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Just after sunset, in the early hours of the night when some folk are winding down and others just rising, Michelangelo is kidnapped.
He is spray painting when it happens, alone in an old parking garage that sees little use since the buildings nearby have shut down, broken and abandoned in the wake of the invasion. A snake, its scales beginning to show the shimmers of an iridescent rainbow, is blooming around a central pillar of the parking structure, coiling up from the floor towards the ceiling. Its head is bright red, fading to vibrant orange on its body, then yellow, green, and finally into blue, with space still left for violet at the end of its tail.
Mikey is humming softly as he works, a paint stained hoodie going down to his kneepads, the hood pulled low. He skips and twirls, dancing as much as working on his art. Even as elegant as he is, there is a lack of his usual energy, a weight that is visible even to strangers.
And there are many strangers watching him from the shadows.
They are the remnants of a crumbled empire, stragglers that weren’t there when everything fell apart. When their supposed “masters” twisted the rest of their brethren into misshapen monsters.
It has been nearly five months since the sky ripped open and a fraction of hell spilled into New York City.
What remains of the Foot Clan have been waiting for the perfect moment to enact their revenge on the ones who have ruined their plans time and again. Tonight, their patience has finally be rewarded.
When Mikey crouches to pick up a new spray can, a smoke bomb explodes against the concrete a few inches away from him. He is immediately blinded, coughing and trying to wave the cloud away, staggering back until his shell knocks against the pillar he’d been painting. He fumbles for his nunchaku, tucked into the belts under his hoodie, trying to pull them free through the neck of his shirt.
His assailants don’t give him time.
Mikey shouts as the Foot Clan ninja erupt from the smoke, grabbing his arms and yanking him off his feet. He slams into the concrete floor of the parking garage, wincing as his chin bounces off the hard stone and his teeth clack together. He tries to lash out and get his feet under him, which gets him a sharp kick in the snout, making his eyes water. By the time he’s blinked them clear, the Foot have him pinned, arms yanked behind his shell and a few of them holding his feet down.
“Let go of me!” His voice echos in the lot, fierce and loud, “Lemme go! Get! Off!”
He bucks against their hold and they lean their weight into him. Someone shoves his head down, grinding his face into the dirt and pebbles, and Mikey snarls.
There’s a flurry of activity around him, too many bodies moving, and he can’t keep track of how many there are. Can’t find the leverage to get them off. Their hands on him are tight, fingers digging into the meat of his muscles and grinding his wrist bones together.
Hot Ninpō sparks beneath his skin and catches, igniting in his markings as a golden glow that shows even through his hoodie.
The glow sputters out when a knife is stabbed into the meat of his shoulder.
Mikey shrieks, writhing, trying to pull away from the pain. The Foot ninja that had stabbed him brutally yanks the blade free. A streak of red flings a line across the concrete. Mikey grits his teeth, breathing heavily, tears catching in the corners of his eyes. The fresh wound pulses hot and deep, blood dripping steadily to spread in a warm stain through his sweater, pooling underneath him. It’s sticky against his plastron. It hurts. It hurts a lot.
He’s still trying to get control of himself when the Foot bind his arms and legs with many loops and knots of rope. Clearly they’re not taking any chances.
One of them tuts at the bleeding wound on Mikey’s arm and crudely wraps a bandage around it, yanking it tight and making Mikey hiss. So they want him alive, but don’t care how much he’s hurt. That’s...probably bad news.
When the Foot climb off of him, Mikey raises his head as much as he can, baring his teeth, “You better untie me right now, if you know what’s good for you! When my brothers find out—”
A thick wad of cloth is shoved into his mouth and tied behind his head, making him gag. Mikey glares daggers at the ninja crouched in front of him, trying to make them spontaneously combust with sheer willpower and hate. They sneer at Mikey and give him a condescending pat on the head.
“Oh, your brothers will find out all right,” They say, a snake poised to strike, “In fact, we’re counting on it.”
