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teetle-time · 10 months ago

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Time Is All We Have

A Doctor Who x Rise of the TMNT Xover interest check/story prologue because i'm losing all control of my life lmao

Quick mini-primer for where in both timelines we are:

Non-teetle fixaters, you can just watch the first few minutes of the Rise movie. Bad future timeline shenanigans wahoo! You should probably also get a feel for the regular present timeline from the show if you can, though we won't be directly interacting with it for a quite a bit. Because Reasons. :)

Non-Who fixaters, we're rolling with David Tennant Doctor The First and the companion named Martha Jones. The name similarity to the Casey Joneses makes me giggle, especially now that I've watched through the (REDACTED) episodes where she ends up with some more Caseys parallels. Those haven't happened yet for her though lmao. Frankly, she's only had a few episodes'-worth of adventures with the Doctor by this point. :)

anyway. shoutout to my brother purpletango for having this idea. i believe what i hurriedly jotted down in my notepad app went like this:

the rise movie begins, mikey gets ready to send junior back in time- -and something goes wrong. welp, the gateway's there now. may as well use it. junior gets yeeted through (and my brain is now adding the idea of leo realizing something's up and going with him) and junior (and maybe leo) land…in the TARDIS. now they gotta get back to earth (hoping they're at least in the right dimension) to find the key and stop the krang. NO PRESSURE LMFAO

with a lil tweaking to the premise that just sorta happened as i was writing, i'm now at 26k words of combined fic and notes. it has been 2.5 weeks. i am nowhere near done. help lmao

gonna be doing something a bit funky with the tardis here just to get the ball rolling. idk if it's a canon thing that can happen but if it's not then shshshshshshsh just pretend with me. take my hand

〜

Almost exactly twelve hours prior to the moment he died, when the rest of what remained of the Resistance had been asleep and it had only been the turtles awake to keep watch, Michelangelo had looked to his big brother and said, "We can't beat them, can we?"

Last night, Leonardo had swallowed and given a slight shake of his head. "We can't."

"They've even stolen the night sky from us somehow," Michelangelo had said, lifting his gaze to the cloudless, crimson sky. "Look, there's no stars anymore."

"When did that happen?" Leonardo had asked under his breath. "We still had at least a handful last I checked…"

"Sometime since the last time we had enough peace and quiet at night to actually look up. I'd say…in the past few weeks?" Michelangelo had suggested.

There had been silence for a long moment after that, broken only by the quiet, deep breathing of the few who were left, as well as the shifting of Michelangelo's cloak as he scooted a bit closer to his brother.

Between the two of them, Leonardo and Michelangelo had enough organic fingers and toes to count everyone else who'd survived the past twenty-odd years. Then again, with only two toes on each foot, three fingers on each hand, and three organic hands left to use…well. Less than twenty wasn't exactly an army.

Casey had shifted in his sleep, eventually, mumbling something incoherent the way his mother always had.

Leonardo had swallowed.

Michelangelo had pulled his gaze back down to Earth and looked at him.

"The Krang won't give us the mercy of dying," Leonardo had said grimly. "Not if they can help it."

"They won't," Michelangelo had agreed.

"The others chose to fight with us. Humans, yokai, and mutants. Even Todd. Never would've expected him of all yokai to be so kickass, back in the day. But…this is all Casey's ever known," Leonardo had continued.

"It is."

There had been a shifting in the shadows off in the distance, then, and while it had turned out to be easily taken care of, it had still put a pause on the brothers' conversation for a bit.

When they'd gotten back, but before they'd woken the others and gotten moving again, Leonardo had nailed Michelangelo with a solemn look. "We can't avoid this forever, but Casey…"

"I know you're not talking about that thing we talked about never talking about," Michelangelo had said, raising the ridges of his brows for a deadpan look and a wry smile.

Leonardo had jabbed an elbow into his plastron with a thick snicker…but he hadn't denied it.

Michelangelo had sobered up, then. "Oh."

"Do you think you can do it?" Leonardo had asked as he'd knelt to shake April awake, pausing before he did to meet Michelangelo's eyes.

"I know I can," Michelangelo had said, remaining quiet about how 'it' would very likely be the end of him.

They'd both already known as much.

"When?"

