Lloyd POV

We all stand around the table that Haru sits on.  We are currently at Katie's and my house in the laboratory area, and things aren't going very pleasantly so far. Haru is still a dog, Katie is mad at me for scaring her by not coming back from patrol, Ash is freaking out because her boyfriend is a dog, and Splenda hasn't arrived at the house yet. She told Haru she had something to take care of and we haven't seen her since. Ashley's voice breaks me out of my thoughts.

"How did this happen!?" She asks Haru for the millionth time this morning.  Yes, morning, because it's 2 AM currently.

"If you ask him that question one more time, I swear to the First Spinjitzu Master I will put an arrow in your chest!" Katie says in a very annoyed voice. Ash turns her attention from Haru to look at her.

"What is wrong with you? Why are you getting so nasty all of a sudden?" She asks my sister.

My sister's expression softens and a look of guilt shows in her heterocromia eyes. "I'm sorry," Katie tells her. "I'm just tired and confused." Ash places her hand on Katelyn's shoulder.

"I know, we all are." She says sympathetically. None of us have slept for over 24 hours. We got so caught up with searching for the mystery people, then I didn't come back so everyone got worried, Haru turned into a dog, and Splenda isn't here. We're all exhausted. "Listen guys..." I say to them for the first time in a while. "I'm really sorry for not coming back. I was so frustrated and wanted time alone but I didn't even think about you three."

"Lloyd," Katie says to me.  "It's okay.  Just please don't scare me like that, I thought you were captured or worse."  I look at the ground and nod.

"We all have our off days.  Plus we're all tired so I think we have an excuse for wanting to be alone." Ash tells me.

"You're good guy, but can we talk about it now?" Haru asks me.  He's curled up into a little ball of red fluff.  Katelyn turns to me.

"Talk about what?" She says.

"It's not important.  We'll talk about it when we've found what is wrong with you." I tell Haru, ignoring their concerned expressions.

"Lloyd-'' he's cut off by Splenda entering the room.  She takes her place in front of us.

"So sorry I'm late." We don't dare to ask where she was. That woman's got a whole lot of mystery surrounding her. "Haru, did you by chance imagine what I'd be like if you were a dog instead of a human?"

He stares blankly at her. "Yeah, how did you know?" She sighs and puts her hands behind her back.

"I thought so. This is your elemental power." She says gesturing at him. "You can shape-shift into any animal you please as long as you imagine yourself as it first. In this case, you imagined yourself a puppy, so that's what you turned into."

"Oh," he says. "So, since I can shape-shift, can I turn into another person?"

"Unfortunately, no. There are two types of elemental shapeshifters, the human shapeshifter and the animal shapeshifter. You are the animal shapeshifter so you can only turn into different animals."

"Aww man. That would have been so cool. I could've turned into Lloyd and scared the crap out of him!" He says standing up. I look at him.

"Don't even try to prank me. I'm the pranking god." I warn him. Katelyn just rolls her eyes.

"To turn back to yourself, imagine yourself as a human again."  Haru closes his eyes and takes a firm stance.  A few seconds go by and nothing happens.  He opens one eye and looks around at us.  "It's not working." He says obviously.  Splenda rubs her chin and thinks.  "Alright," she says eventually.  "I think I'd be best to for us all to get some sleep."  We begin to object but our bodies and minds become completely drained of energy.  Haru and Ash agree to spend the night at our place while Splenda goes home.  I pick up a half asleep Haru into my room and Katelyn drags Ashley into hers.

Since Haru's a dog now I don't bother to pull out a sleeping bag for him and I just place him next to me on my bed.  I begin to fall asleep when I hear a whisper come from beside me.  "Happy birthday by the way." Haru tells me quietly.  I don't open my eyes but I manage to croak out a few words.  "Oh yeah, that's today.  Thanks."

Kai POV

We regrouped and arrived back at the bounty from chasing that guy.  Man, he brought us out far.  We almost couldn't find our way back.  He was really fast too.  The sun was almost done setting by the time we climbed aboard the ship and walked over to Misako once we've gotten on deck.  "What happened?" She asks us once we've reached her. 

"We chased him really far into the jungle.  Almost couldn't find our way back." Cole tells her.

"We were able to see the guy's face, though.  But he didn't talk the whole time we were fighting him." Nya chimes in.

"You saw his face?" Jay asks Nya.  "What did he look like?"

