if you're still doing the whump ask game, i'd love to see some environmental whump! ^v^
Hello, why yes, I certainly am :D Thank you for the ask!! From this ask game.
How does a cave-in sound? Or, well, a collapsing tunnel :) Funnily enough, I have two versions of this particular scene, but I chose the one from the hidden depths AU (ch 1), because it has more fun detail. Enjoy!
Whump Trope: Environmental/Buried alive
Contents/TWs: male and female protags, tunnel collapse, failed escape, buried alive (they live, dw. or do, considering lol), overuse of magic, magic whump, 626 words
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"I'm right behind you," Resh managed to say, grabbing his head. Gods, it felt like it was going to explode. "Go!"
Chunks of earth pelted his shoulders as his magic faltered. He pushed forward, blinking furiously to see through his tears. Was she out?
Resh stumbled over the suddenly uneven ground beneath him, crashing heavily to his knees. Fuck, there was a vise grip squeezing around his temples; he pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes to keep them from popping out of his head.
"RESH!" Carr screamed, and this time her voice stabbed through every nerve ending he had.
The earth rained down around him, and his knees sank into the softening ground beneath him. He needed to let go of his magic–the pain in his head was excruciating–but he wouldn't until he knew she was out. He wasn't going to make it, but she still could.
Resh’s heart lurched when a hand closed around his arm, pulling it away from his face. Carr ducked under his arm, wrapping her right arm around his waist. She was saying something, but Resh couldn’t make out the words through the pain.
“Noo,” he moaned, trying to push her away. “Get out, you have to get out.”
But she didn’t stop pulling on him, didn’t move away. Whimpering, Resh forced his eyes open when Carr helped him to his feet. The purple glow spilling from his eyes was dimmer now, but it still revealed the spongy ground, which tried to suck in their feet and trap them with each step forward.
The earth around them trembled and cracked and split apart. Resh knew they didn’t have much longer. His magic wouldn’t hold out much longer. Fuck, his body wouldn’t hold out much longer.
He couldn’t do this… but he had to do this. Had to make sure Carr was safe. Why, fucking why had she come back for him?
Relying heavily on Carr’s support, Resh forced his body to move toward the tunnel’s exit. If she wouldn’t leave without him, he would just have to make it out too. But gods, his magic… his head… if his magic ran out, the earth would swallow them whole.
They were so close, perhaps a handful of steps away from the exit, when Resh felt his magic gutter. For a moment, he lost control of what little he had left.
One moment.
That moment was all it took.
Resh’s heart skittered in his chest as he grappled with his magic, trying to redirect everything toward keeping the exit open.
It wasn’t enough.
The mouth of the tunnel collapsed, sending chunks of dirt and chips of rock flying. Resh acted without thought. He threw himself in front of Carr, knocking both of them to the ground. Debris pelted his back, sliced through his shirt. Resh registered the sensation but felt none of the pain, too concerned with shielding Carr’s body from the tunnel collapsing all around them.
Wan, barely-there purple light highlighted the planes of Carr’s face as she stared up at him with wide eyes. Eyes that held equal measures of terror and resignation. Her mouth moved, but Resh couldn’t hear anything through the roaring in his ears. A drop of water fell onto her face, and she raised a hand to wipe his cheek, her expression sorrowful.
Resh leaned into her touch. His trembling limbs barely kept him up enough to keep from crushing her. His heart felt like it was cracking into as many pieces as the earth around them.
“I’m so sorry, Carr.”
Resh cut the channel to his Source, releasing his hold on his magic before it drained completely. The backlash of pain nearly knocked him senseless.
River Hill-Donovan seemed like a regular guy on the surface, but in reality he was anything but. He came from a rather famous family, and always felt like he had multiple big shoes to fill.
His grandfather, Liam Hill, was one of the best detectives the city had ever seen, and even though he had retired a decade ago, the police department sometimes still sought his advise. Fortunately, one of his aunts, Echo, was already working on following in his footsteps, having just made detective and thus being well on her way to live up to her father's name.
