it, giving Zane barely enough time to lunge forward and catch him in a landing as soft as a snowdrift. 

For a moment, no one breathed. Then Monty started to snicker and giggle, and then Echo joined in, and suddenly the whole room was laughing. Zane handed Smith over to Monty. He could see the pup’s eyes spinning; they’d lasted a surprisingly long time, as if used to spinning real fast (chasing tails, perhaps?), but nothing compared to the ceiling fan whipping them around.

Jay (who looked both like his soul had left his body for a moment and had an immense amount of static clinging to his scarf) handed off Robin to Echo. The group finally, finally, made their way to the bathroom with all five pups. Boreas had already gotten a bath, as had Phoenix during the amount of time it took to catch the others. Brook stood on the edge of the bathtub, shooting what Zane could only think looked like an apologetic look at Smith and Robin. The brownish-black pup had joined in the search, after all, probably thinking to get out of the bath himself.

Phoenix leapt up and body slammed Brook while the pup wasn’t paying attention. He teetered with a yelp and splashed into the water. Zane didn’t think it was possible, but Brook had such a wounded look of betrayal as fading sud bubbles stuck to his fur while Phoenix appeared to be laughing. 

Some kind of weird static crackling hung in the air. Zane frowned, scratching at his ear in hopes of clearing the high-pitched wire whine, but it didn’t stop as Echo approached the bathtub. That was… strange. 

Monty must have figured it out a second before it happened because the kid’s eyes widened. “Wait, don’t just suddenly drop-“

Echo opened his arms and Robin fell into the water that had at this point gone cold. For a moment the scent of ozone filled the room, and then an almighty POP rang out. The lights flickered once, like a shudder, before going out. The group was plunged into darkness with a high pitched noise Zane later registered as Jay shrieking.

Zane blinked, sensors eyes automatically adjusting to the sudden dark much faster than his friends. There was a muted splash, and Zane spotted a dazed shark pup stumbling around his feet. He carefully scooped them up, then scanned the room. Echo seemed the first to recover besides Zane, standing in front of the bathtub. Zane could almost hear the fans of his brother’s processor brain whirling to figure out what had just happened. Monty looked okay, waving one hand in front of him while the other held Smith under his arm, and over to the side stood Cole with Jay latched onto his side- quite literally, with feet off the floor- like a koala.

The backup generator kicked on and brought the brightness back. Brook heaved himself out of the bathtub and shook the water from his fur, pointing a tired glare at Robin laying stunned in Zane’s arms.

“Anyone know what just happened?” Cole asked.

Zane blinked. “Power surge. But I am unable to determine the cause of it."

Monty wrinkled his nose and opened his mouth as if to say something, then decided against it. “I think we need to make a fresh bath."

The kid was right; there was an incredible amount of dirt in the cold water, despite it being relatively clean before Brook was shoved in. Zane handed Robin to Echo (after he got the promise that his brother wouldn’t surprise the pup again) and set to work emptying the water and letting new, warm water into the tub.

It took the combined effort of all five people and three shark pups, but they finally got Robin and Smith to sit still for the bath. Zane had the sneaking suspicion it was Monty and Echo’s combined puppy-eyed look that did it. For whatever reason, Smith seemed almost completely dry after shaking his fur off once, as if the water had merely evaporated, but Zane shrugged it off. He was just happy they were finally done getting all five pups to be-

“BROOK, NO, DON’T JUMP INTO THAT MUD PUD-“

SPLASH

Well, getting all five pups to be clean for a few moments.

YES NINJA SHARKPUPS GOOD GRAVY THIS IS ADORABLE AHHHHHHH- (incoherent screaming)

The Great B-A-T-H Incident

Back at it again with more SPBNR AU sharkpup nonsense! This is the Monty + Sharkpack AU where S!Lloyd (Monty) ends up in the M!verse with five shark pups that happen to be the S!ninja. After a bit of taking care on their own, the M!Ninja find the squad and help take care of them. This leads to… shenanigans, to put it lightly. 

Smith = S!Kai, Phoenix = S!Nya, Brook = S!Cole, Boreas = S!Zane, and Robin = S!Jay

——————————————————————————————-

Keep reading

The best part is, is this Smith (S!Kai), or Red (M!Kai)? If you know, you know :3

Some good ol unexplained Server Shenanigans

One Wrong Word (Calypso AU)

Hehehe I had fun on this one. For context, this is based on the Calypso AU for @kittydemon9000​‘s story SPBNR- essentially, instead of S2 Kai/Smith getting wished into the M!verse, it’s S8 Smith tackling Mr. E (who in this AU is Echo Zane) into the summoning ceremony portal and taking the masks with them, ending up in the M!verse. Mr. E/S!Echo decides to use the name Calypso and makes a deal with Smith not to hurt the M!ninja in exchange for getting to keep the oni masks.

