Chapter Text
When Lloyd Garmadon awoke to sounds of screaming, his sluggish brain immediately summoned his father. His blood pumped furiously from within his veins as he sprang out of bed wearing only his boxers and charged towards his bedroom door. He wrenches it open and speeds down the hall, his hand reaching for the dagger he always kept on his person ever since he met her.
The screams grew nearer…the common room! The monastery was recently rebuilt to accommodate the ninja. The city had happily pitched in extra money to construct it after the ninja had saved the city from Garmadon’s invasion. But was that too soon? Had his father returned? These thoughts haunted Lloyd as he sprinted through the kitchen and to—
“What the heck?!”
Disheveled chairs and dirty laundry were strewn everywhere. Nya and Jay were in the middle of a fierce shouting match with Master Wu. Zane was sitting in a corner, typing furiously on a computer. Cole was standing next to Zane, observing the sight quietly and wincing as if it pained him to listen to it. There were dark bags beneath his eyes. And Kai…Kai was bawling his eyes out.
In the chaos, Lloyd instinctively searched for Pixal. He could always count on the female nindroid to be the most level-headed person in the room. However, to his surprise, she was absent. She had moved into the monastery with everyone else at Lloyd’s invitation and had spent almost all of her time here constructing vehicles, weapons, defenses, and transferring her Samurai X car and mech here.
“Where’s Pix?” Lloyd dared to ask Cole, the sanest-seeming person in the room.
“Oh, uh…she apparently left days ago.”
“What?!”
“Yeah…”
“Do you know why?”
Cole pointed one thumb behind him. Lloyd looked in that direction. He could not tell whether he was pointing at a specific person or not. Then, he realized he was gesturing at everyone else but Zane.
“Y’all can explain,” Cole said and he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Two Weeks Earlier
Pixal and Kai had never truly been friends. Sure, they had been friendly. Kai had felt particularly bad for advising Zane to ‘take her apart’ when she was under the control of the Overlord and so had made sure to ask her at times whether she would be okay in whatever dangerous situation they charged into next. But had they ever been ‘chummy’? Decidedly not.
Kai should have known she would be trouble. Heck, he even got a glimpse into it during the first month of knowing her when she “guided him” while following a group of nindroids transporting rocket fuel.
But no. Of course not.
Kai was never one to think ahead.
And so when Lloyd (though Kai assumed that Zane was the ultimate mastermind) invited Pixal to move in with them, Kai at first did not think anything of it.
And of course his short-term thinking would come back to bite him.
Over the course of a few weeks, Pixal would start to get on Kai’s nerves. She would wake up at 5 a.m. to work or whatever and therefore would beat Kai to the gym EVERY SINGLE MORNING. She took to building their vehicles and would leave little sticky notes on his dashboard saying things like:
Kai, please ensure to refuel your vehicle before battle to prevent future crises.
Kai, please ensure to reference the vehicle’s instruction manual (in the glove compartment) if you ever require assistance.
Kai, please inform me in advance if your vehicle requires repairs. It helps me a great deal. Thank you.
With each new note, Kai could feel his blood grow progressively hotter. Soon, it would boil. And then, he decided to “peek into” the other ninja’s vehicles to read their notes. While there were a few, there were nowhere near as many notes as in his car. Ever. And Zane’s notes in particular got under Kai’s skin.
Zane, thank you for repairing your helicopter after battle. That was very kind of you. In the future, however, I am happy to complete these repairs myself.
Zane, we must discuss incorporating more safety features to your vehicles to prioritize your health during battle. Please let me know when we can schedule a meeting.
And the final one was simply what looked to Kai to be a sketch of a sprinkle-less donut cut in two.
Zane had all of his notes laminated and taped to his dashboard so they could not be easily removed.
It was all too much.
This led to a series of arguments between the fire ninja and the new samurai. While the two were usually prone to verbal sparring, these instances were much more heated and frequent. At first, Pixal would cut in with her own biting remarks. But, after a while, the nindroid merely stood and scowled at Kai as he continued on his rants. Only when he paused did she ask, “Are you done? Good, because I need to get back to work.” And then she would shoulder past him and enter the elevator with her hands on her hips as it carried her into her workshop below.
It was usually something Pixal said that triggered him. Like when she was guiding him down the streets of Ninjago and she reminded him to activate his turn signal (I DON’T WANT TO TELL THE BAD GUYS WHERE I’M GOING IN A CAR CHASE, PIX). Or like when she told him to “be cautious” while thwarting an armed robbery of Ninjago City Bank (I’M ALWAYS CAREFUL, PIX). Or, the icing on top of the cake, when Pixal had asked him to “check his neural processing unit” after he made a decision she believed was his stupidest yet.
