Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

New York City was a strange place.

You'd learned that from a young age. Instead of watching a mother skip down the sidewalk with her child in hand, the two of them smiling at each other, you'd grown up in a city filled to the brim with strange men and even stranger creatures. Arms filled to the bring with glowing canisters, and animals that seemed more monstrous than you'd remembered learning about in your science classes. Sometimes, in the place of cute stray cats or pigeons that you'd scramble off to feed bread to at the park, you'd see hulking shadows. Humans with the bodies of animals, all of them making noises that would bring you to have nightmares for weeks to come.

Adults never believed you, writing it off as an imaginary friend, or simply the smoke in the air getting to you. And why should they believe anything else? It was as bizarre as it sounded, even to you. Still, with all this weirdness, there were some things you'd never get over. Like the fact that those men who used to terrify you were actually robot powered aliens. Or that your best friends lived in the sewers, and were taught ancient ninjutsu by their rat sensei.

But more importantly, you'd never get over how Casey Jones was absolutely demolishing this gyro right now.

With black and white face paint smudged all over your friends cheeks and nose, you had the pleasure of sitting on the arm of a wooden street bench, watching with a blank expression as one of your two human friends tore into the street food, getting a bit of meat on April's shirt. Who by now had begun to regret sitting so close to him.

"You know Jones, I think this is the most disturbing thing I've seen all week." You grimaced. The hockey player had now moved onto licking the juice off his fingers, something you mimed violently vomiting at. April just rolled her eyes as she continued to listen to music, sitting next to Casey on a street bench while you loitered nearby. 

"Ouch man!" Casey smirked as he pretended to be hurt by your words, crumbling up the leftover paper from his meal and haphazardly tossing it on the ground below him.

"There's literally a trashcan right next to us." April sighed and looked up from her phone. It was shaped like a turtle's shell; the t-phone as, you had come to know it. So generously gifted to her by the one and only Donatello.

You looked over to where she had gestured, holding one hand up to block the afternoon’s sun as it beat down upon you all. Sure enough, there was a rusty little bucket not far from the bench all of you had taken refuge on. Posters of all sorts of faded colors and advertisements were plastered on the cylinders sides. More lay fluttering in the hot wind on the pavement.

With a groan radiating of faux annoyance, Casey stood up and meandered over to the litter, eventually tossing it with a swoosh into the basket.

"He shoots and he scores! Ten points for Jones." He pumped his fist in the air triumphantly, not caring that passersby’s were now staring. Both you and April were subjected to an extremely bad victory dance as he celebrated.

"Now only if you could score like that on the actual ice, Case." You picked at your fingers with a sly smile. Casey frowned back at you, abruptly stopping his little celebration.

"I told you to stop calling me that." He grouched. "And whatever man. Like you'd know the first thing about hockey. Maybe if Red here gave me a good luck kiss before my games, I'd score more goals."

"Aaand that's our cue to go." April stood up with a huff, pocketing her odd shaped phone. You stood up not far behind her, adjusting the strings on your hoodie. You knew April wasn't actually that upset by Casey's comment, in fact sometimes you thought she rather enjoyed the extra attention, but anything to stop his incessant flirting was a win for you.

"How about we head on down to the lair?" You suggested, noticing that the three of you were already making your way over to the nearest secluded manhole. "It's been a while since I've visited."

"Don't remind me." April smiled as she struggled to lift the solid piece of metal separating New York from its sewer system. "Mikey asks me where you are every time I come down there. He's even started pestering me for your address in exchange for 'p-shakes'."

"As much as I love the guys, I'm not sure my heart could take it if they started showing up on my fire escape every night. I don't need any more visits from Dr. Prankenstien than I already get." You snickered, following after Casey as he dropped down the ladder. He nodded along with your statement, holding his gloved hand out for a fist bump, one that you happily returned, albeit with a bit more force than necessary.

"Ooh, was that a challenge I just felt?" He grinned mischievously. You slanted your eyes at him, winding your arm back in response.

"Come on you guys." April scoffed, rolling her eyes at how both you and Casey were both now punching each other in the arms and snickering.

"Just because you don't know how to have fun, Red, doesn't mean we can't." Casey slung an arm around your shoulders with a toothy grin, yelping seconds later as you shoved him off of you with a frown.

"Right. Fun. That's exactly what comes to mind when I think Casey Jones, April O'Neal, and a stinky sewer." You parried. You were only being half serious. 

"Hey! I thought you were on my side!" Casey frowned, jumping back up and rubbing the place you'd pushed him sorely. You stuck your tongue out at him and responded that he should have know better than to touch you, then.

"Lay off, guys." April chided you, missing the way your lips downturned at her words. "Besides. It's not like this place stinks that bad. You just have to get used to it!"

You sniffed the air for a moment, immediately recoiling in disgust. Yeah. Definitely not.

"Sick dude."

"Actually," April halted in her speed walking to let the two of you catch up to her. As soon as you reached her side, you noticed the redhead was pinching her nose with a confused expression. "Something does smell weird. Like— moldy cheese and puke."

You would've responded to her, probably with some sort of quippy comment, but the shrill sounds of a scream stopped you.

"Jesus!" You were quick to recoil away from the screaming man that suddenly emerged from a sewer pipe out of nowhere, shouting his head off and blubbering nonsense about a giant squirrel. As the three of you watched the tail end of his sanitation uniform get farther and farther away, you were suddenly reminded of the day a few months ago in which a mutated squirrel clawed itself into your stomach and reproduced. You shut down that memory with a shiver, jogging after an equally as panicked Casey and April to catch the stranger.

It only took a few turns around the place before all of you stood to a halt in a more open tunnel, no longer hearing the deep thump of the guy's boots as he ran away from an unidentified source.

"..Should we call out for him?" You whispered, not really liking yourself for suggesting such a thing.

"Yeah. Go ahead Casey." April whispered right back, shoving the boy forward and shushing his protests. With a huff and not too much of a protest, he started forward into the wet cavern.

"Hello? Crazy dude?" He sang, a twinge of nerves coating his voice. After looking around a tunnel opening for a few moments, Casey turned back to the two of you, gesturing harshly to follow him. You begrudgingly stepped forward, refusing to be at the end of the group where something could sneak up behind you. That privilege would have to be left to April.

"Something's not right." She murmured. You turned to supply her with a sarcastic 'you think?' but instead paused as a tiny mushroom made itself known in the corner of your vision. Looking back at April silently, you noticed that she had seen it too, and was now approaching it with one finger out. It didn't take long for that to backfire, and as the spore released some sort of yellow gas right into April's face, you were suddenly grateful for your abundance of common sense.

Blinking, you watched as she coughed in the powdery looking material. Another blink, and wherever it had come from was gone.

"April? You alright? What'd you see?" A hand was placed on her shoulder now. You felt the presence of Casey next to you. Both of you were now watching as she began to shake, and you were starting to think that the worker from before might have actually seen something. Something that you personally did not want to be a part of.

April's eyes opened suddenly, snapping to your face ferociously. You got one good look at her eyes, noticing how the whites of them were tinged with yellow and red veins. The hairs on the back of your neck threatened to raise. It reminded you of the look of a crazed animal.

Without warning, April let out the shrillest scream you'd ever heard. With a sudden speed you had no idea that she even had, April lashed out, catching the blunt of your hand with her fingernails in the process. Your reaction was immediate, a yelp drawing itself out of your throat as you retracted the arm she had hit as fast as possible.

Hissing in pain, you saw Casey look at you with wide eyes before turning back to April, catching a glimpse of her back just as she began to sprint away.

"April? April!!" He yelled, not making much of a move to chase after her. You did no such thing either, cradling your hand to your chest in shock. You hadn't noticed the little bit of blood trickling down from the moon shaped scratches yet. The droplets stained your shirt, fading into a rust type color.

You slowly looked over at Casey in shock as the sound of April's footsteps faded. You were sure that you looked as pale as he did.

"What the fuck?"

Your lungs were screaming at you to stop by the time you'd reached the lair, and it irked you that you didn't have time to care.

You and Casey had both almost taken several breaks on your run along the abandoned railroad tracks, but once either of you got a look at your now (thankfully) less bloodied hand— courtesy of a makeshift towel you called your shirt —the running would start again.

The sight of railroad tracks came to an end as the two of you reached the main entrance to the lair, a soft white light cascading over the abandoned subway tunnel from where sat. You thanked whatever god lied above for turnstiles as you flopped belly down onto the cool metal of one, not even caring that Casey had to jump over both you and it to reach the turtles line of sight. Who, from the sounds of it, were watching a very loud episode of that old anime again.

"Oh hey guys. What's up?"

Before Casey could even open his mouth to respond to Raphael, a blur of orange and green was pouncing on you.

The weight of Michelangelo's tackle knocked you clean off the metal surface you had been using to cool yourself down. You landed on the grimy concrete floor, staring up at the ceiling with a dazed look. From his place sitting on your chest, Mikey yelled your name and smiled, clearly very happy to see you.

"Where have you been dude!" He laughed, getting off of you. Instead of allowing you to stand up, or even explain yourself, he suddenly grabbed you by the shoulders, bringing you into a spinning hug. Such is the curse of having a 4' 10 ninja turtle as one of your closest friends: getting out of hugs is nearly impossible. Any other time you would have fought for him to let you down, but now you were just yelling at him to stop and listen.

"Hey! You're here!" You heard Donatello call from afar over your tirade of 'stop!'s and 'no!'s. The purple turtle was most likely waving at you with a bucket of popcorn in hand from his spot on the couch. He was always the designated snack holder when the four of them found time to watch a movie together.

Maybe you really did need to start visiting more if this is how they all reacted to not seeing you for a month. Then again, anytime you came down here, bad things tended to happen to you. Like crushing hugs from a very strong mutant. Or a best friend gone insane.

The second one was probably more important.

"Guys! Stop!" Casey finally wheezed while waving his arms around wildly, succeeding in getting their attention. In turn, Mikey let you down— much to the appreciation of both you and your throbbing hand.

"April— sewers— gone crazy! Hurry!" Casey puffed, bending over to rest his hands on his knees and gasp. The brothers all looked at each other with cocked eyebrows— save for Mikey; who was just now noticing the source of your discomfort.

"Woah, hey hey hey what happened to you?" He gasped with an over dramatic flair, picking your arm up by your wrist and pouting at the now dry blood on your hand. You smacked all three of his fingers away from you, only feeling a bit regretful when he flashed a pair of sad puppy dog eyes after.

"That's what we've been trying to tell you!" Casey groaned, extremely annoyed at this point. "April attacked them! She went crazy! We were just on our way here, and next thing I know she starts acting all weird and runs off! She's gone!"

"Don't phrase it like that, Case." You groan at his mistake. "Now Donnie's gonna—"

"You lost April!?" Everyone watched as the popcorn Donnie had been holding flew everywhere with the effort of him standing up. Well, standing up was a bit of an understatement. More like leapt up.

With a sigh you watched Casey pale slightly, holding his hands up in preparation to defend the both of you.

"Relax!" Mikey stuck his tongue out at Donatello from next to you, still making grabby hands at your injury despite your efforts to keep him away. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation! Like she was eaten by a giant sewer snake or something. That's what you probably got bit by too." He turns to you at the last part and smiles. You resist the urge to smack him on the head.

"April clawed me you doofus. I didn't get bitten by a snake."

Your words prompted something to kick into gear inside Donatello, and you watched as Casey proceeded to get absolutely steamrolled by him, the turtle yelling something about how everyone needed to drop everything and go find April.

The action put a bit of a grimace on your face. Why, you had no idea, but you found yourself following after him and the others anyway, grumbling that you better get free pizza for life after all you put up with for them.

Water splashed around your now ruined shoes as you followed after the turtles, occasionally kicking at a stray rock. There was no doubt in your mind anymore. The advertisement on the box for these had definitely lied when they said they were waterproof.

The sewers were much darker than earlier now. The dim lighting was no doubt provided by the setting sun outside, and it cast shadows through the occasional storm drain you all would walk past. It was surely getting late now, and your body ached with the pang of hunger you normally got around dinner time. It would have bothered you, but you were more focused on not tripping over concrete and landing face first in piss and shit right now.

You came to a sudden stop behind Casey, faintly recognizing your surroundings. One of his hockey sticks poked you in the forehead as he turned to address everyone, and you rubbed at the spot.

"I think this is where we lost her." His voice was punctured with a little stammer, clearly a lot more bothered than he let on. A quick glance up at the number above the sewer tunnel you were stood in front of confirmed that this was the spot the three of you had climbed down from a bit ago. You couldn't help but imagine the people on the streets above, just walking around without a care in the world. Certainly not thinking about kids running around down in the sewer, searching for a probably-drugged-friend.

"You think!? Oh well that's not vague or anything." Donatello's angry voice called from behind you. The intensity of his volume was enough to make you jump— something you'd deny if pointed out.

"Back off stick-master!" Casey snapped back.

"Who you calling stick-master, puck-head!"

"Shut up Donnie." You grit out, bringing up four fingers to massage each of your temples. Any other day, and their bickering would have amused you. You know it certainly has in the past. But it just wasn't the time for that sort of thing— if the look on your face wasn't evident enough.

The purple clad turtle turned to look at you in slight surprise, not expecting backlash from anyone that wasn't Casey. The others shared his look, too. Or at least before Casey let out a smug laugh, crossing his arms and standing up before Donnie.

"You too, Jones." You were quick to yank him out of Donnie's face by his hoodie, already over the whole thing. "We need to get moving." You glared at the both of them icily, shouldering forward without a care. You missed the way the turtles exchanged glances with each other behind your back as they followed after.

"You alright?" Leo had called your name, water rippling around the both of you as he sped up to touch your shoulder gently. It wasn't a surprise when you shrugged it off. You always did that.

"Yes, Leo. I'm fine. I'd just like to find April and get a band aid before this injury—" You shook the hand April had scratched so he would see "—gets infected with whatever bacteria lives under the human fingernail."

"She really did that to you, huh?"  Leo pursed his lips, or whatever turtles have in replacement of lips, together thoughtfully. You looked back at him, a harsh response sitting along the tip on your tongue. It was only the curious look he gave you that stopped it from becoming a reality.

"Yeah. It's whatever, I'll just patch it up when this is all done." You sighed through your nose.

"I think Master Splinter might have some bandages somewhere." Leo supplied, a hand on his chin as he thought about it. "If not, I'm sure Donnie has some medical supplies lying around."

"If it's fine with you guys, I think I'll just go home and do it myself. Yeah?" You turned, walking in an awkward sideways position to keep the conversation going while looking at him. Leo furrowed his brow, flitting his eyes around your face in favor of ignoring Mikey from behind, who was saying something about rats while Casey retched.

"It's nothing against you, I just—"

Your words stopped suddenly, voice dying as your eyes focused on something just beyond Leo's shoulder. Your brows furrowed together in a small crease, and it made Leo tense up.

At your sudden pause, he made to turn his head, hand twitching in the direction of his katana's hilts as he looked for what you were eyeing. All he saw was Casey stumbling around, coughing while waving a hand in front of his face.

You didn't waste time brushing past Leo, making your way to the back of the group to approach Casey. He was still coughing, and to quote April from earlier, something didn't feel right.

"Dude?" You approached him, trying your best to catch a glimpse at his eyes. "You ok?"

"Yeah." He sniffed loudly. It was like he had a cold. You watched cautiously as he avoided looking at you, instead focused on a nearby tunnel that split off from the main one you all were standing in. "I just." He swallowed carefully. "Just thought I saw—"

You were sent backward with an oomph as Casey suddenly flailed, yelping like a wounded dog. Your eyes locked with his for one moment, and your jaw tightened as you noticed the same yellow-red veins creeping in at the edge of his vision. They looked just like the ones that April had before she attacked you.

"Demon rat!" He shrieked, startling you out of your revelation. Hockey gloves pawed for purchase against the concrete wall he had pressed himself against as Casey scrambled to get a hold of something. He looked crazed. As if he could see and hear something you all couldn't.

It only worsened. You watched in a combination of confusion and horror as he began to dance around, hitting at himself like he had just walked through the world's biggest cobweb; screaming at you all to get "them" off of him. Who "they" were, you had no idea.

With a nod of affirmation from Leonardo, Donnie and Raph proceeded to slam Casey into the wall opposite the one he had just been clinging to. You caught a bit of satisfaction on Donatello's face as he did so, and that got you to sober up for a moment, even if it was only to roll your eyes.

"What is your malfunction?" Raph scoffed before letting Casey's left arm go. Donnie followed, backing up with his hands on his hips sourly. All Casey could do was let out a sob at their questioning. He dropped to his knees on the ground, an unscathed hockey stick clattering next to him.

"Something's definitely going on here." You managed to get out without looking away from Casey.

"Uh, you think?"

You sent a glare Raph's way as he sassed you, resisting the urge to smack him on his shell. You knew better than to do that. The last time you tried, your hand had been left throbbing all day. "Yeah, dumbass. Look at his eyes. It looks like he just chiefed a fucking bowl of weed. April was the same way before we lost her."

"What do you think it is?" Donnie took a step towards you. One of his fingers was curled under his chin in thought, mind no doubt racing a mile a minute as he tried to come up with an explanation for what was happening.

"Whatever it is, it's happening to more people than just us. For all I know it could be contagious, and April caught it from that sewer worker we saw earlier."

"You saw a sewer worker acting like this?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't think to mention that?!" Raph snapped.

"Oh, well, sorry. I was a little busy at the time getting clawed by my best friend!" You raised your voice, practically towering over the turtles as you released a bit of your frustration on them. Raphael immediately had the decency to look away, his frustration disappearing as yours spiked.

"Woahh, freaky" Mikey bent down at the waist to poke Casey on the cheek. He seemed oblivious to exchange you and his brother just had. "This is just like that comic I was reading yesterday! The whole crew got infected and started going crazy!" 

"Wait, Space Heroes, edition ninety five?" Leo asked slowly.

"Yeah! How'd you know?"

"Because you stole it from me Mikey!"

Before the two of them could launch into an argument, you flinched as a shrill scream pierced the air. It set itself apart from Casey's defeated moaning, bouncing off the sewer walls and ricocheting back at a pitch that hurt your ears something awful..

"That's her!" Donatello suddenly gasped. "April!"

By the time you managed to turn away from Casey, he was off, sprinting in the nearest direction of the sound without a care. It was like everything else was background noise to him. Your eye twitched as everyone else filed after the tall turtle, not once stopping to take in anything else. You grit your teeth, looking down at Casey's slumped figure before deciding to follow after them, cursing silently under your labored breathing.

