Hello! I'm back. :)

I just first wanted to say thank you to all the people who've been reading Identity Crisis. It's been fun to rework on it and hear your thoughts, though I suppose more reviews wouldn't hurt, lol.

But this hadn't been update in so long I figured I should show it some love, so here it is, and I hope you enjoy.

I give you:

Shattered Mirror

Chapter 2

Raphael had been the first to back away to try and pull himself together, and that caused another chain of events, this time forward. Leonardo took their Master to the closest seat (the kitchen stool) as Donatello went in search for painkillers or a wet towel, just anything to help with the hand. Michelangelo joined Raph, who was shaking himself again, trying to do the water on a turtle's back thing, but the turn of events felt like rancid oil, clinging to the very crevices of his shell.

"Let's go look for tea," Mikey whispered, tapping Raph on the shoulder, "Tea always makes things better for him."

Raph nodded and muttered to himself about which tea Splinter preferred when stressed. "Green with chamomile and lemon blend, right?"

Mikey looked at his brother and nodded, having come to the same conclusion. "Yeah."

They didn't know the full array of tea Master Splinter managed to accrue over years upon years of scavenging, but this, this they knew painfully well. They smelt it each time they'd come back from mortal peril, and it was a scent of tea that they often associated with bed rest and aches and stab wounds.

They opened the cabinets, stared, and closed them.

They looked at each other. "Right."

"Yeah. Right."

And with that they pretended that hadn't happened.

They went to the sink, turned the faucets. Water burbled out after a strained half a minute, and even that sputtered brown before coming out clear.

They searched for a kettle and proceeded to boil the (literal) living crap out of it.

They returned with five cups/mugs that they'd scraped dirt and dust out of and spent half the boiled water to clean out, and passed it around. Only Splinter's mug had any leaves in it; it was dubious to say whether they were of the drinkable kind.

But Splinter thanked them all for their kindness and sipped. And they sat there, sitting on the floor in a circle around their master, just like how they used to as little tots. Only the strange familiarity was jarringly warped; in their memories, it was them in tears, from scrapes or fights or close encounters with humans, with Master Splinter as a beacon of comfort and warmth. Here? Their father was still sniffling a little, and was wiping a stray tear even as he took in the murky water in his cracked cup like he was seeing all of the answers to the world in there, and it brought him relief.

The turtles looked at each other and they were all thinking the same thing: this was wrong.

"Forgive me, my sons," Splinter murmured, chuckling self-deprecatingly as he shook his head, "I know that you are, in fact, not my sons."

"That's not…" Leonardo stopped himself, and then nodded, slowly.

The grey ghost of the father they knew chuckled again, and took a slow sip. "I know of dimensions with planets and lands much like ours, and magics that warp time and space. You are my sons, yes… but to another rat who calls himself your master. That, or you are some strange device of one of my enemies, set to put me at ease before destroying me."

He managed a laugh at their spirited defence and denial, and waved down their protests. "Either way, it is a pleasure to see you, if it may be for the final time. Now tell me: how did you come to be here?"

"We… we don't really know." Don admitted, as Mikey shrugged and Leo and Raph exchanged glances, "We were helping April go through her basement for some old deeds for a university student's pet project, and then… we ended up here."

"Ah, Miss O'Neil, she is… well?"

"Oh yeah, she's not O'Neil anymore." Mike piped up, grinning despite himself, "She's a Jones, now."

"Yeah," Raph gave his signature bark of laughter, cracking his knuckles. "She finally got Casey to behave, and now she's the size of a planet."

"It's going to be a girl," Leo added with a touch of dubiousness, "And they're thinking of naming her Shadow. I mean, alright we're their friends and all and we like that they're dedicating their daughter's name to us, but really? Shadow? It's just… think of all the teasing."

"As if a gal of that stock would ever bow down to bullies," Raphael snorted, achieving an approving chuckle from Mike, "And she has us to kick their arses."

"That was just… bad," Don mumbled, rubbing his face, "Stock? Really?"

"Got a better turn of phrase?"

"Yes, duh, genes. DNA. You made her sound like misogynistic soup."

"Tell me everything," Master Splinter insisted, scooting onto the edge of his seat as if he could listen more keenly that way. "It would be wonderful to hear of your lives."

