Disclaimers: Not mine… poop…
Author Notes: Yeah, so much for a short story posted throughout October, completely failed at that. Where the shell has these last few months gone? It can't already be the beginning of January!
Shenza monchenso and Peechy-Keen you both get cookies.
Anastasia and Alexander are based both in personality and general appearance after Nina and Alexander from Fullmetal Alchemist. It actually wasn't intentional. I was sitting on my couch, drafting this story out and just happened to be watching Brotherhood. I wanted to have a little girl and a dog as side characters in this story and bam! Inspiration.
Oh, fair warning, lots of hurting. From everyone. If you didn't hate the shadow man by now you will by the end of the chapter.
Wonderland
Chapter Two
I ride, I play, I see,
There doesn't seem to be any fee,
There doesn't seem to be anyone here,
There is something but its fear,
I'm trapped in Wonderland.
The thing slowly reached around and adjusted its other cuff, the fingers shaping like they had earlier, still glaring evenly at him.
Mikey started to lower his hands from his mouth slowly, completely unaware that he had brought them up in the first place. His eyes were fixated on the thing standing before him. "What the shell?" he whimpered as he took a step back. Michelangelo had faced ninjas, gang members, monsters of several kinds, other dimensional beings and even elementally bound sorcerers but there was something about this thing that made it even more frightening then all those previous encounters put together. He gulped and took another step back as the shadow man calmly flicked his fingers out towards him.
There was a loud scrap and Mikey jolted as he felt something on his plastron. He glanced down at his chest and saw a deep scratch going from one side of his plastron to the other. "Huh?" he said reaching up to lightly trace it with his left hand. It was new and it was in a mirrored position of where the shadow man had flicked his claws. "Ummm… Seriously?" he looked up in time to see the shadow man flick his wrist again, this time in more of a downward direction than horizontal.
Michelangelo hissed and jolted in pain as a thin trickle of blood well down the length of his right arm from shoulder to wrist.
"Oh frag…"
Mikey looked away from his arm just in time to see the shadow man swipe in his general direction again. He ducked just in time and instead of getting a thin cut across in face he felt the tails of his bandana jerk. The two ends fluttered to the ground behind him but he was more concerned as another stinging jerk of pain burned on his calf. He jumped off to the side avoiding another slash and watched as the dirt was shoved aside in a deep scratch where he had been standing.
He danced off to the one side, hissing as the familiar scratching feeling ran the length of his thigh. Mikey's left hand dipped into one of the hidden pockets in his belt and with a well-practiced flick of his wrist, released three surikens at the shadow man. Two hit either of the shadow's shoulders and the third ricocheted off the white mask.
The thing let out a high pitch whine that escalated into a screech that had Mikey covering his ears. Even as he winced in pain, his jaw dropped in horror as the shadow arched back and twist in an entirely unhuman way. As its body undulated grossly with its scream Mikey staggered backwards several more steps and stumbled against one of the game counters. The screech continued and the thing dipped its mask face down and threw its arms open wide. The screech changing in pitch to deep octave making it seem more like a roar.
"You… don't like your mask being hit do you?" Mikey asked in a weak voice as he watched the shadow man lean back only to lunge forward.
Mikey screamed and leaped away from the counter, tucking into a roll as he went. The counter and tent that he had been in front of were slashed apart by furious claws. Mikey had to duck several smaller pieces as they flew towards him. The creature screamed again and turned back to him, throwing the largest piece of the counter at him in the same movement even though Mikey was positive it hadn't been touching it in anyway.
Mikey side stepped the counter as it sailed by and caught one of the white balls that fell from it. Lining up like a pro baseball pitcher, Mikey set his form and drew his arm back. "Batter up!" he yelled as he threw a fast ball, catching the mask dead center in the middle of the mask.
There was a dull 'thunk' as the baseball connected and, as if it was smoke, the shadow man vanished. The mask fell to ground were it wobbled for a moment before laying still again, as if it was still laying in the middle of the path. Michelangelo relaxed his stance, the fairgrounds going back to as silent as they were when he first arrived. If it wasn't for the demolished tent and the stinging scratches on his torso it was as if nothing had ever happened.
He sighed in relief as he glanced himself over quickly to make sure that the scratches were just that and not growing in size or smoking or something else even more freaky. Mikey sighed and glanced up and down the path between the rows of tents he was in, hoping that the little girl and her dog hadn't run into whatever the shell that mask thing was. He rubbed at his arms as a chilled draft seem to run down the back of his shell. Something really weird was going on ever since he left the sewers.
