Title: Validation
Summary: Never the perfect son or student or brother, Raphael does the unthinkable. Away from the lair and into an allegiance with Shredder, honor is replaced by his pronounced desire for validation.
Disclaimer: I have no ownership ties to the TMNT fandom or anything else I might reference. Credit to those who do.
SPECIAL THANKS TO! Bella13blue, my own personal Nemesis! (Because everybody needs one.) MY Nemesis has been a good friend; she's a great soundboard and has been kind enough to encourage and offer suggestions on my work for this fic.
Author's Notes: A short Raph-Chapter and then we progress! Finally! Ready... Set... READ!
Questions or comments, submit via review or PM. Thank you.
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CH 40
[Astral Plane / Spirit World]
Raphael's mind was swept with color, a true beauty to behold. The elemental manifestation of enlivened passion and muted nobility. A collision of impossibility and reality.
Something wondrous.
Vibrant reds and swirling purples and blues. Living atmosphere. But Raphael could only get a a glimpse if the trailing colors... because those familiar white walls continued to taunt him.
Once again, paper became his own personal hell.
This dome. This shell.
Paper-steel.
The very cage he used to write his personal demons had become his own prison.
He looked through the hole in the rounded roof and stared at the beauty beyond. Like always, there was the overwhelming desire to escape, but there was also the understanding of futility.
His gaze moved to his etched name, but it was lighter than he remembered, not even red: an echo of what it once was. The name, it was fading, deteriorating. Part of him wanted to dust his knuckles against the steel-paper walls and repaint the name. Before it was gone.
Before it was lost.
Before he lost himself.
The idea was there.
He considered it.
But before he could affirm the action, he noticed that his feet... felt warm... and wet. Looking down, his breath hitched; his heart seized for a moment before beginning to throb irregularly in his chest.
Around his feet, an impossibility. A glow. Liquid. Light. A nightmare that somehow felt more real- real enough to steal his breath from his lungs. He stared at the watery mess of brightness in both horror and disbelief. Then he tried to step out of the puddle of light, but it only spread wider and wider, taunting him.
Panic took hold.
He had to get out.
He couldn't breathe.
That hole in the ceiling, he wanted to go through it. But the dome that had been much too small for comfort suddenly seemed so much bigger.
The walls, somehow so much wider in circumference. The ceiling, too high.
He felt like an insect in a jar. A decorative figure in a snow globe.
Trapped.
There was no escape.
'Gotta get out. Before... Before...' He had no way of knowing what was coming, but a feeling of dread rippled through him just as the neon waters beneath his feet rippled at his slightest movement.
The puddle, so bright, so warm, rippling... It was going to swallow him. It glowed impossibly. Bright gold liquid sucking him inch by inch.
It was so gradual, but when it was up to his ankles, there was no denying what was happening.
And, not knowing what else to do, he screamed. Wordless. Desperate. He cried out in inarticulate agony.
Someone had to hear him, save him from his nightmare.
It was too real. Too warm. Too bright.
Throwing away his pride -'What good is pride if I'm fuckin' dead?!' -he screamed for help.
Help from someone brave. "Leonardo, fuck! Leo!"
But Leo did not come to his aid. Instead, the living blue swirls in the skies above began to swell into something massive and cloud-like; then, once they were full, the cloud began to rain big fat globs of blue ink. Right through the hole and into the dome, joining the liquid glow and staining it from gold to green.
Raph placed his hand against the wall for support, though there was little relief in this.
His heart was hammering wildly, as if trying to escape his chest. His fingers flexed uselessly, wanting to fight and unfightable foe. But there was little he could do, and he didn't want to know what would happen if he were to be swallowed up by the luminous ale.
So, once again, he called for help. His own voice, loud, gruffness softened by desperation.
Help from someone smart. "Donatello, hey! Donnie!"