"I-I don't know. When things look bleakest," Leonardo had tried. "If it comes down to us. If it's just you and somebody else. If…if it's just you."

Michelangelo had nodded, then put a hand on his brother's carapace. "The Krang'll get front-row seats to Earth's very own home-grown sun. And that's a Doctor Delicate Touch guarantee."

"Wouldn't expect anything less, little man," Leonardo had chuckled. "Give 'em a light show that'll have 'em running scared."

"I can fly, Leo. And 'little man' was always Raph's thing," Michelangelo had snickered, reaching down to wake Casey. "Hey, Casey, we gotta get moving. Mind waking up and reminding your sensei that I win all height contests forever, no take-backs?"

The noise had begun rousing the others, and Leonardo had scoffed. "Turning my own student against me, Mikey? Low blow."

"Nah," April had said from where she lay. "This is a low blow."

She had snapped an arm out to smack Leonardo's shin, and the rest of the survivors had woken to quiet laughter.

It had been nice.

The last moment of calm within the storm.

In the present, Michelangelo winced as the mystic energies swirling through him reached a crescendo, but still pushed further, digging his fingers into the fabric of reality and wrenching it apart.

With Leonardo wounded, everyone else outnumbered, and Krang closing in on all sides, it was definitely pretty bleak.

There was no better time to make a time gateway than when there was no time left, after all.

His heart pounded in his tympana, loudly enough he almost could have sworn it echoed, a thud-thud-thud-thud that wanted to shake him to the core.

For a moment, with the Krang bearing down on him, his brother, and his nephew, it felt like he was losing his grip.

Casey's voice managed to overpower the thud-thud-thud-thud: "Master Michelangelo, no! You're gonna-!"

He knew.

How could he not, with light cracking his skin and his scales into little flakes of dust on the wind?

But Casey…he was the future.

The best of all of them.

As long as Casey would be okay, Michelangelo could do anything. Would do anything.

He turned his head back over his shoulder for one last look.

Casey looked horrified.

Leonardo looked resigned.

There was no one else left.

(He didn't want to go.)

Michelangelo smiled and gave his family a cheeky little wink, then turned his attention to the time gateway in front of him, threw his arms out to his sides with one last heave-!

-and like Earth's very own home-grown supernova, like the very last star in the universe, he imploded into golden light.

〜

Leonardo felt himself shatter inside as Mikey disintegrated and the time gate stabilized, but the Krang were still closing in.

"Casey, when you're done saving the world, do me a favor," he said, putting a hand on the kid's shoulder.

Casey looked up at him with wide eyes. "Sensei, don't-!"

Leonardo just smiled sadly and shifted his grip from comforting to more of a ready to throw.

He ignored the fire in his side and the trickle of blood down his plastron as he hurled Casey into the gateway. "Grab a slice-!"

"NO!"

Casey's scream was the only warning Leonardo had before the wrist-strapped grapple (standard issue, at least before Donnie had gone out with a bang) streaked back out of the portal, latched onto Leonardo's good shoulder, and yanked him off his feet.

"Whoawhoawhoawhoawhoa-!"

The deafening thrum of a Krang laser and a flash of heat at his back told Leonardo exactly how he should have died, but the sensations vanished just as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving only the golden light of Michelangelo's ninpo and the silhouette a few yards away that told Leonardo where Casey was.

Leo almost let himself go limp in the rushing mass of energy as it faded from golden-orange to something more bluish-gray.

Almost.

Instead, however, he grit his teeth against the way his wound flared up and started swimming for Casey.

The light around them grew brighter with no signs of stopping.

By the time Leo reached the kid, he had to screw his eyes shut to avoid going blind.

He managed to grab Casey's hand, then wrap himself protectively around him-

-and then some kind of metal grating slammed against his carapace, his head snapped back, and he knew only darkness.

〜

The Doctor blinked at the sudden sound of beeping. "Oh? That doesn't sound right."

"Doctor? What is it?" asked Martha.

"I'm getting an alert," said he, darting over to one of the TARDIS' monitors for a look. "An alert that there's a lifeform catapulting through the timestream almost completely unprotected- two! Two lifeforms!"

Martha blinked. "What? How did that happen?"

