A/N: Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a 'Shane' story!
Timeline: A few months after the events of "Prelude to a storm"
Ninjas and heroes
By Dany
PG-13
Summary: After Lothor's attack on their schools, the Wind and Thunder Rangers thought they were the only ninjas left on earth. They were wrong…
The forested mountains of Blue Bay Harbor were a picture of peacefulness. A light breeze ruffled the leaves of the tall pine trees, and birds were chirping overhead. Two squirrels were chasing each other across the tree branches, chattering happily.
Suddenly the rodents stopped and froze, listening intently.
A sound had broken the serenity of the forest, faint at first, but approaching rapidly. A moment later, a leather-clad figure tore through the dense underbrush at breakneck speed, its boots barely making contact with the ground. The figure kept up that tempo for a few more yards, then stopped abruptly. Long blonde hair was flying as she whipped her head around. Tori stood rooted to the spot, her eyes scanning the area all around her, her ninja senses expanding to pick up any signs of her pursuer. Where was he?
With her heart pounding in her chest, she took several deep breaths, her body slowly calming down from the adrenalin rush of the chase. The run through the forest had been long and taxing, but now it seemed that she had finally shaken him.
Tori allowed herself a small, gleeful smile. All right! After all these weeks of practice she had finally managed to outrun him.
She turned southward, intending to make her way back to Ninja Ops when something made her pause. She felt more than heard the tiny sound coming from above; the slightest creaking of a tree branch. A millisecond later a shadow, equally dressed in black leather, came flying out of the tree tops. Tori reflexively twisted sideways to avoid a full body collision, but the figure still managed to grab hold of her shoulder, fingers digging into her jacket with a viselike grip. Tori was spun around, and the momentum flung her right into her pursuer's broad chest. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, and the blonde ninja ended up on top of her assailant. She made no motion to get up; instead she heaved a deep sigh and looked down into a dark face lit up by a huge grin.
"How?" she demanded. "I was so sure I'd left you in the dust this time. How did you…?"
"Because you're so predictable," Shane replied, grin still firmly in place.
"I am not!" Tori retorted and punched him half-heartedly in the chest while she rolled off him.
"Ouch! Yes, you are." Shane sat up and rubbed his chest with a mock indignant look on his face. "Dude, I've been waiting here for you for like five minutes already." The Air ninja shrugged. "The last few times Sensei had us practice tracking, you've always taken a southern route back to Ops, so I took a chance and waited here, where I thought you'd most likely show up. Turned out to be the right guess."
"Cheater," Tori mumbled under her breath as she rose and brushed the dirt from her uniform. Shane grinned and put a hand to his ear. "Excuse me? Did you say leader? Yup, that's me, all right."
"Leader in cheating, maybe," the Water ninja kept grumbling. She waited until Shane had gotten to his feet before she turned to him. "You know, I'm not that predictable," she said. "Because there's something you weren't expecting."
Shane cocked an eyebrow. "And what's that?"
"THIS!" In a flash, Tori brought up her hands, and Shane had no time to react before he was doused head to toe with twin geysers of water.
"Toriiii!" the Air ninja screeched, and Tori chuckled at the sight of a thoroughly drenched Shane shaking the water out of his hair. He fixed his eyes on her, a highly exasperated look on his face, and growled, "Oh, you're so gonna get it now!"
Ninja discipline and proper tracking procedures were forgotten as Shane lunged at the Water ninja, and Tori's laughter echoed through the woods as the two friends chased each other past the ageless trees of the forest and towards the slope that led to the grounds of the Wind Ninja Academy.
With a mighty leap Tori broke through the grove and into the clearing of the perimeters of the school grounds…and Shane almost collided with her when she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
It had been four months since Lothor's attack on the Wind Ninja Academy, and all that was left of the school now was strewn about the open training arenas in forms of scorched rocks, tree stumps and other rubble. But Tori was looking beyond the destruction, and when Shane followed her gaze he flinched; on the far side of the western training plaza, on a small hill, was Sensei's meditation pagoda – or what was left of it. And on the ground next to a stone pillar that once held the beautiful terracotta roof, sat a girl.
Even though they were separated by a distance of several dozen yards, Shane could see that her eyes behind the pair of small, wire-rimmed glasses she wore, were closed. Motionless, her back ramrod-straight, she sat in the typical meditative position of the Wind Academy, seemingly unaware of the sudden presence of the two other ninjas.
