#mmtmm

[zebaji]

Morro's Means to Make Money

Morro comes to Ninjago with one purpose in mind– Take over Ninjago by controlling the economic flow of the realm.

But he’s been trapped in the Cursed Realm for decades and Ninjago has changed to the point Morro doesn’t recognize anything anymore. So he hires– kidnaps– Lloyd Garmadon to help him secure enough money to be the wealthiest person and ghost in Ninjago.

An interactive S5 AU where I ask you guys to help Morro and Lloyd come up with SFW ideas to get money!

_-___-Part 1: How this mess started-___-_

Lloyd groggily makes his way to the bathroom, hating every life choice he has ever made. Why had no one stopped him when he was six cans of energy drinks, fifteen packs of assorted chocolates, and an entire family-sized bag of Skittles deep into the night? They knew he was going to end up in a sugar coma, and yet they had sat around him, enjoying the horror movie Cole had put on, and did nothing to stop his bad decisions. Did the Ninja not love him anymore? Were they trying to kill him?

He runs his tongue across his teeth and grimaces when he can still taste the fuzzy aftertaste of sugar in his mouth. He knew that much sugar was a mistake, he grumbles to himself, making the decision that he was going to brush his teeth twice and then he wasn’t going to touch candy for at least a day. Maybe that was a bad decision too, but Lloyd’s veins are mostly sugar anyway and he’s too self-destructive to make healthy life decisions.

After Lloyd feels like his teeth won’t decay on him right then and there, he splashes water on his face to wake himself up. Then he looks up from the sink and into the mirror to make sure he looks more awake than he actually feels, and screeches so loudly, he hears a bird flapping off of the roof.

Lloyd curses Cole for playing that movie last night. Is that why he ate so much candy? Was it because he was scared and needed comfort food? Possibly. But Lloyd didn’t think he’d get so spooked from the movie that the fear would still be there in the morning. Is he still dreaming in his sugar coma? There is no way right now that he is in a horror movie right now.

He doesn’t feel like a human right now, let alone a ninja capable of surviving a supernatural attack. Because, uh, yeah, there is a person in the mirror. No, it’s not Lloyd, though he’s there too– but a green, blob-looking man, peering over his shoulder with an uninterested frown. He looks to be Lloyd’s age– with pitch-black hair and sunken eyes floating over him, looking at Lloyd like he has personally disappointed him. 

“I’m dead,” Lloyd whispers dreadfully, as cold air floods through him. “I ate too much candy and now I’m dead. Ohhh, Kai’s going to kill me.”

The figure in the mirror makes a face, “Ugh.” He says, and Lloyd bites down another yelp as the green man in the mirror isn’t just in the mirror anymore but next to him. Is that why Lloyd is suddenly shivering despite it being summer? 

“You better not be dead. I need you to do something for me.”

Despite Lloyd’s brain telling him to scream and run out of the bathroom to tell someone that the monastery was haunted, and they definitely needed some sort of ghost pest control, he just groans and rubs his head. 

He’s barely awake enough to function properly anyway. “I’m a little too scared to ask this, but why do you need me? Like me specifically? Because I don’t think I can be much help to anyone, let alone ghosts, right now.”

He’s expecting to hear something along the lines of some sort of unfinished business or a ghost with a vendetta against him, not: “You’re poor.”

Lloyd just stares blankly at him. This has to be the candy talking. “Uhh… What?”

The ghost sighs, and rubs his head, like Lloyd is slow to the uptake. Sue him, he was recovering from his candy high! Also, why would: “You’re poor,” be the first thing to pop into Lloyd’s mind when there is a ghost haunting him?

“Listen, you’re the Green Ninja right?” The ghost says slowly like he’s trying to teach Lloyd something. Lloyd just nods his head along, trying to figure out why he thinks that this won’t be the weirdest thing that will happen to him today. “Someone who is famous, correct?”

“...Yes,” Lloyd nods his head again, brows furrowed in confusion. What did that have to do with being poor?

“Where’s the money then?”

“I– what?” Lloyd asks, feeling befuddled. “What are you talking about? Also, who are you? Why do you care about my money? Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know? Haunting me? Scaring me? Making my life miserable? Whatever ghosts do?”

The ghost snorts, “Do you want me to do that?”

Lloyd tosses his hands in the air, “No! But what does my money have to do with anything?” He demands, and the ghost shrugs.

“When I was living, I was poor and an orphan. Now, I’m dead and still poor, I’d like to change that– except the orphan part, I don’t really care about that anymore,” The green dude says, and Lloyd thinks it over in his head before nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Why do you need my help though? Not anyone else…like I don’t know, Clutch Powers? Or Cliff Gordon? They’re pretty rich, right?”

