A/N:

I managed to spend quite some time writing today, waiting for bricks to be delivered. Guess this was the result.
By the way, did you guys know this site has two TMNT sections under cartoons? One under 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. The other under 'Ninja Turtles'. I've put this story under both. So if I mention a comment you don't see, it's probably under the other section.

I'd like to thank Nutella Swirl, Sonic155, Raphaelfangirl4real, Anon and Midnight for their amazing comments on chapter 1. Glad to see you guys enjoy it.

Apocalypse Then


Chapter 2: The Metal Master


It was proving to be a bright and sunny day in the oasis. There weren't many clouds to note. And a pleasant breeze kept the rising temperature in check, providing a good balance. Mira ascended the hill in quiet reflection, enjoying all that nature had to offer. The cane underneath her right elbow supported her all the way. The man she was about to see had been so kind as to make it for her two years ago. Her limbs started growing old and stiff for a while now. And though she hated depending on it, it was an expertly crafted piece of work. And it worked wonders.

As she made the climb, she wondered how many times more she'd be able to make it to the top on her own. She liked to think she had a good few more in her. But there was a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be that long before she had to ask one of her children or grandchildren to assist.

When she got close to the summit, every step brought her tribe's protector that more in view. Though he stood with his back to her, she was certain he was aware of her approach. But she couldn't blame him for not offering a hand. He had offered, the time before the last time she'd made the ascent. And she'd refused, more curtly and inconsiderately than had been necessary. A cane was one thing, but hand… she was not there quite yet.

His metal frame stood tall, but not taller than the three trees had grown. Mighty red oaks they were, basking in the marvelous sunshine. It was funny how she'd never seen a tree when she was a child and now, she could name and recognize so many different kinds. Donatello's metal frame shone in the light of the sun as he stood their stoically, vigilantly paying respect to his brothers. His staff in hand, as if he were standing guard.

She was breathing loudly by the time she got up there. But she wasn't going to speak first. There were times they didn't speak at all, up here. And that was fine. Out of respect for her friend, and those who had passed on, she was never the one to break the silence.

This, however, did not seem to be one of those times.

"Mira." Donatello acknowledged. He even turned his visor slightly, catching her features, before he returned his vigilance.

With Donatello, on one of these days, that was as sure a sign as any that he had something he needed to get off his chest.

"Donatello." She humored him, sidling next to him and leaning on her own stick. "There were some lost kids waiting for their sensei at the square, on my way over here." She broke the ice.

"There always are." Her robotic friend answered.

"Mirk was one of them." She smiled. "He asked me where the metal master was. I had to explain it to him. Again."

"I dislike that name." He confessed with a chuckle. "Reminds me of an old enemy of ours. But somehow I can't seem to shake it."

"It is catchy." She admitted. "I could tell Mirk…"

"No." He interrupted. "No. Don't. He's a good kid. Reminds me of his grandmother."

She smiled.

"He's getting pretty good with the staff." The metal turtle offered, after a cloud finished passing in front of the sun.

She felt the pride swell up. "You should see him with the whip." She added. "He'll be quite the protector of our tribe, when he grows up. I told him to go drop off his bo staff at home and hurry his butt over to Kaz' for some hand to hand training. He complained, saying he preferred you."

Her friend sighed genuinely. "Four days a year are not too much to ask though, right?"

She nodded. Four days. One for each of his brothers. And one for…

"How long has it been?" She asked, respectfully, looking up at the taller figure next to her.

He had the answer ready. "One-hundred and fourteen years, since the Mutagen bomb exploded." Giant calculator that he was, he probably had it in hours, minutes and seconds too. "To this day." He added. There was a sense of longing, even in that generated voice. You heard it only when you knew where to listen.

One-hundred and fourteen years… Had it truly been that long since the world had ended?

The idea of a world like the one the turtles and her old tribe's elders had told her about in stories was extremely difficult for her to grasp. She'd tried, as to understand Raphael and his brothers better. But she'd never gotten the hang of it. It was as foreign to her as the wasteland beyond was to the younger members of the tribe. She told tales of it late at night by the camp-fires. Stories that captivated the minds of small children and spoke to their imagination. But they didn't truly understand. They couldn't recall. Being raised amongst green, they didn't have the sand stuck in their souls. And being born amongst the sands, she lacked the same fundamental understanding of this crazy world of air-planes, phones and internet.

