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Cole's cooking was insufferable.
The team didn't shy away from telling him, consulting him with 'constructive criticism' at any given moment.. though they all knew it was just an excuse to ridicule the boy.
Despite the inedible meal, dinner time on the bounty was cherished by all members. Given the fact that a lot of the time the bounty was either uninhabitable or simply destroyed, it started to become a rare occasion.
It would consist of food fights, chatting, and altogether catching up with one other's recent experiences - yet there wasn't much the team didn't know about each other at this point.
“What do you mean, you haven't contacted her in four years?!” Nya exclaimed, leaning forward from her seat to create direct eye contact with Kai.
Kai cringed, his lips tightening as he looked awkwardly down at his plate. “I- you know, we haven't exactly been very free recently!”
Kai hated this topic. Sure, Skylor was a nice girl, for she was the only girl Kai had fallen for that brutally in a while, but the brunette wasn't used to this.
The boy's extreme egotistical lifestyle was fed partially by the fact that girls were always after him. In the past, he'd had no trouble getting a girlfriend due to how he had such a wide selection.. but Skylor was different.
Skylor stood her own ground. Instead of taking the shot with Kai herself, she was waiting for Kai to come to her.
Kai didn't realise that.
..and this is what led to them having no social interaction in almost half a decade - the waiting game.
“Kai, just reach out to her! I'm sure she'll understand.” Cole suggested, digging into his own meal.
“Yeah, dude! You could get free noodles for life.” Jay chimed, resulting in a jab in the ribs by his yang. He let out a short cry of pain.
A chuckle came from the end of the table, where The Green Ninja sat. The boy hadn't touched his food, unbeknownst to the team who were all reluctantly devouring it.
It wasn't that he wasn't hungry - he was famished if anything! - but the conversation topic did stifle his appetite. Lloyd had no good experiences with girlfriends. It downed the boy that Kai was so reluctant to talk to Skylor, considering she was a good person. The only girl Lloyd had fallen for ended up trying (and succeeding) to resurrect his father! A major red flag if he had a say in it.
“You do know that we get free noodles anyways, Jay.” The teen responded. Jay turned to face Lloyd, this eyebrows raised in intrigue.
“You're kidding.”
Laughs diffused around the room, everyone mildly shocked at Jay's revelation.
“Jay.” Zane gawked, “Have you ever seen us pay at her restaurant?”
Jay gasped, covering his mouth in realisation. Lloyd swore he could see his cheeks flush in embarrassment.
Cole chuckled. “You're really that arrogant, Zap-trap.” Nya shot a glare at Cole, furrowing her eyebrows in a mix of pity and annoyance.
“Hey, leave him alone! He's just not as.. attentive as the rest of us..” She defended, placing an arm over Jay's shoulder.
“He's a ninja!” Kai declared. “How isn't he attentive?!”
“I didn't even know Skylor could do that! Isn't that illegal?” The brunette exclaimed, playing with the sleeves of his blue gi.
“Nah, she's like the business leader.. president of the business? I don't know what it's called.” Said Cole. His plate was almost finished, leaving him to smirk at the other ninja for being slow.
“Owner.” Confirmed Zane.
Jay paused for a moment in clear thought, before abruptly shouting, “President Business!”
President Business.
Lloyd dropped his fork, causing it to clatter to the ground with a unnaturally loud clash. A wave of memory drowned out every other thought, as an event that he had almost forgotten about suddenly came back into his mind.
In the rush, Lloyd didn't even realise he had closed his eyes, yet once he opened them he came face to face with the entire team, all sat silently at the table staring at the youngest member.
“Dude, are you good?” Jay muttered, receiving a wary glare from Zane. Lloyd was aware he'd caused a scene, but that name was one he never thought he'd hear again, let alone from Jay!
Lloyd steadied himself, planting his palms on the table in front of him - food still untouched. “How do you know that name.”
It wasn't a question, but instead a demand. The boy's voice was menacing, almost threatening in a way. The ninja certainly picked up on that, for they all shared worried looks.
Jay took the responsibility. “It was a play on words.” He gulped, “Why, who is he?”
“I could not find any matching records for the name 'President Business'.. Lloyd, care to inform us of him?” Zane announced.
Lloyd sighed. He'd kept this even a secret from the ninja for years, because how could he even explain it? Master building was something he hadn't attempted in a long time - he wasn't even sure if he still held the skill anymore.
“You wont believe me.” He stated, bluntly.
Kai smirked, tilting his head slightly. “Lloyd, we are ninja who live on a flying ship. Nothing is unbelievable anymore.”
Lloyd fiddled with the spoon on his table, he originally went to grab the fork, but it's location was now unknown to him. Why even was there a spoon? Cole's meal was inedible using a spoon - it was inedible in general actually…
…Stay on topic. He condemned himself.
“Ugh, how do I even start this!” The blonde threw his hands in the air, before sliding them down his face in distress. The team stared in interest, waiting for his story to begin. There was no escape now.
