In Which Steve Knox Encounters The Worst Ninja Ever

[renner]

This was for PTC's Infinite Gauntlet. Sadly, the topic was ninjas.

The funny thing about Steve Knox was that he would always insist that he was a fairly normal guy, even when his surroundings might indicate otherwise.

For example, he had a "posse" of sorts that generally consisted of a bunch of misfits he brought together to keep him company and keep him entertained on his many endeavors in the wrestling world. This so-called posse currently consisted of a "street" disciple from Kansas (Chris Chambers), a deep-voiced white luchador (Cosmo Kid), an eccentric cosplaying documentarian (Alice Wright), and an unassumingly dangerous bodyguard (Marisa Silvernail).

As a further example, Steve Knox was currently surrounded by ninjas.

"Chris," Steve whispered to his disciple, who was currently trying to intimidate the gang of ninjas by doing "gang signs" and not really understanding the fact that he was actually informing the ninjas in American Sign Language that bacon tastes like sponges, "We are never letting you drive again."

To set the scene a little more accurately, a little story was needed.

* . *

Ten minutes ago...

After Steve Knox lost the Elite Championship to Wyatt Connors, the NFW superstar and self-proclaimed "Lord Of Awesome" hadn't exactly had a great amount of success in his luck. Most recently, his bus driver had quit and the members of his posse had been taking turns driving the bus around while Steve looked for a new driver, which had, as implied above, led to the scenario that Steve found himself in right now. It didn't help that when Steve Knox opened up the newspaper this morning, his horoscope read that he should "expect a black shadow over the moonless sky".

Steve Knox *hated* horoscopes.

Especially the ones that basically scream out, "Hey, you're going to be attacked by ninjas!"

So, while on the road, and after scratching his head at his own horoscope, Steve's bus stopped in for gas at the lively hamlet of Gotham, Wisconsin. Although some people might question whether it should be ninjas or the Batman in this town, Steve Knox instead wondered why they were so far away from the interstate in the first place and immediately wandered up to the front of the bus to question the driver, only to find that it was Chris Chambers.

Steve's words in this instant were "son of a *****!"

After a fairly lengthy and otherwise animated conversation between Steve and Chris, the end of which involved Steve applying the dreaded "atomic noogie" on Chris until he tapped out in submission, they left the bus to explore the local gas station. That's when it all started, as Steve and Chris both saw the man behind the counter, a black-cad man with a katana strapped to his back and a black mask. The only thing that Steve and Chris could see were the man's eyes, which looked as though they had walked the six paths of suffering and might have even sat through at least one Uwe Boll movie.

He was a ninja.

He stared at Steve Knox and Chris Chambers, wordlessly, as if he were stalking them with nothing more than his hell-tinted gaze. Steve Knox, clearly discomforted by the ninja, went through the act of looking over the candy isle as if he were really going to buy something. Chris Chambers, meanwhile, was akin to a cat in that he was greatly curious about the ninja and didn't have the good sense to notice the danger he was faced with.

The ninja turned his attention to Chambers. He spoke with a deep voice not unlike that of the Cosmo Kid, himself, "Can I help you?"

"Dude, C.K.," Chris said, clearly confused, "How'd ya get behind the counter, yo?"

The ninja behind the counter had seen the six paths of suffering, he had seen Bloodrayne... both of them, but even he can be surprised by other people, especially that of the wannabe white gangster who was swaying in front of him. Chris often swayed when he stood, partially because of the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that caused him to never be able to settle down for more than five seconds, and mostly because he probably hears some "phat beat" wherever he goes and he has to sway to the beat because that's what a "true straight up street G" would do.

Chris Chambers watched lots of MTV growing up.

"I work here... Why do you do that?" the ninja asked, pointing at Chambers. The ninja seemed to be slightly perturbed, not just at the fact that Chris Chambers hadn't wandered away, but at the way Chambers moved.

"Do what, yo?" Chambers asked.

"This." the ninja said, before he started to mimic Chambers' sway. At around this time, Steve Knox had looked up, now armed with a pair of orange Tic-Tac cases, and he saw Chambers and the ninja both doing the "Chambers sway". Steve glared at Chris, and Chris, noticing the glare, stopped doing the sway. The ninja stopped doing it when Chris stopped doing it, and he looked at Steve while absentmindedly fiddling with the cash register.

