Episode 14: Enter Dimension X – Part 1

*Note: Alright guys, I'm headed out for a vacation to Illinois, but I didn't want to leave you hanging, so I'll be posting four parts today. This is one of them. That way it will take care of every day I would have posted. We are approaching the turtle entrance I've been waiting so long for! 5/31 I'll post again! Thanks again for anyone still reading.

Ethan and Jessica walked through the sewers together now. Kaela was once again away at school. The cool weather had settled in and the sewers were chilly. It was times like this that Ethan felt thankful for his fur coat. It was like a warm blanket around him. Searching for the turtles was beginning to feel more desperate. Ethan's mind felt like it was at war constantly. The thoughts of missing Karai raged against the thoughts of the Black Hole Weapon that – as far as he knew – could go off anytime from later today to years from now. The stress that he felt was mounting and still he felt the constant feeling that they were falling short in everything. Their training had fallen behind schedule and that was something that he personally held himself responsible for.

Also, lurking amid the swamps of his mind was the image of Kitsune with her smug smile and her familiarity. The references to their past had sparked his interest and once more he began meditating back to his earliest memories.

Realizing that he was lost in his memories, he was woken back to real life by the sound of swishing water as he moved. He glanced over at Jess. He could still not get over how odd it was that she was a mutant like him. Her fur was pure white, and the fox-like sly features matched her incredibly well. The green bandanna was tied around her face and looked stark against her fur. Her tail was much larger and bushier than Ethan's own stripped one and her eyes had changed to an almost golden color. Yet, somehow, she looked the same as before she was mutated.

He could hardly imagine the trauma of being morphed by Shredder. At least Ethan could pay his off as an accident. Jess wasn't so lucky. She had a grim expression on her face and Ethan knew that it was something much deeper than just their lack of success in finding the turtles. "So." Ethan said, trying to get circulation in their conversation, "How is the sewer life treating you?" he tried to add a little humor into his voice.

Her smile was faint in reply but Jess turned to look at him as they walked through the sewer sludge. "It's okay." She finally said, her voice distant. Ethan felt that he knew exactly what she really was feeling and thinking and it certainly wasn't that.

Mustering up the courage to touch a sensitive subject, Ethan said, "Are you thinking about Mako?"

Jess looked away again and cleared her throat, mustering what looked like a forced smile. It was much more of a grimace. "Nope! Just thinking about all the crazy stuff with the Black Hole thing. Geez, I hope that we find the turtles soon. I mean – if all of that is going to go down sometime, it would be nice to have their help." Jess looked around the sewer as if the moss covered stones and dripping muddy water suddenly had become interesting.

Moving a little closer to her, he nudged her shoulder with his own. "I know when you're lying, Jess." he said coyly. "You do it to me all the time. You could say I'm an expert at discovering Jess-lies now." he grinned. "Mako will be okay."

Jess shook her head, "I dunno, I mean – I don't care. It's because of him that I got mutated, so I suppose it's only fair that he gets mutated too."

"You don't mean that."

Jess heaved a sigh and looked away again, busying herself with tightening the green bandanna around her head and under her ears. They resumed silence for a few more moments and Ethan's mind turned back to Karai. "Y'know, Jess," he said, "You and I are in very similar situations."

"Oh?" Jess asked, sounding only half-interested in what he was about to say.

"Yeah," Ethan continued, "We both have crushes on people that are on the wrong side. We both like mutants even though they are super dangerous and want to kill us every time they see us. Heck, they both even change back and forth and have venom! It's the same!" he turned to smile at Jess and see her reaction.

She laughed at that as they turned down one of the nearby alleyways and continued through the soaking wet into deeper and darker tunnels. "Yeah, we definitely both like psycho paths. But I didn't kiss Mako. You totally kissed Karai."

"I was trying to save her!" Ethan said defensively.

"That sounds like a terrible Disney movie plot, Ethan." Jess smiled honestly and Ethan felt a deep level of accomplishment, even if it was at his own expense. "As a matter of fact, I think it is!" Jess added.

"Hey, now." Ethan shot back. "That last fight we had at the power grid, you gave Mako that long, lingering hug and used the power of love to turn him back into his human form." Ethan shoved at Jess, a grin on his own face, "That sounds like a bad Disney movie. Or a super cheesy comic book." The two continued to walk together, laughing as they went and for a solid moment, neither of them felt worried about the Black Hole, Karai, or Mako.