"You've been keeping this place well groomed." He spoke with a hint of gratitude.

Despite his efficiency, his tasks were so numerous he hardly ever had the time to tend to the graves.

"Actually…" She confessed. "I've been delegating that to our Marsa as of late. These old legs aren't what they used to be.

"Well… She's been doing a great job. Give her my thanks."

"I will."

Mira's eyes darted from Raphael's grave to Michelangelo's. She remembered carrying that white stone up the hill all those years ago. While Donatello could have dug the grave mechanically without much trouble, he'd dug it by spade. As if he tried his best to labour under the job. To suffer. Likewise, he'd inscribed the tombstone not with his mechanic hand, but rather with a chisel. Back then she could have sworn he'd note the holy chalupa's grave with the turtle's favorite word 'booyakasha'. Instead, it read 'The wise guy'. It was fitting, she admitted. The tiny tombstone next to his just read 'ICK' and 'Meow!'. She couldn't imagine Mikey having wanted it any other way.

Mira was losing track fast of how much time she'd spent in solemn reflection. She could tell by the silence accompanying them, that her friend was struggling. It was a silence laden with hesitation and reluctance. Not at all like the calm Donatello was known for.

With all these lost ones surrounding them… Perhaps she knew what was bothering him. In any case, she did her best. "So… Chompy..." She started.

"Chompy?" He asked turning his head brusquely. He was clearly thrown off guard.

"Yeah..." She stammered. Perhaps she didn't know what was bothering him after all. "Uhm..."

His purple line of sight pierced her.

"Well..." She tried.

"No..." He conceded. "I know about Chompy. He's not much trouble for now. He sleeps most of the time… But then again when he wakes, he eats like crazy."

"You think he's sick?" She asked.

"No. Not sick." He fidgeted with his stick, preoccupying himself with it intently. "Just a growing boy."

That he was. He was three times the size she'd met him as. His features turning more pointy and fierce with each passing winter. Some of the children were growing scared of the way he looked. Most of the adults were already terrified of his tendency to breathe fire in the last forest on the planet. And he did eat a lot of the crops nowadays. There was enough to go around, for now. But what if he got even larger next year? And the year after that? It had been a subject broached to Mira by the rest of the tribe many times before. But never to Donatello directly. No one dared. Up 'till now.

"I'm not an idiot." The genius inhabiting a robot-body he'd built himself stated the obvious. He turned to look over the hill again. His line of purple was aimed for the mountains in the distance. "I know he can't stay here for much longer. But I imagine he'll leave of his own accord soon."

"What makes you say that?" She asked respectfully.

"He spends a lot of nights staring at the stars. He's looking for home. And all that eating and sleeping… He's storing energy for the trip."

"Are you sure?"

He shrugged histrionically. "I'm not claiming to have degree in astrobiology!" He complained, obviously getting into a foul mood. "It's an educated guess."

"Okay."

He paused before he apologized. "Sorry."

"It is okay." She said.

There was a lot she could forgive him on one of the four days. And out of all four, this one often proved to be the hardest. He'd lost the world that day. And his body. And, if she read the hints right, she'd never asked and he'd never said, something even more vital.

He was struggling, even now. As often was the case, his hand moved for his chest; gingerly cupping the star.

"No, it's not." He argued.

"Okay, Donnie." She groaned as she sat down, something they'd never before done together on one of these occasions. It had always been standing in honor; staying vigilant. But she was but made of flesh and blood. Her knees creaked and strained as she lowered herself. She tapped the ground invitingly. Come on. She said, without speaking.

He seemed shocked and hesitated for a second. But then he relented and sat down, cross-legged. His staff laid across his legs.

"Donnie..." She started. "I've known you for a long time now. And I know you're not that good at opening up. You always want to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Even more so with the passing of your brothers."

He looked down, staring at his hands in his lap. It made for an embarrassed look, somehow.

"But I've grown old now. And contrary to popular belief; old people don't grow more patient over the years. We ain't got that much time left, see? So I want you to tell me, right now, what it is that is bothering you. It's not Chompy..."

"No. It's not Chompy." He agreed, continuing to try and out-stare his hands. "I mean: I'll miss him. But he'll go back to his mother. He'll be happy there. It's not as if he'll die… He'll just… be where he's supposed to be."

