"You'd think a 'medicine woman' would stand out more." Nya sighs.
"Well, maybe we're thinking about things a little too literally?" Lloyd suggests, looking at the notebook where he'd written all the places they'd visited. "Maybe we should start looking at, like, drugs stores or something."
"I don't know…"
"What could the harm be?" Lloyd flips his notebook closed. "I mean, we already checked that 'herbal remedies' store."
"I guess you have a point."
"Get off me you crazy robot!"
"I have finally caught you, fiend!"
Nya and Lloyd both stop, look at each other, then towards the direction of the yelling.
"Should we go see what Ronin is doing?"
"Ah… yeah. We probably shouldn't just ignore it."
With that decided, the two set off.
There was a large crowd gathered, the sound of camera shutters going off and excited chattering fills the air. It takes some work for them to get to the center, but when they do the sight that greets them is not what they expected.
Ronin and Echo where wrestling… and Echo appears to have the upper hand at the moment.
"Just what is going on here?!" Nya demands, causing the two to pause to look up at her.
"Hey, Nya, what a surprise running into you here." Ronin manages to say casually despite the headlock that Echo has him in.
"Hello, Nya. Hello, Lloyd." Echo greets them with a smile. "There is no need to worry, I have caught this fiend."
"Echo, let him go." Nya admonishes the nindroid, who looks torn.
"But…"
"Now."
"You do not understand-" The nindroid tries to explain, only to be cut off by Nya harshly saying.
"You are causing a scene."
After a moment of hesitation the nindroid lets go. Ronin springs to his feet, dusts himself off, and straightens his clothes. Meanwhile Lloyd helps Echo to stand up.
"Thanks, Nya." Ronin gives the master of water a charming smile. "I have no idea what got into that bucket of bolts."
"You know perfectly well why I was chasing you!" Echo insists. "Unless your memory is as poor as your vision. In which case, let me remind you that I was merely trying to get the book you took back."
"Wait, you took something?" Lloyd turns to the criminal, who puts on an innocent look.
"I have no idea what he's talking about. I don't have any books on me." He holds his arms out. "You can check me if you want."
"You must have hidden it somewhere." The green ninja decides.
"Let's not be so hasty." Nya tries to smooth over. "I mean, Echo isn't exactly…"
"I am not what, exactly?" The bronze nindroid inquires.
Suddenly there's a microphone shoved into their faces and professional cameras seem to appear from the wall of flesh surrounding them.
"Zane, why did you change your colors?"
"I am Echo Zane."
"Let me explain." Lloyd sighs. "This is Zane's younger brother, Echo."
"And how does a nindroid have a younger brother?"
"They were made by the same person, obviously."
"So, have you joined the battle for Nya's heart?"
"…What?"
"You two were on a date before the commotion started."
"We were not on a date!" Nya quickly yells. "We were investigating!"
"Is that what you tell Jay?"
"Excuse me?"
"Several sources have said that you have cheated on the blue ninja several times."
"I am not a cheater!" She yells before drenching both the reporter and the camera man with water. "Good luck spreading your lies with water logged equipment!"
"Nya!" Lloyd hisses.
Echo moves to stand in front of the two drenched people.
"I would rather not fight a friend, but if you continue this reckless behavior I will have no choice but to fight you."
"She wasn't attacking them, right Nya?" Lloyd gives the master of water a serious look, hoping she'd see reason and back down. Dareth was going to have a field day with this, and Lloyd just hoped he could convince the man not to try and include him in that stupid love triangle, but first they need to keep the media from reporting that Nya had assaulted the paparazzi.
"They're lucky that's all I did!" At her words Echo moves into a fighting stance.
"Nya, you need to calm down and go back to the ship." Nya seems like she's going to say something, so the green ninja goes on. "That's an order."
"A… an order?" She scoffs. "And what makes you think you can order me around?!"
"Because I'm the leader of the ninja." Lloyd's quickly losing his temper. How did Cole put up with the constant insubordination and flippant attitudes of the others for so long? "And as the leader, I have full authority to tell an out of control ninja to go home."
"Well… well I never wanted to join your stupid boys club, anyway!" She turns and storms off, the crowd parting for her as she approached.
