What? 2k+ word chapter? How in the world did that happen? Hope you guys enjoy itJ
Special thanks to StoryMaker7 and SkittyBug for reviewing. As always, it makes me sooo happy to hear feedback. :D
(Time skips about a week.)
As the past week had gone by Yuki fell into a kind of routine with the rest of the ninja. Sensei Wu was rarely home, always off doing something or other about some guy named Garmadon (nobody fills the cat in). Unfortunately, since the ninja signed the lease with the fancy apartment, they were also rarely home, each having to take on full-time jobs to pay for rent. Nobody was happy about it, especially Lloyd. Being too young to get a job meant leaving by himself all day to train. They would have felt worse if it weren't for Yuki to keep him some company, however small.
With all that quality time with Lloyd, the two grew much closer, and Yuki learned more about the mischievous little boy with each passing day.
"Take care of yourself kid. We'll be back tonight. Your schedule for the day is on the fridge. No. Videogames. Till. It's done. Got it?" Kai was halfway out the door giving Lloyd instructions for the day. Cole had left first for his job as a security guard at the bank. Zane had left next to open up the restaurant. Jay had gone right before Kai to deliver pizzas. Unlike Cole, Jay, and Zane, the red ninja kept his scarlet gi on for his day job as a party entertainer for little kids. Lloyd crossed his arms and groaned but nodded. "Good. You know the rules. No stove. No leaving the apartment. Don't answer the door for strangers. And no weapons, you hear? Stay out of Zane's shurikens." Lloyd gave another exasperated sigh as if this was the biggest inconvenience ever.
"Not even his little ones?"
Kai glared at him.
"Ok, ok. I promise. No weapons." He held his hands up in surrender.
Kai's face softened and cracked into a grin. His cell phone buzzed in his hand. When he checked the message he winced, shoving it back into his pocket. "I gotta go. The life of a human piñata never rests. I'll stop by in a couple of hours to check on you, kay?"
"Ok," Lloyd said again, a little quieter than before. Yuki knew he especially hated seeing Kai leave. The kid looked at him with stars in his eyes. He practically idolized the master of fire, though Yuki didn't quite understand why. That kid scared Yuki.
Kai ruffled Lloyd's hair quickly before he locked the door behind him. The soft click left the apartment almost eerily quiet as Lloyd stared at the door for a minute. After a minute of silence, the child glanced around the apartment, suddenly looking very small.
Yuki padded over and wove between his legs, rubbing his throat against the boy's shins in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. Lloyd looked down at him and giggled, for a moment forgetting his solitude, and scooped him up. Yuki purred, the deep rumbling in his chest seemed to comfort him too.
"What's say we get some breakfast, huh?" Yuki mewed in agreement as Lloyd pulled up a barstool at the kitchen island. Together they feasted on cereal and leftover fish from Zane's take out the other night as they watched the sky turn from a hazy grey to gold over the city skyline. Lloyd cleared his bowl and pulled his list off the refrigerator door. Yuki saw him grimace when he recognized Cole's handwriting. The master of earth's training sessions was usually especially difficult for Lloyd.
"…thirty minutes warm-up run… one-hour agility class… two-hour fighting technique and form… one hour strength and endurance workout… one hour studying Ninjago history from sensei's scroll… one-hour channeling and focusing powers…" Lloyd read through the list with a disheartened look, not even reading off all his lessons. Nonetheless, the boy took a deep breath and put the list back on the fridge where he could see it later. He scratched Yuki's ear before padding over to the living room and flipping the switch that controlled the door to the apartment's complimentary training course.
"Ninja never quit." He said quietly, determination set on his face as he rolled up the green sleeves of his gi.
…
About three hours had gone by, the clock on the wall ticked a little after nine-thirty. A very sweaty Lloyd could still be found in the training course, panting like a dog on a summer day and struggling with the agility station. The contraption worked when he punched, kneed, or kicked one of the swiveling paddles, the only problem was when the other paddle on the opposite side swung around to nail him, earning many painful whacks.
