Fwoop! They're Switched

by anonymious

Summary:

Baron Draxum is sick and tired of the turtles not living up to their full potential, so he creates a machine that will strip them of what makes them unique once and for all. In a turn of events, the machine backfires, and their consciousnesses are switched.

On their quest to get back in their original bodies, the brothers deal with the effects of the switch and learn more about each other than they ever intended.

(a rottmnt body swap fic)

Chapter 1: The Fwoop

"Oh-ho, you're gonna pay for that, Draxie!" He'd exclaimed, heels, sword, scraping against the floor of the laboratory with a rough screech. Though he grinned, his lungs sucked in labored breath after labored breath, his vision struggling to focus back on its target. As he lifted his odachi from the ground, Baron Draxum chuckled heartily at his hollow threats.

"A bold claim, my dearest Creation," he’d retorted, a mocking tone lacing his words. The baron had only allowed himself for a moment to enjoy the way Leo’s smile faltered, because without even looking, he’d jerked his arm upwards when Mikey lunged towards him. A bright purple vine obeyed his command, rumbling the earth beneath Leo’s feet, and burst through the concrete to capture Mikey in its hold. Just to taunt him, Draxum swung his little brother back and forth. He was laughing maniacally now. Indulging himself.

Leonardo huffed and, in one swift motion, waved the odachi in a tight oval. Proudly, his newfound proficiency in the weapon showed itself in his precise movements. The familiar spark of blue brought a portal to life, and he braced himself before tumbling through.

The other end of the portal opened above where Mikey was held captive. Out fell Leo, who excitedly spun clockwise to slash at the vine responsible for his brother's constraint. He then adjusted mid-air to swing right at Draxum's nape.

The baron's laughs came to an abrupt halt, and Leo drew in a fearful breath. With one swat, he'd been sent flying back once more, attempts to land a hit on Draxum ending in vain. He slammed into one of the lab’s walls with such a force that he struggled to hold in a coughing fit. The area around his right hip screamed a sharp pain, but he ignored it, because Draxum hummed with a level of amusement that put Leo off. This guy was planning something more than they could see. Leo hadn’t figured out exactly what that was yet, but he knew that his brothers sensed it too. Despite his preoccupance, the slider caught the flash of purple that hurried to catch Mikey before he had the chance to hit the ground.

The area around his right side ached now, but he decided that his body could tough it out until this fight was over. He forced a grin back onto his mouth, finding that it comforted him to feel confident in such a tough situation. He managed to stand up, then prepared for another charge by planting one foot behind the other. "If you know what's good for you, then you'll–"

"Leo!" He heard instead. "We have to go!"

Confused, he looked to where the voice had come from. He hadn't even seen that Raph was in the middle of holding off Draxum in an impasse; he'd thought one sheep-man wouldn't be able to focus on four mutant turtles at the same time. "What?! But we haven't shut off the pipes yet!"

Raph grunted when Draxum broke the stagnant struggle and slid his tonfas to the side, only to go straight for his chest. His eldest brother had managed to block the blow, but he could only evenly match Draxum's strength, and held him in place once more. This would evidently not last. "We don't know where the pipes are! We're not gonna win, Leo!"

"You're not going to win, all right." Draxum knocked Raph off balance, the snapper's feet slipping against the floor and causing him to fall with a loud thud. Draxum's hoof triumphantly slammed against Raph's plastron and knocked the wind out of him.

“We’ve got this! The pipes have to be around here somewhere…” Leo took the time to scan the area for any signs of plumbing. Maybe a toilet? A sink? If any of those things were to be in Draxum’s laboratory, then could it be hidden by a secret entrance? He would’ve wiped the sweat from his forehead if his hands didn’t feel so…

“Cowabunga!”

Mikey and Donnie probably had it under control. If he could just figure out where Draxum’s pipes were, then they would be able to stop him from releasing the mutagen into them at the source. He could hear one of Donnie’s geekish battle cries, only to be cut short by a distinct gasp. Leo turned, Mikey next in line to attack. Gauntlet-covered hands snatched the giggling ball of fire out of the air and mechanically yanked it upwards, sending Mikey flying along with the chain.

The sound of his little brother's scream echoed throughout the laboratory, and Raph struggled against Draxum's hoof, to no avail.

Leo grimaced and dropped the pipe line of thought to run towards Draxum again. His odachi was ready to swing, a red herring, before it quickly opened another portal to his right. He redirected his momentum into the portal to swing at Draxum from behind instead. “Leo! Get us out of here!” Too late; Leo had already engaged. Sure, he'd missed, and Draxum had ducked before the odachi had the chance to land, but Donnie was quick to recover and to react. His tech-bo slammed into the yokai's side and knocked him off of Raph.

Raph fought to get up. He was exhausted.

Leo was too. They all were. But he had to keep g– Where was Draxum taking Mikey? No, fuck, why was he bringing Mikey to a cell? Had no one caught him? Now that he had a closer look, he realized that Mikey was out cold. Leo wanted to hope to God his brother’s head hadn’t taken the brunt of the impact, but he didn’t have time to hope that God would do anything. He opened another portal, and the other side glowed too bright to go unnoticed by Draxum. That didn’t matter. He hurried through to rescue Mikey, as he should’ve done sooner, but upon entering, he felt Draxum's unoccupied hand tug him through faster than he’d been prepared for.

When Draxum swung him out from the portal, his odachi fell to the ground.

"Leo!" He heard again, this time a worried, panicked cry as Raph stumbled towards Leo, towards Mikey, towards the baron behind all of this. He was frantically hitting his fists together to get his mystic weapons to work, but he didn't have the energy nor the focus to make it happen at this point in the fight.

Both Leo and Mikey were thrown into the cell, Mikey's body limp when the vines constricted him into place. It wasn't like he was going to fight against it, being unconscious and all, but Leo was going to. He was going to kick and struggle and, as much as he didn’t want to resort to it, bite at them. He’d lurched over to sink his teeth into them, sneering and ripping at the magic. It did nothing but make him feel helpless and disgusting.

This cage was larger than the one Draxum had used to capture Mayhem. It was about… four times larger. The thought that Baron Draxum had planned their capture from the very beginning of this fight, or, hell, even before this fight had begun, was sickening. Leo tried not to puke when he asked himself, What was Draxum going to do to them?

He could feel the vines' grip on him slacken ever so slightly when Draxum's focus shifted to Raph and Donnie, but it still wasn't enough for his sore muscles to push through them.

At some point—Leo's ability to process time had begun to get blurry—Donnie was caught in the vines, and he fell next to Leo. And then, alone and unable to take on Draxum by himself, Raph quickly met the same fate. They too attempted to struggle against the vines, but Leo knew it was no use.

"Isn't this so sweet? It's like you're having a little playdate in there." With one switch of a lever, the bars of the cell were retracted, only to be replaced with glass instead. Some kind of piston mechanism? "Now that I have all four of you in one place, I can finally get this over with."

Are they going to die? Is Draxum going to kill them? This is it. This is the end. Leo's gaze was pulled to the two machines on either side of him and his brothers. It didn't take a genius to figure out that something science-y was about to take place. "What are you gonna do? Experiment on us? Double-mutate us? We're turtles, not hamsters, big guy."

Raph gave him a dirty look.

Draxum ignored Leo's statements and instead focused on his goal. "You have failed to reach your full potential time after time. You have refused my guidance and you have refused to cooperate! Today, I take from you what I had once given to you all those years ago." He hit one of the buttons to the right of the containment room. Then, he stared directly at them. "If you cannot use your abilities as they were intended, then you don't deserve to have them at all."

Leo could hear Donnie gasp. He could hear him squirm and he could hear him seeth at how constraining Draxum’s vines had become, but Leo knew the yokai wouldn't take any pity. Someone this driven wouldn't give up a chance so easily.

"What? What's he gonna do? Donnie? What is Draxum going to do to us?" Their leader's voice was shaking.

Donnie just fought harder against the vines. "I don't know! That machine is powering up for something and I don't know what it is." His head jerked down, and then again, and again until his goggles finally fell over his eyes. He peered at the revving machines, and his jaw unhinged. Leo was worried when Donnie went silent, but what he'd said was even worse. "High concentration of mystic energy. And I mean high."

Leo breathed in, out, hard enough to force a wheeze. This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening. Were they about to die? Were they going to die? To the hands of Draxum? What about Dad? April?

“Leo! Why didn’t you retreat like I asked you to?!”

If it weren’t for his life flashing before his eyes, Leo might’ve responded with a little more class. However, he was stressed, and he was scared, and it was all turning straight into annoyance. Wouldn’t Raph ever understand how important these missions are? “We can’t just jump ship when we get a little tired, Raph. Who knows what kind of chaos that mutagen would cause? We’re supposed to be protecting New York.”

“Now, how are we supposed to protect New York—” Raph paused, voice calm up until this point, “—if we’re dead!? Huh? Tell me how, Leo!” His voice was belittling, and angry, and Leo was getting just a smidge stressed out.

“Obviously I didn’t know this would happen! What kind of supervillain actually kills the good guys?” The bitter taste of weird mystic plant in his mouth made him want to rip out his tongue. The pain in his side burned. The humming of the machines grew louder with each second they wasted.

“And I did. You have to listen to me if we’re going to work as a team!”

“Maybe if your plans weren’t ass, I would listen to you more often!”

It had slipped out. He didn’t mean it. But hearing Mikey’s shallow breaths, hearing the humming turn to a shrill beep, feeling it pound into his eardrums—it was causing more distress in him than a few jokes could remedy. He tried to ignore the way Raph’s furious expression morphed into one of disappointment. He tried to ignore how the sting of regret pierced his chest. Surely he was in the right. But the way he said it still seemed to hurt Raph, and for that he felt bad. Would they be dead by the time he’d figured out how to say sorry?

Draxum was laughing at them, saying how they couldn’t even cooperate with each other, and how they had been doomed from the start. Or, something like that.

A defeated voice pulled him out of his head. It was Donnie. “Would– Would Draxum even be able to use the pipe system in his lair to spread the mutagen around New York? They aren’t connected to the surface, are they?” It was an awful realization—one that made them go deafeningly quiet. The machines on either side were louder than his own thoughts, but the silence had never been so suffocating. They were in this mess, and all for nothing.

Leo could hear Mikey coming to. His attention quickly locked on his little brother, all other worries almost instantly leaving his mind. "Mikey? Mikey, are you awake?" Whatever this was, he needed Mikey here for it. Who knows what kind of state this could put him in if he was already unconscious? He should've opened a portal for him before he'd hit the ground, or at least made an attempt to break his fall. Had he fallen? Never mind that. Despite his pride, he knew it was on him that they couldn't get out of there in time. It was his fault that Mikey was in this state. It was his fault that they were about to die, and with absolutely nothing to show for it.

He allowed the regret to fester.

Mikey coughed a little bit. He'd forced open his eyes, head lifting ever so slightly. "..What's happening?"

Leo could've cried with relief. "Stay awake, little bro. Something mystic's about to happen, and I have no kimbly-clue what it is!" It had become a bit of a running joke that he'd do a bad imitation of Big Mama's speech patterns. It had come out sounding off, and now was absolutely not the time, but he needed something to calm him down right now.

He shut his mouth at Donnie’s next warning: "It's about to finish charging up! Brace! Brace!"

Those were the last things Leo heard before his vision went completely white. It was blinding, it was sudden, and the light invaded his head and it overtook all conscious thought, as if a stagelight was shining directly into his eyes, as if the sun had consumed him, as if he was swimming, as if he was choking, as if he was drowning in an ocean of… nothing.

He could no longer feel the vines, the floor, the concrete. The humming was completely gone, and in its wake, there was nothing. Not even the ringing of his tympana that usually followed loud noises. Not even the soreness of his hip. There was nothing. It was only natural to assume that this was the afterlife and he and his brothers were being prepared into turtle soup back on Earth.

Or, maybe his brothers had survived and escaped Draxum's laboratory. Maybe they were grieving their loss of him right now, and maybe he would get to watch over them like their ancestors probably do. Would his dad's ancestors look over them too? Either way, that would be okay. That's fi–

Excruciating pain. Okay, he's not dead, he's not dead! Every cell in his body felt as if it were on fire, legs, arms, neck, shell– shell? Everything burned, and everything was coming back to him. His limbs, his torso, they tingled when the feeling of blood rushing to them filled his brain. So much sensation all around his entire body caused him to paralyze, his muscles to lock up, his eyes to shut tight.

Was that… dubstep? Why was dubstep playing, and why was it so loud? Why did everything hurt? And why… why, when he opened his eyes, did he see himself? Sitting against the back of the cell, vines wrapped around him… He wasn’t dead, yet he could see himself from the third person?

His eyes were sore with whatever sensation had brought him back, as was everything else, but he managed to drag his gaze to his legs. Purple… Purple knee pads. Why were Donnie's knee pads on him?

Whoever the hell was in his body looked just as horrified as he felt. Whoever the hell was in his body. He was in Donnie's body. They'd switched bodies! He would've freaked out if the burning sensation wasn't so close to simmering down, the better part of him urging his—Donnie’s?—body to stay still as it recovered.

"They're still mutants, boss," one of the gargoyles observed. "Did anything even happen?"

Footsteps closer, the sound of the pistons retracting the glass. "Their bodies didn't turn back like I had hoped, but perhaps their brains have." The vines unwrapped from Leo's body– Donnie's body– the body, and slithered down his torso back into the ground. "They should at least have lost the essence that makes them such pests.” Draxum gestured towards the turtles. “Huginn, Muninn."

The two goyles flew towards him and his brothers, and it occured to him that if he was in Donnie's body, then where was Donnie? Had all of them switched?

The body Leo claimed as his own swiped at the gargoyle with the rounder features, arms moving with an unrestrained force that he'd like to think he didn't normally have.

"Woah! Muninn!" The other exclaimed.

Leo took it upon himself to kick at Draxum’s remaining assistant. "Is that all you've got, Draxie?" He asked, grinning, even if it sounded weird coming out as his brother's voice. Truthfully, he was thankful to be alive at all, so he might as well be as annoying as possible! "You'll have to do better than that to get rid of us!"

He felt his own eyes on him, but no response.

"What? How?" Draxum asked, looking at Leo, and then at Leo's body, and then at Mikey and Raph. "You're supposed to be incapacitated."

His teeth clenched. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. "I don't even know what that means," he retorted with the slyest of smiles he could muster.

"It means we're not supposed to be okay right now," Mikey's voice said, though strangely flat in tone. His little brother– other middle brother? Whatever. The one in orange pat atop his head, clearly searching for the goggles that so frequently sat there. "Our survival is a miracle! That machine was supposed to be deadly, but it looks like Draxum isn't nearly as good with technology as he is with being a nuisance." Then, while Draxum was too busy marvelling, fuming, his brother bound towards the tech-bo on the ground and activated the rocket function to hit Draxum away. Okay, Donnie is Mikey. Got it.

Leo saw himself run at the odachi. "C'mon, mystic powers, mystic powers, mystic powers!" His voice exclaimed, swinging the sword in desperate circles to create a portal out of there.

"No! Stop, turtles! I'm going to keep you here as long as it takes to get rid of your–" Draxum was cut off by a sharp slam to the helmet, Raph's body having went for the kusari-fundo first and foremost, though its mystic energy not quite activating. If Mikey is Raph, then Raph must be in his body. He cringed, feeling weirdly violated, but decided that he would figure out that whole situation later.

If Raph was busy with his sword, then he should probably grab his tonfas for him.

After a couple tries, Raph had successfully opened a portal; it was wobbly and unstable, but it would do. So, using Donnie’s legs, he raced towards the all-too familiar blue, eyes locking with Raph’s for a fleeting moment. They were both quick to look away.

Leo had become well-acquainted with his odachi’s portals. He knew how to use them, when to use them, the technique he should utilize to make sure they opened in the exact location he wanted them to. There had been too many incidents caused by his failure in this step to not practice it endlessly, so it had become second nature. Despite it all, he wasn’t the one making the portal. For the first time in a long time, he leapt through, and he had no idea where he’d end up.

Notes:

my first tmnt fic (amen) because lord knows i do not want this show to die

feel free to point out any inconsistencies and whatnot. this fic vaguely takes place anytime before the season 1 finale or draxums redemption arc because he deserved a bigger villain arc!!! draxum beloved

Chapter 2: Soap Suds

Summary:

The other side opened onto the roof of a building. The portal's placement was a little high, Leo having to stumble down to land safely, but it was pretty good for Raph's first try (even if he didn't want to admit it).

key:
leo is in donnie's body
donnie is in mikey's body
mikey is in raph's body
raph is in leo's body

Notes:

TW !!!! COMPULSIONS !!!! AND IMPLIED DEATH !!!!
(starts after leo and donnie say goodnight to each other)
stay safe yall

The other side opened onto the roof of a building. The portal's placement was a little high, Leo having to stumble down to land safely, but it was pretty good for Raph's first try (even if he didn't want to admit it). After grounding himself, he realized he was on the surface, where it was thankfully dark out. The moon was high, the breeze was calm, and, as if to taunt him, the bustling of the city was unwavering as Leo questioned every bit of everything he'd ever known. He was supposed to die just then. Or, he was at least supposed to lose his humanity or something. Did that seriously just happen? What were Draxum's machines meant to do? How was he in Donnie's body? Were his brothers almost killed? Was it his fault?

More importantly, why was dubstep still playing?!

Leo tugged the headphones off, and disdainfully, he was still able to hear it. He tried to remember which button toggled the music, but he usually wasn’t allowed to mess with this device, so he ended up fumbling with it. Donnie had done it in front of them so many times…

Once he found the right area to press and the music stopped, he sucked in a deep breath. The polluted New York air never tasted so good. It was crisp, and he could pick out the faint scent of pretzels, and gasoline, and smoke. Yeah, not the most appetizing smells (Leo was neutral on pretzels), but it’s the sentiment that counts. He could hear car horns and yelling, the clinking of glass as a party toasted, the chatter of residents as they walked, the humming, the machines–

Don’t think about it.

A moment to push it down. Even better, the lights of the city were magnificent. The apartment windows glistened in hundreds like a million fireflies in a cavern, the headlights of the cars flowed through the streets like fish in water, the look in Mikey’s eyes, the white light, the–

Don’t think about it.

It took everything and more to keep the images neatly locked away in a bottle in the back of his mind. He imagined everything that just happened crammed into that bottle, and he imagined that the lid spun itself into an airtight lock that would stay put until he had time to deal with it. The pain had simmered to a dull ache. His eyes had completely adjusted. His heart didn't beat nearly as fast.

After him through the portal were Mikey's and Raph's bodies, shortly followed by his own. Once actual-Raph had figured out how to close the portal, the other three fell to their knees, panting, looking at each other with a united sense of absolute uncertainty.

Leo fidgeted. Now they had to deal with…

He looked down to see Donnie's body instead of his own.

This whole situation.

The first to stand was Raph, in Leo's body, as he brushed the dust off his shoulders. Despite how he swayed, he managed to balance himself, and shakily slid the odachi back into its hilt. He looked at Leo's purple form. "Leo?" He asked, the name feeling so uncertain, so unnatural coming from a mouth that wasn't his. Leo knew this was a request for confirmation.

He nodded.

Raph had sighed, ran his hands down his cheeks with frustration, held his temple. Leo felt something in his stomach turn, but he tried not to get too caught up in it. "Look, Leo, I'm sorry. We need to work together right now with– with all…” He gestured to the situation, “this going on."

A hand settled on his shoulder, though blocked by the clunky battle shell. Leo wondered how Donnie dealt with it all the time; it felt weird to him, and so did Raph’s attempt at comfort. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, looked upward into the sky and tried to collect his thoughts. One of the things Doctor Feelings had taught him was that he shouldn’t fret over past mistakes he could no longer control. So he tried to smile as he would any other time.

He turned to look at his three brothers despite the changes in appearance. "We have to get back into Draxum's lab and use that machine again.” There was a point between this sentence and the next in which his smile lost its inauthenticity. “I can't live without my dashing good looks! How am I supposed to be the face man without my gorgeous face?" He'd mimed the flipping of hair to add to his little jest.

Donnie's arms crossed. "I think I look pretty good." It was easiest to tell who Donnie was just from his tone and expression. It reassured Leo that they were all still there, though it was strange that he and Donnie were at such different heights now. He could make fun of him for that later. "And we shouldn't. None of us are in fighting condition and we don't know how dangerous a machine like that could be if we used it more than once. Not to mention it might work as intended when it’s used next. I say we go home."

"What, so we can show Dad that not only did we sneak out while we were grounded, but that we'd somehow gotten switched?" He messed with the side of Donnie's plastron.

"We don't need to tell him," Raph decided. "If we go home, get some rest, and come back tomorrow to switch back, Pops won't even notice!"

"Are you sure this is a good idea, guys?" Raph asked. No, Raph had just spoken. This was Mikey. "Maybe we should just… tell him." When all three of his brothers gave him a dirty look, he backed down and unsuccessfully tried to duck into his shell.

Donnie scanned their surroundings, wincing at the siren of a nearby ambulance. “We’re in Times Square. We should be able to get home within the hour if we’re quick.”

How Donnie was so calm about everything, Leo didn’t know. How any of them were so calm, he also didn’t know. All he did know was that they couldn’t afford to be back any later and risk getting in more trouble with Dad on top of it all. So, as if they were one, they bounded into the night.

Getting home wasn’t the smoothest boat they’d ever sailed. Him and Donnie did alright, generally able to adapt to the comparatively mild proportion changes. It was Mikey and Raph who were having some difficulty. With every jump, Raph fell over and Mikey landed too hard. With every tight space, Raph unnecessarily moved out of the way and Mikey ran into everything.

After a treacherous journey through New York, they made it to the sewage entrance, where three out of the four of them climbed down the rungs without issue.

"Ugh– Raph, how do you grip these things?" Mikey asked, clearly struggling. Now that he said that, it probably would've been best for him to go first instead of last.

"It's easy. You just use your fingers."

"What do you think I'm doi–" A full stop. His foot slipping off the rung it was on, squeaking. And, sure, if this had happened to Raph normally, he'd be able to catch himself. But Mikey must not have been used to the change in mass or something, because Raph's body came tumbling down, Mikey yelping.

Raph screamed when Mikey's– his own? When the snapping turtle's shell hit his shoulder and took him down. Donnie had somehow been knocked by Raph’s leg, and Leo tried to get out of the way, but he wasn’t quick enough. The weight of his three brothers crashed onto him and he was sent plunging into the sewers.

By the time they hit the bottom, they were all screaming, and Leo was fine, but he felt something crack. Sudden, unfiltered panic washed over him. He stood up. Had his shell cracked? That wasn't supposed to happen, shit, shit. "M–My shell," he coughed out, trying his best to reach his arms around to feel the damage.

Donnie must've seen how freaked out he was, because with Mikey's arms, he quickly waved his hands in front of his face. "Leo, it's just the battle shell. You're fine. Though I am going to have to repair it.”

Leo ignored that last part and almost cried of relief. Right. The battle shell. Donnie doesn't have a hard shell like the rest of them do. He reached over his shoulder to untighten it, struggling, as he'd only ever done it when he was helping Donnie and not when he was him. He heard Raph groan.

"Mikey. What was that for?!"

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Their youngest brother in their oldest brother's body sat up, rubbing his arm and holding in a hiss.

Seeing him injured reminded Leo that he had also been hurt at Draxum's lab. Before being transferred into Donnie's body, that is. That machine certainly didn't heal them during the switch, Leo feeling Donnie's shoulder pain from having caught Mikey mid-air, so Raph's side should hurt right now. Why hadn’t he expressed it? Especially during their trip home?

Leo was finally able to unlatch the battle shell. It fell to the ground, exposing his back, and it felt amazing. He could actually feel the air on his shell as if it were his skin. It was freeing. A small part of him was worried about feeling uncomfortable in his hard shell once they were switched back.

Raph was helping Mikey up, and he pat him on the shoulder just as he would if they were in the right bodies. "Let's get back to the lair and patch ourselves up." Seeing himself in all of his red-eared glory being so leader-like was foreign. Surely the others didn't think it was natural either.

A voice from down the sewer made all of them freeze up.

"Boys?"

They all erupted into a silent panic, hurrying to fix the states they were in. How would they hide this from Dad? Sure, they could just act as each other, but their father was smarter than he looked. One wrong move and it was at least another week of being grounded.

"Okay, okay, play it cool. If we just act natural, then–"

"That's a big problem for Donnie," Leo pointed out.

"Hey!" Donnie whisper-shouted. "Big talk coming from the guy that says ‘indubitably’ every time he tries to lie. Leo don’t say ‘indubitably’ challenge. Difficulty level: impossible."

Leo unhinged Donnie's jaw in faux offense. “Uh-huh. Yeah, okay, Mr. Skips-Rehearsal-Every-Time–”

"Guys!" Weird that it was his voice trying to keep everyone in check. "Okay. Donnie, just– don't talk."

"Which Donnie?" Mikey asked, leaning in. His whisper voice wasn't quite a whisper; he must not have gotten used to Raph's vocal cords either.

"The real Donnie!" Raph clutched his side, finally giving into the pain. Leo resisted the urge to ask if he was okay, because after Raph took a couple breaths, he seemed to have an idea. His idea face was still the same, Leo noticed. "Just– everyone act hurt. Maybe he won't notice we're not ourselves if he thinks we're just in excruciating pain."

A collective nod from the rest of the team. Donnie handed over the bo staff to Leo, which was a good idea. Him and Raph and Mikey followed Donnie’s example and gave the weapons to their rightful owners. From a visual perspective, that is.

Upon entering the lair, Donnie limped and clutched Mikey's good arm. Leo held the broken battle shell to his chest and Raph allowed himself to move in a way that wouldn't further harm the injury to his side.

"Where have you boys been?" Splinter asked, an expectant look on his wrinkled face. He looked to each of them individually, the other three all diverting their gazes until Splinter's eyes landed on Leo's. Or, Donnie's, since he didn't know it was actually Leo. "How did you break your battle shell, Purple?"

Subconsciously, Leo glanced to Donnie, who was Mikey at the moment, until he realized that he was the one being spoken to. "I, uh…" The panicked expressions from his brothers were not helping, and he almost succumbed to the pressure. It was their dad after all.

No, this should be easy. Just act. Pretend you're in your own skin, he thought. And pretend you're making fun of Donnie. That seemed to help, because he felt his muscles relax and his eyes lose their expression. "The… impact from our fall must have exceeded the limited amount of force it could handle." He pretended to type something into Donnie's wrist tech, careful to keep his voice steady and flat. "I'll reinforce it later."

Silence. Not the infernal silence from when they'd realized their mistake in Draxum's lab, but silence nonetheless. They waited for Splinter to bust them, to point out that Leo didn't sound like Donnie at all, and that they were grounded for even longer after lying with such little finesse.

Wait, how would they get back to Draxum's machine if they couldn't leave the lair?

Splinter hummed. His tail swished behind him, and then he pointed at Leo accusingly. Leo froze up. "So you did fall from the surface! I thought I grounded you! You're all in very big trouble."

An imperceptible wave of relief washed over them.

"We're sorry, Pops," Mikey chimed in, his tone uncannily alike to Raph's. "It won't happen again." That part sounded a bit more like Mikey, but Splinter didn't seem to notice. Well, he shouldn't. What kind of dad would actively look for hints that his own sons' bodies were swapped?

Thankfully, Splinter accepted the apology. "It better not!" At the sight of the rest of them in pain, his snout twitched. "That fall must have been from very high up."

Mikey nodded.

Their dad had an internal debate on whether to be angry or worried. Leo could see it from the way his hypothetical lips pressed against each other, and then didn't, and then did. "Blue, tend to your brothers. Then you will go to sleep. Even you, Purple. Shoo, shoo. Off you go.” Even though the command was directed towards Raph, Leo felt the boulder of responsibility barrel towards him.

As Splinter settled back into his spot on the recliner, Leo watched his own mouth breath a sigh of relief. As for himself, he tried not to feel icky about being called the wrong color, about pretending to be Donnie to trick his own father and succeeding, about feeling as if a line had just been crossed. They had to get back into the right bodies before their dad found out, and especially before it could drive Leo insane.

==========

Mikey was sitting on the hospital bed in the medical bay, Leo checking over his arm. It seemed fine, though a little bruised. He instead shifted his focus to a particularly bad scrape on his knee. Well, on Raph's knee. This whole thing was still very, very confusing, and in the quiet understanding between him and Raph– between him and Mikey in this moment, he couldn't help but let his thoughts run rampant.

Whoever’s scrape it was, Leo was dabbing alcohol onto it. It was a rare occurrence for any of them to get an infection, a heightened immune system from the sewers giving them an advantage, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

His big– His little brother winced, so he took a pause. “You good?” A nod from him, and Leo continued.

Obviously, they had listened to Splinter. It wasn't like they would go to bed with untreated injuries, and Leo knew that he should give them all medical attention before Raph or Mikey could hurt themselves any more. The main light in the medbay, the one which usually shone above the hospital bed, was switched off, so he relied mostly on the soft glow of a lamp they’d plugged in just a few minutes before. It was a lot less intense, and it allowed Raph to sleep.

Donnie, as usual, was still awake. He'd been typing away on his wrist tech, which Leo had happily given back to him. It was a little loose on Mikey's arms, but he didn't complain. "If I could get some brain scans done on us, then maybe I can figure out what changed exactly. That's not a promise though. I don't have scans from before the switch, so there's nothing to compare them to."

Leo finished pressing the band-aid onto Mikey's knee, taking the time to look at the brother he'd impersonated. He grinned and pointed at his brain hidden beneath Donnie’s skull. He was sure that it was one of the few things that were still his own. "All you'll find in this bad boy is a master plan on how to get us back to normal. Trust me, we got this. How this happened doesn't matter. As long as we reverse it."

"That's the point. If we know how this happened, then we might be able to reverse it on our own. Without confronting Draxum again."

Leo raised an eyebrow, which he could actually do now. "And how are we going to do that without his big loud machine-y thing-y?"

"I'll make one," Donnie reasoned. "I just need to figure out how Draxum– how he managed to concentrate so much mystic power in technology. It's like your weapons, but a little more advanced—a love child of magic and machine, oh, it's fascinating!" His put his arms up with excitement, an unfittingly enthusiastic look in his eyes.

"Donnie," Leo said.

Donnie cleared his throat and swiftly went back to staring down his wrist tech. "Right, sorry, not the time." His eyes flitted to Mikey, but they quickly reverted to the screen on his forearm. "I'll start working on it tomorrow since we're grounded anyway. Not much we can do about it now."

Mikey pushed himself off the bed, stumbling slightly when his center of gravity changed. His eyes practically closed already, he yawned, wincing when Raph’s snaggletooth bit down on his skin. “Ugh… I’m going to bed. I am beat.”

Leo stood up as well and stretched his back. The way his shell curved along with it when he did so was a new but satisfying feeling. He wasn’t quite tired enough to sleep—he usually wasn’t at this time—but it would be nice to lie down and relax a little bit. “Uh, which rooms are we going to? I don’t think your bed’s gonna fit Raph.”

A deep sigh from Mikey, who was currently attempting to untie Raph’s mask from around his head. “I’ll go to Raph’s room, then.” But his large fingers were having trouble with the fine motor movements required.

When Leo just stood there, Donnie volunteered. “Here.” He got on the tips of his toes to untie it for him. Mikey appeared discouraged, but he allowed Donnie to untie it, the red falling from his eyes and into Donnie’s hands.

“Thanks, Dee.”

Leo bit his tongue. Instead, he patted the hospital bed. "Your turn. Mikey took a hell of a fall. Or two."

Donnie was still staring at the entryway, where Mikey had exited. He held Raph's bandana in his hand and rubbed at the fabric slightly, but he sat on the bed nonetheless. "I feel fine, Leo."

"Yeah, but we should make sure. Take off your mask." He looked for his flashlight that usually sat on the cart at the foot of the bed. He had to move a few things out of the way—a box half-full of bandages, some of Raphs rubber teeth bands, an empty cup with dry coffee at the bottom of it... Geez, they really need to clean this room—and once he found it, he tested it to make sure it worked before turning back to– Donnie. Who had taken off the orange mask without issue. "Light," he warned, before shining it into his eyes. A small flinch, but not one out of the ordinary. "Does your head feel weird?"

"No."

No headache, no unusual sensitivity. Seeing as his pupils constricted quickly, he probably didn't have a concussion or anything. That's good.

Naturally, he set a hand on Mikey's shoulder when he turned away to put down the flashlight. Did he refer to him as Mikey in his head just then? Donnie. Donnie hadn't been acting weird, mostly complaining about muscle aches, and he could move all his limbs just fine…

"Looks like you're good to go, kiddo," he joked, watching as Donnie's frown turned into an even bigger frown.

"I know you're worried about Mikey, Nardo, but I'm not him. He's the one that just left."

Leo took his hand off his shoulder, forcing a chuckle. Okay, so maybe that wasn't something he would've done to Donnie. "You think I didn't pick up on that?" An unimpressed look from his brother, and Leo backpedaled. "Look, it's not every day that my brain gets dropped into someone else's flesh cage—I'm trying my best here! Once we sneak back into Draxum's lab to use his– his– fwoop-y thing, or you make your own fwoop-y thing, we're home free! How hard can that be?"

Donnie hummed with the barest hint of amusement. "Fwoop-y thing?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah. 'Cause we were– fwooped?" He wiggled his fingers and made a little circle motion, obviously referring to how they were the victims of said fwoop-ing. "What else am I supposed to call it?"

"A psychologically-altering mystic particle accelerator?" He'd suggested, finally lowering his guard. "Or would you prefer to call it the Fwoopinator?"

"The Fwoopinator! You're a genius, bro." For a brief moment, he'd almost forgotten about the whole situation. For a brief moment, he didn't feel the guilt of his brothers' injuries weighing on his heavy shoulders.

"I do already know that, but I appreciate the compliment." Donnie stood from the bed and nudged Leo's elbow with his. "Get some sleep, Leo. I don't want to come back to a tired body," he said, only a little bit of sarcasm in his tone.

Leo rolled his eyes and assumed the sarcasm was intentional. "To quote you, ’scoff.’ As if you're any better." Quoting Donnie with Donnie’s voice might have been the peak of comedy, but they both just made a stupid smile. They looked at each other with a mutual warmth, and so Leo faked a yawn. "You'll start working on it tomorrow?"

He nodded just enough to see. "Yeah, but I'll need your voice to access some of my parts."

"Aye-aye, captain."

Donnie smiled, and it really did feel like Donnie. "Goodnight, Leo."

"Night, Dee."

And then it was just him and a still-sleeping Raph. Which wouldn't be so creepy if Raph hadn't been in his body, but maybe it was a good thing he was light enough for Leo to carry him.

Raph was always the first to doze off, and this time, he'd passed out in one of the chairs next to the hospital bed the second his side was done being bandaged. Leo'd remembered where the pain was and how bad it had been, so it was relatively easy to treat… despite Raph's insistence that he was fine and that nothing had to be done. Leo wasn't sure why he was so adamant to deny his aid—he'd literally experienced the pain himself! There was no one better to help!

It was okay though, because Raph eventually gave in and allowed Leo to work his magic, and from the way he slept, he probably felt better. But looking at him, snoring, blissfully detached from the dilemma they’d gotten into, was less than a calming sight. There were a lot of things Leo never thought he'd do, and seeing himself sleep was not one he'd expected to be crossed off that list. It was as if someone had taken a video of him sleeping and he was watching it. Invasive, embarrassing, and somehow so interesting that he couldn’t look away.

Back to Raph being light enough to carry: he was slouched in an uncomfortable position, head tilted all the way to the side to lean against the wall behind him since the dinky desk chair wasn’t quite as supportive as, say, Dad’s recliner. Leo hadn’t argued with him about sleeping in such an inconvenient spot; he obviously didn’t want to be away from the rest of them. However, Leo also did not want any neck pain when he got back to his body, so being able to bring him to Mikey's room with ease was in his best interest. Once he washed his hands, of course. He had been dealing with wounds for the past hour or two.

So he quietly headed to the bathroom nearest the meday and switched on the light with his wrist. It was much brighter in here than it had been in there, and the sudden change to familiar scenery made him fall into routine. He turned on the water with the back of his first finger, carefully got some soap on his hands, washed them. Under his nails, between his fingers, under his nails again, over top, his palms, his knuckles… Did he get under his nails? He should probably do that again– did he get between the fingers on his left hand? Probably.

He nudged the sink to turn it off and dried his hands on the towel, as he always did, but… they still didn't feel clean. They felt less clammy than before—Donnie's hands were surprisingly clammy—but they still felt gross. All over. What had he done wrong? Usually he could do it right the first time, maybe the second or third time on a bad day.

Frustrated, he pumped a little more soap than before and began the process again. Could he have gotten someone's blood on them and he just couldn't see it? He thought he’d been pretty careful about that. Did he touch something dirty without realizing? He cleaned a little better between the fingers on his left hand, scraped under his nails for a fourth time, or was it the fifth? How many times had he done it?

Dry his hands first this time. Use toilet paper to turn off the sink. And they still felt dirty—possibly even worse than before. He was breathing heavily again, confused, angry that it wasn’t working, it always worked, why wasn’t it working, why wasn’t it working?

Like sandpaper on wood, he filed the beds of his fingertips until they were smooth. He rubbed his hands together, skin grating against skin until his wrists ached with tension. Until they were itchy and irritated and– The glass of the bottle cracked from the pressure. It cracked, it kept cracking, and it cracked and it trembled until it burst, hundreds of shards puncturing his itching brain until he could hear his little brother’s scream echo off the walls over and over again, until he fell from the vines and slammed into the ground, until he ran his fingers between each other so fervently that the skin between them stung. Stop the water, stop the scratching, dry his hands, and they still weren't clean.

Wash them again, start the water, start the kneading, push his fingers through and around each other like vines, the vines, the vines, and he saw Mikey unresponsive, defenseless in Draxum’s hold, and he saw it, and he saw it until he scrubbed harder and harder against reddening knuckles. Unable to stop, the sinking feeling in his chest grew and grew and grew and kept growing, the shattering realization that he had almost been responsible for the death of his brothers pounded into him like a hammer on metal.

The towel was sopping wet now. Hands agitated, exhausted, he ran them under the water, pumped enough soap to coat them, disgusting, run the soap up his wrist and all the way to his elbow because it wasn't enough, why wasn't it enough, why wasn't he enough? He kept scrubbing and he kept scraping and it wasn't enough because Raph's torso caved in when Draxum stomped into his plastron, and Donnie was choking and gasping and suffocating when he was constricted in vines, the vines, and Mikey was limp on the ground, and all the color had left his eyes, and the skin under his nails sent him jolts of pain when he tried to clean them.

By the eleventh time, or maybe the twelfth, or maybe the thirteenth—fuck, he didn't know—his skin pruned, and his eyes watered, and his shoulders were so stiff that they burned. They burned, they burned, the burning of every muscle he had, the white, the nothing, the fear, the panic, so he scratched away at the folds in his palms, trying desperately to peel away the skin until it all came off, he wanted it off, he needed it off, water, soap suds, cascading in bubbles and foam that fell from Donnie's–

Donnie's.

The sound of running water. The bathroom lights. Leo hadn’t realized he was hyperventilating. He forced himself to hold his breath and close his eyes.

They feel dirty because they aren't his hands. They're Donnie's.

Leo shook the water from the hands, shook those thoughts from his head as he had many times before, and turned the sink off for good. But as he wiped his hands dry, as he switched the lights off, he felt sick. Is this how they felt all the time? How dirty was the lair exactly, and how many times had he overlooked it? How many times had he assumed something to be okay, only for it to feel like this? He bit down on the sides of his mouth—oh, fuck him, it’s Donnie’s mouth and not his—and tried to hold back the tears forming in his eyes.

It’ll be okay.

He’s just overreacting.

As much as he didn't want it to be true, his brothers never felt the cleanest to him. Of course he showed them affection, and of course he was touchy, but that was because he could monitor it. And he could always shower before getting into bed (God, did he freak out when they went near his bed). So he wasn’t sure what he expected to feel when he first picked up Raph. Obviously Raph wouldn’t feel clean to him; his own body (when it was his body, that is) never felt clean after a fight. Still, it was terrifying. If Donnie’s body didn’t feel right, and his body didn’t feel right, then would he ever—?

It was a question for another time, and he knew that. He had to focus on the task at hand: getting him and his brothers back to normal. And the first step was to get some sleep. Once he’d set Raph down in Mikey’s bed, he looked at Mikey’s alarm clock, and it was– 4 a.m!? Had it really been that long? How much time had he spent on–

Never mind. Get as much sleep as he can, wake up, and help Donnie make a new machine. Easy enough.

His bed. He’d been so caught up in everything else that he’d completely forgotten to shower. But it was late, and he was too tired to feel any more frustration. So, in an act of defeat, he curled up on the floor of Mikey’s room. Cans of spray paint and loose papers scattered the floor, so he tried not to knock anything over, and he tried not to think about how dirty the ground was; it wasn't like he felt clean enough to get any dirtier.

He wasn't sure when he fell asleep. It could've been after ten minutes, or thirty, or an hour or two hours, but in the darkness of the room, in the avalanche of swirling thoughts that buried him six feet in exhaustion, he managed it.

Notes:

they are twins your honor

suppression is leos main coping mechanism second to comedy and no one can tell me otherwise. also sorry if this is self indulgent but it was fun to write so here u go (the ocd rep we need but dont deserve)

dont worry kings the mental health is gonna be central to this fic

Chapter 3: Scrambled

Summary:

Lots of thoughts occupied his mind, but he wasn’t too worried about the entire situation. It wasn’t like there was a time limit on how long they could remain in this state. At worst, they get caught by Splinter and they’re grounded for another week, but what did that entail? Nothing.

Notes:

cw !! sensory issues !! (while donnie is in the kitchen)

okay so in hindsight this chapter is a little boring but i worked on it for way too long so here you go

bear with me i swear all this buildup has a purpose and the plot will start soon!!!

Donnie had fallen asleep almost immediately. Theories as to how Draxum managed to create such a brilliant implausible machine, ideas on how to design his own version of the device, questions about the logistics of it all, about the science. It all ran through his head at record pace in the few moments he had alone, but it wasn’t enough to keep him up for longer than a minute or a few. Mikey’s body was absolutely drained. After the adrenaline, the falling, and the fainting, it was no wonder it needed rest; he allowed himself to push everything aside in favor of getting some well-deserved Z’s. And he had to admit that he felt well-rested afterward.

Lots of thoughts occupied his mind, but he wasn’t too worried about the entire situation. It wasn’t like there was a time limit on how long they could remain in this state. At worst, they get caught by Splinter and they’re grounded for another week, but what did that entail? Nothing. If he has the time to perfect an invention, he’s going to make use of it to the fullest.

Nevertheless, he’d started brainstorming early that morning. He may have time, but he shouldn’t waste any of it.

As he drew out the first conceptual designs, he took into account the shape of the machine as well as the shape of the containment chamber they’d been trapped in. As best he could from memory, he recounted how large it was compared to them, the sounds it made, the material… And the more he sketched, the more he wrote, the more he realized that Mikey’s hands felt easier to work with. They were steadier: straight lines and perfect circles were no longer an issue. His motions were so much more controlled, and it was incredible! He understandably wasn't any better at the craft itself, but his lines were noticeably cleaner. It made him wonder about the connection between his brain and Mikey's muscles, and how exactly Draxum's machine did that. Or, how the Fwoopinator did that, if he were to settle with Leo's name of choice.

It was all fascinating to him, and he so desperately wanted to learn more, but he knew it was unlikely that Draxum would share his creative processes with his sworn enemies.

So it was up to him and him alone. If he were to fully understand the cause of the fluke, he would have to first recognize what Draxum was trying to achieve, and then he would need to observe what was actually achieved.

The first step would be to do a few scans once all of his brothers were awake. Then, he would conduct some observations until he figured out what exactly happened during the switch. Plus some digging on mystic energy while he was at it…

There was a lot of work to do, but he was confident in his abilities. Whether he was in his own body or not, he still had his most valuable tool: his brain. It was the main reason that he wasn’t losing his mind right now (pun intended).

He'd set a timer for himself because he knew he tended to get sucked into his work. He wouldn't want to miss breakfast– Would they have breakfast? Usually Mikey made it for everyone, but judging from how peculiar he'd acted yesterday, he doubted that his younger brother was up for that right now.

Donnie stood from his desk and turned off the timer. He might as well try and make breakfast. The last thing they needed right now was to be hungry.

Luckily, Mikey kept the kitchen relatively clean; it was the space in the house he loved most, after all. Though, this meant that it was organized to Mikey’s liking. Two boxes of cereal sat next to each other in one spot while the third was on a completely separate countertop. The forks and knives were in a drawer while the spoons sat in a metal net in a cupboard. He swore he would never understand how Mikey’s brain worked. Ironically.

The fridge had eggs, milk, pickles, salami… In fact, it primarily smelled like salami. Which wasn't the worst smell, but it was strong. He scrunched his nose. The kitchen lighting was already enough of a turn-off.

He picked at one of the stickers on Mikey's plastron as he thought through his choices. There was an unopened loaf of bread sitting on the counter, so he could make eggs and toast. That sounded easy enough.

Based on the material of the pan, he’d need a lubricator to keep the eggs from sticking. Butter should do. He set a few eggs—ugh, they were cold—onto the counter to prepare for cracking.

Though Mikey’s body offered a sort of artsy stability, he quickly realized that he wasn’t used to the slight changes in spatial awareness. He’d cracked the eggs at the wrong points multiple times, and he wasn’t as good with a spatula as he’d assumed. Or, maybe he was never great with cooking utensils. The world may never know.

Scrambled it is.

He scrambled the eggs in the pan, and he wondered if he and his brothers were the same way. If the four of them were eggs and all of their consciousnesses were the yolks and the whites, then that would mean they started as four separate entities, only for their core beings to be permanently removed from their rightful bodies. It would mean that once they were stirred and mixed, there would be no way to… He stopped that thought and decided that, no, they weren’t scrambled. They were only switched. Whatever had happened, there has to be a way to undo the scr– the switch.

He just had to find a scientific explanation for it.

Though the sizzling had been a little noisy for his liking, everything was going great. The eggs weren't horrifically burnt, so that was a big win for good ol' Donatello. He put some bread in the toaster and started getting out plates, but he probably shouldn't have pushed his luck with the whole slightly-off-motor-movements thing.

A plate slipped from his hand, clattering onto the tile floor with a blaring crash that made his entire body jolt. "Oh, blueberry muffins," he muttered. Glass rattled against the tile as it dispersed, a cacophonous sound that caused him to freeze up.

