Hey, Guys. Sorry this took so long to come out. I hope you guys like these two chapters, though.

Disclaimer: I do not own Ninjago or the lines from the episode Secret of the Wolf.

Chapter XIX: Secret of the Wolf

Meanwhile, Lloyd was carrying Red to the Castle of Ice in his mech's hand. The walk was very long, so Lloyd decided to pass the time by talking about his horrible life and all the trauma he's been through.

"And they called themselves the Sons of Garmadon," Lloyd told his new friend, "and they had this creepy symbol that looked like my father. As soon as I saw it, I knew, 'here we go again'."

Red whined quietly as he buried his face in his paw. Lloyd had been talking about this for hours.

"I just have the worst luck," Lloyd continued. "There was this girl named Harumi, and I really thought she liked me. But I found out she was just pretending. She only wanted to bring my father back from the Departed Realm to destroy us. Ugh, just my luck."

Lloyd stopped talking when Red barked this time. He looked overhead to see what he was barking at to see very dark clouds coming in.

"Those don't look good. What do you say we pick up the pace?" Lloyd asked.

Red barked in agreement, and Lloyd began running a little bit.

It wasn't long before the Ice Samurai had finally made it back to the castle. They all marched into the throne room and stopped in front of the throne.

"Hail, Emperor of Ice!" the leader of these warriors said. "The legion of Grimfax returns in triumph. Victory is yours."

The leader, Grimfax, bowed, along with the rest of his men, but they became nervous when the only answer given was slow clapping from Vex.

"Hail indeed, Brave Grimfax. Tell us of your great victory, for you left with so many more samurai than you brought back," was Vex's response.

"It is true," Grimfax said. "The battle was fierce. The villagers have protectors. Strangers who fight bravely, but we won in the end."

"Did you slay these strangers?" Vex asked.

"Better. We snuffed out their fire," Grimfax replied. "Without it, they are lost."

"Ah, snuffed out their fire, you say? Then why is it, when I look through my crystal, I see it is still burning?" Vex asked as he showed the samurai his ice crystal. In it was a reflection of the villagers from the Fishing Village comfortably surrounding the fire in Sorla's home.

"What?! Im-impossible," Grimfax said, almost too shocked to speak.

"You bring news of defeat and dare to call it victory? Punish him, my Lord, for his deceit."

All eyes were on the Ice Emperor now as he broke out of the ice that kept him comfortably on his throne. He stood up and used his scepter to begin to freeze Grimfax over.

"Wait! Please!" Grimfax begged, and the Ice Emperor stopped a moment.

"Yes. Punish him," Vex encouraged.

The Ice Emperor brought his staff back to him, causing the ice to fall back and said to Grimfax, "You will atone for this."

Grimfax was relieved as he panted for breath and said, "Yes, Ice Emperor. Thank you."

"Now, leave me," the Ice Emperor told them.

Vex smiled evilly as he watched the samurai run out of the room in fear before he turned back to his emperor, standing over his throne with his head down. It was always difficult to know what he was thinking.

"What of the villagers who defy you?" Vex asked. "They plot, even now, to overthrow you. And the stranger, in green, he grows closer every day. What of him?"

"Green?" the Ice Emperor asked, as if this was the first he had heard of this.

"You are plagued by enemies. They rise. You must show strength. You must put down these usurpers. "

"I shall unleash Boreal!" the Ice Emperor said, a little too loudly as he banged his staff on the ground. "Boreal shall punish the village."

"And the stranger?" Vex asked.

"He will meet another fate," the Ice Emperor replied.

Much, much later, Lloyd had finally gotten to the part in his story where his friends were trapped in another realm.

"So then, there's this huge stone Colossus, and I'm thinking 'What am I supposed to do? There's no spinjitzu move for this'. And, I mean, we all came together and took it down, but oh boy, it wasn't easy. Wait," Lloyd stopped when he saw some weird looking ice. He hopped out of the mech to get a closer look and was even about to touch it.

"This doesn't look like normal ice," he said, but Red barked at him before he could feel it. "Yeah, maybe not a good idea," Lloyd said. "Wow. There's more of it. It's everywhere!"

