Ninjago Oneshots

ECHO

The last of what Zane felt in his final moments against the newer droid included a chest panel sliding open, hot sparks of electricity, and the apathetic, dusty ground beneath him. Perhaps, if he had a few more seconds, he could have accepted these final moments as something metaphorical. Out with the old and such. With precarious relief, that time was never allotted to him.
The table was cold. The surrounding areas, they seemed, were sanitary. Though not notified by any vision, Zane felt with an uncoordinated hand several large wires and similar devices leading from his body to whatever equipment he cared not to observe. A gentle force guided him back to a resting position.
"Be patient, Zane," Pixal warned, "I still have some work to do."
Her metallic voice faltered up and down, forcing him to abandon his lazy efforts to follow it through its modulations.
With patience, his senses engulfed him. Transitively, nonsense shapes and sounds crowded him, building quickly into a sensitive din that, at once, hushed itself into quiet hums of machines and familiar sensations of mechanical equipment. He let out a deep breath.
"Does that feel better?" Pixal asked.
He really didn't feel better per say, more that he feels now and didn't before, but the correct answer regardless was yes, as her voice did indeed make Zane feel better than he did a few seconds prior.
"Yes," he said finally, "though, I am a little confused."
As gingerly as seemed possible, the machines connected to Zane were methodically removed. He made careful note to not move.
"I am as well," she replied.
Zane blinked.
"I am confused as to why the nindroid did not destroy me completely, instead leaving me intact enough to be repaired. Why are you confused?"
Once she stowed every device back into its proper machine, Pixal carefully helped him up by the shoulder. Off of a nearby table, she picked up a small, disc-like object and showed it to him.
"I am confused because I found this in a cavity while repairing you. It appears his intention was not at all to harm you. In fact, he only targeted one vital function area. Instead of destroying you, he left this. I have scanned it for possible malware, but it appears to have none," she explained.
Zane took the disc and examined either side. It featured no external wiring or clear connection mechanism. Several slightly-raised panels wrapped around the outside of it in an irregular fashion, which made a quiet click when pressed down. However, nothing happened.
"Did you scan it for anything else?" he asked.
"It contains no fingerprints and is one-of-a-kind," Pixal said simply, “the nindroid who attacked you appears to be a nonstandard model who goes under the alias ‘Mr. E.’”
Zane peered back down to the device.
"No fingerprints..." he repeated, "so the–, so Mr. E must have created it by himself, or with some other droid?"
"Perhaps so," she began, "regardless, it is enemy technology. I was going to get rid of it if you didn't know anything, as it is likely dangerous."
She offered a hand to take it back, but he held onto it.
"It may hold valuable information. With how little we know about the Sons of Garmadon, I believe it is best to keep it."
Pixal shrugged.
"Very well, Zane," she said, though slightly annoyed, "but take caution."
"I will," he responded.
With a nod, Pixal left the room. Zane stood up. Among the machinery, he saw a screen with a blank scan of himself that simply read 'disconnected.' Out of curiosity, he decided to look through its backlogs.
To no surprise, he was horribly damaged when the others brought him in. It appeared, however, that only one of his injuries was responsible for his unconsciousness. A sharp cut to the right shoulder blew out a component that interpreted environmental input. With a quick examination, Zane confirmed that while nothing beside it even suffered a dent, the part itself couldn't be repaired, and instead was replaced.
Mr. E's strategy was surely an educated one. Often, Zane's opponents attacked him as if he had human anatomy, going for the head or neck. However, only another droid would know that his consciousness was not stored in any 'brain' in his head, but came from a number of components scattered throughout his body. If this is the case, why is it, again, that Mr. E spared him?
His attention returned to the disc. Against Pixal's warning, he fiddled with it in attempts to learn something. He found rather quickly that the device functioned in a sequence. When pressed down, each panel on the device would compress with a 'click' noise, but all would return to their original positions if a panel was pressed out of sequence. He considered simply going through every possible combination until everything had been done, but with the number of different parts, it would take far too long.
Regardless of the sequence itself, Zane now knew that the disc was a puzzle and most likely not a virus or explosive. That was enough information to ask for some outside help. With one more look at the thing, Zane left the room to ask for help from the others.
Cole was in the hallway. He noticed Zane the second he opened the door and greeted him kindly.
"Hey, I didn't know you were up. You feeling alright, buddy?" he asked.
He nodded politely.
"Yes. Could you help me with something?"
Cole tilted his head slightly, signaling for Zane to go on.
"It's this," he offered the disc to Cole, "Mr. E put it in my chest cavity after our battle. It's a puzzle, and the panels are sequenced."
He had looked over the device with interest, but showed sudden aversion when Zane explained.
"Woah, woah, woah, this thing is from the Sons of Garmadon? I wouldn't trust it. It could be a tracker, a weapon, or anything like that."
Zane sighed.
"Mr. E attacked me with incredible precision. If he wanted to destroy me, he would have, but he didn't. Instead, he left this. There is something he wants to communicate to us, something he can't tell his other gang members," he explained.
Cole glanced slowly between his friend and the disc. Carefully, he reconsidered it.
