wonder if Zane didn't have a favorite color before his gi got washed with Kai's. maybe it became his favorite color when the Baader-Mienhoff effect kicked in and he started to see the pink that surrounded him: his apron, in the expanse of the sunset, tinting his friends' cheeks when the weather got too cold or if they laughed hard for too long.
maybe pink reminds Zane of his family, of his friends. he picks up a pair of pink socks at a gift shop. Jay gets a free graphic tshirt of a pink business mascot and leaves it in his room. Wu gives them each bracelets, one is rose quartz. Cole buys him some pink tie dye sweatpants from an old art school friend. Nya finds a secondhand kimono-style coverup made from sakura patterned silk. Kai buys them all shades- you can guess what color Zane's were.
by the time everyone's contributed (Pix sent him a virus that turned his irises pink for a day), Lloyd decides it's his turn.
///
Sign with blue or black ink. The last instruction in all the paperwork he's been doing. Living on a flying ship and saving Ninjago every year unfortunately doesn't mean they can avoid paying their taxes.
Zane takes a moment to appreciate the stack of pages he's worked through. Glancing to his left, there's heft to every neatly penciled in form. Finally giving his right hand a chance to rest, he reaches into the drawer blindly for a pen. Any would do, save for the one Lloyd gave him recently.
He felt his lips form a grin only for himself. As the original perpetrator of The Pinkening, the youngest ninja had felt somewhat awkward joining in on the tradition. It reminded him of the days where he was young and hadn't been particularly loyal to his friends. Nevertheless, this year, at Zane's birthday, he'd presented him with a proper pink ink pen.
Running his hands along the inside of the drawer organizer, Zane could feel the cool metal of the calligraphy pen in contrast to the cheap plastic ones he'd accumulated in his desk.
He grabbed a plastic pen at random, any would do, and uncapped it. This one seemed new from how clean it was. Perfect for the last-
"What." Zane stared at the pink mark ok the crisp white page. "When did I get a pink one of these?" he asked the empty room.
Smiling at the coincidence of his thoughts and stationery, he pulled out a well worn veteran of his taxes. Only for it to make a pink line, too.
The next one had pink ink, then the next one, and surely enough each pen in his desk contained every shade of pink: from highlighter to pastel. It tugged at memories he'd just brought forward. Why would this have-
"LLOYD!" Zane pushed his chair in and opened his door. "I SEE WHAT YOU MEANT BY 'THE GIFT THAT WOULD KEEP GIVING'"
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT" Someone was breaking into a run upstairs, someone Zane intended to catch: a person who most assuredly had blue or black ink.
~*~
whoops this was supposed to be a normal text post. oh well, this drabble's going on ao3 soon.
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Zane is curious to a fault and that's my favorite flaw. refined version of this rough fic post from three years ago. now posted on ao3
Zane gets taken prisoner by the Mechanic. Nya and Cole are on the way, but will they get there in time? And why Zane?
CW: threats of robot violence (not carried out), canon-typical violence (people get beat up and walk away with a bruise or two)
///
Gray is called neutral for a reason. It doesn't offend any of the other colors. Not with red plastic wire jackets or the gold wiring inside, cradled by unpolished titanium plates. The only real light Zane has is falling onto the concrete floor and stretches up to his chest. Someone removed a Monopoly box-sized rectangle from the door and stuck wrought iron in. It's a far cry from the smooth round bars installed in Kryptarium. They should rethink calling him "Most Valuable Prisoner" if these are the conditions they put important people in.
Zane would halfheartedly kick at a rock, but all of his motors are shot except for the ones on his neck, abdomen, and right are. Also, there are no rocks nearby, so he lies there, half propped against a wall. His left arm is detached and strewn to the side of the cell in the corner.
The slivers of light are disturbed by a silhouette wearing a bowl hat. In a few moments, the door is open and The Mechanic stands inscribed in a rectangle of light that crawls towards the inside of Zane's cell, "Little nindroid," he leans in, keys jangling on his hip, "Don't count yourself lucky 'cause I'm not leavin' any time soon."
After a moment to process the double negative, Zane tries to right his head and gets about 70% there. His vision is still tilted slightly to the left. "You're the unlucky one," an exposed motor audibly whirs when he speaks. One good arm helps push his back further up the wall in an effort to look like he's sitting rather than considerably incapacitated. "And an idiot on top of that," he looks pointedly around the room, "Or did you not realize that you led us straight to your base?" Zane looks the mechanic in the one good eye he has.
He just laughs, "Like you'll ever make it back to tell 'em!" The clanging of loose gears punctuates every heave of his leather-clad chest.
Someone from behind yells, "Yeah!" and pumps a fist into the air while another curls one hand into a fist and hits it against their palm as an ode of what's to come. Oh joy.
Squinting, Zane can make out three goons of various sizes past the doorway. All of them are wearing tattered leather jackets and ripped acid wash jeans. Idly, he wonders if their 'Henchmen from an 80s movie' outfits come out of their paycheck or the boss'.
The Mechanic turns and screeches for them to be quiet.
Then he searches a large, and horribly inconvenient, key ring. After what feels like ages, he clips a particular key to his belt.
He sets his eyes on Zane and begins to creep forward into the cell, "You're going to give me that capacitor real nice like," he motions his hands in a 'come come' manner that Zane discovers he finds incredibly demeaning, "Or I'm gonna take you apart 'til I find it like the Good 'Ol Mechanic I am." He crouches, still out of arm's reach but too close for any semblance of comfort, "Like I've wanted to for so long. You get me?" Grinning, he shows off teeth adorned with gold and silver. Either he lacks dental hygiene or fancies the look of grillz.
The metal piece replacing his eye has a few lights in it that stare at Zane like they're expecting him to blink first. "We destroyed it-" narrowing his eyes before scoffing, "Do you really think we'd keep around a novel compact device capable of holding that much electricity?"
"No," The Mechanic stands up to full height and walks backwards to lean back on the cell wall, "I think you," he points at Zane, "Are curious enough to want it around to tinker with - to figure out all its little secrets and whatnot." A pause. "But smart enough to know that your other little friends wouldn't agree." He takes out a cigarette and flicks his lighter, illuminating the dank room. It is summarily snuffed out after serving its purpose; the butt of the cigarette glows a dark red. "You either have it or you know where it is." He draws in a breath and lets the smoke trickle out through his mustache.
Zane feels a tangible sense of checkmate as he sees the ash fall between oily human fingers. But it's not over yet. "Fine," he raises his head the last several degrees to straighten it fully, "But if I don't tell you where it is, how is taking me apart going to help? You'll never find it if I'm not intact."
"Tell it to me now," he shuts the door, letting it clang so loud it makes the tallest henchman flinch, "And you won't have to see me rilflin' 'round that chest of yours to see where the memory stick's at." He pulls a pair of foot-long pliers out of his toolbelt, wearing a smile that borders on the side of deranged.
This is Zane's own fault and he's fully aware that he deserves what's coming to him. But he can't help feeling relief when a door down the hallway is kicked in and "Hands off the nindroid!" echoes through the room.
The goons spring to their feet just in time for Nya to incapacitate the shortest one and trip the gangliest member against a wall. It's enough to keep her occupied that a woman with blond, curly hair puts her arms around Nya's neck in a choke hold. Out of reflex, Zane tries to move his left arm to grab a shuriken, only to be greeted by sparks that jump to the ground and fizzle out.
Nya widens her stance and attempts to flip her assailant onto the person slumped against the nearby wall. When the taller goon flips open a switchblade, she reconsiders just long enough for the Mechanic to make it over and brandish his brass knuckles. Stopped in her tracks, Nya lifts the feet of her attacker from behind just long enough to spin around and jerk backwards to smash the Mechanic into a wall.
She's not pay attention to the person with the knife. They've stood up and are mid-lunge when Cole barrels through the hallway, knocking the wind out of them and leaving them gasping for air on the floor. Nya still has an arm around her neck, but the woman attacking her is dazed. Cole grabs one of her arms, letting Nya twist out of the way. She snatches a pair of handcuffs from the henchman's belt, securing the woman's hands behind her back and around a table leg. Cole was checking the pulses of the other knocked out henchmen, so he didn't notice who had gone missing.
"Damn hard to find good help these days," not to be forgotten, the Mechanic quickly locks he cell door behind him and throws the keys across the room, coming to rest near what used to be the Zane's left elbow, "Oh well," his other hand grabs wire cutters out of an inner coat pocket, "Guess we'll have an audience, eh, nindroid?"
"Shit!"
He takes only two steps closer before the door groans and bends behind him. The Mechanic spins around, shocked. Nya chooses that moment to walk through the new opening in the concrete, drag him a few feet closer to her by grabbing his shirt, then punch his lights out.
Cole watches it happen, a few of his locs obscuring an eye, while he's still holding the door in his hands. Almost regarding it as a seasoned debate student would his notes. He promptly throws it aside after his eyes land on Zane's, rather dishevelled look.
"Hey buddy," he bends down at Zane's right side, putting a hand on his back so it's easier to sit, "Not looking too hot," he scans the room, finally able to process the extent of the damage, "What the hell did they do to you?"
"They tore that arm off," he uses his head to gesture to it, as if there are some other remains of a titanium android's arm lying around in close proximity, "And then it joined me as I was pushed off a building." Zane puts a hand on Cole's shoulder, "But I gathered what I could of it and I'm okay. All the important things are intact."
Finished with tying up the Mechanic, Nya walks in and surveys the damage she, Jay, and Pixal will have to repair, "What did they want from you, anyways?" She takes off her gi to use as a makeshift bag to hold the large arm plates she's picking up, "They seemed to specifically go after you once they regrouped."
Zane's lifted into the air, his legs uneven; the right side showing too many wires to be fully intact inside and the other being so crumpled it became an inch shorter. Cole's supporting all of his weight, one arm gripping the area where an arm used to be and his right holding on to the metallic one that's slung around his shoulders.
"The capacitor from last week."
"What about it?" Cole shuffles sideways through the opening so Zane's legs don't catch, "But you destroyed it a few days ago? Why'd they think- don't tell me you-"
Pointedly, Zane looks the hallway, admiring the bent door and its handle laying on the floor. Nya stands up, gi in hand, and leaves the cell, putting her free hand on her hip and sighing, "Zane. This is why we get rid of those things in the first place."
He waits a beat, feeling the eyes of his disappointed friends. Much Zane's body may be broken but his pride is in perfect working condition. They just didn't understand, clearly. "It stores energy so much more efficiently than anything we have developed right now. We don't even know if it's the design or the materials or-"
"Or what?" Cole readjusts his grip on him, making the loose pieces in his legs rattle and scrape together, "It could be important, sure, but is it worth it to get captured again? Damn it, Zane, we can't afford to worry about someone going missing or another burnt down monastery!"
"I-" the nindroid lets his head hang, giving him a clear view of the wreckage that is his lower half. His voice gets quieter, "There was some... collateral damage I hadn't fully taken into account."
After a few moments of silence, Nya gets out her phone to call the commissioner. His limp body is dragged out anther door and up several flights of spiral stone stairs onto the roof. Zane's set down against an air conditioning unit, propped up like a favorite tea time doll.
Cole sits down to his right, holding his one good hand. He takes the other to push hair out of his eyes. Taking a deep breath in, he methodically exhales after almost exactly ten seconds.
A full minute later, Cole tries to speak, "Just-" he turns his head to look away from Zane, to where the Bounty will presumably dock soon. "We can always get you one from Borg: the guy has everything," he squeezes his hand, "Except- except you. We only have one of you, and I'd like to keep this Zane in one piece."
There was no use pointing out that Borg does not have what he's looking for. "I'll..." letting his voice box draw out the word, he leans forward a little, catching Cole's eye, "restrain myself - in the future, that is - when it comes to things like this."
Cole just nods, accepting the apology as one might tuck a missing letter into their pocket.
Zane's not forgiven yet, just understood.
Nya comes up after not much longer and sits where his left arm would usually be when it's not shattered into pieces.
Soon, the Bounty will descend out of the clouds, but right now it's tranquil. Zane closes his eyes, shutting off visual sensors and allowing his head to rest on the AC unit behind them. If he sits here long enough, he just might forget how damaged his legs are.
And how the capacitor sitting right next to his heart has never felt heavier.
~*~
set in a "vaguely after s8" timeline and Some General Robot Gore, but none of the End Of The Season Plot things. wanted to treat myself a little bit because I love underexplored character flaws and broken robots.
lmk if you want another chapter on the team's POV or the bit leading up to Zane's capture; or just throw me a prompt in my asks
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Zane is a heavy, immovable tank of a lanky, tall robot nindroid young man. the non-mechanic ninja are sometimes a little afraid to ask if he's increasing in weight because (1) it's rude and (2) then what are they adding to his body to make it that heavy because as far as they can tell he looks the same.
this definitely isn't a new idea. ref: there's some art somewhere in which Cole, w/ his elemental strength powers, is the only one who can pick him up since he's ~400 lbs, @min-play 's comic where a bookshelf falls on him but he's fine, and just also the fact that he's METAL and machinery is usually HEAVY.
this post will have hcs and then a little snippet story to go along with each one.
maybe he isn't as heavy now in his titanium form as he was when they met him. love to dr. julien but my boy used a lot of steampunk-esque internals and those things weigh a ton.
