we're almost there...
almost.
The Other Side of the Wrong Door
Part 5: The last few days
"You want to what!?" Leo and Donnie both snap, perfectly in sync.
Raph winces. "Okay, look, I'm not the science guy, but–"
"Clearly!"
"Look, at least with my idea, we end up with a few less Kraang across every multiverse!"
"Or, we piss off the entirety of Dimension X so they just pour in here, great idea Raph." Donnie gets to his feet, his hands smoothing over the top of his head as he paces. "I can't even start counting the number of ways that could go wrong – oh wait, I can! Number one–"
Raph rolls his eyes, and tunes Donnie out. He's missing the point. Leo always makes neat, perfect plans that are good and just and honourable. Donnie makes ten back-up plans in case everything goes wrong. Mikey tries to overcomplicate things with big flashy theatrics, sometimes, or he just goes off into Mikeyspace where one plus two equals kitten and expects everyone else to follow.
That isn't what they need here.
"I just think it's worth a shot," he says, arms folded.
"And use April as part of your–" Donnie shakes his head and turns away. "No. Not happening. You can't possibly think that we'd ever–"
"–it's not going to happen, Raphael, not now, not ever." Leo finishes his sentence with a swipe of his hand through the air. Something feels off for a second, when Leo and Donnie look at each-other, and Raph realises, with an angry rip in his chest, that Leo thinks that Raph's idea is a trap.
"Look," he interrupts, before he's sentenced, with judge, jury and executioner as one brother. "You want to get rid of as many Kraang as possible? Then give them a reason to come over here!"
"Yeah," April agrees, from behind them. Guiltily, they all jump and turn to look at her. Even with Angel's mama-bearing, she still looks like a ghoul, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes dark and angry. "I think it's a good idea."
"April," Leo says warily. "Think about this. We can't just walk in there again."
"No, but what we can do is stand outside. Donnie, you still have explosives, right?"
"…I can get some, but– but this is the stupidest idea, April, do you really think–"
She folds her arms, giving them all a sharp, cold look that makes her eyes look like ice. Donnie wilts, and Raph can't blame him. "I think I want to kill some Kraang. The more the merrier."
The plan takes another day to hash out in full – for all of Leo's plans, Donnie has two back-up plans, and Casey three questions. April spends chunks of time sparring with Mikey – in her own words, she doesn't care what the plan is, so long as there is a plan, and the plan results in every single Kraang they can get dying.
This is not good, on so many levels. Raph's not the only person to have noticed it – Donnie's face creases into worry, Leo looks shifty as hell, and Casey just lets his head sink.
"You okay?" Raph asks, when the war council takes a break for Angel to run topside for groceries. Casey smiles, but it's not even a quarter-smile.
"I'm good."
"You're not." Raph knows Casey – knows every Casey, as far as he's concerned. This Casey can't be that much different, not with just a little sideways shift. All of them are bad with guilt, and Caseys handle it in much the same way Leos do – brooding and bearing the world on their shoulders. This Casey has so much guilt that it's choking him, a sack of sand on his shoulders that's started to warp around his neck and press against the jugular. The cloth needs to be cut; Raph just needs to find the knife that'll do it without bleeding Casey out.
Across the room, April's in front of the TV, engrossed in the daily news report while catching up on everything she missed on Donnie's laptop. "She missed a lot," Raph prompts quietly. "You tried filling her in?"
"She's okay."
"You sure?" Casey knocks back his drink, then wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and Raph ignores the blocking tactic. "Seriously, man."
"Look, Raph, I get what you're trying to do," Casey says heavily. "I do. But I just– I can't."
Raph gets that. But, "You kinda don't have a choice." Casey shrugs and oh dear Christ no, this is not happening. If April goes off the rails, Casey needs to bring her back, not let her crash. "Look," he says, shifting forward so that he's entirely in Casey's vision. "either you talk to her now, or you sit on your thumbs and wait until after we waste the Kraang."
Something sharpens in Casey's face. After isn't something any of them have spoken about, because after might not actually happen. And there's another thing that needs to be fixed, too: if this is going to work, they have to be able to have each-other's backs. And if Casey and April are still shading around each-other because of something that went wrong twenty years ago, they can't take that into a fight. It's one of the oldest lessons Master Splinter taught them: take nothing into battle but what you need.