Then there was his other aunt, one of the sweetest women on the planet, and one of the city's more prolific superheroes. She had the power to turn into any animal, even mythical ones. River however...his powers only really allowed him to talk to and understand animals, which came in handy when gathering information...but that was about it.
His mother was twice as famous. Also a prolific hero, capable of manipulating the very air around her, the mention her alias alone capable of striking fear in any perpetrator with a base knowledge of heroes. But she was also a prolific rock star, often away on tour, leaving River with family or friends, since a tour life was no way to raise a child.
River could sing. He'd definitely inherited at least some of his mother's talent. Only he also had stage fright, and preferred to only sing in the shower. He did have one song on one of his mother's albums, but he liked to pretend that song didn't even exist.
And then there was his father, who everyone wanted him to be like.
River never knew his father. At least, not consciously. He died a hero before River managed to maintain any memories, but he'd grown up hearing stories about how great he was. The famous Blaze, aka Saturn Hill. A prolific hero, even in death, most known for his proficiency in fire magic.
River had his suspicions that everyone expected him to be like his father when they tried to talk him into learning magic, more specifically, fire magic. Only the problem was...River could only just manage the basics, and never really advanced in any type of magic.
So there he was, the son of two powerful heroes, with a barely useful passive power, and a basic grasp of some elemental magic. He tried to join the Sidekick Programme like his parents before him, in an attempt to improve on those basics, but it just didn't quite work out.
He quit the programme, and instead decided to assist one of his best friends with her ghost-hunting business — Which was more a "ask ghosts why they're still around and help them find closure" business, but ghost-hunting rolled better off the tongue according to his friend.
Elaine Carter-McLaughlann didn't seem like she had a lot in common with River, but underneath the surface, they were actually a lot alike. She, too, lost a parent at a young age, both of which were famous and prolific, so she, too, felt the unspoken pressure of living up to their legacies, while also sharing barely any personality traits, and only having a passive power to try and attempt that.
She had a slight interest in magic, but without an innate talent for it, she had to rely on totems, wards, shrines, sigils and herbs. Which finally gave River a leg up, as he could create something out of nothing with spells and incantations.
When things got hairy (which thankfully wasn't often), River used his stronger magic to protect Elaine. And when that wasn't sufficient, they could rely on a number of their other friends, though the first one to usually show up was Ethan Knight, aka Lightbringer, yet another child of prolific heroes with big shoes to fill, though Ethan was a bit more successful at it, having obtained the leadership position of the current Sidekick cohort.
Despite being younger than both River and Elaine, Ethan couldn't help but to feel responsible for them, given his position in the Sidekick Programme and the fact that his powers were marginally more useful in regular crime-fighting. Which was exactly why he tended to be the first to respond whenever they found themselves in distress.
Fortunately it really wasn't that often, but still often enough that Ethan worried about them when he lost contact with them in the midst of a calamity. Especially if he couldn't re-establish contact until after they had dealt with the source of the calamity.
River caught his breath a bit as the distant roaring finally died away, and concrete debris and glass shards finally stopped flying at them from all directions. He looked over his friend, who besides a couple of scuffs seemed unharmed.
Thank the Elements...it wasn't all for nothing.
She was talking about...something. River recognised her voice, but he couldn't quite process what she was saying. Not a good sign. Time to sit down.
He carefully lowered himself, hands groping around a bit until he managed to perch himself on the curb. Elaine joined him, still talking. Something about sleep. Sleep sounded really good right about now.
"You...okay?"
River wasn't even shure if that was exactly what she said, but that was the part his brain managed to translate. Now how to reply simply?
"Just tired..."
Nailed it.
Elaine started talking again, but River could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. Another voice joined the conversation, and River vaguely recognised something familiar, something radiant keeping the darkness at the edge of his vision at bay.
And suddenly he was lying down. Someone was holding his face. He weakly pushed them away, or at least he thought he did. He gasped for air, opening his eyes, but only seeing blurry shapes.
