A/N To my YJ readers: It was inevitable that I write a Turtles story.
To future Turtles readers: I have not yet watched the season 3 finale, but I heard the Kraang are back, and so this happened. It's sad. But if you check out my profile, you'll see that I, Acty, have a history of writing humor. So someday that is not this day, I will write Turtles humor. Promise.
Don't own, and this is why.
It's been nearly three years since the initial alien invasion by the Kraang.
They've just tried again.
Looking back, I realize that the first invasion was, technically speaking, a success on their part. But the four of us, April, and Casey came back, rescued Splinter, and sent all of the alien robots back to Dimension X.
So, though it was technically their success, it was ultimately our victory. That was a great day, I remember. But now, the Kraang are back.
I don't know how we missed them coming back. They must have been hosting underground dealings that we somehow missed. With Donnie's Kraang-tracking stuff, we should have been able to see them coming from years away.
But we didn't. And they've just launched their second invasion. And this time, they technically have the success, and they ultimately have the victory.
What did we miss?
When did it start?
We've been eighteen for a week now. It's been great, overall. We got a real cake this year, and we each saved up enough to get April and Casey to buy us gifts for each other. I got Leo poster with a Japanese shoreline that, I must admit, is beautiful. I gave Raph some leather that he can use to rewrap the handles of his sai. I noticed that the leather they had was wearing out. Donnie was tricky, but I settled on a USB plug with a super-high memory.
It was the best Mutation Day ever. I say that every year, but it's true every year. And this year, I'm really glad that this year was the best, because right now, that day is quickly becoming my only real anchor to sanity.
The Kraang have managed to create a new mutagen. It doesn't mutate. It kills.
Donnie described it as a virus: passable from one person to another, from physical contact. So at first it seemed simple.
Don't touch any of the bodies.
But we soon realized that we were too late. Casey collapsed in the street, holding his throat, and choking on his own blood. We didn't know how long he had had the virus, but we knew it was long enough for someone else in our family to be infected.
April went next. Even her Kraang DNA hadn't saved her from the horror. In fact, if anything, it just prolonged her agony. For nearly three days, she was on her deathbed. Donnie did everything he could without touching her to save her life.
But we learned the hard way that there is no cure.
And then we realized that the virus can spread through the air. After having spent nearly three days straight trying to save April, Donnie hit the ground, gasping for air and receiving none.
I couldn't touch him. I wanted so badly to hold him, comfort him, and just relieve his pain, if only for a second. But even in his pain, he wouldn't let himself infect us. Every time I came near, he lashed out with his Bo, almost viciously. I couldn't have dodged his strikes if I tried; pure desperation fueled his movements. He loved us too much; he wouldn't let us die for his sake.
Hamato Donatello died on the floor of his beloved laboratory, with his remaining family huddled in half circle around him, as closely as he would allow.
The moment our purple-masked brother breathed his last, Raphael's eyes glazed over in anger. No, not anger. It's too mild a word.
Rage. Fury. And for once, Master Splinter didn't try to calm him.
"We're going to stop the Kraang," he said. He didn't scream it. Didn't shout. Didn't even raise his voice. He was too far gone for that.
Leo didn't question him. He just stood up, put on his katanas, and nodded.
Master Splinter wept.
I was numb. I never thought this would happen. I could only stare at the body of my dead brother. The tears that trembled behind my eyelids never fell; I felt guilty for that. I couldn't even mourn my best friend.
Nonetheless, I silently drew my nunchaku, steeling myself against the horror that was to come.
Karai appeared in the doorway. "I'm going with you," she announced firmly. She looked a lot different than she had a few years ago. She wasn't a mutant anymore, for one thing; Donnie had cured her.
She taller and stronger, her hair was longer and pure black, and she wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of armor. But she grasped her beloved sword in her hand as though she had never let go. To evade Shredder, she had been living somewhere in Colorado. Her reason for coming back?
"I'm going to help you avenge Donnie's death and destroy the Kraang."
Leo denied. "It's too dangerous. You'll get infected, like us."
"I'm already infected. I went to Foot headquarters to try to get some soldiers to put aside Shredder's stupid vendetta and stop this invasion. They're all dead already."
"Even Shredder?" Raph asked.
"Especially Shredder. He was half-dead when I found him, and my sword through his heart finished the job."
"You're not coming," Leo told her.
Without the slightest hesitation, Karai had whipped around her tanto to point at Leo's chest. "Donatello is my brother, too. And no one hurts my brothers."
Raph had intervened, on Karai's behalf, no less. How the tables had turned. "She's right, Leo. Let her come."
Splinter would not let us leave until he had wrapped the four of us left in an iron embrace. "Come home safe, my sons and my daughter," he whispered. But it was a broken wish; we left the Lair with the knowledge that we would never return.
The smell of death on the surface was overpowering. Karai climbed the fire escape to the roof, with a speed she still possessed from her days in the Foot. We followed soon after, but even the rooftops were not a place we could escape to from the dead. Bodies lay everywhere; rotting, decaying flesh made the air as putrid and poisonous as the virus itself.