"Yeah," Casey says, heavily. "but–"
"Case," Raph interrupts. "Don't be a dick. Go talk to her." He leans across the table, ready to lie just a little bit: "If Donnie could do it, so can you."
Casey is the closest thing to normal Raph has in the base, so he takes the punch to the arm with good humour (mostly, because even if Casey's older, he doesn't punch Raph like he's punching a kid, but punching Raph), and lets Casey clap him on the shoulder as he gets up. "Okay, Dear Raphie," Casey says, turning and digging in the fridge for a fresh six of cheap beer. Saluting, he makes his way out of the kitchenette and over to the TV. "If it'll get you off my back."
Of course Raph watches, to make sure that Casey doesn't chicken out.
Across the room, April looks up sharply as Casey dangles a bottle in front of her face, all lopsided and rueful when he says "Happy late 21st" and vaults the couch to sit next to her.
"You owe me more than just one drink, Casey," she says slyly, but takes the beer from him anyway.
When he's sure that April's not going to smash the bottle into Casey's throat, Raph turns back towards the kitchen table to wash up, and Mikey sneaks in behind him. "Huh," he says, rubbing his shoulders. "So that's what it was." He nods back at April and Casey.
"Yeah, I know there's the whole don't let Raph break the future thing going on, but I do not know what you're talking about with the whole April thing. Everyone can feel when she's sad or something? She can magically blow the lights?"
"Not my order," Mikey says, opening the cupboard and groaning when it comes up empty for whatever it is he's looking for.
"Angel's gone to the store." Mikey doesn't look back, and Raph forces his hands to curl at his sides, instead of in front of him. His brief note of happiness at getting Casey off his ass has died out already, in favour of good old-fashioned pissed off. "And bullshit it's not your order, I'm your brother."
"Talk to Leo."
"I don't want to talk to Leo, I want you to tell me what the hell I'm going back to."
Mikey turns, glaring down at Raph. "Talk to Leo," he snaps, with a snap of authority in his voice.
Raph's jaw drops.
While he's still trying to find words amid the outrage, Mikey's face softens, and he pats Raph's shoulder, kind and supportive, the way Raph pats his Mikey's shoulder sometimes. The only thing Raph can think to do is to knock Mikey's hand away, slapping it roughly. "I don't want to talk to Leo," he says again, this time slowly, more deliberately, just in case Mikey didn't get it the first time around.
Mikey's eyes flash, but the anger Raph was hoping for is gone before it gets the chance to kindle, and instead he turns to the fridge and pulls out a half-empty gallon of milk. "You want some cocoa?" He shakes the carton so that it sloshes. Raph scowls. What he wants is for Mikey to do what Mikey's supposed to do, which is give Raph what he wants.
"No." Raph snaps, his words in a rush of heat. "I don't want any cocoa, I want to know what the hell is going on here. Stop talking to me like I'm your kid brother!"
Mikey turns, half-way across to the microwave, and gives Raph a look that is slow and full of sympathy – pity.
It feels like the ground is cracking beneath Raph's feet.
He doesn't get the chance to talk to Leo again.
Or Donnie.
Angel comes back with a sack of food and a phone number of a guy who knew a guy who knew her dad, and when the next round of imports from Eastern Europe comes in at the docks in the morning, Donnie is getting a whole new crate of dangerous, illegal toys. Tomorrow night, Leo says, coming back in from training, they're making their move.
Raph shakes his wrists out from his own training – six days away from home, training with what feel like the most basic of kata compared to how advanced his brothers are now, he can feel himself getting sluggish. Six days without a fight, a good fight, is too long. It's time to get this over and done with.
Angel produces her weapons over breakfast, and Donnie goes gaga over a rocket launcher which he immediately takes off to his room. Over lunch, he marches out, his arrival heralded by the clang-thunk of Metalhead's big ugly feet marching in front of him.
