Candy! 🍭🍬🍭🍬

Prompt: "Excuse me- that was my smoothie."

This occurs in the Movie universe.

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I yawned loudly as the early sun shone in my eyes through my bedroom window. I rolled in my bed to the other side, squinting at the alarm clock.

I furrowed by brow at the glowing red digits which read 6:30 a.m. That was odd. It was a school day and normally I don't wake up even when Mom is literally screaming in my ear to get ready for school.

What was about today that woke me up so early? I scratched my blonde hair, messing it up even more. My eyes widened as I remembered and a feeling of overwhelming dread made its home in the pit of my stomach.

Today was my twelfth birthday.

I groaned, throwing an arm over my face in frustration. While most kids would get excited and jump around on their birthdays, I preferred to stay in my bed and sulk till the day was over. I hated my birthday.

I basically hated every day of my life but my birthday drew more unnecessary attention towards me. Even though I was the only son of an evil warlord who attacked the city on a daily basis, nobody restrained themselves from insulting me knowing I can just dial dear ol' daddy's number and have him come beat the living daylights out of them.

That wasn't the case however. Dad – scratch that – Garmadon doesn't even know I exist. I mean he obviously does but I'm pretty sure he doesn't care. I don't care about him either though.

I was so not looking forward to spending my birthday listening to things like "Garmadork" or cheers like "L-L-O-Y-D – The demon spawn we love to tease" or the sarcastic "Thanks, Lloyd" every time Garmadon attacked.

I crawled out of my bed and made my way down the hall of my apartment. Mom was probably asleep and wasn't going to wake up till seven-thirty since that's when she gets ready for work.

Though she would sometimes be oblivious to the fact that having a positive attitude never works, she was still probably the most awesome mom anyone could ever have.

She would even take some time off work just to be there when I returned home from school. She would make me laugh and then take me to drink smoothies. I wonder if she gets insulted by people at her workplace just like me. Just because she doesn't live with my father didn't mean people don't associate her with him. She was married to him once after all.

I quietly twisted the door knob and pushed open the door to reveal my mother still asleep in her bed. I sighed, rehearsed what I was going to say and then shuffled over to her. She stirred awake as I crawled under the blanket beside her, smiling sleepily as she looked at me.

"Sweetie?" she mumbled, stifling a yawn. "What are you doing up so early?" She pulled me close to her, embracing me in a bear-hug. I could still smell the faint scent of her perfume that always calmed my nerves.

"Happy Birthday, darling," she wished, tightening her arms around me. "Mom," I whispered as she kissed my head. "I don't wanna go to school today."

She stopped and gazed at me with a perplexed look. She stroked my hair as she asked me the reason of my sudden change of plans. I rolled my eyes as if she didn't know why I tell her the same thing every morning.

"Because," I began, "they're gonna announce my birthday on TV with that panda and the hotdog guy."

Yep, you heard me. They've got this segment on the news where a guy yells "Local Birthdays" in a very weird way and then the birthday people are revealed. It's a super weird tradition of Ninjago City and honestly, to me, it's creepy how they know when everyone was born.

"The whole city's gonna know about it," I continued even though I could feel a lump rising in my throat, "and I'll be pushed around by bullies the entire day more than usual."

I dropped my gaze as my voice cracked. Concerned, Mom sat up straight, her carrot coloured hair falling about her face and sticking out everywhere. I never cried when I told her of the mocking and ridiculing so hearing the break in my voice must've drove her to think I had finally let the negativity get to me.

"Honey," she said softly as I shifted close to her. "It's going to be okay. Just ignore all the haters."

I squeezed the blanket in my fist as tears threatened to pour out from my eyes. "I can't," I snapped at her. "You can't expect me to ignore it when they say that on my birthday, hell opened it's gates and sent me into the world!"

Mom froze as I stopped my rambling. Her eyes stared straight at me and for a moment I thought she was going to lash out at me for even saying such a thing. A few seconds passed before Mom finally muttered, "Who said that?" 

