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Mikey wakes up because someone is grabbing him.
His eyes snap open and—when had he gone to sleep?
The last thing he remembers is being in the Hidden City with his brothers. He and Leo had split off from Donnie and Raph, all of them agreeing to meet up later. And then...and then…
There are unfamiliar voices murmuring around him. Unfamiliar hands holding onto his arms, his legs, his shell. Mikey tries to jerk himself away from them but nothing happens. He tries to buck, to twist, to pull into his shell, tries to move, to do anything.
His body will not answer him.
He can’t move anything but his eyes.
And his organs, apparently, given how his lungs are heaving in panicked gasps for air. He tries to call out for his brothers and can only make a soft, strangled whine in his throat.
He is helpless.
Mikey doesn’t know where he is. He’s laying on something somewhat soft, but it shakes and rattles as it moves. He knows he’s moving, can see the shadows and shapes through the thin sheet draped over him, can make out the cluster of people who must be holding him steady on whatever he’s laying on. Why is he under a sheet? Why does whatever he’s on sound like an old shopping cart being pushed through a cave?
Where is Leo?
Another whines squeaks out of him, frightened and breathy. Weak.
Leo had been right next to him. So why isn’t he here now? Where is he?
It doesn’t take much to spark his Ninpō these days. Mikey reaches for it with the mental muscle memory of reaching for the light switch to his room. It’s there, a sun burning pleasantly in his chest, waiting for his call, eager to leap to his aid.
He can’t reach it.
No matter how far Mikey stretches, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot reach his Ninpō. It’s different than the Krang sealing it away, cold and lost behind a wall. This is not a barrier that he claws at, this is a gap, a yawning expanse between himself and his mystic power. It’s not blocked, it’s right there. He just can’t reach it.
The movement and rattling wheels stop and Mikey holds his breath, straining to move. The hands holding him shift and change their grip, holding him tighter. The sheet is disturbed as he’s lifted up and it slides off of him, silky smooth, whispering over his scales in a way that makes him shiver.
Mikey isn’t sure what he expected to see—maybe a dungeon, a torture chamber, a big throne with a bad guy sitting on it. But he had certainly not expected a hot spring.
They’re in a cave of pale stone walls and a low ceiling. Most of the room is taken up by the spring; it’s waters are a rich blue and the bottom of the spring looks like polished metal. A steady stream of water runs from a hole near the ceiling, trickling in a soothing ambiance down into the spring. Globes of mystic energy hover loose in the air, lighting the room in shifting yellow light, diffused by the steam rising from the water and the smoke curling from the burning incense set in the corners of the room. The air is thick and humid, already rich with sandalwood spice and pine.
The people holding him are yokai. Some are draped in silver robes and carrying ceramic jars or glass bottles or towels. From what Mikey is able to tell as he’s carried toward the spring, the ones holding him are barely dressed at all, only wearing gray skirts of heavy cloth.
He tries to squirm away but his body still refuses to move. He wants to kick and punch, he wants to scream. He’s trapped in his own body, a prisoner, only able to watch.
Mikey makes a pathetic noise of protest as the yokai gently lower him into the hot water. It stings briefly before he adjusts to it. And then he hates that it feels nice.
The yokai support him in the water, keeping him sitting upright against the side of the pool. Mikey doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it one bit. He’s been stripped of his gear and is sitting in the water with a bunch of naked yokai and he can’t. Move. (Memories of Splinter’s awkward “adult talk” and Raph’s warnings about strangers are ice creeping across his mind, churning his stomach, curdling his fear.)
One of the yokai reaches for Mikey’s face and he whines, squeezing his eyes shut. Even if he has to feel what’s about to happen, he doesn’t want to see it.
Warm water spills over his head.
Mikey blinks his eyes open, startled. The yokai leaning over him smiles calmly, scoops another cup of water from the spring, and pours it over Mikey again.
Confusion settles uncomfortably next to the fear in Mikey’s chest.
They’re...giving him a bath?
