Nya can see it already while they're still far off, so she calls over the comms to the main bridge and reports the sight with grim determination. "The lights are on in the lighthouse."
From the other side of the comms, Kai says something indistinct that Nya can't make out the actual words of, but she can feel in her bones the aggression with which he's said it.
"How long until we get there?" Cole's voice comes through clearly.
"About five minutes, maybe ten," Nya says. "I'll let you know when we're about to land."
"This is so messed up," Jay mutters over and over as he paces the deck of the Destiny's Bounty behind her, just as he's been doing practically the entire flight over. "Oh, this is messed up. This is very messed up."
Nya sighs. Normally she would try to calm Jay down, but at the moment? She agrees with everything he's saying, even if it's just the same thing on repeat. "I know."
"It's messed up!" Jay says again, more forcefully this time. "Echo was so sweet."
"I know," Nya says.
"And now he's kidnapped Zane for some twisted revenge scheme against him!" Jay says. "It's-"
"Messed up," Nya finishes in unison with Jay. Then she adds, "I know. It's unbelievable."
"Why would he hate Zane?" Jay asks.
Nya shrugs. "Some kind of revenge against Zane, but also jealousy, maybe? Maybe in Echo's eyes, Zane has something Echo deserves."
"Like what?" Jay asks.
Nya takes one hand off the wheel to gesture around herself. "All of this? A team, a home, a family?"
"I mean, yeah, those are good things," Jay says, because it's obvious. "But then why would he take Zane away from it? There's gotta be no chance Echo would get anything good from it."
"I don't know," Nya sighs.
They stand in silence for a few minutes.
Eventually, Nya breaks the silence. "We're almost ready to land. Would you?"
"I'll grab them," Jay says, and he heads off. A moment later, he's back with Lloyd, Kai, and Cole.
"We're about to land," Nya reports.
"All right. We don't know a whole lot going into this, and I don't think we need to. All we need to know is that we're going to get Zane out of there," Lloyd says to sum it up.
Kai nods curtly. "That's what matters."
"Yeah," Cole says, looking at Nya. "We're ready, then?"
"Landing in three, two, one," Nya counts off in response, and she brings the Destiny's Bounty to a rest on the island.
Nya tenses, and out of the corners of her eyes, she sees Jay, Kai, Cole, and Lloyd do the same. Nothing happens.
"All right," Lloyd says. "Ninja, go."
They jump off of the deck, landing on the shore in a battle formation. Nothing happens.
They look around for clues as they quickly climb the flight of stairs to the lighthouse. Nothing happens.
They walk right up to the lighthouse itself. Nothing happens.
At the front of the group, Lloyd reaches out a hand to try the door. Something happens. Before Lloyd's hand makes contact, the door swings open.
"You found me," Echo says flatly, staring out at them. Without all the rags in the way, and without what Nya suspects was a vocal distorter hidden in the rags, his voice is almost exactly like Nya remembers it being, just a little older-sounder. His voice is just like Zane's.
His face is just like Zane's too. The only difference is the color, a coppery-yellow tint to everything that is silver and blue for Zane. He looks put-together, composed both physically and emotionally. It hurts Nya's heart to see him, for more than one reason.
"We found you," Lloyd confirms after a moment.
"Good job," Echo says. "I have been found. Now you should get lost."
The door starts to shut.
Lloyd swings an arm forward quickly, wedging his hand in between the door and its frame.
Through the crack between the door and the frame, Echo frowns. "Now really, what are you doing that for?"
"What are we-" Lloyd says, voice trailing off incredulously.
"We're here to rescue Zane!" Jay says.
Echo laughs. It's not a happy sound. "Oh, because you care so very much about him being rescued, right?"
"Well, yeah," Jay says.
"Of course you do. You do it frequently enough," Echo says. "I am certain it puts a hamper on your ninja operation when you lack a nindroid to use."
Jay sputters at that for a moment. "Use?"
"What are you-" Lloyd begins.
"No, no more," Kai interrupts, inching toward the door in a way he probably thinks is subtle but really isn't. "Surrender and give us Zane!"
"Right, because Zane is a thing to be given over," Echo says.
Kai stops moving. "What? That's not what I said at all."
"But it is what you have done," Echo says coldly. "Over and over, you have abandoned him as if he was a mere tool to be used and discarded."
"This is starting to sound less like revenge against Zane," Jay says quietly.
Echo flings the door wide open to glare. "My revenge is not against Zane! My revenge is against all of you! You, the ninja, who act so high and mighty in saving others, but you never stop to consider what you have done to one you call your own!"
Lloyd takes a step back.
At the same time, Cole takes a step forward. "And what have we done?"
