It was cold.
The ground was hard and near frozen beneath Donnie's shell. The air nippy. Something was pricking his skin.
He opened his eyes. White speck flew at him. Hyperspace? No. Snow. It just looked like it was flying at him because he was lying on the ground.
He rolled on his plastron and took stock of his surroundings.
He knew the street. He just didn't know why he was lying in it. The ground was cold, and the parts of him that had been in contact with it were cold too. But the rest of him wasn't. What did that tell him?
It told him that he hadn't been here very long. In fact, If he had to guess, he'd say he had recently been someplace very warm and was dumped here just now.
A very disconcerting thought. He took stock of his inventory.
His Bo staff was still here. He also seemed to have a small computer strapped to his arm. Starting to cool against his lower arm in the crisp air. His sportsbag was wrapped around his arm.
He hoisted himself to his feet. The question of how he wound up like this would have to wait. For now he decided to do the same thing he did everytime some new oddity came to his doorstep.
Check on his family to see if they were ok.
He opened his sports bag and pulled out a T-phone. It looked like he had decided to pack several. Why had he felt such a precaution to be necessary? That seemed like something he'd feel the need to do If he knew he wasn't going to be home for a while.
This new information made his memory lapse even more distressing. He dialed the phone and frantically and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Something was wrong.
He flung his bag over his shoulder in preparation for making a dash for the nearest manhole when he caught something in the corner of his eye.
He spun to face it, pushing one foot behind him as a bracer so he couldn't be shoved backward and holding up his arms in a blocking position.
An average sized man of indeterminate age stood in front of Donnie. He was wearing a white costume that was as snow white as his hair and a, to Donnie's imagination, Insincere smile on his face.
"Hey Donnie, that was quite a ride, do you still remember me?"
"I... No.. Who are you?" Donnie asked, trying not to sound hostile.
The man wore an outfit that seemed familiar enough, but Donnie couldn't really place it until he noticed the hourglass hat under the man's arm.
"Are you an apprentice time master?"
"What? You don't know me? Well, I guess that 'd have to happen sometime. I'm Kairos."
Donnie's mind reached for any file he could connect to this information.
Kairos (n.) the perfect, delicate, crucial moment; the fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportune atmosphere for action, words, or movement; also the word for the weather. Greek in origin.
All the name told Donnie was that ether the guy's parents were very good at guessing good names, or he changed his name to suit his job. Either way it doesn't really tell him anything he could use to analyze the situation. He'd need to assess the situation further.
He opened his mouth to ask what happened to Rennet then changed his mind. Of course, there were other time apprentices. They had to run throughout all of time and they weren't immortal.
Or at least, he didn't think they were. He never really thought to ask.
"Why are you here?"
"I'm just here to give you a heads up that there's a distortion in the time stream. So you should keep your eye out for any time discrepancies until I can get this fixed."
"That could look like anything." Donnie replied.
"Yeah, but I'm sure I smart guy like you will be able to pin it. Want to come with me?"
"Uh, no thanks. I need to go check on my family, no one's picking up the phone."
the man's mouth tightened around the edges. "As you wish, I'll be in touch."
Then, as if an invisible hook had caught his waist and snatched him off-stage, Kairos flickered and disappeared.
Donnie readjusted the bag's straps against his shoulder and descended into the underground.
Heading toward the lair, he turned on the computer on his wrist and browsed the news feed.
No news items about strange activity this month. Or last month. Or the month before.
That can't be right. What happened to the Krang attack, the warehouse explosions? The garbage man? The attack of the Rat King?
Was this the work of a time discrepency?
Donnie was so encompassed in skimming articles that his surroundings started to blur out to vastest edge of his awareness.
They were brought back into sharp focus as something heavy and hard as a bag of bricks slammed Donnie off his feet and ground his face against the stone underneath.
"Jeez, fearless, what kind of ninja are you missing a sneak attack as obvious as that?"
"Raph get off me! I'm not Leo."
The weight lifted off his shell, "Aw, gimme a break Mikey, I had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right.
"75-25. " Donnie corrected, "Where are the others?"
Raph stared at him. "Who are you?" He growled.
"I'm your brother. Are you drunk?" Donnie could smell a not-so-faint trace of alcohol clinging to his brother. Donnie always knew Raph would be the first of them to try some, probably under Casey's influence.
"Would you please try to sober up Raph, I think we - WOAH!"
He had to move fast to dodge the fist that flew past him and cracked the bricks behind him.
Donnie's breath hitched in his chest, Raph was serious.
"Raph? Why-"
He had to skip back twice to keep out of range as Raph tried to get in close, swinging his arm a few inches away from Donnie's face.
"I don't know what kind of dirty trick this is, but you stay away from my brothers!"
"What's gotten into you!" Donnie exclaimed, when Raph sobered up they really needed to set some ground rules about his drinking.
Not willing to stand still and wait until Raph had exhausted himself through boxing practice Donnie ran out of the tunnel into a room that connected many tunnels together, sliding into a shadow he pressed himself to the wall and tried to blend in. Raph went barreling past Donnie's hiding place and kept on going.
Donnie slide out of the shadow and frowned, that was very unpleasant.
He was struggling with the question of whether to tell master Splinter about Raph's behavior when Mikey voice started calling out above him.
"Raph! Raph! Hey Raaaaph!" Donnie looked up to see Mikey poking his head out of a large hole in the bricks above me, he spotted Donnie at the same time, a look of wonder appearing on his face as he saw his brother.
"Woah, who are you?"
Donnie's breath hitched in his chest and he began to back away from Mikey.
"Hey, wait! Don't go!"
Donnie turned and ran as fast as his feet could take him.
"Wait!" Mikey called after him. " I didn't mean to scare you!"
He ran until the world around him was a blur of brick wall and the pounding echo of footsteps.
He managed to step around any loose bricks and gravel, but he missed the puddle and slipped falling face first on the concrete.
Donnie stayed there for a minute, trying and failing to regain his composure,
A choking sob escaped him and he knew this was an exercise doomed to failure.
He lifted his head and set his chin against the floor.
A pair of shoes filled his vision.
"Kairos." Donnie pushed his scraped body onto its knees.
"Kairos, My brothers don't recognize me, what's going on?" Donnie pleaded.
"I'm afraid there's been a slight issue with temporal discrepancies. It's going to take me longer than I thought to fix it."
"Slight? Slight!? My family doesn't know who I am! That's not slight!"
"Well, you're just going to have to be patient, or come help me fix the problem." He held out a hand.
Donnie put his out to take it, about to say that he'd do anything to put things to right, when something stopped him.
A sensation of deja vu echoing against the reptilian part of his brain warning him against this.
'Lies.' it said, 'don't go off with this man.'
His hand hovered in the air a few more seconds before he snatched it back.
"I... I'm sorry, I'd like to help but... I think I just need to be alone for a bit.
He thought he caught a glimpse of something flicker through the other mans face. But that overly wide smile came back up again and he pulled back.
"No worries, we have all the time in the world, I'll keep in touch."
And just like that the man was gone.
Donnie watched the spot he had been standing for a moment, then pulled his knees to his chest and let it out as sobs wracked his body.
He didn't look up again until he felt a three fingered hand resting on his shoulder.
He looked up to see Mikey watching him with a concerned expression.
Dude? Are you ok?"
"I- yes." Donnie said awkwardly, stifling a sniff. What was he supposed to do? Unload everything on Mikey in one swoop? He wondered if Mikey, this Mikey, had ever been allowed out of the sewer.
"Then why are you so sad?"
"Well I-" He struggled to figure out a way to explain, not coming up with anything he settled for- "I met and angry turtle in the tunnels and I don't think he liked me."
"Oh, that must be my brother Rath, me and my other brother Leo are out looking for him, Leo was worried he'd decided to go topside."
Ah, so they weren't allowed out of the sewers then, these turtles might look like his brothers, but they were much more inexperienced.
Donnie sniffed and stood up. " I'm also sad because I lost my lab, I've got some thorny problems I'd like to fix, but I can't without my stuff." Donnie opened his arm computer, he wondered if he had any kraang schematics on it.
He was amazed at the depth of information on his tiny computer, it looked like he'd just hacked into a kraang computer and downloaded a large file before what all this is started, but he hadn't had time to unpack the file and go through it yet.
He unzipped the folder and opened up a search box, he scanned the file for places where he could get alien technology. Most of the places were Kraang warehouses he didn't expect to be in this dimension, but he found something else that caught his attention.
Could that really work?
He found some chalk in his bag. And drew the symbols on his screen on a wall over a puddle.
Then he pressed a button and the computer started whispering strange utterings.
