It's been quite a while since the last update, so I'll try to keep this author's note as short as possible.

I have made some edits to the previous chapter, because I wasn't too happy with the last part of it. But the 'pairings' are still the same, of course!

And just a reminder this story takes place after Skybound but before DotD (yep, it's been that long since I've started it…)! [Whoohoo, Hands of Time is FINALLY on CN (UK/Ireland)!]


Chapter 4: Baking Buddies

During the commercial break, the ninja went to discuss some of the 'baking arrangements' with their host.

"Why do they get to be at the front?" Kai and Cole complained, pointing at Jay and Zane.

"Simple. Jay is the ninja with the most experience in front of TV cameras." Nellie replied with a very professional smile. "And I heard from Dareth that, between the six of you, Zane is the most skilled chef so I'm sure our viewers will looove to see him in action."

"And why do I get the place which is the furthest away from my boyfriend?" Nya enquired.

"Because you are supposed to interact with your baking partner, without any distractions." Was the, undeniably logical, answer.

Nya pulled her brother aside. "Kai, you are gonna be behind Jay. Will you keep an eye on him for me?" She whispered. "I don't like her."

"Sure, will do sis. Don't worry." He replied, giving his sister a reassuring smile.

The red ninja had noticed that their youngest teammate hadn't said anything during the whole discussion, but he looked much happier – and less pale – than before. It must be a huge relief for the Green Ninja to not be the centre of attention for once. And his earlier encounter with Ashley had certainly also contributed to Lloyd's improved mood.

Looking at said girl, Kai's thoughts wandered off to another redhead. He hadn't heard from Skylor in a while. But a few weeks back, Nya and Jay had told their friends about some very confusing and to some extent illogical events that in the end had not even taken place (and Kai was quite happy that he didn't remember the whole ordeal). However, not only had they mentioned that Skylor had been one of the 'ninja replacements' supporting Jay and the team in stopping a wedding involving Kai's own sister, according to the Master of Lightning she had also hit on Kai during their brief encounter. Maybe he should call her – and maybe he should do it now before the restaurant owner would get to see his kitchen skills on the telly…

"Attention, everyone! We'll be back on in 30 seconds!" Nellie called, before Kai could put his plan into action. "Ninja, can you please go to your positions, while the others come over to me."

"Good luck everyone." Cole told his teammates, just as he would do before one of their regular missions. "And don't forget, a ninja never quits!"


Before they separated to take their places, the blue ninja gave his girlfriend a quick kiss on the lips, seeking cover behind the large communal fridge to make sure they were not caught by the cameras this time. Jay's last appearance on screen had been his kiss with Nya on the hospital roof that, thanks to Dareth, had been broadcasted all over Ninjago. This had resulted in the two of them being constantly chased by paparazzi and had also contributed to their decision to fire their manager. Since then, the two of them had refused to do any interviews or any other public appearances. Until now.

Jay walked over to the blue baking station in the front row, nervously fiddling with the straps of his apron.

Why in Ninjago did Nellie have to mention his TV experience?

It was not like he had much enjoyed his job as TV presenter and, as he had told Nya earlier, he didn't like to remember the 'dark ages' following Zane's sacrifice in New Ninjago City in general. Actually, none of them did.

But… as Sensei always tells us, the past is the past and we've managed to leave this sad time behind us. He told himself. So, let's be positive and focus on the present.

And the present was not only looking much better for him, right now it was also looking blue. Jay's kitchen area was of exactly the same shade as Jay's first 'real' ninja gi (not counting their black training outfits), even complemented with silver drawer and cabinet handles.

Jay smiled. The colour blue always had a comforting and calming effect on him, just like his small bedroom in his parents' trailer on their junkyard. And, of course, it also played a major role in his relationship with Nya.

Jay was still reliving their first encounter and 'conversation' in his memory, when he suddenly realised that Nellie had just started to introduce the baking teams and all eyes as well as multiple cameras were on him.

