Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Father, if I wanted you to make a…change in me, would you?”

_____

It feels hot.

That’s the thing that has been making him uncomfortable for the past hour or so. He couldn’t place it, couldn’t understand the issue, couldn’t put a name to the thing making his fans whir a touch too fast and his internal wiring buzz louder than usual. It’s the heat.

Not that the temperature is too high- that’s actually why it had taken him so long to figure it out. In fact, his room in the monastery is perfectly temperate, a lukewarm 70 degrees. Since rebuilding the place, the thermostat had been set to that and has remained unchanged, and he’d never once felt something like this before. As such, it took him this ridiculous amount of time to understand that it is the heat giving him grief.

Because the issue is not that it is hot. The issue is that it feels hot.

He supposes he should have expected this, this malalignment with temperature, after spending over half a century in a castle of ice. Even on the interior of the building, frost had lined the floor, and icicles had clung to every doorway. Perhaps it was due to his presence alone that the coldest place in the Never-realm was his own abode. Walls do nothing to keep out a cold that they hold within.

The first course of action is to kick off his blanket. This helps, somewhat, though it is not without bitterness that he quickly understands how little that somewhat amounts to. All it really did was remove a single layer of heat from the seemingly hundreds of layers of heat hanging in the air alone. His pajamas come off next- this has him cringing, as he does not like to sleep shirtless, or pantless, or, First master forbid, in the nude. Pajamas exist as a concept for a reason; he is quite happy with abiding by them.

Removal of pajamas does about as little as the blanket. He is not going to stoop so low as to remove his boxers, however unnecessary they may be.

He…he could dial down the thermostat. That is a method most assured to work.

This idea is rejected as quickly as it comes- it would work, but the cost is too great. Lowering the thermostat would mean lowering it for everyone else, too, and considering how stifling his room feels now, he’d probably have to turn it quite low to even begin to get comfortable.

The human body is incredibly sensitive. No doubt one of the others would notice once he turned it down a mere two degrees, much less the thirty that he would like to.

Can a thermostat even dial down that far? Somehow he doubts it.

He thinks about filling the room with ice, just his own, so that only he is subjected to the drop in temperature, but the idea brings to mind his barren, frozen throne room, so cold that he could see the breaths of his samurai servants, and he finds himself shaking despite the heat.

There isn’t anything else to do but open the window. He settles for that.

Laying back down on his bed, he resolves that the gentle breeze is enough, and that he must reacclimate to the normal temperatures of Ninjago now that he is back. After all, it will only get warmer during the day- he can’t just freeze himself whenever he gets too hot.

Overheating. Not a consequence he’d anticipated, but one he will readily face. Most other consequences have been denied from him; the people of the Never-realm did not know who he was, apart from Akita, so he did not bear their fear and hatred once he came back to himself. His friends decided that Vex, that wretched advisor, and the corrupted scroll were to blame for his actions, so he was not imprisoned, or even charged with anything. And Lloyd, of course, forgave him for the fight before it had even begun, so he was not angry with him.

Sixty years of torture, tyranny, and violence, and not one single consequence.

His fans whir a bit faster in his chest, and he closes his eyes, oddly appreciative of the sound. One consequence. There is one consequence.

_____

“A change?”

“An alteration.”

_____

“Why’d you even order those?”

“I- I dunno, they were on sale!”

“Do you just browse syrups online or something?”

“No! I browse cooking ingredients!”

Kai and Cole are arguing about something. Zane, as a rule, tries not to get involved with these sorts of things. Their problems are their problems, and this argument seems to lean far more towards teasing than anything serious, so he feels no urgent need to intervene.

Case in point, Kai rolls his eyes, plucking a glass bottle off the counter out of a lineup of other glass bottles much like itself. He shifts it side to side, letting the bright blue liquid coat the interior, before tossing it back to Cole, who yelps at the sudden game of catch. “Just admit it, you wanted an excuse for snow cones,” Kai says with a smug grin.

“If I wanted snow cones, I wouldn’t need to make an excuse,” Cole huffs. “Though, now that you bring it up…”

“This guy,” Kai groans. He ambles over to where Zane is reorganizing the spice cabinet, leaning against the wood with practiced ease. “What d’you say, Zane?”

“Sorry?” His fingers stall on the jar of coriander powder in his grasp. He hadn’t realized he was supposed to be a part of this conversation.

“The snow cones,” Kai says expectantly. “Cole’s already bought the syrupy stuff, you wanna be the icemaker?”

He’s waving his hand in a sort of flurry motion that Zane supposes is meant to resemble a snowstorm, or the creation of ice. It looks rather silly- none of them have ever needed to do such a thing with their hands to summon their powers.

Only a week ago, summoning his powers had taken nothing at all.

“Wait, really?” Cole’s delighted voice stops whatever thought Zane might have had next. “I swear, I didn’t actually buy them as an excuse or anything, but-”

“It would be no issue,” Zane says lightly. “There would be no point in owning them if we did not put them to use.”

“Ain’t that right,” Kai smiles, pushing himself off of the cabinet to join Cole back at the counter. “‘Sides, something fun like that would be good for everyone.”

“Was it not only last month that Sensei was concerned we were having ‘too much fun’?”

“Hey, we got back in the game! Did a quest and everything!”

