tran-scend (tran-send’) v. 1. a. To pass beyond (a human limit). b. To exist above and independent of (material experience or the universe). 2. To surpass.

Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, January 21ST, 2000 A.D.

Long after April, Casey, and Shadow had turned in for the night, the Turtles and their sensei remained seated around the dinner table in the apartment. They weren’t eating or meditating—nothing of the sort, clearly not the typical activity for a Friday night.

It had been a month now since the Turtles had returned from their extra-dimensional romp and final stand against The Shogun. They’d celebrated Christmas together and wrought in the false millennium, even inviting Pimiko, Lucindra (at Raphael’s behest), and Dr. X (at Splinter’s behest). A month, and they still hadn’t wholly reconciled everything that had happened of late. They had lost a brother, yet gained a sister. 

A sister... yet, not one in blood. The seventeen year-old Mei Pieh Chi—"Venus DeMilo," as the Michaelangelo of her ill-fated dimension had once named her—had been welcomed into the Turtles’ fold, rounding them out as four with Leonardo’s disappearance... and assumed death. 

A blessing in disguise?

For so long the nineteen year-old Turtles’ isolation and loneliness had been such a given that it had become part of their character. They were the only four of their kind, and when they died that would be the end of them—end of story. Even though Venus was considered a sister to them, she represented an irrefutable symbol of hope to the three brothers left; a symbol of hope that the Turtles’ kind was not doomed to extinction.

They had already reconciled that. It was discussed and over with, the parts of which better left unsaid left as such. It was something else that was troubling them, something they had tried to ignore the past month but had finally managed to catch up with them.

"God," Mike finally burst. His gaze traveled over Raphael, Donatello, and Splinter, finally coming to rest on Venus. "Where is Leo?"

The Turtles averted their gaze, each trapped in their own private worlds of hurt. They had no answer. Not even Renet had an answer.

"In the hand of fate, my son," Splinter finally spoke, the old rat’s balanced voice trying to coax his pupils’ anxiety and pain. The effort fell inevitably short. "In the hand of fate."

Earth (Dimension <Null>); July 21ST, 2000 A.D.

"Leon! Oh, thank god you’re all right!"

"Stupid brother..."

"Gave us quite a scare, son. Here, lemme help you up..."

Leonardo rubbed his eyes with balled fists and tried to blink away the dizziness to no avail.

My hand... I can feel my hand...

Had he fallen asleep; been rendered unconscious during what was to be the final confrontation with The Shogun? He must have, but he couldn’t remember. The recent memories in his mind... a jumble of mismatched thoughts and impulses; vibrant colors and blurred shapes without substance.

"That’s what you get for swordfighting with your sister, Leon."

"Stupid brother... he thinks he’s a ninja turtle."

He did remember some things. He remember his brothers around him... The End of Time... a mountain of some kind... Renet... a female Turtle... a burly Turtle... The Shogun, struck by his own power... taking off his mask... showing them all... showing them... It hit Leo all at once—The Shogun was him! Older—decades older—but him nonetheless, and from the same dimension; the same reality.

Before that revelation, he’d managed to convince himself it was Savanti Romero under that noh mask. Savanti, Go-Komodo, a resurrected Oroku Saki—anybody but the person his instinct told him the Shogun truly was... himself.

"Mom, why is Leon crazy?"

"Don’t talk bad about your brother, Lisa."

"Yes, this is a special time for him. Don’t you understand that, dear?"

The question then posed itself in his inner psyche—is that who he would one day be destined to become, a murderer of billions? Not if he could help it. He would die first.

"Splin... ter?" he whispered at the voices that evidently knew his name, barely audible. He drew himself back at the sound of his own voice—it was high-pitched, almost squealy... not his own, to be sure. His vision slowly refocused, the looming figures hovering over him coming into clear view. Two older-looking humans—a balding male and a female in her thirties, husband and wife by the look of them—and a pre-adolescent, freckle-faced girl with her copper-toned hair in pigtails.

No, not Splinter. Most definitely not Splinter.

Something was just not right.

Before another moment passed and he had any more time to consider his situation, Leonardo found his hand being grabbed by the man and himself being helped to his feet whether he liked it or not. Why had he been holding a bent plastic sword? he wondered.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Do I know you?"

"Leon... stop being so silly."

"Stop calling me Leon, damn it!" Leonardo snapped, taking a fighting stance by instinct. "My name is Leonardo, lady!"

The man and woman exchanged a look before the man turned an angered glance down at him. "Don’t you ever talk to your mother like that, young man!" he snarled. "Don’t think you’re too old for me to take you over my knee!"

Leon winced. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so helpless, so unable to stand up for himself.

No... wait, he decided. He could remember—when he was just a kid; when Splinter had taught him the meaning of discipline and honor from the time of he and his brothers’ mutation into their early teenage years—that was when he felt that helpless.

