Part 5! Exciting chapter! Also, intense chapter, so be ready.

Last chapter before the primary reveal and hints of a secondary reveal dropped this chapter as well. Good Luck!


14-15: Iris - Wisdom

Everyone keeps secrets, don't they? Of one kind or another. Some knowledge is best left hidden. For safety. For peace. Or simply just to reveal it later - when it will mean something more than what it does now.

Iris 1. Iris 2.

My body felt heavy. But I felt it. I was alive. The ceiling was a dark gray I recognized fairly quickly. The bright fluorescent lights stung my eyes. But they were on. Borg tower had power returned. Which either meant the Sons of Garmadon were utilizing it as a base and had me captured, or-

"It seems like we repair robots more often than we have to care for actual flesh wounds." Nya's voice. The ninja had taken control of the situation.

I attempted to move my fingers. Then my arm. My body began to shift as I sat up.

"Does everything feel okay?"

I looked down at my chest, a clear welding mark apparent where the blade had hit me. "Yeah," I sighed. "Sorry about this. I just…" Just what? Completely lost control and got myself killed?

"Was manipulated." Lloyd finished for me. "The important thing now, is that you're safe."

"Sure," I rolled my eyes. "What did I miss?"

"We've taken control of Borg tower as a base. Most everyone has been evacuated from the city, but what's left is… rough." Lloyd admitted. "We have the rest of the elemental masters helping us now though, so we should stand a chance."

I scanned the room, finding Nya, Lloyd, and even Zane's Falcon, perched neatly on the corner of a work desk. My eyes, however, landed on an orange figure sitting in the corner. This was Skylor, master of Amber. I had seen her occasionally while a part of Zane's systems. She stared at me with a growing fascination. The room was rather small, and the five of us were the only ones present. Lloyd and Nya were my teammates, why was Skylor here? She had never met me before.

"Your systems seem to be in proper order. I ran a diagnosis, and it says wisteria is clear." Nya asked.

"Wisteria?" Lloyd asked.

"It's the name of my software," I explained. "Thank you for repairing me. I know you must have lost some time on it."

"Trust me. We've all had our fair share of total busts since Harumi showed up," Lloyd mumbled.

My eyes returned again to Skylor, eyes still glued to me. I glanced back around the room to find Nya and Lloyd discussing something with very hushed voices against a wall. Probably Nya talking about her feelings. She had been the biggest emotional wreck since the boys… left us. My eyes attempted to return to Skylor, but she was no longer sitting in the corner, but walking towards the falcon. She glanced back at me and attempted a smile before reaching him and beginning to gently rub his drooping head. I hesitantly got up, walking over to join her.

"He's going through mourning," I told her. "Just like last time."

"We all are." We sat in silence for a moment more. "It's so surreal. Seeing you, physically here. I've always heard so much about you."

"I'm nothing particularly special in physical form. Sometimes I think I was more useful when I was just an A.I. I could help everyone, simultaneously, instead of going out on solo missions to get myself killed."

"Sure, but that's not what you were built for. You had a body, so there must have been something physical you were meant to do."

"Yeah," I sighed. "But I don't think any of them were exactly honorable."

"You'll figure it out." She reassured me. "Robots are so fascinating to me. All of the intricacies of living that you can bypass. You just came back to life in a matter of days! That's incredible!"

I smiled. "Yes, but with that, you have to come to terms with the fact that every part of you is replaceable. That you can be hacked, taken control of, reprogrammed. The only thing that makes me human is my heart... and that isn't even mine." I'm made up of all of these loose ends of everyone else. None of it was truly my own creation. I just borrow from the lives of others… "How do you do it?"

"What?"

I thought of how to phrase it. "Figure out who you are, what defines you. You borrow everyone else's elements, you don't necessarily have one of your own. Doesn't that… bother you sometimes?"

"Yeah. It feels like cheating, doesn't it?" she chuckled. "But, I put my own spin on it. Amber? No one else has that. They have parts of it, but not the whole of it. And that's what makes it special. Not the specific elements, but the fact that they are perfectly united together in this weird crazy way to make something completely and totally new." I smiled a bit at her certainty and enthusiasm. "Does any of that make sense? I mean, it does to me… I guess that's all that really matters."

