Archive of Our Own

Some days, Venus’ past felt like a show constantly being rerun. 

Venus played with the tails of her braid as Doc connected to the large computer and began sifting through its contents. There wasn’t much for her to do since he had a handle on the tech side of things, but knowing kraang-lang came in handy every once in a while.

They were systematically shutting down all the abandoned kraang facilities in New York. There were probably more elsewhere, but New York was the kraang’s hub and now that they were gone, it was her family’s job to clear out the rest of their traces. The power had effectively been cut, but they didn’t want to risk there being anything to turn back on. Some of the facilities were being repurposed for the Utroms’ use, but mainly the ones close to TCRI. They had no need, nor the people, for such a wide reach. 

They dealt with all the ones on the surface first, sending word to Bishop once they had shut it down so he could strip the tech. When they moved underground, things became a little more complicated. The process was essentially the same, but there was a maze of tunnels to contend with. The maps were all scrambled, meaning they were stuck wandering.

It was just Venus and Dr. Rockwell today, and Venus was mainly there as a precaution. They couldn’t be sure there weren't traps or another World Genome Project with a ton of bizarre April clones locked somewhere down here, even if they hadn’t come across anything like it so far. The most they found were old combat machines or stasis chambers, but Venus wasn’t inclined to give up their buddy system just yet.

The place they were in now was odd. All of them were, but this one was like a pocket. Whatever it was, it was a closet compared to the other ones they had been to and Venus hoped that meant they would move on quickly.

“Hm,” Doc grunted with mild interest.

Venus glanced up at the screens he had activated and walked closer to the dim pink glow.

“This is an archive,” Doc explained as he mentally sifted. “Of what, I cannot tell. It seems they tossed files in at random. I’m not seeing anything of note, it’s all just piled on top of each other.”

“Like a junk room.” Venus chuckled. “I didn’t know they had those.”

He continued to assess the data, giving her a few interesting summaries as he went along. 

Doc paused and squinted at something.

“That which is known as Lineage,” Doc translated, expanding the file. “It’s a collection of bloodlines they experimented with to create the mutagen key: Ms. O’Neil. Most were failures, either needing to be terminated or interned for further ‘testing’.”

“Is April’s family here?” Venus frowned at the blocks of kraang-lang as he sifted through the information with his powers. “Does it say what they did to her mom?”

“It does narrow to them, yes,” Doc answered. “It seems they tried to create new strands of DNA with the remaining samples of Ms. O’Neil’s mother, resulting in some things I don’t think we should bring up-“

“The kids already met a version of the woman that tried to eat them,” Venus said flatly. “You said samples. Does it say what happened to her?”

For all she knew about being a mom, Venus didn’t know anything about what it was like to have one. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have a mom, have that mom mysteriously disappear, and then have her come back a decade later only for it to be revealed that she was actually a monster clone. But Venus did know April was curious. She wanted to know what happened to her mother and Venus wanted to find her an answer.

“These notes are irritatingly vague regarding what’s happening to her, but they keep talking about using samples of her DNA,” Doc answered. “After a while, the notes start mentioning recreation of the source.”

Which meant they took and took from Mrs. O’Neil until she had nothing left to give.

“Does it say… does it say why?” Venus asked. “Why ‘02? If April was their golden ticket, why would they take her mom?”

“It seems that when Ms. O’Neil was a child, her powers surfaced enough to catch the eye of their monitoring system, but they assumed the energy signature came from her mother. They thought they were taking their prize and immediately started the next phase of their work.” Doc sighed in a sad, tired way, and Venus put her hand on his back. “That poor woman.”

Their trip ended quietly and they called the O’Neils. 

Their trip to explain what they found was quiet, too.

The farmhouse was often a topic on wistful nights.

The kids would tell a story or two, talking over and interrupting each other until they had to be reminded of what they brought up in the first place.

They didn’t always like to talk about it. Not after nights when Venus was woken by phone calls and spoke until her brothers could be convinced she was alive. Not when the kids caught Leo napping and just… stared at him for a few moments. Not when there would be a pause in conversation and they would know the others had recalled a time where Venus and Leo hadn’t been there with them.

Venus liked to hear about it, though. For all of the mutagen craziness that happened after Leo woke up, the farmhouse had been a safe haven. Far from the danger of the city, they were given a chance to rest. A chance to lay in the sun or stare at a sky with stars in it. 

Sometimes, she wondered what things might have been like if she hadn’t been buried. The kids wondered about it aloud a few times, too. Maybe things would have been easier. Maybe they would have come back sooner.

But so much happened during the invasion that Venus didn’t want to wish away. All the people they saved, forging the bonds she made with the Mutanimals, strong-arming Baxter onto their side, finding Karai…

She wouldn’t change her choices. It hadn’t been her decision to stay behind without the kids, but she knew what she was doing when she cut off her only exit at TCRI, the same way she had known when she held Kraang Prime back in the technodrome during the first invasion. She leveraged herself to give her family a chance.

No one liked being on the other end of that sacrifice, herself included, but it was necessary in those moments. It was what saved them.

Mr. O’Neil didn’t often speak about his wife, so much so that Venus hadn’t even known her name until recently, but one night, he told Venus about the night she was taken. He hadn’t known about the kraang then, and certainly not about any genetic engineering. He was just a guy trying to settle down with the woman he fell in love with while coasting around in his hippie van. They had a beautiful daughter and their whole lives ahead of them.

She was a strange lady, Riley O’Neil. She could read a room and know you by looking in your eye. Riley just… had a sense for people. It was eerie, and at times off putting, but Mr. O’Neil said it was a gift to be seen and loved so deeply. 

April, at just five years old, had the same sense about people. 

After April’s sixth birthday, Riley began to get… concerned. Someone was watching her, she’d claim. Mr. O’Neil tried his best to assure her that they were safe. He stayed awake with a bat clutched in his hand and kept guard, but nothing happened. Riley only became more paranoid, insisting that something was wrong.

