#sewer crypt

Chapter One

What would happen if Raph, Donnie, Casey, and April were never cured?

My idea from Here.

The night air was chilly, especially up on the rooftops. Perhaps too chilly for mid june, but it didn’t bother him, not anymore anyway. In fact, he loved it, reveled in it actually. The bite of the cool breeze in his throat tasted like power. It tasted safe. Safe as this side of the city. The stars were bright here and he was glad for it. The telltale light pollution of civilization disgusted him, it reminded him far too much of the burn of sunrise. But this part of the city had been taken by his kind long ago.

Never had he actually found the darkness of night all that dark. Whether or not that was the result of his dimly glowing eyes or just the abilities that came with the transformation was beyond him. At the moment, It didn’t matter either way because it allowed him to watch his newest batch of ghouls run around the street like roughhousing children. He enjoyed watching them, it took his mind off things.

He’d always been a natural at controlling ghouls. Even back when he was a little fledgling surviving off spiders and rats. He still had his baby fangs back then. That thought brought a smile to his face, one that quickly faded when his mind provided another memory from back then. The time he’d invited his brothers to join him. He was quite naive at the time and he wished he could go back to give his younger self the cold, hard truth and maybe a slap to the face. His hand reached up to his bicep to fiddle with a long, red piece of fabric tied around his sleeve. A habit his master encouraged. It probably made him easier to manipulate, whatever, he didn’t really care all that much.

Pulling his hand away quickly, he reminded himself he still had one of his brothers and two of his friends. Sighing loudly he glanced at his watch and a not so quiet cuss rang out. Taking a deep breath of air, he let out a bone chilling screech that echoed across multiple blocks. His ghouls took action immediately. Scrambling through open doors and windows and into sewer grates and manholes. There were even some clambering into ventilation shafts at the top of buildings. It looked like chaos, and it was, but they all had one goal in mind; to get out of the open. The time was 4:30, far too close to dawn for his comfort.

He himself hastily made his way to a manhole, jumping off the building he had stood on. He hated taking the sewers, they were filled with painful memories from… less complicated times. His hand wandered to the strip of red, tattered fabric just as his mind wandered to old memories. Memories of laughter, memories of fighting, of crying and hugging, of joy, of playing and injury, training and youth, memories of brotherhood.

"Raphael!" A voice yelled way too close behind him. Startled, he whipped around to see a pair of familiar glowing eyes.

"Donnie?" His voice sounded shakier than he anticipated. He blinked away tears he hadn’t realized were there and cleared his throat. His brother's annoyed expression morphed into pity. He hated that. "What the hell, man? You scared the shit outta me!" His voice had a lot less bite than he wanted.

"Look where you are." Donnie’s voice came out unimpressed and somehow it was worse than pity. "I’ve called your name like twenty times!"

Raph glanced around the environment and quickly realized where his brother's worry had come from. He was in his old room in the old lair, muscle memory must have taken him here when he wasn’t paying attention. Weird. He’d think after thirty three years his body would know not to go here anymore. It was the exact same as it was all those years ago, minus the thick layer of dust that seemed to coat everything, he also noticed that his extra mask was nowhere in sight but he decided not to think about the implications of that.

"Oh, whoops! Muscle memory am I right?" He forced a smile onto his face which Donnie immediately gave a look to.

"That’s probably the single worst fake smile I have ever seen." Raph decided Donnie’s deadpan was definitely worse than pity.

He chewed the inside of his cheek and kept from meeting his gaze. Had he always found it this difficult to lie to his purple clad twin?

"Sorry." He eventually managed to sigh out.

"Don’t, just… don’t. Let’s just go home." Raph couldn’t help but wince internally. He hated making Donnie worry, he was his only brother who didn’t see him as some death obsessed, bloodthirsty monster. Probably because he was one, too.

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Ngl I'm about to eat my own art with the way I drew Raph tbh

Raph huddled against himself, tence. Instinct that always sounded vaguely like his master blaring alarm bells in his head. It felt like his heart was beating so hard that he thought it might make his plastron beat too, like how it did in cartoons. The metal floor was uncomfortablely cold, which was weird because he usually liked the cold. His shell pressed against the thick bars behind him as he glared from his corner at the boy, no, the man across from him who seemed irritatingly calm, relieved even, maybe? Raph couldn't tell. He could, however, tell that he was injured. The tangy sweet scent of blood was driving him up the wall, especially since that very man had interrupted his meal a few hours ago and now he was starving. But he knew better than to try anything. The large, callused hands of his cagemate gripped the handle of his katana tightly, professionally.

