#I wonder how I’d be doing now if that morning had gone differently. there probably would have been something else that set me off | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

robobirdie · 2 years ago

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Anatomy of a Droid

In my Oni Scrolls story I came up with how Zane's anatomy could logically work, and to some extent other droids similar to him like Pixal, and while working that up I came up with this little short idea on this. For the longest time I didn't really have much to flush it out past an idea then for some reason a story flushing out this idea came to me so I worked it up. This short story is that idea flushed out. While it is independent to my other story in ways it can tie in as it features somethings that are used or appear in the story largely how Zane's body works.

This can also be found on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44691181

The ninja had been up all morning just hanging out in the entertainment room. It was a little past noon and none of them had seen Zane all morning. That wasn’t usual. He wasn’t usually a late sleeper. Cole and Jay were the usual late sleepers in the household and they were already up. Jay had gone to see if Zane was still sleeping, he wanted to challenge him to a few rounds in a video game. Zane wasn’t there.

“You know thinking of it I haven’t seen Pixal all day either,” Nya noted when Jay returned and told them. Not looking away from his game with Cole and Lloyd Kai stated, “the two love birds probably went out for some time together on their own, just let them have their time with each other.” Jay took their advice and sat down to join in the video game.

“What do those two do together when they’re on their own?” Kai wondered and Lloyd commented, “I don’t know droid things I guess.”

“And what would droid things be?” Kai wondered and Lloyd proposed, “I’m not really sure. Going over the latest software updates or potential new upgrades maybe?”

“Yha that kind of sounds right,” Kai commented and Cole countered, “that’s not it they just like to hang out together just chilling sometimes playing video games, watching TV, reading or going for walks in the wilderness or gardening; sometimes visiting a museum, botanical garden or Zoo. They especially like aviaries, apparently birds really like seeing them too. They also like to volunteer at animal shelters and wild life rehabs. Sometimes they also just like resting together. They just like to be with each other and don’t need to be doing anything fancy or special; sometimes being in the same room with each other as they do their own thing is all they need.”

“Why would you think that? That’s not really something I’d think of for droids; I’d think of them doing more tech things,” Kai commented and Cole commented, “cause I asked them. If you just asked them it wouldn’t be such a mystery to you two.”

“Just because they’re droids doesn’t mean they do things much differently from us. Sure something’s are different and their thinking’s are quite different but they aren’t too different from us. They like to do the same things and enjoy some of the same things as us. Nindroids are special and are more like us than some mere robot,” Nya explained and Jay added, “yha just because they’re droids doesn’t mean they have to do droid or tech things. The two are a lot more down to earth than their artificial makes suggest. Maybe if you two learned more about the nature of Nindroids a lot about Zane and Pixal wouldn’t seem so mysterious to you. You should take some time to read that book me and Nya made for the rest of you; it explains a lot. Or you could always help us out once in a while when we’re working on them. Cole has done both.” Cole added, “yha, I wanted to know why some of my cooking had real bad effects on them now I know… I also know more than I felt like knowing. I guess though it’s worth it to make sure they’re safe and properly cared for.”

“I guess you’re kind of right even if it sounds rather gross to learn about it… hey does anyone else find it a little creepy how the two can talk with each other without well talking sometimes?” Lloyd commented and Nya noted, “it’s part of being a droid. They can communicate directly into each other’s brains whenever they want to kind of like a form of direct messaging with your phone. I will agree it can be a little creepy yha. They try not to do it around us cause they know it can unsettle us but they sometimes can’t help it. It’s just part of their nature to communicate that way.”

“Yha it’s creepy when they do that especially when you walk in on them and their just looking at each other or it looks like they are meditating with their eyes closed but they’re reacting like they’re talking yet it doesn’t look like they are… how do we know they’re not saying bad things about us to each other behind our backs?” Jay commented and Cole noted, “like the rest of us don’t?” Kai and Lloyd gave a quite chuckle about the comment while Jay was annoyed. They hung out for a while before Nya got a call from Pixal.

“Hey Pix we were just wondering about you and Zane… oh okay we’ll be rate there,” Nya stated as she talked on the phone before hanging up.

“So what are the two lovebirds up to?” Cole wondered and Nya stated a bit confused, “not sure. Pixal wants to see us in the hanger bay and to bring our weapons; said it was urgent. She sounded nervous.” Curious over what was going on they wasted no time in venturing down to the hanger bay. Wu and Pixal were there with Zane lying on a table by the computers. Zane was hooked up to the computers, his shirt was removed, and a panel in his chest was open. He was wearing just a pair of worn and substance, including oil, stained socks and pants which they usually put him or Pixal in when they performed major work or maintenance on them to help keep their normal attire clean from the substances in their bodies or that were worked on for them and keep their attire from getting damaged by the work done on them.

“Had a bit of an accident did we?” Kai teased as they approached and Pixal explained, “no it is something worse. I noticed Zane was sleeping in later than usual so I went to check on him. I was unable to wake him and I could sense something was wrong. After a quick analysis I found several major damages to various systems. It made no sense how he had received them till when I was repairing the damages I found one of these.” Pixal had found Zane lying curled up on his one side looking to be asleep yet in serious pain. When she attempted to connect her communication circuits to his she found him in a strange state not fully awake but also not fully asleep. There were many damages in his body that had been made solely to cause pain. She had wasted no time bringing him to the hanger bay and starting to work on him putting him offline and shutting down systems so he wouldn’t feel any pain. While explaining to the others Pixal picked off the small table that was next to the one she had Zane laid on that held the equipment she was repairing him with, various tools chemicals and materials, a strange small no bigger than a large cricket worm looking thing. It was made of a strange translucent pale sickly looking yellowish colored skin that barely let visible the mechanical inner workings of the creature. The skin covered all of the components except a sensor and the mouthparts which were a set of sharp short and blunt plier looking structures on the head. The worm had a tear in its side with its broken inner makes spilling out a bit.

“What is that?” Lloyd wondered and Pixal explained, “it is some form of robotic worm solely designed to destroy a droid from the inside by slowly and painfully tearing it apart.”

“I guess not even droids are immune to parasites,” Kai commented and Pixal noted, “parasites generally do not want to kill their host and often do give benefits to their host such as helping regulate various systems such as immune stability after all if their host dies they die. These are worse than parasites. Their sole purpose is to destroy the host by any means at any cost. I found that one trying to cut into his spine and destroyed it.”

“Where’d this thing come from?” Nya wondered picking up the robotic worm to get a better look at it.

“I do not know. I have to do more investigations into it but I can deduce this thing is responsible for some of the damages done,” Pixal explained and Cole noted, “some? What do you mean by some?”

“The damages were so numerous and severe it seemed odd such a little thing could cause such damage on its own so I did a scan and picked up four other signatures matching this worm meaning there are four more inside him. Since I started making repairs they are hiding in places that are not easy to reach to prevent from being harmed and they are giving off signals to try and prevent being found. I can find the general location they are hiding but not the precise location. If I was to try and get them they likely would move off to another location to avoid capture meaning I would have to remove everything in order to reach all of them,” Pixal explained and Cole hypothesized, “I’m guessing that’s very bad.”

“Indeed. Not only will it take a long time but could cause damages and has a high chance of potentially proving fatal,” Pixal explained. None of them liked the sounds of that.

“So then what do we do?” Jay wondered and Wu explained holding up a spell book he had found in the monasteries library, “we have already thought it out and we are not hopeless here. There is one thing we can try that will hopefully work. I found a spell that can shrink you to a size decent enough to enter his body and deal with these worms on their own field.” They were all unsure of this idea. They wanted to help and save their brother but some of them were uncomfortable with this idea and some worried it was dangerous.

“It should be fairly safe. It is not as if he will be active and moving around so you will not get hurt plus I have temporary shut down all systems so if you end up in them you will not get harmed at least not much. I have also quickly whipped up some masks with air tanks so you will be able to breathe as there will not be sufficient oxygen in most parts inside his body for you to get enough to breathe effectively for an alert and active state. They will also protect your face from any of the potentially dangerous substances in his body and provide sufficient light to help you see while in there,” Pixal added. Despite some nagging unease they decided to do it. Pixal got the attire for them that they would need. This included the masks she promised which looked like re-breathers which were hooked up to oxygen tanks plus had a light that was built into the forehead as there would be little to no light for them to see inside Zanes body without it. They put on the attire and awaited the spell.

“The workings of Zanes own body will interfere with the signals for communicators but I can work around this by routing their signal through Zanes systems so we can still keep in contact,” Pixal explained as the ninja lined up and waited for Wu to use the spell on them. It took only a few seconds and after being blinded by a bright light they found themselves shrunk to no bigger than a carpenter ant. Nya wasn’t too bothered and eager to get to the task, Cole was confused and feeling awkward with his small size but wasn’t bothered much either and ready to get started. Lloyd was eager to get to the task but uncomfortable with where they were going to have to go while Jay and Kai were unsettled and nervous of what they were about to do even though Kai was trying to pretend it wasn’t bothering them. Pixal gently picked them up and carried them over to place them gently in Zanes chest on the holder for his power source, his heart.

“Okay where is the first place we should check?” Lloyd wondered as they stood there he, Nya and Cole getting focussed and ready to head off looking around for any of these worms. Jay and Kai were looking around nervous and feeling a bit uncomfortable with being inside Zanes body. Pixal directed them to his left shoulder area. Some damages were starting to appear in the area where she could confirm one was located. Turning on the lights in their mask they quickly and cautiously made their way to the area navigating into and through Zanes body. Without fully functioning his body was cooler than it was supposed to be but it was still pretty warm so they weren’t too uncomfortable inside him at least from temperature. The ninja made their way through the small gap having to crouch a bit nearly crawling to fit between his skin and strange dark greenish colored structures that resembled muscles to reach his shoulder area. His skin was made of various metal plates fused into a more flexible synthetic skin like material to allow better movement and flexibility. The metal plates were like scales providing not only form but protection for the interior of his body. His synthetic skin bore structures that were hybrids of normal wires with a metallic synthetic material which acted like nerves running all through it. These structures operated to not only allowing him to get a sense of feeling and touch but to feel if pressures applied to areas could harm or damage makes under his skin. What resembled muscles were synthetic fibres that were just that a synthetic replica that acted and looked like muscles. These sat beneath the skin in most places with some sections like the area over his heart not having them over the area instead they were worked around the area. This was done so if major components needed to be worked on it was easier to access them. These muscle structures also ran through various internal parts of his body. All of the synthetic muscle like structures connected to his internal skeleton through special rectangular connectors. These muscle structures not only helped give his body form but helped moved his internal skeleton and therefore his body. They helped take pressure off his joints so they could move better, received less stress from movement and provided extra strength for his body both in support and physical strength. These also helped protect the more important internal structures and systems from damage particularly from impacts. They like his skin had the same wire like structures fused into them which helped transfer the communications for movement from his brain into the fibres and provide feeling for them to help prevent stressing them out. These wire structures were connected to wires that ran through small hollows in his titanium internal skeleton which largely replicated a human skeleton; there were some differences such as frames around ports for things like storage or hiding of often small foreign items and for connectors from devices and computers to be hooked up through in his chest and abdomen and the holder that held his heart in place and protected it. The wires in the bones then connected to his primary neural network which was housed and protected in his spine along with his brain. This method of wiring helped keep many vital wires protected from damage especially from other parts of his body that could accidently pinch or cut them from their normal functioning’s and movement.

As Pixal had stated most of his systems had been shut down so were not making noise but it wasn’t quiet in his body. To indicate its healthy alive state Zanes power source not only gave off a quite low hum but a slightly electric toned sound that mimicked a normal hearts beats. Outside his body the sound along with the many other sounds his body made when active and functioning normally generally couldn’t be heard unless you pressed your ear against his body near the sounds source. His synthetic muscles and skin helped dampen the sounds to keep his functioning quiet both for his hearing and others. The sound from his heart had Jay and Kai unsettled. The others found it a bit unnerving but were pleased to hear it. The sound meant he was still alive and that his heart was okay. Zane’s power source was unique; none of them had a clue what exactly it was though in their investigations of it Jay and Nya found several very rare materials it could be but they weren’t sure which it best matched with. All they knew was outside Zane, Pixal who shared half the material from Zanes heart and a few other droids they had come across through their travels were the only ones to have and use this substance and Zanes father had never told them what it was or how he came to get it. They were guessing he wanted to keep the source secret and they felt that was probably a good thing. Whatever it was this material was very powerful able to not only give life to those of artificial make functioning like a battery for the energy that gave them life but had the potential to give great power under the right circumstances. When used as the power source for a droid it could give a long lifespan as long of course if it was taken care of properly such as not letting energy outputs get too low which was why Zane and others who shared his style of power source had a specially designed digestive system which could convert matter into an energy format their hearts could use and store. While this power source didn’t have the dangers of highly corrosive acid like a typical battery it had the great risk of exploding if overworked or overloaded by something like Jays powers. Because of this and not wanting to get electrocuted as well as Zanes body was very conductive they all agreed that Jay should refrain from using his powers while they were inside Zane. They didn’t want to do anything that could hurt his power source; while not entirely sure both Nya and Jay who understood Zanes anatomy best as they frequently worked on him and Pixal in order to keep them healthy were pretty sure if his power source stopped working for whatever reason it would not start again and without it they would lose Zane. They defiantly didn’t want that.

When they got to the area of his left shoulder they could see some of the damages Pixal talked about but none of them could see one of these worms. The synthetic muscle that attached from the replica collarbone to a prong on the replica of an upper arm bone to help pull his arm up had been de-attached from the upper arm. They inspected the site.

“This doesn’t look too badly damaged. Some minor cuts to the synthetic fibres but some synthetic re-grow should fix it,” Nya noted and Kai wondered, “is that what that weird sickly yellow green liquid stuff I’ve seen you and Jay use while working on him is?”

“Yha, you should always use gloves when working with it cause if you get it on your skin it really burns; it makes synthetics re-grow while it de-grows organics,” Jay noted and Cole commented, “yha I can attest to that. I mistook it for peroxide once and boy was that a mistake. Made the cut worse and gave me blood poisoning. That was an unpleasant week. To be fare it was in the same bottle as the peroxide… I guess I should have read the label though before using it.”

“And that’s why we now keep the first aid equipment for Zane and Pixal in separate different looking containers and we don’t keep them in the bathroom with our first aid supplies,” Nya commented before Lloyd wondered, “what does that stuff do exactly?”

“Basically it makes synthetics re-grow and repair themselves. Unlike our fleshy makes the materials that make up Zane and Pixals make generally cannot repair themselves without an external aid. Only components of their digestive tracts can do that but that’s because those parts are made from tougher more complex self repairing synthetics unlike everything else which lack that ability. That’s where that stuff comes in. It’s a bit dangerous to work with and takes a few hours to complete its work but is much cheaper, just as efficient and I’m pretty sure Pixal and Zane prefer that method over other methods especially just removing and replacing parts. Unless something gets too badly damaged we use that method to fix things for them,” Nya explained and Cole commented while they continued to inspect the site, “yha I’m probably with them. I don’t know about you but it probably isn’t a nice feeling to just have a part of your body removed and thrown away if some things wrong with it. Like that was a part of you, part of your being and it just gets thrown away like some piece of trash. Sure it was damaged but it was still part of you part of what made you well you. Having that done probably would make you feel disposable; like your being means nothing like your life is almost meaningless and fake if someone does that. I know that’s how I would feel having something like that done.” They all looked at Cole a little taken back by his rather morbid comment.

“Yha I could see how that would really bother them; that’s not something pleasant to think about,” Kai agreed and Jay stated, “by the looks the only damage done here is to the fibres. Everything else is fine.”

“Any sign of one of these worms?” Lloyd wondered and Nya commented, “no. It’s not here now but it couldn’t have gone far. Since these muscle structures pass through the framework his arm attaches too in order to connect his arm to his body and they’ve clearly been pulled out to allow access to his arm I think it might have made its way into his arm.” Lloyd then decided looking at the space the muscle usually went through in the frame around the shoulder joint to connect to Zanes arm, “so I’m guessing then we’re going to have to make our way into his arm; looks like we’re just the right size to get through.”

“You know it always kind of confused and unsettled me that he could remove his limbs; why can he remove his limbs?” Kai wondered and Nya explained, “while it can prove useful if his limb gets caught or trapped it’s actually supposed to be in case the limb gets too badly damaged so it can be removed and replaced with little complication for the rest of his body.” Just as she finished speaking Cole who was behind the rest of them found himself suddenly body slammed by the worm they were looking for into the underside of Zanes skin which was much more rigid and solid than flesh skin so barely moved from the impact which stunned and winded Cole. As the worm pulled back Cole dropped onto the synthetic muscle trying to catch his breath and recover while the worm went after the others.

“Did this thing make a trap?” Kai exclaimed as they prepped themselves for combat. The worm came at them trying to grab them with the plier structures that made a sort of mouth. They all knew if it got them with those it would crush them so they were being very careful not to let this thing get close to grabbing them.

“Well this thing is a machine not an actual worm so that is a possibility,” Jay commented dodging as it went to pinch him. Kai hit it with a blast of fire to distract it and see if his fire could damage the synthetic coating over its inner mechanics so they could more easily get to the interior workings to damage them. He was surprised to find the large blast he went to use came out as a pathetic small fireball. It caught the worms attention but did no damage.

“That was not what I was trying to do, that was pathetic! Why are my powers so weak!” Kai exclaimed before dodging as the worm went to pinch him. They didn’t have much space to move about not even able to fully stand between Zanes skin and inner workings making it hard for them to fight the machine which was bigger than them giving them even less space to manoeuvre. Being bigger than them it was much stronger and with its tubular worm design was very agile and flexible. As it simply wiggled about it was knocking them back and off balance as they struggled to work around it in the little space they had.

“It is likely because of our small size,” Nya noted as the worm managed to knock Lloyd onto his back. It went to pinch him but Cole after having regained his breath and senses managed to save him by shoving the head of his warhammer between the pinchers preventing it from closing them on him. It struggled to remove Coles warhammer from its pinchers while Cole was trying to keep his weapon wedged in the pinchers along with trying to break one of the pinchers arms off to keep it from being able to use the apparatus to crush them. Lloyd got up and went to stab his sword into what he was hoping was the machines brain to stop it but it knocked him aside before managing to unbalance and knock aside Cole. It dropped his warhammer then surprised them by jutting out a short dagger like blade from its head the blade coming out from below the base of the pinchers in its head. It then proceeded to try and stab at Cole and Lloyd with the blade while they dodged its attacks. In the process the worm left some more damage to Zanes synthetic muscle fibres.

“Careful we don’t want to cause more damage to Zane,” Nya proclaimed and Lloyd chastised back dodging the blade, “try to not cause Zane more damage, I’m trying to not get damaged!” Nya quickly rushed in to shove her trident into the machines blade getting it caught on her weapon and letting her hold its head back a bit to pin it against the underside of Zanes skin to hold it still. Cole came to help her using his warhammer to help pin its head while Kai wasted no time in rushing in to stab it in what he was believing to be its power source a reddish glowing spot on the underside of its body a few segments in its metal interior skeleton behind its head which also bore a glowing spot which they assumed was where its brain and sensory systems were. It took some effort and Jay had to lend some strength to get the sword as deep as possible into the machines body; with their small size this machine was harder to cut into than if they were a normal size. Once they got the sword stabbed as deep as possible the worm stopped and the glows in its body vanished. They took a moment to relax startled with this machine which was a lot tougher especially for their shrunken size than they expected.

“This is going to be tougher than we first thought!” Lloyd expressed and Jay was quick to comment, “that thing was scarier than I thought it would be!”

“Well we at least got it destroyed. That leaves only three more to go,” Nya noted as they relaxed and got ready to head off and get one of these other worms. After a moment to settle some of them mainly Kai and Lloyd yet strangely not Jay were still rather unsettled but not bothered and eager to get going to save her friend Nya contacted Pixal to state, “the one in his shoulder has been dealt with. There is some damages to the muscle and it will need to be reattached but it doesn’t look to bad. What’s the next one we should go after?”

“I am picking up one in his chest on the right side close to his right lung,” Pixal advised them through the communicators before stating, “don’t worry about damages I will remove the worms and repair damages once you have taken the worms out.” They then made their way cautiously towards the right side of his chest keeping an eye out for the rest of these worms. Now that they knew what they looked like in there they knew what to look for. When they got to the area they found one of the synthetic muscles had been disconnected and moved back so something could move deeper into his body slipping between two ribs to reach deeper.

“Think it has gone deeper or could this be a trap?” Kai wondered and after some inspection Nya stated, “looks like it has gone deeper. We’re going to have to follow to get it.” Some of them were not happy with that thought.

“Are you sure?” Kai insisted; he was finding it very uncomfortable just being under Zanes skin he was pretty sure he didn’t want to see deeper in his anatomy. He was fine not knowing about what was in Zanes body and hoped to not see much of it. He didn’t need to see or know about all the gross things that were in or happened in his pal. He wasn’t the only one. Lloyd was unnerved too but trying to keep focussed on the task at hand.

“We’re pretty sure, hopefully it hasn’t gone too deep, there are places in him I defiantly don’t want to end up in,” Jay commented before he and Nya didn’t hesitate to follow the trail deeper into Zanes body. Cole didn’t hesitate to follow leaving Lloyd and Kai as the last to follow both a bit hesitant to go deeper into Zanes body. The worm had pushed things aside making a path leading deeper into his body. Behind his internal skeleton were some wires connecting to various synthetic organs and various pieces of machinery for things like minor processors for organs and organ like structures to store materials used in and by his synthetic organs that they had to carefully navigate through and around not wanting to disrupt or damage anything. Along with the wires there were various transparent tube like structures which held a light bluish liquid in them that stretched through several places and moved out towards limbs and other parts of Zanes body almost like veins.

“Uhm what is this stuff?” Kai wondered poking one of the tubes grossed out a bit and Cole commented, “it kind of looks like that stuff you see in ice packs.”

“It’s kind of like that stuff. It’s his cooling fluid, it’s what Zane uses to keep his body temperature stable and fairly uniform through his body,” Nya explained and Jay commented, “that stuff is the closest thing Zane has to blood.”

