The dinner had been rushed and the men sitting around the mahogany table weren’t happy about it. Still, all three had made a silent vow to make the most of it.

“I viewed ESPN this morning,” Senji Omino, Sensei of the Thunder Academy, began after dabbing an off-white linen napkin to his mouth. He folded it perfectly as he spoke, never taking his eyes from Blake. “They mentioned you by name again.”

Blake chose the wrong moment for a drink. Against expectations, the shocked young man not only kept the liquid cleanly in his mouth but swallowed it, too. “Since when do you watch ESPN?” was sputtered forth as a response.

Sensei didn’t miss a beat. “Since they began to praise you.”

Blake almost did. “Since when do you have cable?”

“Satellite,” Hunter corrected. “Cam was here a little while back.” Satisfied with his answer, Hunter turned his attention back to the napkin in his lap.

Sensei filled in the blanks. “The young Watanabe was gracious enough to connect the transmission into my building while we discussed how best to implement Hunter’s proposal of a joint Thunder and Wind class.”

Blake watched Hunter work with his cloth and realized he was behind. Even as he grabbed his and began working with it, Blake didn’t miss the satisfied look on his brother’s face as Sensei spoke of Hunter’s idea. “So, you’ve been watching, what? A week?”

“Bro, you’ve been in two nationals this month.” Hunter fixed him with a steady gaze.

“Ah, I’m just news because of the sabotage story,” Blake said. Hunter got the distinct impression Blake would have made quote signs with his fingers if they weren’t otherwise occupied. “After all, there’s no such thing as bad press.”

A low growl escaped Hunter’s lips. “Yeah, I’m sure you winning has nothing to do with it.”

“Blake, I am very proud of your success,” Sensei said. “After tomorrow, where is your next race?”

“Well, not exactly sure,” Blake said. “Jesse and I want to hit at least one more local race before the next national in LA. We’re hoping for more than one, actually. But nothing’s for sure yet.”

Hunter looked up at that. “We’ll still be able to hit the kung fu movie festival this weekend?”

At the thought, Blake got a huge smile on his face. “You know it!” Blake checked his watch and began to stand. “I know I said it twice before, but I really gotta bail this time.”

“Of course. I’m very glad we could all dine tonight,” Sensei said as he stood quickly. He put his transformed napkin upon the table with a gesture Blake was tempted to call a flourish.

“A dragon,” Blake said as he studied the origami. His voice went slightly higher with the next question. “With wings?”

“With wings,” Sensei confirmed with a curt nod. Blake didn’t miss the small grin now in place. “You?”

“It’s just a seagull.” Blake set his hastily crafted water foul down upon the table and regarded it.

“Apparently with a broken beak,” Hunter smirked.

“He’s got character,” Blake shrugged as he reached down and grabbed his backpack off the floor. He saw what Hunter had created when he stood back up and instantly began to chuckle. “How long since Cam was here?”

Hunter glared at his younger brother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Blake held up both open hands quickly even as his shoulders shook a little more. Hunter never took his gaze off him, but Blake was saved as Sensei put a hand on each of their backs and applied slight pressure. “Let us see you out. This will give you time to explain why Factory Blue has put you on a 125 dirt bike again. I’m afraid I still don’t understand the reasoning.”

As they left the room, Blake glanced back over his shoulder one last time. There, standing bravely between the fearsome dragon and the already wounded seagull, was about the best representation of a historical samurai Blake guessed one could create out of a square of soft linen.

It had been a long day. And not a good one as far as Cam was concerned. He had been fighting with getting into a crawl space that had been too small before Ninja Ops had gotten dismantled. It was now bent in a way that made access almost impossible.

“What time is it?” Cam asked aloud in a voice thick with annoyance.

“Dude, it’s 2:07 AM,” CyberCam answered instantly. “Talk about burning the midnight oil.”

“Great,” Cam exhaled. That’s when he dropped one of the three tools he was juggling directly onto his nose. He pulled himself completely out of the wall and stood up, both hands covering his nose and mouth. “Just great!”

CyberCam walked toward him. “Look, bro, you’re exhausted. Why don’t you go to bed? You’ve got, like, an early day of intense physical training. I’ll finish this up.” When Cam looked at him dubiously, his virtual double quickly drove the point home. “I’m here to help, dude. Let me.”

