Title: Running Through Your Mind

Fandom: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Synopsis: You are Hamato Donatello, and this is your story: Your captors, the Triceratons, are interrogating you for the whereabouts of Professor Honeycutt and you do what you can to withhold that knowledge. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done, for your own mind is a powerful tool—especially when used against you.

Notes: takes place in 2003verse; set during S3E04 Space Invaders Part III; second person perspective

Pairing: Donatello & Splinter (strictly familial; son and father)

Posted: December 22, 2021

You let out a startled yelp when yanked off the red carpet flooring of the throne room, dangling in the grip of an one-eyed Triceraton burly enough to be twice your size.

He, Commander Mozar, demands that you reveal everything you know about Professor Honeycutt's current location. His sneer is as unwelcoming as the way he is squeezing your hands, dangerously close to crossing the line between disdain and outright hostility. You realize it shan't be long before aggression arises and Mozar's thinned patience snaps along with your secured hands.

But your steadfast loyalty to your friends overshadows your fear over the premonition. You remember all the help Honeycutt provided you and your brothers back then, and you've regarded him as an ally since the first serendipitous encounter you had with him. Throwing the professor under the bus is out of the question. You refuse to do such a thing.

So you simply tell Mozar that Honeycutt is nowhere on Earth, which is very much true fortunately, and no more than that.

You flinch next thing you know, biting your lip to stifle a cry from the sudden shock of pain coursing through you when Mozar tightens his hold on your hands. Although your bones haven't cracked, you begin to sympathize with your trusty wooden bō anyway. You're getting a good idea on what it must be like for the weapon to break, as it has a few times before.

Mozar brings you over to a huge, diamond-shaped screen, revealing an elongated stretch of light between some farther part of outer space and where Earth is.

"Our technology is fool-proof," you hear him grunt, "What you see is a teleportation trail picked up by our tracking equipment, showing where you, your brothers and the Fugitoid had been transported when you last evaded us. Clearly, it leads straight to Earth."

In response, you reiterate—Honeycutt is nowhere on Earth anymore.

This prompts a snarl from Mozar as he carelessly drops you to your knees.

The Prime Leader, Zanramon, who has been observing your interrogation close by, slams his fist on the armrest of his throne seat. "You were with him either way! You must know where he is! Tell me!"

Without missing a beat, you say you can't.

Zanramon bares his teeth as he leans in slightly and scowls. "You mean you won't."

You don't respond verbally, though you do return the glare. You haven't cracked, and you won't crack.

It's a matter of perspective. In the eyes of the Prime Leader, you are an obstacle to his goals; a pest that won't let him succeed. From what you comprehend about yourself, however, you stand as the one ensuring Professor Honeycutt's safety. You're someone who can't afford to risk your friend and ally getting dismantled for the data of his teleportal plans, which may jeopardize not only his life but the lives of many in the Triceratons' hands.

Having anticipated a fit of rage from Zanramon over your disobedience, you grow bemused when he suddenly brightens with glee a moment later. You recognize that look as the kind you expect from yourself when you come up with a new invention to realize. Why, you can almost picture a lightbulb over Zanramon's head.

Zanramon motions Mozar to come to him, which the commander immediately complies with. You watch as the Prime Leader whispers something to his subordinate. His voice eludes your hearing, so you aren't able to pick up anything else other than moving lips and brief, responsive nods.

Mozar gives Zanramon a salute once the conversation is over. Then, the commander turns away and walks past you, though not without sneaking a grimace of disgust at you. Isn't that encouraging, you dryly think to yourself.

You don't feel at all reassured by your other captor either. Zanramon slouches on his throne. The palm of his crimson, scaly hand props his chin with an elbow on the armrest. He flashes a toothy grin spreading farther apart than the horns on his head.

Unease overtakes you. You realize that this amused countenance from the Prime Leader, which boasts a transparent malice, is reserved solely for you, seeing as how he never takes his gaze off yours.

