Much like the Hollow Knight, you were modified by your father, physically and genetically, for the purpose of defeating and trapping a local Sun goddess within your mind. Unlike the Hollow Knight, however, your father's motivations were purely selfish.
Your father was a dragon who longed for immortality and godhood, and saw defeating the sun and experimenting with your genetics as the means of achieving both.
He went so far as to make dealings with an eldritch being in exchange for its genetic material and the means for modifying existing beings, such as yourself.
Your father doted on you, not as a favored child, but as his magnum opus. He never allowed you to come to any harm, or, at least, what he deemed to be harm. He kept you isolated throughout his experiments, and he was practically the only other living being you knew.
By the end of the experimentation, you were a yokai-eldritch hybrid: part dragon, part psychic vampire, augmented with eldritch blood, and fully trained in combat; a genetically engineered god hunter.
When the Sun goddess was successfully defeated and trapped within your psyche, your father hid you away, promising to return once he'd found a way to be rid of the Sun goddess permanently. In reality, he was returning to his experiments to try to unlock the secrets to immortality through observing you in a controlled environment.
He never did come back for you.
Time passed, and you eventually met the turtles. It was not a smooth or friendly meeting.
Having been isolated for years with a vengeful goddess trapped in your head was terrible for your mental health, and you'd become indiscriminately violent, your behavior influenced by the angry goddess trapped in your mind.
Needless to say, they end up finding out about your situation and find a way to help you out.*
*In short, they broker peace between yourself and the goddess, seeing as you both suffered great harm at your father's hands.
It's a long road to recovery afterward.
You have several breakdowns and relapses, at one point even turning to fighting voluntarily in the Battle Nexus to cope with your trauma; fighting being one of the only things you were ever taught to do well.
summary: So in my headcannon April and Y/n met after the turtles kept sneaking out of the Lair for an unknown reason.
Raph Leo Mikey Donnie Y/n April
The turtles tip toe inside the lair trying there hardest not to make a sound. It was dark and it was 4 am.
"Guys remember be quiet! We don't wanna wake up mom or else we're done for."
Raph said in a whispery tone.
"Lets hope mom isn't already awake. She should be getting up soon to start breakfast."
"Lets make sure we get to bed muy rapido before then so mom doesn't realizes we snuck out."
"Too late boys."
The brothers instantly turn to see Y/n sitting on the couch with an annoyed and tired look.
"Look mom its not what it looks like- "
Y/n raises an eyebrow looking for an explanation.
"Okay it is what it seems like."
"Mother I had absolutely nothing to do with this they dragged me along. Plus it was Leo's idea to sneak out."
"What the- Donnie!"
"I don't care who's Idea it was to sneak out. The fact of the matter is you all snuck out and I want an explanation."
"Alright fine. You know how you said to stay hidden and whatnot? Well we may have been spotted by a human"
"I'm sorry you were what?"
"Its alright though cause the were totally cool with us and everything! We're friends with them!"
"And how long ago was this?"
".....Around a year ago?"
"And you've been sneaking out why? To see them?"
"Sort of?"
Y/n sighs, clearly annoyed.
"Well who are they?"
"Her name is April and she's really cool and nice and funny!"
Y/n begins smirking with a teasing expression.
"So you've all been sneaking out to see a girl?"
"Don't say it like that! She's just our friend that happens to be a girl!"
"Sure she is."
Mikey gasps as an idea pops in his head.
"We should get you to meet her! Trust me you'll absolutely love her!"
"Oh i'd love to meet her. Since you boys obviously are so fond of her i'd love to see what the hype is all about."
"Trust us you're gonna love April! She's awesome! She's even gotten Donnie to open up to her in like a month!"
"Oh wow that's impressive. Took me two years to get Donnie to actually tolerate me. Lemme guess did he tried to bite her and hissed at her when they met?"
"Oh haha very funny."
"No he didn't but that's cause he was interested in interacting with a human that wasn't you for the first time. He had so many questions for her he practically took up most of her time when they met. Speaking of meeting, Donnie text April to meet us in the Alley near the Tony Lou's Pizza place after she's done with that school thing she keeps talking about."
Donnie waves his phone gently.
"Already 2 steps ahead of you Nardo. She asks why though. What should I tell her?"
"Tell her we want her to meet someone."
