Nya sighed as she glanced at the several hundreds of people that were standing in a line in front of the six ninja, all waiting for a picture, an autograph, or both.

It was the day that she had been dreading for the past two weeks: The meet and greet with their fans.

Now, Nya was sure that if it had been a few years ago, when she had first been announced to be an official part of the ninja team, she would've gotten only a handful of people in front of her stand.

But now that she was not only known as the Girl Ninja, but more importantly the girl who turned into water, her popularity had risen ever since she returned to Ninjago.

And the worst part? Jay's desk was three ninja away from her. She could barely even see him from where she was sitting.

And she was certain that he would most likely have some... fangirls who were ready to swoon over him openly.

She trusted him, of course. There was no way he would ever let anyone get close to him like she was allowed to. Yet she was not trusting his fangirls one bit.

But no worries, the whole place was covered with security cameras. Nya could easily pay each daring individual a friendly visit after the event.

"These people look like they're ready to jump our bones," Lloyd, whose table was next to Nya's, said, letting a shudder take over his body.

Nya wholeheartedly agreed, feeling like she was being undressed under all the agonizingly excited people's gazes.

She looked down at her hands under the table that were currently holding her phone. Her group chat with the ninja team was open, and the chat was basically exploding with whines of not wanting to be in that room. She, again, agreed.

Lloyd G.
When's this thing gonna end?
sent 11:58 am

Cole B.
Idk but can we eat pizza after this?
sent 11:58 am

Zane J.
It ends at three in the afternoon, Lloyd.
sent 11:58 am

Cole B.
Or can we just eat pizza while sitting here?
sent 11:59 am

Cole B.
Can someone call the nearby pizza place??
sent 11:59 am

Lloyd G.
Why the heck did we agree to this?!
sent 11:59 am

Porcupine
Because we're famous
sent 11:59 am

Sparky
So?
sent 11:59 am

Sparky
Sprongebob is famous too but do we see
him having meet and greets?
sent 11:59 am

At that, the other five ninja slowly looked up from their phones to turn their heads to their left where Jay was seated at the left end of the bunch.

Jay rolled his eyes at them before looking back down to his phone as he began typing again.

Sparky
I was joking
sent 11:59 am

Sparky
You uncultured people
sent 11:59 am

Porcupine
Jay
sent 11:59 am

Porcupine
Just shut up
sent 11:59 am

Zane J.
I would advise us to put our phones
away and focus on the people waiting
for our attention. The event starts in
approximately fifteen seconds.
sent 11:59 am

A few low groans could be heard as the team turned off their phones and either left them on their table or stuffed them into their pockets.

Well, all but one.

Cole B.
What about the pizza???
sent 12:00 pm

"There won't be any pizza, Cole!" Kai hissed at the Black Ninja who flipped him off from under the table.

"My ladies, my gentlemen and my non-binary pals, this is the day you've all been waiting for!" Dareth said, his voice blaring through the megaphone he always used for special events. "Without further ado," he gestured to the six uninterested people, "The ninja!"

And once the stanchion was pulled back, the line of well over four hundred people found their ways over to their idols.

"Nya!" a little girl squealed, standing right in front of the Water Ninja's desk. The girl's brown pigtails constantly wobbled up and down, especially when she was bouncing in her place excitedly.

"Hi, sweetie," Nya greeted, looking down at her. Then she looked back up and greeted the mother of the child.

"Hi! I'm Melanie, but you can call me Mel," she introduced herself. "Only my friends call me Mel," she added in a quieter voice, as if it was a secret no one could know.

Nya chuckled at the girl's cuteness. "Nice to meet you, Mel. What can I do for you?"

"A picture," Melanie squealed, and before Nya could say anything else, she detached herself from her mother and ran around the table, coming to a halt next to Nya's sitting form.

Although what the girl did was pretty much forbidden, Nya looked past that as she smiled at her and allowed her mother to take a picture of the two with her cellphone. But instead of just standing next to her idol, the small girl actually began to claw her way onto Nya's lap.