The Foot ninja all start laughing and Mikey rolls his eyes at their typical villain behavior. It’s the last thing he gets to do before they shove a bag on his head, cinching it tight enough around his neck that it nearly strangles him. Each inhale is a struggle that doesn’t fill his lungs. And with the cloth in his mouth and the bag over head head, he feels like he was suffocating.
Someone grabs his bound legs and starts dragging him across the parking garage. It hikes his hoodie up and scrapes his arms over the concrete. Mikey struggles, bucks, and writhes, doing everything in his power both to get free and to be as big a problem as possible. His shell skids over the ground and presses into his arms. His head knocks against the cold, unyielding stone enough times to make him see stars.
No matter his struggles, the Foot Ninja do not release him. They don’t even seem bothered.
It still takes several of them to pick Mikey up and toss him a short distance.
He lands with a heavy thud in what can only be the back of a vehicle. Mikey wriggles more and yells into his gag. His chest is heaving now, desperate for the proper amount of air and for escape. His Ninpō surges again, fire racing up his veins and flaring behind his eyes.
This time, a kick to the temple knocks the world out of alignment and everything goes fuzzy.
Not quite unconscious, but not fully aware, either.
The world moves but Mikey can’t seem to follow it.
The rumbling of an engine.
Vibrations
Sense of movement.
Voices, muffled and warped.
He’s being dragged again.
The tempo of the voices have changed. They bounce, ricochet like marbles pinging off the inside of Mikey’s skull. It makes his head hurt.
Maybe he makes a noise, a groan or a whimper, because there’s a pause in the voices.
He fades before they start again.
Comes to when his body is jerked and jostled.
There’s strain at his joints, pulled just over the edge of uncomfortable. He tries to adjust to something better but is stopped short. Pressure digs into his limbs, against his plastron. There’s a chill against his scales that says his hoodie is gone.
Mikey’s still trying to put the pieces together when the bag is yanked off his head.
It pinches his throat, momentarily cutting off his air completely, and catches on his chin. And then he’s blinking in the bright light and squinting through watering eyes. The dark, blurry shapes around him resolve into Foot Ninja, all glaring at him with hatred and disgust.
They appear to be in some kind of warehouse, not quite falling apart but clearly a place that had seen better days. There’s patched up holes and sealed doors, a rusted catwalk draped in sagging caution tape, and the buzzing of the overhead lights. A dusty haze hangs in the air.
“Welcome to the last place you’ll ever see,” Sneers one of the Foot, the biggest one, wide shoulders and a neck so thick it almost wasn’t there at all, “Ugly freak!”
Mikey rolls his eyes at the insult and gets a backhand to the face for it. His head snaps to the side and he catches a glimpse of the metal beam he’s tied to. Pathetic. As if ropes and chains could keep him bound.
He turns his furious gaze on the big Foot Ninja, lets his mystic powers pool in his chest again. His markings are just starting to spark when a fist crunches into his stomach. Crunches because his plastron is in the way and, even though it’s just a little softer than a normal turtle plastron, it’s made of bone-stuff and it’s hard and sturdy.
The strike is strong enough to drive the wind out of Mikey’s lungs and leave him gasping. His stomach throbs in a giant bruise and his plastron aches. He wonders if it’s cracked but his eyes are watering too much to be able to see. He can’t get a breath, trying to wheeze around the gag.
The big bruiser who’s punched him might be talking, but Mikey can’t make out the words through the ringing in his ears and his own desperate heaving for air. Probably some more melodramatic villain bullshit. It doesn’t matter anyway. Mikey doesn’t care.
This is far from the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.
Fingers pinch into Mikey’s jaw, jerking his head up. He’s face-to-face with that big Foot ninja. The guy’s inches away, sneering and snarling and macho as hell. His grip on Mikey’s face is just over the edge of being too tight, grinding against bone and crushing bruises into his skin.
“You’re gonna die here,” The man hisses and tightens his grip until Mikey lets out a hitched sound of pain, “And so are your brothers. You’re all gonna pay for what you did!”
Mikey snarls through the gag, tries to jerk forward to headbutt the big bastard. But the grip on his face is too tight and all he manages to do is twitch against his restraints. The Foot ninja laugh and titter at his struggles. Anger is boiling in Mikey’s gut, simmering on a low heat until it’s cooked to perfection.
