by 3 Ninja Tales (The Rise of Tiger Claw; The Casey Chronicles; Mutants in Space!) (retail) (epub)
It didn’t help me any. Because all I could think was HOLY COW, THIS STUDY SESSION FEELS LIKE A DATE. But, no worries. Just like on the ice, I was totally ready.
Deodorant? Check.
Best punk rock T-shirt? Double check.
Hanging out with the cutest girl at Roosevelt High on the swing set? Triple check.
That’s CASEY JONES FOR THE HAT TRICK!
I feel like we learned about each other. Like, I learned that Red is a Science Olympian. And I told her that I want to grow up to be a professional hockey star or international bounty hunter.
Yeah, okay, I’ll admit she did try to make me answer a few trig questions, but I told her school wasn’t really my thing. So we just hung out. And then, as if our date couldn’t get any better …
I SAVED HER FROM THE COOLEST-LOOKING MONSTER I’VE EVER SEEN!
This thing had to be at least twenty feet tall. Eyes and internal organs all mixed up and floating around in a box like a big spaghetti mess. It was totally jackedup, though. Dieselarms and legs made of green goo. And hands that dripped acid! It could melt ANYTHING it touched. It spoke through a microphone box like it was singing karaoke or something.
And it was going after April!
Good thing I stepped in. It was me versus the Karaoke Creature from Behind the Dumpster. I grabbed a lead pipe and went all GOONGALA on it! (Well, maybe Red helped a little bit.)
BUT I TOOK IT DOWN LIKE A BOSS.
I used that lead pipe like a hockey stick and gave it my best slap shot. I even shot the garbage around me at it like hockey pucks—everything was a weapon!
After we beat it up some more, the monster got really mad and chased us. I rescued Red on my bike, pedaling as fast as I could down the street. Cars were flying right by us! I turned up the speed just as a truck flattened the creature like a pancake. It was so awesome, like being in an action movie!
BEST STUDY SESSION/DATE EVER!!!
At the end of the night, I got Red home safe and far away from the monster.
And guess what? She wants to go out again with me tomorrow night! WOOHOO!!
Maybe we’ll even get some studying done.
It was late at night, and Casey Jones had the rink all to himself. He skated speed drills.
He practiced his wrist shot. He even made his own audience sound effects whenever he scored a goal.
Life was good on the ice.
Just as he was prepping another puck for launch, he noticed a figure moving in the stands.
Someone else had entered the rink, and judging by her petite frame and messenger bag, she wasn’t another player.
It was April.
“Red?” Casey skated over to her. “Did I miss a study session again?”
“No …” She hesitated, as if trying to find the right words. “I’m just here to … hang out.”
“With the infamous Casey Jones?” he asked with a smirk as he skated backward.
“Unless you only like me for my trigonometry skills,” April joked.
They both laughed. Neither of them had said it yet, but they were becoming more than just study partners. They felt like … friends.
The two exchanged an awkward stare. Casey could tell April had something on her mind.
“So what’s your deal?” Casey finally asked. “I never see you hanging out with anybody. Anti-social much?”
Things got awkward again.
“Not really,” April murmured.
She wanted to tell him everything—about the Turtles, her mutant-bat dad, the alien encounters—but she didn’t want to scare off the first human she’d befriended in years. Still, it would be nice to talk to someone.
“I … I had four really close friends,” she confessed, careful to keep her answer vague but honest. “I don’t talk to them anymore.”
Casey nodded. He understood what that was like. “It happens. Me and my best friend, Nick, were up against Troma Town in last year’s playoffs, right?” He fired a puck that clanged off the crossbar. “He came up behind me just as I was about to sink the winning goal and wham! My stick caught him in the face; it smacked his helmet straight off! Swollen face, split lip … My best friend since second grade … Never spoke to me again.”
Casey looked down at his skates. It was a bad memory he didn’t like reliving. April tried to comfort him.
“It’s not like you meant it,” she said.
