(Writer's Note: The Aaron that's named in the story is dedicated to Aaron Hern of the Hern Family, they actually have zero idea that I've actually written this story up in the first place, however since I had started writing this story back before the Boston Bombing had taken place, I didn't know that it would actually go in this direction at all. The school that was originally used wasn't the Martinez Junior High School, but actually Alhambra High School, however when the entire thing took place I decided to change the school. Now I don't know if I spelled the young man's name correct or anything, but I figured that I would mention that yes this story is dedicated to him and his family. Please enjoy)
I seriously couldn't believe what I had gotten myself into with this, here I was fighting someone that I seriously had no chance of beating, and yet I honestly thought that not only could I take him on, but that I could defeat him and rid the city of this guy once and for all, hell kick him out of the country. Thing was, it wasn't him that I was fighting; yeah I know that he was the one giving me the pounding at the moment, but in truth it was his master that I was fighting. I was just doing it through him.
So as I lay there on the floor, I kept wondering to myself, why was I here, I could seriously be any place else in the world and yet I was right there. Thing was I knew, I just knew that if I didn't stop them no one would. So as the foot came again for my rib cage, I realized that I had to come up with some way of being able to defeat this guy. Thinking back though, I should've realized what I was getting myself into.
30 minutes earlier…
Now that I knew who was really in charge, it was now just a matter of dealing with it; however the one thing that I knew I couldn't do was just barge right in with guns blazing. Nope tried that before on a different world and believe me, it didn't work out to well, which means that I needed to try a different tack in order to make sure that nothing went wrong.
After doing some research on the marking that I had seen on the uniform that the head person wore, I realized that this group not only wasn't from this town, they weren't even from this country, plus one of the other main problems that I had was that these guys were all under a mind control, the likes of which I had never seen before on this world or any other world that I had ever been to. Which meant that this was going to be a first, though how to approach the situation, which became the sole main topic of my mind, and that wasn't something that I happened to like too much to say the least.
I gathered everyone around, my team, the local police and the ones from Homeland Security as well. "The packets that I'm handing you contain the information that I was able to gather when it comes to our ninja like friends in there. Now the leader that I saw is only one of several, but they're all connected up through a hive like mind set, which means that the one that has control in there, that person can literally see the entire campus of this school all at once, and that includes whenever we happen to make a move. Which means that we needed to find a blind spot, in fact a few of them, in order to be able to get in there and take the leader out? However there is one slight hitch to the whole thing, and that hitch is that in the location right here," I noted point out the cafeteria, "and it's going to be a tuff nut to crack right there. The reason why is right there, the hostages. While they've got them there, there's no chance in the world that we can actually do anything and that is the main problem that we happen to have. We need to take those people out of the equation in order to be able to take not only the leader out, but this entire ninja like squad that he happens to have." I told them.
They took a moment to organize their thoughts before the questions came to light. "You're asking us to do something that has never been thought of before, after all, there's no tactics that happen to cover ninja like incursions on United States soil at all." The Homeland Security lady stated.
I looked at her. "Actually that's where I'm going to be coming in there. My team and I can be able to do things that you and yours can't do, no offence chief." I stated nodding to Chief Peterson.
He nodded to me. "None taken."
I looked back at the screen and pointed out several things. "OK the problem that we're going to have here is that these guys are going to see and hear you coming a mile away, and it's going to be relayed directly to the one in charge, and then right there everything is going to be blown. No we need to take them out without them knowing, yes it might be a slight tip off, but by the time the leader of this pack figures it all out, it'll be long over."
Amy looked up at me for the first time. "You said that they have some kind of link before, what if he happens to get tipped off from that." She pointed out.
That right there hadn't been something that I had actually thought about, however I figured that what she was talking about was also true and right in the first place, and that if they were connected by some kind of link, then the leader would be tipped off right off the bat, and there would be no getting around that. "At that point I really don't know, but I have a feeling that we're going to have to do something." I told them.
It was then that Alexis came up with something that I hadn't even thought of, and it was honestly the best idea as well. "Why don't you just straight out confront him right from the start, challenge him to a fight, one where if you win, he has to with draw and submit to the local authorities."
I looked at her. "That's not a bad idea, the only problem there is one thing, even if I win, he won't submit in the least, at least not unless someone happens to tell him that he has to. So unless you know someone that can be able to end all of this. That's not going to happen." I told them.