There’s a lot more to the Calypso AU that can be found in the discord, but that’s the basic summary for this particular fic.

Deciding to follow Mr. E, one of the new vigilantes and a much more violent one than Shogun, Red (M!Kai) dons his backup secret identity of Heatstroke and sneaks after him.

Unfortunately for M!Kai, things don’t quite work out the way he was hoping...

Enjoy :3

Kai Smith was furious.

It was by simple chance that he spotted the figure following Mr. E- Calypso, as he wanted to be called here out of costume- though it wasn't because the spy was stealthy. Far from it; it was a miracle no one else paid them much attention. Considering they were in a city that got attacked at least once a week, that was both an expected and sad thing.

No, what was interesting about this figure was not how badly they tried to subtly follow Mr. E- though that in itself was familiar- but rather their chosen attire. At first Shogun thought it was perhaps some fan of Mr. E, what with the spray-painted motorcycle helmet and the jacket, but the rigid spikes of fire from perhaps some kind of cosplay caught his attention the most.

Fire. The bad stealth. Stalking Mr. E.

It was one of the ninja. And Kai could guess in one try who it was.

Mr. E, who would have to be the worst (not as in 'evil', but in 'really bad at this') SoG member ever not to notice Red's (as Kai had taken to calling the other Kai in his head) attempts at stealth, finally had enough, it seemed. He vanished into a crowd and Red's movements stalled, unsure where to go next. The helmet visor- seriously, why was he dressed like some villain and not in his normal ninja gi?- swept back and forth.

Then Mr. E appeared behind him, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him into an alleyway.

At this, Shogun leapt down from his actually hidden perch (though he still suspected Mr. E knew, because of course the bastard would) and stormed into the alleyway after. The two had a deal, after all, and it thankfully covered idiotic reckless teen shenanigans.

He wasn't a moment too soon either as Mr. E had Red pinned to the wall. The firejet spikes were shuttering and puffing smoke, and the helmet was cracked as if he'd been slammed into the bricks behind him. Red clawed at Mr. E's arm, but Kai knew from experience that the nindroid wasn't going to move.

"Enough!" Shogun barked out, catching both of their attentions.

Red's reaction was a little slower, which Kai hoped was just because Mr. E had the reflexes of a nindroid and not because Red had some kind of concussion; the SoG member could hit pretty damn hard, hard enough to take down Titanium Zane, so there was no question what he could do to a regular human who probably wasn't wearing a supportive, semi-shock absorbing gi (though Kai didn't know if that's how the Ninjaforce's worked in this universe).

"You don't get to interfere," Mr. E snarled back at him, the lights of his own visor narrowing. "I caught this one trying to follow me fair and square."

"We had a deal," Kai countered, closing the distance between them with a few steps. Up closer he could see cracks in the brick and shattered pieces of metal laying at Red's feet- or where his feet would be if Mr. E didn't having him dangling in the air by the scruff of his jacket and the wall.

Like a stubborn kid, Mr. E replied, "Deal doesn't count for street punks."

"But it counts for the ninja."

Mr. E scoffed. "That's not a ninja."

"Yeah? Look at him." Kai gestured at the still flailing and very panicked teen in Mr. E's grip. "It's Red."

Mr. E leaned close to Red's face, bumping the two helmet visor's together as the latter tried to lean away only to be pushed further against the wall he was trapped against. "...How about I make sure-"

Shogun sighed. "No, E, you can't take his mask off."

Red, who stopped his pawing at Mr. E's arm in favour of trying to brace himself against the wall, coughed out a weak, "p-please don't-"

Shogun levelled Mr. E with a glare. "Put him down."

Mr. E glared back. "No."

"E."

Mr. E's grip on Red's jacket collar tightened, earning another cough. "No."

Shogun stepped forward with one fist balled. "I said. Put. Him. Down. Or the deal is off."

Mr. E snarled but let go, unceremoniously dumping Red on the ground. The teen sputtered weakly and Kai winced, noting the sharp metal fragments on the ground. "I didn't say drop him!"

"You said put him down," Mr. E said. "You didn't say gently."

