3 Ninja Tales

by 3 Ninja Tales (The Rise of Tiger Claw; The Casey Chronicles; Mutants in Space!) (retail) (epub)

  THE RISE OF TIGER CLAW

  THE CASEY CHRONICLES

  MUTANTS IN SPACE!

  © 2016 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved. Nickelodeon, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and all related titles, logos and characters are trademarks of Viacom International Inc.

  © 2016 Viacom Overseas Holdings C.V. All Rights Reserved. Nickelodeon, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES and all related titles, logos and characters are trademarks of Viacom Overseas Holdings C.V.

  Based on characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman

  eISBN 978-1-68107-311-8

  Adapted by David Lewman

  Based on the teleplay “Wormquake!” by Brandon Auman and John Shirley

  The ninja warriors of the Foot Clan crouched behind a billboard on top of a New York City skyscraper. They were hunting the Turtles.

  “Karai,” Rahzar snarled. “Shredder didn’t authorize your little operation. I think we should—”

  Karai turned, sharply cutting him off. “Silence,” she hissed. “I’m in charge while my father’s in Japan! If we score an ambush on the Turtles, it’ll make us both look good! Now quiet … here they come.”

  Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael quickly leaped and flipped from rooftop to rooftop. Suddenly, Leo signaled for them to stop.

  “Hold up, ninjas!” he said quietly. “I have the feeling we’re not alone.”

  “You’re right, Leo,” Mikey agreed, looking around. “We have a potential spy!” He darted over to a wall and put his face close to … a squirrel! Startled, the squirrel dropped its acorn and ran off. Mikey grinned.

  “Shhh!” Donnie warned. “I thought I heard—”

  “FOOT! ATTACK!” ordered Karai from atop a brick shaft. Swinging their weapons, the Footbots and Rahzar ran straight at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

  Rahzar leaped at Michelangelo, his long fangs and sharp claws ready for impact, and knocked him to the ground.

  “Serving one bot, hot!” Raph shouted as he whacked a Footbot with his sai. Leo used his katana swords to fight off two other deadly Footbots.

  “Get off me, Rahzar!” Mikey yelled as the mutant inched his fatal fangs closer to the Turtle’s face. WHAP! Donnie knocked Rahzar off Mikey with his trusty bo staff! Mikey gave Donnie a quick but grateful fist bump.

  Karai couldn’t resist joining the fight herself. She leaped down from her perch, facing off against Raphael and Leonardo. They raised their weapons. “Let’s take her down!” Raph cried, eagerly spinning his sais. “Once and for all!” He’d fought Karai before and was sick of her interference.

  But taking Karai down wouldn’t be easy. As a highly trained kunoichi, or female ninja, she was quick, strong, and ruthless. She knocked Raph back with her blade as soon as he attacked her. Just then, another Footbot jumped in and took all of Raph’s attention. It was up to Leo to deal with Karai.

  He leaped and swung his katana swords, but Leo didn’t want to just fight Karai. He had something important to tell her. “Karai, listen!” he called.

  Karai ignored him, figuring the Turtle was trying to distract her. She kept on leaping and running, dodging Leo’s blows and swinging her sword. She raised it high over her head and tried to slam it down on Leo, but he crossed his swords and blocked her. As Leo balanced on the roof’s ledge, the two fighters struggled against each other, inches apart.

  “There’s something you should know!” Leo said. “It’s about your father!”

  Karai’s eyes widened in surprise and anger. How dare this mutant speak of my father? she thought. She gave a mighty push and sent Leo over the edge of the rooftop.

  He fell past two tall brick chimneys, back-flipped in the air, and landed on his feet. He was on the next roof over. “Your real father!” he called up to Karai.

  She leaped down and swung her sword, using the force of her fall to crash her weapon into Leo’s. He skidded backward across the roof, his katana sword clanking against the rooftop’s metal ridges. “Your real name is Miwa!” he told her.

  Karai glared at Leo. “I’m not interested in anything but you begging for your life!”

  As she ran toward him to deliver a punishing strike, the whole building began to shake! Karai hesitated, struggling to stay on her feet.

