CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE:
The Compelled, The Samurai, and The Golden Rules

"You never told me you were a daddy," mumbled Seiko into Cole's ear, twisting her fingers around a lock of his dark hair, intertwining them as if linking together their destinies. Though Cole had abandoned her many years ago, she returned ruthlessly for her paybacks against all odds coming from which ways around her. She held her own against the bullies of nature and paternal sides of a family, which didn't stay limited to the glad evasion of the older brother, on Cole's part. Cole hoisted her further onto his back. The gang had already ascended the porch steps of the monastery's rebuilt crest, dominated the Shoji doors, and moved into the mysterious monastery kitchen, quite lacking in zest. It looked the same as it had been in the old monastery eatery, with a long table fitted by benches rather than individual chairs, a corner designated specifically to the art of supporting cupboards nailed to the walls and a stove attached by a few metallic links into the chipped tan paint. Two thin, arched doorways stationed at the far wall and the left wall on either end of the cornered countertops gave way to two separate paths that would lead them deeper into the labyrinth of the monastery. Cole was unimpressed with the lack of TLC on the inner sanctum. He followed in behind Zane's questionably uninterested eye to the kitchen space. (Back then, Zane had mentioned multiple times that he was interested in not withholding the task of giving the kitchen more zest. It was funny to see him repeating that part of his past.) He ducked to fit properly into the Shoji without knocking his head against the doorway.

But the room wasn't empty. Cole had figured on his better part that Sensei Wu and the ditching Damon would be positioning themselves lithely on a stationary bench next to the table, but neither of the Garmadon brothers appeared to be present in the room feeding itself with few inhabitants. He found a thin layer of light colored smoke hovering towards the upper area of the ceiling, produced from the pot cooking across the stove. With her brown hair yanked backwards into a messy ponytail, Koemi worked to a dainty rhythm, lulling a soft tune that reminded Cole familiarly of some part of his past. It was a crooked song that had an off-kilter ring to its odd note. It made Cole think of children swinging on a pair of rusted, dilapidated swings without laughter, poised atop an abandoned, lonely hill. He could faintly hear the creaking of the corroded metal chains scraping against the bar acting as a supportive structure, helping them cling to what allowed them to move. He cocked his head to listen, but the name of the song was lost in the mimicry of Seiko humming it in his ear, low and scary. He shivered uncontrollably. Where have I heard that song before? He wondered to himself, despite the ugly manor of the creepy tones.

At the table, wrapped in a gentle black, long-sleeved shirt, Bokuyo kicked his tiny feet while in front of him, a plate of wonders spread before him, excessively matching the colorful bowls and pots spread over the wood. Food of all different shapes and sizes was prepared specifically for the humans of the newborn household. Macaroni, tortellini, fruits, vegetables, chicken, pork, beef, soup, "pickled" pickles, opalescent cherries, cobbler, cornbread, baked beans, lo mein, wontons, salad—there was everything packed onto the table that would belong to the takeout center downtown in Ninjago City. Every inch of food seared and excreted a soft aroma and a few wisps of steam to pronounce it was fresh from the broiler. Although the room bore an uncanny resemblance to the old monastery kitchen, Cole had never seen so much food packed onto the table with enough room for someone to enjoy eating with comfortable amounts of space. He watched with a pair of raised eyebrows. Bokuyo looked up at the Ninja, gaping in famish, and wavered a muffled hello around a croissant packed into his mouth. Cole scoffed at his sister, giving a low reply to her statement that was unheard by everyone else. "You never told me you were a mommy."

"I didn't know I was a mommy," countered his younger sister, unfazed by the manifold categories of meats she saw plattered before them on neon ensembles. The plates, the bowls, every pair of Tupperware and particular tea cups were literally battered with pinks and oranges and blues and yellows, all reminding Cole of the Easter holiday that his family had never partaken in celebrating. It was a frilly assembly that was keen for impressing little children at their birthday party without a theme, but not particularly for grown Ninja who were destined to save the world. Either way, though, he could practically hear the drool rolling off his brother's lips. Cole, however, wasn't hungry for food. He wanted a little something else.

