Monday, 07:54 am.
"Where are they?" Skylor hissed as she paced back and forth. She was dressed in her fencing outfit and was waiting impatiently for her best friend to arrive.
The contestants had to be there before eight so that their participation could be verified. Nya, however, wasn't there yet and the time seemed to be against her.
Skylor stopped and looked at Kai. "Where are they?!" She exclaimed.
"I don't know! They were supposed to show up way earlier!" Kai answered, frustrated. "I swear to god, if they got into a car accident-"
"Don't assume that, it brings bad luck!" Seliel hissed at Kai, shutting him up.
Cole then ran up to the gang and held his phone out to them like a trophy. "I just called Jay and he told me they're in a traffic jam."
"What? Where are they?" Lloyd asked.
Cole sighed. "He told me they're still like ten minutes away from here."
"But Nya only has about five minutes before-"
Kai quickly interrupted Zane. "We know that, Zane!"
Just then, Freddy came up to the group with a cocky smile on his face. He was in red swim trunks, perfectly showing off his abs. "Oh, where is my partner?" Then he fake-gasped. "Is she going to be late? And where's Walker?"
Kai could feel his blood boiling under his skin. "Don't you act like we don't know what you did, scumbag!" He ignored the Walker comment.
"What do you mean?" Freddy asked, going through his gelled hair with his hand, bringing it back into style.
"We will get you, you just wait." Kai warned, his voice low and covered in venom.
Freddy scoffed. "I'd like to see you try. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go warm up. I've got a competition to win, after all." Then he walked off, leaving the rest aggressively speechless.
Kai balled his fists and was about to walk after him before he was yanked back by his girlfriend. "Don't. It's too early for that."
He sighed, relaxing.
At that moment, John came up to the group. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned just a tad bit down to whisper to Kai. "You know, we're not allowed to have favorites and are told to treat every student the same, but that guy is really testing my limits."
Kai smirked at him. "It's nice to know that even teachers don't like him."
"Between us teachers, no one really likes him with this attitude." Then he chuckled. "Some of us even stopped looking forward to classes he's in. And we make fun of those who have to teach him."
Cole then walked up to the other side of the trainer. "You make fun of your colleagues for having to teach him?" He asked, amused.
Lloyd then pushed Cole out of the way to talk to John. "What do the teachers say about me?"
Cole then raised his hand. "I'd like to know too!" He exclaimed.
John chuckled. "You two have nothing to worry about."
Lloyd and Cole high-fived and giggled like little children.
"Where's Nya? I'd like to talk to her." John asked.
Kai nervously laughed. "She isn't here yet."
"What?!" The trainer exclaimed. "Where is she? She has to be here before eight!"
"Here's the thing, they're stuck in traffic."
"They?" John raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, Nya and Jay." Cole said.
John chuckled as he looked forward, not looking at anything or anyone in particular. "Isn't he a teacher here?"
Cole's eyes widened before he looked at Kai who was glaring at him. He cleared his throat. "Ye-Yeah?"
"And she's a student here. But he told me his girlfriend was missing..." He mused, leaving the others shuddering in bad anticipation. Then he turned to look at the teens as they were giving each other worried glances. He let out a laugh. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."
"Wait, are they officially dating now?" Lloyd asked, turning to Kai. He had thought about them having feelings for each other, but he wasn't entirely sure if they were a couple already or not.
Kai sighed. "Yeah, but you don't know it from me."
"I already knew." Cole raised his hand innocently.
"Me too." Skylor also raised her hand.
"Aww, come on! Why didn't they tell me?" Lloyd whined.
Cole chuckled as he ruffled the blonde's hair. "They probably have their reasons. Very obvious reasons, actually."
John groaned as he looked at the time. "She won't make it in only two minutes here. I'll go and tell Freddy he's lucky." He then started to walk away, yet he suddenly stopped in his tracks when he heard a certain female calling out to them.
"I'm here!"
Everyone turned around to see Nya running up to them as if her life depended on it. She was wearing dark blue skinny jeans with a simple white shirt. She had a sports bag slung over her shoulder which hit her back repeatedly due to the running.
"Quick, tell them you're here!" John said, running up to the judges with his student.
Just before the clock ticked to eight, Nya managed to show her attendance. Before anyone could start another conversation, the moderator started to speak into a microphone, pacing back and forth slowly while speaking.
