“Zane, please hold still,” P.I.X.A.L. said in a patient voice.

“I am holding still,” Zane protested.

“No, you are not,” P.I.X.A.L. countered. “Now, I just have one more sensor to attach to your circuits…”

P.I.X.A.L. and Zane were busy in the Samurai-X cave, located deep beneath the Sea of Sand. They had retreated to Nya’s old hideout after their underground hangar bay became buried in the rubble of the Monastery of Spinjitzu during the assault of the Crystal King. Filled with computers, vehicles, and parts to build mechs, PIXAL had found the alternate space to be very useful. In the weeks since the ninja had lost their Elemental Powers, the android had dedicated herself to finding a way to help Zane restore his power of Ice.

Zane’s journey to become the Titanium Ninja contained many twists and turns. This extraordinary Nindroid was created by the brilliant Dr. Julien and then given the power of Ice from the Elemental Ice Master. Yet, before he passed away, Dr. Julien, had turned off Zane’s memory switch. Believing he was just an ordinary boy, Master Wu took in the Nindroid and trained him to be a ninja along with Kai, Cole, and Jay.

Zane regained the memory of who he was, but as the ninja faced ever-growing challenges, his memories came and went. He was nearly destroyed during a battle with the Overlord, and then reborn again as the Titanium Ninja. PIXAL helped him regain his memories then.

Later, when Zane had used the Scroll of Forbidden Spinjitzu to try to stop Aspheera, he became stranded in the Never-Realm. The evil General Vex had found him and erased his memories, manipulating him so that he became the cruel Ice Emperor. Then Lloyd had helped Zane remember his true identity. And recently, when the Crystal King set his forces on Ninjago, Zane had crashed his mech and damaged his memory circuit. He reverted back to his Ice Emperor programming, and this time, it took the brilliant engineer Cyrus Borg to repair him.

P.I.X.A.L. believed that the key to Zane’s recovering his power of Ice was connected to exploring these fractured memories.

“We must look for clues,” she had said. “And I believe those clues can be found within you.”

Zane had complete trust in his android friend, because P.I.X.A.L. understood him better than anyone else. But the idea of exploring his memories made him uneasy. Some lost memories felt like an ache deep inside him. And he would rather not think about some of the things he could remember.

He twitched nervously in his chair as P.I.X.A.L. inserted a sensor into a port in the back of his head.

“These sensors are critical to your journey,” she explained, in her calm, steady voice. “They will immerse you in your memories so you can experience them as though you are actually there.”

Zane twitched again. “And will others in the memory be able to see or hear me?”

“No,” P.I.X.A.L. replied. “You will be an observer only. Now keep still.”

She stepped away from him and moved to the large bank of computer screens. They cast a blue glow on her silver hair and the purple conduit lines on her face.

“It will be interesting to see if this technology can restore your Elemental Powers,” she remarked as she entered a code into the system. “I am working on a way to adapt the tech to work with biological memory banks, perhaps helping the other ninja regain their powers.”

“I am sure they are all searching for a way to unlock their True Potential again,” Zane replied. “Although it is rather odd that I have not heard from any of them.”

P.I.X.A.L. spun around in her chair and fixed her green eyes on Zane.

“For this first session, I will bring you out of the program in four minutes and thirty seconds,” she said. “If something goes wrong, or you want to leave the memory, just say something.”

If something goes wrong…, he thought. An image of the Ice Emperor’s face, cold and fierce, flashed through his mind.

“Understood,” Zane replied.

“Are you ready?” P.I.X.A.L. asked.

“Ready.”

P.I.X.A.L. turned back to the computer. “Initiating memory exploration in three…two…one!”