Annnnnnnd we hit a square 50! Oh my glob. This is getting out of hand, this is getting VERY out of hand. The concision police are gonna be knocking on my door any day now. XP
But hey, now's a good time to say thank you again to everyone! I appreciate so much that you're sticking with this story and telling me what you think. Your reviews always make my day!
Also! I wanted to give a special thank-you to those who've drawn fanart for this story. Everyone please pleeease go check these artists out—links to their art are on my profile—and if you have an account on DA/Tumblr/YouTube, show them some love! They're amazing artists and many of them write awesome fanfics on the side, so I can guarantee you some good reading material in the bargain. :3
Okies, now to wrap it up, since we've hit a multiple of 10:
Disclaimer: I don't own Ninjago or the characters and places mentioned herein. Except the OCs, whom I sort of rent. And the Lloydfish. The Lloydfish seems to have taken up permanent residence, and I can't convince him to leave.
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TheAmberShadow: FINALLY! Mannnn, I was seeing your reviews on some of my stories, but they were all finished stories, so I couldn't reply. It was driving me nuts. XD
But now I finally can! So, thank you for all the very sweet reviews you've been leaving, and lemme go though the stories one by one to reply . . .
On this story: PIXAL, as you've probably seen, is still in Zane's head. I'll tolerate almost any ship, Jaya included, but I do like to spice things up with a little Conya and Ronya. The AI theory does make a lot of sense, but I'm not even sure Titanium Zane has the same AI as the original Zane. He seems so different, y'know? The ninja are indeed trouble magnets—and actually there is a back door! But the building is surrounded on all sides, so no go. :P Aw, that would be really cool, but I think I might have a little too much blood and language to make a good season. Plus not enough villain action. ^_^'' Heh, no, the chapter title was complete! All the chapters are named after memes, and 49 was named after the captions they put on photos sometimes. Like "Your face when your teacher announces a pop quiz," or "Your face when someone you dislike laughs at your joke."
On Ninja Niblets: So you're from a humor family, huh? Cool! I don't know where I get it from, my family is like the opposite of funny. I think I'm just embittered and acerbic and I cope by translating it into humor. :P Yeah, I did hear that Chamille was based on Chameleon! I thought that was pretty clever. Glad you liked the Lloydille. Heh, considering how excited I get just to see Lloydille in a fic, I would probably go stark ravin' insane if it actually became canon. That would be so awesome. X3 Argh, yeah, at the time I was writing, I knew Lloyd would get possessed by a ghost, but I had no idea Cole would actually become a ghost. And Season 7, sadly, has been changed into a 44-minute special called "Day of the Departed." Poor Cole, always getting short-changed. :/
On Enter the Imbroglio: Yes, actually! In this story. :3
On Backstage with Jay: Sure! Feel free to use the Serpentine stuff. Argh, sorry—I don't enjoy making people cry, but there's something to be said for sad stories sometimes. Wellllll, actually, Jay is definitely not 20. The show's creators have confirmed that the ninja are still teenagers. I have yet to finish gloating about that. XP I don't really dig the adoption angle either, tho. And good news, the next Backstage oneshot is happier!
On Aftermaths: An actual pot of boiling water, yeah. Nuuuuu, don't kill Ronin! He's a scoundrel, but I love him. I dunno, I'd consider Season 5 Lloyd's worst set of failures. He's supposed to be the greatest warrior of all time, a true legend, and instead he gets himself possessed, is useless against the guy who possessed him, gets Cole turned into a freaking ghost (ai yi!), and doesn't even participate in the defeat of the Preeminent. This kid. XD Ah, gotta love him anyway . . .
On Saturniidae: Yeahhh, that was one of the sad ones. ^_^''
Phew. Thanks again for all those reviews! You're a voracious reader, I see. :)
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Angel Star Ninja: Lloyd is thinking craaaazy thoughts. I dunno! I guess Jay just needed to quit worrying and let his natural awesomeness bubble to the surface. Hehe, good nicknames! From what I've seen in the early-release clips, though, in Day of the Departed they aren't nice to Cole; they just forget about him entirely. Bad ninja. Baaaaad. :[
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monranr: Good question! I wonder if he died because of Jay's wish or if he'd die any which way. Heh, well thanks! I try. I may have to go on hiatus pretty soon actually, I'm catching up on the backlog WAY too fast. Eep. :S
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Elveron294: They're the worst. Never anger an authorjelly. :P Oh, we're pretty average-sized. Kinda like the jellies you'd see in aquariums or washed up on the beach.
