(Ninjago Au!)Bound Not By Blood

Episode 1

Episode One

Wu was thoroughly annoyed.

He had known he would find the ninja he needed to seek. It was not supposed to be hard. It was not, in fact, supposed to take up so much of his waking time that he would feel exhausted.

But, no matter where he had looked, he had not found them. The mountains in which he was supposed to find the first boy? Deserted from his typical climbing spot. He had spent days meditating there, and he wondered briefly if his visions had failed him.

No, his visions had never failed him. The boy was supposed to be here.

Maybe he had gotten the wrong day? He had searched for the second boy next, but he got the same results. No boy. No boy, when he was supposed to be testing out his invention here.

What was a lost master to do? Not yet a master, he scolded himself. He was getting ahead again.

With that, Not-Yet Sensei Wu went on his hunt for the third boy. Birchwood forest may have been a bit of an out-there place to be, for a young man, but these were boys in tune with their elements. There were reasons that the Sensei sought them out.

He was supposed to be under the frigid lake, meditating, testing himself. But when Wu arrived, there was no boy.

However, he could do something about this one. There were people around who may have borne witness to events.

“Excuse me, young lady,” Wu took his time in approaching her, the grasp on his staff firm as his patience with his visions had worn thin. “Have you by any chance seen a… strange young boy around here?”

The woman turned to face him, and he saw her features soften.

“That is an odd way of describing a boy.” She said, and he wondered briefly if he had visited the wrong village.

“Has he done anything that does not seem ordinary for a young boy his age to do?” Wu inquired, and he saw something light in her eyes. Ah, so maybe she had seen him.

“It wasn’t really him,” she said. “Some years back, this lovely couple came by- Ed and Edna, have you met them? They come and fish for scraps occasionally out here. Anyhow, it was the strangest sight- Ed fished up a boy. He was shivering, looked frozen right down to the bone. It was a wonder he didn’t drown. None of us knew how he got there, so we helped get him warm and send them on their way. Well, that couple took him in, left with him. I believe he is having a lovely time with them now.”

So that was why the one he was supposed to meet wasn’t here. He’d already been taken away. “Thank you for your story, stranger.” Wu said. “Do you know where I could find Ed and Edna?”

“Oh, that’s easy. They live in the junkyard, somewhere out in the Sea of Sand.” She responded with a warm smile. “You look like you’ve been traveling for a long time, though. Would you care to come take a rest at my home?”

Wu faltered. His mission was vitally important, and he knew he could waste no time in gathering the boys up. He had to get them trained so that they could aid him in defeating his brother, so that Ninjago would be safe from, admittedly, his own mistakes.

But the woman— Wu assessed her face, she seemed to be little more than a kindly civilian— was not about to let him go off without this, and so he resigned himself to one more night of waiting. The boys could wait one more night.

Destiny would see him through. He was sure of it.

.+:*+*:+.

“Bye guys!” Jay grinned as he darted out of the front gates. Those massive gates, reading as Ed and Edna’s Scrap N’ Junk, the gates to which he called home. He was proud of this place that was his; more importantly, his sister Nya’s, as well. “We’ll be back by the end of today with the stuff!”