The mirror isn't making Kai's bruise look any better now that he's out of the shower, so he accepts the ice pack that Cole throws at him from the bathroom door. Zane had accidentally hit him for real in sparring and, now Kai hasn't taken as many hits as the others, but he's pretty sure they're not supposed to hurt that bad. The guy's hand felt just like if someone had thrown a rock at his head- well, his right cheek. Zane must've gotten some kind of blessing from the First Master to become that swole. Looks can be decieving, and somehow this applies to the tallest and most string-bean like ninja of their group. Ninjas in training. Swole ninja in training, in Zane's case.
"Kai?" the door creaks and white socked feet politely sit themselves just outside the bathroom doorway.
Well, he can't really blame the guy for being fit - is kind of what they're here for. Kai will just have to get better at dodging.
he was probably hard to find parts for back then, too. can you imagine Nya and Jay at the outdoor market bargaining to get some gears and glaring at anyone who tries to buy them first because their dear boy needs these specific parts but they can't just tell the shopkeeper, "no, but you don't understand, we need these specific ones because they're for our friend who literally requires them for his body to function properly. he's a robot- a nindroid." they've probably been tempted to, though, with all the times they've had things snatched from right under their noses. Jay's real bad at it though so they just end up being friendly with a parts seller while Nya's making deals left and right.
all of ^^ is sans pixal because after season 3 (during s3 they were actively running from anything robotic so that's out too) they definitely have Borg machine all the parts they need and probably get them at a low price w/o markup so they don't need to scavenge like they did in seasons 1 and 2.
The sun's beating down, but it's a dry heat and the linens Nya and Jay are wearing aren't particularly heavy. They're still sweaty and gross and tired, but that's mostly because they've been tromping around this shanty conglomerate that the sign dubbs a "Mechanics' Market."
There are poles with multicolored, holey tarps pulled between them that create a mosaic of visuals on the dirt they stand on. Each vendor's stall is a sharp contrast to their neighbor's, but oddly enough they all smell the same. The space between stalls is pretty narrow and people bump into each other whenever a fourth person wants to span the narrow walkway. Most of them are selling used parts, then there are some ciunterfiet pieces from Borg Industries, a startup in Ninjago city with a label that looks smug and self-important. Still, every new sight is sickeningly predictable: more weaved baskets and cardboard boxes overflowing with metal and rubber, but the day's covered in sepia with the conrast and saturation cranked to high, so Nya's halfway to a pretty bad headache already.
Jay's used to these things, having grown up with Ed and Edna. He's walking back to the stall Nya's standing in front of after haggling with another nearby vendor.
... the continued here on Tumblr and Ao3 bc otherwise this post would be loooong
he's definitely used as a weight for Cole's workouts and in a glacier world i can imagine Zane having zero complaints with this.
It's Cole's turn to be incredibly oblivious when Zane offers to let Cole pick him up for weightlifting. Read on Tumblr or Ao3
also that'd be great strategy for a mission. can you imagine them being like, "oh no we need to make this thing collapse in a very specific place but we can't make noise or anything because it'd alert people." (this situation comes up in kids' action shows a lot more than you might think) and Lloyd just looks over at his strategist buddy and is like, "zane my boy what if we tie a chain around you and you just stand on the dang thing."
Lloyd is new to leading (it's season 3), Zane is just trying to get the parts they need for their vehicles, and in the middle of a mission they have to think creatively to avoid getting crushed. Here on Tumblr and Ao3
the distribution of weight is probably superb, though, because dr. julien is best tech dad. he's probably a lot like those elephants that have soft pands on their feet to sneak around
it would make sense in canon, too, since he doesn't have a human body for the elemental powers to jack up, so his ridiculous weight would allow him to have that Ninja Strength.
after he becomes titanium, he's lighter and it takes some getting used to. but overall it's pretty good because he doesn't have to be as careful as he used to be.
Zane's picking his way through a forest, keeping eyes and ears out for an escaped Kryptarium prisoner. The leaves barely rustle even as he places his feet atop them.
It's nice, being lighter. He doesn't need to calculate his jumping as carefully and now he can now throw himself on the ground, his bed, and on top of the others. Less worrying about if he'll accidentally crush someone or something.
Before, when he was on his own, he didn't really notice anything amiss. He wasn't around other people enough to have accidentally fallen on someone. As for dalling on the ground, well he just assumed other people made indents when they tripped and fell.
After he found out he was- well, is a robot. He started to connect the dots. A few broken floorboards later, Nya's industrial scale told all. Now that he weighs more or less that of someone his height and age, it's a bit of a relief.
Literally, it's a weight off his shoulders.
the others probably really enjoy it, too, since he can fully relax when he lays his head down on one of them, and he can fall asleep ontop of someone, too. he has to do less constant work to take the weight off them.
he's the most relieved about elevators, though. he used to have to wait for everyone to go up before he got on. either that or stairs. what i'm saying is please just imagine Zane sitting beneath the little elevator arrow button in the middle and patiently waiting to go up by himself because if he doesn't then he might cause the cable to break.
it was a very big deal when he finally got to go in an elevator with everyone.
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Zane is curious to a fault and that's my favorite flaw. remember in Prime Empire when he had Unigami's hardrive with him because he just wanted to study it? delectable. amazing. so i offer you a more descriptive and entirely different telling of That Time The Mechanic Exposed One Of Zane's Character Flaws.
a "vaguely after s8" timeline and Some General Robot Gore, but none of the End Of The Season Plot things. wanted to spoil myself a little bit bc i love underexplored character flaws and broken robots. (you can read it on Ao3, too, if you'd like - coming soon)
///
Concrete walls don't clash with many colors. Not with red plastic, gold wiring, titanium plates, or steel screws, though the lack of a window means the only real light Zane has comes through the wraught iron bars. They're rather crude, if he's being honest; they only used rebar, not even the nice, smooth, round kind of bars they have in Kryptarium. They should rethink calling him their "Most Valuable Prisoner" if this is the kind of conditions they put important people in.
He'd halfheartedly kick at a rock, but all of his motors are shot except for the ones on his neck, abdomen, and right arm; also, there are no rocks nearby. So he just lies there, half propped against a wall with his left arm detached and strewn about to the side of the cell that's illuminated.
The rectangles of light coming through the rebar are interrupted by a figure wearing a bowl hat. In a few moments The Mechanic standing outside Zane's cell, "Little nindroid," he leans in, keys jangling on his hip, "You didn't think I wouldn't come back for ya, did you?"
After a moment to process the double negative, he tries to right his head and mostly succeeds, though his vision is still slightly tilted to the left, "No," he uses his one good arm to push his back further up the wall, so it looks more like he's sitting than considerably incapacitated. "What surprised me was your stupidity in bringing me here," he looks pointedly around the room, "Or did you not realize that you led us straight to your base?" Zane looks the mechanic in the one good eye he has.
He just laughs, "Like you'll ever make it back to tell 'em!"
A few goons of various heights dressed in tattered brown leather jackets and ripped, stained light wash jeans make encouraging comments. The shortest one is a man who raises a fist and yells, "Yeah!" While the tallest one, a woman, chuckles and the one that's mostly obscured by the Mechanic curls one hand into a fist and hits it against their palm. An ode of what's to come. Oh joy.
"Be quiet-" they comply, rather promptly at that. He searches the key ring and, after what felt like ages, opens the cell door. "You're going to give me that capacitor real nice like," he motions his hands in a 'come come' manner that Zane discovers he finds incredibly demeaning, "Or I'mma take you apart until I find it like the Good 'Ol Mechanic I am." He leans down - still out of arm's reach - but too close for any semblence of comfort, "Like I've wanted to for so long. You get me?" He smiles, showing of his teeth shining with gold and silver.
The metal piece replacing his eye has a few lights in it that stare at Zane like they're expecting him to blink. "We destroyed it-" he narrows his eyes, "Do you really think we'd keep around a device capable of holding that much radioactive energy?"
"No," he stands up and wallks backwards until he can lean his back on the bars, "I think you are curious enough to want it around to tinker with - to figure out all its secrets and whatnot. But smart enough to know that your other little ninja friends wouldn't agree." He takes out a cigarette and flicks the lighter, bringing some more brightness into the room before snuffing it out after it's served his purpose, the butt of the cigarette glowing a dark red, "So you either have it or you know where it is."
Zane feels a tangible sense of checkmate as he sees the ash fall between oily human fingers, but it's not over yet. "Fine," he finally raises his head the last several degrees to straighen it fully, if only to see the Mechanic smirking around his cigarette, "But if I don't tell you where it is, how is taking me apart going to help? You'll never find it if I'm not intact."
"Tell it to me now," he shuts the door, letting it make a clang so loud it makes the tallest henchperson flinch, "And you won't have to see me rilfling 'round that chest of yours to see where the memory stick's at." He pulls a pair of foot-long pliers out of one of his overfilled pants pockets and smiles in a way that's bordering on the edge of deranged.
This is Zane's own fault and he's fully aware that he deserves what's coming to him. But he can't help feeling relief when a door down the hallway is kicked in and "Hands off the nindroid!" echoes through the room.
The goons spring to their feet just in him for Nya to incapacitate the shortest one and push the mid-sized one against a wall. It's enough to keep her occupied that the tallest one puts her arms around Nya's neck in a choke hold. Only to have Cole barrell through the hall and haul her over his shoulder, flipping her over onto the ground.
Just recovering from being pushed, the last one high tails it out the door.
"Darn hard to find good help these days," not to be forgotten, the Mechanic quickly locks he cell door and throws the keys across the room, coming to rest near what used to be the nindroid's left elbow, "Oh well," his other hand grabs wire cutters out of an inner coat pocket, "Guess we'll have an audience, eh, nindroid?"
He takes only two steps closer before the bars groan and bend behind him. The Mechanic spins around, shocked. Nya chooses that moment to walk through the new opening in the rebar, drag him a few feet closer to her by grabbing his shirt, then punch his lights out.
Cole watches it happen, a few of his dreadlocks obscuring one of his eyes, while he's still holding one of the bars in his hand. He promptly throws it aside after his eyes land on Zane's... rather disheleved look, "Hey buddy," he bends down at his right side, putting a hand on his back so it's easier to sit, "Not looking too hot," he scans the room, finally able to process the extent of the damage, "What the hell did they do to you?"
"They tore that arm off," he uses his head to gesture to it, as if there are some other remains of a titanium android's arm lying around in close proximity, "And then it joined me as I was pushed off a building." Zane puts a hand on Cole's shoulder, "But I gathered what I could of it and I'm okay. All the important things are intact."
Finished tying up the two goons and the Mechanic, Nya walks in, surveying the damage she, Jay, and Pixal will have to repair, "What did they want from you, anyways?" She takes off her gi to use as a makeshift bag to hold the large arm plates she's picking up, "They seemed to specifically go after you after they regrouped."
He's lifted into the air, his legs uneven: the right showing too many wires to be fully intact inside and the other being so crumpled it became an inch shorter. Cole's supporting all of his weight, one arm gripping the area where an arm used to be and his right holding on to the metallic one that's slung around his shoulders.
"They were looking for the capacitor from last week."
"That thing?" Cole walks sideways through the opening so Zane's legs don't catch, "But you destroyed it a few days ago? Why'd they think- don't tell me you didn't..."
Pointedly, Zane looks the hallway, admiring the bent bars and one piece of pig iron laying on the floor. Nya stands up, gi in hand, and leaves the cell, putting her other hand on her hip and sighing, "Zane. This is why-"
"I know- but it stores so much energy that it might be useful if I can just-"
"Just what?" Cole readjusts his grip on him, making the loose pieces in his legs rattle and clank together, "Get captured again? Damn it, Zane, this is one of the many reasons we destroy those things; so we don't have to deal with another burnt down monestary or worry about someone getting kidnapped like this!"
"I-" he lets his head hand down, giving him a clear view of the wreckage that is his lower half. His voice gets quieter, ashamed, "I hadn't fully realized that."
After a few moments of silence, Nya gets out her phone to call the commissioner. He's dragged out the door and up some stairs onto the roof. Zane's set down against an air conditioning unit, propped up.
Cole just situates himself to his right, holding his one good hand. He runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath, letting it out ten seconds later. A minute later, he finally speaks, "Just-" he turns his head to look away from Zane, to where the Bounty will presumably show up soon, "We can always get you one from Borg; the guy has everything," he squeezes his hand, "Except- except you. We only have one of you, and I'd like to keep this Zane in one piece."
"I'll..." he leans forward a little, catching Cole's eye, "I will try to restrain myself - in the future, that is - when it comes to things like this."
The latter just nods, accepting the apology as one might tuck their rightful mail into a coat pocket after a neighbor returns it.
Zane's not forgiven, yet, just understood.
Nya comes up after not much longer and sits on his other side, where his left arm would be usually when it's not shattered into pieces, held in a bag made from the gi of the water ninja.
Soon, the Bounty will descend out of the clouds, but right now it's quiet. Zane closes his eyes, shutting off visual sensors and allowing his head to rest on the AC unit behind them. If he sits here long enough, he just might forget how damaged his legs are.
