Chapter 3: Trouble In The Neighborhood

Growls of fury where heard from McFist when he knew that Jennifer destroyed one of his RoboApes and took another one down with it.

He smashed a table and growled. "HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT A KID DESTROYED MY ROBOTS?! SHE COULDN'T BE THE NINJA! SHE'S A WEAKLING!"

"But it appears that she destroyed the RoboApe herself. She might not be the Ninja, but she has the body and skill of one."

"Ninja or not, we're kidnapping that girl! Once we get her out of the Ninja's sight, we'll experiment on her and destroy the Ninja!"

Viceroy cleared his throat. "The girl has strong connections with the Ninja. If he sees that she's in trouble, he'll come and save her."

"Exactly!" Yelled McFist. "Send out the RoboKitten! Gather everything she knows and has about the Ninja. Then we'll get her ourselves."

The RoboKitten suddenly appeared beside McFist and meowed. The villain let out a girly scream. The robotic cat hissed at him and quickly fled away.

"The next time you create robots, don't make them scare the hairs out of me!"

Viceroy rolled his eyes and turned heels.

"Before you go..." Added McFist. "Release the RoboSpider once you've found the girl. We'll get her, and destroy the Ninja."

After that Viceroy left, leaving the villain to his thoughts.

On a wall were some screens showing Jennifer when she helped the Ninja fight off the RoboApes, and another image of Jennifer facing the biggest robot with a ninja sword.

McFist stared at the images of the girl and laughed evilly. "I will find you, kid. I will get everything you know about the Ninja and destroy him!"


After the fight against the RoboApes, Randy and his best friend Howard made their way back to their homes, chatting about how the Ninja received help from Jennifer, a normal girl they've never seen before.

"So a girl helped the Ninja against four RoboApes with a bow and arrows. Did she even realized she almost lost them?"

"I'll try to fix these and give them to her, but she knows the Ninja only. She doesn't know who I am that much except that she has seen me in that candy shop of hers." Said Randy. "But anyways, the Ninja can handle things on his own. I'm sure that kid helped me because I saved her. And she even sliced a RoboApe with one of my ninja swords!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it right there." Interrupted Howard. "You saved her?"

Randy nodded. "From being attacked by the RoboApes, yes."

"And she sliced a RoboApe with your ninja sword?"

"Sliced it to pieces." Replied Randy.

Howard then thought for a while. "Cunningham, haven't you thought she might be a Ninja too?"

"Okay, let's clarify this, Howard. For first, I am the Ninja. There couldn't be another one. And for second, that kid's just a new girl in town. You think she's a Ninja? Nonsense! Because she sliced that robot doesn't mean she has any kind of ninja skill."

"I know. But I think it might be the cheese if another Ninja shows up." Commented Howard. "I mean, two heads are better than one when it's about fighting monsters and robots. Anyway, I'll catch up with you later. My stomach asks for more chocolate bars!"

Randy watched as his friend left and went back home.

...

He entered his room and pulled out his NinjaNomicon from his hoodie pocket.

"Another Ninja... that couldn't be possible! And that kid just doesn't get out of my head! What the juice, Nomicon?"

The Nomicon flashed three consecutive times and flipped a few pages.

"Maybe you know why that kid suddenly got involved into MY battle!" Exclaimed Randy before his consciousness was absorbed into the Nomicon.

"Arg!"

...

Many question marks and words saying "Mysterious", "New Hero?" and "Possible Chosen" flew around him. Then a cherry blossom flower opened up, revealing a message...

"Watch out for the Kunoichi. Possibilities of a new chosen are born."

"The Kunoichi? New chosen? What does that mean?" Asked Randy with confusion before he got absorbed into the cherry blossom flower and exited the Nomicon.

...

"You know, Nomicon? Howard's thoughts of another possible Ninja are nonsense. I am the Ninja. And what the juice does "Kunoichi" mean? All these things are getting me baffled."

The Nomicon force-closed itself and flashed again.

"I get it, you're mad at me again, right?" Exclaimed Randy a little angrily at the Nomicon.

