The pain in Lloyd's head was so indescribable that he couldn't even bother to begin opening his eyes.

"B-but Nya...!" Lloyd could hear someone say that resembled Kai's voice, "You're so... old...!"

Really? After being knocked unconscious by a bunch of thugs that knew Spinjitzu, and this is what Lloyd wakes up to hearing?

"Guess I'm your big sister now." a voice that resembled Nya's chimed playfully.

"Don't even go there!" Kai's voice warned. "I am still your older brother, even if you look... older... now..."

Nya laughed, along with a few others that apparently were in the room too.

"So when's the Legendary Golden Sleeper gonna wake up?" a voice Lloyd did not recognize asked.

"Kass don't be rude." Nya's voice sternly instructed as the sound of someone getting smacked on the head was heard.

"What I'm saying, is that he could at least grunt or something to let us know he's still alive or something. It's not like we decided to hook him up to some machine that would tell us that."

That actually didn't sound like a bad idea- using some effort, Lloyd let out a groan as he attempted to sit up. In almost an instant, where ever he was, everyone was silent as they saw Lloyd slowly attempt to sit up. With some more effort, Lloyd began to open his eyes. A good inspection of the room detailed that Cole, Kai, Zane, and Jay were also there but so was an older looking Nya and Cyrus Borg. Then there were five people Lloyd couldn't easily recognize, but his friends could recognize him well enough.

"Lloyd!" all four of them exclaimed at the same time before running to give Lloyd a relieved hug.

"Dude, we thought we lost you!" Cole told Lloyd.

"Well... technically, we did." Zane said.

"We thought you were a goner." Kai told Lloyd, correcting Cole's sentence.

"But then we ran into Nya!" Jay added, "And she looks..."

"Watch it." Nya warned- her face illustrating that she did not want Jay to use the word he was thinking of.

"More beautiful with age." Jay then said. "And that doesn't even scratch the surface!"

"What else is there?" Lloyd asked, feeling rather confused that Nya and Cyrus would sudden look like they aged thirty years overnight.

"We're in the future!" the four ninja said together. Lloyd just stared at them.

"What." he said in a flat tone underlined with disbelief.

"Look." Cole told him, giving Lloyd a newspaper that had been found earlier. Giving his friends a wary glance, Lloyd looked at the date and found that it was dated thirty years into the future.

"But that isn't all." Zane informed Lloyd.

"It's not?" Lloyd asked, almost feeling like the guys were playing an elaborate prank on him.

"Oh, do I get to introduce everyone?" one of the people Lloyd did not recognize spoke up with a bubbly voice. No one openly objected, so the excitable one continued;

"Hello Mr Lloyd!" she said, giving Lloyd an overly enthused wave, "I am Artificial Life in a Child's Ethnic, better known as Alice. My primary directive is to simulate the growth and development of an adolescent female- I was created by Mr Borg about five years ago, almost six years now!"

"Hello Alice." Lloyd greeted carefully. Alice beamed at having her name said by the Legendary Gold Ninja, then turned to a boy taller than her that looked a little worse than wear.

"This is Captain Hyun." Alice told Lloyd in a deep voice to show authority. "He operates what you know as the Destiny's Bounty, and is very funny. He likes to give all of us nicknames- he even nicknamed himself! We all call him Cap because that's his nickname and it sounds so funny!"

"Pleasure to meet you." Cap said to Lloyd with a nod. Lloyd nodded back, still sure that his friends were playing a joke on him.

"This is Kass." Alice then told Lloyd, moving to a teen whose hair could have rivaled the shagginess of Cole's hair. "Kass is a longtime fan of your friend Cole- last summer he even found out that they were related!"

"Really?" Lloyd asked, almost certain now that this was a hoax.

"Three or six times removed." Kass confirmed. "But who's counting when you can call a famous ninja your cousin and not be lying about it?"

Finally, all the attention went to the last to be introduced. Alice's face lit up at the prospect of introducing the last one, but the teen remained silent and refused to look at him. Or... anyone really.

"That's Mina." Alice chirped, introducing the mouse-haired girl for her. "She's my bestest friend in the world and the heir of..."

"Alice." the girl snapped in a dark tone. "We agreed earlier; no one needs to know anything else."

Alice looked at Mina with a bit of surprise (mostly due to forgetting about their previous discussion), but nodded to show she understood.

"She's very special." Alice told Lloyd with a playful wink.

"You were the one that saved me. Weren't you?" Lloyd asked, realizing that he recognized her. Mina did not acknowledge him, but Alice answered for her.

"She did! And it was so cool too, you should have seen it from where I was standing!"

Carefully starting to get up, Lloyd went to approach Mina, almost forcing her to look at him.

"Thank you." he told her calmly. "Without you, I wouldn't have been able to made it back to my friends."

Mina did not say anything, although it was apparent she wanted to, but she held her thoughts back and only stared at him.

"Who's hungry?" Cap asked, cutting in to the unneeded tension being created by Mina.

"Oh, oh, I am!" Cole said.

"Wonderful! If you lot would just follow me to the cafeteria, of course."

"Already on it!"

As everyone else left, Mina and Lloyd did not break eye contact.

"You should go." Mina told Lloyd curtly.

"I'm not going anywhere without you." Lloyd replied calmly.

"I know my way around this place, you do not have the advantage." Mina said back.

"Maybe I want you to take me the long way around." Lloyd suggested. Mina's gaze became dark and cold at the idea.

"I'm not going without you." Lloyd repeated, this time with honesty. In an unexpected turn of events, Mina's eyes started to gloss over with tears. Lloyd, in turn, grew concerned. Was it something he said?

From the doorway, Cyrus was observing the conversation and frowned.

"Lloyd," Cyrus then said as he moved his wheelchair closer to the two, "Go follow the others before they get too far, I would like to talk to Minerva alone."

"Yes, go, like I told you." Mina hissed to Lloyd. Lloyd looked at her, not seeing why she had any reason to be so angry at him- but with a look at Cyrus, Lloyd did as he was told and quickly went to follow the others.

Not for a moment could Lloyd begin to fathom why Mina had been so cold toward him. Maybe he'd find out later -a slip during conversation, or maybe when they got to know each other better- but for now Lloyd had to admit one thing; he was very hungry.

Cyrus and Mina, however, were not going to have such a great time.

"You did not need to be so rude to him." Cyrus told Mina.

"He's related to me- isn't he?" Mina asked in turn. Cyrus gave Mina a look that was a mix between surprise and confusion. Mina noticed this, and felt her vision swim in a pool of darkness as her head started to feel light.

"Who is he?" Mina asked, her voice barely audible. Cyrus looked at her, and for a moment was unsure of what to say.

"He..." Cyrus started to say, but soon found that it was hard to finish, "Lloyd is..."

"He's the one that gave me up." Mina softly realized. "Lloyd- the Green Ninja- is my... my dad...?"

Cyrus closed his eyes, but nodded.

"Bringing you into Kai's care was a safeguard." Cyrus calmly told Mina as she slowly lost comprehension of the world around her. "Lloyd knew that he likely wasn't going to come back, and as we feared he was declared missing. When we couldn't find him, Lloyd's fate was decided as... fatal, as you know. I... I'm very sorry you had to learn this news in one of the worst ways possible, especially with the likelihood that Kai and the others from our time line will soon be declared gone when no one can find them. But... the world must turn I'm afraid."

Mina took a step back, almost feeling like she was going to fall over.

"I'm not coming to dinner." Mina said in a whisper. "I... I'm not very hungry."

"Of course." Cyrus agreed dimly. "I'll see you in the morning."