Echo-Zane couldn't tear his eyes away from them, black rags flapping behind them as they twisted and turned around each other, the singing and the music pounding against the inside of his skull. The magic was beginning to fade, a ticking drowning out the music, hands tearing into his chest, tearing him apart. He couldn't breathe.

Here we have it! After four long months of planning with GirlOfHerOwnWorld and struggling to find time to finish this around exams, college interviews, studying and keeping the updates ready for Movie Mode, it's finally finished.

I just wanna say now that the updates for this are more than likely to be random and far between. I'd love to work on this more, but I am honestly just so, so tired right now. I'd love to just collapse into bed, but I've got a science exam in the morning so I'm a bit reluctant at the same time.

Anyway, MASSIVE thanks to GirlOfHerOwnWorld (my dear friend Gommie) who has, just like in Empty Echoes, assisted in the planning of this story. This story wouldn't be what it is without you, Gom Gom.

So, even though I won't be able to update that often until around the summer holidays, I hope you guys enjoy the story just as much as you enjoyed Empty Echoes. Please be patient with updates, I am trying, but please, please, please do not continuously ask me when the next update will be. I don't mind the occassional PM asking about how the new chapter's coming, but don't be surprised if I tell you I haven't even started it yet.

That aside, I seriously hope you enjoy this and that it lives up to your expectations.

Chapter One:

Hailstones

Gears shifted, making quiet little whirring noises, smooth and otherwise silent. There was the gentle pitter patter of raindrops against the window, the soft breathing of his siblings as they slept, and the distant honks of cars from the never-resting streets of Ninjago City.

Fogged yellow eyes blinked open, taking only a second to properly adjust. A wooden ceiling greeted his sight, and for a moment fear stabbed at his chest, twisted and chilling, a frozen finger tracing down his spine. Then the nindroid next to him shifted in his sleep, turning so that their bodies were once more pressed together.

Echo-Zane took a deep, relieved breath, hand coming over his clockwork heart to muffle the ticking that had started to become audible. From where he was huddled between the brothers among the blankets, Gizmo bleeped, eyes lighting as he was pulled from slumber. He tilted his head questionably at the nindroid, who raised a finger to his lips to tell him to be quiet. The Ninja slept on.

The rain fell heavily, thick drops that raced each other down the windowpane, watering the greenery and soaking anyone who was unlucky enough to get caught outside without an umbrella. Echo watched the drops batter the glass, wondering if he was the one unconsciously doing it, or if it was simply natural.

Silence reigned the Destiny's Bounty. The bedroom was cast in shadows, the only light coming from Jay's Fritz Donnegan alarm clock, the digital numbers glowing 4:21 am in a navy blue. A recovery present, if Echo remembered correctly, from his parents.

A chill gripped his chest, a sudden, loud tick cracking the quiet. Echo's hand flew over his heart, holding his breath. A moment passed. Cole mumbled something about cake, turned over and didn't move again. Besides the clock, the faint glimmer of his ghostly form was the only other light source.

Swallowing, Echo forced himself to relax, taking deep breaths, just like Wu had taught him. From what he understood, Ed and Edna had been dragged out of the rubble of their home by the man in the mech (Roy or something) and taken to the hospital not long after he'd been… Echo shook his head, pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind. He didn't want to end up freaking out and waking the Ninja. Again. Last time that had happened, Lloyd had ended up falling out of bed, which left him wearing his sling for longer than he'd wanted.

Of course, none of them were angry with him. At least, Echo hoped they weren't angry with him- they'd honestly seemed more worried than anything else. But they had their own problems to worry about. Like healing from their injuries.

Echo wasn't the best medical expert out there. He knew more about machinery than biology, and even then he tended to screw things up. There was one time he'd tried to make another droid, based off the blueprints his father had used to build him, but it hadn't exactly ended well.

Not that it mattered now. He hadn't had the Ninja back then, after all. He hadn't had a big brother back then.

He sighed, wondering where his thoughts had run off to. There was a slight chill to the room, signifying the slow approach of winter as summer began to fade into the background, where it would eventually vanish from sight entirely until it was called upon again the following year. The blanket shared between Echo and Zane, with Gizmo huddled between them in the middle, kept the chill at bay, but even with it, Echo still found himself feeling it, on the edges of the shadows, struggling to wiggle through the thick cloth to freeze his metallic skin.