Whoever said revenge is best served cold doesn’t know how delicious a controlled burn can be.
The Foot slams Mikey’s head back against the metal beam before he lets go. Stars pop across Mikey’s vision and it takes a second for the world to settle back into its proper place. By the time it has, the big guy has stepped back, looking down at Mikey with a mean sneer of superiority, one that tries to degrade and grind Mikey down. All it does is stir the pot of his anger, frothing at the edges.
It’s the same look the Krang had given them.
“Anybody else want a piece before the rest of the freaks get here?” The big Foot ninja gestures at Mikey, “Just don’t kill it.”
Several of the other Foot step forward. Most of them are armed with only their fists, but a few of them have weapons; a knife, a metal pipe, a set of brass knuckles. Mikey glares at them. He’s not frightened of them. He’d rather not be pummeled, stabbed, and beaten, but…
There are worse pains in the world than ones inflicted with a blade.
He still yelps when one of the Foot drives their fist into his snout. Mikey feels the blow all the way to the back of his skull where it slams against the beam again. His nose hurts so bad it’s almost hard to breathe and for a second he feels like suffocating. But the punch hadn’t done more than bruise his scales. He doesn’t even have a bloody nose for it.
One of the Foot circles behind him and Mikey tries to twist around to follow her, but he can’t turn far enough and his shell is in the way. One of his hands is grabbed at and Mikey struggles, trying to reverse the grip. Another Foot swings the pipe into his chest and something definitely cracks this time.
Mikey sags against the bindings, pain sharp and shooting through him A spear of ice has skewered him to the beam, spreading frost through his lungs, seizing them so he’s left gasping for air once again. Every attempt to inhale hitches with pain and shock.
Is he bleeding? Has his plastron caved in? Surely that hadn’t been hard enough to do the kind of damage that the fucking Krang had—
Fire spears through his palm and out the back of his hand and he screams into the gag.
Some distant part of his brain still able to comprehend what’s happening realizes he must have been stabbed.
There’s a knife through his hand.
What the fuck is wrong with these guys?
Mikey is bucking against the metal beam, his shell clanging against it in a discordant cacophony, a bell toll. It’s almost loud enough to cover the cruel laughter of the humans around him. All of it clashes together in a tidal wave, overwhelming, pain and terror and rage tangled with sight and sound and smell. Until it all swirls together in a murky soup in his mind, bewildering and impossible.
His eyes are hot. His hand is hotter. His chest is freezing.
His insides are boiling.
His Ninpō surges again, faster, angrier. Arcs of furious orange flare and crackle, snapping against the Foot Ninja who shout and skitter backwards. One of them is frantically patting the smoking front of their uniform. Mikey smirks at them, pulls his powers up more, starts to build the molten chains to cook the bastards where they stand.
A huge hand plunges through the twisting energy and clamps tightly around Mikey’s throat.
Instantly, the fires go out.
Mikey’s eyes widen and he thrashes, feels like his plastron is grinding against itself—surely it can’t be damaged that badly. The big ugly Foot Ninja is standing over him, thick fingers curled around Mikey’s neck. He squeezes a little tighter and Mikey can feel thin and fragile things beneath his skin bend and crackle. His vision is blurring and the world is tilting wildly around him, spinning and trying to throw him off into space. His chest thrusts desperately as his frozen lungs try to work. His mouth is cotton and nothing, the gag more suffocating than ever, soaked with spit that’s beginning to drool down his face because it has nowhere else to go.
Not like this.
Not choking to death in some rotten warehouse. Not at the hands of these clan-less, honor-less, bastards! Not like this! Please!
“Wow, is this what the Foot have been reduced to? Beating up a kid? Paaaaathetiiiccc~” A voice drawls, echoing in the rundown building.
The grip on Mikey’s neck loosens, hesitates, and then disappears. Mikey greedily sucks in air, heaving it through his nose, huffing around the gag, coughing hard against the pain. It hurts to swallow, to move almost, but Mikey makes himself look. He raises his head, blinking the tears away, and meets the gaze of the person perched in the rusty rafters.
