3rd Person POV
Behind them, some golden sparks dissipated into the air, signaling that Wu had used his elemental dragon to get him and Misako there.
"Mom! Uncle Wu!" Lloyd ran to them and embraced both of them in a big hug before the others came over and joined in.
"What has happened around here while we were gone?" Misako looked around to see the marks left by Aeria's darkness spheres, in the mast and on the deck, as well as the weapons discarded and scattered all over the deck.
Everyone started talking over each other to explain,
"It was Aeria!-"
"-Morro's sister-"
"-who's a master of wind!-"
"-but also the inheritor of the Overlord's powers of darkness-"
"-Pythor's been trying to get to her-"
"-for who knows what!-"
"Hold on!" Wu thumped his staff down to silence everyone, "What do you mean she's the 'inheritor of the Overlord's powers'?"
"The night that Zane and Xia took down the Overlord, a small piece of dark matter was launched away and it infected her, not a lot, but enough to where it created a side of her that's like the Overlord." Lloyd explained and Zane nodded in agreement from beside Lloyd as he carried Xia in his arms after she had gotten knocked out from Aeria's rage overload.
"And she's the Violet Ninja from one of your scrolls," Nya added on before blurting out, "and Lloyd's girlfriend!"
"She's not my girlfriend!"
"Not anymore she isn't." Kai snarked with his arms crossed.
"If this 'Aeria' is the wielder of the Overlord's powers then it's a good thing we went to get this." Misako held up a small purple mineral that had a swirling gold center and was about the size of a walnut.
"What is that?" Cole asked.
"It's a mineral that is believed to be able to suppress even the darkest heart's evil in a mortal being." Wu responded.
"Aww so we couldn't have used it for Garmadon since he was only partially mortal?" Jay whined out loud, making everyone look at him in disbelief before paying attention again.
"It is said to be made of a piece of the Overlord's dark matter as well as a bit of Golden Power to keep it balanced." Misako added as she pocketed the mineral into her satchel.
"So we just need to get this to Aeria, or should I say Darkstorm," Kai made quote hand motions before continuing, "and she'll be back to her semi-not evil self again?"
"'Semi-not evil'?" Wu questioned confused until Lloyd explained,
"Aeria and Morro grew up on the streets together until she was taken from him and spent her life around criminals, including Ronin, she's had a rough life and it made her a little..."
"Rough?"
"I guess, but she's actually not that bad once you get to know her." Lloyd rubbed his arm a bit as he looked down and a corner of his mouth lifted in a tiny, shy smile. Misako caught on to the action and smiled a bit as well before Zane told everyone,
"We must find her now, Pythor cornered her at the amusement park to get into her head and make her turn against us so he could catch her while she's at her most vulnerable."
"Yeah, but where would we even start looking? She knows Airjitzu and has been able to stay off the radar for years in hiding where she knows she won't be found." Jay asked impatiently.
"Let's get to the computer room and try to rule out where she wouldn't be so we might be able to figure out where she would be." Nya planned out and everyone but Lloyd followed her as he stayed out to watch the clouds pass overhead from the edge of the deck.
"What's wrong, son?" Misako came up next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I feel... responsible for Aeria leaving..."
"Why's that?"
"We all agreed to not tell her about what we knew about her brother, even when we saw how broken she was over it, because we thought that she wouldn't be able to handle the information. Now, I just feel that holding that information back is exactly what drove her away and it wasn't really for her sake, but for ours. We weren't able to handle the fact that she's related to a past enemy and it made us paranoid that she would become like him."
"Lloyd, at one point or another, we lie to those we care about because we feel it would be best to not hurt them and this lesson is often learned the hard way," Misako sighed before continuing, "while the truth may hurt for a little while, a lie can hurt someone for the rest of their lives."
"So you're saying she might never forgive us?"
"I'm saying that maybe giving her a chance to fully process the truth, the whole truth, will be what's best for her. She may be angry now, but, given the time, she may just surprise you." Misako brushed some hair away from Lloyd's eyes before asking,
"Do you really like this girl?" making Lloyd pull away at that,
"What?! I already told them she's not my girlfriend!" Lloyd buried his face in his hands to prevent his mother from seeing his bright red face.
"A mother knows, Lloyd." Misako told him as he unburied his face and looked at her, "So, what is it about her that you like?" Lloyd moaned in his mouth a bit before admitting,
"Well, she seems a little rough around the edges, at first glance, but once you gain her trust, she's actually really nice, thoughtful, creative, and really protective of us, in her own way."
"How so?"
"She didn't want to come with us to the amusement park at first because she was afraid of her evil side hurting us or any other people while we were there."
"Sounds like she learned to trust you and the others if she risked going after you talked to her."
"How do you know about that?"
"I didn't, until now." Misako smiled as Lloyd realized he just confirmed her suspicion and let out another groan.
"Whatever, I just want to find her before Pythor does." Lloyd pushed away from the edge as he and his mother went to join the others in the computer room. Before either even set foot in the room, they could hear the arguing,
"She could've gone back to Tozmachi." Jay suggested.
