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tizeline · 2 months

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I just finished binge reading everything under your separated AU tag and I have QUESTIONS!! (that mostly just stem from me being a mikey fan) Be prepared as I will ramble.

So. My #1 burning mikey question is as follows. Why does he decide to, you know, NOT eradicate all of humanity? Does he just do it because all of his family is? Ugh it’s hard to phrase this but I’m wondering if Draxum’s word means so much to him he changes his entire world view, since draxum was the person who made him believe humans are evil, if he changed his mind he must be right? If he is the very last one to change his worldview, how does he react to the person who essentially indoctrinated him into believing humans are evil just going back on his word? Would he just, idk, try to keep going by himself (proper villain arc style!) Or does he get his own little human/outside friend to convince him, like his two other brothers do? What would happen if instead of a human/outside friend to convince him humans are okay, he gets someone like say, leatherhead, who was experimented on by the earth protection force?(Since in 2012, he was experimented on by the Kraang, but I don’t see a way of that happening when they were locked away his entire life) Huzzah for conflict! or better yet, That same leatherhead convinces him humans are okay? Though that those seem out of character…. And of course maybe it would be mondo gecko, who he befriends and then finds out was human just a few months before and still views himself as such…. So many possibilities!!

speaking of other characters, do the Drax trio have any Yōkai friends? Like one Sunita, or maybe even one yoichi usagi, per chance? Though I’m pretty sure they’d be pro-human so… idk how that would work. The question still stands.

Also, seeing as you mentioned Raph starts to hang out with Leo,Donnie and April, how does mikey react to that? Would he feel abandoned or left out? (Who am I kidding of course he would but like. It does t hurt to ask!)

And seeing as he’s alone now and he’s not training all the time (I hope) this feels like a good Segway into asking: does he have as much of a love for art as in canon? What are his and Raphs interests (since we know Leo’s!)

thanks! I love ur work and ur art and ur Au and ur mother for creating you.

P.s. I had another question I wanted to ask but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was rn so you can expect more asks from me in the near future ;)

Hoo boy, long asks mean long answers, strap in folks!

So EXACTLY what causes Mikey to change his mind on everything is something I'm still working out the details of. Draxum definitely plays a part in it, considering how much faith Mikey has in his dad, Draxum of all people changing his mind would be one of the biggest reasons for Mikey to also second guess himself. It's not like he'd instantly change his entire worldview though, after Draxum gives up on the Evil Plan, Mikey, or rather Dr. Positive, tries to motivate him to come up with a new plan for a short while. He gives up after Draxum makes it clear that they're Done™ with that, and Mikey isn't very keen on trying to do the Evil Plan all on his own considering HIS ENTIRE FAMILY decided to just give up on it. That doesn't mean he'll suddenly start liking humans, he still thinks they suck ass, he just isn't actively trying to cause their downfall anymore.

For both Leo and Raph, a big reason why they changed their minds on humanity was because they interacted with humanity and learned how wrong many of their previously held assumptions about them were. It makes sense that that's the catalyst for both of their redemption-arcs, and in that sense it also makes sense for Mikey to unlearn his prejudices against humans by interacting with them. HOWEVER! You bring up an interesting point, for Mikey specifically it would probably be more effective for another yōkai/mutant to give him a new perspective considering he'd be a lot more willing to listen to them rather than a human. I haven't been planning on including Leatherhead or Mondo, but it would be fun idea so I might do so.?That being said, getting to actually know a human later on would still be a good learning-experience for Mikey, I'm kinda tempted to bring in Woody from the IDW comics into the story too, for example.

So then we get to the topic of friends! Despite The Drax Bros growing up in yōkai society, they're still a bit isolated. They can go and hang out in The Hidden City basically whenever they want (as soon as they're old enough to do so), but when it comes to actually getting close to other yōkai and forming proper friendships...? So first of all, Draxum has a Reputation™ amongst yōkai, he's a well known figure and a lot of people are honestly a bit intimidated by him. Most yōkai thinks it's best to just stay out of his way, which includes staying out of the way of his weird kids. Basically, the bros' association with Draxum has a tendency to get in the way of them actually befriending anyone :/ Not just that, but while there are certainly yōkai who don't have the most positive feelings about humans, the Draxum family's stance on humanity is very extreme, which even most "human-critical" yōkai will find off-putting.

All of this is to say that no, they don't have a lot of friends haha. Leo hangs out at Run Of The Mill all the time, and Hueso definitely has a soft spot for him, but at most he's only acquainted with the other employees and regulars there. I'd imagine that includes Sunita, considering her dad works there and as such they've interacted on occasion. But again, Leo's extreme view on humanity makes most people uncomfortable and as such they'll mostly indulge him in civil small-talk to avoid getting on Draxum's bad side. Raph and Mikey...? They might have some casual friendly connections with some yōkai in The Hidden City, especially Mikey can be quite sociable if he can keep himself from ranting about humans for two seconds lmao. But for the most part, honestly, I think The Drax Bros are content staying a bit closed off from others outside their family. The three of them are very close and they know they can trust each other, that last part's important considering their Big Plans aren't exactly.... legal.... and as such they need to remain secretive about everything to others. I feel like they'd mostly start bothering finding new friends after they decide to abandon their Destroy All Humans Plan.

(Sidenote, I really like when Usagi shows up in TMNT stories, but I've never consumed any Usagi media myself. Almost all I know about both Miyamoto and Yuichi I know through TMNT and as such I don't feel confident enough in my knowledge about the Usagis to include either of them in the story. I HAVE been planning on reading the comics, so maybe I'll include him at a later date??)

But OH BOY Mikey's reaction to Leo and Raph starting to hang out with Donnie and April?? :D Both of Mikey's older brothers ditching him to hang out with their new little brother and his annoying human friend??? :D OH BOY YOU HAVE NO IDEA! :D

Listen, look at this from Mikey's perspective: You finally find your Long Lost Brother™ after thirteen years of him being presumed dead, great! Small problem, he's been brainwashed by the evil humans who kidnapped him and now thinks YOU'RE evil for some reason? No matter! He just needs some time to adjust! So you're patient with him, you show him kindness and understanding while gently trying to guide him back to the good side, to his REAL family. You do EVERYTHING right, and how does that bastard repay you?? HE instead turn your brothers against YOU! He ruins your plans of saving the world! Everything was PERFECT before HE showed up and started complicating things, and now your family is BROKEN and everything sucks! And it can all be blamed on Donnie.

...Hate is a very strong feeling, I don't feel like Mikey is really capable of feeling something like that, at the very least not against someone he does still technically considers family. Rather, I think the best way to describe the feeling Mikey is about to start feeling about Donnie would be bitterness. Mikey takes all the negative feelings, all the hurt and confusion about the situation he's ended up in and directs it all at Donnie. Because it all comes back to him, doesn't it? It was only after Donnie got reunited with them that things started going wrong. And from Mikey's point of view, Donnie has basically stolen Mikey's brothers from him. Needless to say, Mikey is dealing with a lot of negative emotions that he doesn't really know how to cope with them aside from taking it out on Donnie.

Donnie, who is so used to being love-bombed by Mikey is VERY flabbergasted over him basically just completely flipping a switch overnight. Mikey will just be glaring at Donnie like he's trying to explode him with his mind and Donnie's just "???who are you and what have you done with Mikey???". He starts acting really hostile towards Leo and Raph as well, it's all very weird!

Back to me not having figured out the details of the entirety of Mikey's character arc, one thing I'm contemplating is how long I wanna drag it out for. For example, I know I want to change up the events of the movie at least a bit in the AU for the sake of novelty. One way of doing that could potentially be for it to focus not on Leo's and Raph's ever growing tension in their relationship, but rather focus on Donnie's and Mikey's relationship? It'd be extra interesting if Mikey hadn't at least completely gotten over his hang-ups about humans when we bring Casey Jr into the situation. CJ looks at Mikey and sees a younger version of the man that was basically an uncle to him, like family, and Mikey looks at CJ and is just like "ew. human." and that'd be a whole dilemma to deal with. But as interesting as that could be, I'm scared that it'd just get tedious if Mikey is stuck in angst-mode for too long. We still have the entirety of season two to get through before we get to the movie, it's gonna be a while is what I'm saying. Then again, character growth takes time, maybe Mikey reconciles with his own family and starts the path to befriending Donnie by the end of season two, but they run into some roadblocks along the way. They ARE very different people, even in canon, I'd imagine it might take some time for them to properly befriend each other.

But next question - Mikey and Raph's interests! Mikey already likes to draw, but he'd definitely start doing it way more after the season 1 finale (oh wow, a healthy coping mechanism, imagine that!) Raph... Raph likes training. Even after it becomes clear that they're not doing their Big World Domination Plan anymore and as such don't really need to train as much, he still does it just because he genuinely enjoys it. He becomes proper friends with Casey the season one finale and she also really likes training, so it becomes a bonding experience for them. Leo and Donnie later on also introduces him to human media like Jupiter Jim and the Lou Jitsu movies and he gets really into it too XD Nerds!!

... Oh man, I think that's everything! Anyway, thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the AU so much :D

#Tiz Sep AU #tizel talk #tmnt #rottmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt au

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poppitron360 · 3 months

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I know that I have to, at some point, post my Leo Villain Arc AU.

Currently I am in a perpetual state of “Lemme just proofread it one more time-“ But if I don’t post it now, it will never get posted. I’ve been working on this off and on for about a month.

Summary: Takes place after the events of TLH- Leo deals with the aftermath of revealing his powers to the camp. In a confrontation with a few other campers, he finally lashes out and they get a little more than their comeuppance. Frightened by his own abilities, Leo runs away from camp, and Jason and Piper have to find him and stop him before he hurts anyone else- by any means necessary. When the time comes, Jason can’t bring himself to hurt Leo, and he pays the price. Piper has to then finish the job.

Please ignore any plotholes- I wrote it for the angst not the story.

Cw: Talk of suicide, talk of abuse, depictions of self-harm, major character death, blood, swearing, bullying, just all-round nasty stuff- I didn’t hold back on this one.

Word Count: 8,043!!! (Eight chapters in total, but not of equal length)

Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?

Leo has a villain arc AU (Dark! Leo)

I- Leo

Leo was avoiding people.

Okay, so he wasn’t avoiding all people. Jason ate lunch with him on the stands of the Chariot Tracks as they looked out across the springtime trees beyond. No. He was avoiding the other campers. He couldn’t deal with the weird looks they gave him when he ate at the dining pavilion. It had taken a lot of courage to reveal his powers to the others in Cabin 9, his siblings had been mostly cool with it, if a little weirded-out, but the other campers had been less accepting. Nobody had said anything to him yet, but he knew they were all thinking it. He was a freak.

“So, Piper’s been putting her hair up more as the weather’s getting hotter,” Jason said. Leo was only half-listening, but he nodded between bites of his burrito. He appreciated Jason’s company, and he understood that Piper was a big part of his life, but the constant girlfriend talk made him nauseous. Still, it was better than talking about monsters or Gaia or the impending Apocalypse.

Jason faltered, and the conversation stopped when Leo heard the familiar drooling voice and signature vocal fry of Drew Tanaka and two of her cronies. Leo hated that girl. She was less of a threat now that Piper had taken control of the Aphrodite cabin, but she was still a bitter and sneering bitch. Piper had been too nice. If Leo had his way, he would’ve taken a leaf out of the Heathers book and just put Drain Cleaner in Drew’s Hangover Cure.

Jason scowled at Drew as she walked out onto the course. Leo tried his best to shrink behind the terraced seating in front of them, hoping she hadn’t noticed him. But of course, she had. Her two minions sneered at him, baring their perfectly white teeth.

“Well, well, well,” Drew drooled, placing a manicured hand on the railing and advancing up the steps of the bleachers. Her cronies flanked her, one on each side, like an attack formation, “If it isn’t the arsonist.”

Leo’s stomach dropped. Jason snarled in his terrifying raised-by-wolves way. Drew’s friends snickered, but Drew kept her eyes locked on Leo.

“Why aren’t you eating lunch with the rest of the camp, huh? Is it because you know nobody wants you there? Even your dirty little siblings know you’re a freak. I mean, I thought I’d seen the worst of those filthy little Hephaestus kids, but this…” she looked down at him with her piercing eyes, “this is a new low.”

Leo scrambled out of his seat. Drew smirked, like his anger was amusing. Maybe it was, considering how he was at least two inches shorter than her. She backed away, slowly but confidently, as Leo advanced.

“Face it, freak,” She said, “You belong in Tartarus with all the other monsters.”

Leo’s hands balled up into fists. Jason tried to grab his wrist, but then yelped in pain and pulled back. Leo’s skin glowed white hot.

“Leo, stop it,” Jason pleaded, “Don’t listen to her, she’s trying to provoke you.”

Drew was still walking backwards down the aisle of the bleachers, smiling. Leo kept advancing, his body was smoking. His fists caught fire.

“Oooh, fire boy’s getting feisty,” She was walking quicker now, “I’ve done some research on your name, I have my ways of finding things out, y’know. And I uncovered a little secret of yours. Something you failed to mention to your siblings when you told them about your powers?”

Leo’s whole body was aflame now. Drew cackled.

“What are you gonna do, kill me?” Her back was pressed up against the wall of the stadium, an amused glint in her eye, “Just like you killed your-“

And the world erupted in flames.

II- Piper

The first thing Piper had registered was two of her siblings running scared out of the Chariot Stands, yelling something about a fire. Then she had heard the screaming.

She’d rushed in, shaking her can of hairspray that transformed into a fire extinguisher (a gift from Leo). What she saw filled her with fear and dread.

Drew was on the floor, backed up against a wall, shielding her face with her arm. Leo stood in front of her, surrounded by flames. His eyes were deep and dark and maniacal, his hands clenched tightly into fists. He was advancing slowly towards her, Jason stood helpless just out of reach of the flames, pleading with him to stop. Drew was screaming. Piper aimed her fire extinguisher at the scene and sprayed. Foam went everywhere, smothering the flames. When she was done, the bleachers of the racecourse were blackened and smoking, the chairs around her charred.

“Leo, what have you done?” Piper whispered, staring at him in horror.

“My face!” Drew cried, clutching the left side of her face, “He tried to fucking kill me!! My beautiful face!!”

Piper scowled at Drew, and then turned back to Leo. For a second, she caught a spark of pure hatred in his eyes, but then they welled with tears. At the sight of the shocked expression on her face, he seemed to realise what he’d done. His face contorted in remorse, and he tried to take a step towards her, but she felt herself flinch and back away in fear.

“Piper, I…”

Suddenly, the sound of voices made their heads turn. Chiron, and the other campers, led by Drew’s two cronies, were marching into the stands.

Piper turned to Leo.

“Go,” She commanded. There was no gentleness or sympathy in her voice, just a stern coldness, “Run. Now.”

And he did.

“Stop him!” One of the campers called, and began to chase after him, but Jason stood in their way, he kept his ice-blue eyes on Chiron, as if daring the centaur to scold him.

“He’s getting away!” The camper protested. Jason didn’t move.

“Let him go,” Chiron instructed, “Let us focus on repairing the damages.”

They took Drew to the infirmary. She was alive, you could tell by the wailing, but her face was badly scarred. Chiron held Jason, Piper, and Drew’s two friends back to ask them what happened.

“Me and Leo were eating lunch in the stands when Drew came up to us and started insulting Leo,” Jason explained. As he talked, he never broke eye contact with Chiron, giving him an aura of confidence, “The things she was saying- it was like she wanted him to flip out. She was trying to get a reaction out of him.”

“That’s not true!” One of Drew’s friends, Chloe, complained, “Drew just wanted to talk to the boy, when all of a sudden he started throwing fireballs at her face.”

Chiron turned to Piper, “And what did you see?”

“I only came in after Drew was attacked,” Piper explained, “But Leo wouldn’t just explode like that. He’s not a monster. Drew was probably using charm-speak on him to make him attack her- that way she could use it as leverage to turn the camp against us.”

“That’s an unfounded accusation,” Chiron said, “But I’ll admit, I am rather sceptical that Mr Valdez would attack her unprovoked. Jason, what was it she said to him?”

“She called him a monster, and said he belonged in Tartarus,” Jason said, “Then she… brought up the death of his mom.”

“That Valdez boy killed his own mother in a fire and then ran away!” Chloe said, “Drew was concerned at his failure to inform his siblings about that-“

“Because it’s a personal thing!” Jason yelled, “You shouldn’t expect him to give detailed outlines of all the traumatic things that ever happened to him!”

“I’m sorry for not feeling safe with a murderer around!”

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!!” Electricity crackled around Jason. Piper wondered if he’d gotten taller somehow, but then she looked at his feet and noticed he was levitating a few inches off the ground.

“We should track him down and make him pay for his crimes!” Drew’s other lackey suggested. Chloe nodded in agreement.

Jason glowered at them, lightning crackling some more.

“You’re right,” Chiron said.

“What?” Piper and Jason protested in unison.

“It’s not safe to have a powerful Pyrokinetic demigod out on his own, afraid and dangerous,” he explained, “For Leo’s own safety, we need to bring him back to camp.”

“We volunteer,” Chloe said.

“No,” Jason replied, ““After the way Drew treated him, I don’t blame him for running away. And frankly, I don’t think it is necessarily safer for him to be in a place that would shun him instead of teaching him how to actually control his powers,” he stared at Chiron, but he took Piper’s hand and squeezed it.

“But Chiron’s right. Leo’s afraid. If he sees you two coming, it’ll scare him away, which will only make things worse… But he trusts us. And we know him better than anyone. If anyone’s finding him, it’s me and Piper.”

III- Leo

Leo had lost control.

