Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

NEW YORK, 2047

The day was calm. No sightings or alerts of the Krang army. Members of the resistance did tasks around the base while soldiers did their training and helpers went about, handing out rations of water and food. It was one of those days of normalcy that they always long to keep in any way.

One part of that normalcy was a young, teenage CJ trailing behind an orange box turtle mutant (who bore tied up hair that barely reach the back of his knees) while pleading, “Pleaasseee Master Michelangelo!” for what seemed like the sixth time this month.
It was still the first week.

Angelo was slowly moving all around the base, his feet were barely floating off the ground. Reason he wasn’t moving all that fast was to stop now and then while talking to other members of the resistance to check on any updates of the facility or create small objects like fabrics or screws.

The teenage boy had found his uncle at the start of his daily checkup earlier and decided it was the perfect moment to beg all morning for additional training. After all, he wasn’t even allowed to go out on proper missions so might as well take on some other tasks or preparation opportunities.

Okay, ‘found’ was a very loose word. He waited in the bedroom until the older turtle was wide awake.

It was only when Angelo checked with the water filtration overseer that CJ warned him with the ol’ “I’m just going to keep asking until you say yes!”

His uncle finally turned around to face him more properly as he crossed his arms.

“Did you pass your first aid class again?”

“Yes.”

“Still head of your ninjutsu class?

“Obviously.”

“Know how to utilize more than two weapons in combat?”

“Of course!”

“Have you even passed your testing on repairing the main communication lines?”

“Uh. Well I-“

He pointed behind to the overseer, “Figure out how to recreate the filtration process for the drinkable water?”

“Umm-“

“How many hours did you sleep last night?”

“Wait how does that fit in with-?”

“Proper rest can go a long way, CJ.” Angelo stated. He then stayed silent for a moment before placing his hand against his chin. “How many hours in your daily schedule do you even have open? Not including those exclusive to your sleep.” He cuts with his finger before CJ can answer.

The boy frowned then said, “I guess it varies by the day of the week?”

“The one that is most free?”

He thought for a second. “I guess four?”

“What day is that?”

“Mondays.”

Angelo furrowed his eyebrows and looked down as he contemplated for a bit. He then glanced back at the young human before sighing out, “I guess that’ll be enough to start with a few basics and truly know if it’s possible for you to learn.”

CJ’s whole body practically lit up. “Really?” He excitedly exclaimed.

“I think we stalled long enough. Heck, even your dad was about 15 when she activated her ninpo.” He chuckled out, “She barely even knew how to use her old sais then. Considering how fast of a learner you are, there’s no doubt you’ll catch on quickly to surpass even her expertise once you activate your own.”

“Oh!” The teen roughly bear hugged his uncle. “Thank you, thank you Master Michelangelo! I promise I won’t let you down at all!”

Angelo returned the hug and with a pat on his nephew’s back. He mumbled out, “I doubt you ever will.”

Suddenly, loud, purple sirens from the inside of the base rang out. Within seconds, walls of metal slammed down to cover the sides all around, and no doubt the same was done to the entrances. Don had made sure nothing was left to be unprotected.

“Oh no.” CJ’s voice whispered out, his tone and a face of worry carried with it.

“It’ll be okay.” Angelo promised as he patted the boy’s shoulder. His hands lit up a bright orange, then he held them in front of him and a sigil appeared. Soon the entire base was filled with miniature versions of the same casting.

“Soldiers gather your weapons and gather as many members as possible to lead them to the nearest passage out of here!” The turtle yelled out into his spell, his voice overplaying through every sigil to ensure as many beings as possible will hear. “Everyone else quickly gather as many essential supplies as possible and follow the soldiers to have your escape passage protected!”

He did a quick cross with his arms and the sigil changed shape to another one and this time emitted a soft blue hue. The miniatures scattered around the base disappeared, but CJ knew they were now placed with a selective group of beings.

“Task force: be on the lookout for any break-ins and any krang beasts. You are the first line of defense. Be prepared for anything, and thank you for everything.” He swiped at the spell to make it disappear. He felt assured and yet still anxious from his other. They longed to have something.

Angelo hoped he did all of this correctly. He memorized Naro’s plans beyond what he should’ve but he can’t help but be wary. Naro would’ve known if he did. He would have been with the task force to ensure it all goes smoothly.

Angelo shook his head. Naro? Why was he thinking of his brother? He’s been gone for a couple of years by now, there's no reason for him to be Angelo’s first thought at this second.

BOOM

A loud explosion rocked the base, followed suit by loud screaming. Something got in, somewhere. That was the fastest that ever happened. His other’s wants turned into a desperate need. Angelo tapped his wrist band and it released a small ping. They became temporarily satisfied.

“Master Michelangelo! What should I do?” CJ asked.

Angelo then sliced his hand through the air, a streak of blue colored followed it, making a slash. It then expanded and became a portal big enough for the other to get through, the other side showing their room.

“Get your stuff. You may need to join in on the fight.” He ordered. CJ nodded and went in.

Keeping the portal up with his concentration, Angelo held up his hands out front again in a fist, this time one above and the other below his torso, then bumped them together and created an O symbol with one and the other crossed it. He immediately was encased in a blood orange hue circle before it quickly swelled and soon covered the base’s walls, creating a surrounding magical shield to prevent any more of the Krang’s beasts from coming in from the broken wall.

Focusing on three things at once wasn't ideal at the moment, but he needed to be sure that his other gave the go-ahead and reached him before he would join the fight himself.
Angelo can feel every bang and pounding against his shield. All it did was encourage him to continue strengthening it and not give way to make it crack.

Having put on his battle gear and handy tech-staff, CJ came right back out the portal and next to Angelo, who quickly closed it. The elder mutant grabbed his beaded necklace and handed it to his nephew.

“Use these all before you rush in for any reason.” He said. “Mondo is on their way.”

CJ looked a bit surprised, frowned for a second, then nervously grabbed the necklace to put it on. “If you think that's the best option.” He then mouthed something to himself.

I don’t have time for this. CJ knows this plan. Angelo thought before he lifted his hands high up, gathering more energy by focusing better. He then motioned his hands downwards, releasing said magic in waves, making it expand in all areas to go strengthen the shield. He felt all those that were banging getting electrocuted from the stronger shield. His body and his power knew how to differentiate between a Krang possessed being and one born from the Earth. The beings within the resistance knew how the shield was passable for them.

Why can’t he feel anyone going through then?

Most importantly, why can he feel everything dwindling?

A high pitched roar then erupted from down the large corridor that Angelo and CJ reside.

“That’s a new beast.” The teen shakily whispered out. Angelo couldn’t help but look down to see it better.

It was bipedal and much smaller than any other beast, about half their size, but it was still larger than him and his nephew, that’s for sure. Angelo can just tell it was a new, special creation from Krang by how it had armor on it. No other beast wore one. It had a spiked helmet with two, asymmetric red eyes.

It also carried a sword in its gloved, left hand while the right was obviously made of that krang goop.

Angelo felt the dread rise within him as it started barreling down straight towards him and CJ.

COME NOW! He pleaded within.

As the beast got halfway down, a large rhinoceros mutant slammed into it, knocking it into the wall. The mutant looked towards the turtle and gave a thumbs up. A gecko one then popped up from his back and did the same. Angelo relaxed as he smiled and mouthed a ‘thank you’ to them both.

Before any can react, a tendril in the form of a sword was then skewered straight through the rhinoceros' back and out their chest, coming straight from the new beast. The tendril then sliced through the body sideways to exit it.

“NO!” CJ cried out, immediately trying to go to Rocksteady. Angelo instantly grabbed his nephew to stop him, causing the magical shield to collapse due to his new, sudden shift of focus.

As their savior’s body fell to the ground, Mondo quickly scurried off to avoid being crushed or grabbed. They then latched onto the new beast as tightly as they could while also moving about to reposition as much as possible. The beast attempted to claw them off by any means necessary, screeching as they did so. Mondo’s face and body scrunched up in pain, but as suddenly as the new wounds and marks appeared, they rapidly healed over.
Throughout the base they heard multiple shrieks calling back in response to the beast’s own.

“We need to go! Now!” Angelo commanded CJ, dragging the teen through the air to get higher and away. CJ aggressively tried to pat Angelo’s back as a motion to get down.

“They’ll be okay, CJ!” He tried to calm him down. They both then heard Mondo wailing out “NO!”, followed by the sound of quick footsteps.

Before Angelo gained any meaningful distance or could react, the turtle felt a harsh yank on his hair, noting how its ties instantly broke loose, before being tugged back towards the ground. Dropping CJ, who let out a pained grunt, on the way, Angelo was then pulled over the beast’s body and slammed into the rocky floor with the might of a krang.

He groaned as he opened his eyes to see its actual sword raised above him and quickly moved away as it stabbed into the spot he was residing in. He quickly lifted himself off the ground to float again.

The beast screeched once more, this time in anger, then slashed its sword at Angelo; who did his best to dodge them all while in the air.

The turtle hands then glowed orange and expelled translucent chains. He blocked a few strikes before quickly wrapping them around the sword a couple times to be able to grab the weapon and jerked it away. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his nephew pick up the fallen sword with Mondo coming back into frame, yanking on CJ’s arm to follow him to the nearest safe path.

“I’m not leaving him!” The teen refused.

“Trust me! If anyone can catch up to us, it’ll be him!” They stated.

Their point was not made as Angelo’s face was grabbed with the tendril hand and he was slammed back into the ground. The turtle immediately bit into the tendrils as harshly as he could, making the other recoil and pull away. Glad that actually worked.

“CJ, GO!” Angelo shouted to him. Mondo grabbed CJ’s arm again, who stared in stunned distress, and tugged him away without resistance.

The mutant turtle propelled himself off the ground right and back into the air just as the beast decided to transform its right arm into a sharp blade, plunging it into the ground where he was. Just as quickly, it extracted it and started to slash wildly at him, almost too low that what it should be aiming for.

Angelo raised himself higher in the air, his hands lighting up to conjure up flames and throw them right at the beast, who just quickly dodged them without a hassle while running towards his direction.

He switched to summon a shield in time to block the armored hand that attempted to grab him. He expelled it forward to push and entrapped the other in it. His hands hovered on top of it each other making a squeezing motion to signal the bubble to get smaller.

The beast began to hiss and tried to push against the spell as it was getting squished. When it was beginning to fold in on itself, the red on the helmet and arm started to glow brighter and hummed as the body shuddered violently. Suddenly, spikes burst out its back, arm and leg, forcing the shield to extend and strain Angelo’s hands, who tried to keep it close. The beast opened its clawed hand and shoved the fingers through the shield, puncturing it.
Angelo's eyes widened as the beast then spun in a circle, slicing the bubble in half.

GO, his mind screamed at him.

He then attempted to hover backwards to create a larger distance as the beast sent its tendril arm to the turtle. By him still being too slow, it wrapped around Angelo’s waist and whirled him around to be sent into the ground.

After being knocked down, Angelo pushed against the floor with his feet to launch himself higher, to gain distance to use his ranged spells once more, and avoid the beast’s swings. He winced and grit his teeth at the feeling of a sharp pinch in his knees, trying his best to avoid thinking about them and how his eyes slightly teared up at the pain. It was starting to get harder and harder to get back up with the use of his feet.

It daunted him how the other kept aiming and slashing at his lower half of his body, specifically his lower legs. Other beasts often aimed for necks or the head. Rarely would they aim for arms or torso unless it was in the way.

Did it know?

How? How would a beast, who lacks the capacity to even self-think, even know the situation with Angelo’s legs?

As the mutant was casting another spell, the beast then ran to jump and launch itself off the corridor’s walls to tackle Angelo, who released a frustrated grunt as he was pounced to the ground again.

Fine. Put my legs out of commission, I’ll do the same to yours. He thought as he casted a small shield with one arm to avoid the other snapping its teeth and clawing at him, while his other hand went to grab the beast’s right calf. In the moment of anger, he felt that disgusting need to corrupt and take as he once did before, and the latched hand glowed a ugly green color. The color then spread onto the leg, quickly turning it gray and dusting away, even taking the armor plating with it. Good news, it wasn’t made from the same material MT wore.

The beast screamed and turned its attention to its leg. Immediately, Angelo let go and sent glowing chains to the nearest wall and pulled himself away from its grasp, narrowly missing the attempted stab with its sword-tendril arm.
Angelo tried his best to push down the fact he felt immense pain on both sides. They’ll both get through this. They both will push through and prevail as usual. They have to.

He hated the feeling that he was being torn apart. Why is he feeling this way? They shouldn’t be.

He sat up and looked at the beast, who stared briefly at its disintegrated leg, then grabbed it at the end with its right hand. Quickly, its krangifed arm shifted and the tendrils wrapped the stub and split off the arm. The wrappings then went down and converted itself into a new pair of a calf and foot.

Gross. He thought. And annoying.

Now the bad news, he may have made this harder on himself.

Without further care, the beast sprang back into the fight, its arm transforming back to its sword form and positioned to swing once again.

He was continually forced to fight in close proximity to the beast, who refused to let him back more than a few steps at all. Always moving at a speed just barely faster than the turtle, who had whipped out his long trusted kusarigama. He blocked the strikes with the chain and slashed his blade at the other the best he could, though the beast had used its armored arm to act as protection to deflect his attacks.

Angelo’s feet always levitated above the ground as much as he was able to. He recalled how Don often mentioned the way he moved about near the floor as if he had hover-skates on. It just now occurred to him that’s probably how he adjusted so easily, being the one to always have an excuse to skate.

He went more offense by hacking more at the other, making it focus more on its own defense with its glove. Angelo then whisked the weighted end on the chain around the torso of the beast and hurled it over his head and to the other side, landing it into the rocky ground. It only took a second for it to composure itself by flipping around and running back to Angelo, this time on all fours. The mutant shook off the creepy shiver down his spine as he hated how it was crawling like a spider.

In fact, he was hating so many things at this moment. The growing pains in his legs. His long hair being in the way of everything and shifting his focus of it touching him. The glowing red eyes that refused to never stop staring at him. The way the beast always attempted to swipe at his feet. The fact it can predict and counter his movements so well. How he can predict the other as well but always seemed to fumble his defense against it. But most of all, he hated that empty feeling within him. That anxiety and worry, the need for calmness. The radiant zest. It was replaced with just nothing. He hated his fear subconsciously growing by the second with the thought of: What of Casey?

He needed to figure out how to uneven the playing field. To go and find his nephew to make sure the boy is okay. All without bringing that disgusting spell back.

It’s useful. But he hated how it made him feel like he was the same as them.

The beast sprung up off the ground and grabbed the deflecting blade of the kusarigama with its gloved hand, yoinked it towards itself as harshly as it could and kicked Angelo’s stomach with its reformed leg, making him falter backwards. He then casted a small shield in front of him as its own blade aimed for him. It hit the shield and turned it into a battle of who can stand against the other better. Angelo didn’t like his chances as he was forced to plant his feet on the ground to help propel himself in the stand off. Fuck does he hate how much he wanted to readjust the various compressors on his legs to see if that’ll even take away an ounce of the pain.

The beast then opened its mouth, barely visible under the helmet. “Once you're gone, I take your title.” It spoke in a deep, distorted way.

Angelo’s eyes widened as his grasp weakened. Shocked that the other was even able to form and speak words, and shocked on how familiar the voice was even though he couldn’t quite place it.

It took the opportunity of Angelo’s dismay to pull back its sword, reshape it into a mallet, and slam against the shield with full force, shattering it completely with only two hits. This caused Angelo to stumble backwards. With its third hit, it decided to pull back its reformed leg and kick the mutant again, launching him into a rock solid pillar, crashing through and skidding across the end of the hallway and landing into the wall. That definitely hurt his shell a lot more than any of the other attacks.

He heavily groaned as he attempted to stand up, then heard a loud rumble snapping all around. He looked up and saw tons of cracklings forming along the rocky interior walls, all no longer held with the support of that one pillar. Soon, piece by piece, the ceiling began to collapse.

He immediately tried to get up fully while trying to cast a shield spell or even a portal, but one foot out and he instantaneously fell right back down due to his pains. Yeah, his beads would’ve worked here so much.

As the rubble fell all around him, more shrieks were heard, quickly overlapped by a teenage voice crying out “UNCLE!”

Angelo looked up and saw his nephew running up to him. He threw one of the beads at the krang beast, making it expand and unleash plant-like tendrils, temporarily encasing it as a trap. As it ripped and attempted to break free, more of the tentacles sprouted across its body.

“CJ! You’re supposed to be with Mondo!” The mutant shouted, trying to show anger but was obviously happy that the kid was still alright. Also noticing how half the necklace was gone, meaning he did as ordered.

“I can’t!” CJ replied. Angelo saw him bite his lower lip as if to prevent himself from saying anything more.

The teen then grabbed his chainsaw-bo and slammed the end against the floor. It slightly shuddered before swiftly shifting into a longer pole, and the top multiplied into metal plates creating a huge dome protection around them, big enough to fit a small team of beings, as the rest of the cave network collapsed on top of them.

“NO!” The distorted voice yelled.

And thus, they were safely trapped within the rubble.

Angelo didn’t know he had fainted until he woke to the sound of hordes of krang-beasts running around outside of the dome. He knew it was only a matter of time until they sniffed them both out and located them. They always had, regardless of what material or distance separated the groups. There were already noises of digging and banging to get to them. His nephew's voice finally pierced through his eardrums.

“Master Michelangelo! Are you alright?” CJ asked. He was crouching over him.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fin—“ Angelo released a hiss noise as he attempted to straighten up his back as best as possible as he sat up, but that sent great spikes of pain throughout his body.

CJ looked more worried for a moment, then quietly pointed out, “Your whole hair became gray again.”

The turtle cracked a smile at that with a low chuckle. He was about to respond but the light chuckle somehow made his back feel even worse. He reached around to his shell and touched part of it, hissing even louder as he felt a crevice and few fractures that definitely shouldn’t be there at all.

