With the Destiny's Bounty reclaimed, the ninja did exactly what I expected.
They trained Lloyd.
Not casually. Not optimistically. They trained him seriously—full time, every waking moment devoted to sharpening the boy who carried the weight of prophecy on his shoulders. Through my scrying spell, I watched Wu push him harder than he ever had before. Forms repeated until exhaustion. Meditation until frustration boiled over. Lessons layered with meaning Lloyd didn't yet fully grasp.
He was still a child—but he was being forged.
Garmadon, meanwhile, grew impatient.
That impatience was my greatest ally.
A flare of distorted energy rippled across Ninjago like a bruise on time itself, and I felt it instantly. The Mega Weapon had been activated again. Another wish. Another reckless pull on power far beyond what Garmadon truly understood.
I turned my attention fully toward him just in time to see the result.
The Grundle rose from nothingness—vast, grotesque, stitched together by corrupted creation magic. A blunt instrument of destruction, summoned not with strategy but with frustration. Garmadon wanted to prove something. He always did.
But the wish did not come without consequence.
Time snapped back.
Not cleanly—violently.
I watched as the ninja were struck by the temporal backlash, their bodies twisting, shrinking, their auras collapsing inward. In the span of seconds, they were no longer warriors, but children. Small. Weak. Stripped of years of training and muscle memory.
I laughed softly in my throne room.
"Oh, Garmadon," I murmured. "You really never learn."
The irony, of course, was exquisite. Garmadon tried to rewrite the world—and instead, he rewrote his enemies into something smaller. Less threatening. Or so he thought.
Lloyd, however, was untouched.
The Green Ninja stood alone amid the chaos, suddenly older than his mentors, his friends reduced to kids barely capable of lifting their own weapons. I watched the confusion in his eyes give way to resolve. That boy had always been adaptable. Too adaptable for his own good.
The solution came from an unexpected direction.
Comic books.
I nearly dismissed it outright—until I saw the pattern forming. Lloyd remembered something. A detail from a story he'd read long before he ever understood destiny or prophecy. The ninja followed him to a comic book shop, of all places, and there—among ink and cheap paper—they found the idea that saved them.
Light weapons.
Crude. Improvised. Symbolic more than powerful. But sometimes symbolism mattered.
I observed with mild curiosity as they constructed weapons designed to counter the Grundle's shadowed mass. The thing was strong, yes—but it was also simple. A blunt creation held together by borrowed magic.
And borrowed magic always unraveled.
Wu, for his part, played his own role. He procured a special tea—ancient, subtle, steeped in a balance that even I had to admit was elegant. When consumed, it stabilized the ninja's temporal state, anchoring them just enough to act without tearing themselves apart.
The battle itself was… adequate.
The light weapons burned through the Grundle's form, destabilizing it at the molecular level. When the final blow landed, the creature didn't fall—it dissolved, reduced to drifting dust that scattered on the wind.
Simple. Effective.
The tea did the rest.
Time corrected itself around the ninja, their bodies aging back to where they belonged—older, stronger, restored. Except for one.
Lloyd.
The boy did not return to childhood.
Instead, time carried him forward.
I leaned forward as his aura flared, bones lengthening, muscles forming, his presence sharpening. In moments, Lloyd stood taller, broader, his childish features replaced with those of a teenager. The Green Ninja had finally arrived.
Not fully mature—but no longer a child.
I felt it then.
A shift.
Not enough to threaten me. Not even close. But enough to matter.
"So," I said quietly, watching Lloyd steady himself, "this is where you begin."
Garmadon had made another mistake. Each wish with the Mega Weapon drained him further, weakening his hold on reality. He was still powerful—but his edge was dulling. The fractures in his temporal signature widened.
Good.
Everything was proceeding as planned.
The ninja celebrated their victory, unaware that their enemy's greatest weapon was slowly becoming his greatest liability. Lloyd adjusted to his new body, new strength, new responsibilities.
And I waited.
The Mega Weapon would be used again. It always was.
And when that moment came—I would be ready.