(Untitled)

[nexuschamp]

Who: gaijin-ninja, thesevencodes and nexuschamp
What: Raph and Mike (and Leo) at the barrier.
When: Right after this thread over yonder.
Where: The south woods and barrier and such.
Summary: Raphael is a rebel without a cause, so he makes one. Mike has a crappy persuasive argument because he is way too whiny. Leo ninjas right into Luceti unnoticed because that is how he rolls.

Comments

[meanandgreen]

A single word echos through his head. "Prison." No matter what kind of walls surrounded this place, a cage is a cage, and Raphael is nobody's pet. He's been locked up, strapped down, and chained more times than he'd like to remember, and all those memories come flooding with adrenaline-fueled fury.

A cage is a cage, but this one has no straps and no chains. No bars or concrete floors. And in Raph's mind, that's almost worse.

He needs something tangible. He needs something he could hit, rip, tear to pieces with hands and weapons. Because without those bars and walls to seal him in, he feels more helpless than anything

[nexuschamp]

Michelangelo can hear Raphael raging before he even makes it within sight of him; can hear the clang clang of deflected blows, hear the harsh gasping and growling as Raphael grows out of breath and can almost hear the frustration pouring off of him like a tangible thing. His temperamental brother's fits were famous within the family; he would scream, shout, rage- curse, strike things, people, but eventually his anger would bleed itself dry and he'd shuffle off somewhere to reflect. Raph's temper never really truly scared anyone; not in the sense of fearing for one's own safety. Raphael had only seriously lost his temper with Michelangelo a couple times, but he could forgive him that

[meanandgreen]

He's getting tired. Tired and cold, but the fury's lit a fire in his stomach, and it boils in his blood, urging him on. Yet the blows are becoming slower, and his bellows turn to grunts, his hot breath snaking out of him in the frigid air.

It's not working. It's not working, because the wall will never give or fight back, and honestly, Raph would've taken either. The fit of rage dulls his weapons and his stamina, but does nothing to soothe the twisting frustration in his bones.

The wall won't give, but Mikey will.

He turns and sees Mike sitting on the ground, watching him sullenly.

"Don't just fucking sit there!" He storms closer, chest heaving and breathless, snarling through gritted teeth. "Do something!"

[nexuschamp]

Oh boy; Raphael's fury has just been displaced. Michelangelo tenses when Raphael stomps his way but he doesn't make a move to stand and go Do Something, instead choosing to glare up at Raphael. "Sorry, you used up all your brother loyalty points when you made me chase after you. Besides, what'm I supposed to do? Throw rocks at it?"

He knows -he knows- he's asking for an ass-kicking, giving Raphael sass when he's in this sort of mood, but he doesn't really care at the moment. He's cold and tired and hungry as all hell, and Raphael just wasted their time being a stubborn jerk. Sure, he probably had some crazy reason for it in that brain of his, but not only does Mikey not see it, he doesn't want to see it. He's cranky now, too.

[meanandgreen]

Raph feels thoroughly betrayed at Mike's reaction. Though it's not like he wasn't expecting it. Right now, more than anything, he's fucking pissed that Mike, his own brother, would throw in the towel that easily.

What about Don? What about Leo? Hell, they could be dead for all they knows and Mike want's nothing to do with this?! He doesn't even want to try?!

He stomps closer, looming over his brother's form with fury written in his eyes. "Get off your fat butt right now before I do it for you."

[nexuschamp]

All right, so maybe sometimes one did fear for their personal safety when faced with a furious Raphael. At the moment, Michelangelo has two options; be stubborn and not move, possibly inviting severe harm on his person, or get to his feet.

Mike chose the latter.

He still folds his arms though, frowning a little more at the show of intimidation and giving Raph his best "leave me alone or I'm gonna scream" kind of glare. ...admittedly that kind of look doesn't really do much by way of intimidation, especially with no Leo or Splinter present to tell Raphael to back off, but the principle of the matter still stood. And that was basically that Mike was upset. "Raph, we're not gonna break that thing. We should go back to the town and see if anybody's seen 'em."

[meanandgreen]

Raph just glares into his brother's eyes, growing increasingly astonished. "What the hell happened to you?You don't even give a damn?! You don't give a flying fuck about getting out of here, finding the others? That's bullshit!"

And then, he's immediately horrified. What if they've done something to him? What if...

"Bullshit!" He growls again, turning his back and stalking off a few paces before screaming at his brother again. "You didn't. Even. Try!"

This has to be some kind of nightmare. Some form of hell made just for him. He stalks back to the wall again, sick dread quieting the adrenaline. He's still angry, but it's turning inward, forming a maddening little ball in his stomach.

Instead of attacking, he half-heartedly pounds the wall with both fists, pressing his forehead against it. "Shit."

[thesevencodes]

Leonardo has no idea what's happened

[nexuschamp]

Raphael's response -his accusatory tone, the righteous fury and betrayal on his face, even the fact that he didn't hit him- shocks Michelangelo a bit. The way Raph was talking, he thought Mike had given up on their brothers, on getting out of this place. But he hadn't! He was just thinking about what they needed right now; he wasn't abandoning their family! He-

...had he?