"So what is it, sweety?" She couldn't help herself. Her inner-grandmother came out, even if the robot across her was technically far older than she was. He seemed like a sulky teenager still, even after almost a century of growing up.

"I had a dream two nights ago."

"Oh?" This was new; he never mentioned his dreams before. She told him as much.

"That's because I don't have dreams. Ever." He answered. "When I power down, there are the ones. And the zeroes, of course. Can't forget about those guys. Once, I swear I even noticed a two in the corner of my vision." He laughed awkwardly. "But never a dream."

She was lost as how to continue. "Was it nice?"

"No." He said, finally looking up. Despite his frozen expression, he seemed dogged. "But that's not the point."

"It's usually the point when someone had a bad dream."

"The point is I had dream. That is the worrisome part. Not the badness of the dream."

"So what was it about?" She asked after a while.

He tapped his finger on his knee in an obviously irritated fashion. "You're not listening to me, Mira."

"I am." She countered. "You're not talking to me."

He avoided her gaze.

"Something is telling me we wouldn't be having this conversation if if were a nice dream."

"It was like a memory. Of today. But not exactly a memory either."

"Of today? A memory of the future?

"Well..." He seemed to be pondering the novel idea for a moment. His voice sounding puzzled and intrigued. "I guess but… Not 'today', today. I meant today; one-hundred and fourteen years ago. M-day."

She nodded. That made a lot more sense.

"It's kind of a blur now, but I was there back in New York on the day it all happened. And I was looking at myself and my brothers. Everyone was there. My friends and..." His hand moved for the star once more. "I was angry. Confused. I was fighting. I don't know what. I don't know who. I was… fighting the world. And nothing was going right. The harder I struggled to save everyone… The less I could do. It's a haze now but…"

She placed her hand on his leg in what she hoped would bring some comfort. "Yes?"

"It was all going wrong again. It was like how it happened. But not really how it happened. It was different too. And I felt this dreadful knowledge, inside, that I couldn't stop it. And I knew exactly what was coming. And no matter how much I fought, it just seemed to… No, Mira, it was not a good dream."

"Look..." She offered, plucking some grass. "We all have a bad dream from time to time… And especially if the day of commemoration is at hand we can..."

"I don't." He stressed. "I don't have dreams. I'm not supposed to. That's what worries me."

"So what do you think might have caused it?"

"Beats me. I've run scans on myself. There's no reason for me to be deteriorating. I don't..." He caught her gaze and seemed to rethink his answer. "Fine…" He allowed. "I suppose I might have been working too hard on my machine as of late."

He didn't need to say which machine. Despite making many useful, rather low-tech machinery to help work the land, process their food and build their huts, Donatello had been spending all of his free inventing time on a machine deep in one of the lower levels of the bunker. He'd been working on it since the first day they'd found the place. She'd even seen it on a few occasions. Never twice did it look the same. But there was one key feature; a helmet with a wide brim and a large amount of metal protrusions sticking out of it.

"The one you said you would need to catch up with 3,000 years of trans-dimensional physics for?" She asked.

"I have it on good authority that I'd only need 2,000 years." He chuckled, despite himself.

"You've always been vague about what it does." She accused. "About exactly what it is."

"It's hope." He retorted.

She raised her hands and shook her head in disbelief. She hoped it showed the full extent of her frustration. He was doing it again!

"Even though I've kind of always known it was in vain." He added, dejectedly.

"Well..." She said, letting the matter rest for now. "I guess that explains why I've seen so little of you over the past week."

They both stared at a far off cloud making it's way over the mountaintops. It looked almost like a fish, she reflected.

"I'm sorry." Donatello started again, eventually.

That was one thing you could say about Donatello. He wasn't one shy of apologizing.

"I worry about you, you know. You spend too much time in that dark place on your own."

"I help out in the village." He defended himself. "I teach martial arts and meditation and all other ways of the Hamato-clan."

"Yes." She agreed. "And you make and repair many things and teach that knowledge too."

"That's right." There was pride in his voice.

"But you do spend a lot of time inventing and dwelling in the underground on your own, don't you?"

The way his pointy ears drooped, there was something about his appearance. If she'd grown up half a century sooner, she might have said he looked like a beat puppy. In any case, it didn't seem right to continue with this. Perhaps it had been enough for one day. It was a hard day for him regardless of their conversation, after all.

"Look, just don't worry about it for now. If it happens again you can always..."

"I glitched last week Mira." He interrupted.