“If it’s supposed to keep him cool then why is it warm?” Kai wondered and Nya explained, “well for one his systems have been shut down for several hours while Pixals been working on him so the fluid has just been sitting warming up absorbing the heat from his body also while we call it cooling fluid it’s actually a thermoregulation fluid. It’s just easier and simpler to call it cooling fluid. It can be both warm and cold. When the fluid comes out of the systems central hub a larger pump like structure which sits in an insulated casing to prevent its workings from affecting the rest of his body near his bodies’ core it usually is fairly cool. There is a small compressor in the structure that cools the temperature of the fluid. The structure then slowly pumps the fluid through the rest of his body where it transfers the cooler temperature out and absorbs the heat from his bodies core where it then transports the heat out to his extremities. This helps cool his body and warm up the less insulated parts of his body that lack major system functions like processors which produce heat. It both helps cool his body and keep his overall temperature stable around the same as our temperatures. Many of the materials in his body both synthetics and mechanical don’t handle extremes in temperature well especially if they rapidly arise. Too much heat and circuits will start to fry, wires will get damaged and synthetics will receive heat damage like burns and even melt damage. He can handle the cold better but still too much cold makes wires brittle, various components become stiff making movement difficult and extreme cold can mess with sensors giving them false readings and numb feelings which can cause him to hurt himself.” Jay then added, “Yha after his stint as the Ice Emperor we had to fix quite a few things that got damaged from the cold that had gripped him in that time. Also a lot of systems including his digestive system had been running super low so were slow so produced little heat to compensate for the cooling; at least the cooling part to his cooling system was shut off the whole time but without the heat normally produced by his body not much heat was being transferred around so it made things worse preventing many areas from receiving heat to combat the overpowered state of his powers. With how slow everything was working he wasn’t using as much energy as usual, he was spending a lot of his time in this strange light sleep state like a cat and with how slow his body was working it was like he had the metabolism of a reptile. Using his synthetic muscles at those temperatures in that state especially for activities like fighting caused tears and damages in them and most of his systems needed some serious maintenance. Some parts kept seizing up because of low use and cold damage. Not all of it was from the cold though quite a bit also came from lack of maintenance. His stint as the Ice Emperor also really messed with a lot of systems. They didn’t fully shut down during that time but were working much slower than they should. The cold that gripped him was pretty intense; his heart was slower and functioning largely only at half its potential, the cold had also caused ice to build up in various fluids through his body even his cooling fluid and stomach acids. Luckily those melted when his body started to warm up so weren’t a problem unlike some of the ice that had built up in some joints and on other components. We had to pull the remaining ice out and dry off parts to avoid shorts and problems. Not to mention we ended up pulling out a lot of weird items out of his digestive tract. That guy Vex who was manipulating him seemed to think he could just be given anything to eat. Luckily because of how the cold was affecting him he was only eating about two to three times a week preventing some of the non editable items he was given from building up and causing problems in his system.”

“So this is how Zane keeps from overheating; I always wondered about that. I know from my laptop when just playing a video game it can get hot even with its fan going full blast and Zanes body obviously does more functioning and is more active than my computer all the time and he’s told me he doesn’t use fans to cool himself so I’ve always been confused by that. I thought it was his powers helping him but then that doesn’t explain how Pixal or other droids do it,” Cole rambled inspecting the tubes being careful not to damage them and Nya explained, “yha fans are not efficient enough to maintain a safe and stable temperature for a droid and are also too noisy for them; it would interfere with their sense of hearing. This method is the much better option. It isn’t perfect though since certain temperatures can still get too much for him and his cooling system can take a great deal of energy especially when it’s really hot to function which is made worse as the processors and other mechanics operating the cooling system also produces heat kind of taking down how effective the system works. If Zane or Pixal can’t efficiently cool themselves they have to shut down systems, I’ve even caught them eating ice and using cool to cold showers in order to help cool themselves. If these don’t help they’ll pass out offline for a while to prevent from serious overheating to prevent damages which can be real dangerous if they’re not in a safe place.”

“Is that why during heat waves like that one a few weeks ago the two were often hanging out in the walk in cool storage room in the basement for a while for several hours every day largely around noon? It was creepy to find the two just hanging in there when you went to get a drink. I guess it’s not as creepy though as finding Zane resting in the fridge,” Kai wondered and Cole replied, “yha, it helped them keep cool during the hottest part of the day and didn’t task them a lot of energy to help keep cool. I asked them about it and yha I’d have to agree it was rather relaxing and it isn’t too cold in there. It’s not full fridge cold but defiantly cool enough to keep drinks and yourself cool despite the heat outside.”

“Yha that’s why and yha it was creepy to find them hanging in there but it was creepier to find you in there too,” Jay commented to Cole who responded, “hey it was hot I went to get a drink and found them in there and when they told me what they were doing I decided to give it a go too. They said it was safe and could help; they weren’t lying.”

“Maybe for you it wasn’t bad but I find it a bit chilly in that room,” Kai commented and Nya noted, “that’s because as the master of fire you handle the heat better than the rest of us. Heats more dangerous for Zane and Pixal than the cold; they can better handle and counter cold temperatures than hot ones though not too cold of temperatures. Zane better handles the cold than Pixal; I think his powers are the reason for that but even then it is not too much better. If they get too cold they can shut down the cooling function of their temperature control system in order to help warm up along with using attire and blankets like us to help trap in body heat and keep warm. While he has a higher tolerance to the cold than the rest of us and with being the master of ice Zane still has limits with it and he can be hurt by too cold of temperatures just like the rest of us.”

“Imagine being able to shut down parts of your body when you don’t need to use them, I’m betting that would be a bit cool,” Cole commented and Jay replied, “yha it sounds cool but it isn’t as cool as it sounds. Some like his cooling system he can shut down with little problem but others take some work to prevent complications like his digestive system. If he wants to shut that system down for more than a day or two he has to fully empty it to prevent anything from rotting inside him and the system has to neutralize and absorb and store the materials and chemicals it uses in the storage structures for them to prevent damages. That can take a day or two to do. Not to mention he can’t leave systems off for too long. They serve purposes often major and necessary ones so it can hurt him if their off for too long plus he might have trouble getting them started again if they have been off for too long, like a year too long. It took quite a bit of work to get the cooling function to his cooling system started back up after it had been off for so long as the Ice Emperor. To prevent problems it’s best we don’t let him have his systems off for more than a few days.”

“That’s gross and more than I needed to know,” Kai expressed and Cole regaled, “yha I’d agree for not letting him go more than a few days with things shut down especially when it revolves around eating. When we were trapped in the first realm because we didn’t have many rations he decided to not have any so there would be more for the rest of us. It was okay for a day but by the second day he started getting short tempered and moody. It got worse on the third day and by the fourth he wasn’t just temperamental but started passing out at random during the day often in not ideal or safe locations. We forced him to eat and by the next day he started getting back to his normal self. We made sure he ate with the rest of us the rest of the time to keep him from getting like that again.”

“Yha that was because he was putting a lot of stress on his power source; he was not only functioning more than usual with the rest of us just to survive but because of how hot it was getting in the day there with hardly anywhere to shelter from the heat he had his cooling system on and functioning a lot higher than usual to try to keep from overheating. It was all taking quite a bit of power and since he wasn’t doing anything to restore the energy being taken from it he was stressing his heart. To prevent being overworked he was passing out when his heart got too stressed. It’s a safety feature I wisely turned on the first day when he decided to go without eating; I knew it was a good idea to do so. Sleeping helps him conserve energy and stabilize the power outputs from his heart along with letting his brain rest so it doesn’t get bogged down or overworked plus he can run things like defrags, system updates, restores and reboots and stuff like that without interfering with normal daily functioning’s when he sleeps sometimes. Sleeping can also help him cool down since he’s not functioning as highly when awake. To stay in peak condition he has to sleep for a couple hours a day like we do. Having low energy and trying to function at such high levels during that time in the first realm was making it like he was hangry and tired angry, tire-gry, at the same time making him incredibly moody. I don’t think many of his systems including his emotional circuits handle low energy conditions well,” Jay explained.

“Yha I thought Cole was bad when hangry or tired, when Zane’s in those equivalent states he can be much worse. Then again when he gets in certain states he can be much worse than the rest of us… personally I think the worst is to make him mad. I’ve learned too many times not to do that,” Kai noted and Jay agreed, “yha especially don’t make him do your chores when he’s tired or you’ve tricked him too many times in a short period of time into doing them… that doesn’t end well.”

“Despite what many think Zanes power source is limited. His heart has a decent lifespan of about 200 to 300 years or so but only if he takes proper care of it. It can be depleted including to the point that it would kill him which is real bad. If his heart gets to that state it will burn out and be unable to be recharged or reused. Luckily its energy can also be replenished to counter this keeping it powered, stable and healthy,” Nya explained and Jay added, “the best way for him to do that is through his digestive system. I tried with my powers once to help give him some energy and that nearly led to the opposite risk his heart has. It was nearly overloaded and exploded! Not to mention it didn’t really restore any energy for his heart and just stressed it out.” Confused Kai wondered aloud, “but doesn’t his heart use electricity as its energy?”

“Yha but electricity isn’t all the same. The difference is the volts in its current that’s why you have to use an adapter when charging your phone or laptop. If you just plugged them into an outlet without an adapter you would damage your battery and it wouldn’t really charge it properly. Pure raw electricity is dangerous for Zanes power source that’s why when we do hook him up to a computer or anything that could transfer electricity to him the connectors we use have adapters built into them that way they don’t cause any stress to his heart. That is also why Lloyds powers are safer to help Zane than Jays. As pure energy his can deliver a much lower and gentler form of electricity that doesn’t easily hurt or overwhelm Zanes heart. Since he only has half the material from his original heart it’s more sensitive to being overworked and overloaded. Luckily his new bodies’ digestive system is more efficient at producing energy than his old body so it really helps keep his heart stable and healthy,” Nya explained and Kai wondered, “given the effects it has on him do you think Zane ever regrets giving up half his heart?”

“Are you kidding, you just see him and Pixal hanging together and you know he doesn’t regret it. Not only that he would do it again no matter how much it affects him,” Cole replied and as they continued on the trail Kai stated, “yha there’s no denying that. Those two were meant for each other... hey if this cooling stuff is supposed to warm up his extremities like his hands then why are they often cold; like sometimes icy cold?”

“I’d say his powers but then why are his hands sometimes warm?” Cole commented and Nya noted, “yha that is odd. I’m not sure why that is, it could be his powers. Maybe they sometimes override the heating? He is able to use his powers to cool his skin and when combined with his metal skin can block his internal temperature from being recognised by thermal sensors. It could be this ability malfunctioning causing that. I do tend to notice his hands are warmest when he’s been active or using them a lot they’re also warm when he’s calm and relaxed. At the same time along with when he’s using his powers his hands are coldest when he expresses certain emotions particularly if he is mad so maybe his activity levels and emotions play a role in that? He can also make the place a bit chilly when he’s mad and if he’s scared, sad or upset enough he can lose a bit of control to his powers so I think his emotions can sometimes influence his powers causing his hands to be cold.”

“I’d agree with that and he’s not the only one. I think it’s the same for all of us. Our powers sometimes are influenced by our emotions. Just look at Kai when he’s mad. Not only does he make the room hot he can sometimes have fire burst up on him,” Jay commented with a chuckle and Kai countered with, “how about when you get all super scared; you become a super static magnet. You shock everything you try to touch.” Cole agreed, “yha that’s very unpleasant. At least he doesn’t make light bulbs explode when he gets real mad like Lloyd sometimes can.”

“I don’t mean to do that besides it’s not too bad; Jay can blow circuits when he touches certain electronics like light switches when he’s mad or super scared. Let’s not forget Nya’s affects on the plumbing when she’s real mad not to mention Kais not the only one to make things hot when he’s mad Cole can too. He can also damage things with his super strength if he’s not careful. When Zane’s mad not only can he make the room cold but he can freeze most liquids nearby which isn’t pleasant when he freezes your drink, the toilets or even worse the shower especially when you’re in it,” Lloyd commented as they ended up coming up to some sort of synthetic structure that was a pale pinkish in color with wiring and circuits visible in the synthetic material. After a quick thought of how far they had moved and the structures appearance Nya and Jay confirmed the structure was one of Zanes lungs.

“You should recognise these structures brother, you had to help replace parts from them remember that?” Nya regaled and Kai stated, “yha don’t remind me; it was uncomfortable seeing and working on his insides. I never meant to hurt him, it was an accident. I didn’t realise he was there when I made that fire storm. I was just cutting off the bad guys so they couldn’t escape I didn’t mean for him to end up breathing in incredibly hot burning embers. To be fair Zanes disguise was really good, a little too good I didn’t know he was there.”

“How hot did you make that fire? It melted many of the sensors in his lungs and damaged most of the rest plus some of its tissues. We had to replace the whole things! Zane just wanted to repair what was there but it was all too badly damaged,” Jay explained and Kai noted, “I helped out with the cost and work in the repairs to show I was sorry. I prefer not knowing what his insides are like but I felt so bad especially since he spent a week in pain, with off sounding and weird breathing and frequently coughing from what I did. It was so sad, like seeing a sick kitten or puppy. He can shut off systems so why did he keep his breathing going if it was causing him such problems? It was to make me feel bad wasn’t it?”

“No more like the opposite. He didn’t want to unnerve anyone. He knows when he doesn’t breathe it unsettles some of us especially you and Jay…” Nya began and Kai commented, “there is just something unsettling seeing someone who’s living and so human like not breathing…” Nya continued, “yha that plus when he had his breathing off so he could get some sleep Lloyd had a bit of a panic thinking he was dead when he went to check on him so Zane kept them active to not scare or worry anyone despite the problems they were giving him.”

“Hey he was unnervingly still, he’s normally a restless sleeper so that wasn’t normal plus he wasn’t responding to me when I tried to wake him, that’s usually not a good sign. I was worried,” Lloyd commented as they inspected the area for the worm or signs of where it had gone. The only thing they could see was a rip in the side of his synthetic lung just large enough for one of these worms to pass through.

“He wasn’t responding because he was in a deep sleep being very tired from the days events and from having trouble getting to sleep because of the damages to his lungs. He didn’t want to be disturbed so set his body to basically a sort of do not disturb mode so he could get some sleep,” Nya regaled and Cole commented, “Yha cause Jay has a rude habit of disturbing others while they’re trying to sleep.” Jay added while they inspected the tear in Zanes lung, “I’d say sorry but there is no need for anyone to be sleeping till noon; sure I sleep in late but I’ve rarely gone that late besides it’s not fun having to wake any of the rest of you up. You can all be rather rude. You’ve punched me, thrown me across the room, thrown stuff at me, hit me with blasts of fire ice dirt water or energy not to mention set my clothes on fire, freeze me from the waist down to the floor, sent the chicken after me do I need to go on?”

“I think I’m with everyone when I say when you’re sleeping it’s not pleasant to be awoken especially by your loud babbling and frantic shaking when you do it. Maybe we should wake you up in the same way,” Cole expressed and Jay commented, “hey what I do is not as annoying as some of you. Flipping my bed on its side, dragging me out of bed, making an earthquake, freezing my room, playing pranks on me like lighting off those little loud firecrackers in a metal bucket oh and how could I forget the time you dragged my bed outside and left me in the courtyard… during a rain storm! Again do I need to go on?”

“Hey sometimes you deserve it besides your reaction to some of those methods is hilarious anyway change of subject why is his lungs different colored from his synthetic muscles?” Cole wondered and Jay noted, “really you can tell it’s a different color.”

“What do you mean by that?” Cole wondered and Lloyd noted, “you have a tendency to mis-describe colors or not recognise them properly.” Jay added, “yha did you ever take that test we suggested you to?”

“I did,” Cole commented uneasy about talking about this and Jay wondered, “and what answer did you get?” Cole took a moment to respond.

“I have something called due-ter something. I forget the name it just means I can’t really tell the difference between red and green very well,” Cole noted and Jay commented while Lloyd cautiously approached the tear to look into it, “that explains some things like often mixing up Lloyd and Kais clothes or not following our instructions in video games like hit the red button and not the green.”

“Can we not make fun of my problems,” Cole commented annoyed by Jay who replied while Lloyd looked into the tear, “I’m not making fun just surprised you could tell his lung is a different color. As for why it is like that it’s to help differentiate the various components of his anatomy that way when you’re working on him you know which parts are for what system. You don’t want to accidently hook the wrong things up to each other. That really won’t help him and could cause problems.” Lloyd couldn’t see anything; it was too dark. He wasn’t wanting to venture deeper to get a better look unnerved by the dark and the fact the tear led to inside one of Zanes organs but as he tried to back up so someone else could take a more thorough look into the structure he was knocked off balance by Kai who unnerved by where he was wasn’t watching where he was going bumped into him. Lloyd tried to catch his balance but fell through the tear. The next thing he knew he fell a few steps down landing face down on a slightly elastic surface. The others quickly rushed over to the tear to get a look at what happened.

“I’m fine just watch your step,” Lloyd commented as he got on his knees and looked around. The others cautiously made their way to him Kai commenting nervous and trying to hide his feelings, “great we’re in his lung aren’t we? I was really hoping we wouldn’t end up in any of his organs.”

“Trust me this is probably the nicest and safest place you could end up in his body. Not much can hurt us in here. Trust me there is way worse places in Zanes body to end up in,” Jay commented and Kai quickly noted, “please don’t tell me I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know about them.” Compared to what they had been dealing with so far with relatively cramped conditions Zanes lungs were quite spacious and they were able to fully stand up. The place looked to be no more than an elastic synthetic made sack that in its resting state as it currently was it was only about a half its potential volume but it was still more spacious than what they had been dealing with. Cole was pleased with the space.

“Finally my legs were starting to cramp up,” he commented and looking around a bit grossed out and uncomfortable Kai stated, “I guess it isn’t too bad in here… you know I always found it weird and a bit unsettling he could breath. Like he doesn’t need oxygen so why does he need lungs?”

“Well you probably won’t notice much because anything to do with biology grosses and unnerves you…” Nya began before Jay cut her off to tease, “yha it does. You should have seen how red his face went when Wu sent us to have some health care classes when we were younger at a community college; you were in the girls class so you didn’t get to see but it went redder than his shirt or how about the that Day of the Departed and Zane read to us some of those horror stories by that guy who wrote that creepy poem on a raven and the really gross ones had you sick and nearly throwing up just to hear them. We also all remember that time we went fishing and Zane showed us how to properly gut and de-scale a fish for dinner. He just started cutting into it and you passed out.”

“As I told you then it wasn’t from the fish; I was feeling lightheaded from low blood sugar that day and who thought it was funny to put those fish in my arms and make me hug them? That was a very unpleasant smell to wake up to not to mention it took three washes to get the smell off my clothes,” Kai defended himself and Jay stated, “that was Coles idea and it wasn’t blood sugars you fainted from it was seeing the fishes guts!”

“Well Zane didn’t help by explaining a bit about the fishes anatomy and showing us the guts while gutting it. Does he know he doesn’t need to turn things into a teaching lesson just because we don’t know about it? I’m fine not knowing about the guts of things; I don’t have to know about what all the slimy and grossness I’m pulling out of it is… didn’t help he fed the guts to some seagulls who made a mess with them. I don’t know what was grosser the fact he fed them the guts or that they fought over them like they were candies,” Kai commented getting nervous and Jay continued to tease, “Zanes got a lot of knowledge and likes to share it even if it’s gross or others don’t care to learn anything also he likes birds and he didn’t want to let the fish guts go to waste so gave them the guts. As for the gulls yha they were gross but I’ve seen them eat grosser things out of the garbage including the maggots and bugs eating the garbage; fish guts are probably the least gross thing they eat. They’re just full out gross on their own…”

“It was funny how the one pooped on you and you acted like you were being attacked,” Cole cut in to joke at Jay who responded, “hey it came suddenly was hot and was super gross! Besides I think that bird was aiming for me, it laughed at me! Despite what Zane says that noise it was giving wasn’t just its call. I know a laugh when I hear it and it was laughing. It was amused with what it had done. That aside it was the biology that got you that day Kai we all know it. I also remember the time we helped out for the harvest dinner; Cole cut his hand opening a can and you threw up when you saw the blood. Or how about the time you got a splinter and Nya had to pull it out because you were too nervous to do it yourself? She hadn’t even started and not only could you not look at it but you passed out as she pulled it out.”

“We get it Jay Kai has a nervous disposition when it comes to biology especially injuries and guts now can you stop before he passes out. If he does you’ll have to carry him around,” Lloyd commented noting Kai was starting to look pale and unsteadying from the talk of injuries. Not wanting to have to carry anyone Jay stated, “fine, I just think it funny how Mr. Macho can be knocked out just by seeing some fishes guts.”

“As I was saying before I was interrupted Zanes lungs are pretty simple compared to those of flesh like us. They’re pretty much just a simple elastic sack and lack all the features for acquiring oxygen like us. That doesn’t mean he has no use for them though. Along with helping look like he is alive and like any other person they allow him to be able to administer resuscitation to others if they need it plus the walls in here are lined with various sensors that help identify various chemicals and other potential hazards in the air including things that are dangerous for the rest of us. That’s how he is able to warn us of potential dangers like toxic gasses so we can avoid them,” Nya explained and Jay added, “yha he’s like a canary in a coal mine. Except he doesn’t keel over from toxic gasses, he will pass out though from gases that will put you to sleep. Also things you drink or eat that will put you asleep too; that can be useful like when he decides to chastise you about trying to push your chores off onto him or when you don’t do your chores. Just slip him a sleeping potion mixed into something so he isn’t suspicious and you’re free; well until the potion wears off that is.”

“Yha how does that ability work exactly? It always confused me. He doesn’t have the anatomy to be affected by them so why does he react like he is affected?” Cole wondered and Nya explained as they looked around for one of these worms, “that’s to do with part of his programming that helps him fit in with people. As long as no one is in danger and he’s safe when his sensors pick up the presence of the chemicals that would knock us out they activate a programming that makes him react in the same way as we would and force him to sleep. If he does at any point feel in danger however he can override this programming to prevent being affected. For the longest time though he didn’t realise he could do that so had no control over that ability and always fell to the effects of things. Pixal had to show him he could do it and how to do it. He’s gotten better at controlling it but still doesn’t have full control so sometimes still can’t fight the effects. He has similar sensors in his digestive system as are in his lungs that do the same thing.”

“That will explain that one night Wu wanted me to lace a drink to give to Jay with a sleeping potion since he had been up all weekend playing video games in order to make him finally go to sleep. I accidently messed up and laced the drink I gave to Zane to not make things suspicious with the potion instead. I couldn’t wake him after he passed out… I thought my drink had done something bad to him,” Cole regaled and Jay commented, “obviously he felt safe and didn’t see the need to fight the effects then that’s why he didn’t wake up. As I told you then he’d be fine and he was wasn’t he?”

“Yha but you could have explained what was going on instead of joking about my cooking skills. You left me worried that I’d seriously messed up and hurt him again,” Cole commented. Lloyd then regaled, “yha I remember another time you Jay and Kai stayed up all weekend playing video games and seeing who could last the longest without falling asleep. We’re ninja we need to be ready to go at any time and being tired and cranky because you stayed up with no sleep for a few days isn’t going to be helpful. I set a trap in the walk in cool storage room so it would lock you in and flood with a sleeping gas. When it triggered I thought I had caught one of you. Instead I ended up catching Zane! He’d come to restock the fridge since I had taken all the drinks out to lure you three into the room. I put him in his bed to sleep it off and luckily he wasn’t mad later when he woke up from my trap and was very understanding; I’d hate to have made him mad. He’s quite scary when he’s mad. Unfortunately my trap only worked on Cole after I hid his cake he had hidden in the back of the fridge down there.”

“Yha that was a dirty trick you played; you made me drop my cake on the floor! Not to mention I lost the bet, I had to do some of Jays chores for a month! Kai only had to do some for two weeks,” Cole commented and Jay added, “even without Lloyds trap I knew you two couldn’t beat me. I’m like a supped up battery, I’ve got plenty of energy to burn. Just some caffeine and candy and I can go for hours. You know it was gross you still ate that cake after it had touched the floor.”

“Hey it’s cake I’m not letting that stuff go to waste!” Cole remarked before still very on edge from where he was and the gross talk earlier Kai interrupted to decree, “can we please find this thing and get out of here? This whole situation is really bothering me!”

“It’s a bit weird and uncomfortable yha besides it’s probably best we deal with these machines before they can cause too much damage,” Lloyd agreed. The spacious area they were in was making it a bit hard to see, their lights didn’t reach very far. Getting an idea Cole wondered aloud, “some of those worms inner workings give off a glow right? Do you think if we turn off our lights we could better see it?”

