| Mirage/Image Earth (Dimension A); New York City, December 19TH, 1990 A.D. |
“How do you like
that? I beat your ass.”
“Yep,” Mike said, putting his controller down, yawning, stretching, and giving a half-hearted look at Raph. He had just beaten him in Round 3 of what could be considered an intense Street Fighter II bout on April and Casey’s new Super Nintendo. “You sure did.”
Year after year, video games just kept getting better and better; year after year, the Turtles’ rivalry on the latest fighting games kept growing with it. Leonardo couldn’t help but wonder why his brothers couldn’t just put their controllers down and take their fight to the mat in the next room... at least they would be getting some exercise and practice.
“You guys done?” Donatello asked, not even bothering to look up from the latest issue of Computer Graphic World. “Can I play my Final Fantasy II now?”
Raph ignored him, putting down his controller as well. After a moment of silence all four of the brothers in the room could feel, he spoke, “You know, this really sucks.”
“Yep,” Mike agreed with his best friend, distractedly stroking Klunk, his ever-loyal gray pet cat who yet again sought attention.
“You know, maybe it’s just your attitude that sucks, guys,” Donatello chimed in. “Ever think of that? Okay, so maybe there hasn’t been any bad guys banging down our door trying to kill us for a while... that doesn’t have to be our whole lives, you know. Okay, Pimiko is still expecting us to help her take down the Lady Shredder one of these days—and I know we probably owe her some payback—but look, I hang out with my buddy Chang Lao from time to time, Mikey’s got his girlfriend and seems to have bonded with little Shadow, Raphael has his meetings with Lucindr—”
“Oh, shut up, Donny,” Raph spat. “Read your magazine.”
It was happening again.
Leonardo sat alone at the dining table, sparing a painful look at his brothers every so often. They were bored and restless, surely, but for some time now there had been something about them that had been bothering him greatly in a way he could only discuss with his sensei. It was something he could no longer overlook, even with Splinter around again after his time as a rabid bat.
They were growing apart. It was a truth that couldn’t be ignored anymore.
It had happened before once. Each of the Turtles had moved into his own space: Raph into a cathedral, Don and Splinter at Casey’s Northampton farmhouse, Mike with April and Casey, and Leo alone in the sewers. It was only by external circumstance—chiefly the vengeful schemes of the then-cyborg Dr. Baxter Stockman—that they had been brought back together. And now it was happening again.
Before Leo could dwell on it any longer, a swirling void tore itself wide and free over the table in the middle of the room. Through it hovered a familiar slender figure, long blond hair streaming behind her: Renet Tilley, the time-traveling girl with whom they had shared many adventures with in the past.
“Hey, guys!”
Klunk hissed and darted out of Mike’s lap as he started to stand up. “Renet?” Mike called, a little unsure, given her appearance. “Renet!” he quickly decided afterward.
The youthful, white-robed woman smiled. The swirling void above her remained as she spoke, “Yep, it’s me. Jeeze, this must be hella confusing for you guys—first two times that I see you I’m just some ditzy apprentice, then I show up as I do now—the Mistress of Time—when we faced Savanti Juliet, and then I show up to help you guys face Savanti Romero in 1373 Feudal Japan all younger looking.”
“Ahhh,” Donatello sighed, his interest piqued. “The version of yourself that came with us to Feudal Japan was younger than the one that helped us take out Savanti Juliet, even if we encountered that version after the Juliet confrontation.”
Renet put a finger to her lip as she thought about it. “Um, yes. A version older than the one that saw you in our first two meetings, but not quite Mistress of Time yet.”
“Explains why you didn’t recognize Splinter last time we saw you when you had just met him during the Juliet ordeal,” noted Leo.
“Fascinating,” said Don.
“In other words, the last time my present self saw you was when we kicked Juliet’s butt.” Renet smiled timidly. “As I told you then, the mantle of Master of Time has been mine since Lord Simultaneous—er, just Marcus Sandelheim now—has retired to his home in Rome, 180 B.C.” The woman giggled. “Hail Lord Renet Tilley, Supreme Timestress, Mistress of Time, and overseer of the timestream. Or something.”
