tushanshu | 001; Audio - The one where Mike tries to make sense of this.

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001; Audio - The one where Mike tries to make sense of this.

[Mike knows the rules, and he knows them by heart: When you're in a new place, and you aren't sure of your surroundings, you stay hidden to stay safe. Someone will come and find you. So when the kedan deliver him to his suite, Michaelangelo stays there.

It's only after he's lowered all the shades, explored the suite from top to bottom, and booby-trapped the front door with common household items, that Mike turns his attention to the communication console. Mike's access and familiarity with all things computer has been limited at best, with the bulk of his exposure coming in the form of play-testing what ever new video game Donatello had been coding. So it comes as more than a little bit of a shock to him that the console is as easy for him to work as the skim-milk blue guy with a similar number of fingers on his hands said it would be.

It doesn't matter that he's not home, or that the people who found him aren't quite human, or even that anyone who saw him on this vidscreen thing could easily just assume he was some sort of special effect added in post production.]

Um...hello? I.
I'm just looking for my brothers. There was a light from some sort of machine. They started to disappear without me. I just. I just want to find them.

Leo? Donnie? Raph? Please tell me you're out there. Please?

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Don rolled his eyes and looked away. "Of course you started a fight. You couldn't have gotten some answers out of them first? Maybe their Don knew something about this I don't." He had mostly been following Raph since entering the Water Sector, since he still wasn't very familiar with it, but the covered windows and eerie stillness coming from that particular unit was enough of a sign to Don. He switched tracks easily. "I think we're here."

If Raph didn't make a move to try anything, Don was going to hop on down to the windows - more out of habit than anything else - and knock softly without bothering to test the locks. He still wasn't sure about what was going on here, and he didn't want to startle his brother, or not-brother, or...whatever. It tended to be a bad idea.

Nothing stirs.
For a good ten count nothing stirs.
But on that eleven, there's slightest, barest, hint of movement behind the window.

"you both look like fetuses...."

Raph bangs on the window and makes it rattle.

"IF YOU SAY THAT ONE MORE TIME-!"

"Raph! Stop that!"

Donatello swings solidly into miffed in the next sentence, though. This is definitely Mikey. "Turtles are typically referred to as embryos through all stages of development in the egg, actually. Sure, they're synonyms, but it's only mammals who tend to receive the 'fetus' label - humans in particular. And I assure we are both fully developed teenage mutant turtles, okay? And I'm taller than you!"

At least, he thinks he is, judging by what little Don can tell from that minimal movement and what he knows of his Mikey.

"...seriously? That's the best you've got? Get in here before you hurt yourselves."

With that the window pops open. Seems it was unlocked this whole time.

"Mind your feet."

You know, because of the liberal sprinkling of make-shift caltrops strewn about the floor.

Oh.

Well it's not the first time they've all had trouble with assuming things are locked. Raph steps down, then steps again more carefully to make room for Don to follow and shit are those spikes all over the ground?

"Jeez Mikey, expecting company?" Raph crouches to pick one of them up.

"If you think that's bad then I'm really glad you guys didn't knock on the front door."

The only inside light is that coming from the console.

Good thing they're used to moving around in the dark, then. Don glances around curiously, easing around the spiked traps on the floor. "How many floors does this place have, three? And what did you do to the front door?"

Yeah, immediate trapping ingenuity from Mikey trumps the current problem of multiple universes. Go figure.

"Who cares what he did to the front door?" Raph shoves Donnie aside so he can get right up into Mikey's face to stare at him.

You called him a fetus. Twice.

...why are you as tall as he is, WHY IS EVERY OTHER ALTERNATE TURTLE TALLER THAN HE IS. "I owe you a beatdown, Mikey." Raph cracks his knuckles.

Mike manages to hold Raph's gaze for maybe a five count.
Possibly six.

Then, with no warning or fanfare, he catches Raph in a rather emphatic bear hug, going so far as to lift the other turtle off the ground.

"raincheck," he mumbles into his brother's shoulder.

Don goes as far as to take a step forward - Raph, honestly, here? - right up until Mikey grabs him.

Then he just hovers.

Nervously.

"So it's probably safe to assume you're a hothead in every universe, then?"

"Shut it, Donnie-" Raph grits out as Mikey squeezes him. This Mike is stronger than the other Mikey too, and Raph struggles a bit before just gritting his teeth and bearing it. Seriously?

Finally Raphael squirms loose, shoving himself back with a hand to Mikey's plastron. "Okay, what is that all about? What's the matter with you?"

Mike takes the hint, lowering and releasing Raph after one final squeeze.

The hugging? Is April's fault really. While Mike has always been the tactile and touchy-feely one of the brothers, living with April has only encouraged him.

"I thought I'd lost you guys forever," is the only explanation he can give voice to.

Well. Right. Don falters and clears his throat, looking away. "I'm just going to go check the place. Never know what can get into the walls, you know?"

