Chapter 13 : Disaster

                                                    Chapter 13: Disaster

         Tirus sat in his throne room looking at a list a couple nights later. He smiled in approval, then handed the list back to a beast warrior, and nodded.
      The beast warrior also nodded, and he left.
      Then an army of beast warriors came in, along with Razor. They all stood at his throne and looked up at him.
      Razor stepped forward. "Now?" he asked.
      Tirus looked down at his friend. "Now." he said, a smirk forming on his hairy face.
      Razor smiled momentarily, then turned to the beast warriors and nodded.
      They all then walked off with him.
       TIrus smiled to himself. "Stupid children. You know too much, and I know you're up to something. But you will never succeed." he said. Tirus chuckled to himself as he saw his beast warriors disappear into a vortex that opened right outside of his throne room window.

        Back at HQ, the siren went off.
        "Oh no, no, no. Not again." groaned Max he got out of bed. He quickly put on his glasses, and went to the computer room.
       Donny got there around the same time that he did.
       "What's Tirus doing this time?" asked Donny as Max sat at the computer.
       "Who knows." grumbled Max as he booted up the dimension scanning program.
       Lavia, Fay, and Venus came into the room.
       "What's going on?" asked Fay.
       "We don't know yet." said Donny.
       Max then saw the dimension screen. "Okay, now where am I sending you all this time?" he said to himself. Suddenly, Max could feel a cold chill run down his back, and felt almost as if his heart stopped cold.
      Venus noticed his expression. "What is it Max?" she asked.
       "Oh my god, they can't be . . . " said Max in disbelief.
       Just then, Raph, Mikey, Cori, Rita, Shelley, and Leo entered the room.
       "What's happening?" asked Rita.
       Max was silent for a moment. "Look out the window." he said.
      "What?" asked Rita, confused by Max's directions.
      "Look, out, the window." repeated Max.
      They all did, and were shocked at what they saw. Dozens of beast warrior ships descended from the sky.
      Shelley began to panick. "Oh, oh, oh my gosh . . . they're coming straight for us!!" she exclaimed.
      "How could they possibly know about HQ? It's so far away from where any life used to be!" exclaimed Lavia.
      "I think that we severely underestimated our enemy." said Max as he stood up.
       "Max, they're not stopping. They're not stopping!!" panicked Fay.
       The ships came close to HQ, and then opened fire on it with powerful lasers, more charged than ever before.
       Everyone began screaming as HQ shook, and things began falling off of shelves and breaking.
       "We're gonna die!!!" screamed Shelley.
       The floors above were collapsing, holes began appearing in the ceiling, and objects began falling through.
        Blasts of powerful laser fire resounded throughout the breaking walls of HQ, as well as screaming, crashing, and things falling apart.
        "MAX! DO SOMETHING!" screamed Cori.
        "I can't!!!" shouted Max.
        The entire place shook violently as everyone began falling to the ground. Smoke filled the air as the lasers set HQ on fire. A wall was blasted open, and exposed to the musty yellow air of their surroundings. Everyone coughed as they breathed it in. Then HQ titled towards the side where the wall was blasted open.
       Everyone got a grip on something, except for Shelley. She began sliding all the way over to the open wall, and towards the large opening that was several thousand feet above the ground; a fall that would prove fatal.
      "NOOOO!!" shouted Mikey.
      "MIKEY, HELLLLPPP!!" Shelley screamed as she slid towards the other side.
      Mikey let go of the pipe on the wall that he was holding onto, and let gravity slide him towards Shelley.
      "Mikey!!! Be careful!!" shouted Leo.
       Mikey got to Shelley, and grabbed her hand, but they were both still sliding towards the deadly opening.
      "Oh my gosh!! Grab onto something you two! Grab onto something!!" screamed Fay.
      They couldn't find anything, and first Shelley slid out of the opening, still holding onto Mikey. Mikey was determined not to fall, and he grabbed onto the wall that was still intact, just before he fell out too.
       "Hold on Shelley!" Mikey shouted down towards her as she hung onto his legs.
       "I'm trying!" Shelley shouted back up.
       One of the ships hovered down over that area, and prepared its lasers to strike them.
       "Look out!!!" shouted Fay.
       Shelley screamed. "Mikey, pull us up! Pull us up!"
       Mikey used every bit of his strength to pull them up.
       Just as the laser was about to hit Shelley, Mikey pulled her back into the ship very quickly.
       The ship blasted a laser ray through the opening on the wall, destroying some vital computer equipment inside HQ.
       "Nooo!!! That was everything!! That was the main computer!!" exclaimed Max. His eyes became glassy as he felt as if he was about to cry.
       Shelley was shaking uncontrollably. She and Mikey were in a corner as he held her.
       Suddenly, the floor opened up, and Cori fell through the opening to three floors below, screaming all the way down.
       "Cori!!" shouted Raphael as he leaned over the hole.
       "Raph, get away from the hole!" said Lavia.
      But Raph didn't listen, and he jumped in after Cori. He landed three floors down on a pile of crumpled metal. It hurt badly as he cried out in pain, and pulled a few pieces of jagged slivers out of his side. Then he looked around and found Cori lying there unconciously. "Oh man." he said to himself. He went over to Cori and checked for her pulse; she was still alive.
      A large bar of metal fell down, and before Raph could notice it, it hit him on the back of the head, making him fall unconcious as well.
      The blasting, destruction, screaming, and fear continued for hours that night. Everyone getting bruised by falling debris, or the heat of laser fire if it was too close to them/