Because the plan is this:
Metalhead, hooked up to the portal (the same way Raph's Donnie had done, a week ago), will open the door and April, guarded by Donnie, will go in and become the fox to a billion slavering hounds. Angel, along with Casey and Mikey, will go light up TCRI like it's July Fourth. Raph and Leo set up reflectors.
"You're kidding," Raph says bluntly, and folds his arms. "We get to play decorators? No way."
"Yes way," Leo shoots back. "You want this to work, you do it how I say."
"This was my plan."
"And I'm going to make sure it succeeds." Leo folds his arms too, looking every inch the leader that Raph knows that deep down he's not. "You're staying with me."
"No," Raph argues. "I'm taking out some Kraang." He pulls a sai out to make the point. "I'm not gonna sit around and let you babysit me–"
Leo interrupts him, getting to his feet and getting in Raph's face. "You're staying with me. Think, Raph. If anything happens to you, what happens? You can't go home. And this whole thing happens all over again. So if you want to go home and change the future or whatever it is you've been whining to Mikey about wanting to do this past week, you'll do what I say."
One thing he's going to change, Raph promises himself silently, is that the second his Leo starts getting an attitude like this Leo, he's going to hold his head in the nastier of the algae pools until he passes out.
They move out at sundown.
Donnie takes April aside, fitting her with a headset and some kind of battle armour and a brand-new tessen, shiny and sharp and deadly, and Raph doesn't pay attention to the way Donnie's hands linger on her face, or the way April lets them. Whatever's been said between April and his brother needed to be said, one way or another.
Mikey hums until Angel shushes him, and then Raph can hear him setting things up in such a way that each bolt and every plugged wire keep making a happy little death-beat. Casey makes sure all of his hockey sticks are shiny and clean.
Leo meditates in front of the tokonoma again; the picture of their father still in a frame, set on top of Splinter's worn burgundy obi, stares down at him.
Of course something goes wrong.
Raph and Leo are half-way through setting up Donnie's reflector dishes when Angel calls them through the radio.
Leo, she says, terse and tense. Leo, there's a problem.
Leo gets to his feet, striding to the other side of the roof – like Raph can't hear through his own radio, but let Leo have the illusion of privacy if he wants. "What's wrong?" Leo asks. "Talk to me."
There's a problem with one of the detonators. Dammit, I knew we should have tested this cheap shit!
April's voice comes in next: What do you mean, 'there's a problem'?
And then Mikey's: Uh, yeah, it's… kinda trying to go off now. Like, we turned it off for now but this is way more trigger-happy than it should be.
Raph's inner monologue quickly descends into oh shit oh shit oh shit territory, and he looks straight to Leo, who looks worse than Raph feels. "We can't do that," Leo says, hand to his ear, at the same time that Donnie says wait, what? followed by Leo, we are halfway into the middle of Kraang Country, do not tell me we have to shut this down.
Raph keeps his mouth shut. Leo starts to pace, trying to make some kind of decision; the type of decision that Raph hates, that he's made once in his life and hated every second.
We don't, Casey says, while Leo thinks. I'll stay behind. It's easy. I'll set it off.
Six other voices instantly jump into the conversation, each of them arguing until the feedback shuts everyone up with a rough squeal of noise that makes Raph's shoulders shiver. I'm serious, Casey goes on. We only get one shot at this. If it's our only option, I'll stay.
Bullshit, Angel snaps. We'll figure something out. I can stay if I have to–
Leo interrupts her, quietly. "Angel, don't." He chews on his knuckle. "We'll think of something."
Leo, we don't have time.
I'm serious! There's the sound of shuffling at the other end of the radios. Angel can go. I'll stay. Donnie, tell me how to set this stuff off.
Raph drags a hand across his face. Everything was going so well – but when have they ever had good luck, he thinks bitterly. Of course Casey will want to stay, because there's no way in hell Casey's sloping back alone, leaving another person behind.
But there's no way that Raph is even considering leaving anybody behind. "Are you kidding me!?" He throws an arm out. "No. Casey, no. That's the same dumb thing Leo tried to pull back when we were fifteen, and you're not Leo." Leo shoots him a look, and Raph meets it with a flat look of his own. He is never letting Leo live that down; not now, not ever. "You think blowing yourself up is– what, you think this is some kind of– that it'll make it all better?"
