by 3 Ninja Tales (The Rise of Tiger Claw; The Casey Chronicles; Mutants in Space!) (retail) (epub)
Time for round two.
Casey shook off the garbage and climbed out of the Dumpster. “You let those muggers go,” he said, breathing heavily. “You’re gonna pay for that, freak.”
Casey lowered his shoulder and barreled into Raph, pinning his shell against a wall. He grabbed the handle of his best slugger.
Raph lunged forward, ducking the bat, which connected with the brick wall instead of his face! He somersaulted over Casey Jones, flinging ninja stars along the way.
Casey smiled at the steely ninja stars sticking out of his hockey pads. He’d only seen those in old kung fu movies! He paused. “Gotta admit, throwing stars are cool.”
“Then let me show you my sais!” Raph said.
Raph unleashed a kata combo of savage sai strikes and power kicks. And yet somehow, Casey held him off—with nothing but his store-bought baseball bat and an old hockey stick. He fought with heart. Amid the chaos of battle, even Raph could acknowledge the kid’s fearlessness.
They continued trading lunges until—
THWACK!
Raphael booted Casey in the jaw in a flawless aerial move before landing gracefully.
The hockey punk was seeing stars.
Raph relaxed for a second.
Casey looked up at him with anger and admiration. This wasn’t over. He collected his hockey stick and rose to his feet.
This Turtle had some secret weapons, but so did he.
With a click, Casey released his spiked skates. Custom in-line wheels appeared from his soles. Razor-sharp blades glistened at the toes.
Let’s see the lizard keep up with me now, Casey thought. He skated out of the alleyway, luring Raph into the street.
Raph was fuming. Once he got his hands on Casey, he’d rip him limb from limb … if he could catch him! On wheels, Casey was way too fast! He skated circles around Raph. He rolled over parked cars, smacking Raph with his hockey stick every time he came around.
Once on his head!
Another on his shell!
And a third to the jaw! There was no way of stopping this spinning skate-storm of doom! All Raph could see was a revolving blur around him.
He could feel his anger bubbling up in his throat.
First his brothers push him too far.
Now this kid pushes him down to the ground?
Casey skated forward to finish him off, but Raph—rage coursing through him—recovered in time to grab Casey’s hockey stick and rip it away. He rolled upright and pinned Casey against the hood of a car. He grabbed him by his hockey pads and slammed his head down with a painful thud.
“Ugh!” Casey wheezed. “That hurt!”
In a legendary fury, Raph roared. He put his foot down on Casey’s throat, and raised his sai in the air.
He brought the blade down.
And Casey Jones screamed—until he realized he was okay. Nothing happened.
Raph couldn’t do it.
“What am I doing? Maybe I do have anger issues,” Raph said, talking himself down. As he sheathed his sais and loosened his grip, the petrified Casey saw a way out.
He flicked his wrist, releasing a crackling bolt of electricity from underneath his arm pads.
The homemade electroshock weapon!
A few thousand volts dropped Raph to his knees. He tumbled backward, nearly getting hit by a car in the process. He spun to dodge it, and when he turned back, Casey was already down the street—holding on to the bumper of a taxicab, skitching away to freedom.
“You ain’t seen the last of me, Turtle!” Raph heard Casey yell before disappearing around the corner.
April couldn’t believe her eyes: Casey Jones was actually in school! He had become a rare sight around Roosevelt High lately.
April and her friend Irma walked up behind him. April was excited to see him after he’d missed their last few study sessions. “Well, well,” she said with a smile. “Casey Jones finally makes it to class! What a surprise! Ready for the big trig exam today?”
“Trig exam?” he mumbled into his locker. “Oh yeah …”
Casey didn’t turn around to talk to her as he normally would. It seemed like he was trying to hide something.
“I was up all night,” he said, finally turning around. “Studying …”
April gasped. Casey’s face was a swollen mess, completely covered in purple-and-black bruises!
“Really? Did your homework punch you in the face?” she asked.