His eyes blinked. And he took a few seconds to regain himself before–

The toaster popped, and he jumped again. This is why he didn't cook, this is why he didn't cook, take deep breaths, deep breaths... It had been so loud, and paired with all of the stuff he had to feel, with the scents, it was overwhelming. It was overwhelming, it was bright, and it was– dark?

Had the lights been switched off? He hadn't switched off the lights. Confused, he opened his eyes (when had he closed his eyes?), and he realized he was inside Mikey's shell. His head had reflexively retracted, and it was… comfortable. Unlike his own shell, this one required no awkward craning to slide into.

This shell was just the right fit. It was pleasant. Now he understood why Mikey found solace in it.

"Donnie? Is that you? What was that sound?" Someone had entered the kitchen. He could hear their footsteps. But they must've seen his head and only his head retracted, because they screamed, and it was loud.

Donnie forced himself out of the shell to cover his ears. Right. His brain is still his own. No matter how different the body he resided in was, his brain had not changed. "Shut up, Leo!" He didn't mean to raise his voice, but Leo was so– Leo? No, no, their bodies. That's Leo's body, but it's Raph.

He'd raised his voice at Raph?

"Sorry– sorry," his older brother whispered.

He just shook his head. It was nothing he couldn't deal with. And he'd accidentally called him Leo, which was rather insulting and equally deserving of guilt. "Can you turn off the lights?" The question left his mouth before he was able to stop it. He was grateful anyway when Raph flipped the light switch, the only remaining source being the fairy lights strung across the ceiling.

"What happened?" Raph asked with Leo's whisper voice, peering at the broken shards of glass that surrounded Donnie's feet. He didn’t wait for an answer, simply looking around some of the bottom cabinets. Donnie took notice of how carefully Raph closed the doors to them and how it barely made a sound. When he dug out the broom and dustpan, he kneeled down. "I got it, Dee. Don't move."

As his brother swept the floor around him, he sighed deeply. It really was patronizing to be babied, but he understood the instinct to take care of Mikey, so he allowed it. And he might have had trouble stepping around the glass to get the dustpan himself, so Raph’s help made this task exceptionally easier. He fidgeted. "I didn't mean to shout," he said. "It must be Mikey's vocal cords. They're accustomed to yelling."

Raph just chuckled. "Yeah, probably." Once he finished swiping the last of the visible shards into the pan, he disposed of the shattered ceramics and looked at Donnie. His mouth pulled into a smile. "I can finish breakfast. You should focus on your stuff."

Whether Raph meant the replicate of Draxum's accelerator or his neurodivergence, he couldn't tell, but he didn't have to be asked twice. “Further use of the stove is unnecessary. Please, God, please do not try to use the stove.” If he was uncoordinated in Mikey’s body, who knows how clumsy Raph would be?

“I won’t, I won’t.”

Reassured, he went straight to his room. The good thing about it being morning is that it’s quiet in the lair, so the hypothetical hairs on his neck stood down, and he wasn’t breathing as hard. If he could cool off alone for a few good minutes, he'd be able to get back to work despite the less-than-great start to his day. Just gotta find his… His goggles (which doubled as headphones) were probably with actual-Leo still.

That's okay. He grabbed something to mess with and leaned against the wall of his room, not knowing how to feel about Mikey's shell being so bulky and inconvenient. He pretended it was his battle shell and put his head back. It wasn’t often he had such prevalent sensory complications, but today was evidently not his day. Well, in his defense, it had only been, what, twelve hours? since his body had been full-on switched.

His mind wandered back to the machine he was meant to build. The object in his hands twisted and cranked, his gaze settled firmly on the colors as they moved. His brain was like a simple equation; a line of code if you will. Give it this specific set of regulators and it would eventually calm down. It had taken a long time to figure out what worked for him, but…

Wait, their bodies hadn’t been switched. It was their brains! He knew because he remembered not being in the same spot in the cage after coming to, which means–

He had no time to expand upon that revelation, and had arrived back on Earth when he heard Raph stumble away from the doorframe, which he was nowhere near bumping into. In his hands were a couple of paper plates and some forks. "Hey, Dee," he greeted, holding out one of the plates to Donnie.

The bread and the eggs weren't touching, which he appreciated. "Yeah, thanks." It had come out sounding ungrateful, but Raph knew what he meant.

His brother sat on the floor and started piling his eggs onto the bread, so Donnie sat across from him. As always, Raph made a taco out of his food and started eating it as such. Donnie's shoulders lost their tension.

"Are Mikey and Leo awake yet?"

Raph shook his head, wiping a stray egg from the corner of his mouth. "Nope. Wanna know what's weird though? When I woke up, I was in Mikey's room, and Leo was sleeping on the ground."

Still toying with the fidget, Donnie's browline furrowed. He kind of wished he could have his artificial eyebrows back. They were so easy to convey emotion with. "Rightfully. He was pretty fucking exhausted last night. I am not surprised."

Raph stopped chewing for a moment to say, "Language, Donnie."

Donnie stopped as well, realizing what he'd done. Honestly, he himself was surprised by the slip in language toward Raph. Usually he was good about keeping his mouth clean in front of his older brother, but the visual cue of Leo must have warped that. He nervously started chewing his eggs.

"But yeah. We should let him sleep." He finished his food and brushed his hands together to rid of the crumbs. It was only quiet for a moment, but as if to fill the silence, he asked, "Do we have any soap left?"

"As in, hand soap? Why?"

"The one in the downstairs bathroom is almost out."

"I changed that one a few days ago."

"You did?"

They stared at each other. Neither had the confidence in their claims to disprove the other, but it was enough of a menial observation that there was no way they could've both fabricated conflicting stories about it at the same time.

Donnie swallowed his last piece of bread. "Affirmative. We do have hand soap—there should be some below the sink." This awfully dull exchange felt like a waste of communication, but addressing the elephant in the room felt like a chore. Still, he could've sworn he'd put a new bottle of soap in that bathroom recently… Could the switch be messing with his memory?

No matter. He stood up, and as if pointing right at the elephant and announcing to the entire world that it was present, he said, "I should get back to work. Draxum's machine is so– It's mystic, which is what I'm stuck on." Finally getting to talk to someone about this was relieving. "If I could figure out how he got it to be mystic and how that caused the switch, then I could probably figure out how it happened and how to reverse it." He stood and began to pace, Raph mirroring him. "I wish I'd paid more attention to the way it functioned. I was there while it was happening—as it performed an impossible work of science—it was incredible!"

His train of thought landed back on the idea that their brains had switched rather than their bodies. “Recreating that sort of machine would leave no room for error. If there was anything I learned from messing with your intelligence that one time, he mentioned apprehensively, it’s that there's a lot that can go wrong when it comes to brain chemistry. But enhancing an already-existing aspect of a consciousness is far from what Draxum accomplished, so this project will likely take longer than expected.”

"Uh-huh…" Okay, Raph had zoned out. Even so, he made a visual attempt to keep up with Donnie's ramblings. "Did– What do you need from us?"

Donnie only had to consider his options for a split second. "I need to conduct some MRI scans and to examine your weapons. I'm–" Their weapons! Of course! He didn't know much about the mystic properties their weapons held, but from the way Leo explained it, their usage required the user to tap into a potential buried deep in their subconscious. "...We're going to have a training session today," he decided, grinning as he formulated a plan in his head.

Raph's expression filled with disbelief. "You're saying we should train? You? Not me?" He put his hand to his chest and imitated the act of tearing up. "They grow up so fast…"

Donnie could barely hear him over the ideas bubbling in his head. "Your weapons are the perfect test for procedural memory! Plus, they're mystic! Don't worry, you only need to train long enough for me to observe your use of Leo's sword. Thank me later."

"Aaand there it is."

==========

The air was filled with eggs and toast for the rest of the morning. Mikey knew this because he’d woken up to it. Normally, he never woke up to the smell of breakfast since he was always the one who cooked—not that he was forced to; he just enjoyed the practice—and it was abnormal enough to resurface some of the dread from last night. It’s okay though! They’re going back to Draxum’s lab today to use the thingamabob again, and then this’ll be a funny memory for them to look back on. Maybe Dad cooked something for them after seeing how beat up they were?

No, he wouldn't.

Unable to go back to sleep, Mikey stumbled as he got down from Raph’s bed, in Raph’s body, and left Raph’s room to see what was up.

Mikey carefully made his way up the stairs. Normally he'd be able to jump the distance of the atrium's floors, but he worried he might break something if he tried that now.

Despite how much better he felt compared to the night before, this entire situation was still disorienting. The door frames were way too close to his head, and the stairs were way too small for his feet, and Donnie’s lab felt way smaller than it usually did. He must’ve gravitated towards it because he could hear his brothers talking.

Whoever was in Leo’s body waved at him. “Mikey! Donnie made breakfast if you want it. It’s in the kitchen.” Leo’s body was huddled with his own around Donnie’s desk. They’d been discussing something—probably a way to break into Draxum’s lab again—and they looked busy. Seeing himself from a third person point-of-view wasn’t any less uncanny than it had been last night.

So Donnie was the one who made breakfast? Why? Cooking was his thing, wasn't it? Curiosity turned to confusion turned to frustration. His fists had clenched, but he pretended not to be upset that something small and insignificant had been taken away from him. They'd be back into their normal bodies soon. So why did it matter if he felt like… this? "Oh, okay!" He stretched his arms upward, almost knocking his wrist into the top of the door frame. "Thanks, Donnie! I'll go get that–"

"Can you check on Leo too? He should be asleep in your room." Okay, if he's in Raph's body, and Donnie's in his body, and Leo is asleep, but Leo's body is here, then Leo's body must be Raph. This was all so complicated. "I assume he went to bed at around midnight, so he might be awake by now."

Slowly, Mikey nodded. “Sure, Dee.” Donnie could’ve asked Raph to do that, but he guessed he didn’t mind checking on Leo. Wait, did Donnie ask Raph? No, it was directed at him, and he’s Mikey, so he'd asked Mikey, which is him.

When he made it to the kitchen, he didn't see anything immediately. They might’ve put it in the fridge– Wow, it smelled like salami. But he didn’t see anything new, so it’s probably on the stove, actually… How old was that salami? Was it moldy? It wasn't from when they made that salami paper, right?

He searched the refrigerator for it, moving things around, rearranging the way it was organized. The butter was in the wrong spot, and so was the egg carton. Why were used eggshells in the little slots? You’re supposed to throw those away, right? He was about to take the entire carton out, but decided against it in favor of not dropping sixteen eggs on the floor. Instead, he picked each one out and dropped them into the trash.

Now that the fridge was organized, his work was done.

Wasn't he looking for something? What had he been looking for? Okay, he'd walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge…

Salami. He'd found the salami while he was organizing. He turned it upside-down to see the label. Okay, no, it's relatively new. Did Dad buy this yesterday? Only a couple pieces were gone, so he must have. His tongue started to click against his teeth to a little made-up tune as he put the salami back.

Was that all he came in here to do? To organize the fridge and check if the salami had gone bad? He could've sworn there was something else he was meant to do…

His stomach (or, Raph's stomach) growled. Right! Breakfast. Where was that again? If it’s not in the fridge, then it must be on the… stove. The stove, right? He eyed a lone pan sitting atop it and lifted the lid up, where scrambled eggs lay before him. From the looks of it, Donnie hadn't even put pepper, which was– unnerving? Was that the right word? Personally, he would've at least put pepper, maybe a little bit of thyme.

He scooped the room-temperature eggs onto a plate and grabbed a piece of stale toast. It’s good enough.

The last thing he had to do was… check on Leo. That was the one he was putting off; Leo obviously did not feel all that comfortable around him like this—he could tell from his body language—and honestly, he didn't blame him. But it'll all be back to normal later today and everything will be fine and they can go on with their lives. He just has to see if Leo's awake, and they'll be headed to Draxum's!

Filled with newly-instilled optimism, Mikey made a plate for Leo as well.

Sure enough, Leo was lying on the floor of his room, soft shell facing the doorway and obscuring what would be Donnie's face. Leo wasn't snoring, so he could only assume he was awake. "Leo?" Mikey asked, hesitant to enter his own room.

"Raph?"

That made Mikey recoil, but maybe Leo had just woken up and he didn't remember what happened yesterday yet. Morning forgetfulness and all that. "Nope, not Raph. Guess again."

Leo slowly sat up to turn towards Mikey, and there were bags under his eyes. "Hmm, are you Donnie? Leon, maybe? Those are the only people I can think of…" Mikey tried to appear unamused. "Oh, you've gotta be April, then."

He gave in and giggled. "Not funny, Leo." He sat across from his brother and set the plate in front of him. "I think we're going back to Draxum's today to switch back! Aren't we?"

A sudden change in demeanor. Leo grimaced and looked around the room. No response.

He waited, and still no response. Leo wasn't even eating! He didn't have an excuse to not respond right now. Why wasn't he answering the question? Surely Leo heard him. Were they not going today? "Uh, about that," Leo said, chuckling. "We're not." That dread from before came back to ruin his appetite. Not that he was particularly excited to eat unseasoned eggs and slightly-burnt toast. "It– Donnie is… It would be dangerous to try Draxum's thing again. It could go wrong, it could– I dunno, y'know? It's too risky."

We’re not.

They're not. "How long, then? How're we gonna get back?"

Leo still wasn't touching his food, but neither was Mikey at this point. "Donnie's gonna make his own machine." He sucked in a deep breath. "Which has obviously never gone wrong before, but it's better than…" His sentence trailed off, and he gestured vaguely to Mikey.

"Better than what?"

"You were– We were– We got destroyed by Draxum. Absolutely 360-KO'd by some– some sheep man! And sneaking out… We've already lied to Dad enough." He met Mikey's gaze, but looked away from Raph's face. "We can afford to wait."

Mikey stood up, hit his head on the lights above him, bit his tongue.

"We'll get back to normal in no time. Trust me. Everything'll work out." Leo never failed to be frustratingly reassuring to him. Even when he refused to make eye contact. Couldn’t Leo at least pretend that everything was normal? Couldn’t he stop being so weird about it? Leo said something else, but Mikey was still stuck on how he was being treated, on the let-down. They're not going today. From the sound of it, they were never going. He could hear Leo talking, but he couldn't listen over the thought of never being back in his own–

"Mikey?"

Mikey forced himself to nod. "Yeah, I know." From the way Leo's brow crumpled, that probably wasn't the correct response for whatever he'd said.

So they’re not switching back today and they’re staying in the lair. Great. That’s great, that’s cool! Before he could have a fit, he tried to slow down and think. What would Doctor Feelings do?

Well, Doctor Feelings would tell him to communicate his emotions and tell Leo what's going on in his head. That's the best option. He tried to find a way to word it without sounding needy. "I don't want t– I don't like the idea of waiting," he started off with, stopping himself from overexplaining. "And I don't… enjoy being in Raph's body. It's all– It's so– It's too much! Everything feels different. In a bad way!"

"Boy, do I get that," Leo whispered to himself. He might not know Mikey heard, but it showed he was listening. He stared down at his hands, Donnie's hands, something in his voice so foreign that Mikey was afraid it wasn't actually Leo. "It's been rough on all of us. But Donnie's got this!” They closed and settled in his lap. “As much as I don't like it, he's really, really, stupidly, annoyingly, infuriatingly smart."

Okay, that sounded like Leo.

"So I'm sure he'll be finished by the time we're ungrounded, and then we can switch back, and then we can make fun of him for being a nerd.” He glanced upward towards Mikey. “That sound good?”

Mikey messed with the handle of one of the paint cans he had in his room. This one was filled with blue paint. "Okay. But tell Donnie I'm making breakfast tomorrow."

Leo's eyes widened. He snorted, and he looked at Mikey, and then he burst into laughter, clutching his plastron with such excited energy that any semblance of Donnie was wiped away. Mikey was confused before Leo said, "I thought this looked too amateur for you! You had me worried there, little bro."

Mikey smiled. “You thought I made the flavorless scrambled eggs? It's obviously a Donnie dish.” Now that he thought about it, Leo probably felt guilty about something Mikey couldn’t see right now. Willingly following Dad’s grounding rules? The way he was dozing off while sitting straight up? The Doctor Feelings alarm was sounding off in his head, this time sensing someone else in need. “...Speaking of Donnie, he wanted to know if you’re awake, but I’ll lie and say you’re still sleeping like the good brother I am. As long as you actually get more sleep.”

His brother only yawned. “No promises, but I am so cool with that idea.” And as he laid back down, Mikey looked at the two untouched plates. He held in a disappointed exhale. Leo’s trying his best, so he has to do the same.

Notes:

in literature, they say sharing a meal symbolizes communion

if i got anything wrong in regards to donnie or mikey just lmk!

Chapter 4: Mystic Mess

Summary:

Truthfully, Raph had underestimated the learning curve that came with opening portals. Or, “ripping apart the space-time continuum” as Donnie had called it.

Notes:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TW !! THROWING UP, NAUSEA !!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(when leo encounters mutant villain) (not graphic but its present)

a bit of a longer chapter, hope yall dont mind

ALSO THANKS FOR LIKE 140 KUDOS THATS CRAZY

The odachi was difficult to use. Truthfully, Raph had underestimated the learning curve that came with opening portals. Or, “ripping apart the space-time continuum” as Donnie had called it. Looking back on the time between their last and first interactions with Draxum, he probably should’ve been a little easier on Leo while he was still figuring it out. Like, he may have been unhelpful those first few fruitless attempts, but he’d admittedly mastered it pretty quick. He thought back on when they were in that pizza maze, as he did a lot, and wondered if he could’ve been more supportive if they weren’t about to get kabob’d.

Raph swung at air, trying to recreate the motions he’d gone through last night. The wound on his side stung. He reeled in his movement a bit. He had no idea how he’d managed to create a half-functional portal yesterday, especially when he was having so much trouble right now. The sword popped and sparked with blue light, but every time he so much as activated it, it fizzled right back out. He swung a little differently, but the weight of the blade almost made him fall over. He didn’t know how Leo dealt with being so small, and he didn’t know how he’d gotten so good with this sword either.

“How’d you do it at Draxum’s?” Mikey asked, having an equally hard time with his tonfas, which were behaving almost identically. Every so often, red would crackle from them and shine onto the drab brown of the garage walls. It was the designated room for training, but from the way the reds and blues quickly faded, this barely counted as training in his opinion.

How did he do it at Draxum’s? The more he tried to think about it, the more he failed, the more pressure he felt. Donnie had been watching them mess around with these weapons for the past thirty minutes or so, and being watched never did improve his performance. It actually made it much, much worse, so he didn’t know what Donnie was trying to achieve with this. It’s a good thing this wouldn’t last long, and then they could have a real training session. If they got used to fighting in this whole situation, then it would lower their chances of getting beaten to a pulp again. Preventing another Draxum incident sounded very appealing.

He tried a few more times, but each attempt yielded the same results. A few sparks, and then it fizzled out. A couple sparks, and then it fizzled out. Barely any sparks, and he threw the odachi to the ground with an angry clatter. “I don’t know how I did it! It was– I just twirled the thing until something happened!” He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten so frustrated. It would probably be best to take a break.

Mikey stopped trying as well. “Yeah, I’m not feeling it. Who says we can’t just use our original weapons?”

Donnie shook his—Mikey's—head, no orange tails following the movement. No one had touched any of the masks since yesterday, none of them sure how to color code themselves comfortably without seeming suspicious. "Not the point." He clipped the pencil down and adjusted his goggles. Leo had given them back once he'd woken up… at 2 p.m! "I'm not saying you can't use your original weapons. I just need to know how your proficiency with them was impacted by the switch; whether it remained or shifted." He adjusted them again, the tech not fitting quite as well on Mikey's head as it did his.

"Draxum's Fwoopinator, you mean. Also, English, please," Leo cut in.

"I'm trying to figure out if the ability to use your respective weapons stayed with the body, or if they transferred with your brain." He rubbed his chin. If he had a beard like Pops, he might look like a sensei with how deep in thought he was. "The results are what I expected. They must have transferred."

"Alrighty, then!" Leo dropped Mikey's kusari-fundo (he didn't want to be left out) and picked up his sword from the ground Raph stood on, slinging it over his shoulder. "Now that you have your info, can we get on with the other stuff?" His arm lowered slightly to wave it, probably preparing to grab something from somewhere else in the lair.

"Fine by me."

But it was the strangest thing. Leo, who'd been using his odachi nonstop for even the smallest of tasks since he’d gotten his hands on it, made the motion he always did to create an arm-sized portal. And it didn't work. The sparks didn't appear at all. Not one inkling of blue followed. Donnie went quiet, eyes darting from his clipboard to Leo. Whatever he was feeling, Raph felt the same way.

Leo, equally as confused as the rest of them, started swinging it a bit harder. "Come on, stupid portal…" He gave up on making a small one and instead tried at a larger one, now gripping the hilt with both hands. He tried waving it in circles, criss-crossing the blade, pulling it up and down in increasingly discouraged swipes. When it still didn't work, he looked at Donnie. "Hey, Dee, I have some new data for you. Uh, I can't use it either. You said it transferred with me?”

Donnie's jaw unhinged. "What? Yes, it should’ve– Are you sure?" He didn't seem to trust Leo's judgment, instead turning to him. "Raph, tonfas."

He nodded in agreement as Mikey handed them to him. They felt far more comfortable than the odachi, though a bit larger than he remembered. Now they’re talking! "All right! Mystic powers, activate!" He hit his knuckles together, anticipating the usual red to blossom from his fists.

Nothing.

His stomach fell to his feet, but something told him the nerves weren’t what was stopping him. "Mystic powers, activate!" He tried again for good measure, but there was still nothing. After reaping some results from Leo’s odachi in the past half-hour, he thought he’d at least be able to rely on his own weapons of choice. These were the ones he was used to. They had felt so familiar, and yet how they reacted to being held in his hands was so foreign.

Mikey was swinging around his kusari-fundo now, and he had similar luck. The chain rattled when the weighted end lurched forward, but it didn’t extend at all, much less lift up as it had the first time he’d used it. It was just a normal object, as Leo's had become a normal sword. All three of them were failing to use their own weapons, so what would they do if they had to fight?

Leo set the tip of the blade on the floor and leaned against the hilt, yawning into his wrist. Raph decided not to lecture him on still being tired after waking up at 2 p.m. "Donnie, are you sure we still have our mad skills? Because I don’t think we do." He rolled his neck, probably aching from sleeping on Mikey's floor.

Donnie didn’t say anything, but his brow crinkled.

“What does this mean, Dee?” Mikey asked. Without having to look, Raph could hear the frown in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Donnie admitted, flipping down his goggles. He glanced over Raph and Mikey, each of them holding their rightful weaponry tightly. “They aren’t emitting as much mystic energy as they usually do. There’s barely any…” He mumbled thoughtfully, approaching Raph to take a gander at his tonfas. He hummed, held his hand out to Mikey, didn’t explain further when he said, “Give them to the correct bodies.”

Raph took Leo's sword back and Mikey set his kusari-fundo in Donnie's palm. His fingers wrapped around the orange metal, mouth pursing. Then, he wound his arm back, preparing to use the mystic weapon.

“Woah, Donnie using magic?” Leo asked, grinning hesitantly.

“I already tried,” Mikey began, “It didn’t work–”

Donnie just shook his head. “I really hope my hypothesis is wrong.” Despite his former refusal to even touch the weapons, here he was, holding onto one as if he were wielding the thing. And he swung it. Raph didn’t know what he expected from Donnie trying to use it, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t for it to work. The ball of the chain erupted in flames, its orange light reflecting off of their wide eyes, its laughter filling the garage—as if it took pleasure in causing them so much confusion.

"Uh oh– no, no, no, no, nonononono!" The ball of fire took off toward the ceiling, dragging Donnie against the walls and wildly flinging him around. He yelled at it to stop, but they all knew talking to the weapons didn't actually make them obey.

He flew across the room, the fireball swinging him in uncoordinated circles until he was greener than usual.

Raph and Leo and Mikey frantically ran after him, but they were nowhere near fast enough to do anything, much less catch him before he went crashing into a pile of dusty boxes. Once he sat up, grip still firmly on the handle, he coughed and brushed himself off. He groaned. "Ugh, note to self: the ball of fire is dangerous." Dizzily, he stood, sighing when the weight wouldn't dislodge from under a training dummy. He tried pulling it out with force.

Mikey cringed. "Wait, don’t!"

Donnie yanked the kusari-fundo out from under the pile, the orange mass slinging backward. He probably expected to feel an imbalance throw him off, because one of his feet anchored him to the floor. As if taunting him, however, the glowing lines sprouted along the sphere once more and formed into a maniacal grin.

"Oh, chocolate pancakes."

Donnie's feet were swept off the ground, pulled this time in the direction the weight had been tugged. It just so happened that it was zipping toward the garage door… which was open.

Raph waved Leo's hands around, unintentionally waving the sword along with them and creating sparks without so much as a thought. "Turn! Turn!"

Mikey caught on and did the same. "Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn!"

"How am I supposed to–?!" Donnie screamed when Mikey's weapon led him into the atrium, swirling upward past the first and second and third floors. His legs flailed, trying to get the weight to go back to ground level. It only laughed, momentum snowballing, threatening to go topside at the atrium's open ceiling. "Should've let go, I should've let go!"

One of Mikey's hands was on his head, the other pointing up at Donnie while he hopped from one foot to the other. "Donnie's gonna go into the stratosphere! Leo– or, Raph– or– someone do something!"

But Leo didn't have a weapon, and he didn't know how to use any of Donnie's tech. That left it up to Raph.

It was difficult to concentrate with Mikey yelling at him, but he held his breath, pretended he was back in Draxum’s laboratory, and looked up and saw Donnie… Mikey’s body… falling. The memory stirred up inside of him. He saw his arms raise, felt the mystic energy flow from the odachi into his wrists as Mikey's scream deafened the words of current-Mikey. Past and present blurred together, and suddenly Leo’s sword was opening a portal as Mikey– Donnie was jerked into the arcade room door frame. Ouch, that looked like it hurt.

“Holy shit! Raph, you–”

Bright blue encompassed the air in front him, but the other end of the portal was nowhere in sight.

"This is why science is superior!" They heard as Donnie took off through the ceiling and into the daylight. They could faintly hear his frantic shouts from above ground, but they eventually faded. This was awkward.

Raph breathed heavily. He stared at the portal he'd made, confused, aggravated. It finally worked, but where was the second one? He leaned forward and stuck his head through, only to find Draxum's empty laboratory on the other side.

He'd never closed something so fast. "We should go after him. What if he gets spotted?"

Mikey gestured toward the living room. "But today's the last day we're supposed to be grounded. If we're caught sneaking out again, Dad's gonna kill us, and then he'll bring us back to life and ground us more!"

That was a good point. Donnie might be okay with staying cooped up in his lab all day, but the rest of them didn't have a machine to work on. It would be unproductive at best and drive them mad at worst. "What do you think, Leo?" He asked, noticing the slider– the softshell? Noticing Leo had been quiet.

Leo stared blankly at the ceiling. He was breathing loud enough to hear, and his eyes were distant.

"Leo?"

He snapped out of it and gave his attention to Raph and Mikey. His arms untensed, purple markings lowering but his mouth pursing. "Yeah, uh-huh. Donnie's perfectly capable of getting back on his own… Is what I would say if he was in his own body! Obviously we should go after him!"

Also a good point. It was like two mind-Raphs battling it out! He bit down on his nails and tried to think of a solution that would get Donnie back but keep them out of trouble. Two conflicting goals, so he has to find a consomise. Compromise? Yeah, that’s the word. Ugh, he’s wasting time! What if Donnie’s already been seen by humans? He hasn’t been to a single rehearsal! And Dad—he could walk in any moment and see that they’re–

Mikey put an arm around Raph’s shoulders. It made the voice in his head shut up. He could hear his own heart beating inside Leo’s body. “Let’s think of something together! After all, we’re at our best when we’re a team.”

Raph leaned back into his rightful body’s arm, listened to the voice that was supposed to be his. Mikey was right, but since Donnie was alone, he didn’t have a team. Raph hit his fist on his palm. “One of us can go after Donnie and the other two can keep Dad distracted! Two teams. Divide and conquer."

“I’ll go,” Leo volunteered.

“Didn’t you say we’ve lied to Dad enou–”

“That’s different. Plus, if one of us has to go, it should be me.”

Mikey frowned. “Why?”

Raph kind of agreed, but he wanted to hear Leo’s reasoning. He did have a track record of rushing into things to support his own ego.

Leo, holding back a smirk, put his hands on his hips and straightened his posture. “Throughout all of my time scouring the galaxy, never have I met a better sidekick than you, Red Fox,” he recited to Mikey. “Tell me, will you accompany me in my many adventures to come?”

Quickly catching onto the Jupiter Jim bit, Mikey didn’t question it and carried out the scene. “Of course, Captain." He raised his hand to salute, but overshot by a couple inches and hit himself in the face. "Ow!"

Raph held back a chuckle, Leo not hesitating to let it out. "That's why. You two navigating New York is like a penguin navigating the Sahara Desert. You'll die." After earning his explanation for why he should go, he used the skate ramp to launch himself onto the second floor and prepared for the next. "Be right back!"

They watched Leo leave, saw the sunlight turn their brother into a silhouette. It was then Raph remembered that Leo is, in fact, not a hard-shelled turtle anymore, and he had just left without any means of protection. He told himself that Leo wouldn’t be out long and decided to drop it.

Mikey sighed and sat down on the floor, putting his chin on his palm. He tapped along his knee. "Is Donnie gonna use my 'fundo from now on?"

Being snapped out of his head, Raph shrugged. "Good question." He hadn't even thought of that. Donnie was still able to use his tech without so much as a hiccup, but now he also had the option of a mystic weapon… "Probably not. You know how Donnie is with science and mystic stuff."

"Well– I can't use it, so someone has to," he mumbled.

Raph hummed, tilted his head back, stared at the sky as if willing Leo and Donnie back as fast as possible. "I don't know. Maybe none of us'll use it." He felt Mikey's eyes land on him, but his younger brother didn't say anything more. He shifted from side to side, not sure how to lighten the mood he'd obviously caused to darken. There was only one solution to this predicament. "Hey, wanna watch funny animal videos until we die of cuteness?"

Mikey lit up at that, and Raph relaxed. The now-larger pulled out his phone—they'd at least given each other their phones—and said, "I thought you'd never ask."

==========

It was a pleasant day. The sun shone through the clouds, a soft breeze brushed past the buildings of New York, and the school day had just ended. Today would be perfect for hanging out with friends or shopping or doing anything other than what April O’Neil was going to do. Instead of spending her afternoon in the nice weather, she was climbing downward into a dark, musty sewer system. The stench of excrement and who knows what else hit her nose, and she regretted forgetting to grab her gas mask before leaving the house.

Apparently the boys were grounded right now, so asking Donnie to leave the lair wasn’t an option. She really only needed his help on a small math assignment, and then they planned on watching a few Jupiter Jim movies together; being grounded to them really only meant they couldn’t leave the lair. She’d needed clarification on that because when she was grounded, she wasn’t allowed to have friends over at all, which she’d thought was the norm. Then again, it wasn’t like the Hamatos were the most normal family out there.

When she arrived at the bottom of the rungs, she turned her back to the ladder, and something purple was lying on the floor already. That’s strange. Why would one of Donnie’s machines be right at the entrance of the sewer where anyone could find it? Even his security cameras were tactfully hidden within the walls, and they certainly weren’t bright purple.

Her backpack weighed down on her as she kneeled. Upon closer inspection, she realized this wasn’t a full invention. It was just a broken piece of… Donnie’s battle shell?! April picked it up, but then she spotted another piece! And another! Even then, there weren’t nearly enough pieces to make up an entire shell. She held the first piece to her chest and hurried down the sewer tunnel.

The lair was quiet when she entered. She hoped they didn’t forget about their hangout session and went out on a mission or something. That had happened before, but it turned out the mission was scheduled first and they completely forgot about it… and then forgot to tell her they couldn't hang out.

She burst into the living room and saw Splinter’s tail peeking out from behind the back of the recliner. “Splints? Is Donnie home? I found a piece of his shell on the floor outside and I was worried he died or something. But…” When there was no response, she let her sentence trail off. She marched toward the recliner to grab Splinter’s shoulders and shake him. “Splints! Hey! Don’t tell me you’re dead too!”

Splinter snorted to life, and she stopped the shaking to allow him to wake up. “Guh… April? What are you doing here? Why are you shaking me?” He asked, voice still low from sleep. He rubbed his eyes, stretched, relaxed when April’s hands retracted from his shoulders. He gasped. “What did you say!? Are my boys dead?!” His eyes were so wide and his tone became alert so fast that it almost scared her.

“No! Well– I dunno. I found this on the floor.” She held up the fragment to Splinter.

He took only a quick look at it before sighing with relief. “Oh, Purple broke his shell yesterday. Something about falling and, uh… force.”

April’s arm fell to her side, and Splinter sunk back into the cushion of his seat. She tossed the shell piece into a corner where pizza boxes and dirty napkins had piled up, hoping it would get thrown out eventually along with all the other trash. “Falling? That explains why there were Donnie pieces everywhere.” The bright screen flickered onto the next show, and Scorpion Treadmill started playing. “What, were they fighting a mutant or something?”

“I don’t know.” Splinter huffed and hopped off his recliner. "This episode has already played seven times today. I should check on my boys." He flashed a grin and nudged her arm with his elbow, adding on a halfway-joking statement. "Last time I checked, they had all snuck out! Isn't that funny?" From the tone he used, he definitely didn't think it'd happen again. At least, not so soon.

It was no surprise they'd snuck out during their grounding period, but if that were the case, then she was also sure they wouldn't do it again (so soon). "Hilarious." They could've bothered to visit her.

She and Splinter strolled into the room with the skate ramps, definitely expecting to find them all sitting around in there or something, as they usually did. But she didn't hear any of their voices from down the hall, and she certainly hasn't seen any of the four of them since she'd arrived. Did they sneak out again?

Splinter seemed to think the same thing, ear twitching and grin falling until Raph's and Leo's voices rang out with laughter from one of the rooms. Splinter relaxed and so did April. She briefly scanned over the first floor, Raph's room, and then Leo's room, but both were empty.

"Dad!?"

"April?"

Turning towards her name, she saw they were in Mikey's room. She chewed down on the inside of her cheek, strangely feeling put off.

"I mean– April! Heyy! Did you– Ohh, was our thing today? I–" Raph's eyes darted to Splinter. "I forgot." He sat atop Mikey's hammock bed, clearly not fit to be there, and Leo sat beside him on the floor. They'd been watching some kind of video… on Mikey's phone.

"Yeah, it was." She replied plainly, putting one hand on her hip. Neither of them had their masks on, which wasn't completely unheard of, but it was just out-of-the-ordinary enough to make her find it suspicious. She tried to figure out what could've warranted this scenario. "Were you busy with something?"

Leo's eyes diverted. "We were just, uh…"

Raph forced a grin. "Watching cat videos! Did you wanna see?" He held out the orange cell phone to her, so she felt obligated to see. They were, in fact, watching cat videos.

Leo tried to stand up, but he wobbled as he did, using too much force to get himself up. He caught himself against a wall. "Did you need something, Pops?"

April's gaze sharpened.

Splinter shook his head. "Where are Orange and Purple? I am making sure you rebellious teens didn't sneak out again." His arms had crossed.

"We didn't! We said it won't happen again," Leo tried, uncharacteristically remorseful about their sneaking out. Even so, it didn't work against Splinter's stone-cold stare. He cowered. "Donnie's in– his lab! You know him. He's in one of his moods, so, uh, better not disturb him."

Raph nodded along. "Yeah. And Mikey's–" He seemed to realize he was holding Mikey's phone and swiftly set it behind him on the hammock. April wondered if Splinter saw. "I dunno where Mikey is."

She gave Raph a cautious glance, having been around him enough to know that something was bothering him, or that he was hiding something. She had to figure out what it was. Whether it was the feeling in her gut that told her so or selfish curiosity, she didn't know.

Raph stood with Leo and shifted his weight, one hand fidgeting with the many spines along his arm. His other was held awkwardly close to his torso, eyes catching on the backpack over her shoulder. "Did you need Donnie's help with something?"

She hummed something reminiscent of a yes. "You said he's in his lab? I just needed to ask him about it real quick."

"I– He– He's really focused right now!"

Leo jabbed Raph's arm. Okay, so it was something to do with Donnie. Man, she shouldn’t have to dig for clues about stuff like this. Out of all of them, Raph especially knew they didn't need to hide anything from her, and it wasn't like they made it a habit to surprise her with anything. There was that one time where they tried to throw her a surprise birthday party… Don’t get her wrong, she appreciated the sentiment, but those pigeons didn’t deserve to be put through that.

Pigeons or not, if it was for a party, she would be perfectly fine with being lied to. "Okay, Raph. You're being weird. What's going on?" But it was not her birthday, and she was not going to be lied to on not-her-birthday.

Splinter's eyes scanned over Raph, and she watched him momentarily panic before plastering a smile on his face. “I, uh, I don't know what you're talking about.” He glanced around. “I was just– so excited to hang out with you today!”

She felt her brows furrow, and then she adjusted her glasses. His whole, like… vibe was off. Seriously—It looked like he’d just learned how to stand yesterday! Not to mention the lying. “Didn’t you say you forgot I was coming over?”

Raph went quiet.

Leo quickly spoke up, put a hand on April's shoulder, derailed her train of thought. "Hey, April. Ready for our Jupiter Jim marathon? Because I am." He held his arms up and behind his head, easygoing nature showing through… What? Leo should be annoyingly excited about Jupiter Jim. Not whatever this was. She could almost see him during any other hangout session, jumping up and down, kicking his legs, twirling his hair and shit (metaphorically). Rambling on about any of the hundred-whatever movies he'd seen twice over. Well, in both English and Spanish, so four times over. "Wanna start while Donnie finishes up? And I'm sure Mikey's gonna come around once he hears it playing." His expression was something between pleading and frantic.

She sighed. "Sure–"

"Let us find Orange. I should not have to check if my sons have snuck out of the house, but here I am." He shot a fierce look at Raph and Leo, who both turned away. "And then you got hurt in a fall! If you are going to sneak out against my rules, then at least tell me where you go!"

Raph’s body language stiffened again. They should really get into the habit of not disobeying him whenever he sets rules to follow, and Splinter almost never sets rules. Who knows what kind of trouble they could get into if they kept sneaking out?

==========

The first thing Leo realized was that he was exposed. As in, he hadn't bothered putting on another battle shell and Donnie's soft one was out in the open right now.

This was an issue because he was already a ways away from the lair. He'd scouted much of the nearby area, but there was no sign of actual-Donnie. How far could he've gone in such a short time? Sure, he knew Mikey's kusari-fundo was powerful, but he didn't think it would malfunction this bad in the wrong hands.

He used Donnie's legs to hop from rooftop to rooftop. It was the middle of the day, so he stayed away from the sides of the buildings, where he could be seen by the main roads. He should've at least grabbed a hoodie before leaving the lair, but he wasn't expecting to take this long looking for Donnie, and he certainly wasn't expecting to travel so far.

A familiar voice with a gravelly quality murmured from one of the alleyways. It sounded familiar, but he didn’t want to believe it was who he thought it was. It couldn't be. Not right now.

Leo almost ran the other direction to avoid such an encounter, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the voice say, "What should I do with you, hmm? Turtle soup is a bit simple. Perhaps I could make deep-fried turtle chips with a French onion dip?"

God damn it.

Leo turned on his heel, scraping it against the roof, and headed toward the voice. No doubt it was Meat Sweats, but he was halfway thankful when he managed to find the source of it. The infamous chef stood over Donnie, who was fighting against the ropes which held him in place. Luckily, he wasn’t roasting over burning coals this time; still a major deja-vu moment. And, sure, Donnie hadn't been cooked alive yet, but since he wasn’t dead, Leo would have to intervene. With no battle shell. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad..?

He almost didn't hear what Meat Sweats said next over the honking of a car horn and jumbled shouting from the other side of the buildings. "You would be quite delicious in oil and batter, methinks. It would unleash your flavor…"

If Donnie's mouth hadn't been taped over, he probably would've given a plea for help just then. So Leo took it as his cue to interrupt the villain and initiate some action. "Hey, Meat Sweats. Is your house made out of straw? Because you really suck at cooking!" Softshell or not, he was still going to fight. He jumped down to their level, landing masterfully as always, and–

He did not have any weapons.

This is fine. Yeah, it'll be fine.

Meat Sweats grumbled with intrigue. "Oh, exquisite! I can fry up double the turtle." He tilted his head. "Though, I do remember it was the blue one who made those awful jokes. Did you perhaps take after him?"

"Yeah, something like that." Out of his peripheral vision, he could make out bags full of garbage, more rope, and a burlap sack. Not the most weapon-y items out there, but one of them would have to do.

The pig mutant ran at him and swung his hammer, Leo's instincts kicking in when he pivoted to the side for the hammer to hit the ground. He jumped onto Meat Sweats' arm, planted one leg in his inner elbow, and kicked him in the face.

"Agh! Fucking turtle– Your meat would be too tough to prepare." He grabbed Leo's arm and squeezed his bicep so hard that he thought it might explode. "I need to pound it first!" He raised Leo to the sky and slammed him shell-first onto the grimy concrete floor.

His shell screamed with pain. It was like experiencing electric shock for the first time, his brain unused to the nerves there being so active. He hissed, eyes tearing up against his will. "You British people use the word 'pound' for everything, huh?"

Meat Sweats didn't even pause to laugh—how disrespectful—and wound back his hammer again.

Leo rolled out of the way, wincing at the stings the uneven concrete left on Donnie's shell. This thing was sensitive, at least after going splat on the ground, and the loose trash he'd rolled over added to the experience in the most negative way he could possibly explain it.

He swallowed the nausea in his throat and forced himself to dive at the unused rope strung across the ground. He swung the end at Meat Sweats' foot, lassoing his ankle and yanking it as hard as he could to get the mutant off his feet. "Aaand he doesn't stick the landing!" He exclaimed past his threatening gag reflex.

Meat Sweats fell onto his back with a hard thud, Leo then running to untie Donnie. The knot was just simple enough for him to pull apart without much effort.

Once the rope fell from his arms, Donnie ripped the tape off his mouth. "Nardo! Why didn't you put on a battle shell?! You don't know how to fight with my shell!"

Leo coughed. "That would be a smart-person thing to do. Who do you think I am? Donatello?"

Donnie also didn't laugh—double disrespectful—but he did sigh deeply. "We should call Raph and Mikey."

"No– No, the whole idea of this is divide and conquer. If we all leave the lair, then it's–"

"Okay, first of all: that phrase means divide your enemy to conquer them, not to divide your own army. Second of all: look out! Incoming!"

"What?" His gasp got stuck in his throat, neck being grabbed from behind when he was jerked back up. His muscles tensed as he prepared for another impact, but Meat Sweats simply held him up to face him. He could smell his sour breath from here. "Why hello there, Meat Sweats." His fingers twitched at the burning sensation in his shell. "I'm sure we can work out an agreement…"

He could hear Donnie say, "Spider shell, engage. Activate. Alpha Bootyyyshaker9000, spider shell, engage– Flight shell, activate! Come. On!" A small tapping sound, presumably Donnie's finger on his goggles. "Why did I program it to only respond to my voice?!"

Uh oh. Bad news.

Meat Sweats' grip on his throat tightened. "What a delectable soft shell… I would enjoy baking you whole, but you've been quite the pest." His other hand threw his hammer at Donnie, who was too busy figuring out the whole tech thing to notice. Leo's brother was sent crashing into a pile of empty bottles and half-eaten takeaway from the sounds of it.

He painstakingly watched a glove slide from Meat Sweats' now-free hand, clinking against concrete and causing Leo's heart to skip a beat.

He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but nothing surfaced past Meat Sweats' grasp, which wasn't easing up anytime soon. He ended up coughing out something close to Donnie's name, Meat Sweats’ ungloved hand much too close for comfort. His gross tentacle things unraveled, opening up to reveal flesh that squelched and sloshed around as it slithered closer and closer to him, attached themselves to his legs and torso and the soft shell, clutching his aching flesh as if he were a trophy to be gloated about. He tried to shake them off, to no avail.

In an instant, his muscles locked up and his already-unsuccessful inhales became desperate. He kicked at Meat Sweats, but his efforts were in vain. Whatever it was that was being siphoned out of him, the exhaustion it left in its wake came in waves, bright green trickling from the vine-like appendages which encased his—Donnie's—body.

The vines.

What little energy he had was drained from his bones.

White light.

It was the aftermath of the machine all over again. A little less intense, but with his entire body exhausted, with the stinging in Donnie's shell… He started seeing two of Meat Sweats, the surrounding garbage becoming blurry, his legs going limp. He gasped, took in rotten air as if it were the only oasis for miles, and Meat Sweats dropped him to the ground like a ragdoll off a skyscraper.

He vomited.

Meat Sweats stepped away from him in disgust, but he only laughed. “Eugh– It seems this scuffle isn’t going swimmingly for you!” He’d snorted, chuckling heartily at his own joke. “Though, I will have to dispose of your carcass if it is as sickly as it appears…”

Leo could barely make out Meat Sweats’ little monologue over his circumstance, body bent over and eyes shut tight. Just seeing what left him would call for more of it, and the smell was already enough to deal with. He tried to ignore how he could taste the eggs he hadn't eaten that long ago, how his stomach turned every time he thought about being that close to the… vine-arm situation.

He fell onto his side, thanking God he didn’t collapse into his own puke, and Donnie yelled his name. But it was all underwater. He could barely move to respond. Not being in his own body was bad enough, but being unable to control it on top of that? Even worse. Unable to push himself up, unable to stop the tears forming under his eyelids. How could he've been so stupid? This was useless, his body was useless, he was–

"Eat mystic powers!" Donnie declared, though reluctantly. Leo never thought he'd hear him say those words, but as his stomach stopped turning, he felt just okay enough to open his eyes. Sure enough, a flash of orange hurtled toward Meat Sweats.

Meat Sweats, seemingly towering over him now that he was on the floor, stepped to the side to dodge the flame. “Announcing your attacks does not leave room for me to be shell-shocked–” The weight circled back around to knock the back of his head, causing him to stumble. Leo could hear Donnie run towards him.

“Strawberry shortcake,” he strained. “You shouldn’t take on dangerous tasks when you’re sick!” Leo was picked up again, this time by familiar arms. Donnie was careful with Leo's shell—or, with his own shell—and he was grateful for that.

Meat Sweats didn’t take long to recover, because his hooves stomped onward to retrieve his hammer. "Since you're turtles, I'm going to have to slow-cook you! Ha!" He pulled the weapon back, ready to return the favor when he swung it at Donnie. With Leo in his grasp, he moved a little too slow, and the hammer hit him dead on the shoulder.

