THE LION, THE CAT AND THE TURTLES

Based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

and The Chronicles of Narnia
by C. S. Lewis

PROLOGUE

Splinter looked sharply up at the sound of footsteps from outside, worry and disappointment etched on his furry face.

Only three pairs of footsteps -- that meant that they hadn't found him. Or, even worse, that they had found him, but... Splinter raised himself and hurried over to the entrance just in time to see the panel door slide aside and three weary-looking mutant Turtles come trudging in.

"My sons..." said Splinter. There was almost no point in completing the question.

It was Donatello who spoke up first, leaning against his bo staff and looking about ready to collapse. "Sorry, Master Splinter. We looked everywhere we could think of. No sign of him."

"And we musta searched the entire sewer," said Raphael, who looked about ready to attack something.

"And April and Casey haven't seen him either," Michelangelo added. "They said they'd keep an eye out for 'im, but..."

Splinter let out a heavy breath. "Then it is as I feared," he said. "Leonardo is gone."

And so it seemed. The day before, Leonardo had gone out on a solo patrol, promising Donatello that he'd check up on the sewer security system and see if there were any parts that needed maintenance or repair.

That was the last either of them had seen of him.

It had taken some time before they started to worry about him in earnest. After all, Leonardo was more than capable of taking care of himself, and things had been quiet lately, with no notable enemy activity. But then, some time around the afternoon, Splinter -- who had been in the process of making a cup of tea for himself -- had suddenly been attacked by a strong sensation that something was happening, something strange and possibly dangerous, and that Leonardo was right in the middle of it. The feeling had only lasted for a few seconds, but had still nearly overwhelmed him and caused him to lose his teacup.

Worried, Splinter had sent Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael out to look for their brother, while he himself remained behind in case he should come back on his own and need help. But the night had passed, and so had most of the following day, and Leonardo had not shown up.

Repeated attempts at reaching him spiritually through intense meditation had proved unsuccessful. Once, Splinter had thought he could sense a glimpse of Leonardo, but it had vanished as soon as it had appeared, leaving behind only a curious sensation of... displaced time.

"What do you think happened to him, Master?" Michelangelo had gone to sit down on the couch, and in the process waking his cat, Klunk, who had been sleeping there for the better part of an hour.

"I do not know, Michelangelo," said Splinter, doing nothing to hide the feeling of worry he knew all his sons were sharing. "I fear it may be enemy activity." He paused only for a moment before making up his mind. "You are all exhausted, my sons. Try to get a few hours' rest. In the morning, we will contact all our friends and allies, and ask for their assistance. Meanwhile, I shall try reaching Leonardo through the astral plane again."

"I'm gonna help," said Raphael immediately.

"You should sleep, Raphael," said Splinter.

"I'm not gonna sleep when Leo might be in danger!" Raphael snapped.

"You will be of no use to him if you wear yourself out!" Splinter snapped back, but then regretted the harsh tone and continued, much more gently: "Please, Raphael. Rest assured; we will find Leonardo, but for now you must sleep!"

Raphael grumbled, but didn't argue. He just turned around and walked off to his room, pausing only briefly to punch the wall beside his bedroom door before he vanished inside.

"He's just worried, you know," said Donatello, turning to Splinter. "We all are."

"Yeah," said Michelangelo, who had lifted Klunk up and was now concentrating more on petting the cat than anything else -- it was, Splinter thought, probably more of an attempt at comforting himself than Klunk. "It's not like Leo to just vanish like that without a single word."

"I know, Michelangelo," Splinter answered softly. "I just pray that he is all right."

After his sons had gone to bed, Splinter once again settled down to meditate, but he had only just sat down when Klunk -- apparently feeling that he was owed more attention after Michelangelo had left -- came up to him to lie in his lap.

Worried though he may be, the old rat couldn't help but smile. Michelangelo was definitely spoiling Klunk. But then, a sewer was hardly the ideal place for a cat to live, even a stray alley cat like Klunk had been, and Michelangelo seemed like he felt he should make it up to the cat by pampering him a little extra.