Dangerous. A freak. A monster that belonged in Tartarus. That was what Drew had called him. And she was right- he’d proven that much. He’d flipped out and almost killed her because he couldn’t do a little anger management. He remembered the terrified faces of Jason and Piper. His best friends had looked at him like he was unrecognisable. They had been afraid of him. Piper hadn’t told him to run out of the goodness of her heart, but as a warning. She was letting him scarper instead of face the consequences of what he’d done. Chiron and the other campers wouldn’t be so merciful.

Of course he had run. He always did. He always will. He had thought Camp Half-Blood might be different, but he’d ruined it like he had in all the foster homes, schools, even with his own family. He will never not be running.

He stared down at the valley beneath him. Camp half-blood gleamed in the spring sun. Next to him, a cliff ran along the edge of the Long Island Sound.

Gods, it would be safer for everyone if he just jumped.

He hadn’t had thoughts like that in a while, not since he was a kid. But he approached the edge of the cliff and looked down. The tide was out. He imagined his tiny body slamming against those jagged rocks, the waves coming in and carrying him away. He could be at peace. And everyone he loved would be safe from him.

No. He couldn’t think like that. He had to keep moving.

He’d kept an emergency backpack in Bunker 9 in case he needed to split. He’d been hopeful he didn’t need it, but obviously he had been wrong. He took it off his shoulder, and double-checked its contents. Inside, he had a spare change of clothes, a refillable water bottle, some cereal bars, a blanket, a map of New York, five dollars in cash, and his second-favourite screwdriver. If there was anything he didn’t have, his tool-belt would provide.

He made the trek halfway to Queens, before it started to get dark and he decided to hitch-hike. He was hesitant to at first- he wasn’t exactly in a position to interact with people- but he needed to get into the city before nightfall. He tried his best not to get carsick as the driver drove down winding outer-city roads.

Sitting alone in the back of a stranger’s car gave him time to think. His whole life, he’d been manipulated by the Gods. By Hera and by Gaia- trying to shape him into the perfect chess-piece for their stupid game, moving him around, bending him into the right piece for 20 moves in the future, toppling over all the other pawns at once. Okay, maybe Leo didn’t really know the rules of chess. But his mom had died as a result of the Gaia’s meddling, in conjunction with the narrative he was being forced into by an ancient being, planning around his future. Was he expected just to sit here and let her?

He’d always tried to do the right thing, never lose control, never get angry. When people gave Leo shit, he was supposed to just take it on the chin and bear it, because if he lashed out-

Well, he didn’t wish the fate of his mother on anyone, not even Drew Tanaka.

But Gods, it had felt so freeing to not have to keep it in anymore. To let it go.

Leo looked at his hands. He could do it again…

No. He couldn’t. But still, something had changed inside. And that terrified him. What scared him the most was how much he’d… enjoyed it. It was exhilarating. He’d fought back, defended himself, proved himself not to be messed with. He’d felt powerful. So powerful, even Jason had been afraid of him. Leo had to admit, the thought made his skin tingle with a strange feeling- not quite pride, exactly, but close.

Leo looked out at the bustling city streets of NYC. His goal had been to get away from Camp Half-Blood. But now, where would he go? This was the first time he’d ran away actually knowing who he was. He wasn’t just a scared little boy anymore, he was powerful. And he had a taste for revenge.

IV- Jason

This wasn’t a quest, Jason had decided. Quests were noble and brave. No. Finding Leo was a wild goose chase.

That kid had experience in running away.

“He’d probably go somewhere where he’d feel safe. Where is safe in New York?” Piper asked.

“Maybe a workshop? Or… scrapyard? Somewhere with machines?” Jason suggested.

“Think. This isn’t the first time he’s run away. Where has he been in the past?”

Neither of them had an answer. Leo really never talked about his time on the run. He’d mentioned a few things, sleeping in a sewer, hiding in alleyways to avoid the cops, eating out of dumpsters. Grim stuff. It had always shocked Jason how much he’d been through.

The Hermes cabin had been their best bet for advice on missing demigods. Travellers. They had told him every possible route into the city, the best places to go to hide. Scrapyards had been a good idea, they’d said. Lots of old cars to steal, things to make. And, for a massively overpowered son of Hephaestus, a lot of fun toys to play with. That was their best bet.

Jason got out a map and circled all the possible places Leo might go. They studied it for a few seconds, discussing which points to systematically hit first.

Piper looked at Jason, a sad yet serious expression in her multicoloured eyes.

“Jason… If we can’t… If we can’t stop him…”

Jason didn’t meet her gaze. He knew what she was saying. He hoped she didn’t say it.

“If we can’t convince him to come home… if he becomes dangerous… you know what we have to do, right?”

His skin tingled with electricity.

“How can you say that, Piper? How can you even think to suggest-”

“I don’t like it either. And, believe me, I am praying that it doesn’t come to that, but if it does… we need to be prepared to make that call. I am prepared. Are you?”

“No, I’m fucking not,” Jason roared, angrily, “You’re asking me if I’m prepared to kill my best friend? No. The answer is no.”

“Jason-“ Piper’s eyes scanned Jason’s face, worriedly, pleading with him to see her reasoning, “You always want to see the best in people, and I love that about you, but I don’t wanna see you get hurt because of that.”

“Leo would never hurt me,” Jason told her, but he didn’t entirely believe it. Something about the look in Leo’s eyes as he had attacked Drew made Jason’s skin crawl. Vicious, wild, and maniacal. Jason had a horrible feeling that if he had stood in Leo’s way, Leo would not have stopped.

He thought about everything that kid had been through. Orphaned at the age of eight, manipulated by the Gods, abandoned by his family, forced to grow up alone on the streets, bouncing around foster homes, treated as a freak by what was supposed to be the only place that was safe for him, and probably a lot more- Leo never really talked about his past, but Jason got the sense it had been harsh and brutal. From what Jason could remember, he’d grown up in the demigod world, fighting monsters and facing death and danger. But the mortal world could be dark and cruel in ways Jason couldn’t even imagine. Subtler, more twisted ways. In a sense, he had been sheltered from that, facing the more explicitly terrifying monsters. Leo had been exposed to those tender cruelties in full force- no wonder he was filled with so much bitterness and resentment. Jason didn’t blame him for wanting to get back at the world.

But would he really go as far as Piper feared?

Jason had to believe he was still worth fighting for. That he was still in there, buried under layers and layers of pain and resentment. That there was still hope.

The first three places were dead ends. Nothing. No Leo.

Dusk had fallen by the time they had arrived at the fourth place.

An abandoned landfill site- mostly cars and old machinery. Heaps of junk towered above them, piles of corrugated iron sheets as high as small buildings. Everything from empty tomato-soup cans to out-of-order JCB diggers. They split up- Piper taking the east side, Jason taking the west. The sunset backlit the mountains of scrap, making the shadows loom over him.

Huge peak, black and huge, Jason thought.

Huh. Since when did he know Wordsworth? He didn’t have that many memories of his past, but he didn’t figure himself a literature geek. He thought about that poem, though. A man being so shocked by the vastness and power of nature that it kept him awake at night- “A trouble to his dreams”. He kind of related that to what Leo must’ve been feeling- terrified by something that was beyond his control. Tempted by the allure of power, only to realise how frightening the reality of it actually was. The poem starts with the man thinking he’s superior to nature- that he can command and control it. Then, when he sees the mountain, he realises his mistake. He realises his insignificance against the vastness of the peak. He realises that it was not him controlling nature, but in fact nature controlling him. He turns back, but the experience scars him. It haunts him for the rest of his life.

Jason shook his head. He couldn’t let his mind wander. Leo Valdez was not an epic poem- he was a scared, lost, and extremely dangerous teenager. There was nothing poetic or mysterious about the shit he’d been through. And comparing thee to a summer’s day would not help Jason find him.

He picked his way through the undergrowth of landfill, searching for a sign of life.

And then he saw it- a shape of a person in the passenger seat of a car. He saw the bounce of the curly hair, the long, bony, twitching fingers tapping on the dashboard. Aside from that, the shape didn’t seem to be moving. Just… waiting.

Jason saw Piper emerge from behind another large pile of trash. He waved her over and pointed to the car. Piper nodded. Jason approached. Leo didn’t look up, or give any indication that he saw Jason. Jason put a hand on the driver-side door and opened it.

“Leo?”

Leo was sitting, facing forward, tapping his fingers on the dashboard of the car. He didn’t answer. Jason sat down in the driver’s seat and closed the door.

“Leo, listen to me,” Jason pleaded, “You have to come back with us. I know it wasn’t your fault what happened at camp- but they don’t know that. You have to come and prove to them that you didn’t mean to hurt her. We can fix this.”

“I’m not going back, Jason,” Leo said, quietly, still staring through the front window, “You can go home.”

“But they’ll listen to you if you come- you can convince them you didn’t mean it. We’ll help you.”

“But what if I did mean it?” Leo turned to Jason, his eyes dark and hard and serious.

“Leo…”

Leo’s eyes flashed with anger, then he turned and looked through the window again.

“I’m not going back,” He repeated, his tone final.

“Leo, I know that you’re probably feeling a lot of emotions right now. You’re hurting. You’re… wait- what’s happening?” Jason felt the car start to move underneath them- inching forward sluggishly over the broken tarmac. Jason turned to Leo, “Leo? What-“

Without a word, Leo grabbed the handle to the side door and walked out of the car. Jason tried to open his own door, but he heard a click. It was locked. How was Leo doing this? Then he remembered during their quest- how easily Leo had deactivated the traps to Midas’ mansion. How he had known how to fly that helicopter just by listening to it. If Leo had some sort of telepathic ability with machines, he would be able to control the car without even touching it. That was frightening.

Jason watched the scene through the front windscreen. Piper was pleading with Leo. He could hear her voice, but her words were muffled. She tried to grab Leo’s wrist, but he shook her off. They were directly in front of the car now- Leo tried to walk away, towards the exit, but Piper was standing in his way. The car kept inching forwards like it was rolling down a very gradual hill. He was close enough to make out what Piper was saying now. Jason could hear her yelling, “Then why did you wait for us here only to refuse to come back with us?”

Leo pushed past her. Piper followed. She reached for his wrist again, but he pulled away, pushing her backwards in the process.

The car crept forward.

“Where are you gonna go, Leo?” Piper called, “What place is gonna take you in if not Camp Half-Blood?”

Leo flicked his wrist, and there was a metal clang! Piper stumbled and fell to the ground, right in the direct path of the car. The hem of her jeans were caught in some elaborate bear trap, scattered among the scrap that littered the floor. Katoptris clattered to the ground and skidded across the tarmac, just out of reach of Piper’s grasp.

Jason realised with horror that the car was not stopping. It began to pick up speed- faster, faster, it was barreling forwards now. He tried slamming on the breaks but it was no good. The accelerator was held down without his foot even on it. Piper was in front of the car. She screamed. Jason knew that she had no time to get out of the way. Leo’s lips twisted into a smile. Jason closed his eyes. Oh gods… Piper…

And then he heard tires screeching. He felt the car skid to a halt. Piper was still screaming. When Jason opened his eyes, Piper was on the ground, the front of the car was inches away from her trapped leg. The engine still revved like an impatient lion, wanting to cut to the kill.

“Promise to let me leave, Jason,” Leo said, his voice firm, “Promise you will let me go and you will not follow me.”

“Leo… don’t do this…” Jason pleaded.

“PROMISE ME OR PIPER GETS PANCAKED!!” He bellowed.

The engine revved again.

“Okay… okay… I promise… but Leo…”

“SWEAR IT ON THE RIVER STYX. BOTH OF YOU. AND SWEAR THAT NO-ONE ELSE FROM CAMP HALF-BLOOD WILL FOLLOW ME EITHER.”

Piper pleaded, “Leo, they’re out for your blood, we can’t stop-“

“SWEAR IT.”

The car inched forward, slowly. Piper caught her breath, and squeezed her eyes shut. Jason tried to get out of the car, but the door wouldn’t open.

“Leo. Stop it,” Jason begged, “This isn’t like you.”

“Isn’t like me?” Leo scoffed, “The dangerous freak is finally showing you just how dangerous and freaky he actually is. Or did you think I was just an innocent side-character? Your sassy comedic relief? You never thought I’d actually do something, did you?”

“Leo…”

“No, go ahead and save the girl. I’ll be waiting off-stage for my cue to be the funny best friend. I’ll tell my dumb jokes. Nobody actually gives a shit about who I really am. How I really feel.”

“That’s not true, Leo,” Piper assured him. Her voice was surprisingly calm for how much danger she was in.

“You don’t really believe that, or you wouldn’t be charmspeaking me, huh, beauty queen?” Leo’s eyes danced with malice, “No. The only person who ever cared about me WENT UP IN FUCKING FLAMES!!!!!!”

The car sped backwards, away from Piper. The tires screeched on the tarmac. Then it proceeded to drive towards her, picking up speed. Jason did the only thing he could- he put a hand on the dashboard, and sent a bolt of electricity through the body of the car. Luckily, it did what he wanted, and didn’t explode. It short-circuited the vehicle, giving Jason time to get out of the car before Leo could force-lock it again.

“Leo, I know you’re angry. I know you have a lot of resentment for the world-“

“YOU DON’T FUCKING KNOW ANYTHING!!” He yelled, “You had your happy reunion. Both of you. Jason found Thalia, his long-lost sister. Piper rescued her dad. You both have people- family- who care for you. My only family… my only blood relatives kicked me out, cast me aside, and blamed me for the death of my mom.”

“That’s where you’re going?” Jason said, “Back to Texas? To get revenge on your Aunt?”

Leo said nothing. That was answer enough.

Jason took a tentative step towards Leo, but Leo’s eyes gave him one quick flash of malice and then he turned and darted past a pile of scrap, squeezed through a gap in the surrounding fence, and disappeared. Jason wanted to bolt after him, but he couldn’t leave Piper. He walked over to her and examined where the fabric of her jeans had been caught in the trap. Luckily, the metal teeth had not caught her leg. Jason picked Piper’s dagger off the ground and cut into the denim jeans, slicing off the corner that was stuck in the trap. Piper wriggled free.

“Another perfectly good pair of jeans, ruined!” Piper complained.

“Oh my gods, how will you cope?” Jason replied, helping her up, then he turned serious, “Are you okay?”

“Physically, I’m fine. But seeing Leo like that…”

Jason remembered what Piper had said about Leo, about him becoming too dangerous, and he knew she was right. Leo had just tried to kill them. He was on his way to kill someone else. They had to stop him. Even if that meant…

No. Jason couldn’t. There was some part of Leo still left there. He had to believe that.

“Come on,” Jason said, “We’ve got a rogue demigod to find.”

V- Leo

Leo had done a lot of thinking on the long bus ride to Texas

The ride was meant to take six hours. Leo hadn’t had the money to pay for it, but luckily he had quick fingers. He felt bad about pickpocketing, but strangely not as bad as he should have felt. That filled Leo with dread. It felt like his emotions were freezing over, becoming closed and calloused just like the skin on his hands. Numb. Desensitised. He was doing bad things, making dangerous choices, but he no longer cared. He was going to kill someone, and he wouldn’t even be sorry.

He studied his arms. Scabbed-over cuts, faded scars, bruises new and old.

He remembered the bullies in the foster homes, cornering him and beating him up. Kicking and pummelling him as he crumpled to the floor. He remembered thinking, as he lay there, I deserve it.

He remembered his abusive foster mom, [this is cannon, mentioned in BoO], the look in her eyes as she hit him.

Slap! I deserve it.

He remembered running away, surviving on the streets for weeks with nothing in his stomach but bile. The agony of hunger blurring his vision, making it hard to think straight. Still one thought remained clear, I deserve it.

He remembered the knife in an alleyway, dragging the cold blade across his skin, blood trickling down his arm. I deserve it. I deserve it. I deserve it. I deserve it.

He remembered the confrontations he’d had at Camp after he’d revealed his powers. They’d cornered him, too. Throttled him and punched him. He’d let them. He’d curled up on the asphalt of the basketball pitch, thinking: I deserve it.

He’d tried to hide the bruises from Jason, but Jason still noticed them. He’d been outraged, shouting at Leo, “You could’ve stopped them! Why didn’t you?!”

Because, Leo had thought, I deserve it.

All these things had left him scars. Every mark on his arm a painful memory of the things that had happened to him. Every single one of them he deserved.

And now…

Oh Gods, what had he done? He had tried to kill his two best friends. He had actually, genuinely wanted to hurt them. Wanted them dead.

What would they think of him now? Would they forgive him? No, he knew they wouldn’t. They’d try to stop him. They’d try to kill him.

I deserve it, Leo thought.

Leo knew he was unfixable. Broken beyond repair. No rescue. No salvation. So if he was throwing his hopeless little life away, he might as well take someone else down with him.

There were people out there who deserved it, too.

Leo clenched his fists in anger just remembering everything Aunt Rosa had done. She had called him terrible names, yelled at the social workers to take him away, turned his whole family against him. She had ruined Leo’s life- abandoned him and left him in the hands of the worst people. She was the reason for all those scars on his arm.

I deserve it.

Yeah, well, she deserves it too.

Six hours until Texas, and Leo had already been awake for the past thirty four. He decided to close his eyes and sleep.

The nightmares came at him, fast.

He dreamed of the night his mother was killed. The low, cold, sleepy voice of Gaia as she told him of what was to come. He remembered the flames caressing his skin as his hands caught light. “They cannot stop me from breaking your spirit,” She had said to him. For years, he had dwelled on that line. For years, he had kept up appearances- kept up the Mask of the jokes and the sarcasm.

He remembered the sleeping face of the woman. Her shifting, dirt-like clothes. He was always the life of the party, the class clown, the comedic relief. He’d made everyone believe he had kept his spirit- that he’d never lost it in that fire. That it was more than just shattered remnants of happiness.

