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phoebepheebsphibs · 2 months

Text

HERE WE GO.

Angst time, baby.

@tmntaucompetition @boots-with-the-fur-club @daboyau

CW: Injury, blood

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April's eyes widened when she saw it all happen. The glowing golden chains that ignited, the room turning into a tornado, the ground cracking and breaking as if an earthquake would devour them, the crevices and miniature canyons that formed - also glowing gold - erupting and spewing what she could only assume was something like mystic magma. It was as if every natural disaster was happening at once.

"Is he trying to kill us?!" April shouted. She'd meant it as a figure of speech, an exaggeration. She didn't yet realize how right she really was.

"Get to the other side!" Karai yelled over the roaring wind. "We'll try to surround him!"

The two girls started circling the tiny warrior, who kept his hands held out as long golden cracks started to form from his fingertips, slowly but surely. Flakes of light peeled off of him and danced away. He felt nothing. He said nothing. His stone cold expression was chiseled into his face like the statues from his namesake. The chains circled around him, rings of fire that lashed out at whoever came near. The hand had long since been dropped, and it scuttled away into the dark room Mikey had broken into before.

Karai lunged at him, shouting a war cry. Mikey's head snapped towards her. A series of chains shot at her, coming in so fast they would pierce her flesh straight through if they got a direct hit. But Karai never let that happen. Instantly, her hands burst into green flames, the shapes of swords that covered her fists and forearms down to the elbow. She slashed, shattering the first chain into pieces. She swung again, twirling for momentum and thrashing relentlessly, turning each chain into shards, destroying every link. Mikey's eye twitched, he growled at her. He thrust both hands towards her, she danced and dipped and dodged every advance. Mikey waved his hand and an army of chains came towards her as the ground underneath her broke into two pieces, causing her to lose her balance. One chain was too fast for her and it struck her in the arm, cutting her sleeve and slicing her tricep. Blood spurted, and she cried out in pain. The other chains made their advance, wrapping around her legs and stomach and neck, pulling tight and suspending her in midair as she began to choke. She clawed at the chains, straining to pull them away and let air back into her throat.

"Michelangelo... Mikey... this isn't you!"

Mikey closed his fist.

The chains drew tight, cutting off her airways completely so that she couldn't even speak. She gasped and coughed, fighting for her life as the burning mystic energy sizzled against her skin.

Mikey grinned maliciously. He couldn't see who he was choking the life out of. But honestly... he really didn't care at this juncture.

"APRIIIIIIILLLL O'NEIIIIIIILLLLLL!!!!"

Mikey didn't even have time to turn around and see the banshee screaming girl who teleported on top of him. With his mystic chains focused on Karai, he'd left himself all but defenseless. April wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him in a choke-hold and hoping to get him to pass out.

"Snap! Out! Of! It! Don't make me kick your mystic butt!"

Mikey screamed with fury and threw his elbows back. One hit her in the stomach, the other smashing her in the face, breaking her glasses and colliding into her nose with an audible CRACK!

April went flying. She hadn't taken into account the differences between her Mikey and this Mikey. Her Mikey was 70lbs soaking wet with almost no muscle mass and not at all the kind to pull a move like that, whereas this one was INCREDIBLY STRONG and TWO YEARS OLDER with MUCH MORE FIGHTING EXPERIENCE.

Karai had managed to get herself free during this time, and as soon as April was incapacitated, she lunged again. Mikey saw her coming, and reached out a hand. His chains wrapped around his gram-gram and bound her arms to her sides.

"Mikey! Stop this! It's not real, none of this is real!! You're stronger than this!"

Mikey's expression slowly fell. His eyes were lost, glazed over in gold and amber. His barred teeth, his snarl softened and calmed. He no longer looked angry. He looked... devoid of all feeling.

"I know I am," he responded, his eyes slowly turning from gold to that horrible shade of sickening electric blue. "Let me show you how much stronger THAN YOU I am."

