[Better Luck Next Time]

For the rest of his Math class, Cole couldn't think about anything else. It bothered him. It bothered him a lot. He knew he was supposed to listen to the teacher, but his thoughts kept drifting off to her.

He had never seen someone that beautiful. Then again, he was mad at himself for starting to like someone who he'd never even talked to, who he didn't even know. What if she was, like, one of the school bullies or bad guys or something? He definitely hoped she wasn't. He wanted to hear her voice so badly as well.

Mr Sans, their Math teacher, went easy on their first day. He only told them about basic school rules and the content schedule for the school year for his class. Some of the new students were pretty invested in his class like Zane and Pixal, most of them didn't show any reactions, and some groaned quietly every other second like Kai and Lloyd. Cole didn't know why he should be excited about math because he didn't really know why he needed all of the unnecessary things in his head. He thought that people like the Nindroids, Jay, and Nya were the ones to really listen to be able to work on their mechs with better ease. To design blueprints or something, probably.

After the bell rang for their twenty-minute-break, they all exited the class, saying their 'thank you's and 'see ya's to the nice teacher.

"So, do we go to pick up our books now?" Skylor asked into the circle they gathered in.

"Yeah, I'd say so." Lloyd answered. "But where are they?"

Pixal scanned her database. "Mr Sans told us to go into the school's basement. There would be someone waiting for us and help us get the right books."

"Alright, then. Let's go." Lloyd waved with his hand towards the stairs they had walked up earlier.

On their way there, it felt like all eyes were on them. A lot of students who were standing in their way backed off immediately, making them room to walk in. They received both weird and amazed looks. Some students even waved to them, with Kai waving back with a grin on his face. He was clearly enjoying the attention.

When they walked down both sets of stairs, they finally found the basement. It wasn't really that hard to find, there was literally a sign stating that behind the door they were standing in front of was the basement.

"Do you think it's scary in there?" Jay asked.

"C'mon Zaptrap, you can't possibly be afraid of a basement when you're a trained ninja who's fighting off scary people." Cole rolled his eyes.

"You never know, Cole! There could be anything in there." Jay defended himself.

"Cut if off, you two." Nya said, walking towards the door and opening it. The door creaked as it slowly opened.

The eight walked inside one by one, looking at the new area. It was dark at first, but Kai managed to find a light switch and pushed it up, making the whole place three times brighter. They gasped at the sight. It looked like a literal labyrinth down there with lots of halls and doors everywhere.

"How come it's this big?!" Cole exclaimed. "How are we supposed to know where we have to go?"

"Isn't there someone waiting for us down here?" Skylor asked.

"Yeah." Nya answered. Then she looked around and when she couldn't see anyone, she cupped her mouth and screamed, "Hello? Is anyone here?"

They all stayed quiet and tried to listen for anyone responding, but no one did. Then they looked at Nya again for a different idea to which she just shrugged, not knowing what to do either. "They probably aren't here yet." She guessed out loud.

"Then let's explore a bit." Kai told them. After they all darted their gazes up to him, questioning his idea with only looks, he explained what he had on his mind. "What? If we're gonna spend a whole year here, might as well get to know the building."

Zane's eyebrows creased. "That... is actually a good idea."

Skylor looked at Zane with wide eyes at first, but then softened her gaze again. "Alright, if Zane says it's a good idea, let's do it."

Kai narrowed his eyes at her playfully. "What's that supposed to mean?" He put his hands on his hips.

Skylor then looked at Kai, saw the playfulness, and walked towards him until she stopped inches away from his face. "I'm saying I like Zane's approval, that's all." She smirked.

"So you're saying you wouldn't have trusted me if Zane hadn't approved to that?" Kai asked cockily, wearing a stupidly gorgeous grin for her.

"Not exactly, I would've accepted anyone's approval for any of your ideas, Mr Hothead." They did not move away from their closeness which they hadn't realized yet.

The people around them watched the two like a dramatic telenovela. If they had popcorn, they all would've eaten during the act for sure. Jay leaned a bit down to Nya's level. "What is happening?" He whispered.

Nya didn't look away from the two. "No idea."

Cole joined in on the two and leaned onto Nya's shoulder with his underarm since she was smaller which she never really enjoyed. "This is getting spicy."