Yuki had seen the other ninja train with the machine. Each had a different approach. Cole liked to stand his ground, preferring to practice blocks and build up the confidence to deal with blows for a real fight. Jay preferred zipping in and out of the swinging beam's path, ducking and jumping at a speed that impressed all of them. He was the unofficial master of this contraption. Zane was similar, but with less energy, letting the beams come just close enough before slipping out of reach. Kai, well, he did all those techniques, not particularly in that order, sometimes all at once, and usually set the machine on fire.
Yuki shook his head at the memory, drawing his attention back to Lloyd, who just got another whack, this time to his ribs. The green ninja hissed in pain and clutched his side. Yuki's ears twitched sympathetically at the noise. It's almost impossible to learn how to punch, block, and slip with no one to guide you. No one to point out the kinks you can't see in yourself. No one to tell you you're actually doing something right for a change.
"Ninja never quit…ninja never quit," Lloyd repeated to himself like a mantra, "I'm not quitting, I'm just… taking a break." He wiped the damp gold hair out of his eyes (and probably a tear or two as well) before sinking to the floor. "Who am I kidding? I'm never going to be a real ninja." He muttered dejectedly.
Yuki would have huffed if he could. No wonder Lloyd couldn't improve, the other ninja, despite their best intentions, were so preoccupied with keeping their nice apartment that their real job of teaching Lloyd fell right through the cracks. He still didn't have the entire picture, but Yuki knew this little boy was one day going to play a very important role in this city, and if the others weren't around to train him, then the cat was just going to have to do it himself.
Yuki stretched and jumped down from his perch on top of the punching bag, stalking over to Lloyd and gently ramming his head into the boy's thigh.
Yuki may not have been alive for more than a year, but he knew that Lloyd was flat-footed. All the other ninja balanced on the balls of their feet, much like he did all the time. Lloyd needed to project his energy up to be able to move his body quickly. Not ball it up in a tight crouch in his heels.
Lloyd glanced down at the kitten. "What is it, boy?" Yuki for once ignored the chin scratch and took a mouthful of Lloyd's pant leg and tugged.
"Um…" Lloyd hesitantly complied and pushed himself to his feet. Yuki then, despite his injured paw, leaped up to the highest paddle to hold Lloyd's green eyes in an intense stare. His tail twitched excitedly.
Lloyd frowned at the cat's strange behavior. But understanding dawned on his face after a moment. "You think I should keep going?" Yuki purred and Lloyd let out a breath of air.
"Ok." He let the cat jump down before starting up on the punches. But almost immediately Yuki began to nip at Lloyd's ankles. The boy yelped at the kitten's sharp teeth.
"Yuki quit it!" He tried to back away but Yuki kept him pinned between the machine and himself. He nipped again and Lloyd flinched, bouncing back and forth to avoid Yuki's wrath.
It was working. Yuki kept at it for another minute, despite Lloyd's protests, before backing away and watching the boy with an expectant look.
"What the heck, Yuki?" Lloyd gave him a betrayed glance while rubbing his heels. "Don't justify Jay's theory that you're the offspring of evil." Yuki just licked his paw, confident in his teaching skills.
After a few more distrustful glances in the cat's direction, Lloyd went back to his training. Much to Yuki's delight, the boy's heels were raised several inches off the ground, his steps lighter, more nimble, like a cat's. Lloyd noticed the difference too, dodging the beams more easily, springing out of their strike path. When Lloyd started to slack off, Yuki nipped at his heels again, though gentler than before. After a few more confusing rounds of this, Lloyd's eyes widened with realization, "You just taught me to fight better," he breathed disbelievingly. Yuki nuzzled his head against Lloyd's legs, partly to non-verbally confirm Lloyd's question, partly to apologize for his sore feet.
Lloyd cracked a grin and picked him up. "I've got the best cat ever." He laughed and hugged him close.
...
The sun filtered through the huge windows overshadowing the city skyline, bathing Lloyd and Yuki in a rosy glow. The two sat on the couch. The green ninja fiddling with a game controller pointed at the flat screen, now showered and in clean clothes. Yuki lay curled in a tight ball and snoring peacefully on Lloyd's lap as the television chirped a somewhat obnoxious tune whenever Lloyd scored a point.
