Chapter three:
Raphie walks around the lair looking at everything especially the dojo.
Raph approaches him causing him to turn. "How are you doing?" He inquires offering a smile to the other.
"Alright. It's just been a really long time since I've been back in the lair. Even though it's not the one from my world. I usually avoid it when in other worlds as it's harder to stay out of sight." Raphie admits to which Raph nods his head in understanding. He looks around the dojo. "Looking around I swear I can still see how things were way back when. Over the years my memories of those times have gotten fuzzy, no matter how hard I try to keep them, but I can still remember how my brothers looked clearly. Time really does try to erase old memories." He turns to Raph when the other puts a hand on his shoulder. He sees a soft look on the snapping turtle.
"It's okay. It really has been a long time for you. There's things that even I don't remember from when I was young. I think it's impressive that you can still recall some things. Even if it may not be everything." Raph's words cause Raphie to smile a little.
"Thanks." Raphie lets his gratefulness be heard.
"It's no problem." Raph assures him removing his hand, as he's not sure how comfortable Raphie is with it. "Do you mind if I ask you something? It's just out of curiosity." He gets a go ahead nod. "How do you spend the time when the tree is safe and you don't have much to do? Do you just spend time hanging by the tree? I know you said you also travel to other worlds. I just can't imagine there is too much to do when things are peaceful."
"Honestly no I don't just hang around the tree all the time." Raphie's answer surprises Raph a little. "I do patrols and checks to make sure no threat is coming. And that everything is going how it should be. Sometimes I even do stay and just hang out. As I've told you I also travel to various worlds and just hide watching those there go about their lives. It also helps in looking out for any issues that might be tied to the tree. I can also gauge how bad things are affecting the worlds. Like seeing that your worlds magic is having issues. It told me that things weren't right. Also how bad your magic was failing told me that things were only getting worse. It's stuff that I notice by observing the worlds. The worlds tell me a lot when I observe them in the shadows. I don't interfere with the worlds and I do whatever I can to not even interact with the worlds. I try to not disturb the worlds if I can."
"Doesn't that all get lonely though? I mean you don't have anyone in your world and you don't interact with the worlds." Raph points out a little worried.
Raphie shrugs. "It doesn't really bother me honestly." He admits. "I do have the connection with the tree so I don't feel like I'm just always alone. I can even communicate with it in other worlds. Even now in fact. So I don't really feel lonely ever." He sighs softly crossing his arms over his chest. His gaze slightly glancing down. "But with this issue not even the tree knows what's going on. If we knew then we would have found a way to fix it, or told you to see if any of you knew. I just wish I knew what was going on. I hate seeing the tree in distress, and knowing that the worlds will suffer because of it. The tree means a lot to me and it was even there when those in my world passed on. We've been through a lot together. And in my connection with it I can feel it struggling. It tries to assure me it can handle it. But I can still feel it. Just not as strongly as the tree feels it. I refuse to give up until things are fixed. No matter what it takes."
"We'll figure things out. You have us to help you figure out what's going on. We won't give up either. Not until this is all fixed. For the sake of the the tree and the worlds." Raph assures Raphie who nods softly. "Since we know about all this when all this is over you're free to come say hi. If you want to that is. You'll always be welcome in our world."
"I'll keep that in mind." Raphie responds in a thanks for such an offer.
"Come on. Shall we head on out of here?" Raph suggests and Raphie makes a sound of agreement. He leads the two of them out of the dojo to the living room.
The others are chilling there talking together while they wait.
Donnie and Donatello emerge from the lab causing everyone to turn to them.
"We think that this should help in figuring out the problem." Donatello tells them holding the device. "Now we just need to try to scan the tree again."
"I'll take us all back there." Raphie agrees. "The sooner we do this the better."
They all gather by Raphie and wait for him to do his thing. They are watching in interest of seeing him open the portal.
Raphie turns to open the portal now that everyone is here. He extends a hand letting blue mist appear around his hand then floats away.
The blue mist detaches from Raphies hand and it swirls into the shape. It completes the process and turns into the portal back to the tree.
"It is so amazing to watch every time." Mikey gasps in awe at this.
"I have many ways to get a portal open. Depending on how I feel like opening one." Raphie tells them before heading through the portal.
The others follow along making sure to get through before the portal closes.
Donnie and Donatello approach the tree.
Donatello crouches by the base of the tree starting up the machine to scan it.
Donnie moves around the tree to watch for any reactions to the scan.
The others wait watching as they hope that the source will indeed be located.
After a few moments a beep is heard.
"Hm." Donatello hums for a brief moment as he looks at the device.
"What is it? What did you find?" Raphie heads closer to Donatello.
