Summary: When Donatello gets accidentally sent through a Kraang portal, he ends up in an alternate universe that may be his world's future — a future in which he has been gone for thirty years, his family has been torn apart, and the entire world has fallen victim to the Kraang-Foot takeover.

This is a TMNT 2012 SAINW story, so I incorporated the Kraang pretty heavily. While working on this story, I rewatched several episodes of TMNT to get the Kraang tech as accurate as possible. Watching several episodes back-to-back, I discovered a lot of inconsistencies in how the Kraang technology works. So I chose what made the most sense to me and embellished a little in some places.

Please note that this story takes place shortly after "Serpent Hunt," so it is AU after that episode and may contain spoilers for anything leading up to it.

Thanks for your reviews/follows/favorites. I really appreciate it and love hearing feedback!


Chapter 3

As Michelangelo led him through shadows, sewers and rooftops toward some undisclosed destination, Donatello's brain was running wild attempting to make sense of what had happened to him. He had never really thought much about time travel before. He'd been plenty preoccupied with studying DNA, alien technology and inter-dimensional travel.

Theory of time travel hadn't been on the radar, though he did know that it had very little scientific support in physics. He wasn't sure that he could believe he had gone through a portal to another time, but the evidence thus far seemed to point in that direction.

He had fallen through a Kraang portal, so perhaps it wasn't the physics of his own dimension that he should consider. Maybe among the vast amount of Kraang portals, there were many paths between points in times, and this was merely the first that the turtles had encountered.

Maybe time travel was a type of inter-dimensional travel. There could be various alternated timelines, independent of other timelines, that existed as separate dimensions. But in this world, Donatello had been missing from the very moment that he last recalled being in his own time. That certainly lent credence to the idea that this was actually one timeline.

This thought scared Donatello. If he had, in fact, time traveled through a fixed history, that meant he would not be able to return home. If he had never returned to his own time, then based on the self-consistency principle, he never would. His presence here was the cause of his absence there, so his return would negate this very meeting with his brother.

Donatello said nothing for a long while, but as they climbed from the sewer and crept through a darkened alley-way, he had to break the silence — and his terrible train of thought. "How did you find me?"

"No one has called my T-Phone in years," Michelangelo said. "Raph and Leo don't even have theirs anymore, so I don't even know why I've kept mine charged all this time." He shook his head. "I assumed it was some sort of trap when I first saw your text, but I had to check it out anyway."

"I'm glad you did, or else I would have been toast."

Michelangelo flattened against the wall and held up his hand to indicate that it wasn't safe to move out yet. They stood there for a few long moments, hiding in the shadows of the buildings as a Kraang drone passed.

"Where is everyone?" Donatello whispered. "Where is Sensei?"

Michelangelo sighed as he peered around the corner of the building. "You'll... see him soon."

"Where?"

Michelangelo turned back toward him. "There aren't a lot of places left for rebels like us to hide, but there is a small group underground. It's really all that's left of the resistance at this point. That's where we're headed." He looked back around the corner. "Okay, let's go."

Donatello ran after his brother as he led them across to another alley and onto a nearby rooftop.

Once he landed beside him, Donatello continued his line of questioning. "Are Leo and Raph there too?"

"Leo and Raph don't really play nice with others anymore, so I wouldn't bet on it."

Donatello frowned, listening as a nearby speaker blasted a mantra for the umpteenth time: Serve Shredder Kraang. He is your lord and master. Serve Shredder Kraang and live.

"And this 'Shredder Kraang' business: What is that all about? Why are there Kraang in the Footbots?"

Michelangelo sighed. "I know you have questions, but we aren't safe out here. You'll have your answers soon enough."

Donatello nodded and began following again, wishing that he could just have one more answer. Was April still alive?


Michelangelo led Donatello to a run-down church in lower Manhattan. Like the rest of New York, the church was damaged by Dimension X plant life that had grown through the side of the building. It's stained glass windows were all but completely shattered, but Donatello could just make out what had once been an image of the Virgin Mary.

Donatello recalled a time in their youth when Michelangelo had been fascinated by churches. He had first become curious when they were about four or five. The turtles had been following their father through the sewers on a scavenging trip when the beautiful sound of bells echoed through the tunnels from the surface above them. Michelangelo had climbed onto Raphael's shoulders so that he could get a look at the source of the sound, only to see several families filing into the large doors of a cathedral. His eyes had grown wide with excitement as he asked his father what the pretty building with all the people was.

When Master Splinter had explained to him that some people attended church because they believed in a higher entity that wanted them to do good and live good lives, sweet little Michelangelo had looked up at his father and asked, "Like you, Daddy?"

Master Splinter had simply smiled, maybe a little bit teary-eyed and said, "Not quite, my son."

Little Michelangelo had crept up to gutters outside of different churches to listen to the bells chime and the organs play on many Sunday mornings to follow, and when he heard them call their God "Father," he had been sure Splinter was wrong — as rare as that was — about this one thing.

Donatello wondered if his little brother, now in his mid-forties and living in a post-apocalyptic world, even remembered the days when he was innocent and believed their father was a god.

