Chapter 4 – Cupcanatello

"Is she dead?"

"No! It's okay, she's going to be fine."

"Pie?"

"Shh, look, I think she's waking up."

"Stand back guys, give her a second."

Combined voices whirred in my mind, not one of them belonging to any one person. I racked my brain trying to remember what had happened, but everything was jumbled. I vaguely remembered the storm and came to the hasty conclusion that I must have banged my head. A hazy image of the turtles was coming back to me in a strange, half-forgotten dream. I made a quick mental note to tell Shelle about it later.

"Shelle?" I croaked, my hand searching in the air for her. She took my hand and squeezed.

"I'm here. Are you okay?"

I nodded slowly and chanced a peek through my left eye. Her face came into focus, but looked different like she wasn't quite human.

The rush of memories suddenly consumed me like a tsunami, filling every crevice of my mind and making it whole once again. I snapped open both my eyes and stared wildly at Shelle. It was no dream. This was really happening and I fought the urge not to pass out once again.

"It- It wasn't a dream…?" I mumbled with just enough volume for Shelle to comprehend me. She tightened her grip on my hand and broke our eye contact to gaze at the figures surrounding me. One by one they came into focus, my jaw dropped and I took in my friends' features.

Directly on front of me stood Donatello; his agape mouth mirroring mine. He was the most logical of the turtles, and even though he'd seen some incredible things in his 17 years, this was more than likely one of the more bizarre scenarios.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the youngest of the brothers, Michelangelo, stood next to Donnie with a big grin plastered all over his face. The situation obviously brought him great joy. Being the goofy one of the group, Mikey didn't need to grasp the complexity of the scene before him; he just accepted that we were there.

The other two faces staring down at me were equally baffled, tainted with a dash of concern. Raphael, the irrational one, who focused solely on the physical side of things, looked down at me with a half smirk. This only told me that even though he was confused as to how we'd materialised on the ship, he was more motivated by the fact that I'd passed out. And he looked most amused by this.

The eldest, and leader, Leonardo, although obviously perplexed, had the most concern etched on his face. He was the first to talk after my realisation that this world was, in fact, real.

"Pie… What happened? How did you get here?" He looked extremely uneasy, unable to look me directly in the eye, and I had a suddenly burst of anxiety that they didn't want us there. His expression snapped to that of panic, and he began backpedalling as if he'd read my mind. "Not that I meant that I don't want you guys here… I just don't understand why… how… this happened…"

I smiled up at my friend. As with Shelle, I'd only ever spoken to the turtles through my computer, and even then, I'd been convinced that they were humans posing as our beloved characters. This was something that I knew I would have to address sooner or later, but at this moment it didn't feel appropriate.

"We don't know either. I mean, there was a storm, it went really bright… Then we turned up here," Shelle explained to the puzzled turtles. Donnie suddenly piped up, placing his three fingered hand to his chin.

"Hmm, it seems as though the storm that you're talking about somehow opened up a gateway to our universe," he muttered more to himself than us. "What were you doing right before the storm struck?"

"Oh oh! I know!" Mikey chirped, waggling his hand in the air like a child in a classroom. He thrusted his laptop at Donnie. "They were talking to me. See?" He pointed enthusiastically at the screen at our last reblog of his post where we'd been having a hilarious conversation about unicorns.

"Hmm," Donnie seemed to regress further into his mind, eyes glazing over as he read over the post. "Perhaps that- but no ,that would be crazy. Hmm. I need to run some tests." He wandered off with Mikey's laptop under his arm, mumbling incoherently to himself.

I looked up at Leo, who shrugged. "You get used to him acting like that," he reassured me. "Come on, let's go and get you something to eat and drink." Leo offered his hand to me and I graciously took it. I was pleasantly surprised at just how strong he was for his size. At 5'4" Shelle and I weren't exactly giants, however compared to the turtles, we sure were taller. Except Donnie, who was the only one who looked down on us, the turtles were considerably smaller than us, but obviously made up for it in strength.

I found that I was severely dehydrated from the teleportation, and my stomach growled like a ravenous lion. Shelle appeared equally distressed, and we smiled weakly at each other as Leo and Mikey guided us to the think-a-food-machine. It was completely surreal. Something we'd only ever seen in the TV show and in pictures had suddenly come to life before our very eyes, and now we were lucky enough to test it out. We knew how it worked, in theory, but the act of actually having a meal appear just with thoughts was unfathomable.

Mikey noticed our nervous glances at each other and instantly explained what to do in a simple and understandable way.

"It's so so easy! You just place this here," he strung an odd device over first Shelle's head then mine, and in one swift movement pushed us both into the small cubicles at the station. "Now you just think about what you want to eat!" He sang out, performing a perfect pirouette behind us.

"Okay…" Shelle and I said in unison.

My mind felt blank. I was so hungry, but nothing seemed to be settling enough for me to actually think about what I wanted to eat. What was I in the mood for? Sweet? Savoury? It had to be something I'd eaten before, so that I could visualise a good enough memory of it for the think-a-food machine to replicate it. I still wasn't sure exactly how it worked, but made a mental note to ask Donnie about it later. My mind began to wander, amused at the initial reaction to send Donnie an ask on Tumblr about it, before it dawned on me that I could ask him in person. What a strange thought. Before I could stop myself, I began a train of thought back to the time one of my Tumblr friends posted an image of Donatello on a cupcake naming it "Cupcanatello". I chuckled to myself, lost in thought, when suddenly the machine I was attached to made a loud ping, and I snapped my eyes open.

"Well this is awkward…"

My nose caught the scent of newly baked dough and a sweet waft of icing. Sitting in a little pile directly on front of my face were 6 beautifully crafted cupcakes, all sporting various pictures of Donatello's face. My eyes widened as I gawped at the cakes. My immediate reaction was to try and hide them, but Mikey was too fast. He scooped up the cupcakes and examined each one with vigour.

"Oooh Pie! What on earth were you thinking about?!" He giggled, biting into one of Donnie's faces. Shelle chuckled softly next to him, tucking into her perfect plate of chicken parmesan.

"That's different…" came the voice of a girl.

We both recognised it instantaneously and almost staved our necks when we turned to look at her. There she stood, her smile engulfing her whole face. Her pose was telling us that she was holding back the urge to fling herself at us, but the slight hesitation from the hand placed on her hip showed an underlying apprehension. To ease this small worry, we both unseated ourselves and threw our arms around her, enveloping her in a huge group hug.

"I can't believe this!" She exclaimed, albeit muffled from the contact. She pulled her head back for air and continued, "when Leo told me what had happened, I didn't want to believe it. Get my hopes up, you know?" She beamed, "but here you both are! This is incredible!"

Shelle and I were both attempting to talk, but all that came out were garbled sobs of excitement. April clung to us tightly, echoing our rambling weeping. "This is even better than I ever imagined it!"

I nodded against Shelle's shoulder, my wet eyes staining her top. The hug lasted a few more minutes and when we all broke off we were met by the dumbfounded faces of all four turtles and Casey.

"Women!" Muttered Casey, which warranted a glare from April.