"River!"
Hands returned to his face, gently cupping the sides of his head.
"Are you okay? You passed out!"
Obviously not...
But River couldn't really form any words. He managed some sort of groan, and then the darkness returned.
When he next woke up, he felt cold. So cold. His whole body shook, the tremors so bad he felt like he was about to fall. He held on for dear life, one hand clutching the...soft ground beneath him? The other squeezing something solid and warm.
Something cold brushed past his face, and his breath hitched. He turned his head away, whimpering a bit. What was happening? Was this what dying felt like?
"River...River! River!!"
River snapped out of his daze, finding several people staring down at him. Their faces were blurred, but he recognised Elaine's voice, and Ethan's too as he spoke up next.
"Breathe, buddy. Just breathe. We got you."
River realised he was clinging to his hand for dear life when he squeezed back to show his support, while Elaine dabbed his face with a cold, wet cloth.
"W-what's happening?" River croaked, still shaking.
"You used too much magic," Elaine said, "Your aunt is on her way to help, so just hang in until she gets here, okay?"
"A-auntie Sin?" River whined.
"Yeah, she'll be here soon," Elaine said.
"The doctor is gonna give you something to help you calm down so you can rest." Ethan added, squeezing his hand again, "We'll stay right by your side, okay?"
River nodded weakly, grateful to have his friends at his side. The edges of his vision were darkening again, but knowing he was in good hands, he decided not to fight it. Instead, he leaned into their touch and slipped away again.
@whumpay
Saturn & Sinnera (the shape-shifting aunt) belong to @dr-abitat-blog
Ethan/Lightbringer belongs to @illustriousshadow
Masterlist
Main account
The kidssss! These blorbos are planned like 20 years in the future or so, but I already love them so much <3 I've included a picrew of Elaine, River and Ethan respectively
Also I redid this piece like twice, which is why there's a sudden POV switch (at least that's what it feels like to me) Because at first it was mostly banter between Elaine and Ethan and River dying in the background didn't feel whumpy enough, so I scrapped a huge part and replaced it with this.
T/W: Magic overuse, cult setting, conflict, violence, stay-behind-to-save-loved-ones
Day 10 and Day 11 will both be posted tomorrow ^^
It is my sacred duty to put the needs of my people before my own.
As an Elder, It is my sworn promise to the Elements to do everything in my power to protect my brothers and sisters from harm and suffering, to preserve the Elementis Order from whatever outside forces dare to threaten it.
I must fight until the very end, to do whatever is necessary to save them all.
Even if it destroys me.
Even if it drains every last drop of my energy…I will not give up.
“Father!”
The cries of my name are faint behind me, lost in the persistent ringing resonating through my ears. Each of my muscles trembles with fatigue, barely just continuing to hold. Pants of exertion leave my cracked lips. I dig my feet in harder, buckling and straining under the weight of the giant metal shield encompassing what remains of our home. It is forged of the strongest magic – but the metal monsters are even stronger. In hordes they come, swarming like locusts upon us. When one falls, others replace it. Lightning and thunder ripple around us, the same kind that has already claimed numbers of our people. The earth quivers and quakes beneath their rolling wheels as they advance yet again. They are expecting us to surrender.
I have no intention of doing so.
“SCUTUM SIANSO!”
Despite the exhaustion, I will keep fighting.
Despite the agony searing across my chest and the dark spots swimming in front of my vision, I will remain standing.
Despite the blood steadily dripping down my face, the tinge of sweat and copper now soaking into my lips, I will continue to face them.
“F-Father Mercury, it’s too much! Y-you have to stop!”
More cries and concern for my well-being sound out. I can feel their eyes staring into the back of my head. Even as I buckle under the weight of the shield, attempting to warp their own metal monsters with the ability granted to me by the Elements, I cannot lose focus for a second. I cannot take any risks. The spasms continue across my body. My lungs feel as though they are on fire. Great painful lungfuls of air are all I can manage as the next wave comes. My attempts to manipulate their own metal are weakening as I do. As my magic does, slowly leaving me the more I push myself—
B-Blessed Elements, please lend me your strength—
“Mercury, stop!”
