Cheering and chattering excitedly, the five ninja headed for the dessert buffet, while Pixal and Zane collected their belongings from the room. They did not want to put off the tidying up until later that night, but had promised to hurry up and join the others for dessert. With a cardboard box in each hand, Zane stepped out of the back door where Pixal had set down the materials in the afternoon. The thunderstorm had subsided, but it was still raining heavily.
"You think the porch will keep our things from getting wet?" he asked Pixal, who had followed after him with her handbag and another large box.
She put down the box and shoved it as close to the wall as possible. "I think so." From one of the other boxes, she produced a tarpaulin. "Let's put this on top." He helped her unfold it to cover the pile, and when they were both satisfied with their work, they got up.
"Thanks, Pixal, for all the preparations. It went really well."
She smiled at him. "Yes, I think they had fun. Lloyd in particular, which is great. He's so cute when he is excited."
Zane gave her a suspicious glance. Did she really just call the green ninja 'cute'?
But Pixal continued without taking note of his look. "Gayle barging in on Kai just at the right moment was priceless. I can't believe this happened. You couldn't have planned it better."
Zane relaxed, and they both chuckled.
"Thanks for making me do this," Pixal added. She sounded almost embarrassed. "I think … I think I enjoyed it, too."
Zane was surprised, not so much by the fact, but rather by her willingness to admit it. He placed his hands on her waist. "You were amazing."
"You too." She slightly pushed the fedora up on his forehead. "This is so silly, I adore it." Her hands ran along the collar of his coat, caressing his neck. And then, she suddenly stood on tiptoes, and her lips met his. "That trench coat suits you, you know."
He froze for a second before his face split into a smile. But when he bent down to return the kiss, she stared somewhere over his left shoulder, and her eyes narrowed. Sliding her thumbs under his collar, she swiftly opened the coat and pushed it back over his shoulders.
"As much as I like it, you should get rid of that now," she muttered, her brows furrowing in concern.
"What? Why ..." He mechanically did what she said and let the coat slide to the ground along with the fedora.
"Because it would slow you down."
He turned around, now on high alert. The presentiment from a couple of hours ago was back in an instant. In the dark, wet alleyway behind him, a figure moved swiftly towards the slightly larger alley that led to the back entrance of the Plaza. Something about their movements, something about their obvious endeavor at appearing inconspicuous, was … suspicious.
The two nindroids exchanged a glance. Zane nodded at Pixal and took up the chase, and she gathered her skirt and somehow managed to follow hard on his heels. Ignoring the rain running through their hair and down their faces, they kept in the shadow of the tall buildings around them. When the figure came to a halt just before the next corner, they stayed far enough behind to remain unnoticed while still having a good view of the alley.
They heard the lively voices of a man and a woman; the couple must have left the Plaza via the back entrance and was now approaching the corner where the suspicious figure crouched in the shadows. Zane felt his muscles tense up.
Should he … ?
The figure did not move, and there seemed to be no reason to intervene. A moment later, the couple came into view; the man held a large umbrella, they talked loudly and appeared high-spirited and maybe slightly tipsy. Zane heard Pixal gasp.
"Dareth?!"
He nodded, equally surprised. "And Gayle," he whispered back. "So he was her date tonight."
There was no time to process this information. As soon as the unsuspecting couple had passed the corner, the suspicious figure started to follow them, taking great care to stay out of sight. Zane darted off without further ado, Pixal trying to keep up with him. It was only when they turned into the alley that they realized what they had gotten into: a few yards behind Dareth and Gayle, two more dark-clad figures wearing black face masks with neon-colored stripes were approaching. If Zane was not mistaken, he could detect even more assailants waiting for the couple further down the alley.
He did not swear, but voiced his anger and surprise with a few choice words.
"That mean-spirited scoundrel led us into an ambush," he muttered. "It became clear that more of their sort were waiting for us like a school of piranhas in the muddy waters of a jungle river."
"At least you've learned to keep your voice down when you're going into detective mode," Pixal retorted somewhat sharply. "Can you give me cover for five seconds?"
