Chapter Text
“This place is super weird,” Sora commented absently as she leaned back against the kitchen counter. Arin hummed to himself as he put another pie into the oven. She looked around the kitchen and her eyes fell on the photos on the fridge. She walked toward them and pulled one off, to get a closer look at it.
“Well, it’s…definitely not quite what I expected, but…c’mon, Sora, we can train to be ninja!” Arin exclaimed. “And we’re getting trained by the Legendary Green Ninja! Isn’t that exciting?”
“Yeahhh, aside from the stories I’ve heard from you, I still do not know who he is.” Sora snorted. The photo in her hands was old and slightly frayed at the edges. It seemed to be taken in a forest, judging by the trees in the background. There were five teenage-looking kids in the photo, four boys and one girl, eating sandwiches on a picnic blanket and making funny faces at the camera. Underneath the photo was the caption ‘Just Beat Up A Brat’ written in red sharpie. Sora had to squint to read the lettering underneath, written in a green sharpie: ‘You Guys Suck’ followed by a sad face. Underneath THAT, in even smaller writing, was ‘Love You Too, Grasshopper’, in blue. Absolutely befuddled and left wondering what the hell that exchange even MEANT, she taped it back onto the fridge. “I mean, I’m not even sure if we can trust Lloyd. I…believe me, I really want to, he seems nice and all, but…”
Arin put a hand on her shoulder knowingly. “You’re still worried that he might not be who he says he is.”
“Yeah…”
Arin stood quietly for a moment, then turned to look at the various photos on the fridge. He sighed. “Just…trust me on this, Sora. The authority figures here in the Crossroads are practically non-existent and three years isn’t enough time for all the realms to get together to establish some sort of International government or whatever…there’s no real figure we can…trust for sure, y’know?”
Sora still looked skeptical. “And you think Lloyd is that figure?”
“Well…” Arin’s eyes fell on a photo of Lloyd back to back with who he recognized as Nya, the Master of Water. The two were grinning happily and holding hands, outstretched toward the camera. They semeed to be using their powers simultaneously, as their interlaced hands were surrounded by water and a green light. “Not exactly, but…I think…I think we can look to him as a sign of hope, kinda. Ninjago’s gone through periods where we believed the ninja were gone before and…every time they came back, things just…got better. I want to hold on to that same hope, y’know? I think Lloyd meeting us…was fate.”
“Hmm…you really think so?” She picked up the photo that Arin had been looking at of Lloyd and Nya and read the caption aloud, which was written in red. “‘Best Siblings’.” She smirked, then turned the photo around to show Arin. “Somebody added a pouty face in silver. Do you think these guys color-coded their messages?”
“I know so,” Arin replied, answering her first question. “And, uh, yeah, looks like they did color code their messages...” He gave a sheepish grin and ran his hand along the other photos on the fridge. “Some of the photos around the monastery are…pretty interesting.”
“Yeah.” Sora snickered, then picked up another one, which looked to be a simple portrait with a forest backdrop. But it looked slightly off center, different from the one of the five teenagers in the forest having a picnic. “Hey, look at this one. I think they got this one professionally done…mind pointing out who’s who for me?”
Arin’s eyes lit up, happy to share his knowledge of the ninja with his best friend. “Oh, yes. Okay, let’s see…the one on the far left is Jay, the Lightning Ninja. Behind him is Cole, the Earth Ninja. Next to Cole is, y’know, Master Wu…” Arin paused, then squinted. “And…I think the old guy next to Master Wu is…uh…actually, I’m not sure. I think that’s Lord Garmadon, but I could be remembering wrong.”
“I have even less clue about who THAT is,” Sora said with exasperation.
“I’ll try my best to explain later.” Arin grinned. “Behind him is, you know, Lloyd - wow, he looks really young here, doesn’t he - and next to Lloyd is Nya, the Master of Water. Next to Nya is Kai, the Master of Fire, and behind Kai is Zane, the Master of Ice, and…I think her name was…Pixal?”
“Who is she?”
