The last of what Zane felt in his final moments against the newer droid included a chest panel sliding open, hot sparks of electricity, and the apathetic, dusty ground beneath him. Perhaps, if he had a few more seconds, he could have accepted these final moments as something metaphorical. Out with the old and such. With precarious relief, that time was never allotted to him.
The table was cold. The surrounding areas, they seemed, were sanitary. Though not notified by any vision, Zane felt with an uncoordinated hand several large wires and similar devices leading from his body to whatever equipment he cared not to observe. A gentle force guided him back to a resting position.
"Be patient, Zane," Pixal warned, "I still have some work to do."
Her metallic voice faltered up and down, forcing him to abandon his lazy efforts to follow it through its modulations.
With patience, his senses engulfed him. Transitively, nonsense shapes and sounds crowded him, building quickly into a sensitive din that, at once, hushed itself into quiet hums of machines and familiar sensations of mechanical equipment. He let out a deep breath.
"Does that feel better?" Pixal asked.
He really didn't feel better per say, more that he feels now and didn't before, but the correct answer regardless was yes, as her voice did indeed make Zane feel better than he did a few seconds prior.
"Yes," he said finally, "though, I am a little confused."
As gingerly as seemed possible, the machines connected to Zane were methodically removed. He made careful note to not move.
"I am as well," she replied.
Zane blinked.
"I am confused as to why the nindroid did not destroy me completely, instead leaving me intact enough to be repaired. Why are you confused?"
Once she stowed every device back into its proper machine, Pixal carefully helped him up by the shoulder. Off of a nearby table, she picked up a small, disc-like object and showed it to him.
"I am confused because I found this in a cavity while repairing you. It appears his intention was not at all to harm you. In fact, he only targeted one vital function area. Instead of destroying you, he left this. I have scanned it for possible malware, but it appears to have none," she explained.
Zane took the disc and examined either side. It featured no external wiring or clear connection mechanism. Several slightly-raised panels wrapped around the outside of it in an irregular fashion, which made a quiet click when pressed down. However, nothing happened.
"Did you scan it for anything else?" he asked.
"It contains no fingerprints and is one-of-a-kind," Pixal said simply, “the nindroid who attacked you appears to be a nonstandard model who goes under the alias ‘Mr. E.’”
Zane peered back down to the device.
"No fingerprints..." he repeated, "so the–, so Mr. E must have created it by himself, or with some other droid?"
"Perhaps so," she began, "regardless, it is enemy technology. I was going to get rid of it if you didn't know anything, as it is likely dangerous."
She offered a hand to take it back, but he held onto it.
"It may hold valuable information. With how little we know about the Sons of Garmadon, I believe it is best to keep it."
Pixal shrugged.
"Very well, Zane," she said, though slightly annoyed, "but take caution."
"I will," he responded.
With a nod, Pixal left the room. Zane stood up. Among the machinery, he saw a screen with a blank scan of himself that simply read 'disconnected.' Out of curiosity, he decided to look through its backlogs.
To no surprise, he was horribly damaged when the others brought him in. It appeared, however, that only one of his injuries was responsible for his unconsciousness. A sharp cut to the right shoulder blew out a component that interpreted environmental input. With a quick examination, Zane confirmed that while nothing beside it even suffered a dent, the part itself couldn't be repaired, and instead was replaced.
Mr. E's strategy was surely an educated one. Often, Zane's opponents attacked him as if he had human anatomy, going for the head or neck. However, only another droid would know that his consciousness was not stored in any 'brain' in his head, but came from a number of components scattered throughout his body. If this is the case, why is it, again, that Mr. E spared him?
His attention returned to the disc. Against Pixal's warning, he fiddled with it in attempts to learn something. He found rather quickly that the device functioned in a sequence. When pressed down, each panel on the device would compress with a 'click' noise, but all would return to their original positions if a panel was pressed out of sequence. He considered simply going through every possible combination until everything had been done, but with the number of different parts, it would take far too long.
Regardless of the sequence itself, Zane now knew that the disc was a puzzle and most likely not a virus or explosive. That was enough information to ask for some outside help. With one more look at the thing, Zane left the room to ask for help from the others.
