Maya's POV

I look down at the beautiful little bundle of joy in my arms. Her eyes are dark, just like her father's, and she has a little mess of fuzzy black hair on her head. Looking at her makes my heart swell.

The attachment between a mother and her child is one of the strongest bonds there is. I only first held her minutes ago, but I'd already do anything for her. There's also a deeper connection, one a didn't have with my son. It's the same connection I had with my mother and the same connection my husband claims to have with my son, an elemental connection.

"She's beautiful," Ray, my husband, smiles, sitting in a chair next to our bed. I wasn't able to make it to a hospital to give birth since we live in a little secluded town, but I already did it once before, so it wasn't as big of a problem this time. However, I'm still drained. Every muscle in my body aches, and it takes a tremendous amount of energy to move.

"She really is," I give my little girl a smile.

"Wu told me that he's going to stop by next week to visit us and see her. He wanted to stop by today, but Garmadon is getting worse," he informs me, his eyes never drifting off of our child.

"How much worse?"

"His eyes are turning red. He's slipping away to the darkness more and more every day," Ray sighs.

"It probably doesn't help that he's the master of destruction."

"Is any of your team coming?" he asks me, switching the topic off of his former teammate. I shake my head, letting out a sigh.

"Lilly hasn't talked to me since before Kai was born. Chen won't let Amber off that island or even communicate with anyone who isn't on it. Sarah stopped writing back when she married that mayor. Libber told me that she'd visit once her son is old enough, but that was around a year ago, so it's doubtful," I sigh, considering the 4 girls I grew up beside no longer communicate with me.

"I'm sure there's a good reason that Libber and Lilly haven't reached out," Ray reassures me, giving me a small smile.

"Do you think they're still mad about..." I start.

"You did the right thing. They saw that. You're the reason they were able to start these happy lives," he tells me.

"Daddy?" I hear a little voice. My little boy is standing in our doorway, his hair disheveled. His eyes are tired, and he's in a red onesie, fresh out of a nap. He rubs his eyes.

"Kai. Your sister is here," Ray tells him. Kai's eyes widen, and a huge smile gets on his face. He clunkily runs over to the bed side.

"Nya?" he asks, using the bed to support him as he stands on his tip toes. I turn her, so Kai can see her face. "She little."

"She is little," Ray agrees. "She's going to grow up to be big and strong, just like you."

"I hold her?" he sticks his little hands out for me to rest her down in.

"What's the magic word?" I ask him, adjusting Nya so I can "hand her to him".

"Pleeeeaaaaase," he draws it out. I move Nya so she's resting in Kai's arms, but unbeknownst to him, I'm still carrying a majority of her weight.

"Can you give her a kiss?" Ray asks. Kai nods, giving her an exaggerated kiss on her forehead. "Look at what a good brother you are."

"Kai honey, can you do something for Mommy?" I ask him. He rapidly nods. "Can you go out to the forge with Daddy and grab the box of toys we got for Nya?"

"Course Mommy," he jumps at the chance to be a helper. "We take Nya?"

"No, Nya is tired. She can rest here," I take Nya back from him, my arms heavy.

"Let's go Daddy," Kai grabs Ray's hand.

"Wait Kai. Can you give Mommy a kiss?" I ask.

"Course Mommy," Kai climbs onto the bed and gives me a little kiss.

"I love you, Kai."

"Love you Mommy," he starts to walk out of the room.

"I'll be back quickly, Nya," Ray tells our daughter, giving her a kiss on her forehead. "Which box is it?"

"It's the one with little waves on it."

"Alright. We'll be back soon."

"Thank you. I love you, Ray."

"I love you too, Maya," he gives me a kiss before jogging out of the room to catch up with Kai who is already out the door.

Once they leave, I feel the fatigue fall over me. Giving birth is tiring, but giving birth to a future elemental master is even more tiring. It's even more tiring when the child is of your own element. The energy transfer needed, even though her powers are still dormant, sucks the life out of you. My muscles feel unmovable, as if the only thing that will help them is a long nap.

I feel weak for the first time I can remember. The weakness transitions into drowsiness, and I start to drift off to sleep before realizing the boys have been gone for far too long. "Boys? Kai? Ray?" I muster up as much energy as I can to shout, startling Nya. There's no response.

"I was waiting until you noticed," one of the people I hate most in this world steps out from the other room. "I'm offended. How could you not tell your aunt that you're going to have a child?"

"You're not my aunt. Go away," I glare at her, but even that takes too much energy.

"Don't even pretend you could face me right now. You're too weak," she smirks, taking another step towards my bed.

"You don't have powers anyways," I bring up. She shrugs, her grey hair bouncing.

"Neither do you right now," she counters. I look down at my hands. "Don't even try. I've already seen five failed attempts."

"Five?" I question.

"You didn't think you were special, did you?" she laughs cruelty to herself, walking towards me some more. "First, I visited Lilly. It was a shame; she gave birth to a boy. You know your mother and I love the girls. Next, I went and saw Amber. She really married down. He's rich, but he sure is a lunatic. Anyways, she had a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Skylor. She's so driven, just like her mother. Your mother and I love her."

