Ryder's P.O.V.:

*********Flashback**********

My father had sent me to my room. I slammed the door and laid down in my bed. I was angry at them. I can't believe they would be so quick as to judge a person just because their aunt tried to kill my dad and resurrected my grandfather from the dead. It doesn't mean she was like that.

All of a sudden I heard a small knock at my window. I looked through and saw Maizy standing out there.

"Maizy?!" I whispered. I locked my door, so Mom, Dad and Ashley wouldn't come in, and opened my window to let her in. "What in Ninjago are you doing here?!"

"Well remember that favor you offered?" She asked.

"Yes but I..."

"Well I kind of need it now." She said, interrupting me.

"Well you see, now's not really a good time..."

"Come on, I really need your help and it'll only take a few minutes. Your parents won't even won't even know you're gone." She assured me. "After all, you do owe me."

"Well I guess I did make a promise." I admitted. "Fine, but no more than a few minutes."

"Deal." She agreed.

I grabbed my phone and was about to put it my pocket, but Maizy said I wouldn't need it and convinced me to leave it behind. I didn't want my parents finding out where I went anyway after what just happened. I just hoped that this would be a short trip.

******End of Flashback******

It had been hours of riding on the back of Maizy's electric scooter. I asked where we were going multiple times but each time she either dodged my questions or pretended she couldn't hear me. I was starting to think that my dad was right. Or maybe I wasn't giving her much of a chance. I mean maybe she was really in trouble and needed my help right away.

We arrived at our destination and I started looking around. It was a dense forest area with no highlighted tracks. I knew where we were.

"Prime Evil's Eye?" I questioned.

"How do you know this place?" Maizy asked.

"Oh, my mother said that my grandfather had gone into map this area but never came back." I explained. "My dad also had some not so good experiences here."

"Probably involving my aunt, right?" She frowned.

"Um yeah." I said awkwardly. "Sorry."

"It's ok, we're not responsible for the path our relatives chose." She said.

"Yeah, right." I agreed.

We kept going through the forest on her scooter. The road, or this case the ground, kept getting bumpier and bumpier. Eventually we crashed into a large rock and both went flying off the scooter. I face planted on the ground and landed on my arm. I passed out...

Lloyd's P.O.V.:

"What do you mean he ran away?" I asked Kira, who was still freaked out.

"I've looked everywhere, he's not here." Kira frowned.

"Ok calm down, did you try calling him?" I asked.

"Of course I did, he left his phone here." She frowned. "I'm really worried about him."

"Hey listen, we're going to find him." I gave my wife a hug.

I was worried about Ryder too, but Wu always said that staying calm and focused is important in a situation like this. Plus, as much as I love her, Kira's always been kind of a smother mother so I didn't want to make her more upset than she already was.

"Let's search his room and see if we can figure out where he went." I told her and she nodded.

We went upstairs and searched his room from top to bottom, but the only thing we noticed was the window was wide open.

We asked my mother to watch Ashley and then went outside and there was a ladder, meaning he probably crawled out the window. Then we found a trail leading away from the monastery.

Wherever he was, I hope he was ok and hadn't gotten himself into too much trouble.

Ryder's P.O.V.:

"Ryder?" I heard Maizy's voice as I started coming to. "Ryder wake up."

I slowly opened my eyes and saw Maizy in front of me. I sat up and realized how much my arm was hurting.

"Are you ok?" She asked as she helped me sit up.

"Y-yeah, I'm ok." I lied. She noticed how I kept holding my arm. It really hurt.

"Here let me see that." Maizy said.

She took a small blanket off the back of her wrecked scooter and carefully wrapped it around my arm to make a sling. She then looked in the truck and got a first aid kit and used it to treat the rest of my wounds. I was cut, bruised and bleeding in quite a few places.

"Ahh." I flinched as she was cleaning one of the cuts on my knee.

"Hold still, I'm almost done." Maizy said.

"Aw man! My parents are gonna kill me!" I frowned.

"I'm sorry I did this to you." Maizy apologized. "I'm not the best driver."

"That's ok, accident's happen." I said, trying not to upset her. "Did that hurt you too?"

"No, I had my forcefield." She explained. "I would've used it to save you too, but when the impact came I panicked and you were too far away to put it around both of us."

"That's alright. I'm just glad you're ok." I said.

