| Earth (Dimension <Null>); Northampton, MA July 17TH, 2002 A.D. |
When the five materialized in this foreign dimension, a feeling that they just couldn’t describe seized their senses. It was that very pain of loss The Shogun experienced when he looked into the future, except in its early stages. Until after a few seconds passed that The Shogun recognized the place he summoned. They stood in the middle of the second floor, at the now-vacant Words & Pictures Museum.
No, this will not do.
Everything he wanted them to see had been taken down from the walls and put
away in storage already. Before the others knew what he was doing, he moved them
back a few years to its last days of the museum.
"I think… I’m going to vomit," (Archie) Donatello sat down on the nearby bench
in hopes of easing his nauseating dizziness. Venus ended up collapsing to the
floor, unable to withstand the thousands feelings and thoughts of unknown hatred
from this reality surrounding her.
Raphael was first to kneel by her, asking what was wrong. The agonizing pain
that became to eat from within felt so great now, she could barely reply. Venus
resisted his attempts to help her by balling up on her knees. Raphael also felt
very weak, with an ever-growing headache. All he could muster was aim a
demanding look at The Shogun for a good answer.
Splinter now frozen behind glass instantly caught the Mirage Leonardo off guard.
He first wondered if it was a kind of magic spell, wondering why their Master
had not moved. Leo pressed his hands against the Plexiglas, staring at the wise
rat, when he sensed that this was actually a statue of their master. On display…
like the others he saw in the mysterious Hall of Lost Legends so long ago, a
mythical limbo-esque place that they found to be not-so-mythical where all of
humanity’s forgotten legends ended up. That had been the day they met and
confronted Loki/Locke, who had told them upon their arrival... that they had
been "early."
The rumors were true…
Leo stepped back, looking closer at the place now. Would the others know of this
foretelling? Along the wall to his left, were framed drawings of them. His
brothers captured in various poses and adventures from his dimension. He could
remember many of things happening, as if going through a photo album. Leo then
looked down at himself, also seeing for the first time that he had both of his
hands again. His skin and shell were also starch white, with black lines
highlighting his details and features. Looking around, he saw that the others
had changed in appearance. Don and Michaelangelo looked like a colored drawing,
and more cartoonish. Venus and Raph, they appeared to be like humans in costume.
But Raph, he had lost the white tape on his arms and legs and the washboard
plastron that Leo remembered seeing him with just a few minutes before. Instead,
his skin had become pale green, with these spots all over.
"Whoa, Leonardo, you gotta check this. It’s us!" Michaelangelo touched Leo’s arm
as he pointed out four statue-like figures of them positioned from a faux brick
wall. Actually, they were on a second floor balcony, and the end room the
displayed the figures took the space of all three floors. "This is so
totally far out," Michaelangelo looked back to Leo and the others.
Shogun nodded. Perhaps now would be best to explain his findings, in hopes it
could put them at ease from all this. "It was found, much later after Renet
stopped my... shall we say... fatal scheme, that this world is very unstable. It
is the humans of this world, which have created the dimensions that we live in.
They also decide the future of each dimension’s fate as well. Unfortunately, if
a dimension failed to exist in this world, it would cease existence from where
we came." He looked to Raphael and Venus with an emotionless gaze, "Your
dimension, Raphael, no longer exists here. You have become your former
dimension, while she… dies."
Ignoring Raph’s shrewd comment to that, The Shogun turned to Leo. "So has your
dimension, Leo. You’ve also become your former self, drawn by the hand or our
Makers… as the original dimension. The strong one, giving reason to why I am
still alive."
Leo looked down at his whole hands again, nodding. It made sense, as he also did
not feel as bad as the others.
"It’s rather blatant time is short," Shogun turned away and started for the
stairs at the other end. "Lets get going."
Leo bent down to help Raph with Venus. "Here, I can take her," Leo managed to
sweet talk her enough for him take her into his arms. She barely managed to hang
onto his neck, letting out a few more sobs of pain.
"God damn… even the worse case of the flu would feel better," Raph followed
after Leo, now noticing the white color of his brother’s skin. "But you’re
lookin’ really… pale yourself, Leo."
“Can say the same for you, bro,” Leo said over his shoulder.
"Basically, you are saying the fate of our lives lie in the hands of these
humans, and like the classic tale of the Neverending Story, we’re left to
make them believe in us to ensure our survival?" Don asked The Shogun in the
stairwell.
“More or less,” The Shogun sighed, trying his best to explain what little he
knew. “But I believe this depends on what the creators themselves can do to
influence our survival. The last two attempts have not faired well.”
“What do you suggest, by that?” Don rubbed his stiffening neck.
“That’s something I have yet to understand,” he paused to locate the door from
this place. The Shogun fumbled with what he thought were rather crude locks, and
opened the inside door to the screen door on the outside. The aged time lord
looked out, observing the golden sunlight of morning and the shadows they cast.
With everyone’s backs turned to the darkened rooms, he also returned the museum
back to its present, vacant state. But The Shogun didn’t wish to wait for the
traffic to die down and pushed the door open.
