"What're you doing?" Kai questioned, he had spotted Lloyd shoving food under his bed.

"Uh.... Hoarding food?"

"Why?

"... So I don't have to steal food for a while after this whole sons of Garmadon thing dies down and I leave."

"You don't have to be sneaky about it, we'd give you food if you ask."

"I'll tell you a secret. I don't want to ask, then I'd have to admit a bunch of stuff that I don't really want to admit."

"Like what?"

"I just said it was stuff I didn't want to admit."

"I won't tell anyone."

"Sure you won't." The blond muttered.

"C'mon, you can tell me."

"Fine." Lloyd grumbled. "Only cause you're pushy and won't leave me alone if I don't tell you." He rolled his eyes. "I know I should have come here from the start, but, if I had done that, I would've had to admit that I can't do anything alone. Every time I'm alone, something bad happens. I was alone when I freed the serpentine, I was alone when Clouse convinced me to go to Chen's Island, I was alone when the stupid sons of Garmadon came after me."

"You don't have to be alone Lloyd."

"I know, but to admit that I can't do shit alone, would mean I'd have to admit that I need help. That I'm still a helpless little kid who lets people push me around because I don't know how to tell them to stop."

"Lloyd, what happened?" Kai asked. "You've said stuff like that before. What happened that was bad enough to make you think that without your powers you're helpless?"

"Darkly's happened." Lloyd mumbled quietly. "For a school that taught tomorrow's criminal masterminds, they had a lot of rules, and students were severely punished if they broke those rules." Lloyd looked down at his hands as he sat down on his bed. Scars littered his pale hands. "I had a habit of breaking the same rule. Don't help anyone." He explained. "I would try to help my 'friends', and then they'd rat me out to the teachers. It was a game to them that in the end I would always be the one getting hurt."

"Lloyd, what'd they do to you?"

"Technically, it was originally a form of torture used during the serpentine wars, used by the venomari to get information from captives until the other tribes found out. It may have been war, but even the serpentine have rules." Lloyd kept looking at his hands. "The victim's hands would be cut open, and a word would be carved into a bone with a thick needle." Kai's eyes widened. "Back when the venomari did this, the word was usually something that had to do with the war. When Darkly's did it to me, it was always the same word, Helpless." He mumbled. "I guess you could say, that the fact that I'm helpless was carved into my head from a young age."

"Lloyd-"

"You can't tell anyone. I- I don't want them to know." Why'd you tell him? He's going to tell everyone. "You've gotta swear you won't tell them." They'll pity you. They'll know you're not really strong, that you're actually just a fake.

"I won't Lloyd."

Failure. Useless. Helpless. Worthless. That's all you are.

"I promise."

Even your parents didn't want you. So much for unconditional love.

"Lloyd?"

You'll end up stuck here, trapped, alone.

"Lloyd? Are you alright?"

You'll never escape the fact that you're still the worthless little kid you always were.

"Can you hear me?"

Useless little Lloyd Garmadon. A brat who can't protect himself.

Kai sat a hand on Lloyd's shoulder. "Lloyd?"

Lloyd snapped back to reality, his eyes tearing up.

"I'm here for you Lloyd." Kai spoke calmly before hugging Lloyd. "None of use have gone through what you have, so we can never really understand, but we can try, I can try to help, if you let me."

"Yeah. I guess."

"How about some hot chocolate? Would that make you feel a little better?"

Lloyd nodded a little. "Sure." They stepped out of the room in silence, heading to the kitchen but were stopped. "What do you want?" Lloyd scowled.

Garmadon stood not far from the door fo Kai and Lloyd's room. Did he hear? Lloyd thought. "I had heard that Darkly's had a strange way of punishing its students," No. No please. "but I didn't realize they had the nerve to do that to a child." I don't want him to know. "Much less my son." He'll just bother me about it. Act like he cares.

Even though he knows, I know he doesn't.