"Melanie-" her mother scolded, yet Nya interrupted her.

"It's fine, don't worry," the Water Ninja assured her, smiling. Even though having a stranger's child sitting on her lap wasn't what she had thought she'd be doing, she wasn't just going to burst the girl's little bubble of joy.

After the picture was taken and Melanie left (rather reluctantly), the next family came to her stand. She paid them most of her attention, but a small portion of it was directed to finding out what was going on at her boyfriend's stand.

The smile on her face quickly faded away when she realized a group of girls in her age was currently standing in front of him.

All of them were doing at least one thing that seemed like they were trying to flirt with him. A few of them were twirling strands of their mostly bleached hair, some were giggling like crazy, and one girl was resting her palms on his table while putting her weight on them to lean closer to Jay.

Nya's blood started to boil upon seeing that, but there was really nothing she could do.

So she turned back to the people in front of her and attended to them, giving them a friendly smile while signing her overly complicated signature into a small book of theirs.

Most of her time was spent like that; giving people her autograph, allowing them to take pictures with her, and telling them small snippets of some of her previous adventures.

It all went well until a group of three guys were standing in front of her table. Of course Nya thought of it being nothing since it wasn't a rare occurrence, but it was still rather suspicious how they were basically begging for a picture together with her.

"Can we please have a picture with you?" one of them asked her, a phone already in his hand. His eyes were looking at her with a pleading undertone in his brown pools.

"Okay," the Master of Water agreed with a tight-lipped smile.

She stood up and stayed rooted behind her table, her hands holding the edge.

The guy who was holding the phone tapped on it before turning around and holding it high up in the air.

He kept trying to find a good angle in which all four people would fit in the frame but there was none.

"Um, this isn't working," he said, putting his arm back down and turning around to look at Nya.

Before she could give him an answer, one of the other two men spoke up.

"Maybe we could stand next to you?"

Instead of letting Nya voice her opinion on it, the two moved behind the desk and came to stand on either side of her. Between the two men, Nya was significantly shorter.

Although she was feeling severely uncomfortable, she gave the guy with the phone a tight smile, silently urging him to snap the picture already.

Just as he turned back around and held up the phone, Nya felt something hovering above her left hip, and before she could look down at it, she felt it being gripped.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, getting out of her tense stance to whip her body to the guy to her right who had his arm around her.

He opened his mouth but couldn't get a word out because he was suddenly tackled to the ground. Nya had to blink a few times to realize what had just happened.

When she looked down, she could see a huge blob of blue on top of the guy whose face was getting beaten repeatedly.

"Jay!" Nya hissed, trying to get a hold of him. "Jay, stop! Everyone is looking at you," she told him, looking around at the fans that were staring at the spectacle in front of them.

Nya tried to get her boyfriend off the guy but was unsuccessful, so she did the only thing that could get through to him. It always worked.

She held her hands in front of her and prepared herself to give him a splash of her water.

Except nothing came out of her hands.

She glanced down at her palms, disappointment and sadness evident in her eyes.

Right.

While she was sulking about the loss of her powers again, she watched as her brother and Cole leaped into action and pulled her Yin out of the mess he created.

Once he was off the guy, it was revealed that his nose seemed to be broken. Blood was pouring out of it and it looked a bit crooked.

Nya grimaced and looked down at Jay's right hand that was covered in the red substance.

He came to stand next to her, breathing heavily. "Did he touch you?"

"Not really. He only put his hand on my-"

Before she could end her sentence, Jay threw himself back on the person who was lying on the floor and clutching his face, groaning in pain.

He didn't need for Nya to finish her answer. The way she worded it was enough for him to know she was touched by someone that wasn't him.

And that was a big no-no.

Just as he was about to land another hit on the guy's hidden face, he was pulled back. Jay sighed, knowing he wouldn't get to lay a finger on him anymore.

"Uh, that surely was a show!" Dareth announced through his megaphone, laughing awkwardly. "Um, there is a juice bar in the hallway for anyone who's interested."