Koemi looked over and smiled breathlessly, stirring away at whatever cruel human substance laid hidden inside of the pot. "Hey guys!" She said cheerfully, waving her hands. "You hungry?"

"Did you—" Kai shook his head, probably attempting to ward off all the hungry obsession that took him over, as was done to his brothers. "Did you make all this?"

"Me?" Koemi laughed, peering into the pot and resuming her fitful stirring again. She blew hair out of her eyes. "Heavens, no! Leo made this, but he got called down to the bridge, so he left me in charge of stirring the saltwater that Ripsaw needed for his fish. But I'm flattered that you thought that I had the gall to make all this food." She winked, and then took the spoon out of the pot, switching off the burner and setting it aside onto a different burner for the heated one to cool. She wiped her hands on a white towel dangling over the handle attached to the oven door. "Go ahead, sit and eat! There are drinks over here in the fridge"—she pointed to the far wall, where the white machinery hovered—"like juice and stuff, and water in the faucet. Damon will be back shortly. He and Wu had something to talk about in private. Anyway, regarding those wounds Wu told me about—I'll go get some bandages. Be right back!" Koemi skipped out of the room, leaving the saltwater to simmer down in the shade of the cupboards.

"Hi, Mommy!" Bokuyo said happily around another piece of bread, stuffing it into his mouth by the fistful without bothering to wipe away the warm butter and crumbs that fell on his shirt and dusted over his face. His plate was full to the brim with things that appeased the little boy's stomach. Cole stared hard at the member of his second-generation Mitsuhide family, the nephew Cole hadn't anticipated he'd know so soon in life, and once again recognized the shapes of his face, his nose and the way his eyes curved. They were wide, but Cole had seen that same shape of eyes not too long ago, before a rapid age change had suddenly taken place out of the blue. It freaked him out.

If his assumptions were correct, did that mean that Seiko, in the future of her long life, would then somehow get pregnant and have a child, even though she specifically said she hated children and wanted nothing to do with the rascals writhing sporadically in the arms of their parents? And, if all else could factor to it, Cole was having a serious Kai issue with this whole acceptance of the future. The hotheaded fire ninja may have come to terms with his sister dating whichever of the two Ninja she strung along—he had already expressed he was Team Jay when it came to who he'd rather see his sister live out the rest of her maternity with—Cole wasn't so forgiving. He wanted Seiko to move on outside of the unpredictable business that came with the hair-brained evils against the forthcoming justice, produced securely and fought by the Ninja themselves. To have her pull a Nya wasn't what he wanted for her. If anything, the last that Cole wanted was for Seiko to even be here. But history repeating itself was never something that fared well with him. Couldn't she just be normal or something, outside of this wretched mass of crappy cards dealt to the Ninja's Crusade?

Lloyd, Zane, and Kai took their seats on the long bench across from Bokuyo, who earned a few judgmental looks from the mannerly Ninja of Ice. He grabbed a napkin off the table melodramatically and made a show of spreading the sheet over his lap, but Bokuyo could've shoved his face into the orange dinner plate for all he noticed. Cole chuckled at the annoyed gleam to Zane's eyes. He felt his sister further bury her visage into the crook of his neck. Burrowing away to store herself for the next spring. But he wasn't going to carry her forever. Cole gently maneuvered so that he could deposit her tiny body onto the bench beside Bokuyo, using his knees by bending them and sitting her on her bottom backwards. Seiko gave a groan of protest, but the Ninja of Earth wasn't about to hear it. His throat confined with a dry tap of tightening skin, a reminder that he needed something to sustain himself for the next few hours. He adjusted the collar of his jacket and scratched off the dried blood on his palms. "While you guys do that, I think I'm going to go, ah, you know. It shouldn't take me long." He moved over to the sink, turned on the tap, and ran his hands under the cool water, ridding himself of the souvenirs that came with fighting off Shadow Dancers, good for nothing pieces of evil that existed only to cause issues. His wounds had already healed with his quick vampire skin's reaction. When he turned around, though, he looked at the traded nervous looks between the Ninja and the look of really that came from his younger sister's obscurely cocked eyebrow. He frowned. "What?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" asked Kai, doing his trademark half frown just for the occasion. Cole fought to ignore the constant ache in his throat. He needed to get something to drink soon—and not water by any means—or he'd begin to choke.

