We're walking through the foggy woods. At night. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't freak me out a little. "The signal from Ray's A.T.O.M. suit is getting stronger." Sara announces.
"Doesn't exacly look inviting, does it?" Amaya asks.
"It's like Ninja III: The Domination." Chucky points out. I never watched that movie... maybe I should.
"Never took you for a cinephile." Sara says.
"All I know is ninja's like to hide in trees. Like this little ninja." Chucky ruffles my hair at that last part. I become invisible and hit him on the back of his head. He grunts in response.
Amaya ignores me. "I don't see anything."
I become visible again behind her to startle her. "Exacly." She jumps up a bit and I laugh. "You don't find them, they find you."
She turns to me. "Just because your brother nicknamed you Ninja," Then she turns to Chucky. "Or you saw ninja's in a movie, that doesn't make them real."
Sara speaks up too. "I have to side with Kate and Mick on this one. They're real."
"You think there's a secret brotherhood of men, trained in the art of assassination?" Amaya asks.
I'm struggling to hold in my laughter, because we just won this.
"I hate to break it to you Amaya, but I'm basically a ninja." Sara replies.
Now I'm not even trying to hold in my laughter anymore. My brother isn't either.
Amaya sighs. "I miss the JSA."
I want to tell her: 'Then go back there', but I decide against it. I can try to be a little bit nice.
So we just keep walking, until we arrive at a house, or whatever it's called in here. "Ray's close. Look sharp." Sara tells us while we walk through a hallway.
We open a door to see Haircut in his suit. He's just standing there with his back at us. "Haircut, let's get out if here." I say.
"We're saving your ass again." Chucky adds.
He turns around, but it's not Haircut. "It's you who need rescuing." The mistery person says.
A guy in a normal armor steps in front of him. "You are already defeated before you have even begun. I have been trained in the art of war by Shimura himself."
Sara looks at me. "You or me?" She asks.
I realise I only have a knife and that guy has a sword. "You got this." I reply.
She nods and steps forward. "League of Assassins, class of '09." She breaks her bo staff in two, so she has two batons. "Don't take it easy on me."
With that they start fighting. I watch closely. The guy hits Sara in the face after a while, but she shakes it off and takes another shot at him.
Eventually Amaya stops watching. She uses the so called 'totem', which causes a blue lion to appear around her. She uses the lion to push the guy to the ground. It's like what I saw the present Vixen do on TV.
The guy wearing Haircut's suit isn't defeated yet, so I turn invisible and run at him. When I hit him, he looks confused, but shakes it off. Then he blasts the others on the ground. The blast also hits me on the arm, which hurts suprisingly much.
I run to the others and help them up. "We gotta go." I say. Then we run away. I grab Sara's hand to let her know I'm with them.
In the hall, we find the real Haircut. He's as cheery as ever. "Ow, hey guys!"
My brother grabs him and turn him around. "Wrong way Haircut."
"What about my suit?" He asks.
He looks behind him to see the other guy wearing his suit. "We can get it later."
The guy shoots us again, but we already disppeared behind the corner.
---
We finally found Nate. But when we enter the house he's hiding in, I see him sitting against the wall, about to kiss a local girl.
Haircut didn't see it. "Nate, you're alive."
Nate sighs. "Oh, hey guys. You found me." He's clearly disappointed.
"Bad timing?" I joke.
He stands up from his place against the wall. "Nope." Then he introduces us to his new girlfriend. "Masako, these are my friends I was telling you about."
She bows slightly. "Hajimemashite. Can I get you something to drink?"
"Sake, lots of it." Chucky says.
"Make that two." I add.
Amaya ruins the fun. "What they mean to say is thanks for your hospitality, but we must be going."
I give her an angry look. My brother shakes his head. "No, I didn't." He grunts.
Sara takes Amaya's side, which I get, but don't like. "Amaya's right. Nate let's go."
"I can't." He replies. "We can't leave."
We all look at him, waiting for an explanation. "Outside." He mumbles, walking out. The second we get outside, Chucky sits down on a carriage, while I sit down on the edge of it. "So, why can't we leave?" I ask.
He starts his explanation. "Masako's supposed to marry the Shogun Tokugawa lemitsu."
"Yeah, met him. Not a fan." Sara says. So that's the name of the guy in Hairtcut's suit...
He continues: "Well, the reason he sticks out in the history books is because he likes to murder his wives, and I can't leave Masako to his mercy."
Haircut speaks up from behind me. "Especially since he stole my ATOM suit."
"Exacly." Nate says, it takes him a few seconds to realise what Haircut just said. "Wait, what? You let the Shogun steal a 21st century super-suit?"
"After I crash-landed trying to rescue you." Haircut defends himself.
"How does the Shogun even know how to operate you ATOM suit?" Sara asks him.
"I designed it so and idiot could use it." He replies.
I find this a very great time to throw in a small insult towards him, but my brother beats me to it. "An idiot does."
