"What do you mean they don't make the Super Funicom anymore?!" Jay demanded. "All the best games were on that system!"

"The graphics were super outdated though." Kass told him. "It was like watching a bad loop from a cartoon show!"

"And, between the eventual evolution of hardware mixed with next gen software, there soon came a problem of the 'best games' becoming the worst ones because of glitches and ridiculous load times." Montgomery added. "The idea of a new system became mandatory for the company- they had very little choice."

"But this controller looks nothing like the one used for the Super Funicom!" Cole said, holding up the controller to demonstrate his point.

"Things had to change," Montgomery said as he shook his head, "The old controller design was deemed clunky and too sticky for the next gen consoles, so they redesigned it."

"Maybe, instead of the controller being too clunky and sticky, maybe you kids couldn't handle how awesome the games were!" Jay huffed.

"I did mention hardware and software mismatch with glitching, right?" Montgomery asked, turning to Kass. Kass nodded.

"It's hard to believe that my mother chose one of them as my father." Montgomery said as he shook his head. "I almost feel embarrassed."

"And what does that mean?" Cole demanded. Montgomery looked at him with a fairly blank look.

"Exactly what you think it means, apparently." came the near toneless answer. Cole flashed a hard look at Jay.

"That's your kid." Cole spat. "There's no way a child of mine would talk to me like that!"

"My mother insured that I harass the both of you equally." Montgomery informed him in a matter-of-fact tone. "You seem to be a lot easier to annoy, I thought Jay would be the better subject."

"Wait a minute!" Jay cried in defense, although he had been making fun of Cole a few seconds before. "You're Cole's kid! No kid of mine would purposely make fun of me or think it's an easy thing to do!"

"It's definitely working, now isn't it?" Montgomery asked, a rather snide smirk forming on the corner of his lips.

The uproar from this statement sent the room into a mini battle for the ages. But moving away from it, Lloyd found himself walking toward Mina's room. He wasn't sure what he was trying to prove by walking over that way- maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was stupidity, maybe he was just bored. Either way, he was almost completely unaware that Kai was following him, and was slowly catching wind to what he was thinking. Lloyd lightly touched the door that led into her bedroom, his stomach suddenly twisting into knots at the thought that he was actually going to do it...

"What do you think you're doing?" Kai then spoke up. Surprised, Lloyd jumped a good foot in the air before turning to look at Kai.

"Geez, you almost gave me a heart attack!" Lloyd panted.

"Well then, you obviously knew that what you were going to do is wrong." Kai rebutted. Lloyd opened his mouth to defend himself, but found that he did not have the words to make a convincing argument. Kai looked on, raising a questioning eyebrow. This was something they would have expected Jay or Cole to do to finally decide who was Montgomery's father- but it wasn't something Lloyd would have been expected to do in any situation.

"I need to know what happened." Lloyd finally blurted. Kai's unamused look did not waver.

"We already know what happened." Kai reminded Lloyd. "You went missing and a few years later we did too. Mina's your daughter and blah, blah, blah. What else do you need to know?"

Lloyd averted his gaze away from Kai, now feeling embarrassed about how his mind was drawing conclusions about the situation at hand.

"According to what we've been told, I would have gone missing when Mina was still a little kid- practically a baby. I... I want to know who..."

"You want to know who you saddled the kid with until Cyrus had the responsibility?"

Lloyd sheepishly ran a hand through his hair with a nod. It sounded rather selfish and petty that he would go into a young girl's room for information when it was only a simple question to the right party.

"Why can't you just ask her yourself?" Kai asked, requesting the obvious.

"She... I don't think she will give me a straight answer."

"So you're going to invade her privacy by finding out yourself?"

Lloyd said nothing and refused to look Kai in the eye.

"If you're going to start digging," Kai then started to say, regretting already what he was suggesting, "You better get a move on now before they come back. I'll... I'll go in with you to make sure you're in and out before she realizes it."

Lloyd looked up at Kai hopefully, and the ninja of Fire stood his ground although he looked as if he might regret it later.

. . .

Mina's room wasn't very impressive upon first inspection. The walls were a dark gray and the floors were black, a wire frame bed sat headfirst against the wall with a bedside table next to it, a small dresser was hidden in a corner, and a desk that was placed by the only window in the room.

"Geez, this room is more depressing than the one Sensei Wu has on the Bounty." Kai noted. "I'd be bipolar too if this was the room I had to stay in most of the time."

"I wonder how she lived before she came here..." Lloyd said, mostly to himself, before noticing a shelf above the desk that was decorated from edge to edge with photographs of various sizes. Deciding to get a better look at them, Lloyd walked up closer to the shelf. He found himself smiling at a few of them because they reminded him of the relationships he had with the other ninja as he looked at the pictures Mina had of her friends. Lloyd's gaze then averted to the top of the desk, there he saw a letter sealed with what appeared to be Kai's signature symbol. Struck with curiosity and not thinking twice, Lloyd opened the letter and read its contents in entirety. What he read almost made him jump back in surprise.