Chapter Text
After breaking into some top secret lab/shell corporation/home to some weird octopus alien-robot hybrid things, fighting said weird octopus alien-robot hybrid things that were keeping our sensei captive, being teleported onto another planet in a whole other galaxy, being attacked by Federation soldiers (seriously, how in the shell did humans come to live here anyway?), meeting Professor Honeycutt, holding off a monster-like robot sewer cleaner and nearly getting caught in its explosion, getting chased by and blasted at by more Federation soldiers, stealing a Federation hover tank, getting involved in an epic tank chase, and escaping from said tank after it exploded, I am officially hungry.
Hey, it’s not my fault. The last time I ate was around twelve hours ago, and it was only half a sandwich and a couple pieces of fruit. We couldn’t waste much time eating not when my bros, April, Casey, and I were about to pull the biggest recon/rescue mission of our lives: breaking into the TCRI building that held the key to our origin and Master Splinter’s whereabouts. Of course a tiny dinner is no meal for a growing teenage mutant ninja turtle, and it may as well be breakfast time now. The red sky makes it impossible to tell if it’s morning or not. I didn’t even get to eat the bag of alien chips I found. Plus when I’m stressed, like for example right now as we’re hiding from the Federation Military in a sketchy back alley street, I need to eat. Because if I don’t eat, all that stress turns into anxiety. That anxiety makes me remember when I was little, clutching my stomach and rolling on the sewer floor, sobbing and crying from severe hunger pains, and all Master Splinter can do is hold me tight, apologizing over and over that he’s so sorry that after two days of fruitless searching, he can’t find anything better than a paper plate smeared with ketchup and chicken bones with scraps of meat. That there is nothing else he can give me or my brothers, and he promises he will try again first thing in the morning.
So yeah, normally I avoid all that by hiding extra snacks in my bedroom and taking advantage of our two new human friends with access to money and grocery stores to keep our kitchen stocked for a month, but here on D'Hoonnib, I can’t exactly waltz into the kitchen or reach under my bed for a snack. I need to find something now or the terrible childhood memories will return, and that will make me think of Master Splinter and how terrifying and lonely the past month without him has been and how he is currently trapped in a deathlike stasis light-years away from home which will remind me it’s my fault he’s in that position to begin with which will…
Ok! That’s enough spiraling. I really need to find something to eat, or I will lose it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening because Leo and Don returned from the alleyway, and Leo announced that the Federation Military is still patrolling the main roads for us.
“Don’t those guys have anything better to do?” Donnie asked.
I clutched my stomach as it rumbled in hunger. “Yeah like eat?” I rubbed it to soothe away the hunger pains. “I know. Poor baby, you’re hungry, aren’t ya?”
Raph, as usual, was unsympathetic to my plight. “We got an entire alien army looking for us, and you’re talking to your stomach?!”
“Well, it’s talking to me!” I snapped back. I positioned my hands over my stomach to mimic a mouth. “It’s saying, ‘Food, Food!’”
“More than food, we need an escape plan,” Leo stated.
“We need to get off this planet quickly and quietly, and that means smugglers. I believe I know one particularly sleazy inn where we might just obtain off world transport,” Professor Honeycutt suggested.
“Sounds like a plan,” Leo agreed. “Lead on, Professor.”
Professor Honeycutt led us known the back road. I trudged behind my brothers. Normally, I would be right up there with them – front and center – but with my stomach being so empty, I feel so weak. I know it’s only been twelve hours, but I wonder if this is how sensei felt on days he had to forgo food for himself just so my bros and I could have something to eat. He must have wandered down dark alleyways and long and winding sewer tunnels for scraps of barely edible food for us not him while hunger clawed at his stomach lining and shook his limbs. Sensei did so much for us, and how did I repay him? I froze up in fear, forgetting every ninjutsu lesson he drilled in my head, as Shredder raised his gauntlet at me, forcing Master Splinter to intervene and take the hit. Because of my cowardice, he was too injured to continue fighting which made him easy prey for our new enemies to kidnap. Now he’s trapped in stasis at the hands of those alien-robot hybrids, and we’re too far away to save him. Now sensei’s dead! It’s all my fault! Leo is going to disown me! Raph will actually kill me this time! Donnie will abandon me! April and Casey will–
“Mikey!” Raph calls out.