Tears begin to form at the sound of her frantic pleas. I still hear it, even amongst the terrified wailing of our young, the sounds of mourning for our fallen children, the combined prayers for salvation—
“G-get them…away…”
I force each word out through tightly gritted teeth. It’s all I can do to hold back the brimming screams of my own. “R-Rowena—take them all—g-go—b-before they—they—!”
I have to pause to cough up the blood beginning to fill my mouth. That is the ultimate warning sign that I am straining myself beyond repair.
M-may I not fear the evil that seeks to destroy us—
“G-go! GO!”
My bond sobs. I sob aloud once with her – but that is all I allow myself. More voices cry out. I still hear it through the ringing. Footsteps run in the opposite direction. Crying, stumbling, shrieking. I tune it all out as best as I can. My knees give way from under me. The shield begins to implode. My head feels as though it may split in two—
Guide me to deliver my people from the darkness—
The next shield lasts only a few seconds. The lightning and thunder returns. I can barely hold it up. My chest is about to explode. The inevitable is coming.
Grant me the courage to make the right choice for them—
More tears fill my eyes. Colours merge into one. The ringing in my ears intensifies—
A-and may I never lose faith…in your divine protection…for as long as I may—
“Agh!”
Something tears into my side. I feel the warmth soon after, swiftly joined by the fading colours. The ringing ceases. Darkness slowly creeps in. I do not care anymore. I simply…let it take me. I have fulfilled my duty. They will be safe.
Mikey opens a time gateway. (But not the gateway you're thinking of)
words: 3423
Notes:
Bit of a time skip from the last chapter!
We are still in Angstville. :3
I rewrote sections of this chapter like 3 times, so I hope the final result is okay
Michelangelo sat in the Middle of his room, books and scrolls surrounding him.
I can do this. I can do this. He repeated to himself as he took a steadying breath. (He ignored his trembling hands).
For all the years and scrolls and books he had searched for and researched, creating a Time Gateway wasn’t actually that complicated.
But years it had taken.
---
Mikey had demanded that Draxum help him find the time scepter or relics. Draxum had refused, but only because he knew that the items Michelangelo wanted no longer existed, if they ever did in the first place.
Then Mikey begged Draxum to help him look for it anyway or for any way to get his brother back. It was in the wake of Raphael’s death, and his determination was the most alive Mikey had looked in months. He needed to find some possible way to fix things. That was when Draxum caved and agreed to help him find a way to create a Time Gateway.
Draxum only knew about the theory of them in general, he could not perform the ritual himself. But he knew they were risky and usually required multiple masters to have enough power to perform one.
Mikey didn’t let any of that deter him.
Mikey was then told of where they could possibly obtain the knowledge necessary to learn how to make a time gateway. Draxum and Mikey told everyone that they were going to complete Michelangelo’s mystic training to become a master. That was true, it was one of the reasons that Draxum agreed to the search, that in doing so they would also finish his mystic training at the remaining strongholds of Mystic Teachings.
And then they had left. Over the next two years Michelangelo and Draxum found the texts to learn how to make a time gateway together, though Draxum was still wary of it, claiming the process to be very risky, both for the casters, and for time itself.
However, on the journey they found something else.
They had found that the empyrean had actually been created by the Krang’s arrival centuries ago. They found a way to mystically reverse engineer it to push back the Krang.
They had made headway over the next couple of years in the fight against the krang and gained land and resources. With the war finally turning in their favor, Mikey had other things to focus on and his plans for the time gateway were pushed to the side, even though his grief had dulled but never disappeared.
And then the krang found a way to negate the mystic attacks. The war had stalled for another 2 years, and they lost Baron Draxum during that time.
Then the krang found a way to turn the mystic attack against them, and they scrambled to hold their ground.
And then Michelangelo lost another brother, and gained a new reason to try for a time gateway.