Raph snapped his eyes away from the handle bound in blue and back up to the aged face of his brother.

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Chapter Two

"Fuck!" Mikey barked as he was thrown backwards into a rusty support beam. He heard his shell crack before he felt it but he didn’t have a single second to spare.

With one hand he forced himself off the ground and used the momentum to harshly right hook a ghoul just before it could attack him. Grabbing it by the neck, he pushed it into two other ghouls that were currently rushing at him. He spotted rubble hurtling at him out of the corner of his eye and acting on adrenaline his legs shoved him out of the way just in time to witness the three, scrambling ghouls be crushed under the force with a sickening crunch and a splatter of thick, viscous fluid. He didn’t have to look to know who the culprit was and he didn’t have to look to know he really needed cover right now. Feeling another spike of adrenaline sent him scrambling behind a huge chunk of concrete. A mocking, sing-songy giggle rang through the carnage before Mikey’s hiding spot was shot several hundred feet into the air.

Turning to face her sent nausea through him, not because she was hideous, quite the opposite in fact. She looked like a deity with how she hovered in the air. The white silk draped about her body combined with her long, ginger hair that whipped around her seemed to crown her body in a glowing halo of light. But the look on her face betrayed her true nature. That’s what made him sick, that look that could only be described as evil stretched across the face of a girl he used to call a friend.

"Hiding from little, old me are you?" She cackled, condescension dripping from her voice like venom.

"Why are you here, April!?" Mikey screamed over the howling wind and crashing debris around him. "This area has nothing for you or your master to gain from!" The sneer on her face vanished and instead was replaced by an icey glare.

"What?" Her voice was just above a whisper but somehow it seemed to cut through the screaming wind. A smile crept across her face again but it was different than before, it looked like a mask.

"Don’t pretend like you know me." The orange banded ninja felt a pang of hurt in his chest but he quickly pushed those feelings down, deep down into the farthest parts of his soul before they could get the better of him.

"Don't pretend like you know my motives." Her tone was getting angrier, louder.

With a flick of her wrist he was flung into the air, stopping right in front of her. Suddenly the air changed, emotion seemed to drain from her, and the world seemed to muffle around them.

"You always did have quite an imagination." Was what she said before he was catapulted through the air with such force he swears he felt his organs flip.

The wind screamed in his ear as he could do nothing but watch as Manhattan whizzed past him through squinted eyes and gritted teeth. Just as quickly as it started, it ended and he was suddenly engulfed in freezing cold water that cut off a scream he didn’t even know he was making.

The sudden chill of the water almost sent him into shock but the adrenaline pumping through his veins kept him conscious. The adrenaline quickly turned to panic. His heart beat almost hurt and his mind clouded. The sea stung his eyes and blurred his sight. Frantically he clawed at the water that threatened to drag him down into the darkness creeping into his vision. Through the panic he almost didn't notice a strong hand grab his bicep but he sure as hell noticed it pull him out of the water and onto a paddle board.

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Casey was definitely what one would call an obsessive drinker. Once he had his hands on a meal nothing, absolutely nothing, could distract him from it. Apparently, except for someone soaring through the air, screaming, overhead.

Startled, he let go of his meal who took the ample opportunity to push his face away before stumbling to her feet and running away to die in some other, random alley. Now he was pissed. So, doing like any sane and put together vampire would, he took off after the person that dared disrupt his meal.

Of course, he had to chill out a bit when he was stood at the edge of one of the biggest, toughest camps under the revolution's control. Instead he settled to watch from a rooftop as the mortals all hurried out to go investigate the giant splash just off the coast of the camp. As they did this Casey’s annoyance was quickly replaced by amusement as he realized exactly who had been shot through the air. However, he immediately made another realization. The only person who could have possibly thrown someone that hard was April, but April much preferred to play with her victims, so if she threw Mikey away something had to be wrong.

He turned to look in the direction that his old friend had been thrown from and, if his skin could get any paler, the color would’ve drained from his face. He didn’t wait a single second to take off running in the direction of what looked like an impact zone. Yeah, she was definitely pissed, too.

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SC Raph: kys

SC Casey: