Alright! I'm making some progress lol

Review Replies:

NerddDrawz: I absolutely love Pixane, I just had to give them a little nod haha. I also love writing Jay, he's such a goofball and honestly just a mood lol (the opening scene in this chapter was so much fun to write)

arrowchristian: wait why are those ideas like way better than the half-baked thought I had for an explanation lol. Also whaaa...? I have no idea what you're talking about... heheh...

anyway, here's the chapter :)

Eve hung toward the back of the lounge as Jay loaded up the game and passed Nya a controller. "You sure you don't want to play?" he asked, glancing back at Eve.

She nodded, adjusting her glasses. "Yeah, I'm happy watching."

Jay just shrugged. "Cole, you in?" he called.

"Yeah, hold on!" Cole returned a minute later with an armload of snacks. He glanced at Eve. "Long day of patrol," he said by way of explanation. She just laughed.

Jay wound up and full-force chucked a controller at Cole. He didn't see it coming and it smacked him in the arm, causing a bag of chips to fall. Cole looked down in dismay. "Dude…"

Jay just cackled.

She grabbed the fallen snack and set it on the table, scooting off to the side as Cole dumped the rest off. He plopped down next to Jay.

Eve watched as the three Ninja selected their avatars and carts. Jay took forever to scroll through the tracks, but finally selected one called "The Floating Road."

Nya groaned at the selection. "This one again?"

Jay laughed. "You just don't like it because you always lose."

Nya smirked and cracked her knuckles. "Oh really?"

The race started and Eve took a few paces closer, pushing her curls out of her face. On lap one, Nya pulled a tight maneuver around a computer-generated racer to grab a loot box. "Aw yeah."

"Oh crap-" Cole tried to steer his cart out of the way, but Nya blasted him with an energy beam. His cart stalled for a moment and Jay had to veer sharply to avoid a collision. Cole grumbled something about getting revenge and Eve held back a snort of laughter.

"Hey Eve, come on up here, you don't have to just hang back there," Nya said over her shoulder. "Grab a snack if you want, there's plenty." Her cart went over the edge of the road and her screen suddenly went dark. "Jay! You just forced me off!"

Eve laughed. She forcefully decided to stop being awkward, so she took a small package of jelly beans and went to sit on the free couch.

She was invested by the fifth and final lap. "Jay, shuriken alert," she warned, noticing the icon on his screen.

"What gives, Eve?" Cole asked in a mock hurt tone as he launched the shuriken. It bounced off and broke the shield Jay had been holding onto.

Eve shrugged and laughed.

Nya and Jay were neck and neck for first place, and Eve watched on the edge of her seat. Seconds before the finish line, the game music stopped and the pause menu popped up. Jay and Nya both groaned, but Cole just laughed and pointed behind them.

Eve turned and saw Lloyd standing in the lounge entry. She stood up in surprise, not having heard him come in.

Lloyd laughed. "I see you guys have met Eve." He turned to her. "Sorry about that, thanks for being cool with me ditching. How's it going so far?"

She glanced back at the others and smiled slightly. "Not too bad. Did you learn anything at the museum?"

He nodded, waving for the others to go back to their game. "I'll explain what I got when the whole team's here. But thanks again for agreeing to come out."

She shrugged as they headed to the kitchen. "I still don't really know why I'm here, but sure."

A high-pitched screech came from the lounge and Eve cringed. She heard Cole laugh and Nya started gloating.

Lloyd shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Jay has some serious video game issues," he said, fighting a laugh. "Anyway, I hope they didn't bother you too much."

Eve waved a hand dismissively. "No, it's fine, really. They're alright." She frowned in curiosity. "Where are the others? Kai and Zane?"

Lloyd grabbed a soda from the fridge and sat down at the bar. "They should be back soon, they went to the precinct to see if anything else turned up in investigations."

She hummed. "So those robberies you mentioned- what do they have to do with me?"

He took a drink and thought for a moment. "We think the woman who attacked you is also our robber. The day before yesterday, I was going through some of the crime scene footage. I caught something we hadn't seen before- whoever our robber was had broken back into the crime scene to call us out. Me and my team, I mean. They had a sign saying that they were the Master of Soul." He frowned. "I hadn't ever heard of Soul being an element, so I started looking into it."

Eve rested an elbow on the bar top. "Did your uncle know anything about it?"

Lloyd shrugged. "He got super cryptic and disappeared after he saw it. Well… more cryptic. Master Wu has a habit of compartmentalizing. He won't tell us something until he's sure. I think he and my mother went to the library at Domu to do some research."

She nodded slowly. "Alright… and why do you think this Master of Soul was interested in my powers?"

Lloyd frowned. "I have a theory, but I'm not one hundred percent sure. While I was in the museum archives, I tried to find anything about the element of Space too. The source wasn't super definitive, or even that reliable, but it's worth looking into more. But if she attacked you once, she's likely to do it again."

"So you want me to stay here," she sighed.

He nodded. "I'm sorry. I know it's not ideal, but I know that Aunt Hana would agree with me on this."

She pointed a threatening finger at him. "Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon, if you bring my mother into this, I will destroy you." She was only half-joking.

He raised his hands in defense. "I wouldn't. But you know I'm right."

She sighed. "Yeah. Fine."

Eve was still mulling things over by the time the rest of the team returned half an hour later. She heard a few unfamiliar voices in the other room, so she rolled off the guest bed and headed to the lounge.

It looked like the whole Ninja team was there. Pixal had returned, as well as the remaining two Ninja: Kai and Zane, whom she knew by their respective red and white uniforms. By the general mood in the room, she guessed they hadn't learned anything at the police station. Kai stopped mid-conversation with Jay and Cole when he saw her. He headed over and confidently stuck out a hand. "You must be Eve, right?"

