Light From Dark
He had been traveling the astral plane for so long that he had forgotten his life. It still didn't bother him.
His constant companion, ever-shifting, grabbed his hands to pull him to the top of the hill. This time, the wraith was a feminine human that looked like someone he should know, memories from a life ago.
"Come now, grandson. You can't be exhausted already."
Michelangelo bit his lip and studied her Japanese features. She kept tugging on a memory and-
"I just need to get to the temple," he said, "and everything will be okay."
She nodded. "And your family will be waiting."
He winced. "My family is dead."
Her smile showed a hint of teeth. "Perhaps."
There, at the base of the hill, a sprawling village and the temple looming above it, shaped like a massive box turtle.
Again, he felt that shiver of power that was like pain, voices like lightning in his head.
*Mikey, please, if you can hear us, please come back to us!*
He grit his teeth; more pain stabbed through his lungs. Another vision of a decaying creature attacking him and vaporizing his family nearly sent him to his knees. That violent sense of dissociation swept through him.
The ghost lady was crouched beside him. "Slow short breaths. Anchor yourself. Detach from the vision. We are nearly to your freedom."
Mikey felt himself burst into tears. Back before this astral life, his seizures messed with his emotions and his brothers were always there.
He was on his own now. The whole world was his to command! Why should he be sad?
Memories were fading more and more, save for his family.
Inhaling, he stood and brought his hands together, willing his new psionic powers to work.
He was at the bottom of the hill, his spirit companion squeezing his hand.
There was no activity as they walked through the village. Michelangelo worried and then dismissed it. The residents didn't know him. Yet. He grinned.
Pain lanced through his torso and head again, shrieking.
*Oh god, Mikey, please, please, hold on, don't give up!*
Grunting, Michelangelo pushed on. The mouth of the turtle was the temple entrance and as he walked through his companion faded.
Silence roared across the temple.
The pain was constant and burning and exhausting, and he held back cries as he approached the steps leading to the dais. Collapsing, Michelangelo gazed up at the four human statues with animal heads, fox and cat and raven and snake.
"Where is my real home?" he whispered. "Is my life really lost?"
The cat creature stepped forward and began to purr, a gentle balm.
*His vitals are stabilizing! I need more oxygen flow!*
"Please... I can't remember... I just wanna go home!"
The fox and raven raised their hands, sketching complex sigils in the air. The snake approached him, and covered his whole face with scaly humanoid hands.
The white hot explosion ripped a scream from Michelangelo's throat, and within his darkness hands he saw the decayed wraith that had destroyed him, melting and sizzling into the nothing.
He didn't notice the tears streaming down his face.
Slow blinks of steady light caressed his heavy eyelids. He was lying down on something soft. There were mechanical sounds. His mouth was held open by something plastic and he felt it all the way down his throat.
He tried to move, to do anything at all, but that pervasive weakness and fatigue held him paralyzed.
Slowly finding some control over a tiny bit of himself, Mikey groaned, and his entire body seemed to vibrate like a purr.
It was enough.
"Mikey?! Oh god, I think he's waking up. Donnie, Leatherhead, what do we do?"
"Calm down, Leo, just hold his hand a little tighter. Mikey, hey, Mikey, can you feel that? Can you squeeze Leo's hand for us?"
His body was stone. He could feel it, he could feel everything. He couldn't move. His brain wasn't connecting. The hand gripping his was too heavy! He made another mewling noise.
"Brain scans show that there is a temporary disconnect between motor cortex and muscles. He cannot command his body just yet." The voice was growly and gravelly and he'd know it anywhere.
"But he can hear us, right? Right?"
And it came to him, through thick fog.
His family. They were alive. They were here.
The next scent was so familiar that Michelangelo wanted to burst out laughing with a joke about hygiene.
"Hey, lil bro, it's Raph. I... I missed you. It's been way too quiet."
Those scarred hands on his head, his arm, cupping his face. "You scared the shit out of us. Two whole months. Sensei couldn't even find you in the Astral plane even though he said you were there. You'd better open your eyes and explain things."
Leo was gripping his hand harder. "Come on, Mikey. You can do this. I know you had a bunch of seizures and psychic overloads. But... but you came back to us. Please. Come back all the way. We know how strong you've always been, way before you became our resident awesome psionic. You need to show it. You need to wake up!"
Michelangelo felt the concrete fog shift and lift a little.
Memories flooded him, of training and honing the sudden psionic talents he had developed over the years after multiple head injuries and electric shocks, as LH and April surmised that his specific mutation and reaction would have provided the neurodivergent wiring unlike any other mutant created with Utrom mutagen.
He wanted to grin and crow and boast like when he won the Battle Nexus fights. He was just that awesome, just that sweetly unique, side effects of seizures and migraines and chronic fatigue be damned. He felt his muscles spasm and he pushed forcibly to gain control.
It caused his hands to clench, and Leonardo gasped.
Mikey's eyelids felt less weighted down. He scrunched them and lifted them carefully.
Familiar, very alive faces stared openly at him. All three brothers! Master Splinter! Leatherhead!
Michelangelo let out a rumbling churr of delight around the intubator tube.
As sensory processing and neurological connection rushed back, he managed to smile and huff a tired "Happy... Love... "
Splinter stroked and nuzzled his forehead. "Yes, we are all very happy you pulled through, my son, we love you dearly."
His brothers crowded him, Donnie wrapping his arms around him and openly crying. "I am gonna take the best care of you. You're my only little brother and you're the heart and light and thank the Universe you are back with us, Mike, you have no idea... "
Mikey sighed happily and let the intubator work for him as he nuzzled his brainy brother. He would even be fine with the months of therapy and medicine, as long as his brothers kept hugging him.