Well hey, if you want it crazy, go for it! It's your show, my friend. :)
Say, did Cole ever find you with that hug?
Hee hee, well thank you. I was overly hyped when I wrote it, but then I liked it and let it stay anyway. :P
Jay is also good for throwing those Tinkertoys at people's heads. And tormenting Lloydfish. So. :P
Oh, Lloydfish are only scary if you're on the wrong end of their unparalleled savagery. Otherwise they're very sweet and squishy.
Ohhh, so that's what those little voices were! XD
That one scene with the flour that was totally the writers being smart-alecs and foreshadowing Season 5. *shakes fist at writers* :P Ahh, poor Cole. Maybe he should grow a beard to go with that white hair, and then he could look like Sensei Wu, eh?
Sept 16
2:34 AM
Patrol circuit: Not just yet
Status conditions: Kai lame, Jay with infected wound and cold, Cole lightly wounded, Zane with significant external damage and missing eye, various minor injuries, under seige in convenience store.
As Lloyd continued to clatter around in the background, the others considered their new options. Now that they'd decided to use what they could get, everyone's mind turned immediately towards food. The last thing they'd eaten was Lloyd's rats goodness knows how long ago.
There was some half-hearted hesitation, but at last Cole sighed and spread his hands.
"We're going to need energy. Zane, just keep it on our tab, okay?"
That was all the prompting anyone needed. It was a bad day in that store to be a Little Debbie.
"Here, Junior, try this," said Lloyd, unwrapping a package of beef jerky. "Sorry, but this is probably the only meat we're going to find in here."
Junior flicked his tongue curiously over the smoked meat, then took a cautious bite.
"It's kinda weird," he said, but kept eating, working his jaw like a puppy eating peanut butter as bits of jerky stuck between his teeth. Meanwhile Cole was rummaging in one of those freezer chests you often see in convenience stores, filled with individual ice cream cones.
"Hey Jay, it's your favorite!" he called, and tossed something. Jay caught it and read the label; it was a single-serving tub of Snow Dragon watermelon sherbet.
"Very funny," he retorted, and tossed it back. "Not with a cold, and not ever again."
Cole chuckled and resumed digging.
"Weird," he remarked. "All the ice creams in here are past their due dates."
"Really?" Lloyd, who had been lurking among the aisles with a sinister expression and a fistful of pretzels, stopped to read the label on a candy bar. "You're right, this is overdue too."
"These aren't," said Jay, reading the package of sweets they had just finished.
"Jay. Those are Twinkies."
"So? They still go overdue," said Jay. ". . . Twenty years from now . . . "
"You know what else is weird?" said Cole, finally pulling his head out of the freezer. "I don't remember seeing a road anywhere outside the store. I mean, we were all in a rush and it was pouring rain, but I feel like I'd have noticed that."
"One moment. Accessing GPS." Zane's single eye dimmed. "You are correct, Cole. There is only a small dirt road passing by our location. It is not even marked on most maps, but you can faintly see it on Google Ninjago. It probably conducts cart traffic between two villages."
"Okay, this is weird," said Kai. "Who builds a big modern convenience store where there's barely any traffic, then fills it with overdue food?"
"Maybe it's an abandoned convenience store," suggested Jay. "Maybe the Techs chased the owners out so they could build their base in that mountain."
"Or maybe this is some kind of weird discount convenience store, where they sell overdue food cheap to farmers," said Cole. "That would sure be nice. How much do we owe right now, Zane?"
"Assuming no discount, ten thousand two hundred fifty ken."
Cole groaned.
"All right, enough of the fun and games, guys. To war."
They set to work. Kai collected their various blades and sharpened them against each other as best he could. Lloyd gave the others his professional opinion.
"We're in pretty good shape here," he said. "There are a lot of fairly heavy items we could throw—milk jugs, tools, there's a bin of bargain books in the back. Cole, you can probably chuck cash registers at them. Only take the cash out first, coins are perfect for slingshot ammo."
"Slingshots?"
