Meanwhile, on the other side of Ninjago City, a different situation was ensuing. A villain who called himself the Mechanic had succeeded in breaking out of Kryptarium Prison and was currently pulling a heist in the heart of the city, looking for a special scroll. But to his utter dismay, the Ninja suddenly showed up in an attempt to keep him from escaping. At the moment, however, the Mechanic was starting to gain the upper hand in the conflict.
"Guys, I could really use some help here!" Kai shouted above the din of the Mechanic's cannon fire as he attempted to chase the crook and block the blasts with his Fire Power at the same time. Man, whoever said "fight fire with fire" really didn't know what he was talking about!
"You'll never catch the Mechanic!" said villain shouted. "You shouldn't even be trying!"
"Ugh, why do villains always feel the need to speak in third person?" Lloyd exclaimed in disgust as he joined Kai in the chase.
"Yeah," Jay replied as he raced over to Kai and Lloyd. "You'd think that someone as smart as the Mechanic would have figured out that speaking in third person just doesn't contribute well to his reputation!"
"You forget, Jay," Zane spoke over the comm, "there is a stark contrast between intelligence and common sense." He and Cole were lying in wait for the Mechanic to pass by their hiding place, where they would ambush him and cut off his escape. The Titanium Ninja then switched off his comm and said, "P.I.X.A.L., calculate the best strategy for stopping the Mechanic."
To the ordinary observer, it looked like Zane was talking to himself. But his friends knew better about what was going on. P.I.X.A.L. had once been a physical Nindroid just as Zane was. But a few months ago, she had been captured and dismantled by Master Chen, an evil warlord who had sought to transform all his followers into Anacondrai warriors and trigger a Second Serpentine War. All that remained of P.I.X.A.L. now was her hard drive, which Zane had rescued and placed in his processor. Now P.I.X.A.L. could assist Zane as an AI program built into Zane's own code. Someday, Zane hoped to find a way to give P.I.X.A.L. her own body again. But for now, both of them would have to suffice with simple coexistence.
"Affirmative. Calculating now." P.I.X.A.L. answered in a voice only Zane could hear. But the Mechanic suddenly showed up sooner than the team had anticipated. "Negative, P.I.X.A.L.! The Mechanic's already here!" Zane screamed before the cyborg-villain suddenly pinned him to the ground.
"Well, well, well!" the Mechanic exclaimed. "Looks like I'll be taking two treasures—the Keystone Scroll and fresh Nindroid parts to boot!"
"Not so fast, Mechanic!" Kai's voice rang out as he and the other Ninja got into their fighting stances.
"WHAT?! I can't believe it!" Jay exclaimed.
"I know!" Cole replied. "I mean, how many times has the Mechanic attempted to escape already?"
"If my calculations are correct," Zane stated from underneath the Mechanic, "this would be his fifth attempt at escape."
"Well, he's not going to get very far—not when we have anything to say about it!" Cole declared.
"No, not that!" Jay exclaimed. "What I meant was, I can't believe Kai couldn't come up with anything more original! 'Not so fast'? REALLY?!"
"Can we maybe discuss this later?" Lloyd shouted.
But P.I.X.A.L was way ahead of the Ninja's game. Zane didn't have time to say a word before he heard P.I.X.A.L. say, "I'm diverting all remaining power to your chest in three, two, ONE!"
"Everybody duck!" Zane managed to shout before a burst of energy shot out from his chest, electrocuting the Mechanic and sending him flying. The Ninja wasted no time in dropping to the ground, and the Mechanic sailed over their heads and landed behind a bunch of crates nearby. Little did the Ninja realize that one of those crates held what the Mechanic was looking for.
"Ah-hah! There it is!" the Mechanic declared. "The Keystone Scroll. Hah-hah-hah! Come to Papa." He snatched the scroll and was just about to take off with it when Zane, though he had not yet recovered from the blast, pounced on him. The two rolled over and over on the sidewalk, heading straight for a canal!
"Zane!" the others all cried out at once. Jay and Lloyd then rushed to help their friend, but they were too late. The Mechanic managed to throw Zane off, and the Nindroid went sailing through the air!
SPLASH! Into the canal he went, taking a wooden crate with him. He had hit the water so hard that he was knocked out for a second. Fortunately, he didn't need oxygen and therefore could survive underwater. Unfortunately, when he came to, the heavy crate had settled on his right foot, and he couldn't pull it out! He was trapped!
