—the day after the last ep of season 8—

The Green Ninja grunted. He flipped backwards, wiping his sweaty forehead on the back of his gloved hand. His head looked down towards the bitter floor and his feet were placed apart, set in a ready position. But he was breathing heavy. He was tired; he was beginning to lose all hope.

His shoulders started to drop ever so slightly. A normal person would not be able to notice it - however, the person he was sparing with was more than normal: she was a well-trained ninja of water.

"Nya, I-" Lloyd started, only to cut himself off as he dodged an attack.

The said water ninja jumped forward after Lloyd. "The enemy will not hesitate-" she paused to inhale a breath and try to add in another hit, "-to attack while you are at your lowest. In fact,-" This time, Nya slide one leg towards Lloyd's shins, causing him to fall. "-you're father will probably attack more when you're distracted."

Lloyd huffed from the ground, dealing with the slight rebound of his head against the hard ground. He didn't understand how she was still going when everything was at a lost; the city was being destroyed by the second and the only people able to fix it were hiding and waiting for something to return that never will. The Green Ninja propped himself up on his elbows, closing his eyes for a second to let the small headache drift away. He took the hand Nya offered and stood up.

"What's wrong?"

Lloyd snorted a forced laugh, scoffing. "What's wrong?" he repeated, trying to avoid the inevitable of answering the truth. "Nothing."

"C'mon, Lloyd," Nya started, plopping a hand on her hip, "I can see it in you're eyes: they're dull. You're hiding something."

"Nothing's wrong; I'm fine."

Nya sighed. "If you say so. We just gotta keep on hiding until the others find us 'cause we can't do this on our own." She paused and took a few steps away, then turned back around. "They are going to find us, right?"

Everything in Lloyd's body begged for him to tell her the truth, but going against his better judgement, Lloyd nodded. He wasn't sure if the reassurance was actually for Nya, or more for himself.

"Yes, they will find us."

a/n: if u came here from my other story "behind closed doors" you probably have a little bit of an idea of what this is. the chapters are gonna be smaller - like this - and get to the point until about ch. 6, were the main reason I wrote this comes into play. I just think that a lot of time was skipped between the last ep. of season 8 and the start of season 9 so...im writing some of it :D

I think this is angsty? at least some of it. spoilers for season 8-9, btw, and in this: nya doesn't know what happened to the others yet, in case u couldn't tell already.

...so enjoy! I would love to hear ur thoughts/ideas!