And how the capacitor sitting right next to his heart has never felt heavier.
///
yes i made the mechanic sound a little bit like an american southerner; yes i am a southerner; yes i edited for clarity so others could understand
also this was very much supposed to just be adjacent to the Curiousity As A Fault thing for Zane, THEN i realized that the Mechanic was in that Prime Empire scene and just gave up and finished writing anyways because this is for fun
edit (2022): WOW this is questionably written... I need to edit this and post to ao3 bc some of these scenes and the grammar is... rough
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Pixal and Nya haggling and running around the Ninjago equivalent of the Lady's Market in HK (famous for its bootlegged goods and having an assortment of everything) [link for Ao3]
inspired by art from @cinnamonkittenz (used here with permission)
from an ask by @all-0f-the-above
///
"Humidity is at 85% and the temperature is 39 degrees Celsius," Pixal taps an embedded piece of green plastic in her cheek, neatly obscured by a hologram when she pulls her finger back, "My fans have been running all day."
"Stop complaining-" Nya grabs her hand, "Your hands are always so cold," she wipes her left hand in her jean shorts, "Eugh, I'm the one with sweaty palms."
Pixal grins, the right side of her mouth tilting up to made it more lopsided than usual. She lifts her right hand, the one that's not being held, and gestures to Nya's armpits, "Your hands aren't the only things that are so sweaty."
"Yeah," their eyes meet and Nya scrunches her nose, "But at least you can turn off your sense of smell."
"That I can!" she beams and starts swinging their arms back and forth, "You, however, are condemned to the struggles of humanity."
Their bickering continues off and on for a few more minutes as they navigate the stalls, an array of fold-out plastic tables beneath tarps suspended on thin metal poles. At the back, there are tall white plastic grids that clothes sellers display styles on and people selling anything of value hang there to put off theft.
About ten minutes after voicing her annoyance at the heat, Nya stops in her tracks, eyes trained on a displayed item, and dragging Pixal back with her.
"What? What is it?"
Nya leans closer to her audio sensors, "Does that say 'Channel'? Like, 'TV channel' or 'radio channel'?"
Image lookup, connected to the internet through LTE, informs her that it's a bootleg Chanel handbag. Proper terminology should probably be updated since, when full, it would probably require the utilizing both hands. Upon further inspection, its only indication of fake-ness is that the leather handbag the size of a large cereal box with two interlocking 'C's has the word 'Channel' on its side. She chuckles, "Yes, it does."
Eyebrows knitted together and nose scrunched up, Nya doesn't seem to immediately find it funny, "Wait, but they know it's a word-" she looks at her out of the corner of her eye, "Right?"
Pixal puts an arm around the ninja's waist, pulling her out of the way of more foot traffic and bringing her mouth closer to her ear, as to not let the vendor overhear them. "It can be assumed that someone in the production process understood the meaning, but it's how they avoid particularly strong legal cases being pushed against them. It could always be worse-" she shifts them to the left, facing towards a clothes stall, and lightly knocks their heads together, guiding Nya's eyes and pointing at a pair of black underwear with a white elastic waistband, "See Carlvin Kleen?"
At this, Nya starts giggling, "Or Victorya Searcat?"
"H&N?"
"Whatever it is," she pulls Pixal closer to her, "I don't want you trying to buy it-"
"That was once."
"It was a whole bag of four by two by two electric NXTgen 17 motors! One of the most common- and cheap - things sold; you bought it for twenty gold."
Pixal pushes her away half-heartedly, allowing herself to be pulled back in right after. The topic is dropped a soon as her favorite Smith sibling notices a dress at the stall to their left- "Is that supposed to be American Eagle? Oh my god-" she puts a hand over her mouth after having noticed the tag, "-it's almost unrecognizable!"
"You mean Australian Eager?"
The sellers have start to give them looks like they're trying to say "I know that you know that I know that they're ridiculous but you also know that I can't say anything about it," with their eyebrows and the timing of their "could you not" glances.
Pixal cuts them some slack, putting her hand over Nya's mouth and arm around her shoulders until she's pushed off.
They walk around a bend and under some lantern string lights, dodging harried consumers and sellers calling out at them to look at their hoverboards and purple Barbie knockoffs. Up at their left, Nya spots a clothes stall. There's a rack displaying some more expensive items at the front, then she spots two along the right side wall and one at the back that's adjacent to the checkout counter. Overwhelmingly, the color palette is a light blue, which must've been one of the things that drew her attention, as it's one of the few colors the both of them like. Pink is the other.
She goes through the racks quickly and thoroughly, making the hangers scrape a symphony against the stainleas steel rail, and ends up picking out a bomber and a light trenchcoat. The former is an impressive find in the bright store: it's black with red accents, geometric swirls and two dragons entwined on the back. Her other choice looks like something Pixal will be stealing artfully borrowing from her in the future. It's white, long, and decked out in small, bright blue flowers embroidered like they're falling from the sky and collecting near the pockets and bottom of the coat. It has a wider, flat collar and minimalistic buttons, both in style and number.
Content with watching her girlfriend shop, Pixal doesn't pick out anything. Instead, she approaches the counter as Nya's admiring the scarfs hanging from the ceiling, "How much for the coat and jacket?"
The owner, a younger person, rests an arm on the glass counter, "Both?"
She nods.
"17 gold, 33 silver."
"33?" She crosses her arms, "Could you do 22?"
"22 is too low!" They gesture vaguely at the rest of the clothes, as if to allude to her disgracing the store with the offer, "No, no. You can get it at 31."
"How about 24?"
"31." They place their other arm on the glass, needing to lean over it slightly now, as they are a little taller than average, causing some strands of black hair to fall out of a ponytail, partially obscuring one eye.
"25?"
"29."
"I'll give you 27 silver and give the hangers back."
"Deal." They hold out one hand, only to have Nya come in and shake it, saving Pix from having to explain why she only appears to have human skin. Behind the projection of a medium complexion, there's just metal- two millimeter thick titanium plating to be exact. Looking the slightest bit sheepish, she avoids their gaze.
"I'm paying," Nya explains, smiling a bit apologetically, the tails of her brows turned down a little. Handing Pixal the clothes, she can grabs her wallet and puts twenty-seven silver on the counter, joined moments later by two plastic hangers.
Pix elbows Nya slightly as they're waiting for the recipt to print. She speaks lowly, leaning towards her for the duration of it, "See that receipt? It's for a tailor's shop in the area."
"How can you tell?"
"Have you not been looking at the street signs we pass?"
The smartass comment earns her a skeptical look from her shorter counterpart, "No, and you haven't either."
"You're right; I looked up the zip code."
The little black book, more vertical than horizontal, rests on a table behind the counter that's closed off from the shopping area. The paper in question is sticking out of it.
In fact, now that she's looking, Nya notices their kakhis are paired with a dark blue button down that is nicely fitted, accentuating a wider waist and more muscular, flat chest. Their shirt doesn't seem too tight, either, as they put the receipt in the bag and hand it over the counter.
Bag in hand, Pixal's just impressed that she didn't cave to the first counteroffer. She'd done research after botching that deal at the Mech. Market. It seems to have paid off.
Just before they step onto the main path through the market, Nya turns around, calling over to the shop owner, "Excuse me?"
They pop up from behind the register, probably securing a lockbox or stashing the hangers, "Yes?" one of their eyebrows is raised, making their forehead wrinkle a little.
"Do you know if there's a traditional tailor around here?"
~*~
It's right near the harbor, where the sun is so strong it paints Nya pink and gold by the time they're standing on dark red carpet.
The tailor's shop smells- well, musty would be inaccurate - it's much closer to old fabric, mixed just slightly with secondhand smoke. At the front, an older man shuffles into view, walking through a curtain made of wooden beads. Pixal sees that, behind the counter, the floors are tan linoleum.
He sets his elbows on the corner of the wooden counter and smiles at them, crows feet coming into view, "How may I help you girls?"
///
was originally going to include:
Rather unexpectedly, there isn't much area exposed to sun and the ground they walk on is cool. These people set up their spots early in the day before it got unbearably hot; locals- they know what to do. Persons from the village surrounding the market are much more adept at weaving through the shirts, underwear, and knockoff purses. At one point, a middle-aged man of about 5'6" took a sharp turn in front of them and walked between stalls. When they peered in his direction, Pix realized there was a restaurant behind some of the makeshift shops.
He doesn't even crack their top ten most interesting people they've come across, though.
which is based on this time i was @ Lady's Market and my father literally did just that, which blew me and my sister's minds. you can do that though bc the market is made up of tarp tents set up on streets, which obscure the brick and mortar businesses behind them. but it did feel like we were going to secret shops.
yes, i miss HK so i made a fic about lesbians running around the Ninjago equivalent of the island and having fun because hey i have to live vicariously through some people.
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i didn't think of Zane as the the group strategist until Seabound, when everyone began asking him for advice. and honestly? i love it.
it makes a lot of sense, since he has access to a lot of files and algorithms, not to mention data on the other ninja. he's also (probably) less likely to be biased in decision-making, though we know he's prone to curiosity streaks [ref: kept original Prime Empire hard drive just to study it, ran off into the woods because he saw a falcon dancing, and is always the one to read the wall writing(twice! in the cave of the constrictai when he was pink and in aspheera's tomb)] and tends to volunteer to be sacrificed when he knows it's logistically sound [ref: end of rebooted, giant beetle's stomach, and being transported by aspheera]. however, he's knowledgeable, good at it, and doesn't have a ridiculous sense of pride.
he and Lloyd work well together, too. they're both relatively level-headed and they even out each other's faults
Zane is bad at explaining what on earth his crazy plans are (ref: tick tock (kind of?), finale of rebooted, and infiltrating the SoG) and Lloyd likes to lay everything out beforehand
Lloyd is pretty bad at judging people's trustworthiness and Zane is pretty ok at it (but this is relative to Lloyd, so it's not like that's difficult; ref: thinking that he could just use slitheraa (the old hypnobrai leader) and that no one would usurp him, befriending Pythor, misako in general, thinking Chen would let them get Zane back, attempting to form an alliance of all the elemental masters when they're literally competing against each other, krux, harumi, clutch powers, kind of by Akita b/c he thought she was a wolf and just ended up ranting to her, and assuming vania was evil, so pretty much every season - god bless him, he needs a break)
Zane is prone to just running off, whereas Lloyd always tries to keep everyone together (ref: running away to see the falcon, in tick tock when he just lets the others stay behind when they promise to catch up, after rebooted when Lloyd is literally the only person keeping them together, infiltrating the SoG, using the scroll of forbidden spinjitzu)
Zane's also, just in general, easy to get along with (not to say that Lloyd isn't it's just that the others are leas agreeable with him on average), so the other ninja usually don't argue with him like they do with each other
don't mind me i'm just thinking of group meetings with Z and L at the front and asking the others to chime in as needed. wu pours people's tea but doesn't get up because he's an old man. kai picks fights with people but lovingly and we allow it because he's the dark horse strategist who just randomly comes up with amazing plans. jay is invention and materials and ideas person and will randomly add coffee shops and bakeries to their routes because somehow he's the only one who remembers that they'll need water and food and access to restrooms. pixal does software and understands data transfer scarily well, plus she can generally see through bs reasoning that might fool the others. nya is very good at machines and can pretty much design and build you anything; with her, jay, and pixal on the job they can get practically anything done in 24 hours. cole is arts specialist and knows random local things, in addition to being better versed in human emotions. i'm convinced that Wu knows more than he lets on, but just keeps it to himself for better or worse.
woah i'm going to have to write something on this later because if this idea was a bug, then it just bit me
EDIT: I did!