"Yeah. They're selling those little bungee cords you can use to hold things down in your pickup truck, I can work with that. They also have some brooms back there, brooms are good."
"I noticed some high-powered flashlights in that aisle," offered Zane. "I just did some internet research—" clearly he was relishing being back online "—and it appears that as a side effect of Serpentines' superior night vision, their eyes do not adjust to light changes as quickly as human eyes."
"Oh, so that's why Junior couldn't see us when we found him, and why he can't look at our dragons right away," said Kai.
"Correct. Since many of our opponents will be Serpentine, it would probably be quite effective to shine flashlights in their eyes," said Zane.
"Good," said Lloyd approvingly. "You'd make it at Darkley's."
"Is that a good thing?" Zane raised an eyebrow.
"It has its perks."
Junior popped up from behind a shelf, sporting a baseball cap with OBEY emblazoned on the front, and held out a canister of umbrellas.
"What about these?"
"Hmm." Lloyd pulled one out and examined the tip. "Well, they'll make good clubs, and they also look sharp enough to do some decent stabbing. Plus hey, they're on sale, so we won't rack up as much debt if we ruin them."
"Good grief," said Jay. "Show some decency. There's no honor left in the life of a man stabbed by a discount umbrella."
"Fine, we'll take off the sale stickers," said Lloyd. "Better?"
"Better. Regular umbrellas are fine."
"Okay, our sanity is slipping, isn't it?" said Cole wearily. "Be serious, guys. What else can we use in here?"
"Non-dairy creamer burns," offered Zane, rummaging in one of the wall fridges.
"Say what?"
Zane wagged a bottle of creamer at Kai, who held out one hand obligingly. The Nindroid dripped a little of the milky liquid onto Kai's palm, and Kai cautiously lit a flame between his fingers. The creamer went up with a poof!
"Ohhh, that'll do," said Kai, grinning.
"Say, there's cases of lip balm over here," called Jay from one aisle over. "The tube kind. We could scatter those to make the floor slippery."
"Right," said Lloyd. "Same with any packs of mints, round candies, or trail mix."
"They're selling motor oil!" said Cole. "That works too, and we could burn it for good measure."
"They have bug spray and stuff. Any use for that?"
"Well, it is an eye irritant," said Lloyd. "Not very humane, but we're not exactly playing nice here."
"Cigarettes? There's tons of those."
"Heh, sure; kill them really slowly. 'Here, smoke this!'" Lloyd chuckled, digging into a glass-door fridge full of drinks. "Eh, let's stick with the quicker options. We're on a schedule here."
Pulling out a bottle of soda, he began to shake it absent-mindedly.
"Cans are probably better for throwing," he said. "Bottles we can hold by the neck and use as clubs, maybe. I mean, back when I was in Darkley's, Gene said you could shake these things and they'd explode when you threw them, but we never got any soda at school and Gene was always the worst liar—"
He tossed the bottle down the aisle idly. It went up in a spectacular spray of fizz and plastic fragments. Lloyd started.
"Woah. He didn't lie!"
"That was actually pretty cool," said Jay, poking a toe gingerly at the foaming puddle spreading across the floor. "We'll have to do that."
"That's another two hundred fifty ken, though," called Zane from across the store. Lloyd sighed.
A few minutes later, as Lloyd was rummaging through a rack of batteries, Junior tugged at his sleeve.
"Unca Lloyd, I have to go to the bafroom."
"Ohh." Lloyd blinked and looked around the convenience store. "Ohh boy."
"He's not the only one," said Jay glumly.
"Well, this is a problem," said Cole, looking around the plain walls. "What kind of store doesn't have a restroom?"
"It's probably outside," said Kai. "A lot of mini-marts have bathrooms on the outside. I don't know if that would be a good idea, though."
"Noooo," said Jay drily. "You think? I mean, there's only guys with sniper rifles out there."
"Actually, I was thinking more that those bathrooms are usually locked, and we don't know where the key is," said Kai. He ducked as Jay threw the empty Twinkie package at his head.
"Well, we don't have a lot of options. Maybe there's a bathroom in the back," said Lloyd, looking at the door to the stockroom.
"Uhh, Lloyd, it says 'Employees Only'." Jay sputtered indignantly as Lloyd led Junior back towards the door. "You can't go in there!"
Lloyd lightly shoved the door, which swung open. He tossed a cheeky glance back to Jay.
