Disclaimer: Peter Laird and the MIRAGE team are the only people out there who own the turtles. Lucky them. They get to do whatever they want with the guys, while the rest of us can only watch and read their material and beg for a lending agent as we continue to write our own stories.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry for not updating this story any sooner. I had a ton of homework-an English research paper, Physics problems and a test, Economics vocabulary, a character analysis, a journal entry, some Spanish sentences, and a hoard of other things to do. I also had to complete this HUGE Government project. Man, I have only two months of high school left and already I feel like I'm in college. Plus, my computer wouldn't take me to the site. It kept saying it wasn't available or something. And wouldn't accept any updates or submissions on because of all the updates they were installing, so I had to wait. Anyway, as an apology to my readers, I've added a chapter to this story and have posted another one-shot story that I hope you all will enjoy (it's not my Klunk story though. Hint-hint). Anyway, I'd just like to give a few shout-outs to those who did review:
kikiyophoenix19-I'm glad you like my story. Here's some more for you.
Pi90kantana-As you can see, I no longer type in bold. I'm not even sure why I did it in the first. I probably hit the bold type button by accident. Microsoft Word can so frustrating to use sometimes.
pacphys-I know you liked the first chapter, so I hope you enjoy this next one. It's more suspenseful, but still has some interesting twists to it.
Chibi Rose Angel-I read your Mikey story, "Death, Destruction, and Darkness." I really liked it. I left a nice review for you. I hope you will be finishing it up really soon. I'm glad you like being on my list of favorite authors. I hope that someday I can be listed as one of someone's favorite authors. I would be quite honored by that as well. And by the way, it feels great to have my first turtle story up! I'm glad that people like so much. And, I included a little more of Happy Days in my Klunk story just for you.
Darktiger2-As you asked for it, here's my update!
Goblin Cat KC-I'm pleased you like my idea. I actually got some of it from the end of your "Sharks" story. I hope you don't mind. I love your stories a lot. Keep updating!
Dierdre-I haven't seen your name around before. Are you new? Whether yes or no, I love fans that enjoy my writing. Thanks for the compliment. Here is the next chapter for you.
I'd like to personally thank all of you who reviewed. Your words of encouragement are incredibly valuable to a first time writer like me. They give me the will to continue writing and the knowledge that someone actually likes what I get down on paper. I'm also glad everybody liked my Klunk story. Thanks everyone and keep those reviews coming!
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Chapter 2-Here We Go.
Leonardo tried his best to relax. Though his long-standing meditation practices did assist him, he couldn't help but be slightly anxious about was he going to do. He wasn't completely sure what Master Splinter had in mind for them, or where they were even going for that matter. But, as always, he trusted his master. And besides, Splinter had said that he may enjoy where they were going, which also helped to calm him down.
Sensing his son's bottled anxiety, Splinter spoke in a reassuring voice. "There is no need to fear, my son. Calm yourself. All will be well, but you will never accomplish this if you do not relax."
"I'm sorry sensei; I'm trying. I'm just a little nervous, that's all."
"As I said, there is nothing to be afraid of, my son. I promise, I will let no harm come to you. Now…it is time to relax our non-spiritual reality. Slow it down and push it aside…"
Leo took a deep breath as he listened and tried to obey his father's words.
"Gather your consciousness and focus it at the center, at the mind's eye…as pure thought, and then…" Splinter began to feel his consciousness slip out of his body. "Then let it all flow out, release yourself out upon the sea of consciousness, as you feel yourself leave your spirit's haven." A few seconds later, and Splinter was free. His soul was now completely separate from his body.
If anyone else had been in the room, they may have noticed a small ball of light, with a dull mist surrounding it, leave Splinter's body, but the room was empty except for the rat and turtle. The ball turned and stared at the reptile below it. 'If all goes well, Leonardo should be joining me soon,' it thought.