She was taken aback and needed a few seconds to respond. "What?" She managed eventually. Not very inspired, she knew. But it cut to the point.

"It's why I was so obsessed the passing week. Why I kept working on the machine."

"I'm sorry." She held out her hand to slow him down. "I'm still wrapping my head around 'glitch'."

He lopsided his head slightly. "I lost half a second." He explained, as if it were the most simple thing in the universe.

Half a second? That didn't seem so bad.

"I sometimes zone out for a few minutes on end nowadays." She offered. Growing old sucked.

"It's different for me."

Mira placed herself as a nominee for the 'slowest on the uptake awards 114 A.M.D.' [After Mutation Day]. "How so?" She asked.

"It might be a sign that I'm starting to malfunction. That I'm wearing down, after all this time. Growing unstable… on my way to a shut-down."

She didn't know what to say. "You mean… die?"

He bobbed his head. "Whatever the robot-equivalent of death is. I'm not technically alive. Technologically alive, arguably yes. But not really. I am, as you once said, a thing."

"Oh come on…" She felt her voice stir discomfort and sorrow. "I didn't know you back then. I said it once, and I was wrong."

"I don't blame you." Something told her that if he had a real face, she'd see a miserable little smile meant to comfort her.

Mira swallowed. She was unsure how to feel about this. Perhaps he was too. He'd never wanted to live forever. In all the time she'd known him, he'd made that abundantly clear. Not like this. Not in his robot body. But as one faced with her own mortality, every day just that tad more, she knew the realization could have the same effect a sledgehammer had on a soft-boiled egg.

"So how do you feel about this?" It seemed like the best direction for the conversation. After all, congratulating him seemed way out of the question. But she didn't sense him asking for pity of comforting nonsense either.

He was trying to find the proper words. That much was clear. It took him a while.

"You know…?" He started eventually. "There was a time before mutants."

She smiled. She knew the stories. "When humans roamed the earth." She acknowledged in a spooky voice.

"My brothers and I were the odd ones out back then. But a friend of ours… before she met us… she'd had a fairly normal life. There was this time of the year, summer break, when normal people didn't have to do anything. No school. No obligations..."

The concept was novel to Mira. There was always something to do in her world. The community required hard work from all at all times. "Like one of these days?" She ventured.

"Yes." He nodded. "But two and a half months of it."

"Gosh."

"You know what she said to me once?"

Mira raised her eyebrows, indicating him to go on.

"That there were times that summer breaks seemed to go on forever. That there was no end in sight. Just endless. And quite often, if you can imagine it, she'd find herself bored. Uninterested. And taking all that time and potential for granted." He paused for a while. "And then suddenly, she'd find herself at a milestone. One month left. Half a month left. One week left… And there was always so much more she needed to do. So much she tried to cramp in at the end, after having wasted time doing nothing special and feeling sorry for herself. She'd been given all the time in the world, and in the end there was still so much more she wanted to have accomplished. And every year she cursed herself for letting it slip by, all that wasted opportunity. Every year she swore she'd make the best out of it, next year. That she'd make it count." His visor looked her straight in the eyes. "I want to make it count, Mira. I have to."

She grinned with a mixture of respect, awe and approval. Raw determination was something she'd always favored. Well hello, Donatello. She thought to herself. I haven't seen you in decades.


Somewhere far across the desert an ancient yet futuristic construct loomed. To say it was enormous didn't even begin to describe it. And not just because you needed other words like hideous, ruinous and ominous. In fact, gazing up on it, any number of –ous words sprung to mind. Monstrous. Dangerous. Suspicious. Infamous. Villainous. Murderous. Malicious. And perhaps even, somehow, for as far as a construct could be considered as such; 'slumberous'. But that last part was about to change real fast.

The half-buried giant metal ball, once white and pink now turned brown by a century of raging sandstorms, appeared at first glance as dead as the desert around it. But the poor lifeforms working in its shadow as the sun set behind the dark, poisonous atmosphere, digging deep in the remains of a long dead city, knew it to be a truly dangerous place.

It had a name, given by the pink God of the Cacti-clan who lived in fear of both the ball-shaped fortress and it's clad in metal master. In fact: every new sapling of the clan was brought up with his teachings. The most important one: Remember where you are – this is Technodrome, and death is listening, and will take the first plant that screams. Such was the life in Barbed-town; a great mess of shacks and ruins built to the side of the dome. From afar it might look like the town was a cancerous growth on the smooth and round, much larger structure. Up close, it looked even worse.