"Yeah, I can." He disappeared into the back room, Junior in tow. Jay grumbled, scandalized.
"Lloydfish these days. Absolutely no respect for authority! Next he'll be ignoring the speed limit—"
"'ey guys." Lloyd poked his head out of the stockroom. "Come on Jay, they do have a bathroom back here. And guys, I think I just found out why this store is so weird."
Curious, the others followed him back.
"Woah," breathed Cole. "What the heck?"
"Well, this explains a lot," said Kai.
The room was stacked full of boxes and crates and bags. Half of them were stuffed with electronics, the other half were spilling over with airtight packets of a strange green liquid. Jay's sinuses were clogged, but he could faintly detect a familiar dirty, musky citrus smell. His eyes widened in recognition.
"Is that—"
"Slobber," finished Kai, with a curt nod. He was standing stiffly, clearly unhappy about being here.
"This much?" said Cole. "What is this?"
"It must be one of their storage depots," said Kai. "I get it now. The convenience store is just a front: nobody buys anything, they don't bother to restock the shelves, but hey! They've got a license to do business. Nobody suspects a thing. Meanwhile they can store whatever they want in the back room, smuggle it in easily from the secret base and tunnels nearby."
"Woah," said Jay. "We are seriously in enemy territory."
"We're actually safer in here," said Kai soberly. "They probably don't want to destroy their depot and all the merchandise. It would explain why they haven't strafed the place to the ground with us inside it."
Jay gulped.
Meanwhile Junior poked his head out of the small employee bathroom.
"They don't have soap here," he said woefully.
"Always a new disaster." Lloyd sighed, stepping over. "Oh hey, yeah they do. There's soap right there."
"That weird rock by the sink?"
"Yeah. You've never seen bar soap?"
"Uh-uh. Ours is liquidy."
"Well, I can see why," said Lloyd, watching as Junior tried to use the bar of soap. It barely lathered, and the scales on his hands were soon crisscrossed with soap shavings.
"Humans use dumb soap," said the snakelet grumpily. Chuckling tiredly, Lloyd hoisted him up so he could reach the sink better.
"I think you need some more sleep, kiddo."
There was a crash from the back of the stockroom.
"Woah-ho, you guys!" Cole called. "Our backpacks!"
He dragged out a large cardboard box, into which their backpacks had been tossed. Everyone dug in eagerly, checking if their stuff was still in there. It had clearly been rummaged through, and their communicators were gone, but everything else seemed to be in place.
"Well shoot," said Cole. "We could have eaten our rations instead of racking up a debt by eating store food."
"I dunno," said Kai. "Given a choice between year-old protein bars and a box of Twinkies . . . "
Meanwhile Jay dug out their first-aid kit and gratefully slugged down a dose of antihistamine. He would very much like to have a functioning nasal passage again.
"At least we have our whetstones back," said Kai. "Now we can really get our weapons in shape. We're gonna need 'em."
They returned to the main store and got seriously to work on their defenses. They pushed the shelves into a fortress in the middle of the store, leaving only one small gap to enter through. Then they stocked the inside of the fortress with suitable weapons, emptying the fridges and shelves of bottles, cans, and boxes.
"You're going to be our supply manager, okay Junior?" said Lloyd. "It's gonna be really dangerous outside the shelves, but in here you should be safer. And you'll have an important job—we'll need you to protect Meep and Mopp, guard the weaponry, and make sure nobody runs out of ammunition. Think you can handle that?"
"Uh-huh!" Junior puffed up his small chest proudly and clambered onto a stack of soda boxes. He perched there, watching the sparks fly from the metal and stone as Kai gave all their blades a proper sharpening. Meanwhile, Cole was hanging keychains on a string in front of all the doors and windows: if they couldn't keep an eye on all the entrances at once, the jingling should warn them of incoming Technicians. Lloyd and Zane were busily at work dumping out the contents of bottles of window-cleaning fluid, then filling them with a mixture of water, soap, and hot sauce.
"What most people don't know about homemade pepper spray," said Lloyd, screwing on a spray cap, "is that you have to add soap. The stuff that makes pepper spray hot, capsaicin, is an oil, so it would just float on top of the water. It wouldn't spray very well. Soap breaks it all up and helps them mix—plus it's no fun getting soap in your eyes either, so that's an added bonus."