He then looked up as he heard thunder rumbling overhead. The snow was about to get way worse.

"We better keep moving," Lloyd said.

He ran back into the mech and began walking as he said, "We're gonna have to find shelter if this thing gets any worse."

Suddenly, lightning struck something not too far away, and a bunch of ice began coming towards them at a very fast rate.

"Ice is definitely not supposed to do that," Lloyd said as it circled the mech and hit something behind him.

Red growled as some rocks began coming to life!

"Do you hear that?" Lloyd asked as he turned around to see a rock monster with one, glowing blue eye. It tried to punch him, but Lloyd backed out of the way just in time. He took out a sword and got ready to fight the rocks, but the monster punched the sword, causing him to stumble backwards.

Knowing this was going to be dangerous, Red took this chance to get off of the mech so Lloyd would be able to fight more efficiently. Once the wolf was safe, Lloyd ran at the monster with his sword and cut his arm off. Apparently, lighting and evil ice like working together because the rocks came right back on.

"Oh, no!" Lloyd groaned.

The rock monster ran after Lloyd and tackled him off of a cliff. Red paused a moment, hearing nothing but Lloyd's screams until a deafening crash was heard. Red ran as fast as he could to get down the mountain and to his friend. As soon as he made it down, he jumped onto the mech and started barking at Lloyd, trying to wake him up. Just then, the monster began to refigure himself and stand up. Red barked even more at this new threat, waking Lloyd up.

He managed to get the mech back up and tried to hit the monster with his sword, but it was caught in its grasp and was beginning to ice over. Lloyd could hear a warning signal from the mech, meaning that the arm holding the sword was out of commission.

"Come on. Come on!" Lloyd yelled.

While Red distracted the monster by climbing over him, Lloyd used the working arm to punch the monster in its face. He quickly got the other arm back online and tried striking him with the sword again, but the monster hit it away, and the sword was knocked out of his hand. It was then hand to hand combat. Red barked at the monster the whole time, but it kicked Red away as if it was just a little annoyance. The monster then started walking over to the wolf to finish the job, but Lloyd screamed, "Hey! Get away from him! Pick on someone your own size!"

The monster turned away from Red and back to Lloyd, making the green ninja realize something.

"Actually, you're bigger, but you know what I mean," Lloyd said as he activated a saw on the left arm and sliced part of his leg off, but it quickly grew back.

"How many times do I have to beat you before you start to feel it?" Lloyd asked as he ran up to the monster.

It tried to punch him in the head, but Lloyd caught it with both arms and pushed him off. It was then that Lloyd realized he was standing on cracked ice, giving Lloyd an idea. He kicked the monster back a bit and started slicing at the ice with his saw. He then watched as the monster began walking to him, stepping on the cracked ice on his way there, but it wasn't breaking. Seeing this, Lloyd picked up a rather big rock and threw it at the monster. The monster caught it just as any child would catch a ball and looked at Lloyd, seeming very confused. Lloyd sighed in relief when the ice broke under the monster's weight, and it fell in.

Suddenly, the monster's hand came up from under the water and tried to get out, but it was no use. He was never getting out of there. Seeing that the danger was over, Lloyd turned over to his animal friend, but he had not gotten back up. He was still lying there, motionless.

"Red! Red, are you okay, Boy?" Lloyd asked as he hopped out of the mech and ran over to his furry friend. Lloyd sighed in relief when he felt the wolf's pulse. "Oh, you're alive. Just hang on, Buddy. I'll get you warm."

The green ninja ran back to his mech and picked Red up to find shelter.

It was night when he finally found a place to rest, away from the blizzard. He sat his mech down and put the heating lantern he found in the Bounty on the ground. He then began to wrap Red's injured leg in a bandage.

"Now, you just rest. We're gonna be okay. We're gonna be just fine," Lloyd told him. "I'll take care of you."

Once Lloyd was finished, he lay down in the snow and fell asleep, but when he woke up the next day, he didn't see Red lying next to him. Instead, there was a girl he had never seen!