Kai scowled, but there was nothing he could do now about it. He balled both fists and adjusted the twin katanas on his belt (one of the only things he'd brought with him through the portal as he'd grappled Mr. E). "Whatever. You know the deal. You don't hurt them, and I don't try to take that from you. Not like how you took everything from me."

Mr. E lashed out, grabbing the front of Kai's gi not entirely unlike how he'd been holding his counterpart moments before but without the lift. "You don't get to tell me what to do, Smith."

Shogun ignored the way Red's gaze snapped to him. He wouldn't let Mr. E see how much that stung, having his hard secret-keeping work flung in his face intentionally or not. "Last chance, Cal."

With an inhuman growl, Mr. E let go of the fabric and stepped back. Good. One thing dealt with.

Kai turned to Red, missing how his fiery gaze made the other wince and shrink back like a flower curling away from a wildfire. "And you. What were you thinking?"

"I- I just wanted to-"

To help. To prove he was the green ninja. To prove he was a good leader. To prove his parents were- good? bad? Wrong in their decision to leave him and his sister behind, Time Twins or not?

Kai felt something hot and nasty bubble in his chest.

"To what? What excuse could you possibly have?"

Red cut himself off with the audible click of a jaw slamming shut. But Kai wasn't done yet; the building storm in his chest had only just started. "You wanted to show you can be the hero, huh? Follow Mr. E anywhere, even somewhere obviously dangerous, just to prove you could take him in a fight, huh? Left everyone behind in your stupid little stunt?”

His words burnt his own throat, the taste of smoke think on his tongue like ash. "You left them all behind. Let them to get hurt in your absence. For no possible reason other than your own impulsiveness. Did you really think you were strong enough to- to-"

To deal with the portal. To stop Mr. E, stop the Sons of Garmadon, stop the Time Twins, stop Morro, stop Master Chen, stop the Overlord, stop Garmadon, stop the Devourer, stop Samukai.

Kai slammed his fist into the wall with a sharp groan of anger and frustration, leaning closer to the reflection of his furious face on glass pressed against the brick. “You can’t do this, Kai! There are people counting on you, people who care about you! You can’t afford to be reckless! I know you think that throwing yourself out on the line in front of them will keep them safe, but it won’t! You need to be there for them, and the only way you can really help them is if you’re going to help yourself!”

His chest was burning, a consuming black hole that broke every wall of the carefully crafted compartmentalization boxes. “You never once stop to think, do you? You could have gotten Lloyd killed!”

A volcano, a blade, a cage.

“You could have gotten Nya- your sister- killed!”

A chain, a flaming sword, a dragon and a temple and a shadow.

“You could have gotten Cole killed!”

He did, he let it happen, let the curse claim his brother until he nearly faded away as a ghost, only getting him back by a slim chance, a roll of the dice.

“You could have gotten Zane killed!”

The Overlord, the Golden Master, and then the Sons of Garmadon, Mr. E, Chen’s island, so many close calls.

“You could have gotten Jay killed!”

He couldn’t remember, didn’t remember, and yet some feeling in his gut told him something had happened, something to do with the sky or pirates or both.

“You could have gotten Sensei Wu killed!”

In the time stream, gone, gone, who’s to say they were gonna get him back, if he even was back, what if, what if-

“You could have gotten them all killed, and it would have been all. your. fault. You and your stupid, reckless, impulsive, hot-headed actions where you try to play hero and take on every role yourself, and yet someone always has to take your place instead and get hurt.”

His family, hurt over and over again, cuts and bruises and busted lips and fractured ankles and still, oh so still chests.

He was panting, smoke curling out of his mouth, eyes ablaze, fists tight as embers threatened to spark from his palms. The word deep in his soul, etched there even since he feared he couldn’t take care of Nya by himself, spat from his lips like hot poison. “Useless.”

He was so close to the shiny visor he could see through it, past his furious reflection at himself. Past to the face under the helmet.

Like staring in a mirror.

A mirror with the scar on the wrong side. With eyes so wide, pupils so shrunken and glazed and reflecting the glow of Kai’s look of pure anger, encased in a ring of hurt like a deep, oozing cauterized wound-

The wave of anger washed away as if Kai had been doused in icy water. Dimly he was aware of Mr. E staring at him with- what was that prickling sensation? Surprise? Shock?- but all he could see was Red, poor Red, who was a Kai but wasn't Kai-

Red, who's breath hitched and chest heaved without air, who had thick globs of transparent tears running down his face, who looked to all the world as if Kai had struck him across the face and then stabbed him with one of Mr. E's knives twenty eight times. Because in a way, Kai had.

