A New Begining
Kai's P.O.V.
BONG! BONG! BONG!
"Morning! Morning! Time to wake up!"
I wake up to Sensei Wu yelling in our shared room. Oh no. Not Sunrise Exercise. I thought as I tiredly jumped off my top bunk to the floor then used spinjitzu to get my ninja gi on and left the room.
"Ugh! Why do we have to do sunrise exercise? I hate sunrise exercise!" I heard Jay groan behind me as we reached the main deck of the Bounty.
"Because you need to stay vigilant. You may never know when the enemy will attack," Sensei spoke. We all moved into a line and synchronised our moves with Sensei Wu displaying the action. "Now, pinching crab."
After finishing our exercises, we tiredly each took a shower one at a time while the others ate breakfast. Other than that, we had a peaceful morning. As all of us were clean and full from Zane's cooking, we decided to take a break until our next part of our training began in thirty minutes. Until the radar on the Bounty picked up a crime, Ugh!
"Alright, it looks like a couple of armed people are robbing Ninjago City Bank with a few hostages. I could get us there in a few minutes," Nya briefed us then went to put in the coordinates in the system. We all got there five minutes later as the robbery was still in progress. Using our spinjitzu, we safely landed on the roof of the bank.
"When we came in, I saw two armed guys circling the perimeter of the bank. There is one near the vault and two surrounding the hostages. We have to stick to the shadows for the less chance to be seen," Lloyd instructed after a few quiet moments.
We nodded.
"Jay and Cole, you will disarm the two at the perimeter. Zane, you will take out the guy at the vault while Kai and I free the hostages. Got that?" Lloyd ordered.
We nodded again.
We made our way through the vents that we found connected to the roof and dropped down to what seemed like a janitor's closet.
No one's P.O.V.
The ninja made their way out of the closet, giving eachother a slight nod, they split up. Jay and Cole used their skills to sneak past the eyes of the armed men and carefully hid behind a couple of desks. The teenagers waited until it was time to strike, Cole in particular was memorizing the enemies movements and patterns, while Jay waited for the signal from Cole.
"Alright. The two seem to walk around the perimeter within the main area of the bank - one is walking left while the other right," Cole whispered to his fellow ninja." They seem to be crossing paths near the entrance, so if we will be able to get passed without being seen we can take them both out."
"And I think I have an idea on how to do just that, trust me and just follow my lead," Jay added with a grin covered by his mask, though Cole had an idea it was there just by the tone of his voice.
" Oh no." Jay lifted his head from their hiding position and then signaled Cole to follow closely. Confused, Cole reluctantly followed. Stealthily, Jay and Cole made their way to the front entrance and to Cole's disappointment, their plan to take out two large ARMED men - was to hide behind a potted plant.
"Jay?! A plant? Were gonna hide behind a plant?!" Cole hissed. He couldn't understand what was going through the master of lighting's mind at the moment.
"What? I told you to trust me. And keep it down or you will give us away," Jay retorted. The ninja of black and blue got into position and waited. The guards that were circling the interior of the building were about to pass the entrance where the ninja were hidden. Once the guards lined up, Jay and Cole grabbed a hold of them and forcefully pulled them behind the bush and due to the punches and kicks being received, they were knocked unconscious.
"I wonder if knocking the guards out to disarm them is what Lloyd meant," Jay asked curiously.
" Well it's too late now. Let's head back to the others." Once they made their way back, Cole and Jay were greeted by the titanium ninja.
" Hello brothers. Did you complete your task?"
"Yup. It was a little fun too," Jay enthusiastically answered.
"Yeah, well where are Kai and Lloyd? I thought the-" Cole was cut off by a booming voice echoing throughout the building.
"STOP RIGHT THERE NINJA!"
Kai's P.O.V.
I turned around to see one of the attackers holding a gun behind Lloyd's head. Lloyd! How? He and I took out the guards surrounding the hostages and I'm sure the others did the same. I have to save Lloyd. Slowly, I move towards the man and the green ninja.
"What did I say ninja?! Don't move any closer!" The gunman yelled but that didn't stop me. I started talking in the calmest voice I could considering the situation. "Listen to me. I know you don't want to do this and you don't have to. Just release my frie-"
"Don't come any closer!" The attacker moved a step towards the hostages. What are you planning? I could see the fear in not only the hostages' eyes, but also Lloyd's. "Come on. Just put him down and we can talk this through." He seemed to consider my offer until I saw a wicked smirk forming on his face. The next thing I knew, he hit Lloyd on the back of his head with his gun knocking him unconscious. I felt the anger building up inside me, I went to charge at the man before I noticed he was holding a little girl- with a gun pointed to her head. Now I was furious. I felt my fire starting at the palms of my hands but I quickly put them out, not wanting to scare the child.