Watching Raph pace over to the barrier and halfheartedly drop his forehead against it -thunk- Mike wrung his hands nervously. He always sucked at this; figuring out the right thing to say to Raph to make him feel better. He was excellent at making him angry, or cracking a joke to make him annoyed enough to forget their worries, but at the moment he would give anything for-

"Are you guys all right?"

No way.

Michelangelo spun, not willing to just believe his ears and- it was. Like he'd summoned him with his mind. "L...Leo! Leo!" Mike would usually refrain from doing something as childishly embarrassing as throwing himself at his big brother in relief,

[meanandgreen]

As soon as he's calmed down enough, Raph notices how much the cold's affecting him. Part of him thinks that the wall is the only thing holding him up right now.

"Are you guys all right?" Is an expected question, and he answers it reflexively with a grumbled "Peachy."

And then Mike heads off squealing and stumbling, startling Raph lucid enough to realize whoes voice was coming from the forest. Leo.

Mike does enough flailing and slobbering for the both of them, so Raph settles for a relieved expression and a muttered "Hey, what took you so long?"

[thesevencodes]

Mikey's reaction is very unexpected, and Leo teeters a bit as his little brother clings to him like a leech. It takes a moment for him to realign his center of balance, and he blinks down at the youngest turtle. "Uh, hi, Mikey."

He tightens his mouth as Raph speaks, however, and shakes his head. "I just came to a minute ago. Where...are we?"

The iciness of Mikey's skin is concerning, and Leo can feel his own body cooling by the moment. They have to find some shelter before their minds start slowing down, too.

Suddenly, something very important dawns on the eldest. He takes a step back, gently disengaging Mikey's embrace as his eyes sweep their surroundings. And then, very seriously: "Where's Don?"

[nexuschamp]

Leonardo is a lot colder than Mike would have liked; he debates for a second trying to force his coat on him as he did Raphael, but gave up that line of thought. He'd just refuse it -albeit he'd be a lot more polite about it- and make Mikey wear it anyway. Brothers.

His question gives Michelangelo pause though; he glances sideways at Raphael, expression uneasy but takes the initiative and jumps to answer before Raphael can fly off the handle again. "We don't know. We haven't heard anything yet." Of course, when he says it like that, it makes him a lot more worried. He'd barely skimmed the guide Smoker had provided; it said something about people being 'drawn in...' He wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but had equated it to some kind of wonky dimensional portal and left it at that. The only other things he'd seen were about others from the same world -since he had been worried horribly about his brothers- and how they usually wouldn't arrive with you, if at all

[meanandgreen]

Raph leans against the wall heavily and tries not to shiver. He'll do his best to stay standing, but his legs have gone numb again. And without adrenaline to fuel him, it's getting harder to control the urge to give into sleep.

Leo's arrival had taken a tremendous weight off his shoulders, but as soon as he brings up Don, it all piles back again. They'd already lost him once. He'd be damned if they did it again.

"Some chick I ran into in the woods told me this place's a prison," he adds to Mike's answer, crossing his arms and sniffing irritably at his suddenly runny nose. (Damn cold'll be the death of him.) "This wall," he gestures to the wall behind him. "That's what's holdin' us in. Ya can't break it. I tried."

He hates to be the bearer of bad news, but it does seem to suit him well. He responds to the second question glumly. "And Don's missing."

[thesevencodes]

Dammit. Leonardo crosses his arms for a moment, facing away from his brothers and ducking his head in thought. He has no clue why they're stuck here, or where Don is, or what happened to those wooden soldiers that creamed them like amateurs.

The cold is creeping into his brain; he can feel it frosting over his cognitive skills, pulling a thin layer of ice across his mind. He pushes it back and tries to assess the situation.

In order of most important to least: Missing brother. Freezing weather. Unknown place. Then he's drawing blanks, and can only feel the air as it drags along his skin like stinging claws. They have to get somewhere warmer before he can even think about what they should do.

But then the weight of Raphael's words suddenly catch up with him, and the frigidness of his thoughts burn away as though he had doused them in gasoline and struck them with a match.

He turns with a deliberate, horrified slowness. "You were seen."

[nexuschamp]

"We both got seen!" The confession bursts free before he can even control it; the hand that slaps up to cover his mouth is too late, and only catches his horrified squeak at what a dumb thing he just did.

Well, the only thing to do now is to backpedal furiously.

"But- but it wasn't our fault! I mean me, this girl just- and with Raph, she- well, I don't know what happened there but it's not that bad! Really! This isn't Earth!"

[meanandgreen]

"This place's batshit crazy," Raph says pointedly, completely unfazed by Leo's reaction. He's heard this lecture so many times he could probably recite it by heart, but that'd just take the fun out of everything.

Ha. Right. Fun.

He almost laughs at his own silent joke. "I'm tellin' ya. This chick didn't even flinch. She was human, too."

He doesn't mention the talking penguin part. He's still trying to sort that one out himself.