“Plus,” Cole adds solemnly, “I know for a fact that Sensei hates when things go to waste.” He raises the blue bottle that Kai had been holding. “And he would never forgive me for buying all these and never using them.”

“I hope you have cones, then.”

His face blanks.

As it turns out, Cole did not, in fact, buy any cones, most likely due to the fact that he had been being honest when Kai had grilled him- he truly hadn’t been aiming to guilt anyone into making snow cones. The syrups had been an impulsive purchase due to both their tantalizing price and their promise of a variety of uses, so Cole hadn’t put much thought into the buying beyond which button to click to enter his information.

He’s excited about the snow cones, though, and despite his teasing, Kai had clearly brought up the idea for a reason. The two of them went down to the city to buy some cones, and when they came back, they broke the news to the others that there would be frozen treats tonight.

“I haven’t had a snow cone in forever,” Jay says, bobbing on the couch giddily. “Like, since I was a kid. Or maybe even longer.”

“What’s longer ago than a kid?” Lloyd ponders.

“I don’t know, but it feels longer than that!”

Nya nudges his fidgeting shoulder with her own steady one, letting out a laugh that sounds like a breath more than anything. “You sound like you’ve already got a sugar high.”

“Yeah, Jay, maybe wait until you’ve actually eaten one to get any jitters,” Kai snorts. He’s helping Cole unpack the cones, stacking them in neat rows in front of Zane’s waiting hands.

“Is it a crime for a man to be excited?”

“I heard they actually changed the law while we were gone.”

“You’re just jealous that you can’t express unbidden glee like I can!”

“You’ve caught me,” Kai deadpans.

Jay shakes his head emphatically. “That! See, that, right there! That cool guy act! Where’s your delight? Your youthful splendor?”

“Back in third grade, like everyone else’s.”

“You wish you had my youthful splendor.”

Zane chuckles, pleased at the easy air. At times, when things are more tense, situations more dire, ribbing such as this can turn sour very quickly. It feels good to hear his friends joke like this again, especially after so long.

He’s able to access even his oldest memories at any time, of course. This is a feature of his mind that he has abused most readily. Still, the real thing is so much better than a file plucked out of his memory bank.

Has it really been decades since he last…?

“Fire it up, Zane!”

His head snaps up quickly to meet Cole’s eyes. “Huh?”

Cole, in turn, doesn’t seem to hear him, too busy scrunching his eyebrows together in debate. “Or, uh, ‘ice it up’? That doesn’t work.” His face smooths out all at once as he clearly decides that he doesn’t actually care enough about the pedantics to find a more suitable term. “Whatever. Start whenever you’re ready!”

“Right,” Zane nods, plucking one of the cones off of a stack in front of him. The ice flows from his fingers into the hole, falling into place like snow. A task this small is almost no effort at all; he barely even notices himself using his powers. He finishes it off with a shaping gesture, creating the iconic snowball shape that the treat is so well known for. “Snow cone,” he says, holding it out with a flourish.

“Great!” Cole says. “It looks- oh, huh.”

Oh, huh? That is not the correct response. “Is something wrong with it?”

“No, no!” Cole says, flashing him a smile, but it looks- guilty. How odd. “It’s just, um, a little- sharp?”

“Sharp,” Zane repeats.

He looks closer at the cone in Cole’s hands. Now that he’s paying attention, Cole is right; the ice isn’t nearly as fine as it should be. In fact, it’s scarcely fine at all. Were someone to try and eat it, they would surely cut their tongue.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Cole says, before smiling nervously again. “But hey, that’s okay! I’m sure the syrup will melt it down-”

“That is quite alright, Cole,” Zane says, taking the malformed cone from his hands and tossing it in the trash. “I can make another one.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I just need to fine-tune it.”

He takes another and tries again. Focuses on softer, smaller particles, on the feeling of new, powdered snow, on flakes and dust instead of shards and points.

It does not work.

Twin frowns of confusion stare down at the health code violation sitting in Zane’s hands. If anything, this one is even more of a danger to the mouth than the first. It nearly resembles a morning star.

“Uh, Zane-”

“I can do it,” he insists.

Again, he tries, and again, he fails. The others have started to quiet down- have they noticed? Have they seen his failure? Are they cataloging this, dedicating this to memory as an example of Zane’s loss of control? First master, he can’t make a snow cone, how is he supposed to-

“Zane? I think you’re, uh…”

He blinks. His whole hand is covered in ice.

“I need to go,” he says quickly, getting up from his chair with deadly precision.

“Hey, wait, it’s okay-”

“I’m sorry.” His voice feels like it’s coming from anywhere except his mouth as he repeats. “I need to go.”

He goes. Nobody stops him. And when he comes back, nobody asks, and he doesn’t tell.

_____

His father laughs. “But, Zane, you’re perfect. I could never make you any better than you already are.”

_____

Staring at the spare sheets of metal, Zane almost does something impulsive. Impulsive and incredibly stupid. He probably would have, had Pixal not come down to the cave at that very moment.

“Are you in need of repairs?” she asks, blunt in a way that Zane has always appreciated. The others like to pad their words, braiding their sentences with inside jokes and colloquialisms that disguise their true meanings, making them difficult to parse through. He’s gotten better at it over the years, but it will never be easy. Pixel is the only one whose words have never given him grief.

