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"You wanna know what would make this even more fun?" Leo looked down from the roof they were positioned on, wide grin suggesting mischief.
"No." Miles said, "Please no."
"... Epic Battle Music!" Pointedly, Mikey's blue-clad brother ignored Miles' opinions.
"Yes!" Mikey cheered loudly, Donnie and Raph agreeing with him. Music would make battling so much more fun! They had to try it out!
"We will loose any element of surprise that way, do you really want to do this?" Miles questioned the brothers' enthusiasm.
"A few pesky drug dealers are nothing to us, Prowler, they can know when we're coming." Donnie explained, grinning quite sadistically as he spoke the last sentence.
Miles stayed quiet for a moment, the purple-glowing eyes of his mask thoughtfully looking down onto the dingy warehouse where later this evening some drug shipments of the Sinister Six cartel would be delivered here.
Are we messing too much with his plan? Mikey wondered anxiously. Draxum had never liked it when they went against orders, when Leo changed plans without informing anyone of it. We're just trying to have some fun, no one will get harmed because of it.
Or maybe Miles just wasn't the biggest fan of them randomly appearing while he was preparing an attack on a drug trade.
But they hadn't meant any harm at all, Mikey just wanted to hang out, yet the feelings the turtle received from his friend were suffocating tension.
"Fine." Miles gave in, ripping Mikey out of his thoughts, "But I get to choose the song."
"We don't have to if you think it's too-" Mikey started, only to be cut off by Miles himself.
"Orange, I already said yes. No need for niceties." The sound of this fake-name they had made up in a hurry solely for the purpose of not being recognized still sounded foreign to Mikey.
"I don't wanna pressure you into anything." The turtle responded. He wanted Miles to feel welcome with them, he wanted Miles to like them, not just accepting of an involuntary alliance. He never should have forced any of this on Miles, why did he have to be so stupid?
"You're not pressuring me." Miles replied, his statement and intentions clear, "If the four of you think you can handle this without the element of surprise, then I trust you with that."
Mikey really didn't deserve Miles' kindness. Mikey had hurt him so often and yet Miles still treated him kindly.
He was so, so thankful for his forgiveness.
"Thanks, Miles." Mikey said with a hesitant smile.
"You don't need to do that." Miles dismissed to the the turtle's thank you and turned to Donnie instead who had created a small speaker with mystics that floated now above ground, "Can you play 'What's Up, Danger', Purple?"
"Indeed, I do." Donnie grinned and music started blasting from the speaker., "Excelent choice, Prowler."
Mikey recognized the song.
It was one of his favorites.
Miles and he listened to it constantly while drawing alongside each other.
The box-turtle smiled because Miles was thinking of him.
"I like this song, too."
"It's one of my favourites currentely." Miles returned and for a moment, Mikey forgot that Miles didn't know that he was MJ as well.
For a moment, it felt like they were really friends.
Something about their souls, darkpurplesoftelectricshininglikethemoon and brightorangesparksoffireburninglikethesun, just matched with each other, like a pair of socks or the dichotomy of night and day and Mikey loved it.
It was something new, something different from the connection Mikey had with his brothers where they felt just like another part of himself, four people forming one complex weapon meant for destruction. Loosing one of them would be like loosing a limb.
Miles was more of a mirror however, someone through whom Mikey could discover new facets of himself, become more than just a weapon and warrior.
For the same reasons why Mikey couldn't loose April, he couldn't loose Miles.
Mikey never wanted to be solely a weapon ever again.
The Turtles and the Prowler dropped down onto the roof of the warehouse, Raph smashing the glass skylights easily.
Shattered glass rained down into the warehouse and mixed with the ominous beats of the music, creating a harmony that spelled danger.
Oh, this was gonna be good.
Alarmed by the disruption of the silence, the criminals overseeing the trade turned around to the source of the breaking glass sound.
One of them, a lanky, young man in dark clothing and a medical mask over his mouth, left his position to check what was going on with the broken skylight there.
"I don't know what's-" He announced while checking the place. At least that's what he thought until he looked up.
Mikey waved at the man who gasped in terror as he caught sight of the dark silhouettes of the Turtles and the Prowler, solely illuminated by moonlight, the glow of the Turtles' markings and the purple eyes of the Prowler.
"Abort mission! Abort now! The Prowler's here!" The man yelled a warning to his comrades, but it was already too late. They'd either leave this building dead or in chains.
"Nuh uh, nobody's getting away here. Not on my watch!" Leo leaned down into the warehouse to answer, his laughter echoeing through the warehouse, sending waves of fear through the criminals down there.