---
According to everything he read on the matter, the only things needed to create a Gateway was: Focus and Conviction set on a clear point in time of when you wanted the gateway to open to, and an immense amount of energy to tunnel through the stream of time.
(That last part was what Barry had been worried about the most. It’ll be fine, don’t think about it.)
And okay. It was a little more complicated than just thinking about When you wanted the gateway to open. There was a lot that had to deal with sensing the flow of time, and following it back (or forward but that was more complicated) and staying connected within your own timeline and not fracturing it and possibly destroying your own time line in the process before even getting there.
Draxum had worried over that too, saying the gateway wasn’t worth the risk. But he wasn’t here to stop him, Mikey thought bitterly. Neither was his most overprotective brother. Nor the brother who had the most to say about the possibilities of time travel.
That was why Mikey had to practice now, get used to the flow of linear time, and how to reach back in it. Reach back, open a gate, and pull something (some One) Back.
He couldn’t worry about the possibility of only being able to do it once. He had to be able to do it twice. So this first attempt was just practicing. If he messed it up, he didn’t want to get stuck in a time loop of his brother dying. (Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Focus.)
He had to focus on something else. Some other time. Some other time with something he could put enough conviction in to focus on…
Well. They certainly had joked about it enough.
Mikey was going to order a pizza.
He raised his hands. Moved them in the specific pattern the scrolls said to. Felt the flow of time around him, focused on When he was wanting to go, and Reached.
It was a weird feeling. Cold rushed past him, but there was a warm chord of time he was following that connected to when he wanted to go. Trying to expand the cord into a tunnel felt like standing at the bottom of a waterfall and trying to swim upwards.
He pulled a little more from the well of mystic energy he had inside to push forward (backward? FOCUS).
He could do this. He had to do this.
He needed his brothers back.
He had to be able to do this. Just a little more.
A little more.
Come on, come on!
He could feel the push and pull of the time stream.
“Mikey?”
He just had to keep pushing, put just a little more energy into it-
“Mikey?!”
Focus. He had to focus. This couldn’t work if he was distracted.
“What are you doing?! Mikey stop!” The pleas of his (last remaining) brother were ignored. He had to FOCUS-
“Michelangelo! STOP!” The cold (hot? It felt like they were burning) hands that shook his shoulders sent him out of the timestream, faster than he had entered it. He gasped like he’d actually been holding his breath. In the dying light of the orange gateway, that had been about the size of a quarter (that was all the bigger it had gotten?) he saw Leonardo’s concerned and slightly panicked face.
Michelangelo glared at him.
“Why did you do that?! Why did you stop me?! I was So Close!” he growled. (It was a lie)
“So close to what? Mikey, what were you even doing?! Do you see what it did to you?”
“I was-“ He cut himself off. How could he explain this? “I’m fine!”
“Michelangelo. No you’re not.” Leo gently took Mikey’s hands, and he looked down at them.
There were cracks that covered his hands and spread up to his elbows. They were bleeding ever so slightly. Well, Shit. That hadn’t ever happened before. He hadn’t noticed it at all before, but now he could feel the pain seeping into his limbs.
“Oh…. Ow.”
“Yeah ‘ow’” Leo sighed. “Sit on the bed, big man.” Leo said as he guided Mikey into sitting.
Mikey stared at his hands. Was this what Draxum had been so worried about? Pulling from the source of his mystic energy, his ninpo, and using too much it was actually pulling him apart too?
“Let me see your hands” Leo said, kneeling in front of him, holding bandages and other medical supplies. When had he stepped away to grab them? Mikey rested his hands on his brother’s metal one (Mikey had been on his journey when Leo lost the real one. He tried not to feel guilty about not being there). The movement stretched the cracks and he winced.
He couldn’t help but think how 20 years ago he might have asked for some pain relief, but it was a rare commodity now, only used in extreme cases, and this was far from the worst pain he’d ever muscled through.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as Leo wiped the blood away, and applied a very thin amount of antiseptic to the cracks.