"Red- Kai-" Shogun's voice betrayed him, cracking on the name, but it fell on deaf ears as he stumbled back. "I'm- I'm so, so sor-”

Red bolted, scrambling down the alley so fast smears of blood from freshly cut palms and  the metal shards in his legs and back studded the walls and floor. Pieces of his get-up were tossed aside without a care, helmet cracking as it hit the far wall, and then he was gone, for once vanished so swiftly that not even Shogun would be able to spot him.

Mr. E was still staring at him.

Kai took a shaky step, dawning horror slamming into him over and over like the relentless tide. Only one thought echoed in his mind:

What have I done?

Khione my beloved...

yes i hate myself that’s why i’m uploading this thing. 2 and a half hrs drawing and i barely have the base 

If I can add some more details from the discord chat! - Red is the only one who believes Smith when he says he just misplaced his body (the others think he’s in heavy denial because when Smith off-handedly mentions appearing in a ‘shower of golden sparks’, they think he died in a fire / his death is related to fire)

- The squad also Smith’s fear of water has to do with his death (so Nya is also in denial through guilty)

- Only the ninja force can see him. They think it’s because of him dying in an GarmAlarm attack on their watch and he just can’t remember it

- Smith possesses the mechs from time to time like he’s a driving school instructor to make sure they don’t crash/do stupid things (he also powers mechs up and appears on the screen)

- Garmadon fights become so chaotic for the Generals, it’ll be like the city itself if fighting them, but Smith’s just possessing a bunch of stuff

- Smith loves possessing blankets and wrapping around the ninja, and even sometimes with posses Jay’s scarf if he really wants to feel some physical affection

- Smith tends to offhandedly mention a lot more things in this AU because he’s stuck as a ghost that only the squad can see.

- “Yeah I once jumped into a volcano to save my little brother.” ~ doesn’t elaborate

Smith: Yeah, fire’s just comforting to me. I- [remembers he can’t spill the secret about having fire powers] uhhhh don’t know why it just does 

The Ninjaforce, thinking that his death is related for fire/the volcano: [share concerned glances]

Red, slamming his hands on the desk: I TOLD you guys fire is just calming and comforting, but you all just think I’m a pyromaniac!

- Garmadon’s base is a volcanic island. Surrounded by ocean. There is much panic

"He’s a ghost, how can he be kidnapped!?!" 

"I DON'T KNOW!!"

- Smith’s thalassophobia get’s levelled up to aquaphobia

- Smith gets increasingly frustrated over how the squad keeps telling him everything is fine when it’s clear they all feel guilty over something and are hurting but they just won’t tell him what

Smith: Okay, seriously guys, what's wrong? 

Nya: Nothing (sigh) don't worry- 

Smith, interrupting: -about it Smith. Yeah, okay, let's pretend we've already done the whole, "there's nothing wrong or HEY LOOK AT THIS INSTEAD" script that we keep doing and just get to the point already. What's going on with you guys? 

Lloyd: Smith, really, it's noth- 

Smith: If you try to lie to me and say nothing is wrong again, I will scream at you guys. You guys are TERRIBLE liars and it's genuinely insulting me that you think I haven't noticed. Now tell me, what is wrong? 

Zane: We can't tell you. 

Smith: Why?!  What is so bad that it's emotionally and mentally messing with all of you, that you can't tell me? WHY CAN'T YOU TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG? 

Jay: BECAUSE YOU'RE DEAD, SMITH. 

Smith: ...I'm sorry, what

[Cue Jay, with Cole and others but mostly Cole, trying to calm Jay down while he blurts out all the evidence and what it means for the group]

Smith: ...Uh...As solemn as this is, I think I have some clearing up to do

- Red’s conspiracy board/consumption of the forbidden pocky sticks comes in handy once again

Smith: You see, I'm not actually dead, I'm just- 

Red: From an alternative world/timeline/planet/possibly from the future or the past though multiverse theory seems the most logical and you're basically astral projecting either intentionally but most likely an accident caused by either technology or magic and you just want to find a way back to your home where your body still is

Smith: 

Red: 

The other ninja: 

Smith: How the f-

- Smith hangs out in the back of class & helps the ninja with homework

- History especially, he’s really freaking good at it [insert the theory that Smith is an ancestor to the Smith siblings here]

- Smith accidentally possesses one of the ninja after seeing them get knocked out in a battle and tries to catch them

Can I join the chaos? I want to know more about the Smith AU's and shenanigans!

