Ninjas and Demons

Chapter 3: What do we call each other?

When he opened his eyes he prayed to the FSM that it was all a dream or maybe a hallucination. Despite knowing he can't really experience either. But he wished that he and the others were on the Bounty and that Wu was going to barge in any moment to wake them up to get the day started and to focus on training Lloyd. Only to be disappointed when he saw the same ceiling from the night before. Zane sighed as he looked over at his friends, still asleep with Jay using Cole as a pillow and Lloyd cuddling up against Kai, and Nya was rolled onto her stomach. The blond smiled small, at least they were okay.

It was then that he saw that there were some cats in the room, with two nuzzled on Kai's chest and one tucked under Lloyd's arm, one was curled up on Nya's back, and two lying on Cole and Jay. When did cats get in here? What time was it anyway?

He was about to get up when the blue man from the day before, Sandy, came through the opened elevator doors with a blue and orange cat sitting on his shoulder, "Ah you're awake," he whispered as he saw Zane sitting up and looking around.

"Yes," he replied in a similar whisper as he got up and avoided waking his team. "Although I am surprised by the sudden guests."

Sandy knew what he meant as it was because of them he went to look, hoping that they had not awakened any of the kids. "Ah sorry about that, they must have known you guys were stressed and came down."

"They arrived around midnight." A robotic voice behind the curtain said, being the older-looking Zane. The younger Zane walked over and opened the curtain and his eyes widen at how many cats were in their portion, two were on older Cole's lap where he lay slumped on the armrest asleep, and at least one cat on Jay, Kai, and Nya, Zane had one draped over his shoulders, and Lloyd had seven all over!

Seeing his younger counterpart's face, the older-looking one said simply, "Our Lloyd is a cat person!"

The other gave a chuckle, "I can see that."

"Well I'm going upstairs to make breakfast, would you would like to join?"

The Zane in the white gi nodded, "Of course, and I could help you if you do not mind."

"Sure, the more the merrier!"

"Then I will join as well!" The other blond stated as he stood with the cat still around his shoulders.

***

The three stood in the kitchen as they worked together on making breakfast, with the younger Zane moving gracefully around as he easily mixed ingredients together to make pancake batter from scratch. Sandy ended up backing away seeing as the kid was clearly in his element as he quietly hummed to himself. The other Zane watched in fascination, he himself could cook a little, he was still being taught at home, but not to this fluidity.

Soon enough some of the tired teens started to trickle in, being lured by the smell of cooking once they reached the top floor. Some of them held sleepy kitties that were not ready to face the world yet. The last ones to arrive were the younger Kai and Lloyd with Lloyd still holding the cat that was in his arms earlier and the older Lloyd that had a cat over each shoulder, and a trail of them following him. Which gave him some odd looks, but nothing was said. There wasn't much ideal chatter as many were still trying to wake up, only for plates of pancakes to be placed in front of them.

"Enjoy," came the younger Zane's encouragement as he, the other Zane, and Sandy passed out plates with stacks of three pancakes on the plates. The younger team immediately bit into them, the older team soon following, only to let out surprised but pleased sounds at the taste. "These are delicious! You guys made them?" The older Nya asked, no longer as tired as she was.

"Actually it was this guy," Sandy corrected as he pointed at the younger ice ninja, "Kid was in his own world so I just let him have the reins."

The older team looked at the blond in shock, which made the younger team chuckle, "Our Zane is a wiz in the kitchen, everything he makes is amazing!" Lloyd exclaimed as he shoved another bite into his mouth.