#pixal isn't here bc she's still evil :

[littlelegoman]

HARUMI HAURMI AHHHHH

The... the cryslized thing... the Crystal King looks like... looks like... the overlord.

OH MY GOD IT IS THE OVERLORD

Harumi has such a pretty voice.

"It's hard to tell with you sometimes!" Autsim at its finest /j

Half joking.

Lloyd truly loving Harumi is actually... ah.

RUMI AWW

No no I don't ship. I don't think I Do. But it's kinda....

Kinda on the cops and harumi's side. Still love the ninja.

"Old timer" is litterlly the equivalent of Jesus.

JAY PLEASE-

Jay knowing about like vehicles and stuff bc he grew up.in a junk yard building trains

And he's steal my least favorite ninja

I believe harumi and llyod are both like 16-18. Which is very clear. It's very clear they're young jn the way they talk and it's clear Harumi is being influenced by the Overlord.

""Part oni" like 1/4 oni Jesus.

First ninja master is half fdragon/oni.

Garmadon and wu would be.... 1/3 dragon, 1/3 human, 1/3 oni. Their mother is human right? Where did she come from? They have a mother don't they?

Llyod would be 1/4 dragon, 2/4 human, 1/4 oni.

He's part oni, alright. A small part.

oHHH WHATS IT LIKE TO KIN HARUMI AND LLYOD AT THE SAME TIME

GIRL BOSS OMG

Cole's voice is so strange to me. I miss Kirby morrow. It was quite nice while he was around. Evil llyod my beloved

I can't tell if that's his genuine oni powers or the Crystal King.

Ou right I just remembered bootleg garmadon that's technically still garamdon called Harumj "duaghter" and now I feel icky again.

I think the only one who could truly beat Wu I'd Aspheera. Bc they're both so old and talented. They have the connection.

MINI MINI PIXALS

I AGREE THEURE ADORANLE

MINI PIX MY BELOVED. NO NO MINI PIX WAIT FOR NYA

IS THAT A BATH TUB LMAK

Mini pix can replace nya I wasn't too arrachted anyways

The chicken thank God it's safe

Harumi ranting about the great deavoror

Pythor: 😬

Harimi sounds a lot like Yae Miki, thinking about it

Thought he was gonna go "harumi has served me well but it's time to get rid of her" and he didn't and that's surprising.

OH MY GOD JE TOO HER DOWN TOO

This could be solved easily with fire arms

Oh God Crystal zombie

Vinny my beloved. HLLY SHIT WAIT

"I've got this house guess and he keeps me up all night talking"

Is.

Is that who I think it is?

IS GARAMDON CRASHING AT VINNY'S?? LMAO

OB MY GOD WU YOJ KNEW HE WOULD RETURN GOD DAMNIT THIE WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO KNOW

If the mysterious sender isn't Harumi I'm gonna be furious

VINNY FOLSON LIVES IN-

He's been sending then or... his house guest

YES YES ITS GARAMDON

Also he's more docile.

He's like a house wife lmao.

Vinny of NGTV NEWS THE WISEST MAN HAHA

I TELL YOU VINNIE is the man

he has come along way.

HA VINNY REALLY WAS LIKE : I CAN FIX HIM

Garmadon dancing with the plant.

"Harumi?" The sound of care. /pos

"She was like a daughter to me." Stop SAYING THAT GOD YOURR REAL SOM IS RIGHT THERE AND HE STILL HAS ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR HER

CHRISTOFERN NO HIS OWN SON CHRISTOFERN OH MY GOD THATS SUCH AN AUTISTITX THING TO DO Getting emotionally attached to something.

Oh fuck off he's 1/4 oni it's not like- I'm like 1/8th German and you don't see me learning German

Also when did his oni form have wings.

Jay here to save his bf

I give up. Fine, he's oni. 1/2 oni I guess.

If we find his ex girlfriend and or partly adoptive sister then we can get things done

Oh God not Misako.

OH YES THE NEW NINJA

I KPVE THEIR COLORS that's the only reason

Lloyd bout to enter his yandere simulator snap mode

Mini pix <3 <3 <3

Sorry the autistic kicked in long time ago and the giddy feeling is here

I want to see more of garmadon and Vinnie interact bc I'd like to belive he cares just as much for Vinnie as he did for christofern

Ronin has a soft spot for the ninja imo.

CHRISTOFERN

HE LIVES

HE LIVES

NO NO CHRISTOFERN NOT AGAIN GOD DAMNIT I JUST IVE GOT EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT TO THE FERN PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU

stim

Kai and Cole bickering

Nya is not the only one on the ship Jay.

I'm on episode e11, good, I was worried it would end

The paper boys

"I FISJED OUT TJE LAST ONE IFS YOUR TURN"

Antonia please

Actually what who was the first one to fall again?

Jay and Nya is not a ship I ever expected to like but it's greater

Just cut of her legs and take her torso

YES YES WATER POWERS

"I am not about to lead a group of children in to a battle" you litterallg have though.

BENTHOMAAR MY BELOVED

Sorry did you say return if the ice emporer-

Quanash? Dude lktterally who?

Oh God the final battle happened ten years ago give me a break

OH OH GOD ZANE

Dude how did you escape.prison did they just let everyone go

FUGI DOVE I TELL YOU HE'S GOTTA BE UKTRA POWERFUL HE-

Fugi-dove <3

HAHA BORG

boy oh boy aren't I an avid lavashipper

I'm so glad skylor isn't a y/n.

Jake is like Kai's sun

Christofern....

I'd be mad too Skylar.

Princess Vania

Vinny my comfort Character

Raver seven aka blazey h. Speed.

Zane dies like seven hundred times I'm over it atp.

"for beings such as you or i"

SOBBING FR

MINI PIX I LOVE YOU IF MINI PIX DIES I DIE

It has been two hours I want this to end so I can dream about my ninjago series

Nya and Jay need to get married after this, it's like the 100th war they've had

NO THE CHICKEN

NKF THE CHICKEN

I am invested.

Harumi truly wants it to end. But logically, it won't. Time and time again evil came back. Perhaps all that's left is join evil.

THE SHINRARIANS YESSS

Theerplopiqns

"For king benthomaar of the endless sea!

MINNI PIX K LOVE YKU

Yes Stacy or whatever her name was our bisexual icon

THE LGBT UKE LMAK

Does ninjago end here bc this would a good end and I'm not sure how much more they can vo kn. Also this is op lol

I want Mister E or... F to be reviled as Echo Zane, or what's left of him.

Oh my God it all comes back

It all-

harumi slay slay them

He was always oni, it was like... triggered with the bite. LIKE my mother's disease after I was born

Again. Everyone coming together would be a good finale but I've heard people say this isn't the end?

This show would be better with swearing

I'm sorry it's the little details of the LGBT rep that get me.

KILL THEM WITH PRIDE YEAH

HOW TO I HIT THE RESER BUTTON

Garm... garmakdn?

NO.NO NO NO NO HES NOF DEAD IS HE?

Holy shit oni llyd. Does this mean there's a dragon lloyd too?

The last time we untied the weapons garmadon turned back time so....

OH WHAT FU THE WEAPONS ARE THE FSM

NO THE NINJA

Oh heh look a dragon

Oh he is alive

"YOU WERE FAKING'

he's talking to a plant

To be fair the whole... uh... what where they called? Whatever the uh tales things showed that there is a story after. That the ninja were like turned ti gold Stone.

Nothing like the end if the world to bring ervhone together

Christofern my beloved

[mx-julien]

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

///

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."