to rule the world | a ninjago au

[31] what has pointy teeth and a major issue with buildings not in its stomach

lloyd

"Nya, thank gods. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, let's focus."

"She's right. We need a lock on Pythor now."

"Is anyone tracking Ronin? We should get a tracker on his ship before he gets too far away."

"We should send Titanium after one of them, right?"

"How the hell do we decide between Ronin and Pythor? We're fucked either way."

"Seliel can go after the other in the Daybreak."

"Alone? Are you kidding?"

"Send Nomus with her, Hael and Ciaga too."

"What do you think?"

White hair.

"Lloyd, what do you think?"

Red paint.

"Is he even listening?"

Twisted smile.

"Lloyd, snap out of it. Lloyd."

Astra's bark pulled him out his addled mind, her eyes staring at him with such impatience he thought she was going to explode on the spot out of pure annoyance. "Lloyd. We need to make a plan."

"Right," he heard himself say, but it was an out of body experience. The rooftop melted away from his vision, Kai and Jay hauling Nya out of the hole disappeared, Astra's holographic setup of the city vanished, his contingent of worried friends and elementals faded away.

All that remained was Harumi's face.

"We need to split up, obviously. We need the stealth jets for our approach, so don't send them out yet." His voice continued robotically. Lloyd was vaguely aware of Astra nodding next to him.

Harumi shook her head with a smile.

Astra projected 3D images of the Weapons and the Fangblades. "Half of us will go after to Wu to stop him from opening the portal. Our sats have Ronin on route south of the city. He could be heading anywhere, and Wu's probably got his Saviour suckers on the way too. The other half have to stop Pythor. There's no point stopping Wu if everything is consumed by the Great Devourer."

"Shall we assume our original squads?" Zane asked.

Astra shook her head. "We have to leave some of our forces behind in case Wu pulls something in the city itself. Kai, Jay, Zane, Cole, you go after Wu. The Weapons will respond to you the best. Lloyd and I will come with you, I'll fly the Daybreak. Skylor, Pixal, Nya, Reg, Charlie, and Sel will go after the Devourer. A mix of elemental and non-elemental powers will help you out there, and you have the Nightwing's gun power. Kill it, I don't care how."

"Are you...are you going to kill Wu?" Jay's question dissolved Harumi's smile and grounded Lloyd again.

Astra turned off the projection and typed out a message to Notia. It beeped with their group reassignments and their mission goals. She began heading for the stairs as she answered Jay's question. "I need to talk to my dad."

Lloyd's feet picked up and followed after his twin on autopilot. The building was creaking and swaying as they made their descent. It's a miracle it's still standing, he thought. So desperate, Harumi's voice answered. His memory had never been perfect, but he could recall every second she'd been on that roof, every second she'd acted like she hadn't responded telling him not to stop his barrage of insane messages to her. The second her eyes had gone dull when she'd looked at him and handed over the metal detector replayed in his mind.