Seattle, Washington
October, 2005
12:59 AM

Seahawk came in high, circling over the waterfront with his steel mesh wings extended, wings that carried him on the chill night air as his boot jets rumbled silently, throttled just enough to keep him airborne without drawing any undue attention from below.

The heads-up display in his visor painted a circle that stayed on his target as he watched it from high above, feeding him distance and coordinates in tiny green digits. An imperceptible twitch of his right ring finger brought the image of the warehouse below into drastic zoom. No one appeared to be wandering around outside, and he could make out light coming through the skylight on the roof. All just as he had expected.

He spiraled his way down in long circles, keeping a close watch on the surrounding area as he got closer to Earth. When he’d gotten where he wanted to be, he cut his jets completely and glided with his wings, coming in low over the empty industrial area. He dropped suddenly, coming in low over aging structures and avoiding massive freight lifters and forklifts, something that his visor’s night vision allowed him to safely do. His senses sharpened to an urgent edge as he came up on his target, and his adrenaline tensed him as the chance of impending danger kept him centered.

He caught an updraft and went momentarily vertical, crossing the warehouse’s edge, and he dropped his arms and recessed his wings. His boots hit the dirty roof softly and he immediately dropped to a crouch, pivoting left and right and scanning the roof, focused on any and every sound. The skylight was ten meters to his right, but he waited, staying low and checking the clock display before his eyes. He kept vigil there, calm but expectant.

Less than a minute later, the wait was over. He spotted the pale, almost-blue white costume as it, and the man in it, appeared from behind a utility box atop the next building over. The figure stood, letting himself be seen by Seahawk. He raised a gloved, flattened hand up above his eyes (or at least where the mask hid his eyes) in signal. In return, Seahawk held up front-facing clenched fist. While the other man waited, Seahawk crept to the roof edge and peered over. There was nothing to be seen but a couple of industrial dumpsters, a barrel, and scattered trash. Creeping back to his former spot, Seahawk gave an
“okay” signal with his fingers, then bent his left arm to ninety degrees and chopped backward twice with his hand. The figure nodded, and with eerie silence ran for the edge of his own roof. At the last moment, with one heel only left on the precipice, he leapt hard with a strength that belied his muscular but not godlike size.

He soared in a high arc across the expanse, his body exuding nothing but calm and confidence, and landed just over the lip of the warehouse roof. He dropped into a single somersault and spent his momentum, coming up on one knee.

Moonspider looked around, then turned his gaze to Seahawk. Seahawk drew a square in the air with a finger, then pointed that finger at the skylight. Moonspider nodded once. The two Seattle heroes got to their feet and crept toward the inviting light, splitting off from each other, wordlessly, and coming at the skylight from opposite sides. Moonspider flattened his hand as they got near and pressed it toward the roof. With that, both men ducked low, and got lower as the skylight drew near, until they were crawling the last several feet to the glass.

They stopped and looked at each other at the end, seeing if either had anything to add or was going to make any indication that they weren’t on the same page. They nodded to one another, then snaked on their bellies until their eyes could take in the view below.

It was a typical waterfront warehouse, stacked high with crates of all sizes, with the occasional forklift parked in wait for business hours. But there WAS business going on, despite the hour, a fact they had both counted on when following up on this tip. There were men below.

But not the type of men they’d expected.

Below the skylight, there were rows of men. Standing at something of attention. They were clad all in black, from head to toe, with black hoods covering their heads. On their backs were scabbards…scabbards that projected the hilts of swords.

One such figure paced in front of the lines of other men, seemingly giving some kind of orders as he looked them over. Though his face could not be seen, his body language spoke of intensity, harshness, and authority. Seahawk instinctively turned up the audio in his helmet, and the words he heard barked by this man were in Japanese.

Seahawk and Moonspider slowly turned their faces to each other. After a moment, mutual understanding made them both nod, and they each moved back a bit, pulling their heads back from the glass. They each turned over, laying on their backs under the Seattle stars, and breathed, their silent breath coming out as mist.

“Ninjas,” Seahawk finally whispered, and stayed silent after that. The word had weight.

Moonspider stayed motionless for a few moments more. He then turned his head toward Seahawk, who, in turn, swiveled his toward his teammate.

Moonspider spoke next.

“I fucking LOVE ninjas!” he whispered excitedly.

“No shit!” Seahawk whispered back with an unplanned, equally excited laugh.

They both ducked their heads down reflexively, wincing, both realizing their share in breaking their silence. They peered around them guiltily, listening and looking for any change that signaled them having giving their positions away. They seemed less like super-heroes and more like boys at a sleepover who’d snuck downstairs to watch dirty movies on cable while the parents slept and were afraid to get caught.

When nothing about the environment changed, they relaxed a bit and looked at each other. Seahawk tilted his head toward the skylight. Moonspider nodded, and they both slid carefully back up to it and peeked down through the glass again. The rows of ninjas were still standing stoically, and the leader was still giving his instructions, or admonition, or pep talk, or whatever it might have been (since neither hero spoke the language).

“How many you make?” Seahawk whispered.

“I got twenty-five, counting the chief,” Moonspider whispered back.

“Same. That we can see. There may be more in there.”

“Wow,” Moonspider said, some of the excitement sneaking back into his hushed voice. “They’re the real deal. Actual ninjas.”

“Have you ever?” Seahawk asked.

“Never,” Moonspider answered, a little giddy. “I’ve always wanted to.”

“God, me too. I mean, why else take up martial arts, right? For that chance that someday you may get to fight a ninja.”

“I always thought I’d have to go to Japan to do it. Right here in Seattle! Who’da thought?”