He pulled back his hand and looked down at it, seeing blood caked on his fingertips. He felt pain. A tremendous amount of pain all over his body on the outside. However inside he felt hollow. He can feel his own pain and dread, but nothing responded. Nothing was communicating to him in any way. The opposite of what he has been feeling for the past decade or so.

Inside, he reached out to find anything that can respond back, even a sliver of a breath. There was absolutely nothing except for the soul in front of him, and the three that always lingered around barely out of reach from him; his siblings that are long gone.

Angelo’s mouth trembled as he clenched his hand, knowing what that quiet, emptiness meant.

“It’s over.” The mutant whispered out. “The resistance is fully gone.”

“I’m sure there’s still some.” CJ assured with unease. “They must’ve escaped through the tunnels.”

“CJ, there’s no one left.” Angelo snapped as he faced him back. He then softened his gaze.. “I can’t..” his voice wavered, “I can’t feel them anymore.”

CJ’s eyes fell as his lips began to quiver.

He can’t feel Mondo, despite the link. That’s why CJ was able to come back. If they were gone after all this time with their power of regeneration..what hope can he even give for his nephew? He can portal them out but what would wait for them? No beings, no resources, nothing was out there.

Yet again, Angelo couldn’t help himself by thinking back to his older brother, Naro, for no reason.

Unless..There was. There was always a purpose, big or small. Each time his spiritual tune nudged him in a direction without ever fully giving answers on why or what. Giving hints to solutions for a problem waiting to come.
His memory was recalled to one day. A day from many years ago. He remembered he had tried to open a special gateway once, but had failed due to his lack of power. Evident by his hands and arms being ripped and pulled into another plane of existence, leaving scars as a reminder. Naro had to stop him then. To keep him grounded and remain with his physical form.. But now?

“I’m more powerful now.” Angelo softly said. The teen looked at him with confusion. Angelo took a deep breath and closed his eyes in concentration. His hands lit up purple for a brief moment, then flash orange, and soon a piece of thick paper with a picture appeared in them. He opened his eyes and saw the moment he had printed. April’s orientation day. She had her siblings, who all wore their color coded hoodies, grabbed and pulled into a group hug. In one of her hands she held her newly purchased school binder.

Angelo looked back at the teen.

“CJ I need you to listen to me and remember what I say next vividly, got it?” He said.

“What? What are you-“

“Listen.” Angelo ordered. He turned the paper around and closed his eyes again. He pictured what he needed the most to show CJ. An object he can see crystal clear in his mind. His hand flashes orange once again, and he withdraws it, leaving behind the flawless imagery of a small statue upon a stone pedestal slightly covered by the Krang biogrowth.

He grabbed it and held it to his nephew, who hesitantly took it.

“The Krang came to our planet through a mystic doorway, opened by a key. The key looked like this.” Angelo tapped the image. “The key was stolen by a clan, who sought out the means to open it by any way. You have to find it and take it away before they do.”

CJ brows creased in confusion as he stared at the photo. “What do you mean find and take it?” He looked back to his uncle.

“I need you to find the key to stop the Krang.” Angelo stated.

“Okay.” He nodded, then became confused again. “Annd how do I do that?”

The mutant flipped the image and tapped again. “Find us. We will know the artifact you’re seeking. We will help you.”

The young teen then turned more confused. “Find you?”

His uncle grinned widely. “Yup! And you’ll be able to do that by jumping through the time portal I’m going to create.”

CJ's eyes widened in shock. “You’re gonna HUH?”

Angelo let out a small giggle as he went to ruffle CJ’s hair. His face quickly started to fall as he knew the outcome of his fate. He has to tell everything upfront to his nephew. No unnecessary surprises.

He opened his mouth to warn, but the words got caught in his throat.

He has to tell him the truth. He has to do it right here and now. There’s no other time.

So why can’t he state it?

Angelo then gave him a soft smile, lifting one of his hands to give a pat against his nephew’s chest. He hoped in some way that it would silently remind him of Naro's infamous saying for when he’s gone.

“I..I’m likely going to be passed out for most of the time.” He lied. “I don’t have that much mystic juice left in me to be doing anything really.”

“And that’s why I have to find you?” CJ’s hand tightened on the picture. He could only guess what his nephew was really thinking.

Angelo nodded in response. “We also need to time this correctly.” He asserted. “You’re definitely going to need your staff for when we go through.”

CJ glanced at the staff that kept them in the safe bubble. “But it’s —“

“That’s why I said to time it correctly. I need your hand ready on the button while I open the portal. Once I give the word, push it and I’ll pull you through with me.”

His nephew’s hand became shaky as he put the picture into his back pocket. He gave a soft nod. “O-okay.”

The mutant reached for the back of the other’s neck to draw him closer to plant a small kiss against his forehead.

“Everything’s going to be alright, Casey.” He said as he was pulling away. “We’re Hamatos after all.”

CJ gave a grin at that but before he could respond, a loud roar vibrated the surrounding rumble, causing a few debris to get loose and fall around them as heard by the noises around, soon followed by continuous pounding to come inside.

“Shit,” CJ breathed out, “They’re closing in!”

With a heavy grunt, the older turtle then started to get up on his feet. He heard the young teen let out a small gasp while he almost fell while attempting to stand but had caught himself. His small rest had done little to stop the cramps and aches that began to grow in his heels, ankles and calves. It wasn’t long before the pain worsened and spread to his knees and thighs. He had to ignore it and focus on the new task at hand. It’s been so long since he had to properly be on the ground for a period of time, but he needed all his concentration for this one spell, as well as all his mystic power. He can’t waste any more on something as frivolous as hovering.

He closed his eyes as he slowly staggered forward. Pulling whatever energy was left around him into his own body, he lifted his hands in front of him and pictured in his mind the latest day he can imagine to send CJ into. Anything later and the plan is ruined, anything sooner would consume his body even faster and have the chance of ruining the time flow, snapping CJ back to him.

Six hours. Surely six hours prior to the first portal opening was enough time for his nephew to pinpoint where they were exactly and get them to help track down the key. It was the best he could give him. Had he not had that fight earlier, he likely would’ve been able to give him an extra 24 hours.

Angelo needs to focus on that day. That moment. It’ll be hard, but you need to focus. FOCUS.

He felt his hands grow burning hot, scratchy, and as if someone was pulling his fingers and wrists as hard as they can off of him, beginning to pop them from their sockets. He opened his eyes and saw a small yellow dot that released small sparkles as if it was Tinkerbell with her magic dust.
Focus.

He knows what he has to do. He’s done this before. Once, but it was done. Mostly.

Angelo then gripped his hands and began pulling an invisible thread apart, the circle then started to unfold and turn bigger. Slowly, but it was growing in size. He had to focus on establishing the connection between the two points.

Fuck his fingers felt like they were being ripped clean off and his arms burned like someone made numerous cuts then slather as much hydrogen peroxide as they could on him.

Focus.

It needs to be bigger. You know that moment. It’s been seared into your mind by him.

Angelo always forgets how the feeling of his hair follicles get pushed and shoved for newer strands and older ones growing in length. Always send shivers down his spine. Although he can’t see it, it wouldn’t surprise him if the new bits he’s gaining are gray in color. It certainly felt like it.

FOCUS.

His hands then reached the limit of how much he was able to keep the gate wide enough. The inside glowed and seemingly spiraled inward, having a certain gravitational pull that was so faint but still able to pull in tiny pieces of debris from the ground and made his cloak and hair flow to it.

Those sounds were getting louder.

FOCUS.

He can already feel the difference of pure radiance the other side gave. The amount was so overwhelming that he knew that the time had to be correct. He hasn’t felt this quantity of life in over 25 years.

FOCUS!

He then looked to his arms and saw his hands steadily flying away in tiny, golden shatters. It was now or never.

“Grab and hang onto your staff!” Angelo commanded, straining to keep the portal open. He had to lie to his nephew earlier. He knew how the other would have reacted. Angelo now has to do his true final spell.

“Got it!” CJ shouted. “Tell me when!”

Angelo released one of his arms and translucent chains appeared on it.

“Now!” The mutant turned and smiled at CJ, and then tossed the chains behind him, making it wrap around his nephew. As the makeshift ceiling rapidly retracted, Angelo then flung him through the gateway.

“With you, they live on.” He softly said.

Then, Angelo felt his entire body finally give way and rupture completely into fragments the instant he looked down at his nephew as he went through. The last thing was him hearing CJ screaming “NO! UNCLE!” as the boy went in, and the portal shutting right after. The remaining boulders finally crashed all around but at that point it didn’t matter, they were both gone. And his vision momentarily went fully bright gold and then cut to black.

-

He noticed all of his senses were gone except for two. First, he can hear. But it was so muffled and so fast he couldn’t comprehend what was being said or what noises were playing and from where. All around yet nowhere at once.

Second, he can feel everything as usual. But he can also feel someone else's emotions that were clashing with his own.

He felt calmness and peace. The other’s were a multitude of variations. Stress. Guilt. Regret. Anger. So much anger. The amount of negativity was so overloading, even to him, that he imagined himself embracing the other, and allowing his own warmth and comfort to make them be undisturbed no more.

He can feel the entirety of the planet and its life. That wasn’t new. However, he had deeply missed the massive abundance he was currently feeling. Previously, it had dwindled in large portions year by year. It was the sad reality Angelo had to face every second. Now the world was brimming with exuberance.

Time was too rapid and so overwhelming, yet too slow and so serene. He didn’t know how much time was passing. It could’ve been days or months, and yet it felt like it’s only been a couple of seconds.

And then that bright light came back. It was like his eyes were closed the entire time, only he didn’t know how to open them back up. It was so bright yet it dimmed due to his eyelids. The sounds were becoming clearer and closer. Voices. Multiple voices, ranging in pitch and tones.

His form wasn’t physical, he knows. Although he felt as if his body was floating around, like when deep in water. Motionless, letting physics take control of you. Why did he feel like he was getting heavy while being lifted up?

He then heard a few gasps, then that wonderful voice that made him instantly joyful.

“Uncle?” His nephew’s voice breathed out.

Finally, he was able to open his eyes, resting them upon the teen’s face. He immediately smiled at him.

“Hiya, C–”

The mutant abruptly fell to the ground out of pure exhaustion.

Chapter Text

NEW YORK, 2020

Mikey ran into the TV room as fast as possible to grab onto CJ’s shoulders and shout out his question, “CAN I REFORM THE SPARKLES THAT SURROUND  YOU?”

CJ, who had been settling in quite well the past four or so months since being brought from the future, quickly patted one of the mutant’s hands while his other held a cup of highly spillable cranberry juice. The box turtle immediately withdrew his hands up.

CJ put his cup on the table stand next to him before turning his confused attention back to Mikey. “Can you what with the what that’s surrounding me?” 

“Yes!” Mikey exclaimed happily. He then got uncomfortably close to the boy by immediately leaning against the armrest of the sofa chair he was on. “This entire time, I thought it was just leftovers from when you time-hopped, since Leo also had a similar thing going on from when we pulled him from that nasty dimension.” He did a wave motion at Leo who sat on the beanbag next to the couch while frowning at his mention. “However, his sparkles went away in like a week! Yours haven’t yet. Barry says it’s something else and it’s like shredded paper. Something that just needs to be arranged and taped together again!”

CJ looked at him more confused, just sort of following along. “Why can only you see it?”

“Papa sees it too.”

“Okay, why do only the both of you see it?” He corrected.

Draxum then cut in from across the room as he entered, “Because we have a trained eye for mystic stuff.” He started to explain. “Of course Michelangelo's eyes have more natural talent than anything. Donnie’s modified goggles would be able to see your little.. sparkles too.” He did air quotes as he said that.

“Is there any reason to rearrange them?” CJ asked. “Doesn’t seem to be doing anything.”

“When rearranged, it could turn into something or even a person. Anything made of matter.”

“It’s a person.” Mikey said. Leo turned his gaze from the TV screen and to his younger brother.

“You just said it’s sparkles. How do you know it’ll be a person, Mikey?” Leo asked. Mikey frowned at that, but it wasn’t in anger.

“I..don’t know. I see it and just know.”

Draxum continued on, “It’s like an attached entity then. But we don’t know if it’s something that will reform on its own once it’s gathered enough energy from you. You don't want to wake up with a random person standing next to you, do you? There’s also the chance that it’ll disappear for good once enough time has passed.”

“Michelangelo just said it hasn’t even begun to disappear yet.” CJ said.

“Yes, but since this is supposedly a person’s being, it’ll take much longer to dissipate than a portal’s leftovers.”

“So CJ basically has a ghost following him everywhere.” Leo said. “Watching his every moveee.” he droned on with a fake spooky voice.

Draxum replied, “It’s most likely in a limbo state. Unaware of anything happening around and doesn’t know time is moving. Stuck in its last moments.”

CJ looked back at Mikey. “Do you know who it could be?”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” He chirped back. He grabbed the table stand holding the cup and began pushing it towards the wall, accidentally spilling some of the juice in the process, making CJ slightly sad at his loss.

“We gotta make space!” Mikey told them.

“Do I have to move my seat?” Leo asked.

Draxum easily shoved Leo off with his hoof. “Yes.”

“Ughh.” He groaned from the floor. CJ started to push the couch with Mikey’s assistance as Draxum left the room to go grab some supplies.

“C’mon Leo! You can help us out!” Mikey said. “The more hands the merrier!”

“It’s supposed to be a free day. I don’t wanna push furniture around.” He complained.

“You can grab Donnie’s goggles to help me with the sparkles!”

“I guess.” Leo sulked. He then lazily got up and went to Donnie’s lab.

“So how long is this process?” CJ asked as they turned the TV room into a makeshift ritual space.

“You know what? I don’t know.” Mikey said. “It shouldn’t be that long though!”

“You weren’t aware of how long it’ll take before asking me?”

“Didn’t care much about that part.”

“Well, it seems like there’s only us two helping, so perhaps a couple hours.” Draxum answered the question as he returned, carrying a bag of tealights and gloves.

“That’s quite a while.” CJ mumbled.

“And sounds extremely boring.” Leo joined back as he returned, accidentally having brought along Donnie, who held an extra pair of goggles.

“Aren’t you interested in who it could be?” Mikey asked.

“Well, yeah , but it still sounds like a super boring process.”

“Now there’s four, so it should be faster.” Draxum said.

“What’s with the fake tealights?” Donnie asked as he handed the lower quality goggles to Leo.

The Yokai lifted the bag up to show it off. “I do not have actual candles, since I don’t want to light them, so I just assume these would work for now.” He opened the bag and started to place them in a circle large enough for them all to fit within, turning them on as he did so. “If it is truly a person like Michaelangelo says it is, then once they start to form, they will likely try to get away. We need them to stay to finish the ritual.”

“Do the candles scare it or something?” CJ asked.

“No no. It’s—“ he thought about it for a second, “It somehow tricks the spirit into staying calm and contained.”

Draxum pointed at CJ then at the center of the circle. “You, sit there.” He commanded. The teen carefully walked to the middle to sit down.

“And you two put these on.” Draxum handed Leo and Donnie a pair of gloves. “This will allow you to grab and piece it together.”

“Do we have to be precise about which piece goes with what?” Donnie asked.

“No, it just needs to be all gathered in one spot.” The Yokai turned to the box turtle. “Mikey, you will be in charge of keeping the gathered pieces together. Once we capture enough, you must radiate and expel some of your mystic energy into the pieces so that they will want to stay and gain enough to start properly connecting to each other and begin to take their form. Sounds easy?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“It won’t be, but at least you understand.”

And so, for a while, they started to grab the small bits and pieces and gave them to Mikey, who tried his best to stop them from moving back onto CJ.

About halfway through the progress, Raph finally came back from his personal mini-escort mission of dropping off Cassandra and April at their respective locations and stumbled upon them doing their thing. He then went to get them all drinks and sat on the beanbag Leo was on previously. He didn’t have any goggles but decided to stay and help pass the time by making small talk with Leo about a random new show he had watched with the slider and Splinter. 

This turned into Donnie soon joining in by discussing fan theories with them, with Mikey giving context on canon plot stuff to CJ and Draxum. It did thankfully pass the time much faster for them until Mikey managed to gather a ball of the glowing sparkles near the size of a football into his hands.

“Try to see if it’ll form now, Michael.” Draxum suggested.

Mikey closed his eyes, and with a slow, deep breath, he put all his concentration on the ball in front of him, visualizing a flow of energy from his arms and body and into the sparkles. He imagined it grabbing the rest of its pieces itself with little arms to help form its body.

“Woah . It’s working!” He heard Raph gasp out.

Mikey opened one of his eyes to take a peek.

The ball had started to glow and swirl around itself. From it, small strings went out to gather the other bits that hung around CJ.

Leo took off his goggles. “Oh wow, we can see it without these now.”

The others just stopped whatever they were doing and stared at the ball as it slowly got bigger and bigger at a much faster rate than what they had going on before. Mikey opened both of his eyes.

“Uh, do I just stay here or—?” He began to ask, glancing to Draxum.

“Try moving away to see if it does anything else.” Draxum suggested.

The young turtle slowly backed away. The ball thankfully stayed in place, still doing what it was doing.

“W-wait, what about me?” CJ questioned.

“CJ the thing is picking off of you, I’m pretty sure you’re meant to stay.” Leo stated.

“The person isn’t going to fall on me, are they?”

“It is forming in front of you, not above. You should probably be fine.” Draxum said.

The ball of mystic energy steadily turned as big as the teen. The shape then started to shift its form into a body with limbs.

Mikey noticed his brothers instinctively reaching for their weapons. Leo frowned, realizing he forgot his.

“We’re not gon’ attack it!” He told them.

“No no! Of course not!” Raph immediately put his arms down. Donnie still had his hands on his bo staff.

“It is a precaution.” Donnie stated. Mikey gave him a pleading face, which made the softshell lift his hands up in defeat, putting away his weapon.

CJ’s eyes widened as the form solidified and gained other colors. Most notable were a green and orange tint. Then, from the head sprouted long, gray locks of hair as the figure’s feet planted on the ground.

It was pretty hard to contain the gasps of everyone in the room as it was someone they didn’t really expect (they didn’t expect anyone they knew but still).

