(Ninjago) The Broken Ones

Chapter Twenty: It's All In The Mind and Heart

Chapter Twenty: All In The Mind And Heart
AN~ sorry that I'm skipping a little bit of time, I've just been going slowly (time wise) in the story and I wanted to speed things up a little. Just a brief explanation: in the time that's passed they've trained for about three weeks and Cass and Shadow have gotten closer to the guys and Nya.

(Time skip: Three weeks)

I put my hands on my knees to catch my breath before standing up straight again and getting into my battle ready stance like before. "Come on, you can do better than that Shadow, can't you?" I gestured my hands in taunting manner at Shadow, showing that I wanted more of a challenge in the spar. I was determined to win this sparring match, like she was, and wouldn't stop at anything to be victorious. She ran at me, ready to punch me, but I grabbed her flying fist and stopped her. I flipped her over my shoulder. On her way down she pulled me down with me causing the both of us to fall to the ground. I payed there for a moment before getting out and holding out a hand to help her up.

"Thanks," she thanked me, accepting my help and pulling herself back up. I found it a little ironic that we both ended up falling on the floor, and that it ended up being a tie. She never really came across this while sparring, it was rare for her to see, but this time it managed to be that way. "Hey, nice match. I can tell that you've been getting better since our first spar three weeks ago."

"Yeah," I nodded "Same to you. You've gotten quicker since then, quicker than you already were," I was surprised that I was actually able to improve just after three weeks, I thought that it'd take at least two months to see even the littlest bit of progress. I guess they coming and training with a group did benefit my training in some way. Good thing I didn't turn down the offer three weeks ago, or I wouldn't be progressing in training like I was since I did. "There's still a couple of things that they've still got to show us, from what I'm seeing," for one thing, they were telling us that they'd show us spinjitzu, but that was over a week ago. "I swear to god if they don't teach us spinjitzu today, I'm gonna flip a table."

"I know," she agreed with me. "That one of the things that I'm the most excited to learn and it really sucks that they haven't even brought it up in the past week and a half. I just wanna learn it already. Just imagine what it'd be like if we knew spinjitzu too! I mean, not a lot of people can say that they know it. It's just be one more thing that we could impress people with."

I scratched the back of my head "It would be nice, but I mostly want to learn because I want some new fighting techniques. I can actually think of a couple of things right now that I could do," I told her. I knew that once I knew spinjitzu that it'd be a whole new fighting experience for me. There was no doubt that it's increase my fighting skills and improve my chances of winning a fight in battle. It seemed to be a great skill to use as a defense like thing: you use it to knock an opponent down before hitting the finishing blow.

"What's this I hear about spinjitzu?" We heard, and turned our heads to see Zane walking into the room. "Do you two want to learn it now?" He questioned.

"Well yeah," I admitted "You guys said that you'd show us how you guys do it over a week ago, and we think that it'd be a good time to do this now," I was hoping that he'd agree to teaching us it, even if it was just him I'd be satisfied. It's not like we needed all five of them to teach us, it was just important that we had at least one person here to show us the ways of the art of spinjitzu. "What do you say about that."

"I agree that it's a good time they you two learn it, but there's a problem," he told us, making both Shadow and I to raise an eyebrow. How what's there a problem with it when he said that it was a good time to show us? "You two already know spinjitzu. Just a little hint: remember your training in the training course," with that, he left, leaving Shadow and I dumbfounded.

A couple of seconds passed before we looked at each other "What the heck does he mean by remember your training in the training course?" Shadow asked as if I had a clue as to what he meant. I wasn't even sure what he was referring to myself... Until a lightbulb went off in my head. "What's that look for?" She asked, clearly seeing the smile on my face from realization of what he meant.

"I think he was talking about the training course itself. I mean, training in the training course has to mean how we trained while using it. It makes sense, you have to admit," I slowly started to make sense, what we were supposed to to. Maybe if we just practiced on the training course it would just done to us, it was most likely that we needs to be aware of it and actually needed to try to learn it ourselves. It made sense, what else could Zane be referring to? If there was something else then we were really oblivious because I had no clue about what else to think or do to learn spinjitzu.

"Maybe you're right," she nodded in agreed before laughing "Then we should take a spin at it then."

"Whoa, please, no puns. We've got enough coming from him as it is, we don't need any more," I had to admit, it was better than some of Jay's, but that didn't mean that it wasn't cheesy. A lot of puns were cheesy and it was hard to come by ones that are actually worthy of being said. "But yeah, we should get to it now. I'm pumped up and ready to try this thing out," I got a nod of agreement from her, and we didn't hesitate to head over to the training course. I pressed the large button to start it up and watched it come to life right before us. "Alright, we've got this. Just go through it and give it your all, and things should work their magic."

I stepped up first, volunteering to be the first one to try. I took a deep breath and got ready to run "Alright, I've got this," I told myself, trying to keep up my confidence. As long as I could manage to keep it up I could do it, I always performed the best when I did. I dashed through each part and put my full concentration into successfully performing spinjitzu. I took note of everything I did, and at the end put it into actions and before I knew it I saw a little bit of Purple around me. I was able to maintain a spinjitzu tornado (or whatever you want to call it) before it vanished and I fell to the ground. "Damn it."

"Nice!" I heard Shadow yell across the room, before she started to run through the course as well. She went a little faster through the course than I did, and she was able to perform a little bit of spinjitzu too. I gave her a thumbs up when she couldn't anymore and she returned the thumbs up. "That's easier than I thought it would."

"Yeah, same," I told her before adding "I'm not sure about you but I'm going to try it without the training course," I walked into an open part of the room and looked around, picturing the course as if it was really there. I ran through and imagined myself going through, able to hold the tornado for even longer than before. "aha!" I was actually able to keep it steady with no problem.. Until I crashed into a wall. I crashed into the wall and fell back and into the ground. I stood myself up and stretched "Oops," I felt as if I could maintain spinjitzu, I just needed to practice controlling it.

"How'd you do that?" Shadow questioned, so I explained to her how I just pictured the training course than and just went with the flow. "Okay, got it," after a minute or two she was able to perform some spinjitzu and maintain it like I did just before her. "Awesome!" she jumped out of her neon green spinjitzu tornado and landed next to me. "We gotta tell the others! I can't believe I just did spinjitzu! So did you!"

"Whoa, calm down there."

"Sorry, I'm just really excited. But let's go, I wanna tell Lloyd about this!" Before I could stop her she was already running down the hall brag to the others about what had just happened. I sighed but just followed behind, not in a rush like she was. I thought for a moment and realized that I'd learn even more here than I had originally anticipated. I had a great place to train, better people to train with, and the best people to become my friends. In the past three weeks I've grown closer to them than with people I've known for years (not including my sister) and I couldn't ask for better friend and teammates.