Chapter 4: Boneheads
"I need to learn to be smart." said the Porcupine. Andrew starting cracking up in a fit of giggles, spewing soggy popcorn pieces flying to the ground.
"Ew, gross!" Jay exclaimed with a grin. Andrew sat up back into his beanbag and grabbed another handful of popcorn. This was the life. No duties, no responsibilities, just sitting around and watching television. The animated spotted frog was cracking everybody up, every grouchy old Lloyd. The ninja were beginning to accept Andrew was part of their team, and they were enjoying each other. They were all very fun, and Andrew liked their company.
Suddenly, Wu, the party spoiler, burst into the room. "The skeletons are back!" He said. An eerie silence echoed through the room.
Silent, that is, except for the TV still shouting: "I HAVE A WATERMELON AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!!!"
Finally, the silence was broken and Jay started laughing. Not at the television program, but at the idea of the skeletons returning. "Are you kidding?" He asked. "The skeletons are long gone! There's no way they could be back!"
"If you don't believe me," Wu said solemnly, "look out your window." Jay, to humor Wu, pulled the curtains and peeked past them, then gasped.
"OMISQUASH!!" Jay shouted. "THE SKELETONS!! THEY'RE BACK!!! THEY'RE BACK!! OMISQUASHOMISQUASHOMISQUASH!!!" Obviously, Jay had been watching too many stupid TV shows, because "oh my squash" is a weird interjection.
The ninja all bustled out of their beanbags and grabbed katanas and sais and shurikens and other necessary weapons. They pulled up their ninja masks, and Kai said: "Nya, you stay behind!"
"What?" Nya exclaimed. "I'm a fully-fledged ninja! What can they do against me?"
Kai bustled out of the door, looking back. His only response was: "Karma."
The massive mob of monstrous man-corpses were doing evil things, such as driving into buildings with oversized vehicles, terrorizing innocent (and evil!) citizens, and taking candy from babies. Suddenly, a pack of six large vehicles drove in, and out hopped six ninja - and Andrew. All the ninja charged at skeletons, pulling out katanas and sais. Andrew charged too, but stopped midway when he realized that he didn't have a weapon. He then charged back to the vehicles, but a bit less aggressively.
"Katana, katana, where's a katana?" Andrew mumbled as he leaned over the side of the Rock Roader. Suddenly, he spotted a pair of shurkiens lazily loafing around on the corner. "Ooh! Throwing stars!" He exclaimed happily. He grabbed them, then charged back at the Shulkin Army.
As he ran, he shouted: "Take this, you lousy-" he paused. "Uh . . . darn! How do the ninja come up with good insults?! Ugh. Fine, then take this, you skeletons!" He spotted a skeleton a couple meters away and instinctively threw his shurikens at him. They slashed its spine, but instead of doing what they did in ninja movies, which was screaming and falling to the ground, it just turned around. Andrew sensed he was in trouble. It was at that moment he remembered how sturdy bone it.
The skeleton walked up to Andrew, then let out a loud, cruel laugh. "HA!" It shouted. "How pathetic! Did you really think you could mess with me, a skeleton? You're so stupid! You must-" The skeleton kept on throwing rude insults at Andrew, and Andrew felt as if he was shrinking with despair, then an idea popped into his head. He slowly made his skin and flesh dissolve away, and forces his head to inflate oddly. A moment later, he was a skeleton.
The skeleton looked at Andrew. "What're you yelling at me for?" He shouted. The transformation had altered his vocal chords to sound deeper - but did skeletons even have vocal chords?
"Oh, sorry sir." The skeleton apologized. "I thought - I was- I - uh - nevermind it, sir."
"Phew," Andrew thought. The skeleton awkwardly stumbled away, back into the mob of action. With a simply silent command, Andrew made his body morph back into what it was originally. He felt his skull getting smaller and his legs getting shorter. He was himself again.
He looked at the ninja, there they were, all jumped and shouting and fighting. A rough kick from Cole sent a skeleton spiraling down onto a wall. Kai shot a flaming hot fireball at a skeleton who shrieked and ran towards a bucket of water. Nya shot a jet of water shooting right at another which was powerful enough to push him several meters away. They all looked so cool. They seemed glorious. They were epic, showing off their amazing skills and pure - well, awesomeness.
Andrew wished that he was amongst that group. He wished he was part of them, cool enough to be doing such things at ease. However, he had no hope. He was just a child. He was too short to even tap the heads of the enemies. He knew nothing of fighting or war. His elemental power was also next to useless. You can't fight with form! You can't shoot a form-ball at somebody! All you can do is morph into a chicken which pecks the toes of the enemy, but what good does that do?
Finally, one of the burlier skeletons shouted "RETREAT!!" at the top of his lungs (if he had any), and the Skulkin army ran off cowardly into the distance.
The crowd (one had grown since the ninja began fighting) began to cheer for the amazing ninja - but not for Andrew.
"What numbskulls!" Kai laughed.
Lloyd added: "They need to work out more, those lazybones!"
Cole chirped in. "On a skull from one to ten, how easy were those guys?"
"They're heartless! Literally!" Jay laughed.
"They've been thrown out to the bone zone!" Zane put in.
"They need to go back to skull!" Nya punned. The crowd laughed.