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Jay and Kai are be a force to be reckoned with. do they sometimes overlook big things? yes, absolutely. but do they also come up with some of the most wild plans requiring both of their very offensive fighting styles? yes they do. and they usually work??
they're the kind of people to come up with a brilliant strategy that gets them in the front gates of a heavily guarded castle then entirely forget that they have to get in the castle, too. like, the others are more conservative with their powers or more controlled, but it helps to be buckwild sometimes. really, just going for it can actually work when it's an offensive maneuver, especially when you have no idea what condition the other side's in. also they're pretty creative with their powers and i just think that Jay's ability to make things happen and Kai's skill of just understanding people's motivations (except when they're trying to manipulate him) would be really interesting paired together (ref: How to Build a Dragon)
i just can't get over the idea that there's an episode where someone makes a passing comment about the two of them being knuckleheads (maybe after fighting knuckles the skeleton), causing Jay, being the self-conscious and impulsive boy that he is, and Kai, who's accidentally self-centered sometimes and also has bad impulse control, are offended and refute it. the others, not realizing they took it to heart and also misjudging their friends (because, despite our best efforts, we do hurt the people we care about on occasion) just kind of wave them off.
cut to the skeletons coming back and luring them into a dungeon/prison thing. they also have some other prisoners that are deeper down, but, when Lloyd and Zane (usually the strategists for reasons outlined here) assess the situation, they really don't see a win situation if they go down there now: there's no reason to think that there's threat to the peoples' lives and they have no way to figure out if they're being heavily guarded or anything.
but Jay and Kai aren't having it because both of them know what it's like to have loved ones captured (ref: Nya in like all the early seasons). and yeah, maybe going in after them isn't the best idea, but it feels like the right thing to do with all the power they've amassed over the years. the others, of course, warn them against it and mention that they could very well get captured, too. battle-wise, it doesn't make sense and they leave it at that.
or do they? Kai and Jay, who are each other's cellmate, break out silently, letting the others think they're sulking, and take over a guard post. occasionally posing as the skeleton, they take time to plan out a method of attack using the map in the post's drawers. there have never been enough skeletons to stop them and that's not about to start now. maybe it's jumping to a conclusion, but it's pretty damn founded, to be fair. Jay, having the least destructive abilities, will go and rescue the people while Kai takes out all the guards.
it's wildly successful and, though there are quite a lot of guards, they rescue the people and know exactly how to get them back up on the surface. blasting through by rewiring the elevator, they make it back to the top, breaking through the wall and grabbing the others on their way up.
people in tow, they're topside, standing next to each other, smiling and ask the others, "who're you calling knuckleheads?"
the others are understandably surprised and the slightest bit shocked, but recover quickly, with one of them replying, "still you. ever wonder how we're getting out of the underworld?"
an amazing breakout, stymied by the fact that they're going to be surrounded by reanimated bones indefinitely unless they can get a realm portal. fortunately, that's exactly what the others were working on. they follow Zane to the cave that lets them travel between worlds and make it out.
suffice to say, the others apologize for writing them off so quickly. Jay and Kai forgive them, reminding them that it was Zane and Nya who got them back to Ninjago.
at the end of the day, everyone's just glad they're a team. though they've gained some more appreciation for some of its most chaotic members.
note: Jay's usually characterized as having anxiety and another way that can present is being really freaked out with things that aren't actually going to cause one harm, then in dangerous situations getting really calm and collected. he probably got stressed out a lot at the start of being a ninja, but this is his main job now, so he has coping mechanisms. just thought i'd add a little tidbit here so y'all know i'm not writing him ooc.
might end up writing a fully fledged fic on this eventually. i'll link it here if i do. also i really want to talk more about team dynamics. may also end up posting a ton about how each of them complement one another and why every single one of them is needed for the whole team to work.
- LRG
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observations of canon: a few of the many reasons why i ship glacier
does Cole take care to be caring to people? yes. is that an indicator of being in love with someone? ...only sometimes. why do i see a lot of other Cole ships as platonic? good question. in his case he'll, with the others, get into fights and honestly i see him as a counterweight to Jay's nervous energy, Kai's hotheadedness, and Nya's hardheadedness. that, combined with their lack of casual affection, it just seems that he's good, if sometimes argumentative, friends with the others. with lloyd he practically helped raise the boy and i will not accept any other take
it's Zane that he calls nicknames and works so hard to save and doesn't get into fights with
LITERALLY the only fight i've seen them have is in the pink ninja episode when lloyd makes cole think that Zane's beaten his high score, so i'm not counting it because it's peak Young Man Dumbass that blows over in like a minute
EDIT: @imaginehavingmotivation just pointed out that this was, in fact, Kai getting mad at Cole, so he hasn't actually even argued with Zane at all, which is just A+
also i think that it's absolutely hilarious how they try to do the "oh but he actually cares about her safety" thing as like an Exclusive Dating Indicator for Pixane [ref: Possession] but it just BACKFIRES because Zane's like that with literally everyone [ref: sacrifices himself for everyone in Rebooted, everyone yet again when he goes into Bernie's stomach, for the mission(?) when he fights against Mr. E, Wu in Secrets of Forebidden Spinjitzu, and Wu again in Prime Empire]
EXCEPT for Cole in Oni and the Dragon and Snake Jaguar, which sets him apart from the others and just shows their chemistry even more since it's in contrast to how they treat everyone else. tl;dr zane's real sweet to everyone but then to his boyfriend he's just like "nah you can deal breaking out of biker jail and rescuing a baby. have fun! i'm going to infiltrate an urban terrorist group, btw"
they're also hilarious in that Cole is One Loyal Boy and always comes back for him and goes along with his plans, trusting him implicitly [there are a lot of references for this so here are a few: Tick Tock, the pink ninja episode, when he breaks Zane out of his cell on Chen's island, the plan where he has to sing in order for Zane to infiltrate the SoG, i think there's at least one in The Island, and the last few episodes of Seabound]
both of them have to live such crazy lives anyways that i think they'd enjoy the chance to be chill with each other back @ the monestary or in their free time on the bounty; the two of them seem to have the most relaxed hobbies, anyhow, so they're compatible in that way
both of them love animals! Cole has such a soft spot for the big ones, like Rocky, and Zane just seems to love all [ref: falcon, fish, his general demeanor]
they were the first two to get recruited, too (i think), so they've known each other the longest. they were each other's first sparring partners, roommates, and just THINK about how back then they were novice ninjas both wearing black and learning how to use shuriken and scythe and not knowing what's ahead of them only that a weird old guy brought them there
also i just realized that Cole was probably playing hooky from the Marty Oppenheimer School of Perf. Arts in order to climb that mountain and he seemed very keen to leave and he had a strained relationship with his father, so the monestary with Zane was probably the first space in a while where he could be really happy (kai and nya had each other and jay pretty obviously enjoyed building things with his parents) just please don't imagine tired weary Cole following a strange old man who's offered him a place to be himself because apparently now he has to leave home to get that and then he walks into the monestary and meets this kind boy who's a little strange but is nice and likes to train and doesn't judge him for anything he does and also cooks really well and is cute and-
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cole is strong enough that the weights at dareth's gym aren't actually enough for the kind of workouts he wants to do. fortunately, zane is very heavy and willing to be picked up by cole specifically. cole may die of pure flustered energy but that's ok it was his turn to anyways.
Glacier; Gen
also read on Ao3
P.S. this is s2-ish Cole, who is younger and not very good with things. same with Zane, who is a bit more awkward. also my writing here is a lot more casual, which is not really my style usually just a btw.
///
Dareth's Studio isn't the Monastery, but it's more training-friendly than most other places, so it does fine. It does have a big display window at the front, though, so it's better for showing off than being clandestine.
Cole pulls out weights from the rack, sliding them onto the bar one at a time. There's no one else in the main room; everyone else has hobbies to go to on their free days. He, on the other hand, drew this morning and lost all inspiration a few pages in, so weightlifting it is. He used to get a spotter for these things, but now that he's supernaturally gifted with strength, he doesn't need to worry about how much he can lift. The only concern nowadays is how much the gym has to offer him. The ones here total at 200 lbs, which is pretty good, but still a light workout.
Cole catches himself staring out the window. Jay and Nya are usually game for balancing on the barbells, but they're out on a date right now.
A door opens behind him.
It's Zane. The last time Cole had seen him, he'd been in pajamas making breakfast for everyone. Apparently those responsibilities never get the day off. Now, he's in a light blue button down with the sleeves rolled up and top button fastened. That and the khaki pants he's wearing are probably pretty hot, but he never seems to mind much with the temperature unless he's literally on fire or surrounded by lava.
Zane still has a hand on the doorknob, "I hope I'm not interrupting," he has that little side smile on and Cole's trying to figure out what he was even doing before- Weights, right.
"No no, of course not," he moves to lean on the wall, "I was just getting ready to-" he gestures at the bar in front of him, "What's up?" he looks up and attempts to smile nonchalantly.
Zane glances at the weights and walks into the room fully, "Oh, I was-" he stops for a second - probably thinking about whatever it is he's heading off to do - and then resumes, "You're the only one that's off on their own today, so I figured I'd see if you wanted any company."
"Oh yeah! That'd be great, I'm- um," he looks around the room, "Well, I'm working out right now, but-" He can't just invite him out somewhere, can he? It'd probably be too forward. Cole shuffles his feet and glances back at him.
"I don't mind," he moves sit on a chair next to the wall, "I just thought I might keep you company. No need to stop," he crosses his legs, "For me."
He'd do a lot more for him, honestly, with sharing the gym equipment being somewhere close to the bottom of the list. He stares for a moment, "You know, if you want to lift weights, you can use these. They're not enough for me to workout with, anyways, and a day off won't make me deflate."
Zane smiles at that, setting his hands on his knee, "I'm not interested in working out. I'm just here to keep you company," he cocks his head a little to the side, "Like I said."
While he's working out? Why would he do that? It's nice, maybe, but a little awkward for the both of them. He relents, though, because Zane might be using this as an excuse to be around others if he can't admit it to himself. Better awkward than lonely, so he bends down to grab the bar, "Okay. Cool. I'll just," Did these things get heavier since he last used them? "Get started then."
~*~
After twenty minutes or so of lifting, he's sweaty, drops tickling his chest and soaking the back of his tank top. All his black ones are in the wash right now, so he probably looks disheveled in his sheet white top. He's not as tired as he should be after lifting 200 pounds, and the empty weights rack mocks him from across the room.
Zane, however, is still sitting there and seems to have spaced out when he was looking over at Cole. He shifts his gaze to Cole's face as he sets the bar down, though, so he's not out of it entirely. He smiles a little again, "Water?"
"Yeah, I've got some," he grabs his water bottle and sits down on the floor near Zane's chair, "Not that tired, though," he sets his bottle down, having drained it, "Dareth doesn't have enough weights for that," he looks over and smiles at Zane. Now's probably the most casual time to bring up something else to do. Maybe the park or the bookstore or-
"That's about 200 pounds, isn't it?"
"Yeah," where is he going with this? He's considerate, so he might've ordered new weights to be delivered or looked up gyms in the area with a serious lifting area.
"I could help, if you'd like. I'm about 400 pounds, after all," he's tapping his chin in thought, a habit he's picked up since they watched some old black and white detective movies, and doesn't notice that Cole's frozen in place, "I have a great sense of balance, too," he smirks, locking eyes with him.
He's messing with him. That's all. He's gotten more of a sense of humor now, that's all. Even though he didn't always know when to use it. Like now, he's just using his sense of humor in a weird context, that's it.
Cole's probably sweating again, though this time it's not from exercising, "I mean- you could- I would probably-" He couldn't just ask him to balance on the bar, he'd practically have to hold it vertical for that to make sense and then Zane would just be wrapped around it like a- a koala. He'd look ridiculous. The only thing that would make sense would be-
"For this to work," he stands up, brushing invisible dust off his pants, "You'll need to pick me up." He's looking down at Cole, who has set his water bottle down.
"Um," very eloquent and, he can feel a slight warm tingling in his cheeks, subtle. What's going to happen next? Accidentally asking him on a date?
Zane's eyebrows pop up and he starts laughing, "Is that so strange? I figure it's not so strange since we're frequently in close quarters."
Of course he'd see it like that. "Close quarters" aren't the issue here. It's the little bug Cole's caught that, when in some situations with Zane, make him turn red and limbs suddenly have minds and directions of their own.
"Well, only if you really don't mind, I guess," he's weak, so weak. It's just been a bit since they got to hang out, is all. He looks over at his water bottle again, smoothing his thumbs over the drops of condensation.
"I don't mind," Zane stands up and Cole scrambles the tiniest bit to join him, willing away the blush.
"Of course, yeah, okay," he stands still for a moment, then realizes that Zane can't initiate being picked up, "I'm going to, uh."
Zane walks over to him and hesitates slightly before putting his arm around Cole's neck, though he avoids his gaze at the last second, "This better?"
Well, maybe he can. He just initiated something. It's probably unintentional, though, so Cole doesn't try to make it weird. Zane's probably just been watching Dareth's collection of Schwarzenegger movies. He nods, trying to avoid saying anything since his voice would sound as dry as it feels. He wraps his right arm around Zane's waist and bends down to pick his legs up from behind the knees.
He stumbles for a moment and takes a second to catch himself. There's saying 400 pounds, and then there's picking up 400 pounds. Forgetting about his poorly-timed complexion change, Cole closes his eyes, focusing entirely on breathing.
~*~
It's only when he feels like his arms are starting to shake that he sets Zane down again. He would go longer, but dropping a 400 pound person isn't great for the person themselves or the floor beneath them.
Cole grunts; he walks over to the water bottle refill station and leans on it. Looking at Zane, he realizes that he's trying not to laugh, "What? I'm thirsty."
"You said you weren't tired beforehand. I've seen you hold up a half ton for ten minutes and then take down half an army."
He groans, "Okay, so maybe I was tired," he chugs the whole bottle, then places it back on the refill place, "Two hundred pounds isn't nothing, you know."
"That's not what you said earlier," oh, so he's being obstinate now.
"We haven't had the right equipment for months, now. You can sue me."
"I'll consider it," he nods and walks over to the door.
Now's the time. Cole stands up straight, failing to look more composed but he does feel the slightest bit more confident now, "Hey, um-"
Zane stops and looks over his shoulder, a little flustered. It occurs to Cole that there's a chance that Zane might've thought that he wouldn't want to spend more time with him after that. That needs to be corrected.
He smiles slightly, "Once I'm done showering, if you don't have anything else to do, we could go to the bookstore?"
Zane turns fully around and Cole sees his eyes widen a fraction.
