-1987 universe-
Shredder87 angrily paced back and forth through the Technodrome, his mouth pulled into a deep, furious frown behind his metal mask. His armor clanked with each step, his shiny silver helmet glinting in the darkness of the shadows. His purple cape ruffled with his every move, the only sound in the entire Technodrome. Five robots, known as Foot Soldiers, stood behind him in a silent manner. The Foot Soldiers had been serving Oroku Saki - the Shredder - for years, but just a month ago they had received a major update. Androids that had once been cartoony, clumsy devices clothed in black and violet had become deadly assassins of red and black. Dangerous and relentless.
However, they weren't the only change that had come to Oroku Saki's life just a month ago, from the day that changed everything. The Utrom Shredder had taken the liberty to completely redesign the Technodrome. He had made it a flying ship, rather than a grounded "golfball on wheels" - as some chose to call it. The technology inside was greatly improved, and a deadly laser was installed on the outside. After Utrom Shredder had died, Shredder87 had regained control over the Technodrome, and things were slowly becoming the same as they once were. Settling back into a routine. He'd even gotten back to fighting the turtles again, and had a chance to use his new 'giggle ray'.
Shredder87 continued to pace, but the silence was interrupted by a shrill scream. The menace looked up to see April O'Neil, ropes strung tight around her yellow jumpsuit, suspended from the ceiling. A fall from that height would kill her. She had been hanging there for a few hours, after Bebop and Rocksteady had captured her, but had woken up about forty-five minutes ago. Usually the turtles would have come to rescue her by now. Where are those foolish freaks? April had called them through the Turtle Communicator in a plea for help but there had been no answer, only static. The turtles rescued her almost daily. What was preventing them from doing so now?
"Where are those wretched reptiles?" Shredder87 growled. He slammed his armored fists on the computer controls and the Foot soldiers recoiled, almost in fear.
"Gee, we don't know, boss," replied Bebop, leaning against the giant monitor. He snorted through his warthog nose, brushing his purple mohawk nervously. It was unusual for the turtles to take hours to come to the rescue and his small brain didn't understand why they were there yet, either. "Why's ya don't just drop her down already?" Rocksteady, beside Bebop, nodded in agreement.
Shredder flipped around to face the two mutants. "You two, go back to work outside the Technodrome! It's taken us weeks to put those wheels back on the Technodrome after those changes that moronic Utrom Shredder did to it! Making this thing fly rather than drive! Go make sure the the Foot Soldiers are doing a good job of re-installing the wheels!" The two mutants ran away quickly as Shredder continued to rant, waving his spiky fists in anger.
Krang stepped out of the corner, his robot body taking large steps. Inside the body's chest, Krang - a little brain-like blob - writhed as he said,"Shredder! You imbecile, the turtles are obviously not coming. Take care of this pesky miss O'Neil once and for all while we have the chance. She is always meddling in our business!" His words were guttural and peppered with odd burps and gargles.
Shredder shook his head. "She is bait. We captured her to lure the turtles here. Nothing is more important than - "
"Your revenge," Krang finished with a bored eye roll. Revenge was all that Shredder spoke of, all that filled his mind. "I know! Revenge, revenge. All I hear of every day!" The two began to bicker, throwing words at each other in their rising anger.
"You will never get away with this!" April O'Neil shouted, almost on cue. She fought against her bonds, but freeing herself would do no good, only allow her to fall to the distant ground. "Turtles! Help!"
"Another plan failed, Shredder!" Krang scolded as the metal-covered menace swung at him with pure rage. So many failed schemes, humiliating losses. He'd thought after that encounter with Utrom Shredder things would be different, that somehow he'd finally win a battle. As his losses piled up over the month, he'd gotten angrier and angrier.
"We are not so different, you and I..." said a voice. It was eerie and seemed to eminate from the Technodrome walls themselves, not coming from one certain place. Gravelly and deep. Shredder87 halted his attack on Kraang and spun around, the rustling of his long purple cape louder than the next words.
"Anger is what drives us. A thirst for revenge."