“Yes, they are. And trust me, we’ll get to them. But you Lloyd– you’re not only famous, you are a legend. No matter what you do, you will be immortalized in history forever. You should have a lot of money rolling in for simply being you. So where is it?” The ghost asks, and Lloyd frowns at that perspective that he hadn’t thought of before.

He didn’t have any money. 

He didn’t have a need for money, since Wu paid for most things, so that meant he was all set. But… he was super famous though. Surely someone had tried to pay him for protecting Ninja or something, right? But no, he realizes with a frown. He’d never gotten a dime for his efforts.

“Exactly,” The ghost seemingly read his thoughts and grins at him victoriously. “You’re poor.”

“I have food on the table and a roof over my head,” Lloyd points out, trying to find some reason to be okay with having no source of income to his name. “Also I have candy. I think I'm alright with that.” But the more Lloyd thinks about it though, he doesn’t think he actually is.

“But with money, I’m sure you could get that new comic book you’ve been thinking about. Fritz Donnegen and the attack of the Arsenic Featherflies, right?” The ghost says, looking smug, and Lloyd frowns. 

Yes, he did want the new comic, and was saving up for it, but…“Hey, how did you know about that? How long have you been haunting me?” He demands, and the ghost rolls his eyes.

“I don’t need to haunt you, one look from that sugar-infested hell that you call a bedroom was more than enough to know what you truly like when you're not saving Ninjago,” the ghost dismisses, and Lloyd bristles, feeling offended.

“Okay, buddy. This is the last time I ask you: Who are you and why do you want my non-existent money?”

The ghost sighs and crosses his arms. “I don’t just want your non-existent money, I want to hire you to make money for me.”

Lloyd blinks, once again feeling lost as heck. “Wanna run that by me again?”

“Be my cash cow and I’ll pay you in candy and comics. Plus, I can get you blackmail on literally anyone you want– Wu especially,” The ghost offers, stretching out a goopy hand, Lloyd just knows this is a bad idea, but hey, getting money that he probably deserves, plus free candy, comics, and blackmail on whoever he wants?

“Well, it’s not like I’m doing anything,” Lloyd shrugs and shakes the ghost’s hand. And then immediately pulls back, because ewww. Ghost hands were gross. “How do we start?”

The ghost grins, deep and dark, and despite there being no windows in the bathroom, Lloyd’s hair flutters from the wind. “Give me a list of all the things that can get us quick money,” The ghost says. “And write a letter to the Ninja so they don’t think I’m using you to break into your grandfather’s tomb.”

_-___-_

Kai swears he’s just walking to his room after grabbing pain relief for his throbbing headache when he passes Lloyd’s room and hears voices. He doesn’t mean to be suspicious, but he didn’t think that Lloyd had any friends over, so, who was he talking to?

“We could always start a fan shop?” He hears Lloyd say and frowns. A fan shop? Did Lloyd forget that they were setting up a tea shop?

He’s so confused that he misses the other person’s response, although it sounds garbled and distorted to the point that even if Kai could hear, he probably wouldn't be able to understand anyway. Who was Lloyd calling at six in the morning?

“Ugh, you’re so old– I’m not saying that we personally make the fans by hand. I was thinking more along the lines of getting custom fans pre-made that have my autograph or something– wait! What if we set up a merch shop? That’s low maintenance, especially if we just get someone to do it for us,” Lloyd says, and Kai blinks a few times. 

A merch shop? For fans? Or a fan merch ship?  Was Lloyd still on his sugar rush? Did Kai need to take him to the hospital?

“What do you mean you were once a human fan? You’re not even a human! I don’t care that you can control the wind, no one is going to pay me money to be a literal fan!” 

Okay, that’s it. 

Kai can only reach so much confusion with a raging headache, and he’s met his limit. He pushes Lloyd’s door open, and winces in pain as Lloyd yelps and throws a pillow at his head. “Dude! It’s just me,” Kai says, tossing his arms up. “Just wanted to check up on you, you had a lot of sugar last night. Are you alright? Who are you talking to?” He looks around the room– Lloyd is sitting on his bed, facing the window with a notebook on his lap, but no one else is in the room. 

Maybe Kai’s going crazy. That’s probably it.

Lloyd shrugs, shutting the notebook. “I’m just talking to myself. I had a weird dream that a ghost was trying to convince me to make him money, and then I decided that was a good idea, so now I’m trying to think of ideas. Got any?”

Kai nods his head slowly, his brain trying to understand what in the world is going on. “Dreamt of a ghost? Did the movie last night scare you?” He asks, grasping at straws for any semblance of context, but Lloyd snorts and shakes his head.

“Nah. It was just good timing.”

Well, that makes absolutely no sense. 