“No,” he replies.

“You are holding the blowtorch.”

So he is. He doesn’t have a lie prepared for that, so he simply shrugs, unwilling to set it back down on the table.

“An alteration, then?” Pixal asks. “Was there a new feature you wanted to incorporate?”

“No.” Not exactly. It certainly wouldn’t be a feature, not by most people’s terms. It would, however, make him feel better.

He can’t see her from where he’s facing the equipment and supply shelves, but he can feel her gaze bore into him. Their time spent inhabiting the same physical form has given the both of them something of a sixth sense for each other. “Then what is it?” Her steps come up beside him in less than a second. “I would hope that you had a plan before using that.”

Another shrug.

“Zane,” she says. Her voice is tight. “You’re worrying me.”

This is enough to get him to sigh, releasing his hold on the blowtorch and setting it down. “My apologies,” he says. “It was not what it looked like.”

“What did it look like?”

This is a trick, one that, had he not been prepared for it, he might have fallen for. Instead of answering, he says, “I was merely considering a modification. An impulsive thought, nothing more.”

She nods in his periphery. “What sort of modification?” she asks. Her fingers skim the sheet metal that rests on the shelf, gloved hands stark against the silver sheen. “Perhaps we could refine it to something less impulsive.”

“I do not think so,” Zane replies honestly, “though I appreciate the thought.”

“You seem reluctant to share what it was that you wanted to do.”

“Yes,” he agrees. Not because he wants to, but because she’s right.

“And your reasoning for this?”

The blowtorch looks so tantalizing, sitting there on the wooden table. Frost turns to dew on its handle- he hadn’t realized his hands had begun to chill.

“Zane,” Pixal pushes, grasping his arm with a steady hand. “I do not wish to push you, but your silence is very disconcerting. Please talk to me.”

“I-” He grits his teeth, skirts his eyes away from hers. The unwavering green glow is too much, all of the sudden. But she’s right. He knows she’s right. He’s never wanted to make her worry, never wanted to make her sad. Now here he is, making her feel both of those things, and he is powerless to stop it. Responding with the truth will only make it worse.

Perhaps he can curate the truth. Cut it down to something more palatable, serve appetizers of information until she is satisfied, and he can avoid discussing the main course.

“I wanted…to cover my ports.”

“Your ports?” Her eyebrows raise. “But you need those to plug into things. Not to mention if you need a fast-recharge, or a system diagnostic scan.”

“I know,” he sighs, turning his back from the table and shelves, ripping the blowtorch out of his sight. “That is why I said it was an impulsive thought.”

Silver eyelashes flutter as she filters through files only she can see. “I am sure we could come up with some sort of removable covers,” she states. Most likely, she is skimming his blueprints; he hadn’t thought to do that himself, of course, but she would.

“That is not…” enough, he wants to say, but saying that could prompt her to ask more questions, and he wants to end this as quickly as possible. He wishes he hadn’t picked up that blowtorch, or better yet, hadn’t walked down here in the first place.

“Is not what?” Her eyes snap back open. “Did you have something else in mind…?”

“No. As I said, it was impulsive. I had nothing in mind.”

Most days, he is incredibly happy that Pixal is an android like himself. It makes him feel more…stable, less alone, to have someone who knows the inner workings of being robotic. Accepting they may be, his friends will never understand what it is like to have the AI of an android past reading about it in manuals, just as he will never understand having the brain of a human past reading books on biology and psychology. Pixal is the only one here who’s mind works the same as his own.

Which is why this is one of the rare days that he wishes Pixal were human like the rest of them. Her mind works too quick, memories too clear. Nothing gets past her for too long, and he is a fool for hoping otherwise.

“You wanted something permanent,” Pixal says with a breath, eyes widening in realization.

“No, I-” He wrestles with an answer. No isn’t right, but yes isn’t either. It would be a major loss of function if he’d actually gone through with the stupid idea, considering how many times his ability to access technology by being plugged in has been useful for missions, not to mention his own day-to-day upkeep and scans. Actually sealing off his ports like his hands had itched to would’ve been ridiculously dense.

And yet, his hands itch for the torch’s handle.

“Control, then?” Pixal inquires. She’s shifted the blowtorch towards her side of the table while he’d been caught in his internal debate, behind her arm in an unsubtle display of distrust. “You wish to determine when and where people have access to them.”

“I…suppose.”

That is probably more like what he’d been after, if he thinks about it. Or at least, the conclusion he would have come to had he stopped himself on his own and had not been interrupted by Pixal’s entrance.

Her metallic brows furrow deeply. “That would require a great deal of restructuring,” she says slowly, trailing her eyes over his face and body in a way that makes his skin crawl. “It… could be done without having to create an entirely new shell, but there would be a lot of major adjustments.”

“I am aware,” he sighs. And he is- the moment she’d suggested the idea of control, of giving himself the ability to open and close his ports, he’d begun running the logistics. Such a simple sounding idea has far more to it than cosmetics. There would have to be major changes made to certain structural areas of both his shell and his interior, to accommodate for the space and machinery of reappliable coverings that sink seamlessly back into skin. Not only that, but this new function would have to be programmed into him; this would not be so easy as learning by observation.