Cole was in the hallway. He noticed Zane the second he opened the door and greeted him kindly.
"Hey, I didn't know you were up. You feeling alright, buddy?" he asked.
He nodded politely.
"Yes. Could you help me with something?"
Cole tilted his head slightly, signaling for Zane to go on.
"It's this," he offered the disc to Cole, "Mr. E put it in my chest cavity after our battle. It's a puzzle, and the panels are sequenced."
He had looked over the device with interest, but showed sudden aversion when Zane explained.
"Woah, woah, woah, this thing is from the Sons of Garmadon? I wouldn't trust it. It could be a tracker, a weapon, or anything like that."
Zane sighed.
"Mr. E attacked me with incredible precision. If he wanted to destroy me, he would have, but he didn't. Instead, he left this. There is something he wants to communicate to us, something he can't tell his other gang members," he explained.
Cole glanced slowly between his friend and the disc. Carefully, he reconsidered it.
"If you say so," he said eventually.
After thoroughly feeling the device, he continued.
"Mr. E, huh? So, what do you know about this thing?"
"I believe it is a puzzle. The panels click when you press them down, but some of them stay down and then return if you press another. A correct sequence may reveal something."
Cole held it up to the light and peered at it.
"Not much to go off of, then. Do you know why the shapes of the little keys are so weird?"
"I do not," Zane admitted.
After some number of confused attempts to solve the thing, Cole returned it.
"Jay's into this kind of stuff, he'd probably know more than me," he advised.
Zane looked away for a second.
"Jay's methods are often... Destructive. I want to keep it intact, if possible."
Cole huffed a laugh, passing him with a rough pat of the shoulder.
"Well, let me know if you figure it out."
Zane nodded, and continued on.
If he already talked to Cole, and Jay was off the table, then that left Kai, Nya, and Lloyd. Of them, Nya had the most experience in both building and nindroid behaviors. She seemed the logical choice.
Expectedly, Nya was below the monastery in the hangar bay. Unexpectedly, Pixal was with her. They worked together with an admirable synchrony. He waited patiently for a natural spot to interject, but none came. Instead, Pixal addressed him directly.
"Do you need something, Zane?" she asked, keeping her attention on the project.
"I know more about the device now. I wanted to ask for help solving it," he explained.
The two paused and exchanged glances. Nya shrugged. They set down their tools and approached him.
"Solving it?" Pixal repeated.
"Yes, it is a puzzle. The keys must be pressed in a sequence. I believe it will reveal something," he said.
Nya squinted.
"Isn't that the thing Mr. E put in your chest? Why would he give you a puzzle?"
Zane glanced with gentle concern at the disc.
"There's something Mr. E wants to tell us that he can't relay through his gang. I don't know what it is, but it seems that us receiving this was more important than his mission to destroy me."
"That is but one possibility, Zane."
Pixal's face wore sympathy, but her sigh was annoyed. Nya tilted her head in consideration.
"He's right though, isn't he? I mean, is it possible that Mr. E could, like, I dunno, break through his code or something? He was sure to definitely…not destroy him," she fumbled her words.
Pixal shook her head.
"Even my programming fully controlled me until a chance at free will was given to me. When you're made to simply follow orders, you don't really feel anything about the nature of them, certainly not to the point of betrayal."
Zane nodded in agreement, but refuted her point.
"The technology to recreate human behavior within a machine has gotten better since you or I were built," he said gently, "perhaps Mr. E has partial control of himself even when made to complete a task."
"Are you calling me outdated?" she retorted.
"Far less so than I," he responded with a shrug.
"I think we're getting off topic," Nya interjected.
She turned their attention back to the disc.
"You wanted our help to solve it?"
Zane offered it to Nya, who took it with curiosity.
"Yes. I believe it is a sequence puzzle, but there appear to be no hints or clear guides to solve it. Cole pointed out the strange shapes of the keys, but I couldn't find any sensical pattern in them."
"Well, there's gotta be something," she said, "and if this is the only thing he gave us, my guess is that the answer is in the key shapes."