She finished treating my wounds and adjusting the sling around my arm. It was no healing powers, but I did feel better.

"There that should do it." Maizy said helping me to my feet. I groaned as I stood up. "How's that?"

"Better." I said. "Well it's getting late, I should really be getting back home."

"You can't walk home from here in your condition." Maizy insisted.

"Then how are we supposed to get home?" I asked.

"Relax, after we're done here, I'll call you a taxi." She said.

"I guess we don't have a choice." I frowned and looked at my arm in the sling. "Although I don't know how much help I'll be to you now."

"It's just a fracture, you'll be fine." She rolled her eyes. "Now come on."

"Where are we even going anyway?" I asked as I started following her into the forest. It honestly hurt for me to walk, but I didn't want to sound ungrateful, she did everything she could.

"You'll see." She said kind of secretly. "You ask a lot of questions you know that?"

"Well sorry I want to know more about you and this quest you asked me to help you with." I said sarcastically.

"Alright the truth is that a friend of mine is here and she is your biggest fan." She admitted. "Today is her birthday and all she's ever wanted was to meet you in person. She just lost her parents in a car accident and all I want to do is make this the best the birthday ever for her. Can you please do that for me?"

"Oh, of course I can do that." I smiled, kinda relieved. "Why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?"

"I was afraid you'd think it was embarrassing." She said shyly.

"Not at all, that's nice of you to do that for your friend." I said. "Although a little heads up would've been nice."

"Yeah sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. I might've gone a little overboard there."

"It's ok, I've been through worse." I laughed.

We kept walking through the forest and now that I knew what we were doing, it made me feel a lot more comfortable. All of a sudden Maizy put her hand out and stopped me from walking any farther.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Shh!" She shushed me.

She pointed to a large scorpion-crab like beast sleeping and snoring in the cave we were about to walk in front of. We looked at each other and nodded.

We tried to slowly sneak past the beast as quietly as we could, but Maizy ended up stepping on stick which woke it up. We were running for our lives until we finally lost him by jumping in a ditch. When the coast was clear we got back on track, but my arm was seriously bothering me.

"You ok?" Maizy asked me.

"Y-yeah yeah, just need a second." I struggled.

"Here allow me." She came behind me and tightened the sling around my arm. It felt so much better. "There. How does it feel now?"

"It feels good, thank you." I smiled.

"Do you need to take a break for a bit?" She asked me, noticing that I was more pain than just my arm.

"No I'm alright now." I told her. "Let's keep moving. I really have to get home soon. I'm supposed to be grounded."

"Ok, after we meet my friend then you can go home." She said. "Come on, it'll be dark soon."

"How much farther?" I asked, growing kind of frustrated.

"It won't be long now." She said.

Lloyd's P.O.V.:

Kira and I followed the tracks to the rim of Prime Evil's Eye. I stopped right before we entered the forest.

"It looks like whoever took Ryder went deep into the forest." I told Kira.

"I don't like the look of this." Kira frowned. I knew why she was freaking out so much.

"Kira, if you want to turn back, I can look for Ryder myself." I offered.

I knew how emotional she got every time we so much as fly by this place. I don't blame her, this was the place her parents disappeared.

"No, Ryder's in trouble." She looked up. "I won't let you do this alone."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life." She looked me in the eyes. "Now come on let's go get our son back."

"Ok." I smiled.

I would never admit this to Kira, but I was afraid to do this alone. I was glad that she was coming with me.

We followed the tracks on foot until we reached the end the tracks. There was a scooter that was wrecked and looked as though it had crashed into a large rock. Kira frantically started looking around for any signs of Ryder and I started to help her.

"Lloyd! Over here!" Kira shouted from a little ways in front of the crash site. She seemed upset.

I ran to where she was and she was looking at an imprint in the dirt. It was in the shape of a body about Ryder's size. He had definitely been here.

"Looks like we're on the right trail." I said, trying to stay positive for Kira's sake.

"What if he's hurt? Or lost? Or...?" Kira panicked.

"Honey relax, we know where he is and the temple isn't that far from here." I tried to calm her down. "I promise we're gonna find him, we just need to stay focused."

"I'm sorry Lloyd. I feel like I'm slowing you down." She sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have come."

"No way." I gently grabbed her hands and got her to look at me. "We're in this together."