"Well, my only other option is to starve, and I'd rather not." Cole wandered closer, pulling off his torn jacket, dirtied by the attack against the Dancers earlier, and eventually wrapping its conserved warmth around Seiko's shoulders.

"It's a little risky, though," Kai objected, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. The worry overtook the normal cloud of his eyes by an individual mutiny. "I mean, the Dancers could be waiting outside the gates for the instant one of us steps outside of them. It's not a safe option."

Cole rolled his eyes at the attempts. It was nice to know they were looking out for him, but he didn't want to even have so much as a bodyguard stand close to watch him as he drained the blood from some unsuspecting victims prowling the streets. The clock on the stove said it was 6:45, late enough for the creeps to start coming out, the kind that Cole had only recently started feeding on. At least if they lost their lives, it would be a few more lives saved in the process. By eating the rapists and murderers and potentials roaming between, he was also saving the tons of boys and girls that could be harmed and scarred in the process, something that Cole was proud to be able to do. "Look, Kai, I'm glad you're concerned—"

"Why can't you just drink from us tonight?" Zane asked. His brows knitted together. The troubled features to his face were genuine for that of Zane's compilation, something real that couldn't be walked away from. Zane and only Zane could ever produce such a mystified character that made everyone love him, no matter what kind of person you were. He was the only person in the world who could create such concern out of nothing, because in reality, Zane cared about literally everything that existed. Even if that was the case, Cole could never accept an offer like that, especially when it came to being a vampire. Sucking down from one of his friends was a nightmare of his; he didn't want to shammy down on his brothers' veins like water from a tap. He'd never forgive himself to let that ever happen.

"Out of the question," Cole shook his head. "There's no way in hell I'm going to even consider that."

"But letting you leave is dangerous." Zane held out his hand to the side in a gesture significant to conversational movements. "Perhaps you would allow someone with great strength to accompany—"

"NOPE. I'll be fine." Cole swerved arguing about this, moving towards the Shoji doors without even bothering to communicate more. However, before he could clamp his hand down on the door, though, he felt a hand grab onto the back of his shirt and tug with surprising force. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Zane had a tight grip on the heavy fabric of his shirt, twisting it so that it was wrinkled and cotton in his hands, wearing a childlike defiance on him like a cloak. Zane's eyes narrowed, lower lip poked out, and an upturned nose made Cole almost amused. ALMOST. He glowered at the tight grasp on his black T-shirt. "Let me go, Zane." His tone dropped into all seriousness, but the Ninja of Ice refused.

"I will not let you hurt yourself tonight. You have seen what those monsters did to all of us." Zane gestured to his torn pants in reference. Cole sighed. He needed to leave, but with a stubborn Zane clinging to him, his departure would take longer than expected, unless he used force. Using force against Zane would feel like a crime. "Just take some from me. Enough to get yourself going through the night."

"That would require half the blood you have," Cole told him flatly. "I don't feel like draining you and sticking you in a coma from trauma today. Nothing will happen to me, I promise." Cole turned away again, this time actually grasping the wood of the Shoji. Hoping that he'd be released from Zane completely, though, was a stretch far too gone to test his limits. Zane dug in his heels and stomped backwards, trying to yank Cole with him, but failed.

"I REFUSE to let you go." Zane shoved his lip outwards further. Kai took a stand, signaling that this was far from over, making Cole sigh a disturbing breath. "Drink a little from all of us, then. We gladly will share. But it is not worth losing you or something—I mean, Cole, you cannot leave."

"Seriously? You're wasting my—" Cole's voice was laid flat by the sudden impact of somebody jumping on him from behind. His first instincts told him that he was being attacked by a massive hug from his little sister, but his assumptions proved wrong when he looked at the scratched hands curl around his neck and bare feet wrap around his hips, clinging immorally to the last string of life as though that was Cole himself. Zane's intentions were bone-shattering and coercive. He was a naïve bastard, but as a human, he was obstinate as hell, unable to be wavered by even the tiniest of bruises. Cole found that it was more difficult to wrench away the handlebars of Zane's thin arms bent around him than it would've been to discontinue a tackle from Seiko, who was far stronger than Zane was—at least in mindset. Cole would give him a little bit more credit for that, but he just wouldn't let this due. He struggled to break free from the terror grip of Zane's dominant cuddling.

