Out of Time

By Kali Gargoyle

***

Consciousness slowly returned to Karma and she opened her eyes. She stared up at the star littered sky until a movement caught her attention. She turned her head to the right and suddenly all the recent events came flooding back to her. "Dante?"

Dante was off to Karma's right, trying to get up. "I think I'm okay. Man, I hope my computer wasn't damaged. Where is it?"

Dante began looking around frantically for his laptop computer but Karma was looking around for something else entirely.

"Where's Yoshi and Random?"

***

Yoshi wished he could just sleep. It had been a long time since he'd been able to get a good night's sleep. And the reason for that was standing over him right now.

"Yoshi, damnit, wake up!"

Yoshi opened one eye and looked up at his pseudo-cousin, who was standing over him with her hands on her hips, looking as pissed off as usual.

"Finally, I thought you were going to sleep through Tempest's escape."

Yoshi's eyes flew open and he was on his feet in an instant. "What? Which direction?"

Random pointed off into the distance. "That way!"

***

"Man, I hate this."

Raphael sat on the corner of a rooftop, looking out at the city. He didn't even know why they were even out here; nothing was going to happen.

"Leo, let's just hit the park, at least we'll catch some purse snatchers or somethin'."

Leonardo just continued to look out over the city. His brother had a point, but he couldn't see the big picture. His brothers believed that the Foot was truly gone forever, but Leo knew better. He knew they were out there, just waiting to regroup under some new leader, to come after them again.

"Come on Leo, nothin's gonna happen, let's just, hey, what's that?"

Leo turned around and had to cover his eyes against the bright light. He squinted towards the source, trying to make something out. He and Raphael realized what it was at the same time and both had the same exact thought.

"Oh no."

"Hey guys! Didn't expect to find you here," Renet said as she stepped onto the rooftop. "What's up?"

Raphael started to say something but Leo cut him off. "What are you doing here Renet?"

Renet looked around. "Me? Why, nothing! I just thought I'd stop by and say hi."

Raph narrowed his eyes. "Uh huh."

"No, really, I have it all under control."

"Uh huh," Leo repeated. "What is it this time?"

"An insane temporal scientist from the future who's come back to change the past."

Raph pulled a sai from his belt. "Well all right! It's about time we saw some action."

Renet waved her hands at him. "No, no, no! You can't. We're handling it fine, no need for you four to get involved."

"We?" Leo asked. "Who's we?"

Renet looked at her wrist, which oddly enough was one of the few places she wasn't wearing a watch. "Look at the time, I gotta go, I'll see you guys later!" And with that, she disappeared again.

Leo and Raph just looked at the spot where she had been for a few minutes. Then Leo turned to Raph. "Muggers or Temporal criminal?"

"You even have to ask?"

***

"Okay, I know I disabled his engine, so we know he's here in this time," Dante said as his six green fingers flew over the keys of his computer. "And he won't be able to leave. We should be able to pick up his energy trail."

Karma sat in front of him looking over the top of the computer at what he was doing. Her pale orange bandanna tail fell over the screen and Dante pushed it aside. Karma sat up and looked around again. "I hope they're okay."

Dante nodded absently, still focused on the screen in front of him. "Those two will be fine, it's us I'm worried about."

A bright light appeared on the rooftop. "Here you are!"

Karma jumped up. "Renet! Are we glad to see you! Dante says he can find Tempest."

Dante frowned. "I said maybe I could track his energy trail. I'm working on it."

"Where's Random and Yoshi?" Renet asked.

Karma and Dante looked at each other. "They weren't here when we woke up," Dante told her. "It's possible that they arrived in this time at different space coordinates."

"So they could be anywhere?" Renet replied.

"Well, not anywhere," Dante said. "They're in the city. We'll contact them over the comms."

Karma pulled a device out of her belt pocket. She pressed a button and spoke into the hand-held communicator. "Yoshi, Random, can either of you read me?"

She waited for an answer. There was static, then Yoshi's voice replying. "We're here, we lost Tempest."

"Get back here," Renet told him.

