(inspired by @sodasyrup's wonderful bug kai design)
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kai drifts and dreams. how could he ever want to leave this soft embrace? so he never makes it back to the monastery. lloyd spends more than a few weeks alone, but maybe nya finds him there. they build a new ship, holding wishes where the bounty holds memories in their hearts.
they meet the kids, and worry when they meet wyldfyre. they can only tell her stories of the man who might be her predecessor, or who could've become her teacher. she does better when they find zane. kai always did better with him too.
an egg shifts where it lies in the sand.
the merged lands are a terrible place and when the blood moon comes around and bonzle is seized, zane goes through with her. he comes out with her too, much to everyone's relief.
when they bring jay back to the monastery he spends time with a portrait of the red ninja. he's not the jay these freaks are looking for, but he wonders if this red guy wouldve been easier to deal with.
somewhere, an egg lays empty and dried. a young creature with a scrambled mind tries to remember what he was looking for. oh there, a trinket on the floor. he picks it up, and it lights up suddenly, startling him to dropping it again. he clicks nervously. it is... a compass? something in him thinks so anyway.
his parent is looking for him. he scuttles along, dropping the new toy in his sling.
the husk of a great knight lies waiting at the opening of a cave. sir, its only a little longer.
a great dragon, revived in heart, wonders if she'll spot that little stranger again. or if he's already succumbed to root or rot in this place.
a great centipede has lived in this place for such a long time. this is the first time one of its eggs had become a creature of its own, rather than simply another piece of itself. is this pride? it's certainly warmth, in such a way that sparks distant memories.
dungeon meshi au where kai is a healer (also firecaster but shhh) who sent the rest of everyone back up while he was eaten by a dragon
nya is a fighter/watercaster who is delving back into the dungeon to save her brother before he gets digested
lloyd is a green magic specialist (who is actually a dark magic specialist) dipping on magic school who is deeply invested in saving his big bro figure and making sure his big sis figure doesn't die trying
(cw: cannibalism technically, creepy children sorta. also if you know who our ill-timed friend is... ::D )
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baba wears a hat on its head. it wears a lot of hats. they stick to its chitin like they are bits of shell too. there are fancy hats with pieces of cloth hanging down, and even more that look like grasses. sometimes, kai clings to baba's long back and curls around one of them, content to nap as it climbs the pillars and walls of their home.
kai wears a hat too. it looks like grasses and its not stuck to him. sometimes when he looks at it he thinks of a very large bonething, resting in the warm wind. sometimes he puts it upside down in the water pool and sits his toys in it. his grass doll... his bonepiece doll... and now his "compass" doll. it makes light sometimes, and noise. it changes when he brings it different ways around the caves.
he plays with it now, following beside the slow current. his arms are soft and dull, where baba's are hard and sharp. he thinks baba would have a hard time pressing the little buttons on his doll. he has a hard time catching food sometimes because of it.
the current changes, slightly. the bonepiece clinks against itself as his hat is lodged slightly on the sand.
kai listens. it is small, the change. maybe small enough for him. he pulls his hat onto the bank. treads soft sand, listening for the movement of water upstream.
there.
it is making a noise, airy and sharp like wind through cracks.
before kai thinks about it he is trying to make it too. it doesn't sound as good.
the thing stops. kai creeps overhead.
"h-hello?" the thing warbles.
oh! kai knows that noise, somehow. is the thing not a foodthing? its not wearing a hat though... he crawls gently down a leaning pillar.
"is that someone there?" the thing is crouching, breathing quickly, pointing a weird lamp all around.
kai hangs just out of reach. lamps hurt when they fall on his face. "hehh-loh," he says softly.
the thing screeches as it turns around, lamp swinging violently in its fleshy arm.
yikes. kai knew it was good to stay back. three pats for him. pat, pat. pat.
"y-you, wait, you..." the thing stares at his face for a moment, "are you... from here? this place?" the thing spits out the last word.
that's a lot of noises. kai thinks the right ones are... "from... heeee-yur."
"oh... so there's people here. kind of. is there, anyone with you? uhhh..." the thing squints at him behind big clear circles, "... kid?"
"baba," he says confidently. he's getting good at these noises. it feels like he made them before, kind of.