“Oh, fuck me!” Leo felt his brother’s grip on the kusari-fundo stiffen with pain, felt the hand clutching his knee dig into his skin. Donnie’s legs almost folded, but he forced himself up. However he had dodged the other attacks, it worked, but Leo could barely keep up with all the movement. From the (rather embarrassing) bridal-style carry he was in, he could only see the spinning sky.

“Quite sad, really. That Draxum fellow was right about your lost poten-shell!”

What’s up with the puns?

Donnie could've been thinking the same thing, but instead of sticking around to find out, he set the kusari-fundo on Leo's plastron and leapt into a different branch of the alleyway, a path out. “Hang on, Leo. You better not throw up again.” Donnie didn’t sound like he expected a response, which was good. Leo could’ve sworn he’d lose himself a second time if he tried to say anything.

He knew Meat Sweats was still after them, but his energy had been sucked dry. Donnie bolted around corners, jumped to the top of buildings to shake off their pursuer, and Leo could do nothing more than close his eyes.

==========

"I'm sure Mikey's fine, Dad. Sometimes he falls asleep in weird places!"

Raph followed closely behind Splinter, so April followed closely behind Raph. She was becoming more and more worried for them the longer it took to find Mikey. This wouldn't be her first time witnessing Splinter's wrath, but it would be twice as awkward than normal if one of them had snuck out twice in a row. Why would Mikey sneak out alone? What, was he visiting Swaggart's restaurant or something?

"Yes, I'm sure that's true. Where is he then, Red?" Splinter asked.

"I don't know," Leo replied.

April's hands shoved themselves into her jacket pockets. She watched Leo wince, and then Raph try to cover for him. Cover for what exactly? Leo frequently spoke outside of his turn, but this was pretty unusual. The both of them were being unusual.

"Yeah, we don't know. Mikey can make his own decisions about where he is at what time. He's probably–"

One of their phones rang. Leo reached into his shell—after all this time, she still had no idea how that worked—and pulled out his phone to see who was calling. It was Donnie's icon that showed on the screen, surrounded by his gray phone case– That's Raph's phone! Raph's. phone. is. gray! Why does Leo have Raph's phone in his shell?!

So Leo has Raph's phone, but Raph has Mikey's phone? Nothing was adding up. Though Mikey wasn't as big about privacy as, for example, Donnie, she doubted they'd use his phone in particular just to watch cat videos. Especially when Leo had Raph's phone the entire time.

Before she could open her mouth to say something about it, Leo picked up the call. "Heyy, Donnie. Everything okay, buddy?" He paused to let Donnie speak, but she couldn't hear anything other than frantic, muddled explanations and heavy breathing. "Right. Uhh, April and… Raph. Donnie needs help in his lab. Dad and I will keep looking for Mikey." Leo seemed worried, which worried her, and worried Splinter even more. Leo never got worried. She was almost sure he'd never gotten anxious in his life.

Splinter glared at them, but gave April an embarrassed pinch to his temple. "I am sorry you have to deal with this, April. You do not need to help Purple if you don't want to." He turned to his son. "Blue, we will find Orange this instant, or you and your brothers will be grounded for life! I cannot believe you have snuck out twice in a row!"

"We didn't! It– He's around here somewhere…"

April knew Splinter was just worried about them; she was usually the one he ranted to about the four. But she also knew how terrified the boys were of letting him down. It was an endless cycle of anger and guilt and lies, and she was always stuck in the middle of it. It was exhausting.

"What did Donnie say? Does he need us to bring anything?" April asked, deciding that if Donnie was calling for help, it was probably urgent.

Leo, however, couldn't come up with the words to respond. "He just said– he needs… help. You'll see when you get there. It'll make sense," he expressed vaguely, gesturing to Raph.

She couldn't take it anymore! Raph might be hiding something, but Leo too? Leonardo, who could not keep a secret if his life depended on it, was pulling a stunt against her! "Was that really Donnie that called you? Because as far as I can tell, neither of your phones are even with the right–" She cut herself off when Leo waved his arms to get her to stop talking. "What?" She asked, lowering her voice.

Leo looked at Splinter, who Raph had distracted with a question, and then back at her. That was the moment she realized they weren't hiding anything from her. They were hiding it—whatever it was—from Splinter. She felt a little bad for bringing attention to it, but it didn't mean she wasn't still irked. He mouthed, "we'll tell you later," and that was enough of a reassurance to get her to stop stressing out.

Once Splinter was away, then they would surely tell her what was going on, but it seemed serious enough for her to worry. It seemed serious enough for her to want them to just tell Splinter in the first place. Ugh, why were they so difficult?

Whatever. If they want to hide it from Splinter, then it's none of her business. Time to play along. "What I meant to say was, um. Neither of your phones are advanced enough to use the… calculator app. But I need it for this inverse trig stuff! It's so hard. I'm totally out of my element. I'd better help Donnie so he can teach me how to do it."

Splinter's tail was raised, foot tapping impatiently on the lair floor. "Very well. I will continue looking for my son, who has definitely not snuck out again."

Raph took April's hand, which was not something Raph would do. That's more of a Mikey thing. But he pulled her up the stairs leading to Donnie's lab, his foot slipping. They both almost fell into the moat, and boy would she have snapped if they did. He managed to ground himself again, shooting a nervous grin at her.

"Careful, Red."

Raph didn't even respond. He continued walking. It was only at the entrance of Donnie's lab that he seemed to realize Splinter had spoken to him. He nodded down to the bottom floor at his father, who was now not paying attention.

The pit in her stomach deepened as he led her to the back of the laboratory. It was dark, as always, the ambient purple lights shining feebly onto the walls. The screen Donnie did all his work on was switched off, and scattered papers depicting an odd machine lined the area he usually sat. She was familiar with the way Donnie drew his inventions, but this one didn’t look like something he would design. Messy notes were jotted next to every smeared feature, but each ended with a question mark. As if he didn’t quite know what he was drawing.

The lab was silent. It was empty, and Donnie was nowhere to be seen. Go figure.

"Don't tell me Donnie snuck out too. You know Splinter's gonna get pissed when he finds out." She'd been told all about that other time they snuck out, where they went to Jersey and Baron Draxum was there and all that. She'd gotten a good laugh out of it. Of course Draxum would take them to Jersey of all places… Anyways, apparently Splinter was pretty cool about that, but she had a feeling this wouldn't be the same deal.

He shook his head. "He didn't! Well– sort of? Not on purpose. So– Donnie was using my 'fundo, right? But then it, like–"

"Woah– woah. Your? Your kusari-fundo?" Her voice echoed across the metal-laden room. She held a hand over her mouth, tried to keep it down with her next words. “What are you talking about?”

Raph fidgeted. "I'll explain later." She raised an eyebrow, not knowing how to react to being told he would "explain later". What is going on? "So– but, it flew off to the surface, and then Leo had to go look for him."

Wasn't Leo just..?

No, stop, April O'Neil. One problem at a time.

"And he said he'll be back soon, but it's been a while. We watched a lot of videos about animals falling off stuff…"

His speech patterns. His mannerisms. The stumbling. The fidgeting. The phone, his kusari-fundo. She didn't want to believe it because it was impossible. It hadn't been a viable explanation, not even up for consideration until this very moment, but she had to acknowledge that this isn't Raph. It's not Raph! She took a few shaky steps back. "Mikey?! No way, nuh-uh! Why are you– How did–"

He—Mikey—put a finger to his lips. "Shh! Not so loud, April. He might hear us…" He tried at a whisper, glancing to the entrance of Donnie's lab.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, a huge-ass lump by this point, and tried to process this revelation. "You're– You're Mikey? Is that a yes? Please don't say yes." A lack of response told her all she needed to know, hands gripping her hair. It did all make sense. Leo was right– Leo? No. "No way. So Leo– Who's Leo? Did you and Raph switch? Is Raph in your body?”

Mikey– Raph– Mikey– Mikey shook his head. "No, we were all sort of… We’re like a choo-choo train. Like, it wasn’t two and two, it was all four. Or– Did that make sense?" Whatever Mikey just said sounded like gibberish to her, but that only reinforced the idea that he is Mikey in the first place.

"And how did this happen?"

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Long story." She wanted him to explain the god damned story, but his phone dinged, and his attention was drawn.

She let him scan whatever text had come up, fingers tapping along her forearm. Leo’s body must’ve been Raph since he had Raph’s phone. No wonder it didn’t feel like Leo… Man, this message must be a long one, or maybe she was just anticipating what would come next—this wasn’t any normal circumstance for those four. Mystic powers and mutant hippos were one thing, but this?

How this even happened in the first place was beyond her.

“Leo and Donnie’re coming through the sunroof.” He pressed his first fingers together, legs stood unnaturally close. “Can you help us hide it from Dad? Please? Pizza’s on us for a couple weeks?”

How could she say no? She exhaled deeply, knowing this had a good chance of ending badly if she enabled their antics any more than she already had, but it seemed to matter a lot to Mikey. And pizza did sound good. “Make it three.” When Mikey smiled, it was so Mikey that she didn’t regret her decision one bit.

“Deal.”

Notes:

meat sweats is so real. i love all of the rottmnt villains theyre so silly (lie. i dont care for albearto)

APRIL INTRODUCTION WOOO YEAHH APRIL <3333

also i saw this color swap on instagram that was for tmntober with the exact swaps in this fic and i burst out laughing it was like a jumpscare

Chapter 5: Relocate

Summary:

Every movement drained him more and more, as if Meat Sweats’ arm retained its hold on him despite how far they’d gotten.

Notes:

!! TW: DEREALIZATION / DEPERSONALIZATION !!
(in the scene where raph is distracting splinter)

sorry if this chapter took a bit longer, i was having some trouble writing it so obviously i planned out the entirety of the first act of this whole fic by laying like 50 sticky notes along my desk. now deemed "the mental illness desk"

He had to get back home.

From the way Leo's shallow breaths could barely be felt above the pulsing in his right shoulder, from the way he lay limp in Donnie's arms, he wasn't in the best condition after falling victim to Meat Sweats' mystic powers. If only they'd been more careful.

If he'd been able to access his tech, he would've called an escape pod, or his tech-bo, or a battle shell at least. He sucked air into his lungs and forced it out, a rhythmic pattern that he had to maintain if he were to keep running. Logically, he knew he couldn't change what'd already happened, so he pushed forward despite his aching chest and his shoulder that seethed with pain every time he tried to put a little more of Leo's weight on it.

His hold on his brother tightened when he scrambled– when he stumbled over the edge of a building to get to the next. The New York City sights whizzed by, feet thumping against the tops of its warm buildings as he fought against his diminishing stamina.

He flipped down his goggles, the sun too bright, and he hated how the kusari-fundo flickered with mystic energy every time it slid down Leo's plastron and brushed against his hand. Mystic weapons were stupid and dumb. Why did they only activate for specific people?

He adjusted Leo's position. It was mostly his left arm which carried him, Mikey's body thankfully strong enough to hold up against Leo's weight. Or, Donnie's weight. His own weight. He is Donnie.

Donnie painfully pulled out his phone and went to his emergency contacts, slowed ever so slightly so he could hit the correct buttons. He hated to call Raph so suddenly, but sometimes, even he had to admit that this was too much for him to handle alone.

It rang once, twice, his trachea refusing to stop overworking when he continued running as fast as he could. It picked up. "Hey, Donnie. Everything okay, buddy?"

Donnie ignored Raph's baby voice. "Raph, Leo– Leo was–" He hissed, the pain in his right shoulder too much to hold the phone to his tympana. He came to a heavy stop, looked around. No sign of Meat Sweats, so either he got bored or they'd lost him.

Carefully, he set down his brother and switched hands, even if his left was shaky from holding Leo. "He's in critical condition. I need– I'll be nearby. Soon." He could see Leo's diaphragm rise and fall, so he took a second to catch his breath.

The silence on the other end of the line was starting to worry him. "Raph?" He didn't care that he exhaled directly into the microphone when he heard Raph tell April and not-Raph to help him. He didn't care to think about why April was there, or why Raph would hide the switch from her by referring to Mikey by his body's name. The adrenaline rush came to a slow decline. He did care about getting back home.

He hung up the call and stretched his arm to prepare it for carrying Leo again. They were close to the lair, so it wouldn't be long before he could get Leo treated. Meat Sweats was an incredibly interesting specimen, but he'd never had the chance to truly analyze the effects of his siphoning. Who knows what state Leo is in right now.

A state of sleep, he presumed, heaving him up and setting the kusari-fundo back onto his plastron. There was a stairwell on the side of this building, so he hopped onto it and strolled past the rails, down the steps, feeling like a mother waddling through town with the way he had to carry Leo. Well, Leo did save him, so this was just returning the favor.

As he approached the manhole, he realized that climbing down a ladder would not work in this circumstance. He sighed and went to pull out his phone again, only for something to catch his eye through the tinted lenses of his goggles. Something was emitting mystic energy, and it wasn't the kusari-fundo.

The energy was coming from a storm drain, barely anything of note, but it wasn't particularly normal–

Who is he to discuss normality? "I'm quite literally in Mikey's body," he found himself saying, still out of breath. "I have no right to judge the storm drain."

"Yeah, what'd the drain do to you?"

"Leo!" He jolted, almost dropping the aforementioned. "Do not scare me like that." He could’ve meant what happened with Meat Sweats or the sudden speaking, but he would never admit which. Leo's eyes had opened to thin slits, the dark circles beneath them never more prominent than in that moment. Or were those his own dark circles? "When did you wake up?"

"When you picked me up again. Thanks, big bro. Appreciate the hard carry."

Donnie rolled his eyes. "I'm hardly older than you." Leo's voice was small and labored, so he sat him against the building and massaged Mikey's arm. Carrying him was getting progressively more demanding from his upper body strength. "And I'm assuming you can't climb down a ladder right now." He typed a short message to Raph to let him know they would come through the atrium rather than the greater sewer system. He shoved his phone back into Mikey's shell. "Can you walk?"

Leo nodded and pushed himself up. His legs trembled and his body began to sway.

Donnie swiftly caught him on his good shoulder before he could fall. Leo's arm swung around Donnie's nape, but this was better than single-handedly lifting him, so he didn't complain about his newfound role as a support beam. "What did it feel like?" He asked, tapping into the GPS on his wrist tech, which it luckily didn't require voice activation for. "When Meat Sweats used his ability, I mean."

He shivered. "It was gross." With the question to distract him, Donnie began to lead him in the general direction of the lair. "I think it drained my energy or something. It kinda reminded me of the Fwoopinator."

"You're seriously sticking with that name?"

"Of course I am! It's probably the smartest thing you've ever come up with."

"I take offense to that."

Leo gave a weak laugh. With every step, he leaned more of his weight on Donnie, but he should be able to make it. They weren't too far from the very place he'd flown out of; it was not a memory he would look back on with fondness. After what followed, how could he? Not to mention how incomprehensibly these stupid mystic weapons were behaving. He could've crushed the kusari-fundo's handle if it weren't metal.

They made a slow right turn past a pizza restaurant's dumpster. He swatted away a fly.

The weapons only reacted to arbitrarily-assigned bodies. It could be that they were programmed to connect with the first entity to use them, but his knowledge of mystic energy was limited, and Draxum didn't seem like the type to utilize such a function.

No matter how he thought about it, it didn't make sense. He couldn't understand it, and he hated that.

"Woah– What's up with your shoulder?" Leo’s eyes were wide, his pace uneven.

They were almost there. "No need to worry about me. We need to get you medical attention as soon as possible."

Leo quieted. He wasn't breathing as heavily now, and the excruciating pain seemed to turn to slightly less excruciating pain. "It looks spayed."

What? Spayed? Did Meat Sweats drain his intelligence too? "Spaying is when a female cat has its ovaries removed, but if you mean sprained, you're also wrong. It's likely dislocated because of the hit I took."

"Oh, so it's dislocated?" Leo asked, grinning so slyly that Donnie wanted to let him drop to the ground. "I can help put it back into place, but someone else is gonna have to help you sling it."

He bit his tongue. Leo knew exactly how to get him to talk. "I don’t need help. You know I am perfectly capable of handling myself." With the mention of it, the pain he'd been trying to ignore burned into his arm, memories of Leo's fearful voice talking him into consciousness, the white void, the wave of agonizing stings that rippled throughout his body. His muscles tightened against Leo's skin.

"So, how was the rescue? Were you satisfied, very satisfied, or extremely satisfied? Meat Sweats' puns certainly didn't elevate my experience, but those are very much your style. Perhaps you were exceptionally satisfied? In fact, the puns might have come directly from you. That would mean he acquired your abilities. Not mine. Which is strange, because why would his mystic powers coincide with you—Leo—while the mystic weapons coincide with our bodies?"

He must've been rambling, because Leo moved his arm down to Mikey's shell, where the nerve endings were less active. Donnie relaxed. "I dunno, Dee. You're the science guy. I'm positively lickity-lost." His posh accent wasn't quite up to par, but Donnie still exhaled through his nose at the attempt.

Right, he's the science guy. He should know the answers to these things.

==========

Every movement drained him more and more, as if Meat Sweats’ arm retained its hold on him despite how far they’d gotten. Though he felt less nauseous and more steady than before, every muscle in Donnie’s body felt constrained by his lack of energy. Walking was almost too much for him to handle, but he tried not to get too reliant on actual-Donnie. From the way he kept his goggles over his eyes, the contact was probably taxing enough as it was.

His footing faltered, Donnie grunting when he pulled him back up. “Almost there, Nardo.” Honestly, the biggest surprise was that Mikey’s body was strong enough to not only support him, but full-on carry him. If one of his shoulders wasn’t dislocated, that is. He definitely underestimated Mikey’s strength, and Donnie’s surprise when he caught him meant it must’ve been mutual.

The more of their surroundings he recognized, the more his stress alleviated. The buildings that surrounded it, the dried blood on the sidewalk from that one time—

“Donnie, Leo, is that you?!”

—Mikey’s distinct voice, even in Raph’s frequency.

“It’s us,” Donnie replied. He held up his left forearm, the one with the device around it. “Can you take this off and hold it in front of me?”

Leo slid the wrist tech off of his arm and held it out. It was only then he saw how shaky his grip was, felt how his knees were ready to crumble if he took one too many steps further. His head was light. The opening of the lair taunted him. So, out of spite, he held off the exhaustion, allowing Donnie to type something into the tech. Every time he tapped one of the buttons, the device rebounded down and up, and his hold on it lowered slightly.

Purple platforms extended from the edge of the lair’s opening and mechanically formed into a series of steps. The latches on each connecting platform creaked into place until the pathway reached the third floor. “Woah, Dee. When’d you–” He had to breathe, “When’d you make this?”

“A while ago. This is the perfect opportunity to use it.” He started making his descent on the now-constructed staircase, Leo painstakingly following him onto the next platform, and the next, and the next. He thanked God that Mikey started running towards them instead.

Mikey picked Leo up, Leo just glad he could flop over someone’s arm and close his eyes. He heard Donnie say that he could walk on his own, but Mikey didn’t move from his spot on the platform. “What happened to your shoulder?” It was only a little bit hurtful that Donnie was his more pressing priority. Even when Donnie told him it was nothing, Leo could still feel him hesitate to turn back to the third floor. He was too tired to think about it too hard.

Curiously, he opened his eyes to see how Donnie was faring anyway. One of his hands blocked a full view, but the guy’s shoulder was definitely fucked up in some way. They should probably take care of that now—he should probably take care of that now. A dislocated shoulder would definitely cause some problems later on if left that way.

This wouldn’t be an issue if he’d just been a little better at fighting. If he hadn’t been so careless, if he hadn’t been so easy for Meat Sweats to get ahold of, then right now, maybe Donnie wouldn’t be suffering for Leo’s mistake. Again.

So instead of allowing himself to finally fall asleep, he fought to stay awake, even if being in Raph’s arms always did get him to pass out faster.

“Mikey!” April ran up to Donnie and tried to look at his shoulder. He allowed her to see, moving his hand out of the way. Her jaw dropped, but she quickly closed her mouth. “I mean– which one are you?”

“You are conversing with Donatello,” Donnie echoed. April tried to help by leading him into his lab, where Mikey was carrying Leo into, but he pulled away and walked himself. “I’ll be fine. Help Leo first.”

Donnie was smart, so he should know that leaving a dislocated shoulder to sit wasn’t the best move. If permanent damage was done to Mikey’s arm, to the body Donnie had to temporarily reside in, he would never forgive himself. He tried to wriggle out of Mikey’s delicate hold, but he didn’t have nearly enough strength to get out of it.

“Uh, no. That shoulder is not going to heal itself.”

Leo strained to keep his eyes open. “April’s right, you kn–” He grunted, Mikey accidentally lurching forward when he tripped over one of Donnie’s pipes. Leo pat Raph’s carapace a couple times. Mikey got the hint and set him down against one of the lab’s walls.

The metal felt cool against the shell on his back, but it also hurt when it was touched. He leaned forward, the dim room admittedly relieving. “You'll need to raise your arm and…”

He faintly saw Donnie already carrying out the procedure he was about to describe. His twin had carefully laid himself on the ground, Mikey watching with bated breath when he began moving the injured arm. “Woah, wait, waitwaitwait, what’re you doing to my arm?” Mikey worriedly asked.

It would be helpful if any of Donnie’s screens were on so he could see. Donnie was knowledgeable, but Leo still wanted to make sure he was doing it correctly.

“Relax, Mikey. I’m going to put your shoulder back in its socket.”

“No, no, no you aren’t. Get Leo to help—Get Dad to help—Go to a hospital or something! In the– In the Hidden City!” Leo sucked in a breath and tried to stand up to get to Donnie, but his fatigue crushed him beneath its weight. He fell onto his side, as he had during the scuffle with Meat Sweats, and barely registered it when April helped him back up. “You can’t mess up my arm! It– It’s the only…”

Donnie ignored Mikey’s pleas and used his good arm to raise the injured one slowly. He bent it towards his back. “You know the Hidden City has shitty healthcare, Michael. They don’t care about the science behind it; if anyone can pop a shoulder back into place, it’s me.”

“Or me,” Leo muttered. He didn’t spend hours studying medical procedures only to be brushed off like that. It's his one contribution to this team.

“Yeah, or Leo.”

April bit her lip. She held Leo upright, felt his forehead as if the state of Donnie’s body could be caused by a fever. Did Donnie even tell them what happened out there? Part of him hoped the answer was no. If he had to admit to what happened when he tried to “rescue” Donnie, he might have to run right back to Draxum’s machine and get his soul sucked away or whatever. “I’m sure Donnie knows what he’s doing. Right, Leo?”

Mikey tightened his jaw. He looked at Leo, who tried his best not to make eye contact. There was a good chance Donnie did know what he was doing, but did he want to admit that to Mikey when he was so desperate for an opposing opinion? Not really. His little brother’s beak was pressed tightly closed and the purple glow shone against his eyes, highlighting building tears that Leo could barely make out. And that he didn’t understand the reasoning behind.

There was a soft, anticlimactic pop. Donnie had already pulled the arm with the injured joint to its opposite shoulder. He slowly lowered it back to his torso, letting out a deep breath. Since there was no post-reduction misery, Leo's own shoulders melted into April's grasp.

Mikey’s hands were held over his mouth, eyes wide with terror at the mere thought of Donnie, what? Putting his shoulder back in place?

“See? Your body's fine.” He used his good arm to push himself up and held the other at a ninety-degree angle over his chest. When he stood up, his face ended up in line with some of the LEDs of the dark laboratory. As always, there was no trace of concern on his features, a stark contrast to Mikey’s distress as he watched him turn to leave. “Are there splints in the medbay, Leo?”

“Yep.” He allowed his eyelids to slide shut, leaning against April but making sure to hover in case she let go of him. “Does this mean you’ll use Mikey’s kusari-fundo from now on? Since you only have one arm and all.”

Donnie sighed deeply. “I’d rather not. It’s impractical—I’ll find another way to use my tech-bo.”

Their little brother turned away from them. “You’re impractical,” was all he had to say. Leo wondered if he was crying. Either way, Mikey wouldn’t be so freaked out if it wasn’t for him. If Leo hadn’t let this happen, then Donnie wouldn’t be in his body, his shoulder wouldn’t’ve gotten hurt, and the question wouldn’t be brought up. Donnie should’ve just left Leo to die to Meat Sweats’ hands, let him get cooked up into a turtle stew and be gone for good. He always caused more harm than anything.

April was quick to pick up on the brewing fight. Before anyone could say more, she asked, “So, what happened to… Leo?”

“His energy was drained by Meat Sweats,” Donnie replied, opting to completely ignore Mikey’s comment. So much for the whole Meat Sweats thing staying a secret. “Make sure he’s regaining it.”

“Meat Sweats?!—Y'know what? I don't wanna know. I gotcha covered, Dee." She held Leo a little tighter. "You sure you’re all good?”

“Yes, I am.”

Mikey’s mouth had been open, ready to speak, but nothing had come out. He could’ve argued, or protested, or insisted that Donnie have some assistance, but he was fine. It was fine. Leo didn’t have the chance to doze off before April started asking him questions about what happened, and then about how he was feeling. In all honesty, he just wanted to sleep.

==========

"I do not think Orange is in the kitchen, Blue. We already checked there. Three times."

Raph was running out of places to look. He didn't know exactly when Leo and Donnie would return, but stretching out this distraction was not working out in his favor. Something about Splinter's frustrated tone screamed suspicion, but he couldn't just get him back on the recliner. That wouldn't work this time.

"I swear I saw him around here. Look, he cooked breakfast!" He pointed uselessly at the pan of leftover eggs, trying at anything to get his father to magically forget about how much trouble they should be in right now. “And– We ate together not too long ago.” It never felt good to lie, but if he spilled the beans without consulting his brothers, they might hate him! So for now, he opted to wait and see whether Splinter was angry enough for him to consider telling the truth or not.

His snout was turned upward, a distinct frown placed upon his lips. He said nothing, his scowl even more frightening than usual in a body as small as Leo's, and Raph wasn’t sure he could take much more of Splinter’s glaring distaste for the diversions. Telling the truth was on the table.

"It– I know Mikey wouldn't sneak out again. He was, uh, hurt last night. He wouldn't put himself at risk like that." That was a lie. Mikey would absolutely sneak out if he got bored—even if he was injured. It's not like Splinter spent enough time with them to know that though. "Maybe he was bugging Donnie in his lab and we've been looking for no reason."

"We've been looking for no reason, all right.” Splinter’s toenails clacked against the floor as he tapped his foot. “I am disappointed in you, Blue."

He braced for the upcoming lecture. From witnessing past scoldings directed at Leo, he knew exactly how it would play out. Splinter would tell him to be more responsible, he'd get told to do chores or clean his room, and then he'd be let off scot-free. And yeah, Leo got it good, but it was nothing compared to when Splinter told him off as the leader of the group. As the older brother.

"But I am even more disappointed in Red. He is supposed to look after you three."

Raph's breath caught in his throat.

"I put him in charge to prevent you from doing stuff like this, but Orange has snuck out, and you are lying to my face! That is unacceptable! I am not strict, and yet you cannot follow simple instructions."

Why is Splinter disappointed in him? "What? But–" He blubbered, only to be cut off.

"Yes, I understand that you do not want to get in trouble for something Orange has done. I will not punish you." Splinter didn't let him finish, put a hand on Raph's shoulder to turn him to the direction of which they came. Raph couldn't even fight it. His legs moved, but he couldn't stop them, couldn’t take Splinter away from the atrium, because that’s where he should be staying away from. Previous goals flushed from his mind, and the only remaining thought he had was, is it his fault?

Naturally, Raph's attention strayed from the thoughts that made him anxious. He looked at Splinter, and… Was Dad's fur always that sharp? It wasn't supposed to look like that, was it?

Because of his height, his father's palm settled just about where Leo's arm markings were. Still, he felt so much smaller than him. "Don't tell Red this, but if he was not the oldest, I would probably put Purple in charge. Purple is much brighter," he said with an almost inaudible chuckle.

He wished one of Leo's portals would open beneath him and swallow him whole. He wished he didn't feel like so much less in this body. He wished this conversation didn't feel like a blow to the chest more powerful than every strike he’d endured from every enemy ever. Did Dad always talk about him this way? Did his brothers feel the same? Did they laugh at him behind his back?

Pressure built in his sinuses. His beak quivered. He felt as if he couldn't breathe without disappointing Splinter further, as if any sudden movement would give away his true identity and it would ruin everything. If he were more brittle, tears would pool in his eyes and his head would tuck into his knees. But he pushed himself away from that urge, and he forced himself to laugh. "Yeah, he is."

Splinter patted Leo's shoulder twice and retracted his arm. Fingernails brushed him as he did, scratching against his skin as if it were a suit of armor. He could feel it, as he could distantly feel the tile beneath him. "Good talk, Blue. Tell me when Orange returns." He grabbed a plate, odd gray fur gliding across the kitchen, footsteps thumping with each step he took towards the stove.

The spoon scraped the pan. Resonating. His ears picked up the sound, but he could just as easily be hearing it through headphones. It was crisp enough to come from inside the headphones, to thrust through the unchanging static of its speakers and scratch against his brain, but it was elsewhere enough to feel muffled by the ear cushions.

His father spoke briefly. A rat, standing in a room, surrounded by shapes and colors that grew unfamiliar the more he looked at them. If one of them were to misstep, he thought, they might fall right through the floor.

The spoon, though, was solid. It proved itself solid when it picked up the eggs to scoop into the mouth it fed. Unnerved, he removed his gaze from the spoon to look at raised hands, seeing Leo's fingers curl and uncurl to grasp at nothing. The green was overwhelmingly artificial against the dark browns of the rest of everything. There's no way he was Blue. There's no way he was to blame.

"Dad? Dad, we found Mikey." It was difficult to turn his head, difficult to drag his eyes along a room so blurry. What was supposed to be his own body peeked into the doorway. The dotted lights shone onto their face, shone on the eyes he was told were his. "He was– with Donnie in his lab."

He couldn't focus on their voice. It was his voice, but he wasn't talking. His chest rose and fell, but he wasn't breathing.

"Oh, was he?" The man asked. Their tail swayed, moved across the room with the rest of their lethargic figure. It faded in and out of focus. His eyes squinted. "Take me to him."

Leaden arms fell back down. Everything weighed so much. The better part of him knew it was temporary, knew he needed time and it would go away, but he couldn't bring himself to move. "Ra– um. Are you coming?" The voice asked him, rang in his ears.

"I'll be out in a minute."

They nodded worriedly, turned their shell to face him.

He knew they were leaving, but they were already gone.

It was his choice, Raph's choice, to go to Draxum's in the first place. He'd been so sure they could do it, but here he was. In Leo's body. All alone in a room he never spent time in, and definitely guilty of doing this to the brothers he was supposed to look after.

He tried to find something to replace his thoughts. The neon open sign glowed. The synthetic scenery lay around him, unchanging and inauthentic as if it were a set on a stage play.

The curtains were wide open, but his performance ceased.

Splinter was right.

It was Raph at fault, but he was only an actor who played the part of Raph. These weren’t his lines, this wasn’t his blocking.

He held the hands over his eyes, felt the sensation of skin pressing them into their sockets. Whenever he got this way, Donnie always told him to close his eyes and let it pass. And Donnie was way smarter than him, so he did. He kept his eyes closed, allowed the world to still, and tried to relocate himself.

==========

When Raph left the kitchen, he wasn’t sure how long it had been. He was never the best at telling time when he got like that, but it must’ve been long enough for Splinter to see that Mikey was “in Donnie’s lab” and let them off the hook. The room with the skate ramps was empty, and there was conversation coming from the living room.

He walked in on what looked like the setup for a movie night. Well, that was the plan before the whole situation, so it wasn’t particularly surprising. Mikey and Donnie were sitting on either side of April, Mikey and April talking about something while the screen sat on the selection menu. Donnie was scrolling on his phone one-handed because of the sling his other was in.

“Donnie? What happened to your arm?” Raph questioned. He didn’t care to hide the switch from April; he knew he didn’t have to worry about her knowing. It was only then that two out of three of them realized he was present.

April waved her hand in front of Donnie’s face to catch his attention. His younger, but not youngest, brother turned away from his phone to finally acknowledge Raph. “Hm? It’s nothing. Just got knocked around.”

Knocked around? By what? A car? A mutant? “Did you get into a fight on the surface?” How long had they been gone for? His hands began to sweat, but it could’ve been that it was warm outside and this room didn’t have very good AC.

Donnie hesitated. His eyes drifted from Raph’s, but that’s just something Donnie did. It shouldn’t mean anything. “Yeah. Meat Sweats.” He hunched over, the splint on his shoulder clear to see now that Raph was paying attention. Donnie was seriously hurt. He was hurt because Raph wasn’t able to get them to train, and then he failed to make the right call and let Leo go after him–

“Where’s Leo?”

“You should've seen him. He was waaay worse than Donnie—He couldn't even walk! We had to carry him.” Mikey rattled off, April shooting him a look that Raph could see.

Way worse. He couldn’t even walk? What happened to him? Raph clenched his fists, grit his teeth. There was no denying it, no blaming his poor mental state on the conclusion he kept coming back to: Splinter was right. He wasn’t fit to lead his brothers. Not through missions doomed from the start, not through obstacles as tough as this one, and not through life.

“He’s resting. Meat Sweats drained his energy, but he was getting better. It’s likely he only requires some time to–”

Raph stepped forward. If he's going to lead them, then he has to really lead them. Starting right now. He turned off the projector, hating that he overestimated his strength and had to press harder than usual to fully turn it off, and crossed his arms. “We’re going to keep training. Donnie, you’re using Mikey’s weapon.”

“But–”

“No! No buts. We– I have to make sure we’re prepared for anything.” He inhaled, exhaled, thought about his next words. “Leo can rest for now, but we need to know how to use each other’s mystic weapons. Draxum is still planning on mutating more people, and we have to be ready to stop him.”

April was the first to stand, which confused Raph because he wasn’t really referring to her. “I get where you’re coming from, but they need time, Raph. Donnie’s shoulder is still all weird and red, and Mikey’s made at least four new dents in the walls.”

Raph stood his ground. April might be the eldest, but she had no part to play in the switch. It was none of her business. None of the blame was placed on her. “And it could be worse than a broken shoulder if we don’t train now. It– I’m sorry, April. I appreciate your help, but we need to be able to fight if we can’t switch back right away.”

Donnie nodded and stood with April. “Unfortunately, Raph is correct. Not about my shoulder—which was dislocated, not broken—but it would be in our best interest to train in these bodies.”

She looked back to where Mikey was still sitting, her strong stance weakening in defeat. “...Fine. I’ll leave you guys to that, but only because I have a Calc test tomorrow. Thanks for the pointers by the way, Donnie.” Her and Donnie fist-bumped.

Raph was just happy at least one of his brothers agreed to train, even if he had to use his stern voice to get him to.

He eyed Mikey, knowing all of his brothers needed to be on-board. If they weren’t, he would make them train anyway. They'll avoid all future incidents, and he won't let them down again.

Notes:

FAIR WARNING if you actually do dislocate your shoulder DO NOT DO WHAT IS PRESENTED IN THIS FIC!!! GET PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ATTENTION LMAO. they only resorted to that bc they are mutant turtles living in a sewer so unless ur also a mutant turtle living in a sewer dont do that

originally did not plan to switch povs so often,, like i was gonna do one or two per chapter but its just so fun to go between them. lmk if its annoying or confusing

Chapter 6: Following Outlines

Summary:

He closed the tube of paint, closed the sketchbook, not caring that it wasn't dry yet. He’s allowed to be upset by this new development, he told himself. It’ll be okay.

Notes:

light cw for a mutant that salivates (ew)
otherwise canon-typical violence

“This is very useful, Purple. Say, do you think you can repair this refrigerator as well? We will be able to store a lot of food that way.” Splinter kneeled on the stone floor of the kitchen. He’d found an old fridge and brought it down from the surface to show to Donnie.

Donnie, still clutching the toaster he’d repaired just hours before, shook his head. His wide eyes looked at his father, who was waiting for a further explanation. “Smells gross.” Adjusting his glasses, he inspected it a bit closer. “I can do the outside!” He added on, searching for the happy look Dad usually had when he was pleased.

Mikey held onto the side of the door frame to keep the rest of his body hidden, but peeked his head just far enough into the kitchen to spy on them.

Much to Donnie’s wonderment, Splinter smiled. “If I ask Red to clean the inside, will you repair it then?” When Donnie nodded, the man’s tail swished along the ground. He took the toaster from Donnie’s hands and plugged it into the wall atop one of the scuffed counters. “Let’s see if it works, huh, Purple?”

Donnie nodded again, oversized mask tails bouncing up and down.

Seeing Donnie getting to spend time with Dad gave Mikey an idea. He waddled out of the kitchen hallway and into the big room, running his little hand along the caution tape that kept him from falling into the moat below.

He made it to the living room, where his crayons sat scattered across the floor. All he had to do was make something, and then Dad would be proud of him!

Mikey giggled with excitement. He clumsily picked up a few of his crayons and held them up to the big screen Dad used to watch TV. Maybe Dad would like it if Mikey made his own TV show for him?

So he got to work. He clutched the cerulean crayon and scraped its wax across his canvas, filled in the blue with a pear green and a little bit of scarlet to pop. Colors were probably his favorite thing in the world, and him and his brothers were full of them!

Another figure outlined in purple, and then another in red, and then himself were scribbled next to the first. The last person he needed to add would be outlined in gray, and he would have a cotton candy tail and–

"Orange!"

He stopped. Hearing his name being shouted frightened him a lot, but it was Dad, so now he could see what Mikey made! He pointed at his masterpiece, gazing giddily in his father's direction.

His dad groaned, which was not the response Mikey was expecting. Did he not draw them right? His smile dropped, because he'd tried his best.

"Yes, I see, Orange." Splinter circled around the recliner to look closer at the piece, but there was no happiness in his expression. In fact, he looked the opposite of happy. "Red! Can you wet a towel for me?"

"Okay, Dad!" His big brother called from the other room.

Puzzled, he watched Raph walk in with a damp cloth and hand it to Dad. Mikey started swaying from side to side. What's he doing with that?

When Splinter started scraping away the color, his confusion turned to distress, and his feet planted firmly on the ground. Did Dad hate him? Mikey ran over to Splinter and tugged at his arm. "Stop!" He shouted, but Splinter didn't stop. He didn't understand why his picture was so bad. Was there not enough color?

Raph pulled Mikey away from their dad, who was halfway through erasing the replica of his eldest son. Mikey looked at Raph, tears quickly filling his eyes. He tried to ask questions, but it ended up coming out in a jumbled mess.

"Did you make that?" Raph asked, lifting Mikey by the armpits and bouncing him.

"Uh-huh," he pouted, sniffling.

He wondered what Raph knew back then that he didn’t.

"I think it was really good." He set Mikey on his shoulder and pat his carapace.

It wasn't fully developed yet—Donnie told him so—but he remembered just now because he didn't feel Raph's pats as much anymore. He kicked at Raph's plastron and lowered his head into his shell. "Mmf."

"I know. Dad doesn't like it when you color on that wall." He squeezed him and spun around, earning a muffled squeal from Mikey. Raph had always been good at cheering him up. "You can color on all the other walls. Just not that one, okay?"

Mikey's head popped back out of his shell. He stared at Raph, not knowing which thought occupying his head to say first. There were too many, so he gave up and garbled nonsense again.

Raph carried his baby brother around the lair until he calmed down, pointed at the trash in their moat, talked about his ideas for what he could make on each wall until he forgot about his now long-gone picture.

"I think Dad secretly likes it when you draw. You should keep practicing so he'll be super impressed next time!"

Mikey grazed a hand over one of his many unfinished paintings. It was nothing special, a vase containing flowers of four colors he always did gravitate towards. Marigolds, roses, hyacinths, and carnations that were each assigned to one of he and his brothers' respective life colors were strewn across the canvas, the care put towards every petal evident in the time he’d taken to paint their wrinkles and folds.

Raph's large fingers felt the textures of the dried paint, but the sensations were slightly different than if he’d been using his own hand to feel it. He didn’t know how to explain why it was different. It felt… muffled, maybe? That can’t be the right word.

Actual-Raph had been training them frequently since Leo and Donnie got into that fight with Meat Sweats, so he didn't have as much time to make art as he had before. That, being in Raph's body, and his improvement in using Raph's tonfas made him feel too much like Raph. Unsurprisingly.

So, he sat on the floor of his room, his room, with the art supplies, and sketched out the beginnings of a lily. It was one of his personal favorites. The pencil ran down its paper, movements shaky and going every which direction despite him not telling Raph's hands to do that. He drew the stamen. Those turned out okay until he got to the anthers, but the petals didn't come out at all how he wanted. He erased one and tried from a different angle.

It came out even worse than the others, so he erased it again.

On his third try, he decided to leave that one for later since it was causing him trouble. Art is supposed to be calming.

He erased a different petal to redraw, but it was all squiggly and it didn't look right. Sure, Raph’s hands were a little more wobbly than his, but that didn’t explain why he couldn’t at least messily recreate one of his favorite flowers. He held the sketchbook away from himself to look at it objectively.

This warranted a full restart.

He rubbed away the entire sketch, eraser shavings rolling onto the floor as he swiped them off. He knew he'd have trouble adjusting to new hands, but he still expected the art to resemble what he was trying to make. Each time he tried to replicate the simplest thing, he could see it clearly in his mind, but it wouldn't transfer onto the paper no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe the pencil doesn't sit right in a hand Raph's size. Instead, he could try painting; with a large brush that was similar to the one he usually used. That would surely be a better test of whether his ability remained intact or not.

He grabbed a brush with a thicker handle, held it between his fingers, and decided it felt close enough to his usual paintbrush. Speaking of his usual brush, it looked way smaller than it did when he was in his rightful body. He almost wasn’t sure it was his usual brush, because for all the time he’d used it, surely it hadn’t been so miniscule.

It reminded him of his first night on the surface, where he'd seen the full expanse of the sky for the first time in his life, and where the setting sun's vibrant hues of red and orange had encapsulated New York City's skyline for what could've been an eternity. He'd never known freedom lied in the rising moon, in the stars dotting the universe like fairy lights over still water. He'd never realized how small the sewers were before getting a taste of the outside air.

Not that Raph's body was freeing to be in. Quite the opposite.

Twisting open a tube of acrylic paint, he avoided red and instead went for… Let's stick with orange. He squeezed some onto the paper plate he used for paint and dipped in the brush.

Holding his breath, he painted.

Initially, it wasn't so bad. It was definitely an orange flower of some sort. It was meant to be a lily though, and it wasn't. His brush strokes weren't as neat as they usually were, and the proportions were all wrong, and nothing was blending right, and it looked like something a fucking toddler would make!

The brush's handle snapped. His grip, much too stiff now that he was aware of it, softened when he saw how the wood had split into uneven Splinters.

He threw the broken brush on the ground and dried his welling eyes, bitterly realizing that he felt like both a toddler and like Raph, but not like himself at all. Orange paint lay splattered over the stone floor, much too bright to be blood, and yet he had just witnessed the death of someone—something—he once knew.

He didn't know what he'd do if he had to stay in this body for another week, or another two weeks, or another month.

He closed the tube of paint, closed the sketchbook, not caring that it wasn't dry yet. He’s allowed to be upset by this new development, he told himself. It’ll be okay.

It's okay.

All he needs to do is find a different way to express himself. Or he can try again later—after he trains a little more so he can steady his hands. It's probably just that his fine motor skills hadn't settled into Raph's body yet.

If they ever would in the first place.

Mikey tossed the brush into his bin and carefully stood up, finally used to his new height enough to avoid hitting his head on his own lights. He had to get a wet paper towel to wipe away the paint splatter.

Someone was already in the bathroom though, and the sink was already running. Raph was in there washing his hands. "Hey, Mikey. I was thinking: wanna try making a big Raph soon? You're probably ready."

"Mhm."

Raph looked at him while he dried his hands. "What happened?" Other than Raph's voice echoing against the bathroom walls and the faint sound of a video game coming from the arcade, it was uncannily silent in the lair. "I can smell my frustration stink."

Mikey folded in on himself. On the long list of things he hated most about this body, the giveaway-smells were definitely near the top. "I just spilled some paint," he half-lied, grabbing a few paper towels.

Raph nodded in acknowledgement. Usually he would be a little more easygoing, but recently, he's been super focused on training regimens and combat practice. To stay healthy, he even told them they could only have pizza for dinner once a week (absurd). "Next session's gonna be in a couple hours."

"Okay." Sure, they were more prepared for a fight if they got into one, but Mikey worried less about their physical health and more about their mental health. He hoped he and his brothers could withstand the switch until Donnie made another Fwoopinator.

Unable to help it, he chuckled slightly. Stupid name.

==========

Of all the projects he's initiated, the Fwoopinator was no doubt the most difficult to figure out. Between training sessions, he'd been constructing miniature replicates of what he thought he'd seen in Draxum's lab, but as that day drew further, his memory of it became foggier. He'd been second-guessing whether it was really shaped like a particle accelerator or if all the Jupiter Jim movies had gone to his head.

Well, he wouldn't be second-guessing himself if any of his replicates had worked in the slightest.

Engineering was time-consuming with only one functioning arm, and he couldn’t even use his spider shell’s extra limbs because it didn’t fit on top of Mikey’s shell. Plus, he'd opted for typing much of his work as to not risk overusing Mikey's shoulder; two of many additional factors which made this already-Sisyphean task even more impossible. Not to mention his right arm, the one Meat Sweats had hit, was his dominant one.

Still, since his wrist was uninjured, he jotted down notes every once in a while as his brain worked way faster than he could type with his non-dominant hand. Barely-organized sheets of loose-leaf paper that alternated between notes and schematics occupied much of his space. Piles of building materials and electronics sat across every surface of his laboratory.

Usually he was good at lab upkeep, but his inability to grasp the concepts combined with his limited time and obvious impairment didn't allow for frequent cleaning.

He looked over a stack of messily-written data which detailed his knowledge of particle accelerators.

Of course, an actual particle accelerator would've been much, much larger than whatever Draxum's machine was. But it sure behaved like one.

The image of white light lined up with what was experienced by Anatoli Bugorski, the Russian physicist who was shot in the head by a particle accelerator. The white light was probably the one aspect of that night he recalled perfectly. However, Bugorski had allegedly felt no pain.

Did he feel pain inside the white void, or was it only after the switch? It was probably the latter, but either way, it still didn't fit the criteria.

If not a particle accelerator, it must be close to one.

Sketches of what he thought it might look like on the other side of the beam littered his papers, every journal of his somehow soaked in doodles depicting slight variants of the same object. If he were to compile all of them in one proper engineering notebook, he'd probably be halfway through it by now.

