(A/N: Well, here I am back for 2024. Now, this story is split into two paths, which will have different titles later on)
It has been a few days since the Ninja had returned from the Never-Realm, following their successful mission to find Zane, and coming back to the surprise that Cirrus had given birth to her son early because of Dragon. During those days, they had been raising Caelus, which was a challenge to some until they eventually got the hang of it. But now, there was a serious situation: The Mechanic had escaped from Kryptarium Prison.
In the middle of Ninjago City, a young man was playing Lava Zombies on his phone, not looking where he is going, as he soon bumped into a woman. They both look at each other with apologetic expressions before they continue down their paths.
Around another part of Ninjago City, Caine was speaking to a woman, who was asking him for directions while many civilians move along.
Outside Sanders', Scars was having a cigarette break before looking to his left to see an attractive blonde woman, who smiles at him, heads over to him, smacks his cigarette out of his hand, and seductively forces him inside while heading in herself.
Clutch passes by before noticing something on the ground, gasps, and picks it up. It was the Teapot of Tyrahn. He starts to rub it while he resumed moving along, passing Gayle Gossip, who walks in the opposite direction with a cup of coffee. A young man was looking at his phone while passing Gayle before noticing a flash of gold light, which made him stop briefly, but resumed moving and look back at his phone.
Gayle, taking a sip of her coffee, passes by Laughy's as the doors open, and a couple exit as Dareth waves them goodbye before noticing Gayle, and takes off after her.
A blue car passes by with Jake in the back seat, playing a video game, with Sylvester passing by on his bicycle before stopping near a ramen cart, where Vinny inhales the scent of his recently purchased cup full of it before he moves away, giving Sylvester the opportunity to order some himself.
In the back alley of the newspaper warehouse, Nelson places a stack of newspapers in the back of his bicycle before turning to Antonia, who was on her phone, and they fist bump.
A few seconds later, they exit the alleyway, passing by Sammy, who held out the schedule.
Around another part of Ninjago City, a Master Chen's delivery truck turns right before passing by a building and makes a right.
Later that night, the truck stops outside a warehouse before the ramp lowers down and the back doors open, revealing The Mechanic, with a flamethrower arm, and a bunch of young men with masks and random clothing. The Mechanic holds his hand out and the men rush past him to get out of the truck before he did so himself.
They come over to one of the steel shutters before The Mechanic raised his left robotic arm, and the flamethrower shoots out a shot of flame, hitting the right side of the door before it retracts. He then turned to shoot at the left side, hitting it, then the lower right, and finally the lower left. Before long, the steel shutter soon falls into the warehouse. "We're in, boys." The Mechanic said.
Inside, the warehouse was filled with many, crates, barrels, old VCRs, TVs, computers and many other retro technology. One of the burglars immediately scoffed. "Look at all this old junk!" He said.
The Mechanic immediately grabbed him and dragged him to face him. "Just because it's old, doesn't make it junk. Just forgotten." He throws him forward. "Find the motherboard!" The burglars immediately rush in and split up to find the motherboard as The Mechanic moves in. He moves along to see the burglars searching through aisles of old technology before noticing a crate of hard drives on a top shelf and points out to it. "There! The top shelf!" One of the burglars places a ladder close to it, climbs up it and grabs the box, only for the added weight to make him fall back. The box turns over, spreading all the hard drives, some landing around a crate full of packing nuts before the burglar lands in it. The Mechanic heads towards him as he emerged before grabbing hold of him. "Careful with those!" He throws him aside before throwing the crate aside, hitting the burglar in the process.
The Mechanic starts to look through the spilt drives. "What are we looking for, boss?" The burglar asked as he rubbed his head.
The Mechanic notices a hard drive that was different from the others. It was black, blue, purple and red. He immediately picks it up. "This is it. A needle in a haystack." The burglars start to come up to him. "A very, very valuable needle."
The lights soon turn on above them, engulfing them in its line of sight and making them raise their arms to try and block it out. "Sorry to crash the party, boys!" Nya said as she was on a top shelf, alongside Cole and Geoff, while Kai, Zane and Gewuji were on a shelf opposite them, and Lloyd, Jay and Blake were on a rafter beam. They all had their hoods on with Cole's black eye from being punched by Cirrus slowly fading, but was still there, and Gewuji now in a teal version of her previous gi.
They all soon land in front of them and poise. "Guess our invitations got lost in the mail, huh?" Jay sarcastically asked, gripping his kusarigama before Blake stops him.
"No weapons, guys!" Lloyd said. "These are just low level thugs."
"My fists are my weapons!" Cole replied. The Mechanic simply glared at them.
"I would not classify The Mechanic as 'low level.'" Zane said. "He is suspected in 36 unsolved criminal cases."
"37!" The Mechanic replied, correcting him before shooting out his hand, and struck Zane, sending him crashing into a pile of electronics.
Kai, Jay and Gewuji turn to him, shocked before they turn back. "You're not getting away that easy!" Gewuji said, immediately poising.
"Who's trying to get away?" He spreads his arms out wide. "There are more of us than you!"
"Oh, really?" Geoff sarcastically asked. "You and what army?"
The Mechanic was a little confused before turning around to see the burglars attempting to move away before they turn back to them and The Mechanic waves his arm out to them. Reluctantly, the burglars get out some baseball bats and move back towards The Mechanic. "This 'army' is not afraid to use our weapons!" He ignites his flamethrower arm.