On the other end of the radio, Casey hesitates.
"Everyone who thinks that Casey is being a dumbass, say 'aye'."
April's voice comes through immediately, a short, sharp ha! that Raph takes for agreement.
Angel, Donnie comes across the line, his voice distant and echoing. What's the actual problem? Talk me through it.
I don't know! We're trying to set it off, and it's not working, the counter keeps screwing around.
"Donnie?" Leo asks.
It'll be okay, Donnie says. Just stay calm. Did you take the toolkit with you?
All the tension starts to bleed out of Leo as soon as Donnie starts talking Angel through how to trade it for the one supposed to blow second. Got it, she says, and she, Casey and Mikey start the countdown by starting to run. They stop four blocks away to set up one last reflector, and then that's it, job done.
Leo, Mikey says, his voice cracking. What if this doesn't work?
"It's not the first time the odds have been pretty much zero," Raph throws out.
"It'll work," Leo says, firm, his shell still turned to Raph. "Just make sure you're ready."
If you say so, Mikey replies. But, seriously bro, if I end up in a tank, I'm gonna pee in yours.
You mind shutting the hell up? April snaps across the radio, and Mikey falls silent. Through her headset, April sounds like she's sprinting, and Raph can imagine it – April at the front, Donnie right behind her and Metalhead, whichever version of Donnie's pet tin can this is, bringing up the rear.
"Besides, it's a good plan. We'll be home before you know it."
Raph has to shake his head a little before that registers. Leo's still staring at the set-up, his eyes flicking between where they know that Angel and Casey are hiding out, where Mikey is concealed in shadow, and where Donnie, April and Metalhead are going to come from, hopefully leading all the Kraang of New York.
"Are you kidding?" Raph asks, and shakes his head. "It's a terrible plan."
"Well, okay, yeah, but we make it good."
It takes Raph half a second to realise that Leo's snarking — more importantly, Leo's snarking with him.
When he looks up, for the first time in a long time, for the first time in what feels like far too long, Leo's looking at him like a brother, not a threat, not a grenade with a broken pin. There's rueful humour, and Leo's constant, calm will, and below it all, faith.
All Leos always have that; it doesn't matter how bad things get, Leonardo will always believe in his family. Faith keeps him strong, and when Leo believes in something, it doesn't matter how ridiculous things are – they'll come through, because Leo knows they will.
"I feel sorry for the Kraang," Raph says. His smile is lopsided when Leo finally touches his shoulder, and they fall silent, waiting the last few minutes before TCRI goes up in flames, and Donnie and April come out of the portal, probably with a million Kraang trailing behind.
They're close enough that, when TCRI blows, they can hear the windows smashing and the fire roaring, and Raph forces himself to focus on the good things they're burning – every single Kraang in there, every stupid robot, every sick experiment – and not the bad things – every defective clone who just wanted a life. Prisoners they never knew existed. Leo's face is taut and grim and Raph forces himself to take some kind of comfort out of the fact that his big brother's feeling the exact same thing.
The portal opens, a flare of pink in the middle of the street, and Donatello pushes April out, shadowing her with himself to block the laser fire with his shell. Behind them, Metalhead, the world's most ridiculous Swiss Army robot, with bat-wings and a flamethrower, gives them some breathing room. Donnie sets April up at the corner of Canal and Bowery, adjusting something on her headset, and from the top of the buildings, they all watch as she hauls him close for one tight second before he has to go.
On the ground, April looks impossibly small and vulnerable, out in the open with no visible backup but for Metalhead, whose head is now mostly satellite dish. This has to work, Raph thinks. Because if it doesn't, that's Donnie done.
"On three." Leo hunkers down low. Donnie signals back – everything is a-go – before he and Casey hunker down themselves and wait. Somewhere out of sight, Angel and Mikey are ready to run riot if they need a distraction.
Raph has to force himself not to fidget, though he re-adjusts the doofy headset Donnie had made for them for the eighth time anyway; they don't sit right, but why would they?
Everything comes down to this. If this doesn't work, if things go wrong, he's stuck here.
