Alrighty, this chapter is kind of based on that one episode of The Office when Darryl promises himself he'll get Andy back for something, I don't remember exactly hmmm.

Oh well.

But this may be slightly OOC, but Zane is a troll and the plot demands it so yup! Enjoy!

-

Past Promise:

The sole reason Zane screwed with Cole was because he promised himself he would. Granted it's because he can be slightly petty at times, but he did promise himself that he would mess with the Earth ninja.

About a year and a quarter ago, the ninja had decided to have a pillow fight. Now, they weren't just being childish because, please, they weren't childish. It had been Lloyd's birthday and the now young boy in a teenager's body decided to carry on a Darkley tradition. He threw a pillow at Kai's face.

The red ninja had glared at the other then proceeded to throw it right back.

Teams were formed, alliances were made, elaborate blanket forts were created, and after two hours of fighting, they all fell asleep in the middle of the kitchen.

Now Zane, being the responsible Nindroid he is, had made sure they all cleaned up in the morning. He, personally, cleaned his things up as soon as he woke up, and ordered the rest of the team to do so. When they complained, he reminded them that he did all the cleaning on the ship and if they didn't put their stuff away then he would no longer do the cleaning.

He also didn't want his hard work to go to waste.

His teammates took his threat seriously and began to clean... only for Cole to get distracted by a phone call from his dad. Zane had pursed his lips as he watched their conversation, about ready to hang the phone up himself (he was in a slightly cranky mood, really, how long does it take to clean?), but his expression quickly changed when he noticed the crestfallen look on his brother's face, distress obvious in his eyes.

Once the call was over, Cole had upped and walked to their shared room, slamming the door behind him, leaving a pillow and a toothbrush on the ground (okay, they obviously couldn't use real swords for their pillow fight, so what else were they supposed to use? A broom?).

Zane almost said something, but he took pity on the black ninja. He didn't hear the conversation, but he knew their relationship was rocky. So... he let it slide. Cole was smart, he would know to pick it up later.

Zane was pleased when he saw Cole pick his toothbrush up that night. Good, he thought. He's picking his crap up. And he was heading in the general direction of his pillow and... and he walked right past it... "Um, Cole, aren't you going to pick your pillow up?" he asked, hurrying in the others direction.

Cole tiredly glanced in the direction of the pillow, then groaned and said, "I'll do it in the morning. I just- I just want to go to bed."

Zane's eyes had narrowed a bit. "You will remember?" Cole just nodded, obviously exhausted. "Okay. I expect you to do so."

Cole did not pick up his pillow the next morning.

In fact, it took him a week before he picked it up.

Zane pestered him about it multiple times throughout said week. He had an excuse the first day, but he had no reason not to pick it up any other day.

It all went to crap after a that week.

Zane was trying to find Jay for he had a rather important question to ask him (one of his wires was acting in a peculiar manner and it was bugging him), when he suddenly tripped. It was completely unexpected and he hit the table on the way down. He checked to see if he got scratched, and saw a very large one on his forearm.

He didn't mind too much, a scratch on his forearm wasn't too bad especially since he was on his way to see Jay and he knew he could fix it rather quickly, but then he saw what he tripped over.

Cole's pillow.

"COLE!" he bellowed angrily, standing up abruptly. "COME HERE RIGHT NOW!"

He heard the sound of someone running and seconds later Cole came into view. "You okay, Zane?" he asked.

"I tripped, Cole. I tripped over your pillow and hit the table on the way down." He pointed to the scratch on his forearm.

Cole's eyes widened. "I-I am so so so sorry, Zane, really I-I meant to pick it up-"

"This would not have happened if you had picked your pillow up when I asked you," Zane continued, ignoring Cole's apology. "I expect you to pick it up this very second."

Cole did so. He tried apologizing again afterwards, but Zane ignored him all day. He tried thinking of the perfect punishment, but everything felt dull. He eventually decided to wait. Cole can be stupid, he thought. He'll screw up eventually.

And screw up he did.

It wasn't even his fault when it did happen. Jay had tripped him.

Still, it presented the perfect opportunity for payback.

The team was eating lunch in the kitchen and Cole was walking back to his chair from the fridge, holding a glass of chocolate milk, when, for some reason, Jay thought it would be funny to stick his foot out and trip the Earth ninja.

Cole had no idea it was coming, and he fell spectacularly, the glass of milk slipping from his hands and flying onto Zane.

The white ninja remembered his past promise as soon as the milk hit him.

He forced his eye to twitch a few times before shaking his head.

