This is what happens when you get inspiration for fics at 2 AM lol. In all seriousness, though, I did have a lot of fun with this. The ninja, maybe not so much.

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence (blood & injury), medical inaccuracies

Had Jay known it was going to storm, he probably wouldn't have suggested they test out the glider today.

"Uh, maybe we should head back?" Nya suggested as lightning crackled across the sky above them.

"Good plan," said Jay. They often spent storms outside, each enjoying their own element, but not so high up or exposed. And definitely not so close together. Jay attracted lightning like cake attracted Cole.

They had only just turned around when Jay sensed the shift of charges in the air that always came just before a strike.

"Uh-oh..."

Nya opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but before she could get the words out, the bolt of lightning flashed forth and struck the metal frame of the glider.

Ordinarily, when Jay got struck, he would take part of the energy and let the rest disperse into his surroundings. But he couldn't do that this time, not with Nya right there.

Jay opened himself up to his element and let the power pour into him.

For the first couple milliseconds, it was the blissful rush of energy he was used to, filling up his elemental powers with the purest form of electricity in existence.

After that, it was torture.

Keeping all that raw power contained was physically painful, lighting filling him so entirely there was no room for any more, no room for him any more. But there was still more power, so much power, and he had to take it, had to keep Nya safe.

He kept drawing it in, filled beyond overflowing but still collecting more.

I can't keep doing this...

The strike only lasted a fraction of a second, but those milliseconds were some of the longest moments in Jay's life.

Finally, mercifully, the energy stopped flowing, and Jay slipped into darkness.

Everything happened so fast.

One second, everything was fine, the next, lightning struck the glider and they were falling, the canvas on fire above them.

Nya wasn't sure how exactly she was still alive. Weren't lightning strikes supposed to be painful? She hadn't even felt a static tingle...

She figured it out a moment later, when her frazzled brain finally noticed Jay was glowing bright blue and completely limp.

"Jay!"

He didn't answer, and she desperately hoped he was just unconscious and not... something worse. But she would have to wait to find out, as the glider was still on fire and falling out of the sky at an alarming rate.

The glider hit a tree and tore apart, the two ninja separated as Nya's straps got caught on a branch, leaving her dangling helplessly as the rest of the glider crashed to the forest floor.

I have to get down from here!

Nya tugged on the straps, trying to free herself, but they wouldn't budge.

The branch, on the other hand, budged quite a bit.

She froze at the sound of cracking wood. Maybe if I just stay still, it won't break...

But it was already weakened from having been crashed into, and her jerking about had been the final straw. The branch snapped, sending her tumbling down again.

She felt her shoulder pop when she hit the ground, crying out in pain as she rolled along the forest floor.

There was a soft click, and her straps unbuckled.

"Oh, now you come off," she growled through clenched teeth.

She forgot all about them as soon as she spotted the fire flickering nearby. Nya ran over to the crash, dousing the flames with a burst of water. "Jay?" she called, catching sight of a blue glow in the middle of the wreckage.

The lightning ninja was entangled in the remains of the glider, still glowing. Blood was trickling onto the dirt from some unseen wound, forming a sizable puddle beneath him.

Nya gasped and darted to his side, forgetting her own injuries. She grabbed his wrist, feeling for a pulse, oh please don't let him be dead-

-There! It was weak, but still there. He was alive!

Relieved, she started clearing the debris away, trying to find the source of the bleeding.

"Oh, that's not good."

Part of the glider's metal frame had pierced his side. Nya carefully unwound one of his leg wraps and bound it around the wound as an impromptu bandage, keeping the blood in and the metal from shifting and making it worse. She idly wondered if the gis had been designed with all the extra wraps for this exact purpose. She wouldn't be surprised.

Pulling out one of her kunai, Nya started sawing through the metal keeping him pinned to the wreckage. It was slow work, made even more arduous by the continued storm raging above, rain pouring down and soaking them even with the tree cover.

"You're gonna be okay, Sparky," Nya said. "I'm gonna get you out of here, I promise."

Jay didn't respond, since he was still unconscious. Probably a good thing, Nya reflected. But talking to him made her feel better, and distracted her from the throbbing ache in her shoulder, so she kept it up as she sawed.

