Chapter Nine

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Chapter Nine

A faint double beep let Donnie know that the lair's computer was receiving an incoming video call, and he stopped what he was doing to turn and look at the screen in confusion. He hadn't heard that sound in years. Even since Leo had returned from his journey in the jungles of Central America, none of their allies had any reason to contact them. Life after the Shredder had been extremely peaceful, annoyances like street gangs aside. Donnie frowned. Why would anyone be calling now?

Maybe one of our friends saw something and is curious about what we have going on down here, he thought, untangling himself from the mess of wires he'd made and pushing his chair across the lab to the massive computer. The double beep sounded again. "Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it."

He tapped a combination of buttons on the control panel and looked up expectantly, still uncertain as to who he might see. When a red box popped up instead of a face like he was expecting, his frown deepened. Error? How is that possible? He tapped another combination of buttons. The red box refused to disappear.

Grumbling to himself, Donnie climbed down from his chair and peered under the console to make sure everything looked good. Computer Knowledge 101: Is it plugged in?

It was, of course, though possibly not in the socket all the way. With a sigh he reached forward to fix it, but he hadn't made it halfway when he heard an unfamiliar voice say, "Um...hello? Anyone there?"

Now it works, he muttered in his thoughts, crawling back out from under the panel and looking up at the screen. He blinked a few times, leaned in a little closer, then decided he was probably going to kill his little brother.

"Mikey!" he shouted towards the door. "Stop putting video games in my system! We can't afford to have it damaged!"

"Hey, I'm not a video game. I'm the real deal," the guy on the screen said. Donnie looked back at him and stared. For once he was speechless. This simply was not possible. The caller continued, "Let's start over. I'm Sonic, Sonic the—"

"I know who you are," Donnie said.

"Oh." It was Sonic's turn to frown. "Then why are you so confused?"

The scientist finally got to his feet and pulled his thoughts together as best he could, considering. He looked at the video game character for a long time, trying to believe he was real. The blue hedgehog exchanged a glance with someone off-screen. For a while neither of them seemed to know what to say.

Donnie broke first. "Sonic," he started, clearing his throat, "Do you realize that you've had to reach across time and space to make contact with this location?"

"Yeah, about that...how far back are we talking here? Tails couldn't do the math on that one."

"This is twenty-first century Earth."

Sonic's eyes widened slightly, though he didn't seem entirely blown away by the discovery. "Oh. How did a Chaos Emerald get all the way out there?"

"You're looking for the Chaos Emerald?" Donnie asked, then instantly reprimanded himself. "Of course you are. That's like the whole point of every Sonic game ever..."

"What?"

"Ah...never mind."

Sonic's brow wrinkled slightly. "Right. Who are you?"

"My name is Donatello. But I'm not the one you're going to want to talk to," he said, starting to put the pieces together. "I know who has the Emerald you're looking for. She's been living with us for a little while now."

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