If it doesn't work, they get to watch April get torn apart, and this world gets permanently stuffed with Kraang.
If this doesn't work, this whole thing will happen again, with his brothers, in his world.
"Two," Leo says, and Donnie readies the reflectors.
One, says Casey.
Down below, April nods, and they hear her over the radio: "Hi," she says to the Kraang. "Miss me?"
Her hands reach for her temples, and she lets rip. The headset channels it through the reflectors, through New York, through the portal, and through a big enough chunk of Dimension X to count.
There's no sound.
Just a thick, dull whumpf in the air, as a million tiny Kraang suffer a million tiny strokes.
As they all drop from the rooftops to the ground, April staggers, one hand up to her temple. Her nose is bleeding, but she knocks Donnie's nervous hands away as he reaches for her. "I'm fine. I'm fine." Around them, robots are slowly shutting down in quiet metallic whines. The creatures inside them are silent, fluid dripping from their mouths. "Did we get them?" She drags her arm across the back of her mouth, smearing blood along her arm and teeth. Her gaze jumps from dead Kraang to dead Kraang, and her smile sharpens to something vicious. "Good." She wavers, and this time doesn't shove Donnie's steadying hand away, nor Casey when he immediately steps to her side. She throws her headset down.
Across the yard, on the far edge of the blast radius, one Kraang remains, its nasty tentacles twitching weakly at the air as it squeaks for help – or mercy. It falls out of its robot with a wet thlup. April moves one step, then glares at Casey as he pulls her back. "What?" she snarls, then softens when Casey hands her his very favourite hockey stick.
Everyone holds their breath as she makes her way across the yard, but nobody follows her. This is something April needs to do for herself.
If this was one of the dorky anime that Mikey found in a dumpster, there'd be some kind of speech about how good will always prevail, or this is revenge for my father!. In the sappier shows, April might even grant the shitty little thing forgiveness.
But April is from New York, and, more importantly, she's been stuck in a tank for twenty years.
She beats the thing so hard that Casey's hockey stick shines in the streetlight.
"Uh," Mikey starts to say, but Donnie covers his mouth.
When the Kraang stops screaming, April turns back to the others, wild-eyed and panting. "Angel?" she asks, then swallows. The hockey stick falls from between her loose fingers. "Angel."
Angel ratchets her shotgun and steps up. She's gentle but firm when she murmurs into April's ear, guiding April's hands into position, one hand on the stock, the other ready to fire. They can't hear whatever it is Angel's telling April, but a few seconds later, April relents and takes a good few paces backwards.
With Angel at her back to steady her, April takes in a sharp, long breath, aims, and pulls the trigger.
It's the first time Raph has ever seen one of them with a firearm – as much as he likes Angel, he doesn't have her back home, and the fight is still fought with steel and light. April, with her hair scruffed up and her cheek pressed up against Angel's shotgun, looks like she's just stepped out of a videogame. There's a cruel, angry slant to her mouth that makes Raph want to shudder, to throw her over his shoulder and haul her back home, his home, back when none of this had happened yet.
Sensei had talked about the butterfly effect, once. How a butterfly flapping its wings in France caused a typhoon in the Pacific, or something like that. Chain reactions. Raph gone meant Casey had no leash, meant April got hauled in for doing something stupid, meant twenty years like this. Twenty years of April in a tank, of Donnie falling apart, of Casey falling more. Leo sharpening distrust into another blade, of steel being replaced with shotguns. Of April beating a Kraang to death and then getting covered with the spatter when she shot it into the sidewalk.
This is something Raph refuses to let happen to his family. His fists tighten into heavy balls at his side.
"April," Leo calls, across the yard. "You okay?"
"For now," April says tersely, jerking her head back towards the spray on the pavement. "That's a message for them."
Leo holds up his hands. He's trying to look stern and like a leader should, but there's a glint in his eye that Raph recognises – his big brother's impressed. Or terrified. Either way, he says "Okay", then turns to the others. "We're done here?"
"Yeah," April replies, before the others can reply. "We're done. I want to go home, Leo."
just the epilogue to go!
thank you again for following along with this story 3 i really, really appreciate it!