The rest of the training session had passed relatively smoothly. Lloyd worked so hard, and Yuki had this strange sense of pride bubbling in his little body whenever the boy succeeded at anything he learned. But now he could appreciate a small patch of downtime before the rest of the ninja came home, content with snuggling close to Lloyd's warm body.
Apparently, it just wasn't meant to last. A shadow flashed overhead. Yuki pricked his ears up as a needle of tension dug its way into his spine. Something was very wrong, though Lloyd didn't seem to notice. He sniffed the air.
Then he looked out the window.
His stomach dropped.
Coiled up on the window washer's scaffolding was the biggest snake Yuki had ever seen. The setting sun flashed off its blue hide, dagger fangs, and twisted staff, sending beams of light into Lloyd's eyes and finally getting his attention. When the boy's green eyes locked on the snake's pulsing red, Lloyd screamed and grabbed Yuki, making a bee-line for the apartment door. He frantically pressed the key code to unlock the door, fingers shaking so bad he could barely punch in the numbers. The light blinked red as the access code was denied.
"No no no," Lloyd whimpered. A heart-stopping crash resounded behind him. He whipped around to see the snake now unimpeded by the glass barrier, glass shards scattered all over the floor. It grinned.
"Skales," Lloyd gripped Yuki's tense body tighter, "wha-what do you want?"
Skales' mouth twisted into a bigger smirk as he slithered closer to Lloyd, glass crunching beneath his belly. "You seem to be the only thing your father cares about, little boy." With each thump of his golden staff, Yuki could feel Lloyd flinch. "With you as my hostage, he'll have no other choice but to let me lead the serpentine again." At Lloyd's violent trembling he cackled.
He bared his fangs.
Oh.
Oh, heck to the no.
There was no way that overgrown disco ball was going to hurt Lloyd. The last little thread holding his sanity together snapped inside the furry runt, rearing its head like a dragon as he wrenched free of Lloyd's hold and lunged at the giant cobra's azure hood.
Both the snake's shifty red eyes and Lloyd's green ones widened in surprise as Yuki yowled and raked his claws down the ugly brute's snout, causing the former to yelp in surprise.
The snake recovered quicker than expected, however, grabbed Yuki by the neck, and held up whatever had attacked him for a better look. When he did he scoffed, "what's this, a flea-ridden midnight snack?"
He paused and licked his lips with his forked tongue. Yuki hissed in defiance, fueled with the instinctive need to protect his kid. He slashed out again, this time his claw dug a deep gash through the serpentine's eye.
Skales howled, flinging Yuki away and clutched his face, blood squirting between his fingers. Yuki's head collided with the wall and he sank to the floor. Sharp pain dug into the back of his skull when he tried to move. Through his hazy vision, he could just process the front door flinging open and a streak of red barreling at the snake.
The serpentine didn't stand a chance against Kai's wrath.
It was the last thing Yuki saw before he passed out.
…
When Yuki opened his eyes he felt a comforting presence all around him, keeping him safe and warm. He opened his eyes dazedly and yawned ferociously, still feeling a little dizzy. He started when he felt a cold hand stroke his back and shivered with pleasure at the familiar touch. He started to purr.
"You nearly gave me a heart attack, little one." Zane's quiet voice sent a peaceful wave through Yuki's frame the way only Zane could do. He looked up at his face, smudged a little with food from the restaurant but smiling. "It seems we underestimated your capabilities at defending yourself." He leaned back on his bed and began feeding the kitten some scraps he saved from his job, which Yuki gratefully accepted. After a moment a thought seemed to occur to Zane. He chuckled.
"I guess you protected someone who couldn't protect themselves."
Thank you so much for reading! I know I tweaked the episode, so I hope you guys don't mind too much. Review if you want. More is to come, hopefully very soon. I will pray to the homework gods to have mercy on me. Now go have a lovely day, ok?