She shook his hand. "Yeah."

He grinned. "Nice to finally meet you, we've all heard a lot about you from Mr. Green over there."

She didn't miss Lloyd rolling his eyes, and she laughed. "Good things, I hope?"

"No, I told them all about that time you stole my entire candy stash when we were kids," Lloyd called.

She scoffed. "Correction: you were still a kid. I was babysitting you and you'd had way too much sugar already."

Kai laughed. "You used to babysit him?"

"Before the Tomorrow's Tea, sometimes." She grinned. "I was the best babysitter ever."

"Candy thief," Lloyd grumbled.

"Oh get over it, that was years ago-"

Someone lightly tapped her shoulder, and she turned to see Pixal. She was holding the hand of another droid. He was quite a bit taller than she was, and his eyes practically glowed bright blue. Pix smiled. "Eve, I wanted to introduce you to Zane. He is the one I was telling you about earlier."

Zane politely offered a hand. "It is nice to meet you, Eve. Pixal has told me a little about you, as has Lloyd."

Eve smiled and shook it. "It's great to meet you too."

"I hear that you are an artist?"

She nodded. "More or less, yeah. I do commissions sometimes."

Zane smiled. "Art can be truly inspiring. I would love to see some of your work sometime."

Before she could reply, Lloyd called for everyone's attention.

"So I know you've all met my cousin by now." He waved her over. "And I'm pretty sure I told everyone she'd be staying with us for a little while." He paused and glanced at Eve. "What I haven't told you is that I think she can actually help us against this Master of Soul person."

"What?" Eve half-demanded.

"What do you mean?" Nya asked.

"Well at this point, we know that the Master of Soul was trying to get our attention. We still don't know why, but it seems like she's broken the law multiple times just to mess with us." He turned on the TV to show the security clip he'd told her about earlier. "I looked into the element itself, following a hunch of Master Wu's. The best I could come up with in the archives is that Mastery of Soul allows the Master to manipulate others," he said.

"Manipulate them how?" Kai asked, leaning forward.

Lloyd shrugged. "Dunno. There's really not much to go on, even in the archives. That's why Master Wu and my mom went to Domu. But based on what I could find, the abilities linked to it could be mental, and to an extent, physical manipulation by elemental means. So like not just by being really good at persuasion, for example."

"Isn't that basically just like Neuro?" Cole chimed in.

Pixal shook her head. "Neuro is the Master of the Mind, and as such, he can only read minds, not control or manipulate them. Though the two elements could share a common ancestor, perhaps?"

Jay shuddered. "Well that all sounds creepy."

"That might explain why none of our witnesses can remember what happened though," Cole said.

Lloyd nodded in agreement. "Then the Master of Soul sought out you specifically, and mentioned your Space," he said to Eve. "That migraine you had? It came on pretty suddenly. I think maybe she attacked you with her element. And I think I figured out why."

Kai raised a hand. "Okay, what? Space?"

Lloyd pointed at him. "Yes. Space. It's not a commonly known element, but Eve's grandfather on her dad's side was the Master of Space."

She nodded, deciding it was time to pitch in. "He could create shields and portals by manipulating the 'space' around him. I think he was even skilled enough to teleport on occasion. I don't know why it skipped my dad, but uh… I inherited the element."

The room was silent for a moment. Jay blinked. "That is AWESOME!" he shouted. "Can you portal me to Doomsday Comix?"

Kai reached around Nya to smack Jay on the back of the head. Nya punched Kai in the kidney for that.

Eve shook her head. "I'm pretty abysmal at all that stuff." She turned to Lloyd. "What does that have to do with Soul though?"

He snapped his fingers. "That's just it- I think she's scared of what a skilled master of your element can do." He hit a button and the TV screen changed, showing a photo of a large painting. "I found this today when I went to the museum archives. It's really old, and it's mostly centered around myth. But it's worth looking into." He paused to let the team study the painting for a moment. It depicted a silhouette surrounded by a yellow aura. Other figures seemed to be trying to attack it, but no weapons or elements made it through the yellow barrier.

"Everyone remembers how there are multiple types of elements, right?" Lloyd asked finally.

Cole nodded. "Yeah, like how most of ours are physical, but then there's ones like Mind, Speed, stuff like that."

"Exactly," Lloyd said. "I wasn't able to find a lot on Soul, but I don't think it's a physical element like Lightning or Ice or Water. Now here's where the painting comes in." He zoomed in on the figure in the center of the yellow aura. "There was a myth that originated in some village way south about some warrior who could create protective forcefields. Supposedly, these forcefields were virtually indestructible. It was said that no attack, be it by weapon or element, could get through."

Eve had the smallest hunch she knew where this was going, but she remained quiet.

Jay did not. "And?" he asked, practically on the edge of his seat.

Lloyd turned to Eve. "I don't know if there's any validity in that tale. But if that warrior was your ancestor and you have the same power, maybe the Master of Soul believes that your shields can block any elemental attack. Not just the physical, but whatever it is she can do as well."

Eve opened her mouth and closed it again. "I'm sorry, come again?" she said finally.

"I believe that the Master of Soul thinks that you can block her elemental attacks, and that's why she went after you."

She nodded. "Oh. Okay." And promptly sat down in shock.

We love that I stayed up till 1 in the morning to finish this chapter. Big group scenes are so many characters to juggle lol

Hope you enjoyed, don't forget to leave a review, I always appreciate some honest feedback :)