“So wassup, Renet?” Mike asked, good-naturedly. “Boy have I got some st—”
“You didn’t come here to reminisce, did you, Renet?” Leo shot, his gaze more than slightly on the cold side. When Renet made an appearance, it was never to catch up on the proverbial “old times”—she needed their help, and he knew it had to be urgent.
Where she had seemed carefree and eager to engage her old friends in small talk a moment before, a sudden serious sense befell her now. “No,” she acknowledged. “No, I didn’t. As Mistress of Time, I find myself faced with a problem the, ah, magnitude of which I don’t know if I can handle alone... under the circumstances...”
“Circumstances...?”
“A being has been going century to century, era to era robbing historical and mystic artifacts from their natural time,” she explained. “For what purpose I can’t fathom, but I was unable to undo the damage to the timestream.” Renet gave a shrug. “Temporay solution to a... bigger problem.”
“And this being has what to do with us?” Raph snarled.
The still youthful-looking woman put on an expression of patience. “Recently this being traveled to prehistoric times. It traveled to a point in time I can pinpoint to just about one month after the point I banished Savanti Romero to, and it confronted him. It then absorbed Savanti’s power... and then it killed him.”
Leo winced. After the now-dead Oroku Saki, Savanti Romero had been one of their oldest and most malevolent villains. “Savanti Romero... he’s dead?”
“Shit, and I didn’t get a piece of the action?” Raph grumbled.
“The being now bears all the inherent sorcerous energies and mystic abilities that had been at Savanti’s disposal. I can only imagine he used it to manually slip into the timestream... and break into the 79TH Level of Null-Time.”
“Isn’t that where you said you were from?” Mike wondered.
Renet nodded. “That’s why I can’t fix time. Even as Mistress of Time, I’m kinda sorta limited to traveling to the set cycles and twists throughout the timestream without the Sceptre or any of Marcus’ digital technology. Or access to the 79TH.”
“So why not just use the Sceptre or that digital stuff?”
“Because, Leonardo, when I was returning to the 79TH Level after witnessing the fate of Savanti Romero from afar, my temporal instruments—including the Sceptre—all vanished from my possession and I found myself hurled into the timestream. You see, this being had beaten me to the 79TH and had taken the entire realm.”
Raph grunted. “Isn’t that just the shit...”
“Oh yeah—it’s the kinda ‘shit’ that can just ruin a girl’s Friday night,” Renet agreed with a slight smile. “Well, anyways, from the timestream I was able to open a time hole to here. 1988... January, right?”
“Uh, December... 1990. Almost 1991.”
“Oh.” Renet bit her lip. “Damn. Overshot. Guess that explains why Leo’s missing a hand, Raph’s got an eyepatch, and Donny’s... a cyborg?”
“It’s...” Donatello nodded his partially metallic-plated head. The weary gaze of the four brothers and the pain behind them told the tale. “It’s been a rough couple of years.”
“I’ve been the lucky one,” Mike said. “It’s only a matter of time before I’m castrated or something, I guess,”
“Oh, Mike... well, I tell you guys what... don’t worry, ’cause... at the risk of telling you too much of the future, none of that bad stuff that’s happened to you is gonna be permanent!”
Leonardo and Donatello exchanged a wide-eyed look.
“But anyhoo...” Renet forced herself to be serious once more. “But as to why I came here... I do need your help. I think I can channel enough temporal energy to redirect the time hole I just came from back to the 79TH Level, maybe buffet the being’s temporal feedback discharge that threw me back into the timestream when I tried to return there last time. But I would be more or less powerless upon arrival—that’s where you guys would come in.” She sighed. “From the 79TH Level, with the power the being is harnessing and clearly understands, there is no limit to the amount of damage that could be done to the timestream. It could be twisted, distorted, warped to the being’s whim, recreated in its image, or destroyed altogether. As Mistress of Time, successor of Lord Simultaneous, it is my duty to stop this at all costs. Will you come with me?”
“We will,” Leo answered for all of his brothers. He knew there was no way any of them could say no. Not with what was at stake.
Mike started to go to the guest bedroom, saying behind him, “Just let me tell Splinter we’re off to save the universe real quic—”
“Let him sleep,” Leo admonished. “We have to leave—now.”
“Then follow me.” With that and a grateful sigh, Renet started to hover back up to the still-open and swirling time hole.
