Chapter Text
The lair was quiet.
Not the normal quiet where you could hear Raph beating at the dummies in the dojo or Donnie’s light techno music coming from his lab. There was nothing, no music, no talking, not even the light hum of pop’s projector.
It had been a couple of months since the kranng invasion and everyone was still on edge, the wounds had healed but the nightmares were still present in them all.
Mikey was wondering about the lair, unsure of how to occupy his time. Donnie was out with Leo and April running errands and showing Casey Jr. around the city, Raph was with draxum getting his eye checked out to make sure any infection was all gone for good, and Pops had run off on some mission and no one could contact him.
He was just bored at this point, looking for anything to do but pace around. Mikey thought about finding some leftover spray paint cans and marking the walls more but as he was about to wander towards his room to collect them he finally heard someone come down the halls from the entrance.
Mikey completely abandoned the idea of the spray paints and practically booked it to the entranceway of the lair to see who was home already.
He came to a skidding halt as he ran to the main hall where Raph had just entered with a small bag probably of some painkillers, Mikey could only assume for his eye, Raph looked up and gave a half smile as he saw his little brother wave.
Mikey walked behind Raph down the hall towards the med bay, He was rambling about a JJ movie and Raph was listening and talking along as he put the bottles in the drawer and walked over to the kitchen.
About halfway there Mikey slowed a bit at noticing his brother was not as cheery as he normally was talking about Jupiter Jim so he decided to investigate a bit following quickly after the snapping turtle.
“Hey, Raph what did draxum say about your eye, all better?” Mikey asked as he walked into the kitchen behind his brother
“Uhh..” Raph hesitated for a second, jackpot. Now Mikey knew something was wrong, “yeah Mike, should be alright soon.” Raph tried to cover the worry with a smile.
“Nope.” Mikey started “come on Raph you know you can’t lie well, what did berry say?”
Raph started to fidget with his hands and refused to look Mikey in the face as he spoke quietly, “The infection is all cleared up but the vision is not coming back like we first thought.”
Mikey quickly walked over to his big brother and grabbed his hands, stopping him from picking at his nails and making him look at his baby brother.
“Hey it’s alright big guy you got Leo, Don, and I to be your eyes! It’s just the one right? Or are you losing it in both now..” Mikey gave his brother a hug as he spoke, Raph quickly melting in his brother's arms.
“No, no it’s just the one.” He muttered not letting go for a moment “thanks Mike.”
Mikey didn’t want to let go but Raph was soon standing up and looking around the kitchen, they didn’t have much food as he looked around opening the fridge and cabinets a couple of times before turning back to Mikey in a slump.
Mikey had always been the chef of the family and chuckled as he saw his brother give up on finding food and waddle back over like a big puppy dog, Raph was normally the pretty grounded one but he seemed to be completely exhausted already from the day.
“Let me see what I can scrounge up” Mike smiled as his brother's face lit up at the idea of food and he sat down on the bar stool facing the kitchen.
“It’s about lunch so what about just a grilled cheese for now?” Mike looked over his shoulder and Raph nodded quick
He worked fast and in just under 7 minutes placed a plate with a grilled cheese in front of Raph who quickly thanked him and dug in, that sandwich obviously being the only thing he had eaten that day.
Looking around the kitchen again Mikey thought about what to make for dinner, they were out of almost everything no one really wanted to go grocery shopping.
He was still pondering when Raph came around the table to wash the dishes, Mikey watched and made a note to buy more soap for the dispenser.
Raph finished up and thanked Mikey for the food again before giving him a pat on the head and walking out towards his room, Mikey figured to leave him alone as he continued to ponder about what to do for dinner when the idea hit him
Everyone had been kind of down over the past few weeks so Mikey decided at that moment to make them all feel just a little better with a surprise dinner, he would make all their favorites and hopefully see some genuine smiles again!
Already coming up with recipes and ingredients he will need Mikey raced up to his room to grab his orange hoodie and phone so he could head out.
He stopped in the kitchen one more time to check what ingredients he needed before texting himself the list and letting Raph know he would be back soon and that he was just running out for some fresh air.
Raph looked a bit worried but told him to be safe and call him if he needed as he left. On his way out passing the twins, April, and Casey jr. coming from up-top and giving them all a small wave as they watched him race by, no one stopping to question where he was going
If this works hopefully everyone will be alright again, even if it’s just for the night! Mikey just wanted to see his brothers all smiling together again-
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A lot had happened since Battle nexus New York when Big mama had tried to take over the city and use it as more battleground for her little games.
She was still a little pissed at the fact that the shredder had gotten out of her grasp and almost destroyed New York as a whole because of it but she wasn’t going to let that beat up her morale.
