“Move, dolt!”

“Frag you, Sunny! There’s no room for me to move!”

“Then I’ll make you some room!”

FWOOMP.

“OW!!”

“Watch it!” A human wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and jeans dove out of the way of the tumbling red Lamborghini.  “Damn it, you two are going to crush someone if you keep this shit up!” he shouted at them.

“Oh, like it’s our fragging fault that we don’t have any room to maneuver in here!” Sunstreaker snarled.

Nathan Drake rolled his eyes and felt around for his shotgun, which had fallen somewhere on the floor. “You’d think robots from outer space would have night vision or something,” he muttered as his fingertips brushed the metal length of the gun, “but nooo, they’ve gotta have the attitude of a fourteen-year-old kid…”

“What was that, human?!” Angry blue optics swiveled around to stare venomously at the organic on the floor.  Nate immediately raised his hands up in a placating gesture and forced an incredibly fake smile.

“Whoa there, big guy, I just mean that, uh, we’d all do better with a little light in here!”

The other mech groaned as he pushed himself into a standing position with a strangely-shaped cotton material that happened to be nearby. “Ah, I think I can help us out there.  Hang on one sec.”

His optics flickered, and a few seconds later the headlights on his chestplates activated, sending dual beams of light shining down at the ground in front of him.  Taking Sideswipe’s cue, his brother did the same, and they inspected their surroundings.  The top of the floor was made of some sort of soft synthetic material with cords sticking out everywhere; it was odd, but not thick enough to impede them.  Everything underneath it felt solid and uniformly even.  The twins turned around to look at the strange and towering structures all about them, their headlights sweeping across the ground.  

“Weird…” Nate said, scratching his head.  “Are we on another planet or something?”

“Not like one that I’ve ever seen,” Sideswipe said quietly.  “I wonder what that thing is…” He pointed his lights at the object he’d used to push himself up, revealing it to be…a giant sneaker?

Sunstreaker’s optics turned on and off as he refreshed them.  “What the frag…”

“You guys wouldn’t have a Shaquille O’Neil working with you, huh?” Nate asked as he stared at the enormous shoe in awe.  “Looks like we found his Cinderella slipper!”

“His what?”

“Oy, oy! Turn that light off! Some of us are trying to get some rest before the next battle!”  From the mouth of the sneaker, a little stuffed animal resembling the head of a mouse floated up into the air and glowered at them.  Startled, Nate shouted and aimed his shotgun at the tiny creature.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“Point that thing somewhere else!” the creature snapped and turned his stitched-on smile towards the human.  “My name is Dung Beetle.  I am the proctor of battles between parallel dimensions, you punk.  I should be treated with respect.”

“Is that where we are?” A new voice asked from behind the shoe.  “A parallel dimension?”

“Depending on whether this is your real dimension or not.  Oy, you with the front lights!  Shine it over there, I want to know who’s talking!”

Sunstreaker growled and grabbed at Dung Beetle.  “Since when do I take orders from a flying toy?!” Before he could touch him, though, Dung Beetle disappeared and reappeared just above his helm.  The Lamborghini spun around and looked up at him, optics wide.

“Since I was able to dismantle you in the blink of an eye and scatter your pieces between dimensions, robot.”

“Why you…hold still, Sunny!” Sideswipe unsubspaced his sidearm and aimed it at the creature.  “Nate, on three, we blow that thing back to the Pit it came from!”

“Gotcha, Sideswipe!”

“One, two…”

The weight of the guns disappeared from Sideswipe’s and Nate’s hands.  They looked around in surprise, wondering if they had dropped them or if Dung Beetle had blown them away somehow.  There had been no noise of the weapons hitting the ground, though; they had simply disappeared into thin air.

“I wouldn’t get on my bad side if I were you,” Dung Beetle said, “Next time you attack me, I’ll make one of your arms disappear.”

“Stop, stop!” the voice shouted.  “Stop fighting, I’ll come out!”  There was a rustling noise over by the shoe as something stood on the toe of it.  Sideswipe and Sunstreaker turned towards it, and their headlights illuminated another creature resembling an upright turtle.  This one had several belts looped around its waist which held up double katana swords on the back of its shell, and a blue bandana-mask was wrapped around its head and over its eyes.  “My name is Leonardo,” he said, nodding his head respectfully.  

“It’s a squishy in a half-shell!” Sideswipe looked disgusted as he padded through his subspace pocket, still looking for his missing gun.  

“I didn’t intend to start a fight by not announcing myself.  I apologize.”

“Well, you kinda did,” Nate snorted.  “What’s with the bandana?”

“I’m a ninja.”

The human blinked at him, then laughed and shook his head.  “…A ninja turtle?  Sounds like a set-up for a really dumb kids show.”

