Krang Pie: Chapter 1
Summary: Mikey is trying to keep his family together since the krang invasion as they all deal with it their own way. He feels like they keep splitting apart and he's the only one who sees all the cracks. But when he finds a krang hiding away in his home, Mikey gets put to the test of just how far he's willing to go for family.
Warnings: family fights, some angst (nothing too bad since it's just the first chapter lol)
Chapter 1
It was a year and a half before Mikey saw the krang again. At the time, however, he hadn't realized it was the krang and instead assumed it was a very old piece of gum he just stepped in.
His brothers were all in the training room, constructing the biggest pillow fort they could. They had built pillow forts before but considering the mile long blueprints Donnie had drawn up, this was going to be the winner.
Donnie flipped his goggles up from his perch atop the ramp. "Looking good, fellas. Two more hours and we should have the first floor done. Leo, careful with those pillows. We don't want Dad knowing we ransacked the house to make this beauty."
"I'm always careful," Leo argued, five seconds before he almost collided into Raph.
Raph floundered for a second, the fort swaying before it settled back into place. Everyone gave a sigh of relief.
Leo placed his pillow down. "Okay, that one doesn't count. Donnie was distracting me."
Mikey was so glad everyone was getting along like this. Dad and April had gone on a weeklong trip to check out a possible resurgence of the Foot in London. He wasn't sure how his brothers would act this long together and with no buffer. But it looks like he worried for nothing. It almost felt like when they were younger. Before they became heroes and before…
"Mikey!"
Donnie calling down to him snapped him out of his trance. He saluted like a soldier to their captain. "Yes sir?"
"Fetch me the cushion from the armchair in the TV room. It's unnaturally squished and saggy shape is perfect to weigh the other pillows down in place."
Raph paused his carrying. "Wait, from Dad's chair? I don't think that's such a good idea, Donnie."
"Its inclusion was on page 35 of my Pillow Fort World Record Plan. I don't know why you'd be complaining about it now unless you hadn't read my manual."
Mikey felt the slightest pressure of tension in the air.
"If we mess up Dad's chair, he's not gonna leave us alone unsupervised until we're 50," Raph countered dropping his pillows to face Donnie more directly.
The tension grew stronger, tightening around Mikey's shell and stomach like an ill-fitting belt. Usually Raph wouldn't pick fights over something as silly as a cushion. But after the krang, his fuse had gotten shorter. It didn't take much to set him off into an argument or even a fistfight. Mikey hated both.
"Look guys, I'll be super careful and as soon as we're done, we'll put the cushion back. Dad will never know." Mikey also hated lying to his dad, but he had to pick the lesser of two evils.
Raph's voice was stern, but his shoulders were already relaxing. "Even if we're careful, Dad will know if it's out of place."
Mikey shook his phone like a magic charm. "I'll take a picture so we can put it back in the exact same place." He hurried off before either of them could argue more.
The TV room was pitch black. He fumbled for the switch a moment, a small bubble of panic thinking he couldn't find it and a monster was waiting to pounce. But his fingers connected and the lights blinked on. Dad's chair in the same place as always. It felt eerily silent with no one there, the TV switched off for the first time in years. He shook off the chills and reached out for the cushion.
Wait, picture first.
He unlocked his phone and waited for it to focus on the chair. Something shuffled. Mikey's head swung up. Nothing in the room moved. He was just spooking himself. The flash lit up and nearly blinded him as he took the picture. He forgot it had been on. Shutting it off, he took another picture.
Something scurried at the edge of his vision. His heart caught in his throat. Had he seen something or were his eyes playing tricks on him? But then he heard a rattling. A definitive noise coming from behind the TV. He knew without a doubt something was in here.
"Leo?" He crept closer. The TV felt ominous. "You'd better not be trying to scare me."
Leo hadn't tried to scare him in months. But it was the only explanation his terrified mind could generate.
He was so tense he was barely breathing. Why hadn't he brought his weapon with him? He was at the TV. All that was left to do was face whatever was behind there. He just had to check behind there and ignore his pounding heart and all the danger signals and every bad feeling telling him not to do this and--
He looked behind the TV. It was empty. His stress dissipated and he could breathe again. He needed to stop watching so many horror movies.
Thrilled he was not going to be murdered by a shadow monster, he trotted back in to everyone. "Guys, you're not going to believe--"
"Mikey, do you have the cushion? We're at a critical stage!" Donnie yelled down.
