The Child of Silver

33

After parting ways with the Ninja, Garmadon, Lloyd and Anirei traveled across Ninjago, following Zane's falcon towards Nya's secret Samurai X cave. They followed the falcon all the way to a large forgotten skeleton hidden away in the desert. The falcon landed on the rib bone, right over a button that had the Samurai X symbol carved into it.

"The Samurai X symbol." Lloyd gasped as he ran up to the button and pressed it. Immediately, the mouth of the skeleton opened, revealing a staircase in which the small trio descended with the falcon on Anirei's shoulder.

They went down the stairs until they reached a small elevator, which took them down to the ground level where all of Nya's Samurai X equipment was contained if she or anyone else would need it.

"Whoa! How did Nya have time to build all this?" Lloyd exclaimed.

"You would be surprised how much free time Nya had while our Elder brothers were battling the enemy." Anirei chuckled as they walked down the catwalk.

"Then maybe I should've been a Samurai instead." Lloyd joked.

"I do not believe that Samurai armor would like the best on you, Lloyd." Anirei pointed out, "I prefer you in a gi instead."

Garmadon walked up to a red sheet covering something and pulled it off, revealing a large vehicle equipped with many weapons, much to his dismay.

"Why must everything have so many weapons?" He asked annoyed by the amount of weapons he had.

"Says the man who had four arms to possess the golden weapons." Lloyd shot back.

"Haha... Ah, I deserved that one." Garmadon groaned and stopped his son before he could get into the driver's seat, "I swore off fighting, not driving."

Garmadon got into the driver's seat while Anirei and Lloyd shared the back seat, as there was only room for two in the vehicle. But somehow they managed to share it, even though it was a slightly tight fit. They drove out of the back entrance, jumping over the large canyon that sat outside.

"Where to now?" Lloyd said.

"As far away from here as possible."

They kept on driving until the day turned to a dark star filled night. As the moon began to rise, they stopped for a moment of rest and to drink, thinking that they were far enough away from any kind of technology to avoid detection.

Lloyd and Anirei went up to the river to grab a drink while Garmadon stayed with the vehicle. As Lloyd sat back up and wiped his face of the excess water dripping down his chin, he took a glance at Anirei, who cupped in the water she drank in her hands.

He noticed the little details that changed with her over the time she was gone. Her hair had grown a little longer. She still had a round face, but she didn't have her baby fat. And she had even grown a little bit taller, sitting half a head shorter than him now. But even more noticeable, is that she had gotten more beautiful than the last time he had seen her.

"So, Rei." Lloyd said with a cough, "How was your training?"

Anirei wiped the water from her lips and smiled, "It was painful and hard, but it allowed me to gain many new abilities."

"How was the training hard? Tell me about it." Lloyd said, both genuinely intrigued by her training, but also because he wanted hear more about how much stronger she had become. It would give him hints on how he could protect her better from the Overlord.

"It was hard. At first, I had to take a stronger hold on my abilities over the light, taking out signs of tainted light that may have been within my body since our last battle with the Overlord. That took a few months to complete." Anirei started, "After that, I had to purify the rest of the darkness that I held so that it would flow perfectly with the light during my next stage of training. Once I had purified the darkness and the light within me, I had to find a perfect balance between the two, that way, the light wouldn't overpower the dark and vice versa. That last stage of training was so painful, because the darkness and the light tried to take over each other and dominate my soul."