Chapter Eleven: Into the Temple of Light
1
It was about noon the next day before Lydia woke up. The sun was high in the sky, the birds were chirping, and there was not a cloud to be seen. 'So much for an early start' Lydia thought. She had completely forgotten the odd dream she had that night and she regarded the even odder event with the little voice as a dream. It wasn't too unreasonable to think that considering all the strange dreams she had has recently. Lydia wasn't very hungry so she got on her motorbike, turned it into a plane, and flew off.
Unlike her sister, Lydia enjoyed flying very much. It was quiet, peaceful, and the breeze that blew on her made her feel free; free from all sadness, misery, and everything that was going on in her life. There was nothing in the sky but Lydia, her thoughts, and...
'Hey, what did ever happen to that queer little voice?' Lydia thought to herself. 'Oh well, that just must have been you talking to myself. That wouldn't be the first time I have done it.'
Sticking with this theory, Lydia kept flying and didn't give the voice another thought. If she had, she may have noticed that the latter thought wasn't quite in her normal thought voice and that she thought 'that just must have been you talking to myself' instead of 'that just must have been me talking to myself.'
It wasn't very long after this when Lydia decided to land in an open grass field below her. The reason for her landing was that her hands started to feel a bit numb 'probably from holding so tight onto the bike's handles for so long,' Lydia thought. Landing ended up being a very good decision because, after shaking her hands around a bit to get rid of the numbness, Lydia's vision started to go black. Whenever she couldn't see, it scared her because usually Lydia can see fine on the darkest of nights. Now beginning to panic, she hoped it was just the heat and began frantically searching for the back compartment in her bike. Nya had put a small canteen of water in each of the ninja's bikes. The black haired girl drank most of the water and her vision still didn't clear and now she began to fear; it wasn't that Lydia was scared of the dark, because she most certainly wasn't, Lydia was only scared of darkness that she couldn't see out of.
Lydia tried sitting down and leaning against her bike to help. After a few minutes, she nearly convinced herself that her vision was clearing up when it obviously was not and, to her horror, the numbing in her hand started to spread up her arm. In a panic, she jumped to her feet and started frantically waving her arms around to eliminate the numbing. To someone who was watching, it would have been a sight to see her flailing her arms around like a bee was chasing her. Everything she tried did not make a bit of difference and she just stood there, hoping she was imagining the entire situation. Lydia tried to use her powers but she could not and shortly, her feet and legs went numb as well and she collapsed to the ground. It quickly spread throughout her body as a fire spreads in a forest; this terrible numbing. This wasn't a fuzzy, prickly feeling like when your foot falls asleep, it was complete and utter painlessness; yet it brought great pain to Lydia for feeling helpless just laying there in the grass blinded and immobile.
Laying on the ground felt like hours to Lydia when in reality was only about ten minutes. She began to feel sleepy but fought against her eyelids from shutting because she told herself that then would be a terrible time for a nap. Resisting was worthless though, Lydia succumbed to the weight of her eyelids but just before she fell asleep she heard and recognized it as the little, queer voice saying, "My turn." There was a split second of fear for Lydia to process the voice before she was out.
While Lydia was asleep, she had another dream about being the dark queen of Ninjago. It was, however, a little different from her last dream but the general idea was the same-she was the powerful and feared queen with immense riches and power. The room Lydia was in turned dark until a small light shined over her twin and x-teammates. She immediately became joyful and tried running to them but she couldn't reach them; because it was a dream, Lydia couldn't run and they kept on getting farther and farther away.
With an abrupt jerk Lydia woke up and sat straight up. She wasn't too sure of what had previously happened; she did not remember the dream or the numbing. Lydia did however remember her vision going black and the voice, the horrible voice. "My turn," what did it mean? Who said it? Why? She was so very confused but was glad her vision was back and good as normal.
It was dark outside and Lydia was sitting on the ground next to her motorcycle like she had been when she had fallen asleep. Looking around, Lydia noticed that she was now closer to the Temple of Light than before. In fact, she was very close, only a few hours away she presumed. Lydia glanced down at her hands and they appeared to be paler than before. Her skin had always been pale white but her skin now appeared to be more of a sickly pale.
