Here we go, my lovely readers, this is the last chapter of "Sidelined". I want to thank you all for the support. This chapter turned out a bit longer than the other chapters. Enjoy! ^^

Chapter 25: The End – Or Maybe Not

While running in the dragon's direction, April quickly pulled out her tessen and flicked it open. She was sure that the tessen wouldn't do much damage to the dragon, probably not even scratch it, but maybe it could distract the beast from the girl.

She aimed for the dragon's snout and threw her weapon.

The dragon somehow saw it coming the last moment and pulled his head back. The tessen hit the wall behind it and landed on the floor with a clattering sound.

The dragon looked at it for a moment, and April used the time to reach the girl and pull her behind a pillar.

The girl was breathing heavily, but as the dragon started moving again, growling loudly as he realized that its prey was gone, she covered her mouth with one hand to muffle her breathing.

The beast moved over to another pillar, and April let out the breath she had been holding.

The girl let out a silent whimper.

April placed her hand on her shoulder, giving it a sympathetic squeeze.

"It's okay," she whispered.

"We are never going to make it!" the girl wept.

"Of course, we are!" April replied.

"No!" the girl said. "It's so fast and deadly, it's everywhere! Whenever I try to make a move for the door, it's there, its red scales and its white teeth shimmering in the moonlight."

April's eyes widened. "Red scales?"

In the book, the dragon had been described as green-blue-ish, and last time she had checked, the dragon's scales had not been red.

"Yes," the girl said. "I always imagine dragons to be red, red as blood." The girl inhaled sharply. "And I was right! Dragons are red!"

"No, they're not," April said and removed her hand from the girl's shoulder.

She stood up and straightened herself, taking a deep breath.

"What are you doing?" the girl whispered, and a muffled cry followed, as April stepped out in the open.

There was no cover, nothing to hide her from the dragon. She wasn't even trying to move when the dragon detected her and growled.

She took a deep breath and approached the beast.

The dragon swayed its head, then growled again, and moved into her direction.

The dragon took a deep breath and opened its snout.

April knew what was going to follow and she braced herself.

She stopped and inhaled sharply as a wave of fire was coming her way.

Oh, she could only hope she was right.

Raph was shifting uneasily in his seat and wanted to shout at Leo that the gas pedal wasn't there for decoration reasons only, but he bit down his tongue.

It had been hard enough to talk Leo into taking him with them in the Shellraiser after Donnie had located April's T-phone in some abandoned industrial area.

They had immediately decided to check if she was alright – which was synonymous to rescuing her.

And now they were racing through the streets of New York, although it felt to Raph as if they were going in slow-motion.

Had the Shellraiser always been that slow?! When this was over he needed to tell Donnie that he should reactivate this stupid rocket he had invented. This thing should have brought them to April rather fast if it hadn't killed them before that.

He took a deep, calming breath. Casey was looking over to him from the floor where he was sitting. He had insisted on coming with them, too, and maybe it wouldn't have been so easy for Raph to persuade Leo to let him come with them if Casey hadn't suggested he would make sure Raph stayed in the Shellraiser.

This was unusual for Casey. He'd never miss a fight and, more importantly, he'd never miss a chance to rescue April.

Raph could only guess that the reason for this was that Casey still felt guilty because Raph had gotten hurt. But Raph didn't really care. He had more important things to do – like biting down his tongue.

When the Shellraiser took another turn, Raph was about to hit something, like, really, really hard, but he just bit down his lip harder, expecting to taste blood any moment.

But when Raph thought he couldn't take this any longer without hitting Mikey just for being Mikey, the Shellraiser came to a halt with squeaking brakes.

In the last moment April had covered her face with her hands, although she had known all along that it wouldn't help anything. And so she was standing there, her hands before her eyes, but the fire was gone, and she was still there. Unburnt.

Which shouldn't be the case if there really had been fire.

She removed her hands from her face and looked around.

The dragon was looking at her, grim and dangerous, but it couldn't fool her any longer.

She had been bathed in a wave of fire and she was still there.

She let out a triumphant cry.

Suddenly, the medieval hall was fading away, as was the dragon, and her surroundings turned into an old warehouse, the same warehouse she had entered earlier that evening.

She heard gasps and confused mumbling from behind her, and when she looked over her shoulder she saw how the "Realms"-fans started to leave their covers behind crates and pieces of junk.

"Aw man!" April heard an angry voice and she turned back to find the bird-like creature standing not far away from her, stamping his peg leg – she hadn't even realized he had a peg leg before.

"You weren't supposed to find out that quickly!" the creature called out.

April stepped closer to him and when the creature realized her, he moved backwards.

But before she could say anything, a few fans ran past her and over to the creature.

"Gosh, that was awesome!" one of them called out.

"Yeah! How did you do it? Camera? Special effects? It seemed so real!" another joined in.

"I really thought that dragon would eat me! The sound effects! Brilliant!"

April blinked a few times. Camera? Special effects? No, this hadn't been special effects. She wasn't sure what it had been, but it had felt too real for too long to just have been special effects.

"And I love how you made up your own 'Realms'-character! Very innovative!"

"What's your name? Do you want to join us at the fantasy-café?"

The creature seemed to be just as surprised as she was.

But then the confused look on his face changed, and his beak twisted into a big grin. Rather quickly, the grin was replaced by a serious look, and he bowed.

"I go by the name of Sir Malachi," he introduced himself, and everything clicked together in April's brain.