"H-how has Mara seen her?" I stutter, holding my own daughter closer.

"Shhh, don't interrupt. I thought I taught you better. Anyways, next was Sarah. Like Amber, she gave birth to a fierce little girl whose name is Seliel. She absolutely loves us. After that, I gave Libber a visit. She also had a boy, which was rather maddening. I also stopped to give the master of form a visit. I heard rumors that his wife had a daughter, and I couldn't miss the chance to see another elemental child. Now, it's your turn for a visit."

"Get away from me," I tell her, holding Nya closer to my chest.

"Funny, that's what all of your sisters told me too. It's a shame that they couldn't be here right now," she snickers, now sitting in the chair that Ray had been sitting in.

"Ciara, what did you do to them?"

"Youre using my name now. Maya, I thought we were past this," she places a hand over heart heart, pretending to be offended.

"Answer my question. What did you do to my team?"

"What's your daughter's name?" she ignores my question, starting at Nya.

"Nya."

"What a beautiful name. Let me hold her," she stands up. I pull Nya away from her, but my fatigued state can't resist her as she grabs my daughter. She takes her straight out of my arms. "Oh, she's so precious."

"Give her back," I reach out for her, but Ciara pulls her back. "What did you do to Kai and Ray?"

"Let's just say they might be trapped in a burning forge," she shrugs.

"You trapped a two year old in a burning building!" I try to get up, but I can't muster up the energy.

"Relax. He's undoubtedly a master of fire, meaning he's invincible to fire," she rocks Nya in her arms.

"And if he's not?"

"Oh well. I won't lose any sleep over it," she smirks when she sees my disturbed face. "Why are you doing this?"

"Easy. My sister has been trapped for over one hundred years. We were mere moments from allowing her into this world, but you had to go and mess it up, and for what? Love? Anyways, my sister and I made a mistake when recruiting you guys to help us. We took you guys in when you were too old. You had attachments to this world. Now these little girls," Ciara boops Nya's nose,"will know nothing of it."

Even more fear strikes through me. "You took their babies." I realize in fear.

"Not all of them. Mara has no intent of raising little boys."

"What did you do with the boys?"

"Well, you know as well as I do that cutting off an elemental bloodline completely creates an imbalance of grand proportions, so I of course couldn't kill them. I was simply going to relocate them into households where they would be neglected and hopefully turn to the darkness.

However, I underestimated Lou. Lilly was my first stop, and he was able to temporarily stun me, so he took his son and disappeared. He warned Libber and as soon as her son was born, Cliff relocated him to a different family. I was too lazy to find either of their sons," she explains as my eyes are focused on my daughter. "I also came for something else besides your daughter though."

"What?" I ask in fear.

Slowly, she pulls something out of her belt: a knife. It's silver with an intricate handle. The tip looks freshly sharpened. "Revenge. It's your fault that Mara isn't out. You and your sisters failed us. Hopefully your daughters won't."

"You don't have to do this," I plead, trying to muster up the strength to defend myself. I try to squirm away, but it doesn't work.

"Oh I do," she holds my daughter in her left arm, using her right hand to hover the knife over my chest. "Oh and by the way, I know why your sisters never responded to you. It's because I killed them." 

With force, she drives the knife through my chest, sending searing pain throughout me. I let out a scream. She walks away, leaving the knife in my chest. "Bye Maya. I really hope Nya doesn't fail us like you did."

As my vision starts to fade in and out, I see Ciara pour something on the ground, creating a portal. The last thing I see before everything goes black and the pain overwhelms me is Ciara carrying Nya through the portal, disappearing.

A/N Hey guys! I finally was able to write this first chapter. I'm super excited for this book. This chapter was pretty much meant to raise a lot of questions. It was going to be the prologue, but I decided to make it chaoter one cause why not.

I also want to set some elemental rules for the book since everyone has their own slightly altered rules

1: Each elemental master cannot be hurt or killed with their own element. For example, Kai can't be burnt with fire, Jay can't be electrocuted, etc.

2: Skylor retains the properties of whichever element she is using, so if she is using fire, she can't be burnt but she can be electrocuted since she isn't actively using lightning.

3: To prevent Skylor from being overpowered, she can only mimic the power of the last elemental master she touches. That means if she were to touch Camille then Nya, she could only use water.

4: Seliel is going to be the master of smoke (since she doesn't have an element, but she uses smoke bombs), so Ash doesn't exist in this story. 

5: Each element has dominant traits that the elemental masters inherit (more on that later in the story).

6: The boys all have their elemental powers independent from Lloyd (like how it is in s3 and beyond). Lloyd also doesn't have his golden powers cause I said so (whoops).

If I forgot something I'll add it in the author's note in another chapter.

Thank you guys for trying this book out. It already has 100+ reads which I'm super hyped about! The next chapter will be posted after I post the epilogue of Chaos.