"Right." She took a deep breath and smiled. "Thank you."

"Alright, now let's see where he went."

We continued looking around I noticed some footprints on the ground. What's weird was there wasn't one, but two pairs of footprints. One of them looked like Ryder's size.

"This way." I said pointing to the trail of prints.

"These tracks are fresh, they can't be too far." Kira said. "We need to get to him before something bad happens, if it hasn't already."

"Hey, don't worry. Everything is gonna be fine." I assured her.

"Let's just find Ryder and get out of this horrible forest." She said sounding on edge. I didn't bother asking her what was wrong, I already knew.

"Stay focused Kira, we'll find him." I said.

We kept walking and following Ryder's trail. It was almost completely silent because I could tell Kira didn't feel like talking. She wanted to find Ryder and get out, but I wanted to find out more.

He obviously ran away with someone, and I had a pretty good idea who. I hated the fact that they were somewhere in this jungle together and I knew that there was an Oni temple here. That was too much of a coincidence to be anything good. I should've done a better job of warning Ryder not to go anywhere near this place. This was all my fault.

Ryder's P.O.V.:

After what seemed like hours, Maizy and I had finally reached our destination. It was a giant temple by the looks of it, and I was immediately regretting this decision.

"Y-your friend lives in a temple?" I stuttered.

"You live in a monastery." She crossed her arms.

"Touché." I said.

We went inside and navigated our way to a large room where it was completely dark. I got the most unsettling feeling in my stomach.

"Ok, well I should really get going now." I said slowly backing away.

"Oh, you're not going anywhere." I heard Maizy say in a very evil sounding tone.

"Yep, definitely regretting this." I said under my breath.

It was so dark I couldn't see. All of a sudden I felt a sack being pulled over my head and a few minutes later I passed out...

When I woke up, I was in the middle of the large room. My arm was in even more pain now because my hands were tied behind my back and my legs were tied to the chair.

"Well well well, look who's finally awake." Maizy came into site. I was furious.

"I trusted you!" I screamed. "I spent this whole time believing that you were a good person, trying to convince everyone that you were different from your aunt, but it was all a lie!"

"I'm sorry, I had to obey my father or he was gonna..."

"Your father put you up to this?" I questioned.

"I'm sorry, I was only doing what I was told." She frowned.

"If my father ever finds out about this, you'll be sorry." I yelled.

"Oh don't worry, he won't." A tallish looking man in the corner made himself visible. He patted Maizy on the head. "Good work my daughter."

"Thank you father." She said.

While they were distracted I tried to use my powers, but there must've been vingestone laced in the ropes. I struggled to get free. I tried to use what my parents had taught me about escaping these types of situations, and I would have if my arm and headache wasn't absolutely killing me.

"You can stop struggling, those ropes aren't gonna break." The man said.

"What do you want from me?" I yelled.

"You'll see young boy." He said.

Lloyd's P.O.V.:

We arrived at the Oni temple. The footprints stopped when they went inside so I lead Kira to the relics room. We entered and saw Ryder there tied to a chair. He looked tired and hurt.

"Ryder!" We both shouted.

"Mom, Dad, don't come any closer." He yelled to us. "It's a trap."

"Are you hurt?" Kira yelled from across the room.

"I'm fine, just get out of here!" He yelled.

"So, you're the one who killed my parents?" I heard a man say behind me.

I turned around and pulled my sword. I didn't recognize this guy at all, but that didn't stop me. I pushed Kira behind me to protect her.

"I don't know what you want, but let my son go!" Kira demanded. "Now!"

"I don't even know what your talking about." I said. "I didn't kill your parents."

"Do you know what it's like to come home from summer camp only to find out that your parents and sister had been killed in a fire caused by a giant snake?"

"Can't say I do." I said, keeping my guard up.

"Well I do, and it feels horrible!" He yelled. "That day I was put in a foster home and we're raised by horrible people. You ruined my life!"

"Lloyd would never do that." Kira defended. I had already told her the whole story of Harumi and the SOG.

"Look you've got it all wrong, I wasn't responsible for what happened that day." I said. "Just let Ryder go and then we can talk this out."

"There's nothing you could say that could change anything." He turned away from me. "I didn't find out my sister was still alive until she resurrected your father, and how did Garmadon repay her? By pushing her off a building!"