“Uncle?” CJ’s voice shook with his eyes welling up. 

Oh that was so weird to hear for the Hamatos. They knew of the relationship between CJ and the older Mikey, but hearing it as an actual confirmation made them feel really weird.

The new turtle gave a halfhearted smile, “Hiya, C—“ he then immediately crumpled to the floor with a PLOP .

Just as fast, everyone went to help the guy up, though Leo and Donnie accidentally tripped over each other.

“Don’t worry, I got this!” Raph said, making sure more didn’t scramble over each other. He grabbed the fallen older Mikey and lifted him to place on his shoulder. However, he accidentally misjudged the weight and threw him over the entire way, making the poor guy land on his back against the floor. This panicked the others even more, CJ the most.

“Raph!” CJ shouted.

“Raph wasn’t trying! He’s lighter than any of you!” He tried to excuse himself.

“Don’t be silly, big guy!” Leo said. He then grabbed underneath the other’s shoulders to lift him off the floor. His eyes widened as he easily got him completely off the ground. “Oh, wow , he wasn’t lying. Dude is so light even Donnie can lift him.”

“I’m not that weak, ‘Nardo.” Donnie went to grab the legs to help out. “Oh , he is. What the fuck?”

CJ stood by closer. “Is he still alive?” He asked softly.

Leo shoved the top half onto Donnie, who got more surprised by the lack of weight, and placed his fingers on the older one’s throat, while also leaning in closer to his face.

“There is a pulse, and breathing.” He confirmed.

“Let us take him to the infirmary.” Draxum told them. “We do not know how long he will be out.”

Donnie shoved the top half back to Leo.

“Hey! He’s easy to carry!” The slider complained.

“Not the entire way, idiot.”

“Ugh, baby.”

The twins followed right behind the yokai with the others following behind them.

That’s when Splinter chose now to step out of his room and finally saw what his kids were up to. They all kinda froze up and couldn’t come up with a short, easy explanation as to why there was suddenly a much older Mikey with long hair that was knocked out and being carried somewhere. Not counting all the misplaced furniture and candles on the floor forming a big circle.

If anything, it probably looked like they were going to sacrifice him.

Their dad just huffed and said, “I’m making lunch,” and walked to the kitchen, rubbing his heavy eyes. He probably expected the explanation later on.

The merry little group were seemingly in a trance, thinking about how they would explain all this later to their father, only to be snapped out of it by Draxum doing a clap with his hands.

“We should continue moving, unless you are fine with carrying the body for a lot longer?”

“Right!” Mikey pumped up his fist.

As they carefully stepped down the big staircase, Leo glanced over to CJ.

“Did you ever have to carry Big Mike like this?” He asked the teen, who slightly frowned at the question.

“No, not—“ He caught himself. “Well, only a couple of times, but accidentally.”

“Accidentally?”

“Hugs.” Was all he answered.

“Why’s he so light?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he doesn’t eat much?” Mikey proposed.

“Why would he not eat?” Raph questioned him.

Donnie chimed in, “Perhaps the lack of hands can be the reason.”

“The lack of WHAT ?” CJ immediately ran down the steps that were below Leo and Donnie, stopping the two just before they got to the last couple of them. He looked closer at the old guy in their arms. Sure enough, the wrists and below were gone, indicated by stumps with scarring.

CJ’s own hands then grabbed the top of his head. “He’s supposed to have hands! Why doesn’t he have hands?!” He panicked.

Mikey’s took a step above. “We can go see if we accidentally left them behind, maybe?” He suggested in a hopeful tone.

“All of the pieces were collected.” Draxum said then rubbed his chin in thought. “Perhaps the spell was too great and took something. No matter. Just an obstacle to overcome.”

CJ buried his face in his hands. “First legs, now hands. He’s not going to be happy.”

Donnie looked at the half he was holding. There were a few scars but legs were obviously still intact. “What is wrong with his legs?”

“Something about not being able to stand on them for too long.”

“He’s disabled?”

“I—I guess? He just usually floats everywhere.”

“Aw man, I can do that?” Mikey asked. “I can’t wait till I learn how to. That’s so cool!”

Leo advised, “Should we get an auto wheelchair ready then?” as he looked at Donnie. “If he relied on magic to move, I doubt he has enough left now to even do that again for a while.”

Before the softshell responded, Draxum cut in, “Good catch on that.” Leo slightly beamed at that. “He would need a lot of rest to even properly build his magic back up.” He motioned for CJ to move so they could continue their way to the med bay. The boy realized and quickly jogged down the rest of the steps to make way. The two turtles started to walk again.

“That time spell he casted seems to have torn his body apart. The regeneration had taken what magic he had left, which was Michaelangelo’s own. The younger him that is.” He added on. “It could just be that not all of him was able to be salvaged.”

They turned the corner right past Leo’s room to head to the med bay. Draxum opened the door for them and picked the nearest cot out of the two standing by the door for them to put the body on. Donnie and Leo did it almost effortlessly. CJ walked up to the cot, his worried eyes observing his uncle laying there unconscious.

“Any thoughts on explaining this to the other household members?” Donnie asked.

“Cloning!” Mikey suggested.

“We found the body.” Raph offered.

“Or, hear me out on this crazy idea,” Leo said, “how about we just tell the truth? That CJ had a ghost that we brought back to life?”

“Sounds more confusing.” Raph said.

“Then cloning ? Even Dontron here hasn’t cracked that yet.”

“How’d you know I was trying that?” Donnie asked.

“Please, you’re you.” Leo deadpanned at his brother.

Donnie appeared elated at that answer nonetheless.

Draxum walked up next to CJ. “It’ll be best to do Leonardo’s idea. If they remain confused, oh well. You’ll have done your best. Hopefully.”

“See! Even Draxum agrees with me on this!” Leo said.

Raph and Mikey still didn’t look convinced.

Leo frowned. “We deal with mystic and alien stuff everyday. How’s this more confusing?”

Raph swayed his head a bit, now in some agreement. Mikey just shrugged. Leo sighed in disappointment.

CJ snapped up a bit as a thought came to him. He looked at the other teens. “Where will he sleep?”

They all looked down in thought. This didn’t occur to them at all.

Mikey pounded his fist on top of his hand as an idea came to him. “Oh! We still have the guest car!” He suggested.

“Wouldn’t Piebald be upset about that?” Raph asked.

“I’m sure she’ll understand!”

“She does only drop by about once a month or so.” Donnie said.

“Yeah but she gets upset even if there’s simply a cat on her bed.” Leo pointed out. “Doubt she’ll even want to sleep in the TV room or rest area when she eventually comes back.”

“Are you certain that’s not because it’s a cat instead of anything else?” Donnie asked him.

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“Then we should get a spare bed.” Raph said. “We can find a car later if either wants their own space.”

“That is the fish one?” Draxum looked at CJ.

“Yeah, Piebald.” CJ answered.

Mikey nodded at Raph. “Yessir!”

Raph then put his hand over his mouth as he tried to think more. “What else would we need for him?” He glanced at CJ. “Any ideas?”

CJ looked down as he thought. “I guess the wheelchair. Probably some clothes too.”

“We also need to get more pillows and blankets.” Leo added.

“He would need some way to eat his food without hands.” Donnie chimed in.

“It’s also important he gets a way to use the bidet when he goes.” Mikey joined.

“Oh yeah, that’s really important.” Leo agreed.

“He likes to sleep with a lot of blankets and pillows.” CJ said.

“Like you?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re going on an errand run, can you bring coffee beans?” Draxum asked. “Carol is already complaining.”

“We’re out?” Mikey questioned.

“Seems so.”

“Should we prep the room with, like, a tv or something, so the big guy doesn’t get bored?” Leo asked.

“He likes to make things when he’s bored.” CJ said.

“Like what?”

“Clothes n stuff.”

“I guess we also need to figure out how he’ll be doing that without his hands.”

Raph’s eyes kept on shifting between everyone who offered more ideas, getting increasingly more overwhelmed. He then scratched the top of his head. “Ugh I feel like we should write all this down.”

“Already done.” Donnie stated, holding up his wrist to show off his interactable bracelet.

“Oh thank goodness.” Raph breathed out in relief.

From the kitchen, they all heard Splinter loudly shout out “ LUNCH!”

Mikey deeply sniffed the air.

“Taco day!” He remembered. He was the first to immediately attempt to rush out the room, however Raph instantly yanked his little brother from the top of his shell to throw him back and become the first to exit the room instead.

“RAPH! ” Screamed the younger one in betrayal as he chased after his older brother.

Leo quickly punted Donnie’s tail before running out as fast as possible, leaving Donnie to painfully grunt before chasing after his twin at a speed not shown before yet, full of rage.

“YOU ABSOLUTE SIETE MARES!”

Teenage boys really share one brain cell, don’t they?

Draxum shook his head at his sons’ antics and turned his attention to CJ who just stared at the unconscious being in front of them. He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, making him look at the yokai.

“You should go join them.” He said.

“But what if...I want to be here when he wakes up.” He stated.

“Oh trust me, he’s not going to wake anytime soon.” Draxum let out a chuckle as he spoke. “From what you have said, the amount of magic he dispersed before sending you back? It is a miracle that he was even able to reform without harming Michelangelo in some way.”

CJ became confused. “How could he have hurt Mikey?”

Draxum rubbed his chin as he tried to think of the best way to explain this to the apocalypse ridden teen. “Think of them both as  batteries, and magic is their juice within. They can be refilled and break down whenever, but they are containers for the energy, not the producers. Your uncle’s body is a vastly larger battery than his younger self, so it takes more energy to even start up to use.”

“And he needed Mikey’s juice to even reform.” CJ recalled.

“Precisely. He needed something as powerful as lightning, but Michelangelo’s battery is currently barely enough for a flashlight.” Draxum crossed his arms as he thought aloud. “Really is something I cannot grasp or fathom. Even in a comatose state, his mystic abilities instinctively draw in from another source. It is possibly why you were never aware of him lingering about. He never drew anything from you.”

“Then what source does he refill from?”

The yokai didn’t respond for a moment, now lost in his own thoughts.

“Draxum?” CJ called out quietly.

The yokai sighed, “I do not know.” He admitted. “Truth be told, I do not even know where Mikey and his siblings draw their mystic powers from. Over time, we Yokai have ours driven by an artifact that contains magic and that refills automatically. That is, if we wish to do something that requires a great deal of magic to use. Other than that, we just use ourselves like a stamina bar for the much smaller things. I thought that was how the brothers worked their magic until the Shredder event happened.”

CJ didn’t say anything as he looked back at Angelo. Draxum nudged him this time with his elbow.

“I promise to take care of him while he is out. I doubt he would want you to neglect your own needs to just watch over him. I may not know much about his magic, but making sure he stays alive is simple enough to do.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I don’t have work for a while. It is why we chose today to attempt this anyways.”

CJ let out a heavy sigh. “Okay then.”

“I will call out for you if anything is wrong or when he wakes.” He promised.

The teen gave a soft smile at that. “Thank you.”

He then slowly walked towards the door

“Wait.” Draxum called out.

CJ turned around.

“Tell the rat to bring me a plate. He knows exactly what I want for my lunch.” He asked of him.

“Sure thing.”

“I am serious about him bringing it. The others always try to be sneaky and eat some part of it.”

CJ couldn’t help but giggle at that. Sounded about right. “Yeah, I’ll make sure of that.”

“Alright, now off you go!” He shooed him while beginning to move around to properly get stuff set up to monitor the unexpected newcomer.

CJ took a quick glance at his unconscious uncle before heading out.

When the teen arrived at the top of the stairs, he was able to hear the others screaming at each other in the kitchen while someone laughed along.

He walked in and saw 3 of the boys all around a table trying to get their taco toppings while Splinter just sat in his chair, a plate of food in front of him, giggling at their arguing. Mikey seemed to be the one laughing out as Donnie screamed at Leo to stop hogging the chopped onions. Raph just seemed to have put his toppings on top of the tortilla first before going to grab the meat, since he was the only one at the meat counter grabbing each of the different types.

CJ walked up to the slider and tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Leo?”

The slider momentarily stopped trying to steal the cheese to look back at the teen, facing more with his right side. “Yeah?”

“Is it okay if I sleep in your room tonight?” He asked.

“Of course!” He playfully punched his shoulder with his newly freed hand, despite the tongs he held being in the way. “I don’t know why it wouldn’t be okay this time!” He then snapped back around. “Mikey stop hogging the cheese!”

Mikey, whose entire hand was in the bowl, stood blank faced for a moment before sticking his tongue out. “I WAS FIRST!” He grabbed his share to throw onto his plate before running away to the table. Leo groaned and, as he went to grab some more cheese, Donnie instantly shoved his own hand into the bowl to grab his portion before running away too.

“LEAVE SOME FOR ME!” Leo cried out.

“You took the onion, it’s only fair!” Donnie shouted back.

“AT LEAST USE THE GRABBY THING, YOU DEGENERATES!” He wildly waved the tongs at them, making the cheese thieves giggle maliciously. He finally left CJ to go sit in his own seat.

CJ went to grab his own plate to get his tacos. All he did was grab from the mostly full bowl of ground beef before going to sit down. Mikey glanced at his plate and became disheartened at the plainness of his food.

“You don’t want to try some of the other meats, CJ? The carnitas are pretty good this time!” Mikey suggested. Splinter looked proud of himself.

“I’m fine with this.” CJ replied.

“Not even cilantro? Granted there’s no onion anymore to add but, still.”

“No thanks, it kinda tastes weird.”

Leo looked at him confused. “I’ve literally seen you eat raw roaches. Now you have taste buds?”

“Eugh!” Raph exclaimed.

“Even I don’t go that far.” Splinter mumbled.

“We ate them in the future! I told you this!” CJ tried to defend himself.

Mikey, ignoring the roach problem, whined out, “Don’t tell me you got the soap gene too.”

“The what?”

“Raph says it tastes like soap.” Leo answered.

Raph stopped before taking a bite of his food to shout out in defense, “It does!”

“It’s a gene in some humans that makes coriander taste like soap.” Donnie gave more explanation. “Only Raph has it out of all of us.”

“Stop calling it that.” Splinter’s body shivered. “Weird name.”

“That is its name.”

“I refuse to believe that!”

Mikey looked back at CJ. “You sure on no toppings?” He questioned.

“I’m fine with plain, thank you.” 

“BORING !” Leo playfully shouted.

“Just be glad he’s not also stealing your cheese too!” Splinter told his son. Leo just pouted at that before shoving one of his overloaded tacos into his mouth.

“Mhawevar.” He spoke through his chewing.

“Stop talking while eating!”

“MmMmHMMm!” He said through closed lips.

“Oh, Splinter. Draxum asked if you can bring him a plate of food when you can.” CJ told him.

“What? Why me?”

Mikey raised up his hand. “I can give it to him!”

“He was adamant that Splinter take it instead of you guys.” CJ said.

“What !? Why?”

“Something about you always eating off of it.”

Mikey lowered his hand, guilty. “Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

Donnie slapped Leo’s hand from attempting to take his drink then just slid the liter bottle to him. Leo happily grabbed it to pour into his cup.

Splinter made a ‘tsk tsk’ as he shook his head. “I thought I raised you boys better.” He jumped off his chair, annoyed. “If you steal off a plate, at least put more than what your guest wanted so they do not notice.” He said as he started assembling the plate.

“What does Draxum even like on his tacos?” Raph asked.

“Greens and cheese.”

“Greens and cheese?” Leo questioned.

“Yes. Avocado, lettuce, cilantro, lime, green sauce. And cheese.” He explained as he put the items on it.

Raph scrunched up his nose. “That’s even worse than CJ’s.”

The human got slightly offended. “I only have meat!”

“It’s like you’re not even trying.” Leo shook his head at him.

“Well I personally think it’s better than CJ’s.” Mikey said. “At least he adds some flavor!” He smiled.

“There’s no winning with you guys, is there?” CJ asked.

“Adding on the fact you don’t even like soda, you monster.” Donnie inputted.

“Why would I drink something that attacks my mouth?!”

“I’m not complaining about that.” Leo shrugged as he refilled his cup once more. “More for me.”

Donnie frowned. “Hey, wait!” He grabbed the bottle back harshly, spilling Leo’s cup. “You already refilled!”

“Dude !”

“Serves you right for over-drinking.”

“What? You do the same!”

“And?”

Leo reached over to take back the bottle from his twin, who only pushed on his face to shove him away while attempting to refill his own glass.

Eventually, Splinter walked up to them, smacked their heads with his tail, and snatched the bottle from Donnie.

“Stop that nonsense!” He said. He then sighed, “I’ll be right back.” And walked out the room with the plate of food for Draxum and the bottle.

“Way to go, Dontron.” Leo mocked.

“Why can’t you two just share?” Raph asked, exasperated.

“Ew.” The twins simultaneously replied.

————

Leo heard a sound that suddenly woke him up. That small set of panic momentarily washed over him as he realized he accidentally woke himself with his own snoring.

He groggily sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes harshly to get that gross eye mush out. He doesn't even know how he got that already, since he kept going in and out of consciousness for only a couple of hours, not even a full night.

The slider opened his eyelids and saw a faint light coming through his window curtains and the door that was left ajar. From the way it flashed and changed colors, he figured that someone was still in the TV room upstairs.

Leo let out a sigh, which made him smack his lips together to get any sort of wetness on them. Gosh, his throat was so dry...

He took a glance at CJ who peacefully slept in the makeshift pile of blankets and pillows he called a bed. The brothers tried multiple times to suggest a mattress or a mat to sleep on but the young man always refused. Heck, they even offered to go find an abandoned car for him to have his own room and he always would say he hated sleeping alone.

Leo couldn’t blame him on that. They had different reasons for not liking to sleep alone, so he never minded when the teen wanted to sleep in his room. The boy switched rooms so often, they each just left the piles of beds in each car just in case.

The slider carefully walked by him towards the door. He focused on the way CJ snored, which honestly sounded like a pug trying to breathe, to make sure he didn’t accidentally wake him up. Dude could pass out within seconds but wake to the slight change of noise. Leo couldn't understand it.