It wasn't the easiest thing to meditate with a cat in your lap, but as the father of four occasionally very rowdy teenagers, Splinter had long since learned to meditate in less-than-ideal circumstances. He took a few deep breath and closed his eyes, making himself relax and let go of his worries to reach the necessary state of calm.

Time seemed to slow down to a halt as the physical world began to fade around him... and then, to his surprise, Splinter felt an almost physical change in the room around him, quite unlike anything he had experienced during meditations before. Even without looking, he had the definite feeling that his surroundings widened and cleared, that everything around him grew brighter, and that the air he was breathing in gradually changed from that of the underground lair to the fresh, cool air of an open landscape.

He managed, just, to refrain from opening his eyes and stare, fearing that if he went too quick with this he'd simply wake up and find that nothing had changed, but in the end temptation proved too great, and he risked a peek.

He was sitting on a grass-covered hill under a clear, blue sky. The landscape around him stretched out far and wide; rolling hills of green rising gently against the sky's vibrant blue. Everything was silent and peaceful around him; the only movement in the landscape being the gentle movement of the grass as a soft breeze ran playfully through it.

"Mrrrow?" said Klunk from his lap. Splinter looked down and saw to his amazement that even though everything else had vanished around him, the cat was still there, looking around with mild interest.

"How curious," Splinter murmured, and found that his voice sounded quite clear and strong; much more so than he had intended it. It was as if he and Klunk had been physically transported elsewhere, though he couldn't say exactly how this had happened or why, and though his instincts said to panic, he forced himself to stay calm. There was no saying what this might be -- some strange new plane he'd accidentally visited, or just an extremely vivid dream -- but it didn't seem like a hostile place, and panicking wouldn't help.

Klunk didn't seem concerned at all. He just stretched himself and jumped out of Splinter's lap in order to pounce on the grass, twitching his tail and batting at invisible or imagined insects.

Splinter looked at him for a few moments. "I suppose you cannot tell me where we are," he said.

The cat didn't answer, of course. No matter how smart Michelangelo would brag that his cat was, Klunk was still just an ordinary cat and had neither the intelligence nor the capacity to speak.

Splinter was about to raise himself, to get a better look at this strange landscape, when he suddenly realized that they weren't alone. Someone was sitting beside him, and had been there for quite some time without making so much as a sound, and for some unfathomable reason, Splinter's keen senses hadn't picked up on that until now.

Slowly, he turned his head to look... and pulled back in startled surprise as he saw a huge lion, bigger than any animal he had ever seen before, sitting beside him and watching him with a solemn and regal face.

Splinter's first instinct was to flee, to grab Klunk and run, but something in the lion's expression stopped him.

"If you flee," said the lion calmly (and Splinter was surprised to find that he wasn't at all surprised that it could talk), "you will never find your son."

Klunk had stopped pouncing the grass, and oddly enough walked straight up to the lion with his tail erect, looking up at it the way he used to do when greeting anyone he knew. The lion -- no, the Lion; somehow it didn't seem right not to capitalize the word -- bowed its enormous head and touched the cat's forehead briefly and gently with its tongue before looking back at Splinter.

Splinter looked back at it, deciding that whatever this Lion might or might not do, it was obviously not going to attack. He knew that the various planes of existence were inhabited by all manners of spirits, some of whom could take on the forms of animals and act as spirit guides, and this lion may be one of them. "Do you know where my son is, master Lion?" he said.

"I do," the Lion answered. Its voice was soft and powerful at the same time, like a flowing river, but with an underlying rumble that could have been a growl, or a purr. "Your son has been called away. He now finds himself in the land of Narnia, far away from his own world and his own time."

"I see," said Splinter. Things were beginning to make a little more sense -- Splinter was no stranger to the idea of travelling between worlds, and the sensations he had felt earlier could very well have been a warning that Leonardo was being taken to a different world. "Please, master Lion... where is this world, this Narnia, and who called him there?"

