Early the next day, Sensei Wu chuckled silently to himself as he saw his apprentices sprawled out on their beds- or for Kai and Cole, a table and the windowsill. He looked at the gong in his hand, he felt sorry for having to wake them at 6:30 a.m. for school, but like it or not, it had to be done.

The ninjas' guardian took his mallet and banged the gong three times. The sound reverberated loudly through the small apartment as he yelled, "Rise and shine!"

Kai was so startled; he fell off the makeshift table-bed with a loud thud. He sat up, rubbing the back of his head, saying, "I will rise, but I refuse to shine." Jay, Cole and Zane, all of whom got up without falling out of their beds, heartily agreed to what Kai said, all the while trying to rub the sleep out of their assorted eyes.

Still half-asleep, Cole looked at the small clock by his windowsill of a bed. "Sensei, its 6:30! We only got 3 ½ hours of sleep!" he protested, now fully awake.

"No wonder I'm so tired," Kai grumbled. By this time, the fire ninja was clambering to his aching, sore feet.

Jay looked at Cole with wide eyes. "Wait, we've only slept for 3 hours!?" the tired teenager said, panic evident in his voice. "I've never gone to school with only sleeping for three hours!" He started babbling, which he did more than usual when he was sleep deprived.

"Sensei," Zane said over Jay's senseless garble, "do we really have to go to school today? The Serpentine are getting more aggressive."

"This is your second day of school," Sensei Wu said without hesitation. "I will not allow it. You are still being punished, which means you will go to school until I deem fit." The four ninja groaned tiredly at this statement. Their Sensei continued, "I would suggest you begin getting ready-you only have 25 minutes before school starts."

Now fully awake, the ninja jumped out of bed, frantically getting ready for school. As Jay set about making breakfast, his brothers began changing from pajamas into casual clothes, Kai taking over from Jay once he was fully dressed. Smiling halfheartedly at his brother, Jay headed off to the now-open bathroom to change his clothes.

~o-0-o~

"Ugh," Jay moaned, 10 minutes later. As the brothers had woken up late, and they no longer had their Golden Weapons, the undercover ninja were stuck with walking to school. The exhausted blue ninja continued, "My eyelids feel like they are made of lead!"

His brothers agreed wholeheartedly. A few minutes into the tired silence between brothers, Cole said, "I highly doubt I'm going to be able to stay awake if the first class is a boring one." Without missing a beat, the team leader turned to Zane, asking, "I expect you know what it is?"

"I believe it is P.E," the nindroid responded, missing the undertone of sarcasm in his tiredness. Cole shrugged, and the four brothers continued walking, slipping into a sleepy silence.

~o-0-o~

At school, the undercover ninja walked through the crowded school hallway as they made their way to the gym. Silently, they walked through the double doors, which lead to a huge open space- otherwise known as the gymnasium. The coach was standing on a raised platform at the back of the gym, looking intimidating- to anyone but the ninja, who had faced down way scarier things than a coach.

All the students were sitting on the floor so Zane, Jay, Kai and Cole followed suit. Once everybody in the class was sitting, the coach started speaking- or, judging by Kai's wince, more like bellowing.

"Students," he yelled. "We're going to do some stretches, and then we are going to run a lap around the perimeter of the school's property."

A student raised their hand. Noticing this, the coach pointed at him. "Yes?"

The student cleared his throat. "How many miles is it around the school?" he asked.

"Around 2 miles" was the reply. Horrified gasps went around the room.

Jay leaned over and whispered, "That's not so bad-Sensei usually makes us run 5 miles."

"At least it won't be hard for us," Cole said in a low voice.

Kai spoke, his tone quiet. "Should we not be so…" he paused, thinking of a word before his face light up with a smile, "Awesome?"

Jay chuckled, agreeing. "You're right; Kai- if we go too far ahead, the people who were in the front will despise us." He faked coughed, which anyone who was listening closely could hear that he really said, 'Zane'. "However, if we go to the back, we'll be bullied for being too slow, so our best bet is to stick to the middle."

Zane blinked. The nindroid was about to say something when the coach called out to everyone to get out of the gym.

Everybody stretched and waited at the starting line. They were in lines 6 people wide and five people deep, with the undercover ninjas in the middle. A few moments later, the coach blew the air horn, and they were off.

As they were running, the four ninja heard a familiar voice in front of the. To their surprise, it was the girl, Karina that they had rescued last night. "-Stella, I was captured by Serpentine, but my parents thought that I was out partying, so they wouldn't let me skip school," she complained to her friend.

"Ah, that sucks," Stella replied. The undercover ninja recognized her voice as one of the girls in their English class. "I was wondering where you went since you didn't come to my house…"

Other people drowned out the girls' words as the four ninja slowed a bit to get further behind the two girls. As they still had a secret to keep, one could never be too sure if she would recognize their voices.

When they finished the 2 miles around the school, everybody but the ninja were panting or breathing heavily.

The coach allowed a two-minute rest period before he got his students up. "Now we will be doing sit-ups," he ordered. More groans went around the room, but the coach simply pretended that he did not hear them. "I want you to team up in to fours and I'll explain what you will do."

Zane, Kai, Cole and Jay quickly got closer together, making sure they were not going to be teamed up with a random person.

What they were doing was like this: one person got on the floor getting ready for the sit-ups, another person would hold the person who was doing the sit-ups feet. The third person would count how many sit-ups they could to in 3 minutes and the fourth person would hold the stopwatch. Then, they would switch.

Not surprisingly, the ninja did almost a sit-up each second for the required 3 minutes. After another two-minute rest, the coach made everybody do the climbing wall, climbing a thick rope that went all the way to the ceiling and everybody did pull-ups.

