Pixal plays with some small tools- no, toys- while watching her soaps.

Stacking bricks upon bricks and interlocking pieces and creating hinges.

It was a suggestion while they took a trip to the store.

Detouring from food, the team somehow ended up in the toy aisle.

Pixal's curiosity was piqued when she saw it. A building kit of some sort?

Jay seemed excited to explain what it is to her. He had a lot of them growing up, but they were more simplistic than the ones nowadays.

Zane knew they existed. He has never tried one but was interested.

Cole and Kai seemed indifferent to the toy itself but supportive all the same.

Pixal needed a hobby, after all. She would stay stuffed up in her room all day claiming to be busy working on gear, but truth be told, she was hardly working on anything.

So they walked out of the store with two of these sets. The smaller of the two makes a jet of some sort. When she's done with it, she can have extra fun hanging it from her ceiling. It even came with a tiny person who fits perfectly in the cockpit! She already built the tiny person so it's as if she has a friend accompanying her while building.

The larger set is still boxed, sitting on her floor. That one's gonna be a team project. It's a small city block, thousands of bricks making mini buildings and even a car. And it had more tiny people to live inside of this tiny world!

Assembling the jet feels good. It feels productive. Even if it isn't important, it's satisfying. Piece by piece, she watches in awe as the bags of loose bricks slowly turn into a small vehicle. Her hands are doing that! That's amazing. Why didn't anyone tell her about these earlier? Maybe she should start making a bigger deal out of her "birthday" if it means she could get more of these. It's only a few months away. Kai, Jay, and Cole always found it weird how she wasn't big on celebrating her birthday, but she wasn't big on presents and couldn't eat cake. This though? Yes, please. Now she wants presents.

Zane peaks into the room.

Pixal excitedly holds up what's complete of her jet.

He sits on the bed, watching her finish it in adoring silence.

At some point, Cole entered the room too, smiling at her simple joy. It'd been a while since anyone but Zane saw her this happy, or even spent this much time with her due to the way she's shut herself out.

Then Jay starts giving her building tips as if the instructions weren't right there. It was considerate though.

Kai's the last one to show up, but he's supportive nonetheless.

They watch her for a good hour or so, cracking jokes along the way.

Then she has one brick left.

It took forever to pop it into place. While Zane was watching her with sparkly eyes, Kai, Jay, and Cole began chanting, making it feel like an eternity.

Cheering.

She holds up her tiny jet. Eagerly, she nestles the tiny person into its travel vessel.

She feels accomplished. Accomplished in a way that finishing a thousand-episode-long soap opera has been unable to fulfill.

Zane hugs her, laughing.

Cole asks if she needs help hanging it.

She shakes her head, standing on the bed.

She realizes she has nothing to hang it up.

Jay and Kai scramble out of the room to look for string and thumbtacks.

It's been two weeks since Wu and Lloyd left.

They agreed to not start worrying until it hit day 30.

Only halfway there.

Keep it light.

The last two weeks have been full of non-stop partying.

Can it be called partying?

Things have certainly been lax, at least. Extremely relaxed.

Movie marathons, trips goofing around stores, days spent cooking and trying to make something on par with Zane's meals as if it's a competition, days spent gaming, trips to the Serpentine Village, they even started sparring more just for the fun of it.

Cole listens to Zane's instructions in the kitchen.

He's not very good at it. Listening to everything Zane says, he can do. But being the master of earth gives him above average strength. When it was time to crack an egg, it all crumbled in his hands, the shell getting in the food.

Zane sighs and cleans it up.

"Maybe I'm just not meant for the kitchen," Cole chuckles. "I mean, I enjoy cooking-"

"But you're not good at it," Zane giggles. "Never give up."

Cole smiles. He looks into the bowl.

It was supposed to be a cake batter.

A terrible thought enters Cole's mind. "What if we just pour this into the pan and let Kai cook it?"

"But it would be ruined."

"It's already ruined, what do we have to lose?"

Zane smiles. "Let's mix it first."

Everyone stares at the cake on the table.

"What do we do with it?" Jay whispers, as if they're plotting something awful.

"I don't know, but I don't even wanna eat it," Cole answers just as quietly.

"We birthed this abomination into the world," Zane mumbles. "It needs a use."

"Hey, I had no part in this one," Jay hisses. "I was busy watching soaps with Pixal."

"What if we used it as a doorstop?" Kai suggests.

"It would grow moldy, would it not?" Pixal asks.

"...I don't know if anything would wanna live on this thing," Cole says.

Kai covers his mouth to mask a mischievous smile for a moment. "What if we just like...kinda left it in the fridge. For Wu. And bring it out whenever he's pissed us off?"

"Too much, man," Cole shoots the suggestion down.