Randy tried and tried to open the Nomicon to get more answers, but the book itself never opened...

Something suddenly came to Randy. He remembered that he had to fix the arrows for Jennifer, who didn't knew that Randy was secretly the Ninja...

He saw the archery set and noticed the bow was a bit scratched and the paint of the arrows was already fading. He used some black paint for both the bow and the set of arrows and added red lines on the bow, then let them dry.

30 minutes later...

Randy checked on the bow and arrows. They were fixed perfectly. He dug out his ninja mask and wore it on.

The Ninja went to send the archery set to Jennifer along with a note...


That moment... that very single moment when I was saved by the Ninja made my joy overflow as I rode my bike back home. When I got there, I parked my bike beside the entrance and opened the door.

"Mom, I'm back!" I called and closed the door behind me. "Mom?"

Over the counter I saw a folded paper.

"I guess Mom left to the candy shop. Maybe her business with the candies is already starting to grow."

I unfolded the paper and read the letter Mom left for me.

"Dear Jennifer. I'm sorry to say that I'm out of town for only two days. Your father needs some help with the wood industry, but don't worry. You have the keys to the house and the candy store. Take good care of yourself and never lose these keys. With love, Mom. P.S.: The store opens at 12:00 and closes at 9:00. Good luck with the candies. P.S.S.: You've got fifty bucks on your room in case you get hungry. Take care." I read out loud, then sighed and dropped the paper to the counter. "Great. Mom went back to Dad's wood industry and left me alone for two honkin' days. How am I supposed to take care of myself if I'm nothing compared to the Norrisville Ninja?"

Just then... a knock.

"Who is it?"

No response.

"Okay, fine. Whoever is joking around, that joke is NOT funny!" I exclaimed kind of angrily and turned the door knob.

I felt a little surprised when I opened the door, because there was no visitor. I thought that was just a lame joke right before I stepped onto something. I looked down to the floor and saw my supposedly destroyed archery set. I thought I've lost my stuff, but no. In fact, they had a bit of an upgrade. The bow and arrows were painted nicely in black and red, and the quiver was still in one piece.

In that moment, a flying paper folded as a plane slightly hit my head. I took it from falling and jerked my face to all directions to find whoever threw it at me.

Nobody was there.

"What the juice? Just who dares to throw this thing at me, anyways?"

I took that as another lame joke and ignored it. Then opened the paper. It was a note...

"I've brought your archery set back! You truly deserve to have them. And thanks for helping me with the RoboApes, never thought I could use some help..."

I then read the last three words with a shaky voice and tears falling.

"Sincerely... the Ninja."

I looked down at my archery stuff with delight. "How did he... fixed them?" I asked with such impression. "My gosh! This is so bruce!" I laughed. "I've been saved by the Ninja for the first time, plus got my stuff back! Oh, that's so considered of him!"

The wind blew at me in a very strange way, kind of meaning something. It also made the paper flip over and hit my face. When it stopped, I removed the paper from my face and saw more words from the Ninja...

It said "LOOK UP!" and it had a big, red arrow pointing upwards over those words. I looked up straight and saw nothing at first. Just a house at the other side of the street. I thought hard, then raised the paper up and lowered it. I gasped. The Ninja was standing over the ceiling of that same house, and he was staring down at me. His scarf flew by the wind. My smile widened.

"My gosh, this is all a dream... He's here! He's really here! I can't believe this is happening!" I thought.

Without a moment's thought, the Ninja jumped down from the ceiling of that house and landed right in front of mine.

"Okay, nerves, don't start freaking me off! I don't want to end up passing out in front of the Ninja!" I thought.

Every time I looked at him, my cheeks went pink and my heart fluttered. All these emotions were leading to a great fan girl scream...

I was trying so hard not to scream, but inside, I so wanted to let it out. But... in my neighborhood? I thought that if I ever mention him in public, I'd call the neighbors' attention, so I shook that off.

"Ninja... you... came."

"Yeah, I..."