Ronin glances at the two before quickly moving to follow after the master of water.
Lloyd sighs, turns to find Echo was doing his best to help the reporter and the camera man in drying their equipment off.
"Echo."
"Yes?"
"Come on, let's go back to the ship."
"Oh, yes, of course." He moves to stand before the green ninja. "After we find the book that fiend took."
Lloyd wants to bash his head into the nearest wall.
"Forget the book, Echo. If it's important we can look for it later."
"I see. Alright."
The nindroid looks a bit disappointed, which did make Lloyd feel a little bad, but they don't have time to scour the city for some random book. Hopefully it isn't important.
"Hey, Kai?" Jay says, staring up and out of the window of the shop they were in.
"What?" Kai asks irritably. Jay had insisted they check the antique shop, even though the master of fire was sure it would be a dead end, and now he wasn't even bothering to pay attention?
"Doesn't that look like the Bounty?" Jay laughs a little nervously. "I mean, we told Echo to keep it hidden, so there's no way it's the Bounty, but doesn't it look… pretty much exactly like the Bounty?"
"Sorry about wasting your time." Kai tells the cashier before he steps up to the window next to Jay and follows his gaze. What he sees doesn't exactly register with his brain at first, but when it does he curses.
The Bounty was flying over the city, weaving back and forth wildly without any rhyme or reason to it.
"Uh, Jay, I'm fairly certain that is the Bounty!" Kai yells before turning and running out of the store.
The master of lightning is on his heels in seconds as he begins to make a B-line for the ship.
"What d'you think happened?" Jay asks once their relatively even. "Did someone attack the ship?"
"I can't imagine any other reason this would happen." Kai answers, before he begins to quickly scale the side of a building. He can hear the whispers starting already, his fans recognizing his amazing moves, and he feels himself smile at the thought. He goes a little bit overboard, showing off by throwing in pointless flips he knows that other ninja would all have trouble with.
He was the best free runner, after all, out of their group. Zane had stealth, Cole had strength, Jay had speed, but Kai, he had his agility. He'd be damned if he let anyone, even his sister, take that from him.
Once they were running on the rooftops (with a crowd of his adoring fans trying to follow them on the streets below), he begins to look for any route that was not only in the ship's veering path, but would also take them up high enough to actually get on the ship.
"This way!" He decides on the high rise not too far from them. If the ship didn't make any drastic turns, then it'd be their best bet.
They reach the top of the high rise just as the ship nears, Kai doesn't hesitate to jump, and as he rises out of his landing roll, he turns to see Jay still on the high rise as the ship starts to turn away. While Kai's first thought is that the other hesitated, he seems to be looking at something below.
"Jay!" Kai calls out, startling the other, who seems to panic when he notices how far the ship is from the building now. "Use your airjiztu, stupid!"
"I knew that!" Jay huffs, quickly taking off and landing on the ship next to the red ninja. "And don't call me stupid."
Before he can answer, the ship turns violently to the left, throwing both ninja off balance, causing them fall into the railing.
The two share a worried look before they quickly right themselves and head further into the ship. They stealthily make their way further in (like a game of ninja leap frog, Jay notes, because one of them will move forward and then the other), until they find Wu calmly drinking tea in the dining room.
"Sensei, what's going on?" Kai asks urgently. "Where's the enemy?"
"Enemy?" Wu asks. "Are we being attacked?"
"The ship is swaying like its being piloted by a drunken pirate!" Jay exclaims. "How can you not know what's going on?!"
"Oh, that." Sensei Wu takes another, long sip of his tea. "I believe that is Echo's doing."
"Echo?" Jay sounds confused, then snorts. "Uh, I made sure he knew how to pilot the ship before we left, though."
"He left some time ago." Another sip of tea. "I believe he left his little friend in charge until he returned."
"Little friend…?" Jay thinks for a moment before realization, then horror, takes over his features. "TAI-D? The cleaning robot? The cleaning robot is piloting the ship?!"
With that the master of lightning spins on heel and runs out of the dining room like a bat out of hell, to the bridge no doubt. Kai, meanwhile, turns to their sensei and asks.