"Maybe we can offer it up as fertilizer? I'm sure the gardens downtown or the serpentine could use it," Zane suggests.

"Would it even offer adequate nutrition?" Pixal asks.

Kai frowns. "Honestly, it's probably our best bet? But who should get it..."

"If it kills the serpentine crops, I'm just gonna pretend I had nothing to do with this," Jay says with a smile.

Cole nods slightly. "Yeah, but it's not a good public image if it kills the garden downtown."

"Anonymous donation?" Pixal suggests.

"What if we give it to both? Equality," Kai snickers.

"We could just throw it out," Zane offers.

Silence.

Contemplation.

"Nah, this beauty right here? That shouldn't go to waste!" Cole laughs.

They ultimately offered the cake to the mailman. Was it a terrible gift? Maybe. But in all fairness, Cole did preface it with "You don't have to keep it, might wanna give it to someone you really don't like, I don't know."

As for what the mailman had delivered, he dropped off a package. It was a joint purchase between the five of them.

A new lamp.

It's small, round, and has a plastic covering adorned in dragons. It's an LED light.

They had been falling asleep together in the living room so often lately that they thought it'd be cool to have this.

Granted, it wasn't obtained during a normal train of thought so much as everyone was drowsy, possibly a little tipsy off of whatever the hell Cole put in the punch that night, and Kai was window shopping on his phone.

At some point, they found it. It was on a deep discount.

Somehow it got ordered. Maybe it was a miss-tap, maybe it was the result of cheering and chanting and jokes. Maybe both.

Here we are three days later, Cole holds it in his hands, sitting on the couch.

The dragons etched into it are adorable. Far more chibi-like than they appeared to be at first glance.

"Alright, charge it up?" Jay asks, leaning over the back of the couch, preparing to take his rubber gloves off.

"Lemme check the batteries first," Cole mumbles.

The batteries are in.

He hits the switch.

It spins slowly, fading through several colors.

Jay can practically feel his pupils change shape as he looks at the tiny dragons projected on the ceiling. He smiles wide at the sight.

Thunder roars.

Lightning flashes through the windows.

Rain hits the roof of the monastery in heavy, frequent taps.

Four ninja and a samurai lay on the living room floor, nestled in so many blankets and pillows, giggling and talking.

"So, our checklist for the next few days," Zane starts saying excitedly, "we're having a beach day, we're building that block kit, we're finishing all thirteen of the Cowboy Who Wanted Fish movies, what else?"

"More cooking?" Cole asks with a smirk.

"Maybe."

"Can I try?" Pixal asks.

"Cooking?"

"Yes."

Zane smiles. "Absolutely! I'm glad to see you try new things."

Pixal smiles back, scooting closer into the conversation circle.

The heavy rain is soothing.

They chatter about plans for the next few days, with nothing but the tiny dragon lamp and the occasional lightning strike illuminating the room.

Jay lets out an odd, happy little hiss as he bundles into blankets. "Sometimes, when it'd rain like this, I'd go out with Nya and we'd fuck around with some of the puddles and static. We were a mini storm. But like, a good, put-you-to-sleep storm."

Kai sighs. Then he fakes a yawn. "Well, I don't know about you all but I am tired!"

"You could sleep," Zane offers.

"Yeah, go right ahead," Jay chimes.

"We'll be here when you wake up," Coles says gently. "I promise."

Kai narrows his eyes as they miss the point he was trying to get at.

He pulls a blanket over his head and closes his eyes anyways.

"Well, I guess it's just us. No humans allowed in these dark hours, oooohhh," Jay says in a fake spooky tone.

"I'm not dead anymore," Cole snickers.

"Oh my god you're a zombie," Jay giggles. Cole playfully shoves him, causing Jay to roll over dramatically.

"What does it feel like to suddenly be alive?" Zane asks.

Cole cringes slightly. "Uhhh. It's like. Ummm." He starts gesturing with his hands, looking for words, for ways to describe it specifically to Zane. "Remember how your old body could breathe?"

"Yes. This one still can for dramatic effect when I need to gasp."

"Great. So imagine gasping, but as you breathe in, you get heavier but also you feel real again."

Zane blinks. "I feel real but please, elaborate. I can't imagine feeling fake."

"You've never felt like...like you're not...real? You're not a person?"

Zane rolls over to his side. "Maybe a bit, when I first went into this body but..." he pauses, thinking the past over, "I hardly remember that time."

That was a partial truth. He did forget most of that time. Some of it was amnesia, and some of it was simply his desire to delete bad memories- something he's fully capable of whenever he pleases- but he hasn't forgotten or deleted all of it. He remembers feeling this new, more restrictive body. His emotions are real, he feels them all the same, but they're expressed through a filter of only what a robot can perform. Sometimes he feels clunkier than he once was.

