Superboy Jamie and the Ninja Guardians

Chapter 1: Intro

Chapter 1: Intro


Oyé! How are you? My name is Miguel Rivera and I’m a thirteen-year-old Puerto Rican boy, 6 foot 3 inches tall, lean but muscular, with long curly hair that I keep in braids, and I live in New York City. I’ve been here all my life, although my parents are originally from Puerto Rico and came to the United States over twenty years ago, before I was born.

My parents came to Miami, Florida and they moved to New York after a few years. I was born here. Things were tough because my father (whom I now call simply Marcos) had a hard time finding a job, mostly due to his violent temper, so he quickly became involved in dealing drugs and alcohol, and later he even joined a gang of robbers, while my mother stayed home to take care of me. But Marcos soon started abusing both her and me, driving her to seek some illusory comfort in drugs… I was only seven years old when, coming home from school, found my mother lying dead on the bed.

The investigations following Mom’s death led to Marcos’ illegal activities to be found out, so he was arrested and got a long sentence.

Luckily for me, I ended up moving in with the family of one of my schoolmates, who had become a close friend of mine. He was named Hiroki, and his family is originally from Japan. He was taller and bigger than all the other kids in my first grade class save for me, since his father was a former police officer and Heavy Weight kick boxer, but when he came to the USA, he opened a private Bodyguard and Security Agency.

So, my Japanese friend’s parents adopted me, and now I consider Toshiro and Ysumi my Dad and Mum.

Now, Dad’s an amazing guy! Not only he is seven feet and four inches tall and very muscular and strong, he also is an exceptional FIGHTER! Beside Kick Boxing, he knows many other forms of martial arts, and he sometimes beat down a whole group of crooks alone! He is my Hero, not only because of his strength, but for his kindness as well… You can be easily intimidated by him, but when he is not fighting criminals, he is the nicest guy you can meet.

Mum, for her part, is an awesome woman … She is a sweet and well-mannered woman who manages a Kindergarten, but don’t let yourself be fooled by her tiny stature and delicate looks, she’s an Aikido expert, and can put down men double her size… beside cook apple cakes!

Needless to say, our parents, being martial arts experts, made sure that all their five sons also knew how to fight: Yeah, yeah, five… because, beside Hiroki, I acquired three younger brothers: Arashi, Isamu, and Kenji, those are their names, are now twelve, eleven and ten years old, and like Hiroki and me, they’re forces to be reckoned with!

Arashi is almost 6 feet tall, very buff with large shoulders, has a shaved head and loves Kick Boxing and Muay Thai: being pretty hotheaded, all the family has a hard time keeping him under control, but he is a good kid in spite of his tendency to pick up fights.

Isamu, 5’ 10’’ tall and with a slender build, medium-length sandy brown hair and an aquiline profile, he is quiet and reserved, and acts as a leader in the trio, always trying to make his impulsive brother reason before acting; I admire him for that, and our parents rely on him a lot. Not only he is an excellent student, he likes Arts and is good at drawing, and even his fighting style is very graceful – he’s especially talented at Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido.

Kenji, 5’ 8’’ tall at age 10, is very buff and has a rounded face, potato nose, spiked raven hair; he has a goofy and fun-loving personality, and loves videogames. He likes eating, too, especially candies, that is why he is just a bit overweight…. But that can be an advantage, since he likes fighting styles like Judo and Jujitsu, besides Wrestling. Although he is on the troublemaking side, he is a really nice kid who cares and protects his friends… unfortunately, he tends to treat them like pets or toys, and his favorite way to show affection to them is… stuffing them with candies, so I and the rest of the family often must “rescue” some kid from his attentions.

Well, as I was saying, our parents are also our martial arts teachers; my brothers and I are all now very skilled at fighting thanks to them. We have a large training room in the basement of our house. This room is equipped with mats and a large closet with robes and a weight room… a small home gym! Large mirrors hang from the walls and several posters of martial arts fighters are hung from these walls as well. For me, that’s the best place in the world, not only because there I can dedicate myself to the Martial Arts which I love a lot, but also because there I can share many happy moments with my family… and with my best friends!

You see, over the years I and Hiroki have met several other guys, who lived just down the street from us in our own neighborhood. Our school, called East Side Middle School, was a very good school, but it was located in a rough neighborhood, right on Ninety-First Street. Lucky for us, these guys, who are all of our same age, were all interested in martial arts, and they all wanted to be friends with us and they all vowed to protect us, in exchange for martial arts lessons from Hiroki’s dad. We would form our own martial arts group in our training room, which we called our Dojo.

The first boy was a jovial boy named Rasul with chocolate-colored skin and black curly hair; we met him when we were 9 years old. His parents had come from Saudi Arabia, but he was born in New York as well, and their parents decided to live in our neighborhood because of the good schools in our area. His father is a big man, and had forked in a factory back in his Country, but since he is a good martial artist, he was employed by our Father and is now one of his best men. Rasul had learned martial arts by him and was already good at them when we met, and immediately went to train with us, so now he has two black belts in Karate and Tae Kwon Do; but he is also very gifted in painting and drawing. He can sketch just about anything on paper, drawing faces, animals and landscapes using pencil.

Next, there was Raja. Raja had originally come from New Delhi, India. He had just turned eleven, when he had arrived at our school as a new student, and he was targeted by the bullies from the very first day. He’s quiet, shy, and reserved, but he’s also very smart. He’s the computer guru and the video game whiz among the first grade class and he’s the bookworm among the group. This made him the instant target among the bullies and it showed on day one. Stan and Chris, two of the bigger kids in our class, cornered him before our class started, but me and Hiroki managed to scare them off with a few karate moves. We really didn’t even have to touch them, since Hiroki’s already so big and intimidating. But our efforts had won over Raja’s trust and friendship and we quickly welcomed him to our little group, which led to an invitation to our Dojo. Raja was doing his own kicks within two weeks!

Finally, one year ago we accepted a Native American dude name Maska in our group. Maska was asked to bring a musical instrument to class, so he brought his flute. He played it in class, and he was a huge hit among all the other students. Unfortunately, word got out, and Maska was ambushed after lunch when Jace and Pete surrounded him and demanded he surrendered the flute. They wanted to take the flute from him so they could sell it for money. Pete took the flute out of Maska’s hand, and a big fight erupted. Hiroki and Raja had heard the commotion from down the hall, since lunch had ended. We all came to Maska’s aide, and Raja wrestled the flute from Pete’s hands while I took care of Jace using my karate and kickboxing skills. I whirled around and kicked Jace in the stomach, leaving him on the floor, while Raja hurled Pete against the row of lockers. Luckily, several teachers had come running and the fight ended right there. We all got suspended for two days for fighting in school, but we used the days to show Maska around the Dojo and to get him initiated into the group.

For the time being, I just saw Hiroki, Raja, Maska and Rasul as my martial arts training buddies, who I could train and spar with. We would also run and lift weights together. But, soon, I would realize that these friends would mean a lot more to me than just my training buddies and my classmates in the seventh grade at East Side Middle School.


I love to write about science fiction and fantasy.