"You left him!" Echo says furiously. "You left him with the Mechanic to be used for Unagami's scheme! You left him in the Never Realm to be warped for decades! You left him on Chen's island to be imprisoned! You left him with the Overlord to die! And he did die! You left him behind! You used him and forgot about him!"
"We never forgot-" Kai begins to sputter heatedly.
"It's not just Zane you're talking about now," Nya says. They're the first words she's been able to come up with this whole time. They're probably the most important words she could've said. "It's you too, isn't it?"
It's Echo's turn to sputter.
"We left you behind," Jay says, clearly realizing where Nya's heading with this. "We 'used and then forgot about' you. But we didn't. We came back, Echo. But you were already gone."
"Oh, well done, you came back, bravo! You were too late," Echo says.
"Back then, yeah," Jay says, stepping forward in front of Cole. "And we've been late other times too. We haven't always done the best by Zane."
"And we're sorry," Nya says, joining Jay at the front of the group. "We're sorry for all of it."
"Sorry changes nothing!" Echo says. "You left him! And he was hurt, and he was abandoned, and he died! And you left me, and I could have died, and Harumi found me, and I did die! It took forever to bring myself back!"
"But when you came back, you came back for Zane," Nya says.
"Of course I did. Just like me, he's Zane," Echo says, and his voice cracks on the name. "He is the only one who can understand me, and I can understand him. He is my brother."
"He's our brother too," Nya says.
"You don't deserve him," Echo says firmly.
Nya shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. But does anyone ever deserve the family they get? In a good way or in a bad way?"
Echo pauses.
"Did Zane deserve you kidnapping him?" Jay asks. "Did he deserve you throwing him off a cliff when you were Mr. E?"
Echo hesitates.
"Did you deserve how you were treated? Did you deserve any of the times you were left behind?" Nya asks.
Echo still says nothing.
"Family isn't about deserving. And it's not about the number of times we haven't treated each other as we should. It's messed up sometimes, but that doesn't mean we quit," Nya says.
"Ninja never quit, and family never quits," Jay says.
Softly, Echo says, "Zane said something similar."
Nya smiles. "I bet he did."
"He said that you want the best for him," Echo says. "That you care about him. That you watch out for him."
"We do," Jay says. "And he watches out for us."
"And you came for him," Echo says. "You are here to rescue him, after all."
"We want to rescue him," Jay says in agreement.
Nya takes a deep breath and takes a chance. "And we want to rescue you too."
Echo flinches back.
"After all, the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend," Lloyd says from somewhere behind Nya.
"Or, even better, make him your little brother," Kai adds, and there's the sound of a brief scuffle behind them.
"Get off, get off!" Lloyd complains.
"Make me," Kai says.
"You're both idiots," Cole says.
Another couple of scuffling sounds later, Cole laughs and says, "Okay, you've proved your point. I'm an idiot too."
Nya stifles a laugh, not taking her eyes off of Echo's face, so like Zane's and yet so different.
Waves of emotions have passed over Echo's face in the last minute: anger, uncertainty, fear, disbelief… And hope. He seems to have settled on hope.
"What would rescuing me mean?" Echo asks, leaning against the doorframe. His body language is clearly attempting to look casual or even uninterested, but his voice trembles.
"Bringing you home," Nya says. "Bringing you and Zane both home together."
"Home," Echo repeats. "And what would that mean?"
Nya and Jay trade glances.
"It would mean you have a place to come back to," Jay says. "A place that would welcome you and help you, but never force you to be there if you don't want to be. A place to just be whenever you want to be."
"That's what home is," Nya says. "It's a place for family."
"And Zane is part of your family," Echo says.
"And you're part of Zane's family," Nya says.
"Which, you know, makes you pretty much our family too," Jay adds.
Echo freezes.
For a moment, Nya worries they've pushed too far.
Then Echo cracks a small smile. "And family never quits."
"Except for quitting this conversation, which we might wanna do so we can get Zane out of wherever you've stashed him," Kai says, then a few more scuffling sounds happen and he squawks, "Hey!"
Cole laughs, and Kai's protests are quickly muffled.
"Pretend we're not here," Lloyd calls forward.
"Or perhaps we can all not be here," Echo suggests slowly. He pulls out a remote and begins pressing buttons on it, turning back through the doorframe and calling, "Zane? I am beginning to release you fully, brother. As soon as all verbal and motion capabilities are restored, we can be on our way."
"How would you like to take a ride on the Destiny's Bounty?" Nya asks.
"Two free tickets complimentary from yours truly," Jay jokes. "Good for you and a plus one, terms and conditions may apply, both passengers must have 'Zane' in their name."
"You're ridiculous," Nya says with a laugh.
As Zane appears behind Echo, an open expression of relief and peace on his face, Jay grins and pumps a fist. "All aboard!"