Happy Friday! Time for another update, but there's something I have to say first. Lloyd does something...special in this chapter. I didn't come up with it though. All of the credit goes to Packerfan95 for Lloyd's ability and for something else. Hmm...
Chapter Twelve: Secrets
The lights in the bathroom flickered slightly as Lloyd flipped the switch on. A rhythmic buzzing sound lasted for about a minute before dissipating entirely. When he had arrived home with his friends the other group was nowhere to be found. He hoped that everything was alright and that they were being extremely careful while looking for the strange, stone creatures.
With a sigh, the blonde boy pulled off the top of his gi, leaving him in green pants and a white undershirt. The tightly wrapped bandages around his left shoulder and upper arm stuck out like a sore thumb against his skin. Taking in a deep breath, Lloyd pushed up the left sleeve of his undershirt and slowly began to unravel the bandages. He wanted to see how his wound was healing. The closer Lloyd got to the actual injury, the more bloody the bandages became. Mentally preparing himself for the worst, the green ninja unwrapped the last bit of bandage that was draped over his shoulder.
A laceration about an inch long adorned the skin on Lloyd's left shoulder. He eyed it carefully in the mirror, attempting to see how deep it went. Considering the soreness and pain that radiated from the wound whenever he lifted or rotated his arm, he could only guess that it had caused more damaged than he had originally thought. The skin around the edges of the wound was a light indigo, bruising from the sudden trauma. Frowning, Lloyd made his way over to a small cabinet that sat in the corner of the room and procured a single white washcloth from within.
After throwing the bloodied bandages into the garbage can, Lloyd approached the sink. The water rushed out as he turned the cold faucet on and placed the washcloth carefully underneath. Startled slightly by the chill of the water, Lloyd shivered before shutting the faucet back off. With both hands, he rung the excess liquid from the washcloth and then placed the damped cloth over the top of his wound. He had never tried doing this by himself before, only with the aid of someone else. Well he was the green ninja so he should have the capability to do it alone, right?
Closing his emerald green eyes, the young ninja concentrated on trying to heal the laceration on his shoulder. Lloyd envisioned it closing up and disappearing, his grip on the washcloth tightening slightly. Even behind his eyelids he could see the bright blue light that was beginning to emanate from the washcloth. Lloyd continued to concentrate, feeling the water making contact with the laceration. The blinding light began to fade and the green ninja finally dared to open his eyes.
Bringing the white cloth away from his shoulder slowly, Lloyd gave a wide grin. The wound was no longer there, it was completely gone. Even the skin that had been damaged seemed to be completely healed with no traces of scar tissue or discoloring. "I did it" the boy breathed, feeling a sense of triumph and happiness overwhelm him. Continuing to smile, Lloyd placed the washcloth on the edge of the sink, noticing how clean it looked; as if he had never even used it in the first place. "I did it!" Lloyd said once more, unable to contain the excitement that was still growing inside of him.
"Yeah, you did it alright" came a familiar voice as the door to the bathroom opened up.
Lloyd spun around quickly, startled by the sudden addition of another person in the small room. Laurie looked back at her younger brother, her eyes slightly narrowed and lips in a thin line. "Hey, sis" the green ninja smiled, leaning back against the sink and crossing his arms over his chest. "Did you guys happen to find any of the weird stone guys walking around? We found some and boy were they tough to fight!"
Closing the bathroom door behind her, the orange ninja stepped closer to her brother and pulled him into a tight embrace. Lloyd was taken aback by the sudden, and slightly painful, sign of affection. "Why do you keep doing this, Lloyd?" he heard Laurie sigh. As much as he wanted to reply, the green ninja could not. His face was currently squished against his sister's abdomen. "You keep running off and putting yourself in danger. Cole told me what you told him. It's nice of you, wanting to try and protect others, but you need to look out for yourself too. You're too important to Ninjago, to all of us. If something had happened…" Her voice trailed off, not wanting to complete the thought.
With a small grunt of effort, the green ninja managed to squirm out of his sister's grip. He stood before her, his eyes both sad and determined. "Nothing happened, Laurie" Lloyd sighed, leaning back against the sink and placing his right hand back on the washcloth. It slipped across the slick plastic surface, causing Lloyd to lose his balance. He felt weightless as the floor started coming up to greet him. Strong hands gripped his underarms, pulling him back up. It was his sister, anxiety in her ice blue eyes. She hoisted him back on to his feet, making sure he was steady. "Thanks" Lloyd breathed, his heart rate slowly beginning to return to normal. "Those were some fast reflexes."
"Lloyd…where is it?" Laurie questioned, her voice barely audible.
