Heyaaa so this is just a series of one-shots I'm gonna do that revolve around the Hybrid Au, cause there is not enough of that on the internet. Anyways I have seen many versions of this where they are different animals so here are my Au animals:
Zane: falcon
Cole: Bear
Jay: cat
Kai: wolf (clique I know... sorry)
Nya: fox
Lloyd: dragon
And Sensei Wu is a human. So since I have absolutely no idea what to do I am always open to suggestions and requests. So if you have an idea that you might like to see please let me know :) however I will not do any serious ships. I am fine with bro-fluff and just bonding but no kissing, bad language, etc. (also side note Zane isn't a nindroid in this Au since he is a halfling
Whoever reads through all of this... good job here is a cookie (::)
Chapter 1: Flying lessons
Summary: It is that time of a dragon's life where he learns to fly, luckily Lloyd has someone as awesome as Zane to teach him.
Lloyd stared down from the Bounty's edge and gulped nervously. They were currently up above the clouds by one of Ninjago's many mountains. They had come to this solitary location for a specific reason, to train Lloyd.
The ninja where trying their hardest to keep their true race secret from the general public. This meant a lot of awkward bandages trying to keep their animal additions hidden. It was usually easiest with Cole, because of his smaller ears and tail. For Jay it was harder to conceal his tail, which seemed to have a mind of it's own. With Kai pretty much everything was hard to hide. His larger ears and thicker tail had to have layers of bandages and sports tape to lay semi-flat against his body. And Zane's big bulky wings were a nightmare. It took several belts and almost a whole role of bandages to get them to lay uncomfortably flat against his back. Luckily Lloyd's wings weren't fully grown so his were easier to hide, along with his horns that were so small at the moment they were already hidden under the blond mop of hair. Lloyd's tail however was becoming a problem. He now had to wrap it around his torso and hold it down with bandages just like the others.
It is harder to fight like a bandaged mummy, but to hide their traits and keep the public's trust it has to be done. It wasn't much of a secret that humans didn't particularly like hybrids. Riots would break out to chase out all the hybrids in towns. Some even going as far as "exterminating" the hybrids on sight.
This is why Lloyd needs to properly learn to defend himself especially if he were to ever get discovered as a hybrid.
Zane stepped out onto the deck of the bounty along with Kai, Cole, and Jay.
"Hey kiddo ready to start training?" Cole said ruffling the smaller child's hair as he passed Lloyd.
"Yeah I guess... but you never told me what we were doing today." Lloyd walked over the weapons rack to pick out his favorite sword, before kai's hand pushed him away from the weapon and put it back on the rack.
"You wont be needing these today, Lloyd." Kai smirked making the youngest even more confused.
"Today's training is gonna be a bit different" Jay said budding in the trademark smile on his face.
"How so..." Lloyd said cautiously.
"Well today your going to learn how to fly properly" Zane smiled obviously proud that he had the honor to teach the young dragon.
"Wait? What?" Lloyd said confused. "But I already can fly!"
Cole raised an eyebrow. "really now?"
Lloyd's cheeks turned a bright red in embarrassment "w-well ya"
"Then why don't you demonstrate that for us?" Kai chuckled thinking Lloyd would back down and admit he indeed did not know how to fly.
Lloyd marched right over to the roof of the bounty facing the deck. Everyone was still watching with amusement as he puffed his chest and ran to jump off the roof, but at the last second stopped at the very edge.
Flailing his arms trying to keep balanced, Lloyd made a panicked screech Falling off the side where a half laughing Cole caught him.
"shut up..." Lloyd jumped out of Cole's arms, his checks burning with embarrassment.
"And... that is why todays lesson is flying" Zane appeared behind Lloyd and walked him over to the edge of the bounty. "You know, I was taught to fly by being shoved off of a high cliff"
Lloyd gave him his best "what the heck?" look as immediately scampered away from Zane's hold and hid behind Kai with a squeak.
Zane simply just chuckled, "That doesn't mean that's how I am going to teach you Lloyd."
"Welp! Have fun you two!" Jay said as he started to head back inside the bounty closely followed by Cole and Kai.
"Wait! Your not seriously gonna leave me alone with this maniac are you?!" Lloyd whined looking like he was gonna pass out "He is gonna try to throw me off the deck!"
