The silhouette's foot moved and broke through the fog into the cleared-out area and pulled the rest of its form into sight. Strands of orange-red clouds swept around it before curling back in on themselves like the thin wisps of smoke a candle lets into the air upon being extinguished. Once the candle-esque designs the curls had drawn ebbed away, the group took in the sight in front of them.
There stood Traag.
Sort of.
The mutagen poured onto him on the night of Leo's incident had clearly changed him, though the features of the creature he'd once been still remained evident. The frame of the lava rock giant they'd fought before was still distinguishable, though he noticeably had some new… additions.
Size was the first Jason noticed. If Traag had stood at several times his height before, well, fighting him at his previous height didn't seem so bad now. Jason was aware that fear could blow his senses out of proportion including sense of size, but even at a limited estimate Traag now towered at least three stories high.
Not to mention his other added features.
"What did they mutate him with?" Rockwell asked.
"Animals," Donatello answered. "But only the most dangerous ones on Earth."
Leonardo shook his head, backing up several paces for every one of Traag's steps. "Of course they would. But wait, he's a mutant now, too, why isn't the gas hurting him?"
Donatello pondered the question. "They would have known about their plan with the gas for long before this experiment. They must've mutated him with a gene that made him immune to it! WHOA!"
Donnie dived out of the way as Traag's car-sized fist tried to pound him into the ground where he stood.
Close enough now, Jason could see that Traag's once humanoid hands now more resembled talons. Scales made of rock armored him from his arms down to his fingers curled into black claws, the ends of which gleamed transparent, almost as if daring someone to complete their glistening complexion with a splatter of blood. Spines jutted out from between the armorish scales like hairs. Or daggers.
Jason took a look at the spines and mentally tried to trace them to an animal. Porcupine, his mind supplied first, followed by sea urchin.
He shuddered. He certainly hoped not; weren't those things venomous?
"Jason! Watch out!"
The voice snapped him back to reality, but not before he became increasingly aware of a shadow growing larger over him.
The impact knocked the wind out of him and sent him rolling across the floor, where he stopped himself dangerously close to the gas.
But wait, wouldn't Traag's two-ton fist have instantly killed a little guy like him?
Jason groaned and sat up, and saw Leatherhead lying even closer to the gas than he. Jason's heart skipped. Had Leatherhead touched it? Was he hurt?
He scrambled to his feet and tugged at his friend's arm with all his might, and to his immense relief, Leatherhead moved away from the gas.
He realized a second later that it wasn't his own strength that moved the gator, but Leatherhead pushing himself off the ground to crawl away from the ominous clouds. It didn't matter to Jason, though. The only thing of importance was that his friend was safe.
Eh, relatively.
Jason cast a glance back to where the others fought Traag, back to where the ground he'd stood upon was dented in a fist-shaped crater.
"Thank you," He breathed. His ribs hurt where Leatherhead rammed into him, but the pain was nothing compared to what would have awaited him at Traag's mercy.
Leatherhead nodded, gave him a quick squeeze on the shoulder, and returned to the center of battle.
Jason watched them fight for a few moments, taking the opportunity to size his enemy up.
Traag's torso had red lines drawn all over, cracks where his lava insides glowed through. The cracks spiderwebbed from various growths on his body, all as dangerous-looking as the last, and all as out of place, as well. The mutation had not been controlled.
Spikes and defenses of various kinds from various animals jutted out of his ribs and back, all of which threatening, but hardly any of them belonging where they were placed. Ram's horns and poisonous spikes and antlers threatened to spear anyone who got close. His entire torso, save for the cracks, had a beetle's armor, splotched in bright and poisonous colors marking toxins of various kinds from bugs' and reptiles' genes.
Jason judged he wouldn't be of much help fighting Traag. He would only get in the way of those who could actually handle themselves.
Much like his parents, he supposed.
However, his friends kept stepping dangerously close to the gas, seemingly unaware of its proximity in the battle against the more pressing matter of Traag, who was now untouchable to organic skin.
Jason pulled his remaining half-full aerosol can from his pocket, ran behind his friends and allies, and sprayed the area a little wider to safely accommodate their fight. He managed to clear out a considerable patch while keeping out of the way of the battle, but soon enough, the can ran dry.
Leatherhead seemed to catch onto his efforts, though, and tossed him one of his own aerosol containers to work with before continuing with the fight.