That’s not...well, it’s not like it’s the worst thing that could happen but...it is weirdly intimate. Mikey’s not sure if the flush in his face is from the heat or from what’s happening. No one has bathed him since he was a toddler and that had been by the hands of his big brother. Mikey’s nearly an adult, he doesn’t need to be babied and he certainly doesn’t need someone else washing him. Especially strangers. The fear percolates into dread that sits dark and ugly in his mind, a sour taste in the back of his mouth. These yokai could do anything to him and he would be helpless to stop them.
The yokai in the water with him are humming. The ones in the robes, staying out of the spring, begin to harmonize with them in a soft song. Mikey doesn’t know what language they’re using but it makes the air feel thicker. It’s mystic, whatever they’re doing. And no matter what it is, Mikey figures it cannot be good.
Where the hell is Leo?
A rattling comes bouncing off the walls of the cave. It sounds just like the sound that had carried him into this room. Mikey can’t raise his head to look, but he can kind of see out of the corner of his eye as more yokai enter the room. Silver robes, some barely dressed, and something draped in a sheet. The yokai move about at the edges of Mikey’s vision as more water is splashed over his head. It looks like they’re picking the whatever out from under the sheet and carrying it to the water. They step fully into Mikey’s line of site and—
Gently lower Leo into the spring directly across from Mikey.
Leo locks eyes with him and Mikey can see all the apologies and rage and bitterness and regret in Leo’s gaze. There his big brother goes again, blaming himself. Mikey’s really going to have to sit him down for A Talk after this. No way in hell is Mikey going to let Leo shoulder all the blame for this. They both got jumped.
The yokai lift Mikey out of the water and set him on the edge of the pool. His feet are still in the warm water and he still has full view of Leo as he brother is soaked as well. Mikey is torn between trying to see what the yokai are doing and keeping his gaze locked with Leo. Mikey’s big brothers always make him feel safe and strong and invincible. They are larger than life and Mikey adores them with every fiber of his being. Even if they’re stuck in the same situation, knowing one of his brothers is there comforts Mikey. He knows he is never alone, but having a tangible presence is much more reassuring, especially when he can’t reach his powers.
Mikey is so fixed on watching Leo that he doesn’t notice what the yokai around him have been doing until their hands are on him again. They’ve put gloves on and one of them is holding one of the glass bottles from one of the robed yokai. Mikey makes a muted click in his throat, as close to a meaningless warning as he can get, but that doesn’t stop the yokai.
“The anointment of dragon’s blood, the foundation of all mystic circles, the blood of the earth,” Murmurs the yokai with the bottle. She looks like a kind of ferret with little purple horns and four black eyes, “All hail and praise be the king.”
“All hail and praise be the king.” The other yokai repeat.
The ferret yokai takes Mikey’s hand and lifts his arm, upending the bottle to pour out a streak of dark, reddish goop. It’s cool against his heated limb and Mikey instantly hates it.
He hates it even more when the ferret passes the bottle to another attendant and starts working the goop into Mikey’s scales.
And it does take work. Mikey’s scales repel water easier than they absorb it, so the yokai have to massage the substance in, rolling his skin between their hands and kneading him with their fingers. It’s uncomfortably close and Mikey lets out another one of those breathy, strangled whines. The smell of the stuff is sweet and earthy, seeping into his nose, so thick he can almost taste it.
The yokai are rubbing it into him all over. His arms, his shell, even his plastron. One of them has their hands on his neck and shoulders, putting pressure but never enough to stop his breathing. Someone is massaging it into his head and he can see their fingers in his periphery as they cup his cheeks and rub his face. When some yokai grab his legs and start working their way up from his feet, his eyes begin to burn.
Mikey stares pleadingly across the pool at Leo, his breath coming quicker.
People are touching him, strangers are touching him. They’re touching him everywhere and they won’t stop. Their unwanted touches sweep under his arms and over his sides, places that might have sent him squealing with laughter from how ticklish they were had it been the teasing of his brothers or April. Now it just makes him feel cold and frightened.
The yokai working on his legs have reached past his knees and are kneading the flesh of his thighs.
A high pitched keen of fear trembles out of Mikey.
His mind says his body should be shaking, trembling with panic and terror. But his muscles are loose and pliant and he cannot move.