Under the concerned watch of her friend, Nya took several stabs at the thing, her last attempt ending with her trying to press everything at once. Pixal awkwardly took the disc from her. After glancing over it, she scanned it again. She shook her head in disappointment. Distantly, a call rang out.
“Hey, Nya!”
The unmistakable timbre of Jay’s voice got clearer as he darted up the stairs, towards the rest of them.
“I just figured out a way to beat the expansion in Dance Riot! We should totally–”
Finally, his eyes landed on the three of them. His words hung awkwardly in the air as he stared.
“Oh, hey Zane. Didn’t know you got up.”
He advanced with a sudden casual demeanor only Jay was capable of. He took immediate interest in the disc.
“What’s that?”
After shooting a fearful glance at Pixal, Zane explained the thing yet again.
“The droid that attacked me, Mr. E, put this in my chest cavity after he defeated me. Despite the situation, it doesn’t seem like any type of malware or weapon. Instead, we believe it is a puzzle, one where keys must be pressed in sequence to reveal some kind of message or mechanism.”
Jay nodded in understanding, but Zane didn’t believe him.
“Oh, yeah. My dad used to make things like that when I was a kid. I got pretty good at them. Got any hints?” he asked.
He took the disc from Pixal, who hadn’t been paying attention. Nya quickly reached for it, but stopped short of taking it from him. Clicking sounds filled the short silence.
“We don’t, that’s the problem. It is very important that the disc stay intact, should any message be damaged–”
“Hey, don’t the buttons kinda look like all the parts you have in there?” he gestured to Zane’s torso, “he took out, like, a lot, right? What if it's in the order he did all that?"
Zane peered at the disc, tilting his head.
"I… fail to see the resemblance," he said.
Nya nudged him.
"It's worth a shot."
Jay offered him the disc again. To his credit, there were roughly the same number of visible biocomponents in his torso as there were keys in the device. Zane went through the battle again in his head, inputting each blow. Startlingly, the keys all at once became loose and fell to the floor, clattering as they hit the ground. Left in his hand was a small CD.
"Hah! Still got it," Jay said proudly.
Pixal offered to take the disc. She glanced at both sides of it.
"CDs were outdated technology before I was even created," she commented, "why would Mr. E give us a CD? It's not even the standard size."
Zane looked down at the thing with sympathy.
"Perhaps it's all he had."
"Well, play the thing! We're not gonna get anywhere talking about it," Nya interjected.
With some laps around the monastery and the shuffling of various closet items, the group managed to obtain a CD player. Cole apparently had stowed one away as the last remaining evidence of a short-lived phase. After some rough adjusting, it took the irregularly small disc, much to the relief of the whole cast now, as the search had garnered their attention.
A chaotic assortment of varying voices, up and down, with rapid, sharp cuts between them sounded statically from the machine.
"Tonight.... Up… above- in the sky!... We-.. Get em! We-.. Get em!.. Tonight. Above- in the sky!"
The message looped back on itself infinitely with a struggle. Pixal was the first to turn it off. Concerned and puzzled glances bounced about the room, mostly to Zane.
"Were those voices the Sons of Garmadon?" Kai broke the silence.
"Yeah," Cole agreed, "I heard Ultra Violet in there."
"If someone took her voice and played it back on a microwave," Jay added.
"Did anybody catch what it was saying?" Nya asked.
Zane's gaze was fixed to an undefined middle distance.
"We get 'em tonight, above in the sky, up," he said, more to himself than the others, "the Sons of Garmadon are planning an ambush tonight from above."
"You got all that from that noise?" Jay exclaimed.
"They may want us to direct our resources above so they can attack below, or not at all. It is likely a trick," Pixal stated.
Kai crossed his arms.
"Yeah, I wouldn't trust it," he added, "I mean, if someone wanted to tell us something, why would they have to beat Zane up first? It's weird."
"But it's not even like they wanted us to know, they hid the whole thing in a puzzle. If it was a trap, wouldn't they make it a bit easier to fall for it?" Nya said.
Nobody had noticed Lloyd leaving the room, but he returned with a notepad.
"Okay, we need to sort all this out," he said, "what all do we know about this thing?"