There are no words exchanged between you both, thus adding a myriad of prospects to the full extent of Zanramon's sadism in your imagination. One thing is certain, he has something dreadful in store for you. Whatever that something may be.

And you don't bother trying anything, lest you land up in a fate worse than where you are as of current. Being handcuffed and weaponless, you know you won't get far with hundreds of heavily armed guards scouring the mothership, including the only way out this room, and getting blasted isn't fun. You should know, given that is precisely how you got caught in the first place. As it is, you have limited opportunities for escape.

...

...

...

...

The deathly stillness in the room goes on uninterrupted for a couple minutes.

Curiosity overwhelming you at last, you bring yourself to ask Zanramon what he is planning. Part of you regrets your decision when you see the wicked glint in his eyes become more apparent.

Amusement manifests from his voice as he answers, "I'm glad you asked, terrapin. See, I have now come to understand that you aren't much of a talker. No. That's not the impression I get from you; you're more of a thinker, am I right?"

You shudder from the response, not liking where this is going.

Zanramon rises from his throne seat, approaches you, and roughly grabs your head with a squeezing hand. You groan from the throbbing pain. He cackles.

"Who am I to blame you? The mind is a useful tool, much like a library of sorts—it stores timeless knowledge, and always makes room for more," the Prime Leader releases you by shoving you backwards, causing you to land on your carapace.

Rolling over before laboriously getting on your feet, you massage your head to alleviate the discomfort.

"To have captured an intellectual such as yourself proves fortuitous," Zanramon continues, "for you possess quite a great deal of information on what I seek. You will bring the Triceraton Republic one step closer to getting our hands on the Fugitoid and his teleportal plans."

You instantly feel the need to object, and you don't hesitate to voice your protests by saying you won't let that happen. The glare you shoot him is as resolute as your words.

But Zanramon simply brushes off your input with a laugh. "Oh, you will help us, reptile. With or without compliance. What I have intended for you shall glean every crucial detail from your knowledge to accomplish this," his stare wanders a little ways to your side, as if seeing something near you. "and not a moment too soon."

It is at that moment when you can sense the approaching footsteps from behind. You realize too late that Mozar has returned—or, perhaps, just in time when the one-eyed commander fits some kind of helmet over your head. Darkness engulfs your vision entirely.

You unleash a blood-curdling scream.

Imagine your brain continuously getting prodded; at every lobe of your cerebrum, in the fissures and sulci. That is what you're feeling right now.

What happens to you is so sudden you have no warning, no time to steel yourself for its effect. Electricity runs through you similarly to how a stream would move as you're submerged in it, making your entire body tremble under its sliding touch, only that you feel it from inside and it burns.

You initially stumble around for a bit, then you collapse on all fours when the pain becomes too much to bear before long. Loud crackles fill up the recesses of your mind.

Drowning in anguish, you struggle and scream even more. The helmet you wear, however, remains irremovable thanks to your existing restraints, so everything you do provides no ease from this torture.

"Resistance is futile!" proclaims Zanramon, an air of certainty in the tone he speaks with. "Relinquishment is absolute!"

A bright light blinds you. Colors and shapes swim in your eyes before long, and you start seeing things. Familiar things.

You instantaneously recognize the baby turtles standing on their hands and feet, a green ooze drenching them everywhere. Their beady eyes stare blankly at a rat approaching them with a coffee can. The rat lifts one of them up by the tail, and gets splattered in ooze when they vigorously shake themselves dry.

Just now, you have witnessed the origins of your mutation, as well as your family's, recommence.

It doesn't stop there. The scene changes in a blink of light, and then you suddenly find yourself before a timeworn television set—a box with rabbit ears. The screen flashes sporadically, showing you a variety of different broadcasts every second. A small, olive, three-fingered hand can be seen pointing the remote at the television, repeatedly pressing a button, as this happens.

While your eyes cannot see it, you do distinctly remember a proud grin tugging at the corners of your lips that day. Realization dawns on you that this had been when you managed to fix an inoperative creation for the very first time. At such a tender age, all by yourself.

