#themes of self-sacrifice | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tangledinink · 11 months

Text

Chapter Seventeen of I'm Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now? is up! The gang puts it all on the line for their family and makes their grand debut in the Battle Nexus ring. Read it on ao3 or below the cut.

[ prev ]

Raph had never heard thunder before.

Well, he had. At least, he thought he had, way off in the distance, far above them. He had thought thunder was quiet. Quiet and far away, all the way up in the sky, so far above them that you could barely even hear it.

He hadn’t known it could be so loud.

Another crash cracked up from up above, and their bedroom window lit up white for just a second, making him jump and go scrambling under his covers. What was that!? Why did the sky light up!? Was something happening!? What if this was a really bad storm and that’s why it was so loud?! Was the sky gonna fall down?! Were aliens invading?!

“Raph,”

He resisted the urge to gasp at the noise, jumping slightly, whipping around to the source of the noise-- only to spot his babiest brother huddled up in his door frame, tears dripping down his cheeks.

Oh.

He must be scared, too.

“Was’ wrong, Mikey?” He asked anyway, crawling out from under the covers and padding over to his brother’s side, immediately grabbing his hand. Mikey sobbed softly in response, clinging to Raph like a lifeline.

“The sky is yelling!” He whimpered.

“Yeah. I know,” Raph said, wrapping his arms around the other to keep him close, to protect him. “It’s scary.”

“Yeah…” Mikey sniffled loudly, grabbing fistfuls of his brother’s pajamas. “I don’ like it!”

“Me neither,” Raph admitted. “... Do you wanna come sleep with me?”

Mikey sniffled loudly, nodding a bit, and Raph slowly guided him back into his bed, covering them both up with blankets and handing his favorite teddy bear over to Mikey to hold, which he immediately wrapped himself around, hiding in its fur. That made Raph smile a bit, and he sighed softly, slowly settling down. Some more thunder rumbled off in the distance, and Mikey whimpered and jumped, but Raph scooped him up and held him tight and Mikey seemed a bit less scared, and in turn, Raph felt a bit less scared, too.

As soon as they had settled down properly and snuggled up, however, Raph paused.

“Hey. Mikey?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s Leo and Donnie?”

“Uhm,” Mikey blinked slowly, and then shrugged. “I’unno.”

“Do you think they’re scared, too?”

“I’unno. Maybe.”

That was good enough for Raph.

Though they had just gotten settled, he wasted no time in scrambling back out of bed, grabbing Mikey’s hand and tugging gently at him.

“Come on. Let’s go find them.”

With blankets and teddy bears in tow, the two marched down the hall and to the stairs, beginning to journey upwards to Leo and Donnie’s rooms. Every now and again, sound would shake the house, and Mikey would whine, but Raph would find his hand and squeeze it tight each time, and they would keep going.

They approached Donnie’s room first. Raph poked his head inside, quiet and hesitant, wondering if he would find a sleeping brother or not--

Instead, he found two. Neither of which were sleeping, but rather, were huddled together beneath the covers of Donnie’s bed to hide.

Leo’s eyes widened.

“Raph--!” He exclaimed, only to get cut off by another crash from the storm outside. Both twins gasped loudly in response, flinching back and squirming even closer together, clinging to one another.

See? His big brother senses were never wrong. Taking Mikey along with him, Raph made his way quickly over to Donnie’s bed, reaching up so he could grab at his other two siblings, tugging at the blankets they were huddled beneath slightly.

“Come on,” he bade. “I know where we can hide.”

It took a bit of coaxing, but eventually, he got Leo and Donnie out of bed, too, though they were both wrapped up in a blanket together, draped over their bodies like a shared cape. Once he had a chain of little brothers trailing behind him, all connected by held hands, they set off on their journey, back into the hallway and down the stairs. Lightning flashed brightly outside, and Leo whined, but Raphael led them onwards.

“It’s okay,” he assured. “I don’t think it can get inside. And we’re almost there.”

They all four made their way down the second flight of stairs as well, down to the first floor, around the corner, and down the hall, and to a door, cracked halfway open. As quietly as he could, Raph led the group in. And, one by one, he helped hoist each of them up into their sleeping father’s bed before he followed suit, curling up under the covers and settling in, so that his three younger siblings were sandwiched between himself and their dad.