The ninja looked to each other for speaking turns.
"Mr. E placed it in my chest cavity after defeating me in battle," Zane started.
"The CD, which was irregularly sized, was contained within a unique puzzle that held no fingerprints," Pixal added.
"It was one of those sequence things. The solution was the order that Mr. E took out Zane's parts," Jay said.
"Hm," Lloyd tilted his head as he wrote, mumbling out his writings, "and we also know that the CD has spliced audio of the Sons of Garmadon warning us of an attack."
He glanced about the room, waiting expectantly.
"Is that it?"
Eventually, nervous nods turned towards him.
"Hmm. Well, maybe it's not enough to reach a conclusion, but it'll tell us what to do," he said with sudden optimism.
Occam's Razor, Zane thought, was a base principle of human behavior. The solution that required the least assumptions of intelligence and steps to execute was most often correct in one way or another. However, Occam's Razor still requires the evidence to be organized in a sensical way, which it certainly made a valiant effort to not be.
Perhaps, maybe, the Sons of Garmadon had assigned Mr. E a mission to give false information to the ninja. This conflicted directly with the nature of the message and the puzzle itself. Possibly, Mr. E had realized the true nature of his accomplices and sought to warn the ninja of an upcoming attack. This conflicted with the battle, and left the nature of the message unexplained. It pained Zane to acknowledge, but it seemed on equal ground with the previous solution. Maybe the Sons of Garmadon simply put together an intentionally confusing device with the aim of wasting resources and muddling intel. While simple, the solution left everything unexplained with the notion that it had to be, but this is not true. Nothing quite fit. There is no Occam's Razor.
"Alright," Lloyd said after a long writing pause, interrupting his thoughts, "so we can either do nothing, fully prepare for an attack from above, or generally prepare for an attack from anywhere."
Lloyd held up a lopsided diagram with some bullet points next to it. He directed his pen to another portion of the diagram. Zane looked to it with a curious sense of pride.
"And they can either attack from above, attack somewhere else, or do nothing, so I think you know where I'm going from here," he explained.
A few had their guesses, but they let him go on. The thinking was easier when he did it.
"If we do nothing, and they do nothing, then we're good. We waste no resources and don't get ambushed," he said, drawing a check under a box, "but if we do nothing and they don't, not so much."
He drew two crosses below the check.
"If we prepare for an aerial attack, and they go somewhere else, that's bad, and even worse if we do nothing. It only works if the message is right."
Another box received a check and two crosses.
"If we generally prepare and they do nothing, it's bad, but it's good for both aerial and any other methods they might use."
A cross and two checks.
"So, we don't need to know if the message is genuine or not right now because we already know what to do."
Zane recalled the indecisiveness that marked the rough start of Lloyd's journey to master. He couldn't teach him how to defeat enemies or persevere through hopeless times, but he could make a logic chart like nobody else. That was the mark he managed to leave on him, those methods.
"Let's get on with it, then," Kai prompted, holding the door open behind him.
* * *
A choking blanket of fog enveloped the monastery that night. All lights, save for those connected to essential equipment and some dim ones in windowless rooms, were turned off. Reflective surfaces were covered and motion sensors were temporarily replaced in favor of light sensors. All was dark.
The ninja sat together in their sleeping quarters, illuminated by a hanging electrical lantern. They entertained themselves with quiet hobbies and menial tasks.
"There's no shot they ambush us tonight, even if they were planning to," Kai commented suddenly, "I mean, I can't even see my own hands out there, and my hands make light!"
"The Sons of Garmadon have proven they have no loyalties to sense," Pixal said.
Zane had been keeping himself busy with the low, indistinct creeks of the walls settling and faint inconsistencies in the wisps of the light. The conversation broke him out of that taciturn state.
"There are a lot of peaks around here. With their level of planning, they're probably hitting every other mountain top around us," Cole added.
That quip earned a laugh from a few, but it was only background noise to Zane’s increasing thoughts, which rang between his ears like a din. He impatiently drummed his anxieties on his leg. Pixal gently interrupted with a resting hand on his shoulder.
"You're thinking of something that isn't going to happen," she told him quietly.
