The Second Master of Wind

Back in Action

3rd Person POV with Sensei Wu

Wu was meditating in his room on the Destiny's Bounty, the flying ship he and his students called home, while they were training up on deck as they docked the ship just outside of Ninjago's borders in the Badlands.

While in meditation, the spirit smoke showed him the six ninja in their fighting stances with their weapons before a white-scaled Pythor.

They battled him fiercely, but he was, somehow, stronger and it seemed that all the ninja were about to be defeated when something dark-streaked around and was able to land a hit on Pythor, revealing themselves to be a person before a horrifyingly familiar red and purple eye filled his vision and the smoke dissipated.

Wu snapped out of the vision just as Misako walked through the door with a pot of hot water for his tea.

"What did you see this time?" Misako asked as she dropped a teabag into the pot to steep.

"I must warn the ninja that Pythor has returned and possibly the Overlord, but I think I know something that may help with the latter." Wu told her.

"Will you need my assistance?" Wu nodded in response to Misako's question as he got his bamboo staff and they walked out onto the deck into the high noon sun where the ninjas were battling against each other in equal pairs; Cole against Nya, Lloyd vs Zane, and Jay fighting Kai. Meanwhile, Xia, Zane's little sister, was sitting to the side meditating and hovering off the ground a bit from her powers of aura.

Cole was still a ghost, but had already adjusted to it and was finding ways to use his ghost abilities to his advantage, like how he was practicing going through obstacles on the course to avoid Nya's water sprays.

"Students!" He called out and everyone stopped training immediately apart from Cole, who barely managed to dodge a misfired water sphere.

"Yeah Sensei?"

"What is going on?"

"Is there trouble?"

All the ninjas talked over each other until Wu raised his staff to stop them and announced,

"I have just had a vision... Pythor will return sooner than we expected."

"What?!" Jay yelled.

"We haven't seen that snake since the whole situation with Chen." Lloyd pointed out.

"The spirit smoke only revealed that he will return, not why, how, or when, as well as the possibility of the Overlord's return as well."

"What?!" Everyone exclaimed at the same time.

"Oh come on! There has to be some kind of clue you're Sensei Wu for crying out loud." Cole exasperated as he tried to facepalm, but his hand went through his head and he groaned in frustration.

"You all must be prepared, for I saw him facing against all of you at once and he nearly defeated you."

"How is that even possible? He could barely take us on when he had all the Serpentine tribes under his control." Kai asked.

"However, the same cannot be said concerning the Overlord."

"My brother is correct. We must be prepared for these two's return, wherever and whenever that may be." Xia told everyone.

"I will send the falcon to be our eyes in the sky for him." Zane stated as he launched the falcon from his arm compartment and sent it off to search for the Anacondrai snake as well as scan for signatures of the Overlord's dark matter.

"What're we supposed to do while we wait?" Jay questioned.

"I would suggest laying low while waiting for either villain to show their face, perhaps in the village of Stiix?" Misako advised.

"I guess it would be a good place to lay low and start coming up with a plan...?" Lloyd responded in a questioning tone before trailing off when he saw Wu go back down below deck and come back up with a rucksack on and another held out to his mom.

"Where are you going Mom?" Lloyd asked.

"I will be accompanying Wu on a journey." She answered, not giving any more information, as she pulled Lloyd into a hug.

As soon as the Bounty landed on the outskirts of Stiix, Wu and Misako went their separate ways from the ninja as they stayed on the Bounty, until they eventually got bored.

"Ugh... If we have to hide in Stiix can we at least get something to eat?" Jay complained from his seat where he shook an empty to-go box and a few crumbs came falling out.

"We also need to stock up on a couple of cleaning supplies." Xia reported from where she was looking under the kitchen sink.

"Ok, we'll go into town to get food and supplies, but then it's back to waiting on the Bounty." Lloyd announced as they all changed out of their gi's and into their regular clothes to leave. They decided that Jay, Nya, and Zane would go grab food while Lloyd and Kai would get the supplies that Xia asked for.

"I will stay aboard the Bounty to guard it." Xia said as the ninja got off to get started.

"Yeah and I'm not really in the mood to avoid water in a watered up town." Cole stated as he stood by Xia at the top of the plank that led to the deck.

"Be safe, Xia." Zane told her as he gave her a hug.

"Don't worry, buddy, we'll watch each other's backs." Cole assured him, "placing" a hand on Xia's shoulder.

Just as he and Kai started the walk over to a department store, Lloyd bumped into a person who was wearing a black jacket with a hood over their head and carrying a box full of scrap metal.

"Sorry." Lloyd started to apologize, but the figure just pulled their hood down even more and continued walking away in the opposite direction.

"Man... what was his problem?" Lloyd asked himself.

"Rough crowd huh?" Kai asked since he saw the encounter and Lloyd just nodded in response.

After half an hour of shopping for cleaning supplies for Xia, Lloyd and Kai walked out of the store with a few bags as they radioed in, telling the other group to meet them back at the Bounty.

On the way back to the ship, Lloyd dropped a sponge from the bag he was carrying and was going to pick it up when he heard a weird noise, like a grunt and something full of metal being dropped, coming from an alley nearby.

"Kai, did you hear something?" Lloyd asked, but he wasn't nearby so he ventured in by himself.

It was dimly lit and there were a few trash cans and stray boards of wood and pipes laying around, but, other than that, it looked empty.

Just Lloyd was about to head back, though, when he heard someone groan in pain and when Lloyd looked behind a trash can, he saw the figure he had bumped into earlier on the ground with their box of scrap spilled over and they were laying on the ground on their stomach.

"What the...?" He started to say to himself until a vaguely ominous voice said,

"Well hello, old friend..."

"Pythor..." Lloyd whirled around and got into a fighting stance, his hands alight with his powers, searching for the source of the voice when, out of nowhere, he was swept off his feet by a bleached white tail with purple markings and landed on his back where he was pinned into place by a metal rod.

"Sorry to cut our little reunion short, but it's not you I came for." Pythor raised the rod, about to bring it down on Lloyd when something appeared in front of him and blocked it.

"I think I have a good idea of who he's here for."

1251 Words