Trekking through the jungle was not how Pixal would've liked to spend her time away from the Monastery, but she felt she had no choice. She especially didn't want to bring her father but, again, she felt she had no choice. She didn't want to risk him telling anyone about Acronix. If he told the public, they could get into a panic. She'd usually trust her father with information like this, but the way he was looking at Acronix told her otherwise this time.
Her father was at the front of their small group, wheeling himself forward and pushing branches out of their way. She was at the back, as advised by him, as if he wanted to put a protective barrier around Acronix, just in case.
She watched as he pulled back one of the branches and purposefully flung it back in Acronix's face. Acronix sputtered and spat leaves out of his mouth, before frowning at the man in front of him.
Pixal rolled her eyes. "Father..." She said, pulling out her sword and slicing away the branch that had assaulted Acronix seconds ago. "If you could show a little consideration to our... companion, I would be deeply appreciative." She said it as though she had embraced Acronix as part of the group, but the way she said 'companion', as if unsure about an alternative word to describe him, showed that she trusted him just as much as her father. That being, not at all.
Truth be told, it was much more plausible that Acronix was trying to trick them than her theory of someone trying to keep him quiet, but if she was correct, it meant the ninja were in serious trouble and Acronix was the only one who could help them.
"I already said I was sorry!" That pulled her out of her thoughts. She had done the one thing she had advised herself not to do: let Acronix and her father engage in conversation. Whilst she had been... theorising, the two men had started a heated argument. About what, she didn't want to know, but she still felt as though she should do something to stop it.
She ran forward. "Will you two knock it o–" She caught herself just in time. As she had run into the tall, thick shrubbery before her father, she almost fell over a cliff she had no idea was there.
She glanced at her father. If she hadn't run in front of him at exactly that moment, he would've fallen.
She tore away the plants with her sword and peeked over the edge of the cliff. "What the hell?!" She shouted, causing Borg and Acronix to stand with her and peek down as well.
Acronix nodded. "Well said..." He muttered. "That was a close call... Who puts a cliff like this in the middle of a jungle?!"
"Hiroshi. That's who."
Pixal shook her head. "It's deep. And wide. There's no way we're ever getting across."
"Are we sure we even need to go this way?" Borg questioned. Pixal shrugged.
So far, she had been following her guts on where to take her. She had no idea where the ninja were and no idea how she would find them. She just hoped she would stumble across them.
"Well we're not going back." She announced. "We've come too far."
"Well by the looks of it, we're not going forward either!" Acronix complained. "That whole trekk was a waste of time!"
Her father nodded in agreement and she couldn't help but let a small smile tug at her lips. Not because of the situation they were in. That sucked. But because her father and Acronix had finally agreed on something. And hey, if that's possible, then just about anything is possible!
"No." She said, confidence overtaking her. "It wasn't. We'll find another way around. Do you know why? Because ninja never quit!"
"I'm not a ninja..." The two men said in unison. They both frowned at the other, each opening their mouth to say 'stop copying me!' but Pixal stopped them before they could.
Gosh. These two were more of a handful than the actual ninja themselves! Except maybe Zane.
Oh how she missed Zane... Other than her mistrust of Acronix, he's all that had crossed her mind. Of course, he could be quite chaotic at times too, despite him being a nindroid...
That's it!
Zane is a nindroid which means he probably has a...
"Tracking device!" She shouted, startling the others, who had been silently glaring at each other all this time.
"What?" Acronix questioned.
Pixal pulled a small beacon out of her traveling bag and clicked 'scan'. It worked! The closest technological device popped up as a beeping red point on the screen. She didn't know for certain that it was Zane but what other technological devices would there be in the jungle? And besides, even if it wasn't Zane, there were two technicians in this trio. Any electronics could provide help.
"Oh Zane!" She muttered to herself. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"
Borg smiled. "Ah, I see." He said, breathing a sigh of relief.
Pixal followed the dot. It was leading her to the left of where she currently stood, away from the cliff.
She smiled; "Onwards my friends!"
And just like that, they continued their hike through the jungle. Finally they were getting somewhere. This put her in a good mood.
So much so that she even laughed as she heard Acronix complain behind her: "So we were going the wrong way this whole time?"
Lyra was the sweetest girl he had ever met. He didnt care what his stupid gut told him. When he had arrived back to the Monastery, she had greeted him with a plate of freshly baked cookies and a comment on how he was so brave and kind for saving her that day.
His gut told him to decline the cookies. So he did, but they looked so nice!
A sad little frown had appeared on her face, making him feel guilty for refusing, so he had then taken one but had never eaten it.
What was going on with him? Was it just mistrust? He'd felt that a lot, but that was why he was certain it wasn't that. If he'd felt mistrust so often, why had it never felt this bad?
He layed down on his bed, trying to sleep. He hadn't slept in a while. But no matter how hard he tried, the thought of Lyra kept him awake. As well as the sound of a knock on his door.
"Come in!" He shouted, instantly regretting it. He didn't want it to be Lyra. He desperately didn't want it to be Lyra. It wasn't just the fact that he found her dangerous. It was the thought of her knowing that he found her dangerous.