“Maybe,” Nya commented and Lloyd offered, “we could give it a go.” They turned off their lights Kai being the last nervous and uncomfortable with being in the dark while inside one of Zanes organs. Without a source of light it was pitch black in there. At first they couldn’t see anything but as their eyes adjusted to the dark Lloyd noted a faint reddish glow not too far away.

“I think it’s over there,” Lloyd commented and Kai commented having covered his eyes not wanting to see anything that would make him even more uncomfortable, “where?”

“There,” Lloyd stated tossing a ball of energy at the spot he was seeing the glow. It lit up the area and revealed the robotic worm which had been lying low trying to avoid being caught. Seeing where it was they turned their lights back on to confront it. The worm wasted no time in coming at them. It went straight for Lloyd who dodged as it shot out the blade in its head to stab at him. With a well placed stab and twist motion to the underside of the head at the base of the mouthparts with her trident Nya disabled the apparatus that controlled the pinchers and blade preventing it from retracting the blade and from being able to crush them with its pinchers. While disabled it wasn’t out and in retaliation whipped its head and knocked Nya aside. It then went after Jay who swung his nunchucks to wrap around the blade in an attempt to break off the blade in order to prevent it from hurting anyone. His nunchucks did get wrapped around the blade however instead of braking the blade the worm reared up and tossed its head around flinging Jay away. He landed a few feet away his nunchucks following shortly after to smack him in the chest and wind him. Cole took a couple hits at the worms body hoping to damage it.

“Damn this thing is much stronger built than I thought it was,” Cole noted and Nya hypothesized, “the synthetic skin covering it might be absorbing the impacts and protecting its vital workings.”

“We’ll either have to hit it harder or get through its skin in order to really damage it,” Jay explained having caught his breath and getting up. Kai took a swipe at it trying to cut open the skin to give them an easy access but the worm pulled back so his cut didn’t go too deep. Compared to their fight with the worm before despite having more space to move about this one was proving tougher as the worm also had more space to move about allowing it to dodge their attacks with ease and toss them about with little effort.

“Do you think if I shocked it that would make it easier to defeat this thing?” Jay wondered and the others were quick to say no together. Nya then explained, “because his body is made with a great deal of metal Zanes body is highly conductive and has a high chance of attracting your powers which because we’re in him would shock us as well.”

“Yha and with how small we are I don’t think we’ll fare too well to that,” Cole commented hitting the worm in the head knocking it over and both Kai and Lloyd took some swipes at it to cut it open managing to put some serious cuts in its synthetic skin but it quickly moved away to prevent them from getting a chance to reach its inner works.

“We’re just going to do this the old fashioned way, the way of hacking and slashing,” Kai commented as they worked together to put the worm in a state where it would be easy to deliver the final blow. With their blunt weapons Cole and Jay kept hitting its head to daze it so it was slower and took longer to sense what the others were doing. Lloyd, Nya and Kai were trying to stab it in either the head or the power source a few segments behind the head. Eventually Lloyd managed to deliver the final blow getting up on its back and shoving his sword into its head Cole helping him push it deep enough to pierce through its metal interior skeleton into its power source stopping it.

“Two down two to go,” Jay commented before Kai commented, “okay now can we get out of here?” After a moment to relax Nya asked through the communicators, “we got another down. It’s in his right lung; there are some minor damages and a tear you’ll need to fix but not much else. Where are the remaining two hidden?”

“Ones still in his chest by his neck the other I am having trouble locating,” Pixal stated and Cole stated, “don’t worry we’ll find it.” They made their way out of Zanes lung and back the way they came to under his skin.

“Great cramped conditions again,” Cole commented and Lloyd wondered as they crawled out from the pulled back muscle they had passed to follow the second worm, “what do you think that worm is doing by his neck?”

“Chances are probably trying to speed up their task by cutting the main cords that provide power and communication between his brain and body,” Nya hypothesized and Lloyd stated, “we defiantly don’t want it to do that.”

“Hey is that it there?” Jay commented pointing at something. Looking around they could see the worm lying looking at them a short distance away. When they all looked at it the worm quickly turned around and hurried away from them. They wasted no time following it only to be surprised as it suddenly dropped out of sight.

“Uh where’d it just go?” Kai wondered as they came up to where it disappeared. A synthetic muscle had been pulled back and there was a dark hole beneath. They couldn’t see where the hole went.

“It must have gone down there,” Nya commented and Kai wondered nervous, “and where does that go?” Without an answer Nya hopped into the hole and the others all quickly followed Kai being the last and dreading where they were going to end up. They found themselves in what looked to be a slightly ringed tunnel like structure made of a sickly green tinted dark purple color. Compared to the rest of his body which was quite dry it was quite damp in there. It had been damp in his synthetic lung but that had only been a third as damp as it was in this structure. Not only was it damp but the walls were slimy coated with a film of some slimy wet substance that had most of them grossed out.

“Okay now where are we? Or do I maybe not want to know?” Kai wondered unsettled getting a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer. The fact Nya and Jay looked worried about where they were clearly recognising what the structure was had the others nervous.

“Uhm I think this is one of those you don’t want to know about…” Jay began getting a little nervous before they noticed faint icy blue circuit looking markings that looked like tattoos appeared in the synthetic material that made up the structure they were in. They then found themselves being shoved and squeezed down the tube and the next thing they knew they were floating in a dark liquid in a sack like structure. They were quick to move to the sides of the structure and held onto it to help stay afloat; Cole and Lloyd had to help Kai to keep him from drowning Kai’s panicking from the fear of what had happened making their work harder.

“Please tell me we’re not where I think we are,” Kai stammered getting worked up and Jay who was very uneasy on the verge of panicking declared, “yha you know how I was saying there was worse places to end up in here… this is probably the worst and most dangerous place! We’d be safer if Cole had eaten us!” Cole took offense to that comment. The walls of the structure quickly developed the same style circuit markings as the tube they had been in and began moving with a slow steady repeating constricting then relaxing motion causing the liquid in it to slosh around and knock about various things that were in there with them.

“We’re in his stomach aren’t we! We’re actually in his stomach! He ate us! He actually ate us!” Kai was panicking offering no help for Lloyd and Cole who were trying to keep him from drowning in the digestive fluids around them.

“I don’t think he ate us on purpose in fact he shouldn’t have. His systems are offline they shouldn’t be active,” Nya noted and Cole commented, “his stomach looks pretty active to me.”

“That worm must have activated his system,” Nya suggested and Jay was quick to babble starting to freak out, “the worm set a trap! It lured us in to get digested!”

“Jay you’re panicking isn’t helping,” Nya commented as they held onto the walls of Zanes stomach trying to get out of the acids and not get knocked about or hit by anything. The walls were slimy making that hard especially with things moving and getting knocked around in there. They each slipped off a couple times into the fluids scaring them. Nya, Lloyd and Cole were trying to remain calm to find a way out of their highly dangerous situation.

“Kai’s not helping either,” Cole commented and Lloyd stated trying to not lose it and panic as well, “we need to shut down his system before something bad happens to us!”

“How is it active when his other systems aren’t?” Cole wondered and Nya explained, “to relieve processing power on his main neural system many of his systems are controlled through separate secondary processors. This also allows him to separately put systems offline without interfering with other systems. This means though he can only manually influence if the system is on or off and if they need to be sped up or slowed down along with on rare occasions if he needs to cough something up temporarily reversing their normal actions. He can’t control their functioning. The systems themselves operate pretty much on their own; he has almost no control over what they do.” Nya then wasted no time in contacting Pixal while trying to maintain her hold on the walls of Zanes stomach. She like the others slipped a few times having to pull themselves up again Jay and Kai’s panicking making things tough for the others as she talked.

“Pixal we need you to shut off Zanes digestive system and do it now!” Nya demanded and confused Pixal stated, “but it is off. I shut down all his systems.”

“No it’s not shut down! It’s active and trying to destroy us!” Jay panicked through his communicator and Pixal noted, “it is active but everything else is still offline. How did it get turned on?! Hold on I am shutting it down now.” After a couple seconds the markings in the lining which they guessed were the circuits that controlled the synthetic organ disappeared and everything settled down and slowly went still.

“There; is everyone okay? No one was hurt were they?” Pixal came through the communicators and after a moment to look over them all Lloyd stated, “I don’t think so, just shaken really.” Cole added, “not to mention grossed out really grossed out.”

“What happened, why are you in his stomach? You shouldn’t be in there it’s too dangerous for those of flesh like you to be in his stomach. Your equipment was not designed to withstand his digestive fluids. They will not protect you much in there,” Pixal told them through their communicators and Nya replied, “trust us we didn’t intend to end up in here.” Jay added trying to not lose it, “that worm did it! It tricked us into getting eaten!”

“It does look like he was hacked to turn on just that system,” Pixal noted and Cole commented, “great these things are smartening up and trying to destroy us now.”

“Given these are advanced machines and not simple animals that is a very strong possibility. Do you need me to get you out of there?” Pixal inquired and Lloyd commented, “give us a minute to think some things out.” After a moment to settle having trouble clinging to the walls of Zanes stomach they looked around for an easier way to stay out of the acid. Much of what was in there was already highly dissolved. Only a couple solid looking materials were floating on the surface of the fluids that were big enough for them to shelter on; largely some chunks of bones and what looked like a peach pit that was half digested. Since it was closest to them Nya and Jay hopped onto the peach pit while Cole, Lloyd and Kai got onto the largest bits of bones they could reach which they were pretty sure was from the ribs Cole had made for dinner the previous night. Surprising to them Coles cooking hadn’t been too bad and no one had gotten sick, felt bad or had weird effects happen after having it. Even though he was trying to keep it secret they all had found Cole had started taking cooking lessons and they were all rather grateful for it as his cooking tended to taste weird or have unpleasant effects. Cole balanced on one chunk of bone to himself while Lloyd and Kai shared a large one, Lloyd having to help Kai up and remain balanced as where they had ended up had left Kai in a state of shock and fear leaving him rigid, largely unresponsive and panicking worse than Jay.

“No no this is real bad! We’re in Zanes stomach! We’re going to get digested! There’s no way out we’re doomed! This can’t be happening it can’t be!” Kai was panicking causing Lloyd to give him a smack to knock some sense into him. It snapped some sense into him silencing him but he was still on edge and freaked out.

“Of all the places we could end up in this is the worst! There are only two directions we can get out of here and I’m not wanting to get out through the other direction especially if it involves having to go through the rest of his system!” Jay began to panic and Nya stated, “Jay chill Pixal will help us out of here. We’re not going to have to go through the rest of his system… I hope.”

“There are ways of getting out of here without having to go through his entire system right?” Lloyd worried and Nya explained, “yha. To make it easier to work on his digestive system is split into four main parts which can each be separated separately for work; his throat, stomach, small intestines and large intestines. Unfortunately though the worm could lock them preventing Pixal from operating them or if the worm went further in his system we might have to go down there to get it.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to do that,” Cole commented. They took a moment to look at their surroundings as they all cleaned themselves off a bit having the slimy substance which was Zanes equivalent to mucus, some of his digestive fluids and some matter that was in it on them. It was grossing all of them out. The synthetic material that made up Zanes stomach was the same color as his throat a green tinted dark purple color. It was dark and would have been pitch black in there if it wasn’t for the lights on their attire. Since he was laying on his back everything in Zanes stomach was orientated so everything in it was lying on the back of the organ. They were situated by the top of his stomach by the entrance and their lights didn’t reach very far preventing them from seeing much in there. They took that as something relatively good as they were pretty sure they didn’t want to see what else was in there or the other end. What they were already seeing was gross and unnerving enough for them. Further hindering their lights and visibility was a slight haze in the air which they were guessing came from some of the gasses being produced by his digestive process. They were also guessing these gasses were partially responsible for the strong, unpleasant and chemically tainted smell that burned their noses a bit. Unfortunately their masks were only partially blocking the smell. While not too bad none of them found the smell very pleasant. Along with making their noses burn they felt a bit sick from it.

“This is the worst place we could have found ourselves in! So gross and dangerous! Very dangerous! At least it doesn’t smell too bad rate now,” Jay complained trying to calm down and not lose it making Lloyd who was unsettled wonder, “What do you mean not too bad, it can smell worse in here?”

“Yha, Cole and Kais cooking can make it way worse like that time Cole made that stuff before Wu got lost after battling the time twins that made us all super sick…” Jay began and Kai commented looking around terrified at where he found himself, “how could any of us forget that. It was nasty. All of us except for Zane and Wu spent the night in the bathroom so we didn’t have to rush to the toilets every time we had to throw up. You spent most of the night thinking we were dying. Wu was smart not to have some of that stuff.”

“Hey it felt like we were dying didn’t it! Anyway Zane didn’t escape from that stuff either. Pixal warned him it was dangerous but he didn’t listen not wanting to be rude. What it did to him was nasty! Zanes system made the stuff into this very sticky dough looking stuff that got stuck and clogged up his stomach and like the first 20 centimetres of his intestines. It was not only disrupting and obstructing his system but causing him quite a bit of pain. It smelt horrid, one of the worst things I’ve ever smelt. To make it worse we had to use our hands to clean a good deal of it out of his guts…” Jay regaled and Cole expressed, “please don’t remind me of that. If the smell hadn’t been bad enough you making me clean the stuff out with my bare hands just made it worse… just remembering it makes me want to throw up.”

“I considered that your punishment for making us all sick and having caused Zane such a problem. That stuff was nasty to clean up and it took over four hours to clean it all out. Luckily we put Zane offline so he wouldn’t feel anything. The whole thing would probably have been more unpleasant not to mention painful for him than us especially since we had to use some non conventional tools to clean it out like one of the bottle cleaners from the kitchen. That probably would not have felt good having that used to scrub your insides. Luckily the sensors in his digestive system have a thin coating of the systems synthetic tissues coating them so the stuff didn’t get into the structures to cause damages or clog them but the stuff was defiantly interfering with their proper functioning and irritating them. That whole ordeal is why you started taking cooking lessons isn’t it?” Nya expressed and Cole stated, “yha that and some other things. You guys always making fun of or complaining of my cooking is another.”

“You know sure it normally is not nice smelling in here it’s not supposed to but I think the smell is stronger and fouler than it should be. I also don’t recall a haze in here. I think because his systems have been off for a few hours but there is still stuff being broken down in here the gasses made by the process have built up a bit instead of being emptied or moving on in his system to then be emptied like they normally would making the smell worse than it should be,” Nya noted. Despite Zane not having anything for breakfast there was still some stuff in his stomach. Most of what was in his stomach was the leftover scraps from the previous night’s dinner that hadn’t moved on yet in his system with tougher materials like bones that were still getting broken down being the only things still relatively intact. Most of the bones which looked to have been from two or three bones had been broken bitten into various sized chunks with one that looked like it had just been swallowed partially whole probably by accident. All were scattered about the place floating or sitting in the acid and all showed heavy signs of acid damage and had bits and chunks dissolved from them. Most of the softer matter was largely to fully dissolved making it hard to really identify what they had been and was just stuck in there because his system wasn’t active preventing it from being able to move into the rest of his system. The peach pit was from a peach Zane had been given for lunch two days earlier and was half broken down. Whereas the others not even Cole would eat a peach pit Zane wasn’t bothered by eating it sometimes swallowing a peach whole. It wasn’t healthy for him to eat the pit and even though he could break it down he was unable to convert most of the matter from it into energy so they were not entirely sure why he had a bad habit of eating them.

“Why are there bones in here? Feels like I’m in a gator with them here. I made enough for everyone to have their fill last night he didn’t have to eat the bones as well,” Cole commented looking around at their surroundings and Lloyd agreed unsettled, “why are there bones in here?”

“I’m not sure; I can’t see how Zane would enjoy them so I think he does it by accident or maybe he doesn’t understand he’s not supposed to eat them or that he doesn’t need to eat them. He also tends to eat other things that you’re not supposed to like peach pits, the skin to melons and pumpkins and the whole of a corn cob though he can’t turn most of the matter from those to energy even though he can break them down. I know he can not only break down bones but is capable of converting some of the materials from them like the marrow into energy unlike the other things he eats that he’s not supposed to so it’s not bad for him to eat them. He’s just not supposed to purposely eat them. His ability to digest bones is meant to be a safety precaution to prevent damages if he was to accidently swallow some after all with his jaw strength and metal made teeth and bones it’s very easy for him to accidently eat bits of bone every now and then and when broken bones often develop sharp edges which could cut up and damage his system so his system dissolves them so they can’t hurt him. Eating them on purpose isn’t going to hurt him but it’s not the healthiest nor is necessary. Pixal doesn’t do it very often nor does she ever do it on purpose but then again she better understands what it means to be a nindroid and understands human ways much better than Zane does. If he is doing it on purpose then all I can think of as a reason behind it is maybe he doesn’t want to waste any of his food or maybe he doesn’t realise he isn’t supposed to eat them on purpose,” Nya noted and Lloyd noted, “I could see him not wanting to let them go to waste. He doesn’t eat everything like Cole but unless he doesn’t like it or it makes him sick or from what he says it has no use for him or is dangerous or causes him problems he’ll eat most things including things people can’t eat or drink like motor oil and unlike some of us he always tries to eat all of his meal especially if it’s something someone else made and gave him; he thinks its rude to refuse it. He might not eat it all at once like Cole will but will save it and finish it later. He also has a habit that when someone gives him something to eat or drink as a gift he'll have it even if he doesn’t like it, it hurts him or makes him sick; he thinks it’s really rude to not have it even if he doesn’t like it or it hurts him. Remember that fermented fish stuff someone gave us once?”

“Dude how could we, that smell was horrid!” Cole commented and Kai regaled, “that was one of the worst things I’ve ever smelt! Just the smell made us all nearly barf! Pix and Zane were lucky they could turn off their sense of smell around that stuff.”

“How could we not forget that stuff!” Jay agreed and Lloyd regaled, “yha, none of us were going to have the stuff but not wanting to let it go to waste Zane had it… well him and Cole after we dared him to have some.”

“Yha the taste was slimy and gross even after rinsing them and it did not make me feel very good after that. I am never having that stuff again. We should have just taken the stuff to a zoo or park and fed some gators the stuff,” Cole regaled and Nya added, “yha Zane didn’t feel too good from it either. The chemicals and bacteria from the fermenting of those things upset his system. A droids system doesn’t handle fermented matter very well; the chemicals and bacteria from it upsets and irritates their systems and they can’t process the stuff very well.”

“Yha and unlike that stuff it’s obvious bones don’t upset or hurt him and since he can make energy from them maybe he has them so they don’t go to waste,” Lloyd hypothesized and Jay added, “yha I could see that; he does after all collect food scraps and often puts them out for animals to have so they don’t go to waste. He also likes putting any rotting or out of date food he finds when cleaning the kitchen or elsewhere in the house in the green waste bins for disposal or the compost bins out back the monastery a lot instead of just throwing them out like I often do. He’s even dumped curdled milk in that thing sometimes. That bin smells nasty for a few days after he does that. Thank goodness those are held outside the monasteries yard so the smells kept some distance away; how can those bugs that live in that bin handle the smell from that stuff? They must either not care or have no sense of smell! You know at least when Zane eats bones he doesn’t usually do it around us or make it evident when he is doing it, he knows it unsettles the rest of us especially since he has no problem with biting through bones which he knows that fact scares some of us especially Kai and me. I guess biting through bones isn’t hard when your teeth and jaws are made of metal and you have a much stronger bite force than us thanks to his make. I guess we should be thankful he has this strange habit or we’d have nowhere to stay out of his digestive juices and we’d be in real trouble in here.”

“I guess you’re right there even if this is really weird, gross and unsettling. You know with how strong his bite is it’s a good thing then he doesn’t usually get nippy when we have to restrain him like some people huh Lloyd?” Cole commented and Lloyd defended himself, “I don’t bite that hard, defiantly nowhere near as bad as when Zane bites.”

“That is true. He broke skin and I’m pretty sure cracked a bit of bone that one time and I could feel he wasn’t biting with his full force. I’d hate to know what the full force would have been like… why did he go crazy that time anyway? It was like he just snapped and started going all evil and attacking us,” Cole wondered and Jay commented, “thank your bad cooking. It was that weird duck stew you made where you accidently put in that magical tea thinking it was seasoning. It made us all skittish and jumpy and had our powers all out of whack but it had a much more opposite effect for Zane. It really messed around with Zanes system and caused some programming to get a bit out of whack making him think he was the Ice Emperor again. That was a nasty fight, didn’t help that stuff affected Pixal in the same way and she was on his side. Luckily we were able to finally knock the both of them out and fix things before the whole incident got out of hand. After some restores and reboots and a couple hours rest for the stuff to pass through most of their systems they were back to normal. Whatever you do don’t make that mistake again; we really don’t need them to go all evil again especially Zane. He’s really scary and dangerous when he’s like that!”

“Thank goodness we don’t have to give Zane medicine, I’d hate to have to give them to him especially if we’d have to force him to take them and he was bite-y,” Lloyd commented and Cole wondered, “like you… hey if he doesn’t need medicines then what’s that stuff you sometimes make him have? I’ve heard you refer to it as a medicine.”

“It’s a formula to help maintain the health of the symbiotic organisms and the systems that create enzymes in and apart of his digestive tract. He has a bad habit of drinking too much motor oils and on occasion eating or drinking things he’s not meant to so that stuff helps combat any negative effects from that. He knows it’s good for him but it’s sometimes hard to make him take it because he doesn’t like the taste that’s why we hide it in things like chocolate milk or milk shakes to hide its taste. The stuff also binds well to the fats and proteins in the stuff helping keep it in his system longer so it works better and longer,” Nya explained and Jay added, “most of the things he consumes that he’s not supposed to aren’t really his fault. It’s weird to say but Zane doesn’t fully understand what it means to be a nindroid. He lived for a long while thinking he was human which has just left him confused about a lot of things. Add on he doesn’t have a built in instinct so to say to tell him what is and isn’t safe for him plus he’s very curious to things so if he thinks it’s edible for him he’ll try it. If it doesn’t cause him much problems he might think it’s okay for him to have it even if it isn’t healthy or usable for him. Doesn’t help some people don’t seem to get not to joke with certain things as he’ll take their word for it or take their words too literal; right Kai?”

“Hey how was I to know he’d take what I said as literal? I was just having a little joke. I couldn’t believe he’d never seen a glow stick before. When I told him it was a fancy freezie I thought he’d look up the truth and not take my word on it! I didn’t mean to make him sick… or make his guts glow from it; that was disgusting and unsettling,” Kai defended himself still highly unsettled and freaking out but responding despite his feelings not wanting to be fully blamed for something. Nya then stated, “you know he’s very trusting to us and has a high likely hood to trust our word even if it’s wrong before actually looking into the truth if what you say proves wrong or someone tells him otherwise. Because of this you shouldn’t mess around with things he might take literal especially if it is dangerous and can hurt or prove problematic for him. For most of his life Zane lived pretty sheltered from much of our human world so many things of our world especially non daily use items things like glow sticks are new and foreign to him when he comes upon them so when he first encounters them because he trusts us he often seeks us out to figure out what the foreign thing is.”

