"Please don't tell me GUMI was taken like the Ninja." Meiko complained with a bit of worry in her voice. "I don't think the Manager will be too happy if she learns that we're starting to go too."
"I guess this gives us more motivation to search for the kidnapper then." Rin said. "When we do find them, can Len and I crush them?"
"Sure." Gakupo told them. "But we might want answers from the kidnapper, so you two can be our secret torture weapon."
"YAY!" The Kagamine twins yelled while high-fiving, before being practically tackled to keep quiet.
"Be silent!" Miku loudly whispered. "We don't want anyone figuring out our plan, especially if the kidnappers are still here."
"Sorry…" Len whispered to everyone, with Rin nodding to say that she was too.
"Look, how about we all just hurry up and get everything done?" Luka asked. "We only have a few hours left to go before we get caught, so we need to move quickly."
"Alright." Kaito agreed before pulling his group inside the Manager's office. "We will head over to the kitchen to help you guys out once we're done. Bye!"
The door was silently shut and Luka turned to her team of kitchen-raiders. "Come on, let's get going. There are most likely some bags in the kitchen, but we might need to get some backpacks as well. We're lucky that the lost-and-found room is close by."
Luka walked quickly to the kitchen with Rin, Len, and Miku following right behind her. The hallways were empty because of the lack in security, but she knew to be wary of cameras that were still functional. Because of that, she made sure that her group stuck to the shadows, shortcuts, and went as quick as possible without making too much noise.
Once they finally made it to the kitchen area, Luka breathed a sigh of relief. There weren't any cameras in any of the rooms, which let them become free to wander around and do what they needed to. She found he bin of plastic bags and handed a few to her team while grabbing a cooler for them to put cold items in.
"I'm going to get some backpacks." Luka told them before starting to leave. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."
Luka received a bunch of nods before she left the room. The lost-and-found was just down the hall, which made her goal very simple. She looked around for cameras while she speed walked and didn't see any in plain sight. She did however, see something strange near the lost-and-found tables. She hid herself and made no noise while also creeping closer to see what was there.
Luka noticed that whatever it was happened to be moving slightly, as if it was breathing. She quickly hid before getting noticed, and tried to see what it was through the barely-lit hallway. The thing moved slightly to see what the noise was, reflecting the color green in what seemed like eyes. The color disappeared for a half a second, reappeared, and then the shape turned around toward the lost-and-found tables, making a little bit of noise every time something on the tables moved.
Luka moved as quietly as possible to see what was on the tables, and she saw that materials that she went to go and collect were being carried by whatever was in front of her. She panicked a bit on the inside because she thought that the equipment was being taken away from her so they couldn't use it. Acting quickly, she walked behind the shape and knocked it on what would be the head of a person.
After hearing a loud sound of pain from the contact, Luka received a kick to the stomach. She backed up out of range of any more attacks and began walking toward the light from an open window. When she got into the light she noticed that the attacks stopped, almost as if the shape recognized her. The shape walked into the soft light and her eye widened at the sight.
"GUMI?" Luka asked in surprise. "Is that you? We thought you were kidnapped!"
"Of course I wasn't!" GUMI responded. "I figured we could get some things done faster if we split up, so I went to collect travel supplies. I even have some granola bars and trail mix in here somewhere."
"That's good. Thank you for the help, even though none of us knew where you went. At least you bought us an hour or two of time, which could save our lives later."
"I'm grateful that you found my assistance helpful! But shouldn't we hurry? Here, take some bags."
Luka held out her arms and a bunch of mountain backpacks were dropped into her hands. The load wasn't heavy, but it obstructed her vision greatly, making her trip a little bit and almost run into walls a bunch of times. But she eventually made it to the kitchen with GUMI's help right before dropping all of the supplies onto a table.
"Alright, now to fill these up." Luka said to herself. She looked around and saw that some of the tables were filling up with non-perishable foods while the cooler was almost half full with drinks. Overall, the food was doing pretty good. She picked up a bag and walked over to one of the tables to fill it up with supplies while GUMI did the same.
After a few minutes of storing the food, Kaito, Gakupo, and Meiko came into the kitchen with a couple of plastic bags.
"What are those for?" Luka asked the group.
"These are all of our clothes." Kaito answered. "We put them in separate bags so nobody would get upset. Hey, is that GUMI? GUMI! You weren't kidnapped?"
Gumi looked up in surprise before answering. "No I wasn't. Does everyone here think that?"
"Yes." Gakupo told her. "You see, because the Ninja were kidnapped, all of our thoughts jumped to a bad conclusion. You might have to get ready though, because I think the twins and Miku are coming."
