"Cole, would you come here a moment?" Wu's voice echoed from the back of the Bounty and into the kitchen, somehow cutting effortlessly through the din of all six ninja trying to make food at the same time.
"Sensei, no!" Kai yelled, batting out a stray flame on Zane's gi and vaulting over the table. Jay gave a yelp, nearly dropping his bag of flour as he reached to steady the hundred layer cake that had been perched half over the edge for some freaking reason. A large spray of flour hit Zane, but over his protests of "I don't need to be more white, thank you!" and Pixal's frantic rambling about gears and motor oil Kai yelped, "We need Cole to win the competition! We can't cook without him!"
Cole, in fact, seemed to be the only calm one. He was whistling that one karaoke song again, stirring the miso soup Kai had asked him to watch. "Sir, you literally raised Nya on your own. You know how to cook."
"Not under pressure!"
Cole dodged a flying egg.
Jay's voice broke over the din. "Kai, baby—"
Now Cole broke his concentration, turning away from the little (relatively) quiet corner he was tucked into so he could watch Kai practically tear out his oh so precious hair screaming "WE ARE NOT. DOING THIS. AGAIN. JAY."
Nya snorted, flicking water at her brother as she washed some rice. "He's all yours, hothead."
"I DON'T WANT HIM!"
"Cole!" Wu called again, and Zane sighed. "You'd better go, Cole. Yes, it will give us an unfair advantage—"
"Not like you need it!" Kai yelped, ducking away from Jay's reaching, floured hands. "Didn't you, like, work in a restaurant?"
"Correct." Zane's arms were a whirring mess of gears and machinery, whisks and beaters and all sorts of things poking out of every bare slot on his arm. If anyone had managed to forget he was a nindroid, there was no doubt now. "You can see why."
"Coming, Sensei!" Cole bellowed. He turned to PIXAL, clasping his hands together. "Please pause the timer until I get back."
"What?"
"PLEASE—"
"I apologize, Cole, but the other ninja's… antics… seem to be interfering with my audio processors! Could you—"
Cole mimed out what he wanted, which took long enough on its own and THEN sparked a long argument over whether or not it was fair to stop the clock which THEN culminated in Zane very calmly stating that he would happily freeze the entire kitchen solid while they waited if that would let them just reach an agreement. Cole thought it worthy to note that his ungodly-fast metal arms did not so much as slow while he said that.
Little cheating robot.
"COLE!" Master Wu yelled, and everyone jumped about five feet in the air. Jay actually hit the ceiling, it was great— or would've been if Cole wasn't having a freaking heart attack—
"COME. QUICKLY."
"CominrighnowMaster!" Cole squeaked out, slamming into at least two things on his panicked way out. He vaguely heard Kai's snicker behind him, and Jay cackling "ooohhhh, he's dead."
Jay's right. I'm dead. What was I thinking not obeying Master Wu the first time around? I should've—
He screeched around the corner, hilariously unaware that his thoughts had become voiced words somewhere along his short journey. That would explain, maybe, why he was so out of breath. "Master! Sensei! Sensei… Wu!" He wheezed out, leaning against the doorway of the bathroom. "Are you…"
Wait. The bathroom?
"…okay?" He finished. Why…?
Sensei, of course, was the picture of serenity. He leaned against his staff— why? Did he have his staff in the bathroom? Cole would never understand Sensei Wu's ways.
(He told himself that so he could stop wondering. It had been keeping him up at night.)
"I needed to show you something." Sensei Wu answered calmly, gesturing inward. Cole took a few hesitant steps in, the tile cool against his bare feet. Was he in trouble or not?
"If you're asking who stole the last of the shampoo, that was totally J—"
"That was rude, but no, that is not what I have called you in here for." Sensei Wu returned. There was a strange tightness in his voice. "Look here."
His staff tapped against the open toilet bowl. Cole swallowed, but obediently looked down.
"…Master?"
"Yes?"
"Why… do I need to see…?"
This was not normal. Not in a million years. Kai would proudly show off his biggest turds for sure— at three in the morning, no less. Nya too. That was… you know what, Cole had stopped trying to rationalize the Smith sibling rivalries a long time ago. And of course that meant Lloyd would burst into the kitchen every once in a while a couple hours after Cole's three day soup, eyes shining with a malevolent glint and a big grin.
But never Master Wu.
This was. Very. Very weird.
Cole was suddenly made very aware that he had zoned out staring at his Sensei's poop and started, clearing his throat. "Master?"
Was that a hint of humor in Sensei Wu's eyes? Lloyd's grandpa, Cole sure hoped so. Because otherwise he was pretty sure he'd gone mad.
"Is this some sort of really weird lesson?" Cole burst out. "I'm grasping for straws here, Master, I gotta admit—"
"Is that what you think this is, Cole?" Wu stroked his beard. The little glimmer in his eye was gone.
Cole swallowed, glancing down and back at Wu. "I—uh— well, I mean—"
Wu's staff came up and down in a flash, neatly pushing the button to flush the toilet. Of course he even poops in the most extra way possible, Cole thought before he could stop himself.
"Look into the water, Cole."
He decidedly did not want to, but he did anyway.
"What do you see?"
Cole made a long, pained, drawn out noise.
The flushing finished.
"It—"
Oh, thank the ancients, there was that little hitch in Master Wu's voice, the little break that signaled he was trying his best to hide back a full blown belly laugh. A short chuckle escaped him.
"It's us, Cole!"
…
"OHMYFIRSTSPINJITZUMASTERMASTERWUYOUSCAREDMESOFREAKINGBAD—"
"What? Impressed, are we?" Master Wu asked, and there was no way to hide his laughter now. Cole, from relief and horror and the pure hilarity of the situation, slid down the wall— only there was no wall there, as he'd turned, and he ended up flinging himself backwards into empty space and landing half outside the bathroom with a resounding bang that shook the walls of the Bounty.
Everything stopped, except for the laughter from the two absolute knuckleheads.
Then, a chorus of flurried voices, and the other five were standing in the hallway over Cole—
"Master Wu, what happened?!" Lloyd yelped. "Are you guys okay?"
"Oh, nothing happened." Master Wu finished washing his hands and grabbed his towel from behind the door. "Just—" He snorted. "Taking a little whirlpool trip down memory lane, weren't we, dear Cole?"
Neither of them could contain their laughter at that, Cole's booming laugh echoing almost louder than his back smacking the ground had. "Master—Wu—said it's us— guys, this dude—OHMYGREATFIRSTIHAVETOCALLPRINCESSVANIA—"
The great Master of Earth heaved himself to his feet, still laughing so hard he was severely out of breath, and hauled himself into the next room over, slamming the door so hard it almost fell off its hinges for the fifth time that week.
Master Wu wiped tears from his eyes. "Very well, ninja. No questions."
Lloyd smacked his mouth shut. Beside him, there was an audible click from Jay, and Kai lowered his hand. Zane (arms still suspiciously laid bare) made a disgruntled whirring sound. Meanwhile, the picture of serenity, Wu paced back toward his study.
He stopped at the entry way and turned back. "Oh, ninja?"
"Yes master?" Came the chorus. No one wanted to miss anything else.
"I would start again without Cole. He might be a while."
No idea what this was, came at me with the force of the entire Roto-Jet and co. at three in the morning and I had to write it down quietly enough to not wake up my dad :/
The ghost Cole thing is coming, I swear, I've started it but this was begging to be posted so I could burn your eyeballs with it.
Also gremlin Wu is my jam :) LOVE YOU GUYS YOU ARE ALL HOT AND AMAZING AND YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD I LOVE YOU GOD BLESS- GRACE