Stronger

Chapter Six

   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!"