This is all distracting from the fact that, no matter how comforting the ability would prove to be, it would be entirely useless in solving the problem that started this in the first place.

“What prompted this?” Pixal asks again, gentler this time. The hand on his arm turns soft in its grip.

“I…”

(Commencing system diagnostic. Do not remove data cable. Data interruption may result in system failure and/or memory loss. Commencing diagnostic.

Ten percent complete.

Twenty percent complete.

Thirty percent complete.

Forty percent complete.

Fifty percent complete.

Sixty percent complete.

Seventy percent complete.

Eighty percent complete.

Ninety percent complete-

Rebooting. All systems online.

Memory cache empty.)

He eases his arm out of her hold, and ignores the chill that begins to spread where her hand had been. “I was simply fed up with the amount of scans Jay makes me do,” he says lightly. “Plugging myself into that computer every day is not as fun as it looks.”

As he walks away from the workbench and towards the elevator, Pixal purses her lips, clearly frustrated with his evasion but unwilling to lose her temper. Part of him wishes she would. Part of him wishes someone would be angry with him, just this once.

But she blows air out through her nose, deflating, and regains her composure before he can even blink.

“Perhaps next time, communicate this discomfort and leave the blowtorch to me,” she says, coming to walk beside him, falling easily into pace. “And now that you’ve done so, we can think of options that do not involve impulsive welding.”

“That would be a good plan.”

It wouldn’t be, not really. His hands still itch.

_____

The words are kind, though they do little to mollify his discomfort. “But I see no reason for me to have a memory switch,” he argues. “I happen to like my life, and I don’t want to ever forget you again.”

_____

Zane would consider himself a fan of the arts.

Due to his robotic nature, he is able to replicate artistic ability rather well, but he understands greatly how different it is for most people. Not that he can simply download abilities- information, yes, and functions, but muscle memory is muscle memory. He can download every tutorial in the realm on how to draw an eye, but if he’s never lifted a pencil, it will still be difficult. However, it is undeniable that being an android gives him a steep learning curve.

This is why artistry never fails to impress him. As he has lived with his own AI his entire life, he cannot imagine producing such incredible artistry without the assistance of his inhumanly fast processing. A piece of art is a physical representation of humanity’s powerful abilities of dedication. To commit your life to a craft is to bear the burden of years of dissatisfaction before one finally even begins to find peace with their work. Zane finds this gorgeously daunting. Art is, in his mind, the indomitable human will personified.

Which is why he is enormously bothered with himself for hating this particular painting.

“Admiring the mural?” Wu says, voice carrying from somewhere behind him.

“Yes, sensei,” Zane lies. “The brushwork is extraordinary.”

It’s not that he hates the entire mural. Many of its pieces depict moments of triumph- moments that, despite the fear at the time, ultimately carry happy memories above all else. Because they’d saved the day, hadn’t they? All these events, all those months, all the fighting and training and powering through just to reach the next battle, they all meant something, in the end. They were all achievements to be proud of.

It’s just this one. The one he’s right in front of.

“It is, isn’t it,” Wu muses, stroking his beard, as he often does. “The artist did a truly wonderful job capturing these moments.”

“Yes,” Zane agrees.

“And yet you are not satisfied.”

“What-?” He whips his head towards his sensei, eyes blown wide in their sockets, only to find Wu still gazing idly at the mural. No judgment is apparent on his face, but, as they have all come to realize over the years, he is very good at hiding things. “Sensei, I don’t…”

“Your mind is ill at ease,” Wu says, tilting his head delicately towards Zane. “Tell me, what troubles you so much that you must take it out on the mural?”

“Nothing,” he replies dumbly.

Wu hums, not disappointed, but not accepting, either. His disbelief is clearer than Zane would like.

Old instinct bristles in his chest, bitter and chilled like bones frozen over. Phantom weight settles in his palm. His staff practically begs to be aimed at the disrespectful interloper at his side. It would be so easy to command his ice, teach this person a lesson. All it would take is one flick of his wrist.

He tamps this feeling down with such ferocity that any hope he’d had left of Wu trusting his word vanishes all at once.

“I would have thought this would make you proud,” Wu says, trailing his fingers over the deep purple paints. “Though, I can understand a certain level of discomfort.”

“...I suppose,” Zane says. Unease churns in his gut. Discomfort is an understatement, though he restrains from saying so. This section of the mural, this bruise on their wall; to him, all it stands for is a reminder of his own shattered legacy. There are quite a few levels of discomfort. “I did not expect this to be part of the display.”

“Really?” Wu seems surprised. “Why so?”

“It was not…” He hesitates, unsure how to proceed. Truthfully, it’s not so much that he hadn’t expected it as he hadn’t wanted it. As soon as the first few chapters of their battles had been sketched out on the wall, he’d known with a dreadful certainty what was coming next. Vainly, he’d hoped that it would at least be pictured as more of a group endeavor.

Instead, he’d watched as the artist’s pencil scratched his own body onto the wall, face-to-face with the revival of the Overlord.

“It was simply an end to what had already been started,” he finishes. It’s flimsy, but it’s the best he can come up with. “Lloyd is the one who defeated the Overlord.”

“The first time,” Wu says, eyeing him oddly. “Your sacrifice was nothing to sneeze at.”