“So you gonna tell me what you were doing, that caused this?” Leo asked conversationally as he began to wrap his hands. Leo was looking at the wrappings, but Mikey still avoided his brother’s face and looked around the room. It looked like a whirlwind had swept through and threw all his books and belongings every which way. He remembered the feeling of cold sweeping past him and wondered if maybe a whirlwind HAD swept through.
His brother was still looking at the bandages he was wrapping around his arms, giving him space, but Mikey knew he was still waiting on an answer. Where to start?
“I was…” Mikey chuckled wetly, “I was trying to order a pizza.” His voiced cracked on the last word.
Leo turned his head at that, eyebrow raised in confusion, but the corner of his mouth was twitching at the remark. “You were… ordering a pizza?”
“In a way…” Mikey chuckled before sighing.
Leonardo was done with the bandages and sat on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with his brother. Mikey leaned into him. 35(34?) years old, and he still leaned on his older brother.
“Do you remember that one time we were talking about pizza?”
“Gonna have to be more specific there, Miguel.” Mikey butted his head against the shoulder he was leaning on.
“When we were talking about summoning pizzas?”
“Haha, yeah I remember that! And old Barry said you’d need a dimension filled with pizza for it to work? Don’t tell me you found a pizza dimension” Leo chuckled.
“No, no pizza dimension, sorry,” Mikey hummed.
“Darn.”
Mikey fiddled with the edge of his bandages before he spoke again.
“And do you remember how Donnie said it was too bad we couldn’t just travel back in time to get one?” He felt his brother stiffen. “And then Draxum said that time travel was possible but you needed a time scepter or a gateway, but that pizza wasn’t worth the risk of messing it up?”
Mikey could feel Leo looking at him. Mikey couldn’t look back at him, kept going, knowing if he stopped, he wouldn’t be able to start again.
“And, and do you remember how me and Barry were gone for two years to complete my mystic training, after-“ deep breath”-after Raph died?”
“Yeah?” Mikey could hear the confusion and concern in his voice.
“I- I asked Draxum to help me find a time scepter or whatever, but he said they didn’t exist, but I kept asking about anyway to go back. And then he agreed to teach me how to make a time gateway.”
“Mikey.”
‘I- I just wanted to get Raph back!” Mikey plowed on, “You and Donnie were so angry and upset! Without Raph you were both throwing yourselves into fights and I was afraid I’d lose you too! And and I wanted him back too! So I made Barry teach me! On that trip I found all the books I needed, but it still took time to learn, and then we found out about the empyrean and we started winning and I- I stopped working on the gateway, trying to finish the fight with the Krang! And I forgot about it! And then- and now- now Donnie is dead too-” Mikey was sobbing by the end, voice cracking so bad the words barely made it out.
“Oh Mikey” Leo breathed, eyes wet, turned and wrapped him in tight hug, letting Mikey sob into his chest.
It’d been only two weeks since Donatello’s death.
“I want our brothers back, Leo. How are we supposed to do this without them?”
“I don’t know Mikey. I don’t know” And Oh. Oh shit. Leo was crying now too.
Mikey knew that Leo took Raph’s death very hard. They all did, of course, but Leo especially. They’d been co leading missions and supply runs and just watching each other’s backs. When one couldn’t handle the load, the other took it up. But then Raph was gone and Mikey himself had gone on a Mystic Journey for almost two years leaving them alone. So Leo and Donnie had relied on each other even more than before. And now Donnie was gone too. Mikey should have been more surprised by how well Leo had been holding himself together.
Mikey now realized why his brother had looked so panicked when he stopped him from opening the gateway. He didn’t want to lose his last brother.
“Shit, I’m sorry Leo” he cried and hugged his brother harder.
“Shhh Mikey” Leo whispered and rubbed soothing circles on his shell. He didn’t say it was okay, because nothing was okay.
They sat in silence for a while longer. Part of him was ashamed for crying so much when they were already surrounded by so much death and destruction. The other part of him (Dr. Feelings? Hadn’t heard from Him in a while) said that this was needed, that keeping everything locked up would just cause problems later.
