Chapter 4

The First Move: Training

Every morning, from sunrise to sundown they trained for 2 months. Lloyd was able to finally locate some unsealing tea to take release Zachery, Sally, and Blake's powers. After Mistakē's untimely death, Tīmēkā, her apprentice was still too young to take over the shop. The shop was eventually closed down due to lack of ownership, and a fishing shop was opened in its stead. Tīmēkā knowing all Mistakē's tea secrets, but not being old enough to run a shop on his own decided that he would wait till he comes of age to once again share Mistakē's tea with the world. Unfortunately, after that, he had gone completley off radar making him hard to track. Lloyd finally managed to find the boy, who gave him the unsealing tea. He explained that when he did come of age he didn't have the funds to buy the shop back, so he spends most of his time earning money to buy the fishing shop back. He won't buy any other shop. He said that he will always make time to help the Ninja free of charge though, and even said he would be their "healer" with what little skills he had, as well as their personal tea guy. "Sunrise training time," Lloyd yelled ringing the gong he'd just purchased particularly to wake Robin up.

"Ugh." All the ninja groaned as they got at 5:00 am to train once again.

Lloyd looked at Zachery and asked, "Zachery can you get the schedule I wrote up out of the closet of my office?"

"Yeah." Zachery got up groggy to go get the schedule.

"The rest of you get ready. Stretch to prepare for today's training." Lloyd commanded.

All of them bowed 90-degrees 'Yes sensei."

"What made you come up with sunrise training anyway?" Robin asked annoyed, but getting out his "uniform". All of them had the same uniform except with different colors as their predecessors did. Sally had their uniform's custom made. They were short-sleeved jumpsuits that were black, excluding Terry's who was brown, and their ninja color. A zipper from the chest down to their waistbands that stayed unzipped with white cloth beneath it. Sleeves were see-through up to the shoulders with the elemental symbol engraved on it, and the cloth they tied around their waist looked like an old ninja movie. Sally's color was blue and light blue taking after both her mother and father. Terry's color was black, Zachery's green, Benjamen's silver, Blake's red, and Robin's gray. Robin hated his color as if it was chosen just to show off how powerless he is.

"I didn't really come up with it. My old sensei did, and it's got us this far." Lloyd said reminiscing.

"What happened to him?" Terry asked.

"Shou Shi killed him before he captured your father Cole," he responded. Then suddenly there was a scream, and everyone rushed to the source of the sound. They opened the door to Lloyd's office to find Zachery pushing a life-sized robot off of him. Ever since the ninja had gone into hiding anything even close to an artificial life form was destroyed, and production of any such thing banned. The last ninjroid leading a strike against the ban had recently been killed. The government did this to be sure Shou Shi wouldn't become a threat to everyone. "Why are you keeping robots in your closet?" Zachery asked annoyed and panicked at the same time.

"That's Zane a ninjroid. He was apart of our ninja team, but Shou Shi shut him down. We haven't been able to get him back online ever since." Lloyd explained.

"So why didn't you just scrap him?" Sally asked.

"Because he's our friend Sally. We will find a way to get him back online, but first, we have to find Cole before-" Lloyd started to say "before he's killed", but looked at Terry and thought otherwise. "Nevermind. Did you find the schedule, Zachery?"

Zachery got up and handed Lloyd the schedule. "Here."

"Well since we missed spinjitzu training, we'll just skip to your one on one monthly evaluations," Lloyd said reading the schedule.

All of them groaned and went back downstairs to prepare. After they were all prepared Lloyd announced "First Zachery and Terry will fight. You will you use every skill you've learned so far in this fight. Once your opponent has been pinned for at least 10 seconds the match will end. Since your opponent is also your teammate do your best to not overdo it. If I am clearly understood then you can begin."

"You ready to get your butt beat, Zac?" Robin asked Zachery stopping him from getting up.

"Ready as I'll ever be." he shrugged.

He walked onto the box on the floor. Zachery knew his fighting skills weren't great and was totally prepared to lose, but for some reason, he couldn't shake off the nervousness he was feeling. Terry and Zachery looked each other in the eye and bowed. "No hard feelings after this battle?" Terry asked.

Zachery smiled "Not this time, not last time, not ever." and the fight began.

She struck first with an attempted blow to the face. Zachery dodged and tripped her. When she hit the ground she tripped him and jumped on top of him. "You can do better than that," Terry said.

Zachery laughed awkwardly and said "You overestimate me. Really." Then rolled from under her, and pushed her to the ground. Terry was pulling her punches, and he could tell she was. Benjamen handed her a stick and she came rushing at Zachery with it. He grabbed the stick and flipped her back onto the ground with it. "So you're defensive combat, ok." She smiled.