Her voice had suddenly gone from soft to cold and I could sense the anger she shielded behind her emotionless facade. I fiddled with the corner of the pillow case, not meeting my mother's gaze. "Some kid at school started it and the whole thing just became a . . . headcanon."

Without saying another word, Mom twisted around and grabbed her cell phone from her nightstand. In an instant, I knew what she was going to do. "Mom, no!" I said, snatching the phone from her. "Complaining to the Principal will just make things difficult."

"It'll make things right!" she stated, trying to get to her phone but I yanked it out of sight behind my back. "Please!" I pleaded, holding her hand. "If you want to help me then leave the school authorities out of this."

Mom pressed her lips together and rubbed her forehead. I, on the other hand, felt like a complete and utter loser. It was only six in the morning and I had probably raised her blood pressure enough to ruin her day.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I mumbled, seeing as she had buried her face in her hands. "I didn't mean to upset you."

She inhaled deeply before releasing her breath. I smiled weakly as she cupped my cheek in her soft hand and muttered, "You're not going to school. I had something else planned for you today anyway."

That got my attention.

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"I have an uncle?!" I exclaimed in shock, nearly spilling my strawberry-banana smoothie on the dashboard.

Mom giggled as she guided the car off the main road towards the old harbour. "Surprise," she sang, pinching my cheek. I swatted her hand away and glared at her indignantly. "You haven't told me this for the entire twelve years I was alive? Why?"

Mom sighed and smiled at me. "I didn't know your father even had a brother till he popped out of nowhere to be his best man at our wedding."

"But you knew it since then," I argued, taking an angry sip from my smoothie. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Mom pursed her lips, no doubt thinking of an excuse to cover up the fact that I had an uncle I never knew about. "Because your uncle is . . . . an unusual person."

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. "I have a warlord for a father, Mom. I think I can handle unusual." She didn't say anything in reply which led me to continue my interrogation. "Sooo . . . when you say unusual, do you mean like a hippie or . . . is he like Dad?"

"Neither," Mom replied serenely. I waited for her to continue, the silence only broken by the occasional slurping of my drink. "His name is Wu," Mom spoke after a brief pause.
"He plays the flute, writes books and he's old enough to be your great, great grandfather."

It took me a few seconds to fully comprehend these rather "unusual" qualities but then again my dad was in his late 150's when I was born and he has a thing for lava and sharks.

"If we're going to meet my uncle then why are we at the harbour?" I inquired, eyeing my mother suspiciously. "Does Wu live in a fisherman's hut?"

I jerked forward as Mom stopped the car, leaning forward to look out the windshield. "No," she muttered, still in a joking mood, an amused smile playing on her lips. "He lives there."

Following the direction my mother's finger was pointing, I too glanced up at the sky. "No way," I breathed out in amazement as an entire ship came floating down from the clouds. I noticed the rocket boosters that were blazing to keep the ship afloat and the huge white sails for manipulating the wind for its steering.

Me and Mom climbed out of the car, the wind blowing in our faces as the sea– no – air vessel made a smooth landing on the waters of the harbour. "No way, no way, no way!" I yelled the words enthusiastically over and over again. "My uncle lives in a flying ship!"

"Not just any flying ship," came an accented voice from on board. "This is the Destiny's Bounty." I squinted at the deck to see a very old man standing at the edge with a confident yet cool stature, hands behind his back. His long, white beard stretched down to his naval and on his head he wore those classic, straw hats. He was clothed in a pearly white kimono with golden highlights here and there.

"You were right," I muttered, going over to stand next to my mother. "He is old enough to be my great, great grandfather."

"Hello," came Wu's voice from behind us, making me jump violently. "Whoa!" I yelled and made to grab my smoothie cup that had slipped out of my hand. Mom caught it for me, though. Did I mention that she has really good reflexes for some reason?

"Careful, Lloyd," Mom stated, handing me back the cup. "I didn't buy you this so you could spill it wherever you go."