I had noticed as I had been talking to them, that there as a family standing off to one side with a kid next to them. Earlier I had noted that there was only one type that honestly wanted to be both in school and out at the same time. So after the list had been gathered, I had a couple of officers with Amy go over the list and see who would actually be the one that would want to, and this now had to be the family that wanted that. I walked over to them and stood looking down at the kid, Amy stepped up next to me. "I take it that this is the one?" I asked her.
Amy nodded. "Yes, everyone else that we looked at, we couldn't get ahold of them at all."
I kneeled down in front of the young boy and looked at him not only on his level, but right in the eyes as well. "So what's your name, I'm called Ninja, this is my friend Phoenix, and the lady over there that's looking at those computer screens who looks like me, well we'll just call her Lady Ninja for now." I said as I jerked a thumb over to Alexis.
The young boy looked at his parents, and when they nodded turned to look back at me. "Aaron, I'm Aaron." He said. I could tell that he was nervous and I wasn't going to press him for his full name right then.
"Look Aaron, I need your help here, you see I need to get my two friends and I into that school without letting a bunch of wanna be ninjas know that we're trying to get in there. You see I'm thinking that they're all linked in some way that would actually prevent me from sneaking past one yet getting spotted slightly by another one. So I'm needing a way in that won't let me be seen by them at all, and something tells me that when you've been on your own you've come here and explored the place more than you should've and that you actually know of a few places that one can actually get into that no one knows about. Am I right in thinking that?" I asked him.
Aaron looked at me and gave a slight smile that told me everything that I needed to know, without saying another word, I brought the family over to the computer that Alexis was staring at and let Aaron look at it. After a minute or so, he pointed at the screen but didn't touch it.
Alexis looked at where Aaron was pointing at and then typed something into the keyboard and the area on the screen that he had been looking at enlarged and gave us more detail then what had been there before. "Now that we've got more detail there, can you get more exact, and don't worry about touching the screen either OK." Alexis told him.
Aaron again, and touching it this time, pointed to yet another spot on the screen and Alexis once again zoomed the picture in, and for the last time Aaron pointed. "Right there is a place that one can be able to get into the school without being seen at all. You'll have to travel underground for a little bit, but it come up right into the main school building." Aaron stated. I looked at the point, and saw that it had been just off campus. It was a place that unless one knew where to look, they would never find it and never be able to get onto the campus in the end. Aaron knew about it only because he had used it before.
"You have no idea how much this actually helps us out." I told him as I compared the map to the heat screen. There wasn't anyone near it at all, and there were rovers, but right at the moment there was no one near it.
I took the remote to my H.U.D. and displayed that information in front. "OK now that we know where to hit, we can be able to get in there and end this." I stated as Alexis and Amy went with me.
It took about five minutes to get over there, and then yet another minute to the access point which happened to be a sewer pipe.
"I can't believe that I'm about to enter into a sewer pipe, this seriously was never even thought of when I signed up for this gig." Amy stated.
I could see Alexis smiling on her COM screen. "Then I guess you're never going to be visiting the smell world." She stated.
Amy looked at her. "What is that Earth connected only through sewer lines?"
"No she just calls it that because of the plants that are there, they admit an odor that would make this sewer pipe smell like a fresh mountain spring." Stated as I entered the pipe.
I entered and went in and crawled along the line the entire time having a map on the screen showing me real time where I was exactly in relation to the school above our heads. Believe me this wasn't something that I actually wanted to stay in for very long, considering that even though Alex and I had full face masks, Amy didn't and that's where my concern was at that moment right then.
We got to the entry point that Aaron had told us, and from what I could see, not only was the school right above us, but so was a closet on the bottom floor that had a drain that lead directly to this pipe here. Standing up, I pushed the drain grate up slightly and popped a mirror up so that way I could see if there was anyone in the room, there wasn't. Moving up, I quietly moved the grate to the side and moved out of the way as I got out of the way to let Alexis and Amy out of the pipe and into the room.
No one said anything as we gathered before the door and I looked under again to see if there was anyone there. There had been one person, but that person had just turned the corner and was now out of sight. Pushing open the door, we made our way as fast as we could without being seen directly to where everyone was being held. Once we got there, that's when I knew that things were going to be changing a bit for us, so I decided to make an entrance, one that they would never forget.
I took out a couple of smoke pellets and Alexis knew right off what in the world I had been planning on doing, it had been the same thing that we had both done on the training world. I rolled the pellets under the door since they were that small to go under, and watched as they rolled for a few feet before going off, and when they went off, the cloud that they put up was not only thick, but huge too.
