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Now that his wings have grown in and he's completely settled with their weight as well as his tail’s, Lloyd is training again. He has to, otherwise he’ll never get good at fighting with them… something that was made abundantly clear when he tried sparing with Kai a little after he’d been able to fly for the first- and so far, only- time.
Normally, he has the advantage over Kai in hand to hand combat, even if it's not by much, but this time the Fire Ninja had easily beat him. It's because Lloyd had continuously tripped over his tail or was thrown off balance because of his huge wings. Kai had easily taken advantage of his dis advantages and knocked him onto the ground. When Lloyd tried again, Kai just grabbed his tail and yanked him backwards.
Which, by the way- having your tail yanked is not a pleasant feeling. As soon as Kai had tugged on it, a horrible jolt of pain ran up the length of Lloyd’s spine as well as throughout his lower body. He'd yelped, fallen onto the ground, and then leapt blindly at Kai, snapping at him with his sharpened teeth.
“Woah!” Kai shouted, pushing at Lloyd’s face with both of his hands. “Chill out, little bro!”
Lloyd stopped with embarrassment, drawing away to lean back on the base of his tail. Sure, he could do that but not stand the feeling of it being pulled. Guess it's sensitive in that manner.
“Sorry about that,” Lloyd mumbled, looking at the ground. He can feel his cheeks heating up, “I don't know what happened.”
“It's fine,” Kai said dismissively. “We’ll just have to work on your whole… situation.”
“You mean his tail!” Jay called from the otherside of the courtyard randomly, his hands cupping over his mouth so his voice would carry. Lloyd looked over at him with a raised eyebrow, just in time to watch Cole kick Jay over, causing the Lightning Ninja to let out a loud, “OOF!”
After that, Lloyd began to train on his own again. He feels almost like he had as a child when he first started working to become a ninja, terribly unbalanced and wobbly on his feet. His tail occasionally helped him keep his balance, but most of the time, his wings made it too difficult to punch and throw kicks, flapping to one side or the other.
He grits his fangs in frustration as he nearly falls over for the hundredth time that day, completely missing the training dummy he's not hit once. He groans in frustration and instead rakes his talons down the front of it, splintering the wood in multiple directions. The tip of his tail twitches with his annoyance, and his wings unconsciously fold around him like a robe once more.
And he’d just started to think he liked the wings sprouting from his back… now all he wants to do is rip them off. Well.. that might be too bad of an idea…
But before he can do anything too stupid he hears a pair of footsteps approaching from behind. He's taken notice that his senses had been raised significantly since his dragon side had sprouted its wings- oh that's a bad pun.
He turns to find Zane approaching him, his hands clasped behind his back. Lloyd watches him come to stand in front of him, looking the Green Ninja up and down.
“Having trouble?” Zane asks him curiously. Lloyd lets out a sigh, his shoulders- and as a result, his wings- droop uselessly.
“That obvious?” he says tiredly. “I can't figure out how to fight properly with these stupid things.” He throws his arms outwards on either side of him for emphasis, and Zane frowns lightly.
“Perhaps I could help?” he suggests.
Lloyd shrugs, “Don't see why not.”
Zane steps around Lloyd, and then reaches a hand out, gesturing to the wing closest to him. “May I?” he asks. Lloyd is glad Zane asks permission to touch them first. Most of the others forget to- especially Jay. Jay absolutely adores them and sometimes forgets that they're sensitive for Lloyd right now. He’ll grab them and manhandle them until they snap out and whack him in the face instinctively, sending him flying to the side.
“Go ahead,” Lloyd says.
With permission granted, Zane lightly grabs the edge of Lloyd’s wing. It's an odd feeling, and the coldness of the nindroid’s hand sends a shiver through the thin appendage, but Lloyd remains still. He slowly stretches it out, revealing the golden skin on the inside. Light reflects from its smooth, shiny surface, blindingly bright.
“I can see why this unsteadies you,” Zane says thoughtfully, and then guides the wing to its folded position at Lloyd’s back. He does the same thing with the other wing. “They are quite heavy, and a tad cumbersome.”
“A tad? More like overly,” Lloyd says, the tips of his tail twitching.
“Perhaps we should work on your balance, before you go straight into fighting again?” Zane says, nodding to the poles and the balancing beam. Lloyd frowns at them, his wings curling tighter against his back instinctively. “That way, you can grow more used to moving rapidly and flexibly with them.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Lloyd says admittedly, even though he'd been opposed to the idea beforehand. He hardly has the feeling he's going to fall off of them. A lot. And he wasn't looking forward to that. So he'd been doing his best to avoid going on them to avoid the embarrassment.
Zane then creates a balance practicing schedule for Lloyd to follow everyday for the next few days, and once those days have passed, they'd see where Lloyd is at and if he’s able to balance any better. Lloyd follows the schedule, and falls quite often, but he keeps getting up, even when some of the others(Kai) pick fun at him.
“That's soooo easy,” Kai says teasingly from the bottom of the poles. Lloyd’s tongue sticks out from between his lips to focus himself on his balancing, tail wrapping around the top of the wood while his wings arch up and out a little either way, helping to keep his balance. “Can't believe you're having difficulty with the easy stuff again, green bean.”
Lloyd does his best to pay the Fire Ninja no mind, and leaps to the next one. He wobbles dangerously, and only stays on because of his wings desperately flapping helps to keep his foot on the top of the pole. The talons that now replace his toes also clamp down on the wood, and he lets out a breath of relief.