Leo’s eyes are on fire. Horror and rage and despair read in his burning stare. He won’t look away though. Even as the yokai lift him out of the spring and begin the same treatment, he does not look away from Mikey.
We’re in this together, Leo’s eyes say, even as frightened as he is, being brave for Mikey, I’m here for you, Mikey. I’m right here. We’re going to be okay.
And, oh, Mikey wants to believe him. But he just can’t see the way out.
Mikey wants to throw up. His stomach is twisting and his mouth tastes foul, nausea brewing in his gut as the yokai finish covering him in the goop stuff. The smell of it is tangling with the incense, thickening the humid air until Mikey can feel it settling in his lungs with each gasping breath. His heart is the only muscle that is working correctly and its pounding a frenzy into his plastron, slamming itself against the walls, desperate to escape the hell Mikey is trapped in.
He wants this to be over.
But of course, it does not matter what he wants.
“The blessings of the sacred oil,” Say the yokai in their low voices, “Ancient and divine, power to all. Hail and praise be the king.”
“Hail and praise be the king.”
Another substance is rubbed into Mikey’s skin. It doesn’t absorb completely, leaving a wet sheen across his scales and a wooden smell in his nose. Once again the yokai surround him, touch him, hold him. It’s as bad as it was the first time.
There’s a scream building inside of him. It wants to tear out of his throat, rip its way out of his lungs. Everything about him is trapped. His mind is rebelling.
This isn’t like the Krang. There is no apocalypse looming over the city, no living flesh tendrils digging into his body and slithering through his muscles, no threat of violence at all. The yokai have not hurt him or Leo as far as he can tell. Apart from the kidnapping, they’ve done no harm. They’re being gentle. They’ve bathed him, washed him like he was royalty, and are now, what, making him smell nice? Yeah, they’re making him uncomfortable and, yeah, he doesn’t like how many of them are touching him, how close they are to him.
But they haven’t done anything.
And Mikey doesn’t understand why he wants to cry and scream and claw at his own skin.
Mikey doesn’t understand why this makes him feel dirty.
Across the spring, he can see the tightening of Leo’s eyes and the way his gaze is threatening to go distant. Leo hates this too. He looks pale, his nostrils flaring in short bursts. But when he catches Mikey’s eye again, the resolve hardens over. Leo is scared and upset, but he hasn’t given up.
Leo never gives up.
So Mikey won’t either.
Despite this determination, he still wishes he could flinch when the yokai next approach him with a brush.
“The painting of the symbols,” The ferret whispers, dipping the brush into a jar held by one of the robed yokai, “Voice, word, and art, tied with holy rites, the heralds of our ancient master. Hail and praise be the king.”
“Hail and praise be the king.”
Mikey has painted on himself before. He likes the sensation of cool, wet paint layered on his scales and plastron. He likes the pops of color and the smooth, swirling lines, the colors blending into one another. His brothers have allowed themselves to be his canvases a few times as well, the brush and paint being one of the few things Donatello actively enjoys.
When the ferret begins to paint on Mikey, it feels hot. It sears deep beneath the surface, sinking into his slack muscles and etching into his bones. A whimper manages to escape him, tiny and weak. Leo’s eyes flash, not with Ninpō but with a fathomless rage. Mikey doesn’t think he’s ever seen such anger in his brother before.
The ferret paints Mikey with a thick paste like dark red clay. The scent of it is overpowering, muddy and dark and nauseating. Every painted line smolders like a flame waiting to catch.
Whorls on his hands make his fingers ache, joints feeling swollen and inflamed.
His lungs gasp and rattle with hot, dry air when bold geometry is left across his plastron.
His shell feels like it is splitting along the designs that trace their way down his back.
The heat pools uncomfortably below his stomach, chased there by loops painted around his hips and thighs.
Steam is trapped in his skull, fogging his thoughts and blurring his mind when the top of his head is decorated.
The sweep of paint around his neck makes his throat swell to a pinhole.
He wants so badly to flinch away when the brush approaches his eye. He is helpless to do anything but watch as the ferret uses one hand to gently close Mikey’s eyelid and paint over it before doing the same to the other. Tears bubble into the corners of his eyes at the burn, streaking down his cheeks as he gasps and wheezes.