“How does local mob like Andrelli get the pull to hire ninjas? Not just A ninja, but a whole cadre of ninjas?”

“Guess he really DOES want Gamba dead. Like, ninja dead. Man, this is old school sixties shit. I love this!”

“There’s a herd of them all right,” Seahawk said, looking down at the black-garbed assassins. “Think we should call in the rest of the team?”

Moonspider turned his head and regarded Seahawk, like Seahawk had just suggested they have a tea party and knit a couple of sweaters. “Are you insane?”

“I just thought—”

“You have a chance to fight an army of ninjas and you want to call for BACKUP? What’s wrong with you?”

“Yeah…”

“You want Vortex streaking in there and grabbing all their swords away at super-speed? You want them breaking shuriken on Rainier’s rocky ass? You want the GIRLS here?! You want to never know if you had what it took to step up to a dozen ninjas on your own?”

“Okay, okay,” Seahawk said, suitably embarrassed. “I get it.”

“Too right you do,” Moonspider said, his disgust waning. “Where’s your head?”

They watched their prey in silence while Seahawk worked through his shame.

“Look at ‘em,” Moonspider finally said, awed. “Look at the discipline. They’re like statues.”

“Like statues that can kill.”

“Killer statues,” Moonspider agreed. “Man, why don’t they train for a while or something? Pull out those ninjato bad boys and clack some steel?”

“Think they’re packing metsubushi?”

“Oh, yeah,” Moonspider said, like it was a foregone conclusion. “You kidding? Their pockets are probably full of ‘em.”

“Yeah, but those won’t work on us. Not with our masks.”

“Bloody right. ‘Cause we’re smarter than ninjas.”

“Hell, yes.”

“Their ancient tricks are no match for Seattle’s finest. They’re gonna find out how we do things in the pacific northwest. They should have stayed in Iga.”

Seahawk nodded his agreement with pride.

“What if they use hypnotism, though?” Seahawk asked.

“Not on us,” Moonspider said. “We’re too strong for that. That only works on the weak-minded.”

Seahawk considered that. “Isn’t that for Jedi?”

“Same principle,” Moonspider said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”

Seahawk nodded and went back to watching the scene below. “You saw Enter the Ninja, of course?”

“Please,” Moonspider scoffed. “I had to buy another copy. I warped the bloody VHS from rewatching. I know the thing by heart.”

“The Octagon,” Seahawk noted. “That was the shit.”

“9 Deaths of the Ninja,” Moonspider countered. “Kosugi Sho. THAT was a ninja movie.”

Seahawk grinned. “Remember Sharky’s Machine?”

“Right,” Moonspider laughed. “Atlanta cop movie, and suddenly, two ninjas show up out of nowhere? What the hell?”

“That was awesome.”

“Yeah, like Burt Reynolds is going to off a ninja with a spear gun, though. Come on.”

“Well, he IS Burt Reynolds.”

“Yeah, right. He’d have hopped in his Trans Am with Fred the dog and run off to find Sally.”

A particularly loud shouting fit from the group’s leader brought their attention back to the situation at hand.

“So how do we play this?” Seahawk asked, running a quick systems check on his armor.

“Straight up. We smash through the glass, drop right down in the middle of ‘em, take care of business. I take the dozen on the right. It’ll be legendary.”

“Who takes the boss? I bet he’s the badass.”

“Whoever finishes their dozen first. Best-case, we finish at the same time, take him together. That’d be supremely Hollywood.”

“I mean…should we say something? Start with a little badass combat banter when we drop?”

“Nah, man,” Moonspider said. “They’re SILENT killers. They respect action, not words. We’ll come off looking like nerds if we try some lame quip.”

“Hmm,” Seahawk said, disappointed, not sure if he agreed. Looking down and craning his neck, he said, “There’s an awful lot of swords down there. You sure you’re up for this? It’s not like you’re wearing armor.”

Moonspider gave him an indignant sideways glance. “Did you really just ask that?”

“Okay.”

“You’ve been AWAKE during my fights before, right?”

“All right,” Seahawk relented. “I was just saying.”

“Besides,” Moonspider said, shaking off the slight, “you think that’s a scar I wouldn’t wear with pride? I get some chickie back to my place, get my shirt off, and she’s all ‘ooh, what’s that scar?’. Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Fucking NINJA!”

Seahawk chuckled appreciatively.

“That scar’ll be a bloody sex magnet, mate.”

The leader barked something that made all the other ninja yell the word, in Japanese, back at him, which caused the heroes to duck and pull back as far as they could and still see. I looked like whatever was going to happen was close to getting started. Seahawk and Moonspider understood this in unison, nodded to each other, and slid back. Out of sight of the skylight, they got to their feet and stood next to each other, facing it.

“You ready for this?” Seahawk asked, stretching his neck.

“I been ready for this since You Only Live Twice,” Moonspider said, clenching and straightening his fingers in anticipation.

“I still think we should say something,” Seahawk whispered.

Moonspider sighed. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, like…” Seahawk stood with his chin down, considering. Raising his head suddenly with inspiration, he paused dramatically, then said, importantly, and in a deep, manly voice, “East? Meet West.”

Moonspider stared at him silently, his expression hidden by his mask, leaving Seahawk to wait and wonder.

“Okay, that’s good,” Moonspider admitted.

Seahawk grinned, proud of himself, and nodded.

The Forte heroes settled their shoulders and got into ready martial poses.

“On three?” Seahawk asked.

“On three,” Moonspider agreed.

“One.

“Two.

“Three!”

And the rest…

…was legendary.

END.

 

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