He remembered her coming towards him, advancing slowly and drowsily. He could not let anyone see that his spirit was broken. Not his friends. Not Gaia. Not even himself. Because he believed that if he let that Mask down for even a second, then she’d won.

He remembered the fear he had felt when the door had locked itself. The utter dread that rose in his stomach. Always positive. Always happy. Happy lil’ guy Leo. But the weight of that Mask had been crushing him. Now he’d shown his true, terrifying colours. And gods, it was like a heavy load had been lifted off his shoulders. He wasn’t afraid of being judged. Of bullies. Of monsters. He wasn’t even afraid of Gaia anymore. He wasn’t gonna be weighed down by the need to pretend just because some goddess thought she could control him. She was no different than Drew Tanaka- whispering cruel insults just to provoke him- and Leo had burned her putrid little face off.

He was there again. That night. Fire rose up, threatening to rage and roar. This time, Leo didn’t stop it. He let the flames engulf him and he actually smiled. He remembered the walls of the workshop blackening and crumbling. He remembered the ceiling falling down around him. For the first time, he’d seen that night as a display of his power- he had burned an entire building down at the age of eight, without even trying. He’d spent the next seven years suppressing his abilities, squashing it down, never giving in to the temptation of lashing out. Now, knowing the extent of his powers… imagine what he could do with some practice, maybe some training. The world had wronged him, but he was powerful. And he was gonna get it back.

He remembered the police sirens singing quietly in the distance. The flashing lights revolving silently across the world, washing it in red, blue, red, blue.

He was angry. He was gonna kill her. He was gonna fucking kill her.

Leo woke with a start. He felt the heat in his body rising, and quickly tried to squash it down. Luckily, there was no-one sitting next to him, but the stench in the air and on the leather seats at the back of the bus smelled incredibly flammable. Leo’s skin was scolding hot to the touch. He looked up at the no smoking sign, and chuckled at the irony of it.

Outside the window, the bus was pulling into a depot, manoeuvring into a space. He heard, or rather, felt, the tires underneath him slow to a halt. They had arrived.

VI- Jason

Texas was six hours away. They could get there quicker by plane, but they didn’t have the money for a ticket. They couldn’t even afford a coach, but luckily Piper had a solution. With a quick help from the Human Spark Plug that was Jason, they managed to get the car that Leo had tried to pancake them with up and running. Piper had gotten private driving lessons from her dad in the run-up to her sixteenth birthday. She’d put them to good use when she’d joyridden that BMW. They just prayed that she looked old enough to not be asked for a license.

It had taken them an hour to get out of the New York traffic, costing them valuable time. If they really were on their way to save a life, Jason hoped that getting stuck still behind a taxi cab for fifteen minutes didn’t cost them that. From what he’d heard about Leo’s Aunt Rosa, Jason figured she was a nasty and unpleasant piece of shit. But that didn’t mean she deserved to die. Besides, it wasn’t her that they were trying to save- it was Leo. Taking a life changes someone. He wanted to stop Leo before he went down that path. Jason couldn’t lose Leo like that.

“How’re we gonna stop him?” Jason asked, the long, winding upstate roads twisting before them.

Piper sighed, keeping her eyes on the road, “I tried charm-speak in the scrapyard. It didn’t do anything. He’s too far gone- too stuck in his own head to listen to reason.”

“There’s gotta be some way we can get through to him. There’s gotta be hope.”

“But what if there isn’t?” Piper’s voice cracked slightly, “What if…”

“We’re not having this conversation again, Piper. We’ll find some other way.”

Piper looked like she wanted to argue, but she kept her mouth shut.

They drove for several more hours before they arrived in Huston. Daylight rose up as they entered the city. Neither of them had slept. The streets became progressively more packed and winding as they delved further into the city.

The only question was- Where was Leo? How were they gonna find one scrappy twig of a boy in a big city like Huston?

Luckily, as they drove down the busy streets, a fire engine raced past, sirens blaring. Piper and Jason exchanged looks. It very well might not’ve been Leo, but it was their best lead. Piper stepped on the gas, and they went after the engine. Several cars honked at them angrily, but Piper ignored them. She sped up, going through a red light.

The car skidded to a halt when Piper saw that the firetruck had stopped outside a building. Smoke was pouring out of one of the ground-floor windows, but it wasn’t alight yet. Jason sighed with relief when he saw that a crowd of people- he guessed most of the inhabitants judging by the size of the apartment complex- standing safely outside. No-one looked badly hurt, but there was no Leo.

They got out of the car and moved closer towards the crowd. Nobody stopped them in the chaos.

“A teenage boy,” Jason head one of the residents say to the firefighter, “Stormed into our neighbours apartment. We heard yelling, then we heard the fire alarms.”

“What did this boy look like?”

“He was skinny, looked about fifteen, maybe sixteen- he had dark hair and his clothes and face was covered in dirt.”

Yup, that was Leo alright.

“He’s still in there,” the witness said, “I-I didn’t see him or our neighbour come out.”

Jason thanked the god of eavesdropping on people giving valuable exposition, and grabbed Piper’s hand. Before the firefighters could stop them, they rushed into the building.

Jason ran down the hall. One of the doors was ajar, and thick smoke was pouring out of it. Jason pulled Piper inside.

Leo was standing there, his body aflame, looming over an old woman, cowering on the floor. Leo was approaching her, slowly.

“Say you’re sorry, Aunt Rosa!” Leo yelled, “Say you’re sorry for everything you did to me.”

“Leo, stop!” Piper cried, and for a second, Leo did. But then he shook his head, and kept advancing.

“Say you’re sorry!” He commanded.

“I-I-“ The woman stammered. Leo’s fire burned brighter. Piper rushed forward and grabbed Leo’s Aunt by the shoulders and pulled her out of the way. She pushed her towards Jason, who grabbed her and shoved her towards the door. She ran without looking back.

Leo turned to face him. He was still wearing his Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, which was now tattered and scorched and ripped. He glowered menacingly at Jason, fire danced in his eyes. Some twisted muscle in the corner of his mouth curled into a smile, as he sent two lines of flames racing towards Piper. Jason ran and pushed her out of range of the attack, just before walls of fire closed in around him. Heat hit him in the face with an unbearable force. Searing pain. Jason felt the strength seeping out of him. Leo was advancing slowly down the alleyway he’d created with his flames.

“Leo, please,” Jason begged, “You don’t want to do this. Please, I know some part of you still cares.”

At Jason’s pleading the corner of Leo’s mouth twisted into even more of a cruel smile. It wasn’t Leo’s smile- that flash of that playful grin, the mischievous twinkle in his eye, the cheeky little dimple at the corner of his mouth. No. This smile was cold and menacing, and it was disturbing how genuine it was. Leo was enjoying this.

Jason’s skin blackened and blistered. He wanted to cry out in pain, but Leo’s hand shot out and closed around his throat, cutting off what little oxygen Jason had left in the smoke-filled room.

“JASON!!” Piper yelled

It was now or never. Leo had Jason pinned against the wall, but Jason had the physical advantage over him, despite the energy seeping out of his muscles as Leo throttled him. He could muster up enough strength to overpower Leo, bring his sword down on his skull, end it all here. His vision was clouding fast, and Jason could feel his empty lungs screaming for air. If he didn’t act now, he’d quickly lose consciousness. But something made him hesitate. He let his sword clatter to the ground. Leo kicked it aside, keeping his eyes locked on Jason. Jason raised his hand, and touched Leo’s cheek. The last thing he saw was Leo’s dark eyes, cold and cruel, as the life drained out of Jason’s body and the fire swallowed him whole.

VII- Piper

Piper couldn’t see. Smoke filled the room and stung her eyes. She could just make out the vague silhouette of Leo holding Jason up by the throat- pinning him against the wall. She saw Jason struggle, gasping for air.

She called his name.

She unsheathed Katoptris and rushed forwards, but the heat from the flames was too much to bear, so she staggered back. She stood there, helpless, as Leo chocked Jason to death. She saw Jason drop his sword, and Leo kick it away. It skidded to a halt at Piper’s feet. What the fuck was Jason doing, letting go of his weapon? Leo was gonna kill him! She saw Jason reach out towards Leo, then his limbs went slack.

“NOOOOOO!!!!!!” Piper screamed.

Too late. She watched in horror as Jason’s limp body disappeared behind a column of flames. Piper picked up his sword with trembling hands, as Leo turned to face her.

She couldn’t believe it. Jason was dead. And Leo- Leo, his best friend, his closest companion, had killed him.

No. It wasn’t Leo. The man that stood in front of her was barely recognisable as that scrawny kid she’d met at the Wilderness School. His pointed facial features were darkened in the fire-lit room, the muscles around his mouth were contorted into a deranged grin. The look in his dark eyes was of pure malice. That. Was not. Leo.

Jason was dead. Whatever it was that stood before her had killed him. And it needed to pay.

It advanced towards her, but she was ready. She held Jason’s sword firmly in her grip.

As she slashed the blade across its chest, she saw that warped smile falter and for a moment, she caught a glimpse of Leo’s fearful expression. Then the light in his eyes died, and he crumpled to the ground, lying still.

He didn’t turn to dust like a monster.

He just lay there. Blood seeped out of the gash in his chest. So much blood.

Piper stood there as the world blurred around her. She felt someone grab her and rush her out of the building, but it all seemed like it was happening to someone else. The paramedics ran to her side, tending her burns. Firefighters doused the building in water. She replayed the moment she had killed Leo over and over again in her mind- that flash of remorse as the golden blade struck across his skin, blood trickling from the wound she’d made. So much blood. Oh gods, there had been so much blood. How can a body that tiny have so much blood?

She could’ve found another way. She could’ve saved him. If she had just hesitated-

No. Jason had hesitated. Leo had not. And now Jason was dead.

She knew it. In her heart, she knew it.

She knew that there was no hope of the firefighters finding Jason’s body as anything more than a blackened corpse. No rescue. No salvation.

Leo hadn’t been a monster. He was just a scared little kid.

She thought about everything he’d been through, everything he’d seen. He’d done terrible things. He’d let the power corrupt him. Let the anger and the pain take over until it consumed him. He was not controlling it. It was controlling him. He surrendered himself to it, believing he himself was not worth enough to be saved. It was better to submit. Leo could not see the good in himself, so threw himself into his power and let the cruelty take hold. Deep down, Piper knew he was just scared. He was just a kid- a barely fifteen, 5’1, runty little boy. Leo was badly damaged and broken and hurting. He didn’t ask to be born into this cruel world. To lose his mom, his hope, his home, his everything. He didn’t choose this life of torture and suffering. He didn’t want to be a half-blood.

He did not deserve it.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

A few author’s footnotes for the end:

I know Drew is a more complex character than that, but I needed a someone to bully Leo and she seemed like a better choice than to just create one.

I did start suddenly talking about Wordsworth there- I’m a huge literature geek and I really wanted to make that connection. I started writing a mountain and suddenly my brain jumped on the whole “Power of nature controlling you” metaphor.

About the car telekinesis thing- I’m pretty sure in MoA or something he actually moves some gears through a brick wall, just by putting a hand on it, which gave me the idea that he probably could drive a car with his mind if he was angry enough.

Also, I’ve just read the ending of BoO (I wrote this fic while I was still working my way through HoO), and we don’t talk enough about how in the battle against Gaia (also Ik I probably spelt her name wrong, I listened to the audiobooks, ok?) Leo was so powerful his body was actually made of fire- like Jason describes how you could see the flames inside him illuminating his skull!! Y’all say Percy is the most powerful demigod, but nobody fucking talks about Leo!! Percy didn’t even kill Kronos himself, he just handed Luke the knife. Leo DESTROYED MOTHER EARTH!!!! And, as I’m pretty sure mentioned in the story, he’d been suppressing his powers his entire life. Now he can finally let loose, he gets to be actually scary.

And not just with his fire as well- Leo is easily one of the most talented Hephaestus kids with machines, so much that he’s able to communicate with them. I wrote that scene in the junkyard to allow Leo to be fucking terrifying.

Aaaaand writing that just now, I’ve realised that might be my own automatophobia (fear of freaky animatronics and shit) being projected through my writing. Wow, the things you learn about yourself through fanfiction.

Also, everything I wrote about machines is probably SUPER inaccurate. I know nothing about them.

Similarly, I have never been to Texas or even America so I have no clue if any of my descriptions were accurate

Idk why I put “He didn’t want to be a half-blood” at the end. But I think it’s an interesting parallel to the themes explored in the first series with Percy and Luke- to be so wronged by the world that you just want to get back at it. But Luke had been wronged by the godly world, Leo had been wronged by the mortal one (but also by Hera and Gaia).

I’ve wanted to write this fic for a long time, and started getting ideas even before finishing tlh- but it was a post by @malrie that inspired me to start actually writing it, linking that here.

Also ty to @lavenderfairiez for helping me proofread some bits I wasn’t sure about and giving me some advice

This IS lowkey inspired by Shakespeare’s “Othello” (Like I said, literature geek)- a guy goes evil bc of the shitty way society treated him and everyone dies in the end. It’s a great play.

Vague undertones of Valgrace bc I couldn’t help myself, but it can be interpreted however you want. I didn’t ship Valgrace when I started this, and in fact I think I began writing it the day I began writing my first Valgrace fic, which then led me to start shipping them. Most of this was meant to be written platonically, but now I’ve made it a bit gay. Ooopsie daisy.

Also, sorry if you’re crying now. Actually, I’m kinda not sorry. I’m like Rick after writing the end of MoA.

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tothefiniteyou · 4 months

Text

Something that's been in my head a while concerning the brothers and their "roles", so to speak. This is meant to be about the original Mirage comics, but applies to 2003 and IDW as well. Potentially 2012, maybe more. I don't remember the exact issues, but this WILL contain spoilers for IDW and the original comics.

Raph is the one that takes on the responsibilities no one else does/wants to. He very often has to play the part of the bad guy because his convictions are more rebellious in comparison to what Splinter teaches them, core beliefs and rules that Leo in particular takes to heart. Raph keeps his family in line through his anger, for better and worse, being the one of tough love. In volume 1 of Mirage when they retreated from New York after Leo was almost killed, he calls his brother a coward for not "finishing the job" and goes off to face the Shredder alone. He almost got killed because of his impulsiveness, yes, but Leo's always been about saving his family. So really, he had the courage to face Shredder again because it was for someone else's sake. Their whole fight was kind of gruesome and full of harsh words, but at the end of it all, Leo thanks Raph for it. It's very interesting to me. It shows that Leo, even if he was originally mad, understands that his brother was only doing it because he was scared of his family being hurt again. He sees that it was for his own good, so he expresses gratitude.

Alongside that, I've said before that it's not that Raph wants to be the leader because of the title itself, but rather that he wants freedom, and for others to listen to him. He resents Leo for holding him back, not fully understanding his brother's reasoning. He focuses more on action and less on the consequences of said actions and choices.

In essence, Raph is often the one that has to do the dirty work. His parentification in Rise is even similar to this, having to parent his brothers and be the one to tell them "no", even when it isn't his responsibility. But if no one else is going to do it, then he has to be the bad guy, even if his brothers resent him for it. At his core, he always has his family in mind, even if the execution is flawed.

Raph being thought of as the shield has always felt right to me, as shields can still be used to hurt.

On to Leo - Leo is a very existential person, and that also makes him the most spiritual. Kind of a yin and yang ordeal, with him seeing how there's a balance to things. (I would also say that he needs to assign a purpose to everything, if only to rationalize bad things. It's sort of why he has a bit of a crisis in several iterations when Splinter isn't there to guide him). He's the most "warrior-like" because of the way he values life and honors things like bushido. He'll kill to protect, but that doesn't make him callous, just "strong" (putting this in quotes for multiple reasons). I think IDW tackled this quite lovely, especially when he goes on to have a greenhouse just full of life.

However, I can't say all of this without mentioning the fact that Splinter's teachings are often flawed. I've said before that a lot of Leo's major "arcs" and "growing up" is about becoming his own person and leader, and that's still very much true. Blind Sight is my favorite story to have come from the original comics, and I think it really puts into perspective how Leo struggles to see himself as anything but a weapon. It's that bad habit of his where he must assign purpose to everything, struggling when proven wrong or having to recontextualize things. There's so much more I want to say about him and his role, but a lot of it would be reiterating my points from this post. I struggle to call Leo the sword of the team considering his words to Mikey about how, if he were to throw his katana off the roof, would that be the same as throwing himself. But in Blind Sight, he does learn that he's more than just some sword for his father to wield, and that a sword not only hurts, but protects.

People infantilize Mikey wayyyy too much in this fandom for just being the youngest, which makes me have to pick and choose my words very carefully for fear of the wrong impression. He's definitely the goofball that tends to not take things as seriously, but I think something that The Last Ronin meant to emphasize is that his "raw talent" is from a place of love. It's not that he's not the best of them all just because he lacks focus, it's that he's never seen a reason for him to have to be a warrior like that. Surrounded by his brothers, he doesn't have to try so hard. He'll watch their backs and they'll watch his. He's got the same warrior's spirit as the others, it's just that he rejects some of those teachings in his own way? Raph is often seen as the contrast to Leo, and that's typically true, but I think Mikey can be as well... In a way, Mikey has the most ties to humanity, and that's why I think he's similar to Leo in some ways. Not to say the brothers don't have humanity, but... It's so hard to word what I mean, bear with me.