Andrew wanted the attention too, so he said: "If they ate food, it'd stick to their ribs! Ha! Get it? Huh? Huh?" Nobody laughed, but just stared at him.
It was hopeless.
    The ninja trotted back into the temple, laughing. They were all lighthearted and cheerful, except Andrew. He felt like he was useless. He had always been useless. He was just another pain to the teachers in his boarding school, and now he was just another pain to the team in his path to becoming a ninja. Sometimes he wished that he could just disappear, and then it struck his mind that he could. He tried to focus and becoming an invisible creature, flexing and straining his muscles tightly, but nothing happened. He then tried to becoming a chameleon, but still nothing happened. "Trying to lift a feather, shortstack?" Kai called to Andrew from behind his back. Now Andrew really wanted to turn invisible.
      Soon the ninja were in their previous place: laughing at television in their beanbags. Wu soon walked into the room, with a concerned and pale, dismal complexion. "Ninja." He began slowly. "We need to discuss something."
      "Aw, why do you always have to rain on our parade, Sensei?" Jay asked lightheartedly. "He totally dominated those boneheads, and we can do it again if necessary! Everything will be fine!"
     "I believe that there is more to that ambush than meets the eye."
      "I believe that you worry too much! Just relax, and let's watch a bit more television!"
      "This is important."
      "It can wait! Look, let's just watch a few more commercials!" At Jay's recent notion, Wu went over to the wall and, to the ninja's dismay, unplugged the television. The ninja groaned.
      "I do not think that this attack was coincidental." Wu stated. "I believe that there is something dangerous afoot."
      "They probably just forgot how hard we beat those guys last time and thought they could take over our dimension again. All bone and no brain." Kai said as he threw a handful of popcorn into his mouth. One piece landed on his closed eyelid and bounced onto his lap.
"No. I think we have another threat afoot. We need to train more."
Once again, the ninja groaned. "What if more villains return?" Wu questioned. "What if the stone warriors came back?! We need to get working! Besides, I think everybody's going a bit overboard on the popcorn." At this, Wu made eye contact with Jay, for he had been gaining a few more pounds.
      Kai sighed. "Okay, Sensei." He said. "We'll get going in a couple hours." Wu just glared at Kai. The ninja received his insinuated message and ran downstairs to the dojo, except for Andrew.
      "Can I watch more TV?" Andrew asked.
      "You can-" Andrew's hope and happiness raised as Wu spoke. "-but you may not." Andrew's hope and happiness drastically diminished. "We need to get more work done." Wu continued. "We must work on harnessing your powers."
      A few minutes later, they were in Wu's meditation room. The paint on the white ceiling was gray and faded due to the candle smoke. "Now," Wu instructed, "we must work on harnessing your transformation talent. Close your eyes. Relax. Let all your strain and weariness melt away, and embrace the change of-"
      "That's not how it works, actually." Andrew interrupted. "It's more of a squeeze and a strain. Kinda flexing my muscle and forcing it to move inside and-"
      "Fine."
      "Geez, how did you ever train these guys if you don't know how they should do it?"
      Wu did not seem overjoyed by Andrew's question. "All right, then. Just practice doing so." Andrew squeezed his muscles as hard as he could. He tried to shift them; he tried to influence the skin to morph, but nothing happened. He was still a boy, and a perfectly natural one, at that. "Hm." Wu said. "What are the circumstances when you normally do so? What times is the transformation normally possible?"
      "When I'm angry, I guess." Andrew shrugged. "Or when I'm afraid. Or when I really need it, I think."
      "I see. And you "really needed" to prank orphans, making them think that you were a dangerous tiger?"
“They were calling me names. They said that I was a freak.”
Morose, dismal, depressing, gloomy, dreary, gloomy, and other words that mean “sad” feelings clouded up in the young child’s eyes. Wu began to notice this sorrowful look on the boy, and he realized that maybe this child wasn’t a brat, but maybe he was a nice, clean child with a kindred and innocently somber spirit. “Tommy was wailing like a siren.” He giggled all of the sudden.
He began laughing like a maniac. Any of Wu’s thoughts of Andrew being innocent vanished instantly.
Wu coughed. “Ahem.” He said. “Perhaps you should practice your transformation a bit more.”
Andrew’s large grin slowly faded back into a normal expression, but he still seemed bright and spritely with his memory in mind. “Okay, sure.”
“Good. When battling whatever comes next, we will need you on our side. The ninja may fight like lions, but you shall fight as a lion.”
“Or a tiger.”
“Yes, or a tiger.”
“Or a bear.”
“Yes, or a bear.”
“Tigers or lions or bears, oh my!”
“I suggest you get cracking.”
“Sure, you mean like- “
Andrew paused. He seemed to be straining to do something.
“Is something the matter?” Wu asked.
“Ugh. I was trying to become an egg. It didn’t work.” Andrew responded.
“Well, that’s why you should practice more. Try to see if you can transform again. Try doing something that won’t be as big of a bodily change, like a monkey.”
“Okay, sure! Ooh, ooh, ooh! Ah, ah, ah!”
“Preferably a mute monkey.”

I'm kind of afraid to ask, but what is that supposed to be?

There's a SONG about that?  Wow.