Casey tried to cover. But the only thing he could come up with was “I had … uhhh … last-minute hockey practice.”
“I thought the rink was closed after dark, ever since that mysterious fight broke out there a few weeks back,” Irma said, butting into their conversation. She pushed her glasses up, leaning in to take a closer look at Casey’s injuries. “So how exactly did you get those bruises, Casey? Huh?”
“What are you, Irma, my interrogator?”
Irma rolled her eyes at him, walking back to class. She tried to pull April along with her, but Casey managed to steal her for a quick moment.
“I saw something crazy last night,” he whispered to her. “A mutant.”
A dark look fell over April’s face.
“C’mon, April,” she heard Irma nag from down the hall. “We’ve got our exam, and I will not be late this time!”
Casey and April shared an apprehensive look. He desperately wanted to explain his whole bizarre night to her. But it was too late. … April was already off to class.
The popcorn was popped, and the guys were ready to settle in for a butt-numbing marathon of their favorite TV show. Donnie got comfy in his spot on the couch, until Mikey cannonballed into the cushion next to him, sending popcorn everywhere!
“Yo!” Mikey yelled. “You ready for forty-eight hours of evil-fightin’, galaxy-savin’, super action?!”
“I was … until you spilled greasy popcorn ALL OVER ME!” Donnie cried.
“My bad,” Mikey replied. He decided to do the decent, and delicious, thing: he picked the kernels off Donnie’s face one by one—and ate them.
While Mikey was busy cleaning up his mess, Raph pulled Leo aside. “You got a minute?” he asked.
Leo sighed. “Well, I was gonna watch Super Robo Mecha Force—”
“Cool, so …, ”Raph awkwardly began. “Here’s the deal. See … I … me …”
Leo was taken aback. He’d never seen Raph struggle like this before!
“Sorry,” Raph finally whispered.
Leo couldn’t believe it. Raph never apologized. This was a first in Turtle history, and he knew he had to make this moment last.
“What was that?” Leo asked, pretending not to have heard him.
“I said I was … sorry.”
Leo cupped his ear, pretending to strain to hear the words.
“Sorry! Okay? SORRY!” Raph blurted out.
Everyone heard it that time. Donnie’s and Mikey’s mouths dropped open at the announcement.
“I thought I had my anger under control,” Raph confessed. “Turns out I didn’t. But now I do! Seriously.”
“He means for now,” Mikey called out from the couch, butting in. “I give him ten more seconds.” And then, still munching his popcorn, he started the countdown: “Nine … eight … seven … ”
With that, Raph could feel his blood pressure shoot up like a rocket. He bit his lip.
“What are you saying, Raph?” Leo prodded, sensing his brother’s anger was being triggered. “It’s not that you are angry, but we make you angry?”
Mikey kept counting: “Six … five … four … three … two … one—”
“SHUT UP!” Raph yelled in a rage.
“Bing-bing-bing!” Mikey joked. “We have a winner!”
Raph was panting short breaths, trying to keep his cool. But it was too late for that now. His brothers didn’t have any faith in him. And that really got him steamed! He shrugged Leo away and started to walk out of the sewer.
Again.
“Raph, wait! I was jus
t busting your shell,” Leo explained.
Donnie had had enough of his moody older brother for one evening. “Eh, let the big green baby go.”
Raph flung a ninja star toward his brothers, puncturing the popcorn bag. Kernels exploded all over the place.
Raph punched his way out of the sewer, the manhole cover flying off into the street.
“Those guys are making me loopy!” he fumed, kicking the air. “They just don’t get me!”
Raph leaped on top of a nearby Dumpster and scaled a fire escape toward the sky above. He wanted to get as far away from his brothers as possible.
At that moment, high atop a different building, Casey Jones was scribbling in his journal. He’d been busy working on a cartoon that perfectly captured his battle with the turtle ninja. As he shaded in the details on his drawing, he winced at the soreness from their fight.