He grabbed onto the barely opened entrance and began sliding it slowly. He used to have it fully closed and locked, but even the clicking could wake up the future boy. When Leo finally got out, he gently slid the door halfway closed. Least he could do is try to block most of the light for his sleeping companion’s sake.

When Leo got to the top of the stairs, sure enough, the TV projector was on and playing a random obscure media in Korean.

He would’ve assumed it was Donnie watching, had it not been for the small figure on the laid back recliner who was usually here this late at night.

Leo went up to the recliner and rested his arms on the backrest, peeking over to confirm that, yup, his dad had passed out while eating some chips. He grabbed the sides of the chair and began to wiggle it, making his dad snort awake.

“What!?”The rat shouted in surprise then turned around to see his son smirking at him.

“Blue! It’s bedtime!”

“It sure is.” Leo stated.

Splinter flopped his back against the recliner with an annoyed huff, now crossing his arms, realizing what Leo was stating.

“I am fine here. At least I am the one sleeping!”

“I was thirsty.” Leo said.

“Oh.” Splinter said, instantly calming down.

“Are you stuck here cause Draxum kicked you out again?”

“What? No! He does not have that pow—! I had found this wonderful new show to binge!” He quickly changed the subject. “All about this poor girl who ends up in a contracted marriage with this acto—“

“You should sleep in your room, dad. You deserve your bed instead of this chair!” The turtle wiggled said furniture again, this time more violently to state his point.

Splinter smacked one of Leo’s hands with his tail to get him to stop. “There is nothing wrong with my chair! It fits my butt nice and comfy.” He snuggled his back deeper in.

“If you don’t need your bed can I have your mattress then?”

“No! That is my foam!”

“But you’re not using it!”

“Go get your water and stop bugging me!”

Leo couldn’t help but let out a snicker, but did as he was told.

He went to the kitchen, found one of the bigger jugs to fill up, and got slightly annoyed by how slow their water filter dispenser was. He debated on putting ice cubes but decided against it. He was going to pass out again soon anyway so there was no reason to have them.

As Leo walked out of the kitchen with his fresh jug of water, he noticed the light from the lab still flickering on. Ugh, time to remind his bro too that it’s bedtime! Or they all would have to deal with a sleep-deprived grumpy softshell for a couple days if he didn't get the dude to bed.

He begrudgingly walked over to Donnie’s lab, and noticed the empty recliner and turned off TV along the way. Meaning his dad, thankfully, had gone to his room while Leo got his drink.

The slider slowly opened the door, expecting some loud dubstep to be blaring over the speakers or something, but all he heard was something causing a sparking noise every now and then.

Curious, he peeked inside and saw his twin hunched over one of his work tables, a light flickering at random times. He was definitely working on something. He walked up to him.

Before Leo could tap Donnie’s shoulder to get his attention, he hesitated. He then repositioned himself to knock at the end of the table instead.

His brother was deep in concentration and the last time Leo just touched him, Donnie immediately whipped the slider so hard with his summoned staff that it sent him halfway across the room due to getting shocked. Leo didn’t want to go back to sleep that way.

When Donnie didn’t acknowledge him, Leo knocked a bit harder, which grabbed his attention this time.

He glanced, then saw Leo’s whole body, and went to change the settings on his headphones.

“What?” He demanded.

“It’s bedtime.”

“I’m still working.”

“Still sleepy time.”

Donnie groaned. “I’ll be fine.”

“You know we’re still out of coffee, right?”

“And I will still be fine.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe you in the slightest.”

Donnie just waved him off before going back to work on his mysterious little contraption.

Resigned, but not entirely giving up, Leo placed his jug on the ground. “What you workin’ on that’s so important this late at night?” 

“I’m making the battery for the automatic wheelchair. For our new guest, remember? As well as a joystick that can work better for him.” He answered.

Leo leaned closer to look at it.

“I won't apologize if I accidentally burn you, Nardo.”

Leo turned around with a huff and leaned his hips against the table’s edge, crossing his arms grumpily. He then noticed the automatic wheelchair against the wall nearby.

“You couldn’t have attached that when making the chair with your powers?” He questioned.

Donnie’s hand stayed hovered for a moment before slowly going back down to his board.

“Carol brought it over from work.” He admitted. “I’m remaking the battery and stick connection since the old one is broken, as well as other parts of it, hence why they gave it to her.”

Leo stared at his twin in confusion for a bit. “You couldn’t make the chair with your powers?”

Donnie let out a heavy sigh. “This way was easier.” He still worked slower than before, even with his words. “To make sure everything is properly connected and working, you know?”

Leo frowned at that. Donnie was trying to pick his wording carefully. The slider recently noticed that his twin had been trying to change the way he lied ever since a couple months ago when CJ started pointing out how bad he was and how. Thanks CJ . It used to be easier to play Among Us with Donnie, but now the softshell won semi-frequently as the imposter.

Leo’s fingers tapped against his as he lingered in his thoughts. He had a hunch about the reason his brother could be clamming up now, but it would reveal something about Leo himself that he had kept hushed for a while.

Nonetheless, the cons for currently keeping it quiet were being overthrown by the very obvious pros. What if Donnie was going through the same situation as him? They all would need to help their brother if that was the case. After all, his mystic powers were extremely useful for everyone, including himself.

Leo straightened his back a tad before softly asking, “Are your powers acting up too?”

He was beginning to think that Donnie didn’t hear him and was going to ask again when his twin started to slowly put his soldering wand down before turning towards him while putting his goggles back on top of his head.

“Too ?” He quizzed, like he just fully processed what Leo had said.

“It’s been wacky?” Leo raised a brow to get the confirmation.

“What do you mean by your previous question, Nardo?” 

“Question for question.” Leo stuck his tongue out, annoying his twin. Donnie let out a groan then leaned back into the chair, crossing his arms. His fingers lightly pulled at his hoodie’s sleeves as he considered his answer.

“I..” he hesitated. “Have to make the item before I am able to summon it.” He finished quickly.

Leo looked at him completely dumbfounded. That didn’t seem right. Was it always that way? It didn’t seem to be.

“You—you have to make it before you can summon it?” He repeated in a more confused manner. “Has it always been that way?”

Donnie, with a heavy frown, lifted a finger up close to Leo’s mouth. “Question for question.” He repeated his twin’s words. Leo frowned back at him, a little frustrated at his own rule now that it was biting him back in the ass. 

He bit his lip for a moment before replying. “I think my portals are appearing slower than before.”

It was Donnie’s turn to be dumbfounded. “What?”

Leo did a quick poke at Donnie’s forehead, though accidentally too harshly as Donnie tried to swipe back at his hand as he withdrew.

“Always thAT WAY ?!” Leo quickly squeaked out as Donnie almost stood up immediately, ready to fight.

“That way for wha—? Oh.” Donnie immediately calmed down a little as he realized the question was for him. He then grumpily flopped back into his chair, crossing his arms again. Now frustrated at this small deal they had made. Easy to answer one question at a time, but so stupid when you easily had another question to ask and wanted it answered immediately after.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think it did but it works better when I do it this way.” He said.

“That doesn’t seem right.” Leo frowned. Why hadn’t any of them noticed this? CJ had said before that the older Donnie in the other timeline was able to make anything in seconds, though that could have been childlike amazement too.

“How do you know your portals are slower? You literally do them in like a fraction of a second.” Donnie asked this time.

Leo uncrossed his arms to grip the table’s edge behind him. He glanced at a screen behind before turning his head back to his twin.

“Well, compare it in footage. We can check.” He gestured with his head back to the flickering monitor.

Donnie looked at his screen for a moment too. He was thinking for a bit before sighing, “Alright.” His curiosity got the better of him.

He flipped his wrist and clicked a button. This created a holo-screen right above it.

Leo‘s thumb slid under the table. “Just pick any time before the Krang showed up and compare it to any other time after.”

As Donnie swiped through a catalog of videos, Leo took notice of the thumbnails on them.

“But like, after Shredder too. Height of power, y’know?”

“Sigh .” Donnie swiped back the other way. The softshell then picked footage of a battle between them and those crab brothers. He swiped the image to go onto the bigger screen in front of him.

As Leo turned his body around, he noticed the date was the day before they met the Krang.

The recording played for a while until, finally, Leo was in frame just long and stable enough to accurately time him properly.

Donnie then zoomed in on his twin, making the screen get more blurry.

“Enhance.” Leo joked.

“Don’t be a dumbass. You literally cannot reconstruct the image quality as such unless you just remake it in a much higher resolution.” Donnie stated.

“Bro, I was joking.”

“Make your jokes funnier.”

“That’s rude.”

“Plus we’re looking at your portals, not even what happens in the video.”

“Why can’t you just let me make a joke?”

“I just love to deprive you of your chances.”

“Okay, well, just time the freaking thing of me using my portal powers if you’re going to be such a killjoy.” Leo rolled his eyes.

And Donnie did so without another quip. He played the video a few times to get the millisecond just right. He then pulled up another recording of them fighting Meat Sweats after the Krang and did the same thing.

Donnie stared at the two timestamps for what felt like forever. Leo kept on waiting for the ‘it’s in your head ’ answer he had been craving, but the softshell just said nothing the entirety of seven seconds.

“Uh, Donn? Care to share the results with the rest of the class?” Leo asked. 

Donnie frowned, but said nothing still, his eyes glued to the screen.

“I need more data.” He finally spoke. He pulled up a few more videos of Leo in fights in both of the timeframes he suggested.

After timing about twelve or so videos he just said, “0.24 second slower.”

Leo did a clap which startled his twin. “Alright! So that’s good, maybe?” He hoped out loud. “It’s not a full second and barely noticeable so it’s not bad?”

Donnie’s gaze just lingered on him, then spun his chair to fully face his twin. He asked, “How did you notice?” 

Leo gulped.

“Notice what?”

“It’s not even half a second late and you noticed it being slower. How? I doubt any of us would’ve noticed that with our own mystic abilities.”

“I...I don’t know. I just thought it was my head messing with me.”

Donnie’s frown didn’t falter. “You were very sure it was slower, weren’t you?”

Leo quickly thought about it. He was, wasn’t he? That was why he had the assumption with his twin in the first place too.

“I just...knew it was slower, I guess. Is that a weird thing?”

“It’s honestly slightly impressive.” Donnie mumbled to himself as he turned his head back to the screen. Leo rubbed a finger over his right ear, as if he was clearing a nonexistent ringing.

“It’s what?”

Donnie spoke barely loud enough: “It’s slightly worrying. Do you know why it’s a tad slower? Any theories?”

“Best guess is that our meeting with the krang kinda messed it up.”

“Yes, but what was the exact moment it started to feel ‘different’ ?” He made quotation marks with his fingers.

Leo thought about it more. When did it feel different? Before their powers were momentarily taken? Right after? Right after, definitely.

“When you guys got me back.” Leo answered.

Donnie’s eyes widened a bit in surprise at that, but he quickly shook his head a little before going back to his trademarked apathetic expression. “Due to us?”

“I..I don’t think so. No.”

The softshell accidentally let out a sigh of relief. He grabbed onto his hand and started caressing his knuckles distractedly. “Then what?”

Leo lifted his own hand close to his mouth, subconsciously rubbing his lips. “It...I don’t know. Maybe they just kept some of it somehow? Or...” he focused more as his finger stilled. “One of my katanas was left behind.” He stated.

“Yes we know. That’s why CJ gave you that new sword.”

“No, I mean. My katanas hold my power, right? They help me summon it?”

“It seems that’s how it works for all of us.” Donnie said. He then quickly corrected, “‘Sides Mikey. His powers work in weird ways that I can’t even fathom to figure all out.”

“Well.” Leo placed his chin against his palm. “Does that mean a part of me was left behind?”

Donnie just stared at him, not knowing how to respond to that. Even Leo didn’t know.

“Just a theory.” Leo quickly added. “It probably doesn’t even work that way.”

“But if it does?” Donnie quietly replied.

“Then...” Leo sighed. “Then I still have my other sword. It’s not that big of a difference, we saw that.”

The softshell didn’t respond to that.

Leo bit on his fingernail, another thought forming in his mind. He had changed his preference on what sword he used, he realized. But why?

“Remember those Baxter bots we fought last week?” He suddenly asked.

“Didn’t really fight them, that was more on CJ.”

“Excuse me, I still ported us there?”

“I think so.”

“Can you just time that one, please?”

Donnie nodded and did as asked. Doing the same process and then hitting the timer. He lingered on the new timestamp as his eyes widened.

“That’s...not possible.” He retimed the footage multiple times over, as well as the other clips he had pulled previously. “What’s the difference?” He asked, gaze still glued to his screen.

“The sword.” Leo pointed out.

Donnie froze and focused his attention onto Leo’s sword. It was extremely blurry and he was really wishing the enhanced feature was real. But then he noticed the difference of color and length in the weapon the slider was holding on the stilled image.

He turned his gaze back to his twin.

“That’s the sword—?”

“CJ gave me? Yeah.”

He let out a baffled chuckle. “I-I don’t understand? How? What is the difference there?”

“If anything this could just mean my previous theory was completely wrong.”

Donnie went back to rubbing on his knuckles. “What if the sword belonged to the…other you?”

Leo was surprised at that. Sure, he always had the suspicion that maybe it did. After all, CJ kept little knickknacks that belonged to the rest of them all over his body. So him having both future Donnie’s staff and Leo’s sword? Wouldn’t even surprise them in the slightest.

But the dude only ever talked about his uncle, the older Mikey, and even that was rare. How did they go about confirming that theory then?

Leo stretched his arms high as possible as he yawned loudly, sleep finally catching back up to him. Donnie turned annoyed at him. Leo Ignored the look and bent down to pick up his jug of water.

“Well there’s always tomorrow to discuss more about this.”

Donnie frowned at him. Leo then snapped his fingers in realization.

“Oh! What better way to actually get all these questions answered than asking that knocked out future Mikey we got in the med bay?” Leo tried to cheer up. “If anyone can spill any secrets, it’s a Michelangelo!”

Donnie looked like he was internally debating about this, but exhaustion was starting to hit him as well as he yawned and rubbed one of his eyes, which only annoyed him further.

“Dagnabbit !” He cursed. “See what you’ve done to me!”

“Good.” Leo joked. He pushed himself off the table he had been leaning against for so long, ready to leave. “We have to wake up early anyways.”

“For what?”

“Patrol, remember? I literally told you guys a couple days ago.” Leo groaned.

“Since when do we do patrols?”

“For a while? You just often oversleep until we’re done. Which is, y’know, fine , I guess. So long as you tell us whatever we miss with your scanner.”

Donnie frowned as he tried to remember. “Is that why you guys sometimes return with a bunch of snacks, figures, and coffee?”

Leo felt himself nervously sweating in an instant. “No.” He promptly lied.

Donnie narrowed his eyes. “Is patrol just another way of going out on a snack run?”

“No...?”

Donnie rolled his eyes then waved his hand at Leo to leave. “Whatever, as long as you guys still bring me my supply of Red Bull, I don’t care.”

“Aw c’mon! We usually hit the comic shops along the way too!”

Donnie looked away in thought. “We’ll see. If I wake up on time, perhaps.”

Leo held his thumb up at Donnie. “Well if you have trouble sleeping, you can always come on down to my room with CJ and me. I promise it’s clean enough.”

“I don’t believe that in the slightest.”

“It’s cleaner than everyone else’s.” He reworded.

Donnie acknowledged that that was an improvement.

“I’ll think about joining if you promise me one thing.” Donnie said.

“Oof, you know how I am with promises.” Leo warned.

“Will you tell the others about your power issues? I don’t mean tomorrow ,” he stopped Leo from trying to protest, “but eventually? Before it worsens or I accidentally blurt it out and you get angry at me. I’d rather have us not end up like the Winchesters.”

Leo raised a brow at the last sentence, unsure what he meant by that but decided to ignore his brother’s obscure reference this time. He relaxed his face as he looked down.

“Sure. Yeah.” He promised.

Donnie tapped his desk with his fingers. “Also about mine.”

“What?”

“If you talk about yours you can bring up mine too.” He said. “Might as well.”

Leo just nodded at that. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can promise that.”

At least, he finally had an incentive to go through with it one day.

Donnie then pointed to another workbench. “Also, Carol brought you more workbooks she found. Take it before I accidentally throw it away.”

Leo looked over and saw the small stack of paperbacks.

“Oh, sweet!” He excitedly jogged over to grab them with his free hand.

“What are you even planning with all these health books?” Donnie asked, extremely curious.

“Uh, study? What else?” Leo asked.

“Make a fake city out of them.” Donnie recalled.

Leo held the books closer to his plastron as he started walking to the door. “We were TEN !” He turned his back to the open door. “But we should definitely do that again when I’m finished with these! That was fun!” He took a sip of his water.

“Don’t forget to close my door.”

“See ya tomorrow!” Leo ran out.

“‘Nardo? ‘NARDO! MY DOOR!” He threatened.

“Night!”

“LEO I SWEAR TO ALL— !”

The slider continued running all the way down the stairs to make sure Donnie would be too lazy to chase him the entire way.

When Leo got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw Raph peeking over the top of his own car while standing on a small footstool.

“Hey, Raph, bud? Everything good?” Leo called out softly, trying to not spook him. It still made Raph almost leap out of his skin. He frantically waved his arms to not fall down to the ground. When he regained his footing, he faced towards his brother immediately and, seeing the water jug and books, he calmed down a bit. Leo was almost impressed that Raph didn’t let out a scream when he got spooked.

“Were you the one scattering about?” Raph motioned towards the floor with his hands and fingers wiggling. Leo looked at him very confused.

“What are you talking about? I was with Donnie for like 20 minutes if that’s what you’re asking.”

The answer seemed to make Raph more worried.

“Someone’s been stepping all over. Each time Raph comes out it just stops. When Raph goes back in, it starts again.” He said. He then gestured the entirety of his car with his hand. “It's coming from all over but it still just stopped again.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing. It could just be the cats.” Leo tried to reassure them both. “CJ is in my room. He’s a light sleeper, and so is Carol! If they haven’t woken up, then it’s nothing to worry about.”