"Remind me to stay on this kid's good side," said Cole.
Meanwhile Jay was pouring motor oil on the floor in the stockroom, making a path from the back door.
"Nobody step inside the tape," he said sternly, marking the edges of the spill with bright orange duct tape. "That means you too, aliens. This skidway is only for bozos who try to break in through the back door. Now we can focus on defending the front door and windows."
"Stack some boxes in front of the door to delay them," called Lloyd. "And then a tower of them at the end of the skidway. Put light ones on the bottom and heavy ones on the top, to make it unstable. Then spread some glue or jelly on them, and on the wall. All that combined should give them a pretty hard time."
Jay nodded, swiping a sleeve under his nose, and grabbed the nearest box. He slipped into a woozy rhythm of grabbing and stacking, trying to ignore the swimmy feeling in his head. He was too hyped on adrenaline right now to feel very sick, but the fever daze was making its presence known a little.
He grabbed a particularly heavy box and hoisted it as high as he could, aiming to put it on top of the stack. For a moment the floor shifted beneath him, and he began to tilt backwards, wobbling. Then he felt a firm pressure between his shoulderblades, nudging him back upright.
"Thanks, Meep," he murmured, plunking the final box in its place. "Gosh, where did you get so filthy?"
Meep flopped a tentacle abstractly. Jay looked across the room, where Mopp was crawling around on the floor getting into all the dustiest corners. He sighed.
"Well, I guess we have worse problems than dirty aliens right now."
Eventually they had set up all the traps they could think of and stockpiled everything that could be used as a weapon. Zane announced that their tab now equaled twenty thousand eight hundred ken, what with all the minor vandalism and scraping of floor tiles. The rain continued to rumble on the roof, creating glowing droplets on the darkened windows of the store, but otherwise the outdoors seemed ominously silent. There was only one ground-level window, towards the back, and everyone stayed well away from that one. Instead Kai stacked some boxes on top of a shelf and looked through the small windows near the ceiling. He pulled out their one pair of night-vision binoculars and squinted out into the darkness.
"Oh damn."
Lloyd made a reproachful noise, which Kai ignored. The others shifted uneasily, waiting, as Kai swung the binoculars back and forth.
"Oh, this is great," he said bleakly. "There's like fifty of them at least."
"What are they doing?" asked Cole.
"I dunno, lurking. Setting up. More of them keep arriving." Kai gave a dark chuckle. "They're bringing in a bazooka. We must have them really scared."
"Little old us, huh?" said Jay, laughing weakly.
"Do they look like they're about to charge?" said Cole.
"Not really," said Kai. "They're not all looking at the store or anything. They're probably still massing their forces for an all-out attack. It's not like we're gonna get away in the meantime."
"True." Cole sighed. "I guess all we can do is wait. Find something to keep busy with, guys. Try to relax."
"Relax?" said Jay disbelievingly. "When surrounded by murderous maniacs with bazookas, what does one do to relax?"
"I dunno, do what you want," said Cole. "I'm gonna shave."
"You are not serious."
"They have razors!"
"What is wrong with this person?" asked Jay of the open air, as Cole nicked a can of shaving cream and disappeared into the back room. The open air offered no answer, so Jay sighed and dropped the subject. There was a glum silence, except for the rain and Cole running the sink.
"So if we have some spare time," said Jay at length. "Do you think there's something we can do for my shoulder?"
"Holy. Cow, Jay," said Kai, capping the peroxide bottle. "Sepsis, sepsis, sepsis. Tetanus and gangrene and MRSA. How have you not said anything about this yet? You could die!"
"Shut up," gritted Jay, trying to steady his breathing. Although there was nothing they could do for the deeper wound infection, they had decided to at least sterilize the outside by pouring hydrogen peroxide on it. Jay could still see stars dancing at the edges of his vision.
"I'm serious, Jay." Kai felt at the lightning ninja's forehead, looking grim. "You're feverish. If you weren't sneezing, I'd say you had sepsis already."
"Go 'way." Jay tried to push Kai's hand away, but came up short as his shoulder burned with the movement. "Don' make this weird and awkward."
"Force of habit," said Kai, unrepentant. "Do you know how often Nya used to run fevers?"