The others smiled and laughed at Lloyd's sudden caution towards Zane.
"It'll be fine Lloyd, Zane isn't going to throw you off of the Bounty." Cole reassured the panicked child "We will be back in an hour or so to check up on you two, have fun!"
The three ninja left Lloyd and Zane alone on the deck of the flying ship. Lloyd looked at the edge of the railing with caution and quietly shuffled over there. Of course he would never admit it, but Lloyd had a fear of heights. Hence his inability to fly up to this point.
"All right Lloyd" Zane said walking over to the spot Lloyd was looking at the clouds below them. "though I will not be throwing you off of any ships the only way to learn to fly is by trail and error."
"What does that mean?" Lloyd looked up at Zane with a questioning glare.
"Well the saying 'trail by error' implies that you must try to accomplish the task you are trying to do, and you will learn how to do it better by the mistakes you made while doing so."
"ah okay... so how are we gonna do that?"
"like this" Zane suddenly swooped Lloyd into his arms and ran down the deck of the Bounty and took off to the skies. His wings snapped out from their previous resting state and started gliding upwards.
"WOAAH" Lloyd gave a startled yelp as he was almost flung into the sky, thinking at first that Zane did indeed throw him off of the Bounty he started screaming, only to realize that he was being held up by that same person. They were gently gliding down the side of the mountain. The view from this angle was particularly beautiful and Lloyd couldn't help but smile a little at this.
"this... this is kinda nice." Lloyd gave a nervous laugh.
"Indeed, I particularly like to use these methods of calming one's mind." Zane gave a puff of agreement and continued steering them down towards the clearing in the valley of the mountain.
Lloyd looked up from his cradled spot in Zane's arms. Zane's chocolate brown wings with white tips were flowing lightly in the wind, usually being held out, they gave a powerful stroke every now and then.
They finally reached the ground where Zane put out his feet in front of him and almost angelically floated down. Giving his wings a last flap he folded them back into their resting pose.
Zane set Lloyd down. Lloyd unfolded his own green dragon wings and looked at Zane's large powerful ones.
Zane almost reading his mind commented with a "It's not about the size of the wings that make you fly, Lloyd." He knelt down to be eye level with the smaller dragon hybrid. "its about the strength one puts into those wings"
Lloyd gave a determined nod "so how do we start."
"The first thing I want you to try is gliding." Zane said pointing to a large bolder not to high off the ground with other rocks around it almost like a natural staircase. "it will help you get the feel of being in the air but at the same time you wont have to focus on flying upward."
Lloyd was already making his way up the rocks before Zane could even finish his sentence. He desperately wanted to get these lessons over with so he would just be able to fly already. Lloyd reached the top of the rock where he stood at the edge and unfurled his wings.
Seeing Lloyd was hesitant Zane called to him "It's okay Lloyd if you fall I will be here to catch you."
Lloyd seemed to find a new sense of confidence, He backed up a bit before running off the edge of the rock flapping his wings as hard as he could. He tried his best but at the very least all he did was slow down his descend.
Zane was there right where he said he would be to catch Lloyd. He smiled looking down at the angry hybrid child in his arms.
"I thought you said that would work?" Lloyd puffed angrily before jumping out of the Falcon hybrid's arms and dusting himself off.
"I never said such a thing." Zane snickered, pulling a stick out of Lloyd's hair. "I said that you will learn through mistakes, they are bound to be made."
Lloyd gave another angry sigh. Stupid Zane and his logic. "Fine lets try this again."
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Before Lloyd finally sat down at the edge of the rock and pouted. "this isn't working!" He folded his legs up to his chest to hug them.
Zane walked over calmly as ever and sat down next to Lloyd. "It's not working because your not trying"
Lloyd looked over so fast he might have given himself whiplash. "What do you mean I'm not trying?!" He sounded hurt "I literally just threw myself off of a rock 5 times"
Zane sighed. "That's not what I mean. You are jumping off of a rock, yes, but you aren't believing you can." Looking at the confused expression on Lloyd's face, he explained more "Your mind set is that 'you are going to fail' you aren't believing you can actually succeed."
"wh-wha- Am too!" Lloyd stuttered obviously fed up with flying.