Sir Malachi, the sparrow mutant. The guys had told her about him. He could summon illusions and was a big "Mazes and Mutants"-fan. So him being a "Realms"-fan as well wasn't such a big surprise.

April shook her head lightly with an amused grin. Why hadn't she realized sooner?

For a moment she thought of going over there and telling Sir Malachi what she thought of being tricked in such a terrible way, but then she remembered how Mikey had told her how lonely Sir Malachi had been. And now he was standing there and chatting with some "Realms"-fans. He seemed happy and was smiling all the time when the little group set into motion on the way to the fantasy-café.

They were halfway through the warehouse when three mutant turtles came running in.

The group didn't even stop, but the turtles did, looking at the scene before them with confused looks on their faces and their weapons in their hands.

"Cool outfits!" one fan said to them. "But you're too late for the best fan event EVER!"

"Oh, okay," Leo said, his forehead still wrinkled in confusion.

"I don't remember any giant turtles in the books," another fan pointed out.

"Well, that's…because…they didn't make it into the final version," Leo stuttered.

"Ah, okay. Wanna join us for the fantasy-café, too?"

"No, thanks," Leo said quickly. "We'd only be disappointed because we missed the best fan event ever."

"Understood."

And with that the group was gone.

Donnie rushed over to April who had started looking for her T-phone and tessen which must be lying around on the floor here somewhere.

"Are you okay?" he asked quickly.

"Sure," April replied with a smile before she picked up her tessen.

Donnie let out a relieved sigh.

Leo and Mikey joined them when April had finally found her T-phone.

"Was that Sir Malachi?" Leo asked.

"Yep," April said.

"Wow, I think you have quite a story to tell, right, April?" Mikey chimed in.

April grinned from ear to ear. "You bet."

"And when the dragon had spit fire right at me and I was still standing there unharmed, the illusion faded", April said.

They were all gathered in the Shellraiser and while Leo was driving the vehicle back to the lair, April told them the story of tonight's events.

"Well, and then the other fans went all geeky about the awesome event and nearly dragged Sir Malachi away with them to the fantasy-café."

"I'm glad he found some new friends," Mikey said, dangling his legs.

"Yeah, but we still have to talk to him about kidnapping random people and putting them into a crazy fantasy-world," Leo said. "Again."

Raph looked from Casey to his brothers and to April.

He was so happy that she was okay. He had played so many worst case-scenarios in his head, Casey had had a hard job to keep him in the Shellraiser. He would have gone out there and fought whatever could have harmed April with his crutches if he had to.

But she was fine and he could spend the last two weeks before the splint was removed from his broken ankle reading the new "Realms"-book. Or could he?

Panic started to rise in his chest as he realized he had no idea if April had gotten the book for him or not.

Leo stopped the Shellraiser in front of the lair's entrance, and they all got up. Raph let the others get out before him and then jumped out of the wagon on his good leg.

April had fallen back a little and he quickly closed up to her with a few jumps.

"Sooooo," he drawled as he started walking on his crutches, "you're fine. That's a good thing, you know."

April giggled. "Yes, and it gets even better."

She opened her messenger bag and reached for something.

Raph stopped abruptly and nearly tumbled over when she was holding the latest "Realms"-book out to him.

He looked at her and the surprised look on his face turned into a grin.

"April," he said, "you're the best."

"Yeah," April replied matter-of-factly. "So I've been told."

But then her face turned into a smile and she winked at him. And with that they continued their walk.

Two weeks had passed, two weeks of peace and quiet and "Realms" and Raph had been rather easy to handle – which probably had something to do with the "Realms"-part of the two weeks.

But now he was sitting in Donnie's lab and shifting impatiently while Donnie was trying to remove the splint.

"Stop wiggling, Raph!" Donnie said in an annoyed voice. "I'm almost done!"

"Be done completely, then!" Raph replied.

"I am!" Donnie called out and let out a sigh of relief as the splint fell to the floor.

Donnie was surprised to find his brother look at his foot with a confused look on his face, but he decided to use this time of Raph holding still to bandage the foot.

"You'll still need some extra support at the beginning," he explained when he wrapped the bandage around the ankle. "And don't overdo it! I'll set up a special training plan for you. I'll talk to Master Splinter about it and … Raph, are you listening to me?"

Raph was still staring at his foot, but now that Donnie was done with the bandaging, he got to his feet.

"Yeah!" he called out. "No splint any longer! Yes!"

He pumped his fist in the air.

"No more crutches!" he added when he started limping over to the lab's door.

"You might still need them because you need to rebuild the muscular strength in your foot. I am not sure if it can hold your weight right now with the bandaging alone."

Donnie frowned when he saw how heavily his brother was limping over to the door, putting nearly no weight on his bad foot. It looked like he was right.

But Raph didn't seem to care. Actually, he was acting like he was some sort of Frank Sinatra as he was carrying out a victory dance which looked rather funny with all this limping and keeping his weight on one foot.

"Haha!" Raph called out happily. "Do you see this? No crutches! No crutches!"

"Well, about that," Donnie continued, "as I said you might need…"

Raph had reached the door of the lab by now and limp-danced out of the lab, cheering and rejoicing, and the next thing Donnie heard was a terrible rumbling, and he rushed over to the door.

He found Raph lying face down on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

"Raph!" he called out. "Are you okay?"

Raph let out a muffled groan, his face still pressed against the floor, and what he said next made Donnie's eyes widen in shock.

"I think I broke my arm."