The Glade and Its Glitch: Book 2 Allies or Enemies

Chapter 22

As the light outside dimmed, and the two love bird ninja sat up on the roof, Lloyd lay in his bed falling asleep. At least, attempting to fall asleep. The boy was wide awake, his mind wandering to all sorts of places. Mostly to the Glade, but Soar and Cole were on his mind as well. The Glade was fairly obvious, being that they were the ninja's most prominent enemy. Cole wasn't surprising, being that the black ninja had been unconscious for nearly two weeks. It was Soar that was uncommon.

Their new ally had been acting even more suspiciously than usual. All of the ninja noticed the strange way Soar acted around them. Especially around Cole and Jay. Cole, they'd mostly chalked up to the fact that Soar was there when Huntress attacked. They were all worried for Cole, so they assumed Soar was too. But his wariness around Jay was different. It was almost like Jay had in some way harmed Soar, and the latter was now scared of the former.

Lloyd thought about Cole as most of the ninja were. Their older brother was out of commission, and their defenses were weak without the elemental master of earth. Cole had been making progress however, he'd stirred a few times and Zane thought he'd be waking up soon. Soar hadn't seemed as excited as the rest of the ninja were, but Kai said that it was probably just because he was nervous and didn't know Cole all that well.

The Glade was what consumed most of Lloyd's thoughts. They seemed to be growing stronger. More and more times they'd been caught on the ninja's security cameras. They were training, and then ninja could know which of the soldiers were threats, and which weren't as much. Lloyd was starting to recognize the fighters along with their names, which he honestly enjoyed. The Glade seemed pretty cool, besides the whole Huntress attacking Cole thing and just her being creepy in general. Supernova and Skylight were the ones he knew the best. They seemed to hang out together a lot and on occasion, he'd see a younger girl with them. Though he didn't know the kid's name.

After a while, Lloyd fell asleep, his mind thoroughly worn out. And his dreams were not any better than Jay's or Cole's.

~~~

Lloyd sat up, no longer in his bed. After looking around, he observed an open area surrounded by trees. He recognized it as the same place he and the rest of the ninja had first looked for the Glade in. It had the same layout, with a small empty field with trees forming the border around it. The same tree that he'd seen the monkey, no, the ape in stood off to the side.

"Well, this is a weird place to have a dream in." Lloyd had been having dreams, but they weren't abnormal. Most of his were normal, it was just the typical fever dreams every once and a while.

It was the first dream Lloyd was having that took place in the Glade. Although with the amount of time he spent thinking about Huntress and her friends it surprised him that it had taken this long. He looked around again, now catching sight of a shadowy figure.

"Huntress!" Lloyd breathed, "What are you doing here?"

The figure tilted their head to the side, "The hunt has begun."

"Huntress?" Lloyd's voice shifted to concern. It was his first-ever conversation with Huntress, and it was not going how he imagined.

"The hunt has begun." They took a step closer.

Lloyd didn't know if he wanted to move closer or farther away. It seemed like Huntress was threatening him. He was already scared of her enough, this behavior was not helping.

Once the figure stepped into the light Lloyd calmed down a little. It was a child. A young one, Lloyd estimated around eleven, so they were not Huntress.

"Who are you?" He asked, now that he knew the figure was not Huntress.

The girl just tilted her head to the side again and repeated her phrase, "The hunt has begun." She blinked slowly, her eyes starting to take on a golden tinge.

"Who-" before Lloyd could finish his question, the girl answered.

"That does not matter. I-"

"You're from the Glade though aren't you?"

"You are almost as annoying as TJ."

"W-who's TJ?" Lloyd asked, confused. "I don't know who that is."

The kid shrugged, "Not my problem. That's your problem. And you've got bigger ones coming. The hunt-"

"Has begun, yeah I know." he interrupted, "What is going on though? Who are you?!"

"Doesn't matter," the girl's attention snapped to the trees. Her hair followed the movement causing the beads on the ends of her braids to clack together. Her wide eyes and the somewhat playful air about her reminded Lloyd of himself.

If he never aged up by using the Tomorrow's Tea to save the younger versions of the other ninja from the Grundle so long ago, he'd be around eleven. The same age he guessed the girl before him was. There were times when Lloyd wished he could have stayed a kid, but also others when he liked to be older. Though the first happened much more often.

As the girl's gaze switched to the trees a silver liquid began to flow down. However, it acted more like smoke than liquid. Or perhaps it was a mix of both. It pooled at the base of the tree trunks and began to spread toward the child's feet. Lloyd took a step back to avoid touching the silver substance.

"Don't be afraid Lloyd." the girl looked back at the green ninja, "This is only a dream. This isn't real." The wind picked up, swinging the girl's braids around, though she seemed unbothered by it.

Lloyd backed up into a tree, the silver was now nearing his toes, and he had nowhere to run. "Help me!!" He cried out at the child.

"This isn't real Lloyd. But prepare yourself. The war is about to reach a whole other level. In fact, it's barely even begun." She said, quite unhelpfully.

"Wait-" Lloyd jerked backward sharply.

The girl had suddenly disappeared into a black void. It sucked her body in and she vanished within seconds. The worst part was that she had barely reacted. Her face remained blank, and it was as if she hadn't even noticed.

Sucking in a gasp Lloyd turned to his right. He saw a flash of green eyes that he did not recognize. He knew they weren't his own, nor were they his mother's. Before he could process them, he woke up.

~~~

"Lloyd! Wake up!"

Lloyd opened his eyes to see Kai's eyes staring down at him. For a moment he thought that they were just Kai's eyes finding a way into his dream. But Kai's were a soft brown, and the eyes Lloyd had seen were a piercing green

"You need to come with me," Kai panted.

"Why? What happened? What's going on?" Lloyd jumped out of bed.

"It's Cole. We think he's waking up."