Pixal leans closer to Zane. "That's not true, examining your memory files for those years, you regained a bit-"

"They've been deleted," he interrupts.

Cole clears his throat. "Why did you wanna know in the first place?"

Zane shrugs. "I've always wanted to ask that. Jay just reminded me. And he is the only one of us awake right now to have always been alive. But I am curious what the difference is though. To be alive as a ghost or a human or a nindroid."

"You are alive though!" Jay reassures him. "You can think and feel and and-" he looks for more to say- "what do you have that proves you aren't alive?"

"USB ports in the back of my head and an internal clock that lets me know what time it is twenty-four-seven and a funny switch and-"

"Okay and I'm sure a cyborg can have all the same things, would you tell a cyborg that they're dead?"

"...no?"

"So you're alive!"

Zane gets comfy in his blanket. "Alright then. What does it feel like to suddenly be a snake?"

"Cold. I feel like passing out if I'm too cold, but then if I'm nice and warm, depending on my environment and how I feel, I feel like going to sleep. Also so many scales, they're everywhere, shedding is kind of scary, I hate it. Otherwise, life's about the same."

Zane nods slowly, taking the information in, looking like he's considering something.

"Okay, seriously, what's with the questionnaire?" Cole asks.

"Nothing, I swear, I'm just curious," Zane answers, offering a slight smile. He glances over at Pixal.

She nods at him.

They're planning something. That much is clear.

"Both of you, please tell us more," Pixal says.

Jay sighs. "Okay, finally, I guess I can rant all about this," he gestures at his own hand.

And rant he does.

For a solid thirty minutes.

It's mostly information everyone sort of knew or vaguely caught onto. But still, he poured it all out.

"...did it scare you when I changed?" he asks at the end of it all.

"Of course!" Cole answers. "I go in to cheer you up and suddenly you turn into this weird little snake man-"

"Thanks," Jay hisses.

"Not what I meant! I wasn't scared of you, I was scared for you! You were in pain and-"

"And you couldn't get anyone to help me?"

"Not really! I should've but you were screaming in agony and things were breaking and shifting and you were losing teeth and I was scared that if I left you alone I'd come back to a dead snake man."

Jay scrunches his nose. "That sounds disgusting. That's how I looked in the process? Some weird little mishmash of-"

"Yes! I'm honestly surprised there wasn't a lot of blood."

"I just assumed you cleaned it up already," Zane says with a shrug.

Both of them turn to him. "What were you imagining?" Cole asks.

Zane thinks over his mental image. Blood and discarded skin everywhere.

"I imagined something like that one scene out of Dream Feaster III: Vengeance of Timmy. Remember that one scene with all of the fake blood that was clearly tomato sauce?"

Jay sticks out his tongue. Cole groans. "That movie was so bad."

"It was! It was quite funny," Pixal chimes in happily. "When will we watch the fifth installment?"

"Maybe after we get home from the beach?" Zane answers.

Jay smiles, feeling his eyes grow heavy as the storm rages on outside. His internal storm has mellowed quite a bit though. He even got the unstable powers thing (mostly) under control! It was just an emotional thing. Negativity boosted his more acidic problems, and falling into a slump caused his elemental powers to go haywire on top of them trying to overcompensate for his new body. So as long as he stays somewhat calm, he's okay.

"Think I'm going to sleep too," Cole whispers. "I don't need to wake up looking like I died again."

Zane and Pixal huddle together over a phone.

Window shopping.

"The best segway you had was 'how did it feel to be resurrected?'" Pixal chastizes Zane.

"I thought the conversation flowed well. Anyway, Jay gave us some information about what Cole might enjoy during his rant."

The shopping cart on the phone is full of things to bring comfort. A blank body pillow for Cole (all the funny ones were too expensive), for when he needs to hug something. A pair of sweatpants for Jay, for the upcoming colder weather. A small speaker for Kai with built-in rain noises, considering how easily he went to sleep tonight. They even threw in a bag of candy for Lloyd when he comes home.

Zane looks at Pixal.

Pixal looks at Zane.

"We need to get you something," they say in unison.

They're both taken aback.

"You go first," Zane insists. "What would you like?"

Pixal pauses for a moment. She considers asking Zane to please go first. Then she realizes what she can ask for.

"Can I have another building set?"

"How about a tub of bricks? So you can build what you'd like."

Her eyes sparkle. "Those exist?"

Zane nods.

She hugs him, their metal clinking together.

"What about you?" she asks, a mix of tones in her voice, her humanity shining through more than usual. Especially more than recently.

He thinks on it for a moment. Then he shrugs. "I think I just want sleep."