Jay looked over at Cole and nodded with a sheepish smile on his face.

Kai and Skylor didn't focus on anything or anyone else than their staring contest. "So you're saying my ideas aren't smart?" Kai asked cockily, leaning a bit forward.

Skylor did not move. "Exactly." She smiled.

Lloyd couldn't take it anymore. "Are you gonna kiss now, or what?" He screamed just as loud so that everyone in there could hear his question. Nya, Cole and Jay looked at him shocked, whereas Zane and Pixal nodded in agreement to Lloyd. They were getting impatient as well.

Skylor and Kai turned towards Lloyd, who was behind them next to the others, and gave him a confused look. Then they turned towards each other again and realized how close their faces were and blushed. She looked away, staring at the dusty floor which was suddenly very interesting to look at, while Kai turned his blushing gaze towards Lloyd, sending him daggers, to which Lloyd just shrugged.

Nya rolled her eyes at that and looked her brother dead in the eyes, catching his attention. Silence filled the room. She pointed at him, then at Skylor, then at her own lips, telling him silently to kiss her already. Cole and Jay, who knew immediately what Nya meant, nodded coldly.

Kai's eyes widened. He thought about it all before he opened his mouth. But just as he wanted to say something rather cute, Skylor cut him off without realizing it. "We should probably get going." She said as she turned away from him and started to walk towards the others.

The others agreed with her as she walked past everyone and then looked at Kai who was still standing dead in his tracks, watching as Skylor was walking away from him. They could see the hurt in his eyes. He pouted at Nya who walked up to him and patted his shoulder. "It's okay, you're gonna have lots of opportunities now." She whispered to him. He sighed and looked at his sister. She smiled at him, and he returned the smile.

Lloyd looked at Kai and made a head movement towards where Skylor walked away to symbolize for them all to follow. The others looked at Lloyd and nodded.

They all walked fast to catch up to Skylor which they did pretty quickly. Jay noticed her frown and tried to change the subject. "There are so many doors here."

In fact, there were many steel doors on their left and right as they walked through a narrow hallway. No one dared to open a door, though.

"Yeah, I wonder what's behind them." Nya continued. She looked over at Jay next to her and noticed a bright smile on his face as he didn't look away from her. She herself began to smile and looked away, sneakily taking his hand and interlocking their fingers. Jay looked down and smiled even more.

"This place actually looks like no one's been here in ages. Don't you see all the spider webs?" Cole pointed at the ceiling where a lot of webs were clearly visible, especially in corners.

Jay followed Cole's finger up. His eyes widened as he realized there were spiders down there. Ever since his meeting with the Tiger Widow, Jay had developed a severe kind of arachnophobia. Only Nya knew about what happened in the alternate timeline, and so she was the only one who knew about his phobia, or rather took it seriously.

She also looked up and immediately turned her head towards her boyfriend. She saw the distress in his face and knew she had to do something. So she let go of his hand and wrapped her arm around his torso, pulling him into a side hug and put her head on his shoulder. Nya realized his heart beating faster and faster as she leaned against the flesh hiding his heart underneath. She looked at him and saw that he was looking back at her.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her even closer, imagining she was a huge version of his comfort teddy bear. She mouthed the words 'it's okay' at him and saw his face relaxing a lot more now that he knew she knew he was scared.

Yes, he hated admitting that he was scared, but he also knew that he could successfully hide it from his teammates except for his girlfriend who always knew if anything was up. He was very grateful for that.

He smiled and kissed her head as if to say 'thank you' which she knew he meant by that.

Their little moment got interrupted by a distant voice. "Hello?"

The eight stopped in their tracks and turned around. They couldn't see anyone, but they could certainly hear some faint footsteps. They actually came pretty far in the hallway, so they assumed the person was in the beginning of it. After Lloyd gave a slight nod, they all turned around and walked back to where they heard the voice come from.

When they were back at the beginning, they all saw a girl standing there, looking back at them. Cole's eyes widened in realization. It was that girl he couldn't stop staring at in Math class who was sitting next to him. However, her facial features weren't really... friendly looking. More like bored or annoyed.

"Where were you headed to?" She asked sternly.

"We were sent here to pick up our books but after no one was here, we decided to look for ourselves but couldn't find anyone or anything, and that's when we-" Jay's rant was rudely interrupted.

