Chapter Text
They were never supposed to be on the surface by themselves. Splinter had always enforced a strict buddy protocol; however, Donnie didn’t have any other choice.
You see, he was so close to a breakthrough in his latest project, an upgrade to the drill that would possibly allow him to progress it out of beta – finally.
Unfortunately in a twisted turn of fate it seems that he had run out of a specific copper alloy that he needed for his delicate wiring. And no, he would not lower himself to using sub-par copper, only the best would suffice for his drill. So now he was questing to his favourite scrapyard.
Now this alone is not an excuse for him to be out without a buddy, and he would be more than happy to go scrapping with his brothers, but they were all preoccupied at the moment, and he couldn’t just wait for their next availability.
Mikey, who usually joined him to look for materials, was trying his hand at a new dish, one he apparently couldn’t step away from and it was well known that tearing Mikey’s attention from his cooking was similar to attempting to draw Donnie away from one of his inventions – that is – entirely impossible and dangerous.
Leo had already grabbed Raph as a buddy for his own venture to ‘Run of the Mill’ Pizza, no doubt so he could oggle at that new rabbit waiter. Ugh, gross.
Anyway, even if Raph was free from supervising Leo drool over this waiter (he still needed to do a background check on him – just in case) it was very unlikely that Raph would join him, as he would take one look at his eyebags that suggested nights of subpar sleep and would force him to bed, and Donnie couldn’t have that.
So, Donnie obviously couldn’t wait for one of his brothers to become available, he was running on spite and seven cups of coffee, if he stopped now then he would surely fall dead asleep and that would not do. Not when he was so close to finishing this upgrade.
Donnie picked his way through various scraps, wiping away some rust to get a closer look and brushing away a particularly stubborn beetle. Picking out pieces that stood out to him and placing them in his battle shell, it was always very distracting whenever he visited a scrap yard. He always found himself collecting materials that he had no specific use for, but he couldn’t just leave them. He likened it to going grocery shopping while hungry, sure he may not need this circuit board, but it wasn’t like it was going to go bad, and no one was going to use it anyway!
His eyes scanned the scrap yard rapidly, not wanting to miss anything-
There!
A flash of green crossed his vision.
'uranium?'
But no, he realised that what he saw was not his most desired wish but an oozesquito, glowing an eerie green and resting on the hood of a busted car.
Slightly disappointed, but no less intrigued, he crept closer to the insect.
While he wasn’t surprised that he and his brothers hadn’t fully exterminated all of the horrid insects, it still sent a jolt of displeasure through him that they were still flying free, able to sting and mutate more humans and potentially create dangerous villains that could put his brothers into even more danger.
Slowly, he took his tech-bo out of his battle shell and pressed a certain button, converting the tech-bo into a net, perfect for this situation. Raising the net, he carefully eyed the insect and quickly brought it down.
Smack!
The net hit against the car hood, but the oozesquito had evaded capture and was flying off.
“Oh no you don’t!” he called, running after the insect, furiously swiping at it with his net.
After a few more attempts, it was clear that his approach was not working and the oozesquito was flying higher and higher out of reach, he cursed not wearing his jet pack battle shell and jumped up after it, a final attempt before it would be out of reach.
“Come back here you foul Culicidae!”
At the very last second however, the oozesquito doubled back, flying directly towards him, the trajectory of his net was suddenly way off, and he fumbled.
Panicking, he saw the insect approach ever closer, and made a mad grab towards it. Surprisingly, his fist closed over the insect and he fell back towards the ground, tucking into a roll and sticking the landing.
A sharp sting suddenly came from his hand.
Donnie opened his hand to reveal a slightly squished oozesquito, looking a little worse for wear. The most alarming detail however, was that its abdomen no longer contained the green glow of the ooze and there was a throbbing red sting wound on his palm.
He had a short moment to reflect on how he probably shouldn’t have touched the oozesquito with his bare hands before
Everything
Went
White
He had never felt pain like this before, it reached every corner of his mind, and he was unable to think of anything else other than the unnatural ways his body was contorting.
Donnie let out a silent scream as he fell to his hands and knees, his muscles shaking with tension as he was sure that he was going to die, not felled in a blaze of glory but by his own stupidity.
Honestly. He expected better.
After what felt like hours of this all-encompassing pain, the pain on his shell somehow got worse and increased further to a crescendo.
His battle shell! Donnie still had it on, and the pressure it was exerting on his shell was excruciating.
Clawing blindly at the release mechanism, it took a couple of attempts until the artificial shell was dropped with a deft thud onto the ground.
But the pain didn’t recede by much, instead something much worse took its place.
Riiiippp
Donnie let out a choked gasp, his shell was tearing apart! The most horrible part was that he could feel it, he could feel the separation slowly get wider and wider. The tear starting from the base of his shell near his tail and was steadily and methodically travelling up.
Riiiipp-sckp
Once the sickening feeling reached the top of his shell, his now split shell suddenly jerked away from his back, lifting like a hinge, revealing whatever foreign thing now lay within his back.
And something stretched.
And something flexed.
And,
It was over.
The pain had vanished so quickly he almost believed he had imagined the entire thing. It was illogical. There were no phantom pains or lingering exhaustion from the ordeal. Just nothing.
Donnie breathed a sigh of relief.
Then his shell moved.
Now Donnie did (past tense?) have a soft shell, that much is true. It granted him a degree of flexibility that his brothers simply didn’t have, much to their jealousy. So it wasn’t so strange for it to shift or bend a little. But not like this, and definitely not of its own volition, with nothing pressing against it.
Donnie jerked forward, as if he could escape the wretched feeling on (in?) his shell. Donnie staggered to his feet; hands clenched tightly as he fought for balance. Not because of fatigue, but because his centre of balance had shifted somewhat.
“what the-“, He murmured as he took a deep breath as he prepared to look at what had become of his shell.
Oh,
Well that is certainly not… normal
Donnie started hyperventilating. Because what lay on his back was not his normal mottled green shell, instead it was much smoother, and had very small ridges running down it length and a more reflective quality to it, but what really caught his eye and made Donnie sick to his stomach was the massive chasm splitting the shell into two.
the split was neat, the edges of each half smooth, not at all looking like the horrible wound he had imagined. he would go as far to say that it looked natural, except that it wasn't, because his back was not supposed to look like that.
Like it was responding to his panic, like it was part of him, muscles which he didn’t have just mere minutes ago flexed and the two halves of his shell (was it a shell?) smoothly lifted from his back, blocking his view of what lay underneath.
He turned to find a particularly reflective piece of metal so he could turn in such a way that would allow him to see… whatever this was. After finding the aforementioned piece of metal had him he found himself hesitating.
Though he felt no pain, he knew that his shell was what was protecting several vital organs as well as his spine, was that what he was going to see, his exposed icky, gooey organs?
Biologically it made sense, though for the first time, he hoped that science was wrong in this situation (Biology was his least favourite science anyway, especially after the Kraang).
Gathering his courage, he turned and looked at what lay under his shell.
And blinked.
And blinked again for good measure.
Under his shell lay three pairs of gossamer thin wings, insectoid in appearance. They vibrated slightly, as if responding to Donnie acknowledging their presence, emitting a low buzzing sound. The light refracted off of them, making them almost seem to glow a soft lavender.
Donnie exhaled, eyes wide and unbelieving, for his shell was no longer a shell, it was no longer protecting only a spine and organs but wings.
What lay on his back was an elytra.
