to rule the world | a ninjago au

[32] see this is why teenagers shouldnt fight wars

skylor

Skylor had wondered, vaguely, what it was like for Seliel to steer them towards this inevitable fight, knowing that if she really wanted to, she could just turn the jet around and save them the trouble of killing the Devourer.

But Skylor's own thoughts had answered this dire question with an equally dire answer. We can't be cowards when the city's full of them. Not cowards by choice, those people hiding in alleyways and carving out tiny pockets of free space. She had felt like a coward in that jet, though. She might as well have been down there with the rest of Ninjago, waiting to die. She clenched her hands into fists, watching the white-half moons of her nails' impression fade into pink.

She'd never wanted to fight. She was a teenager who was supposed to start her new high school and find a great group of friends, pass her exams, go to prom, and graduate. She hadn't been normal when she was a child, growing up on an island. She had months, if you could even call it that, of normalcy before everything went to shit, and she ended up on a fighter jet with powers and a weapon she used regularly to kill people. Powers she could barely push to their fullest, that felt so foreign in her hands sometimes she was half-convinced they weren't meant for her.

When Skylor had glanced at everyone else aboard the Nighting, she found only passing worry in their expressions. No one else seemed they like wanted to ground the plane and run home. They were all prepared to cut the cost, and she knew she was horrible for even wishing she could leave this place behind.

"Skylor," Pixal's hushed voice hissed into her comm. "I don't have eyes on the situation. What's going on?"

And then she was back to fighting the Devourer, cowering behind Charlie's shield of metal, half-praying that somebody else was going to come save them because she was tired of doing it herself. However tired she was, it didn't matter. She knew no one was going to swoop in. So she forced herself to analyse the situation and croak out some sort of reasonable reply to Pixal, who had risked going on a solo mission with the kind of calm faith Skylor envied.

"He did it. Pythor did it." That was about all she managed to get out before the Great Devourer hissed, the sound amplified across the arena as if a hundred thousand snakes were announcing their intent to attack.

Skylor was transfixed by the Devourer. It wasn't beautiful by any means, but its dark scales shimmered in the light, its frill flared in and out, and most enchanting of all, its purple eyes glowed like rocks of amethyst, focused on her and her alone. Blinking hurriedly, Skylor glanced at her friends and found the rest of them gaping, open mouthed, as the Devourer loomed over them. The beauty of the beast quickly dissipated when its fangs shot out, dripping venom straight onto the head of a Constrictai that couldn't have been more than ten. Within seconds, the Serpentine shuddered and screamed with vengeance, heading straight for them. Skylor winced, zapping the Serpentine youngling with a shock of lightning that knocked them out.

"Watch out!" Nya screamed, using a rope of water to pull Skylor out of the way of the Devourer's massive tail. It swept straight through where she would have been standing and would have impaled her with the giant spike on the end. Too slow, too slow, she chanted to herself, willing her powers to act faster to no avail. Skylor scrabbled to her feet and grabbed Nya, running after Charlie, Reg, and Seliel in blind faith. The arena had exploded into chaos again as the Great Devourer waded its way through the arena, which couldn't have been more than a tiny speck of land to the massive beast. Pythor's army swarmed the Devourer, looking minaturely comical as they roared their support. Skylor spotted Pythor's purple form trying to climb the Devourer, only to be shaken off and tossed to the ground like a bug. Skales' forces had retreated the second the Devourer was free, the stragglers heading in the directions of the underground catacombs of Ouroborus.