Objective: Fire

Chapter 26

" this place is quite dark... don't you think?" 47 mumbles as she walks closely to Lloyd, studying the surroundings. The walls were covered in plants and it seemed fairly wet in here. Unlike the forest outside, this place seemed to be more alive.
" don't worry, I got your back if something is to happen" Lloyd replies.
He didn't like this place either, but he had to admit that this place had high chances of being an old tomb. Hopefully an elemental tomb...
" how far into this thing are we?" 47 asks.
" pretty far.." Wu replies to her comment and stops. Lloyd was confused to why they were stopping, but then he sees it..
Ahead of them laid a large rock. If it weren't for the symbols onto it, then most would just have walked past it without a second thought.
" be aware... because a head of you lays a great challenge..." 47 reads out loud. Wu carefully touches the carvings onto the rock to see if there were more words hidden in the plants, but there wasn't much.
" an unknown challenge then..." he mumbles and backs away from the rock.
" this place is quite old sensei... don't you think that all the traps would have been destroyed by the waves of time..?" Lloyd questions him.
" no Lloyd... those who made this place must have had that in mind..." Wu replies as he starts to walk again.
Lloyd gives 47 a confused look before following after him. Together they walked... walked.. and walked for ages.
" so ... are we getting anywhere? Because I don't think this place is gone continue straight forward forever" Lloyd mumbles.
Wu quietly sighs and stops up.
" you're right Lloyd... we're all being played for fools... we're actually walking around in an eternal sickle" Wu tells them and starts to brush off the leaves and plants from the walls.
" I... I honestly didn't have that on my mind.." Lloyd mumbles as he helps Wu remove the veins.
" how do you know for sure that we're walking in circles?" 47 replies as she hadn't noticed anything suspicious.
" you see this rock... it's the same as earlier.." Wu point at the same rock from earlier that warned them about continuing forward.
" wait are you being serious!? I honestly thought the rock was just reappearing you warn us from the danger we're soon to meet!" Lloyd burst out, begging to feel anxious about this place.
" just stay calm... this must be an ancient spell that has been casted over these hallways.." Wu replies and stops for a moment to think..
" if we can't trust our eyes... then I guess our ears has to be our guide.." he mumbles as he gently grabs hold of both of them.
" close your eyes. Follow me and don't let go." Wu tells them and together they start to walk again. As he walked, he tried to listen for anything that could give away a secret passage. If there was one tho..
As they walked, he couldn't hear much. Neither did the two next to him make it any easier. Lloyd was constantly stumbling over the veins onto the ground and 47 let out a squeak every time she felt like something not human was touching him.
" you two sure don't know the art of silence..." Wu mumbles.
" well I'm sorry, but that's pretty much a very useless art to use agains your enemies" Lloyd replies.
" yeah that won't do much good" 47 joins in. Wu was just about to reply when he felt the breeze..
To the left of them came a cold breeze, meaning there had to be a passage of some kind near by.
" follow me! I believe I might have found something!" Wu whispers to the two following him and begins to walk towards the direction the breeze was coming from. 47 and Lloyd were both confused. They really wanted to open their eyes, but sensei's words made them keep them shut.
Wu guided them and slowly walked towards the wall before him. His right arm was stretched out and he gently pleases the hand onto the wall. He carefully started to move his hand around it, trying to find any kind of trace or carving that would help him. Just as he was about to hive up, his fingers finds a large crack in the wall before them. Wu quickly opens his eyes and looks towards wherever his hand was. As he saw it, he was amazed by the sight. The wall was covered in veins and plants, but if a person would have been looking for this with his sight, then this would be impossible to find.
" you can open your eyes now, because I've found the door that will lead us out of here" Wu tells them and slides his hands into the crack and starts to push.
Lloyd gave 47 a confused look, but seconds later, they were both helping him push the wall to reveal a hidden passage behind it.
" way to go sensei! This was amazing!" 47 cheers happily.
" yeah... how did you know to use your hearing and not the sight?" Lloyd questions him.
" actually Lloyd... I didn't use my hearings either... but my human senses. This passage was letting out a breeze that told me there had to be a way out somewhere, and I was right" Wu happily replies and walks into the hallway of the new passage.
" your uncle has a big brain" 47 chuckles to Lloyd before following after Wu.
Lloyd only smiled in return. Sensei Wu truly was an incredible person. If he had been in this place alone, he would never have thought of this.
As they continued down the hallway, another rock appears before them, but this time, it had a different warning.
" step forward and you will die. Turn around and leave? You also die."
Wu reads out.
" now that's disturbing..." Lloyd mumbles. He had no idea how to go around this.
Wu studied the rock and started to search through the place for anything that might help.
" don't move, alright? If you step forward, you may trigger a trap to go off and we all die" Wu tells them. Lloyd quietly nods as he really didn't want to die. So far Wu has done all the work to save them, so now he felt like it was time to do something good from this small team as well.
Lloyd quietly started searching the place for anything when he noticed something off with the ground underneath them. There was a square around them. Or more correctly, underneath their feet.
" sensei.. I think I know what so do." Lloyd points don't at the ground. Wu turns his attention down and sees it too.
" I see... this square were standing within is the trap... if we move off it, it will trigger the trap to go off..."
" then how should we get out of this trap?" 47 asks as he begins to get stressed.
" just stay calm.. I think I know" Lloyd replies.
" we can move within this square... but if we're stepping off, we die, therefore, we have to replace ourselves with something that can replace our weight" Lloyd mumbled and looks up at the sealing. Wu follows his gaze up to the sealing and sees it.
" that's not a bad plan Lloyd.." Wu tells him.
" it may work, we just have to get those rocks from up there to come down to us as we jump off this square the same second they hit it." Lloyd explains and looks over at 47.
" you have to stand over here, I'm going to use my powers to make them fall"
" you sure this is going to work?" 47 asks worriedly, but Lloyd only nods in response.
" trust me" he tells her and slowly she walks over to the side, preparing herself to jump off the square, just like they had planned.
As Wu joins her at the edge, he gives Lloyd the signal to proceed with his plan.
" alright then... here goes everything" he lifts his right arm and reaches it out, towards the rocks above him. His eyes starts glowing green as he activates his powers. Green fire bursts out of his palm and he creates a ball out pure energy.
With that, he aims at the sealing and throws it. The energy ball hits the sealing, and as he predicted, large boulders of rock falls down towards them. Quickly he backs away and runs towards 47 and Wu who was standing prepared.
Everything went as planned. The two of them jumped off the square plate underneath. Lloyd reaches them just in time. Luckily he didn't get hit by a boulder, but 47 could have sworn that it had been too close for her liking. The whole place around them were now surrounded in dust from the boulders.

