A/N This is a crossover between Ninjago and Monkie Kid and a spinoff of More Fun than a Barrel of Monkies, which is a part of my The Grass is Always Greener AU. If you haven't read those some things here might not make sense. This fic is where I'll explore the ramifications of what happened in More Fun than a Barrel of Monkies and how that affects the story of Monkie Kid going onwards, as well as having more characters from Monkie Kid interact with ones from Ninjago. Updates will probably be irregular, but I do have a good few chapters planned, and more might happen once season 3 of Monkie Kid comes out.

What If Spike Kai Was Taken

Movie Ninjago

Spike Kai kept his distance from Princess, AKA Samurai A as she interacted with his sister. He knew tagging along with Red Nya for her mech maneuver training would be a bad idea. The last thing he wanted to admit to his counterpart was that he didn't share his taste in girls. Goths weren't his thing.

Though he did wonder why Princess had never removed her samurai helmet when they got to the warehouse. Or why some of the others were snickering at him whenever he looked at her.

He was brought back into the conversation when Cyan Nya spoke up. "Still, the bad guys are going to clue in about it eventually and figure out how to compensate," she said thoughtfully, pulling off her ninja mask and adjusting the bow she'd recently taken to wearing in her hair. "We're going to need to be ready when they do."

Buddy Kai grinned at his twin sister as he put his weapons and gear away in his storage locker. "Aw, don't worry about it, Sis. We've got this. What's the worst that could happen?"

Everyone turned to stare at Buddy.

Buddy grimaced, realizing he just invoked Murphy's Law. "Yeah, yeah, I know. The universe is probably going to prove me wrong in three… two…"

Before he could even reach one, a portal opened up underneath Spike Kai's feet, and he yelped as he fell through it.

Everyone stared wide-eyed at the spot Spike had just been.

Buddy turned pale and clapped his hands over his mouth. "What have I done?" he asked in dread.

Immediately, the entire warehouse erupted into a panic.

Monkie Kid Universe

Spike Kai landed hard on the stone floor of a cave and was immediately slammed into the wall by a long Serpentine tail.

Before he could recover, a hand gripped him by the throat and slammed him into the wall a second time, and he was outraged to see the face of Pythor sneering down at him. It may not be his Pythor, but for his past actions, he held both of the vile snakes with equal contempt.

"Hmm, you're not who I was aiming for," Pythor said, eyeing him up and down. "No matter. You'll still do nicely."

Quickly realizing his fire powers weren't working, Kai managed to pull free his sword and swung it at the Serpentine, making Pythor yelp and vanish and Kai standing ready to fight when he struck again.

In the end, Pythor did manage to overpower him and knock him out, but he had to put much more effort into it than he'd expected to.

Waking up in someone else's bed, in someone else's clothes, and with everyone calling him someone else's name was not something Kai wanted to see when he came to.

It didn't take long to piece together what Pythor's apparent plan was. Fortunately, this MK person's friends were nice.

Unfortunately, they were utterly clueless that he wasn't their friend and Kai's terrible charades skills were not helping clear things up.

After trying to write the situation down for them didn't work, Kai quickly got fed up with trying and failing to signal who he was, and gave them something he was sure they wouldn't misinterpret.

By lighting his hands on fire and scowling at them.

MK's friends' jaws dropped.

"Is this a Monkey power I wasn't aware of?" asked Pigsy, turning to Tang for answers.

A Monkey what?

"W-While the Monkey King is known to be fireproof, a-a-actually being able to control fire himself is not one of his p-powers unless he had a weapon s-specifically for doing so," Tang stuttered out looking bewildered. "Powers like that are more akin to-"

Kai suddenly had Mei grabbing his face to look him dead in the eye like she was trying to stare right into his soul. "RED SON?" she shouted as if Kai were far away rather than right in front of her. "IS THAT YOU IN THERE?"

What the heck?