  The other Turtles, still on the building where the fight began, felt the shaking, too. “Whoa!” Mikey yelled, trying to keep his balance. “Earthquake!”

  “In New York?” Rahzar said. None of them could remember an earthquake happening in New York.

  The huge brick chimney behind Karai started to crack and fall from the violent shaking. “Karai, look out!” Leo shouted. He jumped forward to push her out of the way. She swung her sword at him, but he managed to shove her to safety.

  Now, the whole chimney was coming down! Leo tried to outrun the falling tower, but he wasn’t fast enough. Leo was buried under a massive pile of bricks!

  Donnie, Raph, and Mikey dug frantically through the pile of bricks, searching for their brother. “Leo!” Mikey called, hoping for an answer.

  Finally, they saw the edge of a blue mask. “Leo?” Mikey said again.

  Leonardo shook himself and looked at his brothers. “Ugh,” he groaned. “I think my shell got knocked loose.”

  His brothers grinned. Leo was alive!

  “What was that shaking?” Leo asked.

  “Some kind of localized quake,” Donnie guessed. “But what caused it?”

  Leo stood up and glanced around. “What happened to the Footbots? And Rahzar? And Karai?”

  “They took off when the shaking started,” Raphael said.

  “Yeah, right!” Mikey said, nodding and smiling. “The shaking scared them off. Or maybe they saw they were getting their butts kicked, so they ran away!”

  What the Turtles didn’t know was that Rahzar had disapproved of Karai’s plan from the beginning. When the shaking began, he saw a good opportunity to abandon the mission. The Footbots followed him, and Karai, finding herself outnumbered, had seen no option but to join the retreat.

  Leo looked strangely disappointed that their enemies had left. “Aw, no,” he said. “She’s gone! I could have changed everything!” He hung his head and closed his eyes. “Now it’s too late….”

  His brothers looked at each other. What was Leo talking about?

  Back in their secret headquarters deep below the streets of New York, Mikey and Raph watched news reporter Carlos Chiang O’Brien talk about the earthquake on TV.

  “Scientists are calling them microquakes,” he said, “but they shook so hard this reporter’s hair was badly messed up!” His hair looked wild, like a family of snakes. He ran his hand over his head to smooth it down. “No need for concern,” he added seriously. “I’m being treated by my stylist.”

  Mikey was shocked. “Dude! His poor hair!”

  Raph shot his brother a sideways glance. “Earthquakes in Manhattan?” he murmured to himself. “Something is definitely up!”

  He and Mikey went looking for Donnie, who was busy in his lab. He showed them a map of New York City on a computer screen, with red dots moving toward a central point. “I’ve been graphing the earthquake epicenters,” Donnie explained. “They’re happening in a pattern that’s not at all random.”

  Mikey was confused. “Is that awesome good or awesome bad?”

  “Awesome bad, Mikey,” Donnie said, frowning. He tapped the keys of his computer. “I’ve got weird energy readings under the epicenter. I think some kind of tech is causing the quakes.”

  Raph looked at Donnie. “Huh. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Mikey stared at Raph, thinking about
a cute kitty with big eyes.

  Raph made an exasperated sound and whacked Mikey in the head. “Ow!” Mikey cried, his eyes spinning.

  Raph put his fists on his hips and tried to guide Mikey to the answer he was thinking of. “Mikey, who has that kind of technology?”

  “Hmm,” Mikey said, thinking hard. He imagined two cute kittens playing with a screwdriver.

  In the lair’s dojo, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ sensei, Splinter, sat under the chamber’s gnarled tree, meditating.

  Leo stood in the doorway, working up the courage to enter and tell his teacher what he had done. He was not looking forward to Splinter’s reaction.

  He walked in and knelt on the carpet. “Master Splinter,” he said quietly. “I tried to tell Karai … that you’re her father.”

  Splinter opened his eyes, surprised by Leo’s confession. He grunted his disapproval.

  Leo didn’t like the sound of that grunt, but he hurried on, getting out all the words he had carefully planned to say. “I thought if she knew, she might come over to our side.”

