A.N: Hey everyone! Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter; it means a lot! I'll be mentioning two new characters this chapter: Morgan Lucan and Trinity Animi (I'll be introducing them next chapter!). They both belong to the wonderful Hex the Ninja! So for all of you that are currently reading TPo9 (The Prophecy of Nine), I'm going to take a break on it; and I won't update it until I finish writing this story. So, hope you like this chapter! Remember to review, guys!

Ayesha

I had come up with quite a few theories for why the monster was attacking; but nothing like this. As soon as I felt the smooth, cold texture of metal beneath the skin of my palms, I came to an abrupt stop. Metal. That could only mean one thing. This whole monster incident was not just some starved creature looking for an easy meal; this was a planned attack. A planned attack by what I assumed could only be a human.

I motioned for Lloyd to pass the message back, and as he did so, I heard a couple of disbelieving gasps. I frowned to myself; there was no use in procrastinating any longer. Almost hesitantly, I moved my right hand forward, to continue making my way through the once natural tunnel, which had now become a cold, industrial prison.

All nine of us made slow, but steady progression, and as we did so, I began hearing faint noises from the unknown ahead of me. My ears were subjected to the torturous sounds that were the cries of what I assumed was the monster. I had never heard the monster make any sort of noise before; and I wish I'd never have had to hear it. Its roaring sounded like a thousand crooked nails being scraped mercilessly against a chalkboard.

I winced internally, as I persevered on. I noticed, to my dismay, that as we continued, the tunnel was becoming darker and darker. Soon, we would be engulfed in complete obscurity. Of course, I wasn't worried about myself; darkness is no problem for the ninja of shadows. I was worried about my teammates. I dismissed those negative thoughts from my mind, and closed my eyes for a few minutes, as I progressed with the now familiar action of placing my hands and knees routinely on the cold, unforgiving floor.

When I decided to open my eyes again, I found that my earlier prediction was correct; we were now crawling in the darkness. Suddenly, as I moved to place my right hand forward, I found there was no longer metal beneath it. Imbalanced, I toppled forward, off the metal, only just managing to restrain myself from making any kind of noise.

To my relief, I realized that I had not fallen off a complete drop; rather, I had begun my descent down a hellishly steep slide. A few seconds later, I heard Lloyd yelp softly; obviously he had also begun to fall down the steeply engineered slab of metal. After Lloyd, there were a couple more squeaks and gasps from my other teammates, but other than that, everyone was silent; the only noises to be heard were the soft whisper of fabric against the polished surface of the slide, and the cries of whatever lay ahead.

A few seconds later, I found myself sliding vertically, as opposed to the steep drop I had been travelling down, and the light was slowly returning to the underground passage. Suddenly, I could no longer feel the cold metal of the slide beneath me, as I fell about a metre onto the ground; which I noticed was a grate. Now everything was clearly visible; there were industrial style lights placed at various intervals around the room.

I rolled off my stomach noiselessly, but before I could do anything else, I felt a weight drop onto me. Acting instinctively, I pushed whatever had landed on me off, stood up, and drew my daggers. I relaxed, and sighed with relief as I realized that it was only Lloyd. The green ninja stood up with a groan, his cheeks stained a faint pink colour. "Sorry." I whispered, "It was instinctive." I explained, truthfully. Lloyd simply nodded at my explanation, and darted out of the way as Kai sped down the slide, and landed on the floor below.

Kai shook his head a couple of times, and prepared to stand up, as Jayde flew off the end of the slide, landing on the dazed fire ninja. Immediately, Jayde shot up and began a series of whispered apologies. Kai just smiled, and whispered, "That's ok, Jayde." As soon as he finished doing so, though, Matt fell off the end of the slide, landing on Kai. "What the…?" the water ninja began, but before he could finish, Zane, Cole and Jay landed on him, effectively knocking the wind out of his lungs. Before any of them could get up, Max came rocketing down the slide, a delighted look on his face, and landed right on top of everyone else in the pile.

I began silently laughing then; the scene before me was just too funny. Soon after, Lloyd, Jayde, and everyone else in the pile joined in, except Kai, who was struggling to get out. Max hopped off the top, coming to stand with us, as Jay, Cole, Zane and Matt followed suit. Only Kai was left on the ground, a grimace on his face. "Geez, that hurt!" He complained, before slowly dragging himself to his feet, and coming to stand with the rest of us.

