Chapter Text
Bootyyyskaker9000 joined the game
"Oh you have got to be kidding me we spawned in the mud?!"
neonleon joined the game
"Oh hella, mud!"
madraph joined the game
"Leo, you are not helping whatsoever- please for the love of Pizza Supreme stop walking on the mud-"
magicMike joined the game
"Leo stop antagonizing Donnie."
"Whaaat? I'm just walking! I ain't doing nothing wrong!"
"I'm going to beat you to death with my own two hands if you don't stop-"
"Oh mi gosh frogs! "
Raph sighed as he watched his brothers all scattered about, Mikey chasing and cooing after the frogs and hearing the repeated punches of Donnie staying true to his words behind him. "I'm startin' to think that this was a bad idea."
"Oh, it'll be fun, Raph! Don't start growing another chasm so soon," Leo teased, his voice coming from above the snapping turtle. He craned his head up to see him hiding in the tree to avoid Donnie, the soft shell in question perched on his own tree to avoid walking on the mud. "Besides, who doesn't love a bit of the ol' craft?"
"Can we do that after we get out of this biome? It's horrible." Donnie added, and Mikey tried to find him since he was a bit of a ways ahead of them now.
"Aw, what? But what about the frogs?"
"We can find more frogs later- I'm pretty sure you can find them in snow or dessert biomes too." The soft shell replied with a wave of his hand, sounding distracted. He tried to see how far the mangrove spread, but it looked like there wasn't an end to it. Great. "Unfortunate news, my dearest brothers- we appeared to be trapped. Please panic appropriately."
Mikey was seconds away from screaming when Raph caught up to him, and he stopped the noise by giving him a quick punch to the arm. "No panicking! Look, this place can't be that big, so let's just go in a random direction until we find a new place to build our base!" He gestured for the box turtle to follow him as he climbed a tree, spinning around in thought before pointing south. "Let's go this way! Mad Dogs, ahoy!"
"Watch as it leads to just an even worse place like the badlands or something," Leo whispered to Donnie, the soft shell snickering to himself as they all follow Raph. Occasionally, they would have to pause when the tremors in Mikey's arms were so strong that he couldn't even get a single step in, or when Raph would feel the beginning of a headache creeping in because he was straining his eye too much. Sometimes it would even be because Leo, begrudgingly would request a break and Donnie would leave the call to go check on him.
No one wanted to call it quits, though. It felt like if they did, they would have to face the reality that they were now living in, and none of them wanted to return to it so soon. The scars were still too fresh, still raw and red against their bodies and minds, blood still pooling at the corners and dripping down the edges. So they continued onward, hopping from treetop to treetop and laughing at the poor turtle who missed a jump or got pushed off.
The journey felt slow, and it was well turning into night when the mangrove finally began to thin out and was gradually being replaced with birch woods and spotted flowers. Leo leaned over the tree, peering at the ground and seeing just how many mobs there were. A zombie started to head towards him and could only look up at him with how high up they were, and he barely managed to make out the shape of a spider standing next to a creeper before an arrow whizzed past his face and leaving a thin, red scratch across his cheek.
"Ow-" He hissed, quickly moving away from the skeleton's line of sight.
"What do we do now?" Mikey asked, casting a worry look to Leo. The slider sent him a quick thumbs-up in response, watching his health slowly start to refill.
"We can't just jump down or else we're gonna lose more hearts..." Raph muttered, resting his hand against his chin in thought.
"Try telling that to Donnie." Leo's words made Raph look up in alarm, whipping his head around to see where his brother went. Donnie, already deciding to split off from the rest, was running full speed away from the mobs that noticed him. Occasionally he would punch some away whenever a zombie or skeleton got too close, not even trying to attack the spiders, and soon he vanished over the hills. "Welp. Donnie's a goner, time to find a new brother."
Before Mikey or Raph could respond, they noticed a message coming in from the chat box.
Bootyyyskaker9000: Guys I found a village.
Bootyyyskaker9000: Get your asses here pronto before I steal all the food.
Leo shook his head, already muttering under his breath an, "Oh hell no." before he's leaping off the tree, ducking behind a stray arrow and sprinting off to where Donnie was, Mikey and Raph following short behind. It was hell getting past the mobs, especially since they were beginning to run low on stamina, when the village appeared like a lifeline over the hills.