It felt like there was something missing—like without the last piece of the puzzle, the rest of it would be undecipherable; which would make a pretty shitty puzzle, to be honest.

He groaned and pushed himself away from his desk. Little to no progress had been made in the past couple days, and he wasn't happy about it. He'd told them he could find a solution to their little problem, but he was having trouble even creating an effective design.

That puzzle piece, if it existed at all, was not in plain sight.

Flipping down his goggles and only having to push them up a little, he examined Mikey's kusari-fundo more as if it would do anything. At the moment, it wasn't radiating much of anything, but he knew the second he touched it, it would explode into a vibrant show of mystic energy. Where did Draxum even get weapons like these?

The timer played its song. He sighed, put the melody to rest, and forced himself to take a break. There was no use exhausting himself—Raph was already doing a pretty good job at that, and there wasn’t exactly a due date on this thing.

When he exited his lab, his gaze immediately shot to the moat. There's mystic energy in the water. That must have been what he saw in the storm drain, but where was it coming from? It was in the tunnels on the walls as well, so was it throughout the entire sewer system?

"Donnie!" Raph waved from the bottom floor. "There's a mutant on the loose, and I think it'll be good practice. Suit up and let's go."

Donnie bit back the urge to groan. They already trained all morning, and now there was an actual mission to go on? His shoulder wasn't fully healed—He wasn't even out of the sling yet!

Raph started calling for the others, so Donnie went right back into the lab for Mikey's weapon. He'll just have to be careful.

"Show me reports originating from New York City regarding a mutant," he told his wrist tech. The very first thing he'd done upon arriving home was updating the software to recognize Mikey's voice as well as respond to a broader range of voice commands. These quality-of-life improvements were long overdue, but he'd yet to improve how the tech fit on Mikey's wrist.

A few articles and videos popped up. "Another Unusual Animal Roams New York" and "Giant Snake Terrorizing NYC" were among the search results. Someone or their pet snake must have been bitten by an oozesquito.

"Open video number one," he instructed the tech.

From the looks of it, it was some kind of garter snake. The video showed it slithering down the city's street, its all-black yet conscious eyes flitting from each civilian to the next. He couldn't quite tell if it was sentient, but it was definitely a mutant; it was a foot in width and probably fifteen in length, long black and yellow body covered in scales that looked almost metallic. The good news was that it had no visible fangs.

If he recalled correctly, garter snakes were generally considered non-venomous, but some produce a very mild toxin. When it comes to mutants, one could never be sure, but none of the reports so far said anything about it being venomous. They could probably take it on without much issue. There’s four of them and one of it.

The snake mutant’s eyes landed on the device recording it. The person holding the camera, probably afraid, tried to back away before the snake lunged at them. The view tumbled onto the ground, the cameraman screaming before it went black. Donnie closed the video.

He sighed and grabbed the kusari-fundo. Raph was forcing him to try wielding it in battle, but it was weird using anything other than his tech-bo, and what was weirder were Mikey’s knee pads. They hadn't bothered to resize any of their stuff, and wearing anything other than the gear that already fit was useless.

He, however, was not letting go of his goggles. He already disliked that he took on Mikey's routine rather than his own, the goggles being the one remnant of familiarity he found himself holding onto.

"Donnie!"

"Coming!"

==========

Topside and on one of New York's many buildings, Donnie refreshed the city's live reports (which he'd hacked into a long time ago), scanning past the records of stolen purses and armed robberies. Sure, they were heroes, but those types of crimes could be handled by human authorities. Mutants were more their thing.

"It says the snake is around 5th Avenue."

Leo was sitting cross-legged with Mikey, the two of them people-watching and judging passersby on their fashion choices. Honestly, with the constant training and unending research, Donnie kind of wanted to join in.

Raph looked around. "Okay, we'll go there then." He clearly didn't know where 5th Avenue was, because they were right in front of it.

He didn't say anything. "Just so you know, the snake this mutant originates from isn't really venomous, but it might be after its mutation. Don't let it bite."

"Oh, great. Thanks for the news, Donnie," Leo said.

From his frown, Donnie could only assume the possibility of it being venomous was disheartening. "We should come up with a plan–"

"We don't need a plan," Raph quickly said, shutting Donnie up. "We'll do what we always do: smash the bad guy to pieces and be on our way."

Raph held Leo's odachi, Leo held Donnie's tech-bo, so on and so forth. He appreciated the attempt to keep their prior formula, but he wasn't confident in it actually working.

"Are you sure, Raph?" Mikey asked, saying what Donnie and Leo were too afraid to say. "We aren't really– These aren't our 'always' circumstances."

Mikey was right. The switch, Donnie's arm, their weapons. It was all wrong. But their leader didn't respond. "Shh, I think I see it."

The snake mutant slid into view from one of the alleyways. If there's anything he's learned, it's to stay out of the alleyways. Hopefully Leo remembered how to spin the bo correctly.

It was almost larger than it appeared on the video, and definitely a garter snake; the long stripes gave it away–

They all simultaneously cringed when it swung its tail at a man stepping out of a restaurant, tripping him and causing him to fall on his ass.

Leo held back a laugh, but quickly stopped when the mutant started circling around him and constricting him like prey. Fascinating. The man's daughter, who Donnie hadn't even noticed was standing at the door of the restaurant, started crying for help.

"Okay, maybe we should hurry up–" Leo began, but Raph was already opening a portal to the streetside.

Well, all of the humans within the radius were fleeing, so being seen shouldn't be an issue. They could convince the girl and her father they're hallucinating if need be.

He hopped into the portal after his brothers, the bright blue light disorienting him as always. The duration which he was in the portal's limbo was a little longer than usual, but Raph had gotten alright at making them, so he trusted the direction he was falling, and landed in front of the mutant. Its eyes were unsettling. Its tongue flicked out at the sight of them.

"We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," Raph suggested, but they’d be fools if they didn’t already know it would be the hard way.

"Maybe we can talk it out? Hook you up with our friend Big Mama? She's really needing some new hires recently," Leo continued.

The snake's jaw unhinged, the man in its grip flinching. "I don't want anything to do with your mom!" Cool. Cool, cool, cool. It's sentient. "Get out of my way or the old man gets it."

The man wasn't particularly old, maybe in his late thirties. Why was the mutant so dead set on attacking him?

Donnie's eyes automatically observed the scales along its body.

Mikey hummed. "How about you let go of him, or you'll get it?"

The scales had red markings following its stripes, but they looked less uniform than they would on a typical red-sided garter snake: splotchy and entropic. And there were pieces of metal lodged between them. That's certainly not a snake characteristic.

The snake pushed air from its mouth. It slowly began unraveling from the man, who took the chance to grab his daughter and run away as soon as he was free. "And you must be the dad!" It opened its mouth wide, and then wider, and then wider until its head folded behind the skin of its mouth, saliva and an assortment of fangs blossoming where its face used to be.

"Augh, dude, gross. Why can't they ever be normal animals? What happened to chivalry?" Leo backed away, holding up the bo staff in a front guard.

That was certainly not the correct way to use "chivalry" in this context, but he knew what Leo meant.

Raph stepped up, gripping the sword tight. Donnie could smell his fear stink… Or, maybe that was Mikey, because Raph was brave enough to take the first swing at it.

He wasn't nearly fast enough, almost toppling over when his center of gravity took an unanticipated shift after he missed his target.

The snake had dodged and swiveled around Raph, but paid no attention to him. Instead, it targeted Mikey.

Leo spun the bo—his form was a little sloppy, but it got the job done—and knocked the snake away from Mikey. His bo clacked against the metal pieces dotting the mutant's scales.

Donnie mentally prepared himself to feel the mystic energy sear his fingers, burn through his palm. He raised his left arm and flung the weighted end of the kusari-fundo, managing to lasso the snake's body. He really only hoped to keep it away from Mikey long enough for someone else to do something, but for some reason, the snake was so light that when he pulled to hold it still, it was sent flying backwards. It crashed into the building behind him.

Shattered glass and loose bricks rained down from where the snake hit some poor guy's wall. Donnie shielded his eyes with his forearm, hearing a shout from the third floor where the mutant had been flung into, so he regretfully turned around. "Didn't– Didn't mean to do that!" He projected, knowing that wasn't enough to solve their problem.

He was just glad the kusari-fundo didn't take off, especially while they were on the surface. The training was making some difference at least.

When the snake tumbled back onto the road, saliva dripping from its exposed and now-injured flesh, it hissed at them. Its facial hinges grew wider, showing off hooked fangs that Donnie did not want to get caught in.

Still, it moved with such speed that it was already coming at him. He heaved air in and out, already spent from training for hours before, and braced for impact. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate, but to his surprise, Raph jumped in to fend it off. One of his brother’s hands held the hilt and the other was on the flat side of the blade, the snake's mouth (throat?) wrapping around the odachi but being hindered nonetheless.

Its hinges flared at them.

"It's gonna be tough to swallow this!” Leo slammed it over its slimy orifice with his tech-bo and– Did he already give up and start using it like a sword?!

His twin continued slashing at it with the bo, Donnie not knowing how to feel. Raph flicked its saliva off of the odachi instead of lecturing Leo and joined in on the slashing.

Metal scraped metal. Donnie flinched, but more importantly, the odachi hadn't penetrated its scales at all. Had it gotten caught on those metal pieces he'd seen before? There were so many possibilities as to what could’ve caused it to mutate like this... What were the scales made of exactly?

Raph looked at the odachi in confusion, probably wondering the same thing. He gasped when it slapped him away with its tail, Leo not prepared for its next maneuver. "Oh boy–" He'd registered it too late, and it pushed him down along with Raph and sent them both to the ground beside one of the buildings.

"Power-Punch Jutsu!" Mikey exclaimed, a large red fist encompassing Raph's real one and punching at its open flesh. Despite his speed, he was just under-coordinated enough to miss and for the snake to slither beneath him. It wrapped around his ankles, toppling him over with a thump. "Ow…"

Okay, this was no longer practice.

Donnie dropped Mikey's weapon and made a run for where Leo had been hit down. He tried to take his tech-bo from Leo's hands, but he held on, Donnie sliding to a stop. "Let go, Leo."

"Wha– Fine." He let go and allowed Donnie to take the weapon.

Donnie paid no mind to Raph's babble of disbelief.

It was mildly restricting to only use his left hand, but it was much better than using the kusari-fundo. He expertly pressed the buttons on the side of it, activating its engine and launching it to the other side of the street, where Mikey was scrambling (ugh) backwards to avoid getting bitten by their mutant foe.

His tech-bo spun until it collided with the mutant, its rocket then accelerating the staff back in his direction.

"Donnie! What are you doing?!"

"Stopping the giant demogorgon-headed snake? What does it look like I'm doing?" He snatched his bo out of the air and jumped—it must be the training; he didn't usually jump during this particular move—building acceleration to hit it back one more time for good measure.

"Aand it's a home run!" Leo hollered from somewhere behind him.

Donnie, still breathing heavily, pointed the top of the staff at the mutant and released a net on top of it. It tried to get out, but the suction cups at the ends of the strings made that a difficult feat. Most of the suction cups stuck to the brick of the building where the snake had been hit, but a couple were on the ground. It should still function at an angle.

"Donnie! We were supposed to be using the right weapons," Raph huffed out, walking over to take a look at the snake despite his contention. He must be tired too.

Mikey peeked over Donnie's shoulder—his shoulder actually—to see the mutant. The second he saw they were safe, he sat down and rested his chin on his palm. He saw Mikey blink for a couple seconds too long, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't need a nap as well.

"These aren't the right weapons. I'm not Mikey," he retorted, going to cross his arms but remembering his little situation. He rested his bo staff on the ground instead.

"Yeah, but—" Raph rubbed the fingers on his left hand together, "—we should be training."

"For what? Donnie’s making us a machine, and he's probably almost done. Right, Dee?" Mikey asked, his optimism shining almost as bright as fluorescents in a supermarket.

Donnie nodded. "...Yeah.” He couldn’t bear to tell them he hadn’t made much progress. “Either way, I'm much more useful with my tech-bo. Leo can use Mikey's weapon."

"But my weapon doesn't even work for Leo."

The mutant's head flipped its flesh outside-in again, its jaw connecting to its snout to create its snake-like appearance. "Let me out!" It tried, lunging repeatedly at the net.

The other three stepped back, but Donnie stood still. He was confident in his manufacturing. "What's your deal, Snake? Why were you attacking civilians?"

The snake looked at Mikey—well, Raph's body—and swirled itself into a coil. It flicked its tongue out but didn't respond.

I don't want anything to do with your mom.

You must be the dad.

Of course! This must've been a kid with something against their parents. That also must be why they attacked that man; he was a father.

"He's not our dad by the way. We're all teenagers—brothers. He's just a larger species,” Donnie said. He glanced at Leo, who seemed to be taking in the snake’s reaction to Donnie’s words. Leo was always the one to pick up on the observations Donnie put into practice, and more often than not, he bounced off of them

The mutant, now more passive than before, looked between Mikey, and then Donnie, and then Raph and Leo. "Then why'd you stop me? Don't you wanna get revenge too?" Their tone was backed with less poison (venom, if we wanted to be accurate), but they were still cautious.

Donnie was about to speak again, but Raph cut him off, which had been happening more often. "Get revenge on who?"

It filled him with disdain, because he'd already figured it out, but it was about to be explained without acknowledgement of what he’d noticed. And now Raph is seeking out the words of a literal snake over his own brother.

"On adults! They're all exactly the same."

"No they're not," Mikey countered. "There are plenty of good adults."

The snake pressed their head against the net, stretching it upward. It wasn't nearly enough to break the net. It didn't even qualify as an attempt at escaping, but it made them appear taller, and much more intimidating.

Mikey didn't cower; he never was afraid of other reptiles. Their next words were what quieted him. "Don't youse have an adult that's treated you wrong? Well, I don't know if you'd have parents since you're, uh, turtles. But still."

Donnie kept his mouth shut. He could let Raph answer this one.

Raph also didn't say anything.

"Not really," Leo shrugged, casually speaking up when his brothers couldn’t. "Sooo, you want to get revenge on adults? That's your whole thing?" When they nodded in response, he continued. "You could, I dunno, protect kids with bad parents? Instead of accidentally attacking good parents, you can just– stop the effects of bad ones. Y'know?"

He could hear a familiar yet sickening persuasion in Leo's voice. It almost translated perfectly into Donnie's body's demeanor and vocal tone, the perfect mix between mature and down-to-Earth; Leo had read the mutant's profile and came up with a voice to fit the role, an ever-impressive skill he possessed that Donnie was ashamedly jealous of.

The snake stared blankly at Leo. Their tongue flicked out again, and then they lowered their posture to be eye-level with them. "I guess you have a point."

Raph took this as his chance to remind them that he was in charge. It really was strange to see Leo's body's expression so serious on a mission. "So we can let you out and you won't attack any more innocent people, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Donnie recognized his cue and scraped the net's suction cups off of the wall and the ground, allowing the snake's metal-speckled body to be set free. He offhandedly wondered what human aspect contributed to that detail, but he decided he was too tired to linger on it. He had to save his energy for the machine after all.

==========

Donnie had just finished one of his greatest inventions. It was a bo staff, like the one Dad showed them, but it could extend about a foot out and the top half could spin: probably the coolest thing ever.

He set his wrench back in his toolbox and hopped off the little stool to his little desk. Grabbing the altered bo staff to bring with him, he trotted out of his room and up to the second floor of the atrium.

As always, the stairs were lined with multiple layers of caution tape, so it didn't worry him too much that Mikey was drawing something right next to the ledge near the stairs. He didn't notice when Donnie walked past him, so his mind was likely preoccupied. Donnie didn't bother him.

When he found his father, he was intently studying some of the Lou Jitsu merchandise which lined the living room's bookshelf. His dad had always been a big fan of Lou Jitsu.

Donnie approached him, watching closely. His snout was twitching a little bit and his ears were folded down, but Donnie didn't know why. He pushed his glasses up and leaned in to see what mass-produced Lou Jitsu product he was looking at this time.

Splinter jumped. "Purple! I did not see you there. Did you need something?"

He shook his head and held up the bo.

The man sighed, pinched his temple and set down one of the many trophies (Splinter always told them they were collectible replicas, but they were surprisingly high-quality) to tiredly look at Donnie's creation. "Yes, yes, I see, Purple." Donnie knew he wasn't good at figuring out what Dad was feeling, but it was painfully obvious that he didn't care about the invention. "Daddy needs time to work now, okay?"

Donnie's shoulders dropped. He nodded and left Splinter to his lonesome.

He was going to go back downstairs and work on something else to pass the time. It’s okay that Dad’s busy right now. Maybe he can show Raph or Leo later. Well, Leo would probably take it and mess with it, but having his brother pester him still felt more appealing than being ignored.

"Dee!" Mikey exclaimed, stopping him in his tracks.

"Hi, Jello."

Mikey stood up and shoved his newest drawing in Donnie's face. It was a picture of a flower. It had a sun in the corner of the paper and an abundance of clouds to fill up the space where the sky would be. "Like on TV!"

"Oh, the surface," Donnie concluded, allowing himself to look at the art for a while longer. "I like it. Good job."

Mikey smiled really big, practically glowing with enthusiasm at Donnie's comparatively small show of appreciation. It made him look down at his bo for a split second, but he quickly focused back on his little brother. Making Mikey feel seen should be his top priority, so he patted Mikey’s head and set down the bo to sit with him.

"Donnie, next time, don't take your tech-bo back. I thought we agreed to train with the right weapons."

Again with this "right weapons" nonsense. They weren't the right weapons and Donnie had never agreed to that. He only said that training would benefit them, not that swapping their weapons would do them any good. He sighed. He didn't have the energy nor the patience to put up with this. "I never agreed to that. Plus, using Mikey's weapon is pointless when I still have access to my tech."

Raph awkwardly tucked the odachi into the straps he'd had to fasten over Leo's shell to get the panic button on. Donnie, on the other hand, had taken his own panic button despite how terribly the orange and purple clashed. "But Leo needs a weapon, and it– You guys never listen to me."

Donnie didn't know what to think. He's the one that's been tasked with switching them back. Forcing him to use Mikey's weapon is just– It's illogical! There's no other way to put it. "I've shown up to every training session since the switch, but all I've been doing is using this dumb-dumb weapon with the only dumb-dumb arm that works. I’ve made no real progress!" So what if he was referring to the machine as well?

He could feel Leo and Mikey staring at him from behind, but he didn't care. The training was pointless, and it only delayed the reversal of their switch longer.

Raph stopped walking, so the rest of them, who'd been following his lead back to the lair, stopped as well. Their leader, tall, teeth grit, stood at the edge of the building they'd been crossing and looked Donnie straight in the eyes.

Donnie forced himself to keep his gaze locked with Raph's, determined to appear intimidating despite being stuck in Mikey's genial frame.

"You should've come to the training sessions before the switch too. You're not– You aren't above doing the bare minimum, Donnie."

"The– I'm doing the what?"

Mikey quickly grabbed onto Donnie's good shoulder to reel him in, Donnie unable to do anything when faced with Raph's body's uncontestable strength. God, in every sense, he couldn't get him off his back. "We should get back home! We don't wanna get seen." He let go of Donnie, who'd stilled.

Raph turned away from them again and jumped to the next building.

Donnie held his breath. He watched Mikey and Leo follow, not wanting to be left behind.

That was the first time in years Donnie had almost fought with Raph. He knew they were both handling the situation poorly, but he didn't think they were handling it that poorly.

Of course, out of spite and basic principle, he has to prove Raph wrong and switch them back. It was almost– no, it was insulting that he would insinuate Donnie was doing the bare minimum. Arguably, he was overworking himself, and Raph wasn't batting an eye.

The machine was already overdue.

Notes:

from the way i write splinter youd think i hate him but hes literally my favorite character in the show. im just doing him justice by writing him accurately like a true splinter fan would

also new character??? technically an oc but its just me making up mutants as plot devices lmao. expect to see snake pal make a couple more appearances maybe

ALSO ONE OF MIKEYS OLD NICKNAMES WAS JELLO I DONT TAKE CRITICISM (michelan jello)

Chapter 7: You Ooze You Lose

Summary:

He inhaled the soggy air, breathed in the moisture that the storm had left behind. The aftermath lingered like a stench, so he stayed away from the side of the building that looked down on the main road. It made him feel way too tall and way too big, a giant looming over a city that had once been his home.

Notes:

very character centric & dialogue heavy like chapter 3

main-ish plot gets rolling after this one!! (hopefully)

"And then we got septums without telling anyone. Wanna see?"

"Absolutely."

April sat back in her chair, pretending to be preoccupied with something on her phone. She was really just watching the clock and waiting for class to end, but the two people next to her were having a rather loud conversation. Not her fault that she can hear every detail.

"Did it hurt?"

"God, yes."

She offhandedly wondered if turtles were able to get piercings. No doubt Donnie would be able to make a contraption that could do it for them, but it's not like they had noses or ears. They could pierce their tongues, probably.

"I got it with Pierce, but their parents might've caught them. They haven't responded to, like, any of my texts."

"Maybe. They haven't been at school either though—since that prank."

"Yeah, that was fucked up."

She'd almost forgotten there was someone in her class named Pierce. They blended into the background most of the time, but April was basically an expert on noticing people who stayed in the shadows. And she remembered them for all the piercings they had (they really lived up to the name).

The bell rang, so she slung her bag over her shoulder and went straight to her locker. She was going to shove everything in there and head to the sewers to check on the boys. None of them had contacted her at all since she last saw them, which was super worrying, especially with the whole body-switch situation.

After putting all of the heavy books in her locker, she covertly slipped her gas mask into her bag, which she did have the awareness to bring this time.

She slammed the locker door shut and turned to leave.

"Hey, April!"

"Oh– Jesus." She sighed. This is the last thing she needs right now. "Hey, Dale."

"Hi, April. Again."

She followed the crowd to the front, checking her messages for what felt like the fiftieth time this week. Much to her disappointment, Dale continued to follow her.

He fidgeted. "If you're free today, I was thinking we could grab some froyo? There's this new place I've been meaning to try, and…"

People were already staring at her, because of course they were. Dale was certainly popular, but it wasn't because he was cool, no. It was because he was weird, and she has enough weird in her life already. Not to mention the more important things on her mind.

The last time Donnie had called her was over a week ago, and they used to call every other day or so. It had been even longer since Leo sent her a meme without explanation, or since Mikey had spammed her with texts.

Every message she's sent to them hasn't even been read. She'd avoided texting Raph since he wasn't big on online conversation in the first place, but she was definitely considering it.

"April?"

Still. They'd gone radio silent without any warning. It was her responsibility as their friend to check up on them.

"Yeah! No. Sorry, Dale. I, uh, I actually have plans today." She fleetingly wished someone with a better reputation were interested in her. Maybe then she'd have friends other than four mutant turtles and a rat.

She mentally smacked herself for thinking that way.

Dale grinned in the awkward way he always did and rubbed behind his neck. "Alright, that's cool!" He avoided her gaze. "See you later, then."

"Yep. See ya."

Relieved to be away from that conversation, she pulled up her jacket to try and shield her hair from the drizzle. It was futile considering it was already humid, but still, she hurried up, shoes thumping against the rapidly-dampening sidewalk.

She managed to get to the manhole before it could start raining any heavier.

Making sure no one was watching, she less-than-gracefully put on the gas mask, careful of her glasses, and adjusted it to fit her head. Then, one more check to see if anyone was there; it would be detrimental to her image if anyone saw her climbing into the sewers. She lifted the manhole cover.

Her jacket fell back onto her shoulders.

Everything seemed normal up until she entered the lair and heard them… training? Leo was telling someone to try again. Raph was insisting whatever he was doing was impossible.

They rarely trained in the first place, but to train in such an unfamiliar circumstance? Unheard of. If April knew them, Donnie would try to get them back, Leo would use it to his advantage, Mikey would tell them to stay true to themselves, and Raph would want to take it seriously. That's just how their dynamic worked, but training? Really?

In the Turtle Tank garage, Raph and Donnie were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Raph using his tonfas. Taking off the gas mask, she wondered why Donnie wouldn't be training with his tech-bo– Wait, that isn't Donnie. Who was who again? She messed with the mask. Donnie's in Mikey's body, right? And Raph was in…

"Hey, guys," she greeted vaguely, quickly giving up on trying to remember which person was in which body. "You're training?"

Raph stopped fighting immediately. He looked at April, and she could've sworn he seemed thankful she was there. "April!" He was about to run over to her, but Leo shot him a look that kept him in place.

Now she remembered who was who.

"Hey, April," Leo's voice said. "We're just making sure we can beat up any bad guys we might run into." She didn't even have time to raise her eyebrow at him before he got back to instructing Mikey. Now that she thought about it, why would Mikey be using Raph's tonfas? Wouldn't that be more difficult than just using his own weapon? "Leo, your stance is wrong again."

Donnie's body switched his leading foot, but didn't focus back on the combat in favor of waving at her. "Hi, April!"

She waved back. Looks like Leo recovered from that Meat Sweats thing. When Donnie brought him back to the lair that day, he couldn't walk nor keep his eyes open. Now he could walk perfectly fine.

Raph sighed and crossed his arms. "Focus, guys. We've already failed to fight two mutants."

She saw Leo's smile melt away, but he quickly rolled his eyes in replacement of it. He looked back at Mikey, who was ooo'ing at Raph's stern tone towards Leo.

"Where's Donnie?" She asked Raph.

His arms crossed a bit tighter. He kept his focus on his brothers, not even glancing at her. "He decided he doesn't want to train." It was barely an answer, but it gave her all the information she needed. His disagreeing tone, his stiff body language.

"Okay. I needed him for something." That's a lie, because now she was aware that he and Donnie had a fight. They were the brains and the brawn, the two opposite archetypes. You'd expect them to fight frequently.

They really didn't.

"Bye, April," she heard Mikey's inflection say.

"I'll be back."

If she had to count the amount of times she'd witnessed a fight of theirs, she would be able to use one hand. One human hand, that is.

She patted down her hair at the doorway of Donnie's lab, hoping it wasn't already frizzing. Immediately, the lab was better lit than the last time she'd been there.

Donnie was sitting in front of his big screen, presumably studying a sketch he'd scanned in. It was a surprisingly concise one; usually she had to squint to understand what was happening on his papers.

Wondering how long he had until a break, she looked at the timer beside his desk. Oddly, it wasn't counting down to anything. Had he forgotten to set it? How long had he been working?

"Donnie?"

Donnie jolted. "F– Banana pancakes, April, I did not hear you come in. Please, knock next time." He turned around in the swivel-chair, and she'd never seen Mikey's eyes have bags under them until now.

"My bad." They were bloodshot too, so he must've been staring at that screen for a while. "Shouldn't you take a break, Dee? Raph seems worried about your fighting ability or whatever."

He turned back around. "Raph's logic is flawed. In order to switch us back, I need to be working. Training will do nothing for me." His tone was packed with unfamiliar baggage. Maybe Mikey's voice just sounds that way, but Donnie sounded angry.

She hummed and leaned her weight on one leg, watching as he closed out of the image.

"Plus, there are more pressing issues to attend to."

"Are those issues something you should train for?" She asked, pulling up a stool to sit beside him.

He sucked in a breath, but didn't move away from her. "I have important work I mustn't procrastinate on—none of which should concern you."

April frowned. Of course it concerned her. She should at least know whether or not they'll be back in their original bodies soon. "And how exactly does it not concern me?"

"You have human shit to worry about, like school and work and countless other things I'm sure." It would be a bad time to tell him she'd gotten fired from her new job (again). "Though I hypothesize that a mutant we fought recently went to your high school."

"Oh! Was it that, uhh, that snake one? I saw a story about that." She fluffed one of her buns, wondering how it fared in the rain.

He nodded. "If someone hadn't forced us to use the wrong weapons, it would've been an easy fight."

Obviously it was Raph who he was talking about, but that didn't sound like something Raph would do for no reason. "What happened?" An innocent question, but an unwelcome one apparently.

Donnie leaned the elbow that wasn't in a sling on his desk, which just so happened to be the one on her side. He held his cheek in his palm and turned away from her.

She huffed. He's smart enough to know that she knew that he knew what she meant. If that made any sense.

"Come on, Donnie. What happened between you and Raph?" It worried her that they were having interpersonal conflict in the middle of all this. They couldn't hide it from Splinter forever, and the longer they did, the bigger impact it'll have on their family. Forever!

They're all she has.

She tilted her head side to side, trying to think of a way to get him to talk. "What started it? Lay it on me." Her wording might've been too vague, so she adjusted her language.

That seemed to work. He straightened his posture and leaned back in his chair. "Raph wanted me to use Mikey's kusari-fundo, but I took back my tech-bo; I had every right to."

"And let me guess: Raph didn't like that?"

"Yes, but I did it because we were losing. Yet he is aggressive towards me for no reason."

This cleared up her confusion about what was happening in the garage. "That is pretty sus. I mean, suspicious. That's suspicious." She tried to lean back as well, but quickly realized there wasn't a back to this stool and shot back up. "Should you be training? If you guys were losing so bad?"

Donnie slumped over again. He flipped his goggles over his eyes, which looked silly on Mikey's face, and messed idly with his keyboard. "I'm not sure. I fear Draxum has already carried out his plan; there's mystic energy in our sewer water."

"Woah, what? Baron Draxum's putting ooze in the water?"

"Yes, that was his plan. Since half of New York hasn't turned into mutants already, I'm hoping it's only in the sewers for now." He stopped toying with the keys and flipped his goggles back up. "Unless I switch us back, we stand no chance against Draxum. Training like this only delays us."

Something told her there was a deeper reason as to why he prioritized switching them back over everything else, but something also told her it wouldn't be so easy to pry out of him. "You should tell them about the water. That's kind of important."

Donnie didn't respond. He continued analyzing the information on the screen and ignored what she thought was a reasonable suggestion.

April stood up, knowing there was no use arguing with him in this state. Instead of getting hung up on it, she reached out to take his timer into her hands and set it to go off in about an hour. If he was going to be like this, then he should at least take a break every once in a while.

==========

Mikey sat beneath the night sky, his hands resting against the edge of the roof he'd climbed onto. The surface wasn't damp so to say, but it had that ghost of a chill that rain usually left on concrete.

He inhaled the soggy air, breathed in the moisture that the storm had left behind. The aftermath lingered like a stench, so he stayed away from the side of the building that looked down on the main road. It made him feel way too tall and way too big, a giant looming over a city that had once been his home.

Allowing himself to feel that way would completely contradict the whole reason he came up here.

It was easier to forget about feeling out-of-place when he wasn't confined in that sewer. He was already trapped in this suffocating body, constantly filled with the nauseating fear of being stuck like this forever. And it– He took a deep breath. It could be forever. Donnie might not be able to make the machine, and Draxum probably fixed the original by this point.

How is he supposed to deal with the loss of himself when he's still here?

Even after all this time, Raph's hands were impossible to use. He could barely cook without accidentally crushing glass in his palm (that was fun) or dropping food on the floor, he couldn't draw or paint or even color inside lines, and his own room gave him claustrophobia.

But oh, he can create these stupid red force fields around the stupid clumsy hands to hit stupid snakes with. Great. Just great.

Raph's body was not fit for anything he used to pride himself in, and it felt debilitating. It was as if Draxum's vines had never left him, as if they held on fast even as he and his brothers fled the scene.

He almost shivered, remembering how the vines had entrapped him. He wanted to scoff at his past self for thinking that was as bad as it got, because now he didn't dare run his hands over Raph's arms or legs, afraid of reminding himself that he was in Raph's skin instead of his own.

Defeated, he grit his teeth and clutched the concrete where the roof ended and the walls began, trying to keep himself in check despite how easy it looked for the other three to adjust.

He hit the roof, frustrated, yet softly at first, as he knew it would only cause more trouble if he drew attention to himself. He held Raph's head in his hands, leaned over, tried not to let his feet kick too hard.

"We're all good, we're alllll good… I'm just peachy," he whispered to himself, keeping his knees from touching so he didn't have to feel Raph's spikes against Raph's legs.

His torso had no means of escape from Raph's rigid shell. His mind didn't even spare him the discomfort by wandering away from how Raph's fingers rubbed against each other, brittle chalk, and how Raph's eyes didn't blink right, and how it was difficult to breathe through Raph's lungs, and how they'd endured the switch together yet he still felt terribly alone.

Here he was, all alone.

It was at this point that he allowed Raph's body to take control. He let the resentment boil over into rage, the burning in his head and his throat and his chest almost too much to bear. His lungs stopped and his head spun and he needed it out, he needed out, but the burning clogged his thought processes and he had no say in how it got out.

The bulkhead that was meant to provide access to the roof suddenly had a new dent in it. It crumbled in on itself, pebbles rolling onto his feet, his brain only just registering the resounding crack of when Raph's fist collided with it.

He stopped. Did he just do that?

Why did he do that?

Slowly, he pulled the hand away from the bulkhead, looked around to check if anyone saw, and back at what he'd destroyed. It was broken. He'd broken it.

He wanted to cry, but quickly wiped his eyes and contained whatever the next show of emotions would be. That was not healthy. Breaking things because he's angry is not healthy. Doctor Feelings would be disappointed.

"Woah, there. Was that you?"

Mikey metaphorically jumped out of his skin. He'd trade all the pizza in the world to do so literally. "What?! Who's there?" He disguised a sniffle as an inhale and hoped his puffy eyes were hidden in the darkness.

"Not a human, don't worry," the voice told him, though he wasn't certain if it reassured him or not.

At first, Mikey was afraid it was Repo Mantis or one of those crab guys, but the voice was too smooth and he hadn't been attacked yet. "If we're gonna fight, at least narrow it down for me."

"Does this narrow it down?"

He turned toward the sound.

He stumbled back and screamed when he was greeted with a flower of open fangs that had already been waiting for him.

Now it was narrowed down. It's that freaky snake mutant.

Raph's voice came out much higher than before. "Yeah, mm-hm, it does!"

Its flesh closed back in on itself, its head reconstructing before him. He was almost grossed out by it, but he's probably seen worse.

The snake laughed hysterically at the reaction it'd gotten out of him, Mikey begrudgingly standing back up and brushing himself off. He crossed his arms to try and seem intimidating. If he's in Raph's body, he might as well make use of it. "And what are you doing up here?"

It wiped a tear from its eye with the end of its tail, still chuckling. "I should be asking you. This is my old house, so I decided to pay a visit."

Mikey tried not to look at the dent he'd made in the bulkhead. "I was just… chillin' out. On the rooftop. As you do."

It slithered around him, head circling in front of his face. He tensed, hoping it wouldn't go all demogorgon while they were so close. "Yeah. Chilling out and punching things? Doesn't sound chill to me."

Mikey rubbed a finger over his mildly scraped knuckle, the callouses feeling wrong against the nerves on the beds of his fingers.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, lashing out as a result of anger was something Raph would do at his breaking point.

"Listen, Chico, I'm not– It hasn't been very sunshine-y and rainbow-y." Still, he fidgeted. "But sorry for breaking the thing on your roof. I really don't know what happened. I mean– I know what happened, but it– I didn't–"

Thankfully, it cut him off before he could embarrass himself. "I gotcha. Doesn't matter to me though; it's not like I lived on the roof." It looked him up and down. "I bet you mutated recently too, right? I totally get the urge to break stuff after that."

Mikey recognized the attempt at making conversation, but he didn't know how to correct the assumption without sounding rude. He shrugged.

"We might've gone to the same school. Since you're also a teenager apparently." For some reason, it seemed interested in his story.

Mikey forced a chuckle, but he didn't feel threatened anymore. It wouldn't hurt to chat with a reformed delinquent. "Probably not." He shouldn't open with the whole body-swapping thing. That would be confusing. "I got mutated a way long time ago. As in, I-had-to-wear-diapers levels of a long time ago." That didn't feel like enough of an explanation though, so he continued, beginning to pace back and forth.

The snake sort of slid alongside him, its tongue flicking out. "I started out as a normal little box turtle, not a human, but then I got human DNA—My brothers too! That's how I became me." Was he still him? "It was probably by Baron Draxum, this super scary guy that lives in the Hidden City. But Splinter never gave us the full story and not even Raph remembers any of it."

He'd forgotten this mutant didn't know about any of that, and he was only reminded when it looked at him like he was crazy.

"Um, not important though! Sorry. You got bit by an oozesquito though, right?"

"It's cool, dude," it replied swiftly. "What's an ooze…?"

He reeled it in a smidge. "An oozesquito? It's that thing that bit you. Y'know, the bright green mosquito that injected you with stuff?"

"I wasn't bitten."

Mikey stopped walking, and the snake stopped following him. That definitely caught his attention. He looked at it, utterly confused, because how could someone not notice the oozesquito during their mutation? That delivery guy, from the first time he'd been in Draxum's lab, had said it hurt.

"I got, like, splashed with fuckin' sewer water I think." It rolled its eyes. "Then my limbs retracted or something, and now I'm a snake." The end of its tail flitted from side to side. "Was I supposed to get bitten by a… what was it? Ooze squito?"

A particularly cold wind passed by. Sewer water. There's mutagen in the sewer water? No, no, "No, it's– That's just how it usually happens! It's totally cool that you weren't oozesquito-ified." He has to tell his brothers about this.

The snake's thin eyes glared at him quizzically, sending shivers down his spine. "Right."

Did he really want to go back home though? Sure, it might be late, and Raph might start looking for him soon, but the more time spent outside of the sewer the better. It felt good up here; there was a nice breeze that made him feel a little more alive. "So! You used to live here as a human?"

"Yep." It emphasized the "p" at the end of that, peering down at the apartment windows along the gap between the two buildings. "It kinda sucked, but being seen as an actual monster sucks too. I dunno how you've done it your whole life."

Mikey shrugged. "It's been fine. I have my dad and three brothers and a human friend." He counted them with both hands for emphasis. "They're great company! I mean– they usually are."

"So you do have a dad," it noticed, humming. The sound sort of leaked through its neck, or the upper part of its body that would be its neck. "Did he give you a name?"

"Yeah! It's Mikey." Now his name is going to be associated with Raph's body. Every day gets worse. "Do you have one? Okay, obviously you do– What's your name?"

They laughed. "You can call me Pierce."

Mikey waved. "Hi, Pierce."

Pierce waved back with their tail. "Hi Mikey."

It was a stupid exchange, but a refreshing one. He'd been buckling under the pressure to constantly mediate the heightening tensions between Donnie and Raph, the task of keeping his family from falling apart. It was a much needed break for him.

"What's Mikey short for? Michael?"

Mikey grinned. It felt like it'd been a while since he had. "It's short for Michelangelo! My dad named me and my brothers after famous painters."

"Renaissance painters?"

"Yeah!" Even though he wanted to jump up and down at the topic of art, he sat again. Raph had been getting him to use the tonfas more as he neared the giant-sized Raph, and it took a lot of energy. Pierce coiled up next to him.

"That's actually so cool," they commented. It made him feel warm inside. Something was urging him to continue talking about the things on his mind, to spill the thoughts he'd been keeping away from his brothers to avoid any more drama between them. He'd talked about it to April a little bit, but even though she was nice and understanding, she just didn't get it. "Please tell me at least one of you does art."

He nodded quickly and gestured to the sky. "I do! It's not any of my brothers' cup of tea, but it's my peanut butter and jelly. I am the artist of the bunch." Remembering the paint, and the brush, and the lily, his shoulders dropped. "Well, it's more like my toothpaste and baked beans now. I'm not as good as before." His voice quieted at the mention. He'd yet to pick up the remnants of his hobby.

"Felt that." They swayed from side to side, red markings flowing along with the movement. Mikey would've danced along if he wasn't so preoccupied with picking at a small bump in the concrete. "No hands ba-by. Can't draw when I can't even hold a pencil."

Oh, that wasn't dancing. They were trying to gesture to their lack of arms. "That must really hurt," he mumbled, looking guiltily at Raph's hands.

"I guess it burned when I first lost them, but not anymore."

That wasn't what he meant, but before he could clarify anything, his phone rang. He didn't have to look to know who it was. "It's my brother," he told Pierce before taking a deep breath and picking up. He put on his best veil and made sure his tone was the same as always. "Chell-o?"

"Mikey? Where are you?" Mikey opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it when Raph began speaking again. He winced when the snaggletooth hit his beak. "We have training tomorrow. You're gonna be home soon?"

"You can count on me, Raphael."

Raph hung up, so Mikey sighed deeply and stood up again, only needing a moment to regain balance. "I've gotta get back home. Thanks for talking to me, Pierce." He really needed it.

"Ditto."

Leaving the light of 5th Avenue and shrouding himself in darkness, he allowed the New York traffic to distract him from the thought of having to go home. From the dread of being back in the sewers.

Talking to that mutant was a good distraction from everything. He'll have to go back and repair that wall sometime.

Still, moving was a pain. He'd gotten used to it, and he knew how to maneuver the body by now, but every bit of it felt wrong. He didn't think it would ever stop feeling wrong.

He went faster, hoping to get to the lair so he could sleep already. Recently, he's been dreaming about getting his body back.

Only when he arrived at the manhole did he stop. Out of the corner of his eye, a puddle the size of his foot caught his attention.

In the reflection was Raph. It shouldn't've been surprising, but his throat closed before he could look away. Shock pulled him to a deafening halt, and the eye contact with Raph's reflection sent adrenaline through his veins. He hadn't seen that before.

His hand reached up to touch his face, New York's nightly ruckus drowning beneath the disconnect between him and the person in the puddle. That's his brother, a little voice in his head whispered. That isn't him. That isn't Mikey.

And that is terrifying.

Notes:

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE KUDOS AND COMMENTS I REALLY APPRECIATE THEM <33 (feel free to leave a comment they make my day) i grow more powerful with every bit of interaction on this fic

yes pierce is a they them icon (projecting)

Chapter 8: We're Gonna Fall

Summary:

The first one Mikey told about the sewer water was Leo. He didn't want to tell Raph in fear he would go overboard, as he had been with everything else, and Donnie's been busy with the machine since they began their training session today. This was the second time Donnie skipped out on a session.

Notes:

a little late but happy new year and happy holidays to those who celebrate! its crazy that its 2023 time fr flies

The first one Mikey told about the sewer water was Leo. He didn't want to tell Raph in fear he would go overboard, as he had been with everything else, and Donnie's been busy with the machine since they began their training session today. This was the second time Donnie skipped out on a session.

It was over now though, and Mikey and Leo were taking matters into their own hands; they were investigating the greater sewer system. Leo held a flashlight, but he'd turned it off at April's request.

"It looks a little brighter this way," she pointed out. Not wanting to be left alone with Team Debbie Downer, as Mikey and Leo had put it, she tagged along.

Leo trivially squinted at the spot in the water she was observing as if he would see it as well. "How did you get Donnie to give you his goggles? He doesn't even let us touch them," he deadpanned.

April grinned under her gas mask. "I asked him nicely."

Mikey, defaulting to his usual, stared into space and let his thoughts ramble on. Right now, however, he was focusing on their conversation just fine. He wasn't sure how much he liked that.

She led them down a tunnel that Mikey had never been down. He and his brothers didn't spend much time down here outside of the lazy river.

Leo didn't seem too bothered. "You look like someone from The Purge."

April self-consciously adjusted the mask. "Yeah, and you look like Donnie," she shot back, holding back a laugh.

"I mean, yeah."

April went awkwardly silent, so Mikey expanded upon her joke, as good comedians probably do. "It must be so embarrassing to look like Donnie. My condolences."

This time, Leo chuckled and caught on, but didn't turn around to face Mikey when he said, "Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it. His forehead's a portable tic-tac-toe board, you know."

Mikey bit his tongue, but ultimately allowed a particularly intrusive quip escape. "What do you need to win? Ten in a row?" His voice shook with giggles, his expression sporting a wide grin.

Leo held a hand over his mouth. "No, no, you might tie that way. It fits multiple games."

They burst out laughing and had to stop their trek to ride it out, Leo leaning over and putting his hands on his knees when he couldn't stop because it wasn't that funny, but when was the last time they were able to joke around?

"Hey, guys, it's–" April snickered, "–It's not cool to make fun of his forehead. He might be able to see us with all the third eyes he can fit on there."

All three of them laughed harder, devolving into wheezes without the means to stop. Just hearing each other continue to find such a juvenile joke funny made the process start over again and again, and Mikey hoped it would never end.

Their laughter echoed throughout the sewers until they were finally able to catch their breath (Leo was able to stop surprisingly fast when he finally looked back at Mikey and saw Raph, but he tried to ignore that). Mikey's stomach hurt. "Sorry, Dee. You know we love you," he said to the distance, even if Donnie wasn't actually there to hear it. They really did, but he deserved to get ragged on for being all isolated recently.

"Love you, Dee," Leo and April agreed.

April wiped the tears from her eyes and breathed heavily through her mask. "Okay, back to work–" She flipped the goggles back down. "Holy shit."

"What?" Mikey asked, tracing her gaze.

"Can you guys see that?"

And sure enough, flowing beneath the surface of the water, bright green was seeping into view for the naked eye. They stared in awe.

"Well? Follow that ooze!" Leo exclaimed, quickening his pace.

The source of the mutagen was far into the sewer. They backpedaled multiple times, April pointing out whichever route she hoped had more mystic energy and following its trail.

At last, a green light above water came into view after a confusing series of left turns. Clearly they hadn't gone in a circle though, because here they were, at the epicenter.

It was a strange setup. There were vials of ooze lined up against the wall, each one dripping mutagen into the sewer water through a plastic tube. It might use pressure or something, but Mikey didn't really understand that stuff.

"What's this for? To feed the mutant fish?" Leo was the first to look a bit closer at the vials. He shone the flashlight on them and tapped the glass, April pulling his hand away.

Mikey couldn't tell what Leo was thinking. It was no problem though, because he recognized those vials from somewhere. Their circular shape was something he remembered taking note of for this one still life he did… "I think we've seen those before."

"Yeah, but where?"

They stared at them a while more.

Finally, April gasped. "Mayhem! It's the vial Mayhem had around his neck!"

"It's the ooze he stole from Baron Draxum," Leo continued. "Does he think the sewers are New York's water source or something? Y'know, for a scientist, he really isn't the brightest."

It honestly didn't make sense. Draxum's original plan was to mutate the entirety of New York, but the entirety of New York wasn't drinking sewer water. "This explains Pierce's situation," he mumbled to himself.

"Pierce?" April questioned.

Mikey shut his mouth. He shouldn't have said that considering Pierce attacked his brothers not too long ago. It might be a little traitorous to be friends with them. "The– The light's piercingly bright. We should, um… take these down! Who's with me?"