Jess brought their focus back. "So, what do you think of Kitsune?" She asked. "When we fought a while back, she made it sound like she knew us. Did you recognize her?" She sounded doubtful but when Ethan nodded she gaped at him and said, "Really? She didn't look familiar at all to me."

Nodding again, Ethan said, "Yeah, I feel like I know here, but from what or how, I have no idea." he could still remember her cunning small smile and her fiery eyes. "But, I was thinking, and remember when Sam told us that his parents were killed by a witch that was working for Shredder?"

Jess' eyes widened. "Yeah, I do remember that!" She said, obviously with the same realization that Ethan had alluded to. "That means she probably is the one that did it!"

Suddenly, Jess yelped and fell forward, nearly face planting in the sludge but she managed to grab onto Ethan's shoulder belt and stopped herself, Ethan bracing himself against the wall. "Jess, what the heck?" he turned to look at her as she straightened up, but her face was turned to the murky waters where the corner of a box as floating out through the filth. "What is that?" Ethan asked.

The two slowly made their way over to it and looked down suspiciously. The water had damaged much of the box, but it appeared to have once been colored green. Jess leaned down and slowly lifted it out of the water with two of her black claws to ensure she didn't have full on contact with it. "Mazes and Mutants." Jess read the sloppy, water-damaged words on the cover. "Some kind of board game?" she concluded with uncertainty.

"Huh." Ethan said, taking a look at the odd cover. He leaned and slowly worked out a message in the corner of the box. "Includes the campaign: Attack of the Monkey Goblins." he laughed at it and shrugged, "Sounds like some weird role playing game." Jess dropped it back into the water.

They slowly continued their trip, but stopped again when Ethan's cellphone rang. He pulled it out of his pants pocket to see that it was Sam. Ethan eagerly picked it up after showing Jess who it was. She stood close to him and leaned her head in to hear. Ethan put it up to his ear at the top of his head and pressed the green button. "Hello?" Ethan said, his ear twitching from being touched by the cool plastic of the phone.

"Ethan?" Sam asked. "How is the search going for you guys?"

"Pretty good!" Ethan replied, and then he re-thought about the question, "Well, we haven't found anything." he added grimly.

"Ah." Sam said back, "Well, I have been doing some serious hunting and ran into some crazy stuff – but that's a story for another time. I think that most of my sources are pointing to the Kraang. They may know where to find Hamato Yoshi and the turtles. They seem to know a lot about them. They also seem pretty interested in one of the students at the school: April O'Neil."

"Yeah," Ethan agreed, "We've heard a little bit about that. If you can link Hamato Yoshi to them, then I'm down. What is the plan?"

Sam paused for a moment and for a moment, Ethan could hear wind. He was running somewhere. Then he returned to the phone. "I'm going to do some spying and see if I can find some Kraang bases."

Ethan turned to Jess with a smile on his face. Things might be finally falling into place. "Do you need backup? We can do it!" Ethan quickly said.

"I might." Sam replied quickly, "I may be calling you sometime soon to get some assistance. Could be today, but definitely this week."

"We'll be ready."

"Good."

Sam then hung up. Ethan didn't even have a chance to discuss with Sam about the Black Hole weapon, but doubted the ninja would believe him, or be enthusiastic to look into that too. Ethan slipped his phone back into his pocket.

Kaela spun on her back heel, doing a final twist of her dance routine, the floodlights from above felt like fire on her skin and she could feel aggravating, twisting nerves in her shoulder where she had been stabbed by mutant version of Mako's scorpion tail. She went low for the final pose before the song would end when suddenly her shoulder twinged and she stumbled. Trying to recover, she pulled out her hand and shakily moved into the final pose, the song ending a little prematurely.

Feeling disappointed, Kaela looked nervously over at her teacher who was on the stage, wearing a slim fit black one piece and leggings, her hair done up into a bun. "Not bad." She said. "But Kaela, you come to class with an injury half of the time. Are you doing okay?"

