Aspect Elemental: By Amanda Flowers

Raphael winced. So he hated stuff. So what?

   "You seem tired," Splinter noted.

The turtles nodded. They might have been sleeping all day, but they were worn out. The earth shook again, but calmly. There was nothing they could do about that.

   "Journeys of the mind can be just as taxing as journeys of the body," Splinter decreed, nodding in the direction of the turtles' beds. "Rest now, and the storm may pass."

Leonardo opened his eyes. He was standing--a moment ago he had been lying down; he remembered that--in a dark room. There was no light, no sound, but the place had the impression of blue on blue. The floor was cold under his feet.

Then there was a light in the distance, a light, blue on blue...on blue... He walked slowly to catch it, but it was like the light caught him.

Aquaria.

Her eyes opened wide, as if she had been stumbling through darkness and could suddenly see. "Leonardo?"

   "Aquaria?" He stepped toward her, into the spotlight. "Where am I?"

Leonardo silently answered his own question. Dreaming again.

   "Do you still have it?" the girl asked frantically.

Leo reached into his belt, and pulled out the necklace he had forgotten to give her before. He held it out to her, an apology in his eyes. "It's right here."

   "You do!" She was excited, relieved.

Leo motioned to hand it to her. "No, please...keep it," she insisted. She looked into his eyes. "Keep everything I gave to you."

He matched her gaze, confused by her directions, then noticed something lacking in those blue on blue eyes. She was missing her laughter. She was weakening.

   "What's wrong?" he asked her, suddenly frightened.

Aquaria turned away, gesturing behind her with her arm. "Look."

Leonardo followed her hand, gazing beyond the darkness to a point which was suddenly illuminated. Behind a curtain of the bluest water: the Technodrome.

   "The Technodrome!" Leonardo cried, incredulous, frustrated. She knew. She had to know... "Why are there so many?!"

Aquaria brought her hand to her face, only choking out the words. "They...defile...me..." She held out the hand, staring at it with tears in her eyes. It was melting.

   "Aquaria!!" Leonardo screamed.

He didn't know her...he was losing her! He reached out for that hand, clasping both his own around it, and it turned to liquid dribbling down his arms. Aquaria lost height as her feet turned to puddles under her legs.

   "Keep..." she struggled, "what I gave you." The tears rolling down her cheeks became pieces of her fading eyes. "Take your team...and...go..."

Leonardo's eyes snapped open.

Awake. He shook his head. The others were already out of bed, and it was strangely quiet...

No tremors, no nothing.

He climbed out of his bed, wiping his eyes. He had dreamed a lot last night. He had dreamed everything.

He stepped into the kitchen, where the others were making their breakfast. The TV's sounds blared from the other room, unintelligible.

   "Guys, I..."

The others blinked up at him.

   "No...nothing. Never mind." Leonardo grabbed a box of cereal off the shelf.

A word or two of the morning news penetrated the thick coat of silence: "...no word on...yesterday's freak storms..."

Leonardo looked up fast. The storms! They were real!

   "I just saw Aquaria in a dream!"

   "Say what?" Donatello asked.

   "My...my elemental! The female turtle I told you about!" He took a breath. "And the Technodrome was right behind her!"

   "Whoa, whoa, hold it!" Raphael held up his hand. "Are you talking about all that four elements jazz from yesterday?"

   "Right. I was...She'll die! She'll die if we don't save her."

   "Wait! You mean you had a dream...about the Water Elemental."

Leonardo nodded.

   "And she's a girl turtle, right?"

Leo nodded again, calming now.

   "Is that what you call a 'wet dream'?"

Michaelangelo snorted in his cereal.

Leonardo's eyes narrowed. "I am going," he said calmly, "to the Technodrome. Underwater. Come, or don't."

Donatello rose from his seat. "I think whatever we're mixed up in is bigger than just another plot by Shredder and Krang," he piped in.

   "Me too," Leo replied.

A breath. "I'm in," Don decided.

Michaelangelo swallowed the rest of his breakfast in one gulp. "So'm I."

Everyone stared at Raphael.