“A close friend of the ninja,” Arin shrugged. “There was some speculation at some point that she was actually the mysterious Samurai X, another well-known defender in Ninjago. I’m not sure how I feel about it, because how come they’ve rarely been seen in public working together? They always kinda just…barely miss each other.”
“Huh…” Sora drawled. “Is she a robot or something?”
“Nindroid,” Arin corrected with a smug grin. “Just like Zane, actually. They weren’t super common in Ninjago City before the Merge, but at some point more and more started showing up around Ninjago City. The same goes for the Serpentine, actually.”
“I’ve gotten so used to seeing so many different kinds of people and creatures around in the Crossroads, it never actually occurred to me that at some point, this place was…just humans, huh?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Arin shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like we didn’t get our fair share of other species coming around, but for the most part, it was pretty rare to see. Ninjago City, at some point in time, kind of entered a weird limbo where…things were just kind of…accepted, I guess. Like, I remember one time when I was like...ten or eleven, I forget, there was this whole thing going on in Ninjago City about flying snake meteors coming down from the sky and an invasion by an Ancient Serpentine tribe of lava snakes.”
“...what,” Sora said flatly.
“It was a weird couple of days…”
“Oookayy, congratulations, Arin. I’m now fully convinced that your realm is made entirely of crazy people. You’re telling me that the city was invaded by lava snakes , and people were just, what, okay with it?”
“Pretty much,” Arin shrugged. He pulled another photo off of the fridge, gave it a quick look-over and chuckled. “Hey, Sora, look at this one!”
Sora leaned over to get a closer look at the photo and smirked. “Well, for a bunch of so-called ‘saviors of Ninjago’, they sure know how to be adorable and unthreatening, huh.”
The photo in question showed all six of the ninja laying haphazardly on the couch, in a dark room that was slightly illuminated in artificial light, with Pixal taking a selfie in front of them with a mischievous grin. Popcorn and other various snacks could be seen scattered around the couch and on the ninja themselves. Cole took up half of the couch, rolled over on his side, with his mouth wide open and arm outstretched. Kai took up the other half, his feet pushing Cole’s off of the couch at an angle, with his face scrunched up as if he were having difficulty sleeping. He was clutching a soda bottle to his chest for some reason. Zane was squished in between Cole and Kai, somehow, with his arms wrapped around his legs as he gave a deadpan look to Pixal. Jay, Nya, and Lloyd were all in what could be best described as a trio of dominoes that had fallen on top of each other. Jay was lying flat on his back, clutching a bag of popcorn tightly in his hand - half of which was all spilled right next to him - and his legs were pulled up. Nya was leaning against his legs, her head tilted in an uncomfortable position upwards, as if someone had glued her head to permanently stare at the ceiling. She had her arms wrapped around Lloyd, who looked to be hogging the only blanket in sight. The blanket was hardly being used, however, even by Lloyd, as it simply laid on the floor, only slightly covering Lloyd’s legs. Lloyd was also leaning against Nya to the point where he seemed as if he were about to topple onto her lap, too, which couldn’t have been comfortable for the poor girl.
The caption underneath, written in a purple sharpie, was: ‘Illogical usage of movie time’ followed by an angry face emoticon. Beneath that, in green, was ‘Illogical usage of blackmail material’, followed by a devil emoji.
Sora shook her head incredulously. “Well, I guess I can’t say they seem all that threatening or untrustworthy.” She paused, then smirked. “ Unreliable , on the other hand…? That’s kinda the impression I get off of these photos. They just look like a buncha normal teenagers, not…crime fighting warriors or…whatever it is that ninja do.”
“They’re Ninjago’s protectors,” Arin said firmly. “They weren’t super popular in certain places, but my family’s always been in support of them.”
“Yeah? How come?”
“Well, if you don’t mind a quick politics lesson…” Arin gave Sora a sly look, one that she rolled her eyes at.
“On second thought, I don’t wanna know. You can tell me all about the politics and inner workings of…I dunno, Ninjago’s socioeconomic status or whatever later .”
