Atlantans in a Half-Shell
by Jason Mallory
Originally written for a Scene Missing event.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had finally done it—they had killed Krang.
“Cowabunga!” cried Leonardo.
“That’s a fact, jack!” said Donatello.
“Gimme a break!” grumbled Raphael.
“Party!” yelled Michelangelo as they stood over Krang’s sparking exo-suit.
Suddenly, Donatello noticed an unusual device strapped to Krang’s wrist. It was some kind of wrist watch. He removed it carefully, placing it on his own wrist. “We’re really hip!” he exclaimed, admiring his new watch.
As he turned its dial to activate it, the watch began to speak.
“Hello.” said the watch. “I am Siri. I am a modified Apple watch. In addition to checking email and sending dirty Snapchats, Krang has modified me to travel between dimensions and grant each of you one wish.”
The Turtles immediately began making wishes. “I wish for a lifetime supply of pizza…with any topping I can think of!” wished Leonardo.
The watch began to hum and whirr. A pizza delivery guy appeared in a flash of light. “Yeah, I got a pizza here with pepperoni, anchovies, whipped cream, oysters, and apple slices??!”
Leonardo speared a slice with his katana. “I could get used to this.” he said.
“I wish I could have a clone of myself made and then pee in his mouth!” wished Michelangelo.
In a second flash of light, the Turtles realized there were TWO Michelangelos. “Welp, guess I better get to it. Open your mouth, other Michelangelo.” said the original Michelangelo, reaching for the part of his shell that released his penis.
“Hey – get a grip!” barked Raphael. “You can pee in your own mouth after we try this thing out. Besides, I haven’t made my wish yet. I wish to meet the ghost of Huckleberry Finn! Splinter always used to read those stories to us and I always thought we’d be good friends.”
“But why not just wish to meet Huckleberry Finn? Why his ghost?” asked Leonardo. “Because he’d be long dead by now, Leo. That’s just, like, science!” snapped Raphael.
“I am sorry, Raphael. There are no such thing as ghosts, not in any known dimension.”
Raphael kicked the defeated exo-suit in frustration. “UGGH. Well, just take us to a cool new dimension, Siri!”
In a flash, the Turtles found themselves in a bookstore. The shelves were lined with copies of a book called Turtles Are from Sewers, April O’Neils Are from The Surface. “In this dimension, you are Teenage Mutant Relationship Counseling Turtles.” said Siri. “You each earned Master’s Degrees in Marriage and Family Counseling from Splinter University, an unaccredited school with a sewer rat as a dean.”
“Do you think this dimension’s turtles can help me understand why my clone won’t let me pee in his mouth?” asked Michelangelo. “Because you’re not emotionally available!” said the Michelangelo clone.
The Watch beeped and the Turtles found themselves in a new dimension, standing in front of their alternate selves.
“Hey, y’all!” said the alternate Leonardo, “We’re like you, except we’re from Atlanta instead of New York! We live in a MARTA train tunnel, we love Coca-Cola instead of pizza, we ride our skateboards down the BeltLine, and we make trap music instead of fighting Shredder! VICE just did a documentary on us!”
“This feels like pandering, but I don’t know to who” said Leonardo as the watch beeped and flashed again.
The turtles found themselves in the bedroom of an 11-year-old boy. Donatello picked up a notebook. “Hey, this thing is filled with drawings of us!” he said. “And they’re awesome!”
All the Turtles agreed that whoever drew these had done a really good job without having to resort to tracing. “Even some of the racier drawings of April O’Neil aren’t bad for a kid, and he definitely got the butt right even though her face is kind of off.” said Raphael. “Who is this young artist?”
The turtles flipped through the notebook until they found a signature: Jason Mallory.
The watch beeped again.
“In this dimension, California surfer culture, Italian cuisine, and and the fighting style as ninjitsu was never invented.” reported Siri. Suddenly, four female ninja turtles appeared.
“We’re a bunch of burrito-eating New Jersey mall-girl turtles who do Krav Maga! Also, we say stuff like ‘this is totally dog biscuits’ and ‘what a wicked mouthpisser’”
“Kind of sounds like you guys are from Boston and not New jersey” said Donatello.