"Alright and sent."
"Tell you what boys. I'll let you guys off the hook if I like your new friend. But if I don't you're all grounded."
"Alright fair."
TIMESKIP
Now its the next day. The boys wait patiently with Y/n in the alley near the Tony Lou's Pizza place. Then a dark skin girl with glasses, brown hair and a green jacket runs in.
"Sorry It took so long. I got held back to finish a science project."
"And you didn't ask me to help? I feel offended."
"No offense Dee but I kinda don't want my project to turn into a killing machine again."
"I have never done such a thing before."
"Sure you haven't. Now who did you guys want me to meet?"
The boys move to the side to reveal Y/n.
"April. This is the wonderful woman who raised us. Our mom. If you wanted to know where Donnie got his oh so lovable sarcasm she's the woman to blame."
Y/n walks up to April and examines her with an unreadable expression.
"Oh um... Its nice to meet you Ma'am. I'm April, April O'Neil."
April holds out her hand nervously to shake Y/n's.
"So you're the girl the boys kept talking about all night? With all that yapping they did they failed to mention how absolutely beautiful you are!"
Y/n's smiles and shakes her hand.
"Names Y/n but please call me mom or ma dear."
April smiles, her nervous expression drops completely.
"Oh. Alright!"
"Oh wow deary you are way too skinny. Please join us for dinner at the Lair."
"I'd love to! The turtles constantly brag about how good your cooking is! They even brought some left overs of it when I forgot my lunch and asked Donnie to bring me some food."
"Oh so that's where the left overs went?"
"I am not sorry in the slightest this woman had not tasted really food until they tried yours."
"Tell you what April. I will personally make you lunch and have one of the boys deliver it to you."
"Oh I'd love that! Thanks Ma!"
"You're welcome. Now lets get going to the lair. If you thought my left overs were good then wait till you start trying food when its off the stove. Trust me its way better. Especially since I made it extra special since I'd already assumed you were coming over anyways."
"You already had me at extra special. Lets go!"
Timeskip to night time.
Dinner was over and April was laying back in her chair, rubbing her stomach.
"Good right?"
"I'd never thought i'd ever have food better than Mikeys. I was proved wrong."
"Who do you think I learned it from? Trust me I know I'm good but this woman is a whole other species of good."
Y/n walks in with a tub of Ice cream.
"Everyone ready for dessert?"
"Im going to leave with a stomach bigger than a whales aren't I?"
"Yup. Hope you saved some room."
"Don't worry April. I know you can't have any more food since your stomach is so small compared to the boys so I'll just pack some in a container for you so you can have it later."
"Thanks ma. You're awesome."
April checks her phone.
"Oh I gotta get home. I'll see you guys later. Thanks for the meal and lovely night ma'am! Bye!"
April gets up and runs off the turtles look at Y/n.
"So what do you think of April?"
"Yeah are we grounded or not?"
"She's a wonderful young lady. I can see why you guys like her. And no you aren't grounded. But please stop sneaking out. I don't like not knowing where my boys are."
Someone, anyone, please give me Casey content. I need more Casey fics, Casey art, shiii, I might even make a self insert for him. I am so in love w this boi, y’all don’t understand. This lad deserves the world, I would die for him, if anyone ever hurt him, they are dead meat- he’s perfect.
Do NOT ask me why but like, I find having a gap between the teeth an attractive feature- idk why but like, characters w the lil tooth gaps have a chokehold on me. I also really love the fact that he’s well built but still very much scrawny, just eughhhhhhhh——— he’s just so cute, he’s a nervous mess, and he’s gone through so much :( he deserves all of the love in the world, pls, I wanna snuggle him, give him smooches, and I just KNOW, he’d be the type of person who likes to have their hair played with, like it would put him to sleep. Just- hhhh. But anyways, I am dying for Casey content
Summary: Aria is slowly growing into their own person with the help of their father, uncles and of course brother Shelldon.
Word count: 3509
Authors Note: I admittedly was sitting on these parts for a while so here second chapter already haha
As expected Aria learned and assimilated themself easily into their new environment. Of course, they were at the start very matter of factly and took everything literally but that was to be expected. Donnie did of course program them with the ability to recognize emotions and being able to detect things like sarcasm easier but putting down the theory on that alone can still not compare really to doing it in practice.
