um

well

I appear to be posting a week late.

wHOOPS

Ahaha, sorry about that. I was volunteering at my church's Vacation Bible School for all of last week, so I had a ton less free time on the computer. Cough. Also I have literally 2 minutes to post this so I can't do review replies or questions if there are any or anything so sorryyyyyyyyyyyy!

Chapter 21

"LLOYD! COLE!" Lloyd woke up to his name being yelled into Cole's bedroom, and he blinked his tired eyes open as Jay barged in. "Zane's back! He escaped!"

"What?" the blond boy sat up immediately, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "How?!"

"I dunno. Sensei just sent me to wake you up. Now c'mon!" with that, the blue ninja ran out of the bedroom again. Throwing the blankets off of him, Lloyd slipped out of bed and ran down the hall outside to the living room, where Jay had gone. Zane was there, as well as most of the others in the monastery.

"Zane!" the green ninja exclaimed, catching the nindroid's attention. "You're alright!"

"Indeed I am." The ice master smiled. "P.I.X.A.L. reloaded my hard drive immediately after I was struck with the dark matter, so it canceled out the effects."
"Really? So it doesn't affect you?"

"Apparently not."
"Cool!" Kloey exclaimed, popping up behind the nindroid and making him jump. "That's sure to come in handy."

"…who are you?" Zane asked with a frown.

"This is Kloey." Lloyd introduced her as she handspring-ed away. "She's a shapeshifter we met just after you were captured.

"I… see." Zane nodded slowly. "Please excuse us for a moment." Grabbing Lloyd's wrist, the ice master pulled him out of the room, down the hall, and into his own room. "Lloyd, I think Kloey is a spy."

"What?" the blond boy frowned. "Why?"

"While I was there, I heard Chen say something about a spy." Zane's eyes lit up, projecting an image on the wall of the Overlord, Soul Archer, and Master Chen standing in an ornate room.

"We could order our spy to sabotage them." Lloyd jumped slightly as Chen's voice coming from Zane's head.

"No, it would be too easy got her to get caught." The Overlord rumbled in reply. "We need her to keep giving us information."

"Oh? I think her powers will let us blend right in." Chen smirked, then Zane's eyes dimmed and the image faded.

"Of course, she's a shapeshifter!" Lloyd slammed his fist into his hand, narrowing his eyes. "And she just popped up out of nowhere! It has to be her!"

"Then what do we do? Do we reveal her?" Zane asked.

"No… maybe we can feed her some fake information. She has to have some way of contacting the Overlord, right? Maybe we can trick her into telling him the wrong stuff. But we can't let her know that we're onto her. We'll have to assign someone to keep her away from our meetings, because if we leave her alone she'll just sneak out and listen to us anyway." The two were silent for a few moments before Zane said,

"What about Lea? Her enhanced sight and hearing could help keep track of Kloey."

"Good idea." Lloyd nodded. "We'll need to keep it subtle, though. We can't just say, "Go sit in a closet while we have our meeting for absolutely no reason at all". We need a valid excuse."

"We can think of excuses as we go." Zane shrugged. "Come, we need to tell the others."

"You do that. I'll distract Kloey." The green ninja agreed. "C'mon." With that, the two left Zane's room and walked down the hall to rejoin the others.

ReturnOfTheOverlord

"Well there you are." Kai said in a loud, exasperated voice as a hooded figure slipped into his cell. "I was wondering when you were going to show up."

"Pipe down, will you?" the figure hissed, straightening her glasses with one hand as she quietly closed the door. "That annoying twerp I was stuck with will be down here any minute to take this shift with me, so I need to make this fast."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" Kai folded his arms boredly, leaning back against the wall of his cell. "Just get a move on."

"I think they're onto me. They're making me stick around this other girl, and they won't tell me why." The girl glanced at the door, nervously brushing her black hair out of her face. "And I'm pretty sure I heard Lloyd say the word "spy"."

"Or maybe you're just paranoid." The infected fire ninja rolled his eyes. "They're pairing everyone up, remember?"

"Yes, but-"

"And besides, if they suspected you, why are they letting you guard me?"

"I don't know! Shut up!" she snarled. "Just deliver the message!"

"Fine, fine, fine…" Kai sighed loudly, turning away and falling silent. There was silent in the room for a few moments before the ex-ninja said in a high-pitched voice, "Nyeeeh, the ninja are gonna find me out, which I don't want because, I'm a noble person and I wanna help them, mee mee mee mee mee…" the hooded girl whirled around to face him to see that he was an exact copy of her, the Changeling Stone glowing faintly in his pocket.

"Shut up, you idiot!" she hissed as he laughed. "I am as loyal to the Overlord as you are, and you know it!"

"Oh come on. I've seen the way you act around them. You're getting more attached to them than you want to let on."

"Give me that!" the spy reached through the bars and snatched the stone out of his pocket, making him immediately revert back to his normal form.

"Hey!" he yelped, trying to grab it back. "Give that back!"

"Not if you're only going to mock me with it." The black haired girl put the crystal in her own pocket, glaring at the fire master from beneath her hood.

"I'll tell the Overlord you stole it!"

"So what? You don't need it."

"Neither do you!"

"So it doesn't matter who has it."

"Jerk."

"Brat." The two glared at each other for a few moments before the spy turned around and opened the door again, saying, "I seem to have lost my partner. I'm going to go find her. Then I'll be back."

"Suit yourself." Kai muttered boredly. "Don't worry about me, I'll be right here, being incredibly bored forever."

"Oh, stop whining." The spy gave him one last condescending glance before turning and stalking out of the room.

Oh yeah! And, in case you hadn't noticed, I have posted a few stories and oneshots and things unrelated to this story, and will be posting more soon. I'll probably be replying to reviews in this in a oneshot called Grave Danger. Please check that out, and bye!

~FFF