Being a Ninja

Duffers!

Mara’s POV

I wake up with Miclair's laughs. I slowly open my eyes and get in shock! Everything is upside-down!

"MICLAIR!!!!!!!" I scream, really mad.

This only made him laugh harder. I’m tied upside-down, my arms completely immobilized by the ropes. Soren, Cain and Luc come to see what is happening.

"Wow!! How come ya were able ta get her in there?!" Cain says, looking at me.

"It was easy!" Miclair says.

"Miclair!!!!!! When I get outta here I'm gonna KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!" I scream.

"Too bad you're not getting out of there so soon!" Miclair says, laughing more.

"Luc! Let me outta here!" I say, trying to free myself.

"Hm... I must admit the ropes are very well tied up..." Luc says, with a hand on his chin.

"Luc!!!" I scream.

"Sorry, Mara!" He says

"Rrrrrgggg! Cain?" I say.

"No way! It's bein’ fun seein’ ya upside-down! Fer tha first time, Miclair had a good idea!" Cain says.

"Hey!" Miclair says.

"I can't believe you guys! Soren?" I say, now almost begging.

"Sorry Mara" Soren says.

"Aw! Come on! Ok, Miclair! Tell me, what do you want?!" I give up.

"I want you to apologize for yesterday!" Miclair says.

"What?! You're the one that has to apologize, not me!!" I scream.

"But there's a little difference between us! You're upside down and I'm not!" He says.

"Rrrrrrrrrrgggggggg!!!!!!!! I hate you Miclair!!!!"

"I hate you too, Mara!"

"Very well, duffers! I'm sorry! Now free me!"

"Huh? I don't think I heard you!"

"Don't push it, Miclair!" I say, showing all of my teeth.

"Ok ok!" Miclair says.

He frees me from the ropes, but I hit the floor. As soon as I get up, I hit Miclair really hard on the head. He falls to the ground, his head hitting the floor. I go take breakfast. Cain looks to Miclair who’s still on the floor.

"Ya weren't thinkin' that ya would skip that, were ya?" Cain says, helping Miclair up.

After my breakfast, I get out of the lair and notice a box full of skates standing another skate on the right side of the box.

An idea gets to my head. I’m gonna get my revenge!

I pick the skate that is on the side of the box and ride on it. I skate through the island and finally find it: the lake.

I start skating faster towards it. On the last minute, before falling to the water, I jump out of the skate and land on ground just in time to hear the skate splashing in the water.

"Oops... What a pity... It seemed such a good skate! Hahahah!" I say.

I walk back to the house to give the terrible news to Miclair. I walk right strait to him.

"I'm sorry, Miclair! Guess your skate was taken by the water" I say, with a fake sadness.

"WHAT??????!!!!!!!!!"

He runs out of the house. I sit in the couch, with a triumphant smile, and turn on the TV. A while later Miclair appears with an extremely angry face.

"You broke my fave skate!!" He screams to me.

"Aaawww! It was your favorite skate? Sorry about that..." I say, making a fake sad face.

"You did it on purpose!!!"

"No, I didn't and you can't prove it!"

"I hate you!"

"I hate you too!"

He walks back to his room. But before he could hit the door, I show him my tongue.

Miclair's POV

I wake up, sitting on the bed. I think about what happened last day and anger takes over me again.

*I can't believe she ruined my skate! And I was starting to like her!* I think. But then I have an idea. I run down the stairs. Mara isn't there yet.

"Great!" I say.

I fill a container with water and take it to Mara's room. The door was semi open, so I push it and get in. Mara is sleeping like a baby.

I slowly get close to her and stay watching her for a while.

*She looks like an angel when she's asleep... But when she's awake... She's a true demon!* I think.

Suddenly, I throw all the water over her.

Mara's POV

SPLASH!!!!

I wake up suddenly and all wet. Before I could even open my eyes, I scream:

"MICLAIR!!!!!!!!!!! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!"

I hear him running out of the room.

"Oh no, you won't!!" I scream, running after him.

He runs out of the house and into the sewer tunnels and I follow him. He grabs a skate from the box and rides on it. I do the same.

After a while of chasing Miclair, I lose him when he turns to another tunnel.

"Miiiiiclaaaaaiiiiir!! Come out come out, wherever you are!" I say.

I keep looking for Miclair for some more minutes, but I give up and start having fun skating.