Here is when the buds of your intellect, your expertise on machine and technology, have begun to flourish.

Again, the scene changes.

Memories can be buried yet never wiped out entirely, something you are learning the hard way right now as you start remembering. There's this sort of lucidity in each memory you're skipping through, where certain emotions and certain thoughts from those times resurface. It is as if you are reliving your past.

You experience the trauma of drowning before Leo pulls you out of the sewer water back when you were but a preteen. How you believe yourself doomed to a cold, solitary demise.

You experience the day when you and your family infiltrate Shredder's tower, the warmth you feel for Father when he tells you, Leo, Raph and Mikey how proud he will always be of you all no matter what happens—as not only ninja, but, most importantly, his sons. You give Father's shoulder an appreciative squeeze at this as you wait in that elevator, having faith in being able to carry out the daunting task of defeating your arch rival.

You experience all the late nights or early mornings where you wake up from a terrible dream, and you silently stare up at the ceiling either depressed or anxious. Somehow, you can even recall those nightmares so vividly as well. Every single one that you have ever had in your life, which gives you a heartache like no other.

A multitude of memories are overwhelming you. Some good, others not so much. Normal or significant, uneventful or life threatening. There are even recollections that you never knew you had lived through, the most weird being something about a fat, old man putting a purple bandana on your head.

Unlike your other memories, you don't quite understand that particular moment nor can you recall the specific time frame centering around it, as if something prevents you from doing so. Like magic. You get dizzy trying to figure it out.

The pain in your head grows throughout this whole process. Electricity floods the recesses of your mind, and your brain continues to get poked. You suffer at the mercy of an enemy untouchable by fist and feet. The longer this torture goes on, the heavier the burden of your past becomes upon your mind as it blinds you.

You're dying and you're literally watching your life flash before your eyes.

The scariest thing about this is you don't know when it'll end. Your agony seems to be prolonged, gripping you tighter and tighter without any sign of stopping anytime soon. It doesn't help that sixteen years can tell a long, long story.

As you are now, you can't really think. Or, at least, you can't think of any good plans to rid yourself from this ongoing torture, not when your current thought process is dependent entirely on all the previous perceptions you have made as a toddler, a preteen, and an adolescent from long ago. No impromptu ideations are going to help you at this juncture.

Like television broadcasts switching back to back, you continue to hop through various moments of time in your life. Around the age of three, you snuggle up to Daddy when you have trouble falling asleep in the small burrow. As a ten-year-old, you notice Dad approaching you with soup to help you recover from a nasty cold that leaves you bedridden. Close to the age you are now, you see Father jump off the water tower before using a wooden cane to intercept the attack Shredder intended for you and your brothers.

Something about these particular recollections instill in you the need for comfort and security. Tears brim from your eyes and roll down your face.

As your heart pounds harder against your plastron from inside, you cry out, "Daddy! Dad! Father! Master Splinter!"

"...Donatello!"

You believe his voice to be the call of an angel from a faraway place heeding your plea, a miracle that defies certainty. But with a newfound hope you feel beginning to emerge, you also believe it to be true.

"My son," Master Splinter coos, "I am with you... I am with you..."

His words repeat in ceaseless echoes, reaching the very depths of your soul. They caress your heart, soothe your erratic emotions and fortify your willpower.

Even with memories raging in a storm beyond control, you can recognize the effects of Master Splinter's spiritual support rather easily. It's something you just...know, something you need not think too much about in order to recall.

You concentrate on this feeling of empowerment, this strength which he is lending you right now. The burning and prodding that goes on inside your cranium doesn't relent, though neither do you. Your own endurance comes into play as you resist.

Light flashes before your eyes once again. This time, you bear witness to a moving body made of steel and machine. You see him attach a metal component to a dome-like contraption. Then, upon notice, he throws you a glance and graciously accepts the other parts you provide him.