"It doesn't really work like that when you're built, instead of born. You don't really get to choose who you are, it's assigned to you. I've just had so many people build me that… I don't know what I am anymore."

"That's not necessarily true." She objected. "People can be born with their futures planned out by their parents. That doesn't mean you have to follow them. You just go, 'screw you!' and do your own thing!"

We both laughed. "Yeah, that might have worked for you. Some of us have fathers we want to keep in touch with."

"Yeah, okay. So maybe not that, exactly. But, you'll figure it out." she gripped my hand that rested on the table, before promptly letting go. "Your hands are warm."

I gripped her hand in mine again. "Yours are cold. Extremely cold."

"What's going on?"

"Don't worry. This would happen to Zane all the time. You have his powers, right?"

"Yeah."

"They would act up whenever his emotions were strongest."

"Bet it happened a lot around you, huh?" she nudged my arm.

"It was whenever he felt protective of something. That's what he was built to do, so that was what produced the most passion."

"So, what's my strongest emotion?"

"Well, what are you feeling right now?"

She thought for a moment. "Trust… which I guess makes sense. I've been taught to betray, and expect to be betrayed, so, when I trust someone it's… special. And… I trust you."

I let go of her hand and smiled. "Thanks."

"What do you think your strongest emotion is?"

This question made me uncomfortable. I knew the answer, but it wasn't exactly pleasant. "I'd rather not say."

"Come on, you can trust me, can't you?"

I sighed. "Anger. Frustration."

"Really? That doesn't seem right."

"It's because of an emotional glitch no one has been able to fully correct. I try to avoid it as often as possible, because… it consumes me. Just thinking about it-"

"Okay, calm down. Don't think about it then. That doesn't have to be your strongest emotion. In fact, it's not. Let's just forget about it."

"But it is though. It's in my coding."

"You don't have to be defined by your coding."

I bit my tongue for a moment before speaking. "You clearly don't know anything about robotics."

"I'm serious! If you focus on the positive, you won't have to slip into that dark space, it can't force you."

"What do you think I've been doing for all my life? Trying to embrace the worst parts of me? I can't change what I am-!"

It was then that our tone caught the attention of the others. "Guys, what's going on?" Nya asked.

"Yes, you can. I changed who I was. It was hard, really hard, but I did it."

"You? Do something hard? You have all of the powers of the universe at your disposal, and it was hard for you not to destroy everything with them. Oh, poor Skylor."

"Pixal, what's gotten into you?" Lloyd, grabbed my arm.

"That's the point!" I shook him off. "Nothing! Nothing has gotten into me! This is what's inside me."

"You've never acted like this before Pixal," Nya told me. "Maybe when I was fixing-"

"It's called an AIE-ES chip, it's nowhere near the stab wound-!"

"Okay! I get it! Excuse me if I didn't know about it! I haven't really had the clearest of minds!"

"Oh, I'm sorry if I've actually been trying to control my emotions instead of just giving up on them!"

"Some of us don't have coding to help us suppress how we feel!" she shot back.

"Yeah, some of us do! And it's a living nightmare!"

"You don't get to complain about your emotions, they're not even real!"

"Nya!" Lloyd grabbed her, stepping between us.

"I said it! They're fake! Manufactured! You will never know what the rest of us are going through right now!"

"Sure! Sure they are! But no one can change that! I'm stuck with them! And you will never know how I feel!"

"Oh please, never change? You were a lifeless, brainwashed, tool when we met you! And you still would be if it weren't for Zane!"

"Yeah, well, Zane's dead."

Dead

Silence

The only sounds were heavy breaths underneath the hum of the computers. Tears formed in everyone's eyes as we held our positions.

I glared at Nya. "And so is Jay." Tears fell from her eyes through her anger.

I turned to see Skylor backed a few feet away from the conflict in shock. "And so is Kai."

"So I guess we're all just loveless idiots trying to hold onto what sanity we have!"

"Pixal," Lloyd started.

"But none of you will ever know how empty that makes me. Because I was never Pixal without Zane. And now that I don't have him anymore, I don't exist! The world tells me, forces me to fit into a box, into an acronym, into something, but I'm not anything! Every piece of me I have left is scraps of someone else's identity. My programming is left over from the Overlord, Samurai X isn't mine, this body isn't really mine. And my heart?!" I opened my chest panel, revealing the glowing power. "It sure as hell isn't mine."

