Wisps: Recollection (Ninjago X Reader)

30. Curse World

Paper dragon streamers and sphere lamps strung the streets and entranceways to buildings. Hues of vibrant red to signify the coming of a New Year, are now a ghastly green. Verdant wisps purred their elation for freedom. Green is the sole splash of color in a town as bleak as Stixx and the Preeminent will shade it darker. A void dangled in the shop, a hum vibrating the connected worlds. Ghosts and nascent serpent dragons spewed out of the midnight blue shrouding the crystal. Its glint twinkled for your attention in the dimly lit room.

"You said the ninja shouldn't be too much of a problem at full power right?"

"It depends... Zane might have an advantage with the water here... That water ninja is a mystery to me. But Kai..." You couldn't stop the nausea warping the world, penetrating into your head. 'He might smoke the whole town.' Paranoia didn't help you one bit, forcing an idiotic picture; Kai won't ignite the very city he is saving to ash and embers.

"If they're smart, they won't bring a potential liability with them into the battlefield." Soul Archer sharpened an arrowhead. "You commanded him, correct?"

"I stopped him..." You shook off your uneasiness. 'What are you worried for?'

"You are halfway there then. We got this, we just..." Morro scowled. "What do you mean Lloyd's here, Bansha?!" He's out of the shop, leaving the crystal unguarded. It beckoned you like an anglerfish out in the deep...

"Overseer?"

"Yes?" You blinked, in front of the crystal. "Why can't we summon the Preeminent already?" You understood why. A gateway vast enough for the cursed realm is not yet complete. But you rather get it over with than fight the Ninja on your own.

"Eager to curse the sixteen realms are you?" He stuffed his keen arrows in the quiver. "You are as tenacious as you were the day of her deal." He nodded to the lime inscription you covered with your scarf.

"Oh." You cover it, your brain halted at the mention of your past.

"I know the feeling well." He tapped his head. "A sense of forgetting who you are."

"You have your memories, don't you?" You finally turn away from the crystal, peeking through the window on the lookout for Morro.

"I do, thankfully. However, imagine you spend decades – centuries even – as a wandering spirit. You forget how things felt when you were once alive. You forget details in your life as it all blends in the mud of brown, and you shuffle in your steps in the shadow of your identity... You become a hollow shell in limbo. In the Curse Realm, what keeps us marching is the single goal of our master. Yet, with Morro... He remembers everything about you." You find yourself at a loss, touched by his gruffness. Soul Archer passed through to the outside. You're now both needed in the battle. Where chaos brewed and trembled waves—a quake on the town built on stilts. Ghosts had swarmed the Green Ninja. That was too easy.

"Surely it's not just you, I know you're never too far." Morro brandished the sword to his green gi. He called them out like they were children playing hide and seek. Ghosts cackled, their vocal cords sounding as if they were forged of rusted pins. Defiance flowed in eyes that weren't forest green... But instead of a familiar deep blue. "You think I'll hand it over to you like the green gi was–!" You run in between them with your unsheathed katana, slashing at them as a jet of water launches the imposter away. Streams of water dispatched the ghosts chasing. "A water ninja? You're not Lloyd."

"Way to state the obvious." You muttered, a sphere of water the size of themselves is hurled at Morro, and he stirred the wind into a cyclone. You closed in on the water ninja, and they broke their mysterious aura. She shattered it with contempt swirling in blue depths.