Raphael sat hunched in a heap in the back of the Turtlevan. How they kept getting him involved in these things he would never know.

The oddest thing about the trip was the weather. Yesterday, as Leonardo attested, driving on the roads had been dangerous. Winds raged; the earth shook; the rain made a blinding curtain before the headlights. This morning, the air was still, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

In an effort to break the melancholy silence, Michaelangelo, at shotgun, flipped on the radio. He scanned through the stations...one was playing a song he liked, but the reception wasn't very good. If only the...

No sooner had he thought about it than the sound was crystal clear. He leaned back in the seat and sighed. There wasn't enough time to relax; they were almost at the waterfront.

Raphael glared at the radio. The back speaker blared in his ear, and he detested this song. Who on Earth wanted to hear this girl whine about her stupid love problems? Who really cared?

The radio exploded.

Leonardo shouted, and Donatello leaped to his feet. "What on Earth?"

   "It's okay," Leonardo replied. He and Michaelangelo had already fanned the fire out. "You'll...have to take a look at that once we're back at the Lair."

Donatello agreed.

The Turtlevan skidded to a halt just inches from the edge of the pier, and Leonardo pushed the button he knew activated the underwater accessories. The van made a quick metamorphosis--fins sprouting from the sides--and dove into the water.

The Technodrome, weapon of war, looked almost serene. Leonardo shivered. It was the same way it had looked to him last night, just before...

   "We'll have to ditch the van," Michaelangelo noted, as the turtles glared at the fortress. Donatello reached up to the ceiling and opened the hatch. He took a deep breath and exited the van, Michaelangelo next to follow.

Leonardo nodded toward the opening, and swam out. The water hit him--it was strange! It was something he had never experienced before: this underwater. It was new... It was natural. He could breathe.

The others stared at him. Their lungs had great capacity, but nothing like this! How was he...

Raphael left the van, and the rush of water hit him like a bolt of lightning. Every muscle in his body was wracked with pain at the liquid onslaught. He felt like screaming! He faltered and choked, the world going dark before him, hardly noticing when strong arms grabbed onto him and pulled.

Raphael's next moment of consciousness was inside the Technodrome, in a metal hall. He stood up and glared at the others indignantly. "What'd ya do that for?" he asked of Leonardo.

Leonardo quickly replaced the porthole cover before too much water could enter the building. "You were in trouble."

   "I know that! There's something weird with that water!" Raph insisted.

   "How were you doing that?" Donatello asked Leo, almost skeptical.

   "What?"

   "You were drinking up water like it was air. That's simply not right..."

   "Not now," Leonardo interrupted. "Look." He pointed to the wall, where the red light on a security camera was flashing. The turtles straightened. They weren't in yesterday's abandoned fortresses anymore, and there was danger in these halls. Leonardo drew his katana and sliced the offending instrument from the wall.

Donatello drove his bo through the lens of a second camera, and the turtles followed the tunnel until it dead-ended at a door. A button opened it, simply, and they entered.

The door slammed behind them, and locked. They were in some kind of huge arena. "I don't like the looks of this, dudes," Michaelangelo muttered.

   "Shredder! Face us, you coward!" Leonardo shouted. The words echoed uselessly, but another sound began to fill the room...

Awkward metal footsteps.

The turtles got their weapons ready and sat back in their stances, straining for the source of the sound. Three hydraulic doors on the farthest wall opened simultaneously, and three great metal monsters clamored into the room. They were tall, thin robots--laser cannons attached to three spindly legs. All at once they fired.

The room was filled with the chaos of flashing red lasers, and the turtles leapt to the side. One of the monstrosities closed on Raphael. Raph took a step back, then his expression changed.

   "These things don't look so sturdy to me!" he declared, beginning to attack the joints on the legs.

   "That's the plan!" Leonardo shouted. "Attack!" He jumped out of the way as the remaining two tripods ganged up on him, then rolled to the ground with swords at ready.

Donatello ran between the same two. "Hey!" he shouted at one. "Shoot me!"

If it was in the capacity of the robots to look puzzled, they would have.