Meanwhile on the surface, Lloyd pounced on the Mechanic and pinned him to the ground, holding him there so he wouldn't escape. But Jay—who was rather high-strung and emotionally sensitive—raced over to the canal without even taking a glimpse at the Mechanic. "Zane!" he yelled again. "We've gotta help him!"
"But I can't swim!" Kai exclaimed.
"And I can't get wet!" Cole replied. (Being a ghost, touching water for him was out of the question.)
"I'd love to help, but I'm a little busy!" Lloyd answered, while trying desperately to keep the Mechanic pinned to the ground. His frustration growing rapidly, Jay was just about to dive in himself when he and his friends suddenly heard a faint splash and saw a ripple of water coming from the other side of the canal.
"What was that?" Kai and Cole exclaimed at the same time.
"More like…who was that?" Lloyd replied.
In the canal, Zane was still struggling to free himself from the crate. But his movements were becoming increasingly slower as he started to grow tired. The lack of oxygen wasn't affecting him at all, but the power blast from his chest had taken a lot of energy out of him—and leaping on the Mechanic had taken even more. Just when he started thinking that he was a goner, he spotted a small figure swimming down towards him at an incredible speed. At first he thought it might be Jay, or perhaps Lloyd. But as the figure got closer to him, he quickly realized that it was neither of them.
The figure coming to his rescue was a mere girl, not more than eight years old in appearance.
She must have seen him fall in, Zane mused, and dove in herself to help him, not realizing that he didn't need oxygen to survive. Still, he needed help to get free of the crate, and this girl was clearly determined to help him. In less than ten seconds she had pulled the crate off his foot, and he swam upwards with all his might. He managed to break the surface just seconds before he passed out.
"Zane!" Jay cried, seeing the Titanium Ninja surface. The unconscious Zane floated over to the edge of the canal, and Kai yanked him out of there almost immediately. The Fire Ninja grunted with effort as he pulled Zane over the edge. "Who knew a Nindroid could be so heavy?" he muttered to himself. But his grumbling couldn't disguise the fact that he was relieved that Zane was okay. Even though the others already knew that Zane didn't require oxygen, seeing your friend fall into a canal was still nerve-wracking enough that anyone would full-out panic. Kai shuddered to think what might have happened if he had leaped on the Mechanic like he was planning to do—before Zane had beat him to it. He just hoped he never had the misfortune of falling into a canal—this one or any other.
Zane coughed loudly as he came to on the hard concrete. He had just enough time to open his eyes before he found himself on the bottom of a ninja pile.
(Cole had taken Lloyd's place sitting on the Mechanic, as he didn't want to get too close to all that water.)
Everyone was so relieved that Zane had been rescued that they were shocked when Zane stammered, "Where—where's the girl? The one that rescued me?"
"I'm on it!" Lloyd shouted before anyone could say a word. He dove into the canal, and Cole flinched as some water splashed a few inches from where he was. "What is that kid doing?" Kai muttered to himself in wonder. After what had happened with Morro, he would have thought Lloyd would be a little more cautious about making rash decisions. But no—the fifteen-year-old boy was definitely turning out to be just as impulsive as Kai. The cherry never falls far from its blossom—even with someone who's not related to you.
Lloyd swam downwards as quickly as possible, looking all around for signs of a girl. Zane hadn't been very specific about how old she was or what she looked like but finding her turned out to be easier than Lloyd thought it would be. She was the only other person in the canal beside himself. And it looked like she was in trouble. Lloyd kicked as hard as he could and frog-paddled over to her in a matter of seconds. When he got to her, she had already started to run out of air. He grabbed her around the waist (she was smaller than Lloyd had thought she'd be) and swam to the surface with her like lightning. His lungs started to burn as he got closer to the surface, and he realized he too was running out of air.
The two coughed and sputtered as they broke the surface. When Lloyd had enough breath to talk, he shouted, "Take her!" before breaking into another coughing fit. For the second time that day, Kai wound up having to fish someone out of the canal. He grabbed the girl around the waist and lifted her out of the water, setting her on the ground beside Zane. Lloyd was able to clamber out of the water on his own but remained silent (except for one or two coughs) due to the combination of nearly running out of air and the momentary panic from nearly drowning again.
