Chapter 16
Enervate
.:Jay:.
No matter how hard Jay had tried, he couldn't forget the look in Nya's amber eyes when she had tearily looked up to him after her nightmare last night. He could remember the warmth that used to be in those beautiful orbs had suddenly froze over with grief and misery, like the surface of a winter puddle. It was like you could see the water underneath, yet still have that layer of ice that separated the water and the crisp air… Like how Jay could just see Nya under all the torment and anguish she had been through.
Although he had seen a side of Nya that had been tormented, the side that cried at night and stayed emotionless through most parts of the day, Jay reckoned he had seen a side of Nya that had existed before her whole life had flipped on her. It was vague and subtle and could easily be overlooked but Jay was certain he had seen some aspects of the old Nya.
Like last night, he had managed to have a small teasing banter with Nya! Like sure, Nya had bantered before with him, Lloyd and Brad but that was as Kai. The difference? Nya was a bit smug and mostly teased with a smirk but last night… she was smiling genuinely. Then there was the time that they had danced at the ball – Jay remembering every single curl to the beautiful smile that plastered Nya's lips as he spun her around on the dancefloor.
Yet… Nya's anguished eyes still stayed in his head. He knew Nya, the happy and old Nya, was still in there – he knew it… But he also knew that even if he were to reach in and tell her life wasn't just misery but good too, she wouldn't believe him. Jay wanted nothing more than to rekindle her spirit and fire, but her insides were too damp with uncried tears that Jay didn't know how to wipe away. He just wanted all of Nya's pain to just vanish.
"Jay…? Are you still in there?"
Although things were a little awkward this morning after the hug, Jay noticed a shift in Nya… He didn't know what, but Nya was… more open. He didn't know how to explain it, but he noticed that she conveyed a little more emotion than what she normally did. When they were getting ready to meet up and train with Lloyd and Brad, Nya told him a couple stories of Kai.
Jay would have thought that it would've taken him months to finally get Nya to trust him a bit more before sharing such intimate and personal stories but, after four days of him knowing, she was telling him. Maybe the hug last night had an influence on this. Was he complaining? No. Of course not. All it meant was that Nya was slowly trusting and opening up to him – but that didn't mean she was already on the way to finding peace with her past-
"Jay!"
"OW!" The boy couldn't help but yelp but as pain blossomed in his left cheek.
Jay looked up, eyes narrowing and ready to glare at the assaulter… To only find Nya and Lloyd snickering in the background while Brad look smug. It wasn't hard to tell that the black-haired kid was the one behind it.
"What the heck, dude?"
"We tried getting your attention for the last five minutes. Let me guess, you were daydreaming about making out with Dareth?"
"Ew! Gross!" Jay immediately blanched, making the others laugh harder.
"Is your head out of the clouds now?"
"Of course!"
"Good," Lloyd commented, stepping forward and resting a hand on Jay's shoulder. "Because my uncle is about to kick this off."
Immediately, Jay's blood buzz with excitement but, at the same time, nausea to swim in the depths of his stomach.
"Afternoon students," Wu immediately introduced, silencing everyone.
All the boys and the staff of Master Wu's Academy for Boys were all outside. Massive wooden bleachers were set up in a semi-circle, all facing the small podium that Master Wu was standing on with a microphone in his hands. All the boys that weren't participating, about one hundred and fifty, were all on the bleachers with teachers occupying the first bottom row. The twenty teams that were participating where all lined up behind Wu, which allow the boys who weren't participating get to see the teams that were competing.
"As you know, today is the first day of the tournament. Now, unlike previous years, this tournament won't go on for ten days but eleven to accommodate to the extra teams this year."
"Eleven days?" Brad whispered, just loud enough for the four of them to hear. "Can't they just eliminate more teams with one round? Instead of bottom three, it's bottom five?"
"Maybe the teachers also had a hard time deciding which ten challenges we should do," Jay simply shrugged.
"Over the course of these eleven days, there will be eleven rounds – at the end of each round, one or more teams will be eliminated from the tournament. These challenges can range from endurance, intelligence, stealth, memory, team trust, fears, innovation – and of course, the crowd favourites – the obstacle challenges and the sparring ones. Some of these challenges may acquire the whole team to compete, or for one member to be nominated to represent the team. Like always, you won't find out what the challenge is until right before the challenge starts. However, teams may receive a hint on what the next challenge is if they win the previous one. Not all winners will receive hints on the next challenges. The winning prize will alternate between hints and handicaps."
