Ninjago: New Heros

Chapter 4: The Day Life Changed

ALEX

Dear Diary,

Today was a peculiar yet exciting day! I won't bore you with the details since I told you all about my plans last night so let's get into the story!

Picture this, it was an icy winters evening. The sun had began to descend behind the rolling mountains outside the monastery, creating a perfect picture over the marbled sky. Sydney, Sofia, Ember and I had gone outside as Sydney had dared Sofia to go into the woods at the back of the monastery, presumably on her own. We had followed her to ensure her safety; of course we didn't want her getting hurt. We had reached the edge of the forest.
"Okay Sofia, off you go!" Sydney teased.
"I'm off! I'm off!" Sofia protested, attempting to flaunt her unbridled bravery.
"Don't get eaten by the monsters!" Ember teased her.
"HAHA very funny." She deadpanned, clearly not amused.
She disappeared into the woods with a flick of her auburn hair and a cavelled walk.
We waited. Waited. Waited.
"Don't worry guys, I'm sure she'll be back safe" I tried to reassure Ember and Sydney who had started to worry.
"I hope she is, I'd feel shit if anything happened to her." Sydney replied disheartend.
We waited. We waited. We waited.
Every crack of a twig gave us false hope.
We waited. We waited. We...
Suddenly, a deafening scream came from the woods. It startled all of us, the harbinger of our worst fears.
As swift as lightning, Sydney rushed into the darkened woods, not a thought running through his mind. I looked at Ember. Ember looked at me. We ran after him.

"Sofia!" We screamed for what felt like hours until our voices were hoarse.
"Where the fuck is she? I feel awful!" Sydney exclaimed.
"Sydney, don't worry, she'll be here somewhere, I can sense it." I tried to comfort him. Then Ember mentioned it, the one thing I had hoped she wouldn't.
"Alex, I know you won't like me saying this, but it might be our only way to save Sofia. Would you be able to triangulate the source of the sound? Maybe then we'd have an idea of where she'd be."
As much as I want to deny it, I am a Nindroid. A robot. I don't like being reminded of that, however, if I must forgo my humanity in order to save my friend, I will do so. I triangulate the source of the sound.
"It came from half a mile east! This way!" I yelled, gesturing the others to follow.

We ran. We ran. We ran. We came across an odd, frozen puddle in the middle of the grass.
"WATER! IT'S WATER WE MUST BE GETTING CLOSE!" Sydney exclaimed. Sofia is the master of water, but she doesn't always know how to control her powers. Occasionally, she'll spill water from her hands so this meant we were getting close.
"SOFIA! SOFIA!" We all yelled in unison. That was when we came across it. A huge stalagmite cave. I knew from experience that this cave was huge, it went down about 100 meters below the ground and was a winding maze of tunnels and passageways.
"SOFIA! ARE YOU DOWN THERE?" Sydney shouted.
We heard a faint voice from inside the cave, but nothing entirely conclusive. That's when we noticed it again. A puddle of water on the floor by the entrance to the first tunnel.
"She's definitely in here." I stated and we all crept through the first tunnel.
Thankfully, Sofia's ability made her easier to track. There were small puddles of water leading through the passageways, and even though they felt as if they would go on forever, we finally made it. This was by far the biggest of the caves. It was humongous, spanning approximately 70 meters across and 50 meters high. In the centre there was a huge, crystal blue lagoon and stalagmites unlike the others hanging from the ceiling. It was unlike anything we had ever seen. We were all in awe at its beauty. Suddenly, our awe turned to unrivalled fear. A gentle but powerful roar emerged from the inner cave. The trail of water had stopped. Whatever this beast was, it had done something with Sofia. Carefully, our group quietly entered the smaller cave, only to see something we could've never imagined...

...A...Dragon...

Not just any dragon...a dragon with four heads...

It had golden luminescent scales that struck fear into us and shone, illuminating the cavern. Its wings were huge, spanning about 4 feet long. It was a magnificent beast; an amazing sight to behold. What was more intimidating still, was Sofia, curled up motionless on the ground next to it. It was hard to tell if her face was contorted to one of comfort or of fear as the dragons grand tail obscured her face from view, however, she seemed unharmed.

"SOFIA!" Sydney exclaimed rushing over to be beside his twin sister. He wouldn't get too far before the beast turned one of its four heads to look at him, a sour smile upon its face. Ember and I stood by the mouth of the cave in total fear, gripped by our flight or fight instincts. We weren't our parents. We didn't know how to fight. We didn't even know what to do in this situation. We both gave eachother a look of fearful worriedness as Syndey tried to traverse the dragons tail to get to Sofia. There was no obvious indicator that it would attack but we couldn't be totally sure; we were completely out of our depth.

"Hey! Over here!" Ever the confident one, Ember threw a tiny pebble at the Dragons head to grab its attention, giving Sydney a clear run to get to his sister. She grew to regret that action as the beast reared its head towards her and terror over-took Ember. She froze as the creatures head slowly moved towards her.
"EMBER! WATCH OUT!" I yelled rushing over to her. She still stood there frozen in fear, but the creature didn't seem to have our untimely demise in its heart, it appeared...fascinated. The red accented head bowed to Ember as she stood in shock and the head of the dragon with blue accents followed suit, bowing its grand head before me. I felt as if we were safe, so nervously, I reached out my hand to pet it's soft scales. In retrospect, it was one of the best and worst decisions I have ever made.