When the class was over the coach called the four boys over. "I have never seen someone that could do everything so easily!" the proud coach exclaimed. "You have set a new record for everything," he continued, smiling.

To his surprise, the ninja bowed and walked out of the gym.

~o-0-o~

It was near the end of the day and the ninja could barely keep their eyes open. The only reason they could was that Jay, using what little lighting he had left zapped himself with it, shocking himself into wakefulness. Zane, also using what little elemental power he had left, made ice cubes and discreetly slid them down the back of his neck to bring his attention back in focus, hence the unsystematic shuddering noises that emanated at random intervals from the back of the class. Cole, with what was left of his powers, bent the tiles under his feet to squish his toes every time he felt himself drifting off. Kai used his small remnant of fire control to heat up his hand so it was burning hot and put it on his arm, jolting himself into wakefulness, because of the pain.

Every time the ninja looked at the clock, it seemed not to move, just to spite them. When the bell finally rang, signaling that school was over, Jay had to smooth down the hair that was sticking up, from his lightning, Zane's back was wet, Cole was limping and both of Kai's arms by his wrist were red and raw. They slowly made their way to their lockers, nearly staggering with fatigue.

Zane was so exhausted that he failed to notice the fact that the students around him were looking scared and backing away from his immediate vicinity until it was too late. His senses were dulled by his tiredness and he did not sense the large presence behind him until a shadow fell across him. He started to turn but found his head smashed roughly into his locker before he had a chance.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the four new students responsible for giving my brother a hard time yesterday," a harsh voice said.

As his assailant spoke, Zane felt his head and face rammed harder into the metal with every word. "He said he had been disrespected by the three new students and by the look of it, the fourth that supposedly helped him the other day is on your side- pity for him." Even without his enhanced senses, Zane could tell that this was Brandon's brother, and that he (sadly) did not share in his brother's lack of brains.

"Let go of him," Zane heard Cole say, his voice dark and angry.

"Or what?" the bully asked. "I am holding your friend, and therefore I have all the power in this current situation. I am the one who should be giving the orders, not you, filth. You lied to my brother the other day, and I intend to make you pay for that. So, now in light of my revelation, I want you to come towards me, and don't move a muscle, or I will beat your friends face into the metal of his own locker," he threatened the angry ninja.

Not a smart move.

Zane did not approve of being in the position of hostage especially when he knew that if he tried he could fight free of the bully's oppressive grip. Unfortunately, he would probably have to hurt the bully to get away. Fighting was, as a disadvantage to the ninjas' current situation, not allowed in school, and it went against his morals to break the trust of his superiors. You see, because of his training and meditation, Zane was under the belief that if one lost ones honor and principles, one became the same as the scum that was holding him now.

He heard Cole's confident stride as he obeyed the bully and then Zane nearly lost touch with his principles when he felt the bully let go of him with one hand and strike Cole.

"Hey, you dare try that again and I will bring you down," This time, the speaker had Kai's voice.

"You hurt my brother pretty bad yesterday. In fact, beside the smart mouth and the liar, you are the one I most want to get at." As the bully was threatening the fire-ninja, Zane winced as he was dealt a sharp kick.

"I'll do it again if you don't follow your dark haired friend's example, spike-head."

Zane felt a small smile spread across his face as he realized that the bully had not reasserted his grip.

Kai headed moodily towards the hulking monster of a boy. He had promised the school headmaster that he would not fight in school, but promise or no, he was seriously thinking about attacking this bully. Sulking, the unhappy ninja stood next to Cole. His groggy, tired eyes made him miss seeing the driving kick headed for his middle until it was too late.

Shocked, Kai found himself skidding backwards on the school's tiled floors as his brothers cried out. Kai lost his balance and fell to the ground, just in time to be Jay's safety cushion, as the lightning ninja impacted with a wall, where one of the bully's minions had thrown him.

Kai felt the wind being knocked out of him for the second time in the space of a few seconds. It was at that moment that Zane managed to wriggle out of the bully's grasp and land softly on the ground. The bully had been in the middle of a speech directed at Jay informing him that he had well heard all the disparaging comments that Jay had said about Brandon, and deserved no less than his friends did.

An injured, yet bemused Kai watched the bully's look of surprise as Zane broke free and dashed towards them. Kai and Jay got wearily to their feet to stand side by side with Zane and Cole, their backs to the wall. They stood, firm and tall together, staring straight at the bully and his minions, as if they were daring him to try to hit any of them again. The bully had just decided that he was not feeling comfortable with their looks of defiance when they should have been cowed like all the other people of the school. He had just decided to attack them to teach them their place when a teacher rounded the corner.

"I'm not finished with you yet," he said ominously as he turned to walk away. "I'll be looking for you at lumch tomorrow..."

AreiaCananaid: I hope you like this chapter, I had to procrastinate my several essays on Pride and Prejudice and 7 Men who Ruled the World (not that that was hard, those books are ssssoooooooo boring!) so you better! I poured sweet and tears into this! *cough-not-cough*. Anyway; if you have any suggestions on what should be in the next chapter review and it will come out sooner...Not that I am bribing you in anyway...Mwhahahahahaha (starts coughing, thinking I was never good at evil laughter...)

JayceePhantom: (rolls eyes) anyways, sorry about the long wait; it does take awhile for both of us to do our stuff! We appreciate all of the reviews! In addition, express thanks to Shattered Glory, that was nice J be aware that AreiaCananaid and I are working hard on our grammar and stuff! Thanks to all the people who read and reviewed on this story!

Oh, if you people have anything you may-or-may-not want to see happen, leave it in a review! I do not know about Ariea, but I fully enjoy your reactions when I see what you people like to see happen.

Bye now!

-JayceePhantom

AreiaCananaid: …What she said. Bye!