Raph looked to his brothers—Mike in front of the TV, Don with his magazine, and Leo by himself at the dining table, shining one of his katana with a rag. Deciding Leo was right, he muttered to the bemusement of at least Mike and Don, “Fuck this.”
“Coming?” Renet called, her voice distorted by her proximity to the time hole.
The Turtles exchanged a glance, then made a jump for it after Renet.
The front door opened, Casey Jones coming in first, grocery bags in hand. His longtime girlfriend, April O’Neil, was shortly behind, their four year-old surrogate daughter, Shadow Jones, holding her hand.
“Guys? Guys!” Casey shouted. After a couple moments of silence, he shrugged at April. “Huh. Guess we missed them.”
| The 79TH Level of Null-Time (Dimension <Null>) |
From the grassy hillside the five travelers stood upon, a picturesque landscape stretched out before them of much grass, shrubbery, and a wealth of Greek-like stone structures and residences. The sea could be seen beyond the shores, perhaps the Mediterranean or the Tyrrhenian. The sun was there, bearing down from the clear, vibrantly blue sky, though hanging as a dead eye above the cityscape.
The Turtles and Renet started down a central cobble road when the effects of their time travel trip ebbed. There were statues abroad along their way, each one meticulously sculpted. The Turtles couldn’t help but take notice of the people they passed of the ancient city they found themselves in—they were all frozen. Each person stopped dead in time in the middle of whatever they were doing or wherever they were going.
“‘The 79TH Level of Null-Time,’ eh?” Mike spoke, walking behind Leo and Renet. “Not quite like I pictured it.”
Renet turned a glance. “Unless you happened to have been picturing a 137 B.C. Rome frozen in time, I’m not surprised.”
“Incredible...” Don breathed, more than a little in awe as he continued to take in his historic surroundings, “... the Great Roman Republic...”
“Everyone in this Null-Time zone is frozen except for the travelers which, aside from you guys and myself, consists of only the Council of the 79TH Level, all of whom living in the Palisade. That’s where we’re going.” Because that’s where It’s waiting, was the grim, unspoken understanding.
“What exactly is a level of ‘Null-Time’?” Leo asked, more out of boredom than any genuine interest.
“Well, I’d have to explain to you a little about the timestream for you to understand,” Renet began before explaining, “The timestream is made up primarily of cycles and twists, then the individual years within each twist. Twists in the ‘Prime’ Cycle—which begins in 387 B.C. and goes on past the twenty-ninth century and ends at the End of Time—are 125 years each. Think of the timestream as a garden hose coiled up, with each coil laying on top of the next. Like a large, neatly stacked, coiled up garden hose. And that’s just the way time works. Coiled up in twists and cycles, just like a coiled-up garden hose.”
“I think I get it!” Donatello spouted. “The twists in cycles... they’re the increments in which time travel normally happens without getting into traveling to specific years within the twists.”
“That’s right. Now let’s say the year 137 B.C. is one of those twists, Twist Q. From it, one can travel ‘down’ to Twist R in 262 B.C., or ‘up’ to Twist P in 12 B.C. Now imagine, as such, one could travel to the ‘side.’ This would take the traveller to ‘Side-Time,’ or a Null-Time zone. A sort of gap between the spiraling tubes. That’s what the 79TH is, only it’s a Null-Time Level like no other, as it overlooks all cycles and twists in the timestream.”
“That’s... incredible, Renet.” Donatello was clearly lost in wonder.
“Look, you guys are boring the shit out of me,” Raph said. “We came here to kick ass, not get some lame-ass science fiction lecture.”
Raphael’s angry comment killed the conversation for several minutes, the five continuing on their way on foot.
“What else can you tell us about this being, Renet?” Don asked, at last breaking the silence. “Who is it, and where does it from from?”
”I’m trusting it’s safe to assume normal people don’t just go running rampant through time killing our arch-enemies and messing with the timestream on a regular basis,” Leonardo added to some sarcasm.
“I know very little of it, Leo, save that I believe it comes from sometime in the twenty-first century, as that was the era where I detected the afterenergies of its time machine was constructed, or at least activated.”
“It built a time machine?”
