"Artano!" Stephen hit the door.

"What the shell happened?" Donnie said. "Open the damn door!"

"How do you imagine I can do that!"

"You're a freaking wizard!"

"There are limits to what I can do!"

"What the...Why is that excuse always there when we need magic the most!"

"Calm down, everyone!" Leo said. "Remember, we are used to dark. We're ninjas."

"Well I'm not!" Stephen yelled and tried to form a light from his hands. As he called upon the threads of the Cosmos, the darkness around them seemed to choke his light. It reached for his hands like a net for a fish and his light could not grow.

He hissed at that. Whatever forces ruled in this place, they could hold back his light. But he would not let them win so easily.

"That's it!" he said. "I hate these shenanigans. Enough of it!"

He raised his hands, calling upon other forces, keeping the ballance and control in his mind and body. The Turtles noticed everything around them started to shake.

"What is going on?" Raph yelled. "Do you want to kill us?"

"No. At least not yet." he said and leviated above the ground. "I am taking control of this! There is a way to turn this into our favour: I am opening the Mirror Dimension."

Mikey felt his legs become hard and he fell to the floor and in it, he saw a reflection of himself. Then to his right and to his left and above him another. He turned around, only to see Stephen and his brothers present in every corner of the room. He walked backward, only to fall through water. At least he thought so, for when he fell, he was in the same position as before, Stephen and his brothers around him...and he.

"Try and reverse this, you jerks." Stephen whispered with a smile.

As you wish.

He didn't have the time to react to the answer, for everything around him started to turn once more. The images of himself flashed before his eyes.

The first one. The second one. The third one.

He could feel them grow faster and faster by every turn. Behind, he could hear the Turtles grunting in pain, falling over and over into the same face.

The tenth. The eleventh. The twelveth.

"Donnie!" Leo screamed, trying to catch Donnie who was falling from a height. Leo didn't notice that he lost the reach as well and he fell into the abyss. Above himself, he could hear Donnie calling him and saw him reaching.

The twentieth. The twenty-first.

Stephen felt as if his mind was spreading over a large, endless sea. But it was not empowering: it was agonizing, for he could feel some unseen force keeping him down, as if stepping it's foot on his throat.

The ninety-ninth.

The hundreth.

Turtles and Stephen were now spread and thin like bagel, unrecognizable and lost. In that moment they could not remember anything, not even their own names, only the excruciating pain, confusion, agony and terror this change of shapes gave them. The only thing that didn't change were their voices, screaming as a forgotten slave of agony.

This was not supposed to happen. Stephen tried to seize control of the threads that formed the Mirror Dimension around him, but...

You think we will retreat so easily?

Now he couldn't feel anything. Not even pain.

You won't banish us! We are here!

This is OUR place!

"And this is MY body!" he yelled, desperate to gain back the control. He reached with his non-existent hands and formed a field of deadly brotherhood of elements: fire, water, destruction, stream and all other powers of the Cosmos known to him combined. Then, he absorbed the power, feeling the pain again. It was horrible, but he found comfort im the fact that at least he had his senses back. While the Turtles remained shapeless balls of mass, Stephen regained his body or at least a shape similar to it. For he did not look like himself: he was shinning with all the colors of the Cosmos. A few shadows were flying around his figure, the demons and spirits of the Damned.

They were the ones terrified now.

Stephen seized them, the light from his hands burning them and tormenting them. If he had his true body back, their screams would have been the most horrible sound in all of existence. But now, they were the ones suffering. They wouldn't go down without a fight, though, for one of them broke free and struck Stephen, making him release his grasp on the others. The other Damned followed and struck him too, leaving scars on his spiritual body. They raised their voices in a dim, dark and horrible tone, almost singing and then retreated.

Stephen was now left alone with the Mirror Dimensions gone mad. Finally, he could find the threads and regain control, but only for a short while, for he realized Mirror Dimensions didn't work in this place at all, at least how it is supposed to work.

The Damned speeded up the process, but this would have happened anyway.

So he attracted the threads, attaching them to a small net, slowly calming them down. But a second before the Mirror Dimension was closed, a face appeared all around them: a pale face that might have once belonged to human, but not anymore, for this face was pale like a dead man's, bloody and scarred. The eyes were as black as the sky of the night, and the horrible jaw was four times longer than normal. The creature was horrible to behold.

As soon as they placed their eyes upon it, the Mirror Dimension was closed.

Raph stood up, feeling as if he was walking on a cloud. He didn't realize he had his body back.

"Ouch." was all he could say in response. "I was about to say: 'Told you so.' But I figured it'd be a bit cliched, no?"

"What was that?!" Leo was the only one of them not stumbling. "You could have killed us!"