It was daylight, and many of the people around us were still alive. Half-dead, but alive.
In a way, I had fulfilled my dream to walk among the people without fear.
But I never, ever wished it would be come true this way.
This was no dream, but a nightmare.
Our mission was simple: take down saucer whirring and hovering over the entire city, which Leo named the Mothership. It occasionally released the virus so that it was airborne and therefore, inescapable. But we didn't need to escape it. We just needed to evade it until the ship exploded.
Getting inside was hard. Since the Kraang took no prisoners this time, we had no means of transportation. But Leo pulled out the Turtle Gliders; my heart ached for the brother who had created them.
We flew into the ship and were immediately greeted by Kraang droids. We weren't exactly surprised, but we were a little unnerved by how jolting and broken our fighting was without a Bo-wielder. Karai managed to fill in most of the gaps our missing cog left, but we still didn't escape without injury. Raph and Karai somehow managed to get matching burns from laser bullets on their upper arms, and Leo twisted his knee and aggravated his old injury from the last invasion.
Overall, I'm still the resident Kraang expert, so I could hack into the main database and reprogram the ship to self-destruct. It took me a few tries, and we were wasting precious seconds. But when I finally managed to get it right, we had exactly two minutes before the Mothership would blow Kraang bots to Dimension X the long way around—without a portal.
Even now, I still don't remember exactly what happened. But one second we were all in a pod, trying to get it to cast off from the ship, and the next thing I knew, I was under water, gasping for nonexistent air. My nunchaku were gone, blown to bits from the explosion, and my whole torso ached. As Donnie would say, I had probably knocked my shell loose.
Oh, Donnie...
Karai pulled me out of the water and performed CPR. I hadn't known she even knew how. But she got me breathing again, and I looked around to see Karai and Leo bending over me.
Raph was gone.
Leo told me that when the Mothership blew up, Raph barricaded himself against the door to catch the all-consuming fire that would come through. The force of the explosion ripped the pod away from the ship, destroying it in the process. We had free-fallen into the sea, and Leo and Karai pulled themselves onto some debris from the ship. They found me floating face down in the water, but Raphael...
He never came to the surface.
Our death count climbed to two.
And again, I couldn't cry.
We sat on our makeshift raft and paddled toward shore all night long. Halfway to any of the docks, Karai began to cough, and blood stained her palm where she covered her mouth. Leo clenched his eyes shut tightly, but I could tell that he needed to cough as well.
Karai didn't make it to shore, making us promise that when she breathed her last, we would push her corpse over the edge, as close to a burial as she would have.
Leo could only wheeze weakly and clasp her icy hand in his own. Her lips turned blue like the sea around her, and she gasped before her head fell back, and her body went limp. Leo held her hand up to his face, tears streaking down from behind his stained and tattered mask, and pressed Karai's fingers to his lips over and over and over.
It wasn't long before he lay down beside her, barely breathing, holding her still form to his plastron. Before he stopped living, he reached out to me, and I quickly grasped his bitter-cold hand in mine. He whispered, and I bent down to hear him speak.
"Fight on, otouto," he breathed. "Stay strong, and don't forget. You may not—" he coughed and had to catch his breath before he could continue. "You may not think we're here, but—" wheeze, "we will never leave you. None of us."
He pressed his forehead against mine before falling back.
My brothers were gone.
All of them.
The death count was four.
I laced Leo's and Karai's fingers together before gently pushing both bodies off the raft. It was as close as to a proper burial as I could give them.
I lay down the raft, trying to ignore the weak sensation in my legs and arms, and the slight tickle in my throat. I nearly fell asleep when the raft bumped against the docks, and I climbed onto the solid land without hesitation.
All around me, bodies lay dead or dying. I knew that my brothers were among the dead, and that I soon would be.
A figure approached. Tall and brown, dressed in a maroon robe—Father!
I stumbled to him, and he collapsed in my arms.
"You are the last, Mikey?" he asked, trying hard to catch the breath that was leaving him all too soon. He never called me by my nickname; he wanted me to remember him as my father, not my Sensei.
I nodded silently.
He hummed; it was raspy and hoarse, nothing like my father's voice. "You are strong, my son," he whispered, sounding like blades of dead grass brushing against each other in a fire-heated wind.
"Your brothers and I will not desert you." He was coughing; blood spilled from the side of his mouth and stained the pavement beneath him. I turned him on his side that he wouldn't drown in it. It was a horrid thought that made me want to die myself.
"We will never desert you," he repeated. One four-fingered hand reached up and brushed airily against my dirty, freckled cheek. I knew my face was stained with blood: Donnie's blood, Raph's blood, Karai's blood, Leo's blood, and now Splinter's blood.
So much blood...
So much death...
Why did I have to be the last one to go?
"Be strong, Mikey. I... love you. All of you." His nose tilted toward the ground.
