AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Howdy! This is The Mayor of Ninjago City with a brand new story, this one featuring our favorite earth ninja, Cole!

This short story is the latest installment in the The Fire Within series, which was originated by the author measuremesky when she began her first Ninjago fanfic The Fire Within. That fanfic, along with her follow-up story A Degree in Danger, can be found on this website. Measuremesky is a family member of mine, and she gave me permission to use her material to write my own contributions to the The Fire Within series. Check out my profile page for a list of titles.

The story you are about to read below takes place just one month after my recently completed fanfic The Fire Within: The Valentine Incident. And before I go further, I wish to thank Kairocksrainbow, Guest, FirstFandomFangirl, lovesgod12, TitaniumMasterOfAquaLightning, and Naruby7 for your wonderful comments on the final chapter of my Valentine tale. You all made my day!

My new spring break tale focuses on the continuing relationship between our favorite earth ninja and his love interest, a cute college girl named Brooke. The relationship has been going on for several months at this point.

Brooke decides to take advantage of an opportunity to spend her spring break from university classes at a faraway beach. Cole is disappointed at being separated from her until a mission suddenly comes up in which he and Lloyd will be working close to where Brooke is vacationing. He thinks it will be fun to surprise her, but what happens? Stay tuned...

After this week, I'll try to publish this story on Thursdays. Hope you enjoy this first chapter!

Chapter 1 - Paradise Awaits

"Ha! I won again!" Jay gloated upon trouncing his video game opponent, Cole, for the third time.

"Yeah, whatever," Cole said distractedly. He looked out the window onto the Bounty's deck. Outside, a group of seven people were sitting around the fire pit on this cool Saturday evening in March, after enjoying a delicious dinner prepared by Zane.

Sensei Wu, Nya, Kai, and Kai's fiancee Samantha Miller were socializing with Sam's mom, dad, and aunt, who had traveled six hours from their home village to Ninjago City, along with Sam's 12-year-old brother Todd. The Miller family members, who were lodging at the Adams Hotel during their stay, had come to visit Sam during her week-long spring break from Ninjago University classes, as well as to meet the family of her future husband.

Sam had accepted Kai's proposal of marriage on Valentine's Day just a few weeks ago, shortly after Sam's rescue from her kidnapper, the evil sorcerer Sebastian. So now, while her family was in town, they all planned to work on preparations for the wedding, which would be taking place in Ninjago City in August, five months from now.

Tonight was the very first time that Sam's family and the ninja team had met each other, and only the second time the Millers had socialized with Kai, having met him last night at a downtown restaurant. After they all had enjoyed tonight's friendly dinner, the ninjas of blue, black, green, and white opted out of the post-dinner conversation, knowing that this was an opportunity for Kai, Nya, and Sensei to get to know the family of the girl who would soon be taking on the ancestral name of the master of fire.

Young Todd was not participating in the boring adult conversation, however. Right now, Lloyd was showing the preteen his comic book collection.

"Aw, c'mon, Cole, focus," the lightning ninja pleaded, noticing that his black-haired teammate seemed uninterested in the video game. "Don't tell me you're still bummed about Brooke going away for a week to Paradise Beach. Are you worried she's gonna meet some hunky guy there and forget all about you?" he grinned.

The earth ninja turned his head to glare at his teammate. "Shut it, zaptrap! I'm not worried about that." He then turned back to the window, his thoughts on his girlfriend, who he had met last summer by virtue of her being Sam's dormitory roommate at Ninjago University, otherwise known as Ninjago U, its common nickname.

Brooke had badly wanted to travel to a beach this year and originally had planned to go in the summer, on the few vacation days granted to her from her summertime job at a clothing store in her home village, about three hours away from Ninjago U. But now she was going to be a bridesmaid in Kai and Sam's wedding in August, so that meant spending her summer vacation time in Ninjago City instead of at a beach.

However, it turned out that the Ninjago U student council was sponsoring a spring break bus trip to Paradise Beach, so Brooke decided to sign up for it instead of seeking a temporary job as a live-in nanny as she had done during last year's spring break. An additional opportunity she could have taken, and the one Cole had hoped she would, was to spend the week at the Bounty. She and Sam had stayed there the first few days of their winter break a few months ago before heading home to their respective villages, but Brooke didn't want to impose on the ninja team's hospitality for a whole week.

So yesterday, the bus left for the beach, and Brooke was on it.