Shredder87 turned to see a tall, muscular form taking up most of the doorway. The five Foot Soldier robots lay at his feet, torn apart, and Shredder87 looked down to see one of their heads rolling towards him. The man who'd done the damage didn't budge from the doorway. The first thing Shredder87 noticed about this man was the metal plating running down his body, spikes glinting in the shadows. A helmet large and sharp. Then Shredder87 noticed the man's semi-burnt face and knew there must be a terrible story behind it.
"How long have you been here?" Shredder87 shouted, clenching his fists. This Shredder copy was taller than him, bulkier than him, but he would fight him if he had to. Never again would another Shredder humilate him like Utrom Shredder had.
"Long enough to understand that you could prove a useful ally," the new Shredder said, calmly. His voice was like an echo, reverberating behind the metal mask. "My goal is not different than yours."
"Not another stupid Shredder!" Krang complained, but as Shredder12 looked at him with a menacing glare, the alien said no more. A hint of recognition flashed across Shredder12's face; Krang reminded him of something.
"What is going on here?" April said shrilly. "Two Shredders! What a story!"
"What do you want?" Shredder87 asked, ignoring April.
"I've already told you," Shredder12 said, "Revenge. Every Ninja Turtle shall fall to me." He walked up to the monitors and began examining the buttons, as if he planned to use them. Shredder87 butted in between the man and the machine, looking up into the man's face.
"I'm not going to help you," Shredder87 said, his voice authoritive, daring Shredder12 to fight. "No longer do I trust other infernale Shredders." This new Shredder was obviously one from another dimension, out to kill turtles that were other Shredders' problems to deal with. This could turn out worse than the fiasco with Utrom Shredder. Shredder87 knew killing the Turtle Primes, which this Shredder was obviously planning to do, would kill everyone else as a result. "Fight your own battles."
"Very well." Shredder12 turned and looked towards the doorway. Suddenly, the doors swung open and in strode Bebop and Rocksteady, a considerably weak-looking Splinter87 fighting their grasp. Shredder12 turned to his counterpart and said. "You may choose to oppose me, but your Technodrome and everything in it is now under my command."
There was a flash and Shredder87 felt a hard blow to his stomach, rippling through his body in a shockwave. He flew backwards, skidding to a stop against the wall with his purple cape torn by his metal blades and all the pride and air in him knocked free. "Don't do it..." Don't kill the turtles, or we'll all die as well. His eyes fell shut, and the last thing he saw was Shredder12 slamming his fist down on a button, and soon the monitor displayed a large purple portal ripping open outside the Technodrome, swirling with energy.
A few moments later, Shredder12 stood over his dimensional counterpart, contemplating killing him while he was unconcscious. The purple light of the portal outside beckoned to him as he thought. Shredder decided against killing Shredder87; even a man who opposed him could come in handy later. There was a constant ring of screaming from the girl hanging from the ceiling, but Shredder had no idea who she was and did not intend to waste time killing her. He turned to Bebop and Rocksteady, seeing them as versions of Dogpound and Fishface, mutants to boss around. Splinter87 was strung between them, barely conscious.
"I will kill you," Shredder12 said, looking down in hatred at the pathetic rat. "But not now. You will serve a purpose, give me an advantage. Once the turtles see you die in front of them, they will be greatly weakened without even receiving a blow. They will fall to me, but you won't be there to see it." This was how Shredder would fight a group that so greatly outnumbered him. And it was Shredder's rambling speech that made Splinter realize that maybe his sons weren't really dead. If Shredder12 was ruthless enough to lie about death, something that Shredder87 never would have done, why wouldn't he do so to weaken Splinter87 in a fight?
Shredder12 turned and smiled up at the monitor, the huge portal and it's gleaming purple light dashing across his metal armor. He didn't need the Kraang - he could find the turtles on his own. And if he happened to run into the Turtle Primes, all the better.
-IDW universe- (Currently, the IDW publishing company is running a series of TMNT comic books. They are very good, but I have only had the luck to read the first five issues, so it is set after issue #5 in this story. The IDW turtles will referred to as "Leo C" or "Mikey C" - C standing for "comic"...I think I'm horribly underexperienced with the IDW turtles to get them completely right, so if you're a fan of them I'm sorry about that.)
Mikey C paced around the Lair, one of his hands occupied rubbing the back of his head nervously as the other flipped through the pages of an outdated comic book, his large white eyes not taking in anything of it. His mind was filled for once, and not with video games or superheroes. His feet plodded in a rhythm across the floor, in a beat with the clang of Raphael's new sai as he tested the weapons out for the first time.
