Chapter Text
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Donnie drags in a harsh breath, lungs burning as he skids around another street corner.
The fate of all the people of New York relies on him finding and rejoining his brothers so this had better work.
When April, Papa and Draxum had all been swept away in a rush of oily black mystic tendrils, Donnie had been worried but not too alarmed. He was sure they’d be able find a solution to the problem and get everyone back to where they needed to be.
…And then Donnie and his brothers had been separated across New York without their weapons to fight alone against their mutant enemies for the entertainment of the Hidden City masses.
Ugh.
Now?
Now things were so much worse.
Once they’d defeated their opponents; Raph against Ghostbear, Mikey against Meatsweats, and Donnie himself up against Repo and his enormous and terrifying cat, Mrs. Nubbins; they’d all tried to rendezvous together to take on Big Mama herself.
They’d been so close, too. Donnie had had his brothers in his sights, all of them converging on the base of the Nexus Hotel, mystic screens with Big Mama’s six-eyed face leering down at them blocking out the sky as they ran.
Then… they were swallowed by bright, swirling, blue.
The portals had come from seemingly nowhere, Donnie and his brothers falling into them with cries of shock and alarm, and then Donnie had been alone again, in an icky, disgustingly damp alleyway somewhere out in Brooklyn.
Thus, their infuriating game of cat and mouse had begun, Big Mama cackling wildly from the mystic screens high above.
If Donnie so much as caught a glimpse of either of his brothers or got too close to the Nexus Hotel, another bitingly cold portal would snap open in front of, and once below him, sending him to some random street or rooftop in New York.
Like he said, infuriating.
They didn’t even know who or what was making these portals! Hadn’t caught a single glimpse of them! They were being played with, and the game was not in their favor.
But Donnie was anything but stupid, and as much as he likes to poke fun, neither are his brothers. You can only play a trick on them so many times before it loses its effect.
So, Donnie keeps running.
Away from the Nexus Hotel.
He can practically feel Big Mama’s confusion and irritation from here and it gives him the burst of satisfaction he needs to push past the burning ache in his limbs and the lack of air in his lungs.
If he can draw the attention of the portal maker to himself and away from his brothers for just long enough…
Another portal swirls into existence in front of him, barely any room there for him to swerve or stop.
“Gotcha!” Mikey crows from above just in time for the portal to fizzle out of existence and Donnie comes to a tumbling stop in the middle of the road, his battleshell scraping horribly against the asphalt.
Donnie just barely gets back to his feet before he hears a startled yelp from Mikey that makes his stomach flip. He whips his head up to the rooftops just in time to see Mikey tip over the edge alongside a struggling figure dressed in all black.
“Mikey!” Donnie shouts, breathless, running again even though he knows he won’t make it in time.
“LIKE A BOSS!” Raph cries, his massive mystic construct catching Mikey in its palm before he could fall too far. Donnie attempts to catch his breath, but is distracted by the other figure who’d fallen from the roof as well.
Donnie watches as they flip in midair, twisting their arm back before throwing a… sword? The weapon streaks through the air and embeds itself into the street not far from where Donnie stands. Between one blink and the next, the black-clad figure flashes out of the air and reappears on the street with the hilt of their thrown sword in hand, a twin blade glinting in the other.
What in the name of Heisenberg-?
Teleportation? With swords?
That’s not the only oddity of their newest opponent though. When they raise their head, Donnie is surprised to find their face completely obscured by a blank white mask shadowed within a hood pulled low. They’re also completely covered in black, their clothes looking vaguely like ninja armor.
…Not unlike the Hamato yoroi that Papa made them wear when facing off against the Foot on Big Mama’s train, strangely enough. But there was something else, a glow separate from the swords held at their side, right around their neck-
“Donnie!” Raph calls as he and Mikey fall in at Donnie’s side.
“Here, picked these up from the Lair while you guys were distracting the portal guy.” He quickly passes over Donnie’s tech bō, Mikey already swinging his kusari-fundō.
“Yeah, speaking of…” Mikey trails off. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”
They turn to look and sure enough, their masked opponent is standing perfectly still in the middle of the street, swords held low at their sides.
They all share an uncertain look before Raph takes a wary step towards them, tonfa held up defensively.