Yes, the cactus mutants had learned not to scream and to settle in their misery. They'd learned not to feel. Not to think for themselves. The pink God needed only slaves. And slaves need only follow orders. One step out of line, and destruction would be imminent. It was a cruel deity and it ruled with an iron fist. And an iron body, for that matter.

So for decades and generations, they dug; searching the ruins of what was once a much greater city than their own. For that what he desired most, they broke their needles. They ruptured their green skin. Wore out their roots and even cracked their piths. Each day. And every day. In the burning sun. In the cold of night. Every waking moment. More and more. Deeper and deeper. Again. And again. Until all hope and even the concept of retaliation was long forgotten and buried.

Some of the more hopeful claimed that if the artifact was found, their God would usher in a new age. One in which all cacti-mutants were free to roam the land and dig their roots down where they so desired. Most of the others were more cynical and felt that the helmet of power would never be found. Few dared to declare it. Even fewer had the chance to dare it twice.

Indi had been firmly in the latter camp for most of its life. Though it was a careful one; never letting it show. Perhaps it was fitting Indi resembled the spineless cactus so much. Like all its brethren, it had some semblance of the human shape left. It had what could pass for two arms and two legs even though they were longer than any human's. That made for more limbs than some of the clan, less than others. And tiny figs flowering made for fingers. It had eyes. Though they were always tired and irritated. It had a mouth, though it didn't need one. Its roots were more than enough to provide the necessary sustenance, along with the mutated sunlight. It was bald, but for the buttons of needles spread across its entire body. All in all, if describing it like a tall, walking cactus wasn't going to cut it, calling it a green, barbed, personified and depressed coat rack with socks filled with potatoes for arms that had run into an ill-tempered acupuncturist, might give you a better idea.

Needles cracked as it sat on it's knees and in slow movements tore the earth asunder with its roots. Occasionally it moaned, as members of its clan were wont to do. A slow and deep rumbling noise. For a single second it risked the wrath of its god and looked up to the skies, wishing for a life outside the deep pit it was toiling in.

It was about to have its wish granted.

Its hands deep in the hard ground; the twisting roots found something. Another shard of metal or brick, it knew. It did not grow excited. Remains like these were found every day. And never did they end the tribe's continued torture. It wriggled, dislodging the ground bit by bit. Until it cut itself. Across the mile-wide hole, some brethren looked over in a slow fashion. They sensed his pheromones; a plant taking damage. Most returned to their plot at hand. This kind of thing too happened often.

Whatever the thing was, it was sharp. And Indi had to to be careful in digging it out. Though it would mean punishment if it didn't meet its quota, it risked working slow enough not to get damaged.

And when the metal finally came into view, the first thing it saw was like a molten horn attached to something buried even deeper. And with each swipe from his fingers and roots, the empty and horrifying face came more and more into view. There were holes where eyes would be. And slits for a nose. It was sharp and pointy all over and looked like the face of a demon.

The kabuto, Indi realized. It saw the prized possession, the same one its tribe had slaved over a century for, right in front of it. And it didn't believe it for the longest time. There it lay, half-buried in the ground. Indi looked over its shoulder. Around it, its fellow cacti were still digging in their slow, deliberate manner. Cacti of all shapes and forms, slouching as most of them tended to do. Their minds and bodies broken.
Indi returned its focus to the helmet. Now it could change. The digging could stop. Now that the pink one would have what he wanted… The teachings screamed from deep inside. Obey! It knew what it had to do. Yet it hesitated. Would the hardship truly end? Or would it just make things even worse?

Indi cursed being the one to have found it. What were the odds? After all these years? After all the ones searching in the pits? It spend so long making a decision, that it was made in its stead. Shadows loomed over Indi, and looking over its shoulder, it could see the others lurching. They were hunching and staring in the same awe.

Indi grabbed the helmet and tugged it completely out of the ground. Deep down, Indi hoped it would break. No such luck.

All around work seized as Indi carried the kabuto and made its way slowly to the edge of the pit. Behind, the others fell in line in the same solemn silence. Each and every one of them swayed as they walked in their slow, monotone pace.

Fear was in the air. Not the usual fear they'd come to know. Rather a new level of anxiety for the near future. And as the horde made its way up to the surface, Indi realized how long it had been waiting for exactly this moment for all its life.