"Two dollars and sixteen cents."

"Don't you need to look at the register?" Steve asked.

"A ninja is a font of knowledge about his surroundings." the ninja responded.

Steve shrugged and paid the ninja. He was given a small paper bag that contained his receipt and his Tic-Tacs. He then nudged Chambers out of the gas station and was prepared to head back to the bus. Unfortunately, it was on their way out that Steve Knox and Chris Chambers found themselves in their situation from the top of this story: A literal batallion of ninjas had surrounded the entrance of the gas station.

As Chambers flashed his "gang signs", attempting to communicate to the ninjas in the language of "the ghetto", Steve Knox decided to ask the first question on his mind to the ninja that he assumed to be the leader of the bunch, "I don't suppose you guys are here to partake in my awesome, are you?"

The leader ninja wasn't so much of a man as he was a gargoyle.

I'm not saying he was literally a gargoyle and had to combat the Machiavellian designs of David Xanatos on a regular basis, of course. Rather, I'm saying that he was a strikingly scary ninja in the presence of other ninjas. He was a ninja above other ninjas, one that wore a fox mask and had eight swords strapped to his back like he was some sort of twelve-legged monster.

"No." he said, simply. His voice either sounded like a combination of gravel being attacked by a chainsaw, or like he'd been chain-smoking for hundreds of years and hadn't yet had the good sense to die from lung cancer already.

The man pointed at Steve Knox, "We seek the shadow of crimson."

"Sorry, I haven't seen one since Pasadena." Steve said, with an idle shrug and without missing a beat. After all, Steve Knox felt like he'd seen everything on that cold day in Pasadena four years ago, which might have been an understatement for anyone else who had been there. A simple shadow of crimson was nothing compared to the madness of that day. Of course, this wasn't exactly the time to talk about Pasadena, now was it?

Steve held his arms out, "So, uh... you guys gonna let us go back to our bus and hopefully never have to come back here to Ninjaville again?"

"Ninjaville? This is Gotham." the lead ninja responded. Steve couldn't tell if the lead ninja was agitated or not, mostly because the dude's voice seemed to sound rough at all times.

"I'm sure, Mayor McNinja, that I asked a question of whether or not we get to leave and not have to get into a scuffle with your and your adorable ninja friends. And honestly, one-against..." Steve paused, and started to mentally do the math of how many ninjas were surrounding himself and Chris Chambers before continuing, "...eighteen... is not good odds. For you."

"Dude, G, I'm here too." Chambers said, nudging NFW's (alleged) National Champion in the side.

"Like I said, one against eighteen." Steve said without missing a beat. He cracked his knuckles to emphasize his point. Chris Chambers looked about as agitated as he could get with Steve Knox, but then proceeded to get down into what could only be described as the absolute worst attempt at the crane kung fu stance in the universe. It's so bad to Chambers actually fell over onto his face.

And that was when the ninjas attacked.

* . *

Ten minutes later...

"You know," Steve Knox started, as he and Chambers were hanging upside down over two adjacent pots of boiling oil, "I really had them there for a second."

"You whack, G." Chambers said. While Steve Knox seemed relatively unharmed despite his predicament, Chris Chambers looked like he had endured the worst beating in his lifetime. This stands as an achievement, seeing as though he spent many years as Jeff Garvin's underling, itself highlighted by being thrown through a glass window and enduring bitterly harsh treatment to the point of completely snapping and becoming the man he is today. The reason why Chambers had been so thoroughly beaten is because not only did Steve Knox use Chambers as a human shield, but at one point, he actually swung Chambers at the ninjas by the ankles like a big human club.

It didn't work so well, which was exactly why Steve was in his current predicament.

"You don't make a good club, Chris. Now we're going to be dropped in boiling oil, and I'm blaming you." Steve said, simply, crossing his arms as if to emphasize his point even though he didn't really look cool or awesome when hanging upside-down above certain painful death.