"I don't know, but if we want to find out, we'd best get them onboard before whatever shielding they do have is eroded away." The Doctor studied the monitor for a moment more, then slid around the console and started throwing the appropriate levers and flicking the appropriate switches. "I need to focus on getting close- would you mind peeking out the doors to make sure my aim isn't off?"

"On it!"

The Doctor grinned, then turned his focus back to steering. "Aaalright then! They ought to be coming up just ahead, maybe a smidge to our left-!"

"I see them!" Martha called. "One of them- one looks human!"

The Doctor blinked, then looked up. "Only the one?"

Martha nodded, not tearing her eyes from the window. "The other looks almost like a turtle! Except, well, it's person-sized!"

"Curiouser and curiouser," the Doctor mused. Then, looking back down at the console, "Well, I think the simplest course of action would be to just…scoop them up!"

Martha glanced his way in confusion. "What, just open the door and grab 'em?"

"Exactly. You'll want to be quick and precise," the Doctor recommended. "Good to know we're on the same page."

After a moment to process what he'd said, Martha nodded slowly. "…right."

The Doctor carefully piloted the TARDIS close, and as he watched the energy readings of the two lifeforms get close enough, he heard Martha open the door, then yelp in surprise as something hard hit the metal flooring with a clang.

"Sensei?!" squawked the thick and emotional voice of a pubescent human boy.

"Oh, my," said the Doctor, skirting the edge of the console as he jogged over for a look.

Immediately, he could tell that whatever the circumstances were that had led to the two strangers being catapulted into the timestream, they had not been pretty. Between the apocalyptic fashion and weaponry, the fact that the turtle had seemingly been curled around the boy until losing consciousness, and the sight of tear tracks on the boy's face…well, a billboard would have been less obvious.

The boy glanced between the Doctor and Martha, wide eyes quickly shifting into suspicion as he slid off "Sensei's" plastron and placed himself between the turtle and the Doctor. "Who are you? What do you want with us? Are you with the Krang?"

Huh. He sounded American.

"Krang?" asked Martha, turning to him. "Doctor, what's a Krang?"

The Doctor frowned, mulling the word over. "Krang? Krang, Krang, KrangKrangKrang… Can't say I recognize the name. Bit of a shocker, really, and somewhat worrisome."

The boy's face spasmed, confusion clearly welling up, but the door chose to remind them all that it was still open by letting a tannish cloak drift through and land next to the two newcomers.

The sight of the cloak made the boy's eyes moisten further.

Oh, dear.

"Martha, could you get the door?" asked the Doctor, shifting his voice into something a little softer as he knelt next to the two strangers.

"Oh, uh- you got it."

As Martha did exactly that, the Doctor met the boy's eyes. "I'm the Doctor. Behind you is Martha, and this is the TARDIS. I don't know what it is you're running from, whatever this 'Krang' business is, but I promise you, you're safe here."

The boy's suspicion slowly lessened, the tension in his shoulders loosening some- though, notably, nowhere near completely. "And…what's a tardis?"

"My spaceship," said the Doctor modestly. "'S how I get around. What I want to know is, how did a humanoid teenager and a turtleman with a robotic arm end up hurtling through the timestream all on their lonesome?"

At that, the boy's gaze flickered to the cloak on the ground, and his jaw hardened in that way jaws tended to do when the only other option was to sob.

"…I see," said the Doctor quietly. "While I'd like to know the specifics, pushing this sort of thing never really seems to work out well. So I won't."

"You-" The boy's voice cracked, and he tried again. "You said you were a doctor?"

"The Doctor," corrected he.

"Though I've been training as one for quite some time, myself!" Martha reminded.

The boy visibly warred with himself for a moment, then grit his teeth and pulled slightly away from the turtle's side, revealing a nasty gash that had gone clean through his shell. "Help him. Please."

Martha gasped. "Oh, God-!"

The Doctor's eyes flew wide, but then he nodded firmly. "We'll do everything we can."

#tenth doctor #martha jones #tmnt leonardo #tmnt michelangelo #casey jones junior #rise #tmnt #doctor who #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rise of the tmnt #save rottmnt #self fic #if you listen closely you can hear the faint sounds of slow jazz 1920's-style 'having a good time' by queen in the distance #TWO ANGSTY YOUNG-OLD MEN IN THE TARDIS WITH THEIR COMPANIONS SURNAME JONES #WHAT WILL THEY DO

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