As soon as he'd finished with that one, another ally supplied him with another, until they had a wide expanse to fight in undisturbed.
"I'm out again," Jason reported, dashing back to the fighting group to retrieve another can.
Donatello tossed him what he needed. "This is the last one. Don't worry about clearing us more space, just get us a path to the next door!"
Jason nodded and sprinted to the other side of the room, keeping his ears out for any further instructions from his allies.
"It's been a long time! Shouldn't Raph and Mikey have cleared out all the gas by now?" Jason heard from afar.
"They should have," Donnie replied, and Jason froze and turned.
In that simple sentence stood an implication that he didn't want to think about, and judging by Donnie's and Leo's exchanged glance, it was a possibility they were considering, too.
"Something must have happened," Donnie voiced.
Jason felt sick.
Something could have happened to Mikey. The one person who'd believed in him to turn his life around and start again when no one else believed he could. The one person who'd guided him towards a better path even after Jason had spent years serving the Foot. The person who had spent so much time all alone in New York City thinking his family had abandoned him when really their intentions couldn't have been further from hurting him. The person who Jason had last yelled at for an honest mistake despite knowing of his emotional torment. The person who he might not get to apologize to now knowing that the only person whose family truly abandoned him was Jason's.
And oh boy, did he ever feel like he deserved that now.
His parents were right. He was unacceptable, inside and out.
April dodged another swipe from Traag. "Man, this guy is tough!"
"He's untouchable," Rockwell said. "There's no way we're going to beat him in this state. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he was so much easier to beat before!"
Jason saw Donatello freeze.
Donnie slowly reached into his belt and produced a tiny orange vial. He studied it as if lost, as if the few milligrams of substance within were a deep and infinite sea.
Retromutagen, Jason realized.
Donatello glanced from the vial to Jason. They gave each other a meaningful look.
Leo saw what Donnie held in his had. "Donnie, do it! It's our only shot!"
Donnie remained frozen.
Jason stared at the vial.
With distance, the orange vial became a tiny speck. A tiny speck inside which a glint of golden light, of hope, danced off its surface.
A hope for a new start. For redemption. For full humanity, and the loving embrace of people he hadn't even been able to show his face to in ages. Hope for dining in restaurants without a worry and ice cream parlors like his parents used to take him to and school dances and everything else he wouldn't have to miss anymore.
Hope for in-person concerts he wouldn't have to watch secondhand through cheap tapes and unbalanced cameras. Hope for days spent at the beach playing keep-away and not giving mind to the dozens and dozens of people who crowded the beach alongside him. Hope for going to college and getting a job and finding the love of his life who wouldn't have to be repelled by his appearance. Hope for hanging out and laughing with friends who he hadn't seen in so long but who still held dear places in his heart.
Hope for his family.
Mind made up, Jason ditched the aerosol can and bolted for the last drops of retromutagen.
Donatello made no effort to back away as he approached, nor did he fight when Jason slipped the vial out of his grasp.
Jason grasped the vial like a lifeline and kept running. Running, running, running.
For his family.
Jason skidded to a halt, and with all the might in his feeble little body, chucked the glass vial.
It shattered on Traag's chest.
Traag looked down, annoyed, like a mosquito had inconvenienced him with its presence. Then he let out a shriek and held his head, and the splotches of poison began to recede, the exoskeleton armor deteriorated, and he shed the various spikes and spines. Then he started to shrink, smaller, smaller, smaller, stumbling back all the while, until he returned to a normal size.
Without a moment's hesitation, Splinter charged him, sword at the ready, and speared him through one of the remaining rock cracks in his leg, effectively pinning him to the wall.
The group scrambled to where the last aerosol container lay on the ground in front of a yet-to-be-cleared door.
Donatello picked the can up and gave it a good shake, then turned to his allies with a grimace.
"There's only enough to get into the room," He told them. "Once we're in, the clouds will close around the door. There won't be any way back, and judging by the amount of time since Mikey and Raph went off to clear the gas, they might not… they might not be able to get us out. Once we're in, we'll be able to free the humans, but… we might not come back out."
"We're all in this with you," Leatherhead said.
"Indeed," Rockwell agreed, and Jason gave a quick nod.
"Couldn't the humans go in instead?" Splinter suggested. "You all could stay out here and we could get in and out harmlessly."
"If we had more time, I'd say yes," Donnie said. "But there's no telling when the Kraang will call for more reinforcements, and unless you're fluent in Kraang, there's not enough time to walk you through it from outside."