" that was cray" Lloyd chuckled as he brushes off the dust he had gained from all the rocks.
" yeah, let's not do that again" 47 replies and does the same.
" I would like not to" Lloyd gently lays an arm around her as he was happy nothing bad happened to any of them. If she had gotten hurt... then he wouldn't be able to forgive himself..
" my friends..." Wu speaks, catching the attention of the two younger ninjas.
" sensei..?" Lloyd speaks as he noticed that their sensei wasn't sounding like himself..
" we're here.." it wasn't until he had spoken the last part when Lloyd actually noticed what was laying ahead of them...
" it's... it's actually here.." 47 whispers as they quietly walks into the tomb. It was a large room. Unlike the hallways, this part of the underground maze was clean, and no plants seemed to be in sight.
" it's inactive..." Wu mumbles, carefully walking around to study the place.
" so... where's the dagger? Shouldn't it be here?" Lloyd asks as he can't see any. 47 rolls with her eyes and chuckles.
" dude, the only way to gain the dagger is by sacrificing the elemental master of fire, only then the dagger will reveal itself. Or at least something like that" 47 tells him.
" right... this tomb thing is quite strange to be honest" Lloyd chuckles.

" it is, isn't it?" Out of nowhere, an unfamiliar voice appears and fear strikes them.
Quickly, Lloyd spins around towards the entrance of the tomb and sees a group of masked people standing there.
" how!? How the hell did you find us!?" Lloyd bursts out as he grab hold of his sword. He hadn't encountered many X squadron agents, but from the early encounter with Morro, Lloyd recognized their suits.
They were all dressed up in black, wearing a matching mask, except one... before them stands a boy, who none of them had ever met.. but Lloyd somehow recognized him... not by his looks... but by the description the leader from the mountain village had given him... this was the missing member... this was... Brine.