Chapter Text
Mikey’s arms were on fire.
He collapsed onto the ground as the portal closed behind him, teeth clenched together to hold back his scream of pain. His shoulders were burning, the pain crawling up to his neck. He grabbed it out of instinct only for the burning in his hands to get even worse. A strangled scream escaped him as he fumbled with his gloves, ignoring the warnings tha appeared as he set the pain relief to the maximum level. The pain in his arms and hands subsided, but the gloves didn’t stretch high enough to relieve all of it.
After a few minutes of heavy breathing he pushed himself up on his arms, to his knees, and then finally his feet.
Mikey blinked a few times to clear his vision, the hazy world forming into something solid. He was on a dirt pathway in the middle of strange looking woods- the trees were blue, the sky was purple, the dirt was green and the grass was brown. Glowing neon bugs floated past, croaking like frogs.
He could feel a heavy mystic energy coming from somewhere down the path. It was painfully familiar, so he followed the path in hopes of finding the source.
The path was narrow, tall trees looming over him as the pain subsided from burning fire to an annoying prickle. Something about this place was dulling his magic, and his pain in the process.
The path opened up into a wide clearing, complete with a wooden house and small garden. The house was more of a shack, with crumbling pieces and smashed in windows. The garden had barely sprouted plants, and the green soil looked dry and cracked.
The heavy energy was coming from the house. He followed it through the creaky door, finding a familiar figure sitting on an otherwise empty bed.
The witch looked up, her shoulders sagging in disappointment.
“You found me.” She sounded resigned, rather than surprised. Her eyes flicked over his arms. “And you almost ripped yourself apart trying.”
“You hurt my brother,” he hissed back.
Mikey’s hands clenched into painful fists, his powers flaring to life despite whatever mystic dampeners existed in this world. The warning rang in his head, but the spell rang louder.
Use it. Make her pay.
Mikey pushed the thoughts aside. He would handle this his own way.
“I read your book,” he snapped. “The toll it will take on you may be worse than what you inflict on your victim. And yet you’re here, living your best life with your stupid shack and you’re stupid garden!”
He punctuated each ‘stupid’ with a flare of his ninpo. His flaming chains whipped around him in his anger, catching the shack on fire. She didn’t even flinch.
The witch stood up, brushing dirt from her robes. “My best life, you say?” she mused. “A life alone, without my family, without my children, in a crumbling shack with a garden that won’t grow? A life caused by that idiot Donatello-”
The chains flew forward, wrapping around the witch and slamming her through the wall. She flew through the clearing until she hit a tree, crying out in pain but with no room to bounce off as the chains attached to the tree.
“You keep his name out of your mouth!” Mikey snarled, the tears in the corner of his eyes matching the burning pain that suddenly reignited in his arms.
The witch didn’t even struggle against his chains as they tightened, searing her skin and singing her hair.
“Do it,” she whispered. “Kill me.”
Mikey gritted his teeth, drums pounding in his skull. He could barely think over his anger.
“You know you want to,” the witch added, the sympathetic tone in her voice only adding fuel to his rage.
For a moment he was about to comply. He had every right to. She’d forced Donnie to watch his entire family die, torn Leo apart from his apparent soulmate, and made Raph watch as his brothers broke under the weight of what had happened…
But death wasn’t good enough for her.
Fiery chains swirled around Mikey as he began to speak, a spell so powerful that his eyes began to glow. The cracks crept up his neck, searing his chin, but he ignored them.
"Show them the life,
Where they were the cause."
“What are you-”
"This life was the same.
As it never was."
The witch finally began to struggle against the chains, ignoring how her burns got worse. “Don’t-”
"Punish the witch,
Point out their flaws.
Force them to the time
That never was."
The voice from the spellbook encouraged him, egging him on to manipulate the spell the way he wanted.
Donnie had watched his entire family die? Fine. She would too. Over and over.
Donnie wished he’d never told Leo about Usagi? Fine. The memory was gone. He’d never told anyone.
"Bring them remorse.
Give them reason to pause."
A million different ways her family’s deaths could’ve gone. A million lifetimes of heartbreak and sorrow. Over and over and over and over, remembering too late and forgetting too soon. If Donnie had to suffer then so would-
“MIKEY!”
The yell startled him, almost breaking his concentration on the spell. It was almost done, just two lines left, but Casey was running over, hockey stick in hand.
“Michelangelo, stop this!” She pleaded. “It’s not worth it!”
Mikey gritted his teeth. If he spoke, the spell would be broken, and who knew what effects that would have. He had to finish it. He was too far gone.
Casey flung herself between him and the witch, arms outstretched as her hockey stick clattered to the ground.
"I know you want vengeance. I also wanted vengeance," she said, answering the unspoken words in the glare he sent her way. "But this is not the way to do it."
"Show them the pain."
"Michelangelo," Casey said again, her eyes flaring green. Her voice was different now, but Mikey still ignored it, glaring past her at the witch.
"This is not the Hamato way."
That wasn't Casey. It was a voice Mikey hadn't heard in a year, a voice that had been ripped away far too soon. A voice that he'd drawn a picture for, a voice that made him want to sob.
Michelangelo finally met Casey's eyes.
"You promised."