Hmmmm how about Ghost Smith :D

Basically this time around, the Megaweapon just kinda yeets his spirit into the M!verse and he sticks around the Main Squad.

Things that happen include:

Smith insisting he isn’t dead, just misplaced his body

Squad not believing him, but not wanting to correct him

Guilt all around since they all think he died in a Garmadon attack, and they know they can save everyone but still

Smith now has another reason to fear water

Wu thinking that Smith is possibly Red’s ancestor since Fire

Smith also teaching the team how to fight

The Chap 20 thing is a lot scarier for everyone because Smith just. Disappears. He comes back dw, but it scares the crap out of them

In our defence, we were left unsupervised and we realized Red is a cryptid hunter Gravity-Falls style and Smith would continue/even fuel the rumours that he’s some inhuman friendly but mysterious cryptid. Things spiralled.

Also the song ‘The Nowhere King’ slaps and gave us too much creative fodder, and now we may have accidentally created the m!verse version of the Overlord

Hey, you guys know the Cryptid AU? The one from a while back, one of the original AUs? Where Shogun doesn't introduce himself to anyone, basically BotW speedruns & kicks m!Garm's butt and becomes known as the local cryptid by the name of 'The Red Blur'? Yeahhhh... It, uh, it went places

Oh that is an understatement

Watch Your Mouth (Cryptid AU)

Ayeee so I’ve got three SPBNR Cryptid AU snippets for you all, see the previous post for a bit of summary. This snippet follows a cryptid hunt with Red (m!Kai) and m!Zane (featuring some good ‘ol Zane angst!)

Because what are cryptids good at? Not being caught on camera. It’s always blurry or glitchy or missed. So what happens if your eyes are a camera... >:3

Red was sure he was gonna catch the Red Blur tonight. There was no way his foolproof plan could fail. Not a chance. Zippo. Nada. Big fat goose egg. He was going to catch the Red Blur, and he was going to make them explain everything. Such as: 

Who/what are you? 

Why are you haunting Ninjago City? 

Are you training me to be your cryptid apprentice/successor please I'm begging you to explain I've been in the middle of an existential identity crisis for days-

The difference between this attempt to catch the Red Blur and the dozens of other attempts was one thing. No, it was not a lack of caffeine.

This time, Red had an accomplice.

"Ron to Billy, this is Ron to Billy. Do you read me? Over."

"Billy to Ron!" came Zane's cheerful reply through the comms. "I can read you. Over."

Red surveyed the city from his perch on the windowsill of the skyscraper. He'd gotten there by totally not committing a little trespassing during the off-office hours and sneaking onto the twentieth floor. He was dressed in his ninja gi instead of his Heatstroke gear simply because Zane was here and he didn't want to blow his cover, and he knew the Red Blur had been keeping tabs on Heatstroke so he didn't want to grab their attention.

"Do you have visual yet?" Red asked. He might have found a perch a little too high up, because it was difficult to make out what the shapes and lights below were. But it was dramatic and it felt cool and he had a little too much 5 hour energy in his system to change his mind now.

"Well yes, but actually no," Zane replied. 

"So the Red Blur has yet to show their face..." Red mused. "We'll catch them yet."

A few more minutes of silence followed as the two kept watch, Zane at a much safer spot near street level down the block. If Red squinted, he could make out a white smear that was either his friend or a blurry patch in his vision- he'd been having a couple of those 'blind spots' since the first sightings of the Red Blur, and they were driving him nuts.

"Billy to Ron," Zane said after another few minutes. His tone sounded a little less cheerful than before. "Nothing yet..."

Red readjusted his perch grip. "Don't worry, we've got this! Neither of us are gonna miss them, no matter how blurry this Red Blur gets or how hard it is to catch them on camera and stuff. We've got our eyes, nature's best cameras!"

"Yeah... yeah! We have norm- nature's best cameras. Normal eyes."

Red shook his head a little to clear the ever persistent edge of fuzziness, squinting down at the streets below. A prickling sensation was starting to poke at his skin, and not just one of the caffeine's side effects. The feeling of someone staring at him, a feeling he'd gotten well in-tune with during his nightly Red Blur chases. Yet another cryptic bit of cryptid training. 

"Ron to Billy, you sure you haven't seen anything?"

