As the disheartened group of Rangers entered Ninja Ops, the first thing they saw was Sensei standing forlornly on top of the console of the supercomputer. The four teenagers immediately crowded around their teacher to report on the happenings of the past hour and to reassure Sensei that Cam was in good hands with Dr. McAllister – and Hunter.
Cam's desk chair was still toppled over and Tori automatically put it back in its rightful place. No one made a move to sit in it, however. This was Cam's chair, after all.
Instead, the Rangers related Shane's idea and Sensei agreed that the plan was worth a shot.
"Okay," Dustin declared, "so now all we have to do is find that recording." He cast Cam's computer an uneasy look, then turned to his fellow ninjas who were all wearing similar expressions. All but one.
Strangely enough, it was Blake who turned out to have a bit more than rudimentary knowledge about the Supercomputer. Apparently, during the Thunder Rangers' three-month stay at Ninja Ops, Cam had taken it upon himself to drill some computer education into his newest teammates and Blake had been the more receptive one of the Bradleys. Thankfully, one of the things he recalled was how to get into the surveillance recordings archive - knowledge that came in very handy right now.
The archive was labeled according to battle-dates, so all he had to do was pull up the corresponding day and a few keystrokes later, the Rangers were watching themselves thrash a dozen kelzaks all across the shopping center's main plaza. Blake adjusted the view of the video, zooming in on the surroundings immediately behind the fighting where about a dozen spectators had gathered. In slow-motion, he let the faces stream by until a sudden sharp intake of breath from behind him made him flinch.
"Hey, wait. Freeze that picture!" Tori literally lunged forward, pointing wildly.
Blake hit the pause button and the blurry faces of two teenagers, one Asian and one Hispanic with wiry hair in the style of 'electroshock', filled half of the screen. Tori stared at the young men.
"Oh my god, it's Jared Wong!" she all but whispered.
Shane and Dustin frowned simultaneously. "Who?"
"Him," Tori gesticulated. "The Asian guy with the baby face and the acne-scarred cheeks…I know him. He's a Water ninja, he was in my class before Lothor's attack. I thought he was on the space ship now with the others. Sensei…" Tori's head whipped around, searching, but Sensei was already hopping onto her shoulder, squinting at the screen as well.
"You are correct, Tori," he said. "This is indeed Jared Wong. And yes, he is a Water ninja."
The four teenagers traded amazed looks as the implication of Sensei Watanabe's words set in.
"This is no coincidence that this guy would just happen to show up at the battle scene," Blake growled after a moment and Shane nodded in grim acknowledgment.
"You're right. I think we just found the traitor from the roof."
Dustin stared at the screen. "I've never seen this guy before," the Earth ninja declared.
"Doesn't surprise me," Tori said. "He's a loner. A good fighter, but very quiet and anti-social. We were in the same elemental classes for a few weeks, but I don't think I spoke more than a dozen words to him – or saw him speak more than the most necessary to anyone, for that matter."
Dustin and Shane traded a thoughtful look. "Now if we could only find him somehow..."
Tori suddenly transferred her gaze from the computer screen to her friends. "About that..." The corners of her mouth began to lift. "Would it help if I told you where he works?"
The blonde girl couldn't help but grin at the incredulous stares she promptly received from her three teammates.
Confronting Jared…
"Flix" Video Store was the fifth store in a row of small businesses across from Blue Bay University. Tori parked the van in a slot right outside the shop's glass doors. Turning off the ignition, she said, "It was really an accident that I ran into him here, because this isn't even where I normally rent my movies from; it was just that I wanted to see this particular chick-flick, but no other video store in town was carrying it, so I asked them to put it on hold for me. And when I got here to pick it up, he just happened to be working that day."
"Lucky for us now that you like schmaltzy movies." Dustin grinned.
Shane cast a look in the rearview mirror at the backseat where Blake was on his cell phone, just wrapping up recounting the results of the tape viewing to his brother.