“She knew it sounded crazy. She felt like she was losing her mind and I- I had no idea how to help her. My parents were no help, blaming our, uh, recreational activities even though we stopped the moment we found out about April. Her mother, though, was especially… interested. I didn’t think anything of it, of course she would be concerned about her daughter, but…”

Mr. O’Neil’s hands clenched, his expression a twist of shame and frustration. “Looking back, it seems so obvious. I knew something was off about her mother when she came over. I knew, but I let her take Riley anyway. It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend and then she just… never came home. I didn’t even know where to look because I hadn’t asked. I was just so relieved that her mother knew what to do.

“I think… Riley knew April was like her. Worse, I think she knew something was wrong with her mother that night and went with her anyway. She told me- God, she made me promise to keep April safe. Made me swear and said she loved us with her whole heart before leaving.”

The way Mr. O’Neil framed it, Riley walked into the lion’s den knowing she wouldn’t come back. They would never really know, but Venus thought it helped him to remember it like that. That Riley made a choice and saved them, even if he wished he could make it so she never left at all.

She made a sacrifice and saved them.

But, just like with Venus’ absence, she left a hole in the hearts of the people who loved her. 

They would always wonder what things might be like, if only. 

When her brothers came to her and asked if she would ever want to see the farmhouse herself, Venus was a little wary. The O’Neils were still processing the news of what happened to Riley and they wanted to go to the farmhouse? Where a version of the woman was currently being kept on ice? It was important to deal with that, but doing it so soon felt insensitive. But they said April suggested it. To really close this chapter, she had to deal with the skeletons in her closet. Or, in this case, the Mom-Thing in her basement.

The only people who knew about it were the farmhouse kids and Venus. And probably Doc, after he scanned the files. And Leatherhead, who honestly just happened to be hanging around while they talked about it. April didn’t want anyone telling Mr. O’Neil about it, saying that there wasn’t any point when the Mom-Thing hadn’t revealed any information that actually led anywhere. It would just hurt him.

Venus… didn’t necessarily agree.

Yes, it would be devastating to see such evidence of his wife being used as a lab rat. But didn’t he deserve to know? He loved and knew Riley for years. He was probably the one person who could truly mourn Riley O’Neil. Not as a mother or a tragedy, but as the person she truly was.

And didn’t Riley deserve to be mourned? Didn’t she deserve to have what happened to her be remembered? To have someone rage and cry on her behalf? No one else would ever know the truth about what happened to her, but Mr. O’Neil could. 

He should.

Venus argued with April about it. 

April insisted it be kept secret and Venus let her know it wasn’t one she was going to keep. 

They were standing around the lair’s kitchen. The boys were keeping quiet, watching the verbal volley without weighing in. 

“I believe he may be stronger than you credit him,” Leatherhead said, earning very alarmed glances from her brothers and Casey.

“No offense, but you have even less of a right to argue with me about this than Vee does,” April replied. 

Venus clicked at her sharply and she scoffed. Venus opened her mouth to actually start arguing with her, but Leatherhead squeezed her hand and stepped forward.

“I was held captive by the kraang for many years,” Leatherhead rumbled, sending a jolt through the room. “I cannot claim to have known your mother, but I am intimately aware of how she must have been treated.”

Leatherhead almost never spoke about his time with the kraang and Venus doesn’t think he’s ever brought it up around April. He wanted to be past it in all the ways he could be and no one wanted to bring up painful memories. His experience was probably easy to forget when they weren’t confronted with it, soothing nightmares and keeping each other present.

“You wish to protect your father, but in shielding him, you deny him as well. Has he not proven resilient? Does he not deserve your trust?”

April frowned. “This isn’t about trust.” 

“Then why do you want us to keep this from him?” Venus pressed. “How can you expect us to when this directly concerns him?”

“What am I supposed to say?” April burst. “How in the world am I supposed to tell him that my mother wasn’t just taken and murdered, but poked and prodded until there was nothing left of her? How- How do I-“

Venus held her as she cried. All this time, she had done a remarkable job of keeping herself together. She spoke of the Mom-Thing with distant disgust and moved on to the next actionable steps of their new information without giving herself time to process any of it. April wanted to be strong for her family, something Venus knew well. But what Venus also knew now was, she didn’t have to do it by herself.

“The things you’re protecting him from are things he already knows,” Venus murmured. “He hasn’t had to face the truth as brutally as you have, but he knows her fate wasn’t a kind one. You don’t have to be the one to tell him, if you don’t want to. We’re all here for you and this isn’t something you should carry alone.”

They agreed to tell him about the Mom-Thing. April couldn’t say it, so Donnie explained what happened to Mr. O’Neil and what they planned to do next. The mission was simple: go to the farmhouse and inject a vial of specialized retromutagen into the Mom-Thing’s pod. It would unravel its genetic code and ensure it could never terrorize their family or anyone else ever again.

Mr. O’Neil took the news stoically. He asked when they would be leaving. 

He said he was going with them.

The boys and Venus crammed into the Shellraiser while April and Mr. O’Neil drove the Party Wagon. 

“It feels smaller in here,” Raph carped.

“Imagine how I feel,” Venus chuffed. She hadn’t needed to squeeze into a space smaller than a scout ship in months. Being inside the Shellraiser with four other turtles she could squish on accident was a tense affair. At least back in her box with Slash and Leatherhead, Venus had known they could tank being knocked into, especially because of how malnourished and weak she had been. Venus is the healthiest she's ever been and that came with doubled dose of force. Her brothers could probably handle being knocked into, but she wasn’t looking to test it out.

“Turtles grow indeterminately throughout their lives,” Donnie stated. “The likelihood is, everything’s going to keep feeling smaller. Though, the pace of our growth seems to have slowed significantly, so it should be a pretty gradual shift.”

Mikey gasped. “Do you think we’ll grow as tall as Vee?”

“Maybe in a couple decades, if we keep growing,” Donnie said thoughtfully. “Keep in mind, Vee would also keep growing, so there’s no catching up to her.”

Raph shuddered at the thought. “Good. That’d be weird.”

Venus nodded in agreement, struggling to even picture a world where she was eye level with all of them. And while being her size and having her strength certainly came in handy, the cons of it stacked up. Not that they would know, she supposed. What’s wrong with not being able to fit through a door frame if you can just break through it?

The world wasn’t made for them, any of them, but being human-sized meant having the ability to navigate the human world in ways Venus was not able to. It meant being able to feel like they fit within the world and… she hoped they were able to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible.