Professor Honeycutt! Memories of your escapade with the Fugitoid start resurfacing all too soon. But you have no time to reflect more on that in horror. Instead, you merely grit your teeth, ball up your fists and proceed to put more effort in your resistance. Master Splinter remains spiritually by your side all the while, still repeating his mantras of support.

You sense the electricity run wilder, the memories of the Fugitoid now suddenly pressing against your mind with heavier weight, but still you persevere. You focus more on Master Splinter and his voice in order to push back the recollections, almost like keeping a lid over a powerful blender that can potentially explode, holding on just long enough for whatever force opposing you to wear itself out and cease.

Burn, prod, heavier, resist resist. Burn, prod, heavier, resist resist resist resist!

Then, the pain vanishes and everything abruptly goes black.

...

...

"Inconceivable!" exclaims Mozar in disbelief, breaking the long period of silence that preceded his cry. You feel a weight lift off your head as he resumes, "He managed to overwhelm the mind probe!"

Zanramon fumes, "But what about the information it scrutinized and copied? His memories of the Fugitoid?!"

"...everything has been lost, sire," Mozar tentatively answers after a pause.

The Prime Leader lets out a frustrated scream.

Fully recovering a grip on reality, you take in your surroundings. The miasma of something burnt tickles your nostrils, inflicting a slight irritation. As the blurs across your eyes clear away, you notice Mozar staring down at a strange-looking helmet grasped in his taloned hands. From its top shell, ribbons of smoke wreathe up to the ceiling of the throne room.

You avert your gaze from that loathsome creation, looking downward. Notwithstanding your regained composure and lack of agony, you simply just can't forget the way everything had been running through your mind moments earlier. The electric current, the memories, all those vivid experiences you had as a result.

In a way, you feel violated. Your mind bears the scars of the torture, and is engulfed in an ocean of vast knowledge now thicker than you can fathom. You are the dam that had nearly collapsed under its previous surge thanks to the Prime Leader's malicious ways.

You sneak a glance at Zanramon. His back is turned away from you as he throws a fit over how his plan didn't take. It is to your relief that your memories with the Fugitoid and the Utroms still remain a mystery to the Triceratons. If not for Father, the bastion of spirituality who gives you strength...

Zanramon whips around to face you, ending your respite. "Terrapin!" he bellows while stomping towards you.

You return his outburst with a silent stare.

Somehow, his face becomes redder than it already is. "Don't think this changes anything! I still have other methods that'll get you to comply with our objective, and unless you would prefer me to exercise more of my cruelty, you will start talking! Now!"

You know Zanramon's threats are anything but idle. If not for personal experience, then the ire flashing in his eyes should tell enough truth to that notion. Part of you dreads being on the receiving end of his wrath even, now more than ever.

At the same time, though, you also know that the fate of Earth and all your loved ones are in your hands. Ever the thoughtful type, you place their welfare above yours. If your suffering means their salvation, so be it.

Suddenly, the pulsing of your heart draws your attention. You find it loud, yet steady and still beating. The love and guidance from Father continues to linger within you.

Evidently, you are not entirely doomed either. Not when Father is still keeping you together, and you know your brothers are currently out there doing their best to stop the Triceratons and rescue you. You trust this will all work out somehow for you and your family. You just need to remember that by heart.

Nothing has changed. You haven't cracked, and you won't crack.

Following another moment of deep silence, you look at the Prime Leader intently before opening your mouth to speak with a soft but unwavering voice.

"No."

Author's Notes:

The 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series was one of the shows I watched a lot as a child. As a fanfic author, I felt tempted to write something about it, and about my favorite turtle more so.

What inspired me to write this was that I remembered how this show seemed to torture Donnie a lot (the mind probe, SAINW, and second mutation in the Good Genes episodes). Most people like to look at SAINW in how much pain it had put Donnie in, though almost never think about the mind probe. So I figured I could explore more on that scene.

Thinking about it now, Donnie was admirably strong to have resisted that kind of torture. Not physically, sure, but more mentally. He's tough in his own right, which makes him stand out so well to me.