   "Hello? I'm talking to you!" Don insisted. One of the robots fired, guns blazing red fire. Donatello leapt out of the way, and the lasers cut clean through the legs of the opposite tripod. It tumbled to the ground with a horrendous explosion. Donatello laughed as Leonardo cut the now leg-less cannon to ribbons.

   "Hey, I got one!" Michaelangelo shouted, twirling his grappling hook. "You dudes ever see Star Wars?" He tossed the hook up at the tripod who had fired, catching it on the cannon. Lasers barely missing his back the whole time, he ran around the monstrosity like a maypole.

Raphael flipped aside, dodging another vault of blots from his favorite foe.

Michaelangelo pulled on the rope, and the tripod came tumbling down, smashing its head onto the floor.

The turtles turned, just in time to watch Raphael battle the final tripod on the other side of the room. He dodged a round of fire, and turned to face the machine, a strange, wonderful anger building up inside of him. He glared, brought his arm back, and punched the still air.

A fireball flew from his fist.

The turtles watched in awe as the searing weapon flew, made a perfect arc, and smashed into the head of the tripod robot. It caught fire and tumbled--nearly slow-motion--to the floor, where it crashed, exploded, smoldered.

Everyone stared.

Raphael was the most shocked of all. "Whoa!" His heart was beating fast; he could feel it shaking his shell. "What was that?"

   "How did you do that?" Leo asked.

   "I don't know! I just--"

   "It's physically impossible to create energy out of nothing!" Donatello stammered. "It breaks all the laws of physics!"

   "That and it's really weird," Michaelangelo stated.

   "Yeah, but I..." Raphael stared at his empty hands. Had he really just done what he thought he'd done?

He had.

   "Yes!!!" He laughed.

He turned to the still-flaming wreckage of the final tripod, and raised his hands to the sky. The fire leapt to the ceiling, Raphael cackling at it.

Donatello's eyes snapped wide as he began to understand. The weapons in the Trials!

He closed his eyes and concentrated, thinking of that special bo. That perfect bo he had been given...

The floor began to shake.

The others stopped, glared.

   "We can all do it," Donatello said calmly, opening his eyes as the shaking ceased.

He wiped the grin off his face and turned to Leonardo. "Come on...you're water! Try...try some acid rain or something!"

Leonardo set his jaw and nodded. He closed his eyes and concentrated, thought of water. Water, liquid water...

   "Nothing's happening," Raphael pointed out, ignoring his own business for now.

Leonardo thought of water...

He was water.

His body liquefied and shrank, sunk, into a puddle on the floor. The others shouted, stepping back from the pool of liquid that used to be their leader.

Leonardo, seeing them as nothing more than blurs, suddenly panicked. What if this was a mistake? What if he couldn't turn back into a turtle again? He pulled on his formless body, trying to solidify, and failed. He heard the others, faintly...he tried again...

He was safe, solid, back on his feet. The image of the world righted and he put a hand to his head.

Michaelangelo chose that moment to test his power, inhaling and blowing gale-force winds into Leonardo's face. Leo fell to the ground, the others laughing. Mike turned to Donatello, shooting air from his hands.

   "Cut it out," Don insisted. Mike did, and sighed.

The air was still.

   "What's happened to us?" Donatello asked rhetorically.

Leo rose to his feet. "I'd wager those dreams were a lot more than just dreams."

Raphael opened one palm, igniting it with a warm red flame. "I'd wager Shred-head's gonna get the beating of a lifetime."

Aquaria leaned her body against the cold glass, sighing into the thinning air. "Talloc, why have you betrayed me?" She was inaudible on the outside of the chamber, where the Shredder was working. The chosen of the Metal Elemental, Talloc, her once-ally. Somehow, the test had been wrong. This human was too greedy, too stop-at-nothing...

   "I'm still not getting any readings," the Shredder muttered. "Increase the power."

   "Since when are you the one giving the orders?" asked his partner, the alien Krang. Even so, he pushed a nearby switch up a single notch with his robotic hand.

   "Boss, I never saw no goil toitle before," mused Bebop from his master's side. "Are we usin' her to trap dem others?"