"Okay," I began quietly, "We need to be silent when we get in there," I gestured to the door at the front of the room, "and find that monster. Matt, as soon as we see it, you need to get rid of the fog. Any questions?" I concluded. No one spoke. I nodded once, as I stealthily approached the door, drawing my Twin Daggers of Shadow, and pushing the door open silently.

Motioning for the others to follow me, I entered the room, to find that it was in fact a large balcony, opening out to a view of a much larger underground area. Cautiously, the nine of us approached the edge of the balcony, surrounded by the screeches of the monster, bouncing off the industrial, metal walls.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see, as we caught the first glimpse of what was below. In the formation of a square, were hundreds; no, thousands of horrifying, mutated beasts. They had lumpy, humanoid bodies, with muddy greenish brown skin. They had twisted limbs and facial features, including yellowed fangs and claws. They had beady, ice blue eyes that darted around, seemingly unable to remain stationary. Currently, they were all shrieking a twisted hymn in a discordant harmony. The words had been inaudible from a distance, but now that I could see and hear the nightmarish creatures, the lyrics were apparent:

Days and nights of endless waiting

The humans we will soon be baiting

Lure them into evil traps

Their civilization will collapse

We will get our ultimate revenge

We will get our ultimate revenge…

They trailed off, ending in a scratchy wheezing noise, which sounded like they were choking. With a start, I realized that they were laughing. I glanced around at the rest of my team; they all had the same horrified looks on their faces as I did. Suddenly, a few of the monsters enveloped themselves in a thick fog, and began emitting fire from their unnaturally irregular mouths. I gasped; these were the fog monsters! All this time, I, along with the rest of The Legion had always thought that there was only one monster; not a whole army! This was turning out to be a lot worse than I had thought.

I motioned frantically for my teammates to move away from the balcony and back into the room we had landed in. When we were all assembled, I began to whisper urgently, "This is a lot, lot worse than we thought! We need to get out of here; fast!" The others nodded in agreement, as Max tried desperately to climb the slab of metal that had previously acted as a slide. He kept sliding down, though. "Max," I soothed, "Calm down. It's going to be alright. We're all going to get out of here. You just need to calm down." The psychic ninja seemed to follow my advice, as he slowly crawled off the end of the slide.

"Does anyone have any ideas?" I asked the team. Everyone shook their heads helplessly, as tears began to pool in the corners of Max's eyes. That set me off. Max was the youngest member of The Legion, and as the eldest, I always felt the need to protect the others; specifically Max. So, a sort of maternal alarm went off inside my head, as I steeled my resolve, and began to speak again. "Everyone, take your gloves and shoes off." I instructed. They all obliged, as I continued speaking the next step. "Now, anyone with a sharp weapon, help me dig out hand-grips in the metal, climbing as we went." Max, Kai, Matt, Cole, Zane, Lloyd, Jayde (who was determined to help by using her arrows) and I all began working on the metal, which was surprisingly easy to cut through.

Jay kept watch near the balcony, to make sure none of the monsters had seen us. After about half an hour, Jayde triumphantly dug out the last hole in the metal. "It's done!" she whispered down to us, as she climbed up into the tunnel. Jay took one last look around the large assembly of creatures, and joined the rest of us in climbing the ladder. "Be careful, guys," Lloyd warned, "The holes are pretty roughly cut. You could hurt yourself quite badly on them."

Kai, being the one at the top of the ladder, reached the end first, and attempted to climb out. When he discovered that he couldn't Jayde giggled lightly, and stuck out her hand, which the fire ninja grudgingly accepted, and pulled him up. Kai then moved to haul Zane up, who pulled Cole up, and so on.

After about a minute, everyone was up the top, except Jay and I. Lloyd grabbed my hand and pulled me up into the tunnel; I was so relieved that I didn't have to do any more climbing. I then reached down, and pulled Jay up, behind me. We all crawled as quickly as possible; none of us wanted to be in that tunnel any longer than necessary.

Max was crawling in front of Lloyd, so when he began to cry, I was one of the first people to notice. "Max?" I asked, genuinely concerned, "What's wrong?" the psychic ninja turned to face me, to reveal that what I had thought were tears of sadness were, in reality, tears of joy. "The dirt is back!" he exclaimed. Sure enough, Max was right. His right hand was placed on the soil.

I grinned, and scrambled forward, almost crawling over Lloyd in the process, just to get onto the dirt again. When my left hand touched the dusty, brown substance, I felt immediately as if a great weight had been lifted off my chest. We were free!