"nice, perfect," the thing sighs. "i need to talk to someone who can, well, talk."
kai tilts his head. he doesn't think he's ever heard baba make noises like this. but baba is coming this way! slowly, maybe it had to untangle from around some pillars again. he chitters softly at the thing, hoping he understands what he means as he crawls further down the pillar to rest at eye level.
he reaches a hand out to pat the lamp. it doesn't look like the one that fell on him before. this one is long and skinny, and all the light is coming from one end.
"oh! have you, seen a flashlight before?"
"flash... light?"
"yeah, it's um. like this." the thing squeezes on something with its kai-like hand and the light vanishes.
kai chirps, startled.
the light comes back almost immediately.
"sorry, sorry!" the thing laughs. "that's just the, eh, fastest way to explain it, you know? flash light."
ohhh. kai accepts the flash-light gently, looking for the thing it squeezed.
"so, do you have a name? or... one i can say at least?"
"name?" kai looks at the thing.
"yes, um. a word, that means just you? not your baba or... anyone else? like, i'm tang! hello, nice to meet you." the thing raises an arm up at kai, who only blinks at it, uttering another soft hello.
"word?"
"uh. yeah, the noises. that we're making right now. words?" it drops its soft arm.
ohhh. words. okay. then, a word that is not for baba... was it?
"kai," he tastes. it feels different outside of his head. he cant wait to show baba, steadily approaching, all these new noises (words!) he can make.
"okay, kai! and kai's baba. when they... get here?"
"baba," kai nods. it's close enough that he thinks the thing can hear it too.
"and that's soon?" the tang-thing is fiddling with the edges of its otherskin.
"baba, here." kai corrects softly. he thinks hes found the button. it feels different from the rest of the cold flashlight.
the tang-thing stills. it swallows.
baba clicks its mandibles, not so far above.
kai squeezes the button. the light disappears just as the tang-thing shrieks again and silences under baba's smooth strike. maybe it was a foodthing after all.
kai skitters to where baba inspects its kill, gurgling wetly in the dark.
been thinking of ninjago pop demon hunters rgb and.
while you might think them all being cursed/half demon would eliminate that plot point? it is so much funnier if they are all actively hiding it from each other and actively failing horribly at it, but it still works! because everyone is so occupied with their own shit they keep missing the increasingly obvious signs. so they all continue to think they are Doing Great at this repression thing :)
meanwhile their really confused manager is reading up on really old esoteric literature to figure out how to manage them better. also therapy books. so many therapy books.
chaote with a hot n ready au for my extremely niche fireguard fam 🔥🔥 (what i dropped on fellow enthusiast @thepiratefish earlier lol, plus the very start of adapting it to an actual fic)
It starts when Kai marks Rusty to inherit his fire. Its a brief moment, in the middle of a bad time all around. Its not anything Rusty could have felt or noticed, least of all as he was pulled back from a death he didn't know he could exist beyond, least of all as his form was twisted and pulled and squeezed like taffy into a new shape, least of all as his newly born eyes recognized the face in the water (his master, yet younger than Rusty-Once-Valiant ever knew him).
Least of all as he takes in the destruction and understands that Kai made a trade that Rusty can't take back.
i think in this one kai marks rusty for inheritance which seems to be like. irrefutable evidence that kai really is dead
and by the time rusty gets to the monastery wyfy might be there and she needs a teacher who can understand her (she needs *kai*) but rusty can do *something* for her at least
rusty fills most of kai's roles, even going to the nether prison with bonzle (and boy howdy when they realize they are Both Polymorphs lol)
"that's my sister" to "that's my family" or something like that and its bittersweet bc even nya has been trying to adopt this guy in but the only reason he's here is bc her brother is dead
...
eventually (vaguely past current canon lmao) they need to hit up monjago to find smth (possibly the monastery of that ex-realm) and as they approach the way is lit by a distant lighthouse. which was definitely not there before. rusty would know.
so of course theyre checking that out bc that should mean someone living there, right? but on the way they get distracted per usual and also come across a little girl with a lot of weapons lol
its like she has a qiankun bag (the bag with magical space inside)
that scene from pirates of the carribean, she just has stuff Everywhere its nonsensical
its so much that a kid like her Should Not be able to carry it lol
there's smth familiar about her, but of course smth big comes by so there's no time to wonder. maybe the ninja were split up but when everyone regroups the girl (call me Tai!) obviously lights up and is excitedly vibrating when she sees Rusty in his armor... and scrap of his cape
(my dad has part of that! he says you were an ancient guardian here before you had to go!) which is... a little weird bc Rusty is pretty sure he didn't tell anyone in monjago about what he was before. even if they met in his old form, how would they know what he looked like now?