“Okay,” Kai says, backing out of Lloyd's room. “Good talk. When my headache goes away, I’m going to assume that this was a hallucination and that a ghost didn’t ask you to be part of a money-making scheme.”

“Okay,” Lloyd nods his head and waves Kai away. “By then, we should probably have the money, so don’t even worry about it.”

Kai shuts the door and heads back to bed. Let someone else take care of this– preferably Cole. It was his fault for showing them the movie after all. Although making money on the side wasn’t such a bad idea, Kai admits. 

Maybe… Then Kai remembers the last time he tried to make money– as a human pinata. He shakes his head violently. That was a memory he thought he had managed to scrub from his brain. Guess not. He’ll think about money-making later.

_-___-_

Dear Wu, 

I have decided that since your tea shop is not going to do well– probably because you have it in the worst place for customers and have no idea how to run a business– someone needs to step up and be able to provide. So to obtain a constant stream of money (That I should rightfully have since I have saved Ninjago multiple times.) I have decided to explore my options, and honestly, the others should be doing the same thing as well, though I will probably be out of town for the next few months.

Please do not panic, I am not in a hostage situation, in fact, I have your former student Morro helping me, and he promises me candy and blackmail on you, so don’t even try looking for me. I had Dareth set up a merchandise shop, so you will have at least some sort of income while I am away.

To the others, GUYS WE’RE GOING TO BE RICH I PROMISE

Love, Lloyd.

Ps. Whatever you see on the news, ignore it.

Pps. Wu, Morro told me what you did back in 1545, I swear to your father, don’t even try it.

_-___-_

Part 2: Robbing a bank

[zebaji]

IM ACTUALLY SCREAMING RIGHT NOW THIS IS AMAZING AND SPECTACULAR I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!

Finally done. I have been so busy since starting this. Anyway! This was such a fun read, anyone seeing this should go look at it. Original work done by @zebaji, Morro Means to Make Money!!

(New to tumblr, really hope this is how the tagging format works)

[wytfut]

"I SAID WHAT?"...

A reader gave me a "heart" on one of my older posts here yesterday. I don't have a lot of readers that I know of. But have had mostly a positive response.

This particular entry I had completely forgotten about (no, no, far from me to remember anything after breakfast the same day)

"tubing and tech".... had me giggling to myself, as I didn't remember writing this, and that I had written with some humor. Which in turn I didn't know I could be funny.

Spose I should clarify, .... funny to me. But I really believe most of us blue hairs have experienced all of that. But most of us are too angry to admit to anything other than a fun fart.

This was written with zest at the time, as there were all these new techie bank card machines hitting me in the face daily. Each one with its own mission to kill my world famous public image. And save dishonor of face, as it were (embarrassment).

Another age story here...

I think I've mentioned me jumping thru all the hoops to get hearing aids..... free at that time thru the state of Nebraski. If you are of a certain age, and employed, and can't hear, the state would buy you hearing aids. They weren't fancy wine drinking ones, more like, you had a battery cart behind you to power it up. A modest but very noticable hmmmm, with lites dimming, a person could hear better than without?

And as I do everything I failed miserably. Not to ever have hearing aids as I'm banned for life, and from ever verbalizing those very words out loud.

"Mr. Whitefoot.... you hear just fine for a fella of 70 sum years old." I immediately decide my wife is more educated than this guy. Only a Dr. of E.N.T..... scoff....

.....

In my daily life, I'm naturally grumpy for a guy that is 70 some years old. And my wife is approaching this age too. She's not near as good at it as me, but she practices daily with me. She'll get her union card probably early.

With a lite breakfast conversation reading the paper every morning. ... one of us will mention something worth the effort from the paper. My lovely soft spoken wife will spit it out. And I'll do a "what?". First one is a freebie, and the game is on.

Now the "what?" is partially due to the fact I have my nose in the paper, and she is distracting me from this, grabbing my attention. This positioning just requires the standard "what?". Its a rule to play the game.

Then there is the recommended second "what?", when she repeats it. Her second attempt, I'm certain is a little bit more quiet, as I actually can't hear it. I see her lips move, but I hear nothing.

For the next step.... its dancing on landmines. Upon the next repeat, do I say "what?", or do I just politely nod, and reply "yup". If I say "what?" the third time... things are going to get grumpy at the speed of falling down stairs. If I nod and say "yup", she knows I didn't hear her, but shes happy, as I didn't say "what?". win/win. Score 1-1

To compound all of this .... my sweet hunny of almost 50 years now, is also loosing her hearing, ever so slight. I've entered the living room, to the TV rattling the windows, with her watching along. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. ...... oh, and usually she'll want to have a conversation with all that background noise. Most certainly round two of the game.

