3rd Person POV
"Looks like your precious ninja master's gone." Everyone moved to be toward the center of the bridge's walkway as Garmadon continued with,
"Now, come on, La-Loyd. Open the cage. Let out your papa."
"So, now you wanna be my dad?" Lloyd asked bitterly.
"I'm not gonna ask you again, La-Loyd. Open the cage right now."
"One…" Lloyd stood his ground as his father continued counting down.
"Two…"
"Three…"
"I thought that was supposed to work with kids." Garmadon mused to himself before Aeria snarked,
"It does, if we were toddlers."
"Listen, La-Loyd and friends whose names I don't know…"
"I'm Jay." Jay leaped up onto Cole's back to introduce himself.
"It's not a question."
"Oh." Cole pushed Jay off before Garmadon and his pitch to the team,
"Now, for you to make it through this journey alive, you're gonna need someone to teach you the ninja way."
"What do you know about being a ninja?" Lloyd questioned, full of doubt.
"Oh, I know plenty, La-Loyd. You don't get to be a warlord without knowing a thing or two about the ninja arts. The dark ninja arts." Garmadon began to shake the bars of his cage, growling and hissing like a wild animal, thoroughly creeping everyone out.
"You're a ninja?"
"Indeed, I am. As a matter of fact, I wrote the book on Ninjelligence." Garmadon somehow pulled out a copy of the book from under his cape.
"Why are there so many one-star reviews?" Jay asked as he looked up the book on his phone, no one really wondering how long he's had it with him or how it was even getting a signal out in the middle of the jungle.
"I think that's trolls, personally."
"Oh."
"We don't need your book, Garmadon. Wu is our master." Lloyd replied stubbornly.
"Well, Wu is gone. And you're gonna need me to get you out of this jungle, or you're all gonna die."
"Oh, great! We're all gonna die."
"We're not gonna die, Jay."
"And while I'm keeping you alive, maybe I'll teach you some of my sick dark ninja move like the Buzzkill." Garmadon pulled a bug out from behind his cage and killed it in a splatter.
"Wow." All the ninja except for Lloyd and Aeria wowed at his move.
"The Miso Slap."
"Wow."
"Or the Chainsaw Chop."
"Wow."
"Or the Dance of Doom."
"Wow."
"Hang on just a second. This is Garmadon we're talking about. We can still make it to the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon on our own. We just have to remember what Master Wu taught us." Lloyd tried to convince his team, but his effort fell flat when Cole retorted with,
"All I can remember is we really need a ninja master. And you are not a ninja master."
"Alright," Aeria sharply cut in with a fierce tone, "Would you guys quit givin' Lloyd such a hard time he already feels bad enough about the situation as it is."
There was a tense silence before Jay broke it with,
"So what are we gonna do?"
Making Lloyd sigh deeply before answering somewhat hesitantly,
"We take him."
"Fantastic!" Garmadon cheered before they picked up his cage and continued on their way to the Ultimate Ultimate Weapon.
Short Walking Time Skip
Aeria's POV
We were all trekking through the forest, the others helping to carry Garmadon in his cage along while Lloyd and I scouted a little ahead of them as he chatted with the other like nothing was wrong,
"You know what's funny? I had La-Loyd when I was 158 years old."
"Wow."
"Wait a minute."
"You're 174?"
"Yes."
"Master Wu says he's 167, and he's your younger brother?"
"He's my younger brother."
"Correct."
"How is that possible? You look much…"
"Younger." The other all chorused at once.
"Thank you."
"Yeah, do you moisturize?"
"Yes, that's when I got the upper hand on Master Wu."
"'Upper hands'."
"Yeah, upper hands."
"How did you gain two arms?" Jay blurted out.
"Oh, don't put it like that."
"I don't know if that's the best way to say it."
"Well, he's got four arms."
"Correct!"
"You know, a lot of people don't ask me about it. So, I'm glad that he's comfortable asking. Lloyd's never asked me once about my arms. Have you, Lloyd?" Garmadon directed to his son, but he just tensed up from next to me and responded pointedly,
"Don't talk to me."
As the others started their conversation about Garmadon's extra arms, I nudged Lloyd with my shoulder before telling him,
"You can't let him get to you y'know..."
"You saw how he was to me when he didn't even know it was me, he doesn't care about me and I doubt he ever did."
"Maybe that's true or maybe not, you'll never know if you don't give him the chance to explain himself, maybe he'll surprise you and actually tell the truth for once."
"Hey Lloyd did you know your dad was bitten by a snake that had been bitten by a spider and that's how he got his extra arms?" Jay exclaimed with excitement to the two of us.
"Are you guys actually buying that?" Lloyd asked in disbelief.
"How else would you explain it, La-Loyd? You weren't there."
"Of course I've been wrong before." I smiled ruefully, making Lloyd half smile as he slipped his hand in mine and whispered,
"Thanks for that, even if it doesn't actually help, it's nice to know I didn't lose all my friends."
"Lloyd, you made a mistake, granted it was a huge mistake that's leading to the destruction of our city at the paws of a giant cat with a ridiculous name." I started before Lloyd put a hand to his forehead and told me,
"You just had to remind me..."
"But the others will forgive you, just give them time..."
The others' conversation with Garmadon was becoming pointless enough to where Lloyd interjected with,
"Hey, you know what? We should, uh… We should be practicing silence right now."