“Yha I remember the time I first gave him popping candy. He didn’t understand what it was exactly so just swallowed the stuff and thought after I’d given him something dangerous like some sort of explosive material because of all of it popping in his stomach at the same time. I probably shouldn’t have laughed at him for it cause it just had him worried and scared till I explained everything but it was funny. There was also that time around a year after we all first met we showed him sparklers for the first time. The first few times he held them too close to the part that burns and burnt himself as he just watched the sparkling on them a little mesmerized by it. We had to show him how to properly hold them so he wouldn’t get burnt. He kind of reminded me of a bird with a shiny object with how he was staring at it… you know thinking back we should have realised something was different about him then cause he didn’t really get a physical burn from that even though he acted and felt like he had been burned. With how pale his artificial skin was it should have been real easy to see a burn. Instead he just had some soot from the sprinklers on them. You know the fact his skin was so oddly pale as well should have told us something was different about him. He was almost albino like as if he’d rarely experienced the sun; I actually thought he was sick when we first met it was that oddly pale. I guess though when you don’t have blood in your skin to help give it color you are going to be paler than normal,” Jay regaled cutting Nya off. Nya then continued, “as I was saying when coming upon something he doesn’t know what it is at first or understand Zane trusts our word when we tell him what they are. Zane and his father lived largely alone in the middle of the wilderness and didn’t get many visitors and when they visited settlements Zane didn’t explore much or interact much with people; even though he was curious he was often nervous to and confused on how to do so plus we all know he’s not the social type. Because of this there wasn’t a lot of things he got to experience about the human world so there was a lot he never got to come across or experience. We were the first ones outside his father to really take him in as family and show him things he’d never seen or experienced before. Plus until after he met Pixal he didn’t fully know how to be a nindroid she had to teach a lot of things and even now he still gets confused by things. He’d lived for quite a while thinking he was just human so didn’t know or understand things about him were different nor that he was able to do certain things we can’t till he learned the truth. Even after that he didn’t know or understand how to be a nindroid and still struggles at times with this. For the longest time he didn’t know how much of his body properly worked, what he could do and what is and isn’t safe for him. It’s kind of sad but me and Jay know more about his anatomy and programming than he does even to this day. Because of his trust and lack of understanding when one of us tells Zane glow sticks are fancy freezies for droids he’s going to trust your word.”

“And that is why we created that care book for you three for him and Pix for when we’re not around. Your screw ups when trying to help them or when just goofing around plus some of your cooking’s are not healthy for them and cause problems we often have to solve not to mention they can be dangerous for not just them but everyone else like that time we were gone for a weekend and the two nearly started a robot takeover to the human race because you messed up on a reboot after the chili Cole made gave them problems causing them both to short circuit and get knocked offline from it,” Jay regaled and Cole defended, “hey that tech stuff for them is really complex and your explanation over the phone was a little hard to follow. Also why do you always have to complain about my chili?”

“Can we please focus so we can get out of here before we’re digested!” Kai exclaimed panicking and Lloyd agreed feeling nervous about their surroundings, “yha how long do you think we could last in here?”

“Not long. Our masks and the oxygen tanks are letting us still breathe in here and protecting us from any gasses that are present that probably would not be good for us but nothing will protect us from his digestive fluids. We’d only last about ten to 20 possibly 25 minutes in it but I don’t think you’d want to hang on that long. It would be very unpleasant. We’d be almost entirely dissolved within an hour if his system was active that is. In its current state it would likely take longer still though only a few hours. Truly I’m not sure how long we’ll last, as long as we don’t end up in the fluids we should be able to last longer than if we end up in them,” Nya noted and Jay added in trying to calm down, “first you have the acid which is strong enough to dissolve bones which means all but our teeth and hair, weapons and scraps of our clothes will be left in just a few hours and if that wasn’t scary enough there is the enzymes and bacteria both in here and the rest of his guts which are powerful enough they can break up motor oil! We don’t stand a chance at surviving in here!”

“Yha I think whatever this belonged to found that out the hard way,” Cole commented pulling up what looked to be the leg from a beetle that was floating near him out of the fluids to get a closer look at it. The insides to the creatures exoskeleton poured out as a liquid before the normally hard carapace fell apart like wet toilet paper unsettling them a bit Kai and Jay most of all. Cole dropped what was left in his hand back into the fluid grossed and unnerved by it.

“You know seeing him choking on that beetle last night when it flew into his mouth when we took out some recycling was funny at the time but seeing what’s become of it now and that we could easily share its fate it isn’t so funny anymore. Kind of have to feel sorry for it though it was the one that decided to make itself lunch by forcing Zane to choke on itself so it kind of deserved what it got,” Jay commented at the beetles leg and Lloyd wondered grossed out, “why are insects so attracted to pestering him especially in his face?”

“It’s his eyes. Their attracted to the light in them and in their attempts to get this light while avoiding his attempts to shoo them away they end up in his throat and getting swallowed a lot. When it comes to why insects are so attracted to lights they’ll kill themselves to get it I have no clue,” Nya explained before Cole then continued, “you know motor oil is some tough stuff. If we drink it we get sick, I know I tried some. How can he drink it with no problems?”

“I know you can be a bit like a dog and will eat anything at least once but why would you try motor oil?! It says rate on the container it’s not for drinking,” Jay questioned grossed out by his comment and Cole replied, “I was wondering why Zane likes the taste of it so decided to give it a try. It didn’t taste good.”

“Why is Zane attracted to motor oils?” Lloyd wondered and Nya explained as they looked around for any sign of the worm, “I’m not entirely sure. Some of the sensors in here might be able to tell him how useful they are to use for things like his joints but his other senses which don’t need him to drink the stuff could tell him that so I’m not sure. I know Motor oils are made from well oil which is made from plankton that have been compressed for centuries under rocks or is made from a special types of kelp which we’ve noticed he is also rather fond of though it isn’t too healthy for him; his system isn’t able to properly process the stuff. He tends to get indigestion from it if he has too much. This kelp is found in shallow seas and bays around Ninjago and commonly harvested to make various forms of oil among some other uses. Both oils technically come from the sea and Zane has commented that they have a fishy taste to them so maybe that has something to do with it. I do know he is also similarly attracted to oils from fish yet he’s not as interested nor enjoys as much oils from plant sources like olive and canola. That just adds more questions than answers though. I do know it’s the enzymes and bacteria in his system that normally break down more consumable oils particularly cooking oils and the oils and fats from animal based sources that are the ones that break down the motor oils and help him make energy from them. They’re very powerful stuff. Maybe it has something to do with those organisms; maybe they enjoy the oils and are somehow influencing his tastes to get more. Or maybe he likes them because it’s a droid thing; I know Zane’s not the only one who likes oils most droids do so it’s not unique to him. Pixal also enjoys them but she has way more control than Zane does over the urge and attraction to drink the stuff. Zanes like Cole in that regard; if he likes something he has little control over himself and will have too much just like Cole with cake. Oils meant for cooking or from foods are fine and cause little problem for him but motor oils are not that healthy for him. They’re rough and tough on his system and he can only make around 5 to 15 percent of the potential energy from the stuff a little more if it is the kelp made variety not to mention processing the stuff tends to cause the development of excess gas which we all know can smell as bad as it does in here now when he has the stuff. Unfortunately he’s more attracted to motor oils than cooking oils. He shouldn’t have more than a few cups a month of motor oils to prevent causing issues like imbalances to the symbiotes in his system, irritating tissues and causing digestive issues with his system especially if it is the typical oil from fossil fuels. He should only have that stuff on occasion about once a month or so. It’s a lot tougher than other oils so much rougher on his system and takes him longer to process than other oils. The one made from kelp is much better for him to have and luckily he likes that one better. It’s much easier for him to process so gentler on his system not to mention he gets more resources out of it than from typical motor oil but still it’s not too healthy or good for him to have too much. It can still cause problems like regular motor oils luckily though it takes more to have serious negative effects on him but at the same time unfortunately he often gets carried away with it. Like with us and things like candies or cookies he should have them in moderation. Pixal does, she’s pretty good at keeping in control around the stuff and rarely has too much but Zane lacks that control; she’s sometimes not happy with that because it’s not healthy for him. She has tried to teach him some control before but hasn’t really had much luck so has largely given up on that effort. She’s told me it’s like trying to teach a dog not to eat bacon or Cole to not touch a cake.” Not liking her comment Cole questioned, “why does everyone always have to pick on my eating habits? Why not Jay or Lloyds for once?”

“Anyone see any evidence of the worm?” Lloyd wondered. None of them could see anything. Jay quickly commented, “how do we even know it’s in here? It might have just lured us to our doom while it chills somewhere safe!”

“If it went into his throat to lure us here then chances are it had gotten swallowed too so it would have to be in here somewhere,” Nya noted and Cole offered grossed by the thought, “or maybe it moved further through his system?”

“That is a possibility,” Nya noted and Kai stammered, “how would we know? I don’t want to end up deeper in his gut!” Jay was quick to add, “and you think I want to; I don’t want to either! I know what happens to stuff like us in here and it isn’t pretty!”

“Are you guys okay? You have been oddly quite. Given the highly dangerous location you are in we were hoping to have heard from you already,” Pixal came through on their communicators startling them and giving Nya an idea. She inquired, “yha we’re fine just trying to figure where this worm went. Hey Pix can you find its signal? If so where is it?”

“It is in his stomach with you,” Pixal proclaimed after a moment’s pause and Nya thanked her for the assist.

“It must be in the fluids somewhere then,” Nya commented and Kai commented eager to get out of there, “then it will get digested there problem solved now let’s get out of here!”

“Zane's system is tough but that will take a while for his system to do, it could take hours. Not to mention metal, plastics and most synthetics are pretty tough for him or anything really to break down much so the worm will get damaged but not really digested much. That damage might not be enough to stop the worm plus his system would need to be active in order to help deliver sufficient damage to the worm. Just sitting in a soup of acids and enzymes isn’t going to be enough to damage it alone and even when active it could take several hours for the worm to receive the needed damages to destroy it,” Nya explained and Lloyd commented, “and in that time it could escape from here and cause damages. We need to personally see it’s destroyed so it can’t hurt him.” They continued to look around unsure what to do.

“How deep are these fluids?” Lloyd wondered feeling unnerved as he looked into them trying to see the worm but unable to see anything. The fluids were dark and relatively opaque making it near impossible to see anything that wasn’t floating on or just below the surface. Jay replied with, “well his stomach looks to be at about a third its max size basically at its resting size but I think the fluids are still deep enough to fully submerge us though as they’re clearly still working on stuff in here…we defiantly don’t want to get submerged in this stuff!”

“If it’s in here then how do we find it without you know…” Cole commented nervously looking into the dark opaque fluids around them. He couldn’t see much in it mainly just bits of bone and beetle shell that he was pretty sure would fall apart when touched in fact one did when he gave it a poke feeling shivers go down his spine and his hair stand on end when he saw it. The fact the bit of bone which he knew should be hard felt squishy like wet bread and even had bits come out of it further unsettled him.

“Getting dissolved into his lunch no I don’t think there is any way!” Jay panicked and thinking Lloyd wondered looking at his sword, “our weapons are much more resistant to getting dissolved maybe we can poke around with them and see if we can find anything.” While not perfect it was the only thing they could think of. They slowly and cautiously began poking around with their weapons in the fluids. The act grossed all of them out and had them feeling rather uncomfortable. They were quite for a while as they searched focussed on the task having to push aside chunks of bone and other materials when they floated close getting unnerved by the action. They were hoping the worm was somewhere close to them and not in the opposite end of Zanes stomach. If it was they hoped that at least maybe their actions would drag the worm towards them so they didn’t have to venture down there. None of them wanted to get that far in his stomach. Occasionally as they worked they ended up stirring up pockets of gas or random non identifiable items which they were guessing were tough scraps from the previous night’s dinner or something else from one of the past few days that he had eaten and were still being worked on along with remaining bits of beetle shell that broke apart when interacted with. The work was grossing and unsettling all of them especially if the fluids or any matter in them got splashed up onto them as they searched which happened more often than they wanted. They spent quite a few minutes searching in quiet before uneasy from the near silence and the noise from their actions Lloyd commented to break the silence, “I guess we should be thankful Zane didn’t have breakfast or it would probably be much grosser in here huh?”

“Yha plus we might not have had as much space in here and would have more fluids and debris to search through at least though we’d still have some space as Zane rarely stuffs himself like Cole. His system has sensors that make him get a full like feeling to prevent unnecessary strain on his system and potential internal damages to nearby components from over expanding his stomach such an act would do. Clearly Zanes synthetic system and programming function better than Coles instincts and body do,” Nya noted and Cole wondered, “hey that’s kind of mean you know… you know I never thought much about it but does Zane have to eat like us? He always does so I never really thought much into it; is that out of necessity or is he just copying us to fit in?”

“Well his body does require a lot of power more than ours to fully function at normal levels after all there is a lot more going on in his body especially his brain than ours and all that needs power and like all things his power source needs a method to restore energy to keep from being depleted and by far his digestive system is the most efficient method to keep it charged plus to keep the symbiotes in his system healthy by feeding them he does need to eat on a regular basis at least once or twice a day like us but he can go a few days without eating if he has to or wants. Also if he has to he can survive longer without food than us but if he is to go without food especially for more than a day he has to take precautions to prevent strain and overworking on his power source. Cautions like shutting down non critical functioning’s, lowering his activity output, and taking more time to rest to conserve energy. Luckily the symbiotes in his system go into a hibernation state when they can’t find food but it’s not healthy for them to remain like that for long,” Nya explained and Lloyd wondered, “if he can feel full can he also feel hungry?”

“Yha he has programming that can give him a sense of hunger making him feel like and think he's hungry just like us; it’s part of the many programmings and functions he has that help him fit in with people. He is capable of shutting this sense off when he wants. He normally has it on as it can help him remember to keep track of his energy levels and output but he often shuts it off during missions to keep it from interfering in his performance,” Nya explained and Kai commented uneasy, “you know that feature of him always kind of unsettled me about him; a robot that can feel hunger and could eat you, really scary when you think of it.”

“Yha but I doubt Zane would ever want to eat us. We’re his family and I doubt he’d ever willingly do anything to hurt us,” Lloyd commented and Jay joked, “willingly is the key word. If push came to shove or he had no control I think yha he may just eat us after all he kind of already has and it wasn’t by his own choosing. You know I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take much for Cole to eat us; just have no food in the house and he’d probably do it.” Cole was not amused by Jays joke.

“Hey how do we tell when Zanes energy gets low?” Lloyd wondered and Nya explained, “well getting moody and easily irritated is a sign; low energy can cause more sensitive systems like his emotions to function oddly. Getting anxious for what appears like no or odd reasons is another, that’s because when his energy gets low his heart activates his anxiety as a warning signal. He will also clearly be tired. Unfortunately he doesn’t always recognise that these signs mean his energy is getting low. Probably from his time that he mistook that he was human he sometimes mis-interprets or doesn’t recognise these signs for what they are. He normally keeps tabs on his energy levels so we don’t have to worry about it but he does sometimes forget to take note of it and needs reminding to care for himself. If he’s showing signs of low energy just give him something to eat or just notify him of his odd behaviour and he’ll take care of it himself. Don’t do what Kai tried once by trying to charge his heart with the charger for an electric scooter. Zanes body doesn’t use the same format of electricity as those devices so it won’t work and just stresses his heart out. Only the special connectors and chargers we have on the Bounty and in the hanger bay can be used like that for him and we only use those if his or Pix’s energy levels get extremely low. Luckily we haven’t had to use those yet but we still make sure they are properly working by testing them at least once a month just to be safe. Another method that is a bad idea is Jay trying to shock him to give him energy, not only does it stress out his heart but it causes him pain and what Jay does is dangerous for him. It can overload and explode their hearts.”

“Yha that and a few accidents have made Zane nervous when I play with my powers around him. I wouldn’t really blame him though, getting shocked causes him a lot of pain especially to his heart. If I was in his situation I’d probably be feeling the same. Best thing to do when his energy is low is just give him food besides like us I’m pretty sure he likes to eat, I know he loves chicken nuggets especially the ones shaped like dinosaurs; he also loves when he can dip them in oil even though he knows he’s not supposed to do that very often. You know he does often copy things we do even if he doesn’t have to like trying moisturizers or sunscreen on his skin or using our soaps instead of the ones meant for droids to clean himself; I think he copies us with such things to try and better fit in and understand human ways so mimics us with things he normally doesn’t have to or can do to learn,” Jay noted and Kai commented, “so he has been using my body wash, I knew I recognised the smell! That will also explain why I keep going through it so quick.”

“Yha he’s not the only one who has been using it,” Nya noted and Cole defended, “hey I like the smell of it besides Jay has used it too and Lloyd. You and Pix have used it too so you’re not innocent there either. I’ll admit I even used it on the chicken once and I think she liked it even though Zane told me soaps are actually bad to wash birds with unless they get something like oil on their feathers…” Lloyd stirring up some strange item that had gotten stuck on his sword caught their attentions. The item was a solid plastic item bigger than they were at about the average size of a coin in size. It was crushed up and mangled as if having been crushed and ground against other objects and had some minor pitting with what had once been bright colors having been bleached by acid. While hard to recognise what it was there was enough for some of them to recognise what it was.

“Uhm what is this?” Lloyd wondered unsettled and after a moment’s thought Jay offered, “it kind of looks like one of those little plastic dragons we put in ice cubes as a fun decoration for your birthday party three months ago.”

“That’s been in here for three months?!” Kai stammered his anxiety worsened by the sight of the item and Lloyd wondered too confused and unsettled by the item to hear Kai, “and why is it in here?” Jay speculated, “I think he thought they were the same as those candy dragons that were on the cake. I told Cole what they were cause I knew he would eat them if I didn’t tell him but I didn’t think I would need to tell Zane. I thought he’d know better and knew what they were… this will explain why I couldn’t find three of them when we cleaned up; truly I thought Cole had eaten them. This will also mean there are likely two more in here somewhere. Pixal didn’t eat them so why did he?”

“Well they did look a lot like candies and Cole was licking them like they were…” Nya began and Cole defended himself, “hey I was cleaning them. I had been playing around with them on my slice of cake and they got some icing on them so I decided to help clean them plus I didn’t want to waste any of the cake or its icing. It was real good.”

“That’s because it was from a bakery and not made by you,” Jay joked and Nya noted, “given his habit of easily getting confused over human things and the fact Zane often looks to the rest of us for many things like how to behave with certain things and what things are he likely mistook them as candies because of Coles actions and he just drank them with his drink.”

“Didn’t he think to analyse them to find out what they were before eating them?” Cole wondered and Jay guessed, “well since we normally don’t put things in ice cubes, they looked like candies and you were sticking them in your food and licking them like they were candies he probably just assumed they were.” Grossed out and to continue searching Lloyd slowly worked his blade free of the item to let it sit back in the fluids. It just half floated around them.

“I guess next time we’ll have to tell Zane not to eat them even if Cole tries to,” Jay commented and Nya added, “we’re going to have to keep an eye on Zane for a while. If those things are still in here in a month we’re going to have to manually remove them. Given it’s already been in here for three months we’re probably going to have to manually remove them.” Jay added, “I’m not going to look forward to that.” They continued searching grossed out and hoping not to find anything else gross or unsettling in there.

“That pit was from two days ago and the bones were from last night, is it normal for something’s that aren’t made of plastic to still be in here this long?” Lloyd wondered after another period of being quiet not liking the largely silence. There was some noise from Zanes heart and some from their actions but these they felt just made them more uncomfortable and nervous of their situation.

“Yha tougher stuff like bones and this fruit pit can take a few days to fully break down. His system is set to operate at levels comparable to a high metabolism so most of the stuff should have been broken down and moved on within a few hours. This stuff will likely be gone in a day or two,” Nya explained and Cole commented, “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see what happens to what gets moved on.”

“Yha I wouldn’t want to end up there even though it would be notably safer than being in here. The acid gets diluted after it leaves his stomach so things aren’t as corrosive but you still have all the enzymes and bacteria to deal with that will continue to eat away at you and turn things into a format his system can use. It all wouldn’t be pretty or fun as you get squished and pushed around as you’re moved along his intestines which are a couple inches longer than ours that way he can extract more resources but it means you’d have more of a ways to go to travel to get through and out of them. At least the energy converters wouldn’t hurt you. They line the outside and absorb the materials through the walls of the intestines and don’t intrude with anything dangerous into them; just these small soft rubbery like fibre like structures that make the walls look and feel a bit like those rubber scrubby things you can use in the kitchen for cleaning some things. Anyway they help filter out and absorb the materials the converters need. The converters then use the stuff they get to make energy that he can use which they send straight to his heart which can either store the energy for later or put it into use rate away. There’s lots of these converts lining his intestines, their built into the outer walls of the organ. Their sole job is to convert all sorts of matter into an energy form Zanes heart uses to power everything in his body in order to keep the power outputs from his heart stable and restore used energy to keep his power source from getting drained. As long as you haven’t been dissolved in his stomach they’re not going to do anything to you. You would probably get dehydrated in there though especially in his large intestines. Them and the lowest parts of his small intestines reabsorb and take in any new or pre used parts of the chemicals and enzymes his digestive system uses so they don’t go to waste and can be reused. These are then either stored in special organ like structures for later use or put straight back into use. Those parts of his system also absorbs chemicals that can be used to create his synthetic equivalent to saliva and even his synthetic tears which help prevent the clear stone that coats his eyes from getting scratched up by his eyelids by keeping a layer of liquid on them to prevent friction and scratches along with clearing away dirt and dust from them so they don’t interfere with his vision or hurt his eyes. The whole thing is a very complex and geniusly designed system… when you’re not the one in it and it’s not trying to turn you into lunch! You know he’s kind of lucky it’s so efficient. The design produces a bit less waste than us so he can go a few days usually about three to four without having to use the bathroom unlike us… I defiantly don’t want to end up that far in his system; I’d never be able to get that out of my head!” Jay explained trying to keep his nerves stable.

“How come he can eat bones and motor oil with no problem but if he has more than a single orange in less than 24 hours it makes him unwell?” Lloyd wondered and Nya replied, “it’s the citrus to them. The chemical irritates the materials and sensors in his digestive tract which causes pain and disruptions to his system. A small amount won’t bother him too much just some slight irritations but too much causes quite a bit of problems. It’s kind of unfortunate for him cause he likes Clementine’s but he can only have one every once in a while unless he wants to get sick. Citrus isn’t the only thing that does that. Other things like highly acidic things like pops which disrupt the natural biota of their systems not to mention the acid in pops is citric based, fermented things and certain spices especially hot or strong spices do it too. That’s why Kai’s more than Coles cooking tends to bother him. You use too many strong spices bro.”

“Yha see Kai if it makes Zane sick then you know it’s bad and unsafe,” Jay commented and Kai countered, “you just say that because you don’t like a lot of spice in your food. You think regular barbeque sauce is spicy.” Nya added, “he does have a bit of a point but also just because it hurts Zane doesn’t mean it will hurt us and vice versa. He can sense if something will be dangerous for us but it might not have any effect on him while things that don’t hurt us will hurt him.”

“Is that why he avoids certain things that seem fine yet he’s fine with others that seem dangerous or questionable like wild mushrooms or bad and raw meats that would kill the rest of us?” Lloyd wondered.

