Boo!

Donatello travels to the possible future and is later pulled back home. The family, he included, tell each other about their adventures across time and space. Later, on a normal day of non-interest, they can’t find Don. They look and search but find nothing. Don’s tale of the future he visited comes to mind but they push it aside, surely this isn’t that. Surely Don just fell asleep in the sewers somewhere and his phone is turned off.

But soon they’re running away as their father gives his life for their continued survival. Soon the sky turns black with pollution and the earth is covered in bones. The sky filled with utroms in weaponized mech suits. Soon Mikey screams out as he looses his arm. Soon Raph’s follow as goop that once was his eye flow down his face. Soon Leo trades his bandana for a pair of sunglasses.

And without notice, Michelangelo is in his late fourties’ staring at his 16-year old brother as he asks what happened to his arm. Later, as the three brothers gather together to talk in private, one brings up a dusty memory from thirty years ago. Of a 16-year old Donatello on the living room couch describing a mirror of each of them. Of how Mikey yelled out for him as he died. Of how Leo once again turned his back to the enemy. Of how Raph fueled by rage fizzled out on top of his brother. Surely they can prevent this. They know what the Other Them did not.

But as Mikey is surrounded by Karai Legionnaires, he calls out to his missing brother thirty years too young. As he falls he realizes, he did exactly as what was described thirty years ago. As Leo feels a burning pain at his back, in his shell, he turns around to look at Karai one last time. And as he falls he is reminded of a conversation thirty years ago. As Raph crawls along the floor, pain across his plastorn, he reaches for his brother laid out on the floor before him. Collapsing onto his brother, name on his lips, he is reminded of a haunted tale from thirty years past.

As they die they come to know. This has happened before. They were told of it. And as it happened then and now, it will happen again. Who knows how many times this has happened and will continue to happen. Maybe this Donatello, this 16-year old version of their brother, the only one they can ever know, will survive. Maybe this one stays and they won’t die on the cold hard ground of the Shredder’s throne room. This again is a mirror of thoughts created hundreds of times before.

"Sean Bean??!!??"

"..."

"Sean Bean??!!??"

"..."