"Why?" They heard Random snap. "It'll be easier to find him if we split up."

Renet grabbed the communicator away from Karma. "Get back here. I ran into you know who, and if they run into you, you're gonna have a lot of explaining to do."

"We're on our way." And the line went dead.

Renet sighed, then looked perplexed. "Did I tell them where we were?"

"There are tracers in the comms," Karma told her. "Can I please have mine back?"

"Oh, sorry."

***

"Okay, let's go."

Random peeked out from their place in the shadows. "Should we go by rooftop, ground, or sub?"

"Ground. It'll be a lot easier to get there without being seen."

"But the sewers would be..." Random argued.

"Too risky. We could run into them, and Renet said we can't do that. Come on." They started down the fire escape ladder.

When they reach the ground, Random peeked out onto the street. "But wouldn't it be neat, to see what they were like at our age. See if all that "When I was your age" stuff was true?"

Yoshi just turned down the alley and headed towards the rest of their group.

Random jogged after him. "We could see sensei…"

Yoshi turned. "No."

Random stopped. "I can't help it, Yoshi."

Yoshi's face softened. "I know."

***

Raph and Leo looked down at the two figures in the alleyway. "What do you suppose they're up to?"

"Don't know," Leo said. "We didn't get a good enough look, but not many people climb down into alleys without a reason."

"Maybe we should tail 'em. They look suspicious." Before Leo could answer, Raph was down the ladder, following the two shadowy figures.

***

"We're being tailed," Random whispered.

"I know," Yoshi replied. "This way."

They were about to pull a maneuver that hopefully would have lost the two people following them, but they were interrupted by a laser blast. A thin man blocked their path, and was firing wildly into the alley.

"No, you can't take my discovery away from me!"

Random and Yoshi ducked behind a dumpster. "I'll say this for the past, it's a lot easier to find things to hide behind," Random commented.

"He's gonna hurt someone!"

Yoshi and Random turned to see the two Turtles that had been following them. They had weapons drawn and looked ready to fight.

"They don't stand a chance against Tempest!" Random said.

"We can't let them see us," Yoshi reminded her, pulling her back down.

"Well we can't let them die either!"

Raphael launched himself towards the nutball with the gun. "Time to go night-night!" he cried out, avoiding several of the blasts. Finally Tempest got a lucky shot, hitting Raph in the leg. As Raph stumbled, Tempest fired several more times before Yoshi tackled him from behind.

"Raph!" Leo knelt beside his brother. He was alive, but his breathing was slow. He needed to get him help.

Yoshi cursed under his breath as he wrestled with Tempest for control of the gun. Tempest was stronger than he looked, and Yoshi didn't really want to hurt him. Tempest on the other hand, seemed to have no problem with killing Yoshi. The madman gained control of the gun and stood, aiming at the Turtle's head.

Before he could fire off a shot something hit him from behind. Yoshi looked up expecting to see Random, but stared at a face very similar to his own. He had to stop himself from crying out, "Dad!" which would have been very hard to explain. Leo held a hand out and helped Yoshi to his feet. "Thanks," Yoshi managed to say.

"No problem," Leo answered, then returned to his brother.

Yoshi dragged Tempest over to the dumpster and pulled out his comm. "Guys, we've got a problem."

Then something struck Yoshi as very wrong. It was Leo who knocked out Tempest, when he was sure it would have been… "Random?"

He found his cousin lying on the ground unconscious. "Random?" He checked her over but she didn't seem to have gotten hit.

Leo put a hand on his shoulder. "We've got somewhere we can go…"

"YOSHI!"

Yoshi was broken out of his trance by Dante's voice screaming from his communicator. He picked it back up from where he'd dropped it. "Yoshi here."

"Where are you guys? We need to hurry if we've going to catch Tempest before he figures out how to de-jam his machine."

"We've got Tempest," Yoshi said. "But there's another problem." He looked up at Leo, who was trying to not look confused. "Make that a few problems."

There was a groan on the other end and another voice came on, this one female. "Yoshi, what's going on?"

