It's Okay To Be Different | TMNT Donnie X OC Love Story

the sarchagelian birthmark

"WHOA!" Maya popped out from seemingly nowhere. "What's that on your neck? Did someone have a little fun earlier?"

"Maya, stop prying." Donnie moved her helmet away from Raziel. "Sorry about that."

Raziel shook his head. "It's cool. And no, it's not a hickey. It's something that all Sarchagelians are born with. The twin tear droplet birthmark, or in human terms, the heart."

"Yes." Jophiel joined. "The mark can appear in a variety of places. Similar to the difference between left handed and right handed people, most birthmarks appear on the inside of their body. But it can occasionally appear on the epidermis."

"Inside?" April made a confused face. "How could you even see that?"

"Oh um..." Jophiel sweated. "Um...we'll talk about that later."

"It's more 'going insane if we tell you' kind of stuff." Raziel filled in.

"Tell me more about Sarchagelians." Donnie said. Raziel pursed his lips to hide his embarrassment as he watched the purple masked turtle's maroon eyes glimmer with excitement.

"Well, we're often used as protectors for other life. That's why we travel so much. We typically get assigned planets to protect in secret, but we had to flee home before our first mission."

"What happened?"

"There was this...I don't know how to describe it...plague that infected a third of our population. It corrupted them." Donnie noticed Raziel shaking with anger. "We had to evacuate the planet, but the corrupted still chase down other Sarchagelians, so we had to hunker down on Earth and change our looks. In this form, our birthmarks are the only physical indicator of our species, so we hide it with makeup."

Before Donnie could comfort Raziel, Leo began to speak.

"Where'd Raph go?"

"He's back on the ship. Said his stomach couldn't handle it." Mikey answered.

Maya looked puzzled. "How can he be like an awesome ninja if his stomach can't handle all this?"

"It's just Raph being Raph." Donatello replied.

Leo gave the galaxy a longing look. "We should head back. It's been hours. Iris might be getting worried."

A collective groan of disapproval echoed from inside their suits, but they reentered the Ulixes. After a few minutes of changing out of their space equipment, footsteps trailed to the ship's hull, where the twins (who didn't need to change), Raph, and Iris stood about. Iris had a small cup of hot cocoa in their hand, their expression showing clear disdain of the heat.

"How did you like space, Raph?" Maya gave a cheeky grin. The callback of one teasing the other felt familiar to Mikey.

"Shuddap." Raph palmed Maya in the face.

"Has everyone's curiosity been satiated properly yet?" Honeycutt asked.