A/N: Hello everyone and welcome to yet another story that I decided to get myself into. So one day, after a small conversation with my brother, I looked up in Google any stories that involved the Ninja having an adventure at the mall, but found nothing of the sort, which made me more determined to create that type of story.

So yes, this is the "canon characters go to the mall" fan fiction cliche. Well, I could have picked something worse to write about...

If the characters seem a little OOC, please forgive me for that. I sort of jumped into this idea as soon as I formulated a decent plot for it to follow.

I want to give some credit to my younger brother for having given me the idea for this particular fan fiction.

New Teachers Need New Clothes

There were a few weeks left before school would start at Sensei Wu's Academy and Nya was just walking around her classroom, making sure that everything seemed in order. The wooden desks and seats seemed to be arranged as they should be, all the workbooks and textbooks have been organized neatly and put at the back of the classroom at their corresponding bookshelves, and there seemed to be enough calculators for the couple of mathematics and Introduction to Engineering classes that she would be teaching. Yup, this sure seemed like a great learning environment.

Now all that she need is to go purchase some new outfits that might seem to go well with the whole "teacher" image that she wanted to present in the following school year. As much as she'd rather teach class in her cute dresses, she wouldn't think that it would look very professional, now would it?

Her thoughts wandered over toward the guys, who have been dedicating this past week toward getting the lessons organized. Zane and Cole already have their lessons for the first few weeks of the semester already sorted out, but have been working on more lesson plans for later months. Jay and her brother, Kai, have finally started working on their lessons, since they had been procrastinating during the months after the Defeat of the Overlord.

She giggled to herself while exiting her classroom as she thought about Jay. Poor guy, he had been freaking out at the idea of having to present material in front of class 5 times a week for the remainder of his career as a teacher. It made him seem adorable, the way that he didn't realize that he could be good at it if he could just be himself in class.

Of course, she had tried to repeatedly reassure him that everything would be alright, that he would get his lessons in order and do well with showing them to his students. He reluctantly agreed last time she did that, which wasn't too long ago, considering that she had done so several hours ago while he had been stressing out trying to start on an Introduction to Physics Keynote.

She sighed as she turned the corner of the corridor which led toward the Teacher's Lounge room. She wondered if they also had their classrooms ready to go. She hate to see them leave that at the last minute!

When she opened the door, she saw the boys completely focused on their laptops and spinal ring notebooks, scribbling or typing down any notes of important information that they happened to find in their textbooks.

"Hey guys! How are you all doing?" she asked.

"Doin' fine sis," Kai replied without looking up from his notebook, his hand writing down information in a blur before pausing so that he could turn a page of his Teacher's Edition Ninjago History textbook.

"Almost done with this slide for English," Cole responds as he drums his fingers on his lap, his eyes glued to the laptop screen. "What does the Five Step Writing Process consist of again?" he muttered to himself before setting the computer on a spot on the couch next to him and pulling out a large English textbook to look it up in the index section.

"Same here," Zane replies, looking up at her with a triumphant smile. "I just completed the lessons for my Chemistry and Biology classes for the first month. I might even start on the second month just to be safe."

She nodded with approval, then glanced toward Jay, who was seated over at a table, glaring at a page of his textbook with intensity, his head balanced on his left hand. He glanced back toward his computer and rubbed his eyes before looking back to his book.

Was it just Nya's imagination or did he seem wearier than when she last saw him? His eyes seemed to be baggier than when she had talked with him in the morning and he looked as if he were going to fall asleep at any moment. Oh dear, she hoped that he was doing alright.

"Hey Jay, what about you? You look tired?"

He glances up from his work and sees her looking at her with concern, then smiled. "You know, just hanging in there."

"That's great," she said returning a smile, her gaze easing a bit. "How far are you?"

"I've got my first week for a couple of my classes."

"See, what did I tell you? You're going to do fine."

"Sure, you could say that, as long as I don't end up stuttering during a lesson."

She rolled her eyes as she said, "Come on Jay, don't underestimate yourself." She walks over to him, then pats his short, orange-brown hair. "You're probably stressing yourself too much. Hey, how about you take a small break from this." She takes a moment to think of her planned trip to get new clothing, then adds, "You want to come over with me to the mall? I need to buy some outfits for the school year and maybe you can distract yourself by visiting a couple of electronics stores." Then she gives his cheek a small peck as she whispers, "After I finish with shopping, we can hang out together for a little while before coming back. I heard that there is a new candy store that opened that sells freshly made cotton candy."She smiles, knowing that he wouldn't resist wanting to go with her, even if he was concerned about his progress on lesson planning.

He glances over at his work, then looks at her with an enormous grin. "Sure! It's just for a couple of hours, it can't hurt to go!"

"Wait, are we supposed to get uniforms just so that we can teach?" Kai asks, finally looking up from his notebook.

"Well what did you expect? That you'd be teaching in your Ninja outfit?" she scoffs.

"So does this mean that we have to wear something professional, like suits?" Cole interrupts.

"Wait, are you telling me that in the months that you had to get something to wear, you forgot? You of all people?"

Cole replies, "Well, I so busy focusing on planning all these lessons that it didn't really cross my mind."

"I didn't put anything aside for teaching," Jay admitted, smacking his palm on his forehead. "If I procrastinated on preparing lessons for school, then I obviously didn't prepare for what I had to wear."

Nya looked over at Zane and asked in a begging tone, "Please tell me that you aren't like the others, that you actually prepared."

Zane shakes his head as he replies, "No, I really didn't think that what I wore really mattered while I was teaching."

She closes her eyes and shakes her head in dismay. "You guys do know that with our new jobs, we have to look like we're actually teachers?"

"Hey, how about we go with you both over to the mall?" Cole suggests. "There's still time to get a couple of suits and shoes. I'm pretty sure that there's more than one store that is selling those types of clothes."

Kai nods as he says, "Yeah, come on sis. You could give us a ride over, right?"

She glares at him with narrowed eyes, then nods and says, "Sure, why not? After all, it would be embarrassing to see you guys strutting around here in your gi on the first day of school."

"Then it's settled!" Cole exclaims, a relieved expression on his face. "I guess that we're all going to the mall."

Jay whispers over to Nya, barely able to hide his disappointment, "Does this mean that we aren't hanging around with each other anymore?"

She smiles as she replies, "No, I'll make the time to spend with you on the trip."

He grins, relieved.

Kai gets up and closes his notebook, saying, "I'd better tell Sensei that we're leaving. He might get concerned if we don't tell him that we're all going to the mall."