Three red masks lay on the floor, Splinter eyeing them with fondness. Mikey C uncormfortably felt the orange mask that now framed his eyes, and even though it was the same shape, covering the same space on his face, it felt alien to him. Like the color of the mask made any difference to how it felt. He'd only gotten the new mask a few moments ago, while Leonardo had received blue, and Donatello purple. It had been a gift to celebrate the return of Raphael to the family; in turn the last turtle with a red mask had gotten the sai.
The turtles had found Raphael only a few days ago, and though they didn't have much memory of him in their short past - just Splinter's stories - they were now a tight family. Training together, "fine-tuning" the skills they had no recollection of learning. The three turtles had worn masks of Raphael's favorite color for the near eighteen months they'd searched for him, their eighteen months as mutant turtles.
Raphael C spun his sai in circles on his palms, making it look no easier than walking. The flashing beauty of the silver weapons was eye-catching. "These are amazing...Thank you, Master Splinter." The rat nodded happily.
Donatello still sat next to Splinter, a remnant of the circle of turtles there had been only minutes ago when Splinter had told them the full story of their origin and the stories that intertwined with it. Donatello had so many questions, and Spllinter only had so many answers.
"Where is Oroku Saki now?" Donatello asked, struggling to squeeze more answers out of his sensei. One thing Donatello hated was unsolved problems, ones that just sat there without a way to fix it like puzzles with missing pieces.
"I do not know more than I have told you," Splinter said,"The story ends with the death of Hamato Yoshi and his four boys. We have yet to find all the answers to our own existence."
A distance away, in the grimy tunnels of the sewers, a great swirling vortex appeared out of nowhere. A humongous group of turtles, looking all so different, yet all so the same, strode out. Donatello07 came out first, followed by his brother Michelangelo07. They were still aching from the pain of seeing Raphael07 so hurt - not knowing if he was alive - but didn't show any emotion, ready to fight the Shredder that did it.
The 1996 anime turtles followed suit, walking like soldiers in all their gear (but an odd lack of the signature ninja weapons all the other turtles had) as they spoke in rushed Japanese to each other. The other turtle groups hoped they weren't saying rude things in Japanese, because none of them were fluent enough to follow.
1990 turtles came next, and Michelangelo90 looked around at the sewers and the mix of turtles standing around in the tunnel. "...I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." Michelangelo90 had a knack for doing impressions and quoting movies, but Raphael90 obviously wasn't in the mood for it, as he hit Michelangelo90 over the head. Michelangelo07, a few feet away, said "Ow" at the same time as Michelangelo90 and the two stared at each other as they rubbed the back of their heads.
Next came a mix of the 1987 and 2013 turtles through the portal, laughing as Donatello87 and Donatello13 argued over some small scientific detail. It was so odd that two turtles so much alike couldn't get along.
"Come on," Donatello87 said,"You should know that once you hack into the computer you can't program it to - "
"Yes, you can," Donatello13 interjected. He was tall - able to tower over Donatello87 - but he hunched forward so that his height wasn't too noticable. He was irritated by Donatello87 and his incorrect arguments. "I've done it before. Use the basic scrambled algorithms and then you just find the ECM data screen - "
"Fight, fight, fight!" yelled the rest of the 1987 turtles, giggling. Leonardo03 turned around and shushed everyone. They all immediately stilled, staring at him for more directions. Leonardo03 had the seriousness and calmness of a perfect leader, so much that even the other Leonardos would follow his directions.
"Do you hear that?" Leonardo03 said, his eyes narrowing as he struggled to pick up the noise again. The faint sound of metal meeting metal, jeers and loud talking. The sound that felt all to familiar - sparring, a way of ninja practice. "...I don't think we're all that far away from the turtles of this dimension."
They walked for a while, following the noises that grew steadily louder. All the turtles had reassembled in their original groups, the brothers they trusted the most by their sides. Questions burned in their minds, along with startling thoughts about Shredder. Why were they feeling pain when other turtles were hurt? Where was Shredder? The questions consumed all their other thoughts, but it was a long time until someone finally spoke.
