This was in response to a plot bunny posted on SS by SwellShellsx3. I saw the idea and felt an intense compulsion to write this atrocity... please forgive my blatant bastardization of TMNT and The Wizard of Oz to create... The Wizard of Ooze.
Disclaimer: I don't own the TMNT or anything affiliated therein, I just use them from time to time to achieve my own selfish desires!
Donatello frowned, ducking his head into his shell as a bo swooshed scant inches overhead in a killing swing. Popping his head back out, he retaliated with a sharp rap to the Foot soldiers temple, effectively knocking him out for the time being.
"Don!" Grabbed his attention before it could be turned on the next nearby foe. Mike waved him over with one nunchaku, spinning the other in a dizzying parry, rendering one of his three assailants weaponless. "I could use a hand here, ya know!" A meaty 'thunk' later, the weaponless would be attacker slumped in a heap, hampering his ninja buddies for all of two seconds. More than enough time for Donatello, genius in green, to leap to his bogged down brothers' aid.
"Fair fight, anyone?" Donnie asked, using his bo to trip one Foot ninja attempting to jump over his fallen comrade towards Mike. He then used the remaining momentum to swing it back around in a spin to smack the other foe square in the face. "I win, you lose!" He cheered, leaping over the pile of ninjas to land beside Mike. The remaining Foot soldier leaped over the side of the building after a token effort was made to fight the brothers.
The fight effectively over, Mike and Don set about tying up the foot members, exchanging cheerful jibes as they worked.
"Dude, I so had those guys," Mike said, double knotting the cord he'd wound around the chests of three ninjas propped together. Grunting, he tested the strength of his knot before moving to the next set of crooks.
"HAD those guys?!" Don chortled from his end. "Are you kidding me, Mikey? Wasn't it you I heard yammering like a little girl for me to help you a few minutes ago?" He stood up after tying his own knots and struck a dramatic pose "Oh Don, save me, save me! These ninjas are too much for the Mikester to handle!"
"WHAT-ever dude!" Mike replied, laughing. He tossed the leftover cord back to the purple banded turtle. "Lets get out of here and finish this patrol up." He smile slyly. "Five bucks says Leo's pissing Raph off by acting like a mama hen"
Don chuckled, stowing the rope "Whatever you say, bro." He placed a quick 911 call on his shell cell before stowing that as well. "Let's go!"
The two set off for the lair at a loping run, leaving the bundled ninjas in an easily visible portion of the buildings fire escape for the cops to pick up, after the had assured them they would 'get right on it'.
"We're ho-ome!" Mikey shouted upon entering the lair, making a beeline for the couch and the remote to the television. Shortly thereafter, the theme to Gundam Wing was blaring away, creating a din loud enough to cause an aging visage to poke its head out from behind a shoji door.
"Michaelangelo, please turn the volume down," Master Splinter said loudly, wincing at the noise. Michaelangelo complied instantly, grinning sheepishly.
"Sorry Master!"
Splinter smiled wryly and returned to the relative quiet of his room, shoji door sliding smoothly shut.
"Jeeze Mikey," Raph said from his seat on the couch, rubbing over his left ear, grimacing in pain. "Could'ja get any louder?" Leo looked over, grinning, as Raph returned to his popcorn.
"Mike, any more decibels and your ninja skills will be shot!" Mike waved the comment off with a flippant twitch of the wrist.
"Nonsense Leo!" He exclaimed, demonstrating his top-notch ninja skills by snagging the bag of popcorn, and even the piece Raph'd tossed up in the air to catch in his open mouth. "The Mikester will always be on his A game when it comes down to ninja time!" He ate the popcorn, and gave his elder brother a cheeky grin.
"MIKE!" Rap roared, lunging off of the couch towards his crafty sibling. Mike 'eeped' and took off at a dead run through the Lair.
"Don't kill me, Raph!" He screeched, adding more speed. "AAAAA!"
"Try and stop me!"
Donatello had retired to the sanctuary of his room-cum-laboratory upon his and Mike's return from their patrol through the South Side, before the popcorn mayhem broke out. A crash brought his gaze from the wiring before him to his door and two shadows streaked past, various 'strongly worded' phrases filtering through the screened door. Rolling his eyes he returned his attention to the motherboard n front of him. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes in frustration at the mess before him.
"Mikey, Mikey, Mikey." He murmured, reaching for his soldering iron. Somehow Mike had tried to upgrade the family's computer and instead of taking out the right item that was to be upgraded, he had somehow removed the motherboard, and shoved the new graphics card into the improper slot, effectively ruining both the new card and the computer. Double-sigh.
Carefully soldering the ripped out pieces back in to place on the board, he double checked his handiwork and groaned seeing that he was missing a wire. 'Replacement' he thought, looking up at the stacks of boxes on shelves that always looked to be on the verge of collapse. 'Mm, that one.' He decided, standing and stretching his arm upwards to the box of parts in mind.
"Damn!" He cursed quietly, looking around for something to stand on to reach his spare wire box. Settling on the chair, Don perched himself precariously with one foot on the chair, the other on his desk, far away from the hot iron, and reached... reached...
BANG!
The door to his lab slammed open, Mike streaking inside, Raph hot on his heels.
"COME BACK HERE RUNT!" The red one bellowed as the orange tore right at Donatello, "DONNIE! HELP!" who was spreadeagled in air, one hand on the box, one hand free for balance, feet on the chair and desk respectively.
"MIKE!" Don bellowed as the youngest turtle continued running at him. Mike stopped inches short of Donnie, only to have Raph plow straight in to him, and both right into the chair Donnie was balancing on. Don flinched as his whole room seemed to vibrate from the impact, muscles tightening as the fall became inevitable.
Mike and Raph were perfectly still on the floor as Don slowly opened his eyes, breathing a heavy sigh of relief as nothing happened. Leonardo's head poked around the corner as Donnie jumped nimbly down from his perch, menacingly advancing on his brothers in an uncharacteristic rage as Raph picked himself up and bodily hauled Mike from the floor.
"Get. Out." He said evenly, eyes carefully neutral. Mike flinched and Raph matched glare for stare. Leonardo sighed and withdrew from the doorway, muttering about uncontrollable younger siblings.
"Sorry Donnie," Mike whispered, eyes apologizing.
"Please leave." Donnie said very quietly. Mike shuffled backwards, followed by Raph, who made a point of slamming the door as hard as he could, causing the whole room to vibrate once more. Donatello turned back to his workbench, wire in hand, hoping that finishing this project would ease the dull anger seeping through his veins. A creaking sound caught his attention.
Time slowed as the precariously loaded shelves groaned, then buckled under the load they carried, sending a tidal wave of electronics pouring down on the brainiac turtle.
"Aw, damn." Donnie said, before something struck him hard on the side of the head, his world exploding in flashes of colorful light, then darkness.
The first thing he noticed was that it was warm. Like the sun was shining directly on him. Donnie cracked his eyes open and immediately wished he hadn't, the bright light sending waves of pain coursing through his brain. He lay still, waiting for his pounding head to quit throbbing, before he attempted any more eye-openings.
"Ugh." He stated, rolling over on to his stomach and pushing himself to his knees, eyes still closed. "Lets try that again." he muttered, peeking ever so slowly at his surroundings. "Raph, Mike, you owe me big time junkyard assistance and a month of not breaking things for this." His eyes (and head) burned from the effort of allowing light in, but as they opened more, the hazy sight of grassy fields filled his vision. His eyes shot open against their will, despite the instant headache the act produced, taking in his surroundings in bewilderment.
'I'm outside?' He thought dumbly, listing heavily on his left arm, the right shielding his eyes from the heady yellow sun. 'What the shell?'
Closing his eyes he moved his head gently from side to side to try and shake off the hallucination he was experiencing. Then the sweet scent of wildflowers caught his nose, and something landed gently on the forearm lying across his face.
"YAAAH!" He shouted, rolling drunkenly, scrambling to his feet to face off the offending... butterfly.
"Wow, Donnie, this is a new one." he chuckled nervously to himself. He'd had some fairly vivid dreams before, but nothing came close to the sense of realness this dream/hallucination was producing. He backed away from the cloud of butterflies drifting closer to him until his shell came into contact with something quite solid, and probably heavy. He spun, coming face to face with a squat, three story building he recognized instantly as April's apartment complex, complete with the antique store on the first floor.