I do flips, doubles flips and all kinds of jumps. I smile when I see a perfect tunnel to do a triple flip.

I get in the tunnel and do a perfect triple flip. Unfortunately, Miclair is skating on the other side of the tunnel. I don't see him and continue skating at high speed...

CRASH!!!!!

Me and Miclair crash into each other and fall to the ground. The two skates go flying God knows where.

Me and Miclair sit up on the floor, at the place where we fell. We look at each other and both start laughing at each other’s looks.

"Hahahahahah! You look like a hippy! Hahahahah" He says, between laughs.

"And you look like a fried canary!" I say, still laughing.

Suddenly, we hear two roars. Me and Miclair place a hand on our stomachs.

"I'm hungry!" We both say.

We laugh a bit more.

"Friends?" He asks, offering me his hand to shake.

"Friends" I accept and shake his hand.

We smile at each other and get up, walking back to the lair and ignoring the fact that both the skates are screwed up.

*It's amazing! I don't even remember the reason why we were fighting!* I think.

We get in the lair. Soren looks at us two.

"Good to see you're still alive!" He says.

Me and Miclair ignore him and go eat some pizza, as if we haven't eaten for months. Then we sit in the couch, really close to each other.

"Ya two are sickenin' lovebirds, ya know!" Cain says.

Me and Miclair blush.

"Are not!" We both say.

"Amelia asked us to watch her warehouse for the night and she really wants to meet Mara" Soren says. They had told me about Amelia before. She is a friend of theirs who lives a ‘normal’ life following the Destroyer’s rules. What he doesn’t know is that she is hoarding a bunch of art and ancient stuff in her basement. Many years ago, The Destroyer had ordered his ninjas to destroy all human art. It is a crime to even have a painting in your house. Luckily, the Destroyer does not know about Amelia’s hideout. She does keep it very well hidden and it is very close to her house. She works from home, doing one of the few jobs left standing after the invasion: merchandizing for the Destroyer.

"Righyo!" I say, jumping from the couch.

Soren smiles and goes call Luc. We all go to Amelia's house afterwards.

It's already night and no one can see us. We're jumping from building to building, until we get to the place. The guys start getting in an open window. I presume it is Amelia’s house. I get through the window too.

A woman and a man, who I assume is Amelia's boyfriend, are there to greet us.

"Oh! And you must be Mara!" The woman walks to me.

"I am! And you must be Amelia! It's very nice to meet you!" I say, bowing.

"Wow. You really are Daisuke Yoshiro's daughter. I heard so much about you! Especially from Miclair" She says.

"Really, huh? And what did he say?" I ask.

"He said you were very cute, nice and really strong and that you were able to beat up Cain and Soren. And he also said he thought you could be the..." She says, but gets interrupted by Miclair. He puts a hand on her mouth so she can't talk more.

"And that one over there is Jack! Wanna come there and meet him?!" He says, with a huge fake smile on his face.

"Huh... Sure!" I say.

Mikey nearly drags me to where Jack is.

"You must be Mara! I'm Jack!" He says, shaking my hand.

"Very nice to meet you" I say.

"Thanks for staying the night, guys. I really need to go out" Amelia says.

"And I'm going with her to make sure she doesn't get hurt!" Jack says.

"Why don’t ya two just admit yer goin' on a date togetha?"Cain says.

Amelia and Jack blush.

"Well! We should get going! Take good care of the warehouse!" Amelia says, while she drags Jack to the door and closes it.

Me and the guys sigh.

"I'm doing the first round" Soren says and leaves to go where Amelia keeps all the ancient stuff. It is just in the next building.

Me and Miclair sit on the couch and watch TV. Cain and Luc go to the kitchen, probably to get some food.

~2 hours later~

Me and Micliar are now sleeping, our heads on each other’s shoulders. Soren comes back from the store and sees us.

"Aw! Aren’t they cute?!" He says-

"Like I said. They're two sickenin' lovebirds!" Cain says.

~Some minutes later~

Someone is shaking my shoulder. I mumble and turn around.

"Come on Mara! Wake up!" It's Luc's voice.

"Um... huh?" I say, still waking up.

"It's your time to check the warehouse" He says.

"Ask Miclair to do it" I say, rubbing my eyes.

"You're gonna do it together. You two are the last ones" He says.

"Ok ok..." I say, getting up.

