Hey everyone, happy Friday. Time for another update. I got nothing to say so enjoy more of Cole Smash!

Chapter 9: Heartbeats the Trigger

"Okay I'm confused here." said Cole, confused. "What exactly happened to me again?"

After a warm shower and some fresh clothes, Cole sat on the mahogany table in the bridge while Lucas had wetted a rag in his hands to heal the small cuts on his feet. The earth ninja couldn't wrap his brain around the explanation that they had given him. They said he transformed into something large and green to create a hole in the wall; which they spent all night repairing. Then they said he didn't recognize who they were when he nearly squeezed Lloyd like a Constrictai would and attacked Lucas. Then they let him run away before the police arrived and fled to the jungle to wake up the next morning normal. This was confusing him entirely. "There was no way that happened to me." he finished while Lucas healed the last cut. He was thankful for him to have his powers still to heal injuries.

Lucas ringed the washrag and tossed it onto the table to stand up. "Oh but it did." he rebutted lightly. "Our earth brother can transform into something that's five times bigger than him. Who's able to rip a hunk off a dumpster like it was paper? And even become enraged when he sees a threat from anyone before he recognized his family before killing them."

Cole felt guilty on that last statement. He may have not remembered much, bits and pieces, but what the others told him, made him guilty. He was the leader and his main objective was to lead and protect the team. Not become a giant and nearly harm his family even when Lloyd was slowly healing his ribs. But why couldn't he remember everything? Sighing, the Ninja of Earth placed a hand on his forehead to brush his wet bangs away to rubs his temples. "I don't believe this." he said quietly.

Zane looked at the leader and saw the glint of guilt in his amber eyes. He, and everyone else, could see it and felt pity for him. Something must've happened to him to become it last night. But what? The ice ninja felt pity again and placed a comfort hand on his shoulder. "Cole," he began. "Do you remember anything at all? Anything that could've…trigger it?"

Cole looked at him quizzically and nodded. He remembered feeling sick and angry about the loud noise and saw darkness. Nothing else. "I remember waking up because whoever was fighting made me annoyed and angered." he replied.

"Sorry." Lucas and Kai apologized, guilty, while looking away.

The earth ninja looked at them to nod as he forgave them. "But after I woke up," he continued. "I felt sick to my stomach. I went to the bathroom to throw up and nothing came out. Then went to the sink to splash my face and the fighting was getting louder. It made me annoyed and angry. I noticed my hands and veins were green and had a huge headache. But as soon as I opened my eyes, they were green than amber and I blacked out. Nothing else."

Interesting. Everyone was surprised to hear about this. Cole remembered the event before his transformation well enough to help them resolve this. But how can they resolve it even more? "So we know about the before part." said Nya. "How do we help fix this? We don't have any data or hypothesizes to help."

Data? Zane wondered. That's it. Zane quickly left the bridge with everyone puzzled, even Sensei Wu was curious on last night's events. A few minutes passed and the ice ninja returned with a microscope, a small rack of test tubes, and empty syringes. Everyone raised an eyebrow as the nindroid placed the items next to Cole and took the microscope to the bridge's large computer and attached a cord to the lens and placed it on the counter. He turned it on and the screen went white.

"Uh...Zane, what are you doing?" Jay asked, puzzled. "We're trying to figure out what's wrong with Cole. Now isn't the time to do some chemistry or biology."

The white ninja ignored him and walked up to Cole. "What does it look like I'm doing, Jay?" he asked sarcastically and picked up a syringe. "I am gonna see what's wrong with Cole. My algorithms couldn't help us last night when I scanned our brother in his form. But now that he is normal, I can get a better look." He removed the cap to reveal the small thin sterile needle and grabbed Cole's right arm. "I need you to remain calm." he told him. "If anger triggered you, we don't want another accident happening."

Cole took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright Frosty," he said. "I'm ready." The earth ninja watched Zane tap his inner elbow to see the vein enlarge and watched him slide the needle in. Zane pulled the plunger back to draw out a small amount of blood and carefully slid the needle out. But it made Cole flinch a little. "Ah!" he yelped quietly and saw a small thin red line cascade down his arm.

Lucas saw the blood run down his arm while Cole held it and grabbed the white rag. "Hang on." he said. "I'll get it." and felt the rag become wet and dark from the water in his hands. He gently grabbed Cole's arm to clean the blood off his arm to stain the rag in a murky color and stopped as he saw the puncture wound. "What the?" he paused and watched the wound rebind itself and close up without a scar or mark. The Ninja of Water was stunned. "Did anyone else see that?" he asked and received a few nods.

"How did that happen when Lucas didn't even get a chance to use his powers to heal it?" Lloyd asked.

"It must be the Nanomeds in Cole's body." Zane suggested. Everyone looked at him confused. "Basically from what Elizabeth said at the ball was that the Nanomeds are to help heal." he continued. "The help of the gamma radiation increased their ability to rebuild cells when needed. In which it's how Cole survived and how it happened recently."

Everyone thought it over and saw it made sense to them now. Lucas looked at the rag and tossed it next to Cole. "Still makes me wonder how the cuts on his feet had to be healed by me and not by the Nanomeds." he wondered.

"Must be an extension like our powers before." Kai suggested while hooking an arm around Laurie's waist.

"Must be so." Zane agreed and walked back to the microscope. He picked up the small thin glass slate and dripped a drop of Cole's blood on the piece of glass and placed another slate on top of the blood. The blood was pressed to be flat and spread on the slate and the glass was slid underneath the microscope and turned the knob to focus it onto the screen.

Everyone turned towards the screen to see something blurry red as Zane kept looking up and down to focus it better. After a few minutes, he found a better view and stepped back, astonished to what he saw. On the screen it showed Cole's red blood cells with faint tints of green around the cells. Cole felt the blood drain from his face at the sight of his blood and looked at his arms to imagine billions of blood cells like that inside him. That's not normal. he thought. I'm convinced now.

"Uh... Is that any good?" Jay stuttered. "That doesn't look normal to me."

"Indeed it isn't normal." said Zane. "Red blood cells aren't suppose to have this at all." He turned to Nya. "Nya, can you see if we have any penicillan or antibotics?" he asked, nicely. "I have a theory." The samurai looked at Cole and nodded as she left. Moments later, she returned with a small glass jar in hand and handed it to Zane. "I do hope this works." he muttered to himself, but it was still audible for everyone to hear. "But if not, then I don't know what to do."

Cole looked up at him to give him a small smile. "It's alright, Zane." he said. "You're just trying to help figure what's causing it." He saw the ice ninja smile back and carefully handed him the other syringe.

Zane appreicated the support from his earth brother and carefully slid the needle through the cork stopper and pulled the plunger back while tilting the bottle of medicine of clear liquid and pulled the needle out. He looked at the microscope to remove the top glass slate and dripped a few drops on the blood and placed the glass back on top and observed the microscope. Everyone watched the blood cells in amazement as they were slowly returning to normal with the green tint slowly fading away. It seems to be working now. Suddenly the green tint returned and rapidly became entirely green and grew larger than before and broke the glass to make everyone jump at the sound of broken glass. Zane's hypothesis failed.

"Ok that's definitely not normal!" Jay exclaimed.

Cole looked at his blood ceels to sigh. He agreed with Jay. That's not normal. It's never suppose to be that. Blood is red, not green. Cole could imagine his blood becoming like that whenever he changed. It now made him sick to imagine it and looked at everyone else as they looked worried for him. He looked away to hang his head and averted his gaze to see the microscope glass slates and saw the green smudge dripping onto the counter. "I... I..." he stuttered while running his finger through his thick black hair. Sighing, he raised his head and looked at his intermediate family. "I don't know what to do now."

Zane saw the depression in his amber eyes and looked at the blood. There's got to be more to it than changing to green. Zane wondered. He rolled up his left sleeve of his gi and opened the panel on his arm and a blue light shined on the blood to scan and appeared on the screen in his arm. He then tapped on the small keypad to analyze the blood and blink in surprise. "That explains everything then." he said.

"What does?" Laurie asked.

Zane looked at the results in his databanks and closed his panel. He then looked at Cole; he wasn't gonna like the news. "My sensors have shown me high levels of gamma radiation in your blood, Cole." he announced. The others quickly perked up on the news. "But the thing is that it's not dangerous when exposed in open air like most radiation would be." Now everyone gave him confused looks. "Meaning that the radiation is isolated to where it's not dangerous in open air, but perhaps deadly and dangerous in contact."

"Meaning?" Kai interjected to know the rest.

Zane sighed while looking at Cole. "Meaning that Cole's blood is deadly when in contacted to another being." he stated. The other stood still in worry and looked at Cole. The earth ninja looked pale about his poisonous blood inside his body and looked at the others, scared. But he was still alive even if it was inside him. Zane thought it over and looked at them. "But I'm sensing that the reason why Cole isn't affected at all is probably because his body is used to it. The Nanomeds have made his cells and body immune to it. Cole, your blood is poisonous and we must be careful with it."

Cole felt the blood in his face drain again at the sound of poisonous blood. He couldn't believe it. But it came from the nindroid's mouth as he knows more than the others. He didn't know what to do now. If his blood is dangerous, then he'll have to be careful with it. They all don't know the dangers if his blood came in contact to them like from a blood transfusion, but they'll be careful when near him. They won't avoid him, but will do everything to help him. Sighing, the raven-haired teen laid down on the table to stare at the slanted ceilings as everything was happening to him too fast. "So…" he paused. "What can we do to prevent me from turning into…the big guy? If anger made me and my blood become green, then there must be some way to let me know I'm about to change. But what?"