By the time you'd caught up with them, they were all surrounding the newly found April in a semi circle, with Donnie crouching down to gently touch her leg. She was sat on the edge of an open sewer tunnel, her knees pressed against her chest as she stared blankly into the distance. You could hear words of comfort floating from Donnie to her at a rapid rate as everyone else stood there, watching.

You grimaced, your guts twisting in the shape of a pretzel for reasons that continued to remain mysterious.

"Do you guys hear that?" Leo's hand came up for a moment to silence everyone. The turtles that weren't occupied with coddling April all turned to look behind them, and you greeted them with a wave.

"Just me guys. No monster." You sarcastically spread your arms out.

"No, that!" Leo's finger pointed to something below you, and you turned on your heel to observe.

There was a strange blue sphere on the ground at your feet. It bumped into you once before stilling and flattening to the ground. Strange white stripes patterned it, and you all watched as it transformed into a mushroom looking shape.

You were quick to fall back towards April, who was still screaming and grunting in horror, as the others surrounded it curiously.

"It's a mutant mushroom! With feet!" Mikey cooed, clasping his hands together. That only solidified your worries. In the past few months, you had yet to meet a single "mutant" that brought nothing but trouble. Present company included.

"I'd get away from that if I were you!" You called out. Donnie, Leo, and Raph all looked at you for an explanation while Mikey continued to gush over the thing.

"But it's so cute!" He cooed. "I could just eat it up— gah!!"

Mikey was promptly shut down as the small glowing mushroom attacked him, attaching itself to his face. The youngest turtle screamed and clawed at his face whilst running in circles. His sounds of distress only increased as the organism appeared to suck at his face. For a moment your brain made the connection between Mikey jumping on you earlier, and the fungi gluing itself to his head. You blinked and got rid of that thought as soon as possible.

The boys immediately jumped into action, weapons coming out as soon as Mikey threw the thing off his face and at the nearest wall. It was times like these you really wished you'd taken up Splinters offer to learn martial arts, but you'd convinced yourself you already had too much on your plate for that. At least you knew how to wield a taser well enough.

"Fascinating!" You heard Donatello grunt in-between swings of his bo staff. He was whacking the mushroom on Mikey's face, probably doing more damage to his little brother than anything. "Evolved fungi!"

Raph eventually decided to jump in, jabbing it with one of his sai's almost cautiously. The movement sparked a yellow haze to emerge from the flaps underneath the mushroom umbrella, and they wafted his way too quickly for him to combat. He coughed like Casey and April had done before, almost swaying on his feet.

Without missing so much as a beat, the thing rose into the air and flew in your direction, looking as if to make a home on your face now. With a quick unholstering of the only defense mechanism you had, you produced your cheap taser, nailing the thing straight between its eyes. Or where its eyes should have been. Either way, it dropped to the floor, and the air began to smell less like piss and more like sautéed shrooms.

"Just stab the damn thing next time!" You yelled, hands shaking and still holding out the taser at arms length. All the turtles but Raph looked at your trembling arms, and you crossed them as stiffly to cover it up. They didn't need to see how upset you were getting right now.

Honestly, you would never understand why they all went for blunt force trauma instead of using the edges of their weapons to slice stuff. Maybe it was a ninja thing. A really, really stupid ninja thing.

"Are you alright?" Leo stepped forward with his arm outreached, voice soft with what you hoped to god was not pity. Donnie followed suit, and for a moment you thought he might be the slightest bit worried about you. That thought was quickly dispelled when he brushed right past your shoulder to go cradle April again.

"Just peachy Leonardo." You growled at him, and he retracted at the use of his full name. "It's not like I've been attacked by a wild mushroom— oh come on."

You were immediately cut off as Raph began to scream at the sight of you all. The sound grated against your already high-strung nerves, and with each passing second the urge to bash your head into the wall was getting stronger and stronger. Now you remember why you stopped coming down here so often— if this tension headache you were getting was proof enough for that.

With a few more unintelligible shouts, Raph jumped at Leo with a battle cry, looking like he was out for blood. Leo simply crouched down, letting Raph fly over him and land plastron first on the ground.

"Donnie, explanation?" Mikey shouted. He was now brandishing his nunchucks and swirling them around hesitantly.

"Wish I knew!"

"I smashed you once, roach, and I'll smash you again!" By now Raphael was up, and from the looks of it, he was ready to attack with more than just his bare fists.

"Roach?" Leo's voice cracked in confusion.

That clicked it all into place for you. You weren't sure what April had seen when she'd lashed out, but you knew that Casey had heard rats; the one thing he was afraid of more than anything. And now Raph was whirling around, fighting an invisible roach. Either this was the biggest coincidence in the world, or these mushrooms were more toxic than you thought.

With one more look around the tunnel, sounds of fighting echoing off the walls, you cupped your hands around your mouth.

"The mushrooms are spreading a fear toxin!" You shouted with the risk of losing your voice the next day. "That's why everyone's eyes are turning different colors and they're acting so weird! The plants are making them see their worst fears!"

You thought you might explode if the turtles didn't understand you. Thankfully, you watched as a bit of recognition creeped into Donatello's face at your words as he dodged another attack from Raph.

"It's fungi, not plants, but they're right!" He yelled over all the noise. With a yell, he caught one end of Mikey's nunchucks in his hand and wrapped it around Raph's torso, watching as Mikey did the same with his end. By the time they were done, Raphael was now a squirming mess on the ground, looking just as terrified as Casey and April did. Only he was more dangerous than them. A lot more dangerous.

"So, what, you're telling me that that tiny little guy is causing all of this?" Leonardo huffed while standing to his full height. Mikey was the sole one restraining Raph now as you approached them all.

"If any of you had stopped for a moment to actually pay attention instead of rushing into things, you might have seen that sooner." You squinted at them. Leo was the only one who had the chance to look sheepish. That didn't stop you from hitting him on the top of his shell in frustration.

"Ow! We're sorry, we're sorry!" He winced.

"Good." You sighed, already starting to feel a little better about this situation. The hollow feeling of being overlooked still lingered, but you were focused on other more important things now. Like finding out how to counteract whatever was being sprayed around.

"Donnie, do you think if we got back to your lab you could test this for a solution?" You didn't even have to turn around to know that he was busy fawning over April, instead just amplifying your voice so he was sure to hear.

"Maybe—" He mused, and you could practically hear him scratching his chin in thought. You'd been in his lab enough times to know what he was about to go off on a tangent, "—but it's more likely that there's an easier solution to this problem. Fungi normally spawn from a bigger source, and since there seems to be a cluster around here infecting our friends, there must be the origins of it nearby."

"So we find it, and do some gardening." Leo smiled from beside you, bringing out his blades in a gaudy move. You just gave him a blank stare.

"What? It was a good line!"

"You need to work on your improv skills, Leo."

He sighed and lowered his weapons. Cocking one side of his hip up in the way that he does when he goes into leader mode, Leonardo went to say something else to you— probably that you all should get a move on —when a flash of neon blue entered your peripheral.

"Oh shit!"

A mouthful of nasty tasting yellow dust spread all over the bottom half of your face in a fine mist. It settled on your tongue, feeling like particles of a cotton ball had been sprinkled on it. Coughing, you stuttered in your stance to heave forward. This felt different than what you thought it would be like.

Mikey said your name, and you tried to respond. All that came out was a groan.

You didn't think that the ground was supposed to be swirling like that.

The last thing you saw before the world flipped on it's axis was a bo staff cutting the mushroom above you in two.

You woke up with your head feeling like someone had used it as a drum in a marching band.

"Did any of you get the number of that bus that ran me over?" You griped, not willing to open your eyes and subject yourself to the light of the world just yet. You were only half joking about the bus number— with the way your temples were throbbing, you wouldn't have been that surprised if someone said that it had actually been a greyhound.

When no one responded, you reluctantly pried your eyelids open.

You were in a different tunnel now. It looked like it belonged to the same one connecting your friends' lair to anywhere else in the city, but what did you know. It wasn't like you knew anyone who lived down here or anything.

Hauling yourself up took more strength than you wanted to admit. Half of your face felt numb, and the other half itched something awful. The sensation was killing you almost as much as this silence was.

Almost.

Eventually your eyes adjusted to the lighting, and you did a poor job at hiding the sharp intake of air you gulped down.

Standing all but a few meters away from you were six figures. They looked to be your friends, but something was off. They were all motionless with their backs faced to you, and covered in a thick layer of what looked like black goo. It dripped off of them and to the ground, pooling between their feet and leaking in your direction.

"Guys?"

As soon as you took a step in their direction, all their heads snap toward you at an unnatural angle. You half expect a cracking of bones to follow the movement, but all you heard was the sound of your heart drop.

"What's going on?" This time you took a step back, not forward.

It's at this point that you noticed your surroundings changing. What you had thought to be a sewer tunnel was now the streets of New York. Then your bedroom.

It never stayed the same for more than a second, constantly twisting into something more frightening than the last; all plucked from your worst memories. The Kraang cell you had been thrown in once. The pool you had been forced to take swimming lessons in as a child. Your eighth grade classroom, watching as your teacher explained to your parents that you'd never amount to anything.

Finally it settled on the lair.

You refused to be backed into a corner like all those horror flicks you'd seen with the boys. With each step the figures of your friends took, you took one back, shuffling around in circles to avoid getting trapped.

You were starting to get light headed with how fast you were breathing at this point.

"What?" You eventually murmured, your pupils pinpricks at this point. Your ears strained to pick up what sounded like words in response.

"Leave." Was what you eventually heard come from the clone of Raphael. Because that's what he was. A clone. Not the real thing. He couldn't be. The Raph you know wouldn't tell you to leave.

The more you thought about it, the less true that seemed.

"Leave?" You echoed. The back of your foot hit one of the arcade machines lying around before you scrambled to get around it.

"We don't need you anymore." This time your eyes snapped to the clone of Mikey. His eyes were nothing but static in that eerie black goo. You couldn't bring yourself to look at it for more than a second.

"I don't understand." Words were becoming harder and harder to pronounce. You tripped over them as your footsteps slowed.

"They never valued you. Even as a human, I could see that." The version of Casey hissed through his distorted mask. It looked more like an actual skull than the crude spray painted version you had grown so accustomed to.

"Why did you think we'd ever like you, when you've never even tried to like us." Leo was the second closest to you and approaching slowly. His speed should have reassured you, but something about the unrelenting and unchanging pace only made you want to hurl.

"That's not true." Instead of a fierce cry coming from your throat, it was a pathetic whine. A round of hissing laughter passed through the ranks of your friends. Wait, your fake friends. These weren't the real ones. You knew that. You felt like you were supposed to know that.

"Idiot." April's voice sounded like that of a scratched record. Her teeth sharpened with each syllable. "I was here first. And I'll be here long after you."

"Shut up!" It was your turn to yell. You didn't mean for it to be so loud, you really didn't, but the words tore itself from you like a scream. You didn't scream. You really didn't. Not in front of other people. Not like this.

Your feet had stopped moving now. They felt like lead. Incapable of moving any further without the force of a hundred men. When you looked down, you discovered they were ensnared in metal cuffs that tightened the more you hyperventilated. Twelve chains lead away from them. You followed each with your eyes, eventually finding yourself staring right back at the soupy expanse of your six former friends. Twelve chains. Two for each of them. One in each hand.

You were brought to the ground and dragged forward. Your pants tore against the cold floor, leaving what was sure to be a plethora of holes if you were to check.

Fingernails broke off and bled as you desperately tried to claw away. You reached at the hem of your pants to look for your taser, only to come up holding a ripped picture.

It was the one you had taken of everyone after defeating the Kraang's technodrome. It had been a celebration. A time to celebrate and relax over the fact that you all had won.

Everyone had smiled as you set the five second timer on your phone, Mikey even sticking a pair of bunny ears over Raph's head without him noticing. Leo was standing with a hand on April's shoulder, and Donnie was standing next to her with his staff in hand.

You looked at the spot where you were supposed to be, only to be met with the sight of a cut out hole.

"Out of all the delusions that have run through your head—" You looked up at the only one that had yet to speak yet. Donatello's gap toothed grin sneered down at you from your spot on the floor, your mouth drying at the mere sight of it.

"From us actually caring about you—" The chains around your legs were only spreading higher along your body now, growing past your hips.

"To thinking that we actually cared when you'd visit again—"

Donatello crouched down. The black ooze around his face parted for just a moment. Instead of the cool tint of his green skin being revealed, or that purple bandana you had hidden many times in a playful manner, all you saw were tissue sinew and blood. Flesh peeled away and drooped down his face like sad wallpaper. You choked on your own bile as he grinned at you without skin around his mouth, making a grotesque clicking sound with his teeth.

The only thing that remained normal was his reddish brown eyes. They looked at you, locking you in place with a liquid hate you had only seen from him in your nightmares.

"The funniest delusion of all, was believing that we could possibly love a person like you."

Your eyebrows pulled together in terrified confusion. Sweat dripped down your head and trickled uncomfortably to the ends of your earlobes. Your chest felt the tightest it had in your life; heartbeat practically nonexistent.

Nothing more was said, because nothing else had to be. Donatello's face sewed itself back up with a sick slurping noise, returning to fuzzy gray eyes and a black exterior. With prolonged movements, he reached for the staff on his back. It was also dripping with goo, a few droplets splattering on your already ruined clothes as he hovered one end over your face. You recognized it as the end a blade was set to come out of.

Looking back up at all of them, the chains in their hands were all gone. They didn't need them anymore. It's not like you would be going anywhere. After all, everything below your head was encased in metal. Set to rot for all eternity.

"Pathetic."

A flash a silver and the snap of a button being clicked was what sent you into darkness for a second time.

"I think they're waking up!"

"Get off my table Mikey. You'll break something again!"

"Is it too late to punch his face in?"

"Guys, shut up. They're awake."

For a second time that day, you found your head to be pounding. Bright light, much brighter than the kind normally emanating from the sewers, threatened to blind you as you laid on your back, ears ringing.

Taking a moment to steel your nerves against all of the elements suddenly attacking your senses, you inhaled with a hiss, an earthquake of deja vu sweeping over you with its delightful aftershock known as nausea.

The feeling of a cold metal slab underneath you alerted you that you were in Donnie's lab. Most likely face up on his makeshift operating table he'd crafted out of his homemade welding set and scrap metal slab. And if any of the very poorly concealed whispering told you anything, there were going to be quite a few mutant turtles staring down at you when you opened your eyes.

You decided to peek one open to check.

Yep. Definitely a few of them.

"I saw that! Hey, did you guys see that! Their eye moved!" You heard what was most likely Mikey flailing around somewhere on your left side. A few frustrated voices snapped at him to calm down, resulting in what you guessed was a raspberry to be blown back at them.

"We know you're awake." Raphael called your name blandly. You answered with what you thought was going to be a coherent string of curses, but instead was just a really scratchy sounding groan.

"I think they said, Michelangelo is the bestest turtle of all time. And also the handsomest." You felt three giant fingers grab onto the flesh of your jaw and move your mouth up and down as Mikey did a horrible impression of your voice, treating you almost like you were a life sized ventriloquist dummy. With a grunt and a strain of your neck, you garnered enough strength to reach up and bite at his finger, mentally pumping your fist in the air as you heard him yelp and the feeling of fingers left your face.

"Ok now we know for sure you're awake sleepy head." You felt another finger poke the side of your head, retracting fast enough so you didn't have a chance to bite them too.

Finally giving into the curse known as getting up, you opened both your eyes and tilted your head down to stare at seven sets of separate eyes.

Even Master Splinter was here. You must have really been out for a while.

"How long." Was all you could manage as you propped yourself up on your elbow. A strange sensation around one of your hands prompted you to look at it, noticing bandages around the marks April had given you at the start of all this.

"Ten years."

"How long, Donatello." You enunciated Donnie's name this time, directly addressing him as you glared at Casey. He looked very amused at his own joke.

"Fourteen hours." He barely glanced up from something he was tinkering with in his lap, looking rather focused. "It's almost noon."

That was enough to shock your system, eyes widening as you looked around wildly. Your gaze landed on April's figure as you sputtered.

"Our presentation was due today." You coughed out. She nodded, bringing her t-phone out and gesturing to it.

"I already called the school. Said we both spent the night together and got sick. They bought it like a charm." She shrugged, and you sighed.

"What about you Casey?"

"Eh. I never show up to class anyways." He shrugged. "What's another absent day for the Jones?"

"That might explain the lack of intelligence." You heard Donnie whisper. It was followed by a soft crack and him yelping in surprise. You looked at the turtle and saw nothing but a faint red mark forming on his arm. If you then directed your gaze over to Splinter long enough, you thought you saw his tail twitch as he smiled.

"Well that's good to know." You nodded at April. "Now can someone please tell me why I'm surrounded by everyone I know this side of the Hudson?"

"Like Donnie said, you were out for fourteen hours dude! That's, like, a whole day! We were worried." Mikey waved his arms in the air wildly and spun around in a rollie chair. You weren't sure where he got it from, but Donatello didn't look too happy about it.

"My sons told me about what happened." Splinter interjected. Everyone turned to look at him as he leaned on his emerald cane, eyes sparkling with a fierce emotion you couldn't place.

"You were all very brave in your mission. For that I commend you. But it seems that out of everyone, you were hit the hardest by the fungus." He ended his statement in your direction with a calm tone, doing nothing to ease your worries. Breaking eye contact with him was harder than you would have liked.

"So you guys figured out how to stop it then?"

"More like Leo did." April smiled. "We found him passed out and surrounded in shriveled mushrooms, looking like he had the fight of his life."

"Against a colony of 'shrooms?" Your eyebrow raise was downright judgmental.

"The biggest one was at least fifteen feet tall."

"I take it all back. Leo you're the best." You snickered as you carefully slid off the table, feeling confident enough to stand now. You did your best to ignore the feeling of so many sets of eyes as you did so.

"So. What was your hallucination about?" Raph was the one to break the ice, scouring your face for any sort of hint.

You barely held back a wince at the question. Maybe if the memory had come back to you in bits and pieces like it did to people in the movies, the question wouldn't have off put you that bad. But instead, you'd woken up and found yourself already remembering each and every bit of the nightmarish hell you'd been trapped in.

"Raph's was about cockroaches!" Mikey sang, laughing as he poked fun at his older brother. Raphael just growled and curled his fists into balls, probably holding himself back because Splinter was standing right next to him.