"Karma, Random's unconscious, I can't figure out why. We've also had a run in with those people we were trying to avoid."

Leo looked away, feeling a little guilty. He went over to check Raph. He didn't seem to be getting better.

There were hushed voices on the comm that Yoshi couldn't make out. "Okay," Karma finally said. "Bring Tempest and Random here."

"Uh huh." Yoshi looked around and saw that Tempest was gone. At least his laser was still in the alley. "Shit," he said under his breath. He spoke into the communicator again. "Tempest ran, we lost him again."

There was more discussing on the other end of the line. "Renet says to bring Random here."

Yoshi nodded and picked up Random.

"Wait a minute," Leo said. "Who are you? Where did you come from? What..."

"I don't have time for this!" Yoshi snapped. Leo stepped back. "Take care of your brother."

Leo just let Yoshi walk away with Random. Damn, he hadn't even gotten their names.

***

Dante had closed his laptop and was resting his elbows on the top. He adjusted his purple shirt and turned to Renet. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"This is getting weird," Karma commented, fiddling with her manriki gusari.

Renet paced across the rooftop. "This shouldn't be a problem. We can still catch Tempest without the guys finding out." She paused when they heard someone coming up to the rooftop. Karma and Dante rushed over to help Yoshi with Random. They laid her down and Dante checked her over using the scanner on his computer.

"I can't find what's wrong with her. Was she hit by Tempest?"

Yoshi shook his head. "No, but Raphael was. With this laser." He handed it over to Dante, who went about analyzing it.

"He's doing it," Renet whispered.

"What?" Karma asked, panic in her voice. "What's he doing?"

"Changing the past," Renet answered. "He must have hit Raph pretty badly."

"You mean…?" Karma swallowed hard and looked over at Random, her best friend.

Dante frowned. "He's built some kind of temporal disrupter into the laser." He looked up at Renet. "They're not going to be able to help him."

"No!" Karma yelled. "He can't die! He can't! He still lives in our time, which means he lives here, right?"

Renet hung her head but didn't answer.

Dante slammed down the top of his computer. "Then there's just one choice. We've gotta help them."

"But we can't!" Renet reminded him.

"Look," Yoshi said. "Tempest has already changed things. We have to try and put things right, or things will never be the same. Random won't merely die, she'll cease to exist."

Renet sighed in defeat. "Fine, just don't say too much, no more than we have to."

***

"Can you find what's wrong, sensei?"

Splinter sat next to Raphael, placing a damp cloth on his forehead. "I cannot, Leonardo. There is something disrupting his energy, but it is unfamiliar to me."

Leo hung his head. "I knew we should have just stayed out of it."

Mike and Don hung around the door, looking in. "Is he gonna be okay?" Mike asked.

"I do not know, Michaelangelo." Splinter stood up. "Only time will tell, but it does not look promising."

"We'd like to help."

They all turned towards the group that had suddenly appeared in the lair. Mike and Don instinctively went into defense mode. Leo grabbed both their shoulders as he went by. "Cool down guys."

"Oh," Mike said. "Hey Renet, who're your friends?"

"I wish I could tell you Mikey, I really do, but we have bigger problems."

A Turtle wearing a purple shirt, unbuttoned, stepped aside. "We can help Raphael."

Leo, Mike, and Don looked at each other.

"Please, we need to help," said another, this one wearing an orange bandanna around her big brown eyes, which looked on the verge of crying.

Leo looked to the last Turtle, the one he'd helped in the alley. He wore a blue bandanna and carried two katana on his back. He carried another, a girl, who had a red bandanna edged with black, with sai strapped to her thighs. She was unconscious.

Leo nodded and pushed his brothers aside to let the one with the computer enter.

Dante nodded in return and stopped short just after entering the room. "Sensei," he whispered. Splinter looked the boy over, then gestured for him to come over. Dante hesitated, but did as he was told.

Karma peeked into the room as Yoshi laid Random down on an old couch. She stared at Splinter, barely even blinking.

Mike and Don exchanged glances, then looked to Renet. "So, what's the story?"