“We’ll be safe here,” he whispered, watching as the others curled up, settling in, Mikey snuggled up beneath his dad’s arms and Donnie and Leo tangled together in a confusing puzzle of stubby five-year-old limbs. “I promise. Dad won’t let anything get us.”

---

The entire group flinched at the roars of the stadium around them, looking up wildly at the thousands of screaming yokai on every side of them. Donnie hissed softly, his hands flying up to the headphones to adjust. He knew it was going to be loud, but-- christ.

“Uhm, and daughter of Lou Jitsu! Excuse you!” April yelled up at the announcement, still echoing through the stadium, as if it might be able to hear her.

“Look!” Mikey gasped, pointing upwards. “I think I can see Dad!”

---

He actually had tried to throw himself over the balcony this time.

Not that it worked. Stupid witch ex-girlfriend and her stupid witch spells.

He had to get out of this goddamn Luxury Box.

Those were his children down there. He should be with them.

He tried everything. Every option he possibly had, he tried it. Pleading, threatening, physically attacking the guards-- thus far, none of it had worked. Of course it hadn’t. Part of him had known it wouldn’t, because Big Mama already knew this song-and-dance and she had never lost before. This was an old game to her. She had over a decade of experience in keeping him where he did not want to be.

If it were that simple to wriggle his way out of her trap, his life would be very different today.

He tried anyway.

All it had gotten him so far was this fuzzy spin to his head and a painful tingle in his nerves that was quite nearly nostalgic.

“Let me down,” he snarled, for the millionth time, clinging to the railings of the balcony so hard that his knuckles were white, absolutely bristling. “I should-- I should get to fight with them. Since when have you ever denied Lou Jitsu a performance? Let me--”

“Noodles, dearheart, that would make it too easy!” She scoffed, tsking a bit, having long since lost interest in anything he had to say. “It’s no fun if it’s not a challenge. But don’t fret, huggypoo. You can still watch. Come on-- sit with me.”

---

Leo’s head jerked around when the voice over the loudspeaker continued, a low rumble overtaking the Nexus.

“Versus…”

A door, identical to the one they had just passed through, opened up on the other side of the ring. A pair of glowing yellow eyes shone through the darkness across the way.

“Eugh boi…” Leo muttered.

“Representing the Battle Nexus-- The Ikuchi!”

Their jaw was the first thing to emerge into the ring, their lips curled back to show off long, curved fangs like a snake. Their snout was long and pointed, with two horns erupting from their head just above their eyes. At first, Leo thought that it was some kind of a creature with a long neck-- but then they just kept coming and coming and coming and coming, and Leo realized two things.

One-- that this didn’t just have fangs like a snake, rather, it was a snake. Or something snake-like, anyway, with a long, winding body, decorated with gleaming scales and dripping with a thick, oily substance of some kind, (he could already hear Donnie gagging.)

Two-- this thing was fucking huge. It was like they were battling a fucking subway. The creature reared back slightly, its head and neck arching back so it could look down at them-- far down at them, and it snorted, a spray of fine mist that smelled like the ocean and felt like ice water raining down on them.

“Gross!” Mikey hissed, holding his hands up to shield himself from the impromptu shower.

“Fight!” The announcer howled up above.

Every muscle in the Ikuchi’s body coiled, and Leo’s eyes widened.

“Run!” Raph howled, and Leo didn’t need to be told twice. He threw himself off to the side, rolling out of the way, and felt the very ground tremble just barely a second later, nearly throwing him off his feet as the yokai slammed its tail down in the space where they just were, leaving a crater in its wake. For a second, Leo panicked, his eyes frantically darting about for his siblings-- relief flooded him as he spotted them running in the opposite direction, having gone right where he went left, but all intact and accounted for. Thank god.

The Ikuchi reeled back, snarling loudly, turning its attention towards the larger group. Leo bristled, his trajectory immediately changing.

“HEY! Back off!” He yelled, throwing himself at the creature, twisting his body to slam the side of his foot into their side. It was a good blow-- a solid blow. And Leo was sure that if they were fighting anything else, it would have sent them reeling from the contact.

