Forward And Back Again
Beneath The Surface
"You don't want to do this, Zixx," Boss Zukko warned.
"I know what I want," Torbin Zixx told him. "And it's not you as an advisor anymore. Men, take him!"
With a ferocious roar, Boss Zukko swung his tail at multiple soldiers charging him, knocking them aside like bowling pins. The remaining soldiers opened fire but the shots bounced harmlessly off of Zukko. Zukko punched one soldier away and grabbed another by the leg, swinging him as a weapon and knocking away more of Emperor Zixx's soldiers.
Suddenly, Zixx got a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realized he'd bitten off more than he could chew. Quickly, he helped Viral up as Boss Zukko continued beating his men two and fro like ragdolls.
"C'mon, let's get more back up," Zixx told her.
After Zixx escaped, Zukko beat down the last of his men and turned around, noticing Zixx was gone.
"You will not escape me, Torbin Zixx!" Boss Zukko growled, leaving the room.
oooo
"Is this the place?" asked Renet.
"I believe it is," Donny told her in the container they were hiding in.
Renet took out a key card and scanned it on the door, opening it up. As she entered the room, she made sure to close the door behind her.
"The coast is clear, guys," Renet told them.
The Turtles and Splinter left the container they were in.
At the center of the room, all of them noticed a large power chamber.
"This must be where Lord Simultaneous is being kept," Donatello noted.
Renet and the Turtles peeked through the glass. Sure enough, the unconscious Lord Simultaneous was being held captive, bound by restraints that siphoned away his cosmic time energies.
"We'd better get him out of there," Leonardo looked around at the contraption for a way to free the time master.
"Give me a minute and I'll find some way to undo this," Donatello looked around at the different controls.
At once, the door opened up again as both Torbin Zixx and Viral rushed inside as if they were fleeing from something.
"You!" Raph shouted.
All the Turtles drew their weapons as they advanced on Zixx.
"Guys," Zixx told them. "Now's really not the best time for this!"
"After all that garbage you pulled," Raph pointed his sai at Zixx. "You'd better make time!"
"He's not wrong," Viral told them. "The Emperor's rule is under siege."
"Huh?" Mikey grew confused. "By what exactly?"
All of them heard thunderous stomps down the hall coming closer and closer.
"Okay, somebody's definitely coming," Leo noted.
"Don't worry, Viral," Torbin Zixx reassured her. "I've got this. It's a little gift I picked up to handle rather difficult opponents."
Immediately, Boss Zukko burst through the door, hurling it aside like a piece of cardboard.
"Zixx!" Zukko roared. "Stand your ground and face your punishment, worm!"
"Sheesh, who is this guy?" Mikey took a step back. "The Triceraton-1000?"
"We've known tough Triceratons," Donatello held his staff. "But Boss Zukko was never one of them. There has to be an explanation for this."
"Less explaining, more doing," Torbin Zixx took out a small device that resembled an explosive and hurled it at Boss Zukko.
The device landed near Boss Zukko's feet, generating a powerful gravitational force field that slammed Zukko to the ground.
"Aaaaaahhh!" Zukko cried out as the gravity generator struck him full force.
"There, I just saved all of us," Zixx smiled at the Turtles, Renet, and Splinter. "You owe me your pathetic lives… again."
"Uh… Zixx?" Michelangelo pointed out.
Zukko was managing to get back up on his knees despite getting crushed by the gravity weapon Zixx had used on him. He managed to reach out and grab the device generating the intense gravity, taking hold of it and crushing it with a powerful grip.
"Viral, now's your chance!" Torbin Zixx ordered.
As Zukko got up, the effects of the gravity had taken some toll on him, judging from the cloth on the front of his chest being shredded and a few parts of his cybernetic body crackling with electricity. Viral turned her arm into a blade and slashed Zukko across the chest really hard.
"Agh!" Zukko cried.
