#same name shenanigans | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stiltonbasket · 11 months ago

Note

I know Nyoomerr wrote a mini fic where Shen Yuan dotes on Bingge’s kids, before I sent you the prompt also, but listen… I want many cakes!

There are so many possible cute OC Bingge kiddos Shen Yuan could dote on, and so many ways the Binggeyuan drama outside said doting could go! I��d happily read a million different versions! ♥️

In spite of having three older siblings to play with, and three nominal mothers and four nursemaids to raise him, Luo Shunlei was a very lonely child.

Unlike his brother and his two elder sisters, Shunlei was rarely allowed to see his own mother. Muqin spent most of her time away from his father's palace in the human realm, for she was Emperor-Father's most trusted lieutenant as well as his wife, and could not be spared from the various battlefields Father left in his wake for more than a single season out of each year.

That life suited his mother, Shunlei knew: and he was being looked after well enough, since Mother Ning doted upon him just as tenderly she cared for his sister Suoxin. But he hated to go to her when he fell while playing cuju in the garden, or felt lonesome for his absent Muqin, for Mother Ning cried so often when she thought her children were out of earshot that Shunlei could not bear to add to her troubles.

Nor could he go to Mother Liu, for Mother Liu was Luo Nianzu's mother, and Nianzu clung to her like a baby fire-horned monkey because his birth mother had died before Nianzu ever knew her.

(The less said of Mother Hua, the better, Shunlei thought. She was not unkind to him, but she made no secret of the fact that she was jealous of the favor Muqin received from Emperor-Father; and since Shunlei was Muqin's son, Mother Hua had never liked him very much, either.)

But then, late in the spring of Luo Shunlei's fourth year, Mother Liu brought a man into the hougong's central garden and announced that he was to be Suo-jie and Ying-jiejie's new Shizun.

"He will be your Shizun too, in time," she said to Nianzu, "as soon as you learn how to read more than a few characters."

"What about me?" Shunlei asked anxiously, plucking at the hems of her sleeve. "Shunshun wants to study, too."

At this, Mother Ning looked up from her account-book and kissed the top of his head.

"You can join this year if the taifu says you may," she assured him. "You're very bright for your age, Shun'er, but there's no need to rush. Mingyan gave Zhu-laoshi a twelve-year contract, so he won't leave the palace until the year you turn sixteen."

Sixteen sounded dreadfully grown-up to Luo Shunlei, who had yet to celebrate his fourth birthday. And if the new taifu really would be staying for the next twelve years, it hardly mattered that Shunlei wouldn't begin his studies until after he turned five.

But the taifu was more than happy to teach him, though Shunlei had only managed to learn the three characters that made up his name—and by the first week after lessons began, Shunlei had affixed himself to his new Shizun like a barnacle clinging to the hull of a boat.

Zhu Qinglan was, strangely enough, only the second man that Shunlei had ever met. Imperial Father was the first, and Shunlei had seen some of his demon lackeys from afar; but they were forbidden to enter any part of the inner court save for Father's private palace, so he had never actually spoken to them.

"Are all men from the human realm like you?" Shunlei asked his Shizun once, not long after Imperial Father returned from his latest campaign in the North. "If they are, why doesn't Father make friends with them instead of fighting?"

Shizun laughed and put out his hand to steady Luo Shunlei's grip on his writing brush.

"No," he replied, after the brush picked up its pace again. "Your Shizun is very old by now, that's all. I had to spend eighty years wandering the wilds alone before I learned how to hold my temper properly, and my Shizun was long gone by then—poor shifu! If your Imperial Father had met me when I was a young man, he wouldn't have wanted me as a servant, let alone a friend...or as his children's taifu, I suppose."

Luo Shunlei pouted. "Shizun can be my friend."

"Mm, then this teacher is very lucky. Oh, Shun'er, not again—you mustn't touch the scroll at all, remember? See how well da-gongzhu is writing."

It was true that Shizun was scolding him, Luo Shunlei reflected—smudging his copy-work as he thought, to Shizun's great distress—but he did it so gently that Shunlei wriggled with glee, feeling very much like a wilted flower that had suddenly been thrust into the full light of day.