And that argument ended particularly horribly.
“You do not want me here?” Pixal had asked in a pause in Kai's yelling when he needed to catch his breath.
“Yes, leave!!!!” and so Pixal exited the room with a blank expression on her face.
“She’s sooo annoying!” Kai said to Nya one day. The siblings were with Cole and Jay in the common room playing Fist-to-Face 4. “It’s almost like she’s here to make me suffer.”
“Actually she’s here because she stole my Samurai X suit and everyone forgave her because she just happened to be Zane's lover.” At Cole’s gaping mouth and bulging eyes, she hastily added, “that was a joke of course.”
“She’s a competent warrior, not just, you know, Zane’s sweetheart.” Cole cleared his throat. “Actually, Zane never told me if they were dating…are they dating? Or are they still crushing on each other silently?”
“You know what, Nya, you’re right,” Kai said, ignoring Cole. She doesn’t do anything around here anyway. She’s only here because Zane likes her.”
“Kai, Kai!” Nya waved her hands in his face. “That was a joke! I was joking! KAI!”
“That didn’t sound like a joke,” Cole said.
“Wait, I think he has a point…” Jay paused the game and turned to the group. “I mean, she just showed up here out of the blue…she didn’t have to earn her place here or anything.”
“No, Lloyd just invited her,” Kai said. “He didn’t tell anyone else about it, though.”
“But she needed a home, right?” Cole said. There was a sinking feeling in his chest. While he didn’t know Pix very well, she always seemed like a calming presence to him. Cole was an introvert at heart and Pix seemed to be one as well. He remembered how she always greeted him with a kind “good morning” from the computer when he arose early to exercise on the Bounty. How she would calmly give him driving directions on missions. How her voice would reassure his buddy, Zane, like nothing else would. She was quiet, sure, but that didn’t mean she did not deserve to be here. She was a good warrior. They had all seen Samurai X in action…so then why did they question her now when “he” was revealed to be her?
“Lloyd didn’t want Pix living in a dusty cave by herself,” Cole continued. “Besides, she’s a good fighter. You’ve all seen her.”
“Yeah, when she shot down the Bounty!”
“Kai, that’s not fair. She was being controlled by Harumi…” Nya said.
“Using your stolen Samurai X gear!! I know you said ‘it’s hers now’ and everything, but come on, Nya. You were obsessed with finding it for ages. You even just said it a minute ago!”
“I…I…I’m over it!” Nya crossed her arms, glaring at her brother. Kai huffed.
“I’m sure you are.”
“Guys, calm down!” Cole said.
“Yeah, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Jay said. “I mean, she doesn’t eat and we’re not using the spare bedroom anyway so she isn’t really detracting value.”
“But is she adding value?” Kai said.
“Well…” Jay hesitated. “Zane likes her. He’s happier when she’s around…”
“And that’s it?” Nya said. Her voice sounds hollow, absent of her usual biting anger.
“Uh, I’m sure she does other stuff too…”
“She builds things,” Nya said. “She can be useful.”
“But she’s boring at best and annoying at worst!” Kai said.
“Well, I don’t agree on the ‘annoying’ part, but she is kind of bland,” Jay said. “She like doesn’t have a personality. I always wondered why Zane was so interested in her.”
Cole rushed to defend her and Nya wracked her brain to find valuable information about Pixal. Kai fumed and fumed. All were so deeply ensnared in their argument, that when Lloyd entered saying, “I’ve got popcorn!” they nearly jumped three feet in the air.
If the ninjas had turned to look behind them at any point in their conversation, they would see a flash of silver hair and green eyes peeking out from behind the door of the electrical power console before slipping out the door that Lloyd had left ajar in his wake.
***
By the next morning, Pixal had placed all of her possessions in a little purple duffel bag, left a note for Zane on his nightstand, and left the building. The only one who noticed her departure was Master Wu, (whom she thought was deep in meditation). The old man watched her figure disappear down the long, sloping stairway connecting the monastery to the wider world. He felt saddened to see her go but was not entirely surprised. Since the nindroid had revealed herself to the ninja, Wu had thought she seemed like a stag cautious among a cluster of wild dogs, quick to appeasement but also guarded, unsurprised if they charged with their teeth.
Poor little thing, the old master thought. He told himself to talk to Zane about this later. He was the only one who has ever managed to coax her out of her shell.
Oh, the irony, he would think two weeks in the future. She was not the one I should have worried about. Compared to his students, Pixal was far younger, yes. But she was also far more mature. Far wiser than her years, even more so than Lloyd, Zane, and Cole at times.
Oh, irony is biting.