“Right, right.” Raph mumbled. “They’ve woken up to less.”

“Exactly!” Leo walked closer to his big brother to give a pat on his arm. Raph frowned more.

“Now go back to sleep, we got patrol tomorrow, remember?”

“Yeah.” His eyes widened. “Yeah! Nothing to worry about.” The snapping turtle returned the pat against Leo’s back. “We all need to sleep.”

“If it helps, you can just sleep in my room too if it becomes too much for you.”

“No no, Raph will be fine. It’s probably nothing.”

Leo watched his brother cautiously enter his room again. The slider let out a sigh as he turned around and was about to head back to his own room when he heard his older brother let out a small yelp and, suddenly, he felt two large hands grab his body and lift him away.

“NononoNoNONONO!” Raph was loudly whispering out as he took them both to Leo’s room.

Alright, well, seems like something was definitely bothering the snapping turtle.

The big guy accidentally slid Leo’s door open way too hard and too loud, making CJ immediately sit up with his fists clenched in front of him, ready to fight, despite his eyes and face being all droopy and saliva coming out the corner of his mouth.

“Sorry, CJ.” Leo apologized as Raph set his younger brother down on his bed.

CJ yawned as he rubbed his eyes before wiping his mouth. “Wuh happ’n?”

“Something’s scaring big daddy.” He explained as Raph just plopped down next to CJ. Leo placed his books and water on the dresser right up against the train’s chair he called a headboard.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Raph apologetically mumbled to the human.

“Oh, uh.” The teen pointed to the shelf behind the turtle. “It’s right there.”

Raph carefully grabbed it and turned it on. He then turned the screen to CJ. “Password?”

CJ squinted at it as he pushed the numbers, quietly mouthing out 0-3-2-3 enter to himself.

“Okay, it’s open.” He said.

“Thank you.” Raph said. “Raph forgot his.”

“So what scared you?” CJ asked.

“Tiny footsteps.” He muttered, still busy using the phone. CJ looked at Leo in confusion. The slider shrugged.

“He was hearing tiny footsteps. Probably rats if anything.”

CJ looked back at Raph. “Rats aren’t all that bad.”

“They’re annoying.” He frowned. “Trying to sleep.”

“I’m sure if you asked them, they’d stop.”

Leo and Raph looked at him extremely puzzled.

“CJ, do you think you can talk to rats?” Leo asked.

“Can you not?”

“Why would we be able to?”

CJ frowned at that. “I’m sure you can. To a couple of them at least. I did it before, I think.”

“What?”

It was Mikey’s turn to poke his head in through the open door; “Sleep over?!” He exclaimed excitedly as his eyes landed on the small group in Leo’s room. This accidentally made Raph let out a quick shriek before it clicked who it was in his head.

“My bad, Raph!” Mikey then fully entered the room carrying a couple of large blankets and pillows. “Brought your stuff over like you asked!”

“Wait, when did you ask?” Leo looked to his older brother.

“Thirty seconds ago, probably?” Raph took a blanket and a pillow.

“He texted me!” Mikey smiled. He pulled out one of Raph’s teddy bears from underneath the other blanket.

Oh, so that’s why he asked for CJ’s phone, Leo thought as Raph placed said phone back where he found it.

Leo shrugged. “The more, the merrier then.” Whatever could help Raph calm down.

Mikey proceeded to throw his own pillow at Leo’s face. When Leo got it off, he immediately saw Mikey hauling himself at him with his blanket in both hands, acting like a useless parachute.

“Mikey!” Leo shouted before being engulfed in the blanket hug. Mikey, who had landed on Leo’s plastron, pouted up at him. “There’s no space on the floor for me.”

That was a lie.

Nevertheless, Leo grabbed Mikey‘s body and flipped him over to the side closer to the wall. The box turtle let out an ‘oof’ .

“Your side.” Leo stated.

“Score!”

Leo thought he heard CJ giggle and said something to someone. The slider sat back up to peer at them on the floor.

“Especially Ezzy!” Raph loudly added as he held Ezzy, the teddy, up to his face before embracing it tightly.

Mikey raised one of his arms to be seen better. “No problemo!”

Leo finally just plopped down to lie on his stomach at last. He didn’t really want to keep trying to hear or guess everything they were saying all night. “Imma pass out now. One of us has to be awake during patrol.” He mumbled to nobody in particular.

“Gasp, Leo being responsible? Am I sleepwalking?” A monotonous voice asked from the door. 

Had no one really closed his door? The slider looked over.

From there, Donnie looked at him with a raised eyebrow, holding his own blankets and pillow in his hands.

“Donnie!” Mikey and Raph happily chirped.

Leo smugly grinned at his twin. “Took up my offer, hm?”

The softshell was the one to finally shut the door behind him before he dropped his pillow and one of his blankets on the floor for padding softer than metal.

“Yeah yeah.” Donnie grumbled out as he made his bed. “Better than staying up all night, yadda yadda.”

Mikey said something Leo half heard. About his chest?

“No need.” Donnie waved a hand dismissively. “I brought the weighted blanket this time.”

Oh, so it was about pressure on his chest. The softshell did like to always have something pushing down.

As Dontron was settling into his makeshift bed, Leo turned his head so that his left ear was directly into his pillow.

“Gotta sleep, guys.” He reminded them.

“Whatever.” Donnie replied.

“Oh, wait!” Mikey sat up to be on top of Leo, who grunted at the sudden pressure, to peer over his brother’s shell to face CJ better. “You should tell us more about your uncle!”

“Which one?”

“The one next door, silly!”

“Oh!”

“I feel like he’s told us a lot about him already.” Leo pointed out. He shifted his head up to rest on his chin to breathe easier at least under Mikey’s weight.

“Nah.” Mikey patted his hand against Leo’s shell. “You can never know too much about a person!”

“He’s you, what more is there to learn?”

“A LOT! He’s me from the future!”

CJ crossed his legs and rested his elbows on his knees. “Well, what did you want to know?” He asked Mikey.

Oh shit, he was willing to spill.

“What was his favorite spell to do?”

CJ scratched the side of his jawline. “Uh, that’s kinda difficult. He uses a lot and always switches his first choice.”

“Which did he use the most?” Raph tried to help.

“Does floating count?”

“I suppose so.”

“Nooo!” Mikey whined. “You said he did that for walking. Doesn’t count.” He pointed at Raph with a playful scowl before looking back at the teen. “Name another!”

“Uhh.” CJ frowned. “Shields I guess? The most recent thing was mimicking Don’s powers. But that was to make blankets and clothes mostly.”

They all stared at him with shocked expressions, greatly confusing him.

“What?”

“What do you mean by my powers?” Donnie questioned.

“By like, your powers? I don’t know what else I can mean.” CJ frowned, growing confused.

Mikey pushed his body up and practically bounced with his hands on his brother’s shell, making Leo grunt as his body was being pushed into the bed repeatedly.

“Mikey!” He wheezed out.

“Sorry!” The box turtle stopped his bouncing but still remained in place. Better than the bouncing at least, Leo thought.

“Are you saying I can use Donnie’s powers?!” Mikey asked, stars in his eyes.

CJ shrugged at that.

“Aw, c’mon! You just said I can! How?!” He pleaded.

CJ shrugged again. “He never said how. He just knew how to do it.”

Donnie had crossed his arms a while ago, slightly fuming at something only in his own mind. “Scoff! Access to my powers all just to make simple blankets? My powers aren't just for some common materials!” He threw his hands up. “It can do much more! It—I...” he frowned for a bit as if he realized something much more important to him. “It’s not just machines?” He looked back at CJ. “He’s not making machines?”

“N-no? He said he couldn’t really make those like you did. They were really hard.”

“Are you telling me that I can create anything?”

“I didn’t really say that but that’s how it was described to me.”

Everyone just looked at Donnie, who looked like his world was being turned upside down. Which was understandable. It was the same for them all. They thought he could only create any type of machinery or sciencey gadgets on the fly. But being able to make anything? He was practically like Green Lantern in their eyes now, except cooler because the stuff remained.

But it confused Leo the most. His twin just previously described to him that he could only make what he had made before. He doubted the nerd had made clothes, or even wanted to. So how would he learn about creating other stuff? Mikey on the other hand...

“Did he always use magic? That seems pretty tiring to do constantly.” Leo went to change the subject. Donnie had frowned at him doing so, no doubt having many more questions for Future Boy about his powers. His expression changed to realization soon enough.

Continuing this thread of conversation would lead up to him admitting to his brothers the small new issue with his powers; which might also lead to them spilling about Leo’s similar issues. Granted, Leo and Donnie usually had trouble remembering there were others in the same room, which led them to saying stuff they shouldn’t, but this meant that maybe Donnie’s powers worked differently than what they previously believed. He could possibly probe some answers from CJ tomorrow, or even from the older Mikey when he would wake up.

“Actually, he didn’t.” CJ finally answered as he leaned over to the side of his bed and reached inside one of his bags. He pulled out a small ball-looking thing in his palm to show the brothers properly.

“He made these orb things that contain a type of magic. Some were fireballs, ice crystals, or smoke bombs. There was always something new! His favorite to make were ones that sprouted a bunch of vines super fast to contain a being inside! It’s really helpful to distract enemies and keep them in place for a long time.”

“So it’s like Draxum’s?” Donnie asked.

“Draxum has them?”

“Yeah!” Mikey answered. “He has these little magic balls that create huge vines too! Once he even made this huge robot to attack us with it!”

CJ put the orb back in his bag. “Well, Master Angelo did say someone taught him to make them. So maybe it was him?”

“Are those the thingies you used when we went against the Krang?” Raph asked him.

CJ nodded. “Yeah. They are.”

“This explains a lot to Raph.” The snapper nodded.

Mikey finally went back to just laying on top of Leo. “Is there a reason why his hair is gray? Like, did he dye it or something?”

“I think he’s just old, Mikey.” Leo joked.

“I doubt he’s that old.”

Donnie nodded. “You’re right. He’s probably just a ball of stress. That can happen.”

“But his roots are black.”

“His what are what?” CJ questioned. Even Leo attempted to crane his neck to properly look at Mikey. They were all pretty sure he had a full head of gray.

“His hair at the roots.” Mikey pointed at his scalp as best as he could. Seeing no reaction from the little group, he decided to explain better by spreading some strands of hair on his head until they could somewhat see some green peeking through the dark locks. “They’re black like mine.”

CJ looked more confused. “No, I'm pretty sure the last time I saw him it was fully gray.”

“From this morning?”

“I—..hm.” CJ looked down as he tried to use all his brainpower to remember properly. Had he paid enough attention?

“Does he dye it?”

“He doesn’t. He..he never explained why it happens but I had assumed it was because he uses a lot of magic at times. It always happens when he comes back from a big battle.”

Leo raised a brow and was about to ask something though Donnie beat him to it with the same question. “Always happen? Does it turn double gray or something?”

CJ shook his head. “No. It grows out black but then it turns all gray. I was never there when it happened so I can’t really explain it well.”

Mikey rested his chin on top of Leo’s head. “Well as long as it doesn’t happen to me, hopefully. I’m too young to look old!”

“Hold on, how old is big Mikey?” Raph asked.

CJ thought about it for a moment. “Uh...he’s definitely older than thirty-five. It’s been a while.” He looked at his left hand to count them. “Thirty-eigh—? No, thirty-nine. About to be forty.”

“You had to count after thirty-five?” Leo asked.

“No one has celebrated his birthday in a while. I’m counting from my age.” The teen pouted.

“Old at a young age. Tragic.” Mikey shook his head. Felt weird and hard as his chin kinda dug into Leo’s head.

“I don’t think forty is that young, Michael.” Donnie said.

“Well it’s not old either.”

“Eh.” The softshell shrugged.

Leo attempted to shake his head awake. He wanted to sleep so badly, as told by his heavy eyes, but even he couldn't help himself wanting to ask more questions. The boy from the future has been in the present for a few months but he had been clamped up tight when it came to talking about his past life, aside from small remarks and bits like that roach comment he made when he first arrived. Seriously though. Eating roaches and leaves? Leo would rather kill himself than be subjected to a world without being able to make pizza.

It was also nice to see CJ finally opening up. Something about his uncle coming back seemed to have ignited a buried feeling within him. Even Draxum got annoyed with him earlier as told by him texting Leo ‘Tell Future Boy people take longer than an hour to wake up when they come back from the dead. Probably don’t say dead .’

The slider had been tempted to push his luck and catch him off guard by asking who CJ’s dad was. The boy had been super zipped on that subject. Heck, he only ever admitted to having a dad and that was because he had been incredibly angry at Leo! The dude hadn’t even come close to that level of anger since! Which was kinda impressive considering how annoying Leo could be. The question nonetheless was burning in everyone’s mind as to who it could be. Yeah, sure, it could be an absolute stranger but what if it was one of them? It would explain why he never wanted to talk about it.

Of course, the real reason behind Leo’s desire to find out was because he wanted to win the bet. Literally, no one else picked his option and he was pretty good at these guessing games compared to everyone else. Sure, CJ was slowly beating everyone else at those guessing games, but Leo was still numero uno! That was all that mattered. Also, since CJ was the bet, he couldn’t join anyway, which meant Leo was more likely to win this one.

“So what was Donnie like in the future?” Mikey asked. 

“I, uh, didn’t see him much, so I mostly have stories.”

“How about April?”

“Same thing.”

“Raph?”

“Not as much.”

“And what about future Leo?”

“I also didn’t see him as much.”

“You seem to not have seen anyone else much except for Mikey.” Leo pointed out.

But CJ let out a big yawn, teeth and all. It was always kinda neat to them that his teeth appeared a bit sharper than other humans, especially his canines. Leo couldn’t help but notice the scar inside the boy’s mouth on...what was the word..? Palate! He had been noticing more and more small details about the boy and even his siblings. He thought it was because of Carol.

Wait, shit, he distracted himself, was CJ trying to avoid the subject again? No! They just got him talking about this touchy subject at last! He couldn’t give up now!

“I think it’s time to sleep.” CJ mumbled, his own eyes heavy looking now as he looked back at Leo. “There was that patrol, right?”

Oh, now someone cared about that?

Mikey groaned. “But there’s so much more I wanted to ask you!”

Donnie rubbed his eyes as he stated, “I’m ‘fraid Future Boy is correct here. For even Raphael has fallen asleep a while ago.” He gestured to their older brother who clutched his teddy bear close to his face, eyes closed and softly snoring. His large tail had curled around CJ accidentally, trying to go against his body had the dude not sat next to him.

Leo reached his arm out to pat Mikey’s whatever the best he could. “You can always bug him tomorrow, Mikey. He’s not going anywhere.”

The box turtle let out a weak whine as he deflated. “Finee.” He slowly slid off of Leo at last and onto his side of the bed on his back. He raised his arm to point in the air. “Don’t think you’re escaping me!”

CJ let out a worried chuckle at that comment. “Tomorrow.” He promised. Mikey flopped his arm back down.

Leo turned to rest on his left side and draped his blanket over him while Mikey threw his entire blanket all over himself as he turned to lay on his stomach. Leo then felt Mikey move a bit more before settling down. If he guessed correctly, as he usually did, he assumed his younger brother just hid into his shell.

Before Leo tried to close his eyes, he just watched as CJ and Donnie settled into their own beds. CJ had slowly moved closer to Raph, who instinctively grabbed on to him instantly to pull him into a cuddle hug once he discovered the warmth generator next to him, briefly shocking the other.

Donnie laid on his back. He raised his arm with his hand close to his face, pushed a couple of buttons and the lights in the room went out. Leo then heard a soft metal sound after the wristband turned off, likely Donnie had taken it off and placed it next to him.

“Thanks.” Leo said. “I didn’t want to get up.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Donnie mumbled out.

“Good night.”

“Night!” Mikey’s voice came from behind him.

“Good night.” CJ softly responded.

Donnie just grumbled then turned in his bed.

Finally, Leo fully closed his eyes as the darkness went over his mind. He did his best to clear his brain to sleep fully. He had no reason to be scared of sleeping tonight. Whenever there was someone with him, the nightmares were kept at bay, and now all his siblings were sleeping in the same room for the first time in weeks.

Throughout the night, Leo kept finding himself randomly waking up to nothing, upsetting himself. Even more upsetting though, was that he kept finding himself facing the wall and holding onto Mikey’s shell like it was a plushie. Ugh. He would’ve chosen the wall side if he knew this would’ve kept happening.

Still, the slider kept on flipping back to the other side, facing the door. Why did his body have to prefer laying on his right side? Couldn’t he have been like Raph and slept on his stomach or Donnie who slept on his back? Maybe he needed his own weighted blanket to keep him from turning throughout the night or just go into his shell.

Leo subconsciously let out a small, annoyed groan.

Being on his left was something he had to either get used to or find a better position for. His body being uncomfortable was nothing compared to the unnerving experience of hearing complete silence when he would wake up, especially during the night.

It had been around four months since their encounter with the Krang. His right ear should have either gotten better, or his body should have adjusted to the lack of hearing in that ear. Ever since that loud screeching ability that had taken their powers though, he couldn’t hear from the side that had faced the alien.

Leo let out yet another huff and tried to go back to sleep. Feeling growing anger as his body was super tired while his mind raced with the most obscene thoughts and various memories.

He wasn’t even aware that he had fallen asleep until he faintly heard some people talking. He begrudgingly opened his eyes and, immediately, he could see that the culprit was none other than CJ, whose face was only lit up enough by his phone screen. The talking was coming from a random video he was playing. The boy was still in  Raph’s hold, so Leo didn’t really know how he had gotten his phone in the first place.

Leo was happy that he was still on his left side until he realized that half his body was off the bed. He readjusted his body to be back on, making CJ jump and face his screen towards Leo as a light source. Thankfully it was on the lowest setting so it didn’t blind the turtle.

“Sorry.” CJ whispered, he turned the screen back to him and paused his video. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Nah, you didn’t.” Leo lied. “Can’t sleep?” He whispered.