“I am simply saying it was not so impressive as to deserve its own space on the wall.” He shifts uncomfortably in place, leaves crackling under his feet. It will be autumn soon. The end of another year, fast approaching. Autumn, then winter. “They already erected a statue of me.”

Wu grimaces. Unlike Zane, this appears to be a reaction of grief, not embarrassment or aversion. “It was both a symbol of your heroism and a memorial,” he explains softly. “We…we weren’t sure how to handle your loss.”

Cold gathers on the back of Zane’s neck.

“I do not regret my actions,” he says.

“Nor do I think that you should. We all simply wish it hadn’t fallen onto your shoulders.”

His shoulders, his shoulders, his empty, unburdened shoulders, lacking the weight of punishment, of consequence. All because everyone sees him like this. Like a hero. Like some kind of savior.

That moment had been less than two minutes of selflessness. Zane has been a monster for sixty years.

“...Zane?”

Has the temperature dropped? Is there snow on the ground? The cold on the back of his neck spreads further, down his spine and up the back of his skull, and he wonders, not for the first time, how much of this is all in his head.

“I am…sorry, Sensei,” Zane says, words thick on his unwieldy tongue. “It is just- embarrassing to me, I think.”

If Wu hadn’t believed him before, he certainly doesn’t now- but Wu is not Pixal, nor is he one of the other ninja. He will not force Zane to speak of things he clearly doesn’t want to. Not unless it gets to some kind of detrimental point, of course, which will not happen. Zane will not let that happen. “Fair enough,” Wu says. “Unfortunately, heroism like that often leads to the lauding of praise that can be difficult for someone as modest as you to bear.”

Modesty. Is that what they all think the problem is?

“I’m not sure I would call it that,” he replies awkwardly.

“So are the words of the modest.”

Wu chuckles, and Zane does so as well, on cue as is expected of him in the moment. He is endlessly thankful for Wu letting the conversation end there. The frost gathering in his palms is already too much, and he is unsure how much control he has left after what has already been discussed. Leaving the mural alone and continuing his work on adjusting to the warmth of the day is much more worth his time than any more words spent on this topic.

If the city and his family want to continue mourning the living, then so be it. Perhaps he can consider it his second consequence.

_____

“Don't worry, my son. We will both never forget.”

_____

Memory works differently for androids than for humans, as it turns out. This is a fact that had felt confusing and isolating when he had been younger and unaware, and had proved quite eye-opening once he’d discovered his origins. Human minds are vast and endlessly fascinating- they are also unfit to contain every ounce of information at once. Memory is relegated to ‘conscious’ and ‘subconscious’, details become muddied and lost to time, and things long thought forgotten will appear in dreams night after night.

Zane’s mind does not work like that. His memory is perfect; quite literally, as he makes an actual, physical record of his experiences simply due to his multifunction as a recording device. In the language of computers, his memories act as files that he can pull up at any point in time and recall with clarity. Due to his express processing speed, this operation occurs in what looks to humans anywhere from instantaneously to a mere few seconds.

Of course, he, too, experiences memories within dreams. It is a human aspect of himself that he used to be rather fond of. Now, he is less so.

He is thrust into wakefulness in a blind panic. Most times, he is capable of waking with little more than a twitch of his eyelids- as of late, he is more prone to catapulting up in his bed, heaving breaths that are unnecessary yet compulsory nonetheless.

His fists are white-knuckling a frostridden blanket, crunching unpleasantly under shaking fingers. The rest of his room has received much the same treatment as the blanket- his walls liquidate the moon’s reflection, as they are coated in thin sheets of ice, and his bed has become less of a bed and more of an icicle. Excess and unconscious use of his powers never used to be a problem before, but before was a long time ago, and he’s had many years of excess.

The dream was not so much a dream as it was a memory. That is what most of his nightmares are, nowadays, with small alterations from time to time that usually amount to worse endings to his time in the Never-realm. Not this time, though- this time, no added horror was needed. His own actions were ample fodder.

It was his raze of the Formling village. One of his earlier atrocities; he’d already committed several acts of violence by that point, but Vex had wanted to wait to take them on. Wait until Zane was stronger, he understands now, wait until the scroll had infected him so thoroughly that there was no chance of his mind fighting back, but at the time, Vex had explained it away as political strategy.

How foolish he’d been.

Rescinding the ice feels more burdensome than it should, but he does so regardless, because he cannot stand looking at a frozen room for any longer than he has to. He’d consider it another one of his punishments, but physical reminders such as this bring to mind memories and thoughts that he cannot allow himself to stew in, should he lose himself once more. The nightmares are punishment enough.

They’ve been getting worse, though. Noticeably so. The others haven’t seemed to take note of much else than his bouts of ice, but Pixal has commented more than once on how slow his processing speed has been as of late.

“It took you two seconds to locate that information,” she’d pointed out, just earlier today when Nya had requested the schematics for one of their land-bikes she’d made a few months ago. Kindly, Pixel had refrained from saying anything until Nya had walked out of earshot, but she hadn’t been kind enough to let it go. “Your normal timeframe for information of that caliber is 0.67 seconds. Are you feeling alright?”

“I am well,” he’d assured her, waving off her concern. “Lately, I have been trying to respond with more accurate human timing.”