"Leonardo," Stephen said, surprisingly calm towards Leo, "I swear, I did not know this would happen. This wasn't supposed to..." a quick attack from the shadows interrupted them, a strong and powerful hand pushing Stephen away. Something else entered the room, appearing in the midst of them. The Turtles jumped back, looking at the huge, giant figure, as tall as Rintrah, but thin, with unnaturaly long arms. Mikey was staring at it, not believing how corpse-like this looked like, worse than the zombies they meet on that other world. There, zombies had a hint of life inside of them and their bodies, though horrible, were human and not alien. This, however, was a horrible monstrosity, that looked completely dead...but it wasn't dead in the least. Mikey didn't realize the very look at it made him puke.

The creature covered its face, yelling as if it was being tormented. Sobs of pain and grief could be heard, but none of them could feel sorry for it, for those sounds were horrible and demonic, repeating in echoes.

Raph peeked a bit to see what the creature was hiding. As soon as it relaxed and put down its hands a bit, he could see its face. That was the trigger.

Not even one heartbeat later, the creature attacked, striking Stephen with its long, sharp nails and scaring the Turtles away. The feeling of dread and terror that entered the Turtles made them freeze in the place. Their bodies refused to move, even to the cries of their spirits, that were already resistant.

But they did not flee. Raph was the first to break the hold and attack.

Stephen sent light to aid them, but his eyes despised that choice more than the darkness itself. One look at the creature made his bones shake.

Raph felt terrified, pummelling the creature in the back to turn its attention away from Stephen. This turned to nothing once the creature waved and sent him away, hitting the wall. The other Turtles struck instead, with Leo breaking his rule and going for its body, to stab it or slice it.

But one hit made his eyes widen. The skin deflected the blade, as if he hit stone and not meat. The monster struck him and he felt as if he was stabbed by a thousand needles. His swords were gone and his hands wandered through the darkness.

Donnie tried to send it away by hitting in the back, but the monster let out a horrible scream and grabbed him by the throat. He couldn't think nor speak. The only thing he felt and saw were the creature's fiery, evil eyes.

Raph and Mikey defeated their fear and grabbed the creature from the back, pulling it away by the hands. "Get off of him, freak!"

At that, the creature yelled, piercing their ears with a sharp sound.

Stephen grew sick of it. He got up and formed a belt with his hands, throwing it at the creature, grabbing it by the throat like it caught Mikey. He sent a burning surge of power into the belt and then, the Pale Man let go of Donnie.

The creature turned once towards Stephen and waved at him, but it didn't make more effort to hit him. It merely screamed again and ran away, weeping and sobbing.

"Here!" Leo yelled, with a cracking sound following him. The door behind him were open.

The four of them ran towards it and when they left the room, they shut the door.

They all fell to their knees, with Donnie and Stephen both collapsing.


"Donnie." he heard the voice calling out from the darkness, feeling something pushing him. "Donnie, wake up."

Donnie recognized Mikey's voice everywhere, including now. He scratched his head, easing the pain as best as he could.

"Was it a nightmare? Please Mikey, tell me it was a nightmare."

"No, rabbits." Raph said, "It wasn't."

Stephen groaned. "What happened?"

"We shut the door and all of you collapsed." said Raph. "Sooner or later: both Leos first, of course."

"Very funny, Raph."

"The...the door..." asked Donnie. "...are we still..."

"Behind you, Donnie."

Donnie didn't even look, just flinched and moved away as if from a demonic presence.

"We...slept here?" Stephen said. "Are you crazy, Raph? How long..."

"Do I look like I have phone or watch? And even if I did, how do you know it would work? Besides, yes, I let you sleep. And nothing happened, see? Or is my mortal eye missing something?"

Donnie sighed. "The...the thing. It grabbed my neck." he reached for it. "It was choking me."

"Those eyes." Leo said. "Those black, soulless eyes..."

"We needa get out of here." Mikey said. "Out of this temple, planet, universe, or whatever it is. We get outta here!"

"No." was all Stephen said.

"No?" Mikey repeated. "No?! Are you insane?! WE GOT OUR ASSES KICKED AND FRIGHTENED!"

"We have all been hurt worse before than what that...thing had done to us!" Stephen said. "Much worse!"

"I don't care." Leo said. "Bluntly, Stephen, I don't give a damn! I would rather get back to those zombies!"

"You are forgetting why we are here!" Stephen said. "I don't know about you, but I almost got a heart attack because of that monster! We all did, because we came here to find them and I will not leave until we do! Will you?"

Turtles all gritted their teeth. "Bah!" Leo said. "You are right. I hate you for that, but yes, you are."

"So where are they?" Mikey asked. "Let me guess: that thing is going to kill the people we are looking for."

"No." Stephen said, not believing his own words.

"Then what is it?"

"That thing is who we are looking for."