"I mean, you just kept me company while I was working out and I figured- since you helped me that we could go to the bookstore and I could pay, if you'd like."
At that, Zane cocks his head to the side, wrinkling his nose a little, "You don't need to repay me," he sounds like he's referring to some inside joke, a payment that he received that they're both aware of, but all Cole really did was work out in the same room as him and use him as a weight. On what world is that fun?
"Yeah, but I want to," he downs the refilled water bottle, "Okay, I'm going to shower off and we can take the 3 PM bus to the shop, that okay? You don't have any other plans?"
"Nope," Zane puts his hands in his pockets, turning to examine the scene out the front shop window. He's back to his, more quiet self. His personality seems to fluctuate a bit these days, as he's absorbing more media and seeing others experience more of the emotional spectrum. It's really endearing.
"Great," Cole grabs a fresh towel and jogs to the bathroom door, "Be right back!"
He jumps into the shower and who can blame him if he rushes through it? He has somewhere to be, after all.
///
did Zane just walk in because he wanted to ogle Cole on his day off? yes, yes he did. please let him crush on Cole in peace. and, oh Cole, sometimes you're really aware and other times you're... not.
next fic is longer (and actually in my writing style, unlike this abomination) and about Zane and Lloyd's methods of being strategist and leader, respectively. sometimes they have to be creative when it comes to plans. again, Zane is very heavy and occasionally that can come in handy. there's a dick joke! Sensei Garmadon! elevators! it's here!
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lloyd, zane, and nya, during a supply run that involves breaking in to a Borg warehouse @ some point during Rebooted, the plan goes wrong and a last-second hail mary with our favorite 400-pound robot is their last chance. spawned from my hc on why strategist Zane works well w/ leader Lloyd and another hc list with drabbles on Zane being very heavy
P.S. sorry this is posting 12 hours later than usual! it turned out longer than i planned
Gen. Implied Glacier and referenced Jaya; So much team dynamics and team fluff
the others are there during planning @ the monastery, so if you came here for not Zane, Nya, or Lloyd, everyone else is actually in this fic i promise
also on Ao3
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Pale yellow candles in ceiling lamps flood the meeting room in a soft light. The floors are a lighter wood that matches the wall panels with paper screens. A large kneeling table made of oak is in the center, surrounded by thick square brown pillows. Three are occupied. Lloyd and Zane are examining dark blue and white documents, as well as fuzzy photos. The other person, Jay, is reading in a position that his older self will curse him for.
Zane is sitting at the head of the table and Lloyd is situated on the long side, as close to Zane as he can be. Lloyd's running his hands through his hair, which falls in his face if he doesn't, "Well, I just think the elevator shaft is-"
One of the wood panels slides open. Nya walks across the room and sits to Jay's right. Lloyd doesn't take his eyes off her and raises his eyebrows when she pulls out a piece of paper, "That the parts list?"
"Yup," she leans over and places it as close to Lloyd as she can manage, "Get all of these and we can have everything up and running by..." she glances at Jay, who looks up from his book, "Wednesday?"
"Give or take thirteen hours." He returns to reading.
"Yeah."
"Great, okay, right-" Lloyd turns back to Zane and starts pointing at a page of blueprints that show a top-down view of a sprawling storage complex. When he speaks, it's clear he's continuing after having been interrupted, "The shaft leads straight up to storage room 87c, which would save us a ton of time and resources. It'd be safer. We wouldn't have to use the stairways, which are surrounded by walls made of glass."
Nya sits back and watches the two. Lloyd has only been adult for a little over a year now, so he hasn't grown into this position entirely. Hilariously, though, he still doesn't seem to be above using his whiney tone. If it was anyone else, they probably wouldn't notice, but she'd been stuck babysitting him for hours on end, so, yeah, she notices.
Lloyd shifts and looks up at Zane, "Plus we're less likely to get caught."
Zane breaks eye contact with him, looking at the papers instead, and seems to be contemplating this idea. Nya realizes that he must be running programs. In his head, that is. Since they'd been teaching at the Academy, she kept forgetting that he's an android. It was probably the sweaters. What kind of robot has a favorite sweater? Zane, apparently. Even seeing him now, in his pajamas, it's still a little jarring to think that she'd, just that morning, opened up a panel on his chest and fixed some shot wiring. They're all in pajamas now, though, since it's so late. It would have been weirder to see him walking around in full armor, so she can't fault him for changing out of his gi even though he doesn't always need to sleep.
Zane looks back at Lloyd, "You make some good points," he's choosing each word out like one might if they're stepping around hot pebbles, "but your plan depends entirely on the elevator being at the top or bottom of the facility and staying there for the duration of our visit."
"Zane, it's two AM, who would be in there at two AM?"
"I'm just pointing out that there's a possibility of the elevator being in service," he moves around the papers, pulling out one that, from what she could tell upside-down, shows a vertical slice of the building. He traces his finger over the paper, emphasizing each point, "If it was going to let off at the top or bottom floor, we would need to enter it or leave the elevator shaft in order to avoid getting injured."
Lloyd crosses his arms and shifts in his seat, "What's the chance of that, though?" It's late and he's clearly just being obstinate because he's tired.
Zane doesn't seem to catch it, though, and looks through more documents, including one with a rather extensive spreadsheet. He taps his left fingers on the table before replying, "I don't know really anything about the most frequent travel paths in the building, but I can guess it's approximately a 10% chance that it'll be moving to a top or bottom floor during the total amount of time we'll be in the shaft-"
Next to her, Jay giggles.
"Elevator shaft, Jay," Coles at the door, and sighs, leaning back to rest on the doorframe.
She must've been really distracted or exhausted if she hadn't seen him standing there. Probably both.
He turns to the two planners at the table and smiles when Zane meets his gaze, "So you guys have a plan, then?"
He looks at the scattered papers, and says "Not entirely..." at the same time that Lloyd replies, "Yes."
They turn towards each other and hold eye contact until Zane relents. He's clearly hesitant, but not entirely against the idea, "If we're going to go along with it, then we at least need a backup measure if we do, in fact, need to retreat into the building."
At that, Cole cocks his head to the side.
"To avoid getting crushed," Zane explains, without missing a beat. If anything, Cole looks even more confused now.
Lloyd continues, oblivious, "Okay, we'll go into this door here," he taps the blueprints that show a top-down view, "It's a safe vent since the area around it is being renovated right now. The only things that work are the lights and those wouldn't even be one because the construction crews get there at five."
Kai breezes in, unaware of the context, and helpfully adds, "Five in the morning? Glad I'm a ninja then." He sits across from Nya and a seat away from Lloyd, "We just stay up late, don't we?"
At that, Cole sits on Jay's left, whose book is forgotten now that he's explaining to Kai how "Morning People" that get nine hours of sleep are mostly unfortunate products of their genes. Cole's looking at Zane, though, whose talk in low tones with Lloyd fades into the background as Nya thinks about the night ahead of them.
Several minutes later, the door slides open again and Senseis Wu and Garmadon walk through. Garmadon clears his throat, rendering the room silent, "Hate to interrupt your riveting conversation," he looks around, slightly side-eyeing Jay, "But you are beholden to my students' curfew, as well. I expect all of you in bed within the hour."
A ruckus of complaints fill her ears, but none of them ask the question. Nya raises her voice above the others, "Sensei Garmadon," he looks over at her, "None of your students are here."
"There's you six, isn't there?"
"Dad," Lloyd turns around, stretching the word out slightly, "We're planning a sting on a storage facility. Tonight. Well, tomorrow morning."
Garmadon looks at Wu, who just looks resigned, and sighs, "Well, if you must, then," he walks over and sits between Kai and Lloyd. His perfect posture, tall stature, and large build make him look like a proper mentor of the martial arts. He raises an eyebrow at the scattered plans, "When are you leaving?"
Lloyd runs his hand through his hair, probably so he can see properly, "In three hours. At two AM, we should be at the facility."
"Okay," He squints pointedly at one sheet of paper, "That's seventeen miles away. Who are you taking with you and how are you going to get there?"
"It's me, Nya, and Zane. We were going to use my dragon-"
"You rely too much on that thing."
"-because all of our vehicles are shot."
At that, Garmadon pauses, then lifts his chin slightly, "Very well," he smiles a little and cocks an eyebrow, "You came up with all this?" he motions towards the plans and spreadsheets. He looks rather impressed with his son's work, if the slightest bit misbelieving. That's only because he's still technically about 12.
"No," Lloyd waves a hand to his right, "Zane and I did."
Sensei shifts his gaze to Zane and locks eyes with him, "Good, then," he springs up all of a sudden, spinning so that his back faces them. It's a bit too graceful for someone at least two hundred years old who nearly died a year ago, "Then the rest of you can head off to bed now." He joins Wu at the door, who looks amused, "Jay, Kai, Cole; I don't tolerate rule breakers," he walks out into the hallway, "You're not part of the operation, so go to sleep."
Wu looks between Lloyd and Zane, "You've been working together to make a plan," he trails off, walking off just as his brother did, "I see ninja sharpens ninja."
The six of them look at each other. Most of them are exasperated, or that's just Nya projecting. Cole stands up first, patting Zane on the shoulder and ruffling Lloyd's hair as he passes by. Jay picks up his book and stands, his unruly curls bounce with every step he takes. It's very cute. "Come on, Kai," he drags her brother's name out, "We don't want face Garmadon's wrath."
Kai allows himself to be dragged from his seat, and his evening complaints and dark eye shadows fade as the three of them walk further down the hallway. He really isn't the night person he claims to be, but they always got their best business when the moon was high, so he's kept up the ruse since they were kids.
"We'll need an another exit point that's dark, high up, and close to the forest; if they surround the place, then we can escape with a lot less fanfare and evidence," And Lloyd's back to planning. He turns towards Nya, which makes some of his hair slip out from where it's tucked behind his ear, and slides the blueprints of 'Floor 4' towards her, "Anything else you want to get a look at? Most of this," he points at her parts list, which she realizes looks pretty smudged and hasty compared to the crisp blue and bleached-white sheets covering half the table, "Is in 87c, which is pretty much in the middle of the complex, so we can stop on our way back to the elevator so long as..." he raises his tone and side eyes Zane.
"If any lock takes more than one and a half minutes to open, then we'll need to seek cover from passing guards, which drastically increases our chances of getting caught." Zane doesn't even look up, still staring-not-staring at the wood grain. Probably running through the full simulation of the plan as many times as he can before they leave.
Lloyd directs his gaze back at her. His eyebrows dip down at the ends, "He says that, but a 50% increase isn't that bad when it goes from 1.5 to 2.25 percent. I promise. If we need anything else from those rooms, then we will get it." He holds her gaze for a moment.
"Well," Nya smiles a little sheepishly, "There's this one processor that would really improve mech motion," she glances over at Zane, who looks back at her a second after, "I think it's in 85a."
He nods after a moment.
"Other than that," she looks back at Lloyd, "Just get me access to a system panel, and I'm your ninja for the job."
"Door 12a." Zane raises his head, directing his gaze towards them.
Lloyd straightens back up in his seat and furrows his brow, looking down at the sheets trying to put together what's going on.
"The one you were looking for, the covert exit in case our cover is blown," Zane's tone is slightly clipped, probably because his processors are busy running simulation, that or he's a little annoyed that the question was forgotten so soon, "It's to the southeast of the building and leads directly into 20 square kilometers of forest."
"Oh, right, yeah. Thanks Zane," Lloyd picks up the floor layout, "If we leave that way, then Nya shouldn't take out all the lights and the whole security system. We'll already be discovered, anyways."
Zane nods, then stands up just a second later, "It is time to suit up," he looks at the two of them, his expression apologetic, "You didn't get to rest, yet..."
Lloyd jumps up, patting Zane on the back, "It's okay, we'll be alright."
Nya wobbles a little when she's upright - one of her legs is asleep. She does a little jig in order to get it working again, drawing amused faces out of her friends. "Okay," she walks towards the door, "Let's go."
~*~
It's always a little strange to ride on the golden dragon, with it being see-through and all. Zane appears to feel the same way, widening his eyes and pointedly looking down when he glances back at her. As precious mechanical cargo, he's sandwiched between Lloyd in front, the actual dragon-rider, and Nya at the back, who's just become very good at not falling off these things since she doesn't have one of her own.
The warehouse is in their sights within ten minutes or so. Their only light is the moon, which is only a sliver of a crescent slicing through the dark sky. It's a bit humid out and the back of Nya's neck already coated with a layer of sweat. She couldn't wait to take a shower when they get back.
The air rushes in her ears as they descend, accelerating and allowing the ground to pull them close until they get about fifty feet from the rooftop, then they decelerate and the dragon disappears, letting them drop the remaining ten or so feet to land on the slanted metal. Their landing makes no sound. The trio silently runs over to the AC access point, which protrudes from the roof, kind of resembling a periscope.
Nya reaches it first, pulls out the magnetic screwdriver, and begins to systematically remove the Philip's heads. The other two keep watch until the last screw is stored in her gi pocket. Nya goes in first, then Zane, and Lloyd takes up the back. The vents here accommodate all of them well since the AC system has to compensate for some ridiculously powerful, and therefore hot, computers.