"We're here," Michelangelo grunted before disappearing through a window into the cathedral.

Donatello followed suit, landing beside his brother at the back of the church. He glanced around but saw only empty pews and an altar on the far end of tall room. He supposed the church had been beautiful once, with its high arches, stone masonry and ornate details, but the years had certainly done a number on it. "Where is everyone?"

Michelangelo's jaw was set firmly as he gestured toward the altar at the head of the sanctuary. Donatello frowned and hesitantly walked the aisle toward it. As he came closer, he could see that there were two framed photographs set up on the altar, surrounded by a dozen or so candles that had been so melted down that they could not possibly be lit again. He glanced back at Michelangelo, but the one-armed turtle said nothing as he brushed past Donatello and stood before the altar.

Donatello took a deep breath and joined him. His stomach jolted as he realized that these were photos he had seen many times before. One was a photograph of Hamato Yoshi with his wife Tang Shen and infant daughter Miwa. The other was a photograph of mutant Splinter, taken by Donatello himself when he'd gotten their first camera to work. Master Splinter's own staff leaned against the altar.

"No," Donatello whispered, his eyes tearing up as he touched the cracked glass of the frame showing his father as he remembered him. "Master Splinter..." He dropped to his knees and bowed his head. "How did this happen?"

Michelangelo picked up their father's human family photo and stared down at it sadly. "It was a few years after you went missing. The Shredder captured Karai, and even though we had no idea how to make her human without your retromutagen, we couldn't just leave her there. It was too late for her, though. She was more snake than Karai at that point, and Shredder used her to fight us. She almost killed Leo, but Sensei gave his life to save him from her. We buried him under the tree in the old lair, but... Well, it isn't safe to go there. I think maybe Leo still sneaks in sometimes, but he mostly comes here to talk to him."

Donatello let out a sob and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "I can't believe this place. I thought things were bad enough when the Kraang invaded, but this world is more horrible than the one I left."

Michelangelo took a seat in the front row pew behind where Donatello knelt. "That's what happens when the good guys lose."

"Was it true what that recording said outside? Does the Shredder really control the entire planet?"

"Yeah, he does, but he isn't exactly the Shredder you remember. Basically everyone gets mutated into those Kraang monsters and shipped out to another dimension. We tried to figure out what happens to them once they leave, but any of our guys who make it to the other side of those portals don't come back. The few humans who don't get mutated have to work in the Shredder's labor camps over here. I guess someone has to keep the planet running while they plan to take over the universe."

"'Shredder Kraang.' What does that mean?" Donatello straightened but kept his gaze on the small, sad shrine to his father.

Michelangelo clenched his fist. "That was sort of our fault. We fought the Shredder fifteen years ago when the Foot and the Kraang were still expanding their territory. Kraang Prime and the Shredder fell into some of Stockman's reject retromutagen together; they came out as one big freaky Shredder-Kraang mutant. He's stronger and more terrifying than ever."

"That explains a lot." Donatello finally looked at his brother again. "It doesn't explain what happened to our family."

"When you never came back, Donnie... well, everything just fell apart. We were a team. Without you, it just didn't work."

"I was the only one who could make the retromutagen," Donatello lamented.

"Yeah, but that isn't why it all went bad. We needed you. When we all began to believe that you were dead, Raph was the first one to lose it. He almost killed himself diving into fight after fight, even when we were outmatched. Shredder took his eye in one fight. If you ask me, he never came to terms with the fact that the last conversation he had with you wasn't so nice."

Donatello remembered the very conversation from just hours earlier. "If saving New York is in your hands, we're all doomed at this rate."

"Leo became obsessed with saving Karai when there wasn't anything he could do to save you. That's actually why he and Raph don't speak anymore. It was Leo's plan to rescue Karai the day that Master Splinter died, and Raph blames him for what happened." Michelangelo shook his head and sighed. "I should probably tell you... Leo is blind. He took a Kraang laser to the face."

Donatello took a seat to his brother's left. "What about you?"

Michelangelo shrugged. "I tried to keep everyone together, but I'm only one turtle. I couldn't stop everything from falling apart when Raph wanted to leave us and Leo kept putting himself in danger for a snake that doesn't even recognize him anymore. Now, I'm just doing whatever I can to help the resistance. I know it's a lost cause, but I'll keep doing it until I go down fighting. It's all that's left for us now."

Donatello wasn't surprised that his youngest brother had remained where he could still be part of a team. The outgoing little turtle with whom he remembered growing up had always craved the company of others, and Donatello knew that it must have hurt him deeply when his family parted their ways. "And what happened to your arm?"

Michelangelo's mouth quirked in a humorless smile as he glanced down at his missing limb. "Rahzar is all bite and no bark these days."

Donatello touched his brother's withered bicep gently. "I wish I had been there to help you all."

Michelangelo's hand closed over his. "Come on. There's someone you still have to see."


Thanks for reading! The next chapter should be up in a few days. Please share your thoughts if you have a moment!