"I will not let you go! It is too dangerous!"

Cole had to speak through his teeth since ripping apart Zane's vise-like grip was impossible. "Do you know how dangerous it would be to let me feed from you? Zane, that would be murder." Their struggle persevered through the corniest moment Cole knew he'd ever spent with Zane, trapped in a deadly hug that could only mean that the vampire would starve being snuggled by a teammate. He howled in frustration. "Zane, let me go. This is weird."

"Promise me you won't leave!" Zane cried. His voice came torn, cracked, on the bridge of tears, about to jump off and submit himself to the awful humiliation of spilling them in front of the others. Cole didn't want to believe Zane was about to cry on account of Cole's final rebuttal to staying and feeding off his friends, so he believed that Zane was just exhausted from all the work done today. He stopped trying to break the stranglehold clenched around his neck and the pair of legs crooked around his waist.

"I won't feed from you."

"YOU'LL DIE OUT THERE!"

To worsen the matter, the doors in front of Cole slid open, revealing Jay and Nya, both standing side by side but not, Cole noticed, touching in any physical matter implicating that they were together together. His heart hurt enough to look at Nya and feel the depth of having to relive breaking his heart again for the third time over her, the emotion washing over him at enough speeds to practically sever him to nothing but ash. Cole's jaw clenched to watch Jay and Nya soak in the scene of Zane hanging on him like a monkey, with red-rimmed eyes almost ready to spill tears, and the expressions of the others behind them. Cole froze. Jay's mouth slid open without the skill to say the words he was thinking. He looked like he had just seen a goat run in, scream comments about cheese, and exit the room doing a ballet performance. Words couldn't describe how confused and mildly freaked out the two of them looked. Cole sighed. This was not explainable.

"Hey," Kai said casually, loping up beside Zane and Cole with a pair of robin's egg blue cups in his hand, acting as though he didn't see what was happening at his flank. Pretending that he was never a part of this, though technically it was the fire ninja who instigated this whole tremor of spiraling events. Cole glared at the back of Kai's black-haired head, burning two holes through the silky strands while Kai passed along either cup to Jay and Nya. "Come in and have a seat! Dinner's all warm," played the hothead. A host, more like, to help them walk around the couple's cuddle happening in the doorway. Cole could've baked a fractured egg on the top of his head with the anger he handled towards Zane for holding so securely onto him, snuggling him like an adolescent. Didn't he know that it was reckless to agitate a vampire?

Jay passed Cole with a funny look on his face. The vampire crossed his arms over his chest. "Keep walkin', Sparky, nothing to look at." He sniped. The blue ninja scurried past, taking his seat beside Nya, who'd found her place on the other side of Bokuyo. The little boy muffled a hello through his stuffed mouth.

Cole returned to brawling with Zane's hands, envying how impossibly easy it had been for Nya to unhook Seiko from the same position pressed against Lloyd. He acted like the entertainment for the others to mindlessly stare at, revolving conversation to another place for the hopelessness of watching a lost cause continue at a dead streak. "So," Kai said. "Did you guys kiss, or what?"

Cole could already imagine Jay's face dying itself a beet red. Sadly, he was already distracted by the deadweight attached to his back. "I'M NOT LETTING GO," whispered Zane in his ear. "YOU WILL NOT LEAVE." Cole growled, feeling the expiration of his vocal cords tingle against the fastener of Zane's fists, but it did little to dither the icy boy.

"We decided to wait for a better moment," Nya stated humbly, her voice filling the room. Cole paused to listen. Hearing that made him a little weak-kneed—or maybe that was just Zane's weight. "We thought that being told to kiss isn't the way it should happen."

