Bite Me! | lavashipping

7 | Gnaw

Elsewhen, he would have all the time in the world climbing back up to the monastery. However, now he was up before he could recompose himself and Kai was at his side, barking questions one after another while Lloyd had yet to catch his breath. He was blinded in the spotlight, in front of the toughest of crowds, dressed only halfway into his costume.

It probably would not matter what he answered, he lacked the ability to soothe Kai, to step around his buttons. He spent years mastering how to push them and it keeps catching up with him. How inconvenient and ironic, it was rather Cole who was arguably the best at defusing Kai out of them all.

No one told him being the Green Ninja meant sacrificing his own sanity for the sake of everyone else's, it was always about saving lives and being the hero. At this rate it was surprising his hair kept its colour.

Before Lloyd could process a single question, he already had a backlog of twenty more. And although he did not seem thrilled about it, as Lloyd explained nothing whatsoever and just told him to come along, Kai remained hot on his tail all the way to the elevator.

There, at last, when he could take a proper, deep breath, and the closing of the door ensured Kai had nowhere else to go, could Lloyd try to answer the most frequent question as tenderly as he mustered.

So he poked the beehive, "He's going to be fine."

"Oh. Well, that's just great!"

Maybe, and this could be a stretch, but maybe getting himself stuck in a tiny cabin with Kai was not the greatest of his ideas. Maybe his thinking was still not as bright as it should have been.

"So he's not fine right now. And I guess you're not gonna tell me more, right? Good. Cool. Great." Kai clenched his teeth as if he was getting ready to bite his way out of the elevator.

"Look, Kai–" If there was not the mental image of Cole huddled up on the stairs in a pool of his own blood, he could definitely handle this way better. To be fair, could anyone else handle this better? There were so many unknowns, his mission was to write checks he couldn't cash just to ensure nothing was getting burnt down.

"I admit he wasn't in the best shape," please stop the murderous staring, this was worse than oral examination at Darkley's, "but he's with Zane now, okay? He's taking care of him, it's going to be fine, I promise." Because he definitely knew exactly what was happening with the rest and did not run away to lure the lion from it's den.

Squeezing his own arms, Kai kept staring at him but he was quiet, which either meant Lloyd was doing something right or it was just the elevator. Either way, it helped Lloyd make some sense of the chaos inside his own head.

"No more dying."

Kai scoffed, and nothing else was said for the rest of the elevator ride. Then the door opened again and the tense air let go of his throat as the large cavern provided more space for it to fill.

Pixal equalled a presence of angels armed with katanas. Oh, it was so nice to have somebody calm and steady by his side again to put everything back on track. If only he could just click restart like in video games and do a better job than just then.

"So what exactly are we doing?" Kai asked, examining the sword in his hand. Sharp blade, sharp eyes, sharp tongue – he could make it to employee of the month in a slaughterhouse. His shoulders were tense in the typical instinct to jump the gun, he was just left without a target.

Lloyd was more than happy to let Pixal take over the conversation. His faltering today will stick with him for a while, he could already feel it. He can't crumble so easily under pressure, how did Cole do it? "Zane informed me to look for large, unguiculate animals or any signs of them."