Michelangelo's eyes stared past his broken spectacles and into the endless dark above. He didn't have the presence of mind to note that he was home, that he was back in his world. That he had failed. His body felt cold. So very cold. He could feel nothing else anymore, not even pain, not even the hole in his chest where he'd been shot, where his shard of the Orb had been fused into his very being. The Orb…
'My… Son…'
His lungs seemed to fill with breath once more at that call from the ethereal voice, life returning to his icy eyes. One word burned white-hot in his mind; Father. His Father was calling to him. Slowly, forcing his dying body to move by sheer force of will, he turned himself onto his side and looked up.
He could see the body of Hamato Yoshi still sitting in the stone throne they had lain him in all those months ago, his chest sunken in, the depression dark and empty. On the temple floor at the withered corpse's feet, there lay the broken fragments of a glowing blue stone. His eyes widened in horror. The Orb had been shattered. His Father, his Creator, his Creation, his Machine, had been killed.
With the last of his strength, Michelangelo reached out a hand towards the shards, their glow growing ever fainter by the second. He let his hand come down to rest atop the ruined otherworldly artifact, slowly pulling the pieces close against his chest as he let out one last shaking breath.
He lay there, and watched the God he had created die. At the end when they were cold as the stone they had hewn his body from, when the lights were nearly all extinguished, they heard in the silent distance, the Manpigs singing to one another. Then, as the last lights were gone, and they lay together in the deep, they drifted away, and all was silent. Such a silence, Michelangelo had never known.
And as the dust settled on his open eyes and they lay together embraced forever, he heard miles above them, the sounds of the city turning over in its sleep.
A church bell ringing out.
And in that moment, the new century was born.
Donatello sat behind the dark wooden desk in his Father's study, his hazel eyes staring mournfully down at the silver pocket watch lying open in his palm. The glowing blue stone that had been set in the center of the Hamato Clan crest carved on the inside of the watch casing had shattered, its light fading away in mere seconds. The hands of the watch face, now rendered forever immobile, had frozen themselves at a minute before midnight. Slowly, he closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a heavy sigh. Hamato Yoshi, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo… They were all dead. He had been the only member of the Hamato Clan to live to see the dawn of the new century they had all dreaded.
A knock at the door pulled the turtle from his reverie. He snapped the ruined watch shut and replaced it into the breast pocket of his dusty gray coat.
"Come in." he called out, making no effort to put a tone of command in his voice, nor to mask the remnants of sorrow left behind by his earlier thoughts. Two members of the servant staff filed in – the only two that remained un-mutated. The first was a young man who, years ago, had been a street urchin. He stood before Donatello now with an air of obedience one couldn't expect from a common street urchin, his black hair combed neatly back, hardly a wrinkle in his butler's uniform. The second was a young woman of clearly Irish descent, her fiery red hair pulled up into a neat bun, her hands clasped gracefully against her stainless white apron, her long yellow skirt rustling lightly about her ankles as she came to a stop before the new head of the Hamato Clan. Donatello smiled lightly at the two, letting a bit of affection for them shine through in his eyes. Even after everything that had happened, everything that they'd done, these two alone remained unflinchingly loyal to their family. He would make sure that loyalty would be rewarded.
"Mr. Jones, have you completed the tasks I have set for you?" he asked without a trace of superiority in his voice. The man, Mr. Jones, nodded in the affirmative, reporting in with just a hint of a Scottish accent seeping through into his voice.
"Aye, sir. We've spread the barrels of Compound X throughout the ground floor of the estate, and through the tunnels leading down below. We've also just finished emptying the vault of its contents and loaded it into the car waiting outside, as you've requested."
Donatello gave a satisfied nod of his head in reply.
"Very good. Now, I have one last task for the two of you, and I need you to listen to my instructions very carefully." He began, rising from his seat and making his way around to the front of his desk. He took a moment to look the both of them over one last time, as if taking the moment to enjoy their company one last time before they parted ways forever. The two stared back, attentive, but slightly confused as to what was happening.
