Rise of the Snakes: Charlie's Story

Can of Worms

Charlie and Lloyd walked around the Bounty making their rounds. They sniggered quietly to themselves before approaching Kai.

"Hey, Kai!" Lloyd said. "Ha. Saw Cole beat your high score. You should've seen it. It was pretty spectacular."

"Uh, you must be talking about Sitar Legend." Kai said with a smirk. "This is Fist to Face 2. No one beats me on my game."

Lloyd shrugged. "Huh. Could be wrong. See ya!" They walked away and when they heard Kai's scream they had to stifle their grins.

Their next stop was the kitchen, where Cole was cooking.

"Hey, Cole." Charlie said. Lloyd just frowned. He was a bit protective of his sister.

"Oh, hey, Charlie." Cole said.

"What are you making?" She asked.

He stirred the pot. "Violet Berry Soup, my culinary achievement. If the recipe is not followed exactly..." He tasted a bit and recoiled.

"I saw Jay spice things up." Lloyd said with a smirk. "I told him not to, but he said your cooking could use it. Bye, Cole!"

Charlie left with her brother just as Cole yelled in anger.

On the upper deck, Jay was repairing a training robot with his kendo gear on. 

"Let's ease our way into this." He said. "How about level 2, shall we?"

"Hey, Jay." Lloyd said. "I saw Zane try to repair the sparring bot earlier. Isn't that your expertise? Later, bro."

Charlie could hear the robot malfunctioning as Jay screamed.

Finally, they found Zane in the laundry room.

"Hello, Lloyd and Charlotte." Zane said with a smile. "What brings you up here this fine morning?"

"Kai wanted me to pick up his gi." Lloyd said. "He said he threw it in with your whites. Here it is. Thanks."

They left the laundry room and back downstairs to Lloyd's room.

"I feel kinda bad." Charlie said. "Cole worked so hard."

Lloyd rolled his eyes. "I'm not. Messing up Cole's soup and Zane's laundry was fun."

"That's cause you got the easy jobs!" Charlie argued. "Do you know how long it took for me to beat Kai's high score? He's really good at that game! And I'm not techie like Nya, so messing with Jay's robot took awhile."

Suddenly they heard yelling.

"You couldn't just be happy with the top score. You had to rub it in my face!"

"Do you know how long it took me to make that? Three days. Three days!"

"It's an unsaid law, okay? You don't touch a man's robot!"

"How am I supposed to strike fear in this? It's pink!"

Charlie heard footsteps come down the hall and the door was opened by Master Wu. The Nina gasped at the sight of Charlie and Lloyd with all the evidence.

"You did this?"

"Boys, I get dibs on..." Cole started but Will stopped him.

"No dibs." He said. "I put them up to this for today's lesson. I wanted to show you the destructive power of rumors and that jumping to conclusions can only lead to trouble. Did you ever think to find out if the accusations were true?"

"Uh, no offense, Sensei, but let me jump to this conclusion: today's lesson is lame." Cole said.

"Yeah," Jay agreed. "Why can't you teach us to paralyze your enemy with one finger, or find out of a man is lying by the twitch of his nose?"