The intrusive thoughts disappear, and I look up to see my brothers and Professor Honeycutt a good ten feet in front of me, waiting for me to catch up.
“Hurry up, slowpoke! You’re lagging behind!” Raph calls out again, and I quicken my pace. Raph flicks me on the forehead. “Did your head get lost in the clouds again?”
I smirked at him. “Only daydreaming about how easier this would be if we still had that tank.”
Raph playfully punches my arm. “Yeah, too bad we had to ditch it.”
“It was too inconspicuous anyway,” Leo argued. “We were spotted almost immediately.”
“Hey that doesn’t necessarily mean it was my fault. After I hijacked the tank, I found Mikey foolin’ around with two Federation goons before I saved him. For all we know, they were the ones who called in their friends.”
I punched Raph in the arm a little harder than he punched me. “Hey! Pretty sure it was your fault that we were shot at. It was probably the tank’s owner that told his friends.”
“Wait what do you mean by after?” Leo questioned. “Mikey told me he was going to keep an eye on you.” Then to me, Leo asked. “Were you not with Raph?”
“Uh, not initially?”
Leo narrows his eyes in an impressive imitation of the Bat-Glare.
I nervously rub the back of my head. “I, uh, actually went to look for a snack but ran into some Federation soldiers. That’s when Raph found me.”
The bulging vessel in Leo’s forehead looked ready to burst. “You did WHAT?”
“Yoo-hoo! Over here!” Professor Honeycutt waved from an alleyway up ahead of us. I could kiss that human-stuck-in-a-robot-body for saving my shell from Big Bro. I practically ran to him despite my weak limbs.
Professor Honeycutt ushered us to a barrier of trash at the end of the alleyway where we ducked behind for cover. “This is the place: the Spaceport Inn.” Across the street and the orange stream flowing along the middle of the road was the famed sleazy Spaceport Inn covered in wanted posters of ourselves. Equally sleazy aliens entered and exited through the doors.
Raph turned around and jerked a finger at the building. “This doesn’t exactly look like your kind of place, Professor.” My thoughts exactly.
“Um, well, I'm very partial to the Dinnibian spicy cheese disc they serve here.” Professor Honeycutt looked down at his robot abdomen. “At least…” he banged on his “stomach” a couple times, “…I used to be.”
“Whoah! Alien pizza! What a concept!” That sounds so good right now.
“We can’t just walk in. Our pictures are everywhere,” Leo, the ever-pessimist, said.
“Maybe it’s time for the ninjutsu art of disguise,” Don said as he pointed to several clothes hanging from a laundry line behind us.
“Nice work, Donnie,” Leo complimented.
My brothers grabbed these cool red robes that made them look like the personifications of Judge Claude Frodo’s conscience from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame while Professor Honeycutt grabbed a brown road that made him look like a robot Jedi Master. I, on the other hand, grabbed this short pink dress with a hood and a large built in bra. Normally, I wouldn’t mind a bit of cross-dressing, but that bright hideous shade of pink with my orange mask? In the immortal words of Elle Woods, “whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously deranged.”
“I can`t wear this! I can’t!” I protested.
“What?” Don asked. “It should fit just fine.”
I rolled my eyes. Donnie may be creative in all things mechanical, but he has no eye for color. “These colors clash with my headband. It`s a fashion nightmare!”
“Mikey, there's food in there. Food.” And damn it if that isn’t convincing enough.
“Enough!” Leo barks. He gets in my face. “Your incessant pursuit of food has already blown our cover and summoned the whole Federation military after us. In case you don’t realize, we’re millions of light-years away from home; Master Splinter is trapped in stasis by our so-called allies, and the Professor’s teleportal device is our only ticket home!”
“Leo…” Don tried to intercede on my behalf, but Leo ignored him.
“This is just like that time you fooled around in Foot Headquarters and almost lost your head from a swinging pendulum blade, or when you froze in front of Shredder, and Master Splinter–”
“Leo!” Raph interrupted.
This time Leo listened and shut up. He withered under Raph’s sharp glare and sighed. Then he turned to me and said in a tired voice, “For once, Michelangelo, I need you to stop fooling around and do something right.”
