Aitheris | A Ninjago Au

Chapter 12: Realizations

Vayu and Nya rushed around the palace, calling the others to see if they had found anything, but unfortunately turned up empty.

"Has anyone seen Lloyd?" Vayu asked.

"Not since he left on that patrol by himself," Jay said, "Hey PIX, could you get us his coordinates?"

It took a few moments until P.I.X.A.L's voice could be heard over their earbuds, "currently Master Lloyd is walking by the canal, I can contact him and tell him to return."

"No need, I'm already coming back with Hutchins and Rumi," Lloyd responded.

"Why were you by the canal?" Vayu asked, "Were you with the princess?"

"I'll explain later," he said.

. . .

"Moonlit walks on the canal, sharing food, sounds like a date," Cole smiled as he swung his hammer at Lloyd.

"It was not a date," Lloyd frowned at their teasing, and Zane explaining the definition of a date.

Vayu stood a bit away from the group, wanting to test their reaction time by going for one of them at random, for some silly little reason she didn't like the conversation going on, some of it felt frustrating yet angering to her. Why was she so annoyed at this? She stayed back and watched as the others started giving him advice on how to impress someone.

"I don't like Rumi like that," Lloyd said.

"Then who do you like?" Kai grinned, "because if it's not the princess then I have a pretty good idea on who it is."

Vayu was about to shoot him a angry glance before she heard Lloyd respond with, "I don't like anyone like that right now, and I'm not really planning on it either."

While Lloyd was distracted Vayu ran up behind him, locking her leg with his and knocking him to the ground, he yelped and landed with a thud before looking up at her

"It's fine if you don't like anybody like that, what matters is that you stay your positive and happy self," Vayu said, lending out a hand to help him get up, which he gladly accepted.

. . .

The rest of the day went by fine, everyone walking around, talking, thinking... that conversation Vayu had with the others last night still remained in her head, and the talk about Lloyd having a crush on the princess played over and over in her head, why did it hurt so much? She didn't like him like that, he was a really close friend, right? Just a friend. She was sent here to protect the First Spinjitzu Master's realm, and most importantly his descendants, not to date his grandson. Wait, what the heck was she even thinking?! No. No. No! Just forget it.

"BLA- Za- Therez bl/\$| /_/\p!"

Cole's voice began to crackle through the earbuds, Vayu listened confused.

"Cole you have a bad signal," Lloyd said.

Suddenly Cole's voice got clearer, usually it would bring relief, but this only brought pure dread.. oh absolute dread, "there's Blast Zap! The whole palace is rigged to explode! It was Hutchins!"

Everyone quickly sprung into action just before they heard it, they saw it, they felt it, explosions. Multiple were set off around the palace, which quickly caught flame, smoke and fire and debris scattered around the royal grounds.

"I'll go find the emperor and empress!" Vayu said to the others as she rushed into the burning building, using her powers to make a shield from the smoke as she ran around, she wanted to try and put out the fire but felt the chance of spreading it was too high as she worked her way around the building, the revving of engines seeming to get closer.