"I think I may have something say about the pain issues," Donatello87 said uncomfortably, eyeing Donatello13, daring him to interrupt. "There are many other dimensions of turtles we haven't met. They get hurt, I'm sure, but never have we felt any pain of theirs." He paused, looking up to see everyone else nodding along with him. "...And we hadn't started feeling the pain until yesterday when the two dimensions that had fought Utrom Shredder, which includes mine, had met again. But then again, neither of those two dimensions had gotten hurt in the month since the Utrom Shredder fight. When had we begun to synonymously feel the same pain?"
Donatello03 nodded and slowed up to walk next to Donatello87, and was the only turtle to break the tight dimensional formations. "Good question. Anyone have the answer?" He smiled at Donatello87 and they remembered that they were in this together, as friends and brothers.
Donatello13 took a breath. He looked at Donatello87, and for once his eyes didn't burn with hatred, but weren't exactly filled with trust or friendliness, either, like Donatello03's. There was a truce between the two 1987 and 2013 turtles, one founded on the fear they shared - Shredder being victorious - for now. "The tall Mikey over there" - he gestured to Michelangelo07, who immediately stopped making funny faces with Michelangelo87 as eyes turned to him - "told my brothers and I in his explanation that during a fight with Shredder his brother Raphael had gotten hurt real bad, and all the other Raphaels in that dimension had felt some sort of pain. We share pain with you guys now that we've met, but before we met, the Raphael of my dimension showed no sign that he was hurting. The hurt Raphael's injury had no effect on my brother then, but I'm sure it would now, after our dimensions have met."
"Maybe it's just because I don't feel pain, period," Raphael13 suggested, "I just make it." Leonardo96 answered the statement by kicking Raphael90 on the leg, causing the other Raphaels, including Raphael13, to exclaim in pain.
"Uh-oh...Leo just awoke the beasts..." Michelangelo90 said as the Raphaels roared in anger and tore down the tunnel after Leonardo96. The anime turtle shouted out in Japanese as he ran, barely feet ahead of Raphael03.
"Gomen'nasai, Gomen'nasai, Gomen'nasai!"
"I think that means 'I'm sorry' or 'You're an idiot'," Donatello90 said, chuckling as he watched Leonardo96 speed around the bend in the tunnel, huffing and puffing in exaggerated exhaustion like a cartoon character.
"Donnie, you're an idiot and that little sucker better be sorry!" Raphael90 shouted, the last to turn the corner in pursuit of Leonardo96. The Raphaels hadn't been kicked that hard, but the red-masked turtles loved any excuse to fight.
"Well, at least the Raphaels are bonding," Leonardo87 said shrugging. "I just hope that Leo lives through it." He knew the Raphaels wouldn't kill, but Leonardo96 hadn't yet shown any ninja abilities, so hopefully he could defend himself. What would happen to the others Leonardos if one of them died? It was a question Leonardo87 didn't dare linger on.
Not so far away, there was the sound of startled screams from unfamiliar voices, and a high-pitched shout of "Watashi ni kigai o kuwaenai" from Leonardo96, accompanied by the deep thuds of him getting dog-piled.
"What is going on?" one of the new voices shouted.
The turtles remaining in the tunnels, deserted by Leonardo96 and the Raphaels, exchanged worried glances. "Think we've made a good first impression in this dimension, having the Raphaels pile on little Leo in their lair?" Donatello03 said, but no one bothered answering as they rushed forward.
They came into the Lair, and the first thing they noticed was the pile of five Raphaels, hopelessly outnumbering Leonardo96, all pinning him down. They didn't even seem to notice they were in the lair of this dimension, because Leonardo96 was too scared and his view was blocked and the Raphaels were consumed by anger. Raphael03 had Leonardo96's arm twisted tightly behind his back, shouting "Say it! Say it!" The other Leonardos felt a dull ache, a hint of Leonardo96's pain.
"Raph! Get up!" Leonardo03 reprimanded. Raphael03 looked up and was surprised to see the four new turtles and Splinter staring at him dumb-founded. He then held up one finger, gesturing 'just a minute'. He increased the pressure on Leonardo96's arm. "Say it!" Apparently revenge was more important than saving the dimensions.
