The Turtle Charm

The Sickle

"No no, hija," said my papa, "It's more like this." He grabbed a corn stalk at its base quickly swiping his sickle and cutting it clean off. "That is how you deal with un pervertido."

"Whoa!  So cool...But...Papa, what's 'un pervertido'?"

"Very bad people who want to bring harm to mi hija. Oh, and every just about every teenaged boy on the face of the planet."

"But, Papa, you're a boy. Does that mean you're un pervertido?"

"Ah, no. I am a man."

"But you were a teenaged boy, que no? So you were un pervertido..."

"Umm...

"Mi Chile Verdito! Bring Tina in already! Dinner's ready!" yelled out my mama from the house, "We're just waiting on you."

"Be right there, mi Amor! Well, better not leave your mama y hermano waiting," said papa, when I started crying. I had managed to cut myself in the second he turned his head towards the house. Dropping his sickle, he scooped me up quickly and started running me into the house as I gripped his shirt, tears continuing to stream.

Just as we were entering the house, a very annoying and disrupting sound filled the background...

I woke up to the alarm going off, tears still streaming down my face as my hands gripped the back of a pillow tightly like I was still in his arms and I didn't want to let go. 

I sat up, sniffling and wiping the tears away, my eyes locked on the very childhood scar that resulted from that incident. Mama was furious with Papa and wouldn't talk to him for weeks after that. Still, even though she didn't approve of him teaching me or Val to use farm tools as weapons, she let him continue. And that time spent together was among the most precious of my memories. So, even with tears streaming down my eyes, looking at that scar brought a smile to my face.

Suddenly the sound of a gong came from outside my room, which could only mean one thing...It was Stealth Training Saturday, which was something of an intense game of hide-and-seek mixed with tag and containing extra, more violent steps because getting caught on the way to the safe zone meant you had to fight you're way out if you were to survive.

It was a complete surprise, explained to me only afterward the first time and I fully forgot about it the second time. The game was liable to start at any time and considered a drill to prepare the household in case the lair got infiltrated, so even as someone who didn't join in on patrolling and protecting the city, I had to participate.

A sense of dread filled my body suddenly and I moved quickly. Looking around the old train car that served as my room, I thought of how Splinter never used the same entrance twice. Last week, he seemed to have popped out of nowhere from the floor. I spotted a hole in the corner of the car, which probably explained the draft. I checked it, finding that a good portion of the floor came to lose, and decided to roll the dice.

I slipped through the hole, and held my breath as the entrance to my room flew open and the rat master himself entered, looking around the room. Once he left, I let out a sigh of relief and turned to make my way to the safe zone, an indoor skate ramp the turtles built.

Keeping to the shadows as quietly as possible I followed the tracks of the abandoned subway station the current lair was built around. On the way there, I ran into Future Casey and Mikey. "Tina!" whispered Mikey, "You made it past your room, congrats!"

"Thanks," I whispered back, "Uh, which way to the ramps again?"

"We'll have to go through the vents if we have a chance against dad," he said, "Follow me..."

We made our way to a set of vents and began crawling through them. Casey, who was directly in front of me, stopped in his tracks and asked, "Wait does anyone else hear that?" An intensely quick crawling sounded from behind us. 

As the backmost person, I turned my head and panicked, yelling, "He's coming! Go, go, go! Rapido, rapido!" We quickened our pace, taking the nearest exit and practically falling out of the vents and into the armory. Mikey and Casey were quick to move out of the way. Meanwhile, I barely made it out when Splinter went for a kick, practically tripping over my own feet and rolling to the side while I was at it.

When I recovered, I noticed something familiar to me. A sickle, though the type designed for war instead of harvesting. Instinctively, I went for it and in my hands, it hummed and glowed a teal hue. "What the..." I said to myself. 

Then I felt the same dread from earlier, quickly turning to block an attack from a sword-wielding Spinter, who, in his tail, held a hockey and orange mask as signs of victory. Behind him, lay Mikey and Casey, sprawled out on the ground and paralyzed.

His eyes widened as I, with some sort of luck, deflected the attack. Hubris starting to build up inside me, I thought maybe I could win the game the only other way, by taking his mask. I was wrong. I should have just run. Anytime you face Spinter, you should just run and hide. 

In a matter of seconds, the master ninja was behind me, using a paralising nerve pinch and taking my favorite scrunchy that held my hair in a bun. I fell face forward to the ground as strands of hair chaoticly fell everywhere. 

In the distance, the gong rang three times, one after another, indicating everyone else made it to the safe zone. 

"Three out of six," said Splinter, "Looks like Purple made it out this time...not bad for a bunch of teenagers." Then the rat turned towards me and hit a couple of nerves, returning mobility to me. "And Tina, that was much better than last week, but who knew you could wield a sickle? Who was your teacher?"

"Mi papa," I said rubbing my poor aching nose, "He taught me for defense when I was little."

"Hmm...interesting," Spinter said, seeming to consider something, "You must be descended from great warriors, to show even a fraction of a ninpo."

"Ninpo?"

"Internal energy used for the martial arts."

"But...my papa was a chile farmer. He said even in Mexico he grew chile as a child as his ancestors did."

"Do not discount the possibilities. Perhaps there is more to your lineage than you think. Take it from me, a man who turned from his family thinking the impossible was never possible."

The dude made a good point. I took a look at the sickle in my hand and thought to myself, for some reason, we had a cursed earring in our storage closet.

"Your official training begins at five in the morning tomarrow," said the rat.

I turned to him and replied, "Wait...come again?"