“Yha, his system handles certain things better than others. Generally when feeding a droid you feed them more like a dog than a deer; much more meat than plant, be cautious what plant matter you feed them and you don’t have to make things bland but be cautious with how much and what kind of spices you use. Their systems don’t handle a lot of plant based matter very well. A lot of plants use chemicals to defend themselves and these chemicals can irritate the sensors or disrupt the symbiotes in their systems which then irritate the system causing problems and making them sick so they have to be careful with a lot of plant matter. Also while the materials will get dissolved and broken down they don’t always get broken down enough for Zane or other droids to make anything from them. The cell walls of many plant based things are too tough for their systems to efficiently break them down enough to properly use them; it also takes more energy and time for them to process the stuff. To efficiently use plant matter they would need a much longer and more complex system which would be very inefficient and not fit their bodies design taking much more space and power and they would also need very unique bacteria and enzymes which aren’t cheap and are quite sensitive making them harder to work with and maintain. That’s why Zane generally sticks to mainly common fruits and certain vegetables along with rice or wheat based items if he is to have something from plants. They’re the easiest and safest ones for him to use. Most others he can’t do or use so to avoid problems he avoids them. He has no problems with animal based products though no matter what they are from. They don’t have the chemicals plants have and their cells are easier to break apart so they’re much easier to process so he has no problems fully breaking them down and he can get far more resources to make energy from them. Only things like horns, claws, teeth and hair are too tough for him to process. Plus he’s exposed to animal sources more frequently thanks to the strange obsession insects have with getting in his face which often causes them to get eaten. Zane doesn’t find that very pleasant. He told me once it’s not a pleasant feeling and can hurt a bit especially from bigger insects or those with decorative features or stingers,” Nya explained and Cole commented, “can you blame him I doubt that’s pleasant. Having a live insect buzzing and crawling down your throat or in your stomach can’t be a pleasant feeling especially when they have like horns and spines on them or are equipped with pinchers, stingers and claws.”

“Yha he’s gotten scratches in his throat from a few of them before so it defiantly can’t be very pleasant. You know it’s kind of funny you say feeding him is like feeding a dog cause he sometimes reminds me of a dog or cat… I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t like to hear me say that considering I once commented to him that he has the eyes of a hawk and he was stuck confused for hours trying to figure out what I meant and why I would compare his eyes to those of a bird,” Jay added.

“You know I’m not finding anything are we sure it’s still in here?” Kai blurted out having his eyes closed as he pretended to search just dragging and poking his sword randomly around in the fluids around them. He had spent the last ten to twenty minutes as they searched with his eyes closed only opening them to see what Lloyd had pulled up with his sword before tightly closing his eyes again. He was not wanting to see where he was anymore too unnerved by where he was and what they were doing to have his eyes open.

“How can you tell when you’re not even looking? You’re eyes are closed,” Jay chastised and Kai replied opening his eyes, “how come you’re not freaked out over where we are?! I’d expect you to be panicking even more than me! We’ve been in here for well over half an hour possibly a whole hour by now surrounded by the highly dangerous digestive fluids that could completely dissolve us of a droid which a dangerous robotic worm which can hack Zane and cause him to digest us is hiding in and could spring up at any time to drag us to our doom! Not to mention there’s a chance we could end up deeper in his gut and I don’t want to go in there! This would normally have you all crazy panicked how are you not panicking?!”

“You don’t think I’m panicking! I’m on the edge of losing it but I’m holding it together to help my friend, my brother. I don’t want him to be torn apart by evil cyber worms besides it wasn’t his fault we ended up in here. It was that worm using him as its puppet! Also Zane can’t help it if his guts are like something you’d expect to find in a monster it’s just his nature, how he is, and I just have to accept it even if it has me freaked out! Besides I wouldn’t change him no matter what, I like him the way he is so why should I mess with who and what he is just because it scares me. If he wants to eat bones like some sort of scavenger than that’s up to him it’s his body after all and as long as it isn’t hurting him I won’t complain. Besides it’s not as bad as some of Coles bad eating habits,” Jay proclaimed trying to keep from losing it. Cole was not pleased that his habits were being questioned again and commented, “hey what’s so bad about my habits?”

“Well for one no cake or other baked good is safe around you even when it’s not yours, you don’t care if something fell on the floor or even the ground you’ll still eat it even if there’s dirt leaves pine needles or other things on it, you’ll eat things even if they are out of date and going bad. Zane does that too, his system can actually destroy most pathogens and harmful bacteria, plus he’ll eat raw dough like you, I think he likes the taste and texture of them when they’re raw more than cooked sometimes, but his system can safely handle those and it won’t make him sick unlike ours, not to mention how about the time you ate those pebbles cause you thought they were fruits… twice within a week of each other,” Jay commented and Cole defended himself, “hey it wasn’t entirely my fault! It was a community garden and they said anyone could have what they wanted. Besides who in their right minds shapes and paints rocks to look like berries?!”

“According to Zane it’s a trick you can use to keep birds and other animals from eating all the berries from your garden. It makes them think the berries are rocks so they won’t take them from your plants,” Lloyd stated and Nya added, “it apparently works on Cole too though I doubt the animals actually eat the rocks like he did.” Cole commented in defence, “well I learned my lesson and know that now. Make sure their actually berries before eating them, especially if you’re going to swallow them whole. That was a very unpleasant experience.”

“You know why don’t we just let Jay shock this place to fry that worm and make it quicker to get out of here?” Kai offered cutting in getting more on edge from the location they were in and wanting to get out of there as fast as possible and Lloyd wondered not having found anything, “do you think that could work?”

“Again you’d probably just end up getting us all shocked,” Nya noted and Cole added, “yha and I’ve been shocked by you before and it isn’t pleasant.” Jay defended himself by stating, “that was an accident and I’ve said sorry every time I’ve accidently shocked anyone. You know shocking the thing could work and we might be safe where we are. Most of what’s in here isn’t conductive… at least I don’t think they are?”

“Come on let’s just give it a try?” Kai pleaded and Lloyd noted, “it’s three against two.” After a moment Nya stated, “fine we could try but keep the volts low and be careful.” Jay wasted no time in directing a blast of lightening into the fluids. Just as others had cautioned however the rest of them including Zane got shocked. Jay wasn’t immune to his own attack shocking himself causing him to stop his attack. Seeing he had ended up hurting everyone he quickly apologised. With electricity reaching into his body it caused Zanes stomach to temporarily activate causing it to constrict and relax a couple times before stopping again. This caused things to get sloshed around and smack into each other including the items they were sheltering on. They managed to stay on the items they had chosen to float on though some of the fluids splashed up on them with the one getting the worst splash being Kai. A large splash ended up washing over Kai coating him entirely in the digestive fluids and dropping a few miniature pieces of nearly fully digested debris on him which slowly slid off him. Kai was left so stunned and shocked he was just crouched looking blankly at himself and the debris dripping off himself. The others were made nervous and disgusted by the fluids touching them but Cole felt some amusement from Kais predicament. Everyone else was just grossed out.

“What just happened? It looked like Zane got shocked,” Wu came through on their communicators. Lloyd responded, “that was just Jay screwing up.”

“Okay that didn’t work… Nya what about your powers? Maybe you can work this liquid around to help us see what’s in it?” Jay inquired and Nya responded a bit angry from being shocked, “this stuff isn’t water Jay it’s acid and various other liquids.”

“Is there any water in him?” Cole wondered and Jay responded, “kind of. Technically water isn’t as essential for him to live as us so he can go without it far longer than we can but to help balance out and restore some chemicals in his body and to help the health of the symbiotes in him plus maintain moisture in certain synthetic organs like his guts and to help remove waste in this system plus he needs them to help create things like his synthetic tears he has to drink water based fluids a couple times a week. Any excess water and if he has too much in his body he can remove kind of like us. Again he can go several days without having to do that though, must be nice to not have to use the bathroom everyday nor to wet yourself when too scared… I mean yha he usually only has to remove excess water every few days. This way also allows him to reuse excess water if he hasn’t had water based liquids in a while and cannot get access to any. He had iced tea last night so I thought there might still be some form of water in here.”

“That wouldn’t be in here anymore and if was in here it would be broken down and not really water anymore besides even if I can affect this stuff I don’t want to risk playing with it. It’s too dangerous,” Nya explained and Lloyd wondered, “aside from diving in this stuff which I’m pretty sure we don’t want to do then what are we going to do?” Before they could make a move the worm they were looking for lunged out of the fluids behind Jay and tackled him off the pit and into the small space between where they all floated in the fluids the two disappearing in it. The action caused the fluids to slosh around a bit rocking the items they were sheltering on before settling back down.

“Jay!” Nya exclaimed and Cole commented, “look at that looks like it found us!” They looked around trying to see any sign of where Jay was Nya stating, “we need to get him out of there fast!”

“And how are we going to do that!” Cole commented before Jay came back up in a panic trying to make his way onto the pit clearly having been in a fight. Nya went to help him but the worm came back up and constricted around him to pull him back down into the fluids. Nya quickly stabbed her trident where the worm went down hoping to hit the worm. She didn’t hit anything frustrating her. When Jay came up again he was close to Cole this time. Cole tried to help Jay but there wasn’t enough space on the bit of bone he’d chosen for Jay to get up on. He tried to help Jay over to another bit of bone for him to get onto but the worm intervened to try and drag Jay down again. When the worm came up to grab him again using his lava arms Cole punched the worm in the head breaking off the one side of the pinchers which fell into the digestive fluids. The creature shot out the blade in its head and attempted to stab at Cole. While trying to dodge the worms stab Cole lost balance on the bit of bone and fell into the fluids. With him knocked over the worm then wrapped back around Jay and pulled him back under causing things to get sloshed around again.

“That thing really has something against Jay!” Lloyd commented and Cole stated climbing back up onto the bit of bone he had been using, “well he did shock everything. I bet that felt worse for that thing than for us.” Jay came back up again by Kai and Lloyd this time proclaiming, “why aren’t you all helping me! It’s getting very tiring fighting this thing, I’m pretty sure it’s trying to hold me in this stuff till I become lunch!”

“And you think we want to end up becoming lunch too!” Kai stammered too terrified to do much as Lloyd tried to help Jay up onto the bone with them. The worm was quick to burst back up and went to stab at Jay. Quickly Lloyd intervened and swiped his sword to intervene with the blade. He swiped with such force he cut the worms blade off near its base the blade falling into the fluids. In fear of the worm and falling or getting knocked into the digestive fluids Kai stabbed his sword as deep he could into the worms body with as much force as he could. Lloyd continued to hit the worm working on cutting through the skin in order to more easily reach its interior while Jay climbed up onto the bone some pieces of bone breaking off as he climbed up. To escape the attacks the worm pulled back and dove into the fluids taking Kai who was too scared and stunned by everything to let go of his sword which was stuck in the machine with it.

“Kai!” Nya exclaimed and Lloyd wondered, “why didn’t he let go of the sword?” They all just stared at the fluids as they settled back down trying to see where the worm and Kai had gone. After nearly a minute and no sign of the worm or Kai they began to worry. Kai couldn’t swim and even though his mask would protect his face from being harmed by Zanes digestive fluids and he wouldn’t drown thanks to the mask and the oxygen tanks attached to it he still wasn’t going to last long in the fluids as the rest of his body had nothing to protect it from them.

“What are we going to do? Kai’s not going to survive long in there,” Nya exclaimed and Lloyd commented, “not to mention he can’t swim so I don’t think he’ll be able to get out on his own!” Even though they wanted to help him none were brave enough to get into the fluids to help him. Seeing no one was daring to jump into the fluids to go after Kai, since he had the fluids and digested matter already on him and was worked up with adrenaline from fighting the worm and being in and coated in the dangerous fluids Jay braved up and dove back into it proclaiming, “don’t worry Kai I’ll help you.” The others just floated there for a minute looking for any sign of Kai, Jay or the worm all on edge and wondering if they should dive in to help too but too scared to risk entering the fluids. After a couple seconds they could see some light appear in the dark fluids emitting from somewhere deep in it and some minor electric sparks danced across the surface of the fluids with the light. The light and shocking then disappeared and a few seconds later Kai and Jay then resurfaced by the peach pit. Jay helped hold up and drag Kai who was rigid in a state of shock and barely doing anything. He was just still tightly clinging to his sword which had been pulled out of the worm. Nya helped Jay and Kai onto the pit Jay stating, “I managed to give that thing a direct shock.”

“Did you finish it off?” Nya wondered. Once the two were on the pit the worm jumped up onto the pit with them trying to sink it into the fluids and knock them off it making Jay stammer, “apparently not!” He and Nya wasted no time in attacking the worm. Kai was too stunned to say or do anything just staring at the worm. Jay hit it several times with his nunchucks sending small bits of electricity with each attack briefly stunning the worm with each hit. Nya took several stabs at its head steadily creating and deepening a gouge in its synthetic skin then metal interior. Sensing they were getting close to destroying it the worm started to try and back up. Terrified of the thing getting away and dragging him back into the fluids Kai quickly rushed over and stabbed strait into its brain with more force than he realized he could muster shutting it down. Once dead they stopped their attacks Nya and Jay having to hold Kai and pry his sword out of the things head to keep him from being pulled into the fluids as the worm slid off the pit and sunk into Zanes digestive fluids the pit returning to floating. They all just remained where they were for a minute settling down Kai still staring at where the worm went and shaking terribly.

“Okay, three down and one to go,” Jay commented and with his voice cracking a bit and still in shock Kai stammered, “can we now get out of here?! I’m going to have nightmares about this for weeks!”

“Yha just give us a minute and we’ll get Pixal to help us out of here,” Nya commented still worked up and on edge but slowly calming down from the fight. Kai then commented still in his shocked state, “why am I getting this tingling burning feeling to my skin?”

“Yha I’m getting the same thing, it’s Zanes digestive fluids they’re starting to eat away at us! They’re turning us into his lunch!” Jay began to panic. They were all grossed out and unnerved by Jays comment as they too could feel the same feelings on parts of their bodies that had gotten the fluids on them. Lloyd didn’t waste time to contacted Pixal, “we got the worm you can get us out now and we’re going to need a bit of a cleaning.” Pixal wasted no time in working to get them out. It took a few minutes as she had to move things in order to access his stomach and carefully disconnected it from its connection to his throat a special connector just before the entrance to his stomach in his throat. She was careful not to move things too much or change orientations much not wanting to endanger them by sloshing things around causing them to fall into the fluids or get hit by things. Using the computer she opened the entrance to his stomach and pulled them out using some tools before placing them in a dish of water set up on the table holding the work supplies to let them clean up. While they cleaned up she put everything back to normal and back to their resting state. It took Kai a few minutes to settle enough to start relaxing; Nya had kept hitting him with water trying to snap him out of his state.

“I’ll never be able to un-see all that!” was the first thing Kai said after a while of silence. While they cleaned up Pixal put everything back together in Zane and fixed the final damages she had to work on. After cleaning up a bit to get all traces of the digestive fluids off them Wu helped them out of the bowl and placed them on a towel on the same table to dry themselves off.

“Have you been able to find the last worm?” Lloyd wondered and Pixal noted closing Zane up leaving only the port for access to his heart open, “no, it is somehow hiding itself very well. Every now and then I have picked up its signal and it seems to be hanging in his chest largely on the left side. That does not bode well. His heart is in that area. It luckily has not caused any damages yet but that makes me worry it is up to something.”

“And given where it is hanging I don’t think it intends anything good,” Nya noted as she Lloyd, and Jay inspected the worms Pixal had removed from Zanes shoulder and lung trying to find out more about them. They were going to leave the one in his stomach as it was already damaged, would eventually make its way out of his body without aid and it was unlikely to cause any harm or complications in its state; if it didn’t make it out on its own in a months’ time they could take it out when they likely would have to remove the plastic dragons that seemed to be stuck in there.

“Have you figured out anymore about these worms?” Nya wondered and Wu replied, “not much. There is something about them that gives an aura of familiarity. Something with their workings and programming is familiar.”

“Indeed plus these worms are operating on their own and not being controlled; they are however sending signals to somewhere else but the signal is encrypted and will take a few hours to decode where it is being sent. That could help us find who made and sent them,” Pixal regaled.

“Whoever made these things clearly is no friend to us and wants to see us suffer,” Jay commented before they got a notification on the bays computers that someone was at the monasteries doors. Given it was late evening they were all curious. It seemed odd someone would be dropping by at that time.

“Who’s at the door?” Lloyd wondered and Cole offered, “did you order in some dinner for us when we’re done? I could really go for some. Hopefully you got double desert too I could use it after all this.” Kai was quick to comment, “Seriously! We nearly just ended up becoming food and all you can think about is food!” Jay was in agreement with Kai.

“No we have not ordered anything, I will go see who is there and what they want,” Wu stated and Pixal noted, “we will continue to work here.” Wu headed off leaving the rest of them there. They continued to work trying to figure out where the worm was and getting a look at the worms they had pulled out.

“Well we could always go back in and do some exploring to find this thing,” Lloyd noted and Kai quickly stated, “and risk getting into a trap that ends with us in his stomach again! No thank you!”

“That could be a possibility but I think the chances we’ll end up there again slim. Given where this thing is hanging I think it is seeking to go after his heart,” Nya noted and Jay wondered, “why do you think it hasn’t gone after his heart yet?”

“I am not sure. Considering they could have easily and simply have just destroyed him why did they instead cause random damages that largely caused pain and harm instead? It all seems odd and makes me worried over what this worm has planned,” Pixal stated and Cole wondered, “you know how did Zane even get these worms?”

“We searched the memory data of the first one we found and it did not reveal much. These things became activated when in the yard already by the looks of which from after being thrown over the wall though we can find no evidence of by who or exactly when they ended up in the yard. We can only identify when they became active. They were activated around two in the morning while we were all asleep where they made their way to Zanes room and hacked him in order for him to let open the hatch over his heart so they could climb into his body and begin their work,” Pixal explained and Jay wondered, “wouldn’t Zane have been aware of their actions when they hacked him?”

“It is hard to tell. I have gotten better with showing him how to identify when being hacked and ways to try and counter it but there are still things he has trouble with. As far as I can tell he does not seem to have been aware that he was being hacked,” Pixal noted and Kai wondered surprised, “wait he doesn’t realise when he’s being hacked?”

“Again this is some of that not knowing how to be a droid thing and confusion from when he thought he was just human issue. It wasn’t till Pixal started helping him with it that he learned he could actually do something about it and not just fall victim to it,” Nya explained and Jay regaled, “yha I remember the one time when we were working at Darkley’s which became Wu’s school teaching and some of the kids found a way to hack him and make him fall asleep so they could get out of class and play instead of learning. What they did wasn’t too complex and should have been so easy for him to counter but he didn’t know how to. That’s when me and Nya set it up so only those with the correct codes could connect anything to him and do anything with him that way no one could mess with him. It works quite well though if someone is really determined and has good enough skills they can bypass these codes and still hack him like Ronin did once.”

“You don’t think Ronin could have done this could he?” Kai wondered and Nya noted, “I don’t think so. These things don’t seem like something Ronin would make besides why would he want to hurt Zane? He has no interest or reason to do so,” and Jay added, “yha if anything Ronin should have reason to fear Zane. Zane hasn’t forgotten Ronin hacking him and I don’t think he’s ever paid him back for that.”

“Yha but Zanes not super vengeful and Ronin really didn’t do much harm to him so I don’t think Zane feels the need to get back at him for that,” Cole noted and Kai wondered, “then who could have done this?”

“Well for starters obviously someone who knows about the anatomy of droids,” Jay noted and Lloyd wondered, “who would know about that?”

“Not many would, it’s not really a common knowledge. A robotics specialist would know but there isn’t many of those and outside Cyrus Borg who wouldn’t do this we know none who would have a reason to do this, of course we all know…” Nya began getting cut off by Kai who still shaken mumbled, “yha a lot more than some of us are comfortable with now. I felt better not knowing what is inside him and how it all works.”

“Okay,” Jay stated and Nya continued, “outside that I don’t know. Zanes very guarded over who knows about his anatomy and we don’t let others know that way the wrong kinds of people can’t find ways to hurt him or Pix like this or do worse things to them. It’s better the public is left in mystery about it.”

“You should hear some of the strange hypothesizes a lot of people especially kids come up with to explain how Zane works and what powers him; a lot of them think it’s some sort of magic or we feed him some sort of robot feed made from oil like he’s some sort of animal… some people though get a little creepy with it thinking we do some dark ritual sacrificing criminals to give him power, I think those individuals spend too much time playing certain video games. They also think he can do weird things like shoot lazers from his eyes or shoot rockets from his arms. He can’t do any of that. Droids are much more human like than other robots plus I don’t think Zane would want anything like that. He prefers being more like those of flesh and blood than some machine,” Jay noted and Lloyd wondered, “then who could have done this?”

“Again it will likely take time to figure that out,” Pixal noted and Cole wondered, “was their hacking just to get inside him or did they do anything else to him?”

“Luckily none of his programming has been touched. They just hacked him to operate the hatch and to paralyse him so he couldn’t move or make a sound so he could not get help. They even hindered his ability to connect to me. They left all his sensors and senses active however so he could feel the pain they were giving him while he could do nothing to stop it,” Pixal explained and Cole expressed, “that’s incredibly cruel.” They all felt angry that someone would do something so cruel to their brother.

“Yha it is. Defiantly whoever did this likely isn’t and would never consider us friends,” Kai stated then Lloyd began, “indeed you know it’s probably best if we…” He was cut off by Wu contacting them to hurriedly say, “Pixal lock down the hanger bay.”

“Why?” Pixal inquired confused and Wu stated, “some thugs are here to…” Wu’s end then cut off.

“What’s going on?” Lloyd wondered worried while Pixal checked the computers.

“It would seem whoever implanted these worms in Zane wants to interfere and stop our work,” Pixal explained before the computers gave her a warning about Zane.

“Now what’s going on?” Cole wondered and Pixal quickly explained, “it seems this worm was waiting for a distraction to make its move. It is attempting to cut through the back of the casing to get at his heart!” They were all worried.

“What do we do?!” Jay panicked. Keeping relatively calm to think things through Pixal did some work on the computer before coming over to them.

“I and Wu will deal with the thugs you will deal with the worm,” Pixal explained picking them up and Cole stated, “sounds like a plan.”

“While I’m gone to keep you all safe I will close you into Zanes chest. Given your size it will be safest if you remain in his body till we return no matter what. When it is safe I will contact you,” Pixal explained as she let them down onto the casing for Zanes heart and Kai noted, “yha cause being this size we could easily get stepped on and squished.” Once they were placed in his chest Pixal closed up the port accessing the area near his heart and they made their way to get the worm. In order to reach behind the casing they had to detach and move one of Zanes synthetic muscles to access the interior cavity of his chest. Being careful not to disrupt any of the wires or his synthetic lung that were in the cavity in that area they quickly made their way to the back of his heart remaining as quiet as possible hoping to catch the worm by surprise. The worm was occupied using the blade in its head to scratch at the solid metal plating of the back of the casing trying to cut into it. It was leaving a scratch that was slowly getting deeper as it worked. They wasted no time in ambushing the worm. Jay and Cole who activated his lava arms to increase his grip strength grabbed its body to try and restrain it while the others worked on cutting into it to reach its inner workings to damage them. The moment they contacted the worm it switched attention from attacking the casing of Zanes heart to them. It sheathed its blade and attempted to pinch them to free itself. It didn’t take them long to take the worm down Nya and Kai both landing blows in its head while Lloyd stabbing it in its power source.

“Last one down,” Cole commented while Nya and Jay inspected the casing for Zanes heart to access the damage.

“It didn’t do much damage did it?” Lloyd inquired and Nya declared, “just some scratches it luckily didn’t get far.”

