Jay flew awake in an instant, full of pent up anxiety that had laid dormant as he slept.

The occurrences from last night flooded his mind. Filling him with instant dread and fear. The whole world knew.

The whole world now knew he was trans.

He did his best to keep his breathing controlled, the air coming in and the air coming out having decent gaps between. He managed it, but the rising panic didn't go away.

Where was he? It wasn't Lloyd's bedroom. It was much much lighter.

Ah. The medical room. Just like last time.

It was funny, how history often repeated itself.

Jay's vision was very blurry, and objects seemed to distort as he looked around. A headache, tiredness, he didn't know.

His chest still hurt a lot. His chest was usually a little sore after a panic attack, but... it never hurt, per say. That was worrying.

Very worrying.

What to do now? What was the time?

Jay's hands flew to his pockets, where he found his phone, which was miraculously still alive after a whole night of being on and active. He didn't really care about the small 5% symbol in the corner though. The medical room had plenty of chargers at hand.

He cared about something else.

The insane amount of notifications he had. And they were still coming up.

Hundreds? Thousands? He didn't know. He didn't care.

Every social media account he owned had been blown to bits with comments and messages. Luckily, his phone had been on silent, so the constant notifications hadn't woken him up during his well needed rest.

He almost wished they had.

This amount, to deal with all at once...

It was almost too much to think about.

With a shaking finger, he opened up the first app, the one he was most active on.

There were so many message requests. So so many.

He took a deep breath, and entered the list. He needed to start clearing these out eventually, and... after all... some of them could be supportive.

His eyes zoomed in on the most broad word of the first message. A slur. A disgusting slur that made him slam his thumb down on the 'decline' button as fast as he could.

That was the pattern for quite a while.

Slurs. Insults. Even just the small previews of text were enough to judge whether they were positive or not, and he didn't want to enter a single chat that wasn't showing care.

Again and again.

Slurs. Disgusting language.

The messages seemed to get worse as he scrolled down, denying them again and again. The language got worse, more abusive.

Insults turned into blackmail. Blackmail turned into threats. Threats turned into death threats.

It was all too much to deal with at once. He felt like deleting the app, never opening it ever again, running away from the problem like he always did.

But he couldn't. Something in his mind told him that there would be supportive ones, and he felt awful just ignoring those.

God was it a trial to get to them though.

Through the vast sea of abuse and horror, the occasional gem floated to the surface.

The first time Jay saw one, he paused, and hesitant, afraid that his eyes were deceiving him, he pressed on it to open it.

'... hey, I know you might never see this but, I'm so sorry that this has happened! I don't know about anybody else but, you being trans doesn't change anything. You're still the same old blue ninja who saves people! You're still a good person!'

For the first time that day, a smile struck his quivering lips. He replied with a quick 'thank you, the support means a lot', and moved on.

Even just one positive message gave him the courage to carry on. The courage to find more.

Jay took a quick break from the requests, instead turning to his feed. Just as he'd thought, everybody was talking about him.

If he hadn't been so anxious and distraught, he probably would have rolled his eyes, and even laughed. It was really damn pathetic that society would care about something so ridiculous. Why didn't people put effort into other things? Things that actually mattered?

The people of the world focussed on the most harmless of issues. He was trans. So what? Did that stop him from being the blue ninja? Did that stop him from being an Elemental Master? Did that stop him from being able to save people?

No.

So why did it matter?

The posts on his feed varied massively. Most were just shocked, some were wondering if it was a joke, or a lie. Some were spreading hate. A lot were spreading hate.

The newspapers sure did work fast. Articles were already being reposted all over the place. Of course, newspapers weren't allowed to blatantly slander him, but, they certainly had that tone.

One of the more politically right wing ones had released an article, in which they referred to him with gender neutral pronouns.

Maybe it wasn't as bad as being called 'she', but, when it was widely known that he went by he/him, using 'they' made him feel just as low.

Back to messages.