"Let's just hope he's there today," the Air ninja said grimly and reached for the door handle the moment Blake hung up the phone. The four teens piled out of the van and entered the store, but it took Tori only one quick look around to determine that their quarry was nowhere to be seen. They asked for him at the checkout counter anyways.
"Jared?" The manager-on-duty seemed eager to help. "Yeah, he's here today, but he's on his break right now. Should be back in a few minutes. I think he just went to grab some food from the taco joint around the corner. Do you guys want to wait or can I give him a message?"
"Uh, that's okay," Shane replied quickly. "We'll just come back later."
They reassembled in Tori's van, intent on staying put until the elusive Water ninja showed up. They didn't have to wait long.
A teenager rounded the corner approximately five minutes later, carrying a brown paper bag and a soda cup with the taco restaurant's bright logo on it. Tori sat up straighter and answered Shane's inquiring look with a simple nod; she recognized the boy immediately as Jared Wong.
During the past few months since Lothor's attack, Tori had often wondered whether there were more survivors of Lothor's ambush. She was fairly sure that there must be, for not every single ninja could have been on school grounds that fateful day. However, they had never come across any. Until now. It should have been a joyous occasion under normal circumstances, but in this case, Tori felt nothing but cold contempt for the ninja who was the cause of Cam's precarious state.
Motioning to the others to stay put, she silently left the van. When the dark-haired boy was almost at the door, she stepped from behind the vehicle and into the young man's path. "Hi, Jared." It took a huge effort to keep her face blank. "Long time no see."
The Water ninja stopped dead in his tracks. Tori took grim satisfaction from that brief moment when Jared's eyes widened in shock at the sight of her. But he composed himself quickly and an instant later, his face showed nothing but feigned confusion.
"What's the matter?" she asked innocently. "You've already forgotten me? It's only been a few months since our academy disappeared."
Jared blinked. "No…no, I'm just surprised to see you, that's all." He cocked his head and added somewhat lamely, "Uh...You, you're Tori, right?"
As if you didn't know. Tori forced herself to smile at him. "Yeah."
Jared's eyes suddenly flickered to a spot over her shoulder and narrowed in suspicion. The others must have stepped up behind her.
"Whuzzup, Jared," Shane growled. The Asian boy's shoulders visibly tensed at the barely contained rage in the Air ninja's voice, but he was nonetheless trying to keep up his nonchalant attitude.
"Do I know you?"
"How come we haven't seen you on the school grounds, Jared?" Dustin injected, ignoring the Water ninja's question. "I mean, you obviously know that the academy's gone, right? How come you never made an effort to find any of the other Wind ninjas?"
"I...I've been there," Jared replied warily. "But I didn't see no one, so..."
"So what? You're not even wondering what happened to your school, your teachers, your fellow ninjas?" Blake snapped, coming up next to Shane. "You just decided to turn your back and move on to other things?" The Thunder ninja glowered at Jared. "More profitable things, maybe?"
"What are you talking about?" Jared's eyes now darted between the four angry teens.
Shane stepped forward. "As if you didn't know, traitor!" The Air ninja fixed him with a smoldering glare while he advanced one more step, drawing himself up to his full height. The others followed and Jared was beginning to take on the look of a cornered animal. He kept on backing away, until he suddenly realized with a start that the four ninjas positioned around him had effectively maneuvered him towards the alleyway next to the video store. His eyes frantically scanned the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street and beyond, but Tori interpreted his look correctly and moved smoothly to the right, effectively blocking his escape route.
Next to Shane, Dustin apparently had enough of the word games. "How long you been running drugs for Morales, Jared?"
At this, the Asian boy visibly flinched, stumbled backwards a few more steps and dropped his food. Whether it was an instinctive reaction or meant as a last futile attempt at intimidation, Jared reached up and tore at his street clothes, revealing his ninja uniform at the same time as he went into a defensive stance. "I'm not telling you anything!"
Shane merely raised his eyebrows. "Oh, so you wanna play hardball, huh? All right."
