“FAMILY MEETING!”

Following the day’s events, everyone needed to take a moment to settle down and process it.

But Jay’s idea of “processing it” was forcing everyone to stay put in the living room so they could watch him pace around and complain.

Cole and Lloyd sat by each other on the couch, faces still covered with their face masks. Kai sat on the other side of Lloyd, basically attached to him at the hip. Zane sat on the ground in front of them, his eyes following Jay as he paced.

And Nya was on her feet, following behind Jay, trying to get him to calm down.

“Calm down? Calm down?” Jay asked her. “Calm? Down? That THING made it onto the BOUNTY and ATTACKED!”

“But it didn’t attack, it just kinda took up space,” Nya pointed out. “It didn’t cause harm.”

Kai scoffed and mumbled, “Physical harm.”

“It also left as soon as I hit it with water!” Nya grabbed Jay’s shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. She tilted his head upwards slightly so that she could meet his eyes. “We are all still okay. We’ve dealt with worse.”

Jay leaned into her touch, melting in her hands. “I’m scared, Nya. What do we do if it comes back?”

“I hear pans work great!” Cole teased.

Nya shot him a dirty look, then turned back to her lover. “Then we will cross that bridge when we get there.” She pulled him into a hug. “We will be okay, I promise.”

Cole raised his hand. “Can Lloyd and I be excused? This face mask is starting to burn a little.” Lloyd nodded in agreement.

Finally noticing, Jay stopped and looked between Lloyd and Cole. “Why are you guys wearing face stuff?”

Nya turned his head to face her again. “How about you come stay in my room so that you aren’t alone? Would that help put you at ease?”

He sadly nodded, then laid his head on her shoulder. “I just want everyone to be okay.”

“And we will be. I promise.” Nya wrapped an arm around him to guide him down the hall, offering a friendly smile to the boys as she left.

“This is a truly confusing….thing we have on our hands,” Zane said quietly as he stood up. “I’m going to spend some time tonight studying the information we have and hopefully by morning I can have some sort of answer.”

Lloyd stood up behind him and grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t overwork yourself, okay? We’re in this together and we can figure this out together too.”

Instead of any sort of comforting words, Zane responded, “You should go wash your face before your skin burns.” He then left quietly, his mind obviously already distracted.

Lloyd and Cole silently separated, headed towards their own respective rooms. Lloyd opened his door and stepped into his small bathroom to wash his face. He bent down and cupped his hands to fill them with water, then dipped his face in. When he stood back up to look in the mirror, Kai was leaning against the bathroom door, his arms crossed tightly and his head hanging low.

“I’m okay, Kai,” Lloyd reassured, “really. I promise.”

Kai didn’t respond, he just continued looking at the floor.

Lloyd continued washing his face, the two standing in silence. He finished and dried his face off, then looked back at Kai. “Dude, I promise. You should go get some rest.”

“I saw things when the mist touched me,” Kai whispered. “It wasn’t like you and how you were just blinded. I saw you as a child. I saw how scared you were. I was reliving that moment at the volcano before I found my true potential.” His sniffling started again as he tried to hold back tears. “I tried to save you, but I dropped you on my way out. I begged for you to come back to me, but you were just…gone. It all felt so real.”

“I get it, mine felt real too. I can’t even imagine having to see visuals of all that.” Lloyd guided Kai towards his bed and the two sat down together. “We could hear you mumbling while you were in the mist. We heard everything you said. I figured out that you were seeing a memory quite fast, but my experience didn’t include a memory at all.”

“It’s good to know that we’d be able to hear each other if this were to ever happen again,” Kai responded. “Having one-way communication is better than none at all.”

Lloyd looked at Kai, grabbing his hands. “These were a problem, though. When you used your fire in the mist, you used it in real life too.”

“I figured when I saw the rug was charred.”

“We’ve got to come up with a way to get through the mist without using our powers. Or at least, lethal powers, like fire.”

Kai started counting on his fingers as he made his list. “So Cole can use his strength, Nya can create puddles, Zane is still incredibly intelligent, and you can use your shield and levitation.” His face fell. “Jay and I are screwed. Offense is kind of our whole thing.”

“We’ll figure it out, okay? We don’t need all of the answers. Zane is spending some time looking into all of this and I’m sure he’ll come at us with some wisdom tomorrow.” Lloyd squeezed Kai’s shoulder. “Until then, get some sleep. And remember, we are both safe and okay.”

Kai nodded, giving a forced half smile. “See you tomorrow, kid. Sleep well.” Kai left the room stoically, but Lloyd heard him begin to cry again as soon as he left the room. Lloyd didn’t go after him. Kai was always trying to be tough and unshaken, but he was hurting. And he needed space to feel that hurt without feeling the need to protect everyone else.

—-

“Hey I’m off to the coffee shop!” Lloyd called out, stepping out of his bedroom with his boots in hand. After last night, he just needed an excuse to get some fresh air and go on a walk. As he sat down on the couch, he caught a glimpse of Kai eating cereal straight from the box. When Kai saw him, he tossed the box onto the counter and reached for the cabinet to get a bowl. Lloyd smiled to himself and rolled his eyes.

“Can I get an iced mocha with an extra shot of espresso?” Kai asked, his mouth still full of cereal.

“Oh, I was going to take a quick walk-“

“You’ll be back quick? Awesome!” Kai poured his cereal into a bowl and Jay walked in, stretching and yawning. “Thanks for getting me coffee!”