When she finally broke through the metal, she tried to pick him up to move him away from the crash, but it immediately became obvious that wasn't going to work. She was normally able to carry Jay with little difficulty, but with her injured shoulder protesting loudly at even a slight amount of strain, that wouldn't be feasible right now.

"Okay, Nya, think," she muttered. "We need to get out of this storm and back to the monastery, but I can't carry him. How..."

The monastery, where the others were... the others! Maybe they could help!

Nya reached to pull up her hood and discovered it wasn't there. That's right, she hadn't brought it since they weren't going on a mission. That was stupid. She felt around in her pocket for her phone and found it broken from her fall out of the tree. She then searched Jay's pockets, which felt kind of wrong to do without his permission, but they were in something of an emergency. It turned out to be pointless anyway, since he didn't even have his phone on him, so there went that plan.

"Hang tight," Nya told her unconscious friend. "I'm gonna go scout around for some shelter, okay? I'll be right back."

She found a small cave about 200 yards away, really nothing more than a little ledge of rock jutting out of the hill, but it would get them out of the rain a bit, if nothing else. At least, if she could get them there.

Returning to Jay, she muttered a quick apology to the lightning ninja before grabbing his arm with her good hand and dragging him towards the cave. It probably wasn't good for him to get dragged through the mud like this, but she really didn't have any other ideas at this point.

Once they got to the cave, Nya allowed herself to sit down and wallow in justified self-pity for a moment. She was lost, soaked, alone except for her unconscious and badly injured boyfriend, her probably dislocated shoulder hurt like crazy, she had no way to contact her friends, they had no supplies, barely any shelter, and it was probably going to take them a lot of time they didn't have to make it back to the monastery.

"Just a typical day in the life of a ninja, eh?" she said with a bitter laugh.

Sighing, Nya drew as much of the water as she could out of their clothes so they were a little drier, at least. She used the ball of water to try and wash the mud and blood off Jay's wound.

"We'll get out of this somehow, Sparky," Nya said, planting a kiss on his forehead. "Just hold on a little longer."

"Okay, I'm starting to get worried," Cole said.

"Shouldn't they have been back by now?" said Kai, pacing the floor nervously. "I mean, it's been hours. How long does one test-flight take?"

"Have you tried calling them?" Lloyd asked.

Cole nodded. "Both of them. Jay left his phone here, and Nya's goes straight to voicemail."

"Perhaps they are waiting out the storm," Zane suggested. "It would be dangerous to fly in this weather, and they may have landed somewhere out of reception."

"Maybe," Kai said. "But I don't think Jay would have any qualms about flying in a lightning storm, and even if Nya managed to talk some sense into him, you'd think they could have walked back or something. What if something happened to them?"

"Nya and Jay are both fully capable ninja," Lloyd said. "I'm sure even if something did happen, they could handle it. Let's give them some more time to make it back before we do anything rash. They're probably just waiting out the storm, like Zane said."

"Yeah," Cole said hesitantly. "I'm sure they're fine... right?"

They were definitely not fine.

The storm still hadn't let up, and they were stuck hiding under their tiny rock shelter. Jay's wound was still sluggishly bleeding, and Nya was growing worried. It would be night soon, and there were creatures in these woods she didn't much care to meet wandering around in the dark. But if they waited until morning to start trying to make their way back, would Jay even still be alive by the time they got there?

Nya sighed. She hadn't even really wanted to go flying today, but it was hard to turn Jay down when he was so eager about something. He'd been building the glider for weeks so the two of them could fly together and had finally worked out all the kinks that morning. In hindsight, she should have known something would go wrong. His contraptions never quite seemed to work out on the first try.

She ran a hand through his mop of curls, the static buzz that still lingered around him spreading up her arm. Would he ever get a chance to rebuild it now?

Stop thinking like that, she chided herself. He'll be okay.

I hope.

Jay shifted beneath her touch, letting out a groan and slowly blinking his eyes open. "...Nya?"

"Jay!" She quickly caught his hand as he moved to grab the metal stuck in his side. "Hey, you need to leave that alone, okay?"

"Hurts," he gritted out through clenched teeth.

"I know, I'm sorry, but it has to stay there for now," she said.

Jay whined pathetically, but he didn't try to grab it again. "Are- are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she reassured him. "Well. Mostly. I kinda hurt my shoulder in the crash, but it's... manageable. I think you saved my life back there, with whatever it was you did to the lightning. Thanks."

