Rivals {Ninjago AU}

Chapter 1

***(Kai's POV)***

My mother places a hand to her chest, tearing up. "It was so wonderful being able to spend the summer with you two." She hurriedly swipes her finger under her eye.

I smile charmingly and pull her into a side hug. "It really was, wasn't it? It was like we were all a family again."

Nya – also known as my horrendously annoying younger sister – narrows her eyes at me. Her expression says I see right through you.

And I'd hazard to guess she does.

She crosses her arms and sighs. "It's not like we're leaving forever, Mom. It's just the start of a new school year. We'll be back this afternoon."

"I know," Mom nods, wiping away yet another tear. "But after being separated from your brother for so long..."

My sister raises an eyebrow. "Okay, then." And she walks off.

I can't help a smirk as I glance after her. She is so jealous.

When we were kids, we were separated from our parents in a tragic turn of fate. My parents were framed and mutually convicted for a first-degree murder of a public official. They both had government jobs and were near the crime scene at the time of the assassination.

I know, it sounds crazy.

Both my parents were sentenced to a good forty years in prison, and because Nya and I had no other family, we both ended up in foster care. I was a year and a half older than Nya when it happened, and I took it so much better, so I was more socially and emotionally stable. It was pretty easy to find an adoptive family for me.

Not so with Nya. She came with a host of problems from being separated from mom and dad. She bounced around among foster families and a local girl's home for a long time. Apparently, she got into fights with kids in her foster families or something.

But three years ago, this guy named Clutch Powers discovered evidence pointing away from my parents as murderers. He brought it before the law, the real murderer was caught, and my parents were freed. Their next step was to get us back.

It was easy to get Nya back. She was never adopted, so she got to come home to my parents three years ago.

I, on the other hand, was in an adoptive family.

Needless to say, we had a bit of a messy issue. My bio-parents could take the adoptive family to court to try to get me back, or we could work out some sort of a compromise for Kai rights.

In the end, I decided I'd stay with my adoptive family until I turned eighteen and come live with my parents for my senior year of high school. I don't think either my adoptive family or my biological family was completely happy, but it's not like I was going to just choose one over the other.

I turned eighteen back in May, and since then I have become the favorite child in my biological household. Though Nya had our parents for the past three years, she now has to share them. And they feel like they have a lot of catching up to do.

As I said, I'm the favorite.

I give my mom a sloppy kiss on the cheek before heading down our front porch steps. "Love you, Mom," I call to her over my shoulder.

"I love you too, sweetie!" she calls back. "And I have work this evening, but your father will be home for you when you get back!"

I swivel toward her, walking backward toward my sports car (the one my adoptive parents so graciously bought me for my seventeenth birthday). "That reminds me," I smile innocently at her. "I plan on inviting a few friends over this evening. Is that all right with you?"