CJ released a deep breath, still looking at the screen. Likely pretending he was reading the comments. “I heard something.”

“The pitter patter?”

“The cats.”

“Oh.” Leo looked confused. “What’d they do?”

“They were fighting each other or something else.”

“That’s not normal.” Leo mentioned.

“It was just a loud scream and nothing since. I was going to check if I heard it again.”

Leo moved his pillow to be more underneath him. He stared at CJ for a bit, contemplating.

“Hey CJ?” Leo whispered out.

“Yeah?”

Leo wondered for a moment if he should really tell him, then assumed that maybe the teen would talk more if no one else could really hear.

“It was nice to see you finally open up about your uncle.” He said. “Aside from just the basic ‘he was so cool ’, y’know?”

CJ’s expression softened. “Yeah..I guess I was more excited to see him again than I thought.”

“Why wouldn’t you be?”

“I was angry.”

Woah. New lore drop. “Why?”

CJ looked like he was debating in his mind if he should tell Leo. He lowered his phone closer to the floor.

“Before I came here from the future, he had told me he was coming with me.”

Okay, well, Leo will admit that he would also be quite upset if any of his family members did the same thing.

CJ put his screen back up, looking back at the paused video. “I guess he kinda ended up telling the truth.”

Oh that...that was a sweet idea to Leo.

“Hey, Case?”

“Yeah?”

“I think that, despite not seeing future us that much, they’d still be proud of what you’ve become too.” He tried to cheer him up.

CJ just stared at his phone for a while before clicking the screen off. Leo heard him shuffle and put the device aside.

“Goodnight, Leo. Still got that patrol.” He stated.

Oh gosh, Leo just made things super awkward, didn't he?

The turtle shoved his face into the pillow in the hopes that, if CJ just suddenly developed night vision, wouldn’t see the growing embarrassment written all over his features.

The next time Leo woke up, Mikey was aggressively trying to pry Leo’s limbs off of him while trying to jump out of the bed, following the others that had been startled awake.

Leo turned around and heard Raph getting angry at the door.

“WHY ISN’T IT OPENING!?” He shouted.

Donnie scrambled to find his wristband from last night. “I locked the doors!”

“WHY?”

“SAFETY!”

“Hurry! We need to help Carol!” Mikey started to panic.

Okay, so something definitely had happened that had set the alarm bells in all of their heads. Curse Leo’s lack of hearing!

CJ was quickly wrapping his red banana on his head. He then grabbed one of his bags and jumped through the blanket that covered Leo’s broken wall next to the door.

Donnie smacked his forehead. “Right..the hole you made and I forgot to fix.”

They all ran out through the hole as Donnie cursed that the lock didn’t even help anyone.

Chapter Text

For as long as he could remember, Angelo had been able to feel the planet and its abundance of life. A constant stream of pure energy with a desperate urge for survival at any costs. 

This feeling had been there everyday since his conception, and it only got stronger as he got older. It was something so hard to describe to anyone else who was not in tune spiritually, despite it being so normal to him, that it made sense. An energy that came from everything, which pulsated through him and his siblings.

His soulmate, Mondo, was the second one closest to understanding what he felt everyday, and that was due to their link. But the only one who ever truly even knew, the best to get what he felt, was his sibling, Don.

This was an amazing and a wondrous feeling when Angelo was younger, but as he got older, it quickly became something he despised as he felt it was mocking him. Yet just as fast, in an ironic, tragic twist of fate, he soon started to long for it to come back as he got even older.

After a horrific turn of events, it was slowly being devoured by a disgusting feeling of an active need for consumption and control; an aggressive want to overtake everything in sight. It held an absolute disregard for the natural way of how things worked.

Every single being is always making all sorts of compromises and always working for an equilibrium to maintain a sense of striving for the next wave of life and generations; to be better than before and better than the last. All of it was meant to be and functioned together with purpose.

But the new sensation that was trying to replace the old was pretending to be the same thing. It was much more selfish and much more demanding. It did not care for such things as compromises or equality. It did not even see itself as an equal. It fought everything, including itself.

Life on Earth, and seemingly the universe, had balance. The cycle of life and death. The share of energy. Everything was to be reused and repurposed.

This? This thing did not care or abide by those rules. It wanted it all for itself. To completely take control of others and keep it for itself. Everything was allowed to die and drain by its touch, but it did not share that sentiment for others to see it that way.

Life on Earth was bursting with passion and vitality and love. It did not care for your feelings and strife you had been dealt with. You were part of that cycle, whether you were willing or not. Your purpose was to continue on as any form of matter for another. This was the way for billions of years. The Growth’s only purpose was to snatch that away.

After feeling the overwhelming amount of energy for decades, it soon disappeared, leaving only the emptiness  and husk. Completely drained, no longer having an ounce of wanting to survive and strive for the next generation.

And within a moment's notice, this long forgotten feeling came rushing back. Overwhelming and intoxicating. It was too much. Too much for Angelo to handle alone. His body no longer knew how to react to it as it should, so it decided to drown in it.

He then heard a very familiar woman’s voice that was full of excitement. They sleep so cutely, Angelo! I can’t wait for you to wake up. Gosh, CJ is so big now too! You have to tell me everything I missed!

Angelo felt his mouth crack a smile at that. She always found CJ adorable no matter how much time had passed.

Hold on a second… She shouldn’t be able to see him without the use of his circle.

Angelo opened his eyes. A bright, unnatural light pierced his retinas, leaving him squinting.

Oh heck, this isn’t candle light.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” He croaked to her, his throat extremely hoarse. He heard a different woman shriek loudly in shock next to him.

“You startled the absolute dickens out of me!” She cried out.

Angelo slowly inched his face towards her. He felt his throat clog up after releasing a stifling noise. He stopped himself from almost happily shouting out April! in pain. She had coiled hair as deep as the night sky, even having grays that matched stars, all pulled back by a pink headband, and skin that reminded him of beautiful dark oak trees from so long ago, when there were still trees in Central Park. She wore green scrubs and big, blueish loop earrings. She looked so much like his sister and it was so easy to mistake her as April, had it not been for the fact he had heard her voice just now. April was not so soft toned and didn’t speak in such a manner.

“Sorry.” Angelo tried to gulp. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Oh! It’s okay, dear. Only gave me a small fright, that’s all.” She sighed out.

He looked around the room. It was a medbay. Walls of metal, soft LED lighting from the ceiling, a couple of tables holding random objects and medical tools, a few trash cans, unused cots against a wall, and different types of cabinets and dressers, likely holding even more supplies.

It was almost depressing how a single room could instantly tell Angelo if the Krang was no longer around. Everything was extremely neat, organized, supplied, and deeply cleaned. Upon him was a blanket that wasn’t roughed up by years of abuse, but instead the softest thing he ever felt. And he had fluffed up pillows underneath his head!

After a few seconds, the door was kicked open.

“CAROL, WHAT’S WRONG?” CJ yelled out, his hand in a bag ready to pull out whatever was in there. He likely had just woken up, if his head bandana which was about ready to slip off and the thin tank top and shorts were any indicators to that. And soon, right behind him, were four teenage mutant turtles.

Oh, it was so freaking weird to see the younger faces of his siblings, especially of himself.

He almost broke down in fear that the Krang was still around after seeing that his younger self had some hair on top of his head and Ralpha had bits of shell missing and a face scar around the left side. Upon realizing that the hair on top of his younger-self wasn’t gray and that Donnie wasn’t squinting at all, Angelo immediately calmed down.

“WHERE’S THE THREAT?” Ralpha screamed. They all reached for their weapons only to then realize that none of them brought theirs except for CJ apparently.

“Uncle!” The teen exclaimed in excitement as he saw his uncle Angelo staring at their merry group  with wide eyes. He started jogging to Angelo with open arms after throwing his bag over his shoulder.

“Hold on.” Angelo calmly said, causing CJ to stop dead in his tracks, and making the others confused. The older mutant then shifted his body, turning around from laying on his back to his stomach. The lady, assumingly Carol, attempted to stop him at first until she realized he was only changing position, not getting up. As well as not making any pained noises.

Angelo flopped down on the cot, throwing his blanket off in the whole process. “Phew, I breathe way more easily now. You can resume,” he told his nephew, now widely opening his own arms the best he could. CJ then resumed his jog to meet his uncle and draped his body over the shell in a big hug, dropping his bag next to the cot’s legs. It seemed like Angelo thankfully didn’t retain any injuries from before the portal, not that those would stop him from accepting a hug from his favorite nephew. Or any hug, really.

“Huh. Black roots.” CJ muttered, still holding tight to Angelo’s shell.

“What?” The turtle attempted to glance at the teen, with no success.

“It’s nothing.”

Angelo just let out a small chuckle and gave a squeeze back. He then patted a small area of CJ’s back as best as he could. He frowned as he looked down to his own wrists.

“Have my hands always been gone or is that a new thing now?” He asked.

“How would you not know about your own hands?” Leo asked back as he crossed his arms in confusion.

“You know what? I don’t know.”

“Most people would react very differently to the fact that they were suddenly missing their functioning hands.” Donnie stated. “Or supposed memories.”

Angelo moved a little to catch a glance towards CJ, who still laid on top of his uncle. He smiled at him again.

“I’m more excited to see my nephew.” He stated with a peaceful smile. CJ slid down a bit to look at Angelo better, returning the smile.

Now that there wasn’t any more disorder, the other turtles were finally able to see Angelo’s body clearly. His hair was completely gray, aside from the black roots that were barely visible, and was super long, almost like it would barely scrape the floor if he stood up. His skin was a duller color than their Mikey, and his face had wrinkles but still held the same warm, reassuring smile. His arms and legs weren’t as saggy, but looked thinner than expected. He had more of the yellow markings sprinkled on his arms and legs, two small ones above his eyes as if they were mimicking eyebrows, one plastered at the bride of his snout, and two that touched the bottom sides of his jawline and trailed halfway down his neck muscles. All over his body, he also had tiny scars, mostly on his arms and the lower half of his legs. Although his shell was mostly covered, they could see it was a darker shade than what they were used to, with a couple more markings down the middle.

At last, the brothers noticed that the older turtle was barely a couple inches taller than their own Mikey; CJ was obviously bigger when standing next to his uncle.

It was almost funny.

“I’m going to guess that your mission was a success?” Angelo then asked his nephew. 

CJ’s widening smile said it all. “I guess you could say that!”

Angelo nodded before turning back to the lady. “And you are Carol?” He asked.

She smiled at him. “That’s me.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Carol. Have you been taking care of me?”

“Only this morning, deary.”

“Draxum said he was going to do it.” CJ said, a bit concerned.

“The big baby went to make breakfast and had to run out to get me more coffee.” Carol explained.

“Isn’t breakfast your job?” Ralpha turned to Mikey, who rubbed his eyes with his palms.

He let out a quick yawn before saying, “It’s summer break. We switched.”

“Oh.”

CJ pulled away, causing some of Angelo’s hair to fall to his face. The older mutant tried to blow some of it away quietly, but when it didn’t work, he tried with his missing hands. He attempted to not showcase his growing frustration at his lack of fingers.

“Do you want me to tie it back?” Mikey questioned. The others looked at him confused but then saw his gaze lying upon his older self. Mikey held up a few thick hair bands in his hands to demonstrate.

“Where were you keeping those?” Carol asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” Mikey quickly replied.

“Now I’m kinda curious.” Leo mumbled.

“That would be helpful.” Angelo responded, almost in a soft tone. He then attempted to lift himself to sit up, but due to his brain short circuiting, he ended up in a weird plank position, confused as to how he would do this without the use of his hands. 

He had done this before, right? Without them? Without his legs too?

“Oh, I can help!” CJ interjected, and before his uncle could protest, the teen grabbed underneath his plastron, and lifted and shuffled him to where he sat over the cot, all with such ease. Mikey made his way behind his older self.

Angelo’s eyes locked onto the floor as he softly said his thanks.

“Gonna touch your hair now.” Mikey cautioned him.

“Okay.” Angelo said. He straightened a bit. “Can you tie in loose bunches?” He asked.

“Sure!” Mikey started grabbing the hair from the top, pulling as much as it would allow him towards the back to tie it up.

Leo carefully makes his way more into the room, allowing his other siblings to gain the confidence to do the same, resulting in them forming a mishaped half circle near the older Mikey. Leo went the closest to him, and started poking at his left arm.

“Do you feel any pain at all? Or even tiredness?” He questioned.

“Leo, stop poking him if you think he has pain.” Ralpha scolded. “You’re gonna make it worse.”

Leo withdrew his hands upwards in surrender as Angelo spoke again with a chuckle. Angelo felt Mikey struggling slightly to grab all the loose hairs with his ties.

“I don’t feel any pain right now.” The older turtle said.

“But tiredness?” Leo asked.

“Nope!”

“I see you’re already trying to do my job.” Carol joked as she glanced at Leo.

“Well, don’t you have to get ready for work soon?” Leo reminded her.

“I’m already ready.” She stated. “I just need my coffee.”

“Well, now that future Mikey over here is awake, we can go over some proper ways to give him the right accessibilities. I’m sure he would know what works for him.” Donnie asserted. “Especially since breakfast is most likely almost re—“

“I’d rather be called Angelo.” The older turtle cut in.

Donnie looked at him confused.

“Instead of future or older Mikey? I go by Angelo.” He explained.

“Apologies, it’s just that you’re, y’know, a future him.”

“Okay. You can call me that if you call him past Angelo.” He gestured to the mutant behind him, who stopped to look at his purple sibling, a bit surprised.

Donnie looked taken aback before lowering his head. He sucked in his lips before making a pop noise with them. “Duly noted. Refrain from describing you that way.”

“Thank you.”

“Mhm.”

Mikey started working on Angelo’s hair again as Ralpha’s hands joined together with a smack sound. “Okay, uh, should probably still talk about that access-it-ly thingy?”

“I heard there was breakfast?” Angelo tried to divert the conversation.

“We would still need to know how you can eat without hands.” CJ softly reminded him.

“Bah, I can just grab it with my mouth like an animal, it's fine.”

Carol crossed her arms. “Sir, you can’t just do that forever,” she pointed out.

“Leo asked how I felt, and I’m hungry. I did use a lot of energy. Gotta refill.”

“I did?” Leo questioned.

“Close enough.”

As Mikey was finishing getting as much of Angelo’s hair tied up as he could, CJ went to open one of the large cabinets and pulled out a folded up manual wheelchair. “We can use this for you for now to get to the kitchen!” He beamed. “The auto one isn’t ready.”

“Much to my own disappointment.” Donnie commented. “Forgive the waiting period, I am usually much faster than this, I promise. However, I am gonna need your input for your mobility device. It’ll be great!”

Angelo’s smile seemed to have winced a bit. “Nah, that’s okay!” He said. “I’ll be good!”

CJ’s expression changed to that of worry, and the others became both concerned and confused. CJ glanced between his uncle and the wheelchair. “Are you sure? You said—“

Angelo, focusing on how the lack of gravity works in his mind, then hopped off the bed to prove himself right, Mikey shouted out “Hey!” in shock as he did. When the older mutant touched the ground with both feet, he instantly crumbled under his weight with a loud “oof”.

“Oh, dear!” Carol called out.

“So it seems my legs didn’t get the memo when I was reformed.” Angelo joked as he looked up at the others with a shy smile.

His legs…they felt dead. They should’ve been able to take a few seconds of walking by now at the least. Even if not, he should have been able to feel something, anything. In fact, all he ever felt was some sort of pain in them the past 2 decades probably. Aches, cramps, pinching, but it was something!

Where he longed to have some sort of relief or get used to said pain, he now felt entirely wrong as he now couldn’t feel  anything there.

Even more of a shock to him came as his magic didn’t activate to let him hover above the ground like it always did. Maybe that explained this emptiness feeling inside of him? Then again, that had always been there, and he excused it with the reason being the Growth.

“Hang on, we got ya!” A gruff voice said. Angelo felt two pairs of hands grab from underneath his arms and carry him to the wheelchair, which CJ brought closer and expanded to be sat on. He took note of the colors on the skin.

“Thank you, Mikey, Ralpha.” He thanked the both of them with a nod as he was set down on it. Mikey positioned the older mutant’s feet to properly be on the footplates.

“Uh, it's just Raph.” She corrected.

Angelo looked towards her with a confused face.

“What?”

“Just pronounced Raph.” She stated.

Angelo now turned around to face CJ, still confused. The teen nervously smiled back.

“Yeah..that’s how you say his name.” He confirmed.

His name…

Wait. Had it not always been Ralphalle?

Angelo turned back to Raph and lowered his head apologetically. “Sorry. It’s been a while.”

Sh—He became uncomfortable at the apology, but still smiled. “It’s alright. I uh, guess the memories are still reforming up there, huh?”

“Seems so.”

Carol walked up to Angelo and pressed her hand against his forehead. “Nothing feels off there. You, sugar, are extremely lucky that I am super lenient without my daily caffeine.” She warned. “Would’ve ordered these lil’ babes to force you down here as they brought you your food. Especially after that dumb little move you just pulled.”

Angelo tried not to frown at her, instead plastering on a joking grin as best as he could. “I can probably use that caffeine too.”

She cracked a smile at the joke.

“If he’s anything like Mikey, then fainting or falling down is nothing to be worried about.” Leo interjected.

Donnie rolled his eyes at the stupid comment. “He literally was put back together like a Lego set. It was more than just fainting upon his arrival.”

“I think it was more of a puzzle.” Mikey suggested. “Lego sets come with instructions.”

“Puzzles are 2D. Legos are 3D.” Donnie counterpointed.

“Puzzles can be 3D!”

“Is this really important to talk about right now?” Raph asked.

“It’s something we can debate about, yeah.” Leo said. “Gotta make sure we’re all on the same page here.”

“For WHAT? Just…Do not, please.” S- He begged, already pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It never gets old to see them like this.” Carol chuckled out in a whisper to Angelo, who kinda agreed. It was almost refreshing to see them argue about something so insignificant, unlike with his own siblings.

“Master Angelo is still hungry.” CJ stated, trying to get back on topic.