Mikey's chains changed colour. The cracks in his hands - which had now reached his elbows - changed too. The deep glow and burning from the ground followed suit. The magic sparkles in the air. The whole world seemed to follow the cue, and everything went blue.

Karai was brought close to her "grandson", who gently raised his hand, opened his palm, and blew. Instead of the flakes that came from his disintegrating hands, there came the spores.

Karai, not realizing what this Mikey was now capable of until it was too late, didn't get a chance to hold her breath.

Mikey flung her into the wall, Karai's head smacking into the drywall. Stars floated overhead as her vision was filled with black spots. Once the ringing in her ears quieted, she slowly got back up.

She was not in the same place she had been before.

Karai knew these green skies, the tentacle plants that sprouted all around, the debris and the enormous glowing orb chained to the spot in front of her. But the lock was broken, her sword in her hand, and her father slowly creeping towards her.

Each footstep made a horrid clank, klink, clunking sound as a mechanical laugh echoed throughout the Twilight Realm.

"No... No... this isn't real. I know this isn't real. I shan't be afraid of a bad dream..."

"Is that what you think of me, my daughter?"

That voice... it wasn't the Shredder's. It was Oroku Saki. It was her beloved father. His voice was broken, choked up as he tried to escape from the steel that kept him prisoner.

"F...Father?"

"Please, my dear," he begged, forcing his hand through the chestplate, desperately attempting to free himself. "Please... do not give up on me! I know I've made mistakes, but I am still in here! It is not me that does these things, but the armor! I'm trapped! A prisoner!"

"F-Father... I'm coming, Father, I--" Karai froze. "No... no, it... it isn't real. You're not him."

"Why do you condemn me to eternal torment? Why do you leave me in this godforsaken place, why do you personally deliver my execution? I love you, I did all this for you! Please, do not leave me here to suffer... I'm so sorry for all the pain I caused you, I know I have done so much to hurt you... I... perhaps I do deserve to stay here. But not by your hand, you don't deserve to be stuck in this hellscape with me. Flee, now, while you can!"

"Stop," Karai begged, tears streaming down her face. "Stop using his voice. Stop showing his face. I did what I had to, he was going to--"

"I was going to kill your family," Oroku finished. "I remember that... I remember setting the villages ablaze. I remember tearing their houses down... and... I remember your face," he wept, reaching to her as he finally stepped out of the armor, "I remember the look you gave me when you saw what I had become. Worse than the Foot Clan, worse than the marauders that drove me to this, worse than the oni that I made the deal with... worse than all of it. I truly am a monster, the look you gave me let me see it all... it was nothing like how you used to look at me..."

"Stop it, please," she begged, falling to her knees, her strength slowly giving out. She wished she could fight this, as she had told April to fight before... why was it so hard now?

"I remember how you used to smile when I entered a room. How you laughed and giggled when I would pick you up and spin you around. How you only ever cried at night, when you were awoken from a nightmare, but I was always there to comfort you. Now... I'm the nightmare, aren't I? Have I... have I lost you, my dear one?" he asked, his eyes blurring over with saltwater as he finally reached her, kneeling down beside her and wiping away her own tears.

"Īe, otōsan, anata wa watashi o ushinatta wakede wa arimasen. No, father, you have not lost me." She looked up at him, reaching for him, for his embrace. "I still love you. I still miss you. I will never stop fighting for you..."

He smiled so brightly, opened his arms to hold her close again.

The armor reacted, its claws extending and reaching forwards to grab him, screaming and begging for his daughter to save him as he was pulled back into his demonic prison, forced back into the armor.

"NO!" Karai screamed, jumping up. She just got him back, she couldn't lose him again!!

Karai leapt forwards, summoning daggers of green fire and throwing them all at the metal monster.

"Release him!"

"You'll have to destroy me," the Shredder growled low. "That is what the fates have cast for us, daughter. Either you will die by my hands, or you must kill your father. I shall not give him up."

"Neither shall I!" she screamed, jumping into the air to fight the Shredder, her father weeping inside as he begged her to save him or else save herself.