Leo’s words were worse than any slap upside the head. It was as if my brain shut down like Microsoft’s blue screen of death, but instead of error codes, Leo’s words repeat in my head. I always wondered if he blamed me like I blamed myself for Master Splinter’s disappearance, but to have it confirmed? It hurts more than I even realize. I look to Donnie and Raph to see if they agreed with Leo. However, Donnie is looking at me with sad sympathetic eyes, and Raph is glaring daggers at Leo. Ok, it’s not exactly a balm to my heart, but it’s a tiny bit of relief to know they don’t hold me in contempt. But why don’t they say anything?
Professor Honeycutt mimics the sound of someone clearing their throat and with all the awkwardness of a stranger caught up in someone else’s family feud, he says, “Perhaps we should get going before the Federation finds us.”
“Yes, let’s go,” Leo agrees and leads the way.
Donnie and Raph lag behind to keep up with my pace. Donnie rests a hand on my shell while Raph pulls me in for a one-armed hug. “Listen, Mike,” Raph says, “don’t worry about Leo. He’s just scared and stressed that’s all. He doesn’t mean a word he says.”
“It’s gonna be ok, Mikey,” Don comforts, “You’ll see.”
“Thanks guys,” I say fighting back tears. “That means a lot.”
Raph responds by pulling me into a headlock and rubbing my head. I laugh in spite of myself. Both my brothers let go of me, and we rush to catch up with Leo and Professor Honeycutt. Despite their words, I was not fully reassured because Leo was right. It is my fault we’re in this mess, and Leo? After Master Splinter, he’s suffering the worst. My big brother, my fearless superhero who could lead us to victory against all the armies of the world with nothing but a clever strategy and his trusty pair of katana swords, who even as a child, was always protecting me from Raph’s bullying and the monsters lurking in the dark, broke that dreaded night three months ago when Shredder flung him into April’s window like a rag doll. Although Leo recovered from his physical injuries, there was still some sort of deep wound in his soul that not even Raph’s blacksmithing therapy could heal. His eyes became colder and his words sharper. He played less and trained more, and instead of finding closure that night when Leo killed Shredder, his wound had only festered. Despite the necessity, it was a deep violation of Leo’s conviction and honor – the first time Leo had ever taken a life – and Master Splinter wasn’t there to hold him up against this new and heavy burden.
Leo didn’t deserve this, and I vowed to be better for both him and Master Splinter.
By the time, we entered the Spaceport Inn, I was about ready to throw up from hunger and anxiety. Raph, who was walking next to me, took pity on me and said, “Go on and get something to eat, Mikey.”
“What about Leo?” Thankfully, the turtle-in-question was too far ahead of us and too distracted by all the floating holographic wanted posters of us to hear our conversation.
Raph gave me a friendly push on the shoulder. “If Mr. Perfect gives you any trouble, let me know, and I’ll deal with him. Besides, we’re here to look for a smuggler, and if the movies are anything to go by, you can always find them at the bar.”
I smiled. “Thanks Raph.”
He playfully shoved me to get going. In the center of the room at a food bar, I saw a six foot tall, four handed alien flip some sort of pink mystery meat in a skillet. I quickly made my way over and sat down at the counter. I picked up a menu, but instead of English, the menu appeared to be written in some alien language that looks like a cross between cuneiform and drawings of circuits. “Huh?” I turned it sideways to see if maybe I was reading the menu the wrong way. After all, the aliens here speak English for some mysterious reason. It would only make sense if things were written in English.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. “Excuse me, garҫon?” I exaggerated the French pronunciation on the last word. The bartender turned around, and while I couldn’t tell by his (or her?) blank stare, he appeared annoyed at my presence judging from the fact that he pressed his hands from his bottom two arms and right top arm at his waist while leaning over the counter with his top left arm supporting his weight. His yellow eyes glowered at me, burning away any desire to ask for his assistance in translating the menu for me. “Um, I’ll have what he’s having.” I jerked my thumb at the purple alien next to going to town on his Dinnibian Spam, and I immediately kicked myself for not ordering a Dinnibian cheese disc. The bartender almost seemed to have rolled his eyes before serving me own plate: a pile of partially liquid Spam in the consistency of ground beef and oh Shell, are those alien worms alive? A wave of nausea overcame me when I saw eyeballs fall out, and I immediately got up to put as much distance between me and D'Hoonnib’s answer to casu martzu. That turned out to be a huge mistake because I bumped into a blue alien with four squid-like arms protruding from his (her?) back and a praying mantis shaped head on a human-like neck but with six eyes – three on each side. Look, I am the second after Donnie to admit that I am a bit of a hypocrite. Despite being called a monster and freak by humans, I say the same to aliens and genetically modified humans, but there was something in this alien’s eyes that made me feel like prey. A shiver traveled up my spine, chasing away the nausea.