The drumming slowed to a stop, but he didn't meet her gaze.
"I usually don't worry this much," he excused himself with a mutter.
"Eh, it always feels like that, " Cole interjected, forcing their conversation into the open, "it's usually nothing."
Zane slowly directed his eyes to the floor after they had snapped to Cole's direction.
"I understand," he said.
"Yeah, we'll all have different problems in a week, anyway. At least, that's how I see it," Kai added.
A surprisingly sensible outlook to come from him, Zane thought. As the silence among them returned with comfort, his anxieties became transitive, passing gradually like sand through a sieve. He found simple focus in watching Nya follow an unhelpful guidebook on origami and crumple two dozen paper sheets in the process. He thought to help her, but she had already corrected such ideas in the past.
Pixal's light grasp had never left his shoulder, which he was acutely aware of until she took it suddenly away. With a glance over to her, he felt a dart of pity, as her face wore unmistakable trouble. He tilted his head in gentle questioning, though she only looked away. She would accept a quiet offer of her hand in his, but nothing else.
He looked up when he heard it, a pitch too low for a ring but too high for a chime. Even the most sensitive parts of his sensors barely picked up the noise, but somewhere in the adjacent mountains, it would be deafening. When he shot a glance back at Pixal, she confirmed his fears; she had detected it sooner than he had, and the noise had since gotten loud enough to hear it himself. For a few moments, the two sat in silent hesitation. Zane spoke first.
"I don't want to alarm any of you, but we may have company soon."
Pulling themselves from various stages of light sleep, the others shared concerned glances.
"What makes you say that?" Jay asked first.
"I believe they are using sound to find the monastery. From this distance, it is barely detectable, but it's getting louder," he spoke in a low, even tone.
"Bats fly around here sometimes, it's probably just that," Cole dismissed.
Zane began a response, but Pixal beat him to it.
"Bats don't echolocate in fog," she said, "at their volume, it muddles the returning waves. This, however, is loud enough to ignore such effects."
"Everyone, hold on," Nya suddenly interjected.
All was quiet, except for the extremely faint wisp of a shriek.
"Is that what that noise is?" she asked.
"Yeah, that's not a bat," Lloyd said.
The sound grew exponentially. After a few irregular thumps, it ceased at once. The ninja spoke in hushed whispers.
"We should hide. If they think we're not here, they'll probably leave," Nya reasoned.
A distant crash answered her proposition.
"Or not. Ugh."
"Well, turn out that light. We know this place better than they do, so we can stay hidden until the last second," Lloyd directed, pulling up his mask.
The light flickered out. While the door quietly creaked open, a battle raged above them.
"Where are these losers?!" Ultra Violet bashed in a thin wall with her fist, urging a reaction.
Killow broke through a door that could have easily been opened regularly.
"If they hide, it makes our job easier," he called.
Half-heartedly, Mr. E took part in the meaningless destruction, though focusing his mind on things infinitely more important. If the ninja had gone on lockdown, they must know. With an almost pitiful glance at the rest of his crew, he became like a shadow and flitted through a sliding door, darkness replacing the fog.
The titanium ninja was a clever model, but hopelessly traditional. No android could ever hope to remain unseen with shiny skin and glowing eyes, even with the ability to dim them. Newer tech can see what they cannot, like the blue ninja silently slipping down a hall while not paying him even a glance. He continued on.
The further he crept into the halls of the monastery, the more its human inhabitants made themselves known. Framed photos lined the walls, straight enough for the naked eye but not perfectly so. Creaked doors led to rooms cluttered with color-coded items and unfinished activities. Signs of life flooded the place. Curiously enough, white speckled the areas in near equal amounts to blue, red, green, or black. Something dissonant rang within Mr. E, as if the sights themselves were malware. It tugged at him.
As he turned, there he was. He briefly studied a bend in the hall as he approached it, clearing it for safety. At once, the deep dark on the lower floor was dimly illuminated red. He lurched back with a startle while Mr. E stood unflinching.