Angelo lifted his arm with a smile. “Yeah.”

”Oh, right!” Mikey said. 

“Vámonos!” Leo raised an arm up, a finger pointing to the ceiling before landing it on the door. “Breakfast is probably ready!”

As the adrenaline began to wear off most of the teens, they trailed out the room groggily, upsetting Leo.

“C’mon guys! Where’s the OOMPH?” He shouted. “More pizazz!”

“Leonardo, it’s morning.” Donnie groaned while rubbing his eyes as he headed out.

Raph raised his arms tiredly. “Whee…”

“That’s somehow worse.” Leo pointed out. “You sound like a zombie.”

“He is the best zombie then!” Mikey countered.

“Eh… Wait, actually, that’s true. He did listen.” Leo agreed.

Carol pointed two fingers at her eyes before pointing them onto Angelo. “Keeping an eye on you, my dear. Juussst in case.”

The older mutant only smiled back at her as she walked out.

As soon as Leo and Mikey were about to leave, CJ walked forward and turned to face Angelo. Mikey took notice and tried to backtrack until Leo grabbed the top of his shell to drag his brother out of the room with him.

CJ’s left hand wrapped around his other wrist to take off a bracelet, he then held out his hand in front of Angelo. He opened it to reveal an all too familiar singular, orange bead the size of a quarter that had been braided with leather slips to contain it in the bracelet.

“Likely would’ve helped during my mission, but.. it didn’t feel right.” CJ said. “I think you should have it back.”

Angelo stared at it for a while. This explained a lot to him about that tearing feeling prior to the portal.

“They..th-they had—“ CJ started to choke on his words.

Angelo looked up at his nephew with a weak smile. “You don’t have to explain,” he reassured his nephew. “They would’ve been glad that the bead helped you in the end.”

CJ tried to smile, but it faded as his uncle softly pushed his hand back to him.

“I’m glad too,” Angelo said,both of his stumps resting underneath his nephew’s hand, just grazing it gently. He looked up, silently wishing he could rub his thumbs against the teen’s palm or pull it into a hold to silently comfort his nephew like he used to.

CJ bit his lip as his hand clenched the bead in it. He lifted his other hand to grab one of the stumps to rub his finger against it, worryingly. Angelo took notice that his right hand wasn’t bandaged as it usually was, but was unsure if that was because he woke up.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” CJ asked. “I know you and Mondo were connected. You’ve told me they helped with your pains.”

Angelo’s eyes lowered a tad. His expression softened to grievance but he still held his smile. “It is…weird, not feeling them like I used to.” He said. “But I will get by. Just having the memory of them helps me more than anyone can know.”

Truth be told, he felt even more empty. His and Mondo’s emotions were linked together for so many years. To feel something and have no one respond was painful. However, he didn’t truly know if that emptiness was because of the lack of another within him, or because of something else he wasn’t aware of just yet.

But this wasn’t an issue he could dump upon his nephew’s shoulders. Who wants to hear their guardian moan about the loss of their soulmate after being revived from the dead? Apparently revived; Angelo was sure there was a random magic thing that happened to him. Spirits worked a bit differently than what he had experienced.

Angelo looked back into CJ’s eyes,his smile widened. “Let’s go eat, yeah?” He suggested. “You gotta tell me whatever I missed. Also what I have forgotten.” He leaned in to mumble. “I always remembered RaRa as my sister, never as a brother. Would’ve made an incredibly awkward conversation starter had I opened that can of worms.”

“Yeah, I also almost made that mistake.” The corner of CJ’s mouth lifted. “He seems confident in himself with this at the moment.”

“I don’t remember how she confessed to us, honestly, or how she came to the realization,” he joked. “Would be funny to see that again.”

The boy then looked a tad uncomfortable about a thought he had as he tied the bead bracelet back around his wrist.

“Something wrong?” Angelo asked CJ, now concerned.

“I, uh-” He tried to get the words out. “Have I ever talked to rats when I was younger?” He questioned.

Angelo was surprised at the random thought.

CJ rubbed the back of his neck. “I feel like I have, but I haven’t… Have I?”

“How do you remember that?” Angelo breathed out, trying to not show his rising panic. “That happened before you were five.”

“So I have?!”

The mutant then shrugged nonchalantly. “More or less. You’ve had a few conversations with them, but you also had a translator with you.”

”I… don’t recall any of that.” He frowned at himself.

“But you remember that you did this before?”

“Yeah. It-it’s weird.”

“Not at all. Memories are weird like that sometimes.”

CJ glanced at the room’s entrance then gestured to it with his shoulders. “Should probably head out before the others get worried.”

”Right, we should.” Angelo agreed no.

His eyes followed his nephew as he walked around the chair. The mutant then noticed the open bag on the ground next to the cot.

“Don’t forget your bag.” He reminded the teen.

“Oh shoot.” CJ rushed to grab it. As it moved within his hands to get closed, Angelo quickly noticed a strange rock within it.

“Is that-” He almost exclaimed loudly, but caught himself and made it a weird whisper shout: “the key?” He did fail to show his distress though.

CJ immediately zipped up his bag as fast as possible. “I, uh-” he coughed. “We still need a hiding spot for it,” he tried to explain.

“So you all decided that your travel bag was the best hiding place for now?”

“Well, to be honest, I keep forgetting to take it out,” He blushed in embarrassment. “But no one assumes the bag you use! So there’s that.”

He was kinda right about that. Even Angelo wouldn’t have guessed it. And he’s the master of hiding stuff in plain sight.

“Very well. As long as you remember it. And your bag,” he said.

CJ gave a shy smile as he slung his bag on his shoulder. His uncle faced forward again. CJ then gave a small pat on Angelo’s shoulder as a signal before he started pushing the wheelchair.

As they went out the medbay and to the giant stairs leading upwards, only Mikey and Leo remained at the bottom, staring at them with intense concentration. They were apparently in mid-conversation.

“—aph can carry him up?” Mikey asked.

“Big bro’s already up there. Plus he can’t do that every time.” Leo said.

“Oh, right.”

“We can ask Donnie to put a ramp, maybe?”

“Oh! What of those automatic carriers? Like the grandpas use?”

“Yeah!”

Angelo felt like he was being stabbed in the heart for being described as a ‘grandpa’. He wasn’t that old.

“Wait, that doesn’t solve the issue of right now though.” Mikey deflated.

“Oh, that’s true.” Leo placed his hand on his chin. “We can ask for later.”

“You can just make a portal.” Angelo finally chimed in. They really didn’t think of their powers as part of them, huh?

The two young mutants looked back at him in surprise for a moment before looking back at each other.

“OH YEAH!” They simultaneously shouted at each other. It was like Angelo had bonked the TV to get the reception back in their heads.

Leo reached behind his back and grasped nothing. He nervously sweated. “Wait, hold on. I should get my swords fir—“

“You can’t make them?” Angelo accidentally interrupted.

Leo just stared at him briefly. “My room’s just right here!” He pointed behind the older mutant. He quickly ran in.

“He ignored my question.” Angelo muttered, confused by the dismissal.

Leo then re-emerged with a familiar-looking katana and practically slid across the floor to make a slash in front of Angelo. A split second later, a portal appeared.

Angelo’s eyes narrowed at the sword as it quickly dawned on him that it wasn’t a katana. It appeared more as a saber. It didn’t even have a blue hilt or coloring on it besides a dark gray-toned purple. In fact, the hilt looked like clasping tendrils around a green orb rather than something to properly hold onto.

“Where did you get that?” He asked nervously, now realizing why it was more familiar than it should be.

With extreme ease, Leo twirled the sword until the flat part landed on the top of his shell. He looked at Angelo a bit confused.

“CJ gave it to me. Why?”

Angelo tried not to frown. “Only curious. It doesn’t look like one of your katanas.”

Before the conversation could continue on, Mikey did an overexaggerated bow and aimed one of his hands to the portal while holding the other close to his chest. “Your breakfast awaits, good sir!”

CJ lightly patted Angelo’s shoulder as a warning before pushing him through.

The first thing he noticed in the new room was their Draxum in an apron tossing cheesy scrambled eggs into a large metal pan on the counter before closing the lid.

The yokai glanced up and got surprised once his eyes locked onto Angelo.

“I thought she was joking! Why are you up and about?” He exclaimed.

“I hunger.” Angelo replied in a joking manner.

“That’s no excuse!”

“Oh let him be!” Carol joined. She was behind him as she stirred the liquid in her coffee tumbler. “I bet you he would’ve tried getting up regardless, or even attempted some of that magic stuff these boys have. I know my grandparents do that all the time.”

“I’m not that old,” Angelo stated.

“Eh.” Donnie mumbled to himself. He typed away on his phone in a dining chair, likely waiting for Draxum to be finished with the food.

Leo set his sword against the kitchen counter as he took the chair next to his twin. CJ pushed his uncle to the end of the kitchen table then took a seat in the chair between the two.

“Thank you.” Angelo said.

Carol eyed Angelo up and down as she stood next to the sheep yokai. “How old are you, deary?” she asked.

Angelo frowned as he thought about it. He hasn’t kept track in a while.

“He’s 39.” CJ answered.

“I am?” He questioned.

“Yes. I did the math yesterday.”

“Wh— yesterday? Why?”

Draxum raised a butter knife at the older mutant. “You’re almost as old as the rat. Perhaps your face is affected by your age as well due to the mutation?” He suggested.

Angelo looked down in embarrassment as he pressed his nubs against his cheeks. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing.” CJ said.

“You’re kinda wrinkly.” Leo answered.

“It’s smile wrinkles.” The older mutant pouted.

“On your eyes?”

Mikey walked up to the serving counter, looking for something.

“Where’s April‘s lunch?” Mikey asked Draxum.

“Is everyone’s first thought that I do not know what I’m doing?” Draxum questioned, visibly vexed. “First Raphael, then the mother, and now you.”

“I didn’t say that!” Mikey tried to defend himself.

“No, but you have assumed so! You see Ms. Carol’s pail do you not? Ms. April‘s is always next to hers. If it is gone, it means that the younger lady came by, got it, and went off to class already.”

“Think you offended the sheep, Mike.” Leo joked.

Draxum turned to the slider, gawking. “Sheep?!”

Mikey frowned with guilt. “Well, I was only asking! It’s his first time!”

“You asked the cafeteria guy if he remembered to prep the food.” Angelo said. Mikey looked at him flabbergasted, whereas Draxum looked highly appreciative of the comment.

“Thank you! Someone remembers my credentials! Know that I am still the number one in my district for a reason! Even with certain recent events.”

“Raph apologized.” Raph said, slumped in his chair with his arms crossed.

“So did I.” Carol said while raising her hand.

Leo looked at his younger brother. “Mikey, I think that means it’s your turn.”

The box turtle became more surprised by the comment. “What!? I said I only asked because it was his first time!”

“You still offended me with your silly question,” Draxum pointed out.

“Oh,” the young mutant lowered his head in regret. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”

The yokai huffed with a nod, accepting the apology, and then turned around to get back to the other side of the counter once the toaster went off.

Mikey tilted his head at Carol. “You aren’t late to work now, are you?” He asked, worried.

She shook her head but let out a short, breathy giggle. “No sir, I’m not due in at least for another couple hours. I’m taking full advantage of the doctor taking my pager for his shift, and then forgetting I have phone service.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Course, I would like my pager back, but it’s also nice to have some breathing in the morning.” She then pointed her cup at him. “Now sit down, sugar. You ain’t being the boss now or soon. All of ya need some good breakfast to fill up ya stomachs.”

Mikey gave her a salute and a short ”Yes ma’am!” and quickly ran to his chair, practically throwing his body into it, making it almost tip over into Raph, who pushed it back in a brief panic.

Carol took a sniff and glanced at the stove. “Why is that pan full of green and brown wet kibble stuff?” 

Draxum looked at what she was talking about, then got excited. “Kuum Batcha! One of the many traditional yokai breakfasts! Or a yummy appetizer depending on your portion.”

“Khu whadda?” Leo asked. He couldn’t help but get up to attempt to take a peek at it from his spot.

“Kuum Batcha! It’s a blend of grounded fish, various meats, veggie mix, muude spices, and a little dabble of ambrosia. Of course, all the ingredients are only found in the hidden city.” He explained.

“Hold on, the Hidden City has meats that doesn’t exist up here?” Donnie asked.

“Yes. Such as the barlou.”

“The what?”

Raph sniffed the air. “So that’s the delicious smell?”

Carol scrunched her face in disgust as soon as Drax said fish, then even more when Raph described it as ‘delicious’. “Fish for breakfast? Really?”

Mikey drummed his fingers against the table in excitement. “We should go to the market! We definitely have to see all these new ingredients I can try out!”

Donnie shoved his face closer to his phone as if he was trying to be inside of it. “I must find and document all of the species in the hidden city now,” he mumbled to himself. “Need to know everything about them.”

Leo sat back down in his seat, now staring at Donnie almost concerned. “You know they probably have books on them, right?”

His twin then extended his arms widely. “THEN I MUST READ THEM!”

“Sooo, do you live here?” Angelo turned to ask Carol as she sat on the other side of him, letting the twins have their usual banter. 

She nodded back. “Me and the grumps’ apartment building,” she pointed a finger at herself and then Draxum, “got destroyed by them aliens. So Splinter offered us a place to stay.”

“They had space? Wait, ‘destroyed’?”

“They took Donnie’s room!” Mikey stated. “Erm, well, the O’Neils did. Drax sleeps with dad.”

“Don’t say it like that.” Leo frowned. His younger brother became confused.

“Why not? They do.”

“Sounds gross.”

Draxum grabbed the Kuum Batcha and dumped it into a large metal bowl. “We lay next to each other in bed. Does that ease your thoughts?”

“That’s too long to say now,” Leo complained still.

“Nothing satisfies you children,” the yokai sighed. He covered the bowl with a lid. He pointed at CJ as he was the nearest to him and then pointed to the plates, and cups; one was filled with forks and another with a few napkins. “You, take the plates and cutlery to the table. Someone forgot to.”

Raph slightly slumped into his chair, stinking of guilt now.

“Okay.” CJ did as told. 

While the teen completed his task, Draxum grabbed the metal containers and placed them on the table with tongs or spoons attached. He then put three different types of juices and a liter of soda on the table. “Now you may dig in,” he finally said as he took his seat next to Carol.

Immediately, the teens went straight for the Kuum Batcha to try it out, but only Raph was able to grab the serving spoon, so the others used their own table ones, even if they were smaller, which resulted with Leo and Mikey scooping it in such a frantic way that Donnie had to momentarily back off to avoid the splashes getting on him. Meanwhile, Carol and CJ went for the eggs and toast batch. Draxum did too, despite looking both upset and pleased that he didn’t have access to the Kuum Batcha.

“Do you want some?” Leo offered his spoon to CJ to use.

“Uh, sure!” CJ handed his plate to Leo. Raph gave the proper serving spoon to his brother to scoop better.

“I guess I must take this as a sign that I should make more Yokai dishes then?” Draxum said, failing to hide a small smile growing at the corner of his lips.

“I would say so,” Angelo agreed, “considering that even Donnie wanted to try it.”

“I—” The softshell looked up, almost shyly. “It would be criminal to not try something humans do not have access to!” He defended.

“Most excellent.” The Yokai concluded, and noticed CJ immediately scarf down his portion. “Though I don’t have ingredients or time for the more elaborate ones, which are usually for more formal occasions. Luckily, the easy ones are specifically aimed for children and those always growing.”

“Wh’d ‘u me’n?” Raph asked as he chewed.

“That you are growing boys?” Draxum raised a brow. “You will need meals more catered to your nutritional requirements.”

“Haven't they been needing that?” Carol asked, almost in a joking manner.

“I haven’t been around long.”

“Oh c’mon, it’s been almost five months!”

“Five months?” Angelo questioned.

“And? They thought I’d poison them this entire time.”

“I didn’t!” Mikey said.

“I did.” Leo said.

Mikey looked at his brother with a frown.

“I would have poisoned you too.” Donnie stated.

“I know. That’s why I don’t accept food from you either.” Leo frowned at his twin.

“Aw, c’mon! There’s no reason for that!” Mikey pouted.

“If it makes him shut up for two hours, it’s a good one.” Raph commented.

“Now I’m not accepting food from you either.” Leo shoot his head at Raph’s comment.

“Raph doesn’t even make you food!”

“And you never will!”

Raph was about to say something back, but chose to close his mouth, frowning as he thought of something, then finally shrugged. “Works for Raph.”

“Wait, no, hang on, I thought we were playing around—”

“I’ll make extra food for you, Leo, don’t worry!” Mikey smiled before shoving his food into his own mouth.

“Thank you! At least someone cares that I’m fed!”

“You are eating my food.” Draxum butted in.

CJ glanced at Angelo’s plate and his face showed regret as he realized it was still empty. “Do you want me to fill your plate?” 

Mikey lowered his fork. “Hh, yeh.” He spoke through a full mouth. He quickly swallowed. “We needed to know how he could eat.”

Donnie looked up from his plate. His brows crumpled apologetically.

“We could blend it up!” Raph suggested. 

Angelo’s nose scrunched up a tad at the suggestion. “That’s a disservice to the food,” 

“Nonsense! Most yokai dishes are meant to be consumed in either solid or liquid format. It will blend all the same!” Draxum shrugged.

“I wanted some eggs...” Angelo mumbled, a little defeated at the thought of not getting his golden goodness.

“Oh,” the yokai lightly stabbed his plate, “Would you like to drink raw eggs?”

“Do not.” Carol immediately frowned at Draxum.

“Do not what?”

“Give ol’ turtle boy raw yolk!”

“Why not?”

“Salmonella for one!”

“Nonsense! I’ve seen Raphael consume them that way many times before and he has not gotten sick at all.”

Raph tensed up when his name was mentioned, then even more once he realized why. He was trying not to shake in fear under Ms. O’ Neil’s angry glare at him. “Uh, Raph, erm-”

“He’s eaten pizza out of dumpsters before too.” Leo started.