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The turtle breathed deep. His sensei's comforting words had calmed him, as he focused his mind at its very core. He could see his thoughts revolving around inside his head; such intense concentration would have exhausted anyone else, but Leo couldn't sense anything. He could feel himself moving upward, almost as if he was floating, up and up and up, until...
He was free too. It was the most startling sensation he had ever experienced-more than being stabbed or cut or sick or scared, or anything else. It was like all his senses, all his emotions, all his feelings, his very being had been rolled into one, into his present state. He looked around. He felt strange, different somehow, like he had never truly felt before. The feeling was both familiar and peculiar.
He looked around. Beneath him, sat his body, as well as Master Splinter's; both frozen in the positions that their souls had left them in. Such a sight wasn't new to Leonardo. Having practiced some astral projection before, he had gotten over the initial shock of looking at one's self without a mirror. He had spent over a day in his room, recovering from the feeling of being dead-a lonely soul without a body to claim. Now, looking at his body, Leo couldn't help but feel a sense of freedom overcome him. It felt like he could go anywhere now. Like he didn't have to stay locked away in the sewers anymore, or hide in the shadows. He could travel to the surface world and roam freely, without having to worry about being seen. Most think that having an out-of-body experience is horrifying, but Leo was beginning to believe that this one would be quite enjoyable.
His hapless dreaming was suddenly interrupted by Splinter's monotone voice. "Come my son, we must go. We cannot spend too much time away from our bodies. If I am to show you all that I wish to, we must leave soon."
At first, Leo wasn't sure where his master's voice had come from. But as he looked closer, he noticed the white ball hovering in the air. "Master Splinter?" he asked, "Is that you?"
"Yes, my son. This is simply my spirit in its most relinquished form."
"Are you sure? I mean, I always thought that spirits were like ghosts, you know? That they looked like the person in life, not like floating white balls."
"I'm afraid you have been fooled by the movies my son. Spirits appear as they wish to appear. But, we are not ghosts, for we are not dead. We are merely in another state of being that is still conscious of the world around us." Though he could not see his son's face, Splinter could see feel the sense of confusion coming from Leo's aura. "But, if you need more solid proof my son, go look at yourself in my mirror."
'Look at myself in a mirror? Why haven't I done that before?' thought Leo. He gently hovered over to a mirror that Splinter kept in the back of his room. (I know, you're thinking 'Why would a rat possibly want a mirror?' but come on. Everyone is curious as to what they look like sometimes, and I'm sure Splinter could use one to make sure that his fur still looks nice every once in awhile. Now, back to the story.)
Through all his practice sessions in the past, Leo had never once had enough time to observe his spirit self in the mirror. Curious, he approached the mirror slowly. At first, he was taken aback. There, hovering in the middle of the mirror was a cyan colored ball, with whitish mish encircling it. It looked to be no bigger than a fist, and had a slight shimmer to it. He cocked his head, and watched as the ball copied his motion by swaying slightly.
Splinter floated up behind Leo. "You see, Leonardo. This is what your soul looks like in its most pure form. It is simply an essence, without all the elaborate details." Noticing the color of Leo's spherical soul, he added, "But I see that some characteristics are more difficult to lose."
A quiet laugh escaped from the blue ball. "Humph. I never would have guessed that this is what I looked like through all those training sessions. Just a tiny blue ball, floating around. I bet I could really scare the shell out of the guys if they saw me like this."
Splinter couldn't help but chuckle as well. "Only to those who do not understand what they were looking at would be afraid of a soul. To those more experienced, we would appear only as traveling souls on a journey of some sort. Now come, we have spent too much time here. My friends are waiting for us." The white ball left Leo's side.
Confused by his master's last comment, Leo turned. "Friends? What friends sensei?"
"Do not worry so, my son. You will meet them soon. Now, prepare yourself, for we are leaving now. We are going into a world beyond the physical plane, into a realm of the senses that lie beyond the five most know and through doors that have been opened by few and entered through by fewer still. In short, we are going into the world of the mystic."