He upped the weirdness level when he noticed that the mask was gone.
"What the shell?" he breathed as he took a step towards where it had been before deciding against it. Weird events (that couldn't all be blamed on Doritios), check. Random cold drafts, check. Creepy settings, check. A strange thing with supernatural speed, strength and all around freakiness, check. Michelangelo whined as he looked about with apprehension. "It figures," he whimpered as he spun around to check the area behind him as he began to back away from everything. "It's Halloween night and I j-just had to step into a horror movie."
"Please tell me this is a dream. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. It has to be a-" he had been looking around himself the entire time he had been repeating his mantra trying not to let anything get behind him. Things always attacked from behind the main character in the movies. A flash of white at about head level, was what caught his eye and made him pause in repeating himself. He whined again as he looked and saw the shadow man standing near a set of tents about thirty feet from him.
The shadow raised a hand and flicked at its cuff link calmly.
Mikey promptly screamed.
He was moving before he was even thinking, sliding the top of his foot underneath a piece of wood and flipping it up high enough for him to snatch out of the air. He threw it with an exaggerated flick of his wrist causing the piece of wood to spin through the air as if it was a Frisbee. It ricocheted off the white mask before the shadow man could even adjust his other cuff. Mikey was prepared to cover his ears for the loud screech and was ready to watch the contorting form with no small amount of spine tingling creeps but the shadow just seemed to dissipate again. Only this time the mask just seemed to vanish into thin air.
"Oh great," Mikey said looking around at the deserted game booths. "This is just what I need. It can vanish." He spun around in a circle worrying his hands together before tentative pulling his nunchakus from his belt. He spun them up to speed as he continued to look around trying to spot the mask as he chewed rigorously on his lip. His over active imagination was proving to be his downfall as it constantly kept giving various movie scenes from all matter of horror movies on what his probably death could be. It was doing nothing to settle his nerves.
A flash of white had him jumping straight up in the air and stumbling away with his landing as the momentum of his nunchakus through him slightly off balance. He managed to catch himself and face the shadow man again, ready to knock the white mask clean off his face, only to blink stupidly at the white rag hanging from a hook inside the tent next to him. He let out a shaky breath and rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand. He was getting worked up over nothing. "I need to calm down…" he muttered to himself and glanced off to his left.
He looked just in time to see the white mask peek around the corner of a tent less than ten feet away.
He didn't even bother screaming this time. A sound that could only be described as a squeak escaped him before he turned and bolted in the opposite direction. Fight or flight reaction kicking in telling him to beat shell out of there. Arms pumping in an opposite pattern as his legs, he ran as fast as he could, clutching his nunchakus like a life line, as he continued blindly forward not caring where he ended up.
He found himself forced to turn a corner when as the path continued away from the corner of the fence. He was now heading in a vague direction towards the large Ferris Wheel which seemed to be somewhere near the middle of the fairgrounds. Mikey glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see the shadow man chasing after him only to see nothing behind him. He slowed to a walk, looking around to see if the masked shadow was just going to appear out of nowhere again.
After a few minutes of just looking around and holding his breath for a few seconds to better hear the area around him, Michelangelo let out a relieved breath. At least he had lost that thing for now. From some of the more shell raising events in the past, he knew better than to stay in one place and began to move again, all but tip toeing down the path as he headed towards the Ferris Wheel.
Mikey listened closely for sounds of pursuit or from anything like a barking dog or screaming child. Anastasia and Alexander where somewhere in the park, he was sure of it, he just had to figure out where they were. Silently, Mikey hoped that they hadn't run into that masked shadow thing. The high pitched scream of fear that came from Annie had him fearing the worst. He only hoped that the girl had managed to somehow run away.
A tingling feeling seemed to run up the back of his spine and Mikey paused for a moment, almost dreading the thought of turning around. He risked a quick peek and then a slightly longer one when he didn't see anything at first. He breathed a sigh of relief and started moving again. He wasn't sure what was worst. Dealing with the shadow man or waiting for him to pop out of nowhere.
Which just so happened to be right in front of him, apparently.
Mikey screamed again as he leaped backwards, a familiar scratching sensation burning across his shoulder. He had been looking forward again when the shadow man seemed to slide out from behind a pole that was much smaller than his mask, let alone the rest of him. He really didn't have a chance to think about that too much before the man was lunging forward, arms opened wide as if he was going to hug Mikey. He had seen way too many vampire movies to assume anything about the hug was going to be pleasant.
