We Hope Your Rules And Wisdom Choke You

Chapter 24: Spineless

The transit van was only half full of gasoline.

It would be enough to get them to the very edge of Ninjago city, just bordering the western sea of sand. Even with a slight detour, it would only add just under a half hour of walking to reach the city.

So Garmadon would take the transit. Per his request, might he add.

His ankles ached from disuse as he dropped from the passenger side of the vehicle, sand crunching under his uncovered feet. It was warm and unpleasant, like hot and worn fibreglass.

"I could drive you up the rest of the way, you know," His father mutters from the drivers side. The engine hums in break, hardly letting the sentence cut through its noise, but Lloyd heard it nonetheless.

"The sooner you get out of here the better." Lloyd turns his back on the vehicle, opting to begin his trek up the long drive and avoid the man's line of sight. Lloyds face is bitter, the same expression it seemed to rest at almost constantly as of recent times. It's a face that scrunches his nose and puts a chasm in between his brow, a face that shrouds the sockets of his eyes in a dark light. It makes the glint of red in his eyes all the more surprising when the light hits them, a direct contrast on the colour wheel to the green they once shone.

His steps are heavy. He wonders if that reflects his poor life choices.

The engine hacks to a stop. He's hardly made it a yard from the truck before he halts in his traverse. From the driver's side, the window rolls down just a little. "You don't have to do this. This is-" He cuts himself off with a poorly masked frustrated huff, but the end of his sentence goes unheard in Lloyds ears: This is too far.

It was almost funny how contradicting it was. Almost funny how an ex-warlord, who had terrorised thousands for countless years, was telling him he was going too far. Maybe that was why he cut himself off, he realised how stupid he sounded. Although the way the man leaned out of the car ever so slightly, some twisted kind of hope glinting in his aged eyes, engine stopped and car already unlocked, ready for Lloyd to jump up like a little kid and plant himself in the passenger seat, ready to go home with dad: It seemed he wasn't joking.

He didn't humour his father with a response.

His feet dragged him up the hill, away from the waiting vehicle and further towards his goal atop the hill. When the engine of the transit vehicle shudders to life again, he doesn't turn back to lock. When the sound of gritty tires kicking up sand fills the air behind him, he doesn't turn around. When the vehicle is long gone, he doesn't turn around. He's on his own now, just as he should be.

The hill isn't as tall as he remembered it. Maybe it was because he was so small the last time he'd walked up or down, with weak, boney legs that survived off of the scraps he ate, and tiny lungs that churned at the mere thought of excursion. It was like time travel, walking the rough concrete path that once felt like heaven against his feet, sore from scorching sand frostbite. Now, it felt just as heavenly, concrete gritty in just the right way and soothing to the undersides of his feet. Even though he always wore boots, his feet were worn and strong, skin thick and calloused, prepared for drastic weather and durable from the ridiculous amount of training he had been put through the majority of his life, much like his hands. It was a welcome difference to the smooth, too smooth floors of Kryptarium. After a while, they began to feel like rubber, and he'd tuck his legs up onto the bed with him to avoid the feeling (only to realise the bed was made of the same material.)

His powers, while hardly recovered, still buzzed inside each of his muscles, fuelling his travel even more so than his age and experience.

In the near distance of the peak of the hill, the decorated roof of a building began to sway into his vision. It's roof was decorated with curved spines on each corner, resembling oni horns, and as he climbed higher, new layers of building peeked into his vision, each larger than the last, a feature typical in old-ninjago architecture.