Her brothers were masters at filling the space within the Shellraiser with noise and conversation. They told her about the farmhouse, rehashing old stories and fighting over the best spots. Anything to avoid the topic of their destination or the thought of the atmosphere within the O’Neils’ car. 

“I can see it!” Mikey cheered from where he basically slung himself over Leo’s seat. “We’re here! We–”

Leo grabbed his face so he stopped shouting directly into his tympanum. Mikey kept talking excitedly under his palm and Leo glanced back at the rest of them.

“We’re here.”

Sunlight pressed onto her scales, a balm she hadn’t even known she needed until the warmth of it was sinking straight into her soul. Heat settled over New York with the coming of summer, but the heaviness of the air couldn’t compare to the sensation of the sun beaming down on her. Her life was moonlit, cast in a cool glow she held dear, but this… sewer apples, she could get used to this.

Each breath swept in sweetened air, a far cry from the sewer’s air conditioning or the muddled scent of the city. She drank it deeply, letting the freshness of it settle in her lungs before exhaling. A breeze brushed past, the perfect companion for the heat accumulating on her scales.

The main attraction was supposed to be the farmhouse, she knew, but Venus would never get over how bright Earth was. How green. The farmhouse sat in a clearing, but the forest all around them flourished and swayed. It was alive, vibrant and verdant in a way that made her want to stare at it forever.

She’s been in forests before, but this was different. She wasn’t displaced twenty years or a thousand miles, or in an unfamiliar star system with the end of everything looming over them.

This was theirs. 

Their time, their home, their choice.

The kids had spilled out of the cars and run off to check on the farmhouse and Dr. Cluckingsworth, leaving her and Mr. O’Neil by the cars with their supplies. She glanced over at their destination, trying to imagine the horrors beneath it, but it just looked like a house. A tall one, exactly like the pictures the kids had shown her. Wood panels painted a fading white paired with a dark, triangular roof, a long porch with small arches, trios of windows…

The barn, which was within throwing distance, was different.

It remained most of the stereotypical “red and white barn” the kids had mentioned, but strange contraptions were sticking out of the roof. Thick lines spanned the broad walls, but at this distance Venus had no idea what purpose they served. A tall weathervane with an overly large, vibrantly colored chicken wearing it as some kind of halo was stabbed into the roof.

Venus turned towards the forest and its lively glow, taking a small step closer without realizing it. She stared as deeply as the foliage allowed and, almost mindlessly, took another step towards it.

“You’d think it would be raining.”

Venus peered at Mr. O’Neil, who observed the same surroundings Venus did with a much less open expression.

“I… I always imagined it raining when I found her.”

Venus surveyed the sparsely clouded sky. 

“Did she like the rain?” 

He blinked, then huffed a small, surprised laugh. “No. She would have preferred a day like this. Back when we were living out of the van, we would always make time on a beautiful day to dance. We’d turn the radio up and just…” Mr. O’Neil’s attention trailed off somewhere Venus couldn’t see. He didn’t let the memory swallow him up, coming out of it with clearer eyes. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and nodded.

“She would have preferred a day like this.”

The set up didn’t take long. All they would have to do to destroy the Mom-Thing now is press a button. 

Venus and the boys removed themselves from the basement to let April and Mr. O’Neil take their time. They didn’t stray far, in case something went wrong, but their friends deserved privacy.

Later, April and Mr. O’Neil quietly came up the stairs and Donnie and Mikey checked over the basement while the rest of them tried not to hover over the O’Neils as they sat in the living room. Donnie reappeared shortly after and silently waved her over to him.

“Everything is looking like we projected it to, but I asked Dr. Cluckingsworth to monitor it for any changes. We should be good to go.”

Venus nodded. This was only supposed to be a day trip to give April and Mr. O’Neil closure, so they didn’t plan on sticking around unless something went wrong with the Mom-Thing. They wouldn’t leave immediately, except if the O’Neils asked to go home, but the thought of trading the sunny, green outdoors for the sewers or the inside of the warehouse so soon was strangely disappointing.

The farmhouse itself, Venus didn’t care for. It housed her family in a time of need, which she was grateful for, but somewhere above her was a shrine her brothers made to mourn her and adjacent to it was a room where Leo was unconscious for months. It was an abandoned kraang base or a specifically laid trap that failed and they were here to dissolve it entirely. Venus gambled with the integrity of the floor each time she took a step and had to awkwardly maneuver through every single doorway. 

She broke away from the group to go back outside as soon as it became clear April and Mr. O’Neil still needed some time to themselves. Not far, just around the side of the house where she could lay in the grass, soak in the sun, and listen to the sounds of the forest.

Just as she had convinced herself she dreamt up the moon as a child, Venus hadn’t put much stock in the idea of a forest. Whole swathes of land filled with life smaller and larger than her? No solid walls or ceiling to shield them? It sounded like a nightmare. Hearing the birdsong and the rustle of the trees, parsing out a distant, babbling stream, and closing her eyes against a blue, blue sky didn’t offer the same exhilaration she felt every night she could race across rooftops under a moonlit sky, but it was another type of freedom. 

Times like this reminded her how little she’s seen of the planet her family has fought so hard for, but also how much opportunity she succeeded in grasping. Each time she found a new part of it to fall in love with, she became more grateful for the valor of her family. Because of them, the world was still here for her to discover.

“Oh, I knew you’d like this!”

Mikey flopped onto the ground next to her and stretched as far as his bones would allow before sinking into the grass with a sigh.

“We should stick around for the sunset. It’s really pretty out here. And the sunrises. I can show you Crognard!”

“I don’t think April or Mr. O’Neil will want to stay much longer,” Venus said gently.

“We did bring two cars…” he mumbled.

“I’m not against staying, Mikey, but it’s not my decision.” She nudged him so he would look at her. “We can always come back. I bet our friends would love it out here.”

Slash and Leatherhead should absolutely get to experience sunbathing like this. Doc made them a giant underground sunlamp for their collective birthday at the beginning of spring, and that became its own slice of heaven to toe the line of baking under, but this was a completely different experience. Karai had a hodgepodge of reptilian characteristics and probably lacked the time to come out with them, but Venus would have her try it out one day, too.

