Legends of Ninjago: Book 3: The Four Fangs: Chapter 37 — The Brief Goodbye (Final Chapter)

Kai hadn’t known what was going on for several minutes. Between the Sword in his hands and the snake on the ground, he was mentally occupied as it was, but then artillery fire started ripping through the air, and then there were jets flying around deafening him with their engines, and still Anguis was screaming. In the end, everything seemed to be helping to drive Anguis away from the city before she had the chance to get further in, but it took every ounce of his concentration not to fly into something, or set fire to the houses below, or get shot. He didn’t even have time to notice who the tanks on the ground truly belonged to.

Then he had heard Lloyd crying out and for a moment he was instantly brought back to the fire temple in his mind. The next thing he knew, he had Lloyd by the arm and was flying him to safety. That was when the sword had said something. Kai still couldn’t understand the language, and he had no idea if it was important, and yet he looked to the blade anyway. There was something different about it, that was all he could figure out.

Then Jay had yelled, Anguis had hit them, they crashed, and Kai’s brain felt so so faint. Had it not been for the Sword, he probably would have been at the end of his energy and stayed there, face-down in the snow. Instead, he was back on his feet, his mind cleared up, ready to take off again. Except, it was getting difficult to see anything through the blizzard.

Next thing, all the boys had regrouped, and then Garmadon was there, and Kai hadn’t even questioned it. If Lloyd was there, why not Garmadon? How had he traveled there? Probably the same way Lloyd had. It didn’t really matter all too much to him at that moment, not while there were so many other things to worry about. Like the idea of giving the Golden Weapons to Garmadon, or the idea that Lloyd—of all people—could hear the Weapons’ voices.

Just like the first time, it had begun with a glow and a soft call; a change in the way it sounded. Then Lloyd had acted strange, and the next thing Kai knew, the Sword was gently tugging on his arm, urging him over to the son of Ninjago’s sworn enemy.

Why hadn’t he been more upset? Why hadn’t he questioned it all more? Maybe it had something to do with the voice of the Weapon in his head, making it difficult for his own thoughts to have any say on how he felt about it. And when Kai looked at Lloyd again, he didn’t look quite the same to him. He was beginning to see Lloyd the way the weapons did, and they saw him glowing, noble, larger than life. There was even a moment—a very brief moment—when Kai almost thought he saw a pair of wings on Lloyd’s back, but that must have been the exhaustion finally bleeding through.

At any rate, a decision needed to made about the Weapons, and so Cole decided. Kai didn’t want to let his Sword go. He really, really didn’t. Garmadon didn’t deserve it. But then, when it came time to relinquish it, Kai swallowed hard. His own hand was refusing to let go of the hilt of the blade. At first, he blamed it on the numbness, but then, the more he tried to pry his fingers away, the more he realised that they had become hardened by whatever the Weapon was doing to them. This “wound” wasn’t just an injury of some sort, it was as though his body was being changed. As Garmadon had said, they were being “absorbed into the Weapons.”

Eventually, Kai managed it, forcing his fingers to let go like breaking off an old burnt-on piece of charcoal from a grill, but they did come off. Around him, Jay, Zane, and Cole were experiencing similar problems. If they had held onto the Weapons just a little bit longer, then they might not have been able to walk away from this fight.

“There,” said Kai with some effort as he deposited the Sword into one of Garmadon’s hands—the last of the Weapons. Immediately, Kai fell on his knees. He heard the others falling beside him.

“Boys!” said Ann, reaching for Kai first. “Are you okay?”

Kai shut his eyes hard. They hurt in the way that eyes do when they’ve been open for far too long.

He clenched his jaw to keep from shivering. It was freezing out, but he could only just now feel it, and it was making his teeth chatter.

He tried to stretch his hands, but every movement felt like he was forcing old rocks to move—like old dried-on paint that chipped and flaked when you bent it. It burned with every twitch, all the way up his arms.

“They’ll be recovering for a while,” he heard Garmadon say. “It will help to get them someplace warm.”

In that same moment, there was a glow all about them, and then the wind stopped and the snow began to thin. Kai forced himself to look up at Garmadon, waving the Daggers in the air, calming the storm.

“Wait—I thought that the last time you used the Weapons…” said Keaton thoughtfully.