“There's a realm, near Middle Zealand. It rests in a massive cloud and is.. kind of unnerving honestly.” Lloyd grimaced, thinking back to the strange place.
“What, like Heaven?” Cole questioned. Lloyd furrowed his eyebrows.
“Heav- no! Not heaven!” The blonde cried. “Anyways, it was ruled by this freaky cat-unicorn thing. I think she was called UniKitty - I spoke to her like once.”
Lloyd shuddered in preparation. This wont be fun. “It was called Cloud Cuckoo Land.”
“...”
A small moment of silence occurred, before every member, sans Lloyd, broke into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“Lloyd, you're- hah!- you're on one, buddy!” Kai choked, struggling to fit his words through his laughter.
“Waaah! Ahaha! Cloud c- haha!” A wheezing jay slammed his fists on the table, shaking his head around like a madman. “You're kiddi- haha! Cuckoo?!”
“Guys!” Lloyd shouted. To this, the team paused their laughter, but Jay still couldn't help but release a few sniggers. “I told you, you wont believe me. Let's just end the story her-..”
“No!” Nya cried. “We're sorry Lloyd, we do believe you.”
“Yes, please continue Lloyd.” Zane added.
The blonde rolled his eyes.
“Fine.” Lloyd scoffed, before doing just that. “This place had no rules, no law, it would've literally been Jay's dream.” Jay let out a chuckle, before going silent once more.
“So.. why were you there?” Nya queried. The raven was still clearly trying to calm down Jay, who hadn't recovered from the word Cuckoo.
“Im a Master builder.”
“A what?”
“Huh?”
“Is that connected to the First Spinjitzu Master?”
“What is that?”
Lloyd sat back in his chair, allowing his teammates to release their short rants and questions. Once silence soon reoccurred, he continued.
“A Master Builder is someone who can build anything without instructions.” Lloyd stated calmly.
Nya grunted, rubbing her feet together under the table. “So why haven't you used that? That could have been so useful in battle, Lloyd!”
The blonde rolled his eyes, almost in disappointment. He assumed at least Nya, if anyone, would know something about Master Building, but clearly not.
”It only works in certain realms! Like- I don't know; Bricksburg, or Middle Zealand.” He muttered. “I never need to go there so I don't really use Master Building much.”
“Okay, but this doesn't explain why you got all pissy at the name 'President Business'” Jay claimed, resulting in another jab in the ribs.
“I- I didn't get pissy! It was just surprising, that’s all.”
Jay leaned towards Cole, and whispered, “He definitely got pissy.”
“Anyways!” Lloyd coughed, clearing his throat to change the topic. “There was a meeting, all the Master builders were there, so people like Superman, Panda Guy, Cleopatra, Vitruvius.. but he died I think..”
“I'm sorry..” Kai's eyes widened. “Did you say Superman?”
“Batman was there too, bud. And Gandalf!” Kai went limp in his chair, completely defeated by the fact that Lloyd had kept this from them for so long. “But this orange guy, he sounded like Chris Pratt but looked like a construction worker, he was The Special.”
Lloyd waited for questions, but was instead faced with silence. For the first time all evening, the team seemed actually intrigued, waiting for him to answer what each of them were thinking.
“I'm gonna be honest, I don't really know what The Special was supposed to do. I think a prophecy stated that they would be the realm's saviour or something - sounds kind of familiar now that I think about it.” The boy pondered that idea, but then swiftly moved on.
“He gave this speech about why he's terrible, and then before I knew it, all these guys were attacking the realm! They were led by President Business - he was like.. the bad guy, or something. It was all a bit of a blur after that actually..”
Cole squinted his eyes. “What did you do? Did you fight?”
“Well, Superman was there! He got taken down in a few minutes. If Superman couldn't do it, there was no way that I could've!” Lloyd gripped the front of his gi, feeling slightly embarrassed that he didn't have any heroic moments to tell.
“We all got taken to this big building, I think it was President Business' house or office. And we were stuck their for ages while The Special and Batman and some other people were off saving the day- and then they came back and The Special jumped out the building to stop this bomb that was gonna go off and I- it was confusing.” The blonde stared to his plate. The food had definitely gone cold by now. “I literally had no idea what was going on, but at one point I thought I was gonna blow up.”
“Dude, why didn't you tell anyone about this?” Kai muttered, softly.
“Because I didn't see enough of what happened to make sense of it! The minute we got set free I came back home; let Superman deal with it.”
Lloyd looked back to the ground, and for the first time since he dropped it, saw the fork. He reached down to grab it, resting it on the table, still unused but likely dirty from being on the ground for so long.
Nya smiled, reaching her hand out to where Lloyd sat. "Maybe you could teach us how to Master Build some day.”
The team chuckled, and this time Lloyd was included. "Yeah," he smiled, "Maybe I will."