Being a better warrior kind of means losing his fun-loving and go with the flow nature. He would be less like Mikey. Not to say that being good at fighting exactly equates to being deadly, but that's always a possibility, you know? IDW Mikey is such a good balance and blend of his little shit characterization and his more empathetic side. When he's the first to leave and reject Splinter's ways in IDW, this shows what I mean with him being more strong than Leo's way of being considered strong. He might not be "the best", and he might not tap into his raw talent that several characters mention, but I don't think that's what he necessarily wants. Splinter's idea of strong isn't necessarily the best.... Hopefully this section makes sense and my point gets across that Mikey is both the heart and armor of the team.

And as for Donnie... Oh boy! He has to use a gun in the original comics and actually be the one to kill (since only Raph and Leo really did that from what I can remember), and it shakes him up SO BADLY... And volume 1 just ends with him not choosing to go back to the sewers with his brothers, but to stay on the farm with Splinter for a bit. This is quite a finishing scene after ending a whole war within the city...

Donnie doesn't love his brothers any less, it just goes to show that he's never wanted to be the one to have to kill, and maybe wasn't prepared for it. While Mikey is definitely a pacifist, you can argue that Donnie is more of one. Him wielding the bo even supports this idea, as it can still be deadly, but not as lethal as his brothers' weapons. He's a very soft-hearted person that prefers to invent and give life to machines.

I hate when people think he's any less skilled in fighting than his brothers, because that's wrong! He just doesn't like violence and, dare I say it, I don't think he ever wanted to be a warrior in the same way. His intellect is a mightier and more useful weapon to him, because he can use it to keep others safe and make machines that can do all sorts of things. He'll fight to protect, same as the others, but disarming is more of his goal in the end. This makes Donnie, at least to me, both the brains and armor for the group. He's more than that, but... something something, things falling apart when Donnie is missing in SAINW.

At the end of it all, something you have to remember about all of them is that, even when they grow older, they started out as nothing more than child soldiers cultivated for the sake of revenge. Killing was always in the books, but they all have a different role on the team, and killing wasn't meant to be Donnie's. He helps with plan-making and would probably rather be support than a tank, if that makes sense.

They're heroes but but but. They're just kids, too...........Gripping my head

#tmnt #tmnt 1984 #tmnt mirage #tmnt idw #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2012 #all of them #leo may be my favorite but i don't play about any of them #their core characteristics are so important to me #character analysis #rottmnt #since i mention it a few times #i didn't add this in mostly because i wasn't sure how to word it but #there was that really good thread on here about rise leo and his relationship with death and i think it heightens my point #i think i could've mentioned how this affects things in the 2007 movie but #well #anyways #i have many thoughts about these guys all the time anytime

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yzafre · 1 month

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thoughts on tmnt 2003

I finally finished watching 2003 for the first time! I've been compiling thoughts as I go along, so here they all are, for the "I like hearing what new people think of my favorite things" crowd (and also just to give myself a place to put them).

Spoiler alert: it's mostly positive, and forgiving of the less-than-positive. This gets long, so I put it below a read more:

Okay, so I saw everyone talking about how different Rise was from 2012, and how it jarred people, and some people couldn’t stomach it, but I never saw anyone mentioning 2003’s place in this discussion? Because I didn’t realize just how much 2012 pulled from 2003, and I feel like the expectations that set about what it means to do a new iteration of the franchise definitely had a place in how people received something different

On that note, I kind of want to do a “who wore it better” post about all the arcs 2012 adapted... (although 2003 probably also pulled its ideas from somewhere else – I've heard the comics, maybe? I barely know anything about those, so have no idea how closely they’re connected.).

The City at War arc (good series of episodes, btw) really clarified a point of difference for me in how I understand 2003 and 2012 Raphael. And by that I mean I think 12!Raph would agree with 03!Leo? Not on the honor/it’s our fault point, but on the “the gangs are out there hurting people, and we should do something about it”. I’d need to re-watch some episodes to check my work here (I think the episode where they meet Murakami sticks out most in my head?) but 12!Raph seemed to have – at least verbally – an investment in the idea of stopping bad guys simply because they were hurting people.

Okay so obviously Same As It Never Was is agonizing, BUT. Leo in Usagi’s world was SOOOOO funny to me. omg. Everyone just being all “ninja deceit”! “Dishonorable ninja”!! With Leo’s whole... deal. Like from the beginning of the show I was like “isn’t bushido a samurai thing?” when Leo brought it up, so to see it being highlighted here is. Mwah. Even Usagi being “bluh bluh you’re turning me into a ninja with all this sneaking around >:(". SO funny. I was dying.

I’ve talked several times on how 2012 invested in inter-connected, long-form plots rather than being purely episodic, so it’s interesting to see 2003 move that way as the seasons go on! I don’t think it ever quite reaches the level of ‘12, but you can definitely see how the writers were inspired by the plot work going on here, and went “okay, can we do that but more?” The differences between how the two shows do it is interesting, too, but that would be a whole other conversation.

Similarly, I can see how part of Rise’s inspirations might’ve been some of the weirder world-building stuff going on in ‘03. Everything about the underground city/ the Y’Lyntians, the idea of the Utrom/Kraang being here since long ago, all the more mystic stuff that ‘12 only sometimes dabbled in. ((I also think part of the way Rise was written was to be in dialogue with the themes of ‘03 and ‘12, but that’s also a different conversation.))

I was aware of Grudge Match before watching the show, but given what I knew about it I honestly expected Mikey to be much more obnoxious about it? Like yes he wouldn’t shut up about it in the multi-part immediately after the Nexus arc, but after that it seemed like he only mentioned it, what, once every couple episodes? Grudge Match implies he was louder about it off screen – which would be in character – but given how good the show usually is at “show don’t tell” for setting up characterization it stood out to me.

Okay this is petty but. I am getting very tired of the constant movie quotes. Stop that.

Okay so on the topic of “show don’t tell” characterization – Leo's ptsd arc was good. Like this was a thing I knew about before starting the show but everyone was right it was goooood. Like obviously within the limitations of a kids show, but a wonderful amount of nuance for that audience. It tracks so well start to finish, even from season 1 where Leo was shown to have this. Really strong but devastatingly rigid sense of identity? Like what it means to be a warrior, and who he has to be because of that. Like the thing with his identity being tied to the swords, and then the reason why he was tempted by Shredder’s initial (lying) offer. It all tracks to like. Okay when he fails. When he can’t live up to it. Of course it shattered his mental state and threatened his sense of identity. Of course it did. And then just several arcs of different plots but with this other character story woven through them. Just in how he was approaching it. This is the shit I was wanting from ‘12 the whole time.

And Usagiiii. Usagi. I love him so much, and this was such great use of him. Building up a solid, believable foundation for a very enjoyable relationship between him and Leo, then bringing it back at this critical juncture in Leo’s character. FUCK their conversations in Samura Tourist were so good. Amazing. Fantastic.

Actually just all the work that’s done with the turtle’s allies is great. The homeless/junkyard people. The super-heroes. Leatherhead. Usagi. The Daimyo. Just... all of it? I love it? It makes the world feel more alive and the turtles grounded in it as like. Real people. Who make connections and upkeep them and. Yeah I love it.

I reached Tale of Master Yoshi and noooooo it’s. It’s the 2012. It’s the 2012 backstory. The inspiration for 2012’s whole thing… its right here… ((Although is it just me or,,, does Yoshi (our hero) look a lot more western compared to Mashimi (our villain)? There’s something about that.... hm. Hmmmmm.))

Hello season 5! A!Ni!Me! Bullshit!!! Very accelerated anime bullshit. Obliviously this is a huge inspiration for Rise, though I appreciate that that show took more time for the powers to build up. Also the ninja tribunal are assholes and very questionable teachers. Would it kill you to actually explain anything ever.

Huhhh okay so I am picking up a LOT of Rise vibes not just from the mystic powers/glowy lines, but from Splinter’s deal with the ninja tribunal, and how they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice the boys, and how the brothers need to stick together. VERY reminiscent of Rise!Splinter’s deal with the Hamato.

Noooo not Oroku Saki getting possessed by a demon. Hello Rise backstory. I see. It really all comes back to 2003 doesn’t it? Rise was definitely made by people who looked at S5 and went “okay, can we do that but more?”

Have I talked about how much I love that from the beginning the show was just like “oh yeah also actual superheroes exist in this world, it’s just an accepted thing”? Because I do. Love it a lot. Having most of them be really old/kinda retired/people are forgetting about them was a good idea though because otherwise. Their spotty presence at cataclysmic events would be much more noticeable.

Dragon fight is cool. That is all.

The fact that at this point Stockman is just straight up like “Let me die. Please let me die” is. Well it sure is something!

I’d heard the last two seasons weren’t as good and… yeah. Like it’s not bad, it’s just… less good. I miss the world and characters of the previous season. Though hey did the Rise gear designs steal some inspo from this season?

HOWEVER. The episode introducing the dark turtles. Where Leo’s like “if you’re really my clone, you should value honor and the code of bushido!” and his counterpart just... stares solemnly for an extended time before being like “lmao yeah nope” and sucker punching him was hilarious, and got a sharp laugh out of me. Favorite moment in this season. I actually liked this episode overall, too.

So. Hm. Mikey has always been very un-serious – a jokester, (verbally) a bit of a coward at times, easily distracted. But as this season goes on it really feels like they’re amping it up/exaggerating those traits, to the point of stripping away anything else at times. Similarly, his brother’s willingness to indulgence/reactions to his silliness seems to fluctuate wildly, but on a downward trend - they always razzed him, but in this season... well they paired his increased goof-offs with increased put downs/jokes about it. This, while a bit annoying to me as a characterization choice, does track on a more meta-textual level. By this point it’s 2006-2007. 2007 is the year Big Bang Theory aired, which I find to be, uh…. Tonally representative of the cultural attitude in the US between 2008 annnnd… 2013-ish? There was this extra-concentrated feeling of, like… snideness and sarcasm that I remember around that time period. It’s also very prominent in TMNT 2012 – especially in Season 1 (when binging that show I was hit by high school memories so viscerally that I said, out loud, “oh, GOD, we really were all Like That, weren’t we?” only a few episodes in). Similarly to my post about the increasing frequency of the “Gibbs slap”, I find it interesting to see the way the changing attitudes are reflected in the same show as time passes.

LET STOCKMAN REST jeZUS

Overall, I see three kinds of episodes in season 6: mediocre, good, and what I call “good but out of order”. What I mean by that last bit, is like… okay, the Graduation episode was good in theory, but felt very strange coming after Season 4/5, you get me? Things where the concept is solid, but seems to be placed in the wrong position in their arcs, which I think is a knock-off effect from the lightened tone of the season.

Oh. I just got to the second episode of S7 and. I don’t…. hm. So, I could deal with the simplified designs in Fast Forward, because they got some cool new gear stuff added in as well, but this is. Uh. Worse. But even beyond that – the dynamics also feel sort of off. If Casey has been going to this gym for a while, why is April only now doing something about it….? I don’t feel like she would have let this go just because the guys weren’t there. Also I'm putting it down here now that I think the whole digital world thing is kinda dumb

I do think 2012 looked at a lot of the ideas for S7 and went “interesting idea, we can do it way better”, which I commend them for. Admittedly, these can also be stock tropes: April getting possessed also reminds me of Ghost Busters/Zuul, and mind control is a pretty standard trope, but… well, you know. 2012 took so much else from 2003, you can’t help but wonder if they pulled inspiration here, too.

Oh they are wayyyy over-using the Shredder/Foot Clan sting/motif this season and it is getting,,, annoying,,,

I kept waiting to see what they were doing with it, but they did not handle Donnie’s guilt arc with anywhere near the finesse they did Leo’s. It wasn’t… horrible, I guess. It’s just notably lacking in comparison. They didn't even have Leo really sit down with him to talk about his own experience like???

I did appreciate them bringing back all those side characters in the finale. I’ve already mentioned I love the plethora of allies and friends they gave the turtles in this iteration, so obviously that was going to please me, though they could have gotten a little bit better showing in the final fight.

Lmao the guy I thought was gonna be rat king!!!! He’s there lurking and watching in the distance???

Good show! But yeah I’d agree with people who say that the heart of the show is really in the first 5 seasons. After that the characters and stories feel a bit… flattened? The more I pushed through the last two seasons, the more I was missing the first 5, which I really, really enjoyed. Ranking on my personal tastes of the series I’ve watched so far, meeting each show where it's at, it goes Rise > 2003 > 2012. Rise and 2003 are really close, with Rise just beating it on account of “it was my first show” and also “I REALLY like anime bullshit”, although there’s potential for that to shift or fluctuate as it marinates in my brain. That being said, 2012 is the one that makes the creative part of my brain go crunch-crunch, so take that as you will. Continuing to go backwards puts me at the 1987 series, so I suppose that’s next. I have plans to watch the new TotTMNT with family during the holiday season, so unfortunately I’m up for an (agonizing) wait on that one.

#tmnt #tmnt 2003 #yza talks about a thing

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angelpuns · 10 months

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Pdpspsps y'all want some Kid Leo Fic scraps?

More or less what happens in the sick arc, I ended up hating the first one and restarting but then never finished sooo yeah

Leo is cold. Cold and all floppy like a spaghetti noodle. He rolled over, hands flapping all over to try and find the blanket. But he's already wrapped up in one! And his long-sleeve shirt, too!

Leo squirms a little more before opening his eyes, blinking hard at the sudden light. It's too bright. And very, very purple.

Donnie's room. No. Big Donnie's lab. It's all blinky lights and big dark screens that remind of him a evil genius.

Leo sits up and rubs at his eyes, trying to get all the blurries out. He blinks real hard and looks around. Yep, it's Cl-Big Donnie's lab. Big Donnie.

Right, he was s'posed to be keepin' a eye on him!! Leo looks around, but Big Clone Donnie isn't anywhere!!

Leo opened the door and heard laughing, aaaaaalll the way far away. He tried to remember where Micheal said everything was. Raphie's room was…was down there, and then Michael's room was…there. But they weren't in the rooms.

Ugh, Leo's head felt too swimmy to remember. He sighed, walking towards where he heard all the laughing. He followed some big stairs and then went towards where the light was. This looked really familiar!

It was probably the kitchen!

'Cause he had been there lots and lots of times already, so he remembered where it was!

Leo squeezed Lion-y tight to his chest and started running, maybe they were back to normal! Maybe everyone was small again! Or Dad was home!

"I'M AWAKE!" He exploded into the kitchen! Waving his arms in case they couldn't see him.

But everybody was all the same. Raphie was still big like a skyskater, Clone Donnie was still wearing his scary goggles, and Micheal was still…Micheal. Too big for a little baby brother.

Leo frowned, but made sure to hide his sad when Casey said good morning to him.

They were friends now, obviously!

" Morning Leo, you want some breakfast?" Casey got up and held out his hand. Leo took it and let Casey take him to the table and help him onto a chair. Even though he could do it himself, they were friends so it was okay.

Casey got a funny look on his face when he sat back down, but he just started eating his pancakes!

" Micheal, can I have…can I have syrup?" He asked, setting Lion-y in the empty chair next to him, " pretty please with cherries on top?"

Micheal smiled at him real big and sat a plate right in front of him! With three big, giant pancakes on top!

It was a lot, but Leo was a good eater! He could eat it all!

" 'course you can, " Micheal poured a whole bunch of syrup on top, then handed Leo a fork, " Eat up, Leo. You deserve a treat after last night "

Leo smiled really big at that, grabbing his fork and poking it into the pancake on top. But then Raphie stopped him and took the fork and the plate away.

" hold on, Lee, let Raphie cut it up for you "

Leo pouted at that, but let him cut up the pancake. His mouth was pretty small anyway, so smaller pieces would fit better. and then he could eat even faster!

Leo watched,

[ Scrapped ]

Leo is cold. Cold and all floppy like a spaghetti noodle. He rolled over, hands flapping all over to try and find the blanket. But he's already wrapped up in one! And his long-sleeve shirt, too!

Leo squirms a little more before opening his eyes, blinking hard at the sudden light. It's too bright. And very, very purple.

Donnie's room. No. Big Donnie's lab. It's all blinky lights and big dark screens that remind of him a evil genius.

Leo sits up and rubs at his eyes, trying to get all the blurries out. He blinks real hard and looks around. Yep, it's Cl-Big Donnie's lab. Big Donnie.

Right, he was s'posed to be keepin' a eye on him!! Leo looks around, but Big Clone Donnie isn't anywhere!!

" He was s'posed to be under my guard!!" He huffed, grabbing Lion-y and stomping towards the door. He was still cold. Even colder now that he wasn't under the blanket, but he was on guard duty!! He had to make sure Donnie didn't do anything evil! His feet are really cold too, the floor is all metal and is making him shiver really bad. Leo grabs the blanket and makes it into a very warm cape.

His head is too swimmy to remember the directions, but he is pretty sure he can find Raphie's room. And then they can be on guard together! Besides, he knows Big Raphie can keep him all warm and cozy.

Leo opens the door and walks down the hallway, it's really really quiet. He is still really, really cold. But not sleepy like he usually is when he's cold. It was a turtle thing, Donnie told him one time.

He wasn't sleepy, but he wanted to lay down really bad. His legs hurt from walking, even though he only walked a little. And his arms hurt from holding Lion-y, but he wasn't even that heavy. His head hurt too, but the lights were all bright and stuff, and he probably had too much stuff in his head.

Leo sniffed, wiping at his face to try and get his nose to work. It didn't work that good, though, so he took a big breath in. It was crunchy sounding, like when Dad did one of his big sneezes and then had a stuffed up nose for the rest of the day.

That was okay, Leo could still be on guard duty with a stuffed up nose.

He kept walking and walking til he found Raph's big giant door, but it was closed. He set Lion-y on the floor really careful, but his arms hurt too bad to open the door. Leo huffed, sitting on the ground and banging on the door two times. He was too tired to do it anymore. He would just have to wait til Big Raphie opened the door by himself!