Baxter… okay, consequences be damned, Baxter would submerge himself in a jello casing of bug spray before agreeing to set foot in the wilderness. He would not jump at the chance for a trip to the great outdoors. Or Pete, now that she’s thinking about it. He had so many nightmares about the turducken chimera mutant eating him after the kids told everyone the story. Despite his size, he was still afraid of a lot of other regular animals. 

Doc definitely mentioned enjoying hiking and fishing with his folks back when he was human. It was a hobby he kept up until his life became a sci-fi novel. Kirtzman even recovered some of his old gear when he tracked down where everything had been stored. Technically, Tyler Rockwell was still a Missing Persons, but, in their New York, it wasn’t that hard to make his stuff disappear.

Mondo was liable to get carried off by a hawk mid kick flip and Shinigami genuinely made Venus confused on whether she lived by vampire rules or not, so neither of them would be coming. Not a huge loss in her book, considering their penchant for property damage and setting things on fire.

Maybe somewhere around was a mutant sized pond they could all go swimming in. Most of the reptile mutants had freshwater counterparts and Venus was curious to see how it would compare against what they usually swam through.

“Are there any good places to swim?”

Mikey perked up and launched into an explanation of the local water spots. The rest of her boys came out to join them to turtle pile in the sun. At one point, someone started churring and then they were all churring. Venus drifted into the dream. She was still awake for it, which meant it was the best kind.

The world was a mesh of heat and humming, soothing, lulling…

A bush rustled in the distance.

Venus lifted her head off the ground. The area seemed quieter. Not fully silenced, but… muted, somehow. She scanned the trees until her eyes caught on a figure in the brush. Tension spiked through her, instantly reflected in her brothers’ jolt back to alertness. They moved as a whole, automatically rising to face the threat. Yet, as soon as they did, her brothers faltered.

Raph stepped forward. “Is that-”

“It is,” Leo answered. 

A humanoid stag stood within the forest, staring at them. It did not move or speak, remaining all but a statue.

Donnie put his hand on her arm. “It’s okay. That’s the spirit guide we told you about, remember?”

“I do,” she replied skeptically, not taking her eyes off of it. “But why would it be here?”

From that distance, the stag should have been blurry. All the trees were, yet the stag was completely visible to her. It commanded her attention. It reminded her of Jei. The air around it was charged, imbued with an otherworldly energy. Whatever the spirit was, it was powerful. Worse, it was magical.

She could never fight magic the way she could a physical assailant. From threats as lowly as Malachi to legitimate spellcasters like Ue, the person with magic always had the upper hand. Venus, for all of her will and physicality, had been useless against Za-Naron. Against Kavaxus, Savanti Romero, Jei- even the spirit they trapped in that ancient dagger had been too powerful. The only reason they were able to succeed each time was because they had someone who could match their strength. Usually, April. 

There were only two ways of defeating magic: cutting off the conductor or using it yourself. Doc would argue that what he and April do isn’t magic, but Venus didn’t see the difference. They might not be mystic like Kintaro, but they were accessing some part of the universe that the rest of them were closed off to. They had power in a way the rest of them didn’t.

The idea that this spirit decided to show up unnerved her. It already “guided” her brothers through their vision quests, so why would it be back?

“It’s here for you.”

Venus’ gaze snapped down to Leo. 

“What?”

By the time her attention whipped back up, the stag was gone. 

Leo looked at her, thoughtful, but sure. “It’s calling you for a quest.”

What, like the ones where it switched out realities and threw their enemies at her brothers?

“It can call all it wants, I’m not doing that.”

“Mom,” Leo sighed.

“No,” Venus said firmly. “Why would I subject myself to a spirit giving me a random trial?”

“Why would it give her one?” Mikey frowned. “Mom doesn’t need to get stronger.”

The conversation stalled for a moment, the clear retort to that comment coming to the forefront of all of their minds.

What if she did?

Was there a threat on the horizon that this spirit was privy to? Was the stag here to herald something terrible?

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Donnie interjected. “We don’t know why it came to us and there’s no reason to catastrophize about it.”

Raph shook his head, a scowl set on his face. “It didn’t even glance at us. It came for Vee.”

All the beauty around them shifted. The warmth on her scales burned. The sunlight seared into her eyes. She observed the woods, once welcoming and serene, and found it insidious. Now she remembered it wasn’t just the farmhouse that housed bad memories. That wasn’t just any old group of trees, it was where a society of frogs plotted the destruction of humanity and her brothers, once they stood in the way. It was where the turducken tried to eat her kids and a monster hunter tried to kill them. 

It was where a spirit they knew nothing about prompted her brothers to have strange, dangerous visions to test their mental fortitude.

“We’re going home.”

“We can’t just ignore it!” Leo objected.

“You said your quest took days. Our plan was to be home by nightfall if everything went accordingly and our friends expect us back. We can’t just vanish,” Venus argued.

“We should call them." Donnie shot her an apologetic look. "I think Leo’s right, we need to know what’s going on. But we should wait until the others are here to do anything. Jumping right into whatever this is without any backup is just asking for trouble.”

“We don’t need backup. We’re going home.” Venus began walking back around to the front of the farmhouse, muttering, since nobody wanted to listen to her. “I’m not looking for guidance and my spiritual mojo is nonexistent. I still don’t know how to meditate and, at this point, it’s on purpose. I’m not throwing myself into the woods to get psychically stress-tested just because a deer showed up.”

“What if it’s about Karai?”

Venus stopped.

“You’re right; you aren’t the most spiritually learned,” Leo continued, “but you are a Guardian. The ability to see the mark, the glow, is indicative of not only the strength of your bond, but of your own spirit’s energy, Vee. Of Karai’s. If the stag has something to say to you, you need to listen. If not for yourself, then for her.”

Venus closed her eyes.

She really didn’t want to have a vision quest.

“Maybe it just wants to talk?” Mikey suggested optimistically.

“Maybe it has a quota,” Raph grumbled.

She dragged a hand over her face and opened her eyes. Why couldn’t her problems come in the form of something punchable? She was great at punching things. 

“I’ll call home,” she conceded.

Sewer apples. 

