McNinja Travel Thread

[Dr. McNinja]

Following "King of Spades: Prologue"

[Tangled Green]

Dr. McNinja glowered at the gate to the Nexus. He fingered the handle of his gleaming katana. The local birds and bugs chirped somewhere around the woods. Yoshi was purring impatiently. Doc patted her coarse neck. Her claws curled, scratching the rough gravel in the road.

"This is so definitely a trap," groaned Doc.

Yoshi snorted, and shook her head sleepily. Doc patted her neck again. A gust shuffled over the treetops, making the leaves dance. Their shadows turned the sunlight into a kaleidoscope.

"Yep," Doc grumbled, "Trap."

He tried to replay King Radical's message in his head.

[Ambrosian Hospital - Earlier]

Doc struggled to his feet. "You work... for Radical?

Mr. Hotdayum the triceratops paced in front of the collapsed Dr. McNinja. He had just set off a bomb which, while it did not damage the building or any nearby patients, had thrown Doc back with enough force to knock the breath out of him, then whispered the word "Radical" into his ear.

McNinja fans, read "King of Spades: Prologue"!

“‘Work’ is such a boring word,” Hotdayum sighed, “I prefer to be called his dude.”

“Dude?”

“Yes,” Hotdayum explained, “I am a Dude of the Round Foosball Table. His Awesomeness sent me here to send you a message.”

Dr. McNinja slowly got up to his feet. “And what is that message?”

“He wants you to come to the Pale Moors,” the dinosaur said, lighting a cigar, “Maybe split a slice o’trice*. He has a proposition and all.”

*golden cockatrice sausage pizza

“The last time I accepted his proposition,” Doc snarled, “I ended up dying, in the claws of a murderous polar bear, with a bullet in my shoulder.”

“Siiiick.”

“With his bullet in my shoulder,” Dr. McNinja continued, “And then you came here to blow up my office… again. Does he realize that’s why I hate him?”

Mr. Hotdayum shrugged. “He told me. Sounded radical. And he made sure that this bomb wouldn’t do any real damage. Even though, you know, His Sicknastiness didn’t even order the hit on your office.”

Dr. McNinja scowled. “Pale Moors, huh?”

“Ye.”

“Yeah, well…” Doc coughed. “You can tell Radical that-”

There was a burst of sparks as Nurse Matilda's newspaper slashed through Mr. Hotdayum's head. Doc wasn't sure which was more difficult to mentally process: that Nurse Matilda just saved him from a robot dinosaur-man, or that she did it with a newspaper.

“Ha ha ha I am robot” taunted the triceratops with a suddenly tinny voice. After a chorus of whirs and clicks, the triceratops fizzled sparks one more time before whirring down. The sunglasses on its nose fell off, revealing Terminator-red eyes, slowly dying out.

Doc stood up with Matilda's help, staring at Matilda.

"What."

"We're in the Omniverse now," Matilda sighed, "You get used to this sort of thing. You good?"

Doc brushed off his coat. "Yeah, I'm fine. You?"

Matilda shrugged. "Frankly, I'm a little annoyed that your presence seems to have endangered my patients, and frankly I am satisfied that technically I can fire you on the spot."

"Oh." McNinja winced. "Please don't?"

"Don't worry," the nurse chuckled, "I knew the dangers in hiring a Prime. Plus, like I said, I'm used to this sort of thing. You should have seen the Wartortle that came by a few months ago..."

Doc rubbed his temples. "So what now?" Nurse Matilda asked. "Who is this... 'Radical' guy?"

"King Radical," McNinja sighed. "Huge *sshole. He was sorta the head honcho of organized crime in Cumberland."

"And I guess he's here, too," Matilda shrugged, "He a bit like you?"

"He's nothing like me," Doc snapped.

Matilda flinched. "I meant, is he a regular old dude or is he weird like you?"

"You can talk, rat nurse."

Matilda ignored the comment.

"And yes, he's... 'weird'," Doc rubbed his chin. "He's the ruler of a place called the Radical Lands, where everything is Radical. I'm pretty sure he was gonna turn my city into a huge robot. He once crashed into a window on the 3rd floor of a building on a dirtbike. He stuck a swordfish in someone."

"Weird."

"Yeah."

"And he wants you to go to the Pale Moors?"

"Um..." Doc bit his lip. "Well, it's obviously a trap."

"Yes."

"Which means... Radical has a play."

"Yes."

"Which means I have to stop him."

"Okay, hold it, Leeroy," Matilda snapped, "Do you even know where the Moors are?"

Doc shrugged.

Matilda scowled. "It's a cursed land. They say that it's the realm of ghosts. Everything that goes bump in the night, everything that used to hide under your bed, lives there. There's a fog in which monsters come to tear your skin apart. It has living establishments, but the true lord of the place is none other than a creature known as the King of Vampires-"

Doc scowled. "Dracula."

"You know him?"

"Yeah," Doc sighed, "He brought me to his moonbase to kill me, so I punched him in the face."

Nurse Matilda frowned in confusion.

"I think we're talking about a different Count Dracula."

"Anyways, I can handle a cranky old vampire. I killed lots of them for my college thesis."

"But this is Dracula," Matilda emphasized, "He's a Prime, which means that he can go toe-to-toe with people like Samus. Or even our own Princess Guu."

"I can deal with it."

"So you're going, then?"

Doc shrugged. "Radical's there, and he's planning something. I have to stop him."

[Nexus - later]

Dr. McNinja tugged at his mask nervously. It had been a while since he was out of the Green since he set up shop in Ambrosia. He supposed it was good to travel. Of course, this particular vacation was likely to kill him, but frankly, aren't they all?

Yoshi the velociraptor trotted along the white vacuum of the Nexus, panting slightly. Passing some gates, Doc kept an eye out for any sign of an ambush. So far, there were none.

As the velociraptor passed the portal into the Pale Moors, Doc clenched his teeth for whatever was to come.