But then the door opened! And Big Raphie was already in there. He had a funny look on his face.

[ Blegh skipping ahead ]

#art #rottmnt #fanart #rottmnt fanart #rottmnt leo #comic #rottmnt fanfic #rottmnt kid leo au #kid leo au

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ruegarding · 4 months

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Hi! How are you doing? Honestly, I had a bit of an obsession with Will after The Blood of Olympus mostly because he was a blank slate which meant that he could be anyone and anything especially since Apollo is the god of so many things, so I'd look for Will Centric content. And they were so infuriating because Will would constantly hate Percy for "being better than everyone else," "Killing Michael Yew," "Not trusting Nico." Like Percy did trust Nico, and he trusted him with his plan to defeat Kronos (which worked!) Sure there was some miscommunication but Nico came through for Percy. And Michael's death was not Percy's fault. Percy had to destroy the bridge to stop the monsters. Like to me, it feels like Will centric fics use the justification of Will to hate on Percy without anything being resolved, particularly towards Michael's death without addressing the fact that it was war and no matter how tragic it was, Percy couldn't save everyone. Anyways, HOO is fascinating. I've read somewhere on Tumblr that due to the fact that RR overpowered the five new heroes, that he had to leave the smarts to Annabeth. Which is very true and has detriments to literally every other character but especially Jason and Percy, who were essentially military leaders at 15 and 16! And like would it killed for Piper, Leo and Frank to not have superpowers? And did Hazel really need the Mist? I think it would have been fascinating if Annabeth was the one to learn it, because maybe it would have balanced out the whole power spectrum at the very least because RR insisted on giving everyone superpowers. And it's sad how neither Percy nor Annabeth have a perspective in the final book because they had just returned from Tartarus and because they're the characters we've known for years. RR just shunted them after Tartarus and Percy during the Final Battle. He is the son of the Stormbringer, he can literally summon hurricanes, plus if he really puts his mind to it, he can cause earthquakes. Like the Final Battle is where he couls have shined and yet, he did not. HOO was interesting but so much of it was a disappointment.

hi! yeah, i agree. w the way hoo (hoh and boo especially) are written there's a lot of percy bashing for things he didn't even do or things that are completely removed of nuance (thank u rick for that). like i've said before, percy has plenty of flaws, but instead of using any of them well rick made him completely ooc, and there is a definite bandwagon of hate from ppl for it. unfortunately it makes will's character a bit unapproachable in fandom.

annabeth w mist powers is interesting. i don't think i've seen that before. it could extend past being just another power and be a window into how annabeth imagines her perfect world. but yeah, there's a definite power-scaling issue w hoo, not just w the demigods, but w the antagonists, as well.

i think one of the biggest failures of hoo is that it sets up that there needs to be seven main characters—the seven of prophecy, even—and then fails to deliver these seven consistent main characters. like, the whole reason nico, reyna, and hedge end up delivering the statue is bc the seven (as in, all seven of them) have to finish the quest, but then we don't have perspectives from these characters rick just established as necessary, and rick keeps writing them out of the narrative, and characters who weren't even part of the seven come across as more important. it's a mess.

honestly, it would've been better if the seven did split up to bring the statue to chb, bc then, at least, they would all feel narratively important. instead, it's difficult to tell if we have seven main characters, nine main characters, or three main characters w some side povs. this makes it near impossible to have consistent, well-done arcs and leaves us w. whatever boo is.

#rr crit #hoo crit #answered

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dluebirb · 6 months

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Obituary of Our Own ⛧ Chapter One

So. I made another AU. What are you gonna do!

Huge props to @3mutantsinatrenchcoat, @justletmereadmycomics, and @bigmoneysniffler for being my wonderful beta readers and editors! I literally can't thank you enough askdljsdewfe

---------------------------

In Leo’s humble opinion, the week's villains were getting pretty shelling pathetic.

“Afternoon, boys! Ritual, huh? How’s that working out for you?”

With a grunt, Leo caught the two robed figures he was facing with a kick to the chest, and they fell onto the mostly completed ritual in the shape of a pentagram, with candles adorning the star tips.

Honestly, it was a wonder they could get this organized.

“Sayonara, SUCKERS!”

Across the way, the moron who was the self-appointed leader (as far as Leo could tell) pointed at another duo and shouted, “Finish it, now! Quickly!”

One of the two lit the last candle, and a sizzling portal appeared. Leo had to fight the gut reaction to cover his face against a steel mech's spearing tentacle or sharp hand that would never come.

“Oh, crud!” Mikey exclaimed and held his nunchaku defensively.

“Man, get another gimmick! That’s my thing!” Leo called and launched a sword at the portal, which curved around it in an arc. In the blink of an eye, he was in midair, holding both swords again. Leo created his portal with his other sword, encompassing the red one before they both fizzled out of existence. A small… something tugged at his gut.

“Alright, Mike, say it with me: You’ve been portal-chopped!”

After a moment, he looked at his younger brother. “You didn’t say it.”

“Sorry!”

As Leo called them in his head, one of the Weirdo Wizards healed their hands out and, true to their name, began to presumably cast a spell.

However, they were still a Weirdo Wizard. The “spell” did nothing at all, rather dissappointingly.

“BOO!” Mikey exclaimed. “BAD SHOW!”

Leo’s communicator clicked on, and Donnie’s monotone could be heard over the slight static. “April’s headed your way! She got chucked!”

“Ten-four, good buddy!” Turning up to Mikey, still, at the edge of the small crater Leo was fighting in, Leo cupped a hand around his beak. “MIKE! ANY SIGN OF APRIL?”

Mikey squinted and used his hands to block the light from the streetlamps so he could see better. “YEP! OVER THERE!”

Leo followed Mikey’s pointed finger and spotted April’s tiny frame hurtling through the air.

"Yeesh," He winced. "I got her!" He swung a sword, and a portal nabbed April right out of the sky.

“Done and done,” Leo said into the comm. He thought it odd that she hadn’t reappeared, but who was he to judge his portals? Besides, if Donnie did record everything, they could find her in a pinch.

Someone yelled, and they both turned to the sound. Raph was standing over a robbed figure, their hood down. It was a middle-aged blonde woman with and sharp glasses, the type you’d see in a spy movie.

“DAMN IT! AGENT ONE!” she shouted, and the same guy that had cast the ‘spell’ whipped out a gun, and shot the ground by Raph, who jumped to avoid it with a squeak.

“Diversion!” Leo shouted, cupping his hand around his mouth.

“On it! Bringing the razzmatazz!”

Leo watched with tentative concern as Mikey used his mystic hands as he flipped over ‘Agent One,’ and his orange magic poured into the air.

At least his hands weren’t cracking, Leo reminded himself.

But before he could do much of anything with the aforementioned powers, the blonde sent a sharp kick to Mikey’s shell, and he crumpled forward, his hands going to cover his face on instinct.

A sharp scream reminded Leo with a piercing shock that Mikey’s powers had been activated. He swore, and ran towards his younger brother. He faintly registered Donnie striking the woman down with his staff, and Raph let out a second yell, this one more fearful and angry.

Leo tugged Mikey across the ground, and pried Mikey’s arms away from his face. Yellow-ish orange circles of magic tugged across the right side of his face, where his hands had made contact.

“Okay, this is fine, you’re good! You’re good, you’re fine,” Leo muttered, and dragged his sword through the air as Raph gently lifted Mikey. “We’ll meet you back at the Lair,” he explained, and Raph nodded, giving a reassuring smile as he stepped through the portal and it snapped closed behind him.

Leo turned back to Donnie, and saw his purple brother dodge a blast from a large gun that he would have invented. Leo wondered if he was bitter that these clowns had beaten him to the punch as he dodged a blast of plasma.

“Dude! How come you got to fight the cool guy?”

“You fought him too, if you remember…”

“Yeah, but then he was just waggling his fingers like one of those cosplay wizards April hates!”

“Tch. Skill issue.”

Leo swept under one of them, and used his sword to force the blaster up, and it ricocheted into the air, taking out a street light.

“Would you stay still?!” The man spat, and Leo shrugged.

“Never really been my forte, you know?”

Donnie smacked the gun out of the woman’s hand, and as she pulled out a knife, snarling, the blaster went off, heading straight for a nearby support beam.

“Oh, pecans… LEO!”

“On it!”

Using more effort than he could take comfort in, Leo sliced open two portals: One to catch the blast, and the other to redirect it.

Turning to Donnie, he called: “Time for us to go!”

“See you never!”

As Leo sliced open another portal, Donnie running backwards toward it, the blast touched down, and they were both shot backwards, all four of them letting out a yell.

The last thing Leo saw before the darkness kicked in was the blinding light, and the agents throwing themselves to the side.

A/N: I haven't written fanfic in a hot second, so I'm just getting back into the groove here, I hope it was enjoyed! More chapters are on the way!

#fanfiction #rottmnt #rottmnt leo #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt raph #rottmnt april #vivzieverse #helluva boss agent one #helluva boss agent two #Obituary of our own!AU #OOOO!AU #that's the title rn #I might change it #idrk #tbh I'm really nervous about posting this

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boxfullaturtles · 10 months

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I want to know all the things about your KH AU. Please just tell me things, because I love it.

oh Kingdom Hearts AU, how i have neglected you…. UnU what can I say about KH AU hhhmm (aside from having Raph's ref sheet half done and then getting distracted by a million other things lol) let's see........

Donnie loses his heart at some point. Not because of a Heartless or other enemy, but because he pushes himself too hard and too far.

He does create a Heartless. I don't know what kind of Nobody he leaves behind

The rest of the family do end up finding--and fighting--Donnie's Heartless. How do they know it's Donnie's? Well, aside from Mikey being able to sense Donnie's Heart, buried and smothered in Darkness, there's a certain...Donatello flavor to the way the Heartless looks.

I have not finished designing the Donnie Heartless.

How do they get Donnie back? I dunno. Maybe it involves the piece of his Heart he left with Shelldon.

What's in the half of Donnie's lab that no one ever gets to see? That's a secret. For now.

Casey's Future Leo only had one Keyblade and it wasn't Arc Hope, so Future Leo didn't have portals. In fact, Future Leo's Keyblade didn't seem like it fit him at all. A heavy hitter with a reverse grip didn't really fit his fighting style. But he made it work.

Future Mikey was so powerful that his Keyblade kind of just...floated around him, like an extension of himself. He wielded it kind of like how Sora's Final Form uses Keyblades in KH2.

Casey Junior gets a shock when he sees the present day Keyblades. And an even bigger one when Leo portals. And then the biggest one when Leo gains Synch Blade and dual Keyblades.

I love the design of Before the Fall so damn much. But I don't think it fits Leo very well overall. I think after the Krang, the whole thing is weighing heavily on his Heart and he can't let it go. So while he has a lot more faith in his family (After the Rise), he's struggling with keeping that faith in himself. It's letting doubt and Darkness creep into his Heart and it's going to take some work and character development for him to overcome this. Before the Fall is a little too heavy with Darkness for him.

When Leo DOES find himself in a better place, Before the Fall will change. To what? I haven't decided yet. I just don't think Leo should be forced to carry a burden like that Keyblade. He deserves something better.

April's Keyblade is the only one I haven't figured out a name for yet.

In the silly TMNT AU Competition comic I did, Donnie mentions a "Worlds We Are Banned From" list. This is a real list. They have been forbidden from returning to some worlds for...reasons. The reasons may or may not be because of shit they've done.

Raph and Leo sort of co-lead the group, but Raph still acts as the big brother most of the time, trying to wrangle his siblings into behaving. Except when he's acting out too, and then it's April's job.

April getting a Keyblade was an accident. Donnie accidentally did it when they were little.

What's Draxum doing in this AU? Why did he make the turtles? What are the Foot Clan doing? How does The Shredder work? Fuck if I know. What, you think I planned this or something?

Yes, there is magic that alters their appearance depending on what kind of world they land on. Most of the time, it's like a surface level glamour that only affects the eyes of the inhabitants (this is my headcanon as to why no questions why a duck and a dog are following Sora around 90% of the time, they look human on worlds with humans). There have been a few worlds where they've had to deal with physical transformations. Suffice it to say that those have been an absolute riot for everyone.

And...that's all I got. For now anyway. There is still some stuff I'm working on, but it's sort of taken a back seat to everything else...

#kh rise au #sorry for the late reply it's Big Run weekend and my life has been consumed by Salmonid #sage writes turtles

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sibyl-of-space · 4 months

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It's time for me to go to bed. And that means everybody gets a Procrastination Essay No One Asked For About Sonic Adventure 1 for the SEGA Dreamcast!

This game is one of my super mega ultra all-time favorites. Every single time I revisit it, I am so afraid that my love for it is entirely nostalgia goggles and it will lose its charm this time around, and every single time, I just have the time of my life because the game really is great. It is so fun. It does some very cool things. It is kind of stupid but it takes itself seriously, and that is very endearing and a million times more interesting than a game that's too afraid of being perceived as cringe to be sincere.

I love basically everything about it. I painted Big the Cat on my Dreamcast and even that is not enough to communicate my vast love for this game.

MANY WORDS BELOW CUT. Visuals, audio, gameplay, I love all of it.

Visuals

The game came out in 1998. It looks like a game that came out in 1998. But the world and character designs are fantastic and the world is so detailed. I could genuinely spend hours just moving around on the Egg Carrier overworld map appreciating all the gadgets and gizmos moving around that are purely 100% set dressing. It makes up for what it lacks in polygons with cool textures and fun trinkets everywhere. The animated CGs genuinely look amazing, and you can forgive the rest of it considering the game came out in 1998.

I also love the splash screens you get after finishing each route. They're so good.

(It goes without saying that the game looks its best on a CRT. There are some really cool lighting effects CRTs just capture better.)

Audio

It obviously has an insanely good soundtrack of just nonstop banger after banger. It also has a very 1998 dub and the sound mixing and implementation are some of the worst you'll ever hear. Eggman has like 5 voice lines that are re-used in every scene he's in. But who can complain about that when they're listening to the likes of "Bad Taste Aquarium"? Literally nobody. Who cares. Every single song slaps.

"But Leo half the time the songs start and stop mid-cutscene because of how the game handles loading" who cares. I can forgive just about ANYTHING a game does in terms of audio implementation if it has a song as good as "Bad Taste Aquarium" in its soundtrack.

youtube

Narrative

Setting aside the fact that the story is kind of stupid, I really think we need to appreciate the way it tells it. The way this game has you play through the same story from everyone's different perspective, and how the scenes that overlap actually play out differently depending on who you play as, is so big brain. You don't get the full picture of what's happening until you've played as everybody, and there is no "big group of heroes collectively take on the bad guy" until the very very end Super Sonic story... until then, it's just different people having wildly different journeys that overlap here and there and are all part of a single, bigger story.

That's just cool ass storytelling. Everyone loves to bitch about my good friend Big the Cat but the entire point is that this extremely chill guy who loves to fish and just wants to save his friend was caught up in this Adventure, and he was a small but vital part of it, and it affected him differently than it affected everybody else because he had a different reason for being involved. But that goes for everybody! Everyone's story has an arc with a start and a finish, and most of them don't come close to being involved in the whole thing. Even SONIC doesn't see everything (he doesn't have a Hot Shelter level at all). Knuckles's story ends on a really cool note, with him going "I may never know the full story of what happened here, but maybe it's better that way." Or something close to that.

I also just love the concept of benevolent protector water god goes apeshit at people, as well as the concept of a ghost from thousands of years ago trying to right ancient wrongs. Chaos and Tikal are great.

Gameplay

The thing I love about Sonic Adventure is that every single character is really fun to play. This comes at the "cost" of what you might call "balance," in that half of the characters are broken as fuck and you can just disregard the very concept of platforming with most of them. I couldn't really care less about that because I just enjoy how fun it is to play as everyone.

Sonic Adventure 2 understandably put Tails in a mech because outside of it he is too damn broken. Sonic Adventure 1 lets you play as him anyway, and it rules.

The ONLY gripe I have about the gameplay is that Big the Cat does not have the means to harm robots (because he is too nice and chill to do that), but as a result he is unable to collect animals to give the chao. I cannot think of a single character in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe who would be better suited to raise chao than Big the Cat, but Big the Cat is unable to give them animals to power up. This is a tragedy.

Overall

Sonic Adventure is a masterpiece. Every time I play it I'm like "this is the greatest game that has ever been made." The parts of it that are clunky, awkward, kind of dumb, or very dated are still endearing because it tries to do so many things that you really just have to respect it. This is the kind of game that is fantastic whether you sit down and play it straight through from plot point to plot point or you spend three hours throwing that statue around Station Square into oncoming traffic.

Of course it's not polished. It tries to do way too many cool ass things all at once to be polished. It is WAY too ambitious to be polished. That's what makes it so good. It's perfect exactly the way it is and the fact that people will play this incredible game and go "lol, 3D Sonic sucks" is a good reminder that gamers will bitch about anything and you should never care about what gamers have to say when making games.

Big the Cat has glow-in-the-dark eyes. Game of all time.

#sonic adventure #analyses #been a while since i wrote a big long essay on the internet about random shit but you know what i was overdue #YOU WILL BEHOLD MY OPINIONS ABOUT THIS VIDEO GAME #thank you for coming to my TED talk #Youtube

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deadtiredghost · 4 months

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so i turned a oneshot into a series. and that exploded into a whole thang in my brain but I'm probs not gonna write it any time soon so i am deciding to post some stuff here.

rottmnt Leo centric cause this is all based on a few fics I wrote.

