A/N: Well, this is a story about a character who probably got something like forty seconds of screen time in Episode 28, "The Art of the Silent Fist." But man, he used every single one of those forty seconds to win me over, and I just had to write a story for him.

Can we get a round of applause for the scrappy little short guy in the front row?

Alive. I think I'm . . . alive.

It's so new. Everything around me swims, blurry and surreal. I've never actually seen before, it's taking a while to get the hang of it. A world . . . I'm in a big wide world . . .

I look down at my body. It's metal, I think. There's black cloth covering most of it. I bring up my hand, feel my face. I have an eye, and . . . and something else. A cold mechanical thing.

I am a Nindroid. I was designed by PIXAL, created to serve the Overlord. There are more like me, and together we will fight for our master, so he may rise to power over Ninjago. Our primary enemy is something called "ninja."

A sharp whistle sounds, and I know it means I must get into formation. I run to join my brothers, Nindroids just like me. Well . . . mostly.

I stand by the nearest Nindroid, and look up at him. Up. He's taller than me, by almost a head. All around me, all the Nindroids are the same height . . . all taller than me. Is that normal? As we get our orders I look around cautiously, but there are no short Nindroids. That's funny.

We go to fight. We fight the ninja and their friends at some out-of-the-way training school. They look like us, kind of, but organic and not nearly as well-designed. But they're all taller than me too . . . is that a bad thing?

Maybe it is. The other Nindroids give me weird looks sometimes. They always push me out of the way whenever they want to get past me too, but I figure that's just a Nindroid thing. We're tough. I'm tough too, you know. I think.

Oh, and PIXAL betrayed us. We were all invisible so we could sneak up on the ninja, but we saw it happen. That other Nindroid, the one in white who is a ninja instead of a servant to the Overlord—he hacked into PIXAL's system by touching her with a strange bladelike weapon, and she switched to their side. What a filthy traitor, turning on the Overlord like that. He will not be pleased.

Word travels fast among the Nindroids, since we are all a little interconnected. The name of PIXAL is soon spat upon whenever mentioned. She has become one of them, has even been seen with that enemy Nindroid, Zane. Turncoat.

But I stay out of the conversations, mostly, because the others talk over my head. I try to join once, when they're saying something about PIXAL, but all I can make are strange squeaky electronic sounds. At first I think that's just what it sounds like in your head when you talk, and that it sounds normal to everyone else, but then I see they're giving me weird looks again.

"Something in your throat?" asks one of them roughly.

I shake my head hard and try to make them understand, waving my arms, but they just laugh and turn back to their conversation.

"Go get a proper voicebox installed, runt," someone tells me.

I go and ask, but they're all out of new voiceboxes for Nindroids. Even if they weren't, they say I'm too short and just wouldn't be able to fit a voicebox inside me properly anyway. Mine was probably working fine when they gave it to me, and look what happened.

For a while I try to find some quiet places to go and practice speaking, but still the only sounds I can make are those horrible whistles and beeps. Soon I stop trying. Someone might hear me.

The ninja escaped from us that one time. We don't want that to happen again, and the Overlord knows what they will be trying next—they'll want to shut down Ninjago's power, to disable him. Some of us Nindroids are assigned to guard the power core of Ninjago, the source of energy that powers all the new electrical devices in the land. It powers all of us Nindroids too, even that traitor PIXAL. Our master wishes for us to protect it, and to be honest, we all desperately want to protect it anyway. That thing is our lifeblood.

I'm so proud that I was chosen to be in the battalion of core guards. This has got to be the biggest moment of my (not very long yet) life! Maybe it's a little silly, but I can't help but dream that this will be my big chance to prove myself. Maybe I'll show them that I can be just as good as them, even if I'm a little on the small side. Maybe I'll fight bravely, just as well as the others. Maybe I'll save a fellow-Nindroid's life with my heroic battle skills! Maybe I'll even corner those ninjas, fight them hand-to-hand, take them down and force them to surrender!

. . . Man, would the others laugh if they knew what I was thinking.

We arrive for duty at the central substation, a tall tower at the center of Ninjago's storm farms. The base of the tower is just a tall, thick pole, with a cylindrical balcony perched way up on the top. In a room at the center of this cylinder lies Ninjago's power core, processing all the electricity farmed from the lightning strikes that riddle the atmosphere in this part of Ninjago. Then this energy is sent all over Ninjago, to power cars and streetlights and buildings and robots—like us!

I can't help it. I just have to go and take a peek at the core, just for a second before we go on duty. When nobody's looking, I scurry to the door of the substation core room, slide it open just a teeny bit, and peer through.

It's beautiful. The room is round and dim, with all kinds of control panels and switches glinting murkily around the edges, but in the center, an enormous, glowing beam of blue-white light stretches from the ceiling to the floor. This is the core, the source of Ninjago's energy. A clear barrier that looks like glass surrounds the column, protecting both it and those who go near it—the amount of power flowing through that pillar of light is unimaginably massive.

For a while I just stand and stare at the core, ignoring the lightning strikes in the sky and the rough calls of the other Nindroids. So this is what I'm protecting from the ninja? Wow . . . talk about an honor. Seeing the core in all its glory only makes me more determined to keep it safe.

Pretty soon the familiar whistle rings out. Giving the core one last reverent glance, I slide the door closed and rush to fall in line.