“All right,” Cam nodded slowly and headed off to his room in Ninja Ops. “Thanks.”

“No problemo, bro,” CyberCam called after him joyously. Waiting exactly ten minutes after he last saw Cam, he looked back to the crawlspace and pointed. “I’ll get to you later.”

He hurried around, collecting all sorts of things stashed in different parts of the underground complex. In less than three minutes, CyberCam’s hands were full and he was hurrying out the waterfall portal.

As they re-entered the private abode of the Thunder Academy Sensei, Hunter began to quickly clean off the table.

“Are you going again?” Sensei asked.

Hunter worked faster but nodded.

“I wish you would tell him you watch over him at every event.”

“First, he’d just love that. Second, he’s acting like nothing happened. Third, it would probably hurt his racing if he knew what I was doing. Fourth, it wouldn’t be an effective stakeout. Fifth, big brother’s prerogative,” Hunter looked up and spread his arms. “Somebody’s got to do something! I’m not getting any answers from the so-called professionals.”

“Such disdain in your voice,” Sensei said as he took the plates from Hunter. “Perhaps the act was not meant for Blake.”

“No accidents since Blake left,” Hunter said. He grabbed his brown leather jacket from where it was hanging on the wall and pulled it on.

“And none since his return,” Sensei countered. “Hunter, you are wearing yourself too thin.”

Hunter nodded again. “Yeah, I know. I’ve arranged for Walt to take my morning classes.” He regarded his mentor intensely. “Don’t worry. Our students won’t suffer.”

“It is not the students I worry about.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m worried about Blake. I know you are, too,” Hunter bowed and quickly walked out.

“I’m worried about both of you,” Sensei told the empty room.

CyberCam had walked all around the grounds, looking for the perfect place. He wanted someplace he could be inspired. He also wanted a place where students out and about at this hour for whatever reason wouldn’t run into him. Finally, CyberCam wanted someplace that still kept him close to Ninja Ops in case of some emergency.

“And here I am, back at the lake,” CyberCam said to himself as he began setting down everything he was carrying. “Whatever.”

“Whatever what?” came from behind him and CyberCam spun around quickly. Not used to being surprised, he wondered if he looked guilty.

Hunter stood before him dressed in civilian clothes. Odd. “Hey, big thunder dude!”

“Hey,” Hunter said, almost clipping it. “Since when do you talk to yourself?”

CyberCam looked down. “Man, that’s a good question. Since I was brought back up on line?”

Hunter folded his arms over his chest. “You’re asking me?” His trademark smirk was now in place.

A lop-sided grin spread across CyberCam’s face and he began to bounce in the knees ever so slightly.

As counted on, Hunter’s patience snapped almost immediately. “Look, I was just in the area and I was thinking that Cam might be up.”

“Oh, dude! You’d be wrong,” CyberCam answered, raising a hand with his thumb and forefinger apart just a sliver. “You just missed him by, like, half an hour.”

Hunter glanced at the waterfall. “Oh.”

Now it was CyberCam’s patience being tested. He needed to get rid of Hunter, and fast. “Hey, no big, right? I’ll just wake him --.”

“No!” Hunter said, stretching one arm out toward the cyber being. “No, it’s cool. Gotta bail anyway. Someplace I need to be.”

CyberCam watched Hunter turn and begin walking away. “I’ll tell Cam you were here and all.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, dude.” He waited exactly ten minutes since he had last seen Hunter and than began to spread out all his equipment on the ground.

An hour later, Hunter hid in a leafy tree that gave him a perfect vantage point of the track generally and the Factory Blue trailer specifically. He was bored and tired and had finally concluded that he needed a few hours of shuteye to be sharp in the morning. Just like the four prior times he had done this very same thing.

So Hunter settled in as best he could and closed his eyes. Confident that if anything had happened on the track he would have seen it, he began to will himself to sleep. After all, came his last thought, if they had wanted to get to Blake in some way that didn’t involve moto they would’ve tried something else by now.

It never occurred to Hunter to look away from the track. That Blake may not be the one that they were after. That his little bro wasn’t the one being watched at that moment.