“I…I…I don’t know what to say,” said Steph.
Darcy narrowed her eyes.
“You start by saying ‘thank you,’” said Gertie. “Didn’t anyone teach you proper manners, young lady? When I was your age, if someone saved our lives, we thanked them and then we baked them a double dark chocolate gratitude cake with butter-dream frosting—which is so much better than regular old buttercream frosting. That’s what I would do if I were you.”
“Thank you, Marcy” said Ninja Steph, unable to make eye contact. “And…I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”
“You’re welcome,” said Darcy.
They all stood there on the ceiling, looking down at the giant pit that the drill tank had created by tunneling beneath the floor. The mecha-moles had moved elsewhere.
“I always said that this place needed remodeling,” said Ninja Gertie. “But I didn’t mean it like this.”
Darcy nodded. The damage here was unbelievable. She could only imagine what the rest of Ninjastoria looked like.
“Gertie, it’s good to see you,” said Ninja Steve’s mom. “Where is the sisterhood?”
“Nearby. Prince Eldin arrived with a pack of his elite warriors, and they have been battling President Ninja and Sensei Raheem. The sisterhood was on its way to back them up. I broke away to assist here.”
“If we can beat Eldin,” said Ninja Steve.
“Then maybe we can end this,” said Darcy.
STEVE
Steve followed his parents out of Swords R Us. They used a ladder that allowed the workers to access the roof.
Everyone got out and stood beneath the cloudy evening sky. A brisk wind was blowing.
“The mecha-moles are betting that if they can defeat Sensei Raheem and President Ninja in the heart of Ninjastoria, that we will have no choice but to surrender,” said Gertie. “We must make our way to the Shrine of the First Ninja.”
Of course. The Shrine of the First Ninja. They would challenge the ninjas at the very center of their village, the place where the First Ninja had declared the creation of Ninjastoria.
They ran to the edge of the roof and leaped off. The Shrine of the First Ninja was not far from here.
Steve’s legs were killing him and he bet that everyone was feeling exhausted. His stomach was growling.
“You need to eat!” said Ninja Gertie. Out of nowhere, she flung homemade energy bars to everyone. “These are mellowberry crunch bars, freshly baked this morning.”
“Weren’t you fighting with mecha-moles this morning?” asked Steve.
“Yes, but Morris and I still decided to bake our crunch bars like we do every weekend,” said Gertie. “We can’t let the mecha-moles take that from us.”
Steve eagerly devoured the food. Mellowberries were golden orange, slightly sweet, and only grew in Ninjastoria. Gertie had mixed them with crispy rice puffs and a salty peanut-butter swirl. It was perfect.
The battle had left no part of Ninjastoria untouched. Storefronts were scuffed up, windows were cracked, and several buildings had collapsed.
“We’re going to have to rebuild so much,” said Steve.
“We’ll do what we have to do,” said his mom.
The sound of battle loomed ahead. Crashing. Thumping. Clanking. Roaring.
Steve could see the Shrine of the First Ninja. It was a series of black stone pillars that formed a wide circle, wide enough that it took nearly a half-hour to walk the full circle. In the center of it, there would be a katana with a white handle. Half of its blade was sunk into a metal cube and fused together.
The shrine was swarming with ninjas on one side and mecha-moles attacking from the other.
Steve looked up at the rooftop of the Museum of Sharp Objects, which was the closest building to the shrine.
“They’re about to launch the cat-a-pults,” he said.
“Why did you say it with pauses between the syllables?” Darcy asked him.
“That’s the only way to say it. Cat. Pause. Uh. Pause. Pult.”
“But you’re supposed to say it all together: catapult.”
“Oh,” said Steve. “You are thinking of a different device. This is a cat-a-pult.”
Steve pointed to one that was about to be loaded up. A ninja wound a crank that pulled back an oversized wooden spoon. A cluster of ninja cats climbed in. Then, the ninja pulled a lever and the cats were flung in a smooth arc toward their targets. Darcy frowned as she watched five cats go sailing into battle.
“Isn’t that dangerous for the cats?” Darcy asked. “Isn’t that animal cruelty?”
Steve laughed. “The cats were the ones who came up with the design and asked us to help them build them. Besides, cats always land on their feet. Unless there’s an enemy nearby. Then, a cat will always land on its enemy.”
Ninja Gertie piped up. “It’s scientific fact. Alberta Meinstein was the one who tested the initial hypothesis, and her experiments were repeated by other scientists until we could confirm it as a theory.”
And then there was no more time for talking. There were waves of mecha-moles and drill tanks advancing on the shrine or drilling up through the ground around it.
Steve saw some of the other members of the Sisterhood of Butt-Kicking. He tried to stay with his parents, but a drill tank fired a drill missile, and everyone had to scatter.
The scout mecha-moles in this wave were all carrying pairs of metal mallets, joined together by a chain. Some of them had large batteries strapped to their backs, supplying extra power to their claws. Steve readied his baseball bat. Darcy gripped her dagger in one hand and set her other hand aflame.
A pack of ninja cats rained down from the sky. The black felines all landed on scouts and dug their claws in. Some of the moles shrieked, others flailed around, trying to shake the cats off.
In front of Steve, a drill tank came to the surface. Three brute mecha-moles climbed out to fight. They all set their sights on Steve.
Three cats formed a defensive line in front of him.
Then, Sensei Chow arrived.
He held one of his heavy spatulas in one hand and a pot lid in the other. Strapped across his back was some kind of squirt gun.
“Ninja Steve, it’s time for them to get served.”
Steve thought it was a terrible line.
The cats hissed, and all three of them attacked the same brute mecha-mole. One landed on its leg, one on the shoulder, and one on the back of its neck. They started scratching.
Sensei Chow performed the spell of the vampire hunter. Ten cloves of garlic appeared in his hand. He smashed them with the spatula against his palm and handed the fragrant garlic paste to Ninja Steve, who wasn’t exactly thrilled to be receiving it.
“Their noses are extra-sensitive,” said Sensei Chow. “You know what to do.”
Steve wished that he still had a Mega Fart Bomb XL or two. The garlic paste would have to do, instead.
The mecha-mole that Steve attacked was huge, yes, but Steve trusted his own speed. The mecha-mole swiped at him, and Steve slipped alongside it. He jumped up and smashed all of the garlic paste straight into the brute mecha-mole’s nose.
It yelled, thrashed, started coughing, and then collapsed in tears.
The ninja glider squads began their assault, flying overhead and dropping down into the middle of the enemy ranks. Steve also caught sight of Ninjastoria’s two rival soccer clubs kicking soccer balls into clusters of mecha-mole soldiers.
The cats were still keeping one of the moles busy until Sensei Chow told them to move. Sensei Chow readied the squirt gun. He pulled the trigger.
“Anchovy paste cannon!” he yelled, and blasted the two mecha-moles. The smell of the anchovy paste was so potent that it made Steve’s eyes water even from a distance.
But that had only taken care of three of them.
There was still an entire army.
A thousand more mecha-moles were charging from the same side, forming a giant wall, driving the ninjas back toward the heart of the
shrine. Thousands more could be seen tunneling up through the dirt.
Steve began to wonder if today was the day that Ninjastoria would fall.
DARCY
Darcy knew that now was not the time to hold anything back. Her ghost fire—her curse—was a strength that no one else in Ninjastoria possessed.
Instead of hiding it, she let her left hand blaze.
Two scouts lunged for her. She touched her flaming hand to their metal claws in quick succession and watched as the metal part melted away, leaving only their natural claws. Unarmed, they ran away.
“Well done,” said Toran.
Despite her little victory, she was starting to doubt that the ninjas would be able to pull this one off. They were using everything they could against the moles: blasts of lightning and ice, tornadoes, rumble-bees. No matter what they did, the moles kept coming.
A fresh battalion of at least fifty brute mecha-moles dug themselves out of the ground. Each one carried a drill lance: a six-foot spear with a rotating drill tip at the end.