"I was just hoping Brooke and I could've done some chilling out together over her break, since her classes have been pretty intense this semester, as opposed to last semester," Cole said out loud to Jay. "She's been so busy and we haven't spent a whole lot of time together - I've only seen her once since our Valentine's Day date. I thought we'd maybe catch that Joel Taylor concert next Thursday at the Arena." Cole had been pleased when he found out that Brooke enjoyed soft rock, just like he did.

"And when she comes back from spring break, she'll be busy planning the surprise bridal shower that the girls on their dorm floor are going to have for Sam at the end of the semester," Cole added in a low voice to avoid any chance of being heard by the bride-to-be outside.

He sighed. "Guess I'll just have to wait till August to spend any real time with her."

Two mornings later, on Monday, the ninja team sat around the breakfast table. Frosted Oats cereal was the simple breakfast entree, as today was going to be an otherwise unusual day. This morning, the Miller family was going to return to the Bounty to discuss - with Sensei Wu and Kai - traditional ninja marriage protocols, such as who should be invited to the wedding. The Millers were also going observe a ninja training session.

Kai seemed extra happy this morning, and Cole assumed it was because the fire ninja would be showing off his warrior skills for his future in-laws later in the day. Kai's foot injury was almost healed after the ninjas' first encounter with the evil Sebastian back in January. Cole also figured that Kai was happy about going out to dinner with his future wife and her family afterward.

Cole was definitely not as effervescent as his red teammate, but he was beginning to resign himself to a week of being hundreds of miles apart from his girl.

The phone rang in the control room.

"I'll get it!" Kai announced, jumping up from the table. "It's probably Sam."

After a minute, he returned. "Actually, Sensei, the phone's for you. It's the Ninjago Department of Natural Resources."

The white-bearded teacher stood up and excused himself. "I was not expecting any calls from them, so I am curious to find out why they are trying to reach us at this early hour," he said as he left the room.

Sensei was on the phone for a while. By the time he reappeared to the team, they had already finished eating and were putting away the breakfast items and clearing the dirty dishes.

"Want me to fix you something more for breakfast, Sensei? You didn't get a chance to eat much before the phone rang," Nya offered.

"No, thank you, Nya," Sensei replied. "But I do need to talk to you all."

Their curiosities piqued, the ninja team members quickly finished the breakfast cleanup chores while Sensei poured himself a fresh cup of tea and sat at the dining table.

"The reason the Ninjago Department of Natural Resources called this morning," Sensei told the team, now assembled around the table, "was to ask for help in preparing some of the coastal beaches against erosion from hurricanes. Typically, hurricane season does not start until June, over two months from now, but last night, a weather system was spotted moving this way from across the ocean, on Ninjago Weather Service satellite radar, and it looks like the sort of system from which a hurricane could be spawned."

He continued. "The Department of Natural Resources thought it had two months to prepare for a hurricane, but now it only has about ten days. So I am sending Cole and Lloyd to help them. You two will be using your powers at a quarry to expediently break up and move chunks of earth onto trains which will carry the earth material to the coastline to be used to shore up the beaches against damaging ocean waves."

"I told Mr. Francis, the department director, that you two would arrive at the quarry in the mid-afternoon, so you'll need to pack your duffel bags as soon as possible and be on your dragons within the hour."

It had been a while since Cole had the opportunity to give his elemental power a real workout, so this mission was sounding good to him. "So what's the name of this quarry, Sensei?" he asked. "And where exactly is it located?"

"The quarry is called Paradise Quarry, and it's about forty miles from the ocean," Sensei answered, looking him in the eye, "near a beach called Paradise Beach."

Everyone looked at Cole as his eyes widened. I'll be near Brooke! he thought excitedly.

"I can tell what Romeo's thinking!" Jay teased.

Sensei cleared his throat. "The primary focus of this mission should be the quarry," he admonished the earth ninja, "but since you'll need some down time to replenish your energy for your elemental power, I suppose there will be opportunities for visiting the surrounding area."

"Oh, yeah, he's gonna go sightseeing!" Kai grinned.

"Yeah, as soon as our work is done each day, he's gonna breeze outta there and leave me behind," Lloyd joked, pretending to cry.

Cole rose from the table in an upbeat mood, the cheeriest he had felt in days. "Don't worry, green machine. I'm sure Brooke knows someone you can hang out with. Let's get packing! Has anyone seen my sunscreen?"