But, as it were, he all but bounced off of the creature, his foot sliding across the oily surface of their hide and sending him sprawling, just barely able to avoid falling flat on his back as he swore. And quite frankly, the creature barely even seemed to feel it. There was no flinch, no cry of pain, and Leo thought dimly that that made sense. He was barely the size of this thing’s damn eyeball. Of course it didn’t care.

At least he got its attention. It whipped its head around to face him, hissing lowly and splitting open its jaws. Leo just barely had the time to think, ‘oh, shit,’ before a blast of icy cold seawater enveloped him.

Is this what getting sprayed with a pressure washer feels like? He wondered dimly as he was swept from his feet, his entire body going rigid with the cold. The tidal wave of ocean water sent him tumbling, his arms flailing for a moment as he struggled to right himself, to find the surface to swim to-- before he had a chance, however, he found himself sloshing up against the stone, his head spinning with the motion. He looked around dizzily, realizing after a moment that the blast of water that the Ikuchi had shot from its mouth had swept him down into the divot it had left in the ground from its tail, gravity coaxing the liquid into the lowest possible space, leaving Leo laid out on his back in a shallow pool of saltwater. He was still reeling, coughing and spitting weakly as he sat up, shaking the stars from his eyes. Oh, great. He was totally soaked now…

“Leo!” He heard Raph screaming from across the way, and his eyes jerked open, only to shrink back when he saw the Ikuchi looming over him like a dark shadow, its body pulled taunt like a spring, ready to strike.

Oop. That’s no good. Come on, mystic teleportation, don’t fail me now. We gotta move-- fast. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go-- Move!

He realized that he wasn’t dead a lot sooner than he realized that that had actually worked, stumbling slightly as he found his feet beneath him. He nearly fell forward, biting out a wry laugh as he flailed his arms to find his balance again. He glanced over at his gaping siblings, now just a few feet from him-- all five of them halfway across the ring from the Ikuchi, who still hadn’t realized that its prey had escaped from it. Oh shit! It actually worked! He actually teleported-- like-- when he wanted to! The way he wanted to!

Damn, maybe there was something to that meditation thing their dad was always touting after all!

“Leo! How did-- are you okay?!” Raph bit out wildly, rushing over to his side, and Leo couldn’t help himself from grinning.

“I think I might have a plan.”

---

“Too slow!” Mikey crowed, darting just out of reach of another walloping blow, continuously just one step ahead of the Ikuchi’s reach. He heard the yokai roar in response, and he grinned, sticking out his tongue-- touching the ground again just long enough to launch into another tumbling flip, rocketing out of the way. And, just as he was hoping, the yokai’s tail slammed down in the space where he had just been, leaving a dent of crumbled rock in its wake.

Perfect. Just like they planned it.

“Nice, Mikey!” He heard Raph yell from across the ring, sprinting along the outer edges, playing cover for him and Leo, along with April and Donnie. They were all fast, but he and Leo were the fastest-- and he was the dodgiest, and the best suited for pulling this off, goading the Ikuchi into striking, but keeping just out of its reach. Even now, his chest swelled up with a bit of pride at the thought.

His family was counting on him.

Another duck and dodge resulted in yet another pit in the surface of the ring, and better yet, Mikey dipped out of the way of a pump of seawater shot from the Ikuchi’s mouth. He felt the spray of water tickling his cheeks as he went, and he grinned, watching the water splash to the ground, rushing in to fill the unoccupied space, turning the pits into shallow pools.

“Alright! Keep it up!” Leo encouraged, just a step behind him, getting the Ikuchi’s attention with a well-aimed strike just so that he could dance out of the way of their attack, darting swiftly to the side. The Ikuchi chased him with a furious shriek, mist spraying through the air, but from the other side of the ring, Raph bodily threw himself into its massive side, throwing off its balance just enough to cause it to falter-- too slow to snatch Leo up.

“HEY! Pick on someone your own size!” Raph hollered, backing up as the massive eel turned on him instead, curling its lips back in a snarl and howling with fury.

