The Second Master of Wind

Resolutions

Lloyd's POV

Aeria and I made our way to the deck with Nya, not saying a word to each other as we went to Aeria's next lessons with the others; Spinjitzu and Airjitzu.

"Are you two a thing yet?" Nya asked with a wide smile that almost seemed like Cheshire Cat-ish.

"What?! No!" We both exclaimed at the same time.

"Oh come on, you two are even saying the same sentences as each other."

"Just drop it OK?" Aeria's tone darkened a bit before she shook her head and continued with a lighter tone, "Sorry, I just don't know why you're making a big deal out of it. Lloyd was just... helping me through some stuff."

"Sure." Nya continued to smile as we made it to the deck and saw that Ronin was there with the others and I thought to myself,

This is not going to go well...

Aeria seemed to agree with my thoughts as she growled,

"What is he doing here?"

"He informed us that you are now aware of the prophecy and we figured out that your grudge against him is one of the burdens that it references t-" Xia answered, but was interrupted,

"I'm just here to watch." Ronin told Aeria, but she still didn't look convinced as she made her way over to the first challenge.

"Try to go through the obstacle course as fast as you can without the use of your weapon or abilities to see how well you can fight without them." Zane explained to Aeria as he pointed to the setup of obstacles, that included a couple of Jay's sparring bots scattered throughout the mini-course.

"Alright, seems easy enough." Aeria stepped up and cracked her knuckles and her neck before she pulled her hood up and readied to go at the line painted on the deck as the starting line.

"Ready? Go!" Nya shouted as she started a stopwatch and Aeria started to jump across the shifting poles, only to be sideswiped off one of the poles by one of the sparring bots that was smaller, faster, and specifically made for sneak attacks. I made my way over to Aeria as I helped her to her feet while saying,

"The first lesson to learn from that, 'Always case your surroundings before an attack'. You didn't anticipate the sparring bot and so you couldn't properly prepare to attack it."

"'Easy enough' she said." Ronin laughed from his position against the ship's edge. Aeria looked just about ready to push him over the edge of the ship when I interjected,

"This time, quickly and thoroughly watch your surroundings as you go through the course so that you can be ready for whatever comes ahead."

Aeria nodded but didn't face me as she went back to the beginning and jumped up onto the poles while quickly moving her head around to search for the sparring bot.

Just as it was about to sneak up behind her, Aeria jumped up and spun-kicked it before jumping to the next pole, slid under the spinning targets, and made her way through the larger sparring bots, making them hit each other instead of her, and was about to make her way past the last sparring bot, when she got hit from behind from one of the spinning dummies and got punched back from the bot. She hit the ground hard as the bot was coming towards her before Jay shut it down and paused the whole course.

"Are you OK?" Nya asked as she came over with a roll of bandages ready, fortunately, Aeria wasn't badly injured and just had a bruised back and cheek.

"While you did not complete the course, you did complete all the moves necessary to unlock Spinjitzu, when it is ready to be." Zane informed Aeria, but she didn't look too patient about it.