“Can someone please get this fragging thing away from me?!”  Sunstreaker swatted at Dung Beetle irritably.  The flying creature growled, but in contrast, his toothy grin grew bigger.

“What the hell do I look like, an insect?!”

“Frankly, yes!”

Leonardo waved his three-fingered hands in circles to get their attention.  “Stop this!  We need to figure out a way to get out of here, not argue with each other!  Sheesh, you guys are almost as bad as my brothers.”

“Are any of them named Sideswipe?”

“…Uh, no?”

“Then consider yourself lucky.”

“Hey!”  Sideswipe reached over and smacked at one of his twin’s headfins.  “Shut it, fragger!”

Nate started laughing even harder.  “Oh, I can really feel the love right now, guys!”  Leonardo glared at him.

“Will you all knock it off?! Or would you rather stay in here and argue?!”

Dung Beetle flew upwards and out of Sunstreaker’s reach.  “I’ve already tried to teleport myself out, but something is blocking me.  So I decided to take a nap and wait for the block to pass; I’ll be automatically called back to Zearth when the next battle comes up anyway.  And I was having such a nice rest, until these two idiots turned a spotlight on me!”

“Come down here and say that to my hand!” Sunstreaker yelled, shaking his fist at him.

“Maybe we can throw the human at him…”

“I don’t want to touch him!” both Nate and Dung Beetle shouted.

Leonardo sighed and sat down on the toe of the shoe with his legs crossed.  “I guess this is gonna be a while.  I thought I’d seen the weirdest things from different dimensions, but these guys really take the cake.  So when’s Usagi going to show up?”

“He was here not too long ago.”

The turtle snapped his head up and looked around.  “Who said that?!”

“My name is Ja-Kal.”

The two mechs turned to the next new voice. This time it was coming from across the room.  Their lights shone down a human wrapped up in straps of linen cloth and sitting on an impromptu bench of several medical books.  Golden armor covered his shins and arms, and a golden helmet shaped like a falcon covered his head.  The man lifted his face up as the others noticed him, but he made no move to leave his seat.

“Oh great,” Nate groaned, “now there’s a mummy in here too.  And me without my shotgun…”

“This is your parental unit?!”

The whole room went silent for a moment.  Sideswipe refreshed his optics and looked around.  “What?”

“I’ve been trapped in here for a very long time,” the mummy continued.  “Of course, there is a way out of this closet…”

“WE’RE IN A CLOSET?!”

Ja-Kal winced at the unanimous exclamation.  “Yes, a closet.  I have been here for ten years now.”

“…And if we don’t escape, we’re all going to turn into wrinkled-up mummies like you?!”

“We won’t,” Sunstreaker said while crossing his arms.  “We’re older than your entire planet.”

“Wait, did you say Usagi was here?”

“He…was.  I liked him, he was a good person to talk to.  Very calm, very formal…”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know.  One day I just disappeared.  He must have found a way out and not told me.”

“So there is a way out?”

“I would think so.”

Sideswipe crouched down in front of Ja-Kal.  “Then tell us where it is, so we can get the frag out of here!”

“It’s not that simple.”

“What the hell? Why not?” Dung Beetle asked.

“You see, to escape, you would have to, ah…” Ja-Kal scratched the top of his mask with one golden claw, “…exit the closet.”

“No shit, Sherlock!” Nate shouted while throwing his arms open.  “Just tell us the way out! I’m getting hungry, and I think Dung Beetle would make a really crappy sandwich.”

The flying creature turned towards him and did his best version of a sneer.  “Just push me a little farther, human, go ahead.”

“You don’t understand!” Ja-Kal stood up to gain their attention again.  “You would have to exit the closet!”

“I think ten years in here fried his processor, Sunny.”

“Agreed.  What’s so bad about exiting a clo-o-o…oh.”

“Huh?”  Sideswipe stared at his brother’s wide-optic expression.  The yellow Lamborghini looked thunder-struck.  “What’s the matter?”

“…Sides, think about what we would have to do.”

Sideswipe paused for a moment as his processor whirled.  “We’d have to find the door…get it open…maybe run a scan for hostiles…and then we…aw, slag.”  There was a metallic clang as Sideswipe slapped his palm against his forehead.  “Guess we’re not leaving anytime soon.”

“What is it?” Nate asked.  Dung Beetle and Leonardo stared at the twins as well.

“Think about it for a moment, guys.”

They did.  It took a while.  And they all eventually arrived at the same conclusion.

“…Oh…um…I got a girlfriend at home, so…no.”

“I really don’t care for a relationship of any kind.  My brothers would tease me mercilessly.”

“I won’t leave without Sunny.  But for the two of us to walk out together would be…weird.”

“I had a girlfriend once.  I ate her.  However, it would be far below me to leave this closet by any other means than teleporting.”

“Then…I guess we’re stuck here until whatever’s blocking you goes away.”

“…That seems to be the case.”