“Hey, beautiful. Are you a library book? `Cause I’m checking you out,” he – now confirmed by his masculine deep voice – flirted.
Ugh! Now I know how April feels every time she gets hit on by some idiot with a dumb pick up line. I’m the furthest thing from attractive according to human standard, and I have absolutely no experience in romance, but even I can flirt better than that.
That shiver up my spine froze my body as I felt this alien creep’s tentacle groping my shoulder. It was so gross and slimy. Fortunately, my ninja training kicked in as I removed the tentacle. Of course, fat lot that did me because the creep obviously didn’t get the hint as he used his other tentacle to tickle my shoulder. I swipe that one away only for him to tickle me with two OTHER tentacles. Man, is this alien dude dense in the head? No means no, and I am clearly saying no with my body language. Ugh! Perhaps, I need to actually spell it out for him. I lighten my voice like a girl’s and giggled so as to not blow my cover. “I’m not a library book.” I pushed away his tentacles again.
I must have sounded like I was flirting because the creep smiled, placed THREE MORE TENTACLES on my plastron, and said, “You’re new here. I like that in a woman. So, what’s your vis-screen number?”
The retort “555-kick-in-the-head” died on my tongue as I looked up and saw a wanted poster of myself. If I kick this guy off me, I will draw the attention of the entire bar patrons and staff. Then one of them, most likely the bartender, will call in the Federation Military. That will ruin everything for my bros and Professor Honeycutt.
"For once, Michelangelo, I need you to stop fooling around and do something right.”
Leo’s right. I got myself into this mess; I can get myself out without dragging everyone else with me. So I tried a more direct approach. “I’m only fifteen! Leave me alone!”
Instead of freaking out for hitting on a teenager, the alien wrapped a tentacle around my neck, not tight enough to choke me but tight enough to restrain. Then he wrapped one other tentacle around my right arm and another around my left wrist and yanked me to his side. I tried pushing him away, but the tentacles only tightened around my limbs and forced my right arm and my left wrist together. He then took advantage and wrapped my wrists together. With a clawed finger, he lightly traces a circle on my right cheek and then traces a line to my beak. “Now come on, beautiful, don’t be like that.” Alarm bells are blaring in my head. Screw my vow. I need help now! As I open my mouth to scream for my brothers and Professor Honeycutt, the tentacle around my neck quickly wraps around my beak, acting like a gag. I tremble in fear as the alien waves his finger in front of me like he’s scolding a naughty child. “Ah-ah-ah! You’ll get me in trouble.” No shit, Sherlock!
My eyes dart around for my brothers and Professor Honeycutt, but they are nowhere to be found. They must be out of sight, but there are plenty of aliens that are in sight. Why aren’t they helping me? I lock eyes with several and silently plead for help, but they only turn their heads away. Is this normal? Do I not look like I’m being assaulted? Does anyone care? Someone please help me!
But no one does, and the alien loosens his tentacle around my mouth. Before I can scream, he quickly kisses me. I clamp my beak shut so he can’t force his tongue down my throat. Luckily, he doesn’t even try and quickly ends the kiss and covers my mouth again. “Not much of a kisser, eh? That’s ok.” Then I feel his fourth tentacle snake between my legs underneath my dress, parting them. He leans into my ear and whispers, “How about we go to one of the private rooms in the back, and I can teach you how to kiss?”
His slimy tentacle tickles my vent. Oh shell! Oh shell! Oh shell! I internally panicked. “NO!!! I DON’T WANT THIS!!!! I DON’T WANT THIS!!!” I try to scream but his tentacle muffles my words. I still can’t find my brothers or Professor Honeycutt so I try the only thing I can think of – quadruplet telepathy. LEO! DONNIE! RAPH! HELP!!!! But no big brother comes to my rescue. Then I feel the tip of his tentacle worming its way inside me. I scream again, and this time I rub my legs together to get that thing out of me.