"Absorbed it," he said, letting his eyes slip closed. "Still have it. 'S so much power... i-it's hard to hold onto..."

"Yeah, you're kind of, um, glowing," she said,

"Glowing?" He forced his eyes open again and pushed himself up to see for himself. "...Oh. That's weird."

Nya gently pushed him back down. "Uh-huh. Just take it easy, okay?"

He didn't seem to hear her, eyes wandering around their little shelter. "Where are we?"

"In a cave out in the woods, near where we crashed."

He frowned. "We should go home. The... the others'll worry."

"Yeah, Jay, I know, but you're really hurt. There's no way you can walk that far-" -or should even be walking at all- "-and I can't carry you with my shoulder hurt."

"I can too," he insisted. "Or at least, we- we have to try. N-ninja never quit, remember?"

Nya sighed. This really didn't seem like a good idea. But Jay was right; they ought to try. "Okay. We'll give it a try. But please, be careful and don't hurt yourself more. I'm worried about you."

They managed to get Jay on his feet, albeit with some difficulty, and with Nya supporting him with her uninjured shoulder, they limped out into the storm.

The two were soaked almost instantaneously, the trees providing little cover as they trudged through the mire back towards where Nya was pretty sure the monastery was.

It's too quiet out here, Nya thought. Well, it wasn't exactly quiet, but it was loud in all the wrong sorts of ways. She could hear thunder roaring overhead, rain dripping, the rustle of leaves in the wind. You weren't supposed to be able to hear background noise when Jay was around. He was always talking, not about anything in particular, but just filling whatever space he was in with his excited chatter. Now, he was quiet except for his labored breathing.

The ninja told him to shut up a lot- she'd done it quite a few times herself- but she hadn't realized just how unnerving it was when he actually did.

They walked in silence for about an hour before Nya finally spoke.

"Jay, say something, please."

"L-like what?"

"I don't care, just... make jokes, or ramble about something. Like you usually do. I miss hearing you talk."

Jay started laughing, although it turned into a coughing fit at the end. "Well, there's a first. I dunno what t-to talk about, though, I'm kinda on the spot now."

She shrugged. "I dunno. Tell me about some technical thing from the junkyard or whatever."

He began rambling about the inner workings of a compact converted jiggly compressor, and while she couldn't care less about the subject material, it was good to hear him talking again. It made the trek through the forest seem a little less onerous.

The storm above continued to rage, sky growing ever darker as the invisible sun slipped away towards nightfall. Soon it was pitch black out, only a small area around them illuminated by the blue glow radiating from Jay.

Nya paused. She had the strangest feeling, like someone was watching them. Or something...

Jay seemed to sense it too, glancing around. "Wh-what do you think lives in these woods?"

"I don't know, but if the chickens around here are deadly, I'm not sure I want to find out what the predators are like," she muttered.

Something growled softly in the underbrush nearby.

He jolted, wincing at the sudden movement. "D-did you hear that?"

"Yeah..." She drew her kunai, wishing she'd brought a better weapon.

A blur of shadow caught her eye, and she shoved Jay away from her just in time for a large, wolf-like creature to come flying between them.

It skidded to a halt a few yards away, not taken aback for long by its pounce missing. It spun around and leapt again, Nya dodging and swiping it at it with her kunai.

She mentally slapped herself as she fought with the creature, making sure to keep it away from where Jay was still lying on the ground. Why hadn't she been more prepared for this? Of course the animals in this forest would have no trouble following them, they could probably smell Jay's blood trail from quite a ways away, even through the rain.

Well, yelling at herself wasn't going to help anything. She just needed to fight off this wolf thing, and then they could continue on their way, and everything would be fine. Okay, maybe not fine, but no worse than they were before. Probably.

"Nya, look out!"

Jay's shout came just a second too late as another one of the creatures jumped on her from behind, knocking her to the ground and sending pain shooting through her injured shoulder. She managed to stab her kunai into one of its paws and slipped out from under it, head spinning from the blow.

Two more of the creatures had shown up, which made sense, because wolves hunted in packs, didn't they? All three of them were focused on her, circling menacingly.

Okay, so there were more of them now. Big deal. She could still do this.