"Yes, sure," he replied, hoping that he didn't sound as worried as he felt.
He wished he was wearing a functional gi instead of elegant dress pants and a long-sleeved white shirt that was slowly soaking up the rain, and he cursed himself for having given Pixal the idea of choosing evening attire as well. Her gown would make it impossible for her to fight. He would have to get her, Gayle, Dareth, and himself out of this single-handedly.
"I'll handle them", he tried to sound confident. "You're wearing a dress. You told me you could hardly walk in it."
"Don't be silly, Zane," she muttered through clenched teeth. "You can't take on all of them at once."
He heard a rustle behind him, but was unable to look back, because he fully concentrated on the shadows moving in from both sides. He would have to shield Pixal somehow, warn Dareth and Gayle, at the same time trying to tackle …
"Zane?" He heard Pixal's voice from behind. "I'm ready. I've got your back."
At this very moment, the attackers stroke. He could only trust her.
"Dareth, watch out!" he yelled as he sprinted after the brown ninja and his companion, thereby knocking over the attacker who had attracted their attention in the first place. Behind his back, Zane heard a swishing sound, the thump and splash of a body hitting a puddle on the ground, and muffled cries of pain. It was not Pixal's voice, he noted with relief; she must have managed to somehow create confusion among the other group of attackers. He could only hope that she had a grip on the situation in that part of the alley, because he had now to deal with four – or five? – assailants in front of him and a shocked Gayle who seemed ready to faint.
Dareth, to Zane's surprise, understood immediately. He quickly closed the umbrella and wielded it like a bo.
"No one messes with the brown ninja and those under his protection!" he roared and jumped forward, managing to almost stab one of the attackers in the knee.
Gayle shrieked, but seemed to regain her presence of mind in an instant, recoiled to the shadows and crouched down near the wall of the closest building. Realizing that none of the assailants went after her, she pulled out a mobile phone from her large handbag and started recording the whole scene.
"Incredible!" she exclaimed in a low voice that could not disguise the eagerness of the professional newsperson. "This is my story! I can't believe I'll be able to give a first-hand report of this and even get the footage to go with it. Go, ninja, go!"
Zane was fighting two attackers at once when Pixal landed next to him with a swoosh. Two wire ropes extended from her arms to the rooftops on each side of the narrow alley, allowing her to swing up and forward again and take out one of Zane's opponents with a well-aimed kick while Zane wrestled the other down.
Grapple hooks! Zane had no idea how she had got hold of them, let alone of the wires that she used like two zip lines, but her tactic was very efficient.
"Tie them up!" she called when she touched the ground once more, tossing him a rope.
During the brief moment when she stood beside him, he noticed that the fabric of Pixal's dress was now parted between her legs and cleverly gathered around her hips in a way that made it look like some sort of knee-length jumpsuit. Minus points for elegance, he thought, but he could not help admiring how quickly she had turned her clothing into a serviceable fighting outfit that restored her full freedom of movement.
Then she was gone again, swinging upwards and in the direction of Dareth, who was outnumbered by three more attackers. Zane swiftly secured the ends of the rope that would keep the two swearing figures at his feet in check. A quick glance told him that Pixal had already tied up two more gang members, but there must be …
"Hiya!" He whipped around, just in time to dodge an attack by the one he had knocked over before. His opponent was quick and light-footed and managed to avoid Zane's grip. He could not see the features hidden behind the face mask with the bright orange stripes, but his subconscious noticed at the sound of a smothered curse that he was fighting a woman. No reason to go easy on her; he grabbed her shoulder, but somehow, she managed to turn round, deal him a painful blow and sprint off. Taking up pursuit was no option, because at this moment he heard Pixal shouting.
"Dareth, down! Gas!"
Oh no. She had been able to keep the remaining three attackers at bay while Dareth took up his fighting stance again, but the thugs were not done yet – the fate of their cronies had only made them more careful. Retreating a few yards down the alley, they suddenly hurled something that looked like a couple of glistening tennis balls in the direction of the ninja. The balls splintered on the ground, and a cloud of yellowish vapor instantly engulfed Pixal and Dareth, making the latter cough and collapse on the ground. Zane's sensors picked up the stench of the gas, but seeing Pixal entirely unaffected by it reassured him.