I hear the alien hitch in pain as I squeeze it with my thighs. “Hey! What the–?” He slaps me across the cheek to get me to let go which unfortunately I do. His tentacle slides out, but my victory is short lived as the alien wraps it around my both upper legs and snakes the tip in between them. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t ya? I like that in a woman!” Once again, he tickles my vent with the tip of his tentacle and tries to worm its way inside of me, but my legs being wrapped so tightly, makes it a little difficult. “Come on!” He forces me to walk with him. I take advantage of my current state and refuse to move my feet so he would either have to drag me with him or let me go. Instead the creep takes a third option and slightly loosens his hold so I have a little more room to move my legs. He places a hand on each of my shoulder and digs his claws into my flesh, drawing blood. I hiss in pain. Then he pushes me as we walk. I instantly understood the message and surrendered. Tears pricked at my eyes as I was being led farther and farther away from my brothers to my doom. I want my brothers! I want Raphie to stab this alien in all six of his eyes and all four of his tentacles. I want Donnie to wipe away my tears and tell me everything is going to be alright. I want Leo to tell me he loves me, and he’s proud of me. Most of all, I want Dad! I wanna go home and once again be small enough to be engulfed in his loving arms and pressed against his warm fur and never think about going top side ever again. Just stay home deep underground where my only world – my only need - is my father and my brothers even if we have to suffer from periods of starvation.
"GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!!!”
I nearly collapsed from relief as I hear Raph’s voice behind me and from the alien pulling me to the floor as he stumbled from the impact of Raph’s fist in his face. His tentacles partially unwrap from my body, leaving enough space for Leo, who like Raph also at some point removed his cloak, to come around in front and slice them off me with his katana swords. The alien screams and green blood gushes out, some of it trickling on me as his severed tentacles fall off me. I don’t care. I will take this over the slime any time. I look up at Leo, ready to jump into his arms and profess my gratitude like a distressed damsel to her knight in shining armor, but dark fury twisting his facial features stop me dead in my tracks. Calm, cool relief rapidly heats up into sheer panic as Leo’s last words to me repeatedly blare in my head.
“For once, Michelangelo, I need you to stop fooling around and do something right.”
I still couldn’t do something right, and now our chances of getting off this planet and going home to rescue Master Splinter are gone. There is no way someone didn’t alert the Federation Military over this. Once Leo is done murdering that alien scum, then I’m next. I need to run, flee for my life, but just like with the Shredder, I’m frozen in fear. I’m useless!
Donnie practically teleports into my field of vision so that all I see is his face. His red cloak is also missing. With the utmost tenderness, he cupped my cheeks and wipes my tears with his fingers. “Mikey, it’s gonna be ok! I’m here. Leo and Raph are–”
I couldn’t hear what Donnie said next over the voice in my head, screaming that no, things are not ok! Leo hates me! Leo hates me! Leo hates me! I wanted to explain this to Donnie, but I couldn’t breathe.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear Donnie shushing me, but then a legion of screams, marching combat boots, cocking guns, and a soldier shouting “FREEZE!” rip through my ears. I panic even more.
Someone shouts our location to the soldiers, and seven guns come blazing at us both figuratively and literally. Donnie pushes me into Professor Honeycutt who catches me as I stumble into him. “Take Mikey and run!”
A metal hand grips my left wrist and tugs it. Metal becomes a slimy tentacle. Expressionless green lights become six yellow eyes and a predatory smile. I scream and scream, and I don’t give a damn about not drawing attention. I just want to get as far away from him as possible. I use his tentacle as leverage to balance myself on one leg and kick at him with the other, but he doesn’t even so much as flinch. My foot, on the other hand, is reeling from the impact, but as much as I want to cry and give into the pain, I can’t let him take me. I gear up for another kick. “Michelangelo stop! You’ll hurt yourself! It’s me. I’m– ” Whatever creepy thing he says next is cut off by one of the walls exploding.