" Let the girl go. She has nothing to do with this. It's only between you and me." I could feel many pairs of eyes on me: the hostages, my brothers, the gunman, and the girl. " I'll do anything you want but don't hurt her."
" Well. If you insist I won't hurt the child," I started to calm down until I heard what he said next, I froze,"but I will hurt the mother." Before I could comprehend what he said, a loud bang echoed through the room soon following a women scream then a thump. Oh no. That's where everything went to chaos. I saw my fellow ninja help the women who was shot and Lloyd(who was still out cold), then the child was pushed to the floor by the gunman making a break for it through the back. All I felt was rage. My fire started blazing through my hands and I was on the hunt for the gunman. Following in the same direction of where he went, I soon saw him running through the long alleyway with me throwing fireballs. Unfortunately for him, he was stuck in a dead end." This is the end! Surrender!"
"Well it was fun how it lasted, see you around Kai!" Before I could answer, he threw a smoke bomb and I started coughing hysterically. Once the fog cleared, he was gone! Immediately my mind started going into overdrive. How did he do that? What did he mean he'll see me again? How did he know my name? How could I let him get away?! I started to walk over to where the man was previously, searching for clues to where he might have gone. The only thing I found was a business card. I picked it up and examined it. The card was a deep red both front and back but what caught my eye was the logo. I was some kind of head of an animal but I wasn't too sure what it was but the way it looked sent a shiver down my spine. I stuffed it into my belt pocket and left the alley towards the bank. Once I arrived, I was bombarded by questions from my brothers.
"Kai where did you go?"
"Where's the criminal-?"
"Did you catch him?"
"What happened there?"
"Are you sure he-"
"ENOUGH!" They stepped backwards due to my outburst. I sighed then continued." The gunman got away so I couldn't have done anything." I left out the part of me finding the card because I wanted to figure it out on my own, it didn't make sense to me just yet. " Where's Lloyd? And what about the girl's mother?" Once I mentioned the women, they all had a grim look on their faces but Zane was the first to speak. " When she was shot, she lost a lot of blood. We couldn't get to her in time and she passed away from blood loss." Immediately I felt anger towards the gunner but then I remembered the girl. I pushed past them and went looking for her. I found her with a police officer near the ambulance.
"Are you okay little girl? You have to tell me or else I won't know how to help," I heard the officer say but the girl stayed silent looking at the ground like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
"Excuse me, what is going to happen to the girl?" I asked.
"Well mister ninja, if she doesn't have any other family to take care of her, she will have to be taken custody by child services." This startled me. I didn't want that to happen. " So does she have any family?"
"I'm not sure. She won't talk to me, we think she's in shock." I nodded. Her mother is gone, who wouldn't be upset. I wanted to try something though. " Can I try talking to her?" The cop looked at me if I were crazy but he hesitantly agreed and left me with the child.
"I didn't get your name before. Mind telling me?"
Silence.
"Can you talk to me? I promise I won't hurt you."
Nothing.
"I'm sorry about your mother. I'm a ninja. I should have tried harder-" I was cut off my small arms hugging my waist and something wet seeping through my ninja gi. Tears. I did the only thing I could think of. I hugged her back. After her sobs were reduced to small sniffles, I released her and knelt right in front.
"Are you ready to talk?" I asked, slightly hopeful.
"Yes." Her small voice made me smile a small smile. "Can you tell me your name?"
"Anna."
"Well Anna, I'm sorry about your mother. I wish I could have tried harder to save her but I couldn't. Do you have a family you could live with?" She sadly shook her head. Oh no. If she has no other family, she will have to go to child services. I have a risky idea but I will not let someone else down again. "Anna do you trust me?"
She nodded.
"If you have no one else to take care of you, child services are going to take you away and I don't want that to happen so do you... do you want to live with me?" Almost immediately her face lit up with excitement and relief as she vigorously nodded her head .
"Can I? Can I?" She asked, bouncing up and down.
"Well I have to talk to the officer and my sensei if he could adopt you since I'm not old enough yet but I'm sure you can." I said smiling. If my plan actually works, I will be the happiest person alive. "Okay." I told her to stay put while I talked to the officer. As I did, he told me that since Anna did not have any other family member to stay with, all sensei Wu needed to do is talk to them directly and sign a couple of documents including adoption forms. I agreed as well as asking if she could spend the night at the Bounty since she has nowhere to go. The officer didn't seem to be bothered by it so he let me and I quickly ran to Anna. " The cop said that all my sensei has to do is sign papers to child services and adopt you. You could also spend the night at the Bounty with me as well." I told her with a goofy grin on my face.