And in one fluid motion, the four teens cast their own garments aside, displaying their respective ninja suits. The tension in the alleyway instantly rose tenfold as four young men and one young woman stood staring at each other with fists raised.
What transpired next happened within a mere few blinks of an eye. Apparently realizing that risking a physical confrontation with four angry ninjas would indeed be a foolish thing to do, Jared suddenly took one more step back and whipped his head around. The buildings around and behind him were not particularly high - three stories at the most. An easy task, even for a first-year ninja student, as long as he had adequate streaking skills.
Jared's intentions dawned on the three Wind ninjas and Blake almost immediately, but by the time they lunged forward, Jared had already broken one of the most sacred rules of the Wind Ninja Academy: Never use your powers in public.
In broad daylight and in plain view of any potential observers, he streaked to the top of the building behind him and away in a blur of blue. The Rangers, after only the briefest moment of stunned disbelief, had no choice but to give chase.
One ninja trying to outstreak four was pretty hard to do, but Jared Wong proved to be quite competent in this particular ninja skill. He had, however, not been prepared to have some very determined fellow ninjas on his heels and soon found out that it was next to impossible to shake them.
The ninjas, for their part, quickly realized that Jared had neither a solid escape plan nor a clear route, for his streak soon took on a random pattern of zigzagging and evasive maneuvers all across town. It was becoming obvious that the traitorous ninja was trying to change his strategy to losing his pursuers by attempting to find a hiding spot rather than trying to outstreak them much longer.
Even through the blur of their break-neck speed, Tori could sense the other Water ninja's incipient exhaustion; he was beginning to feel the effects of prolonged streaking and wouldn't be able to keep this up much longer.
Jared promptly confirmed her assumption when he abruptly twisted and veered to the left, towards the not-so-distant, snow-capped triple peaks of Misty Mountain, Blue Bay County's popular winter ski resort.
As the mountain range rapidly drew closer, Jared showed no signs of slowing down and the high-speed pursuit went straight up the mountain, past several gondola and chair lifts, until the ninjas came to a stop behind the top base of a chair-lift on one of the more popular slopes. They only lingered for a moment to catch their breaths. Jared was nowhere to be seen.
"Tori, Blake, you go this way." Shane jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Search around the lift. Dustin and I will check over there." He nodded towards a large log building a few yards away that was flanked by two smaller ones. A wide sun deck clearly identified the larger building as a lodge.
"Looking like this?" Tori said, indicating their ninja suits, but Shane just shrugged.
"Not much of a choice now, since our clothes are back in the alley, and with our luck, they have probably been dragged away by some hobos by now."
They fanned out in search of their quarry. Thankfully, on a Wednesday afternoon, there weren't many skiers around and no one seemed to have seen them streaking in. A small ski school was assembling near the ridge of the nearest run and a couple of snowboarders were just getting onto the slope. Jared, however, was neither among them nor visible anywhere else.
While they stomped through the snow towards the lodge, Shane grimly recalled that only last week they had all made plans to come up to just this mountain to do some sledding. Plans that, like many before, were thwarted by yet another one of Lothor's endless attacks.
"You think he might have kept streaking?" Dustin wondered aloud, but Shane shook his head.
"No, this guy's only a first-year student, too, and that was a pretty long distance we just covered. I know I'm just about worn out, so there's no way he could've gone any further." The dark-skinned ninja's eyes ceaselessly scanned his surroundings as he spoke. "No, he's got to be around here somewhere."
They rounded the corner of one of the smaller log buildings and the first thing they saw was an elderly man in a skiing suit trying to drag himself out of a mound of snow with a strangled curse. Instinctively, they ran to the man's aid, grasping his arms as they hauled him to his feet. Dustin held on to the man's arm a moment longer to steady him. "'Scuse me, but did you see an Asian guy coming through here?" he asked the agitated skier and waved a hand in the direction of his chest. "Kinda dressed like this."