"Our first team, in the blue kitchen right here at the front, are Jay, Ninjago's most lovable ninja, and Tori Smith, our finalist from Jamanakai Village."

Before the show, the Ninja had only been very briefly introduced to their 'teammates', but they had not been able to interact with each other at all, so Jay interestedly watched the young girl with long dirty blond hair walking towards him, trying to find out more about her character or interests based on her appearance. She was wearing a purple tank-top, blue jeans and purple sneakers and had decorated the standard pink apron with white polkadots and a black trim with white polkadots.

Her name's Tori and she seems to like polkadots and the colour purple. He thought, falling back into the role of TV host. Take a note - ugh, I am starting to sound like my dad…

When they shook hands, Jay could see the nervousness in her hazel/green eyes.

"Hi, I'm Jay. Nice to meet you." He gave her the same encouraging smile that had always helped to calm down the nervous contestants of the Most Ultimate Extreme Ninja Challenge Ever.

She carefully smiled back, revealing a small scar on the left side of her upper lip. "My name's Tori and I am so excited to meet you. I'm a huuuge fan of yours."

Jay grinned. "Thanks, you sure you're not confusing me with Kai?"

Tori laughed and vigorously nodded her head. "Absolutely." She blushed. "Oops, I hope he didn't hear me."

Luckily, everyone's attention was currently focused on Zane and his baking partner, meaning this was a good opportunity to quickly get to know each other off-camera.

Jay tried to think of a good way to re-start their conversation. Maybe he should have read more in Cliff Gordon's book. Or maybe not, considering the content and helpfulness of those parts that he had read. And he really didn't want to use the standard game show host and candidate conversation. After all, he would have to work with her and not send her to her doom on the Gauntlet of Humility.

Jay realised that this could be a good starting point for their conversation. The cake they were supposed to make together, not the Ninja Challenge, of course. Tori had to know a bit about baking, so this topic would most likely help her calm down – both of them, actually. And, as seen with his teammates, knowing the other person's food preferences could help understand their character in general.

"So, why don't we get started with our project?" The inventor asked. "It it's okay with you, we can work and talk at the same time."

"Great, I like to talk while baking." She replied.

"Me too." Jay agreed. Haven't actually tried it but I like to talk while doing anything…

"Is there any cake that you particularly enjoy baking?" Tori enquired.

"My mum has taught me some baking and I sometimes help Zane baking, but I have no favourite cake to make. But I like to eat anything with chocolate. Especially those that are decorated with lots of sweets… mmmh. What kind of cake did you make for the auditions?"

"I made an Orange Cake, with cream frosting and orange chocolate ganache. My mum always makes this one for Birthdays and family occasions."

"Orange chocolate sounds great." Jay agreed. "Alright, let's get bakin'."


While the main colour of Zane's kitchen was pure white, all handles were of a shiny silvery metal. 'Genuine Titanium.' Pixal had confirmed. 'At least they have done proper research and are making the effort.'

The nindroid watched with interest as the dirty-blonde girl joined his blue-clad brother, observing their interaction. As their host had stated correctly, Jay was the most experienced in the show business. While Zane was certain that he was not feeling that way, Jay appeared to be very confident and comfortable in front of the camera.

Introduce yourself. Shake hands. Smile.

Zane would have liked to continue watching Jay and his partner off-camera, but he knew that he would not get that opportunity, his team being up next.

At the same time, PIXAL was analysing the contents of the drawers and cupboards. Each kitchen had high quality baking equipment – probably a 'gift' from the manufacturer (and showing their logo and name in large letters on every item) – and standard ingredients like eggs, butter, flour, sugar, soda and baking powder. Other items, including fresh fruit, were available in the shared pantry and a large communal fridge.

"Our second finalist is one of our heroes in the Ninjago Army. Please welcome ArcticHazard, who will join Zane in the white team. Or should I rather call them Team Titanium."

Team Titanium. I like that. Zane thought. It sounds… cool.