“Right,” Casey responded, staring off into the distance. “Some stuff is just … beyond our control.”
April’s eyes widened; Donnie’s words from earlier echoed in her head. Seeing how sad Casey was helped her understand how the Turtles must have felt. Her face clouded over with guilt. Did I push the Turtles away for the wrong reasons?
Casey stepped off the ice and got close. “Give me a sec to grab my gear. We can get something to eat. Pizza?”
Pizza. Yet another thing that reminded her of the Turtles. April couldn’t lie to herself anymore: she missed her Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle friends.
As Casey disappeared into the locker room, she grabbed her old T-Phone from her bag and pulled up Donnie’s picture in the contacts list. There he was—all smiles underneath that purple mask. It reminded her of happier times. She touched his face affectionately and sighed.
KABLAM!
An explosion jostled April back to reality. The ground rumbled, and chunks of plaster flew through the air. As the dust cleared, she saw the outlines of two shadowy intruders. She recognized their black ninja masks and red bandanas.
“Foot Soldiers!” she exclaimed.
They charged at her, swinging blades and throwing punches. April did her best to dodge them, lurching left and right in the stands, narrowly avoiding their strikes. They seemed faster and stronger than she remembered.
Suddenly, blades and spikes popped out of their backs. Their eyes lit up.
Impossible, April thought. “Didn’t you guys used to be human?” she screamed at them.
April needed a plan. These weren’t the clumsy Foot Soldiers she was used to. She rolled backward and, deciding to take her chances, lured them onto the ice. But the two Foot Soldiers never lost their balance! They skated toward her with ease. April’s plan had backfired, but just as they were about to surround her, all the overhead lights came to life.
“Yo!” a voice called from across the ice. The Foot Soldiers turned to see a red jersey coming up fast.
It was Casey!
“If there’s one thing I have, it’s crackerjack timing,” he called out.
“Casey, run!” April screamed.
“What? So you get all the fun?” Casey teed up two pucks and unleashed them directly at the ninjas’ faces. The soldiers tumbled to the ice.
“I got ’em,” he told April. “You go!”
But April wasn’t going anywhere. She unsheathed her tessen and took a fighting stance. “No, I got ’em! You go!” she replied.
The moment the attackers got back up, Casey sliced across the ice and threw his own body like a human projectile. One Foot Soldier was thrown into the glass.
“Cross-checking!” Casey shouted, calling the penalty like a sports announcer. “Two minutes!”
Casey went after the other one, wielding his hockey stick like a club. He pulled back and hit him with all the rage in his body. The Foot Soldier fell headfirst onto the ice, sparks sputtering out of its head. “High sticking!” Casey shouted. Then, with a smile, he added, “Hey, it ain’t a penalty if they deserve it, right?”
Before he could say anything else, the first Foot Soldier took Casey by surprise and knocked him onto the ice. As it raised a scythelike weapon over Casey’s head, April saw her opportunity. She reached over and grabbed the other Foot Soldier’s discarded blades. With a mighty throw, she landed a one-in-a-million shot, striking the soldier down for good. Purple sparks shot out of its body.
These Foot Soldiers are definitely not human, she realized.
“You got some serious rink rage, Red,” Casey said.
�
��You should see me play table tennis,” April replied.
“So … you owe these guys money or something?”
“Or something,” she said, suddenly hearing more footsteps all around them. April looked up.
More Footbots! It was an ambush! The strange robotic ninjas hit the ice and began fanning out in an attack pattern.
“Casey, just go,” April pleaded. “I didn’t mean to get you into this.”
“Are you kidding me?” Casey yelled. “Do you know what this is? This is Casey Jones versus Evil Robo-Ninjas! It’s the coolest freaking thing in the universe!”
With his hockey stick held high, Casey skated into battle, yelling his signature war cry: “GOONGALA!”
Before April could protest, Casey had lured the Footbots far away from her. He was easily outnumbered. Their buzzing saw blades overpowered him, slicing his stick in two. April knew she had to do something. The Foot were clearly after her and her alone. She didn’t want to be the reason Casey got hurt.