“A curse like that can only be used on a person once. It’s not the sort of thing you expect a person to survive, after all,” Garmadon explained quietly. “I take my leave of you now. I know it doesn’t mean much… but… goodbye, Lloyd.”

It was hardly a tearful farewell, but there was a quiet tenderness in the air, a bittersweetness, a heaviness, that unsettled them.

“Ngh!” Kai groaned after Garmadon had taken off. His head was flaring up with a nasty ache that was pressing in on all side. He tried his best to ignore it, though, and stood up in the snow. “What did we just do?” he asked, watching as Garmadon’s dark figure flew into the sky, glowing gold.

“Holy Spinjitsu Master…” Jay gasped, wobbling beside him. “We just gave Garmadon the Weapons… WE JUST GAVE GARMADON THE WEAPONS!!!”

“Yes! You were there! I thought you were onboard with that idea?” Ann shouted back at him.

“I guess?”

“You guess?! It’s a little late for ‘I guess!’”

“I was in a daze…” said Kai, squinting around, looking at Ann and Keaton and Lloyd and the other boys. Only now did he notice the glow in their eyes, slowly beginning to fade. He looked down at his red hands again and felt sick. “I knew something was off… but it was like it didn’t matter…”

Cole was staring blankly ahead, almost looking shell-shocked in the eyes. “I just gave Garmadon the Weapons…” he mumbled quietly.

Zane had yet to say anything at all, and was instead staring at the ground intensely. He had been abnormally quiet ever since Ouroboros, though Kai could hardly blame him, considering everything they’d just gone through.

“Well, I mean… it’s a case of one or the other, isn’t it?” asked Keaton. “If Garmadon doesn’t use the weapons to destroy us, then Anguis is just gonna eat us, so…”

“But the Weapons were our shot at getting everyone to safety,” said Cole, placing a hand over his face in weary shame. “If this all goes south, then I just doomed everyone in Ninjago.”

Kai barely had enough time to fully take in the enormous ramifications of such a statement when Jay turned and said, “Where are you going?”

He was talking to Lloyd, who had started walking toward the city. “Not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy standing around doing nothing, but Lord Garmadon is out there with the Golden Weapons, and I’m not about to just go hide in a shack somewhere.”

All the ninja watched him go at first, jogging through the snow, following the tire and tread tracks, to where the wreckage was most great, and Anguis’ screams could still be heard. The tanks and other vehicles had long since followed her toward the city, and there was a distant sound of glass shattering and buildings coming undone. Kai and the rest glanced around at each other, tired, sweaty, mutilated, but still standing.

“Well… I guess we don’t have anything better to do,” said Kai flatly.

Ann actually gave a small laugh, the kind that often comes after you’ve long since hit your limit for the amount of ridiculousness you can handle in one day. “Don’t sound too excited. If there’s any chance that Garmadon will keep his word, we should be there. There will be civilians to protect as well.” She turned to Cole and gave him a calm, steady look. “We’re not totally powerless.”

Cole began to nod, and as he straightened up, Kai actually felt some of his vigour returning.

“Alright. Keaton, mind giving us a boost?” he asked, seeing as how Keaton seemed to be the only elemental of the group who wasn’t totally worn out.

Keaton beamed. “Let’s send that snake back to the hole she crawled out of!”

Kai wasn’t entirely ready for the wind when it came, and his legs felt disconcertingly heavy and slow at first, but they were warming up now. The wind was certainly helping, taking some of the strain from his muscles.

They were running together, kicking up snow behind them as they went, the wind at their backs, and before long they ran up behind Lloyd who was not expecting them.

“What the—?!” he blurted when Keaton tapped him on the shoulder and then started using her wind to push him along as well.

“Surprise! You didn’t think you were gonna get to the city all by yourself, did you?” she asked. “Green Ninja?”

Kai tried not to feel bristled by that comment. He’d think about it later when he had time to.

“We’ve got your back,” Ann said to Lloyd next, staring ahead solemnly.

“Just please don’t try to kill us, okay?” Jay added on.

Lloyd didn’t say anything in reply, he just focused on running. Kai thought that was for the best. He didn’t really want to hear anything he had to say.