It helped a ton that Shelldon immediately took on the job of supervising them, explaining to his creator that he probably knew best how to teach them and show them how things worked. How could Donnie argue with that? Shelldon literally was in the same boat as Aria.
So when Donnie did enough tests and felt like their robot body worked up to his specifications, he wanted to properly show his new invention around the base to make sure they can find their way and recognize the few people he put into their databank.
Aria introduced themself to everyone “Hello. I am the Autonomous Research Interactive Assistant, but you may also call me Aria. It is nice to meet you. I will be able to answer any inquiries you have. How may I help you?”
It was Shelldon who told them that they don’t have to say out loud that they created a new register and will keep updating it whenever they interact with the new person. That was better left unsaid. It made people feel watched and paranoid and paranoia was in abundance in this apocalyptic world.
Most reacted positive to the new robot though. At this point everyone knew that Donnie was pretty much able to create miracles if he had the resources, so to see a new sentient robot walking around really wasn’t that crazy. While they reacted positively there was still a smidge of hesitancy that was natural ever since the Krang took over.
While the Krang were organic, to the point of their technology even being an organic being, they still deployed monsters into the wild that were basically robots with glowing red eyes. But the people knew. The people knew that technology that was branded with the GeniusTech logo was safe.
His family though didn’t have this same hesitant reaction. They knew that Donnie’s inventions were safe, even after years where they had to “fix his fixes” over and over again. Even so, they trusted Donnie and to that extent his tech unconditionally. Sometimes this realization crept up on Donnie and he couldn’t help but feel warm deep inside his chest.
When they walked past Leo, Donnie stopped him in his tracks. Leo knew of his project but hadn’t had the chance to interact with it yet.
Shelldon happily stood next to his robot sibling and stretched his hands towards them, doing jazz hands as he presented them to Leo “Look at them! That’s Aria! My new sibling who knows everything Donnie knows!”
Leonardo snorted out a huff of air at the excited behavior of Shelldon. His eyes rose to Donnie once with a raised eyebrow before he knelt down to offer his hand to Aria.
Donnie rolled his eyes, he wanted to say that this was unnecessary, but he chose to hold back. Instead, he just watched Leo as Aria went through their introduction spiel once again. The way his older twin brother smiled and begun asking questions as to what exactly Aria can do, it reminded him very much how Leo always interacted with the children in the base.
He always tried to make himself smaller, get to their eyelevel and graced them with the same soft but smug smile. Always asking them questions what they can do and what they had learned recently. The reaction was usually always the same impressed gasp which apparently he couldn’t help doing as he listened to Aria count of all their functions.
When it was way into the night and both Shelldon and Aria were currently charging Donnie met up with his brother in the kitchen when both seemingly went to get a snack and something to drink at the same time.
It was then that Donnie brought this observation up to him.
Leo shrugged “Technically they are only like a week old, and they are also so small. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because it’s very obvious that they are new and still getting used to everything? In a way it really does remind me of a child, I guess? Even if they are a robot and all.”
“You never did the same with Shelldon.”
Once again he shrugged “Eh, I was a teen then and Shelldon seemed to be on eyelevel. Now I’m older and stuff… I don’t know!” He raised his voice at the end but laughed.
It was clear he wanted to give Donnie an honest answer but he himself couldn’t really explain it. Not that this was an important matter anyhow. He was just curious what about Aria made Leo react that way. Maybe it was just his analytical brain trying to understand how Aria came across to others and if he needed to make adjustments.
Mikey was so excited when he met Aria properly. He just kept asking them all sorts of things. Why are plants usually green? Why are some oceans seemingly gray and others are a deep blue? What can you do to force another growth spurt?
Donnie had a smile on his face as he watched his younger brother use Aria as his personal encyclopedia. To be honest this was kind of a good idea to just let Mikey ramble off all his questions and see how Aria reacted. They seemed to react just as he wanted, being able to “dumb down” their explanations if Mikey told them that he didn’t understand their too technical response.
Honestly it was really good training for them to learn a more natural way of speaking and explanation. Even if the details of the subject go missing but those could be asked for and maybe one day Aria will learn with whom they can speak more technical to and for whom they had to rephrase their knowledge. Frankly something he had to learn as well.
