Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Morro slips through the crack in the Cursed Realm. It was easy enough to escape the Preeminent’s notice, what with all the Anacondri warriors being summoned. He simply followed the crowd. 

Is that a flying ship? he thinks, before reorienting himself with the reminder that Wu replaced him and there’s some imposter Green Ninja stealing his place.

There are ninja on the ship until they jump off. And Wu. And some random old lady. It’s a bit hard to keep the ninja straight during their fight with… living Anacondri? Huh. Morro didn’t think there were any. Anyway, ninja: hard to follow when they’re spinjetzuing all over the place. There’s a blue one, a black one, a red one, another blue one? Wait no, that’s the same guy. He’s got lightning and stuff. Oh, there’s also a silver one? Strange. Morro could’ve sworn ice was white.

There is a glaring lack of green. Green ninjas, specifically. The ancient Anacondri are green, because they’re dead. Morro is green, because he should’ve been the Green Ninja. 

Perhaps the imposter is on the ship?

Nope.

While the ship is filled with odd metal objects and bizarre flashing lights, there are a total of zero Green Ninjas. Excluding Morro, of course. He gets a bit distracted by a piece of glass that is also a map that moves. It has little pictures that move with the people fighting outside! But, alas, defeating the imposter is more important than the magical miracle map. He’s fairly certain that he didn’t miss any fake Green Ninjas during his… completely valid side quest of staring at the battle representation.

So, no Green Ninja.

They aren’t on the ship and they aren’t fighting outside. Rude. Their teammates were failing epically until the deader Anacondri sent the more living Anacondri to the cursed realm. Weird, but maybe it’s a family tradition. 

Morro considers the possibility of the Green Ninja (faker) being off fighting somebody else. Maybe they’re having the Final Battle. Not that they’d win, since they aren’t the real Green Ninja. But no. Wu would’ve gone too.

It’s a good thing Morro knows how to catch a ninja, he decides as he flies off towards a weird-looking town-city-monument thing.

…

The red one shows up to the museum. Which is stupid because Morro went through all the effort of figuring out how these newfangled telephones work specifically to ask for the green one.

He throws the statue he’s currently holding to the ground. Red jumps and flings a fireball in Morro’s general direction. It passes through, because Morro doesn’t care about his stupid fire.

This was a complete waste of time! All that havoc, and the Green Imposter thinks they’re too self-important to show up! 

You could get the Allied Armor, something whispers in the back of his head. Gather your army. Free the Preeminent and prove how wrong they were to forsake you.

No! There’s no point if the little faker who stole his place isn’t there to watch! But your sensei— Oh! Yes, good ol’ Wu probably knows where his precious little Green Ninja is. Because now he gets a student he actually cares about. Someone who’s probably off saving orphaned kittens or something and being better than Morro. Probably laughs about it too. They’ll be back at the monastery, telling Red oh, you went to investigate flying objects? Well I was rescuing baby sea turtles on the beaches of the Dark Island from sharks. And the Emperor himself just had to have me over for tea. We’re great friends! I’m engaged to his daughter now, haha!

If Morro were the Green Ninja like he deserved, he’d never be too busy having tea with the Emperor to save people. Ever. No, Morro would be so much better than this fake. He trained his butt off for years just to have a shot at it, and some random bootlicker got it by virtue of existing.

He fumes all the way to the tea shop he terrorizes. The owner, a man who could’ve been Wu if Wu were at least eight centuries younger, cowers in fear and calls the ninja himself. Good, because his “phone” thing isn’t attached to any wires or cords or pipes or whatever that thing was and Morro isn’t sure if it’s operated differently.

“Ask for the Green Ninja,” he demands the shopkeep. “Or Wu. I’m not picky.”

The shopkeep stutters a request for the Green Ninja.

Guess who showed up?

Not the Green Ninja, not Morro’s not-father.

The Red Ninja! Again!

Clearly something is being lost in the telephones. Morro resolves to find a telegraph instead, because he knows those are reliable.

He flings some teabags at Red and leaves.

Except guess what else? No one has a telegraph! Not the library, not the police station, not even the post office. He leaves a tornado-trail in his wake, filled with paper and terrified civilians. And every. Single. Time. The Red Ninja shows up! Red!