GUMI watched Gakupo point to the door and looked to see it swing open, with Rin, Len, and Miku on the other side. They had food in their arms, but they dropped it almost as soon as they saw her. She backed up a little bit, hoping to giver herself enough room to get away, but it was too late. All of them ran up to her and jumped, resulting in a dogpile.
GUMI wasn't in too much pain, but the sudden weight put on her startled her a bit. There were questions coming at her from the people sitting on her, but she couldn't understand anything over the loud chatter of her friends. She just laid there for a little while because she wasn't able to move while they continued to talk into her ears and crush her.
Eventually GUMI got a bit of help. Luka and Meiko grabbed Miku and pulled her off, Gakupo took hold of Len, and Kaito pulled Rin away from her. Each of them held back the person they took so she could get up and try to finish her job. She stood up and walked over to the table where she was working, keeping an eye on Rin, Len, and Miku as she continued to put supplies in the bag.
After a little while, Miku, Rin, and Len were released and told to get more supplies that they might need. They ran off in different directions, leaving Meiko, Kaito, GUMI, Luka, and Gakupo to keep getting ready for the journey ahead of them.
It only took about an hour for everyone to get prepared and set to go. They took out a map of Ninjago and Kaito calculated how far the kidnappers could have gone with the technology that is around the country. He pointed to specific places where they could be, leaving everyone to decide where to go.
"Okay, you see these six places here?" Kaito asked while pointing to the map. "The shoreline, the city, the volcano, the mountains, the desert, and this forest. They are the best places to hide some kidnapped people, plus they're in range of how far the kidnappers could have gone. It isn't the best way to figure out where they went, but it's all we have. We need to pick a direction and go there."
"I think that we should go to the mountains." Miku said. "They're cold and hard to travel through, so that means that people who aren't used to them can freeze to death or fall."
"Good point, but that's similar to the volcano." Meiko told Miku. "Only in the volcano, it's way too hot and you'll burn if you aren't careful."
"But what about the forest?" Rin spoke up. "Forests can become mazes, plus they have animals that can tear anyone into shreds. You also have to include the fact that not all of the forest has been completely mapped out because explorers have died trying."
"How do you know that?" Len asked.
"I DO study you dimwit."
"Don't fight you two." Luka warned. "You were doing fairly well at getting along, but don't make it worse."
"I say that we go to the shoreline." GUMI told them. "There could be an underwater base or something."
"But what are the chances of that?" Gakupo asked GUMI. "I believe that we should go to the city instead. Some apartments are completely private, which is ideal for kidnapping and holding hostage."
"So it looks like we can't decide then." Kaito muttered to himself while letting his head hang from his shoulders. "What to do, what to do…"
Meiko heard Kaito's muttering and spoke to him. "I think I know what we should do. We should go to the most logical places first. The city should be a great place to start because information is common there. We might be able to find information that we need if we travel there."
Kaito realized how that plan could work, and quickly agreed. "That's good. We can keep the map so we know where we're going, but that's a really good idea. We know where we could go and how we can figure out the journey! Thank you so much for the idea Meiko!"
"You're welcome! But let's get moving. We have a whole heck of a long way to walk, and it'll be dawn in about a half an hour. We need to go, NOW."
Kaito nodded and folded up the map, which was followed by putting it in his coat pocket. He stood up with all of his friends and grabbed the backpack that was handed to him before swinging it around on his back and picking up a tote bag full of medical supplies. His bag contained all of the technology they would need and information that they collected along with some food. He waited for all of his friends to grab their supplies before making sure they all had everything.
Meiko had her backpack of food and clothes along with the cooler containing drinks. Luka had a mountain pack with a few sleeping bags strapped to it. Miku was lugging around a mountain pack with tent supplies. Gakupo was holding onto all of the weapons (just in case they would get attacked) in a bag while also dragging around a suitcase with cleaning supplies. Rin and Len split up their supplies between the two of them to make the load easier, and they had most of the food with the clothes that the others couldn't carry themselves. Finally, GUMI had a purse with all of their money (and some they stole from the Manager's office) and a bag with everything else nobody could carry.
Kaito led his friends down the hallways, sneaking around the cameras as much as possible and getting out of the concert area as fast as they could. They evaded any obstacle that was in their way, such as a bunch of cracks and destroyed floors that would trip them if they weren't careful.
After a lot of running, they made it out and into an open field that was far enough away from the concert hall for them to slow down and relax. One of them called out to the others to look toward the east, where a tiny glowing light was emerging. The sunrise, and the mark of the first day out of seven that they had to find the Ninja and try to save them.