𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔸𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕛𝕚𝕥𝕫𝕦 ~ L. Garmadon

18: Elemental Resistance

The rest of the weekend (aka Sunday) dragged by slowly. Lyra's thoughts were consumed of picturing how happy Lloyd would be when she introduced him to her origami. She made little to no progress with her Literature power, as the animals kept distracting her.

They accompanied her wherever she went and helped when possible. During Lyra's soul/mind training, all she did was figure out how to make new ones. Her powers seemed to guide her hands when she picked up the sticky notes, and before she knew it there were foxes, hummingbirds, cats, turtles, wolves, cats, swans, and--to Lyra's eternal delight--dragons.

Some of them had to be trained, while others instinctively knew to follow her instructions. Lyra found that the bigger the animal in real life, the less obedient it was. Even though they'd all been made out of the same 3" x 3" paper, the animals didn't care. The dragons, of which Lyra only made three before running out of Post-It notes, took hours to be trained, while the frogs, dogs butterflies, and hummingbirds listened immediately.

Lyra's main commands that every animal knew by the end of the day were: Turn back, where they'd either switch back to inanimate pieces of paper or to live animals, depending on what state they were currently in; Shoulder, where they'd jump/crawl/fly up and sit on her shoulder; Heel, where they'd stay back at her heels; Attack, where they'd attack whatever she pointed at (though they didn't do much, since they were paper); and Defend, where they'd create a bubble around Lyra.

Lyra had found a small, dark purple backpack packed away in all of her luggage and realized that almost all of her origami fit in it without being squished. The rest could fit in her pockets.

She was wearing that, a white zip-up sweater, dark gray leggings, and an ultraviolet T-shirt as she stood outside her room, waiting to give her progress report. She made eye contact with Nya, whose bedroom was across from hers, and smiled. The samurai smiled back but didn't say anything. They weren't allowed to communicate with each other until Sensei Wu was done with everyone's progress reports.

This feels weirdly strict, Lyra noted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Everything else with the ninja is so laid-back and there's randomly a weekend each month where we can't even see each other. I guess it's Sensei Wu's influence or something.

Just then, Sensei Wu turned the corner. He made his way over to the two girls, stopping directly in between them and turning a sharp 90 degrees to face Nya first. He slammed his staff into the wood. "Progress?"

Nya stood up straight. "My form on the spinning hook kick has improved over 50%, I learned about whales and their communication habits, and I designed different wheels for the newest version of the D. B. Express."

Wu nodded, whirled around, and stared directly at Lyra. "Progress?"

"Uhh--" Lyra stuttered. Her mind went blank.

Wu gently hit her on the head with his staff. "Did that help clear your mind?"

"Hey!" Lyra protested. "That hurt! Oh, wait...I practiced a few songs on my flute and improved the articulation for them, found out I can create glitter and invisible paint, my roundhouse kick has more force in it now, and made origami come to life."

At the last one, Wu's brow furrowed. "Whatever do you mean?"

Lyra slung her mini-backpack around and unzipped it. "Turn back. Shoulder."

Instantly, the paper blinked as they were brought to life. They made their way to her shoulder. The ones that didn't fit sat on her head and arms.

"That is quite impressive," Wu admitted, inspecting one of the dragons. "I do not believe Lila, Stella or Fei ever did this."