There were smiling noises happening in the back of the throats of Kai and Lloyd, but it was usually his sister who would do something to make the moment die. She killed just about everything else; why the hell not kill that, too? Cole always found her dreadfully irritating to his senses, especially when she wasn't even supposed to be here. For what reason she remained, he wasn't adoring having to nurture. "Awww. Good for you. Can you knit that onto a throw pillow for me?" Of course, the whole three sentences were lathered in sarcasm, dripping off the consonants and vowels slowly, doctoring into tangy honey dripping from the tip of the bottle it came in. "You guys are so squishy. Cupcakes, actually. You both are. I can already tell. You know what, Jay? I'm going to call you 'Squishy.' And Nya…Well, I've already decided to call you Vanilla Princess. So Sir Squishy tries to court Vanilla Princess, but in the end they both chicken out because they don't want to make out at the moment. HA! I rock."

Cole could hear the confusion on Jay's face. He didn't understand that his sister had a massive issue with assigning names to the people she was affiliated with. "Wait…why am I 'Squishy'?"

"Why does she call me 'Twinkies'?" contradicted Lloyd, throwing up his hands in Cole's peripheral vision. "And 'Snickerdoodles,' and 'Goldy Locks,' and 'Cupcakes,' for that matter."

Jay snorted. "She calls you 'Twinkies'?" He mocked.

"Do NOT laugh at me."

There were little bouts of laughter around the dinner table. In Cole's ear, Zane mumbled, "My legs are going numb."

"Then let me go."

"Promise you won't leave, and I will."

Cole didn't say anything. He turned to see everyone filling their plates with disgusting human food, leaving him to awkwardly carry the burden of an ice ninja to his body. Nya peered around Bokuyo at Seiko, who looked timidly bored when meeting the eyes of the girl Cole was crazy about. "Is there a reason why I'm a Vanilla Princess?" she asked. Cole knew it was Nya trying to make conversation with Seiko, get to know her better as she once had performed with ten-year-old Lloyd, but that was a dead end with Cole's sister. The Mitsuhide's only female was hopeless.

"Because I think that you're a total Cupcake." At Nya's frown, Seiko picked at a slice of apple with her long, unruly nails, her eyes more narrow and lowered to stare down her nose because of her slightly tilted-back head. Elbows braced on the table, Seiko appeared more interested in carving designs into the skin rather than looking at Nya when she spoke. "You do as you're told, you listen when people are talking to you, you clean up all the messes that your little Ninja make without bitching at all, and basically have never broken a rule as minor as curfew in your life because that would cause you to have a heart attack and you'd feel guilty about it for the rest of your life."

"Watch it, Seiko," he lowly warned, facing her with his white tumor still attached to him. Seiko's eyes fell into a half-lidded regard of question. Whaddya gonna do about it? Her lips said without speaking. Cole's lip withered to curl. The tension between siblings was carried out by the aching stare bonds between the two heavy eyes, the vampire versus his insane, annoying little sister who just had to suddenly become a part of his life again. Cole may be dedicated to helping her out, but he couldn't stand that she was here; he was again somehow channeling Kai's old emotions into himself for being unable to accept that his sister was sticking her little ass into his business. Being a Ninja was Cole's deal. It was a sport all on its own, a unique activity that was significant and gifted only to her brother because—well, it was his thing. Being a Ninja was his calling, his destiny, his purpose. When they were little, Cole may have hogged the attention of their parents, but dammit, Seiko never left her nose out of anything. She was always butting into his business. He never wanted to have friends over because she never left them alone, always coming into their shared bedroom at night (she would sleep with their parents when Cole had friends over, a commodity that ceased when he was thirteen because she was nosier than any kid he'd ever met) and bugging them when they were still up late playing or talking. She'd poke around them, and even when Cole would be walking home from school with his little quartet of friends, there would be Seiko, trudging her little feet after them in her uniform and tiny backpack and trying to become a part of the group. It was always so annoying. They'd get home and he'd tell her off about it, after which she'd go run and cry, because that was all she was good at. She never let Cole have his own thing. Being a Ninja was Cole's own thing, and having SEIKO here to ruin it wasn't cutting the cake. In a spur of the moment, trapped in his own memories, Cole managed to unhook Zane from around him. The white ninja lightly landed on his feet, mumbling something about being able to feel his toes again, but against all currents of thoughts going through Cole's mind. He took a menacing step towards his sister, pointing at her with his own scope of vitality. He bent down to get closer to her face to make his point clear, so they faced eye-to-eye, sibling-to-sibling. Seiko looked like she was amused with this, but underneath he saw the oppression. "You will not speak to Nya in any disrespectful ways. No one else here, for that matter. Understood?"