The ferret only tuts and someone dabs the tears away.
Mikey’s chin is grabbed, his cheeks pinched slightly as his head is moved. The brush leaves a streak of that dark red substance over his lips and the scream trapped inside Mikey reaches a crescendo. The burn sinks into his gums and makes his teeth ache, his tongue shrivels into a dry husk, his mouth is singed and full of ash.
Heat permeates every inch of his body.
It is not the friendly, comforting fire of his mystic power, a flame that would never leave a mark on him. This is desire and lust, this is something hungry and mean, a wicked thing that wants to eat and propagate and give nothing back. The feeling of it crawling over him, inside him, leaves a sense of wrongness so profound that Mikey disconnects from his body.
For a blissful moment, his mind simply shuts down and refuses all input. He is in an oasis of peace. The rest of the world is far away and cannot touch him.
Then reality comes crashing back in when hands grab him tightly again.
He clicks and whimpers, the pain and terror setting in all over again. The yokai pay him no heed, lifting him up to settle him on a padded cart on his side. Leo is staring at him hard and Mikey desperately wants to tell him that he will be okay, even if they both know it would be a lie.
No, Mikey tells himself as a door shuts between him and Leo and the last thing he sees is the desperate grief in Leo’s eyes, No, we WILL be okay!
They would be okay because their family would come for them. Raph and Donnie are still out in the Hidden City and there’s no way Donnie hasn’t been checking their location every five minutes or something. He’s been like that since the invasion, has to know where everyone is and gets twitchy about any of them going off alone. So he’s got to know that Mikey and Leo are not in the place they said they would be.
Raph and Donnie will come for them. They will come for them and they will be okay. They will go home and wash all this horrible stuff off of Mikey and then he can forget about it and never think of it again and they can pretend like it never happened.
The rattling of the cart beneath him stokes the fire painted on his body. Mikey is being cooked alive from the inside out. It makes him itch and squirm. The scream inside him is going to split his plastron into piece and tear its way out by force, shattering him. He will burn and nothing of him will remain. At least the sheet isn’t over him again, he can’t imagine how stifling it would have been to be smothered under it while he is burning like this.
Whatever room they enter next is darker than the hot spring or the tunnels.
Mikey can’t see much at first, laying on his side facing a wall, but there is a poisonous green light flickering over polished stone. He can faintly make out symbols and shapes carved into the rock, lines upon lines of runes covering the wall, barely visible in the dancing shadows.
Hands are grabbing him again, lifting and moving him. He hates the limp fire of his body, how he can’t even twitch. He is a series of thoughts in a cage of his own flesh and blood.
The yokai place Mikey on what seems to be a chair made of stone. It is ice cold at first, but the soothing chill is quickly washed away by the smoldering fire painted on his skin. He is arranged like a doll, his arms set to lay on the arm rests, his legs so his feet are resting on the rock floor. The curve of his shell is against the back of the chair and his head lolls forward so he is looking at his own lap. One of the yokai cups Mikey’s head in their hands, lifting his head back up so he’s looking straight ahead, into their eyes. Another presses their fingers to a spot on the back of Mikey’s neck and whispers a word.
All of his muscles seize and lock in place.
Chords of molten steel hold him still. He is no longer a boneless rag doll but instead a posed figurine, perched and perfect and immovable.
This is somehow worse.
Apparently satisfied with their work, the yokai disperse, allowing Mikey a view of the rest of the room.
A wail of despair builds into the scream still trapped inside him.
Across the room, in chairs of their own, painted and posed, are Raph and Donnie.
Raph is looking at Mikey with guilt and apologies and horror. There’s a tiny part of Mikey that’s almost impressed that these yokai managed to move Raph around at all. But mostly he’s angry that they made his big brother look so scared.
Donnie, on the other hand, has evidently reached his limit on what he can handle. His gaze is vacant, staring into nothing, his mind shutdown to as much outside input as it can. If Mikey hated his experience in the hot spring, it must have been hell for someone like Donnie, whose day-to-day life was ruled by what he could not or would not allow to touch him.