In retaliation, Zukko backhanded Viral into a wall. As he did, the tattered, slashed cloth finally fell off of Zukko's chest, revealing a very familiar and unwelcome sight to the Turtles and Splinter. It was a sight that inspired horror, rage, and revulsion… all at the same time.
"Oh, no, it can't be," Donatello was shocked.
"I am afraid it is, my son," Splinter grimaced, holding his staff tightly.
"It's him alright," Leo growled.
"Wait, who's this guy again?" Torbin Zixx looked puzzled.
In the center of Boss Zukko's cyborg stomach was an evil red Utrom with a nasty scowl and a scar across his left eye.
"For crying out loud!" Raph shouted. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?!"
"First of all," Torbin Zixx asked, ignoring Raphael's anger. "Who are you? And what have you done with Boss Zukko?"
Ch'rell smiled malevolently. "I'm afraid to inform you that Boss Zukko has been dead for quite some time!"
"Yeah, but that still doesn't explain why you're alive!" Mikey clasped his head with both hands. "We SAW you get obliterated by the Technodrome! No way you could've survived that!"
"Did you not also see me destroyed by the TCRI explosion when I first revealed my true origins to you Turtles?" Ch'rell reminded them. "I have crawled back from the abyss of death enough times that this should come as no surprise to you."
"Yeah, you're like a mutated cockroach that keeps coming back no matter how many times we step on you," Raphael pointed out.
"You've… got a point," acknowledged Leo. "How did you do it this time?"
"I'm glad you asked," the Utrom Shredder told them, pacing across the room. "You see, you only remembered seeing my apparent death during my invasion of Earth Prime and being annihilated by the Technodrome. However, what you did not witness was everything I did in the Technodrome up until my arrival in Earth Prime."
"What'd you do in there?" asked Mikey sarcastically. "Yoga meditation?"
"How unusually perceptive of you for once, Michelangelo," Ch'rell replied. "And as a matter of fact, you are correct that meditation was involved."
"Whoa, I was right?" Mikey scratched his head.
"Well, you know what they say," Raph remarked off-handedly. "Even a broken clock like Mikey can get the right time of day once or twice."
"While I was in the Technodrome and in the process of reformatting that war machine to suit my own purposes, I entered into Krang's study and found something that greatly served my purpose up to this very moment," Ch'rell explained. "In his private study, I discovered the Book of Balaraphon, a mystical text that Krang evidently never read. It was created by the mystics of Planet Balaraphon and as I read with great interest, I discovered one piece of text that I simply had to put into practice… the art of astral and spiritual projection."
"Oh boy, I think I know where this is headed," Raph groaned.
"I followed the instructions of the text to the letter," Ch'rell beamed. "And before long, I was able to project my spirit from my body. After I returned to my body, I went back to work on the Technodrome, as I still had a mission to fulfill. It was during my final moments on Earth Prime that I projected my spirit from my body when my suit and Utrom body were destroyed."
"So how did you get a new body again?" asked Donatello. "I find it hard to believe you had any followers left to create you a new body and since Karai is permanently done serving you, I doubt she wanted anything to do with you either."
"I admit I was not in the best of situations given how much I'd lost," Ch'rell acknowledged. "But in my spirit form, I had the added bonus of perpetually endless time to plan. In time, I found an old contact who was forced to create a new body for me. But due to an incident, my new clone body was prematurely launched into space, just as I repossessed the body… and as fate would have it, I landed on one of the ice rings of your Planet Saturn, putting me in a deep freeze once more for decades!"
"Somehow, I don't feel bad you went through another deep freeze," Raph remarked.
"Mock me all you want, Raphael," the Shredder sneered. "But I always come back. Over a century later, there was an accident in deep space and the Triceraton called Boss Zukko crashed into my second ice asteroid. He was grievously injured in the crash and I was thawed from the heat of the explosion. I decided then and there to take advantage of the situation and make the Triceraton my new host. After all, they were a powerful species and one of them, I believe you called him Zog, was able to defeat me in the past."