Raph held the fort in place, trembling underneath it's weight.
"Oh, right. Knew I forgot something."
He walked back in, light still on and much less scary now. Grabbing the pillow, he made his way to the fort.
SQUISH
He froze. Something warm and gooey was underneath his foot. Not a totally new sensation but definitely an unwelcome one. He inspected his foot, trying to figure out what leftover food this was.
It was pink and very slimey. Too solid to be melted ice cream. Too soft to be bubblegum. Maybe some kind of moldy chip dip?
As he stared at it, the goop slid. Something shifted inside of it. Out came a mouth. It had sharp teeth.
The mouth screamed.
Mikey screamed back and ran. The goop flew off his foot. His panic only mounted and he dashed into training room.
"Whoa, where's the fire?" Leo called.
"Behind me! There was a mouth! Screaming! Monster!"
"Mikey slow down, slow down!"
But his momentum was too great and he noticed he was going to crash too late. He slammed into Raph's stomach. The big turtle folded in on himself. The tower of pillows wobbled, then came crashing down.
Mikey always assumed that a bunch of cushions and pillows wouldn't hurt but seeing twenty of them hurtling towards him, he began to reconsider. Raph yelled and dove on top of him.
The world darkened as they avalanched before everything went quiet and still.
After a moment, his older brother shook the remnants of their fort off.
"Noooo!" Donnie cried, clutching a saggy pillow. "My world record!"
"And your irreplaceable family members, right?" Raph asked.
"Uh, yeah. You guys, too."
Raph held out his hand and helped Mikey to his feet. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry our fort got ruined but--" The words froze in his mouth when he saw Leo picking up a cushion. Dad's cushion with a large gash running through it. They all turned back to see stuffing still caught on Raph's red elbow pad. Donnie broke the silence first.
"Aw, look what you did! That was Dad's favorite chair."
The tension erupted.
"Look what I did? You're the one who came up with the stupid idea to do this in the first place! If you had just listened to me everything would be fine!"
"It always has to be about you, doesn't it? Always your plans, your rules and your way. My idea was brilliant and you know it!"
"Guys! Please don't fight," Mikey said but he couldn't be heard over the arguing. His stomach started hurting and he felt like crying. Why did he have to be so stupid? He never should have been trusted with such an important task.
Before their fighting escalated to yelling, Leo dropped the cushion. It landed with a soft thud. They fell silent as they watched him.
"A pillow fort was a stupid idea, anyway." He walked away, not so much as slamming a door as he hid in his room.
When Mikey turned back, his brother's faces were as dismayed as he felt. Raph's gaze fell to the ground before he turned and talked specifically to Mikey.
"I'm going to get ready to go on patrol. Don't wait up for me."
And then it was only him and Donnie. Mikey picked up the cushion, staring hard at the gash as if his eyes could mend it. His brother watched him awkwardly.
He sucked in a breath before he spoke. "Listen, Mikey, we're not mad at you, okay?" He patted his younger brother's shoulder stiffly. "Raph is just a bonehead who likes nitpicking well intentioned and devastatingly handsome geniuses sometimes."
Mikey forced a smile. At least he was trying. "Yeah. I'm gonna be in my room for a bit."
And so, the unity between the brothers split in four different directions. Mikey felt like each one pulled his heart a different way.
***
Inside his room, he played music to try and make himself feel better. Unfortunately, he kept skipping to sad songs so he was only making himself feel worse.
Out of everyone's reaction, Leo's had hurt the most. Instead of lashing out like Donnie and Raph, he would shut down. No matter what anyone did, he wouldn't leave his shell. Mikey could figure out what was going in the others' head, but Leo was a blank slate. He had no idea what to do with him.
If he had been confiding in someone else, Mikey wouldn't be half as worried. But he wouldn't let anyone in. Wouldn't talk at all about the time in the prison dimension and abruptly changed subjects if anyone asked how he was doing. All Mikey knew was that he was still hurting.
If only he had some way to--
Something clattered to the floor. Mikey lifted one of the ears of his headphones. He expected more silence but saw a blur scurrying behind his desk. His heartbeat picked up. It was probably just a bug. A cockroach scurrying around his messy bedroom.
That made him feel worse.
There was more noise and Mikey knew he hadn't imagined it this time. He wished he could run to one of his brothers for help but the only one he could go to was Donnie and Donnie Didn't Deal with Bugs.