Nate brings the attention back to the problem. "Guys, bottom line is, if the Shogun has the ATOM suit, it's not just Masako and the village we have to protect. He can use it to conquer the whole region."
Sara thinks about it, while I count how many times we use the letter 'E' in this conversation. "You said the Shogun's coming for your new girlfriend."
That's three.
"Easier to defend a village than to attack a castle." Haircut points out.
That's nine.
Amaya throws in her optimism. "But anyone who tries to fight the Shogun will be cut down."
Twelve.
Sara turns to Nate. "Except if that person is made of steal."
That's seventeen.
"About that, I'm having a little problem accessing my powers." Nate says.
Twenty-one.
"Sounds like you're having performance issues." Sara replies. Then she turns to Haircut. "And it looks like you and Kate aren't done training him yet. Now the rest of us need to figure out how we can defend a village."
That's thirty-eight.
Chucky doesn't feel like helping. "Not me. Wake me up when the action starts."
Amaya sighs and follows Sara out.
Fourty-three. Fourty-three E's in this conversation. I feel like I've spent my time usefully.
---
Haircut made a scarecrow that's wearing the ATOM suit. Not the real one though. I watch him, while he takes a branch and starts teaching Nate. "The ATOM suit is made of and powered by dwarf star alloy. It's strong enough to withstand bullets, arrows and explosives."
"So it's inpenetrable." I conclude.
"Not quite." Haircut replies. "Underneath the left thruster is the alpha-stabilizer."
"Alpha-stabilizer, got it." Nate says. Does he really?
Haircut continues: "If you destroy it, the photoms that stream from the suit's weapons systems will overheat, theoretically causing somatic overload."
I kinda feel sorry for him. He almost died trying to make that suit and now Nate's gonna destroy it.
Nate doesn't feel sorry for him, or maybe he just doesn't realise this yet. "Theoretically, that's comforting."
Haircut just continues his lesson. "You have to get close to the Shogun, and in order to do that, you have to be able to harden."
"Well, when you're putting it in those terms it isn't helping." Nate says.
I take the branch Haircut is holding and hit Nate with it. "Ow!" He exclaims. "Neither is that."
"It worked the last time." I mumble to myself. I start thinking of a good explanation, while Haircut takes the branch and repeatedly hits Nate. "Come on." He says in frustration. "My serum is flawless. Your lack of focus is the problem."
"You think I'm not focussing?" Nate asks, whike Haircut hits him again.
I don't think that. Maybe it's because he's too exhausted. He did fall out of the temporal zone and crashed on earth. Maybe he just needs food and water?
Haircut just keeps hitting him, until Nate shouts: "Enough! I can't do it."
"Yes, you can." Haircut argues.
"You don't think I wanna save the girl, spare the village end be a hero for once in my damn life?" Nate asks. "I spent have of my childhood in the hospital where it didn't even occur to me to dream about having superpowers. But guess what? I got 'em, I lost 'em, now I really, really need 'em and I can't get 'em back."
I'm about to throw in my more rational idea, but Haircut doesn't give me the chance. "This isn't all about you. I worked for years, spent billions of dollars to develop the ATOM suit. I nearly died learning to shrink, and now I have to teach you to destroy the very thing, the only thing, that makes me a hero."
"Maybe it's for the better. Being a hero sucks." I reply.
Nate is finally catching on. "Wait, 'somatic overload' means destroy the suit?"
Haircut sighs. "Yeah, Nate. We can't beat the Shogun while he's wearing the suit, so we have to blow the suit up. Your powers are within you, just like Kate's. After today, I'll have nothing left."
After saying that, he walks away. Nate calls after him, but he ignores it. I focus back on Nate. "Did you eat today?"
He thinks about it for a second. "I ate this morning."
"And after you fell out of the temporal zone?"
"I got a bath." He says. I give him a weird look.
"But no food. Or water." He states.
I open my backpack and I go through my stuff. Licorice, licorice, licorice, licorice... Ah, water. I throw him the bottle, which he eagerly drinks. I just can't find any other food than licorice, so I hand him a bag of licorice.
He gives me a confused look. "It's the only food I have."
He sighs and eats it. When he's done he asks me: "So now I can turn to steel?"
I answer him honestly. "I have no idea. They didn't cover this in medschool. I don't even now what the serum is made of."
He sighs and tries it. It doesn't work. I take the branch and hit him. It still doesn't work. I go to plan B. "Well, if you can't turn to steal then I'll teach you how to defend yourself without powers."
He's hesitant. "I don't know, are you gonna hurt me?"
"Definetly." I reply.
I start to teach him some basic self defence moves, but he's REALLY bad.
We stop when we hear Sara over the comms. "The villagers are hidden inside a temple."
"This means it's time, right?" Nate asks. I nod in response.
"Well then, I should go back." He says. Hesitant.
"I should go wake up my brother." I reply.
