The Prince of Ninjago

Chapter 6

It was finished. The newly built Destiny's Bounty sat in the valley below the monastery. The ninja, and Wu had moved their belongings to the Ship, and were preparing to take off... When the guards attacked. "Ah Shit!" Lloyd shouted as he squirmed out of a guard's grip. "No!" He face planted on the grass. "Guys!" The others just kept getting ready to leave as the guard yanked Lloyd off the ground. "No! Let go! Guys! Please!" The Bounty took off, without Lloyd. 

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"Lloyd? Wake up." Kai mumbled tiredly as he shook Lloyd awake. Lloyd shot up in his bed. He looked around the room. The Bounty had taken off two days ago, Lloyd had been on board, and his father's guards hadn't found them. "You good?"

"Yeah, yeah. I uh, I'm fine, just a bad dream." Lloyd replied quickly. "Did I wake you up? Sorry."

"No, I was half awake, you just, seemed.... scared." Kai answered. "'N no one else was doing anything so, y'know." He shrugged. He was right, the other guys were asleep, minus Zane, Zane was in sleep mode, which was just him plugging himself into the wall, and playing Tetris.

"Thanks Kai."

"You wanna talk 'bout it? That always helped Nya when she had nightmares."

"Nah, it was kinda stupid, probably shouldn't've even freaked me out as much as it did." Lloyd replied, fidgeting anxiously with his blanket.

"Was it about your dad?"

"I...." He didn't want to say.

"You can tell me Man, I won't make fun of you."

"It was the day the Bounty took off, one of the guards from the castle had shown up, and grabbed me, and I called for help, and everyone just ignored me, and then the Bounty took off without me, and the guard started to drag me away and I couldn't do anything." Lloyd explained, talking quicker and quicker as he spoke.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. You're allowed to be worried by that." Kai spoke calmly. "You're allowed to be afraid, especially of ending up being dragged to your father. Lots of people are afraid of facing their parents."

"What... What do you mean?"

"You for example. You've been hurt emotionally and mentally because of, well he took your mom, and the first thing he did when you didn't want to do something was yell."

"But don't all parents yell?"

"Yeah, of course, but the thing is, the reason your dad yelled, was because you're something he can't control. You're human... Partially, the whole Oni and Dragon thing is still there. But he can't control you without messing with your head, or forcing you to fear him." Kai explained, "Oh and Cole's dad, he used to try to guilt trip Cole into taking dance classes, and it worked for years before Cole realized. Wait a minute, I don't care if I'm a disappointment, this guy's a piece of trash. And then he started living in the monastery."

"Wow, I guess that makes sense."

"Good because I have taken like, one online psychology class and haven't had time to take any others."

"I see..."

"So, usually when Nya would have nightmares when she was little, uh, I would make her hot chocolate, so... Hot Chocolate?"

It's like-" Lloyd looked over at the alarm clock, "- Two A.M.?"

"Is that a no??"

"Of course I want hot chocolate." Lloyd grinned before following Kai to the kitchen.

"Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?" Kai asked as he started getting out ingredients.

"What?"

"That's right, I've never gotten a chance to make you my famous hot cocoa! I make it from scratch, you're gonna love it, but uh which type of chocolate?"

"Uh, milk chocolate?"

"Cool cool, goin' with the sweeter one," Kai pulled a bar of chocolate out of a drawer, and headed over to the pantry to get the powdered sugar. "Can you get the milk, and the heavy cream from the fridge?"

"Yeah sure." Lloyd laughed quietly as he headed to the fridge. "Here y'go." He sat the ingredients on the counter as Kai got out a saucepan and sat it on the stove.

"Thanks." Kai grinned as he turned on the stove. The red pajama clad teen grabbed a few ingredients. He poured half a cup of heavy cream into the sauce pan, then a cup and a half of milk, and then added two teaspoons of powdered sugar. (An actual recipe I found for French Hot Chocolate.) He whisked until it started to bubble, careful not to let it boil, before moving the saucepan off the burner. "Hand me the chocolate please?" Lloyd handed Kai the bar of chocolate.

"Wow, and here I thought that hot cocoa could only be made with packets of cocoa mix...." Lloyd muttered as Kai chopped up the chocolate bar.

"Nope." Kai smiled, before dumping the bits of chocolate into the mixture of cream, milk, and powdered sugar. "If you want whipped topping you'll have to get it from the fridge." Kai mumbled as he stirred the chocolate into the mix until it melted and became cocoa.

Lloyd grabbed the whipped topping as Kai got some mugs down from the pantry. "What is going on in here?" a voice asked as Kai poured the cocoa into the mugs. It was Wu.

"G'morning Sensei." 

"Kai it's two thirty in the morning, why are you making hot chocolate?"

"Lloyd had a bad dream, and this is what I always did for Nya before she claimed to be too old for it."

"I see..." Wu nodded as he spoke. "Just make sure to clean up when you're done."

(Uh, this is the website I found the recipe on.... https://www.wellplated.com/french-hot-chocolate/ uh... Hot Cocoa tasty, have a nice day.)