  Splinter grunted again. He stood, put his hands behind his back.

  “There is a saying,” Splinter said. “He who runs his mouth gets a face full of nunchaku.”

  Leo knew very well that nunchaku was another word for nunchucks, but he had never heard that saying. “They say that in Japan?” he asked.

  “They would if you were there!” Splinter answered. He thought for a moment. “Still,” he continued, “your heart is in the right place.” He closed his eyes, then opened them wide. “Perhaps it is time she knew the truth.”

  “Maybe,” Leo suggested cautiously, “you should tell the other guys.”

  Master Splinter closed his eyes again. He knew Leonardo was right, but it didn’t make hearing his words any less painful.

  A few moments later, Leo brought his three brothers into the dojo. They knelt on the carpets, waiting to hear what Splinter had to tell them.

  “This is difficult,” he began, “but it is time you knew the truth. I told you once about losing my wife and my home in Japan, back when I was a man, not a … rat. I fought Shredder, and there was a fire. I long thought I had lost my daughter in that fire.”

  The brothers nodded. They remembered.

  “But I was wrong,” Splinter continued. “The child I thought I had lost, Miwa … is Karai. My daughter.”

  Donnie, Raph, and Mikey gasped, shocked by this news.

  “In the darkness of the smoke and fire, Shredder stole Miwa away,” Splinter said in a pained voice. “I thought she had perished, but she was raised by Shredder as his daughter. He trained her to become a deadly Foot assassin and changed her name to Karai.”

  For a long moment, the brothers didn’t know what to say. Then Donnie stammered, “This—this can’t be!”

  “It’s some kinda joke, right, Sensei?” Raph asked.

  “Karai’s our sister?” Mikey blurted.

  Raph shook his head, unable to accept this information. “Sensei, she’s still our enemy. She was raised by Shredder!” He got to his feet.

  So did Donnie. “Yeah! How could we ever trust her?”

  Master Splinter crossed the chamber and picked up an old black-and-white framed photo of himself as a man with his wife and baby daughter. He stared at the photo for the millionth time. “There is good in her. I know this.”

  He turned back to his sons, meeting their questioning gazes. “The truth must be told,” he said decisively. “And it too will be an earthquake.”

  In another part of the city, Karai was waiting impatiently in Shredder’s tall lair built of steel and glass. “Father should’ve been back hours ago with his new little secret weapon.”

  The purple mutant, Fishface, stood nervously to the side. Only Rahzar spoke up. “All I know is that he’s a deadly assassin. The Kraang turned him into a mutant when he was a kid, decades ago.”

  At the end of the long chamber, heavy doors crashed open. Eight Footbots marched in, took their places, and bowed their heads as their master walked by.

  Shredder climbed the steps and sat on his cold granite throne. “I have returned,” he said in his deep menacing voice. “And I bring with me the most feared assassin in all of Asia … Tiger Claw!”

  Karai, Rahzar, Baxter Stockman, and Fishface all turned their heads to look down the long walkway to the doors.

  A tall and daunting mutant, Tiger Claw had the head and claws of a tiger but the powerful body and deep voice of a man. He wore blasters in the holsters strapped to his legs, with a bandolier of ammo across his chest. He strode past the bowing Footbots. When he reached the steps leading up to Shredder’s throne, he knelt obediently on one knee.

  Despite the impressive entrance, Karai refused to be cowed. “This is your secret weapon, Father? Another freak?”

  Tiger Claw stood up to his full height and glanced disdainfully over his shoulder. “This is the Foot Clan you promised me?” he sneered. “I must say, Master Shredder, I am disappointed!”

  Insulted, Karai drew her sword and rushed at Tiger Claw. The assassin immediately drew his blaster and wheeled on Karai, aiming it right at her head. He growled.

  Fishface quickly but nervously stepped forward, hoping to break the tension. “I honor you, great Tiger Claw! Can I offer you some refreshments?”

  Scowling, Tiger Claw lowered his weapon. “Milk,” he rumbled. “Skim.”