Luckily, it was just Zane.
"Good evening, Lloyd!" He greeted him. "Sorry to bother you, especially at this late hour, but I was wondering if you knew where Lyra is?"
There it was again. His feeling.
"Uh... no. Why?" He asked, now extremely curious.
"I wanted to give her some medicine. Her wounds may not be completely healed yet and I just wanted to check in on her, make sure she wasn't in too much pain, but I can't find her anywhere."
"Oh. Well—"
"And this isn't even the first time she's gone missing."
This intrigued Lloyd.
"What?" He asked, staring Zane dead in the eye to show how much this bothered him.
"Yeah." Zane replied. "Soon after you left for Borg Tower, Lyra went missing."
Lloyd thought about this. Maybe his gut wasn't wrong after all. Maybe Lyra was someone to be afraid of. If she was going missing, where was she going? What was she doing?
He had no idea. But he was going to find out.
Nya walked into Jay's room, not bothering to knock because she knew he'd let her in either way.
She had spent most of the day taking care of Lyra, who wasn't the best company and who had left her on her own when she had suddenly started to feel better. She wanted someone to talk to, and Jay was always open to talking with her.
Jay's head jerked up from the computer he was working at when he heard her walk in. A wide smile spread across his face.
"What a lovely surprise!" He said, motioning with his hand for her to snuggle up next to him. She immediately felt less lonely.
"Yeah." She said, walking over to him. "Sorry for bothering you. I just wanted some company."
"Oh?"
She climbed onto the bed with him, letting him wrap his right arm around her shoulder as he closed the laptop and placed it on his nightstand. She rested her head on his shoulder.
"So... What would you like to talk about, my beautiful water lily?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her, making her laugh. But almost as soon as she started laughing, she stopped again.
Jay noticed her change in mood. "Nya..." He spoke softly. "Is something wrong?"
"What? Oh. No. No. Nothing's wrong, Jay. It's just..." She sat up a bit so she could look at Jay better. "I'm worried about Lloyd. He's been acting really distant lately, especially since Lyra arrived."
"Have you tried talking to him?" Jay questioned. She nodded in response.
Jay thought about it for a second before smiling and laughing. Nya cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Relax, Nya. I know you're protective of him, we all are, but he's probably just got a bit of a crush on Lyra. You know how he gets when he has a crush. Remember how he was with Harumi?" Jay gave her a reassuring smile, but it didn't make her feel much better. She was sure something else was bothering Lloyd.
"I do, but... he seems upset about something. No. Not upset. More scared. Like he expects something bad is going to happen." Nya replied.
Jay frowned for a second before replying: "Doesn't Lloyd always seem that way? I mean, I love the kid, but he doesn't half worry his butt off!"
Nya nodded. "Yeah." She said. "You're right. It's probably nothing." However, she was still unsure. She knew something was bothering Lloyd and if he didn't tell her what it was, she'd figure it out herself.
The alarm rang across the monastery, waking all inhabitants from their sleep. Everyone ran to the source of the alarm instantly, wondering what had set it off.
Pixal was stood in front of the control panel, pulling up videos from across Ninjago.
"What's going on?" Lloyd asked.
Pixal pulled up a video that was on pause. She was obviously waiting for the others to arrive before she pressed play. But then she pulled up a picture next to it. A picture of a very familiar face. Someone the ninja knew well.
Karloff. The master of metal.
"Karloff?" Kai questioned as he walked into the room, seeing the picture. "What has he got to do with anything?"
The others piled into the room shortly after, so Pixal started her explanation: "4 hours ago, Karloff was reported missing by one of the other elemental masters. I found it intriguing so I did some digging into where he might've gone, and I found this video. It was caught on one of the security cameras around the area, and when I saw it, I knew you guys needed to see it too."
She hit the play button.
Like she had said, the video was obviously recorded by a security camera, due to the overhead view of that particular street and time of 2:06 am displayed in the corner. And almost instantly, there was Karloff. He looked almost exactly as Lloyd could remember from when his father was ruling over Ninjago. So much time had passed since then...
The street he was walking down looked particularly empty. The only other person there was a man stood outside a bakery, handing out free cookie samples. Strange to be doing that at 2 am.
Karloff spotted the cookies and his eyes lit up. He walked over to them, took one and shoved the whole thing in all at once. He looked deeply satisfied with himself. And the cookies.
Then, almost instantly, he fell to the ground. In one quick second, he was out.
The man outside the bakery smiled to himself, threw the rest of the cookies away and then whistled. Two girls with brightly coloured hair came out from an alleyway to their right and tried to drag Karloff away. It took some heaving. He was quite big. But they did it eventually.
"What happened?" Cole asked.
"Obviously there was some kind of sleeping drug in the cookies."
"Why did you show this to us, Pixal?"
Pixal paused the video. "Look at the man handing out the cookies." She said, zooming in.
And there he was.
Krux.
Krux and an almost-empty plate of cookie crumbs.