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Michelangelo was beginning to worry. His father and oldest brother had been in Splinter's room for some time now, but that wasn't what was bothering him. He had heard the two talking to one another for a little bit, but then, silence had overtaken the rat's room. Though Mikey knew Splinter and Leo could be extremely quiet during meditation practices, he had never know their silence to last this long. Looking at the digital clock of the VCR, he realized that they had been in there for over five hours, or at least five hours since Splinter had last spoken to him.
"What could those two be doing in there?" he wondered. Nothing good was on the TV anymore, so he decided to check in on the two, just to make sure everything was alright. "I'm sure they won't mind if I take just a little peak."
Walking up to Splinter's room, he slid the door open as quietly as he could and peaked in. The room was still silent, and lit by a role of candles on one of the shelves. In the center, Leo and Splinter sat on a mat in the lotus position, with closed eyes.
'They must still be meditating,' he thought. Not wanting to disturb them, he carefully pulled the sliding door shut. Suddenly, a lingering question appeared in his mind. Though he desperately wanted to go back to watching TV, Mikey knew that once a question like this popped into his mind, then there was only one soul who could answer it.
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Donatello was still busy in his room. He had long ago transformed a portion of his living quarters into a working lab, an option that he utilized whenever he needed some private space to work in peace. He was completely absorbed in repairing a broken radio when Mikey walked in.
"Hey Don?"
Without even looking up, Don gave off an already annoyed breath. He hated it when his work was interrupted. "What is it Mikey?"
"Um, how long can people stay in meditation?"
Surprised by the randomness of the question, Don turned around to face his brother. "What?"
"How long can people stay in mediation? What is it-a couple of hours?"
"I don't know. I've never thought about anything like that before. Why don't you go ask Leo? I'm sure he'd better at answering something like that." He turned back to the radio.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because Leo's been meditating with Master Splinter for over five hours now. They haven't made a peep or anything. I don't even think they've moved at all. I looked in on them and they were just sitting there really quiet and stuff, like they were concentrating really hard on something. But don't ask me what, cause' I wouldn't know. Anyway, I was just curious because I've never known them to meditate for this long."
"Hmm, are you sure that nothing might be wrong with them?"
"I don't think so. They didn't look like they were in pain or anything. Just really, really focused is all. The strange thing is when I checked on them, I got this really weird feeling-like the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped because I felt really cold. But then, it disappeared. It was like someone had closed the door and stopped letting all the warm out. But I don't get it. You didn't turn the temp down or something did you?"
"No, I haven't." A murmured feeling of worry was beginning to creep up on Donnie too. Trusting his intellect though over his gut, Don shrugged it off. "Look, I'm sure it's nothing Mikey." He put a reassuring arm over Mike's shoulders. "Leo and Splinter are fine. You know how they can be sometimes when they get really into all that spiritual stuff. They get so quiet, it's like they're not even in their own bodies anymore."
Laughing uneasily, Mikey said, "Yeah, I bet you're right. It's probably just my imagination running away with me. Oh man, I can't believe I just said that."
"It happens to the best of us," said Don. Returning to his repair job, Don left Mike to his thoughts.
"Yeah, Don's right. It's probably nothing." As he went back to the living room, Mikey began to get the feeling that something bad was going to happen. "Now I'm starting to feel like Leo," he said as he sat back down on the couch, "Mr. Paranoid." He turned the TV on once more. But as he as he stared at the showcasing commercials, the turtle couldn't shake the feeling that something out of the ordinary was occurring somewhere very close by.
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Author's Note: Another chapter down, another to go. Leave me some reviews for this chapter, so that I will have some incentive to get writing! Hope everyone is enjoying this story so far as well as my other stories. I will try to update this story much sooner than I have been. Trust me; I know how aggravating waiting for the next chapter of a story can be. I will try to get the chapter up this weekend at the latest. However, it all depends on how busy I will be. Take care all my faithful readers and as always, GOD BLESS:)