Raph doesn’t make it another step before a massive mystic screen cracks open above the masked portal maker, Big Mama’s smiling face taking up the entire rippling surface.
“Oh, well done my darling turtley-boos! You certainly know how to put on a dimbely good show!”
“Big Mama!” Raph shouts angrily. “Enough of your games! We-”
“A-bup-bup-bup! Hold on just a tick!” Big Mama interrupts, the roar of numerous yokai echoing out behind her, her grin stretching to reveal all her teeth. “You’ve done an excellen-tacular job on the warm-up, but now dears it’s time for the main event!”
“Warm-up?!” Donnie repeats at the same time Mikey questions, “Main event?”
All the while, the portal maker stands before them, unmoving.
“Yes, yes! It’s time, turtley-boos, for the fight my viewers have all paid top didgery-dollar to see!”
Big Mama doesn’t just sound excited, she sounds downright gleeful.
With a gleam of glowing green, the portal maker jolts into action. A single blue sword is slashed through the air, and then Donnie and his brothers and the portal maker themselves are falling through a giant blue portal that’d opened under their feet.
Donnie manages to land on his feet, tech bō held at the ready before the bright, blinding blue has fully dissipated. Mikey and Raph are right at his sides as they turn to face the portal maker once again, now standing at the doors of the Nexus Hotel with their blank mask tilted down.
The doors slide open, and out walks the mastermind behind this whole mess of a situation. Donnie grits his teeth as Big Mama saunters out of her Hotel, acting as if he and his brothers aren’t tensed and ready to take her down on the spot.
Raph growls low and crouches, ready to launch himself forwards, but Big Mama just smiles that infuriating smile.
“Not so fast, dearie! You wouldn’t want to risk the people of your precious New York, would you?” Big Mama purrs, holding up the molten colored mystic orb that supposedly held the entire population of New York hostage.
Raph stops.
“Now, onto your final challenge! You three are to take on my fantabulous shining star!” She gestures to the silent figure at her side, the masked portal maker.
Donnie snorts.
“I think we’ve been battling them for the last hour.” He deadpans and sees Mikey fight back snicker.
Big Mama’s smile turns wicked.
“Oh no, that was all fun and games, dears. Now it’s tippy-time for something all audiences love. Drama.”
With a wave of one of her hands the mystic orb lands in the outstretched hand of the portal maker, and then disappears into a pouch on their hip. Then, there’s a flash of glowing green and the portal maker moves.
They sprint at them at full speed, a blur of black and a gleam of deadly blue steel. Raph barely gets his tonfa up to deflect the hit in time, and Donnie and Mikey are forced back with cries of alarm.
“I’ll give you a choice, turtley-boos.” Big Mama croons as the portal maker rushes at Mikey next, all precision strikes and deadly intent. “Defeat my champion to free your people. Or…”
The portal maker swings their sword in an arc, sending Mikey tumbling through a portal that spits him out right on top of Raph, sending them both into an abandoned car, crushing it on impact.
“Or lose, and my fantastic whizbang Battle Nexus New York becomes a permanent feature!” Big Mama cackles, the screens in the sky screaming their approval. “Choose wisely dears! Oh, and if you want to survive I suggest you not hold back! My shining star abso-tively won’t.”
As if to prove her point, the portal maker, Big Mama’s champion, launches themselves at Donnie with enough force for him to feel the air whip around him as he’s tackled through yet another portal that takes them both airborne. He can distantly hear Raph and Mikey yell for him as the New York City skyline blurs away and they begin to fall.
He just barely catches the twin blades swung at his face with his tech bō, shoving the champion away with all his might right before Raph’s mystic construct is there to catch him and Mikey’s flaming chains are wrapped around the champion’s body.
The champion manages to escape Mikey’s constricting chains and then-
The fight is on.
Big Mama wasn’t lying when she said they wouldn’t be able to hold back. Her champion is a whirl of sharp steel and bitingly cold portals. They all work together to try and pin them down but it’s taking everything they have to keep themselves in one piece.
They’re not entirely successful.
The fight drags on long enough that Donnie takes a hit he’s too slow to block and earns himself a fairly deep gash across his bicep that’d then carved a line into his plastron before he’d been able to get out of the sword’s range. Mikey managed to keep himself mostly unharmed, but he sports a few shallow cuts and nicks across his arms and legs. Raph takes the brunt of it.
