It's April in 1994 Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. The sun is shining, the temperatures are finally peeking over zero degrees (Celsius), although the the hard snow pack will remain for at least another month.
College students are finally breaking from the angsty Grunge routine of the Winter doldrums. In fact, with Summer mixes of gas now available, it was time for a road trip.
For Junior Jewel Fisher, switching rooms mid-semester had been difficult, not as difficult as getting stuck between Russian spies and the Canadian Special Forces, but her new roommate was from Bangladesh and there were no electronics of any sort in the room.
Her ex-boyfriend, Alan Jonas, had scored an old color TV from the Salvo, and that got her thinking of her Nintendo Entertainment System, still sitting in her Gram's place outside of Calgary. The Sega Genesis was where it was at for the boys, but Jewel was content for some Mario-related fun, especially since he had gotten the plug-ins for FOUR controllers.
But how to get to the game system that was over 300 kilometers away?
Enter Paul Rochon, Jr.
Paul's father was the famed Canadian Mountie, Paul "The Butcher" Rochon, Sr. Paul Senior had been grooming his son to follow in his footsteps, but the teenage years had caused some academic rebellion. His indoctrinated passion for Criminal Science was replaced with a love of the natural sciences. At some point, Paul's father stopped fighting and let him pursue a degree at Medicine Hat College.
Perhaps he would change his mind and go into CSI work.
To Jewel, Paul had a car... and such a sheltered childhood that he had never played on an NES. With the offer of unlimited play time, Paul grabbed his keys and the trio drove to the western side of Calgary.
The numerous stories told on campus upon their return gave wildly different accounts to Jewel's Gram's house. Some said it was a quaint clapboard house, others a spacious igloo. All of them mentioned an excessive amount of garden gnomes in the front yard.
Gram let them in and immediately began feeding them lunch meat.... Hamburger Helper, cookies, cakes, you name it.
Jewel dug out the NES and all the accessories and the only casualty was Paul's psyche when he went into the bathroom and saw Gram's soiled undergarments hanging off the shower curtain.
Thanking her for her hospitality, the group departed, but not before Gram crushed a couple of fresh Canadian bills in her daughter's hand, as well as a happy hour coupon for Calgary's favorite Tex-Mex American Restaurant, Chili's Texas Grill!
They drove across Calgary to the last location before the mindless stretch of highway towards Medicine Hat. They ponied up to the bar, presented their coupon for cheap Labatt's, and outside of an odd exchange between Alan, a table of gay bikers, and Alan's penchant for eating pickles behind the bar, they went to work properly celebrating.
Sais, katanas, and throwing stars sprayed the restaurant in blood. The only people who held their own were the travelling college students, and only then because their ninja combatants were as incompetent as they were.
Alan attempted to hop over the bar and grab a very-flammable bottle of Canadian Club (Is it just called "Club" in Canada?), but fell face-first on the dirty rubber mat on the floor. He had better luck tossing little drink umbrellas into the ninjas' eyes.
Paul tried to wrestle the ninjas, but got nothing more than some nasty-looking but superficial cuts, and a few pieces of flair sticking to his back.
Jewel had successfully waylayed her first ninja, which gave her enough time to pull the vintage sweater and pads of Flames goalie Rejean Lemelin. Properly armored, Jewel dove into the ninjas, knocking out a number of them, before some errant plumbing somehow set off the sprinkler system, and finally alerted the authorities.
Sitting on the outdoor patio, the students gave their statements to the local authorities, and despite what looked to be the death of a few patrons and a handful of ninjas, it all cooked up to be some college fraternity prank gone awry.
The students were let go and continued on their way back to Medicine Hat.
At a rest stop, Paul rummaged through a handful of items he got off the bodies of the "frat boys" before the authorities arrived: a small set of nunchucks, a red bandana with a lotus symbol, and a single Chinese fortune cookie, opened, but still sitting in the packaging.
With Gram's Hamburger Helper already working it's way out, he figured a stale fortune cookie might tide him over until they got back, but as he was about to pop it in his mouth, he could hear an unknown voice.
"Like, don't eat me,dude, that's a harsh realm I do not wish to visit."
Paul looked down and could see two little eyes and a mouth on the fortune cookie.
It was their first introduction to Ed.
epik
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