Of Ninjas and Ne'er-do-wells
Once again I have neglected the site, and have not posted on it in some time. Part of it is my own fault with running a play by post game with some friends and the other would be my wife's for getting me into a new game (CURSE YOU KINGDOM COOOOOOME!). So in light of that I will use a little down time to regale you with another tale from my youth.
So if you are like me and were born in the late 80's or early 90's you know just how crazy popular ninjas were. They were in and on everything and with the insane proliferation of Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mortal Kombat, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a child who wanted to be a ninja. I was no exception to that and to accentuate that fact, I dressed up as a Ninja for five consecutive Halloween's in a row. I mean how could I not think they were the coolest thing ever at the time? Too be fair I still think they're rad as hell, even though I know now that the popular rendition is not even remotely close to their real life counterpart. But you look me in the eye and tell me how a young kid could be blamed for being utterly obsessed with them at a time when pop culture was completely saturated with Ninjas?
I was already obsessed with weapons and armor at the time and the eclectic collection of "ninja weapons" one would see was fascinating to me. I'd borrow any book on weapons and would go absolutely bug nuts if it had guns or "ninja" weapons in it, even if only tangentially.
This book made me a baby /k/ommando.
Like any kid I had a BUNCH of fake weapons. Guns, swords, etc but my one true treasure at the time were three absolute dogshit tier throwing stars I was gifted out of my Uncle's old stuff while visiting my grandparents one summer. I'm sure you've seen the type, stamped from sheet metal, painted black and usually covered in some kind of crazy junk, these things are made en masse strictly for people like myself who don't know better or just want to mess around.
Mine were a variant of this exact model.
I coveted these things, and would carry them around absolutely fucking everywhere. I was convinced any ninja worth his salt would have at least something like this on him at all times and I would use any damn excuse to use them. Old fence? Target practice. Dead tree? Target practice. Random stray cat? Not target practice but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it. My obsession with these damn stars did not falter once Halloween came around and just like the last four years I chose a ninja costume. Too add to my evening carry of a hard plastic katana strapped to my back, and a pillowcase, I folded these sheet metal stars into my waist sash, and went about my evening of collecting candy. Well I wasn't really supervised by this point as my parents figured I was old enough to not get into any real trouble but what they failed to consider were the depredations of fellow children looking to dip their feet into petty banditry and my absolute autism.
So where I am from, there was a slang term for older children who would threaten younger kids with violence to bully them out of their hard earned candy. We called them "sweet tooths" and they were quite an annoyance to anyone who was unfortunate enough to be caught away from an adult. There were a handful of tweens who did this in my neighborhood and they spotted me alone near the local park (where we eventually held our Rage in Cage match) and proceeded to chase me.
Now I won't lie to you, I was scared. These boys were older, larger and way more aggressive than I was. Even though they were maybe 13 or 14, to me they were practically adults. I ran half a block, terrified out of my absolute wits but then the autism kicked in. As I ran huffing and puffing, nearly out of breath and half mad from the adrenaline dump, my inner voice beckoned to me. What did it say you ask?
A Ninja knows no fear...
In my heart of hearts I KNEW this was true. I wasn't just dressing up as a Ninja, I WAS a Ninja! How dare these cretins think they could steal from me this precious treasure? (i.e. my candy)
Without a sound I whipped around, and from my waistband I threw all three of my sheet metal shuriken in a horizontal arm sweep. Thank the Lord above I only ever threw them into targets with a vertical arm like a baseball and missed these three boys. One star sparked off the road and flew into a storm drain, one was lost in some grass and another stuck into an old mailbox nearest the eldest boy who was leader of the group. They froze in their tracks, because lets be honest if you were 13 and some kid threw some shit at you and you saw sparks you'd probably stop for a second too. In that brief moment of respite I struck what I thought was a legit Ninja pose (I looked ridiculous) and slowly drew my hard plastic Katana. Now for those of you too young to have been around at this time, toy swords weren't hollow soft plastic, they were either wood or hard thin plastic that could actually take a beating and by God was my GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL ready for blood that night. I did the most absolute retarded pose you've ever seen from a second rate martial arts movie with my sword, and stared down these three older boys like it was a mexican stand off, and when it felt right screamed at the top of my lungs and charged them.
With an overhand strike I shattered my blade on the face of the
eldest boy, whipped around him and pulled off this awkward
simultaneous chop and kick on the two boys behind them. The shock
of my rush caused an utter rout and the three bolted in random
directions. My dumbass even bowed to them as they ran before I
collected, one dropped pumpkin bucket of candy and the only
shuriken I could find. I then went about my merry way for the
evening.
Now I wish I could tell you this story had a happy ending, I
really do. But being the dumbass kid that I was I wore some of the
Ninja stuff to school for like two weeks after Halloween and these
boys figured out it was me who had humiliated them so. I was
absolutely dunked on after school one day and thrown head first
into a trash can for my trouble by the three of them. But it's
okay though, I didn't cry or beg or even tattle on them after my
beating. Why? Because a Ninja knows no fear.