"If you say so," he said eventually.
After thoroughly feeling the device, he continued.
"Mr. E, huh? So, what do you know about this thing?"
"I believe it is a puzzle. The panels click when you press them down, but some of them stay down and then return if you press another. A correct sequence may reveal something."
Cole held it up to the light and peered at it.
"Not much to go off of, then. Do you know why the shapes of the little keys are so weird?"
"I do not," Zane admitted.
After some number of confused attempts to solve the thing, Cole returned it.
"Jay's into this kind of stuff, he'd probably know more than me," he advised.
Zane looked away for a second.
"Jay's methods are often... Destructive. I want to keep it intact, if possible."
Cole huffed a laugh, passing him with a rough pat of the shoulder.
"Well, let me know if you figure it out."
Zane nodded, and continued on.
If he already talked to Cole, and Jay was off the table, then that left Kai, Nya, and Lloyd. Of them, Nya had the most experience in both building and nindroid behaviors. She seemed the logical choice.
Expectedly, Nya was below the monastery in the hangar bay. Unexpectedly, Pixal was with her. They worked together with an admirable synchrony. He waited patiently for a natural spot to interject, but none came. Instead, Pixal addressed him directly.
"Do you need something, Zane?" she asked, keeping her attention on the project.
"I know more about the device now. I wanted to ask for help solving it," he explained.
The two paused and exchanged glances. Nya shrugged. They set down their tools and approached him.
"Solving it?" Pixal repeated.
"Yes, it is a puzzle. The keys must be pressed in a sequence. I believe it will reveal something," he said.
Nya squinted.
"Isn't that the thing Mr. E put in your chest? Why would he give you a puzzle?"
Zane glanced with gentle concern at the disc.
"There's something Mr. E wants to tell us that he can't relay through his gang. I don't know what it is, but it seems that us receiving this was more important than his mission to destroy me."
"That is but one possibility, Zane."
Pixal's face wore sympathy, but her sigh was annoyed. Nya tilted her head in consideration.
"He's right though, isn't he? I mean, is it possible that Mr. E could, like, I dunno, break through his code or something? He was sure to definitely…not destroy him," she fumbled her words.
Pixal shook her head.
"Even my programming fully controlled me until a chance at free will was given to me. When you're made to simply follow orders, you don't really feel anything about the nature of them, certainly not to the point of betrayal."
Zane nodded in agreement, but refuted her point.
"The technology to recreate human behavior within a machine has gotten better since you or I were built," he said gently, "perhaps Mr. E has partial control of himself even when made to complete a task."
"Are you calling me outdated?" she retorted.
"Far less so than I," he responded with a shrug.
"I think we're getting off topic," Nya interjected.
She turned their attention back to the disc.
"You wanted our help to solve it?"
Zane offered it to Nya, who took it with curiosity.
"Yes. I believe it is a sequence puzzle, but there appear to be no hints or clear guides to solve it. Cole pointed out the strange shapes of the keys, but I couldn't find any sensical pattern in them."
"Well, there's gotta be something," she said, "and if this is the only thing he gave us, my guess is that the answer is in the key shapes."
Under the concerned watch of her friend, Nya took several stabs at the thing, her last attempt ending with her trying to press everything at once. Pixal awkwardly took the disc from her. After glancing over it, she scanned it again. She shook her head in disappointment. Distantly, a call rang out.
“Hey, Nya!”
The unmistakable timbre of Jay’s voice got clearer as he darted up the stairs, towards the rest of them.
“I just figured out a way to beat the expansion in Dance Riot! We should totally–”
Finally, his eyes landed on the three of them. His words hung awkwardly in the air as he stared.
“Oh, hey Zane. Didn’t know you got up.”
He advanced with a sudden casual demeanor only Jay was capable of. He took immediate interest in the disc.
“What’s that?”
After shooting a fearful glance at Pixal, Zane explained the thing yet again.
“The droid that attacked me, Mr. E, put this in my chest cavity after he defeated me. Despite the situation, it doesn’t seem like any type of malware or weapon. Instead, we believe it is a puzzle, one where keys must be pressed in sequence to reveal some kind of message or mechanism.”
Jay nodded in understanding, but Zane didn’t believe him.
“Oh, yeah. My dad used to make things like that when I was a kid. I got pretty good at them. Got any hints?” he asked.
He took the disc from Pixal, who hadn’t been paying attention. Nya quickly reached for it, but stopped short of taking it from him. Clicking sounds filled the short silence.
“We don’t, that’s the problem. It is very important that the disc stay intact, should any message be damaged–”
“Hey, don’t the buttons kinda look like all the parts you have in there?” he gestured to Zane’s torso, “he took out, like, a lot, right? What if it's in the order he did all that?"
Zane peered at the disc, tilting his head.
"I… fail to see the resemblance," he said.
Nya nudged him.
"It's worth a shot."
Jay offered him the disc again. To his credit, there were roughly the same number of visible biocomponents in his torso as there were keys in the device. Zane went through the battle again in his head, inputting each blow. Startlingly, the keys all at once became loose and fell to the floor, clattering as they hit the ground. Left in his hand was a small CD.