"Someone who needed his help," said the Lion. "Someone who had the ability to call him through space and time in order to aid them in their hour of need. But know this: Time, even now, is flowing in a different path. Once, there were many doorways leading between your world and the world of Narnia. But they are almost all gone by now, and even as we speak the very few that are left are failing and fading, and will soon be no more."

Splinter felt a surge of despair grasp his heart. "Then is there no way of going after him?" he asked.

The Lion paused, and then spoke again, but now another undertone had entered its deep voice; an undertone of sadness. "I understand your grief, my friend," it said. "You miss your son, and I... I miss my daughter. She turned her back on me many years ago, and I have sometimes feared that she would never return to me. Nevertheless," he added, looking at Splinter, "she is one of the few in your world who can help you get to Narnia and find your son. She has the ability to create a final doorway, though she may not remember, or choose to remember, how. You must seek her out and convince her to help you."

"How can I find your daughter then?" said Splinter. He was beginning to realize that this Lion was not merely a guiding spirit belonging to this realm, but... something more, something he couldn't quite place words around.

"When she was young," said the Lion, "she lived in London, England. Now, however, she is old, and for the last twenty years she has lived in the very city that you and your sons dwell underneath. Her name is Susan Palmer, formerly Susan Pevensie."

"Your daughter is human?" said Splinter, a little surprised.

For the first time during their entire conversation, the Lion smiled. "Your sons are turtles. Yet they are no less your sons."

And, maybe because he had seen the lion smile, Splinter suddenly understood. He got to his feet and bowed low. "We will find your daughter, master Lion," he said. "My sons and I... we will do everything in our power to convince her into returning to you, as well as helping us find Leonardo."

"Good," the Lion rumbled. "But she must do so of her own free will. You cannot force her. However, I will send with you something to help her remember me." Once again, it bowed its head and nudged Klunk with its nose. The cat, who had been sitting peacefully by its feet during the entire conversation, now raised himself and trotted back to Splinter with his tail raised high. "Now go, both of you. We will see each other again soon."

And then, Splinter was back in his room in the underground lair, still sitting on the floor with Klunk in his lap. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he felt as refreshed as if he had slept an entire night.

"Susan Palmer, formerly Susan Pevensie," he muttered to himself. "Hopefully I can find her in the phone book... or Donatello can locate her with his computer."

"I shouldn't worry," said Klunk, jumping down on the floor and stretching. "Didn't you see who that was?! That was Aslan! If he says something can be done, then..." he trailed off as he noticed Splinter staring at him. "What?" he said, confused. "Do I have grass in my fur or something?"

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's notes: This is, without question, the longest fic I've ever undertaken, and it has a pretty long and complicated story behind it:

Two or three years ago, I wrote the first thirteen chapters of this story, having great fun not only mixing the world of Narnia with the Ninja Turtles, but also exploring a little more of the Narnian world, trying to find new angles towards it and revealing a few stories that had only been hinted at in canon (such as the story of Susan). And then, I not only hit a major writer's block, but felt completely burned out on Ninja Turtles and had to take a long break from the fic.

Last month, feeling a lot better about everything, and about Turtles in particular, I wrote a fourteenth chapter to the story and discovered that I was slowly getting excited about this story again. But looking back on the earlier chapters, I also found that there were quite a few minor snags that really should be fixed. So, like with my other multi-part Turtles story, I decided to do a rewrite, and this time to post the updated chapters here as they were finished.

So what you're reading here and now is really The Lion, The Cat and the Turtles 2.0. I hope you'll enjoy the ride -- in upcoming chapters we have savage Werewolves, evil Witches, brave Centaurs, talkative Badgers, gloomy Marsh-wiggles, and even a Djinn. And of course, as is customary for adventure stories with the TMNT, there'll be a fair bit of ninja action too.

In the next chapter -- Chapter One, where the story really begins -- we'll see Leonardo's arrival in Narnia.