3rd Person POV

A Few Hours (and Combat Rounds) Later...

"Well, I'd say you kicked our butts enough for one day." Jay told Aeria as he rubbed his sore arm and everyone groaned their agreements.

"Indeed, you are already quite skilled both in hand to hand and weapon combat, but it is crucial to stay sharp." Zane added as Xia closed his arm panel from fixing his gears.

"That having been said, I would say that it is time for a break, in order to replenish our strength." Xia announced as she began to clean up all the discarded weapons from the floor and placed them in their correct positions around the training room.

"I will go prepare lunch." Zane announced as he went to the kitchen to do so.

"Who's up for some video games?" Cole asked pointing to everyone to challenge him.

"What are 'video games'?" Aeria questioned as she put her bow and arrows away, her official weapon of choice since she decided to work past the bad memories she had associated with the weapon so she had another less burden to carry.

"Just wait till you see." Jay grabbed her arm as he and Cole dragged her out to the game room to show her their video games.

"Well, at least they found someone else to bug with their games." Lloyd chuckled a little as he pulled off his hood and made his way to the kitchen for some water and Kai followed him from behind.

"Speaking of which, Nya told me that you two were having a moment together before practice." Lloyd did a spit-take at that and choked on his water before wiping his mouth to say,

"I wouldn't say 'moment', I was just-"

"With her in her room as she was talking about her past." Kai smirked a bit, surprisingly, not in the mean way, but the teasing sort of way before asking, "You kissed her didn't you?"

"What?! No!" Lloyd cried out waving his hands in front of him rapidly.

"But you wanted to. Huh huh." Kai poked Lloyd's arm as he started to laugh some more.

"Geez make up your mind already, do you want her here or not."

"Don't you?" Kai ruffled Lloyd's hair before he pulled away stuttering,

"W-what, I don't like her that way. I just want to make sure she's doing alright in the little time she's here before she leaves." Lloyd quickly walked away covering his blushing face while Kai followed silently chuckling to himself.

"Oh come on! You're totally cheating!" Jay's shrill voice rang out from the game room.

"I'm pretty sure that you're just really bad at this game." Aeria countered as Lloyd and Kai walked in to see that Jay, Cole, Nya, and Aeria were playing Dragon Flyers and Aeria won first place in the first round they played.

"No, I'm not!"

"Come on, can't you just accept that she's right?" Nya giggled before she and Aeria shared a fistbump.

"Boom!" They chorused, mimicking an explosion.

"Well, it's nice to see everyone bonding together, right Lloyd?" Kai elbowed Lloyd, making his face even brighter red as Aeria turned to face them with a smile prominent on her face.

"I'll say, I'm kicking these guys' butts at fighting and at video games." Aeria tossed her controller up in the air, made it hover for a few seconds using a mini wind gust, before catching it with one hand.

"Ok Ok, Aeria, you're the new Dragon Flyer Master or whatever now, I'm gonna go get a snack." Cole tossed his controller aside and accidentally made it land on the tv remote, changing the channel.

"Hey!" Nya was about to scold Cole until Jay pointed to the tv exclaiming,

"Check it out, Mega Monster Amusement Park is opening up a new section of rides!"

"Seriously? Nothing new has come to that park in years." Cole asked dubiously.

"Maybe we should all take a break and go there for some fun." Nya suggested and everyone chorused their agreement.

"Wait, where are Zane and Xia? We can't leave without them." Kai asked and said nindroids appeared behind him with some sandwiches on a plate.

"Can't leave without us where?" Xia questioned curiously.

"We're all heading to Mega Monster Amusement Park's new ride's opening since we could all use a break from training Aeria."

"Uh, I thought these video games were our break." Aeria asked confused.

"If you had that much fun playing a little video game, imagine how much more fun we can all have going on some new rides while we go to the grand opening where everyone will be!" Jay exclaimed excitedly until,

"Fun as that sounds, I think I'm gonna sit that out and stay here to train some more." Aeria put her controller down and quickly walked out of the room, tying her hair up as she left.

"We can't just leave her here by herself." Nya argued.

"And she needs to do something other than training for a change." Cole added.

