Chapter Text
The Lair is in a bit of an uproar. Casey and April had appeared at the abandoned subway station with a hunk of hardware that set off a debate among the brothers. Well, mostly Leo and Donnie. The two of them are currently staring at each other from across the room, glaring as only brothers can.
“It looks like a teleporter of some kind.” Donnie has been insisting this point for nearly twenty minutes.
“It could be a weapon! We don’t know. Trying to pull it apart could blow us all up.” And that has been Leo’s rejoinder for the same amount of time. Two brothers butting heads at any given moment is nothing new, of course, but the matter seems entirely stupid in Mikey’s opinion. Who cares what it does??
There’s no counter on it ticking down the seconds. No vibrations or humming suggesting that it’s armed, or ready to do anything. So why don’t they just shove it into a deep, dark crevice of the sewers and forget about it? He looks over to where Raph is sitting on a box, all of their actual seats given over to April, Casey, and Karai.
Raph looks ... almost spooked? At least, if you know him well enough, he does. His usual anger issues are written all over his face, but one of his three fingers keeps reaching down to brush against the crack at the bottom of his shell. Mikey assumes the fact that April mentioned Kraang when they brought the tech in has something to do with it.
“Does it even matter?” Karai is lounging on an old chair, her leg thrown over one of the arms as she stares the two arguing turtles down. She’s vaguely wondering if they’ll pull a Raph and come to blows over the argument. “It’s not blowing up. It hasn’t started screaming like an alarm. It’s not even ticking. What does it matter? Box it up somewhere it won’t do any harm. Problem solved, right?” Mikey could just about hug her for voicing his own thought. Seriously, they should be halfway to lunch by now, not fighting over some stupid hunk of junk.
“I’m not saying we turn it on, Leo. I just want to take a closer look.” Donnie has finally moved away from the little space he’s been sulking in and moved toward the tech that’s sitting on a piece of torn cloth.
Apparently, Casey had grabbed the first thing he found and wrapped it up. Personally, Mikey thinks he and April should’ve just left it where they found it. Doesn’t seem like it was harming anyone.
“Hey, I’m all for learning more, Donnie. But maybe you -don't- risk everyone by --” And that’s enough of that.
The fact that all the others have been sitting there, listening to two of the brothers argue rather than keeping an eye on the chaos gremlin that is Michelangelo ... they deserve what happens.
Mikey rolls his eyes and walks right up to the device. To get to it, he had to sidestep his arguing brothers, sidle past Casey and April, literally brushed against Karai’s foot ... and stopped directly in Raph’s sight-line. And none of them stop him.
“We need to --” With a roll of his eyes, and the most dramatic sigh he can heave as loud as possible, Mikey pushes the big red button on the piece of tech.
“Mikey!” Again, despite being in Raph’s eyesight, it’s April that cottons on to what he has done, first. Her alerting to the fact is why Mikey ends up tackled to the ground by a scowling Raph.
“What did you do??” His brother is pinning him on his back, glaring down at him darkly. Oops. He’s NOT supposed to let the intrusive thoughts win, right? He always gets that mixed up.
“I pushed --” His confession is cut off by the piece of junk beginning to rattle. At first, it sounds like when a soda pop tab falls into the can and rattles around when it’s empty of soda. It’s jumping and tapping across the tabletop, the cloth falling to the ground. The rattle becomes a deep, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk as the rattling intensifies.
“Uh .. Donnie?” April calls out; her voice high pitched and imploring. If he could give her any reassurance, he would ... but he has no platitudes to give.
“I don’t know! We don’t know what it is. If we survive this, Mikey, I am going to --”
Another sentence cut off, another thought unfinished. The tech suddenly leaps into the air, spinning so fast that it’s just a motion blur of sparkling metal.
“.. please let it be a teleporter.” Casey’ stone is cool and flat. Just voicing a statement of hope, even as he watches the tech continue to lose its mind.
“I really think we should run. Running would be the smart thing to do.” Karai has managed to jump from her seat, her wakizashi out, prepared to fight. Not that she knows -what- she could fight. Would trying to slice it in half end it, or just piss it off? 50-50 chance.
