Forward And Back Again
Battle Against Time
The Shredder was the first to unleash a powerful time blast from his hands. Renet raised her weapon and created a force field, blocking it.
After the smoke cleared, the Turtles, Splinter, and Renet all charged.
"Destroy them!" Shredder ordered.
Viral attacked Leo, transforming her arm into a chainsaw and swinging at him. Leo leaped out of the way counter-attacked, kicking her in the stomach and forcing her back.
Splinter dodged as Darius Dun took out a massive laser rifle and began firing at him.
"Hold still, rodent!" Dun cried.
Dun fired at Splinter over and over again as the mutated rat leaped and flipped out of the way of the blasts.
"Renet, your Time Scepter can counter the Shredder's new powers," Donatello told her. "Do you think you can provide some cover for me? I'm going to get to the Shredder's mainframe computer and find out what he's planning."
"I got you," Renet promised.
As the other Turtles were fighting their opponents, Donatello and Renet ran towards the main computer. Their actions, however, did not go unnoticed.
"Think you can slip past me, do you?!" the TriShreddatron growled.
The TriShreddatron stomped towards Donatello and Renet. By now, Donatello was fast at work, trying to crack whatever was on the Shredder's computer for the trans-warp gate.
"Do not tamper with what does not belong to you!" Ch'rell raised one of his cyborg suit's massive hands and opened fire with a chrono-blast.
Donatello heard the blast but could not afford to turn around, choosing to put his faith in Renet.
Renet returned fire with her Time Scepter as both blasts collided.
"I have the powers of Lord Simultaneous, girl!" Ch'rell told her. "Do you really think you can keep this up forever?!"
"Not really," Renet maintained her blast, holding the TriShreddatron off. "But a girl's gotta try!"
In truth, Renet realized she couldn't keep it up forever. However, her purpose was to help buy time for her friends so they could figure out a way to defeat the TriShreddatron.
Meanwhile, Raphael faced off against Torbin Zixx.
"You ready to finish this, Zixx?" Raph said to Zixx.
Zixx looked a little nervous. In the past, he'd cheap shotted Raphael plenty or been able to play on the Turtle's emotions with some supposed higher cause to get him to lower his guard. But now, he was dealing with an angry mutant who wouldn't hear any more excuses, lower his guard, or give Zixx any second chances.
"You know what?" Zixx smiled. "Let me get back to you on that one!"
With that, Zixx ran off into one of the hallways.
"Are you kidding me?!" Raph cried, giving chase.
Michelangelo, on the other hand, had the benefit of his opponent not running away.
"I'm gonna smash you to bits!" Triple Threat shouted, punching at the young mutant.
Mikey dodged the blows and leaped over the alien and landing behind him.
As Triple Threat turned around, he got a combo platter of kicks and nunchuck blows to his knees and stomach.
"Agh!" Triple Threat shouted.
Mikey leaped up, catching Triple Threat across one of his jaws with a flip kick, driving his heel into the alien's jawbone and knocking Triple Threat on his back unconscious.
"Nope, not in a million years, pal!" Mikey smiled.
oooo
"You ever gonna stop running and put up in a fair fight, Zixx?!" Raph demanded as he entered into a darkened room.
Raphael flipped the switch on only to see Torbin Zixx taking out a sonic disrupter and firing at him.
"Agh!" Raph shouted, falling to his knees.
"Nah, I got you just where I want you!" Zixx told him as he increased the intensity of the blast, walking over to Raphael slowly.
Torbin Zixx kicked Raphael, knocking him on his back.
"Shredder's probably gonna have my hide if I try to run away or betray him," Torbin Zixx told Raph. "So I figure I'd better make nice and finish you off to stay on his not-so-angry side."
As Torbin Zixx continued firing the sonic disrupter, Raphael grabbed one of his sai's and flung it at Zixx's head. Quickly, Zixx dodged the red beamed sai as it sailed past him.
"Missed!" Zixx taunted.
Like a boomerang, the red sai flew through the air and came back like a homing device, striking and piercing the barrel of the sonic disrupter.
"What?!" Zixx cried.
The sonic weapon in Zixx's hand exploded, knocking Zixx back. Raph got up but the sonics had still done some damage to him.
"Alright Zixx," Raph got up, throwing down the other sai he had. "No more weapons… no more tricks… no more hiding. Just you and me, right here."
Zixx looked down at the damaged weapon on the floor which he could no longer operate and realized he had no other choice but to fight Raphael hand to hand.
"Okay," Zixx agreed. "I'm game."
oooo
Splinter weaved past all the blasts as Darius Dun fired on him.
"Hold still, rodent!" Dun cried.