"What on Earth is going on?" he wondered aloud. "I remember Raph and Mikey tearing through the Lab, and getting hit in the head... where the heck am I? Is this some kind of hallucination?" He rubbed the back of his head, wincing when he hit tender spots. "I didn't think I got hit that hard!" He poked at the building. 'No way... it's brick all right.''
A faint meowing caught his attention. "Klunk?" He queried, walking around the corner of the antique store. He was greeted with a 'mrrow' from a familiar orange tabby, who, between meows, was batting at some red socks poking out from under the building. "Klunk, what are you doing here? What's that ya got?" Don hurried over to scoop the cat up and investigate Klunk's findings. After a long moment of scrutiny, he raised his eyeridges in disbelief.
"Okay, this is downright weird." He said to Klunk, placing the tabby on his shoulder. "Why the heck is April's apartment here, on its side no less, on top of what I'm guessing, given the pink lumpy tentacles, is KRANG?" He looked at the cat, raising an eyeridge again in amusement. "Not that I'm really complaining, I mean the thing caused us so many problems over the years before we destroyed him, but why is he wearing red socks?" He gave another nervous chuckle. "That's downright strange."
"Dorothy-tello!" Came a faint, familiar, voice on the wind. It repeated its call as Donnie looked around in confusion. "April?" He called back, quickly stepping back as a pink bubble of light materialized in the sky and started floating erratically down, bouncing twice before skidding to a halt on the grassy knoll the apartment/shop/Krang thing was peacefully residing on. Don overheard a soft 'aw, dammit! I just washed this thing!' before the bubble came to a complete stop. A few moments passed, Donatello staring at the bubble which glowed in the noonday sun.
"Dorthy-tello." April's voice repeated the call from the bubble, in an almost musical manner. Don looked at Klunk, who gazed back with a meow that sounded an awful lot like 'Beats me!'. The bubble dissipated in a shower of sparkles, revealing April (or someone who looked an awful lot like her) in a froofy princess-like gown holding a long wand with a star on top. Her hair was still in its usual massive frizzy mane, but it was held back (barely) by a crooked, glittering tiara that sent spangles flying when the sun struck it. She was currently in a coughing fit from all the glittery stuff floating in the air. Donnie took a step back from the sparkly cloud. Once the air around her was beaten clear, she took a deep breath, focused on Donatello and smiled.
"Dorothy-tello, I am Glinda the good witch from Northside, welcome to Ooze."
Don and Klunk exchanged another glance. "Glinda? Oz?"
"Ooze."
"Okay, Ooze! What kind of joke is this?" He pointed at the smushed Krang under the apartment behind him. "And what's that?"
"Oh," April, (Glinda, Don thought. Right.) laughed and waved her wand at the apartment store in an offhand manner. "That used to be the Wicked Witch of the East, a pretty rude one if you ask me, but since you took him out you can have his socks. They're pretty cool." She said, striding over to the lone building, muttering expletives as she stumbled slightly over the dress hem, and upon reaching the lopsided building removed the socks from the slimy pink tentacles that curled limply beneath it. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she tossed 'em at Donnie who jumped out of the way, the socks landing with a resounding 'splat' where he had just been, something viscous dribbling out of the tops.
"What do they do?" Donnie asked, gingerly poking at the socks with his toe. April (GLINDA! Donnie mentally shouted) shrugged.
"Not sure, really. They look pretty cool, though. Here- this'll make em look even cooler!" She grinned and waved her wand in an unusual, almost figure eight, pattern ending with the star pointed at the socks.
POOF!
In a shower of sparkles and pink fluff the socks became free of the goo, thankfully- but instead of plain red socks, they were now sparkly red socks. Don grimaced.
"What's with women and glitter?" He muttered, picking the socks up. "What, am I supposed to wear them?" He asked Apr-Glinda- who nodded.
"Hey, it beats walking around barefoot in this place." She said with a shrug, lifting her skirt hem and showing off her own sparkling pink socks. Donnie rolled his eyes and slid the grotesquely sparkling red socks on his feet. They fit surprisingly well, considering his feet were nowhere near human proportioned, and the last owner had tendrils instead of feet.
"Hey, these feel pretty good!" He exclaimed, taking a few bouncing steps. "What're they made of? Cotton? Rayon? Some ungodly polyester blend?"