He’s starting to look pissy that he keeps getting called out to have various improvised projectiles thrown at him, but that’s what he gets for being the wrong ninja. Seriously, is this Green Ninja really so self-absorbed that they can’t answer a single distress call? Wow. What a jerk.

“Where is Green?” Morro demands, ignoring Red’s scream of who are you where did you come from why are you throwing paper everywhere.

He waits for the man to calm down, because unlike the Green Imposter, Morro is full of patience and benevolence and all of those other really important -ences.

“Where is Green?” Morro asks again.

“Um. What?”

“Green?”

“Like… the color?”

“No, stupid. Like the ninja.” 

Morro considers the possibility that the Preeminent is secretly colorblind. Maybe She got the Green Ninja confused with Red here. She wouldn't ever lie to him ever, but She could've been mistaken.

Red stares at the ground and abruptly throws his sword at it. What kind of battle strategy is that?

“Lloyd's gone,” Red says, voice thick.

Who is Lloyd and why should I care? Morro thinks before realizing that might just be Green’s name.

“He's gone? What do you mean he's gone? How do you lose a ninja?”

“I don't know! Okay? He just… went out on patrol and never came back.” Red blinks like he's trying to hold back tears, but thankfully doesn't start bawling in the middle of the post office.

“How long ago was this?”

Red glares at him. “Why do you care?”

Morro considers this. 

 “Is he dead?” Morro asks because that would kinda ruin his plans.

“No!” Red throws another fireball. And another, and another.

Morro decides to leave before Red burns down the post office. Because he's nice like that.

So. Green is gone.

Morro isn't sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it's kind of ironic that the guy who stole Morro’s place was such a loser that he just disappeared one day. No body, no note, nothing. On the other hand, this kinda gets in the way of Morro’s whole vengeance thing.

How is Morro supposed to ruin this guy’s life in front of him as he lies helpless to stop it if the Green Ninja isn't even there? How? Morro’s spent decades planning this, centuries even, and this loser doesn't even have the decency to show up! All that planning ruined!

You could always free the Preeminent to draw him out. Ooh, now that's an idea. He can't lure the guy in with mass terror, of course. He'd probably just get Red again. But Morro is dead and doesn't need to eat or sleep or obey the laws of physics. He can just find him!

Except… 

Ninjago is big. And if the ninja haven't found him by now, then no one knows where to start looking. He could be on the Dark Island or something, and Morro would have to cross the Endless Sea under the potential threat of rain. He might be hiding out in some remote village somewhere that no one’s even heard of. He might’ve gotten trapped in one of those moving pictures Morro keeps seeing. He might not even be in Ninjago, and then Morro would have to go to the place he literally died in to find this loser!

Now, Morro is all for excessive revenge and all, but that’s a bit much, even for him.

Chapter Text

He spent a few weeks learning the lay of the land. Or city, whatever. He has made several important discoveries. First, those big flashy moving pictures were called advertisements and news casts. They displayed on glass sheets called screens. The screens also showed other moving pictures, like movies and television shows. The screens can be as big as a building floor or small enough to fit in your hand. They can display almost anything, from these ads to games of some sort to words. They also glow in the dark. It is currently unclear if the people inside them are trapped.

Second, people care quite a bit less about modesty these days. Morro would’ve had a near heart attack the first time he saw a bare leg if he actually had a heart these days. But it is now perfectly socially acceptable to show limbs now. Morro considers why it wasn’t in the first place, since clearly no one is having streetside orgies over this. Anyway, this means that him wanting to have sleeveless gis isn’t weird at all and Wu was dumb for telling him no. Morro is always right about fashion. Always.

Speaking of fashion, there are these things called department stores. They sell things like clothes and makeup. Or washing machines, whatever those are. Morro doesn’t really care for household appliances—he neither has nor needs a house—but the clothes are cool. And the eyeliner! Oh, to still have eyes. He’d look awesome with eyeliner. 

Third, the ninja are celebrities apparently. That seems somewhat anthical to the whole “being a ninja” thing, but whatever. If they want everyone in Ninjago to know their full names and addresses, it’s their problem. It does mean that Morro gets a whole bunch of fake Green Ninja sightings to investigate, though. Most of the time, it’s a blond person who just so happens to be wearing green. Several were just blond. At least one was the Jade Princess. Unless the Green Ninja is secretly an Oni shapeshifter, Morro is fairly confident he can discount them.