This is just a fun what could happen after the movie outline but darker than I think rottmnt will ever go.

the kraang left Leo with a badly cracked shell and some lasting issues in his left leg - Mikey painted his cane blue

Leo started doing independent research into mystic medic shit after the kraang attack. the team medic headcanon fr and I think CJ would deffo also know medical mystics which spurs Leo on

Leo spends a lot of time with CJ, coparenting fine with Casey after they figure each other out - makeup is the main thing they share in common because Casey has beautiful red eyeliner and Leo has his own beautiful red stripes.

Casey and Raph bff propaganda! they finish off the foot together or smming.

Triceraton arc:

the triceratons are fucking huge in rottmnt, like Leo doesnt come up to their ankle huge, and I see Raph using his hologram things to get bigger to fight, Donnie supporting him like in the kraang fight, Mikey using his super-strength to do damage and Leo initially being all flashy like he usually does but eventually realising that the only way they are going to have any chance is to use his portals to straight up chop the heads off of the triceratons - a CJ and Draxum approved plan.

cue angst and guilt - theyre like, 19, 18 & 17 respectively. they have encountered death before but never actively and intentionally killed anyone.

but like Leo would absolutely live in pain if that meant his family would be safe. and we have seen this time and time again.

#just super soldier problems:

and then the transition from these two alien invasions back to shutting down the run-of-the-mill villain of the week is jarring, and all the bros have a bit of trouble adjusting to non-leathal levels of strength

its good when they're just up against meatsweats or smming cause he got a similar mutation and can take their full force punches while even some yokai just need a gentler touch.

i'm thinking a teenage baxter stockboy is particularly difficult for this chaotic team to deal with because they're loud and violent by nature, while they need to shut off his tech without significantly hurting him

none of them are good at steath apart from Leo and none of them are good at tech apart from Don so to avoid raph eating more metal Leo decides to split the team up, which is met with resitence of course, but Leo is the logical planning guy and Raph and Mikey let emotion cloud their logic more than half the time.

I want Leo to get frustrated at how his family dont quite understand what he is trying to get at - #just ADHD things.

He needs to learn to be better at communicating, but his family also need to understand that he's not trying to procrastinate or goof off, it's kinda hard to explain something, even if its simple, when your brain is going a mile a minute and its so clear in Leo's brain what he wants that he forgets it isn't clear in other's (does that make sense? taking from personal experience here)

I also want Leo to learn in this conflict to stop relying on himself to avoid his siblings being in danger, because while he had told Dr Feelings over and over he got it and he wouldn't - he totally would and still hasnt stopped putting himself down to keep his family afloat.

Don gets an arc! its about being in an unhealthy relationship!

Don dates Kendra for a time. I think canonically Don would have a crush on Kendra, but it's not a healthy relationship and no one in the family likes her, which just allows her to isolate Donnie from their family etc. Kendra doesnt return as a 'villain' just an antagonist for Donnie personally, because the Purple Dragons cant just vanish from the story entirely.

imma give Donnie a Timothy as a friend because I feel bad for hurting them.

Rat King Arc:

like every villain in rottmnt, the Rat King is a significant issue they have to deal with. He is a human who wanted to discover the mysteries of Yokai and went crazy with empyrean use.

Unfortunately he can mind control rats... cue splinter angst as the family need to fight their father who is trying to kill them.

Big Mama makes a deal with the Rat King for Splinter becuase he is profit. Leo has to deal with her one way or another, so he makes a bet.

Unfortunately for Big Mama Splinter has a really bad back and Raph is very aware of his constant complaining, so he takes advantage of that to restrain him in battle, and then Splinter manages to snap out of the mind control because Raph smacks some sense into him (and some magic) - after Raph got mind controlled they all did some mind-protecting-techniques with Draxum for a while.

This whole Rat King arc is particularly hard on Raph :[

they go home happily ever after with some fun new trauma of their dad trying to kill them.

BISHOP!

next there is bishop, because Baxter is just a kid, he is barely a threat, and Donnie would just wipe any evidence of them off his tech of course? HAHA, nope. because bishop gets involved.

it takes a hot sec before they take Bishop seriously tbh. it was always a fear but as they had gotten more integrated into the Yokai city they had gotten too relaxed, relied too much on Donnie's tech and gotten too focused on their social/academic lives. so the government snuck up on them.

theyre about 22, 21, 20 at this point in time - they have already met Yuichi Usagi, Jennika and Leatherhead, and Donnie and Mikey are currently attending Yokai Uni.

So theyre all settled and "retired" from ninja stuff when disaster strikes and Leo and Raph get kidnapped by Bishop. Time for the pb&j duo to get them back!

Tigerclaw Arc:

I have more ideas involving tigerclaw but those ideas hindge on the ending of the Bishop idea, cause I have conflicting ideas for how it could end.

japanese assassin sent to kill the last few members of the Usagi clan so Leo gets involved and gets a new villain all to himself. (either Leo looses a leg to tigerclaw or Leo had already lost a leg to Bishop and is adjusting to his prosthetic still while fighting tigerclaw) Mikey, Raph and Don meet Kitsune, Alopex and Venus respectively during their trip to Japan and figuring out who has sent tigerclaw to attack their friend.

Haha. I threw Kitsune in there because she is another interesting villain and I would love to see rottmnt Mikey interact with her and slowly realise she isnt one of the 'good guys' and challenge his worlview that 'everyone who helps him must be nice and a good person' - tho i'm conflicted as to whether or not have her as a villain or just a criminal that fucks off to never be seen again

after all this they go get therapy.

Hope u enjoyed, just my brain has been circling these various scenes in my brain since 2024 started and I'll probs never get them onto paper, digital or otherwise.

if anyone felt inspired to write anything with one of these plot ideas in mind, feel free to! Would absolutely love that!

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thinkingjasico · 2 years

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what if when jason woke up on the bus with piper and leo the only memory he had was the name nico di angelo?

The first and second part of this post rewriting The Lost Hero, Son of Neptune, Mark of Athena and House of Hades are in this link <3

Making BoO in a new post bc that one was already a bit long. So shall we finally finish this rewriting HoH with BoO? Walk with me...

Nico has gone with Reyna and Coach Hedge to take the Athena Parthenos, and Jason is on the ship with the others nearing the end of the mission.

For jasico shippers BoO already starts with the iconic "gods...nico" which is already so gay that I don't even need to change it.

The book starts with Jason’s POV extremely worried about Nico and we're going to pretend here that his arc with his mother ended in a better way. Maybe with Jason pretending to accept her proposal and staying in the Odysseus' Palace with his mother to see what else he can find out about Gaia's plans. Piper and Annabeth manage to get away and get to the ship. The rest of the crew gets a little pissed at Jason and wants to leave, but Piper and Leo explain to everyone that they have to stay and wait, that Jason must have a plan and must not have really allied with Gaia. So Jason gets all the information they need and thinks he's gonna have to fly or something like that until he finds the ship because he thinks they must have gone and left him behind (the abandonment complex this boy has...) and then Jason manages to scape, but Michael Varus, Beryl and other soldiers intercept him, Jason denies his mother that same way but makes a whole speech, he takes the stab but manages to fly, almost falling, and get out of there. He thinks he won't be able to fly for much longer to find the Argo II and will fall into the sea and die. At that moment he sees the ship in the distance and thinks that it's the first time that people have not given up on him and abandoned him. When he arrives everyone helps him and Jason, almost fainting, says he doesn't believe they stayed there at the risk of being attacked and Hazel, who doubted Jason the most, says that of course they did because they are like a family now and you cant leave your family behind.

Meanwhile, Nico is starting to feel weak from the shadow travel. Little by little he gets closer to Reyna and trusts her more. Nico remembers how Jason always said that when Nico felt ready to open up to friendships he would see how many people would like to get to know him better, not just Jason and Hazel. Nico found it hard to believe because he'd had a small crush on Percy when he was younger, which he saw would come to nothing when he found out Percy liked Annabeth, and for a long time Nico thought he wasn't worthy of love at all and felt guilty about his feelings for boys. His mother died, his sister too, his first crush not only didn't feel the same way, but he often actually seemed to hate Nico… and then when Nico allowed himself to start believing he could be loved by Hazel and Jason, if he actually felt the same for Nico—Jason was taken and placed as someone else's boyfriend. But little by little Nico begins to see that Reyna, like his sisters and Jason, doesn't expect anything from him. She doesn't want anything from him, except his friendship.

Gradually Nico talks a little with Reyna about Jason, but he talks about it like they're just friends and he's worried about Jason because he's feeling something strange. Reyna obviously realizes that it's not just friendship, as she always suspected, and tells Nico to try to get in touch with Jason. So Nico manipulates his dreams to get into Jason's. It's difficult because Jason doesn't have the preparation or powers to control his own dreams. But when entering Jason's dreams, Nico can feel that he is dying. Nico wakes up startled but before he can tell Reyna that they need to IM the Argo II— they are attacked.

Jason feels something strange when he wakes up, almost as if he's had a vivid dream—but stranger. He wakes up hearing Nico's voice, but he's not there. Feeling his presence and hearing his footsteps... but Nico must already be on the other side of the continent about to make the jump across the Atlantic. Jason feels the ship rocking a lot and goes to the deck. He offers to go down with Percy and that's when Jason gets better and makes the promise of the shrines to the gods.

Nico is in Portugal, very weak and almost dying, when he sees his father and Hades says the "I want you to be an exception" (I have a post about this line here 🥺) and Nico decides to IM Jason.

He's in the infirmary tending to some injuries with Piper when Nico appears nearby. Piper is startled and at least three light bulbs explode when Jason sees Nico there.

"Sorry I didn't mean to appear out of the blue but this thing doesn't have a ringtone or anything." Nico is a little embarrassed because Jason had his shirt up for Piper to bandage his abdomen. Jason drops his shirt in the same second.

"No, dont worry about it." He gets closer to the IM. "Did something happen? Are you okay? Reyna? Coach?"

Nico gives a small smile because that is how Jason is. He is the one in the infirmary tending to injuries, and Nico felt he was on the verge of death— but there he is worried about others.

"We are all fine."

"You don't look fine." Nico really is very thin, sunken-eyed and clearly weak.

"Look who's talking. I felt a strange thing as if you were dying, but I guess at least that didn't happen, right?"

Jason smiles. "No. I'm very much alive."

"That's great." Nico wants to look at him whole, ask more, tell about his conversation with his father, tell him about getting closer to Reyna. Tell Jason how every time he walks into the void filled with emptiness and he has to focus on the next destination, his mind betrays him and thinks about Jason and he almost ends up on the Argo II again with Reyna, Hedge and the Athena Parthenos in Jason's room. And Jason looks at him like he also has a million things to say.

Piper clears her throat and they both snap out of their trance and look at her. "I think your bandage is fine for now, Jason." She gathers a few things and throws them away. "I'll give you a second. Nico, please say hi to Reyna for me." And she leaves.

Jason turns back to Nico rather embarrassed.

"I've been thinking—"

"I wanted to know if—"

They speak at the same time.

Jason chuckles. "You go first."

Nico nods and tries to muster up the courage but can't look at Jason, so he looks down. "I've been thinking about not going to the Underworld if this war ends well for us."

"Really?!" Nico looks up and Jason has wide eyes and a bright smile.

"Really." Nico tries not to smile too, and he doesn't know why it's so hard to control his smile every time he's with Jason even if it's an IM being countries away from each other. But whenever he sees him, the skeleton butterflies in Nico's stomach want to come back to life. It's really irritating.

"And what made you change your mind?" Jason asks and Nico notice he's trying his best to control his smile. "If I may ask."

Nico shakes his head and looks away for a second to control his involuntary blushing. "Many things." Nico turns back to Jason. "Let's say one day a very annoyingly smart boy told me that it's possible to choose your family and have people in your life who care about you and love you for who you are and who make you want to choose to live and fight for those people. And I've been starting to think this might be true."

Jason's eyes that had previously been a little gray from the possible pain of his injuries, gleamed again as Nico saw it happen every time they were together. "I'm glad to hear that. I wonder if this smart boy is among those people."

Nico rolls his eyes but a small smile tugs at the tip of his lips. "Annoyingly smart, don't forget."

Jason nods, feigning seriousness. "Of course."

Nico shakes his head and hears Reyna calling to him in the distance. He looks for where her voice is coming from and sees that Reyna and Hedge are running to him.

"Holy crap." Nico says scared.

"Nico what..." Jason asks worriedly.

Nico doesn't even turn to him. "I have to go." Nico runs his hand over the message and it disappears.

At that moment they are attacked by the werewolves and Nico gets seriously injured. They make the next jump to escape and meet with the Hunters and Amazons (which means, Thalia). We're in Reyna's POV so she's shocked that Thalia is Jason's sister and wonders how Nico will react. Nico wakes up with the note that the hunters took Reyna and he gets mad. He goes out and buys the classic palm tree shirt and then meets Thalia briefly. She says that Reyna didn't know much about how Jason is but as Nico stayed longer on the ship she asks him if he doesn't know anything else, Nico is kind of embarrassed and Thalia doesn't understand why, so he just says that Jason was injured but that he seems to be recovering well. Nico tells Thalia about his theory about the end of the prophecy and Thalia gets serious and thoughtful, and says she hopes Nico is wrong, but they both know he's not.

With great difficulty they make the next jump and Nico soon finds Bryce.

On Jason's side and the Argo II, they are sure they need the doctor's cure or Jason or Leo will die at the end of the prophecy. Jason thinks it's okay if he has to die, as long as he at least gets to see Nico one last time, if only to tell him not to give up on his life and not go to the Underworld.

After killing Bryce in the most sinister way possible, Nico passes out and is unconscious for days. When he wakes up he tells Reyna and Hedge everything. Everything about him, about Jason... He can't look at them and really want to cry.

"It would be weird being two guys together. But it makes it even worse that Jason is…well, Jason, and I am me."

"Kid, I don't understand." The coach says. "You demigods complicate things too much. What would be wrong with two men together? It's natural for me as men and women, satyrs and nymphs…" Nico looks at them a little confused but hopeful. Reyna nods with a smile and Nico with teary eyes smiles weakly. "And another thing, the Grace boy is quite annoying but he's a good figther, you're the same. If he likes you and you like him, I don't know what could stop you." Nico and Reyna laugh a little.

Coach says he'll get things ready for them to go and Reyna stays behind to talk to Nico.

Nico looks at her embarrassed. "I know you liked him, I don't want to..."

Reyna holds up a hand, silencing Nico. "Nico I didn't like Jason— I liked the idea of him. The son of Jupiter, praetor by my side, very powerful demigod and a soldier like no other. I thought I needed to be with a boy like that, and I don't know, maybe I was wrong about that in many ways." Nico frowns in confusion and Reyna smiles. "You trusted me, and I'm grateful for that. After this madness is over and I can think about myself instead of a war, maybe I can understand what it was I had for Percy and Jason, and why that happened. Then I'll talk to you about it. But just know that you and Jason are two of the demigods who most deserve a happy life after all you've been through." She places her hand on Nico's shoulder and he was still processing the 'Percy' part of what she said. "We can die at any moment, you more than anyone knows that— Will you really let fear stop you from being happy and making him happy?"

Back to Jason.

They got the doctor's cure and are reaching Athens. Jason and Hazel tried to contact Nico again but couldn't, and the two are anxious and wondering if Nico died in that attack. Hazel says he's not dead, that she would know if he was, but they are still afraid.

Hazel and Jason are on the deck waiting for the others to finish putting on their armor. They are looking at the blue sea and Athens approaching at every second.

"I wish I had spoken to him one more time." Hazel says and Jason looks at her. "In case we don't make it out of here."

"We're going to get out of here. This is just the beginning of the battle, we still have Gaia ahead of us." Hazel nods and looks at him very seriously.

"I know you guys don't talk about it with others. But back at Camp Jupiter I knew you guys spent all day together while I did my training." Jason’s eyes wide a little. "Every night I saw Nico arrive at the barracks with a silly smile on his face that didn't match his sadness and distance of the rest of the time. He didn't even have to tell me much other than silence when I asked if he liked you for me to understand everything."

Jason couldn't help but smile a little. "I've been remembering more and more things. Like coming home with a silly smile too." Hazel chuckles but Jason's smile fades little.

"What is it?"

Jason shakes his head. "I don't know. It's weird that I didn't have my memories altered to think that all of this happened between Piper and I, like it was for her. And I feel guilty about that. I know it's crazy—"

"Jason you shouldn't feel guilty about losing your memories but not having false memories of her. It was bad enough for you to forget your life and who you are. It's Juno's fault that this happened to you guys, not yours."

"I know, it's just..." Jason lets out a weary breath and looks back at Piper helping Annabeth with her armor. "I know it was hard for her, and I can't help but blame myself. And at the same time I don't understand why Juno tortured her with these false memories and left Nico's name in my head and didn't put Piper in my memories of him." He looks at Hazel who seems to be paying close attention to the matter.

"Mist is complicated Jason. Maybe even being a goddess Juno didn't have full mastery of it."

Jason nods thoughtfully and looks away and now Athens is even closer. Jason’s heart races. "Hazel, please promise me something."

She nods. "Sure, what is it?"

Jason looks at her. "Maybe at the end of the mission I will die—" Hazel opens her mouth to speak but Jason continues. "I know we have the cure, but I've been thinking... We only have one cure, what if Leo and I die? I'd rather you use the cure on him." Hazel frowns. "And if that happens, I just want you to please promise me that you'll be with Nico, that even though he's on one side of the country at Camp Half-Blood and you're on the other at Camp Jupiter, that you'll be family to each other, and that he won't be alone."