“You good, Miguel?” Leo asks, crouched on his toes, ready to spring into action, but looking as calm and leisurely as he pleases, with one katana propped on his shoulder. He’s wearing an easy smirk, confident and just shy of being downright mean. His eyes, however, are ice cold.
Mikey scowls at Leo and grumbles through the gag. His Ninpō simmers just beneath the surface, casting an iridescent gleam over his scales. The ropes behind his back begin to smolder and smoke.
A low, warning rumble comes from the shadows across the room and Raph’s eyes gleam in the darkness, glowing red with his mystic powers. He’s barely visible at the edge of the light, a huge shape of raw power. The smell of hot asphalt and heavy stone is thick in the air, like the earth is itself is angry.
“Oh good,” Says the big jerk who’d been choking Mikey, grinning like he’s won something, like he has any power at all, “You’re here! We’ve been waiting for you freaks! You’re going to pay for what you’ve done to our Clan!”
Leo cocks a brow, surveying the assembled ninja, “Really? You and what army?”
“We don’t need an army,” Snarls the big idiot, “Not when we have you trapped! You’re surrounded! And now that you’ve entered, you won’t be able to leave!”
“Actually,” There’s a flare of light as April emerges almost out of nowhere, spinning her flaming bat in one hand, casual as anything, “I think you’ll find that you guys are the ones who are trapped.”
“Trapped in here,” Electric green eyes narrow on a chipped and damaged goalie mask, the teeth of the saw blade on CJ’s weapon gleaming hungrily, “With us.”
Behind him, cracking her knuckles, Casey Jones lets out a laugh. It is not a nice laugh.
“The traitor!” Hisses one of the other Foot, eyeing Casey. She leers at the speaker and cackles when they flinch.
The big Foot ninja just looks angrier, “A lot of talk from some snot-nosed brats! We took your brother easily! And you fell for the bait; hook, line, and sinker! We’ve got you right where we want you!”
“Wrong-o~” Leo sing-songs, his smile wide and not at all friendly, “You fell for our bait.”
Mikey snaps the bindings keeping his arms behind his back with a single wrench of strength. Before the Foot can react, he kicks off the ones on his ankles and pulls a fiery chain from the air. Without a word, he whips it forward and lets it snap against the big Foot ninja’s head.
The mountain of a man goes down with a scream of pain, clutching at his face. There’s a sizzling stink in the air of cooking meat.
“Eaasssyyy, Mike,” Leo hums, leaping down from the rafters to land as light as a feather on the floor. He straightens to his full height, flicking both of his swords out to his sides. They purr with mystic power, edges so sharp they slice the very air, hungry blades out for blood,
“We need them alive.”
The Foot retaliate immediately. They launch themselves at the others with war cries and swinging fists. Mikey’s family respond in kind.
Mikey tries to step back from the action to do something about the fucking knife that’s still in his hand, but someone else gets to him first. That big, stupid, burly bastard of a Foot snatches Mikey’s arm and hauls him into the air. Mikey’s limb is a twig in the brute’s meaty fist, squeezed so tightly, Mikey swears he can feel his bones grinding together. He kicks and squirms, clawing at the hand holding him, trying to land a solid hit. When he attempts to summon his Ninpō, he’s shaken like a rag doll, head spinning and shoulder wrenching in its socket.
“You little shit!” The Foot snarls, his words slurred and warped by the burnt flesh twisted across the side of his face. It’s raw and peeling, blackened in some spots, pink and wet in others, slashed across the arc of his cheek, catching the corner of his mouth, and smothering an eye. It’s a gruesome wound and it must hurt like a sonovabitch, “You think this can stop what’s coming to you!? I’m going to rip you apart and then your ugly kin can follow you!” He yanks the blade out of Mikey’s hand without ceremony and Mikey can’t stop the scream that wrenches out of him, tears rushing down his cheeks as the blood sprays from the open wound.
