AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Howdy, pardners! I am The Mayor of Ninjago City, back with a new cowboy tale called The Fire Within a Ninjago Soldier. It is the sequel to my first fanfic, The Fire Within a Ninjago Cowboy.

My original release date for this tale was going to be in January 2016, but I moved it up in order to time the publication of Chapter 6 on Christmas week, because it takes place on a Christmas Day. I'll try to post new chapters every Monday.

The two cowboy stories are set in the latter half of the 1800s. Imagine that in this time period, the western border of the United States is at the Mississippi River, and Ninjago is a country that stretches from the Mississippi River westward to the Rocky Mountains.

Here are the cities and towns that are located in Ninjago. WEST: Ninjago Town, the home town of our heroes. EAST: Sasnak City, the capital of Ninjago. SOUTH: Jamanakai Village and Ignacia. CENTRAL: Ouroborus. And in the United States, there is the big city of Ogacich. (Think of Chicago!)

My first story tells the tale of the relationship between a saloon girl and a brown-haired cowboy from Garmadon Ranch, covering the weeks from the day they met to the day they married.

The story you are now reading begins a few hours after the wedding festivities have concluded. It continues the tale of our young lovers, as well as chronicles the relationships between the other cowboys and the women who love them. (One such relationship is chronicled in the very first chapter.)

This story is set against the backdrop of a Ninjago civil war, which breaks out in Chapter 10.

In my previous tale, I dismantled all the canon family relationships except for those related to Garmadon: Lloyd, Misako, and Wu. In this story, there are two sets of canon family relationships that remain intact: the Garmadon relatives, and the Chen father/daughter relationship from Season 4.

Read and enjoy! But if you don't like it, then simply stop reading and go on to read The Fire Within, a great fanfic on this website from measuremesky, who is a family member of mine. She gave me permission to transport her main OC, Sam, and another OC, Brooke, back to the 1800s and give them different family backgrounds.

Here we go...

Prologue

Several centuries ago, Ninjago was ruled by a monarchy. The kings in the earlier centuries ruled benevolently and were adored by their subjects.

As the years went by, however, the kings became increasingly tyrannical. They oppressed their subjects with high taxes, unjust laws, and severe punishments, to the point where the masses were becoming slaves.

But about one hundred years before our story begins, the monarchy system of government was overthrown by brave souls who believed in the dignity and freedom of the individual citizen. Once again, peace and prosperity inhabited the land, as a new form of government - one that was run by an elected governor and was of the people, for the people, and by the people - was established. The capital city was Sasnak City, located on the eastern edge of Ninjago, near its border with the United States.

There were some Ninjagoans, however, who wished to see the monarchy reinstated. They did not think that the general public was educated enough to rule themselves properly. Over the last quarter century, enough Ninjagoans felt the same way that they formed an alliance among themselves. They became known as the Purples, named for the color of the royal robes once worn by the monarchs of the past. They gathered in a remote area of Snake Territory, which bordered Ninjago to the south, and formed a plan to overthrow the current government and re-seat a king on the throne.

Those who opposed the reinstatement of the monarchy called themselves the Yellows, for on a color wheel, yellow and purple form a pair of colors that lie opposite each other. The Yellows believed that the Purples held an outdated, condescending view of the citizenry, but they did not think the Purples were truly a serious threat to the peace of Ninjago.

They were proven wrong...

Chapter 1 - Sunday Night in Late August

Only the barest hint of daylight was left in the western sky as a smoky black horse leisurely made its way from Garmadon Ranch with two riders on its back - a handsome, muscular cowboy named Cole, who worked at the ranch, and a brown-haired saloon girl named Brooke, who sat behind Cole while holding on to his waist.

Cole was taking Brooke back home to her residence in Ninjago Town. She easily could have returned with her fellow employees of the now-closed Morro Saloon: Jenny and Star, who were the other saloon girls living in the rooms next to Brooke, and Rufus the saloon bartender. Brooke had arrived at the ranch with them that morning, and they all had been paid well by the ranch owner, Mr. Wu, to serve food and refreshments at a wedding barbecue that afternoon. The barbecue was held in celebration of the nuptials of Cole's fellow ranch hand Kai and his bride Sam, and also ranch hand Jay and his new wife Nya.