“Raph, you’re nowhere near its size!” Donnie called, pulling a similar move on another section of the Ikuchi’s training body-- darting forward to jump on it, leaping up and over, purposefully landing hard on its spine as he went and then dashing away.

“Well, he’s the closest one!” April laughed, winding up her infamous softball pitch and letting a hunk of rock go shooting through the air, smacking into the side of the Ikuchi’s face. April gave a whoop of victory, grinning widely, only to stumble a bit when the Ikuchi immediately went streaking towards her, a furious hiss winding from its mouth as it went. “Ooh, snap--”

“Tag! You’re it!” Mikey laughed, taking advantage of the creature being a bit lower to the ground in order to bounce over top of it, landing on its head with a firm thud before he went spinning away, flipping off to the side and leaving the dazed creature to chase after him once more. Mikey thought to himself, this is actually working. This might actually work.

If they weren’t strong enough to do any damage, they just had to call on a greater force-- gravity.

“I’m pretty sure I can teleport them up high enough to knock them out, or at least daze ‘em long enough for us to nab ‘em. I just need someplace to land, and the Ikuchi’s already got all the ingredients we need! We just gotta get ‘em to do the work for us!” Leo had explained in a rush, not ten minutes earlier.

“Are you sure you can get that high?” April had questioned, her brows knit with worry.

“I can do it! Seriously! I’ve got this! I don’t even have to aim or anything. I just gotta go up! And I know I can take it with me if I’ve got a good grip. I’ve been practicing!”

“Leo, are you sure this is safe?” Raph had pressed. “Can’t you teleport yourself back down?”

“Okay, well, I might be getting the hang of this teleporting thing, but not… that much,” he admitted, holding up his hands with a nervous laugh. “Getting up is gonna be a… a task. But I think I can do it! Really. I just… I dunno if I’ll have enough juice to get back down. But that’s fine! We just need a safety net. Trust me. It’ll be just like the high dive, remember?”

Raph had hesitated, but he had nodded. “Alright. Okay. I trust you, Leo,”

“Perfect,” Leo had said, grinning wide and turning to grin at Mikey. “Okay, Angie. You’re gonna be the best at this, for sure, so we’ll follow your lead. Think you can razzmatazz this place?”

Could he razzmatazz? What kind of a question was that?

Mikey laughed as he twirled effortlessly just out of reach of yet another attack, adrenaline banging excitedly in his chest as he darted away. Right now, in this moment, he swore he could fly. Gravity couldn’t even touch him. Leo had a plan, and Mikey was gonna make it work. They were already halfway there--

A short yelp was wrenched from him when something caught his ankle.

---

Ice raked its way up Leo’s body when he watched his brother fall, tripping over an oil-slick rock, the uneven, rocky terrain yanking him down to earth for just a moment. And Leo knew that he would get back up-- Mikey was tough, he was a bouncer, he bounced back , always did, and he was quick, he would be pulling himself back up to his feet in seconds.

But the Ikuchi didn’t need more than seconds. Every muscle in its body coiled as it rounded on his baby brother, held tight as it prepared to strike, its lips twisted back to show off pointed fangs longer than his arm.

Fuck.

Guess we gotta move the timeline on this one up a smidge.

In the half a second he had left, Leo dove forward, digging his fingers beneath the yokai’s scales and holding on tight.

---

When Leo and the Ikuchi disappeared, crackling, ghostly blue light left in their wake, it took Donnie a moment to figure out where they went, even though he already knew the plan-- even though he already knew where they were heading.

He didn’t want to look up.

Still, he wrenched his head back, staring up in horror as the snake creature re-materialized hundreds of feet above the Nexus. And, presumably, his twin brother as well.

Calculations began.

No, no, no, no--

The pools weren’t done. They weren’t deep enough. And they were too high, way too high, even if they did have enough water to break Leo’s fall, he was still going to be injured, but they didn’t have enough water. There was hardly a foot or two worth of it in even the deepest pools.

It wasn’t-- it wasn’t enough.

“LEO!”

---

Leo had never been up so tall before.

No walls or windows separating him and the rest of the world. Just him, the Ikuchi, and the open air, way up above the Battle Nexus. His family looked tiny, way down beneath him.