"You’re almost twelve now, Leon... pretty soon people are going to expect you to start acting mature. You know that, right?"

"Leave me alone!" he shouted, more than fed up at this point.

"All right, all right..." the woman spoke, her voice softening. "We came here for you anyway."

"We... did?" Leo spoke, confused. "Where?"

"Well, we’re in San Diego, California, aren’t we? You said you wanted to meet the Turtles’ creator, didn’t you?"

"Creator...?" Leonardo frowned, scratching his head. Did he feel hair there? He shook the notion off, but refused to check again.

"Just remember to meet us at the trolley by four, okay?"

He nodded in affirmation just to be rid of the three of them. It worked, and they were on their way. Disoriented more than ever as they left him to do their own thing in the nearby city, Leonardo took a moment to examine himself. Realizing for the first time, he saw he was not himself. Not at all.

A cursory glance at himself revealed he was wearing a loose T-shirt with the face and logo of someone called "The Rock," with the words in quote marks beneath: "Layeth The Smacketh Down." Whatever that meant. From how he gauged himself, he was no taller than four feet, and somewhat skinny for his age even by human reckoning. Yes...

He was a human. A human kid, only eleven if his "mother" was to be believed.

Sauntering forth, he saw where he had been heading with his "parents" and "sister." It was a coliseum-like in . A banner was draped near its frontal entrances: "San Diego Comic-Con International 2000, July 20 - 23."

"A comic convention?" Leonardo pondered to himself aloud. Something Michaelangelo might go to when he was a couple years younger, perhaps. Shrugging, he approached one of the entrances, wading his way through the mob of various youths and older people alike. Before he reached one of the doors, he frowned as he saw a man in his young twenties with his girlfriend, the man dressed up like Superman and the woman dressed up like Wonder Woman—both were leaning against one wall for a smoke break.

"How’s it going, kid? You have fun in there."

Blending in perfectly, the security guards—all of them seeming to radiate a false sense of self-importance—nodded at the odd badge Leonardo only then realized he had clamped onto his T-shirt and admitted him inside.

Stepping within the "Convention Center" structure, he immediately found himself immersed in... an environment he would rather not be in. Youths dressed in dark, gothic-attire seemed to have their place in the convention, the same with the abundant presence of costume-wearing comic aficionados. And then there were just the plain weirdos. 

He passed by a muscle-toned man who had painted his skin green and somehow managed to glue a fin onto his head. 

"Officer... Dragon?" he murmured inaudibly. He and his brothers back home had met the Savage Dragon, three times to date. Was he now a comic book celebrity? It didn’t make sense. 

Leonardo took a deep breath. Whatever dimension he was trapped in, whatever human body he was trapped in now, there had to be a way out and it had to be near. If someone was playing a trick on him, all clues were pointing to this "creator" his "mother" had mentioned. And he was inside this building.

A thin man dressed in mostly-black was sitting at a nearby table signing autographs like it was going out of style, the nametag on his shirt identifying him as "Frank Miller." Figuring he could probably point him in the direction of the "creator," Leonardo waited patiently in line until it was his turn to get an autograph.

"I’m looking for, uh... the creator," he stammered out.

Miller smiled tersely. "I guess you’ve found him. Sin City, The Dark Kn—"

"You created me? You created, ah, mutant ninja turtles?"

Miller’s smile fast turned into a scowl. "You’re looking for Kevin Eastman. He’s over there. You see him? Good. Now get the fuck out of here, kid."

"Grow up, kid," the twenty-something man snarled behind Leo after Miller dismissed him. "Turtles are out."

"So out. How did that old song go?" another nearby joked, laughing at Leo. "‘Tee-nage Mu-tant Nin-ja Tur-tles, heroes in a half shell... Turtle Power!’"

Wasting no time going to where Miller directed him, Leonardo located the short line before the man he’d pointed out as "Kevin Eastman." Fairly quickly the line shrunk to two, the teenager in front of Leo taking a long time talking to Eastman, a man with sharp features, a mustache, and a black skullcap. He seemed to have a casual demeanor about him at the moment, not the authoritative, "get outta my face, leave me alone" one that odd "Miller" character exhibited.

The creator? He certainly didn’t seem like an enemy, though looks could be deceiving.

"So where’s Laird these days?" the teenaged boy asked. He seemed fairly enthusiastic, obviously a fan.

"Still riding bikes, doing that comic of his with Lawson... hard to keep track of these days," the polite-faced man answered. "Kinda a recluse."

"Too bad... so what’s up with the Turtles these days? I mean, shit... the comic’s been cancelled, what, three times already? Then the Archie series, the cartoon, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation... droppin’ off like flies!"

A genuinely saddened expression crept over Eastman’s features before quickly vanishing. Replacing it was a facade, an elated expression that spoke of hope and great things to come. "Well, I don’t know what to tell ya... we’ve always got projects cooking up at Mirage. Never can tell what’s in the works, you know."