"Zog was a warrior," Leo pointed out. "Same as Traximus. I hate to rain on your parade but the Triceraton you possessed was nothing more than a petty criminal."
"Beggers cannot be choosers," Ch'rell sneered. "Zukko was my only option at the time but with added adjustments to his damaged body, I was able to turn him into a more formidable force resembling your precious Zog. Over time, I transcended Boss Zukko's weakness and become something more… a TriShreddatron if you will."
"So all this time you lied to me and used me?" Torbin Zixx demanded.
"And was it really so bad?" asked the Utrom Shredder as he walked towards the capsule containing Lord Simultaneous. "You got all that you wanted… all of your life's desires fulfilled. And the only price you had to pay was to be a puppet ruler who provided the cover for me to do as I will."
The TriShreddatron pressed down on a button on the containment unit for Lord Simultaneous. A piece of the machinery opened up, revealing a small energy ball.
"Oh no, that's not good," Renet realized.
"And speaking of which, I believe that is all of the power which has been siphoned from Lord Simultaneous," Ch'rell told them.
The Turtles realized then and there that they'd allowed him too much time talking and buying time. The Utrom Shredder took the ball of light before they could react and placed it in the central core of his cyborg chest. At once, a powerful glow enveloped his body and when it was gone, a fully armored Triceraton wearing armor and claws that resembled the Shredder stood before everyone.
"Everyone, stop him!" Leonardo shouted.
Donatello was the first to act. He took out two ninja stars and threw them at the TriShreddatron's stomach cavity where Ch'rell was still exposed. However, the ninja stars bounced off of the glass that shielded the evil Utrom's face.
"Reinforced Triceraton dura-glass," Ch'rell told them.
"Get him!" Raph shouted.
Raphael charged first, aiming right for the Utrom, hoping to skewer him in one powerful attack. However, the TriShreddatron disappeared before Raph could strike him.
"What?!" Raph looked around, shocked.
Instantly, the TriShreddatron appeared again next to Raph, grabbing his arm and hurling him against a wall.
"Agh!" Raph slid off.
"You do not understand," Ch'rell told them. "I now control the flow of time. Your movements are utterly frozen compared to me!"
"Let's do this!" Leo attacked along with the rest of his brothers and masters.
The Utrom Shredder disappeared into thin air before Leo's sword could strike him, moving so fast that he became a blur. As the Turtles, Splinter, and Renet looked around, the TriShreddatron appeared and reappeared before them in flashes of light, showing just how much of the time energies from Lord Simultaneous he had absorbed.
"It is useless!" Ch'rell told them as multiple TriShreddatron after-images flickered before them.
Donatello was the next to go down. The Utrom Shredder appeared in front of him, kicking him square in the chest and sending him skidding across the floor.
"Donatello!" Splinter shouted.
Splinter launched himself at the Utrom Shredder who caught Splinter with his hand and began squeezing.
Mikey and Leo attacked next. Leo kicked the TriShreddatron across the face while Mikey hit him across the legs with his nunchucks. Splinter then broke free and struck the Shredder across the face with his staff.
"Your attacks are utterly meaningless to me now," Ch'rell told them.
Moving at incomprehensible speeds, the TriShreddatron smacked Michelangelo aside, drove his fist into Splinter's stomach to take out the old ninja master, and reappeared behind Leo, slamming his elbow into the back of the Turtle's neck to take him down.
From behind him, a laser blast struck the TriShreddatron.
"What's this?" the Utrom Shredder turned around.
It was Torbin Zixx who had just fired at him with a laser rifle.
"Somehow, that played out differently in my mind," Zixx muttered.
"Worthless idiot," the TriShreddatron struck Zixx in the stomach with his tail to knock him across the floor.
Donatello leaped over him from behind, hitting the Utrom Shredder as hard as he could with a bo swing to the glass shielding Ch'rell. Despite being heavily protected, Ch'rell yelped in surprise but soon retaliated by grabbing the Turtle by the staff and kneeing Donatello in the stomach as hard as he could to take him out of the equation.