It was then that Steve noticed that the ninjas were suddenly parting like the Red Sea, as if something was making them stand aside. That something looked up at Steve Knox and Chris Chambers with a considerable amount of disappointment and annoyance.

"I can't leave you alone for a second, can I, Steve Knox?" the something said.

"Look, Marisa," Steve said, starting with all of the charm and sincerity of a guy trying to tell a girl that he wasn't in the middle of something completely absurd, "This isn't what it looks like."

"Oh?" Marisa Silvernail asked, putting one hand on her hip and the other hand held out as if showing some sort of invisible audience what kind of idiots she tends to stay in the company of, "So, it doesn't look like you stupidly got caught by ninjas, because you provoked them, and are now hanging upside down like an idiot?"

"...No?" sheepishly answered the guy who was supposed to be NFW's most awesome star, ever.

Marisa Silvernail was Steve Knox's martial arts-obsessed bodyguard. She was a small, unassuming redheaded girl who wore glasses and liked to wear frilly dresses, though at the moment, she wore winter wear for the cold Wisconsin air. She actually had a very disarmingly playful personality, given the overall dangerous nature she had in her ability to bring men twice her size to their knees. She was not someone you wanted annoyed with you.

Steve Knox saw that she was annoyed with him. Even a nexus of awesome like Steve Knox would tremble before such a sight.

Fortunately for Steve, something else caught Marisa's attention.

Mayor McNinja, as he was now christened by Steve Knox, walked up to Marisa Silvernail, with a puzzled look on his face. He looked as though he was checking her out, in flirtatious fashion, though he was actually examining her body structure for any overt signs of ninjitude. Ninjitude, of course, was a word in the ancient scrolls of the ninja that rated how much of a ninja a person was, on a scale from 0 to 10. The average person had a rating of 1. The average ninja had a rating of 4. For comparison's sake, Mayor McNinja had a rating of 9. Chris Chambers? .0001.

McNinja was shocked to find that, from his examinations, she had a Ninjitude rating of 11.

In other words, Marisa Silvernail was mathematically impossible.

In a hushed and nearly awed tone, Mayor McNinja spoke as if he had just met God and hadn't yet gotten over the fact that God was really a woman, "...Are you the shadow of crimson?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Marisa said, before she pointed at Steve Knox and Chris Chambers, without actually looking at them, "Those belong to me. Would you be so kind as to let them down?"

"Into the boiling oil?" Mayor McNinja asked.

Marisa Silvernail showed Mayor McNinja eyes that looked like they had seen the six paths of suffering... twice. They were vastly unhappy eyes, such that they could kill a weaker man. Chris Chambers, in fact, had just passed out just from being *near* such a glare. Or maybe it was just being upside-down for so long just after enduring horrific, human shield-oriented punishment. One could never be too sure when Chris Chambers was involved.

Mayor McNinja felt like he just got punched in the eye.

"Sorry! We will let them go!" McNinja said, holding his eye. He signaled to the other ninjas to move the boiling pot and let everyone down.

* . *

Ten minutes later...

"You were attacked by *what*?" an incredulous blonde-haired, camera-wielding documentarian asked of Steve Knox, moments after he came back to the bus and informed her that this was what happened.

Alice Wright was Steve Knox's eccentric childhood friend, who loved to dress up in random costumes whenever she found a chance to do such a thing. However, because of the cold, she was stuck with a winter coat that, not-so-coincidently enough, matched that of Marisa's. Alice took it upon herself to film a documentary about Steve Knox, despite the fact that he didn't necessarilly agree to it. Although she filmed a prototype documentary shortly before NFW's Supercrash II pay-per-view, she completely rejected it because it didn't satisfy her, and she went back on the road with Steve to further perfect her craft.

"Ninjas." Steve Knox said, flatly. He said it with such a straight face that Alice actually wondered if this was some elaborate prank and Steve Knox's actors blood had taken him over in order to sell the moment.

Alice, despite being known as eccentric among even Steve's "posse", liked to think that *she* was the only well-adjusted person in the group which travelled with Steve Knox. She didn't consider Steve to be particularly normal, especially given the weird, random crap that always seems to find Steve Knox at almost every turn. She had only been travelling with the posse for three months, and hadn't exactly grown used to the concepts of "random ninja attacks", "one-handed softball", "Steve Knox promos", "James Varga promos", "horrific torture involving the previous concept", "land whales", "sea buses", or "the Cosmo Kid".