"Another movie? Please tell me another movie."

Movie? A movie about he and his brothers? In his reality—in fact, in every dimension he and his brothers had been cast in their recent romp—the Turtles lived in secret, in shadow... their lives and very existence relegated to that of outcasts that human society would never see or know, for they would never welcome them.

Where the hell was he?!

"Don’t want to jump the gun so soon—"

"So soon?" the teenager interrupted Eastman. "Are you kidding me? Man, it’s been like six years since Turtles III came out, and that one sucked!"

"Well... you know how Hollywood goes..."

"All right, yeah. Won’t take up any more of your time then."

"No bother. Sometimes you fans are all that keeps me going."

"Please, man... like Heavy Metal and all that FAKK business isn’t enough. And shit... look at your wife, dude! Wow!"

Eastman stifled a chuckle, his ruse obviously called. "Well..."

"Nice meeting you and all, again." The two shook hands, then the teenager turned to Leonardo before walking off to other parts of the convention. "Your turn, kiddo," he spoke.

Leonardo nodded, then moved up to Eastman’s table. The table itself seemed to be part of a "stand" of a sort, one labeled "Words & Pictures Museum." Curiously, he folded his arms in front of the mustached man. "Ah, hello, Mr. Eastman," Leonardo began, not sure how to. "My name is Leonardo."

"Cool, man!" Kevin said immediately. Extending a hand, he shook Leo’s rather firmly. "Guess that makes me your creator, wouldn’t it? Just kidding!"

"Actually..."

"Say, the Mirage Leo was always the coolest, wasn’t he? It was always between Leo and Raph in my mind... but y’know. Hey, remember when Leo whacked off Shredder’s head back in #21?"

Leonardo remembered. He remembered well.

The question was raised in his subconscious... if this was another alternate dimension, how did this man know about that? Leo’s entire life, his adventures... just pages out of a damned kids’ funnybook?

He’d traveled to the strange dimension where he’d met his brothers’ counterparts and defeated their nemesis Krang and his own brothers had traveled to similar dimensions. Yet as they traveled to each one, they’d thought of those dimensions as strictly "alternate dimensions," and their home dimension as "reality." The Shogun maintained that, even calling their dimension "Dimension A": reality. Yet here Leonardo was, talking to he and his brothers’ "creator."

God, Leo thought, can this be reality?

"Nobody expected that, did they? Not at that time, anyway," Eastman mused. He shrugged, taking Leo’s lack of a response as a cue to go on. "After the cartoon and movies, everyone reading the comics was like: hey, I thought Leo wore a blue bandanna. And where’s that letter on his belt? Damned Playmates... but I digress. Times aren’t as they were, but you probably knew that."

"That’s right. They aren’t." Leonardo suddenly found himself faltering. The man seemed more than forthcoming, and he couldn’t seem to detect any duplicity in him. He would hear him out before anything, learn whatever he could about this strange dimension he was in and this man’s connection to it. "You created my brothers and I?"

Eastman nodded. "Yep, that’s right, I created the Ninja Turtles. Most people don’t realize it all started in the comics... all back in 1984. Yep. A good year. A crazy year, but a good year. You know Marvel actually came up t—"

"Now what do you mean... you ‘created’ them?" Leo pressed, sensing the answer was close. He wasn’t sure if that was something he should be happy about or not.

"Hmmm... let me show you something, kid."

"Leonardo," Leo said. "My name’s Leonardo."

"Right. Leonardo. Sorry, I forgot." Eastman gave a laugh. "Anyway, let me show you something—the certain something that got this whole thing started." Kevin Eastman smiled, pulling a small napkin out from under the table. "Let’s see here... yeah, this is one of the first ones I sketched. Peter doodled some himself that I inked, but this is pretty much how it got started."

Dumbstruck, Leonardo’s eyes widened as he looked down at the inked-over pencil sketch on the napkin—it was a depiction of a stout Turtle, flat-faced, stubby-limbed, holding twin swords.

Kevin gave a wry smile, tucking the napkin back away. "Kinda crude, huh?"

You continue staring into the browser window of your computer’s monitor—from the comfort of home, the distraction of school, the bustle of work, the portability of a laptop incognito, the relative silence of a library... it does not matter. 

The story’s epilogue continuing to play out as you read these very words, you’re left to wonder... who or what transcended, and what will happen next? Was it Leonardo? Was it Venus? You’re not sure, but you know you can’t be.

Yet in pulling the scroll bar further down you confirm what you already knew to await you at the "transcension6.html"’s bottom upon opening up the link to begin with. With emotions known only to yourself at this moment, you know now you have at last reached the end.

Perhaps, you think to yourself, the only one who transcended... was you. Every time you open a book, a comic book, turn on the TV, go to the movies, or play a video game... escape your own reality and immerse yourself in alternate dimensions abound. After all, what is life itself, but not a dream to wake up from?

Where will you go from here?

FIN

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