Cole ungracefully scrambled to his feet and ran closer to the Nindroid, grabbing a handful of napkins from the as he did so. "Crap! Zane, I am so so sorry- SCREW YOU JAY!" he began, but stopped in the middle to glare at Jay who was laughing. "I-uh- here I have napkins, I can help you clean up I-I am so sorry!" he continued rambling for a few moments before Zane took the napkins from him.

"It is fine, Cole," he said sweetly, though the sweetness was completely fake as he was already planning out exactly how his revenge would go.

The black ninja did look rather sorry, and, Zane almost felt bad, almost, but he just knew this would be the best prank he'd ever pull on Cole and he could not miss this opportunity.

Besides, it took Cole a week to pick up a pillow. Who takes a week to pick up a pillow? What did he rest his head on when he slept? Certainly not his pillow! It just does not make any logical sense to Zane! It does not compute! And that thought helped ignite his desire for revenge.

That evening after dinner, Zane found Cole sitting in their living room, writing stuff down in a journal (presumably lesson plans or a briefing over what had happened in training that day).

It seemed like the perfect time to begin his plan, Cole was completely unaware, he was focused, no one else was around, and was most certainly in the mood

He walked by the doorway, purposely bumping into the door frame as he did so, but instead of moving, he just stood there, staring.

Oh, this was going to be fun. And it only cost him twenty dollars (it really is amazing the things people will do for five dollars).

----

Cole looked up when he heard a thunk come from the doorway. He saw Zane standing by the doorframe, just staring at it. He cocked his head, what is he doing?

"Uh, Zane? You okay?" he asked, putting his pencil at his spot in his journal and setting it down. The Nindroid said nothing, only continued to blanky stare at the frame.

Cole bit his lip before placing a hand on his shoulder and asking once more, "Hey, Zane, are you okay?"

The white ninja then jolted forward. He shook his head then slowly turned to look at Cole who removed his hand. "I apologize, Cole. I must have blanked for a second," he said in a monotone voice. He then walked away, leaving a very confused Cole in the doorway.

He opened his mouth, then shut it. He shrugged his shoulders then returned to his spot on the couch. He picked his journal up and began to write again... when he stopped halfway through. That was NOT normal, even for Zane... he thought. Maybe something's wrong... I spilled chocolate milk on him earlier what if... no! That's ridiculous, Cole! Zane literally showers and swims all of the time! If water doesn't bother him, then milk shouldn't either! He's fine. He just had a-a moment!

Cole smiled as he settled upon that conclusion. He's fine. It's all fine. Then he set about to writing in his journal.

----

Okay so maybe everything wasn't fine... like at all.

Cole genuinely forgot about his weird encounter with Zane by the time he went to bed that night. He did remember, though, when he walked into the bathroom the next morning to see Zane scrubbing his face with his toothbrush instead of his teeth.

Cole did not know how to respond to this situation at all. "Um... Zane?" he asked slowly. Zane suddenly stopped and abruptly turned around to face Cole. He cocked his head to the side, his right eye twitched, then he walked away once more.

And now Cole was starting to get worried.

He refused to make anything of it, though, until he had some more evidence.

He didn't want to make a fuss about Zane being broken to find out he is completely fine. Then he would be the one who called a perfectly fine man broken or perhaps it would be almost as if he had called Zane weird, and the team had an unspoken rule of never doing that.

So, naturally, he wanted more evidence first.

The team was training around an hour later, and Cole had decided that they would spend the time sparring with a partner.

"Okay, uh, Nya and Kai spar together, Lloyd and Jay why don't you guys have at it, and uh, I guess that leaves Zane and I," he had said, slightly proud of himself for thinking of the idea.

Everyone nodded and Zane began to approach Cole. Everything seemed a-okay at first and Cole mentally sighed with relief. But then he noticed that Zane was walking funny.

For some odd reason, he was only stepping with his left leg. His right foot kind of just dragged along the ground as his left foot made each move.

Then Cole gulped because holy crap, there's a chance he may have broken Zane. Okay, Cole. Just get through this spar, then you can get the rest of the team alone and ask them. This is valid, right? He is acting differently, right?

Much like everything seemed to have began the past two days, their spar started normal. Zane didn't twitch or walk abnormally, Cole started to think he had imagined everything. And then Zane became oddly aggressive. His left eye twitched for a moment and then his eyes became grey, a dark contrast to his normally light blue eyes. He cocked his head at Cole before charging at him, faster than he had ever seen the Nindroid run, his right leg dragging again, and Cole full out panicked.

He ducked as one of Zane's shurikens came towards his head, and then jumped as the other swept at his feet. He was fighting unnaturally violently and Cole was now officially worried. Before he could do anything in defense, he felt a hard, cold object make contact with under his chin and he fell backwards.

