Chapter Text
Mikey
It was one thing to send Casey back. Mikey had discussed it with Leo after they lost Donatello. But it was only useable as a last resort. Mikey wasn’t sure how much his body could handle when it came to tearing a hole in space time.
When go time arrived, he nodded at his brother. The concentration in the middle of a Krang attack was harder than when he was able to practice underground, but he had fought the krang for so long at this point he tuned out the hum of metal and machinery and the screams of the dying with a thought. He stared at his hands and time crackled. His fingers crackled as the energy leaked. He had one chance.
He hadn’t told Leo exactly how he had changed the plan. He didn’t need to. It would work or it wouldn’t.
He winked at his brother and his nephew.
He spread his arms with one last push. Mystic space time burst through him, gold and shining. And for one shining moment he saw his whole life spread out behind him. But he pushed a little beyond. He had something to do.
Casey went through the open portal. Mikey hoped he had remembered where it would output the boy correctly. He surged through time.
Leonardo leaped into the ray of a Krang hound. Mikey grinned.
Not today brother mine. I refuse to lose any more family.
Mikey pulled him seconds from disintegration into the time stream. Leon’s ninpo activated in reaction to Mikey’s touch. He threw his glowing blue brother through the golden gateway instants after Casey fell through. He didn’t know how long it would take for him to fall to earth. It could be seconds or months, but Leon would find his son. He always would.
Mikey had somewhere else to be. He looked at his timeline scattered in front of him again.
He knew he had just lost his sister. It had only been a few weeks. Commander O’neil held the front with a number of Todd’s mutant puppy squad. Mikey had watched her go down. It was a brief moment to reach out and yank her out of the timestream. He threw his sister through the portal sending her backward after Leo and Casey.
Mikey reached out. He had to stretch beyond where he himself had been.
Donatello had taken down the first ship, before they knew how the Krang would escalate from that threat. They had thought it was such a decisive victory.
Mikey searched. He felt the edges of his power threatening to dissolve his fingers. He grit his teeth. Donnie had to be somewhere.
There.
Donatello sat in a tube. Writing tentacle scars crisscrossed his soft shell. Donnie breathed shakily. A Krang stood in front of him, demanding to know where the rebels were holed up. Donatello spit in its face. The Krang pulled its metal arm back.
Mikey reached. His hand manifested gold. Milli seconds from impact, Mikey pulled Donatello from the metal interrogation tube, tearing him free of the tentacles holding him.
Donnie screamed. His ninpo burst into purple flickers across his frame.
Mikey threw his brother like a frisbee through the open portal. His toes were starting to lose feeling.
“Hold it together, Mikes. One left,” he told himself.
Mikey went back farther. He manifested when he saw Raph.
But it wasn’t far enough.
Donatello sat on his knees at the feet of a partial metallic replica of their big brother.
“Was I a good brother?” a robotic voice said.
“No, I mean yes. But, but you aren’t him. Confirmation bias makes me want... I-I can’t do this anymore. I can’t spare resources on you.”
Metallic Raph moved one large arm. It put its hand on Donatello’s shoulder. Donatello looked up at the whirring gears the robotic replica had for eyes.
“Its ok Don-natello. Don’t be sad.”
Donatello moved to cut power to the big robot.
Mikey still remembered how Donnie had locked himself in his lab for weeks afterward. Robo Raph had been a confusion of emotions for his tech-inclined brother. Mikey turned away and went farther back. Raph.
His chest ached. His elbow crackled. His hands had lost feeling milliseconds and an eternity ago. Had he breathed at all? Where would he get air shattered across spacetime?
He reached for the day they lost Raph. So far back he was almost back to the era he sent Casey. The flow of time pushed against him. It shoved against his tampering.
Too bad. He had one more brother to rescue.
Mikey reached out. Raph turned as if he expected the attempt. His eyes shone. Mikey reached out. He grabbed his brother the moment before he died.
Mechanical Raph blinked at Mikey. Mikey’s eyes widened. The robot’s eyes whirred, the gear spinning until copper eyes met his gaze.
Red ninpo surrounded the robot and a familiar grin with a metallic snaggle tooth met his eyes.
“The whole time? Donnie didn’t tell me.”
Robo Raph wrapped his arms around Mikey.
“Whatever you are doing, you need to finish it,” Robo Raph said, “You're falling apart little guy.”
So Mikey let go. He fell backward, seconds before the krang would reach the portal. He fell through time with Raphael’s familiar ninpo surrounding him, like they were just kids in New York again.