The Cosmo Kid was the man looming behind Alice Wright. He wasn't particularly tall or striking in terms of body type, but he did wear a purple mask with a white star print that had a pair of alien-like antennae attached to the top of the head. He often wore a suit and tie, today not being much of an exception. Nobody, not even Steve Knox himself, knew his true identity. There once was a time when Alice and Chris attempted to find out by unmasking Cosmo Kid while he was asleep, but the only thing that was revealed when they did this was that the Cosmo Kid wore a second, identical mask underneath.

They never tried again.

"Where'd Marisa go?" the Kid asked, his voice so majestically deep that one assumed that he had somehow acquired the soul of Barry White.

"She went with the ninjas. They apparently wanted her help." Steve said, simply.

Now Alice was annoyed, "So, you let Marisa go off with a bunch of *ninjas*? What's *wrong* with you? She could get hurt!"

Steve Knox blinked at Alice, like she just said something ridiculously stupid, "Are you sure we're talking about the same Marisa here? Marisa can handle a bunch of ninjas by herself. Hell, were I completely devoid of moral inhibitions and she were willing, I would just have her jump all of my opponents before my matches so that I'd always win by forfeit."

Alice and Cosmo just stared at Steve Knox.

"What? I would." Steve said, matter-of-factly.

Alice simply stormed out of the bus, proclaiming out of earshot of Steve Knox that she was going to go get Marisa back. Steve turned to Cosmo in confusion, "Did she just storm out into ninja territory?"

Cosmo nodded.

Steve groaned, realizing he'd probably end up being the guy to follow her out and thus probably reducing the chances of people considering him a normal guy even further for today. He started to make his way out of the bus, and Cosmo could barely manage to hear one of his many grumbles on his way out.

"Dammit."

* . *

Five minutes ago...

Marisa Silvernail had listened to the tale of the ninjas of Gotham.

They were concerned over a rogue ninja, calling himself "The Cheese", who had been committing acts of "ninja terrorism" in the city of Gotham. Ninja terrorism wasn't something as simple as hijacking aircraft or bombing places. Rather, it was to do things that shook the very core of the essence of the ninja. The Cheese was a ninja unlike any other with the respect that although he was the strongest ninja in the area, he did things entirely unninjalike. For example, he used noisy cymbals as shuriken, had a boombox strapped to his back that played "Ride of the Valkyries" on an endless loop, he wore bright colors rather than all black, and he screamed out the names of his attacks whenever he did attack.

To the ninjas of Gotham, these were all unforgivable sins in the ninja culture.

However, although the Gotham ninjas knew where The Cheese was at all times, they could do nothing to stop him. He was much too clever, and much too strong. Thus, they sought the rumored "crimson shadow", prophesized by the great ninja prophet of Gotham as coming on this day.

Marisa agreed to help the ninjas. This was partially because she rarely had a challenge as a martial artist, and mostly because she was the type of person who didn't know how to actually say "no" to a bunch of crazy ninja-types who try to convince you that you're some red-haired warrior of prophecy destined to do battle with a complete psychopath even by ninja standards.

That being said, she found The Cheese pretty easily.

How could she not?

He was dancing around like an idiot no more than five hundred feet from the gas station. In particular, he was doing the Ickey Shuffle, and he wore a Green Bay Packers jersey, with the number "4". Rather than "Farve" on the back, the words "The Cheese" were written instead. To really clash with his attire, The Cheese wore a black ninja's mask, a Cheesehead, and yellow bellbottoms.

In other words, he was the most absolutely atrocious ninja that Marisa had ever seen.

Marisa muttered to herself as she approached the Cheese. Her arms crossed, but her guard was not let down quite yet. She decided she'd have to start simply with this guy.

"Hey." she said to him.

