Ninja Turtles does not belong to me; it belongs to Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman…. And whoever they sold the rights to.
"Are you guys familiar with the conservative motto 'Peace through superior firepower'?" Mikey asked before he drank from a aluminum soda can.
"The belief that, if you have superior military forces, the other countries won't fuck with you?" Raph questioned, Mikey nodded.
"The military and government is not as obsessed with the idea of 'super soldiers' as you would think. The F.B.I, however, totally is. They came up with a serum that could rapidly 'evolve' a human physically and mentally. But Bishop, the xenophobic humanitarian, did not want to test the serum out on human subjects….."
"So they came after us instead." Leo rationalized "But why you? Why not Donnie while they had him?" He asked, giving a sympathetic look when said purple-masked genius flinched.
"Because the serum would only work on someone with a human mind." Mikey answered, crushing the aluminum can in one hand as easily as if it were a fly. "Donnie, remember when you said our personalities are different because we mutated differently?" He paused and waited for Don to nod "Our minds are different from humans – not very compatible. This serum would only work on a being with a human mind, and mine was the only one compatible.
"So I moved up the evolutionary ladder – I got all these feathers and wings because many ancient reptiles and raptors evolved into birds so yeah. I also became stronger, faster and a great deal smarter – faster reflexes, faster mental processing ability and a brain capacity the equivalent to an average humans brain capacity cubed."
To say his brothers – Donnie in particular - were shocked would be a gross understatement. So now their airheaded, flamboyant brother was apparently a super mutant because of some evolutionary cocktail serum Bishop had concocted?
"Bishop wanted to distribute the serum into water – slowly, overtime it will cause all the humans in America to evolve in a way similar to how I have. This won't affect visitors because it takes long-term exposure. That's why it only works on those with human minds, so it wouldn't affect animals."
"But all water sources lead to the ocean." Donnie reminded "It will effect the rest of the countries too."
"Bishop made it to where the serum stopped working in the presence of sea water." Mikey answered simply "In a generation or two, Americans will become practically superhuman in physical and intellectual aspects."
Don came to a realization "Was that why Cody was such a genius as a young age?" He asked – it always puzzled him how a young boy like Cody Jones could have been so intelligent (Because, lets face it, Casey is his forerunner). He had figured it was a future thing, but Bishop's fucked-up plan actually worked.
"I wouldn't doubt it," Mikey shrugged, tossing the compressed remnants of his drinking can into the trash "but I guess it won't change a humans physical appearance."
"Bishop just let you go?" Raph grunted "Even though you're way more powerful than before and can be a serious threat."
"Remember our deal, I do this peacefully, and you'll leave me and my family alone forever."
"Deal"
...
"… Nev'r be… same… 'gan?"
"No, if this is a success, you never will."
...
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
Mikey came out of his trance when he heard snapping in front of him, he saw the worried look Raph gave him (he still couldn't believe he had to look down to see Raph, now.)
"Bro, are you okay?" Raph asked.
"Yeah…." Mikey waved off his concerns "But it takes a while to get used to a new brain – but hopefully, whenever a zombie apocalypse hits, the zombies won't be able to tell the difference."
His brothers, and father, face-palmed.
"Donatello," Master Splinter ordered "take Michaelangelo into your lab and do a physical exam – you need to make sure there are no trackers on him, and so that you may recieve a good analysis on his new physiology."
Mikey sat at the edge of the cot – if it weren't for his legs being longer now because of his height, he would be swinging his legs, but unfortunately he had to bend his knees just to place his feet on the floor while he sat. He remembered how in the beginning of all the syringe treatments he actually enjoyed the prospect of being tall, but now it was rather annoying when he realized it made everything else smaller in his perspective.
Yuck, being around Doc Stockman made him learn to many big words. Stupid hyper-accelerated synapse! Stupid brain that has become a sponge in 'good' way!
Mikey mentally mused over things as Don noted Mikey's new physical attributes.
"Why is your shell covered with feathers?" Don asked, patting the feathered dome on his brothers back.
"My shell is gone if you couldn't tell from the lack of a plastron." Mikey said and spread his wings out to full wing span. Donnie was rather shocked to see the green-and-blue wings spring out like that. But then he remembered Mikey earlier saying that ancient reptiles evolved into birds.
