Lou woke with a start, sitting up in Sally-Bob’s barn, hearing a groaning sound, like a heavy door opening for the first time in hundreds of years.

“What’s that?!” he cried.

Across the barn, Cole woke and wiped sleep from his eyes. “Huh? Oh, that’s the farm’s rooster. It must be sunrise.”

“That doesn’t sound like any rooster I’ve ever heard,” Lou replied, hurrying to the barn door and sliding it open. Instead of a rooster, he was startled to see the yak standing before him. It licked him from chin to hairline with its sandpapery tongue. Lou yelped in surprise, jumping back.

“Henry likes to pretend he’s a rooster,” Cole explained, patting Henry’s nose.

Lou looked at the dark sky. “But it doesn’t look like the sun’s coming up,” he pointed out. “It looks like the middle of the night.”

Cole stepped out of the barn with his dad and gazed at the stars, confused. “That’s weird,” he said. “The only other time Henry pretends he’s a rooster is when there’s trouble, but I don’t see any—”

Before he could finish, they heard the rumbling of engines, and a moment later, five pairs of headlights crested a hill in the distance. The lights grew bigger and the rumbling louder as they approached the farm.

“Takanagi?” Lou asked.

“Yeah…Stay here, Dad,” Cole implored. “You’ll be safe.”

Cole ran toward the headlights. Whatever Takanagi was sending their way, there were more of them than there were of Cole. Lou admired his son’s bravery, but he wished he had someone or something else on his side. The other farmers stood outside their homes, watching, not making any move to go to his aid. And Cole was trying to protect them! Maybe the farmers were peaceful, but surely they could do something to help! Since it appeared they wouldn’t, Lou decided he would.

He ran after Cole, quickly becoming winded. I’m in shape for soft-shoe dancing, not sprinting, he thought. As he got closer, he saw that the approaching vehicles were tractors, which made sense, but they weren’t like normal tractors. They had been heavily modified, with metal plating along their sides. The drivers, too, wore metal plating on their overalls. They wore helmets and carried long pitchforks, like bizarre armored knights from some medieval tale.

Lou ran up beside his son, who had stopped to make a stand before the war-tractors.

“Dad! I told you to wait in the barn! You’re not a fighter!” Cole exclaimed.

“I’ll do whatever I can to protect my family,” Lou replied firmly. “Family is the most important thing.”

The drivers stopped their war-tractors. The lead driver pointed his pitchfork handle at Cole. “Save yourself a lot more pain, kid, and convince Sally-Bob to sell to Takanagi!”

“I’ve told you: this is their land, and if they don’t want to sell, they don’t have to!”

The lead driver turned to his partners and waved them ahead.

“Do you have a plan, son?” Lou asked worriedly.

“Since I don’t have my powers, I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing: using my Spinjitzu and hoping for the best,” Cole told him.

The war-tractors were already almost upon them. Cole tried to spin but didn’t have enough room, and he turned right into the broom handles of two of the drivers. He fell, adding more bruises to his collection. Two other drivers, grinning, circled Cole at high speed, splashing mud all over him.

The fifth driver sped straight at Lou. Lou didn’t know quite what to do. He didn’t know any fancy fighting moves, just dance steps.

Suddenly, he realized what he could do, and he smiled. Just as the war-tractor reached him, Lou gracefully slid to one side. As the machine went past, Lou executed a perfect dance twirl, his foot connecting with the war-tractor at the perfect time in the perfect spot…at least, that was what Lou was hoping for. But instead of knocking the heavy vehicle on its side as he had intended, Lou just bounced awkwardly off the machine and landed very ungracefully in the mud! The driver was speechless—absolutely baffled by what he had witnessed—and couldn’t take his eyes off the unfortunate dancer. He was so preoccupied with Lou’s blunder, he didn’t notice he was driving his vehicle off the path and straight into a ditch until it was too late. The war-tractor suddenly fell over on its side, sending its driver into the mud, too.

Cole, however, was having a lot more trouble. Three of the other drivers wouldn’t allow him a moment so he could use his Spinjitzu. He concentrated on deflecting their blows instead, but the fourth driver swooped his pitchfork handle behind Cole’s knees, and he fell once more.

The three drivers broke away, rampaging their war-tractors up and down the fields, ruining the farmers’ crops. The farmers still just watched. Cole again tried to stand, but the leader pinned him to the ground with his pitchfork handle.

“This was your last chance, kid. Next time, we’ll get mean.”

The goons all turned and drove back the way they’d come, having done enough damage for now.

Lou looked at his dazed son with concern. “Cole, are you all right?”

“No broken bones,” Cole replied, rising unsteadily with Lou’s help. He watched the thugs go, his eyes distant.

Lou worried for him. “What is it, Cole?” he said.

Cole didn’t look back at him. “It’s just…I don’t know how I’m going to do it, this time,” he told his father. “I don’t know how I can keep my promise to Mom.”