Mikey dropped all his weight onto his one foot and spun low on it as he evaded the creature's attack. He ducked underneath its out stretched arm, keeping his own arms in close to his chest as he moved. He rose as he came out of the spin, letting loose one end of his nunchakus' and whipped it around with the full momentum of his movement into the back of the thing's head. If it had been a normal human, Michelangelo would have never pulled off such a move, knowing it could fracture a man's skull into a spider web of cracks. This thing, however, was fair game and the nunchaku sailed right through the black shadowed head and hit the back of the mask with enough force that it sailed down the aisle Mikey had just crept down.
Mikey didn't bother to see what became of the mask after he hit it. Instead he was off and running again as soon as the shadows vanished in another puff of smoke. The creature howled behind him and Mikey felt a chill race over him as if a powerful wind was rushing down the aisle towards him. He didn't dare look back as he ran but instinctively knew that whatever the shadow man had done he couldn't out run it this time. The door to the House of Mirrors was coming up and Mikey scrambled through the open doorway in a rush, hoping that the sudden change of direction would confuse it enough to make it pass by so he could at least gather his wits.
The minute he stepped through the doorway, he stumbled to his knees and everything just seemed to stop. For the first time since entering the fairgrounds, Mikey felt warm. The feeling of being watched that he hadn't noticed before was gone and the strange anxiety driven panic that had been curling itself through his stomach was missing. He glanced back out the door, expecting to see the shadow man looming there but only saw the blank emptiness that he would have expected to see in a creepy desolate fairground. He looked down at his cut and bleeding thigh and then back outside again, it almost seemed brighter in the House of Mirrors than it was outside.
Mikey rose shakily to his feet and walked deeper into the maze, followed by several of his identical twins as they were reflected back to him. He tucked away his 'chucks and rubbed at his face. He felt tired and let his shoulders sag a bit as all the adrenaline seemed to drain out of his body and leave behind nothing but exhaustion. He wanted to take a nap but he knew there was still too much he had to do first.
He had to find Annie and Alexander, figure out how to get them out of the fairgrounds and a better way to avoid the shadow man instead of just hitting and knock the mask off. He reached into his belt and pulled out his shell cell, ready to call in the reinforcements. He was going to need all the help he could get. Pressing the button that would put him through to Leo, Mikey held the phone to his ear and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
He drew the phone back away from his ear and looked at it in puzzlement. He hadn't even heard the line ring through which was weird. He pressed the speed dial for Leo's phone again and watched the phone as if that would make it ring through. Still nothing happened and because he was now looking at it, Mikey realized that the little screen that usually lit up when he tried to get ahold of anyone (and displayed the numbers for important business like the pizza parlor down the street from Apirl and Casey's) stayed black.
He went through all the numbers on his phone (including the pizza parlor) trying to get someone to answer. He even tried the 'shake-it-till-it-works' method and even the 'throw-it-angerily-on-the-floor-then-rush-to-its-side-and-make-sure-it-didn't-break' trick but, no matter what he did, Mikey could get the phone to work. He knew it couldn't be out of battery life. He had charged it earlier that day.
"Oh frag," he mumbled to himself and tucked the useless electronic back in his belt. He really wanted to just throw it on the ground and jump on it a few times but he doubted that Donatello would be particularly happy about that. Bad enough that he had done whatever to make it stay off, Donnie was going to kill him for breaking another phone so soon after the last one. He pushed back his wrist band to check to see how much time passed. Leo would come looking for him if it got late enough.
His watch was still reading eleven eleven at night.
Mikey squeaked and extended his arm out away from him as far as he could as if he was expecting it to attack him. To be honest -with everything that had happened- it wouldn't have surprised him at all if his watch somehow gained a mind of its own and bit him. It would have been the icing on the cake.
After several seconds of his watch remaining as an inanimate object, Mikey tentatively brought his hand back and examined the watch. The hands weren't moving and he didn't hear anything from its internal workings. It was like the watch had just stopped on its own.
Half expecting to see something from a parallel dimension at any moment, Mikey and all of his mirror twins glanced from side to side. As far as he could tell he was still alone but if he remembered right as long as it remained eleven eleven there was a chance of something appearing. Unless that was what the shadow man really was. A denizen of another other plane? It certainly explained a lot. Like how he could bend shadows and slide out from behind objects too small to really hide him.