Between sleeveless gis and eyeliner, Morro is even somewhat okay with not being able to find his nemesis. He stole someone’s mini-screen that is also apparently also a telephone, and uses it to keep track of all the ninja sightings. Which is pretty easy, because someone has a blog on an app called Chirp dedicated to their every move. These idiots suck at being ninja.

Apparently Morro’s nemesis is named Lloyd Garmadon. No relation to Lord Garmadon, obviously. Lord Garmadon has four arms and red eyes and is an Oni. Lloyd Garmadon has two arms and brown eyes and is blond. The last name thing is clearly purely coincidental. He thinks.

Red also has a name, but Morro doesn’t care because it’s unimportant. Also, he’s working at a teashop now? He knew that Wu was slacking—the whole “ninja-celeberity” thing made that abundantly clear—but seriously? A teashop? He spends FSM knows how long training up a team of warriors and then he decides to put them to work in a teashop. A love for boiled leaf juice does not constitute this kind of insanity. Wu must have dementia for something. It’s the only explanation for why a man Morro once believed to be somewhat reasonable would do this when his star perfect pupil is missing. 

Though, he didn’t seem to care all that much when Morro left either.

Morro goes onto Chirp to calm down.

It doesn’t work very well.

He does find out about another sighting at a mall, which turned out to be a bunch of people known as cosplayers. They dress up as other people, apparently. Even when it’s not the Day of the Departed. And their costumes(?) are really something. He spends far too long staring at someone’s gravity-defying pink pigtails, wondering if they’re supported by some kind of witchcraft. Then he spots an eyeliner display and forgets about it entirely.

He’s in the middle of debating whether or not wearing waterproof eyeliner would also make him waterproof when he overhears some employees talking.

“Yeah, boss got real mad when he found out I was smoking near the basement.”

“Seriously? Weed’s legal now!”

“No, no, not because I was smoking, Xue. Because I was near the basement.”

“Huh. Why? I thought we were allowed to take breaks anywhere the customers aren’t.”

“Apperently the head bossman himself rented it out to some guy who really hates people or something. I dunno. All I know is that I almost got written up for it. And you’ve only got one more write-up this month…”

Morro doesn’t particularly care for this conversation after that. 

But the first bit is interesting. Morro has not a single clue what might be in a mall basement, but the curiosity is killing him. He needs to know what’s down there! For his poor, ghostly soul. And maybe there’s something that’ll help the Preeminent— Oh! Maybe the Green Ninja’s down there. And then Morro can fight him! Probably not, but a ghost can dream. Or pretend to, anyways.

The basement is… dark. Unexpectedly dark. The back rooms and hallways of the mall proper were well lit, so one could reasonably assume the same was true of the basement. But, no. It was dark. Despite being dead, Morro did in fact need light to see. This seems like a massive design flaw, actually. Ghosts should get night vision. It’d be epic.

Instead, Morro must do the much more embarrassing thing of lighting up like one of those newfangled glowsticks. It’s a bit less embarrassing since he discovered glowsticks at a rave, but still. Lighting up your entire body in order to see? Loser behavior.

It is boring down here. Morro was expecting something exciting, like an underground fighting ring. Or even something mildly interesting, like someone’s moldy doomsday bunker. Instead, the basement is mostly empty. There are rooms, and there are doors, and there is an elevator that might be the same age as Morro, but there is nothing of interest.

Morro is just about ready to give up when he spots a lit doorway.

The door is half-closed, looking mostly like someone left it open in a hurry than anything deliberate. It’s also a completely different kind of door, thicker and sturdier than the rest of the ones down here. Morro doesn’t think before stepping inside.

It looks like an operating room. The old ones, from when he was a kid. Metal tables are covered in various pointy instruments, surrounding a gurney with a corpse on it. The floor is stained with something purple. Morro steps closer.

The corpse is not a corpse. It’s breathing for one. Corpses don’t do that. The whole body is covered in tiny wounds, shallow, intended to hurt rather than maim. They centralize on the abdomen, but climb upward towards the face.

Morro knows that face.

Framed with too-long blond hair. Closed-eyed and blue-lipped. 

Morro’s nemesis.

The Green Ninja.

Lloyd Garmadon.