Announcer voice: Today, on Way of the Dragon: Jinlong and Lloyd get stuck together for a day. Will they learn to be friends, or bitter rivals?
Jinlong voice: Chapter 6: Warriors Two.
Knitting was a lot harder than Jinlong had anticipated. Between the loops, switching hands, and casting offs, she couldn't quite figure out what she was doing. Nya had been nice enough to suggest that Jin gave it a try, and provided her with knitting needles and some yarn stolen from Jay.
Still, though, she was really impatient.
"Stupid yarn," She growled. "Why won't you work?"
With a huff, the dragon-girl set her half-finished project on her pallet, where she'd been working, and stood. It was probably about lunchtime, which meant cooking, which meant something besides knitting.
"What's wrong with you?! Why do you always have to be this way?!"
"Me?! I didn't do anything!"
Having lived with them for a while, Jinlong was fairly used to the ninja's bickering, so she thought nothing of it. Until, of course, she saw Lloyd, grinning in a way that made her think of cats and gremlins.
"Lloyd?"
The boy's head snapped up to look at her. His bright red eyes held vertical, slit-like pupils, much like Jin's own.
"Yeah?" He challenged. His teeth were sharp, too, like Jin's. Was this boy a dragon?
"You started their argument, didn't you?"
"Nuh-uh!" He said instantly, shaking his head, but he shifted his weight and his eyes flickered down ever-so-slightly. Jin stared at him, reminded of when she was in his position herself.
oOo
Maolong the Cat Dragon and her mother, Tianlong the Heavenly Dragon, stood disapprovingly over Jinlong, who was just 7.
"Did you break your sister's perfume bottle, Jinlong?" Her mother asked sternly.
"No," The little dragon said, although there was an oil stain on her qipao and her hands smelled strongly of flowers.
Tianlong sighed, her smooth, beige skin shining in the afternoon light. Her long hair looked dark in the sun, but in the moon it shimmered silver.
Maolong, who was 8, was dressed in her tawny qipao and had tears in the corners of her eyes. "That was my favorite possession, Jinlong! Couldn't you have asked for help getting it from the shelf?"
Jinlong would never know how, but her orange-haired sister could always make her confess out of guilt.
"I did it," She hung her head and admitted. "I'm very sorry, Maolong."
oOo
"That's not very nice," The golden-haired dragon-girl told him. Lloyd ducked his head.
"It's not my fault," He almost whimpered. "Uncle told me to!"
Just as he was mentioned, Wu stepped into view and the ninja's arguing ceased.
"I hope this has taught you all a lesson on the destructive power of lies," He said.
"That was a pretty lame lesson, Sensei," Kai's voice was just as unimpressed as his expression. Usually, the ninja didn't dare insult Wu's lessons because the next day's training would be brutal, but Jin had learned that Kai was the kind of kid who forgot what was good for him.
Surprisingly, though, Sensei didn't appear offended. "Yes, well, I seem to have misplaced my lesson book…"
Naturally, all eyes turned to Lloyd. Naturally, said gremlin turned to dash away, but unfortunately for him, he was on a ship of highly-skilled teenage ninja, and was quickly apprehended.
"You mean this book?" Cole asked dryly, pulling a leather-bound tome from Lloyd's hood.
"Aw, man," The boy groaned. "I would've gotten away with that!"
Suddenly, the alarm blared to life and, after unceremoniously dropping Lloyd, the ninja raced off to the Bridge.
"Ow," Lloyd complained, getting to his feet. His uncle was unimpressed.
"By the time I get back, I expect your messes to be cleaned up," Wu told him. Lloyd seemed to deflate.
"Don't worry, I will help," Jinlong offered.
"Really?" The distrust in Lloyd's eyes stabbed the dragon-girl right through the heart.
"Of course," She said.
oOo
Within 30 minutes, they'd done all they could. Jay and Kai had been made apology cards, they'd done the dishes for Zane(since it was his turn that night), and they'd wanted to make a cake for Cole, but neither had the ingredients nor money.
"We could buy 'im a cupcake," Lloyd suggested. "Like, just one cupcake."
"That's not a bad idea," Jinlong admitted. So, they sauntered off the Bounty and into town.
After wandering around the market for a while, the duo had yet to find any baked goods for sale, let alone cupcakes.
"Let's just get 'im an onion or something," Lloyd muttered. "Or a rock."
"No, we'll get him something a little nicer," The dragon-girl insisted. And so, the last of the ninja's money was spent on a can of peanuts.
oOo
"I'm bored."
"I know."
"Where's Nya?"
"I do not know."
Lloyd sighed melodramatically from his spot on a chair, where he lay upside-down. Jin set her knitting needles down and decided to humor the boy.
"Let's go snoop through your uncle's room."
The younger's face lit up faster than Jinlong would have thought possible.
"Really?"
"Yes. I'll bet he has a MahJong set- I'll teach you to play, if you'd like."
"Sure!" Lloyd cried, though it was pretty clear he didn't even know what the game was.
When they entered Wu's room, the duo was greeted by the strong scents of tea and old paper. Lloyd pretended to gag, then began rifling through the teacups and scrolls. Jinlong, however, opened his cabinets, pulling out an assortment of items, from books to unmarked boxes to an old picture of a little boy with a green streak through his hair.