Displaced noises also get us to readily play the game. By the back door is our wash room. I use this door mainly, as its where I park my shoes and pocket junk.

Notoriously, I'll enter from outside. Washer grinding away, drier clanking along.... and I hear ... mmmmmmk.... gmmmm.... mmtmm?

She knows I can't hear with background noises. Wedding reception type situations are a nitemare for me. I just stagger around, nodding my head, shaking hands. Possibly saying something absurd, embarrassing my hunny.

Next common step tells a person to say politely.... "hunny... wait a second, I can't hear with all this noise". I usually do this response, but I never win this match. I'm still trying to figure out what the proper response should be. If I could only remember where I left off at on the last attempt.

.......

hearing relates to all of the following, and is a main character in these examples. Note to self....

One of my favorite writers, that I wish I could be as good as is the late great Roger Welsch, the Nebraski humor rural writer. Starred for years on CBS sunday morning show .... "Post card from Nebraska".

Roger for a hobby loved to restore old Allis Chalmers tractors. His restoration was typically, get it running, and maybe put some new rubber on it. Not sure how many he had, but it was quite the collection. A large portion of his books is about him restoring them.

In this particular book, he talks about his wife (very artsie fartsie) helping him move or pull start one of his tractors. He said it promised raised blood pressures, glares, and hard feelings.

She'd be pulling said tractors, all the while Roger screaming at her decisions around the yard, speed, etc. She couldn't hear any of the details of the screaming, but knew it was happening.

Roger always regretted these events, but had no other resource to do such events... in a reasonable manner.

I directly relate to this, with me and rusty fords. I'd be laughing to tears reading this part of his story.

This directly relates to Patti and me, with our own personal hell event. The boys were still younger. I'd have to convince her everytime to help.

Me interrupting her daily routine, with a stupid assignment of moving a rusty ford. She' be neck deep in Momisms, and I'd just stroll in like she was just sitting around eating cheetos, waiting for me to give her something to do (so typical of me).

One or 2 times, I'd be in the pulled vehicles. I'd start hollering, I could see her eyes in the mirror, while she drove the old "road warrior" (a beast of a machine, that she could barely see over the dash). She's short. She can't help it, that's what she was dealt.

Her eyes were speaking volumes..... something to the tune of how horrible my relatives were back to the stone age. My ears bursting into flames usually.

By the the 3rd time, I changed positions thinking this would make the event more efficient with no hard feelings. Me tugging her in the rusty ford.

This was a slight misjudgement on my part. She again just barely over the dash of a rusty ford (maybe sitting on a bucket or some boards).... 2 eyes glaring at me, and a wisp of blonde hair. Me screaming at her, she couldn't hear me in normal tones, or even with me screaming I learned later.

Don't know (remember I can't remember breakfast) we ever had the loving closeness of pulling junk around the yard again after that.

Not really sure how I got this done after that. One good thing though, no hard feelings on my part. I did mention these events to her a few years ago....

And I saw it all again.... glaring eyes of fire, peering over the dash at me...

[zebaji]

Morro's Means to Make Money Pt. 3

Morro comes to Ninjago with one purpose in mind– Take over Ninjago by controlling the economic flow of the realm.

But he’s been trapped in the Cursed Realm for decades and Ninjago has changed to the point Morro doesn’t recognize anything anymore. So he hires– kidnaps– Lloyd Garmadon to help him secure enough money to be the wealthiest person and ghost in Ninjago.

An interactive S5 AU where I ask you guys to help Morro and Lloyd come up with SFW ideas to get money!

Part 1: How this mess started

Part 2: Robbing a bank

_-___- Part 3: Buying an Energy Plant Facility-___-_

“So what do you think?” The director of the energy plant that Lloyd and Morro have selected asks as they walk around the facility, examining the inner workings of the plant. Oh yeah, they also have a lawyer trailing after them, because apparently, there is a lot of legal jargon when it comes to purchasing companies. Which makes sense, but Morro and Lloyd are Ninja, not liars in sweet suits, so they had to hire a dude who could help them out.

‘I am not a ninja anymore,’ Morro reminds him, but the company director and lawyer dude– Mr. Oscar Alderman– are looking at him expectantly, so Lloyd plasters on a grin and nods his head.

“I think it's going to work,” he says as professionally as he can with a ghost in his head, mocking and criticizing everything in sight. “Ninjago deserves to be environmentally clean, and I know with all of the technological advancements we’ve had in the past few years, we really need to catch up in this part of the industry.”

Does Lloyd have any idea what he’s saying? 

No, no, he does not.

Is this director lapping up everything he is saying because he’s the Green ninja, and his Elemental power is quite literally energy? 

Yes, yes, he is.