“That’s good,” Lloyd stated and Kai offered to fix the scratches. Using his powers getting them as hot as he could he welded the cuts made by the worm shut. Once he was done Kai wondered, “okay now that is done and the last of these worms are taken out what do we do?”

“Well Pixal said to wait for her contact,” Nya noted and Cole wondered, “maybe we could make it easier for her and try to get this worm thing to somewhere easier to reach it? It’s kinda heavy but we might be able to do it if we work together.”

“I guess we could…” Lloyd began before they found themselves being tumbled around as Zane was sat up and moved about. They tried to grab things in order to stabilize themselves but everything happened so fast they were unable to grab anything in time and found themselves getting knocked out from their tumbles…

Wu and Pixal found themselves coming too in different parts of the monastery. Wu was in the one hall while Pixal was in the recreation room. Though they had tried to fend off the thugs but they had been outnumbered and gotten knocked out during the fight. When he came too Wu met Pixal in the recreation room and helped her up.

“What happened?” she wondered as they looked around and Wu regaled, “one of those thugs was pretending to be someone from the power company wanting to check the meter. When I tried to shoo him away telling him the meters had just been checked last week he refused and when I tried to close the doors on him I was jumped by his pals. Some of them got past me saying their employer was not going to let us interfere anymore.”

“They were trying to get into the hanger bay; I think they were after Zane. One of them surprised me with a taser,” Pixal explained. They wasted no time in heading into the bay. When they got there their suspicions were confirmed. Zane was no longer there which meant the others weren’t either. Pixal immediately headed over to the computer to search for Zanes internal tracker in hopes to pick up where they could have been taken but was unable to find the signal.

“This is not good,” Wu noted and Pixal explained, “no it is not. We are not helpless though since all damages were repaired in case something was to happen I set up Zanes systems to re-calibrate and reboot so he should wake up when that is done. Hopefully once awake he will be able to find a way to escape or at least help us find him. I will keep searching in the meantime.”

“What about the others? Where are they? They will not fare too well against those thugs at the size of ants,” Wu wondered and Pixal replied, “I placed them back in Zanes chest to deal with the last worm and closed it up after they were in to keep them safe and hidden. As long as they do not do anything to reveal their presence whoever took them might not know they are there keeping them safe. They might even be able to help Zane escape.”…

“What happened?” Jay wondered as they all started to come too. All were confused and a bit roughed up from their tumbles. They had all ended up scattered through Zanes chest and upper abdomen caught up in wires and the tubes of his cooling system. Kai was pretty sure by the color, sounds coming from, the markings that were displaying in the material and the slow steady movement which he was unsettled to feel was kind of relaxing of the synthetic material he had found himself laying on he felt he had landed on some part of Zanes digestive system most likely his stomach. He didn’t want to know for sure he was just thankful he was on the outside of it and not in it; he was very unsettled by where he had landed. They weren’t sure how long they had been out but they were guessing it had been a while. They could see it appeared Zanes systems had all been turned back on. This had made the inside of his body much noisier than before with sounds from his breathing, his digestive tract and cooling system now joining the sound of his heart. It was also warmer in his body now that systems were on and their functioning was creating heat.

“I’m not sure, I think he was moved,” Nya suggested as they all cautiously got themselves free from where they had found themselves trying to not damage anything and made their way out of the interior cavity of Zanes body before climbing over to congregate on the casing for Zanes heart under his skin being careful not to touch or disturb his heart or the various major wires that came out of it to curve back into his internal body cavity and his internal skeleton which spread the power from his heart to all components of his body. By the orientation of what they could feel as up and down they were guessing Zane had been sat up.

“Sounds like everything is functioning again; does that mean he is awake?” Lloyd wondered and Nya stated, “I don’t know. If we had some way to contact him we could see if he responds.” They all looked at Kai who was confused and unsettled that they were all looking at him.

“What? Why are you looking at me?!” Kai questioned and Jay stated holding a hand out, “hand it over.”

“Hand what over?” Kai wondered and Cole commented, “we all know you always have your phone on you mister addicted to social media. We could use it rate now so hand it over.” Kai was not happy with it but took his phone out of a pouch on his attire and handed it over to Jay who gave it to Nya who had no problem getting into it making Kai wonder aloud, “hey wait how do you know my password when I haven’t told you it yet?”

“I’m your sister; you told me it already besides it’s really not hard to guess your password when you use the same one for everything. Anyone can log onto your stuff with ease when you just have the one,” Nya commented as she worked on the phone and Jay agreed, “yha mister Fiyah451 and 3173 in place of fire plus 11 for numbered codes. You know how easy it is to hack your accounts and mess around with things; it’s too easy.”

“Wait a minute it was you then who changed the language on my phone to serpentine; do you know how long it took me to get it set back to normal! I can’t read that language and Zane refused to help thinking it a good punishment for having such a simple predictable passwords… are you also the one who bought the 12 1 litre bottles of dog shampoo, 2 gallons of moustache wax, 10 various animal plushies, full head pigeon head mask and a maids outfit in my size that came with the note ‘for when doing your chores fire-boy’ on my ninjazon account!” Kai exclaimed remembering a strange package he had once received that he didn’t recall buying though somehow had been bought through his account late at night. He had just chalked it up to staying up too late one night after having the wrong kind of drink and surfing the web but he could never recall doing it just confusing him.

“Hey, it wasn’t just me. Cole was in on it too plus Zane. He thought it might teach you to pick a less obvious and get some diversity in your passwords,” Jay defended himself while Lloyd asked Nya who had connected the phone to Zanes communication circuits and sent a message directly to his brain, “anything?”

“No, I think he’s asleep,” Nya suggested and Cole wondered, “if he’s asleep then what moved him and why are his systems active?”

“I think as a safety precaution Pixal might have started his body back up so he could defend himself but I don’t think he’s fully booted up yet. I don’t know what moved him but I know how we could hear what’s going on out there,” Nya stated and after some work they could suddenly hear what Zane was hearing and Nya explained, “there I’ve connected our communicators to Zanes hearing so we can hear what his audio input sensors are picking up.” They listened in for a second hearing someone ranting about as they termed those meddling ninja interfering with their hard work and wondering how they had damaged the worms in the way they had. They couldn’t figure out how they had delivered such small but efficient cuts to destroy the worms that the individual had spent months working on. The person was real angry and upon hearing their voice they all instantly recognised who the voice belonged to.

“The Mechanic, we should have known he would be behind this,” Kai noted and Jay agreed, “yha, he has an annoying fascination with trying to tear Zane apart. Figures he’d want to cause Zane pain while destroying him after all he likes to call Zane the pain all the time.”

“This should have been easy. They get in tear him apart from the inside making sure it is as painful as possible then pierce that thing he has for a heart and destroy him for good! Somehow those pesky ninja have taken out every single one of my worms…” the mechanic was ranting and what they were guessing was one of his henchman stated, “but they had only taken three out of him and there is two still inside him.”

“They may still be inside him but they aren’t working anymore. They’ve been destroyed,” the Mechanic chastised this henchman who responded with, “oh I thought you meant taken out as removed from his body not destroyed… my bad.”

“You know I think this thing is starting to wake up, what do you want us to do with it?” another henchman questioned before they could hear Zane question clearly not fully awake or aware yet, “where am I? What is going on? Why am I not wearing a shirt?” They found it weird to hear Zanes voice from inside his body which made it sound a bit different than what they were used to along with through their communicators.

“So Zane the pain you wake up to have miraculously escaped the doom I had planned for you thanks to your rotten friends but I will make sure you do not escape this time,” the Mechanic declared and clearly unaware of anything that had happened to him Zane inquired, “what are you talking about?”

“You see this you talking scrap heap. I had five of these worms find their way into you last night while you slept where they were slowly working to painfully tear you apart for all the pain you’ve caused me before they would finish you off,” the Mechanic regaled to which they were guessing he was showing Zane one of the worms and Zane noted surprised and scared, “what?!”

“Yha and they would have succeeded if your meddling friends hadn’t somehow intervened. I don’t know how they did it but they destroyed every single one of my worm bots and saved you but I am going to make sure I have the last laugh. I’m going to fix these up and send them back in to complete the job then once you have been removed without you around to detect my little creations I will move on and get your friends. I’ll probably have to take out your female pal as well then I can move on to your fleshy pals. I have similar worms that will sneak into your monastery and inject them with the most painful venom I could find that will over a few hours slowly and painfully destroy them as well,” the Mechanic declared and clearly both worried and angry Zane questioned, “why would you do this? We haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

“On the contrary Zane the Pain you and your friends have been nothing but pains in my side for a long time; all my troubles, all the times you’ve ruined plans on me, all the times I’ve been locked up it’s all your faults…” the Mechanic proclaimed getting cut off by Zane who rather calmly stated clearly thinking logically, “I think if you look it is not our doing that has led to your troubles. It is your own doing for going along and aiding the wrong kinds of people, your own choices and actions and your lack of foresight and acceptance to the consequences of your own actions that have led to your ill circumstances. All we have ever done is make sure you receive the proper repercussions for your actions which often brought harm to those innocent of any wrong doing.” By the shock they all got after Zane stopped speaking they were guessing as a punishment for offering his insight the Mechanic either personally or got one of his minions to shock Zane from something in order to silence him.

“I think we need to remind Zane even if he’s right to watch what he says around crazy people… especially when their evil and have captured you,” Jay commented after the shock. The others were in agreement.

“Think what you want metal man but you won’t change my mind. I’ll take out you then your friends and then I’ll finally be free to do as I want without the likes of you interfering,” the Mechanic declared before stating to his henchman, “take him to a random room and dump him there for the time being while I fix these worms. Make sure he has no access to the outside and I don’t care how big it is. It can be a broom closet for all I care and Zane the pain try all you want to try and contact for help. I’ve shut off any means for your friends to find you or for you to call for help; might as well accept your fate.” They could feel Zane struggling a bit before stopping telling them he was likely tied up and had made a failed attempt to get free. They could tell by his heart and breathing rate that Zane was scared. They couldn’t blame him. Zane had no clue what had been going on and likely didn’t know they were there. He probably thought he was alone, had no way to escape or call for help and was facing a cruel doom. By the sounds Zane was stuck on a chair and being rolled to wherever they were going to place them. Whoever was locking him in the room at least they could hear were not being mean to Zane largely telling him they had nothing personal against him it was just part of their job. They heard a door close and after a couple seconds they heard Zane mumble to himself, “this is not good.”

“What are we going to do? The Mechanic has a plan to destroy all of us, he’s kidnapped Zane who we are stuck in and currently stuck at the size of ants!” Jay began to panic but thinking quickly and calmly Lloyd wondered, “can we contact Wu or Pixal through our communicators or Kais phone?”

“No because we are inside him and for our communicators to work while in him they are routed through Zanes workings so whatever they are doing to block Zanes ability for them to contact or locate us is affecting us as well. It’s also affecting Kais phone because it’s inside him plus due to its shrunken size it has a very poor signal. I doubt it can reach anything outside Zanes body no matter how hard we try,” Nya explained and Lloyd then wondered, “is there any way we can at least talk to Zane? Maybe we can somehow work this out together.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll see what I can do,” Nya stated working on Kais phone. The moment she was done Lloyd communicated to Zane, “Zane can you hear me?”

“Lloyd is that you?” Zane wondered and Lloyd replied, “yha buddy it’s me.”

“Wait the Mechanic said he was blocking any way of you contacting me… is this some cruel trick by him?” Zane questioned and Jay babbled, “serious you think we’d trick you?”

“Uh you and Kai have a tendency to sometimes mess with him when things are serious,” Cole noted and Nya stated, “boys you can talk about this later… trust us Zane it’s us.”

“How are you able to contact me then?” Zane wondered and Nya replied, “the Mechanic has only blocked your internal gps and your ability to contact others but he isn’t preventing others from contacting you by hacking directly into your brain. Sorry about doing that but it was the only way we could communicate to you.”

“That is okay you are just doing it to help me so I am not bothered by that. How did you find me?” Zane inquired and Jay stated with a laugh, “you wouldn’t believe us even if we told you.”

“Are you the ones who hacked my hearing? That is what woke me up, being hacked especially having my senses hacked without my permission I find uncomfortable and very threatening,” Zane noted and Nya comforted, “don’t worry Zane that was just us. We meant no harm.”

“Yha buddy you weren’t responding so we just wanted to see what was going on around you; you know in case you were in danger plus to see who got you. We should have guessed the Mechanic was behind all this,” Kai declared and Zane responded, “I am fine with that then.” They could hear from his heart and breathing that hearing them and knowing he wasn’t alone was calming Zane.

“Zane do you have any clue where we are? Where did they put us?” Lloyd inquired and looking around Zane replied, “I have no clue, it is a small room… most likely a broom closet like they said. It seems they took the Mechanics instructions as literal.”

“Are you able to do anything to get free or can you see anything to help us get out of here?” Lloyd inquired and Zane noted, “I have been tied to an office chair using a rope. They have tied me so my arms are pinned against my body so I cannot move them and they have tied up my legs so I cannot move them either. As for the room the only thing I can see that could potentially hold something to help me get free is a locker against the one wall but there is nothing I can do to investigate it… wait you said us. What do you mean by us? Are you trapped somewhere in the building too?”

“You could say that,” Cole responded before silencing his communicator for a moment so Zane couldn’t hear to ask the others, “should we tell him?”

“Might as well it is kind of important. We’re going to need him to get us all safely out of here,” Lloyd told the others silencing his communicator for a moment. Jay then stated to Zane, “you will probably have a hard time understanding this pal but we’re inside you. We’ve been chilling by your heart the past while.”

“What do you mean? The interior of my body is no place for living organic beings such as yourselves to be in. There are many parts that are highly dangerous to your kind. Not to mention at your size there is no way you could fit inside me... is this some idiom or saying I do not understand?” Zane wondered looking at himself confused. Jay replied, “no pal I’m not joking you we’re literally inside you watch I’ll give you a shock as proof. Sorry about this everyone I’ll try to keep this low.” To give Zane proof of what he was saying Jay gave Zane a small shock which gave a minor shock to everyone else. Zane was startled by the shock and became greatly confused looking at his chest where he felt the shock come from.

“What! How and why are you in my body?!” Zane wondered getting nervous from his confusion. He couldn’t understand how they were inside him and he felt uncomfortable that they were in him.

“We’re why the Mechanics worms failed…” Lloyd responded before Jay cut him off to babble, “yha Pixal was having trouble catching them so we shrunk ourselves to the size of a carpenter ant to go after them in order to save you.”

“Trust us pal this has been just as uncomfortable to us as it likely is for you… not to mention very unpleasant. I have seen things!” Kai explained and Jay explained, “yha I’m pretty sure if you had been awake you would not have been comfortable with it either. We had to chase them through your body in order to get them. One was in your shoulder, another went into your right lung and one was in your stomach, it’s still in there but don’t worry we destroyed it so it can’t hurt you plus you’re going to end up doing more damage to it now that your systems are active. There was another going after your heart but we destroyed that to; it fell somewhere in your body when the Mechanics thugs picked you up I’m not sure where it is now but don’t worry we’ll make sure to remove it. Those things were nasty to take on not to mention they tried to destroy us. They kept trying to stab us with this hidden blade in its head and crush us with their pincher mouth like thing and one tried to get you to digest us; that part was really unpleasant.”

“What? You were where… what were you doing in my stomach? You know it is too dangerous for organic beings like you to be in there; it is not a place you should seek to put yourselves if you want to remain alive and unharmed,” Zane noted still confused and getting more uncomfortable to find where they had been and Jay explained, “trust us we didn’t want to end up in there. One of the worms tricked us into there and activated your gut to try and get you to digest us to stop us from destroying it luckily Pixal was able to intervene and shut your system down before we got hurt; the whole thing was gross and scary. Don’t worry you didn’t really do any harm to us while we were in there besides it wasn’t your fault; unfortunately we spent more time in there than any of us wanted to…”

“Can we not talk about this?! No offense Zane I know you can’t help it but the sounds in here are unsettling and I would like to not be reminded of all we went through while in here,” Kai expressed unsettled and Cole commented, “yha Kais going to need some therapy after today. He experienced more than he wanted to.” Zane was still confused looking at his body core feeling uncomfortable that they had been inside him including in his systems and organs. He quietly mumbled to himself his confusions and discomfort. Zane wasn’t comfortable having them in his body or knowing they had been in his organs. He was a bit embarrassed about his internal anatomy knowing despite how similar it was to those of flesh it was different and just further reminded him that he was different and not like the others sometimes making him feel isolated because of his differences.

“Again no offence pal but it isn’t pretty in here especially in your stomach,” Kai stated and Zane wondered, “how long have you been inside my body?”

“A few hours I think; hey Zane were you aware of what those worms were doing to you?” Cole wondered and after a pause Zane explained, “kind of. The pain and disruptions to my systems from their actions woke me up in the early morning. I didn’t know what was causing it all at the time I could just feel the harm they were doing to me. I couldn’t sense them I could just feel what they were doing. Along with the damages and pain they had done something so I couldn’t move or make a sound so I could not get help. I could not even open my eyes; it was like I was trapped. I could just hear everything going on around me and feel everything the worms were doing. I remember Pixal helping me and telling me everything would be okay. She put me offline so I wouldn’t feel anything but those worms did some sort of trick so it looked like I was offline but I was only half out. I could still feel everything she was doing… and I guess what you were doing. It all felt weird like this thing you call a dream.”

“Don’t worry pal you’re safe now we made sure to teach those worms a lesson for messing with our brother and we’ll make sure to teach the Mechanic a lesson for what he did to you. No one’s going to hurt our droid brother while we’re around,” Cole proclaimed.

“You know that’s a weird way Zane phrased that; why didn’t he just say it felt like a dream? He dreams why does he not like to acknowledge it?” Kai wondered to the others without letting Zane hear his words. Not letting Zane hear Nya explained, “it’s part of that confusion he has over understanding how to be a nindroid. I don’t think he understands dreams very well not to mention I think they scare him; both what he sometimes sees in them and his inability to understand them are what scares him. He might even be confused and think they’re not natural for him even though from what we’ve all seen and me and Jay have analysed is that he does dream. It’s perfectly natural for him; Pixal dreams to and she accepts it and openly admits to being able to dream. She never denies it unlike Zane. Also along with being a restless sleeper Zane’s prone to having nightmares which further scare him about dreaming. We’ve managed to help him a bit by putting on relaxing music and ambient sounds when he sleeps to combat it but it doesn’t work as much as we’d like. I think Zane’s fears and confusions to dreams sometimes makes him afraid to admit he dreams.”

“Yha I don’t think he’s the only one who has problems with nightmares,” Jay noted and though some of them didn’t want to admit it they all agreed with his statement.

“When you were in my synth-gans did you at some point shock me? I think I recall being shocked, why did you do that?” Zane inquired unaware of their conversation and quietly to the others Kai wondered, “synth-gans?” Jay explained silencing his end from Zane, “synthetic organs. He thinks because they’re not made from flesh like us his organs can’t be considered organs so he came up with that term to name them. It’s kind of sad really as while we consider his organs no different from ours despite what they are made of and how they work he doesn’t see it like that and thinks he has to view them differently. We’ve tried to get him to stop thinking of it like that as it just points out to him that he’s really a machine and not of flesh and blood which makes him feel isolated and a bit embarrassed about himself but we haven’t had any luck breaking his thoughts on that. Pix understands their organs are different from those of flesh but she’s willing to accept that despite their differences they are the same as ours. She hasn’t been able to change Zanes mind on this either no matter how hard she tries. I think it’s that confusion thing from thinking he was a flesh and blood person for so long then finding out he was a nindroid that’s caused him to think like this.”

“Yha we tried to fry the one worm by shocking it… that just backfired and made the thing mad at Jay. I’m sorry if we hurt you pal,” Cole regaled to which Zane noted, “it is okay. It hurt but you didn’t mean to do it. Besides it was a short lived pain unlike what those worms left. I can still feel those.”

“Pixal fixed the damages they left though; how do they still hurt?” Kai wondered and Zane responded, “Synth re-grow takes a while, usually a day or two, to fully complete its work and in the meantime it is not a pleasant feeling as they repair. There are electric tingling’s as materials get repaired, there is also pain and the area feels very warm till the process is done.”

“That does not sound pleasant,” Kai commented and Zane replied, “no it is not.”

“We can talk about all this later guys now we should focus on getting out of here,” Lloyd declared and Jay offered, “hey Zane why don’t you chew through the rope to set yourself free.” Zane inspected the rope before stating, “that is a possibility but the time it would take to do so might not be ideal to escape before the Mechanic could complete his work.”

“You know if I could access those ropes I could probably burn through them in no time,” Kai declared getting an idea. He then reached out from where he stood on the casing for Zanes heart and tried to push open the hatch over the area having to stretch out to push on the inside of Zanes skin trying to push the hatch open.

“What are you doing?” Nya wondered and Kai explained, “I can go out there and burn the ropes off him so we can escape.”

“First off our small size has made our powers weaker than when we are our normal sizes so your powers won’t be as efficient,” Nya explained and Kai countered, “I can still try. It might take me a little longer but I can still burn it.”

“Secondly you do realise Zane has full control over the hatches in his skin; if he doesn’t want them open you won’t be able to open them. Unless damaged they’re fully latched all the time and will only open if Zane allows them; or if we use the special permission he gave us so we can work on him to open them. That helps prevent foreign items from getting into his body and from anything or anyone posing any danger to his inner workings especially his heart,” Jay explained and Kai asked, “Zane give me a hand buddy and I’ll get you free.”

“I do not think that very wise. If you are as small as you say you are it will be very dangerous for you to be wandering outside my body especially with me being tied up. If you fall it will be very dangerous and could deliver serious and potentially fatal harm to you plus I will be unable to help you and you could easily be hurt by items falling on you or by someone else finding you…” Jay cut in to state, “yha they might think you’re a real ant and squish you.”

“Also the way they have tied me up pins the hatch over my heart in a way that prevents it from opening,” Zane explained and Kai commented, “well there goes that idea.” Kai went to relax and settle back on the frame for Zanes heart. He had put himself however in a position that had him stuck and unable to get back without falling. He worked himself up to try and push himself back but as he prepped himself he ended up slipping and falling. He managed to prevent falling too far by grabbing onto one of the protective plates that covered most of the area over Zanes heart; in doing this his hands accidently hit Zanes heart which in defence sent a shock into all of them and caused Zane pain.

“Please be careful around my heart!” Zane expressed and Kai commented, “sorry that was an accident.”