Blood drips from numerous slashes and stabs across his forearms and one particularly close call when Raph had lunged for the pouch that held the mystic orb had left a carved line across his temple, cutting into his browridge above his right eye.
It’s only when Raph gets a lucky shot at the champion’s throat that the fight stalls, pausing it's breakneck pace. The champion stumbles away from them with a choked off hiss, the most noise their opponent has made the entire fight. Donnie presses in close to Raph’s side as they all take the break to catch their breath.
“Something cracked when I hit them.” Raph breathes heavily, swiping blood off his face and out of his eye.
“Cracked?” Donnie wheezes.
“What- what’s-” Mikey pants, squinting at champion who’s momentary stillness ends as abruptly as it began with a mysterious flash of green light. The champion bursts into movement once more, hefting their sword back and throwing it with reckless abandon.
Only… the moment Donnie expects them to glitch out of existence and reappear at their thrown sword like they’d been doing for the duration of the fight, this time they don’t.
Instead, the champion’s thrown sword crashes into the ground, skidding with a wash of sparks across the sidewalk. The champion is still moving though, and Raph meets their remaining sword head on with both his tonfa up in a block, but…
But something is wrong.
The champion pulls back and tries again but their movements are… off. Jerky. Uncoordinated in a way they hadn’t been the entire fight.
Donnie locks eyes with Mikey and they both nod. This was their chance.
Raph feints, knees hitting the pavement, and then punches the champion square in the chest, sending them soaring into a streetlight pole with a clang! Before they can regain their balance, Mikey and Donnie move in.
“Mikey! Catch!” Donnie cries as he whacks the champion’s hand holding their remaining sword. Blazing golden chains catch the weapon and fling it into the air at the same time that Donnie kicks out the champion’s knees and pins them to the ground.
“You got them?” Mikey asks, wary.
“I got them.” Donnie grits out, bracing his bō on the champion’s chest, keeping them trapped on the the ground. This close, he realizes that the champion is… small. Smaller than he thought the’d be. Their blank mask is tilted back, catching the light as their hood falls back just a bit.
Now that they’re still, Donnie also notices a cracked, glowing green eye entwined in vines circling the champion’s throat. They’re completely limp beneath Donnie’s hold as he reaches for the pouch holding the mystic orb, and it makes his skin crawl. Something’s not right here.
“The orb!” Raph calls out as he stumbles back to his feet.
Before he can take so much as a step towards them, a screech of noise that makes Donnie’s teeth itch rings out, stopping Raph and Mikey in their tracks.
The mystic screens filling the twilit sky all glitch and warp as one, but settle once again when Big Mama steps out onto the destroyed street.
“Oh well done, well done! You actually managed to take him down!” She leers, something cruel and knowing in the curl of her too-wide smile. “But I’m afraid… I can’t let you have that orb after all.”
“What?” Mikey cries at the same time that Raph releases a vicious growl.
“I’m afraid I’ve grown quite attached to your city, I think I’ll keep it!” Big Mama taunts, smiling wide. “But you’ve all been such grimbely good sports so I think I’ll give you little something for surviving so long!”
A large gaudy ring on one of her claws glows suddenly, and beneath Donnie’s hold the champion tenses, their masked face whipping up to bash Donnie’s. He reels back with a yelp, but manages to keep the champion pinned down.
“Raph!” He calls, blood pouring from his snout from the brutal hit.
But his aim is true.
Then several things happen in quick succession.
The mystic orb sails through the air towards Raph’s waiting palm.
Mikey shouts and Big Mama screams and there’s a flash of sickly green and shock of displaced air as something large and fast catapults into the street and snatches the orb out of the air and away from Raph’s waiting hands.
Donnie loses his grip on the champion and they free their arms and reach up to their mask.
There’s a sudden explosion of purple vines and familiar voices fill the air as backup arrives from within the mystic orb itself.
Then-
Time stops.
The hood falls back and the blank white masks clatters as it hits the ground.
Gold, gold, gold.
Familiar eyes stare up at him from an unfamiliar face, and Donnie’s world tilts.
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