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Celebrations for their birthday had recently wrapped up and the Ninja had devised a plan to spend the remainder of the night in Ninjago City and maybe hit the club. Nya had even managed to get Pixal to leave the Samurai X hanger to join the rest of them. The only problem was that Master Wu would never let them go out at that hour, especially not when they had training at the break of dawn the next day. Logically, the next best thing would be to sneak out.
Later that night, the group made their move, carefully making their way through the monastery past Master Wu's room with practised precision from years of experience.
They had managed to slip their way into the courtyard and were about to jump the wall before being stopped in their tracks by a voice. The Ninja and Samurai collectively spun around fearing that they had been busted.
"Where are you going?" Lloyd asked groggily while rubbing his eye.
Kai answered first, quickly trailing off, "Lloyd! We were... we were just-"
"R-running some errands!" Cole chimed in, instantly regretting that excuse. The others nodded along however.
"All six of you?" Lloyd questioned again still half-asleep.
The earth ninja paused for a momment before finally folding and replying, "Alright you busted us, we're just going into the city for a while."
"Oh..." Lloyd was admittedly a little offended that he wasn't part of the intial plan but decided it was better not to cry about it to his teammates. "Can I come with?"
Nya stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Sorry pint-size, we were also planning to check out the club while we were down there..." She ended that statement in a way for Lloyd to fill in the gaps himself which he of course could not do.
"What she means is that the club has an age requirement of over 18 years of age, requirements that you do not meet." Zane said, trying to seem sympathetic.
"But I'll be turning 18 this year and besides-"
"It just doesn't work like that pal." Kai remarked. It was clear that the others were starting to grow tired of Lloyd trying to get them to bring him along.
"You understand, right Lloyd?" Nya asked, her hand still on Lloyd's shoulder. He silently nodded which earned a small reassuring smile from Nya as she along with the rest of the Ninja and Pixal scaled the wall of the monastery. Before they jumped off onto the other side, Cole turned around and said to him "Just don't snitch on us okay?" That got a chuckle out of Lloyd.
As they disappeared behind the other side, Lloyd stayed in the monastery courtyard for a while, pacing around and thinking. The Ninja were never exactly one to follow club rules before. They had breached the age restriction rule multiple times in the past, fortunately they had never been caught but those incidents had Lloyd involved. He thought he knew the whole truth for not being included that night. During those hang outs when the Ninja were teenagers, Lloyd was notorious for selling them out under pressure from Master Wu which led to them being prohibited to go out into the city late at night. But his friends couldn't possibly hate or exclude him for something like that. Maybe they were just looking out for him. With that consolation, he made his way back inside but the other thoughts still lingered in his mind.
***
"I know what you're gonna say..." Nya said to Pixal dryly while making their way down the monastery steps.
"Say what?" The Samurai questioned in a monotone voice.
Nya scoffed, "That leaving him out was wrong."
"Personally, I didn't find excluding Lloyd wrong." Pixal replied.
There was a long silence that followed Pixal's reply as the team descended more steps before Jay spoke, "You know he could just tell Wu we snuck out, right?"
"Nah, he probably knows why we left him by now and feels too guilty to tell Master Wu." Kai chuckled.
"Fair point." Jay shrugged.