They held each other and shared their grief for a few more minutes. Then they finally untangled themselves, and went back to leaning shoulder to shoulder.
“So this,” Leo pointed to his damaged arms, “was caused from you trying to open a time gateway?”
“Yeah,” Mikey sniffled.
“Guess this is why Draxum said you needed a team of sorcerers huh.”
“Yeah, trying to push the gateway through time was pretty tough. Guess it was a good thing you stopped me, I hadn’t even noticed the cracks.” Mikey rubbed at his arms, the more they sat there the heavier and more sore they felt.
“Even though you said you were close?” Leo asked, concern once again on his face.
“I wasn’t. Not really,” Mikey admitted. “I’d say I only got about… 60%? of the way there? But I was…. Also trying to go farther back than I really needed to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t kidding, earlier, when I said I was trying to get a pizza.”
Leo raised a brow in question.
“I was practicing. Seeing if I could even do it at all. Figure out how it feels to navigate the time stream. We joked about it so much,” Mikey chuckled wetly, “I thought I’d practice by pulling a pizza from the past.”
“Oh my god. You really did try to order a pizza via time travel” Leo said face palming, but Mikey saw a hint of smile, so he’d call it a win. “Wait, you were just going to pull the pizza through, not you go through the gateway itself?”
“Yeah that was the plan, though I’m not sure if it would have worked like that. That’s why I was testing it. I thought… I thought if I could just- just go back in time to right before they died, that maybe I could bring them here. Nothing else would be changed, we’d just get them back in the here and now.”
“Mikey, I’m not sure that would have worked anyway.”
“And why not?” Mikey demanded. He had worked too hard, to be told it was a fruitless endeavor (even if he already knew it).
“Because they did die,” Mikey refused to look at the purple and red bandanas tied around the sword handle that proved it. “And if you would manage to bring them here… It means you’d have pulled them from some other Time line, breaking it into branching timelines.”
“You sound like Donnie,” Mikey grumbled. Leo just smiled sadly.
“And if you did do that,” Leo continued, “you would have just made another timeline where we still lose a brother. And I don’t think either of them would want that.”
Oh.
Mikey hadn’t thought about it like that.
He still didn’t like it.
“I suppose you’re going to order me to not attempt it again?” Mikey asked, expecting a resounding “you bet your shell!”
But he was met with silence.
“Leo?”
“Well, I can’t really order you to do anything. But… I… don’t think you should try again, for pizza or our brothers,” Mikey pretended not to notice the tremor in his voice on that last word. “It seems too much of a risk for you to lose yourself in trying, and my Ninpo isn’t strong enough to help either.”
Leo paused and stared at his hands.
“Master Splinter used to say something about not wallowing in bad things of the past, that we just have to make do with what we have now. That all our experiences, good and bad, help to shape who we are.”
Mikey could remember his dad saying something like that. He thinks it had originally been said about his own fate of being forced to fight in the Battle Nexus and then captured by Draxum and mutated into a rat. And that while those events were awful for him, he wouldn’t change it for the world, because it had also given him his sons.
“So you’re saying that if we go and start trying to fix all the bad things in the past, we might miss out on the good things that also come from them?”
“Now you’re getting it,” Leo smiled at him.
“Like the finding out about the empyrean when I left after…?”
“Yeah. It helped us push back the Krang, and regain some area and resources.”
“But it didn’t last for very long…” Mikey said dejectedly.
“No, I guess it didn’t, but maybe it gave us enough time and space to find another way to finish them off for good. We still have hope that we can turn things around. As long as there’s hope that we can fix things here in the present, we shouldn’t use time travel. That… time travel will be the last possible course of action, Okay?”
“Okay, as long as you promise me you won’t die too,” Mikey knew that Leo couldn’t really promise that. But he needed his brother. Needed to know he wouldn’t throw himself into danger recklessly in vengeance or self-sacrificially.
