Chapter 5

A bright light filled the little space Lloyd woke up in. At least Lloyd thought it was little, but then he opened his eyes.

A huge void. The same one Lloyd visited when he was The conduit.

But this time someone else, someone familiar was there. Lloyd tried to take a step, but he couldn't, it was like he was trapped in a cage.

"What the heck is going on…"A puzzled green ninja spoke with himself. Literally.

"Welcome back, Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon." A familiar voice manifested behind the boy's back. It was his own voice… But Garmadon's son couldn't look back, the cage prevented him.

"Who are you?" Lloyd immediately started questioning the mysterious voice.

Silence.

"Seriously? Did I just scare my only way out? Oh, good going, green ninja-" The figure appeared right before his eyes and nearly gave Lloyd a heart attack. It was just… floating there.

"Do I look like that when become The conduit?" Lloyd thought to himself. The quiet stature raised his hand and touched the boy's forehead. He nearly fell over, the cage was gone. He could freely move again. "How the-" Lloyd looked up at the figure.

It had the same blond hair, but the hair had pinkish ends, it was longer, messier. The clothes had a darker green, purple, golden and black color scheme and looked all thorn up from battles. There were horns sprouting from the forehead, sharp teeth, the same clash of colors were in the eyes and aura, too. Then the marks caught Lloyd's gaze.

The marks on his face looked like that one's of a source dragon's.

"You… You're me! How are you me? Or are we just look-alikes?" A rain of questions rained over the duplicate. Then suddenly Lloyd Garmadon went quiet and the atmosphere got heavier. "Why are we back here again?..."

Now the glowing shadow spoke: "The first few times you were transported here was to help you fulfil your new duty as The conduit, to continue the end… and the begging, now this is your new start. The start of the hope and despair. The start of the sun and night. The start of the complete conduit."

"OK… You know you're freaking me out, right?" Lloyd's confusion was unparalleled even to the power he felt when he was The conduit.

The figure started breaking and so did the rest of the void.

It's eyes went back to being more humanoid. It chuckled.

"To put it simply, without all the creepy conduit entity talk and to tell you before all of this gets destroyed, I'm the new you. The you, you need to be. We're the same person and I'm not going to take over your body and yada-yada-yada. I'm here to say that you need to change, because it's your only chance of survival at the moment. You might get left alone and need to run for quite a while, but you'll get a new family, and maybe your old one back too." The figure extended his hand.

"I don't want to make you change or choose, believe me, I really don't. But as of now, it's your only choice."

Lloyd looked around the duplicate and the world around them. It was disintegrating. The boy took a deep breath.

"If it's what I need to do, then so be it."

They shared a handshake.

A sharp breath filled the cave.

He continued breathing heavily.

His hand was stinging. So Lloyd decided to study it, maybe then the weird sensation would go away.

Lloyd Garmadon froze.

Weird lightning glowing scars appeared on his hand and disappeared in a second.

"Woah! What's with the make-up?" Roby interrupted Lloyd's short panic attack.

"What?"

"Yeah! There are some weird marks on your cheeks! Hey, Lord Ras! Is he supposed to do that in a vengestone cage?"

"No, he is not. But I guess what to expect more from The conduit." The tiger gave a sinister laugh.

"This just got a lot more interesting, son of Garmadon. Hybrid of Oni and Dragon."