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thehopefulwonderlandcollector · 2 months

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Coming Soon on A03

Hello, everyone!

After months and months of development & drafting, I am so happy to announce a new upcoming epic crossover story through my A03 Profile:

The Mage And The Master

(Stranger Things & Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Sixteen months after the Krang’s failed invasion of Earth, the Turtles and their loved ones have their victory and recovery interrupted and jeopardized through another series of inter-dimensional arrivals.

Please enjoy a snippet of the first chapter, which will be fully posted on March 19th, in observance of National TMNT Day-and also my birthday!

Donnie wished he brought S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. with him. Ginger and Harold were hunched around the gray fusebox, both whimpering when he came through the entryway and Hueso guided him down the main pathway until a rocky passage on the right. Donnie was barely able to pick up any words between them, unable to decide if that was because they were improbably better experienced than he was at things like this or if they were really dumber than they looked and were here to make his job more difficult after they had hurt themselves.

“Alright, guys.” Donnie came forward to take a look at the panel. “Did you find anything wrong?”

“We just opened it and tried to reset the Main Switch, and it exploded at the touch!” Harold informed Donnie as he and Ginger backed away to give him space. Donnie had only regularly stepped in front of the fuse box when the rotting smell made his eyes bulge before seeing the gurgling drops of a fleshy-fluorescent matter, scattered throughout the rest of the switches.

“You tried to touch it with THIS all over?!?” Donnie fought back a retch as he stood transfixed in horror over the mess, his eyes then suddenly catching over a slight crack enveloped in a eerily red & gold glow down the middle of the panel.

With no answer from either Yokai, and in spite of his very, very apparent disgust, Donnie leaned closer to the crack, to at least hear if it was making any noise. There was none. He removed three rectangles from his Bo Staff, secured them around the fusebox’s interior and leaned back, activating his troubleshooter for his FuseBox repair programed within his watch.

“For future reference,” Donnie stepped back besides the two Yokai, taking care to be more intentionally considerate “a burning or boiling smell within your fusebox means that it’s an immediate and serious emergency and most likely something that you definitely should not touch.”

“Thank you.” Ginger responded after a questionably long pause. Donnie could see her kneeing Harold in accusatory annoyance, and her work partner turned to him to repeat the gratitude.

“Thank you for coming to help us.”

“No problem.” Donnie happily, watching his Fusebox Pods hum to life and begin crawling up the case, promptly brushing away the slime to fasten onto the wiring. “All we wanted was some pizza.”

“That’s what we all want sometimes.” Ginger agreed.

“Are you guys seeing that?” Harold asked, squinting towards the Fusebox as all three of Donnie’s Pods crawled towards the opening of the crack. Before Donnie could say “tech,” a massive CRUNCH sounded within the opening, widening the gap enough for three small but screeching tentacles to shoot out, secure themselves around each of Donnie’s pods, and yank them back behind the gap, which promptly closed with a sucking momentum that eventually brought the entire fusebox into a folded crumple of medal, crashing on the ground.

Donnie yelped in shock, stumbling backwards and barely regaining his balance in time to step forward and avoid tumbling to his imminent death that would’ve obviously awaited him at the bottom of whatever massive gorge had suddenly appeared beneath them with red, pulsating clouds of what seemed to be smokey blood enveloping everything less than five feet from below the ledge.

“ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS?!?!?” Donnie yelled, his echo rotating around the chasm of the maze, long after his head finished turning upon the two employees, standing stock still, eyes rolled upward without any hint of expression.

“Uh, guys?” He could barely make out their own features amongst the smothered red glow of the emerging clouds of multiple reds. Slowly inching towards them, he instinctively reached for his watch, but nothing beeped in response to any of his taps. He looked down to see it black and functionless. His fingers went to the reset button on the top, until suddenly the watch became as heavy as a cannonball, sinking his entire wrist to the floor and bringing him to his knees.

