Chapter Text
Kai could hardly believe what he had just heard, pretty positive he was going insane and had just imagined what Garmadon had just said to them all. When Lloyd whispered, “Gods?” Kai knew he wasn’t crazy. Garmadon had just said the potential side-effect of following the scroll was being turned into a god. Kai almost laughed at the thought, because how would that even be possible.
He could practically feel the First Spinjitzu Master staring down at him, daring him to even try and upstage him in godhood. It made Kai's skin crawl, and he shivered, hugging himself in an attempt to stop his trembles. He was growing more and more thankful for Jay sharing his blanket with him.
Garmadon raised his hand again, waiting until the whispers and shouts had died out before he spoke again. “Yes, you heard me correctly. However, it will not be the way you are thinking.”
Morro tossed his hands into the air. “Aw man! I was finally gonna be more powerful than Lloyd!”
He received several pointed looks that made the former ghost shrug. “What? Sounds fun to me.”
Lloyd snorted, shoving Morro playfully before he looked in the direction of his father. “So, when you say gods, what do you mean?”
Garmadon pressed his lips together, shifting the scroll back and forth in his hands. “You will change the world, you will have the power of your element in full, rather than be able to manipulate it around you or create it.”
Kai gaped. “So, instead of me just making fire, or bending it or whatever, I could legit control all fire? Ever?”
Garmadon nodded. “Exactly. That is one of the issues though. If you become a god, then you lose your humanity, you become self-centered, unbothered and uncaring of strife, or others' pain.”
Zane looked down at his hands. “I have had a taste of that, and it is not enjoyable.”
Cole rubbed Zane’s shoulder comfortingly. “How high is that chance?”
Garmadon looked older, as if the question had taken the last of his hope away. “About a sixty percent chance.”
Nya winced. “That’s… pretty high.”
Jay had begun to pace wordlessly, hands flitting around him as he moved. Kai watched him for a second, then stood. “Hey, we’ve gone on less. We got this.”
Lloyd nodded, getting to his feet as well. “Besides, I’m part god. That should help, right?”
Garmadon didn’t say anything, but that was an answer in itself. He didn’t know if it would help them, or hinder them. Kai allowed himself a moment of fear, then set his mug down on the coffee table. “Guys, this is gonna be our best bet. And even if one of us ends up becoming a god, there’s gonna be a way to fix it. Like with Nya.”
Nya offered him a wry smile. “Took you long enough to do it though.”
Jay looked offended. “We were sad.”
Cole nodded. “Jay was depressed, Kai was angry, and Zane turned his emotions off.”
“And Lloyd went into window washing!” Zane added brightly, making Lloyd groan and hide his face.
Morro cackled, flopping backwards as if he had never heard of anything funnier in his lifetime. Kai even cracked a smile, moving to Lloyd so he could ruffle his hair, making Lloyd laugh brightly. If anyone could get through this, Kai knew his family could. After all they had been through, they deserved to have something good happen, right?
Kai turned to face Garmadon, his family moving to stand with him. "What do we need to do?"
***
The idea of the spell was far more scary than the actuality, so far anyway. Kai was sitting in the courtyard, holding one of Lloyd's hands and one of Nya's, a little bored. They were all sitting in a circle, hands clasped with one another, Garmadon standing in the center of their linked circle, scroll in hand. He was shaping words as he read over the spell again.
Maybe the pronunciation was very important or the spell would just fail. If that was the case, Kai couldn't blame Garmadon for being so tenacious with his spell-reading technique. If it wasn't, well, Kai was never a very patient person to begin with, and with the fate of his family on the line, he was more than a little tense with the wait.
He wasn't the only one, thankfully. Morro had sprawled out as much as he possibly could while still holding Lloyd and Cole's hands, his hair in his face as a make-shift shield from the sun. The main issue Kai found with that was the singing.
"Oh, we're all going to die. We're all just gonna die…"
Lloyd sighed through his nose. "Morro."
"Death calls me hooooomeeee-"
"Morro, stop."
"Lloyd is ever-hopeful, but he's gonna die too!"
Cole glared at Morro. "Seriously, stop it. You're scaring Jay."
"Oh, my apologies." Morro said sarcastically. "I frightened the walking anxiety person."
Jay bristled, his blue eyes sharp as he glared at Morro, who he was sitting across from. "You are three seconds from getting tazed."
Morro lazily lifted his head. "Intriguing."
Nya rolled her eyes. "All of you, stop it."
Zane looked slightly wounded. "I did nothing though?"
Before anyone could even laugh, Garmadon cleared his throat, the combined finality in the sound along with the nervous tension surrounding them making an excellent silencer.
Garmadon's gaze was heavy, landing on each of them in turn, but he looked at Lloyd for a second longer. Kai could understand the reasoning behind it, but Lloyd couldn't even see them, so what was the point? "Ninja," Garmadon said.
Morro coughed. "Not a ninja."
Garmadon shot him a withering look. "Fine. Ninja and trained-to-be-a-ninja-but-ended-up-dropping-out."
Morro opened his mouth, then shook his head with a sigh. "That'll work."
Lloyd giggled, making Morro nudge him into silence. Garmadon adjusted his hold on the scroll. "This will undoubtedly be painful, and I hope that everything goes according to plan. Do not lose faith in who you are during the ordeal, nor give into the pain."
After every head nodded, Garmadon began to read, the words he spoke gravelly and smokey, almost unintelligible. Lloyd tilted his head, his expression curious, as if he could almost piece together the sounds into words. The sight distracted Kai entirely until he heard Jay yelp, jerking his gaze away from Lloyd. Blue lightning crackled across Jay's skin, the static making his hair float.
Kai winced when his own flames crept across his skin, charring and burning. He sucked in a sharp breath from the sting, but forced himself to think of anything else. Nya had her eyes squeezed shut tightly, water pouring from her eyes even as she tried to stop the tears. A breeze drifted around Morro, the former ghost pale and breathless.
Kai pursed his lips, looking further along, chest growing tighter and tighter. Cole was tense, the courtyard around him cracking and rising slightly, pressing tightly against his crossed legs. Zane was covered in frost, his blue eyes wide in shock as the ice thickened and continued to do so. Stomach clenching, Kai forced himself to look at Lloyd, a soft sound escaping him at the sight.
His baby brother was all but glowing, his normally protective abilities leaving his skin marred and bloodied. His chest was heaving, and he was mumbling in an unfamiliar language, but nothing like the words coming from Garmadon. These were gentle, soothing, but carried a heavy weight to them. It reminded Kai of dragons, which was probably what it was.
Swallowing thickly, Kai lifted his head, finding P.I.X.A.L. on the porch, her green eyes glowing. Her hands were clasped tightly against her chest, her lips shaping words, as if she was praying for them. Maybe she would get in a good word with the First Spinjitzu Master after Kai had kind of botched everything for them by losing his temper and yelling at god.
As if the thought summoned him, the voice whispered into his ear, a weighty promise. "You will understand why this must be done. It is for the good of Ninjago."
Kai forced the voice away, his fire making everything look like it was burning, when he knew it was he who was burning. Unable to take it anymore, Kai screamed, the pain growing higher and higher the longer Garmadon chanted. Almost as if his powers had heard his cry, the flames left black smoke in his field of vision, making him unable to see anything at all.
***
Kai was unsurprised to find Jay sitting on the roof, the breeze playing with his hair. The fire ninja plopped down beside the lightning ninja, and ruffled his hair as the wind did, making Jay laugh, shoving him away. Kai sighed, stretching as he looked across the clear sky, eyes trained on the horizon, watching as the sun sunk down, bathing everything in an orange glow.
Kai wiggled his toes, nudging his shoes off, not saying a word. If Jay wanted to speak, he could, but Kai had mainly come to the roof for the company. Or rather, the lack of company. It wasn't that he didn't love to hear all of his family's voices, or listen to them bicker over who got to pick the movie, on the contrary, Kai had missed them so much it hurt.
On the other end of the spectrum, though, Kai missed the quiet. The almost unbearable silence that had felt like a curse at the time, the tranquility he had felt for a brief moment before his rage would burn it out. He missed the almost quiet, and he even missed the constant chaos in Ninjago's streets. Everything felt either too loud or too quiet now, and Kai yearned for that second of balance between them.
