Zane

"Overlord!" I shouted at the speakers high above my head. "I've kept my part of the bargain! Now you keep yours!"

Kai, along with the others, struggled, chains rattling.

"You rotten traitor!" Kai yelled. "Let me out of these chains and I'll-"

We all stopped our current actions as a voice sounded high above.

"Ahhh..." The rasping voice droned. "But you won't be escaping your chains, ninja...not now...not ever..."

"Where is he...?" I hear Jay whisper, trying to sound inconspicuous, but to my superior auditory senses, it was easily detected.

"There are speakers wired to the cat-walks." Kai whispered back, gesturing up with a jerk of his head.

"You will be pleased to know, Kai..." The Overlord continued. "That you body will be the new home of Zane's mind...unfortunately, since there is no room in your head for two minds...yours will have to go."

I could hear the fire ninja's teeth grinding.

"YEAH!? Well you lost your mind a LONG time ago if you think you can keep three ninja prisoner!"

General Cryptor stepped forward, chuckling slightly. "Prisoners?" He asked. "No, you are far too...annoying for that. I have other plans..."

"Well..." Jay began. "That doesn't sound good..."

Kai scoffed. "I think this has gone on long enough!"

"Zane?" Cole asked. "Now?"

I tipped my head down, taking a deep breath. "Yes..." I told him.

"Well all right!" Jay exclaimed.

"NOW!" Kai shouted.

And the Overlord was in a state of bewilderment as the three burst easily from the chains I had neatly packaged them in.

"WHAT? You dare-?"

"Zane told us all about your offer from the start!" Cole admitted. "So we hatched a plan of our own. He pretended to go along..."

Kai continued from the end of his sentence. "We staged those fights, and pretended to be defeated...all so we could catch your Nindroids in one place."

Jay spoke next. "And who did we find when we got here, Overlord? Mean old you!"

"FOOL!" The Overlord speaker boomed. "I have the power to turn you ALL into ASHES!"

"No way!" Kai retorted. "Your game's over, and you've lost."

"The ninja stand united once again!"

I smiled beneath my mask; it was just too easy...

"Well...actually..."

As I spoke those two words three large canisters crashed down, trapping the ninja inside.

"No. We don't." I finished.

"Zane!" Cole cried in disbelief. "What are you doing? Let us out of here!"

I shook my head. "No...you see...I knew the easiest way to get you here was to make you think it was all one big trap for the Overlord...when actually...it was a trap for you. And you three walked right into it."

I took a few steps back from them, standing with my true brothers, the Nindroid soldiers.

"Now the day of the ninja is over...and the day of the Nindroids has begun!"

I turned my back to the three, looking up to the speakers and lifting my hands. "It is done, Overlord! Now I demand you transfer my mind into Kai's body. Now!"

In response to my words, one of the soldiers throws a switch and the vats of molten metal slide aside, revealing a complex bank of machinery.

I hummed, contemplating the device. "Buttons...dials..." I approached it. "This machinery could do anything...or nothing..." I turned to the Nindroid nearest me. "I need to examine it myself..."

I approached the machine further, and the Overlord started to panic, it seemed.

"Stop! What are you doing!?"

I glanced in the direction of the speaker. "I am looking at what I bought at the price of my three fellow ninja..." I paused. "Why? Are you afraid I will find out you can't do what you promised?"

I could hear the three bickering behind me.

"If only I could get out of here..." Jay said in a panicky voice.

"I can't believe he's doing this!" Kai said, voice agreeing with Jay.

"We can be shocked later." Cole told them, being the leader as always. "Right now, we need to so something before you...aren't you anymore, Kai."

The Overlord's raspy voice chuckled over the intercoms.

"Oh dear Zane, you have so little faith in me. Why don't you press that lovely green button, and you can see, this is no trick."

I pushed the button, of course, Nindroids are capable of curiosity, it is just less emotionally motivated than a human's.

I hear a whirr, and when I turn to the source of the noise I see that Kai's pod is being lifted from its place, and I follow it as it moves until it comes to a stop at the glorious machine, inserting itself into one of the two appropriately sized vacancies.

Then the pod splits, and the device that carried it is now locking Kai into that space.

He struggles mightily...but he cannot escape.

"If you press the yellow button, this will begin the erasing of Kai's memories...leaving a blank slate for you to enter..."