"Will we get told that's what we'll be winning?" Nya softly asked, her voice still masculine.
"No. Once we win, Master Wu will pull us to the side and either tell us the hint, or he'll say we have gained a handicap that will be revealed to us right before the next challenge begins," Jay replied.
"Now, behind me, we have twenty teams. I won't read out the names since we do have a larger group this year but most of you should know them anyway. So, with that out of the way, we'll begin with the first challenge: endurance."
Endurance. Jay knew their team was… well, individually, they were above average - all accept Nya. It would have to depend on what endurance. Running endurance or any endurance that required the most physical movement would really be her downfall since she would overheat too easily – and Jay now knew it was because of the muscle suit she wore underneath to have that masculine body shape.
But Jay's attention was taken away as Sensei Garmadon and a couple other teachers walked towards the teams with drawstring bags in their hands. They handed one bag to each group. When Lloyd was given the bag, they quickly huddled around and saw four cement disks inside – each about an inch thick and the diameter of a basketball.
"And how is this endurance?" Brad scoffed as he reached in and slightly grunted when taking out the cement disk.
"I remember Ash telling me about this challenge when he was a junior," their blond friend murmured as he also picked up the disk. "We all have to stand in a circle and hold the disk between us with only our hands. It's all shoulder and back endurance… and it doesn't help that these are heavy and that we have to hold them vertically… so no bottom support."
"So pretty much we're all in a circle, facing each other, and holding a very long high-five but with a cement disk in between the high-five?" Nya asked, causing the blond to nod.
"Greeeaaaat," Jay sighed.
Yeah, they did not train for anything like this.
"And the worst part is that if one person fails to hold up both arms, you lose two of the four disks," Lloyd continued.
"So… how screwed are we?"
"… Not that screwed."
.:Nya:.
For an endurance competition, Nya thought all teams would last up to ten minutes… maybe two teams dropping out after five minutes. Boy, was she wrong…
A team immediately dropped out before a minute – apparently two members couldn't hold a disk between them securely which then dropped and set a rippling effect throughout the team. Maybe a minute after that, three more teams had dropped. Many more had dropped a disk or two only.
For their team? They were struggling bad. Jay had strategically placed them so that in clockwise, it was Lloyd, Jay, her, then Brad. Why not her and Brad between the more experienced members? Well, if she and Brad were to go out early, then Jay and Lloyd would have no choice but to go out early. With them being next to each other, they could still have one disk standing.
It didn't help that they were outside, with the crowd of non-participating students shouting and cheering, with Borg commentating which teams and members have dropped their disks, and they were under the hot sun.
Nya slightly grimaced as the pain between her shoulders were starting to become unbearable. She could feel her shoulders and arms burning and trembling to keep the disks up but it didn't help that she could feel Brad struggling on her left and keep lowering the disk so that it wasn't shoulder-height but torso-height… making the strain on Nya's left arm worse.
She quickly glimpsed over to the disk between her and Jay. They both somewhat managed to hold the disk at a comfortable height and distance between their bodies to accommodate to their height difference and arms' length – that didn't necessarily mean things weren't difficult. Heck, the one thing that Nya had a hard time in making sure the disk didn't fall between her and Jay was the amount of sweat excreting from her hands-
"Gah, Kai, I don't think I can hold this one any much longer," Brad winched, attracting the rest of the team's attention.
Nya looked and saw how Brad was awkwardly bent at the knees, trying to angle their disk so it could lie horizontally on his hand and hers on top but even so, his arm was struggling to continue lifting the cement disk.
"Let go of it," Lloyd grunted, making Nya see how this new position Brad was getting himself into to keep his and hers up was making it harder for the disk between him and the blond. "Just focus on the one between us then Kai can focus on the one with Jay."
"Okay," Brad muttered before quickly retracting his hand back to his body and the cement disk fell with a heavy thud.
Nya immediately dropped her left arm which felt as heavy as the disk – nevertheless, she focused all her attention onto the disk between her and Jay.
A few minutes passed, marking it the ten-minute mark. More than half of the teams had dropped all their disks, and there wasn't a single team left that still had all disks. Cole's team had already dropped one disk, just like them… although they weren't faring any better.