"The source of what's draining, or at least trying to drain, the trees power is coming from elsewhere. Yet somehow it's connected itself secretly to the tree. I can't track it any further than that. It disappears off somewhere but the multiverse is huge. Too huge for me to be able to track it." Donatello explains. "I doubt that any technology I make could be able to track something across the multiverse. We got lucky that we found a spot that lead us to this world in the first place to know whats going on."
"It's a place to start." Donnie points out to Donatello while Raphie looks thoughtful.
Leonardo looks to Raphie. "You know the multiverse best. Perhaps is there a place we could start? Maybe somewhere that's caused trouble for you before."
"Hm." Raphie hums in thought bringing a hand to his chin as he glances down. "Well there's a few that have done so before. Well ones that are still around at least. I did investigate them but I didn't find anything that I could link to them to what was happening."
"We'll check them again anyways. Maybe something new will come up." Leonardo suggests to which Raphie lowers his hand, looks to the Leo that just spoke, and nods his head.
"Maybe we should check out if you know any place that those who caused trouble, even the ones not around anymore for whatever reason, would go to that you know of." Donatello adds. "Its worth it to investigate every angle possible."
Raphie nods his head before holding out a hand to create a portal. "This way." He leads them through into another world.
The air in this world is thick making it a little hard to breathe. It looks like a pretty generic city though with a gloominess about it.
"This way." Raphie tells them and leads them through the city clearly knowing where he's going.
They all follow along after him trusting him to lead them the way they need to go.
"Who are we starting with?" Donnie inquires moving to walk at the same pace as Raphie.
The others take in the gloominess of the city that feels like it just melts off of the city, also surprised by how quiet the streets are than they're used to when being out currently.
"I decided to start with someone who's been the most quiet. I have checked on him before but it would be good to check again. His name is Oliver. My trouble previously was that he tried to drain power from his world, to try to make it weak so he could take over. Of course with the tree attached to the worlds it would have affected it. He couldn't get it working but I still had to stop him. After our battle his world ruined him to where he wasn't a real threat afterwards. They made sure that he couldn't try again. When I checked on him I saw him not doing anything really."
"Okay." Donnie nods his head. "That is a good place to start. We'll make sure that he really didn't somehow find a way to drain the tree."
They make it to a small rather rundown home that almost screams stay away.
The colours are as gloomy as it's surrounding area, the size looks like it can barely fit one person living within it. The garden is slightly overgrown, and the curtains are all closed.
Raphie brings them towards the places front entrance. Before he can even knock the door swings open to reveal a fox mutant; one who looks as though he's been neglecting himself.
"I told you I'm not up to anything! Why do you like snooping around me?!" The fox demands narrowing his eyes at Raphie. "Surely there's others you can go bother."
"And I'm supposed to trust you Oliver? You did do a great evil you idiot." Raphie points out with a slight huff and his arms crossed over his chest. "Besides you've been one of the more quiet ones."
Oliver stares at the turtle for a long moment before moving out of the way. "Fine! Search to your hearts content! But if I find anything missing I will find a way to make trouble for you."
The two groups move in checking out the home which is rather quick due to its size. They return clearly having found nothing not even a secret passage.
Donatello decides to try a scan before putting it away. "I'm not even picking up any signal activity. Safe to assume this isn't our guy."
"I told you!" Oliver rolls his eyes before doing a quick sweep of his place. He ensures that nothing was taken. He looks at least somewhat satisfied once done his sweep.
The group leaves Oliver's place.
Donatello tries a scan, feeling stupid for not thinking of that in the first place, before turning up nothing that can be picked up at least.
"Where should we go next?" Mikey turns to Raphie blinking in curiosity.
"Well I'm thinking of going to check on..." Raphie trails off as his eyes are drawn to something.
The others turn to that direction, knowing that if it caught Raphie's attention then it isn't something normal. They don't see anything however Raphie takes off in that direction. They quickly follow as he turns right to go around a building running in straight, before taking a left turn going to another right turn where he stops. They look at what he's looking at to see a portal just finish closing.
This portal is black like a shadow indicating that it wasn't the tree that made it.
"Have you seen anything like that before?" Master Splinter inquires to Raphie while the two Dons try to scan the spot.
Raphie shakes his head. "No. I haven't seen that before." He informs the group. "It looked like some sort of shadowy figure. But I only caught brief glimpses of it."
"What if it's what we're looking for?" Leo brings up leaning a little forward to get a better look at Raphie.
"There is a chance it could be. Though since we don't know where whoever it was went it's hard to track it." Raphie tells them as the two Dons finish up.