He took in his teammate's appearance. Surprisingly, the boy had very messy hair, not the typical military style haircut. Under his pink apron, he was wearing simple jeans and a plain white shirt.

Despite being the Titanium Ninja now, Zane still had a fondness for the purity and innocence of the colour white. After all, it was the colour of the snow-covered Birchwood Forest, his first home. And very importantly, white also made everything appear clean. Their white baking station definitely was lot cleaner than any of the kitchens he had shared with his brothers and Nya. At least they finally had a dishwasher in the spacious kitchen of their new home, the Gordon Estate…

Just as he had seen Jay do, Zane gave his baking partner a bright friendly smile and offered his hand. "Good morning. My name is Zane and I will be your baking partner for this competition."

With a stoic face, the boy accepted his hand and gave him a very firm, even for the nindroid, handshake. "Good morning Zane. It is my pleasure to meet you. My name is Arctic Hazard, but you may call me Arctic."

"The pleasure is all mine, Arctic."

When Nellie started to announce the next paring, Zane expected the other to continue their conversation, but there was no reply.

The nindroid was slightly confused by the silence. When he was with in his brothers' company, it was never quiet, someone would always talk. Sometimes, they would try, just to annoy the Blue Ninja who could not deal with something like awkward silence and would sooner or later – usually sooner – break it with one of his more or less funny jokes. Maybe he could use a joke in this situation. But it appeared inappropriate to him to open on of his panels and reveal his insides in front of his brand new acquaintance, to switch on his humour switch. He therefore went through his database of Jay's most frequently used puns, to find one fitting for this situation.

"Considering your name and my element, one could even say it is ice to meet you."

That was a very bad one, even for Jay's standards, and Zane knew that as soon as he the words left his audio output device. But to his surprise, Arctic chuckled quietly and gave him a weak smile. "Very good. I need to remember this one." He said, more to himself than to Zane. But it was a start.

"The two of you have already used 2.25 minutes of your valuable competition time to introduce yourselves and break the ice, so I believe the three of us should now focus on preparing the cake." PIXAL informed them.

"Please meet PIXAL who, as always, is right." Zane stated. "Do you have a preferred cake?"

"I have been informed that you are an expert chef and excellent baker. I would like to use this opportunity to learn from you, if this suggestion is agreeable to you." Arctic replied politely.

"My database contains 2632 different cake recipes, but I use only 5 of them on a regular basis. I would very much like to take the opportunity and make one of the other 2627 cakes, preferably one without chocolate." Zane explained. "PIXAL has analysed the available ingredients and compared them to the 1979 chocolate-free recipes in my database. She suggests that we make either a Mango Cake or Vanilla Cheesecake."

Arctic took a moment to think about the options. "I agree with Mango Cake. The judges will have to taste six rich cakes and gateaus today, so I think some fresh fruit will be beneficial for their health."


The pale, skinny boy hadn't said a single word since their formal introduction. He was simply glaring at Kai with his dark blue eyes – well, at least with his left dark blue eye as the other one was covered by a side swept bang with a blue highlight.

Kai sighed. This was not fair. He could deal with fangirls. Probably way better than Lloyd, Jay or Cole. Especially Jay. And Zane's teammate was at least polite, even if he was a bit cold. But no, Kai had been paired up with Crystal Stone. And from the moment they had been introduced to each other, the black-haired boy had made it crystal clear that he didn't have a very high opinion of the red ninja (to put it nicely).

"We are making a chocolate chip cheesecake." He finally said, without even asking if Kai was okay with it. Not that he minded the choice, but it still would have been nice to be asked for his opinion. Without waiting for a reply from his teammate, Crystal removed his apron and took off his bright red hoodie.

"Nice jumper." Kai commented. "I have a similar one."

"I am not surprised. Your taste in fashion appears to be very limited." Crystal replied coldly, refitting his pink apron over his bright orange shirt.

"You're the one to talk…" Kai mumbled. "At least my colours match."

"It is not too difficult to match only one colour with itself. But we are not here to chat, we are here to bake."

"Sure, what can I do?"

"I really don't know what you can actually do. Are you able to handle a sharp knife?"

"Of course I am. I can even handle the mighty Sword of Fire." And, by the way, I am a freakin' blacksmith.

"If you want to make yourself useful, get some chocolate from the pantry and chop it. Use the high quality 72% chocolate, not the kiddies' stuff like cheap milk chocolate or weird flavours, that you probably eat."

Cole and I like dark chocolate. Lloyd prefers milk chocolate and Jay is the one who eats chocolate with mint or orange flavour.

But for once, Kai didn't feel like arguing. He walked over to the pantry and took several bars of the best dark chocolate available, a few more than required for the cake.

This was going to be a long day. He would definitely need some of it for himself.


Cole adjusted his waterproof apron made out of black plastic for the umpteenth time. I don't look like a baker or even a ninja with this… thing, more like a butcher or an undertaker.

"Next up in the black team are everyone's favourite ghost Cole and Lia, the winner of our audition in Stiix." The host announced and the Master of Earth was soon joined by a young yet tall girl with curly brown hair.

"Hi Lia. Lovely to meet you." Cole gave her a short and very gentle hug, avoiding his earth-crushing handshake.

"Hi Cole. It's great to meet you." Lia gave him a bright smile, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. "And I can't wait to get started, I looove baking."

"I really like baking, too. And cooking as well." Cole told her. "Unfortunately, it's my teammates who don't like me to do it."

"Really?" She sounded surprised. "Why that?"

"My creations are not exactly to their taste."

"Uhm, what kind of creations are you talking about? Are you using any special ingredients? Like... sour milk or rotten eggs or so?" She sounded slightly worried.

"No, it's not like that. They just don't agree with my creative combinations of ingredients and flavours, like Peach Wellington or my famous tuna and gooseberry panini."

Lia looked at him slack-jawed. "Those are a very… unique and... interesting combinations. But… uhm, maybe we could stick to a more traditional recipe for this competition?"

"What kind of traditional recipe were you thinking about?" Ugh, 'traditional' cooking always sounds a bit boring to me. Unless Zane makes it, of course.

"My favourite cake is carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting. Would you be okay with this?" Okay, that's not boring at all.

"I love carrot cake, especially the frosting." Cole replied.

"Me too. If you want, we can make a bit more."

Cole grinned. "Definitely."

And I already have an idea on how to improve it.


The moment Lloyd had been dreading all morning had finally arrived. It was his turn now to meet his baking partner on camera.

"And in the green team, we have Ashleena Springwood from Ninjago City, together with Ninjago's very own Green Ninja and Ultimate Spinjitzu Master."

Lloyd waited for Nellie to continue her announcement. But it didn't happen.

He frowned. Hey, I have a name, you know? I am not just the Green Ninja and apparently Ninjago's property, I am also myself. I am Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon.

Slightly irritated, he watched Ashley as she confidently walked over to join him in the green and golden kitchen. She ignored Lloyd's outstretched hand and embraced him to give him a short kiss on his left cheek instead. And although he was pretty sure she was just doing it to annoy all the Lloyd-fangirls watching the program, he still couldn't help but enjoy it a little bit.

"Hey Mr Ninjago's very own Green Ninja and Ultimate Spinjitzu Master. I thought you were famous, how come she doesn't even know your name?" She whispered in his ear. So at least I wasn't the only one who noticed…

Lloyd felt himself blushing. "H-Hi Ashley. I-It's nice to meet you."

"It's great to finally meet you too, Lloyd." She replied with a wink, putting an emphasis on his name. "I am very excited to have the opportunity of working with the amazing Green Ninja." The last part was obviously meant for the audience as well as to please their host. And it seemed to do the job, for the attention soon moved on to the final pairing.

Lloyd took a deep breath and sighed in relief.

"You're alright?' Ashley asked with a genuinely concerned look, putting her right hand on his left shoulder.

