[LN] Raphael is cool but rude, Michelangelo is a party dude...

[othersdestructive]

"Jus' - jus' five more minutes, Master Splinter."

Come on, it'd been a busy night. Couldn't he sleep in just a little bit longer?

Except...except he wasn't in the lair.

As Raph opened his eyes, he realized he wasn't even in the city.

New York was New York and after spending the majority of his life under it, and exploring every facet of it from above after he and his brothers had started exploring at night, it was practically in his blood.

Wherever he was now, it didn't look like New York, it didn't sound like New York - it definitely didn't smell like New York.

And his head felt like it'd been cracked open and...something was rushing in. Something unnameable and shifting. It was making even his memories fuzzy. It was almost like something that wasn't himself was trying to push in and make...something else into himself. For a moment, all he could do was push himself up onto his knees and hunch over, holding his head in his hands.

"Ugh, my head."

Comments

[othersdestructive]

"Or see if we can find Leo and Donnie."

Raph suddenly lurched forward, holding his hands to his head again.

"Just duct tape it up, I'm fine!"

"- Oh, so that's the plan from the "great leader," huh? Just sit here on our butts -"

"Cowabunga!"

He dropped to his knees, gasping.

"My brain feels like mush. Are you getting a head ache too? I keep having - having this weird feeling like my brain's getting all split up or something and I keep having this urge to yell..weird stuff."

No way he was admitting he kept wanting to yell 'Cowabunga.'

[bestnamer]

"You mean like, 'cowabunga dude?'"

Possibly Mikey was way too used to the feeling of mush-brain. It certainly wasn't putting him on his knees the way it was Raph, but yes, he did feel weird. Like there were too many memories in his head. Except that he couldn't remember the memories.

"Man, I can't believe I've never said that before. It feels so natural. Have I said that before? Are things memories if you can't remember them?"

[othersdestructive]

"You've never said that before and you'd better not start because it sounds ridiculous. Like you're some corny throwback to the eighties."

Raph was far more aware of the mush because usually there was no mush. Usually his mind was sharp and alert and ready to snap off some brotherly mockery or a punch to a bad guy's face at a moment's notice. And this was an intrusion something crawling its way in from the outside, messing with his sense of self. So he noticed the whispers and echoes of lives he never lived trying to impress themselves onto his reality.

He knew who he was. Maybe he was moody sometimes and angry and had trouble figuring his feelings out but he knew who he was and these other people that were trying to crawl their way in were not him, even if the many windows that were opening in his head because of them opened to scenes that still had his brothers in them.

And for someone like him that had a hard enough time working out feelings and such, it was too much.

Especially when the rage came flooding in like a dam had broken. It bloomed in his chest, spread through every inch of him. So much anger - and for once it wasn't all his.

"You are so smug, you know that? You think the world revolves around you, don't you! That we couldn't possibly survive without the mighty and powerful Leonardo to guide us through our problems, huh? Well, I got a newsflash for you - we got along just fine without you!"

"Maybe I'll just take my attitude and leave!"

"Why are you always telling me what to do?"

The roar came from seemingly nowhere, but something that came from nowhere couldn't have that much anger in it. So that made it even more bizarre because nothing was going on that could've made him that angry. Nothing was going on that should've been able to make anyone that angry.

Afraid - because his brother was so near and he wasn't sure he could control it - he started pounding his fists into the dirt, trying to direct it all somewhere harmless.

Unlike Mikey, who was essentially having multiple other party dudes being layered on in varying levels of party dude-ness, most of the lives that the forces in this worlds were mucking up his head with were a little more...tumultuous. And many of them were ragey. And they were very strong personalities.

[bestnamer]

Raph freaking out even more than normal was freaking Mikey out even more than normal, too.

Maybe the multiple party-dude layers were helping with that, because he certainly could have felt less chill in this situation. Not that he felt very chill then, but still, he was just chill enough to figure out what to do.

"Hug it out, bro, hug it out!"

He grabbed Raph in a hold that was much more a snuggle than a restraint. Hey, it had worked once.

[othersdestructive]

Raph kept clawing at the ground, dragging his fingers through it, ripping up clods of grass, spittle dripping from his mouth as he growled and let out screeching noises.

At the very least, he didn't shove Mikey away and after a little bit, said hugging worked its magic again, mostly because it was impossible to be angry at Mikey when he was trying to be nice or comforting. When he was being an idiot it was very easy to be mad at him, but not when he was like this, not when he was so openly affectionate to the rest of them.