What was she talking about? Utterly confused, the young boy stared up at his sibling's face that seemed to grow paler with each passing second. The air seemed to still around them, growing tense and awkward. "Where's what?" Lloyd replied, feeling Laurie's grip on his arms tighten. "I don't understand what you're talking about. Where's what?" Finally, the green ninja noticed that she was not even staring directly at him, but to the side of him.
It seemed impossible. It was impossible. Laurie clearly saw the skin where Lloyd's wound had been, the one he had received during his fight with Skalidor; where his wound had been. Injuries just did not disappear. They did not just evaporate into thin air. She shook her head back and forth. It must have been on the other arm, she just did not remember correctly. With a shaking hand, Laurie pulled the right sleeve of Lloyd's shirt up past his shoulder. A pale scar stared back at her, the slightly discolored patch of skin gleaming in the light of the room. "Your wound, Lloyd, where is it?" Laurie asked again, more forcefully this time. "There's that scar too, where'd you get that?"
The wide grin returned once more to Lloyd's face. "It's gone. I healed myself." He held his arms out wide as if he were a magician, waiting for the thundering applause of the audience after his final trick. "Ta-da" he finished, turning the entirety of his left shoulder towards Laurie. Her face was a mask of utter shock and disbelief, but he expected no different. It was not every day that someone was able to heal themselves of an injury. "I did it all by myself too! I didn't even need help from…" but his sentence trailed off as he averted his gaze to the floor suddenly. "The scar though, it was from an accident that happened a little while back, so don't worry about it, okay?"
She ignored the latter of Lloyd's explanation, her thoughts solely on Lloyd's broken sentence. "From?" the orange ninja asked. Her breath seemed to be slightly labored, as if she had been running for a short amount of time. Was Lloyd hiding something from her? "From who?" she prompted, attempting to extract the information from her brother. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right? I'm always here for you, Lloyd. Never forget that." Curiosity was eating her up on the inside.
Lloyd frowned slightly, keeping his gaze on the floor. He slowly looked up, hurt and sadness flooding his emerald green eyes. It almost look as if he were about to cry. "I just don't want to talk about it right now, sorry" he apologized, his voice soft and far away. "You can understand that, can't you, sis?" Suddenly, the green ninja was pulling Laurie into a hug. Her eyes widened slightly as she protectively placed her arms around the young boy. "Please promise me you'll never go away or leave me, Laurie. Can you promise me that?" Lloyd's voice was slightly muffled as he spoke.
Laurie raised her right hand and quickly ran her fingers through her brother's blonde hair. "Of course I'll never leave you" she cooed, cupping the back of Lloyd's head with her hand. Where was this coming from? Of course she would never leave Lloyd, especially now that they were finally together after years of separation. No sooner did the words leave Laurie's lips before she wished she could take them back. She was to die. Even if it was not to happen for months or years, she had to perish in order for Lloyd to win. Her grip on Lloyd tightened and Laurie watched as some of her red hair draped lazily over the top of the young boy's head. It reminded her of blood and she pulled away from Lloyd, feeling a little disoriented. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, alright?" she stated, crossing her arms over her chest. "I need to talk to you about something though."
"You should have seen it! The thing just went flying across the street before it ran off." Jay's excited voice was audible from the other room in the apartment. "I don't know how she did it, but it was pretty cool!"
Placing her hand on her forehead, Laurie sighed. "Well, I wanted to talk with you about it first before I let everyone else know, but it seems that Jay has other plans." The quizzical look on Lloyd's face grew as the nonsensical chatter continued to spill from Jay's mouth. "Come on, let's just go" Laurie stated, opening the door and gesturing for Lloyd to exit the bathroom. He grabbed his gi off of the floor and quickly shrugged it on before leaving the small room.
Both siblings entered the main room and saw Jay standing, his arms gesticulating wildly as he continued to recount the run-in with the stone man. The others stood in a loose circle around him, but Laurie could not tell if they were actually listening to what the Ninja of Lightning had to say or not. "Hey, there she is now" Jay grinned, turning his hazel eyes on the orange ninja. She rubbed her left arm awkwardly with her right hand as she made her way over to her bed and sat down. "Tell everyone what happened in the street."
"I'm pretty sure you covered it already" Laurie breathed, crossing her arms over her chest. "The thing came at me and I just kind of pushed him away…using the air." Lloyd's eyes widened and Laurie felt her face become very warm. "I don't know how I did it, it just happened. The only thing I can't seem to understand is why I could do it." The group fell silent, just as she had originally been anticipating. "I've never had a golden weapon or anything so I shouldn't be able to use my element at all. Today was the first time I'd ever done anything like that, and it startled me."