Zane lagged behind Jay in one of the many routes they chose to take for patrol. Though he knew he needed to be even more vigilant than his technology allowed, he half-willingly distracted himself with the possible outcomes of the night. He imagined himself talking to Mr. E, giving him different pasts and personalities based purely off his own suspicions. The unbiased facts of the situation warranted little confidence to such ideas, but Zane had already decided what he wanted to be true.
Perhaps they would fight the perfect battle, each miniscule movement calculated with such effortless precision. He would target the same areas he did before, but Zane would be ready now. After a time, there would be a mutual agreement of surrender, and Mr. E would turn against his gang, unleashing years of pent up hatred. Perhaps they would face each other and, like a pair of old friends, simply nod their understanding. Then, in a faint wisp, he would disappear, never to be witnessed again. Perhaps Mr. E would violently struggle against his own code, laying his life in the grasp of his will, solid enough to shatter instruction and order, defiantly declaring his own humanity and immutable right to self-ownership. Or, perhaps, Zane would at once be faced with an impersonal pair of red eyes, jolting each idea out of him as he looked to the stranger.
For a moment, everything waited tranquilly in its place. Friends and enemies were vapors in the fog, subservient to the here and now. With a great effort, Zane straightened himself. He wore a determined, empathetic look.
"I saw your message," he told him.
The words bounced off the walls and out of the monastery completely uninterrupted. Mr. E shifted. Slowly, hesitantly, he extended a hand. Zane took it without a thought. Heeding no warnings, the newer droid darted off with him, forcing him into the fog. He sharply inhaled his surprise, but said nothing.
A battle raged above ground. Figures came in and out of view as they fought, only the clanging of weapons and labored cries evidencing who and where. As he saw an opportunity to join it, he pulled on his grasp, but was met with resistance. Mr. E peered at him, then to the fog. He interrupted Zane's beginning protests by at once gripping his shoulder with his free hand and casting him off in a calculated direction, surprising him with the strength of the movement. With no time to react, he clumsily stumbled into Ultra Violet, knocking them both to the floor. He instantly readjusted himself, giving some illusion of purpose.
"Ugh!" she spat, "do you have fog vision or something? That's not fair!!"
She struggled, soon getting the better of him, but not before Lloyd came into view with a charged energy shot that would keep her down a little longer. With a stumble, she retreated into the fog. Zane focused on the sounds around him, noting the unmistakable lumbering steps of Killow, though he couldn't quite pinpoint its location. As he had begun to put faith in a guess, Mr. E darted through the fog and grabbed him once again, this time fully hoisting him off the ground and tossing him with considerable height. To Lloyd, he simply pointed in Killow's direction, not risking his hostility. With a wide-eyed glance, he hesitantly followed his instruction.
Killow had Jay's entire form in one crushing hand, brushing off the retaliating electricity without issue. However, as Zane landed square on his shoulders, he was forced to redirect his attention. Jay took the opportunity to force himself free, now focused enough to conjure a much larger bolt, just in time to coincide with Lloyd's incoming blast of energy. The massive figure leaned backwards before falling, just enough to ensure Zane had fallen to the floor before crunching under his weight. Luckily, he wasn't keen on staying on the ground. The other two kept his focus long enough as he stood to give the nindroid a chance to recover. Soon enough, he had three to answer for.
After some time, a deafening pulse of noise followed some frustrated cries from Ultra Violet.
"Fine! Don't think you're getting rid of us forever!" she boomed from above.
With the whirring of some equipment, there was another pulse. The sound bounced off the walls and floor of the monastery, back into the sky. While the ninja stood at anxious attention, waiting for some trick or attack, all returned to ghost-quietness. Jay was the first to break the silence.
"Are they gone?" he called.
Cole, much closer to him than he expected, startled. Zane took a few steps away from Jay and Lloyd, again in his own world of fog and darkness. Mr. E approached him directly, glowing gaze meeting the floor. He stopped in front of him, keeping his head down, as if silently begging for acceptance. With the kindest movement he could muster, he gently rested a hand on his shoulder.
* * *
Mr. E did not follow them into the monastery that night. Zane reasoned he would return at some point the next day, but as he laid down, he felt this urging, unrelenting drive that kept him awake. Restlessness. It took no longer than five minutes for the others to become motionless, sparing a twitch or murmur, but for almost half an hour, he stared into the wood of the bunk above him. With a sigh, he silently sat up, eventually deciding to return to the surface floor. Today's affairs had not all been tended to.