"She knows that would be the first place we'd check." Cole argued against it.
"Or maybe that's what she would want us to think to be the perfect place to hide!"
"Have we made any progress on figuring out where Aeria might be hiding?" Lloyd asked with concern.
"Not really. Like Jay said; she's had too much experience in hiding under the radar for long periods of time, so we don't know where we should start looking." Nya told him as she gestured to the red pins on the map labeled with question marks.
"I think I might know how we could find her." Xia spoke up from where she was waking up where Zane put her down.
"Xia, you must rest." Zane came over and tried to lay her back down, but she stubbornly got up and wobbled a little on her legs before continuing,
"If I had something of great emotional value to her, then maybe I could scry her location."
"Hold on, I think she might have left her memory box behind." Lloyd ran to Aeria's room and grabbed the box that still had the photo, paper crane, and carved stone from the floor.
He was about to run back out when he saw the purple origami iris Aeria had given him on the floor from when it had been blown out of his hand.
He picked it up and saw that she had stepped on it as her angry voice came echoing back at him,
I stood up for you guys against Pythor! I told him you'd never lie to me like that and I was actually dumb enough to believe it!
He winced at the mental yelling before pocketing it and made it back to the others with the box and photo in hand.
"Is that a sliding lock puzzle box?" Wu asked as he stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"Yep, " Lloyd answered.
"And a Chronostone?"
"A what?" Cole asked as Lloyd held up the stone in question.
"It's a powerful artifact that protects whoever owns it one time in a crucial moment and its powers aren't reactivated until it changes hands."
"That might explain how she got here from the past." Nya realized before Lloyd put the stone back in the box and held it out to Xia.
She took it in her hands and closed her eyes as a light purple aura edged with black surrounded her hands and the box. In her mind's eye, she saw a crumpled up map with a bright red X on it before the vision dissipated.
"Lloyd, did Aeria ever mention anything about a map to you?" Xia asked Lloyd urgently as she put the box down and went to the computer.
"No, but, in the box, there was a drawn map that led to a spot right here." Lloyd tapped the screen and Xia put a digital pin on the spot.
"Where is that, and why would she go there?" Cole questioned.
"My guess is it's somewhere special for her and her brother to have marked down where it was and put it in the box." Nya hypothesized.
"Then we need to get there as fast as we can before it's too late." Lloyd declared and Xia set the destination in as they set course.
With Aeria
Aeria was in the Howling Woods, as she and her brother had called it and named it on the map she kept clutched in her hand. She sat at the base of a tree that was bare of any leaves as the wind blew gently through the branches and she pulled her knees up to her chest and cried into them.
"Do not show weakness!" She heard Darkstorm's raspy voice in her head as she wiped away her tears.
"Just leave me alone..." Aeria grumbled to the voice as she wiped her tears away and looked at the map in her hand before folding it up and putting it into her jacket pocket, just realizing then that she didn't grab the photo or her memory box.
"You should be furious, not sorrowful! Your so-called friends just lied to you about your brother-"
"You don't think I know that!" Aeria yelled back angrily as she felt Darkstorm getting stronger, feeding off her rage for strength.
"Oh sorry to intrude on your little... internal debate." Aeria heard a new voice that wasn't inside her head, but nearby and scrambled to her feet.
"Pythor?!" The white and purple scaled serpent came into view from behind another tree, "Can't you get it through your thick skull that I'm not going to help you?" Aeria yelled at him as she readied herself to use Spinjitzu.
"I only tried to warn you, they never really believed that you were one of them." Pythor looked mournful, but Aeria saw past his charade.
"I don't care what you say, I'm not helping you with whatever it is you need Darkstorm to do." Aeria kept a hand hidden behind her back as it formed a dark sphere while Pythor laughed mockingly,
"Darkstorm? Is that what you're calling her now?"
"Hey, I didn't name her, she named herself." Aeria responded back pointedly before firing the sphere at Pythor, barely missing his head.
She was preparing another sphere when she felt her arms become clamped to her sides and she felt her powers vanish from inside of her.
"Hey what the-?" Aeria struggled against the red and black metal creature that kept her captured as she tried to rip her arms from it, but was unsuccessful.
"Good luck with that." Pythor came back over to her chuckling, "This is the same creature I used to contain the legendary Golden Ninja, so holding you wouldn't be an issue."
"Well, I may be no Golden Ninja," Aeria mimicked Pythor's tone, "but I don't need to be." She ran up the side of a tree and was about to jump to another tree branch when the creature unraveled its head enough to bite down on her arm.
"Aagh!" Aeria fell down from the branch she was on and landed on her back as her vision was becoming hazy and her breathing shallow and strained.
"What..." She tried to gasp from having the wind knocked out of her after her fall.
"I forgot to mention that I made a little adjustment to make it easier to incapacitate you." Pythor's smirking face came into view as he told her, just before her vision went dark,
"As you said before, 'say goodnight'..."