Shizun treasured Luo Shunlei, just as he treasured Da-jie and Er-jie and Gege; and since he belonged to all four of them, he loved them equally. Mother Ning loved Da-jiejie the most, and Mother Liu loved Gege the most; and though Mother Hua loved nothing in the world other than Er-jiejie, Shunlei was certain that his Muqin loved Imperial Father far more than she loved him.

Zhu Qinglan loved no one at the palace better than he loved Shunlei, and that feeling was so dreadfully new to him that he burst into tears the next time Shizun entered the schoolroom with a bowl of his favorite sweet sesame cakes.

"Why are you crying?" Shizun demanded, bewildered, as Luo Shunlei let out a wail and scurried over to bury his head in the long skirt of Shizun's white robe. "Are you ill?"

He passed the cakes to one of the maids and lifted Shunlei onto his hip, feeling his cheeks and brow with the back of his rough hands.

"His little highness doesn't have a fever," Shizun muttered, "but we can't take chances, so run for a taiyi as quickly as you can. This one will stay with the little prince until the doctor comes."

"No," Shunlei bawled, rubbing his face against Shizun's shoulder. "I'm happy, Shizun."

"Happy?" Shizun asked, more puzzled than ever. "Why?"

Luo Shunlei laid his cheek on Shizun's soft neck and wept, too overwhelmed to explain that no one had ever made anything specially for him to eat before.

His siblings were only passingly fond of sesame cakes, though they refrained from saying so to save face for their Shizun. But Shunlei likes Shizun's cakes even more than the ones Father sometimes makes for their weekly luncheons, and yesterday, Shunlei had finally worked up the courage to ask if Shizun could bake them again.

Shunlei's lessons were canceled that morning, since Shizun and Mother Ning's taiyi said that he needed rest; and so, he spent the rest of the day being carried about the palace on his teacher's back, and fed another handful of sesame cakes whenever Shizun remembered he was there.

By the third month, Luo Shunlei decided that he loved his Shizun more than anyone else he had ever known, except for Muqin and his Suo-jiejie—which was why he bit off the left half of his Imperial Father's nose when Father told him that he meant to take Shizun into the hougong as a bride.

"You can't have Shizun for your wife!" Shunlei screeched, incensed. "He's ours!"

Imperial Father only raised his eyebrows at him.

"If you ever do that again," he drawled, conjuring a mirror to make sure his nose was healing properly, "I'll send you to the North to fight ice demons with Hualing, and I won't bring you back until you're too old to need a taifu anymore."

Luo Shunlei growled and kicked his little feet until he heard the satisfying crack of one of his Imperial Father's ribs snapping in half.

"You can't," he insisted, as Father let out a gasping wheeze and put a hand to his chest. "You have thirty wives already! That's too many. You can't have my Shizun, too."

Father's right eyebrow climbed a little higher up his forehead. "Everyone under the sun belongs to me," he said. "If I want your Shizun, he'll be mine eventually. There's no more to be said about it."

"But Shizun doesn't want you," Luo Shunlei scowled. "Everyone knows that."

For some reason, Father's face fell so quickly that Shunlei almost regretted his unkindness.

Only almost, though.

"It doesn't matter what he wants," Father said at last, after a long silence—and after his broken rib had healed, much to Luo Shunlei's frustration. "But he—he will want me some day, even if his heart lies elsewhere now. You'll see."

Luo Shunlei squinted at him. "I'll go tell Shizun what you're planning," he threatened. "Then Shizun can run away, and I'll go with him."

"Do you really want to visit the North so badly?" his father said idly. "Everything that lives there could eat you up in one bite."

(Shunlei's mother had taught him what to do in case anything ever ate him, so he could survive perfectly well in the Northern Desert if he had to.

Naturally, he said nothing of this to his father.)

Shunlei reached up and tugged sharply on his father's hair.

"Shizun won't like you if you send me away," he sniffed. "You can't be stupid if you're an Emperor, Imperial Father. Shizun said so."

Father sighed and tucked Luo Shunlei under his arm. "Would it really be so bad if Qinglan joined the harem?" he asked. "He'd still be your Shizun, and you'll still get to see him whenever you like. Nothing will change for you and the other little ones."

Luo Shunlei said nothing.

"And," Father said softly, "you can call him muhou after he and I are married. I plan to make him my empress, so he'll be your Imperial Mother as well as your Shizun."

"Imperial Mother...?"

