Enter The Ninjaverse

CHAPTER 44

"Whenever we heard his voice before," Harumi shuddered, "We weren't hearing the voice of Lloyd. That... that was..."

"The Overlord, yes," The Emperor smirked, "He does command a rather interesting presence, does he not? I simply told him what to have us say."

"Us?" Mage stepped forward, "But, you're talking like you're two different people!"

"Yes," The Emperor frowned, "In a sense, we are. Our body is one we crafted from both of our former ones. Our minds are melded and fused irrevocably. While we retain two personalities, we are yet one being... the Emperor."

"No!" Lloyd straightened his back up, "You're Lloyd Garmadon and the Overlord! You, you two were meant to be the opposite of each other! How could you fuse with the Overlord?!"

The Emperor turned his head, shining his purple eyes deep into Lloyd. In an instant, shadows began to rapidly burn around him, rising up from around his feet like smoke from a roaring inferno. The shadows spread up and around him, the force of which produced a gale hard enough to make Lloyd fall back onto his rear. Harumi let out a cry of fear and scrambled backwards, trying to form a Rhotatae disc in front of her. Both Lulloyd and Mage were unable to move as they saw the sheer display of power.

"How could I?" The Emperor asked in a soft voice, "You wish to know what happened to me, to know why I would do such a thing?"

The way that Emperor spoke sounded as though he was barely holding back rage. Lloyd was too terrified to actually answer him. No one wanted to say anything to him. Seeing this, the Emperor slowly lowered the barrier of shadows around him and turned his back to them. With a slick sound, the blades in the Emperor's arms began to retract into his body, the skin healing up as it did. Then, out of his right palm, a large staff emerged. The staff was black and purple like the rest of his body, and the four blades in his arms had merged together into two long points at the top and bottom. When he planted the staff onto the floor, having fully slid out of his body, it was just shorter than he was. The Emperor looked down to them, then he slowly nodded his head.

"You will stay here, in this cell, without question or protest," The Emperor raised his staff up, "Seeing as how your ghostly friend has already attempted to escape, I will ensure that you do not leave this place..." The Emperor focused, then his voice deepened as he stated firmly, "Shadow Control."

The Emperor tapped his staff on the ground. Lloyd felt a flash of movement from behind him. There were several small lights outside the cell that shone on each of them. From the shadow that made them cast, a dark hand reached up to grab them. Lloyd was slammed face-first into the floor, gasping out as his own shadow held him down. Mage's shadow reached up and grabbed his wrist, then began to wrap around his chest until it had covered him in a shadowy straightjacket. Lulloyd had the same blades raised up at him, stopping him still, while Harumi had her hands yanked behind her back and held there. Once each of them was bound, the Emperor pointed one of his hands forward. The four of them went flying back into the opposite wall. As soon as they left the light, the shadows around them disappeared, causing them to simply crash into the wall and slump down into a pile. The Emperor waited for them to begin to move before he nodded his head.

"Effective," The Overlord spoke up through the Emperor, "But not very creative."

"That is not what we should strive to be," The Emperor fired back, "Overwhelming power used with only the slightest of thoughts is that which the enemy should be shown."

Slowly, Lloyd helped to pick the others up. His mind told him he should have been able to dodge what was thrown at him. As he looked down at himself, he felt a wave of haziness. Just as the others had managed to stand up, Lloyd himself fell backwards. Lulloyd leapt over and helped to hold him upright.