It should have occurred to them that the Mechanic had broken out of jail by now. After all, he had a brilliant mind underneath all the layers and layers of mental problems. And metal. However, seeing him standing a few metres away from you a few months after he tried to kill your friend can be a bit unsettling. Especially when he's carrying a huge high tech gun.

"Uhh...Hi, Mechanic. So...nice seeing you again." Kai intervened, strolling across the icy bridge and pushing in front of Cole and Jay, "And out of jail! Well, it's been so long! Have you eaten? Cuz you're about to taste THIS KICK!"

Kai immediately kicks the Mechanic in the face. Stunned, he takes a step back and his grip on his gun loosens, which is enough for Kai to grab the gun out of his hands.

"Well, that was easy. Let's go home everyone." Kai said, turning around. This would have been fine, if it weren't for another figure stepping out the shadows. And another one. And another one.

Soon the ninja were surrounded by thousands of criminals. Most of them they could recognise, since they were the ones who put them behind bars in the first place.

"Okay, so I'm guessing there's been a breakout at Kryptarium." Jay said, bunching up closer to the rest of ninja who were starting to gather together.

"No. Really." Kai said, rolling his eyes. "I'm so shocked."

"How did you escape?" Nya asked, pulling out her sword.

"Well, it's a long story." the Mechanic said, standing up, "But let me just say that when you threw me back into Kryptarium, you had messed with me for the last time. I was filled with uncontrollable rage-"

"Yeah, we don't want to know." Lloyd said, pulling out a sword of his own, "Hold still, we need to take you back to prison."

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that." the Mechanic said, "In fact, my friends and I'm not going back for a VERY long time."

Then they attacked. It was a flurry of clanging weapons and spilt blood. Sure, the ninja were skilled and far stronger than the average criminal, but the crowd of criminals was getting harder and harder to fend off, so they opted for the next best option: running away as fast as they could.

"This guy is INSANE!" Nya huffed as they sped away, "How did he even rally up all of these goons?!"

"I don't know, but we're gonna find out." Lloyd said, "But we need a plan. Zane, any advice?"

It took the ninja only a few seconds of awkward silence and looking around to realise that Cole was gone. If Cole was gone, so was Zane. And come to think of it, Jay was nowhere to be seen other. Well, shit. The three remaining ninja immediately froze.

"We have to go back. Right now."

...

The wind whistled through Zane's gi as he ran through the trees, swatting away random branches with Cole, Jay and several criminals not far behind him.

"Zane, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have brought you out here!" Cole yelled.

"That doesn't matter right now." Jay said, "Come on, we need to get to higher ground."

Zane said nothing. Instead, he shot a few shurikens out of his hands to create some platforms on the trunk of the nearest tree, which he used to to scale it with relative ease. Cole and Jay soon followed, and it wasn't long before they both reached the top of the tree. Then they jumped across the branches of a few different trees before they were far away from the tree that they started on.

"Stay quiet." Zane murmured. Cole nodded and slapped his hand over Jay's mouth. He tried to protest, but everything came out as muffled squeaks.

A small stampede of criminals rushed past, making the trunks of the forest sway and the leaves shake. Every few milliseconds a criminal would spout an string of obscenities or insult another criminal. At one point, the Mechanic came into view, but he went past without noticing.

Zane screwed his eyes as he tried not to throw up. He felt sick, which wasn't even physically possible. It was happening again. The Mechanic was definitely after him again, and if he got him who knows if he'd escape again. The last time he only escaped from sheer dumb luck. What would have happened if the others weren't there to-

Zane. They're gone. We're going to be okay now.

PIXAL.

Slowly, Zane opened his eyes again. Cole and Jay were staring at him. Sure, it was kind of awkward, but the presence of the other two ninja was good enough counsel for him to calm down a bit. Jay finally wrenched Cole's hand off of his mouth and punched his head.

"Ow! You're welcome that I shut you up by the way." Cole hissed, shooting a glare at Jay.

"Wha-I do NOT talk that much. Okay, sure, maybe I do a bit, but definitely not THAT much. If anyone was going to say anything, it would be you." Jay said, giving Cole an icy glare of his own.

"You literally just made my point, sparky." Cole retorted.

"PIXAL, where are Nya, Kai and Lloyd? Scan the area." Zane said, ignoring Cole and Jay's bickering. There was a few seconds of silence on PIXAL's part as a bright blue laser came out of Zane's eyes and scanned their surroundings.

"The others should be 143 metres ahead, 54 degrees to your left." PIXAL said, projecting a path in Zane's vision.

"Let's go." Zane murmured, jumping from the tree and running in the direction PIXAL pointed him towards. Cole and Jay scrambled out after him, and soon the three had made an awkward but fast single file line.

If only if they had ran a little bit faster.