He can feel his heartbeat throbbing in his hand, each pump pushing out another gush of blood. It’s hot against his scales, cascading down his arm and over the Foot ninja’s fingers. It splatters across the dirty floor in streaks and dots, shiny and fresh in bright overhead lights. Mikey’s every breath is a gasp, chest heaving as panic digs its claws into him. He can’t focus. He’s losing too much blood too fast. His brothers are too busy fighting to see what’s happening to him.
The bloodied knife is aiming at him again. Mikey’s world narrows down to the point of the blade.
A glowing red fist closes over the top of the man’s head, and he shouts, dropping Mikey to paw at the mystic light. Mikey clutches his bleeding hand to his plastron and watches with no lack of satisfaction as Raph heaves the big Foot ninja up and over, slamming him into the concrete floor with a shuddering CRACK.
“Lemme see that hand,” Leo flashes to Mikey’s side, already taking a knee to dig through the pouch at his waist. He gives Mikey a teasing smirk as he tugs out a pack of gauze, “Geeze, when I said “make it look real”, I didn’t mean “let them beat the shit outta you”, Mikey.”
“I didn’t let them do anything!” Mikey protests, only flinching a little as Leo tightened a bandage around his hand, “I just—I didn’t expect them to be so…” He sniffs, angry at the tears blooming in his eyes again.
“They made their choice,” Leo says and his voice has a razor’s edge to it, bitter and biting. He gets to his feet, pulling Mikey up with him, “Now let’s fix this.”
The odds are not in their favor. They are outnumbered even by the remaining Foot Clan ninja. But the odds have never been in the favor of the Hamato family and they are nothing if not stubborn. They have faced greater threats than this.
Really, the fight has been one-sided from the start. The Foot ninja that are left are merely human, with no powers between them. Without the Brute and Lieutenant, they are disorganized and lack true leadership. The Hamato surround them and beat them down, even if they take a few hits as they do so.
In short order, the Foot are brought to heel.
Some are unconscious, a few are dead, but most are bound with zipties. Cassandra, the mad women, has trussed a couple of them up in hogties and looks quite pleased with herself about it. Mikey has the biggest one, his tormentor, in chains. He keeps them pulled tight enough to pinch and bruise, enough heat from his mystic energy humming down their links to make them uncomfortably hot. But not enough to burn.
“All right, Raph, you and Mikey keep watch on these fuckers. The rest of you, with me,” April slides her bat into her backpack and digs around to withdraw other supplies, “Just like we practiced. Don’t mess this up.”
Mikey leans back, pulling the chains a bit tighter, and settles down to watch his family work.
They’re a well-oiled machine by this point, sliding around each other without getting in the way. They’d all practiced this part over and over and over again, until the steps were ingrained in their heads, until they could walk and draw with their eyes closed, until their feet ached and their backs were sore and their mouths were full of the taste of chalk dust. They have poured everything into getting this perfect, into doing this right. They can’t afford to screw this up.
Raph and Mikey watch in silence, unwilling to disturb the hard work. Whenever one of the Foot start squirming or getting antsy, start begging or cursing, Raph deals with it. When fatigue starts dragging at Mikey’s mind and his arms start to ache and shiver, he closes his eyes and lulls himself into a semi-meditative state.
There is green fire flickering behind his eyes, murmuring softly. Within the flames is cradled a small light, barely visible, just a tiny splash of pale lilac.
“It’s done,” April says, when it seems like hours and days have passed, and Mikey opens his eyes to look at the completed work.
April, CJ, Leo, and Casey have drawn a series of interlocking circles on the floor in bright white. The circles are woven together with runes and symbols, a big one in the middle and a trio of small ones on its rim. They are perfect, clean and sharp, fresh and ready. For the first time that night, Mikey feels just the tiniest bit lighter.
“Where do we start, boss?” Casey is leaning against a support beam, white smeared on her hands and knees. But she’s tapping the flat of a wicked knife against her leg, watching them expectantly. Her face is blank, her gaze weighted and serious.
“Hmm...take this one, this one, aaannddd, this one to the first circle. This one for the third, that one for third...actually, put this one in the second circle. Hey, Raph, think you can help out?” Leo starts directing where he wants their captives, taking charge in a way he never had before the invasion.
