CHAPTER FOUR

Upon docking the captive space shuttle Morse at the Sun-Sealer space ring, Rocksteady and Bebop set about forcing themselves into the craft. Using a torch they were able to cut open a small hole in the hull and step forward into it. Lester tried to attack them while they were holding Donner and Harkens are gunpoint, but Bebop swiftly caught sight of him and grabbed him by the throat, eventually slinging him over his shoulder and into the two helpless astronauts. "Alright, no more surprises" Rocksteady bellowed as the Foot Soldiers entered the craft to take the trio prisoner, "One more shot at taking us on and we'll be giving you a shot straight into the hot centre of this here bun"

As the three were being led away by the Foot Soldiers, Rocksteady caught sight of Harkens' book, he decided to take a gander at it. Harkens spotted what he was doing and tried to stop him.

The notion of his cold-hearted fowl tempered captor picking up his son's possessions was too much for Harkens on an emotional level. Donner and Lester had to restrain him.

"Aw, what's the matter? Afraid I'll doodle some moustaches on all yer little characters?" Rocksteady taunted."Sorry, but in this class, I'm the one that says "sit in the corner", take them to the cells" he instructed to the Foot Soldiers. They obeyed, Rocksteady continued to flick through the pages.

"Say, this is mighty strange" he said, "It's like a fairy tale account of stuff we're doing, all this stuff about the sun being cool and all"

"Yeah, but that's because the boss fired that weird sun storage gadget into the heart of the thing and it's absorbing all the heat" Bebop replied. "We'd better tell the boss the prisoners are secure"

"Heh, they're "Prisoners of the Sun", I think that's another kids book title...weird isn't it?" Rocksteady said, Bebop wasn't interested, instead opting to contact Shredder, who was still at the Technodrome making preparations to head over to the space ring with Krang in a transport module.

"Prisoners are cooling off in a nice warm cell boss" Bebop said, not sure if what he just uttered made coherent sense as a sentence, but opted to go with the flow.

"Excellent" Shredder replied, "I'm just about to make it very public. Once I've made my request clear, Krang and I will be on our way, in the meantime, sit there and keep to do nothing but monitor the solar storage unit, we can't afford for that to malfunction at any stage, or you'll be all fried to a crisp"

"It's alright boss, we got us a book to keep us company" Rocksteady said, pointing to the book. Shredder glanced at the title, "Who Sings the Sun to Sleep? Well, I always knew you'd find your level of literacy genius one day Rocksteady"

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At the Turtles' lair, Lotus had made herself at home, sipping on some soothing herbal tea supplied by Splinter, and surrounded by three of the Turtles, the most inquisitive of which was Leonardo.

"You think the sun is in some kind of danger?" he said, "I know it's not been at it's warmest in recent weeks, but I'm a little confused, what makes this any different than a typical cool summer period?"

"Recently I began to learn a great deal from a sect of wise monks hidden away on the Hawaiian islands" Lotus explained, "They were descendents of the last remaining tribes to embrace and worship the ancient sun gods of centuries old, they believed that a great and bountiful age of summer was coming, but for many years they had no real clue that could pinpoint them to when this would occur, and then, a book was published, "Who Sings the Sun to Sleep?" a fable intended for children, but the monks saw its' publication as an immediate sign of the impending endless age, and began making estimations, tracking down every known woman expecting a child to fall on the day that the age is expected to begin. Finally, they succeeded, tracking the expected arrival to somewhere in this city, and charged me, the youngest and most eager of their students, with the delivery of the latest and most valuable solar disc, and place it on the first child to bring in the days ahead"

"Solar disc?" Donatello asked. Lotus dug deep into her pocket and produced a greyish stone circle, images of the sun carved on it's front, she turned it over to reveal there were numbers and words carved in the stone as well: 12:15, and "Sinai"

"Sinai" Leonardo said, recognizing the word. He started to scramble about the lair, looking for something. The Turtles continued to question Lotus.

"So who were those shady dudes that were hounding you?" Michelangelo asked.

"Not all of the monks from the sect believe we deserve such wondrous hospitality from the gods" Lotus revealed, "There are splinter groups who wish nothing more than the age of average to continue, to punish humanity for all our wrongdoings over the centuries, and they will stop at nothing to enforce their pessimistic view, they are attempting to stop me at every turn, they attacked the temple just before the monks could tell me what the strange markings on the disc meant, they urged me to go on while they did all they could to distract the faction, all I was given in terms of information was that the child would be born somewhere in this city"

"Well you should be pretty safe down here" Donatello assured her, Lotus wasn't so sure.

"I'm afraid I cannot take that chance" she said, "Prior to making my way to New York, I was tagged with a mystical aura that enables the splinter group to track my whereabouts, they will only give up the chase when I have completed my task, as it will mean true failure on their part, I must continue with my journey, and that means keeping you out of harm's way"

"I think you may need us on this Lotus" said Leonardo, coming back with a copy of "Lone Pup and Cubby" in his hand, "Tell me something, who was the author that wrote that book you were talking about?" he asked. "P.H Wolfhammer" Lotus replied. Leonardo opened up the book and showed Lotus the list of prior works by the author at the back, included amongst them was "Who Sings the Sun To Sleep?"

"Remarkable" Lotus said, "It cannot be coincidence that you would have a book by the same author"

"Oh sure it could, he's only the most talked about novelist in the land right now" Michelangelo said, "People always gravitate to greatness"

"But the situation is even greater, too great to dismiss as anything but destiny Michelangelo" Leonardo said, "Anyway, the point is, I think the numbers and that word on the disc are connected to things I've found while reading this book, there's a character called "Sinai" in it, and the numbers, well, they might be referring to something also contained in the book"

"Might does not always make right Leonardo" said Splinter, "It is possible that in your eagerness to jump to conclusions, you will inevitably jump into a rabbit hole fit for Alice"

"You said yourself we should look into the meanings in stories Master" Leonardo countered, and grabbed Lotus' hand, "Come on, let's see if we can track down where this kid is and get things toasty again".

As the two made their way out of the lair, Splinter was left wondering just how well his words are sometimes interpreted.

"Leonardo's got a point Master" Donatello said.

"It appears I have provided my student with very dangerous advise" Splinter admitted.

Lotus and Leonardo rushed out of the lair, in the process they met Raphael, who was coming back from his errands uptown. Leonardo quickly waved to him, Lotus did the same, Raphael watched them both go down the tunnel

"I know I went out for a Chinese, but that's really pushing it" he said.