Unfortunately, the battle nexus although huge and wildly popular in the hidden city, was lacking a couple more recruits and as many as she thought had promised never worked out.
She needed someone powerful to start out, a champion she could show rise from the ground up. Someone she could count on not to die early.
The shredder would have been great but seeing what happened with that she was not so quick to jump on any new big projects.
Thinking back to the shredder she seemed to remember watching the battles to defeat the monster, those turtlely-boo’s had been able to take out the thing and get it away from the city.
At one point she had tried to turn those bumbling kids into arena clowns but seeing them fight that thing she was almost glad she hadn’t.
Unfortunate to admit but those turtleys were quite powerful, from what she saw from the hotel they had more mystic power than anyone she had seen before, especially the small orange one.
Thinking about it now big mama started to consider if she had gotten them to work for her. Arena clowns or not those turtles could prove useful, they definitely would last longer than most candidates.
But convincing all four would be hard.. maybe just one?
“Even then getting one of those to separate from the pack would take a bit” she mumbled as she looked around her office
But what if she didn’t have to convince them at all? Just taking one could prove useful to the nexus but easy enough to hide, this thought process led down rows of questions, she was looking through the documents of the mystic artifacts she housed for her auctions as she thought
Which little turtle? How would I be able to catch them? What about the others, they would surely look if one of their own went missing. And what about their mystic energy, they were far too powerful to just allow themselves to stay here.
She continued to look through paperwork when a specific item caught her eye. It was a pair of rusty metal shackles that looked more like two rusted large bracelets, they were mystic blockers. According to the paperwork, the shackles decreased the mystic abilities of the wearer but if still used even in the weakened form the shackles would tighten significantly.
As she read through the descriptions she started to smile as a plan formed in her mind. She would get her champion all right.
Big mama clicked a small button beneath her desk and within minutes two yokai were standing in front of her with hotel outfits.
“You, go fetch Mama these gorgeous little bracelets from the vault,” she said shooing off the first after handing them the papers “and you, go snag our cute little guards from the front lobby would you dear? I have a retrieval job for them” she smiled at the second who nodded and sped off
Big mama is going to have a new battle nexus champion.
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Heading down the road from the grocery store wasn’t a long walk. Mikey had already run in and got the ingredients at that point, it was about 4 or 5 in the evening and Mikey was currently outside the shop checking the family group chat to see what the twins were bickering about this time.
They were in some argument about whether the Lou Jitsu game counted as a good game or not and Raph and April were just adding fuel to the fire by picking sides
He smiled at the texts as he started his walk back to the lair, humming a bit and scrolling through recipes as he went.
All felt fine for a while Mikey knew New York like the back of his hand but as he came around a corner and something felt off, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary but it just felt wrong to go down this way.
As much as his gut screamed for him to stop and go the other way Mikey’s Brain said otherwise, knowing that this was the fastest and easiest way back home.
He took a deep breath, kind of regretting that he left his weapons behind, and started forward down the path keeping his guard up.
As much as he loved the city New York was not considered such a safe place by most, and for someone that looked to be under 5 feet in height with a small frame, Mikey knew to be careful.
he knew he could hold his own of course he had beaten the shredder for heck's sake but better to not be in a fight in the first place.
Walking down the street the lights seemed to flicker a bit as Mikey got closer to the edge of the road, he was about to breathe a sigh of relief that he was past the creepy street when he felt two large hands grabbing him and pulling him into the alleyway he had almost fully passed.
Mikey let out a shreak and immediately dropped the grocery bags and his phone fast so he could try and struggle his way out but whoever this was had a firm grip on his arm and got him into a headlock, from years of his brothers roughhousing he knew how to get out of a headlock and was about to do a full body twist to get out when he felt a cold rag placed over his snout.
Quickly realizing what was happening Mikey did a quick turn to try and get away from the person holding him but quickly realized whoever this was wasn’t working alone, as he felt another person hold him still, panic started to set in as Mikey realized he couldn’t move at all, not sure who these people where or where his brothers where he started to shake as the fear set in and whatever was on the rag started to make him drowsy.
Mikey tried to yell out for his brothers, or dad, or anyone really but whoever had a hold on him didn’t seem to like that.
He called out again, hoping to get anyone to respond when he felt a sharp knee to the gut, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to take in a deep breath of whatever was on his face.
He knew calling out again would prove futile, he had taken a back road so as to not be seen so no one was around to hear or see but he continued shouting anyway even though with every call he got hit.
He was trying to figure out what was over his snout when he remembered what Don had said about knock-out chemicals while rambling one time
If it was chloroform it would take much longer to kick in so this had to be some other chemical, whatever it was Mikey was losing to it as his eyelids started to droop and his limbs started to go slack
He was just able to call out for his brothers one last time before everything went dark.