“Lloyd’s grabbing coffee?!” Jay asked, suddenly wide awake. “Caramel latte. Whipped cream. Sprinkles!”

“Guys I’m just-“

“NYA!” Jay yelled down the hall. “LLOYD’S GETTING COFFEE! WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

“ICED AMERICANO WITH VANILLA!” She yelled back.

Jay turned to Lloyd. “She’ll have an iced ameri-“

“I HEARD!” Lloyd shouted. He finished lacing his boots, irritated at everyone, but not enough to correct them. He walked out onto the deck shielding his eyes from the sun, running into Cole in the process.

“Oh hey, I was just looking for you!” Cole said happily. “Kai texted me saying that I needed to give you my coffee order. I’ll make it easy for you and just ask for a black coffee. No sugar. No nonsense. Just a coffee.”

Lloyd glared. “How kind of you.” Cole gave him a friendly smile in response as he wandered back towards their living quarters.

Behind Lloyd, Zane was writing in a notebook, leaning against the ropes they all used to repel down the ship. As Lloyd approached, Zane’s eyes darted up for a moment, then back down at his notebook. “Going somewhere?” he asked.

“I just wanted to go for a walk and somehow got suckered into buying everyone coffee.”

“How unfortunate it is to be misunderstood,” Zane giggled slightly. “I’m sorry your morning has been thrown off.”

Lloyd shrugged. “With this group? It happens. It is what it is. I don’t remember their orders, though, so they probably won’t be too happy.”

Zane ripped the paper he was writing on out of the notebook, folded it up, and handed it to Lloyd. “It’d be a shame if the orders were wrong.” Zane then marched off in the same direction as Cole.

Lloyd unfolded the piece of paper and found it contained everyone’s order, finished with a “Flat White :D” at the end of the list. He couldn’t help but smile at the note before grabbing the ship’s repel gear and jumping off.

Lloyd landed gracefully on a rooftop and peeked over the edge to see if he was spotted. The Destiny’s Bounty is kind of hard to miss if you’re in Ninjago, but Lloyd always tried to make sure he could make a quiet exit to avoid crowds of people swarming him. And thankfully, there was a nearby alleyway empty, allowing him to jump down and silently sneak out.

Lloyd took a deep breath and put his hands in his hoodie pockets, enjoying the bustling ambiance around him, as he walked towards the nearest coffee shop. He loved the little moments like this where he could just be a normal person and not have to worry about saving the world again. And with this new mist shit, his much needed break was still way out of reach.

Lloyd pushed the coffee shop door open and got in line, fiddling with the note Zane had given him. He tried to memorize the note, but he was so scatter-brained in that moment that it just wasn’t working. By the time it was his turn, he had given up.

The barista offered him a smile. “Hi, there! What can I get started for you today?” Her short brown hair framed her face and her smile had a warmth Lloyd hadn’t been expecting.

“Can I get a-”

“WAIT!” The barista yelled. Lloyd braced himself, ready for her to publicly out him as the Green Ninja, but she instead said something he wasn’t expecting. “I HAVE YOUR COMIC BOOK!”

“You what?!” Lloyd squinted his eyes at her. “You were the fox?”

“A wolf, but yeah!” She became extremely giddy. “I’ve been asking around to try to find someone who got their autograph swapped by accident, but I couldn’t find you.”

“Okay! Wow, I honestly have been so busy that I haven’t had the time to even try to find you.”

“Oh I was so broken up about it! I wasn’t even upset that I didn’t have my own, I was just sad that I was keeping someone else from having something so special.” She tucked a tuft of hair behind her ear. “God I was just having a bad day yesterday. First you, then my brother, then the Green Ninja-”

Lloyd hesitated for a moment. “What happened with the Green Ninja?”

“I got him caught in that smokey stuff!” Her face grew bright red. “After you ran into me, my brother and I went to see a panel, but suddenly everyone started running and screaming. My brother and I got separated in the lobby area. I turned around and he had vanished in the cloud stuff. I tried to run to him, but the Green Ninja had his shield stuff up. I begged for him to go help my brother, but I think I threw off his focus or something because his shield fell and the smoke got him. I got away before it got me, though.”

“Did he get out okay?” Lloyd asked, playing dumb.

“Yeah!” The woman smiled. “His friends saved him. And my brother got out okay too, he was just confused why everyone seemed so scared. He said he was scared, but people around him were utterly terrified.” She stopped speaking and grabbed a cup. “I am so sorry! What would you like?”

“Can I get a medium matcha latte, please?”

The woman wrote it down. “Okay! Anything else?”

Lloyd looked down at his note. “Can I just hand this to you and you tell me what I owe?”

The woman laughed at the list. “You grabbing coffee for your coworkers?”

Lloyd nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”

The woman wrote down all of the drink orders, then slid the note back to Lloyd. “That’ll be $44.50.”

Lloyd cringed and dug his wallet out of his pocket. “Damn, okay, they owe me.”

The woman giggled as she ran his card. “Want a receipt?”

“Please! I need to make sure they pay me back.”

The woman laughed, printed his receipt, then walked away to make the drinks. As he walked away, Lloyd took one last look at Zane’s note, but felt his face getting hot when he saw what was written on the note-

Call me for comic book swap!

555-6324

<3 Akita