It wasn't the first time Echo had found himself lying awake in the middle of the night; he'd been doing it often enough since his rescue. A part of him wanted to shake his older brother awake so he could help him, because Zane always knew exactly what to do, but a larger part snapped at him not to selfishly disturb the nindroids' sleep. Echo had noticed he wasn't the only one that often lay awake throughout the night.

His left hand, newly crafted, attached to his wrist for the first time not that long ago. He curled his fingers into a fist, listening to the near silent whir of its gears. Echo had been repaired over the course of two weeks by Zane and Nya- Jay had been a bit too busy fighting off an infected eye socket to help- and was back to his usual self, more or less. No scars, no marks, you wouldn't even be able to tell he'd gone through something terrible. It was as though he were practically brand new.

Echo wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Because he wasn't brand new. He was far, far from brand new. Things that were brand new didn't wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Things that were brand new didn't see a mask of green and silver and mangled hands and blood bubbling out of throats and pus leaking from wounds and dark, rocky corridors with water dripping from an out of sight ceiling everytime they closed their eyes.

He looked brand new. But he didn't feel it.

Echo dropped his hand back down to the blankets, closing his eyes, breathing deeply. It was okay. It was all okay now. He wasn't in the labyrinth, he wasn't strapped down to a table, wasn't trapped in the boot of a car, wasn't trapped in an arena with noise, noise, noise everywhere, and blood, blood on his hands, the bleeding body of the mutilated Serpentine in the sand.

Zane shifted beside him, and Echo grit his teeth, clenching his watery eyes shut as he slapped his hand over his ticking heart again. He breathed deeply, felt Gizmo's clawed hand brushing against his own, a long, concerned bleep, asking him if he were alright.

The nindroid shook his head, swallowing around the tightness in his throat. Zane shifted beside him again, then almost seemed to pause, before he abruptly sat up, startling the other droid, electric blue eyes glowing in the darkness of the room. Gizmo beeped.

"Echo?" a titanium hand gripped his elbow, strong and assuring, "Are you alright?"

The shorter bot nodded, gritting his teeth. Zane's brow furrowed, and he reached forward with his free hand, running fingers through his little brother's hair. "Hey, hey, you're alright. Shh, you're alright."

Echo gasped in a deep breath, internally wincing at how loud it was. His chest was painfully restricted, as though someone had wrapped a wire cord around his lungs and squeezed. Zane murmured something that might have been a swear word, a short little beeping noise that he'd rarely ever heard from him, before he let go, holding his hands up as though approaching a frightened animal.

"Okay, buddy, okay," he whispered, "Easy, just breathe."

The rain was pounding against the window now, a storm of drops coming down so strong you'd think they'd be trying to break the glass. A whimper forced its way passed Echo's lips as he curled into a tight ball, covering his stomach and chest protectively, heart ticking away in his ears. There was a groan somewhere above them, so loud that it sent Echo's ears into a painful ring.

"Wha's going on?"

"Go back to sleep, Jay," Zane said. There was a shift from above them, the bunk beds shaking a little.

"Crap, is he okay? Should I get Sensei Wu?"

Echo shook his head, tears beading at the corners of his eyes, "I- I can- can't breathe."

"Shhh, it's okay, you're okay. Deep breaths, Echo, deep breaths."

He did as he was told, gasping in a deep, trembling breath, but it didn't seem to be working as well as it should have been. He clenched his eyes shut, whimpering, tears slipping from his eyes and down his cheeks. Gizmo gave a loud, alarmed bleep directly into his ear. Too loud.

Everything was too loud. The raindrops against the window, battering against the glass like mangled fists trying to break in. The wind, howling, the dying screech of insanity. Something must have been broken, a pipe or the kitchen tap, because Echo could swear he could hear dripping in the distance, threatening to spill and flood and drown him at the bottom of a frigid lake, trapped beneath ice, unable to get out, unable to escape, unable to swim in the first place. Why did he never learn to swim?

"You're safe, Echo, I promise. We found you. We found you, you're not there anymore. Just breathe, okay? Please, buddy, just breathe."

Hands, mangled and scared and mutilated, tearing at his chest, tearing him apart, ripping out his lungs and gears and cogs and ticking heart. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, how was he supposed to breathe when he had no lungs-

"I'm getting Sensei!"

