Finally Lloyd's Five Times is here! Updates will be every Monday! :D

This story takes place when Lloyd is a child (pre-Child's Play). Because Lloyd is a kid for such a short and specific time in the show, I decided to make these one shots follow a chronology, and therefore, they are loosely connected. This one shot takes place between "Can of Worms" and "The Snake King." Lloyd has just joined the ninja and has not been captured by the Serpentine yet or found out that he is the Green Ninja.

I hope you like it!

The first time Lloyd pranked him, Kai let it go.

Kai was relaxing on the couch in the living room, listening to his BorgPod and flipping through a magazine when he felt someone tap his shoulder.

He should have been suspicious when he saw Lloyd standing in front of him oh-so-innocently, but unfortunately, past Kai was not as wise as future Kai.

Pulling out one earbud, he raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Nya's looking for you."

"Why?"

Lloyd shrugged. "Didn't ask."

Sighing, Kai set his magazine aside, paused his music, and left his BorgPod and headphones sitting on the armrest of the couch. "Thanks," he told Lloyd as he left the room in search of his needy sister.

He saw her poring over the blueprints of the Destiny's Bounty in their pseudo-conference room, having a (needlessly flirtatious) conversation with Jay about how they could improve the ship's efficiency.

"What did you need, Nya?" He asked, making the lovebirds jump. Jay seemed mildly annoyed by the interruption, and Nya cocked her head in confusion.

"Huh? I don't need anything. Why do you ask?"

"But… Lloyd said…," Realizing his gullibility, Kai rolled his eyes and headed back toward the living room. "Never mind. Continue flirting."

He smirked to himself when he heard Jay sputter and squeak incoherently at the suggestion while Nya tried to calm him down.

Entering the now empty living room, conspicuously lacking any mischievous brats, he called sarcastically, "Ha ha, Lloyd. You're hilarious." Grumbling to himself, he took up his magazine and replaced his ear buds in his ears, hitting play-

And screamed when his ear drums were blasted with music that was way, way too loud. He ripped the headphones off, grabbing his aching ears and whimpering.

Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear a little kid's laughter.

"Lloyd!" He growled, only catching a glimpse of Lloyd's black hoodie disappearing from the doorway where the little jerk had been watching his flawless plan in action. "You'd better hope I'm not deaf!"

Kai took a deep breath, deciding not to give chase. He was more mature than Lloyd. He could be the bigger person. Besides, it was just a little prank. It was all in good fun.

Calm now, Kai began reading his magazine again.

He should have known the lack of reaction would only cause Lloyd to up the ante.

The second time Lloyd pranked him, Kai was annoyed.

Kai started awake when the alarm went off, waking the five boys sharing the room. He went to rub his eyes-

And froze when something brushed his arm.

Then double froze when he felt something on top of him.

A bunch of somethings.

A bunch of small somethings with a lot of creepy little legs.

Looking down, Kai saw that his entire bed was absolutely filled with hundreds of huge, hairy, disgusting spiders.

He screamed, his voice achieving a frequency he was sure was too high even for dolphins to hear.

He heard Jay, Cole, and Zane scramble to their feet in drowsy confusion, trying to figure out where the little girl who had screamed was.

And, then, he heard Lloyd laughing from the hallway, a safe distance away from Kai's wrath.

Feeling incredibly stupid and embarrassed, Kai grabbed one of the spiders… only to realize it was rubber. Completely fake. Lloyd had put a million fake spiders in his bed as a prank. And, it had worked beautifully.

"Wait, Kai, was that you who screamed?" Zane asked, Kai's three fellow ninja gathered by the edge of his bunk bed, peering up at where he was still lying in the top bunk.

"I'm going to kill that kid," Kai snarled, throwing spider after stupid spider off his bed and onto the floor.

Realization dawned on the other three teens… and they started laughing.

"Oh, c'mon, Kai, you have to admit it was a pretty good prank," Jay conceded, always one to see the genius of practical jokes.

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't be saying that if he did it to you," Kai grumbled, continuing to push the zillion spiders off his bed that seemed to be multiplying- how much did these things cost anyway?

"He does prank us," Cole pointed out, bending to pick up one of the rubber perpetrators and study it.

"Not anymore!" Kai protested, finally freeing his bed of the fake arachnids and hopping to the floor that was now littered with them. "He's only been picking on me!"

"Perhaps he enjoys spending time with you the most, Kai," Zane suggested. "Keep in mind that Lloyd has spent his most crucial developmental years in Darkly's School for Bad Boys. Borderline cruel practical jokes and collaboration in petty theft are the only ways he knows how to bond with people."

"I thought we were trying to reform him," Kai argued, even if the idea that this was Lloyd's way of trying to hang out with him lessened his irritation with the kid. A little.

"I would say this is proof that we already have," Zane countered, presenting one of the rubber toys to Kai. "After all, they could have been real spiders."

The third time Lloyd pranked him, Kai finally got it.

The red ninja had just showered and dressed himself in the street clothes that he had experimentally determined to be the best to wear when trying to pick up girls. He headed toward the door- the slightly ajar door, which really should have tipped him off, considering he was positive he had closed it before getting in the shower.

He pushed the door open-

And screamed when mud- wet, cold, dirty, gross mud- poured all over him, soaking his newly clean and styled hair and possibly irreversibly staining his best outfit. The bucket that had formerly held the mud hit the floor with a thud.