"Aha," She cried, brandishing a large black box with golden lettering. "I knew he'd have one! Come along, let's go play."
As soon as she started with "MahJong has 144 pieces", she was fairly certain Lloyd tuned out. They didn't even finish a whole game before he got bored again, so Jin ended up just putting it back.
"Do you want to play hide-and-go-seek?" She asked after that.
"Only if I can hide first!" Lloyd cried, and then took off down the hall. Jinlong chuckled, closed her eyes, and counted to 10.
Lloyd's hiding spot was pretty predictable, but then again, Jin was a master of out-of-the-way places and immediately looked under Wu's bed(yes, he had a real bed, as did all of the ninja. Nya was jealous, but Jin didn't care). Sure enough, there he was.
"Aw. no fair," Lloyd protested, squirming out. "You cheated!"
"Wh-how? Lloyd, I was behind the corner the entire time!"
That, of course, just led to a petty and dead-end argument of 'yes you did's and 'no I didn't's. And, while these were fairly common out of Jinlong, even she drew the line somewhere, and five straight minutes was a tad much.
"Alright, alright, just calm down," She finally cut in. "We'll just play something else, alright?"
"Nuh-uh," Lloyd stuck his tongue out. "Not unless you admit that you cheated!"
Jinlong very nearly yelled, "I did not cheat!", but then decided that wouldn't go over so well. She could just say 'yes, I'm sorry I cheated', but that would be admitting defeat- to a little gremlin, no less! Not likely.
"Lloyd, please explain to me how I possibly could have cheated in any way."
Lloyd just stuck his tongue out again.
"Fine!" Jinlong yelled, her patience failing. "Go and be lonely, then!"
She turned and stomped off, glowering at the floor. It was the kid's loss- she could always just knit if she got bored.
oOo
30 minutes later, both Wu and Nya came hustling onto the ship.
"The ninja are in trouble!" The black-haired girl cried, quickly lifting the ship into the air and heading west.
Jin, still sour, made her way to the Bridge. "What happened?"
Nya's eyes flickered from the screen to her friend, then back. "They, uh, called me. Yeah."
Suspicious, but Jinlong had no room to talk, so she just nodded slowly.
They found the ninja in a foul swamp that Nya called the Toxic Bogs. Said ninja were groggy, but otherwise fine. Except for Kai, who was apparently still hallucinating from some Serpentine venom he'd received a few hours ago.
"Look at Wu's beard," The fire ninja whispered, quite loudly, at dinner, pointing to Sensei. "It's moving like snakes."
Jin cleared her throat to mask laughter. "That venom is some pretty powerful stuff."
Jay groaned. "You have no idea. I've been putting up with this for hours."
"Seriously, though, guys," Cole said. "We need to up our game. We can't allow the Serpentine to awaken the Great Devourer."
"What's the Great Devourer?" Every set of eyes, even Kai's delirious ones, turned to the dragon-girl. She blushed, "You never told me…"
"'What the Great Devourer?'" Jay mocked. "Only the mother of all snakes! If it gets released, it'll devour everything!"
"Aw, man," Lloyd's face was pink with shame. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't released those dumb snakes-"
Wu gently interrupted him, "You cannot change the past, my nephew, but you can always change the future."
"On a side note, what was with that samurai dude? Just who does he think he is, butting in on our job?" The blue ninja seethed. "Who does he think he is?"
Curious but afraid to ask, Jinlong settled for watching the ninja- minus Kai, who was rambling to his very unimpressed sister- rant about this mysterious samurai, apparently called Samurai X.
Of course, though, just as it always did, the alarm started screeching, and Lloyd jumped out of his seat and gave a little yelp of his own, to Jin's amusement.
The ninja raced off to the Bridge, leaving the non-ninja residents sitting around a half-empty table.
"Well, I guess we should start cleaning up," Nya sighed. Jinlong grumbled, but started picking up plates as Wu excused himself.
As the girls stood in the kitchen washing dishes, surprisingly, Lloyd came out, dressed in his pajamas, which were just Kai's old clothes.
Nya noticed him first. "Lloyd? Shouldn't you be in bed?"
"Yeah, but…" The gremlin looked at the ground and spoke fast. "SinceJinhelpedmeearlierIwantedtohelpherbacksoI'mgoingtodothedishesalright?"
Jin grinned, taking it as an apology for earlier. "Sure!"
And, even more surprisingly, Lloyd seemed to know what he was doing.
Once they were done, Nya went off to work on some unspecified thing, while Jinlong brought the little gremlin to his 'room', which was actually just a repurposed closet.
"You know, we're the Warriors Two," She said abruptly.
"What?"
"Because we're warriors," Jin explained, her cheeks heating up. "And there are two of us."
Lloyd stared at her for a moment, before breaking into a smile. "Yeah, I like that! The Warriors Two."
Jinlong grinned. Annoying he may be, that kid really was gold.
Announcer voice: Next time, on Way of the Dragon: Lloyd goes missing! Is it a simple case of him getting lost, or is something more sinister afoot? Find out tomorrow on Way of the Dragon!