More horrible words. Transphobic phrases. Slurs. It actually started to get more boring than hurtful.

There were nice messages too. Even just an occasional 'I'm sorry this is happening' or 'I'll support you through this.'. They meant the world to him.

He responded to every single person who had taken their time to show him that he was not alone. They gave him the strength to carry on, and not throw his phone at the wall in frustration and despair.

The end, of this app at least, was drawing near.

Then... there was a special message. Not especially off. Not especially weird. The account was inconspicuous, the first few messages were that of simple greeting.

Then there was, a voice message.

Jay's anxiety jumped a little bit at that. Alike calls, voice messages always made him a little uneasy. He much preferred just typed messages, both sending and receiving.

But, this person had seemed calm and decent in their messages running up to it. Surely it couldn't be all that bad?

So he made sure his volume was on an acceptable level, and pressed the tiny triangle play button.

He sat.

He listened.

The message was 3 minutes long.

By the end of the first minute, Jay already knew what he was going to do.

———

Cole was a little bit shocked when Jay, fully dressed, marched into the bridge, seemingly on his way out.

"... Jay? Wh- are you ok?"

"I'm fine." He replied, surprisingly calm and controlled, considering his state last night.

"... are you... are you heading out?" Lloyd asked, standing up and walking over to him.

"Yes, I am. Is there a problem with that?"

There was a brief moment of quiet, one that Cole broke with a statement of worry and concern.

"Jay, it's dangerous to go out right now!"

Jay turned his gaze to the black ninja, and fixed him with a determined stare.

"Why, because somebody might harass me? If anybody does as much as touch me I'll electrocute them on the spot."

Zane joined the interaction, bringing an element of calm to the situation immediately.

"... I do believe Cole meant something else. Yes, the public is indeed a concern you must consider... there is a much worse possibility."

"... what else?"

Zane took a deep breath, and decided to go straight to the point.

"... your lungs."

Jay was a little taken aback for a second. His... lungs?

"... my... my lungs? My lungs are fine. This is important, I'm going out. I'll do whatever you want me to when I get back."

He tried to walk past them, but Zane blocked his way.

"Jay, I don't think you understand-"

"I don't think YOU understand!" Jay exclaimed, "I don't give a damn about my lungs, or whatever! I need to go out, and I need to leave, right now!"

"We can't let you do that!"

"Well I guess I'll have to make you!"

Everybody could feel the dangerous static slowly filling the air. Hairs stood on end. It could almost be tasted. Hot, electric.

Jay may have been a bit of a jokester, but, he could deliver a devastating shock when he wanted to. He would obviously never grievously hurt his friends, but, the current could even reach lethal levels.

It only took one look at his face to see that he was most certainly not joking.

Begrudgingly, Zane stepped aside. Jay passed without a word. It was obvious that he was riled up before, and now he was angry on top of that.

"... what do you think he's going out for?" Zane questioned, looking to Cole, who was oddly looking incredibly stressed.

"... Cole?"

"... we... we can't just let him go out! Not after last night! He'll get jumped! We have to follow him!" he exclaimed, wringing his hands in frustration.

"Cole, hey, hey, take a breath. We can't really do that, he's probably far gone by now, and, I don't think he'd be very happy if he found out." Lloyd calmed, placing a hand on his shoulder, to no avail.

"... Jay will be ok, Cole. He can take care of himself. He is a very capable ninja." Zane added on. His sentence had a little more effect than Lloyd's, but Come was still very nervous and worried.

"... and... his lungs..."

Zane looked at the floor.

"... it will have to wait. I just hope that he comes back soon."

Cole nodded solemnly, sitting down at the large table. Be looked out the window.

It was misty. Cold, damp, very uncomfortable weather.

Jay was out in it. All alone, not even in a coat. He was only wearing a jacket when he left the Bounty. Off to do something, but none of them had even the slightest inkling if what it could be.

It had better not be something dangerous.

"... yeah. I... I hope so too."