“Only to allow it to gather up all the historical artifacts from the past, and to go back in time and take Savanti Romero’s power. Now it doesn’t need the machine anymore... with the power it’s harnessing—both within and from the instruments it holds—it can time travel at will.” Renet paused. “From what I have gathered in my monitoring of the being, it is somehow connected to you guys... but how I don’t know. My studies of the twenty-first century have been neglected in my pursuit of later centuries lore and of what may or may not be beyond the Third Millennial Barrier.”
Raph thought about it, but ultimately came up empty offhand. “Somehow connected to us... someone from the future... who the hell do we know in the future?”
“Doesn’t have to be someone from the future,” Don said. “Could be someone we know now or have known in the past... someone who lives into the twenty-first century to build their time machine. Or maybe it is a villain we haven’t met yet, but will in our future, who could be trying to... oh, hell, who knows?”
The road to the Palisade was a winding one, with twists and turns around many houses and miscellaneous structures along the way. It was after making their way over another hillside—by now their walking distance having reached some two miles—that they caught their first glimpse of the Palisade.
Apparently erected from the foundation of what appeared to be some form of Roman gladiatorial arena, the Palisade stood, putting New York’s skyscrapers easily to shame. Reflecting the odd light of the still sun off the crystalline shards that were spread out about the majestically designed structure’s stone walls, it truly did reach to the sky.
“What is this,” Raphael asked, gazing up at its peak, “the friggin’ Neverending Story now?”
“Shut up, Raph,” Leo snapped.
“Hey, look, fearless leader, I don’t need to hear t—”
“Just shut up,” Leo pressed. Raph shook his head, but decided to keep his mouth shut.
Don pointed ahead, looking to Renet. “Is that the Palisade, Renet?”
“Sure is.”
“It’s beautiful...” Don sighed. “But doesn’t it distort our history by having it built here, in 137 B.C.?”
“Oh, no. As I said, this is 137 B.C., but a Null-Time zone facsimile of 137 B.C. It’s a frozen moment in time—a snapshot, I suppose—but it is outside the flow of the timestream.”
Don smiled, that look of wonder coming back to his face. “There’s... so much you can tell me...”
“I grew up here, you know. My parents were from sometime past the Third Millennial Barrier, which is the date no time traveler including myself can go beyond—June 10TH, 2986 A.D. Never have really been sure about Mom and Dad; why they wanted to get rid of me by apprenticing me off to Marcus in this level of Null-Time. Marcus said they told him they wanted me to learn responsibility... too bad they never considered me theirs.”
“Maybe it was your destiny,” suggested Don. “Maybe they knew.”
“Yeah, Donny... maybe...”
And so they moved along the last leg of their walk over the countryside.
“Like a coliseum...” noted Don, taking a second to look up at the perfectly-aligned pillars that made up the walls of the arena-like structure that encircled the Palisade. Like some avid tourist, he zoomed in with his cybernetic eyepiece to take it all in.
Stepping across the gravel of the arena’s ground level, stopping only to pass gazes at the skeletons of fallen Roman warriors, still proudly clad in the armor they took to their deaths, the group reached the twenty foot tall gate to the Palisade.
Leo stopped. He spoke, turning his head only a notch, “Prepare yourselves, my brothers.”
The other Turtles did as they were told, drawing their weapons. Donatello morphed his arm into a vicious-looking scythe.
“Open sesame.” With the touch of Renet’s palm to its amber surface, the grandiose double-doors of the gate started sliding open, dust arising as they scraped inward.
The five gazed into the relative darkness within, seeing only an eerie greenish hue dimly illuminating the stone corridor ahead. As they entered fully, their bodies and muscles poised for anything, the doors slammed shut behind them.
Raph adjusted his eyepatch, grimacing behind him. “Jee, that wasn’t predictable at all.” A look from Leo told him to keep quiet, which he did.
Then the voice.
“I have been expecting you.”
It seemed to come from everywhere. Everywhere... all at once. It seemed familiar in some way to the Turtles, but was filtered, distorted, and perhaps deepened by some means.
“He is here, all right,” Renet said. “He’s probably in the council chamber...” Not only was she decidedly suppressing some measure of worry, it seemed the fear within her was building. “I’ll show you guys the way. C’mon.”