Before Dun could pull the trigger to get off another shot, Splinter kicked the gun out of his hand.
"No!" cried Dun.
"How you could be so callous towards Cody, I will never know," Splinter told him.
"Don't worry, you won't have to think about it much further," Darius reached inside his suit and grabbed a small laser pistol.
Quickly, Splinter whipped his tail forward, knocking the smaller gun out of Dun's hand.
Realizing he was out of weapons, Darius Dun tried to turn and flee but Splinter struck him quickly with multiple nerve strikes to the neck and arms.
"Aaaaahhh!" Darius Dun cried out.
"Let that be a painful lesson," Splinter told him as Darius fell to the floor face-first.
Against Viral, Leonardo blocked her blows as she turned her hands into swords and thrust at him repeatedly.
And from what he recalled, the Viral from the original timeline worked for a certain alien overlord. She and the Utrom Shredder never really had any history together.
"Something doesn't make sense to me," Leo told her, ducking one of her blows. "Aren't you supposed to be working for Sh'Okanabo?"
"I was," Viral told him, whipping Leo across the room with one of her tentacles.
"Agh!" Leo cried, falling down before a mainframe.
"Then the TriShreddatron eliminated him with a single chrono-blast the minute my former master encountered my current one," Viral told him. "I knew then and there where the real power stood."
"Impressive," Leo admitted as Viral attacked him once again with her blade hands.
Leonardo got up, blocked the blow, and held his ground.
"But as I've learned over the years," Leo told her. "Power means nothing without love for your family and your friends."
Leo took one step back and relented, causing Viral to stumble forward and pierce the mainframe computer with her blade hand. Thousands of volts of electricity immediately coursed through Viral, eliciting a horrific shriek from the sentient virus.
"Aaaaahhhhh!"
Finally, Viral broke free and stumbled back.
At once, Leo was on to her, slicing through her abdomen and separating the top part of her body from the bottom part.
"Good work Leo!" Mikey approached Leonardo as Master Splinter also joined them.
"Where's Raph?" asked Leonardo, looking around.
"We will have to trust your brother to take care of himself," Splinter told them. "But for now, Donatello and Renet require our help."
The three looked to the side. Renet was barely keeping Shredder at bay while Donatello was busy working on something on the main computer.
"Well?" Mikey told his father and brother. "Whaddya say? Ninja Time again?"
The three charged the TriShreddatron just as he was overwhelming Renet and kicked him from behind, disrupting the blast and saving Renet from being narrowly consumed.
"You!" Ch'rell growled. "All of you are one Turtle short but I will make time for Raphael once I've taken care of you lot!"
Leonardo hurled his sword at Ch'rell like a boomerang but the TriShreddatron used his time energy to appear in front of Leo like a blur.
Pathetic!" Ch'rell growled, backhanding Leo away.
From behind, Leo's sword boomeranged back and hit Ch'rell on the shoulder. Under ordinary circumstances, Leo would not have thrown his sword that way but the way Donatello programmed their futuristic weapons meant they could pull off such tricks like using their weapons as boomerangs.
"Agh!" Ch'rell cried.
Mikey took advantage of the momentary distraction to strike the TriShreddatron across the face as Splinter came in next, kicking the Shredder in the chest.
Donatello swung his staff, sweeping the TriShreddatron off his feet and knocking him on his back.
Leo came in, attempting to impale Ch'rell through the stomach but the TriShreddatron caught Leo's blade with one hand before he could fatally strike the Utrom.
Ch'rell hurled Leo, knocking him into Mikey. He got up, vanishing once more into the timestream and reappearing before Donatello and Splinter. As both master and student tried to fight back, the TriShreddatron blasted the two with another pulse of chrono-energy, knocking them to the floor.
The TriShreddatron grabbed Donatello, holding him up.
"That inquisitive mind of yours is simply too troublesome for me to keep you alive for much longer," Ch'rell told the turtle tech expert, raising a clawed hand to impale him.
"Put him down!"
A powerful blast of energy hit the Shredder from behind, forcing him to drop Donatello.
"Aaaaahhh!" Ch'rell cried.
Renet kept blasting him with her Time Scepter but the TriShreddatron turned around, fighting past the pain, and walking towards her slowly.
"You and your friends will not make it out of here alive, girl," Ch'rell told her. "And frankly, neither will your master Lord Simultaneous once I am done experimenting on that decrepit creature."
Finally, the TriShreddatron grabbed Renet's Time Scepter to her great shock.
"No!" Renet cried.
"Yes!" Ch'rell cried.
The TriShreddatron backhanded Renet, knocking her several feet away.