The old man cast him a dark glare. "Are you kiddin'? He was the one who knocked me down!" He brushed the snow off his pants with one hand while gesticulating with the other. "Your friend comes running around the corner here like all the hounds of hell are after him, slams right into me - and keeps on going! Barely even looks back. Not a 'Sorry' or anything. Kids nowadays, they got no respect, not like when I was growing up..."
"Believe me, he's not our friend," Shane injected, fixing the man with an intent look. "Sir, which way did he go?"
"Behind the lodge." The old man pointed with his chin, curiosity now beginning to replace his irritation. "You boys wanna tell me what's..." But Shane and Dustin were already sprinting in the direction he had indicated.
"Thanks!"
"Sorry about the 'knocking down' part," Dustin called over his shoulder just before he disappeared behind the lodge right after Shane, leaving the skier standing alone in the snow. The old man cocked his head. "Well, at least someone's got some manners left," he mumbled before he stiffly shuffled off.
The chase…
The first thing Shane saw after speeding around the corner was a wide, open area behind the lodge that branched out after several yards, each trail ending in a ridge to a skiing slope. One of them was roped off and marked 'closed', the other one was wide open and labeled with a blue wooden cross indicating an intermediate slope.
"There!" Dustin cried and Shane spun around just in time to catch the last glimpse of a dark head disappearing over the closed-off ridge. As he raced towards the top of the slope, he heard Dustin's voice behind him, speaking into his morpher.
"Guys, behind the lodge! He just went down one of the slopes. Hurry!"
Jared was already several yards down the trail. He had strapped on a snowboard and was rapidly drawing away. Shane let out a frustrated growl. Where did he get the board from?
He saw the answer in the form of two more snowboards sticking out of a mound of snow that was stacked all along the back wall of the lodge. The Air ninja made a beeline for them, his brunet teammate right on his heels.
"Not enough of them," Dustin cried, dismayed, and his head jerked around in search for any other usable skiing equipment. "Aw man, how come James Bond always finds enough of the hardware he needs when he chases the bad guys?"
"Because you're forgetting that James Bond usually works alone." Shane hurriedly jerked one of the boards from the snow pile.
Tori and Blake came racing around the corner and the Air ninja promptly tossed the board to Tori before he pulled the second one out for himself. "Sorry guys, but Tori and I have more experience with boards," he said to the Earth and Thunder ninja while Tori was already strapping her boots into the board's bindings.
"Sure, leave the bikers behind." Dustin made a face. "Shoot, where is a snowmobile when you need one?" he mumbled.
Blake's eyes scanned the area, obviously in search for an answer to just that question.
"Ha!" He pointed to the side of a storage shed besides the lodge where the front half of the much sought-after snowmobile was barely visible from the angle they were standing.
Dustin wasn't consoled. "But that's only one, too!"
"We'll make it a two-seater, come on!" Blake dashed off in the direction of the shed.
"Hey, Dustin, give us a push, will ya?" Shane cried over his shoulder, poised precariously on the snowboard, and the Earth ninja hurriedly obliged. A mighty shove sent the Air and Water ninja forward and onto the steeply tilted slope. The last thing Shane saw as he risked a look back was navy-blue energy sparking from Blake's hand in the Thunder ninja's obvious attempt to hotwire the snowmobile.
Shane had never been on a snowboard before, so he automatically went for adjusting his balance the way he normally did on his skateboard. That worked and he leaned forward, instinctively going for the most momentum and speed by trying to take as little turns as possible and keeping his board as straight downhill as he dared. A quick look to his left showed Tori doing the same. Their tactic proved right and they quickly gained velocity.
Luckily, this was a well-kept slope and the snow had been pressed down and packed tight by many skiers before them, thus eliminating the worry of accidentally getting stuck in deep powder snow. To the left and right of them, the edges of the run were clearly marked by three feet of stacked snow and beyond that, dense woods prevailed. No way Jared could just pull off this slope and vanish into the woods. But at this rate, he would reach the bottom of the slope well before them and escape among the many possible hiding places of the Misty Mountain ski resort, which was virtually a ghost town in the summer, but sure to be packed with skiers now. If Jared were to reach the end of the slope, he had a very good chance of vanishing into the crowd and be gone for good. He had already shown his skills in the art of disappearing a few days ago, after all.