But Don did not come to his aid. Instead, those purple living swirls in the skies above swam closer, morphed into something snakelike and slithered through the hole in the roof. Once it hit the puddle, unlike the blue ink it did not meld with the other colors; instead, it remained solid and snakelike. A set of beady black eyes formed from nothing and its face split to reveal gangly jowls. It hissed, coiled back, and shot forward. Raph released an indignant sound of surprise and just barely managed to sidestep the serpentine strike.
This prison had been mostly safe until now. Now, he was being attacked from within. Something was terribly wrong.
One last time, he shouted for help.
Help from someone agile."Michelangelo, dammit! Mikey!"
But Mike did not come to his aid. And unlike the colors purple and blue, no orange made itself known.
And to Raph, the absence of the color was worse than if its presence had tried to harm him.
The puddle was getting deeper- or, perhaps he was sinking. Either way, he felt the neon wetness licking up his calves.
He looked at the wall, hoping to find solace in his name. Something to hold onto in his moment of horror.
But the wall had been wiped clean. Not a smudge left to be found. His name, gone, replaced by white.
The purple serpent struck out again, and Raph stumbled out reach of its bite.
He looked skyward again. Then, as if in answer to an unasked prayer, he heard a voice, but he couldn't distinguish the words or speaker.
Still, a voice meant that someone was there. And that meant help; it had to. Raphael's anxiety was rising faster than this mythical liquid neon. He latched onto his assumption that help was available. He latched on and held tight.
He had to believe that someone had come for him.
Without a second thought, he crouched, coiling the muscles and joints in his legs despite the engulfing liquid light, and with a jolt he sprung upwards, jumping as high as he could and reaching out towards that torn opening between the sheets of steel-paper.
At the crest of his jump, he was just inches shy of reaching freedom. He closed his eyes tight, preparing for the short fall back to the bright pool below. But he did not fall. Gravity did not take him in its unforgiving grasp and throw him down.
Instead, he felt two hands catch around his wrist, gripping firmly, holding him up as the rest of his large mutant body dangled like bait on a hook.
His heart pounded- in fear or relief, he couldn't tell. His temples pulsed with stress, but he easily disregarded the minor annoyance.
Raphael closed his eyes tight, trying to ignore the conflict within and remember the threat of liquid light beneath him. While he'd never admit it aloud, the bright puddle terrified him.
Darkness, he could handle. But light- specifically a light he could literally drown in, that was pretty fucked up.
With a sharp intake of breath, he found his voice, speaking to his savior. Pleading. "Just... don't let me go. Don't leave me alone. Dammit, don't let me fall." As he spoke his voice was strained. He kept his eyes shut as he was pulled from dome.
He was finally out. Finally. Liberated.
Freedom, something he'd given up on, was his to claim. Something that found him and offered a mercy he probably didn't deserve.
He opened his eyes and mouth to verbalize his gratification, to give an awkward thanks to whomever had come to his aid.
But the moment his vision rested on his apparent rescuer, his mouth clamped shut. His insides iced over. His mind fought to make sense of what he was seeing and what had transpired.
Because, Raphael was staring at something -rather, someone- and that someone... was just a little too familiar for comfort.
In all honesty, Raphael had expected a brother. He'd expected his Master Shredder. And to a lesser extent, he could even understand if his rescuer had been the rat he'd come to loathe, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight that met him now. For, standing just a few feet away, arms crossed, was another reptile. Another turtle. With emerald skin and a red mask securely knotted in place.
Raph stared, confused and disbelieving, at his warped duplicate- because, this thing was what Raph expected to see in a fun house mirror. Its body was disproportionate, too large, covered in scars with leathery skin stretched too tight.
The spirit-creature cracked its neck and rolled its shoulders, showing off its grotesquely twisted form before pointing to the red mask it wore. Its mouth moved, as if to speak, but whether or not words came out, Raphael couldn't tell. White noise filled his ears and the vibrant colors around him gradually dimmed, turned technicolor and eventually gray. Black and white. A comic book, or a silent film. Again, Raphael couldn't tell. Because even that much was beginning to fade.
...
[Well, that was fun. Next chapter is outlined and In-Progress!]