Zane sighed yet again and was quiet for a moment, contemplating what the best course of action would be from here "Come on Lloyd lets take a break, we can try again in a little bi-"
"NO!" Lloyd stood up awfully fast surprising Zane. "I'M GONNA FLY AND IF THAT MEANS JUMPING OFF THAT CLIFF SO BE IT!"
"Lloyd that isn't a good idea you could be hur-" Zane stood up hastily ready to intervene.
Lloyd ran off towards the cliff before Zane could stop him. He knew it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but just like Zane said, He learned by getting shoved off of a cliff. Maybe if Lloyd did the same he would fly.
Zane was close behind Lloyd trying desperately to get the young dragon to stop before he hurt himself, But the little rascal was just too fast for the older teen. "Lloyd stop this instant!"
Lloyd continued run and jumping up the mountain to get to the large rock that stood just over a crevasse. He didn't even stop as he came to the top of the rock and immediately jumped off, and also immediately regretted it. His wings where working overtime trying to flap to stop his descend onto the rocky bottom bellow.
Zane watched Lloyd's figure disappear below the rock. With no hesitation Zane jumped right after him, locking his wings flat against his back into a nose dive to catch up to the dragon who fell before him.
Lloyd had given up flying a while ago and had put his arms in front of his face to hide his view of the rocks that were fast approaching. Zane right on his tail, folding his wings in even tighter to gain more speed.
Seemingly at the last moment, Zane caught Lloyd in his arms. Knowing there was no time to successfully pull up without breaking his wings, He hugged tight onto Lloyd, putting the smaller child on top of himself so he would not be hurt as badly. Zane pulled out his wings to hopefully take most of the impact from the ground.
On impact the sickening crunch of a bone breaking was heard barely over the pained grunts of them both rolling to a stop with Lloyd laying on top of Zane, His face deeply burrowed into the older teen's chest.
Lloyd groaned before carefully lifting himself off the older teen. He rubbed his hand through his messy dust coated hair, before opening his eyes. Lloyd took in the sight of Zane sprawled out under him. Zane's arms still tightly hugged around Lloyd, legs parted, and gi dirtied and torn in some places. The thing that unsettled Lloyd the most was his left wing. It was bent at an awkward angle and even under the feathers, Lloyd could see splotches of blood that were slowly pooling on the ground.
Lloyd in a slight panic started shaking Zane's shoulders. "Zane?!"
He didn't stop shaking until the older teen let out a pained groaned. Zane shifted a bit before trying to sit up.
"Hold still." Lloyd advised putting a hand on the falcon hybrid's chest to keep him from moving any more. "you just fell off a cliff and look pretty hurt I don't think you should get up yet."
"I... I'm fine." Zane protested. He again tried to get up this time Lloyd hesitantly letting him.
Zane put a hand to the back of his head and winced before bringing his hand back coated in a warm, red, sticky substance.
Lloyd gasped at the sight and immediately tried to get Zane to lie back down. "You- you're head! It's bleeding!"
"It-" Zane coughed a bit, still dizzy from the fall but no longer trying to get back up "It's okay Lloyd head wounds always look worse then they actually are, I'm sure its just a tiny cut."
"We need to get you back up to the Bounty." Lloyd said reaching into his pocket for his phone. His hand came back empty. Lloyd looking puzzled pat himself down looking for his phone only to realize he left it in his room to charge during training. "SHOOT! I left my phone on the ship! Can I use yours?"
"I left mine as well. I usually don't use it except for when we are going into town." Zane gasped out, obviously in a bit of pain.
"Then how are we supposed to tell them to come get us?!" Lloyd started to panic. If the team didn't know they needed help, then Lloyd wouldn't be able to get Zane the medical attention he clearly needed. The others said they would check up on them in an hour or so, so presumably right before their lunch break. They had only been down here training for 30 minutes so even if they waited, the rest of the ninja may not show up till another hour to an hour and a half. That is a long time to bleed.
"Like I said, it'll be okay, Lloyd" Zane encouraged the young dragon. "All we can do is wait for them to check up on us. I will be okay till then."
"We can't wait that long! Your bleeding and we can't just sit around in the sun for an hour!" Lloyd said getting up and dusting himself off.
"Lloyd-" Zane tried to get up but was cut off by a gasp of pain. Yep, his left wing was definitely broken. How did he not notice earlier? Now that the Falcon hybrid had time to think about it, his head was really fuzzy. Everything seemed like it was put on slow motion while someone repeatedly hit his head with a sludge hammer. He was also really dizzy and nauseous.