Evelyn had taught her about dealing with long-range weapons. The very first piece of advice was to avoid them entirely. If you had to engage, the first step was closing the distance between yourself and your foe.
“Sisterhood, let’s get in formation!” came a shout.
Ninja Amari landed on top of one of the black pillars. She rested her sledgehammer on one shoulder.
At the base of the pillar, the entire Sisterhood of Butt-Kicking gathered and faced east. They held baseball bats and hockey sticks and bo staffs and nunchakus.
“Ninja Marcy! We’re waiting for you!” Amari called.
Darcy smirked. She found a spot between Ninja Gertie and Ninja Steve’s mom.
Darcy didn’t see the motions that Amari performed, but she definitely saw the ball of lightning that spiraled down from above and scattered the lancers.
“CHARGE!” shouted Amari.
The sisterhood surged toward the wall of enemies with the force of a tsunami.
A lancer thrust its spear at Gertie, who leaped onto it like it was a balance beam. With one kick, she broke the lance in half and then jumped away. Darcy threw all of her weight into a jumping elbow strike that caught the mecha-mole on its chin and knocked it flat on its back.
She drew her chromega dagger and began cutting straight through the lances, allowing the other members of the sisterhood to fight the unarmed moles.
All around them, the sisterhood worked as a team, sweeping the enemy back and back and back, pressing them away from the Shrine of the First Ninja.
They were breaking the moles’ advances.
They had given Ninjastoria a fighting chance.
STEVE
He heard Ninja Amari direct the Sisterhood of Butt-Kicking to turn their attention to the wall of mecha-moles closing in from the east. The rest of the ninja forces followed behind them.
Steve saw that his dad was headed to the front lines of the battle. Steve went after him.
At the very center of the front lines, Prince Eldin and his elite guard squad of brute mecha-moles were in a furious battle with Sensei Raheem, President Ninja, and Steve’s mom.
Sensei Raheem was bruised on his face and his arms, defeated mecha-moles flying away from him in every direction. He performed the spell of the ferocious hedgehog, a defensive maneuver that turned his mohawk into actual spikes on his head and kept enemies from jumping on him. He was battling four mecha-moles that wore golden armor that had drill bits on nearly every limb.
Steve saw his mother fending off three more moles by herself until Steve’s dad arrived.
President Ninja was using his famous electric-eel style of battle, which mimicked the slick and sudden movements of the infamous sea creature. Prince Eldin, in his black and gold armor, had a tough time landing a strike.
Steve knew that the electric-eel style was defensive, made to wear an opponent out. From the looks of it, though, President Ninja was the one who was worn out.
Sensei Raheem unleashed the spell of ten thousand crying babies, which caused everyone to clamp their hands over their ears. With a single spin-kick, the legendary hero of Ninjastoria knocked out all of his opponents.
President Ninja, who had been caught off guard by Sensei Raheem’s technique, stumbled, and Prince Eldin managed to punch him right on the nose.
Without a second thought, Ninja Steve launched himself at Prince Eldin. He readied his baseball bat and swung.
He missed.
The prince ducked beneath it, yanked the bat out of Steve’s hands, and then swept Steve’s feet out from under him. Steve flopped on the ground like a fish out of water…or a winged armadillo in the water.
“Elom!” yelled Prince Eldin. “Get over here!”
Sensei Raheem and both of Steve’s parents joined in the assault against Eldin, throwing a storm of strikes that looked like a blur.
The young prince poked his head out from behind one of the black columns of the shrine. He had been hiding there, avoiding the battle.
“Your son isn’t a warrior,” said Steve. “He doesn’t want to fight me and I don’t want to fight him.”
Elom adjusted his helmet. “I’m not a coward.”
He approached Steve and flexed his claws. Steve stayed light on his feet, hopping back and forth. Elom slashed, and Steve caught him by the wrist.
“I don’t want to become a slave!” shouted Elom.
“We don’t have slaves here,” said Steve. “We never have. Slavery is the worst.”
That seemed to stun the prince. His arms went slack.