I won’t lose another friend, she thought.
“Hey, Footbots! You want me? Come and get me!” April cried, doing her best to distract them.
Casey tried to stop her. “April!”
But it was too late. She was already off the ice, sprinting for her life, leading most of the Footbots out of the rink in the process.
Casey looked back at his opponents, sizing up the competition: just three Footbots left on the ice. He liked his odds now. He picked up a shiny new hockey stick.
“Now the fight’s fair,” Casey said.
He lined up more hockey pucks. He swung hard and screamed, “Eat this!”
April bolted out of the hockey rink, making her way toward an adjacent alley. She glanced over her shoulder: the Footbots were in hot pursuit.
One of them flung ninja blades at April. She stopped short and ducked. The steel knives flew inches above her head and dug into a brick wall.
April saw an opportunity. She climbed the blades like a miniature stairway up the wall of an apartment building! About ten feet up, she grabbed onto a fire escape ladder and kept climbing until she reached the safety of the rooftop.
It was an impressive ninja feat. And one that had not gone unnoticed.
Across the street, a mysterious watcher stood atop a water tower, following April’s escape through a pair of binoculars.
It was Karai.
The Shredder’s ruthless daughter was seeing her evil plan come together. She had successfully flushed April out into the open after weeks of hiding underground. Now it was time for Phase Two.
“She’s traveling north on the rooftops,” Karai informed her Footbots. “Move!”
The army of robots wordlessly followed her orders, tracking their human target. It was time to eliminate April O’Neil!
While April was running away from the Footbots, the Turtles were running out of options. They were hiding in the shadows, staking out what they believed to be a secret Kraang lab.
“That’s our entry point,” Leo said. “We just need a distraction.”
The other Turtles racked their brains for ideas. They knew they had to sneak in fast and undetected, but a number of strange men in suits were guarding the door. The Turtles recognized them as Normans—Kraang-droids disguised as human businessmen.
Mikey studied the billboard lights above them. It was like a literal lightbulb going on in his brain. “Dude, I got the best plan!” he gushed.
Leo, Donnie, and Raph all turned at once to look at him with surprise.
“Why do I feel slightly nauseated?” Raph scoffed.
“Check it out,” Mikey said, adjusting the billboard light. He put his hands in front of the bulb and started making shadow puppets. “I’ve been practicing.”
And with that, a gigantic shadow danced across the Kraang’s hideout. The Normans saw a twenty-foot-tall rabbit hopping over their heads!
“Kraang, creatures known as rabbits have infiltrated Kraang’s lab,” one Norman observed.
And before the others could respond, the shadowy creature morphed into a wild elephant!
“No, Kraang,” another Norman said, identifying the new animal. “Clearly a small but obese pachyderm has breached Kraang security.”
The elephant disappeared, and the slinky silhouette of a woman appeared. The monumental figure turned and spun gracefully before them.
“Kraang are both wrong!” a different Norman announced, scanning his mental database for answers. “It is a dancer wearing what is known as a flamenco dress.”
With all the Normans distracted, Leo, Donnie, and Raph saw their opportunity. They drew their weapons and leaped down from the fire escape, taking out droids before the chrome domes even knew what hit them!
Leo was impressed. It wasn’t often that Mikey’s insane plans worked, but he had to hand it to his little brother this time. “You’ve got some mad shadow-puppetry skills.”
“Like a Turtle do!” Mikey bragged with a smile.
Raph helped Donnie up to an open window. Once he gave the all clear, the other Turtles somersaulted their way up to join him.
They were in.
The Turtles walked cautiously down a long, dark corridor. Though the building they entered looked like an abandoned warehouse from the outside, the inside made them feel like they had been transported to another world. Purple-pink lights buzzed all around them. Strange alien symbols decorated their surroundings. Up ahead, they saw the sterile white light of a lab.
