Stronger

Chapter Nineteen

   Remorse hung on Mikey like a cloak, silently following him everywhere and always tugging at him. He walked around, silently studying everything. He was not looking for anything, but he needed a distraction, something that would take the guilt away from his stomach as it ate at him. The image of his broken Kusari-fundo kept appearing in his mind.

   A lot of closed doors quickly became accessible as he kicked at them, looked around, and left. Nothing picked up his interest. Nothing shiny, nothing odd. Just normal stuff like you would see in anything.

   Briefly he thought about the first world he had entered into. Their danger lay not in the unexpected, but in the obvious. They didn’t punch with their fist, they did it with their technology. And they had thrived for so long like that, despite having dangers lurking everywhere. Maybe he was supposed to look for something like that, although if so, he would have been searching for years.

   He knew his brothers did not have years. They probably had less than ten minutes. But even if he returned, what could he do? Shout boo and hope that works?

   Let’s face it, he thought grimly. I’m about as scary as a toy. About as useful too.

   And so he walked around.

   He knew Brief would kill him if he ever saw the turtle again. He would go on looking for another person to terrorize into submission. It had taken him years before he finally found Mikey, and it would probably take him more years, but if there was one thing Brief seemed to have, dispute his name, it was patience.

   Come to think of it, why does he call himself Brief? Mikey asked himself. Nothing he does is fast. He even delays my going into the portals by rigging me up with random stuff that I don't even know the name or use of. He said he had to wait a little longer when he first met me. What is he waiting for?

   The thought set Mikey into a new thinking track. Brief was probably just a fake name, a distraction to what he really does.

   Mikey paused. Dimensions. He wants me to go into different dimensions to steal folders that have the ability to destroy their world. But why? What is his purpose?

   Well, I may never find that one out.
   Coming up to another door, he gave it a karate kick. Pain raced up his leg and he gasped when he heard the crack, sure it was his leg. But when he looked up, he was relieved to see that it was the wooden door that had snapped, not his leg. He still applied little pressure to it when he got up though, and limped to the door.

   "Huh. There is a metal door behind this," he said out loud. Taking hold of a chunk of wood from the first door, he started ripping it away. "You don't hide nothing in a double door," he reasoned with himself, knowing all too well that his brothers would be captured soon if they were not knocked out already. Or worse. He gulped, speeding up his process.

   Even the door handle was a fake. He found that out when he wrenched the wood piece around it and it came off too. He groaned. "Great. No door handle. How am I supposed to get in?" But he continued to rip them off until most of it lay on the floor in shards.

   He placed his hand on the metal wall, feeling around for anything. He desperately hoped that something lay beyond it, something important, because otherwise he had just wasted five minutes that he could have used for something else.

   A little frustrated, he pushed against the door. Something hissed by his ear loudly and he jumped back, whipping out his nunchucks which he still had. A light smoke exited the room for visual effects, and the door whined open from the inside.

   Cautiously, Mikey stepped inside.

   "Brief? Is that you? If so, then get the heck out of here. I still have not agreed to your terms and I never will."

   The light smoke he had seen exiting swirled around in the dim white light and the voice seemed to be coming from everywhere. Metal walls, he thought.

   "Um, I'm not Brief," he said.

   The man paused. "Then who are you?"

   "Someone who can set you free if you know how to defeat him." He waited, fiddling with his fingers, for his answer. He had not seen him yet, but it was worth a gamble.

   The person laughed. "Oh, are you two enemies?"

   "I guess you could say that."

   He chuckled again. "Then you might feel compelled to hate me too. But please, before you run out without me, I am not who I look like. Well, I am, but I come from another multiverse."

   Mikey frowned, but as the mist slowly dissipated, finally realized what he meant. There was a man that stood in front of him with black hair and black eyes. He was tall and wore a long black coat that covered most of his body. But his face, instead of looking like it was carved from stone, looked more warm. "Yep, I am another Brief. But a good one. In fact, every other Brief is good and now he is hunting the others to kill them and take over their world's. And since we look so alike, all our men listen to him."

   Mikey forced himself to breathe evenly. "Right. You are different. Your coat is not burnt and you were locked up here."

   The other Brief looked at him skeptically. "So, are you a mutant turtle?"

   "No, I'm a fish," he replied airily, studying the bars in front of him. "So, can you call up portals?"

   "Yes, actually. But I cannot go through them. Has Brief found someone who can?"

   "Yep, and that someone is me." I stepped away from the bars. "I would suggest that you step towards the wall at the back. The shrapnel could be dangerous."

   Brief 2.0's eyes widened and he complied. Mikey swung his nunchucks around and quick as a viper, snapped them at the thin metal. A sharp clanging sound rang through the air, trying to make him def, and the ringing persisted after the original sound had passed.

   Mikey stepped forward and grabbed the snapped ends, straining to widen them so the person could walk out. After he had gotten a few feet between them, he stepped back. "I think your men need you, sir."

   Wearing a small smile, the other Brief stepped out. "You are certainly unafraid of me, even though Brief used you."
   He shrugged tiredly. "At this rate, I'll go with anything to bring this man down. Just as long as it works."

   The man chuckled and Mikey was relieved that he sounded different from the original. "Then let us go."

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All right! Chapter Nineteen created and done! I hope you all like it. I serious have next to no motivation for it and at this rate I am making myself do this. Seriously. If it were not for you guys reading this, I would have never completed this in two weeks and a half. In fact, I would not have even known about TMNT. XD

The image does not really fit his mood, but whatever.