      After all the noise stopped, Razor's ship hovered near the opening that he and his crew blast open on HQ. He saw that no one was moving, and smiled.
      "Tirus, good news my friend." said Razor.
      "What is it?" asked Tirus over the communicator.
      "They're all dead. The mission was successful." said Razor with an evil grin on his face.
      "Wonderful. Report back to the castle for further instructions." said Tirus.
      "Yes Tirus." said Razor. Then he closed his communicator, and flew off with all of the other ships.

      No one moved in HQ. Everything was silent except for the smoking debris, and the small fires still around the place. Pieces of plaster fell from the walls, and a pipe fell off the wall.
      A while later, Fay was the first to wake up. Her head hurt, and the room spinned for a moment when she first opened her eyes. After everything was clear, she sat up. Her back ached from laying on splintering wooden debris, and she looked around. She was surprised to see that so much was destroyed. She was about to get up when her hand pressed down on something soft. She looked over and saw that her hand was on Lavia's arm. Fay immediately began waking Lavia.
       "Lavia, Lavia, wake up." she said while shaking Lavia with all the strength she had.
       Lavia soon began turning her head and groaning. Her eyes then opened, and she looked up at Fay, and slowly sat up. "Oy, I have such a headache." she said.
       "I know, me too." said Fay as she momentarily rubbed her throbbing head.
       Lavia looked around. "Oh my gosh, are they all dead?" she asked worriedly.
       "I don't think so; I hope not. You weren't, so maybe they're all just unconcious, like we were." said Fay.
       "Yeah." said Lavia. "Come on, let's get them up."
       The two girls then began waking everyone up.
       In a while, everyone in the room had been woken up.
       "They're gone right?" asked Mikey.
       "Yeah." replied Max.
       "Then why is my head still throbbing?" he asked.
       "We all like, feel that way." said Shelley.
      "Hey, where's Raph and Cori?" asked Leo.
       "Hey guys! Where is everyone?" called a familiar voice.
       Leo and Max began looking down the hole, and could faintly see Cori down there.
       "How are you?!" Max called down.
       "My head hurts really bad!" Cori called up.
      "So does everyone's up here!" said Max.
      "How's Raph?!" asked Leo.
       Cori looked down for a moment, then looked back up. "He's still unconcious! Get us up there, he's not breathing that well!" she said.
       "Uh oh." said Max. "That's not good."
      "Hold on!" said Leo. Then he backed up from the hole. "What are we gonna do?"
      "I'm thinking." said Max.
      "We could use something like rope to pull them up." said Rita.
      "Where are we gonna find rope that isn't charred or falling apart?" asked Max.
      "Here." said Donatello as he pulled at something.
      "That's not rope! That's elevator belt!" said Max.
      "Hey, it's something!" said Donatello as he continued pulling at it.
       Rita soon helped him.
       After they got most of it, Max, Leo, Donny, and Rita threw it down.
       "Okay Cori, tie it around Raph's waist and we'll bring 'im up!" said Leo.
       "Okay!" Cori shouted up.
       Movement could be seen down below for a little while, then Cori jerked the line. "Okay, take 'im up!" she shouted.
       Max, Leo, Donny, and Rita began pulling him up.
       "Whoa! Did Raph always weigh this much?" asked Donny as he strained to keep his part of the belt from slipping.
       They kept pulling him up, until he was finally on the same floor as everyone else. They all took a deep breath, and rested before throwing the elevator belt back down to Cori.
       After Cori was pulled up, Max turned his attention to Raph.
       "Is he gonna be okay?" asked Cori worriedly.
        Max looked Raph over and sighed. "I don't know. I don't have any of our equiptment, and the first aid kit has probably turned to ashes by now." he said.
       "Then what can we do?" asked Leo.
       Max didn't answer, he didn't know how to answer the queston. Too much had happened, and he wasn't any doctor.
      "CPR." said Rita.
       Max and Leo turned to her.
       "What?" asked Max.
       "CPR. It's the only thing that can probably revive him without any equiptment but your hands." said Rita.
       "It's worth a shot." said Max, then he turned to Raph. "Okay Cori, you're gonna do the breath part, I'll take care of the rest."
       "Okay." said Cori. She then breathed into Raph's mouth.
       Afterwards, Max pressed down on Raph's chest near his heart, trying very hard to revive him. Cori and Max repeated these steps twice before Raph began coughing up some dust.
      Cori smiled, and Max sighed in relief.
      Raph began to sit up, still coughing. The room spun for a moment as he looked around. Then his eyes focused on Cori. A small smile came over his face. "Hey." he said.
      "Hey." Cori said. Then she gave him a big hug, smiling all the while.
      Afterwards he sat up against a wall and took a deep breath.
     Everyone looked around, and took a toll of the damage for the first time. They were all silent, in utter disbelief of what took place that night.
      "It's just like the first time. They'll never leave us alone , ever." said Lavia as tears rolled down her face.
      "It's all gone. The computers, the information . . . " Max couldn't say anything else. He didn't know what to say anymore.
       "What are we to do now? How can we help others of the other dimensions, if we cannot even help ourselves?" asked Venus.
       "We can't. We're useless." said Cori.
       "Maybe there's something we can salvage." said Rita.
       "Like what?!" snapped Max.
      Rita was startled.
      "There's nothing to save, nothing at all!" Max said as he broke down into tears.
      "If its any consolation, I saw a ship down there that still seemed pretty intact." said Cori.
      Max looked up, the tears still flowing from his eyes. "Is it large? Larger than the fighter ships?" he asked.
      "Yep." said Cori.
     Max sighed. "It probably won't even work anymore." he said, lowering his head again.
     Everyone sighed, and were silent again. But slowly, they began getting up, and going into different rooms; if you could still call them rooms.
       Lavia, Fay, and Mikey were able to salvage some food so they could still eat dinner.