In all truth, they picked this particular energy plant because it boasted a promising eco-friendly company that uses natural sources as a replacement for fossil fuels. They used a lot more big and fancy words than that, but Morro liked the premise at the time, so they’re doing this now.

Now the ghost is rethinking things as he commands Lloyd to ask for more wind turbines.

They get a tour of the many facilities before the director guides Lloyd and Lawyer dude into his office. He’d considered wearing a suit when they met with the company leaders, but then Morro cackled at him, so now he’s simply wearing his gi. It’s probably not professional, and Morro still won’t shut up, so Lloyd accepts that he’s never going to win and moves on with his life.

But it’s working because the director is beaming at him and passing Mr. Alderman some paperwork to sign. A half-hour later, Lloyd, and Morro, are now the proud new owners of the energy plant company, and if Lloyd can convince Cyrus Borg to lean on wind energy full-time, then they’ll have cash rolling in constantly.

But there is a problem– “And you know, obviously, I don’t want my uncle to know about this– he’ll think we’re trying to upstage him in the ‘being better for mankind’ business, so keep this hush-hush, you feel me?” Lloyd asks, and the director nods his head as if that was a totally normal request to make. 

‘It totally is,’ Morro reassures him, and now Lloyd knows for sure that he’s making a fool of himself and the Green Ninja image he’s managed to keep relatively in check for the past five years.

“Anyways, so because of that, it means we can’t put Lloyd Garmadon under the company’s name, since that’s us practically telling him what we’re doing,” Lloyd muses to himself. 

“What were you thinking?” Alderman asks, and Lloyd shrugs. ‘Put mine,’ Morro says in the back of his head, and Lloyd snaps his fingers, and grins widely at his lawyer. 

“Let’s do Morro!”

The director nods his head again, and Alderman scribbles something down on the pile of documents that Lloyd has just signed. “Okay, but Morro…what? We need a last name.”

“Uhhh…” Lloyd flounders, biting his lip. What was Morro’s last name?

‘Don’t have one,’ Morro dismisses with a scowl. 'Never needed one.’

‘Okay, well, now you need one. Pick a last name?’ 

“Uhh, you alright, Mr. Garmadon?” The director asks, and Lloyd realizes he’s been silent for too long.

“Totally,” he says, looking at the director and his lawyer completely seriously as if he didn’t have a ghost freaking out in his mind over something as stupid as a last name.“It’s just that picking a last name is super hard, and my brain can’t decide, y’know?”

‘Morro! Pick a last name!’ he hisses mentally and Morro shakes his head, frantically going through a list. 

‘Just say one! Just whatever you do, don’t say Wu!’

“Wu,” Lloyd blurts out, barely even having time to think about any words that came before it, and everyone seems to pause.

“But… I thought you said you didn’t want your uncle to find out,” His lawyer says slowly, while Morro screams in frustration. 

‘What is your problem?’ Morro demands, and Lloyd gives both people a completely exasperated shrug.

“You know what? I don’t care. If Wu has a problem with this, then I’m going to create a rival tea shop, have my ghost friend/ relative possess all of his potential customers, and have them come to my teashop.”

The director stares at Lloyd, looking awed and a little fearful. The only accurate reaction Lloyd should get when he starts using his old villain schemes.

Alderman just sighs, probably realizing that he was employed by a person with too much power, literally and now figuratively.

‘We are not relatives,’ Morro mutters, though it’s not as vehement as Lloyd was expecting. ‘But it’s a good plan– we should add it to the list.’

‘Yeah,’ Lloyd thinks, as he shakes hands with the director and wraps up the meeting. ‘But first, we gotta convince Borg to invest in this company.’

-___-_

Kai’s headache is only getting worse.

“What do you mean you had a student who was like a son to you?” Jay starts off slowly, but Kai knows his teammate enough to know that it won’t last that long. “But you told him that he’d be the Green Ninja, but it wasn’t true, so he left you and DIED?”

See? There it is.

Kai makes the decision to let Jay do all the screaming so that he can nurse this stupid headache without making it worse. He’d like to yell, too, but right now, all he can think is that he really shouldn’t have let Lloyd leave, not when his brother had told him about this ghost and money scheme. He really shouldn’t have thought it was a hallucination.

Wu is silent, holding his teacup like a lifeline. “At least Morro is helping Lloyd stop bank robberies?” He says weakly, and Kai thinks that’s stretching it a little bit.

“This brings up another question,” Zane interjects, scanning the note that Lloyd had written for the third time that day. “Why is Lloyd all of a suddenly wanting to obtain money? He’s never been like this before.”

Wu sighs, “I fear that may be my fault. Morro was obsessed with money, and I distracted that obsession by convincing him he was the Green Ninja. It worked until it didn’t. I’m sure my old student has corrupted Lloyd with the same desire.”

