It's Complicated

Chapter 8: Decisions

The fire crackled and popped in front of them as they ate their breakfast in comfortable silence. Having the Master of Fire on their team, lighting a fire was not difficult because the source of all flames was right there with them. It was some time around 10 am. They let themselves sleep in a little bit because they had been running non-stop for the past 24 hours or so. They do deserve the break after being the prey in the dreadful chase yesterday.

Jay dipped the spoon inside the bowl of mushroom soup before lifting the utensil up to his mouth. He slurped the delicious, grey-colored liquid and swallowed the whole spoonful of soup in one gulp. Letting out a sigh of contentment, he nodded and leaned back on the rock wall.

"Oh, yeah. This soup tastes amazing for something that's solely made out of natural ingredients that we picked up from the forest." The Lightning Ninja smiled before licking the remains of the delectable soup on his spoon, "Zane, I just gotta say, you can make anything taste delicious!"

Zane chuckled before grinning at him, "Thank you, Jay. I admit, it was a challenge to actually make the soup but I succeeded in the end." He then looked at a certain red-head, "With Skylor's help, of course." The nindroid rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

Skylor stuck her tongue out at him before shrugging, "Come on, Zane. I only helped out with the seasoning. You did most of the work." Zane smiled bashfully at her words.

"I thank you, Skylor, for the flattering remarks but I cannot take all the credit. You deserve as much of it as I do."

"Don't be so modest, Zane. I only take, eh, around a quarter of what you got. 'Cause, like I said before, I only helped with the seasoning."

"You both did great, guys." Jay complimented, making both of the professional chefs' smiles grow even wider. Zane had such a huge, happy smile that it made Jay wonder how a nindroid, or even a human, could smile that widely.

Kai shook his head, sipping a small amount of soup. "I'm sorry, I didn't wake up until I smelled the soup so, uh, where exactly did you get these utensils?" He asked, holding the wooden spoon out.

"You forget that PIXAL and your sister have the skills in this particular department." Cole teased with a slight smirk planted on his lips.

PIXAL and Nya smiled at that comment before turning to look at each other. Their smiles soon turned into amused smirks as they gave each other a high five.

"Oh, yeah," Kai playfully hit his forehead with his hand, "How'd I forget that?" He chortled.

Hearing rustling from behind them, everyone twisted their bodies to look at the pile of vines covering the entrance. The reason they needed to light a fire was so that they could cook and so that the cave would have some sort of light source so they could see.

The rustling still kept going and by now, everyone had their hands on their weapons, just in case whoever was behind the vines was someone not nice. Narrowing their eyes patiently in anticipation, two black-colored gloved hands parted the vines to reveal the one and only, Lloyd Garmadon. Everyone let out a sigh of relief and went back to their soups.

Harumi decided to speak up so she asked, "How was the forest? Any sign of the three onis we were being hunted down by yesterday?" She meant for her questions to come out as rhetorical ones but she should've known that Lloyd would take them seriously.

Lloyd lowered down his bandana mask and bit his lip, "The forest was fine, I guess. Not many animals come to this part of the forest because of the maze and, you know, the confinement of this place. We're pretty much isolated from the rest of Ninjago right now. I doubt any archeologists or explorers know about this place." He answered Harumi's first question.