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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"Oh I'm sorry, am I distracting you?"

The leg sweep is easy enough to dodge, but doing so comes at the expense of merely blocking the follow-up punch.

"Nice extension on your dragon punch. Do you work out?"

Okay, so...prognosis?

The entirety of Mikey's everything is a death trap. Good to know.

Apparently.

...In some universe, at least, he's sure.

Don leans against the nearest wall (after carefully feeling it over for any abnormalities or tricks) with a sigh, brushing his wrist against his forehead.

Secondly? Definitely, definitely not their Michelangelo. Don glares at the interlocking strings crisscrossing the ceiling. (They'd have to make sure he had actual household appliances left after the scavenging frenzy he'd apparently gone through.) This one, wherever he came from, was dangerous. Maybe not to him or Raph, maybe, but other people, unsuspecting people...

He sighs again and pushes off the wall, hopping carefully of a tripwire and sidestepping the poorly-made pressure switch (honestly). Don doesn't want to think about this now, and focuses on the resigned aggravation at what he might see after - stupidly? possibly - leaving Raph alone for so long with someone who wasn't actually their brother.

...Actually, it had been rather quiet-

And that's when Don hears the thump over his head, because some people apparently hadn't taken into consideration that his sweep of the house would take him directly beneath the impromptu fighting ring.

Now, when it comes to his brothers, there is a very particular way they move. A very obvious distribution of weight and balance that is just different from humans - or even Splinter, but that might have less to do with differing physiology and more to do with no one ever heard Splinter coming ever-

Don is flinging open the third-story window, having flown past the traps he could and disabled the ones he couldn't, using his staff to boost himself outside and up.

Why was there fighting on the roof!?

"What are you doing?"

It's mostly aimed at Raph, but, Mikey, you are more than welcome to include yourself in that particularly dismayed, disappointed, truly, outraged declaration. Consider it a gift.

Donatello's outburst derails Raph's effort to find a decent comeback, and he stalls for a moment. His arm is crossing Mikey's, and they're in mid-counter with each other, but Don's definitely thrown a bucket of cold water onto this heated sparring match.

"...we're sparring," Raph says, like it should be obvious. Because it is.

"We are? I...you mean we haven't just been dancing this whole time? Well now I feel like an idiot," he says not missing a beat.

"Hi Donnie. You survived! Good on you."

It was general standard procedure for Don to not get involved in his brothers' tiffs. Ever. In fact, he tended to go the opposite direction and wait it out - with some fine helping of eye-rolling and exasperation - in a corner somewhere.

He swings his staff to point it first at Raph. "He is injured," and next Mikey, "and you. Are injured. Did that somehow slip your mind, because I thought it was obvious, Mikey, that-"

Don pauses, and glances down.

"Did you climb up here."

Okay, better defuse this. Don can get pretty irate when it comes to his brothers pushing themselves when injured, so. Makes sense that it holds true for this Mikey too.

"Relax, brainiac," Raph scoffs, stepping back and folding his arms. "He didn't use his bum arm." Raph was careful not to make him use it, too, because he's just that considerate a guy.

Mike's hands instantly went up into a surrender position when the bo was pointed in his direction. Less because of the actual bo, and more because of the tone being employed by its wielder.

This...is not the best of all possible plans, because...ow. Stupid arm.

"Yeah, what he said."

One can always trust a Raph to tell a convincingly spun version of the truth in times of inquest.

Yeah, that bo isn't wavering an inch. And when Mikey moves his arm, Don just glares harder. "Really. You just climbed up here one-handed, then? All three stories? Impressive, if somewhat implausible."

Don aims the inquiry at Mikey because - at least in his universe - Mikey is always the first to crack.

But then he wavers, and drops the staff with a grumbling sigh, marching over irately with one hand extended because he couldn't ignore an obvious injury. "Let me see." You think he didn't notice you were in pain?

Looks like their fight's over. Awesome.

Raph sighs heavily and heads over to the edge of the building to sit, folding his arms. Donnie should probably look over that arm anyway, if it was hurting so bad that Mike couldn't even use it.