"Yeah? Well Mikey's was about alien squirrels!" He pointed a finger at his brother angrily. An offended gasp punctuated his accusatory tone.

"It's squirrelanoids! And they are much scarier than cockroaches or rats!" Mikey whined back.

"Rats?" You question, tossing a split second glance to Splinter. Somewhere next to you Casey groaned, clearly embarrassed that this was being brought up.

"Can we go back to what your thing was now?" Casey said with hot ears, clearly not appreciating his fear being put on blast while April was in the room.

You pursed your lips and directed your gaze to the lab wall behind everyone. Peeling skin and dripping black goo flashed behind your lids each time you blinked. With it left the stabbing sensation of tears. Something you despised; especially while in the presence of others.

"Nothing much." Was what you settled on, moving forward before anyone could say anything else. "What about you, Donnie? Did you end up getting sprayed?" It was almost ironic how you immediately chose to single him out after replaying the events of your nightmare in your head. A part of you scoffed at it.

"I uh—" His face grew warm at your query and he refused to meet your gaze, "—I don't want to talk about it."

With a shrug you dropped the topic.

"Mind if I go get something to eat? I kind of feel like I'm dying here." You nodded toward the door nearest the kitchen, once again changing the subject. Mikey immediately ran to it at the mention of food, screaming about pizza. According to the others, he had been waiting all day to crack open a pepperoni pie to eat with you. And you weren't about to deny him now.

As everyone filed out into the common room, a light hand placed itself on your shoulder. Without even looking back you knew who it belonged to, and your thoughts were only confirmed once you locked eyes with Master Splinter.

"My child," He began softly. "I know we do not have the bond you do with my sons, but if you ever feel troubled, my dojo is always open for you. I train not just the body, but also the mind. It is your most powerful weapon, and it would be a mistake to let it stew in its own treachery."

You didn't make a move to shrug his hand away or even leave. You just looked at him curiously, searching for even a hint of insincerity. When you found none, you nodded.

"Now go." He commanded, drawing his paw back respectfully. "I know you are eager to join the others."

Splinter watched as you retreated to the playful shouting coming from the other room, hands coming to rest on the peak of his cane once more. You reminded him of his sons. Too much of his sons.

He was just glad that you'd all found each other. He might have gone insane if he had to entertain those boys the rest of his life.

Chapter Text

"I know they said that pizza was gluten free, but I definitely tasted gluten."

The cold wind of a New York afternoon nipped at your heels as you meandered down the sidewalk, three figures in tow. Rocks and stray bits of litter dotted the crooked sidewalk, occasionally brushing an untied shoestring of yours.

It was the weekend. A time where school was at the back of your mind, and pizza in the front. You had been called up by April this morning whilst lounging in bed, a sense of urgency in her voice as she invited you out with her and Casey for lunch. From the sound of it, she had been asked on one of his not-a-date-date's again, and was relying on you to break the ice. And since you were such a good friend, you changed out of your ratty pajamas to catch up, cursing teenage love under your breath all the way.

It was only after pulling up to Antonio's with a blank expression that you'd seen Irma loitering outside at the same time, and you'd tossed a limp wave to her as you both headed in to join your collective friends. Predictably, Casey hadn't been very happy to see either of you, and you responded by politely sticking him with the bill.

Now the four of you were walking aimlessly, bellies full and your afternoons free. Neither of you were heading in the direction of anyone's apartment, which was to assume that you knew where Irma lived. Really, you didn't. You weren't sure you were on that level of friendship with her; or any level of friendship, really.

Casey's bike ached and creaked with age as he pushed it along beside him. Occasionally you'd find yourself looking back at it, as if expecting it to fall to pieces at any moment. You wonder how long he'd had it for, and why he insisted on bringing it along with him if he thought this would have been a romantic evening. Maybe he was hoping to go on a couples ride with April or something. The thought of it nearly made you laugh.

"Thanks for hanging out with us on our date, guys." Casey cleared his throat, sending a dry look to you and Irma. "We really needed a chaperone for this." 

At that last bit he tossed a pointed glace April's way, who whistled as she pretended to hear nothing.

"Anything I can do to help." Irma responded, nonplussed.

"Who said that was supposed to be a date, Jones?" You questioned whilst playing with your hoodie strings. "Pretty sure I heard April call it a hang out when she asked me to come."

You heard the squeak of his bike hesitate before continuing, most likely taking your words with a grain of salt. He might have responded to your poking if two shadows hadn't darted out onto the sidewalk, stopping Casey dead in his tracks.

The beady red eyes of a rat stared curiously at you all as the hockey player jumped three feet in the air, immediately pushing his bike out in front of him as a makeshift barrier. It skittered off once deciding you weren't of any use, disappearing down a sewer drain.

"I can't believe someone as big as you is afraid of a little rat!" Irma smirked. Or smiled. You could never tell with her. Casey just growled in response.

"Well I can't believe that rat was afraid of this adorable kitty!" April kneeled to the ground in-between Casey and Irma's bickering, picking up a mangy tabby that looked like it had seen better days. It yowled a little at her touch, squirming uncomfortably. You hadn't seen the animal before, but now there was no doubt in your mind that that's what the rat was running from. 

"Give it here." You held your hand out to April, then hesitated and repeated yourself in a softer tone. She looked at the cat and then you before shrugging, handing it over. 

Immediately after securing your hold, you picked it up by the scruff. It's fussing ceased, and you took the moment to run a hand down its neck, all the way to the back of its tail. After a moment or two, it began to purr like a well oiled machine, leaning into you.

"Wow! You're really good with animals." April awed with her hands clasped. 

"Not really. Raph tried to kill me when I first met him, remember?" You offhandedly mentioned, still running a concentrated hand down the cats back.

"Who's Raph? Is that your dog?"

You stilled as Casey and April exchanged nervous looks. No one answered Irma's question for a second, surely garnering suspicion from the fourth party.

"Uh, sure Irma. My dog."

"Hm." She pushed her glasses up and squinted at you. "What breed is he?"

You blinked. Your hand came down on the cat a bit harsher this time, resulting in a hiss to sound.

"He's a poodle!" April cut in. "Now can we get a move on? It's getting kind of cold." She looked happy to change the subject, even faking a shiver for effect.

"Sure. Your place this time April?" Irma said as she smoothed out nonexistent wrinkles along her skirt.

"Actually, I was hoping me and Red here could head off. You know. Alone." Casey slung an arm around April with a less than genuine gap toothed smile.

"If alone means with me and April, then yeah." You pointed a finger to yourself, and then your friend as you spoke. You didn't miss the way she tossed you a thankful look. "We've got to find some place for this cat, and I'm not exactly fond of bringing it home to my parents. They've already got their hands full with, er, Raph."

Irma stared at you all unimpressed. April tossed her a sheepish smile while hopping on the back of Casey's bike, the former looking happy at the premise of her holding his waist. You just rolled your eyes.

"Sure. I'll walk beside you guys. No biggie." You pretended to complain.

"Hey, did you want to be the one to hold onto Casey's back?"

"Never mind. Carry on."

The three of you parted from Irma, tossing separate waves of your own back at the girl as she grew farther away. Her deadpan look never once faded.

"So. We're all thinking of bringing this to the guys, right?"

April and you nodded at Casey, immediately steering towards the closest alleyway as soon as Irma could no longer be seen. The cat stiffened in your arms at the change in scenery and you resisted the urge to calm it with a coo. Instead of petting it further, you decided to set the cat down at your feet, giving it a little chin scratch when it complied. A cough was the thing to break your gaze away from the feline's shining eyes.

"Having fun you two?" Casey said smugly. You glared at him as he parked his bike and leaned it against an alley wall.

"Stuff it Jones." You flipped him off, starting forward to where April was wrestling with the manhole. The cat followed, rubbing against your legs happily.

None of you heard the distant scream as you slid the cover open, slipping into total darkness.

You had come to expect an overwhelming greeting anytime you showed up.

Mikey launched himself out of Donnie's lab the second he'd heard your voice. Never mind that you were talking with Leo, nodding your approval at the showing of Space Heroes on TV. You weren't even sure that Mikey had registered any of that. Once he had his sights set on something, he was like a missile. A very loud, very playful missile.

As soon as you stepped foot away from the subway entrance and into the lairs main room, you were tackled with an exhale of air, falling over while somehow managing to avoid the cat that had been following you all the way down here. An impressive feat, considering that you normally just tip over whatever which way Mikey comes from.

"You're back!" Mikey screamed your name, hitting his forehead on your chest with a frantic smile. "We thought we'd scared you off!"

After a few weak growls for him to 'get the hell off me Michelangelo', you stood up and brushed yourself off. Mikey bounced excitedly all around you, thankfully not touching.

"Don't worry bud. It'll take a lot more than just some mushrooms to get rid of me." You eventually answered, looking very unsurprised for someone that had just been tackled by a hundred pounds of turtle. 

"Yeah! I bet you eat mushrooms for breakfast!" Mikey struck a very crude ninja pose. Something that almost made you laugh, considering he was an actual ninja.

"That's what humans do Mikey. They literally eat mushrooms with their breakfast." Leo called from the couch. You couldn't see his face from where you were standing, but you could practically hear the sigh in his voice.

"Oh." 

"I know what you meant. Don't worry dude." You waved it off. Mikey's smile returned in no time flat, and you could see questions about the cat bubbling in his throat as he moved on. You were quick to start moving, not really up for a tirade of questions at the moment.

The turtle skipped after you as you headed in the direction of Donatello's lab. His door was still ajar from when Mikey had sprung out of it, and you could hear the faint clinking of lab equipment drifting from it.

"Did anyone order a flea infested cat?" You said as you strolled in, ignoring the many warning signs plastered around the room screaming at you to not enter.

You watched as Donnie looked up from whatever he was doing with a glowing green beaker, face breaking out into a smile at the sight of you. For a moment you did your best attempt to smile back, and it seemed to only increase the size of his. At least before his eyes dropped to the animal you were guiding.

"Hey hey hey! Don't bring that thing in here!" His arms immediately shot out to cover any of the open substances he was dealing with. You paid no mind to him, just strolling over to the opposite side of his desk and leaning against it.

"What. The cat or Mikey?"

"Both!"

"Hey!" Mikey whined and pouted at you, still evidently hot on your trail. You snickered, picking up the cat to stroke it more.

Donnie took one more look between you and the stray before sighing. He seemingly gave up before turning back to his work, probably glad you were entertaining Mikey for a bit. It always seemed to go that way when you came down here.

"So, Angelo." You watched Mikey stick his tongue out at you at the nickname and you mirrored him. "How do you feel about getting a new pet?"

"Seriously?!" He gasped. Donnie stiffened from where he was sitting but didn't turn around.

"Yeah." You shrugged. "We found 'em up top, and they seem to be tame enough. You might want to make sure they get some shots though. For worms and all."

You knew everything you were saying was going one ear and out the other for Michelangelo as he reached out to pluck the cat from your arms. He looked at it with stars in his eyes, positively elated at the premise of a pet.

"Aww look at you!" He gushed before proceeding to spout ooey gooey nonsense at the animal. You pretended to be annoyed, and heard a faint chuckle come from Donnie.

"Hey, Dee?" You yawned as you felt the after effects of the pizza taking hold of you, stretching your arms above your head. "Before you ask, April's here with me. She’s outside talking to Ralph.” You didn't even need to turn around to know that the crashing sound you heard was probably Donnie falling out of his chair with a dopey smile.

"So is Casey." You finished with a slight smirk. Looking back, Donnie glared at you as he pulled himself up, cheeks still tinted red.

"You just had to add that part in last didn't you?"

"Save the best for last as they say!" The confident call of Casey came from the doorway. You looked over to see him leaning against it, trying his best to look what he most likely thought was cool as April strolled right past him.

"Hey my dudes!" Mikey popped up from somewhere behind you to wave frantically at them. He was holding ice cream for some reason now. You'd learned not to question his ways a long time ago.

"I see you've already introduced them to the little guy we found on the streets." April smiled. You rolled your eyes as Donatello made heart eyes at her, stuttering something about how charitable she was. Barf.

"Can we keep her Donnie?" An excited Mikey squealed.

"You know, Master Splinter is a rat." The question from his brother seemed to snap some temporary sense into him, turning in place to cock and eyebrow.

"Yeah! What if that cat goes nuts and attacks him! She'll feed off his body for months!"

"Thanks for the visual, Casey." You walked over to flick him on the crown of his head. A few panicked noises and thumps came from behind you, but you were too busy relishing in the look on Casey's face to notice. 

"Alright, well you guys have fun. I'm going to raid your fridge." You stuffed your hands in your pockets and rocked on the balls of your feet. Faintly you noticed Mikey rush out of the room with something in his hands.

"But we just ate?" April tilted her head at you. You smiled at her without any real emotion.

"I never said I was going to eat anything. Just save it for later."

"I guess I'll come with you." Donnie looked at the wall above you, no doubt checking the time on a clock he had fastened out of junk. "I could use a break."

"Sure." You shrugged and turned. "You guys going to stick around the lab or—" The last bit was directed at Casey and April, but they just shook their heads and began to follow you out. On the way to the kitchen you were all joined by Leo and Raph, eventually reaching the kitchen table.

"Mikey, please for the love of god stop making out with the fridge." You didn't spare anyone a second look before balancing on your tiptoes to open a cabinet. Rustling around, you came up with a bag of marshmallows. Letting a celebratory smile loose, you stuffed it in your hoodie pocket for later. Too busy focusing on our find, you missed the pause in the room as a new figure sulked into the kitchen.

"Master? Are you okay?"

You turned around. True to Leo's question, Splinter was lumbering into the room. And not looking too hot. You noticed he lacked his usual poise. Instead, he was slouching and blinking slowly. He looked groggy, and you wondered for a moment if mutant rats could have nightmares.

"I need ice for my head." He mumbled in the direction of the fridge. "And also possibly a cheese-cicle."

"Cheese-cicle?" You asked Casey from out the side of your mouth. He shook his head with a look that told you he knew about as much as you did.

"No sensei! You can't!"

All of you watched as Mikey slammed the freezer door on Splinter. The speed of it took even you by surprise. Either he had become self aware of the cost of electricity, or Mikey'd lost his mind.

"No?" The room seemed to ice over with the amount of coldness in Splinter's voice. Your eyes grew big, and you resisted the urge to start snacking on the marshmallows like a bag of popcorn at the movies. Probably not the most appropriate time for that.

“You tell me no?" Splinter was hissing now. Any joke you would have made flew out of the kitchen— kind of like Mikey's body as Splinter sent a punch to his plastron.

"Jesus fucking christ!" You scrambled back, your own cry getting lost in everyone else's as they yelled with surprise.

Splinter lowered to his arms and legs wildly, and you managed to get a glimpse at his eyes as he did so.

Normally, they were the exact same color as Donnie's. But now, they were covered in a sharp red film. Much like the rat that had crossed your path not too long ago on the surface.

Everyone scrambled in different directions as Splinter launched himself around the room, yourself included. You found yourself up on top of the fridge somehow, looking down with eyes as big as saucers at the scene before you. The thought of the taser you carried around with you crossed your mind, and you immediately felt guilty afterwards. This was Master Splinter. The guy who had made you feel the safest down here after meeting them. And you had just contemplated shocking him.

You didn't have long to feel guilty though. The turtles all eventually wised up and lunged at their master, pinning all four of his limbs to the kitchen table with difficulty. He continued to writhe violently and a bead of sweat rolled down your neck.

"Would it help if I jumped down onto his chest?" You yelled out, trying to find some way to help. You were met with an astounding amount of loud no's as an answer.

A few more moments of grunting and struggling played out before you. It didn't take long for Splinter, or whatever had taken his place, to gain the upper hand. Kicking everyone away, he sprung up onto his legs again.

"I have got what I came for." A slight echo tinged his voice. It felt like your skull rattled with the force of it. “Soon New York, then the world, will be mine!"

It was then he collapsed, and you finally allowed yourself to clamber down from the top of the fridge. Dust littered the bottom of your arms and legs from how you had been clinging onto it.

"Master, are you okay?" Leonardo was the first to approach him. April next, asking the same exact thing. Splinter grunted lowly in response. You waited with baited breath from him to open his eyes.

You let out a sigh when he did. They were back to brown again.

"The Rat King." Splinter uttered somberly. "He has returned."

You noticed everyone but Casey exchanged looks with each other, looking very disturbed at this news. A brief moment of silence swept over the room.

You blinked twice before speaking.

"The rat who?"

The lair's TV screen blared in front of you. Images of giant rats crossed the screen, and your eyes were trained on a very shrewd looking blonde reporter. 

You and Casey had been filled in during the amount of time it took to help Splinter from the kitchen counter to the living room. Tales of mind control, scientists turned into monkeys, and thousands of rats danced around in your head. You looked no worse than Casey at the news, who had done a horrible job at containing his horror when he learned about a literal rat army. All of this had been just in time for Leo to turn on the television, the headline of "GIANT RATS TERRORIZE DOWNTOWN NEW YORK!" blaring across the screen.

You had barely begun to wonder how the news was still on air when a mutated rat launched itself at the reporter. She dropped to the ground with a scream, and the feed cut to static before you were able to see if she was okay.

"Why did it have to be giant rats." Casey moaned as he flopped onto the couch.

"Er, maybe you should sit this one out Casey." April suggested with a wince. Beside you, Donatello allowed himself a smile.

"Do you think a brigade of tasers could take those things down?" You half heartedly asked no one in particular. Raph crossed his arms and shook his head in your peripheral. You slumped from your spot on the floor with a frown. He patted your shoulder hesitantly. Maybe you could kick them to death instead.

"Donnie, are you sure you can't build a giant mouse trap?" 

"Please don't subject my intelligence to something so meaningless." Donnie said your name, rolling his eyes as he messed with his t-phone.

"I bet you'd do it if April asked." You spoke into your hand, not caring if he heard. You heard Mikey laugh at that from somewhere in the distance. If he was anywhere near you, you would have offered him a high-five at the backup.

"Alright guys." Leo now was standing in the center of you all with his hands on his hips. He was doing what you called his Captain Ryan pose, and the sight of it made the corner of your lips twitch into a small smile. If you had to bet, he was probably imagining himself as the fictional character right now. "We need to figure out a way to fix this, and save New York."

Master Splinter stood off to the side, watching his son. His own mouth was pulled into a tight line, and he looked the most serious you had seen him in a while. You took one more moment to study him before slowly turning back to Leo.

"I have an idea.”

