Max Headroom/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
-CHAPTER ONE: The Unexpected Return of Five Heroes
"I still can't figure out how you talked me into this," Bryce told Blank Bruno as he followed the middle-aged Blank through an underground tunnel. "There sure as heck isn't going to be anything of use in a New York sewer."
"Of use, no,: Blank Bruno admitted, "but of interest.. Well, you'll see."
"It amazes me you paid good money to drag us across the ocean to look at a sewer," Bryce turned to Jenny who had also come on this trip along with two others their age. "Did you know he was going to drag us here?" He looked over at their two counterparts from World One and BreakThru TV. "What about you guys?"
Jenny and the other two shook their heads.
"Jake and I knew nothing about it. Right Jake?"
"Right Mark," Jake replied.
"At least this area is no longer in use," Jenny said. "What are we looking for?"
'It's right around this corner," Blank Bruno told them as they walked a little further.
They rounded the corner and everyone froze in amazement, save for Bruno who had found the spot a week earlier.
"What is this?" Bryce asked.
It was a room. Old relics were still in place, though most were decaying and useless.
It was not these things that intrigued Bryce, or indeed the other teens.
What they found so astonishing was the arrangement of five strange statues in the room's center.
The statues stood on a single pedestal. On it's base was a simple inscription.
IN HONOR OF THOSE
WHO FOUGHT TO
PROTECT THIS CITY
Erected by Casey and April Jones
August 1997
The figures on the statue were of what Bryce guessed to be a bipedal rat who was posed in eternal meditation. Standing around him, in various martial arts poses, were four turtles each brandishing the weapon of a samurai or ninja.
"The rat's name was Splinter," Blank Bruno told them. "Casey left a journal about his adventures with them. A great deal of it is about his wife April. But there is enough here to piece together what happened to them in their final battle."
Jenny took the notebook from its place on the table.
"August 9, 1997. I came too late to save my friends. I hope April can forgive me. They were her friends long before I met them. And I think that she has come to see them as brothers. They were my brothers, too. It is hard not to think of them that way. Especially Raphael. He's as hotheaded and stubborn as I am. Is? I mean was. I can't even describe the carnage. It's not as bad as a horror movie. But you can tell this last battle was an all-out war. Shredder and Krang left nothing to chance. Even their Sensei-Father Splinter could not escape his fate this time.
August 20, 1997. The statue is finished. April and I hired the best sculptor we could find to make it. We had to pay him a little extra to build it in the sewer. But he was reasonably amiable about the who thing. When he asked why we wanted to honor our friends with statues of turtles and a rat, we just told him that's what they had wanted. He didn't ask anything else. Splinter, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, you well all be missed. Thank you."
Jenny closed the book and went over to one of the statues. The martial arts pose it was placed in seemed to have a jauntiness about it.
"Michelangelo," she said, reading the small name on the base of the statue just in front of it.
The figure of Michelangelo began to glow softly, imperceptibly.
"Donatello," Jake said, studying the turtle whose head was cocked slightly as if trying to work out some complex equation while fighting.
"This one's Leonardo," Mark said as both Leonardo and Donatello's likenesses took on the imperceptible shine as Michelangelo's."
"Raphael," Bryce said in his usual snappy tone.
"Well, Master Splinter," Blank Bruno said, stepping up to the statue of the rat-sense. "I guess that just leaves you and me."
The room suddenly went dark, except for a light that shone from the five figures on the statue.
"For the past eight years, our souls have remained in these likenesses," The voice was middle-aged and wise. It seemed to be coming from the figure of Splinter.
"Now the day we have awaited has come. The day when the five prophesied liberators have come to free us. My sons, it is time for you to choose your path to freedom."
"Wait a minute, " Mark asked. "What happens to us? If you're going to take over our bodies, what do we become?"
"You will always be you," Splinter explained. "The change will only come when necessary. In your everyday life, you will be as you are now. You will only become us when the need arises."
"Become you?" Jake asked. "You mean we're going to turn into turtles?"
"Like Master Splinter said," Leonardo said, "only when it's necessary. Otherwise you keep your own bodies and your own minds."
"Yeah, right," Bryce snapped. "How do we know you're not just going to keep control once we give over to you?"
"Can I pick him?" a sarcastic voice asked. "I think I like him. Reminds me of someone I'm rather fond of."
"You mean yourself, Raph?" another voice asked. "Yeah. I think you two are a great match."
"I like the girl," a cheerful voice said. "She's got a party soul. I can live with that."
"Do we have a choice?" Blank Bruno asked Splinter.
"You always have a choice," Splinter replied. "I think you will find, however, that allowing our spirits to occupy a small part of your own will be greatly beneficial."
Blank Bruno called the others over to him.
"Okay," he said, "I think it's a safe idea. But we either all do this, or none of us do. They need five. And it wouldn't be fair to separate them."
"I'm all for it," Jenny said. "It's going to strange being a boy turtle from time to time. But I think it will be fun."
"Count me in," Mark agreed.
"And me," Jake nodded.
"Why not?" Bryce threw his arms up in annoyance. Why wasn't anyone else really thinking this over? "Sure… I've got nothing better to do. Why not turn into a turtle now and then?"
He stood there pouting for a second while Raphael's spirit grinned in some other realm.
"Yeah," Bryce finally decided. "Sure. Let's do it."
The transference was quick and almost unnoticeable. Each pairing was ideal.
Leonard's soul found a comfortable home with Mark while Donatello found Jake suitable.
Raphael's sarcasm found it's match in Bryce Lynch and Michelangelo found himself at home with Jenny's party spirit.
Splinter's soul found that Blank Bruno shared his love of teaching and was happy share his knowledge as well as his soul with the middle-aged man.
"Well," Bruno said as they exited the sewer several minutes later. "That was a more eventful day than I expected it to be. So what's next?"
Jenny grinned. "Pizza!"