They gave him weird looks, but he kept his best poker face.

He was relieved when they instead started removing the vials of ooze from the walls.

As he deconstructed one arrangement on the far side, he noticed that the placement job was tacky. Even the tubes were messily taped onto the openings of the vials. Some of it was leaking out from the rim.

"You sure this was Draxum? This is a little half-assed to be him." She had a point. If Baron Draxum were the one to do this, there would at least be effort put behind it.

"Who else would pull something like this? I'll bet all the money in Mrs. Porkycoin and all my JJ comics it was Draxum." No, it had to be him. They'd be in real trouble if there was another guy like Draxum out there.

Leo pulled one of the tubes away from a vial, careful not to spill the rest of it and make his efforts pointless. "If he was able to kidnap Lou Jitsu, then his job would for sure be cleaner." He snapped his fingers. "I'll bet it was someone working for Draxum. If I'm right, I get your comics."

"What?! I didn't think about that…"

April, smart as always, stayed away from the ooze. Her getting mutated would be an entirely different problem that they wouldn't know how to solve.

Well, it's not like getting their bodies switched back was easy. But they at least had an idea of what to do.

It was only a matter of time before they figured out what's been going on.

==========

"Look, Mayhem. We think Baron Draxum's pulling shit again," April explained to the feline, her fingers dangling a half-filled vial of ooze up to his face.

Mayhem gave the bottle a little sniff. In response, he growled and arched his back, so she retracted it to run her hand down his fur instead.

Donnie took it from her hands to inspect himself. He'd gotten his goggles back from her, but he really didn't need them to know that this stuff was mutagen, and it certainly shouldn't be near her. "You guys found this in the greater sewers?"

Out of his peripherals, he could see Mikey nod and say something to answer his question.

Donnie didn't take his eyes off the ooze though, his train of thought straying from their conversation to Draxum's intentions, and then to whether he remembered to change S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.'s coolant for the second time today or not. "Sorry, what was that?"

His brother didn't seem to notice his inattentive state, as he became preoccupied with looking at Mayhem with Leo and April. "It was sloppily done. Like, it was leaking out and everything."

"Interesting."

He watched Leo run one of his hands down Mayhem's fur, and Donnie could almost feel the sensation from watching what was formerly his hand glide across it.

When Mikey tried to do the same, Mayhem hissed. Usually Mayhem wasn't against affection from them unless it was Raph giving it.

Donnie kept that thought from leaving his mouth.

"I think he thinks you're Raph," Leo commented, making Donnie's self control pointless.

Mikey frowned and scooted away from where Mayhem sat, standing up and notably having no issues with balance when he did so. After spending so much time in Raph's body, he was bound to get used to it.

That worried him. If they were to switch back now, there's a chance they would feel uncomfortable in their own bodies, and he did not want that.

He could focus on the fact that there were vials of ooze in the sewers, but they'd already taken those down. If Draxum was the one who planted them, there's a good chance he believes his job is done until further notice. This means he can continue his work.

He set down the vial and pulled out his schematics with one arm. The sling was no longer necessary, but Mikey was still adamant about not overusing his shoulder. The most he did was a few exercises and a little bit of construction.

Mikey looked over at Donnie's work. He hoped Mikey couldn't tell that most of his schematics and notes were failed prototypes or largely-improbable theories on what happened the night of the switch.

"Did– Did you draw those?" He asked.

"Yes. I think your affinity towards drawing transferred to me." He moved them aside. "Don't worry. These were from before I dislocated your shoulder."

Mikey hummed, but showed no further interest. After all, from his perspective, he'd have his body back soon. He turned, presumably to leave, but stopped when he spotted someone coming through the doorway. "Raph," he said, causing Donnie to tense.

"Hey, April, Mikey, Leo. Where'd you guys go?" Their beloved eldest brother strolled in as if he hadn't been the reason they retreated to his lab. Well, the reason Mikey and Leo did. Donnie spent a lot of time in here anyway.

So why is Raph here? Didn't he have better things to do like be serious and go over training regimens?

He occupied himself with studying his schematics. He was hesitant to showcase any of his failed experiments in front of his brothers and April, but he might as well stare at something so Raph won't talk to him.

April, of course, didn't hide things from Raph. He rued their older sibling solidarity. "We explored the sewers to see why there's ooze in the water."

In that moment, Donnie could feel panic radiate off of Mikey—or maybe it was his fear stink—and he felt the exact same way.

"There's ooze in the water?" Raph repeated. Donnie could feel Raph's eyes bore into his back, but he then presumably redirected his gaze to Mikey. "Since when?"

Since a few days ago, Donnie thought. He hadn't told anyone about the mystic energy coming from the water, and he had no idea how Mikey figured it out. Now though, he at least wouldn't be blamed for keeping it a secret.

"I dunno. I found out yesterday," Mikey responded matter-of-factly, trying to make it sound like it wasn't a pressing issue. He probably had the same fear that Donnie had: causing one of Raph's little bursts of heroic zeal. "Don't worry, Raph. We already took it all down and Donnie's gonna make something to filter the water. Right, Donnie?"

They hadn't spoken about this beforehand, but in order to appease Raph, he had no choice but to agree. "Yes, I will," he fibbed. He didn't turn away from his desk, but he knew Raph was trying hard to decide how to react to the news.

"We need to put a stop to Draxum." Draxum is just an inconvenience at this point. Donnie's certain he's on the cusp of discovering how to make the Fwoopinator.

As always, he thought to himself about how stupid the name was. But this time, he laughed out loud, quickly stopping when they quieted. He knew they were looking at him, but maybe he was wrong this time around.

Unfortunately, April confirmed that they'd all heard it. "What's funny, Dee?"

Donnie cleared his throat. He didn't know how that laugh got out—that wasn't normal for him—but telling them it's because of a name he coined sounded a little silly. "Sorry, I thought about how you look in my goggles." Somehow, lying had been coming easier to him.

She faked a gasp. "Wow, okay. No need to come at me like that." From her tone, Donnie knew she was joking.

From her tone?

Raph put an end to their goofing off, the typical as of late. "Anyways. Stay on track, guys; we should report this to someone. Like, to the Hidden City police or something."

Okay, that was not as bad as Donnie had imagined it going. Pleasantly surprised by his leader's leniency, he turned around. Raph briefly made eye contact with him, but quickly looked away.

"Does the Hidden City even have police?" It was the first time he'd spoken to Raph since the fight with that snake. This is his form of an apology.

And Raph recognized that. "Yeah, Señor Hueso talks about them. Right, Leo?"

Leo nodded.

Mayhem chirped and pawed at April's shoes.

"What is it, Mayhem?" She asked, picking him up.

His paw raised to point at the vial of ooze on Donnie's desk.

Satisfied with the minor repair job done to his train-wreck of a relationship with Raph, he entertained Mayhem. "This?"

That must've been what Mayhem wanted him to do, because the second he had it safely in his grasp, his physical form was pulled into a pocket dimension. It was blue and swirly, a familiar glow.

The feeling in his stomach was alien though. He felt the particles in Mikey's body zip through time and space, felt it twist and turn and rearrange itself when it prepared for landing.

It wasn't nearly as bad as when he entered Leo's portals. It was organic, natural, as if he was meant to be here. He would even go as far as to say he enjoyed it.

Is it because the body's hold isn't as strong?

Mayhem dropped them right in front of the entrance to what appeared to be a cave, though he had to blink away the sparkly blue particles before he could see it clearly. The doorway was lined with square-ish stones, indicating that it was man-made– well, yokai-made.

"Man, is that how you guys feel when I pull you into my portals?" Leo muttered, cracking his neck.

Donnie peeked inside the entrance they'd landed in front of to try and see what was ahead of them. There appeared to be a staircase up somewhere, though rather narrow. "I think you should stay out here, Mikey. That looks dangerous." And he wasn't sure how sturdy it was.

He looked around. April was nowhere to be seen, so Mayhem left her back at the lair. Were they about to encounter someone whose preference is towards yokai? They weren't quite yokai, but it must be worth a shot.

Mikey, peeved to be left out, sat down. "Fine. But if you guys need me, I won't be in there to fight whatever crazy monster you'll have to deal with."

Leo's hands bolted up. "Is it a monster?! It isn't a monster, right, Dee?"

"How should I know?" Donnie messed with the vial, twisting it in his palm. "If Mayhem brought us here, then it should be fine."

"Let's go, then. Maybe it'll be someone that can beat up Draxum for us."

He doubted that, but Raph was onto something. If they couldn't fight Draxum alone, then maybe they could get some help from someone in the Hidden City.

Raph led the way up the vast flight of stairs. Or, he gave the illusion that he was leading the way. Donnie could see him carefully following Mayhem's every step, his feet especially far from the base of the next stair so he wouldn't trip.

It was a good idea to keep Mikey outside. He may have gotten better with his balance as of recent, but him falling was a misfortune he didn't particularly want to tempt. Even if there were safety barriers.

The only sources of light came from fungus-like organisms that were attached to these stone pillars scattered across the darkness. They were his only way of seeing what was in front of him. And even then, it was hard to make out.

The trench surrounding the staircase had no visible end. This gigantic room was dark, cavernous. If he were actually Mikey, he might yell a profanity just to hear it echo off the walls. He thought about how Raph might've reacted to that before the switch; he'd tell Mikey to watch his language, but then he'd grin and surprise them with a rare Raph-curse-word and yell it for no one but his brothers and the cave to hear.

Now, he'd likely just scold him and keep walking.

Donnie must've been lost in thought, because he tripped on one of the steps. "Vanilla wafers." It was more out of reflex than anything; he knew he'd be able to catch himself–

Mikey's arm.

And, shit, his other hand was holding the mutagen.

Luckily, Leo was quick to move. Before Donnie could even react, Leo had swooped in to catch him, swiftly setting him back on his feet in one practiced movement.

Though he was grateful, he didn't want to admit that he'd almost made a grave mistake because of a small misstep. "I could've caught myself." He could've, but he would get some flowery language from Mikey because of it.

There was something in Leo's eyes that he'd seen before, but it had never been directed at him. Older-brother worry that slipped through the cracks and showed itself in bright colors, a dandelion through concrete.

Leo, however, quickly got rid of it. Whether out of muscle memory or realization that Donnie could see it, he couldn't quite tell. "He said, as he recovered from almost falling into the deepest ditch he's ever seen."

Donnie rolled his eyes at the imitation of himself. "Yeah, okay, Nardo."

They sped up a little bit to catch up with Raph, who was already a ways ahead, though still behind Mayhem.

At the very top, three colossal heads surrounded the comparably miniscule platform they were supposed to stand on.

Donnie readied himself to run. The stairway was only attached to solid ground at one point of contact. It's a safety hazard.

Mayhem yipped at the head directly in front of them.

The carvings of the statue's eyes flared up, flashbanging them before the outline of the rest of the face shone with the same light.

Donnie could see Leo blink.

"What might you be here for?" The voice of the giant head surrounded them. This was a colossal being; one of divine presence. It made Donnie feel so small and for his problems to feel even smaller.

He and his twin looked at Raph, who was rubbing the back of his neck. "We were, uh… here to talk about Draxum– Baron Draxum," he began.

"Baron Draxum, you say?"

Another pair of lights blinked into existence to their right. "That no-good alchemist? What is he up to this time?"

"Yeah, that guy. He– So, we found ooze in the sewers under New York City. We–"

"Ooze?" The titan in front of them queried.

"Y'know. The green stuff that was used to make us."

Donnie raised the vial of ooze for them to see.

The last head, the one to the left of them, flickered to life. Donnie had been wondering when the last one would show themself. "I believe that is empyrean," her feminine voice interjected.

"Empyrean," Donnie whispered.

What is that?

Typically, that word is used as an adjective, or to describe a place. It absolutely never referred to a substance, but here this disembodied head was, making his extensive academic knowledge look like a joke.

"What's empyrean?" He asked, stepping up. "I'm afraid I don't know what that is. Which I can't say happens often."

Mayhem swatted at his ankles. But he had to know what empyrean was. Was it a chemical? An element? A particle?

A thousand voices in his head screamed their guesses as to what it was, and none of them acknowledged Mayhem's increasingly rapid signals.

"It's peculiar that you don't know what empyrean is." The first face's words synced with the lights emitting from his mouth. "All yokai have at least heard of it."

"Oh, we're not yokai," Leo clarified. "We're mutants! Made from Draxum, actually."

A pit in Donnie's stomach opened up. He was finally able to focus on Mayhem, and it was only when he stopped signaling.

"...Are you?" The feminine voice asked, clearly suspicious.

Leo nodded. "Yep. We were made thirteen years ago. We saw him recently too. He had this big 'ol machine–"

"Leo," Donnie warned. The trio of heads couldn't make expressions, but they were obviously not fond of this information.

"What?"

Raph pushed Leo behind him. "Trust us, we're on your side! Don't listen to my brother—he's, uh, leaving some stuff out."

Despite being in Leo's body, Raph was not very good at being a designated face man. That was a sad cover-up.

"I see," the one they faced said. "Agent 64—" Mayhem snapped to attention, "—Please remove these mutants from the Hidden City."

Donnie started to feel a little shaky, and a small rumbling sound was budding in his tympana. Is this an earthquake, or was it the heads' doing?

The ground beneath them shook with tremors, reverberating throughout the walls and the ceiling and the air. Small rocks fluttered down from above them. The pillars jutting from below shuddered and threatened to crumble into the void.

"Get out if you know what's good for you," the rightmost boomed. Definitely the heads.

Mayhem chirped loudly, likely trying to reason with them, but they had none of it.

"They could very well be infiltrators sent by Draxum," the leftmost scolded. The earth around them boiled with disapproval. "Please escort them to the surface."

Donnie's gut instincts were right. The platform they stood on was trembling dangerously. He was not going to stick around long enough to see what was at the bottom of this chasm, and neither were his brothers.

They glided down the stairs and back to the entrance, Donnie trying not to trip over his feet again as he fell forward with every step.

Mikey was steadying himself against the wall. "Guys? Why's the ground shaking?"

Immediately, Mayhem hopped up and spun forward to warp them back to the lair, where Donnie had to hold fast to keep up with the unplanned teleportation.

He briefly wondered how those bodiless titans came into power—he assumed they were powerful—, the history behind them, but those curiosities quickly fizzled out by the time he saw the look on Raph's face.

Nervously, he pet Mayhem's head and scratched behind his ears.

Mayhem mewed at him, but his ears folded down, and Donnie stopped scratching them. "Are you gonna go back and talk to them?" One of the heads had called him an agent, so he was likely employed by them.

Mayhem nodded. He looked at Raph, then Leo, and then teleported out of Donnie's hands.

Raph pinched his temple. "Nice going, Leo. Now whatever those statues were won't help us stop Draxum—because they think we work for him!"

Donnie had to check to make sure he hadn't squeezed the vial so tight it shattered. Luckily, Mikey's body was strong, but it wasn't nearly as strong as Raph's.

"How was I supposed to know they hate mutants? I might tele-port, but I can't tele-path."

"This isn't the time for jokes."

Mikey stepped away from Leo and Raph and stood behind Donnie. Donnie got the feeling he'd be better off in his lab.

"How else am I supposed to cope–? What, should I go make my brothers train nine hours a day instead?"

And his phone started buzzing in Mikey's shell. It must've connected back to the wifi and a bunch of notifications were flowing in.

"Cut it out. You know I do that because it's the right thing to do." Raph was biting down hard—Donnie could tell. If he had his snaggletooth, his beak would be bleeding right now.

Leo's hands started moving around, emphasizing his annoyance. "Wh– Y– How? If anything, Donnie's doing the right thing. We need to get back!"

"We need to stop Draxum before he turns the whole city into mutants."

"We'll have a better chance at stopping him if we're in our own bodies, and Donnie's almost done! Right, Donnie?" He turned to the aforementioned.

Donnie froze up. The buzzing had been really distracting. "Yeah," he managed to say.

"See?"

Raph stopped biting so hard and clenched his fists instead. He'd never seen Leo's body so full of anger. It was a little scary.

Mikey tried to interrupt, but Raph talked over him.

"Fine. You be the leader, then. Since you can do so much better than me."

Leo didn't respond. He looked away, avoiding Raph's unforgiving glare, and messed with his panic button strap. It was secured tightly under Donnie's battle shell. "You know I can't do that."

Satisfied, Raph stood up straighter. "Exactly." Donnie wasn't sure what Raph gained from that exchange, but he must have gained something. "At least Donnie's working towards a goal. You haven't done anything to help."

Leo stayed silent.

"And since we apparently don't need any more training, we're going back to Draxum's. In one hour."

"What?!" Mikey finally got a word in, and Donnie's phone finally stopped vibrating. "That's waaaay too soon– We can't! We're better off waiting until we're back in our bodies."

Donnie sunk into himself. Even if he was able to figure out how it worked—he was sure he was close—it would still take weeks to build.

He didn't have the heart to tell them the truth. "We should at least wait until tomorrow. Being well-rested is vital to our performance during a mi–"

"No." There was no negotiating. Donnie didn't want to get dragged into Leo's situation, so he shut up. "We're going today, and that's final. We—" he sighed, "We can't let Draxum just get away with this."

"You don't even know what he's gonna do," Leo continued despite Donnie's panicked glances. "We trained all morning."

"Leo."

"We're gonna get hurt if we–"

"No one is gonna get hurt." Raph's voice rose. Mikey was clutching the shell on Donnie's back, but he didn't acknowledge it. He was afraid moving, breathing, would make it worse. "It– I won't let it happen." His pupils darted between Donnie and Leo, and then from the floor to the walls to Mikey and back to Leo. "Not like you did!"

Leo sucked in a breath. "I–"

"First you get us into this mess, then you let Meat Sweats dislocate Donnie's– Mikey's– Ugh, God damn it!" Raph kicked the floor, but it barely alleviated his frustration. It didn't do anything for him.

Leo backed away.

"You let him dislocate his shoulder, and now this? You've done nothing but make more problems for me to solve! You wouldn't be a good leader."

Donnie practically heard Mikey's jaw drop. But it wasn't like his mouth wasn't wide open either, and it wasn't like his hands weren't sweating, and it wasn't like his heart wasn't beating so fast he was worried he'd make Mikey's body go into cardiac arrest.

Raph never swore. He was entirely against it, especially in front of Mikey.

"When will you stop messing around and be useful?!"

And he would absolutely never say something like that to Leo. It'd been so long since Raph lashed out that he'd almost forgotten how terrifying it was.

He always thought the terrifying part was how much stronger and bigger Raph is. That was the logical answer; Raph could easily hurt them, even if he wasn't trying to, so it's scary when he gets mad.

Of course, he's never hurt them before, but Donnie realized it wasn't that at all. It never had been.

It was the fear of Raph never forgiving them. It was the fear of the family falling apart. That's the scariest part.

Leo just stood there. He had nothing to say.

Raph's wrinkled brows relaxed a little bit, his beak not pressed so tight. He looked away from Leo, and now neither of them were looking at each other.

Donnie wanted to do the same, but he almost couldn't take his eyes off them it was so tense.

Something in him was telling him to fix it, but he didn't know how.

Raph stared down at his hands, as if trying to figure something out. He wiped them on Leo's legs and shut his eyes. "Be back at the ramp in one hour." His voice was softer, but the damage had already been done.

He was bandaging a bullet wound without even removing the bullet. It's gonna get lodged in there. The lead will fester inside Leo's body and it'll disperse, it'll trickle into his bloodstream, and he'll die.

Most bullets aren't made out of lead anymore, but that's basically what Raph was doing. Unless he dives in and wrestles the bullet out himself, Leo is going to be taken from the inside out.

==========

Donnie could've tried to get some work done in the short hour they had before leaving for Draxum's, but he was still processing the fight Raph and Leo had, and he was not in the right headspace to be productive.

He sat on the floor of his lab, feeling much too burdened to sit in a chair that would restrict his movement.

The side of his foot tapped against the floor, the rest of his body settling into a sad, slouching criss-cross position. He pulled out his phone to distract himself.

About fifty notifications from April's number piled on his screen.

Shit, April.

He'd completely forgotten she was here before Mayhem teleported them to the Hidden City.

donnie? whered mayhem take you?

hello?

donnie

There were a couple missed calls from her.

where did you go?

are you okay?

gonna assume you guys can fend for yourselves

going home

Then there was one last missed call, and she hadn't texted since.

He scrolled up to read through all of the texts, but now that he saw their message history, he noticed he hadn't been responding to her all too frequently. He's just been busy is all, but he was beginning to feel like a bad friend for it.

He quickly typed out a response detailing their little escapade. He wrote about the giant heads and their conversation with them, how they glowed like Halloween masks with flashlights behind them, and how their voices took up the entire room. Then about the empyrean, how it made them realize they weren't yokai and how they got kicked out, and about how when they arrived home, they… Nope, that's about it. Nothing more of note happened between then and now. Nothing at all.

Donnie deleted some of that last part and pressed send, forcing himself to get up so he wouldn't have to let the argument replay over in his mind again.

He left the lab—it was getting lonely in there—to see what Mikey was up to. There was a good chance he was in Leo's room talking it out or comforting him; that's just what Mikey did, but he might as well see for himself.

It was hard to be anything but surprised when he saw Mikey in his room on his hammock. One elbow rested on his knee, his cheek in his hand. He looked out-of-it, but that was understandable.

"Michael?" He tested.

Mikey swiftly sat up straight when he heard a voice, but went back to hunching over just as fast when he saw it was Donnie. "Hey, Donnie."

"You good?"

His younger brother just hunched over more, but his plastron didn't touch his legs.

"Not that I'm insinuating you should, but I expected you to be talking to Leo."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I thought about it, but it's better if I don't."

"Why?" He leaned against the doorway to Mikey's room.

Mikey didn't say anything for a while, but he knew he'd heard him. Donnie could afford to give him some time to think it through. It's not like he hasn't already spent a lot of it doing nothing. "I don't even know what happened," he insisted halfheartedly.

There's more. There has to be more.

He didn't know when he picked this up, but he stayed quiet so Mikey would keep talking. He's supposed to be an engineer, not a psychologist.

"...I don't think Leo wants to see Raph right now." It was almost a whisper when he said it.

Donnie chewed on the inside of his mouth. That's a really good point actually. And a very, very painful realization on his part.

He picked at one of the stickers on Mikey's plastron with regret. Regret for asking, regret for assuming that Mikey was his usual self enough to do as he always did. "I'll check up on him," he concluded.

"Yeah."

Leo was the type to withdraw instead of reaching out; he and Donnie were a lot alike in that way despite how differently they displayed it. And considering they'd both had disagreements with the same person—varying in severity—he was almost certain he knew how Leo was feeling.

He wasn't sure where this empathy was coming from, but it must be the shared experience. That's gotta be it.

Thing is, he was feeling it for Raph and Mikey too.

Leo was sitting on his bed. He'd turned off the lights in his room—Donnie would've mistaken him as his shadow if he wasn't in Mikey's body—but Leo heard him walk in right away.

His hands fidgeted. One of his arms raised to wipe his eyes. "What's up, Dee?" That was it. He'd managed to give his greeting a little flair, and nothing followed.

Donnie carefully maneuvered his way into Leo's room. "Can I sit?" He asked. Leo was a little weird about his bed.

"Sure thing, bro."

He sat next to him, but he soon realized that he had no idea how to do this. The drive was there; he wanted to make Leo feel better before a big mission since Mikey couldn't, but the skills he lacked were showing themselves.

"D'you wanna talk to me about something?" Leo'd asked it as if there wasn't an extraordinary amount to talk about. The options were almost endless, and every single one was sprinting through Donnie's head at record speed.

Still, he'd recognize congestion in his rightful voice anywhere. Leo, crying. "Yes. I wanted you to know that Raph is incorrect."

"Wow, what a surprise."

Okay, not the best dictation on his part. Changing the way he said it was relatively easy though, so he didn't complain. "Raph needs you on this team. He's miscalculated—big time." Then, he tried putting a hand on Leo's shoulder because he knew he liked doing that to Mikey, but Leo pulled away.

Go figure he didn't do a good job at taking on Mikey's role. He is not and never will be Mikey.

A sick part of him was happy about that in this moment.

"I know," Leo said, but Donnie knew he didn't actually know. "I'll just have to prove him wrong when you're finished with the Fwoopinator." He smiled, but his eyes didn't crinkle.

Leo's pushing him away, and he knew that too. He knew he was being shut out, and he knew he wouldn't be able to tell him the truth about that damned machine without Leo distancing himself even further.

He quit while he was ahead. "Yeah. It's almost time to go."

Leo stood, so he did as well. Leo is so much taller than him.

Notes:

thank you for 300 kudos thats literally bonkers!! and also thank you for all the comments?? i appreciate them so much you have no idea, ive gotten so powerful from them

a big chapter coming up... either the next one or the one after! ive had it floating around in my brain since i started this fic and i am so excited for it to be Real

Chapter 9: Time Trudges On...

Summary:

Baron Draxum, their boss, was looking down on said humans from a rooftop. According to him on multiple occasions, he would eventually convert the entire population of New York City into mutants, and then the population of New York, and then the population of the entire world!

Notes:

some new povs! & happy lunar new year!

also additional info: this fic is plotwise set after the evil league of mutants but before shadow of evil. and then all the contained episodes from season 1 are set whenever i decide lmao

New York City bustled with residency. It was always alive no matter the time of day; there were people everywhere at every hour at every opportunity. They were on the sidewalks, on the roads, in the bars, at the stands.

Its vibrancy took no recess, and its inner city was crawling with humans.

Baron Draxum, their boss, was looking down on said humans from a rooftop. According to him on multiple occasions, he would eventually convert the entire population of New York City into mutants, and then the population of New York, and then the population of the entire world!

First thing's first though: New York City.

"Huginn, Muninn," he ordered. So Draxum didn’t have to move an inch, they flitted into his field of vision. "I have a very important job for the two of you."

"What is it, Boss?" Huginn asked.

"Oh! Oh! Is it another pastry mission? I know we got the wrong filling last time, but we're definitely going to get it right this t–"

"No! No, it is not another pastry mission. And the chocolate filling was fine. Just not what I was expecting." He held a satchel up to them. They were excited to see what was inside, but they were enamored by the satchel on its own nonetheless. "I need you to plant these in the city’s water source. This, combined with my oozesquitos, will eliminate humanity at an exponential rate.”

Muninn took the satchel from their boss and slung it over his shoulder. The strap barely held onto his small nape, so he kept two claws on it. "You got it, Boss."

"We'll get this in the water!"

Off into the night they flew, nothing but light pollution and the moon guiding them to wherever water might be.

They passed over countless streets and buildings, skyscrapers and apartment complexes. New York City's huge, but the only thing that could pass as a water source was this cute fountain. They perched atop it, dipping their claws into the central point where water pooled, and where a statue with wings stood tall.

Muninn tapped its ankle. "Hey, lady or man. Are you by chance using this water?"

"That's a statue, Muninn. Statues don't talk."

"Aren't we gargoyles?"

Huginn looked at him. Then he looked back at the statue, and at the water. He opted to ignore that. "I don't think humans would drink from this. They have a thing about outside water." He began flying away, and Muninn followed.

"That's weird. It's just water."

They searched a while more, looking inside various shops, outside various restaurants. But they couldn't find the water source for the life of them. All they could find were the sinks and toilets that took from it.

At least someone was kind enough to throw bread crumbs at them for a nice snack.

They sat at a human table, one with an umbrella in the middle of it, and regrouped. "Okay. If humans don't like their water outside, where would they keep it?" Huginn asked.

Muninn scarfed down his bread. "Where else would water be?"

He scratched his head and scanned their surroundings, as if looking over the same windows and alleyways they'd seen a hundred times would give him a new idea.

Then, he saw a manhole cover. Of course! How did they not think of it? "They keep it underground! It's safe from the outside, and it's easy to use up."

Muninn gasped. "You are a genius, Huginn." He flew up from his seat and they shared a well-coordinated high-five.

“Boo-stinkin’-yah!”

He put a hand on Huginn’s back. "You know, you've always been the best at problem-solving. I remember this one time, during…"

==========

As always, it was a day that was dragging on.

The television commercials were not nearly as entertaining as they usually were. It was nothing but reruns and commercials. Rerun, commercial, rerun. Rerun, commercial, commercial, rerun. Commercials, commericials, reruns, and more commercials, and more reruns. Would it ever end?

He found himself growing bored of the reruns and the commercials. Rather than the anticipation of the next rerun, commercial, there was instead an annoyance with the last decade’s TV shows and advertisements for products that had already failed in the past. Not even Scorpion Treadmill seemed worth his time.

Splinter switched off the projector and reluctantly got down from his spot on the recliner. Perhaps he will check on his boys.

They were being rather quiet in their skate room. That or they were topside doing teenager things. They never told him what they were up to when they left the lair.

Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know what they were up to most of the time. It may be time to toughen up his parenting style, like what Grandpa Sho did to keep him from acting out back in the day.

“Shh, sh, sh, he’s coming!” He heard Orange say, his try at a whisper pathetic for a ninja in training.

“Okay, okay, act natural, guys,” Red told them.

By the time the skate ramp came into view—it took a while with how slow this stupid rat body was moving today—they were already in their “natural” position.

Blue had one arm on his hip, him and Orange leaning on each other. He had to give it to them: that’s something they did a lot when they were actually being natural. Ever since they were tots, Orange has always clung to his brothers. However, he did not cling to Red as much now as he did when they were tots.

“Hey, Pops! Uhh, howsit?”

Purple raised one of his silly eyebrows. “‘Howsit’? Really?” He asked, his voice not quite a whisper either, but he didn’t seem to be trying like Orange was.

Red scratched his head and shot a grin at him, but discreetly turned to Purple and mumbled, “Can you do any better, Donnie?”

He stroked his beard. They were hiding something, but he couldn’t figure out what just yet. “Were you boys busy?”

Orange sprung up to stand on his own two feet, leaving Blue to have to catch himself and shift his stance. His youngest son glanced at the ceiling above him, but quickly looked away. “We were just skating! Like we always do.”

“If we were up to something, we would be super obvious about it,” Blue reassured him, glancing up as well.

They were being very obvious. Even so, he didn’t have the energy to pry, and he certainly didn’t have the energy to look up as well. He simply couldn’t be bothered. “I see.” There’s always tomorrow to be a better parent.

Today though, he was ready for a long nap.

Before he could leave to take that nap, he noticed a rather large—scratch that, a gigantic—rectangular shadow that was blocking out more and more of the sun the longer he stood inside of it.

Reflexively, his head finally tilted to look up.

“Shit– Dad, look out!” Blue exclaimed.

Purple grimaced. ”Ohhh… Oh no."

It was too late, as he had been crushed by the weight of… paper. It wasn’t even the really heavy paper that kids used for arts and crafts (what was the word in English?). In fact, it was much thinner than normal paper, and yet his knees buckled, and his hip ached, and his back hurt. Those last two were present before the paper, but still. All together, it was too much to handle.

The sun shone into his eyes when Red and Orange pulled the banner off of him. Moving his arm to shield them felt like far too much work.

“I knew I should’ve been the one to secure it. My handiwork would never fail us like this.”

“Dad? You okay?” Red asked. He sounded genuinely worried, but it was only paper. Why did he not ask that during any other time?

“Omigosh– Did you get any paper cuts?!” Orange added on, a much more valid question.

He shook his head. For some reason, he became very angry at them.

Even now, the reasoning behind this outburst was unknown to him. He wished he could have gone back and handled it differently—perhaps excuse himself to use the restroom—but his dreams of being a time traveler were far out of reach

When he finally pushed himself off the ground, even if it took the help of Purple, he stood up very straight. Anger is not the ideal emotion to feel, but it was something. For the first time today, he felt the slightest bit of motivation to perform a task. “You have turned the lair into a death trap.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. We’ll clean it up–”

“No.” Now’s his chance to establish his role as a parent. Maybe then he will know where they sneak off to every night. “You are all grounded!” He has been hands-off for far too long. His boys need to learn a lesson or two if they are to ever become men.

Orange put his hands on his head. “Say what?! That– But we– We didn’t–”

“We didn’t mean to,” Purple finished for him. “That’s so not fair!”

“We have a mission soon, and–”

“You are grounded for a week, and that is final.” He didn’t know why he continued digging this hole for himself. He really didn’t want to ground them, but it was a parent-like thing to do. “Now, clean up this mess.” Strangely, that banner wasn’t the only wall decoration they decided to put up, and there was furniture set up on the skate ramp. That is not safe for them to be skating on.

That had taken place a little while ago—he wasn’t the best at keeping track of time whilst holed up in his living room, but it must have been a couple weeks or a month or two or three. Somewhere in that range.

He poured green tea from Old Skully into one of his many teacups, watched the steam spiral into the air, let it disappear. The day he’d grounded them had been replaying in his head a lot recently; because ever since then, they’d been avoiding him tenfold. He failed to remember that Grandpa Sho being “tougher” on him made him rebel even more.

Placing the decorative kettle back onto the stove, he was prepared to settle back into his recliner and begin another round of reruns and commercials.

Seconds upon entering the living room, he went to turn on the projector. His finger hovered over the button, but faded color caught his eye, and he felt obligated to walk closer to it instead.

Splinter took a deep breath.

He ran his free hand over the cloth, stains from wax crayons bold against the plain white while he was up close. Back then, he didn't have the means to properly clean it, but now that he did, he didn't want to. In fact, part of him wished he kept it instead of wiping it away.

Blue and Red and Purple and Orange outlines ran down the screen's fabric. He didn't realize at the time, but the last figure, a gray one, was meant to be him. It was a family portrait.

He should ask if Orange has made any new drawings recently.

"Splints?"

Splinter backed away from the projector screen and turned his back to it. He took a sip of his tea, eyeing April as she walked in with this defeated look on her face.

"You will not believe this. Mayhem took them—probably to the Hidden City—and they totally ditched me! Like, I know they didn't choose to be teleported, but still. And Donnie won't respond to his texts." She plopped herself onto his recliner and crossed her legs. "Sometimes it feels like I'm being left out. I mean, I know it's because I'm not technically family, but…"

She went on and on about human life, how she would never spend nearly as much time down here as she did on the surface, among other things. He wasn't really listening.

"Have you ever been in a school? Maybe you have when you were an actual rat, but lemme tell you: it's the worst place on Earth."

He chuckled. "You have no idea, April." His tea was getting cold, so he started drinking it a little faster.

"What, were you a class pet or something?" She asked, grinning. "That might be even worse than being a student. No, thank you."

"That does sound terrible." There's no need to correct her, so he finished his tea. "Do schools still have class pets?"

She shrugged and readjusted so her legs hung over the side of the recliner. "Not really. Maybe it's just that older grades don't get them, 'cause I had some in elementary school."

Elementary school. He always thought that was a rather complicated name for the American counterpart to shougakkou. "When do you graduate again?"

"In a couple years. Real soon. Too soon."

Splinter smiled. He remembered the feeling of graduating high school. It was like becoming a real person for the first time; instead of being held down by the pressures that the Hamato name bears, he paved his own path. He made a name for himself.

He looked down at himself, down at the body he now occupied. He wondered where it went wrong. "It is never too soon, but it is always too late," he thought.

"Huh? That makes no sense, Splints."

He set the teacup in his "DO NOT TOUCH!!!" cabinet.

"You're pretty wise for a rat, you know that? It's like you've been human-ish for way longer." April is funny. "D'you even know how old you are? I mean, since the boys threw that party for you without knowing your birthday, I'm assuming you don't know it either?"

Splinter looked at her, his ears twitching with curiosity. His boys threw a party for him? Why would they throw a party for him without telling him? "They what?"

April put a hand over her mouth. "Uh…" She looked at her wrist as if there were a watch there. "Woah! Look at the time! I better jet. I had, uh, chores to do in the– in the dishes. In the sink, I mean. The dishes."

In one motion, she flipped over the arm of the chair, picked up her backpack, and slid on her gas mask. "Bye, Splinter!"

"Bye?"

Quite the confusing conversation. April was quite the confusing girl after all, but he guessed that's what made her so unique.

That mention of a party must have been a slip of the tongue. His sons were not nearly thoughtful enough—much less organized enough—to think of throwing him a birthday party.

It didn't pique his interest. Not one bit.

The clock hit 7:00 p.m., which was perfect. It was time for his daily cleaning in the main room (which was basically throwing out one pizza box and calling it a day. He found that it was a simple, easy task that he could do even during his worst hours. It also kept trash from piling up to a point where it would require more effort than if he went little by little). One of these days, he should teach his sons to throw out their own pizza boxes.

Box in hand, he started for the trash.

But there was a large, rolled-up piece of paper sticking out from under one of the ramps, so he obviously set down the box to be nosy instead; if it's lying around in the main area, it's fair game to look at. House rules.

Very careful not to let it fall into the moat, he pulled out the paper and gently began unrolling it across the floor. It was big enough to be the banner that fell on him that one time, actually.

The first thing that revealed itself was a drawing of Red. The shading on him was wonderful and the color choice was pleasing to the eye; there was no doubt in Splinter's mind that this was one of Orange's pictures.

He continued unrolling it, and next was Blue. It looked exactly like him!—Right down to his markings. Since when did Orange become so skilled?

When did he go from scribbling on the projector to making art like this?

Excited to see the rest of what Orange had done, he rolled it out all the way.

His eyes were drawn to the deep violet and the bright orange first. He admired the renditions of each of his sons, and then the surprisingly accurate drawing of April. Orange had captured her so well that he wished she was still here so he could show her.

It was all accompanied nicely by the balloons, and especially by the big letters spelling out "Happy [late or early] Birthday!", and of course, the drawing of him right smack in the middle of them.

No.

Splinter stared at the image for a while more, absolutely devastated that April had been telling the truth. A large part of him wished she had not been, because now he was cursed with the knowledge that they went out of their ways to do all this for him, and what had he done in return? He grounded them.

Granted, his actual birthday is months from now, but it's the thought that counts. He couldn't believe he'd never told them his birthday—he kept them blissfully unaware of his past for safety's sake, but at the cost of what?

The longer he looked, the more he noticed little details that wouldn't even be visible from high in the atrium. Purple had scribbled the "[late or early]" part with the same black marker he used for his eyebrows, and Blue had drawn messy sparkles around the depiction of himself, and Red had been the one to write "Happy Birthday!"

Crushed this time by guilt, he rolled the banner back up and tucked it beneath the ramp where it belonged.

==========

April ripped off the mask. It was difficult to breathe in, but it was even more difficult to breathe when the air was all gross. She was lucky the lair's air had filters—courtesy of Donatello.

Speaking of Donatello, she pulled out her phone to call him one last time. She went to his contact and pressed the “call” button and everything, but after one ring, she hung up. There’s no use in calling again if he won’t respond. She shoved her phone back into her pocket and put her hands over her face.

Hopefully that little slipup didn't ruin the birthday surprise, but maybe it would pass as something she'd gotten confused about. Either way, the boys had it coming; they hadn't even invited her to the party and they ditched her to go to the Hidden City.

She thought all this, but she knew the reason Mayhem left her on the surface.

Mayhem probably brought them to a mutant—yokai?—overlord that wouldn't listen to a human, so she was left behind and the humanoid turtles were taken instead. It made sense, but the overdramatic teenager inside of her still didn't like it.

After unlocking the front door of her apartment and announcing that she was back, she threw herself onto the sofa in front of the TV and sighed deeply.

The lights are off, so her mom isn't home. She sounded like an idiot calling out to her.

She would ask someone to hang out right now, but she really didn't have any friends. Sure, she made small talk sometimes, and she was forced to group up for projects, but she didn't talk to any of those people outside of school. Hell, she didn't even have any of their numbers.

The only number she had was Dale's, but that didn't count; he'd practically begged her to put his number in her phone.

Frustrated, she deleted his number and wished she'd stayed in the lair. It's stupid that she'd rather talk to a rat than be in her apartment alone. It's all stupid.

While she was on her phone, she might as well check Instagram. She doesn't talk to anyone, but she has some mutuals on there just because she's in the same class as them.

It was all pictures of people with their friends and their boyfriends and their girlfriends. Man, was she lonely.

There was one post that was a group of friends, four of them maybe, who were all eating dinner together at a restaurant. Then, a couple swipes to the right was them at a public pool. They were all huddled around a rubber duck that one of them must've brought.

The next was a Reddit repost, but the one after that was two friends who'd gone bowling together. Who in their right mind would go bowling with only two people? Bowling's a party thing to her—more people to beat at it! Not that she'd been invited to any parties recently.

And a post from a different member of the friend group that had eaten dinner together. This one included some pictures of the food they'd gotten.

Then, a couple who was sharing a kiss under a streetlamp.

It was like every single person except for her was out and about right now. They were all at the mall, or at a restaurant, or even just hanging out at each others' places.

She scrolled for a little bit—maybe thirty minutes or so—before she hit the last post she could stomach.

A group of three friends, who were all sitting next to each other in someone's living room. The caption read, "movie marathon!!" with a popcorn emoji.

She turned off her phone and groaned and sunk into the couch cushions. The ones with the couples didn't bother her too much; good for them and all that. What was occupying her mind were the photos of the friend groups. They looked so happy, and she wished so badly that she could do any of it with Mikey or Donnie or Raph or Leo or, hell, even Splinter.

Like, they had plenty of fun in the Hidden City and the lair, but sometimes she wanted to show them what she grew up with, or what she was interested in. Without them needing to hide themselves.

For example, every time she passed this one frozen yogurt place in particular, she always thought about what flavors each of them would choose. Leo would obviously get blue raspberry because of the color, but she had a feeling he’d hate it after one bite because it’s “too sour.”

Donnie would pick something mild, like plain vanilla or a sherbet. He might also like the coffee flavor, since he’s already used to the taste of it.

Mikey would choose the wildest flavors—Unicorn Cream Swirl or Laffy Taffy Almond—then he’d pile on a bunch of different toppings that should create an abomination of a froyo cup, but it would end up being a culinary masterpiece, as always. He’d enjoy every second of it.

And she pegged Raph for a chocolate-with-chocolate-sprinkles kind of guy.

She smiled at the thought.

As much as she hated to admit it, she wished more than anything that either they could enter her world, or that she could become fully encompassed in theirs. All this going between yokai and human society was getting exhausting.

Speaking of going between, she was starting to smell the sewer stench on herself. She coughed and got off the couch, sniffing herself one more time to make sure it was actually her. It definitely was.

Gross. No wonder no one wants to be friends with her.

She's going to take a long shower.

==========

He must have been wrong about where the water source was, because right now, Draxum was not happy with them.

Apparently humans didn’t drink from the underground water, but in his defense, he barely scraped by with a C in Humans 101! It's not like he's qualified to interfere with them. What do humans use all that underground water for anyway?

"Not a single human has been mutated because of the ooze I gave you two. Do you know how valuable that stuff is?! I swear, you have to do everything yourself if you wanna be a warrior scientist these days…"

Huginn slumped over. "We're really sorry, Boss." Well, at least one human had to've been mutated because of it. That tunnel system was laughably easy to access—maybe that should’ve been the first sign that it wasn’t what they were looking for.

"We'll make it up to you!"

Draxum pinched his brow and shook his head. "You've done enough." His voice echoed across the barren laboratory, intimidating them into dropping their tries at lessening the damage. "And just for the record, that dog
bed is not guaranteed every night."

Neither of them said a word.

As their boss disappeared into one of the many secret entrances in his lab, they remained flying in place. Once he was out of earshot though, Huginn rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "He didn't even tell us where the water was. How are we supposed to know?"

"We've gotta keep our spot on the dog bed, Huginn." Muninn swatted away a fly. He landed on one of the various green veins around the mutagen container, his claws squelching against it. "Next chance we get, we're totally gonna prove ourselves."

Huginn nodded, but he didn't completely agree. In fact, he thought Draxum was a little full of himself. Sure, he looked big and mighty, but after working for him for some thirteen years, he knew how he really operated: through loose planning and hasty decisions.

The fly buzzed towards that failed machine Draxum had been so proud of. It was supposed to take away the turtles' Hamato essence since they were made with Lou Jitsu’s—or, Hamato Yoshi’s—DNA, but it didn't even do anything! All that happened was the turtles passed out for a second, and then they were right back to normal.

It was strange that they used different weapons than before they passed out, but they probably just went for what was closest.

Huginn approached the left side of it. It was wide open; Draxum hadn't bothered to close it back up.

"Huginn?" Muninn cautiously asked.

He ignored his other half and reached out to smear a little bit of the rune. Not enough to notice, but just enough to fulfill the part of him that ached with revenge. He rubbed the chalk between his fingers, the consequences of the action not quite setting in on him yet. Who was around to tell Draxum anyway?

"Huginn! You know you're not supposed to touch that."

Muninn was, but Muninn was no snitch.

Before he could regret his decision and fix the rune, the alarm went off. Draxum had implemented it after the turtles dropped into his lair unannounced and proceeded to steal his weapons.

Uh oh. Did he set off the alarm?! Did Draxum somehow hook up this machine to the security system?

Huginn shot back to Muninn, the two of them knowing better than to hang around that thing and risk getting caught messing with it. They went to the opposite side of the lab and pretended that they had been chatting.

Draxum ran back into the central area. He already had his activator cells ready. "Someone's here," he said simply. His voice wasn’t nearly quiet enough to get drowned out by the alarm, but it was still a distracting noise. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the rune being smeared.

The goyles exchanged a glance, as if asking each other the same question: who would show up at this time? Better yet, who would trespass at this time? Someone must be out for their boss.

The fly came back to circle around their heads. Muninn's red pupils locked onto the insect, watching it hover over them. They couldn't hear it over the alarm, but it flew into their faces, so now it had their attention…

Can bugs mutate?

Muninn looked at the ooze sitting in its big glass canister, and Huginn knew what he was thinking.

This is their chance to make it up to Draxum.

Notes:

okay big chapter is the next one! this was some setup & context i wanted to do before the Big One. AND its gonna be chapter 10 which is a nice number

i was super motivated this week so i finished this really fast (for my standards), which is good because ill probably take longer than usual to write the next one. i cannot express how excited i am for the next couple chapters theyre gonna be so fun to write

again thank you for all the kudos and comments and 5000 hits??? i thought i was lucky to have one (1) person read this but 5000 is a way bigger number than 1. i really enjoy writing this so thanks for all that!!

Chapter 10: The Downpour (It's Drowning Us)

Summary:

Leo didn't know why he came on this mission. He could've easily stayed in his room, and Raph would've left without him. That was the more favorable option, but here he was, in the Hidden City, just outside of Baron Draxum's laboratory: the very place where he let his brothers get switched, and the very place all of this happened.

