The Second Master of Wind

The Darkness Comes

3rd Person POV

"The storm's gone, he did it..." Lloyd whispered to himself as we saw Ouroboros come into view from the deck and the wind storm that had been swirling above it had died down.

"Look!" Nya pointed over the edge to the two figures that were exiting the central base, "There's Pythor, but I don't recognize the other person with him."

"It appears to be Aeria, but her appearance has significantly changed." Zane alerted the others after PIXAL used their enhanced sight to look closer.

"That's not Aeria..." Lloyd told the others after he looked through the telescope to see that the other figure did look like Aeria, but he could just tell that it wasn't the real her.

"Lloyd is correct," Xia came up to the edge as she extended her hand over the edge with her eyes closed, concentrating on her powers, "Pythor has managed to extract the Overlord's essence, or as we know them as, Darkstorm, from Aeria, as well as her abilities over the wind, and inserted them into another created being."

"Then, where's Aeria?" Nya asked worriedly.

"I cannot sense her at the moment." Xia looked back at them with a despairing looking facial expression, "This worries me..."

"Uh, guys? We got incoming!" Cole yelled as Darkstorm used the wind to throw the Bounty around in the air and launched herself onto the deck as Pythor got into a police helicopter. She stayed bent down on one knee with her head bowed down, until Lloyd slowly approached her and her head snapped up to look at me with her dark, piercing glare.

"What have you and Pythor done to Aeria?" Lloyd demanded to know and Darkstorm just grinned with malice before rasping out,

"I'd be more worried about yourselves right now..." She raised a fist up and a dark sphere formed around it. The ninja realized a split-second too late what she was going to do and Lloyd tried to reach out a hand to fire an energy sphere at her, but was too late.

The sphere spread out in pulsing waves over the deck all over the ship and blew out the engines with an explosion in each one. The ship started to shake uncontrollably again as Misako and Wu shouted over the PA system that they were trying to land them safely when Darkstorm started to fly over, pausing to hang off the side of the mast as she yelled down to the ninja, to Lloyd in particular,

"You're too late for her anyway!"

Before taking off with a maniacal laugh as the helicopter flew by with Pythor inside and Darkstorm followed him from behind in the direction of Ninjago City.

Lloyd's mind was swirling with thoughts of what Darkstorm meant by being "too late" for Aeria, but was brought out of his thoughts when Wu spoke through the speakers again with urgency,

"Brace yourselves!"

Seconds later, the Bounty managed to avoid the buildings of Ouroboros, but still landed roughly towards the center of the ruins on its side.

"Is everyone still alive?" Kai called out as he dragged himself up from the side of the ship where he had clung for his life a few seconds ago.

"Haha Kai..." Cole deadpanned as he crossed his arms.

"Sorry, Cole."

"Yeah, aside from a few scrapes and bruises from the rest of us, we're all OK." Nya told us as she helped Misako and Wu out of the ship from the, now sideways, door.

"The thrusters were shut down and are damaged, but they can be fixed." Wu assured everyone.

"However, it will take some time to do so." Misako told everyone as she pulled out Nya's toolbox from the doorway and the two along with Jay made it over to the left ruined thruster while Zane and Xia went to fix the right one.

"Lloyd, you go check to see if Aeria's in there, we'll fix the thrusters so that we can get to Ninjago City as soon as possible to stop whatever Pythor and Darkstorm have planned." Kai told Lloyd as he placed a hand on his shoulder with a determined look that Lloyd returned with a nod before running to the central base.

Short Time Skip

It was completely dark inside the base until Lloyd formed an energy sphere in his hand to light the place up and he spotted a switch on the wall that turned on the lights.

As soon as he did, he could see that the walls were plastered with maps of Ninjago City with several places circled in red marker with question marks written next to them, blueprints for the mechanical body of Darkstorm, some metal parts and tools lying around a full crate, and more blueprints to reconstruct and modify the chamber that was used to drain Lloyd's Golden Power.

"That's how Pythor took Aeria's powers and used them to power an entirely different being..." Lloyd whispered to himself as he continued to look at all the blueprints.

Then, he saw that, on one of the various maps in the room, there was a large red circle sticker with a penned X on it at the center of Ninjago City where Borg Tower was located and realized that that must be where Pythor and Darkstorm were headed.

Lloyd took the map off the wall when some popping noises sounded from another room in the base. Rolling up the map and holstering it on his gi's belt, he ran in the direction of the noise and was horrified with what he saw.

The same power extraction chamber from before, with the new changes that Pythor added in, was being powered by a small tank of Electrocobrai. Inside, Aeria was curled up on the floor with her back facing the glass of the door to the chamber and he could see small sparks of electricity jolting off of her as well as up from the metal floor.

"Aeria!"

Rushing over to her, Lloyd pounded his hands on the glass to get her attention, but she wasn't moving at all which made him even more scared.

After yanking the power switch off to stop the electric currents from zapping Aeria, he found a large red button to open the chamber door and practically punched it with his fist to rush inside.

Kneeling down next to Aeria, Lloyd turned her over and she stiffly uncurled from her position, barely breathing, but still alive.

"Come on, let's get you outta here..."

Carefully, he picked her up, one arm supporting her back and the other holding up her legs and managed to carry her outside and back to the Bounty.

"Lloyd?" Misako and Wu and came running up to Lloyd with concern clear on their faces.

"Aeria!" Nya ran over with some soot on her face from the engines.

"Is she gonna be OK?" Lloyd asked worriedly.

"She is extremely weak and her powers have been fully drained, but she should live," Wu assured them as he put a hand on Aeria's forehead, "She should rest now if she is going to wake soon to aid us in our battle against her counterpart."

"Yeah..." Lloyd agreed as he and his mother started to walk back towards the Bounty.

"So, this is Aeria?" Misako asked Lloyd with a smile as they boarded the uprighted ship to get to Aeria's room.

"Yeah, I just hope she doesn't lash out at us again when she comes to..." Lloyd told her as he put Aeria down on her bed and they left the room, closing the door behind them and standing outside the door.

"As I told you before, give her time..."

"Which, unfortunately, we may not have a lot of..."

1248 Words