Jay mumbled, gingerly slipping his shirt back on. He knew disinfecting the wound was the best thing to do, but man that had hurt. Zane helped him to his feet and hugged him solemnly.
. . . Okay, so he took back what he'd thought about Zane picking up too many reasons to hug people. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Luckily Junior had missed the more gruesome aspects of the procedure. He was watching with shock and awe as Cole tried to shave.
"You really have to do that, every day?" he asked for the third time.
"Yeah, kiddo, yeah." Cole sighed long-sufferingly, spitting out a mouthful of shaving cream lather. "Unless you want a beard."
"You really just grow hair out of your face?"
"If you're a man, yeah."
"That's creepy." Junior shuddered. Cole rolled his eyes and made a threatening dabbing motion with a glob of shaving cream. Junior backed away, giggling.
The minutes ground by. Lloyd fixed up a little bed for Junior inside the shelf fortress out of potato chip bags and packs of discount paper towel. Jay scooped up Mopp, sighing, and took him to the back room.
"Well, let's get you guys cleaned up. Crawling around in mud is your thing now, huh? You've been hanging around Cole too long."
"What's that about me?" called Cole jokingly.
"Look what you've done to my aliens," said Jay. "Creatures of filth."
"What can I say, I'm a good influence."
Mopp burred impatiently and bonked Jay with a tentacle again.
"Baaad alien. Use your words." Jay plopped Mopp into the sink and began to run water over him, rubbing off layers of mud and dust. "Behold the ancient ritual, passed down through times untooold; the ritual cleansing of the aaaliennnnnns . . . "
"Are you okay?" asked Cole amusedly.
"I know, I know." Jay stopped singing and gave a woozy laugh. "Agh. 's been a long day, okay? Long night, I mean. 's night. And the anithistamine's not doin' me any favors . . . "
Cole chuckled understandingly and leaned against the doorframe to watch as Jay rinsed Mopp down. The alien squirmed under his hands and screeched, still flailing his tentacles around. Jay noticed that three of them were now bunched up, instead of just one.
"Hey, what's up with this?" he asked, gently tugging at one of the curled limbs. "Everything okay?"
The tentacle promptly unclenched, dropping a small white rock into Jay's palm. Mopp brought up the other two bunched limbs to give Jay two more white rocks. Then he settled down in the sink and looked meaningfully up at him, chirping in relief. He was clearly pleased that he finally got Jay's attention on this subject.
Jay blinked down at the three white rocks in his hands. Then he turned and held them out to Cole, his eyes wide. "Is this . . . ?"
Cole peered over and tapped at each pebble, turning them over. He smiled.
"Yep, this one's limestone."
"Holy—" Jay looked at Mopp. "Have you been looking for white rocks all this time? Just so I could bring Nya some limestone?"
"Eee-up." Mopp twitched as if shrugging. Jay swallowed, feeling a goofy smile spreading across his face.
"Mopp, you are incredible," he said, scooping up the dripping alien and squishing him enthusiastically. "The best. I can't even tell you."
Meep chirped indignantly, demanding that his contribution be acknowledged—he had probably told Mopp the rock was lost in the first place. Cole shook his head.
"I really need to see how this whole limestone kick of yours works out."
"Ohh, you'll see."
Jay chuckled knowingly and slipped the limestone away for safekeeping. Then he felt the flash drive already in that pocket and switched to the other side. Man. Awesome improbable gift for Nya in one pocket, treasury of secret Technician files in the other—he was feeling pretty rich right now.
Junior fell asleep. Most of the others dozed. Kai stayed atop the boxes, hidden under a blanket, watching the Technicians through the night-vision binoculars.
Lloyd clambered up the boxes and came squirming in under the blanket. Kai flicked a glance at him, then glued his eyes back to the binocular lenses.
"A lot of 'em?" whispered Lloyd.
"Yeah." Kai made a resigned sound. "These binoculars are really good. I can recognize some of those guys."
"Really?"
"Yeah. There's that one guy who was always all nervous whenever he was giving me batches to hide. I can't believe he's still going, everyone was sure he'd have a heart attack within the month."
"Yikes," said Lloyd.
"Mm. And then there's Bucky . . . Spinetail . . . bunch of guys I don't know . . . Ohhhhh, and there's old P'torra." Kai lowered the binoculars to give Lloyd a smirk. "He stayed too long in the egg and was hatched with six eyes."
