[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

[bestnamer]

"Because they're trash! Haha! Nice one."

Mikey looked up from the layout map to point at the next room over.

"There's a fire escape across the hall."

[othersdestructive]

In response to the "take out the trash" thing Raph looked at Mikey and then pointed at Nico.

"I like her."

Then he smashed one last container and moved towards the door so they were ready to go.

"Let's do this."

[spellitonce]

"All right," Nico said, and then raised her voice so Mabel and Dipper could hear. "I'm going to clear the building, and then we need to get out on the fire escape so we can get out of here. Dipper, you have the snow globe?"

She'd given it to him to take care of because, of the three of them who'd originally gone on the rescue mission, he was the one with the least amount of power for offense or defense. If one of them needed to escape or call for back-up, he'd be best for it.

Once again, she brought her hand up to her mouth and worried her hangnail with her teeth. It started to bleed, again, but it also gave up the ghost and finally came off all the way. She'd have to do something else to get blood to burn the place down.

"Take out the trash," she intoned, closing her eyes and willing everyone that wasn't the five of them to be (safely) ejected from the building.

[bestnamer]

"And STAY out, yo," Mikey called after them.

[othersdestructive]

Now that that was done, Raph shouldered open the door to the twins outside, who were already ready to run.

"Light it up!"

This place needed to burn to the ground.

[spellitonce]

Nico backed out of the room, holding the door open with her foot.

Poetry had never really been her thing -- she'd preferred to turn her creativity to clothing. But she had acquired a few books of poetry, and memorized a few poems.

One, by German poet Friedrich Ruckert, was rather applicable here.

"You must not shut the night inside you," she recited as she picked at the nail bed of her index finger with her thumbnail. "But endlessly in light the dark immerse. / A tiny lamp has gone out in my tent-"

Ow. Nico raised her Staff and pointed it at the horrifying contents of the room.

"I bless the flame that warms the universe."

It wouldn't be quite as dramatic as all that -- extra global warming wasn't really going to help them here. But metaphorical warmth, from the remains of the wonderous creatures and beings that had been abused here?

She probably wasn't that powerful either, but the thought couldn't hurt.

[bestnamer]

Mikey stared at her in awe. "That was so beautiful! Did you just make that up?"

[othersdestructive]

Raph stared at her as well, eyes widening as she was briefly framed by the flames springing up through the room, bursting out as of the sun had reached a hand in to light it all aflame.

As the power burst free from her, she stood there untouched and unafraid.

It was rare that he was ever impressed or blown away by something, but for a moment, he forgot the ridiculous scalpel in his hands, forgot the dripping wound at his chest, forgot his aches and pains, forgot his confusion and anger and the lingering jitters of fear.

And forgot to breathe. For a second.

"Yeah, that was, uh..." He stared at her. "Beautiful."

He paused and rallied quickly as he ushered the twins towards the fire escape, "What you said. Was that out of a book?"

[spellitonce]

"I'll get you guys a copy of it when I'm not about to burn the lace off my skirt, MOVE!"

Nico shoved at them all from behind, trying not to think too hard about how the last time she'd escaped from a burning building, someone she loved had been dying.

There were times she might appreciate out-right admiration of her spell-casting creativity, but now was not one of them.

[captainbuzzkill]

"Hey, Mabel, I think this is the first time we've helped someone commit arson against an evil government conspiracy," said Dipper excitedly as they were rushed out through the fire escape. "As soon as we're back, I can scratch that off my bucket list along with breaking into a secret government facility to rescue someone! I have both on there."

He actually did.

And he had that bucket list in his vest.

What he didn't have in his vest right now as the book, which he had in his hands, in case they needed it.

Which was why as some armed med rounded the corner, one of them froze. He was wearing strange goggles with symbols carved on the sides - goggles that apparently allowed him to see them whether they were invisible or not.

He shouted, "The boy! The boy has the book! Artifact 1453k! Take him down!"

[bestnamer]

"Oh, something's going down!"

And it was that guy. By a fire extinguisher to the head. Thrown by Mikey. With ninja accuracy.

"Booyakashaaah! Maybe THAT'LL work to save you from rad fire witch magic! You're welcome, you giant jerk!"

[captainbuzzkill]

It knocked off his helmet, which rolled to the floor, making the strange signs painted inside visible.

The moment it was off, it was clear what those symbols were meant to block, because Nico's "take out the trash" spell suddenly made him disappear.

"Those symbols, they - they could see us and were immune to your spell," Dipper said as he ran out on the fire escape. "And he knew about the book - how did he know about he book?"

[othersdestructive]

"Seeing as we're not currently in a library and are about to be shot at, can we stop the chit-chat about books and just get out of here?" Raph said, tossing the scalpel...thing at another soldier, hitting him in the leg as he ducked out the door of the fire escape. (A miss, because he wasn't used to the weight of it, but at least it downed him. "You had some way out of here, right?"

[captainbuzzkill]

"Oh yeah." Dipper reached into his vest pocket and took out the snow globe, shaking it and saying into it: "The Pole."

Then he tossed it down the stairs of the fire escape, where it formed a swirling portal.

"Come on, this'll get us to Santa's Workshop!" he said, waving them on and grabbing Mabel's hand so they could jump through together.

[bedazzledmyface]

"Aaaand access DENIED!"