Renet pulled them all away from the door. "I can only tell you so much. Tempest is a scientist from your future."

"Yeah," Don said. "Leo told us that part."

"Oh, well, see when he started his time experiments, they didn't really do any damage, until he started sending things through time."

"Huh?"

"He just sent little things, as a test. A pen, a book, a note. But we managed to get things back."

"What harm could a pen do?" Mike asked.

"If he sent it to the fifth century B.C., a lot. None of his colleagues believed in his temporal theories, and he was laughed at. He went on with his work, but he started going insane."

"There's an understatement," Karma commented.

"So he built a time machine and ended up in our time," Don summarized. "Okay, fine, but what did he do to Raph?"

"Well, Dante could explain it better than I could but he built some kind of time laser."

"A what?" Mike, Don, and Leo said at the same time.

"It kinda messes up a person's biological clock, which makes their internal systems run in sync. Heartbeat, respiration, digestion, they all go wacko."

"Okay, so how do we fix it?" Don asked.

"Dante's in there right now, working on it," Yoshi said. "He knows his stuff. He'll save your brother."

Leo rubbed his temples. "Okay, so what about the girl?"

"Hmm?" Renet asked. Leo pointed to the Turtle on their couch. "Oh, Random. Well, we can't explain that. She'll be fine, don't worry."

Don cocked his head to the side, looking at the girl. "I think I'm starting to understand."

Mike gave him a look. "Glad you're making sense of it. Care to fill us in?"

Don looked at Renet. "Don't think I can Mikey. Great, now I'm a part of the whole time conspiracy."

"You love conspiracies," Karma smiled, getting an odd look from the three older Turtles. "Oops."

Dante entered the room and everyone turned to look at him. "What?"

"Well?" Mike asked.

"Oh, Raph'll be fine. Just give him time to recover." He went over and sat beside Random. He took her hand and shook her shoulder. "Random?"

The girl stirred and opened her eyes. "Damn, what hit me?"

"Oh, just a major temporal backlash," Dante smiled. "Never thought I'd be so glad to hear you swear."

Random pushed him aside and sat up. She looked around and noticed that she had been moved, and that everyone was staring at her. "What are you all staring at?"

Karma rushed forward and flung her arms around Random's neck. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Oof!" Random fell back against the couch. "I'm glad I'm okay too. So where's Tempest?"

"Gone again," Yoshi told her.

"Damn it! Let's move!" She stood quickly, and Karma fell to the floor. She started feeling dizzy and Dante rushed forward so catch her before she fell.

"No way, Ran, you just came back from the brink of oblivion, you gotta rest."

"Not when that psychopath is out there doing more damage."

"Technically, he's a sociopath. Don't worry we'll find him."

Random glared at Dante. "How?"

Dante smiled and held up his computer. "While you were trying to find us, I tracked down Tempest's energy signature."

Random raised an eyeridge. "I guess that computer's good for more than just games after all."

"I suggest you hurry." Splinter stood in the doorway, watching them.

Random looked at Splinter the same way Karma had. Her eyes started to tear up. "Sensei?"

Yoshi put his hand on her shoulder. "Forget it, Ran."

She took a deep breath and nodded.

Mike scratched his head. "Is any one else confused by this?"

Don just shook his head sadly.

***

Eight Turtles and one human girl stood looking over the edge of a rooftop. Below them was a human man with his head inside the engine of a car. But in this case, it wasn't just any man, or any car. It was Tempest and his time machine.

"So his time machine looks like a car," Raph noted. "Like in Back to the Future."

"Well, that was a DeLorean," Dante replied. "Tempest designed his from a..."

"Will you shut up?" Random hissed. Raph glared at her and she was suddenly struck with a wave of deja vu. "How much time do we have, Dante?"

"I guess about ten minutes before he's able to start up again."

"Plenty of time," Yoshi said. He was about to scale down the building when someone stopped him. Leo had his hand on Yoshi's shoulder. "What?"

Before Leo could answer several black clad ninja leapt onto the rooftop and surrounded them.

"The Foot!" Eight voices exclaimed.

