AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Howdy! This is The Mayor of Ninjago City with a brand new story called The Fire Within: The Fire Witch Incident. This tale features our favorite ninja team as they face a new villain!
This short story is the latest installment in the The Fire Within series, which was originated by the author measuremesky when she began her first Ninjago fanfic The Fire Within. That fanfic, along with her follow-up story A Degree in Danger, can be found on this website. Measuremesky is a family member of mine, and she gave me permission to use her material to write my own contributions to the The Fire Within series. Check out my profile page for a list of titles.
The story you are about to read below takes place just three months after my recently completed fanfic The Fire Within: Trouble in Paradise. And before I go further, I wish to thank lovesgod12, AveXCninja12, TitaniumMasterOfAquaLightning, and Naruby7 for your wonderful comments on the final chapter of my Paradise tale. Hugs of appreciation to you all!
In this new tale, Kai and Samantha are preparing for their upcoming wedding, which is now less than two months away. But the couple must temporarily be separated when Kai, Cole, and Zane are assigned to a mission to help the Ninjago Department of Natural Resources battle raging forest fires in Ninjago's mountain region. These fires have been caused by the extremely hot and dry weather that has plagued all of Ninjago this summer. But Kai disappears during the mission, and the ninja team and Sam set out to determine what happened to him. They soon find themselves facing the scary source of the meteorological misery...
Haven't yet decided on a posting schedule for this story.
References to events in Chapters 29 and 31 in measuremesky's The Fire Within are present in the reading below. Hope you enjoy this first chapter!
Chapter 1 - A Hot Summer Afternoon
It was a miserably hot afternoon in late June, so Samantha Miller was grateful to be sitting in the air-conditioned dining room area of the Bounty as she addressed wedding invitations. In about seven weeks she would be marrying Kai Smith, a Protector of Ninjago and the ninja of fire. Because of Kai's status as an official Protector, many Ninjago dignitaries were going to be invited to the ceremony.
Sam understood that, as the bride of a ninja, her wedding was going to be a little more public than that of the bride of a civilian. Though she was a rather private person, she would tolerate being at the center of Ninjago society for a day because she loved Kai very much. She looked forward to the post-ceremony dinner, which would be a much smaller and simpler affair, as she and her parents were ordinary middle class folks from a distant village in the south of Ninjago.
Beyond the wedding day itself, Sam looked forward to her future life with Kai. They would be living in a newly built cottage which had been constructed using some of the money Kai inherited from his parents, who had operated a blacksmith shop. The cottage sat about a hundred yards away from the current resting place of the Bounty, on a somewhat large parcel of land recently purchased by Sensei Wu. Sensei was making plans to build and operate a tea shop on the recently purchased parcel of land when he retired.
Kai and Sam knew that living off the Bounty, but close to it, would be the best living arrangement for them. Because Sam would be continuing to live the life of a civilian - she planned to finish college at Ninjago University and then get a job in her field of study - she needed a place she could live in and continue to do those things, should the Bounty need to be deployed for any reason. Kai also thought Sam should live off the Bounty because he wanted to minimize her exposure to dangerous situations involving enemies of Ninjago.
And, of course, living off the Bounty would afford the young married couple some extra privacy.
But because they would still be living close to the Bounty, Kai could easily continue to train with his teammates at any time of day or night as necessary and be an effective Protector of Ninjago. And Kai and Sam had decided to eat most of their dinners with the rest of the team in order to help maintain the strong team bond.
Sam, who was living on the Bounty this summer instead of in her hometown in order to prepare for the wedding, was already taking her turn in the Bounty's kitchen to prepare dinner two nights of the week, rotating with Nya and Zane. Last summer, when she had lived on the Bounty during her internship at Borg Industries here in Ninjago City, she prepared two meals per week as part of the rental agreement she had made with Sensei Wu. So she was already used to cooking for the large group.
Tonight was one of Sam's scheduled nights to prepare dinner. She was planning to cook seasoned pork chops in slow cookers so as to avoid turning on the oven in the Bounty's kitchen on this hot summer day. The recipe was one she had found in a magazine. She liked to find and try out new pork chop recipes. Kai had told her last summer - it was actually on the day he tried to kiss her for the first time - that he liked pork chops.
Sam checked the large kitchen clock, which could be seen from the dining room area. The time was getting to be 2:30, so she decided to start preparing the slow cookers. But before she did that, she walked over to the window to watch the ninja brothers train on the deck.
The warriors were supposed to ignore distractions during their training, but Kai spotted her and waved. She smiled and waved back.
She felt sorry for the warriors having to conduct their workout in the oppressive heat. They all looked hot and sweaty. She made a mental note to check the supply of cold iced tea in the refrigerator.
Sam entered the empty kitchen, flipping on the light. She also turned on the radio for company. Nya had gone to the library this afternoon, so the bride-to-be was by herself in the Bounty's living quarters.
As Sam verified that the supply of iced tea was adequate, she heard the radio announcer delivering the bottom-of-the-hour news. Once again, he talked about those forest fires raging in the mountains of northwestern Ninjago. The hot and dry weather was affecting all of Ninjago, and every day the number of acres of burned forest was increasing. Sam felt sorry for the people who lived out that way. Some of them were going to be invited to the wedding, and she sincerely hoped that the fires would not prevent them from attending.
Sam got out the three slow cookers from the cabinet. When you were cooking for eight people, five of them being young men who were active and energetic, you needed multiple slow cookers to cook enough food to feed everyone. Measuring, mixing, and applying the various seasonings to the meat was not difficult, just a bit time consuming. Once the slow cookers were filled and turned on, she decided on a side dish, fruit, and vegetable to serve. Next came cleanup of the food preparation area.
Sam stooped down to put the seasonings back in the lower cabinet of the kitchen island just as the ninjas entered the living quarters. When she stood back up, she gave a short scream.
Kai was unexpectedly standing on the other side of the kitchen island, wearing that adorable lopsided grin on his face and waiting to say hello to her.
"You scared me!" Sam exclaimed in laughter. "So you guys are done with training already?"
"Yeah, Sensei took pity on us," Kai answered as he wiped sweat off his forehead with a towel from the training area. His uniform was soaked.
"Well, how about if I pour some iced tea? You guys want some iced tea, too?" she called to the rest of the exhausted ninja brothers who were sprawled over the furniture in the living room.
Responses of gratitude came back her way, so she got out the iced tea pitcher and some glasses and ice.
She served the others first. Then, as she handed Kai his glass of iced tea, he said, "Thanks, Sam! I think you deserve a big hug for this."
She warily eyed his sweaty uniform. "No, that's OK. I don't need a hug."
"Sure ya do!" He set down his glass to chase her as she screeched and ran away to escape his clutches.
It was futile to escape, of course. He cornered her in the hallway and enveloped her in a big sweaty embrace. She was laughing too hard to protest the kiss that followed.
She kissed him back and said, "Go take a shower."
"Can't yet. Jay's going in there now. We drew numbers during practice and I'm after him in line, so you're stuck for a few minutes," he replied, squeezing her tighter.
"Poor me," she chuckled, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Hey, when you're ready, wanna work on addressing the invitations? We could probably get, maybe, two dozen more done before dinner."
"OK, sounds like a plan," he murmured, leaning in to seek her lips once more.
Suddenly, the phone rang in the control room.