“That seems unprecedented.”

“Am I not prone to the unprecedented?”

It had been enough to stop her from prying then, but it won’t be for long.

Things cannot continue like this. Just as humans need sleep, machines need time to be turned off, or even shut down. He can last longer than a human can, but weeks on end of near-uninterrupted time on is taking its toll. At this rate, he will cease being useful to the team in less than a week’s time, will progress to detrimental in two.

A thought occurs to him- the nightmarish memories are what continue to wake him. He could just…put them away.

Another difference between human memories and androids; humans can lock away memories, but it is a long process, one that takes a great deal of repetition and repression, and is difficult to undo once it has been done. Androids are different. Just as memories are like files that can be called upon immediately and recalled in perfect detail, they can also be filed away. Deleted, even. Filing them away simply locks them in something of an encrypted file, but deleting involves offloading the files entirely. This can be incredibly efficient for freeing up space- the only con is that once a memory has been put away or deleted, it restricts all of the memory, so no detail remains. Humans remember things in fragments; with androids, it’s all or nothing.

Two options present themselves- putting the memories away, or shutting himself off completely each night. Shutting down could be precarious, considering the difference between sleep mode and total shut-down. Unlike sleep mode, he cannot be ‘woken’ from his powered down state, and will be rendered completely immobile until turned back on. Which is another issue in itself; he’d have to get someone to turn him back on, or install some sort of timer…like a long-term restart, maybe?

Putting away the memories would be useful, and would assure at least sixty years worth of nightmares would be inaccessible, but he feels immediately uneasy at the idea of doing so. The memories are awful- horrible, burdening recollections, decades of lies in his ears and ice in his hands- but they are also deserved. He’s already been denied any consequences from every other avenue, so these treacherous souvenirs of code serve as his only true sentence. If he must relive his crimes each and every night, then so be it. He owes it to the people he hurt to remember what he’s done.

But therein lies the contradiction; the memories are his punishment, but now that he is back, he has the dual obligation to be as useful as possible to his teammates. If retaining the memories is cutting into his efficiency, then he is not upholding his pledge, but if he chooses to put them away, then he is not serving his victims. Both cannot be true at once.

He resolves to try the powering down method first. Setting the timer is relatively easy, and once that is settled, he shuts himself off.

And he wakes up.

As predicted, the method worked- up at a reasonable time, functions already beginning to stabilize, and no terrible disasters occurred overnight. Having had a successful attempt, he tries again the following evening, and receives the same results. It works better than anticipated; already, his processing speed is back up to par, and his functionality is steadily returning back to normal. Using this method, he might even reach a new peak.

So he does it again the next night. He shuts himself off.

_

And he wakes up.

_

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes up.

__

And he wakes-

“Zane!”

Someone is powering him on. Immediately, his internal clock tells him that it is two hours and thirty-six minutes earlier than his timer is set, and even his improved processing speed has trouble keeping up with why.

Starting with the person yelling his name is probably the best course of action. “...Nya?” he says, blinking his optical sensors into focus. Sure enough, it’s Nya’s face in his, much too close for comfort and set with wide, panicked eyes.

“Oh thank god,” she breathes. Her forehead drops onto his clavicle, and all at once, the air seems to exit her body, leaving her deflated and light with relief. “You’re- you’re okay, I thought-”

“Why would I not be?” he asks. “What happened?”

The question has her tightening her grip on his arms, and she inhales shakily through her teeth, pulling her head back up so as to meet his gaze. “There was an earthquake,” she starts, “a really bad one, and- and we all got outside, but you weren’t there, so I came in to look for you-”

“You? Why not Cole?”

“He and Pixal are trying to stabilize the monastery,” she explains quickly, before continuing her recount. “But I got to your room, and you were off, like, completely off, like when Jay and I do your scans, or all those times you’d needed repairs ‘cause you’d almost died, and there was a bunch of stuff on you-”

“Stuff?”

“I got it off, but-”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Zane!” She’s gone from panicked to angry in under a second. He’d be more impressed by the rapid switch were it not directed at himself. “What were you doing? Did you- lose power, or something?”

He shakes his head. “I was powered down,” he explains. “I have a timer set-”

“A timer?”

“So that I wake up each morning.” When she doesn’t respond, he continues awkwardly with, “It’s been working well so far.”

There are certain phrases that Zane has never quite been able to understand. Metaphors, idioms, none of them come naturally to him. Perhaps this is due to his nature as an android- computer coding is literal, and thus, so is he. It could also be something specific to himself, as his father might not have known many, or used many, and he simply had never acclimated to them. It might not even be related to his father; perhaps he, as a person, just has difficulty understanding such things.

Regardless of the why, there is a certain phrase that he’s never been able to understand, and only now does it finally become clear. Nya’s silence is truly deafening.

“...Nya?” he asks, hesitant, as he does not want to anger her further, but he also cannot tell what she is thinking at all. Other than the blatant, tangible fury etched into her face, of course. That, he can tell quite well.

Her eyes close tightly as she takes a deliberate breath through her nose. “How long have you been doing this?” she asks, annunciating every syllable.

“About two weeks now.”

“And why have you been doing this?”