He immediately held out his arm to shoot a burst of flames at them. Lloyd, Kai, Jay, Cole, Nya and Geoff jump to one side while Zane and Gewuji jump to the other side, but Blake held out his left arm to fire a gust of Wind to hold it off as best as he can while Lloyd spun to the other side. Jay then notices some floppy disks in a nearby crate. "I have no problem using these!" He said, grabbing them. He immediately threw them. "Take that, obsolete file formats!" The Mechanic moves to one side to avoid one, then the other to avoid another, but raised his arm containing the hard drive, where the last thrown floppy disk hits it, knocking it out of his hand. They notice flying in the air before Kai jumps to catch it. He then looked up to see three burglars looking down at him before they jump onto him.
Kai manages to get his arm free before throwing the hard drive, which ends up in the hands of a burglar, who smiles once he caught it and started to climb up a nearby ladder before Gewuji noticed while knocking a burglar's bat out of his hand with her baton. "Oh no, you don't." She said before kicking the burglar into making him bend his knees. She immediately jumped on them and jumps off, spinning backwards in the process before landing in front of the burglar, who was surprised at her sudden appearance. Noticing a nearby keyboard, the burglar quickly grabs it while charging at her, but Gewuji moved her left arm to the side to block it before ducking down to swipe the hard drive from his hand and forced the keyboard up to kick the burglar down.
Unfortunately, the burglar had raised his legs and kicked the hard drive out of her hand, which is caught by another burglar behind her, which Lloyd noticed while throwing another burglar over him. "I got him!" He said, jumping onto nearby crates and comes in front of him. The burglar immediately started to take off as Lloyd moves to chase after him, jumping from one shelf to another.
But, when he jumps onto another shelf, he ends up miscalculating his step and falls off, landing on a burglar that Geoff was holding back, dropping the hard drive in the process. Geoff quickly picks it up and throws it to Blake, who tries to grab it, only to end up pushed to a row of VCRs as the burglar caught the hard drive, and Blake quickly stood up. Cole pushes a burglar back into a support beam before noticing Blake raising his prosthetic to block the burglar's bat strike and notices the VCRs behind him. "Use the VCRs!" He called out.
Blake jumps back to avoid another strike before turning to Cole. "What's a VCR?" He asked, confused.
The burglar that Cole was restraining tries to punch him, but he moves from one side to another before he forces him around. "It's that old machine Dragon watches his ninja movies on!"
Blake looks at the VCRs behind him before spinning to move near them and hits the 'Eject' button on them. "Eject! Eject! Eject!" He turns to the burglar, who spins his bat before turning to hear the sound of video cassettes about to eject. "Anytime now." The burglar spins his bat around as Blake watched him before the video cassettes shoot out. One hits the bat out of his hand, the second hits his head, and the last one hits him in his chest, distracting him for Blake to ram at him, and dropping the hard drive.
The hard drive falls from the shelf before Nya, who slid along, immediately caught it. "Got it!" She said as she got up and ran. But, she failed to notice that Blake pushing the burglar into the shelf has made it tip over before he quickly backflipped away. The knocked over shelf lands on some burglars that Lloyd, Kai, Cole, Zane and Gewuji were fighting before Blake lands on top of it.
While the Ninja were distracted by the knocked over shelf, The Mechanic passes by behind Nya, briefly stopping behind her and swipes the hard drive. "I'll take that!" He said.
"Hey!" Nya yelled as he took off for the open door.
"Thanks!" He sarcastically called out before laughing and heads for the truck while the Ninja move to chase after him.
Outside, they came out to see him take off in his truck, quickly turning around to escape the other side. The Ninja immediately head into a nearby alleyway and come out with their vehicles to pursue him. Cole was on his Rock Cycle while the others were on the ATV with Kai driving. The Mechanic looks through his door mirror to see the Ninja pursuing him before he laughs and presses a button, a claw immediately shot out from behind an exhaust pipe and extends to a nearby lamppost, which it grabs hold of, and helps the truck spin around it to face them. "Hold on!" Everyone yelped before Kai and Cole quickly turn their vehicles for The Mechanic to pass by between them and they quickly skid to turn around and move to catch up with him.
The Mechanic then smirked as he comes across some trash cans and rams into them to send them flying toward the Ninja, but they swerve to avoid them as The Mechanic drove the truck around to hit every trash can or crate to send at the Ninja, but Kai and Cole manage to swerve to avoid them. A car around a corner comes to a complete halt as the truck passed by before the ATV and Rock Cycle Do as well. The ATV manages to catch up with the truck, and everyone turned to The Mechanic, who turned the steering wheel for the truck to hit the ATV. "Look out!" Jay yelled as it crashed into them, almost sending Lloyd and Geoff off.
"Hey, watch the paint job!" Kai yelled.
The Mechanic ends up going faster, which makes the ATV spin while the Rock Cycle continued pursuing it, both jumping up a hill before Cole looked at the truck's ramp's supports, presses a button, and a grappling hook comes out and grabs hold of one of them.
The Mechanic gets a little confused from the sudden jolt before Cole then passed by, bringing the grapple's chain with him, and spins around a nearby lamp post to secure the chain before stopping as the truck passed by. "Aw, come on!" The Mechanic yelled as the chain soon spreads out, stopping the truck in the process, breaking its suspension, and the engine emitting smoke. "Shit! So close!"
He gets out to try and make a run for it, only for the ATV and Rock Cycle to stop in front of him, and the Ninja get off with Jay taking off his hood. "It's over, Mechanic!" Lloyd said before taking off his hood.
The Mechanic growls and raised his arms in surrender before Jay swipes the hard drive from him. "I'll be taking this." He said. He then turned away before looking at a symbol on it. It appeared to be a V with a line above it.