Mike might not have thought that his grimace of pain was something that would slip by Donatello...any Donatello, but that doesn't mean he wasn't hoping just the same.

Mike sighs and rolls his eyes before he offers up his right arm for inspection.

It's a clean slice, and deep too. From the looks of it Mike was on the wrong side of a katana at the wrong time. One set of stitches has been torn, and the second set looks close to doing so as well.

This is not the forearm of a turtle who abstained from climbing, like he was supposed to.

"This isn't my fault. It's Leo's."

Don sucks in air between his teeth when he sees the wound, gingerly taking hold of the arm and tilting it for better light. These kind of wounds are still new to him, but he recognizes one poorly cared for all the same.

He grumbles, but he doesn't look up and his grip remains soft, at least until he finishes his examination and drops it, reaching for the bag on his back. "What happened? And, by the way? If you tear my stitches? You won't be moving for a month.

"Raph, get over here."

Edited 2013-03-14 04:33 (UTC)

Donnie. What.

Raph pushes himself up and slinks over. He gets a look at the wound and hisses quickly through his teeth before turning away. "Leo's fault, huh? He the one who stuck a sword through your arm?"

"No, he's the one who did the crap job of stitching me up in the first place. I'd have done it my damn self, but this is my dominant hand," he says wiggling the fingers on his right hand. A movement he quickly regrets.

"We got ambushed on a rooftop by some Foot ninja. We thought maybe with the Shredder gone they'd just clear out and go home, but they're running like chickens with their heads cut off instead. I thought...I really thought I had this guy, but...he got lucky. Raph," he pauses to look over at the Raph that isn't his. "He got the kill point instead.

Anyway, I made for a jump, to be a diversion so that the brain alien face things would go for me so the rest of you guys could get away, but, my crap stitches popped and I fell."

Part of Don's brain stumbles over the word "kill point" and lingers there, along with the idea of Mikey stitching himself up, but the rest of doesn't, and he's rifling through his bag and dragging out a bowl, shoving it toward Raph. "I didn't call you over here to talk. I need you to go get water. My hands aren't clean enough for this."

He also pulls out a carefully-wrapped piece of cloth and sets it on top, but doesn't do anything with it yet. No need to muck up sterilized faux-needles with dirty fingers. Instead he reaches for Mikey's arm again to go back to plotting out how he's going to get the broken stitches out with minimum damage and if any can be saved. Or are worth saving, which...Wow, these are bad.

"If you knew the stitches were bad in the first place, then why did you have to go and test them? Did it occur to you that re-opening a severe injury mid-fight might have made everything worse?" He's pointedly ignoring the diversion thing - for now - because that was just stupid thinking.

Mikeys.

Raphael seriously considers hitting Donnie over the head with the bowl at his attitude, but figures he can save it for later. He will remember this the next time you guys spar.

Additionally, hearing Mike talk about kill points like it's totally cool is. Kind of alarming. Raph isn't like his other brothers, he knows there might come a time when he'll need to kill someone to keep his family safe and he's (kind of) come to terms with it, but until then...yeah. Yeah.

Raphael ducks out of the conversation and heads down the side of the building to slip back into the suite for hot water.

"As the family medic? Yeah, the thought had kinda crossed my mind.

Unfortunately, we weren't exactly brimming with other options. And if it came between popping a few stitches to get you guys out versus all of us ending up in tubes like Master Splinter? Yeah, bye bye crap stitches. Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out."

Death before dishonor.

"You're the family medic?" That actually surprises Don into looking up, which is a feat considering the sheer stubbornness of his attention span at the worst of times.

"No, hold on. Why did you think we - they - would even have left? There's no way we'd leave you behind." Especially you, he doesn't say. Even the idea that there's a universe out there where they might is disturbing. "I understand the sentiment, but you could have just made everything more complicated."

Edited 2013-03-14 05:10 (UTC)

One would think Mike would be insulted by Don's incredulity, but he's not. In fact, it just makes him grin a lopsided grin.