By the time the others register that she’s suggested running, it’s too late. Electricity, pale blue and white, arcs off of the device, and begins to strike out across the room. A chair flies into the air; an old pizza box lights on fire. April somehow manages to tackle Casey to the ground when he nearly gets hit. Leo sweeps Karai away from the danger zone, and everyone is trying to stay down.
“What’s happening? What is that thing doing??” April has crawled off of Casey, scooting around so that she can launch herself and run for her life if she has to.
“It’s a telepor --” The words are cut off by a loud, shrill screech of metal tearing in half. The sparks arc further and further, until a field of blue has appeared around them all. Within a few moments, their world has changed.
“Is now -really- the time for all of this?” Mandy is standing in the middle of the lounge of SDN. Z-Team has scattered around the room, having just finished their first shift of the day. Despite how well they all came together to defeat Shroud and the Red Ring, it hadn’t been a cure-all for the problems on a team or individual level. They're still a bunch of ex-villains struggling to fit into a world of heroes. Their team lead is still suffering from a blase attitude toward death, almost seeming to hover on the sword edge of a death wish.
Add to that the fact that Mandy is currently powerless, and the amulet that she hasn’t taken off in a very, VERY long time is the only thing keeping Chase alive ... and things aren’t exactly copacetic at SDN.
Honestly, her job has always been hard. Especially with the Phoenix program. Trying to keep them on task is like herding a clutch of feral cats high on a mixture of sugar, catnip, and cocaine.
“HE started it.” Flambae is in pure bitch mode. If anyone so much as breathes too loudly, he is hurling a mound of insults and expletives at them. At this moment, his victim is Golem, of all people. “He will not shut his stupid little muddy mouth! All he must do is shut the fuck up, and everything would be okay. Can you do that, little muddy man? Can you shut the fuck up?” If there was any more condescension in Flambae’s voice, Mandy would probably punch him. And she’s not the type to go around punching people she works with. Otherwise, she and Visi would’ve had a full on, drag out brawl by now. She may have been the one rooting for Visi the hardest in the beginning, but by the time Red Ring was done ... well, Mandy isn’t always fond of her friend, right now.
“Flambae! Stop with this antagonizing --” Poor Mandy never gets the chance to finish her sentence.
Have you ever been standing outside when a thunderstorm comes out of nowhere? The skies are dark, clouded over, but not ominous. You expect a bit of rain; some wind here and there. And then it happens.
Your ears pop. That high pitched, ringing pop, that almost makes you feel dizzy for a moment. The hairs on your arm stand on end. A fight or flight instinct tickling the back of your mind. And then the first bolt of lightning cuts the sky, and you feel this pressure at the base of your skull building until your ears pop again, and you think you may never hear again.
By the time the first drop of water falls, you’ve been through an extreme ordeal, and there is little relief in the rain.
All of those feelings over take the occupants of the lounge. Fight, flight, pain, pop, run run run ... the air splits with a wailing metallic screech and in a blur, a bunch of bodies have fallen into a haphazard pile on the couch. Mandy has just enough time to register the ominous creak of the couch before it gives out under the weight of ... four MASSIVE turtles, two ladies, and a guy.
“I TOLD you it was a teleporter!” One of the massive turtles, wearing a purple bandanna over his eyes, and matching elbow and knees pads, with a staff secured by a belt at his side.
“... I do -not- get paid enough for this.” Many huffs the words into her hand, before rubbing both palms across her cheeks.
“You and me both, sister.” She turns to glare outright at the guy who has managed to peel himself away from the pile of bodies.
“I am not your sister. And you have two seconds to tell me exactly what is going on here, or I will have you all locked up within the hour.”
As a single unit, three turtles, the two ladies, and the guy all turn to point at a fourth turtle. Who has an orange bandanna mask and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks.
“He did it.” All of the new arrivals speak as one, the accused whirling around as if he expects to magically see someone else standing behind him.
“Oh great. As if I needed more children to babysit!” Mandy sighs the words heavily, before turning to look at Robert.
“You. Figure this out. Give me a report before the start of shift. And fix this. I am too tired and too mortal for this, now.” With a huff, Mandy turns and storms from the room. As far as she’s concerned, Z-Team can deal with this for now. She’s not sure how, but this has to be there fault in some way. If only because they seem to be a team of trouble magnets.