Mostly because it came so easily to him. Yes, he was a goof but he was also the one that loved the most easily. That was why being mean to Mikey - not teasing mean, like really mean in a way that he'd carry with him - was something none of them could ever bring themselves to do.

That was what helped him through it. When it came down to it, Raph loved his brother more than he was angry at the world, and it helped that this could be said of him in any world and any life.

Slowly his body relaxed and his breathing slowed. As he started to get more with it, he even leaned into his brother's embrace, resting his head against his shoulder.

"I don't - know - what's happening - to me."

And it was really freaking him out.

"It's like I have all this anger all of a sudden. And somehow it's not mine - and somehow it is."

His brain was trying to make sense of it all and he felt like he was getting some control back but it was so strange and alien that it wasn't easy.

[bestnamer]

"I totally know what you mean." Except about the anger. Mikey had never really reached Raph-levels of anger, much less multiple-Raph levels.

"It feels like there's more me to me than there used to be. So you've got like . . . three other angry dudes in there?"

That's a terrifying concept. Raph is mean enough as-is.

[othersdestructive]

"Yeah," he gasped out.

But then it finally passed. Mostly. And he finally pulled away from his brother and wiped the spit off his face with his arm.

"It's going away, though. My brain's just still sorting it all out. Like it's putting up the walls where I end and - and all of that begins."

He shook his head.

"Something ain't right here. This isn't some situation where we just got knocked out and taken somewhere, there's something bigger going on. Something did something - or they're still doing something - to our heads."

He got up and pulled out his sais.

"We need to keep moving. If Leo or Donnie are here, we gotta find 'em and we need to find out who's behind all this." He added, "So we can punch 'em until they make it stop."

[bestnamer]

If Donnie had been there, he and Mikey would have started wondering out loud who put Raph in charge, but on his own, Mikey was totally content to follow Raph through the creepy carnival. Being alone with Raph counted as being outnumbered.

"I suppose a round on the tilt-a-whirl is out of the question?"

[othersdestructive]

Raph did that faux lighthearted thing he always did when he pretended to agree with his brothers over something he found stupid.

"Gee, Mikey, we don't know where we are, we don't know where our family is, something's messing with our heads, and we're in the carnival that time forgot with rides that are even more of a death trap than carnival rides usually are. Sounds like a great time to ride the rides to me!"

He briefly tossed one of his sais up in the air to free his hand, slapped Mikey upside the head, and caught it again before it fell.

"Focus."

[bestnamer]

"Ow! C'mon Raph, this is like our only chance!"

He has a pooooint Raphael. A pooooooint.

"When are we EVER going to be unsupervised in a carnival again?"

[othersdestructive]

He had a point. Raph hated that he had a point but he had one. Maybe not a good one but it wasn't like there was anyone in sight. And the electricity seemed to still be working.

There were just some things they couldn't do. Ever. Because of what they were.

And alongside all the weird memories and anger that shouldn't have been, Raph was feeling other things. A strange...lightness, too. Like the longer he was in this place the more he was filling up with some kind of strange something.

Something good, though. Something that came all part and parcel with the strange and the bad. Something that made him want to indulge in something fun just a tiny little bit.

Raph looked to the right. He looked to the left. He looked around and listened.

Nothing.

"One ride. One short ride."

[bestnamer]

"Yes!"

One short ride turned into one long ride, because Mikey absolutely refused to get off unless Raph pressed the green button again.

"You gotta try this, bro! It's like my brains are being scrambled - but in a good way, not the too-many-me's-in-my-me way! It's a real head trip, you've never felt anything like it!"

Tilt-a-whirls - even more fun than flipping off buildings on skateboards. Who knew?

[othersdestructive]

He didn't want to ride the stupid ride. That was kid stuff.

Really, really fun-looking kid stuff.

"Ah, I guess it's okay if it's just the once."

So he pushed the button again, which was fortunately on a timer, and ran over and jumped into the tilt-a-whirl car with Mikey. Only instead of sitting he stood on the seat and held onto the bar. Naturally this meant that each twirl nearly threw him out of the car.

(Did Mikey really expect him to ride it any other way?)

"Hey, this actually is kinda fun!"

[bestnamer]

"You mean this actually is kinda the best thing ever!"