"Plus, a day of having fun might just be the key to getting her to fully trust us." Jay advised.

"Agreed, I'll go talk to her, see if I can convince her to come with us." Lloyd announced as he left to follow Aeria.

"Alright then, we'll get ready to leave and wait for you two outside." Nya told Lloyd as she and the others left to change out of their gi's and he went to go talk to Aeria, hearing Kai's silent snickers as he went.

In the training room, Aeria was concentrating on creating a sphere of darkness in between her hands when Lloyd came in and broke her concentration, making the sphere fizzle out in her hands.

"I thought you guys were leaving for that 'amusement park' thing?" Aeria picked up a bo staff and started twirling it around in the air left to right, creating small wind gusts that picked up dust from the floor and swirled it around the room.

"We didn't want to leave without you and you need a break from all the training you've been doing lately."

"I can't, there's still so much I need to learn in order to be able to fully control these powers." Aeria looked down at her hands positioned on each side of the bo staff she was grasping.

"Maybe so, but you can't rush things like this and taking a break to have fun might be good for all of us." Lloyd went to take the bo staff out of Aeria's hands, but she wrenched away and stood in front of Lloyd with her bo staff ready to attack.

"You still don't get it. The reason why I'm always shifting between being nice and cold is because my alter personality is growing stronger." Aeria admits as she lowers her bo staff just a little.

"I understand you're scared, but-"

"No! You don't understand at all!" Aeria's voice came out warped, her voice mixed with that of the Overlord's. Her bangs were blown aside as a whirlwind started to pick up in the room to reveal her dark matter-stained eye burning brighter than usual.

"You have no idea what this feels like! The pain, the anguish, the- grr.." Aeria gasped to stop her angry rant and her eye stopped glowing as she fell to her knees and hands inhaling deeply for breath as the wind started to subside.

"Aeria!" Lloyd bent down to help her up, but she shifted away from his hand before he tried again.

"Was that what you meant? Your alter personality?" Lloyd asked Aeria as he hauled her up by her arm and she nodded slowly.

"The 'dark matter' that infected me before has been affecting my mind for a while now, creating an altered side of me who's more... evil. I hear her in my head sometimes, telling me to do bad things. Occasionally she comes out in small moments when I'm fighting you guys, but I come back into control just as she's about to hurt you." Aeria looked Lloyd in the eye with a look of fear clear in them, "That dark aura that Xia was picking up on earlier, and was hurting her, that was her trying to take control of me."

"And you're afraid of her hurting us?" Lloyd asked and Aeria nodded again before adding,

"Or the people who might be at that amusement park if I lose control over her while we're there."

"You don't have to be afraid of her hurting us or the people if you come with us."

"How can you be so sure about that?"

"Because you'll have all of us to help you if that ever happens." Lloyd started to take the bo staff out of her hand again, but she still hesitated to let go.

"I don't know... what if she comes out and not even you guys can contain her?"

"That won't happen, you have to trust us on that like how we've been trusting you." This made Aeria completely drop the bo staff and stared blankly at the ground where it dropped before she tilted her head back up and grudgingly groan,

"Alright alright, I'll go, but, right after, I'm getting back to training so I can work more to contain her."

"Then, come on!" Lloyd took hold of Aeria's hand and they began to run back to the others.

"Hold on, you might want to change out of your gi first." Lloyd advised Aeria, seeing how she was still wearing her purple gi, "We'll wait for you outside." Lloyd walked away and went to go change himself out of his gi.

After dressing into her freshly washed clothes, Aeria was about to leave her room before she decided to take her wooden box with her, for safekeeping. Right before she put it away, she finally took a look at the other piece of paper that had been in there, discovering it was a map of some kind before closing it, putting it back into the box, and shoving it into the inner pocket of her jacket.

Lloyd waited for her by the door to the deck and they joined the others on the deck as the ninja all formed and got onto their elemental dragons and Aeria got onto Lloyd's dragon, sitting behind him like before since she still couldn't form her own dragon yet.

"Let's go!" Lloyd yelled out and the others whooped a few times before flying off with us following behind them.