Don got out the measuring tape and measured wingtip to wingtip – about fifteen feet, impressive.
Mikey's snout was longer now, almost like lizard or raptor jaws except it was beaked. His scales were still sea-green, but a more bluish than before. His hands didn't have three digits – they had five now, similar to a humans hand but larger and with retractable claws rather than fingernails. His feet were still two-toed, but they had become rather bird-like talons including the un-retractable claws.
His tail was long – much like a lizards, but the bright blue bards at the end confused him, when he moved in to touch them to see whether or not they were sharp, Mikey swished his tail away.
"Those," Mikey said "are poison barbs. One scratch and you'll be paralyzed. One bad scratch and you'll be dead without treatment."
Donnie immediately avoided the bards.
He moved to the blue-gray feathers protruding from his down, down the line of his spine and to the barbed tips of his tail. The feathers were bright-blue but appeared harmless. Donnie realized that the bright-blue coloring must have been because of a common reptilian / amphibious defense mechanism of bright coloring to warn predators of poison.
"Mikey," Don asked "this is important. Where are your poison glands?"
"Under the barbs and inside the tip of my tail." Mikey responded, Donnie wrote this down.
"Open up." Don ordered and Mikey parted his jaws slightly – as expected, there were teeth along the line of his beak. "Do you have poison in your teeth too? Or retractable fangs?"
"Not that I know of, dude." Mikey shrugged.
"What happened to your shell and plastron?" Donnie asked – he knew that there was no way those parts of Mikey's body could just disappear.
Mikey thought for a moment "My plastron just kind of…. Sunk into my body until it was absorbed, I guess. And my shell turned into feathers and slowly became a pair of wings." He answered, his wings twitched before they sprang back down against his back, furled back into the shape of a shell.
"Were these changes…." Donnie trailed off and gulped "painful?" He asked, guilt filling his gut.
"Imagine growing pain to the power of twenty." Mikey said "I was asleep a lot - I was only awake about four hours a day, and when I was I was writhing in pain."
"Mikey, I'm sorry." Don told him sincerely, Mikey offered him a trademark Mikey smile.
"It's okay Donnie, it isn't your fault after all." Mikey chirped, he was puzzled when he saw Don cringe, as if in pain.
"You really don't remember much, do you?" Don asked his brother.
"Half of my memory is jumbled up." Mikey reminded the genius in the purple mask. "A lot of memories aren't connected together yet."
Donnie sighed and picked up a syringe "I'm going to need a blood sample to test for -" He had been saying, but Mikey lost him at 'blood' and at the sight of the syringe. Unfortunately for Mikey, the few memories he had that didn't skip periods of time were the ones of being at Bishop's lab. While the experience wasn't exactly cruel or terrible, the one thing he hated more than anything were the needles.
The serum was in its beginning stages – before it could be distributed in consumable form into the American water supply, it had to be in a more complicated series of injections and treatments.
He remembered the I.V's constantly stuck in both of his wrists, needles constantly poking into his skin, the burning and chills of the serum entering his bloodstream and taking affect.
"Keep that away from me!" Mikey shouted and leapt out of the cot – Don watched wide-eyed as the other ninja grabbed onto a ceiling pipe on the roof of his lab. The range Mikey had leapt was well beyond four times as much as he was able to before this transformation.
"Mikey get down here!" Don yelled.
"No!" Mikey stubbornly hissed and hoisted himself over the thick pipe, which he then decided to lay on it in a way similar to a cat, his poison-barbed tail hung over and swung in the air.
"Don't make me get a dart gun, Mikey!" Don yelled, his only response was silence.
Shaking his head, Don walked over to his computer and sat down at his desk. His fingers ran rapidly over his keyboard as he logged in and signed into his private I.M system.
He sent a message.
LH? Leatherhead, you online?
He waited a few minutes, then a reply appeared.
Hello Donatello, do you need something?
You're not going to believe it – Mikey's back.
There seemed to be a moment of pause on LH's part.
Is that so?
Yes. But Bishop…. Changed him.
What? How? What did he do!
Calm down LH, I'm not happy with Bishop either but Mikey is fine…. Even if he had changed…. It's best that you just come over and see. I need your help to hold him down anyways.
I'm on my way.
R and R