CHAPTER NINE
Donatello had to have picked the short straw.
Battling the wave of foot soldiers across the motorway, exhausted, and on the brink of collapse, he wondered just how long he could keep his enemies at bay, all to give the remainder of his brothers and their friend April a clearer path towards the factory where their sensei was being held prisoner.
He had insisted the others stay in the van, continue to power through the seemingly limitless legions that were descending upon them, while he kept the roads clear for them, using all the skills he could
Back in the Turtle van, Michelangelo leaned over April's shoulder as she tinkered with her Turtle-com
"Who're you dialling?" he asked, playfully whimsically with April's hair.
April clasped his left hand with her own and gently caressed it.
"Irma, I need to know how she's holding up
"She doesn't have a Turtle com in this topsy turvey world" Michelangelo reminded her
"I know, but Don taught me a few tricks with this, it can also hack into phone communications"
"Where'd Don learn to do that? News of the World?" Raphael remarked.
April succeeded and patched through to Irma's phone at her apartment.
"Come on Irma, pick up" April pleaded.
Finally, the phone answered.
"Hey there" she said.
"Irma, what a relief, just what are you up to?" April said.
"I just got out of the shower, had to hold up in there a bit, some crazy things are happening towards the south of the city. Hope you're not caught up in any of it"
"Irma, it's important you stay exactly where you are. At home"
"Not a chance April, you need me out there. Besides, I haven't went for my groceries"
"Come on lady, now is not the time to go stir crazy...hey, I made time to rhyme"
"Who's that I hear?" Irma asked as Michelangelo broke his silence.
"Nothing, just my fiance"
"You never told me you were getting married. Who is the lucky lug? And why did you never introduce me to him? Unless you were worried I steal him...oops, don't tell him I just dropped my towel"
"In another life, believe me Irma, you'd be the first to know" April said.
"Another life? There's only the one kind of that, live for the now, now what might be"
"What might be is entirely what factors into the current story I'm pursuing"
"The only one who cares enough about you is outside getting his tail kicked"
"I have a stalker? Oh I live for that kind of danger" Irma said with glee, chuckling innocently.
"Gotta go Irma, you take good care of yourself, you hear?"
"Why are you phrasing that in the form of a goodbye? You are coming back from this aren't you?"
"It depends on how things are by the end of this I guess" April admitted.
"Well, no matter what happens, you hold on to whoever the lucky guy in your life is, and don't forget who'd make the best bridesmaid"
"I will Irma, love you" April said, and cut off the Turtle-com.
"Do you think now's a good time to go out there and actually help Don?" asked Raphael.
A swift chill in the air suddenly blew across the van, they couldn't quite get a fix o.n what was causing the draft, only a portion of their being found it odd, alien and otherworldly.
Everything was now in full acceleration; it was hard to keep their thoughts together as the events of the day ahead played out in rapid fashion.
They saw Donatello make his way back into the van, exhausted from battle, saying things that bordered on the incomprehensible...some of the fault of the exhaustion, most of it the fault of the acceleration.
The Turtle van made a turn and crashed through the bridge, hurtling towards the river below. Leonardo wisely opened the roof of the van up and he, his brothers, and April
What would have been an arduous couple of hours had been accomplished in mere minutes, as swift and as sudden as a blistering lightning strike.
After everyone inside the van managed to open the roof and swam to safety, April spent those hours turned minutes drying off. Her yellow jumpsuit and boots draped over a tree. She soaked in the sun in the lap of the Turtle she loved, who was beginning to resent the almost instantaneous passage of time, now robbing him of precious moment of tranquillity with his beloved.
The search for Splinter resumed in short order, a swift glimpse of their mentor being carried away by mousers across the perimeter of the industrial factory situated on the edge of the river bank where the Turtle Van had crashed.
"They must have caught word we were on our way over here, they're trying to move him off site" Leonardo spoke, sharpening the edge of his blade and hurriedly positioning himself to advance and make the kill on the mousers.
"Wait, something doesn't feel right" said Raphael, his instincts telling him there was an ambush potentially laying in wait.
No, not just instinct.
Reality.
"I concur with Raph, every tingle in my tummy is telling us to just let the mousers pass"
"But what if they're intending to dispose of him? And why am I speaking in fluent chipmunk?" Leonardo asked before realising how high pitched and faster he was sounding.
"I don't know, it just feels like that's what reality's telling me to do"
"Then why go with what it says? We all have free will, we all know this isn't how we should live our lives"
Donatello was swift in agreement.
"Leo's right Raph, this world is just somebody's plaything, this reality began as someone's curiosity that's now been greatly subverted, we have to change how we play this game. It might not be accurate to the walk through, but from all we're currently experiencing, we're being told to complete the story more in record time. Cheating the system in order to break it may just be how we reach it's climax"
Donatello approached Leonardo and placed his hand on his shoulder in a gesture of confidence in Leo's strategy.
"Go ahead Leo, make your move. It might clue us in to how this all works" Donatello insisted.
"They'll be on us in seconds" Raph snapped.
"Leo will make even shorter work in all that time, trust me"
Leonardo felt a rush of almost electric adrenaline course through him as he darted behind the bushes before making a decisive leap and crashing down with his blades finding their mark, digging deep into the heads of the mousers carrying Splinter.
Suddenly, the Turtles surroundings briefly began to glitch, and the foot soldiers patrolling the station suddenly made an appearance, but were suspended in motion, glowing bright shades of blazing orange, before fading from view.
"It worked Leo, by not hesitating and moving at a slower rate
"Something is giving us a nudge, an opportunity to no longer play this game by it's own rules"
"He's coming around" April said as Splinter stirred back into conscious thought.
"My students, what has occurred?"
"Never mind that Sensei, we've got to head back to the lair and plan our next move"
"How are we going to do that? Hail a cab?" asked Raphael, pointing to the totalled Turtle Van.
Observing the Turtles from within the Techondrome, Krang was throwing a fit.
"Those blasted Turtles will be made to pay for disrupting our little play-through"
"Aren't they all such clever boys?" boasted his prisoner, a firm smile forming as she let the teasing words slip from her ruby lips.
"You have been throwing your toys out of the pram far too often lately. You might as well sit back and watch as the biggest one rolls out next"
"As is intended"
"What do you mean by that? Are you saying I too am playing by your rules now?"
"At this point, only those who have followed the rules are allowed to break them"
The Turtles made their way towards a vast series of tunnels located just outside of the city.
Their speed had greatly diminished, and they could not catch any kind of gust in the early evening breeze. They also noticed that the birds had frozen in mid-flight.
"It's like everything's on pause" Donatello realised.
A large rumbling could be heard coming from the tunnels
"Calm before the crash guys" said Raphael, removing his sais from his belt and positioning himself for combat. The rest of the Turtles did the same.
The rumblings grew louder, a major tremor shook the surrounding area as a humongous, towering and all too terrifyingly familiar symbol of troubling terror came into view.
There it was.
The Technodrome.
"We're here"
"In record time"
"Something pushed us to this point, something altogether more powerful and complex"
"The VCR on fast forward?" Raphael asked.
"Yeah, I'd roll with that" Donatello answered.
"Simplest explanations are the best" Raphael quipped.