Dedicated to LittleCanadian

A series of connected one-shots centered around Echo Zane and his antics.

First story: Rescuing Echo from the lighthouse. (Takes place after season 10. Minor spoilers.)

Jay gazed at the painting of Nadakhan on the wall in front of him. The Djinn hovered with four arms outspread, the Djinn Blade in one hand, the Realm Crystal in another, and anger carved onto his face for the rest of eternity. In the painting, Jay and Nya clasped hands where they stood in the Djinn's shadow, wearing looks of determination.

A slight tremble ran up Jay's spine, but otherwise he felt numb.

He'd put off looking at this particular painting for a long while. It had been hard enough to finally tell the team what had happened - hard enough to watch that piece of history be painted at all. The lack of detail in the picture compared to the others was a testament to how little of the story Jay and Nya actually remembered - or chose to remember. Much of that time was too painful to dwell upon.

For several minutes Jay just stared, trapped.

Did he want to remember?

Nya lying in his arms, the life fading from her eyes... He wanted to scream, but everything was quiet. So quiet.

He shook his head.

When he looked up again he was able to see the painting as a whole. Nadakhan had posed as an unbeatable threat, but Jay and Nya had stuck together. They had pushed each other to never give up, to never give in to despair, bringing out the best in each other, and becoming closer as a result. That conversation they'd had in Dr. Julien's lighthouse had done a lot to bring them together and make their vision clearer.

Lighthouse...

Wait...

"Oh my gosh!" Jay backed away from the painting, eyes wide. "NYA!"

Nya, helping to fix the monastery gate, whirled around to see Jay charging across the courtyard toward her.

"NYA!" He panted. "We forgot Echo Zane!"

Nya gasped.

"Who is Echo Zane?" Zane asked.

The Bounty roared through the clouds over the ocean. Land had vanished from sight a long time ago, leaving only the vast expanse of water below and the chill breeze racing by their sails. Zane stood practically on tip-toe at the front of the ship, hands out on the rail, blue eyes straight ahead.

"So let me get this straight," said Lloyd, who hadn't been helping the others with the gate because he still needed to recover from the Oni attack. "Zane has a brother, and you forgot to mention it until now?"

"Hey!" Jay exclaimed. "You guys didn't remember anything at all. Nya and I are lucky we remembered bits and pieces!"

"Wow," Lloyd breathed, looking up at Zane standing at the ship's hull. "Zane's going to find his family."

"Well, you know he already has his family." Jay said, looking over at Cole, Kai, and Nya smiling under the covered part of the deck. "His family's just getting bigger."

"Please tell me this is not a dream you had, Jay." Zane spun to face them, his eyes shining, a smile waiting to appear. "Do I really have a brother?"

Jay grinned, almost going crazy with the number of butterflies in his stomach. "Yes, you do! Ah! I can't wait to see his face when he sees your face!"

"What does he look like?"

"He looks just like you, Zane!"

"Ha ha!" Kai came forward from where he'd stood next to Nya at the wheel. "That's gonna be fun trying to tell the two Zanes apart everyday!"

"He doesn't look that similar." Jay rolled his eyes. "He's, uh, a much simpler design. Dr. Julien didn't have fancy equipment like he did for the original." He went and knocked on Zane's titanium frame.

Lloyd laid a hand on his nindroid brother's shoulder. "This must be super special for you."

"Family is always special." Zane beamed back. He had recently almost lost his brothers, and now he was gaining a new one. "This also feels like a gift from my father. One more part of him he left behind."

He had so many questions. Some that Jay and Nya hadn't been able to answer, like why Dr. Julien had left Echo Zane behind. But any grim thoughts were quickly replaced with excitement. What would his echo think of him? Would it be awkward? Was Echo Zane friendly? Jay and Nya had described him as shy. What if he didn't even want to leave the lighthouse?

A sea bird swept over the Bounty, preparing to land before shying away. The painted sails trembled as if in anticipation.

"Lighthouse, dead ahead!" Nya called from the controls.

The whispy clouds parted in front of them, revealing the stone lighthouse standing patiently amidst the waves. As the Bounty approached, lowering along side it and as close to land as possible, the Ninja were greeted with a cool, salty breeze and the warm scent of sun baked red kelp on the rocks. Cole joined his brothers at the railing as Nya prepared to weigh anchor.