"Leaving me behind would have been the smart thing to do. Splinter seemed okay, you know being pickled like a side-show punk. There's no real reason to think that they wouldn't have done the same to me. With the three of you out and safe, a rescue would have been more than possible."

Of course...Don and Leo would have had a HELL of a time keeping Raph in check with both Splinter and Mike out of the picture, but Mike doesn't say that.

"Yeeeaaaah, well...I kind of did make things more complicated. When I fell my shell kind of broke the control panel of some sort of Star Trek teleporter thing. You guys were already disappearing when I finally managed to get away from the aliens. I'm pretty sure that's why I ended up here."

It would be the smart thing to do, if it weren't that they were talking about Mikey here. In which case, absolutely none of them would have even considered leaving. (Well, considered, possibly, but actually gone through with? Don could probably come up with some scenario where it might happen, but the likelihood was exceedingly poor.)

Don looks back down at the injury, frowning. "You said they were brains? That's the Kraang, and at least one thing your...universe has in common with ours. It was probably an inter-dimensional portal, if the similarities extend that far, except none of us - at least Raph and I - had even seen it yet. Do you remember anything of importance about it? What it looked like, what the control panel looked like?"

He wouldn't even think of asking this of his Mikey, but if this one was competent enough to try and maim people with household appliances, he could probably be counted on for some observational qualities.

He half shrugs as he looks off in the direction Raph had exited the roof from, and then sort of begins to scan the surrounding area. The novelty of seeing the world...any world, below instead of above hasn't worn off yet.

"It was a large room. A clean room that was mostly white and chrome. There was this raised platform below some pretty intensely Sci-Fi looking contraptions attached to the ceiling. Everything was connected with these heavy duty looking metal shielded cables."

Mike pauses, turning his attention back to Don.

"The control panels looked like...well, control panels. Lots of blinking buttons. Seriously, straight out of Star Trek or Star Wars."

Sci-fi isn't exactly helpful, Mikey, but Don doesn't say anything about it.

"And the TCRI building," he agrees instead. "We can check with the - uh - other Leo if they had anything similar in their universe. I'm not sure what we can do with that information yet, but if we have a common point somewhere it should give us a better idea about how to work backwards, so to speak."

Mike thinks about this, because it's a logical stance to take, and he's just about to comment on it when the proverbial needle gets pulled across the record.

"Wait...other Leo?"

"Oh, Raph didn't tell you either?" Yes, he's probably being the slightest bit sharp about that, and, no, Raph will never live it down. "I just found out a few hours ago, myself. There's another Leo and another Raph around here, somewhere. The meeting went...well, I wasn't there, but it went about as well as you could expect Raph to take to another version of himself, apparently."

Because Raph is the vaguest and most unhelpful source of information ever.

Don pauses, and softens his voice. "If they looked like you, Raph probably would have mentioned it."

Edited 2013-03-14 20:07 (UTC)

See Mike.
See Mike hope.
Hope Mike, Hope.

See Mike.
See Mike smile at Don's frustration with Raph.
See Mike's smile fade as the realization of TWO Raphs finds purchase.

See Mike.
See Mike's smile completely crumble at softened exposition.

"...oh. Yeah. Yeah of course. Probably, I mean...we do look pretty different, don't we."
It's not so much a question, as a grudging statement of fact.

Mike grasps onto the closest thing to a change of topic as he can find.

"Honestly? Any encounter with an angry Raph that doesn't end with him using the other guy to texture coat an alleyway, is a good one."
It's meant as a joke, really.

Edited 2013-03-14 20:15 (UTC)

"Stop talking about me," Raphael grouses as he pulls himself back up to the roof, one-handed. He's so talented. He also managed to spill only a third of the water, Don, be grateful and here it is.

Please ignore that new nick on his plastron, he just managed to catch one of Mikey's better-hidden traps on it. No big, no blood; don't mention it either, he'll be humiliated.

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don you are a poor conversationial partner cease this at once

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/JUMPS IN