Kai quickly pushed Mei's hands away and glared at her for agitating his injuries.

That was a mistake.

"Yep," said Mei, nodding her head as if his actions confirmed her theory. "That's Red Son alright."

Then she, Tang, and Pigsy promptly began freaking out and dogpiled on him.

When the Monkey King got a frantic call from his student that someone had kidnapped him and left an imposter in his place, he'd rushed back expecting trouble.

He was not expecting to find MK's friends to have said imposter tied up in bedsheets in a bathtub soaking wet from the shower pouring on him and looking indignant as Tang, Pigsy, and Mei were pouring over books of arcane magic.

"Hey, Monkey King," said Mei cheerfully when he came bursting in through the window. "We're trying to figure out how to exorcise Red Son from MK's body."

The imposter shot her a dirty look and shook his head as he tried to tell her something, but all that came out was a series of angry wheezes.

"Yes, yes, I know, I'm a lowly peasant," said Mei, patting him on the head patronizingly. "You'll thank us for this later, Red."

From what little Monkey King could read from the imposter's lips, his response was something more akin to, 'That's not what I said!'

Apparently, he couldn't talk. Well, that made interrogating him more complicated.

Still, Monkey King could only stare blankly at the scene before him. "Why is he tied up in the bathtub?" he asked.

"He kept trying to run away, and the water is to keep him from burning things," said Tang as if that explained everything.

It didn't, and the imposter had smoke pouring out of his ears from frustration.

Huh, maybe it was Red Son.

No, a quick flash of his golden vision made it clear it wasn't. This was someone new.

"That's not MK's body," Monkey King said. "And it's not Red Son either. The real MK contacted me, and said he was strung up in a cave somewhere."

MK's friends' heads all swiveled to stare at him, and the imposter let out a sigh of relief. 'I TOLD you so!' he very clearly mouthed at the others.

"Then who is he?" asked Pigsy, looking totally lost now.

The imposter seemed to try to tell them, but no words came out.

Tang snapped his fingers like he'd thought of something, and hurried into MK's bedroom. He then returned with MK's sketchbook and opened it to a series of symbols.

"Before we realized he wasn't MK, he tried to write this out for us," Tang explained as he handed the book to the Monkey King. "I don't suppose you can read it?"

Monkey King took the book and his eyes scanned the message. Wow, was that a blast from the past. He hadn't seen this writing in centuries. From what he could make out it said…

"Apparently his name is Kay, or is it Kai, one of those, and MK was taken by someone named Pither or something, my knowledge of this language is rusty," The Monkey King said.

Kay-or-Kai looked incredibly relieved.

"How do we know this kid isn't working for Pither?" asked Pigsy suspiciously.

Kay-or-Kai's look of relief vanished, and he looked at Pigsy like he'd just insulted his grandmother.

"Because he calls Pither a series of things I won't say aloud with a lady present," said Monkey King humorously.

Mei snorted hearing that. "So he's cool?" she asked.

"He's cool," Monkey King confirmed.

"Cool," said Mei and she moved to untie Kai-or-Kay from the sopping wet bedsheets. "Sorry about that," she told him.

Kay-or-Kai just shot her a dirty look.

And, of course, that was exactly when Sandy finally arrived with the magic tea.

"Your friends are insane," was the first thing Kai said when he saw MK.

MK, clearly not expecting that, stared at him. "What?" he asked.

"I show them fire, and the first thing they think is I'm you possessed by someone named Red Son," said Kai dryly as he moved to untie the other boy. "Who thinks that?"

"Well, to be fair, Pythor did claim he messed with my head, and Red Son is a demon, even if he's not that kind of demon," MK said to defend his friends.

Kai paused in the middle of his untying. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, Pythor wanted to keep them distracted so he could sell me to Spider Queen," explained MK, which wasn't what Kai wanted clarity for, but still-

"What?" Kai asked incredulously.