I bit my tongue, hard, and closed my eyes, moving my hand, grasping the piece as a wave of pain shook my body.

"Pixal!"

"Stop!"

"What are you doing?!"

I took a few last deep breaths. I could hear Cryptor's voice sting my ears, over and over, tempting me. "...ripping it out of my chest."

I felt hands grip my arm, trying to move my hand.

"Pixal, listen to me!" Lloyd's voice spoke.

"I'm going to do it! I swear!"

"Pixal-"

"It's not mine." I shook my head.

Lloyd's hands gripped my shoulders. "Pix. Open your eyes. Look at me."

"I-"

"Look at me."

My eyes slowly opened to see his face, inches from mine, no anger, no frantic urgency, just worry. Concern. His strongest emotion. "We need you here. Get ahold of yourself. You don't want this... Zane wouldn't want this."

I looked into his eyes, tears filling mine. His hand cradled mine, as he slowly guided it away from the power source. "There you go. You're fine. Everything is fine."

I could feel the rush of anger cool as I pulled my hand away. The pain left. All that was left was a soreness. My body ached.

"Let go of me." He did as I asked, and stepped away. I looked at the faces around me. "I… need some time to cool off… alone." I started walking towards the door as Lloyd caught my shoulder.

"Take the falcon with you. Just… to make sure you don't do something stupid to yourself." I pressed my eyes shut for a few seconds. Just remember what he said. Zane wouldn't want this. Zane wouldn't want this.

"Yeah. Okay." I glanced back at the bird and motioned for him to follow. He quickly got up and flew behind me, out the door. As it swung open, a large rush of warm air hit me. I walked across the hall to the elevator and hit the call button. The doors opened immediately. I entered and wiped away the tears lingering on my cheeks. I slammed a random floor number and leaned up against the sidewall, as the falcon landed on the handrail across from me.

"You're the only one who gets it. Programming you can't control, makes you go haywire, do things you don't want to do, be things you don't want to be."

We reached our mystery floor as I stepped out, another rush of warm air surrounding me. "Everyone who had the smallest part in building you wants you to be a certain way, all these labels, they drive me crazy!" I could feel my pace speed up as I walked down the hall. "None of them are right! None of them take into consideration how I feel, none of them make sense, and all of them are stupid, oversimplified, one dimensional, mistakes!"

The falcon flew ahead of me, landing atop the only doorway in the hall. "But maybe I am! Maybe I am simple! Sum me up in one word! See where that gets you! Because when that word disappears, I disappear! I'm sick of people telling me who I am! What I am!" I reached the doorway, and read the plaque beside the door.

P.I.X.A.L.

It taunted me. My own name mocked me. An acronym. That's all I was, wasn't it? A stupid, clinical, acronym. Assistant. I'm not an assistant. I'm not a puppet. I'm not a servant or a tool-

"I AM NOT AN ACRONYM!"

Before I knew that I was doing, my fist hit the wall, and the plaque was snapped in half, lying on the floor. I stared at the emptiness I front of me as tears welled up in my eyes. As they fell, my body crumpled, sliding to the ground. I cried. Sobbed. Every part of me hurt. My body. My mind. My soul. All bruised, broken, and tired. Aching.

My fingers gently picked up the two halves of my name that lay on the floor in front of me and pieced them back together.

"What am I doing to myself?"

I separated the pieces again, the space between them filling with the falcon. I smiled. "You always seem to know what to do. Why did you bring me here?"

He cocked his head to the side.

I looked down at the metal in my hands. "I mean, my name was here-" I stopped in realization, and stood up, turning to look at the wall. "Almost like a door marker… but I've never been here before. Why would it have my name?" I looked down at the Falcon, as he looked back up at me. "Alright. You heard what Lloyd said though. If I go in, you've got to come with me." He let out a shriek in agreement.

I turned back to the door, and slowly pushed it open.

Warm air rushing out.

Cold air rushing in.


Alright. That's it. What's behind the door? The last clue I will give you, the last thing I'm going to say, is the next chapter's title.

16: Wisteria - Mystery

Good luck!