"Alright, jeez. You sure talk too much." The girl rolled her eyes.

"Hey, no need to be rude." Kai narrowed his eyes, defending his blue teammate but also brother.

The girl groaned and pulled out a key from her back pocket. "Let's just get this over with." She said while walking down the corridor the others had come back from.

After she walked in the front and left the others behind, they all shared annoyed and angry looks. When they heard a door clicking, they started to walk to where the girl just went. They saw one of the steel doors wide open with a small, faint light shining out. They slowly walked inside and saw a room filled with tons of books in tons of shelves and tables, stacked.

The girl didn't spare another look for the Ninja and quickly gathered everyone's books and gave it to each of them in no time.

After they all received their books, the girl practically shoved them out of the room and turned off the lights before stepping out herself and locking the door.

"Sooo..." Cole felt as if his neck was itching but couldn't scratch it because of the books he was holding. "We never got your name." He smiled.

She turned to face him, her face unamused. "Look, I'm not tryna be friends, okay?" Then she pulled out her phone. "Now go to your lockers quickly, put your books inside and head to your next classes. You have two minutes before classes start." She said and walked out of the basement quickly.

After she was gone, Skylor turned towards the crowd. "What was that about?" She exclaimed angrily.

"I hope we'll never come across her again, she's just plain rude." Kai continued.

Cole frowned to himself, deep in thought. "Maybe she's just having a bad day?"

"Bad day or not, that doesn't give her the right to just be rude to people she hasn't met before." Nya retorted, annoyed at that girl's behavior.

"No matter how rude she was, she's right. We need to hurry to class and put these," Zane pointed at the books in his arms with his head. "away quickly."

When they exited the basement, they rushed up the stairs, fast. They did need to hurry, or else they'd be late again.

Once they reached their lockers, they put their books in almost at the same time. "What do we have now?" Jay asked no one in particular.

Everyone took out their own schedule. "I have History." Lloyd stated.

"Me too." Kai said.

"I have History as well." Nya looked at her brother.

"Me too." Jay stated as he smiled at Nya who smiled back at him.

"I have Science." Pixal then said.

"I have Science too." Zane smiled.

"Same." Skylor mentioned.

"I got Science too." Cole said.

Just then, the bell rang again. They all closed their lockers and rushed out of the hallway.

"Our books!" Jay screamed.

Then they all rushed back to their lockers and quickly took their History and Science books and ran out of the hallway again.

~ History class ~

Kai, Nya, Jay and Lloyd rushed through the big school, trying to find the room in which their History class was being taught. The bell had just rung, so the chances of being late were low.

"We're gonna be late again." Jay panicked.

"Come on, the bell just rung." Kai said.

Being Ninja, none of them were out of breath luckily as they finally found their class. The door was wide open. The four looked at each other and gulped, expecting the teacher already being inside. To their luck, the teacher wasn't.

Once they walked inside, Jay inwardly groaned when he saw a familiar face from earlier. Ryan, the person who tried to hit on his girlfriend, was sitting on top of one of the tables, talking to a few other boys. They all looked strong, but definitely not intimidating to him. Jay instinctively stood beside Nya the whole time.

There were also a few girls in the class. One of the girls directed her gaze to the four Ninja who were standing in front of the class, looking for free spots to sit on. But since the students inside weren't sitting on their own spots already, they couldn't know which spot belonged to whom.

The girl noticing the Ninja wore a high ponytail, her hair shining a few shades of gold, as it seemed. She wore quite a lot of makeup. Her knee-length, rosé gold skirt matched her white, off-the-shoulders crop top perfectly. Her black heels completed her look.

She walked up to them, smiling cutely. "Hello, I'm Joselyn." She reached her hand out to Nya.

Nya looked at the girl and shook her hand. "I'm Nya."

Joselyn then suddenly pulled Nya to the side, startling both her and the three boys who watched everything.

When they were in a quiet corner of the room, Joselyn leaned close to Nya's ear. "Is there any chance that... Kai has a girlfriend?"

Nya's eyebrows shot up. "No, but my brother already has an eye on someone, sorry."

Joselyn raised an eyebrow. "Who is she?"

Nya looked at her. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't tell anyone. It's a secret until they're hopefully official." She said. Then she walked back towards the boys.