It was nothing as imagined before.

When they reached the technodrome, they'd grown at least three hundred strong. But unlike in Indi's dreams, they weren't riling. There were no shouts of outrage and frustration. There was no desperate, justified challenge against the God. Only quiet acceptance, shame and the total inability to refuse.

Indi alone entered, walking up the long ramp. The kabuto in its hands impressed the cacti on guard. Special cacti, bred for war. Unlike their slouching brethren these were big, fast and strong. Their looks fierce and their bodies filled completely by the toughest of needles. But bred to follow, all the same. One look at the kabuto and they parted. Never before had Indi set foot inside the giant contraption that haunted and dominated its clan. It'd heard the tales, of course. And the told horrors unseen that undoubtedly lay deep inside already took the breath of it. For someone wanting to die rather than going on but finding itself incapable of refusal, photosynthesis was a bitch.

The dome swallowed Indi whole.


From one moment to another, or perhaps to the same, Donatello experienced the single (or multiple) greatest sense(s) of disorientation in his artificial life. Silly concepts such as causation and effects were thrown out the window where they were promptly squashed by the full weight of the fourth dimension into a nice little cube and stored aside, perhaps to be recycled for some other universe. Perhaps a good way to describe it was that the whole thing was like a memory of something that hadn't happened yet, folding in on itself.

In short, he had no idea how he got where he was. He didn't even want to focus too much on where that 'where' was. He had a nasty suspicion it'd prove a paradox too much for his logical mind. As lost as he was, he wasn't certain he wanted the world to catch up to this anomaly he'd stumbled into, or which had stumbled into him, just yet. And maybe if he didn't think about it, it wouldn't all come crashing down.

He was himself, but he was different. And he saw himself too, standing before him. Flesh and blood. … His metallic legs fumbled as he looked into his own eyes. … What was this? … And wow… had that gap between his teeth really been that big?

There was a whole world around them, but he hardly noticed. The sun at the horizon. The waves crashing against the downed and sinking Technodrome. The squawking gulls flying over head. He didn't pay any of it much mind.
It were the faces, long lost, that captivated him. They all eyed him, expectantly, through the haze. Confusion was written on their faces, though not near as much as what he felt. Mistrust and perhaps… judgment? That would fit, he had no idea how he could face those faces. He'd failed them all.

Shinigami. Karai. His brothers. His old self. And April. Truth be told, Casey was the only one looking more angry than imploring.
But that was Casey Jones for you. Suddenly, as if only now realizing he saw her, Donatello turned back to April in a haunted and jerking manner. He felt his conductors straining in the effort to understand. April was just as he'd always known her. Wearing her black jumpsuit, her red hair dancing in the breeze. But she didn't look like her cheerful self. Her eyes were quivering. He knew her. He could tell. She was unsure and worried.

He wanted to tell her not to worry. But he couldn't. He knew what was coming next. Deep down he knew. His matrix flashed him the information and it was undeniable. It would happen. As it had before. As it would. The M-bomb. And despite all his rage and his efforts, he was powerless to stop it.

Frustration and rage boiled together as he recalled what had been asked. It had been boiling for a while, with nothing going according to plan and the dreaded hour approaching. His friends didn't understand what was at stake. And now, his fellow gap-tooth had even had the audacity to question him…

He channeled it all. The sense of unfairness. The powerless frustration. The white-red outrage. And for the briefest of time it made a path clear enough to follow, through the haze of disorientation.

"Because you're all dead, Jones!" He snapped, scaring himself just as much as he did the others with his outburst. "You want to know how dead you are?!" He pressed his robotic finger against the shocked boy's chest. "I turned your skull into a bomb!" Now he pointed at his brother. "And Raph used it to blow up a war-rig!" If he'd still had lungs, he'd be panting by now.

The hockey-player stood there, mouth ajar. They all stood there, frozen. And in good tradition, it was Mikey who broke the ice in times like these. Donatello caught him nudging the other Donatello. "That is pretty dead, dude." The youngest turtle nodded.

"That…" Casey started, on cue as if given the okay to speak by the mere fact that Michelangelo hadn't shattered for breaking a silence that cold. "That is so metal." The teenager breathed, his eyes were filled with awe.. "No offense, Donbot." He added after some hesitation.