There was a small pond that could be seen a little way off so Lydia got up to get a drink and wash off her face a bit. As she stopped down to cup some water onto her face, Lydia saw her reflection. Like her hands, her face was also paler and her eyes were a shade darker purple than before. The changing girl didn't seem to really be bothered by this because she had other things on her mind as she washed herself up.
"How on earth did I get here?" Lydia thought out loud. "Did someone bring me? No, why would somebody do that. Maybe I sleep walked? No, that can't be the case either. I have never sleep walked before, that I am aware of, and that would be pretty impressive to steer my motorcycle in the right direction without crashing."
When Lydia got back on her bike she saw that it was one hundred percent charged. She concluded that she must have been out for at least a day because, when she has landed in the grassy field, the battery was only thirty nine percent charged. The bike is solar powered so in order for it to get charged it must be daytime. When Lydia fell asleep, it was getting dark and it was now dark, leaving no time for the battery to get charged unless at least a day went by. This surprised her but she was nonetheless happy it was fully charged so she could fly the whole way to the temple.
"I'd better have something to eat before I leave," thought Lydia. She opened the compartment in the back of her bike to take out the raspberries that she had picked. Without really looking she stuck one in her mouth and was shocked at the taste. Lydia was expecting the taste of a sweet raspberry but instead got the taste of a more bitter blackberry. "I could have sworn that I picked raspberries," Lydia said aloud. "Oh well, I must hand been more tired than I thought when I picked them."
Sticking a few more in her mouth, Lydia put the bundle of berries back and started up her bike. It was nearly completely dark out but ,luckily for Lydia, she has the element of darkness and could see perfectly well if not better than in the daytime.
As she flew, she couldn't help but think about how wonderful it would be to be queen. Lydia thought of castles and servants and loyal subjects who wouldn't say mean things to her, diamonds and banquets and her whole kingdom to rule. She never thought about how this would affect her sister and friends, and, in fact, she didn't altogether care what happened to them. Lydia was growing spiteful and hateful towards them all and wanted to "put them in their place" as she thought.
One may assume that Lydia would begin to grow tired, especially from flying all night long, but she never did; she didn't even yawn. Approaching the Temple of Light, you could easily tell that that's what it was; the whole mountain top was practically glowing from the rising sun. Lydia had to squint her eyes to see properly and as she landed on a platform outside the opening she said, "Ugh, this wretched sun will soon be no more when I cover all of Ninjago in darkness, one thing no other was able to do, not even the OverLord himself."
Lydia wasted no time in getting inside the building to get away from the brightness of the sun. She walked up to the large red painted, wooden door with a golden sun painted so carefully onto it; not being able to pull or push it open, Lydia became frustrated and knocked it over with a blast of her darkness. Much to her dismay, it was no darker inside than out, which was kind of strange considering there was no logical way of light reaching the inside.
The setup of the temple was almost identical to that of the Temple of Darkness-the long entry hall leading to an open room with carvings on the wall. There was even a table in the centre with a silver weapon but instead of knives there was a silver bow. Lydia did not want the weapon to be used against her so she simply picked it up and incinerated it into nothing but a few little black specks that blew away into the air by slicing it with her silver knife that she got from the Temple of Darkness.
Examining the round shaped room, Lydia concluded that the light was coming from an opening, about five inches tall, that wrapped the whole way around the room just above most of the wall; every few feet or so the wall would connect to the hand carved, domed ceiling to connect the two together. There was also two mall holes, one on each side of the room, that were close to the floor. On the wall, there were carvings of words and pictures like the other temple. The words were written in "chicken scratch" as Jay called it, but Lydia was smarter than she appeared and could read it. Plus, if you were not able to read it, you would be pretty able to infer what it would mean by simply looking at the pictures.
Lydia read, "The Temple of Light belongs to the Twin of Light and is the centre for all light in Ninjago. The Taiyo no doroppu, a glowing yellow gem that is located inside the temple, is the first and last thing that the sun reaches each day as it sets and rises; it spreads the sunlight throughout all Ninjago. The Twin of Light must use the Sun Stone's light and power to help fight against the Twin of Darkness and defeat her." Lydia scoffed at the last part, "Like anybody could defeat me."