but she says she can take them to the lighthouse (proving to be quite a twisty path) so they go along with her for now (something about her... it hurts Nya's head)
...
as they trek along the coast they notice the light house is... not lit up. tai doesn't seem to notice so they don't say anything yet as they progress through obviously maintained garden plots to a wooden door that creaks open in the breeze before they even touch it. "Dad?" A red fabric is half spilled off a wooden table and Tai clutches it. "Dad never goes out without this..."
nya definitely gets deja vu about being in a lighthouse *again* but its whatever at this point. not like someone is the manifestation of a greater part this time :)
that would be weird :)
they check everywhere and confirm that tai's dad is nowhere to be found. they also realize that the lighthouse is missing something fairly important: the light itself. they try asking tai about extra bulbs but she doesn't know. "that's dad" dad takes care of it, then. pfff
there are lots of drawings around the lighthouse, some pinned to walls and others rolled together and tucked in various spots. something seems very familiar about the drawings and paintings, but the ninja can't quite put their fingers on it
after poking around they find absolutely no sign of b&e or a scuffle or even that there was anyone there to begin with. a cup with tea(?) has a layer of dust settled on the water, sitting on an otherwise tidy surface. "dad always forgets to eat when im not there" but he still must eat... right?
they start to think he must have walked out on his own... without things he would never leave on purpose. tai admits there are a few different things which could make someone behave like that (rusty remembers tentacles shooting across the water, registering the piercing damage across him but not feeling pain—ohhh, he didn't know that sort of pain yet) but is insistent that they wouldn't work on her dad
she still isn't explaining anything about him, partially bc she doesn't realize there is smth especially odd about her family situation lmao. kai raised her lovingly as much as he was mentally present too, and it carried over when he was running on instinct
she assumes that informing them that certain troubles don't apply is enough, bc anyone else who lives in monjago long enough would know that's the part that matters toward survival
...
so they struggle around some more, with tai pretty consistently getting the good end of things lol "dad says im lucky :D" and probably get caught up in a few side quests plus finding the monastery but not what they needed to find there
and then theres a big ol monster aggressing them until a giant moth monster shows up and... tells it off? its hard to tell but it definitely carries the vibe of someone scolding a child (the monster is like. juvenile at best, but the ninja haven't been in monjago all that long to have actually seen any adult colossals lol. its all just Big to them
so the big baby lumbers off to complain to its mama and the moth is about to leave again and tai is getting upset for reasons the ninja dont understand but she starts yelling up at the moth and trying to flag it 😞
and it does seem to catch its eye and it comes circling back around and sort of gently prods at her and churrs questioningly. and she's like "dad, you said you wouldn't go away yet" and similar refrains and the ninja (who are somewhat nervous of the big ol moth) are realizing Oh This Is The Dad 😬
and a bit of tearful and touching drama later, the giant glowing moth seems to melt and dissipate into itself (in a very reality-dietorting and headache-inducing way) and becomes a much more normal sized person covered in fluff and tai throws herself into his arms and he soothes her and nya's heart stops.
the halo is a placeholder for a cooler effect, trust
outfit is mostly what he was wearing pre-capture
those ink cuffs represent magic sealwork that can effectively replace actual metal cuffs (only for the most part lol)
Oh I had sooo much fun on this guy's face. The expression is equal parts Disgust and Snarl btw, I think it works 🖤
I made custom greens for his hair bc nothing was quite right. And lots of brass and coppers for makeup and accents!
also- there's claws now!!! and you can color them individually! heroforge has come so far i love it so much!
And here he is! My baby boy! mwah mwah
His hair is black at the ends bc he dyed it a while back (inspired by a ninblr post that has escaped back to the nether for now)
The mask is used when he's trying to disguise himself (either because he's super mixed and that's super dangerous in areas, or because he's the Warlord Garmadon's only child).
also featured is more nail options and a sleeve tat! still deciding on what exactly but this one seems likely.