A slight breeze ruffled her dark blonde hair, which was neither straight nor curly and was falling in long, lazy waves down her back. Shane judged her to be about the same age as him and Tori, and the red trim on her black leather training uniform clearly marked her as an Air ninja, but he couldn't remember ever having seen her before. He squinted his eyes for a better look, but her face still remained completely unfamiliar to him. He was about to ask Tori about her, but the Water ninja took the words right out of his mouth as she turned to him. "Do you know her?" she asked, blonde eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Shane shook his head, as puzzled as she was. "How could she be here? I thought Lothor had…" he paused, clearly still loath to speak of the evil space ninja's cowardly ambush and kidnappings.
Tori peered at the girl intently. "You think this might be a trick from Lothor?" she asked, suspicion lacing her voice, and Shane shrugged.
"I don't know, but there's only one way to find out."
They shot each other another look before they both turned simultaneously and sprinted towards the pagoda.
Observations…
At the same time, on the bridge of his spaceship high above Blue Bay Harbor, Lothor slammed his fist into his communications console. "Zurgane!" he yelled. The robotic general reluctantly detached himself from the shadows of the farthest corner of the room, where he had been flirting with Mara and Kapri, and came to his master's side. "Sir?"
The evil space ninja pointed a gloved finger towards the wide-screen monitor which showed the blonde and the dark-skinned ninja approaching another black leather clad figure on the Wind school grounds. "You incompetent fool! You missed another one! Can't you do anything right?"
Lothor's nieces peeked over their uncle's shoulders, following the scene on the monitor with utmost curiosity.
"Sir, I could have sworn we captured all the ninjas during the attack," the robot spluttered. "It was such a meticulously planned…"
Lothor cut him off with one sharp stare. "If it had been as meticulously planned as you claim, then you would never have missed the other six in the first place!" he snapped. "Thanks to you, I've had to waste the past few months trying to figure out ways of getting rid of those meddling kids, and now there's another one!" He emphasized his annoyance with a laser beam from his wrist that missed the black general's head by an inch. Zurgane ducked and stayed down, raising his hands pleadingly. "Sir, I will beam down at once and retrieve the girl for you."
"No. With those two Rangers down there, the others won't be far off, especially since they are on school grounds. You'll only end up getting whipped again." Lothor shot Zurgane another death glare and the general had the good sense not to argue.
The masked ninja turned back to the screen. "For now we'll just keep monitoring them. Once the girl is alone and off the school grounds, we'll make our move and add her to my collection."
He balled his fists in frustration. "Why is it so hard to find good help these days?" he muttered, and Kapri obviously took this as a question directed at them.
"Maybe because you're paying less than minimum wage, Uncle?" she offered.
Lothor stared at his nieces with narrowed eyes. "And who are you all of a sudden? Representatives of the Evil Space Villain Union?" His gloved hand shot up. "OUT. All of you!"
Mara, Kapri and Zurgane scurried towards the exit, but Lothor's sharp voice held the general back. "Zurgane! You and your men will stand ready to move at my command. And for your own sake I hope that this one was the last ninja you missed."
The black robot bowed deeply and silently left the bridge.
Molly…
Shane and Tori were still a couple of yards away from the remnants of the pagoda when the girl's eyes suddenly flew open. Startled, she turned her head at the same time as she scrambled to her feet, automatically flying into the Air defensive stance, but only a moment later her eyes widened when she recognized the familiar uniforms. She lowered her fists and gaped at them as they came closer.
Shane saw her mouth open and the words 'Oh my god' drifted across the short distance. She seemed as genuinely surprised to see them as they had been just moments ago. An awkward moment followed in which the three ninjas stared at each other, then the girl's face suddenly lit up, and with a wordless exclamation she lunged at Tori and threw her arms around the Water ninja's neck. The hug seemed to help open the floodgates, for suddenly a stream of words emerged from her. "Ohmygod, I can't believe it, I thought I was the only one left, how did you guys manage to survive the attack, do you know what happened to the others and to all the buildings? How did…"
"Whoa, slow down," Tori said with a grin while she gently disentangled herself from the bear hug.
The girl's face took on a slightly embarrassed look and she took a step back. "Sorry, I'm just so happy to see you both. I didn't know whether anyone else…had made it." Her voice faltered a bit at the last few words, but she straightened up quickly, her eyes darting back and forth between Tori and Shane. "I'm Molly. Molly Taylor."
"I'm Shane, this is Tori," Shane introduced them, his gaze traveling from the girl's face to her uniform. "I'm sorry, but you are not familiar to me…"
"I joined the Academy only a few weeks before the attack," Molly explained. "I don't really know anyone, didn't get a chance to make any friends before…" She finished her sentence with a helpless gesture. Suddenly her eyes flickered back to Shane, taking in his still-wet hair and moist uniform. "Did you fall into the pond when you came through the waterfall?" she asked, referring to the holographic entrance portal.
