NINJAGO: The Fray Of Crows

PROLOGUE - A World's Ending, Skei's Beginning

I was once an excellent warrior.

I defied the odds of those who wronged my people, and I proceeded to cover them in the dust I stirred up with my maced-blade on the battlefield.

But before my glory, I was nothing. Just a small girl working alongside a more notable blacksmith named Asuka. I am thankful for him, he was the one that taught me all I knew about divine swordsmanship just by knowing what went into the blade's craft.

My name was Ryona, but long ago as my childhood name. I don't call myself that anymore, not after my village was stolen by thieves known as the Crows.

Asuka's weapon shop was ransacked for the weapons and armor that the Crows would use later in their war against all living on the Islands. After it had all happened and we showed up to the storefront, I remember Asuka turning to me with a sad look upon his face as he set his calloused hand upon my shoulder.

"Ryona," he started. "I must teach you one more thing before I go to defend the others from these attackers."

So he took me to the tallest mountain of our Island, revealing his Sky Forgery that no man ever knew about, and taught me how to use the Forgestone with a type of black rock I've never seen before.

He then began to tell me a story.

"Long ago, in the realm of the Oni and the Dragon...

The landscape of that time was sparse and long, deadly to those who did not know how to travel it with a light foot.

The Oni was one threat to the Dragons, but so were themselves when it came to the vital resources they needed to survive.

During the intermittent war of the two forces, several younger Dragons were forced out of their shelters and traveled further from food in favor of safety. This was especially true for the Lightning Dragons and Earth Dragons of the realm.

A Lightning Dragon named Skei in the legend found itself walking across the First Realm one day, weak from hunger and unable to fly. Skei soon found a burrow in the earth not too far away, and while they understood Earth Dragons made their nests underground compared to the Lightning Dragons who made them at high peaks, hunger favored in Skei's decisions.

They crawled down the cave and found the Earth Dragon's nest that was filled with eggs--but Skei did not wish to harm the nest, they instead craved the mushrooms growing on the damp cave walls nearby.

But the Earth Dragon, Lyune, was strongly rooted in believing that was not all of Skei's intentions, and the two began to fight.

In the battle, scorches patterned the walls and chunks of rock went missing, until each of the Dragons let out a blast of power so large that they both perished with it.

Their ashes stuck to the cave walls and the Dragon eggs, turning it into the first ores of Vengestone. Except the eggs.

They hatched, but Earth Dragons did not emerge. Instead, small bird-like creatures with bones strong like Dragons did. They craved Earth, but could produce Lightning, and had the potential to be immortal through a regenerative process they had.

Five of these creatures were born, and three of them stayed in the realm of the Dragon and Oni where they became pets to the Oni, and as a gift, created Vengestone with their magical abilities.

Of the ones that mysteriously disappeared from the realm are thought to have traveled to the realm of the First Spinjitzu Master, remaining by his side as loyal companions who used Vengestone to rid evil from the land.

But the creatures disappeared around the same time the First Spinjitzu Master did, and the Vengestone they had helped create in the world remained. And as time went on, the deeper layers of the earth became filled with more and more Vengestone--almost as if magically.