The chalk marking glowed and the puddle rose over the hole and covered it making a doorway.
*GHAAASSSPP* "are you a wizard?" Mikey whispered.
"Um, not quite, and I've never done this before." He looked at Mikey shyly. "I don't suppose you'd like to uh, come with me? I've never been before."
"ARE YOU KIDDING? I've waited my whole life for something like this. Let's go!"
"Mikey wait for-"
"Hogwarts, here I come!" Mikey whooped before running into the wall.
"Me-" Donnie couldn't speak up fast enough to stop him from leaping into the portal. Donnie wondered if his Mikey would do something like that or if he had learned his lesson after being stuck in dimension x. Terrified that any hesitation could cause rookie Mikey to get stuck by himself in an alien dimension for months on end, Donnie grabbed his bag and shot in after him.
For a moment all he saw was white on all sides. Then he passed through to the other side and was faced with an earth-like dimension in some kind of market. Tents and booths obscured his vision.
"Woah." Mikey marveled. Looking around and around at all the strange aliens bustling among the booths. Donnie ignored them in favor of looking for signs of normalcy.
Thank heaven for small favors. It looked like they had landed in an earth-like dimension with an earth-like sky with a normal sun and an earth-like easily identify-ably horizon point (unlike dimension x) and earth-like gravity.
Donnie stomped the ground twice. This place even had earth-like dirt! Though it was bit dustier then the hard earth around April's farm.
"This place is off the hook! Where's this place been all my life." Mikey crowed.
And going by Mikey's awe at the new surroundings. Earth-like time physics too. This dimension just keeps getting better and better.
"Look! A booth selling tec! let's go Mikey!"
This place they entered seemed to be a large city made of stands and merchants and aliens.
"Oh my gosh, this place is off the hook." Mikey said.
"Potentate match number 13 begin!"
The sky turned into a large screen, two aliens standing in a coliseum of sorts bowed to each other.
"Begin!"
They charged and began a match of fast paced kung fu, no not kung fu. Some alien fighting styles he wasn't familiar with. He took hold of Mikey's wrist and dragged the younger turtle through the crowd behind him, Mikey followed absent-mindedly while keeping his attention on the screen above. "Uh, excuse me." He said a merchant." I'm new here. Can you tell me where I can buy tec?"
"In section 2? This is where all of the level two tec planet warps wind up. Only winning contestants can travel through to different sections and buy tec, It's to keep juvenile snots like you from buying things they shouldn't have and dragging it back home with them."
"Erm, ok, thanks ma'am." Donnie said, cringing back from her judgmental tone.
"Match concluded."
"Oh man did you see that? That was so cool!" Mikey said, picking up a random pamphlet someone had left on the ground.
"Yeah, it was really awesome." Donnie said. He dragged Mikey back to where they came through and they popped back out into the sewer."Ah man, did you have to bring us back here so soon? I wanted to see more."
"I need to go somewhere where I can print out some schematics or something that I can use to barter with. Then I guess I'll go back and enter the tournament."
"Oh my gosh! Are you a ninja! I'm a ninja! We have so much in common, uh, common, uh, what were you called again? I'm Mikey."
"Oh, I'm sorry. My name's Donatello."
*ghaaaaaassp* Mikey drew in a long raspy breath of amazement, then started dancing in place with one finger on his nose and another pointing eagerly at Don.
"What's the matter?" Donnie asked, confused by this strange ritual.
"You're in the same book I am."
"Book?"
"My Sensai's book, it's full of these artsy guys and me and my brothers' names are all in it, your name's there too."
"He has that book too, huh?" Donnie smiled. "I guess my dad must have had the same one."
"Ah man, We have so much in common, It's like we're kin. Oh, oh, come see me again before you go back, I want to come cheer you in the games."
"Really? I'd like that."
"Alright. Meet me back here in an hour, Kay."
"Alright, meet you then." Mikey called back already sprinting down the tunnels "Rath! HEY RAAAATHH! I"VE GOT SOMETHING TOTALLY AWSOME TO TELL YOU!" Donnie smiled, At the very least he could still count on Mikey's enthusiasm, even if the other turtle didn't remember him."
Don climbed out of the sewer and started toward a building where he knew he could find a printer, he made a self note to check his bag for coins, he just hoped no one would be there at this time of night.