Joselyn was taken aback by the Water Ninja's actions. She gritted her teeth. "We'll see about that, Nya." She then walked back to her own friends.

When Nya arrived back to the others, Jay asked, "You okay? What did she say?"

The four were pretty close to each other, trying to have a conversation without anyone in the room listening. Nya gritted her teeth and crossed her arms. "She tried to hit on my brother."

"What?" The three exclaimed in unison quietly.

"Yeah, crazy... She asked me if you have a girlfriend." She told Kai.

"What did you say?" He asked.

Nya then wore a mischievous smile. "I told her that you don't have a girlfriend, but that you are already interested in someone else. And you guys really should've seen the jealousy in her face."

Lloyd snorted. "Well, let's hope there's not gonna be drama about our biggest drama queen."

Nya and Jay laughed at Lloyd's remark, whereas Kai glared at him.

Then they all looked at the door. "Alright everyone, take your places. And hello Ninja, I'm Mr Roberts..."

~ Science class ~

Cole, Pixal, Skylor and Zane entered the science lab, looking at everyone in the classroom. The teacher wasn't there yet, but everyone was already sitting on their places. There were exactly four spots free, basically waiting for them to sit on.

Zane and Pixal chose to sit at the only free table which had two free seats next to each other. Skylor chose a seat next to another girl who didn't really catch anyone's eyes, but when Cole walked up to his seat in the back, he really wanted to groan.

Instead, he sighed lightly. Then he walked up to his place and just sat down, not even looking at the girl next to him. She was, of course, that rude girl from earlier. However, no matter how much Cole tried to, he couldn't stop thinking about her. Neither could he help himself with not looking at her. His eyes just chose to look at her, with him having no control whatsoever.

When she dared to look back at him, this time, he didn't look away. She stared back for a while until she couldn't take it anymore. "What?!" She asked firmly.

Cole, however, only furrowed his eyebrows. He looked into her brown eyes. "Why are you like this?" He asked, confused.

She widened her eyes for a short second in shock. Then she narrowed them at him. "What do you mean?" She asked through gritted teeth.

Cole softened his gaze, but still looked into her eyes firmly. "I mean you don't even know me or my friends but just chose to be rude out of nowhere."

She huffed, crossing her arms and breaking eye contact. "No idea what you're talking about."

Cole could sense something was off with her, so he just let his thoughts flow out of his mouth without thinking twice. "Who hurt you?"

The girl slowly turned her head towards him, shooting daggers at him with her intense gaze. "That's none of your business!" She snapped.

The Earth Ninja didn't care about her outburst, he could feel her tension in both her tone and look. He didn't have any bad intentions, he just wanted to crack her hard shell and make her feel comfortable to open up about whatever she was struggling with.

He looked away from her, slowly sinking back into his chair. "Look, I can feel there's something on your mind which keeps you from being the you you can't express right now." He said, looking ahead. "All I'm tryna say is that if you need to talk about it, I'm here."

The girl's eyes widened. She clearly didn't expect that to come out of Cole's mouth. She also looked away and thought about what he had just said. She herself didn't have any friends, and it would be better for her to make some, but she didn't feel like it was a good idea now. She was clearly torn.

She remembered her last friend. Melanie, her previous best friend, was someone she really cared about and who clearly cared about her too. Melanie helped her a lot with her social anxiety and saved her from being alone. But one day, the two friends were torn apart by Melanie's parents who got promoted to the city of Stiix. So she lost her best and only friend, and that two years ago. Ever since then, she was a loner.

She smiled at herself at the thought of a new friend. Then she turned back to the Black Ninja who was too focused on looking inside of his science book. The girl just then realized how muscular Cole was up close. His pitch black hair was inches away from falling into his eyes.

She looked away again. "Thanks." She said quietly.

The Master of Earth heard that and closed his book, looking into her direction. "For what?" He asked.

She sighed. "For what you just said." Then she looked back at him. "It's been a while since someone was so nice to me."

His lips grew into a small smile. "Oh, no need to say 'thanks' for." Then he reached out his hand out to her, waiting for a handshake. "I'm Cole Brookstone." His smile was very contagious.

She looked at his hand, then rolled her eyes playfully. "I know who you are, everyone does." Then she smiled at him and shook his hand. "Seliel Phantom."