Nya was struggling. It was hot despite it being middle of autumn. She could feel herself overheating drastically with the muscle suit - which was nearly drench with sweat. Although she wasn't moving a lot, her breaths were harsh as she solely concentrated on the disk between her and Jay. It was beginning to tremble since her arm was struggling to stay up, and even Jay's arms had a slight tremor as he kept up the one between them and the one between him and Lloyd!
"Y-You're doing well," Jay slightly grunted, readjusting his slipping hand on the disk. "If you need to drop, you can do so."
"I'll be fine," Nya lied. Sure, she was probably never going to make it to the end, but she knew she still got another minute of so within her.
"W-Well, I feel horrible for saying this, but I-I don't think I can keep this up," Brad hissed.
"What the heck? Kai is the one with the worst endurance here, not you," Lloyd commented. "Come on, you got this."
"We never did endurance like this! I need out."
"Then go out, we'll be okay. Gene looks like he's about to go out as well," Jay informed, making them all look towards their biggest rivals and saw the ginger was trembling as he tried to hold his disk against Cole's.
"Okay, I'm out," Brad winched before stepping back, the second disk falling.
"Alright Jay, all up to you," Lloyd said. "If you drop both, we're out."
"I know."
"If you feel tired, then give up one arm and used the rest of your-"
"Lloyd, I'm not retarded."
"Okay okay-"
Suddenly, a massively loud collective of gasps and screams exploded. Nya frantically looked over her shoulder, her body immediately on alert for danger – something that had become a habit after spending so many months on the road. However, Nya searched the source of the screams and saw that Cole had dropped both of his disks.
But due to this massive outbreak of noise, it broke the concentration of many people – including Lloyd whose disk fell, resulting a fury of profanities to spill from his lips.
"It's fine," Jay tried reassuring him. "Kai and I got this. Right?"
"Uhhh, yeah," Nya nervously murmured while watching Lloyd walk a few steps away to join up with Brad.
"Hey, we got this," Jay assured again, diverting her attention back onto him.
"My endurance sucks."
"No, it's going to be great because I know it. Just direct your attention from it and stay firm."
"Direct my attention away from the burning agony in my arm?"
"Yeah. Easy peasy." Jay said, earning a scoff from her. "What? It's true. Do you want me to say some jokes or something-?"
"No. Your jokes are awful."
"Ouch… That's a little hurtful."
"Well… The truth hurts sometimes."
"Tell me about it- ah," Jay winched.
Her eyes immediately observed the sudden tension between Jay's shoulder and neck, the obvious discomfort on his face as his spare hand go to hold his left shoulder. Since it wasn't going to assist it in lifting the disk, they were fine. However, Nya could feel a pain blossoming right in her shoulder as well.
"You guys got this!" Lloyd tried cheering but Nya could only watch as Jay shook his head.
"Heh, who was I kidding? We can't win this. Zane is literally like a rock."
Upon mention of the peculiar boy, Nya craned her head around and saw he was holding the disk between him and Griffin with relative ease while Griffin struggled a little.
"Hey, what happened to 'we got this'?"
"It remembered that Zane is a rock."
"And what? It just ran away?"
"Uhhh, more like backing down from a fight it knows it can't win against?" Jay sheepishly answered, making a small smile tug at Nya's lips.
Why are you being so traitorous recently, lips-?
But a sharp hiss escaped through Nya's clenched teeth when she left the muscle in her right shoulder spasm, sending lightning-like shocks rushing down her right arm and back, before the muscle completely constricted into a tight cramp. Immediately, she felt the disk starting to fall between her hand, but she quickly bent herself by the knees (since competitors weren't allow to step closer to their partners) and with great difficultly, angled her wrist so she could support the disk horizontally… but even so, her shoulder was screaming and it spread to her lower back.
"N- Kai!"
"I got this!" She snapped.
"No, you don't. Zane and Griffin are working too much as a solid duo, you're just going to end up hurting yourself-"
"Jay, I got it!"
But she could only hear a sigh from the boy as he purposely knocked the disk out of her hand. Following this was gasps and screams from the crowd and the distant hoots of Cole, Griffin and Gene celebrating… since really, both teams were really competing against each other – not the other eighteen.
So many emotions swelled up within Nya, emotions that she couldn't properly grasp onto. She was angry. Sad. Annoyed. Disappointed… disappointed in herself. The girl could feel her chest heave with these emotions as she tried to take in deep breaths of air. She dropped to her knees, defeated and head casted low so no one could see how her eyes were beginning to water.