Three bipedal triceratopses emerge from the dust and start shooting pink lasers at us. A few graze my sides and thighs, burning me. I lose my balance. One shoots my captor, and he instantly lets go. I take advantage and run away from this open space of death and pain and hurt to a tight crevice of safety and darkness like the burrow we grew up in before moving to our first lair. Strong arms come from behind me and wrap around my waist. I flail and kick until a gruff “Michelangelo!” sounded behind me. It was Raph. I stopped resisting and relaxed. Raph spun me around so I faced him and pressed my face into his plastron with one hand on the back of my head and another hand supporting my lower shell. He held me in place so that my world was reduced to darkness and muffled noise and movement. I wish Raph still had his cloak on so i could hide inside it. “Wrap your arms around my neck, and when I say jump, we jump. Got it?” I nodded and do what he says. “Ok jump!” I jump, and I feel my stomach fall as my body rises in the air. Raph’s vice grip around me was like my own personal bubble of gravity, keeping me from floating away.
We landed on what felt like a table. Amongst the cacophony of laser fire, there was a rapid beeping noise coming from the table that sounded sort of like a countdown for a cartoon bomb. Anxiety swelled in my stomach, and my legs urged me to run. Raph squeezed me. “It’s gonna be ok, kid.” I must be really messed up if Raph is calling me “kid” or any variant. He only calls me that when I’m at my lowest. “In a sec, there’s gonna be a big explosion underneath our feet, and we’re gonna fly right out of here. Just hold on tight.” Sure enough that’s exactly what happened. The beeping noise flat lined. Then there was the sound of an explosion louder than any firework I’ve ever heard. My world violently jerked forward, and only Raph’s arms kept me grounded. My brothers and I screamed like we were on a roller coaster. Raph squeezed me even tighter. The air around me suddenly became cold, and I assumed we were outside of the bar. Then the table suddenly shot into the sky like a rocket. Then like a Frisbee, we rapidly glided down, forcing us to crouch down and hold on tight. Metal grinds against cement like a car without a tire. Then the table hits something. The force of which rips me away from Raph’s arms. I tumble onto the cold hard cement, and I hiss from the pain of my laser burns hitting the cement.
I only have a second to rub out a single burn wound before Raph grabs my arm and hoists me to my feet. Next thing I know we’re jumping into some flying car – me and Raph in the backseat and Leo and Don up front – chasing after Professor Honeycutt who is now being held hostage by those bipedal triceratops-looking soldiers in a similar vehicle. Then at some point past the city line, they start chasing after us. Two of them start firing at us at us. I curl tighter into Raph’s side, avoiding the firefight. Raph responds by soothingly rubbing my shell. “It’s ok, kiddo, I’m not gonna let anything hurt ya,” he murmurs. "Let's get this off you, shall we?" He helps me out of my disguise. Then Raph stands up, and I feel immediately exposed without my shield. I watch him as he takes out a large and thick kunai knife and ties my dress to the end of it Then he throws it at their flying car. I don't see what happens, but I hear one of them screaming as if he were falling. Raph quickly returns to my side and wraps me up in a hug.
Whatever Raph did only brings us a moment of peace. The laser fire soon returns. I feel the car fly down an imaginary hill before shooting off. Leaves and sticks occasionally swipe the sides and undercarriage as zips and whirls around from what I deduce to be trees. Then suddenly, car flips on its side, and there is a crashing sound in the distance. “Nice job, Donnie!” Raph calls out. I guess all that fancy flying was Donnie trying to shake off our pursuer. Then to me, Raph says in a much gentler voice, “See Mikey? Donnie saved us. You’re ok.” But Donnie didn’t save us, at least not completely. Two lasers fire. One hits the back of our car, causing the engines to explode, and another hits the left wing, tearing it right off. We plummet to the ground in free fall. I close my eyes and curl even tighter into Raph’s side, bracing for a fiery death, but Don pulls some sort of last minute miracle and manages a semi-controlled crash landing. Before I can even process that I’m still alive, Raph picks me up bridal style and jumps out of the vehicle.
“Come on!” Don calls out. “Turtle Tracker says they’re heading that way!”
“That way” turned out to be a bunker in a crater field past the forest edge surrounded by battling triceratop and Federation soldiers. Raph sets me down and then grabs my wrist. He pulls me into a sprint without giving me any time to prepare and we charge into blaster fire. A laser beam shoots the ground inches from my toes, and I yelp in surprise and reflexively draw my foot up. My hand breaks free from Raph’s grasp, but Raph immediately grabs my arm again. “Don’t worry, bro, I got you! Just keep running!” I run while trying to center myself by focusing on the feel of Raph’s grip on my wrist and the sight of his shell. Raph has always been my sai and shield against evil – both real and imagined – and even though we have no real defense again the barrage of laser fire, somehow I know Raph will keep me safe through sheer will alone.