“Tell you about what later?”
Arin and Sora jumped about a foot in the air as the former let out an undignified scream. Sora frantically hid all the photos she was holding behind her back and covered up her startled shriek with nervous laughter. “L-lloyd! We, uh, didn’t see you there…” Her voice went a pitch higher at Lloyd’s raised eyebrow. “R-really snuck up on us there, d-didn’t you?”
“I’m a ninja, remember?” Lloyd said teasingly. “Sneaking up on people comes with the job description.”
“Uh…right…”
“We’re so sorry!” Arin blurted out. “We were looking through all the pictures and stuff everywhere. I got a little excited, I didn’t really think twice about privacy and stuff and there’s just so many pictures on the fridge I couldn’t help but get curious…and Sora just up and grabbed them - sorry, Sora - so I just followed without thinking-” Arin was cut off by the sound of soft laughter coming from Lloyd. “Uh…what is it?”
“Nothing,” Lloyd said, through snickers. “You don’t need to freak out, Arin, I’m not mad at you two or anything.”
“You’re…not?”
“I mean…we have a lot of pictures. They’re all in plain sight, it’s not like you were rifling through cabinets searching for ancient scrolls or secrets or anything.” Lloyd paused, then narrowed his eyes. “You…weren’t planning on doing anything like that, right?”
“N-no!” Sora sputtered. “Of course not!”
“Great!” Lloyd said cheerily, then clasped his hands together. “On that note, though, it’d be a good time to mention that I’ll be teaching you that in the future anyway, so try not to get into a premature habit of sneaking around before I teach you how to properly do it.”
Arin and Sora blinked in unison, then looked at each other, both bearing a baffled look on their faces. “Um…you’re…going to teach us how to…search through people’s stuff?”
“Later,” Lloyd replied, waving Sora off, and also not really answering the question. “What was that you said earlier that you wanted to talk about?”
“Politics,” Arin squeaked out.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“What kinda politics?”
“Ninjago politics.” Sora replied as she slowly moved to put the photos that were still in her hands back on the fridge. She moved carefully, as to not draw the attention of Lloyd. Granted, he was staring directly at her as she was doing this, but she was hoping her words would distract the ninja from asking about the photos she was taking a peek at. “I’m from Imperium, so I don’t really know anything about Ninjago.” She paused, then added, “Or ninja, for that matter. I don’t really…get it.”
“Get what?”
“Being a ninja.” Sora said, then sighed. “I’ve only heard bits and pieces about ninja from stories told in the Crossroads and, of course, Arin here has told me a lot of stories about you and your friends-”
“It’s true.” Arin nodded firmly. “I told her a LOT.”
“-but it just…I dunno, seems too good to be true?”
“...yeah, that’s fair,” Lloyd said slowly. “I can imagine you have quite a lot of questions. I’d be happy to answer them, but…” His eyes wandered to the side before they lit up. Arin and Sora exchanged nervous glances. “...how about we turn this into a lesson?”
“A lesson?” Arin and Sora parrotted.
“You wanna know more about ninjas? What better way to do that than some good ol’ fashioned research?” Lloyd said cheerfully.
“Uh-”
“Tomorrow. Sunrise. Instead of training, we’ll take a little trip to Nom.”
“Nom-?”
“Like…‘nom nom, I’m eating a cookie’ nom?”
“I wish! Nom, as in the small city, Nom! It’s changed a little since the Merge, but it’s still the best place to learn about Ninjago politics!”
“Um, wow, okay-”
“I’ll be in my room if you need me,” Lloyd said as he walked right back out of the kitchen. “Eat some food and then get some rest for tomorrow. Goodnight!”
Lloyd shut the sliding door behind him, leaving behind an absolutely baffled Sora and Arin.
“D-did he just…”
“Give us homework?” Sora groaned, finishing Arin’s unspoken question. “Yeah. Yeah, he did.”
“...weird,” Arin said blankly.
“Yes, Arin,” Sora said tiredly as she rubbed her temples and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Weird. Very, very, very, weird .”