He felt the Ikuchi thrash, roaring as it flailed in the air before it began its descent downward, flinging him away like an insect with a flick of its tail. He wished he had the presence of mind to react and correct his trajectory, or at least be annoyed, but the whole world felt fuzzy, like everything had been torn right out of him. Like he had left all his energy and will back down on his ground when he teleported, forgetting it way down below. His muscles ached and pulsed and he went tumbling through the air, flopping about like a ragdoll. He could feel his head spinning in the exact opposite direction of his body. He felt unconsciousness tapping at his shoulder.

You have to get back down, remember?-- he thought blearily to himself. But the blissful promise of sleep just kept on tapping and his vision blurred a bit near the edges.

He realized, distantly, that he had never fallen so far before.

All his organs, seemingly, didn’t get the memo that they were heading down to the ground now, because Leo swore that they were yanked up through his chest by gravity, his stomach ending up in his throat and his heart ending up at the top of his head as he fell.

---

His son-- his child was falling. He was falling. Panic gripped every part of Yoshi’s body, nearly throwing himself over the balcony for a second time as he watched his son’s body plummeting through the air, buffeted about by gravity and being thrown in wild somersaults.

“BLUE!” He wailed. His heart was in his throat. He had to-- but he would never get there in time!-- but that was his child. That was his son! Frantically, he whipped around to face the only other occupant of the Luxury Box, his eyes blown wide and his face pinched with horror. He wouldn’t be quick enough. He wouldn’t make it. But she--

“Gumo! Gumo, please!” He begged.

She shifted a bit. Her face twitched, ever so slightly, and her muscles bunched. But she didn’t quite move.

---

“Raph! Raph!”

Raph’s head immediately bobbed up at the call of his name, looking up from the elaborate city he and Donnie were building in the sandbox. Donnie was the head architect, and he was in charge of all the little people, so it was basically a utopia so far-- but the call of his baby brother easily dragged him from the game, looking over to see Mikey on the ground, pointing… And spotting Leo in the branches of a nearby tree. His eyes widened.

“Leo’s stuck!” Mikey cried, flapping his arms a bit. Raph was on his feet in a second, despite Donnie’s grumble of annoyance, rushing his way over to his two littlest brothers.

“What happened!? Leo! How the heck did you get up there!?” Raph demanded as he approached.

“I climbed!” Leo reported proudly from up above. The tree he was in wasn’t even a part of schoolyard-- the branches just overhung them, and Raph quickly came to the conclusion that Leo must have climbed the chain link fence surrounding the elementary school play area, clambering up into the branches of the tree from there and scaling up, now nearly five feet over Raph’s head.

“Why!?”

“Mikey said I couldn’t!” Leo defended.

“And now he can’t get back down!” Mikey reported, in true youngest-child fashion, pointing accusingly up at the other. Leo looked offended by the other’s claim, but didn’t make any moves to refute them, either, and Raph sighed deeply.

“Mikey, grab Donnie and go get Miss Farmer,” he instructed quickly, and Mikey gave a sharp little nod, happy to have a task to do, scampering off to go and collect Donnie and find the teacher. Raph focused on the problem at hand, frowning deeply and putting his hands on his hips.

“Are you sure you can’t climb down? Even a little bit?”

“Uh…” Leo seemed to look around, seeming thoughtful. “I dunno. I can try.”

“Well, try then!”

“I could go further up.”

“Do not go further up!”

“But it’d be easier!”

“Leo, that’s the opposite of solvin’ the problem! You gotta come down!”

“Okay! Okay, I’m trying. Hang on.”

Raph waited patiently as he heard his brother shuffle above him, the leaves ruffling in reply, a few stray buds and twigs occasionally raining down on him and making him splutter in quiet annoyance. It had seemed like Leo was making progress, slowly but surely picking his way downward, though Raph couldn’t see very well between all the branches. He thought, for a minute there, that Leo might be able to get back down on his own-- until he heard the telltale sound of a branch snapping, followed by a surprised yelp and scrabble.

“Leo?”

“Raph! I’m gonna fall!”

Raph huffed loudly, his hands on his hips.

