is the elemental master of fire. He was the 3rd to find the old monastery, the 3rd to connect with elemental masters and 4th to discover his powers. His weapon of choice is a mallet. A close second is a set of twin blades that connect to each other in order to be easily carried and be used as a double-edged and double-sided sword. Taylor has the largest collection of various weapons, as she developed an ability to forge her own. Taylor and Adrian have a set of twin swords that combine to create a large bow, but they are only able to use them when they find a true balance.
Taylor lived in a smaller, newer city a few miles away from Ninjago City. Where he lived was often plagued by petty criminals and their family's shop (an already struggling business) was often the go-to place for petty criminals who just wanted the thrill of doing something bad rather than people in genuine need. After experiencing many break-ins and having an overly stressful time growing up, he became apathetic to life from a young age. They were seemingly unfazed by anything. After high school, Taylor makes music in their free time while helping their parents with the shop. He loved music and knew it was likely one of the only things he cared about outwardly. However, she never wanted to attend a school for music to disappear in a desperate attempt to find their big break. So, at age 20, they look after their younger siblings, slowly take over his parents' business as they grow older, and he tolerates the life he's living. Somewhere along the way, they realised they were generfluid and bisexual and their family were supportive, despite not initially understanding the terms. Their music let them make some extra money, which they put into the family's savings account and kept small amounts so he could get piercings, buy his siblings new clothes and make sure everything stayed afloat. The financing was helped by their slightly younger sibling Yvie, who is 18 at the beginning of the story.
Taylor discovered his powers at 20, completely out of the blue, during a sudden surge of passion and joy, the first extreme positive emotion she'd experience in years. Almost immediately, they made contact with Kai due to their similar feelings of responsibilities for their relatives, which had been part of what caused the emotional influx. However, they do nearly burn down the building they were in, so that was not good.
Taylor was unable to decide about going to the monastery, as he didn't want to just up and leave their family with nothing. So, they broke and told Yvie to receive their advice. Yvie hit him for even suggesting not going. So, as yvie was 18, they became the manager of the family business and was in charge of the family's finances as Taylor left to find the monastery. Yvie and Taylor told their family Taylor had been given an opportunity to travel with a small band for free. As their music continued making money, and as Taylor's younger siblings were able to get jobs to earn their own money, the family were able to save more and slowly become more comfortable in simply existing. Taylor was finally convinced to leave by receiving Avneesh's letter.
Taylor remained apathetic (seemingly just very chill and light-hearted) for a while at the monastery. When they began making a specific team structure, Taylor didn't really care for what position they took. They ended up becoming the media rep for the team; whenever they did interviews, their light-heartedness was often what avoided people panicking and Taylor had a talent for getting people to listen or to keep talking (many years in customer service.) Their fighting style is Melee a majority of the time, their weapons consisting of mallets, swords and katanas however they increasingly use ranged weapons, such as the large bow they use with Adrian. They also later learn to use throwing knives and shurikans, and their morphweapons often include an ability to fire bullets or arrows. Taylor is able to ambush enemies, sneak, and hide easily. He isn't the fastest or strongest member of the team, but they learnt how to sneak from dealing with home invasion and burglary A LOT. Taylor is able to identify risks to revealing locations and often stops the team from stepping into traps by being extremely aware of their surroundings.
Taylor struggles to learn how to harness their powers, often resulting in their coming in strong, uncontrollable bursts, then being very weak and impossible to use. Over time, Taylor learns control the strength of their powers and develops complete control over when and how they use them.
Taylor was happy being around the team and enjoyed the family dynamic they developed over time. Even though she tries remaining at least civil with his team, it is clear he and Adrian do not get on well. They are polar opposites in attitude, fight style, and behaviour, despite their similar desires, worries, and views on the world. This is why it's so hard for them to find balance when working together.
Taylor's family finds out he's a ninja when an extremely violent burglary takes place at their shop. She returns home to support them and brings Avneesh and Kay with them. Their family overhear Avneesh and Taylor arguing about Tay keeping their family completely out of the loop, and the truth comes out. They're supportive but deeply worried, and there's some arguing about only Yvie knowing what's actually going on.
Stats/TLDR:
Name: Taylor Smith
Age at the beginning of the au: 20
Race/Ethnicity: Morrocan
Gender/Pronouns: genderfluid, any pronouns
Sexuality: bisexual
Element: fire
Elemental Guide: Kai
Team position: media representative
Fighting style: Melee, offensive, later ranged as well
Weapons (no preferance): mallet, twin blades, fire/water blades/bow, various morph weapons, shurikans, throwing knives
I wish it was easier to sort and categorize single playlists on Spotify (like literally just being able to add small notes to specific songs) bc otherwise this AUs general playlist looks like it has glee and highschool musical songs in them for no reason BUT I PROMISE THERE'S A REASON!!
is the emental master of lightning. They were the second of the team to find the old monastery and train there, the fourth to connect with previous elemental masters and the third to discover their powers. Her weapon of choice is a bo staff. However, they are skilled with other weapons, including crossbows, katanas, daggers, tridents, and nunchucks.
Kanya always moved around while they were growing up, due to their parents' inability to hold down jobs. They have an older sister, who left their family when she was 18 and Kay was 10. Her sister tried to get Kay to come with them, but their parents went ballistic and forced Kay to cut all contact. The day they turned 16, after saving money from doing paper rounds since she was 12, Kay moved out and tracked down their sister. Now living in Ninjago City, they earned money as a waiter while staying with their sister and catching up on what they'd missed. In Ninjago they met new people and learned more about themselves than their parents ever allowed. Before they turned 17, Kay came out as non-binary and began using they/she pronouns. They had no plans for continuing their education or gaining qualifications, as their parents never allowed them to pursue any passions or interests. In their first few months out of the house, they got their hair dyed, got many piercings and began experimenting with their dress style.