"I dunno, Sparkles," she said. Without taking her eyes from his, Seiko pulled a piece of apple off the larger chunk and stuck it into her mouth, chewing slowly for him to take in. Cole glanced down at her mouth momentarily, leaving the moment behind no later, staring her in the eyes again. "That's going against who I am."

"You're only made of insults, then?" Cole tilted his head, letting the natural side sweep of his black hair fall into place. The demeanor of the room changed. Or, at least, the negative space between the brother and sister.

Seiko shrugged like it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing. Cole wasn't going to let her insult, of all people, the one girl he loved, to let his little sister ruin this for him, too. He may not be with Nya, but he was still her friend. To risk that chalice between the two, filled to the brim with complicated relationships but a bond somewhere within, all for the sake of keeping his sister here was not worth the perilous battle it may take for someone like him to step into. If Seiko wanted to start fights that couldn't be finished, then there was only one solution he could dispatch for the job. He'd vowed in his past never to do something so controlling, so meddlesome to his younger sister, but in their past, he'd earned the right to at least run a little with his vampire abilities. Cole stared deep into her eyes and called upon the sheer power that being a vampire came with. The Compulsion. It was the mind control, the ability to take over someone's mind and make them do what he wanted, that could sometimes—albeit unusually—make up for the crappy residulence of being a vampire itself. The Compulsion was the best part of being who he was.

The trick to being able to use mind control was believing what you were telling your victim. If you believed it—if you could lie to yourself for that few seconds and this other person—then you had already mastered the art of Compelling someone. He liked to think he was already a professional. Cole stared deep into Seiko's eyes, but she knew him well enough to understand what was happening. He'd already tapped far enough into her mind to quickly coax out some portion of her mentality that refused to break eye contact, as most victims had trouble with. She growled his name, but Cole was already beginning the process he loved, came to familiarize with. "I think you need to learn some manners," he said in a soothing voice. Compulsion also came with a human's inability to refuse the beauty of an immortal. Adding the seductive tang to your voice always made the victim's quicker submission. Seiko's face involuntarily slipped into an impassive state that meant complete dedication to what message he had to deliver. "So, until you learn them, you'll have to follow the runner-up to the golden rule: If you can't say anything nice…you don't say anything at all."

Cole broke their ties by standing up. Immediately after eye contact is broken, the victim normally is able to snap out of the submissive-stage, but also has to listen to what they've been told. Seiko stared in shock at her older brother, reaching up to grab at her throat, trying to say ugly things to him through her open mouth but finding no voice coming out. Cole sported a grin. She'd be able to speak—just not the mean things, like the things she was trying to chew at him right now. She jumped to her feet. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!" She yowled. She tried to spit an insult at him, but she couldn't say them. Her throat stopped working just before they came out.

"Until you learn your manners, you can't insult anyone. Not even your reflection," Cole told her. He put his hands on his hips. "Be lucky I didn't Compel you never to speak again."

"You told me you'd never Compel me! Ever!"

"Yeah, well," Cole dusted off his hands of her, ridding himself of even thoughts of her. "We all break the rules every once and a while, don't we?" He threw a glance at the frowning Zane behind him. He didn't bother even saying a fleeting goodbye; a moment later, he used vampire speed (a feature that made him unable to see when moving) to hurl himself quickly out the door and disappear into the falling evening, turning to night.

"NUUUUUUUUUU!" Zane cried, running into the door as it slammed quickly shut in his face. The poor guy fell flat on his butt. Disbelief crossed his face at the ultimate betrayal of his friend. Kai hadn't seen the escapade coming, but now thinking about it, Cole would be one to do that anyway. Suggesting he chew on his friends for dinner would've only led to the guy starving, but even at that point, Kai would've known he was safe. "HE RAN AWAY!"