“I promise to do my best to stay alive, as long as you do too.” That was really the best he could ask for in the situation.
“Ha, I can do that.” Mikey huffed a laugh. He continued, “So ordering pizza via time travel is a last resort, huh?”
Leo laughed the first real good laugh Mikey had heard in a long time, “Is that what-“
“What you said 15 years ago when we first had the conversation about time travel? Yep!” Mikey popped the p.
“Oh real funny old man!” Leo laughed, and locked an arm around his younger brother and gave him a good noogie.
“Old Man! Have you seen the wrinkles you’ve got!” Mikey said, affronted, while he failed to wiggle out of the hold.
“Not as many as you! And all that grey hair!”
“Excuse you! This is not hair, NOR grey! And it makes me looked distinguished, thank you very much!” Mikey said with a flip of said hair. (It was actually algae that had grown while on his mystic journey with Draxum. He had been going to get rid of it, but the rolling laughter it gave Donnie at seeing the look of jealousy on Leo’s face, that Mikey got to have Hair when he didn’t… well, Mikey decided to keep it).
“It makes you look like an old man!” Leo laughed.
“You’re just jealous.” Mikey sang.
“I am not! I-“ Leo was interrupted by his communicator beeping.
“Sensei?” The high pitched voice of a 12 year old Casey asked, “Have you found Master Michelangelo yet?”
“OH RIGHT! Yeah Casey, I got him, be there in a minute!”
“Understood, Sensei!” The call ended. Mikey raised an eyebrow.
“What was that about? And Yeesh, that kid needs to relax. He knows he doesn’t have to call you that all the time right?”
“I’ve TRIED to tell him that! But the kid just won’t have it,” Leo sighed, throwing his hands up in the air, but he had a fond smile on his face. “And he made something he wants to show us, and I was supposed to come get you. We better get going.”
As Mikey followed his brother out of the room, he thought to himself, that as long as he had people he cared about, like his brother and Casey and April, around, that everything would be okay. He would keep looking forward.
whumptober 21: My stone, my shield, my steady hand. Hold your light to the darkness in my head
Alt prompt: examination
whumptober day 21
-
part two for day 19.
“ Wild you were shot.” Hyrule stated, legend gagged at the sight, he blinked owlishly.
“I was?” he attempted to look over his shoulder, there in fact was an arrow sticking out of his shoulder blade. “Oh. I was.”
“You don’t feel that?! ” Legend asked incredulously, “wild that’s like- halfway through your shoulder.” Wild poked at his shoulder curiously, he felt some pressure but that was about it, legend blanched at his movement, reaching a hand out to wild. “Don't touch it your going to make it worse.”
-
or
hyrule, legend, and wild are trapped in a labrynth with no food, water, or supplies.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
When the whumpee has magic, but they use too much of it, causing them to collapse. The caretaker finding them in an unconscious heap on the floor, and carrying them to a bed, then leaving water on the bedside table for them before settling in to wait for them to wake up. The whumpee waking up with a pounding headache, too weak to even sit up on their own, and the caretaker helping them sip the water, then scolding them for overdoing it. The whumpee apologizing and promising to be more careful in the future, not looking forward to the time they’d have to spend in bed recovering from this, especially because they knew that the caretaker wouldn't let them get up until they were fully recovered.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Caught Out
Written for @whumptober2019 Day 20: Trembling
T; 1.6k
Rum Tum Tugger/Mister Mistoffelees
Mister Mistoffelees has never used so much magic, so fast and so hard, before Macavity's attack at the Jellicle Ball. It took more out of him than he expected, but he's sure that if he can just hole up somewhere to recover, he'll be fine - and no one else ever has to know.
Absolutely everything to do with magic overuse/exhaustion. Psychic nosebleeds, headaches. Physically feeling their strength get ripped out of them when they go beyond their limits. Hands trembling as they struggle to keep the spell going. Passing out from the strain only to awaken later aching all over. Alternatively, a slow drain over a long period of time so you can see them get progressively weaker.