Kay discovered their powers at 17, but had shown signs of having some control over lightning and electricity from a very young age. As a baby, their strong emotions would cause electrical fluctuations. Once, they blew every bulb in their street as a baby. Every. Single. One. This continued throughout their life, but became less and less noticeable. When they argued with their parents, light would usually flicker. It is easy to tell when Kay is upset if the lights and electrics in a room are flickering or turning off and on again.
The reason they truly discovered their powers at 17 was when they accidently broke all the lights (except candles) in the restaurant they worked at during a horrible shift on a horrible day. The lights flickered as they got more stressed and then burst as they broke down. Over the following days, they keep giving people shocks. Everyone thinks they're static shocks, but Kay noticed actual light coming from their hands. They begin spiralling and end up contacting their previous elemental masters (specifically Jay) almost immediately (about a week after the power surge).
Kay initially refused to find the monastery; they'd have to leave their friends, job and their sister AGAIN. However, when Avneesh reached out to find other elemental masters, Kay agreed to leave. They make sure to stay in contact and visit their friends and sister all the time, but kept their ninja identity and powers hidden. Instead, they claimed to have gotten a job offer in Jumanekai village (the nearest village to the monastery.)
Kay was first to suggest an official team leader and instigated various roles for team members. She was the team treasurer, due their ability to budget small and large amounts of money. They helped find the most cost effective ways of repairing the monastery, and did everything in order of importance for living and training. Their fight style is often offensive, despite their weapon being used for defensive martial arts. Their fighting style is rather messy, but not underhanded. Despite technically being a ninja, they're terrible at sneaking and ambush. Rather, they're used to help distract enemies while the better ambushers sneak to surprise attack villains or move past villains unnoticed.
Even though they became aware of their powers very recently (in terms of beginning training), Kay is able to control their power while fighting extremely well. However, their emotions are extremely unstable due to their upbringing and often they can't accidently short circuit electric objects or mildly shock themselves or others due to their emotions always being strong.
Kanya loves their teammates dearly, even if they got off on the wrong foot with Adrian, Lin and Nieves. They ended up becoming best friends with Lin once she joined the team. She's also close with Taeko and the pair have certain similarities in anxiety around finances and struggling to cope with their family situations.
Kanya is forced to tell their sister about their position as a ninja during [SPOILERS] but despite their anxiety is accepted with open arms by their sister and friends in Ninjago City.
Their parents attempt to contact Kay again, but she refuses to speak to them. Taeko gets upset, as Kanya is seemingly being given a chance to reconnect with their parents, something Tae would kill for. Taeko takes them to meet her parents against Kay's will. However, it turns out their parents were actually just trying to get some of the glory (and money) that came with having a child who's one of Ninjago's saviours. Taeko goes off at them, and later apologises to Kanya for forcing them there. Jay didn't try and get Kanya to tell their parents, as he'd seen how horrible they were and that they truly did not care for their children.
Stats/TLDR:
Name: Kanya Zhāng
Age at the beginning of the au: 17
Race/Ethnicity: Chinese
Gender/Pronouns: non-binary, they/she
Sexuality: pansexual
Element: electricity/lightning
Elemental Guide: Jay, currently unnamed past master of lightning
Team position: treasurer
Fighting style: offensive martial arts
Weapons (order of preferance): bo staff, daggers, katanas, crossbows, tridents, and nunchucks.
is the emental master of earth. He is the first of the team to discover his power, connect with previous elemental masters and find the old monastery to begin training. His weapon of choice in a scythe, due to being trained by Cole, however he is skilled with many other weapons including katanas, daggers, shurikans and bo staffs.
Growing up in the centre of Ninjago City, Avneesh was always playing on his own and going against his parents wishes. His parents worried, but were far to busy with their work as a surgeon and a judge to keep him out of mischief. Eventually when he turned 13, he came out as trans and they began to keep a closer eye on him. They made a pretty messed up agreement that they'd support him, pay for his medical transition, name change, therapy etc for as long as he needed so long as Avneesh stayed out of trouble, did well in school and went into the career they picked for him (being a lawyer of some kind.)
It sucked. All Avneesh wanted was to make music. For a long time, it was the only thing that brought him joy of any kind.
Avneesh discovered his powers age 16 but refused to acknowledge them. The powers were initially volatile and reacted to any strong positive or negative emotions he felt. This became extremely clear when he was 18 due to an unfortunate incident that forced him to attempt control over his powers. He connected with Cole a few months later, as he'd began studying law at university due to his parents' insistence, despite wishing to study music. Eventually, he dropped out of university to find the monastery and train with Cole.
He was always level-headed, and even though he disliked his time at university, he learnt a lot about seeing both sides of arguments and leadership. This, along with his better control over his powers and better communication with past earth masters, lead to Avneesh being considered the team leader.
Avneesh grew extremely close with all of the team, even colder members like Adrian and Taeko. However, he always considered Nieves to be his best friend. He is also close with Taylor, as they braid each other's hair. This process is very long which meant they ended up learning a lot about each other.
When Avneesh finally meets his parents again, he is convinced by Cole, Taeko, and Nieves to confess what he's really been doing to his parents. During this, his father confesses with being the previous master of earth and to purposefully hiding this from both Avneesh and his mother.
Stats/TLDR:
Name: Avneesh Aziz
Age at the beginning of the au: 18
Race/Ethnicity: Indian and Somali
Gender/Pronouns: transman, he/him
Sexuality: polysexual
Element: earth
Elemental Guide: Cole, currently unnamed past master of earth, father
Team position: leader
Fighting style: mixed defensive martial arts
Weapons (order of preferance): scythe, bo staff, daggers, katanas, shurikans