Great a grip on yourself! You can't cry over this! You're acting pathetic at the moment.
She yelled these words at herself but… for a moment, she wondered if they were truly her words or her uncle's.
"Hey," she heard Jay say, followed by a soft thud as he crouched in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "You did well. Don't beat yourself up over this."
"But I should have done better."
"Doesn't matter if you should have or could have done better. It has all been already done. Think on the brighter side – we didn't go out last. In fact, we were one of the last few teams standing. We did well."
Nya could only grumble, disappointed in herself.
.:Jay:.
Losing the first challenged sucked. It sucked big time. Did he blame his team? Of course not! If anything, Jay wished that they would have done endurance activities similar to this. But the reason why it sucked losing the first challenge was because it made Cole believe that he had the better team. Heck, they did win the challenge by a split second – Griffin dropping the disk after another group did.
It left a bitter taste in Jay's mouth when he remembered the way Cole smirked at him as everyone made their way back inside of the academy – that smug smirk that easily translated to: 'You're going down this year'. Jay knew, for a fact, that he had a strong team. They all have weakness and strengths that balanced the others out. But… seeing Cole with that smirk just infuriated Jay.
The boy sighed as he laid on his bed, staring at the unique patterns the paint made on the roof. It was still the afternoon, only an hour after the tournament. He took his shower first since Nya was still harsh on herself, so now she was in the shower.
Jay had to admit, he really did think she would have been the first one to go out on the endurance – so the fact that she didn't really made him proud. Not proud as in the way a sensei would feel towards his student… but as a friend. Proud that Nya managed to overcome it all and push herself further. How she didn't allow her past to interfere in her concentration. Proud of her determination. Just everything.
He didn't want Nya to continue feeling disappointed in herself and take blame to the reason why they lost. He wanted to talk to her and change her mindset, but she just wasn't in the talking mood… and the fact she was taking forever in the shower. Jay knew girls took long showers, but he knew Nya didn't take that much of a long shower.
Maybe minutes passed when the girl finally exited the bathroom, dressed in loose clothes but no muscle suit. Jay immediately took notice of the way she avoided his eyes; how low her head was cast and how she had her left hand trying to massage her right shoulder – the shoulder that held the disk with him and the shoulder he knew she was branded on.
"Is it bad?" Jay asked, sitting up on his bed but the girl only shook her head as she opened the cabinets in the kitchenette.
"It's fine."
"You… uhh… did kind of pushed yourself a bit today. It's alright to admitting its sore."
"I told you it's fine. It's nothing that a little heat can't fix," she simply stated, getting a wheat pack and chucking it into the microwave.
"You don't need to keep telling me lies, Nya," Jay sighed. "You can put down your defences around me, I won't judge. You know that."
"… I know," she eventually whispered. "Just… Some habits die hard."
"That's understandable. So how bad is it? Judging by how you completely crippled under the pain of it today, I'm taking it's not that great."
"I'll definitely be feeling sore tomorrow," she admitted quietly, "but it'll be okay. Some heat and a massage will be good for it."
Despite saying all of this, Nya still kept her back to him. Jay might be a little oblivious to some things, but he knew for a fact Nya was still trying to play it tough. He could see it by the taunt in her neck, by the slightly hesitation of her left hand that was massaging into her upper shoulder – unable to reach lower.
When the microwave pinged, Nya reached in and placed the pack onto her shoulder. Jay observed how her body double over with the new pressure added onto her shoulder, but she simply said nothing and just walked over to her bed and laid on it, stomach down.
"You're not very good at convincing me," Jay said quietly as he stood up from his bed.
"Once the muscle is all warmed up, it'll be easier for me to massage it out and the massive knots that formed."
"You can't even reach."
"If you think I'm going to let you massage it, you're dreaming."
"So I'll let you suffer in pain and continue to be sore into tomorrow's challenge and let us down again?" Jay hotly fired – of course, not meaning anything he said but he knew when it came to Nya, she was stubborn, and the only way to deal with it was to fight fire with fire.
It seemed to do the trick though. She fell silent. Maybe after a few seconds, she turned her head, her amber eyes settling on him.
"I didn't mean to let the team down."
"I know, and you didn't. I just said that to make you listen to me," Jay softly confessed as he crouched down by her bed. "Now I promise not to do anything weird. I just want to make sure you're all good for tomorrow's challenge."
