They had followed the beacon deeply into the jungle, possibly halfway from where they should've been, when it stopped working. It had suddenly blinked out, for some inexplicable reason, so Pixal had hit it a few times to try and get it to work. It had blinked back to life for a mere second, before glitching for a while and then eventually completely shutting down.

She had no idea why it had broken. It was probably because of the signal in the jungle, but she had used beacons like this in jungles before and they had never stopped working. Still, she had to let her father and Acronix know that they no longer knew where they were going.

"Great..." Acronix muttered. "Back to square one!"

"Not entirely..." Pixal said. "I mean, I know it was supposed to be leading us in this direction." She pointed forwards. Acronix rolled his eyes, obviously fed up with running around a jungle they knew hardly anything about.

Her father wheeled towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Pixal, dear, as much as I would love to continue our little... trekk through the jungle, since we're not 100% sure where we're going, I think maybe it would be best if we just stay here for a while?"

Pixal heaved a sigh. "Alright." She announced. "Let's make camp. It's getting dark anyway. You're gonna need your sleep."

"You're?" Acronix questioned. "Are you not going to sleep?"

"I don't need sleep, Acronix. I'm a nindroid. Besides, I'd prefer if someone kept watch anyway, in case there's anything out there we don't know about yet. Something that could hurt us."

Acronix nodded. He looked at his surroundings, then reached up to pull a giant leaf from a nearby bush. He patted the earthy ground around him, smoothing out a more comfortable place in the dirt by picking out as many twigs as he could. Then, he layed down, wrapped the leaf around himself as a blanket and almost instantly dozed off.

Borg let out an angry 'hmph!'

"I see he didn't bother getting me a leaf." He muttered.

In response, Pixal reached out to the same bush and pulled off a similar sized leaf, patted out a comfortable spot in the earth like Acronix had, before lifting her father out of his chair and placing him on the 'bed' she had made him.

Borg smiled at her; "Thank you Pixal."

After that, he closed his eyes, but only fell asleep after about 10 minutes, around the same time Acronix started snoring.

Pixal was sat on a log by the side of them, running a sharp stick across the edge of her sword in order to sharpen it. She kept a watchful eye out for anything out of the ordinary, but nothing caught her eye.

No. She didn't see anything. But she heard something.

It came from deeper in the jungle, but it sounded like water running. Like when you turn a tap on full, but ten times louder and much more aggressive. She also heard trees rustling, branches snapping, as if the water was pushing the trees away, chopping them down. And then it hit her.

She stood up suddenly and ran over to where her father lay. He and Acronix had been asleep for a few hours when the water had caught her attention, so she was hoping they'd be ready to wake up now. She shook her father, much more aggressively than she should've, but she was overcome with fear and her emotions had overtaken her.

Eventually, his eyes blinked open.

"Pixal?" He said. "What–"

"We don't have time. We need to move. Now!"

Before he could say anything else, she ran to Acronix and shook him awake as well. He took longer to wake up but a slap in the face did the trick.

"Hey!" He shrieked, as he jolted up. But his face dropped immediately. Pixal knew he had also heard the water.

He slung their bag of supplies over his shoulder as she picked up Borg and placed him in his chair. And together, they ran as fast as they could through the jungle, the flood only seconds behind them.

That was all the proof he needed that Lyra was an enemy. The cookies. They looked exactly like the ones she had offered him when he had returned to the monastery.

That scared him. If he hadn't followed his gut and had ended up eating the cookie, he'd probably be in a similar situation to Karloff right now.

Ah yes. Karloff. He wasn't the only elemental master to become a victim of these cookies. Throughout the week, Pixal showed them several clips, caught on camera, of the motionless bodies of the other elemental masters being dragged away after them eating one of those deadly, enticing cookies.

First it was Karloff. Then Tox. Then Bolobo. And even Griffin Turner.

What made Lloyd worry most, though, was his friends. With Lyra staying with them, they were easy targets. By now, they were all smart enough to know not to eat or go anywhere near cookies, to Cole's chagrin, but from what Lloyd had seen of her so far, Lyra was also smart and she could come up with other ways to hurt them.

The only thing he didn't understand about the attacks is that every single one was caught on camera. They were trying to be seen. But why?

The others had focused on finding out who was responsible for the attacks, but since Lloyd knew it was Lyra, he had focused on coming up with more proof that she's an enemy.

His first plan: follow her at all times and find out where she's going when she disappears.

Kai threw a punch at Cole, which the earth ninja easily blocked with a swift kick to Kai's chest. The two had been training for the past ten minutes, with Master Wu watching them closely from the side of the training course.

Wu was quite sick. The ninja had encouraged him to stay in bed for the past few days, with Misako's help, but he was eager to get back up and make sure the ninja were still motivated.

"Good Cole." Wu called. "Kai, that was an easy punch to block. Try to take him by surprise."

Kai let his eyes rest on Cole's, trying to anticipate the earth ninja's next move. He was just about to throw another punch when a loud knock came from the monastery door. Kai turned, giving Cole the perfect opportunity to knock him off his feet.

