4 | I LIKE TEA

THE NINJA HEADQUARTERS WERE DIFFERENT THAN EMMA HAD IMAGINED IT TO BE AS SHE SAT IN THE LIVINGROOM WATCHING THE NINJA ARGUE OVER WHO GOT TO BE THE FIRST PLAYER IN SOME VIDEO GAME. "So, you sell tea?" she wondered aloud, cracking a small smile when Jay turned around to narrow his eyes at her. "What? It's an honest question!"

"We fight, and I'm talking about the tea prices," he muttered, turning back to face the television screen. "Didn't you fight dead things, snakes, one of your dad's, robots, and each other?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, you're minimizing our victories, and I don't quite appreciate it," Kai grumbled, throwing a pillow at her face so she fell over into Lloyd's lap. The green ninja went bright red, as did Emma, and Cole turned around glaring at the ninja before yanking his sister up. He gave his blonde friend a death glare and a glance that meant 'don't even go near her.'

"So, is this going to take a while? My dad's going to get worried."

"I told dad that you were hanging out with me. Misako is good at interpreting strange things like prophecies and odd notes, so it shouldn't take much longer," Cole explained, shrugging his shoulders. "The harder part will most likely be discovering why the letter was sent to you specifically," Zane added in.

"Couldn't it just be because my brother is a ninja?"

"No," they all responded in sync, not even taking their eyes away from the screen for once second to respond. "Where did Nya go? I need a girl my age to hang out with."

"She's probably tending to the dragon," Kai brushed off, only tensing when the door opened and Sensei Wu stood in the doorway. The ninja rushed to pause the video game and mute the television while Sensei Wu wandered into the front of the room. 

"I told my pupils that I felt a greater power in Ninjago," he began, looking straight to Emma who had sat up to be respectful. "At first I assumed it was a new danger lurking about, but when you entered this shop, it became clear."

Taking everyone by surprise, Cole jumped to his feet and shouted "What?!"

Emma nodded and rose to her feet, standing side by side of her brother. "Sorry, Sensei Wu, but I think you may be mistaken. I'm a dance teacher! And... danc-ee!" 

"Dancer," Lloyd interrupted, trying to correct her mistake. She turned to glare at him before facing Sensei Wu again who was only shaking his head. "I sense the rock-solid determination inside of you, just like your brother. And I can only assume the letter was delivered to you because whoever we may be encountering in the near future knows about your powers, and you may be the only ones to stop them."

"But, the letter said I would always fall short! How do you expect me to fall tall?"

"Hey, that rhymed!" Jay shouted, laughing to himself to fill the silence in the room. He had thought the joke was amusing, but the rest of his audience begged to differ. 

For minutes, no one said a word, no one moved, and no one blinked. All was silent, and thoughts about Emma becoming a new ninja was brewing, mainly in plain confusion. "Sensei, I have a life in Jamanakai Village," Emma finally spoke up. "This is not a part of it, this is my brother's life. Not mine."

"It must become yours, too. For the sake of Ninjago, and everyone in it."

Kai stood up and placed his hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward slightly, "Okay, so Emma is a new ninja. That's established. But who's the enemy?" he questioned, everyone else growing curious to the answer as well. 

Sensei took a deep breath in and briefly closed his eyes before releasing the response, "The demonic beings that were banished long ago. And I fear we may be too late."

•••

Emma hardly picked at her food that night, and she didn't have the courage to call her father and tell him about the current situation. She knew it would break him to hear that his daughter was leaving, just like his son. When Cole left to be a ninja, Lou Brookstone didn't even know. He thought his son was at a performing arts academy, studying to follow in his footsteps and continue the family business. But then he left, and four months later announced that he was, in fact, a ninja. For two year, Lou Brookstone made it his new mission to train Emma to carry out his role. It wasn't difficult accounting that Emma was gifted in the arts. She could dance, sing, and play any instrument given to her, and for her middle school years, she loved it. But when she was expected to attend the performing arts school in place of her brother, practicing her talents became a chore she dreaded every day. And she only continued for her father.

Now that she was an announced earth master, her training as a ninja would have to pick up vigorously, and that meant moving out of the house and into the tea shop. That meant abandoning her father and everything she ever knew to start a new journey that she didn't even know she would be good at. Everything was changing so fast. She had just made up with her brother that day, and that was the end of a two-year rage. Now, that same day, she was going to be starting a new life with a brother she still didn't know.

She was terrified that she was making the wrong decision, but she was basing it off of the sake of Ninjago. Her whole life, she had done what other people wanted for her, never for herself. And even now, at seventeen-years-old in a tea shop with three elderly, one girl her age, and five boys two-years-older than her, that was her new life. A life she was going to have to adjust to. 

And peace be with her in this storm.