Then, he jumped down with an audible thump, the criminals taking it as a sign to run.
For the rest of the brothers, it was a sign to begin.
"Don't kill any people, please." Miles whispered to them before the remaining brothers could jump down into the warehouse.
"Roger that, Prowler!" Mikey accentuated his reply with a little formal salute. He would not kill anyone if Miles didn't want him to. He didn't want to upset his friend in any manner. He wanted this alliance to work.
Then, following their blue-clad brother's example, Raph, Donnie and Mikey jumped down and they began their hunt.
They chased after the running men, Leo cutting off the exits with portals that lead back into the middle of the warehouse so that when the criminals tried to escape they landed right in front of the Turtles instead.
Terrified screaming and the sounds of gunshots started to fill the warehouse.
Donnie countered with his own guns, shooting from the safe shield of Raph's giant red avatar.
Safely crouched on the spiky shell of his eldest brother, Mikey watched as the criminals tried to hide behind canisters and boxes smelling like drugs, presumably where they hid the shipments, yet failing and instead getting caught in the purple nets Donnie's guns created.
The fight was over very quickly, to say the least.
Mikey slid off Raph's back as Miles finally decided to drop in as well, cautious of the gunfire beforehand.
Filled with anticipation, Mikey studied the vigilante's reaction to cleanly caught criminals, trapped in purple-glowing spheres of mystic energy.
Did he like it? Was he satisfied with their performance?
They had done exactly as he was expected of them.
They had caught the thugs quickly, efficently and without shedding any blood.
Miles looked around, judging the result of the fight. With the mask on, Mikey couldn't read Miles' facial expression, but there were no extraordinary spikes of terror or hatred, only a little bit of shifty unease, but that was relatively normal for Miles when he interacted with them in the turtle forms. A part of his friend still didn't seem to be able to shake the waryness of the people who had threatened and kidnapped him. Understandable. They just had to keep on proving that they were not the enemy.
Finally, Miles gave an answer, a judgement.
"Wow, that was... impressive." Miles awkwardly stated, "With y'all around, I don't even need to fight. You're making me jobless here."
Better so.
Mikey knew that Miles could look after himself or else he wouldn't survived his vigilanteeing not for so long, but that didn't mean that Mikey wanted to risk his friend getting hurt. It was silly, he knew that he probably didn't need to be coddled, Mikey as well sometimes hated it when someone always threw themself in front of danger when he could take a hit just fine (cough, cough, Raph, Red Angel, Savage).
Though Miles hadn't complained yet. (Although he might just be too wary of them to speak up about it if it bothered him, but let's not think about that-).
"You want a piece of the action, too?" Donnie perked up at the sweet taste of a compliment, his purple-clad brother always longed for approval, probably even more than Mikey.
"... I'm not sure." Miles' voice and gaze drifted through the warehouse. Sometimes, Mikey wished he could hear concrete thoughts and not just emotions. But hearing thoughts was only achievable through mind-meld. "But thank you for your help, I appreciate it."
"It's nothing. Allies help each other out." Raph returned the kind gesture with snaggle-toothed smile.
"Yeah, I guess they do." The reply of Miles was accompanied with a certain fonf warmth to it, a sensation Mikey still wasn't particularly used to, though he loved it: sparks of friendship, camraderie.
They were getting closer, yes!
Soon, Mikey could hang around his friend guilt-free. Life would be perfect then. Or, as perfect as it could get when you were a weapon on the run from your father in a society that didn't accept you.
Mikey could feel it, that day was close, he just knew it.
A year ago, he could have never imagined everything coming to this.
A year ago, his life had been composed of a gruesome training schedule and strict rules of where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do.
But now? Now, Mikey and his brothers could do whatever they pleased to. Nobody could tell them anymore what to do.
It was scary and confusing, yet exciting and fulfilling at the same time.
And of all the things in the world Mikey could have had, Mikey had chosen Miles.
Irrational maybe, but a choice solidified through love.
Everything would be perfect-
A wave of shock and pain hit Mikey into the gut, making the turtle gasp with pain.
And he wasn't the only one, Leo, Donnie and Raph had hunched over in pain as well, Raph shaking and the twins both going pale.
The pain burned like only green-yellow flames could.
The four of them shared shared a knowing look, a message that ran clear through their mind-meld.
April.
She's in trouble.
"You guys ok? Why are standing here all hunched over?" Radiating confusion, Miles hesitantely stepped towards the hunched over turtles.