It’s been three days and my body still feels like a punching bag, he thought, conscious of the dull ache he felt underneath his hockey gear. That turtle’s a worthy opponent, I’ll give him that. He sketched the turtle’s face carefully, its odd look still fresh in his mind. There was something different about this turtle ninja. Something almost … human. It wasn’t a blank slate like those robo-ninjas from the rink. And it wasn’t a mindless creature like the goo monster. It was unique.
A flash of green caught Casey’s attention. He looked up from the page.
The turtle was practicing its ninja moves on the rooftop of an adjacent building.
Casey put his journal away, grabbed his hockey sticks, and headed toward it, unaware that he’d been under surveillance the entire time.
A spindly Footbot waited for Casey to disappear down to the street before it crept out of the darkness. It chirped, sending a homing signal back to its master.
Tracking the turtle ninja was easy. All Casey had to do was follow the sounds of crashing Dumpsters and shrieking alley cats across the city. The turtle ninja was obviously angry, punching everything in its path. It even stopped to babble to itself!
“Anger issues? Who’s got anger issues? I don’t have anger issues! Maybe they have anger issues!” he heard the turtle say as it tore up a manhole cover and dropped down into the sewers.
Casey followed carefully. His eyes adjusted to the darkness in time for him to see the turtle make a sharp turn to the left.
He was so focused on tailing the turtle that he didn’t notice the pitter-patter of footsteps in the puddles behind him.
A swarm of Footbots was shadowing his every move.
Leo, Donnie, and Mikey hadn’t moved a muscle since Raph left. They were all in a relaxed haze in front of the TV, still binge-watching Super Robo Mecha Force Five. It was an action-packed episode where the bad guy surprised the heroes with a sneak attack in their very own base!
Leo scoffed at this. “C’mon, how can one guy infiltrate Super Robo Mecha headquarters?”
As Mikey prepared an elaborately geeky answer for him, they heard Raph step back into the lair.
“You guys watch so much TV, your brains are gonna rot,” Raph said.
“Yay, Raph’s back,” Donnie replied in an intentional monotone.
Raph sighed, doing his best to ignore the negativity and remain as calm as possible.
“You cool off yet, man?” Leo asked him.
“I’m always cool,” Raph said, trying to fit on the couch. “Move over.”
Casey finally caught up to him, stealthily moving through the shadows. He glanced around the room, and his eyes instantly widened at the incredible sight before him—a whole group of turtle ninjas! He gasped in amazement. There are four of them?
Casey crouched for a closer look and accidentally knocked over some leftover pizza boxes and a fork, which clanged loudly on the floor.
He was busted.
“Intruder!” Donnie screamed.
The Turtles spun around to see the masked man standing in their living room.
“Awww, man!” Casey whined.
The Turtles bolted up from the couch and rushed Casey all at once. They held him down before he could get away.
Raph recognized the hockey psycho from the other night. “YOU again!”
“You know this guy, Raph?” Mikey asked.
“Get your stinkin’ paws off me!” Casey growled.
When Leo ripped Casey’s skull mask off, they all bugged out. The man underneath was a skeletal, decaying mess! Pockets of black goo made his eyes seem sunken in, like a zombie’s. And his freakishly long grin framed a ghost-white face.
Leo leaned in for a closer look, hesitating. Then, he lowered his guard. “It’s face paint,” he realized. “He’s just a kid!”
“Let go of me, you stupid reptiles!” Casey demanded. “Let go!”
From the other side of the room, two new voices rose above the commotion. “Always trust your instincts. A well-honed intuition can be sharper than your eyes,” said one.
“Yes, Sensei,” replied a very familiar and much softer voice.
Casey was confused. It couldn’t be. There’s no way. Why would she … ?
He turned. He saw April running toward him.
“Casey? Casey!” she yelled, panicked.
With that, everyone froze.
“You know this guy?” the Turtles asked her.
“You know these guys?” Casey said, totally confounded.