"Blonde hair, pale skin, and weird eyes."  She tells him.

"They were heterocromia." I say.

"Hetero what?" Jay asks me.

"Heterocromia eyes.  When someone has heterocromia eyes that means they have two different colored eyes, not single colored like everyone's here. It's actually quite rare." I tell him matter-of-factly.  Everyone stares at me in silence.  "What?" I ask.

"Wow.  Who knew Kai was smart?" Jay says.  I glare at him.  "Shut up Jay." I growl at him.

"But here's the weird thing," Cole says. "When we were fighting the guy, he grew wings! And a tail! And then he flew off! It was so weird!" He says in disbelief.

"What?  Is that even possible?" Zane asks.  "Are you sure you weren't seeing anything?"

"I'm positive." He says back. The others begin to join in on the conversation. I look over at Misako and she's in complete shock. Her hand is gripping her shirt. I'm guessing she knows about the dragonkin. I better be right because if I'm not, Garmadon won't be very pleased with me.

While the others are distracted, I walk up to her. "Can I speak to you and Garmadon in private?" She looks at me and nods. She leads me down into the bounty, through the halls, and into master Wu's meditation room. She knocks on the door frame and I see Garmadon look up at us from his meditating. "What is it Misako?" He says kindly. He then sees me. "Oh, hello Kai."

"Sorry to interrupt honey, but Kai wants to speak with us." Misako tells her husband.  He nods and stands up. We walk into the room and I close the door behind me, looking around. "Where's Master Wu?" I ask them. As I say that, a side door opens and Wu himself walks through. What is it with these coincidences?

He stops. "What's going on here?"

"I need to talk to you three. It's important." He walks over and joins us. I explain to Wu and Garmadon what happened with the boy but I don't mention the dragonkin yet. I then take a deep breath, not believing what I'm about to ask, but I suddenly blurt out, "Did any of you ever have... kids by chance?"

They all stare at me with very shocked expressions. I make an effort to reword what I just said. "I mean, I know about the dragonkin, Garmadon told me. He also told me that the dragonkin are a species specifically in the First Spinjitzu Master's family. And I guess I'm just confused, because that guy we chased after, was a dragonkin.  He sprouted wings and a tail just like I saw Garmadon do." I say to them. They all stare at me followed by a deadly silence. You could hear a pin drip from 100 yards away if you listened hard enough. Garmadon grabs his prosthetic hand and squeezes it hard. Misako puts a hand on his shoulder but doesn't take her eyes off of me. None of them do.

After what feels like an eternity, Garmadon finally speaks up. "What did he look like...?" He says quietly.

"Well, he had platinum blonde hair, pale skin, and heterocromia eyes; Green and brown." I say to them. Misako and Garmadon look at each other in disbelief.

"There's no way..." Misako says. "They couldn't have survived..."

Garmadon let's go of his prosthetic and places his hand in hers. "It... it may be possible." Misako bursts into tears and falls onto her knees. She sobs uncontrollably and cries. Garmadon slowly kneels down and embraces her, tears rollong down his cheeks. "Father please..." he begs. "Please... let it be true."

Master Wu places a hand onto my shoulder. "We should go." He says with a smile. I have no idea why he would be smiling when his family is sobbing on the floor, but I don't object. We begin to walk out when Misako stops me.

"Wait!" She calls out. I turn to her. Her face is red and puffy, tears stained on her cheeks. "Was there a girl? Was there a girl with him?" She asks me. I shake my head. "He was the only one there." I tell her. She sadly nods and looks to the floor. I exit the room with Wu by my side and we walk into another room.

"I bet you are wondering what just happened back there." He tells me. I nod. "Well, you see, Garmadon and Misako lived in an isolated area on the Western coast of Ninjago many years ago. They had settled down because they had just a started a family. They had twins, one boy one girl, and it was very early in the morning on the twins' 1 year birthday when they were attacked by the Overlord's shadow army. Three of them that had been sent to eliminate the Garmadons.  Garmadon and Misako had managed to take two of the three down but one still stood. The last assassin had taken the twins and held them over the edge of a cliff.  They then dropped the twins into the sea below. They then attacked Garmadon and cut his hand off. Though Garmadon lost his hand, that wasn't what caused the gaping hole in his heart, it was the loss of his children. In fact, tomorrow would have been their birthday and the 16th anniversary of their death."