The patterns painted on Raph and Donnie are identical and Mikey can only guess that the ones on his own body are the same. In the low, flickering green light from somewhere above them, the lines are black, wicked shackles with thorny points. The angles are sharp and twist together, confusing spirals that lead back into themselves, coming to form a complicated knot low on the plastron. There’s something...wild about the way the lines look in the dancing light, like snakes writhing, shadows struggling to get out. The discomfort grows, frothing as it cooks in the unnatural heat boiling in Mikey’s body.
He’s only a little grateful for the distraction of Leo being carried into the room, letting him tear his eyes away from the patterns coiled around his brothers’ bodies. Leo is painted now too, his stripes marred by the thick, dark paint. Then he’s moved out of Mikey’s line of sight, presumably to another throne to be posed and frozen.
Mikey can’t breathe.
The air is heavy with mystic energy and the fire in his body is suffocating, uncomfortable. Entirely alien and not his own in a way that makes him sick. It sits inside him like a living, breathing thing, pulsing a discordant heartbeat that’s slower than the one pounding frantic fear in his chest. If only he could scream, then he could let it out, let it tear out of him and leave him cold and shivering. That must be better than cooking slowly.
The yokai are gathering in the room. Their silver robes whisper against the stone as they position themselves in a circle around the chairs. As they begin what can only be a kind of ritual, Mikey prays to his ancestors, to anyone, that they can escape this. He doesn’t want to know how it ends.
One of the yokai raises their voice above the low humming of the others, chanting to a steady beat,
“Lord of the twisted
And intertwined
Of earthly pleasures
Of knots divine
Of hoard and shadows
And whispered things
A sacrifice
To all these things
A bond whose ties
Run deep and old
A bloodline ancient
Noble and bold
Each compass point
Their places marked
All souls connected
By mystic art
Stoke deep the fire
Rush swift the blood
Tie tight the vessels
‘Till bellies flood…”
The words drip with power, mystic energy tangibly rippling through the hot air of the room. Mikey can feel it surging stronger the longer the yokai carry on. It’s making his head spin and his stomach clench.
He can see Donnie’s wild eyes gleaming in the light on the other side of the circle. Something’s different about the painted lines and it takes Mikey a moment to struggle through the fog in his head to realize what it is. He thought at first that they were simply still wet, shining in the dancing light. But he puts the pieces together quickly enough when he feels on himself what he sees on Donnie.
Shimmers of dark crimson pulse steadily along in the lines in time with the yokai’s chanting. The dull lights travel across Donnie’s form, converging on that intricate knot on his plastron. Mikey can feel them crawling over his own skin, pulsing with the beat of the chants. He can feel them pulling closer to his middle, to that complicated weave of lines and loops, the ache in him growing the closer they get. The scream he wants to let out is boiling in his cooking lungs. He’s going to be ripped apart.
“Hail the master
Their tails tied
Their souls as one
No minds divide!
Praise be the king
Their time has come
For fate foretold
Strings come undone!”
Every fiber of Mikey’s being is shrieking to be free. Free of the pain, free of the fire, free of this frozen prison, free of this dark underground. He wants to get out. He needs to get out. Black spots are blooming in his vision, his head is spinning, his body so fraught with fire he can hardly feel it anymore. He must be dying. He must be because no person could stand this and live. All that he is has become a flame in his core, an inferno scorching and consuming all in its path with delight.
His brothers are the same. He can feel them, tied to him as they are, as they always have been.
The four of them have always been a single unit. They are nothing without each other. Where one of them falters, the others stand tall. Where one of them slips, the other grasps his hand and pulls him up again.
They were built to be a team, crafted specifically together, each a balance to the other. It matters not what their original purpose was or what it has become. The only thing that matters is them.
They are One.
It has always been this way.
“HHOOOOOOOOOTTT SOOUUUPPPPP!”
A booming crash and a shockwave knock everything askew.
Mikey can’t see through the dust in the air that makes his eyes sting and his lungs burn in a different way.
The chanting has stopped and the voices have become screams and shouts. The sounds don’t make sense, too many noises piling on top of each other to form a wall of static that claws at his eardrums. The fire that had been eating him has rapidly cooled, though its embers still smolder against his bones. He is not burning alive, but he is still cooked by a fever that melts his mind.