I ran my hands through his fur, smoothing down the rough patches and covering the bald patches that resulted from a fight with Kraang and their laser guns. Then slowly, hesitantly, I buried my face in my father's chest and cried.
And that's where I am now.
I cry for Casey. I want to hear him brag about himself, yell nonsense words, speak in third person, and laugh at anything and everything.
I cry for April. I want her to assure me that she's my friend, to bring me and my brothers pizza for no real reason, and to laugh and hug me back when I glomp her.
I cry for Karai. I want to hear her flirt with Leo using swords, snark Raph for every time he snarks her, and tease Donnie for knowing everything, just because he boggles her mind.
I cry for Donnie. I miss his know-it-all-ness, his gapped teeth, his trademark face-palm, and even his long science ramblings that I never understand.
I cry for Raph. I want nothing more than to see his sai gleam and shimmer in the moonlight; to hear his fists pounding in rhythm against his punching bag; even to feel him slap me in the head for doing something stupid.
I cry for Leo. I want him to lead the team, roll his eyes when I goof off, recite Space Heroes at the most inopportune moments, and smile at me when I do a good job.
I cry for Sensei. I want him to whack me with a rendoku stick, hiss his laughter when he hears something funny, tell me that I "do not think", and call me his son, even though I'm a turtle and he's a human rat.
My family is dead.
Why do I have to be the last one alive?
I don't think I can live with this.
Then again, I think as I begin to cough, maybe I won't have to.
There's blood spattering my hands.
My blood.
I'm going to die.
I can hear the Kraang coming. Their robot bodies whir and hiss as they walk; the bones of dead bodies crunch beneath their feet.
I look down at Splinter. Even though his spirit is gone, I can still see the peaceful smile gracing his aged face.
I can see April in my imagination. She's dying, but she's ready for it. She's ready for her end, and she isn't afraid.
Casey's in agony. But he manages to grin, cockily as always, before his eyes slip shut.
Karai's ready to go. She left behind her old life, and she knows exactly what's coming. She can fight all she wants, but in the end, when death comes, she's not going to fight it. She is going to welcome it, because she's been preparing.
Donnie. Even with a thin brown line of blood running from the corner of his mouth, he isn't in pain anymore. In fact, he has that quiet, thoughtful expression that he gets when he has science on the mind.
Raph's last emotions freeze on his face; his persistence, his strength, and his determination. But that doesn't wipe away the evident pride for his brothers.
Leo is smiling. He's really smiling. He knows what's behind him, and he's ready for what's coming. He truly is Fearless.
My family. Though the moments before their deaths were hard, painful, and frightening, they always died peacefully and quietly, without hardship.
I'm ready to go with them.
Slowly, I allow Father's figure to slide to the ground as I rise to meet the enemy. They're not going to hold back. They're going to kill me this time. And if I'm going down, I will take them with me, and I will make them pay.
Gone is the happy, light-hearted, freckled, grinning teen that I once was. Now I am a stoic, hard, dirt-streaked, and weeping warrior. I grew up.
Maybe, when this is all over, Michelangelo will be gone, and Mikey will replace him once more. But for now, the warrior will avenge the dead.
My nunchaku are gone. In their place lies Father's katana, the one he kept in his jade walking stick. As I have seen Leo do a thousand times before, I position it over my head, my eyes narrowed behind my mask, which is now brown with dirt, blood, and tears.
My kneepads are destroyed. My elbow pads are shredded. The wrappings on my wrists and ankles are mostly gone.
My head aches. I probably have a concussion, and I can feel a warm stream slipping down the back of my neck.
I can barely move my left arm. It's probably broken or dislocated. I don't know anymore, and it's so numb that I can't tell the difference.
My shell is cracked. I can feel a thin line running from top to bottom. I'll be lucky if it doesn't fall in half on me.
There isn't much of me left.
I'll fight anyway.
I utter my last words as a final tear streaks down my cheek.
"I'm coming, bros." They're the first words I've spoken since Casey fell over dead; four days I have gone without speaking. Strange how a tragedy like this one can change so much.
The sliced, mutilated bodies of the Kraang and their droids fall to the ground around me. Their screams echo through the sudden silence of the city.
I don't see them. I don't hear their cries. I don't see my attackers. I don't feel the hits they land on me. I don't feel anything. I don't know anything. I can't see. I can't hear. I can't think. Everything's just gone. And I won't stand idly by.
I'll fight with everything I am.
I know I'm losing.
I know I'm dying.
But it won't be the end.
Is this how my family felt?
I can see them. I see Leo and Donnie and Raph. April and Casey and Karai are there, too. Sensei stands nearby, but he isn't Sensei. He's Father. And he's human again, and he holds Karai and my brothers in his arms.
He holds out one arm; he's motioning for me to join them.
And everything happens.
And I'm there, right there with my friends and my family and my brothers.
Nothing will break us apart.
A/N I'm a monster. Please review anyway.