What up peoplezez
Well, here's the next chapter in the saga of Colin and Nathan's reality jumping adventures. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this saga, read Multiverse Mix-Up so you can get a sense of where we're going
I don't own TMNT or anything Smile- ImTheEndOfAllThatYouSee puts in; I do own my stuff. Nathan belongs to Serenity-in-Virginia
"Can we go, Mom? Please?" Nathan begged.
"Yeah, can we, Anne?" Colin also begged.
They were in their Marriott Hotel room with a spectacular view of Times Square. Nathan's parents had just adopted Colin as their son, and to celebrate, they decided to spend Thanksgiving, which happened to coincide with Colin's 18th birthday this year, in New York City.
"I don't know, boys," Anne hesitated. She was a short woman whom Nathan resembled with the brown hair and hazel eyes. She was a very maternal woman who was very protective over Nathan and now Colin. "New York City – although a very magical place – is very dangerous. Someone could kidnap you two, and we just had acquired Colin into our family".
"And besides," the boys' father Mathew, who looked up from the travel brochure he was reading, said, "we're celebrating our family growing larger. We can't do that if we split up".
Colin, as unhappy as he was, saw the logic in that and said nothing. Nathan, on the other hand, knew his father better than anyone and used that logic against him.
"Well, Colin and I wanted to take the time to bond as brothers," Nate whined. "We've always been best friends, but now Colin is officially a part of this family, he and I want to bond more so we're more than best friends. We can only do that alone".
Mathew rubbed his whiskers and pondered what Nathan said. "When you put it that way..." He turned to his wife. "Anne, what do you think?"
She shook her head. "I still don't like the two out alone in the big city. Last time Nathan and Colin were alone in Saginaw, they went missing for almost a whole day while hiking in the nearby woods."
Colin and Nathan exchanged looks. They knew the real truth behind what had happened (and so did a bunch of anthromorphic animals from another reality), but they knew no one would believe them, and Nathan didn't want his parents to worry more than they had already. They made a cover story of deciding to go hiking in the nearby woods that bordered the county fair but got lost and didn't have any cell phone service to call for help.
Ann thought for a minute. She sighed, "Alright, but only if your cell phones are fully charged. Stay together at all times and stay in Manhattan where you get cell phone service. Keep your cell phones on you at all times. Text or call me or your father in case something happens. You hear me?"
"Yes," Nathan and Colin said in unison.
"Have fun you, too," she said as Nathan and Colin raced to get their coats on and their cell phones in their pockets.
"Bye, boys!" Mathew called out.
"Bye Mom! Bye Dad!" Nathan called back.
"See ya!" Colin yelled.
The boys raced out of their hotel room and down the corridor until they came to an intersecting hallway where the elevators were. The boys took the elevators down to the lobby – a very large room decorated in very warm colors of red and yellow with a ceiling ten stories tall. Colin and Nathan took the escalator down to the first floor of the lobby. They both exited through the revolving door, but by exiting at the same time, they nearly got hit by it. However, they made it out from the warm lobby and into the cold autumn air.
The two spent most of the day hanging out at Central Park playing with a New York Giants Super bowl football they got when they first got there. When night began to fall, they figured it was about time to head back to the hotel. Unfortunately, the idiot driver of the cab they were in somehow dropped them off in a deserted street in the Lower East Side, meaning they had to walk all the way from where they were back to Times Square.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Nathan asked, not liking the run down apartments with foreboding boarded windows that lined the street.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Remember this is the guy who guided us through the Multiverse," Colin said, jerking his thumb at himself.
"And all it took was an all out brawl with a cult and a talking red panda with another Multiverse remote to get us home," Nathan said.
"Shut up. That talking red panda is one of the many versions of me so in a way, I still got us home, and we won that battle and made your girlfriend's universe safe," Colin defended himself.