"Are you okay!?" Lloyd ran right back to his side to help him sit up without moving his wing too much.
"Yeah,... yeah I'm fine." Zane said hesitantly, his hands scrubbing at his eyes to try and wipe the blurriness away. He was propped up against a rock, that he was lucky he didn't land on. If he had landed even a foot closer to his left, Zane would have definitely broke his back on the slightly pointed top of the rock.
"I've got an idea..." Lloyd said aloud sitting in front of Zane cross-legged. "if I can climb back up the top of the mountain I should be high enough to glide to the Bounty."
"Lloyd that's crazy!" Zane immediately protested. "The mountain is extremely slippery, and if you fall from that height you would die on impact!"
"That's why I won't slip" Lloyd sounded like a child with his comeback.
"Lloyd I won't be there to catch you, what if you get hurt?"
"That's just it! I need to do this because I don't want anyone there to catch me! This is all my fault if I wasn't in such a rush to fly then you would have never gotten hurt." Lloyd rambled. "Now I need to fix my mistakes and if that means climbing up that mountain and possibly dying in the process then I'm okay with that!"
"Lloyd you don't need to risk your life we can just wait here for the others" Zane sounded extremely worried.
"but if I stay here then I would be risking your life." Lloyd protested "the longer we stay here the more blood you loose."
Lloyd got up to walk away when Zane quickly grabbed his hand.
"stay safe..." Zane whispers, skeptical about this whole ordeal.
"Always" Lloyd replied with a reassuring smile, before walking off out of Zane's eyesight to the walls of the crevasse.
Zane never remembered falling asleep, but the next thing he new he was waking up in his bed. Zane stirred silently bringing up his hand to his head to find it was tightly wrapped in bandages. He groaned a bit sitting himself up. His room was dark with all the lights off. There was no light coming through his blinds so Zane assumed it was either really late or really early. The past day's events returned to his memory, and he immediately jumped out of bed in a panic. He regret it the second his foot touched the floor. The Falcon felt dizzy and had to grasp the side of his bed rail in order not to fall over. He was also slightly aware that one of his wings where tightly bandaged and unable to move. He didn't care too much about his own injuries at the moment however, Zane was mainly worried about Lloyd and his well-being.
Leaning against the walls for support, Zane made his way to the Control room of the Bounty. Even if it was late/early some one was bound to be up whether it be Jay and Nya making slight repairs, or Cole just reading. He creaked open the sliding door and looked into the surprisingly crowded room. Everyone was still awake, Except for Sensei Wu. Zane didn't blame him though, the man was getting much older and had a habit of falling asleep early. Everyone had yet to take notice of his arrival and were instead focused on their hushed conversation. With concentration Zane could make out that they were talking about what happened with Lloyd. Zane did a quick check over on the boy and was relieved to find nothing other than a few band-aids.
It wasn't until Lloyd looked up and met Zane's eyes at the back of the room and called out his name.
"Zane!" Everyone looked back and saw the blonde standing there, still keeping a tight grip on the door to steady himself
"Zane you shouldn't be up!" Cole rushed over to take Zane's arm allowing him to put his weight on the stronger earth ninja.
"I am aware of that, but I wanted to make sure Lloyd was okay."
"Don't worry Zane I'm okay." Lloyd smiled and went in to hug the taller man around the waist.
"You shoulda' seen him, flew all the way up to the bounty." Kai said swelling with pride.
"I thought you said you were going to glide?" Zane became worried and looked down at Lloyd.
"It was taking too long to get to the top, by the time I got up there the others would have come to check on us." Lloyd shrugged.
"We were really worried for a while there" Nya chuckled nervously beside Jay.
"Ya, by the time we got down there you were completely out." Jay added.
"It's getting late we should probably all get to bed, we can talk more about this tomorrow." Cole said, starting to guide Zane to his room so he wouldn't fall over. "You are gonna need a lot of rest to get over that concussion."
Zane chuckled a bit before letting Cole take him back to his room where he fell asleep before he hit the pillow.
It wasn't a good day per say, but good things did come out of it. After all Lloyd did learn how to fly and that was the goal from the beginning of the day. They just didn't expect it would take a few broken bones along the way.