Gaton awoke to the sounds of an intruder. He lay still in his bed and pretended to sleep while stretching his consciousness as far as possible to pinpoint the stranger who was even then going through his belongings. THe sound was coming from somewhere near his desk...
Gaton carefully slid and old tire iron from underneath his pillow and slipped off the bed. As he crouched beside it, he quickly arranged the pillows so it looked like he hadn't moved at all. The mysterious figure stopped it's rummaging and tiptoed over to the bed. A dark, gloved hand waved in front of where Gaton's face would have been. After getting no response, a long finger tapped the blanket experimentally and jerked away quickly. The stranger looked around the room briefly and shrugged. Gaton rolled his eyes and prepared to crawl behind the stranger when he saw something moving right in front of him. He froze and stared for a second before he realized that it was his reflection in his floor length mirror.
But that meant that the intruder could see him too.
Gaton watched the figure in the mirror as it gently reached out to pull the blankets back. Right as it lifted the sheets, Gaton leapt off the floor and swung the tire iron, praying that there was only one intruder and that he had caught this one by surprise.
Considering his lineage, he didn't really expect much anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The camp was quiet. Even the spattering of the fire seemed subdued. No one bothered breaking the silence and hostility that hung like heavy drapes across the backs of the friends. Well, no one who really mattered anyway...
"And then he says that there's absolutely no way that he's gonna do anything like that because there's so totally nothing in it for him, right? Well, be that as it may, Christobal had a ace up his sleeve and do you know what that was? Huh?"
Michealanglo, the ~special~ son, was trying his damnedest to act oblivious to the hate-filled glared that Raph was giving Donatello and Leonardo. Leonardo was pretendng to sleep and Donatello was successfully ignoring everything around him. Ever since the two had had the falling out back in the forest, the group had been torn in a million different directions. Splinter and April just wanted them to resolve the problem while Raph and Casey were looking for someone to blame and coming up empty. Mikey wanted only one thing, and that was for things to be the way they were before Gaton showed up.
"Look." Michealangelo said, giving up completely on his narraration of some obsure movie whose title even he had forgotten. "I think we should start over. You know, from the beginning."
"Great idea genius. I was just about to suggest we start over from the end." Raph said. Mike ignored him and continued.
"Don, I know you feel like we're all bustin' your chops here, but ya gotta understand, this is all so sudden and all. And..." Mikey looked around the fire waiting for someone to pick up the thread like they usually did, but no one said a word. "What I mean is, who is this guy and how come you never told us about him?"
"That's not the real question here, Mikey. The real one is, what else have you not told us and how much trouble are the rest of your little secrets going to get us in?" Leonardo said as he sat up and stared pointedly at Donatello.
"Yeah? Well what I wanna know is what any of that's got to do with us bein' out here instead of at home where we belong. I'm still trying to figure out why Don went all weird on us earlier." Raph tossed another half burnt twig on the fire. After escaping the forest, they had gleaned what they could from the ashes. It made a ton of smoke, but it beat being cold.
"Isn't it obvious? Don was out making friends, making us think he was sick when he was really sneaking out to plan how best to ruin our lives with that freak." Leo lay back down and gazed blankly at the stars.
Everyone else looked at Donatello and waited for him to say something, but he was chasing ants in circles with a stick and completely tuning them out.
"C'mon guys. When did things get so out of hand? When did we stop being a family and start being enemies?" Michealangelo asked.
Raph snorted and glared around the fire and noticed how April and Casey were trying their hardest to look invisible. "I guess, we lost something. Our trust... our confidence..."
"and our way, my sons." Splinter interupted. "Please, do not let this one bump in the road break us apart. We are a family and families stick together."
"How about a compromise, huh? We'll look for those humans first thing in the morning. Then, if they don't panic and die of heart attacks, we'll all travel together." Mike made a feeble attempt to remedy things between his brothers.
"Fine by me." Raph said, though the chances of the humans surviving were slim and they would only slow the turtles down.
"Whatever." Leonardo snarled. "It's not like we could stop Donatello without using force anyway." Splinter winced at Leo's tone.
"Hey, let's not go there." April spoke up. "How about it Don? Is that okay with you?"
Donatello gave no indication of having heard. He just kept chasing ants and marvelling at how they ran in circles almost without even realising it.
"Damn circles." He whispered.
Damn circles indeed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His name was Matthew Sparks. Right now he was cursing every one of the gods he had ever read about at the poisonous irony. How the Hell did he end up in a forest with a camper full of kids and old people? Interesting question. It all had to do with a girl.
Not just any girl, but the Number One Girl of His Life kinda girl.
She was having puppies.
It wasn't really a big deal, dogs have puppies all the time, so long as the gender and timing is right, but when a St. Bernard has puppies, well, something has to go. Matt could deal with that. He had enough work taking care of Eliza, nevermind a trio of puppies as well.
Unfortunately, his step-dad didn't want any animals at all.
He wasn't even Matt's step-father really. He hadn't married his Mom yet, but was already trying to change their lives.
Not even the tears of a kid with more milage to his mind than his body and a heart of stone could sway Jeremiah Thompson, and Eliza and her puppies were sold.
'On the internet. As if she was just a cheap pooltable to sell on E-Bay.'
The sheer injustice of it sent Matthew into a seething, simmering rage that drowned everything else out. He went to bed the night after and decided that he didn't have to put up with it. The next day, instead of going to school, he packed a lunch and grabbed his lifesavings and diary and left.
It would have worked fine, except he had decided to take a short cut through the woods and found this family of campers. They were trying to start a fire with, of all things, two sticks. Matthew had watched them for half an hour before he interupted. He hadn't said anything. He just used his lighter to start the fire and then walked away. He made it three steps before his vision distorted and blurred everything around him. It was gone a second later.
Matthew wouldn't have thought anything of it if he hadn't heard a strange scream behind him. He turned around just in time to see the RV fall to pieces on top of one of the campers. Everyone stared at the pile of rubble for a moment before the guy underneath crawled from underneath a sheet of what looked like tin.
"I'm okay, I'm okay. Wow. Freak accident, huh? I guess bad luck follows me everywhere, huh? Right guys?"
He looked pretty rattled and Matt honestly couldn't blame him, but the idea of being crushed by an RV that randomly fell apart was novel to him.
"A collapsable RV. I'm impressed. But, next time you buy something that does all sorts of neat tricks like that, keep your receipt."
A few of the campers gave weak laughs at that before a rumbling sound filled the clearing. They all started and tried to find the source of the sound.
"Whoa. Forest fire." someone said and pointed towards a huge black plume of smoke rising in the sky.
"But the city's that way." Another answered.
THere was silence. "So what now?" a blonde teenaged girl asked.
"Yeah, what now?"
Matt had already turned in the direction opposite of the city and begun walking when he felt a hand on his arm. He jerked away and glared at the offender.
"Please, you have to help us." the blonde girl whispered, eyes tearing up.
Matthew stared at her blankly before he realized that all the damn campers were looking at him as if he knew exactly what to do.
"This sucks." he muttered as he looked the camp over. A stong wind swept by and shook the trees. "Hey, are we missing a kid?"
The girl looked around frantically and began calling to the missing toddler. Matt smirked and pulled it from underneath a bush nearby.
"The first thing we need is more wood for the fire. How's the other RV holding out?"
One of the grownups nodded vigorously. "Well, it's still in one piece." He said with a grin. Matt realized that he was the unfortunate person who had been squished by the other RV. He looked like the kind of hopeless dad who would drag his whole family and neighbors out on a camping trip for some bonding time.
"So it's not collapsable?" Matt asked, just to be sure.
"Well, the other one wasn't suposed to be, but," he tapped the side of the remaining RV. "This one-"
CRASH!
Matthew took a deep breath and gestured for the others to help him lift the RV off of the poor guy. "How about you just sit in that corner by the fire and don't touch anything?"
"Yeah," he said shakily. "Maybe... that's best."
"What's your name anyway?" Matt asked as he kicked the thin metal sheet and listened to the sound it made.
"Elliot Stars. This is my wife, Maria, and my kids, Elizabeth and Benjamin." Elizabeth was the blonde girl and Benjamin was the toddler who was once again hiding. "And, ah, this is Johnathan, my daughter's, ah, friend." Matt looked at Johnathan. The guy was covered in tattoos and wearing tight black clothes. Matt tried not to make any judgements right away, but made up his mind to not get caught alone anywhere near this... Johnathan.
"And I'm Marcus Kletch." a bald man spoke up. "My wife, Janice, our twins, Annie and Able. This is my brother and his wife, Phillip and Lynn Kletch. Their daughter, Brittany, and her boyfriend, Shamal."
"And..." Matt gestured towards the baby.
"Brittany's."
"So you must be the father." Matt said to Shamal.
"No. That would be the Fuck over there that calls itself Johnathan." Shamal growled.
"Oh." Matt thought for a second. "Like I was saying, get what food you can and wood. I'll try to figure out what the devil is going on with the RVs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two hours later, Matt had come to a single conclusion.
Something weird was going on.
"Everyone back?" He asked. After a quick headcount, he nodded. "Does anyone have a CD I can borrow?"
Johnathan threw a case to Matt and after muttering a thanks, Matt pulled out a CD and held it up so that the light of the fire shone through it. "Just as I suspected. It's made of glass."
A chorus of 'what?' and 'why' hailed him.
"It's like this, something happened. I'm not sure what, but basically, everything plastic has turned into glass and metals have turned into stuff like iron and tin and I don't know what else to say about that."
"But. That doesn't make any sense." Elliot said.
"Did I say it did?" Matt asked a bit more sharply than he had intended. Well, not by much since the man was getting on his last nerves, but Matt got the impression that he scared everyone else as well. "Look... do you smell that? Did one of you put green wood in that fire?" Matt rubbed his temples and took a deep breath that set him coughing. It took him a minute to recover and when he did it took a while to register what he saw before him.
"What?" Elizabeth asked.
"Grab the kids and the food. We need to get out of here now." Matt sputtered as he stuffed cloth packages of chips and pretzels into a bookbag. "C'mon, move it. We don't have much time!" The night was being lit by an eerie red light.
They escaped the clearing just in time. Once the fire hit the totalled RVs with the gasoline still inside, the fire raged worse than before.
It was either luck or divine intervention that saved them that night. They stumbled into a cave, or rather, Elliot fell into it. They had stayed there for the rest on the night and the day afterwards.
"Okay, we should get moving." Matt said to the campers.
"But it's night." Elliot muttered as he rose to his feet and helped his wife up.
"We've been here all day." Matt responded.
"So?" Elliot asked, more bold since Matt hadn't hurt him yet.
Matt took a deep breath. 'So... I can only take so much of your aimless babbling' he thought to himself. Out loud, though, he said, "So, I'm, getting claustrophobic."
"Oh." the idiot took that as an answer and the group left the cave.
They had wandered for about three hours when Matt noticed a plume of smoke. "Stay here." He warned his followers as he handed Johnathan his bag. Matthew picked his way to the spot carefully.
When he came back to the group a half hour later, he was totally floored.
"What? What's wrong? What happened?" Elliot asked.
"Are any of you afraid of reptiles?"
"Reptiles? Well, I hate snakes." Elliot said and just about everyone else agreed.
"How about... turtles?"
"Turtles? Oh they're so cute... I had one once. My pa killed him and fixed him up nice, but he was cute while he was alive."
Matt looked at Elliot strangely for a second.
"How about..." his voice broke. "giant rats?"
"Do you really need to ask?"
"Heh. Well. I, ah, found some other campers. But, uh, they've got a massive rat with them. And turtles."
The rest of the group looked from one to the other.
"I can deal with just one massive rat." Marcus said and looked around for support.
"Yeah. If it's just one..." his wife agreed. "I can handle that. It's better than wandering around out here."
One by one, the rest of the group concurred.
"Okay then. Stay here. I'll go first and talk to them. Don't come any closer." Matt looked them all in the eye to make sure they understood. After a few encouraging nods from the adults, he sped away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gaton carefully slid and old tire iron from underneath his pillow and slipped off the bed. As he crouched beside it, he quickly arranged the pillows so it looked like he hadn't moved at all. The mysterious figure stopped it's rummaging and tiptoed over to the bed. A dark, gloved hand waved in front of where Gaton's face would have been. After getting no response, a long finger tapped the blanket experimentally and jerked away quickly. The stranger looked around the room briefly and shrugged. Gaton rolled his eyes and prepared to crawl behind the stranger when he saw something moving right in front of him. He froze and stared for a second before he realized that it was his reflection in his floor length mirror.
But that meant that the intruder could see him too.
Gaton watched the figure in the mirror as it gently reached out to pull the blankets back. Right as it lifted the sheets, Gaton leapt off the floor and swung the tire iron, praying that there was only one intruder and that he had caught this one by surprise.
Considering his lineage, he didn't really expect much anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The camp was quiet. Even the spattering of the fire seemed subdued. No one bothered breaking the silence and hostility that hung like heavy drapes across the backs of the friends. Well, no one who really mattered anyway...
"And then he says that there's absolutely no way that he's gonna do anything like that because there's so totally nothing in it for him, right? Well, be that as it may, Christobal had a ace up his sleeve and do you know what that was? Huh?"
Michealanglo, the ~special~ son, was trying his damnedest to act oblivious to the hate-filled glared that Raph was giving Donatello and Leonardo. Leonardo was pretendng to sleep and Donatello was successfully ignoring everything around him. Ever since the two had had the falling out back in the forest, the group had been torn in a million different directions. Splinter and April just wanted them to resolve the problem while Raph and Casey were looking for someone to blame and coming up empty. Mikey wanted only one thing, and that was for things to be the way they were before Gaton showed up.
"Look." Michealangelo said, giving up completely on his narraration of some obsure movie whose title even he had forgotten. "I think we should start over. You know, from the beginning."
"Great idea genius. I was just about to suggest we start over from the end." Raph said. Mike ignored him and continued.
"Don, I know you feel like we're all bustin' your chops here, but ya gotta understand, this is all so sudden and all. And..." Mikey looked around the fire waiting for someone to pick up the thread like they usually did, but no one said a word. "What I mean is, who is this guy and how come you never told us about him?"
"That's not the real question here, Mikey. The real one is, what else have you not told us and how much trouble are the rest of your little secrets going to get us in?" Leonardo said as he sat up and stared pointedly at Donatello.
"Yeah? Well what I wanna know is what any of that's got to do with us bein' out here instead of at home where we belong. I'm still trying to figure out why Don went all weird on us earlier." Raph tossed another half burnt twig on the fire. After escaping the forest, they had gleaned what they could from the ashes. It made a ton of smoke, but it beat being cold.
"Isn't it obvious? Don was out making friends, making us think he was sick when he was really sneaking out to plan how best to ruin our lives with that freak." Leo lay back down and gazed blankly at the stars.
Everyone else looked at Donatello and waited for him to say something, but he was chasing ants in circles with a stick and completely tuning them out.
"C'mon guys. When did things get so out of hand? When did we stop being a family and start being enemies?" Michealangelo asked.
Raph snorted and glared around the fire and noticed how April and Casey were trying their hardest to look invisible. "I guess, we lost something. Our trust... our confidence..."
"and our way, my sons." Splinter interupted. "Please, do not let this one bump in the road break us apart. We are a family and families stick together."
"How about a compromise, huh? We'll look for those humans first thing in the morning. Then, if they don't panic and die of heart attacks, we'll all travel together." Mike made a feeble attempt to remedy things between his brothers.
"Fine by me." Raph said, though the chances of the humans surviving were slim and they would only slow the turtles down.
"Whatever." Leonardo snarled. "It's not like we could stop Donatello without using force anyway." Splinter winced at Leo's tone.
"Hey, let's not go there." April spoke up. "How about it Don? Is that okay with you?"
Donatello gave no indication of having heard. He just kept chasing ants and marvelling at how they ran in circles almost without even realising it.
"Damn circles." He whispered.
Damn circles indeed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His name was Matthew Sparks. Right now he was cursing every one of the gods he had ever read about at the poisonous irony. How the Hell did he end up in a forest with a camper full of kids and old people? Interesting question. It all had to do with a girl.
Not just any girl, but the Number One Girl of His Life kinda girl.
She was having puppies.
It wasn't really a big deal, dogs have puppies all the time, so long as the gender and timing is right, but when a St. Bernard has puppies, well, something has to go. Matt could deal with that. He had enough work taking care of Eliza, nevermind a trio of puppies as well.
Unfortunately, his step-dad didn't want any animals at all.
He wasn't even Matt's step-father really. He hadn't married his Mom yet, but was already trying to change their lives.
Not even the tears of a kid with more milage to his mind than his body and a heart of stone could sway Jeremiah Thompson, and Eliza and her puppies were sold.
'On the internet. As if she was just a cheap pooltable to sell on E-Bay.'
The sheer injustice of it sent Matthew into a seething, simmering rage that drowned everything else out. He went to bed the night after and decided that he didn't have to put up with it. The next day, instead of going to school, he packed a lunch and grabbed his lifesavings and diary and left.
It would have worked fine, except he had decided to take a short cut through the woods and found this family of campers. They were trying to start a fire with, of all things, two sticks. Matthew had watched them for half an hour before he interupted. He hadn't said anything. He just used his lighter to start the fire and then walked away. He made it three steps before his vision distorted and blurred everything around him. It was gone a second later.
Matthew wouldn't have thought anything of it if he hadn't heard a strange scream behind him. He turned around just in time to see the RV fall to pieces on top of one of the campers. Everyone stared at the pile of rubble for a moment before the guy underneath crawled from underneath a sheet of what looked like tin.
"I'm okay, I'm okay. Wow. Freak accident, huh? I guess bad luck follows me everywhere, huh? Right guys?"
He looked pretty rattled and Matt honestly couldn't blame him, but the idea of being crushed by an RV that randomly fell apart was novel to him.
"A collapsable RV. I'm impressed. But, next time you buy something that does all sorts of neat tricks like that, keep your receipt."
A few of the campers gave weak laughs at that before a rumbling sound filled the clearing. They all started and tried to find the source of the sound.
"Whoa. Forest fire." someone said and pointed towards a huge black plume of smoke rising in the sky.
"But the city's that way." Another answered.
THere was silence. "So what now?" a blonde teenaged girl asked.
"Yeah, what now?"
Matt had already turned in the direction opposite of the city and begun walking when he felt a hand on his arm. He jerked away and glared at the offender.
"Please, you have to help us." the blonde girl whispered, eyes tearing up.
Matthew stared at her blankly before he realized that all the damn campers were looking at him as if he knew exactly what to do.
"This sucks." he muttered as he looked the camp over. A stong wind swept by and shook the trees. "Hey, are we missing a kid?"
The girl looked around frantically and began calling to the missing toddler. Matt smirked and pulled it from underneath a bush nearby.
"The first thing we need is more wood for the fire. How's the other RV holding out?"
One of the grownups nodded vigorously. "Well, it's still in one piece." He said with a grin. Matt realized that he was the unfortunate person who had been squished by the other RV. He looked like the kind of hopeless dad who would drag his whole family and neighbors out on a camping trip for some bonding time.
"So it's not collapsable?" Matt asked, just to be sure.
"Well, the other one wasn't suposed to be, but," he tapped the side of the remaining RV. "This one-"
CRASH!
Matthew took a deep breath and gestured for the others to help him lift the RV off of the poor guy. "How about you just sit in that corner by the fire and don't touch anything?"
"Yeah," he said shakily. "Maybe... that's best."
"What's your name anyway?" Matt asked as he kicked the thin metal sheet and listened to the sound it made.
"Elliot Stars. This is my wife, Maria, and my kids, Elizabeth and Benjamin." Elizabeth was the blonde girl and Benjamin was the toddler who was once again hiding. "And, ah, this is Johnathan, my daughter's, ah, friend." Matt looked at Johnathan. The guy was covered in tattoos and wearing tight black clothes. Matt tried not to make any judgements right away, but made up his mind to not get caught alone anywhere near this... Johnathan.
"And I'm Marcus Kletch." a bald man spoke up. "My wife, Janice, our twins, Annie and Able. This is my brother and his wife, Phillip and Lynn Kletch. Their daughter, Brittany, and her boyfriend, Shamal."
"And..." Matt gestured towards the baby.
"Brittany's."
"So you must be the father." Matt said to Shamal.
"No. That would be the Fuck over there that calls itself Johnathan." Shamal growled.
"Oh." Matt thought for a second. "Like I was saying, get what food you can and wood. I'll try to figure out what the devil is going on with the RVs."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two hours later, Matt had come to a single conclusion.
Something weird was going on.
"Everyone back?" He asked. After a quick headcount, he nodded. "Does anyone have a CD I can borrow?"
Johnathan threw a case to Matt and after muttering a thanks, Matt pulled out a CD and held it up so that the light of the fire shone through it. "Just as I suspected. It's made of glass."
A chorus of 'what?' and 'why' hailed him.
"It's like this, something happened. I'm not sure what, but basically, everything plastic has turned into glass and metals have turned into stuff like iron and tin and I don't know what else to say about that."
"But. That doesn't make any sense." Elliot said.
"Did I say it did?" Matt asked a bit more sharply than he had intended. Well, not by much since the man was getting on his last nerves, but Matt got the impression that he scared everyone else as well. "Look... do you smell that? Did one of you put green wood in that fire?" Matt rubbed his temples and took a deep breath that set him coughing. It took him a minute to recover and when he did it took a while to register what he saw before him.
"What?" Elizabeth asked.
"Grab the kids and the food. We need to get out of here now." Matt sputtered as he stuffed cloth packages of chips and pretzels into a bookbag. "C'mon, move it. We don't have much time!" The night was being lit by an eerie red light.
They escaped the clearing just in time. Once the fire hit the totalled RVs with the gasoline still inside, the fire raged worse than before.
It was either luck or divine intervention that saved them that night. They stumbled into a cave, or rather, Elliot fell into it. They had stayed there for the rest on the night and the day afterwards.
"Okay, we should get moving." Matt said to the campers.
"But it's night." Elliot muttered as he rose to his feet and helped his wife up.
"We've been here all day." Matt responded.
"So?" Elliot asked, more bold since Matt hadn't hurt him yet.
Matt took a deep breath. 'So... I can only take so much of your aimless babbling' he thought to himself. Out loud, though, he said, "So, I'm, getting claustrophobic."
"Oh." the idiot took that as an answer and the group left the cave.
They had wandered for about three hours when Matt noticed a plume of smoke. "Stay here." He warned his followers as he handed Johnathan his bag. Matthew picked his way to the spot carefully.
When he came back to the group a half hour later, he was totally floored.
"What? What's wrong? What happened?" Elliot asked.
"Are any of you afraid of reptiles?"
"Reptiles? Well, I hate snakes." Elliot said and just about everyone else agreed.
"How about... turtles?"
"Turtles? Oh they're so cute... I had one once. My pa killed him and fixed him up nice, but he was cute while he was alive."
Matt looked at Elliot strangely for a second.
"How about..." his voice broke. "giant rats?"
"Do you really need to ask?"
"Heh. Well. I, ah, found some other campers. But, uh, they've got a massive rat with them. And turtles."
The rest of the group looked from one to the other.
"I can deal with just one massive rat." Marcus said and looked around for support.
"Yeah. If it's just one..." his wife agreed. "I can handle that. It's better than wandering around out here."
One by one, the rest of the group concurred.
"Okay then. Stay here. I'll go first and talk to them. Don't come any closer." Matt looked them all in the eye to make sure they understood. After a few encouraging nods from the adults, he sped away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~