Nathan rolled his eyes and followed Colin, often looking over his shoulder for some crazy nut job with a gun, wanting to rob them, or any weirdo. He often reminded himself that he was trained in Kung Fu and can take on anyone, but he still felt uneasy. He wondered how Colin felt so relaxed in this area notable for its crime. Maybe Colin had to deal with some of this while living in the foster care system.
"Can you believe it?" Nathan asked.
"Believe what?" Colin asked, confused.
"That after all we've been through – traveling across the Multiverse, inhabiting bodies not our own, fighting deranged cultists, meeting the many universal versions of ourselves – that we are now officially a family," Nathan said
"Still seems hard to believe," Colin said, but he didn't seem too thrilled.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm glad your parents adopted me," Colin said. "I mean finally, I got a family, and they're nothing like my parents. When I told them my interest of pursuing a career in astrophysics, they encouraged me; when I won first place in the school science fair, they congratulated me; when I tutored a kid from a really poor family in science, they were proud of me. My parents would never encourage me or even take interest in my interests and hobbies and helping a person from a low income family do better in life would not have warranted pride but disappointment".
"So what's the big deal?" Nathan asked.
"A part of me is waiting for them to regret their decision and just leave me to fend for myself." Colin shrugged. "I've been shifted from family to family so many times that I don't know what it's like to be really wanted. For now, they're just a loving couple who took pity on me. But while I don't consider them my parents yet, I see you one hundred percent as my brother. I think you're the first person I know who I can truly view as family."
Nathan was both touched and sad at the same time. He couldn't imagine what it's like to not have a family who loves you, but he was proud of himself for being such a good friend and brother to Colin. Nathan casually swung his arm around Colin's shoulders.
"Listen, bro, my parents aren't the type to abandon anyone in their care," he said. "Otherwise, I'd be living on the streets right now."
Colin chuckled. "You got that right, Nate."
"Anyway," Nathan continued, "they love you. Just open your heart and learn to trust them. Give them a chance. I swear they're nothing like your parents."
"Okay," Colin said, grateful for the advice.
Silence passed between them. At first it was comfortable, allowing Colin time to muse over Nathan's words and figure out where they were, but soon it grew to be awkward, or at least for Nathan it did. He did not like the look around here so he pulled out his Tiger's Eye pendant. It was simply a spherical Tiger's Eye gem –smoothed and polished – with a little hook drilled into it and a rope hoop tied to the hook, allowing the head to fit. Tigress gave it to him before he left. She said that the Tiger's Eye is an important gem for her species, allowing one with unlimited patience and the correct focus to achieve goals and succeed like a prowling tiger stalking its prey. Tigress also said that the gem attracts good fortune and draws courage and power to fight negative energy, and right now Nathan needed that. He held the gem in his hands and observed it, thinking of Tigress. He only wore the pendant when he was alone. When he was with others, he kept it in his pocket. Not that he was embarrassed to be seen with it, but to Nathan, the gem's association with Tigress made it too sacred for others to notice and inquire about it. Plus, it saved him the trouble of coming up with a lie to explain where he got it from. And unfortunately, Colin just happened to notice it.
"Is that a Tiger's Eye?" he asked.
Nathan jumped at the sound of Colin's voice. "Uh, yeah, Tigress gave it to me as a way to remember her by".
"I don't think it'll be hard to forget a butt kicking, anthromorphic tiger from another dimension," Colin joked.
Nathan knew Colin was only joking, but he took slight offense to that. Tigress is a very special friend to him. "Hey, she cares about me and so do I."
"I'm just joking, bro," Colin defended. "Hey did you know it can pacify one's heart and restore harmony in one's body, mind and spirit?"
"Yeah, Tigress told me the many magical properties of Tiger's Eye."
"Well, with everything I've suffered through between my parents and the whole adoption thing, maybe you should let me wear it. Perhaps it will help me open my heart to your parents," Colin said.
"Yeah, maybe it will." Of course, Nathan would never let Colin wear the pendant. It was meant for him only by Tigress. "Are you sure you know where we're going? We have to be back at the hotel in five minutes."