The good news was: everyone back home hated the idea even more than Venus did. They barely knew what it meant, but no one liked the brief explanation. Leatherhead told her they would take the scout ship and be there within the hour. Since both of their best pilots were already at the farmhouse and this was their first notable threat in months, Venus hoped they wouldn't crash their only spaceship trying to get here. 

Most of their gang was indisposed, either out of state, out of country, or out of world. Only Pete, Slash, Leatherhead, and Doc were home when Venus called and Pete was staying back to make sure the city didn’t implode without anyone watching it. They were all the backup she wanted, frankly. No use sounding the alarm to everyone if she could check off this box without any issues like her brothers had. 

April and Mr. O’Neil took the news as well as they could have. It took a lot of explaining for Mr. O’Neil because he hadn’t heard much about this end of their issues, but, by the end, he was also against the idea of Venus having an impromptu vision quest. Venus knew he would be because Mr. O’Neil was great, but seeing the stress on his face made her even more frustrated with the stag. Their day had been hard enough without all this unrelated drama sweeping in.

Not wanting to squeeze back into the farmhouse, but too irked to stay outside, Mikey saved her by inviting her into the barn while the others went back in the house. Before she was permitted inside, Mikey insisted she meet the hen who ran the place.

“This is Dr. Cluckingsworth!” Mikey held her out proudly and she dipped her head in greeting.

Dr. Cluckingsworth was almost a normal chicken. Her giant brain wobbled with every movement and Venus wondered about her neck strength. She clucked at Venus, observing her with beady, knowing eyes before jumping out of Mikey’s hands and scuttling back into the barn. 

The barn had a unique smell, she realized upon entry. Not bad, necessarily, but definitely new. There was an entire horde of chickens inside, all idling around the barn. They parted for Dr. Cluckingsworth and started to convene around Mikey, who shrieked, but the chickens scattered at the sight of Venus stepping in after him. Mikey grinned and scaled his way to the top of her carapace, lording himself over the chickens.

“Didn’t you say you used to take care of them?” Venus could have sworn he said minding the coop was one of his chores.

“I tried,” Mikey groaned. “But they’re all a bunch of bullies!”

Dr. Cluckingsworth squawked in offense.

“Me? You’re the ones who kept–”

The hen cawed loudly with a new shrill quality to her squabbling that made Venus wince. She didn’t interrupt their shouting, instead taking in the interior of the barn. Venus hadn’t ever imagined a barn per se, but it looked about what she expected it to. Lots of old, sturdy wood, hay everywhere, a loft above them. Left of the doors was the workstation where the kids souped up the Party Wagon and beyond the flock meandering around…

Venus squinted. Did they paint the back wall? There weren’t any windows and the light was focused in the area where they currently stood, so most of it was shadowed. She shuffled towards it and Mikey looked up from his fight with Dr. Cluckingsworth–

Mikey grabbed the top knot of her braid and yanked it to the side, wholly obscuring her vision. Venus chirped in surprise and he chuckled nervously.

“Sorry, uh, I just remembered something,” Mikey explained. “I have a surprise for you!”

“And you had to blind me?” 

“It’s not a surprise if you can see it right away,” he chided. “Dr. Cluckingsworth! Lights!”

Silence.

Mikey huffed. “Please?”

There was another brief pause, followed by the quiet scratches of the hen’s feet scampering across the barn. A switch somewhere to their right came down with a faint clank and the back half of the barn buzzed to life. Mikey jumped off her shell and took her hand, leading her deeper into the barn.

“It held up pretty good,” he said, his voice laden with something that had Venus straightening. “Thanks for looking after it.”

Dr. Cluckingsworth clucked in reply, now somewhere behind them.

Mikey climbed back onto her shell, mindful of her pauldron, and righted her mask. 

Tentatively, Venus opened her eyes.

She leaned back a little in surprise, taken aback by the sight of her own face painted into the back wall of the barn.

Crowned with a bright halo of dandelions, the visage of Venus looked off to the side and smiled warmly. Leaves and vines flowed behind her, a darker shade than the green of her scales. The version of her on the wall was exuberant, holding a joyful air that radiated off of the wall. She seemed youthful. Innocent.

“What do you think?” Mikey asked after she stayed silent. “Me and Casey made it.”

She had known without a doubt that Mikey had a hand in painting it. Watching his artistic ability grow other the years notwithstanding, it reminded her of the mural he had made way back in Dimension X. It hurt to think of the grief that went into both creations… how much they all went through in such a short time.

Venus sought the right words, still drinking in the details. “This is how you remembered me?”

“Yeah!” Mikey smiled, oblivious to the chords he struck.

It wasn’t just the happiness exuding from the mural that stuck out to her, it was how clear it was that Mikey made it with the best parts of her in mind. Which seems like an obvious choice for a memorial, but it almost felt… fictitious, staring at it now. 

Queen Hiidrala’s initial dismissal in the Cosmic Ocean came to mind. How she had taken one look at Venus and known she was not worthy. Even more damningly, she remembered Cthugga’s touch, how it had not taken her, but still lingered.

Her brothers had taken on the role of heroes. For New York, for Earth, for dimensions and worlds beyond theirs, and Venus was proud of them for it, but that’s not what she had done. They fought for the world, but she fought for them. Her brothers might not see the difference, but she did. 

The longer she stared at the mural, the more reminded of that fact she became.

On the Ulixes, she tried to tell them. Venus wasn’t like them. She didn’t have the same selfless goodness in her heart. She was okay with that, Venus didn’t need to be good, but every time someone insisted she was, it felt like they didn’t really know her. It made her feel like a trickster. A fraud.

The night she stopped Ue, what had Shinigami said?

“I sometimes forget you are not all kindness and sunshine.”

Most of her family had looked away from the blood on her hands that night, her brothers included. Venus never pretended to be someone she was not, but when they shied away from her jagged edges… it felt like they wanted her to.

When they told her she wasn’t a monster, she wanted to snap and say, I am. My claws are for slashing and my teeth are for tearing. All the tenderness in my heart was made for you. 

She wanted to ask, do you actually accept my love, as sharp as it's willing to cut for you? Or do you wish it was softer? Do you wish it was righteous? 

But she could never ask any of those questions. She didn’t need to when the answers were so obvious.

It stood before her now, in this perfect, painted version of herself.