A ghostly figure rushed passed him, and Echo flinched, clenching shut watery eyes- he couldn't take him away, he couldn't take him back to the man with the mangled hands, he wouldn't let him, he couldn't let him, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-

He was surrounded by water, in his mouth, in his lungs, his eyes, his nose, limbs thrashing wildly, trying to breathe but only breathing in liquid, he didn't know how to swim, he'd never learnt how to swim, why wasn't Kaze helping him-

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't breathe.

There was shouting, everywhere, desperate words that he couldn't hear. The rain had turned to slushy, splattering against the window in a raging storm, the wind howling and battering against the closed sails of the Destiny's Bounty. Everything was so loud and he couldn't breathe and it was too much, too much, too much-

"Echo, shh, just calm down. You're not choking, you're just breathing too fast. Take deep breaths and it'll go away, alright? Deep breaths, buddy, deep breaths."

Echo gasped in a deep, trembling breath, forcing himself to listen, forcing himself to do as he was told. He could feel his heart vibrating in his chest, could hear it ticking in his ears. He curled into a tight ball, forcing himself to slow his breaths, gasping, gasping. It faded slowly, to the point that he wasn't sure it was fading at all, but then he simply laid there, curled among the blankets, exhausted. Gizmo gave a soft, questioning beep, hesitantly brushing a clawed hand across Echo's forehead.

"M'fine," the droid murmured, although he didn't come out of his ball, nor did the tremors stop wracking his spine, and his voice in itself was unconvincing to his own ears. His heart was still ticking loudly, his hand doing little to nothing in muffling it, and a brownish-red flush rose up his cheeks. So much for not waking anyone.

His eyes flickered up to Zane, and relief shot across his brothers face. Titanium arms wrapped around him, pulling him into his lap and holding him close. Echo, still forcing himself to take deep, calming breaths to keep the panic from coming back, to keep it at bay, shimmering in the shadows, unseen but always there. He buried his face into Zane's chest. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

"Guys? It's hailing."

Swallowing, Echo peaked one eye out from where his face was buried in his brother's shirt. The rain had, indeed, gone from liquid to solid; what he had at first considered to be battering against the window pane had turned into an outright thrashing, as though someone were throwing a thousand little pebbles at it, trying to break the glass and get inside. A shudder wracked Echo's spine, and titanium arms squished him closer.

The door opened then, Cole rushing in with Sensei Wu and Misako right behind him. Their white bearded teacher only took a glance around at his students, all wide awake and worried, before stalking over to where Zane and Echo were huddled together on the bed. Off to the side, Echo saw Misako turn to Kai, Jay and Lloyd, already reaching out to brush the tips of her fingers against the bandage around the lightning ninja's eye.

"Zane," Wu said, a disapproving note to his tone. The titanium nindroid shook his head, holding Echo impossibly closer.

"He's not- He's fine now," Zane explained, although there was a layer of guilt in his hunched shoulders, "I just-"

Wu held up a hand, and Zane cut off, mouth snapping shut. He turned his attention down to Echo, huddled in his brother's lap and unwilling to move anytime soon. For a moment, the little nindroid thought he was going to try and pry him away, and he flinched away when Wu reached out with a wrinkled hand. That hand faltered, pausing mid-air, but then continued its journey and brushed against Echo's forehead, as though feeling for a fever.

"It has passed," Wu confirmed, running his thumb across the ridge above Echo's eyebrow, almost massaging his temple, "As it always does, and always will."

"It doesn't feel like it," Echo whispered, voice weak to even his own ears, "It- It feels like it's gonna last forever, when it's happening."

Wu cocked his head to the side a little, humming thoughtfully, "But doesn't everything feel like it's going to last forever?"

"Uh…" Echo glanced up at Zane, unsure, "I- I suppose."

"Hm, how strange, isn't it?" Wu said, pulling his hand away from the little nindroid's forehead to clasp them behind his back, "How everything feels as though it'll last forever, is never ending, and yet nothing can truly claim to fall into this category."

Wu had a point, although this wasn't all that surprising. Echo had thought that he and his father would be at the lighthouse forever, together; then he'd thought he and Gizmo would be at the lighthouse forever, all alone, before Jay and Nya stumbled upon him in search of a place to hide; he'd thought he'd be lost in that blasted labyrinth forever, strapped to that table forever, struggling to fend off the insane monsters trying to tear him apart forever, and then wandering, stumbling over sandy dunes, wondering when he was going to collapse, forever, forever, forever. But he'd made it through. He'd made it home.