If there was one thing you knew for certain, it was that the turtles definitely did not have a driver's license.

A helmet clunked noisily against your head as you raced through downtown New York City. Rain pelted your vision, and you really regretted not asking for a pair of sunglasses ahead of time.

A four person race-cart sat beneath you, the seats filled by you, April, Donnie and Raph. The latter was driving, occasionally making sharp turns that would send you and Donnie clashing against each other respectively. You accidentally nailed him straight in his shell at one point, and now your elbow was throbbing something awful.

Screams floated to you from behind the cart. You knew if you turned your head, you'd see Mikey holding onto a rope and shouting his shell off, skating like his life depended on it. Which, technically you guess it did.

The final piece de resistance was the giant foam cheese hat strapped to the top of his head. While you got fitted with an orange helmet that smelled faintly of pizza and sweat, he had been wrestled to the ground and forced to wear the yellow abomination. Apparently he was to be the bait for the giant rats, something that you got the feeling happened very often with him. The bait part you mean. Not giant rats. Apparently that was only a two time thing.

Casey was biking around somewhere a few blocks off, hitting stray mutants in the snout with his trusty hockey sticks. The only reason you knew he was still alive and kicking was the faint sounds of shrill screams bouncing off surrounding buildings. You might have laughed if you didn't feel like doing the same thing.

Another tight turn sent you face first into Donnie's lap. With a temper as hot as Raph's own, you scrambled up and yelled at the reckless driver to watch it. You didn't even spare a glance at Donnie, skipping over how a deep green hue tinted his cheeks.

"You try steering in this traffic!" Raphael shouted right back at you. You proceeded to make some not so nice gestures with your hands that April frowned at, the rain making you shake slightly in the cold, before falling back into your seat and awaiting part two of the plan. Something you'd named Grab That Turtle.

Finally, Mikey got close enough to the bumper where you could grab his hand. With more effort than it would probably take a normal person, you snatched him up and into the cart. The result was a lovely three person dog pile in the back seat; something that you quickly remedied by pinching Mikey in the arms until he got himself and Donnie off of you.

You didn't even stop to yell at them, too busy being concerned about the situation at hand to worry about that. With a grunt, you pulled out your taser to send a volt of electricity at a rat that had gotten too close, whooping excitedly when it yelped and fell back. It was nothing like what any of the turtles could have done, but that didn't stop you from feeling way too proud of yourself.

Your moment of celebration was cut short only when you noticed that you were no longer in the race-cart.

You only had a few seconds to regret not wearing your seatbelt before the blood started to flow. Cuts formed all along your face and arms as you tumbled out of the cart and face first into grimy asphalt below. You'd never wanted to discover what street tasted like, but you don't think you'd ever be able to forget it now.

Gravel found its way into your mouth and you felt something pop in your back as a slimy paw trodded on you. Before you could even gather enough strength to push yourself onto your hands and knees, a beak that felt way too sharp for a rat closed around your middle.

Preparing for a quick snip and searing pain, you closed your eyes and grit your teeth. When it didn't come, you peaked an eye open. It was with much shock that you realized the rat that had entrapped you wasn't attempting to eat you. Rather carry you, it seemed. Granted, it wasn't being the gentlest about it, but neither were you when you zapped it's brother.

At the thought of your weapon, you squirmed to try and reach it. Your attempts were stopped by the giant bite around you increasing in strength, practically cutting off all circulation in your arms now.

"Jesus! Fine, I'll stop!" You snapped. It responded by dropping you and kicking you forward, growling when you hissed at it in pain.

For the second time that day, the world fell out from beneath you. Where the street should have been, a giant hole gaped. In the split second it took for you to fall through it, you recognized it as an entrance into the sewers.

"Urgh." Was all you could manage to say as the giant rat slid down the same hole, landing directly on top of you. Something made a loud cracking sound, and it was only after you felt the back of your head that you realized it had been you.

Your fingers came back tinted red, shining. You glared at it, something nonsensical making its way out of your mouth as you began to go cross eyes.

And then nothing.

You awoke in a cage, next to the last person you wanted to see at the moment.

A spray painted mask stared back at you as you lifted your head up. Black and white hues swam through your muddled vision, and it took you a second to fully recognize it.

"God damnit." You groaned and rolled over. Of course Casey had been caught too. Now instead of just him, the turtles had to rescue you too. Way to go.

Before you could say anything else, your mouth was quickly covered. With half a mind to bite him, you growled. Casey just hit you in the head and not so subtly pointed next to you. When you turned, you were met with the sight of Irma, who looked thoroughly confused.

The place all of you sat suspended above smelled horrible, and looked worse. You were sure you seemed right at home with your torn clothes and hair matted with blood. Casey didn't look that good either, giant bite marks littering his protective hockey gear.

Miraculously, Irma didn't have a single scratch on her. The only sign she was even witnessing the same thing as you was the telltale quiver of fear in her eyes.

"Irma?" You questioned with a blink. "What are you doing here?"

"Remember how we went out for pizza?" She frowned. Your eyes caught a wobble in her lower lip as she did so.

You nodded.

"I got attacked by a giant rat thing after you left. I tried screaming, but no one was around to help." 

You resisted the urge to wince at that last part. Yowch. That had totally been you guy's fault. It seemed like she knew it too. You'd have to take her out for lunch after this or something to make up for it.

"Hey, at least most of us are together now." You reasoned, looking over at Casey with a nod. "We can probably try to find a way ou—"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never seen the two of you before." Casey grumbled, his voice a much deeper, and much faker octave. You looked over at him with a crazed look in your eyes, not up for games. He just stared right back at you, silently gesturing to himself, his mask, and then a confused Irma while you watched.

"Fine. Whatever. Just, fucking, whatever mystery man." You grabbed the cage bars and hit your head against them twice before stopping.

"That won't work." Irma motioned to your head banging and did her signature move of pushing her glasses up. "I've been down here practically all day. Nothing budges these cages."

At the mention of more cages, you looked past your own to the outside. Sure enough, dangling a good ten feet off the ground and even more away from you, hung other people in mesh boxes just as reinforced as yours. Some cried, while most just looked horrified. They all shared that one thing in common, and you were sure they wished they didn't. 

"Welcome esteemed guests."

"Oh please don't tell me—" You groaned lowly.

"There's no need to fear, I will not hurt you. That I promise." A chuckle rang darkly through the room— cavern? it felt more like a cavern —that you were being kept in. You didn't have to think hard to figure out who it belonged to. Their voice already reeked with enough pretentiousness.

Sure enough, when the figure stepped out of hiding and into the light, you got a good look at what had been described to you back at the lair. Tall, covered in bandages, and sporting a horrible choice of a trench coat. You barely held yourself back from outwardly insulting him, figuring that it probably wasn't the best way to go undetected. Casey didn't seem to share your carefully thought out sentiment.

"Let us out of here you freak!" He said, still donning his modified voice as he shook the bars to the cage. You kicked him in the back of the knee. A universal sign recognized all over the world to shut the hell up.

"All in good time." The Rat King echoed back. 

You groaned and massaged your temples. This was really going to give you another tension headache, wasn't it? Or maybe this was coming from when you had banged your head on the bars earlier.

You were left wishing for some Tylenol as your captor dove into an explanation, calmly explaining how he had come to capture you. Something about rats, mutagen, science, rats, rats, his intelligence, and more rats. Maybe. You stopped listening half way through and started feeling around the cage for anything sharp. 

Right as you thought your search would turn out to be fruitless, your hand brushed against the bulk of your waistline. Cool metal met your hand, and with a start, you realized that they hadn't taken your taser.

They hadn't taken your taser.

Wracking your mind all the way back to after Splinter freaked out, you remembered the turtles telling you something. About how the Rat King used to be normal before a freak electrical fire left him blind., now only able to see through the eyes of rats.

Your hand tightened around the base of the taser. The words electrical fire bounced around in your head.

If a shock got him into all this, maybe a shock could get him out of it.

You paid no attention to Irma as she dropped to the floor in a fainting stupor. The adrenaline and lack of food getting to her probably. You only felt somewhat guilty for your flippant attitude toward her well being. 

Tapping Casey on his shoulder, you held a finger up to your lips. Even with his mask on, you could feel the confusion coming off of him in waves as you gestured down to your pants.

"Uh. Dude, you know I sort of have a thing with Red right?" He laughed awkwardly, stepping away. You glared at him with the force of a thousand suns before lifting up your hoodie to reveal the head of your taser. Pointing at the Rat King, you watched as his eyes widened in realization.

"I know you have something similar in those goalie gloves of yours Casey." You murmured. "When it's our turn for whatever he's planning, let the rats drag us. And when he gets close enough for us to touch him, we zap."

"You think that will work?" Casey shuddered. You could only imagine that he was thinking about being touched by those rats again— and voluntarily this time.

"It better. If not, it might buy us enough time for the others to get here." You cracked your knuckles nervously. The look that Casey gave you made you tilt your head.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just forget how scary you can get when you're not yelling at me." He rubbed the back of his neck. "The guys should really start letting you come on missions with us."

You snorted and went to say something else. Maybe that he was crazy, or that you didn't quite hate the sound of that. Whatever it was going to be, you were cut off by the clashing of metal against metal.

The door to your cage swung open, and a furry paw grabbed you by the face. Struggling to breathe through the musk of rat droppings coming from the living restraint around your face, you weren't aware that you were being lifted off the ground and dragged in the nearest direction of the Rat King's makeshift lab.

Somewhere in the shadows, six sets of hidden eyes widened. One began to turn red.

"Here we have our first volunteer for the serum." A needle came into view as the giant mutated rat dropped you. Brown fur stuck to the inside of your mouth as you sputtered like a fish out of water. Various cries for you to watch out came from the surrounding cages, New Yorkers feeling powerless while watching a teenager get stalked by a needle.

You grasped blindly at your waist. For a horrific split second, you could smell the sourness of his breath as he approached you. Then you felt your fingers close down around plastic.

Flipping the switch on your taser, you sat up and poked him in the eyes with two fingers. Predictably, it did nothing but make him grunt in annoyance. But it was to his detriment. The action gave you enough time to scramble up and point your weapon at his face, rushing forward and sticking it right on the front of his forehead.

"Eat this." You said angrily. Not exactly action hero movie material, but there would be plenty of time to worry about that later.

Blue light lit up his head and upper torso in a painful sparkle. Rats from all around screamed and squealed as their master fell to his knees, clawing at his face. Somewhere amongst all the tiny cries, you thought you heard a much larger one yell, and then a scuffle.

Your chest heaved as you turned on your heel to climb back up over the cage you had just been sitting in. An enraged cry followed your movements, and you were sure thousands of rats were now surging in your direction like an angry tsunami. Your only hope was that the zap had slowed all of them down, and not just the Rat King.

You began to shimmy up the rope keeping Casey and Irma from falling. Old cuts from tumbling on the street earlier opened back up, and they stained the ends of your sleeves.

During the amount of time it had taken for you to get to the top of the rope, a fight had broken out underneath you. A part of your mind hoped it was Casey holding his own, and the other part really hoped it wasn't. You weren't sure how long his hockey sticks would hold under a tidal wave of sharp teeth and wormy tails.

Sparing a look down, your eyes were assaulted with flashes of green and silver. Surprise over took your features as you watched your four turtle friends emerge from the shadows, weapons batting away any adversary that dared to attack.

And was that—?

"Master Splinter?" You choked, and slipped down the rope slightly before scaling back up.

The sensei, sure enough, was in the midst of all the separate battles. He appeared to be fighting with himself, clutching the sides of his head as he stumbled around.

A loud call of your name tore your gaze away from him, coming to settle on a struggling Mikey. He was balancing a single nunchuck in one hand, and a blob of pink white and brown in the other.

"Mikey!" You yelled back, still hanging on to avoid the swarm of rats approaching. "Is that the cat? What the hell is going on!"

"We were coming to save you—" He stopped talking as he dodged another wave of rats before popping back up. "—and then sensei just went crazy! He's chasing after the Rat King now!"

You noticed that Mikey purposefully didn't answer your question about the cat, instead just smiling innocently. Filing it away for later, you continued to make frantic conversation.

"Is there anything I can do!?"

"Help get everyone out of these cages! We can't let any of the civilians see us!" Leonardo butted in from somewhere. You couldn't see him, but it sounded like he was wrestling with something. Nonetheless, you nodded, and positioned yourself in preparation to jump off the rope.

It worked. With difficulty, you managed to land on the top of another cage near Casey and Irma's. It teetered dangerously in the air, and you swung your hands in a windmill like fashion to avoid falling off.

Grabbing at a lone rat that managed to run over your foot, you held it to the base of the rope. It squirmed in your clutch angrily before latching onto the fibers and chewing. It didn't take long before breaking through it, and you barely managed to grab onto the end of the rope as it separated itself from the cage.

The cage fell to the ground in a heap. Smiling, you watched the door's lock break on impact, and its captors rush out. They looked back up at you for a second, and you gestured at them to go.

"Help the others if you can!" Was all you had time to say before swinging over to another cage.

Rope after rope snapped under your efforts, and cages fell from the sky like rain from heavy clouds. By the time you had reached the last one, you hadn't even noticed that the fighting below had stopped. Now that all of the people had fled, the giant rats lay defeated all over the ground.

You dropped from the last rope, chucking the rat you had been using as a makeshift saw into the distance, sincerely hoping that the stupid Rat King felt that.

"I think that's the last of them." Raph spoke. You saw him and his brothers perched on a ledge above you, and waved in exhaustion. Mikey was the only one to wave back, and what you now knew as his cat from earlier copied the movement.

"What about master Splinter?" Leo worried.

"He can hold his own." You piped up, bringing the rest of their attention down to you. "And I'm pretty sure he's already won. I don't see any more rats scurrying around after all. Either the mental link has been broken, or your dad beat the Rat King."

The boys seemed to consider your words. Leaping down next to you, they all watched as Donatello placed a hand on your head briefly.

"You did a good job helping today." He grinned good naturedly at you as you swiped at his hands, trying desperately to fix your hair. His smile only grew as you stuck your tongue out at him.

"Whatever. Can we leave now? I'm about done with search and rescue missions for today."

Murmurs of agreement rang out, and you all started towards the exit and back to the lair. All you could think about as the turtles bragged to each other about their performances was a nice long nap. Preferably on their couch. Their nice, soft couch.

Master Splinter returned late into the night. His robe was dirty, and paws aching. But his heart lightened at the sight before him; all of his sons curled up in a deep sleep as you yourself snored on the living room floor. April and Casey weren't far off, slumped over in a sitting position as they slept.

Grabbing the remote from Leonardo's limp hand, he turned the TV's volume down. A quiet snort came from you, and Splinter watched as you reached out to grab at something. A soft smile spread across his face as you latched onto the nearest thing, which just so happened to be Donnie's leg, and began to lean into it.

"Rest well my children." He surveyed you all, eyes shining. "You have done well today."

The door to his dojo swung shut without a sound, and Splinter fell into a deep slumber of his own.

Chapter Text

Donatello was stumped.

For the past few days, he had been locked in his lab. The heavy metal doors that separated him from the rest of his family only ever opened for food and water to pass through its confinements, swinging shut as soon as the transaction had been completed.

The turtle had been tinkering nonstop with some new Kraang technology. After the most recent bust of one of their warehouses sprinkled across New York, Mikey had spotted an odd glowing staff amongst a pile of junk. It had been labeled in a language Donnie couldn’t decipher, and he had snatched it up for later, scolding his younger brother for playing lightsabers with it. Leo and Raph had waved the staff off without so much as a second glance, claiming that there were much more important things to do than look at a glorified scrap of metal.

That glorified scrap of metal, so to speak, is what he had been messing with for nearly four days. The detailed engravings on it were starting to blur under his gaze now, and the shine of metal from his room’s dull light left imprints on the inside of his eyelids.

“If I just apply the correct amount of pressure—" He mumbled quietly, rubbing at his eyes slowly. Dark purple bags hung underneath them, and if Raph were there, Donnie was sure he would have made a smart-ass comment about his appearance.

Without warning, a loud crash from the room over shook his lab. Donnie yelped at the unwelcome surprise and was sent bumping into his work table. Glass tubes clinked against each other noisily while he attempted to balance himself on one foot. From its place on the left of his desk, the staff clumsily teetered off the edge in a crude game of see-saw. With one more sigh from Donatello as the shaking stopped, it tipped, falling to the ground with a clatter.

It was scooped up in one quick motion and placed back on the desks surface, now glowing a faint purple as Donatello handled it. He barely spared it a moment's notice before rushing off in the direction of his doors.

“Mikey!” He yelled angrily through the crack he had made. “Would you keep it down?! You almost broke my experiment!”

“How do you know it was me, dude?” A whiney voice answered back.

“Because you’re the only one stupid enough to make that noise!"

Some more words were tossed back and forth between the two before Donatello ended the conversation by slamming the door on his brother. From behind it, he missed the way Mikey blew a fierce raspberry at him as he went back to his own activities.

Grumbling to himself, the teenager stalked back over to his desk. With a huff he flopped in the one good rollie chair he had left and sat lamely as it squeaked around in a circle. Taking a moment to massage at his temples, he only noticed the empty space on his table after he took out his microscope in preparation for another round of tests.

“Hey. Where did the staff go?”

None of the other brothers noticed the purplish-pink ray of light that shone through the crack of his lab door.

The sewers always stunk when you first climbed down into them. You didn't think that would ever change.

Pinching your nose as you oh so carefully descended into water reeking of filth, you looked down at your cracked phone screen one last time. A very poorly spelled text stared back, the words Michelangelo hovering above its contents. With one more furrow of your brows, you attempted to read it, coming up with nothing for the umpteenth time. All you knew was that it sounded urgent, and had a million exclamation points tacked onto the end. Which, knowing Mikey, could either mean his favorite show had just been canceled, or that the world was about to end. You really hoped it was the first this time.

You had been walking downtown when the message came through. The trip was an aimless journey, really. You had nothing to do besides sit up in your room all day and look at the graying clouds. April and Casey were off doing their own things, hockey practice and calculus tutoring taking up time that could have otherwise been spent goofing off with you. Or at least snagging some pizza at Antonio’s.

With the promise of a day full of nothing hanging over your shoulders, you'd grabbed a jacket and set off into New York, sincerely hoping that it didn't start to rain anytime soon. Your umbrella had broken last month after someone ran over it with their bike, and you were still angry about it. The print on it had been green and plastered with the cartoony image of snapping turtles. It was part of the reason you had begged to get it as a child. A bit ironic, now that you look back on it.

