#penon

You sighed heavily, glaring at the Anacondrai in front of you as you hoisted a napping Lloyd higher up on your back. He insisted you call him Pythor, but you refused to do such a thing.

You grew up in a ruthless war village, who trained its citizens to either fight or tend to the injured. Those who were too weak to fend for themselves were taught the finest medical practices available at the time. This made your village a highly sought after ally during wars, and a last resort for families with sicknesses they didn't know how to cure. With your intelligence and strength, you were able to not only go through your entire battle training, but also have enough extra time to learn basic medicine and first aid as well. Once you were an adult, you left to do personal work around Ninjago.

Thus, growing up in this small yet powerful village skewed your look on the outside world. You saw children as weak things that needed protection, and your trust issues with adults led you to refuse help from anyone. When you went to Jamanakai village, you found Lloyd strung up by the back of his shirt, and after helping him down, he didn't want to stop following you. You didn't mind it at first, just warning him that you were a dangerous person and that he should go back home, but he told you he had no home, so now the two of you were wandering through Ninjago, unleashing Serpentine left and right at Lloyd's whim. You quickly went from doing what you wanted to do with Lloyd tagging along, to you following him around to protect him and care for him.

Right now, you were on your way to Darkley's school for bad boys. Or something like that, you didn't quite care enough. You were currently thinking of a way to keep Lloyd from hurting himself and others without making him upset. Pythor sighed from beside you, "we've known each other long enough, yet you still don't trust me?"

You tilt your head to look up at him. There's something about the face that he's making that makes him seem insincere. "People like you are a lost cause. I'm not here to take over the world, I'm here to make it better. I can still fix things; convince others to be good. But I can sense you don't want the same things I do; there's no need to talk to you."

He thinks it over, humming. "I suppose someone like you wouldn't trust a snake, hm?"

You don't take the bait. He just wants to argue. You adjust Lloyd on your shoulders again, and continue on in silence. When you arrive at Darkley's, you wake up the tired boy, and he becomes excited. "We should capture and tie up everyone!"

You shake your head, folding your arms, "sorry, Punk, I can't let you do that to the other kids in there." You address him by his nickname.

You catch his disappointed frown, and Pythor looks at him oddly, "you don't have to listen to them, they sound like a party pooper."

"Then it's a good thing I have a plan B, huh?" You smirk, holding up stink bombs.

Lloyd's eyes glow, "you always do!"

You all plan together, to tie up the teachers, then use the stink bombs to flush out all the kids. There wasn't much to do after that except for set up traps for the ninja, then gloat. Your job was to set off the stink bomb while Lloyd set the traps and Pythor captured the teachers.

Once that was all done, the three of you sat up on the roof and waited. You told Lloyd old tales from your village while Pythor looked off into the distance, probably doing more scheming than looking out for ninja.

"-and when her lover died, she mourned for 100 years, and cried so much that her tears grew the forest that protects our village from outsiders." You finished your story. Lloyd listened in awe. "It's said that every time a child is born, a new tree appears in the forest. If I take you to my village, I'll show you where my tree is. It's a simple oak tree, but the trunk is wide and sturdy, like me."

"Do you think I have a tree?" He asks.

You shake your head, "no, you weren't born in my village, but if you did, it would definitely be Wisteria."

He's about to say something, but the three of you hear screaming right over your head. You look up, just in time to catch the sight of a falling anchor, with only half a second to lunge towards Lloyd to get him out of the way. He coughs a little, dust floating around in the air from the destruction as you land a little away from the impact.

Growling angrily, you turn to shout down into the hole the ninja left, "you shitheads could've killed someone! What is wrong with you?!" The guilty little 'sorry's that come from them don't satisfy you.

"Hey, Punk, stay here, I'm gonna fight them for you, okay?" You salute him then drop down the hole.

"Go (Y/N)! You kick their sorry butts!" He cheers for you.

The ninja look at you in confusion. "You came down by yourself?"

"Yeah, four to one's hardly a fair fight."

You can hear the smirking in their voices, "we're pretty strong, just saying."

