The world was silently loud. Cars zoomed by softly through the glass of his small window, and the synthetic sound of the city clouded Lloyd's ears. He was used to all of it- every car horn and buzz and click of buildings being slowly yet quickly rebuilt overnight. Garmadon attacked two days ago, so he was due for an attack tomorrow, which just so happened to be Lloyd's 16th birthday.
It was nearing midnight, and the blonde teenager was having another sleepless night. His mind was constantly moving and thinking, either about his team, or the mech designs, or Uncle Wu's weird wisdom...but most of the time it was about his dad. He hasn't spoken to his dad....ever. Whenever he faces the four armed monster it was as the city's protector, the Green Ninja. He has never talked to his dad face to face before. He didn't even think the warlord would even recognize his own son if he was staring right down at his face.
Crap. Now his face was wet. He did not want to cry to sleep again tonight. Wiping the tears, he tried to focus on another topic in his brain.
Suddenly, his small room illuminated and his ears rung with a 'HU-WAH!", his text message tone. Only his text message tone sounded more like, "HU-WAH HU-WAH HU-WAH HU-WAH HU-WAH!"
"What the heck..." Lloyd mumbled as he squinted his eyes in the sudden brightness. He reached over his head and grabbed his phone. Squinting his eyes even further, he read the five texts that had just come in under the group chat "Not-So-Secret-Ninja-Force AKA SQUAD"
From 🔥HotHead🔥: "YO YO YO HAPPY BDAY DUDE!!"
From NyaRoxxxx: "Hey wassup man! I'll tell ya wassup! It's ur BIRTHDAY!! Happy 16 years Lloyd!"
From OrangeScarf: "Hey Lloyd sorry for texting you so late, well I guess it's early now but Happy Birthday!"
From ZaneTheMan: "HAPPY DAY OF BIRTH LLOYD EXCLAMATION MARK EXCLAMATION MARK OVERJOYED HAPPY FACE EMOJI BALLOON EMOJI STREAMERS EMOJI CAKE EMOJI"
And from DJCole: "Hey dude happy bday man ur killin it for being 16 years young"
As he read through the texts, his eyes flickered when the time changed from 12:00 to 12:01. His cheeks still wet, he unlocked his phone and sent a quick "thnx guys ill see u all @ school" to the group chat. Returning his phone back to its spot, Lloyd returned his gaze back to the ceiling. But now, he was smiling. And for the first time in a really long time, Lloyd fell asleep with a smile on his face.
____________________________________
Not to far away, a certain 'warlord' was delicately holding a family picture in one and his phone opened to contacts in another...and the other two clutching each other behind his back. He had gotten LLoyds number through his mom, who had asked him countless times to call him and try to chat. Every time Garmadon got close to hitting the call button he would chicken out from fear. He knew his son hated him. Koko has told him many things about his son that he barely knew. Garmadon knew the first time he would ever speak to his son, he would get scared and try to act all confident like "I don't know you and I don't need you" but the truth was? He did need his son. And he wanted to see him. But he could never have the guts to just hit the call button. Locking his phone on that screen, he placed it down next to his bed of blades. He looked over at the clock, which now read 12:00am.
He looked down at he beautiful family he lost, and as Lord Garmadon smiled down at his treasured baby boy - he wished LLoyd a special happy 16th birthday.