Mikey was suddenly struck with the image of his brother, sobbing in his arms and repeating the words 'I'm sorry' over and over again. Donnie had just seen so much death and destruction- how could he think that this was what Donnie needed?
He unclenched his fists and let go of the breath he'd been holding, bracing himself for what was about to happen.
"Tell Donnie I'm sorry."
Four words, words that weren't the end of the spell. His chains disappeared as the spell attacked him in full force, backfiring so badly that it launched him across the clearing. The witch fell to the ground, unmoving and covered in burns and ash.
The spell pierced Mikey's hands, arms, face, eyes, and mind, using his open wounds to work its way in and punish him for his failure.
The last thing Mikey saw before his eyes closed was Casey's outstretched arms, reaching for him.
—
Fire.
Enveloping him.
Consuming his body.
Tongues of fire licked at his face. Someone was carrying him but the fire followed. He wanted to scream at them to leave him, to save themselves, to escape the fire, but he couldn’t make a noise.
He managed to pry his eyes open- dammit, even they burned, and saw green. Whoever was carrying him was enveloped in green, immune to the fire or simply suffering through it without a sound, but he couldn’t see any flames leaping up at them.
They were confined to him and him only, his suffering for what he’d done.
He opened his mouth again to tell the green figure to leave him, to let him face his fate, but barely any sounds escaped him.
They looked down as they ran, determination clearly etched on their face even through Mikey’s blurry vision.
“Hold on Michelangelo.”
Three words, overlaid with two voices- both of which he recognized. His mind was fading, dipping into unconsciousness to escape the pain, but he managed to croak out a few words.
“Thank you, Karai.”
He could see a look of confusion on her face, but then he was lost to the darkness.
—
Even in the dark, the fire still came for him. Flaming spirits yelled, consoled, chastised, accused. They took different shapes and faces- the witch, his brothers, the ancestors, Draxum…
Wait. That one wasn't a flaming spirit. It was just Draxum.
His eyes opened slowly, still burning but less so. His head was fuzzy, but he could think enough to recognize the yokai leaning over him. Clicking sounds escaped him against his will as he shook from the pain.
Casey was in the corner of his vision, and Karai was nowhere to be found. Why did he think he saw her?
Draxum was yelling something, maybe at him, maybe at Casey, but Mikey couldn't make it out. He drifted away into darkness once more.
—
The moment Casey stepped through the portal she collapsed into Draxum's arms, smoke rising from both her and Mikey. The portal snapped shut as Draxum caught them, the heat from both of them nearly singing his hair.
"What happened in there?" He demanded, helping her sit carefully on the ground. She leaned against the wall with a blank look in her green eyes (had they always been green?) and began to shake in pain.
If Casey was hurting enough that the hot-headed warrior couldn't even speak, Draxum couldn't imagine how much pain Michelangelo was in.
Draxum whipped off his cloak and wrapped it around Mikey, hoping the fabric was fireproof enough to let Draxum carry him without injury.
Then it was a simple matter to open a portal into his apartment as he picked up the young turtle, Casey stumbling in behind them.
The police swarmed into the alleyway as the trio disappeared, a few seconds too late.
Draxum set Michelangelo on the couch, rushing to his kitchen as his vines grabbed various objects. The half-finished soup was shoved aside, an empty cauldron in its place. He began to prepare a potion as one of his vines grabbed a bottle of salve and shoved it towards Casey.
"Put that on your arms," he ordered. "And then put it on Michelangelo- everywhere the cracks are."
She complied silently, life slowly coming back into her eyes as the salve worked its magic. Soon enough her usual over-the-top demeanor was back with full force.
"Mister Draxum, he is wearing gloves! I shall cut them off!" she declared loudly.
"Casey no-!" he yelped, whipping around towards her, ready to stop her from demolishing Michelangelo's arms with her chainsaw hockey stick, only to see that she'd taken out a kunai and swiftly cut open the gloves without making a single mark on him.
The sigh of relief he was about to breath nearly choked him as he noticed how bright and angry the cracks marring Michelangelo's skin looked. He turned back to his potion making as Casey began to smear salve over the wounds.
Ingredients were swiftly chopped, pressed, juiced, and measured before being poured into the cauldron. A long wooden spoon sparkled with purple magic as it appeared to stir around on its own, until the concoction finally reached the teal color Draxum desired.
He filled a cup with the potion and rushed over to where the turtle lay on the couch, still wrapped up in Draxum's cloak. Casey helped him open Michelangelo's mouth wide enough for the potion to pour in. Once the cup was empty, he sighed.
"Now we wait," Draxum muttered, heading back to the kitchen. He set the cup down on the counter before whirling around to face Casey once more.
"What exactly happened in there?" he demanded. Casey opened her mouth to respond, but an idea struck him and he raised a hand.
"Wait. I should summon Splinter. He should hear this as well- and he needs to know what happened to his son."
Casey nodded, rubbing her temples in an attempt to get rid of the pounding in her head as Draxum pulled out his phone.
As he walked off, explaining what had happened to Splinter, Casey turned back towards Mikey.
His eyes slowly fluttered open, staring at Casey with a blank expression. They'd changed colors.
Instead of the deep blue eyes that she'd first seen in a dimly lit auction house, they were bright teal. Orange pupils lit up the center as he woke, the glow of his cracks finally dimming.
That was only the beginning of the changes about to unfold in their lives.