I don't know where this came from. Or why it exists. It's definitely far from my best work but if it makes someone smile, it will have been worth writing… Anyway. Enjoy my admittedly stupic fic in which Lloyd wears a traffic cone and no one is surprised. Set between seasons 1 and 2.

"Who would've thought saving the world would leave such a mess?" Jay complained as he chucked a piece of rubble into a nearby garbage can. Cole gave him a look.

"I mean, there kinda was a giant rampagey snake, so can we really be surprised that the city is trashed?" he pointed out.

"Well, yeah," Jay acknowledged, "but why couldn't it have been something like ghosts that just phase through solid objects?"

Lloyd glanced up from where he was half heartedly picking up smaller pieces of clutter and said, "Now that would've been cool!"

"And how would we have defeated them, hm? I'm pretty sure your comics would have us believe that ghosts can only be defeated by water, and as far as I know, none of us is the elemental master of water." Nya told him, ruffling his hair. She held out a garbage bag for him to deposit the piece of brick he held.

"Maybe Zane could shoot them with ice and I could melt it right before it hit them?" offered Kai, who had been thinking hard about the pros and cons of battling ghosts. The nindroid shrugged, saying, "I suppose so. Though, we could just as easily have Jay and Nya design an attachment for the Samurai X mech that would act as a sort of water gun."

"That's all well and good, but can we stay focused, guys? I'd like to get back in time for dinner." Cole prompted before going back to cleaning up what looked like it had once been a billboard. Due to the fact that the Bounty had been destroyed, they were all staying at a school that had been transitioned into an emergency shelter and not being on time for dinner meant risking getting smaller portions. Something none or them wanted to experience again.

"That's probably a good idea," agreed Nya, "C'mon, Lloyd, let's see if there's any more garbage over by that tree."

"Aw… but that's boring… once you've seen one pile of trash you've seen em all…" Lloyd complained, but reluctantly followed her over to said tree. He looked around for a way to entertain himself while they cleaned, since the conversation about battling ghosts had been shut down and picking up garbage wasn't a particularly fun pass time. Bits of broken building were boring. Garbage was boring. Pointy orange things… were not boring?

"Hey, what's this?" the boy asked, kicking the object half heartedly. Nya glanced over at him.

"Oh, that's a traffic cone." She explained with a shrug. Lloyd must have been even more bored than he had realized, for examined the traffic cone with great interest.

"It's pointy… kinda like Kai's hair." He commented thoughtfully. Nya laughed at his comparison.

"If… I put it on my head… would I look like Kai?" he wondered, picking it up.

"Lloyd, no, that's a terrible idea!" Nya protested at the same time as Jay said, "Oh! You should totally do that!"

The two teens stared each other down, oblivious to Lloyd, who was, in fact, now fully convinced that the traffic cone needed to go on his head. He carefully lifted it above him, surprised by how heavy it was. Nothing could stop him now. Not Nya, not his slightly lacking upper body strength. Nothing.

"Look! I'm Kai now!" Lloyd exclaimed loudly. Jay and Nya tore their eyes away from each other. Zane and Cole hefted a final piece of rubble into the dumpster and turned around. Kai gaped at him, at a loss for words for once in his life.

"Ohmygosh please tell me someone's taking pictures?" Jay begged.

"Already on it," Nya assured them all, "Kai get over here with your mini me. Wu's gonna die when he sees this."

"Can you hurry up please? This thing's getting heavy…" Lloyd complained, peeking out from under the rim of the cone as Kai sighed and joined him for a picture. He couldn't really see much of anything, but getting a laugh out of the others was worth it.

"Y'know, Kai, I think he might just wear the whole pointy look better than you." Cole teased, sounding rather proud of himself. Kai glowered at him, though everyone knew he wasn't too mad about it.

"Actually, my hair is spiky not pointy and-"

"Whatever. Can you please just get this thing off of me?" Lloyd interrupted, "I think it might be stuck!"

And that was how 5 teenagers and one small boy had to explain to the cashier at a nearby grocery store why they needed to buy the largest jar of peanut butter possible to use as a lubricant to help remove a traffic cone from said small boy's head following a misguided attempt at comedy. Neither the cashier, nor Wu were impressed by this dramatic tale, though the pictures would live on well into the next decade, if not longer. After all, no one would ever be able to forget the incident dubbed as Traffic Cone Lloyd.