I look at him. "Wow." I say to him. "I never knew they had children, noir that they were attacked by the Overlord's army." Wu nods. "So, that would explain why they are so set on defeating him then."

"Yes. But, because of your encounter with the boy who you say is a dragonkin, that may have just proved that the twins survived the assassination after all."

"There was something else about him though..." I say, deep in thought.

Wu strokes his beard. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I could have sworn I saw him summon ice from his hand. But, I may have just seen things."

"That is very interesting." He says. He is about to say something else when Cole pops his head into the room suddenly. "There you are!" He says, looking at Wu. "There's a woman here for you. She says she knows you and that she needs to speak to you."

He stops stroking his beard and retrieves his staff. "Thank you, Cole. I'll be right there." Cole leaves the room and Wu turns back to me. "If you think what you saw was real, then I believe you. After all, from what your teammates have been saying, they saw the same things as you, meaning you weren't just seeing things; You may just know more than they do." And with that, he exits the room. I eventually follow him up the stairs and onto the deck when I see a woman a bit taller than Jay standing and talking to master Wu. She has ocean blue eyes and silver hair with white streaks running through it. Her hair is braided into a French braid down her shoulder and she have various wrinkles that stand out a little more than Wu's. I join the others off to the side and wait with them.

"Who's the woman?" I ask them.

"No idea." Nya says.

"She just appeared out of no where and came up to us like it was nothing." Jay adds. "Wait, where did you go?" He says noticing who I was.

"Yeah, you disappeared on us there." Cole adds.

"I went to talk to Misako." I tell them.

"Oh no.  What'd you do this time?" Jay teases. I glare at him.

"I didn't do anything. I was just talking to her." I say ignoring his 'yeah right' expression.

"What did you talk about?" Zane asks me. Should I tell them? They have a right to know... No, I shouldn't. They'll find out eventually anyway. "Nothing important." I lie.

Wu and the woman come over to us. We look at the two, awaiting what they have to say. "Ninja, this is Splenda. She is an old friend of mine and the trainer of the four people you will be teaming up with." Splenda nods to us in greeting and we wave to her, introducing ourselves.

"Ah yes, Kai: master of fire, Nya: master of water, Jay: master of lighting, Cole: master of earth, and Zane: master of ice. Wu has told me much about you all. It is very good to finally meet you." She says kindly.

"The pleasure is ours." Zane says formally.

"I'm sorry to come here so late, my students have been working tirelessly to find the people who we thought were a threat, but it turns out those people we thought were our foes were actually our future allies."

"Who were they?" Nya asks Splenda.

"They were you. I admit, upon your arrival on the island we thought you were workers for the Overlord, but we were wrong."  Hold up, these people were spying on us?

"So, about these people, your students, how old are they?" Zane asks.

"I'd say they're about your age. One is 18, one is 19, and two are will be 17 tomorrow."  Some of us becomes slightly surprised.  We kind of thought they would be grown adults, not young adults.  "This actually brings me to my next topic. There is something you all should know about these four. They are all elemental masters like you." We all become shocked once again, this time jaw dropping shock. They're elemental masters too?  She then continues. "But, they have just recently discovered their powers, and they have no idea how to use them. If you could, I ask for your help in teaching them how to embrace and control their elements. I'm afraid one of them will blast down another tree." She laughs. Blast down a tree? The trees are huge here! How powerful is that person's element?  "In fact, I as well am an elemental master. I am the master of foreseeing destiny. I can see one's destiny for a certain amount of time."

"Foreseeing destiny? But no one can foresee destiny." Zane says to her.

"No one except me." She says in return.

"Wait, so does that mean you can see our destiny right now?" I ask.

"I'll never tell." She says while winking. A woman of secrets.  Great.

"I've already told Splenda that we would help her, but I want all of your consent." Wu tells us. "Will you help your future teammates to control their powers?" There is silence from us for a few seconds until Zane speaks up. "I will help." He says.

"I'll help too." Nya says casually.

"Sure." Cole says.

I think for a moment. "Ah, what the heck it can't be that bad." All eyes are on Jay now. Jay huffs in defeat.

"Fine. I'll help them." Splenda nods.

"Thank you all." She says.  "How about you all come by the village tomorrow to meet them?"

"Where is your village?" Wu asks her.