Your footsteps slowed as you reached the entrance to a hallway that you were slowly getting more and more familiar with. Light breached your vision as you pried at a large metal door in the shape of a circle. A proud smile spread across your face as you stepped back enough to let it fully give way. The first time you’d tried that on your own, you’d ended up flat on your backside as Casey laughed nonstop from his place over you.

Climbing into the lairs entrance was the easy part. Making it a step further was the problem.

“Good! You’re here!” You just barely managed to catch a glimpse of a frantic green figure running around, chasing after someone that would occasionally let out a happy giggle.

“Raph?” You questioned the one out of the two you could recognize. Your brain felt as if it was running at half the speed it normally did. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

Raphael grunted as he went to answer your question, but forewent the notion to tackle the figure he had been chasing to the ground. A loud oomph left his lips, and you wondered why he hadn’t just used his sai's to corner them.

“No time to explain.” He snapped with a huff. “Just help me find the other Donnies.”

“Other Donnies?”

You blinked, watching closer this time as he struggled to keep a hold on the happily squirming figure underneath him. Once you got past the initial shock of having Raph body slam someone to the ground two seconds after you showed up, you got a better look at the person he had pinned. Sure enough, it was Donatello. But at the same time, much much different.

Instead of a purple bandana, a yellow one sat wrapped around his eyes, right above the happiest smile you’d ever seen come from someone. You noticed he also seemed to be devoid of his usual bo staff; something he was almost never without.

This turtle had a faint spray of freckles underneath his eyes, and it reminded you of his younger brother. Donnie's normally pristine elbow pads were smudged with soot and water. You recalled a time he had gotten upset with Leo for messing with his leather accessories.

Your eyes continued to sweep over this new addition to the Hamato family. It was like someone had taken your friend and molded him into someone completely new.

“Tag! You’re it!” This new version of Donnie happily laughed, coming up and hitting Raph between the eyes with a soft boop. His brother's eyes crossed for a moment before growing and looking at you.

“Get the idea now, genius?” He glowered.

“Am I supposed to believe that he—" You lamely gestured at the yellow Donnie “—is your brother?”

“No! That’s the whole point! I don’t know what Donnie did with that Kraang thing, but now we’ve got five of him running around and they're all crazy!”

When he mentioned the Kraang, you winced. You’d run into them and their oddly humanoid robots a few times before, and were not eager to repeat the process. Last time, it had ended up with a batch of glowing green liquid just barely missing your face.

“So there’s four more of them?” You asked. By now you were approaching Raph, who was tying up the giggling Donatello with rope he pulled from who knows where.

“Yeah.” He tied off the end of a knot gruffly. “Mikey and Leo are handling some of the others right now, but there’s not enough of us.”

“So you called me.” The tone of your voice was very unimpressed as you stared down at him. He returned the look mockingly.

“Yeah, idiot. It’s not like we know anyone else that can help with this.” He stated like it was a fact.

“Uhm, hello? April? Casey? Your dad of all people?”

“Splinter is in a deep meditation session today. And I don't think April or Casey would want to help with this too much.” Raphael brushed off the edges of his shell as he stood. You wanted to tell him that it didn’t do too much for his appearance, considering the giant crack zigzagging down the front of his plastron, but thought better of it.

“How do you figure?” Was what you settled on.

“Have you seen the way Donnie looks at April?” Raph squinted at you knowingly. “He’s practically a lovesick puppy when it comes to her. We don’t need that right now. It’ll probably end with a turf war between the five of them over her.” A pause. “And Casey would just end up messing things up more than helping.” He added the last part as an afterthought, and you shrugged as if to say ‘fair enough’.

“April? Oh, I love April!” The Donatello lookalike on the ground gasped. Both you and Raph glanced down at him. Besides a few bubbly giggles, he had been so quiet the past few minutes that you’d almost forgotten he was there.

“We know, wise guy.” Raphael pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Or, at least what you thought was the bridge of his nose. You really couldn’t tell with them.

“Yeah!” Yellow Donnie beamed. “She’s such a great friend! I’m so lucky to have met her.”

At the word friend, you choked. Slowly, as if you had imagined it, you turned to look at Raph with a confused expression, finding him already doing the same thing.

“Okay. Something is very wrong with him.” You stated carefully. Like you were talking to a tiny child. Raph nodded, outwardly cringing as he looked back down at the copy and paste of his brother.

“Come on.” He poked at them with the edge of his foot, “Let’s find the others. See if we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

The best way you could adjust to the scene in front of you was with a few seconds of poorly timed surprise.

Raph didn’t stop as you tripped over your own feet, tugging the yellow Donatello along behind him and into the originals lab. Briefly, you wondered if there was a better name you could give the new turtle, and filed the thought away for later.

A part of you had hoped that Raphael was lying, and that this whole thing had been a giant misunderstanding. You wouldn’t put it past the four brothers to get themselves into a load of trouble, only to realize after that it had been entirely their faults. Again.

Four more carbon copies of Donatello sat in various spots around the room. In a weird way, it was like you were looking at a mirror maze with Donnie in the center of it all— his outline projected into each corner of the room. All but one of the clones were tied up, and you took a moment to get a good look at each of them.

Michelangelo was crouched next to someone with a deep blue bandana; not yellow or purple this time. It threw you for a loop to see that color on anyone but Leo, and you knew it would take a moment to get used to it. Besides that, the Donatello didn’t appear to be doing anything completely out of the ordinary. He was simply sniffling in his confines, staring at Mikey with big eyes while he talked. His eyes were glassy, and it looked like he was on the verge of tears.

Opposite the room was another version of Donnie. He had on a bright green bandana that stood out against his more muted skin tone. No one stood next to him as he clutched his legs to his chest tightly— not that he had much of a choice, considering the rope around them. He made small rocking motions, going back and forth while his eyes darted around the room frantically. A little pang of sympathy struck you, and you immediately squashed it under the reminder that these guys had taken the place of your Donatello.

Raphael tossed the smiling turtle he had caught down next to someone else you couldn’t see. Positioning your neck to crane over Raph’s shoulder, you grimaced at the sight of an extremely dopey looking Donatello. He seemed to be a more tame version. Much like his yellow counterpart, he was smiling impossibly wide, but instead of insisting on a game of friendly tag, he appeared to be staring off into the distance, occasionally mumbling something to himself as he practically made heart eyes at a brick wall. Just looking at him made your lip curl into a grimace.

“What’s his deal?” You murmured. Raph looked back with a shrug.

“He ran out of here looking like that. Asked where you were when we found him. Been pretty quiet ever since.” He offered. One of your eyebrows practically shot into your hairline at his words, and stayed there as he glanced at you from the corner of his eye.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Raph rolled his eyes. “I know just as much as you do, toots.”

Sticking a finger into your mouth, you pretended to vomit at the nickname. Raph hit you on the top of the head, and you quit the theatrics to take a swipe at him.

“Raph.” A stern voice interrupted both of you, bringing your attention over to a more familiar face. Although, at this point, you were getting plenty familiar with Donnie's.

“Sorry Leo.” Raphael addressed his brother with a grunt. In the second he took to answer, Raph seemed to become more stiff, and you instinctively felt the urge to mimic it. Following his line of sight from behind his shell, you found the source of his discomfort.

A fifth and final Donatello sat on top of the originals desktop, legs spread and arms propped gallantly on top of them as he glowered at everything. A singular, vibrant strip of red fabric encased his face, and it looked more like a stripe of fresh blood than a mask.

His eyes flickered from each corner of the room to the next. The shade of rusty red you’d gotten used to seeing in Donnie’s eyes felt more lethal now. Cold and calculating. Like the kinds of precision dots snipers used to scope out their next kill.

This clone gave you more of a pause than any of the other Donnies had. A stray finger twitched as you felt the urge to grab at your taser, and you pushed that feeling down just in time for his steely gaze to land on you. It flickered away a mere second later, and if it had been any faster, you would have thought you imagined it.

“Good. We’re all here.” The mutant spoke firmly. It was identical to the tone that your friend used, but filled with the promise of something.. more. So much so, that your skin crawled with unease at the sound. Silently, you willed it to go away.

Leonardo stood off by the red Donatello’s side. His eyes were narrowed in concentration. He barely even nodded in your direction as a greeting before going back to watching the newcomer like a hawk. Tension sparked between them, and your mouth began to feel as dry as their air.

“I see you got stabby here to calm down.” Raph deadpanned as he spoke to Leo and Mikey, nodding once again at red Donnie; whose face had begun to sour. The copycat said nothing as he bore holes into the side of Raphael’s head.

“His name's Ronnie!” Michelangelo piped up before Leo would even get in a word. From the sigh that the leader let out, you could only deduce that they’d already had a fight over Mikey's inability to not nickname something for more than five seconds. The older turtle had apparently lost this round.

“Creative.” Raphael said sarcastically.

“Thanks dude!” Mikey preened, not catching onto the tone. “I call him that because red and Donnie makes Ronnie!”

“Wouldn’t that make his full name Ronatello?” You snickered to yourself at the sound of it, successfully bringing the attention of the so-called Ronnie to yourself. You let your laughter pitter out under his gaze.

“Enough small talk. We have much to discuss.” The red Don— Ronnie frowned. You repeated the action back in his direction, admittedly with a bit more attitude than you probably needed to.

Looking away from you with a huff, he jumped off the table in one smooth motion. For the first time, you noticed him twirling a shiny object in his hands. It resembled the bo staff that the Donatello you knew constantly hauled around, granted, with a lot of modifications. Glowing pinkish-purple symbols ran up and down the sides, and the color scheme immediately reminded you of the Kraang.

At the sight of you looking, Ronnie held it tighter.

“Listen.” He began harshly. “I don’t know why I’m here. Why we’re here. But I know we don’t belong. If any of my other counterparts had a brain, I’m sure they’d agree with me.” He sighed at the reference to everyone else in the room. Boredom crept in through his voice like a poison.

“Do you have any idea how to fix this?” Leo cleared his throat in a business-like fashion. You almost applauded him for being so calm about this, only to then notice how he’d occasionally glance at the blue Donnie’s mask with a hint of distaste. Fair enough. That was his brand, you supposed.

“No, I don't.” Ronnie bit out as the answer to Leo’s question, looking upset at just having to admit it. “If I had to guess, this had something to do with it.”

He held out the stick you’d been paying attention to earlier with conviction. Leo positioned his palm outward as if expecting Ronnie to drop it in his hands, and awkwardly drew it back when he realized that they weren’t letting go of it anytime soon.

“Donnie was messing with that a few days ago!” Mikey mentioned from somewhere next to you. He was still low to the ground, talking to the blue Donatello— who looked less like crying now, and more like he was pouting.

“I saw an episode on TV like this once.” You cut in. “This is Kraang technology, right? In the show, some guy touched a, uh, alien thing he shouldn’t have and ended up with, like, split personalities. In this case I guess they ended up turning into real people. Er, turtles.”

“Oh great. Thanks for the help. Now we know exactly what we have to do.” Raph rolled his eyes and said your name. This time, you were the one to deliver a hearty slap to the back of his shell. He bared his teeth at you without any real anger behind it.

"Oh jeez. That's creepy." Mikey sounded out, oblivious to the little fight you and Raph were having. The turtle was pointing at something just behind you, and you turned to see what he was talking about.

Looking down, you discovered that the pink Donnie had moved his staring contest from the wall, over to you. His mouth was hanging open wide enough to catch a dozen flies, and he had a smile on his lips that would make you think he had just seen a miracle.

You crinkled your brow suspiciously and made a face back.

“Stop it guys.” Leo directed a stern look at the both of you. You broke uncomfortable eye contact with the Donnie clone just to point at Raph as if to say he started it. Ronnie watched on, his gaze on you growing more and more unimpressed by the second.

“However juvenile the explanation, your friend may have a point.” Ronnie eventually concluded. While you most certainly didn’t appreciate the tone in which he said it, you grinned at him with an air of triumph anyways. Somewhere behind you, one of the clones— of who you were pretty sure was the yellow Donnie —praised you for doing a good job. You ignored him.

“So, what? We’ve got Donnie’s different personalities running around?” Raph chewed at his bottom lip in thought. You nodded, taking your TV show theory and running with it.

“If I had to guess, you guys are all based on his different emotions.” You directed your words to Ronnie. He raised an eyebrow and nodded, a silent motion to continue.

“Yellow probably means happiness.” A finger came up as you physically counted the doppelgängers surrounding you. “Blue for sad, hence all the crying, green for nerves, and pink for affection. But I’m spitballing on the last one.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of paranoia for the green guy.” Raph snorted. You briefly looked back at the subject of your conversation, now finding him in the fetal position, and shrugged.

“Yeah that checks out.” You nodded. “If I had to guess, Ronnie over here is something along the lines of anger or annoyance.”

At the mention of his name, Ronnie blinked blankly at you. You scoffed.

“Come on man. You’ve practically been staring daggers at everyone this entire time.”

“And he tried to kill us!” Mikey supplied you with way too much enthusiasm.

“I’m ignoring that in favor of moving on.“

As you turned back to look at him, Ronnie didn’t look any kind of soothed by your words. If anything his glowering only increased.

“Well maybe if I wasn’t surrounded by such simpletons—"

“Alright guys.” Leo butt in with his eyes screwed up. “We can argue later. For now, let’s focus on getting things back to normal.”

“More normal than living in the sewers?”

“Mikey, I think I like you better when you’re quiet.”

“Aw, you’ve been saying that for years big bro!”

Ignoring the exchange between Raphael and Mikey, Ronnie’s gaze was still locked on you. It took a bit of unrelenting eye contact for him to back down first.

You didn’t feel any better afterwards.

“Fine.” Ronnie huffed. With one last survey of you all, he turned to the more cluttered part of Donnie's lab.

“Does anyone know where to find a good microscope around here?”

It had been five hours since Ronnie had started his research with Leonardo, and you were this close to tearing your hair out.

After calming the other personalities down— and having them promise that they wouldn’t run for the hills the second you untied them —they had been released from the ropes. True to their words, none of them sprinted in the nearest direction of an exit. In fact, most of them looked pretty content to stay sat shoulder to shoulder in the living room—all gathered around a rerun of some sitcom. Green was the only exception. He hadn’t stopped chewing at his nails ever since being let out, and flinched at any approach you made to invite him over.

It was like trying to babysit four extremely tall toddlers. One minute you were calming Blue down— you had given up on nicknames beyond the colors of their masks —and the next you were shaking Pink off your leg. For some reason, that one really didn’t like to get too far from you. At this point you were considering just strapping him down again.

“I am going to kill something if they don't hurry up.” You had complained to Mikey after being sent for snacks in the kitchen. He shrugged sheepishly and went back to feeding Ice Cream kitty with sprinkles in a high pitched voice. Tossing the chilly mutant a slight wave, you pushed past the two to gather up as much food in your arms as possible.

Yellow gave you a large gapped tooth smile when you returned to drop a bag of chips into his lap. It crinkled faintly.

“Salt and vinegar.” He ogled at the blue bag like it was the holy grail. “My favorite!”

“I know.” You said blandly while handing the rest of the bags out. “For some reason that’s always been Donnie's— your? I don't know —favorite. With how much he talks about Mikey’s bad eating habits, he sure does choose the worst flavor possible.”

Yellow rewards your spiel with a happy hum and a hearty crunch. Chip crumbs already dotted the outside of his mouth, and you resisted the urge to reach over and swat them off with your sleeve. You might have done that with Donnie, but he wasn’t here right now. Just a bunch of strange versions of him.

You didn’t like the way your heart seized at that.

“So what’s up with you and us? Or Donatello. The other Donatello.”

The lair's ceiling came into brief contact with your head as you practically jumped five feet in the air. Sometime during your talk with yellow, Green had shuffled over to loom silently over your shoulder. Different Donnie, same bodies, and same freakish height difference.

He repeated the question again, although significantly quieter.

“Give me a minute to get used to my new concussion.” You grumbled without any real malice. He shrunk away at that and wrung his hands anxiously.

Once you got over the initial spook, your brain booted back up to fully process the question.

“What do you mean?” A hand thrust itself out from your person and offered Pink, who had found his way to your side again, another bag of chips. He took it with a breezy giggle you’d only heard from Donnie when he talked to April. You looked at him suspiciously before moving on.

“You seem to have a strong relationship with him.” Green reiterated. He appeared to have settled on talking about his original with a separate tense.

You made a face in his general direction as a response. Combing through the last few days in your mind, you came up with nothing, offering an unbothered shrug.

“He’s friends with my friends. And he's a talking turtle. It’s not like I can really go to anyone else for the crazy stuff that happens to me.”

Despite the finality of your sentence, Green didn't seem quite ready to let go of the subject. "His pink personality has been clinging to you ever since you've gotten here. You don't find it weird that out of all his brothers, you're the one they chose to shadow?"

You didn't have a response prepared for that. You pursed your lips, taking his words more seriously then you had before.

He had a point. It was a little strange that Pink, the one that had been dubbed "the lover" by everyone, was choosing to follow you around like a puppy instead of one of his brothers. You knew Donatello and you were technically friends, and sure he probably cared about you, but over that of his brothers?

Green squinted at you with a slight nervous tick in his eye. It was the closest emotion other than fear that he’d shown so far. He might have added more to the conversation, if the way his mouth opened told you anything, but his brief inhale was cut short by a sudden noise. It startled him so much, this time he was the one to jump up in the air and scurry away. 

“Guys, I think we’ve found something.”

Leonardo had been the one to interrupt your conversation with a loud thump. From his place in the lab doorway, he looked disheveled. His mask tails were laying over each of his shoulders, and reminded you of a very weird version of pigtails.

Wordlessly, you looked up at him from the living room, and tilted your head in the direction of the others. A silent question.

Leo shook his head back at you in the form of an answer, and you ended the mental exchange with a pat to your legs.

“Hey Mikester!” You yelled loud enough to where it would reach the kitchen. Five pairs of eyes followed the direction of your call. “I’ve got to use the bathroom! Watch the others!”

“That’s not the way to the bathroom—"

You completely ignored Blue as you slipped through the doors to Donnie’s workplace. With a creak, they swung shut, and you were left staring at two oddly tense turtles.

“Do you really have to be that obvious?” Ronnie’s lips dipped into frown territory as he commented on your less than graceful departure. He was sitting yet again on the desk's countertop, balancing a clean test tube on his knee pad as he messed with a metal scrap.