His desperate attempt at drawing the attention away from the Blue Ninja and the person on the floor was in vein. He scratched an itch at the top of his head, thinking about a better way to get the crowd away from the ninja.

His brown eyes lit up excitedly when an idea crossed his mind.

"The first hundred people to get to the juice bar can win a free VIP ticket to an upcoming event this June!" This made a few heads turn into his direction. "And the ninja will be happy to spend some more intimate time with their fans."

Dareth's choice of words was intentional, and it turned out to be efficient when the crowd went silent for a few seconds before they began to shove their way through the many people they were surrounded by to be the first to find the juice bar.

With a victorious grin on his face, he made his way over to the ninja.

"What upcoming even were you referring to?" Lloyd asked him, oblivious to what was said previously.

Dareth shrugged with one shoulder. "The upcoming event to make up for whatever this," he gestured to the man lying on the floor who was going in and out of consciousness, "is."

The six ninja sighed, already hating the new event they had to star in.

Jay turned his gaze away from the guy to look at his friends who were standing to the side and looking down at him, completely flabbergasted.

"That's your friend?" he asked them, pointing to the floor. "Really? You hang out with that? Someone who doesn't respect boundaries and touches people without their permission?" He scoffed.

One of them blew out his cheeks and rubbed his forehead. "Not anymore."

"Has anyone called an ambulance?" the other one asked.

"Who cares?" Jay mumbled inaudibly, his gaze turned into his Yang's direction.

Nya suppressed a chuckle as she lightly punched his shoulder, as if to shut him up. He slung an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him in response.

"They should be here any minute," Cole said, just getting off the phone call with a nurse.

The man on the floor turned from one side to another, making everyone look down at what he was doing.

"I'm dying!" he suddenly exclaimed.

"Shut up!" Jay, Kai and Cole yelled back.

Lloyd only rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly and Zane was too distracted conversing with Pixal to care for what was happening over at Nya's stand.

He was used to it by now, and caring for the beaten up individual only led to nowhere, so he gave up trying.

While they were all waiting for the medical assistance to arrive, everyone began to talk to amongst each other.

"You really need to stop being so aggressive when a guy is around me," Nya told Jay as they both sat down on her table.

He gave her a look that told her how he felt before he even opened his mouth. "And let them touch you? The audacity he had to do that when me and the others were around as well, dude."

Nya sighed, feeling him getting agitated beside her again. "But you're the calm one. Everyone saw you beating up a guy just now, don't you think the internet's gonna explode?"

"You think I care about that?" Jay asked back.

He wrapped his arm around her again and pulled her close to him. Then he brought his mouth close to her ear and took a swift sniff of her dark locks. Honey with a hint of red roses, his favorite shampoo scent of hers.

"No one's allowed to touch what's mine," he whispered, his breath tickling her auricle. "He drew the line when he stepped behind your desk. Why did you let him?"

"Him and his friends wanted to take a picture. I didn't think much of it honestly."

"Well, now you know not to do that anymore."

Nya raised an eyebrow at him. "But it's fine when you let your fangirls get close to you?"

Jay began to sniff the air around Nya, causing her to frown at him. She was silently questioning his actions.

"Do I smell," he sniffed, "jealousy?"

His Yang threw her head back and laughed. Jay smiled as he admired her effortless beauty unfolding in front of him.

"You're one to talk," Nya mentioned, motioning to the guy still lying on the floor.

"Okay, everyone. Clear the room, the ambulance is here," Dareth told everyone.

They all stared back at him. "No one is stopping them from getting here," Kai deadpanned. "Now, get him out of my sight."

As the injured person was rolled out of the area on a stretcher, the ninja discussed their next steps.

"You know," Lloyd said, "One good thing that's come out of this is that we don't have to have this stupid meet and greet anymore."

The others agreed with smiles on their faces, but Dareth gave them a weird look as he grabbed his megaphone again.

"Think again, Lloyd," he said before pushing a button on the large item in his hand. Then he turned to the entrance door and positioned the megaphone in front of his mouth.

"Everyone, the show still goes on! Come on, come in, your heroes are waiting for you!"