Wu sighed, stood up and started to walk inside as he called: "One of you get that, will you?" towards the two ninja.

Cole laughed. "I think you should get it. Seems like a fair forfeit." He held out his hand to help Kai up. Kai took it and heaved himself upwards. He patted Cole on the shoulder as thanks before walking towards the monastery gates.

He pulled the large, heavy doors open and immediately felt his breath catch at the sight of the girl stood waiting.

"Hey Kai." Skylor said, giving him a kind smile. She had her hair tied back in her usual messy ponytail and she wore an orange ninja gi with a brown belt tied around her waist.

Kai brushed a hand though his messy hair as he let the girl he had once called his girlfriend inside, and closed the doors behind her.

Sadly, the two of them had broken up some time after their victory against Emperor Garmadon. Skylor had decided that the inevitable distance between them made their relationship much harder than it needed to be, so it would be better if they just didn't date at all. It was the first breakup that had taken a great effect on Kai.

Things had been very awkward for the two of them since, evident in the way they stood silently staring at each other for a while.

Eventually, Skylor broke the silence. "So. How are you?"

"Good! Good." Kai replied. He looked insanely happy to say all she had done was speak to him. "How are you?"

"Good." She said. After that, the silence started up again.

"So..." Skylor said, much to Kai's relief because the silence was becoming unbearable. "I'm here for a reason."

Kai cocked his head. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"You've seen the reports, haven't you? About the elemental masters going missing?"

He nodded.

"Right. Well the other day, I was at the shop, just about to close up when two young girls barged in. They were arguing with each other as they came in, but one of them held a plate of cookies. A few days earlier, Pixal had come to visit me, to warn me about the disappearances and to show me the footage she found of Karloff, so I knew better than to take any. They stayed in the shop for about five minutes, begging me to take one, until I eventually forced them out. But as they left, I noticed something. I recognised them. They were in the security footage Pixal found. They were the two girls that dragged Karloff away. So I followed them. And eventually they came to a stop, right on the outskirts of Ninjago city. Where they met with another girl. The way they were talking to her. The way she was talking to them. She had to be in charge. I knew she was responsible for the attacks. But she knew I was there. She could sense it somehow. So I left. As quickly as I could. But I came here to give you as much information on this girl as possible."

"And?" Kai questioned.

"I only saw half of her face, but from what I could see, she had long, black hair, olive skin and purple eyes. I'm sorry I don't have anything else."

Kai nodded. "Guess we should find out who she is, shouldn't we?"

It all happened so fast.

And it happened on the worst day possible: her brother's wedding day.

The people in her village had been so excited for this day that none of them had even acknowledged that time around them had seemed to stop.

Weddings were a very special ritual in her village. They didn't happen often due to there being very little people in her village and only a few outside the village, but other than that, falling in love was difficult in a world like this. That's why the love between her brother and his fiancé was so special.

They had just said 'I do' when the vortex appeared.

It started off small, which is why everyone thought it was just a portal, but it gradually started to get bigger and bigger. It had almost swallowed the entire sky when it started to suck in it's surroundings, much like a black hole.

It swallowed up houses, trees and even people.

It was then that everyone started to panic.

Watching everyone run around screaming, watching friends and loved ones being taken away, she took control.

She grabbed the remaining tea leaves, with a little something extra to make the portal stronger, and created a new vortex that would teleport her to another realm.

She grabbed her brother and his new wife by the arms and together, they plunged through the portal.

She should've known something was wrong when the days stopped coming. When she realised, unlike everyone else, that they had been stuck in spring for what should've been two years. Her world was falling to pieces and she did nothing.

But now that they were all gone, she wished she'd said something.

She didn't remember landing in Ninjago. None of them did. All three of them had passed out as soon as they got through the portal. But as she sat up and her eyes fluttered open, she was suddenly glad that out of all the realms, she landed here because at least she knew she had allies here.

And from what she could see, it was a beautiful place.

She was sat in a bed in a pure white room, with weird machines everywhere. Her brother was layed on a bed directly across from her. Her new sister-in-law was in a bed to his right.

She layed back down again, rubbing her temple, trying to recall everything that had happened that day. It was too much.

She heard a door open to her right, followed by some muffled voices. She couldn't hear what they were saying, which meant she had either damaged her hearing or was choosing not to listen.

But eventually, something did catch her attention. There was a boy. When he spoke, she recognised his voice.

She sat up and looked in his direction, and there he was: Lloyd Garmadon. The boy that had saved her, her brother's and her entire village's lives.

"Lloyd?" The name barely escaped her lips. But he heard.

His eyes peered towards her and in seeing her, a shocked, slightly puzzled look crossed his face.

"Akita?" He questioned, walking towards her.

As she watched him approach, Akita realised how much she had missed Lloyd. She owed him so much and he had been such a great friend, even for that small period of time. She realised she really cared about this boy and she was very happy to see him again.

Yes, this was a good realm to land in.