"Hello, and welcome to our annual championships of the bestest of best high schools in all of Ninjago! We have lots of talented students participating in extraordinary sports this year, which is great because..."
As the moderator began rambling on about whatever he was, Nya zoned his voice out and instead directed her gaze towards the huge crowd on the football field, as well as the bleachers.
There were many faces she had never seen before, so she assumed they were all coming from other schools. All of those people would be watching her compete, and everyone would see her failing and drowning-
No, she couldn't think of anything like that. The adrenaline must've gone crazy in her system as she started to imagine silly stuff which probably wouldn't even happen to the people with the worst kind of luck.
It was a bummer that Jay couldn't be next to her right now, or else everyone would have been suspicious of those two. She really could have needed some hand holding, though.
She then snapped back into reality and listened to the male moderator who was explaining everything.
"Since the types of sports mostly differ in terrain, we will have the whole day to use to get to different places. But do not worry, our buses we have hired will have enough space for each and everyone of you. So, without further ado, I would like to announce our first contestants, Stephanie Bills and Gabriella Montinelli, who will be competing in the category of breakdancing."
The crowd cheered, and so the games began.
Stephanie was a girl in Nya's English class who Nya really had no connection to, so both of the competing girls were practically strangers to her. The two danced well, yet in the end, Stephanie Bills won, making her trainer proud. She received her medal and so the championships continued.
After the categories of high jump and sprinting were over, fencing was next. The audience was sitting on the bleachers as Skylor grabbed her saber.
Before she could head down the bleachers, Kai grabbed her arm and whispered some encouraging words into her ear before kissing her on the lips for a short second.
After he was done, Nya quickly pulled her best friend into a tight hug and wished her good luck.
"Our next contestants will be Melanie Belcher and Skylor Chen in the category of fencing."
Nya watched as Skylor strutted down the many rows of bleachers. Then she directed her gaze towards the other side to see another girl who was rushing down the bleachers, who seemed to be Skylor's opponent.
The two contestants got into their fencing stances and waited for their cue before they started to clash their sabers against the other's.
They were playing a game of five rounds, whoever would win in more rounds would win the whole category.
The first two rounds went to Melanie, making the entirety of Skylor's friends upset. However, after gaining the upper hand, Skylor found her opponent's weak spot.
Using this to her advantage, Skylor managed to win the other two rounds. The tension was high as the last round began.
It seemed to be a fierce fight, no one wanted to give up, that was for sure. After a lot of back and forth, Skylor finally managed to knock Melanie's saber out of her hand and pushed her own saber against her chest, successfully winning the game.
The crowd cheered, and the yells of mostly Kai and Nya filled the crowd.
Skylor pulled off her mask and smiled up at them. After getting her medal, she ran up the bleachers and was immediately hugged tightly by her boyfriend who congratulated her nonstop.
"Alright, our next category will be swimming. We will need to drive to the pool grounds with our buses, so please be inside them within the next twenty minutes."
The people started to break out into loud conversations and some left the bleachers, whereas others stayed seated for a little while longer.
The gang was also still sitting as they were talking about everything.
"Skylor, that was amazing! When you were, like, swoosh, and then, like, whoop, and she was, like, ahhhh..." Lloyd explained by making exaggerated hand movements, trying to explain his story more vividly.
Skylor chuckled at his behavior, leaning against Kai who had his arm around her waist. "It was pretty close, though. But meh, I was better." She said, eyeing her medal that was around her neck.
Kai laughed. "I love it when you're sassy." He whispered into her ear, making her scoff playfully.
"When am I sassy?"
"Where's Jay?" Cole asked, looking at Nya.
She shrugged. "I don't know, probably doing some teaching or something." She then sighed. "He was called to fill in for another teacher who couldn't come to school today, so he won't be able to be here right now."
"Naww, don't worry, bestie. I'll record your whole performance and send it to him." Skylor said, making Nya laugh a bit.
"Imagine me losing and him being like 'how'd it go? I'm sure you killed the concurrence'."
"Imagine you actually killing the concurrence." Lloyd pointed out, making the whole gang laugh.
Nya sighed, smiling. "I don't even know who I'm competing with yet."
"You weren't told? I was told like a week ago." Skylor wondered.
Nya just shrugged and stood up. "We should probably get to the buses now."
They all nodded and made their way down the bleachers. They walked up to the campus to see four double deckers, parked in almost a straight line.
"Which one do you wanna get on?" Nya asked.