*tweet ahe a hoot hoot* "I know that obnoxious horn." Donnie said, he moved into the center of the road and waited for the car headlight to land on him, as expected Casey poked his head out of the side and waved, less expected but no less welcome, April poked her head out of the other side. "April, Casey. what are you guys doing here?"
"Oh, thank god, he recognizes us." "Please tell me you remember the Krang invasion, no one else does."
"I remember, but I don't think my brothers do, they don't even remember me."
"What?" Casey and April exited the car. " They, don't remember you? How's that even possible?" I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the time sceptor."
"Time what?" Casey asked. Donnie gave them a very quick run down of the time guardians and what they did. "The only time apprentice I've met so far is Rennet, and the only other worker I know of is her mentor Lord simultaneous. This new guy is - I've never met him before. I think something might be off about him, but I can't be sure."
"What do we do next?"
"I think I downloaded a large data file before I lost my memory, Er... Do any of you remember how we wound up here?"
"Err..."
"Not really."
"Me either, but I found a way to remake my lab, I think, and I have this bag" He opened it. "Let's see, Shuriken, smoke bombs, A fake tooth? Oh, I remember that one- . " He popped the tooth into the gap in his mouth.
"Thinking of going into dentistry, Donnie?" Casey asked in a mocking tone.
"You don't need to fix your tooth Donnie, I think the gap suits you." April said.
"This is a very special fake tooth, you might be surprised how useful it is later." Donnie answered.
"Well, alright." April said with what he imagined was a hint of disappointment.
Hello? What's this?" He picked up an amulet and held it in front of himself.
"Wow. It's pretty, Can I see it."
"Uh, sure April." He handed her the amulet.
She put it on, Don smiled, It looked good on her. Though it was a bit large.
"Come one, Mikey's still as friendly as ever, and though he doesn't remember me he still wants to cheer me on in the games, Maybe we can find a way to explain this to the guys when we see them."
(scene break)
"Rath. LEOOOOO. YOU GUYS WON"T BELIEVE WHAT HA-" Mikey skidded to a stop at the sound of shouting."Guys?"
"You are so irresponsible!"
"Hey, You can't prove anything."
"Maybe not, but I think we both know what happened."
"Ugh! Would you guys stop fighting? I just had the most amazing day of my life and you guys are ruining my happy."
"Shut up Mikey!"
"Don't tell him to shut up, you shut up, you're the one who-"
"That's it! I can't take you guys anymore, I'm going to go hang out with my new friend, and- and- and maybe I won't come back, so there!"
"Oh great, now you got him going too."
"Don't make this worse Rath."
"UGH!" Mikey ran back out.
(scene break)
Donnie!" Donnie paused in surprise at the unexpected out burst. "Mikey, is that you?"
Mikey ran in through the tunnels.
"Yeah, sorry I couldn't convince my bro's to come cheer you on, they weren't in a listening mood- woah!"
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." And he was, he knew that was usually code for they were fighting.
"Dude, you're friends with humans? I'm not even allowed to talk to them."
"Uh, don't worry, we're nice humans. And we know how to keep a secret."
"Yeah, we're cool."
Mikey looked at his pamphlet. " Check it out! You can gain greater access in fewer fights by entering an intermediate or an advanced tournament event instead of a beginning event. And there's gonna be a bunch of those going on over the next few days for teams of two. I should totally join you, then you can get to all of those places you wanna get faster."
"I would like to get my lab together as soon as possible, but I'm not sure about bringing you into it, you are a newbie." Donnie had to say that to remind himself as well as Mikey.
"I promise I won't slow you down, I might not get out much, but I have been training every day of my life, and if you met my Sensi you'd know just how much that really means."
He did, but he also knew that training only got you so far once in contact with the real world, the 'now complete with aliens' one anyway.
Mikey tried the puppy dog look, as the second youngest Don was immune to it but he smiled anyway. "Ok, we'll enter a few together, but if it looks dangerous, I'm sending you home."
"BOOYA ALL RIGHT."
(scene break)
"This is all your fault." Leo snapped
"Would you come off it, why is everything all my fault?" Raph retorted
"If you hadn't yelled at him, he wouldn't have run off into the sewers and we wouldn't be out here wondering where he is now."
"Well, if you hadn't- do you hear something?"
They poked their heads around the corner and gasped at the sight of Donnie drawing chalk on the wall across from them.
"Is that another Teenage mutant ninja turtle? I thought we were the only ones."
"Oh.. So that's the guy from before."
"What! You saw another turtle and didn't say anything?"