Before they thought they’d lost him.
Before they had lost someone else.
Mikey stays out of the way, off to the side, and keeps his focus on keeping the biggest Foot ninja down. Though the brute has shown no sign of struggle, Mikey is far from disregarding caution. Not after everything they’ve been through.
They had survived that awful day when the Krang had descended by the skin of their teeth. There was a lot of healing to do afterward, all of them had suffered terribly and it had taken everything they had to stay alive.
And still not all of them had lived.
Whatever the Technodrome had been, it had taken too much from Donatello.
As his brothers had healed, Donnie had only gotten worse, crumbling beneath the havoc that had been wrecked on his body. He’d fought back against it, all of them had, stubborn and resolute, desperate to stay with his family.
For three months, Donnie struggled, growing weaker by the day.
Until one day it had been too much.
Something broke then. Mikey had felt it as surely as the air he breathed, the greedy sucking of oxygen stolen from the lungs of his big brother, breath that should have gone to Donnie, whose chest no longer moved.
Worse still, the illness continued to eat away at Donnie, even after his death. Without his resistance, it rapidly chewed up what remained of him, until there was nothing left except a crumbled slurry of something that used to be flesh and bone. Mikey hadn’t been there to see it, but Leo had. Mikey only knew what had happened because of Leo’s choked and stuttering explanation, wretched with dry-heaves and shuddering.
Leo disappeared for a few weeks after that.
When he came back, he had a few new scars, stubborn resolve, and a plan.
Which has led them here, to this night. To this warehouse. To Mikey being the bait and luring out the last of their enemies. To the fight. To this final ritual.
“Mike,” Raph’s voice is hoarse, a creaking thing that scrapes from disuse. Mikey looks up at him when Raph lays a large, warm hand on his shoulder, “Wanna gimme a hand moving big ugly?” He jerks a thumb at the Foot Mikey has tied up, and Mikey nods.
A flick of his wrists sends a ripple down the chains and lifts the captive into the air. The second he leaves the ground he thrashes, snarling out words that are mangled by his twisted face. They sound like curses, like promises of violence and pain. Mikey scoffs; empty threats, all of them. Nothing and no one escapes Michelangelo’s chains.
Raph grabs the man and moves him into place, signaling to Mikey to put him down. Mikey does so, and lets CJ, Raph, and Casey dogpile the brute to cinch him in zipties and rope before withdrawing his chains. It would be too risky to leave his mystic powers in place, lest they interfere with the spell. The big ninja writhes, risking their carefully constructed circles, until Raph punches the man hard in the head. Not enough to knock him out, but enough to daze him and keep him still.
The stage is set. The pieces are laid.
Casey steps around to each Foot ninja and draws the knife across their bound arms somewhere. The cuts are deep enough to bleed but not enough to kill, not yet. Blood drips into spreading puddles on the ground, the dry, pasty chalk greedily sucking up the red liquid. The Foot squirm, helpless and scared; most of them seem to have figured out what’s going on, what’s going to happen to them.
“P-please,” Whines one them, staring up at Casey and the knife with tears staining her mask, “Please, don’t! Please, I—I have a family!”
“Yeah?” Casey’s lip curls in a cruel grin as she crouches down beside the tied up ninja, “Well so did we.”
The knife bites and more blood falls. The Foot ninja sobs.
Mikey feels no remorse. Like Leo said, they made their choice.
When every Foot member has been cut and has bled for the Hamato Clan, Casey steps back to the edges of the circles. Leo approaches instead, a complicated expression on his face, a crease in his brow and a set to his jaw. There is a tightness about him, a fragility and a desperation. Mikey understands. He feels the same way.
“For the spirit,” Leo intones, withdrawing several vials from his pouch. He uncorks one and splashes it into one of the circles. Glowing green mixes with dark red and the lines of the circle begin to glow, “For the body,” Another splash, another glow, “For the mind.” The final vial is emptied and the entire array is lit up.