"Sorry. It's just, when you talk, I don't wanna listen, but when he talks, I wanna listen." Jay admitted before the other voiced their agreements.
"I agree."
"I've always said he's weak-voiced."
"I think we're gettin' off point a little bit, just a little bit."
"You see what I mean about the weak voice? *Like a little bit!*" Garmadon made a weak impression that sounded more like Lloyd if he had inhaled a bit of helium.
"That's how he talks."
"Do it again."
"*A little bit!*"
"Oh, that's not how I… That doesn't sound like me!" Lloyd tried to protest, causing Kai to make his own impression,
"*He sounds more like this.*" This time it sounded more like if a duck could talk and it had a weird accent.
"Look what he's doing to us! We have to focus." Zane suddenly announced before Xia finished his thought,
"He's turning our minds through clever mind tricks."
"Thank you, Zane, Xia." Lloyd told them before I added,
"Finally people who actually use their brains, or CPU's."
Both their eyes blinked and lit up before Xia declared,
"Our sensors indicate a fork in the road."
"Our sensors, aka our eyes, can also see that." I told them somewhat blatantly obvious tone as we looked to the two directions we could go in as Nya read the descriptions off the two signs,
"Hmm. The right path is long, arduous, and enlightening. And the left... A shortcut!" The right path seemed lighter while the shortcut looked darker and just screamed 'death with the skull resting on top of its sign.
"Why would they say 'possible'? They would know, right?" Jay questioned, slightly unnerved by the skull
"We're taking the shortcut. Let's roll!" Garmadon yelled
"No, no. Okay. Just wait. Master Wu said we should stay on the right path."
"What? You wanna listen to the guy who fell off the bridge or the guy who didn't fall off the bridge?" Garmadon argued.
Soon enough, we were going through the shortcut path, which turned out to be too spooky and creepy for even me to handle as Jay whimpered from behind me and Lloyd,
"Hey, Zane, Xia, could you two record this and then never play it back to me?"
"Yes."
"Um... Guys?" Kai looked nervously at our surroundings; a brokedown arena where skeletons and weapons littered the ground in piles every few feet around us.
"Maybe this isn't such a great idea." Nya added before I responded sarcastically,
"Nooo, really?!"
"This is my least favorite place I've ever been in." Jay whimpered again as thunder and lightning sounded and flashed overhead.
"Did you hear that?" Lloyd asked as a distinctive growling noise was heard from all around us.
"Uhhh guys?" I pointed to the shadowy figures that were scurrying from behind all the ruble before a few of them started toward us.
"We're backing it out." Lloyd spoke through the corner of his unmoving mouth to where the others didn't catch on at first.
"What?"
"We're backing out."
"What did you just say?"
"We're backing out."
"Go, go, go.*
"Back it. Continue to back it out. Continue to back it out."
As they hurried to back out of the area with Garmadon's cage they saw that a few of the figures had torches in their hands making everyone even more nervous.
"Alert. More danger."
"I'm gonna throw up."
"What do we do?" Nya questioned as they became surrounded on all sides by the figures and they all cowered around the cage.
"There's too many of them."
"Wait a minute. Oh, my gosh. La-Loyd, they look like my former General Number Ones." Garmadon realized as the faces of the charred generals were revealed in the torch's light, "You guys look great. Your skin has such a lovely glow. Have you all been tanning lately or something?"
"We were fired." One general growled before a slurping noise was heard and another came to the front,
"Out of a volcano."
"Oh! Right, right, right. Yeah, but other than that, you're well?" Garmadon still spoke like everything was alright before Lloyd asked nervously,
"Uh, Garmadon, did you fire all of these generals out of a volcano?"
"No! Not all at the same time."
"Like that makes it better…" I grumbled to myself as I readied a heavy looking branch that was by my foot to defend myself with.
"Don't worry. These guys are like family. They love me. Right, Generals?"
"Oh, we're family all right."
"Ninja, go!" The others yelled with uncertainty as they separated to fight the generals, but failed miserably.
"Guys, wait! We need to use our ninja powers." Lloyd tried to encourage the others.
"What do we do? We're worthless without our mechs." Jay responded as he was being beaten down by four generals at once.
"Come on. Remember what Master Wu told us. Nya, you can make a flood to wash these guys outta here."
"The only hope for water is if Jay has another accident in his pants."
"Yeah, she's right. We gotta get outta here!"
"Ow, that hurts." Zane states as another general hit his head with a spear before Xia pushed the general back only to be struck on the back with a blunt club.
"That nearly breached my processors." Xia looked to her back to see small sparks popping out.
"Hey back off!" I used my branch to ward off a general that tried to strike me with his spear and twisted it out of his grip before kicking back another general that tried to sneak up behind me.
"Let's go!" Kai called out as he and the others started to separate again.
"No, no, guys. Use your elemental powers. We have the power! AAAHH" I looked over from where I had finished bashing another general with my makeshift weapon to see that Lloyd had been buried under a pile of generals.
"Lloyd!" I cried out before a sharp jab to the back of my neck filled my vision with spots as I felt myself being thrown over someone's shoulder and shoved against something hard before I completely passed out with someone whispering reassuring words to me.
AN- Sorry it's been a while since I updated this but like I've said in my other stories, school has been a bit of a killer of creativity for me. I know this chapter wasn't really all that interesting but I hope to put in some more fuzzy moments between Aeria and Lloyd in the next few chapters leading up to the epilogue chapter.