Hazel smiles and takes his hands. "Nico may be on the other side of the planet and I will never abandon him. And you will not die, you'll also be with him and we'll all be a family." Jason looks down feeling his chest tighten. Nico could be in danger right now, maybe the seven won't even make it back to Camp Half-Blood no matter how much Jason tells Hazel they are. Maybe when Jason arrives Nico will be dead, maybe Jason will die in the end... it's a one in a million chance that this will have a happy ending.

Nico arrives at the camp and finds Will, Lou and Cecil. They go together to try to infiltrate the Roman army. And Nico realizes how little are their chances to survive this war.

The Argo II reach Athens and they fight the Giants alongside the gods. In the end Zeus blames Hera and Apollo, and Jason defends Apollo. They are heading towards the ship but Jason stops for a second beside Hera while Leo and the others prepare the ship. Hera looks confused by Jason's approach, but happy that he wants to talk to her after all.

"Weird that you being the goddess of marriage broke so many hearts with this plan of yours." Hera's smile disappears instantly.

"Jason..."

"With all due respect my lady, but I don't want to hear any excuses. The only thing I want to know is why did you leave him in my head? Why did you leave Nico's name and his presence in the memories I'd forgotten?"

Hera looks at him confused. "Jason I didn’t let him in your head." She rolls her eyes and huffs. "My original idea was for you to have your memories altered for the Aphodite's daughter and for Percy to have his memories altered for the praetor at Camp Jupiter. It was my chance to ruin the happiness of the two demigods I detest the most, Annabeth Chase and Nico di Angelo. But... I was doing it all alone, hidden, and in such a hurry... So whatever it was, you two managed not to let your memories be altered and remembered them."

Jason was too stunned to notice Aphrodite nearby until she giggled and Hera turned to her. "'Whatever it was' of course. Meddle in these matters and hurt my daughter... You have a lot more to worry about now than with Zeus."

Jason feels the fight coming in the air and leaves to join the others with his head spinning.

It wasn't Hera, it was him. All this time Jason was feeling weak and vulnerable without his memories, but he wasn't weak. Jason managed to dodge a goddess messing with his mind.

Everyone gathered on the deck with Leo yelling for them to hold on tight. Jason saw his dad give the ship a slap. But Jason’s mind and heart were racing faster than the Argo II flying across europe and the Atlantic.

The Argo II arrives at the camp. The battle is insane on the ground and Leo yells for everyone to leave while the ship is on fire, Jason doesn't want to leave him but Leo tells him to go with Piper. None of them are happy to leave Leo behind but Jason grabs Piper and flies off into battle.

Here I don't even need to change the canon because, again, it was already very gay. "Jason’s heart lifted when he saw Nico di Angelo on the front lines with the Greeks, slashing his way through a crowd of two-headed men."

Jason goes down with Piper and Reyna goes to them and when Piper goes out with Reyna, Nico sees Jason and the world feels like slow motion. Nico runs towards him killing monsters along the way in a matter of seconds. Jason's heart will come out of his mouth, he's sure of it. All around him the world is ending and he can't seem to get rid the hum of his pounding pulse in his ear. Nico comes to him and Jason opens his mouth to say something— but Nico kisses him. Jason feels the heat of battle all around him, but it's nothing compared to his body on fire. A very loud thunder rumbles through the sky as Jason pulls Nico close to kiss him back "To storm or fire, the world must fall" and that was the storm. It had to be, because Jason felt he could decimate the world if he felt Nico's lips on his a second longer or if he pulled away.

Nico pulls back a few inches, breathing hard and his face is grimy from the battle.

"You're wearing glasses." Is the first thing he says and it makes Jason smile like an idiot.

"Nice shirt." Jason says and Nico smiles wryly as Jason remembers he loves to see.

Before they can have a conversation, battle calls out to them and they are attacked.

They pull back fighting the monsters. "Where are the others?" Nico asks.

"Everyone's here, just Leo..." Jason swipes at a monster that turns to dust and looks away at the sky. The ship is falling like a fireball.

"Shit." Nico says. "He'll survive, but just in case— for Leo!"

"For Leo!" Jason says and they find themselves fighting back to back against Gaia's army (this art has my heart already). And Jason's brain can assimilate his fight reflexes and still feel his lips tingling and Nico's taste in his mouth. At the same time that he is worried for his life and worried about his friends, Jason feels that his body is going to explode with happiness. The insane mixture of complex and intense feelings mixing like cosmic dust in a nebula getting so absurdly dense that it needs to become a star.

"Nico!" They listen and turn around. Will from cabin 7 is coming over there. He says something to Nico that Jason can't hear but Nico looks worried.

Nico nods to Will and turns to Jason. "I have to go." Jason is confused but nods. Nico pulls Jason down by his shirt and presses their lips together hard and fast. "Don't die." He says simply and Jason can't come up with anything smart enough to answer other than a simple,

"Yes sir."

Nico must have thought Jason is silly as usual, because he smiled and ran off in his red palm tree shirt.

The rest of the battle takes place as in the book. Octavian dies, Leo "dies". After it ends they are talking and Hazel tells them about Leo's plan. And Nico stay with Hazel that night because she's feeling guilty.

The next morning Jason shows up at Nico's door with his glasses crooked and messy hair, and here Nico reaches out and fixes his glasses. It's Nico's POV and he notices that Jason is clearly embarrassed and not knowing what to do.

"Hazel is still sleeping, can we go for a walk?" Jason nods and they walk off together slowly.

Jason asks how Nico felt about Leo's death and Nico says he felt as if he had died, but that he's not sure now. He feels that Leo did take the cure. Jason is all happy and goes to hug Nico but stops in the middle of the movement.

"Sorry, I don't…" he blushes and lowers his arms.

Nico frowns. "'You don't'... what?"

Jason puts his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. "I don't know if what happened yesterday in the battle was just because of the battle or if—"

Nico can't help but laugh a little. He looks around and there aren't many people around. It will be a while before Nico is ok with public displays of affection— other than in the middle of a battlefield, ofc.

He approaches and hugs Jason by the neck looking him in the eyes, and Jason's blue eyes, just like when Nico kissed him in the middle of the fight, now again have an intensity like lightning stirring inside his irises. Jason relaxes around Nico's arms in the same second. Nico opens his mouth to speak but hears Will calling him. He and Jason look and Will is close by with his hands on his hips.

"You can date later di Angelo. After crossing a continent and an ocean with a statue the size of a building you will stay in the infirmary at least for today." Nico huffs and rolls his eyes. "You can bring a companion." Will jokes and chuckles.

Jason pulls back a little and takes Nico's hand uncertainly, but Nico intertwines their fingers and Jason smiles a little. "I'll see if I'm needed around the Camp and talk to Chiron about quests to search for Leo, but I'll have lunch with you in the infirmary ok?" Nico nods, wanting to tell Will to get out of there because he wants to stay with Jason, help in the camp and look for Leo, he doesn't want to be stuck in an infirmary all day. Jason gives Nico a lingering kiss on the forehead that makes him close his eyes. Jason pulls back a little. "See you later." Nico nods a little lost and Jason gives one of the most charming smiles Nico has ever seen on any boy and walks away a little, but a simple kiss on the forehead caused Nico to be stuck on the ground and unable to move. Jason turns around walking backwards. "Just to know, how do you feel about surprises?"

"Public, no. Quests, no. Just you and me, yes."

Jason gives the same smile, nods and leaves. Nico stands there watching him walk away and feeling his heart melt to the floor like it's standing on quicksand.

"Hello? Do you want me to wait here all day while you daydream?" Will says reminding Nico that he was still there.

Well, Solace was annoying but maybe one more friend for Nico's friends list that now included Reyna, Hazel, Jason, maybe Percy and the others from the prophecy, wouldn't be that bad... Yeah, Nico was going to open up to accepting these people in his life. After all, he didn't regret opening up to Jason or Reyna.

Nico spends the morning and afternoon at the infirmary and Jason shows up with a chocolate brownie smuggled from the dining pavilion, and tells Nico that Chiron has approved that after the camp is fine, they all get together to make groups to search for Leo (as it should have been, honestly Riordan...). A nurse appears to bandage the werewolf injurie that Nico has and Jason sees it. Nico explains the story a little embarrassed, but Jason says.

"If you turned into half wolf then we would both be half wolves." Which makes Nico laugh, and everyone around looks at the son of Hades finding it strange to see him like that, but he ignores them.

Nico snaps his shirt collar back into place. "It's a very ugly scar."

Jason turns his head and shows where the bullet hit him. "I got this one."

Nico looks at him in disbelief and speaks quietly. "As if it doesn't make you even more cute."

Jason shakes his head, his ears a little red. "There are others, not so 'cute'." He gets more serious. "Inside and outside."

Nico understands immediately and his eyes water a little. "Inside and outside." He echoes.

Jason looks at him warily, knowing full well that Nico has literally been to hell and back, not to mention everything else. "They won't go away, never. But we can learn to live with them as best we can."

Nico nods and wipes his eyes quickly. "Do you think it's possible?"

Jason looks at him with affection and certainty. "I'm sure."

At night Jason shows up to pick up Nico with a mischievous smile.

"Should I be scared?" Nico asks walking beside Jason but doesn't have the courage to take his hand with so many people walking around the camp, and Jason notices and doesn't try anything.

"You'll like it, I'm sure."

They reach cabin 1 and go to the back, where there is no one around. Jason approaches and his eyes seem to glow in the dark, the air suddenly feels heavy for Nico with Jason's close proximity.

"May I?" Jason asks quietly and puts his hands close to Nico's waist but doesn't touch him. Nico nods, focused on the eyes next to him watching him as if they can see his soul. In the next second Nico feels Jason's hands gripping his waist and his feet floating off the floor. Nico for a second thinks it's in his head because that's how he feels, but then he notices they're actually flying slowly and he gasps and wraps his arms around Jason's neck and feels Jason chuckle. "I got you." Jason says and gives Nico a kiss on the head.

They reach the ceiling and Nico feels Jason release him carefully. "We're here." Nico let go of him and look around. On the roof of the cabin there is a blue towel, some candles and some bowls with food. In front of the towel is a telescope.

"What...?" Nico tries to say.

Jason takes his hand and begins to guide him to the towel. "Remember that at Camp Jupiter you said you liked to see the stars and I took you to the field of Mars at night to show off teaching you the names of stars and constellations?"

Nico chuckles. "I'm surprised you remember."

They stop in front of the telescope. "While we were building the ship I remembered that day, and it was that memory that made me think we were dating, because I got confused with what was a memory and what was my imagination." Nico looks at him confused and Jason blushes a little, and intertwines his fingers with Nico's. "That was the day I realized I like you. And I realized that because as much as i love to look at the starts, I wanted to spend the whole night looking at you." Jason gets closer and runs a finger caressing Nico's cheek near his eyes, making his breath quicken. "Because they are my favorite night sky." Jason kisses Nico's eye lightly and Nico's brain feels numb. Jason pulls back just a little and with difficulty Nico opens his eyes and tries to focus again. “That's why I got this telescope for you. I wasn't sure who you were, or if I'd ever meet you again, if we were really together, or if you felt the same way about me. But I knew I wanted to show you all the stars you wanted to see."

Nico couldn't wait any longer, and kissed Jason with the calm that their first kiss didn't have. The calm of knowing everything was fine now, and they could finally be each other's without fear, without rushing, without anything but them. But even calmly, with every second, every time Jason's tongue met his with the care of feeling each other like they needed to memorize every taste, or every time Nico sighed between the kiss or felt Jason's warm breath on his cheeks, or Jason's fingers roaming up his back, over his face, into his hair, and Nico pulling Jason closer by his shirt as if it were possible to be closer—Nico's heart raced and was filled with a certainty. And that certainty made him pull away for a second from Jason, just enough to look into his eyes.

"I love you." Nico said and Jason seemed lost, looking from one of Nico's eyes to the other as if to make sure this was real and not a made-up memory. Nico held tightly to the back of his head and looked sure at his favorite morning sky that always had a calm rain that could turn into an unsettling storm at any second. "I love you Jason Grace. And I'm not sure of anything else in the world like I'm sure I love you with every cell in my body."

And Nico saw around Jason's head little blue rays crackle like pure energy, and Jason was breathing hard and unevenly. "I love you." He said it with as much certainty as he could put into his voice. "And all I want is to be in your life in the way and for as long as you want me to."

Nico could have a goddess messing with his memories, go to Tartarus and back, or go through a thousand more wars if he had to, because those words would stay in his mind as a fresh memory and let him know that whatever happens and wherever he is— he has a home to return to, and now he was this home for Jason too.

#crying real tears #thinking about rewriting TOA too #and making it be in that way of a post i made with apollo and ares being punished by zeus #and maybe make jason die.... and then they get a whole book of Nico getting him back...#maybe maybe #anyway this was fun and i like this HoO a lot more 🤭#theres still a lot to fix in it liks leo and calypso #and a lot more but maybe if someond turn this into a long fic that is possible #i really just needed to make jasico canon here lol #jasico #nico di angelo #jason grace #rewriting heros of olympus #thunderworld #percy jackson #heros of olympus #hoo

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dyke-mecha · 8 months

Text

Pinned post thiny!!! Hi, I‘m Cephei and I Make Things. Here‘s some of my stuff I‘m working on (PLEASE feel free to ask me about any and all of them!!):

For all art: new and improved art tag

For all writing: new and improved writing tag

Shimejis (little desktop pets for pc/mobile)

Rise!Raph

Sometimes a family is an ex movie star, his four turtle toddlers, and the alternate version of one of them he found in a dumpster (AO3)

Ronin gets sent to the Rise!Verse at the end of the final The Last Ronin issue. Meanwhile, Splinter just escaped from Draxum‘s lab a few weeks ago and is still adjusting to 1) being a mutant 2) living in the sewers 3) having four sons now.

2/? Chapters uploaded, no set update schedule

2012 Farmhouse arc rewrite (WIP)

What it says on the tin. There are lots of things I didn‘t like all that much in that arc, so I‘ve decided to make a version I like better.

~70% written, 0% edited (shoutout to my beta)

TMNT: SheLL (tumblr)

One of my interations in which the turtles (Leo, Donnie, Mikey, Raph) were mutated by the Footclan on purpose to be used as weapons. When Shen (engaged to Yoshi and very close friends with Saki) discovers this, she takes the (kid-aged) turtles and tries to leave. Saki, unfortunately, isn‘t a fan of that and during the fight that ensures, Shen‘s daughter, Miwa, „dies“.

Shen settles down with the turtles in her deceased parents‘ house and slowly works through everything that happened while also trying to give the kids the childhood they weren‘t allowed to have before. Things are quiet for a while, but she eventually ends up meeting four more mutants(?), Jennika, Venus, Casey and Mona, throwing her new normal into chaos once again.

Cover image

References (Shen, Donnie, Leo, Mikey, Raph, Venus, Jen)

Mona

TMNT: Broken Trifecta (tumblr)

In which Splinter gets kidnapped. That leads to various things, but mainly it puts a brand new kind of strain on the turtles‘ relationships. On the way to rescue him, they meet new friends and old enemies (and unfortunately, The Horrors, but that‘s on par for the course)

References (Mikey, Raph, Donnie, Leo)

Various other things I might or might not finish:

Rise!Future!Mikey gets sent back in time to a few weeks after the movie happened (probably multichapter?)

Aftermath of 2012 season 4 episode 12, focusing on Raph and Mona (oneshot)

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fics-n-stuff-n-stuff · 10 months

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Natsu Dragneel/Lucy Heartfilia Gray Fullbuster/Juvia Lockser Levy McGarden/Gajeel Redfox

all fairy tail characters basically -

Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic Follows Fairy tail but with my own twists set in modern day Fluff and Angst Romance Friendship developing feelings Lucy has new spirits I checked constellations and gave her ones I thought were cool

Summary

Lucy is thrown into a world she didn’t know existed. Join her as she unravels this new world full of magic that brings adventure, romance and destruction along with it.

———

Just a modern re-telling of Fairy tail following its arcs with a few twists and turns along the way💞

You can also read it here

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Chapter 17

"So what exactly is our plan?"

Natsu asked her as he leaned back in his chair, looking content as he rubbed his stomach in satisfaction.

They'd just finished eating a late lunch in a restaurant near their inn, after following Natsu's nose to what he claimed was 'The best place in town.'

Lucy looked up at him from her cup of tea.

While he was busy eating half the restaurant, she was contemplating whether they should go through with the plan circling her mind, or think of something different.

She wasn't exactly looking forward to breaking and entering, but there was no other way.

They needed to get closer to the key.

"We're going to wait till the Museum closes, and then sneak in to try and get a better look at Leo's key." She told him, keeping her voice quiet so as to not be overheard by the people around them.

Natsu sat up straight at her words, eyes bulging out from shock. "We're gonna what?" He asked, sounding slightly baffled at her plan.

Lucy bit back a smile as she watched his reaction. "Sneak into the Museum after it closes." She said, slower this time.

"We need to get as close to the key as possible, maybe even try to take it out of the glass and see if it will react to my magic in some way."

Now, Lucy wasn't one to commend theft, and it hopefully won't come to that, but she needed to see this through, for her Mother, for Leo, and herself.

"Grampa Crux said we should retrace our steps, so back to Museum it is. There must be something there that can help us." Lucy started explaining her logic.

"Besides, we can't have people walking around when we're trying to investigate magic, so we go after it closes." She explained with a shrug as she looked through the window at the street.

"If none of my spirits will give me the answers I want, we are going out and finding them ourselves." Lucy almost mumbled to herself as she watched the crowds of people pass them by.

Everyone rushing through the streets in hopes of getting out of the cold, living their lives completely untroubled and unaware of the dangers that are lurking around them.

Watching them almost made her miss the simplicity of not being aware of the Magic World.

Though where would she be if it weren't for magic? Better yet, where would she be if it weren't for the person across her?

Dead, probably.