“Kai be more careful. Any sudden touch to Zanes heart will cause it to release an electric pulse in defence. It’s painful for him and multiple pulses in a short period of time will stress his heart,” Nya explained and Kai stated, “I’ll be careful.” The others began talking over things they could do to help with the situation while Kai slowly and cautiously climbed up to the top of the frame for Zanes heart. He moved slowly cautious of where he put his hand trying to avoid touching the icy blue material that made up Zanes heart not wanting to cause it to spark. At one point while climbing up Kai’s hand slowly touched Zanes heart but he didn’t realise at first he had touched it. Because he had moved slowly Zanes heart didn’t react to being touched. He only became aware he had touched it when he noticed a strange tingling in his hand and arm like there was an electrical current running through it. Pausing to take note of it Kai noticed his hand was touching the material. He’d never really got a good look at the material that made up Zanes heart before. From how others described it he’d often assumed it was like some sort of metal glass material that he thought he might be able to see the electricity in it. He was surprised it wasn’t like that. It was more like some polished opaque icy blue stone like substance like agate and showed no signs of the energy held within it other than its faint icy glow, the electric heartbeat like noise it emitted and the electrical energy he could feel radiating from it. He also noted something strange. Where his hand was touching there was a faint reddish discolour to the material. He began wondering where the color was coming from. As he looked at it the color slowly vanished. Pulling his hand back to look he saw nothing on his hands that could have caused it. He did note his gloves and lower parts of sleeve were missing considerable patches due to Zanes digestive fluids having eaten them away. They all were missing patches from their gloves, footwear and the lower arms and legs from the fluids with some minor irritations and burns to their skins in the areas turning them red and sensitive. A little bit of medical and moisturizing cream would fix that with no problem; they would have to get new clothes to fix those. He didn’t think his missing clothes or skin issues were what caused the discoloration. He slowly and cautiously touched the material again but there was no color. Thinking back he recalled as he had been climbing he had been mad to not be able to just burn the ropes to set them free thinking it would be so easy to do so. He’d done it many times before. He so wanted to burn the ropes to solve their problem. He noticed as he thought about burning the ropes the redness returning to Zanes heart. He changed his thinking away from anything to do with fire or his powers and the color vanished. Pretty sure fire would not be good for Zanes heart Kai instead heated up his arm as he touched Zanes heart. Not only did the redness re-appear but it got bigger.

“What are you guys doing to my heart? There is a burning feeling starting to appear in it!” Zane noted getting nervous and Jay wondered as they all looked down at Kai, “Kai what are you doing?” Kai stopped what he was doing to ask, “hey is electricity the only energy Zanes heart can absorb?”

“I don’t know. I know it can take in and use pure energy, only for a short time though. Why do you ask?” Nya wondered and Kai proclaimed heating his arm back up again, “look at this!” The others watched the redness appear in Zanes heart confused.

“Uh is that supposed to happen?” Cole wondered and Nya stated confused, “as far as I know no it’s not supposed to do that.”

“What is going on?” Zane wondered only able to feel a strange mild burning to his heart and hear the others talking through their communicators to him. It made him anxious causing his heart rate to elevate a bit. Lloyd agreed with Zane and wondered, “yha what is going on?”

“When I think about my powers or use them a bit and touch his heart it makes the red color appear,” Kai commented and Jay wondered, “maybe it’s some sort of energy transfer like how I can charge my phone or power the game station with my powers! You must be doing some sort of energy transfer. Other than discolouring his heart what else do you think your energy transfer can do?”

“You’re doing what to my heart?!” Zane worried not liking that they were playing around with his heart and Cole wondered, “how is Zane’s heart able to make an energy transfer? Fire isn’t electricity though electricity can spark fires… learned that from a toaster oven with damaged wires. Thank goodness Zane was there to help put the fire out.”

“It might not seem it but technically our bodies run off electricity too…” Nya began getting cut off by Jay who proclaimed, “yha like your brain can actually power a light bulb if you were to stick a light bulb in it.” Nya continued a bit annoyed that Jay had cut her off, “yes but our bodies use far less electricity than Zanes does to work. It is largely our nervous systems that use electricity; apart from the symbiotes in his digestive system everything in Zanes body uses electricity to function and as its energy source. Technically with the right connectors you could theoretically transfer energy from our bodies into something else but I don’t see how just touching Zanes heart could transfer energy.”

“Maybe it’s absorbing it through his skin?” Lloyd wondered and Nya noted, “but we’re wearing our gear which covers our skin.” Jay quickly noted looking at the holes in his attire, “it was when we first started now uh not as much in some spots.”

“Yha no offense Zane but your stomach ate holes into my clothes including on my hands,” Kai commented and Nya noted, “okay, I guess it’s possible. We don’t know a lot about Zanes heart; what it can do or how it fully works so there is a possibility it could do that. It would only transfer electricity though not fire; it doesn’t absorb or use elemental energy.”

“I wonder… hey Zane I want you to do something with me. Do what you would do when coating your arms with ice but instead of ice think of fire; think of having your arms on fire and burning the ropes on you off,” Kai proclaimed. Zane was entirely confused looking at the ropes and very uncomfortable with them messing around with his heart, “I do not see how that will do anything. My powers are ice not fire; that would only make the rope cold and wet and would be of no help. Also can you please stop playing with my heart! It is very uncomfortable and unnerving to have you doing whatever you are doing.”

“Zane just humour me here,” Kai commented and Zane replied confused, “you want me to joke with you? How is that going to help our situation?”

“He means for you to go along with his plans. Humour me means to temporarily comply with someone’s thoughts or actions even if you don’t follow generally to keep the peace or get out of a tough situation Zane,” Jay explained before quietly stating to the others, “I think we should give Zane some lessons on the meanings of common sayings.”

“Fine but I do not see how this will help,” Zane closed his eyes while thinking of what Kai wanted him to do while Kai thought of burning the ropes and focussed his powers into Zanes heart causing the red coloring to get bigger and branch out across his heart. The others just waited to see if anything happened. After a few minutes Zane stated opening his eyes to inspect the ropes, “I do not think anything is happening though my arms feel oddly highly warm, too warm for my comfort… they’re on fire!”

“What?” Cole was stumped and Zane worried, “they’re on fire! How is that possible! I am not comfortable with this!” Kai quickly inquired, “it worked now what about the rope? Zane what is the state of the rope?” Zane took a moment to respond worked up by the fire.

“It is on fire from the fire on my arms,” Zane explained as panicking from the strange occurrence Zane managed to break his arms free from the burning rope which was weakened by the damage from the fire and tossed it away from himself before quickly creating ice on his arms over the fire to put them out. He broke the ice off before taking the ropes off his legs and tossing them away. The ropes remained on the ground the one slowly burning though there was not much of a fire on it. They could hear from his heart and breathing rate that this was really scaring Zane.

“I’m free of the ropes now please stop whatever you are doing with my heart! I really don’t like it!” Zane proclaimed anxious from the feelings and Kai proclaimed stopping the transfer of his powers and taking his hand away from Zanes heart, “yes it worked!”

“Uh how? How did it work?” Cole wondered and confused Nya wondered, “I don’t know. I don’t see how his heart could transfer fire. His heart has nothing to do with fire or our powers?”

“It can transfer energy though, maybe Kai was sending like some fiery energy or fire is tied to his energy which he then sent through Zanes heart for it to manifest like his powers on Zane,” Jay proclaimed and after a pause Lloyd guessed, “I guess that could be possible. Now that you are free Zane we can get out of here.”

“I guess I can,” Zane stated getting up and going over to the rooms door to check it having trouble shaking the feelings what had just happened left him with. As he headed over Lloyd remarked, “you can calm down now Zane. You’re free and we’re getting somewhere in our escape.”

“I am calm,” Zane stated not wanting to acknowledge his unnerve and Jay noted, “You can’t lie to us buddy we’re right by your heart so we can hear your heart and breathing rate. They’re not calm.”

“Well that was strange and unnerving with the fire… it is very unsettling,” Zane regaled and Lloyd stated, “don’t worry buddy we’re not going to do that again to you. Just the un-calm rate to your heart and breathing is unsettling some of us, especially Jay.” It wasn’t necessarily Jay who was unsettled by it even though it did have Jay nervous and on edge. It was largely Lloyd and Kai who were unsettled by the noises which were making them feel anxious but neither wished to admit this. Zane slowly calmed down as he looked around. The door was locked so Zane looked around the room looking for something that could help him escape the room. The lights in the room weren’t working with only the light from under the door in the hall providing any light to see anything. It was enough combined with Zanes ability to see in lower light levels than a person to make out things in the room. Even without the added features being a nindroid gave him for his senses his base human like senses particularly his sight and hearing were more sensitive and strong than a persons more akin to those of an animal than a person. Jay often liked to joke with him about his senses claiming that it was like he had the eyes of a cat even though he couldn’t see as well in the dark as a cat and he never understood how Jay could think his eyes looked or worked in any way like a cats. Zane could see there was ventilation in the room but it was too small for him to fit through and he didn’t want to risk letting the others out of his body. With their small size there was too much danger for them. There was then the locker. He decided to investigate it and see what it held. While he went over to the door Kai cautiously finished his climb to sit back up with the others on Zanes heart.

“The door is locked so I will see what is in the locker,” Zane regaled to the others who were waiting for some information into what he was doing. The locker wasn’t locked but unfortunately didn’t have much in it. There was a lunchbox on the top shelf with nothing in it, an old completed crossword book, an old pair of shoes and an item Zane was not entirely sure what it was. As he took them out Zane explained what they were and set the items aside trying to not make any noise not wanting to catch any unwanted attention. As he went to grab the last item movement in the back of the locker caught Zanes eye startling him confusing the others as they could not see what had spooked him.

“Zane what is it? Is there something dangerous?” Nya asked and Zane replied, “no there is just a mirror in the locker that I did not notice was there. Sorry I didn't mean to scare anyone.” Jay responded, "that's okay buddy mirrors can be a bit scary. Especially at night when it's dark and you don't expect to see them... especially when you’re still sleepy and on your way to the bathroom and it's one of those magic trick mirrors that make your reflection all creepy looking that someone left there to play a prank on you and make you wet yourself!” Jay looked at Kai, Lloyd and Cole who were trying to hold in a laugh remembering that prank.

“Why did his reflection startle him? Is he scared of his own reflection or something?” Kai wondered confused muting his end from Zane and while muting his end Jay responded, “no. He has extreme difficulty reading his reflection when it’s mirrored like when in a mirror. Unless he’s purposefully using one he often gets startled when seeing the reflection from a mirror especially when he’s not expecting to see his reflection. It’s not unique to him; all nindroids seem to have this problem. I think mirrors confuse their senses and their brains have trouble reading mirrored images especially when it’s themselves and their actions they are trying to read.”

“So that’s why he and Pix act weird to mirrors. I always thought surely they could tell it was them they were seeing and they’d have no problem with spacial awareness or telling directions when looking in a mirror. Guess I was wrong,” Lloyd noted muting his end from Zane who was taking the last item out of the locker.

“The last is this thing… it kind of looks like a crowbar but lacks the characteristic ends of a crowbar being more of a small slightly cupped piece of it looks to be wood or maybe some plastic mimicking the appearance of wood,” Zane explained looking over the item confused. Jay wondered confused by Zanes explanation, “small cupped plastic or wood bar?” His explanation had them all confused prompting Lloyd to wonder “is there some way we can see what he sees?”

“Zane would you be willing to let us see what you are seeing? We have Kai’s phone that you could use to help us,” Nya inquired and Zane replied, “sure.” After a moment Zane connected the feed from his vision wirelessly to Kais phone allowing them to see what he was looking at. Upon seeing the item Cole remarked, “Zane that’s a shoe horn.”

“Shoe horn?” Zane wondered looking the item over, “this does not look like an instrument nor do I think shoes can have horns.” Cole explained, “it’s a tool to help get your shoe on and fix the shape of your shoes heel. My dad has one for his formal shoes.”

“If that is its use then why is it termed a horn?” Zane wondered and Cole stated, “I have no clue.” A noise outside the door caught their attentions. It sounded like someone say ‘do you smell something burning’. Looking around Zane noticed the rope was still burning where he had left it.

“Zane quick put out the fire,” Lloyd ordered. He hit the rope with ice putting out the fire but it was too late. They could hear someone at the door. They were unlocking it and stating ‘did you hear that’. They began to worry. Thinking quickly Zane picked up the shoe horn and hid behind where the door would open. He stood nervous as the door opened and two of the Mechanics thugs dressed as common crooks came into the room. They quickly noted Zane wasn’t there.

“Uh oh this isn’t good. How did the metal man escape?” the one crook stated investigating the chair Zane had been tied to the other noticed the open locker and went to investigate it. Thinking quickly Zane went over and hit the one looking at the chair with the shoe horn in the back of the head. He caught the person before they hit the floor and slowly laid them down so they didn’t make a sound before heading over towards the other. Just as they turned around to look at their co-worker Zane wasted no time to punch them in the face and knocked them out.

“Good work Zane,” Jay praised Zanes actions and Zane stated closing the door to avoid catching any attention, “I did not really have much of a choice.”

“That’s okay we should see if they have anything of use before trying to make our way out of here,” Lloyd suggested and Cole noted, “obviously one of them has keys to this place as they must have used them to open the door.” Zane dragged and sat both over next to the locker then inspected their pockets. The one did have two separate sets of keys. One had decorative key chains on it leading Zane to deduce they were likely a personal set the other was just plain keys; those must have been the ones for the building. He took the plain set and put it in a hatch to a small compartment in his abdomen to store them. Other than the keys they had not much else, just mainly some coins and their wallets. The one did have their phone which instantly caught their attentions.

“A phone, we could use that to help contact Wu and Pixal!” Kai proclaimed and Zane agreed taking a moment to hack the phone allowing him access to it. They were all a mix of confused and grossed by the screen image on the phone.

“Is that a dog or some mutant rat?” Jay wondered and Cole commented, “I think it’s a dog.” Kai added, “whatever it is it is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen.” The image was of the thug happily giving affection to what they could only guess was his dog which was some highly unpleasant looking thing with largely no hair except long tufts on the top of head, back of neck, ears, shoulders, paws and tail.

“I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Nya noted as they wondered over the dogs photo while Zane contacted the monastery. It didn’t take long for someone to pick up. Wu was who picked up.

“Hello who is this?” Wu asked and Zane responded, “Wu it’s me Zane.”

“Zane is that really you? Where are you?” Wu inquired and Zane answered, “yes it’s really me and I have no clue where we are. They placed us in a broom closet.”

“We; the others are still with you? Are you all safe?”

“Yes they are here as for safe that depends on what you consider safe. We are not in immediate danger but there is a danger present.”

“What is the danger?”

“The Mechanic has plans to eliminate us. The worms were his doing and he is working on more for not just me but to harm the others as well. The Mechanic has hired thugs and the others are no bigger than ants so we will not fare well if we run into trouble and are forced to defend ourselves.”

“That is not good but do not worry we are on our way and can help. Pixal has locked onto the signal of the phone you are using. Just hold on in the meantime and avoid catching attention till we get there.”

“Understood,” Zane replied before hanging up the phone. The others had listened in to the whole conversation.

“Okay we just need to wait for Wu and Pixal to show up then we can deal with the Mechanic. I think it’s time he gets locked in higher security than what he’s been locked in so far. Clearly if he keeps breaking out then he’s not locked down enough. Until Wu and Pixal arrive we need to lie low,” Lloyd suggested but Kai had a different idea, “why just wait around how about doing some scouting instead you know find where the Mechanic is working to cut down on our work?” While the others talked Zane put the phone back in the thugs pocket.

“I don’t think that’s a wise idea. Technically even though we are here Zane is on his own and if he gets in trouble we won’t really be able to help him. At this size a mouse is very dangerous for us,” Cole noted and Jay agreed, “yha I don’t want to get stepped on and squished.” While putting the phone back Zane noted the one crooks plain dark zipper up hoodie was the right size to fit him. Zane looked at himself. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and wasn’t too comfortable with that.

“Kai under our current circumstances it is best that we lie low to avoid any problems. I do agree though we should not stay here. Ideally we should find a more secluded location to lie low,” Nya hypothesized and Cole agreed, “yha when those two come to they are going to talk and that will have everyone looking for us not to mention it will be best we put ourselves in a place that is easy for Pixal and Wu to find us when they arrive most likely outside this structure.”

“Zane what are you doing?” Jay wondered noticing on Kai’s phone the feed from Zanes vision. Zane had taken the one crooks hoodie and was putting it on.

“I am putting on a sweater,” Zane responded and confused Cole commented, “you realise that is someone else’s right?”

“Yes but I felt it would be best if I cover up to avoid drawing attention or unsettling others,” Zane stated taking the items out of the pockets, largely a wallet, and putting them on the person.

“That’s Zane always the modest one. You’ll never see him leaving his underwear lying around the monastery or walking around in his underwear like some of us,” Kai commented looking at Jay who felt targeted by the comment and Nya stated silencing her end of the communicator so Zane wouldn’t hear, “yha he is modest but he also knows his appearance scares and unnerves others including you bro and he doesn’t want to scare anyone or make them uncomfortable. That’s one of the reasons why he often keeps decently covered.”

“I’m not scared by his appearance; sure sometimes his non human skin unnerves me a little; his skin is a bit odd. It kind of reminds me of a reptiles skin with all the metal patches which are like scales plus the glowing spot from his heart is… strange. The glow to his eyes can be a bit unnerving too especially in the dark plus you can clearly tell they’re not human when you really look into them. They have that really techi look and he can shrink and expand the equivalent to the pupil in his eye like a cat. That’s kind of strange too. Plus when he does that thing where he opens part of his skin and you can see his insides that kind of scares me yha; more of a grossed out scare than a scary scared way though,” Kai expressed muting his end so Zane couldn’t hear it and silencing his end Jay agreed, “yha his eyes can be kind of creepy; that shrinking thing in his eye is from when he adjusts his vision is kind of like with cats it helps regulate how much light his eyes take in so he isn’t blinded by too bright of light and can see better in the dark than us. Plus it is also because he can zoom in his vision to better focus or see something further away. Yha there is somethings scary about him but they’re not too bad. I think when he’s mad that’s possibly one of the worst. He’s defiantly scary when you make him mad!” Kai had to agree with that.

“You should pull the hood up to cover your head so you can more easily sneak past everyone,” Cole encouraged Zane who agreed zipped up the hoodie before pulling the hood up. He then went out to the hall. It went in two directions.

“The Mechanic is in a room at the end of the hall to the right so it likely will be best to head to the left to avoid him,” Zane stated picking up the shoe horn before heading down the left end of the hall keeping alert for any of the Mechanics thugs. To avoid suspicion he closed the door to the broom closet as he left. The first room they came across was a large room the hired thugs the Mechanic had were using as a hang out. Most of them were just chilling playing cards, pool or watching a television. Luckily none seemed to take note of Zane as he looked into the room before quietly moving on. As they went they tried to figure out what kind of structure they were in and any possible entrance to the structure. Outside the hall and the room all the thugs had been in all the rooms were dark and most light fixtures had no or broken lights.

“Zane what’s with all the stuff in your vision?” Kai wondered at one point confusing Zane who replied with, “what?” Kai elaborated, “there’s all these strange things that make it look like you have an overlay from a video game in your vision.”

“It is in ways like that. The overlays help aid in aiming, sensory processing and directional navigation. Are they unsettling you? I can turn them off if they are. I use them mainly for when on missions or training,” Zane expressed and Kai stated, “not really, I just find it a bit strange.” Jay cut in to proclaim, “I find them kind of confusing and they make it a little hard to focus.” After a second Zane blinked shutting off the overlays in his vision so when his eyes opened the overlays were gone making his vision human like.

“Is that better?” Zane inquired and Nya noted, “you didn’t have to do that Zane.”

“It is okay, if you are sharing my vision it is best I use a setting we are all comfortable with to help us work together. Besides it does not hinder me much and there is something about this vision that I find relaxing and pleasing,” Zane replied as he checked out another room which looked to be a small office space however only some desks and chairs that were moved and knocked over were left. He went over to check out the windows in the room to see if he could see any hints of where the building was. All he could see was woods. The next room they looked into looked to be an old cafeteria. There were some vending machines against the one wall which instantly caught Coles attention.

“Hey Zane can you check those machines and see if there is anything good in them?” he inquired and Jay commented, “really?”

“Hey I’m hungry,” Cole expressed and Kai chastised, “really? After what we’ve been through today and where we were earlier?” Not only was Kai still shaken from earlier but the sounds from Zanes systems being active had him uneasy and unable to get what happened out of his mind. Luckily from their location Zanes synthetic muscles were dampening the sounds though also because of their location his heart was clearly and loudly audible. There was also every now and then a few loud noises from Zanes digestive tract that unsettled him to hear them though given Coles comment Kai was now wondering if not all the sounds were actually coming from Zane. The noises had Jay a bit anxious as well but he wasn’t as anxious as Kai. Lloyd was also put a bit on edge from some sounds but he and the others weren’t letting it bother them much. Cole didn’t hesitate to respond, “yha I’m largely over it now and hungry so Zane humour me and check out the vending machines.”

“You are using that saying right?” Zane questioned and Cole replied, “yes.” On Coles request he went over and inspected the machines. One had soda, one had candies cookies and chips and another had various milks.

“Do you think any of those are good? Hey Zane can you check the dates on them?” Cole wondered and Jay wondered, “serious, who knows how long these things have been sitting here?”

“Yha I’m serious, again humour me Zane. Just break the glass to get them. If they’re still good I could go for some of those little single pack cakes and a Chocolate milk or two. You can put them in your pockets for later for me,” Cole proclaimed. On Coles request Zane looked at the items. It was hard to see the state of the items through the glass and he couldn’t see any visible dates on items. He broke the glass on the machine with milk using the shoe horn and took out one of the bottles to inspect it looking for the date on it.

“These are not safe for human consumption. The machines have clearly been off for a while and the expiration dates on these are three years old,” Zane explained to which Jay stated, “you better not still be thinking of having those, you’d get food poisoning!”

“Yha, those aren’t appetizing anymore. You can forget about it Zane. I’ll wait till we can get something safe and non moldy or curdled later,” Cole stated and Zane dropped the bottle back in the machine while listening to the others talk. Lloyd commented, “we can have dinner later now we should focus on getting to safety then when back to normal taking down the Mechanic. You know given the state of this place, the fact what’s in these machines has been here for three years at least I think it is safe to say wherever we are is an abandoned structure. This would explain why no one has reported seeing the Mechanic since he escaped prison a month ago. He’s probably been hiding out here the whole time working on his plans while his hired thugs did all the work for him outside this place.” Zane was suddenly startled as something touched his shoulder from behind. Reacting quickly he cloaked his appearance to look human before turning to look who it was. His reaction which caused his breathing and heart rate to suddenly and temporarily elevate silenced the others who remained quiet and on edge worried they had been found.

“Why are you trying to get something out of there? Unless you’re a hyena that stuff will probably kill you if you had it,” the thug who had touched Zane expressed. Luckily he wasn’t one of the two Zane had knocked out and left in the broom closet. Zane was quite unsure what to do so remained silent.

“Tell him you were looking for a drink,” Cole whispered to Zane who stated, “I was looking for a drink.”

“Why would you look in here when you could get something from the hangout down the hall? Not too bright are we?” the thug stated and Jay commented, “really he wants to call a nindroid dumb…” The others quickly shushed Jay before Lloyd stated, “tell him you felt uncomfortable and overwhelmed around everyone else.” Zane took Lloyds advice and parroted what he said.

“If you are that shy you could just get something and chill somewhere else you don’t have to hang out with the rest of us if you don’t want to,” the Thug stated and Zane commented, “I guess I could do that.” They began to leave when one of the Thugs Zane had knocked out, the one he had taken the jacket from, came into the doorway.

“Hey the boss wants all hands on deck; that metal skins escaped. We need to get him before he can escape and get his pals,” the thug stated before noticing Zane who was anxious. Luckily most of the thugs were wearing a similar dark hoodie to the one he had taken off the thug so he was hoping this thug wouldn’t recognise the one he was wearing as its.