The Cheese, still in mid-Shuffle and with his back turned to Marisa, looked over his shoulder and saw her standing there. He blinked, and then jumped and did a cartwheel flip before landing in such a way that he now faced Marisa. Yet, somehow, his Cheesehead did not come flying off his head. He was either that good, or it was glued to his mask.

Either one would have been plausible answers for Marisa.

"Hey, tell those short-sighted idiots cowering behind you to leave me alone when I'm doing my morning stretches." the Cheese told Marisa, gwesturing at no less than six ninjas who are hiding in the bushes behind her. Marisa takes an idle glance back, keeping an eye on the Cheese, before she turns back towards him.

"First of all, it's the mid-afternoon. Secondly, you look like you're celebrating a touchdown rather than streching." Marisa explained to him. He takes a step back and makes an exaggerated gasp in shock.

"No way!" he exclaimed, sounding genuinely shocked. He actually looked like he was just punched in the face.

Marisa looked at him as if there was something mentally wrong with him, before she asked him, "Is there something mentally wrong with you?"

"No... no, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm just surprised somebody actually questioned me," the Cheese explained, moving his hands around in an attempt to illustrate his points, "Nobody in this village really likes to come near me. They say I'm strange and off-putting."

"They told me that you flipped out and cut off their heads seemingly on the strangest of whims." Marisa said with a sigh.

Even despite the mask, Marisa could tell that the Cheese was visibly disgusted with the comment. He held his hands up in exasperation, "What!? No! No no no! I wouldn't harm anyone like that!"

Marisa had a slight look of confusion. She expected some sort of trick. What she got was a long sigh from the bizarre man standing in front of her. Meanwhile, two of the black ninjas from before began to dance in the background and wave pom poms. Since ninjas are not known for their cheering abilities, they just repeated "Go, crimson shadow, go!" in about the most monotone cheer that could be managed.

Upon hearing this, the Cheese looked at Marisa oddly, "Wait, you're the crimson shadow?"

"Apparently," Marisa started to say, before she shrugged her shoulders, "I'm supposed to fight you."

The Cheese let out a long, exasperated sigh, "They actually want you to fight me?"

He gave the ninjas a glare so powerful that it killed all of the bacteria in the air within his own eyesight, and caused them to defecate themselves and flee in terror, "Are they mad?"

"I've thought that since I met them, yes." Marisa nodded in agreement, not even caring about where the ninjas went.

"Look, lady, I'm gonna level with you," the Cheese said as he slumped his shoulders and let his arms dangle in front of the rest of his body, "The only thing I really do all day is dress ridiculously, do my little dances, and annoy the hell out of those guys over there."

The Cheese gestured at the ninjas standing some distance from Marisa. Upon seeing the Cheese make his gesture, the ninjas fled while screaming in terror. The Cheese groaned in frustration upon seeing this, "And they're all scared as hell of me because, by their standards, I'm strong as hell. But I'm sick of the ninja life, you know? All day long, they talk all serious, speak of the code of the ninja, and don't understand that there's more to life than sneaking up on a guy and slicing their throats open with a garden gnome."

"A garden gnome?" Marisa asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Murray had to improvise, once, and it's been a joke in Gotham ever since," the Cheese said while making a "cutting somebody's throat with a garden gnome" gesture with his hands. He paused in mid-gesture, and then dropped his arms again, "Anyway, all I really want to do is skip town and never look back, but I'm broke. There's no line of work in Gotham for a ninja who doesn't want to be a ninja, you know."

The Cheese then pointed in the direction of the ninjas' last known whereabouts, "But I can't go to those guys over there because they'd be all 'you must see with the eye of the mind' or some random crap they see in Chinese fortune cookies all the time. And then make me go back to their ways of the ninja, which're just boring. A ninja must be flashy and cool."

To illustrate his point, the Cheese did two backflips and landed in a crouch before raising his arms in the air like he was a member of the Ginyu Force.

It was around this time that Alice Wright showed up, and, believing that the Cheese was about to attack Marisa with some elaborate special move like the Kamehameha, clobbered the Cheese into unconsciousness with a surprise kick in the face.

Before the Cheese fell unconscious, though, he did share with the world a most important statement that would transcend the very foundations of the world as we knew it, and would change the way in which we think about life and love in this crazy, mixed up world.