“What do you mean? Dad told me that Ninjastoria had more slaves than any other country. Are you calling my dad a liar?”
“We don’t have slaves. We don’t cook other ninjas and eat them. We don’t have holidays where we dress prisoners up like mecha-moles and hit them with drumsticks,” said Steve. “Not a single thing you’ve said to me about my people is true.”
“All ninjas are liars,” he growled. “You’re trying to get me to lower my guard and it almost worked, you lying ninja peasant!”
Elom punched Steve in the face. The punch barely hurt. It was probably the weakest punch Steve had encountered in years. He knew, though, that the only way this could end would be if he delivered a sound trouncing to Prince Elom. Of course, Steve didn’t want to actually hurt him. He was the least threatening mecha-mole of them all.
Steve drove a half-strength palm strike into Elom’s armored chest plate. He had to try really hard to make it a weak strike. The young mole screamed and collapsed. Steve knew that Elom was pretending to be unconscious and he was okay with that.
Prince Eldin was still trying to fend off Sensei Raheem, President Ninja, and Steve’s parents when Steve called out to him, “Your son was no match for me, Prince Eldin.”
“My son, then, has failed his royal heritage,” Eldin said. “In order to restore honor to the throne, I will have to take care of all of you.”
He threw Steve’s mom to the ground, punched Steve’s dad out of the way, barreled into President Ninja, and made a beeline for Steve.
Steve knew that if he wanted to use the spell of melted time, this was the moment.
He didn’t get the chance.
Sensei Raheem shoved Steve out of the way, but it left Raheem with no time to block Eldin’s jump-kick.
The prince’s massive foot collided with Raheem’s face, and Steve watched, horrified, as Ninjastoria’s greatest living hero was knocked out.
DARCY
Darcy had been a part of the sisterhood’s charge and felt her spirits lift as the other ninjas fed on their momentum.
But then, drill tanks began to arrive on the other side of the shrine. The majority of the ninja forces were busy fighting in the opposite direction.
As more and more drill tanks broke through the surface, the mecha-moles gave a cheer. The ninjas were surrounded, caught between two walls of mecha-mole forces that threatened to crush them in the middle.
Darcy watched as Drogar, encased in her full battle armor, stood atop one of the tanks. The bear-wolves may have attacked her, but they hadn’t stopped her for good.
Even though none of the ninjas could hear what Drogar said to her troops, it didn’t matter. Her return to the battlefield had given the moles new energy. They regrouped; they got into neat lines. Those who still had weapons were up front.
Darcy saw the concern on Ninja Amari’s face. She saw Gertie looking absolutely exhausted. She watched as the ninjas regrouped and split their forces to face their enemies on either side.
Darcy knew that her dagger could cut through some of the tanks. She knew that her ghost fire could melt down parts of the tanks, too. Both options, however, meant having to get incredibly close. Much too close for comfort.
The cat-a-pults were reloaded. The glider squads took to the air once more. The soccer teams unloaded one final bag of soccer balls. Sensei Chow readied his battle spatulas.
Darcy knew that this was going to be their last stand.
STEVE
Steve saw Sensei Raheem get hit with the full force of Prince Eldin’s jump-kick. He watched his teacher fall to the ground, unconscious. A terrible guilt welled up inside of Steve. This was all his fault.
Eldin spared no time in striking Steve. The mole prince’s fists were almost too fast to see, and the impact dropped Steve flat on his back.
Prince Eldin laughed and pointed at President Ninja.
“Raheem has been defeated. Your delinquent trickster is down after a single rush from me. You are caught between my ground forces and my sister’s tank squadron. You should surrender, President Ninja. Say, ‘We surrender.’”
The battlefield grew quiet as all eyes turned to Eldin and President Ninja.
President Ninja straightened his moustache.
“Prince Eldin, you would like me to say two very specific words, wouldn’t you?” asked President Ninja. “Two words that would be of incredible significance?”
Agent Darcy and Ninja Steve in...Mecha-Mole Mayhem! Page 11