“No you won’t.”

“Yes, I will!”

“Well if you didn’t wanna fall, you shouldn’t a’ climbed up in the first place!”

“RAPH!” Leo cried again, and there was a pinch of panic to his voice this time that made Raph sigh deeply, his annoyance giving way.

“Okay, well, then, jump down, and Raph’ll catch you.”

“What!?”

“You heard me!”

“You will not!”

“I will too!”

“That’s what you said last time! You’re just gonna let me fall!”

“That was different!” Raph defended, scowling. It had been funny that time!

“Nu-uh! It’s too tall, Raph!”

“Leo, I’ll for real catch you this time!” He insisted, but his brother didn’t respond. Raph sighed deeply, glancing over his shoulder. Donnie, Mikey, and the teacher were nowhere in sight so far. He scowled to himself, weighing the options in his head for a moment, hemming and hawwing. But…

He couldn’t just leave Leo up there.

“Okay, hang on! I’ll come get you!”

Raph wasn’t nearly as good of a climber as Leo was, but scaling the fence wasn’t terribly difficult, and it wasn’t much trouble at all for Raph to pull himself up into the branches, heading his way up the tree until he could catch sight of his brother, clinging to one of the tree’s many limbs, his arms hanging onto one branch and his feet awkwardly resting on another, sagging branch, a jagged break running through the middle of it.

And, okay, now that he was up here, he could… kind of understand Leo’s position. It’d be hard to get down from here, and jumping would probably be… unpleasant, given how many other tree branches were jutting through the path between Leo and the ground.

“Okay, hang on. Raph’s comin’,” Raph said, sticking his tongue out slightly as he tried to devise a plan. He kept close to the trunk of the tree-- he was heavier than Leo was, and he didn’t wanna break any more branches. Once he was above the other, he very slowly scooted his way out, wrapping his legs around the branch he was resting on and stretching out his hand.

“Here. Grab on, I’ll pull you up.”

“Raph, if you drop me, I’ll--”

“I’m not gonna drop you! Just grab on already!”

Leo whined, and he wiggled for a second, testing each movement before he committed to it, wiggling and readjusting his feet slightly to see how much he could get away with before the branch gave way below him.

Raph wrinkled up his nose, stretching his arm out even further.

Leo bunched down slightly before he jumped, letting go of the branch so he could grab onto Raph’s hand instead. Raph huffed, bending for just a moment, straining under the weight-- jeez, had Leo always been this heavy!? Before he heaved him upwards, hissing softly with the effort.

For just a second, he was worried that he really was gonna drop Leo. Then he’d never hear the end of it.

But he got him up. Leo grabbed onto the branch up above, scrambling up, and Raph immediately scooted backward, back to the relative safety of the tree trunk, careful not to put too much weight in one spot.

… And now they were both stuck in a tree.

“Thanks,” Leo said.

“I told you,” Raph replied.

“Now what?” Leo asked, and Raph sighed, leaning back against the bark of the tree, glancing up at the cove of leaves that surrounded them, the glow of the sun up above casting a gentle green hue over the two of them.

It was kind of nice being this high up, actually. It was peaceful.

“I dunno. I guess we wait.”

---

Raph had never turned away when his brothers needed him before.

He wasn’t about to start now.

He had no idea what he was gonna do. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t see any path forward, there was no ‘a-ha!’ moment or answer popping up in his brain; that had never been his thing, anyway. He had no idea how he was going to fix this, or if he even could.

None of that mattered. Not even a little bit. All he knew was that Leo was falling, and that he needed help. And if he had to move the ground itself out of the way to make sure he didn’t get hurt, then so fucking be it.

Every fiber of him buzzed with absolute resolve. No backing down. No running away. So long as he was still here on this earth, he knew, with every single piece of himself, that he was gonna be there to protect his family.

He would stand his ground.

He would stay.

A brilliant red glow came spiraling through reality.

And just as the Ikuchi came crashing to the ground with a howl, the entire stadium shaking with the impact, a hand that was not quite his own but belonged to him nonetheless, stitched together with vermillion light, reached out and plucked his little brother out of the air.

[ next ]

153 notes · View notes