You noted the pairs of gloves and safety goggles he wore— equipment that Donnie had personally modified to fit his body. The ease at which they were worn on someone else sent a spark of emotions through your bloodstream.

“Do you really have to be such an asshole?” You deadpanned after a moment of tense silence.

The look-a-like glared at you, but said nothing else.

“Listen up,” Leo called your name, clearly not entertained by the conversation that had just played out in front of him. “We think we’ve found a way to get Donatello back.”

Strolling up to the station that they were standing around, you peeked past the katanas on Leo’s shell to see the silver staff from earlier. It was propped firmly on the table, and a few pieces of its outer shell had been stripped away, revealing an internal structure of wires zigzagging over one another.

If the way he was twitching anxiously said anything, Ronnie didn’t exactly like it.

“I’m listening.”

Leo launched into a fumbled explanation of what they had been tinkering with. From what you could pick up, they had been looking at the inside of it to get a feel for how the device worked, and now Ronnie had a general idea of how to send all five of them back to wherever they had come from.

Overall, the choppy explanation was filled with words you were sure he didn’t understand; and neither did you. Normally, you would stop to ask Donatello what most of them meant, and if he was feeling bold he’d launch into an entire explanation just for you.

As you side eyed Ronnie from your spot next to him, you didn’t think you’d be asking any sort of questions anytime soon.

“So my hypothesis, or whatever it’s called, was right?” Your hoodie pockets were filled with the absentminded fiddling of your hands as Leo paused to consider your words. He nodded at you in conformation.

“We think that the staff was meant to multiply Kraang bots. Making them stronger and faster than before.”

“Oh oh, wait, let me guess. It didn’t work.”

“Obviously not.” Ronnie sighed at your obvious sarcasm. His tooth gap created a whistling noise that you had heard many times before. “Instead of dividing one organism into multiple, stronger organisms, it simply split the subject into parts of itself.” He made a fist with his two hands while he talked, slowly sliding them apart in a visual demonstration.

It was strange. How such a small, skinny device could cause so much ruckus in just one day. You had been looking for some entertainment when you'd decided to respond to Mikey's text, but nothing that involved this level of calamity. Or effort, if you were being honest. You liked the guys, but you also liked really long, and really uninterrupted naps.

“Do you know how to reverse it?”

Ronnie fell silent. Observing him through the pair of tinted lab goggles around his face proved difficult, but you picked up on the way his jaw clenched dangerously. A lone vein strained against his neck.

“Yes. He does.” Leo answered for him, awkwardly glancing between you and the other member in the room. You didn’t take your eyes off the duplicate long enough to notice.

“What do we have to do then?” Came your eventual query. “Gather all of you up and shove you back together?”

“I think it’d be a bit more intense than that.” Leo tilted his hand sideways and shook it in a wavy motion, symbolizing the difficulty of the situation. You resisted the urge to mimic the action curiously.

Craning your neck, you turned to look at Ronnie expectantly.

“Well? Come on smart guy, what’s the plan.”

He had angled himself away from the both of you, his palms laid flat against the surface of Donnie's lab desk. The expanse of his shell rose and fell as he breathed, and it was oddly quiet. In the midst of the silence, you noticed scars of all kinds dotting the back of his shell, and you couldn’t recall ever seeing them on Donatello’s before.

Odd.

“Ronnie?”

“The plan—" He clutched at the staff tightly. You didn’t remember him even reaching for it. “—is to get rid of them.”

You exchanged a wary glance at Leo, and saw that he was slowly reaching for the katanas at his back. The hilt unsheathed with a cool hiss.

The hair on the back of your neck stood up.

“Alright. Yeah, that's what we were thinking." You took a slow step backward in the direction of the doors. “And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” Ronnie positioned the staff in front of him as he spoke. The top end of it peaked over the crest of his head. With a nervous swallow, you watched as he methodically placed the scraps of metal that had been torn off of it back on. “Unfortunately, they seem to be too little, too late.”

Without warning, Ronnie whipped around and launched himself off of the table. Red and green mixed together in a blur of ugly brown before your eyes. You didn’t waste time seeing if he was heading for you or Leo— you just kicked your legs into gear, fumbling to keep your balance as you ran.

Blood began to pool in the lower corners of your mouth. Without having to feel around, you knew you’d bit down on your tongue. The throbbing pain was almost as bad as the burst of purple light that skimmed by the side of your head. It was close enough for you to feel the whoosh it left behind, as well as the scorching heat. Your pulse began to thrum louder.

“It’s always the weird ones!” You half screamed, half heaved over the sound of fighting. Leo offered no response other than a few grunts and the clashing sound of metal versus metal. The noise offered you no relief— other than the fact it meant a giant angry mutant wasn’t at your heels.

Okay, so a little relief. Sorry Leonardo.

“Don't bother trying the doors.” Ronnie smiled widely in your direction. He threw his arm back for another strike, and it landed in the middle of Leo’s plastron with an oomph.

You, being stupid, tried the doors anyway.

“Alright, alright, alright. I guess I’m doing this today.” You sucked in a sharp breath of panic when they refused to give way. Turning from the handles and glancing around the room, you looked for something that could possibly help. Leo appeared to be holding his own against the parallel version of his brother, but you had no idea how long that would last. Especially with the threatening glow coming from the Kraang staff.

Without so much as a warning, you felt something cold wrap around on your ankles. Just as you looked down to see the chain curled around your pant leg, you were yanked off your feet and dragged onto the ground. With a panicked glance up, you found that Ronnie held a chain that had been lying around in one of his hands, the end of it leading to where you sat with scraped palms.

"You're not going anywhere." He growled, somehow maintaining a fight with Leo while trapping you.

Okay, yeah, sure, this was fine. You were totally fine. Not at all worried about the evil Donatello across the room from you. And definitely not panicking at the feeling of metal encasing your ankle. It was starting to feel a little too much like that hallucination you had in the sewers last month.

Why was it suddenly getting harder to breathe? You wondered if Leo also saw black creeping in at the edge of his vision like you did.

While you scrambled to do something— anything at all —Leo was busy pushing his katana back against the edge of Ronnie's staff.

His footing was growing increasingly sloppy as Ronnie pushed him further and further back to the wall. Each lunge was as fierce as the last, and trying to strike back was like hitting a brick wall. A brick wall that was coated with concrete and surrounded by titanium. Either Donnie had been working out lately, or the staff had given him some serious upgrades

“Why are you doing this?!” Leo was just barely able to speak over it all. Even still, Ronnie pushed on.

“Donatello is weak.” He snarled. The corners of his lips curled up in tandem with a sweep at Leo’s legs. The leader barely managed to jump over it while blocking yet another jab from the Kraang staff. It was humming loudly now, and the noise unnerved him. 

Leonardo was faintly aware of the yelling and desperate banging coming from the opposite side of the nearby door. It sounded like the rest of his brothers had caught on to what was happening and were trying in vain to get in. Leo wondered why the hell he hadn’t insisted on Raph staying with him now.

“Your brother is a joke!” Ronnie continued angrily. He landed a hit on Leo’s shoulder this time. The movement caused him to drop the end of the chain.

“He won’t stand a chance against the villains out there. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me! None of you could! I should be the one protecting this city. The only one. I’m the better version of him. Unbothered by junk food and pointless affection.” He spat the last part like it was the name of a disease.

“Leave April out of this!” Leo stepped back enough to point the end of one of his katanas at Ronnie, his mouth pulled into a thin line of anger. It made the red-masked foe pause as his face dropped.

“You all are more idiotic than I thought.” He gritted his teeth with obvious annoyance. “I was not referring to that human—"

Without another word, Ronnie began to jolt in place. Wide eyed, Leonardo watched as the enemy seemingly glitched, arms spasming and body glowing in a nearly see-through manner. He managed to get out a few more violent spasms before collapsing to the floor in a heap of limbs and shell.

Behind his folded figure stood you, chest heaving and arm held out. A very different looking taser than Leo remembers sits heavily in your hand.

Was that a knife melded to it?

He says nothing. He simply looks between you, then the taser, then you, and then back at the taser again. After a moment of eyeing the new chunks of technology and gadgets nestled along its sides, he slowly lowers his gaze to look at Ronnie.

“Sorry. I was going to let him finish his evil speech, but he sounded too much like ‘Tello and it was starting to freak me out.”

You step over Ronnie’s body cautiously and quickly make your way over to Leo’s side. Silence encompassed the two of you, and you both wondered what the other was thinking.

“So. Uhm. New weapon, huh?” Leo cleared his throat.

“Don had some stuff lying around. I figured it was time for an upgrade.”

It was then that the lab doors decided to burst open, providing its mostly conscious inhabitants with a bunch of yelling mutants. Somewhere in the entanglement of green limbs, you thought you saw Yellow trip and fall on his face.

“Mikey, put the pizza box down. We already got it.”

At the request of his older brother, Michelangelo sheepishly lowered the greasy cardboard box. Ice cream kitty had been resting on its yellowed surface; looking very melted and very fierce as she bared her tiny chocolate fangs.

“What the hell happened!” An angry voice shouted. Its owner shoved past the mini crowd that had gathered around Ronnie, and Raph stormed forward. His sai's were pointed in the direction of the ground, but you couldn’t help thinking he looked angry enough to use them.

“We were just talking about how I should probably start training.” You rolled your eyes and expertly avoided the question.

Ignoring the way that Leonardo sent you a very ‘I told you so’ look, you scoot forward slightly to nudge at Ronnie’s leg. It rolls with the force of the action before motionlessly falling back into place.

“How did you know that would stop him?” Leo clears his throat to ask. The group watches him in joint confusion at his words. He simply points at the upgraded taser in your hand to clarify.

“I didn’t.” You frowned. “I just grabbed some of the leftover scraps from the table you were messing with, and put it on this.” You held your trusty weapon up with a small shake, jumping slightly when it sparked in your hand.

“I don’t spend so much time around a bunch of nerds without picking up a few things, dude.”

“Guys—" Mikey spoke up. He sounded shaken, and everyone saw as he crept toward the door when they looked up.

“As much as I love cool sticks, I think that one has something seriously wrong with it.”

You looked at the only cool stick in the room, eyes widening as it shook violently in place. A giant purple ring had surrounded it sometime during your impromptu catch-up, and it looked like the textbook definition of bad news.

“Everyone out!” Raph yelled, pointing at the nearest exit while making a dive for it himself. You barely managed to make it out the doors after him, throwing your arms in front of your face as you landed face down on the cold concrete below.

A large explosion sounded from behind you just as you managed to lift your head. The smell of gunpowder and something more acidic filled your nose as you coughed. You wouldn’t be surprised if it was your nose hairs burning. It was probably your nose hairs burning.

Coughing, you opened your eyes as much as possible through the smoke. Raph was on his stomach next to you, followed by Mikey and Leo. Looking around for a sign of any of the clones, you came up with nothing.

“Where are the other Donnies?”

It was almost as if your question had summoned him. Well, maybe. You didn’t know. What you did know was that a grating noise began to fill your ears— making you feel like this living hell was finally complete —before a pair of charred lab doors peeled back and revealed a burnt looking Donatello.

His face was covered in soot from forehead to chin, and the rest of him was entirely coated in the stuff. He had on singed knee and arm pads where they had previously hung spotless. The strap around his chest was black at the edges. Confusion peppered his face.

But most importantly, that familiar lilac mask was back where it belonged.

“Yes!” You shouted your name with a whoop. All of the turtles turned to look at you on the ground, observing the triumphant smile stretching from ear to ear. “I saved the day, and the turtle! Again!”

Mikey, Raph, Leo, and Donnie all let you have your moment of victory. The latter of them all looked confused and equally as tired. Still, he waited for you to tire yourself out, which didn’t take long.

“Should I even ask?” He coughed as you calmed down. Leo shook his head while Raph scoffed.

“I thought dealing with one of you was bad enough.” Raphael snorted. Despite his harsh words, a glimmer of relief swam to the surface of his gaze, and Donnie pretended not to notice.

You fully retired from the conversation as Master Splinter eventually entered the room, looking frustrated to no end.

“What is all this noise?” His tone bordered on harsh. “You broke me out of my seven days of meditation.”

You focused on melting into the cool sewer floor as the four turtles stumbled over each other's explanations. Leo yelped out something about sparring, while Mikey cut him off with his own explanation. The only time you tuned back into the conversation was when Raph mentioned your name.

With a snicker, you propped yourself up from the floor to look at everyone.

“Sorry Master Splinter. We were just beating the shit out of Donnie’s evil clone.”

Everyone around you immediately exploded into yelling.

You weren’t able to make eye contact with any of the boys for the rest of the night without laughing—set off by their look of utter betrayal.

“I can’t believe you’d rat us out.”

“That’s what you get for making me babysit all four of Donnie, you asshole.”

They all forgave you when you showed up with pizza the next day.

Chapter Text

The mission began with chaos, because you're not sure it's a hangout with Mikey unless someone falls off a roof at least once.

You craned your head around the brick wall next to you, your eyes scanning across the expanse of a darkened alleyway as you searched for the telltale signs of an orange mask. When you saw them, the two short tails sticking up from in between bulging trash bags, you brought a hand out of your hoodie pocket, holding it up in a questioning “thumbs up” gesture.

“All good brah.” A delirious Michelangelo answered your unspoken question, practically swaying on his feet as he jumped up from the dumpster he'd so gracefully landed in. With a quick shake of his head that reminded you of a dog trying to dry off, he was back to normal, smiling at you like nothing had happened. As if a dive headfirst off a three story building could be nothing.

“I thought you were supposed to be a ninja.” You quirked a brow, staring at a banana peel that had gotten stuck to the back of his knee pad. With a quick kick in its direction, the fruit skin slid off, hitting the concrete floor below with a gross splatter.

“Ninjas make mistakes!” Mikey protested while sticking out his bottom lip. You squinted at him.

“Falling off a roof because you tried doing a double backflip over the ledge counts as a ninja mistake?”

“Well. No.” He smiled. “But it should!”

You made a face. Partially amused, and partially over having to check on him everytime one of his stunts landed him shell first on an alleyway floor, you sighed.

“Maybe I should have just gotten Leo to come with me or something. No offense, but I'm not exactly trying to wake the whole block up tonight.”

“No way dude!!” Mikey waved his hands in front of your face frantically before stepping back with a cocksure smile. “You definitely made the right choice asking me. I mean, can Leo do this?”

Mikey's next actions were a cross between the Charleston, no doubt something he had seen while channel surfing the TV late at night, and a moonwalk. He was singing something as he went, swinging his nunchucks to the beat lazily. The sight was so ridiculous that you couldn't stop the stupid laugh that threatened to burst out of your chest.

“Alright alright stop. I get your point.” You ordered him, doing the best you could to not stroke his ego more than you already had. No one needed Michelangelo of all people walking around believing whatever he had just done was entertaining— even if it was.

“I see all it took to win you over was my sweet sweet dance skills.” He stated smugly, crossing his arms in victory. The nunchuck he had been using as a prop was still clutched in his three fingers, and the chain dangled back and forth as he gloated.

“Right. Now that we've established you as this generation's next Britney Spears, can we get back to it?”

“Oh! Yeah!” Mikey gave a closed eye smile before blanking. “Wait. What were we doing again?”

You pursed your lips.

“Raph’s present?” You told him, waiting for a look of recognition to dawn on his face.

Mikey scratched the back of his shell.

“For mutation day? The thing I want to get him? I’ve been saving up for it all month— is this ringing any bells whatsoever??”

“Ohhhh yeah! That thing.” Mikey gave a carefree laugh, snapping his fingers together. “Oops.”

Under different circumstances, you might have been annoyed at the oblivious nature Mikey carried around with him everywhere, but tonight was just not the night. It had been a long week for you, full of surprise mutant threats and pop quizzes— you swear your trigonometry teacher was secretly the Shredder in disguise trying to take you out through Sin, Cos, and Tan —and all you wanted to do was get this errand done with as quickly as possible. Preferably with zero hang-ups: although you knew by this point that that was asking a lot.

“Where are we going again?” Mikey chose the moment where you were contemplating all of your life choices— or, at least all of the ones you had made leading up to tonight —to ask his question.

“The antique place a couple blocks down.” You blew hot air into your hands as you spoke, trying to get rid of the New York chill that came with these later months. “I saw the thing I want to get Raph in there the other day on my way to school. Asked the owners to hold on to it and everything so I had time to get the cash.” You began walking once more as you explained, creating space on the sidewalk for Mikey to stick to the shadows as you meandered along the bare streets. You figured this was better than letting him back up onto the rooftops again unsupervised.

“Aww that's so sweet of you! I knew you couldn't be this grumpy all the time. No one can, not even Raph.” Mikey wrinkled his nose with the exclamation, and you felt a burning along the tops of your ears. You weren't grumpy. Er, at least not all the time.

You think.

"Mikey, you say that like I'm Oscar the Grouch."

He hums at you, squinting as if to say that you both knew better. He quickly dropped the act when you squinted back, choosing to busy himself by trying to balance his weight on the high part of the curb with one foot.

“Why didja need me to come with you, though? Couldn't you just go get it on your own?”

“Yes.” You sucked some air through your teeth. “And no. Tonight's the only night this whole week I've had time to go get it, and I didn't really want to be walking around the city at night without someone to go with me. Casey's watching his little sister, and April's cramming for our third period test on Monday, so—”

“—so you chose your favorite turtle to help keep you safe!” Mikey beamed, clearly happy to be picked first at something for once. 

“Sure.” You let a puff of air leave your nose as he stuck his chest out proudly, stalking the shadows with a bit more swagger now.

“I won't let you down dude.” Came his sage declaration.

“Good. Because this is the last thing I have to pick up before your mutation party in a few days.”

You jumped over a crack in the sidewalk with your next step, thinking about all the other presents at home you had wrapped and ready to go. It had been a bit awkward trying to explain to your parents why there were three giant boxes wrapped in colorful paper hidden under your bed, but thankfully they had bought the “donations for a bake sale” angle you'd pitched in a panic. It had worked in your favor too, considering that there actually had been a bake sale going on at school that you hadn't known about. 

Honestly, you're just glad they hadn't opened the presents before asking. Explaining how a box set of Space Heroes: New Generation was supposed to help with a bake sale might have been more difficult than you would have liked.

“Soooo.. mind telling me what exactly you got your favorite turtle for his birthday this year?” Mikey hummed in your ear, giggling as you swatted him away with a frown.

“No.”

“Oh come on! April said for her last party you'd showed up with, like, a bajillion presents for her!! Only people that buy awesome gifts do that.”