Shelldon was also at their side. Explaining to them exactly why Mikey might have not understood their current explanation. He went even so far as giving them a ton of verbal praise to make sure they understood that they did this correctly.
Seemed like Shelldon really took them under his wing immediately.
Raph’s reaction was kind of a mix between Leo and Mikey. Over the years Shelldon also started to climb all over Raph’s shell when he had the chance, just how Raph’s brothers used to do. Well, they still used him as their personal perch to be fair.
Shelldon released his rotor blades on his back to fly up and then sit down on one side of Raph’s shoulder, afterwards putting the rotors back into his shell. The red turtle didn’t even react, so used to this. Instead his eyes were glued on the new robot who was once again introducing themself formally.
Without a warning he just snatched them from the ground and moved them up, so they were on eyelevel with him. He scrunched his face together in thought as he eyed the new robot “So, I can ask you any question?”
Aria nodded, something they didn’t do at the start but learned while doing introductions “Yes. If it’s in my databank I can answer any questions and if it’s not I have the abilities do my own research to answer your question.”
Their speech pattern improved a lot as well. Not referring to questions only as inquiries anymore for example.
Raph squinted his eyes even more together “So.” He drawled out “Could you also help Raph with creating a better training plan? Because I know there are ways to make it better, but I don’t really know how.”
Actually, that was a good question! This wasn’t a straight question for one specific fact. This would require combining multiple things together. It really was a good idea to do the rounds with Aria.
“It should be possible. There are many ways to go about this. Are we talking about increasing muscle mass? Cardio? What kind of training do you already do?”
Raphael smiled “How about I show ya. You can help me then.” He then proceeded to move Aria up to his other shoulder. Shelldon’s hand immediately darted over to grasp onto Aria when he saw them swaying back for a second when Raph began walking.
When Aria introduced themself to April, she looked towards Donnie with a raised eyebrow “Say Donnie, this one won’t go all rogue like Shelldon did once, right?”
He scoffed offendedly at that, even if this was mostly meant as a way to tease him “No! I’ve learned since then! Besides I have higher hopes this time around that my lovely brother won’t just sabotage my work. I’m pretty sure that this fact played a huge role in that”
April chuckled at that “Alright, alright. I gotcha. Just making sure.” She winked to really bring home that she was just teasing him.
She then turned to the new small robot and introduced herself as well.
“Yes. April O’Neil. Oldest sister to the Hamato’s. The brothers met you when they all were still kids.” Aria explained.
She nodded “Made sense that Don already told you that all. Well, I already know you’ll be a huge asset to the resistance and welcome to our little family. Well honestly our family isn’t so small anymore.”
This was certainly true. At first it really was just the four with their father. Then April joined and later Sunita and even Cassandra. Somewhere along the way Draxum joined the family as well. And if you added Shelldon and Aria as well then that made up a group of eleven people. It was just sometimes hard to see with everyone busy or away on missions.
It didn’t take long for Donnie to let Aria roam around the base on their own.
He first placed them to what they referred to as the kindergarten. Really it was a school and a way to train children basic skills to survive in the new apocalyptic world. They had games like “Down the Krang” that was just a way to teach them where some of the weak points were on Krangs and how to work together from an early age on.
But Aria was there and helped the few teachers out that were able to teach the kids. Just how they did with Mikey, they acted mostly as a personal encyclopedia for the children. Which got Donnie a little bit in trouble since apparently Aria didn’t realize they shouldn’t mention the most cruel details of certain subjects.
Kids certainly shouldn’t have to hear about how Krang assimilate other people and how they can basically take apart the victims brain.
Not that this wouldn’t be a thing they’d soon learn anyhow. But people tried to save the children’s innocence as much as they could. Even with death and worse things being a daily occurrence.
It was a bit tricky to explain this concept to Aria though. Luckily Shelldon was right there to take that duty on to himself. Basically explaining in more detail how parents and adults want to ensure children have a happy childhood, trying to avoid anything that might be considered as something negative. Not everything at all the time but they want to take their time before getting into the cruel stuff. Give them a chance to prepare themselves for some of the more cruel aspects of the world.
Which them sported Aria asking Shelldon a ton of questions. Would it be okay to talk about death in general? But shouldn’t they learn what to do when seriously hurt?