Raph's casual disregard for safety encouraged Mikey to do the same. Now there were two turtles nearly getting thrown out of the car on each whirl.

"Dude! We gotta find Leo and Donnie just so we can get them on this! WOAH!"

A sudden jolt nearly ripped him from the bar and into the open air, but he managed to stay hooked on with one finger and pulled himself back into place with the next swoop of the car.

"Totally radical! Right bro?"

He'd never said it before, but it came out so naturally.

[othersdestructive]

"It's funny how quickly you can decide to disown somebody," was Raph's response as they were both almost flung out of the car once more.

[bestnamer]

"Aww, come on."

Raph didn't mean it, so Mikey's protest was equally lazy.

"Hey! After this, we should see if they left any corn dogs behind! I've always wanted to try a corndog."

Mikey was usually pretty big on the childlike glee, but there was something about this place - creepy as the abandoned carnival theme was, once you got past the desertion, the sense of abandonment of the place, there was . . .

Well maybe there wasn't anything in the air at all. Maybe Mikey didn't need any subtle influences to go to an even higher plane of childlike glee when left to his own devices in the sort of place where other children - regular children - got to enjoy themselves as part of normal, delightful lives.

He was generally a pretty happy turtle, but he hadn't been this happy in, oh - a while.

And maybe he was crazy (he and Raph WERE having other voices shoved into their heads), but something about this place just seemed more fun even than an abandoned carnival ought to have been.

Something in the air made it feel inviting.

Not something the turtles, outcasts that they were, felt very often.

"And you know what else? We should see if they left a Ferris wheel! You know, to get a good view of our surroundings!"

Yes. Yes that was exactly the reason for seeking out a ferris wheel. That, and no other.

[othersdestructive]

"What part about one ride wasn't clear?" Raph said as the Tilt-A-Whirl came to a stop.

As fun as it had been, they had to get down to business and find out what was going on here.

He hopped off the ride and got out his sais again.

"C'mon, we need to look around."

[bestnamer]

"What better place to look around than from the top of a Ferris wheel?"

Mikey kept up his protest as he followed Raph, not bothering to take out his kusarigami. What could happen here? In a thoroughly abandoned carnival at night?

[fearasaurusrex]

"Well, isn't this just a delight?" came a voice from the shadows, one with a distinct British accent. It sounded like the erudite voice of an action movie villain. "A few new friends from what undoubtedly must be a gripping work of fiction."

A pause.

"Or an asinine one, given the children were what likely brought you in. It doesn't really matter either way. You're here and I'm here and we're all puppets cut loose from our strings."

[othersdestructive]

"Who's there? Show yourself!"

He didn't like the sound of that voice. He didn't like this entire situation.

Whoever it was sounded like he planned to toy with them and it bothered him that someone else might know what was going on when he and Mikey didn't.

[bestnamer]

Not very much of that made sense to Mikey, but it was definitely said in a forbidding kind of tone, and that meant it was ninja time.

"If I was a puppet without strings, could I do this?"

Mikey whipped the weighted end of his kusarigama into the darkness in the direction of the sound of the voice.

[fearasaurusrex]

Something caught the chain and started pulling on it with an iron grip.

Out of the darkness came a woman in white, running towards Mikey, shrieking an inhuman shriek. Clenched in one hand was the end of his chain, the other was held up as if she was ready to claw his eyes out with her long, sharp nails. Her hands were just as bloody as her face and said face had no eyes and blood still poured from the empty sockets.

[othersdestructive]

Raph had seen some freaky stuff in the last few months of his life. Some really, really freaky stuff.

But this was a level of horror movie creepy that was beyond even his capacity to be stoic.

That was why he let out a very high-pitched scream.

[bestnamer]

Echoed by Mikey's equally high-pitched shriek.

"IT'S BLOODY MARY!"

No telling how he knew that on instinct, but he did. It was like his inner child (which was only surface deep anyway) was screaming it at him from deep inside his soul.

"DON'T LET HER TOUCH YOU SHE'LL CLAW YOUR EYES OUT!"

Which was why Mikey threw his nunchuck at her, instead of using it like the weapon he was trained to use. Sheer terror had rendered him temporarily unable to use his ninja skills.

[fearasaurusrex]

"I see I'm not the only genre-savvy one here. It's such a shame you have to die, it would be such a wonderful thing to talk with someone else who sees the world through the same eyes," came the voice from the shadows.