“You know I had a jacket like that. I think that thing took it so he could be trying to blend in with us or hide in the shadows. He also took some keys for this place from me so could be anywhere in the building. Best we get going, why don’t you two go help check the warehouse,” the thug stated and the other agreed, “we’ll get it done.” The one thug headed out of the room and not wanting to draw suspicion Zane followed them. They went down the hall in the direction they had been going. They shortly came out of the hall onto a catwalk in a large room that had several large structures against the one wall.

“What are those?” Kai wondered at the structures to which Nya replied, “those are some pretty big smelters. I think we might be in either an abandoned steel mill or other metal refinery or a factory that made metal based items.”

“Good thing this place is abandoned and the Mechanic didn’t want to use those in his plan to destroy us huh, Zane like us wouldn’t survive being in a smelter would he?” Cole commented and Nya replied, “no he wouldn’t.” The catwalk went through the room before entering another room, a large warehouse. There was still quite a few crates and shipping containers along with several people looking around the area. A staircase headed down to the warehouses floor where once on the floor the thug instructed Zane to head out and search. Zane headed off on his own looking for a way out without being seen. To avoid possible detection he steered clear of everyone else. It took a while but he managed to find a door they were pretty sure led outside. There was one major problem however. To reach it he had to walk past a clear area to reach the door that the Mechanic was hanging in with two thugs. The Mechanic was real mad.

“How could he escape? He doesn’t control fire he controls ice so how did he burn through these ropes with fire?! He doesn’t even have anything in his anatomy to create fire,” the Mechanic was ranting holding the burnt rope and threatening the two thugs who were cowering from his tone with it. Luckily the door was hidden from the Mechanics views by some crates but he had to sneak past them in order to reach it and he was nervous of getting caught. The others offered some advice telling Zane to make it look like he was looking around, to keep at a slow but steady pace and not rush and keep the mechanic largely to his back so he wouldn’t see his appearance especially if his cloak failed. They all knew despite how good and convincing it was Zanes cloaking ability had one major flaw that despite all attempts they had been unable to solve. When certain emotions became too much such as anxiety and fear the cloaking tended to glitch and fail. In case it did they felt it best the Mechanic couldn’t see his face. Zane also had a problem that when emotions got too much for him he would have troubles functioning and if it got real bad he could get knocked offline for a couple minutes as his emotional circuits calmed down and reset to lower levels. Having him pass out would not be a good thing in their situation. They could hear from his elevated heart and breathing rate that Zane was very anxious clearly being terrified of getting caught by the Mechanic. They couldn’t blame him; the mechanic wanted to destroy him and do it rather cruelly and painfully plus Zane was pretty much alone and greatly outnumbered if caught. They talked calmly to Zane as he snuck past where the Mechanic was in order to keep him focussed and help him keep his emotions in control. Zane took their advice making sure to look away from the Mechanic and pretended to check out some crates using the shoe horn as he navigated through the area pretending to look around. As an aid he brought back up the overlay in his vision to help him keep an eye on the location of the Mechanic through his senses. Zane managed to get past the section and to the door without being seen. The Mechanic was too focused on venting and chastising his hired thugs for not being alert enough to keep Zane contained claiming they should have had someone on guard to watch him so he couldn’t do anything. When he got to the door Zane tried to open it. The door was locked so he pulled out the keys he had stored in his body closing the port back up after he had the keys out. He slowly went through the keys trying to find the one to unlock the door without making much noise to avoid catching anyone’s attention. The first two keys he tried didn’t work. As he put the third key in and went to try it he became startled his cloak dropping as a robotic hand grabbed his wrist that was holding the key. Instantly he recognised the hand and got scared.

“So thought we could escape did we? I don’t know how you got out but you’re not going to get a second chance to escape this time,” the Mechanic declared as Zane looked at him before Zane got shocked by a taser pressing into his back causing him to collapse stunned letting go of the key and dropping the shoe horn. The others got stunned as well.

“Take him to the control room and use chains to tie him up this time. He can’t break or burn through those,” the Mechanic ordered as two thugs lifted Zane up by the arms and started dragging him back into the building. While not unconscious Zane was still a bit too stunned to defend himself or break free.

“We need to stop them, I can’t burn through chains to break us free,” Kai stated and Jay noted, “I think Zanes a little too stunned to fight back.” They tried to talk to Zane though while conscious he wasn’t responding. Thinking quickly Nya expressed, “hold on everyone. Sorry about this Zane.” She gave Zanes heart a punch causing it to send out a burst of electricity shocking Zane, them and the two carrying Zane. They all collapsed stunned though having his heart threatened caused Zane to quickly regain his senses in defence.

“Don’t let that thing escape,” the Mechanic ordered his henchmen who started to come at Zane who was lying on his front recovering from the shock. Knowing he couldn’t face all of them on his own he quickly looked around for a place to escape. The first thing he noticed was a shipping container with its door open a bit. He quickly got up and rushed over to it getting inside and closing the door behind him. Only once he had closed the doors did Zane realise his mistake.

“Wait a minute… this was a mistake,” Zane commented looking at the dark empty interior of the shipping container. He could hear outside the container the Mechanic ordering his henchman to keep him locked in the container and for some of his allies to retrieve some chains to tie him up along with shock proofed gloves from the control room which he was using as his work room in order to capture Zane. He could also hear them locking the container doors so he would have no way to escape.

“Zane did you just trap us?” Jay wondered as they regained their senses and after a moments thoughts Zane responded feeling embarrassed by his mistake, “it seemed like a good idea at the time…”

“A good idea? We’re trapped! They’re going to get us, shove more of those worms in you which will probably try to destroy us likely by the easiest way it could by tricking us back into Zanes stomach to get digested!” Jay began panicking which started to work up Kai who was worried of ending up in Zanes stomach again especially with it being active now.

“Jay take a chill pill,” Cole stated and Lloyd commented, “instead of panicking we can use this time to come up with a way to escape.”

“Well we probably don’t have those keys anymore,” Cole commented and Nya suggested, “we’re probably not going to have easy access to any doors either. There were some windows back up in that hall sure they were on what looked like a second or third floor but Zane could easily use his powers to make a safe way to get down from there.” Zane listened in to their planning.

“Sounds good but how are we going to get out of this container?!” Jay chastised not calming down and Zane noted, “I have no way of cutting through the metal nor do I have the strength to break the doors open which they have locked the doors and the hinges are on the exterior of the structures so I cannot interact with those to open the doors.”

“You know if I was out there and not the size of an ant I could easily smash out those doors using my lava arms…” Cole proclaimed giving the air some mock punches before coming to an idea, “hey if Kai could transfer his powers through Zanes heart do you think I could send mine through it too?”

“I guess, I still don’t entirely get how that was possible but if Kais could work then I guess the rest of ours could as well,” Nya stated and Cole expressed, “alright! Sorry if this freaks you out Zane but just roll with me and we’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Roll with me? Is this a saying the same as humour me or something else?” Zane wondered and Jay explained, “kind of. It means to go along with his plan.” Zane accepted to go with Coles plan.

“Alright when I say so give the door as hefty a punch as you want then once they’re open run as fast as you can to those windows,” Cole explained slowly touching the material of Zanes heart so it wouldn’t react. Once touching it he activated his Lava arms causing an orange discolouring to Zanes heart. As he activated his lava arms Cole instructed Zane to do as he did when activating this power. Zane followed his lead and had the same markings appear on his arms that Cole had when using the power. They took a second to prep themselves before acting. Once ready Zane punched the doors with as much force as he could muster surprised as the doors smashed open with the power he had been able to use. It was much more than he could ever muster. The Mechanic and his henchmen were all startled and confused by the actions hesitating on making a move. In their hesitation Zane hit the ground separating him from them with ice building a wall of ice to block easy access to himself forcing them to have to find a less direct route to reach him giving them some extra time to put some distance between themselves and the Mechanic and his crew. With the ice made Zane wasted no time in rushing back to the stairs to climb up them and get on the catwalk to head back to the office room in order to get to one of the rooms that had windows to the exterior. While he did this Cole stopped what he was doing and took his hand off Zanes heart in order to not interfere with Zanes powers. Their tactics worked to some extent. It hindered the enemies a bit but using an attachment on his arm the Mechanic burned a path through the ice with fire and ordered his thugs after them. By the time Zane got onto the catwalk the Mechanic and his henchmen were already on their way towards him. Zane didn’t stop though pausing only briefly to check where the enemies were as he exited the warehouse room before rushing through the smelter room. As he rushed through the smelter room Zane quickly found his escape blocked causing him to stop in his tracks. The two who had gone to retrieve the chains and gloves for the Mechanic were coming back and blocked his path to the hall he needed to get into. The others were gaining quickly behind him. Looking around and thinking quickly Zane noticed a stairway against the wall leading from the rooms floor to the catwalk coming up rate by the halls doorway behind the thugs. He quickly formulated a plan. There was a high chance his plan wouldn’t work too well but he was willing to risk it. It was the best option they had. Thinking quickly Zane created a slide of ice from the catwalk to the floor. He rode it down to the floor then rushed towards the stairs some of the thugs following him a bit nervous and clumsy with the slide. Just as he had worried things didn’t work out as he had planned. Most of them didn’t follow him and instead cut off his access to the stairs. With not many options for an escape Zane put himself backed up into a corner of the room for defence. The Mechanic and his henchmen quickly closed in cornering him. He was quickly caught up in a fight with them. He managed to hinder a few by freezing their feet to the ground and when he used his Spinjitsu tornado the others got dizzy unprepared for the action all of them having to tightly gripe the casing for his heart and the wires coming from his heart in order to remain balanced and keep from falling.

“Zane while we’re in here please don’t do that again… we’re all dizzy now,” Jay commented as they settled while Cole commented, “is this what my lunch feels like when I do that?” Zane managed to defend himself for a short time before the enemies got the upper hand as one of them shocked him with a taser in the back causing him to collapse stunned.

“Zane get up! Get up!” Jay began to panic and Nya stated, “Jay that’s of no use rate now.” Two of the thugs put on the gloves and picked Zane up holding him by the arms as he slowly regained his senses.

“Nice try Zane the pain. I don’t know how you did that but it was an impressive try. I thought only the shaggy haired dirt boy had that kind of strength,” the Mechanic noted and feeling offended Cole muttered, “dirt boy!”

“Clearly keeping you safely contained is harder than I suspected. Maybe I should use a quicker method to destroy you to avoid the trouble of dealing with you anymore. You’re living up to your name of Zane the pain,” the Mechanic noted before taking note of the smelters in the room. While the Mechanic talked Jay began to panic mutter annoying the others as he was making it hard for them to hear what was going on.

“You know they left behind here enough stuff to get those things working again for at least one more go. Why don’t we see how hot we can make them then we shove the pain in them and see how much heat the metal man can handle. If it doesn’t destroy him it could at least cause enough harm to keep him from escaping then we can slowly and painfully finish him off,” the Mechanic declared causing Jay to loudly babble with his communicator on so not only the other ninja but Zane could hear his loud babbling, “he’s going to burn us alive! No that’s said to be one of the worst ways to go! Only Kai is immune to that much heat! I don’t want to go by being roasted like some harvest turkey! I’d rather get digested by Zane than go that way! At least in Zanes system the gasses in there might knock us out before we actually start to feel anything either that or we could knock ourselves out. Why can’t he just paralyze us and leave us locked in a room. We can handle those worms again while we wait for the others to rescue us why does he have to go so drastic?! We never did anything to him! Zanes right he caused all his own problems why take it all out on us?!” Without thinking annoyed by Jays loud panicking which was making it hard to hear anything else Zane expressed, “Jay can you tone it down I can’t hear anything through your babbling.” Only after he spoke did Zane realise his mistake.

“Jay the babbly whiny sparky boy… how are you hearing and talking to him?” the Mechanic became suspicious and demanded one of his thugs bring him a tablet. One quickly did and the Mechanic began working on it.

“My hindrances are still in place so no one from outside is talking to you and you haven’t been able to call for help so … wait what is this? Another signal has been routed through and connected to your senses coming from… inside him… oh I see. This clears some things up. That’s how they destroyed my worms; why my plan has failed. They’ve somehow shrunk themselves and went inside your body to protect you. Well isn’t this intriguing. They’re still in there aren’t they? That’s how Zane the ice pain burnt through the rope and got loose. Your pals helped you didn’t they? They can hear and see what’s going on can’t they? Well then hello there pain-jas you’ve made this so much easier for me. Do any of you have anything to say for your foolishness before I finish you all off?” the Mechanic chastised and quickly hooking Kais phone up to the Mechanics tablet Lloyd stated, “we’re not going to go down easily. This isn’t the end for us. We’re going to stop you.”

“Oh really and how are you going to do that?” the Mechanic wondered and Kai boasted, “if you haven’t noticed we found a way to let Zane use our powers. How well do you think all your simple henchman will fare against someone who can use all our powers against them?”

“Very cocky fire brat you think you have the upper hand. I think you over estimate your powers. You know I’m no expert but what do you think would happen if I set one of these to full power and struck your metal built host with it?” the Mechanic proclaimed taking a taser from one of his henchman and switching it to its highest setting before pressing it into Zanes chest rate over his heart. Zane was scared starting to shake while the others were nervous.

“Uh what would that do?” Cole wondered and Jay quickly panicked, “Zane might survive but with our tiny size we’ll be fried! Fried to dust!”

“How would you rather go? Cooked or fried?” the Mechanic offered. Nya covered the phone so the Mechanic couldn’t hear them talk while Lloyd quickly covered Jays mouth to keep him quite as he quietly talked to the others, “Wu and Pixal are on their way all we have to do is hold on till then and they can get us out of this. We just need to buy ourselves some time and not let them know we have help coming.”

“Then we’ll want the fire way. It will take them some time to get the heat high enough to have an effect on Zane and us giving us time. The zappy way will just finish us off in almost an instance,” Cole quietly explained and they were all in agreement. They uncovered the phone to address the Mechanic.

“Zane is there anything you can do to get us out of this?” Lloyd pretended to wonder and Zane responded, “I am afraid not. My make will make the shock worse for the rest of you and prove fatal. If not to me defiantly to the rest of you and I do not want to do anything that would put you all at risk.” Putting on a sad defeated act Lloyd proclaimed, “fine; I guess we don’t really have a choice here do we. I’d rather be burned than shocked then. I hope you’re happy for what you’ve done.”

“Indeed I am now if you all know what’s good for you; you pains, I would refrain from any shows of powers or attempts at escape. If you do try anything I’ll give you all a hefty shock,” the Mechanic declared pushing the taser deeper into Zanes chest making him even more nervous. The Mechanic then ordered his allies to start one of the smelters using wooden crates from the other room and coal from a storage room in the factory. Those holding Zane let him go and the Mechanic herded him over to one of the supports to the catwalk threatening him with the taser. As he went over Zane kept his hands on his chest over his heart feeling a need to protect the others from possible attempts their enemies might try to get them. Once at the support the Mechanic forced his hands down and Zane was pinned standing up against it. They chained him to the support making sure to tie the chains over the panels in his body so he could not open them to prevent the others from escaping. One of the guards was kept standing by Zane holding the taser threateningly at him to keep them from trying anything. They were stuck only able to watch as the Mechanic and his henchman prepped their doom.

“If they don’t get here in time what are we going to do?” Cole wondered after a couple minutes of silence starting to worry. Since they had no clue where they were and how long it had been since they had been taken from the Monastery they didn’t know how long it would take for aid to reach them.

“I don’t know,” Lloyd commented nervous and Nya noted, “Zane could withstand the heat for a very short time and he could use his powers to counter the heat but he can’t do so for long. The heat will eventually be too much and prove fatal for him.” Zane just listened not speaking to prevent any clues to their conversation.

“Maybe I could let Zane use my super strength again and we can try to smash out of the back of the smelter when they shove us in there,” Cole suggested trying to solve their dilemma.

“Yha but that nut job will probably shock us if we try anything,” Jay muttered panicking and not trying to hide it. Kai was a bit surprised to find himself muttering, “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Jay but yha he’d probably do that. Maybe even stun, knock out or paralyse Zane in some way to keep him and us from doing anything.” Things weren’t looking to good then without much of a warning a small canister suddenly dropped on the floor by Zane bouncing away from him a bit while making a beeping sound. A few more followed scattered around the room and after a couple beeps each one would explode spreading a cloud of dust over an area quickly filling the room with smoke.

“What’s going on?” Jay panicked and Lloyd proclaimed, “I think our helps arrived.” Zane couldn’t see very well through the smoke with his base vision but he didn’t switchover to anything that could help him better see in the smoke as he was picking up a familiar presence that he trusted would get him to safety without him needing to do anything to find safety. The chains holding him loosened and fell off. The presence he trusted then grabbed his hand and led him through the smoke into a storage room that came off the smelter room and was free of smoke. When they were in the room they closed the door behind them.

“Looks like we got here just in time,” Wu proclaimed while Zane hugged Pixal joyed to see her.

“Let’s get this over with and get the Mechanic locked back up,” Pixal proclaimed as Zane opened the hatch over his heart holding up his hand for the others to climb onto. Once they were on his hand Zane placed them on the ground where Wu used the counter spell to restore the others back to their normal sizes.

“Now let’s get this pain before he can escape and this time let’s make sure he’s put in high security,” Lloyd declared as they took off the masks and air tanks they had equipped to prevent them from hindering them. They wasted no time then rushing out of the room to prevent the Mechanic from getting a chance to escape. The smoke was steadily dissipating and the Mechanic was mad ranting on how Zane had managed to escape again. It didn’t take them long to take down all the Mechanics henchmen who weren’t prepared for a fight or their powers. The Mechanic attempted to quickly flee seeing his plan fail and the other ninja were there and back to normal but they were quick to cut off his attempts to escape. He tried to put up a fight but was quickly taken down Zane freezing all but his head to the ground in ice to which Cole added a layer of protection by making rock spires shoot up from the ground to curl up over and around the ice to hinder any escape. It took the cops about half an hour to arrive to take the Mechanic and his crew away. In that time they destroyed the Mechanics work to hinder him from doing this again anytime soon.

“Well today was a weird day,” Lloyd commented as they watched the cops lock up and take everyone away outside the structure which was an old metal works factory outside a small town on the outskirts of Ninjago City. They made sure extra care was taken to have the Mechanic locked up and that he was going to be put under higher security. Once the cops were gone Cole commented, “could we go for dinner now?”

“Serious is that all you can think of especially after some of today’s events?!” Kai exclaimed still quite shaken and vividly remembering some of the days events unable to get them out of his mind and Cole commented, “kind of. I’m also thinking it would probably also be a good idea to have a shower and get some clean non damaged clothes on.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Lloyd agreed looking at himself and Zane added, “that does sound like a good idea. This place is not very clean nor were many of the henchman; they left my skin a bit dirty plus I should give this sweater back to that folk and put on my own clothes. Not to mention all of you look rather dirty.”

“Yha I don’t want to be reminded of how I got dirty!” Kai commented his eyes wide and looking stunned.

“Yha a calm night at home to relax sounds like a good idea after today’s events,” Jay stated and after Zane wondered about Kais stunned look Jay explained, “we can tell you all about what happened today pal. How about later after we all get cleaned up maybe over dinner.” Kai was just uncomfortable from that suggestion but everyone else was fine with it.

“Sounds good now can we get going,” Cole inquired eager to head off and get something to eat to which he was hoping to be able to get some extra desserts. Wu expressed, “sure we can pick something up on our way home.” They then headed off to the Bounty which Wu and Pixal had used to get there in order to head off. So they could get cleaned up Wu and Pixal dropped the ninja off at the Monastery while they went and got dinner. They all got cleaned up having a shower and getting into their PJs to relax for the rest of the night. Randomly throughout the time after they had gotten cleaned up Zane came up to the others randomly while they were on their own to thank them for saving him while giving them a hug. Zane normally wasn’t the very emotional type not readily showing emotions especially physically as much as the others and outside Pixal or with animals wasn’t usually the one to initiate a hug or similar kinds of affection. This told them what they had done meant a lot to Zane and that he was very grateful for their aid. All of them were happy with his affection and reassured him that he didn’t need to thank them hugging him back in return telling him they had been more than happy to save him. They were more than happy to help him no matter what or how dangerous it could be. Cole and Nya weren’t really bothered about what they had been through; Cole even was rather happy to have gone through it feeling it had given him a better understanding of Zane. Jay was a bit shaken but was getting over it now that he was out of danger. He knew Zane couldn’t help what he was and didn’t hold what happened against him and he assured Zane of this; Zane had no control over what had happened and never would have meant any harm to them. Jay felt even though it grossed him out a bit knowing a great deal about Zanes anatomy had helped him keep calm in the situations and places they had ended up in plus help him protect his pal. Kai was still rather shaken from what they went through and became startled when Zane came up to him highly un-expecting his actions. He assured Zane though that his state wasn’t Zanes fault and he didn’t need to feel bad about it. It was more of the situations and locations they had ended up in that had him shaken and not Zanes workings or quirks; even though a lot of it did have him still grossed out.

“You know you don’t have to thank us,” Lloyd who was the last Zane thanked stated when receiving thanks. Lloyd was still a little shaken from the day’s events but was calming down. Zane had come up to him while he was in the bedroom hall after getting cleaned up. They were all currently just chilling in their rooms or the entertainment room waiting for Wu and Pixal to return with dinner.

“You put yourselves in great danger to save me and I was one of those dangers probably the most dangerous considering the one place you ended up in. I could have easily harmed you or worse without meaning to; my interior is very dangerous for organic beings like you to be wandering in. I at the least owe you a thanks for any troubles or harm I may have caused you,” Zane replied and Lloyd told him, “no you don’t have to thank us no matter what buddy. We wanted to help you no matter the risks and you shouldn’t worry about those. How dangerous you are is not your fault it’s just how you are and none of us would change that no matter what. We like you just the way you are. Besides you’re our brother and we’d do anything for you no matter the risks. We all know you’d do the same for us in fact you often have.” Lloyd gave Zane a hug as he spoke.

“Yha you are our brother even if your insides are like something from a monster… I thought Cole had some weird tastes and eating habits you’re pretty bad too; not as bad as Coles I don’t think but defiantly strange,” Kai commented as he came up to them as he headed towards the entertainment room. He still looked rather shaken as he spoke confusing Zane however before he could say anything they could hear Cole loudly and excitedly calling as he rushed to the kitchen from his room, “dinners here!”

“You know your insides Zane might be like something from a monster but I think somehow Coles would possibly be just as scary,” Kai commented before slowly heading off still looking rather stunned. Noting Zanes confusion Lloyd expressed to him as they followed for dinner, “it’s okay you know how Kai is about guts; he just got to experience more than he wanted to today considering we ended up in yours. Now come on buddy let’s get some dinner before Cole ends up going for seconds and don’t worry we’ll explain everything that went on today to you and don’t take everything Jay or Kai say too personal; thinking back on it the whole thing wasn’t really that bad especially since it meant saving you.”

“I guess your right there. You’re very special Zane in more ways than one and despite how uncomfortable or unpleasant all we went through today was I guess it was all worth it in order to make sure we still have you around… even if it’s going to give me nightmares for a while. No matter what you are or what you’re made of… or how gross or scary your insides are buddy you’re still our brother and we wouldn’t change that or anything about you,” Kai agreed.

#ninjago #ninjago zane #ninjago cole #ninjago nya #ninjago jay #ninjago kai #ninjago lloyd #ninjago pixal #ninjago headcanons #ninjago nindroids

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