Reluctantly, he put down his headphones and grabbed his least beloved magazine. He inched towards the corner he last heard the sound from. Nothing moved. He rolled up the magazine, poking at clothes and discarded papers. A rogue memory of a beetle scuttling over his foot made him wish he wore shoes.
Another rustling. Behind his dresser. He leaned closer, trying to see behind the dark space of the dresser's shadow. It would be better if he struck first. He swallowed hard. Reached the magazine into the crevice.
Something flew out and landed on his face. He screamed.
"Get off get off get off!"
He smacked himself in the face with the magazine a couple times before realizing it was not going to let him go. His vision gone, he stumbled around his room, tripping and falling over boxes and books. He landed hard on stomach, knocking the wind out of himself. Finally, he reached up and grabbed onto his assailant, flinging it to the ground. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Like in his nightmares, a krang stood before him, glaring as though Mikey was the invader. Although in his nightmares, the krang usually wasn't the size of a cockroach.
It raised two of its tentacles in the air and yelled at him in a voice that sounded like it sucked on helium. "Foolish turtle! You thought you had defeated the krang but we have persevered. We shall kill your family and everyone you love for your insolence!"
Mikey couldn't help it. He laughed.
This only angered the krang further. "You dare mock me? I shall make you feel true pain!"
It slunk up to Mikey and bit him on the ankle. "Ow!" Even though it was tiny, it still had teeth.
He yanked it up into the air to stop it from biting him again. But he had to twist it and turn it upside down in his grip to avoid its reach. It writhed and growled like a naughty puppy.
"Listen, I met your other family, your big brothers and sister, but I can't say I'm scared of you." He had to hold back from calling it cute. Ugh, he was letting his guard down too much. It was still a krang.
"You impudent insect, I was the krang you met. When your blue turtle abandoned me in the prison dimension, I sent a piece of me back with him."
His stomach dropped. All good feelings sucked out of the room and into the krangs evil smile.
"Oh, you didn't know, did you? We krang are smart like that. Just a drop of my DNA hiding on his shell, that's all it took to sneak out. Usually Krang don't resort to such passive tactics but we do cover every possibility. I've been here this whole time, regenerating the rest of my body and waiting in the shadows until the time was right to--"
Mikey heard footsteps. He grabbed an empty bucket of paint and slammed it on top of the krang right as Raph walked in.
"You okay in here, Mikey? You’re looking pretty frazzled."
"No, everything's fine." Mikey was eternally grateful Donnie had soundproofed his room so Raph hadn’t heard him screaming. The bucket of paint tried moving and he sat down on top of it. "Just thought I saw a bug."
Raph stiffened. He hated bugs even more than Donnie. "Well, uh, tell me if you need any help."
He had picked a terrible time to come in. A minute earlier and Mikey would have loved the help. But he couldn't now that he knew what it was. "I will. No worries." He laughed an unconvincing laugh. He really hated lying.
Raph turned to leave but paused in the doorway. "I'm sorry for yelling earlier. I'm not upset at you, Mikey, I just… I still feel like I'm not in control sometimes. Like the krang could show up out of nowhere and use me again."
He wanted to scream but instead focused all his energy on forcing the paint can to stay down and not move.
"I know it's not rational but…" Raph trailed off, shaking his head. He looked back at Mikey and smiled. "None of us are mad at you, I promise."
Any other time, Mikey would have jumped up and hugged him, shouting hallelujahs that his brother was opening up. But all he could do was ignore the hole the paint can was burning into his shell. "Thank you. I really appreciate that."
With another smile, Raph disappeared. Mikey slumped over. The paint can flew off and landed against the wall, crumpling as if someone crushed it.
“Finally!” the krang yelled, scuttling over to Mikey. “I can come kill y—”
He slammed it into the ground with his hand, squeezing it as if it was a stress toy. “You are not going to do anything. You may have had the advantage before, but you will not hurt us this time.” He could feel the tingle of his mystic power surging through his veins, preparing to—
“Mikey, get out here!” It was Donnie.
“What do you need?!”
“Just get out here and I’ll explain everything!”
Growling and grumbling, Mikey took the krang and threw it into his drawer, wedging a plastic magic wand (Leo’s, he should really return it) against the handle so it was locked. He took a couple breaths before going out there again, knowing he’d need to act as calm as he could. Mikey didn’t know much about the situation he was thrust in, but he did know one thing.
He couldn’t let his brothers find out about the krang.
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