A figure lurches towards him through the hazy air and Mikey can do nothing to defend himself. The yokai are regrouping and they’re going to grab him and run. He’ll be stolen away again and his family won’t be able to find him and—
“Michelangelo!” Draxum appears through the smoke and dust and Mikey has never been so happy to see him, “Thank the Titan! You’re all right now, we’re getting you out!” He crouches over Mikey, hands hovering but not touching as he inspects the lines and shapes painted across Mikey’s body. He hums to himself, eyes narrowing, and then reaches around behind Mikey’s head to rest his fingers on the back of Mikey’s neck. The touch makes Mikey’s skin crawl. Then Draxum murmurs something and Mikey’s entire body goes limp.
Not boneless and unresponsive as it had been before. More like the collapse of exhaustion
Mikey sags against the throne with a startled gasp, muscles spasming as he is given back control. He’s shaking and the shaking gets worse as he realizes he could move if he wanted to. And he does want to! He wants to get up and hug Draxum and run to his brothers, but the tremors are so bad he’s sliding out of the chair and he can only paw uselessly at the air. Whimpers and cries and pathetic little chirps are tumbling out of him and he can’t stop himself.
“Take a deep breath,” Draxum instructs over the shouting and chaos behind him, “You’re going to be all right.”
Draxum tries to pick him up from the chair, but Mikey batters his hands away with a hiss. And then, because his fear is giving way to anger, Mikey bares his teeth and snarls.
His markings spark with golden light. The lines painted on his body pulse with something dark.
“Michelangelo, you need to—”
He doesn’t hear the rest.
His scream drowns it out. The scream that has been building from the beginning tears up through his throat and rips through the air. It harmonizes with the three other screams echoing from around the room.
Light is spilling from every direction, fractured by smoke and dust. Gold and violet, crimson and blue, slashing beams that collide and tangle until they become blindingly white.
They scream until long after the air should have run out of their lungs.
They scream until their lights sputter out and the world goes dark and quiet.
Then there is nothing but peaceful stillness
for
many
long
hours.
Mikey peels his eyelids apart with a considerable amount of effort. He squints at the hazy shapes around him, still drifting in sleep, warm and cozy.
He is no longer burning from the inside out, though his joints still ache and his stomach hurts. He is just warm. It feels safe. It feels right.
With a jaw cracking yawn, he shifts and drags a hand up to rub the sleep from his eyes. His movement causes a ripple to disturb the shapes around him. His brothers stir from their own slumbers, low-frequency rumbles vibrating deep in their throats, calling sleepily to one another. Mikey answers them with a soft, lazy chirp and nuzzles his face into the shoulder of whomever is closest. Smells like Leo—ozone, crisp air before a storm, streak of light, a neon beacon.
An arm curls over over Mikey, wrapping around his shoulder to drape over his shell and pull him closer.
“Mike…?” Leo’s voice is hoarse, crusty with sleep. Mikey tilts his head up to peer at Leo’s squinting, hazy eyes.
“Hi,” Mikey whispers with a small smile. It fades when Leo’s expression crumbles into painful guilt.
“Mikey, I’m so sorry!” His voice is low but it still trembles and catches, “I should have been—”
“Shut up,” Mikey puts his hand over Leo’s mouth, “It’s not your fault. And if you keep saying it is, I’ll kick your ass until you get your mind right.”
Raph makes a sound that might have been a scolding “language” had he been more awake. There’s a pause where Leo and Mikey look at each other. Then Leo snickers and ducks his head, pressing it against Mikey’s.
“Okay,” He whispers and there are ashes in his breath, long since cooled, “Please spare me from Dr. Delicate Touch. I’ll be a good boy, I promise.”
Donnie scoffs in his sleep and Mikey stifles a giggle. Leo grins and squirms so they are closer together, closer to their brothers, safe and warm and free. They sleep fall back asleep and share their dreams and think nothing of it when they wake.
They think nothing of many things. Or rather, they would prefer to pretend the changes have not happened at all.