"You okay Raph?" Mikey went over to his brother, helping him up.
"Not gonna lie, I'm gonna feel that for a while," Raph admitted.
"He's gained the cosmic powers of Lord Simultaneous," Renet said frantically. "I'm not sure what we can do at this point."
"Only one thing we can do," Raph got up as Mikey swung his nunchucks in the air. "We don't give up, no matter how bad things look."
"You would do well to listen to the time-stress," the Utrom Shredder warned.
Raph and Mikey leaped at him but the TriShreddatron raised a hand, creating a powerful time vortex in his hands that knocked back Raphael and Michelangelo onto the floor next to Renet.
"I will be taking that," Ch'rell walked towards Renet who trembled in fear at the sight of the Utrom Shredder who now wielded the power of her master.
He grabbed the time scepter in her hands, yanking it from her. At once, Leonardo, Donatello, and Splinter leaped at him from behind.
"Away with you!" Ch'rell cried.
The TriShreddatron's hand glowed once more. With a single wave, he enveloped Leo, Donny, and Splinter with a powerful energy wave, seemingly obliterating them on the spot and leaving no trace of them left.
"No!" Raph cried.
"Be silent!" the TriShreddatron blasted Raph and Mikey, forcing them to their knees.
"Aaaahhhh!" the two brothers cried out.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Shredder saw Zixx trying to get away.
"You, over here… NOW!" the TriShreddatron ordered.
Seeing no other choice, Torbin Zixx swallowed hard and walked over quietly.
"I will give you one more chance to serve me correctly," Ch'rell used his newfound powers to animate Renet's time scepter. "Do so and I will allow you to continue your life as the Emperor in public appearances. And I will continue to act as the proverbial man behind the curtains who runs this entire Empire."
"Whaddya want me to do?" asked Zixx as the TriShreddatron handed him Renet's now-powered up time scepter.
"Prove your loyalty to me," the Shredder ordered. "Destroy Michelangelo in front of his brother!"
Torbin Zixx looked at Raphael who stared at him pleadingly. Then he looked back at the Shredder before making his decision.
"Tough break Raph!" Torbin Zixx took the time scepter and blasted Michelangelo with a full powered blast.
"Aaaaahhh!" Mikey cried out.
Atom by atom, Michelangelo seemed to be disintegrated on the spot.
"Mikey!" Raph shouted. "Mikey!"
"Good work, Zixx," the TriShreddatron complimented.
"Don't look so surprised," Torbin Zixx told the final Turtle with the red mask. "When it comes down to it, I always choose Numero Uno."
"You're dead, Zixx!" Raph roared, charging in anger.
The TriShreddatron struck Raphael with another time blast, sending him flying back. Quickly, Renet rushed to Raphael's side.
"We can't beat them," Renet told the Turtle. "We have to get out of here."
"On your knees," Ch'rell ordered Zixx.
As the Shredder was briefly distracted by Torbin Zixx's gesture of submission, Raph took out a smoke bomb.
"Yes sir," Torbin Zixx bowed down, deciding that he had come this far anyways and that there was no more point trying to develop a sense of morality.
"Everything will continue as-is," the Shredder promised Torbin Zixx. "You will be the face of this empire. But just so there are no more ambiguities, everything you have is mine and at my disposal."
"I… I accept," Torbin Zixx agreed with some degree of trembling.
Suddenly, Zixx looked to the side and saw smoke from the smoke bomb that Raphael had set off. Both he and the woman were gone.
"Uh, the Turtle and woman just escaped," Zixx pointed out.
"They will be found and brought before me eventually," Ch'rell smiled, seemingly unconcerned. "Just remember that from now until the end of your days, you serve the Shredder and the Shredder alone. Because the rest of your human lifespan is little more than a few inconsequential days to me."
To be continued.