The city was much easier to see now that the snow had come to a steady stop, but that wasn’t entirely for the better. They could see the mangled cars, for example, that were piled up on the sides of the roads in the snow drifts, they could see the foundations of buildings that weren’t there anymore, suitcases that once belonged to fleeing civilians strewn across the pavement in shreds, and the occasional spattering of blood. It was enough to make anyone sick, even Kai, who had seen plenty of terrible things during his time in Garmadon-controlled territory during the war, and had seen much more since.

Helicopters were nowhere to be found now, or if you could spot one, it was keeping its distance or landing somewhere. The skies firmly belonged to the military, more jets trying desperately to attack the Great Devourer without inflicting harm on the general populace or property.

Ground troops swarmed the streets, most hanging off the sides of tanks or other strange vehicles, many others pouring into buildings and making sweeps of the area, carrying wounded civilians to safety. The first troops Kai could actually see up close, he had to look twice as he passed them. They were Skulkins. When had they gotten here? Why were they here? Were they actually helping?

“Don’t worry, they’re on our side,” Keaton called to him and the rest.

It would be a story for when this whole mess was over with, then.

Anguis had reached some of the smaller skyscrapers, and many were beginning to fall apart as she barrelled through the streets which were much too small for her.

A group of Skulkins was exiting a nearby building, right as the top floor was beginning to crumble and fall toward them. Cole noticed right away and broke apart from the group to manipulate the falling concrete, saving the civilians who were unconscious in the skeletons arms.

Ann moved next, setting right a massive water leak that had sprung up when Anguis utterly destroyed an entire street’s worth of fire hydrants.

Zane helped to stabilise the building foundations with ice constructs, he put up shields whenever shrapnel from the battle flew too close, and he helped Ann shut off the water flows by freezing them solid.

Keaton and Jay helped move people along, using their speed to help locate those who had gotten trapped or lost in the chaos.

And Kai kept his eyes on Lloyd. Even in the midst of people screaming, of jet engines roaring, tanks rumbling, soldiers shouting, canons firing, and the constant din of destruction, Lloyd remained transfixed on his father, darting along the rooftops to catch up to Anguis, currently ripping the side of a building out. Lloyd and Kai were on the ground, behind the line of soldiers and tanks, just watching. Kai could barely even remember winding up there. Everyone had simply spotted a job to do and ran off to do it, all in quick succession. He remained, simply because he saw a job to do in watching over… the boy who might have been chosen to be the legendary… Green Ninja.

Again, Kai thought that there must have been some sort of mistake. It couldn’t possibly be Lloyd. Or, if it was, then this “Green Ninja” guy must not be as impressive as the prophecy made it sound. And now that he thought about it, the whole thing was a bit overdramatic to begin with. How could something so outlandish be real? A destined ninja saviour in green? So oddly specific and needlessly grandiose.

A tiny part of him chastised the way he was thinking just then. It said, “you weren’t this negative when you thought you might be the Green Ninja,” but Kai tried to ignore it. He had been foolish before. Very foolish. No more.

Lloyd was moving. He was likely trying to get a better view of the battle happening up ahead, and Kai couldn’t entirely blame him. Anguis was moving father away again, and the tanks were getting in the way of things. So Lloyd went over to the nearest building that was mostly intact and started climbing up the fire escape. Kai followed.

“You don’t have to keep following me,” Lloyd called back to him as they were nearing the top.

“Don’t take it personal, I just don’t trust you,” Kai replied.

Lloyd grunted and then took off over the roof. When Kai caught up to him, he was attempting to make a jump to the next building over, to follow Anguis and Lord Garmadon.

“Hold up, sparky,” said Kai, grabbing him by the collar just before he jumped. “I admire your guts, but if you try to jump that, we’re gonna have to peel you off the sidewalk.”

“I could’ve made it!” said Lloyd, gruffly pulling himself away from him. “I need to get closer.”

Kai eyed the writhing snake one block down and frowned. “Get closer to what? Getting eaten?”

“I want to see if he’s actually gonna do it. If he’s gonna keep a promise for once.”

Kai looked back at the snake, and he could see a golden glow rising above her. It was getting brighter.

The jets pulled back.

The soldiers and tanks stopped advancing.

Everyone in the streets felt compelled to look up as the clouds in the sky began to swirl around and around above where the light was shining.

Anguis attempted to stretch out her neck and bite down on the light, but it was just out of her reach.