Leonardo03 and the other blue-masked turtles, feeling responsible for cleaning up the mess, began to tug the Raphaels off of their poor dimensional duplicate, but not before Leonardo96 finally said whatever Raphael03 had wanted him to say, gritting his teeth against the pain of his twisted arm.
"Raphael is better than me in every single way! He is all-powerful and amazing! I am a dirt clod beneath his feet! ...Happy?"
"Extremely," Raphael90 said as Leonardo03 pulled him up. Leonardo96 stood up and looked down at the floor, ashamed at his weakness. How could he consider himself a ninja?
The Splinter in the lair cleared his throat and all turtles turned to look at him. Even if he wasn't their sensei, he felt familiar to all of them, the tug of belonging deep inside telling them they belonged here. The rat was short and gray, with a cane and robe, his black eyes welcoming and warm but there was the definite ability to kill in him. He walked up to the Raphaels, being held back by the Leonardos as if they would attack again. Raphael87 was the only one free, and had been the one least involved with the take-down, having found it of a sort of game until it got truly serious.
"My sons of the red masks, anger is what defines you. You let it overtake you, turn you into a monster. Do not follow the path a short temper gives you; it is not a good ally in life."
"Wait?" Donatello90 said, "You're not confused or frightened? Forgive my asking, but your first instinct is to give the Raphaels advice? Isn't this all strange to you?"
The rat smiled, his eyes beckoning him, caring about him. "Of course this is strange to me, but I have grown quite used to strange. You all look like my sons, and I love my sons. Now, but if you all are a threat, I warn you. My sons and I are well-trained ninja." The identical turtles behind him, separated only by their mask colors, frowned and raised their weapons.
"Wait!" Leonardo13 walked in front of the group, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture. He could remember, barely an hour or so ago when he had been as distrusting as these turtles were. He felt he could best explain the situation to them. "We aren't looking to fight. We need you guys. There's someone out there who is a threat to us all. If we don't fight him, nothing matters anymore, because we'll be dead. He is the Shredder."
"So...he is back," Splinter said. "The very man that killed Hamato Yoshi and his four sons."
The other turtles' eyes widened, confused by this bit of information. Donatello03 came forward. "You see, Splinter, it's a little more complex than that. This is not the Shredder you know, but we need to you to help us fight him anyway."
Michelangelo07 said solemnly,"We need all the help we can get." He remembered what Shredder had done to his his brother, Raphael. Possibly killed him.
Splinter saw the painful emotion on Michelangelo07's face and finally understood. He turned to his sons. "I let you choose. Shall you help them?"
The answer was a loud chorus of "yes". Michelangelo87 pulled out the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick, saying, "We'll explain what's going on a little bit more while we're on the go," but before he could turn the portal on Raph C spoke up. "You guys said you needed all the help you can get, right? Well, I know someone who could come with us."
Raphael03 smiled, knowing just what Raph C meant. "Don't say anymore. Just go get Casey Jones." Raph C ran off down the tunnels, promising to be gone no longer than a few minutes. Casey didn't live far away, and if the lives of countless turtles depended on one fight, Raphael knew his friend would be an important asset.
Mikey C approached Michelangelo87 as the turtles waited. "Hi." He felt awkward around a turtle that shared his name, his mask, his family. "So, are you really exactly like me, you know?"
"Do you like comics, skateboarding, and pizza?"
"Yeah!"
"Then I think we'll get along just fine, compadre." He smiled at Mikey C, and they felt connected, as friends. Family. Mikey C knew he was just kidding about the comics, skateboarding, and pizza, because there was so much more to them than that.
-2012 dimension-
Karai eyes were narrowed, her mouth forming a deep frown as she stomped around the room in a stressed pace. Her finger ran down the dull side of the small blade tucked into her belt, and the Kraang knew to stay away from her. Every minute or so, Karai peered up at the monitor. In the corner was a minute image of her father driving some odd machine, but the Kraang didn't give it much attention - Shredder was nearly useless to them now. Most of the screen was taken up by a progress bar, which to Karai seemed to be stuck on "five percent" for nearly an hour. She felt like throwing her blade at the monitor in sheer anger and impatience, destroy just to vent herself.