"Move move move I'm fragile I'm on half a heart-" Mikey locked himself in the nearest house he could find, resting against the door as he sighed heavily. Raph and Leo entered another house, startling Donnie who was in the middle of looting a chest. He shrieked, causing the other two to scream as well, and even though Mikey didn't knew the context of what was going on, he joined in as well.
Donnie was the one who stopped screaming first, about to hit Leo and Raph before realizing that they're most likely on low health too. "Shush shush shush! I can't hear myself stealing bread with all of you screaming in my ears!" He tossed a couple of the bread to his brothers, closing the chest with a slight thud. "We should be safe in here for now- does everyone have enough food to regenerate hearts? Mikey, you good over there?" The box turtle hummed in response, munching on an apple as he peered out the door. He wasn't able to see much when he got a face full of skeleton staring back at him, and he yelped in surprise and stepped away from the door. For a second, he worried that it might be able to open the door, but that isn't something they should be able to do, right?
The skeleton still staring right at him said otherwise. He slowly moved away from the door, stepping out of its line of sight and crouching down like a child thinking that hiding under the blankets would protect them from monsters. It felt like he was hiding from monsters ever since the day he had a taste of what hell was like. It was there in the deepest shadows, watching him with pink tendrils slithering out from the corners of his eyes, but were always, always too fast for him to see when he whips his head to look at it.
Monsters aren't real. He tries to convince himself, repeating the words like a mantra, a prayer, a plead to some higher beings to make his words ring true. The beings look at him, knees against the floor and three-fingered hands clasped tightly together, eyes squeezed so tight he could see pink, and they merely scoffed at his existence. At his wishes. At his his cries for safety against the creatures that haunt his waking moments. Monsters aren't real. He repeated, again and again and again and again, desperate and frantic and still not opening his eyes. Still cowering underneath the thin, feeble blanket, that he still foolishly thought would bring him some semblance of protection against the stark, yellow eyes that leaves him paralyzed in ways he never want to experience again. Monsters aren't-
The others were still talking. Mikey realizes this belatedly, pulled out from the dark recesses of his mind. He's not quite sure what snapped him out of it, but he accepts the relief from his mind with arms outstretched, latching himself to the conversation with the desperation of a man about to be hung.
"-arely have any weapons, much less armor, Nardo, there's no way you could fight the golem." Donnie stated, and Mikey could already see Leo leaning against his twin as he replied, a lazy smirk that he wore proudly strong in his voice and loud enough for them to hear. Lately it feels like all Leo have done since they brought him back was smile, cracking jokes after jokes, uncaring about the constant beeping of the machines he was strapped to, the sound harsh and grating against Mikey's ears. The smiles would never reach his eyes, his jokes always felt tight, painful to make, like it was hurting him to say but he kept making them anyways, determined to keep his role as the face guy and not his older brother.
"Watch me. I bet I could kill it without getting a single hit!"
"Bet accepted! If you die then I'm not telling you the coords, though- that also apply to you too Raph. If you snitch I'm disowning you."
"Hey!"
But this... felt familiar, in a way that Mikey never knew he missed. Listening to him banter with Donnie and Raph, the jokes didn't felt like he was trying to hide himself. They felt natural, warm, like holding a hot cup of chocolate against the chill of winter.
The skeleton began to burn outside the door, but the sounds of bones clanking barely registered in Mikey's mind. All he could think about was hearing Leo, Donnie, Raph all laughing, truly laughing. He watched, stepping out of the small home and feeling the villager pushing him aside to get on with his day.
He watched as Leo build a small dirt tower in front of the golem, Donnie and Raph watching from slightly afar, arm raised high as he gave it a proper smack across the head.
He watched, feeling laughter bubbling from his chest for the first time in weeks as the golem retaliated almost immediately, swinging its arms at Leo and sending him flying into the sky, Donnie and Raph positively losing it at the sight, cackling as Leo, somehow surviving the attack, began to run, screeching the entire time as the golem followed behind him, hellbent on attacking him again.