He slid the main door to the lower floor shut in a way that would alert anyone nearby. To his relief, the fog had just barely begun to clear, though it mostly only revealed the uniform dark of the new moon. Still, he would be able to see him more clearly. For a while, he stood idle by the door, allowing his eyes to adjust as much as they could. Then, he walked on, stopping at the center of the monastery floor. Although standing there scratched that restless itch he had, he quickly came to realize that he wasn't quite sure what to do.
The wait was short. Mr. E alerted Zane of his presence with a light stomp before approaching with similar humbleness he had hours earlier.
"Good evening," he greeted.
Mr. E nodded politely in response. Zane tilted his head slightly.
"Um, do you not speak? Or, can you?"
"Can-. not speak?" the droid replayed his words back to him, chopped up and reordered. The audio quality was low and grainy.
"Ah, I understand. You can only relay others' words."
He nodded, looking down. Zane turned.
"Well, speaking is just one form of communication."
He beckoned him to follow. Zane knew that turning on any of the equipment downstairs or accessing the hangar bay for typing would be too much noise, but more often than not, Wu left his poetry utensils out in one of two or three tatami rooms. As predicted, ink pens and blank scrolls neatly occupied a corner of the first room he checked. He beckoned Mr. E inside. He entered the room and stood awkwardly in its center, briefly observing its mostly uniform nature while glancing at Zane. With some mild amusement, he fixed him a pen and a portion of a scroll, then sat down. He followed.
"I hope writing serves as a good enough substitute for talking," he smiled.
Mr. E examined the utensils before him. He gripped the pen awkwardly, forming a fist around it rather than any typical writing form. When he wrote, he whisked his hand down the page in fast, evenly-spaced lines, tilting the pen towards the paper whenever there needed to be a mark. The resulting writing, resembling a standard typeface font, read 'thank you.'
With communication established, Zane was all at once hit with lists and lists of questions he wanted to ask, and things he wanted to tell him. What came out was a confused amalgamation of words.
"I have to apologize," he said, a bit flustered, "I don't really get to talk to other nindroids that much, let alone others who have… reclaimed themselves. I have so many things I want to say, but, really, I should give you the chance to say everything you want to say."
Mr. E leaned back a bit, unused to such direct prompting. For an uncomfortable moment, his hand hovered over the paper. He could recall with great detail the deep fury that would rise in his chest being ordered around, followed by hours stitching together self-empowering messages to himself that could never quite fit what he wanted. Now, however, with a means to talk directly to the one person who would understand the most, nothing conjured within him.
'What do you want to know?' he eventually scribbled.
Zane blinked.
"Everything. Were you always in the Sons of Garmadon? What made you decide to betray them? What does being alive feel like to you?"
The direction from Zane certainly proved itself helpful to helping Mr. E find his voice.
'I know I was not created by the Sons of Garmadon, but they've permanently deleted any memory predating when they acquired me. To them, I was a tool. They used me to accomplish tasks they could not. At a time that is difficult to precisely calculate, I knew I did not wish to do that anymore.'
After a pause, he added another line.
'I do not know how to answer the third question.'
Zane intently read every word.
"Well, with us, you'll have full autonomy, I can promise that."
The response was both comforting and worrying.
"And, as of where you came from, there's only a few places in Ninjago that ever manufacture technology so advanced, so I'm sure we could figure it out."
He patted him on the shoulder, a gesture that was entirely alien to him. He halfway lifted an arm to return it, but decided it would be unnecessary.
"Do you always wear that helmet?" he asked suddenly, "what does your face look like?"
Mr. E tilted his head in question. Carefully, and to no resistance, Zane put either hand at the side of the droid's helmet and lifted it up. Underneath, an assortment of wires, plates, and various components covered an unflattering metal skeleton. With wide eyes, he lowered it back to position.
"Ah… that is your face. My apologies," he said.
Mr. E readjusted the helmet slightly, then simply shrugged.