I start to walk away, but turn back to him for a second. "Hey, you got this."
---
"He's gonna die." I tell my brother, while we walk through the woods.
"Pretty guy?" He asks.
"Yeah.
"On the bright side, one person less for the bathroom in the morning."
I laugh. "You're right. We really gotta get another bathroom though."
Chucky makes a suggestion. "Or we could go to Aruba and hire a casita. We'll just lie around on the beach all day."
"Yeah. It's due time for a vacation." I realise.
But then we see that we're surrounded by samoerai's. "They're mine." Chucky says. He brings out his gun and roasts then all.
I just patiently watch. I can't believe this is my idea of normal. But then I hear something in the trees, followed by a black figure that's running through the woods.
Ninja's.
My brother saw them too. We both look around, but it's like they're everywhere. I decide to turn invisble and climb in a tree. Maybe I'll see them from there.
Up in the trees, I have a good sight of what's going on on the ground, but I can't see what's in tree next to mine because of the many leaves in this one.
I guess I'm having a good day, because one of the ninja's sits down next to me. I smile and stab him, which causes him to fall out of the tree.
I look at the ground. Two ninja's are dragging my brother away by his feet. I laugh and jump out of the tree. The ninja's hear me (which was the plan) and turn around.
My brother uses the distraction to shoot them with his heatgun. I turn visible, while the ninja I stabbed in the tree falls down right in front of me.
"Let's go." I say.
Chucky stops me. "Wait. Girly needed proof ninja's exist right?" He asks, looking at the ninja at my feet.
I see what he's on about. "Let's play dress up."
---
We're running towards the temple where Sara and Amaya are. We're both dressed like ninja's. In the distance, I see that they're fighting Samoerai's. One of them throws Amaya on the ground and Sara helps her up. "Where the hell are the Rory's?" I hear Sara ask.
If that's not an entrance line, then I don't know what is. Before we can run in, Amaya shares her idea on where we are. "Probably ransacking the village himself."
Sara gives her a warning look. In the meantime, we finally reached them. We run in in our ninja costumes and we beat the crap out of those Samoerai's.
When we're done, we take off our balaclava's and turn around. "Told you ninja's were real." Chucky says to Amaya.
Behind us, that guy with the normal armour that was trained by bla bla bla and did bla bla bla has his sword ready. Sara walks up to him, while I hold my knife tight in my hand. Just in the unlikely case that Sara loses.
They run at each other. When they're in the middle, their swords clash. The armour guy or Samoerai or whatever he is, is faced towards us. It's not until he starts choking up blood, that I see the cut Sara made with the knife she's holding in her other hand.
I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding, I put my knife away and run to Sara.
---
I'm on the bridge with Nate and Haircut. We're waiting on the others to finish putting their normal clothes back on.
Haircut and Nate are talking about how they defeated the Shogun together. I'm half listening, half eating licorice.
"Can't believe it took me nearly dying, for you to turn to steal." Haircut says.
This catches my attention. "You finally turned to steal?" I ask Nate.
"After I got shot..." He mumbles.
"Doesn't matter. You did it." I point out. I don't know why I'm so happy about this. It doesn't benefit me. Wait... It can't be... No... I can't care! I don't care. I never care. Maybe I just care this time, because I was supposed to train him. That's it. I care because I was supposed to train him.
"Yeah. I did it." He says. Visibly proud of himself.
Others walk in and sit down on the other chairs. Sara sits down on the captain's chair. There's some chitchat going on about basically nothing, so I zone it out and focus on the delicious treat I have in my hand. Licorice.
Eventually professor egghead and the kid walk in and sit down too. They were the last, which means we're finally leaving.
"I think it's time we said sayonara to Feudal Japan. Now, where to next?" Sara asks.
"Aruba?" I suggest. Chucky thinks it's a great idea, but the others don't.
"I could always open the hatch, jump out and see where I land." Nate says.
Haircut makes another suggestion. "I say we just sit back and see where the timestream takes us."
I like that idea, but Amaya ruins the fun again. It's starting to become a habit of hers. "Aren't you forgetting that Rex's killer is still at-large?"
"Not my problem." Chucky replies.
Amaya gives him a look that reminds me of how professor egghead looks at me.
"I mean, we should find the bastard and kill him." He corrects himself. And he does it with a lot of sarcasm. I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing, which is starting to become a habit of me.
"Perhaps we can enjoy a little takeoff music." Egghead suggests.
Gideon starts playing a song that sounds familiar. Sara recognises it too. "Ah. Nice one, Gideon."
"Captain Hunter always enjoyed this song." She replies.
And we almost went a whole day without being reminded of him.
"Speaking of problems." Kid mumbles.
"Don't worry. We're gonna find Rip and Hourman's killer." Sara assures us.
After that, she pushes against the handle that serves as a gas pedal. "In the meantime, everyone just shut up and let me do the flying."