After less than a minute of speed crawling through the tunnel, we found ourselves in the large underground chamber we had arrived in. We all climbed out with ease; the rocky wall had natural footholds, and rejoiced at the feeling of finally being out in the open air again. "Thank Mario we got out of there!" Max yelled at the top of his lungs, happy that he no longer had to whisper. I raised an eyebrow. "Thank Mario? Really, Max?" He shrugged.

"Hey, it was all I could come up with!" he responded.

"But, we have a huge problem on our hands, guys." I stated, feeling bad for destroying the team's good mood. "Yeah, Ayesha's right," Jay agreed, "There's a whole army of fog monsters down there!" Everyone nodded in silent agreement, and thought for a minute. "Hey!" Matt cried, "What about Morgan?" I snapped my gaze to his immediately. Why didn't I think of that earlier? Morgan was bound to know something about these creatures!

"Wait, who's Morgan again?" Kai asked, obviously lost.

"Morgan is a dragon keeper! Remember, we told you that we sent our dragons to her before!" Max enthused. Kai nodded vaguely, along with the rest of his team.

"We need to get to Morgan and Trinity, guys!" I exclaimed, transforming my daggers into The Terminator. The rest of the team followed suit, as Lloyd called the ultra-dragon.

All nine of us sped off together towards the large mountain range where Morgan and Trinity lived. To be honest, I wasn't too keen on the dragon keeper's home; it was too high up for my liking. But unfortunately, we had no choice. Don't get me wrong; I like Morgan and Trinity! I mean, it was nice to have someone else that I could really relate to, in that Morgan and I both shared similar pasts.

Little did most people know, I was a completely different person when not surrounded by my team. Without them, I was incomplete; like a puzzle with a missing piece. And so, I resolved that inner conflict by becoming a totally different person; like Morgan did. She was usually quiet and introverted; generally attempting to stay distant from anyone who could possibly care about her.

Ten years ago, when Morgan was just eight, she lost her parents to cold, brutal murder. She ran away then, living on the streets for seven years, until she met Trinity, who was ten at the time. Trinity had been living in an orphanage for six years; having been taken away from her home because of her severely abusive parents. When the two met each other, Morgan helped Trinity escape from the orphanage. Now, three years later the two are inseparable; each one willing to give their life for the other.

I looked ahead of me; the mountains were closer now; probably about an hour away. I sighed, as I continued driving towards Morgan and Trinity's home. Looking behind me, I could see that Kai and Jay were arguing about Fist to Face 2, while Cole was getting cooking lessons from Zane. Above me, Lloyd was riding the ultra-dragon. He grinned at me, and waved, almost losing control of the massive dragon. I laughed to myself as I waved back; this team was probably the strangest group of people I had ever met.

Jayde was riding her Beam Board on my left, seemingly deep in thought. I didn't want to disturb her, so I looked around for Max and Matt. Sure enough, they were on my right; arguing over whose dragon was better. Usually, I would have joined the argument, insisting that Midnight was the best, but I didn't feel like it now; I couldn't explain why.

Suddenly, a grey pigeon flew down from behind me and began flying alongside me. I frowned, as I stretched my hand out, accepting the message that the bird was grasping in its claw. Opening the note with my right hand, I scanned the contents briefly:

Dear Ayesha,

We miss you, and we're sorry for everything. Please come back to us. We promise, things will be different this time. Please; we need you.

I didn't need to read who it was from, as I scrunched the note up in my hand, and dropped it beside me, leaving it in the dust. Would they ever stop? They had been sending similar notes every few days since last week; all delivered by the same pigeon. Should I go back, though? Or should I leave them in pain like this?

'Let them suffer', I thought, 'They deserve it'. I clenched my teeth, and dug my nails into the handlebars of The Terminator, as I thought about my mother and brother. My vision began to go red, and I quickly shook my head out of my thoughts; I didn't want to release my anger on anyone here. So, I took a deep breath in, and focused on the mountains ahead of me.

We were closer now; about half an hour away. I sighed; I hated long trips. They were so boring. I looked up at Lloyd, who was currently reclining against the ultra-dragon's four necks. He looked bored. "Hey Lloyd!" I called. He opened an eye, and looked down at me. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Do you want to race?" I asked, as he sat down on the ultra-dragon properly, and grabbed the reins again. "Yeah sure!" he enthused, as he sped up, and shot ahead of me. I frowned; this wasn't going to be easy.