It hadn't lasted forever.

Seeming to have recognised his realisation, Wu smiled, squeezed the little droids shoulder, before turning around and starting to make his way out the room. Misako was in the middle of scolding Kai, who had shot out of bed when he'd realised something was wrong and now sat with a face that couldn't hide his pained grimaces no matter how hard he tried.

Instead of leaving immediately, however, both Wu and Misako helped the injured Ninja back into bed after a moment of thought. Jay, being on the top bunk and not having quite got his sense of direction back yet, fell off the ladder twice before reluctantly accepting Misako's help. Kai had been begrudgingly silent about being 'coddled,' as he deemed it, since Wu had spoken to him, but no one was certain what exactly he'd said.

Lloyd was the least injured, and was still able to get into bed with relative ease even with his arm in a sling, unlike a certain lightning ninja. Despite this, Misako checked up on him, adjusting his arm into a more comfortable position. The Green Ninja's cheeks dusted a light pink, but he smiled up at her anyway.

Zane shifted, sliding Echo off his lap but not letting go of him as they laid back down. Echo clung to him, burying his face into his brother's chest. He jumped when something clambered on top of them, huddling between their stomachs. Gizmo bleeped, before his eyes dulled as he returned to rest.

"Better?" Wu asked, appearing at the side of their bed again. Echo hummed and nodded, tired in a way that didn't involve sleep. The sensei nodded back, tugging the blanket over the three droids and burying Gizmo in the process, although the little bot was too deep in his sleep to realise. Wu placed a hand on Echo's head, then Zane's, before pulling away and vanishing with Misako out into the hall. The door closed quietly behind them.

The room was dark again, although Echo didn't remember anyone turning the lights on to brighten it in the first place. Someone had closed the curtain over the window, hiding the droplets racing down its pane from sight; the hail had melted, probably sometime shortly after Echo was able to calm his frantically ticking heart.

After a moment of nothing but stillness and quiet, Zane shifted again, and titanium lips pressed against the side of his head. Echo buried his face into the older droids chest, sighing. He knew that, despite his exhaustion, despite being nestled in the safety of his brother's arm, he was unlikely to be getting much sleep anytime soon. Just like every other night.

Zane held him closer, almost as though he were afraid that, if he let go, he'd disappear all over again. That if he let go, he'd never get him back. "I love you, baby brother."

Echo took a deep breath, fighting back the tears that pricked at the back of his eyes- the strange, strange tears that he'd never known he could cry. But he supposed he'd always been able to cry, in a way, before his head had been knocked back into place in a blow that, according to Nya, should have killed him. He couldn't remember what blow it had been; there were too many, muddled together, bashed and blurred, and to be honest he'd rather not think of it. The way Zane had refused to let go him after this discovery indicated that he held similar feelings. Then again, he'd hardly left his side since they'd found him in the desert.

Not that Echo minded. But even before he'd discovered his ability to tear up, he'd always been able to cry with the rain, despite having never realised it. And he once again found himself wondering if the gentle pitter patter against the window was him, was his own doing, an action he'd never recognised as his own. If the harsh hail had been a product of his terror.

Echo closed his eyes, even though he knew there would be no sleep there to greet him. He pushed away the hailstones.

"I love you too."

Poor, poor Echo. The events of Empty Echoes sure have left its mark.

Before you go, quick question: did you guys like the flashbacks in the prequel? Because I often find flashbacks to be a bit irritating to read at times, so I wasn't sure if it was taking a toll on the story, despite all the revelations and stuff. Do you guys think I should scrap any thought of having anymore flashbacks altogether, or do you think I should throw in more? Let me know, it's highly appreciated!

Hope you enjoyed the long awaited first chapter. I'll do my best to get the next one written soon, but, again, I've got a lot of things on my shoulders right now. Thankfully, I've got most of my college interviews out of the way and my last mock exam is on Monday (which I don't really have to study for 'cause it's for Art; we're just gonna be in the Art class all day working on a project (I'm thinking of doing an Observational Drawing of my girlfriend for it), so in all honesty it's more of a break from my other classes than an exam XXD).

So please be patient with updates, I swear that, no matter how long it takes for me to get the chapter done, I'm not planning on abandoning this story anytime soon.