It took Mikey another minute of looking around to realize that this was the longest it had been since he had seen the shadow man or felt chilled. If this was anything like a standard monster movie then there should be something that the monster had a weakness to. Was the shadow man afraid of its appearance? Mikey and his twins stared at each other as he thought. How the frag was he going to carry around a mirror to test this?
His musing was cut off by a terrified scream that echoed from the open doorway throughout the Hall of Mirrors. Mikey looked towards the door, muttering angrily under his breath as he started for it. He couldn't believe how stupid he was. Anastasia and Alexander were still out there in the fairgrounds. Did the shadow man go after them because he had ducked in here?
Mikey was running out the door even as Alexander started barking. It was something that Mikey was glad for. The constant sound was all he needed to orientate himself on the dog's and hopefully child's location. He pulled his nunchakus' from his belt as he ran, gritting his teeth together when he heard a pain yip come from the dog and Annie yelling for her pet. The dog's barking and growling was growing more vicious but desperate as Mikey drew closure to the sound. A sudden pained 'yip' came from the dog and Mikey put both nunchakus in one hand while pulling a suriken from his belt as he rounded the final corner.
His gated staggered as he took in the scene laid out before him. Anastasia was up against a wall holding her arm. The sight of blood splattered on her check made Mikey's stomach drop down to the sole of his left foot. She was hurt and Alexander wasn't doing much better, the large white dog was splattered with red all across its left side and there was a bright red strip going right across the top of his muzzle. It was no longer the large playful dog he had seen earlier with its lips peeled back in a viscous snarl. The growl he was producing sounded more like one of Raphael's amplified through a megaphone.
And then there was the shadow man, looking completely unharmed, his long talon-like fingers dripping with blood.
It wasn't often that Michelangelo lost his temper. He was a naturally easy going guy that had little in the way qualms about anything or with anyone in the world. That's wasn't saying he couldn't lose his temper. When he did lose his cool his tantrums could put Raph's to shame. There were two relatively easy way to do anger him. The easiest way to do it was to threaten his family. The second easiest way was to harm a child.
"You shell sucking, fragging SLAGHEAD!"
The suriken was out of his hand before he had even finished his sentence, sticking into the side of the shadow man's mask this time around. The creature howled as it reeled backwards from the hit. Mikey didn't give it a chance to recover, sprinting past Alexander with his nunchakus whirling. He all but pounced on the shadow man who was just starting to turn back to them.
The first strike from his nunchuku hit the shadow man about where his collarbone should have been, but swooped through his shadowy body as if there was nothing there. He followed that up with a round house kick to the man's lower torso. He felt a slight resistance on his skin as his leg passed through it but he still hadn't phased the shadow much. Mikey twisted his upper half around, feeling the bite of his fingers' scoring a hit on his arm, shoulder and low on his jaw.
He merely grunted and pressed his attack. Jumping off to one side and ducking down to avoid another thrust, he came up leading with one of his nunchakus held firmly in his fist, drilling the shadow man in the jaw. It was a perfect hit on the chin of the mask, knocking it almost straight up into the air. Mikey watched it as it fell back down, twirling one of his 'chucks as he watched it closely. When it was about at baseball pitch level, he swung intent on making a home run.
Which it was, he hit the mask with enough force he saw it ricochet off the Ferris wheel.
He didn't bother feeling satisfied, at least not yet. He swiftly turned and all but sprinted back to Anastasia who had moved away from the wall and was now sitting next to Alexander. The dog looked like it had all but fallen where it had last stood. Mikey felt a surge of fear as he tucked his nunchukus away and fell to his knees beside them, hands going toward the dog to check and make sure he was still alive.
He got a muffled whine and a small lick from the dog as he looked over his side and nose. Deep but as far as he could tell they weren't life threatening. At least he hoped they weren't. He then turned his attention to Anastasia and was met with a tear streaked and blood splattered face. "Mr. Mikey Turtle," she said with a hiccup in her voice as her lip trembled. It was obvious by the way she was curling her arm to her stomach that something was wrong with it. Mikey was betting that it was broken. "I'm scared," another tear rolled down her cheek.
"Don't be," he said scooping her up against his chest in a loose hug. "Everything is going to be okay now." He was careful not to squeeze her too hard, worried about her arm and any other injuries she may have sustained that he hadn't noticed right away. He slide back and took her small shoulders in either hand, "You can trust me. I won't let that thing get near you again."