Touching is suddenly a selective thing. Even among each other, there are days when the brothers cannot or will not tolerate the touch of someone else. Mikey nearly screams himself hoarse when Splinter grabs his wrist and April had to duck a wild, frightened swing from Raph. Casey Junior accidentally sneaks up on Donnie and gets kicked so hard it breaks a rib. He tries to apologize and laugh it off but no one buys it.
Everyone asks before touching now.
Mikey starts wearing pants. Brightly colored baggy ones with cuffs on the ankles so he doesn’t trip on them. They have deep pockets for all kinds of things. Splinter shows him how to embroider and Mikey starts stitching his own designs into the pants. He enjoys the customization immensely.
His brothers come to him asking for their own embroidery. Leo for the tails of his mask and the sashes he drapes over his waist. Raph wants them on the shorts he starts to wear. Even Donnie, who could easily have built his own machine that would execute a pattern perfectly, asks if Mikey will decorate the overalls he’s taken to wearing out and about.
Something has shifted between them.
They have always been connected, by Ninpō or by brotherly bond. That connection now seems to run deeper, fiercer. Sometimes they are four and sometimes they are one and the lines between them blur together.
Each of them knows where the other is without having to look. Donnie’s trackers still function, but he doesn’t need to see them to know when Leo is topside at Run of the Mill or Mikey is in the tunnels with his spray paint. And Mikey knows this because Donnie knows this and when he feels Donnie tugging at him, he always tugs back.
Their mystic powers bleed together in a rainbow. Blue into purple into red into orange. Instinct gives way to just knowing, a harmony beyond words and thought. Raph can set his fists ablaze with golden flames. Donnie’s constructs can piece themselves into ferocious mechs that move without his commands. Mikey knows both he and Leo could tear through time and space itself if they so desired. Their powers are limitless and unstoppable.
It’s as terrifying as it is beautiful.
“What happened to us?” Mikey asks Draxum over a family dinner. Everyone else falls silent at the question, looking up expectantly.
Draxum sets his fork down with a sigh, “The ceremony you were a part of was a ritual to summon an old creature, one whose true name has been lost to time. The Rat King.”
Something shivers across the room. Mikey tastes the title in the air. It sings in his blood.
“What, like that thing that happens when rat’s tails get tied together?” April says, “That’s what that is, right?”
“That...phenomena derives from the Rat King, yes,” Draxum nods and looks down at his plate, “I confess I did research the creature when I first began to suspect that humans would bring the doom of the yokai. The Rat King was said to be a being of many parts made into one, a thing of knots and indulgence, beholden to no one.” He sniffs dismissively, though his eyes flash across the four brothers, “If those yokai were indeed attempting to summon such a beast, I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish. Legend says the Rat King obeyed no one and did as it pleased. Perhaps they were just curious.”
“Well, it sounds like avoided another disaster, if you ask me!” Splinter announces loudly, fooling no one, “It is a good thing that the ritual failed.”
Later, on the rooftops of New York, cast in shadows and neon lights, Raph asks,
“Do you think the ritual really failed?”
“I think it failed to do what those yokai wanted it to do,” Leo swings his legs over the edge of the roof. Mikey can feel the wind kissing the bottom of their feet, tugging at their ankles, begging them to fly.
Donnie snorts, “Skill issue.”
All four of them laugh. It is loud and ringing and free.
“Hey Donnie,” Mikey leans, stretching his arms over his head, “Which was worse; the bath or the Technodrome?”
“Ugh, the bath, obviously,” Donnie hisses between his teeth, snout wrinkling in disgust, and they all shiver in sympathy, “At least I got to fly a space ship with the Technodrome. What did I get out of that awful bath, I ask you!?”
“You got us,” Raph points out.
Donnie hems and haws and makes a lot of noise about it. As if they cannot feel the tightening of the chord that is them. As if they cannot know that they had tried to measure their love for each other and found that no numbers nor mathematics across the universe could quantify the brotherhood between them. The brotherhood that is them.
The four of them have always been a single piece of a whole.
“I want pizza,” Says Mikey.
And, because they are one and because they can, they go and take what they want.
For no force on this planet or the next can stop them now.