"And now your precious Time Scepter is mine!" Ch'rell told her triumphantly.
oooo
One powerful punch from Raph sent Torbin Zixx reeling back.
"That felt good," Raph admitted, realizing just how satisfying it was to slug Zixx.
Zixx steadied himself and dodged the next few blows from Raphael. He leaped over Raph and elbowed Raph in the back of the head to daze the Turtle.
As Raph turned around, Zixx kicked him in the head, driving Raphael back. Feeling his back against the wall, Raph raised his arms to block multiple punches from Torbin Zixx.
"Anyone tell you how punchable of a face you have, Raph?" Torbin Zixx told him, not relenting on the punches. "It's why I just can't stop sucker punching you!"
"Now you're just projecting," Raph answered.
Finally, Raph blocked a punch and answered back with a knee to Zixx's stomach.
"Agh!" Zixx cried.
Raph punched Zixx to the floor.
As Zixx looked up, he saw a charging Raph coming at him and quickly raised up both feet as the mutant turtle leaped at him, planting both feet under Raphael and flipping him into a pillar.
Raphael got up but Torbin Zixx kicked him across the face to knock him down.
Over and over, Torbin Zixx began kicking Raphael, showering him with blow after blow with his boot.
Finally, Raph caught Zixx's foot and threw him off. As Zixx stumbled back, Raphael tackled him, driving him through a large glass window into another room.
Zixx managed to get up first and punch Raphael down. The bounty hunter got on top of Raphael and rained down blows on him. By now, their fight was beginning to get primal and ugly.
"You only got one life and sometimes you gotta look out for number one!" Zixx screamed at him.
Finally, Raph caught one of Zixx's fists.
"Yeah, we already know you're a selfish bastard," Raph put the squeeze on Torbin Zixx's knuckles.
"Aaaahh!" cried Zixx as Raph's grip started to crush the bones in his hand.
Taking advantage of Zixx's pain, Raph noticed the man's center of gravity tilted to the right.
Quickly, Raph flipped to the right and launched Zixx off of him while gripping his fist.
Zixx tried to nurse his injured knuckles but Raph didn't give him time to recover. Before Zixx knew it, Raph had switched positions with him, mounting Zixx and punching him in the face over and over again.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" Zixx smiled, despite the pain.
"Ya don't say!" Raph punched Zixx again.
After one more blow that nearly shattered his jaw, Zixx realized finally just how much trouble he was in.
"Wait, Raph!" Zixx cried out for mercy. "You don't have to do this! You're not a killer!"
"Oh, so now you're begging for mercy?" Raph demanded, holding Zixx by the throat as the man struggled for air.
"What if I told you I know where the Shredder is keeping his treasury?" Zixx offered. "We can split it fifty fifty!"
"Counter-offer," Raph tells him. "I won't kill you…"
Suddenly, Zixx's eyes brightened, realizing his opponent wouldn't take lethal action.
"I'll just give you a splitting headache when you wake up," Raph finished.
One final fist to the face was all it took to knock out Torbin Zixx. After that, Raphael got up, grabbing both of his sai's.
"You could've really made something of yourself, Zixx," Raph wiped away a little bit of blood from his mouth. "But you keep taking the easy way out until you got no way out."
oooo
By now, the three Turtles, Splinter and Renet were battered and tired from fighting the TriShreddatron. But Ch'rell seemed as fresh as ever, with his more powerful cyborg body and time-based powers stolen from Lord Simultaneous.
"This guy's got no battery shortage," Mikey pointed out. "He just keeps going and going and going."
"Astute observation, Michelangelo," Ch'rell pointed out. "Thanks to my newfound chronokinesis, my stamina is unlimited!"
"We need to stop him here and now," Leo gripped his sword tightly.
"I mean, Lord Simultaneous was always my mentor but I had no idea his powers were this strong," admitted Renet.
"Here, taste this power for yourself!" Ch'rell told them.
The TriShreddatron unleashed another blast. Renet put up another energy barrier around herself and her friends but the chrono-blast started to overwhelm her very quickly.
"Guys, I don't think I can keep up!" Renet cried.
Finally, the blast penetrated the shield, striking Renet, Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Splinter, sending all of them flying back and landing hard on the floor.
The first to shake off the cobwebs just barely was Michelangelo as he looked up into the ceiling with his ears still ringing from the pain.
"Ow… this day isn't going so well," admitted Mikey.
Soon, the TriShreddatron towered over him.
"Yes, and it's about to get much worse for you!" Ch'rell told him.
Mikey gulped as the TriShreddatron concentrated a lot of energy around his fist and took aim at Michelangelo's head.
To be continued.