"Hah! Still got it," Jay said proudly.
Pixal offered to take the disc. She glanced at both sides of it.
"CDs were outdated technology before I was even created," she commented, "why would Mr. E give us a CD? It's not even the standard size."
Zane looked down at the thing with sympathy.
"Perhaps it's all he had."
"Well, play the thing! We're not gonna get anywhere talking about it," Nya interjected.
With some laps around the monastery and the shuffling of various closet items, the group managed to obtain a CD player. Cole apparently had stowed one away as the last remaining evidence of a short-lived phase. After some rough adjusting, it took the irregularly small disc, much to the relief of the whole cast now, as the search had garnered their attention.
A chaotic assortment of varying voices, up and down, with rapid, sharp cuts between them sounded statically from the machine.
"Tonight.... Up… above- in the sky!... We-.. Get em! We-.. Get em!.. Tonight. Above- in the sky!"
The message looped back on itself infinitely with a struggle. Pixal was the first to turn it off. Concerned and puzzled glances bounced about the room, mostly to Zane.
"Were those voices the Sons of Garmadon?" Kai broke the silence.
"Yeah," Cole agreed, "I heard Ultra Violet in there."
"If someone took her voice and played it back on a microwave," Jay added.
"Did anybody catch what it was saying?" Nya asked.
Zane's gaze was fixed to an undefined middle distance.
"We get 'em tonight, above in the sky, up," he said, more to himself than the others, "the Sons of Garmadon are planning an ambush tonight from above."
"You got all that from that noise?" Jay exclaimed.
"They may want us to direct our resources above so they can attack below, or not at all. It is likely a trick," Pixal stated.
Kai crossed his arms.
"Yeah, I wouldn't trust it," he added, "I mean, if someone wanted to tell us something, why would they have to beat Zane up first? It's weird."
"But it's not even like they wanted us to know, they hid the whole thing in a puzzle. If it was a trap, wouldn't they make it a bit easier to fall for it?" Nya said.
Nobody had noticed Lloyd leaving the room, but he returned with a notepad.
"Okay, we need to sort all this out," he said, "what all do we know about this thing?"
The ninja looked to each other for speaking turns.
"Mr. E placed it in my chest cavity after defeating me in battle," Zane started.
"The CD, which was irregularly sized, was contained within a unique puzzle that held no fingerprints," Pixal added.
"It was one of those sequence things. The solution was the order that Mr. E took out Zane's parts," Jay said.
"Hm," Lloyd tilted his head as he wrote, mumbling out his writings, "and we also know that the CD has spliced audio of the Sons of Garmadon warning us of an attack."
He glanced about the room, waiting expectantly.
"Is that it?"
Eventually, nervous nods turned towards him.
"Hmm. Well, maybe it's not enough to reach a conclusion, but it'll tell us what to do," he said with sudden optimism.
Occam's Razor, Zane thought, was a base principle of human behavior. The solution that required the least assumptions of intelligence and steps to execute was most often correct in one way or another. However, Occam's Razor still requires the evidence to be organized in a sensical way, which it certainly made a valiant effort to not be.
Perhaps, maybe, the Sons of Garmadon had assigned Mr. E a mission to give false information to the ninja. This conflicted directly with the nature of the message and the puzzle itself. Possibly, Mr. E had realized the true nature of his accomplices and sought to warn the ninja of an upcoming attack. This conflicted with the battle, and left the nature of the message unexplained. It pained Zane to acknowledge, but it seemed on equal ground with the previous solution. Maybe the Sons of Garmadon simply put together an intentionally confusing device with the aim of wasting resources and muddling intel. While simple, the solution left everything unexplained with the notion that it had to be, but this is not true. Nothing quite fit. There is no Occam's Razor.
"Alright," Lloyd said after a long writing pause, interrupting his thoughts, "so we can either do nothing, fully prepare for an attack from above, or generally prepare for an attack from anywhere."
Lloyd held up a lopsided diagram with some bullet points next to it. He directed his pen to another portion of the diagram. Zane looked to it with a curious sense of pride.
"And they can either attack from above, attack somewhere else, or do nothing, so I think you know where I'm going from here," he explained.
A few had their guesses, but they let him go on. The thinking was easier when he did it.
"If we do nothing, and they do nothing, then we're good. We waste no resources and don't get ambushed," he said, drawing a check under a box, "but if we do nothing and they don't, not so much."
He drew two crosses below the check.
"If we prepare for an aerial attack, and they go somewhere else, that's bad, and even worse if we do nothing. It only works if the message is right."
Another box received a check and two crosses.
"If we generally prepare and they do nothing, it's bad, but it's good for both aerial and any other methods they might use."
A cross and two checks.
"So, we don't need to know if the message is genuine or not right now because we already know what to do."
Zane recalled the indecisiveness that marked the rough start of Lloyd's journey to master. He couldn't teach him how to defeat enemies or persevere through hopeless times, but he could make a logic chart like nobody else. That was the mark he managed to leave on him, those methods.
"Let's get on with it, then," Kai prompted, holding the door open behind him.