       Late that evening, Max sat on a chair that was still intact in the former computer room. He looked around and sighed. Years of his handy work, down the drain. He wanted to cry again. Then he saw something on the ground and picked it up. It was a picture frame. He brushed some dust off of it, and peered through the cracked glass. It was a picture of him as a little boy, with his dad standing right behind him.
        "Dad . . ." he said silently as he gently touched the picture. Tears flowed from his eyes as he stared at the picture. "What am I gonna do now dad?" he said quietly. Then he thought for a moment, and looked at the picture more intently. "What would you do?" he asked.
        Max remembered a night a long time ago when his dad was trying to create an elixir that would cure a certain plague that came up in their city. His dad spent weeks and months, day in and day out on his elixir.
        "Elliot, come to bed. It's getting late." Max's mother often said.
        "Not until I'm done. I can't sleep while people are dying left and right." said Dr. Faxit.
        Then months passed, but he finally made the elixir, and was able to administer it to thousands of dying patients. Max remembered when his dad came up next to him and put an arm on his shoulder.
         "You see all those happy people out there Max?" asked his father.
         Little Max nodded.
         "The elixir did it, and it couldn't of been made without persistence. That's the key Max, persistence. Never give up on anything, ever." said Dr. Elliot Faxit.

        Max continued staring at the picture. "Never give up on anything, ever." he repeated to himself. A look of determination spread across his face as he stood up. He then went into the former kitchen where everyone was, trying to find some food that was still edible.
       "Hi everyone." said Max as he came in.
       They all looked up.
       "Hey Max, how are you feeling?" asked Rita.
       Max took a deep breath. "Better, much better. And we're going to continue on with the mission." he said.
       "What? Are you serious?" asked Leo.
       "Darn right I am. That ship can probably still work. Grab any food and supplies that you can, and we're going." he said.
        "Do you remember the dimensional coordinates?" asked Donatello.
         "Yes, Silos5. I remember that's the short name I gave the center dimension." said Max.
         Rita smiled. "That's great. I'm so glad that you're not feeling hopeless anymore. But what made you change your mind?" she asked.
       "Let's just say, I remembered someone who would never give up." said Max, handing Rita the picture of him and his dad as he walked past her into the kitchen.
         Rita looked down at the picture as Donatello came over. They both looked at each other and smiled.