Notes:

!! TW: SENSORY OVERLOAD (leos pov) !!
!! INSECT GORE (pretty much the whole chapter) !!
!! MUTANT INSECT DEATH (raphs pov) !!

a longer chapter but i hope you enjoy! this is a (late) valentines day present from me to yall <3

Leo didn't know why he came on this mission. He could've easily stayed in his room, and Raph would've left without him. That was the more favorable option, but here he was, in the Hidden City, just outside of Baron Draxum's laboratory: the very place where he let his brothers get switched, and the very place all of this happened.

He was kneeling behind a strangely geometric rock, and Mikey was behind him doing the same. After jumping into a portal to the Hidden City, this time not Mayhem’s doing, they decided to scout out the area before doing anything too drastic; a rare case of Raph taking the time to think things through.

Draxum’s lab was a lot bigger than he remembered, but it was just as weird and green and bulbous. There were yokai in blue suits knocking at the front door.

Leo had a feeling Draxum wouldn't let in what looked to be the Hidden City Police. Señor Hueso mentioned them a few times, but what really caught his eye was their hot air balloon parked at the base of the staircase, as well as the symbols on their uniforms.

The balloon was in the shape of three giant heads, each resembling the ones they saw in that room. Then, on the sleeves of the officers’ jackets were silhouettes of the same thing: three heads.

“The statues,” Donnie breathed from behind them. He and Raph hid behind these pillars that had blue fire at the top, which was really cool. They were like big blue torches.

Raph shushed him, so they continued to watch how the scene in front of them would play out.

The officers looked at each other, then pried open the door themselves. As soon as they entered, an alarm started going off. It was jarring and irregular, as if Leo wasn't supposed to be hearing it.

"Statues?" Mikey asked.

"Those police officers—they work for the giant statues that kicked us out of the Hidden City."

"You met giant statues?!" Mikey's loud. Leo blinked away his voice.

"Shh!" Raph held a finger over his mouth, so Mikey and Donnie quieted.

Leo did not. "I think they can handle it themselves. I mean, if they work for the guys in charge, I'm sure they can take on a scientist and a couple of crows."

"Gargoyles," Donnie corrected.

"And a couple of gargoyles."

Raph shot Leo a death stare, but Leo pretended he didn't see. He didn't know if it was out of spite or what, but he felt… negative emotions towards Raph right now.

That's all he knew though. Raph only just yelled at him an hour ago, so it could be anger. He dragged his fingers along the little bumps in the rock.

His peace was interrupted by Raph yet again. "Draxum's smart. He probably deals with these guys all the time." Leo agreed, as much as he didn't like it, but Raph was implying something. He really hoped he wasn't implying that they should go in. "We're going in."

Awesome. Being far away from the alarm was bad enough, and now he has to go inside the building sounding it off.

Whatever. He'll be fine.

He followed behind Donnie, who was following Raph up the staircase to Draxum's front door. The officers had left it open, so they easily entered the all-too familiar laboratory.

It brought back bad memories. As always, the cylindrical centerpiece was filled with mutagen, and a stray oozesquito or two were circling around inside.

The icky green substances dispersed across the lab, too solid to be mutagen but too liquid to be plantlife, were flourishing in the low lighting. Reflexively, he tried to avoid touching it, but a lot of his focus was being used on withstanding the alarm.

He and Mikey bumped into each other, and his arm pressed into one of the green veins. It was squishy and grainy.

Gross, gross, gross.

He pulled away from it as soon as possible, but the impression it left on his nerves made his entire body shudder. It was a completely different sensation than he'd expected, and he was paying the price for letting himself near it.

If it'd went how he expected it to go, then that area would drum with discomfort and he'd avoid touching it at all costs, but that would be it. For some reason, it was really bothering him. Much more than it just feeling dirty.

His biceps were tense with disgust—it has to be disgust because of it being dirty; that's all that ever bothered him—when one of his brothers asked if he was okay.

He forced himself to nod and kept walking, but he wanted to rip his skin off, or at least wipe away the sticky residue it left on him.

And that damn alarm was still going.

Raph ducked as to not be seen; Leo hadn't even clocked that Baron Draxum was right there talking to the police.

He tried to forget about the feeling of that green stuff.

"Yes, officers? May I help you with something?" Draxum asked, his voice booming. He wasn't as loud as those heads were, but that and the alarm were both grinding into his brain, and he was getting antsy.

One of the officers, a bird-like yokai, asked something. He held out a piece of paper to Draxum.

"Yes, I can," he responded, very slowly walking over to a button and pressing it down. He obviously did not want to comply.

Finally, the alarm stopped. Leo let go of the breath he'd been holding.

"Baron Draxum, we have an anonymous report that states you've been seen with empyrean in your possession. Is that true?"

"I've done no such thing."

The other officer, a manticore, inspected the giant ooze canister. His snout wrinkled. "And what is that?"

"My night light. I'm scared of the dark."

His two crows– well, his two gargoyles giggled and landed on his shoulders. They whispered things to Draxum but got no response as they watched the officers begin their search.

"Why's he letting them look around?" Raph asked.

"I think that was a search warrant," Donnie mumbled. "Do you think the heads are dictators?" Leo could only imagine the thoughts going through his twin's head. He'd respond after Draxum quieted down.

Mikey's breathing next to him was also getting loud, but he couldn't just ask him to stop breathing. How could Draxum not hear all this?

One of the gargoyles, the rounder one, flew off of his shoulder and reached out his little claws to catch something. It must have been a speck of dust or something, because Leo couldn't see what it was from this distance.

The officers continued talking to Draxum about something or other. Leo was too busy watching Donnie pick at Mikey's sticker to listen.

He wished they'd worn their masks for this mission, even if they had to look silly or wear the wrong ones. Draxum might've created them, but how they look currently is nothing like how they looked before Lou Jitsu saved them. Unmasked, they aren't connected to Baron Draxum at all, and he wants to keep it that way.

Unfortunately, their masks were all stuffed in one of Mikey's empty paint cans, and that's where they've stayed since the switch. They'd been paranoid about Dad finding out by seeing that they no longer wear their masks in public, but Dad hasn't suspected a thing.

In fact, it's been getting easier to pretend to be Donnie, but even in the beginning, when he really had to try, Dad didn't notice. He never did.

"Anything?" The manticore asked.

The bird-like one shook his head. If they just looked a little closer, they'd see that the lab is full of empyrean! Whatever that is.

That gargoyle from before, hands cupped together, fluttered to what looked like an access board for the mutagen container. A little hole opened up and he let whatever he'd trapped inside.

Then he saw it. Growing exponentially, what was a black dot became a bigger black dot became a very, very large fly. That gargoyle let a fly on the mutagen!

The fly squirmed against the glass, its head and thorax squished together. It was so big that it wouldn't fit inside, but it was still getting bigger.

"Woah, woah! What is that?!" One of the officers exclaimed, the both of them backing away.

It spit on the glass, melting it into a puddle that seeped into the metal-plated floor. It was the height of an elephant, and it was the length of a school bus.

"Wow," Draxum said. "I… I have nothing to do with that! I don't know what could've possibly–"

The newly-mutated insect arched its wings. When it flew, the absolute worst sound imaginable rattled the air, made the ground and Leo's ears vibrate from the sheer force behind its takeoff.

His hands flinched, wanting to raise to his tympana to cover them and keep the sound out.

Instead of addressing the more urgent threat, the bird yokai pointed at Draxum with his taser. "Baron Draxum, you are under arrest!" The fly buzzed behind him, antennae bobbing up and down.

Like the flip of a coin, Draxum dropped his clueless-good-guy act and aimed his activator cells at the police officers.

"Anti-mystic device!" A ball that resembled the ones from Pokémon shone as it worked its magic. Before the cells could even hit the ground, they were deactivated, and they had the same impact a pebble would've had. "You're coming with us, Draxum–"

The fly's antenna extended. It picked up the bird yokai, but Leo was pretty sure flies couldn't normally do that. He clutched his panic button strap, hating how noisy everything was getting and his inability to block it out. Was this not bothering any of his brothers? He looked at Mikey, and then at Donnie.

Donnie didn't even have his goggles on, but he was fine. Was Leo going insane? Was it not loud?

The fly, now with both officers enveloped in its antennae, opened its mouth, threatening to melt them down and eat them or whatever flies did. He didn't know—bugs had always grossed him out.

Draxum took this as an opportunity to leave. He was typing a passcode into a wall pad when he gestured for his rounder gargoyle to catch up with him.

The wall opened up into a small doorway, but Draxum getting away was the least of their problems.

"They're gonna get melted! Do we go?!" Raph– Mikey asked. Mikey asked Raph, is what he meant to think.

Leo ran his fingers up and down the fabric of the panic button strap. "You'll have to find out what makes it tick to stop it."

Donnie groaned. "That's not even a tick—it is a common housefly."

"My bad. That's the only joke I could come up with on the fly." That one earned another groan, but it's the least he could do for himself.

Mikey ignored them. "Raph?"

Raph wasn't responding. He was just looking down, watching the mutant rub its front legs together. Isn't he the one who made them come down here? Why isn't he more adamant about fighting it?

Mikey didn't wait. He hit his fists together. "I'm going," he decided, sparking red and running into the battle.

At the sight of him, the fly buzzed louder. Leo scowled.

"He's going to get hurt." Donnie raised the kusari-fundo in his left hand. He'd agreed to use it after that thing that happened an hour ago. Leo didn't blame him; as the person who witnessed Raph's outburst firsthand, he would cave and use Mikey's 'fundo too.

That left him with Donnie's tech-bo. He hadn't been using it all that much for training, but he was familiar enough to know what the buttons did.

He glanced back at his older brother, who was watching Donnie run in to help Mikey. His eyes were a little wider than usual.

He settled on ignoring Raph's behavior and just went after Donnie.

"Linnaeus!" Donnie swung the kusari-fundo's weight at the fly, his precision expected. He'd been skipping practice recently, but he still trained a lot before.

The kusari-fundo wrapped around the fly's thorax, stopping its wings from humming. Its insect legs—covered in little hairs, gross—let go of the officers.

"Who are those guys?!"

"Who cares? Let's get outta here!"

They could've at least stayed to help, but he understood. When it gets stressful, might as well run off and let someone else deal with it. He just hoped the thing wouldn't start flying again.

With the officers out of the fly's grasp, Mikey ran forward to take a punch at its head.

Leo braced, but it was still a lot when the fly screeched in response. The sound overtook him, jolts of pins and needles that pierced his skin like lightning striking an ocean, like electricity crackling beneath its surface. It was a lot.

It was a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot.

Raph must've finally snapped out of it, because a bright blue portal appeared just above the mutant. He fell onto its thorax, where he held on while it tried to throw him off as if it were a horse bucking off its rider.

It hit away Mikey and Donnie, so Raph's eyes landed on Leo. He hadn't meant to stand completely still, but it was a lot. "Leo! Come on, what're you doing?!"

What is he doing?

He wanted to shout back at Raph for being so loud—for being so loud now and for being so loud when he'd lashed out at him, but Mikey hit the fly down again. Its wings were whirring. The sound was tearing right through his bones.

Oh my god, he's in Donnie's body right now.

Suddenly he was aware of Donnie's tongue in his mouth, of his plastron pressing against his chest, of his feet against the ground.

He wanted to cry again.

But it's okay. Just get through the fight and it'll be okay. If he can get through the fight, he'll be okay.

He didn't know what was going on today, but he chalked it up to that germ thing that happens sometimes and engaged, activating the tech-bo's mallet form.

The end transformed while he searched for an opening. His vision shakily scanned over the fly's writhing limbs, and then over its abdomen. Since it was facing away from him to focus on Mikey, he took the chance, ran in, readied the tech-bo.

It was surprisingly light; he managed to knock it away from the mutagen container. The last thing they needed was that thing busting open.

It slammed against the wall. Leo bit the inside of his cheek.

Donnie lassoed the mutant and swung it around the lab in one big circle. The kusari-fundo was cackling, its fire burning brightly. He really hated how it got louder as it built momentum. "Heads up, Mikey!"

When Donnie yanked it his way, Mikey punched it right back to the mutagen container. "Mystic-Punch Jutsu!"

"Mikey!" Raph scolded a second too late.

The glass of the container cracked into webs that spread across its surface, bursting open from the spot where it'd melted, shattering into a thunderstorm of shards that rained onto the hard floor, hail.

Tidal waves of static—glass crashing and Raph's booming voice and the fly's shrill cries—it all made Leo want to explode.

He needed to scream, but he swallowed it down. It's just a fly, he thought, his head spinning, his muscles tensing as he tried to find an explanation for why he wished it would all just stop.

What is happening?

His heart was beating hard, but Raph yelled something at him. He could barely process what was happening in front of him, much less what Raph was saying from so far away. Did he tell him to attack? Was he yelling because he needed to hit it? He didn't know. He didn't know, he didn't know, but he couldn't let them down now.

So he pushed himself. He ran at the mutant one more time to prove he could do it, to prove the body he'd lost wasn't worth more than his being, and he took the swing.

The fly was prepared this time. It shrieked at him.

His footing faltered, and it grabbed him. Every fine hair on its legs pricked him, pressing into him like a million bugs crawling up and down his skin.

He dropped the tech-bo to cover his tympana, no longer caring what his brothers thought, and it rattled on the laboratory floor.

His last mistake was looking into its bright red eyes. Hundreds of reflective plates shimmered in their display of his surroundings, of him, pathetic and useless and entirely at fault for everything this moment culminated in.

A furious cacophony of voices and reflections and lights and sounds were battering him, rain and thunder directing all of its pressure onto a body that was crumbling under the downpour and he just couldn't do it. And he knew he should be able to do it but he didn't know what was happening, what is happening, why is this happening?

The fly was buzzing and something was thrown and he was dropped to the ground, but his eyes were shut so tight he was sure they'd fall back into his head and be lost forever.

"Leo!"

He choked, but the fly wasn't crushing him, and he gasped for air, but he wasn't drowning.

Was he?

Tears leaked from his eyes, but he couldn't stop them because he didn't know what was happening and he couldn't get into his shell and it was all too much.

His brothers were yelling all at once, and no matter how hard he pressed his hands into his tympana it wouldn't stop, it wouldn't stop, please stop, stop, stop–

==========

"Shit," Donnie muttered, his voice almost inaudible to himself beneath the multitude of distractions layered one on top of the other. Both Raph and Mikey were talking, but he didn't know which voice to focus on–

The fly knocked him away when he tried to get close. It was preparing to spit its stomach acid on Leo, but Leo hadn't moved at all! Donnie even managed to hit the fly to make it drop him, but he was just sitting there, hands over his head.

"I know it's gonna melt him!" Raph was straining Leo's vocal cords yelling at Mikey, and Mikey was straining Raph's yelling back.

But neither of them were doing anything, and Donnie couldn't safely advance on his own. He grimaced. "Hey!" It left his mouth before he could think it through. It was necessary though. Leo's in trouble. "How about instead of fighting each other, we fight the giant insect right in front of us?! Pick up the slack, Stooges!" He didn't normally integrate pop-culture references into his speech—he sounded more like Mikey than ever—but it surprised them enough to get them to stop fighting at least. A net positive outcome is a net positive outcome.

Mikey gasped. "Did you just use Doctor Delicate Touch on me?"

"Focus, Mikey!"

But Mikey was not joking around in the slightest. He was genuinely surprised; Donnie could unfortunately tell.

Raph, who hadn't been able to make a portal under so much pressure, finally gave up and ran past Donnie towards Leo.

"Wh– Raph! You're gonna get slimed!" Mikey called after him, but Raph didn't listen.

He instead ducked under one of its legs as it swiped at him and stood between it and Leo. What is Raph doing? Mikey hadn't put it eloquently, but he had a point when he said Raph would get "slimed." The fly was obviously dangerous, yet here their leader was, throwing himself into a situation that he did not have the advantage in.

Raph swung at its antennae when they tried to grab him, and when it growled, he raised the odachi and started tracing circles in the air.

Foolish and impossible.

Its wings flitted rapidly. Donnie almost couldn't take his eyes off them to see Raph's progress.

He was waving the sword, so desperate that it veered off course several times. His eyes were shut and his mouth was mumbling something that surely only he could hear.

Even so, his efforts created sparks that twinkled in the air like meteors falling towards Earth. Blue magic materialized, swirled into a typhoon that successfully transferred the acid to the other side of the lab.

Foolish.

Donnie saw the fly distracted and took his chance. He grappled its legs, restricted its movement, and hoped Mikey would get the hint and take care of it.

"Leo! Leo, are you okay?" Donnie heard Raph say, but there was no response.

He dared to look away from the fly to see what was happening. Was Leo hurt so bad he couldn't talk? Could he not move because his leg was broken or something?

The kusari-fundo's chain lurched, so he pulled on it to unravel the mutant's legs, but his focus was still on Leo.

It has to be that his leg's broken, or maybe he was just hit hard in the gut? Was he going to throw up again?

That time with Meat Sweats had been a little while ago, but he might still feel tired from that. Then again, they were all tired. His breath was labored, he realized, and his stomach was growling. When was the last time he ate? When was the last time he drank water?

It had all slipped his mind, and now he was feeling a little… dizzy.

He tried blinking away the fuzziness in his vision, but only snapped back to reality when Mikey slammed his fist into the fly, causing it to let out another angry buzz.

Leo flinched and buried his head deeper into his knees. Donnie took in a shaky inhale. How could he have missed it?

It's too loud.

He'd barely even noticed it was too loud. Yeah, the buzzing was annoying, but it wasn't unbearable by any means. Yeah, its eyes were distracting—so distracting—but it wasn't overwhelming.

This is not how his brain is supposed to work. This is not his brain. This is not him.

When he looked at Leo though? When he looked at Leo, he saw himself. He saw himself, as a tot, on the surface and struggling to deal with the flashing lights and the irregular sounds and the potent smells of New York City for the first time.

He saw himself, as a kid, recoiling from Raph's touch like a deer to molten lava, refusing to eat Mikey's (unrefined at the time) cooking because the texture wasn't right at all. He saw his shift in mentality when he'd realized he'd made Mikey upset, and he saw himself gag as he forced it down. For some reason, Mikey was not present in this memory.

And he saw himself, just a few months ago, having to leave the living room because the projector screen was just bright enough to cause him to…

He saw Leo, and he saw Raph, and he saw himself leave.

But there was more.

He remembered talking to Raph after he'd already left the room. He hadn't noticed, the memories flashing in segments much too jumbled to see vividly, but they had all been from a point of view separate from his own.

That isn't him. This isn't him.

Of course it isn't him! He's in Mikey's body, and somehow, he was in Mikey's brain as well.

With newfound adrenaline, he ran to Raph and pulled him away to stop him from tapping Leo on the shoulder. Don't touch him.

"Donnie? What're you doing?"

Donnie's eyes darted back to the fly when it made another sound, and he found that his gaze kept straying despite how hard he was trying to keep it on Raph. "It– It's too loud," he began, Raph immediately cutting him off.

"Do you need to leave?" It was asked automatically, but Donnie shook his head just as fast.

"No, Leo needs to leave." How was this happening? How was Leo experiencing what should be his nervous system's reaction to noise? Had it been like this when they first switched? Was this a recent development? Is it permanent?

He couldn't thoroughly answer any of these questions without asking five more, and he couldn't decide on what to do! He had to get Leo away, but he needed to help Mikey– Was Mikey okay? If they defeat the fly first, then calming down Leo would be easier, but what if that took a while? They couldn't just leave him alone! And, dear Newton, those memories were an entirely different predicament to solve–

Raph waved his hand in front of Donnie's face.

"What?"

"Get him somewhere safer. I'll help Mikey fight the mutant." Confidence radiated from his older brother's voice. It reigned him in. Even if his body language told Donnie he was afraid (he's not certain how he managed to read his body language, so he might be incorrect), he decided to put his trust into Raph one more time.

He responded with an affirmative—an "okay" or a "yeah" perhaps. He didn't remember—and kneeled in front of Leo's tense form.

Another agonizing buzz as Mikey slammed into the mutant, and another shake of Leo's head when the sound reverberated throughout the room.

Leo was almost completely still other than his rampant breathing as it coursed through him, his eyes flooded with tears. This must be terrifying to him.

If he'd known this would happen, he would've at least warned him.

Leo, he mouthed.

His brother made a sound, but it wasn't quite words. He was watching Donnie's mouth though.

"Follow me. I'll take you somewhere else." He said it out loud this time, but Leo probably couldn't even hear him through his hands, as they were still cupped tightly around his tympana.

Slowly, he stood up, waiting for Leo to follow.

He didn't know where he would take him, but it had to be quick, and it had to be away from the fight.

It might not be the safest idea to bring him outside; the officers who work for the heads could be waiting for them to leave.

That didn't mean there weren't other rooms in this place. Past the heavy iron door that separated the lab from the more home-ish areas, there was a room with a fireplace and a dog bed.

Leo had winced when the door shut behind them, but with the softer lighting and the dampened discord of the fight, he carefully removed his hands from his tympana and messed with his panic button strap. Since they were necessary, the panic buttons were the only things they wore other than the battle shell Leo had on. Trying to get their old gear to fit had a low inconvenient-to-helpful ratio.

Him being okay with the change should've been their first warning sign.

The two of them stepped into what was presumably Draxum's relaxation room. He wondered if those gargoyles slept in the dog bed. That would be a little cruel.

Donnie waited quietly while Leo tried to regain control of his breathing. He was panting rather heavily, leaning against one of the walls and messily wiping his eyes on his forearms.

The more he looked at Leo, the more he thought about how he must feel right now, and the tighter his jaw clenched. His head was scorching hot with resentment. He hated Draxum for doing this to them. He hated Draxum for taking his identity away and handing it off to someone else. He hated it!

He wiped away his own tears and fucking hated it! He knew he shouldn't ruminate over a past event he couldn't change, but he couldn't help it. His failure to switch them back has resulted in an outcome he didn't know how to reverse, and his failure to see the urgency of their situation has created a domino effect of consequence after consequence after consequence.

He went to take off his goggles to give to Leo, but his hands passed over empty air. He didn't even have them! How could he forget his goggles? He never forgot his goggles. That just isn't something he does—and now he couldn't even offer something to make up for the trouble he'd caused.

And Leo has to suffer because of it. Because of all of it.

So he took a deep breath, tried not to listen to the self-loathing thoughts that came and went, and focused on his brother. He's the one in need of help right now. No need to get caught up with himself.

He was still pissed off, but seeing Leo shift his weight from one foot to the other made him quickly switch gears. Leo looked like he needed to satisfy something, but he wasn't sure how.

Donnie's gaze trailed to the fireplace, and then back to Leo. It was an odd feeling to know what was best for a body he wasn't in

He raised his arms and whispered, "Do it with me?" He wasn't sure what possessed him to expose such a vulnerable part of himself, but it's the least he could do to make things right.

Leo raised his arms with him, confused.

Then, he started waving them, hard, so Leo would do it the same way.

Surprisingly, he followed suit, and they just stood there and flapped their arms. It still helped Donnie in some sense, but in a different way than it had before. He wished he could articulate it, but it was just different.

Eventually, Leo stopped watching Donnie and did it on his own accord.

He was glad Leo benefited from it; the guilt was getting upsetting, but he at least knew those were his emotions. His empathy. Because those years of experiencing exactly what Leo is feeling are one thing that can never be taken away from him.

==========

Their best course of action would’ve been to retreat right away, but on Raph’s mind was an opportunity too good to pass up: switching back.

The machine was right here, right where they were. There was no Draxum, and there was no Hidden City police. All they had to do was get rid of the fly, get Donnie and Leo out here again, and it would all be over. Everything would be back to normal.

He ignored the headache he had and paid no attention to mind-Raph’s warnings that he was low on energy. He already knew he needed rest; he hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep these past couple weeks, but this fight was more important. If they can win this, he can get all the sleep he wants without the repercussions of being an irresponsible team leader.

Just before the fly could grab Mikey like it did Leo, Raph sprinted over and slashed at the leg it was using to attack him. When he landed, he skidded across the ground and just regained his balance when the leg he’d cut off landed next to him. He tried not to gag. “We’re gonna have to fight it alone!” He shouted over the buzzing.

The leg had come off so easy. He didn’t mean to cut it off completely.

Mikey shot him a look. “Both Donnie and Leo left?!”

He almost nodded in response, but the fly pounced on Mikey despite Raph’s interference and sent him gliding across the lab as if he were a skipping stone on water. Mikey unexpectedly landed on his feet, then hit the tonfas together. Once, twice, but he couldn’t seem to get the result he wanted.

Raph didn’t recognize what he was doing, his attention solely on whipping up a portal to tumble through sword-first. His aim was off though, and he ended up cutting through its thorax a little more than he’d meant to.

Insect gunk—whatever it was—spilled from the incision and leaked onto the ground. Now that was gross. Usually he could handle stuff like that, but he was getting nauseous just looking at it. He really did need sleep.

For the sake of it, he tried making a portal big enough for it to fit through. But he was exhausted, and he could barely remember what the outside of the lab looked like—As a cherry on top, that giant window on the ceiling showed nothing but solid blue!—meaning he couldn't put it outside without leaving Mikey alone, which was out of the question.

It would be a terrible idea to let it on the surface, and the only other place he could picture was Hueso's (which was also on the surface, but it had the vibe of the Hidden City). He wished Donnie were here to give him some ideas.

The fly wrapped its antennae around his biceps, shivers running down his spine when it lifted him and threw him down. Why did it feel so dirty?

He brushed off the area of his arm where the antenna had been, then quickly repositioned the sword to block one of its legs from touching him again. He knew better than to swing and risk taking another leg off, but this thing wasn’t sentient enough to cooperate! How could they get it out of here when it didn’t fit through the entrance?

“Mikey! I’m gonna look for a way to let it out!”

Mikey got the memo. “Hey, flyyy! Over here, big guy!” Once he had its attention, he engaged in a stand-off with it to give Raph some time, which he was thankful for.

There were tons of secrets around Draxum’s lab; probably because he constantly hid things from the authorities, but it might come in handy in this situation. All he had to do was find a way out, or at least a room to trap it in so they could switch without an issue. And so Leo and Donnie could come back out.

He fleetingly wondered what was going on with them, but the only explanation he could think of was one he didn’t want to be true.

Instead of thinking about that, he ran his hands across one of Draxum’s walls, brushing over some of the squishy root things that were growing out of gaps in it.

He frowned, but wiped it off on his side in favor of pressing on a loose plate. It opened into a small compartment that was certainly not a doorway, and it had nothing of interest in it: some disposable silverware and a couple of soda cans.

"Get a load of this, Buggo!” He heard Mikey hitting it, but he also heard the fly shriek and retaliate.

If it was possible to go any faster, he did, his hands running across just about every rusted metal plate he could reach. There was a button, but it only dispensed a coffee maker. There was a lever, but it tried to retract the glass around what used to be the mutagen container. There was nothing, and more nothing, and more nothing.

Why couldn’t he find anything?! This was not helpful, and Mikey was over there fighting that mutant…

“Mikey!” He called out again, catching him while he was at an impasse with the fly. “Make a giant Raph!”

Mikey pushed against the fly and forced it away from him, then jumped out of the way when it spit at him. The floor sizzled as it dissolved. “I tried! I can’t do it–” The fly whipped its antennae around him while he was distracted and constricted him.

It might be because the mutant was particularly dangerous, but something about that image made his worry kick into overdrive.

Before he knew it, he was slicing off its antennae, not caring about the moral implications because it was about to hurt Mikey, and he had to stop what he was doing to prevent it.

Mikey hurried to the side before its antennae could grow back, hitting his fists together. “Power-Punch Jutsu!” A red force field blossomed around his hand so he could punch away the insect, a practiced action that was far from creating a version that encompassed his entire body.

It was their only option though. “If we can, uh…” He glanced around the lab, and then at the window. “If we can break that big window up there, we can get rid of it. Like how Jupiter Jim opened his ship to pull the T-Rexitons into space!"

“So you’re telling me to make a big you to break the window? Are you sure there were no other ways to get it out? Please say there’s another way.”

“Nothing it would fit through.”

Mikey put his hands on his head and started asking how he would do it, what he should do when he managed it, how to get out of it afterwards, etcetera. Raph didn’t know the answers to most of those questions; it had come so naturally to him that he hadn’t thought about it.

The fly zipped towards them, and Raph luckily blocked it with the flat side of the odachi. "If you're gonna do it, it's gotta be now, Mikey." Should he be asking so much of him? It was a large task, and Mikey was already hesitant to agree in the first place…

"You got it, chief. I'll make the biggest, strongest Raph you've ever seen!" He started encouraging the tonfas to create it for him as if it were the weapons that did the heavy lifting in their use.

Raph parried the fly's advancement and guarded himself, listening carefully for the sound it made when it was about to spray.

Whenever its antennae grew to grab at him, he just cut them off; it didn't seem to cause it pain. That, however, did mean it threatened to either take off or "slime" him in place of picking him up, neither of which were favorable.

He hadn't realized there was a third option where the fly tackled him to the ground and held him down with its legs. Its legs had hair?

Its stomach started bubbling.

Right when he thought he was done for, a gigantic red fist pummeled into it, the gunk that'd been leaking from the incision splattering everywhere when Mikey knocked it away.

Some of it doused his leg. It made alarms go off in his head, but it wasn't melting him, so he continued staring dumbly at Mikey. He was in a gigantic formation of Raph's body. He'd done it! It would be more impressive, but all of the coordination he’d spent so long acquiring was gone.

They hadn’t gotten around to making the giant form during any of their training sessions, so this was Mikey’s first time.

Without solid ground to stand on, he teetered back and forth, and his movements were bogged down by a fear of what the tonfas' construct could do.

Despite that, he managed to pull back a punch—Raph had taught him not to in combat, so he must be aiming for the window—and threw it at the glass.

It only cracked a little bit, but a punch at that speed should've broken right through it and more. Was Mikey as tired as he was? Had he exhausted all of them?

It flitted around Mikey, then grappled his mystic form's arms and pulled him backwards to topple him over.

Mikey yelped when he fell, his giant hand planting itself much too close to Raph while he pushed himself up.

His little brother towered over him now, and though his movements were slow and careful, he made the mistake of looking down. Raph could see regret bloom on the larger version of his face, but he went back to breaking the window with increasingly worn-out force.

The fly kept bothering him. It threw up on one of his giant arms, and it melted the mystic constructs, Mikey swatting it away. "Raph! It can melt the magic!"

Mikey was asking for help, but he was powerless all the way down here. There was absolutely nothing he could do–

The odachi! Right, he keeps forgetting it can make portals.

He tried hard to figure out where the fly would end up rather than where it was. That sounded confusing, because it really was; how was he supposed to think so far ahead on the spot?

His pupils darted to each spot the fly paused in. It's moving in a pattern, he noticed, but only in correlation with Mikey's movements. If he can get up there and slow down the fly so Mikey could break the window, catch it, and let it out, then they could switch back and get home through another portal. Hopefully created by the real Leo this time.

Holy shit, did he just analyze something and make a plan?

He shook away the accidental swear word, but the sentiment stood. He had a plan, and all he had to do was carry it out. Easy peasy.

As he watched the fly, he held his breath. Mikey moves his head, and the fly goes right, and then up, and then… It should be to the left of Mikey in a matter of seconds.

The odachi sparked, eager to make him a portal to jump through. Instead of stressing over what would be on the other side, he fell through and trusted the process. He just needs to convince himself he's capable, and everything'll work out.

He is capable.

He took a nosedive into the other side, ready to stabilize himself.

And sure enough, the fly was just below the portal. He hollered something about how he was right, the risk offering enough adrenaline for everything to start blurring together.

He seized its antennae, angled back and ready to grab Mikey again. They anchored him in place, even as the fly jerked and struggled against his hold, now not interested in Mikey in the slightest. This is what you get for hurting them, he thought bitterly, knowing he was projecting but not being able to bring himself to care in the moment.

Mikey finally broke the window, sending a stray shard of glass the size of a tire heading right at him and the fly. "Move! Move, move, movemovemove!"

The insect, still trying to fling Raph off of it, didn't move in time. The glass punctured one of its wings, sending them plummeting down. He screamed Mikey's name.

"Raph?!"

They landed with a thud, Raph's stomach light after such a high fall. Touching the fly was gross, but having its body gunk on him was even worse. His right leg, covered in the stuff, felt absolutely disgusting, and his hands pulsed as if the fluid seeped through the odachi and infected him.

He took a deep breath, hoping it wasn't toxic like its stomach acid was. A problem for another time.

Mikey had fallen to the ground with them, all traces of his giant form only left in the dents on the lab walls and the broken window on the ceiling. He would feel bad about damaging Draxum's property, but there was no room to feel guilt over him. He was the one who switched them in the first place

Something started humming again, but the fly's wings weren't moving. He slid off its back and looked around. Where was that sound coming from? It was like a pot overflowing with hot water, like a volcano about to erupt…

The fly twitched. It had landed right next to the Fwoopinator, as Leo called it. The mutant was alive, but it wasn't nearly as loud now that one of its wings was broken.

It couldn't be prevented, Raph told himself.

Now that it was quieter, they could bring Leo out here. They could switch back and leave this all behind, even if it takes a couple tries. He could've cried with relief. It was all worth it.

They can finally go back. They'll finally be comfortable again.

He studied their downed foe, its multifaceted eyes that reflected the lab like a gemstone, its mouthpiece that thrummed along with the boiling. He was beginning to feel bad for attacking it, but it was in self defense, so–

Wait, the sound wasn't coming from its stomach, was it?

It hurled, acid drenching the lever that activated the machine and seeping into the wall where the rest of its parts would've been. Oh my god.

His grip on the sword weakened as he backed away, eyes wide, mouth agape. He could feel his heart skip a beat, his stomach drop, every metaphor for the devastation he felt when their happy ending disintegrated before his eyes.

It did not just destroy their one chance at normalcy.

Who knows how long it'll take Donnie to make another one?! Especially without the original to look at—Would they ever get back? It could be months, years before they figure out how to.

His teeth grinded together.

Draxum had gotten away. The Hidden City knew they were his creations. All of his brothers were exhausted because he forced them to train, and he made them come here when they were clearly unprepared.

He bent down to pick the sword back up, knuckles whitening when he squeezed the hilt. He wished he was half as strong enough to admit to his mistakes.

Had he done this? No, there's no way. There's no way he did this to them; he was supposed to be the leader, the big brother they could depend on—He was supposed to look out for them! And he couldn't do it. They needed him more than ever, and he couldn't do it.

He turned around to look for Mikey.

Mikey was still on the floor where he'd fallen. He frantically patted down his arms and legs, grabbed his forehead and neck as if they were disappearing under his fingertips.

Donnie had been restless, working day and night to switch them back, and he wasn't even close. Raph knew from the fear in his eyes when he'd asked how it was coming along.

And Leo. Leo's somewhere, probably curled in on himself like he had been, thinking over their fight and believing his own suffering is all his fault. How did he not realize his own brothers were hurting?

How did he not realize they were hurting because of him.

Raph raised the odachi high into the air. He was furious. None of this would've happened if he were a more competent leader, if anyone but him were in charge.

Stupid fucking fly.

"Raph!" Mikey jumped up and down at the sight of his big brother, tugging on his arm when he asked, "Can we go on the surface? I heard there's tons of good food—Donnie told me all about rester-aunts!"

Raph gave a small laugh. He picked up Mikey by the bridge of his shell to set him on his shoulders. Mikey kicked, but he knew it was because he was excited. "Not today. Once you turn seven, maybe."

Mikey groaned, but his enthusiasm soon returned when Raph made revving sounds with his mouth like he was Mikey's personal motorcycle. "The final round of the annual race is about to begin! First in line we have: Michelangelo!"

Mikey blew hot air out of his mouth. "The crowd goes wild!"

He ran around the second floor of the atrium for what must've been thirty minutes, nothing but him and Mikey and their imaginations. Their laughs were so loud that they echoed throughout the entire lair.

He could feel the weight of the odachi pulling him as he arched his back. It was heavy, a reminder that this wasn't his body, but he snapped forward and swung it over his head with all his might, slashing at the mutant. It cried in response. Raph held his breath. He knew he wasn't going to stop.

Donnie held his arms close to his torso and stood in front of Raph. He was frowning big, like the frowns you'd see in those funny cartoons on TV. He was clearly trying to tell Raph something, but he was admittedly not the best at knowing what was wrong.

"What is it, Dee?" He asked, trying his hardest not to sound uninterested like Dad always did.

Donnie unclenched his fists and held his arms out.

"Did you hurt your arms?"

A brisk headshake. He made a circle with his arms instead and brought them closer to his chest, imitating something.

"I don't get it. Is this an exercise?" Raph did the same. He didn't get to the part where he brought his arms to his chest before Donnie bounded into them.

That had been one of the rare moments when Donnie initiated such affection, especially as a kid. He'd squeezed him tight.

He heaved in deep, erratic breaths and reeled in for another swing, and another, and another. He can't let them get hurt again, he can't let them get hurt again, he can't let it happen, he can't be the reason it happens again.

But it already happened, and he was the reason for it.

He'd already dragged them here, to this lab, where there hadn’t been a second when they were out of harm’s way.

It was a mistake. He knew it was a mistake, yet he still did it; he brought them here not because he had their best interest in mind, but because he was worried about himself, and his image, and his position on the team.

He didn't mean to hurt them.

The walls were closing in on them.

Raph didn’t remember much from the day they first found Run of the Mill Pizza, as most of it was spent in fight-or-flight mode.

What he did remember was that he’d been annoyed with Leo for days after. He remembered the spikes, and the fire, and the anger that washed over him when Leo couldn’t make a portal out of there on his first try. All he could think about was their inevitable death and what that would mean for them, for Dad, and for April.

“I can’t do it,” he’d said. “I’ve got no mystic mojo—I’m useless.”

In response to Leo finally, finally opening up about something, Raph had threatened him and pushed him.

It didn’t seem like a big deal back then. He'd barely thought about that statement even after they were safely back home.

He'd gone to the living room to watch a Lou Jitsu movie, and then he went right to bed.

He certainly didn't blame himself for reacting that way—he still didn't—but he shouldn't have been so hard on Leo either.

He shouldn't have been so hard on him.

Look at him now. Taking that same fear—the fear of losing his family, the fear of being swallowed whole by a force out of his control—and instead of leading them through with the composure an older brother should have, he lost his cool and hurt them, and then he pinned it all on Leo. Why didn't he look out for them when he should've?

Dad is right. He really isn’t fit to be leader.

It's his fault. The switch, Donnie's shoulder, what happened today. It had never been Leo's fault, he admitted to himself, stabbing the fly one more time and letting its fluids spill onto his feet. He deserved it for hurting his brothers.

He swore he used to be a good leader. He swore he used to always put their well-beings first. But in his attempts to protect them from the outside, he ripped away the roof above their heads to make room for his own.

He came to his senses and chucked the sword at the ground, staring straight into the fly's ruby red eyes. They glistened, but nothing was behind them.

It was dead. He killed it.

He killed it. He'd been beating it down even after it died, an innocent creature that had nothing to do with any of this, and he killed it. "I'm sorry," he whispered, tired, out of breath, and unsure of who his apology was directed at.

The fly just lied there, unmoving. Its antennae were limp, its wings didn't buzz, and its limbs were crushed beneath it.

Warm tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. His chest burned.

"Raph?" Mikey asked carefully. "Did you– Did you kill it?"

That was enough to break the dam. He found himself kneeling on the floor in front of the fly, wracked with thick, rugged sobs, mourning the lives he'd taken.

Notes:

thank you for 350 kudos and 6k hits thats insane!!!

i know im not the best at fight scenes but i hope it was readable lmaoo, this chapter is one of the first i thought about making when i came up with this idea & tbh it goes crazy

thanks for giving me motivation to get to this point in the plot, this is the farthest ive gotten in a story and im still obsessed. i dont always know how to respond but every comment is appreciated fr

Chapter 11: We Can't See the Sun Anymore

Summary:

Mikey was the first to shoot him a frenzied look. Raph knew he should stop before it was too late, but he was tired of it! They should've just told Dad in the first place and gotten it over with then. They've dug a hole so deep that he wasn't sure if they could see the sun anymore.

Notes:

man february went so fast
march update <3 yippee

Raph had come to terms with the original Fwoopinator being melted away. Maybe if he gave Donnie the time he needed, he'd actually be able to replicate it, and his tears would've been for nothing.

He rested his palm on the fly's forehead, ignoring how it made his fingers tingle with discomfort. Even after Mikey pushed it out of the way of the machine, it still lay unmoving, lifeless. His tears wouldn't be for nothing.

This could've been them, though. After the switch, it could've been them on the floor of Draxum's lab.

When he pulled away, he rubbed his pointer against his thumb, trying to figure out what was making his hand feel this way. Just in case it was toxic, he brushed his hands together as if getting rid of potato chip crumbs. His hands had been feeling kind of weird lately, even before the fly, so he assumed it would be fine.

Donnie had been studying the now-unusable machine, humming to himself when he looked into the hole in the wall the acid created. There was a small pocket behind the visible parts of the machine, and now it was exposed.

"Find anything, Dee?" Raph asked. He was not up for small talk right now, but it filled the silence. Leo hadn't cracked a single joke since he and Donnie came back into the main part of the lab; in fact, he hadn't said a single word.

Donnie shook his head, having to blink to realign his vision. "Nothing. And I mean nothing. As in, there is nothing behind the wall: no technology past some wiring from the lever to…" He stood on his toes to try and see what it was hooked up to.

Raph curiously looked with him, and sure enough, there was nothing. Even the spots where the acid shouldn't've touched were barren.

"Mikey, can you see what's at the top there?"

Mikey nodded. He'd also been quiet, but he complied and squeezed into the hole in the wall. "Just that green stuff," he said, quickly stepping back out of the tight space.

"Ooze?"

He shrugged.

Donnie took a step back to look at the machine in full, his foot tapping on the ground. "Why is ooze hooked up to the F– to an accelerator?"

Mikey was wholly uninterested. He didn't think he was distracted—it's just he was completely still: no changing expression, no idle movement. Raph would be worried, but making a mystic construct was draining. He's probably just tired.

Leo, on the other hand, always did move a lot (while he was talking or otherwise), so it shouldn't've been a surprise when he saw him messing with Donnie's plastron.

But when he took his eyes off of Mikey's body, gaze trailing towards where Leo stood, he almost had to double take.

When he allowed himself to forget about everything—the machine, his hands, the fly—when he stood there, in feet that still weren't his own and had yet become so familiar, he didn't see Leo. He saw Donnie.

He quickly looked away from him. Bad, Raph, he thought. After so much time spent switched, he shouldn't have those types of reflexive thoughts anymore. He should know it's Leo.

"If you give me some time, I can try rewiring it."

"You had a lot of time," Mikey muttered.

"What? We only just arrived." Right after the words left his mouth, Donnie's expression immediately fell at the realization of what Mikey really meant.

Raph couldn't help but agree, but he didn't say anything.

Donnie took a deep, deep breath. "If I can find the right materials, it will be done within a few minutes." He said it a bit slow, and his eyelids were drooping.

No kidding. If given the chance, Raph would pass out right here right now. His arms were actually hurting from using his sword—Leo's sword—which was stupid because he'd been training with it nonstop.

How high was the learning curve on this thing? Like, even his ankles felt weird from having that goop splatter on them.

He refrained from wasting time on fretting over how unused to this body he was and waited patiently for Donnie's instructions. Draxum could come back at any moment, so they had to keep moving.

Leo's head snapped towards the entrance.

"What is it, D– Leo?" He mentally swore again for almost screwing up, but quickly tensed when he saw who exactly was approaching.

The officers from before stood at the door they'd left wide open, watching them carefully. The manticore yokai was inching towards where they stood, taser in hand. His companion, the bird yokai, was holding another one of those anti-mystic devices at the ready.

Donnie stepped away from the Fwoopinator. For only a second did he glance at his tech-bo, but it was all the way across the lab, and he did not look well enough to run. He put his hands up before they even gave the orders.

Once the manticore got close enough, "Freeze, criminals! You are under arrest," he informed them. "Put your hands up and don't make this harder than it needs to be."

Mikey, dozing off where he stood, dropped the tonfas and put his hands up as far as he could without them dragging back down with gravity.

Raph didn't have to look behind him to know Leo did as the yokai said. He was in no condition to be difficult.

"What's the big deal, officers?" He didn't know what force encouraged him to ask, but it came out in an even tone. His hands were at his hips. "Now, what're you arresting us for—exactly?" God, what is he doing? He should be complying with the law! First he mixes up his brothers (a very Splinter-esque mistake that he's avoided his whole life), and now he's resisting the law? Who is he?

The manticore raised one of his brows, but swiftly stiffened the taser's aim to point at him specifically. "Trespassing and damage to property."

He knew that they were legally in the wrong, but he had to try. They couldn't go to jail! Dad would kill them! And worse yet, if he asked what they were doing in an actual criminal's laboratory, the only answer would lead them to reveal that they were…

Donnie and Mikey and Leo were all peering at him, as if pleading for him to just give up. They were pale and fatigued, drained from the battle he'd made them fight.

All considerations of grabbing the odachi to make a quick getaway, of running past them and into the Hidden City, of fighting with his bare hands just to get out of trouble with Dad left his mind. They're all too tired for any of those options, and that kind of selfishness on his part is how they got into this mess in the first place.

Reluctantly, he raised his hands and allowed the officers to cuff them.

==========

Him and his brothers being in mystic handcuffs behind the bars of a jail cell was not the outcome he was expecting out of this little trip. It's not like Leo's body was strong nor awake enough to break out of normal handcuffs anyway, so maybe it didn't matter if they were mystic, but it was still stressing him out. There really was no getting out of this one.

After his adrenaline high had run its course, he'd come crashing down so fast that he almost fell asleep on the walk to the Hidden City's police station.

Now, he was sitting in silence with two of his brothers, both of which he knew without a doubt were mad at him. They must hate him for getting them into this mess, and rightfully so. Maybe he wasn't capable.

There were only two of his brothers because Leo was in a different room being questioned. Raph swore he'd only closed his eyes for a quick second before he heard him getting pushed back into the cell with the rest of them.

"I couldn't get anything out of that one. He didn't budge," a different officer than the ones from before stated. She was a cyclops with a pink complexion, her ears long and droopy like an elephant's.

Donnie scooted over so Leo could sit next to him on the floor.

"Try a different one." Another officer, a snail, with eyes that extended up from his head and a mucus-like substance dripping from his fingertips. His pupils darted around the cell. "How about the one with stripes?"

What? Why would Leo go again?

"You heard him. Get up, slider. Officer Malwen's gonna have a chat with you." The cyclops gestured for him to stand up. Man, how tired was he to not realize he's the one with the stripes right now?

He sluggishly pushed himself off the cell's floor with just his leg strength—the floor was all dusty and covered in dirt—and had to lean himself against the wall to keep from losing balance.