His head landed slightly hard on the deck. Not hard enough for a concussion, but hard enough for a huge headache. He was about to get up when an object rest itself on his chest. Cole groggily opened his eyes and they widened upon seeing it was Zane's foot. He moved his eyes upwards and an eerie smile was on his face. Cole was about to scream something at his teammates when Zane shook his head and closed his eyes.

When he reopened them, they were light blue again. "Hmm," he mused curiously, looking down at Cole. "Why was my foot on your midsection?"

Cole sighed with relief and replied with, "I have no idea."

----

Cole gathered Lloyd, Jay, Nya, and Kai together as soon as training was over and Zane nowhere near them. "Okay, guys, something's wrong with Zane," he said abruptly, biting his lip and looking over his shoulder.

Kai narrowed his eyes. "And what does that mean?" he said, a bit of harshness in his voice. Cole smiled at bit when Kai's 'Big Brother' mode came on, it was always a sweet sight.

His smile disappeared quickly though. "I'm not saying he's weird! I'm saying that he's been acting a little differently lately and I'm getting worried!"

"What weird things has he been doing?" Nya asked, concern in her voice.

"Well his eyes have been twitching and he freaked out during training today and nearly killed me and then he's been walking around on only his left foot like this!" Cole demonstrated the weird way Zane had been walking. He stopped his example when he heard laughter. He spun around to face his teammates and glared at them when he saw Nya and Jay laughing and Kai and Lloyd sharing an amused look.

"Cole, are you okay?" Jay asked, not even bothering to hide his smile. "Did you get enough sleep, did you eat something funny?"

"Of course I'm fine! Zane's the one who's not-"

"Cole, I haven't seen Zane do anything out of the ordinary lately!" Lloyd put in, putting a hand on Cole's shoulder. "Maybe you should lay down..."

"Okay, that's enough!" Cole groaned, shrugging Lloyd's hand off of his shoulder. "I'm the leader of this team and you guys should trust- you know what, this isn't worth it!" and with that, he walked away, shaking his head.

"Pfft, they don't believe me. Of course they don't believe me! No one ever believes Cole!" he grunted angrily, looking at the ground as he walked.

He stopped mumbling to himself when he suddenly bumped into to something.

He slowly looked up a bit and was not surprised to see that he bumped into the slightly taller Nindroid. He meekly smiled up at him as the Nindroid slowly raised an eyebrow. "What does no one believe you about?" he asked, his voice a little deeper than usual.

"Oh, uh, just uh, well, you know just- gah!" he screamed in frustration, setting about walking in the other direction.

Before he could move, though, Zane's hands latched onto both of his shoulders and used the momentum to forcibly move him towards to the left of him. After he was out of his way, the Nindroid continued walking without a second glance. Cole couldn't help but shiver.

Okay. Something is definitely wrong and if no one believes him, then he'll just have to prove it somehow!

----

Zane acted strangely the rest of the week. Cole mentioned it to Nya, the most level headed person on the team, once more, but she just blew it off like it was nothing. He was surprised by the lack of care shown by his teammates, but because of his conversation with Nya, he didn't dare bring it up to anyone else yet because he knew they wouldn't believe him. He needs hard proof.

Zane continued walking on one leg all throughout the week, his eye continued twitching, and he continuously walked into things then stared at nothing. There were a few times when he would randomly put a hand on his shoulder and just leave it there or hand something to him for no reason.

His eyes changed twice more.

The second time his eyes changed, Cole was cooking in the kitchen. He was making orange chicken when he heard a thump behind him. He cautiously turned around and wasn't surprised to see Zane had bumped into something... again. He was about to go back to cooking when he saw Zane's eye twitch, both eyes shut, and they reopened grey.

He was once again charged, one of Zane's shurikens emerging from his holster. He squeaked and ducked as it swiped at his head, narrowly missing. Instead of hitting him, it hit the pot his chicken was in, knocking it to the ground, destroying his dish.

"OH COME ON!" he yelled, clearly agitated. "I WORKED HARD ON THAT!"

Zane's eye twitched, and he was back to normal. "Oh my, what happened in here?" he asked, gagging slightly at the stench of the pretty burnt chicken.

"I'm watching you, buddy," Cole said accusingly, his lips pursed. "Something's going on!" and with that, he slowly walked out of the kitchen, grabbing the phone on his way out to order a pizza.

The third time his eyes turned grey, Cole was coming out of the shower.

He had wrapped a towel around his waist, and was using another to dry his hair off when he heard the sound of rushed footsteps and then something knocked him over. "Oh come on, Zane! Not now!" he screeched, rightfully assuming the thing on top of him was his deranged teammate. Sure enough, when he managed to turn his head to the side, he could make out the now grey eyes of his teammate pinning him down.