Through a series of winding staircases they went up, before they came to an open stone chamber. Sunbeams filled the stained-glass windows, painting squares of slanted light across the oval table that rested in the center of the chamber.
“B-bodies...” Renet muttered, her mouth quivering as she looked around the chamber. Shriveled, battered corpses in withered robes lay strewn about the chamber. Their blood was spattered across much of the room, a pool atop the table still dripping down. “Lord Gnostis... Garvan... Cristie... Timagetus... my god, the Council of the 79TH Level... they’re all...”
“They’re all dead,” the voice finished for her. Only now the voice was noticeably nearer now, and coming from the dark throne at the back of the chamber. “I killed them myself. Slit their throats, crushed their bones... took their power.”
“You.... you murderer!” Renet stammered. “The Council watched over the entire timestream... they were my friends... my family... my...”
“They’re all dead,” the voice repeated.
Leonardo squinted at the shadowy figure on the throne. It was hunched over, evidently under a cloak and holding what looked like Renet’s Sacred Sands of Time Sceptre. Metal and gold reflected off of various parts of the figure’s body. “Who are you?”
“I am the Shogun. The vindicator of a great wrong... one I intend to set right.”
Renet made a frantic gesture at the figure, frustrated. “First you travel all over time, stealing historical artifacts... then you kill Savanti Romero... then you kill these men... why? For what purpose? Just what are you trying to set right? Don’t you understand you could destroy reality as we know it?”
“Reality is but in the mind’s eye...” the figure replied, calmly, confidently, “... the eye of the beholder, and I am the beholder. Time is a tool. Existence can be altered... reshaped in any way I please.” He paused. “From this level of Null-Time I have looked at time and existence from all angles, and know what needs to be done to reshape it in the necessary way.”
Renet faltered. The helplessness was plain to be seen on her face. “You’re... you’re going to alter history?”
“In a sense, but that would be playing upon too many variables.” The voice was still sure; resolute. “To go back in time and change what happened, to right the wrongs in my life... that would be child’s play. Why stop there? Why stop, when I have the power to make everything right? No, my friends, I am opening the transdimensional gateways. A myriad of infinite realities in alternate dimensions can be flipped through at my leisure. I have all of eternity to find the right one to mold and superimpose as the one true reality... which I can and will oversee as its guardian.” The Shogun’s voice changed, becoming almost inaudible as he added, “I will make sure things go right this time... I will make sure things happen as they should. I will not fail again.”
After a beat, Leonardo stepped before his brothers. His katana were not drawn, but he seemed poised enough to draw them at any moment if need be. “You’re playing God, Shogun. Give it up.”
“How can you stop he who is righteous?” the Shogun asked. Leo thought he caught a glimpse of shiny, jagged teeth on a pale white face beneath the Shogun’s thick hood.
Wait... Leo thought, ... not a face at all. A mask! This Shogun hides his face.
It appeared to be a Japanese noh mask, with the traditional demonic grin etched onto it. Savanti Romero once wore one like that, Leo recalled.
“Who are you to say what is just?” the Shogun questioned Leo. “You know nothing... you are nothing. Nothing at all... to me.”
Raphael stepped in, his hands gripping his sai tightly, ready to start cutting into his enemy at the earliest opportunity. “If it’s a fight you want, don’t worry. We were gonna kick your ass anyway.”
“I think not.” The Shogun’s deep, coolly modulated voice sounded almost amused now. “To kill you would be trite, and otherwise premature. Perhaps I should... oh my... yes... I should have thought of this sooner.” A hoarse chuckle arose from the Shogun suddenly, as he raised a hand in a conspicuous motion, then waved it from one side to the other in front of the Turtles and Renet. “You five...” Before their befuddled, panicked glances in the final moment they had before a wave of transdimensional pseudo-light and energy enveloped them, they found themselves wrenched from the very floor they stood upon. They simply disappeared. “... I banish.”
Alone once again in the council chamber, his only company the bodies of the Council of the 79TH Level now, the Shogun stood up from his throne. Enfolding himself with his cloak once more, he prepared to once again enter the timestream. His work in the 79TH was done, after all—the necessary power and conduits were all his now. It was time to move on to the next phase of his mission.
There would be no interference now.