The light grew brighter. And brighter. And brighter. Soon, it was shining like the sun. Angius was still trying to snap at it, to no avail.

Could this be it? Could the battle end here? Could it really be that simple?

He watched as the golden light fell down to meet Anguis, landing on her head, and then suddenly the hair on the back of Kai’s neck stood on end as a familiar form of energy rippled through the air, telling him that a much bigger blast was about to explode.

“GET DOWN!!” he yelled, grabbing Lloyd and shielding him with his body as the Golden Weapons unleashed all of their power at once.

BOOM.

Blinding light.

Waves of heat and deafening noise.

Kai felt his feet leave the ground.

The building began to topple.

He and Lloyd fell through the air as yet another wave hit.

BOOM.

Kai tried to soften their landing with some fire, but he was too weak to form a blast that strong. His body took the brunt of the force when they landed. His shoulder hit something hard. Something POPPED. Debris collapsed all around them. Still, Kai did not let go of Lloyd. Despite how much he really didn’t care for the kid… a kid was all he was, at the end of the day. A messed up kid, sure, but still a kid. Some sort of instinct inside of him was urging him to do what he had always done; protect someone who was in danger. Even if that meant getting knocked out in the process.

*

Ann had grabbed Keaton and was hunched over her in the shadow of the stone tent that Cole had put up. It was already pretty well jammed between two crumbling buildings, so it didn’t fall apart too terribly when the blast hit, but the dust and the rubble and the shaking made you want to cover your face and curl up into a tight ball anyway.

When at last the rumbling quieted and the dust began to settle, Ann felt as though it was safe enough to open one eye and look up. She felt the back of her head bump into Cole’s face as she did so, having forgotten that he was holding on to both her and Keaton to shield them further. She brushed it off quickly and peaked out of their shelter.

“Was that… what I think it was?” asked Keaton, coming up beside her.

Everything within the immediate block was a heap of stone and glass and metal. The air was still thick with dust. The clouds had parted above them in a perfect circle, allowing the sun to shine down in bright rays. Tanks and other vehicles were toppled over in the streets, some as far as fifty yards away from where they were a moment ago. Everywhere, people and Skulkins were tumbled about, pulling themselves from the mess and wiping their faces of grime and sweat.

“Is everyone alright?” Ann called, leaving the safety of their shelter and looking around. “Does anyone need medical attention? Jay? Zane?”

“Over there,” said Cole, taking off and leading them to a thick ball of ice. Before they even got close, one side burst into pieces, and Jay came tumbling out. Strangely, Zane wasn’t with him. “Jay! You good?” asked Cole.

Jay was laying on the ground, face-down, breathing heavy. “Why did we ever think being ninjas was a good idea?” he wailed.

Cole laughed as he helped him up. “Not one of our brighter moves.”

While he did that, Ann looked back down the street at where Anguis had been. She still couldn’t make out much. Was the snake really gone?

She needed to check.

Keaton was on her heels from the moment she started moving, Cole and Jay not far behind her, calling out, “Kai? Zane?” as they went. There were a few other people around, all of whom assured them that they were okay, mostly, and just needed to sit down. Ann didn’t waste time arguing.

“What was that?” said Keaton, her head perking up and ears listening. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Cole asked.

“Over there… I think that’s Lloyd’s voice.”

Ann sighed and tore herself away from her objective to go help look for Lloyd, who must have been buried under a building. Keaton was sure that she could hear his voice, very faintly, coming underneath a rather large heap of junk. Cole made short work of it. Soon, they could all hear Lloyd.

“We’re in here…” he was saying, sounding weak and haggard. “Please… hurry…”

Cole zeroed in on them with Keaton’s help, and then he was pushing away the last of the concrete with a gasp of pain from a stitch in his side.

“Cole?” said Ann instinctively.

“I’m fine,” he replied without a thought.

“Lloyd—Kai! Ann, come quick!”

Ann came to her sister’s side right away and saw the reason for her panic. There was Lloyd, on his stomach and so dirty you couldn’t tell the colour of his skin from the colour of his hair, and on top of him was Kai, blood trickling down his face, unconscious.

Cole and Jay helped move him off of Lloyd so that he could breathe, and then they took off his mask and tapped him on the face, trying to wake him up.