“No wait,” Leo refused to follow, not at all pleased with the amount of exposure
this meant. “I rather not go out there, like this!”
The Shogun hesitated, closing the door. He then removed his cloak, and draped it
around Leo’s shoulder’s just enough to cover some of Venus, too. “Please, we
must hurry. The Studios are not far from here,” he told all of them before going
through the door.
“Ooh, I think he’s starting to get soft,” Michaelangelo whispered to Don.
Don nodded, as was a similar case when he met his own future. “That would be
expected, as he is the future self of Leo.”
The left the Words & Pictures Museum, and walked round the block to a small
intersection. A three-story red brick building came to view, but The Shogun
implied they had to cross the street first. “That is the Mirage Studios,” he
told Leo as they ducked back in a wide alley a moment.
“But where are we?” he asked again.
“Northampton… don’t you recognize it?” The Shogun narrowed his eyes.
Leo had noticed a couple buildings next to each other, strongly reminding him of
April’s Second Time Around store that had burnt to the ground years before. “I…
can’t be sure now. It is like what I remember, but all the buildings are
different.”
“Inspirations…” the wise Lord breathed. Once the coast was clear, he took lead
to head toward the red building. The actually studios only occupied the first
floor of it, which was good for them. Even better, the door was on the side of
the building and out of view. They went through the doors of Mirage to enter a
small lobby area. No one was presently at the receptionist desk, but it didn’t
take long for a couple humans to notice them.
"Excuse me, ah…" a lady started, but the look of dismay on her face said more.
"Who… what is this? Dan?"
She looked back to a stocky fellow with red hair and a beard. "I’ll handle this,
Kathy. You call the police."
"No, wait, uh… I know this looks really crazy, but we need your guys’ help,"
Michaelangelo was quick to protest at that.
The two still looked at them, more or less not quite believing any of this yet.
"I’d like to speak with Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, regarding our survival,"
The Shogun stepped forward. He suddenly felt as if these were like the gates to
heaven, and he had to earn the approval from the angels before meeting God.
The red-haired man finally replied with a suitable answer. "Well, I’m afraid
Kevin and Peter no longer work here."
"Then where could we find them? We’re don’t have much time," Leo almost
demanded. He didn’t wish for them to appear so threatening, but time was running
short. Plus the thought of Venus dying worried him all the more.
The man studied Venus in Leo’s arms, and the ever-growing ill statement on
Raphael. "Okay, here, why don’t we take care of you first, while I get a hold of
them?" He turned back to Kathy, advising that they should escort them back to
the break room area.
"About fuggin’ time…" Raph muttered. He finally gave in and grabbed
Michaelangelo’s shoulder for support as they entered a hallway lined with more
artwork and paraphernalia… mostly of them. The infamous Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles ®. Frankly, it only made Raph’s misery grow worse.
"You really don’t look good, dude," Michaelangelo paused to look at him.
Raph just gave him the weirdest look of annoyance mixed with nausea.
Michaelangelo had to twist his mouth to stifle a laugh that otherwise would have
seemed appropriate had it been his own Raphael. "Uhm, I have to ask you guys...
where is the bathroom? Cuz he’s, like, uh… not well."
"It’s further down this hall, on that side," Kathy pointed out the way. “Mucho
gracias, dudette!”
Upon reaching the break room, Leo took the initiative to ease Venus into a lazy
boy in one corner. She had become unconscious now, and he quickly checked her
pulse. That and her breath still remained steady. “Venus… wake up. Just hang on,
okay?” Leo laid a hand on her hot forehead.
“Okay, from the top, what is happening here? I can get a hold of Peter, but I
need some more background before I do.” Dan leaned against the counter, looking
at them as if he couldn’t believe any of this yet. At this point a couple other
men joined him, with equally amused looks on their faces.
The Shogun narrowed his sight on the three, and cleared his throat. They weren’t
going to make this as easy as it first seemed. “All right. I am The Shogun... an
older version of the Leonardo you see with me here from the same dimension."
"Hmm... you're the only one I haven't seen in any Ninja Turtle media," Dan spoke with curiosity.
"I exist of my own avail, from the powers I mustered... and the powers I
stole," same The Shogun’s cryptic explanation. He needn’t go into his failed,
flawed plan for Zero Hour. "It
was discovered, that a weak link has formed between this reality and our
dimensions. I’ve come, then, to seek out the reason why this is. But now... now
you say our Makers are no longer here. Who are you? What is this place now?”
“I guess we should introduce ourselves then, shouldn’t we?” Dan looked to his
colleagues. “I’m Dan Berger. Peter and Kevin left me in charge of the Ninja
Turtle website."
"God, we have a damned website, too?" Leo gasped.
Dan smiled. "I also produce my own comic book from here as well. Don't
suppose you guys heard of Gutwallow where you come from...?”
“Michael Dooney. I help Dan and Peter Laird on any other various projects.” The
other man
held out his hand to shake with The Shogun, despite the oddness of it. The
Shogun curtly ignored the handshake.