Four eyes bore into Wu’s beard. Wu did WHAT?

“What?” Jay demands out loud.

“You were… terrible at raising this guy,” Kai says incredulously, suddenly grateful that he and Nya had been raised by his village and not by Wu, who was legally his godparent. Would he have become a money-obsessed ghost if Wu had raised him?

“Uh, yeah, Kai,” Jay snaps, “The poor– literally and figuratively– guy is dead. You can’t get any worse than that!”

Wu, to his credit, doesn’t even look offended at that offense.

“Okay,” Cole rubs his temples, “We’re getting off-topic here. I think a better question to ask is why is Lloyd a security guard for the bank? When I worked there, they barely paid me minimum wage. Doesn’t seem like he’s getting a lot of money out of that.”

Nya walks into the room holding a tablet. “Uhh, guys? He’s not a security guard at the bank anymore. He somehow managed to buy a company plus a whole bunch of acres of land.”

The room goes quiet, and Kai’s head throbs.

“How?” Cole demands, “The bank couldn’t even pay rent, let alone a company!”

Kai has a sinking feeling that Lloyd was at the bank for more dubious reasons, but stays silent. Whatever Lloyd is doing, it better be for a great reason, because if not, Kai’s going to kill him.

Nya shrugs, “I don’t know, I just searched up Morro, and a guy that looks suspiciously like Lloyd popped up under the name ‘Morro Wu.’”

“He took my name?” Wu’s voice is watery, and Kai shoots him a bewildered look. That’s where their sensei was stuck on with everything they had just heard? Maybe it was a good thing Wu was retired– the poor guy was going senile.

“So Lloyd’s a businessman,” Zane says, “Or perhaps a better conclusion is that Morro is a businessman. What are our next steps?”

The Ninja go quiet. That was a good question.

[zebaji]

Morro's Means to Make Money Pt. 2

Morro comes to Ninjago with one purpose in mind– Take over Ninjago by controlling the economic flow of the realm.

But he’s been trapped in the Cursed Realm for decades and Ninjago has changed to the point Morro doesn’t recognize anything anymore. So he hires– kidnaps– Lloyd Garmadon to help him secure enough money to be the wealthiest person and ghost in Ninjago.

An interactive S5 AU where I ask you guys to help Morro and Lloyd come up with SFW ideas to get money!

Part 1: How this mess started

_-___- Part 2: Robbing A Bank-___-_

Morro cannot believe that the start of his plan worked. Was the Green Ninja that easy to manipulate?

‘Dude, I can literally hear your thoughts,’ Lloyd grumbles in the back of their mind, and that’s when Morro remembers that yes, he made it out of the Cursed Realm, and has possessed the Green Ninja which means he is now free to accomplish what he truly wanted back when he was alive.

‘To be rich?’ Lloyd asks dryly, and Morro nods his head, yes.

‘It’s better for everyone that I control the economic flow of the realm than destroy it,’ He says simply, and Lloyd gives him the mental equivalent of a shrug.

‘I don’t care either way since I’m doing something that isn’t boring. I still can’t believe that Wu told you– A poor orphan who only ever wanted money so that you wouldn’t have to beg on the streets– that the only way to get it was through the Green Ninja.’

 Morro winces at the reminder of his painful past but shrugs as he walks them through Ninjago City in search of its largest bank. ‘Yeah, well, he also gave me alcohol as a sleeping aid when I was a child so that he could sneak out of the house and do dubious activities with questionable people, and actually believed that I wouldn’t notice. So… not that hard to believe.’

Lloyd gives him a mental grimace, ‘If you ever give me a visual picture for that sentence while you’re in control of my body, I’m quitting. Got it?’

Morro smirks, and thinks back to his childhood. 

‘DUDE!’ Lloyd screeches in horror and Morro winces at the loudness. Thank the First Master that it was only in their head and not out loud for the public to hear. That would be bad for their upcoming heist.

‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,’ Lloyd chants and Morro ignores him, walking casually through the speeding traffic as if he didn’t personally know what death looked like. And besides, it’s a lot easier to ignore someone when he isn’t currently possessing them, but Morro has never backed away from a challenge before.

‘And why are we robbing a bank as our first thing? Like I get it’s just sitting money, but I really don’t want to become wanted by the police. It would do nightmares for my image,’ Lloyd complains, and Morro pauses on the street, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration as he ignores the honks coming his way. 

‘Why can’t we just ask Pixal’s dad? He’s pretty rich– Oh! What if I sell an organ? I don’t need a kidney that bad. We can do that instead of risking all of this by robbing the biggest bank in the realm,’ Lloyd suggests, and Morro snorts, pushing away his amusement.

