Chapter Three
Michelangelo felt like his head had been pulled inside out and screwed on backwards. He hated travelling through vortexes and portals and whatever other screwy stuff he travelled through to get to other worlds and dimensions – something he'd been doing frequently of late. He never felt quite right when he came out on the other side.
And that was without finding out what faced him on the other side. Aliens. The Battle Nexus. Dragons. Elite swordsmen and warriors. All in all, beings and creatures that invariably wanted to pound him and his brothers into mush. Like, no one's ever pleased to see us! There's never a nice welcome party or anything!
But this time, instead of ending up in a dark-red world with turtle-hungry demons bearing big teeth and pitchforks, the youngest turtle rolled out of the portal onto a beach. Mikey landed facedown in a dune of creamy-white sand in the middle of a vast, tropical shoreline.
"Phff!" Mikey spat powdery sand out of his mouth in disgust. He wiped the final grains off of his tongue with his arm, and then realised... "sand?"
As Michelangelo took in the panorama around him, Raphael fell through the vortex and landed with a thud on the soft sand. He sat up and wondered out loud, "a beach?"
"I'm guessing we're not in New York anymore," Michelangelo murmured, his eyes fixed on the turquoise waves rolling in from the vast, endless ocean.
"What was your first clue?" Raphael asked, staring up at the hundred-foot-tall palm trees. "The weather?"
Leonardo, Donatello and Splinter followed through and stumbled onto the sand, a terrain they were clearly not used to. They looked around in confusion. Of course, they'd seen the sea before, but they'd never visited a tropical island.
"And me without my bucket and spade," Donny murmured, gaping at the tranquil scenery.
"So, anyone wanna field a guess?" Raph asked, throwing his arms at the surroundings. "Put it this way, if I see the tail half of an airplane anywhere around here, I'm swimming for it!"
"Ooh, dibs on Kate," Mikey cheered, punching the air.
"Guys, can we be serious for just a minute?" Leo said harshly, before realising his tone and softening slightly. "We haven't met the natives yet, and from experience, they probably won't be happy about us dropping in on them."
"Leonardo," Splinter said calmingly, placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "There are no natives on this island."
"How do you know?" Raphael asked in surprise.
After a moment, Donny said in a similar astonished tone, "there's nothing here."
Splinter nodded. "Quite correct, Donatello."
"There aren't any jungle noises. No sounds of birds, or calls of animals. Not even any buzzing bugs, you'll be glad to know, Raph," Donny added with a side-long glance at his brother. "Without any wildlife here, anything up the top of the food-chain wouldn't be able to survive. There's no food-chain of any sort here."
"The jungle is called The Silent Jungle," Splinter informed them. "There is not even a breeze to rustle the leaves of the trees."
"What about rivers, and fish living in them? Or the sea?" Leo asked, looking uncertainly towards the rippling waves washing in.
"There is no fish, or any other kind of aquatic creatures here," Splinter informed them. "The sea before you is The Vacant Sea." He looked up, and his sons followed his gaze. "There are no birds. The sky is The Empty Sky."
"Master," Leonardo said, "how do you know of this?"
Splinter sat upon the sand, and the others followed suit, sitting cross-legged before him. "I had thought that this was nothing more than a legend, a tale from mythology I had heard my Master Yoshi tell. I listened to it one day as he told the account to three young children from across the hall in his apartment building, but I had thought it was fuel for their imaginations, nothing more than a fairytale.
"This island is called Efialtis, the word for 'nightmare' in Greek. Nobody is sure quite where it lies-"
"Like the Bermuda Triangle?" Michelangelo piped up.
"Erh, something like that," Splinter fumbled. "Well, though no one knows where the island lies, and fewer have escaped with their lives."
"But Master Splinter, if there's nothing here, what kills them?" Raphael asked in puzzlement. "You mean, they stayed here so long with nothing to eat that they starved to death?" He and his brothers did not look happy at that prospect.
Splinter shook his head. "Though there are no forms of wildlife here, no predators of sorts, the island is not entirely uninhabited." The four sons threw each other I-don't-like-the-sound-of-that looks. "The island is governed by supernatural forces. For each person who sets foot on the island, the spirit of the island can detect their deepest, darkest fears. For someone to escape the island, they must conquer the fear that is presented to them."
Four pairs of wide eyes gawped at their father incredulously. "You're kidding," Raphael said, disregarding the tale.
"We've gone through stranger things," Leonardo reasoned.
"How does this island know what our fears are? And what does it do, to give us a challenge, to test us, for us to defeat them?" Donny asked himself lists of questions aloud. He could not fathom the supernatural powers, and racked his brains for another, more scientific-based solution. He was coming up empty.
"Master Splinter," Mikey said quietly, seriously, "is this like when we had that really bad day, like when we dreamed the lair was flooded and then that Casey and April, in the van... is someone controlling our minds like that?"
"No, my son," Master Splinter said gently. "We are not being attacked on another plane, as it were. We are very much awake and alert, and in a physical place. However in that physical place resides something which taps into our mind. It does not manipulate our mind, it merely reads it, as though it were a book, in order to detect our weaknesses, our fears, our nightmares. It then uses itself, the island, to attack us with our weakness."
He paused and spoke again, this time to the rest of his sons. "I cannot tell you what each of your weaknesses will be, for they are yours, and I cannot say how the island will use them against you. I may not even be able to tell you mine, for some fears are so deep-seated that we ourselves are not conscious of them. No one can help you conquer your fears. It is something you must work out for yourselves."
The four turtles looked at each other apprehensively. "Maybe we were better off in the elevator," Mikey said to Donny, who in turn shook his head with a lopsided grin on his face at his brothers never-failing humour.
"This will not be an easy venture, my sons," Splinter reinforced.
"It never is," Raphael murmured.
"Hey, at least you got some weapons," Mikey pointed out. "Me and Don, we got nothing here." Raphael, Leonardo and Splinter had made it through the portal with their weapons. Mikey and Donny, however, were still without their nunchucks and bo staff.
"You got feet," Raphael countered, pointing out the obvious. "You can always kick butt."
"Oh, sure, we got blade-boys," Mikey gestured to the two oldest turtles, "vs. hand-to-hand," before gesturing to himself and Donatello. "We'll win hands down! Oh, no we won't, we'll lose, hands sliced off!"
"Michelangelo," Splinter said in a warning tone. "Calm yourself. The tests you will come up against will not necessarily test your physical ability. The island could pick up on psychological fears, and test your ability to conquer them mentally. This can sometimes be much more difficult to overcome."
"Yeah, especially with Mikey's mind," Raphael said, unable to resist the dig, even more so when he saw the miffed look on his youngest brother's face.
"I doubt we'll be seeing much of Mikey's mind, wherever it is," Donny said, joining in the banter at his brother's expense. "If you recall some of the nightmares when Mikey was a kid, they were of a much more physical nature."
"Oh yeah!" Raph said, remembering. "What did we have? The thing under the bed?"
"The monsters in the dark?" Donny said with a grin.
"Spiders, don't forget the spiders," Leo added, biting his bottom lip to keep from chuckling out loud.
Michelangelo looked extremely uncomfortable at having his childish fears dredged up for him. "Okay, well, we'll just see what this island, waddaya call it? Effaltoes..."
"Efialtis," Splinter corrected.
"Yeah, okay, we'll just see what this place has in store for you guys, heights-boy," Mikey pointed to Leo, "big-bad-bugs," then to Raphael, "and... Mr. kitchen utensils," he finished, gesturing to Donny.
Raphael looked ready to pummel Michelangelo, however Leo restrained him and reminded him, "he's giving some back, that's the signal to stop, okay?" Raphael relented, but still growled in his youngest brother's direction.
"Um, I'm not afraid of kitchen utensils," Donny said, pulling a face.
"They're afraid of you," Mikey retorted.
"Enough," Splinter commanded, calling an end to the banter, which secretly amused him. Of course, he'd never let his sons know that. "The sooner we face our fears, the sooner we can all go home."
"Couldn't have put it better myself," Raph said, jumping up to his feet and grabbing a sai out of habit. "Let's go in, face some fears, and go home before dinner, yeah?"
"Let's do it," Leonardo agreed with verve, standing up as well. Together, the family advanced along the beach and through a clearing, which led into the dense, lush jungle.
"I get what you mean now, Sensei," Mikey said, "there's not even the sound of crickets in here! "
"Now we know what the sound of inside Mikey's head sounds like," Raph remarked.
"C'mon, enough digs at the little turtle," Michelangelo pouted.
"Yes, the Silent Jungle is quite disconcerting," Splinter concurred. "It is as though we take the noises that accompany a jungle, or perhaps anything in life, for granted."
"I guess it's meant to make you think," Leonardo suggested.
"You mean, this is what it's like for a deaf person if they walk through a jungle?" Mikey asked innocently.
"For crying out loud, I'm not even gonna dignify that," Raphael grumbled.
"Mikey's got the right idea," Donny said, sticking up for his younger brother. "Just about, at least. You expect stuff in a jungle like this, like hearing birds or the sound of water. It's just plain weird without it."
They continued to walk, experiencing and slightly enjoying the absolute silence, save for the sounds of their feet crunching upon the leaves and twigs, until just inside a clearing, Raphael stopped them. "Shh," he hissed, holding his hand up to stop his family, who nearly walked into one another. "We're being followed."
The others immediately stopped and adopted a ready stance, in preparation for a possible attack. After a minute of thick silence, Leonardo said in a low voice, "well, Raph, we're waiting."
"I can sense it," Raphael said, desperation lacing his voice.
"I can't," Donny said, relaxing his ready-stance.
"Neither can I," Mikey put in, before turning to Donatello and asking, "Don, d'ya think since we got no weapons here, and Mr. Paranoia over there thinks we might be attacked sometime this year, d'ya think we should find some bamboo or logs or something? You know, go 'Jungle Turtle' all over again?"
Donny thought this through, and nodded. "Master? Can me and Mikey go..."
"No," Splinter cut in sharply, causing all four turtles to look suddenly in his direction. "If Raphael detects a presence, then he, or all of us, could very well be in danger."
"But how can he detect it and we can't?" Leonardo challenged.
Things then began to happen all at once, with no time for explanations. Raphael's spine tingled suddenly, and he whipped around just in time to see a flash of something dark scuttling towards the group. "Leo!" Raphael cried. "Look out!"
The breath had barely escaped Raph's mouth as the flash rammed directly into Leonardo's side and send him flying across the undergrowth. He skidded to a halt, and looked up to see the gleaming eyes of... "Raphael!"
The creature, a mutant turtle, could have been the fifth brother, right down to the knee and elbow pads. The bandana around his narrow, glinting eyes was black, and tattered at the tails. His skin was a much darker, forest green, and covered in angry scratches and deep scars.
However, Leonardo had no time to take any of this in, for the replica turtle was holding a razor-sharp sai to his throat with deadly intent.
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