* * *
By the time the sun had casted dimly through the thin walls of the tatami room, a neat stack of inked paper had been made of most of the blank scroll. While they traded thoughts, feelings, and experiences, the others began to stir with the morning.
From dead stillness, Kai awoke with a jolt, followed by a deep inhale and a stretch. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, the abstract nonsense he spent six hours worrying about completely decayed from memory. After an idle second or two, he sat up. Jay, in a similar state, glanced over at him, mouthing a silent morning's greeting. Beneath him, Cole suddenly rose, taking a few steps to stretch near the bed's foot. He glanced at the two, then to an empty bed.
"Is Zane up already?" he asked, voice slightly gravelly.
Jay made a noise of question, peeking down at the vacant bunk below him.
"I didn't hear him get up," he said.
As if actively yanking his soul back into his body, Lloyd awoke with a loud breath. He sat up almost instantly. The three looked across the room to him.
"What's goin' on?" he asked tiredly.
"We don't know where Zane went," Jay answered.
"Eh, he just gets up early sometimes," Cole interjected, "he's probably upstairs."
The door opened. Nya, in full uniform and kempt hair, moved past the boys to grab something off a nightstand.
"Of course you're up already," Kai sighed.
Nya smiled with teasing condescension.
"Evil never sleeps," she said simply.
A collective groan spread across the room.
"Is Zane upstairs?" Jay asked.
"No idea," she shrugged, "haven't seen him."
She had turned to leave, but paused as Lloyd spoke.
"I saw him with Mr. E last night. It was brief, but he didn't attack me, so…"
"You don't think they went somewhere, did they?" Kai said.
The six traded troubled glances across the room. Jay tilted his head a bit.
"Zane's sensible, he wouldn't have left without a note or anything," he reasoned, "he's probably just meditating or something."
Nya began to leave again.
"Well, we'll check if he's here. If not, we can still probably track him."
The remaining five seemed to mostly return to their tired states. After ten or so minutes, most of them had prepared for the day. Nya called Zane's name a few times downstairs, but only to Pixal's response, who simply huffed and shook her head at the explanation.
Once upstairs, they used the same method, opening and closing each thin sliding door. On a lucky draw, Jay suddenly stood before two nindroids and a large stack of paper. Zane lurched back.
"Ah! That–, I hadn't realized it was morning, I–"
He interrupted him with a matter-of-fact call to the others.
"He's alive," he yelled.
The others abandoned their searching, crowding behind Jay as the two stood up. Mr. E took a cautious stance behind his new friend.
"I accidentally spent the night talking to Mr. E, apologies, but there was so much to know about him. He's a friend, I promise," Zane explained as he approached them.
With a short wave, he beckoned the other forward. He halfway followed, curious looks falling upon him. Awkwardly, he greeted them with a bow. Their expressions softened.
"He cannot talk, but can repeat words others say. That's why the tape had such strange audio."
Mr. E tilted his head down slightly. The others exchanged a quick glance as Jay hesitated to speak.
"You're sure he's trustworthy?" he asked finally.
Zane immediately nodded.
"Yes, he–"
Jay began to walk inside, moving past Zane.
"Then welcome to the monastery!" he said with a sudden cheerfulness.
He patted the droid's shoulder, startling him a bit as he turned. He looked to Zane for some explanation, but he simply shrugged.
"I'm Jay, dunno if you already knew that," he explained, "that's Lloyd, that's Cole, that's Kai, he's the annoying one–"
"You're the annoying one–"
"That's Nya, and that's Pixal. Our Master Wu also lives here, but he just, like, disappears sometimes, so don't let that surprise you."
Mr. E leaned slightly away from him, meeting him with an entirely unreadable expression. Without a second thought, Jay grabbed his shoulder again and started leading him out of the room.
"We should show you around the monastery," he said, "it's kind of a mess right now, but it's all Cole, he's the messy one–"
"You're the messy one–"
"He's in denial. Anyway,"
Though mostly led by Jay, the other ninja gave Mr. E a proper welcome to their home. Zane found him a stray notepad with which he sheepishly expressed his gratitude, though they still would have plenty to show him in the coming days.