Jay, eager to lighten the mood, commented, "Hey, what are the odds that we'd have to rescue two people who fell in the same canal?" But no one laughed. Everyone was too jittered up from the experience to say anything for several seconds.
The police arrived a few minutes later. They had been looking for the Mechanic ever since his breakout, and they were glad to see that the Ninja had been able to bring him to justice. Zane, who had by now recovered from his fall, was all too glad to snatch the scroll from the Mechanic's hand, exclaiming, "I'll take that!", as the police officers bundled the slippery crook into the police car.
"Thank you, Ninja." the Police Commissioner stated. "Once again, you have saved this city's hide from certain danger."
"Don't thank us." Kai exclaimed. "Thank…um…" He turned around to see that the girl who'd saved Zane had fallen asleep on Lloyd's shoulder. The Green Ninja's face wore a pained look that clearly stated, "Help me!"
(Not that he wasn't glad that she was okay, but he didn't really appreciate being used as a pillow by a complete stranger.)
"Oh," the Commissioner said in understanding. "Well, you can thank her for me when she wakes up. Me, I'm heading straight to Kryptarium—to pay a little visit to the prison warden. I think he'll be relieved to have this character back behind bars."
He won't be the only one, Jay thought to himself, thinking of the last time he'd encountered the cyborg freak. But since the others didn't remember that (and boy, was Jay glad about that), he kept his thoughts to himself for once.
Once the Commissioner and his assistants had left, Zane walked over to get a closer look at the girl who'd saved his life. What he saw left him gaping at her in wonder. She was small and slender, and her hair was silver-white, almost like a combination of Zane's original hair color and P.I.X.A.L.'s. The soaking wet kimono that stuck to her skin like glue was of a gold color—freakishly similar to Lloyd's gi from when he was the Golden Ninja.
Tenderly, Zane lifted the girl into his arms in a fireman's carry. A sudden jolt of what seemed to be electricity startled Zane a bit, but he managed to calm his nerves (figurative, not literal, he reminded himself) as Cole asked, "What are we going to do about her?"
Kai followed that up with, "More importantly, where does she come from, and who does she belong to? I mean, she has to have a family out there somewhere, right?"
"Maybe she doesn't." Zane exclaimed quietly. "Maybe she's an orphan."
"Wait, you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting, right?" Kai asked, hoping all the time, Please don't say we're taking her back to the Bounty. I don't think I can take any more excitement!
"I think we should take her back to the Bounty." Zane replied. "At least for the night."
Rats!
"I can't wait to tell Nya about this!" Jay exclaimed. Clearly, he had no qualms about inviting a complete stranger, much less a kid, to their ninja headquarters. The girl in question suddenly yawned and opened her eyes for just a second before they blinked shut again. Zane nearly dropped the girl in surprise. Her eyes were just as ice-blue as his own! If he had had a hand free at the moment, he would have slapped himself just to make sure he wasn't dreaming all this!
"It would be cool to have another kid around headquarters." Cole commented, right before he was reprimanded by a sharp "AHEM!" from Lloyd. "Sorry, Lloyd." the Earth Ninja muttered in embarrassment. Usually, Jay was the one shoving his foot into his mouth. Has my transformation made me…dense? Cole wondered to himself (not for the first time).
"Um, could we get going?" Kai asked impatiently. "And are we bringing the kid or not?!"
"Okay, okay, hotshot." Jay exclaimed. "Don't get your gi in a twist!"
Zane said nothing. His mind was racing too fast for him to verbalize his thoughts. But one thing was clear—there was something about this girl that he just had to figure out. Why do I feel so drawn to her? I haven't felt this way since…since I met P.I.X.A.L. But it's different somehow. I feel as if…she were my own daughter. I feel…like I would do whatever it took to protect her.
It didn't make any sense to him, and he was the most logical one on the team. On top of that, he was a Nindroid. He knew that he shouldn't have any sort of emotions. By definition, he was a robot. Robots don't feel. They just act. But this child—this precious child—had done more than just rescue him from the waters. She had triggered something within him—an emotion that he had no idea how to describe, but which almost overwhelmed him.
If he could have cried, he would have been a basket case of tears. But all he could do was stare in wonder at this child, this girl who had literally dived into his life. The very next moment, he did something unexpected, something that, to his literal mind, was completely illogical. He said, "Yes, Kai, she is coming back with us. There's no other option."