Zane stepped forward, away from his brothers and closer to the red head. "This was not the first time you have used your element in a battle." Laurie gazed up at her friend with a puzzled expression. Of course that was the first time it had ever happened. If she had done it before she would have remembered. "When we first fought side by side in the city, shortly after your arrival, you attacked us while under Skales' control. It was then that you used your staff to create a small whirlwind, pushing us backwards along the asphalt." Laurie could feel the muscles in her back tense slightly as she leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands. So she had done something of the sort before, she just could not remember the incident. "Not to mention the vacuum that you created back in Ouroboros. I am not quite sure how you forgot about that one, considering it nearly killed you."
Her cheeks blushed a brighter shade of red. Not only was the conversation centered on her at this moment in time, but now Laurie was forgetting another instance where she had used her element without a golden weapon. "Oh yeah, that's right." Her ice blue gaze drifted towards Rhea who seemed interested in this topic. Her big eyes focused intently on the orange ninja and she leaned forward slightly as if to be more involved with the conversation without actually coming closer. "Well now I don't even have any kind of weapon because mine was ruined" Laurie sighed. Maybe she did not even need a weapon anymore. Perhaps she could try and concentrate on this ability of hers.
"Don't worry about your staff, Laurie" Cole smiled. "They're a dime a dozen. We'll get you a new one." Plastering a false smile upon her face, Laurie nodded in acknowledgement. Despite how childish it sounded, she actually missed her weapon. Yes, she could always get another one, but that staff had been with her since the beginning. Perhaps it was for the better though. Her father had been the one he gave it to her in the first place. "I'm sure Dareth has extra weapons lying around the dojo. There has to be a bō staff there somewhere" the leader finished, bringing Laurie back to reality.
"Sounds like a plan" she answered, still slightly distracted. "So, Lloyd was telling me that you guys ran into some of those things too. How did it go?" The obvious sound of a door closing hard caused the orange ninja to jump slightly. Everyone turned to see the bathroom door shut and faint light spilling out from the space in between the floor and the bottom of the plaster door. Laurie blinked, turning back towards the others as Kai dove into a yarn about how he had single handedly detained the stone warrior. Cole rubbed his temples furiously.
Immediately after closing herself off from the ninja, Rhea turned on the faucet. Water poured down from the spout, filling the minuscule room with an abundance of sound. Feeling jittery and anxious, the young girl reached into the right pocket of her windbreaker and pulled out the small, black box that lay within.
It was smaller than she had originally perceived it to be: around the size of small pack of sticky notes. Extremely thin in height, Rhea held the container delicately in the palm of her right hand. She recalled Kozu telling her not to open it, but how was she supposed to know what to do with the contents without first seeing what lay inside? With her left thumb, the young girl raised the lid and held her breath. She felt the entirety of the lid slip off and then leaned forward slightly to gaze at the object that lay inside.
As the sheer size of the box was small, the artifact inside was particularly tiny. It was round and sat upon layers of what appeared to be cotton. Frowning, Rhea dug the tiny object out of the box and placed it in her left palm. The appearance was similar to that of sequin that normally adorned the fancy and ornate dresses of those who could actually afford them, though it was not flat. Slightly, the surface concaved upwards, reflecting Rhea's melancholy facial expression. Extremely upset with what appeared to be nothing at all, she held it up closer to the light.
Originally the color had appeared to be black, but when exposed to the light Rhea could see that it was actually a deep purple; a hue of purple so dark that its very appearance changed, like the feathers of a raven. Rhea felt her heart beat speed up as a sudden realization began to spread over her. She now knew exactly what this was. How she was going to use it remained to be seen, but she would think of something eventually. Exhaling deeply, the young girl placed the small, black object back inside of the box and closed the lid on it tightly.
The running water was just another background noise, mixing with the idle chatter that wafted in from the main room. Rhea had to think. She gazed at herself in the mirror and her dark brown eyes widened. Around her neck were the faint, yellow markings of bruises, barely visible through her tan complexion. They had to have been from her encounter with that snake yesterday. Sighing, Rhea stared at the ugly patches of discolored skin encircling her neck.
Wait, that was it.
A small smirk crept its way across Rhea's face and she tossed her light blue hair back over her shoulder. Grabbing the black box off of the sink, she shoved it once more into the depths of her windbreaker. Her mind reeled as she shut off the water and opened the door. Soft conversation greeted Rhea as she noticed everyone now seated around the large table near the kitchenette. Quickly, the young girl made her way over to her corner and took a seat. Faint sunlight attempted to break through the broken blinds and make its presence known, but Rhea was too distracted to notice.
She was too busy thinking of a way to put her plan into action.
Okay, cool. So I've caught up to myself updating wise. All of the chapters up until now were pre-written way in advance. School is crazy and life gets busy. My progress significantly slowed. From now on I will be updating just once a week, on Fridays. When finals week comes I won't be posting at all, but I'll let you know in advanced when that is.
Thanks for reading, reviewing, and just being awesome. See you next Friday! :3