"Why didn't you stop him… it? Whatever. Why didn't you do anything?"
"We were not in danger." Is all the sensei says on the matter, as he takes several sips of his tea, until his cup is empty, and then proceeds to pour himself another glass.
Sometimes Kai wonders if it was possible to be addicted to tea...
He can feel the ship evening out and slowing down, so Jay must have stopped the mechanical menace, and just in time, as Lloyd and Echo appear, looking just as worried as Kai had been when he'd first seen the Bounty veering back and forth.
"False alarm." He assures them. "Although I don't think we should trust Echo to watch the ship anymore."
The nindroid in question gives him this look, like he's just kicked a puppy (or like he is the puppy Kai just kicked) and sadly says.
"I am sorry my actions have caused you all trouble."
Lloyd sighs, shakes his head, and moves to leave.
"I'm going to go meditate."
"Lloyd, wait!" Kai calls. "Where's Nya?"
"I don't know." Lloyd huffs. "Echo can tell you what happened, he was there."
"I can." The nindroid eagerly agrees.
Lloyd leaves without another word, and Kai turns to the bronze nindroid, who begins to recount the events leading up to their current situation.
"Well, that's the last building." Cole sighs. "No medicine woman, no cure, now what?"
"I did come up with a backup plan in case we could not find them. But there is no guarantee that it will work… and if it does not, there is no way to know for sure what will happen."
"What is it?"
"A placebo."
"A… are you sure that'd even work?"
"Jay claimed that belief played a significant role in the power of the wishes. While it might not fix everything…"
"It could fix at least a few things?"
"Yes. But we cannot let any of the other's know it is not real."
"What? Why not?"
"Because the belief applies to both the djinn and the victim. If we really want to find out what is real and what is not, the others cannot know. They have to believe the cure is real."
"Oh… and, uh, what about me?" Cole gives a sad little chuckle. "I mean, I know it won't be real, so if I'm affected by a wish, then…"
"Cole." Zane stops and turns to face his friend, giving him a serious look. "The answer is simple."
"It is?"
"Yes." Zane turns to continue walking. "Do not let your desires control you, and believe in yourself."
"That's it?"
"Does there need to be any more?"
Cole doesn't answer. The silence settles over them until Zane suddenly moves away and heads down a nearby alley.
"Uh, Zane? Where are you going?"
"I saw something… ah, I thought so." The titanium nindroid comes back holding what looks like… a normal book.
"Ok. It's a book. Why'd you decide to grab it?"
"It is Jay's." Zane says simply, as if it were obvious.
"And how can you tell?"
"This dent here in the spine." He moves the book to show Cole. "I once startled him while he was writing in it, and the book ended up getting dented when he dropped it."
"I'm surprised you knew it well enough to recognize it from the corner of your eye, while it was hidden in the shadows of some alley." Zane glance's away from the other, a rather guilty look crossing his face. "Uh, is there another reason you know it so well?"
The master of ice sighs.
"I… may have read its contents without Jay's knowledge or consent." He looks down at the cover, a pensive look crossing his face.
"Wow, I'm actually kind of shocked." Cole raises his eyebrows at the other. "I never knew you had it in you… so what's in it?"
"Runes."
"…what?" Cole had expected Zane to tell him that, while what he did was bad, that showing or telling another about what Jay had written would be even worse.
"It is filled with runes." Zane flips it open to a random page filled with odd symbols. "I will admit, I at first was just curious where Jay had learned how to write in them… but when he told me I was seeing things and claimed not to have seen any of the runes I showed him, my curiosity got the better of me."
"Oh, I get it." Cole laughs. "He didn't want any of us to read it, so he decided to use a code. Only he didn't think about the fact that you have an interest in linguistics, and he got so flustered when you asked that he lied about the whole thing! Classic jay."
"Yes… that could be one reason." Zane nods. "I suppose he might want to keep what he wrote secret from even his parents."
"Why would he-?" Cole cuts himself off when he glances up, only to see the Bounty high above them in the sky. "What?"
"I think it would be best if we returned to the ship for now."
"Yeah."
End chapter three