Lloyd yelled in fright and surprise as he stood back up, feeling more than a little freaked out that some girl was sleeping next to him.

"Who are you? Where's Red?" he asked her.

The girl looked to be around his age. Maybe a little older. She had curly black hair with a hat that looked like the head of a wolf on. She wore red and white ropes, had red face paint on that looked like whiskers, and fangs.

As she began to stand up, Lloyd noticed something on her leg.

"That's the bandage I put on Red," he said. "You're Red? You're a wolf? I mean, a girl?"

"I-I can explain," the girl started. She had an interesting accent that Lloyd had never heard before.

"I'd like to see you try," Lloyd told her.

"I am Akita, a formling," the girl told him.

"A shape-shifter? All this time, you were tricking me? You just let me tell you all those things? You let me go on and on, thinking you were just a wolf?"

"I did not know if you could be trusted."

"You didn't know if I could be trusted?" Lloyd asked, emphasis on "I." "That's rich, considering you're the one who can't be trusted!"

"I meant no harm."

"Well too late. Harm done! I can't believe all the things I told you. About my father and-and Harumi and-"

"I never asked for your life story. It is not my fault you talk so much. Like, so much," Akita said. As much as it helped Lloyd to get it off of his chest, Akita had always wished that he would just shut up and leave her to her thoughts.

"'So much'? At least I'm honest. I don't pretend to be something else," Lloyd said.

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"Maybe I am!"

"Take it back."

"No."

"I saved your life! You should be grateful!"

"And I saved your's! So we're even," Lloyd replied as he pushed past her. "Now, stay away from me! I only travel with people I trust."

The green ninja grabbed his lantern and began making his way towards the mech.

Akita wasn't going to admit that she felt hurt by this. That was a very bad idea. She couldn't let go of her pride yet. So, instead she yelled, "Fine! You too! Stay away from me!"

"Fine," Lloyd said as he made the mech stand up.

He began walking towards the Castle of Ice but stopped when he realized that Akita was following in her wolf form.

"Hey, what are you doing? I told you not to follow me," Lloyd told her.

Akita changed to her human form so she could reply saying, "I am not your's to command. I go the way I wish to go, and that is this way!" she said as she pointed behind her.

"That's the way I'm going," Lloyd said. "Why are you going this way?"

"I am going to face the Ice Emperor."

"Well, that's where I'm going! To free my friend Zane from the Ice Emperor."

"How? By boring him to death with stories about Harumi?"

Lloyd was taken aback by this, and quite frankly, much angrier.

"Well, what are you gonna do? Fetch his slippers?" he shot back.

"You know I can turn into a wolf anytime, right, and bite you?"

"Maybe you'll get lucky, and he's allergic to pets."

"Leave me alone!" Akita screamed before turning into a wolf and running away.

"You leave me alone!" Lloyd yelled back as he followed her.

He quickly made it past her but stopped when he heard whining. He turned back to see that Akita couldn't run very well on her hurt leg, as a wolf or a human.

Lloyd opened the hatch to his mech and said, "You shouldn't run on that. You're still hurt."

Akita looked back up at him with a sense of gratefulness. Even as he was helping to re-adjust her bandage, they didn't trade harsh words with each other. Instead of anger, there was only concern in Lloyd's eyes, which Akita couldn't help but find intriguing. How could he be doing this without any malice when they were just yelling at each other?

"I am sorry I deceived you," Akita said, not bearing to look him in the eyes.

"I'm sorry too," Lloyd replied.

"You told me everything about yourself, and I told you nothing. I will share my tale with you, if you will still hear it."

Lloyd smiled when he heard this. Maybe this could be the start of a new friendship, without the lies this time.

Meanwhile, at the Castle of Ice, the Ice Emperor was banging his staff on top of a very big and opened cage. It woke up the beast inside and got the attention of their prisoner.

He stood up to look at what was happening through the bars of his cell and became very worried when he saw what it was. It was the dragon that had taken him prisoner and killed the only friend he had in this realm. Boreal.

I hope you all liked that chapter. Leave a review if you'd like!

Have a great day/night!

#God'sNotDead