‘Nice try. We need to rob the bank to get a bunch of money fast so we can start investing it. And I don’t like asking people for money. It feels a little too much like begging. Also, why would we sell your organs? That’s just stupid,’ He points out, utterly grateful when Lloyd falls silent. Morro doesn’t want to spend the entire time he’s in Ninjago, explaining and re-explaining his plans to someone who should be technically competent enough to do this– and do it well.

‘You’re so freaking annoying, man. I need you to know how much I hate you,’ Lloyd grumbles again, as Morro walks into the bank.

‘I know,’ Morro responds, smirking at the people who give him– or rather Lloyd– a double take as he walks past them. ‘You’ve said it multiple times. But you’re so easy to manipulate that you have only yourself to blame.’

‘You say that like you actually manipulated me. All you did was promise me money, candy, Wu’s secret stash of super ancient drugs and alcohol, and I was right on board,’ Lloyd mutters childishly, and Morro sighs, pushing past the crowd of people who have now pulled out cameras at the sight of him– or well, technically, Lloyd– and are starting to freak out. 

‘That I did,’ He grumbles begrudgingly and their mind falls into blissful silence. That doesn’t mean that everything else is quiet.

When Morro is satisfied with the number of people trailing after him like crazed worshipers, all clamoring to get a picture or talk to the legendary Green Ninja,  he finds his mark suspiciously hanging around the front door, pretending to act normal as they carry a detailed map. A person who looks like they have nothing good up their sleeves– or maybe it was just the gun Morro can see poking out of their large hoodie. Honestly, criminals these days– back in Morro’s day, they didn’t actually get caught!

‘Are you done being an old man?’ Lloyd asks, sounding bored out of his mind, and Morro rolls his eyes.

‘Yes, you absolute child. Do you remember the plan? Distract everyone by getting a bank account and complain as loudly as you can. Maybe throw in a couple of insults at Wu while you’re at it.’ He asks, and Lloyd nods, humor disappearing like it never existed. Finally.

‘You get the money and I’ll open an account so we can keep things relatively legal,’ Lloyd repeats the plan back, and Morro gives him a silent agreement before he exits his body and invisibly possesses the suspicious-looking man. 

As he settles into the man’s– Eric Anderson’s– body, Morro is slightly startled to realize that possessing people is a lot easier to do than he remembered. Eric’s mind is so quiet and compliant, and it’s hardly even a hassle to take over this weak-willed body that it forces Morro to acknowledge that Lloyd might not be as pathetic as he’d originally thought. 

Not that he’d ever admit it to Lloyd, since the brat gave him a migraine despite Morro not even having a body, or a head, but still– maybe there was hope for him yet.

He watches as Lloyd allows the crowd to flock toward him for a brief moment before Morro makes his way to where the cash is locked away. 

 Morro grins greedily and rubs his hands together in anticipation, oh, he was going to be so rich!

-___-_

To Morro’s satisfaction, the heist is a stunning success. He didn’t even have to run out of the bank, carrying the large duffle bags of money like a madman!

Maybe Lloyd was good for something, Morro supposes, since the Green Ninja managed to deter the security from following him out of the bank and made Morro’s undead life so much easier.

“I can’t believe they actually bought the whole, ‘there was only one bag of money on him,’” Lloyd snickers in disbelief as he heaves the three bags of cash into one of the modified cars he stole from Nya. The police sirens have finally died down, and Morro allows himself to relax enough to argue with Lloyd.

Rolling his eyes, he says, “Well, I can believe the guards were dumb enough to believe that Eric robbed them. He had absolutely no willpower to defend himself.” In truth, all Morro had done was lower the air pressure to knock out the guards and use their handprints to access the vault. He barely even needed Eric, just used the guy to let the cameras see that it wasn't Lloyd breaking in. They had planted a bag of cash on him to make it look realistic and hightailed out of there.

Hey, Morro would like to keep the two of them out of too much trouble with the law as best he can. It makes everything run smoother that way.

“I’m just glad security trusts you so much,” Morro snips back, as he sits in the passenger seat. “‘Oh, save us, Mr. Green Ninja!’ ‘We’re so useless without you, Mr. Green Ninja!’” He mimics the uselessness of the guards in a falsetto voice, and Lloyd grins, settling into the driver’s seat.

“That’s people for you–” he starts the engine and begins to drive through the city, only to pause when a loud ringing sound filters through this metal container on wheels. 

No, Morro will never get used to these metal traps on wheels that fill up the roads and pollute the air that he uses on a daily basis, but he can appreciate that people have invented a better way to get from place to place relatively quickly. Traveling on foot was never fun.