There was no doubt about it, that dementor thing would have killed her that night if Natsu hadn't intervened.

If not for the attack, Lucy would have eventually been found by her father and married off.

His stunt with Phantom Lord assured her of that.

She would be doomed to spend her whole life not knowing the truth about her Mother, or herself. Which is fate far worse than death, if you ask her.

So they will be getting to the bottom of this.

Lucy was just so tired of being kept in the dark. She was tired of not knowing her family history, not knowing about her magic, not knowing who she really was.

Her search with Levy came to a halt around the Holidays and with all the craziness that happened, they haven't gotten a chance to restart.

Honestly, they did not have much to go on.

It seemed like every new text or book they found had the same information as all the others, it was beyond frustrating.

There was the letter Lucy got from her mom, but that was safely tucked away at the bottom of one of her drawers back home.

She wasn't ready to read her mother's last words.

"Okay, we'll rob the Museum, but promise me that we will never tell Erza about this, she'll kill me." Natsu's proclamation brought Lucy out of her head and she looked back at her partner with a slight chuckle.

"I don't think it'll come to us robbing the place, but I promise not to tell Erza." She smiled at him and put her hand over his on the table.

"Good, that's good." He mumbled back, burying his chin into his scarf. "You wanna go find a magic shop while we wait?" He asked, seemingly coy all of a sudden, his expression neutral as he went to get up, offering his hand for her to take.

Lucy looked up at him with a smile and clasped their hands as she stood up. "Yes! Yes I do, come on let's go." She said excitedly as she pulled him out of the restaurant, his laughter following them outside.

She continued pulling him down a few streets, and Natsu let her twist and turn them through the town before suddenly Lucy stopped in her tracks and realized she had no idea where they were supposed to be going.

She turned to look back at Natsu sheepishly. "I don't actually know where to look for one?" She told him, the statement coming out more like a question, making Natsu laugh at her admission.

"Well, every decently sized town is sure to have at least one shop." He started explaining as he looked around the street they were on.

"Crocus, for example, is known in our community for having the most in Fiore. They're usually in less public areas, there's a smaller risk of someone wandering in.

Remember the one we went to in Magnolia?" He asked her with a grin on his face, knowing fully well she remembered.

Lucy nodded, recalling the abandoned stores and shabby shops.

"Good, so we just look in places like that! That's how I do it, well, I also follow my nose, I can usually smell the weird herbs and magic when they're close."

Natsu said as he suddenly pulled her in the opposite direction and they started making their way to the other side of town.

Lucy looked up at him and then down at their joined hands. He was walking half a step faster than her, making her almost stumble as she tried to keep up with his stride.

They made their way through the crowded streets, and Lucy was once again thankful that he'd started wearing the boots she bought him for Christmas.

Though the snow around him still melted away from his heat, and he refused to wear a proper coat, but small victories.

The same heat was currently responsible for keeping her warm from the chilly January air, and it made Lucy grateful once more to have a fire drakon for a partner.

She honestly can't remember how she managed winters without him.

The crowds of people seemed to be getting thinner as they made their way through town and Lucy suddenly wondered what people thought when they saw them together.

They were a bit of an odd pair.

As they walked through Sakuramori Village, looking out for anything that looked like a Magic Shop, Lucy purposefully decided to take the opportunity of the fact that it was just the two of them on the job and listened to Levy's advice.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" She said breaking the comfortable silence that settled over them, her voice was slightly timid as she spoke.

"You can ask me anything Luce, you know that." Natsu answered with a playful bump to her shoulder, and she could hear the smile, mixed with confusion about her sudden mood change in his voice, could feel his eyes burning into her profile.

She made it a point not to look at him, not really wanting to see his expression to her next words, and willing herself to speak.

There was a lull as Lucy tried, and failed to gather her thoughts and think of the best way she could approach the topic.

"It's just, I've noticed that you've been a bit... Vigilant, since Phantom's attack. And with everything that happened after, when I left to see my father." The words 'Without you' were left hanging between them as Lucy continued to trip over her words, trying to rush everything out as fast as she could.

"I know we talked it out when you guys found me at the Mansion, but I just feel like I need to apologize again for just leaving like that and not telling you about it." Once she started talking it was like a flood of words came pouring out. "I didn't think. I didn't think of how it would look, and of how you would react."

She took a breath as she looked at him. "I'm sorry for how I executed my plan, I just felt like I had to do it on my own."

Lucy continued talking, even after willing herself to withhold her words. "It just feels that by leaving like that, I've betrayed your trust in some way."

They both stopped walking as she spoke those words.

Lucy looked over his shoulder as she finished, refusing to make eye contact with him, which in turn made Natsu step to the right so he could be in her field of vision.

The expression on his face was surprisingly pensive, and in any other situation, Lucy would find it funny, cute even.

But right now all she could feel was nervousness.

"What are ya talking about, weirdo? What's Vagulant even mean?" For all the seriousness of his expression, his response left Lucy feeling like she was going to combust.

Of course, what else was she expecting? This was Natsu, after all.

"It's Vigilant, and it means being, like, on the lookout, watchful, on guard. You have been all of those things, and maybe even a little protective?" She tried to articulate her thoughts without completely calling him out and the look on his face made her think that it wasn't working, so Lucy tried a different approach.

"I don't know if any of this makes sense." Lucy said with a small huff as she ran her hand through her bangs, slightly frustrated with herself for lacking the words after she spent hours rehearsing every avenue of how this conversation would go.

Leave it to Natsu to throw her off her game.

She should have expected it, really.

"What I'm trying to say is, I am sorry for disappearing like that. But you have my word it won't happen again. Don't worry about me, I'm not planning on going anywhere."

She finally managed to stop talking, feeling a little out of breath from her confession, and waited with a fluttering heart for him to respond, wringing her fingers anxiously as she did.

Natsu's eyes were narrowed as he looked at her, contemplating her words.

The heat around them seemed to double in a span of seconds as they looked at each other, the intensity of it making Lucy almost sweat under her layers.

It was in moments like these, that she was reminded that when he wanted to, her partner could be very intense.

It was easy to forget when his usual behavior was so carefree.

Natsu usually walked around like he owned the world, and was certain that everything would always work out for him.

And to his credit, from what she's witnessed so far, it does.

Either way, being on the receiving end of his gaze when he was like this was nerve-wracking in its own way.

There was no fear on her side, (like he could ever hurt her) but it did something, Lucy just wasn't ready to dig into it.

Not yet anyway, there was still so much she didn't know and now was not the time.

"I have this gut feeling that something terrible is coming. I don't know how to describe it, it's like an instinct, and those have never failed me before." He finally responded, a frown on his face as told her what's been worrying him.

"I can't tell you why, who, or even when. There's just a sense of terror looming over me that I can't seem to shake off."

Natsu's words made her heart sink and Lucy's gaze shifted to look at the cracked pavement, avoiding eye contact again. His tone was grave, and he looked visibly shaken by whatever this feeling was.

Lucy didn't know what to think at his revelation, a part of her wanted to dismiss Natsu's gut feeling, to just say it was unnecessary paranoia on his part from everything that's happened.

But the logical part knew that was probably not true.

His gut has yet to fail them.

"And I know you're not going anywhere, Fairy Tail is your home!" It was his tone that made her look back up, and what she saw was him smiling down at her.

Like a switch flipped, all his previous worries and fears were gone, replaced by one of his crooked smiles.

It was a little lopsided on the left side, but it made him look soft in a way.

Lucy smiled at him, feeling a familiar warmth envelop her down to her bones as they just smiled at each other for a moment.

"I'm sorry." He muttered quietly, breaking the comfortable silence that seemed to have overtaken them, making Lucy's smiling expression shift into a confused one.

"For being, Vigilant, or whatever." He explained as he looked around the street.

"It's easier to manage when you're around, and I like knowing that you're safe." This came out slightly muffled, as he spoke through his scarf, and Lucy felt like she was going to melt at how cute he looked.

She knew without a doubt that her cheeks were flaming red from his words and prayed she could play it off as being from the cold.

"It's okay, I'm glad I can help." Lucy stumbled through her words, cursing herself for being easily affected by his soft smiles.

A part of her felt bad for feeling annoyed by his overprotectiveness when he was going through these feelings alone.

Though he was a tad overbearing at times.

But knowing the reason behind it made her feel terrible. Maybe if she'd asked earlier she could have helped him in some way, or at least know that she was helping him.

Clearing her throat she tried again. "Thank you for telling me about your worries. I'm glad that you can find some comfort." Lucy said moving her hand to squeeze his shoulder. "I know that if and when someone decides to make a move, we will be ready. All of us."

She moved her hand down to clasp their hands and give him a comforting squeeze.

The casual intimacy that they're able to share still astounds her.

It just felt so normal.

"Honestly, I'd like to see someone try. I feel sorry for the poor bastards that come after Fairy Tail, they're in for a hell of a beating!" She said in a half-teasing tone, wanting to lighten the mood.

That got a smile out of the pink-haired man, and with a nod to her words, he pulled her down the street, resuming their search for a Magic Shop.

"You're right, anyone who dares to try is in for a world of hurt." His words came out teasing, but Lucy could hear the serious undertones and suppressed a shiver.

She knew a portion of what he was capable of, and it wasn't going to be pretty for anyone who dared threaten his friends.

"Come on, I think I can smell something over there." That was said with more genuine excitement, the tension of their conversation evaporating just as quickly as it came as Natsu started walking faster down one of the streets, with Lucy scurrying to keep up.

* ********* ********** ********** ********* *

Natsu watched fondly as Lucy roamed through the store, following behind her as she hummed her way down the isles, looking through all the magical baubles with pure excitement.

It was the only Magic Shop in the Village, but it was decently sized and had a good collection of items in his opinion.

Though he had no interest in buying anything today.

He usually only went to stores like this when he needed new clothes, or to replace something he'd broken, or burned.

No, Natsu was here solely because of Lucy.

She wanted to search every shop for a key, and he was damned if he wasn't going to help her.

He looked back to where he could see her rummaging through the rack of scrolls and smiled to himself at how cute she looked.

Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration as she meticulously read every title, and he found it incredibly endearing.

She was a weird girl.

Natsu knew that from the start, hence the nickname, but there was something in the way she appeared in his life out of seemingly nowhere, and managed to adapt and settle into it like it was nothing that just fascinated him in a way.

It seems like everything she does fascinates him.

And since the moment they met, it's like her very presence seems to have a calming effect on him.

Her determination to learn about herself and her magic inspired him, her will to live was extremely impressive, first with the Lethifold and then everything that happened with Phantom Lord, and her father.

He simply found her remarkable.

To find out your whole life was a lie, and adapt to your surroundings like you were always a part of them. It was incredible, to say the least.

Her power was also something that, at times, felt even older than his, and that was saying something. The depths of her potential were incredible, and that was in part what scared him.

A lot of people desire power and will stop at nothing to get it.

What he failed to mention earlier was that all of his instincts were screaming at him Lucy was going to be the one in danger, and by default that does mean Fairy Tail as a whole.

They always protect their own.

But someone out there was coming for his partner, and Nastu was not having it.

"Natsu! Come, look at this!" Lucy's voice sounded excited as she called out and he made his way to where she was standing still by the collection of scrolls.

'Maybe she found something about her magic or family.' He thought as he approached her smiling form.

"Look, this text here tells some kind of story about Dragons, I thought you might be interested. It's in a different language, but there could be something in here that could help with your search!" She beamed at him, and Natsu felt his heart clench at her thoughtfulness.

It's been a long time since anyone has taken him seriously regarding his father's disappearance.

Even in a world with magic, talking cats, and creatures of all kinds lurking in the dark, people still laughed and scoffed at any mention of a Dragon.

They supposedly haven't been seen in over 400 years.

And as much as he loved them, Natsu knew all his guild mates felt sorry for him, whether they believed his story or not.

Everyone has their shit, and at the end of the day, they are a family.

But after being laughed at in his childhood, and then being pitied for believing Igneel was out there after all these years...It was nice to have someone who genuinely wanted to help.

Someone who, dare he say, believes he has a chance of finding his father.

"That's a good find, there isn't much on Dragons out there these days." Natsu said with a smile as he took the parchment from her.

He inspected the paper and unraveled the scroll to see if he would recognize anything.

It seemed to be written in old Draconian, it was the language Igneel taught him, alongside English.

One of the rare times Natsu paid attention when learning was involved. Knowing an ancient dragon language just sounded so cool to an 8-year-old Natsu.

In the end, he learned it better than English and Erza had to enlist Levy's help with teaching him when he first showed up at the guild.

A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered Erza's lessons.

Never. Again.

"I think, I'll take it, maybe it ends up being helpful, and if not, then I have one more thing to remind me of Igneel." He told her with a smile as he shook off his thoughts of the past and tucked the scroll gently under his arm.

It's been a while since he's found something to read in Draconian.

It should be fun.

"Anything else catch your eye?" Natsu asked, curious to see what else she's found.

"Oh, I found this neat bag, that has like endless storage! It's so cool, there's also some jewelry that's cute, but I don't need it." Lucy answered him with a shrug, before going to show the bag she found.

It looked simple enough, a dark blue material held together by a strap with some star, and moon charms on it.

Natsu didn't follow woman's fashion, so he couldn't tell you if the bag was ugly or not, but Lucy seemed to like it.

Whether that's because it was magic, or cute was beyond him.

"That's awesome, you can store endless snacks in there for me, and fish for Happy!" He told her, his mouth watering at the prospect of endless food storage.

Lucy went to shove his shoulder, failing to suppress a smile at his bottomless stomach. "I am not storing raw or cooked fish in my new bag." She told him slowly and sternly, making Natsu pout at her.

There was a sigh from the blonde as she watched him pout. "If you're nice, I might store some snacks, but meat is out of the question!"

She gave in to him, but not without putting up a fight, as she pointed a finger in his direction. Making Natsu fight the urge to laugh at how cute she looked when she was rilled up.

"Okay, no meats." He said with raised hands in surrender. "That is a really cool bag though. Any keys?"

He decided to ask, curious to see if she'd had any luck as he'd begun wondering just how rare the Gate Keys were.

Lucy seems to be finding them everywhere she goes.

"No luck with that, though I was going to ask the shopkeeper on our way out." She told him as they continued roaming the store, albeit aimlessly this time.

"Well, what are we waiting for then? Let's go and ask the man." Natsu said as he took her hand in his and pulled her through the isles to the register.

* ********* ********** ********** ********* *

The Magic Shop didn't end up having any gate keys, but Lucy wasn't disappointed.

They have a big enough mystery with Leo's key and the fake job that lured them here, besides, she was sure there were more of them out there, waiting for her.

And when they are done with all of this, she is making Natsu take her to every Magic shop in the country.

It was nearing half past Eleven in the evening when they found themselves breaking back into the museum.

She and Natsu had staked the Museum as it closed, wanting to see what kind of security they had. It appeared that, apart from locking the doors, they didn't take any other precautions.

One of the windows in the back of the building was fortunately left unlocked, and it was surprisingly easy to get into.

Lucy thinks that in a small community like this, breaking and entering on public property must not be an issue.

"This is boring, I thought we were gonna dance through some lasers or something." Natsu half whined as they walked through the museum, looking for the display with Leo's key.

"Oh, you've watched too many action movies, they won't have that kind of security here." Lucy suppressed a laugh at his ridiculousness. "Though I am surprised by the lack of security." She mused her thoughts to him as they turned the corner into the room they were looking for.

The room where they found Leo's key on display that morning.

"It somehow feels stronger." Lucy said as she stopped at the entrance, feeling the intense magic energy of the key all the way from across the room.

Turning back, she looked at Natsu for support. His instincts were always accurate.

The pinkette gave her an encouraging nod, a flashed her a small smile. It gave her the necessary strength and with that, she stepped forward, with Natsu following one step behind until they were back in front of the glass.

"What do you think it means? That the energy is stronger now." Lucy asked after a few moments of them just staring at the display.

She could feel the buzz of magic envelop her more and more, the closer she got to the key.

It was a similar feeling to when she summoned her spirits, only somehow melancholy.

"I don't know, maybe it felt your magic this morning, and now it's reacting even stronger." Natsu theorized, and she felt him shrug one shoulder from behind her.

"I don't think there's an alarm on this, maybe I can just take it out of the glass." Lucy mumbled as she inspected the display for any hidden triggers for an alarm.

"Do you have the substitute?" She asked him and turned around so they were facing each other.

Natsu searched through his pockets before finally finding the key they had purchased earlier today.

It was a simple golden key.

They decided to break it in half and with Mira's help they managed to enchant it to look like Leo's key. This way, no one will notice it's gone, and a potential magical item is no longer on display for anyone to stumble onto.

"Here ya go, hurry up and make the switch so we can leave. This place gives me the creeps when it's dark like this." He told her as he handed the key.

"Okay, give me a minute, the last thing we want is to damage something." Lucy shot back as she turned to the glass display with a sigh.

Setting the fake key in her pocket, she carefully lifted the glass and handed it to Natsu, before taking Leo's key and replacing it with the fake.

She felt the zap of magic as her hand and the key touched.

The metal glowed and flared hot for a moment, stinging Lucy's palm slightly before simmering down. The glow was pulsing in and out this time and the key started tugging in her hand.

"What's happening?" Natsu asked from behind her as he noticed the glowing from her palm after placing the glass back into place.

"The key, it feels like it's pulling me somewhere." Lucy replied as she kept staring at her hand where the key was still omitting a faint pulsing glow as it continued to tug in her hold.

"Okay, let's go see where it'll lead us?" Natsu half proclaimed, half asked, making Lucy smile slightly to herself. He was letting her take the lead, it was nice.

"Yes, let's go see where it wants to go."

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