The snail yokai dragged him out. He heard the cell door clang shut, and he wished they'd be a little easier on it so it didn't make so much noise.

Officer Malwen led him to the interrogation room, then pressed the button on his belt that released the mystic handcuffs. They shivered against his wrists, and he could see the light shining from behind him when they began to glow. They made a popping sound and promptly disappeared.

"Have a seat."

Raph, just thankful he didn't have to stand anymore, sat down. The room was pretty much empty aside from the two chairs and the table, and the only light source was a single dramatic light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling.

There was a blank piece of paper on the table, which he assumed was blank because Leo didn't tell them anything.

"Now, I'm going to ask a few questions. Just answer to the best of your ability, right?" Officer Malwen sat across from him, his slimy underside audibly sliding onto the chair. He held his pencil casually beside the paper, probably to seem casual about the interrogation. His snail goop dripped down the sides of it.

He nodded. He'd rather this be fast.

"Yep. So, are you familiar with Baron Draxum? Any relations?"

This was a question he was expecting, so he was able to answer calmly. "Not personally. He did something to us and we were going to ask him to undo it. Then that fly came along and started attacking everyone."

The yokai hummed, his tentacles swaying. "And what did he do to you?"

That was not a question he was expecting, but he was, surprisingly, still able to answer quickly. "If you really want to know, his invention altered our brains—all four of us—and we haven't been the same since."

He jotted that down, some of his slime falling onto the paper. Hopefully his writing stayed intact and Draxum would get arrested, but for now, he was looking for a way to avoid getting himself and his brothers in jail. "I see," he contemplated. "So. You have no other relations?"

He must know they're the turtles that Draxum mutated. There's no way they didn't at least suspect it. "Nope." He's a terrible liar! How did he do that?

He was infinitely glad that this body didn't give off a lying stink, because the officer just nodded and started asking another question, and he just kept answering with more charisma than he'd ever had in his life.

Each answer he gave didn't give away too much, but it gave enough to seem unsuspicious (at least, that's what he hoped). It's not like they had illicit motives anyway.

Above all, he wanted to pass them off as yokai who were unrelated to the turtles of Draxum's creation.

"I understand that the savage mutant broke the window. Did you or your associates have any part to play in its mutation?"

"We did not. I'm pretty sure one of Baron Draxum's henchmen put it in the ooze."

"The… ooze?"

Raph shifted in his seat. "The, uh… The empyrean." He'd forgotten that yokai don't use that word for mutagen! Man, and he'd done so well. "Sorry, my brother has a bad stutter—that's why he didn't talk; he was afraid you'd think he's suspicious—and the word empyrean's a real pain for him to say. All the… syllables. Our family started saying 'ooze' instead." He bit his tongue and prayed that was enough to cover his mistake.

The officer made a sound of acknowledgement. "I see. Tell him that it's perfectly fine to speak to us without judgment. We'd like to know the full story."

It's a miracle he believed it, but that might've put Leo in a dangerous spot in exchange. Ugh, this talking thing was not easy.

"Did you have any other questions concerning your holding?"

Here's his chance! He leaned back in the chair and shrugged. "Yeah, I was wondering if I could have a phone call?" Their own phones didn't work with the Hidden City's weird mystic service—Donnie hadn't upgraded them to—so the only phone that could reach someone on the surface was one from the Hidden City.

One of Officer Malwen's eyes lowered while the other rose. "We're not legally required to let you have a call. What's your reasoning?"

"Our Pops' probably worrying his tail off right now. It's best if I call and let him know we're alright." He was on a roll today! He was never so smooth before—he could replace Leo as the face man with how he was talking to this guy!

His shoulders dropped. Never mind.

"Turtles have tails?"

"Yeah. You'll see it when I stand up to make my call."

The man sharpened his gaze at him, but set down the pencil with a wet plop. Raph thought he was leaving to grab a phone, but he instead waved his hand down one of the walls to get one to appear out of thin air. "Go ahead, kid."

"Thank you." Having successfully talked his way into making a call, he carefully pushed in the chair and took the phone off of where it rested. Honestly, he didn't fully know how to use one of these—they were a little old-school—but he made sure to wag Leo's tail for emphasis when he dialed Dad's number.

He doubted he'd answer.

It rang once, twice– it picked up. He'd almost forgotten Pops did nothing all day, every day. "Hey, Dad. It's me, uh, Leo."

"Blue?" He sounded like he'd just woken up. Maybe he should've called April or something, but he wasn't sure if he'd be allowed another call. "What is going on?"

Raph nervously looked at the officer, and then back at the wall. "Me, Mikey, Donnie, and– and Raph are in the Hidden City Police Station right now. Thought you should know."

"Oh, are you visiting?"

"No, we got arrested."

There was a long, suspenseful silence. While Raph was awaiting his father's next words, the officer was getting impatient.

"You got arrested?!"

"Yeah, we did." That is not a good sign. When he visits them in jail, he's going to be lecturing them to no end.

"Do you have your odachi?" He swiftly added on.

The answer was no. However, if he was going to get anything out of this call, he needed to play his answer smart. "You know Baron Draxum?"

"Baron– what?"

Dad must not know who he is. "Baron Draxum, yeah, in the Hidden City. We were in his laboratory fighting this mutant." That should be enough information.

"So… your sword is there?"

"Yeah." It hung up, but he was too anxious to put the phone down. Pops is going to break them out! Play it cool, Raph, play it cool. You're only planning to escape from the authorities here—no big deal. It was for the greater good, he assured himself.

Leo didn't always have Donnie's brain stuff. He knew that after they switched, it stayed with Donnie for at least a day because of the time he found him cooking eggs. That meant it would get worse as time passed, and they were on a ticking clock.

So they need to get back as soon as they can. They could even come back and turn themselves in when they're in the right bodies.

He didn't know how much they would continue to fade into each other, but if they stayed here, they could lose everything.

It's for the greater good.

"Right. Time's up, kid. Say your goodbyes."

Dad had already hung up, but he said goodbye to the empty line anyway and put the phone back on its base.

==========

He wasn't sure when Dad would come to the rescue, but it started looking like he'd gone back to his midday nap instead; it'd been so long that Raph was on the verge of falling fast asleep on the cell floor. The only thing stopping him was that it would be a bad idea for three out of four of them to be asleep.

Mikey was resting against the bars, parts of Raph's rightful shell poking through the gaps. His neck craned to the side, and drool ran down the side of his mouth. Even though Raph wasn't in it, he felt embarrassed for his body.

Donnie, of course, slept on the bench attached to the floor. Rather than concrete, it was made of wood. He wasn't sure if that would make it more or less comfortable.

His brothers' slumbers only distracted him for a moment, the sensation of filth and grime soon coming back to him. It was all over his hands, his legs, his forearms. He thought it would be gone by now, but it was still there, and he was getting progressively more worried about it. His skin could be deteriorating and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

On the bright side, Officer… Maynard? Milword? Something like that. Whatever his name was, he'd undone all of their handcuffs to let them rest.

He pressed his knuckles against his forehead and exhaled. More than anything, he wanted to get back to the lair and take a long nap. More than that, though, he wanted his brothers to take a nap in a place that wasn't so cramped.

The snail yokai was pacing back and forth in front of their cell, leaving a line of slime on the floor where he slid.

It's hopeless. There's no way Pops is going to be able to sneak the odachi in here for Raph to make a portal home. Not to mention his being in no condition to use mystic powers in the first place. Maybe he'll melt like something the fly puked on before they make it out. Maybe he'll die.

He'd been subconsciously rubbing his hands together when he caught Leo watching him, but they both quickly looked away from each other.

As if on cue, an oval was carved into the air, mystic energy sprouting to life and swirling into a steady portal big enough for Splinter to step through.

Pops?

Raph opened his mouth to say something, but Splinter put a finger to his would-be lips and gestured for him to follow through.

He had a lot of questions concerning how Dad was able to use the odachi. Not only that, but in order to make a portal to a specific place, the user has to be able to picture it clearly (if they were unable to in time, they would end up in a random place. After the switch, he figured that out the hard way). Is it not weird that he knows what the holding cell looks like?

He can ask when they're home. Leo was shaking Donnie awake, so Raph did the same to Mikey.

"Hey. Hey! What're you doing in there?!" The officer held the button on his tranceiver. "The turtles are escaping. I repeat, the turtles are escaping. Code 518. Over."

Mikey jolted. It only took a moment for him to figure out what was happening, and he appropriately stood up to enter the portal. Raph hurried a tired Donnie through.

As the officer was trying to unlock the cell door, the tranceiver rang out, "Sorry, Officer. What does Code 518 mean again? Over."

He grunted; the key kept slipping from his slick hands. "It means the four criminals in holding are escaping through a mystic portal."

"That's right. Over."

They didn't wait around for backup to get there. Still dazed from sleep deprivation, Raph stumbled through Splinter's portal, glad that he arrived on the other side with his brothers.

Their father hopped through and swiftly closed the portal behind them, narrowly avoiding Officer Mandarin following them through.

As soon as they were safe, he set down the odachi and crossed his arms. "Boys," he began. His fur was messy and tousled, and his whiskers looked like they hadn't been brushed in weeks. He was breathing rather hard.

His tonfas, Donnie's bo, and Mikey's kusari-fundo were all lying on the ground, likely retrieved by Splinter.

Raph's brothers' postures straightened. He, in contrast, put his head down. "I'm sorry, Pops. It was all my fault, I–"

"Upupup," Splinter shushed his eldest, though he didn't know it was his eldest. He still didn't know. "I will hear no more until you have all gotten some proper rest."

Raph didn't know what to say. He expected to be yelled at, or at least grounded again after calling his father from the police station. But there were no questions about what got them into trouble with the police, or why they looked so tired, or why they weren't wearing their masks, or anything.

It's not fair. It wasn't fair that they got grounded for a harmless mistake, but now that they were nothing less than suspicious, he didn't bat an eye!

Raph didn't care about knowing how Dad could use Leo's sword. It's just another secret he'd kept hidden from them. Another lie he would tell if Raph did bother to ask. All this effort put into stressing about his brothers' safety and how they would get back into their bodies, and their dad hadn't worried a single hair off his head.

That's how it always was. He was the one who took care of them, and Splinter did nothing—for their entire lives.

Mikey, Donnie, and Leo looked about ready to go to their rooms. However, Raph wasn't done yet. He just didn't know when to stop. "Dad," he mustered, the atrium feeling so, so empty despite his entire family standing within it. "Which one am I?"

Mikey was the first to shoot him a frenzied look. Raph knew he should stop before it was too late, but he was tired of it! They should've just told Dad in the first place and gotten it over with then. They've dug a hole so deep that he wasn't sure if they could see the sun anymore.

"Which one am I?" He repeated. "Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, or Leonardo?" Not even he knew anymore. Not even he knew whether those names belonged to the same turtles they had once been associated so unmistakably with.

Splinter quizzically glanced between the four of them. "Why, you're Blue. You are Leonardo." He said it as if it were obvious.

It made him want to rip Leo's plastron off.

"You are acting very strange, Blue. What were you doing in Baron Draxum's laboratory?" Finally, he was asking questions. Finally, he was concerned about them.

"Yeah, Leo," Donnie voiced from behind him. "You're acting strange."

Raph didn't listen to him. He didn't acknowledge any of their signals to stop because he was exhausted, and the fact that their father hadn't noticed his own sons' suffering was something that he just couldn't take anymore. He didn't care if they got in trouble. Ground them for another month, another year, he didn't care! "I'm not Leo!" They're never getting back anyways. "I'm. Not. Leo."

Splinter looked him up and down, squinting. "What do you mean? Of course you are." He didn't give Raph enough time to counter, cutting him off before he could get another word into the air. "You are very tired, Blue. We will talk after you have a nap." He'd delivered the patronizing line with a straight face.

The curtains fluttered, reminding him that all eyes were on him, and that breaking character meant that the dense, metal loft and the meticulously-positioned equipment would come plunging into his head, leaving him bloodied and wrangled and finally, finally red.

He wanted to be Red, but his shoulders melted with defeat, because he knew there was no convincing a man who was not willing to listen.

Splinter smiled at his compliance. It made him want to punch something.

As always, their dad went back to the living room. Go figure. Raph would bet his soul that he'd forget about this whole talk—no, that he'd forget all about his sons entirely—and everything would be back to the status quo tomorrow.

It's the status quo now.

Mikey and Leo silently went to their rooms, presumably to take a nap. They definitely deserved a good rest, so he watched them go without a single complaint. He needs to keep their best interests in mind from now on–

"Raph," Donnie said. It startled Raph; he barely even noticed Mikey's rightful body in the haze he was in. He should take a nap too. "Are you sure you want to tell him?"

He nodded.

"Then we shall. You're the leader, after all."

After everything he's done, he wasn't sure he should be the leader anymore. It'd never felt right to him anyway—being in charge and all—but he'd accepted it as part of his role as the big brother. He didn't know why it was so daunting when someone else said it out loud.

Maybe it was because he thought he'd hid his wrongful casting pretty well. Maybe it was because he'd secretly hoped he would be able to keep it up forever, look after them, keep them from making irreversible mistakes that'll ruin their lives.

Ironic.

"What do you think we should do, Dee? You're the brains."

Donnie's eyes fell to the floor. "Yeah, I guess," he mumbled, crossing his arms. "I think we should tell him. There's no reason for us to leave the lair anymore, so he can ground us all he wants."

That's true, though time outside would be nice. "We'll see what Mikey and Leo think."

Donnie must've been surprised by that, because his arms fell back to his side, and– his eyes were like saucers and his mouth was wide open! It almost made him laugh because man, he's never, ever seen Donnie that expressive over a little thing. Ever! He really did look like Mikey in that moment, and he meant that in the least literal way possible.

==========

Splinter sat back in his recliner, snout pointed at the ceiling. A freshly-brewed cup of tea was on his chairside table, but he'd only made it to distract himself. He didn't really feel like drinking a cup of tea right now.

His nails dug into the arms of the chair.

"I'm not Leo!" echoed in his head over and over. At first it repeated in confusion. And then in desperation. And then in an uneasiness that rippled down his spine all the way to the tips of his toes, an aftermath.

It didn't make sense. It had been Blue; it had been Leonardo who'd shouted it. As much as he wanted to convince himself that it was a work of Blue's imagination, he knew that his boy was much too old for play pretend. Besides, it didn't sound much like Blue, so perhaps he was telling the truth.

He'll let them rest before bombarding them with questions. Even though he really wanted to ask how they all ended up in Hidden City prison…

Which was outrageous! He thought he'd taught them better; he maybe expected it out of Blue, as he had always been drawn to danger, and possibly from Orange because of his knack for adventure, but from Red and Purple as well? And they were in Baron Draxum's laboratory?!

Did they know Baron Draxum created them? Created him?

It was all so much to process. But he now knew from experience that he should not lash out, so he instead allowed himself time to think.

The worst case scenario is that they are friends with Draxum and they were arrested for experimenting with mutagen. The best case is that his sons recognize Draxum as an evil, no-good supervillain and went to take him out.

He wondered if they knew about the origins of their mystic weapons.

No matter. The plan was that he would ask about everything once they woke up from their nap. Blue was quite moody, and his brothers hadn't looked that sleepy since getting back from their first night on the surface! Hopefully a nap would suffice to put them into a better headspace. He needs to know what they could've possibly been doing in Baron Draxum's laboratory.

Notes:

updates might slow down a bit bc im part of a competitive team & we're starting to go to competitions, but dw i would never leave yall hanging

this is around the end of the first "arc",, idk how many arcs therell be but number 1 is finishing up!! all the support is super appreciated like i wouldve never finished this much on my own, thank you!

im thinking about sticking with artsy titles bc theyre fun... putting my all into this fic fr

Chapter 12: Falling Out

Summary:

Nothing felt right.

Obviously it shouldn't feel right. He's in his brother's body, and he has been for weeks.

Notes:

!! TW: DISASSOCIATION/DISSOCIATION !!

basically one big scene,, its really wordy and long but i think it had to happen, like no doubt mikeys arc was building up to this. hope u enjoy!

Nothing felt right.

Obviously it shouldn't feel right. He's in his brother's body, and he has been for weeks. His fingers being too big to hold a pencil right and his shell being too heavy to "razzmatazz" were annoying, sure, but he'd gotten used to it.

He was used to it. In the way you'd get used to the sound of the air conditioning, or to the new wallpaper that was a vomit green, or to glasses that were a size too small, its frames pressing hard against the sides of your head and digging into the backs of your ears until they were chafed and sore.

In that way, he was used to it. But right now, as he sat on the floor of his room, eyes barely focused, he didn't feel used to it. He didn't feel like Raph, and he certainly didn't feel like Mikey.

Everything was so far away, but it should be right here. He reached out to pick up Mrs. Porkycoin, her change rattling as he lifted her to chest level.

His hands, so large that Mrs. Porkycoin could stand on one just fine, didn't look like the ones attached to Raph's body. It's like he was playing one of those first-person shooters the four of them had a brief obsession with, like there was someone in the back of his mind using a controller, telling him what to do from behind a screen.

He didn't know what was wrong. Ever since he made that giant-Raph in Draxum's lab, he hasn't exactly been there.

Well, he was there, physically, but even then, it was Raph's body that was there. He wasn't there, and his body wasn't there.

He set Mrs. Porkycoin back down, eyes glazing over the painting that was sitting against his wall. He wondered if he was the same person who'd painted it.

He groaned.

It was narrow-minded of him to be so distraught over being in a different body; they've all had to cope with that, and now that Leo has to adapt to Donnie's autistic traits, he felt like he had it easy in comparison.

He didn't even know how that happened to Leo. It's crazy to think about.

And it's scary. The idea of Raph's brain seeping into his was scary, and if it's happening to one of them, wouldn't it happen to all of them?

It could be that it'll happen at different rates, but there was a morbid thought that crossed his mind, and he couldn't stop thinking about it: what if he was so far gone that he couldn't differentiate his own traits from Raph's anymore?

Raph's state of being merging with his own and influencing his every decision, his sentience being trivialized the deeper he fell into Raph's consciousness, was equally bad if not worse than being in the giant version of him.

Above all, he was terrified of getting stuck in that fucking thing.

Pulling off a mystic stunt of that capacity was daunting enough, but the looming threat of being imprisoned in everything he hated about this body, except with ten times the intensity, was petrifying. It was bulkier, farther removed, more difficult to control…

He had to stand up and touch his old graffiti to assure himself that he wasn't still inside the construct, and instead back in the lair, in his room, with his family.

With his family. With his family.

He took a deep, hearty breath, and ran his hands down Raph's face. "Keep it cool, Mikey," he told himself. "You gotta keep it cool! Who else's gonna keep your family together? Not Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, that's for sure."

Hearing Raph's voice come out of his mouth made it worse, so he stopped talking.

No biggie. Doctor Positive's got this. He just has to look on the bright side and keep everyone happy! He and his brothers certainly need a morale booster right about now.

Doctor Positive's presence was flimsy.

Once he felt barely okay enough to leave his room, he stepped into the atrium and let the sunlight hit his skin. He needs a distraction from everything—the switch almost being revealed to Dad was giving him jitters—so he should talk to someone.

It would not be Leo. As much as he wanted to ask him a bunch of questions about how and when Donnie's brain got into his, he knew for a fact that he was not feeling it right now. He was in his room recovering, so he shouldn't be disturbed.

It would also not be Raph. Mikey had a feeling he wanted some time alone.

Donnie it is.

Donnie had been cooped up in his lab since they got back. Since the rest of them were doing the same thing, he didn't blame him for it. It's been a while since he'd checked up on him though.

Mikey could only imagine how much progress he's made. He could see the Fwoopinator already assembled, tall and circular, like the one in Draxum's had been. He was willing to bet that Donnie even recreated the glass wall they were placed behind, as well as all of the intricate chalk patterns that had decorated either side of them. It was a bit overkill of Draxum to put pretty aesthetics in his death trap, but it'd struck Mikey as interesting. Maybe Draxum had an artistic side.

Upon entering Donnie's lab—this might've been the first time he'd readily gone in here alone since the Meat Sweats incident; he'd been a little mad at Donnie for messing with his shoulder, but he was mostly over it now—he didn't see any traces of a machine.

There were the usual sketches and notes, both written and typed, but it wasn't very organized. When Donnie builds something, he categorizes all of his papers by part, and then by size, and then by complexity. All of his blueprints would be laid out on one desk, and his notes would be contained to one notebook.

Now, as if actively disrespecting his typical routine, there was a random doodle of a battle shell in the middle of his pile of half-finished drawings and sticky notes with one line of information on them.

Donnie was leaning over his desk. Mikey would've guessed he was busy finalizing the design of the machine, but when he got closer, he saw that he was scrolling through Twitter on his phone.

There were no new inventions already made as far as he could tell. His fists clenched.

Was Donnie not even trying to switch them back? Had he been counting on Draxum's machine to work, only for it to end up getting slimed? At this rate, they were going to stay like this forever. "Donnie?"

Donnie quickly set his phone face down and swiveled around in his chair to face Mikey, whose agitation may or may not have been showing on his face. "Michael," he responded, more animated than expected. "I didn't see you there. Did you need something?"

Mikey looked between the rest of the lab and Donnie's desk. "I couldn't sleep." Even though his every bone ached with the need for it, there was too much on his mind, too much separating him from the exhaustion for it to finally take him.

"Yeah, me neither. I can't seem to stop thinking." There were dark bags pulling his eyes down, something that hadn't been there when Mikey'd left his body. A change that he would have to deal with if they got back. "What's your opinion on telling Dad?"

He couldn't bring himself to care about telling Dad other than his fear of being grounded to the lair again. He tried to convince himself that it's because he had faith they would be able to switch back, but he didn't. "I guess I'm okay with it! It's the right thing to do." Something about not hiding stuff from a member of the family, or being open about what they were going through. Doctor Feelings' advice hadn't been so clear recently. His receding emotional maturity was accentuated by how little he knew how to deal with watching Donnie mistreat his body.

If he won't be back in his body soon, then he shouldn't care about it. But he cared a lot. He cares a lot now, and he cared a lot when his shoulder got dislocated, and he cared so much and so deeply that it was almost turning into an irritant.

He ran his nails down the back of his hand to keep that damage from escaping, and to check if this was a dream or not—it sure felt like it; his awareness was slowly retreating behind his eyes. "How's the Fwoopinator?" He forced himself to say, hoping the words would keep him fastened to his surroundings. He didn't find the name that funny anymore.

Donnie seemed to think it was funny though, because he held back a snicker at it, but disguised it as a cough. "If I were to be transparent with you, it's not going well. I still haven't quite figured out the specifics of its inner workings—if there are any—and what we saw today is only confusing me more."

So in other words, he wasn't anywhere close to finishing it.

Mikey's jaw clenched. "I thought it'd be almost done," he commented quietly, not meaning for it to come off as passive-aggressive. He didn't bother correcting his tone though—Donnie wasn't big on tone—and it didn't matter either way. Nothing felt real enough for it to matter anymore.

This conversation wasn't very uplifting nor morale-boosting. He should've known he wasn't ready to talk to anyone.

Donnie crossed one leg over the other and inhaled shallowly. "Me too." He grimaced. "Me as well. I'm working on it, you'll just– need to be patient."

He needs to be patient? He's been patient! After his first night spent in this body, the only thing he's been able to think about was getting back into his own!

Taking an unsteady breath, he held himself back despite his humanity slipping from his fingertips. If he just tells Donnie his feelings, then maybe he'll understand that whatever's happening with Leo isn't the only reason switching back was urgent. "I get that, but it– I need to get back." Everything felt either miles far or way too close. As if his skin was tightening but his senses were drifting away.

"I know, Michael. We all do."

Tears pricked his eyes. If he cried, he'd look like a spoiled brat, but that thought made them pool faster. "Yeah, but it isn't– I'm not saying it like that." His words were suppressed by growing frustration, his fluency escaping him. "It isn't easy," he said. It hasn't been easy from the start, but no one cared, he failed to formulate. "Not as easy as it's been for you guys," a deeper, angrier part of him wanted to say.

His hand slammed onto his mouth. He did not just say that.

He'd tried so hard to come up with what he actually wanted to communicate, but the raw, unprocessed thoughts made it through without a hitch.

Donnie's browline furrowed. "I have to disagree. What Leo went through today was not easy for him."

"I know, but…" The words twisted in his mouth and tangled up behind his teeth. His head, cloudier by the minute, couldn't think of a single thing to say. In fact, there was only one sole string of thoughts running through it. It was so unnervingly quiet.

He scrubbed at his watery eyes.

"You don't know, Mikey." He was sitting criss-crossed in the chair now, his foot thumping against the cushion. "It's a lot to adjust to. I'm worried that the longer he stays like that—the longer we stay like this—the longer it'll take to get back to normal. I should be working–"

"Is it only important now that everyone else is changing?" He asked, part of him dreading the answer, the other part anticipating it.

Donnie stopped dead in his tracks. He stared blankly at Mikey, and for a second, he looked like himself again. Analyzing, thinking.

Since when did he not look like himself? Did it already happen to all of them? How did he not notice before?—It was his job to make sure his brothers were doing okay.

"No, I… What does that mean?"

"I don't know." He knew, but he wouldn't be able to say it right.

He'd given up agency over his own body to appease their indifference, only for his feelings to be pushed to the side. When Donnie hadn't taken his opinion into consideration, when he put his shoulder back into place without making sure it was okay with him, had that been an act against him? Why, why would his brother mess with his health when it wasn't his right to?

What else had he done without him knowing?

Donnie's beak tightened. He was tapping repeatedly on his chair's armrest, leg bouncing. "I understand it's been difficult, but I can't know what you mean without an explanation."

"I haven't been myself in weeks," he insisted, his voice straining. Hearing his rightful one invalidating the few words that could get through made his skin crawl with resentment. He knows better than to do that to himself. He knows about self care, about minimizing his own experiences; he learned about that stuff to keep their family from breaking apart, and it felt like Donnie was undoing all of that progress. "I haven't been able to do anything without– without– I mess it up every damn time!"

"I'm trying," Donnie told him, a fundamental misunderstanding between them. Subconsciously, Mikey knew how to remedy that. He knew how to explain it to Donnie in a way that would make sense for him, but he couldn't bring that knowledge past his throat. "The machine will be done by next week."

That's not what he meant. Why can't he say what he means? "You aren't listening!" Was what came out instead of the clarification that Donnie needed. He could hear the sudden anger in Raph's voice, the sharp gasps he needed to take after yelling. He was a life on its last fighting breath, a grease fire running on its last drop of fuel. Neither Raph nor Mikey, he didn't know how he was supposed to stop it from burning.

Donnie clutched the armrests. "I'm– I'm just tired. I've been tasked with switching us back, and I've been working nonstop."

How has he been working nonstop without making any progress? It doesn't line up. For all he knew, Donnie could've been doing nothing in here the whole time!

He bit his tongue, drawing blood. Keep it together. "And it's still not done?" He wanted to mean it innocently, but he sounded more annoyed with each passing moment.

"I– I didn't recognize the severity of the situation. Now that I know our time is limited, I will take it seriously."

For some reason, that statement didn't hold up. He had to take a second to think about it; his interpersonal awareness hasn’t been too active after the switch, but he remembered that Donnie had taken it seriously, at least in the earlier days.

"Haven't you?" He asked, genuine. His mouth tasted of metal. "You have been taking it seriously." The single train of thought in his head started berating him for not remembering earlier, but negative self-talk was not his main issue right now, so he let it run.

Donnie's eyes drifted, because surely he knew Mikey was telling the truth. He has been taking it seriously. So seriously that he skipped training to work on the machine instead. So seriously that he refused to use his mystic weapon, certain that they would switch back and there would be no need. "I can't j– It isn't th– I'm afraid I cannot give an affirmative. It remains unfinished, after all."

Well, which one was it!? Did he take it seriously or not? Was he working or was he doing nothing?

He must be lying. "You're lying." Mikey's words might not be coming out right, but he still knows how his brothers work. He knows Donnie is lying; if he admitted he put his all into something that was unsuccessful, then he wouldn't feel as smart as he made himself out to be.

The knowledge that Donnie was lying to his face made his chest burn. Why couldn't he admit that he can't fucking finish the machine alone?

"The switch only became a problem today, now that I know we're… fading, so I did not act as quickly as I could have."

It only became a problem today? It's been a problem from the start, and Donnie knows that! Tears seeped from his eyes, but he wasn't sad or disappointed. He was pissed off, approaching fucking furious. "What?" It was in Raph's voice, but the real Raph wasn't here.

Donnie tensed at the sound of it. His chest rose and fell steeper than it had a few minutes ago. "Because," he swallowed, "it didn't strike me as particularly pressing when it was only our bodies. That were switched. I can see now that is not the c–"

"You're– That's not true." Why did he say it like that? He wanted to tell Donnie that it was okay to be wrong sometimes, or that it was okay that he needed help on this one thing this one time, but he couldn't get it out! His thoughts were being watered down into sentences that barely counted as coherent.

What is wrong with him?

His brother, who he loved so much, lifted his barriers, as if he was trying to protect himself from Mikey. "Why are you so adamant to prove me wrong?"

"Because you took everything from me!" Every piece of him—the weapon that Donnie didn't deem useful, the cooking without a drop of care put into it, his art, his identity—had all been taken from him, and after it was all gone, he wasn't even the same person anymore. Just like that, his individuality was stripped away, and beneath it was nothing.

Mikey didn't know where this was coming from, but he couldn't stop. He didn't know how to stop, and it was spilling out faster than he could pick it back up.

His arms needed to move so bad. He swung at the wall nearest to him, the metal clanging against his fist, but providing not nearly enough relief from whatever hell was festering inside him.

"Woah, nelly," Donnie breathed. "Mikey, calm down."

Under Raph's consciousness, he clawed for dominance over the dizzy rage that filled him, but he couldn't– "Calm down?" He heard Raph's voice boom.

"Please."

What little control he had left was gone. All he could see was red.

He grabbed at the first thing he could get a grip on, a metal table that was bolted to the floor on all sides, and yanked it off the ground. The metal creaked and groaned when it bent, the bolts popping out and allowing him to flip the table on its side. Papers fluttered to the ground.

Still unsatisfied, he kicked the table across the lab and sent it straight into one of Donnie's screens, its glass shattering, a familiar sound, but no shards fell.

Donnie's voice, muffled by the flicker of the broken screen and the purple lights, passed right over his tympana.

Raph's body reached for another object, but it was all too blurry for him to see. His vision was fading from red to black, a void much too similar but thankfully different from the empty white of Draxum's machine.

Reality abruptly set back in.

His blackout felt like it'd lasted for a second or two at most, the only displacement he'd noticed being that he was a few feet away from where he last was, and that Donnie's lab was in ruin.

His papers now littered the floor. Three other screens were broken and discolored, one of which was ripped off its mount, hanging by a single wire.

His knuckles stung, and he was winded. There were dents in the walls, stray nails jutting from the floor, pipes bent out of shape, and a light that had been dislodged from its spot that shone directly onto–

Him.

His rightful body, backed into the furthest corner away from him, completely frozen up.

He'd seen this before. He'd seen his brothers afraid of what his strength was capable of destroying, the vivid fear in their eyes when he'd lashed out. He could remember Mikey and Donnie hiding behind Leo, the only one brave enough to stand between them and him.

The memory overwhelmed him with so much secondhand guilt that it immediately grounded him. Donnie's lab wasn't so fuzzy anymore, and he was finally present enough to try taming his breath.

It was from Raph's perspective. The body that should be his was on the other side of Leo, and they were all afraid of the real Raph. The Raph from before the switch.

He almost didn't realize; he'd gotten so used to Raph's point of view. Was his brain recreating his memory of that day because of that? It had to be some kind of mistake, some kind of mental gymnastics he was pulling to be able to see that memory from a different angle. Before just now, he'd sworn he'd forgotten about that day altogether.

"Mikey…?"

He cupped his temple in both palms.

==========

The shell on his back was pressed hard against the walls behind him. Careful of causing another outburst, he'd removed himself from Mikey's vicinity for his own safety.

He'd witnessed his lab being smashed to pieces. He knew better than to try stopping Raph's body while the person inside was inaccessible, as it rendered Donnie powerless. Mikey had been unresponsive; his pupils bounded between whatever caught his eye, his movements jerky and rigid as if something had taken hold of him. Whatever words left his mouth were primal, mechanical.

Donnie had tried his best to stay unmoving so as to not draw his attention. Even after Mikey had presumably come back to Earth, he was still locked into place.

All he could do was watch as his brother held his head in Raph's large hands. Through heavy breaths, he said, "I'm scared."

That made both of them, but Mikey was arguably more scared than Donnie.

"I'm sorry, I– I don't know what happened, I d– first I was over there, and now I'm over here, and everything in between was just…" He looked at what was left of Donnie's lab, then at his bruised knuckles. "I think I saw one of Raph's memories," he whispered. "I saw his– I saw us."

Confident that Mikey was back, Donnie approached him despite his better judgment. Mere moments ago, Mikey was ripping metal off its hinges (from previous tests, he'd already known Raph's body was capable of that, but he hadn't quite connected that to Mikey post-switch), yet his hand was on his shoulder, and his gaze was fixed on his. "What did you see?" He asked, trying his best to evaluate the implications of this, and how the memories would affect them functionally, and how they would impact their relationships with each other in the near future, but he couldn't. All he could think about was calming Mikey down and understanding what he's going through.

These are Mikey's priorities. Mikey is the one who asks how his brothers are doing. He's the one who tries his best to understand and comfort them. He is becoming Mikey.

Fuck.

Fuck.

"It was that time when– when Raph was mad because we didn't listen to him during that, uhh, that one mission. From before when we switched. And I saw myself. I saw me, Donnie, and I was– it hurt."

Donnie instinctively held his arms out. He'd never been one to offer support in this way (usually a hug was what he asked for and not what he gave without prompting), but it felt right in the moment.

Mikey hesitated. He waited a moment, visibly confused, and then accepted the gesture.

When Donnie was enveloped in Mikey's arms, he sank into them. But instead of the usual security he felt in Raph's body's hold, he was alarmed.

Not because something was wrong, no, quite the opposite: not even initially does the touch bother him.

He ran his hand down Mikey's carapace, careful of the spikes. Without having to think through each of his options, Donnie acted upon what he wholeheartedly believed was the best choice. "It'll be okay," he assured him, the words coming so naturally, his chest beating with pain on Mikey's behalf. "I forgive you for this. I hope I can be forgiven for my ignorance."

His throat was heavy with apprehension. "I admit that at times, I am irresponsibly self-centered. Though logic is undoubtedly important," he cleared his throat, "I must acknowledge that, in your time of need, I have… failed. Not only to do what I am best at—engineering—but to, as your brother, stand beside you and value your emotions. And that is my greatest failure."

Mikey shook his head, his arms trembling, yet he said nothing.

Holding his little brother as he cried caused his own dams to break, but he persisted. "I swear not on Galileo, but on my belief in the stars, that I have always cared about how you experience this world, Angelo." He choked back a sob. It was all falling out so easily; all of the emotions he could never quite figure out how to express were suddenly working in tandem with this body and his diction. "And that has never changed. To think that I have hurt you, or that– What I'm saying is, I'm sorry too."

Overflowing with disbelief, Mikey pulled away to dry his tears. He chuckled, but his smile faltered, and he had to wipe his eyes again. "Of course I forgive you. It's not like I expect you to read my mind all telepathy-like."

Donnie quickly wiped his eyes as well. He sniffled, keeping a hand on Mikey's shoulder as Leo liked to do. He was glad to be forgiven, but he wasn't sure how to say that. "This doesn't count as me crying since it's in your body."

They laughed, and Donnie's hand didn't budge.

He finally got it. That night in the medbay, when Leo had put one hand on his shoulder, he didn't understand what was so meaningful about it. Now he felt it: the need to connect through physical touch that Mikey always exhibited, but that he'd never personally related to. That's Leo and Mikey's thing, maybe Raph’s as well; this feeling is not meant to be his. Donnie doesn't want to take these experiences away from them, nor does he want to betray his true self.

Perhaps if his capabilities surpassed or met expectation, he would be able to switch them back alone. Evidently, though, striving for that was doing no good for any of them. "We'll get you out of there. Promise." But his eyes are filled with water again, and tears are tumbling down his cheeks. He was beginning to cry for the second time today, unable to understand how Mikey survived when his emotions showed so easily.

"Dee?" His brother asked, soft and concerned.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, full-chested. He would've said it even if he didn't have Mikey's disposition. These words are his and no one else's. "I'll listen from now on. We'll switch back together. Unscramble ourselves, if I may suggest."

Mikey hummed. "I don't think we were scrambled. We're more like one of those sliding puzzles."

Donnie didn't know what to say. Almost subconsciously, he'd given up and accepted that they'd never get back, and that they were scrambled forever. That reassurance was exactly what he needed to hear.

He didn't like seeing the guilt painting Mikey's expression as he looked around at the lab again, scrutinizing the damage he'd done. "We can tidy up after we rest. It's no big deal." It was nothing he couldn't fix. "I'm actually relieved to have a task other than the Fwoopinator. Cleaning up my lab is at least doable–" He grunted when Mikey practically tackled him into another hug, this one wordless yet tighter than the last.

Then, just before he could allow himself to enjoy it, Mikey retracted himself for a final time. "Do you think those chalk markings had anything to do with it? Our switch."

He hadn't gotten a very good look at the markings, as he only noticed them after the police officers came in, but he didn't think much of them.

Because he promised to listen, however, he considered it. "Unless the ooze somehow used the markings as a vessel…" His foot was tapping again. It didn't make sense for ooze, the substance he associated with mutations, to be the cause of their switch, but that was the only thing they found in Draxum's machine…

It wasn't ooze. Not exactly, anyway. It was so simple! Caught up in his excitement, Donnie grabbed Mikey's shoulders, both this time. "Unless the empyrean used them as a vessel! For fuck's s– science be damned, Mikey, our switch was mystic!"

Mikey lit up. "You figured out how it happened?"

More than that. "It was never science," he accepted, Mikey responding with an excited nod. Finding out something new about their switch was like gulping down air after breaking through the surface tension, invigorating. "The ooze is mystic, right? It shines when I put on my goggles, and according to those statues, every yokai absolutely knows about it. That means the ooze, the empyrean, must have more mystic properties than we thought! It's the thing that switched us! Oh, it makes so much sense!" There was only one thing stopping him from celebrating right then and there.

"So it'll be a lot easier now?"

"It– It won't be. Switching back on our own would be so much harder."

Notes:

this took forever to finish, i had 3 competitions this week and it was hell, but im glad i managed to finish this :D (i may or may not have annotated this chapter bc i was paranoid it wouldnt make sense......)

some more character-centric chapters are coming up but also expect some Plot. & happy early april! there will more than likely be an april appearance in honor of the month of course

420 kudos LETS GOOO this is the best day ever
thank you again for all the support!! i cant wait to have more free time to write more, ive been having fwoop withdrawals

Chapter 13: This is a Collective Nightmare

Summary:

That one caught him off guard. His jaw tightened. He was almost more shaken than when he'd looked down, surrounded by red, the ground so far beneath him that it made him think he was already falling.

Notes:

!! forgetting to eat (donnie's pov) !!
!! mention of trauma from coming out (mikeys pov) !!

happy 4/20😁

The last time he'd eaten must've been at least two or three mealtimes ago, and he couldn't even remember the last time he drank water.

Before the switch, his routine had been so ingrained in him that he never would have forgotten to do simple things like staying hydrated or nourishing his body. Now, it kept slipping his mind. Only when he was at his breaking point of emotional and physical turmoil was the hunger urgent enough for him to go to the kitchen.

Nauseous, dizzy, and somewhat seeing black spots in his vision, he untwisted the plastic around the loaf of bread and scarfed down the end piece. He didn't even care if it was objectively the worst part of the bread; he was starving.

For good measure, he took another piece, this one much more pleasant to eat.

It could use more flavor though. Maybe if he toasted it, spread something over it, added some kind of fruit or meat…

He shook his head. Plain is fine.

Just to prove to himself that he preferred it plain, he ate a third piece. He ended up putting some salami on top, but he justified that by telling himself he needed it for the nutritional value, and not because it gave the flavor profile more depth.

Okay, maybe he should just give this body what it wants. That was not satisfying whatsoever.

Even worse, when his glass of water began to condensate, the water didn't bother him at all. He let his hand air-dry, unpleasantly surprised with all of the new changes he was noticing now that he knew their bodies weren't the only things that switched.

They're fading. Fast. And there's nothing he can do about it.

There's no way for him to replicate Draxum's machine without a clear image of the chalk markings, and he couldn't even research empyrean without visiting some sort of mystic library. If that even exists.

A mystic library would be pretty cool. He imagined it would be endless, with more knowledge than the Library of Alexandria must've had—information further than the internet could offer. He would be able to navigate it with ease, and he would find the one specific book that would tell them all about how to get back…

Hopefully it wouldn't get burned down like the Library of Alexandria was, but he assumed there'd be a mystic shield to stop that from happening.

Speaking of burning, did someone turn on the heater? It was a little warm.

He finished his glass of water.

Perhaps he and his brothers could ask an actual yokai for help.

They weren't good friends with many yokai. They could ask Todd, maybe? No, Repo Mantis said that Todd is a mutant. He doubted Todd would know about empyrean in the first place.

There was only one other yokai he could think of that they had relatively good relations with…

"Orange?"

Donnie's head snapped to the doorway. "Yeah?" He hoped his quick response was from the surprise of hearing someone at all and not from hearing Mikey's nickname.

"My son, have you not slept?"

"I was about to." He had to get out of there before he gave away the switch. Raph had already planted the seeds of possibility in Dad's head.

Splinter's tail dragged on the kitchen floor. He examined the countertop, running a finger over it as if a layer of dust were there. "Before you go," he began. His ear with the nick in it twitched. He never specifically told them what it was from, but they assumed Raph bit it when he was a tot. "I saw your drawing under the ramp. It is…" He made a gesture with his hands. "It is very good."

Donnie was more confused than anything. Did he leave one of his blueprints under the ramp? No, then Dad wouldn't be talking to Mikey's body about it.

The birthday sign! Chocolate pancakes, he'd forgotten all about that, what with all this shit going on. "Oh," he said.

Being complimented would typically bring him insurmountable joy, but right now, all he felt was guilt. It was because he wasn't actually the one to draw that sign, of course, but it still felt wrong to react negatively to praise. On top of that, he feared accepting the compliment would be taking from Mikey once more.

He had to say something though. "You should tell that to the real Mikey," he decided on. Betraying Mikey's trust, which he'd only just regained, outweighed the consequences of revealing the switch. "I'm going to bed now. Goodnight."

Before Splinter could even respond, Donnie was out of the kitchen. Mikey's legs were pretty fast for being so short. He used them to hop up onto the third floor, retreating into his lab to avoid being around his father.

He knew he'd already let his brothers down, but upon talking to Dad one-on-one, he found that he felt no less like a failure in front of him. He had always been the one they could depend on, but that was only for science, and engineering, and architecture. Why did he ever think he could take on something so clearly mystic?

He'd gotten caught up in his ego, his hubris, at the expense of their wellbeings.

Donnie grimaced. He grabbed at the stickers on Mikey's plastron and ripped them off.

"Ow! Ah, fuck!" It stung, and he'd screamed louder than he intended, but he wanted them off. He could've kept picking at them, but he didn't have time to wait around anymore. He didn't have time to take things slow. He didn't have time for this shit!

He crumpled them up and dropped them on the floor.

Suddenly, he needed to clean his lab. It was incredibly important to him at that very moment; he didn't know why, as he didn't care too much about a couple TVs and an easily-rebuildable table, but he had to occupy himself.

It's not like he had anything better to do. He could sleep later.

==========

Mikey was walking through the streets of New York City. He looked around at all the shops and the food stalls, but he'd forgotten his hoodie, so he felt kind of naked. The humans around him weren't paying him any mind though. In fact, they didn't even notice him.

He'd lost his brothers a while ago. They'd split off from him to look at this big statue instead. It wasn't the Statue of Liberty, he didn't think, but it was a lot like her. She had this long, wavy hair and she was wearing this big hat with all these crow feathers jutting out from the top.

He hadn't been too interested, so he left and went down one of the main streets. Something told him Leo also left because he got bored, but he must've followed the other road.

Before he could finish looking at the choices at the hot dog stand, he heard something running towards him.

It was a sheep with slitted eyes and black wool, its heavy footsteps getting louder as it chased him through the New York alleys.

He'd been running for forever. Every time he turned a corner, he could've sworn it looked exactly the same as the corridor from before, but every time he looked back, the sheep was still after him.

When he hit a dead end, he panicked and tried climbing up.

He was halfway up when he became very heavy. He hit the floor and the sheep started stomping on him, slamming him down into the stone and pushing his skin into his flesh.

There was no way for him to get out. He was trapped.

His head, his arms, his legs wouldn't lower into his shell no matter how hard he tried to pull them in. The sheep wouldn't stop trampling him. He was sure his brothers wouldn't let him go off alone again.

He accepted his fate and closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was towering over New York. The alleyway had been decimated, and he'd accidentally stepped on the sheep and left its guts in a puddle of blood and black wool.

His head was up in the clouds, dark and thunderous. He tried maneuvering around the buildings and the people, but he kept teetering back and forth, leveling all of the buildings and probably killing hundreds of people in the process. He wanted to cry.

The clouds started raining. Drops of water battered his head and his shoulder and trickled all the way down to his feet.

It made the ground slippery, so he stopped moving to avoid tripping and making everything worse. He didn't want to hurt anyone, but with how gigantic he was, it was unavoidable.

Soon, the water reached his ankles, which would surely drown the surviving people.

And his brothers! He had to find his brothers before New York was completely underwater.

He tried calling out their names, but all he could say was "help!" Even if he was the last person who needed help; everyone else below him was drowning, and he was all the way up here.

Fighting against the weight of the water, he rushed to find them, but he slipped and fell into it. His face hit the surface, his lungs burning as he sucked in chlorine.

Beneath the layer of water, where New York should have been, there was nothing. He grabbed and pulled at the pool above him, but he was sinking, and he plummeted into a white void.

Mikey jolted awake. The sensation of falling quickly dissipated as he shot up, his fingers gripping Raph's blanket. His chest rose and fell and pressed against his plastron each time it did, his hand reaching up to check whether he was still there or not. Beads of sweat dripped down his temple.

That was an awfully confusing dream. It was one of those that he didn't know whether to count as a nightmare or not; it got his heart pumping, but it wasn't that freaky now that he'd woken up from it.

He groaned and laid back down.