As soon as the anchor clanged on the rocks, Zane swung down, with Jay, Lloyd, Kai, Cole, and Nya right behind him. They landed with soft thuds on the dry stone and seaweed. Waves crashed below. As the Ninja made their way up the carved stairs leading to the lighthouse, they glanced around and gazed up at the lone structure.

"Sure has been awhile since we saw his place." Cole noted, eyeing the windows near the top.

They crowded around the door at the top of the stairs. Jay knocked on the heavy wood. Wind rushed over the whitecaps. A gull cried. Jay knocked again, the dull blows echoing throughout the interior beyond. The only reply was the crash of waves behind them.

"He's a little bit shy." Jay explained. "We had to go to him last time. He might be hiding in the secret basement?" He turned to Nya.

She nodded. "If we let ourselves in, I'm sure he'll come out."

Zane reached for the doorknob and turned it. With a squeak and a snick, the door cracked open, and the Ninja pushed inside.

Dust tumbled through rays of light from overhead, and deep shadows blanketed the winding staircase. The first step over the threshold echoed all the way up to the top of the stairwell.

"I guess we try downstairs first," Nya said.

They'd only gone a few steps when there came some tinny thunks from above. They all looked up to see a small robot rolling from stair to stair, steadily bumping his way down to them.

"Gizmo!" Jay and Nya exclaimed. Everyone grinned.

Gizmo dropped off the last stair and rolled up to them, chattering in greeting.

"It's nice to see you, too." Nya smiled.

The little robot turned and headed downstairs, the Ninja in tow, and left the sunshine behind. Each step creaked under their weight, accompanied by a small thud each time Gizmo reached the next stair. At the bottom, the tiny cleaning bot went ahead into a dark room with a sound, cobblestone floor. All was quiet. Besides the stacks of boxes barricading a wooden door, a control panel of some kind, and tools, the near lightless room was empty.

"Here's the secret panel!" Jay darted toward a hidden switch in the far wall and pulled it. The wall slid to the side, grinding on it's rusted track, and opened into a black tunnel. The Blue Ninja led the others down the wood ramp, every noise ringing off the walls, into the secret room.

Light streamed through a small, round window, lighting up gears, metal parts on shelves, crates, and papers. Unlike the storage room, it had a more lived in feel, and was relatively tidy, but like the other room, it too was silent.

"Where is he?" Jay's brow furrowed as he looked around.

"He could be upstairs," Nya suggested, joining him at his side.

Behind them, Zane gasped. Everyone turned around to see him staring into a dim corner.

"Oh!" Nya cried.

A chill ran over Jay's shoulders.

"Is that him?" Cole whispered, horrified.

Behind a pile of crates lay the remains of a metal, humanoid figure. Rust had corroded the body to the point of its limbs falling off. His jaw hung slack. His eyes were dull and covered in dust.

"Echo!" Jay leaped over to the unconscious nindroid and dropped to his side, Nya and Zane right behind him. Gizmo was already there, and bleeped out something Jay couldn't understand. The others watched over their heads.

"He's completely worn out." Nya bowed her head, fingertips resting on Echo's time-damaged power source: a steam-run clock.

Echo, slouched against the wall, chin tucked to his chest, looked as though he had never been alive. As if his inventor had quit before he even had him up and running. He was now just another scrap of metal left forgotten in an old lighthouse.

Jay laid a hand on Zane's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Zane did not taking his eyes off his copy. His brother.

Jay bowed his head. Nobody said anything. What could they say? There was a dead nindroid in front of them, and even though Zane had never met him before, he felt as though some deep connection had been shattered.

Echo did, in fact, look almost exactly like him, despite the decay. They had the same hair piece, the same sharp cheeks and jaw, and except for his mouth, the same face. The only real difference, sans rust, lay solely in how they worked: Zane being an advanced, titanium shelled fighting machine, and Echo a scrapped together, steampunk copy. But both of them had been built by their father's hand. Both of them had come to life because of a loving design. Only now one life had ended.

A solemnness settled over the Ninja, like it does at a funeral. Jay retreated deep inside himself, trying not to feel sick.

This is all my fault. Why didn't I remember Echo? And after all he did for us! Why didn't I remember to tell Zane about him before?

