Brother of Wind {book 2: Legacy of the Green Ninja}

chapter 7

Lloyd continuously gasped for breath.

"Focus." Sensei said.
"In order to bear the fate of Ninjago on your shoulders..." Sensei poured himself a cup of tea.
"You must first learn to bear the weight of all of us."

Lloyd was standing on one hand, all the ninja, and sensei was on top of the boy.

"Focus..." Sensei sipped his tea.
"Uh, sensei? I'm starting to think this was a bad idea." Jay said.
"Yeah, even I'm starting to think that." Morro agreed.
"Yeah, sensei! He's just a kid!" Cole looked down at Lloyd struggling, but keeping it up.

"In order for him to succeed, we must all trust one another." Wu explained.
Lloyd was just barely holding it up. It was going well until and large wrecking ball crashed in the window and threw everyone off balance and onto the ground.

"What was that?" Cole asked getting up. Two workers came up to the broken, open, part of the building.
"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!" Dareth came running in the room.
"This wasn't supposed to happen until tomorrow!" Dareth yelled at the workers.

"Tomorrow? Let me see that order." One worker checked a paper.
"Oh, yeah. My bad. Sorry about that. We'll be back in the morning."the two men walk off, taking the machine with them.

Dareth winced as he picked up one of his fallen trophies.
"Uh, Dareth? What is this all about?" Cole asked.

"Well, I fell behind on some of my payments and some developer named Darnagom Enterprises is buying the entire block to put in some stupid frisbee-golf course." Dareth explained.
"They say if I don't come up with 50,000 by tomorrow, the dojo is gone." He lowered his head.

"But, we already lost the Bounty. We can't lose the dojo now." Jay said.
"My trophies. Oh, my fakes trophies!" Dareth sobbed.

"Wait a minute..." Zane stared at a sign for the enterprises.
"Darnagom? When you rearrange the letters, it spells..."

"O' grandma?" Jay asked. Morro nearly chocked.
"No! Garmadon!" Kai shouted.
"Riiiight. That would make more sense." Jay said.

Lloyd looked down.
"Ah, my dad is behind this?" Lloyd asked.
"We won't have a place to train Lloyd if we lose this place." Morro said.
"Any chance you got 50,000 in that teapot of yours?" Dareth asked Wu.
"Worry not, Dareth. You're not in this alone. We're all with you." Wu reassured.

"Did someone say 50,000?" Nya asked walking in.
"You didn't happen to win the lottery?" Jay gasped.
"No, No, but I heard about Ninjaball Run!" Nya exclaimed.

"Ninjaball run?" Everyone repeated.
"It's the biggest road race in Ninjago, with a prize of 100,000 big ones. And it's tomorrow." Nya informed.

"Thank you, little lady fighter, but you're talking about the most dangerous race known to man." Dareth said.
"Only the most serious of racers even stand a chance."

"But didn't you just do a few upgrades on our Ultra Sonic Raider? Maybe we might stand a chance." Kai suggested.
"And I can enter with my Dragon. You did say I needed the practice." Lloyd said.

"So it is agreed. You will all enter this "Ninjaball Run" to save the dojo." Sensei said. Nya noticed that Dareth was still sobbing.
"Are you still crying?" She asked.

"Yes. But these are happy tears." Dareth replied.

So tomorrow had come and the day of the race as well. Kai, Jay, Zane and Cole parked the radar at the starting point and Nya was making a few last minutes adjustments.

"Welcome, everyone, to the 14th annual Ninjaball Run!" The first announcer said.
"The Grand Prix where it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there first." The second.