The Truth Seekers

Chapter 6

Nya woke up for the day with a smile on her face.  She knows the truth about the emperor and empress and found a way to actually help the people of Ninjago.  She's been waiting to be able to help the people who were struggling for a while.  She may not have thought that the emperor and empress were murderers before, but she still knew they were bad people.

She got out of bed and walked over to the kitchen where her parents and brother were.  Her father and brother were sitting at the table while her mother was cooking breakfast.  "Good morning sweety," Maya said when she noticed her daughter enter.

"Morning," Nya said back.  She never acted as formally as the rest of her family if she didn't have to.

Ray was looking at the morning paper and Nya noticed the headline of the first page.  "The Truth Seekers spread lies about the emperor and empress."  He read newspapers that always put the emperor and empress in a good light, so that headline wasn't really a surprise.  Ray noticed that his daughter was looking at that story.  "These so called 'Truth Seekers' are trouble," Ray told his daughter.  "If by any chance you find out who they are, report them to the authorities.  Let them take care of those lowlives."

Nya nodded.  "Of course, dad," she lied.  She would get into so much trouble if her family found out that she was one of the Truth Seekers.

Maya came over to the table and gave everyone their breakfast.  "Bon appétit," she said and they all started eating.

After she was done eating, Nya excused herself from the table and left the house.  She is pretty free to do what she wants because everyone knows that if they messed with her family, they would have the royal guard hunting them down.  The royal guard might usually stay at the palace and let the police take care of everything else, but the royal guard will leave the palace if they are ordered to by the emperor and empress.  She wasn't going to tell her parents where she was going and luckily, they didn't ask.

Ninjago City

Jay, Lloyd, and Cole were walking through the streets of Ninjago City.  They do that sometimes during the day.  They walked by a newspaper stand and Cole grabbed one.  They read the newspaper to find out if there's anything interesting happening.  Of course, the newspaper they read is the one written by some of the citizens of Ninjago who don't like the emperor and empress.  They took it and went back to their home.

When they got there, Cole sat down in their living room and started looking at the newspaper.  "Woah!  Check this out!" he said excitedly to Jay and Lloyd.  They went over by Cole and saw that he was looking at the first page.  It had a headline that read "The Truth Seekers Reveal the Truth About the Emperor and Empress."  "Front page!" Cole exclaimed and high-fived Jay and Lloyd.

"I can't believe how quickly they put this in the newspaper," Lloyd said as he took the newspaper from Cole.  "We only posted the blog yesterday!"

Jay took the newspaper from Lloyd and started reading part of the article out loud.  "A new blog created by a group of people called the Truth Seekers are exposing the emperor and empress for who they really are.  Ever wondered about the mysterious deaths?  Turns out they were ordered to be killed by the emperor and empress.  Looks like the leaders of Ninjago are actually murderers."

"Wow," Cole said.  "They didn't hold back."

"At the bottom, they even ask, 'Who are the Truth Seekers?'"

"Looks like we're famous now," Lloyd said.

"Except, no one knows it's us," Cole pointed out as he took the newspaper back from Jay.

"But it's still pretty cool."

The three boys heard footsteps coming up the stairs and turned to see Nya coming in.

"Hey Nya," Jay said.

"Hey guys," Nya said.  "Did you see the newspaper?"  Cole handed it to Nya to let her read.  "Wow.  Whoever wrote this did a way better job than whoever wrote the newspaper that my dad reads."

"What did they say about us?" Lloyd asked.

"They said that we were just spreading lies, but they always make the emperor and empress seem like such great people."

"Of course they do," Cole said.  "There has to be some people on the emperor and empress's side.  They don't want a new resistance rising up."

"Aren't we kind of the new resistance now?" Lloyd asked.

Cole shrugged.  "I guess.  In a way, we are."

"Well, I don't mind standing up to our government," Nya cut in.  "Everyone deserves to know the truth, even if they don't believe it."  There was one question that had been on Nya's mind since she had met them the other day and decided to finally ask it.  "How did you guys end up like this?"

"What do you mean?" Jay asked.

"How did you guys end up living on the streets by yourselves?  What happened to your parents?"

All three froze at the question and silently looked at each other for a moment.  Cole eventually spoke up.  "My mom died when I was 12.  She was an outspoken person against Ninjago's government, but after she died, my dad started supporting the emperor and empress.  I didn't agree with him and ended up running away from home.  He didn't respect what my mom tried to do before she died.  I couldn't stay there anymore."

"I'm sorry, Cole," Nya said.  "He should've respected your mother more."

"It's ok.  Don't worry about it."  Cole looked over to Lloyd and mouthed, 'your turn.'  

Lloyd rolled his eyes and started speaking.   "I was the son of Lord Garmadon believe it or not.  Everybody knows about how he was killed by the resistance.  I was just a baby at the time.  My mother and uncle spoke out against the emperor and empress and ended up getting arrested for it."

"Wow," Nya said.  "I didn't even know Lord Garmadon had a kid."

"Not many people know."

Everyone looked over to the only one that hadn't shared yet.  "What about you, Jay?"  Jay walked out of the living room and went to his bedroom, leaving a disappointed Nya.

"Don't worry about that," Lloyd reassured her.  "He doesn't open up to people about how he ended up on the streets easily.  It took me a year after I met him to get him to open up."

"It took me six months," Cole said.  "He'll open up eventually.  Just give him some time."

Nya glanced over to where Jay went.  She hopes that Jay will be able to open up to her eventually.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed!