As we told you in the last chapter, you don't have to have read Dimension 17 to understand this story. However, events that took place in D17 will be mentioned here. Don't worry, though - everything will be cleared out. If you have any questions -for us or for the characters - there's a thread called "Interview the characters" at Idun's little corner at Stealthy Stories. Drop by there.

Disclaimer: We don't own the TMNT. However, we do own the dimension where our favourite turtles are now, we own the city, the OC's and practically everything that begins with a "V".

2. The Vyrz guerrilla

Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo had been following the footsteps for about 20 minutes now. The lilac snow was still falling from the purple clouds above them.

"You know, what I don't get is how the people we're following now could get Raph without us noticing," Mike said. "We dived through the opening less than a minute after him. And, as if that wasn't enough, the footsteps had almost disappeared under the snow. It just doesn't make any sense to me."

Leo looked up. "You have a point there, Mikey. I didn't give that a thought until now. Donnie?"

Their brainy brother looked thoughtful. "I think I can explain why the footsteps almost were covered in snow when we discovered them. You know, we didn't get up directly after we went through the door. It seems like we got knocked out and woke up a bit afterwards. Right?"

"Right." His brothers didn't really understand where he was going, but didn't object.

"So, it is possible that, whoever they are, took Raph and left before we woke up, thus the footprints almost covered in snow."

"But why would they take Raph and leave us behind?" Leo frowned.

"I'm afraid I don't know. The only reason I can come up with is that time goes faster here, so that whoever live here found Raph and took him away before we even passed through the door."

Leo and Mikey nodded. Don's explanation seemed sensible enough. But there was one thing that still didn't make any sense.

"But there was no sign of a struggle," Mike said. "Raph wouldn't let some weird types walk away with him just like that. He'd put up one shell of a fight."

"Don't you remember what Don said, Mikey?" Leo asked. "He said that we were knocked out when we went through the portal. Probably, Raph went out cold too."

"Yeah."

In that moment, they rounded a hill, and found themselves looking at a great city. Some of the houses were so high that their tops were hidden by the clouds (even though the clouds seemed to be nearer to the ground than the turtles were used to) but there were also houses with no more than three floors. Most of them seemed to be made of some rubber-like material.

"Wow," Donnie breathed out. "Where did that come from? No suburbs whatsoever, the city started just like that. Like it popped up out of nowhere."

"Whatever," Leo said and fidgeted a little. "I don't think we should go into the city. We better avoid it."

"That might be hard, Leo, since the footsteps sure don't seem to avoid it," Mikey said and pointed. Sure enough, the furry footsteps led into the city.

Leo frowned. "But what if..."

"Look Leo, if you're afraid of being discovered, you can stop worrying about it," Donny interrupted him. "Listen."

"What do you mean?"

"Just listen."

His two brothers stood still and listened. All they could hear was the wind.

"I don't hear anything," Leo said and looked at his intelligent brother.

"Exactly. It's weird. A city like this is bound to be full of noises, but it isn't. Even from this distance we should be able to hear something, but we don't. Something here is not quite right."

"C'mon Leo, I want to know what's going on here," Mikey begged his oldest brother.

"And we got to find Raph as well."

Leo sighed and resigned. He knew that his younger brothers were right. "All right, let's go. But we must be careful, okay?"

"Okay."

"Word of honour."

Going into the city was pretty uncomfortable. It was all quiet, except from the wind blowing around some lilac snow. There was no sign of life anywhere, it was as if no one had been living there for years. Yet the footsteps kept on forward, between houses whose windows gaped empty and lifeless.

"This gives me the creeps," Mikey whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" Don whispered back.

"I don't know. Why are you whispering?"

"I'm whispering because you're whispering."

"That's not an answer."

"It sure is."

"Listen, just because I"m whispering..."

"Could you both stop whispering!" Leo exclaimed, and all three of them jumped when the loud sound of his voice echoed between the deserted streets.

"Geez Leo, give a guy a heart attack why don't cha," Mike gasped.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," Leo declared, although it was hard to decide whether he was trying to convince himself or his brothers. "Let's just keep going."

They continued in silence.

After a while, the footsteps rounded a corner and started following a bigger main road. The turtles found themselves looking at a big mansion-looking, grey building at the end of the road. This house actually looked pretty intact, the glass in the windows wasn't crushed and the door had no holes in it and was closed. The footsteps led up to the front door.

"So...shall we just walk up to the door and knock nicely?" Mikey asked.

Leo scratched his head. "Nah, we don't know what kind of people live there. Maybe we should try to find a backdoor or something."

