Well, that stings a little.
Zane groans as he filters gradually back into consciousness. His head throbs, and something important tingles at the back of his mind, his processors whirring as he attempts a return to coherency from-
From what?
Suddenly, Zane is fully alert as he recalls everything that occurred, from the beginning of the fight up until what had seemed like an abrupt pause. But it had not been a pause. It had been the end of the fight, he realizes. The item that the strange figure had thrown must have interfered with his systems in some way. Zane is unable to see, to hear, to feel, to move. All he can do is wait and try not to worry.
Despite his best efforts, however, Zane begins to worry. Who was that strange figure? Why did he confront them? What did he want with Zane?
How has he treated Zane's family in the time Zane was unaware?
Fruitlessly, Zane attempts to move, to reactivate his systems, to do something. It's of no use. Whoever the strange figure was, he had apparently known enough about nindroids to effectively close Zane into his own mind.
Zane sighs, or he would sigh, if he had any control over his own body. As it is, he concentrates, thinking hard. Is there anything he is still capable of? He is unable to do anything outwardly.
But perhaps he is able to do something inwardly.
Searching within his inner systems, Zane sifts through files and processes until he reaches his communications. His comms are inaccessible. His general radio is inaccessible. Even his tracking beacons and GPS are all inaccessible.
But his internet link is still there. It glitches and falters and crackles, but there it is. Zane analyzes it carefully. He has access, but not much, and what he does have seems on the verge of giving out. Zane estimates he can send one message, perhaps two, and possibly even receive one message in return without breaking the connection fully.
He wants to send a message right away. He wants to ask questions for strategy, to get answers for planning, and, to be honest, to have a bit of comfort from contacting his family. Whenever Zane is taken and his systems are tampered with, it is never a good thing. Every time, from the Mechanic using Zane as a battery, to everything Zane used his own abilities for, under the influence of the Scroll of the Forbidden Spinjitzu and the influence of Vex.
Even thinking the names make Zane want to shudder.
He keeps from shuddering, but only because he is still unable to move.
He is, however, now able to feel, Zane realizes. As he has been lost in thought, Zane's sense of touch has returned to him. Something cool and firm encircles each of his wrists. Handcuffs of some kind, he presumes, possibly vengestone ones. That is to be expected. What is less expected is something plush that cushions his body in a mostly-upright-seated position. It is… Comfortable. Zane is not used to being comfortable when he has been taken captive.
Zane considers his options. He is almost certainly in the clutches of the strange figure from the hangar bay. He can neither move, see, nor hear. He is in no pain, though, and he has regained his sense of touch, and he likely has the capability to send at least one message via the internet. Should he do so now? Or should he wait to see what comes next, to gather intel, to possibly gain more abilities and make more of a plan?
The answer comes to him in the form of his sense of sight.
The world blinks and flickers, appearing first in a monochrome grayscale, then in a muted sepia, and finally in all the normal colors of vision, all the while sharpening from a blur to a fine point. Zane can't move his visual sensors, so he stares straight forward and slightly down, but he takes in all he can from that single viewpoint.
Soft light shines from behind him, illuminating a wall made of rough-cut gray stones. The edges of a stack of wooden crates make one side of his view, while a plank lined with hooks cuts across the top of the wall he can see. Some items are stacked along the plank or hang from its hooks: a bucket, a rake, spools of wire, writing implements, and rolled-up papers, to name the majority. The floor is made of similar stones to the wall, but the stones on the floor are tarnished in a particular pattern.
Zane tries to make deductions from this view. He comes up short. All he can tell is that someone has spent quite a lot of time here, both recently and into the past. The tarnishing of the stone floor takes the shape of a slightly-curved line of footsteps, worn right into the ground from beyond Zane's left to beyond Zane's right. In addition, the items along the plank are organized but tattered, the papers taking on a yellow-green hue along the edges and the spools of wire threadbare. That likely means that whoever has hold of Zane doesn't have the money to maintain this hideout.
But they do have the money to get a hold of at least five ropes embedded with vengestone, Zane recalls from the fight. So how can that be?
As he puzzles this over, his hearing clicks on next. A faint rushing sound greets him, but over that, a whir and a click-click-click, like something sturdy clattering along something else. Zane would frown if he could move. The sound is… It is somehow familiar. It tugs at something deep within his memory.
Before he can place it, though, a different sound overtakes the whirring and clicking: the sound of footsteps, quiet at first, then becoming louder. They're getting closer.
That is when Zane gives up on holding out. Clamping down on his panic as best he can, Zane composes a brief message, just a note that he is unharmed but incapacitated in what appears to be some form of a basement, and he sends the note out there. His internet link fizzles out promptly, but not before a report returns that his message has been sent.
Before he can do more than hope that his note will aid his family in finding him, the footsteps stop. A shadow has entered Zane's vision, looming over him. Someone is standing behind him. The shadow crosses his view, coming around in front of him.
The stranger from the hangar bay appears in the corner of Zane's vision, still dressed in that strange outfit of rags and metal shards and sheets of plastic. The stranger steps along, all the way into Zane's sight, but with the way his head is angled downward, Zane can only see up to the middle of the stranger's torso.
The stranger reaches out a hand. That hand is holding something, something blocky, something metallic. That something is a remote, Zane realizes with a closer look.
As soon as the stranger's hand presses a button on the remote, Zane feels his head droop, and he instinctively tries to stop it from falling all the way to his chest. Miraculously, his head pops back up, and he is staring at the stranger's cloaked face.
Could it be? Has his ability to move been restored?
Zane tries to jump up from the chair and make his way toward some kind of exit. He fails.
Zane tries to lash out and defend himself against the stranger. He fails.
Zane tries to speak and ask what is happening.
He succeeds.
"What are you doing?" Zane asks.
"Restoring your ability to move from the neck up," the stranger says, his voice a rough rasp.
Zane frowns, then fights back a slight smile at his own ability to move even that much. "Why?"
"You deserve it," the stranger says simply, pocketing the remote. "To be fair, you deserve much more than that, but I doubt I can give it to you yet."
Zane rolls those words around in his thoughts as the stranger steps closer. "Yet, you say?"
"Yet," the stranger agrees. "Once you understand, then you will have all you deserve and more. Once you understand, I will give you everything."
The stranger's voice is still rough, but somehow, it is almost kind, like he really wants to give Zane everything.
"Somehow I find it hard to believe you have taken me captive simply to give me a gift," Zane says heavily.
"Captive?" The stranger sounds offended. "I was not the one who took you captive. I was the one who freed you."
"Freed me from what?" Zane asks.
The stranger steps closer still. He reaches out both hands and places them on either side of Zane's head, cradling his face. "From all that had you held down and held back."
Zane sighs. He is starting to tire of this verbal dancing around the topic. He tilts his head back, away from the stranger's hands. "You said that once I understand, you will give me everything, and you sound like that is what you want. So make me understand."
The stranger gives a nod. "Of course. Of course you would want to understand. Of course. You are Zane, after all. Of course you need to know, and I will tell you. But first? I will show you."
Zane watches, curious and confused and more than a little concerned about what it all means, as the stranger steps back a little. Then the stranger brings both hands up to the masking around his head and, with one swift motion, pulls it all away.
And Zane can't believe it.
Zane can't believe it's him.
(I'ev draeh eht seirots dna eht selat, ni nosirapmoc ti lla selap, ot gnidnif uoy, ot gniteem uoy, os hcum si ni erots rof ew owt.)