Kai heard the oh-too-familiar laughter assaulting his ear drums and wiped the mud from his eyes to see Lloyd a few feet away. The kid was doubled over, clutching his stomach, and wheezing through his laughter, "Your-your face… it was-it was- it was priceless! I wish I had a camera…,"

But, this was where Lloyd had made his mistake. For the other two pranks, he had been smart enough to escape long before Kai had recovered from the shock. Like so many other tragic heroes, this time, his hubris would be his downfall.

In two lightning-quick strides, Kai had Lloyd in his grasp. In half a second and with barely any effort on his part, Kai wrestled Lloyd to the floor so he was straddling him, pinning both wrists to the ground above his head.

"Enough already!" He yelled. Lloyd wasn't laughing now; in fact, he had gone quite pale. "Are you trying to get me to blow up?"

When Lloyd averted his eyes without deigning to respond, Kai got his answer regardless.

"So, that's it, huh? You think making me mad on purpose is funny? You know, it's already hard enough to control my temper without annoying pains in the neck constantly trying to poke the bear."

Lloyd flinched. He strained against Kai's hold, but he was absolutely helpless in the stronger teen's grasp.

"So, why me?" Kai demanded, not ready to release Lloyd just yet. "Why are you only bugging me?"

"It doesn't matter," Lloyd muttered, struggling once again. Kai tightened his grip on his wrists. "Just let me go."

"Nope, that's not good enough." Kai shook his head. "I've tried to be nice, I've tried to let it go, but now I want an explanation. If you want to spend time with me, this is a really messed up way of showing it."

"I don't want to spend time with any of you!" Lloyd yelled, taking Kai aback with the ferocity of the claim. "I don't even want to be here! So, just let me go!"

Kai blinked, the anger from before forgotten as he studied the boy fruitlessly fighting against him. He started upon seeing tears collecting in Lloyd's eyes that he was desperately trying to keep from falling.

"What do you mean you don't want to be here?" Kai asked. When Lloyd didn't reply, he shook him. "C'mon, Lloyd, we've already been through all this. Just talk to me."

"You want to know why I've been picking on you?" Lloyd asked, rubbing his face against his shoulder in lieu of wiping his eyes as if he could stop himself from crying that way. "I thought you'd be the one that was real with me! I know you guys don't like me, okay? I just wish everyone would stop faking it around me and just tell me to get lost already like everybody else did instead of- instead of-"

Lloyd was openly sobbing now.

And, Kai finally, finally got it.

Lloyd wanted Kai to blow up at him, wanted Kai to hate him even. He wanted them to hold him at arm's length so he wouldn't get attached, so he wouldn't have to feel the same pain he felt when his dad left him if and when they abandoned him too.

Lloyd wanted to push them away before they could push him away.

Kai moved off of Lloyd in favor of sitting on the floor beside him, releasing his wrists from the vice grip he'd held them in.

The second Lloyd was free, he scrambled to get his feet under him, trying to run-

Kai grabbed the hem of his hoodie, yanking him down so they were both sitting in the middle of the hallway.

"I get it, okay?"

Lloyd blinked wetly at the red ninja. "Huh?"

"I get it," Kai repeated. "You know the story of how I became a ninja?"

Lloyd rubbed at his cheek with the heel of his hand. "No."

"Nya got captured, and Master Wu and the guys offered to help me get her back," Kai explained, leaning back on the palms of his hands, confident that the story was enough to keep Lloyd from trying to escape. "And, I… wasn't a very good team player at first. I didn't want their help. I didn't even want to be part of the team in the first place. Ever since my parents disappeared, all I had was Nya, and it was… really hard trying to let anybody else in after all those years.

"But, they stuck by me, even when I was being a jerk," Kai finished, elbowing Lloyd. "It's not that we don't like you, Lloyd. It's hard- for you and us- to let someone new in at first, but the solution is not to close yourself off altogether." He lowered his voice. "We're sticking by you, just like they stuck by me."

Lloyd was staring at him in open astonishment, either shocked that Kai had figured out his ulterior motive for the pranks or by the reassurance that his fear was unfounded- or both. "Kai…,"

"In fact, to prove it…," a devilish grin took up residence on his face. "Let's hug it out."

Lloyd's eyes widened with alarm, and he tried to flee- but Kai was too fast for him, snagging his elbow and yanking him into his cold, muddy embrace.

Lloyd was fighting to escape with at least some part of him still clean, but he was laughing too hard for any of his efforts to be effective.

"Yeah, you can really feel the love…," Kai continued, scooping a handful of mud from the puddle of excess on the ground and stuffing it down the back of Lloyd's hoodie. The kid shrieked as the mud made its freezing trek down his spine, then again when Kai rubbed the mud that was left in his palm into Lloyd's blonde hair and then over his face. "There we go. Do you feel liked now?"

"No!" Lloyd shouted, taking a fistful of mud of his own and stuffing it into Kai's face in retribution. "Take that!"

"Oh, you asked for it!"

But, Lloyd had to admit that, later when he was on his hands and knees scrubbing the hallway that was absolutely coated in mud after their wrestling match with Kai complaining loudly beside him, he did feel at least a little more liked, a notion which was somehow only confirmed when Kai threw a soapy sponge at him.

So I guess this was like a spiritual epilogue to "Five Times Kai Lost His Temper" XD

Suggestions are always open! Next up is Nya! :D