Instead of going back with her coworkers, Brooke opted to accept Cole's offer to personally escort her home. Cole didn't tell Brooke this, but he had made the offer because he had enjoyed her company for most of the afternoon, once she was done attending to her paid duties, so it hadn't felt right to him to let the day end with just a simple wave of goodbye to her before he turned in for the night at the ranch bunkhouse.

Cole had known Brooke for close to three years now, ever since he first started patronizing the Morro Saloon, and she had served him many a refreshment as just a friendly saloon girl. But recent events had caused him to rethink things about his life, and about her.

Up until three weeks ago, Cole's life basically revolved around the cattle he tended and the poker games he played on Saturday nights at the saloon with his friends from other ranches around the county. But then he witnessed the abduction of his friends Kai and Sam by that scoundrel Morro, and the tall cowboy joined Sheriff Lloyd Garmadon's posse to go after them.

The posse traveled miles and miles in their quest to rescue the pair, including trekking through the dangerous desert, not knowing if their quest would succeed. Indeed, if it were not for the miraculous glint of sunlight off a small hairpin, they would not have found Kai in the desert, and the cowboy with the red kerchief would not be walking above snakes today. Kai also managed to stay out of the bone orchard the next night, when Morro took a shot at him at a log house in the Stone Mountains. But a second later, Cole had witnessed Morro meeting his Maker as Sheriff Lloyd defended Kai with a return of gunfire. The brevity of life had definitely been illustrated for Cole in those few days.

The preciousness of love had also been illustrated for Cole recently. He had watched the loving way in which the rescued Kai and Sam had interacted with each other on the return journey home to Ninjago Town. And shortly afterward, both Kai's and Jay's proposals of marriage had been accepted by the women who loved them. Cole could not deny that he felt envious of the love his fellow ranch hands had found, and that he felt doubtful that any woman would ever bestow on him the same sort of affection that Sam and Nya showered on their men.

Until yesterday, at a meal held immediately after a funeral.

The elderly Bansha, legendary in Ninjago Town for her marksmanship, had passed away, and Brooke had helped the church ladies prepare for the post-funeral meal by baking cakes. One cake, however, she held back from the general dessert offerings and privately presented to the black-haired cowboy. She was kind of shy about it, which differed from her usual brassy personality. Cole was touched by her gesture, that Brooke knew enough about him to know he liked cake and cared enough about him to make sure he got his share of the tasty dessert.

Cole felt like he wanted to present something to Brooke in return, so today, at the wedding barbecue, he gave her the jeweled ladies' hairpin he had won as a humorous prize at the recent gentlemen's night poker game. Since Brooke tended to wear a lot of bright colors and glittery jewelry, he thought maybe she would like it. He felt a little nervous giving it to her, not knowing how she would react, but she seemed happy to receive it, and she agreed to accompany him on a short errand to deliver Sam's and Nya's steamer trunks from the main house of the ranch to their respective new cottages.

Cole enjoyed Brooke's company as they completed the errand. It was nice to spend some one-on-one time with her in quiet conversation. Normally when they talked, they were in the noisy saloon with lots of people around, and she wasn't able to spend more than two or three minutes at a time with him before she had to attend to another patron.

When dusk fell and the barbecue ended, Cole was not ready to end his time with Brooke. In a panic, he blurted out his offer to escort her home. To his relief, she accepted, and now here they were on the road heading toward town, riding his gelding, Rocky.

Brooke carried a lantern to light their way. The just-risen moon also provided a fair amount of illumination of the trail, though it was not a full moon tonight, as it was a few nights ago.

"You all right back there, Brooke?" Cole asked his passenger sitting behind him.

"Oh, I'm doing just fine. Thanks for asking!" Brooke replied. As she held on to Cole's waist with her free arm, she could feel his hard abs, and she prayed that he didn't notice her quick pulse as she clung to him.

"So do you ride horses?" he inquired.

"Afraid not. Been a town girl all my life, so I never had the chance to learn."

"That's right, I remember you did say once that you were from Ogacich. That's definitely one big town, even by United States standards. What was it like, growing up there?"

Brooke took a deep breath, and then she began to tell her story.