"Don't know, don't care." Kai said as he dragged Skylor off towards the first bus. The others followed in suit.
One after the other, the gang climbed up the five stairs of the bus and walked inside. Nya, being one of the last ones to get in, was quite shocked once she locked her eyes with her boyfriend who was sitting in the front next to a male colleague, the hint of a small smile on his face.
After a few seconds of staring, she averted her gaze away from him and followed the others to the back. Her heart was doing happy things, though.
She would have to ask how he managed to dump his class later.
After only a few minutes, the bus took off and stopped in front of a rented local pool after about ten minutes.
Everyone went inside the building as Nya and another girl she had never seen before went towards the changing rooms to change.
"As for our next category, also known as swimming, I would like you to welcome Melinda Triston and Nya Smith!"
Nya and that other girl walked inside the pool grounds, waving at the audience. Nya looked at the crowd and searched for her friends and family and located them in the middle. Jay was in the front, sitting next to other teachers from Nya's school.
She could swear she could see a faint blush form on his cheeks as he presumably tried to keep his eyes on her face. She giggled before she positioned herself on the left of the three marble blocks, whereas her opponent went on the right one.
There was caution tape in the middle of the pool to mark their territories. Nya readied herself and waiter for her cue, and right after the referee blew into his whistle, she dove into the water and began to swim.
Her friends and brother kept cheering her on as much as they could without it getting awkward, and Nya tried her best to not really listen to their words, like;
"You can do it, Nya! Only forty-three more minutes to go!"
"Make us proud, Nya!"
"Show her how it's done!"
"You can do like thousand more rounds!"
"Look out everyone, that's my sister!"
She tried her best to not laugh, which could have made her get off balance.
And Jay tried his best to not jump up and cheer her on like the rest of their friends, he was still only the teacher after all.
Nya swam track after track, seemingly showing no signs of tiredness. However, so did the other girl.
They seemed to be equally good, they even swam at the same pace for a long while before Nya swam ahead by only a few feet.
Round after round, Nya could feel Melinda, her opponent, curse under her breath. While the crowd still cheered them on after thirty minutes of just watching them swimming, Nya tried more than just her best to defeat her opponent.
And so, after exactly forty minutes of swimming tracks, Nya was ahead by two tracks. And the best part? She still didn't feel tired at all.
Just as she was about to swim her third track ahead of Melinda, Nya realized that the crowd went silent. Dead silent.
She turned her head around to see no one else in the water. Her eyes widened.
"She's drowning!" Someone yelled out of the audience.
Without hesitation, Nya took a deep breath and dove into the water and swam towards the blur of light skin and red swimsuit and grabbed ahold of her before swimming back up to the surface.
There were two paramedics who were always present during the championships, in case anything were to go wrong. They quickly grabbed the unconscious girl and immediately started to do CPR on her before she quickly regained consciousness and coughed up a bit of water.
Nya also lifted herself out of the pool and her brother immediately ran up to her and wrapped a big, white towel around her shoulders which covered her down to her knees.
"Is she okay?" Nya asked the paramedics.
"She's fine. The exhaustion hit her hard, that's all."
"That means we have a winner: Nya Smith!" The moderator immediately announced, walking up to her to put her medal around her neck.
Nya smiled and looked down her neck to admire the medal while the crowd clapped for her.
"Congratulations! We'll take a ten minute break before we continue our championships with the category of diving!" The moderator said, making everyone break out into loud conversations again.
Nya's friends quickly got out of their seats and hugged her and congratulated her. After hugging Cole, the last one of her friends, Nya looked to her side to see Jay smiling brightly at her through the crowd.
Once he realized she looking back at him, he made a quick head movement towards the doors, supposedly towards the changing rooms. He then walked away into that direction.
After around a minute of acting normal, Nya excused herself, saying she needed to get changed, and walked away. She walked down the corridor which was surprisingly empty, and looked around to somehow find her boyfriend's location.
That was until she was suddenly caught off guard when she was yanked inside a room she was walking past. She tried to wiggle away and scream, but her mouth was being held shut by a hand.
"Shh, it's me."
Nya quickly stopped trying to break free once she recognized the voice and instead melted into her boyfriend.
He then let her turn around and hugged her tightly, murmuring sweet nothings into her ear before pulling back to look at her.
"I'm so proud of you!" He whisper-cheered.
Her face lit up, and her hands snaked their way up to his neck and pulled him down to her.
"Thank you." She said sweetly before connecting their lips.