Before he could say anything, I came at him, yelling "You are my GREATEST idol EVER!" and gently shaking him by the shoulders. Yeah, I was crazy enough to do that, but I really admired him so much!

"Thank you so much for fixing these! If only I could give you something to repay for your help..." I continued.

I narrowed my eyes down, knowing that I didn't had much of a thing. I let out a sad sigh. I wanted to cry.

I then felt a hand rest over my right shoulder. "You don't need to give me anything. A "thank you" is enough." Said the Ninja.

Suddenly, something popped out of my head. I thought of my drawings of the Ninja and myself as a Ninja together.

"Ninja, please wait here."

I rushed to up the stairs and into my room, then I searched for my drawings that laid in my bed. Drawing after drawing, I found the perfect one. It was a drawing of the Ninja and myself as a Ninja, and we were holding up katana swords. Behind us was a red background. Below us were several robots and monsters. Yup. That's the perfect one. I took it and walked out of my room.

Outside Jennifer's house...

I folded the paper and gave it over to him. "Just... open it when you're gone. It's something special I did for you as a gift for saving me and recovering my archery stuff."

"Thanks, I will." He replied.

"Oh! I never told you my name. I'm Jennifer. It's nice to meet you."

We made a slight handshake after I introduced myself to the Ninja. My gosh, in that moment I wanted to pass out, but I struggled against my strong feelings of admiration towards him. The Ninja, though, seemed to notice...

"Jennifer, you okay?" He asked, his eyes kind of widened.

I then became more alert. "Yeah, it's just-"

Right before I could say a thing or two, I heard a cat meowing. I looked to my left and saw the same kitten I kept for only one night.

"The kitty came back!" I exclaimed and picked it up. "Oh, I missed you a lot, you little cutie pie! Aw, you're still so soft! I'm sure you wish to have a ball of yarn and a litter box in my house."

"Uh... Jennifer? I don't think that's a REAL kitty."

I stopped playing with the kitten and looked back at the Ninja. "What do you mean?"

I saw the Ninja pulling out a katana sword. "I'm greatly sorry, Jennifer. But things aren't what you think they are." He said, snatching the kitty off my hands and placing it in the ground a few feet away from us.

"You're gonna' kill it?!" I screamed.

"Stand back." He said and ran.

He ninja-sliced the cat in two. Electrical sparks came out and it was revealed that the cute kitten was... a robot?

I was shocked at that. Was I really petting a robo-cat?

I shivered with fear, taking steps back. "Ninja, wh- what's going on?"

"Here goes nothing." He started. "Listen, that robo-cat sure was created by the McFist Industries. Maybe he-"

"Who the juice is McFist? What does this have to do with me? And why did those robotic apes suddenly attacked me a while ago?" I asked desperately and heavy-breathing.

The Ninja gripped my arms softly. "Jennifer, calm down. I can explain."

Suddely, we heard screaming and someone came running towards us. It was the boy I knew as Howard. He was holding several chocolate bars I guessed were from that time he bought them. The Ninja quickly let go of my arms and looked down at Howard.

"Hey, Ninja! Some kind of weird robo-spider almost destroyed the candy shop!"

I gasped. "My candy store?"

The three of us looked at ourselves before we heard thumps and the ground shook. I guessed the Ninja was right about the robots that attacked me. They came back for more...

A robo-spider that was the size of a truck entered my neighborhood. My neighbors ran out of their houses, screaming for help. I felt so scared that I almost went hyperventilating.

I rested my hands over his shoulders and slightly shook him again. "Ninja, please, save my neighborhood!" I cried. "That thing almost crushed my shop! Who knows if it breaks the whole place?"

"Don't worry, I'll help them."

The Ninja pulled out his twin katanas and dashed at the incoming robo-spider. I watched as he dodged every step from the spider's long legs, then sliced one, breaking it off.

I watched for a while, then ran to exit my endangered neighborhood and enter the city, but with the robotic spider attacking it was difficult.