It didn't take longer than a few minutes for him to figure he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, so he checked his phone. He prepared for the brightness of the screen to blind him, but it was already dim from the last time he used it—also the dead of night—so he flinched for nothing.

4:01 a.m.

He turned over on his side to get a little more comfortable, but even Raph's room felt far too small for him right now.

Instead of withering away in the lair, he tiptoed out of the atrium. He was relieved to have control over his movements.

When he surfaced, he breathed in the open air and tried to take his mind off of the day before.

The night was crisp, and the stars were out. They were hard to see on most nights—Donnie'd told him it was because of light pollution—but they were bright, and he was so close to them.

At first, he was afraid being atop a building would emulate the height of the mystic construct, but it wasn't so bad if he didn't look down.

He ran along a bunch of rooftops. His muscle memory allowed him to jump between each one over what felt like miles of empty air, so he trusted himself to keep going; he was trying to find the best place to see the stars.

The surroundings began to look familiar, so he came to a slow stop. He was across from the building where he'd met that snake. He could see the dent from when he punched its bulkhead.

A small part of him hoped he'd see them again, so he sat at the edge of the roof.

He regretted it immediately. Without any sort of movement to focus on, seeing how high up he was really froze him up. It made him feel much, much too big, almost disorientingly so, and he had to rip himself away to snap out of it.

His hands ran over Raph's limbs in a frenzy. He had to make sure that his feet were still anchored to something. He had to make sure he was still there.

Unfortunately, it also reminded him he was in Raph's body. He pulled his hands away just as fast as they'd–

"Fancy seeing you here, Mikey."

Mikey's head whipped around.

Pierce quickly raised their tail to their mouth. "Shh, someone might hear us! Jesus, I didn't even mean to scare you that time."

He must've screamed, but he was so startled that he didn't even remember if he did or not. If Raph's body could stop putting him on autopilot, that'd be great. "My bad!"

They just laughed. "It's okay. We can run if we have to. Or– I can slither or something."

Mikey smiled, but he couldn't bring himself to laugh along with them. He was closer to the sky, but he was still afraid of going near that ledge. "Yeah, I guess." He half-expected to come up with some conversation starters, but he couldn't think of any, or maybe he wasn't up for it. "How've you been?" He asked. Typical small-talk was the best he could do, to be honest.

Pierce probably gave him a weird look. It was hard to tell with the darkness and their snake facial features. Snacial features. "Same as before. Not great, not good." Their slitted eyes scanned over the people below. Mikey felt stupid for even dreaming about walking among them. It seemed impossible now that he was here. "Uh. How about you?"

"Same deal." He stood a ways away from the edge of the roof.

That was about the end of that conversation. Mikey sat down and rested his chin on his hand. He was getting kind of tired again—the chilliness made him want to get back into bed—but he knew the second he laid down, he would be wide awake.

Pierce was staring at the building across from them.

Didn't they say they used to live there before they got mutated? That must be why they're here so often. "D'you wanna see your family again?"

They didn't respond right away, but he knew they heard him. New York wasn't that loud tonight. There were a few car horns and some noisy tourists, but all of that was way down there, and the two of them were way up here. "Not really," they finally said. "My brother, maybe, but he's too busy being in college."

Now he understood why Pierce was attacking those adults. Their parents must've done something just before their mutation, but he couldn't find a way to ask about it gracefully. He knew he should be careful when handling a sensitive subject– "What'd your parents do?" It slipped out before he could stop himself. "Not that you have to answer! Sorry, I'm so out of it right now."

"No, it's cool." The bits of metal between their scales shone in the moonlight. "Since you asked, they kicked me out. Before this whole snake thing."

"Why?" He tried to bite his tongue again, but it was still sore from when he did during his and Donnie’s fight. Sheer willpower would not keep his trap shut though; it's a wonder he didn't tell Dad about the switch on the spot yesterday.

"Because I'm– Because I got a septum piercing without their permission, I guess."

Mikey decided he wouldn't let just anything in his brain fall straight to his mouth. That'd happened enough. "That really sucks. It, uh… Is that where you get your name? I mean– obviously your parents didn't name you for it! Never mind."

Pierce just smiled. They gestured for Mikey to sit next to them on the ledge.

Despite himself, he sat with them. Being with someone else made it not so scary.

"Spot on, kiddo. But instead of my parents naming me for it, I named myself. I thought it sounded cool a couple years ago."

Kiddo? Granted, they'd called him that with a hint of sarcasm, but Raph's body didn't look very young at all, and he guessed Raph was almost as old as Pierce considering their mannerisms. How could they tell he wasn't as old as he appeared?

He must've looked confused, because they continued. "The name everyone else used for me didn't feel right—sounded like a completely different person to me—so I picked a new one."

"Oh," he said. That wasn't what he was confused about, but it was alarmingly similar-sounding to his current situation. "I totally get what you mean, mi amigo,” he offered, imitating a different brother of his. "You shot for home and hit really close to it."

"Woah, seriously?" They were pretty excited over him relating. "I mean," they cleared their throat, the hinges along their neck rippling as they did. It was kind of cool. "Going from human to mutant is sort of like that," they remarked. "But you were never human, I think. So… you're talking about who you are, right? Like, how you're referred to…?"

He didn't really know what they were getting at. "What?" It was stupid, but it was all he could think to say (other than what he was already thinking of, that is. He was arguing back and forth with himself on whether or not he should tell Pierce about the switch. He wished he could say it out loud for himself to listen to; his thoughts were getting jumbled from being stuck in his head, but it wasn't an appropriate time to talk to himself right now).

“Like…” They stopped though, and they reeled it in. He knew they reeled it in because he did it the same way; they stopped talking, stared into space. "I'm saying, are you talking about not liking the body you're in? Like, you're someone on the outside but a different person on the inside?"

That one caught him off guard. His jaw tightened. He was almost more shaken than when he'd looked down, surrounded by red, the ground so far beneath him that it made him think he was already falling.

How did they know?

He fell backwards off the concrete border and pushed himself away from the ledge with Raph's legs.

Pierce's body coiled up a little tighter. "Sorry, too personal?"

"Yeah– No! I mean, I don't know how you guessed it." It was an understatement, that's for sure. He awkwardly readjusted himself into a sitting position again, trying to play it off as a simple loss of balance. "It must be all your elderly wisdom."

"I was right! You're younger than me? I'm sixteen."

That would make them the same age as April. He wondered if they knew each other.

Mikey straightened his posture. Some of his jitters had faded. "I am! I'm the youngest of the litter, actually; the runt if you will." He flexed Raph's arm to make a big show of it. At least being in his brother's body made for some good jokes.

They snorted. "Right, since you're definitely the smallest out of your brothers."

Well, he was. Past tense and all that.

His stomach flipped. He could feel himself starting to sweat against the chill.

The irony was lost on them. He already knew there was no real way to know they'd been switched unless the person knew them beforehand, but it'd only just dawned on him: he’s going to be Raph to everyone he meets for the rest of his life.

Eventually, to the entire world, he would be Raph. After that happens, and after their brains are completely switched, what's left to stop him from just being Raph?

He realized his browline was all scrunched up, so he relaxed his face and wiped his eyes.

"Woah. Are you good? Sorry, th'other stuff was probably too personal."

"No, it… I've actually been dying to tell someone else," he admitted, sniffling. He sort of regretted it though, because it made his nostrils all dry from the cold air.

Pierce slid off the border to face Mikey. "I'm listening." They'd said it so calmly. It reminded him of Donnie.

He wished he would've communicated with Donnie a little better. The more he thought over their confrontation, the more antsy he got. He should say sorry again when Donnie wakes up. Maybe he'll be able to get the goddamn words out this time.

"Me and my brothers are all sort of… I dunno, but we're switched with each other. Like, I'm Mikey, but this is my brother's body. Isn't that Cocoa Puffs?" He didn't mean to dump this on someone he barely knew, but he really had been dying to talk about it, and the opportunity came up. "It's because of some evil guy who created us in a lab and stuff. I guess he wanted us dead, but he ended up swapping our brains instead."

The silence that followed was about as subtle as the world collapsing in on itself. "Jesus Christ. That is not what I was expecting you to say."

"Yeah, it's okay if you don't believe me."

They shook their head and gazed at the building with the dented bulkhead, the one across from them. "I believe you," they quietly said. "So, which one's your actual body? I think I remember what the other three look like."

Hearing them call it his "actual body" made him feel a little better. "The box turtle! I have yellow markings and stickers on my chest and stuff."

"Ohh! I do remember. The one that netted me, right? I get how you're the smallest now."

Mikey internally cringed when he remembered their scuffle. Putting them in a net was a bit overkill in his opinion. "Mhm! I'm thirteen."

Pierce looked at him as if he were crazy. "You're thirteen?" They confirmed, to which Mikey nodded. "You're thirteen and you have all that happening to you?"

He just nodded again. Their change in tone along with their visible fangs when they emphasized "thirteen" kind of scared away his words.

They frowned. "Having yourself taken away from you? That sounds like it would f– mess someone up."

Mikey wanted to say they didn't have to avoid swearing around him, but he missed being treated his age, so he let it slide. "Yeah. I haven't felt like myself much, if you catch my drift." He tilted his head all the way back to look at the stars and pretend to be all apathetic about it, but he was just stopping his tears from falling. They evaporated quick in the cold air anyway.

"Wanna know what I did to feel like myself?"

He brought his head back down. "What?"

"I don't know if you guys wear clothes, but I'd wear things that– like, make it so I'm expressing myself. You could get some of those stickers?"

"That's a great idea!" How did he not think of that? Touching up everyone's old gear and getting it to fit would definitely boost morale around the lair.

A wave of excitement bit him harder than the wind that passed by. He subconsciously reached behind his head to hold his mask tails, even if they weren't there. "Thanks for this! I think I'm gonna jet."

Pierce grinned. "I'll sssssee you around, Mikey." They obviously played up the hiss when they said it, and it made Mikey laugh for at least a minute before he was able to leave.

==========

Mikey couldn't've gotten home any slower. When he did, though, he took the time to tiptoe past every room just to be safe. He was especially quiet when he grabbed his kusari-fundo from the middle of the atrium, where Dad had left it; he didn't want to get in trouble, but more importantly, he wanted this to be a surprise.

He swore he could hear something coming from Donnie's lab, but he was too excited to stop and check. Instead, he went to his room, the one with Mrs. Porkycoin. Raph usually slept in there so Mikey could have a bed that was big enough, but he had fallen asleep in the living room last night.

As he sat down on the floor of his room, he thought about asking if he could take it back. He can deal with a smaller bed.

He rolled out his bolt of purple satin, intending to cut it with his 'fundo—Raph's fingers were too big to use scissors, so he made do.

Blue and orange and red fabric, pencils, markers, and a needle and thread were splayed on the floor of his room, ready to contribute to his little project.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he was inspired to create something, and he was willing to jump at the chance despite his loss of skill.

He finally felt like himself.

And after that talk, Mikey figured that Donnie probably didn't feel like himself either.

He was the child prodigy and virtually unrivaled smart-guy, but it wasn't like his smarts were taken away from him, no. It's just that he'd finally met a problem he couldn't solve.

Mikey couldn't tell whether Donnie realized this himself or not, but now that he knew, he couldn't stop wishing Raph's shaky hands would cut the fabric faster, sew faster, measure faster, because there was a problem right in front of him, and by brute-forcing his way through this process, he could help fix it.

==========

After getting home from the police station, Leo had gone straight to bed. He didn't even notice he hadn't showered until he woke up hours later.

Out of habit, he contemplated changing the bedsheets, or at least the pillow, but it couldn't be that bad if there wasn't any visible dirt. He rubbed his fingers together, and then down the sheets, taking note of how neither felt particularly dirty to him.

Then the day before set in.

What the hell happened back there? It's not like loud noises ever had that much of an effect on him, but oh, it just had to happen when it was most important. And after Raph said he wasn't useful? All he did was prove his point!

Maybe Raph was right. He wasn't fit to be more than the face man.

And without his face, he was useless.

He was useless! In Draxum's lab, both times, he was absolutely useless! He'd even go so far as to say he was a hindrance the second time around.

Discouraged, he sat back down on his bed and stared at his Jupiter Jim poster. He was still trying to process everything that went down yesterday, but trying to wrap his head around it was tiring him out.

He shielded his eyes from the morning light. Weren't they supposed to talk to Dad after a quick nap? He was sure it'd be fine—they needed sleep anyway—but he really did not want Raph to get onto him for sleeping in. He didn't think he could handle someone yelling at him right now.

"Leo," he heard. It was so quiet that he thought it might be his inner monologue going rogue. Seeing Raph at the entranceway disproved that stupid thought. "You awake?"

Leo might've preferred his inner monologue driving him crazy over having to talk to Raph.

"Can I come in?"

He wasn't sure if Raph was angry or sad or what; his tone gave nothing away. So he wouldn't offend him, he nodded.

Raph stiffly stood in front of him, so Leo patted the spot next to him on the bed. He didn't care about keeping it clean anymore. He'd already slept in it after a fight.

They sat together.

It was a while before Raph said anything. His beak kept opening and then closing again. "I didn't mean to say all that to you. Before we went to– yeah."

He didn't look at him.

"Look, Leo, when we were in that maze…" At first, Leo didn't even know what Raph was talking about. This was coming out of nowhere. "I was stressed out. And I really thought we were gonna die. So– but I wanted to say sorry for being so pushy. I know it's late."

Leo fidgeted. He knew he couldn't stay mad at him forever, so he tried giving an "it's okay" or an "it's cool, bro" at least, but he couldn't. He didn't think he was being stubborn or anything. The words just sat on his tongue and wouldn't come out.

"I know I messed up. A lot," Raph continued. "Especially yesterday. That was stupid of me." He tried looking at Leo, but Leo's eyes wouldn't stay on Raph's. He couldn't do it.

He couldn't. He couldn't even open his mouth.

It was a sick joke. He wanted his voice back. He wanted Raph to give him his voice back.

"So… I wanted to ask before telling Pops about everything. Is that okay?"

A yes-or-no question! Leo nodded, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

"Okay. We'll tell him today." Raph slouched. "Y'know how we're all swapping personalities? Or, something like that. I think I got your people skills. It really helped back in the police station. Wanted you to know."

His skills helped? Leo sat up a little straighter, but Raph was already standing up to leave. Wait, he thought. He needs to tell him he's forgiven.

"That's all I wanted to say." Raph had turned away from him. "Mikey made pancakes if you're hungry."

Even after Raph was gone, Leo still tried calling out to him. He hoped he wasn't mad at him for not responding, but if he was mad, he would've been raising his voice like he did yesterday.

Like he did yesterday. Raph was the one who called him useless. He'd used his own face, his own voice, to call him useless.

He flopped backwards onto his bed again, holding his hands over his eyes. He didn't think he was mad at Raph, but he wanted to hit something, so maybe he was.

He reflexively removed his hands from his face. What is he doing? His hands were dirty—he knew they were dirty—but they didn't feel dirty, and now he was touching his face all willy nilly with them.

It was kind of gross if he thought about it, but that didn't stop him from doing it again.

This must be what Raph meant when he said they were swapping personalities, except it wasn't just their personalities. It was more.

Yesterday, when everything was too much, that must've been what Donnie goes through. What was it again? It was along the lines of, like, sensory override. Sensory overdose? Overload? Whatever it was, he had it.

That must be why Donnie knew how to help though. Fuck, if he'd known sensory overdose—or overload, whatever—if he'd known it was that bad, he would've made more of an effort to be accomodating to him. For their entire lives.

God, was he that selfish?

The idea of going to the kitchen to get food sounded like so much work. He wanted to fall back asleep, but he knew he'd be better off getting up.

Even so, it took a while for his body to move. He was too busy thinking about how Donnie's traits were taking over his, and how stupid that was. Did that mean he'd start liking Donnie's shitty music too? If he started listening to that dubstep shit unironically, he would never hear the end of it for making fun of it before.

It could happen though. Their brains are switching, so that must mean Raph has his germ thing.

That thought got him to sit up. Because for one, that meant it wasn't something everyone had. Secondly, it meant Raph had to deal with it, and he did not want his older brother to find out he does things like scrub his bed frame with Clorox wipes and wash his hands over and over. That's sort of embarrassing. Ugh, and he'd tried so hard to hide it!

No, it isn't about that. What he should do is tell Raph before something like yesterday happens. That's the most logical thing to do.

Miffed that the floor was too cold, he quickened his pace.

He was hoping the kitchen would be empty so he wouldn't have to interact with anyone, but he heard the fridge close, so he stopped to mentally prepare himself.

Something was being chopped up, a glass bottle was gently set on the counter, and then something was being shaken. It sounded like the syrup bottle and the powdered sugar, so he assumed it was Mikey.

In a way, he was right.

Donnie didn't notice him, so he knocked on the counter. Donnie jumped. "Belgian waffles–"

Are you sure? Those look like pancakes to me, he wanted to joke. Instead, Leo nodded in acknowledgement, then looked over said pancakes. He was right about the syrup and powdered sugar, and Donnie was in the middle of cutting up some strawberries.

He could've sworn Donnie hated maple syrup. He used to complain about the stickiness and all that, but maybe he was misremembering.

"Don't sneak up on me like that, Leo." Leo couldn't tell if Donnie was genuinely annoyed or not. "Here. Mikey kept some of them plain for me, but this body's palate calls for a little more flavor, I guess." His eyes flitted aside as he pushed the plate of plain pancakes towards Leo.

He picked up the plastic fork and ate a piece. It tasted fine, he decided, and went for another bite.

"So. Is it very satisfying, satisfying, or mediocre?" Donnie's vocal cords were strained, and his eyelids were drooping. Did he not sleep? Even after all that?

Leo shrugged, but that must not have been a good answer, because Donnie frowned. He also noticed that Donnie removed the stickers on his plastron.

"I'll take that as a 'you need a few more bites.'"

They didn't talk after that. Donnie was fighting for his life keeping himself awake, and Leo couldn't even make fun of it, much less ask why.

Thinking about it, Donnie occasionally had periods of time where he wouldn't talk, so this could be one of his things.

Knowing that this wordlessness spell was also an effect of the switch, Leo tensed a little bit.

At least that means Donnie understands if he can't respond. Who needs words anyway? They can just use their twin telepathy.

Notes:

remember those competitions i was talking about? we made state!!

so ill probably take a break from writing... like 2 weeks or something idk (crying emoji here) mostly to keep myself from burning out & all that because i still have plans for this fic and i WILL finish it even if its out of pure spite, i swear it

and theres definitely going to be at least 3 "arcs" sooo ill see yall then <3

Chapter 14: Bones Are Thicker Than DNA

Summary:

Raph couldn't stand this. He was so angry that he half-expected himself to explode at Dad, yelling and all, but he didn't, really. Other than a little fidgeting, he was perfectly in control. "That's not my name."

Notes:

sorry if this chapters a little choppy, ive been working on it on and off for a while! hoping itll get smoother once i get back into the groove fr

hope yallve been enjoying summer :D (its so hot out)

Raph insisted that Leo should take it easy, and Leo was in no position to complain.

However, taking it easy was near impossible in the lair. Every moment he spent sitting around being unproductive was another moment wasted, but he had no choice in the matter; not only did his brothers protest any strain he might put on himself, but so did his body.

Just flipping through the pages of a comic book was exhausting. He eventually gave up on reading it—”Jupiter Jim Saves a Cat Part 18,” of course—and settled back into his bed, the lights switched off, the curtain pulled shut over the entrance to his room.

He'd tried to play a round of Planet Racers to kill some time, but it only put him on-edge. When he was in his own body, he normally sought out the distracting noises and vivid colors of video games, but now, he didn't feel up to it.

So he lied there, motionless, sort of wishing he'd gone with his brothers to Run of the Mill. He wanted to see Señor Hueso again, and he wanted to help them investigate the switch, but he knew he shouldn't. He knew he would only cause more trouble for them.

Someone pushed open the curtain to his room, and he almost thought his brothers were back. A quick glance at the entranceway, though, proved him wrong. He closed his eyes again.

"Purple? Where are your brothers?"

At first, he couldn't even bring himself to shrug. He did manage it eventually; lord knows how long it took him. He wished he could just fib and get Dad to leave without the questioning, but he still couldn't talk. When he didn't respond, Splinter said something else, a grating sound.

Leo tuned him out. If he could talk, he'd reveal the switch right here, right now, just to get Dad to shut up. He didn't realize how stressed he was until Dad started talking at him.

"Donatello." Donatello. "Where are your brothers?"

He shrugged again, keeping his eyes shut tight. It isn't that he wanted to disrespect his father, even if it was tempting. He just physically could not respond no matter how hard he tried. What kind of hell is this? Is this what he deserved after what happened at Draxum's? Okay, obviously the answer was no. Divine karma wasn't something he'd put much thought into, but somehow, his mind was made up about it; he certainly didn't believe in it.

"Fine. If you want to be that way, you be that way." Splinter left, and Leo released the breath he'd been holding. If Dad knew that Donnie occasionally couldn't talk, he'd be more understanding. But he didn't, and it wasn't because Donnie hid it from him. He simply didn't interact with Donnie nearly enough to catch him during one of those occasions.

Dad is definitely going to force them to have a serious talk when they get home. He was already dreading it.

He considered wiping something down just to feel like he was being helpful. That was usually the solution to his discomfort anyway, but he knew it wouldn't solve anything now. In fact, it almost seemed pointless.

No, it's not.

He forced himself to stand, grimacing when the dizziness and the heavy feeling in his bones tried to stop him from getting up. The second he left his room, he sort of wanted to go back to being in his bed, under his covers, where it was dark. But he was not succumbing to this body. He refused.

As soon as he got his hands on a pair of gloves (specially made for three-fingered hands, courtesy of pre-switch Donatello), he grabbed a sponge and a bucket of soap water and started scrubbing the skate ramp. He didn't really know what he was trying to accomplish, but it was a simple, repetitive task.

What else was he supposed to do after being left alone in the lair? Wallow some more? He's going to scrub until the lair looks brand new. He's going to be productive no matter how pointless his efforts are.

==========

"We're here." They stood in front of the graffiti wall, readying themselves to see Señor Hueso. He was sort of stalling. He was afraid of being unable to open the door to the pizza place in Leo's body, yet another trait of Raph's he'd've lost. "So. Are we telling him right away, or… what are we doing, exactly?"

"We should tell him," Donnie responded automatically. "This could've happened to yokai before. If we want a solution, we're going to have to explain the entire problem."

Mikey nodded along with Donnie. "What Dee said. I say we go in and act like ourselves."

"Act like ourselves," Raph repeated. The suggestion was contradictory if you asked him, but honestly, he found himself adjusting his behavior just a little bit. Just enough to resemble the Raph from before the switch.

With one hand held out, he beckoned the mural to open as he had many times before. He could usually get into Run of the Mill easily; he was never worried about it like he was right now. And, just as he feared, the wall wasn't budging. The skull on the wall gave him a judgemental look that he did not appreciate.

Donnie cleared his throat. "You're in Leo's body." It was meant to be a reminder, but it wasn't like Raph didn't already know that. They've been in this situation for God knows how long.

"Yeah, I know." He sounded more defensive, more like Leo, than he wanted. Immediately, he corrected his tone. "I mean, you're right. Mikey, how about you give it a shot?"

Mikey had always been more in-touch with mystic stuff than the rest of them, so he, of course, had no problem getting them in. Raph didn't know what he'd do without him.

As always, Run of the Mill was bustling with customers of all shapes and sizes. It was exactly the same as they'd left it—right down to the cheerful clinking of glasses and the warm lighting that filled the room like the sun fills the sky.

A table of about eight yokai were exchanging light banter. None of them looked the same, not even close, so it was presumably a group of friends having a get-together. Raph was getting a little jealous of how happy they seemed in that moment; he found himself holding his breath a little when they all started laughing about something. He didn't think those two things were related, but he really hoped they were. Why else would he hold his breath? It made no sense.

Donnie was also watching that particular group, but it didn't take long for Señor Hueso to spot them. Raph always suspected that he could tell the four of them apart from actual yokai, but he wasn't sure.

"Ah, pepinos! I am partially happy to see you. The usual?"

Donnie and Mikey waited for Raph to answer. He wasn't sure why; he's the leader and all, but he's probably the least familiar with Hueso out of all of them. "Uh, actually, Señor Hueso, we need your help with something."

Hueso raised one of his brow bones. Raph was about to take his silence as an invitation to elaborate, but Hueso's stance shifted. His mystic pupils flickered between the three of them. "And what is that 'something'?"

In all honesty, Raph didn't know as much as he thought he did. What was he even supposed to ask? Should he lie and get an unfiltered answer? Should he unfold their entire situation in the middle of this crowded restaurant?

Donnie didn't respond right away—he was busy watching that group from across the room—but he spoke up faster than Raph did. "We need to know about empyrean. Like, what can it do?"

When the word "empyrean" left Donnie's mouth, Hueso's eye sockets twitched with recognition. "Empyrean? As in, the very powerful green substance which can easily be used for evil-doing?" He'd dislodged his left arm to lean on as if it were a cane, unimpressed. "I am not telling you about it. That is almost as terrible of an idea as mounting a simurgh before performing the jaunty song and dance."

"Sorry, a simurgh? Like, the bird from Persian mythology?" Donnie asked.

"Never mind." He stood up straight again to snap his arm back into place. It reminded Raph of when Donnie dislocated his shoulder. "You are not the pepino you appear to be, hm? The orange one would never study such subjects." He gestured to all of the tables, filled generously with customers. "If this is some kind of prank, I do not have time for this."

It almost hurt that he'd noticed so fast. They didn't even spend as much time around him as they did with Splinter. Well, maybe they did.

It probably depended on how often they ordered dine-in.

Once Hueso figured them out, Donnie seemed to drop whatever thin front he was putting on. "No! I mean, yeah, but no. It's not a prank, Skellington. Cross my heart and hope to die." From the way he cringed and stopped talking, he probably expected himself to instinctually be Donnie-like instead of Mikey-like. So much for acting like themselves.

Hueso was rightfully confused by his shift in behavior.

He didn't have time to question them further before one of his employees rushed over to him. "Señor, table eight wants to know if the Flesh Lover's has cockatrice?"

"Of course it has no cockatrice– Did you, I don't know, consider referring to the menu?"

"Yes, sir."

Hueso rubbed his temple. "Look, pepinos, if this is not a prank, I don't know what it is." He lowered his arm. "And I will not tell you anything about empyrean unless you have a good reason. For all I know, you could be plotting to take over the world—or something like that."

"Our bodies got swapped, Señor," Raph finally admitted, swallowing the shaky feeling in his hands. "I'm Raph, he's Mikey, and he's Donnie." He pointed to each of his brothers respectively.

"And we think empyrean had something to do with it." Donnie had reeled himself back in, trying to keep his voice steady. His foot started tapping a little faster. "In Dra– In the machine that switched us, there were no mechanics at all. Nada, zilch, even. Except for empyrean."

Hueso just stared at them, as if he was trying to decide on whether to believe them or not.

Yokai kept walking past them to get in and out. Raph felt like he'd explode if he kept having to hold his breath like this.

Finally, Hueso made up his mind and placed a hand on his hip bone. "You have come to the wrong yōkai. I'm afraid I cannot help you, pepinos."

"What?" Donnie put his hands on Hueso's shoulders and shook him, his body making a distinct rattling sound. Hueso remained unfazed. "Why not?!”

Mikey gently pulled him away from Hueso.

He brushed his shoulders off. “I have never even seen empyrean in its purest form. Most yōkai haven't.” A table called him over, this one a family of three. Raph had seen them waiting for a while, so he was content with letting Señor Hueso get back to his job. They’d kept him long enough, and they could always find another way to get information about empyrean. “I am busy right now. Unless you want to order something, please, shoo-shoo.”

Mikey glanced between him and Donnie and Hueso. His arms hung by his sides as he scanned the stone flooring, and in a split second, made the decision to call for help one more time. His hesitation left an awkward amount of distance between Hueso and the table that was asking for him. “Señor Hueso!”

He sighed. “Yes?”

“Who should we talk to? Do you know anyone that knows about emp– empyrean?”

Hueso just turned to the family of three and took their orders on a piece of paper. Mikey stood there, clearly defeated.

Raph started trying to come up with a plan for how they were going to learn about empyrean without the help of someone they know. They could go around and ask random yokai, hoping one of them knew about empyrean, but that wouldn’t be very efficient. And if they went to the Hidden City, that would put them on the Hidden City Police’s radar again.

“Bring this to the kitchen, anchoa,” Hueso instructed one of his waiters, a fish yokai with a tuft of hair on his head. Raph didn’t think he looked like an anchovy, so that was probably a nickname like “pepino” was. He knew what “anchoa” meant because in Jupiter Jim Goes to the Bottom of the Ocean, Jupiter Jim encounters a school of mutant anchovies. He remembered the anchovies trying to suffocate Jupiter Jim by crowding around him, and Red Fox being the one to encourage him to break free. It was a crazy scene.

Did he even watch Jupiter Jim Goes to the Bottom of the Ocean in Spanish? He didn’t think he’d watched any Jupiter Jim movies in Spanish, but he must be wrong, because he definitely knew that word from that movie. Or it just sounds similar enough to the English word.

The fish yokai balanced the paper on one of his fins. He didn’t have much control over them, and he probably needed a little more practice with holding things based on how much trouble he was having.

He looked familiar.

“Let’s go, guys. If Señor Hueso can’t help us, we should leave him alone.” Raph gestured for Mikey and Donnie to start walking.

Mikey lagged behind while Donnie kept pace, typing something into his wrist tech. “There are a few spots in the Hidden City where we’ll be out of the police’s sight. We can ask around for information in those areas if you–”

“Wait, pepinos,” Hueso called, clearly diverting Donnie’s attention. Normally Donnie would finish his sentence, but considering he was in Mikey’s body, he’d probably already forgotten what he was going to say. “Do you know who Big Mama is?”

Mikey nodded excitedly.

“Some say that she has started using empyrean to make her Battle Nexus more… compelling. I would criticize her use of it for being illegal, but I am not one to talk.” He leaned in closer to whisper. “I hear she fulfills favors for a price. You did not learn this from me.”

That sounded about right. The last time they saw her, she was trying to collect oozesquitos for the same reason.

“You’re talking about the Battle Nexus?” That fish yokai from earlier butted into their circle, a wide grin on his face. He’d left the paper with the family’s order behind, where it was now fluttering to the ground. “I was on there once! Only once though, and it ended in a tie, but…" When he looked at them, his eyeballs rolled in one slick movement. "Hey, you’re those turtles from that guy’s lab! The one that mutated me.”

Now Raph knew where he was from! He was the delivery boy—the imitation crab guy.

“You were in the Battle Nexus?” Hueso asked with disbelief. “I knew there was something strange about you, but I was not expecting it to be that.”

Suddenly, Raph's plan of action was rerouting itself. He put a hand on the fish yokai's shoulder and looked into one of his big, void-like eyes. "You know Big Mama? That's impressive. She doesn't let just anyone into the ol' Nexus, you know. What's your name again?"

"Stewart, but you can call me Stew."

"Riiight. Stew. So, did Big Mama ever tell you when she opens auditions for the Battle Nexus?"

Mikey tensed. "What? Raph–"

Stewart seemed hesitant. "Yeah, but I don't think it's a good idea to enroll… If I hadn't tied with that elevator boy, I would've been done-zo!"

"No worries, Stew. I'm just asking so we can get ahold of her. She isn't always in her office, you know."

Donnie gave Raph a knowing glance, but he didn't entertain it for a second. If Stewart doesn't wholly believe him, he might not give a full answer.

"Oh. Well, in that case, she lets people audition every Thursday. I'm sure you'll be able to ask her a quick question."

That was all Raph needed. "Thanks, kid. I owe you one." He patted Stewart on the back—or, where his spine should be. "Bye, Señor! We'll see you later!"

As they were walking out, Mikey grabbed him by the shoulder as if he was crazy. "Are you really going to sign us up for the Battle Nexus? That's insane!"

Of course he wasn't! He wouldn't risk it, especially after what happened when he forced everyone to go to Draxum's. "No, but her price is obviously to fight in the Battle Nexus. So if I strike a deal with her just before a new bracket, I can take up the offer right that second."

"You can take up the offer?" Donnie restated in opposition. "You aren't thinking about going by yourself, right? Raph, that's fucking– Mikey's right. That is insane! We should be working as a–"

"But we need this, M– Donnie. Whether we build a machine or use Draxum's, if we don't know how the empyrean works, we're fucked." Raph reflexively put a hand in front of his mouth when he swore, but his palm stayed well away from his beak. Both Mikey and Donnie's jaws dropped, but he quickly moved on. "I'm the big brother. I'm not the one who's the biggest anymore, but I still have to make sure everything turns out okay. That's my responsibility."

Mikey bit his tongue. "I don't think going alone's a good idea. That sounds really, really dangerous, and Big Mama probably has tons of tricks up her spider sleeves!"

"Trust me, Miguel. I've gotten pretty good with my sword; if I'm in danger, I'll just portal out of there."

For whatever reason, Mikey was taken aback by that statement. He must know there was no changing Raph's mind, but Raph didn't see why there was a need to change it in the first place. This way, he could keep them safe and gain information at the same time. It's a win-win!

"...'re…cting like Leo," Donnie muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." His shoulders slumped in defeat. "There's no guarantee Big Mama will even consider telling you anything."

"Then we can ask someone else. No biggie!"

Donnie gave him an odd look. He was probably worried, as he definitely looked worried. Though, if he were in his own body, he'd look pretty judgemental right now. Maybe his emotions just show easier on Mikey's face.

He did not want to know what expression actual-Mikey was making towards him. If he even so much as caught a glimpse of disappointment in his rightful eyes, he might explode.

==========

The lair felt different. Maybe it was how uncharacteristically clean it was; Leo might've cleaned while they were gone, a miracle. Well, Leo did clean regularly, but it was really only his room and specific areas of the lair, so seeing the skate ramp in pristine, spotless condition was almost ominous. The scratches from the many times they'd fallen on their shells and slid down had been picked free of dirt. There were no longer pizza stains on the concrete.

It could also be how Splinter stood in the center of the atrium, arms tucked into opposing sleeves, waiting patiently. He didn't think they'd been gone that long, but Dad was clearly unhappy with their return.

"Boys," he said. "Where have you been?"

"Run of the Mill." Raph took it upon himself to answer, but he probably should have lied. Dad didn't look nearly as concerned as he did before, which was not the reaction he wanted. He wants Dad to be worried. He wants his dad to worry about him.

"Oh. You got pizza?" Splinter's tail relaxed and rested on the spotless floor, probably ruining it with how dirty it was.

Raph crossed his arms. "No," was his only response. Now that he has a course of action, there's no reason to worry Dad, he decided; he doesn't have to tell him anything. But there was also no reason to lie, and maybe he was still feeling a little petty from their last argument. Just a little.

"We had a question for Señor Hueso," Donnie filled in.

Mikey's mellow voice redirected the conversation. "We're ready to talk now, if that's why you were waiting for us."

"...Yes, that's it." He looked each of them up and down before choosing Raph to question. "Tell me what's wrong, Blue. And tell me why Purple is refusing to speak."

He didn't know? He didn't know Donnie didn't talk sometimes? "What? He just does that." It was obvious to Raph, since he's the one Donnie always came to, as a tot, when he wasn't talking, and when he needed something. The fact that the man who was supposed to be their father didn't know about such a big part of Donnie's childhood made him want to shut down this conversation before it even starts. He can switch them back himself. Without telling Dad. "I think you should leave him alone." His voice sounded so goddamn bitter. It almost sounded wrong for Leo's voice to hold Raph's frustration. It's like Leo's body was collapsing under the weight Raph carried.

Splinter did not take it well. "He is my son. I am only worried about him."

"Yeah? Are you?" There was no need to suppress this anger; the urge to punch or break things wasn't there. What filled that void was snarky comments and quiet insults. "I personally don't think you are, but that's just my opinion."

"Raph, didn't you want to tell–" Donnie began. Just as fast as it'd slipped out, his hand shot up to cover his mouth. "I mean, Leo."

Splinter's expression was a mix of worry and frustration. "What is going on, boys? Why are you being so– so shady! I know you are ninjas, but…"

Then he thought about how Señor Hueso noticed before Splinter did. He thought about how the owner of a goddamn pizza place they go to, a man they'd met only months ago, realized something was wrong before their own father did. "Nothing! Nothing's going on, so you can go back to watching TV and sleeping all day if that's what you want to do." He shouldn't be saying this, and he knew that, but this vulnerable feeling was pissing him off. Dad doesn't need to know about what's going on. He can deal with it himself! "I can take care of us just fine, like I have been for the past ten years!"

"What?"

Donnie pulled Raph's arm. "I thought you wanted to tell him," he tried to whisper, but it was more of a stage whisper.

The sunlight shone onto them.

"Tell me what? Raphael, what is going on?"

Raph almost felt immediate euphoria at being called the right name. That is, until he realized it was Mikey who Dad was referring to.

He'd never felt betrayal before then.

Mikey scratched the back of his head. "Uh…" He glanced between Splinter and Raph and Donnie. "I… I don't know." He clearly didn't know how to handle the responsibility of telling Dad, but since he was who Dad viewed as the "honest" and "leaderly" one, that must've been his last straw.

Splinter put one foot down. His ears had folded. "Fine." His tone shifted, but it wasn't to one of concern. Go figure. "If you don't want to tell me, you are grounded! Again!"

If Raph has a valid reason to be angry, leave it to Splinter to take it as disrespect. Leave it to Splinter to give up halfway and take the easy route. He doesn't care about what they're going through. He doesn't care about them at all.

"No! Please, we can't," Mikey tried. "You don't understand!"

"And whose fault is that?"

As the consequences set in, guilt washed over Raph's head, pouring over the fire in his stomach yet reigniting its flame fiercer than ever before, and it was awful. He hated being angry, he hated messing up, he hated his dad, he hated being the eldest child put in the role of a parent, and he hated being the one to cause them all more trouble than they would've had if he'd just ended up dead.

Raph caught a glimpse of Leo's head poking around the curtain to his room. How long had he been watching? "Yeah, whatever," he finally said, crossing his arms. "Go ahead and ground us. It won't make you any less of a father than you already weren't."

"Shit," Donnie mumbled, but he bit down on his beak to shut himself up.

Splinter was speechless. He was so still that Raph was afraid he wasn't breathing anymore until he finally said, "Leonardo…" while looking right at him.

Raph couldn't stand this. He was so angry that he half-expected himself to explode at Dad, yelling and all, but he didn't, really. Other than a little fidgeting, he was perfectly in control. "That's not my name."

He didn't have time to explain all of this, nor did he want to anymore; he has a mission to plan out. So he just turned around and walked away.

==========

If Splinter thought grounding them would stop him from sneaking out, he was dead wrong. He planned to go alone, and that was final.

He carefully stepped out of his room and into the atrium, cringing as his arm brushed against the curtain. It felt like he'd been waiting decades for it to be Thursday, but it'd only been one night's sleep, and the sun hadn't even risen yet; he hadn't asked for the exact time that Big Mama was having auditions, so he figured he'd better be ready for anything. Maybe he wanted to avoid his brothers as well.

Luckily, Dad hadn't taken away their weapons; the comment he made yesterday might've put him into too much shock to even think about it.

All he had to do was grab his odachi, and he's good to go.

Only two paces into his tiptoeing, a curtain from a different room rustled. He froze, unsure of what to do when Leo's confused gaze met his. He had Donnie's headphones around his neck.

"Uh… Hey, Leo." It was barely a whisper. He pretty much just mouthed it to him. "What're you doing up?"

He didn't expect a verbal response, so it was a surprise when he was given one. "What are you doing up?"

Raph shrugged. "I dunno. I… needed some fresh air."

"Can I come with you?" Leo was being too loud for his liking, but he'd feel bad if he shushed him considering he hadn't spoken since their little fly-ridden escapade.

As for an answer, it would be problematic for Leo to come along. "I mean, I wasn't going to be gone for long… and I'm going to Big Mama's Battle Nexus." He mumbled that last part.

"What? You're going to the Battle Nexus?"

"Yeah. Look, it's a lot to explain, so I better get going."

"You're not going alone. The chances you'll get out of there alive are way lower than you might–"

Raph finally put a finger up to his face. "You're gonna wake up Mikey and Donnie," he warned, worriedly looking at each of their rooms. "I know it sounds crazy, but you have to trust me. It'll help us learn about empyrean."

Leo fervently shook his head. It was funny—Raph still felt protective of him, but it wasn't in the "I'm older and bigger than you" kind of way. He felt more equal to him than anything. "You're not going alone," he decided. "I'm going."

"No, you aren't."

"Are too."

"Are not."

"Are too."

"Are not."

Leo leaned against his entranceway and crossed his arms. "I don't get it. I thought you wanted us to fight." One hand gestured to the air. "What was all that training for?"

Raph exhaled, unsure of what to do. He'd feel safer if one of his brothers came with, and he knew Leo was capable (and well aware of his limitations after the whole incident), but it didn't feel right to put him in danger again. "I can go alone. I'll be fine."

He wasn't looking, but he could feel Leo stare him down. "It's too dangerous. You know the Hidden City's police force could still be looking for us, right? Not to mention Big Mama being a literal crime boss."

Leo's voice was too flat. It was making Raph uncomfortable because he looks like Donnie, but he's actually Leo, but he sounds like Donnie, and now Raph feels like he's talking to Donnie, but it's Leo! "Well…"

"Much worse could happen if you went alone than if I accompanied you at my own risk." Accompanied? What is he, a goddamn lawyer?

Leo inhaled slowly, his eyes dragging along the atrium floor. He was definitely regretting his choice, but unfortunately for Raph, he didn't change his mind.

He sure didn't want Leo to come with, but he couldn't stop him. Why did he even want to come? It's not like Leo attended many missions before, and he did a hell of a lot of complaining when he made them train. Surely he would jump at the chance to sit out.

Then he thought about Leo overhearing his fight with Dad, and about that time he told him he wasn't being useful, and about Draxum's laboratory. It all sort of made sense if he thought about it enough.

"Leo's right," Donnie commented. "It's better if four of us take a fourth of the fall than if you take all of it."

Raph sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I was going to say he could come." He checked to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, and sure enough, Donnie was awake as well. He didn't look like he'd gotten much sleep, but he must've gotten some. Hopefully they didn't wake him up with their chitchat. "I'm guessing you want to– Woah. You look different."

As soon as Raph laid eyes on him, he thought he was seeing double or something. Donnie's body is by Leo's room, but a Donnie-esque-Mikey's-body was coming out of Mikey's room! This entire thing was getting very confusing.

Donnie grinned and wiggled his eyebrows, satisfied with the fact that he could do that now. "Yep. Mikey made all this for me. Well, for us. Check. It. Out." He held out his arms and legs one by one, showing off the purple gloves, socks, and joint guards that had been adjusted to fit Mikey's body. He even had stickers that matched the blocky purple patterns on his old body!

Most importantly, though, was the new mask. Well, it was his old one with an obvious seam to make it Mikey's head size (and with the signature eyebrows drawn on), but it was mind-blowing nonetheless.

Mikey emerged from his room as well, orange mask and silly face knee-pads and all. "I finally finished! I hope you guys like them. I'm not very good with Raph's hands."

As Mikey handed everything to them, Raph noticed that he'd put little stickers on his plastron, just like he used to. It made him feel warm inside. "Seriously? You made all this?" It must've sounded sarcastic though, because Mikey was crushed. "I'm super impressed, is the thing! Like, this is really good for not being used to my hands. And stuff."

So much for sneaking out early in the morning. He might as well have gotten the extra sleep and gone later in the day.

"Did you say you just finished? Have you two slept?"

Mikey chuckled. "Uh. You should try them on!"

Raph feigned a defeated sigh, but it was because he was itching to try the gear on. It was his old gear, and it fit perfectly. He felt more safe and comfortable than he had in so, so long. He hadn't realized how much he missed the feeling of his mask and his elbow pads, and the red was beyond familiar. "It's perfect," he said, his voice wavering. For some reason, he was crying, and he couldn't stop before a few tears had already fallen.

It was super embarrassing. Having his brothers watch while he cried wasn't something he enjoyed, but he couldn't help it. He really needed this.

"It was made to your specs! Well, Leo's specs." Donnie graciously diverted his eyes, sparing him some of the embarrassment at least. "And Leo's were made to my specs, which I know by heart, of course. I was actually worried they'd changed since I last measured, so I thought about remeasuring myself, but then I remembered I wasn't in my own body. I think I was going crazy!" He cleared his throat. "Anyways. How's it feel, Leo? Anything tight?"

"It's amazing." Leo had been gawking at the yellow markings that were sewn onto his gloves and socks, and red ones had been markered onto his mask. If Raph squinted, he halfway looked like Leo. "Stellar job, Michael. And– thanks, I guess, Dee." And when he spoke, he halfway sounded like Leo too.

Donnie smiled, as if Leo's happiness was enough thanks for him. Uncanny.

"I thought the markings would make you feel more like yourself," Mikey explained. "I mean, that was the goal for all of us."

Now that Raph had calmed himself down, he took in a shaky inhale. "Alright. Since I have a feeling the new look is a good luck charm—thank you, Mikey—I'll let you guys tag along, but only if you promise to be careful."

"You can count on us, leader!"

It admittedly felt nice to have his brothers by his side. Going to the Battle Nexus wasn't something he felt entirely prepared for—especially alone, and especially right after the disaster that was their visit to Draxum's.

And as harrowing as the idea of dragging them into another death trap was, he couldn't bear to argue with another one of his family members. Plus, he was hopeful. It was probably the dopamine high from their new gear, but that's beside the point.

A glimpse of a shadow caught the corner of his eye, but he was feeling too good to pay it any attention. They better get going anyway. The sun's about to rise.

Notes:

sooo 2 weeks turned into..... 3 months LMAOO who knew the summer before my first year of college would be busy

lots of other things have been happening that i wont get into (theyre all good dw) but i think life is about to mellow out & i have so many fresh ideas for this fic yall have no idea. no clue if im going to go back to writing regularly but we'll see. my mind is still made up that im not dropping this fic so dont you worry lol

also i finally finished 2003 so if you think somethings a 2003 reference, yes it is!! AND IM SEEING MUTANT MAYHEM IN A FEW DAYS!! SO EXCITED

alright now stuff about the actual chapter: HUESO INTRODUCTION <3 love that guy

& another splinter scuffle as per usual... i just think raph has some eldest child trauma

made sure to put some shenanigans before the plot hits <3 i actually made the little designs for them a while ago,, im not a great artist. however i might post them on instagram but idk (i am a social media disliker) ill drop my @ in the next chapters notes if i do,, itll prob be a new account etc