Hold Me Closer, Love | Ninjago Fanfic

A Raging Thunderstorm

Our friend is back, yay!
Dude, don't ask him for our chances
At getting barbequed.

~~~

"Zane?!" All of them shouted in unison, that honestly kinda scared the nindroid.

"Uhm...hello...friends." Zane paused between words, his smile looked terribly forced.

"Zane, where were you? We were so worried!" Lloyd exclaimed, he had a wide smile on his face and Zane just could not make out why is it that they're so happy to see him. He came back, what's there to be happy about?

"We thought you got blown off somewhere or...or...." Jay chimed in, he clenched his fists and looked like a time bomb on the verge of exploding, "I..I thought we'd lose you again, you jerk!"

Zane's forced smile turned upside down, "I'm sorry, I won't do it again."

Everyone just stared at him as if he was wearing a jester costume, humiliating himself but clearly wasn't enough to make anyone laugh.

"Zane..." Cole couldn't express his feelings in words. He was happy that Zane was okay, on the other hand, he wanted to drop an anvil on his head to see if he was still the Zane he knew. He couldn't help but notice there's something weird about the nindroid, it's as if he came back a different person. (Or a different nindroid.)

"Zane!" Another robotic voice crashed into the conversation. Within seconds, Zane found himself in the arms of another nindroid.

"...Pixal?" Zane remembered the girl's name faintly, but he barely remembered anything about her. Was she supposed to be his girlfriend? Maybe? But really, he doesn't understand the purpose of having a lover. He's not sure whether if he understood love even, he probably did before but he doesn't now.

As Pixal embraced their hug, Zane wrapped his own arms around her torso after what felt like ages.

"As long as you're safe, we're glad to have you back buddy." Kai chimed in, he smiled.

Seeing this, Zane forced out another smile. Though, really, was it actually forced? Because it didn't feel as weird as it did the first time.

"Okay, that's one problem solved, but we still have a rogue elemental master to worry about." Lloyd sighed, he tried to recall what Neon did to them in the past few months.

Let's rewind, shall we?

Cole got stabbed, a giant piece of crystal pierced his abdomen. Ouch. Yeah, then Jay got pushed off the Borg Tower. He didn't die, totally fine. Nya got attacked in the hospital, woohoo! And then the monastery got blown up, twice. Life couldn't be better!

"I'm getting a little tired of this, she's always one step ahead of us. We need to stop her, once and for all." Lloyd crossed his arms. The tension in the atmosphere started building itself up again and Jay just deadpanned as if saying: Whatever happened to the wholesome moment of having Zane back in the monastery?

"Wonderful. Except, like you said, she's always one step ahead of us. How are we supposed to stop her if she's always prepared? We need to find a way to take her by suprise." Cole chimed in.

At first, Zane didn't intend to do anything at all. Heck, they could imagine him as a statue and he wouldn't even care, because he had no purpose in getting involved with the conversation. But a voice rang through his mind, the voice he was told to only respond to.

Suggest for them to come to my hideout.

Zane blinked. He started talking, against his own will. It's weird, because he doesn't seem to mind at all.