Chapter Text
In one universe, Miles Morales is Spiderman.
In another universe, Miles Morales is the Prowler.
In this universe, the Prowler is not alone.
Welcome to Earth 4218:
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Miles Gonzalo Morales' life was turned upside down when his father, police captain Jefferson Morales, died from falling debris while protecting a child during a catastrophal fight with the Kingpin.
From one day to the next, it was only Miles and his mother in their appartement.
Two people, not three.
Suddenly, the world turned dark.
Maybe the world always had been dark. After all, death and misery happen everywhere everyday, bad people get away with their crimes everyday and even though the Kingpin was responsible for so much death, his father's death, he still walked free on earth, continuing ruining lives.
Maybe Miles just hadn't been aware at the time.
Now he was.
Miles understood now why his father had joined the police force. Jefferson Morales had wanted to make the world just a little safer, a little more fair.
He wanted to do that, too.
He just didn't know how yet.
An opportunity opened itself up when he went through his Uncle Aaron's stuff and found silver claws in there.
Turns out, his uncle used to be the Prowler, one of the Kingpin's best hitmen.
Aaron Davis had quit the Prowler when his brother died because of his boss.
When his uncle snatched the claws out of Miles' hands, franticly explaining that he wasn't the Prowler anymore, a dangerous idea formed in Miles' head.
Uncle Aaron knew how the Kingpin's operations worked. With that information, a bit of planning and a bit of the Prowler's help, Miles could bring the Kingpin's empire to fall.
Uncle Aaron denied him.
He never wanted his late brother's son to get involved in his line of business. He could never let his thirteen-year-old nephew walk in there in good conscience. The boy's father had already argued with him over stickers and grafiti. He would never have tolerated Aaron helping him becoming a vigilante, fighting the Kingpin.
Miles tried anyways.
He took the claws of his uncle, made himself a new costume, resembling that of the Prowler, manipulated some info about Kingpin's operations out of his uncle and started sabotaging some of Kingpin's operations.
You could call it luck, a miracle or talent that Miles didn't get caught during his first gigs.
But all luck runs out one day and if Uncle Aaron hadn't managed to interfere last minute, Miles would have gotten caught and killed.
Uncle Aaron was mad, realized however that his nephew could not be stopped whatsoever.
If Uncle Aaron couldn't stop Miles, he would help his nephew instead and hope that he could protect him.
Together, they made new, better Prowler gear for Miles and started planning Kingpin's downfall.
Miles even made his own additions to the Prowler, blasts for the claws, shoes that could stick to walls and amplified the height of his jumps.
It seemed like they actually could defeat the almighty Kingpin.
When the day came where the Prowler overthrew the Kingpin, things went much, much bloodier than intended.
The Kingpin's dead body beside him, the Prowler fell into his assistant's arms sobbing, overwhelmed by what had taken place just moments ago.
The boy had never killed before.
Uncle Aaron picked up his nephew and they went home.
For the next few months, the Prowler was nowhere to be found.
But if you behead a hydra, two heads grow after.
Out of the ashes of Wilson Fisk's empire rose the Sinister Six cartel and reigned even more brutal than the Kingpin before them.
Addionally, a plague of mosquitoes whose bites mutated people into animals spread over the city.
Lots of these new so-called "mutants" were extremly violent and extremly powerful.
Shortly after the police's first big fight with the Scorpion, someone started sabotaging the Sinister Six' operations. Then you could start to see the Prowler battling the Sinister Six and criminal mutants in big public outings. He showed no hesitation or mercy towards the villains.
All these villains had to be stopped once and for all.
What was suspected to be the old Prowler in a new outfit kept this young Prowler's back free.
And Miles Gonzalo Morales?
Well, for High School, he got a scholarship for the prestigious Visions Academy. Teachers expressed worry over the boy not making any friends and skipping classes. Still, his grades were excelent and other than the skipped classes, he didn't cause any trouble.
People talked behind his back. Most suspected he dealed drugs or partook in otherwise criminal activities, some pitied him for the loss of his father or a combination of both.
Miles wasn't interested in what they said. They could not look at the world they way he looked at it.
On occaision, he still did art.
There, he tried to show what he saw, what he felt, just to get it to stop clouding his head.
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Thirteen years ago, deep under New York, Baron Draxum performed an experiment that created four mutant turtles.
Unlike in other universes, Hamato Yoshi never managed to rescue the creatures created by his blood.
When Draxum's lab stood in flames, he could not reach them and instead he saved himself.
Only with luck, Draxum was able to save his creations from merciless fire.
After the destruction of his labratory, he took shelter in one of his old family estates, an old castle. There, he raised his creations in the soldiers they were meant to be.
He quickly found himself being endeared by the small turtles who in all but creation were the same as yokai children.
They were pieces of art. Perfect.
Draxum was pleased with the outcomes of his experiment.
He named them after great warriors of the yokai world.
Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo.
For the first four years, the turtles were raised like any children of rich yokai were, mostly by the servants, in this case Draxum's gargoyles Huginn und Muninn, though Draxum kept an eye on his experiments to identify their individual strengths and weaknesses.
Raphael was the eldest by developement stages. He was a rowdy child who could not stop biting and breaking things in his proximity, an unfortunate habit from his alligator snapping turtle DNA that he needed to be trained out of sooner or later. Only with his little brothers he exercised caution.
Donatello showed already early on signs of high intelligence. When he began to speak rather lately, he articulated himself in full sentences to the adults' surprise. But because of his soft shell, he was also more vulnerable than his brothers which often lead to him hurting himself during play.
Leonardo, Donatello's self-declared "twin", was a mischievious, cunning, little turtle. He babbled endlessly and always made schemes which got him in trouble and scolded by Draxum.
Michelangelo was the youngest and a ray of sunshine. Almost always smiling and going along with everything, he often got roped up in Leonardo's schemes but never got scolded because he was just too cute.
When Michelangelo turned four, Donatello and Leonardo five and Raphael six, Draxum began official training for his sons. From now on, the children learned every morning for two hours mystic magic and three hours in the afternoon combat.
The kids took to it like fish to water, it was what they were designed for, after all.
Oftentimes, they practiced even more than the intended hours.
Draxum was proud of his creations, even though there were some flaws to compensated for. From own experience, Draxum knew that the battlefield was merciless and his sons would not get out alive being flawed.
Donatello struggled with mystics a lot and it seemed like he couldn't manifest power of his own like his brothers could until he figured out that he could make constructs of things he knew in and out. With a love for alchemy and botany, he soon became just as strong as his brothers. At that time, Draxum also made Donatello his lab assistant to grow his already wide pool of knowledge.
Raphael was strong, physically and mentally. After a few years of practice, he could make plenty of mystic clones of himself with multiple different skillsets excellently. However, he was impulsive and usually solved his problems by hitting them. Draxum tried to teach him patience and to listen to his brothers when things got complicated.
Listening to his brothers was also something he had to teach Leonardo. While he was highly skilled in combat and used his portals with strategy and percision, he hit the lightest and stubbornly tried to bite more than he could chew. What he failed to see were his talents directing people like on a chessboard, a game Draxum indroduced him to for that exact reason, and a sixth sense regarding reading people's intentions.
When it came to the mystic arts, no one could beat Michelangelo. While still the youngest, he mastered his mystic fire and chains first and learned a great deal of other spells, too. He was reckless though and did not always think things through. Here as well Draxum had to teach patience and calculating the consequences of one's own actions.
With time, their training got more brutal as Draxum wanted them to get used to the horrors of war. He started extending the time of the lessons, leaving little time for pleasure. He started setting feral mutant animals he created on them, started sending them into the famous Battle Nexus, so they learned to win against things bigger than them and how to end a life. Injuries from training became commonplace as well as disciplination through beating.
Scars began to litter the preteen turtles.
Draxum sometimes could not look at them anymore, doubt in his mission coming up, but he crushed those silly little feelings and turned into a cruel, controlling teacher instead of the attentive father he used to be.
His mission to save yokaikind mattered more than the lives of his creations.
His sons grew to be uncontent with their lives, missing their father.
Because at times, the father in Draxum still shone through. When he bandaged up their bloody hands after training, telling them to be careful in his own twisted way, when he openly showed the pride he had for his extraodinary sons who slew monsters in the Battle Nexus at age eleven. His sons stayed because of those moments, their father underneath the cruel teacher, hoping he loved them more than the idea of being yokaikind's savior.
Because they could not lean on their father or outsiders, they leaned on each other.
It's basic logic, hey were stronger together than alone.
And they were in a horrible situation, but at least they were together in a horrible situation.
Things changed when a human girl stumbled into the Hidden City through a portal.
It was destiny that April O'Neil met the Sons of Baron Draxum while lost in city full of strange creatures.
And although the turtles were taught to be wary of humans, they quickly took a liking to the girl. They helped her get back to the surface and she came back to them to have fun together. Humans weren't as bad as their father said.
It was nice, having a friend.
The brothers never really had good friends before. Connections outside of the lonely castle were forbidden. Everyone was out to get them.
At last, a whole human friend could not stay hidden forever.
When Draxum found out and instantly tried to kill April O'Neil, his sons did not allow that.
It came to an ultimatum: either the human died or they were not Draxum's sons anymore.
The turtles chose April over Draxum.
A friend over an unforgiving teacher that used to be a father.
They got kicked out from the only home they ever knew by the yokai that once was their father.
Still hunted by Big Mama who wanted her best-selling Battle Nexus champions back, they started to settle into an abadonned subway station as their new home.
During that time, Miles Gonzalo Morales, the Prowler, met Michelangelo, youngest Son of Baron Draxum.