"I remember this place," Zane said proudly as he followed Nya through the opening in the sand. So far, there had not been many places where Zane had been multiple times, at least not in his current memory banks, and it was nice to recognize a place. "It is the Samurai-X Cave, correct?"

"You got it in one," Nya said, smiling down and back at him. "Since it's my turn to watch you, I figured I could show you more of one of my favorite places."

"This is one of your favorite places," Zane realized. "That is very nice!"

Nya nodded in response, still walking forward through the Cave.

Zane kept following her, looking around. The last times he had been here, everything had been very stressful as they tried to stop a war from starting. That meant he hadn't been paying too much attention to everything in the Cave.

Now, though?

Now, Zane and Nya had lots of time, no stress, and not too much to do. Nya had said she needed to do a little bit of computer work as she coordinated with Jay and Pixal on their research to help Zane be big again, but she'd also said that most of this time was for the two of them to do whatever they wanted.

And at the moment, what Zane wanted to do was look around. After all, when he'd been in the Cave the last few times, he'd found out that a flying ship could exist! Zane couldn't wait to find out what else existed here.

"So, what do you want to do, Zane?" Nya asked. When Zane glanced over at her, she was leaning back against a bank of computer panels.

"I want to explore," Zane said.

Nya raised her eyebrows a little. "Explore?"

"Yes," Zane said. "You had the Destiny's Bounty in here last time. What other amazing things do you have that you make or work on here?"

"Oh," Nya said. She slouched against the computer panels and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand, looking…

"Are you embarrassed?" Zane asked, frowning. What did she have to be embarrassed about? Was it Zane's fault she felt embarrassed? Oh no! "I'm sorry if I did something wrong."

"You didn't do anything wrong, Zane," Nya said immediately.

That was good. Still, Nya looked uncomfortable.

"Then what is wrong?" Zane asked, taking a step closer to her.

"It's silly," Nya said, waving her hand like she could wipe the whole conversation away from the air between them. "It's just… You're my friend. You're family, Zane."

"Yes," Zane said slowly. "Mister Kai… I mean, Kai said that, and we both said that was a good thing."

"It is a good thing," Nya said. "It's just that you're a nindroid, Zane. The technology that makes up who you are and what you can do is the most amazing technology ever, at least to me. And I'm just an inventor, not even a ninja. So it feels a little funny hearing you, who are so amazing, say I've got amazing stuff here. It feels kinda good, don't get me wrong, but it feels funny too."

Zane thought about that. He walked over to Nya and looked up at her earnestly. "You are amazing."

Nya snorted, still looking uncomfortable.

"Yes, you are amazing," Zane insisted. "And if you do not believe that, I shall simply have to tell you it until you believe it."

Nya bit her lower lip for a moment, but then she smiled. "That's very sweet of you to say."

"And very true!" Zane said happily. "So now, what amazing stuff do I get to see?"

"I mean, out of this whole Cave, probably what I would call the most amazing is my mech," Nya said, sounding thoughtful.

"Then I would love to see your mech," Zane said. Even though he didn't know what a mech was, if Nya said it was amazing, he believed her.

Nya grinned. "Over here."

She led him across the Cave to a large curtain, taller than Zane, much, much taller than Zane. Even if Zane was on Kai's shoulders like he'd been when Kai was watching him, they would still be much shorter than the curtain.

"You ready?" Nya asked.

"Ready!" Zane answered.

Nya pulled the curtain aside.

Zane gasped in awe. It was a very big robot! "Oh, hello!"

"Hello indeed," Nya said, sounding smug. "She's my girl, this mech."

"It is very nice to meet you," Zane said politely, waving up at where the mech appeared to have a rudimentary face. "I am Zane."

He waited for a moment, but the mech didn't reply.

"Are you shy?" Zane asked. "That is okay. I can be shy too."

"Uh, Zane?" Nya asked, sounding a little strange. "What are you doing?"

Zane turned toward her. He thought it was pretty obvious what he was doing, but sometimes people thought that about stuff that was very not obvious to Zane, so he explained. "I am saying my greetings to the mech."

"Oh," Nya said. She was quiet for a few moments. "Zane, the mech is a suit."

"A suit," Zane repeated. He wasn't sure he understood that word in this context.

"I call her my girl, but that's, uh, that's a way of saying it's important to me," Nya continued. "The mech isn't a person. It's just something I ride inside to help me do things."

Zane frowned and looked back up at the mech. "So she's not real?"

"Not like you or me, no," Nya said.

"Ah," Zane said, feeling his shoulders droop a little.

"Sorry," Nya said, and she did sound sorry. "She's really cool, though. I do all kinds of things using this mech. Do you want to see some videos of me in the Samurai-X mech saving people?"

"Videos of you being amazing?" Zane asked.

"Sure," Nya said, smiling a little. "Videos of me being amazing."

"Yes, yes I would like to see that," Zane said decisively.

Nya wrapped an arm around Zane's shoulders and tugged him toward the computers, and Zane followed contentedly.