Tori hid her smile behind her hand, and Shane threw the blonde ninja a dark glare.
"No, not exactly."
Molly regarded him for another moment with a puzzled look, then gave a mental shrug, deciding not to pursue the matter any further. There were more pressing questions to be answered.
"Do you know of any others who escaped?" Molly wanted to know, and Tori nodded.
"A few. An Earth ninja from our class, Dustin. Sensei Watanabe's son Cam, and two Thunder ninjas," she explained, and Molly cocked her head.
"Thunder ninjas?" she echoed, and Shane and Tori could empathize with the surprised look on her face. The relationship between the Wind and Thunder Academies had always been grudgingly tolerant at best. There had never been much love lost between the two schools.
"I'm glad to hear that," she said, "When I saw what had happened here, I went to search for the Thunder Academy to get help. I had never been there before, so it took me almost an entire day to find it." Her gaze dropped to the ground. "The destruction there was even worse than here."
"Yeah, we know," Shane muttered, his face drawn.
"So how did you escape L…" Tori caught herself just in time. "…the raid?"
"I wasn't here that day. I had been sick for two days, and the day I felt well enough to train again…" Molly's eyes traveled over the wrecked training plaza. "…I found all this here." She turned towards them. "What about you guys?"
Shane scratched his head, a slightly sheepish expression on his face. "We were late for class that day. Played good Samaritan and helped this old couple jumpstart their car."
"It's a good thing you did, too." Molly said. "That probably saved your lives."
"Maybe, but if we had been here we could have done something, helped prevent all this," Shane replied, unappeased.
"Or you'd be gone, vanished like the others," Molly whispered.
Tori later concluded that it was some sort of sisterly instinct at the look of misery on the Air ninja's face that made her reach out and put her arm around the girl.
"They're not dead," the Water ninja said, putting enough emphasis into her words for Molly to look up into Tori's face.
"How do you know?" she asked, not convinced.
Tori's brief hesitation, and the wary look that passed between her two fellow ninjas, was not lost on Molly, and suddenly she couldn't contain herself any longer.
"Please, if you know something that I don't….I need to know," she pleaded, alternating between addressing Tori and Shane. "My best friend Carmen, she's an Earth ninja, she was here the day of the attack and she's been gone without a trace ever since, just like everyone else. Up until you two showed up today, I haven't been able to find anyone!"
She swallowed heavily, eyes brimming. "This has been driving me crazy for the past four months."
Shane spoke up. "There's unfortunately not much we can tell you either," he said, and the moment the words were out of his mouth Molly knew it was a lie.
Tori must have seen the skeptical look on Molly's face, for she quickly took up where Shane had left off. "We have reason to believe that the students were kidnapped."
"Kidnapped?" the girl echoed incredulously. "But who in the world would be powerful enough to abduct every teacher and student from not one but two secret ninja academies? And what happened to all the buildings?"
Instead of an answer, there was that look again, and Molly could almost hear the inner debate that went with that glance between the Water and the Air ninja.
Shane shook his head. "We don't know," he said, and before Molly could call him on this second lie, Tori intervened. "Why don't you tell us what you know?" the blonde ninja inquired, and the evoked reaction was instantaneous.
The guarded expression came over Molly's face with the suddenness of a lightening strike. "Me? Nothing!" she said a little too quickly, then turned her head and gesticulated towards the debris-strewn training plaza. "I mean, there's obviously been some sort of major battle, because the signs of it are everywhere. But as far as any other information goes, I guess I know as much as you do."
The way she formulated that last sentence struck Shane as odd. Almost like a challenge…
Looking at her, he found there was a knowledge in the girl's scrutinizing gaze.
'She knows we're not telling her all we know,' Shane concluded. But he also took in her defensive posture, the nervous flicker in her eyes, and then it suddenly hit him that she was probably holding out on them as much as they were holding out on her.
But what could she possibly know that they didn't?
The three ninjas looked at each other in a silent stalemate.
Now what? Shane awkwardly searched for words, then squared his shoulders and said, "Look, if we find out anything new, we'll call you, ok? What's your number?" He knew it was a weak thing to say, but it was the best thing he had to offer right now. And from the look on the girl's face, she was thinking the same thing as she shook her head.
"I don't have a cell phone, and my parents would be suspicious if I got calls from strangers." She waved towards the pagoda. "Just leave me a note here. I can't seem to stay away from this place for too long a time anyways."
Molly regarded them for a moment in the awkward silence that followed, and Shane couldn't help but notice that the earlier sparkle of hope in her celadon eyes had died. Then she suddenly cleared her throat. "Well, I should be going," she mumbled. "By now my parents are probably wondering where I am, so…see ya." She ended the sentence with a resigned shrug, gave them a nod good-bye and turned towards the once meticulously pebbled walkway that led from the pagoda towards the training grounds.