The Shredder pounded his fists against the cracking ground, the portion he was on getting lifted into the air as the rest broke away, sonic waves like giant ripples throwing Karai off balance and pushing her back again. She couldn't get close to him... she couldn't save him...

She looked back up in desperation, hoping she could find some way to defeat him. The Shredder held his hands out, summoning chains of mystic blue and fire and... wait a minute...

This wasn't her father in the armor anymore.

It was Mikey.

The Dark Armor slowly faded into golden dust, revealing a new bearer of the mystic armor as she watched the alternate version of her great(x14) grandson become the thing she'd sworn to stop at all costs. His chest coated in metal, his head covered by the wicked headpiece, his hands wrapped in long gauntlets with claws, silhouetted by an amber cape that billowed and whipped in the whirlwind around them. The cracks had made their way up to his shoulders now, his hands completely engulfed in the glow as he continued to destroy himself. He was a dark mystic warrior... the next Shredder.

Whether by luck or the work of the spores to further ignite her fear and devastation, Karai happened to glance behind him. Into the room he'd broken into, where Leo was meant to be kept. And she saw him, the blue ninja, sitting slumped on the floor, eyes open but unfocused, glowing a vibrant blue. Against the blue glow, she saw dark vines and roots wrapped around him, circling his neck and chest and arms, keeping him in place. What was holding him? She couldn't tell from this distance, from the darkness of the room contrasted by the furious flames in this hall now. But the door was open, and the room was solid and hidden and it kept prisoner all who entered.

Karai knew what she had to do. And she hated that this was the only solution, the same one she'd come to many generations ago...

"April!!" she shouted loudly.

...

April slowly came to. Her head ached, there was a long bloody streak pouring from her nostrils. She gradually forced herself up, her arms shaking and straining. Her head felt like it weighed a hundred thousand pounds...

She vaguely registered someone calling her name. But there was so much wind and wildfire and crackling of lightning...

"APRIL!"

That got her attention. She snapped her neck so quickly that it audibly cracked, the muscles shooting pain up and down her nape. Karai was yelling at her, trying to explain something.

"April! Go find the others!"

"What?!"

"Go get the others! The other Raphael and Donatello, and go find our family! Get the others, it's up to you! I have to stop this!"

"But how? What are you going to do?!"

"There's no time!! GO! HURRY!!"

Karai ran back a few feet and knelt down, preparing to leap one more time. Underneath the soles of her feet, green ninpo activated - fire like from a jet engine exploded, causing her to take flight and shoot towards Michelangelo.

"KARAI!!!" April screamed, realizing too late what her plan was. "NO!!"

He didn't even have time to summon a chain.

She crashed into his chest, knocking the wind right out of him. Karai immediately wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight, even twisting the back of his sash around her wrist - so that they were tied together, no chance for escape.

Karai blasted off with the young adolescent, flying the two of them into the room with Leo. April watched as the chains followed their master, getting sucked in with him and the last Hamato martyr, all the devastation ceasing in the process. At the last second, April managed to catch sight of Leo, who "watched" it all with sad and sleepy eyes, held in place by a... what was that...?

April was closer to the door than Karai had been, she could see it much clearer than her.

And inside... she saw Leo, held down by the clutches of a terrifyingly large mushroom. It was three - no, FIVE times his size, with a giant glowing eyeball in the center that stared at her menacingly.

Karai and Mikey disappeared into the abyss, the door promptly slamming shut and locking behind them, claiming two more prisoners.

And April was left alone.

KKkkkrrrsssshhh-- "Clean up in hall 221B, Bakers district, please."

April stared at the devastation left behind by the other Mikey. She shakily got to her feet, blood and sweat and tears dripping from her face as she sluggishly came to the realization that it had been a trap right from the start. Finding the hand so easily, getting into the hive mind, her vision leading them to Leo and straight into this ambush.

And now... the hand and the mushrooms had Karai and the alt. Mikey. She... she didn't know what to do now.

She had to find the others, and fast.

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