It really surprised Donnie when Shelldon seemingly had answers to most of their questions. He supposed it made sense that he had problems trying to teach Aria these things since most of it relies more on instinct and having watched behaviors of others for a while to make these judgments, while Shelldon from day one was only able to rely on what he knew and then over the years what he observed.
Donnie didn’t realize that his instinct when it came to interaction was this strong though, since he often felt like he mostly emulated what others did. Well might be that his emulation of everything happens on a more instinctual part.
As they days passed more and more approached Aria instead of Donnie when he was obviously busy. When Aria was already busy they put the next person in a sort of que in their system and ran from one part of the base to the next.
When Shelldon wasn’t busy on doing his rounds around the base or was on a special recon mission he was usually found at Aria’s side. At this point it really felt like they were joined at the hip. Often enough when Aria had questions on how to handle certain situations they approached their brother more than Donnie, which he didn’t mind! It was an interesting observation mostly.
Though the consequences of this were that they seemed to pick up more and more of Shelldon’s mannerisms. That said they never seemed to take on the same kind of chill bro speech pattern. Even if Shelldon tried to make them say “Brah” only to admit that it felt “way off” coming from them.
“Father, you should rest. You have been awake for 68 hours.”
What they took away from Shelldon was them also starting to refer to Donnie as father. And it surprised him when he didn’t mind it. It made sense. He saw all of his projects as “his babies” after all. Not that he ever would say that out loud. The only one he ever really showed this kind of relationship openly with was with Shelldon.
Well, there was this incident with his bed invention but that’s not the point right now. It wasn’t a true AI anyhow.
The first time Aria referred to him as father, he had to take a double take. They usually tended to refer to him as Donatello, sometimes Donnie and rarely creator.
They once did refer to Donnie as Mister Hamato when there was a prick military person in the base who kept calling the turtle brothers derogatory names and apparently Aria thought this would make Donnie sound more like a person to be taken seriously.
It ended with Leo laughing so hard he fell to the ground blinded by his own tears since this came out of nowhere.
Donnie was mostly annoyed with Leo apparently thinking it was hilarious when someone tried to pay him, deservedly, respect.
But father was a weighted word and normally Aria would ask others for their permission to assign a new alias or nickname for them. But this time they didn’t.
“Excuse me? Can you say that again?” Donnie asked, trying to hide his bewilderment as he turned around in his chair to look at his robot.
Aria had their hands on their hips and the pixelated face was turned into a pouty frown “I said that you have been awake for 68 hours straight and that you should rest.”
It’s been only a few weeks and they seemed to already have improved so much and even showing off their own personality. They often enough reprimanded him to take better care of himself and in a way this reminded him so much of how he used to interact with his own father.
“I, uh, yeah. I got kind of caught up in this project. But what did you call me?”
Aria’s arms dropped to their side, their face turning to a smile as they tilted their head to the side “I called you father.” Their robotic voice was more unsure “I’m sorry. I didn’t ask for permission. I just assumed since Shelldon always calls you dad and he calls himself my brother…” They trailed off at the end.
Donnie was for a moment caught in the realization how much better they got at showing actual emotions. A feeling of pride grew in his chest at the words they used.
They assumed.
They assumed!
They are learning and in turn are growing. And now they are seemingly trusting their own ability to think for themself. Donnie knew that they were a true sentient AI but to see them actually grow on their own? There was no better word than pride.
He slowly nodded “No, no. Shelldon was right.” He hesitated a bit at the end. It is a bit ironic that he created AI able to feel and think for themselves when he is famously bad with feelings himself “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Aria just stared at him for a moment longer before answering “So, it is alright if I call you father? Or dad?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure. I don’t mind.” He tried to sound casual. He was somehow nervous? Happy? It was a complicated feeling that was settling down in his chest and gut which made him almost more annoyed than anything.
“Alright then, dad. It is time for you to rest. I already asked Uncle Mikey to make you something small to eat as well.” They then walked over and begun softly pulling on his hand.
Donnie couldn’t help but just follow along. Sure, Aria was stronger than most but right now they were barely pulling on him, still Donnie moved as his robot pulled him away from his work and instead into the part of the base the Hamatos have claimed for themselves.
“Uncle Mikey?” Donnie asked as they made their way. Donnie was a bit ducked down so he could still hold onto Aria’s hand as they continued to pull him along as if he didn’t know the way to his own kitchen.