There's an odd lack of dead bugs in these vents, which is more disturbing than it should be. In fact, when she drops out of the vent, there's only a very light layer of dust to brush off. Lloyd seems to notice it, too, and shoots her a look that says, "We'll talk about this when we get back because I, too, think it's weird." They use it a lot more than you'd think.
Zane didn't seem to notice; he's busy opening the next vent. This one is glued, so he cools the metal until it falls into his hands.
The next vent crawl is shorter and leads into the elevator shaft. Nya wedges the grappling hook into a crevice and slides down the rope a story to the fourth floor entrance door. There, she finds the electronics access panel and gets her way into the system using a handheld computer she stored in her pocket. The door opens, stopping at about two feet wide, and Lloyd slips through, with Nya right behind him after she reattaches the panel cover. Zane follows less than a minute later; he's abnormally heavy, so, instead of using the rope, he slid down using the elevator cable after taking their grapple and reattaching the vent cover. She overrides the safety sensors, the closing indicator light, and disables mainframe records, letting the gap in the doors close completely.
The hallway is painted a light gray and the waxed floor reflects the moon that shines through the tall exterior windows. Nya takes a moment to catch up to Lloyd and Zane, keeping close to the floor to avoid being seen from the outside. When she gets there, both of them nod: the guards are on schedule. It's expected, of course, since their programming doesn't allow for anything different.
She crouches down, examining the lock. Part of it they already knew: it's connected to the mainframe and can be opened electronically. However, it also has a mechanical component that they couldn't find any way to get around. Lacking any blueprints or patents, she just has to wing it. Jay isn't great at improvisation under pressure and Zane literally contains magnets, so she's the one crouched in front of the slender, rectangular black screen situated right where a door handle might be on the pristine white door.
Earlier, at the monastery, she'd wagered that whoever needed to access it would probably want something discrete to use, not a traditional key or anything clunky. Similar to Borg Tower Clearance Cards, she'd said. From what she can see now, it looks magnetic. Nya's smiling under her gi as she removes a metal card from her toolkit. Using a sheet of magnetic viewing film, she arranges magnets at specific strengths at precise locations. For a second pair of eyes, she taps the door once, pauses, then again. Zane turns around. She points at a tile and motions for him to walk over, then lifts up her card, points at the lock, and crooks her head to the right.
His eyes glow light blue for just a second, and he squints. Nya groans internally, putting the card in her back pocket and walks over.
Zane leans down so his head is right adjacent to her ear, "Third from top on the far right. Swap it for the next strongest. The rest are perfect." He straightens and gives her an encouraging thumbs up before heading back to his watching post.
Nya does as he says and returns her toolkit to the folds of her gi, careful to secure it noiselessly. She takes a deep breath, checks the time, and waits. Behind her, she can't even hear fabric rustling; it's only the shadows that clue her in to where the other two are.
At the thirty second mark, she quickly overrides the electrical component, and at thirty-two seconds she's holding up her card to the lock. The blood's rushing in her ears and the red light at the top of the lock glares at her for several beats. The beep it makes is deafening, but the guards won't hear it and the blinking green light is worth it.
The door swings open, presenting to her a room with wire black shelves on both side walls and an assortment of silvery components glinting even in the low light. It's not a big room and the shelves are deep. The floor is a dull, unsealed concrete devoid of shoe scuffs and full of scrapes. Metal shoes aren't exactly popular, so it's probably nindroid feet. Zane taps her on the shoulder and they begin the search. Back at the monastery, they'd agreed that every time they find a piece, one of them taps twice on the metal bars and lifts the bounty above their head.
Although they're there for a mission, she can't help but to enjoy looking at each piece. It's a treasure trove to her calibrated eye; 0.5 nanometer processors, integrated ARM-based chips, and external 1 terabyte storage that's the size of 15 megabyte USB flash drives. Pulling her attention back to the mission, she refocuses on the parts she needs. They spend about forty more seconds in complete silence. Then two metallic taps ring in the air and, with that, they've found all the parts. As she's closing the door, Nya looks at the floor. Zane didn't leave any of those marks. In fact, stealth training left his footfalls almost undetectable.
The door shuts with a click and Lloyd walks over. They redistribute components within their gis, securing them to their bodies and occasionally moving around a little to test the noisiness.
In less than a minute, they're heading towards the next room. Twenty feet away from the door, Zane puts his hands to another vent. Metallic steps echo from around the corner; Lloyd bounces his right foot and Nya's chewing on her lip. The vent falls into Zane's hands and they crawl in. Nya is the last to get in, so she gets a front row seat to see the shadow of the guard pass by. She holds her breath until he rounds the corner.
It's about thirty seconds before Zane taps the OK signal. Nya climbs out and promptly runs over to the target door. She aligns another set of magnets, and her second attempt is deemed perfect by their resident android in a much faster time. The handheld computer informs her that she's within the window to make noise. Wasting no time, she deactivates the lock's electrical component and holds up the card. The beep isn't as bad this time, and the light is a bit more expected. She heads in on her own, clothed fingers running along the edge of the wire shelves until she finds a thin metal box inscribed with a Borg logo.
The door closes behind her and she hands it to Lloyd. He's the only one who can't open vents, so he'd volunteered to hold onto it until they reach the roof.
Running low again, on their way over the the elevator door, she notices a pattern of scrapes on the floor. She mustn't've caught it before because it was obscured by shadows. Less than two feet away from the tile, though, it's obvious. They only seem to walk on the left side of the hallway, which makes sense since the guards never pass by one another. If the warehouse was staffed by humans, though, she would expect to see scuffs all across the width of the halls, dust in the vents, and bugs in the walls. Save for the three of them, nothing in this building can think for itself.
It takes a bit longer to reach the elevator doors. As they approach, Nya's hands fly cross the computer screen. The adrenaline rush has almost worn off by the time they've closed the doors, are in the shaft, and hear a polite female AI inform them of the elevator's destination, "Fifth floor." Lloyd and Nya are standing on the slight ledge behind the doors and Zane jumps off the cable to the side of the shaft as the elevator rises from the ground floor. His feet make a clanging noise as they hit the side and the metal groans beneath his hands. He's the one with the grappling hook, but there isn't enough time to escape into a vent. Nya's stomach twists into a knot as she realizes they have no way to escape since there is no sixth floor and their climbing would be too slow to allow for any time to remove a vent cover. Zane's eyes are glowing a little, illuminating the cable in front of them that's rising much too quickly.
Lloyd straightens all of a sudden, eyes tinting green, "Zane," his voice is just slightly quieter than the winch, but loud enough for Zane to redirect his focus, looking him in the eye, "Stand on the elevator, so it reaches max capacity-" Lloyd cuts himself off and looks down. It's is just ten feet below them now.
Zane doesn't appear to consider an alternative. He tightens his grip and brings his feet closer to his hips. He pushes off the wall, simultaneously throwing the grapple to Nya, which she catches. He lands on the roof of the elevator car with some noise, but the capacity alerts, which are nearly deafening, cover for him.
She wastes no time, throwing the grapple near the escape vent. With this much commotion, their cover is surely blown. They scramble up the rope as quick as humanly possible; Lloyd's unwrapped his hood to use as a sack for holding the box, so he takes a bit longer. Only after she removes the vent cover does she hear the capacity alarms stop. Looking down, she sees Zane climbing up the cable and realizes that there are voices inside the elevator car. Both are robotic, though, thank goodness, and seem to be just as alarmed when the elevator starts moving again.
She crawls into the vent first. Lloyd passes her his hood-sack and gets in after her. They start towards the roof, keeping an ear out for Zane, who gets in a few seconds later, not bothering to replace the vent. As they crawl and push their way up, lights turn on in the area below. Nya runs through her mental checklist again: motion sensors, microphones, and heat cameras. They're all patched - on a continuous loop of false information - so that they can't detect their movement, and she lets herself relax a little.
Zane fully catches up to them as she's working to remove the final vent cover. Lloyd scoots right next to him, asking him if he's okay in a low, careful tone. He responds in the affirmative just as the cover falls into Nya's hands.
They step onto the roof, crouching low, and Zane motions for her to just leave the vent cover as they move towards the roof's edge.
Looking out at the southeast end of the property, it's awash in bright yellow lights that illuminate the sides of the building. The forest's entrance seems to swallow the search lights. Only the first line of trees are properly visible. They're all hardwoods, but the northwestern wind holds the scent of pine. She can't hear the leaves rustling, though, because synchronized metallic footsteps and orders in robotic voices echo far into the night.
Zane taps his teammates on the shoulder and speaks just loud enough that the wind doesn't swallow his words, "We need to alter the plan." He points towards another side of the roof, "Lloyd, you should summon your dragon on the North end and distract them as Nya and I escape into the forest."
Lloyd nods, and goes to hand Nya the box, but Zane pushes it back into his hands.
"No, you should put your hood back on and hold the box so it's completely visible," he shifts his feet, "Your distraction isn't just the dragon."
Curly blond hair disappears once more and Lloyd holds the box to his hip. He runs across the roof and becomes a green smudge standing on roof's North end. He shouts something, and all the nindroids go quiet for a moment before the commanders are yelling, telling the others to fire.
Zane taps Nya on the elbow, getting her attention, "I'll say when."
She sees the golden glow out of her periphery, and hears angry shouts from below mixed with a delighted cackle. She blocks out the noise after that, focusing on finding a branch to land on.
"Go."
At Zane's cue they leap from the rooftop, soaring into the air with their eyes locked on their landing places. Zane happens to land on the same tree as her; he's holding on to the trunk and she's perched on a branch. Not for long, though - they only take a moment to rest - because they're off again, jumping through the trees so quickly the wind whistles in her ears. She's not sure if they noticed them and, at this point, if they did they wouldn't be able to catch up.
The rendezvous point is a large oak about one and a half kilometers from the warehouse. It's stout, but thick, and stands out from the others in the middle of the forest. However, you wouldn't be able to pick it out if you didn't know what you were looking for.
They slide down the trunk and more or less collapse at the foot of the tree, resting on large, gnarled roots.
It's about five minutes before Zane walks over to her, "Lloyd should only be a few minutes. He's probably going to lead them on a chase, then ascend above the clouds and double back," he sits down on the root next to her, hunching over.
"Great, how long will that be?"
"Approximately ten minutes total, so three minutes from now."
Nya lets the silence surround them. The air down here creeps into her gi, cooling the sweat that coats her whole body. There's no real wind near the forest floor, but the atmosphere down here is a lot nicer than the one they flew through earlier. She lets her mind wander to her bed and her boyfriend. She'll have quite a story to tell when they get back. Two minutes into ruminating, a question pops into her head. "Hey, Zane?"
He looks up, and she realizes he's taken his hood off. The small bit of moonlight they get beneath the trees lets her see the contrast between his white hair, dark complexion, and glowing blue eyes that slowly return to brown after she calls his attention.
"Yes? If it's Lloyd, he's likely to arrive in under a minute."
She smiles. Although she's famously impatient, he's wrong on this occasion.
"It's not," she shifts so it's easier to look at him, "Did they, the nindroids, see us?"
His head drops and he laughs, his right hand going to hold the left side of his chest. It takes a few moments before he raises his head again and looks at her directly, "They were much too occupied by our resident green ninja to notice us."
"Good, because they gave me one hell of a chase." Lloyd slides down the tree trunk, a golden quickly dissipating in the sky above him/ He's cradling the box to his side, and lands on a root behind Zane, "Ready to go?" he looks between the two of them.
"Yup," Nya stands, brushing her gi off. Zane rewraps his hood.
Lloyd calls on his golden energy and summons his dragon, which scares some squirrels, chipmunks, a racoon, and makes a few birds let out noises she's sure indicate annoyance. Though animals of the avian sort always act like their neighbor left their porch light on and they're trying to go to sleep. It's like they're permanently unimpressed.
Zane hops on first, then Nya, and they ascend through the forest canopy into the night sky. Another end to an eventful night. She tightens her arms around Zane's middle and her shoulders begin to shake to accompany her giggling when she finishes processing what exactly happened.
He makes an inquiring noise and taps one of her hands to get her attention.
She rests her head on his back and lets the wind caress her hair as she waits a moment in the humid silence before she answers. "Never lose weight."
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glacier drabble for @imaginehavingmotivation since my asks are open rn
gen. fluff. pre-pilot
also on Ao3 (where i clarify my writing and actually use spellcheck)
///
The golden hour floods through the back windows and the sky's on full display atop the Mountain of Impossible Height. Cole's sotting at the kitchen table, lazily sketching. Light pencil jumps and flows across the page of his sketchbook. He'll think it's a terrible drawing in a few years, and turn red when people compliment it. Objectively, it's really quite impressive for a self-taught 17-year-old who doesn't practice much.
Lily used to draw skies like this one, especially after rock climbing. His dad would point at different paintings around their house and describe to Cole the kind of trips they would take. He'd be in the back strapped into his baby seat and his parents would talk low just over the sound of soft jazz from the radio. Lou would start to hike up the other side while Lily strapped baby Cole into a carrier on her back. On the climb up, she'd hum the songs his Dad didn't like until she was within earshot of the top. They'd meet there and she'd start sketching as Lou made them a campfire-style dinner. Then they'd hike back down and sleep in the car for the night, heading back as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon.