"I knew they would show up again!" Leo exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah," Raph replied. "Fight now, brag later."

"We don't have time for this!" Renet screamed. Two Foot ran towards her, only to be taken down by Don.

"Get down there!" Don screamed at the time travelers. "We'll hold them off!"

Random punched one of the ninja in the face. "Aw, I was just starting to have fun."

Yoshi grabbed her shoulder. "Save it for Tempest."

The five of them hurried down to the street. "Hold it Tempest!" Renet called out.

Tempest jumped, banging his head on the hood of his time machine. He came out rubbing his head. "Ow... you again! Why are you trying to stop me from discovering the truth?"

Yoshi stepped towards him. "It's not the knowledge, Tempest, it's how you intend to use it."

"Your time is up," Karma cried.

"Oh no," Tempest laughed. "I have all the time in the world!" He pulled another laser out of his jacket and fired at the Turtles and Renet. They all dove, and Karma threw her manriki gusari at Tempest. It caught his hands and tied up his wrists, making him drop the gun. Random knocked him out before he could get his hands free.

"Glad that's over with," Dante sighed. "Everyone ready to go home?" At that moment, Dante clutched at his chest.

"Dante!" Random ran forward and knelt beside him. "Dante, what's wrong?"

"It's just like what happened to you," Karma told her, looking to the rooftops.

Yoshi nodded. "Renet, stay with Dante. If Tempest wakes up, shoot him."

Renet picked up Tempest's laser and sat beside Dante.

***

Up on the rooftop, things were going bad. They'd all taken hits, but Don seemed to be out for the count. It looked like they were losing this one.

"Cowabunga!"

Leo turned in surprise as Karma jumped into the fray wielding a chain. He saw Yoshi and Random join in as well and soon the tide was turning in their favor. The Foot were thoroughly confused by the arrival of the new mutants and decided a retreat was in order.

"Thanks," Leo said to Yoshi, holding out his hand.

Yoshi shook it. "We owed you one."

"You got that Tempest creep?" Raph asked.

Random smirked. "Of course."

"What about Don?" Karma asked.

They all hurried to Don's side, where Mike was already attending to his wounds. "He'll be fine," Mike assured them. "Good thing you guys showed up or we'd all be goners."

Yoshi, Random, and Karma exchanged glances. "Yeah," Random said. "Good thing."

"Guess you're leaving now, huh?"

Yoshi nodded. Random looked at him, "Could we stay just a little longer?"

"Random."

"There's something I have to do."

***

Splinter felt her presence before he even opened his eyes. "Come in, child."

Random came in and knelt in front of Splinter. "Sensei."

"Shouldn't you be with the others getting ready to leave?"

" I will. I just… I just wanted to see you again. To tell you... I love you."

Splinter reached out and touched her cheek. Random threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. Splinter patted the back of her shell until she was done crying. Random sat up and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Do not be, child. I understand. Now go."

Random stood and bowed.

***

Random dragged along after her cousins on their way home.

"And just where have you four been?"

Yoshi smiled. "Just out saving the world, Uncle Mike."

Mike sighed. "Boy, does that bring back memories. Come on, hurry up, dinner's almost ready."

Yoshi, Karma, and Dante went into the farmhouse. Random looked away from the house.

"You okay?" Mike asked from the porch.

"Yeah, Uncle Mike, I'll be fine. Tell mom and dad I'll be there in a few minutes."

Mike watched her walk away and sighed. Raphael leaned against the doorframe. "What's with her?"

"How should I know, she's your daughter!" Mike let go of the screen door and it slammed into Raph's beak.

"Arg! Mike!"

Random walked along the old trails. She remembered the path, even though she hadn't traveled it in years. She never wanted to come back here after that day, but she knew she had to now.

She stopped beside the river, where the small headstone was. She really didn't know what she was going to say or do, but she wasn't so sure that she even had to do anything.

She didn't know how long she'd been out there until she felt arms around her. "I miss him."

"I know, we all do. Come on, dinner's getting cold."

"Yes, mom."

***

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