From up ahead, I hear Leo shout, “Hurry up, guys! The Triceratons are retreating!”
I peak over Raph’s shell, and I see the bunker door beginning to close shut.
“Ok, Mikey,” Raph says, “on three, we jump.”
“Ok,” I say softly – the first time I am able to speak since I was nearly, well, assaulted.
Raph glances in my direction and gives me a soft smile, clearly happy I am speaking again. Then his smile morphs into a determined line and his soft eyes turn to steel. “Ok one, two…” then Raph pulls me into a side hug, “…three!” Together we jump into the bunker just as the door shuts behind us. However, we’re not out of the woods yet. Donnie and Leo, who somehow got a hold of blaster guns, are guarding the entrance and shooting at two, what I now know are, Triceraton soldiers at the threshold of what looks like a storage room. Raph pulls me into a full hug and spins us around so any stray fire will hit his carapace. Then the air suddenly becomes silent.
“They’ve retreated,” I heard Donnie say. Raph slowly lets go of me.
“I don’t understand. Why would a bunker have a cargo bay?” Leo asks.
The ground beneath us shakes like an earthquake.
“Maybe because it’s not a bunker,” Don answers.
Then just like our escape on the flying table, the whole “bunker” rose into the air, but this time I didn’t have Raph’s arms to be my personal tether to gravity. In fact, none of us had any tether to gravity as we were violently thrown upward into the metal ceiling and clung to it like the Sticky Hands toys. Then the direction of the “bunker” shifted, and we were free, but instead of falling to the floor, we were floating.
“Guys, check this out. We’re in space,” Donnie says pointing to the window where stars floated by.
Before any of us can contemplate what this means, the nearby sound of an explosion and metal ripping apart drew our attention to a nearby bulkhead. To our horror, a long crack has already formed and is starting to spread.
“Get away from there, guys!” Donnie warned, but it was too late. The bulkhead splits open and anything not tied down begins to fly out of the cargo bay and into space including us. I see Donnie on top of a long, heavy locker-like box, and I instinctively reach out for him. Unfortunately, the sectional force was too strong, and I could only cling to the bottom as we were pulled to gaping hole. Leo and Raph grab on. “Guys, turn the box so it’s parallel to the hole. We’ll seal it shut,” Leo orders, and with great difficulty, we somehow manage. The metal folded into itself as, and for a moment, it looked like the box was gonna slip right out, but it stopped.
Once that crisis was averted, it dawned on me. “We don’t have any…” I couldn’t breathe so I couldn’t say the last word.
Raph finished for me. “Air!” He sounded like a drowning man struggling to stay afloat.
“Save your breath!” Leo commanded.
But I couldn’t. It was like my neck was being wrapped by that alien creep’s tentacle all over again. I claw at my throat. I can’t! I can’t I can’t. Dark spaces. A creepy smile. The feel of his tongue on my beak and his tentacle in my vent. I have to get out of here, but I can’t move. “Help,” I tried to shout, but without air, it came out as a pathetic whimper.
“Just save your breath,” Raph said between gasps.
“I–” I tried to say “I can’t” but I didn’t enough oxygen to do it.
Don cupped my cheeks just like he did after Leo and Raph fended off my attacker. “Qigong, Mikey. With me,” He spoke gently but firmly. Then he grabbed my arms. “Inhale.” As I tried to do so, he slowly moved my arms up and around until my hands were almost touching above my head. “Exhale slowly.” I exhaled what little breath I had as he then slowly brought my arms and hands down to the center of my body. “Again.”
I inhaled what little I could as Don raised my arms and exhaled when he lowered them all while focusing on my brother’s hazel eyes covered by his third eyelid. His eyes were soft and so full of love that it overcame me, soothing me, with each shared breath. His gentle but firm grip on my arms exorcised the phantom tongue on my beak and the phantom tentacle in my vent, and when Don commanded me to “exhale” his voice was a soft lull. I closed my eyes as I breathed out, tiredness overcoming me.
“Inhale,” Don crooned.
I inhaled again, and this time, I did not exhale.