Glinda shrugged again, giving him an odd look. "I don't know of this rayon spell you speak of, Dorothy-tello. They're just magic socks."
Don made another eyeroll.
"Now to see what to do with you." She murmured to herself, waving her wand in that funky figure eight pattern again. Nothing happened. Frowning, she tried again, emphatically. STILL nothing. Growling a little, she waved the wand viciously about in that pattern muttering something about 'that damn chalkboard' while Don backed slowly away, Klunk in tow.
KER-POOF!
::WHAT NOW GLINDA?!:: scribbled messily across the blackboard that appeared in a puff of cotton candy smelling blue smoke next to Glinda. words flowing across it almost like a drunken (or high) invisible person was writing. Don blinked rapidly before dismissing it as another bizarre part of a funky, possibly pizza induced, dream.
Glinda rolled her eyes in exasperation, thumping her wand against the side of the floating blackboard like April often did Mikey when he was being too goofy. "Hit the poppy field again, did we?" She snorted derisively as the chalkboard wrote a series of expletives across its facade. "Whatever. Anyway, magic board, see Dorothy-tello over there? She killed the Wicked Witch of the East, and got her socks. Now what do we do with her?"
The board and Glinda turned towards Donatello, who squinted as the tiara sent dots of light dancing across his eyes. 'Man, this is one really screwy dream!'
::Hmm... Dorothy-tello, you say?:: The board mused, its eraser tapping gently against its wooden frame, as if it were lost in thought. ::Meh,:: It wrote ::Send her to the Wizard. He might know what to do with her.::
Glinda nodded assent, as Donnie looked increasingly confused.
"Okay, seriously guys, I'm lost and I just want to go home. No, what I really want to do is wake up from this crazy dream that seems a lot like something Mike would cook up!"
::... Dude, he's nuts::
"Who's Mike?" Glinda asked, cocking her head, hands on hips. "You're trying to go home? Doll, this isn't a dream, you're in Ooze."
"What?! No way this isn't a dream that my subconscious somehow conjured up, using people I know as characters in some bizarro play!" Don replied, waving his arms for emphasis on how ludicrous the whole idea was. Klunk 'mrrowed' his concurrence from his perch in the hollow between Don's neck and shell.
::Seriously, send him to the Wizard. This guys is definitely nuts and should be checked out.::
"Well?" Glinda asked, glancing at Don. "Are you going to take Chalk's advice and go find the Wizard?" Don gave her a look that screamed 'You've GOT to be joking!' She gave an exasperated sigh. "Look, either way, he'll have answers for you, and might help you get home, or 'wake up' (Here she made air-quotes and snickered) like you said earlier."
Don squeezed his eyes shut and gave himself a hard pinch on the thigh. 'Ouch'
He opened his eyes. Nope, still in this 'Ooze' place.
"Guess I don't have much of a choice now, do I?" He asked Klunk, turning his head to look at the tabby, the only other 'sane' person in the whole dreamscape. He meowed, and Don sighed resignedly. "How do I get to wherever this Wizard is?"
::All right!:: Chalk scribbled semi-legibly ::What you want to do is head to the town of Munchkin, and from there you want to take the main road out through the poppy fields to Emerald City... or was it through the mountains? Or was it the woods? Hey Glinda! Give me a hand here instead of playing fairy princess!::
Glinda's eyes narrowed in anger, and she did that wand waving thing again before booting the message board back to wherever dimension it came from in an explosion of cherry scented pink smoke and glitter. "Dammit, not again!"
"Argh! That happens every time!" She fumed between sneezing fits. "How the heck can I be a fairy allergic to smoke!?" She continued sneezing and coughing for a good five minutes after, but once her allergic fit subsided into hiccups, she motioned Don over to the edge of the knoll they, the house, and the dead Witch of the East were on and pointed downhill towards a town Don previously hadn't noticed. That, or it just magically appeared, he couldn't tell. Dream or not, some really weird stuff was happening around here.
"Just go down there and meet the mayor of Munchkinville, and he can tell you where to go from there." She waved her wand, and the pink bubble formed around her again. Floating off she shouted one last scrap of information to the befuddled turtle. "MAKE SURE YOU TELL HIM YOU'RE GOING TO SEE THE WIZARD! IN EMERALD CITY!"
