Autobiography of a Legend

Untimely Setbacks

So, remember how last chapter I said that I felt like I was becoming a Master, and that we had successfully taken the Time Blade? I think if there's something I should learn, it's that we're only allowed to have something good happen to us right before the end of fighting a new villain.

After we recovered the slow blade, we took it back to our temple. I told the guys not to mess with the blade while I went and gave my report to Master Wu. Wu was still more or less in and out of everything, so much so he fell asleep in the middle of my report. Even though I was happy that we had a victory, I knew that something was still very wrong with him. Mom wouldn't tell me, so I decided to just go and try and figure out our next step of the plan.

The first thing I saw was Jay, Cole and Zane all playing around with the slow blade. Now, after seeing more of them, it seems that the Time Blades work on a recharging cycle, so you can use the blade maybe three or four times before you have to let it recharge. At the time, however, I was afraid that if we used the blade too much then we might actually cause some real damage. I mean, the last time that the ninja messed with time, it led to the Megaweapon (that I still don't think actually exists), so we needed not to mess this up.

I was pretty upset, so I told them that something that valuable wouldn't be so easily conceded. The first thing Cole does? Nag at me! Honestly, that made me more angry than I think it would now. I'd assumed we'd gotten past this whole dumb stuff with me being a 'Master in Training' and all that. I'd led us into battle and gotten us a victory. The fact that they were already back to treating me like I was just a little kid was getting pretty old.

But then, right after that, Master Wu got up from bed to come and talk to us, and guess what he said? Literally the same thing I did! And when Wu said it, suddenly the guys thought to listen to him. Thinking back, that still makes me angry. If this had been before they'd first written me off as a Master, then sure, maybe I'd be more understanding. But I thought we were already past this. It turned out that they weren't ready to give it up just yet.

I understand that saying it like that makes me seem like I'm just a little kid upset that the other kids won't listen to me. But, I'd already saved Ninjago at that point. Again, I hate to just leverage my accomplishments, but I defeated the Overlord and saved all of them in the process! I just, I don't understand why suddenly they picked then to be upset at me wanting to take a more active role. We'd defeated Morro, Cole was back to being normal, at the time it felt like the perfect change. Part of why I don't call myself a Master now or tell anyone I'm in training to be one is partially because the guys just made me feel stupid for wanting it in the first place.

Right in the middle of Wu telling them off for the things I was already telling them were wrong was when the Twins made their attack on us. This was when we got a taste of just how easy it was to deploy Vermillion into battle. Since we were on a floating temple in the sky, it was impossible for them to just march up on us. Instead, the Twins used catapults to launch cocoons up at us that broke apart and had the snakes, armor and weapons inside. In just three launches, we had an entire squad of Vermillion outfitted and ready to attack us.

By that point, we had a good grasp on how to defeat them. Our goal was to protect the slow blade, and so we did. We rushed out and beat the first wave with Spinjitzu, which we found out made the snakes so dizzy they didn't want to immediately get back into the armor. The first wave only took a few seconds to beat, which made us feel pretty good about ourselves.

...This was immediately followed by the snakes getting another volley of metal to make a gigantic 'big guy' to come and attack us. Like I said, the biggest thing the Vermillion had going for them was the fact they were versatile. When you beat a few of them, they could just change into something else to beat you. Kai and Nya found a way to lure it off and throw it over the side of the temple, but that didn't mean the battle was over yet. It wasn't even that long before we had more Vermillion on top of us. When you combine the Vermillion being versatile and perfect in a massive army, they were near impossible to keep beating back over and over again.