Next to him, Tori was apparently thinking along the same lines, for the Blue Ranger was gesticulating towards the rapidly shrinking figure. "At this rate, we're not going to catch him before he reaches the bottom." she cried. "He's getting away, Shane!"
'Not if I can help it,' Shane thought. "We need to find a way to slow him down," he called back, and at that very moment, his snowboard caught a patch of ice. For an instant, the board veered precariously and the Red Ranger frantically waved his arms to keep his balance. The board slid again, forcing Shane to crouch and briefly place both hands on the snow-covered ground to right himself again. He came back up with a glove-full of snow - and a plan.
"Tori!"
When the Water ninja turned her head, he held out his snow-filled hand. "I have an idea..."
Wind and Snow…
Many yards ahead, Jared risked a look back up the slope and was relieved to see two of his pursuers lagging far behind. He couldn't see the other two, though, and that worried him. He leaned as far forward as he dared, milking his snowboard's speed for all its worth. In the distance, he could see the bottom base of a ski lift and behind that, the resort town itself. He had maybe half a mile to go. He could make it, no need to even look back any more. He concentrated on the terrain in front of him, a victorious grin beginning to spread across his face.
Until he heard the faint rumble behind him.
He cast a look over his shoulder - and blinked in stunned disbelief. A five-foot snowball was plowing towards him at ridiculous speed, growing and gaining mass even during the second that Jared was staring at it, and two things were immediately clear to him. First - that snowball was man-made, meaning the Water bitch was using her powers against him. Second - no question that the Air bastard was pushing the snowball towards him using his wind element. Jared's heart began to pound and he veered to the left, narrowly escaping the now six-foot snowball. His board wobbled with the momentum, and for a moment he had to focus all his concentration on regaining his balance. When he looked back up, a wall of white was bearing down on him. The snowball had turned! How in the…?
And even as his brain was coming to the logical conclusion that there was no way to escape, his defiant soul kept on searching for any possible way out – or at least an explanation for why a snowball would be able to change course by itself.
He arrived at the conclusion that the Air ninja must have been controlling it with wind gusts at the same instant as the huge mass of snow engulfed him.
Tori gave a victorious cry when she saw Jared disappear into the snowball.
"Yeah! Strike, baby!" she heard Shane yell at the same time as the sound of a rapidly approaching engine came to her ears. A look over her shoulder revealed Blake and Dustin speeding down the slope on their snowmobile.
'Took 'em long enough…' Tori grinned.
The snowball had lost most of its momentum due to the collision with Jared and was now slowly rolling to a stop as the slope leveled out a bit. Of the evasive ninja only a part of his snowboard and a hand could be seen sticking out of the snow.
Fortunately, the hand wiggled as she skidded to a halt next to it and the blonde ninja breathed a sigh of relief. Shane had already cast off his board's bindings and was digging into the snow with his bare hands. Tori joined his efforts and before long, Jared's soaked head was revealed. Coughing and gasping for air, the Water ninja looked at them, and in his eyes they saw defeat.
Dustin and Blake arrived a moment later, eager to help free Jared from his icy prison.
"Dudes, that looked like so much fun," Dustin exclaimed as he hopped off the snowmobile and joined his teammates. "I have got to try this!"
Shane, Tori and Blake all jerked their heads in his direction, and Dustin found himself on the receiving end of three identical looks of incredulity. He snickered. "The snowboarding, guys, not the snowball ride."
To Be Continued…
A/N: This story has become somewhat slow in the making. Not for lack of ideas, but rather lack of time to write.
I've also been blind-sided by my muse who suddenly started bombarding me with ideas for the next installment of my Shane/Dustin series. It will be posted after the conclusion of "Eyes" as soon as I've figured out how to make it 'tame' enough for posting on R-ratedmuse has run away with me, too. :)