Zane chucked open the door, running into the night after him. Kai jumped to his feet. It wasn't like Cole to do that, actually. It prompted Kai to think of himself, back before Sensei Wu had properly trained him how to be patient. He ran after Zane. Cole could really get hurt out in the real world without the monastery's protective spells around him. The Dancers could be lingering, just waiting for the opportunity as golden as this one to capture a ninja into their own captivity…! Cole, you idiot, he thought, jumping through the open, sliding doors after his friends. "Zane?" Kai said, finding the former nindroid perched at the top of the four stairs leading up the porch, staring out into the courtyard. Kai met the visionary of his back.

He skidded to a stop at the other boy's side. There, in the night, was the metallic look of something that Kai had gotten attached to over the months he'd worked as a Ninja, finding a gleaming red and polished shine meeting him with whirring noises of robotic confusion. A slow grin spread across his face. The Samurai, intelligent now with the rehabilitating it had gone through recently, held Cole by his legs upside down, pulling him close to its face while the vampire writhed. The mechanism must've grabbed Cole, seeing him shoot past on his way out, with a little curiosity that came even with being a programmed creature. It was interested in moving him from side to side using the function of his wrist. "PUT ME DOWN!" yelled Cole. The Samurai reached out a large silver metal finger from the other hand to poke his stomach. "HEY!"

Kai put his hands on his hips. "Well, I'll be damned," he said, laughing at the Samurai as it looked at him some more. He bumped a relieved Zane with his shoulder. He seemed to be on the verge of dropping to his knees with the helpful aid that saved Cole from potentially getting killed tonight. "Looks like we were lucky and get to keep him for another day."

Jay, Lloyd, Bokuyo and Nya joined them. Everyone watched with a little interest on their faces. Laughter sang melodies into the setting sunlight, enough to make the Samurai look over and recognize them, giving them a wave that was actually pretty human for a gargantuan robot. Kai waved back with everyone else at the luck. Maybe today hadn't been full of good things, but it was an omen that the Samurai had captured Cole.

Looking over at Nya was an instinct, but he wasn't prepared for the way her face was pinched in pain, as though someone had just gutted her with their fist and was about to do it again. Her hands curled around her pregnant belly. Fingers clenched tight over the oversized fabric of Nya's borrowed shirt, she made dents in the picture of a heart by wrinkling it with her stabbing fingernails. Nya wore a grotesque mask. The pain he saw normally didn't become corporeal on Nya's face, not even in certain situations that his strong sister could honestly say she got hurt within, such as divided in combat or occupied by a falling piano or something. Little beads of sweat began to trickle down her nose, across the race of her temples. Nya quickly brushed a slap of her bangs from her face in time for the sticky substance to tell Kai something was horribly wrong. He stepped in front of her with good intentions but came out with news. "Nya?" He grabbed her by the waist, pulling her a little closer. Now that he was closer, Kai could hear her breathing was coming in short, ragged gasps, little cries of help under a silent call. She looked terrified. Kai hadn't ever seen her look that way. Nya dug her long, manicured nails into the raw flesh of Kai's bicep. It hurt, but Kai didn't care. "What's wrong?"

The others turned their heads now. Jay especially broke into the scene. Their worry surrounded her with care. Nya's eyes fixed on the focal point of Kai's chest. She didn't dare look away, gasping, gleaming her subtle breaths off of actual ones, examples meant to be followed. Kai held onto her upper arms. "Nya! What's going on?"

Nya's face was coated in sweat. She grabbed onto Kai's shirt and yanked him closer, roughly. He listened to her quick, cut gasp, a sharp intake. "KAI!" She cried, looking madly into his eyes. He pushed her hair out of her eyes so it was easier for her to see… "MY WATER BROKE! KAI! THE BABY! THE BABY IS COMING!"


BURNING FAN QUESTION: Should Nya give Rie to Cole? Or will she keep her and raise her with Jay?

Go have an AWESOME day/night!

Love, Kairi~~