I frowned at the button.

The two ninja thrashed violently against their glass prisons.

"NO ZANE!" Cole shouted. "YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH WITH THIS!"

"Zane, for the love of Sensei STOP!"

I approached Kai, looking him in the eyes.

"Please try not to worry so much..." I asked of him in a soft, soothing voice.

His face contorted into anger first, then fear, then complete pathetic misery.

"Zane please..." He begged, tears streaming from his eyes. "Please don't to this to me..."

I wiped the dampness from his face. "Don't cry, Kai. You look like a fool...you should know...you are dying for a worthy cause."

He whimpered for a moment, and the tried to lunge forward, crying and shouting and struggling to break free of indestructible bonds.

I was sick of his whining.

I hit the yellow button.

Kai stopped struggling and began to seize instead, teeth grinding loudly, throat emitting guttural groans of agony.

His eyes rolled up into his head and white froth began to form at the corners of his mouth.

My scanners indicated that the machine was doing what it was supposed to be.

It was erasing Kai's mind.

I smiled, then laughed.

It was working!

This was truly going to happen.

I was going to be human.

"NO!" Jay wailed, still slamming against the walls of his container. "KAI NO!"

Cole was silent.

I knew he had shut his eyes and looked away.

A small line of blood began to drip from Kai's nose, and this is when the erasing ceased.

He fell limp.

He was alive, I could feel a pulse...but as of now he was brain-dead.

"Now Zane...if you step into the other vacancy and allow it to strap you in...I will have one of my droids hit the red button...and in no time...you...will have living flesh to call your own."

Gleefully I allowed myself to be latched into the machine.

The whirring sounded in my head and for a moment everything went dark, but when I opened my eyes again I looked around...

And I could see my body...

Limp.

No power being supplied to it now.

I was released from the bindings that my body had been subjected to, and I looked at myself.

Going to the reflective vats of metal to see my new face...

Kai's old one...

The scar over his left eye...

The spiky red hair...

I was overwhelmed with joy.

I touched my face and I felt the warmth of my fingers...

I could feel the clothes on my skin.

"It worked..." I said in Kai's voice. "I am human."

"How does it feel...my child?" The Overlord asked.

"I...I..."

I looked to the other two ninja, who were looking at me with horror in their eyes.

"Zane..." Cole whispered. "You just killed Kai...do you realize..."

Before he could finish his sentence I did realize.

And I was filled with an entirely different feeling.

One that was ripping me apart from the inside.

"Kai..." I murmured, falling to my knees...hugging myself in his body. "Kai!" I begged, pleaded with the mind that I now was harbored in.

My brother...

My fellow ninja...

Only now that I could feel...

Did I realize what I had done to someone I loved so much.

"KAI YOU HAVE TO BE IN THERE!"

I screamed, inwardly, outwardly, calling for Kai's consciousness.

But I could not hear him.

I could not feel his special brand of heat.

I did not sense his element...

He was gone.

I clawed at my head, grabbing fistfuls of my hair.

"I want him back!" I yelled, turning up to the speakers that allowed the Overlord to speak. "I WANT HIM BACK! I want to go back in my body! And I want my brother back!"

The Overlord laughed, a sinister, unfeeling laugh. "This is a one-way trip, ninja...for you and your friend...I believe you have sowed your fate...permanently."

I shook my head, those tears flowing from my like rivers. "No..." My insides felt as though they were being ripped apart and spliced back together.

It was painful.

More painful than any pain I could ever face physically.

I arched over my knees and roared out my melancholia as best as I could.

It was hurting so badly.

I could attempt to redeem myself.

I looked up to Cole and Jay.

"Brothers...I...thought I wanted humanity..." I coughed weakly. "But...now that I have killed and am enduring it...I realize...how awful my greed truly was...forgive me...please?"

The stared at me with misty eyes.

They exchanged glances.

Then turned back to me, each with a hand on the sides of their glass pods, each adjacent to the other's since they could not hold them.

And they both shook their heads.

Right before I felt the burning sensation slice it's way across my throat.

I fell to the floor, and I felt heat leaking from the painful burn.

"I have destroyed two..." I heard the Overlord say. "Now...I will destroy the last of them..."

Soon I could not feel anything.

And soon after that...

I ceased to exist.