Parents Vs Ninjas

Crash Landing

So there I was, falling to my death to avoid burning up along with the giant kite which I'd been using to fly. My life as a stay-at-home mom had gotten seriously weird over the course of the evening, even if it was now morning. I was going to crash land in a forest just outside a secret ninja fortress and hope the landing didn't break every bone in my body. Not to mention baby Beth, who was in a wrap on my chest and giving me the weirdest look.

And then my husband Peter came to the rescue, first swinging his stolen katana to separate our son David's kite from my burning kite before dipping lower to catch me in his arms. This would have been much more romantic if catching me hadn't immediately sent us into a steep downward spiral. It was an improvement, but not much of one. And no, no jokes about my weight.

"Three, two, one!" said Peter, before hurling me at the nearest kite-riding ninja. Lucky for me that kite rider had gotten way too close, and I was able to grab onto his kite on my way past. This tipped the kite and sent it falling towards the ground, so I hurriedly started undoing the rider's straps.

The ninja tried stabbing me with one of those mini scythes, so I employed "Give Me That Sharp Object Before You Hurt Yourself" to disarm him, giving me a blade to make unstrapping him from the kite all the easier. Three quick cuts and the kite had shed the ninja's weight. He fell with a Wilhelm scream and the kite began lifting me just in time to miss the trees. Of course, now I was hanging from the kite by one hand while facing back towards the pursuing kite riders like a crazy backwards hang-glider, but hey, you can't have everything. At least I hadn't crashed yet.

I had just enough time to see Peter grab the lead rope for David's smaller giant kite before my heels hit something. That impact tipped the kite down, and my view started tipping up alarmingly. Time for an involuntary, kite-assisted backflip on the way to a painful crash landing.

I ended up falling on top of the kite as it crashed through five trees, two bushes, and some surprisingly dense shrubbery before finally hitting the ground. Plenty of bruises, but no death, thank goodness. I managed to land on my side to avoid crushing Beth, but smashed a diaper grenade under me. The stench was awful, and all over me, the kite, and the shrubbery. It was only after the shrubbery started gagging that I realized why it had been so dense.

Beth started to cry, so I patted her gently while grabbing some wipes. I was just finished wiping myself off with disposable wipes and staggering away from the ninja-infested crash site when Peter half landed, half crashed next to me, followed by David.

I was just coming over to cut them free when a deep voice thundered through the tiny clearing we'd managed to create.

"I CHALLENGE YOU!!!"

The voice was so loud it took me a second to locate the source of the sound. It was the double-sized ninja whose giant kite I'd cut from the sky running towards us at full speed. Up close it was easy to see that he was even bigger than I'd realized. This guy had to be at least three meters tall and 250 kilograms of pure muscle. I was still a bit battered from my crash-landing, I had only a single tiny scythe to fight with, and Peter was stuck in his own crashed kite. I was getting rather worried about my odds until I noticed the nunchucks in his hands.

Nevermind. This was going to be fun.

"Challenge accepted!" I cried, running towards the giant ninja. I made sure to end up next to a tree when we met.

"HYA!!!" shouted the giant ninja and struck at me with his enormous nunchuck. I dodged. The gigantic nunchuck bounced off the tree and smashed the ninja in the head. The hardest part was dodging the toppling giant.

I love nunchucks!

After that, I just strolled back over to my family, still stuck in their kites. I helped cut them free of their kites with my mini scythe, and soon we were running through the forest, urgently whispering about how to protect David, who was riding on Peter's shoulders. Step one of the Plan had been a success. Now we needed to see if we could accomplish step two.

"We have to fall off the grid," I said. "We can't use cell phones or credit cards or stuff they might be able to track."

"Agreed," said Peter. "I saw a convenience store with an ATM by it over this way before I, er, landed. We can use that to grab some cash to help us disappear."

"Lead on, MacDuff," I wheezed through the stitch in my side.

As I ran, my mind kept returning to the offer the white-haired Chimon had extended. It sure would have been fun to lead a team of ninjas, and with a clan to back us up my family could already be safe...or at least safer, considering the battle going on behind us. Had I made the right choice? My heart said yes, but my brain wasn't so sure. Teaching David is my job, but what if I'm not good enough? What if I just botch the whole thing?

Those questions haunted me all the way to the ATM.

A few minutes later and there it was, right next to a convenience store and some decorative shrubbery. Peter started the withdrawal only for yellow-belted ninjas to burst out of the shrubbery!

TO BE CONTINUED!

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