It was a beautiful serene morning. The sunrise had washed the sky in a beautiful rose magenta, clouds flitted by and the cool summer breeze stirred all waking creatures... Except, of course, the four ninja, who were instead awakened by the incessant banging of a gong.
"GOOD MORNING, MORNING, MORNING! EVIL DOESN'T SLEEP AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU!" The ninja all groaned and pulled their blankets and pillows as their sensei bellowed out the wakeup call. "In order to reach your full potential, we must greet each day as an opportunity!"
"Okay, okay," Kai groaned, sitting up and slipping off of his bunk. "We're up... But if you want us to reach our full potential, shouldn't we at least get a full night of rest...?" His eyes tiredly half-lidded, he sauntered over to the blinds and yawned as he pulled the string to open them, only for his eyes to widen with surprise and frustration as the old pieces of wood only fell to the floor.
"Agh, you call that rest?" Cole complained behind Jay, cracking his back with a satisfying pop. "I think my back has more lumps than the mattress!"
Jay was mostly quiet as per usual in the early morning as he tiredly made his way over to the sink and taken out his toothbrush and paste. He stretched his arms upward before he said, "We were up so late talking about how cool it is to have a new headquarters, I guess we lost track of time..." He squirted a line of toothpaste on his brush and ran it under the sink, but was too exhausted to realize that no water had come out, only sand and dust. "Since the Serpentine burned down the monastery, I'm just glad we have a roof over our heads-- aCK!" He spat out the toothpaste with a disgusted grimace on his face. Gross... He was going to have that taste in his mouth for a while now.
"What is our lesson today, sensei?" inquired Zane as though he hadn't just been groaning about being rudely awakened. He jumped into a pose to demonstrate the move he was referring to as he said, "Mastering the strike of the scorpion? Or perhaps the grace of a--" His feet broke through the floorboards as he jumped to a different pose with a loud crash. He coughed as dust flew up from the ground.
"I think today's lesson will be... Chores," said Sensei.
"Chores?!" the ninja whined.
"Ninja fight, sensei," Cole huffed, "They do not clean."
"In order to respect ourselves, we must respect our new home and where we are from," responded Wu. "And this place is a long way from becoming a ninja headquarters." He turned and started out the door. "I expect things to be spotless when I returned. And put your backs into it!" he finished with a final ring of his handheld gong before leaving the ninja to it.
Kai groaned as Cole helped Zane out of the hole in the ground. "This place is gonna take forever to clean and fix up!"
"Unless we put more than our backs into it... eh?" Jay grinned with a wink. Kai stared at him for a few ticks.
"...I'm straight."
"I-- w-wha?" the ginger teen stammered.
"He means if we work as hard as we can, then we can have some spare time before he comes back, dingbat," Cole laughed loudly. Kai pursed his lips, awkwardly averting his amber eyes.
"...Oh."
Jay started laughing too. "Kai, is there something you need to tell us?"
Kai cleared his throat. "I- n-no, I just-, L-Let's just get started."
Soon enough, the ninja had finished cleaning (with the help of their spinjitzu and elemental weapons) and now lay in what they'd created to be the gaming room with literally one of the only two TVs in the Bounty (for now, anyway). They all laid sprawled out on the floor, each with a controller clutched in their gloved hands.
Kai glanced over his shoulder with a cocky smirk as the door opened and said, "What took you so long?" to their sensei as he entered, followed by Kai's sister, Nya.
"Wow!" Nya exclaimed, a bright smile on her pretty face. Jay stayed facing the TV, resisting the urge to greet her. He was mostly absorbed by the game anyway and took advantage of his distracted teammates, shooting their dragons while they looked away. "This place looks... amazing! You guys did all this?"
"Well, ninja don't just fight, Nya. We clean," Cole grinned. He turned back to the screen only to glare at Jay, as his dragon had now been defeated.
"Ohhh. You have exceeded my expectations," commented Wu, stroking his long white beard. "But can you keep it up?"
The distant honk of a car horn drew Nya's attention to the window outside. She took a few steps toward it to locate the source of the honk and saw a vehicle approaching. "It looks like we're about to have some visitors," commented Nya. The horn hooted once more. "And loud ones at that."
Jay recognized the horn with a groan and glanced over his shoulder. "Oh, it's my parents..," he groaned. "Please, if they start yappin', just don't get 'em going, okay? They don't know when to quit. And if you start talkin', then they'll start talking, and suddenly half the day is gone before you know it, and it's not even-"
"We get it, they talk a lot," Kai snapped, interrupting his friend's tangent, then mumbled, "Cherry doesn't fall far from its blossom..."
Jay sighed and paused the game. "Let's just get outside before they start honking and yelling if anyone's home..."
"Mooom, Daaad!" Jay called, a bashful smile on his face. "What are you doing heeeere?"
"Oh, look! It's my baby boy!" Edna cheered as Jay stepped off of the board onto the sandy ground toward the now-parked vehicle. "It's been so long since we've heard from you!"
"Ma, I called you two days ago," Jay huffed.
Ed chuckled as he and his wife jumped down from the large vehicle, "Well, it's not soon enough, son!" He frowned as he stepped toward his son. "When are ya.. coming to the junkyard? You say you're coming, and then, uh... ya don't."
Jay cringed. "Daaad.." he whispered, his shoulders stiffening as his gut twisted with embarrassment. "Do we have to talk about the junkyard in front of my friends?!"
"He hates it when we tell people he was born in a junkyard," Edna told Jay's friends cheerily, disregarding her son's plea. Her eyes lit up as she spotted Nya. "Ohhh!" she cooed, "And who are you? You are so cuuute! You're just my son's type!"
"Moooom!" Jay whined. Nya's cheeks flushed, her relaxed smile turning to a flustered one.
"It's a.. pleasure meeting you," she said, eyebrows furrowed slightly. Then, trying to change the topic, she added, "I'm... sure if you want, Jay can give you the tour! He worked very hard on it."
His parents cheered in unison, "We'd love a tour!" Jay couldn't suppress his sigh as he reluctantly turned to lead the old couple into the ship.
