AN: This one is written for the prompt "nightmares," focuses on Zane, and takes place between seasons four and five. Note, I don't really know whether Titanium!Zane needs to sleep, but honestly, I don't care, let me have my angst. :P

Nindroids don't dream. It's a fact that Zane has been certain of for a long time. He's had visions of the future while sleeping, yes, and the occasional strange memory feedback that might resemble a dream, not mention the odd mirages of the Titanium Dragon before he unlocked that power, but no real dreams. So no, nindroids don't dream.

They do, however, have nightmares.

In the past days since the ninja and the Elemental Masters defeated the Anacondrai Cultists with the final blow dealt by Sensei Garmadon's sacrifice, the ninja had been helping Wu get his new tea shop idea off the ground in between helping out various villages with problems such as petty thieves. It was good work but hard work, and it sent each of them to their beds in the Destiny's Bounty 2.0 each night happy but exhausted to sleep soundly through the night.

It sent each of them to sleep soundly, that is, except Zane, for the fact was that ever since things had settled down after the battle with the Anacondrai Cultists, Zane had been waking up multiple times from nightmares in the middle of the night each night, and this night was no different.

Zane stared at the ceiling above his bed, fighting off the flashes of the nightmare he had just had. It had been pretty much the same as every other nightmare from every other night as it concerned the battle with the Digital Overlord and ended... Well. The way that it had ended in reality. Zane tried not to even think the words "death" or "explosion" or any of their synonyms, as the simple action of thinking of the word had the tendency to force him to instantly relive those moments, relive the certainty and the fear, relive the pain and the contentedness, relive it all each night, or even during the day, and it wasn't just those words that brought it all back. Hearing the sound, or even worse, seeing the image, of an explosion from one of the video games the ninja played or movies the ninja watched in their free time could affect him. The words "ninja never quit" or "go ninja, go" could affect him. Someone jokingly referring to the fact that Zane had a different body now could even affect him, and no one ever noticed.

Granted, it wasn't like being affected did all that much to him other than battering his already heavily damaged mindset, and the other ninja were already worried about Lloyd's mental state with having recently had to send his own father to the Departed Realm, and Zane wouldn't have wanted the others to notice anyway, but it hurt for some strange reason that no one could tell he was hurting.

No one could tell. Hmmm.

No one could tell what was going on with him, because it was all in Zane's own head, his own programming, his own code. So why not fix it somehow?

Closing his eyes, Zane focused inwardly, intentionally thinking about his temporary death. The memory came forward instantly, but as it started to play in his head, Zane seized it and began wrapping code around it, programming a self-adjusting vault that would create its own locks and mechanisms to keep the memory from ever resurfacing. As he worked, he kept tabs on the memory, and as it played through over and over, he could sense less and less of it. His coding was working. Soon, it was out of his reach.

Satisfied, Zane opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling again. Intentionally, he thought about the end of the battle with the Digital Overlord. The coded vault in the back of his mind twitched, but remained shut. Zane adjusted the outer layers of programming and tried again, specifically thinking of his own explosion.

Nothing happened. No reactions came from the vault. No memories sprung forward to cause him pain. Nothing happened at all.

That was good. That had to be good. Despite some lingering uncertainty, Zane decided to call that good.

Zane closed his eyes, ready for a peaceful night's sleep at last, but with a touch of doubt he tried to chase away with self-reassurances. The vault wouldn't cause him any problems. It couldn't.

AN: Aaaand then Decoded happens. Oops.