“He has done WHAT?” Carol shouted, appalled at the new information.

“If that hasn’t killed him, nothing will,” the slider continued with a shrug.

“Bacteria fear him!” Mikey joined.

“They most likely love him,” Donnie interjected. “They just can’t do anything to him apparently.”

”I’m not Raph though,” Angelo stated.

The others stared back at him. Leo then crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair. “I feel like you still ate worse. Like CJ over here, who eats roaches.”

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” CJ sighed, already tired of the mention.

Carol looked at the teen, then to her plate in defeat. “What is wrong with y’all?” She sighed.

Angelo scowled in confusion. “That’s not weird. He was raised that way.”

The others, except for Draxum who kept eating, were shocked at the fact.

“You guys actually ate roaches?” Mikey asked, now extremely disgusted.

“Whhyyy?” Leo moaned.

“Yeah. Why? They’re so…gross.” Raph added.

“They’re high in protein, fed by our waste, and can populate quickly. When you’re feeding hundreds of people on limited supply, we prefer to have farms that have anything edible,” Angelo explained matter-of-factly.

“I guess that does make the most sense,” Donnie pouted, though he was still obviously disgusted as well.

“Course we’d try to make it into meals or something presentable, especially for those with bug fears. But lil CJ loved to snatch them up and plop them into his mouth while exploring the farms.”

CJ felt his face heat up in embarrassment, also a little surprised that his uncle just told them something about him without being asked.

Donnie tapped the table with his finger. “If you’re fine with it, we can just make you protein or meal replacement shakes until we figure out how exactly you can use utensils”

“Protein shakes? Really?” Leo raised a brow at him.

“I doubt older ‘Angelo wants us to hand feed him.” 

Angelo’s eyes lingered on his empty plate as he thought about it. “Yeah, I don’t want that. But what flavors do you have?”

“Whey, original, mint, and chocolate.” Raph answered.

“Oh, I’ll have chocolate!” He jerked up in excitement.

Mikey jumped up. “I’ll—!”

“I’ll get it!” Raph loudly cut in as he jumped out his chair and rushed to the kitchen before his younger brother could process anything.

Mikey tried not to look dejected as he sat back down.

“I told you, sweetie. Not the boss.” Carol said.

“I don’t get how that connects here,” he replied with extreme confusion.

Raph grabbed a jug of the powder from a nearby shelf and opened the fridge.

Angelo glanced at the snapping turtle, then at CJ’s plate.

“I could also just eat it off the plate?” He suggested.

“Like a dog?” Carol’s face looked at him, saddened by the comment.

“A bit, yeah. It should be easy to scoop with my tongue.”

Raph harshly flinched as he accidentally slammed open a cabinet, alerting the others to turn their attention to him briefly. They immediately turned away once they realized it was him and that nothing broke, except maybe for Draxum’s trust.

“Do not break the kitchen again!” He shouted.

“Sorry!” Raph shouted back.

Leo frowned as he looked at Angelo, who was just watching Raph pour power and milk into a shaker bottle.

“Hey, Angela?” Leo accidentally misspoke.

Before himself or anyone else could correct him, Angelo quickly faced the slider and responded, “Yeah?”

The slider was just hoping that Angelo misheard him. That probably happened, considering that he didn’t look offended or correct the teen.

“Why didn’t the other us hang out with CJ that often?” Leo asked, trying his best to ignore Raph’s aggressive bottle shaking. 

Angelo seemed confused. “What do you mean?”

“Like, CJ said he didn’t see his other uncles often. Any reason for that?”

“Oh. Well, everyone was really busy with the Resistance. We practically never had time to do anything.”

“But Junior talks about you all the time. So that means he’s been with you a lot.” Donnie stated.

“I mean, I am his guardian.” Angelo nervously looked away. “I didn’t really have as many things to do as them. They literally did almost everything when it came to leading and organizing.”

“Did they make clothes too?” Mikey asked.

“What?” The older mutant confusion deepened.

“CJ mentioned that you can make clothes with Don’s powers.”

“Ah. No, that was one of my jobs. Though my Leo used to help me patch up clothes and such when he had free time. But once Naro became the leader, he never had time for something like that.”

It was Donnie’s turn to be confused by the statement.

“Who’s Naro?”

“Leo. Mine, that is. We called him that.”

“Okay, why the gross nickname?” Leo asked.

“I don’t remember, really. It just sort of happened?”

“Was Leo not always the leader?” Donnie asked.

“Oh, spirits no! We were only teenagers when the Resistance was formed. We didn’t even form it ourselves, we just stumbled upon them.”

They could hear Raph quietly putting his ingredients away.

“Wait, we didn’t?” Leo asked. “Thought we’d be cool enough to do so.”

Angelo smiled at the comment, but it seemed to carry sadness more than anything. Which would’ve been a pitiful sight, had Raph not started his shaking again.

“Once the invasion happened, we were too busy with ourselves and finding April, Casey, and Papa to even care for others. We were split up.”

“Why were we split up?” Mikey asked.

“Well, we didn’t go after the krang together the first time we saw them.” Angelo looked back at Raph as he heard the fridge shut.

“Why not?!”

The older mutant watched as Raph went to walk back to the group. He then immediately stopped his body before placing foot on the ground to quickly turn around to open a drawer.

“We didn’t know that much about the enemy,” Angelo continued, still keeping an eye on Raph “The Stones only told us the Foot Clan were using it as a portal.”

When, finally,Raph placed the blender bottle in front of Angelo.

“Yippee!” The older mutant chirped,  immediately taking a sip.

“Did you just say ‘yippee’?” Draxum quirked a brow.

The mutant didn’t respond as he just continued with his drink.

It was a lot sweeter than what he was expecting, as well as a tad chunky with the powder, but he was thankful that Raph didn’t use water with it; it was creamy in a nice way. He had to focus to not release a purring noise. Spirits, how he missed the taste of chocolate.

“Raph made extra in case you want more.” The snapping turtle said.

Angelo quickly swallowed to thank him and  Raph went back to his seat. He frowned as he saw his now almost empty plate. He glared at Leo, who was pretending to ignore him. Raph then sighed as he scooped another of the almost empty Kuum Batcha onto his plate.

“Okay so random question.” Leo attempted to lean closer to Angelo. He placed his hand above the furthest part of his plate on the table. “Are you like, super open to answering questions about the future?”

Angelo shrugged. “I guess so,” he then looked up with a small frown. “Well, it depen—“

“Okay great!” The slider quickly interjected. “Because we have a bet on who CJ’s dad could be. Sooo, who is it?”

CJ looked up in shock. “You have a WHAT?”

“Leo!” Raph shouted while becoming flustered.

Angelo raised a brow at him. “Oh? Who did you guys guess?”

CJ turned to his uncle, utterly shocked. “You’re encouraging this?!”

“If no one gets it right you get the money, don’t you?”

“Huh?!”

“Weeell—“  Mikey pulled out his phone.

“You wrote it down?” Donnie asked.

“There were a lot of people joining!”

“How many?!” CJ got even more surprised.

Angelo playfully nudged him. “It’s a big house.”

“Three votes for Leo. Two for April. One Raph. One said a stranger. Another said he’s adopted. And someone said he’s a clone of Casey.” Mikey read out loud.

“Wait, who else voted for me?” Leo questioned.

“Dad.”

“I’m more curious who came up with the clone theory?” Donnie said.

Draxum just raised his hand as he sipped his drink.

Angelo couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “I can definitely say it’s not April or Leo.”

“Bro, I don’t even know why they chose me.” Leo groaned out. “We both don’t even have a penis.”

Draxum almost accidentally spat his drink out due to the comment, while Carol laughed loudly.

“Okay, so who?” Mikey asked Angelo.

“Well, one of you was right.” He said. “Which sadly means CJ gets no money.”

CJ just groaned as he grabbed his juice to sip and pretend he was no longer in the conversation, and to avoid the awkwardness to come.

“Please don’t tell me Leo won.” Raph begged.

“RaRa is his dad.” Angelo answered calmly. They looked at him confused.

“So, is the stranger choice the winner?” Carol asked, hopeful. Angelo got confused for a bit before realizing.

“Huh? Oh wait, that’s what we nicknamed her.” Angelo said. “Uh, it’s Ral–Raph.” He corrected himself. “Big red is the dad.”

Then all of the expressions of those who place the bets turn into surprise, except for Leo who was extremely gleeful.

“Woohoo! I won the bet!” He cheered. He looked at his younger brother. “Mikey, what’s the pool pri–I’m sorry did you just say ‘her’?” He looked back to Angelo with the same shocked expression as the rest of the others.

CJ accidentally made a loud sip noise, then put his cup down to refill it, only to drink it again. Angelo just smiled nervously.

“Yeah, I let that out didn’t I?”

Donnie looked to his older brother. “You have something you need to come out, Raphael?”

Raph just shook his head.

“Are you sure?” Mikey asked.

“Mep–I mean yep–I uh Raph means ye-yes. Nothing new here. Same old same old.”

Angelo leaned over to CJ to quietly whisper, “I did try.”

CJ just made a humming noise back to him. Angelo then just slammed his arms onto the table to grab everyone’s attention. It definitely made them all jump, aside from CJ and Drax.

“What was the pool for Leo, eh?” He loudly attempted to divert the conversation.

Mikey looked at his phone. “Uh, $120.”

“What, you all put twentys in or something?” Leo asked. CJ finally put his cup down.

“Would’ve made more sense for the clone.” Draxum frowned.

“In what way?” Leo looked at him confused.

“They look the same and have the same name?”

Carol scoffed at the comment. “You definitely need to learn more about humans, sir.”
“What are you talking about? My knowledge is sufficient enough.”

“That is highly debatable.”

“You guys asked me to choose and I did, what is the problem here?”

“Hey, uh, Leo?” Raph called out. “Why’d you guess me?”

“Aside from the very obvious fact of your mega crush on Casey?” Leo responded. “Or the fact that CJ wears your mask as a headband?”

“YOu NotiCED?” CJ unintentionally shrieked. He coughed as he sank in his chair. “I-uh...hm.” He put his hand over the bandana on his head in embarrassment. Angelo couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Forgot how sharp of an eye Leo has,” he chuckled.

“Are there any other pronoun changes we should be aware of?” Mikey asked, now super curious.

“Since you asked, technically yes, since I’m going to refer to my siblings that way.” Angelo said. “Ralpha, with she/her. And Don, with they/them.”

“Donnie, you got something to tell us?” Leo raised a brow.

“Absolutely not. I am completely and utterly fine with my current pronouns.” Donnie said.

“What are yours then, Angelo?” Carol asked.

“I’m fine with any.” He responded.

“Any?” Leo questioned.

“Yes, any. I am fine with them all when used on me.”

“Even it?”

“Yes.”

“She?”

“Yes.”

“Nem?”

“Yes.”

“Vers?”

“Yeah.”

“Zir?”

“Sure.”

“Xey?”

“Nardo, how do you even know all these other ones?” Donnie questioned him.

“You’re more chronically online than me, how do you not know them?”

“We apparently look up completely different things.” Donnie said, however he took a mental note to question Leo more about the subject later.

Mikey then groaned out. He pushed against the table, making his chair lean backwards. “Those are all good choices! How do you choose?”

“Right?” Angelo smiled. “That’s why I said any work for me.”

CJ then mouthed out huh, as if something just occurred to him, though only Raph took notice. He didn’t say anything about the reaction.

“Hold on a second while I backtrack a little, is Raph the only one who has a wife?” Donnie questioned.

“No.” 

“Yeah, technically.”

Angelo and CJ looked at each other in absolute confusion as they simultaneously talked over each other.

“Huh?” The older mutant asked.

“You and Mondo.” CJ explained.

“What? Me and Mondo? We weren’t ever together romantically.”

“But you said you were soulmates.”

“We still weren’t together romantically. They had Abraham.”

“But you guys kissed and held hands and stuff?”

“I do that with all my friends.”

“You kiss your friends?” Leo questioned.

“Well, yeah, I love them.”

“Awe.” Mikey clasped his hands together and rubbed his cheek against them. “I think that’s nice.”

“Of course you do.” Donnie said.

“Can we also backtrack to that soulmates thing?” Raph asked. “You’re not together but you are?”

“It’s just soulmates but no attraction.”

“Still confused,” Donnie crossed his arms.

“They are best friends but way closer and don’t date or have sex, what’s the confusion?” Leo questioned.

Donnie glared at Leo. “That counteracts soulmates.”

“No, it doesn’t?”

“Yes, it does!”

Angelo cut them off before it escalated. “We share a bond closer than others to where we feel like we’re two halves of the same soul.”

The twins fell silent and looked at the older mutant. 

He continued on. “We can even feel each other’s true emotions. Some of us can have a close bond and not feel attraction.”

”Oh.” was all CJ responded with, though his face appeared flushed as if he was embarrassed.

“Makes sense to Raph.” The snapping turtle said as he took a bite of his food. Donnie looked offended at Raph’s comment.

Before Donnie could make another remark, Carol finally came in with her own question. “You seem to have that prepared. Do that often?”

Angelo took a sip of his drink. “My siblings acted the same at first,” he explained.

Donnie crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, but didn’t say anything anymore. He just stared at his plate with a small frown.

Leo let out a chuckle. “But like, it wasn’t as bad as with me, right?” 

“No. The same.”

Leo became dejected at that. “What?”

Carol then patted her hand against Draxum’s shoulder then stood up. “As much as I wish I could stay and chat even longer, I have to be on my way to work now.” 

“Aw, already?” Mikey pouted.

“I’m already pushing it, my dear. A late start is wonderful, but the guilt is beginning to eat me alive. So thank you for breakfast and my lunch, Big Bear, let’s hope I’m back in time to order dinner.”

Draxum hummed. “Hueso knows the order now if so.”

“Oh wonderful!”

The boys all pitched in their goodbyes to Ms. O’Neil as she headed out.

After a couple of seconds, Leo’s eyes were back onto Angelo, who was sipping his drink still. “Hey, Angelo. You would know a lot about ninpo and our magic powers, right? CJ said you can copy Donnie’s powers.”

“Oh, yeah! I know that stuff. I also know more powers.”

“More powers?” Raph questioned.

Angelo raised his arms to show them off. They then released red sparks before suddenly a pair of slightly larger, red translucent hands appeared over them. He flexed the fingers.

“Th-that’s Raph’s power!” Raph exclaimed. They all, except for CJ, looked at him surprised.

Angelo cracked a smile. “It is.”

“You stop that!” Draxum yelled, causing Angelo’s hand magic to disperse immediately. “You are not cleared for magic usage yet!”

“I feel fine!” Angelo brushed him off.

“Any more and you could lose more than just your hands. We don’t know how much energy you have gained back at all.”

“It’s fineee.”

“Hold on, you can use all of our powers?” Donnie asked.

“Yeah. Well, just the basics. I’m nowhere near a pro at them like any of my siblings.”

“So you can teach us then?” Leo asked, getting excited.

“I mean...” Angelo’s smile disappeared. “I guess I can?”

“You should teach us!” Mikey suggested as he got excited.

The older turtle looked at the table, brows scrunching in deep thought as he internally debated about it. After a couple seconds, he looked back up , “I’m only willing under one condition.”

“Which is?” Mikey asked.

“That CJ attends every lesson. I won’t teach unless he’s there.”

Their eyes rested upon a mildly surprised CJ.

“Me?” CJ questioned.

“Of course! I promised you that I would teach you!” He reached to pull the teen into a hug.

Raph looked surprised. “Can he, you know, use ninpo?”

“Of course! He’s a Hamato!”

Leo and Raph looked at each other worryingly. They kind of believed that CJ could do it, but if he wasn’t like them in any way, then some signs would’ve been present during their fight with the krang at the least.

If anything, they were likely gonna place their bets later on what type of mystic power the human would have.

Human Pinkie Pie. Raph claimed as he thought out to him.

Excuse me? Leo looked at him extremely confused.

Draxum then scoffed, drawing their focus away. “How much do you know about mystic powers?”

“As much as you were able to teach me and then some,” Angelo replied honestly. “If you want, you can join in on the lessons to say if I’m right or wrong about stuff.”

“Tempting.”

Mikey drummed his hands on the table. “So can you teach us today? Like right now? Well, after we finish eating?”

Angelo looked shocked. “Uh, well—“

“Absolutely not.” Draxum cut in. “I just stated they’re not allowed to use magic at the moment.”

“I don’t have to use magic to teach,” Angelo stated. “As I said, I know the basics for them all so I can just talk about it.” He looked at the teens. “It’ll be a lot of words though.”

“That’s fine!” Mikey said in a giddy voice. “We can keep up! Right guys?” He looked at his brothers.

“Of course!”

“Sure.”

“Raph’ll try!”

Angelo tried not to look too surprised at their excitement as they looked back at him with pleading eyes. CJ smiled warmly at the predicament.

“Well, I’m not doing anything today so I guess we can try now.”

Draxum crossed his arms in frustration. “Curses be, of course Ms. Carol was correct about this too.”

”Yush!” Mikey exclaimed.

“Heck yeah!” Leo joined in.

The teens then scurried to dispose of the plates,even accidentally grabbing Draxum’s half eaten one in the process. Donnie was the last to get up as he shoved the rest of his food into his mouth as quickly as possible to match the others' enthusiasm.

“Oh, right now?” Angeo questioned, taken aback at the boy’s apparent urgency.

“Yup! We’re done! Let’s go!” Raph shouted as they shoved the plates into the sink and the teens hurriedly exited the room.

Draxum frowned in annoyance,grabbed his cup, stood up, and went to the coffee pot. He stared at the figure remaining at the table.

“When do you think they’ll notice?” He asked.

“Maybe in six seconds.” Angelo responded.

About six seconds later, a blue portal appeared next to the table and CJ and Leo looked through it.

“I’m so sorry, Uncle!” CJ apologized profusely. “It completely slipped our minds!”

CJ and Raph walked out the portal to grab the wheelchair and lift the older mutant. Leo also stepped out to grab Angelo’s drink for him.

Angelo thanked them for the assistance as they went through the portal.