“Kai?” said Cole a few times. He wasn’t stirring. “He’s breathing, though—he’s alive.”

Ann set to work cleaning away the dust and the blood with a stream of water, and as she worked, she glanced at Lloyd out of the corner of her eye and said, “What happened?”

Lloyd swallowed, still in shock. “W… we… we were on the roof… and then it hit… he grabbed me and…”

“Heads up,” said Cole, noticing Kai’s head beginning to move.

“Kai! Can you hear us?!” Jay shouted in his ear as he slowly started to wake up.

When Kai’s eyes finally did open, they glared at Jay with the intensity of a cat who’s just been soaked in water. “Gee. What do you think?” he asked bitterly.

“Don’t move,” Ann told him. “You’re badly hurt and need proper medical attention.”

“Did we win?” asked Kai, trying to look around with just his eyes, and squinting in the sunlight.

“I… I don’t know,” Cole answered honestly.

By now, everyone seemed to be slowing down, and not one of them leapt to the feet to find out the fate of the Great Devourer, or Garmadon. Instead, Ann very slowly stood, one shaky leg at a time, knowing she’d be sore for days to come after this. Keaton and Lloyd followed her, while Jay helped Cole to carefully pick Kai up and throw him over Cole’s shoulders. Then they stumbled over the rocks toward the group as they pressed further into the dust cloud.

Ann kept on moving until her foot missed a step and she fell down. The road seemed to have collapsed here… into a large crater.

“Ann!” Keaton squeaked, coming after her.

She was fine, though. Everyone just needed to watch their step.

“Ugh! This dust is getting in my mouth and in my eyes!” said Keaton with a wave of her hands. Suddenly, Ann’s hair was whipped up in a breeze that blew away the dust, and allowed them all to see clearly. What they saw next sent a chill down their spines.

There was indeed a crater at the center of the wreckage. In the the center of that crater, something was standing. Its long tail was curled up tightly, its long neck was still outstretched toward the sky, mouth wide open, but no longer able to consume. Anguis’ skeleton stood black and solidified like a statue, freezing her last moments of pain before she left the world of the living forever. Garmadon was nowhere to be seen. Neither were the Golden Weapons. All that any of the ninja could see were the black bones, the scorched earth, and something else, sitting in the stomach of the rib cage.

“What is that?” Ann asked breathlessly. It was something gold and round. Could it be…?

She was running toward it, wanting to call out his name, but too afraid to hope. She slipped through the black bones and pressed her hands against the strange object’s smooth surface, and said, “Wu?”

It wasn’t any sort of material that she was familiar with. It was warm, too. Though that could have been from behind inside of Anguis’ stomach.

Right as the others were getting close, Ann stood back and watched as the strange object began to change. A whole side of it was falling down like a lotus petal, and then another, and another, and another, until the whole thing was blooming right in front of them. When it finally reached the inner-most petals, there was a figure inside. A man. An old man, with a beard. He was drinking tea.

“Ninja!” he said, smiling. “I take it Anguis is dead?”

Ann wanted to smile, but the tears were coming on faster.

“Wu!” she cried, falling down on her knees to hug him. Wu swiftly removed his tea cup and wrapped his arms around her, making room for Keaton who came charging at him next.

“You’re okay!” she said, sounding far more put-together than Ann did.

Even Wu sounded pretty shaky as he stroked them gently. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay. Thanks to you. But how did you manage it?”

Ann swiped at her eyes and said, “It wasn’t us. It was…”

“Monty…” said Wu, a tinge of horror in his eyes. “He’s gone?”

Ann nodded.

Wu’s expression became distant, as though his spirit was searching for any sign of his brother on this mortal plane, but it found nothing. Nothing, except Lloyd and the boys.

“Lloyd…”

“Hi, Uncle Wu…” he replied quietly, half looking at the ground.

“It seems there is much to discuss,” said Wu gravely.

Jay breathed a laugh. “Yeah, more than you think.”

Ann immediately knew what he meant. The prophecy had been answered. The identity of the Green Ninja had been revealed. After all these years, it had finally happened. She never thought it would happen to quickly, maybe in forty years or something, but never so soon as this. And for it to be Lloyd of all people…

“Never mind all that. For the moment… let us be grateful that the fight… is over,” said Wu, holding on tight to Ann and Keaton. He sounded like he meant it. “You have no idea the relief I feel, knowing you all are safe. If anything had happened to you, I’d…”

Ann put a hand on his shoulder. She knew exactly what he meant. He didn’t have to explain any further. Not to her, at least.

