Chapter Text
Nya
It had been over two weeks since the incident. She had taken his hand, and no one ever found that teapot in the first place. So everything had to be okay now, right? None of the events she remembered existed in this timeline.
Additionally, the News moved on to the next victim; the Ninja’s popularity was fading day by day, giving them freedom to leave the monastery without cameras tracking their every move.
Of course, they are still public figures; Kai is pretty much trying to keep that title, posting regularly on Chirp, but that’s nothing compared to the invasion of privacy the media committed a while ago.
It’s not like they were forgotten. Most of the time, they would be stopped on the street for a picture or an autograph, and they had active fan bases , but again, it was down to a normal level now; it was the price of being heroes.
Furthermore, no villain had emerged except from small gangs occasionally. That gave them enough time to work on other things as well, including bringing P.I.X.A.L.’s physical form back. Life wasn’t that bad, but nightmares of the Djinn would still disrupt her in the middle of the night.
Zane
Zane, Jay, and Nya were spending a lot of their free time down in the lab trying to build the female nindroid a proper body. So far, great. They inserted her neural drive onto the big screen to guide all three of them. Despite some corrections now and then, she seemed pretty satisfied.
The plan showed today would be the day, and nothing had disrupted the process so far.
“We are almost there, Zane; give me one minute.” Jay’s voice echoes in the room as he is desperately trying to extract half the power source from his chest. P.I.X.A.L. was designed for his measures, and so, no other battery can yet fuel her.
Sure, he has survived with a half-heart pretty well in the past, but with his new body, it is way harder to adjust. He’s exhausted and understands that there he’ll need more energy than the incomplete power source can provide.
Everything goes dark; the next thing he knows is silicone fingers tracing the seam connecting the pieces of metal on his cheek. The sound and visuals steadily return. Among the two individuals in the background. In his field of view, another person, a familiar one. And she smiles.
To his dismay, he’s too exhausted to stand up and show her his feelings, but his burden goes away when soft plastic connects with his artificial lips. No matter the material or the circumstances, P.I.X.A.L. really knows how to make his RAM malfunction and his CPU overheat. He melts at her touch, and all of a sudden, his energy levels rise.
He’d like to think it was her, but he could feel the wires connected to his body feeding electricity to his copper veins.
Nya popped that bubble between him, the other nindroid, and his thoughts. “If you are ready, I want to remind you about the schedule. Our guests will be arriving anytime now. These devices will keep you two awake before we find a better solution. It is rechargeable, and you can either connect it to a normal phone charger or ask Jay to do what he does best.” Turning his head down to a small box hanging from the hem of his pants, he smiles and holds P.I.X.A.L.’s hand tightly. They hop on their vehicles and go back to the monastery.
When they enter, Kai is cooking and telling Lloyd, who watches and helps, the steps out loud. Cole, on the other hand, is sitting at the table sketching something.
The green ninja takes notice of them and abandons what he’s doing. “Hey, how did it go-” He stopped by the time P.I.X.A.L. came into view, running towards her, hugging tightly and letting tears fall on his cheeks. Sobbing. He was a little kid after all, and I’d show in moments like this.
P.I.X.A.L. rubs his back until he calms down and turns to greet the others. Zane could feel warmth spreading through his body; he really missed her. “When will our guests most likely arrive?” Pix asks, and Cole looks at her with a stupid grin that reflects on his voice, “Hey there. Your father, in about half an hour, Skylor will probably be a bit late ‘cause of work. About Dareth, I can’t really know what he’s up to.”
The doorbell rings.
He makes an ‘I told you so’ face and steps outside; it is easy to guess who it is from the loud voice complaining.
Zane walks over to Kai. “Would you like any help?”
He looks at him with puppy eyes, focused enough to make little balls of dough. “Yes, please”
“How did you end up baking?”
“Skylor can bring us good food, so what’s the matter with making anything other than cookies?” Kai smiles a bit. Zane knew he could cook basic foods pretty well, but baking with friends was always more fun than cooking. He takes exactly 40 grams of dough and puts it on the tray.
Cole and Dareth enter the room. “How do you even climb all these stairs? Have you ever considered putting in an elevator?”
Sensei Wu, who just walked into the room, eyes him. “It’s about tradition; this monastery has existed for over a thousand years ,and we have to preserve it”
“And how does an elevator bother you? I don’t think a TV was here a thousand years ago”
“Hmm…”
“Please, Dareth, stop. If that’s the case, a TV was here a thousand years ago,” Jay said desperately, turning to look at Sensei Wu pleadingly.
The old man chuckles and looks at Kai and Cole, who also pay attention. “ I see… Jay, you’ll wash the dishes with Kai. Zane and Pixal, you are free today, and Nya, tidy up the Samurai X cave; you can use their help.” He points at Jay and Kai making a fuss over who gets to eat the remaining dough. “Lloyd, today I’ll need your help with something in the evening.” And the green one looks unhappy. Wu and Misako do their best to help Lloyd keep up with his age , which means doing extra schoolwork whenever there is a chance. It will probably be one of those times.
“Yes, Sensei,” everyone replies in unison.
Nya
Skylor offered to bring food cause ‘She was in the restaurant before coming’. Kai rejected her offer at first. Eventually, they found a middle ground. She would bring noodles, and he’d take care of dessert.
That’s why everyone had to wait now; Nya wasn’t complaining; she was just hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since morning, and it was afternoon.
Luckily, with small talk and getting used to P.I.X.A.L. again, time flew by.
After a little less than an hour, everyone was settled and that’s how she ended up next to a slurping competition. Her brother, her boyfriend, and his best friend decided that whoever finished their noodles first would get to eat one cookie from the others’ portion.
Pixal is spending her time mostly with her father and Zane. Dareth, Wu and Misako talk about their stuff, so Nya ends up with Skylor and Lloyd. She’s obviously not complaining tho, they may be the sanest humans here.
Hours passed.
She now sat in the common room surrounded by idiots. Pixal went to Borg Industries with Cyrus Borg. Zane was being rebooted, Lloyd was with Wu and Misako, and Kai borrowed Sky.
Jay and Cole were burning their last brain cells on video games in front of her. There was plenty of space on the couch, but these idiots were lying on the floor.
She didn’t mind them playing video games, not really. It was just that when they did, they would ignore her, and it pissed her off.
She grabbed her phone to doomscroll on chirp and find memes of her friends to blackmail them later. When Jay saw her, after the ‘last’ round, he sat with his back on her legs to give her some attention. She was happy, happy, but also pissed. Cole settled on the couch soon after. She was still bored; at least for the time, she could play with Jay’s forming curls and think about later. She and Pixal would do a sleepover. Skylor was invited too, but work wouldn’t allow it.
Everybody left. Nya was reorganising the cushions in her room for the sleepover while Pixal was recharging. Normally, Wu wouldn’t let them sleep over eachother’s rooms ‘cause of the early training - and fear of an unplanned pregnancy- but today, due to P.I.X.A.L.’s return and the fact that she was not a boy, he made an exception.
He even let them bring snacks, which was ultra-rare ! Pix didn’t need food for obvious reasons, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it.
She and the Nindroid sit on a bunch of pillows on the floor with Pix’ laptop in front of them. A movie was playing, but neither of them paid attention. Instead, the girls were talking about P.I.X.A.L.’s time in Zane's brain.
Nya was so curious to know what the boys were up to all that time, but her friend wouldn’t gossip about them.
After some time of Nya trying to explain the reasons why it wasn’t a bad thing- this is what sleepovers are for- which Pix showed no interest in hearing. She finally agreed.