MK sighed. "I know, right," he said "This isn't the first time I've been kidnapped, but this was probably the scariest. Demons have kind of been after me ever since I got my powers."

"WHAT?" Kai said, gaping and already drawing parallels to his Lloyd just hearing that.

As much as he wasn't enjoying this world, Nya wouldn't mind if he brought home a new brother from it, right?

The second Meowtha arrived, Spike Kai found himself pinned in a Kai Hug™ by Buddy Kai.

"I'm so sorry!" he shouted. "I should have never tempted the universe!"

Spike let out a dry laugh and hugged him back. "Lesson learned," he agreed. "Especially since Pythor was actually aiming for you."

"He what?" shouted both Nyas in outrage.

"We're glad you're safe," said Princess, still wearing her samurai helmet. She then caught sight of Tang and asked in bewilderment, "Wait, my dad can walk here?"

"What?" said Tang in shock.

Spike sighed. "Let's just go. These people are crazy," he said, saying the last bit in a quieter tone so the locals wouldn't hear. Unfortunately, MK had turned down his offer to leave this world for a saner one.

Apparently, Monkey King still heard him and thought it would be amusing to prolong his suffering. "Wait, hold on a minute," he called, then pointed at Lloyd. "You, blond kid!"

Lloyd stared at him and pointed at himself in bewilderment.

"You look familiar. Do you know this guy?" Monkey King asked, and then shapeshifted himself into an old man with a long white braid and a straw hat.

Lloyd's jaw dropped. "You knew my grandfather!?" he shouted.

"Your grandfather? I didn't even know he had kids," said Monkey King, shifting back into himself with a bright smile. "What are their names?"

Spike Kai groaned. They might be there for a while. Although hearing Wu might be named after this guy was hilarious.

If he were being honest, these people really weren't as bad as he was making them out to be, but he was still very annoyed at their attempts to exorcise him. They were just trying to protect their friend, and that was something he could relate to.

He still caught a cold from being tied up in the shower, though.

A/N One frequently asked question I got when I was posting More Fun than a Barrel of Monkies was how things would have been different if Spike Kai (Show Kai) had been taken instead of Buddy Kai (Movie Kai). Welp, here's your answer. It's hard to tell who actually had a worse time with this switcheroo. On one hand, Buddy Kai came out a lot more fond of the Monkie Kid crew, but he also had to fight the Monkey King while injured. On the other hand, Spike Kai was had a pretty miserable time and thinks the Monkie Kid crew are nuts but didn't get in any fights. But that difference is why Buddy Kai being abducted is the canon one to the series since that fondness makes him more open to interacting with them more in the future, thus we get later chapters of this.

Also, please note that Spike Kai still hasn't seen Skylor(aka Princess)'s face or learned her real name yet. This will be important in the future.

As mentioned above, these chapters will probably be sporadic. While I have several planned, a lot of my time and energy has been going into writing the next sequel in the main Grass is Always Greener AU series (on chapter 21 now), which will cover how all the changes the series has had on Season 4 of Ninjago. How will the Tournament of Elements play out with a lot more Ninja helping out? What did Chen do to get them to his island? You'll just have to wait and find out. I want to be a little closer to the end before I start posting, and have some Greener Pastures chapters planned out that I need to write and post to set a few things up before the story fully kicks off.

A big thanks to Kay Hau for beta reading.

If you want to see Spike Kai tied up in the bathtub, check out my Tumblr.

Show Ninjago: Lil'Loyd, Spike Kai, Cliff Cole, Nick Jay, Zen Zane, Red Nya, Sensei Wu, Sensei Garmadon, Misako

Movie Ninjago: Luh-Loyd, Buddy Kai, DJ Cole, Freckles Jay, Pep Zane, Cyan Nya, Master Wu, Lord Garmadon, Koko, Princess Skylor.

Next Time (when it's finished being written): MK travels to Show Ninjago in hopes of learning Spinjitzu, but he's not the only one who learns some things.