Mabel's kitten fists went soaring at the ceiling over the armed medics, collapsing it around them. Nico's fire sprang up amid the rubble as the big jerks went sprawling. Mabel was not particularly inclined to feel bad for them at this point.

"Go ahead!" she shouted, shooting off kitten fists like a pink, glittery machine gun. "I'LL HOLD THEM OFF! AAAAAAAAAUGH!"

She let out her warrior's howl, overwhelmed by power. It sounded a lot like a one-woman boy band concert audience.

[spellitonce]

Little white girls who thought they're indestructible would be the death of Nico one day, she was sure of it.

"Let's GO!" she shouted, reaching out with her free hand to try and grab Mabel by her sweater. Mabel can continue providing cover fire as long as she can do it while she's being dragged backward, because there was no way that Nico would be jumping through that portal until both twins were on the other side.

[bestnamer]

"Is that like a theme park? Or a theme store?"

It hadn't entered Mikey's mind that they could mean the actual Santa's workshop, because actual Santa didn't exist.

Not for freakbabies in a sewer in another world.

Nevertheless he jumped through, dragging Raph with him.

[othersdestructive]

After they all went through, the portal closed, as if it could sense they were the only ones coming and that anyone coming after them might be less than welcoming, leaving them in...

In...

This couldn't be real. This couldn't be an actual place. Because this was a place in stupid holiday specials. There was no such thing as Santa and there was no such thing as Santa's workshop. But here it was, fresh from some corny Christmas special.

Bigger and brighter and better and more real than it'd looked in any Christmas special Raph had ever seen.

"You have got to be kidding me."

He had to lean heavily on the back of one of the nearby chairs, he was so bowled away.

[captainbuzzkill]

"Crazy, right? It's exactly as real as it looks," said Dipper. "And why we're here is a long story, but let me help you with those collars first. We all got powers when we were pulled here, including ones that help us heal faster, and those collars are probably blocking them. You'll heal faster if they're gone."

Dipper held up his book, opened to a certain page, then made the book float, held open to the page he needed, as he walked over to Mikey, holding out his hands towards his neck, gesturing for him to bend down.

[bedazzledmyface]

"Do you think they'll be solar-powered? Because turtles like the sun? What I'm getting around to is, congratulatory beach party maybe? We just burned down our first evil government torture lab!"

Mabel held her hand out to Dipper for a post-collar-removal hi-five. It was all right. She'd wait.

[spellitonce]

"They're standing right here, Mabel," Nico pointed out, tipping the Staff of One back so it rested on her shoulder. She looked to Raph and Mikey with a raised eyebrow. "What, did you think I was kidding when I said that we work with an alternate universe Easter Bunny and it's weird?"

She had definitely mentioned that. After Raph had bloodied Dipper's nose, before they'd gone exploring and found a dead unicorn.

"Welcome to the North Pole!" she said, gesturing at the enormous lodge around them. "A.K.A. where we're crashing. Sadly, the jolly old elf himself is not around, for the same reason we're all here."

[bestnamer]

They were there, but a little distracted by sheer, absolute wonder. Mikey was inhaling, had been inhaling since they jumped through the portal, and now the inhalation was resolving itself into a high pitched wheeze that suddenly, with Mikey's lungs at max capacity, became a screech of absolute delight.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Silence fell - BRIEFLY - as Mikey inhaled again and every eye in the pole stared at him.

"THIS IS EPIC!"

Mikey's whole person had suddenly become reduced to yelled questions and pointing. He pointed at at the tiny scurrying people. "ARE THOSE ELVES?" The giant walking moustached carpet-people. "WHAT ARE THOSE?" Out the window at the deep canyon and jagged fields of endless snow and glacial ice. "ARE THEY FRIENDLY?" At the cookies. "CAN I EAT THOSE?"

[othersdestructive]

"Santa's Workshop. We're in Santa's Workshop, in another world, where we're fiction. With government labs. And people have raps about us. I'm gonna - I'm gonna just sit down now."

It was just a little too much to take in. Normally, if Raph was overwhelmed, he'd have just shrugged it off. He certainly wouldn't have sunk down against a couch to sit on the floor because he was feeling faint.

But then normally he hadn't been beaten to a pulp and had his shell cut open. It fortunately hadn't cut deep, only breaking just past his shell into flesh, but it'd been a slow trickle of blood the entire time he'd been running around. Ideally, the second it had happened, he should have been resting, but their situation hadn't exactly been ideal.

"Gonna take a look around."

Now he wasn't sitting, he'd slipped down to lay the floor.

"From the floor," he said faintly. "Yep. Looking around."

[captainbuzzkill]

"Those are elves, the furry guys are yetis, yes they're friendly, and I recommend the peanut butter ones," said Dipper as he worked on Mikey's collar, working it almost like a puzzle box, pressing certain symbols and scratching out others.

It suddenly dissolved into black dust that disappeared into nothing and he went to work on Raph.

"Hang in there, big guy," Dipper said, immediately moving over to the now-horizontal turtle. He wasn't looking so good and despite the bloody nose of earlier, Dipper didn't have any hard feelings. "Soon as I have this off, you'll be yourself again in no time. You'll still need lots of rest but you'll start healing faster once your myth powers kick in."

[bedazzledmyface]

"They're a little busy being transfixed by wonderment to discuss vacation plans," Mabel said, waving her hand at Nico. As Mikey pointed to the cookie table, she trotted over to start helping him get the immediate best out of his Santa's Workshop experience.

"Wanna help me decorate?"