She was idyllic and lovely. She had never held her hand to a person’s throat and tried to tear it out.

“It looks really good, Mikey.” 

Her voice sounded normal, at least. No need to unload all of that onto her little brother.

It really was a beautiful painting.

Outside the barn, a strange crescendo broke her from her spiral, the sound building in the air–

The ground shook, accompanied by a thunderous crash.

Venus ran outside, swiftly met by the others spilling out of the farmhouse to investigate the noise. They didn’t have to go far to find the source of the ruckus and paused at the sight behind the two buildings.

The scout ship shimmered out of invisibility halfway in the ground, crashed at an angle, and wriggled like its pilot had no idea how to right it. They watched it jerk out of the crater it created and drop awkwardly on top of the ground. It slowly rolled and Venus didn’t know whether to laugh or bang her head against the barn.

Doc and Slash appeared first, shouting at each other about who should have been piloting. Leatherhead followed after them and caught her eye immediately. His annoyed glance at the other two told her they’d been like that the whole time.

Which, all things considered, hadn’t been that long.

“How fast were you flying?” Venus asked over Doc’s newest retort.

“Fast enough.” Doc glared at Slash’s replying eyeroll, but turned to her with an assessing eye. “We are here now. You do not need to appease this ‘spirit’.”

The words were curt and dubious of a truth she knew was all too real, yet they soothed her. 

Leo bristled. “It’s not about appeasing it. It’s here to help.”

“How do you know?” Slash asked. “It made you fight, didn’t it?”

“We’re the ones who sought out a vision quest,” Raph corrected. “It didn’t make us do anything.”

“Venus has not sought a quest,” Leatherhead pointed out.

“Do you even know what happened to you during your ‘vision quest’?” Doc added. “What was it like from your perspective, Ms. O’Neil?”

April startled at the direct address. “Um, Casey and I didn’t really see anything. The guys just went into the woods for about a week and came back.”

“The stag showed up on the second to last day. We saw Splinter in the fire that night, then Vee. When we woke up the next morning, we split off and dealt with the quest individually,” Donnie explained. “That was it. We returned without any injuries.”

Venus hadn’t even thought about Splinter’s appearance. The thought of him being required in any aspect of this ordeal was revolting. If he decided to appear in a fire, she was going to smother it.

“We’re not forking her over to a ghost for a week,” Slash stated, ignoring Leo hissing, “It’s a spirit.” He scoffed. “Why are we even debating this?”

“It helped us realize important things,” Mikey answered. “Things that made us feel strong enough to go home and fight.”

Leo met Slash’s unimpressed eye with a glare. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but it might know something we don’t. We don’t know it well, but it helped us before.”

“Venus?” Leatherhead murmured, a check-in between the two of them as the others kept going back and forth.

“What if they’re right?” she whispered. “What if I ignore it and something bad happens?”

His hand came to rest on her shoulder, a gentle weight over her pauldron as he contemplated the potential stakes.

“This stag, it merely showed its face? Nothing else?” Upon receiving her confirmation, he rumbled louder so the others would listen too. “We are making too many guesses. If I understand correctly, it was a facilitator, not a messenger, when you four last encountered it. There is no reason to assume that has changed. It could just as likely be saying that the door for a quest is open, should Venus choose it.”

Venus liked that assumption a lot more than the others. 

“We should not do anything right away. If it wishes to be heard, then it will speak louder,” Leatherhead finished.

“We’ll stay the night,” Venus said to her brothers’ uneasy looks. “After that, we’re going home.”

No one planned on sleeping, she realized. Slash and Leatherhead couldn’t fit in the farmhouse and staying inside for too long made her worry for its structural integrity, but she did not dare bring up the barn. The thought of going back in and being confronted by the mural sank like a stone in her gut. Thankfully, no one else wanted to ask the chickens if there was room.

Everyone milled around for a while, but they couldn’t keep the tiredness at bay forever. April and Mr. O’Neil were the first to tap out, accidentally falling asleep on the couch. The day had been hard on them and there were enough eyes keeping lookout.

The boys made do on the porch, bearing the sleeplessness with more practice. Dr. Rockwell kept himself afloat and cast a wide net with his senses, hoping to feel the spirit before it came to them. 

Slash sat beside her with a grim expression, his eyes set on the forest. Beside him, Leatherhead wasn’t any different.

Venus rested her head on Slash’s shoulder, her eyes drifting closed…

A song started playing. Not from a radio or an instrument. It hardly even sounded like a voice until she opened her eyes.

Venus reached out for Slash, but he didn’t wake, even when she shook him. It only took a quick look to realize everyone was asleep now. Everyone but her.

The humming intensified, light and haunting as it curled across her scales like vapor. It was familiar somehow, her mind anticipating the rise and fall of the melody like she knew not only the song, but the voice singing it. 

“It will speak louder,” Leatherhead had said.

This was its way of doing it, apparently.

The lullaby continued, keeping all but Venus asleep as she rose from the ground and stared out at the treeline.

A stag, but surely the stag in its purely animal form, stared back.

Then, it turned and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

She glanced back at her family. She didn’t have any means to tell them what was happening. If they woke up before she returned, it’ll be like she just vanished. But she has to go, doesn’t she? To find answers, for herself and for Karai.

The humming grew louder.

Reluctantly, Venus followed.

The forest wasn’t as sinister as she pictured it. Or as dark, thanks to the moon. The humming should have made things creepier, maybe, but all it did was calm Venus down. Potentially being on the receiving end of a mystical chill pill was stressful in its own way, but she was one who chose to follow a spirit into the woods, so complaining felt hypocritical. 

Time became… peculiar as she trailed after the stag. Venus couldn’t tell how long she had been following it. The moon was still in the same place, but she had been walking for so long… right? Venus shook her head.

“Are you taking me somewhere?” she called out. The words were hard to string together and echoed strangely once she spoke them. Speaking seemed… wrong in this place.

She glanced around the dim forest and only found an endless parade of trees. No matter where she turned, there were no breaks or clearings. It was just trees, as far as her eyes could see. Just trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and…

Where was the stag?