This was definitely a Kraang hideout.
Beyond the usual Kraang-droids and free-floating Kraang brains that went about their business, Donnie saw something in the center of the room that he’d never seen before: a robotic creation made in Shredder’s image. It had the same mask and spikes, but he figured it would have even more strength.
“I’m guessing we just found the secret weapon,” Donnie whispered.
“All right, Donnie, we need you to shut that thing down,” Leo said.
“No problem!”
Suddenly, a loud buzzing noise started. Had they been spotted? The Turtles ducked, scanning the area for the source of the sound.
Mikey pointed: it was Donnie’s shell!
“Dude, you’re vibrating,” Mikey said.
Donnie scrambled for his T-Phone, remembering he’d put it on vibrate mode earlier. This is embarrassing, he thought—until he saw who was calling!
“It’s April!” he exclaimed.
He took a breath and tried to play it cool as he answered: “Hi, this is—”
He was so nervous he couldn’t even say his own name!
“This is Dona-Deener-Don-Donna-Dino—”
“Donnie!” he heard her scream. “Remember how you said sometimes things are out of our control? Well, you were right! Things are really out of control right now!”
April screamed so loud over the T-Phone, they all heard it.
Donnie turned to his brothers. “She needs me, guys!” And then he spoke into the phone: “Hold on, April! I’ll be right there!”
“Donnie,” Leo protested, “we need your help!”
But it was too late. Donnie abandoned the other Turtles to save April.
Raph could feel himself getting angrier than usual. “He ditched us?”
And then, as if on cue, an alarm sounded and a computer voice boomed over the speakers: “Alerting of one known as Intruder!”
The Turtles saw every creature in the room come to a standstill. Their cover wasn’t just blown—it was about to be blown away! Every Kraang-droid sprang into action. They opened fire with a barrage of laser blasts.
“Turtles, attack!” Leo commanded.
Leo, Raph, and Mikey unsheathed their weapons. They might have been short one Turtle, but they weren’t going down without a fight.
Casey Jones had been on the ice for many years, but he’d never seen action like this. He teed up a few more pucks and skated toward the three Footbots still standing in his way. He was running on pure adrenaline. He felt like more t
han a hockey player.
He felt like a hero.
“Wrist shot!” Casey called out, striking down two Footbots with a lightning-fast trick play. He readied the next puck and swung with fury. “Slap shot!”
The disc flew like a missile, knocking the final Footbot down on the ice.
Casey laughed, taunting his attackers: “You might wanna get that looked at!”
The Footbots collected themselves. Their learning technology enabled them to study Casey’s movements and mimic them instantly—which meant they were now skating like pros! The bots glided around the net, throwing blades that hummed at Casey with scary precision.
Casey dodged the flying knives. He was preparing a perfect high-speed body check.
THWACK! The hit was so hard a bot’s head came loose! Casey caught it with his stick and fired into the net!
“One–zip!” Casey celebrated. “Home ice leads! Who’s next?”
The remaining Footbots drew backup weapons, but it didn’t faze Casey at this point. These robo-ninjas were on his turf, and on this ice, he had a reputation for being undefeated.
“Come get some,” Casey told them.
April couldn’t run anymore. Her legs felt like jelly, and she was out of breath. But she couldn’t stop. One relentless Footbot chased her off the main street to the park.
She climbed over the merry-go-round, narrowly escaping the bot’s grasp. She ran toward the shadows, searching for a place to hide until the Turtles arrived.
Then she heard something cut through the eerie quiet—a familiar buzzing sound like a spinning saw.
She turned, hearing another set of blades.
And another.
It was a trap! A squad of Footbots surrounded her, each ready to slice-and-dice her with his saw blade. April knew there was no escape. All she could see was a wall of ninjas encircling her in the dark.
This was no random attack, she realized. Someone had programmed these robots to lure her here. But who? And for what purpose?
April wanted answers. In spite of being outnumbered, she stood her ground, drawing her tessen.