Aria nodded “He said I could call him that and I like it. I like that I have a family.”
Summary: Donnie is stretched thin in the apocalypse. Everyone needs the help of the genius but there is always so much to do, even with the help of his family and Shelldon.
But luckily Donnie is a genius inventor. Might as well create a robot that is simply there to answer everyones question.
Thus the Autonomous Research Interactive Assistant, aka ARIA, was born.
Word count: 2539
Authors Note: This is just a personal project I will work on in between Dream World and my college work. I just love the idea of Donnie creating a second AI and Shelldon immediately taking the mantle of the older brother.
I just wanna write the robot siblings causing chaos while Donnie scrambles behind his robot kids to make sure no one dies.
Also i just wanted to take the chance to maybe write in the future Casey jr and Shelldon hang out bc you can't tell me those two wouldn't kinda think of each other as cousins lmao
Also I gave Reader a name (Aria) in this one but Y/N will be used sometimes at some point in the future.
In the apocalypse Donnie’s mind has probably become one of the most important assets. He provides clean water, weapons, protection, and intel. And he makes it look so easy. You had a problem? He probably has multiple ways to solve it for you.
The thing was everyone had some kind of problem.
“Hey Donatello, we have problems with this water purifier. We can’t find the correct replacement parts, do you know what we can do instead?”
“Oh, Mister Donatello! We are trying to bioengineer crops that work well with the destroyed soil here somewhat. We need your expertise!”
“Aha, Donnie! Our weapons seem to be less effective against the Krang. Got something to juice our weapons up more?”
“Donnie, we really need you for this recon mission to determine what the Krang are building there.”
“Donnie, how is your research going into reversing the effects of Krang infection?”
“Donnie, we need more prosthetic limbs.”
“Donnie, medical supplies are running low. We need a proper substitute if possible.”
“Donnie, you really should sleep more.”
Hah, sleep.
Sleep felt like it was only a distant memory at this point.
He wanted to help! He really did but it was just impossible to follow every inquiry with the same priority. Either because some things were frankly impossible at the moment, they didn’t have the correct materials for the project or there just wasn’t enough time.
There was always so much to do and never enough time.
Even with the help of his brothers and sister. The work seemed never ending.
So, as a way to try to mitigate it, Donnie decided to upgrade Shelldon. Over the years the bot made great strides when it came to learning more about behavior and seemed to get better at interacting with people. His rebelliousness faded over the years. Understanding that there were more important things to do and if he can help his creator, or father as he began calling him over the years, then so be it.
That said he still acted often more like a young teenager than the recon bot he was supposed to be. Frankly Donnie giving Shelldon proper limbs like legs, arms and of course hands seemed to have enabled him more when it came to his mischievous behavior. Now being able to interact better with the world around him.
Still, he was reliable and was able to assist with recon missions and relay important information from one point to another in record speed.
Besides, Donnie would never admit it out loud, but he did appreciate Shelldon’s attitude somewhat. Somehow his mischievous behavior brought him a sense of normalcy. Something that survived the start of the apocalypse. Sure, he was an AI and part of this could be then attributed towards Donnie’s programming but still. A lot Shelldon learned himself. Even more he seemed to have picked up from Donnie’s family to his chagrin.
As much as Shelldon helped him out though it never seemed enough. Shelldon was meant more for recon rather than as an information bank to help other parts of the resistance.
There was a knock on the door to his workshop. Donatello didn’t even bother answering already knowing it was Mikey who would just let himself in. If Leo, Raph or April did that he’d make an annoyed comment. Mikey had the younger brother privileges. Not at all times but most times.
Enough to particularly annoy Leo with that fact.
“What can I do for you, Mikey?” Donnie asked as he hurriedly continued to type on his computer. New lines of code appearing on the screen in a scarily fast tempo. His battleshell was laying on the ground against the desk. The design having become more sleek over the years. Though even in the apocalypse Donnie couldn’t help himself adding a few LED lights for the aesthetics.
The Krang were the absolute worst thing that ever happened to the world and the universe but when they do manage to liberate a Krang labor camp they did get access to interesting Krang materials that he didn’t hesitate to use for his own projects.