Donnie turns to Raphie clearly having something on his mind. "Maybe if we could get a proper sample of the magic from the tree we could use it. Try to draw whatever is draining the magic out? If whatever that thing was is the culprit then maybe they can sense the magic coming off of you. If done right we really might be able to set up a trap for this thing."
"And how would you think about getting a sample of the magic?" Raphie questions watching Donnie as if not sure it can be done without harming the tree.
"Well there's a few ways I can think of that shouldn't harm the tree." Donnie tells Raphie almost smirking as if he's stupid to doubt him. "We could try to contain some magic you pull from the tree when using it, or perhaps just take a piece from the source with a special device that'd be careful, though I'm also thinking that maybe we could just let the tree offer a sample."
Raphie looks a little thoughtful about this idea. "Alright. We'll try it." He agrees and opens a portal to which they head back to the tree. He approaches it and looks at it.
Donnie moves closer and has a vial to hold the sample.
Raphie closes his eyes and whispers something, before some magic comes from the tree going to his hand. He opens his hand and puts the sample of magic into the vial which Donnie closes. "I hope this works." He mentions to Donnie.
"I have a good feeling about this." Donnie assures Raphie looking at the floating magic in the vial. "Now we just need to set up a trap to try to draw this thing out. With the sample it should make the magic signal stronger, without draining more from the tree, which should help draw out whatever is doing this."
...
Raphie is standing in a open space, in one of the worlds they picked for this by Raphie's recommendation, with the others hiding in spots around there.
Donnie is concentrating. Using his own magic to try to magnify the signal of the magical sample.
Donatello is hiding with Donnie to be the one to watch out for anything that might come.
They're all positioned to be able to cover as much ground as possible, so no matter where whoever is doing this pops up they'll see it. Hopefully at least.
Raphie starts looking around as if searching for something. He is doing this as the planned act, to not make it suspicious of him being there. He had waited a little bit to give the others time to get into their spots.
They wait for a little bit with no sign of activity.
Raphie suddenly raises his head as if sensing something.
Donatello looks in the direction Raphie is looking. He does notice a shadow move out of sight. He waits to see if it'll reappear. He turns to Raphie when it doesn't and sees Raphie turn away.
Raphie pretends to have lost where he sensed the thing. He purposefully turns his back to it while looking around, around in the other direction, to keep acting.
Donatello focuses on where he saw the shadow and he sees a figure peer out from behind a bush. He can't make out much as the figure is pretty dark like a shadow. He clutches his bo staff to be ready to jump to Raphie's aide.
The figure moves towards the light carefully, clearly trying to sneak up on Raphie.
There's no way the others don't see the figure by now.
The figure is shown better when stepping into the light. This figure appears to be a black ram mutant with large curled horns, and is wearing a slightly dark grey tank top, slightly dark grey sweat pants, and he does walk on two legs as expected with four fingered hands instead of hooves, though with feet fitting for a ram. He moves closer and closer to Raphie.
Raphie keeping up the pretend to not have noticed the ram.
Once the ram draws close enough it's time to act.
Raphie spins around grabbing onto the ram who struggles.
Everyone moves in hurrying over, Donnie even joining stopping in using his magic, soon surrounding the ram.
The ram manages to slip away from Raphie and glances around with a slight huff.
"Nowhere to go." Raphie growls to the ram. "So why don't you tell us what you know and what you've been doing." He demands clearly not going to play any games. His eyes narrow at the mutant.
The ram slightly glances around to the group that is there. "Hm. I suppose it would make sense this would be the turn out. Considering you know what about that little tree that you protect is. What makes it special to you beyond its magic." He winks one of his red eyes at Raphie only to notice confused looks. "Oh? They do not know?" He laughs at this before smirking around and settling on Raphie. "Well then. Why don't you tell them the little secret about that tree? One I was there to witness. All those years ago. The reason you stayed to protect it. Why you willingly let yourself no longer age. Tell them all about it." He chuckles before falling through a portal, the same one that was seen earlier, that opens below him then closes once he's through.
All eyes go to Raphie who shifts not really looking at anyone.
Donatello knows that he and everyone else want to know what is it that they're not told.
"What are you hiding?" Leonardo questions Raphie, being the first of all of them to speak up about one of the main questions they have.
Raphie stays there for a moment before turning. He opens a portal and gesturing for them to follow. He leads them through with that portal closing afterwards. He refuses to face them instead he is facing the tree with his back to the others. "There is something that I didn't tell you." He reaches for something tucked away in his sash. He pulls it out and looks to his hand before clenching his fist around the object. "It ties in with the day that made me decide to protect the tree. An event that changed my life forever." His hand lowers revealing it to be a blue mask like one Leonardo wears.