Enter The Ninjaverse

"Mhm... you know," Ronin paused between sipping noodles from his bowl, "I've told Skylar, she should totally work on franchising this place more."

"Yes, you've told her that at least ten times..." Monty groaned, barely picking at a bowl of his own, "Face it, Stiix isn't a good location for one."

"She could make it work," Ronin shrugged, "Come on, she's the daughter of Master Chen, I'm sure she could figure out something. If her dad did all that, imagine what she can do!"

The group of five currently were seated in a large circular booth, with Ronin sitting on one end, followed by Monty, Lulloyd, Harumi and Lloyd. Initially, Harumi had tried to sit down away from Lloyd, yet after attempting to ask Monty a few questions, she'd gotten the cold shoulder. She'd instead opted to put the quietest member of their group along with the ghost instead. Lulloyd had said a simple greeting to Monty, gotten nothing, and decided himself not to engage him.

The restaurant they currently were in was indeed the one in the midst of Ninjago City. Ronin had insisted that they go to the original location to get the most authentic experience. He'd taken the group out back behind the shop to a small pier that overlooked the vast ocean outside of the bay Stiix rested in. After flipping away the wood on top of a pillar to reveal it had a control panel under it, a few buttons pushes had brought REX in all her glory out from the ocean depths.

"I keep it under there so idiots don't try to hijack it... or take it for joyrides," Ronin directed that last comment at Monty. Monty had opened his mouth to angrily retort, yet Lulloyd's questioning at the machine had silenced him.

And thus, half an hour later, the group had REX currently parked in a garage several blocks away and were in the original store. Harumi smiled cheekily at Ronin mentioning the franchise location, hitting her watch and tilting it so Lulloyd saw the location in her timeline had gone up to nearly 50 locations. Every so often, Lloyd could see a flash of bright red hair coming from the kitchen.

"So, Skylar runs this place?" Harumi had beaten Lloyd to the punch.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Ronin pointed towards the kitchen doors, "Has for awhile now. She's really gotten it up. Love coming here."

"That makes one of us..." Monty groaned.

It hadn't taken much doing for the group to find something they liked. According to Lulloyd, noodles were a popular thing in his Ninjago City. Garmadon had always crushed at least one noodle dog cart on his weekly to biweekly rampages. Thankfully, it seemed noodles themselves were similar in both their dimensions, as Lulloyd easily found himself a few bowls that suited his tastes. The strange thing of 'food' being compatible was one that Harumi put a note down to study later, especially upon Lloyd mentioning he had eaten what looked like plastic but somehow been perfectly fine. Lloyd and Harumi, having eaten at the place many times, had no issues.

"Why don't you like Chen's?" Lulloyd asked Monty.

Monty stopped mid-bite and cast an annoyed glance at Lulloyd. Monty's attitude had already made him out to be quite the ball of sunshine, if said sun was covered by stormclouds. Unlike Ronin sitting upright, Monty was slouched back into the booth, picking at his food with a fork and looking up at the ceiling as much as he was at the three strangers across from him. He had intentionally taken the fork over traditional chopsticks.

"Alright, now that's a story I gotta tell you all about!" Ronin grinned.

"It's my story," Monty turned to Ronin, "Maybe I should tell it this time."

"Last time you told it you bored that girl to death," Ronin smirked. Monty just gave a hard groan and shook his head.

"Great, this again..." Monty groaned, leaning back in the booth and putting his hand up to his face. Ronin ignored him.