Venus stopped walking. Panic struck her through the spell of calm. Was this random patch of wood where it wanted to leave her or had Venus seriously just lost her guide? Her eyes darted around the trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees and trees–

She slapped her hands over her eyes, shouting wordlessly against the hypnotic draw of the forest. How in the world was she supposed to find the stag if she couldn’t look for it?

Actually, this was the stag’s fault. How do you lose a giant mutant turtle? How don’t you notice the lack of noise? Ninja, she may be, but she was a city turtle! She was stepping on literally everything that cracked or snapped or–

“Venus.”

When her hands fell away, she was somewhere new. Even though she dropped her hands, it was too dark to see. 

Exhaustion pulled at her. Hunger. Thirst.

Her surroundings shift, brightening.

Gentle hands lift her from this strange world, soft and careful as they place her into large palms.

A voice speaks. It’s loud, unintelligible, yet undeniably fond. 

She’s being held. It’s a bit beyond her, but there’s comfort here. A trust that extends to this nebulous thing. 

Later, there will be a burst of light. A surge of incomprehensible, bold feelings that she cannot contain. They will spill from her only to loop right back, an onslaught of everything good in the world, a torrent of everything that ever mattered.

A nova just for her.

It never truly dims, but there is a period of calm. A length of distance that can only be closed by time. 

When the nova explodes again (again, again, again-), she is with Tang Shen.

The nova still burns in her soul, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s larger than her, bursting out of her scales and dancing around her, proclaiming to all that this sunburst was hers. She wanted to lose herself to it, to revel in the knowledge that came with it, to hold onto the certainty–

“Venus,” Shen says again, honey-sweet with enough love to make Venus shudder.

Shen cups Venus’ face, seeming so much larger than she should be. The fire burning through Venus’ scales doesn’t even register. Through the flames, Shen was somehow even warmer, a grounding sensation amongst the flickering ends of her inferno.

“Hello, sweet child. I’m so glad I found you.”

So was Venus. Who knows how long she would have been lost in the woods if Shen hadn’t found her? Venus wasn’t exactly equipped to handle the hurdles of this other world.

“You’ve grown. Such strength courses through you. Such will.”

Pride swelled in her heart. She wondered what Shen could see.

“I see you,” Shen smiled. “You have done well.”

Elation fanned the flames around her. Yes. Yes, she did her best. She protected them.

Shen’s smile became heavy.

“For all that my life affected yours, I’m surprised you don’t resent me.” Shen gently shushed Venus’ confused sound and pressed their foreheads together, blotting out the blazing Guardian’s mark. “Maybe it was I who set you on this path, but it should never have been so hard on you. You were so small. So young, yet he-”

She withdrew her rising fury, like the tide pulling in before a tsunami.

“His time will come, just as Saki’s did,” Shen said. “You deserved more. You and Miwa both.”

“Karai,” Venus whispered, the name barely forming as she tried to say it. 

Speaking here was strange too. Where Shen’s emotions came through her words, a multitude of Venus’ memories seemed to be dredged up simply by saying her name.

Shen stilled.

“Karai,” she echoed, clear as a bell. A melancholy smile pulled at her lips. “Thank you.”

Shen pulled back and panic sparked in Venus. A million reasons flashed through her head–

“I will not leave you. I love all of you, even the parts you wish to hide,” Shen soothed. “We will stay here as long as you like.”

Their forms shifted and came back into focus in new places. Venus was on her side, her head in Shen’s lap. Her body was no longer grown. She was able to curl into Shen’s warmth and bask in it, her own flames drawing back inside. Nothing could get her here, this strange place seemed to tell her. Nothing could intrude on this coveted moment.

Shen hummed a lullaby, using one hand to trace the scales of her head and the other to rub her shell. Venus sank into the feeling, soft churrs rumbling through her whole body. She struggled to stay awake, stubbornly prying her eyes open each time they dared to slip shut. She clung to Shen, for once feeling both small and safe at the same time. Love, unbridled and soul-deep, coursed through her, magnified to an unimaginable proportion. 

It was so warm here.

Tears leaked from her eyes in silent grief. She didn’t want to mourn this experience before it even passed, but it was hard not to. The bubble they existed in couldn’t hold them forever. She would wake up and all of this would be gone.

“The world will wait for you, my precious daughter,” Shen promised. “Rest.”

Venus let go of her worry. 

She let her eyes close.

She drifted…

Winter mornings were dreadful things. Being warm under the covers and having to remove yourself despite the cold. Stepping onto the floor and shivering as the chill leached into your body.

Returning to the physical world was much like that, only Venus couldn’t stop crying.

Her heart ached for all the things that should have been. For all the love she could have had.

She was a sundrop, ablaze, and yet she felt cold.

“Why?” she croaked, her voice warped through the flames. “Why show me this?”

How could you? How could you give me more love than I could ever hold and then take it back?

She did not receive an answer.

In the forest once more, Venus knelt and did not seek to rise. Her flames scorched the earth beneath her, but did not spread. She cried, even if she seemed incapable of expelling anything other than fire, and she burned. 

–Vee-!

She latched onto the connection at once, grasping it wholeheartedly and–

It fell away. There was no nova, no loving hand on her face.

…Venus?

She startled at the masculine voice, so distinct from the last one. There was another brush against her mind, much more tentative than the last, and Venus hesitated.

Venus?

Doc. Doc was trying to talk to her. Because she was back in the real world and she disappeared from their perspective. It was still dark, at least. They didn’t have to worry about her for too long.

She reached back.

Where are you? He asked.

Venus didn’t want to look up. The thought of falling back into the woodland purgatory brought forth an acute terror that squeezed around her chest. She pressed her hands into her face until she could see nothing else. The flames shielded her, they protected her from everything beyond.

Are you hurt? Doc tried again. What happened?

Her heart lurched painfully. A sob worked its way up her throat.

Nevermind. Stay where you are. We will be with you soon.

He did not speak again, but he held the connection. Venus clung to it as the fire receded. If she thought she was cold before, it was nothing compared to the chill slowly seeping into her scales.

She heard them before they actually arrived. It would have been hard not to. They were a stampede in an otherwise quiet area, but she still didn’t move her hands away from her face.

“Venus!”

Leatherhead. Some of the tension in her body dispersed.