“Ugh,” Lloyd fishes out his phone and silences the small rectangle without ever taking his eyes off the road. That doesn’t mean Lloyd’s a good driver since he keeps almost running people over. Despite all of his whining about his reputation, Lloyd doesn’t seem to mind that he is one accidental hit and run away from losing it all. It’s infuriating.

“The ninja want to know why I was at the bank. Hopefully, they won’t investigate, but if they do, I’m glad we have an alibi.”

“Do the Ninja usually believe the words of security guards who can barely get off their butts to stop a mass robbery?” Morro scoffs incredulously. These Ninja were terrible if that was the case.

“Are we giving them a reason not to?” Lloyd snips back, and Morro rolls his eyes.

“I just thought after all these years of fighting who knows what, that you’d have some sense to investigate things on your own.”

“Snakes,” Lloyd says bluntly. “We’ve been fighting snakes this whole time. Plus the Overlord,” he says off-handedly and Morro throws his hands out.

“So you’ve been fighting reptiles and the incarnate of evilness. See, that’s your problem, Greenie– the people you fight don’t require you to be Ninja. You have to be weirdly dressed superheroes.”

“Excuse me?” Lloyd asks, looking offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Morro stares flatly at him, “When was the last time you took down the government because they were corrupt and were exploiting the poor– WATCH THE ROAD!” 

“Huh?” Lloyd swerves around an old grandma crossing the street, and ignores the angry honks coming from around them, as he stares at Morro in bafflement. “What are you talking about? I’d never do that!”

“The literal definition of a Ninja is a person trained in espionage and assassinations,” The ghost explains patiently, or as patiently as he can, as he grips the car’s handrest for dear life– before he remembers he’s dead, and can’t die again.

“You can’t call yourself a Ninja, let alone a Green Ninja if you’ve never killed a political figure. You haven’t, have you?”

“No!”

“Shame,” Morro shrugs, “I used to do that every Thursday night with your dad when Wu was at his ‘bingo’ games, back when I was alive. Politicians hated me and farmers wanted to get me drinks. Your dad never let them,” he sighs in dismay, reluctantly releasing his death grip on the hand rest as they make it out of the city and into farmland.

“Please stop talking,” Lloyd all but begs. “We just robbed a bank! What more illegal things do you want from me?”

“You literally drove through a red light not five seconds ago,” Morro points out, ignoring Lloyd's indignant glare. “Hey, all I’m just saying is that you're not a Ninja until you assassinate your first government official– MAILMAN!” Morro screams, his nonexistent heart jumping out of his throat when Lloyd breaks abruptly in front of a mailman riding a bicycle and he gets flung out of his seat.

“Stop talking so I can focus on the road,” Lloyd demands and Morro’s heart is racing too hard to ignore the order. He wants Lloyd to kill the corrupt, not civilians who don’t deserve to die via car accident.

Plus it gives him time to think about what he wants to invest this money into. It has to be something that pays well, otherwise how else would they get a steady stream of income flowing in. Then Morro realizes something, eyes widening.

“Lloyd,” He says, trying to keep his voice even. “Did you remember to open up a bank account?”

Lloyd swerves off the road, a panicked screech tumbling out of Morro’s lips and fills the car. The freaking brat bursts into laughter as the car straightens on the road, “First Freaking Master, that was hilarious. Of course I did, dumbass. It was hell, but yeah I did.”

The writhing wrath within Morro’s eyes could murder a person as he glares at Lloyd, who only laughs harder. 

Don't worry if the choice you picked doesn't win! I'll probably include it later on :)

Part 3: Buying an Energy Plant Facility

[femslashy]

me: my goal in 2019 is to finish more fics!!!!!! hell yeah productivity!!!!!!!

also me:

does anyone else just forget they haven’t actually written+posted fics because they’ve been ideas in your head for so long you just... forget they don’t actually exist in the real world yet

[zebaji]

Morro's Means to Make Money: Master Post

Or in other words, a place to find every part for this particular au! (I am having too much fun with the alliteration, can't you tell? 😭😂)

_-___-

Morro comes to Ninjago with one purpose in mind– Take over Ninjago by controlling the economic flow of the realm.

But he’s been trapped in the Cursed Realm for decades and Ninjago has changed to the point Morro doesn’t recognize anything anymore. So he hires– kidnaps– Lloyd Garmadon to help him secure enough money to be the wealthiest person and ghost in Ninjago.

An interactive S5 AU where I ask you guys to help Morro and Lloyd come up with ideas to get money!

_-___- Parts _-___-

Part 1: How this mess started

Part 2: Robbing a bank

Part 3: Buying an Energy Plant Facility

_-___-

ALSO!!!

@thebannockbeast created a comic for the first part: HERE!!!