The face of hesitation stayed on Nya's face for a good minute until she finally nodded and firmly planted her face into her bed… only then did Jay realise what he was about to do.
He was about to give her a massage… He was going to give a massage to a feminine shoulder. To Nya's shoulder. To Nya's shoulder that had been through abuse before.
Jay honestly had no idea what to expect. Should he expect her to completely lash out as a self-defence mechanism? Or would she remain still? And how would her shoulder feel without the padding and stuff?
"The longer you take, the longer I regret my decision."
"R-Right," Jay stammered, feeling nerves pelt into his bloodstream.
Heck, he really needed to think things through.
Nevertheless, he moved the hot wheat pack to the side while getting seated on her bed, next to her body. He placed his left arm over to the other side of her body to give him leverage before placing his right one upon her shoulder, his thumb pressing slightly onto the muscle. He felt her flinch on the bed but made no moves to attack him. A good sign.
He pressed a little hard and immediately met a knot underneath the skin, which then earned a sharp intake of air.
"Just breathe."
"What do you think I'm doing-?" Nya bitterly muttered before groaning as he rubbed a circle on the knot while applying pressure.
Her whole body was tense, but Jay could only focus on the warmth her skin emitted through the sweater she was wearing. Despite the knot, the tense muscle and the sweater, he could feel that she had a soft yet firm plushness on her shoulder. But once that knot was done, he moved lower on her shoulder and rubbed out many more knots.
Time passed and Nya's grunts and groans dulled out to deep breaths and a small moan here and there. Her tensed body eased its tension – until he directly pressed upon another knot. Jay could feel a discomfort in his thumb, but he never ceased… that was until one particular knot didn't want to come undone. The hardened muscle underneath just wouldn't go soft no matter how long he spent on it.
"This one is stubborn."
"Yeah, I can feel it. Just apply more pressure."
So Jay did, by climbing onto the bed and slightly kneeling over her to get a better angle to apply more pressure. All this did was extract a loud groan from Nya.
"Too much?"
"N-No, that's good – but I can feel your thumb kind of slipping all over the place."
"Well… The sweater is taking the friction away."
"So go underneath it then."
Those words made Jay's face turn bright red. Although he was a hormonal teenage male who didn't have completely innocent dreams at night, the thought of slipping his hand through the neck hole of Nya's loose sweater to massage her bare shoulder made him nervous. Very nervous.
He gulped but timidly allowed his hand to go through the very loose neckline of Nya's dark grey sweater and onto the soft and smooth skin of her bare shoulder. He felt Nya tense under his touch… probably also just realising what exactly was going on, but she made no comments. So, he proceeded.
He moved his hand over her skin to towards the knot he had struggled with… only to pause when his hand no longer felt smooth skin but something rough, wrinkly and abnormal. Jay didn't take notice he had stopped, his touch still lingering on Nya's scar until she moved her shoulder.
"S-Sorry…"
"Don't be. It's not your fault," she murmured flatly.
Yet, as Jay continued to massage her shoulder, the feeling of her massive scar wouldn't leave.
Wow… it had been nearly three months. Uh, I guess I should start off with sorry? Yeah, super sorry everyone that I've been gone for a while. Reasons I was gone was because I got into a relationship but recently it ended… So yeah, I'm back to writing to distract my mind. I hoped the chapter was good though, I think I rushed it and that the ending is horrible but here's the chapter!
Anyway, massive thanks to: HHQFandoms, Jaell, A Huge Fangirl, unknown, Natalie Singe, EchoIsACutie, JSNI, AuroraRain18, , Nightlybirdie, musicalwatcher99, Musica Masaharu, IAmAnOakTree and all my silent readers for reading, reviewing, favouriting, following and being patient when the fanfiction was playing up when I uploaded the last chapter!
Jaell:Haha, they will kiss soon, I promise!
EchoIsACutie:Yeah! I didn't know the story as well! And never be sorry for the shorter review! I enjoy them all all the same.
AuroraRain18:Thanks for all the reviews! LOVE YA! As for the action writing, it comes with practice, I promise. I did all my practicing for the action writing in a fanfiction story I haven't posted yet since that's just a personal story for me.
This time, I won't promise to update next week but I definitely promise that I'll try! But, will our favourite team be able to defeat their rivalry in the next round? Stay around and look out for my chapter update and you shall find out! (Along with a 'maybe' kissing scene in the next chapter *wink wink*).
Until next time! Xoxo – ZaneLoverFan88