The Turtles loosened their grip. April pushed through and stood between them and Casey. “Don’t hurt him,” she begged them. “He’s my friend!”
April gave him a look. “Casey, what are you doing here?”
Casey didn’t know what to think. “A better question is: how do you know these … freaks?”
“These are the other friends I told you about.”
“Wait,” Casey said, slowly wrapping his head around the situation. “So they’re not the bad guys?”
“No way!” April sighed. She’d known this day would come eventually. She just hadn’t thought it would come so soon. Her two worlds were about to collide. “Casey Jones, meet Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo …”
“What up?” Mikey said, just as Raph slapped him upside the head.
“And the one and only Raphael,” April said with a wave of her hand.
Casey took a breath, looking around the semicircle of green faces staring back at him. In a world where he could fight mutants and monsters and robots, maybe Red’s knowing a whole clan of turtle ninjas wasn’t shocking after all. But he had a question.
“So,” he asked, “the Turtles are all Italian?”
“No,” came the answer from behind him. “I named them after my favorite painters and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance.”
The owner of the voice stepped into the light, fully revealing his furry face. It was a giant rat dressed in samurai robes!
A terrified look fell over Casey’s face. He could feel his knees weakening. Regular mutants he could handle, but mutant rats that knew how to speak English? He started to feel dizzy.
“Casey?” April said, sensing something was wrong.
Casey’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted.
April rushed over. “Casey? Casey! Wake up!”
After a few moments of unconsciousness and a helpful slap to the face, April finally got Casey to wake up.
“This is Master Splinter,” April explained to him. “He’s cool.”
“You do not have to fear me, my friend. Rest assured, I do not bite,” Master Splinter promised.
“He’s a giant … talking … RAT!” Casey stammered.
Raph burst out laughing. “Big bad vigilante’s afraid of rats!”
At that moment, Mikey held a cockroach up to Raph’s ear, which made him fully retract into his shell!
Mikey chuckled. “Just like you and cockroaches. Huh, Raph?”
While everyone shared a laugh at Raph, April frowned and held her head as if something was wrong. She hadn’t gotten one of these feelings in a long while, but there was no denying it. Her psyc
hic signal was strong, and at that very moment, she was sensing that something bad was in their midst.
“What is it, April?” Master Splinter asked.
“Sensei,” she replied, suddenly compelled to look up at the ceiling, “we are not alone.”
Everyone followed her gaze upward … to see a mass of Footbots! The Turtles’ lair was infested!
The Turtles were outnumbered.
Even with Casey picking up the rear, they were only seven against a swarm of what seemed like a hundred Footbots—their spindly arms extending with all types of chain saws and weapons at their disposal.
The Turtles found themselves sweating with their shells against the wall. Their home was now a battleground, and in Leo’s mind, there was only one Turtle to blame. “Raph!” he said, his eyes narrowing into an accusatory glare. “You led the enemy right to our lair!”
“It’s the kid’s fault!” Raph insisted, gesturing toward Casey. “He was following me!”
Casey gasped. He was only trying to get a closer look at the mysterious Turtle, not get everyone killed! “My fault?”
Unlike his brothers, Mikey didn’t really care whose fault it was. All he knew was that they had to protect the lair. The time for talking was over. “Booyakasha!” he yelled, charging the Footbots with his nunchucks spinning.
CLUNK! CLUNK!
Mikey took out two Footbots on his own before the other Turtles jumped in to back him up. Leo was right there to slice and dice his way through a few oncoming bots while Donnie pinned the next wave down with nothing but his secret bo staff blade.
Even Master Splinter and April got in on the action! With a barrage of well-practiced power punches and throwing moves, the teacher/student duo knocked off a few of the Footbots’ heads, teaching them a very painful lesson!
Now it was Raph’s turn. He leaped into the center of the room—and felt someone at his back, fighting along with him. He turned to look, expecting to see one of his brothers. Only it wasn’t a Turtle!
It was Casey Jones!
Raph scoffed. What does this kid think he’s doing?