"Get off of me!" he grunted as he struggled beneath the hands. He could vaguely see the Nindroid tilt his head in slight confusion, anger in his grey eyes.

For some reason, Cole had just had it. He concentrated all of his strength to his fists, managed to get his arms out from Zane's grasp, and shoved the white ninja off of him as hard as he could.

Zane made a slight impact with the wall. His eyes closed then snapped open, now their normal blue, before a feminine voice said, "Shutting down."

Cole's eyes widened as Zane's body shuddered for a moment, then stopped moving, his eyes closed.

Cole screamed.

Legitimately screamed.

"HOLY CRAP I BROKE ZANE!" he yelled, jumping up from the floor and scrambling out of the bathroom. He quickly threw a shirt and pants on then proceeded to run around the Bounty until he found his other four teammates sitting on the deck. "Guys guys guys guys guys!" he cried breathlessly, his voice an octave higher than it should have been. "I broke Zane I broke Zane I broke Zane I broke-"

Lloyd jumped up from the floor and raced over to Cole, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Cole, look at me, okay, yeah, now I'm going to need you to breathe for me here, okay?"

The black ninja was bent over, panting heavily. "Guys, that day when Jay tripped me and I spilled on Zane, I-I broke him holy crap. He just shut down in the bathroom and holy crap I broke Zane."

Kai burst out laughing. "Dude, you do know he's not actually broken, right?"

Cole glared at him. "I am NOT kidding guys! I told you all something was wrong but NONE OF YOU LISTENED TO ME!" he all but screamed at them.

Jay, Kai, and Nya stood and all came closer to Cole and Lloyd, bemused grins on their faces. "Cole, you do realize that Zane is just messing with you, right?" Jay giggled.

Cole opened his mouth, prepared to retort, but all that came out was, "Wh-what?"

"Oh sweetie," Nya said, patting Cole's wet hair. "You really are oblivious."

"But-but how could he be messing with me? I mean- I mean, his eyes turned grey- they turned grey!" he spluttered.

"He has an appearance changing switch, Boulder Brain," Jay smirked. "I literally helped him find it. He can change his hair color, his eyebrow color, his skin color, that also includes eye color."

Cole just gaped at them. "But-but what about- he nearly killed me each time they changed!" he protested.

"Cole, if you hadn't moved out of the way in time, Zane would have missed on purpose," Lloyd laughed. "Do you really think he'd hurt you?"

"What about his twitching and-and his walking funny?"

"Wow. I forgot how gullible you are," Kai chortled. "All of that was obviously super faked and forced."

"I..." Cole had no idea what to say. His four teammates were all smiling at him, slightly amused by his frazzled appearance (they were also probably amused by the fact that he had thrown on one of Kai's shirts, which was a little too big on him, and a pair of Lloyd's shorts, which he had forgotten to zip, by mistake). "Are you sure?"

Jay sighed. "He literally pulled us aside and told us he was going to prank you. Granted he didn't say what he was going to do, but he said it would be funny and he paid us five dollars to go along with it."

"But-"

"He also mentioned it had something to do with the fact that you didn't pick up your pillow that one time," Nya added airily, wrinkling her nose as if trying to remember.

"But, that was a year ago why would he-"

"Okay, Cole, he is literally standing right there watching this!" Kai finally said, pointing at the silently laughing figure behind him.

Cole spun around and low and behold, a perfectly fine Zane was standing right there, a twinkle in his eye. "I THOUGHT I BROKE YOU!" he yelled, a bit of a smile on his face, only a bit. He began running towards him but Zane merely winked at his teammates and took off as well. "THAT WAS ONE YEAR AGO, YOU TIN CAN!"

----

Zane was rather pleased with himself. He never considered himself to be much of an actor, but perhaps he could take up the job once he retires as a ninja. Granted he had only really fooled Cole, but if he could fool one person, perhaps he could do it more in the future.

Pretending to malfunction was quite humorous and fun. He really just got to be lazy for a week and share a laugh with his friends, what could be better than that?

And Cole's reaction? Ha! It was priceless! Most definitely worth the wait!

He did make sure to apologize to Cole afterwards just to make sure the black ninja wasn't too hurt. His response was a playful punch in the arm so he figured he was fine.

After Cole had finished chasing him through the ship, he had asked why he waited so long.

He replied with, "I knew it wasn't the time. It only seemed logical to wait for you to mess something up."

Cole frowned a bit and playfully punched his arm once more at the 'wait for you to mess something up' part, before he asked, "Okay but why did that matter so much?"

Zane sharply turned to him before saying, "Next time when I ask you to pick something up, you pick it up." And Cole never forgot after that.

-

Welp, I hope y'all enjoyed! I love headcanoning that Cole is super oblivious, it's one of my favorite Cole headcanons!