"Hah, that's not how you take out a nindroid," he muttered as he dashed towards her and Dareth.
Pixal retracted her wire ropes with the grapple hooks. As she bent over the unconscious brown ninja, Zane was the only one who noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye and realized that the attackers were hurling two more gas bombs. Gayle! Sure enough, the excited reporter had moved closer, trying to capture every turn of the events with her mobile phone.
"Ice!" Zane yelled just in time to freeze the second cloud of toxic vapor before it reached her. The yellow frozen droplets fell to the ground, and the rain washed them down a drain.
Gayle was safe. The remaining attackers retreated, apparently realizing that the two nindroids had thwarted their plans. While Gayle recorded a concluding audio commentary for her video, Pixal sniffed and wrinkled her nose.
"Are you at it?" Zane asked.
She nodded, face screwed up in concentration as she straightened herself. Zane knew she was about to do a quick, crude chemical analysis of the gas and search her database for a remedy; that was all they could do for Dareth at the moment – except, of course, for moving him to a dry spot and finding a more comfortable position for him. The last attackers were out of sight by now, but the nindroids had at least managed to capture some of them; the police would hopefully make them talk and find out what this whole ambush had been about.
Zane knelt down and was about to drag Dareth up, when suddenly something large and heavy hit his shoulder with full force and knocked him away from the brown ninja. He slumped to the ground with a groan.
"Zane!" Pixal's voice cut through the night. "Oh no, that won't do!"
She sounded angry, angry and a little desperate. Zane rolled around, somewhat dazed, and watched incredulously as a net was thrown over Dareth's limp body from above. The net automatically tightened around him, and then the brown ninja was hoisted up to the closest rooftop. It all happened so fast that Pixal had no chance to get hold of him before he soared out of reach.
"Dang, I missed that!" Gayle exclaimed, but neither Zane nor Pixal had much compassion with her for having paused her camera at the wrong moment.
"Zane, you're ok?" Pixal asked worriedly.
"I'm unhurt," he grunted. It was largely true. He gritted his teeth and pushed himself up. "Quick, go after them! They seem to be keen on continuing up there." He motioned at the rooftop with his head. "Just make sure you don't get hit by another sand bag."
She nodded and thrust one of her grapple hooks with a wound-up wire rope into his hand. "Follow me when you're ready."
With this, she shot the other hook at the rooftop and swiftly soared upwards in pursuit of the brown ninja and his attackers.
Zane turned to Gayle.
"When you're done filming, could you perhaps call the police? I think that would be one of the basic functions of your phone," he suggested, barely keeping the sarcasm out of his voice.
"The police?" Gayle looked up with a somewhat surprised expression, and he realized that she had not thought of this until now.
"Yes, the police. You know, I can't put these guys into prison." He gestured at the four masked figures who had managed to sit up, but were bound too tightly to attempt to escape. "Someone has to question them. They'll want to interrogate us, too, by the way. And your recordings may actually come in handy."
"Oh, yes. Of course." Gayle seemed to think for a moment and glanced at her watch. "But you know what, if I head for the studio right now, I'll make it in time for the late night news. I've got an exclusive report here." She tapped at her phone. "The police will have to wait."
Zane sighed, growing slightly exasperated. "It is against the law to leave the site of a crime with important evidence. But I suppose I cannot stop you anyway, and they will know where to find you. I have other things to attend to as well." He glanced at the roof. "Just call them already, leave our names and give them a brief report and the coordinates. We're at the corner of Lower Harbor Alley and the Plaza Passage, ok?"
She gave him the thumbs up. "Sure. You go after those criminals! And don't catch a cold," she added with a glance at his sodden shirt and pants, "you really should get rid of those wet clothes … And by the way, thanks for freezing that gas cloud." Her look suddenly showed concern. "I really hope the brown ninja is ok. Get him back safely, will you?"
Zane gave her a grim smile. "We will. They've outsmarted us once, but it won't happen again."