"Miclair is already down there"

"Ok"

I leave Amelia’s house to go to the warehouse next door. The place is filled with the most wonderful things I’ve ever seen in my life.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Miclair asks.

"Yeah!"

"And you should see the Japanese part!"

"Where?"

"Over there"

I walk to the place where the Japanese things are. It is a wonder! There are things there that remind me of my childhood.

"You Japanese, right?"

"Right!"

"That's cool!"

"Yeah! I think it is!"

We keep watching the stuff at the warehouse when we hear a crash outside.

Me and Miclair run outside. Our jaws drop. In front of the store there are a bunch of ninjas!

"There she is!" One of them says.

The ninjas attack! We block their attacks the best we can. There are so many of them and they all seem to be trying to catch me!

"We need help!" I say to Miclair, who was now on my side.

"Do you scream or do I?" He asks.

"Both" I answer.

"HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" We both scream.

Almost immediately, the guys appear to get on the rescue.

"What's goin' on?!" Cain screams, but then he sees the bunch of ninjas. "Alright! Time ta kick some butts!!" He says and attacks.

We all attack the ninjas for a long time, and they actually seem to be wanting to grab me!

I’m now trying to free myself from one of them.

"Ah!! Let go of me!!" I say.

But the ninja keeps holding me and dragging me somewhere. Fortunately, Miclair notices I’m not fighting and goes to look for me. He sees me, when I’m still fighting to free myself.

"Hold it right there!" He says, attacking the ninja and getting him unconscious.

"You ok?" Miclair asks.

"Yeah, I think so" I say.

"Then let's go! Bros need help!" He says

We run back to the fighting area, fighting the last ninja remaining. All the other ninjas are dead, unconscious or just ran away.

"Wow! Why were there so many ninjas here?" Luc asks, but gets no response.

"I think they were after me" I say.

Everyone looks at me.

"Why? The Destroyer already has the piece you had! Why would they be after you again? And how would they know you were even here?" Luc asks.

"I dunno... But... Long time ago..." I start telling.

*Flashback*

I was six years old at the time.

"Mara! Come here!" I heard my uncle call.

I let go of what I was doing and ran to where my uncle was.

"Yes, uncle?" I said, with my cute childish smile.

My uncle was looking out the window, so I couldn't see his face.

"Are you pure, Mara?" He asked, calmly.

"I think so... But why do you ask, uncle?" I asked.

He turned around, smiling softly. It wasn’t a regular smile... It was somewhat sad... and worrying...

"I think you're pure enough" He said and took out of his pocket some kind of a lightning marble. I thought, as an innocent little child, that the marble was beautiful.

"Ohhh! What's that, uncle? It's beautiful!" I said.

"This, Mara, is what we call the "key", and it's something very pure" My uncle said.

"Really? It's gorgeous!" I couldn't take my eyes of the marble.

"Yes. And as a pure thing, it needs to be protected against the dark things... inside something pure" He said.

"Oh! So that's why you asked me if I was pure! But... How're you gonna put that inside me?" I innocently asked.

"You'll see" He said.

The lightning marble started getting inside of me, more properly, inside my heart. It didn't hurt or anything. I even thought that it was cute to see such a thing: a marble getting inside me. It felt warm as the marble installed in my heart. It was a strange felling.

My uncle sighed.

"The "key" is safe now" My uncle said. “Listen to me very carefully, Mara. This “key” carries with it a great responsibility, along with a great power... I had no other choice but to place it inside of you, even though you are still so young... I have faith in you, Mara, that you will be able to live with the “key” inside of you and learn how to control its power"

"Thanks, uncle, but... how do I get it out?" I asked.

"I hope that won’t be necessary, little Mara" He said, with a soft smile.

"Really? Why? And why do you call it "key"? Does it open a treasure chest?"

"You sure know how to do lots of questions"

"I'm a curious girl!"

My uncle laughed.

"You will find out one day" He said, smiling.

*end flashback*

"So... You have a marble inside you?" Miclair asks.

"Kinda, yeah" I say.

"But why do they want that “key”?" Soren asks.

"I dunno..." I answer.

"Maybe to open something!" Miclair says.

Cain hits him on the head.

"You're always such a genius, Miclair!" He says.

"You know, he is kinda right!" Luc says.

"Right! They want to open something. We just don't know what it is!" Soren says.

"So, we will have to find out!" I say.