Maybe Leo was right, he thought, joining his two older brothers as Leo took shelter on top of a poor villager's roof, squawking profanities as Raph, now equipped with a flimsy, wooden sword, and Donnie following behind with a wooden axe, began to hit the golem so that it'll stop tormenting him. Maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all.
"Alright, now that we've proven, yet again, that Leo's an idiot," Donnie started, resting the axe over his shoulder and gesturing wide to the brother in question, who was munching away on bread with a dejected expression. "Where should we make our base of operations? I vote for the village- it's an easy supply of food and potential traders, and also we don't have to build our own house since we could just yoink one from a poor sap so! Anyone else down to staying here?"
Raph hummed in thought, looking around with a slight spin to check out the area now that the sun was up. It wasn't anything to crazy- just a regular, small village in an open field. There was a huge mountain a good distance away from them, snow bleeding from from the peak just like how Leo was bleeding when they pulled him away from the portal, looking so, so impossibly small at that moment. He could still feel the beat of his heart when his hands were wrapped around his neck as they ran to him, quick and hard against skin despite how defeated he was; powerless in his hands, body hang high for his brothers and his L̶e̸a̵d̵e̷r̷ enemy to see. No, not defeated. Accepting. He was okay with him ending his life at that moment. He had accepted the fact that he was going to die by Raph's hands. The protector. The big brother. The one who is the biggest. He was okay with it. He was okay with it-
The snapping turtle shook his head to clear his running, cruel thoughts that haunts his waking moments, trying to focus on the task at hand. "How about we go explorin' just a little bit more before we decide on staying here?" If his voice sounded just a bit strained than before, the others didn't mentioned it. Mikey and Leo made noises of agreement. Donnie pouted, muttering to himself under his breath about how his genius was never appreciated but didn't put up much of a protest after that.
They all silently agreed to scatter to collect as much resources as they can, taking enough food and making themselves much needed weapons for those that didn't get the chance to before they took off again. Mikey waved the villagers off, Leo copying the hums that was heard occasionally, and now they're off to find a place they could call home.
"What kinda house do y'all wanna make?" Leo asked, staying close to Donnie as Raph took the lead. "Let's make something huuuuuge !"
"Like in Edith Finch?" Mikey piped up, pausing from collecting some flowers.
Leo and Donnie both looked confused at the reference. Raph tilted his head, trying to remember why that name sounded so familiar. "Oh! You mean that game we played together with the really tall house?"
"Yeah, that one! It'll look so cool if we all had our own floor to decorate and seeing them all coming together at the end!"
"Wouldn't that take too long, especially if we're all dependent on the person below us to finish their layout so that we could start building our section?"
"Well duh, DonTron, we aren't gonna finish the game in a couple of hours. We aren't speedrunning."
"On the contrary, my dearest twin! While you simpletons go running around in mines and getting blown up by creepers, I will take on the noble task of bringing this game to its knees !"
"Just don't do it near me and we'll be good, m'kay?"
"No promises."
Mikey, who was quiet the whole time in thought, spoke up. "What about a giant tree? It could- hold on." He started digging the earth for some dirt, Raph falling a bit behind to join the twins as they all watched him work. Once he got enough, he started placing down the dirt as he talked. "We could build our own custom tree- those aren't too hard to make, there's loads of tutorials out there- and we do a spiral staircase that reach to the top! Then we could have our own layer and boom! A cool base, baby!"
"Oooo, Raph likes the sound of that!" The snapping turtle grinned. "What about the top of the tree?"
"Star gazing?" Donnie offered, quickly becoming on board with the idea. Leo nodded quickly besides him, jumping and spinning as they continued to find a place to call home. It was hard not to- the excitement was palpable among the four, like a breath of fresh air after breathing toxins for so long. And it continued to carry them forward as they marched, soldiers ready to return from war.
It was Raph who found it, squinting past the trees he was perched on and shouting for his brothers to join him.
They were met with cherry blossoms, the soft, pink petals floating across the breeze and forming clutters on the ground. The terrain shifted further ahead, dropping into a massive pit that formed a circular lake below. The decision was made without a doubt amongst the four brothers. This was where they would be staying for the foreseeable future.
And with that in mind, they began to plan.