"I want the both of you to take that car you loaded up and drive it as fast as you can to the docks. Once there, you will board a ship headed for New York. Worry not about the tickets, they've already been booked for you. Once there, I want you to stay there. You must never come back to Europe, especially within the next fifty years. Don't even let your descendants come back here if you can avoid it. Furthermore, I want you to forget all that has happened here. Never breathe a word of it to anyone. As far as the world is concerned, the Hamato Clan never existed."
The two servants listened, exchanging unbelieving glances between each other, as though unsure they were hearing the master right.
"And what are we to do with the money from the vault?" the woman asked finally, if a bit hesitantly. Donatello gave her a warm smile.
"Why, Miss O'Neil, you are to keep it, of course. It is yours to do with as you please once you are in America." He replied matter-of-factly, letting himself be amused at their shocked reactions.
"Sir, we cannot accept such a thing! The entire Hamato fortune—"
"Is now yours, Mr. Jones. And Miss O'Neil as well." Donatello finished for him in a tone a bit more forceful than before, raising a peremptory hand to put an end to any further protests. "You two have always been kind to my brothers and I, despite our strange appearance, and I've no other way to express how grateful I am to you for that. I am the sole beneficiary of this estate and its wealth, and it is therefore my right to do with it as I please. My greatest wish at this moment is for the two of you to be safe and comfortable. The twentieth century will not be kind to us here in England, or even the rest of Europe. I don't wish you to experience such… unkindness."
"But… Surely you'll come with us, Master Donatello." Miss O'Neil said softly after a long moment of consideration. Donatello sighed, then shook his head.
"I'm afraid I cannot. I've one last order of business to attend to here, and it is something I must do alone. Now then, we've spent too long here already. Time is short and the two of you have a boat to catch. I thank you again for your service, and I wish you the best of luck in America. Goodbye, my friends…"
Donatello watched from one of the upstairs windows as a single car rumbled its way down the quiet city streets. He waited until they were long out of sight before letting himself breathe a sigh of relief. They'd obeyed his orders after all. That was good. That meant he could proceed to his business without guilt. He wandered slowly down to the ground floor of the mansion, a bottle of his Father's aged whiskey in hand. Just as he had ordered, every last barrel of Compound X had been brought up and now lined the exquisite halls of the Hamato estate. He wandered through each hall, occasionally tipping over a barrel and, quite on purpose, letting the noxious chemical spill and pool over the floor. He continued like this until the entire ground floor was soaked in the corroding liquid, highly flammable vapors rising up and filling the rest of the mansion.
He went outside to the front courtyard, where the brilliant pale light of the full moon shone down on the cobble walkways and the perfectly tended garden. Barrels had been brought out here as well, and he quickly set to work tipping them over. He continued until he was standing in a huge puddle of it about half an inch deep, and ensuring it led back to the mansion proper. Thin wisps of pale blue smoke rose from around his boots where he stood as the pooled Compound X began eating away at their rubber soles, but he paid it no mind. He wouldn't be standing there long enough for it to matter.
He took one last look around him, at his home, at all his Father had worked to create. He gave one last mournful sigh, bowing his head. Then, his voice beginning to waiver a bit, he began to sing.
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne…"
He then uncorked the bottle of whiskey and took as long of a drink from it as he could stand, ignoring how it burned at his throat. He then held the bottle high, dumping the remainder of it on his head. He discarded the bottle carelessly at his side with a sharp clash of shattering glass, reaching into the breast pocket of his coat to retrieve a book of matches. He stared at them for a long moment, hesitating, considering. Then, a sardonic smile spread across Donatello's lips. Was he afraid of death? No, that wasn't it at all. He'd known since he'd been reborn into this mutated body that he would die this night, though perhaps not in this way. Was he right in so doing? A question for the philosophers to ponder, he decided. There wasn't much sense in turning back now. Besides, he had this one last job to do, and he owed it to the world to rid it of the scourge that still lurked inside his tainted blue heart.
He struck a match, let it fall to his feet, and set ablaze the last remnants of Hamato Yoshi's twisted legacy once and for all.