Shortly after the nails on his fingers were replaced with talons, his toes soon followed. However, each of the toes were replaced entirely with talons, and his ankle had stretched out into a sixth toe. Because of this, he never wears shoes anymore, else he'd rip them to shreds, and because they're uncomfortable. Shoeless gives him the benefit of prehensile feet, as well.
Throwing a glare in Kai’s direction, he ends up smirking. “Think I'm starting to get it,” Lloyd announces. “Besides, Kai, I don't think you'd be able to do this at all with wings like these.”
Kai huffs from the ground with disbelief, just as Jay lets out a loud burst of laughter. Cole snorts beside the Lightning Ninja, his arm using Jay’s shoulder as an armrest.
“He’s got you there, spikey,” Cole says, smug. Kai sputters, tightly crossing his arms over his chest.
“Oh as if,” Kai mutters, lips pursed. He almost looks as if he's pouting. “I totally could.”
“No way!” Nya says, joining the gaggle of ninja at the edge of the courtyard. She has her ponytail undone, her hair flowing like the water she controls around her neck and shoulders. “You can hardly keep your balance as it is- you're even worse than Jay!”
“Normally I'd rebuke, but I'll take it to insult Kai,” Jay jumps in, giggling quietly.
“I so could!” Kai protests indignantly. “If Lloyd can do it, so can I!”
Lloyd snorts and refocuses as they continue to bicker, leaping from the last pole to the balance beam further below. He throws his wings out to catch himself as he hits it, to keep himself from falling over.
He thinks he's getting the hang of this…
“Heads up!”
Something hard and cold hits Lloyd in his side and he instantly hits the ground beside the beam, his wings flapping uselessly behind him. He groans, tail and legs splayed on top of the beam as Zane’s face suddenly comes into view above him, blue eyes glowing mischievously.
“I noticed that you were getting better with your balance,” he helpfully informs the downed ninja. Lloyd blinks up at him with confusion, and finds a considerably large piece of ice on the ground next to him. That must have been what had hit him. “So I decided to further test it with an obstacle!”
Lloyd sputters as he pushes himself up, his tail whipping through the air, nearly slamming into Zane’s legs. The nendroid easily side steps from its path, a pleasant smile gracing his expression.
“You could have given me a warning!” Lloyd exclaims, his wings flaring outwards with his exasperation. Zane's smile only widens.
“I did,” he says. “Did you not hear me shout ‘heads up’?”
Kai bursts out with laughter nearby, and Lloyd can hear Jay giggling as well. Cole’s face is twisted as he tries to hold his laughter in, and Nya’s lips are pressed together in a tight line. Lloyd’s eyebrow twitches, and the tip of his tail snaps.
“Fine!” Lloyd snaps, his fangs grinding together. “I'll be more prepared for it now!”
He was, in fact, not prepared for it.
It was hard enough already keeping his balance on his own, but with Zane blasting ice at him it was even more difficult. If he wasn't fast enough, then one chunk would hit him in his chest or side and knock him off of wherever he was at the moment.
Lloyd grunts as another piece hits his side, and he lets out a draconic snarl in Zane’s direction. The nendroid merely tilts his head and sends a smirk back in his direction, and sends another ice chunk back at him. Jay and Cole both stiffen at the sound of Lloyd’s snarling.
Another piece flies at him, and Lloyd uses his tail to slap it out of the air. He keeps his balance while doing this by spreading his wings out, digging his talons into the wood once more. Zane pauses to give him a thumbs up, and Lloyd grins, because he finally wasn't smacked by a piece of the ice the nendroid has been throwing at him!
They finish up Lloyd’s training today, and with a tired body, Lloyd slinks off into the monastery living room, laying across the length of the couch. His wings slump lazily downwards on either side of him, his left wing arching over the back of the couch while his right brushes across the floor down the side of it. His tail curls into a pile much like a coiled snake on the floor behind him, the tuft of his fur blanketing some of the cool scales.
The rest of the ninja pile in, and Cole gripes, “Hey! You're taking up the entire couch!”
Lloyd merely grunts, nestling into the armrest in front of him. He reaches up to his head and scratches at it with a pair of his talons; the area just above his temples have been extremely itchy recently. He's a tad worried about what that could mean, because of all of his recent changes, but he's been too tired to mention it to anyone or bother with it himself.
“That's why you've gotta make yourself room!” Nya exclaims, and suddenly she's jumping on his back. He yelps as she burrows under his wing and nestles beside him, sticking her tongue out at him when he turns his golden eyes on her. She grins, “Make yourself room and get comfy!”
“Huh. Good point,” Cole says. And then he's climbing on top of Lloyd, making the draconic human huff with annoyance as he situates himself between the couch and the long, gold and green tail. Kai lets out a laugh and slides in beside Cole, while Jay perches on top of the couch’s arm beside Lloyd’s head. Zane chuckles and stands behind the back of the couch, resting his hands on top of it.
“That is the way,” Zane says warmly, leaning forward on it.
Lloyd murmurs to himself and curls his tail inwards, curling it over the fronts of Kai and Cole, successfully trapping them there. He moves his wing to cover Nya more effectively, and uses his other to arch over Jay’s head. And finally, with his left hand. This way, he's touching each of them.
He begins to purr a few minutes later, happy and content. This is another thing they'd found changed with his body: his ability to purr in happy situations. He does it the most when he's with his large family of his fellow ninja, and occasionally when he's on his own taking a nap in a comfortable position.
Someone begins to thread their fingers through the golden locks of fur that run down the spine of his tail, and he peels over to see that it's none other than Cole petting it and scratching it at the roots. His eyelids droop, because wow that's a nice feeling.
Shortly after, he drifts off to sleep, surrounded by the people of his chosen family.