The progress bar was there to monitor how much closer the Kraang were getting to finding 'Turtle Prime' - the source of all turtle life - using the source DNA they'd drawn from the turtles of this dimension. Now that the 2012 turtles were back on her mind, Karai felt a fire of emotion rise up inside her. She regretted letting the turtles go in a moment of weakness. She was going to destroy them anyway and the process of finding Turtle Prime would probably be going much faster if more Source DNA had been drawn. That stupid Leonardo, seeing him dying before her eyes had destroyed her better judgment.
Why do I want to destroy the turtles so badly? Karai thought. I'm not so much like Shredder that I must kill everyone even connected with Tang Shen's murder; I should only want to kill Splinter - the one man who murdered my mother. Is this all just to please my father?
Karai felt all the confusion inside herself well up, along with her remorse of having lost her mother, but refused to cry. Instead she shouted at the Kraang. "Hurry up, you idiots!" She walked into the empty hallway to recompose her self, take a deep breath, but soon found herself slumped against the wall, staring into her reflection on her small sword. Her father had once told her how much she looked like Tang Shen, her mother, and Karai wondered if that was true. That behind all the make-up, and the seriousness, and her punk hairstyle, that she was one and the same with the mother she never knew. If they shared the same carefree smile Karai remembered from the pictures - Karai had never smiled long enough to know.
When she looked back up from her reflection, staring at the white walls with streaks of pink, Karai had renewed determination to find Turtle Prime. Anything to please her father and heal the wound inside her.
Splinter - and his legacy - shall pay.
She strode back into the main room and was pleased to see that the mass of Kraang had followed her instructions and hurried up. The monitor now read "12 percent". She'd be travelling to Turtle Prime in no time - with a few Kraang droids by her side to ensure the turtles would fall.
-2007 dimension-
Raphael07 groaned as he lay on the old orange couch in the lair, Leonardo wrapping a linen bandage tight around his wounded leg. Splinter was watching with sad eyes. As soon as Leonardo tied the bandage around the bleeding skin, the white linen began to stain red. Raphael lay on the beaten-up orange couch, absent-mindedly watching the soap opera Splinter had been engrossed in before Leonardo had rushed in with his injured brother. Raphael was only half-conscious, fighting to keep his eyes open. He felt like he'd been run over by a bulldozer, with bruises building up all over his body, and his open wound still bleeding heavily.
"Leonardo," Splinter said once Leonardo finished with the bandage, "Where are your brothers?"
The blue-masked turtle hesitated for a moment, looking down at Raphael, who was pretending to be amazed by the soap opera and not at all bothered by the pain of a battle wound. "Donnie and Mikey, they ran off with the people who caused this." Leonardo pointed down at the bleeding leg propped up on the scarred coffee table.
"Whatever for, my son?" Splinter took a step towards Raphael, his cane tapping lightly on the cold ground. He graced a furry hand over Raphael's head, worry etched into his expression.
"The Shred - man who hurt Raphael," Leonardo said, stopping himself from saying Shredder, not wanting to tell his father the whole confusing story. "He was lead to me and my brothers by some new...people that we had just met, I believe." Leonardo was speaking about the large group of turtles who'd come to his dimension just before the Shredder. The ones he believed had somehow caused Raphael's injury. "When the man ran away, the others followed him, including Donnie and Mikey, to go fight. I came here to take care of Raphael."
"It is wise of you to help your brother in need, Leonardo, but why are you not going off to fight the man who did this? I believe Mikey and Donnie made the right decision to fight someone so villainous. If those others you met were fighting him, I assure you they were on your side. 'The enemy of my enemy is my - "
"Friend, I know," Leonardo finished, shrugging. He plopped down on the couch next to Raphael and put his face in his hands. "I don't know what to do, sensei...It's all so confusing. But I don't trust the others that ran off with Donnie and Mikey. Not one bit."
Raphael groaned. "Leo...they didn't cause my injury..."
"I know...I just can't see myself trusting them and fighting alongside them. They didn't care when you got hurt, Raph. Not at all. I hope Mikey and Donnie come back, because we have no way to get to them."
Splinter sighed. "Our family is broken again."
-1984 dimension- Turtle Prime
A crescent moon shone down on the vast city of New York, it's powerful white light unable to penetrate the darkest alleys, the nooks and crannies of the city, where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hid. It was midnight, but the turtles weren't at all tired as they knocked out criminals, using darkness as their ally. Leonardo narrated everything under his breath, a habit he had that even he didn't know the purpose of.
