A/N: Hello! Super short, fun prologue…and then onto the story! Got to love the ninja. By the way, yesterday I watched the Day of the Departed for the first time…and I seriously thought at the beginning that they were running late for a battle for Ninjago…not late to do some last minute shopping! Glad to know where their priorities lie. Anyways…this is only going to be three to four chapters long. Thus why it is labeled as a short.
Also, if you are new to this story please read Books One through Six of the Back In My Days series to make sense of some of the things that will come up…
By the way…isn't Dr. Saunders one of the Hands of Time? Sorry, I heard that somewhere and then he showed up in the Day of the Departed…and he looked nothing like the evil twin I was imagining.
Disclaimer: I own Nothing! Except for my OCs!
Prologue: Do NOT be late!
I laughed as I looked over the new, high tech rides that Mr. Borg just made for us. Jay rubbed his hands together as he nudged a flickering Cole. "Sweet! We have to test these things out, like right now!"
Sensei quickly shook his head, gently stroking his beard. "I am afraid that is not possible right now. We still have to get to the gift shop before it closes…and Dr. Saunders wants to meet up with us before we separate to celebrate with our families." His eyes latched on Nya and me, as if wondering what it was that we actually did on this particular holiday.
Lloyd slipped past his uncle, handing him a teething Koko. "Relax… we'll be back in time. How about we meet you, Mom, and Koko in front of the gift shop?"
Sensei spluttered as he held his niece, his eyes round with surprise. "Lloyd!"
"I call dibs on the Turbo Jet!" Jay screeched as he bolted towards the only new vehicle that could fly.
"Jay!" Sensei was clearly highly exasperated over this whole thing.
Zane, Cole, and Nya charged past him to claim vehicles. I yelped, before running after them. "Hey! Wait for me!"
Sensei groaned as he handed Koko to Misako. "Here…she's your daughter…and they're my students!" Whipping around, he glared at them for five seconds, before crumbling. "Do NOT be late!"
"We won't! We're ninja, we're always on time!" Cole piped up as he started up the new vehicle he was testing out.
"Actually…" Zane timidly lifted a hand up.
"Do not talk Zane!" We all yelled as we mock glared at him.
Zane shook his head, pressing down on the gas. Lloyd glanced back up at his family. "We'll be on time, honestly."
With that, we all stepped on the gas and shot off to check out the new vehicles...
…
I smirked as I revved the Turbo Bike that I was riding, eyes darting over to the other Turbo Bike which Nya was driving. We were passing through Jamankai Village, by silent agreement on where our destination should be. So it was several hours drive to Ninjago City, we all just felt like going there. Jay flew past us, the communication device built into the vehicles humming to life. "Hey guys? As anyone seen Cole?"
I snapped my head back, scanning the road behind me. "Umm, no. He's been flickering a lot lately, what if he lost control of his vehicle and drifted off?"
"I'll go check!" Jay spun the Turbo Jet around to scan the other streets in search of his best friend.
We didn't go too far before Jay returned with Cole. Cole appeared to be grumbling under his breath, though I couldn't hear what he was saying, due to his communications being off. Jay flew over to Lloyd, flicking his communication on. "We need to keep an extra close eye on Cole. He's flickering so much that he faded to the point of he lost control of his Turbo vehicle."
Lloyd flicked his communication on, a frown obvious in his voice. "Will do. Kai, Nya? Our offer is still up…"
I bit back a groan as I mentally contacted Nya. What do we do? I love the kid…and Misako is great…but we can't spend the holidays with them and our parents…since our parents are the problem with that! I fell back a bit, so as to be behind Cole and not in front of him.
Nya sighed out loud as she acknowledges our little dilemma. Do you want to tell him the truth…or lie to him and hope it's the truth cause we don't know! A single tear dropped unnoticed down her cheek. I tightened my grip on the Bike's handles, staring straight ahead. Sis…it's going to be ok. We'll just do what we've been during for every Day of the Departed since we arrived here. We don't have to explain to anyone that we haven't had any contact with our parents since I met Sensei.
