Zane and Cap waited patiently as Mina paced back in forth in decision. The only place they had that would be semi-private would have Mina's own room. Cap had taken occupancy of Mina's desk chair while Zane had found a spot on her bed where he was able to sit but not mess up the orientation of the bedding.

"Any time you're ready Min." Cap said as he reclined a bit in his seat, obviously trying to get comfortable.

Don't tell them a thing, a sneaky voice whispered in the back of her mind, You honestly don't believe that they could get rid of me just by revealing our secret, do you?

"We're here to help you Minerva." Zane spoke up, although it was in a soft tone. "Remember the crooked road, it can always change direction."

Mina closed her eyes in thought as she desperately tried to tune out the voice of an entity that should have disappeared a long time ago. She was surrounded by people that loved her -as if there had been any doubt- would they treat her any different when she told them a secret that even she didn't want to know?

"You know about the Trial of the Golden Master, right?" Mina then started to say.

"From what we were told and were able to easily gather." Zane affirmed.

"It has something to do with you finding this old temple and having the Golden Power put in you, didn't it?" Cap then added. "Then there's this thing about how you have to overcome some kind of mind thing so that when you touch Lloyd one of you doesn't end up dying because one of you guys absorbed the Golden Power from the other. Wasn't that right?"

Mina nodded, but it was a small one, and it surely was not very encouraging at all.

"In the temple, after I found a way to ring that bell and the Golden Power was infused in my blood, I discovered something about my... my..."

"Your... what Min?" Cap warily asked, suddenly disliking the way the conversation was going.

"Zane, do you remember the Overlord?" Mina then asked, looking more and more perplexed.

"Of course." Zane agreed solemnly. "The first time we defeated the Overlord he had possessed Sensei Garmadon, the second time we faced the Overlord he had come known as the Golden Master and the confrontation cost me my original body. Was he not quite as 'dead' as what we assumed he was after his last appearance?"

"He... hid for awhile." Mina explained. "He was never far from my da- Lloyd, and he kept an eye on everything before he could make his next appearance (those ghosts really annoyed him because they did the one thing he couldn't, but I digress). He waited and waited, and he waited long enough that he became a part of me."

"How did he do that?" Zane inquired. "The Overlord didn't have a bodily form after his second destruction. Are you implying that he was reincarnated without us knowing?"

"He had a soul." Mina told him, almost defensively. "So do you and I."

"Point being?"

"His soul was fused into with mine. I didn't know about it before because the Overlord's soul was 'sleeping', in a sense. But when the Golden Power was given to me, it reawakened his soul. At first it wasn't much of a problem -just another voice in my head- but now with Lloyd and other ninja so close to touch… I'm… I'm scared of him. I'm scared that he's going to take over my body like he did with Garmadon years ago. I'm scared that Lloyd and I will brush against each other on accident and one of us will fall over dead. I'm afraid that… that I'm going to lose control of the Golden Power and the Overlord is going to use it to create the next Armageddon!"

Zane and Cap gave Mina the same blank look. She looked back at them, growing increasingly frustrated at their silence.

"I want Kai back!" the girl then demanded with frustration as tears started to form in her eyes. "I want a hug…"

. . .

"Can you believe that Misako didn't know anything about the Trail of the Golden Master before she passed away?" Kai asked irritably to no one in particular. "Isn't she the one that always had some kind of prophecy or something that creepily followed whatever we were doing for most seasons?!"

"Apparently you reopen the Four Weapons blacksmith shop after Mina's born. I think there are some records that say you expanded it too. That's nice…" Lloyd mumbled, obviously not paying attention to Kai's thoughts no more than Kai was to his. Kai turned to Lloyd and opened his mouth to say something, but soon took it back. As much as he wanted to fathom why Lloyd was so desperate to find out about Mina's background and her day to day activities, it also almost insulted him. Did Lloyd not trust Kai after reading that letter? Was Lloyd actually really mad at Kai and just wouldn't tell him about it? Or maybe Kai was just overreacting and there was something completely and totally different on the Green Ninja's mind that he didn't want to tell his friend about right now- and to be frank, he could understand that too.

Somewhere, deep down in Kai's gut, he knew that something was wrong but he couldn't decide whether it was with Lloyd or something else altogether. Little did he know that this was because someone was trying to send a message from far, far away on an island where five distinct figures were trapped against their will. Little did he know that his future self was trying to contact him from suspended animation.

. . .

"Turn it on now." Montgomery instructed Zane. The Nindroid nodded and flipped a switch on one end, and Montgomery flipped another switch on the other end. The Time Window started to hum to life, but soon fizzed out within the next nanosecond. Montgomery gave the Time Window console a blank stare before carefully waking a bit closer to it and giving a hard side kick with the middle of his foot.

"There's no reason for that sweetie." Nya told him as she got up behind Montgomery and placed her hands on his shoulders. "This is only your second attempt. Didn't the original estimates say that it was going to take more than a week? It's barely been four days."

"I thought we agreed that we should send them back as soon as possible." Montgomery coldly told his mother as he shook her off of him.

"Honey, I know you want it to be perfect the first time," Nya told her son calmly, "But something like this takes time and practice. Not everything you work on is going to be perfect the first time."

Montgomery shot Nya a hard look of annoyance and dislike. "You sound like you talk from experience Mother," he told her in a chillingly calm tone. "Is there something you're hiding from me?"

Nya did not say a thing and only stared at her child.

"With that being the case," Montgomery then said, "It's getting late and I want to start working on the Time Window again early tomorrow morning. Good night."

Giving Nya another sour look, Montgomery pushed past her as he headed toward the door. After he left the room, Nya found a spot to sit and began to rub her temples.

"I hate genetics so much…" she mumbled to no one in particular. Zane raised an eyebrow and chose to sit down beside her. Nya noticed that Zane had sat beside her and she sat back up again.

"Never have children Zane." She said as she turned to face him. For the first time, Zane realized how weary and broken her eyes seemed to be. "And if you ever do choose to have kids, make sure they don't act like you."

"Is it possible that stubbornness is a genetic trait?" Zane inquired.

"Apparently." Nya agreed with a shake of her head. "I can't admit defeat, Mont gets testy when something doesn't work the first time, Kai is just a big dumb jerkface that apparently has no regard for anyone that loves him…"

Zane gave a small bemused smile, but Nya did not find it amusing. Instead, she buried herself back in her hands.

"If they had let me go with them…" Nya then mumbled. "I could have helped them. I could have saved them. I could have made sure that signal lasted longer when they did disappear! I could have… I could have been trapped with them just so I would know where they are!"

Zane looked at Nya as the woman started to let little tears drip down the side of her face. Carefully, and rather awkwardly, Zane wrapped his arms around her for a hug. Nya realized what he was doing and gratefully hugged him back.