“No, Angelo. And it wasn't that many presents. More like three." You rolled your eyes.

“Pleaaaase—!”

The back and forth between you and Mikey continued for the next few blocks it took you to reach your destination. Both of you passed the time with the meaningless rabble, and at one point you had to jab him in the side of the shell when he offered to bribe the information out of you with a year's worth of free pizza: pineapple and anchovies included. In fact, you had ended up getting so caught up in the playful conversation, that you hadn't noticed how dark the antique shop looked until you were standing right in front of the display window.

Mikey continued to offer you additional pizza toppings to his bribe as you planted your feet on the concrete firmly. It was late enough for the streetlamps to have come on already, and their soft yellow reflections gleamed in the shop's glass. You could see wooden chairs and lacey lamps inside of the shop from where you were situated outside, and a neon OPEN sign above them hung uselessly. Weird. It was usually flashing with those eye-bleeding colors around this time of the night.

“They should be open.” You cut Mikey's background rambling off as you checked your phone. Yeah, you two should have been right on time. They didn't close for another hour or so this time of the year, and most certainly not when they knew they had a customer coming to pick up an order. You had even made sure to check the times detailed on their website twice before making plans to walk all the way over.

So why were all of the lights off?

“Is today a holiday or something?” Mikey finally noticed why you had stopped walking, scratching at the top of his head with the butt of one of his nunchuck grips. You shook your head no at him, fingers toying with each other as you stared at yourself in the glass window.

“We should check it out.” He offered when you didn't move. Your foot tapped against the pavement steadily.

Normally, you would have glared at Mikey and asked if he was insane. Checking out a very obviously closed store at night with a giant turtle by your side? That was practically begging for someone to call the cops on you, if not worse. The last thing you needed was to explain to your parents why you had been spotted gallivanting around New York at night with a mutant.

However—

You stopped to think of the couple that you had run into when checking out their shop for the first time. How their faces had practically lit up when you'd awkwardly admitted you were interested in one of their products, wrinkled hands waving you in as they kindly proclaimed they could hold it for you as long as you wanted. The thought of anything happening to their business— which, frankly, looked like the only way they were able to make rent in this part of the city —had your stomach doing a gymnastics routine

You came to your conclusion with a sigh.

“We can take a look. But just for a moment." You paused. "And we're going in through the back. You first, Mr. Ninja.”

Mikey seemed fine with that. He bounced his way around the side of the store, thankfully not having to go far since it was situated on the edge of the block. You followed after him, shoulders hunched as you searched for anything out of the ordinary. If Leo, or any of the other turtles had been with you, you knew they would have been doing the same.

Turning the corner on the block, you came face to face with an opening in-between the back of the shop, and the buildings behind it. Some trash bins and litter lay scattered about, a few of the cans knocked over on their side as soiled napkins and broken glass trailed out of the tops. Mikey stood away from it all, hands on the hilt of his utility belt as he stood eye to eye with a backdoor. It was painted the same color as the front of the antique shop, so you figured it must be the one you were looking for.

“Dude.” Mikey grabbed your attention away from the back entrance. Your friend's forehead was scrunched up around where you were sure his eyebrows would have been if he had any. He looked more concerned than he had a moment ago, and it didn't take you long to figure out why.

With a gentle push of his foot, he showed you that the back door he had been staring solemnly at was, in fact, busted open. He even rattled the handle on the slightly splintered door, silently showing you that it'd been locked when someone kicked it down.

“This is not what I had in mind when I asked you to come with me tonight.” You murmured to Mikey, making sure to keep your voice low.

“Do you still have Sparky?”

You stared at him. “Sparky?”

“You know your—” He made a jabbing motion with his hands, imitating electrical sounds as he went. The sight reminded you of the bad attempts at charades he would do during the few 'game nights' in the lair you had been present for.

“My taser?” You eventually asked, pretty sure that's what he was trying to imitate.

“Yeah! The scary looking one!”

“Weird way to ask, but yeah. I do.” Without another word, you brought the weapon out of the confines of your waistband where it had been nestled, struggling for a moment at the weight. Ever since you had modified it during that.. incident in Donnie’s lab, adding various bits of tech here and there, it had taken you a while to get used to the new feel of it. Even now it sometimes still threw you off, your muscle memory not yet used to the new feel of it.

But if there was one thing that could be said about it, it was that you never went anywhere without it anymore. Not after the year you’d been having.

"You really wanna do this dude? If you want, I could go in for a sec and scope it out instead." Mikey bounced on the balls of his feet. He looked more unsure than his carefree personality normally allowed him to be, and with a tiny start, you realized he was concerned for you.

Thanks, Angelo.

“We’re just going to go in and see if anything was taken from the register.” You rationalized both to yourself, and to Mikey. “If somethings up, we can just call the cops and get out of here. If not, no harm done, right?”

“Your errand, your call son.” Mikey twirled his nunchucks in a windmill motion, starting to approach the door the second you confirmed it to be okay. You crept along behind him, making sure to flip the switch to your taser on with a swipe of your finger. It hummed quietly, the sound fading away in the ambience of the night.

Upon entering, the two of you were immediately greeted by what looked to be a small breakroom. On a different day, the little room may have looked neat— quaint, even — but the force of whatever had broken the back door down had knocked over a crate of something nearby, spilling what looked to be nuts and bolts all over the tile. Materials appropriate for an antique shop, you supposed, but troublesome nonetheless.

Mikey easily avoided the mess along the floor, but it took you an extra second or two to avoid slipping on any of the parts. How he managed to get past them all easier than you with those turtle feet of his, you had no idea.

When the breakroom stopped at another door— this one you knew led to the front of the shop, thanks to the unmistakable chipped paint job you had spied the first time you’d walked in —Mikey turned around to address you.

“When I open the door, we go with the flow—" He made a wavy motion with his eyebrows, "—and stay low. I'll go right, you can go left.” He whispered. A satisfied look crossed his face when you nodded.

“How come you're not telling me to do this with those silent hand motions Leo always uses?” You found yourself asking out of bare curiosity. Mikey tilted his head, nunchucks still rotating like a fan.

“Uh, do I look like Leo?”

“Touché.”

At the count of three (coincidentally the only number of fingers Mikey had), he gently pushed open the door wide enough for the two of you to sneak through. He chose to somersault onto the carpeted floor and behind one half of the counter that lay just past the doorway, while you did an awkward squat to get to the other side. It was by no means comfortable, and you knew you probably looked a little silly, but you had bigger things to worry about at that moment.

You managed to sit upright on the floor around the same time Mikey did, the both of you now hidden behind two different countertops. Looking up, you noted the shop’s register was on your side of the store, and your eyebrows creased when you noticed it sitting in pristine condition, the heavy-duty lock still intact.

“Weird.” You mumbled to yourself as low as you could. “No missing cash.”

“Maybe we’ve just got a new criminal on our hands?" Mikey whispered back. "One that really hates lockpicking and money?”

You looked at him with a curled lip. “For some reason I doubt that. Something about this doesn't feel right.”

No sooner than the words had left your mouth, you heard the timbre of another voice in the shop ring out. Both you and Mikey stood— or rather, sat —at attention, your weapons gripped tighter than they had been a second ago. For a fleeting moment, you thought maybe it was the police responding to a call the neighboring buildings had made. That thought was quickly dispelled when you remembered the distinct lack of police cruisers outside the shop when you and Mikey had shown up. Whoever this was, they had come here on foot.

"Beautiful job, my mousers!" The sudden stranger laughed to themself. "At this rate, we'll have all the materials we need for our project!"

The tone of their voice sounded eerily familiar, but for the life of you you couldn't place where you had heard it from. You had met so many people this past year, both good and bad, that it was hard to keep track of them all in one go.

'Mousers ?' You mouthed to Mikey. He stared at you with a shrug, not offering any help. He looked about as clueless as you did.

Getting to your knees as quietly and as slowly as you could, you brought your head above the countertop just enough to peer over the edge and get a look at what was going on. Mikey shook his head furiously at you as you did so, but you ignored him in favor of shifting your weight. You didn't quite know what you had expected to see, but you knew you couldn't just sit there as some random guy proceeded to rob the shop you'd been banking on blind.

"Oh that's just messed up."

A man in a pink sweater vest stood in the middle of the shop. He had a box full of scraps in his arms, and he was laughing to himself as he watched little robots— robots??? —scurry around beneath his feet. They were bringing him all sorts of knick knacks from around the shop in their metal jaws, dropping them at his feet curiously as they waited for approval. It reminded you of how a dog treated their master.

But none of that is what caught your attention at first. Rather, it had been the beeping dog collar around his neck, and the little glowing viles attached to it in neat strips. It contained what looked to be mutagen. You stared at it in mild horror, thinking about how much it looked like a fucking Saw trap. If Saw traps held the threat of life altering mutation over your head.

"No no, not that!" The man hissed at the most recent robot to stomp up to him. He itched at a spot under his collar with his free hand, making you cringe at how close his skin was to coming in contact with one of those containers. "We're looking for spare parts, not useless furniture!! Keep looking!"

The tiny robot he had been berating let out a few sounds as it picked up the wooden lamp stand it had dropped. Marching away, it began to tear through a separate corner of the shop with its buddies, eager to please its master.

"Ohh wait. I know this dude!" Mikey had crawled his way over to you sometime during your observation of the events at hand. He was next to you on his knees, shifting comfortably on his knee pads. "That's Boxer! Stockson? I can never remember his name. I forgot he called his little guys Mousers." He giggled. "Cuuute."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" You asked, much less amused than Mikey was. "Seriously, am I? Because he sounds familiar." You were still caught on the accessory on his neck, not peeling your eyes away from it until you had to.

"Maaaaaybe? Donnie said something about him getting on the human news last year when he attacked his old office. Something about a stupid printer."

You resisted the urge to snap your fingers in realization. The fear that those robots would hear it was prevalent. "I remember now. Baxter Stockman. Donnie's right, he was on the news. Had that huge mech suit and kept trying to disguise his voice."

Mikey nodded. "Yup. He's weird like that."

Great. Just your luck that you'd run into yet another one of the turtle's enemies while out shopping with one of them.

Leaning back on your knees, you sighed as you tried to figure out what to do next. What would Leo do if he was here? Better yet, what would Splinter do? Probably say something wise, yet confusing, and then immediately mediate like nothing was wrong. You didn't really have the time for that.

"I say let's get 'em!" Mikey began to stand to his full height with a smile before you could finish thinking. In a panic, you grabbed the end of one of his nunchucks, yanking him down on his shell with one strong pull. He landed with a solid thump, and you froze to make sure no one heard it before frowning at him.

"No, dumbass. There's only two of us, and he's got robots that bite." You hissed. Mikey pouted at you, rubbing his back where he had landed on the floor. Looking at him, you hesitated before apologizing in a small voice, watching as his smile came back instantly.

You glanced back to the front of the store where Baxter stood, and observed as he continued collecting every metal scrap that his mousers dropped in front of him. His nasally laughter grated on your nerves, causing an uncomfortable shiver to rake through you. 

"How about this. When he's done, I'll grab what I came here for and go back to the lair to tell your brothers what's up. You can follow him, and they'll catch up with you." The plan seemed solid enough. Certainly easier than some of your last 'missions', so to speak.

"Sounds good to me! I've been looking for a good beatdown all day." Mikey held his hand out for an excited fist bump, which you stared at until he retracted it. "Oops. Heh, forgot. Sorry bro."

You waved him off, going back to staring over the countertop. He mimicked you, tapping his six fingers rhythmically along his knees as he did so. Baxter continued ransacking the store for anything he deemed useful, blissfully unaware of the audience he had collected that evening.

"Wonderful job my pretties!" He exclaimed a few moments later with a grin. You cringed heavily at his term of endearment, and saw Mikey shake with barely contained laughter from his place next to you. "We have all that we need! Let us get back to work at home. We can't keep our sponsors waiting."

Baxter's voice shook a little at the tail end of his sentence, but you didn't pay too much attention to that detail. You were too busy watching him hold the door open for his robots, finally breathing out a sigh of relief when they were all out of sight. Good. Your legs were going to cramp up if you sat squatted like that any longer.

"Alright Mikey." You hopped over the countertop when you were certain that Baxter was gone for sure. You dropped down on the other side with a bit of a slip, having landed on a stray bit of something the mousers dragged out. "Give me a minute to look around, and then we can split."

Wading through the mess that Baxter had left behind, you approached the shelf that you had spied Raph's present on earlier that week. The box had been teetering on the top shelf of some dark wooden bookcase, a nice price tag attached to it at the time. The number had been enough to make you pause, but it hadn't been too hefty that you'd written it off immediately.

The bookshelf you'd seen it on had since been overturned in the wake of Baxter's ransacking, but looking around, you found the box not far from its original spot. You smiled a little as you spied the fun text and designs on the sides, already thinking about Raph's reaction when he eventually opened it. God, all this shit better be worth it. Sometimes you think you might do too much for those turtles.

Picking the cardboard box up, you immediately took note of how light it felt. You shook it once for good measure. Huh. Strange. Maybe it was just smaller than you'd originally thought. Nothing wrong with that.

Still, the lack of weight bothered you. With a small squint, you began to carefully pry open the top of the box. Surely Raph wouldn't mind if you opened it before him. Just to check that it was okay, nothing else. After the night you'd been having, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Mikey had been standing at the other side of the store while you searched for your prize, messing with various baubles and trinkets with small giggles. He ran a hand under a pair of wooden windchimes that were hanging from the ceiling while he waited for you to finish up, marveling at the sound they made. He'd never understand some human things, but he didn't have to in order to appreciate them.

He was so enraptured by the hollow sounds the chimes made that your sudden yell startled him more than it normally would. Mikey found himself jumping at least a foot in the air, hunching his shoulders at the sound of your panicked voice.

"No no no!" The turtle turned on one heel to see you on your hands and knees by an opened box. There was nothing inside of it, and it was slightly crumpled. Your movements grew more frantic the longer he watched you scurry around the store, riffling through the piles of disaster that the mousers left behind. "Where is it?!"

"Dude, you good?"

"No!! It's gone! Raph's present— it's just, gone!" 

You felt stupid kneeling on the floor searching through an array of damaged furniture as Mikey stood just a few feet away. Even more stupid once you realized that you were freaking out over a gift that you didn't even own yet. With a hot face and shot nerves, you stood up, spinning to point at the door Baxter had walked out of a minute ago. "He must have taken it. There's no other reason it wouldn't be here. And I am not letting him turn my gift into scraps!"

Mikey hummed with the beginnings of an excited note. "Now we have to go after him together!" He made a chopping motion with his hands, smiling at you with teeth. "Just the two of us, aww yeah!"

"Glad someone's happy about this." You gripped the sides of your arms hard enough to turn your fingertips white. Mikey didn't seem to notice. He was too busy chopping away at the air.

"Come on, we have to hurry if we want to figure out where Boxem's going!" Mikey cheered. You opened your mouth to say something— what that something was, you didn't exactly know —but never had a chance to finish. He grabbed you by the upper arm, dragging you out of the shop before you had a chance to say anything.

The front door swung shut behind you all with a gentle woosh, stopping slowly as the bell above it sounded out, signaling your exit. With you and Mikey gone, it was much quieter. Only the hum of the internal heating made any noise. Smashed antiques, lamps, and ceramics lay everywhere. Someone was going to be very upset when they came to open up shop in the morning, there was no doubt about that.

Suddenly, the silence was broken. The same front door as before opened again one last time, a handful of money and a quick 'sorry!' being tossed through the entrance before you were dragged off once more, a happy turtle stringing you along all the while.

The warehouse that you both followed Baxter to looked, for a lack of better words, like it was two seconds away from collapsing in on itself. Rubble was scattered all around the outer edges of the building like the leftovers from a construction sight gone wrong, and the front door you'd watched Baxter and his mousers file through had groaned something awful when it had opened.

"You said this was his old lab?" You asked Mikey. You both were stood on the roof of the neighboring building, looking down at the hideout. Wind whipped around you, sending Mikey's bandana tails into a frenzy while you pulled your hoodie closer. The surrounding city, while never completely quiet, seemed emptier than usual. You wondered what time of the night it was, and just prayed that your parents didn't randomly check to see if you were still in your bedroom before they went to sleep. They'd be sorely disappointed to find a couple of pillows lying under your covers instead of your usual drooling form.

"Yeah! This is where we took him down. Twice." Mikey looked proud of himself as he responded to you.

"I can tell." You eyed a chunk of brick wall below that had a suspiciously shell-shaped hole in it. God, whichever one of them that had been, you knew that had to have hurt. How the guys weren't a bunch of walking bruises at this point, you'd never know.

"Are you sure we shouldn't call Leo?" Mikey asked you with a tilt to his head, the ends of his mask brushing his neck. You stared at them as you thought of a good way to answer his question.

"Yeah, I'm sure. It's just that scrawny guy and a few robots, right? I've got a super fucking awesome ninja on my side, the upper hand, and a hella cool taser. We can do this." You would be lying if you said you weren't trying to pump yourself up a bit for this. "Plus, I don't really want your brother to know what I'm getting him, and there's no way that won't happen if we call them."

"Fair enough! You ready then?" Mikey asked you. He crouched lower to the ground of the roof, sliding out his nunchucks as he went. Your little compliment about him being awesome must have gone a longer way than you'd thought, because he looked downright joyous.

"To fight a bunch of science fair projects? Hell yeah." Raph better love the hell out of this thing when he gets it, or you figured you might end up hurting someone.

"That's the ninja spirit boyyy!" Mikey stuck his tongue out with a smile. "Let's go!"

He let out his signature battle cry as he dropped off the roof, already beginning to rush in the direction of the building. He seemed overjoyed at the thought of a fight, so it was a bit awkward when he realized you hadn't jumped down after him like he was used to.

Mikey whistled from his place on the curb as you struggled to scramble down a two story fire escape as fast as possible, doing his best to look as innocent as possible.

"Heh, my bad." He grinned sheepishly when you finally jogged over to him. You just fumbled for your taser, managing a judgmental 'whatever' through your huffing.

The warehouse door creaked open as you pushed it. You fanned out to the left, letting Mikey take the right. It was darker inside than you would have thought. The only light source you could see was that of your taser's prongs. Maybe Mikey was having better luck in this darkness with his mutant genes. You'd have to remind yourself to ask Donnie about turtle eyesight later. Maybe some night vision goggles as well.