"Really? Thank you, um..."
"Kai. My name is Kai."
"Well thank you Kai!" She hugged me again and I held her hand walking towards my friends/brothers.
"Hey Kai, who's the kid?" Jay asked. Behind him was Cole, Lloyd(I guess he woke up), and Zane. They all had a confused expression on their faces so I answered Jay's question. "Her name is Anna. She's staying at the Bounty with us over the night." I guess that statement confused them even more.
"What? Why?" Cole now asked. "I'll explain everything when we get back to the Bounty, sound good?" They all nodded. We conjured up our elemental dragons to fly back up to the Bounty where Nya and sensei Wu greeted us. They looked at me, confused to why I had a child with me so I signaled them to follow me into the control area. Then I started.
"Okay, so the reason why I have this child with me is because her mother died in the bank situation. Apparently she has no other family members to take care of her so that would result in her being in the child's custody. I didn't want that to happen so I asked the officer if sensei Wu could adopt her, since I'm not old enough, and he said it was fine as long as he signed documents and forms and to speak to child services directly. I asked Anna if she wanted to stay with me and she said yes. So sensei Wu, could you please adopt her. I'll raise her as my own but I don't want her life to be miserable to what happened with her mother. Please?" Once I finished, there was only one expression on their faces: shock. I felt a little guilty about making a large decision behind my family's back but I knew I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to Anna. After a few moments of silence I rechecked their expressions to be the same- except one. Senei Wu had a thoughtful expression on his face, like he was deep in thought. After a few seconds later, he broke the silence.
"Are you sure you have the responsibility to raise a child Kai?" Sensei Wu asked me. "Like my life depended on it." I knew I sounded like I was exaggerating, but I was dead serious and I knew Wu caught my drift.
"Very well then. I will talk to these people and sign those papers." He walked over to Anna and raised his hand."Welcome to the family, Anna." Instead of shaking hands, she brought sensei Wu into a tight hug which he returned.
"Thank you sensei." I was grateful and turned back to the rest of the team which all had frozen shocked expressions. Before I knew it, I was dragged by my sister to the front deck with my brothers following in pursuit.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Nya shouted in a low tone, knowing sensei and Anna were not far. Though I was confused by the statement. "What do you mean?"
"What's she's saying Kai is that you are no fit to take care of a little girl," Cole claimed with the others nodding in agreement. I started to get a little ticked off. How could they not trust me? I tried to calm myself down before I had a total meltdown by their accusation. "I can take care of her. I took care of Nya when our parents disappeared, what makes you think that I can't now?" It was true. When our parents were nowhere to be found, I took care of her.
"Hm, let's see," Jay spoke pretending to think," your a full-time ninja, there isn't that much space on the bounty, you're broke, and we don't think you can handle taking care of the girl because you can barely take care of yourself."
"I agree with Jay, we can barely take care of ourselves nonetheless a child," Lloyd agreed. Nya then walked up to me, sympathy within her eyes.
"I'm sorry Kai but we can't do it. I know you were trying to do the right thing but you have to leave it to the adults this time," my sister told me as she put a gentle hand on my shoulder but I harshly drew it away.
"I can't believe you guys. All I was trying to do was help her because her mother died and she has no where else to go. She trusts me enough for her to live here. She trusts me enough to let Wu adopt her. She trusts me enough for me to take care of her to be her friend and family. Now I wasn't asking you guys to help me only to let her live here. If you guys still don't like it then I'll move out and take her with me!" I growled at them and then stormed back inside. I couldn't believe them! She has nobody left but me and I won't let anyone take her from me. It sounds selfish, I know, but I couldn't protect her mother so at least I could raise her. I bet the mother would like the same thing.
Once I was back inside, I found Wu and Anna talking to each other (mostly Anna asking questions about the ninja life and Wu answering). Ignoring the event that happened earlier, I casually walked up to them. "So what are you guys talking about?"
"Anna was asking me questions about you and the rest being ninjas, she seems very curious about it." Wu told me with a smile which I did in return and I turned to Anna."Oh really? Then maybe you can be a ninja when you're older."
"Really? That would be so cool!" She squealed. Wu and I both laughed.
"Speaking of the others, why did they pull you outside Kai? Is it something important?" Wu suddenly asked. I felt my face slightly darken at the mentions of my friends and sister. Replacing my previous smile turned into a small frown. "No. Nothing important, they wanted to tell me things that I didn't agree with."