And they did. They spoke of their current home, their family that somehow extended despite their careful efforts, kittens from Klunk and his girlfriend Lucy (an incident that had nearly gotten Klunk killed by Raphael for even looking at Mrs M's cat the wrong way, much less…), their occasional trips into Casey's Farmhouse, and a cabin in the mountains and a lighthouse on a little abandoned coast. They didn't mention the continuing feud with the Foot, or the Purple Dragons that became an official Organized Crime Syndicate under the guidance of Hun, much to Leonardo and Raphael's eternal consternation. They didn't also mention that their own Master Splinter was heartily healthy, tending after a herb garden and looking forward to the baby's birth as if it were his own grandchild. He and Casey's mother often played chess or shogi, and drank cider together, though they didn't mention that either. It seemed… unfair, that their own father lived such a happy life compared to the one that sat in front of them.

But it was their duty as sons to make their father happy, no matter what dimension he was from, so they talked and talked till their throats croaked and they had nothing else left to say.

Mikey's stomach grumbled, too.

"I've kept you too long," Splinter seemed to realise, shuffling to sit up and move them along, "Forgive me my sons. Go find food, use this place to your needs to return to your original home if need be, do whatever necessary. Go, go, I have wasted your time, and the night is still young. Find what you can, and then return; your rooms are available."

"But-"

"My own sons have been gone for a long time."

They all froze at that, having guessed that was the case, but not liking the implications.

"Forgive me. That was… that was said more harshly than needed. I apologise." The greyed rat sighed weakly, shaking his head. "Understand I do not mean to keep you here. I only… I only wish to help my sons one last time."

"Sensei…"

"Go. Go, find food, plan. Return. You are always welcome here."

"Yes, sensei," they chorused, before hesitantly turning to the elevator, travelling all the way to the surface. The garage here was as abandoned as the day they found it all those years ago, and it felt… disturbing.

They were all thinking it, so it was hard to figure out who actually spoke the words:

"What happened to us?"

… … … … …

They'd escaped to the roof of their warehouse, sitting like gargoyles upon the corner of the building, two on the top tier, the other two close by on broken sills. A katana reflected a soft sheen of moonlight as Leonardo ran a stone against its edge, up and down, calming his sudden nerves.

"The way he spoke of April…"

They had all noticed: She is… well?

"The chances of her being dead are high." was what Don said, his voice flat.

Raphael shuddered. "Casey too, probably."

"Raph," was Leo's almost admonishing protest, but his brother cut him off.

"Can you imagine that thick-headed bull of a neanderthal letting himself live if April died on his watch? If she got killed by…" he gritted his teeth and didn't finish the sentence. They all understood.

"He would've put Kill Bill and Mad Max to shame, yeah," Michelangelo agreed, eyes furtively flicking over the skyline over a city that wasn't quite theirs. "Do you… do you think that's how we went?"

The comforting noise of Leonardo sharpening his blade died. They all seemed to stop breathing, their imaginations going wild. There were so many ways that they could have been killed; a Foot ambush, a Dragon sting, an alien adventure, getting embroiled in another dimension's war, culled by scientists, hell, they could have gotten run over by a car or shot on their nightly patrols. Sure, they'd stopped taking stupid risks (at least catastrophically stupid risks, anyway) for a while, but that didn't mean that they led a safe life; their lives, in fact, had never been safe.

Leonardo's voice chilled them to the bone. "I don't think I could forgive myself for making a father outlive his sons."

"This ain't just your responsibility, Fearless," Raphael growled, "So don't you dare put this on your shell."

Donatello and Michelangelo shared similarly determined and vehement protests, to which Leonardo couldn't help but smile, but the sentiment didn't quite reach his eyes. The silence settled again, but this time Raphael was fidgeting with his sai, a sure sign that he was ready to move now, with or without his brothers.

"So where's our cannon thinking of shooting off to," Donnie questioned with both severity and amusement, "And how big is your blast radius?"

"I say we finish what we started," he snarled, glaring into the distance, "And go Zero-Dark-Thirty on their arses."

"Uh, bro," Mikey pointed out, "As much as I like the reference and I totally agree with the idea, we can't snipe a target without seeing it in our scopes. Also? We've got a Blacklist longer than Reddington."