Splinter slumped a little at this, but gave his son an understanding nod.
"Well, no man left behind. One of us goes in, we all go in." Rockwell gestured to the can. "Shall we?"
Donatello positioned the spray can, took a deep breath, and sprayed up to the door, where Rockwell quickly accessed it and let them in.
Donnie swept the control room with the spray until the last of it flickered out and died.
Everyone else followed him in, and from inside, they could see the red-orange clouds start to creep around the door.
Donatello went to work immediately. He located the panel from which he wanted to access the controls, tapped into its base, and started filtering through the alien code.
Each second that ticked by, the clouds drew ever nearer to one another, until they started to block off the path from the door.
A frown tugged on Jason's mouth, knowing that the space was now too narrow for Leatherhead to pass through unharmed, and he looked up at his friend apologetically.
Leatherhead stared out the door, a solemn look on his face, but he made no protest, choosing instead to stick loyally by his allies' side.
Donnie's fingers flew over the sensors in a lightning-fast blur, and yet the clouds crept in closer yet.
Jason supposed that if they'd had anyone slower, the gas would have made its way into the room and filled it before they could achieve their goal.
"I got it!" Donnie said, having pulled up a holographic map of floors upon floors of human containments. With a few more keystrokes, the little icons on the map representing doors flashed and disappeared.
Donatello turned to the door, and a second's glance at it told him that it was too late for them to leave.
The door was covered, and the clouds would slowly creep into the room from then on until the room was coated and the gas ate their flesh and bones away.
Donnie sighed with a nod before addressing his friends and family and giving them a bittersweet smile. "Lady and gentlemen, we've freed the people of New York. Our mission is done."
They stood in quiet with half-forced smiles, regarding their companions with a new sense of pride in one another. They had done it. And they had done it together.
Leo, notably forcing a frown back and quite possibly tears, approached Donnie. He embraced his brother, and spoke with a voice he tried to keep steady.
"Good job, Donnie. I'm proud of you."
Donatello looked stunned for a moment, then like he was trying not to break down.
Maybe he was breaking down, Jason realized, seeing the trembling genius turtle hide his face in his brother's shoulder.
"We did it," Donnie's muffled, uneven voice said.
Leatherhead put a hand on Jason's shoulder and swept him into a comforting hug.
Jason gave him a squeeze.
He'd made the right choice.
Michelangelo didn't know how long he'd sat in the fog-minded stupor, but the clouds drawing near enough to nip the tips of his toes shook him back to reality.
He pulled his legs in towards his chest to save them the pain, then, the motion having jostled him enough to shake him further, he blinked and stood.
What was he doing? He couldn't just sit there and let it get to him! He couldn't let it get to his family!
His family.
Even sitting in silence, it had been a while since he'd heard anything from the other side of that wretched metal door. Was Raphael…?
Not like he could do anything about it, he thought, sinking deeper into despair. His arms tired from the who-knows-how-long he'd spent pounding at that door, trying desperately not to be separated from the only family who'd accompanied him into the depths of the enemy base. The others were deep underground, and he didn't even know if they were still… if any of them were…
He shook his head. It was his job to make sure they didn't die. His and Raph's, and Raphael had already filled his part.
Still, he found himself tethered to this place, the place where he'd last seen his brother alive and well. Leaving felt cruel. Like taking his eyes off the spot would make it more likely that he wouldn't see him again. Like the second he left would be the second the answer of how to get past the door was whispered to the spot where he would have still been sitting, if only he'd waited a little longer.
But it was his job to keep his family safe. And by golly, if as if he hadn't failed them enough already, he was not going to fail his family now!
He knew the lab lay only steps away, its entrance near, obscured only by the fog that plagued the entire facility.
Mikey weighed the can in his hand. There wasn't much left.
He couldn't afford to hesitate.
Michelangelo took one last good look at the door behind him, knowing the invisible shackles at his feet would drain him from the moment he took his first step away.
But he would do it, he told himself. He had to.
For them.
Mikey gave the aerosol can a good shake, then cleared a path, and walked forward.
Right away, he could feel a cold sensation eating at his nerves and dancing in the back of his head. He wanted to stall, to turn back, but he pushed forward. Every step was a nightmare, like he was trudging through hip-deep snow in the middle of a storm, but he took one step, and then another.
For them.
