Ninja Storm: The Lightning Ranger (On Hold)

Good luck with whatever

Nikki's P.O.V.

  Tori rode the waves like she was born to. She rode the waves like an artist. Like she had a connection to the water itself.

  Water. The thing that connects all life. What keeps all life going and moving. Always moving and changing. Never stopping. What is necessary for everything to live, but also capable of being a cruel end. Water, from a simple puddle to large lake to a rushing river to a storming ocean. How you follow the path or fight the current with all your might. Good metaphor for life really. You either follow the expectations of others and go on a predetermined path or you blaze your own trail and fight everything that stands in your way. How easy it would be to just stop fighting the current and no longer deal with the flow, to just let the water swallow you and sink. To drown. For it all to end. Would it be painless? Peaceful? Would-

  "Nikki?" Tori says drawing me from my head. She was drying her hair with her beach towel. Her surfboard laying next to her bag. Taking a glance around and realize three groups of people have left, the sky was now cloudy and there was a light breeze. My ass was numb from sitting, for who knows how long, on the towel I had borrowed from Tori so my pants didn't get covered in the moist sand. "Are you okay? You were thinking so hard you didn't even notice me coming up to you, which, like never happens. It has actually never happened with, like, anyone." Tori was right, it hardly ever happens.

                My years of ninja training heightened my awareness of my surroundings unless I focused on blocking them out or got lost in thought. It had happened a few times before, but this was the first time I wasn't able to mask my surprise or disorientation.

  "I'm fine Tor. Just got lost in thought thinking about water and it's connection to life and all that hippie dippy crap."

  "Really? How so?..." Tori trails off as she pulls her beeping wristwatch out of her bag. "Oh my god!" She suddenly screams. "I'm so going to be late!" Tori slips the watch on her wrist and starts rushing, grabbing her bag, towel and surfboard and stumbles towards her van and my Harley.

                  The motorcycle had belonged to my parents before they passed. I added rather realistic lightning designs on to the sides. It was one of the few things I had left of them along with my mom's silver triskelion necklace, my dad's brown leather beaded bracelet, both of which I never take off, and sole access to their bank accounts, which I haven't had to use in a year. Why use anymore of the money that they should be here to use? That they never will be able to use.

                  "Sorry, Nikki I gotta go." Grabbing the towel, my shoes and socks and I walk after Tori's wobbly figure as she try's to put her stuff in her bag as she carries it and her surf board at the same time. "Can we hang out later or tomorrow or something?" I have mercy on the frantic girl and take her still dripping surfboard from her. "Thanks." She slips her towel into the bag and starts digging around and pulls out her car keys, she unlocks the back of her blue and white van that looks like it might have actually been from the 60s.

  "It's fine Tori." I state as she opens the back. I place the stuff I was carrying in the back of the van, Tori takes the board from me and starts putting it in the two pool-noodle-wrapped ropes she has hanging from the ceiling. I roll up my black leather biker jacket sleeve and check the time on my white wristwatch. "I have somewhere I need to be anyway." I start rolling on my black socks. "We're still hanging out with the guys tomorrow at Storm Chargers." I reach for my black lace up combat boots now that my socks are on.

  "Definitely." She states as she hops out of the van, surfboard now on the ropes. I stand and bend down as I tuck my dark blue bootcut jeans into my boots and start tying them up as she closes the trunk. "See you tomorrow!"