My archery set passed through my mind. I screeched my feet in the ground and turned to the opposite direction, but a metallic leg from the robotic spider blocked my way.

"Uh oh..."

I tried to let my fears go and kicked the metallic robo-spider leg, but later regretted that. It was too strong that my foot ached horribly.

"I shouldn't have done that." I said with such tone before I was thrown to the ground and trapped by webbing from the spider. Man, I so hated the extremely silky texture of the webbing.

I tried and tried to break free, but that kind of webbing never seemed to break. I took a deep, heavy breath. In a matter of seconds, the webbing I was trapped in was attached to a rope and pulled up to the robo-spider's eyes like a trap bag or something... and it was gross. A green light covered my body. I shut my eyes closed to prevent getting blind. After a few seconds the light faded.

"MATCH. OBJECTIVE 2: DESTROY THE NINJA."

I moved around the "bag" made of spider webbing to search for the Ninja. No sight of him. Maybe he was too busy breaking the robo-spider's metallic legs off. I was getting more desperate. The machine had caught me, I didn't recovered my archery set, and most importantly, I had no fighting skill! Well, I sliced a robo-ape, but that was just because I had knowledge of swordsmanship, just a little...

I had no other choice but to call the...

"NINJA!"

Suddenly, a green smoke filled me and I coughed. I started feeling drowsy and dizzy, but I did heard a slash and felt myself falling from the "bag" of webbing and to a pair of arms. I couldn't see well that much since I felt so dizzy and sleepy.

I felt someone shaking me. "Jennifer. Kid, say something!" Said a voice that sure belonged to the Ninja.

"One little, two little, three little ninjas..." I murmured tiredly. "Four little, five little, six little ninjas..."

And with that I blacked out.


"Jenn... Jennifer!"

The Ninja had a bit of a hard time trying to wake up the girl. This distracted him for a while, right before the spider shot balls of webbing towards the two. The Ninja quickly jumped back, avoiding the hit. He then saw every house in the neighborhood to drop the girl in so she could rest. He thought for a while, until a pair of neon green arrows pointed to Jennifer's archery set in the floor beside her house.

"Bingo." He snapped and ran.

More balls of webbing from the spider were shot behind the Ninja's heels. When he reached Jennifer's house, he skidded to a halt and used his red scarf to reach the glass window that led to Jennifer's room. Fortunately, it was open. He climbed in and landed on the girl's bed.

"You're gonna' be okay." He said, placing her down and covering her with the sheets.

There he saw something interesting... Jennifer still had all her papers scattered in her bed. Between the scarf and all the drawings she did of him, the Ninja saw one of Jennifer's drawings of herself as a Ninja. He never knew that this female ninja was her in the drawing, though. And she looked way too different. She had wavy pink hair and pink eyes. Her ninja suit was similar to his. It had the same mask and top, a skirt, leggings that end loose on the ankles, and a scarf around her neck that had a bow tie.

"What the juice?" He said silently, not wanting to wake her up. "Is this a female ninja?"

He soon heard thumps from the robotic spider and Jennifer moaned and moved a bit. Knowing that the spider was still several feet away from her house, the Ninja used this time as an opportunity to consult the Nomicon.

"Okay, Nomicon. What should I do to defeat the robotic itsy-bitsy spider?" He asked before his consciousness was sucked into the Nomicon. His face hit the book.

"Arg!"

...

He landed on solid ground and saw many objects that were hard to break. Robots, of course. Then a dragon appeared out of nowhere and spat fire to the ground. Another message was revealed from the Nomicon.

"When an enemy seems hard to defeat, find its weak point."

The Ninja shook his head. "Find its weak point? That's harder than I thought."

"...Ninja?" Moaned Jennifer and moved again.

The Ninja quickly jumped off her window and slid the glass door down, leaving Jenny to safety in her house.

...

"When an enemy seems hard to defeat, find its weak point." The Ninja repeated to himself as he stared at the robotic spider, ready to make its next move.

He pulled out his twin katanas and ninja-sprinted towards the machine, slicing every metallic leg it had, making the robotic spider fall to the ground and twitch its broken legs like a cockroach. Electricity zapped here and there.