In high school, Cole probably would have ended up with a watercolor after thinking so much about his Mom, but now he's just smiling and also trying not to go blind as he sketches the sun.
Behind him, a plate shatters. He jerks from the daydream, spinning around and leaving a dark mark on his paper.
He's greeted with the sight of a sheepish friend. Well, fellow student of martial arts. His name is Zane and he got here about three weeks ago.
"I'm sorry," he walks carefully around the mess and over to the broom, "I did not intend to drop that."
Actually, compared to the broom, he's pretty tall. Taller than Cole, at least - especially with his hair. In the minute or so they have left of the brillant afternoon light, his skin glows as he turns to sweep up the mess.
"It's okay, I drop things all the time, too," Cole stands and walks over to the broom closet, pulling out a pan, "I can help?" He cocks his head a little to the side and raises his eyebrows.
Zane pauses and nearly takes a step back into broken porcelain before aborting the motion entirely, "Oh, that's not strictly necessary," he starts sweeping the slightest bit quicker and ducks his head, "I might as well clean up my own-"
Cole bends down and angles thw pan to catch some of the shards, "Yeah, but you don't have to," he looks up, "It's also quicker this way."
His eyebrows furrow, wrinkiling his nose in what Cole is moderately sure conveys confusion, "I cleaned and tidied various shops for almost a year. I am very familiar with the process."
"Okay, so let's do it."
Zane lets out a breath and sweeps the smaller-sized bits into the pan and points to beneath the sink, "New trash bags are there," he sets the broom aside, "You should empty the pan in there while I pick up the larger pieces."
They clean the floor, surrounded by ambient plastic rustling and wood creaking from around the much too old building. Cole mostly holds the bag for Zane to drop things into, so he's free to observe the clouds or the changing shadows. Instead, he sees how the places where light touches Zane's skin shimmer, contrasting his dark complexion and bouncing off his white hair.
Then, the person in question is looking at him and smirking.
Cole nearly trips over himself trying to turn around, running out of the kitchen and to the exterior door, "I'll put this in the trash can since we're done!"
It's darker outside than he'd expected; cleaning up must've taken a bit longer than he'd thought. Cole returns after just a minute, jogging back inside to cool the heat on his face.
He's met with the clicking of a gas burner and a knife laying atop a cutting board with a pile of scallions, minced garlic and ginger, and chopped bok choi. Zane's slightly hunched over the stove and lightly pours oil into a pan.
Cole retrieves his sketchbook and is nearly at the door when he decides to just flick the lightswitch and head back to his seat, this time facing the countertop. He flips to a new page and begins to plan out a scene ontop a mountain.
"When did you learn to sketch?" Zane barely finishes his question before the room crackles to life as he drops ingredients in.
He stands, and goes to lean on a doorframe near rhe stove, "My mother used to do it and I wanted to learn how, so I just studied a lot of her old sketchbooks."
The chef of the night just nods, "I, um, might have," he turns to the window, hiding his face, "Well, your drawings are rather well-done," he looks back at the stir-fry, "I noticed your sketchbook on the table and- well, my apologies, since I didn't have your permission. It's just, rather-" he glances at Cole, "It's beautiful."
///
i ended up also making this about Lily? sorry??
no editing we die unbetaed
also the ending isn't complete because for some reason in my head it just cuts back to Cole's shocked face and the credits roll for the sundance short film this is most certainly not
EDIT: apparently it's Lilly with two 'l's, RIP me
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days off on the Destiny's Bounty are rare, and its inhabitants are grateful for each one. a collection of drabbles describing the ninja in the morning. gen. friendship, but feel free to project any relationships you like.
also available to read on ao3; very much can be read as a one shot, but if you want to read something that expands on my fic about Zane having trauma from the Never Realm, then that also works!
On the Destiny's Bounty, there aren't many slow days. People on call for the continent are, understandably, busy. Trainings to prepare for the next inevitable largescale battle and ongoing investigations on the particularly slippery lawbreakers take up the entirety of a normal nine to five workday and then some. That being said, unpredictable schedules of the crime underworld coincide about once every month with the planned, less instruction-heavy days to create what is called "A Day Off."
These sun-soaked mornings filled with loud chatter are a more than suitable background for making breakfast. Zane isn't necessarily an early riser as much as he's just consistently awake at eight every morning. Luckily for the others, he finds cooking relaxing and enjoyable, so their free mornings have a table piled with bamboo steamers, covered plates and bowls, and each person's personalized mug filled with their tea of choice. All hands are below deck, gathering at the table like bears to honey and waiting with the silence of a brood of cicadas, and spring to action when a certain nindroid asks for the table to be set. By the time Zane sits down to eat, someone's drawn the short straw to fetch the mechanics from the workshop.
Due to popular demand, the lowest cargo hold into a workshop; the renovations took so long, spanning from the mainmast to the rudder, they did an unveiling of it when it finished. The plaque above it reads "Dr. Julien Workshop of Destiny's Bounty II: the second Sailing Ship with Rocket Boosters," an homage to Zane's late father. Jay, Pixal, and Nya are so fond of the place, which only has one window that's hidden from the outside view, that, if they don't fetch them, they'll stay there until noon.
Often, Pixal is the first to emerge. Before she's even sitting at the table, she'll talk about project idea's she's been mocking up or a Samurai X mission that hadn't hit the papers yet. She uses her hands and tone for emphasis around the climax of each tale. Her pitch climbs up as she's fighting a rogue serpentine gang, then it falls when she's investigating suspicious activity around a Borg Industrial warehouse.
She sits across from Cole, one of the two most conscientious listeners at the table. He and Lloyd nod, only interrupt to clarify the situation being described, and ask questions at the end. The latter wages a war with his curls so that he can make proper eye contact with the storytellers and conversation-havers. Well-placed sarcasm or a snide comment can get him to laugh, throwing his head back and covering his mouth with a hand. Compared to when they first brought him onto the Bounty, he's a bundle of sunshine. His smile encourages appearances of his laugh lines near his eyes and dimples.
Usually wearing a band t-shirt, Cole shows up with clear eyes and soft footsteps. He might help Zane with some of the final morning tasks, cutting fruit, setting the table, and serving tea. Although he claims to daydream during the meal, he certainly pays attention to the people speaking. He's the one with a reaction at the end of a particularly ridiculous monologue from a conniving gangster or persistent cat burglar. He'll stay until the end; even if everyone else has left and the table is clear, he sits with whoever's still talking until they finish the story. Even once everyone's done, he'll walk over to loosely encircle Zane's waist and rest his head on his back, which doesn't make washing up any easier, but he's not about to protest it. After a few minutes, they'll usually end up side by side, Cole taking over the washing up after some unfounded worried chiding about electronics and water.
The other end of the table, headed by Wu and flanked by the Smith siblings, often courts unrelated chatter. Jay might be arguing across the table with Kai, his eyebrows drawn in and tone carefully pitched as loud as it could be without talking over Pix. Despite sitting next to her, he always somehow manages to make his voice sound further away. Likely a trick picked up from school when he wanted up talk during class. Although he's gained a reputation for mischief and humor, he's really quite aware of the others. He'll be the one to notice any kind of overcompensation for anxiety or stress; it takes one to know one, after all. His rambling stories and quick subject changes don't particularly lend themselves well to astute observation of his peers, but he makes it work. Somehow.
If Jay's not heading up the chatter, Sensei Wu's recounting old stories or answering questions about the day's training and lessons. Between cups of green tea, he weaves myth and history together into an elaborate tapestry. His expression remains the same throughout, but his tone will reveal the drama and stakes. His flair for the dramatic extends to wearing long silk robes around the Bounty, and encourages the others to follow his example on getting dressed to go into common areas. Even going so far as to make pinstripe pajama sets appear on their beds years ago.
Kai disregards all of this. The majority of his morning garb is involves plush, fuzzy pants and some kind of graphic tee you'd expect to see in the Instagram shopping tab. His hair is nothing if not abominable, sometimes to the point of obscuring his vision or poking him directly in the eye. Poor eyesight never stops him from plundering the steamers and serving plates, though, to Zane's constant amusement and mild displeasure. embarrassing story about every person in his pocket. When conversation shifted to a bad picture Cole had taken after they rescued a serpentine village, he began talking about the time Cole had stopped to buy a sketchbook in the middle of a battle. Kai was his mission partner at the time and complained about the unprofessionalness of it all, until Cole reminded him that, a few weeks later, he got socked in the jaw by a motorhead goon while ogling a pricy pair of aviator sunglasses during a raid on a Sons of Garmadon warehouse.
Nya and her brother take turns excitedly interrupting to chime in with non-sequiturs. Famous for her fantastical connections, if Nya comments on the others' stories, it often spins off into an entire conversation of its own. Most of the others are only children and don't understand the competition that younger siblings face when they want to tell something to the table. When she was younger, her stories were bad, since five year-olds aren't typically heads of the literary field. By the time she could dismantle her experiences into funny anecdotes, the only other person at the table was Kai. They were often together, so there weren't many stories to tell. An opportunity arose when they were inducted as the fifth and sixth members of a new, larger, family, and Nya took care not to squander it.
Two more members later, the table at the Destiny's Bounty was full. Seats were chosen: backed by the bay windows, Zane sits at one head of the table, going clockwise, there's Cole, Lloyd, Kai, Wu at the other head, then Nya, Jay, and Pixal. Though the androids need not eat, they do appreciate good company.
Only one inhabitant of the Bounty is willing to interrupt them, being the grandfather clock in the hall. Found and fixed by Ed and Edna, it adjusts to time zones and daylight savings. On the face of the pendulum, there's an altimeter, and the face of the clock has not only hours and minutes, but seconds and milliseconds. However, they refused to alter the design, so the mahogany with its ornate carvings, photovoltaic glass, and atomic timekeeping unit sits in what must be the equivalent of foyer in their modified pirate ship base.
Residing now in the Samurai X cave beneath the Monastery, its restraints and docking station are nearly shaking apart as Aspheera sends her fiery serpents to break through the doors separating her from Wu.
Just ten short minutes later, ice crystals scatter across its deck. Two minutes after that, there's one fewer person in the cave.
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jay and nya need to go to sketchy markets to get zane parts. they're all mismatched because de. julien was steampunk before you could spell it. from this hc series.
Jaya; Gen
also read on Ao3
The sun's beating down, but it's a dry heat and the linens Nya and Jay are wearing aren't particularly heavy. They're still sweaty and gross and tired, but that's mostly because they've been tromping around this shanty conglomerate that the sign dubs a "Mechanics' Market."
There are poles with multicolored, holey tarps pulled between them that create a mosaic of visuals on the dirt they stand on. Each vendor's stall is a sharp contrast to their neighbor's, but oddly enough they all smell the same. The space between stalls is pretty narrow and people bump into each other whenever a fourth person wants to span the narrow walkway. Most of them are selling used parts, then there are some counterfeit pieces from Borg Industries, a startup in Ninjago city with a label that looks smug and self-important. Still, every new sight is sickeningly predictable: more weaved baskets and cardboard boxes overflowing with metal and rubber, but the day's covered in sepia with the contrast and saturation cranked to high, so Nya's halfway to a pretty bad headache already.
Jay's used to these things, having grown up with Ed and Edna. He's walking back to the stall Nya's standing in front of after haggling with another nearby vendor.
He's mumbling to himself and slightly stomping his feet, "Of course none of his gears can be the same. Did his inventor even ever hear about industry standards?" he emphasizes his point by gesticulating with a copy they'd made of Zane's plans. Specifically his lower left torso, the guy was such a complicated set of gears that the larger, complete plan had an entire document tube to itself.
"I'm going to say he didn't, Jay, since he built a conscious, autonomous robot about seventy years ago in the woods of the Birchwood Forest," she shrugs, "Doesn't really scream rule-follower or societally aware to me," she rests her hands on her hips, squinting at the basket positioned on its side on the table, "Plus, I think I've found what we're looking for."
It's a 0.5 x 6 cm brass gear with steel tipped gear teeth. Very specific and rather expensive, but incredibly helpful for Zane's version of a nervous system.
"Excuse me, Miss?" the shopowners are the only things- well, people, in this place that actually varied from stall to stall.
The woman who turns around has a more stout silhouette and baggy clothing. She's wearing a knitted cardigan with baggy sleeves that seem to give her a wingspan. Underneath, she has a lavendar shirt that looks very expensive and compliments her lighter brown skin. Her hair is pulled back, everything but her ponytail covered by a deep purple head wrap. She looks unsurprised to see Nya and Jay there.
"Yes, dear, what do you need?" she walks over to the front of the stall, resting her arm on the table in front of her and smiling over at them.
Nya shifts, letting herself smile and more relaxedly hold the gear, "Hey, well it got me this gear, so-"
"No, dear, I got you that gear," she bends down and pulls out a metal lockbox, "You might be able to compete for parts, but your boy there," she gestires vaguely in Jay's direction while she gets out her key ring, "Can't."
"Fair."
Jay directs his look of offense at Nya, "Hey! I got us the micro fan and Zan-" he promptly snaps his mouth shut.