You change your stance to look more intimidating. Someone needed to put these cocky ninja in their place. "And why do you think you haven't fought me before?" You grin, cracking your knuckles and showing off your teeth. The bravest one, the red one, runs at you with his sword. You can tell they aren't done with their training, so your experience heavily outweighs theirs. You clap the flat edges of his sword between the palms of your hands, spinning and redirecting his attack to the side so that he not only misses, but drives his sword into the wall behind you, unable to stop his momentum.

"So," you crack your neck, "who's next?"

The ninja weigh their options, quickly able to tell their skill levels don't match yours. "Split up, split up!" The blue one screeches, running towards the elevator. The black one heads for the chain, and the red and white ones head for the stairs.

You laugh loudly and tauntingly. "Run, ninja, for I love a good chase!" You can hear the blue one scream again and frantically slap his hand across the buttons on the elevator.

Turning towards the anchor chain, you leap towards it, hauling yourself up the links at an insane rate. You didn't practice scaling mountains for nothing. Unfortunately, it seemed he was also a climber of some sorts, always just out of your reach. You growl ferally, "I won't let you get to him!" Reaching out with your hand in a claw shape, you manage to hook it around his foot and yank as hard as you can. He looked strong based on his size, but you guessed he hadn't been training long enough to gain bulk. This left you strong enough to pull him off the chain and drop him to the floor. He recovers quickly and instead lands on another level of the school.

"What are you doing?!" You can hear Lloyd cry out in confusion. "I thought you were my friend!"

Of course, you left him with Pythor. What was that serpent doing? Your instincts kicked in and you ignored the other ninja, jumping up the chain like a wild cat in a tree, landing on the roof. "(Y/N)!" Lloyd cries.

Pythor waves at you, grinning cheekily, "you were right, my dear. Never trust a snake." He shows off the map he nabbed, before turning invisible.

"I don't need to see you to fight you." You hissed, swiping out in a large circle with your leg. Your foot bumps into invisible Pythor, and you react quickly to it by punching at him. "What the-?" You miss completely, but don't give up, instead just lashing out wildly. You weren't trained to fight this way. Sure, you've been trained to fight an enemy you couldn't see, but that was only when they were hiding in fog. You locate the patterns and swirling of the fog and attack accordingly. However, you couldn't exactly fight something that was completely invisible.

"We'll meet again." His voice is right beside you, but when you twirl around to deck him in the face, you can't hit anything.

"Slippery bastard." You grunt, fuming at your loss. "Sorry, Lloyd." You frown, slinging an arm around him and holding him close.

He sighs sadly. "It's not your fault. Pythor was right, I shouldn't have trusted a snake, any of them."

The ninja arrive behind you. "Give it up, Lloyd!"

You get into a fighting stance again, only to have Lloyd put a hand on your arm, "let's just do what they want."

He seems upset about the loss; normally he would just order the snakes around, or have you be his last minute escape plan. Did losing over and over finally cause him to give up? "Are you sure?" He nods, and you nod in response, dropping your intimidating battle pose.

The ninja seem bewildered. "He's in charge of you?!"

You don't respond to them. The blue one goes to pick up Lloyd, but you react quickly and snap up his wrist in your grasp, not even turning to face him. "Don't."

"Got it, got it, please let go, ow ow ow-" he complains.

Some old guy flies down on a boat with a girl beside him. "Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon! You come here right now." He sounds angry, and you recall Lloyd calling the old man his uncle. Lloyd reached out for your hand, and you held his, walking him to his uncle. "And who is this?"

"(Y/N)." Lloyd responds shortly. "They took care of me. I don't want to leave without them." His uncle gives you a once-over, then nods, letting you board the ship as well.

"So, what kind of punishments are we going to give the brat?" the black one asks. The other ninja nod in anticipation.

"I could paralyze every single one of you if Lloyd asks." And you left it at that, following the old man onto the flying ship.

"Dude, they're scary. Do we have to take them with us?"

"I believe it is an 'all or nothing' type of deal." The white one whispers with the red one.