Nya tried to ignore the throbbing in her shoulder as she fought with the creatures, the world becoming a blur of fur and fangs and flashing metal and that persistent ache that just wouldn't go away.

C'mon, Nya, you can do this...

She heard a cry of pain and realized with a jolt that the other two wolf things were no longer following her, having turned their attention to the more vulnerable target. Nya caught a glimpse of him pinned beneath the larger of the two, the other close beside.

Before she had time to do anything, though, Jay sent out a massive flash of lightning, sending the two creatures attacking him spasming. They scraped themselves off the ground and limped away as fast as they could, whimpering like dogs.

The third one hesitated a minute before growling at them one last time and slinking off after its packmates.

As soon as it left, Jay let out a shaky moan and collapsed, the blue glow from earlier all but gone.

Nya ran to the lightning ninja's side. "Jay! Jay, are you okay?"

Jay was on his hands and knees in the mud, panting shakily, one hand clutched over the wound in his side. "Nya, I-I... it..."

He let his hand drop away. The metal had been pushed far deeper into the wound, blood dripping from his side and mingling with the rain puddled on the ground.

"... I-I think I made it worse."

"Jay," she gasped. She pressed a hand to his side to try and staunch the bleeding, and he jerked away, hissing in pain. "Sorry, sorry, but I need to patch this up. Just- just hold on, okay?"

Her heart broke a little more with each of his cries as she cleaned and rebandaged the wound.

"It's almost over, Sparky," she murmured soothingly as she tied off the bloodstained fabric. "Just a few more seconds..."

Once she was done, Jay immediately pulled her into a hug, trembling. Nya returned it, holding him tight as he cried into her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered once his sobs had subsided.

"'S not your fault," he sniffled. "I-it had to be done, I just- it- I-I love you, Nya."

She smiled softly and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Proclaiming his feelings for her seemed to be his default when he got too flustered or upset to form coherent sentences. It was sweet.

"I know this is probably the last thing you want to hear right now, but we should keep going before those creatures come back," she said. "Do you think you can still walk?"

"Yeah," he said. "I c-can manage, nin- ninja never quit, right?"

"...Right." She was beginning to hate that phrase. There's a difference between quitting and being physically unable to continue, Jay! "If you're sure."

And so, with her half-guiding, half-dragging Jay, they set off again.

The woods were harder to navigate now, with their only light source gone, but Nya was still pretty sure they were headed in the same direction. She could sense a water source nearby- a river or creek or some such thing- and since they had been heading towards it before, it made sense to continue that way. Of course, it wasn't certain that her original path had been the right one, but at least they wouldn't be going in circles.

Her elemental powers gave her a general idea of where in the vicinity water was, but it wasn't very exact. So, she was still startled when her foot suddenly met frigid liquid instead of the ground.

"Whoa!"

Nya just managed to avoid falling in, scrambling backwards away from the riverbank. She surveyed the dark water. As inconvenient as it would be to cross, it was a good sign. She vaguely remembered flying over a river earlier, not too far from the monastery.

"Is... is something wrong?" Jay asked.

"There's a river in the way," she said. "I've got an idea, though. Don't let go."

"Wasn't planning to," he mumbled.

Nya reached out with her powers, calling the water upwards, shaping it into a platform, holding the droplets firmly in place as she tentatively stepped onto the bridge.

It was working!

Maintaining it for even the seconds it took to cross was exhausting, the normally shapeless and fluid material protesting at being held solid, but they made it across without falling in.

She would take any win she could get right now, really.

"How're you holding up?" she asked Jay as they continued onward.

He didn't answer.

"Jay?" She shook him a little. "Are you okay?"

"'M fine," he said, grimacing at the sudden jostle. "Just... so tired..."

Nya sighed. "I know. I am too. Try to stay awake a little longer, okay? I'm sure we're almost there."

She somehow doubted he believed that any more than she did.

The neverending rain surrounding and soaking them had turned the ground to slippery mud, and the two exhausted ninja were having a hard time keeping their footing. Jay in particular was flagging, barely having the strength to keep slogging onward, and Nya was finding it increasingly difficult to keep them both going.

She usually loved being surrounded her element, but right now, it was driving her crazy.

Jay's steps faltered, and they found themselves sprawling in the mud, Nya's injured shoulder protesting violently at the sudden impact with the ground.