Thinking over what she had just read, Lydia decided that her best course of action would be to destroy this yellow gem so that her sister, Blair, would not compare in power and would be unable to defeat her. 'So, now just to find this stone,' Lydia thought. Her first idea was that it was on the outside on the top of the mountain. She got outside and looked at the top to find nothing, absolutely nothing. She examined all that she could of the exterior of the temple, even using her motorplane, but found no trace of a gem. Lydia thought, 'It must be somewhere inside.' Back inside she went to look for the Taiyo no doroppu Her first guess was that it was on the ceiling 'hanging like a chandelier' she thought. It was not there either, nor was it on or in the walls, floor, hallway, on the table, or in any little crack or crevice you could imagine.
It felt like she had been searching forever and Lydia was about to give up looking. "Good grief, you would not think that it would be this hard to find a stupid little gem," Lydia said out loud to herself as she sat down and leaned against the centre pillar that previously held the bow. She began to lean her head back as well until she heard a 'click' sound. Out of surprise, she lurched forward away from the pillar that she had previously been leaning against because it started to move. It moved into the ground revealing a small pedestal with a glowing gem on top.
"Of course, the centre of the room is the perfect spot for the Taiyo no doroppu," said Lydia.
Reaching for the gem to turn it black, Lydia second guessed her original plan. 'If I destroy this, I am sure Blair will somehow feel it and everyone will know my location. I really should prepare the temple to be to my likings first.' This was the main reason Lydia did not want to turn the gem dark, but there was another reason; it was a reason that Lydia never would have admitted to. She didn't know what effects the destruction of the gem would have on her twin sister and, way deep down, Lydia did actually care a lot for her sister.
There was a button on the floor which Lydia pressed and the Taiyo no doroppu was once again within its protection. Forming her ball of darkness in her hand she said aloud, "You really are a lovely temple, all you need is a touch of Lydia." This being said, Lydia threw her darkness up onto the ceiling where it left a splotch of black. This blackness slowly spread like a disease throughout the entire ceiling and began to crawl its way onto the walls. Stomping her foot down caused darkness to shoot out from her foot and spread into the floor like the walls and ceiling. Soon, the entire room and mountain were covered with darkness and every ray of light that once existed in the temple was stomped out of existence. The only thing left untouched was the pillar with the gem underneath.
Lydia stood looking at the pillar debating wether or not to consume the gem as well. She took one step forward and stopped; her vision was beginning to go dark again and her hands started to feel dumb as well. Lydia then began to walk forward, almost against her will until she heard a voice.
"Stop, child." It wasn't the strange little voice, it was more feminine sounding and gentle. Lydia wanted to stop but couldn't control herself; she kept on slowly walking.
The soft voice spoke again but this time sounding less gentle, "Kurai, I command you to stop immediately!"
The numbing went away, Lydia's vision cleared back to normal, and she gained full control of her body back. At this point, Lydia thought that she was either going insane or something was very wrong with her. She began to doubt as to wether or not she had actually heard a voice or if she had just imagined it, but she did vaguely begin to remember hearing another voice.
"Ugh, why is everything so confusing?" Lydia said as she laid on the ground with both her arms outstretched. Looking up, the confused girl saw a small speck of light floating down towards her. This at first startled her but as she stared at it more, it seemed to give her comfort and peace. This speck kept on floating down more and more until it was very close to Lydia. It landed on the center of her forehead causing Lydia to drift off into sleep.
2
"I told you that you must wait until the girl is strong enough," said the gentle voice.
The strange voice replied, "She will never be strong enough."
"Of course she will, if you do not have patience, you will destroy her, Kurai."
"You're just jealous because you have no power in their world, you're just a voice, Hikari."
"I won't be only a voice when Blair admits that she needs me," the gentle voice sharply said.
"By that time it will be too late; I won't let you be free."
"No, you can't. You must, we must empower not control."
"Yes, but control is much more pleasing."
I must admit that I struggled writing that chapter; it was difficult to get my thoughts organized. I hope you all are happy with the end result. Soon everything will make sense because I'm afraid the end of the story is near. There will probably be only fiveish more chapters but I'm not really sure. If you have a few spare minutes and have seen The Lego Movie (if you haven't seen it, go watch it now because it's adorable), you can check out a short fanfiction I write for it called Why Wyldestyle?
Anyway, thank you all so much for reading and especially ZaneLoverFan88 for reviewing.
If I had an elemental power, it would be either fire or air, which is funny because they are pretty opposite from each other. Question this week is what ninja do you think would be your best friend. Not boyfriend, just friend. God Bless!