"Well, I'm definitely not offensive," he said keeping my stance. Terry rushed at him throwing the stick in his direction as a diversion. She then punched him in the chest with her super-strength. Zachery flew out of the circle hitting the wall behind him.

"Are you alright?" Terry asked rushing to his side. "I didn't mean to use that much force." She said apologetically.

"I'll be fine," Zachery said trying to get up. She offered him a hand after she realized he was struggling.

"Will you be able to finish this fight?" Lloyd asked. Zachery nodded and he and Terry walked back into the box on the floor. Terry took a chunk out of the ground and hurled it at him. He threw a blast of energy at the projectile. Through the dust of the explosion, she came running at him and attempted to knock him on the floor. Zachery's reflexes got the better of him and he kicked her with most of his strength. Terry flew back from the force of the kick. "Are you alright?" Zachery asked frozen in his spot. Partially because the pain he felt in his chest, and partially because he was afraid he may have hurt her.

"Yeah, just come help me up?" She sounded like she was really in pain (I couldn't have kicked her that hard. This is probably a trick) he thought to himself. His conscious got the better of him. When Zachery held out his hand to help Terry, she wrapped her legs around his neck and threw him to the ground. Then she crawled on him and put her arm in his neck with the slightest amount of pressure. Just like that, the fight was over.

"Do you know what your mistake was?" She asked breathing hard on my face.

The heat from her breath made Zachery's body tense. She was way too close. "Yeah, could you just get off of me?"

"Oh, sorry." Terry apologized turning red. Zachery smiled at her "It's fine." She rolled off of him in a failed attempt to keep from hurting him, as she pressed down on his chest. He moaned in pain and curled up like a snail after you pour salt on it. "Are you ok?" She asked, concern written all over her face. She gave him her hand helping him stand.

"Yeah." Zachery wheezed.

Lloyd then proceeded to give them their evaluations. "Zachery you had the upper hand several times and didn't take it. You have to get over not wanting to hurt people. If Terry's the enemy than you have to defeat her at all costs. People will use that against you." Then he turned to Terry. "Terry you have no defensive strategy, it was also easy to tell you were going easy on him so whenever you got hit you were surprised. If he would've attacked you he would've easily won, but since he didn't you won, undeserving victory. You're too headstrong which is normal for you, but the arrogance I saw in this battle makes me think you've been practicing with Benjamen way too often."

"She learns from the best!" Benjamen said laughing. Terry just rolled her eyes.

"Whenever you're in a battle your goal is to win even if that means losing, but when you start thinking you're going to win that's the moment you lose. I want you all to know that. You haven't won or lost until the battle is over." Lloyd said to all of them. "Terry please take Zachery to Tīmēkā see if he can help.

"Ok." She said going upstairs with Zachery to see Tīmēkā.

After Zachery and Terry went upstairs Jay ran into the room excited followed by a less happy Nya. "I've found a way to find Cole!" He said.

Lloyd looked at Nya for confirmation. "This time he really has," Nya said. "But, you're not gonna like his plan."

"What is it?" Lloyd asked.

"Dareth told me there's a package being delivered to Shou Shi tomorrow at 8pm at his bar, but not directly to Shou Shi. To the robots he created. If we can capture one of those robots not only could we use its parts to fix Zane, but once that's done we could transfer it's memory to Zane so he could tell us where Cole is." Jay said.

"Ok, so we go," Lloyd responded.

"We can't go. It has to be the kids."

"Why can't it be us?" Lloyd asked.

"They know us, and so does Dareth. It would be too obvious if we went. Plus we would be endangering his life. Shou Shi doesn't know who the kids are. Well, excluding Blake. It would be more sensible if we have them go."

"The kids aren't ready for that kind of mission. We'll have to find another way." Lloyd said firmly.

"If you think they're not ready now, they're never going to be ready," Jay said getting frustrated. "This is our only chance."

"Obviously you didn't see the fight I just saw. They're not ready, and unless you want to risk another person's life you're going to have to find another way." Lloyd retorted.

"I've been trying for over a decade!" Jay shouted. "If there was another way I would try to find it, believe me, I don't want to send my only daughter into danger. But there's no other way, and it's now or never."

Lloyd felt defeated. "We'll watch you guys from a distance. Training is over for today. For now I want you guys to rest up. You'll have your first mission tomorrow."

Side note: There's an extra story that takes place between this chapter and the next. It's not completely necessary, but I do suggest you read it at some point. Why? Well if you read it you'll find out. ;)

Pizza Pizza (A Benjamen Side Story): s/13368799/1/Pizza-Pizza-A-Benjamen-Story