Chapter Text
“Mikey! Hurry up, we’re about to start the movie without you,” Raph calls out from the TV room. Mikey knows they wouldn’t, that they’d wait for her but she didn’t want to keep them waiting.
“Give me a moment, Raph!” She yells back, “I’m doin’ something!”
“Okay, we’ll wait.” Raph said, patient as ever. Of course her other sibling wasn’t the same.
“But, like, hurry up.” Donnie had to add.
Mikey rolls her eyes. She looks at the drawing, finished mere minutes ago, that she pushed off to the side. Her siblings thought she was simply working on a sketch, and wouldn't take her too long. Honestly, it’s amazing she got to the point where she could easily say she was confident in her abilities. She’s always been good at art, she loved drawing! But, after the invasion..they all got something taken away from them. They were convinced her hands would never be the same after opening that rift in space to save Leo, and they weren’t. But they were manageable–even better–she could even use magic now! All in all, she had no regrets.
Except for the fact that she may or may not have put all that much effort into learning how to master it.
She was given occasional lessons from Draxum, she meditated daily as was suggested to all of them, but she never took the time to learn it on her own with all the resources she was given–including that one book from Draxum when he found out exactly how Mikey, Donnie, and Raph got those glowing scars on their hands about space-time magic and multi-dimensional travel–until last night! When she suddenly got a random burst of motivation in the middle of the night, and couldn’t sleep because her brain wouldn’t shut off. Per usual.
So, she just did it. She read the book Draxum gave her. It was amazing, thinking she could do that, that she had done that. She was now so curious about her own abilities, how far they could go.
The book sat right next to where she laid her finished art-piece. She grabs it, slowly pulling it into her lap, and staring at it for a mere moment.
Surely if she opened a small portal now it wouldn’t matter, right? It wouldn’t take her forever. I mean, Mikey thought to herself, what’re the chances it’ll even work?
So she stands up, and places the book haphazardly on the floor. She takes a deep breath and she closes her eyes, and reaches both cracked arms out in front of her. Just like she did that day, but there are no tears. There’s no panic, no dread, no sense of urgency. No one’s life is on the line, and the world wasn’t just about to end. There are no risks, and unlike then she has a semblance of an idea of what she’s doing with no end goal in sight. The only similarity between this and that day is that she isn’t confident at all in what she’s doing.
But she succeeds anyway, and she knows she succeeds because there is a bright, orange crack in front of her, the cracks on her arms glowing almost as brightly, illuminating the room even more than it already was. She stares at what she just created and thinks, this is probably the point where I scrap this experiment and never ever think about doing this again, and attempts to close the portal before what is a small, literal crack in the fabric of reality could grow into anything damning.
That would have been ideal, but Mikey lost control of the portal and it ended up consuming her whole, muffling her scream as it disappeared into a small ‘poof’.
. . .
Mayhem lets out a little purr as it rests on April’s lap, who looks awkwardly at a restless Donnie, who’s foot-tapping seems to get louder with every passing second. They’ve all been waiting for Mikey, not wanting to start the Lou Jitsu movie marathon without her, and Leo’s been jumping around trying to find a way to entertain them self with anything they can get their hands on-and yet Raph still has the audacity to suggest they wait another minute.
“Raph, she said she'd be out here soon, ten minutes ago.” Donnie said, obviously very frustrated. Raph opened up his mouth to argue, but of course the purple brother wouldn’t let him. “I know Mikey usually isn’t late and must have a good reason, etc., but come on!”
Raph tried to come up with a new counter-argument but he knew Donnie was right.
“Plus, aren’t you guys a little concerned?” Leo asked, head popping up out of nowhere, which nearly freaked out the other two turtles, “She hasn’t made a peep.”
Raph holds his chin in his hand, contemplatively, before calling out for his little sister again.
“Mikey!”
No response.
“Little sis?”
Silence.
This time, a little more frantically, Donnie calls out for her too. “Michel?” At this point, everyone is worried. Even April is standing now, despite the reservations of her beloved pet.
Donnie stomps his way to Mikey’s room, two siblings in tow. He knocks on the door, one..two..three times. No response. Now everyone’s in fight or flight.
“Angelo! Angel, if you don’t open this door right now I’m breaking it down,” Donatello threatens.
And yet, five seconds later, the door’s still closed, and no sign of life on the other side.
Donnie pulls out his Tech-Bo and activates his chainsaw, but before he can do any real damage he’s interrupted by his twin—
“Woah woah woah! Is that really necessary?” They ask, “And real invasion of privacy, mi hermano. Who knows what could be going on back there?” Leo outstretches their arms to emphasize this fact. Donnie looks back at his sibling.
“And who knows if anything is going on back there? For all we know, she could’ve dropped dead!” Donnie said, very loudly expressing his concerns.
Leo rolled their eyes at their twin, pushing him–who let out a loud indignant squawk at the action–to the side and reaching for the knob, miraculously turning it and cracking the door open. They lean on the door frame, arms crossed, giving their twin a look, whose jaw is practically on the floor.
Raph ends up pushing them both out of the way, hastily, rushing into his little sister’s bedroom.. only to find it empty, save for the basic furnishing and mess she always had, and the drawing she was working on, and the book Draxum gave her—why was it just lying on the ground?—He picks it up. And suddenly a wave of dread and realization washes over him as he turns it over and reads the cover.
Donnie and Leo end up barging in seconds later, shoving each other, obviously bickering over something, not noticing anything is wrong before sparing a glance at their older brother and abruptly stopping whatever argument they were in.
“Raph? Hey Raph, what’s wrong big-man?” Leo asks, unsure, as they step towards the Red brother, noticing his distress.
“Guys,” Raph turns to face them, distress very obvious and severity very clear—Raph was always an open book, so easy to read—and he shows them what he found.
“I-if I’m right, which isn’t often but I still hope I’m not, but if I am,” he says, little siblings’ attention still mainly on him, “if I am, we might have a serious problem.”