"No." Zane sounded uncertain. "No, I haven't seen any-"

There was a pause. "Billy?" Another few seconds without reply. "Zane?"

"I think I should return home." Zane suddenly said, a little too chipper. "It is getting late, and my mom will be all up in my case if I'm up too late."

Red frowned. "Zane? Are you okay? Are you-" His fingers tightened on the windowsill. "Are you being threatened? Reply with Road Work Ahead if you are-"

"I'm perfectly fine, Kai! I just think I should go home, and so should you. It is late. Being up so late wears out our eyes! Did you know: 35% of teens need glasses?"

Something was up, even if Zane wasn't being threatened after all. Eyes- why did he keep mentioning eyes? Was his vision off? Did the Red Blur mess with his eyesight somehow, like with a smokescreen, or a hallucination (Red had gotten caught in one of those before, so surely it was within the Red Blur's abilities), or a-

It hit Red with the subtly of a freight train. Oh. Oh no, no, poor Zane, no, Red had messed up again, why didn't he ever think this things through, he'd just made everything worse been so excited to have a friend be interesting in hunting down the Red Blur that he hadn't even thought about but when did he ever stop to think cameras, of course, the Red Blur was a cryptid and couldn't be caught by cameras, so Zane- poor Zane must've-

"Hey," Red said softly, trying to keep his voice steady despite the jitteriness from the caffeine. For once he wished he hadn't downed the pot before tonight's escapade. "Zane, bro, I'm- I get it, I'm sorry I-"

"You don't need to apologize!" Zane's voice was still much too chipper. "It is late and the Red Blur isn't showing up tonight, that is not your fault. We should-"

Red interrupted him. "No, Zane, I'm sorry for- for making you feel not normal-"

"I am perfectly normal and don't feel anything but.” Zane’s forced chipperness had a sharp edge to it, like a jagged icicle.

"That's not- I didn't mean-" Red was floundering now- why oh why had he opened his mouth, he made everything worse AGAIN, why couldn't he just say it right why was he always accidentally hurting the people he cared about, why was he so- u̴͊͜s̷̺͒e̷̲̕l̸̨̾e̸͇̅s̶̠̈́s̵̻͐- "Zane, you're-"

"A perfectly normal average teen."

"No- yes- I-"

"I'll see you at school tomorrow, Kai."

click

Red's heart dropped at the deafening silence the comm left him with. "Zane? Zane, I'm- I'm sorry, please don't-"

The white smudge below was moving, walking away, no, no, he couldn't- his friend- 

Red reached a hand forward, as if he could grab his friend from here and bundle him into a hug and apologize a million times, but he couldn't, because he'd messed up AGAIN, and now Zane was hiding his feelings, and- and-  a n d-

Red's foot slipped and he overbalanced.

It's funny. He didn't even notice he was falling until he stopped. 

The feeling of the wind slapping him in the face, the skim of his leg on the windowsill as his body tried and failed to catch him without his mind knowing what was happening, the blur of lights in his face, all didn't register until there was a warm arm wrapped around his middle and he was lying on the roof of a nearby building. 

A strangled gasp pulled itself free from his stopped lungs, heart slamming in his chest as his brain caught up with time. Holy FSM, he'd accidentally slipped off the windowsill on the twentieth floor, how-

The arm pulled him upright and held him, a warm presence at his back. It felt... familiar. Soothing. He went slack, the last of the caffeine burning away. Tears pricked his eyes. Zane-

Something was tied around his leg. Nothing like a chain or something to spark panic, just a piece of fabric. He hadn't realized he'd gashed his leg on the building when he fell, too worried about Zane to realize how far forward he'd tipped. He wasn't even that cold; he hadn't fallen very far before he'd been caught. By-

He knew, and yet he didn't. His brain was going in loops, kept going back to Zane's voice, then to how tired he felt. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he'd go apologize to Zane face-to-face. For now- for now he could- could-

His head tipped down to his chest as he leaned back into the comforting warmth and passed out.

Did you ever read Divided For Keeps by STheVi? It's based on the broken phone one-shot you wrote.

I did! It's absolutely FANTASTIC!!! Here is the link for literally everyone, this fic is fan-freaking-incredible. https://archiveofourown.org/works/34723405 Highly recommend go check it out if you haven't already, leave comments and kudos, it's great!

The Broken Phone one-shot, by the way, is https://impulsivefanwriter.tumblr.com/post/662097760247513088/shattered-dreams-broken-phones-smith-garmadon based on the Smith Garmadon AU for SPBNR