When his brothers left the house for the night, Mikey got up from his bed and flexed his arms. The cuts he had gotten from the fight with the robot still stung, but they felt a lot better after Donnie had cleaned them and wrapped them. He still felt bummed about not being able to join them, but he was not about to sneak out of the house. He knew that his brothers were right; if he tried to fight now, he would automatically lose.
So instead, he went to the Dojo.
Flipping on a light, he saw that the room was clean of any robot pieces. Looking around, he could not find his nunchucks anywhere.
"Where did my brothers take them?" Mikey asked himself.
Limping slightly to the rooms, he checked the doors, but all of them were locked. He even tried his father's room, but the door was firm, just like it had been from the first day Splinter had left. Sighing, Mikey made it back to the Dojo weaponless.
Looking around again for the second time, he noticed something shiny in the corner of the Dojo. Walking over, he picked up one of the bladed things. The design was really simple; a bladed circle with a handle down the middle. Hefting one, he picked up the other and started slashing the air with them.
"Whose are these?" he asked the air, pausing to see them in the light. It flashed, pushing his memory back to when he was in the chair with the goggles, and he stumbled backwards. Catching his breath, he put the weapons down and exited the Dojo, heading for the lab.
Poking his head through, he instantly spotted the machine Donnie had been working on. "What was it supposed to do?" he asked, sliding closer to it. As he passed the computer, he turned it on. He stared thoughtfully at it for a moment, before sitting down and placing the headset over his eyes. "I don't know how to start this thing, but maybe I can--oh my gosh!"
The black world in front of him flashed white again, and Mikey shut his eyes, feeling the energy shock course through his body again. "Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea," he chanted, feeling his muscles stiffening. But after a moment, he forced himself to open his eyes and see what the headset was showing him.
At first, he was seeing only white everywhere. But it soon dissolved so that he could see himself standing on top of a building. The world, including himself, was still white, but light spots of gray indicated shade, so it was a three D world. Mikey tried to look around this new spot, but his head was stuck in position. So he took a breath and watched.
The him on the screen looked around, like he was searching for something. He did not seem to know what, based on the fact that he was looking everywhere, in the sky, on the ground, around. But he kept looking. Suddenly, a white-blue portal opened behind him and he whirled around, before stepping into it. The portal closed behind him.
A second later, he stepped out onto another rooftop, except in a normal world, filled with color. As the portal disappeared, he hopped off and made his way through the streets. Nobody minded him as he strolled around, and he slipped into an alley.
Somebody waited for him there. When Mikey saw who it was, he gasped, but the Mikey in the screen did not seem to know that he was some sort of bad guy. Instead, he handed an envelope to the man, his face grim. The man inspected it, and when he nodded, he handed Mikey some sort of bag. He took it and slid into the nearest manhole entrance, and walked all the way to the lair.
He opened the door and the house was silent, and he quietly made his way to the lab.
When Mikey saw what lay, or who lay in the room, he cried out and ripped the headset from his face. "No! I will not! This can't--!" He started hyperventilating. "Oh my gosh, I need to know if my brothers are okay!"
Running out of the Dojo, he raced to his room where his T-phone was and grabbed it, jamming the buttons to call his brothers. It rang, but nobody picked up.
"Oh come on! Let me try Leo, he would never not pick up," Mikey said, punching in the numbers. He waited tensely for his oldest brother to pick up, but it rang, stopped, rang, stopped, until it hit voicemail. Dejected, Mikey ended the call and attempted to reach Raph with the same results.
"No! Please no!" he shouted at the phone. "Just pick up, somebody, won't you?"
Something loud banged in the house, making Mikey flinch. He thrust the phone away and ran out of the room and gasped. "Guys! What happened?"
Leo groaned and fell onto the couch. "We met a guy."
Mikey stiffened. "What . . . did he look like?" he asked.
Donnie shrugged, already looking at Raph's injuries. "Like a piece of the night. He wore all black and you could not see his face."
"The next time I see him, I'm gonna punch him to the moon!" Raph threatened, curling his hands into fists.
"You nearly got punched to the moon," Leo reminded him. "We all tried to fight him. And we all failed." He hung his head.
Mikey tried to still his breathing, but his heartbeat had kicked up so quickly it was like a stampede of horses were now in charge of it instead of him. "Donnie, check for poison, anything!"
His brother tilted his head. "Why are you so worried? It was just one guy."
"Just check now!" Mikey wailed, looking at his brothers with wide eyes. "I don't want anything to happen to you guys!"
"Mikey," Leo said slowly but firmly. "Do you know this man?"
He shook his head. "No. I only saw him once, yesterday night as I was heading towards the house."
"Why didn't you tell us!" he demanded, sitting up. "Did he say something to you?"
"Well, he did, but--"
"What did he say?"
Mikey gulped under Leo's intense stare. "All he said was that the next time we see each other, we will be battling, and that he needed me for some project of his. Leo, he is going to hurt you in order to get my submission! I saw it!"
"Saw it where?"
"On that machine of Donnie's! I went on it again while you guys were gone and I saw you guys were badly injured in the lab, and I was working for that man in order to save you guys!"
"Woah, woah, slow down and start from the beginning," Donnie said, standing up. "Question one, why did you go on the machine again?"
"I wanted to know what it was trying to show me," Mikey said.
"And it showed the three of us badly injured, and you were working for the guy to save us?"
He nodded, looking at his brothers. Donnie wore a frown, Leo was staring at the floor like it confused him, and Raph's hands were curled in fists.
"That low down dog!" Raphael said. "Going to hurt us in order to get Mikey to work for him. Mikey, listen to me. Under no circumstances will you do what he wants you to do, you hear me?"
"But I don't want you to die!" he protested.
"You hear me!?" Raph repeated. "I will not allow you to work for him!"
"Raph, calm down," Leo said, getting off the couch to stand beside Mikey. "He saw all this through a machine. Do they ever show the future, Donnie?"
Sighing, Don shook his head and crossed his arms.
"See Mikey? Maybe you just imagined everything," Leo said, looking down.
"But I know I didn't!" he said. "I felt the electricity running through me. Still do," he added, curling his left hand into a fist and feeling the slight static. "Just please check for poison, Donnie."
Giving a slight smile, Don nodded. "Fine. As long as it makes you happy."
"And Donnie?" Leo started. "I am breaking that machine of yours."
His second to oldest brother deflated a little, but nodded. "Understood."
"Guys, you don't understand!" Mikey attempted to get his brother's attention, but all he succeeded was getting a pat from Leo.
"Go to sleep, Mikey. It has been a long day for you. Tomorrow you should feel better."
When everybody but him had left the room, Mikey exhaled in shock. "They don't get it. They don't get it at all." He sighed and stood straighter. "I guess it will have to be me to protect them, then. Why couldn't they get it?" he moaned.
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Oh, poor Mikey. Well, this is building up! What will happen next? Will he allow this mysterious man to control him through his brothers, or will he listen to Raph? I hope you are enjoying this!!
Woo!! This is my best score so far. Wow!