"Hm.. I see. Would you like me to talk to them?"
"No, it's fine. I told them what I thought about it," I said, offering a small smile. Wu nodded in response. I knew that if anyone could have my back against the others, it would be him."Now,"I turned my attention to Anna and held out my hand,"let's see if we can clean out that old spare room that we have and make it yours, huh?" She excitedly took my hand and I led the way deeper into the Bounty corridors.
Nobody's P.O.V.
The ninja and Nya were stunned by Kai's 'threat'. There was silence amongst them, even the birds (since the Bounty was still in the air) were quiet as if frightened by their hotheaded friend's claim. Zane was the first to break the silence. "... I believe Kai has a right to feel upset." Everyone turns to the nindroid but Jay speaks first.
"Oh NOW you talk? Why didn't you back us up?" Jay, as well as the others, were a bit annoyed with the nindroid for his lack of help with the earlier discussion with Kai.
"I do not wish to help you with something I do not agree with. Kai is right, he took care of Nya when they both were young and had to survive with lack of money. We shouldn't make any assumptions until we see how he handles it," Zane comments.
"Well what do think we should do?" Lloyd spoke hesitantly. He, as the leader of the ninjas, usually knew what to do in battle but now was unsure of how to approach the adoption of a child. Fortunately for all of them, the titanium ninja knew what to do.
"Well first, I suggest we apologize for our behavior. Afterwards, we support Kai in his decision with this adoption. He is still our brother and as I recall ' as iron sharpens iron, brother sharpens brother.' Not only does he have to deal with enemies as being a ninja, we do not need to stress him more with now taking care of a little girl." It's a mystery of how caring Zane is with these kinds of situations: some think it's because he's a robot but the residents on the Bounty know it's his heart.
"I guess we do own Kai an apology. We were a little harsh on him and his idea," Nya agreed, gulit laced in her voice. The others nodded in agreement as they made their way into the Bounty. They searched throughout the ancient ship until Cole heard voices from a particular room, located near the ninjas shared room and Nya's room.
"Guys, I think Kai and Anna are in here," the earth ninja called. Once everyone was behind him, he knocked on the door and waited. The voices stopped then footsteps were heard heading towards the door. The wooden door was swung open and Kai appeared behind it. The ninja and Nya observed that there were boxes being stuffed with things they didn't even know they had. They also saw Anna trying to move one of the boxes with her small hands but tripped on pure air. Kai forgot about their visitors and rushed to her helping her up, concerned sketched in his voice and face. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah but my knee hurts a little though," Anna explained. Kai looked down and saw a small scratch on her knee (because she was wearing a skirt), just like she said. He looked back up to her seeing she was on the verge of tears, got an idea just to cheer her up and make her feel better.
"You know what? I'm gonna make it feel all better. You know how?" Kai asked her in a soothing voice.
She shook her head.
"Well first, I'm gonna put this band-aid on your booboo," he showed her the said band-aid seemingly out of nowhere which seemed to amaze her as he put it on and gave it a little tap. Out of the girl's surprise and joy, he picked her up and said,"then I'm gonna take you on a flying adventure to make you feel better." As he told her, he carried her around the room making her in a 'flying' position as she happily laughed along with Kai. In all honesty, he was having a great time with her.
"Ahem." Kai stopped what he was doing and put Anna down. He narrowed his eyes to his teammates and sister. "What do you want?"
"W-well..um," Jay stuttered under Kai's glare, but was cut off by Zane.
"What Jay means to say that we apologize for our behavior from earlier. We trust you with her and as your brothers and sister, we will help you take care of her. Anna is now part of our family," the titanium ninja explained sincerely. Kai's glare softened as he turned to the others. " Is that true?"
They all nodded.
"Well then. If you want to, you could help us clean out this spare room?" Kai asked hesitantly. They all agreed immediately and started working. Until Nya perked up with an idea.
" Hey! How about I take Anna shopping for some decorations in her room?" Her question was directed towards both Kai and Anna, but the 9-year old spoke first."Really? Can I Kai? Can I? I'll be super good."
"Uh, sure thing. Thanks sis." Kai faced his sisters, Nya and Anna. He had a strong feeling of deja vu. Once they left, all was left were the ninja. Silence was amongst them. Until one of them did something that startled the rest.
Kai started laughing.
"Uh, dude? Why are you laughing?" Lloyd asked what was on everyone's mind. After the red-clad ninja calmed down with his signature smirk towards his friends.
"This is going to be a fun ride."
The End