Nya chooses to ignore his slip, "Yeah, which was great because you were competing with a grand total of one very old man for it," she smirks, "Try facing down five criminals and an antiques repairman."
The lockbox swings open, "It was very impressive, dear. Now, I'd sell that thing for 43 gold or equivalent silver, to most people, but if you take that," she jerks her thumb over at a basket of wires that looks like they were all violently torn out of some humongous motherboard, "Then I'll lower it to 35."
"What metal are these?" Jay's eyes are narrowed, he's goes and bends over the basket, seemingly even more confused than before, "And where'd you get them?"
Anita laughs, "You know not to ask me that, kid," she accepts the gold Nya offers her and promptly locks the box once it's closed, "I just want them out of here - I think they might've been collateral, originally, to some kind of-" she loosely waves her hand around.
"Oh, gotcha-" he's picking the casing off the ends of some of the larger wires, "Well we can definitely use some of it; thanks, Anita."
She's returned the lockbox to its place and is standing on the opposing side of the basket to Jay.
Nya opens her messenger bag and places the gear carefully in a thin cardboard box. It lightly clinks against the other thin parts they have. When she closes it, she notices how much the thermolytic inverter bulges out, "Okay, Jay we really should go; I don't want to tempt fate because I'm really prime material to get jumped."
He glances over and nods, the hoists the basket into his arms, "Thanks, Anita!" Nya echoes him as they walk between Anita and her neighbor's stalls to one of the few exit doors.
"Anytime, kids," she's leaning on the table again, "Good luck repairing your submarine." She turns back around and gets to organizing.
Once the door closes, Jay leans a little over to Nya. "Our submarine."
"Hey, it's worked so far, hasn't it? She doesn't suspect anything."
He rolls his eyes and sets the basket down on the back of his cycle, "Yeah, that's because no one's made submarines since my parents were, like, teenagers."
"Well," Nya begins to secure her bag, "You want to tell her the truth?"
Jay hops into the passenger seat and pulls out his DS, waving it as he speaks, "Oh yeah, our friend is a nindroid - that's a ninja android - and he was built by this recluse so all of his parts are mismatched and are very hard to find when we need to completely replace them," he sets his DS on his lap and looks over at Nya as she slides into the driver's side, "So will you give us that discount now?"
Nya's laughing as she turns the key in the ignition, "That'd go over great, I'm sure!"
"She'd regret not learning our names when she'd try to call our parents and then call social services when she finds out we live with three other teens and an old man."
"Hey, her policy is for everyone, not just criminals, and I'm glad for it." she shifts the gearstick, "We don't need anyone there knowing we're ninja."
The radio stays off and Jay never ends up turning on his DS because they talk all the whole drive back to the Bounty.
///
Next drabble is Glacier involving weightlifting, kind of oblivious Cole, and the minor effects of Zane consuming too many Disney Originals.
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an incredibly meta and ridiculously unfair biased take on pixane
some quick notes before we begin (or scroll past if you just want the meta)
i'm not going to post things like this more than once a year so this is one of very few times
i was a literal elementary-schooler when the first episode of Rebooted came out and 95% of my frustration comes from the meta behind their relationship not the relationship itself. i am very aware that this is an unfair take on their relationship. i'm older now and also entirly aware that this is a ship of fictional characters.
so if you didn't realize already, this is going to be mostly negative, so read at your own discretion
ok so like i said ~i was an elementary-schooler~, Zane was my favorite, and one of the many things that little me liked was that he's not a dating-crazy character because even at that age i hated rushed romantic plots Just Because wow, laurance, could you get any more demiromantic writer geek if you tried. also he's a robot and he's different BUT that just means he's accomodated and that doesn't mean he's held in any different regard which warmed my neurodivergent heart then and still does now.
are the "are we compatible now", 'we understand each other better because we're actually fundamentally similar in ways that we haven't been able to relate to others before', and 'half of my heart' storylines adorable and sweet? yes! does it still bother me that they pulled a "they're both robots <3" thing? yup, but not every show wants to address human/robot so it's fair.
but i remember feeling so hurt that they just made Zane suddenly enraptured with a character that was just used as an Attractive Life In Danger for literally the entire season [ref: turning evil and needing to be saved, needing a new power source, not being able to leave the building for the first few episodes]. it felt very ooc for him to be that taken with her by just having looked at and met her and the more lowkey thing they have going on now just fits, in my opinion, so much better.
it's another sore spot for me because they also did that Bad Love Triangle thing with Nya, Jay, and Cole in the same season, so i didn't like that two of the characters i related to the most suddenly had romantic subplots that weren't actually at all good or necessary. it also ruined the friendly antagonism between Jay and Cole by making it seem to have actual animosity, setting up their dumb feud that continues until skybound. in the process it turned Nya into an object to be won and passed around (which is called objectification, folks) instead of her kickass actual person self.
back to pixane: i was especially mad that they not only introduced another female character who was immediately turned into a damsel in distress, but she was then ignored and even got her body taken away after one (1) season. something i still believe is that pixal and Zane deserve a more nuanced relationship beginning than what we got in s3.
it actually wasn't even until late 2019 (when i drifted back into the nj orbit and saw how big the fandom had become on tumblr after people who saw 2017 movie watched the tv show) that i properly appreciated Pixal and fell in love with her and her place in the team.
also i think that it's absolutely hilarious how they try to do the "oh but he actually cares about her safety" thing [ref: Skybound, Prime Empire] as like a Dating Indicator but it just BACKFIRES because Zane's like that with literally everyone [ref: sacrifices himself for everyone in Rebooted, everyone yet again when he goes into Bernie's stomach, Wu in Secrets of Forebidden Spinjitzu] EXCEPT for Cole in Oni and the Dragon and Snake Jaguar (hey i remembered the episode names :) !), which sets him apart from everyone else and that, combined with their back and forth on screen kind of hints at a relationship more than anything else they try to do with the other couples.
hello yes back to pixane: most of their interactions to me (because, like eveyone else, i just ignore parts of rebooted that don't have Sensei G or Borg) like Ninjago Confidential, most of her time in his head, and the majority of her remarks during Seabound scream brother-sister to me. literally that's what my older sister's like: amused [ref: Ninjago Confidential and Seabound when Pixal just goes along with Zane's weird voice antics], knows better than you so she gives you a hard time about it [ref: most of the time she's in his head! there are so many so just go rewatch seasons like 4 through 7 i think], and you'll miss her if you don't hear from her for a few weeks or so because she's just that great [ref: Secrets of Forebidden Spinjitzu when Zane's stuck in the Never-Realm and starts missing Pix]. it's just really strange to see that then turned into a 'this is how you know they're romantically entangled!' kind of thing.
as a side note though: they do all of this to show that they're in a relationship because, and this is my very biased cynic speaking, there's no actual casual pixane interactions or chemistry yet with the exception of like two seabound scenes and then when Pixal leaves Zane's head, she's entirely justified and it's her right to and he's understanding but she does just LEAVE. if you're in a relationship with someone, that's pretty negligent. that person will absolutely worry about your absence and you know it. she could have left a message or directions or anything because god knows Zane would've supported her but instead she leaves without a trace. worse yet, he trusts her so much he just thinks that she goes offline even though logic doesn't really support the idea. which is, i would like to clarify BAD WRITING, not a bad character. there is nothing in her character that supports her doing this but oh well they did it anyways and it just adds another layer to their Poor Portrayal of Pixane.
let's review! the writers were so bad at writing this pair in a healthy relationship with equal footing that they ended up making a seemingly sibling-like relationship. in the process, they ignored Pix and bent her into whatever they needed, sometimes making her do very ooc things just for the plot that often ended up showing her relationship with Zane as kind of problematic and weird in terms of what we know about their characters.
also they've rewritten Pix so many different times that i feel like tethering her to Zane doesn't allow them to really give her justice. same to him, actually. how about we remember when he sacrificed himself or when Pix's inventions saved everyone? oh, i'm sorry, let me clarify which time i'm referring to
tl;dr i was a kid who related to Zane and liked strong female characters and rebooted did none of that while doing the robot+robot thing. then they did their relationship and pix's character dirty for a few seasons and so i just continued to ship glacier instead. the end.
woah, stuck by the whole time? kudos to you. thank you for reading my rant with many tangents on a ship i am slowly starting to be okay with in the show and have appreciated in the fandom for about two years now.
at the end of the day, fanon is fanon and for ninjago the canon is slowly improving. please, enjoy what makes you happy - ships are not mutually exclusive and love as many as you like.
i have hopes that they'll improve the characterization for Pixal and writing for pixane, but don't color me surprised if it takes a few more seasons. *raises a glass of sparking apple cider* here's to more years of improvement, or, at least, very memeable screenshots
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how do the ninja repair their suits after they get damaged?
they get into so many fights that usually don't show in their clothing (S2 and Hunted are the exceptions I can think of) and we know that they wash their uniforms (see: The Pink Ninja of S1), so i don't see why they wouldn't know how to sew. however, it'd take a lot of time out of their day, so they might have a person they could go to for repairs.
their outfit changes from season to season, though, can be for a Plot Reason (ex. Rebooted, Posessed, and I'm not counting Prime Empire b/c that's not real clothing it's just computer code), or will sometimes remain unexplained
*cue soft jazz music and link to Ao3*
Afternoon sun comes through the shop window. Each aluminum pin Suni places shines and dances little lights across the wall. The AC unit to her left moves the gray fabric so it shimmers, making the folds in the shoulder of the gi ripple. It's about quarter 'til closing time, so she's indulging herself and took out her latest project. A bit rushed, maybe, but she rarely gets customers at this hour.
The bell rings. Of course it does.
"Good Evening, Ms. Anup," Mr. Jones hesitates on the threshold before walking up to the counter, "I've come to pick up my suits. Very sorry for the late hour, my husband and I returned from abroad a bit later than expected."
"No harm done," Suni straightens up, "I'll go grab your things - they're in the back."
Suni turns on her heel and heads to the back room. It smells mustier than she cares for, but she can only clean so often when she's the only employee. Her grandmom would've helped, but she wasn't around long enough to know that most of the city was being regularly repaired, anyways. It isn't a good excuse, but her shop's still standing, so business is fine.
The cabinets were designed by her brother, and she had put them up herself. Mr. Jones' garments were on the highest bar. She gets them down and smooths her hand over the lapels of his freshly pressed blazer. He had brought three pairs of pants and four shirts in for tailoring, as well. Something about a "kind-of promotion" meant that he was running around more, so he needed them brought in a bit. Don't ask her why he couldn't just switch out of a suit. Some people were just particular and that was what kept her lights on.
The recent attacks had been knocking everything out of wack. Even punctual Mr. Jones, who walks in with an apology and leaves with some of the most expensive pieces in the shop.
Speaking of which, she realizes, she'd just left her project with him in the front room. Hopefully, since only one part was out there, it probably isn't even that notable. Probably.
Walking to the front, Suni lets the gears turn in her head turn as she rationalizes her bad decision.
She's definitely be wrong about the whole "it's more normal" justification because Mr. Jones quickly turns his head away from her dress form as she comes back to the counter. At about 6 feet tall, she doesn't need to crane her neck down to look at him, which she appreciates right now since seconds ago she barely avoided a collision with the doorframe and also she might need to confront him if he tries to say anything about the garment. It's a reflex every time someone's left alone with it, since she made that mistake once and will probably never hear the end of it.
Six cuckoos bring in the new hour as she hands over the clothes on their hangers. Mr. Jones starts telling her an amusing story about a bus and some knockoff D&D game that he ran into while he was away.
When he's done, she notices that her cheeks hurt from laughter as she clicks the register drawer back into place. She has his change in her hand and turns to him, only only to see him staring at the project. Well, the innocuous top half of it.
"Here you go, Mr. Jones."
His head jerks back to her, "Can I ask what this is?" cocking his head in the direction of the dress form.
He accepts the change as Suni fixes her gaze on him. He's standing like a tin soldier, anticipating her response and planning his own. I guess you just get like that in government work. Again, thank goodness it only slightly resembles armor at the moment. She doesn't want to wake up to agents banging on her door, or a warrant of sorts.
"It's to do with this one group of modern dance students. They're all in college and commission me to do their costumes."
"College students?" His eyebrows don't seem to believe her.
"Yup."
"They have some specific tastes." His eyes trace the outline of the half-pinned gi with light blue embroidery and protection symbols.
"Yeah," she rearranges some recipts, "but they pay well and don't give me a ton of instructions usually, so I don't mind." She's attempting to keep get tone nonchalant.
He's looking at her kind of like how you might at a kid whose trying to sneak up on their parent in the grocery store: amused and not going to say anything.
"Those are some lucky kids." He steps towards the door, his polished shoes reflecting more light than her window, when he opens the door and turns halfway back to her. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. Eventually, he pulls himself together, "Have a good afternoon, Ms. Anup."
"You too, Mr. Jones."
She waits until his car pulls out of the strip mall before pulling out her Borg phone and dialing the only contact with a wave emoji in the name. While she waits for the phone to dial, she grumbles, "Nya, I swear to the First Master, you owe me so much coffee after this."
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