Befriending the Criminal

I Think I Need a Little Change

Cole took in a spoonful of cereal floating on the milk. "One question."

"Yep. Got it." He said with a quick nod. "So, uh, why did your arm respond to your emotions?"

Cole's eyes widened, clearly hinting that he wasn't in the mood of answering a question like that. He put his forehead to the palm of his hand, feeling the cool metal press on his skin. He told Jay one question, and one question was exactly what Jay had asked. Frowning, he lowered his arm and curled the fingers of his replacement arm repeatedly before fisting his hand.

"It's a... it's a new piece of technology they were developing. Where your emotions tie to the part of your body replaced with a bionic. That part of the body responds and reacts to how it can be controlled... it's kind of like a monitor too. I was the first person to test it."

"Were developing?"

One question. But this one's fine, I guess. "I was the first and last person. They went back to just making regular bionic parts afterwards."

"Did something go wrong?"

Cole shut his eyes tightly. "One question. This is already your third, Bluebell."

"Fine, don't answer that." Jay stood up and stood away from Cole, turning on his watch. It projected a view of Cole's file, which Jay had nearly forgot he was still in the middle of reading. And thankfully, this time, the video did not play.

"I wanna show you something!" He said suddenly. Cole's brow perked up as he put the bowl in the sink.

"Come on! There's something you should see," Jay said to Cole, leading him to a room downstairs towards the back. He stopped and pulled out a key from his pocket before unlocking the door. "Lloyd's probably going to kill me for showing you this, but..." He pushed open the door.

Cole stared with awe.

A room with faint blue lights coming from either side, filled with weapons and valuable artifacts which hung from the walls and were sitting on dusty shelves. To the right there was a full display of comics next to a blue lava lamp - Jay. And to Cole's left there sat a box full of books on fighting techniques and weaponry. At the very end of the room hung a board with ripped out papers, each one somehow related to Jay and Lloyd.

Jay intruded in his thoughts. "Lloyd and I were like, the second biggest heroes of the city. Well, actually, make that the number one biggest heroes. Whenever Chief Garm couldn't make it in time, we'd be out there, kicking butt!" Jay flailed his hands in the air, mimicking that of a fight. "Most of the time, Garmadon would just call us straight to take care of things. I mean, we still do sort of do that... but crime's kind of been less and less since Kai and Nya went into hiding."

"Did you ever have to face Kai and Nya? Did you see them in person?"

"N-No... Lloyd handled those missions. I stayed behind." Jay frowned slightly.

"Hah, that explains why I'd never seen you before..." Cole ran a hand over one of the nunchucks on the wall.

Jay picked up a second pair of nunchucks from below Cole. He fancied his eyes over it. "Well, you can use anything in here if you ever need to. Especially with the whole Kai being alive and stuff case going on, heh."

Cole cocked a brow and tilted his head at the other. "Why are you showing me this?"

"W-Well, the other day you helped me catch a thief... and I just thought... why not?" Jay stepped a little closer to Cole, part of the reason to put the nunchucks back.

With a faint smirk, Cole's hand slid from the nunchucks and he turned to Jay. "I hardly even use weapons," he started, tugging on the dark grey kerchief around Jay's neck. Jay leaned forward, his face almost colliding with the bottom of Cole's chin. He looked up slowly. The corner of Cole's lips pulled up when their eyes met. "You know, my arm's actually pretty strong."