The ninjas that had been by the door had been confused at first by the pellets as they had rolled in, and didn't know what in the world was going on when they couldn't see anything in front of them. However none of that mattered once they were knocked out. We had come in quick and took them right out fast, making sure that none of them even knew what in the world was going on, after all the one that controlled them was also blind as well and that was the main reason for it in the first place.
Once the smoke cleared, we were standing there over the bodies and looking right down at them. "If you honestly think that this is the worst that I can do, you seriously haven't been paying attention in the least." I said as I slowly looked up at the one that was in charge. Thing was for me, even though they couldn't see it, I wasn't looking at the one standing up before me; I was looking at the real one in charge.
However it was the one in charge that stood up before me and spoke. "For this insolence, you shall pay with your life." He stated right before charging at me.
Personally I really didn't think about how to react to something like that, so that's why I ended up on the floor like you saw at the start of all this, with me getting the crap kicked out of me. However you have to realize that once my mind kicked back in, that was that, after all I wasn't trained in fighting on this world, I was trained on a different world, one where the laws of time were completely different then how they are right now. Right then everything that was there went into such a slow motion for me, it was like everything suddenly wasn't moving, and that's a very good thing for me. I looked up at the one that was kicking me and suddenly something that I had practiced before (something that I was seriously never any good at when I did practice) came flashing back to me, and before I knew it, the guy kicking me shifted not only to the left, but had a bunch of lines following him as well. Then once everything sorted its self out, I was not only behind him, but at the same time his foot was still up like he was about to kick me yet again.
I took the foot and held it; the moment that he turned around I looked him right in the eyes. "Sorry but enough of that." I told him.
Using his own weight on him, I spun him and through him dead up with a second of the place that had no one in the way and right into a wall, knocking him clean out. Yeah I know what you're thinking, no way in the world that it would end that fast, and you're right, I thought he had been knocked out, and it had turned out that he hadn't been. Turned out that I had stunned him and he was faster at getting things back to normal than I actually gave him credit for. This time though I really was ready for him, and instead of him catching me and laying into me, that's when I nail him, right in the jaw that he was sticking out by leaning forward. Guy was stunned right into place and that left me land a few moved of my own, first a couple of jabs to his chest, before a couple of sidekicks to him, before ending the entire thing with a roundhouse that sent him flying back. At that point I did check on him to make sure that he was out, and this time he was.
I turned to look back at the real one in charge of all this, and believe it or not it was not the guy that was also standing there, it was the woman that was next to the guy in the first place. "You might want to reconsider sending this goon after me as well, and don't bother to say that you're in charge, I know that she is." I said looking directly at her this time. "You've been the one in charge this entire time; you're the one with the hive mind that has for some reason gained control over everyone here. I don't know how you did it, and to be honest, I doubt there's anything on this world that could be able to actually counter it, however considering my adventures that I've had during the last six years this world's time, and I would consider that there is something out there that can counter you." I told her.
Her eyes at that looked stunned, just as they had when I had used that sides maneuver, the one that I had a hard time with before. "You are just as he said you would be, however I didn't consider you to be like the way you are now. You are one that is different, and I do not mean in just the way that your suit happens to be, I mean that you personally are different. You yourself are of this world, yet at the same time, you are not of this world. However I will leave you to contemplate that on your own. I will leave, considering that all of this was to draw you out in the first place. Ninja you have made a name for yourself, and you yourself do not realize this, please understand that I am not the first nor will I be the last. Yes there was that Blood Ninja person, but he was a lone one compared to the force and terror that await you." With that, she got up and started walking towards the door aware from the police and government authorities that were out there. "Also," she said turning back. "Remember that this is not the last that you've seen of me and my clan, we shall return, and when we do, will you be ready for it."
I watched her leave, and then about ten minutes later with everyone walking out behind me, I arrived back where everything started in the first place. I still couldn't believe everything that I had been told, and realized that I had been making a name for myself with everything that had been going on.
After going through a debrief with all of the badges that had been there and going back home, I realized that there was one person that I needed to find, someone whose mind was greater than mine was and it was natural for her. Walking into the living room, I looked at both Alexis and Amy. "Ladies there's someone that we need to find, someone that can even the odds out here for everything." I said and then looked directly at Amy. "We need to find Corinne."