One such project was currently sitting on a workbench on the side connected to his computer with a ton of cables. Charging as he worked on upgrading the programming of his new invention.
Mikey was now standing behind his chair “We haven’t seen you longer than a few moments the last few week. We’ve been worried about you. Gotta eat and sleep, Donnie.”
He wanted to roll his eyes but his eyes were too busy scanning his code since there seemed to be some kind of mistake. Probably a missing semicolon.
“I am eating and taking rests. Don’t worry. Besides once I’m finished with this I will hopefully have an easier time taking breaks.”
This obviously piqued Mikey’s interest “Oh? Why is that? What are you working on?” He finally moved to his side, his eyes now scanning the code as well which was amusing to Donnie. Mikey probably tried to gleam any kind of information from it while barely know anything when it came to programming. Not that Donnie hasn’t tried teaching him. He never got past the basics with him.
But this was way past the basics. This was genuine GeniusTech programming that can create a sentient AI.
“I’m making an assistant.” He simply stated.
Mikey paused “What like… what? Isn’t Shelldon already kind of filling that role?”
Donnie tilted his head to one side and back, as if he was mulling this statement over “No. I want to create an assistant that can store a vast amount of information on all kinds of subjects while being able to autonomously do research shouldn’t the correct answers be there.”
“So, we don’t have to bug you anymore when asking you how god and the world work, eh?” He didn’t need to look at his younger brother to know that he was smirking. At this point this has been one of his biggest grievances after all. Sure, he loved infodumping but topics like the filter of a water purifier weren’t exactly on the top of that list.
“But more importantly.” Mikey drawled out the last word “Does that mean Shelldon will have a sibling?”
Donnie bristled at that, as well as a turtle can bristle “No! This is just my Autonomous Research Interactive Assistant. Nothing more. I’m building it to give us room to breath to work on more projects at the same time.”
His brother chuckled at his response “You say that but you aren’t even correcting Sheldon anymore when he calls you dad.”
He couldn’t even respond before Mikey spoke up again “Anyway, is that them?” Probably pointing to the slumped over robot on his workbench.
The robot was just like all his tech purple. The head was more humanoid in nature with a screen for where the face would be. They also had a shell on the back. Knowing Donnie there were probably a ton of hidden compartments that held all sorts of interesting gadgets. It was probably only around four feet tall which would put it around the same height as Shelldon.
This actually felt rather short even for Mikey nowadays. All the Hamato brothers have had growth spurts over the years. All but Mikey were almost towering over other humans at this point. This just seemed to be one of the other effects of originally being created to be soldiers to fight in a war against humanity.
It was a bit ironic and almost heartbreaking that this gave them now an edge while warring against the Krang. Even though Draxum created them for this reason he still seemed somewhat sad about that fact now. Though Mikey was sure he was the only one who noticed that about the goat yokai. He was probably the only one who could read the yokai almost like an open book at this point.
Donnie’s gaze flitted over to his workbench, looking at the robot that Mikey was now closely scrutinizing without actually touching it “Yeah, yeah. That’s the Autonomous Research Interactive Assistant. Or will be.”
Mikey furrowed his brows, his hand running through his short black hair that he was slowly growing out, mostly on Donnie’s orders since he was still a bit perplexed by his sudden hair growth “Why not just call them Aria. Seems easier than to say the whole name out loud.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure. Aria.” Donnie sighed.
“Shelly knows about them, right? Like he has to since you work on them in the open like that.”
Donnie scoffed at that “Of course he knows. He helped assemble the pieces and calibrated the joins while I worked on other things or the code.”
“That might explain why he has been more high energy than usual.”
“I swear if Shelldon touched one of the Krang energy cells again-“
Mikey laughed “Nah, I think he is just excited at having another robot around soon.”
Donnie didn’t respond to that. He was too busy adding more lines of code. Everyone seemed somehow way more excited at his new invention than he anticipated. Aria, as Mikey had dubbed it now, would be hopefully a big asset in the base.
“Anyways. Stop working on them. It’s Hamato dinner time. I was supposed to just grab you. Let’s go Donnie, we actually scrounged up some nice ingredients for once. Come on, come on. I cooked real food after ages.”
The prospect of honest to god real food sounded fantastic. It sounded so good after months of just military rations that he immediately saved his project and got out of his chair to put on his battleshell. It was just dinner with the family but especially nowadays he despised walking around without his artificial shell.