  Fishface backed humbly out of the chamber to fetch some skim milk.

  Karai noticed that Tiger Claw’s striped tail was no more than a stub. “Sensitive subject maybe, but shouldn’t tigers have tails?”

  “Don’t mock me, child,” Tiger Claw warned. “It was a rival who sliced off my tail. One day I will find him … and he will pay the price!”

  Fishface slipped back in carrying a tray with a small cup of milk. He lifted the tray to Tiger Claw, who took the cup and lapped up the milk like a giant cat, purring.

  “If you can’t keep your own tail—” Karai started to observe, but Shredder cut her off.

  “Silence, Karai! You will treat Tiger Claw with the utmost respect. He is my new second-in-command.”

  Karai couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What? I’ve earned that job! Not some oversized cat in a scarf!”

  “Enough!” Shredder growled. “Tiger Claw, take my daughter with you to capture Splinter and his Turtles. Karai, do not disobey him.”

  Karai said nothing. I will prove to my father that I am more worthy of being his second-in-command than this hired employee! she thought. Then she remembered what Leo had said to her on the rooftop—something about her real father. But Shredder is my real father. Isn’t he?

  Under a starry sky, April O’Neil ran across the rooftops of New York City, vaulting over and clambering up walls. Casey Jones was close behind her, hurrying to keep up.

  “So, April,” he called to her, lifting his hockey mask onto the top of his head. “Vigilante-ing is cool and all, but how ’bout a real date?”

  April turned to him, puzzled. “What do you call this?”

  Casey slipped his arm around April’s shoulder. “I was thinking, you know, something a little cozier. You, me—”

  April started to smile. Then she heard a weird but familiar sound. “The Kraang!” she exclaimed.

  “Nah,” Casey said, shaking his head. “Aliens would just mess up my mix!”

  Peering over the edge of the roof, April saw a long line of Kraang-droids marching into a glowing magenta triangle in the alley below. “There are so many of them,” she whispered.

  With his hockey sticks strapped to his back, Casey joined April. He watched the Kraang-droids march into the shining triangle. “So these are the robots you told me about?”

  April nodded. “With the little brains inside, yeah. What are they doing?”

  She lowered herself to a narrow ledge, and then jumped to the alley below, squatting behind a big metal trash bin. When she peeked around the corner of the bin, she saw that only a f
ew more Kraang-droids were lined up to walk into the triangle. They were all disguised as black-haired New York businessmen, wearing black pin-striped suits and human masks.

  “That’s a new trick,” she whispered.

  Casey joined her behind the trash bin. “I got this, Red,” he said, lowering his hockey mask and pulling out a baseball bat. “Stay here.”

  He ran up behind the last droid in the line and smashed him with his bat. WHAP! The droid fell back, but it still punched Casey. April jumped into the fight, swinging her sharp-edged fan to slice the metal robot in half. A purple Kraang—a brainlike alien with eyes, a mouth, and six tentacles—flew out of the broken robot. It soared right at Casey …

  … who WHACKED it! The alien fell to the ground, seeing stars.

  The Kraang looked alarmed and scurried into the swirling triangle. It disappeared!

  April walked up to the triangle. It seemed to be projected from a metal disk hovering in the air. When she touched the disk, the triangle disappeared, and the disk fell to the ground with a CLANG!

  “Wow,” she said, kneeling down to pick up the strange disk. “Let’s take this to Donnie and let him check it out.”

  Casey frowned. He was pretty sure that mutant Turtle had a crush on April. And even though he was confident that April would prefer him to a mutated Turtle, he wasn’t taking any chances. The less time April spent around Donnie, the better.

  “Why not take it to a real laboratory?” he suggested, trying to keep the jealousy out of his voice so April wouldn’t know why he didn’t want to take the object to Donnie.

  “Trust me,” April scoffed, “Donnie’s way ahead of most scientists!”

  Leaving the broken robot lying in the alley, she led the way to the Turtles’ secret lair down in the abandoned tunnels below the city. Casey had no choice but to follow her—there was no way he was going to leave April alone with Donnie.