He doesn't actually ask for permission because - Mikey. Even if it's not their Mikey. Which it isn't, obviously.

Raph didn't hit him for hugging him, though, so that's a good sign.

"Raph's been here longer, he can fill you in. I can check your injury when I get back, okay? In the kitchen. Did you trap upstairs?"

He's been talking as he eases away from the group.

Raph watches Donnie skulk away and glares at his shell. He folds his arms tight and gives Michelangelo a vaguely suspicious look. "I dunno what happened to you before you showed up-"

( hopefully this one didn't crack his head open on a wall because of Raphael's incompetence )

Raph falters slightly. "...but like I said, we're not the brothers you know."

"What good would trapping only one floor be?" he asks of Donnie as the other turtle moves out of earshot.

And its true, the other areas of the suite are...well, they're armed to the teeth in such a way that would make Rube Goldberg proud and Kevin McAllister envious.

Mike's been busy.

Blankets have been unraveled for string, doors have been loosened from their hinges, and heavy objects are teetering to drop from above. It'd be clear to any ninja that the traps are meant to severely injure, make as much noise as possible, and funnel anyone stupid enough to trip them down to the area where the console lives.

He then turns his attention back to Raph.

"Close enough..." he says in his own voice, before dropping it a register and finishing the sentiment in a pitch perfect impersonation of his Raph, "For horseshoes an' hand-grenades."

Mike looks at Raph. Really looks at him, and can't help but start mentally ticking off all the things that are...not wrong, but different.

"This is kind of messed up, isn't it."

Which is exactly why Don is getting out of there, to get his thoughts in order, and leaving Raph to deal with everything.

He'll take awhile, what with having to pick around Mikey's maze of severe injury and death, growing increasingly disturbed, and actually doing what he said he was going to.

Seriously, Mikey what the heck is with these traps!?

Edited 2013-03-08 22:13 (UTC)

Don't worry Mikey, Raph is doing exactly the same thing. No freckles, he's taller, his musculature is different. His eyes aren't blue. He's not even wearing his mask, for crying out loud. This is without a doubt not the same Mikey Raphael knows.

He seems a little more, uh, together, too. Especially since he booby-trapped his entire apartment in a way that makes even Raphael balk. A little bit. "You're telling me."

Raph heads over to Mikey's desk chair and kicks it to spin it around before hopping up to perch. "That Donnie's my Donnie, but there's two other guys here. Another me who's a certified nutjob, and another Leo who acts like he's forty years old. Either of those sound familiar?"

Mike pads along behind Raph, leaning up against the nearest wall when there's no longer a chair to plop into.

"Yeah, but then again...so do the two of you. Except, you know for the whole..." The word fetus hangs heavy in the air.

On the desk, near where Raph is perched, is a red bandanna-style mask. Mike doesn't make a habit of wearing his unless he has need of eyebrows.

Don't you call him a fetus again, DON'T YOU DO IT.

Raph rocks the chair side to side, growling a little beneath his breath because he is sick and tired of all this alternate version bullshit and he just would like his family please, his real family.

"Yeah, well you don't look a thing like Mikey," Raph mutters, just to be a contrary jerk. There's similarities though, loads of them. Like how Mike can irritate the shit out of Raphael like nothing else. And okay, so he's got the same doofy grin. Well, sometimes; when Mikey told them about the booby traps his grin looked a little...

-oh hey, what's that? Raph grabs the bandanna on Mikey's desk. He holds it up to the window so the light can filter in and yeah, that's definitely red. He gives Mikey another suspicious look. "This isn't yours, is it?"

Oh he won't, don't worry.
At least not until he needs to shake Raph up in order to throw him at someone else.

...

What? That's totally a valid battle strategy.

"You don't sound a thing like Raph. Plus, there's too much skin on your knuckles." Knuckle-dragger is a term of endearment.

Mike then cranes his neck to get a better look at what the other turtle is holding.

"Yeah. Why?"

Excuse you, he sounds exactly like Raphael, because he's Raphael! So shut up!

"Because it's red. Mikey doesn't wear red." He wears orange because orange is the most obnoxious color and Mikey is the most obnoxious turtle.

Aah, here we are. Far more familiar ground.

"Yes, he does," says Mike, as his lop-sided grin makes an encore performance.

Edited 2013-03-08 22:34 (UTC)

"Uh, no, he doesn't." Raph throws the mask back down on the desk and slips off the chair. "I wear red. Red's my color."

"Your color? Dude, you can't own a color."

Don't think he doesn't see you moving there, Raph. Because he does.

"We all wear red. Splinter cut our bandannas from the same kimono."

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OKAY I THINK THIS IS RIGHT NOW? sorry. NOW don is trying not to die and can be skipped.

OKAY THAT WAS FUN

We win at organization! GO US! \o/!

FUCK YEAH WE ROCK

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