A few minutes of silence passed. Gizmo, his tiny cupped hand on Echo's arm joint, beeped out a little message. Zane fixed his gaze on him.

"What do we do now?" Lloyd whispered, as if afraid to speak.

"It doesn't feel right to just leave him here." Cole whispered back. He gnawed on his lip. "But..."

"He is still alive."

"What?" Lloyd asked Zane as Jay's head snapped up.

"I have just scanned him," Zane breathed, eyes still fixated on his brother. "He is still conscious."

"Yeeee..." Kai backed away with a light grimace.

"Well how do we wake him up?" Lloyd asked.

Nya and Jay scanned the outside of the dismantled nindroid. Gizmo chattered wildly, rolling back and forth.

"Is he saying anything?" Nya asked, examining Echo's clock.

Zane shook his head. "I can only tell his system is online. He is watching us, or aware of us. I am sure of it."

Jay moved to Echo's head, and Gizmo zipped out of the way. It felt bizarre to work on someone with no limbs; with only a head and a torso. While Nya checked the cog-work in their friend's chest cavity, the lightning ninja fingered around his face plate, easily prying the rusted metal off. Underneath lay the yellowed glass eyes, connected to wires and electrical paneling. A blue line of electricity wavered over Jay's fingers. Pinching the wires gently, he straightened the connections, allowing his power to flow into his friend.

Please work, please work...

Nya tugged at a bolt on the main pipe across Echo's stomach. The section of pipe underneath the bolt shifted away, rusted right through. Two red rimmed holes spotted the pipe an inch of the main damage.

"This entire pipe needs to be replaced." Nya pressed her hands on her knees.

"Then let's get him back to the Bounty!" Lloyd said.

Zane rose. "Help me lift him, Jay."

Jay continued to tamper with wires and things in Echo's face, touches of electricity creating soft "fitz" sounds.

"Crrrr! Mbm... Hoo?" Echo's jaw shifted up and down.

Everyone felt their mouths drop open except Jay, who sat as stiff as a rod, staring at the metal face in front of him. Zane fell to one knee beside Echo. "Hello?"

"Heh... rrrccrr!" Echo's eyes glowed and faded, flickering until they went dull again.

"Let's get him to the Bounty!" Nya jumped to her feet.

"Gee, I hope this works."

Jay took a step back from where Echo lay on the work table. Nya and Zane stood on either side of him. Echo lay on his back, limbs reattached with shiny new joints, face plate back in place with new screws, glass eyes polished, and, most importantly, the piping and wiring in his chest compartment replaced. Zane monitored the nindroid during the entire procedure, assuring everyone that his consciousness maintained intact.

All they could do was hope they'd reassembled him correctly. Nya filled his tank with water - which would steam up, power his clock, then pool back into liquid form and restart the process - and Jay wound the clock's hands and stepped back.

The other Ninja, who had been milling around the well lit work room, feeling useless and fidgety as anything, gathered around. If Zane had human lungs he would have been holding his breath, like Jay was. Echo's clock ticked like a heart beat. His pipes hissed as quietly as breathing. But his shiny, open eyes stared at nothing. Nya's shoulders sagged at her friend's coma-like state. They must have missed something.

Echo blinked. Everyone in the room straightened. The nindroid blinked again, creating a shuttering sound. His head tilted slightly. Then he seemed to catch sight of the Ninja, and turned his head more. He adjusted his arms and pushed himself into a sitting position.

A breath fell from Jay's open mouth, which lifted at the corner, and his eyes widened.

Echo looked from each colourfully dressed person in the room, blinking over and over, before his eyes rested on the people responsible for waking him.

"You two look familiar. Have we met?"

Jay laughed and hugged Nya, making her laugh, too. "He's awake! He's talking!"

Echo cocked his head at the joyful noise, one he had not heard in a long time. His eyes met Zane's, and he stared. He looked down at himself, then back at Zane.

He looks just like me! "Hello!" Echo smiled.

Zane beamed at his brother. "Hello!"

And here begins my Echo one-shot series: Remembering Echo. This is of course dedicated to Little Canadian, the biggest Echo Zane fan I know! Hopefully I'll publish more Echo content in the near future. If any of you have ideas/requests, feel free to voice them in a review. I hope to hear from some of you soon. Reviews are REALLY appreciated.

If you made it this far, I hope you liked it guys! Thanks SO much for reading!