After being caught in a fight without it he almost glued the piece of tech on him. He even slept with it on for a while. His brothers had to practically peel him out of it. Leo then had to take care of any chafing on his soft shell. This whole experience was unpleasant enough that he learned to at least take it off again when he sleeps or when he is hunkered down for days in his workshop.
“Food sounds good.” He agreed as he followed his brother out towards where his family was undoubtedly waiting for them. If they started without them Mikey would probably beat them all up. Knowing him he probably wanted to see everyone’s reaction to his cooking after such a long time.
It took a good while longer for the work on Aria to progress. A lot came in the way of that but Donnie tried his best to work on this project whenever he could.
Donnie was currently working on Shelldon’s left arm that got a bit jostled during his last recon mission. He had to admit he always felt a few trepidations when he sent out Shelldon with others for missions. This time it seemed somewhat warranted since a Krangified human apparently got close enough to get ahold of him to pull his arm out of its socket. Were he a living being trying to set the arm back in would be painful as all can be but luckily for Shelldon this was mostly a thing of moving it back in and just repairing and fastening screws to hold it in place.
Maybe he should upgrade Shelldon again and give him even more defensive capabilities even if it’d slow him down.
A metallic scratching sound pulled him out of his thoughts “Shelldon. What are you doing?”
Shelldon was using his other arm to look at the exposed wiring and exoskeleton of the robot next to him. Aria was still sitting on the workbench slowly collecting dust.
“Just seeing if I can do something while you work on me, dad. I wanna see them finally come online.” He simply replied.
Donnie pulled one small screw tighter “If you want we can work on it more once I’m done with your arm.”
Even if Shelldon was incapable of an actual smile due to his build, Donnie swore he could see him do so in his own way. He obviously perked up at the prospect.
And as promised as soon as the arm worked again and was calibrated to Donnie’s standards, which took way longer than Shelldon would have liked, they jumped at completing the chassis.
Completing the code took longer than that. It took a couple more weeks between missions and work for Donnie to feel confident enough in his work to try to activate the robot for a test. He just wanted to see if his code started up correctly.
Shelldon was at Aria’s side while Donnie worked on the computer side of things. Starting up multiple of his analysis programs to record how the technology worked with each other. If there were parts that unexpectantly heated up for example.
He pressed on his enter key to start up the Aria program. Immediately turning around to see his GeniusTech logo appearing on the screen of Aria’s face.
A few commands appeared. Showing him exactly what programs started and loaded up only to disappear again and a pixelated face in a neutral expression appeared. Huh, he swore he designed it in such a way that it should start with a resting expression.
Aria blinked.
“Hello. I am your Autonomous Research Interactive Assistant. How may I help you?”
Donnie couldn’t help his glee as he yelled out “By Galileo! It works!” It loaded up and reacted just how he wanted when being approached by someone else. There was definitely too much static in their voice and there was a weird echoing effect on it. Something he will have to work on.
But now to test its capabilities.
Something easy to test the waters.
“At what temperature does water boil?”
The response was immediate “Water begins to boil at 99.97 °C, 211.9 °F and 373.15 Kelvin.”
Ah just as precise as he had hoped.
“Explain to me what the measurement of metal strength is.”
Once again, the response was fast “Tensile strength is a value that indicates a metal's ability to resist deformation and failure when loads are applied that pull it apart. Tensile strength is typically quantified through units of pounds per square inch, PSI, or pascals, Pa.”
Perfect! Now what else should he ask to really test their ability to pull the correct knowledge out. What would be a complicated enough question?
“Brah. Come on. They just came online! Do you just want to quiz them?” Shelldon whined. Sometimes Donnie was really confused where he got his attitude and speech pattern from. Then again Leo did sabotage him years ago.
Sighing, he relented “Alright. Autonomous Research Interactive Assistant. Register an alias for yourself.”
They tilted their head to the side to look at him inquisitively “What name do you want me to register?”
Shelldon’s head snapped up to his creator. There was something pleading in the way he acted and looked at him. Donnie nodded.
The turtle robot walked in front of the new one “Aria. A-R-I-A.”
“Aria.” They repeated. “The name has been registered as an alias. You may refer to me now as such.”