“I’ve been-” He winces, unsure how to answer without lying. If he confesses about the nightmares, then she’ll ask what they’re about, and if she asks that, then she’ll feel obligated to comfort him, when there is nothing to comfort. How could he possibly force her to do such a thing? Comfort him over his penance?

“You’ve been…?” she says expectantly, raising a brow.

“There are very loud birds outside my window,” he explains, pulling a half-truth from the back of his mind. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping through the night as of late. Complete shut-downs solve this issue.”

“Birds,” she repeats. She doesn’t sound like she believes him at all.

“Yes.” Again, a half-truth. There are loud birds outside his window, and he has been having trouble sleeping through the night. It is up to her if her brain connects the dots, like human brains tend to do.

After a few beats of what Jay would call a staring contest, Nya finally sighs, slumping off of Zane’s chest to sit back on her heels. “Okay, sure, fine. Birds. Whatever. You don’t want to tell me, that’s okay.”

“I didn’t-”

“Look, Zane, whatever’s keeping you up- you can’t just power off like that.”

He blinks. “Why not?”

“Look at this place!” she bursts out, spreading her arms wide in reference to the rest of the room. Following her direction, he frowns, taking note of the multiple hazards on his floor that have fallen from his desk and shelves. The few framed photos he owns are askew. One of them, a frame he normally keeps at his bedside of the entire family, has fallen, and the pieces of glass surrounding it tell him that it’s shattered.

Her eyes land on the photo along with Zane’s. “You got lucky,” she says, “the damage wasn’t as bad in the rooms. But the training area and the walkways are all sorts of messed up. A few of the columns are broken- that’s why Pixal and Cole are out there, they’re holding up a roof section- and there’s just, yknow, a lot of…” Waving her hands in limp circles does little to convey what she means, but she gives no clarification. “What I mean is- what if something had happened to you?”

“Nothing happened to me,” Zane points out.

“Yeah, this time. But what about next time? What if someone breaks in while you’re off? What if there’s a fire? You can’t just be alone, essentially dead, with no way to wake you up, and nobody else knows that you’re off-” She cuts herself off with a sharp breath, clapping her hands together like a prayer. “Zane. If you’re having trouble sleeping, we will figure something out. But you can’t do this again.”

His heart splinters in his chest. But why not, he wants to say, petulant whine building on his tongue, why not? It’s not fair. This is the only way to both function correctly and pay his dues. His victims deserve that much, since nobody will allow him to pay for more. It’s not fair.

Punishment isn’t about being fair, though.

“Alright,” he agrees, pushing himself up on his palms. “I’m sorry. Truly, I did not mean to worry you.”

A grin cracks on her face. “I know you didn’t, ya’ big lug,” she says, landing a soft fist on the crown of his head. “But you did! So quit it, okay?”

He lets his own grin form, even as his stomach sinks. “Okay,” he says. “I hope you will assist in finding something to plug my windows, though.”

“Or maybe your ears? Ever heard of earplugs?”

“You make a good point.”

Punishment isn’t about being fair. If the others don’t want him powering down, then he will not power down. Maybe, once his functionality decreases far enough to be detrimental, he won’t even need to worry about the contradiction anymore.

Maybe that would be for the best regardless. Under his fingers, frost is already beginning to form.

_____

His father comes to stand behind him at his place by the window, laying a hand gingerly on his shoulder. “I’m…glad you found me,” he says.

_____

Today is a difficult day.

“Would you like me to accompany you?” Pixel asks, gentle inflection most assuredly purposeful. Tonal control is far easier to do as an android.

Zane shakes his head. “I appreciate the thought,” he replies as he squeezes her hand. “But I would be more comfortable alone.”

“Of course. Do not hesitate to call should you need me, though. Or anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“You won’t need us, or won’t call?”

She doesn’t ask it like a joke, but he laughs anyway.

In his time in the Never-realm, he’d missed this day sixty-three times. To make up for this, he has brought with him sixty-four things to say, the extra one being today’s. The tradition is a bit strange- he’s not even sure why he’d gone with it, if he’s being honest- but it’s what Cole had said he does for his mother, so Zane, too, will do it for his father.

“Just…something to tell her? Like what?”

“I dunno. Usually I try to think of something big that happened that year, but, uh, before being a ninja, there were a lot of years without a lotta big. I just needed something so I wasn’t standing there, staring with my mouth shut.”

Approaching the stone slab has never been harder than it is now. Even the very first time, his feet were lighter than this.

“Hello, father,” Zane says quietly.

The grave stares back at him impassively.

“I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long.” Pulling out the small notebook in his back pocket proves to be nearly as difficult as dragging his feet over- his hands have begun to shake against his will. “I prepared a list of notable things to tell you, like before. I hope you prefer this to the quiet.”

More silence. His father’s grave is a flat slat in the ground, not a thick headstone like some of the others. The etchings of his name have begun to clog with dirt.

“I will go in order,” Zane starts, opening the book. “One- shortly after my last visit to you, the city came into peril again. Oni broke into our realm, and tried to take over Ninjago.” He wrinkles his nose. “Did you know what oni are?”

No answer, of course.

“I will assume that you did.” He’s not sure why he assumes this, but it feels right. His father was very well-read. “Two- to defeat the oni, we were forced to enlist the help of Garmadon.” Last time he’d visited his father, the fact he’d brought with him was that Garmadon had been summoned from the Departed realm, with very little of who he’d once been left. “We do not know where he is now. I hope he is attempting to regain his memories.”