That was the question. What could they use to help Cole avoid changing? There aren't like machines that can announce when your transformation is about to happen. So what could they do? "There might be a way." Sensei Wu's voice chimed. Cole perked his head to look at his teacher's grey eyes. There is? "Our hearts beat rapidly or slow based from our emotions. If you are calmed, your heart beats in a soothing drum. But with anger, they begin to beat faster than you would imagine. In order to prevent yourself from changing, you must be watch your heart rate." The elder turned to Nya. "Nya, do you know if we have any of those wrist watches that can detect your hearts?"

The samurai looked at the teach to nod. She knew what she meant. "You mean a heart rate monitor?" she corrected him. "I think they're in the training room closet. I'll go take a look." and left. Moments later, she returned again with a small watch in her hand and handed it to Cole. "This should do fine for you." she said, reassuring.

The Ninja of Earth looked at the black watch in his hands and wondered if it'll work. Hearts beat normal when calmed and relaxed, but if angered, like Sensei Wu said, it changes beats. Without hesistation, Cole placed the cold metal side over the veins on his left wrist and fed the belt through the loop like he was putting on a belt for pants and made sure it was tightened so it wouldn't fall off. He then pressed the red button at the bottom of the screen to lighten it up and saw a small digital heart beating next to a set of zeros till they changed to ninety-nine. That relieved him now. "So now what?" he asked.

Zane walked up to him and took his hand. He used his fingers to fiddle with the buttons on the sides to change the watch. Cole watched him go into the settings selection and made changes to the watch and then switched it back to the heart rate. He had no idea what the Ninja of Ice has done, but hopefully something helpful. "As Sensei said, our heart rates beat normal at either eighty to a hundred beats per minute." said Zane. "But whenever nervous or angered, our heartbeats increase. As well as performing activites to increase cardio. So in order to alert Cole from changing, I set the settings in his watch to warn him tht if his heart rates goes over one hundred and fifty beats, he needs to calm down."

"So anything between one-fifty or two hundred is considered dangerous?" Laurie inquired.

"Theorically." Zane objected. "I'm not sure entirely which heart rate triggers him, but I'm hypothesising too that if it's anything higher, Cole would lose himself." He turned to Cole. "So brother, just be careful before you endanger yourself."

Cole looked at his watch and nodded. He'll be careful now. "So that's all taken care of," he said, slightly satisfied. "What can we do now to prevent me from changing? If the watch warns me, then there's got to be a way to keep my anger down."

Everyone shrugged their shoulders. Nothing came to mind. "I don't know." Lucas admitted. "But we'll think of way to help you." That assured Cole a little. Hope there was some ways to help him.

"If that doesn't work, then what?" Jay asked. Everyone had to agree on the lightning ninja's question. If they don't find a solution, what could they do then to help Cole? "But Cole, you should've seen yourself." he said, estatic. "You were...a Hulk when you were changed."

Hulk? Cole wondered. Is that what they're calling me? The earth ninja furrowed his bushy brows at Jay. "I'm not anything like the old wrestler!" he retorted. "Jay, my...transformation is serious! I could've almost killed you last night if Lucas didn't stop you all like last night like he said! So right now, don't see this an advantage to the team!" He kept furrowing his brows until they eased a bit as he began hearing a beeping sound. He quickly looked at his watch to see his heart rate at a hundred and twenty-six beats per minute. "I though you said it would warn me if it went over one-fifty, Zane." he said, concerned.

The ice ninja walked up to Cole and took his hand that had the watch to inspect it. "It should be." he wondered confused. The nindroid watched the digital numbers slow down to Cole's heart rate. He shrugged his shoulders. "It must be testing that's all. But that's the first step in your control. Don't lose your anger to your family."

Don't lose your anger to your family. Cole said to himself. Got it. The earth ninja looked at his watch to watch it rise and fall and then looked at everyone else. "So again, now what?" he asked.

A loud alarm rang in everyone's ears suddenly. Nya quickly ran over to the large computer to change the view of Cole's green blood to the map of Ninjago. The samurai moved her fingertips in rapid speed to search for the danger across the land and the screen changed to the view of the trouble. And it looked like the streets of Ninjago City. "Well this should be simple for you guys." she stated. "Zane's falcon picked up some Serpentine activities going on."

Jay sighed while rolling his eyes. "What do those snakes want now?" he asked, annoyed.

"Who cares." Kai barked. "We got some snakes to deal with." and spun into his armored suit and sheathed his katana onto his back.

Cole watched the others spin into their while Laurie remained still for a moment and quickly spun into her dusty yellowish-orange tornado and into her orange gi with her bō staff in hand. She's been practicing well. Cole thought. Even Lloyd spun into his green suit and pulled his mask over his face. The others were bringing him along because he'll sneak out again like many times before. When everyone else was ready, Cole was the only one left and quickly spun into his black suit and put his scythe in the holster attached to his back. He moved his sleeve to see his heart rate increase a little and slowly ease down. I have to be careful now. he thought and moved his sleeve back. He looked at his teammates and pulled his mask over his face. "I ready." he said and ran out the door with the others behind him.

Time to save the city.

So now Cole needs to be careful or else he'll be angry. How will that go for him? Don't know. Find out next week. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)