"Ow!"

The water ninja pushed herself up, groaning. That was definitely going to take a while to heal at this point.

"Jay, you alright?"

The lightning ninja gave no response, still and silent where he was collapsed in the mud.

Shaking him didn't rouse him this time.

"Jay? C'mon, Sparky, wake up!"

No, no, no, not again...

"Please, Jay, wake up. You've gotta get up, please, I-I can't... I can't do this without you..."

He remained stubbornly unconscious, unable to hear her pleas.

A few tears slipped unbidden down Nya's cheeks, mingling with the raindrops already there. Why can't things just go well for once? Is that really too much to ask?

What she wouldn't give to be home right now. Safe in the monastery, with her friends and brother, and Master Wu, even that stupid chicken-

-Was she imagining things, or had something just moved over there?

She froze, watching, but nothing revealed itself. Nya relaxed ever-so-slightly. It was probably nothing, just shifting shadows in the wind. Still, they shouldn't stick around. She needed to keep going, somehow...

Forcing herself to stand, she started dragging Jay through the forest once more, coercing the water puddled on the ground to help move him with what little was left of her mental strength. That too soon gave out, unable to hold enough focus to shift another drop.

Yet still she trudged on.

Was any of this real? Was this just some twisted dream, that would she wake up from warm and safe in her own bed?

She hoped so.

This was a nightmare, that was for sure.

But she had this sinking feeling she was still awake.

She was so lost in the dreamlike haze of exhaustion that she almost didn't believe it when she tripped onto the first steps at the base of the mountain.

We're... here?

We're actually here?

We- we made it?!

Well. Almost...

There was still the matter of the eight jillion steps leading up to the monastery. Steps she wasn't sure she had the strength to climb.

"C'mon, Nya, you can't give up now," she muttered to herself. "You're so close, you just gotta get through this..."

Sighing, she tightened her grip on Jay and started up the staircase.

Kai had been lying on his back staring at the ceiling for the last seven hours.

He couldn't sleep, too busy worrying about his little sister. Was she okay? Where was she? Why hadn't she come back by now?

Sighing, he rolled over to check the clock for what felt like the gazillionth time. How is it still only 5:15? It was sunrise exercise morning, and usually he would have tried to spend every single moment he could beforehand in bed, but he absolutely could not stand to lie there for one more second.

Slipping out of his room- stealthily, so as not to wake the others- Kai headed to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. The storm finally seemed to be settling down to a gentler rain.

Thinking of rain made him miss Nya even more.

Would he ever see her again?

No, don't think like that! Nya's capable. She can take care of herself.

But still, it was hard not to wonder.

He headed outside to the courtyard, setting his coffee down on the steps. Master Wu had always told them that training was an excellent way to straighten out troubled thoughts, and while Kai was still suspicious that he was just trying to get them to practice more, it couldn't hurt to try. It beat sitting around worrying, at any rate, and he'd be warmed up ahead of the others.

Kai had just started his basic warm-up katas when he heard something slam into the monastery doors.

The storm seemed to have finally rained itself out, subsiding to a gentler rain as Nya dragged them up the six thousand, nine hundred and thirty-second torturous step.

It would be sunrise soon, some part of her brain realized. They'd been out all night.

They were almost home, if she could just get them the rest of the way there. Just because she felt like she was going to collapse any second now, didn't mean she could stop. If she stopped, she'd give into the exhaustion, and she couldn't afford to do that just yet, she needed to make it up the final steps.

Why on earth did they live on a mountain with so many steps, anyway? She should talk to Pixal about putting in an escalator or something.

That thought didn't make any sense, it was just a product of her addled brain, but she didn't much care. It was better than thinking about Jay's condition, or her exhaustion, or the agony splitting her shoulder that just wouldn't stop.

Ten more steps...

She was going to sleep for a week when she finally got back to her bed.

Five more steps...

They were so close, she just needed to hold on a little longer...

One more step...

She stumbled against the familiar wooden doors with a thud. Close enough to knocking.

The door was opened almost immediately by Kai, who looked astonished and overjoyed to see them. "Sis?!"

They had finally made it. They were home.

With that thought, Nya let the exhaustion overtake her and collapsed into her brother's waiting arms.