Did his father ever think about what would’ve happened had Zane not discovered what he is? Had he not found his memory switch, recovered their time together?

Realistically, he probably assumed that he would spend the rest of his life on that island, but Zane knows that he had hoped to meet again. How different would that have been, a meeting where Zane knew nothing of himself, of his inhumanity? Of the fact that it was his father who took that from him?

The notebook trembles in his hand. “Three- we had quite a lot of downtime after that battle. Sensei was not pleased with our lack of discipline.”

At least they’d been happy then. Idle, but happy.

How long has it been since he’s been happy?

“Four- after a few months in this state, I began having dreams.” Frost spreads along the page, but it does not matter. The notebook is largely for aesthetics; he remembers all sixty-four points perfectly. “Do you remember the dreams I would have sometimes? Did you know what they were?”

He’s not sure how his father would have known, but then again, he’s not sure how his father did anything. Even now with his new body, he still hasn’t achieved some of the functionalities that he’d originally been built with.

“Five- in searching for something to do, we accidentally released an old foe of Wu’s from an ancient pyramid. Her name is Aspheera, a serpentine sorceress.”

The book trembles so badly in his hands that he fears he might drop it.

“Six- she tried to destroy the city, searching for a- a lost scroll. She failed.”

Grass crunches beneath his feet, and the gravestone begins to freeze.

“Seven- there were two scrolls. She got one, and used it to…” Finish the list. He has an obligation to finish the list. “She used it to send me into another realm. Have you- have you heard of the Never-realm?”

Of course he hadn’t. Wu barely knew of it, why would his father?

“Eight- I was there alone, and I lost- I lost-”

What would his father say, if he knew what he’d done?

He falls to his knees, grass little more than ice beneath him. The notebook has long since fallen out of his grasp. “I tried,” he whispers, “I tried, when I rebuilt myself- when I died- I removed my own memory switch. Why couldn’t you do that for me? Why did you build me with one?”

No answer.

“I tried to make sure it would never happen again, but it did happen again, and again, but this time I-” He grinds his molars into dust in his mouth. Unconsciously, his fingers scrabble for purchase in the etchings of the grave, but all they find is a slick sheet of ice.

Is the temperature truly dropping, or is it all in his head? How out of control has he become?

Vex would call this a shameless display of weakness. Vex would also praise how deadly sharp the shards at his knees have gotten.

“How did you live with it?” Zane begs, tears finally spilling over. These tears do not deserve to be shed- not when his victims’ tears were frozen in place, never allowed to trail down their cheeks. Catharsis was not an option for those facing the end of his staff. “You thought yourself a monster- I agreed- and for what? Building weapons, machines? Taking my memories of you? Building me like this?” His tears are forcefully stopped; a useful function, one he’d thought of himself. “I am more of a monster than you’d ever been, father.”

Sixty-three years of a one-hundred and nine year lifespan. Nearly two thirds of that time, spent as a genocidal tyrant. He is more Ice Emperor than Zane.

No amount of good he has ever done and will ever do could make up for his actions, and yet he trudges forth regardless. Why?

“You built me to protect those who cannot protect themselves,” Zane says robotically. “But I failed. And now nobody will let me pay for it.”

The ice is so thick now that it nearly covers his father’s name completely. Julien blinks through in sluggish tones, the name he’d been gifted, the name that had been taken, the name he’d adopted once more. Zane Julien is not the Ice Emperor. He refuses to let that blood stain his father’s name; his father had his own bloodstains to bear.

“If I continue like this, I will no longer be of use to my family. But if I put the memories away, I fail to remember the ones I have hurt. What am I supposed to do?”

It’s very odd, then. He can almost hear what his father would say. Perhaps due to how often he’d heard it before. The same thing, every time.

Protect those who cannot protect themselves.

“...I will not delete them,” Zane says softly. “Never. They deserve that much.”

But his father is right. The people of the Never-realm are not here, and the people of Ninjago are. And to these people, somehow, he is a hero. A savior.

As much as the very concept brings bile to his throat, he realizes, with a sudden clarity, that this is the burden he’s been looking for- this is the penance he must pay.

They want a savior, and so he will be a savior. And to be a savior, he must be fully functional.

He puts the memories away.

Something…lifts, for lack of a better word. His shoulders feel lighter, his head becomes clearer. Strictly speaking, he still knows what he’s done- it’s all listed there, an itemized list in his files, but he can’t see it anymore. Frozen eyes and gaping mouths no longer flash behind his eyelids when he closes them. Vex’s breath ceases to ghost the shell of his ear.

It’s just…gone, like nothing. A flip of a switch.

“That was unbecoming of me,” Zane says, shifting into a cross-legged seat instead of the haphazard kneel he’d been in. The air has returned to a temperate seventy-four, but the grass is still frozen and the grave is still coated, so he works on calling it back. “I apologize. Where was I?”

Unfortunately, the notebook is a bit soggy now, but that doesn’t matter. He still has the list in his head.

“Right, it was eight. Eight- I was there alone, and I’d lost my memory…”

_____

“...I’m glad you made me.”