Hello, everyone in the TMNT fanbase! I've decided to take a break from To Be Home to write the first story of the This World series. This is because the next chapter of TBH is going to have something sad, but it won't make sense without the necessary sentimental value on the readers' part. And that requires backstory! So are you ready for this? Regardless, here we go!

In This World – Chapter 1: Here and There

"I'm heading out!" J called upstairs to his brother. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

His brother answered from the living room behind him. "Where are you going again?"

J spun around. "Oh, you're down here. Anyway, I'm going to bike to the nature preserve and eat lunch there."

His brother gave him a funny look. "How are you going to carry your lunch there?"

J jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his backpack. "I put it all in my lunchbox and put my lunchbox in here. I also have my thermos." It was actually a stainless steel water bottle, but J enjoyed calling it a thermos too much to stop.

J's brother shook his head. "No thanks."

"Are you sure? I already have a lunch for you made. The sandwich is in the fridge."

"I'll just eat here."

"Fine, fine," J threw his hands up in mock surrender. "See you later, then." The 16-year-old turned around and made his way to the back door.

"Have a nice lunch," his brother called after him. "And bike ride!"

"No guarantees!" J called back jokingly as he left, closing the door behind him.

The bike ride to the preserve's side entrance was rather uneventful. The side entrance itself wasn't actually an official entrance. All it was was a gap in the trees that separated the preserve from the public road, and a short ways through the gap was the preserve's path. The actual entrance was actually a longer trip from J's house, so the side entrance was more favorable. When J made it to the entrance, he dismounted from his bicycle and walked through the dirt and grass, pushing the bike alongside him.

J had made it halfway through the trees when a wasp flew up next to him. The boy froze, waiting for the wasp to pass him by. It didn't. J heard it fly up above him and hover around his bicycle helmet. J took off the helmet and threw it a few feet away. The wasp immediately followed the movement of the shiny blue object, but lost interest and flew off.

J took his cellphone out of his right pocket with the intent to text his brother about how frustrated that wasp made him. "Nah, he wouldn't care. It's a silly reason to text anyone, really," he said to himself. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, but he missed the hole completely and sent the cellphone down his thigh.

It bounced slightly off his knee and ricocheted off his toe, sending the device careening over to where J's helmet was in the dry grass. It was an older phone, so it wasn't damaged.

"Well that didn't work," J said as he walked to retrieve his possessions. But somewhere between his bike and his dropped items, the world changed dramatically.

*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*J*

An olive green turtle leaned over his desk, writing furiously on one of several sheets of paper strewn about.

"Everything looks normal," he said as he looked between his notes and the screen on the new device next to them which displayed a map of the earth.

Suddenly, a voice interrupted his work. "Doooonniiiiiie!"

Donatello sighed and rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Mikey? I'm kind of busy here."

Michelangelo shook his head. "You've been in here for way too long, Donnie."

"Yeah," Raphael added, who Don hadn't noticed enter behind Mikey. "You've been workin' on… whatever this is," he pointed to the device the scientist had been fixated on, "ever since we had that dream."

"But—" Don started.

Mikey interrupted, imitating his brother, "'But we all know firsthand that there are other turtle teams in the multiverse, and we need to know if anything traverses our dimension's borders.' You gave us that speech like a million times, Don."

The brainy turtle stood up, getting exasperated with the two. "And I got the detector to work! The Utroms' research hasn't been wrong yet."

Raph crossed his arms. "And?"

"'And' what?"

"Has yer toy shown ya anything?"

Donatello faltered. "Well, not yet. But I'm sure we can ask the Daimyo or Renet to help with that." Suddenly he found himself moving involuntarily forward.

"Well, we can do that later," Michelangelo said as he pushed the purple-clad ninja out of his own lab, "we're going to be late."

"Late?" Don repeated. "Late for what?" His question prompted Raphael to flick him in the forehead. "Ow! Hey!"

"Earth to Donnie!" the emerald turtle taunted. "Casey and April are comin' back from their honeymoon. We were gonna surprise 'em at their apartment, remember?"

Donnie's eyes widened. "That's today?! Aw shell, how did I lose track of time?!"

"That's why you got us, dude," Mikey noogied the brainy turtle.

"We'd better go," Raph coaxed them. "Leo and Master Splinter are waiting for us in the tunnel. We don't want to make 'em wait too long and then get two ears-full."

Right after they left, Donatello's device emitted light beep as a red dot lit up inside New York City.

I should probably explain a bit here. In this continuity, the movie Turtles Forever was actually a shared dream among the turtles and Splinter after Casey and April's wedding.

Anyhoodles, please leave a review. What do you think of this so far, as a start to the This World series? Tell me anything you did or didn't like about this. Anything. If you have any—and I mean any—questions, please ask! I don't bite. I don't support cannibalism.