“WHAT?!” He screamed, trying to pull the watch up, and then struggling to release the band with his remaining hand. He had finally finished his fumbling and began pulling out the end of the band when something fleshy and determined and too familiar to his own body fastened around the other wrist, snapping his other arm to the other side of him on the ground. Donnie screamed in terrified pain, a brief glimpse of the source of the tentacle seizing him being from another crack in the ground less than five feet away.

He had to be dreaming. He had to be dreaming. He had to be dreaming. He had to be dreaming. He had to—

“Donnie…”

It was Ginger who said that, but it shouldn’t have been. The menace and condescension was nothing like he would’ve imagined ever hearing again since the Krang had Raph and Leo fighting. Neither Yokai in front of him moved, staying as still and monotone as the drawl of the words someone else was speaking for them.

“How does it feel, Donnie?” Ginger slowly continued, and Donnie could miraculously see their own eyes becoming as infused with red and white as the clouds around them, as Harold joined in to speak the rest with her in unison, their voices rapidly deepening and sharpening into a growling, voluminous echo. “How does it feel to watch everything you’ve designed…everything you loved…everything that you are…rendered so weak and helpless at what someone like me can do?”

Donnie was sure that he would never have any more air within his body again at this sight. The two mutants had done nothing but stand and talk and it was already something terrible and consuming enough for make him forget the pain within his wrists that he otherwise would’ve assumed meant that both of his hands would soon be severed.

“There is more of this for you, Donnie.” Harold spoke alone, and Donnie could see Ginger rise a little behind him, as if she were levitating “There is more of this for you, Donnie.” Harold spoke alone, and Donnie could see Ginger rise a little behind him, as if she were levitating “There are terrors that you can never vanquish with your creations. There are reigns that no amount of love can prevent. And there is nothing stopping me from making sure your brothers never find you.”

“SHUT. UP.” Donnie would’ve never found his courage if it wasn’t for that final sentence. He strained against the bonds, lifting his knees off of the ground in effort to get up, getting far up enough to get a fuller view of Harold rising up off of the ground with Ginger, their arms and legs swaying slightly amidst a gentle breeze that was still deadly enough for Donnie to pause. He placed his right foot behind him level on the ground, right when both Yokai’s heads suddenly thrust backward, and their bodies gave a sharp spike up into the air, resting in a way that cast them as nearly black silhouettes over the enveloping red clouds, their arms and legs also at an increasing angle.

Whatever air Donnie thought had left his body slammed back onto his chest as Ginger’s and Harold’s arms and legs suddenly began viciously crumpling with wet-fused and nauseating crunches. In a vicious fear, he began screaming out words of his own through whatever brain scattered words arose within his lips.

“NO! STOP! STOP!” His own right leg suddenly twisted to the side in a painful wrench, though he couldn’t feel any breaks, and his head threw back to a fuller look at Ginger and Harold right when both pairs of their bleeding eyes were sucked away, vanished within the dark sockets, somewhere up within an unknown space in their heads. Donnie let out what might have been the worst scream in his life, muffled seconds later by a hand suddenly appearing from behind him, its greased and rottenly textured grip upon his lips threatening to make him vomit immediately, before he felt another one on the back of his shell cover, recognizing the movement too late as that hand then viciously pulled down, ripping the cover off to the ground, exposing his soft shell to the mercy of whatever belonged to both arms.

“Donnie!”

The screams didn’t stop, but they were getting quieter.

“Donnie!”

“Donnie?”

The violent, bloody haze of clouds around him and Ginger & Harold’s bodies vanished along with every trace of the nightmarish void. Donnie was awake on the ground of the Maze Entrance, both of his previously accompanying Yokai partners standing above him able-bodied, eyes intact and completely unharmed everywhere else. Señor Hueso was standing by the somehow still standing and pristine fusebox, humming with a glow and no rotting fleshy residue. The purple turtle couldn’t move, pressing his back to the ground, his fingers clawing into the dirt around him in spite of his habitual mental analysis how many germs he had to be absorbing within his palms right now. As long as it could reassure him that he wasn’t where he was before.

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