"She should've known better than to bring him back." I lied.

Ryder's P.O.V.:

I couldn't hear what my parents were fighting about, but the guy wasn't letting up. While he was distracted I continued to struggle to get free. It was no use, my arm hurt so bad and my headache wasn't helping either.

All of a sudden I felt the ropes being untied. I looked back to see Maizy.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"This isn't fair what my father's doing to you." She whispered as she finished untying the ropes. "I'm sorry I got you into this."

"I don't know whether to thank you or slap you." I scowled.

"You can figure it out later, just do exactly what I say. I'll stall him."

I didn't know what to say. I just gave her a nod and did what she told me. Yeah it was probably part of her plan again, but I didn't want to spend another minute in that place.

Lloyd's P.O.V.:

This guy was crazy. He kept telling me his life story but I didn't care about that, all I wanted was Ryder back.

"Father!" A girl shouted, out of breath. "H-he escaped."

"What?!" All three of us said.

"I- I couldn't stop him." She huffed.

"This isn't over ninja!" The guy yelled.

The guy quickly knocked me down and Kira ran to help me up. He and his daughter than made a break for it and got away.

"You ok?" Kira helped me to my feet.

"I'm good." I said. "Hurry, we got to got to find..."

"Dad, I'm over here." I heard Ryder yelling from behind a wall.

"Ryder!" We both shouted.

We both ran over to him and I was so relieved that he was alive. He was covered in scratches and bruises all over and he was holding his arm.

"Oh Ryder!" Kira exclaimed hugging him so tightly he almost lost his breath. "I was so worried about you. Don't you ever scare me like that again!"

"Mom... can't... breathe..." he struggled.

"Oh sorry sweetie, I'm just so happy you're safe." Kira said releasing her grip.

"That's alright Mom." I noticed Ryder was holding his arm in pain.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

"I'm fine Dad." He said.

"Here let me see that arm sweetie." Kira said touched his arm and he hissed and flinched like it was hurting him. "Alright when I get home and we'll see what Ashley can do, then we'll get some ice on that."

"And then we're all gonna sit down and talk about all this running away you've done lately." I crossed my arms.

"Alright fine." Ryder rolled his eyes.

We carried Ryder out of the forest and took him back home. Kira looked at his arm and it was definitely broken. Ashley had already went to bed, so she couldn't heal it tonight. So Kira put a sling around and he was holding an ice pack on it for now.

"I hoped you learned your lesson about sneaking out this time." I said.

"Yes Dad, I won't do it again." He said.

"Can I get that in writing?" I teased.

"I still don't get it Ryder. How did you end up all the way out there?" Kira asked.

"You know what, I've had a long day." He said. "I'm going to bed."

"Fine, but once you enter that room, you're not coming out for a long time." I warned.

"I take it I'm grounded?" He sighed.

"You were already grounded." I said. "But now we have to ground you even longer."

"Oh come on Dad, it really wasn't my fault." Ryder begged.

"Well, we could minimize your punishment if you were to tell us what happened." Kira bargained as she continued to clean Ryder's cuts and scrapes.

"Alright fine, deal." He agreed reluctantly.

When it comes to punishments Kira's always been good at negotiating. That was one of the many reasons why I love her.

Over the next hour and a half he explained everything to us. We were shocked by what we heard, but at the same time we felt sorry for him.

"And That was when you showed up." He finished.

"So this girl basically tricked you into the Oni temple." I summed up his story.

"Well at first she did." He said.

"That's exactly what I was trying to warn you about. She probably just wanted to finish what her aunt started."

"Dad stop it. She's the one that set me free from the ropes." He explained. "If it wasn't for her I never would've gotten out of there."

"And If it wasn't for her, you wouldn't have ended up there in the first place. I can't believe after everything you just went through you still trust her!" I yelled. "I would've thought you would know better than that by now."

"Maizy's different she was only doing what her father told her to."

"I don't care Ryder, you need to be more careful about who you talk you."

"Boys stop it." Kira interrupted. "Look, we've all had a very long and emotionally exhausting day. So can we just talk about this in the morning?"

We both agreed to go to bed so Kira could get some rest. She went right to sleep but I couldn't stop thinking about what would've happened to Ryder if we weren't there to help him. I'm just glad everything turned out ok this time and I hoped Ryder would stay out of trouble this time.