"It's the only village around here for miles.  You won't miss it."  She talks with Wu a little longer and then she leaves. We watch her as she disappears behind the waterfall.

"How did she even find us?" Jay asks to no one in particular.

"At this point Jay, it's better not to ask questions." Nya tells her boyfriend.

"I'm just glad that we won't be teaming up with a bunch of kids. How old did she say they were again?" I ask the group.

"Two are 18 and two will be 17 tomorrow." Zane tells me.

"Nice." I say aloud. Wait a minute. Two will be 17 tomorrow? There is no way in hell...

"C'mon slowpoke! I want to go to bed!" Cole yells at me from across the ship. "Yeah yeah I'm coming." There is no way there can be this many coincidences revolving around Garmadon's kids.  It's too many for it to be true!

Lloyd POV

I wake up to someone licking my face. I open my eyes to see a red dog licking me. "Eww! Haru!" I yell at him while pushing him away from me. I wipe my face off and glare at him. "That is disgusting!"

"What? I wanted to try it!" He says innocently.

"Dude, you may be a dog, but you were a human yesterday and you have been for the past 18 years, so that is really weird!" I lecture him. He just scoffs.

"Well, happy birthday to you." He says dropping the subject.  I blink at him. "Ohhh yeeaaah." I say. He face palms with his paw.  I get out of bed and start to walk out of the room when Haru calls for me. "Uhh, Lloyd?" I turn around. "Can you carry me off the bed? I hate being this small." He shifts nervously on the bed.

I go over to him. "Awwww. Is the big, tough Haru afraid of heights?" I tease.

"Well, if you couldn't tell already, I'm not exactly big anymore, and yes! Didn't you flying me to the girls yesterday tell you anything?"

I sigh. "Okay okay, I got you." I grab him and gently set him in the ground. He sighs in relief and we walk over to the girls room. I open the door to find them fast asleep. Haru sees this and whispers to me from below, "We should prank them." He says with determination. I smirk at him and we devise a plan to prank the girls.

~~~time skip brought to you by Cole's cooking~~~

We set the timer for 30 seconds. The timer was connected to a series of wires that would trigger the prank Haru and I ,well, basically me, set up. There were two airhorns, one on each side of the bed, that would be pressed after the timer went off, causing the girls to have a lovely wake up call.

Haru and I mentally count down the numbers, 27... 24... 19... 11... 8... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... The timer goes off and so to the air horns. The girls scream as they are awakened from their slumber. After the air horns turn off, Haru and I show ourselves at the doorframe. "Morning sleeping beauties. Sleep well?" I ask them teasingly. Not a second later, Katelyn is casing me around the house and Haru is hiding under the tables from Ashley. I yell while laughing that I'm sorry but she's too enraged to show me mercy. I turn around and throw my hands up in the air. "Wait wait wait!" I say as she tackles me to the ground.

I continuously laugh as she holds me down. "Hey Katie." I say after I've stopped laughing.

"What?" She growls.

"Happy birthday." Her expression stays the same. 

"If you think that's going to stop me from tearing you apart you are sorely mistaken." She reminds me.

"I just thought you would like to say it back?" I tease.

"In your dreams."

~~~yet another time skip~~~

After we've all cleaned up we realized how late we slept in. We slept in until 1 in the afternoon. I'm surprised Splenda let us sleep, thought we hadn't slept for over 24 hours so I understand why she would let us sleep in. We ate brunch and headed over to Splenda's to try and figure out how to turn Haru back into a human.  We arrive at her house and find her sitting at a table on the first floor. She turns to us. "Hello everyone.  Sleep well?"  We nod.  "As you can tell I let you sleep in today.  It's better to have you all well rested and healthy.  Now, about you Haru..." she says.  Haru steps foreword and around the tangle of legs over to Splenda. 

"Those people who we were trying to find actually turned out to be the students of a couple friends of mine."  She tells us.  "I met with them last night and they will be coming to meet you and help you control your powers later today."

"Does that mean I won't be a dog anymore?" Haru asks her.

"Perhaps.  But it is up to you to make that happen."

"Oh," I say.  "And these people are the ones we've been looking for...?" I say.

"That's what she just said." Katelyn says to me.

"Well then." I say.  "This is going to be very awkward."  Katie eyes me suspiciously. 

"Lloyd," she says in a suspicious voice. 

"Yeees?" I say, knowing I'm screwed. 

"What did you do?"