She gave him a timid smile and reached over for her dog, "Or Alexander?"
Mikey nodded his head with confidence and determination, "Or Alexander."
That won him a small smile despite the tears and grief marring the little girl's face. He opened his mouth about to say something else when an ungodly howl that turned into and ear splitting shriek echoed throughout the park. Anastasia had covered her ears and had sunk into the uninjured side of her pet, who in turned whined and tried to curl around her. Mikey looked towards the sounds of the cry knowing that the shadow man was preparing to come back.
"Annie," he said urgently, scooping the girl up. "Hold onto my neck and don't let go." The girl did so with a little more gusto that Mikey had thought, "Urk! Not that tight!"
Michelangelo waited onto the girl eased up a bit before standing. "Come on, Alexander," he called to the dog as he started to walk away intent on getting them back to the house of mirrors.
"Alexander?" Annie said after a moment then squeezed Mikey's neck. "Mr. Mikey Turtle, Alexander isn't following us!"
He turned, holding the girl against his plastron to see the large white dog was exactly where they had left him. His head was up and he looking at the two of them with large sorrowful eyes. Mikey wondered if he was feeling what his brothers' felt when he gave them the sad puppy look. "Alexander come," he said and patted his hip. "Come on boy. Let's go."
Mikey had to give it to the dog. He tried to obey. The large white body trembled as the dog tried to stand and it was as it lifted one of its front legs to take the first step towards Mikey that the opposite front leg folded and the dog landed on the ground with a grunt. Anastasia's arms tightened around his neck as she whimpered her pet's name, new tears starting to track down her cheeks. The dog lifted its head, whining right back.
Another shriek spilt the air, causing Anastasia's grip to tighten even more as she huddled against Mikey's body.
He knew it was stupid, crazy even, but he just couldn't leave the dog there. Alexander had done everything he could to protect Annie and if he left him there –because he was sure the shadow man who kill him- Michelangelo knew he wouldn't be able to look the now out right crying girl in the eyes or at himself in a mirror for that matter. He rushed back to the dog and scooped it up against his chest, pinning Annie between them.
"Shell, you're heavy dog," he grunted and turned the other way. "Stop squirming," for the dog was, which was making it that much harder to hold onto him. Master Splinter was always challenging them to carry extra weight when go through there katas but that was nothing like carrying a little girl and a large dog around in his arms. Especially with the girl hugging his neck tighter and tighter and a dog that obviously didn't like to be held. His biceps and triceps were screaming at him before he had even left the alley where he had found them.
Laden down as much as he was, Mikey wasn't surprised to feel that chill from before coming back as the wind seemed to howl. He tightened his grip on the dog and girl as he forced himself to run as fast as he could. If he could carry around Leonardo's dead weight then he could sure as shell carry around a little girl and her dog. At least that was what he kept telling himself as he went.
He could feel that same chilled wind rushing up behind him and this time he noticed that even the shadows of the things he ran past were trembling. "He's coming," Annie was hiccupping in his ear. "He's coming." Mikey didn't need to ask who she was talking about. He was huffing, sweat rolling down off his brow, but somehow Annie's whispering, panic sobs gave him the strength to dig deeper and put on an extra burst of speed to reach the Hall of Mirrors.
He practically dove through the doorway. Just as before the feeling of being watched was gone as was the anxiety driven panic vanished as if stepping through the doorway had swept everything away. They were safe. A screech came from outside even though Mikey didn't see anything in the doorway. It was high pitched but sounded more like a wail of frustration than any of the other previous screams that the shadow man had let out.
Mikey backed away from the doorway, watching it just in case he was wrong and the shadow man could come into the house of mirrors. His arms were trembling with the strain of holding up both Anastasia and Alexander but he refused to put them down. His shell hit a wall and he braced himself there for a moment, watching the doorway, waiting.
After what seemed like an hour of watched the door and feeling the warm safe like feeling that the hall seemed to project, Mikey slid down onto the floor with both the girl and the dog in his lap. He was trembling from exertion but his heart rate was starting to even out and he took a deep, calming breath that came out more like a sigh. They were all safe for now. He looked down at the two in his lap, Annie was still sobbing into his neck and the doleful eyes of the dog regarded him sadly. He reached out and sratched behind one of the dogs ears as his other hand moved to rub up and down the little girl's back.
"It's okay Annie. Good boy, Alexander. Don't worry you two, we're safe here."
He hoped that he wasn't lying to them.
"We're safe."