“Guess we should be celebrating,” said Cole, smiling.

“Yeah, and by celebrating, you mean laying down and taking a nap for the next twenty years,” Jay quipped, plopping himself down on the ground and shaking out his dirty hair.

Everyone laughed a little at that.

“A nap sounds really good,” Keaton agreed.

“I think that can be arranged,” said Wu, smiling again. “But now… where is Zane?”

Their smiles began to falter.

“I’m sure he’s around here somewhere,” said Cole, swivelling his neck to see.

“Zane?” Keaton called out.

“Zane!”

“Zane…?”

*

Many things happened in the next few hours. So many that it felt like three days wrapped into one by the end.

First, the group got up and started looking for Zane, as well as helping out any other survivors who needed it along the way. They assumed that Zane had been stuck under some rubble somewhere, but so far they hadn’t been able to locate him. Jay told everyone that he had been the last person to see him, and that Zane had created an ice shield for him when the blast hit. Maybe he hadn’t had enough time to shield himself?

Before the search could be concluded, people showed up. Military people, medical people, firefighters, and news people. Wu told the ninja not to talk to the press and not to remove their masks, not even to get medical treatment. He pressed forward until he found one of the high ranking military officers, and arranged for them all to talk with the mayor. A large jeep was brought around, and Wu and his students were driven away from the site of the battle and toward city hall.

There, Nya was reunited with her brother, and started complaining about how he’d gotten himself beaten up again! Kai couldn’t help but smile at the thought. He did seem to walk away from their adventures with an awful lot of scars.

A nurse was sent for him and the others—a private, trustworthy nurse—and they were ushered into a side room while Wu talked with the mayor.

“The Skulkins were following orders, simply thank them and send them out of the city—tell them to return home, they shouldn’t resist. And one of my students is still missing, we need to find him quickly.”

“Very well, Wu, I’ll put my best people on it. Though… to be perfectly honest, I’m still a little confused. I was told that you were, uh… eaten?”

Wu smiled. “A master has many secrets.”

The mayor smiled back. “Of course. Now, about your brother?”

Wu was forced to explain everything that his students had told him, and he assured the mayor that nothing and no one could have survived that blast directly. Garmadon… was gone for good. More pressingly, there was the matter of lodging.

*

As far as the public knew, a great mythical beast had appeared and attacked Ninjago City. Six masked ninja had appeared, four of them wielding what appeared to be the Golden Weapons of legend, fighting to defeat and later deter the great snake. Those Weapons were then used to ultimately destroy the creature, though it caused an awful amount of damage in the process.

Many lives were lost, but many were also saved thanks to the early warning and the evacuation notice. When it was safe to come back, hundreds of people started returning from the island the ninja had created, including Jay’s parents.

The threat had passed. The fight was over. The world was still standing.

The next morning, the sun rose over a very different Ninjago, one where great fear was growing in the hearts of the people, but also great hope. For even though the Great Devourer had returned, heroes had risen up to defeat her. If something like this were to happen again, perhaps they would return to protect them. Perhaps these heroes were ones they could all put their faith in. Perhaps Ninjago was in good hands.

Only time would tell.

All the ninja cared about was that they were safe once more, and their sensei was alive, and at last they could rest.

All of them… except for one.

Zane still had not been found, not by Wu or the ninja or any of the search teams, and he never would. See, Zane had already left the site of the battle. He had crawled from the wreckage when no one was looking, and he hadn’t gone back to let his friends know that he was okay. He couldn’t. Not yet. So long as they were alright, that was what mattered.

In the meantime, answers were what he needed. Pythor had shown him something in Ouroboros that had almost made him desert the team on the spot, and he intended to investigate it thoroughly. The others couldn’t be brought into it, not until he had exhausted every avenue and learned everything there was to know. This day had always been coming, really, it was simply more abrupt than Zane would have liked.

His friends would understand when he returned and explained everything. Hopefully, some day soon. For now, it was just him and the little falcon who had appeared again. It was time to return home.