While Mikey would have liked to explain what was going on, there was an emergency. April, their best friend, almost a family member even, was in danger.
"We gotta go." Raph gasped, ignoring Miles' question in favor of rescueing April.
"What? Why?" Miles' confusion only grew as the brothers pushed the human aside.
Leo didn't need to be asked to slash open a portal directly to the place where April was.
"No time to explain, we're sorry!" Mikey still felt the need to yell an apology to Miles as he ran alongside his brothers into the portal.
A blue flash and the Turtles landed on the roof of a small bodega in April's closer neighborhood.
Usually, this place was calm (well, as calm as it could get in New York) in the evening, only the residents of appartements zipping around to do late-evening grocery shopping.
However, not this evening.
This evening, the quiet was interrupted by a group of mutants and a human girl duking it out on the open street, the girl being woefully outnumbered, yet still remaining strong.
One human against a cannibal pig mutant, a magic hippopotamus and ugh, Repo Mantis, (what was that guy doing here) attacking Mikey's friend.
It was impressive that April was still up and fighting, dodging the mutants' attacks very well for someone with no formal training and even getting a few hits in with her trusty, green baseball bat.
Their protection and strength spells were doing their job. Thank the Yokai Gods.
Still, no matter the amounts of spells on their friend could protect their friend from the mutant group's attacks forever.
The brothers had to intervene now.
As Mikey stepped forward to jump from the rooftop and join the fight on April's side, he noticed that there was someone else on this rooftop besides his brothers and him as well.
A subtle, purple glow that didn't come from Donnie's mystics, yet still felt awfully familiar, so much so that Mikey wrote off its presence as normal.
"Miles?" He turned to meet purple-glowing Prowler eyes, "You followed us?"
"...Yes? I mean, you didn't tell me not to?" Miles awkwardly answered, a slight whiff of fear in the air as the vigilante seemingly started to regret his decision to follow.
Mikey didn't know what to do nor what to say. Miles seeing them help out April could risk exposing their human identites.
So he looked to his brothers for guidance.
Miles followed us. What should we do?
April needs us. We don't have time to deal with this. Red Angel growled, frustrated everything suddenly getting more complicated. She was right, though.
April needed them right now more than anything.
"We didn't intend for you to follow us, but we have more pressing worries than that as of the moment." Donnie articulated the brothers' collective answer as he pointed to April getting more and more pressed into a corner by the three attacking mutants.
Mikey felt a spike of shock go through Miles when the hero saw April, a person he also knew in civilian life, facing off against three mutants at once and surviving. Their protection spells were working, thankfully.
"April..." Miles rasped, barely audible, "What are you doing here?"
"We have been standing around for too here, let's smash these guys!" Raph angrily punched his fists together, red mystic manifesting around them, and jumped down the roof directly charging at the mutants harming April.
Without thinking twice about it, Mikey followed his elder brother down, whipping out his chains to pull the pig mutant and its hammer away from April who almost had been hit by it.
It flew directly into the arch of Donnie's mystic hammer swing, sending the pig high up into the sky.
Meanwhile, Leo had dropped down onto the shoulders of the magic hippo mutant, startling the creature twice as tall as himself.
Still, Leo remained steady on the hippo's shoulder by driving the tip of his sword into the mutant's shoulder. It screamed in pain and sunk to its knees.
Unphased by his victim's suffering, Leo leaned down and looked the hippo in the eye.
"Who sent you? We all know you aren't attacking her for no reason." He hissed, low and angered, "So who are you working for?"
Mikey, still busy with smacking the pig mutant against the concrete walls of a house with his chains, that this magic hippo had fought his brothers before and that it had made it out alive through sheer luck alone.
"Mezmer- Mezmer-" The hippo heaved out inbetween pained breaths, its eyes emitting an energy that Mikey could clearly identify as magical.
It was trying to put a spell on Leo to protect itself.
Leo recognized that imeadiately that though.
"Nice try, buddy, but not with me!" The slider exclaimed and pulled down the purple turban on the hippo's head onto its eyes, in sync with his sword digging deeper into the creature's shoulder, "Now answer the question, buddy, or I will make your death slow and painful."
"B-Baron Draxum, he ordered us to kidnap her to get to you." The hippo muttered out.
As those words left its mouth, all the brothers' face darkened.
For a moment, they froze, the name of their father evoking a fear in them like nothing else could.
Rationally, they all knew that together they could best Draxum in combat, yet that didn't stop the shivers running down their spines when thinking of him.