"We got surprise on our side," Raph argued with a hiss, "Whatever this is, wherever we are, the enemies here think we're dead. We could use that."

Don sighed. "We still don't know what happened."

"Then let's beat it out of 'em!"

"That would make the element of surprise pointless." Leonardo argued waspishly, making Raph snarl wider, "If we're going to kill them, we need to know who they are first, without being detected. We need to figure out what happened to this dimension's us, when, how, and then figure out a strategy. And once we've cut them down, and make sure they never see the light of day, then… we figure out how to go home."

When Leonardo met Raphael's gaze, and then Michelangelo and Donatello's, the reception was mixed, but there was no objection.

He asked, anyway. "Any objections?"

"Not really."

"No."

Don sighed again. "Fine. But priorities need to shift; finding our way home should be on top of the list, equally with figuring out what happened. After all, we have our own sensei to get back to."

The two more volatile brothers seemed to be a little chastened by the unspoken rebuke, to which Mikey smiled. "So the artefacty thing. You think our little Easter Egg might still be back at April's?"

"Hopefully, yes," Don affirmed, "I'll go ahead and see if I can find it and bring it back to study."

"I could go look for Sentry?" Mikey offered, "Maybe the heroes know a thing or two about what happened to us, and since they're you know, the good guys, we'll probably be alright if we show up. As long as he doesn't try to stake me, being undead and all."

Leonardo nodded, sheathing his katana. "We'll need food as well."

"I'll do that," Raph grimaced, standing up, "And if I find any homeless guys, or the Professor, I'll ask around. If I can nab myself a couple a' street thugs maybe I can beat some answers outa' them. And yeah," he added for Leonardo's benefit, "I won't be seen."

"Alright, then, I'll-"

"Look after Master Splinter."

Leonardo froze.

"For once I agree with him, bro," Mikey supplied, earning a nod from Don, "I mean… it's Splinter."

"Who knows how long he's been living alone without us. Well, this dimension's us, anyway."

The bluebanded turtle clenched his eyes shut, but nodded. "You're right. After all, if anybody knew the whole story, it'd be sensei."

"...I could stay."

"I'll be fine, Raph," he murmured, standing. "Alright, everybody knows what they're doing. Scatter."

They dropped in different directions, and Leo swung himself into the warehouse once his brothers bled into the surrounding darkness. He wondered what he would say to this sensei once he got back into the Lair; he had the most terrible urge to bow down in front of him and apologize for a crime he hadn't yet committed, or never will commit considering this dimension probably wasn't theirs. But still, it was their father, and they had robbed him of a life without his sons.

His enemies weren't the only ones to blame; it took two to maintain a fewd.

As the elevator dropped to the Lair Leo decided to clean the place up a bit, to make it more serviceable as a base of operations as well as a way to make Splinter more comfortable. It was what a leader, a son, and a brother should do, and satisfied with that decision (though it urked him that he was safe behind walls while his brothers risked themselves out there) he called out Splinter's name as he stepped back into their dusty old home.

He wasn't there.

Leo stopped. He listened, he trained his nose, he scoured the place with his eyes. He unsheathed his blade in a blink and he crouched, adrenalin lining the very grooves of his shell.

He lunged and rolled into a sheltered spot and looked around, but there was nothing, no one, the home was terrifyingly empty and he had to bite down on his panic before he shouted and gave his position away to any unknown enemies, and he finally made his way to the kitchen corner that they'd been sipping hot water from, and all of their cups were empty.

Master Splinter's mug lay on the ground in shattered pieces, his drink spilt across the dirtied ground.

"No. No!" Leonardo whipped around, looking for a sign of a struggle, a mark or sigil of their enemies, anything. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. "Master Splinter!"

… … … … …

April's apartment was jarringly close.

He'd expected the run to be more than half an hour, but that was an estimate time from the Foundry, which was further away. He recalculated how long the journey should have taken from their new/old positions, and still it was too short; the estimate came from when they'd lived in the Y'lintian lair as teenagers. Now that he was an adult he was faster, not weighed down by the duffel that he'd always brought over to work on computer projects with her, or (now that he thought about it) the plywood that he and his brothers had been collecting to build the baby's crib and rocking horse. The rocking horse was under April's direct unwavering and somewhat terrifying supervision, in case he put in some mechanics that made it actually gallop or lope around or worse, have hidden counter-terrorist measures.