In a few steps that seemed like a marathon, he made it to the lab. He cleared the space in front of him of clouds and surveyed the contents of the room.
It looked like an experimentation room. Vials and beakers of various substances speckled a table in the middle.
A bright pink light drew his attention to the right corner of the room.
A triangular portal hovered by the wall, a giant pipe of mutagen extending from it and curving into the floor.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was a new way of shipping mutagen.
Mikey remembered what Donnie had said just before leaving the farmhouse.
The Kraang would have enough mutagen to mutate all of New York's population by daybreak.
If the mutagen wasn't destroyed, the Kraang would just reuse it again for another plan after their enemies left.
Mikey turned his attention to the left corner of the room.
There stood an odd-looking machine, a jar of red-orange liquid plugged into a clear hose that displayed the liquid filtering in.
Mikey wasted no time in dashing over and unscrewing the jar before fastening in the one Rockwell had given him in its place.
At once, the few remaining clouds in the room disappeared.
Mikey poked his head into the hallway, and saw the same happening in a wave. The red-orange cleared into nothingness, and the hallway was restored to its usual silver-and-grey Kraanginess.
Michelangelo let out a disbelieving chuckle. He'd done it.
He'd freed himself, his friends, his family from the danger that had been plaguing their every step from the moment they set foot in the building.
From the danger that had driven them out of the city, leaving him behind.
He went back into the lab and glared at the jar of red-orange liquid. The very sight of it made his stomach turn.
He pulled his eyes away from its infuriating presence and returned his attention to the mutagen being piped into the building.
The dam of all the fear and guilt and anger he'd been suppressing since leaving his spot in the hall shattered at once.
Michelangelo pulled his remaining nunchuck from his belt, charged the pipe, and swung at it with everything he had left.
The crackling of glass filled the lab as he struck the pipe of mutagen.
Crack.
The mutagen that the Kraang intended to use as part of their plot to conquer the people of New York City.
Crack.
New York City. His home.
Crack.
They'd made his own home feel like a prison he had to be trapped in all alone.
CRACK.
The glass at the top of the pipe shattered, sending sharp shards and drops of mutagen everywhere.
Mikey walked over to the jar of red-orange liquid and picked it up.
The red-orange liquid that had hurt his friend.
He carried the jar over to the giant, broken pipe.
That had driven his family away from him.
That had left him all alone.
Mikey raised the jar of red-orange liquid high over his head.
"BOOYAKASHA!"
He plunged the entire jar into the pipe of mutagen, making the green liquid dangerously splash everywhere.
He didn't get hit. He doubted he would've even noticed if he did.
The mutagen turned black, the color sweeping through it in both directions through the pipe as the Kraang's entire supply turned into unusable mush.
Then the solution began to bubble.
Mikey had hung around Donnie and his lab (and had been the cause of an experiment gone awry) enough to know that gradually faster bubbling, especially when accompanied by the high-pitched whistling he heard, was never a good sign.
Michelangelo turned and ran.
He bolted down the hallway, sprinting for dear life.
BOOM.
The explosion shook the entire floor and pushed Michelangelo off his feet.
He crashed to the floor with a groan.
The acrid stench of chemical fumes and things burning that ought not to be burned filled the air.
He pushed himself up and looked back at the hallway he'd fled to see it speckled in flames, some of the metal panelling on the walls stripped away.
He looked at the door. Still no dent.
No. No, there had to be something! He just wasn't looking at it close enough. It had to be scratched, at least!
Mikey stood and dashed for the metal door, only to slow his pace upon reaching it, realizing the metal was as perfect as ever.
"No," he breathed. "NO!" He pounded his fists on the door.
A bit of color out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.
The panel by the door had been stripped away in the explosion, revealing wires underneath.
Wires that led to the door mechanism on the other side.
Michelangelo immediately knelt by them, praying that the time spent with Donnie would have taught him how to open it, but no, no, NO, he couldn't make sense of it!
In a blind panic, Mikey extended the blade from his kusarigama chain and stabbed wildly at the wires. He didn't care if he got shocked, the only thing that mattered to him was that he had a chance.
As if by some miracle, the door rose.
Mikey dropped his nunchuck and stood straight, the weapon utterly forgotten at his feet.
The hallway on the other side was littered with empty Kraang robots, some of which had clean holes punched through their chests or heads, others missing limbs or skulls.