It didn't take long for you to scour what must have been the entire perimeter of your half of the room. You knew you had followed the feel of the wall for quite a while when you bumped face first into a hard plastron and leathery skin. Mikey let out a little oof, and then laughed about how 'soft and squishy' you were. You sighed.

"Are you sure we got the right place?" You asked the darkness, feeling the urge to keep your voice low for a reason you couldn't discern. You thought maybe Mikey nodded at you, but you couldn't be sure.

"Listen, I don't know. Something about this doesn't feel right. If he were here, the lights should have at least been on. And we should have run into something by now. A lab, some experiments, or at least— "

The sound of something powering up interrupted you. Bright lights all but blinded you as they came on all at once, placing you and Mikey in a spotlight from where you stood. Machines kicked into gear with deep hums that shook your bones. Gravel around your feet, which you hadn't been able to see before, vibrated on the ground with the sudden force. It took you a good minute to be able to blink through the pain and be able to see what was going on— not that you were particularly excited when you finally managed to get your eyes to stop watering.

All around you was a giant laboratory. Machines and messy work benches were scattered all around the area. You spied a couple of chalkboards filled with nonsensical ramblings next to them, along with jars filled with oozing materials.

What caught your attention the most was none of that. Not even the mousers that suddenly surrounded you and Mikey, gnashing their teeth in joy. Instead, it had been the humongous vat of open mutagen that stood like a pillar in the middle of the room. It bubbled and swirled, and looked exactly how you remembered it from the Kraang lab. Better yet, next to the container sat a crumpled pile of fabric. Something told you that it had been used to cover the vat when you had walked in here. Maybe you and Mikey had made a mistake assuming that Baxer hadn't known you were following him.

"Or at least that?" Mikey finished your sentence for you with a nervous laugh. The noise faded into a gulp as he stared at the glowing canister that had just been uncovered. You felt yourself go a little pale.

"Fools!" Came Baxer's nasally voice. "You thought you could get away with tailing me? I've been aware of you four since the antique shop! How you ever thought you'd pull one over on Baxter Stockman is—"

You and Mikey watched as Baxter rounded the corner on his vat of mutagen before stopping mid sentence. He was holding a remote in his hands, and looked confused by the sight of both of you— like he had been expecting more. He stared at you in particular for a moment too long, before taking off his glasses and wiping them. When he finished, putting them back on with a little fumble, he looked confused.

"You're not one of the turtles." His tone sounded almost offended.

"Thanks Captain Obvious. I hadn't noticed." You gritted your teeth.

"Are they sending amateurs after me now?" His expression took a turn from confused to offended, and he placed a hand on his chest. 

"No. Just someone that's gonna kick your ass." You pressed the button on your taser a few times for emphasis, nearly smirking at the sudden jump Baxter did.

"You—  you insolent child! I will destroy you!" He spat, scrambling away from you and the end of your taser. 

"Buddy, I'd like to see you try."

"Mousers!" Came the command. " Attack !"

You and Mikey flew into action not a moment too soon. Metal jaws clamped down around the air of where your legs had just been, and you gave a quick 'yipe!' as you scurried away.

The fight that commenced was one of the most anxiety inducing things you had taken part of since rat invasion a couple of months ago. And you were using the word 'fight' pretty sparingly. If anything, out of the two of you Mikey was doing the most fighting. You were just running in circles trying your best not to get hobbled, occasionally stomping one of the mousers to bits when you could.

Baxter looked on over you all, laughing gleefully as he directed his mousers to nip at your heels. "The Shredder will be pleased when he learns I've managed to defeat one of the turtles and their friend! Perhaps he will reward me by finally taking this wretched collar, or with more mutagen. Oooh, maybe both!"

"You're working with the Shredder?" You yelled out, the tail end of your voice trailing up into a higher tone as you barely managed to avoid a chomp from the robot closest to you. You could feel sweat forming on the crest of your hairline the longer you had to keep this up, and you couldn't tell if it was from exertion or fear.

"Of course I am! What, do you think I have this horrid device on my neck for show?" Baxer scoffed. "The Shredder would have been a fool not to seek out my assistance!"

"Right. Because you've done so great up until now."

Baxter snarled at your ever present sarcasm. "Let's see if you're still this confident when you're being used as puppy chow for my mousers!"

He pressed a button on the complex remote in his hand. It didn't seem to do anything for a moment. Then, you heard what sounded like lasers come from the mob of mousers behind you.

"Mikeeyyyy!" You all but shrieked, successfully freaked. "Whatever you're going to do, do it faster!"

He responded by throwing a headless mouser in your path with a war cry.

"See if you can—" Smack! "—fry the thingy—" Thwak! "—that Storkman was holding! He uses it to control these guys!" Ka-pow!

You sent your response to Mikey in the form of a startled scream as one of the mousers lasers nearly managed to burn a hole in the back of your shirt. He must have taken that as a yes, because no further demands were aimed your way.

With a new target in mind other than Don't Get Fucking Killed, you began to turn your sprint in the direction of Baxter. A newfound sense of heavy dread tangled itself in your stomach as your feet began to lead you up the steps curled around the outside of the vat of mutagen. Looking up, you found that they led right to where Baxter stood over the open pool of green goo, fiddling with the joystick on the remote Mikey had been talking about.

"God, why couldn't there have been a lid—  why couldn't there have been a lid!! "

Acutely aware of the way your legs wobbled as you skipped the stairs two at a time, you reached the top of the vat. Baxter noticed you a second too late, and it was to his detriment.

Before he could manage more than a high-pitched 'wait—!" you were already lunging for his middle, knocking the breath out of him as you attempted to tackle him off the ledge he was standing on. It worked, and you didn't have to wait long before Baxter was tripping over his own feet and off the ledge. The remote flew out of his hand with the effort of both your assault, and his fall, and it tumbled to the ground below— promptly shattering into a million pieces upon impact. The sound of something else breaking could be heard, but you had not the time nor the mental capacity to wonder what it could have been.

The result of the broken remote was immediate, and you watched as chaos unfurled around you in real time.

Sparking sounds filled the entirety of the warehouse as robots began to short circuit. Computer chips shriveled, metal joints collapsed in on themselves, and Mikey whooped in celebration as it all happened. Much to your relief, you realized that the mousers that had been following you were only just now beginning to reach the top of the stairs—  just in time for their footing to fail, sending them all to face first in the vat.

They came and went in droves, the sound of wet plops following their untimely demise. A few of them gave shrieks that turned into metallic gurggles as they sank further below the surface, and it nearly covered up the sound of your own distress.

The effort it had taken to completely knock Baxter off the top of the mutagen vat had been like hitting a brick wall. Baxter himself wasn't a particularly strong guy— in fact it was rather the opposite —but he was still a grown man. And you weren't a mutant turtle with sixteen years of ninjutsu under your belt. You were just some high school kid that always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So really, it should have been no surprise that the second you managed to knock him to the ground, you had slipped on something, your footing giving way as you began to fall belly up into the mutagen behind you.

You had just enough time to let out a very colorful string of curse words before you felt a metal chain wrap around your upper bicep. It bit at your skin, pinching and drawing blood that trickled down your arm, but did not drip.

"Hold on dude!" Mikey sounded far away, and downright panicked. You realized that the only thing keeping you upright in the moment was the chain of his nunchuck around your arm.

Oh please let this thing hold, fuck, please. I will never ever flip someone off again, not even in traffic. I'll bring the turtles free pizza everyday and do all of my homework and—

The line went slack.

You swore that just for a second— just for a split second —  you felt some mutagen touch your hair.

"Gotcha!"

Ever your savior that day, Mikey swooped in not a moment too late, grabbing your shoulders with one of his hands tight enough to hoist you away from the container and the foul mutagen it housed. You didn't cry out in relief— if anything it was more like an ugly choking sound —but Mikey could tell you were grateful anyway. As if the searing grip you had on his shell didn't already give that away.

The both of you swung across the rundown lab on Mikey's nunchuck for a moment until he was sure that you were far away enough from the mutagen. Then, and only then, did he release you from his hold— all while giving you the most nervous of smiles you'd ever seen.

"Ohh sensei's gonna kill me when he finds out about this." He laughed in a way that told you he found no humor in the situation at hand. "Hold on man, I'll uhm. I'll be right back."

Without a five foot turtle by your side to hold you up, you backed up against the wall he'd set you down by and slid to the ground. You picked a spot on the floor to stare at while you waited for Mikey to come back, doing your best to block out the sound of Baxter's shrill screams from afar while you observed a dust bunny like it was an original Van Gogh.

Shock. That's what this was. Pure, unfiltered shock.

You found that realizing this didn't make you feel any better.

It only took a couple of minutes for Mikey to walk back over, carrying a pile of precariously stacked boxes in his hands. They wobbled dangerously as he waddled them over to where you were propped against the wall. He let them all go in one big motion, and they fell into a noisy pile. You didn't move; either not noticing, or just not caring.

"Don't worry. I didn't hurt the B-man too much. Just asked him where all that stuff he stole was, then knocked that sucker out! Now we can get your gift!" Mikey addressed the screams from a moment ago as dusted his hands off and sat crisscross applesauce by your side. When you didn't acknowledge him, or even so much as move a muscle, he leaned down to try and catch your line of sight. You wouldn't know it from the way you were boring holes into the spot in front of you, but he was frowning. It was a soft frown. The kind he saved for when he read about something bittersweet in one of his comics, or when he finally reached the last slice of pizza in the box.

"Hey." You felt something poke one of your shoulders. The urge to flinch away was there. "Dude. Look at me. I know the floor isn't that cool. Raph's shoved my face into it enough times for me to know that."

Maybe it was his joking tone that got you to peel your eyes away from that speck of dust. Maybe it wasn't. Who cared. Not you, and certainly not Michelangelo.

The turtle held your stare for a good ten seconds as you tried to think of something to say. In those ten seconds, Mikey began to realize just how many eyelashes humans truly had. Such a mundane thought after everything that had happened tonight was a little comforting. He hoped you had found something to think about that made you feel the same way.

"I almost got mutated Mikey." Your voice wasn't broken, or full of tears, but it was empty. Hollow. Just like those windchimes Mikey had played with back in that antique shop. God, that felt like forever ago now that he was sitting there on the warehouse's cold floor with you. Sitting there, watching as you picked at your fingernails with a ferocity that made them bleed. And yet, it couldn't have been more than two hours since you both had set out from the lair with nothing but good intentions on your minds.

Mikey offered the strongest smile he had in him. He hoped his dimples were showing. He knew a lot of people found that cute. "Mutation isn't all that bad! You could have ended up handsome like me."

You 'tsk'-ed at that, wrapping your arms around your knees as he donned that soft frown again.

"Talk to me lil dude?" It was a question, not a demand.

"Hm?"

"Hey, I might be the stupid turtle, but I don't need to be a Donnie to know you've been seriously weird around us for a while. This mutagen thing sucked, but I'm pretty sure that's not all you're all bummed about." 

It took you a second to realize what he was getting at. You felt like your brain was working at half the speed it normally did, and such a loaded question didn't help to boot it back up any quicker.

"...You're not the stupid turtle, Mikey." Came your eventual mumble. "Try clumsy. Or the loveable dumb one."

" Hey." He held up a finger, managing to look both offended and amused at the same time. "I'm only letting that slide because you're seriously freaked right now bro."

"Whatever."

Another beat of silence passed between the two of you. You tried your best to ignore the stare he was fixating on the side of your head, but if there was one thing that you knew about Mikey, it was that he wouldn't give something up once he set his mind to it.

A sigh drew its way out of your chest with a heavy finality.

"You remember a while ago? When all that mushroom shit happened?"

Mikey nodded.

"I wasn't honest with you guys about what I saw." You adjusted your position to where it allowed you to rest your chin on your knees. "Hell, I didn't say shit at all. I still don't know if that was a good decision or not. Either way, it's the decision I chose to make, and now that's my load to bear."

You held up one finger to stop Mikey mid inhale. A silent 'let me finish'. He complied.

"What you said earlier— about me being grumpy—" You rolled your shoulders and looked up at the ceiling, trying to find a way to make your words come out the way you wanted them to. "—I know you're not wrong. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that you're not wrong there. I can be pretty damn flippant when I want to, and that's on a good day."

You heard Mikey echo the word 'flippant?' to himself questioningly, and you made a mental note to ask Master Splinter if he had any dictionaries laying around later.

"I won't go too much into detail, because sorry Mikey but I'm not bearing my heart to you on some fucking warehouse floor, but my nightmare ended up being. Well. You guys. All six of you. Or some weird, black goo versions.

You cornered me. All of you. April, Casey, Leo, Raph— everyone. You were all hissing at me, saying some shit that I really, really don't think you would. But it's one of those things where you can't help but wonder, y'know? And it sucked. It still sucks. Because no matter how annoyed I act, or how much I curse and drag my feet, I still come and visit you guys more than any human friend I've ever had. So having my biggest fear being you guys treating me like shit when that's all I seem to do to you is.."

You cut yourself off there. You were pretty sure Mikey would be able to understand why.

You cleared your throat despite yourself, wiping your (thankfully) somewhat dry eyes on the back of your sleeve. "So much for not bearing my heart, I guess."

When you looked over to see how Mikey was taking all of, well, this, you were a bit shaken to find his back to you. The possible rejection that stemmed from the action lit a fire of worry in your chest. You hadn't been paying attention to anything other than yourself when talking, so of course you hadn't noticed him move.

You saw his shoulders move up and down. The movement was eerily similar to that of laughter.

"Mikey?" You placed a careful hand on his elbow pad closest to you. The sudden closeness, combined with the tear jerking bawl he let out when he turned around to face you, had your eyes popping.

"My nightmare was about squirrels!!" Was all he had time to cry before he was on you.

"Ack—!"

The hug that encompassed you was tighter than the ones he normally liked to surprise you with. Those were always playful, and loose enough for you to punch him in the chest until he let you go, often smiling as he did so. This one was neither of those things, and you suddenly were overcome with a newfound appreciation for how easy Mikey had been going on you this past year.

Through the two green arms absolutely crushing you and your windpipe, you somehow managed to wheeze out an audible 'stop please.' By the grace of whatever god, Mikey heard you, and released his grip with one last sob.

"Jesus christ, have you been working out or something?" Your voice broke as you rubbed at the back of your neck. Although it hadn't been a serious question, Mikey shook his head anyways, leaving you to ponder if he had always been that strong, or just had some sort of mutant growth spurt recently. "What was that even for?"

"Your dream was about that, and mine was about stupid space squirrels that live in your stomach. Not exactly a fair trade bro." He looked downright guilty as he admitted to something you already knew. Although that didn't seem to stop him from making crazy tentacle gestures with his hands while talking about the aliens.

"Christ Mikey—" You winced, some of his guilt somehow transferring to you. "Don't feel bad about having a different fear than me, man. We're different. Like, really different." You raised an eyebrow and pointed at the palm of your hand for emphasis, and then his. "But that doesn't mean one fear is more valid than the other."

That seemed to calm him down enough to dry his eyes. You waited patiently for him to finish before extending your hand to him again— only this time instead of aiming for his elbow pad, you went for the shoulder.

Mikey stared at the back of your bare hand like it was gold as you touched him. He sat completely still while you patted him as comfortingly as you could (which was to say not at all). You imagined that he thought if he moved, you would stop.

Partially true, but he didn't so much as blink. So you kept going.

"I can't believe you're doing this right now." When he finally chose to speak up, his voice was but a whisper.

"Me neither." You groaned. Some humor somehow found its way back in your voice. "God. How did I end up comforting you tonight?" You asked, still patting him on his shoulder. He gave a wet sniffle as he looked up at you, his eyes unbelievably watery.

"..Friendship?"

"Oh shut up." You shoved him, but you were smiling.

Bringing your hand away from his shoulder, you wiped off the invisible feeling that came with it. You cradled it closer to your chest than normal as you began to stand, staring down at Michelangelo with your hip jutted to one side.

"Come on. Let's grab my shit and get out of here." You exclaimed while pointing a thumb over your shoulder towards the exit. "I don't want to spend another minute in this place."

That must have resonated with Mikey, because he immediately hopped up with a flourish of his nunchucks. By the looks of it, your mood wasn't the only one that had been restored.

You didn't know what story the two of you were going to have to cook up for Master Splinter and the guys when you managed to find your way back to the lair, but you weren't going to think about that just yet. What you were going to think about was this sick ass present you had gone to hell and back for, and the unbridled rage you were going to unleash on Raph come next week if he even so much as thought about regifting.

Stepping towards the mess of boxes Mikey had hauled over, you bent at the waist to rummage through them all. You sent a silent prayer upwards that this thing was still intact, and not broken in two under a pair of tiny metal jaws. 

"There you are." You finally muttered to yourself after a few seconds of casing the pile, feeling your fingertips touch the top of a smooth metal surface. Mikey watched as you gripped something he couldn't see with both of your hands, your voice giving a low grunt as you hauled it out.

It was a strangely shaped contraption about the size of your head; maybe a bit bigger. There were a few multicolored buttons on each side of it, and four tiny rubber nubs at the bottom to set it down on. The whole thing was covered in a metallic sheen, and only a few scratches permeated its otherwise perfect surface. If you hadn't seen it before it had taken a trip around Baxter's laboratory, you would have assumed it was already in prime condition.

With gentle hands, you randomly picked up one of the boxes from the pile that you thought looked strong enough to hold it, and set it down right in the center. You wished that this good-for-nothing-lab had some bubble wrap or something lying around to cushion its sides with, but you supposed this would have to do for now. You would fix it when you got back home to your tape and wrapping paper.

"Alright, let's go." You held the box with both hands carefully.

"What even is it?" Mikey peered into the box as you stood with the flaps to it open. Stars were practically shining in his eyes as he took in the device.

"A projector. Kind of. It's meant to play a recording of the night sky on your ceiling so that it makes your room look like the sky outside, but it also doubles as a heater of sorts." You flipped the top back down again, doing your best to smooth it out so you wouldn't have to fuss with it later. "And since I know that turtles are cold blooded, I figured this would be a good addition to Raph's room. Everyone knows his is the coldest mother fucker in your house. It's always like an icebox when I walk in there."

"Duuuuuude!" Mikey drew out the word with exuberant laughter. "He's gonna love this!!"

"Well he better." You placed a hand on the back of Mikey's shell, pushing him forward playfully. "Now move it. Let's get out of here before some more shit happens we don't wanna be around for."

"Wanna race back to the lair?" He grinned. "Winner gets the last cheese-cicle!"

"Absolutely not."