Rise & Fall

Minotaur Maze

POV - Frida

Everyone needs a little detox. Whether you knit, sing, sit alone in a dark empty room wondering if your life is really worth living or bake. People have their things that they just need to do or else they'll go crazy from the alarming amount of physical contact beings like to distribute. For Frida that isn't a problem but for her poor sib-sib finds it an annoying nightmare that peoples first instinct when they meet someone new is to hug them, shake their hand, etc. and it was obvious Cleo needed their day off.

For the two turtles, they like to spend their time at a certain pizza place they've been to thousands of times by now. Sure they've technically been banned from their several, several times they still like to come back each time with a new disguise. This time they find themselves with new cloaking broaches. Clearly both ready to once again dawn fake identities if it meant being able to eat at the famous pizza place.

They sat down in their human disguises as each of them were given their comically large menus to look at.

"I could totally go for the algae and smoke coleslaw pizza right about now!" Frida said. She kicked her feet back and forth underneath the table. Accidentally kicking her siblings leg in the process.

He hissed but this wasn't the first time and he's a little done with correcting his sister's table manners. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose and he looked back at the menu in his hands.

"Honestly, I'm sticking with my usual. You can never go wrong with a plain cheese, stuffed worm crust with a side of someone's innocence. Probably the best one here." Cleo explained to her sister plainly.

She nodded along to her siblings' words happily and continued scouring the menu with careful eyes.

"Oh mi gosh! Look! They're serving another kind of pizza here than when we were last here. It's special apparently."
The more bubbly of the two examined their page with careful eyes.

"Ah yeah I see where you're coming from. However i refuse to try something new and risk wasting my money on it when it inevitably tastes terrible."

"Come on Lee we're rich thanks to your knowledge of the city's gold policy, why be nervous about wasting money?"

"Why switch my choice when I know for a fact the one I've made is already good?"

"You're Weird, though I guess I follow your thinking. It certainly isn't better than the one maze pizza we beat a while ago! I think our picture is still up there." Frida glanced over to the hallway that led down to that familiar maze they had once conquered together on their first visit.

Only to catch sight of a familiar blue coloured turtle. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Averting her gaze to her sister as she put up the comically sized menus to cover their faces like spies in a movie, commedically upside down.

"What the- dude what are you doing?" Cleo asked.

Their sister pointedly used their eye to gesture subtly towards the blue turtle who had now begun to walk down the hallway with a newfound sense of curiosity. Cleo's eyes widened, body freezing up remembering their previous encounter, PLUS they were in their human forms, how do they describe how they know about the mystic city if they get caught?!

As if on cue, three voices caressed their ears from the booth beside them. Teenage voices of characters they should know all too well by now. Cleo's breath noticeably got caught in his throat. The menu being the only thing keeping them from the possibility of being seen.

"The turtles..." Cleopatra's shaky breath met the air. Her rough hands played with a few of the piercings to distract herself.

"Shhh..." Frida put a finger to her own mouth and peaked over the side of the menu. Just in time to see Leo walking straight from the hallway towards his brother's booth, she ducked back behind the menu.

Both remained quiet and still so as not to draw attention to themselves. Which proved easy enough considering the blue coloured fool ended up getting through a couple of stern sentences before dragging along his three very resistant brothers towards the hallway.

"Should we like...follow them?" Frida asked.

"Nah. Let them try and fail that damn maze. Maybe it'll kill them and we won't have to do this anymore" Cleo's fingers carefully grasped around the menu and lowered it back onto the table slowly.

Without noticing, Frida knocked over her cup of fairy spring water onto the floor. She continued to speak to Cleo, unknowing of her mistake.

It was only a matter of time until a waitress nearby slipped in the puddle of shimmery magic infused water. The poor wigged waitress landed on her back, the liquid soaking into her uniform and the magic now spreading to her skin. There's a rush of air and her started to float without the aid of her wings, but dropping the remainder of her orders that didn't crash to the floor during her inital fall.

In a panic her wings fly out and knock a one eyed child goblin out of their high chair. His worried parent diving to the ground to catch him only to also land in the puddle and start to slide along the floor like a penguin except friction didn't seem to exist and her and her child zoomed along the restaurant floor with no end in sight.

The slip n' sliding parent and child duo chaos even more chaos as patreans are knocked around and slammed into. A few more people fall into the puddle of concentrated magic and all hell starts to break loos.

Cleo, unable to do anything but watch the chaos unfold, stared on in disbelief. Glancing down at the spilled drink and reminded themselves this is why they correct her terrible table manners. His finger raised in front of Frida to let her know he was focussed on something else.

Everything stirred around them and a default Looney Toons sound effect for chaos is what filled the establishment . Dishes were being dropped everywhere, food was being disgraced against the cold stone floors and everyone was screaming absolute bloody murder.

The eldest of the two grabbed her sister's hand and shot up from the table. Just in time to leave the booth quickly as a few shattered glasses came crashing down where they once sat that promptly blew up in tiny mushroom clouds.

People bumped into one another on their way to escape the sudden assault on the restaurant. The owner screamed and shouted in a trying tone to get everyone back but it proved futile.

Cleo used this opportunity to drag their sister out of the establishment amongst the crowd. Careful not to let their cloaking broaches fall loose.

The sounds of people talking and interacting followed by car horns and flashing lights of the city met their ears with graceful awakening. Cleo stared back at the wall they had just entered through and let out an exasperated sigh.

"...We aren't going back there ever again."

*

BONUS

POV - Leo

He grumbled begrudgingly to himself with his arms crossed. His brothers admired the wall of winners as they made their exit after just being put on the Cheater wall.

"Hey, these two seem familiar!" Mikey pointed to a photo of two winning turtles with peculiar markings on them holding two pizza slices. They were younger for sure, perhaps maybe by two years or so. Freida wasn't covered in scars and both her eyes were looking at the camera while atop her sibling's shell in a piggyback holding a slice aloft. Cleo's chest was missing the purple mechanism that punctured the surface, he looked exhausted physically and mentally but supported his sister with a gleam in their eye and a subtle smile while also munching on a slice.

"Eh it's probably nothing. Let's just-"
Raph stopped in his tracks and raised an eye ridge at the end of the hallway. The rest of the brothers turned in curiosity only to see a completely ruined restaurant. The owner of it was in the fetal position sobbing to himself while everything was practically on fire.

"....ooookay" Leo slowly walked to the exit around the restaurant owner with careful tiptoe steps. The rest of his brothers followed behind him as they made their way to the door.

Mikey glanced at the photo of their sister's, snapped a photo with his phone, and jogged to catch up with his brothers the portal closing shortly thereafter.