The city was black and white, and everything was silent, like an old movie. The turtles were short, had pale gray skin, blindingly white eyes, and dark gray masks that looked like they would have been red if the world was colored. These creatures had only ever known black and white, good and evil - that is, until they had met their dimensional duplicates a month ago. That had changed their lives.
The four brothers had tried to forget the event, but it was no use. Though they realized they had grown close to their duplicates in the short time they'd been together. Almost. They had killed Utrom Shredder, but power that large never really perishes.
Leonardo scaled the side of a building in the blink of eye, his brothers following, finding hand and footholds in the cracks on the brick or the sills of windows. Raphael lagged behind the others, groaning and fighting pain. Yesterday something had happened to him, he'd gotten hurt without touching anything. His leg felt like an invisible bleeding wound; the pain was there, but nothing to show for it. He grit his teeth and clambered over the side onto the roof, not letting his brothers see how bad a condition he was in.
The others had felt injured over the past day or so, as well, but not as much as Raphael. Flashes of pain that usually faded in a matter of minutes. Donatello was looking for an explanation, taking his brothers' blood samples to study and using all his resources, but had so far come up short. They'd gone on patrol this night, but knew it could be cut short any minute when the mysterious force could attack again.
Upon a rooftop, they watched over their city proudly, mask ends flapping in the light breeze. Silent, unknown protectors. The flecks of twinkling stars reflected off the shiny surface of Raphael's sai and Leonardo's katanas. Raphael felt a pang of sudden pain in his other leg - like he'd been kicked - causing him to swear. "When will this end?"
Donatello sighed. He rarely came across a problem he couldn't solve; he hated issues with no solution in sight. Michelangelo looked over to him, saying something on his mind. "Do you think it has to do with the other turtles we met? My idea: we're all sort of like voodoo dolls to each other and when one feels pain, the others do too."
Donatello shook his head. "That's a dumb idea. Too many holes."
"Come on, you always underestimate me! You just think the idea is stupid because it was me that said it." He swore and stomped up to Donatello, nunchaku gripped tightly in his hands.
Donatello started to protest, but Leonardo hushed them. They quieted, only to watch Leonardo turn back around and stare out at the city once again. Beautiful white stars and the crescent moon in the tumultuous black space did nothing to romanticize the sheer ugliness of most of New York. Destruction left over from the Technodrome's attack, done four weeks ago, not yet fixed. Buildings with portions cut clean off, some just piles of dust, strewn upon cracked streets. People had died, not many, but still too many. Leonardo took a breath, remembering how much he loved this place, the only home he had every known. When the city was damaged, it felt like he was too.
"Donatello, I think Michelangelo is right, or is on to something. But I have a feeling we'll get our full answers soon enough. You can't have a battle as big and world-shattering as the one that happened a month ago without some repercussions."
Raphael smiled. Under his breath, Leonardo finished his strange narration for the night. "...And we finished our patrol with more questions than Purple Dragons we've crushed. No matter, the answers will come soon enough."
Do you have a better idea for what to call the IDW turtles, rather than Raph C or Leo C? I'm not particularly liking the names but they were the best ones I had.
The version of TMNT that first got me interested in the turtles was the 2012 show, so, I admit, I am a new fan. When I think of TMNT, I imagine the turtles as they are shown in the 2012 show, while some people might be fonder towards the classic cartoon or the comics. Before seeing "Never Say Xever" (my first episode) I had hardly ever heard of the Ninja Turtles. That's hard to imagine now, as I am a huge fan. This one show, my favorite thing to watch, got me into everything else TMNT-related, but no matter how much I love everything else, I'll always love this show the most. I just love the story, the humor, the characters and their designs, and the way the show brings in the best from all the other iterations before it. I do admit, the series has its limits and has a few minor issues, but it is were the 2012 show is weak that other iterations are strong. That is what I love so much about a franchise that has changed so much - no one origin story is the "right" one, because it changes every time, and that applies to a few other constants in the franchise. Every version is its own thing and not held back by the others. My favorite characters in the 2012 show may be Donatello and Leonardo, but that is different for the other versions. 1987 cartoon, my favorite is Raphael - 1990 movies, it's Michelangelo.