On a String

Chapter 9

Cole rolled his eyes at Kai's back. Okay, the guy's ego was seriously annoying. But he was a good fighter; Cole would grudgingly give him that.

"Dude, there is no way you're going to make that jump," Cole rolled his eyes at his friend, who was currently contemplating whether it would be possible to travel across the training courtyard using only objects over five meters tall.

Kai smirked back at Cole knowingly. "You wanna bet on that, bro?" he asked while mentally calculating the distance from the rooftop they were standing on to the top of the pillar in the middle of the courtyard.

Cole shook his head. "No, coz I'll need the money to pay for your hospitalization when you fall on your face,"

"Don't talk about my face like that! You're just jealous of my good looks!" Kai gave a mock scowl.

Cole returned the scowl with a confused look. "What good looks?"

Kai's scowl morphed into a good natured grin. "Ha. You don't even know what they are. Coz you don't have any,"

"I've got plenty, thanks. And I'd better let you know that your ego's gonna take quite a bruising when you fall,"

"Oh please, like I'd ever fail at something as tame as this!" Kai moved to the end of the roof, preparing for a run up. "It'll be easy," he snorted confidently.

Cole sighed while watching his impulsive brother. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're crazy?"

"Yeah. I took it as a compliment,"

"It probably wasn't intended that way,"

"Hey! It might have been! You never know."

"Don't jump," Cole groaned, covering his eyes as Kai began to run across the roof. "Argh, Kai, you're such an idiot,"

"I'll take that as a compliment as well!" With a wicked laugh, the Ninja flung himself off the roof, sailed through the air...

... Only to get tangled in the sail which hung underneath the tall pillar. "Oops,"

Cole burst into laughter while his friend scrambled for a hand hold in the slippery canvas material. "Tame? Easy? Dude, you have no idea how ridiculous you look right now," Losing it completely, the mature, calm, composed Earth Ninja doubled over with laughter. Unfortunately, he 'doubled over' a bit too far and lost his balance, so resorted to rolling around on the roof in hysterics while throwing out the clichéd one liner: "Hang in there, Kai!"

"Shut up and go get me a ladder!" Kai snapped as he finally found a handhold.

Pulling himself back up, Cole took another look at his friend and sniggered. "Oh, man up and jump down,"

"I can't do that! Do you have any idea how bad the ground shock is going to be from this height?"

"That's what you get for jumping, you crazy idiot." Cole laughed, before sarcastically asking, "Gonna take that as a compliment?"

"...LADDER!"

Cole closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.