"I-I am fine, thanks." He replied. "I-I really hope you were saying the last bit just for the camera, otherwise you're going to be very disappointed."

She raised an eyebrow. "How come?"

"I'm not very good at… this." Lloyd had no idea why he actually revealed his secrets to a complete stranger. But it felt good. "To be honest I have no idea what I am actually doing here." He continued. "I'm sure that I'm going to mess up and then everyone will laugh at me." And that's probably the reason why they've invited me anyway, after the Black Forest Incident at the book launch…

But Ashley didn't laugh. "I don't think anyone would actually want to make fun of you. People admire you. And no one can expect the grand saviour of Ninjago to be a master baker." She told him. "You have a lot of other skills. And nobody can be good at everything." The redhead then smirked. "Well, except for me of course. And that means that I am also an excellent teacher. So, stop whining and let's get to work, Mr Garmadon."

Lloyd smiled. "And what would be my first lesson, Ms Springwood?"

"To relax and enjoy the competition, regardless of the outcome."


Having been placed in the last team and at the very back of the studio, Nya watched patiently as her boyfriend and their brothers were joined by their baking teammates. Finally, there was only one young girl with freckles and short blonde hair left sitting on the pink sofa.

Nya was very happy to have a female baking partner today. First, it meant that she wouldn't have to deal with a jealous boyfriend and an overprotective brother, and secondly, she was actually looking forward to some 'girl time'.

She would never admit it openly, for it was already tough enough for the girl ninja to be taken seriously, but Nya sometimes missed spending time with her old friends back home.

Strangely enough, her closest girl-friend recently had been Dogshanks. Although they had started out as enemies, they had both enjoyed their regular 'playdates' and had become quite good friends. Nya was still wondering how she and the other Skypirates were doing now. She sincerely hoped that it was true what Flintlocke had told about them all living fairly good lives in their different realms. If only Sensei Wu would let her and Jay visit them 'undercover', just to make sure they really were doing fine…

"And last but not least, we have Dawn McCarthney from Domu and Nya Smith, the Water Ninja from Ignacia." Nellie told the audience, bringing Nya's attention back to her current 'playdate'.

After meeting a rather hostile Nellie earlier, Nya had kind of expected their host to have teamed her up with one of those crazy Ninja fangirls (or, even worse, a Jay, Cole or Jole fangirl) who despised the Master of Water, because she got to 'hang out with the real Ninja'. But when she had briefly spoken to Dawn before the show, they had gotten on pretty well, much to the Water Ninja's surprise. Hopefully, they would find some common interests to talk about.

After they had introduced themselves to each other in front of the camera, it was already time for the next commercial break. From the corner of her eyes, Nya saw Kai leaving the studio in a bit of a rush. He's probably just going to the bathroom.

But there was no time to further think or worry about her brother. The other teams had been given a head start on them, so Nya and Dawn decided to immediately get started on their cake and have a chat while working together.

"What kind of cake were you thinking of making for the competition?" Nya asked. "You must be an excellent baker if you have made through to the final."

Dawn laughed. "The auditions were a complete joke. Half of the people just brought some biscuits from the supermarket. And Nellie has no clue about baking herself…" She pressed a hand to her mouth. "I probably shouldn't have said that." She worriedly looked around to find out if this statement had been noticed or, worse, recorded. But to their relief, it did not seem to be the case.

Nya smiled at her. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." And I don't like Nellie anyway.

"But between the two of us, you must still be the better baker. So, any suggestions?"

"What about chocolate fudge cake?"

"Sounds good to me."

That's one of the cakes Zane has to make for us quite regularly. Let's see if two girls can beat a nindroid.


I have already decided on a cake for Lloyd and Ashley, it just didn't fit in this chapter, so you'll have to wait for the next one. And don't worry, the teams that only had a short paragraph here will get more attention in the next chapter!

But I probably won't be able to get that done until after Easter. I have given up chocolate for Lent (and am still suffering from withdrawal), so some parts of this chapter were already hard enough to write ;).