But despite that, I leaned forwards on my bike, and shifted to fifth gear, speeding ahead of Jayde, Max and Matt, and leveling effortlessly with Lloyd. "Is that all you've got?" I questioned. "You wish!" he exclaimed, as he zoomed ahead once more. I accelerated the bike, and passed the ultra-dragon, grinning like a maniac; this was the most fun I'd had in a while. I had to admit; it was a brilliant way to pass time. At accelerated speeds, we'd get there sooner!

I looked behind me, to see that Lloyd and I weren't the only ones racing; everyone else was catching up to us; fast. I grinned even wider, and shifted the bike into sixth gear, as I shot forward, passing Lloyd again. "Ha!" I cried triumphantly, "I'm winning!" But the others were still steadily gaining on me, and Lloyd had passed me again. "Damn…" I muttered, accelerating further. Suddenly, Jay zoomed over my head in the Storm Fighter. When I thought things couldn't get any worse, Jayde, Max, Zane and Kai passed me as well. I growled to myself, determined not to lose.

But to my dismay, there were no more gears to shift into; I could only accelerate. So, using the last of my willpower, I pushed the acceleration to the limit, blasting me forward in a burst of speed. I was going fast; but not fast enough. My motorbike, although it was decidedly smaller than a lot of the other vehicles, was incredibly heavy, being built for defense and attack, rather than speed or stealth. I cursed to myself; but then I had a brilliant idea. Lifting my index finger and thumb to my mouth, I let out a piercing whistle.

Sure enough, after a few seconds, Midnight came soaring down from the mountains, and landed next to me, breaking into a jog. I leapt onto her scaly back, and reached out my hand to grab my two daggers, which I had transformed from The Terminator. Grinning, I urged my dragon into a sprint, which she happily obliged to. We were now going so fast; I honestly thought my face was going to fall off.

I laughed as Midnight and I passed Jayde, Kai, Zane, Max and Jay, as they all stared after me, surprised that I was now on my dragon. Now there was only Lloyd to beat. He wasn't far ahead; all I had to do was go a tiny bit faster, and I would beat him for sure. Midnight, I thought, I need you to go a little faster! The black dragon nodded once in response, before replying, All right! Don't worry, Mistress! We will defeat Lloyd and the ultra-dragon! I grinned, as she sped up, before replying,

Midnight, how many times have I told you not to call me Mistress? Just Ayesha, okay?

Midnight nodded, and continued running.

Thought communication with dragons was one of the few gifts people like me possessed. People like Jayde and I, meaning people chosen by a dragon. We both had the ability to talk to our dragons through our minds, and comprehend their responses. I looked ahead again, to see how close the mountains were; we were here. Midnight skidded to a stop, as Lloyd swooped down on the ultra-dragon, and everyone else zoomed into the area, cheering as they passed the 'finish line'. Zane and Cole, though, were still discussing cooking lessons, as they leisurely rolled past us, and came to a slow stop.

"What now?" Kai asked Jayde.

"We need to fly up there!" she answered, pointing to the large dojo-like building at the top of the mountain. I swallowed; this was the part I hated the most."Well, Midnight and I had better get going; it'll take us a bit longer to get up there!" I suggested, waving to everyone.

"Wait," Lloyd asked me, "Why don't you just fly up there with the rest of us?" I stopped dead in my tracks. Flight. Just the thought of it made me want to curl up in a little ball and cry.

I shook my head wordlessly, before replying, "I don't fly." Lloyd nodded in understanding. I was glad he didn't ask me why not; I wasn't ready to explain that to anyone who didn't already know. I gripped Midnight's scales with my hands, so I wouldn't fall off, before thinking, Okay Midnight, it's now or never. Midnight glanced back at me sadly, before beginning her ascent up the mountain.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply as we moved higher; it was what I always did. Otherwise I would most likely start hyperventilating or having some kind of panic attack. After a few minutes of being jostled around on Midnight's back, she told me, Ayesha, you can open your eyes now. We have arrived.

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes to see Morgan and Trinity's home in front of me. I smiled shakily, still a bit unnerved by being so high up, and stroked Midnight's head. She purred in joy, and spread her wings to fly up into the air, along with the other various dragons up there.

I sighed, as I turned to face the rest of my teammates, who were waiting for me to join them. I plastered a confident smile on my face, as I walked over next to them, and got ready to go inside. Hopefully Morgan would know what to do.

A.N: Hey guys! Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter! Yeah, I know this chapter was a little Ayesha-centric, but I just needed to reveal a little more about her ;) Anyway, next chapter will be from Lloyd's POV! Remember to review, guys!