"Of course I know where I'm going," Colin reassured Nathan.
"Alright if you say so, but if we get in trouble, I'm blaming you," Nathan muttered.
"Fine".
The two continued down the road when they passed a sewer drain, lid open, blocked off by warning barrels and roadblocks. There was no one working on the drain.
"Guess the construction workers are done for the day," Colin guessed.
"Yup," Nathan agreed. "Wonder what's down there."
"I don't know. Let's check it out." The two boys walked over to the sewer drain and looked over from behind the roadblocks. "See anything?" Colin asked.
"No it's too dark." Nathan leaned closer. However, this was a big mistake. His pendant slipped between his fingers, fell, and rolled into the open sewer drain.
"My Tiger's Eye!" Nathan yelled, stepping over the roadblocks.
"What are you doing?" Colin asked.
"Getting my pendant back," Nathan said as he got in the drain and held onto the ladder while bracing himself for the putrid serer stench.
"Are you crazy? You might slip and plummet to your death. It has to be at least a thirty feet down to concrete," Colin snapped.
"I'll hold on tight." Nathan wasn't about to lose the only thing of Tigress he possessed.
Colin sighed. "Hold on. I'm coming with you." Colin stepped over the roadblock. Nathan climbed down to allow room for Colin to get down. As soon as the stench reached Colin's nose, he exclaimed, " Oh God, it smells like homeless people down here."
"What do you expect?" Nathan gawked. "It's a sewer."
"They could at least put an air freshener down here," Colin muttered.
Nathan rolled his eyes. "Come on let's go."
The two boys steadily climbed down the ladder, careful not to slip.
"Ugh, it feels like we've been going down forever!" Colin complained after what was really only five minutes. "Its pitch black in here too. How do you expect to find your pendant in the dark?"
"Sense of touch," Nathan said.
Colin could only think of the horrors down on the bottom of the sewer that would definitely not be worth touching. He shuddered at the thought of touching human waste.
When Nathan was only ten feet from the ground, he noticed a weird, blue light at the bottom. On closer inspection, he saw that it was some weird blue swirling mass.
"Hey Colin," he asked, "What's that?"
Colin looked over his shoulder. "Looks like some kind of portal."
Nathan looked up at him. "How would you know what a portal looks like?"
"Hey, I was the one that got us the Multiverse remote, remember?" Colin retorted.
"A blue portal never showed up when we dimension traveled," Nathan countered.
"Okay fine, I got the idea that it looks like a portal from watching science fiction and fantasy shows," Colin groaned.
"You think it has anything to do with the Tiger's Eye?" Nathan asked.
"Doubt it. Tiger's Eyes aren't supposed to do that," Colin said.
After stepping down to solid concrete, the duo slowly made their way toward the portal. The pendant was nowhere in sight, which only made them feel uneasy about the whole thing.
"Where do you think it goes?" Nathan asked.
"I don't know," Colin said. "And honestly I don't want to know. Let's get out of here before we somehow have a repeat of what happened over the summer".
"But we can't just leave," Nathan snapped. "We've got to find the pendant".
"Nathan, I know how much that thing means to you, but we agreed we wouldn't jump into this sort of thing again," Colin said. "We barely survived our little trip to the Kung-Fu Panda world. I don't ever want to know what'll happen if we continue to stay anywhere near this thing".
Suddenly, weird tendril like object shot out of the portal and wrapped themselves around the boy's legs, tripping them up and dragging them toward the portal. The two tried desperately to get free, but nothing they did seemed to do anything.
"For the record, I blame you for this, Nate," Colin yelled.
Then, with one final tug, the two boys were dragged into the portal, disappearing off to who knows where. Then, with a flash, the portal closed, leaving the Tiger's Eye pendant to clatter on the ground.
Dang, those two just have no luck with that portal thing
As I've said before, if you want to get the best detail on how they got to this point, check out Multiverse Mix-Up
As usual, R&R plz
NITRO PSYCHO OUT!