A/N: I'm sure that several of you are just as tired of the battle cry as I am. Well, I'm about to drive it so far into the ground that it will hopefully stay there for a while. Or at least until next Saturday when it is dredged up and resurrected by the PTB. Anyway, this is a piece of random silliness and parody. This is all in good fun! Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Ninja Turtles, and I certainly do not own the cry "It's Ninja Time." I would never lay claim to such a shout. Anyway, I own nothing, I make no money from this, and I mean no harm. Please do not sue.


It's Ninja Time!

They were surrounded, again. Not that there was really anything new about that. Leonardo took a step backward and prepared to draw his twin ninja-tek katana. A familiar shout filled the air.

"It's Ninja Time!"

Followed by something equally familiar.

"OW, Yow! HEY!"

While the sound itself was familiar, the timing was strange. Leo turned to see his brother, Michelangelo, on the ground rubbing his head. The battle began and they were down one fighter from the very start. While Mikey did recover quickly, the damage had been done. They still came away from the fight victorious, but it had taken a far greater toll on them than it should have.

"What happened back there, Mikey?" Raph asked as he helped his youngest brother up from the spot he had last landed. The question obviously referred to the very beginning of the fight and the now familiar battle cry that had gone wrong.

"I don't know. I just shouted 'It's ninja time' and- OW!" Once again the orange-masked turtle was rubbing his head. "It feels like that spatula Serling got me with yesterday."

Raph looked at his bother with a raised eye-ridge.


"It's Ninja Time!" Donatello cried as he started to make a move toward the monster of the week. That battle cry was soon followed by, "Yow! Ow! What's the big idea?"

Once again, their enemy got the jump on them instead of the other way around.

"You too, Donnie?" Mikey asked hopefully after the last baddie had fallen. "You got beat around the head too? With a spatula?"

"Yeah. Well, I don't know about the spatula. But what was that?" Don replied. There was no reason for this, none at all. Additionally, Don could find no logical explanation for the beating he had received. No one had been around him. It was like this big hand, or perhaps spatula if Mikey was to be believed, just came out of nowhere and smacked him.


Surrounded... Always surrounded. Why couldn't they just be normal teens who didn't have to worry about being surrounded for once. Either way, their cover was blown.

Raphael ripped off his disguise. "It's Ninja Time! YOW! Why I oughta-" but there was no one there to hit, or yell at for that matter. And his brothers had started the fight without him. The red-masked turtle plowed into the fray, seeking to catch up with his siblings after the lousy start.


"You guys are crazy." Leo insisted. "There is no way that a little battle cry can cause you to be hit. You're just being superstitious."

"Then why don't you say it?" Don dared his oldest brother. "Say it, then tell us we're superstitious."

"Alright, I will." Leonardo responded. "Next battle, I'll say it."


The next fight came all too soon. It seemed that this sort of thing had become a weekly occurrence.

"Alright guys," Leo said as he drew his swords. "It's Ninja time."

SMACK

Leonardo recoiled from the attack that seemed to have no source. What is going on here?

"Told you we weren't crazy!" Don shouted over the sounds of a struggle. Leo hurried to get to his brothers before anything happened to them.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Leo responded as he dispatched of an enemy.

They had a problem.


"Alright, I think it's safe to say that something weird is going on here." Leo told his brothers on the way home.

"Yeah." Mikey agreed. "Anytime one of us says 'It's ninja time; we- Ow! Hey!"

"You said it, we didn't." Raph pointed out as Mikey received the now familiar slapping for the use of that phrase.

"Well, we could just stop saying it." Leo suggested. That did seem to be the easiest solution.

"But... but it's our catch phrase!" Mikey protested.

"Then we'll find something else." Leo put in.

"Unless you like bein' hit about the head and neck with a spatula." Raph added with a poke toward his orange-masked brother that never quite made contact.

"Yeah, Mikey." Don added. "It really isn't worth it."

"And one of these days those few seconds it costs us every time is going to get someone hurt." Leo sighed.


Somewhere, a minor deity with a spatula chuckled, proud of a good day's work.