Raphael looked back at him, beaten and bruised but alive. When he saw Mikey, he smiled. "You did it."
Mikey let out a relieved laugh and wasted no time in sprinting over to give Raph the biggest bear hug he'd ever receive in his life.
Raphael made a pained sound, and Mikey let go, immediately backing up to see what was wrong.
"I'm good," Raph said, though Michelangelo insisted on gauging his damage anyway.
Raph's arm was still pinned to the wall with his own sai, and the Kraang had apparently recognized it as a stationary target. Bruises flowered on it, as well as a few jagged cuts that matched the pattern of the chainsaw ends of the Kraang blasters.
Raphael also had a few similar scratches and scrapes here and there on his other arm and legs and a darkening bruise on his head, but nothing that wouldn't heal completely within a few weeks, especially under Donatello's watchful care.
"You're alive," was all Mikey could manage to say, more repeating it to himself as confirmation than pointing it out to his brothers.
"I told you I could take them," Raph replied.
Mikey chuckled wetly and hugged him again, gently this time.
Raphael returned the gesture, giving Mikey's shell a comforting pat.
The second he pulled away, Michelangelo grabbed the sai that trapped his brother, steadied his foot against the wall, and tugged.
It was jammed in crooked, Mikey jostled it this way and that, then it came free at once, sending him flying backward into the opposite wall.
Raphael extended his now freed hand to help him up, which Michelangelo took gratefully before returning his sai to him.
"Come on," Raph said. "Let's go find the others."
He didn't have to tell Mikey twice.
The two ran back to the vent where they'd come up and crawled back down to the ground-level floor.
Once back on the ground level, they peered out the vent's exit to make sure the coast was clear.
"Uhh, maybe not this way," Mikey said, seeing the flood of people streaming out of the elevators and making a beeline for the door.
Kraangdroids guarded the building's exit and raised their blasters to fight, but the angry crowd quickly overpowered their captors and made their way onto the streets, where they showed no mercy towards the robots patrolling it. In a turn of events, it was the Kraang who found themselves running from the humans.
"We'll have to take the vents down," Raph said. "It looks like the people can take care of themselves."
Donatello distracted himself from his fate that drew ever nearer in the form of billowing clouds by searching through the Kraang database.
He stumbled upon the plans for the mutant extermination, including the mutant-seeking weapons and the formula for the gas, and with a few quick keystrokes, deleted it from all Kraang databases.
It may have been too late for them, he thought, but at least he'd be able to save some other mutants' lives.
"Donnie," April said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Look." She pointed at the door.
Donatello looked, confused for a second, because he couldn't understand what it was she wanted him to see.
Then he realized that it wasn't what he was seeing, but what he wasn't seeing.
The clouds were gone.
"They did it," Donatello breathed. "They did it!"
A cheer erupted through the room with the collective realization that it wasn't too late for them.
Friends embraced with laughs and tears of relief, and the new hope for another day dawned on them all.
"Let's find the others and get out of here," Leo instructed, and no one needed to be told twice.
They crossed back through the rooms, Rockwell somehow guiding them effortlessly backward through the maze of the trap room, before they came to the place littered with fallen biotroids.
Slash beamed proudly at them and accepted a hug from Leatherhead and Jason. "Good work, guys."
A rustling in the ceiling drew their attention, and the joyful air dissipated as fast as it had come.
They listened intently for any indication of danger, for a sound that meant their fight was not yet over.
Something clattered to the ground with a bang, and they all turned towards it to see the source of the sound.
A vent grate lay on the floor, and a square on the ceiling gaped open from where it had fallen.
Two figures dropped from the ceiling before spotting them and greeting them with relieved smiles.
"Guys!" Mikey cried, racing towards his family with open arms. He was holding tightly onto the arm of a grinning Raphael, and dragged his red-clad brother over to the group with him, though Raphael obviously had no intention of objecting.
"Mikey! Raph!" Leo called, allowing himself, along with Donnie and Splinter, to be pulled into their embrace.
They exchanged variants of "good work" and "I'm so glad you're okay" before Splinter and Donatello held Raphael out at arm's length to examine his wounds.
"I'm fine," Raph said. "It's just a few scrapes, is all."
"Still, we'd better get back to treat it," Donnie said.
Leo nodded, smiling. "I'm all for that." He looked around at his family, his friends, his allies, and for the first time in much too long, graced their ears with the much-needed words of "Let's go home."