Ninjago - One-shots and short Stories

Would you like to exit Prime Empire?

This one shot is a gift for Jeleego - Happy Birthday my friend 🥳. It is based off one of her theories (yes, I have her permission to use it - she just didn't know which one 😉). Honestly been wanting to write this story since I first saw the idea, so this was a good opportunity to get it done.

I usually don't write third person POV in combination with present tense, but I thought I'd give it a try.

I usually don't like to torture my characters either – I was initially aiming for a fluffy reunion – but then I realised that it would also involve some rather emotional and painful discoveries...

And finally, I've managed to also include yesterday's Flumptober prompt "Have we met before?"

Set after season 12, obviously. No canon with anything that comes after that and ignoring the weird forty-year time gap from Hands of Time btw.

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Would you like to exit Prime Empire?

"No worries. Take care."

Cole waves at the small family – two relieved parents reunited with their teenage boy – who make their way to the exit.

Another 'missing person' case closed. Not the first one but, Cole checks his watch, quite possibly the last one for the day if he's lucky. For him at least, as the Black Ninja's shift at the warehouse is almost finished. Hopefully, his replacement will for once be on time.

It's been 74 hours now since Unagami has agreed to release all those trapped inside Prime Empire, and people are still coming through the Manifestation Gate.

Immediately after a first group of prisoners had been freed – Cole and is teammates had been among those lucky ones, probably as a favour from the AI-turned-child to the Blue Ninja – the Ninjago City power network was hit by a massive surge, leading to the discovery that each un-cubing event releases a small burst of energy.

Milton Dyer and Unagami quickly made some modifications to the program to now have a more controlled process, releasing people from the energy cubes one by one now. With help from Zane and PIXAL, a device was also created to capture the surplus energy to keep the gate alive.

But, while the number of cubes is now slowly but steadily decreasing, there is still no end in sight.

The police have therefore set up a makeshift station in the old warehouse, to record everyone's details, with the help of the Ninja and other volunteers, and to help the freed prisoners reunite with their loved ones. Which, in some cases, has proved more difficult than in others.

Cole still vividly remembers how, just having been freed from his cubic prison, he was just standing in front of this seemingly never-ending glowing wall, shielding his eyes from the bright light it was emitting and wondering how in Ninjago Unamagi had managed to lure all those people into the game over the course of just a few days.

As it turned out, he actually hadn't.

From what they have gathered so far, at least five take-over attempts have happened over the last 30 years, all accompanied by a spike in unexplained disappearances and in power consumption. And all of them failed because the old game hardware simply couldn't cope with all that energy and overheated.

This of course means that it is not only Scott who has spent the last couple of years inside the game and now has to be reintegrated into their normal life. A rather challenging task, especially as in many cases, this normal life as they know it simply doesn't exist anymore: Loved ones have passed, partners have moved on, and children have grown up without them.