"Well, I uh-" Rath became very engrossed in memorizing the chalk drawings. "I was a little tipsy."
"So you DID go topside. I knew it."
"Don't be so judgmental, besides, we're-"
They went silent as the computer began its chant and the chalk glowed opening a portal.
Donnie, Mikey and the two humans walked through and it went blank.
"What... Was. That!"
Rath ran forward and put his hands on the wall. "They're gone."
"You mean we lost Mikey? We actually LOST Mikey. Oh no, oh nonononon. What are we going to tell Master Splinter? We can't go back with news like this, what if he gets hurt? What-"
Rath slapped him across the face. "Calm down! Cadet, we'll figure this out."
"HEY!" Leo went silent for a moment. "I always wanted to be the one to do that."
"I think I could draw the lines, but I didn't get that funky chant. " Raph said.
"I think I did, try writing them down."
Ralph picked up a bit of chalk that had snapped off Donnie's stick and drew the symbols again.
Leo chanted and the portal opened a new.
"We did it. We actually did it, let s go."
Their ears were assaultedby bustling noises as soon as they stepped through, anthromorphic rabbits walking down the road, oozing slime monsters eating muffins on benches, and a four armed woman manning some kind of information booth.
"Are these... Aliens?" Leo asked.
"I... Think maybe they are." Raph admitted.
Leo's eyes went wide. "Do you know what this means?"
"Leo, no."
"SPACE HEROES IS REAL!" Leo cried.
"Leo, please." Raph begged.
Leo threw himself on Raph, cover his eyes with and arm and bemoaning. "Space heroes are real, and Mikey tried to warn me! He tried to tell me and I sent him away."
"Leo please, people are staring."
Leo slid down Raph's front onto the ground and started to pound the ground with his fists.
Raph took a step back away from him, nearby passerby did the same.
"Oh Raph. We're terrible brothers." Leo cried.
"LAST BATTLE OF THE DAY. BEGIN."
The sky changed color, they glanced up to see a large screen.
"Donattelo and Michelangelo vs Tal and Pshord.
Leo's mouth fell open. Mikey?
He watched as the duo took out the other pair with a kind of flow that would make you think they'd been fighting together their entire lives, just how long had Mike known that other guy?
The fight concluded in their favor and they took their victory bow to their opponents as the screen went down.
"Did you see that" Leo asked, "Rath? Oh no, don't tell me you've gone too-"
He spotted Rath over at a booth signing something."Hey! What are you doing?"
"I'm signing us for the tournament."
"Why?"
"Because, fearless, If Mike and that other guy are in the tournament, then they'll probably be here a while. And if Mikey was serious about not coming back to stay at the lair, then he must be staying somewhere else, they probably have competitors dorms or something here, so that'll be where he's probably staying. If we join then we'll get sent to the dorms too, and that's where we'll find Mikey."
"Each section of the tournament has their own dorms, but potentates don't go there, they go to the potentates dorms. You have to win an event to become a competitor." The four armed woman informed them.
"And that was the last event of the day." Leo remembered.
"So? We'll just go get him tomorrow, now, uh, how are we going to tell master Splinter?"
"How ARE we going to tell master Splinter, as in, how are we going to get home!?"
"Um... Hadn't thought of that. Maybe Mikey knows?"
"Uh, we'll just have to find out where he went."
"Hmm. come on, let's go find out where we're sleeping."
Despite the sudden strangeness of it all they felt a thrill of excitement. Their first real fight was tomorrow.
(End chapter)
Yes, this tournament is a nexus homage. For those who came here from the 2012 crowd. The nexus tournament is an event from the 2003 version of tmnt. It started out as a three parter, then made a reappearance in the time ark. If you don't watch any other part of 2003 tmnt, I recommend watching the time sceptor ark, especially Same as it never was. Maybe watch the Battle Nexus episodes first so the time plot makes more sense.
Some people claim the time travel in sainw makes no sense. (Tiny spoiler) I think It makes perfect sense. Donnie went to the future, and the reason his older self was missing was because his younger self skipped to the future instead of growing up. You can't use time travel to skip forward in time to meet your future self for the same reason you can't use a cryogenic freezer to skip forward in time to meet your future self. You need a past self to stay behind and grow up.
End spoiler-
Don't worry- you don't need to have watched 2003 to understand this fic. Just accept the dimensional chalk portal as cannon and move on to the drama.