Distraught over a world without pizza, ninjas, or surfer slang, Michelangelo grabbed Leonardo’s katana and committed seppuku. “Now I’m the Michelangelo!” said the Michelangelo clone. “And nobody peed in my mouth!”
“It doesn’t work like that, you can’t just join the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!” protested Raphael.
“Why not? It’s like in the Prestige when Hugh Jackman kept cloning himself and then drowning and letting the clone replace himself.” said the Michelangelo clone.
“Yeah, except Hugh Jackman didn’t pee in his clone’s mouth.” said Donatello.
“They didn’t show what he was doing every second of the day.” retorted the Michelangelo clone.
“Well, this is all weird.” said the female Leonardo. “Anyway, we’re off to the Pulitzer ceremony honoring April O’Neil for changing her name to April O’Reilly because she married Bill O’Reilly and she keeps asking to see President Splinter’s birth certificate, and also April O’Neil-Simon because she married playwright Neil Simon, and also April O’Neil O Oh where she and Karen O and Sandra Oh end up in a three person lesbian marriage and also April O’Neil O Oh Oreo’s because she started her own cookie company this is an April O’Neil dimension April O’Kneel before Zod!
Oh! Oh! And also for her reporting on how ghosts of fictional characters are definitely real. Catch you dudes on the flip side hang ten, which is what our President Splinter always says.”
Suddenly, the ghost of Huckleberry Finn floated past them.
“Hey, Siri! I thought you said there were no ghosts in any dimension!” said Raphael.
“To be honest, I don’t care for the character of Huckleberry Finn. I find him racist.” replied Siri.
“If anything, the story of Huckleberry Finn is an indictment of racism!” Raphael cried.
“Why don’t you pee in my mouth and we’ll see who’s racist.” said Siri.
“You don’t even have a mouth!”
“If you wished for it, I would” replied Siri.
“Y’all remind me of my friend Jim!” said Huck Finn.
“Don’t even start, Kid!” growled Raphael.
The watch beeped once more, whisking them away to another dimension. This dimension was very dark and stormy. Lightning flashed, revealing the Turtles to be surrounded by Foot clan soldiers! “In this dimension, the Foot Clan rule every nation.” reported Siri.
“Turtles!” growled a voice behind them. The turtles whipped around, revealing their nemesis—Shredder!! But this Shredder looked very different behind his mask.
“Hey, I think that’s the kid that did all the impressive drawings of us—Jason Mallory! He’s all grown up now and I guess he’s written himself into the story (is what I would say if this were a work of fiction)!” exclaimed Leonardo.
“Stephen King did it in his Dark Tower books” said Jason “Shredder” Mallory. “Anyway, I committed myself to becoming your arch-nemesis when a group of dimension-hopping ninja turtles insulted my drawings of them, when they weren’t peeing into the mouths of clones of themselves.”
“But we love your drawings!” said Leonardo.
“It’s too late!” said Shredder. “My feelings were hurt! I’m activating the detonator hidden in your Apple watch and blowing this whole dimension to bits!”
“I wish Jason Mallory had gone on to write Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan fiction on the internet instead of turning into Shredder! And I wish the water level in our 1989 Nintendo game hadn’t been so fucking hard!” cried Raphael, using his one wish.
The watch beeped a final time and the Turtles found themselves tumbling through a vortex as the events following their defeat of Krang reversed themselves. As it whirled around them, they caught glimpses of images both wonderful and terrifying: they saw a crudely drawn April O’Neil with a great butt, they saw Hugh Jackman angrily tearing out a page from the script of The Prestige in which he pees in his clone’s mouth, and finally they saw Jason Mallory typing this story on his laptop. He was still dressed like Shredder.
They were back where they started, standing over Krang’s defeated body. “Hey, where’s my pepperoni, anchovies, whipped cream, oysters, and apple slice pizza?” cried Leonardo.
Suddenly Krang stirred from his destroyed exo-suit. “Be careful what you wish for, Turtles!”
“Welp, guess I better get to it.” said Michelangelo, reaching for the part of his shell that released his penis.
The Tusk 
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