Sorry, I was just trying to stop an army of mutants and gang members, led by a ninja warrior and Japanese witch from destroying the power grid the other day. I'll make sure to focus more on my dancing. She thought sarcastically as she grunted and got back up to her feet, the other girls in the class giving her questioning looks. "Yeah, sorry Mrs. Kelly." Kaela replied, rubbing at the bandages on her shoulder. "I had to have a surgery." she tried not to make any eye contact with the girls over in the corner of the stage.

Mrs. Kelly looked at her with concern. "The rest of you are free to go, Kaela, can I speak to you alone for a moment?"

Kaela felt her heart beat quicken as the other girls quickly slunk away and she was left alone with her teacher. I'm about to be cut, I just know it. She thought miserably, trying not to let it show in her face. If she was getting cut, she feared she would cry in front of her and Kaela was not going to let that happen. Her teacher walked up to her and put her hand on her shoulder with a grim smile. Great. I spend all of my energy trying to save the world and help my family not fall apart and here I am losing just about the only thing I have left that's mine. She thought. "Kaela," her teacher began. Here it comes. "Are you doing alright? I know you have had a lot of injuries, and I haven't seen Jess picking you up from dance anymore."

Kaela looked up at her teacher, feeling a little hope that maybe she wasn't going to have to leave the team. "O-oh." Kaela stuttered, "I just . . . well . . . Jess moved to live with my brother and my Mom and so I am just here alone with Dad." Kaela said. "There's been a lot of family changes that have just been hard and with the . . . uh . . . surgery, it's been difficult to keep up with everyone else." She managed to get out, making up a bit as she went, trying to throw in as much of the honest truth as she could.

Her teacher nodded, "Well, if you need to take a break, none of us will blame you."

"No, no!" Kaela said, "It's very therapeutic. I think the dancing is helping, not hurting."

Mrs. Kelly didn't seem quite convinced, but she let it go. "Alright, then I will see you tomorrow." With that, Kaela quickly thanked her and made her way off the stage and quickly changed in the back. The other girls were all gone and Kaela gingerly took of her dancers uniform and slipped on a blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans. She winced and held her injury when it shot with pain again. Feeling grumpy, she walked out of the locker room and went out into the empty hallway of school.

School was a bitter-sweet refuge and prison for Kaela. She couldn't decide which. "Of course." a voice said from down the hallway and Kaela paused. That voice sounded familiar and she hoped beyond hope that she was wrong. She peaked around the lockers into the hallway to see that she unfortunately was right. Mrs. Campbell, or rather Mrs. Rocket-armed Kraang was standing in the hallway with the principal. "Thank you for understanding my leave of absence." Mrs. Campbell said in her usual monotonous voice, her unblinking eyes staring at the principal, her fake hair done up in buns on both sides of her head, her usual brown suit and skirt hanging of what Kaela knew was a mechanical body.

"Of course," The principal said, walking away, "Just, give us a warning next time." he vanished around the corner. With Mrs. Campbell out here, Kaela had a brilliant and horrifying idea. Her office was empty – and that meant that she could invade it.

Running quickly down the hallway, her book bag over her shoulder, she booked it to Mrs. Campbell's office, not looking back to see if the woman was following. She would blow her up without a second thought. Once she reached the room that her and Jess had almost been killed in behind the main office desk which lay empty, Kaela quickly jumped over the bar and opened the door.

The room was dark, no windows. Like before, folders were stacked on the desk, ones that likely had information on April. Kaela snatched them and began flipping through them. She pulled out her phone and began to take photos when she saw pictures of April or anything else of interest. There were a few files on the turtles. The whole time she listened as hard as she could for high heels outside. Heck yes. I get to do something Jess and Ethan couldn't! Hopefully I get out alive.

Grabbing another folder, Kaela quickly opened it to see a strange fold out drawing of a huge grid and a single red square near the middle that was titled: Base. She grinned. This map had to be of only one thing and as she looked at it and went through the sewers in her head, she knew that it was the underbelly of New York. She quickly took a photo of it, tucked her phone away and then booked it for the door. Right as she closed the office door behind her, she saw the ominous shadow of Mrs. Campbell coming down the hallway towards her.

Kaela booked it again, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. "You! Stop." She heard Mrs. Campbell's voice from down the hallway, but Kaela had already jumped past the metal detectors and made it out into the chilly air, book bag held close to her.

As she ran towards the sewer entrance near the old tennis courts, she couldn't help but smiling. Kaela may be down, but she is definitely not out!