There was no spring in her step, and Shane felt a pang of guilt at the way her shoulders now stooped. Their mere presence seemed to have filled her with such hope at first, until they literally pulled the rug out from under her.
Shane threw Tori a quick glance before he sprinted after the girl. "Wait, hold up."
Molly stopped as Shane stepped into her view.
"Listen, if you ever want to talk…you can usually find one of us at Storm Chargers sports shop in the city. Dustin works there; he'll get in touch with us if we're not there."
Molly looked at him for a long moment before she nodded. "All right. Maybe I'll see you around, then." And with that he resumed her way down the slope, never looking back.
Tori appeared at Shane's right, and together they watched Molly walk towards the Academy's holographic entrance.
"Are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking?" Shane asked, and he sensed his blonde friend nodding beside him.
"That she's holding out on us? Yeah." They exchanged a silent glance.
"We better tell Sensei about her. Come on," Tori said. Shane nodded, gazing after the retreating figure of the girl a moment longer, then followed the Water ninja to the concealed entrance of Ninja Ops.
Reflections…
A little while later, less than a mile from the Wind Academy, on top of a high cliff overlooking the ocean, feet dangling over the edge, Molly Taylor stared out over the water. She didn't see the glistening surface of the ocean, however, for her mind was racing at light speed.
Survivors! I'm not alone, I can't believe it!
But her elation was short-lived; guilt made her hang her head at the lie she had told them. 'My parents are probably wondering where I am.' What a load of bull!
No one was wondering, no one was waiting. She could be gone for days and her mother would not lose a minute of her drug-induced sleep over it.
Molly forcefully locked any more thoughts of her family into the compartment of her mind designated just for that purpose and turned back to the encounter with the ninjas. At first her heart had soared at the sight of them, but that feeling had changed to downright frustration during their conversation, for the vibes she had received from the two Winds had been clear.
'They know more than they let on,' she thought grimly, 'and I can't even blame them.'
Molly was guilty of the same misdeed, but of course what she was holding back was quite a different thing. The question now was: Was she willing to exchange her knowledge for theirs?
A strained moan escaped her lips. She didn't want to share what she knew, but the need for possible answers about the ninja students' whereabouts was an almost physical ache in her chest.
Carmen might be alive! Any information she could scrounge up on her best friend's whereabouts was worth paying just about any price, and if that meant revealing her secret...
She pulled up her legs, hugging her knees. The problem wasn't sharing what she knew, but how she came about that knowledge. Hence the secret.
'Story of my life,' she thought, grimacing in dismay, 'I want answers from them, so I have to let them in on who I am. Or more precisely, what I am. The freak that I am.'
As if on cue, a powerful vision blurred out the ocean view before her, replacing it with the smoldering remains of the Wind Academy's training plaza. The terrified screams of the ninja students vibrated through her head as clearly as if she had stood right in the midst of the chaos.
Which she hadn't. She had told the truth when she said that she had never even been close to the Academy that day. But that, of course, stopped neither the visions nor the voices or the overwhelming perceptions of fear and panic that channeled into her every time she pilgrimaged to the school grounds.
Images in form of visions, perceptions of people's feelings, as well as voices inside her head, was nothing new to Molly. It was something she had lived with her entire life, and while she would never be comfortable with them, she accepted them a long time ago as an inevitable byproduct of her life.
But just because she had grudgingly acknowledged herself as a freak of nature didn't mean she was happy about revealing herself as such to anyone, especially two strangers; that they were fellow ninjas didn't matter at all in this case.
She rubbed her temples. God, I hate this!
Seventeen years and counting, and even after all this time she still couldn't completely control all the random images that invaded her head at the strangest times.
Only one person had ever made an actual effort to bring order to her chaotic head: Sensei Kanoi Watanabe, who had sensed her mental potential when he noticed how easily she had managed to control the air element after just one lesson. He had taken it upon himself to teach her the meditative techniques necessary to focus her mind, but they hadn't gotten further than three lessons before the ambush happened. And now he was gone, just like all the others.
Molly shook her head fiercely, then concentrated on the blue ocean below her, shutting out the images and voices of the attack, as well as her grief over the disappearance of her teacher with a determined effort. But the vibrations of the screams still echoed through her head, slicing into her heart, and her conscience made up her mind for her at that moment.
No matter what kind of abomination the other Wind ninjas would perceive her to be after she was finished telling them about her visions, it was an almost bearable price to pay if it yielded some answers to the questions that had been haunting her for the past four months.
TBC…