"BLARGH!"

* . *

Thirty minutes later...

Steve Knox had been a witness to many unusual events in his life, many of which would mentally break a normal human being into a total blithering idiot. He endured whatever happened in Pasadena. He wrestled for the madhouse that was New Frontier Wrestling. He was aware of the existence of James Varga. He hung around with a "posse" of crazy people. His older brother wore a mask and claimed to stand for justice. He was visited in his dreams, on occasion, by a little girl who wore beads and spoke of being a dream shaman.

Seeing the Cheese, however, at least wedged a new entry into the laundry list of unusual events in Steve Knox's life. Somewhere between the Varga and the Captain Justice.

Upon reaching the scene directly after Alice just punched the Cheese's lights out, his only remark was, "Damn, Alice, why aren't you the placekicker for the Packers?"

When the Cheese woke up, he found that he was in a long, narrow area, such as the inside of a tour bus. Helping his identification of his newfound scenery was the fact that the bus was currently in motion. He also saw that there was another masked man in the room, staring at him intently.

"I like watching you sleep. It soothes me." said the Cosmo Kid.

The Cheese screamed like a little girl until Marisa showed up, with her hands on her hips. She gave a glare at the Cosmo Kid to start with, which caused the Kid to leave in a panic, lest Marisa beat him silly. Marisa was followed closely by Steve Knox, who sat down next to the Cheese.

"Marisa told me your story," Steve explained simply. Marisa held up her hand to show the Cheese that she was the Marisa in question, "We can cart you off to wherever you like. We had to run kinda quickly, though, those other ninjas didn't take too kindly to the fact that we didn't... y'know... kill you horribly."

The Cheese noticed that his Cheesehead had been removed, probably so he could rest his head easier, though his mask had been left on his face. He sat up and stared at Steve Knox and Marisa Silvernail.

"You're helping me leave town?" the Cheese asked, with a look of stunned surprise.

"Yeah." Steve said, with an accompanying shrug, "I don't really care if we're unleashing an incredibly dangerous ninja into the known world. Those other ninjas in Gotham were total douchebags, anyway. I mean, seriously. Who hangs dudes over pots of boiling oil, anyway?"

"Is there anywhere you want to go?" Marisa asked, interjecting into the conversation.

The Cheese thought about it.

"Green Bay. Take me to Green Bay."

"Heh," Steve said, with a smile of amusement, "Seems we're going the same way, then."

* . *

A long bus trip later...

It was a fairly uneventful journey to a snowy Green Bay, compared to the circumstances that led the man calling himself "the Cheese" tagging along with Steve Knox. Through this journey, they learned of the Cheese's story as an outcast in the city of Gotham, Wisconsin. The Cheese also had learned about Steve Knox's journey as a professional wrestler, and his latest endeavour being the Infinite Gauntlet.

After the bus had stopped, the Cheese calmly walked off the bus.

He turned to look back at Steve and Marisa.

"Thanks, you guys." he told them.

Steve raised his hand, "Hey. Wait."

"Yeah?"

"Do you have a real name? It seems silly to just call you 'The Cheese' all the time, you know." Steve said.

The Cheese stood there for a second, before he removed his Cheesehead from his head and then his mask, revealing a young man with messy brown hair and a small scar along the left side of his face, "Jack. Call me Jack."

His Cheesehead tucked under his arm, the man who called himself "the Cheese" walked away and disappeared in the Wisconsin snow.

Steve turned to Marisa, "He's not gonna flip out and kill everyone in Green Bay, is he?"

"I wouldn't doubt the conviction of that one, Steve," Marisa said, gesturing towards the direction that the Packers-loving ninja had disappeared towards, before she walked back into the bus, "He's stronger on the inside than he is on the outside."

"I sure as hell hope so," Steve said, as he followed Marisa back into the bus, "A guy wearing a piece of cheese on his head all the time has issues."

"This is coming from the guy who took a guy like Chambers as his disciple?" Marisa asked, from within the bus.

"Okay, I'm gonna level with you, Marisa," Steve said, sounding defeated. Steve then said one last thing before the conclusion of this little story.

"I lost a bet."