He looked back to Gary, who shrugged. “Name’s Gary Richardson, also a fellow
producer. CEO of Mirage Publishing.” Dooney pointed at them briefly, “There’s no doubt we know the rest of
you. But, I got to ask, why the wide range in appearance?”
Leo straightened some from kneeling at the lazy boy, “Renet chose one of us from
each dimension to come here. Well, two in the case of Raph and Venus here.”
“Renet?” Dooney raised an eyebrow. One could tell by his almost fatherly
expression that she had been a comic book character of his design. “The ditzy
timestress?”
“Yes,” Leo nodded, wondering now why that seemed amusing. “Except she isn’t as
ditzy anymore.”
“Well, yes, that depends at what time she came from, too,” Dooney nodded.
Don and Leo looked at him, realizing they must also know about their
backgrounds. Feeling light headed again, Don sat down at the small table. “I
guess then, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird have… lost the interest in keeping
production at full output, then?”
Dan shook his head, “No, most of it was from financial stress… Don. They
couldn’t meet the demands with the limited budget. We tried to save the comic
books, by selling them to different publishers. That hasn’t gone well either...
Leo, you ever wonder why, suddenly over the course of just a few months, your
hand is missing, one of your brothers is a cyborg, and another of them is having
to go around with an eyepatch...?”
"A really close-knit string of bad luck...?" Leo suggested.
"Not quite. Let’s just say when we handed the comic book series—what you
would consider your ‘dimension’—to Image Comics, certain things had to be done
to ‘spice' things up to incite reader interest. You guys took the brunt of
that... and the sad part is it didn't even work—the series got canned."
“But... what has been Venus’s demise?” Leo asked, with mournful eyes.
“She, ah… was from a failed television show produced by Saban,” Dan nodded.
“The Next Mutation was pushed by Saban, thus not being our idea to go on
with it. We, well… Peter Laird has decided to disregard Venus and the live
action show as canon and valid TMNT continuum.”
“Saban?” (Archie) Don squinted his eyes, feeling as if that name should mean
something.
“They also produced the Power Rangers,” Dooney nodded to him.
“Power Rangers?” Don looked to him with some surprise.
Both Dimension B natives, Raph and Venus, beamed with interest. Their
dimension’s Turtles had tangled once with the Power Rangers somewhere around
their original confrontation with the Dragon Lord and his entourage. “The
Rangers? That’s… we had a …”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod.
Don just groaned, rubbing his temples.
Back at the bathroom, Michaelangelo knocked on the door. He had been plain
amused by all the posters, toys and figures and things he saw in Dan Berger’s
nearby office. But Kathy and a couple other folks were giving him weird looks,
so the cartoon Turtle decided he better check on Raphael again.
Hearing nothing, Michaelangelo opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Hey,
Raphael…?”
Knelt in front of it, Raph had his arms folded on top of the toilet seat
resting his head. “Go away,” he mumbled, reaching up weakly to flush.
Michaelangelo did exactly the opposite, and came inside. “Just making sure
you’re okay, Raphael.”
“At this rate, there will be no ‘okay’ for us,” he said, rocking back on his
haunches so that he was leaning against the wall.
Michaelangelo sighed, and leaned on the sink. It was then he saw this picture of
them playing what looked like strip poker, and a laugh came out.
“Mhhh…what is so damn funny now?” Raph glared at this goofy, if not obnoxious,
version of his brother.
He pointed to the picture on the wall, but Raph just hung his head in disbelief.
It’s the end of our very existence, and he’s laughing at a stupid picture.
“Well… it was funny,” Michaelangelo shrugged, “but maybe that’s the thing about
my dimension… like, we have ‘end of the world’ threats all the time. I get used
to it after awhile, cause we always stop it before that happens.”
“Easy for you to say…” Raph looked up to him.
Michaelangelo shrugged then held out his hand to help Raph up. “Wanna get back
to the others now…?”
“So basically, Peter Laird has set up his own comic with Jim Lawson, at ZeroMayo
Studios in Haydenville,” Dooney spoke, also taking a seat at the table. Dan left
to make a phone call to Peter, while Gary returned to his work. “The good news
is that there is a new Turtle comic Peter Laird is putting out now, simply
titled TMNT... we’re just trying to develop a fanbase again. Kevin
Eastman had moved out west to California years ago with his wife to work with
his own projects with all things Heavy Metal. He also relinquished full
Ninja Turtles rights to Peter,” he added, setting his coke can on the table.
“Hey, guys,” Michaelangelo greeted Dooney and Turtles alike. He saw Leo knelt
next to Venus in the lazy boy, and so took a chair next to Don at the table.
Raph heavily sat in the last chair, not saying anything. “Would you like
anything?” Dooney offered, since they got something for the others to drink.
“I’d like… for this to be the hell over with,” Raph muttered.
Don stopped back in, and let them know Peter Laird was coming right over. They
had also left a message on Eastman’s voicemail, and then settled in as they
prepared to wait for a reply.
It was now game. A waiting game... with the clock ticking down the minutes and seconds to oblivion.