"There's an open window," Don said and pointed. "See? Fourth floor, third window to the right, pretty close to the fire escape."

"Good work, Don," Leo said. "Okay guys, we'll keep to this street walking up to the house, but we"ll stick to the shadows."

"Right."

The ninjas started sneaking up to the house, but they had barely moved a hundred feet before three big, purple hands showed up from nowhere and pulled them into an alley.

Leo, Don and Mike stood before five or six big, purple, hairy creatures, who all wore dark purple belts decorated with white V's. The turtles drew their weapons, but one of the creatures took a step forward and pulled up its hands. "Take it easy, guys, we mean no harm!"

The turtles stared at the figure quizzically, but did not lower their weapons. "Who are you?" Leo asked.

"My name is Varriq. I am the leader of the Vyrz guerrilla."

"Right..."

"You were on your way to the current headquarters of the government. That is pure madness. We just saved you, you know."

"Actually," Don said, "we don't know. What do you mean, Vyrz guerrilla? What's so wrong with the government? And what is this place?"

Varriq sighed. "It's a pretty long story, actually."

"We better start at once, then," Mikey said. "Our brother is in there and we'd like to get him out as soon as possible."

Varriq raised a furry eyebrow. "I know..."

'He does?' the turtles thought.

"...but this really isn't the right place to talk. Please come with us. We might be able to clear some stuff up for you."

Don, Mike and Leo hesitantly put away their weapons and followed Varriq and the other furry creatures. They now noticed that the so-called Vyrz guerrilla all carried a purple gun on their backs. They looked pretty scary.

About five minutes later, they came to a grey skyscraper that looked like any other skyscraper in the city: the windows were crushed, and the door and walls had nasty marks in them.

One of the guerrilla members walked up to the door and knocked four times - thrice quickly after each other, then a small pause and then once again. A

small spy-hole in the door was opened and a hoarse voice said: "Password?"

The guerrilla member who had knocked mumbled something, and the door opened. Varriq ushered the turtles and the other purple figures in.

They were in a pretty big room that might have been some kind of lobby long ago. Now it didn't look so fancy anymore. Great parts of the railings on the stairs were gone, the floor was dirty and the tapestry on the walls had seen better days. Several purple, hairy creatures, all with dark purple belts, looked up when they came in.

Varriq gestured to a long table with benches on each side. "Please take a seat."

Don, Leo and Mikey sat down carefully. Varriq took a seat at the other side of the table, so that he was facing them. "Before we begin, would you please tell me your names?"

"My name is Leonardo. These are my brothers, Donatello and Michelangelo," Leonardo introduced them.

Varriq nodded. "And you know my name already. As I told you, we are the Vyrz guerrilla. And this is our story..."

Varriq took a drink of something that looked almost like beer, except it was purple. Then he continued.

"We are members of a race called the Vrogor, and many years ago, we were kidnapping people from other dimensions to fight our most powerful creation, the Vodash, so we could get the test results. The last person we took was blue and furry and talked funny. He had a long tail and was a transporter."

'Nightcrawler!' Mikey thought.

"The X-Men were here?" Mikey asked.

"If that is what they are called, then yes, the X-Men were here. But anyway, his friends arrived somehow and helped our furry blue 'guest' defeat the Vodash. Then a man sitting in a device with wheels took Lord Varok's family hostage and demanded that he stop this cruel practice and resign his position to a lady named Vingen. So we stopped the 'testing'. The people you see here in this room are against testing. There are many small groups of people like us who are rebels. But there's a civil war.

"Many of the highest-ranking government officials didn't like the anti-testing policy, so they attacked and killed Lady Vingen and took over and resumed the testing. Those who didn't like the testing were usually put to death. So now, we are fighting the government to stop this nonsensical kidnapping and fighting the Vodash."

"Who's leader of the government now?" Leo asked.

"The Head Guard, Vollkar, one of the cruellest people in the entire dimension. And if he has your brother, then I'd recommend you'd just go back home. Knowing the Head Guard, I wouldn't be surprised if he's dead by now from all those horrible genetic experiments."

A Message from Cat: Great job, Goddess, as usual. See? Isn't she doing a good job? Let's give her a big hand! (applauds) LOL Please R&R!

Oh, and by the way, I would consider this a cliffie. I don't like cliffies, but then why do I do them to all my readers? Like in one of my chapter stories, I'm always using cliffies to end my chapters. But that's beside the point. So long and thanks for the fish! LOL :)

A message from Idun: (bows when people applaud) Thank you, thank you. Now give Cat an applaud too!