Leo looks up at them. They look back. When he nods, they move to take their places around the huge pattern on the warehouse floor.
Mikey digs past his exhaustion, past his pain, grabs his strength, his resolve, his love, his steadfast Hamato spirit, and pulls it to the surface. It rushes through him, filling him with warmth, strengthening his waning limbs and cradling him in its gentle glow. He loves his Ninpō; he loves the way it connects him with his family, with his brothers, with the nature of who they are. His mystic powers sing and the voices of his family join in a glorious harmony of love and power and strength.
The air in the warehouse becomes thick with the tangled smells of blood, chalk, and mystic power. The room is alive with it, sparking and heady and rich.
Light pours from the Hamato Clan. They are a rainbow missing its final arc, calling out into the dark for their lost and wayward piece.
The Foot Ninja sob and cry and squirm, but it is too late for them.
The spell eats them, consumes and drains and pulls until all that is left is empty clothes and piles of zipties.
Mikey doesn’t push, doesn’t force, just lets the mystic energy flow. It’s like becoming part of a current, rushing along a river that makes its way steadily to the sea. It weaves between all of them, the flavor of their own power touching each other, each unique in their own way. Their ancestors join them, pouring the strength of generations into the spell, keeping it strong and focused.
Around, and around, and around it flows. From Hamato to Hamato, from circle to circle, until it meets in the largest circle, the middle, the center point.
A circle is the strongest symbol in the world. It is endless, an eternal shape. It is the Earth, sturdy and strong. It is containment and protection. It is the mark of life and death, the cycle of nature itself.
The mystic energy pours into the middle circle, gathering in a frothing, spitting, sparking, swirling storm of power. The light is nearly blinding. It washes out the shadows, paints the warehouse in a rainbow cascade that condenses into pure white. Mikey has to squint against the glare, but he keeps his focus, pouring everything he has into getting this right.
The light squeezes tighter, like clay being pressed by a giant hand. It shapes itself, tugging and stretching, until a figure emerges, built entirely of mystic light.
And then, with a soft pop, like a bubble, the light bursts away in a flurry of sparks and leaves something behind.
The warehouse seems dark in the aftermath and all of them are momentarily stunned, blinking the aftermath from their eyes. Mikey can’t seem to breathe. He wants to move, wants to check, wants to see if it worked. But he’s so afraid of leaving his spot, so scared of screwing something up. He legs shake and his hands tremble. There’s a buzzing under his skin and his heart thuds loudly in his ears. He almost doesn’t dare to take a breath.
There is a figure in the central circle. They are laying on their side, back to Mikey, with a curve of a familiar, leathery shell with its row of little spines. The splotches on the soft shell are the same, Mikey would know the shape of them anywhere, and his gaze locks onto that one little mark on the left side that’s shaped like a heart. He loves that mark. He knows that mark. It has to be...it has to be…
Yet he cannot bring himself to move.
It’s Leo who takes the first step.
He eases a foot forward, leaning into the circle, peering hopefully. When he speaks, his voice is a hesitant murmur, a desperate plea,
“...Donnie?”
The mutant turtle in the circle stirs slightly and Leo leaps to their side, grabbing at them, helping them sit up. Mikey chokes on his next breath and almost collapses on the spot.
It’s Donnie.
He blinks groggily, shivering a little, squinting at Leo’s face.
“...Le...o…?” He croaks, blinks again, raises a shaky hand that slides along Leo’s arm. His eyes widen and he stares at his hand, slowly flexing his fingers, before staring at Leo, “Leo?”
“DONNIE!”
“DEE!”
“PURPLE ONE!”
“DONATELLO!”
Mikey doesn’t remember moving, has no recollection of moving from the edge of the circle to suddenly being on his knees beside his brother. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because his arms are around Donnie and Donnie is here. He is here and he is flesh and blood and bones and heart beat, beat, beating! Donnie is alive!
There is a lot of crying. Mikey is sobbing, knows in the way he can barely catch his breath and the way his face is wet and his eyes sting. He doesn’t care. His big brother is back.
It is worth all the injuries in the world to have his family whole again.