"Go on."
"I'm serious. Straight-up six instead of four. One of 'em was blind though."
Lloyd chuckled skeptically, shaking his head.
"I'll give you this much, you sure know some interesting people."
"Interesting. Hah." Kai looked out into the night with a rueful chuckle. "They'll sure be interesting when they're swarming in here looking for our blood."
"They'd hurt you too? Even though they know you?"
"Heck sure. Most of those guys are from the slobber trade, and in that trade you've gotta be ready to kill your best friend. And I was barely even a casual acquaintance."
Lloyd dropped his chin to the back of his hands, pensive.
"You know, if there's so many of them . . . " he said at last.
"Yeah?"
Lloyd was quiet for a moment.
"Mm . . . never mind." He elbowed Kai lightly, looking away. "Hey. For Pug, right?"
Kai hesitated, his eyes cloudy, but at last laughed softly and reached over to ruffle Lloyd's hair.
"For all the naïve little dorks in the world."
"You know others?" said Lloyd. Kai chuckled, and Lloyd gave a feeble smile in return.
Actually he'd been about to suggest that he just recite that spell he apparently had memorized so well, just wipe out all the Techs simultaneously. But he was glad he'd caught himself, because that was definitely a lousy idea.
. . . Honestly he wasn't sure why he'd ever considered it.
Textchat: (with expletives censored, because these are villains and they have no class.)
CapsLock: HOLY FRICK, what is this emergency signal I'm getting? It's freaking four AM! What's this I'm hearing about the ninja invading Base 4 and holing up in the convenience store? Is it true? Is it them?
CapsLock: Blue? Blue, answer me right freaking now.
BlueScreen: Yeah. It's them. Do not ask me to talk about it.
CapsLock: YOU SAID THEY WERE DEAD.
BlueScreen: They will be. Send me one more message and you will be too.
BlueScreen: Now shut up and make yourself useful. We need to clear all the equipment out of Base 4 and demolish it before the cops show up. That kind of **** is your job. I'm sending two squadrons to move the stuff. You tell them how to get it to the emergency base and make sure they set the demolition charges right. That mountain needs to be blasted in by seven AM this morning. Absolutely no sign of the tunnels leading to it. You hear me?
CapsLock: On it. I've got our emergency backup location on standby. I'm not sure how fast I can get it ready at this hour, though . . .
BlueScreen: Make it happen. I've already got another two squadrons surrounding the convenience store. We'll take care of the slimy geckos.
CapsLock: No! Don't level the store!
CapsLock: If we blow up Base 4 Silica will understand we had to cover the evidence, but how are you gonna explain blowing up the store? She'll know you were trying to kill the ninja!
CapsLock: Don't do it!
BlueScreen: Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on. There's a ton of merchandise in there anyway, both yours and mine, I don't wanna level it any more than you do. Doesn't take blowing up the whole store just to kill a few ninja. She won't know.
CapsLock: Phew. All right. I just heard back from our backup location, they're ready to receive the stuff from Base 4. The squadrons have started moving stuff through the tunnels and by chopper, I think we can finish the job by 7. God this is a hassle.
CapsLock: Hey, and we'd better delete all our messages now, before Silica gets into the textchat.
Silica: Too late.
Silica: **** both of you, I can't believe this. Blue, I'm not warning you again. Killing as a LAST RESORT ONLY. If those ninja have seen too much, I want them captured, not killed. GOT IT?
Silica: I swear, you hurt those guys, and you are out of this project, you hear me? Fired! Absolutely no share in the proceeds once this is over! Do you understand?
Silica: BlueScreen, answer me this ****ing minute.
Silica: You hear me?
Silica: BLUE!
A/N: Ohey, a villain. *pokes at*
Thanks to Destiny Willowleaf, Skylark Starflower, and NinjaGlader for suggesting extra convenience store weapons! And to Moonlight mm123 for advice on keeping kiddos out of the danger zone.
By the way, I'm gonna be posting one more chapter, and then I think I'll take a week off. Sorry fellas, but I'm running out of material FAST here.
On a mildly related note, however, I'll be posting another bonus one-shot in "Backstage with Jay" soon. Kai holds an educational seminar on slobber. Fun times, eh?