Nya nodded in my direction, before speaking into her built in comlink. "Sorry Lloyd…we were kinda hoping for a quiet, gathering with our own loved ones. We're writing letters to GrandCappy."
Zane spoke up, interest flooding his voice. "You mean you are not going to Kryptarium Prison to spend time with Captain Soto?"
I felt my eyebrow slowly inch upwards. "Umm, no? Last time we tried visiting GrandCappy the warden accused us of trying to break him out. Letters are safer…and phone calls. We already had a long talk with him about our parents…" Too late, I realized what it was I had just said.
"What do you mean…talked about your parents? That makes it sound like that they're dead or something." Lloyd demanded over our communications.
Nya shot me a death look, before concentrating on the upcoming bend in the road. "Now you know why we really don't want you to meet them."
I promptly hollered back at her. "They're not dead! The bodies were never found!"
For some reason everyone slammed on their brakes. Which lead to Nya and I slamming on ours to avoid crashing into them. Cole somehow managed to control his ghostly form long enough to turn on his communications. "What do you mean the bodies were never found!?"
Nya mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like idiot, before speaking up to the others. "Cole…it means that there are no bodies…which we're hoping means that they are still alive…somewhere."
Zane climbed out of his vehicle, titling his head to the burned down monastery. "Since we have arrived…who wants to go first?"
Nya sat down crossed legged, a small smile on her face as we all settled down with her, right where the old training equipment used to be located before the fire. "I'll go first. My best memory of this place would be when Zane wore that ridiculous apron."
Laughter rang out as we all nodded in agreement. Zane blushed, before mumbling something about how he still had the apron. Lloyd glanced over at Jay, who was bouncing. "Ok…my favorite memory is teaching Zane and Kai how to play video games. I mean, Zane never got the hang of it, but man Kai! You learned quick!"
Cole lifted a hand up, a grin on his face. "Ok…I am interrupting you right there, or else we will never get to everyone. My favorite memory is when Sensei scolded us for putting our training off…after that happened; we had to deal with the serpentine. Thankfully, we realized that Sensei was telling the truth."
Zane hummed in agreement, before titling his head back to look at the large twisted burnt black oak tree. "My favorite memory is finding the Falcon. He is a great companion." As he spoke, the new, upgraded version of Falcon landed on his shoulder.
I bit my bottom lip as I realized that it was my turn. "My favorite memory is… I don't know. I have soo many good memories of this place, I can't decide."
Lloyd groaned as he ran his fingers through his messy blonde hair. "Kai…you said that last year and the year before. Ever since we started this tradition, you try to avoid sharing a memory."
A groan escaped me as I tilted my head back to look up at the clear blue sky. "Ok…how about when we first met? Not every day that someone wakes up to a very nice complete stranger checking your temperature."
Zane frowned, his brows knitting together. "I am afraid that I do not recall that instance. Which one of us did that?"
Jay sighed as he looked at Zane. "It was you Zane. I remember, Cole and I told you not to do that, but you were all concerned that his injuries had been infected and he might have been running a fever."
I shook my head smiling as I unwrapped my sandwich. "I wasn't running a fever. Sensei tended to my injuries the night before."
Jay fumbled with the large thermos that held our lemonade, a stack of paper cups in front of him. "Can we just do the picnic part now? Cause I am starving! Like, I could eat a horse…no! A…" Jay jumped suddenly as a still flickering Cole slammed a hand over his mouth.
"We get it. You're hungry. Let's get going with lunch." Cole groaned, even as he disappeared from view, only to flicker back into reality.
We continued chatting amongst ourselves as we broke out the sandwiches, bags of chips, veggies, and of course, cookies. Smiles abounded as we relaxed, chatting about how much we've grown in the past…and how much we've grown since the last Day of the Departed.
A/N: Done! Next chapter will be when Day of the Departed actually starts; right now I am explaining why they were late. Apparently the ninja have made a tradition that every Day of the Departed they go have a picnic at the old Monastery and talk about first, everyone who had lived or visited it tells everyone their favorite memory of the place, then they eat their picnic. As they eat, they talk about just about anything, however they tend to concentrate on past events that helped shape them as people.
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SkyTalon