"Some taken!" Donnie shouted, but the rage was disappearing. If it's said the brightest flames burn the shortest, his rage had been the big bang itself.

He was losing steam. And with it, he was losing focus. Fast. And after that, balance was the next thing to go, he realized as he fell backward, unable to will his body to follow his commands. Time seemed to slow down as the universe caught up with them and crushed him whole. His friends all reached out their hands and shouted things like his name or 'watch it' as he tumbled back and faded back into code. And then, nothingness.

Donatello sprang from his recharger in the bunker like a transformer camouflaged as a Jack-in-the-box. Despite it being nothing compared to the confusion he'd just experienced, he still needed some time to catch his bearings. In his attempt, he knocked over both his desk as well as the chair and destroyed the metal door to his room.

After that, he calmed down a bit. A melange of shame for the destruction left in his wake and worries for the dream he'd had again, washed over him. He was alone in the dark. And though part of him wanted desperately to have someone around. Another part of him was glad no-one had been here to see him like this.

When he'd collected himself completely, he found he'd been recharged up to 96%. He might as well get back to working on his machine. It took him exactly 174,3 seconds to get to his special lab. Later, he'd be able to recall 173,7 of them.


It was already dark out by the time the pink God finished preparations. Barbed-town had been deserted, all its inhabitants having amassed outside the Technodrome. Their vacant stares glued to the dome for hours on end now. But apart from the occasional, uncontrollable moan, none dared make a sound.

Their hushed silence grew to another level when one of them spotted the figure atop the looming half-buried ball. One by one, they all gazed up in pitch-perfect silence. When the ripple of lifting heads reached Indi, it followed. It recognized the shape immediately. It would have even if it hadn't seen it up close, a few hours earlier. All cacti knew their God.

The pink head on it's waist was not visible from this distance. But it's metal, bulking body glistened in the moon's light.

Yes, from atop the Technodrome, Kraang Subprime looked over his stumped fools of followers. His tentacles itched in anticipations. They grabbed hold of the levers of his Irma-bot and moved it. The entire metal body moved to his command. He was laughing like a madman.

"Bare witness, you simpleminded vegetables!" He shouted into a megaphone held up by one metal hand. In another he held up a controller. "Enjoy the fruit of your labor. Kneel to the glory of Kraang!"

He adored speeches like these, towering over his slaves. One of the few things he felt had been worthwhile to come out of the entire 'earth-experiment', was the creation of the English language. There was just something inherently satisfying about the vocabulary, so much more apt than his own original language. Filled with such treasures like 'bonehead', 'moron', 'cretin' and 'dingleberry'.

"You dingleberry's have been toiling away your entire miserable lives, searching for the Kuro Kabuto! Let me show you what your efforts have wrought!"

Oh, how he enjoyed calling subordinates 'dingleberry'.

His suit pressed the button on the controller and panic erupted down below. The earth started trembling, shaking and breaking. And to their awe and horror, the dome they'd known and feared for all their lives started glowing and rose from the ground. The layer of dust evaporated as it reclaimed its white exterior. The technodrome roared as it rose from its slumber after all these years, like a bear clawing its way out of hibernation. Ancient systems flashed online. Energy flowed and static rushed through the air. Barbed-town collapsed on itself as the ball rose above ground level. And higher. And higher still. The pink, giant eye stared down at them from high above.

Like its brethren, Indi found itself kneeling in fear and wonder, bowing its head as a sign of reverence. Its resentment for the God and its power only outshone by its resentment of its own display of fealty.

And high above, Kraang Subprime roared on. "You see that?!" He shouted in deranged fashion at the slaves down below. "I'm the king of the world!" He pumped his arm in the air. Things were finally looking up, after all this time. With the Kuro Kabuto in his grasp, he'd finally found the ideal conductor. The kabuto's strong and conducive alloy fused with the super shredders mutagen had been the only of its kind on earth. The only thing that could have closed the core's current, broken by the turtles and their allies all those years ago.

The Kraang had lost everything. But they lived on through him. And just like this technodrome, they'd rise from the ashes of their defeat. He'd make sure of it. He was Kraang Prime now. And soon, he'd be going home. Those moronic Utrom wouldn't know what hit them! Having restored the basic functions of the technodrome all he'd need was a sufficient power source to hop dimensions and return back to Dimension X. He'd be pleased to know that after a century of waiting, such a source would present itself in little over a month.