They Came From the Sky (Book 2 of They Came From Below)

Bloody Bruises

"D-Don-nie?" Mikey whispered up at their older sibling, eyes wide, hands shaking in a way they hadn't in years, "Don—Donnie?"

The older turtle collapsed onto of their little brother, arms no longer able to support their weight. Mikey tried to ignore the way his entire body was becoming sticky and wet, how it was reaching the long tails of Leo's mask tied around his own face. He tried and he tried, trying to nudge his older sibling, wrapping his arms around them, shaking them.

"DONNIE!"

Mikey didn't even hear his own scream over the blood pumping in his tympana. The same blood that was soaking his body. To his left, Raph snarled at the slowly approaching Huntress and the hounds under her command. They were playing with them, taking their time to show they knew that they were the victors.

All of this was just a game to them.

Mikey's arms squeezed Donnie's head tighter. There was no remark to stop squeezing or their brain will pop out, no comforting words and gentle hands coaxing him to squeeze around the waist instead, no gathering of data and tapping of computer keys.

There was nothing.

Donnie was gone.

Because they wanted Mikey to still be here.

Mikey felt a sob escape their throat, but they didn't hear it, even as more joined it. He did, however, hear Raph's roar.

A sound Mikey had only heard twice before, when they lost Leo and when they lost Dad.

Mikey knew what it meant.

"Raph-" Mikey cried out, forcing his way out from under Donnie almost frantically, hating the way he accidentally kicked them in the face, as his leg got stuck, "Raphie- please-" his hand reached out for his snarling and hissing older brother, begging, trying to latch on, stop what he knew was going to happen, "you can't! Please I can't lose another sibling-"

Raph did not hear any of Mikey's words.

Mikey screamed across the deserted wasteland as his fingers wrapped around the tail of the bandana, pulling it free, the slight force unable to stop his brother's bloodthirsty rampage. It was ripped through the right eye now, Mikey noticed absentmindedly as Raph tore through five of the hounds.

He lasted three seconds against the Huntress, longer than anyone else.

Mikey felt nothing but cold, lying there, half-buried under his sibling's cooling corpse.

———

The box turtle twisted the two pieces of cloth between his fingers, pulling them tight around each finger. The tips of each finger were slowly paling, the glistening golden cracks from his old mystic training mistakes beginning to blend a little. If he squinted, Mikey could almost pretend the scars were none existent, that the splitting scales and wrinkles were replaced with paint speckled digits, vibrant, full.

Red and yellow. Orange. Fitting.

Some pressure around his eyes forced Mikey to return to reality for a few moments. He was no longer fixing his siblings' bandanas anymore, but twisting them between his fingers.

The pressure around his eyes tightened and for a moment, Mikey could pretend Donnie was tying it, like they did when they were kids. Mikey had told them to stop once he was seven, because he was a big boy and could do it himself.

How dumb.

The longer tails were flicked over Mikey's shoulder and he resolutely didn't look at the stained blue fabric. Red was supposed to be a beautiful colour of passion and power and protection. Not this.

Never this.

Mikey stood up, the crate beneath him scraping across the floor. He heard someone yell after him, but he ignored it, heading down the hallways on unsteady feet. Mikey kept a hand trailing the makeshift walls, feeling the dents and cracks and crumbling rock as he forced himself to remain mostly upright. He stumbled as he walked into another set of crates in his way and let out a loud grumble. A hand grabbed at his clothing and Mikey tried to bat them away, get them to leave him alone, please-

The hand tightened its grip and Mikey growled as another hand wrapped around his wrist, snapping at the first one like Raph had taught him in misplaced irritation. Hand number one released him and Mikey smirked in victory, only to gasp as the one on his wrist pulled the arm over someone's shoulder.

April.

Mikey wanted to sob and hold her, but he really didn't have the energy for emotion anymore today. Instead, he leaned his entire weight on her, head knocking against her collarbone as she pulled him further down the hallway. April knew where he was heading and, like the incredible big sister she was, she didn't protest, just carrying him towards his destination and Mikey couldn't even thank her, the minimum she deserved. He groaned into her collarbone and Mikey heard her chuckle.

"You're welcome, little brother."

No one deserved her.

A door opened to a wide open room. It was the centre of the base and people were gathered around the edges or near the front. Almost every soft item in the base was used for seating here, most people spending their sleep shifts here. Despite it already being near silent, filled with very few whispers, a hush fell over the room as two leaders of the Resistance stumbled into the room. Right in the middle at the front, April lowered Mikey into a pile of pillows. The box turtle crossed his legs on instinct and stared up at the wall in front of him. There were few pictures scattered all over it, most of it covered with drawings of lost loved ones. A few places held items that had been recovered, as rare as they were.

Mikey's eyes zeroed in on the memorial in the centre. A mechanical shell that looked like a larger version of Mikey's, except for the markings that were blue instead of orange, and half of a Hamato crest underneath it, lying by one of only a few surviving images of his family when they were still whole.

When the Hamato crest still represented them.

This one was broken, just like their family became with each loss. One day, they would be whole again, but that wasn't a day that would happen in this world, no matter how much Mikey wished for it.

"I don't want to say goodbye again."

Mikey leaned into the arms that wrapped around him, eyes never leaving the memorial in front of him, as he mentally retreated to his safety net over the years.

It wasn't often Mikey had the chance to indulge in dreams, in the memories of chirps and laughter and yelling and banging and just their general chaos, something long lost to the hardship of war, where a single screwup could cost them everything they had left, however little that was.

They were survivors, but at what cost?

Mikey pulled the two pieces of cloth tighter around his fingers, focusing on the pressure that was becoming a painful throb. He had done this before plenty of times when playing with Dad's hair when he was very little and later April's and even Sunita's on occasion, twisting them around his fingers, fascinated by the pressure and the textures. He never could help himself. That was why April bought him the wig.

Mikey loved that old wig, but it was never the same as when he could create crazy creations out of the mess of hair that was on April's and Sunita's heads. The girls never minded.

Mikey had tried so hard to be excited when he found out he had hair growing on his own head, an impossibility he managed to overcome.

It was the first thing to give away how Mikey's body couldn't handle all the mystic pressure he was under.

But he couldn't take a break, not then, not now, not ever.

Michelangelo would never yield whilst his body still existed.

But he could have this moment, couldn't he? A few seconds, stuck within his own mind?

Please give him this. Don't let him face reality without them just yet.