Despite the cacophony of voices and noise, she heard it when he dropped to the ground in front of her and felt the air shift as his hands reached out and stopped, hovering like he wasn’t sure if he could touch her. Everyone was yelling as they filled the space all around her, asking if she was okay, where she went, how they could help–

“Venus,” Leatherhead said softly. His hands gently came to touch her forearms. “Look at me?”

Her arms locked up all the way into her shoulders. His hands dropped away. The noise dimmed.

I can’t, she wanted to say.

“Why not?” Doc asked.

I’ll get lost again. It’ll be trees and trees and trees and trees and–

Her fingers pressed harder into her skull, banishing the memory.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. We found you. You won’t get lost again.”

Venus kept her hands where they were.

“It is alright,” Leatherhead assured. “Would you like to go home?”

Yes, she cried.

There was an exchange of some kind going on over her head, but Venus didn’t care. She just wanted to be away from this place. No more grass, no more leaves, no more trees. 

With painstaking care, Leatherhead took her into his arms and stood. Her family walked for ages.

Venus kept her eyes shut.

April was the first voice who reached out, Venus later learned. 

They woke up at dawn and realized Venus had vanished. It was concerning, but they figured they at least knew where she had gone this time. So, they waited.

Two more days passed before they received a call from Karai, who demanded to know why Venus wasn’t answering any calls. Recalling her previous reveal that their bond could feel the lifeforce of the other end of the tether, her family’s first reply was not an answer, but a please say you can still feel the bond, which was not what her sister wanted to hear. After a brief explanation and confirmation that there was no terrible change in the bond, Karai gave them a tongue-lashing so fierce her brothers shuddered even glazing over it. 

Three more days passed with no sign of her. By then, everyone was collectively losing it.

Then–

“I felt you come back,” April told her. “There was a pulse. Not- Not like a shock or anything, it was almost like a wave passed through me. I knew it was you as soon as I felt it, so I tried to call for you.”

And, at that moment, Venus mistook her voice for Shen’s. She reached back with the full force of whatever supercharging Shen had given her.

“It was like being back on Magdomar, except I left my spacesuit on the ship. Or like being punched by a star. Even when I woke up, it felt like I had been staring at the sun for way too long.” April rubbed at her temples with a joking smile that Venus couldn’t match. “I think my brain got sunburned.”

Doc wouldn’t say it, but he had to feel some of those effects too. Not as intensely, since her battery died out before they even reached her, but he let her hang onto their mental connection for a lot longer than April had the chance to, translating for her when they needed to and remaining in Venus’ corner as a source of comfort.

She refused to talk about what happened. They didn’t actually prod all that much, but she continuously shut down any attempts on coaxing any details out. They knew the spirit lulled them to sleep and that she chose to follow it into the forest. No, its purpose was not to warn her of anything. No, it did not give her a quest.

What was she supposed to say? “Oh, my brothers fought their demons, but I was called by the closest person I have to a mother. She held me and I wanted to stay so badly that I forgot you guys were waiting for me, then when I did come back, I was so heartbroken that I couldn’t speak for two days. Oh, also? I have no idea why any of that happened.” Because that’s such a fun story to tell. 

It felt like her brain had been rewired, and not necessarily in a good way. Because now every time she looked at her beloved family, who she knew- she knew- loved her, Venus wondered if that love was the same as Shen’s. She wondered if her own love could measure up, but struck the thought down as swiftly as it crossed her mind. The pure radiance seared into her memory was beyond just feeling, it was a mystic bundle of all the care Shen never got to give. Venus couldn’t seek it out again, not on this plane. Even still, there was a new restlessness under her scales. An inner writhing, like the fire Shen gave her wasn’t gone at all.

Venus always wondered what it would have been like to have a mother. She wondered if this was supposed to be the answer.

Karai came back from Japan and had Shinigami do a whole witchy check-up to make sure everything was in order. Venus submitted to lying on top of a circle of freaky symbols and having Shinigami whisper-chant over her head for a whole hour. Once they deduced that she was physically unchanged and nothing maligned had attached itself to her, they moved to a lounge room within the compound. Venus sat beside the couch Karai and Shinigami chose, on a lower cushion specifically made for her, and asked about her trip.

“I met with the Daimyo. Allying with him has gone better than I dared to hope for, considering both of our troublesome pasts with Ue.” The ends of Karai’s mouth ticked upward, her eyes gleaming smugly in the way they always did when it came to Venus’ more notable accomplishments within the Foot’s sphere. “There’s an event coming up in a few weeks. He was curiously cryptic about the exact details, but he hosts a wide variety of guests and he asked us to be there.”

Venus nodded. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

Guilt twisted inside of her for keeping quiet about seeing Shen. She was Karai’s mother and Venus was hoarding her all to herself. If she believed anyone loved her exactly as she was, teeth and all, it was Karai. It wasn’t measly tolerance- she encouraged her to sharpen her claws and hit harder. Karai was proud to have Venus as her Guardian. The only reason she ended up following the stag in the first place was because she thought it might have something important to say about their bond.

But Venus was selfish. What she felt within the spirit world wasn’t just unconditional. Shen filled her heart to a bursting degree, breaking through the limits she thought existed, all just to take it all back. She carved a hole in her heart and Venus was scared she wouldn’t be able to fill it again. To inflict this desperate longing on anyone, especially Karai, else was unthinkable.

The fear made keeping her secret justifiable, if only slightly. 

Karai turned her dangerous smile on Venus. “You’re coming with me this time. The Daimyo was rather insistent on your presence.”

Venus wanted to ask if she was sure there were no hard feelings about what she did to Ue, but Karai never would have mentioned it if she thought going would endanger Venus. If she trusted the Daimyo’s intentions, Venus would too. It had been nearly a year since her diplomatic relations with the Daimyo and his clan began and he had never done anything sinister or untoward. But, considering how Ue turned out, Venus would withhold her judgement until she properly met the man. 

“What’s the event about?” she asked instead.

“It’s some kind of tournament. Apparently, a lot of people come around for it, to participate and to see the spectacle. He said it was- Ugh, Shini, what’d he call it? Battle-something?”

“The Nexus,” Shinigami filled in.

Karai snapped her fingers. “That’s it. We’re invited to the Battle Nexus.”

And with a name like that, who could refuse?