You're given your own room with Lloyd on the other side of the ship, farther away from the ninja because his uncle didn't want the five of you to start anything with each other. He, like Pythor, insists on having you call him by his first name, but you refuse to do such a thing for a man you don't respect. So, naturally, when Lloyd falls asleep, Wu takes you out for a talk on the deck.

"What do you want, old man?" You cross your arms and tap your foot impatiently.

He smiles gently, "actually, I have a favor to ask of you." He sits down, and pours himself a cup of tea after offering you one, to which you turned down. "I know where you come from. Your village creates the strongest warriors I've ever fought."

You tilt your head, suddenly interested, "you've fought against our village before?"

"A long time ago, since before you, or even your great-grandparents, were born. Your village has been there for centuries, and I've been alive to see every war your people have fought in. I've seen your village be born of people from all over Ninjago, trading their strongest fighting and healing techniques to make them a powerful ally. I myself have both fought with and against your village, and no matter which side I'm on, I've always been impressed." He sips at his tea.

He...was there from the beginning? Why did he tell you all of this? "So? Spit it out, or I'm leaving."

His eyes darken as he puts his tea down. "I'm sorry, (Y/N). The Serpentine lost to your village in the last war they were in, so in order to avoid having to fight you again..."

You can feel your throat tightening as you tried to hold back tears. "I...I don't understand. My village wouldn't just...let that happen. They'd kill every last Serpentine if a single one of them even looked at us wrong." You grabbed Wu by the clothing around his shoulders and harshly shook him, "that's not possible! Tell me that's not true!"

he shook his head, "they circled the forest and burned it, trapping everyone inside it."

"THAT'S NOT TRUE!! Maya would've gotten rid of the fire and saved us, if that's what they did!" You screamed. "Sure, she left with that stupid fire guy, but when her village depended on it, she would come back!"

"She's not coming back. Neither her nor Ray have been seen in Ninjago for years. They're dead by now, with only Kai and Nya left of them."

"Kai and Nya...the red twins?" Wu nodded to your words. You slumped over in your sitting position, staring at the floor as you tried to process everything that happened. This was your fault, you were the one to unleash the Serpentine. The very same ones who... "My...my village? My family?"

"They hid in the river until the flames died out, then fled before the Serpentine could locate any of them. Every single one of them is safe, just scattered across Ninjago. Some are trying to regroup, others are still lost."

"So - we have to find them all! I have to get revenge on those stupid Serpentine!" You were in hysterics, still sobbing over what had happened. You thought you had steeled yourself; not needing to cry over anything ever again, but...this was an exception. This was a great loss.

Wu shook his head, "you can't do it alone. That is why I asked you here." It was true that you could take on a maximum of 10 people at once, but he was talking about not only 1, but 4 entire armies of Serpentine. He was right, you would need help. But surely he wouldn't recruit the ninja to do this job? They couldn't even fight you off with their weapons! You had none! "I would like to help you regroup your people, but in exchange, you would have to train my students in any way you can."

You scoffed, "don't you know how I was trained? I spent my entire life dedicated to training to become someone worthy of being a warrior, and even after leaving, I didn't stop training. I push myself to the limits every morning, waking up as early as I can to get an entire routine through before wandering Ninjago. Your 'students' are too soft and squishy to do any of the things I can do."

Wu smiles, "and that's why I would like you to train them."

You blinked a couple times, suddenly feeling tired. You didn't like his stupid ninja team one bit, and now you were tasked with training them? But...your village was worth so much more than losing your dignity to training these...squishy and weak ninja. Every single person in that village was as much family as you were their child. Everyone shared aunts and grandfathers and sisters and parents and children. Soon, you would become a parent, even if you bore no children of your own, but only if you found them all again. "Anything for family."

Nodding, Wu stands up and leads you to your room again. "You may train them as you like, even if it means waking them up as early as the sunrise."

The loss of your home was still too much to take in. You would need some time to heal and grieve first. "...thanks."

You opened the door to your room, Lloyd snoring soundly inside. Before Wu left, you turned to face him. "...Wu?" He didn't respond, but he stopped to listen. "Did even a single thing make it in the fire?"