"How did you get over here so quickly?" I inquired, waiting for my heart rate to decrease back to normal. Wu didn't reply. In fact he didn't even look at me.

"Koko," Wu greeted, taking my mom's hand and raising it a little while bowing himself. "Looking wonderful as always." My mother smiled at his politeness and charm and thanked him.

He then finally turned to me, stroking his beard and looking business-like. "You must be Lloyd, my nephew." I smiled, extending my hand for a hand shake which he acknowledged.

"Well," Mom chimed in, "I'll leave you two be and get back to work." She kissed my head and quickly hugged me before walking over to the car. She stopped and turned around, raising an eyebrow at my "uncle".

"Remember what we talked about?" She reminded Wu of something to which the old man nodded. "I will not discuss anything of the sort with him."

"Do I have your word for it?"

"Of course."

For some reason my eyes roamed down to Wu's back where he was crossing his fingers, keeping it out of my mother's sight. I tried to hide my grin.

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"Excuse me– that's my smoothie," I complained as Wu snatched the pink drink from my hands and discarded it. "Hey, what's your problem?"

Wu didn't respond but hummed a tune as he poured some kind of tea into two handle-less cups. He pushed one towards me and sat down with his own on the other end of the small table, gazing out of the portholes of the Bounty.

I peered into my cup as a fragrant smoke reached my nose. I, however, turned away. "I'm sorry but I don't drink tea."

He ignored me as usual and kept on drinking the warm liquid. In all honesty, the man hadn't said a word to me ever since Mom left. He very rudely threw my smoothie away and didn't tell me why. What's up with that?

Then finally, he opened his mouth. "Tell me about yourself, Lloyd. How's life?"

"Terrible," I blurted out without hesitation. "Thanks to your brother, I'm living a hard knock life."

Wu shook his head slowly, taking yet another long sip of his tea. "Thanks to your father, you are living a hard knock life." I stared at him with confusion. What was the difference in his brother and my father?

As if he had read my mind, he answered my unvoiced question. "The relationship of a father and son is far more important than that of brothers. Consequently, I'm not suffering from being Garmadon's brother but you are from being his son."

"So?" I shrugged.

Wu looked at me from over the rim of his cup before lowering it down on the table. He leaned closer to me and whispered, "Only when you are walking in darkness can you see the light in the distance."

"What's that got to do with any of me?" I asked. Seriously, these cryptic metaphors always make me nauseous.

"Do you know why you are bullied, nephew?"

I gave a mirthless chuckle. "Of course I know that. It's 'cause of my father."

"Exactly," Wu replied, confusing me even more. "Your father bullies the people and the people, in turn, bully you. Should you not bully, or rather, fight to stop Garmadon?"

He spoke these words with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that looked really suspicious to me. "You must walk a different path. One only the son of Garmadon can walk."

"Me?!" I exclaimed, pointing at myself, internally laughing at the ridiculous thought. "I can't fight my father and his entire seafood-themed army. I'm just a kid."

Wu left his place on the other side of the table and walked around it to reach me. I could hear him pacing the space behind me and I continued to stare at my reflection in the tea cup.

"You may be just a kid," Wu muttered, stroking his beard once again. "But you can still do great things."

I shook my head and insulted myself. "Great things? I can't even make myself a proper sandwich."

Wu chuckled (hey, the guy actually knew how to laugh) and reached up a hand from behind me. He took a hold of my chin and lifted it upwards.

"You just have to look at yourself from a different point of view," he whispered and my eyes immediately fell on the display in front of me which I hadn't noticed before.

There was a long mirror in front of which was hanging a green and black uniform which those cool, kick-butt ninjas in the movies wear. At once I imagined myself wearing it, waving around a katana and fighting for the weak.

I turned to look at my uncle again and this time, his lips were fully outstretched into a smile. He placed a hand on my shoulder and I could feel an exciting chill running down my spine.

"How would you like to become a ninja?"

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