"HA! You lost!" Smiled the Ninja under his mask.

Unfortunately, the robot was not fully defeated. It still had its webbing-firing gun inside its spidery mouth.

"Ninja Dodge!" Repeated the Ninja several times as he dodged the spider's webbing.

When the firing stopped, the Ninja searched for more things the spider had to weaken it. He only noticed the webbing gun, and he failed to see a small green orb that stood between its eyes.

Inside Jennifer's room...

Jennifer had finally awakened from the knock-out gas and yawned.

"What the juice happened?" She asked, holding her head with a hand. She had lost the sequence of events that happened before she was knocked out temporarily and saved by the Ninja once again. "Never mind. I'll look for my archery stuff outside..."

She stopped herself for a while and thought. "Wait a sec... Outside... OUTSIDE?!" She screamed with widened eyes.

She started remembering everything piece by piece. She first remembered Howard saying something about her mother's candy shop. She thought more and remembered the time when the robotic spider attacked her. Then the Ninja crossed her mind.

"He saved me again... so the Ninja's still here." She muttered and left her room.

She rushed down the stairs, entered the living room and opened her house door. The archery set was right in front of her. She quickly picked her bow, quiver and arrows and closed the door before the Ninja could notice she was already awake. She had planned to attack the robotic spider as a surprise.

While she was knocked out, she had a vision of the robo-spider's weakness. It was the green orb that stood between its eyes. It was the source of its will to destroy the Ninja and what scanned Jennifer's image in order to gain information about her.

"So that's it." She said. "That green thing is the spider's weakness. I guess I'll just have one shot."

She ran up to her room and opened her glass window. She sat on the edge of the window and held her bow. She took only one arrow, and also realized the arrow was a real one and not a sticky one like the one she accidentally shot at Randy. The tip was black as ebony, and it was sharpy. A good arrow for a good shot.

"Okay, let's do this!" She cheered and strung the arrow back at her cheek, then readied her aim.

She saw the spider slowly moving towards the Ninja, despite its broken legs, as he deflected more webbing from the robot with his katanas. He was way too focused on it, giving Jennifer a chance to take the surprise shot without the Ninja noticing.

When the robotic spider suddenly turned its head to Jennifer, the green orb started to shimmer, but Jennifer took the shot at it. The arrow flew straight and stabbed itself into the orb, smashing it to pieces. Zapping electricity came from the robotic spider's eyes and the glass in them shattered. Then the spider self-destructed itself, making a slight explosion.

The teenage girl quickly closed the glass window and hid inside her house, locking each door and closing each window, also blocking them with curtains. She was scared of what could come next.

"What if the Ninja suddenly gets mad at me for helping him?" Whispered Jennifer shyly. "I mean, I've helped him once, now twice. He won't expect a third time."

Just then, she heard a knock at her door.


I couldn't...

I couldn't move due to my sudden fears. I mean, the Ninja used to fight alone. I helped him twice. And I was afraid of the future consequences. Would he get mad at me? I knew this was his battle, but it seemed that he was way too focused finding the robot's weakness, in which I did with ease. That was weird. It was like if I were inside that little curious world and saw those words. I still remembered them...

"When an enemy seems hard to defeat, find its weak point."

That was so honkin' strange! I mean, I'm not a Ninja, I only had knowledge of Ninjutsu, but only a little. I never expected that to happen.

The knocks in the door continued. "No! I can't do this!" I whispered fearfully. "I can't go there! I'm so scared of his reaction!"

I felt so stupid when I said that, and slapped myself across my left cheek. "Don't be such a shy baby, Jennifer! Go for it now!" I muttered angrily to myself.

...

I slowly walked down the stairs quietly and carefully. I took deep breathings as I walked at the door.

"Okay, here it goes." I whispered, unlocked the door knob and gave it a turn.

When I opened my door, I saw the Ninja with such a serious expression in his eyes.

He was holding my black arrow.

I stood immobilized...