"Right." Don muttered, giving the bubble one last annoyed look before starting down the hill to the village below.
"This makes no sense whatsoever!" He ranted to Klunk during their descent. "What have I experienced lately that could possibly bring on a dream state like this? Was it something I ate? I told Mike that those mushrooms were not a good idea for pizza! And like an idiot I ate it anyway..." His rant slowed to a trickle as he entered town.
"Wow. Enter the little people, stage left." He muttered, looking about. This was definitely a lot smaller than any towns he'd ever visited before. Like it shrank, or something. As he wended his way through town to the square, he noticed that he was getting a lot of stares, and the small people were giving him a wide berth, some disappearing into their homes and shops. Soon the square was quite deserted.
"MONSTER!" Cried a shrill voice. Donnie whirled, much to Klunk's annoyance, to face a miniature version of an old friend of Aprils.
"Irma?!" He exclaimed, astonished that she'd ever wind up in his dreams.
"What do you want in our town!?" A gruff voice inquired roughly, its source stepping in front of the mini-Irma to protect her.
"CASEY?!" This was definitely getting weird. Well, weirder than before.
The miniature Casey drew himself up to his full height, all three feet two inches of it, and glowered at the turtle. "That's MAYOR Jones to you, beast." He unfolded one arm and shook his finger at Donatello, scolding, "You'd best be off, beasties, before the Witch is after you." he laughed meanly. "She don't brook no strangers in her land."
Don cocked his head, ignoring the insults. "Oh, you mean the Wicked Witch of the East?" Mayor Jones nodded gravely, still glaring up at Don. Which was weird for Don, because usually Casey towered above him. Don laughed. "Don't have to worry about her," "Him." "Oookay, him, because I accidentally buried him under a three story apartment and took his socks." Blank stares. Don sighed. "Yeah, he's dead."
"Dead?" Irma asked, peeking out from behind the Mayor. "He's really gone?"
"As a doornail."
"YAY!" Irma squealed, running to the center of the square. "EVERYONE! ITS SAFE TO COME OUT! The Witch is DEAD! The monster killed him!"
The place erupted in cheers, as Munchkins poured back out from their hiding places, startling Don and causing Klunk to duck down into his shell in fright.
"The Witch is dead! Ding dong, the Witch is dead!" Rang out in all quarters of the square, a repetitive song of thanks that was growing more annoying as the seconds ticked by. "Ding dong the Witch is dead, the Witch is dead, the monster crushed her head!" As Munchkins swarmed Donatello, singing their song of praise and thanks that he took out their tyrant ruler, he was busy scanning the throng for the Mayor, who had made himself scarce as quickly as he'd appeared earlier. He spotted him inside a tower that overlooked the square, watching the mass of Munchkins prance about in joy.
"Hey Mayor!" Don shouted over the din. "How do I get to the Wizard? Emerald City? HEY!"
The Mayor leaned his upper body out, and pointed at Donatello's feet, shouting something Don could barely make out.
"What was that?"
"Follow the yellow brick road!"
"Follow the yellow brick road?" Don asked, not quite sure that's what he'd heard. A Munchkin grabbed his hand.
It was the mini-Irma.
"Follow the yellow brick road!" She squealed in a singsong voice, "Follow the yellow brick road!" Other Munchkins joined in, adding their varying pitches to the song Irma was singing. "Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road!" Don'e eye started a nervous tic as the Munchkins continued their atrocious singing. He looked down at his feet, saw the bricks leading out of town and took off, dragging poor little Irma along. Away from all the racket he asked, "This way is to Emerald City?"
Irma nodded enthusiastically, "Yep! That'll take you there! Stay straight on it and you'll be there in no time!"
Don breathed a huge sigh of relief. This wasn't going to take as long as he thought! Hopefully there were no more little people, or he might throw his beliefs in passivism to the winds and start tossing midgets around.
"All right then, Klunk, lets make turtle tracks."
Don took off at a dead run down the road, trying to get away from the scary little people and their oddball town as quickly as possible. On his way, he thought he heard someone, Irma, yell after him:
"IF YOU SEE A CUTE GUY SEND HIM MY WAY!"
End chapter one.
Please R&R and I may actually finish the story!