Casey, however, had no qualms about that for the crib; they were happily working on boobytraps for potential kidnappers, a fact that his brothers didn't know whether to report to their sister, lest she kill them all.

Donatello mourned the potential lost in this dimension as he disabled the security measures of the antique shop and quietly let himself in.

"So… where are you, artifacty…" he whispered, and rolled his eyes at himself. "We need a better name."

He skulked around, artfully dodging little boxes full of china and glass animals, whispers of memories following him in dustmote patterns. He and his brothers and their first attempts at being helpful, breaking more things than ninjas should be allowed to; helping to rebuild the shop after the fire, puzzling the official workers when the jobs they'd left during the day had somehow continued during the night. Ordering out thai that burned everybody's mouths except Splinter and Raph's, an army of cakes baked by Mikey and Leo for April's volunteering work. It was all there, ghosts of the mind that had never lived.

Whoever had done the re-sorting of this place had kept the basic layout, a godsend in Don's mind. They'd found the Doodad in the not-so-precious area, mixed with mismatched tea-sets, the second-hand clothing.

Now, what had that Thingamabob (still need a better name) looked like…?

The sound of a gun being cocked froze him in place.

"I know you're in there, and if you don't want to get hurt you're going to stay still."

The light still wasn't on, which was a relief, though Don knew from experience that at close range bullets really hurt, even on his shell. He had plenty of hiding spaces but his bo would be a limited asset, especially in an enclosed space as this. He wondered if the shelves would withstand his weight even for a second if he decided to go for the basement stairs where he was sure would be a way out…

Next thing he knew a presence vaulted over the shelves to face him and he had the barrel of a rifle shoved into his beak.

… … … … ...

Raphael was surrounded on all sides, fighting for his life. He disarmed a mook with a jagged-edged kunai, snapped his wrist while the turtle was at it, caught the dropped blade with his toes and flicked it into the forehead of a katana wielder; an impressive but admittedly lucky shot. The screams followed him as he lunged forwards, blocking a pipe swinging at his head as he kicked backwards into the gut of a human the size of a house, folding him over enough to use him as a jumping board to flip over two more goons, sending shuriken into their necks.

More of them were there, smirking like gangsters yet silent as ninjas. Their weapons and clothes were a mesh of streetwise professionals and amateur warriors, and the way they fought was scarily familiar.

A car passed their tussle in the alley and the headlights caught their tattoos in a glaring sweeping arc: Purple Dragons.

The roar in Raphael's ears grew deafening as he thought of Master Splinter in their Lair on his own for god knows how long because of the likes of them.

In fact, he killed so many of them he hardly noticed one of them crowing in victory amongst all the screaming, despite the stab wound in his gut: "Boss. He's all yours."

A blur dark as despair wearing a shark's smirk surged towards him, and Raphael held it off for two seconds before it disarmed him and slammed him chin first into the asphalt.

They beat him round the head till he knew no more.

… … … … …

There was no Headquarters in this dimension.

Maybe it was somewhere else. Maybe it didn't exist at all. As Michelangelo crouched there, watching the area from a distance, he wondered if he could run into Nobody, but considering the size of Manhattan Island it would probably have to wait for another night.

He thought of Klunk, and wondered if the little guy had died that Christmas night, or the kitten had survived and lived on. Not that he'd ever know, he supposed.

Sighing, he leapt for home. "I hope the others've had better luck than me."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Aaannnd admittedly nothing much happened, but there's a cliffhanger, so yay?

Also, review replies:

adriennett - Thank you! I hope your interest is still piqued, because finally, here is the update!

Spaghetti Toast - Now that you mention it, maybe? I know Raph and Leo are notorious for being at odds all the time, but I was thinking these guys are a fair bit older than they were in the shows, so maybe they've gotten over it a little? Tell me what you think!

Dead Hero - Sorry I didn't update in while! DX But hopefully Splinter's situation is now better explained? I hope you enjoyed this chapter too, and I hope to see what you think!

Have a nice day guys!

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S.S.