He felt it now, up on the roof, sitting beside Jay without speaking. It was how it was supposed to sound, quiet yet loud, a mixture he had missed. With a content sigh, Kai looked back over at Jay, finding the freckled boy with his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, his blue eyes skimming over the swirling lines that marred his skin. They were beautiful in an almost painful way, gorgeous to observe but making Kai wince at the memory of how Jay had received them.
It hadn't been pretty, but the Lichtenberg marks were, all broad ink strokes and delicate curls, following an invisible map along Jay's skin. Jay looked up, expression puzzled and playful, like he had felt Kai's gaze. "Hey."
Kai smiled, poking Jay's shoulder. "Hey."
When Jay didn't say anything else, Kai tossed one of his legs atop Jay's. "Nya wants to watch some dumb movie about feelings. I wanna watch The Batman. Thoughts?"
Jay hummed, drumming his fingers against his arm for a moment. "I think either is a good choice, although feelings are always good."
Kai sighed, shaking his head heavenward. "Biased."
Jay snorted, nudging Kai with his elbow. "She's my fiance, dude. She comes before you."
Kai mock gasped, a hand going to his heart for extra flair. "Jay. Your guys before wives!"
Jay burst into wild laughter at that, the marks on his arms briefly flashing blue. Kai snorted at the sound of Jay's laughter, and suddenly they were both guffawing on the roof, no cares in the world. Ninjago wasn't in peril, they're family were all inside, preparing to watch a movie, and even though Wu was gone, he was still with them somehow. And besides, Garmadon wasn't all bad, if a little too prone to Dad Jokes.
Jay was beaming when he caught his breath, gaze trained on the cloudless sky. "Guys before wives, that's literal genius in phrasing."
Kai grinned, nodding. "I know, right? Epic."
Jay sat back up, sliding down to the edge of the roof before he paused, looking back at Kai. "Hey?"
Kai arched a brow, sliding down to meet him. "Yeah?"
"Did you tell anyone about The Tongues of Flame?"
Kai flushed, swatting at Jay rapidly until the lightning ninja began to laugh again. "No! Shut up!"
Jay hopped off of the roof, landing easily, his voice teasing. "I'm gonna tell!"
Kai growled as he jumped down after the lightning ninja, who yelped and dashed inside. "Get back here you little rat!"
"Actually- why would you throw that? -I prefer Mr. Rat!"
Kai could have cared less about what Jay prefered to be called, he was killing him. In spirit, of course, not in the flesh.
The world started to shift and turn, allowing him to finally open his eyes from the oddity he had just watched. Unfamiliar names and faces, yet he felt as though he knew each one so personally, so intimately that it was absurd. What kind of name was Kai anyway? Certainly not suitable for him.
He sat up, brows drawn together in confusion. The after images of his dream were haunting him, laughing faces and smiles that he almost knew playing behind his eyes. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he glanced around his bedroom. “That was a weird dream,” he mumbled to himself.
Slowly getting out of bed, he stretched his arms above his head, feeling the familiar warmth of flames run down his bare arms, curling around his neck and face.
“Master,” they whispered against his skin, “Master.”
He laughed when they began to tickle him, brushing them away with ease. “What?”
The flames swirled together and blasted apart, their voices crackling like they were burning wood. “The meeting! The meeting!”
He nodded, placing his feet on the tile under his feet. He paused after a second of thought. Shouldn’t it be wood? He shook himself free of the confusion, striding across the floor to his wardrobe, the flames dancing around him as he walked, rubbing against his side, playing with the ties of his pajama pants. He snorted, brushing them away.
"Go, leave me."
The flames swirled, then darted away, moving deeper into his temple. He glanced down at his hands, covered in pale scars from fire, burns long since healed. What bothered him most was that he didn't recall getting them. Actually, he didn't even really know where he was, aside from his temple, which alone sounded incredibly confusing to him.
Unable to stand it any longer, he moved to one of the large open spaces where a window should have been, resting his hands on the sill, eyes widening in shock at the sight.
Where was he?