Shunlei had never had an Imperial Mother before. Officially, every woman in the harem was Father's legitimate wife; the sole difference in status between them was that only the five inner wives—or four now, after the untimely death of Luo Nianzu's birth mother—were allowed full courtyards of their own and the right to raise children.

None of them were allowed to call themselves empresses, only consorts and wives: not even Mother Ning, who had reputedly been Father's favorite wife since his childhood on Cang Qiong Mountain.

But if Father meant to take Shizun as his Empress, and if that meant Shizun would be Shunlei's Imperial Mother, then...

"Then if you do marry Shizun," Shunlei ventured, plucking at the yaopei dangling from Imperial Father's belt, "can Shun'er have a little sister? Or a brother?"

Suddenly, Luo Shunlei felt his father's body go cold.

"No," Father said brusquely. "You may not."

"But why not?" he persisted. "If Shizun becomes my Imperial Mother, won't he be allowed to have his own Shun'er? Like Muqin and Mother Ning and—"

"No," his father repeated, more harshly than before. "After your Nianzu-ge was born, I vowed that I would never father another child. Don't ever mention such things again."

Luo Shunlei stared at him. "But I'm smaller than Gege," he said uncertainly. "Didn't Father break that vow already?"

"Enough," Father hissed. "Listen to me, Luo Shunlei. I nearly killed your Mother Ning by letting her give birth to Suoxin, and I as good as murdered your late Mother Qin by fathering Nianzu upon her. If Hualing had tried to give birth to you the usual way instead of molding you from our mingled blood, she wouldn't even have lived long enough to bring you into the world. Would you have me risk killing your Shizun, too?"

Shunlei's eyes burned.

"No," he said in a strangled voice. "Put me down."

So Imperial Father set him down on the ground, looking very much as though he could not bear to stand in Shunlei's presence for another moment.

"Don't you dare mention any of this to anyone," Father said wearily, as Shunlei rubbed his fists across his smarting eyes. "Otherwise, I really will send you up North to your mother."

Luo Shunlei nodded, somehow contriving to hide his tears until he made his way out of his father's courtyard; and then he staggered off to the Bamboo Palace where Shizun lived, hoping against hope that Shizun was at home and not out on another beast-trapping trip with Mother Liu.

"Shizun," he sobbed, beating on the gate with his tiny fists. "Shizun, Shun'er is here!"

And then Shizun was there, bundling Shunlei into his arms and draping a warm cloak over his shoulders before bringing him into the Zhugong's little kitchen for cakes and hot tea.

He fed Luo Shunlei and washed the tears from his little nose; and then, after his sobs began to slow, Shizun wrapped him up in a soft blanket and took him to Mother Ning.

"No," Shunlei wailed, as Mother Ning came running out of her own palace with worry all over her face. "Mother Ning, Shun'er wants to stay with Shizun."

Mother Ning blinked. "He didn't make you cry?"

"No!"

"Then who did?"

Shunlei frowned and burrowed into his Shizun's coat. "Nobody. But Shun'er is staying right here."

"All right, all right," Shizun said soothingly. "You can stay with Shizun for as long as you want. Lady Ning, if you would..."

Mother Ning nodded and promised that she would send a maid to the Zhugong with a bag of clothes for Shunlei.

"You can send him back for his bath, if he needs one before bed," she fretted. "But if he'd rather stay with you, then that's all right, too."

Satisfied, Shizun bowed to Mother Ning and whisked Shunlei back to the Zhugong, where he was made to drink two more cups of medicinal tea—though he did not mind this, since Shizun had already fed him all the fresh-baked sesame cakes he could hold—and put to bed on the pretty lounging chair in the front room.

"Go to sleep," Shizun told him, stroking his hair. "And don't look at this teacher with such big eyes. I'll still be here when you get up."

Luo Shunlei's lip trembled. "Do you promise?" he whispered. "You won't go away while I'm sleeping?"

"Of course not. Has your Shizun ever broken his word? Look—I won't even let go of your hand. You can hold this one, and I'll use the other to write while you nap."

So Shunlei finally let himself drift off; and when he opened his eyes again, some two hours later, he found that Shizun had fallen asleep at his desk, with his head on the erhu score he was copying and his left hand still clasped about Luo Shunlei's.

Suddenly, Luo Shunlei's heart felt very full. But then he remembered that Shizun would leave one day, whenever Father deemed that Shunlei and Nianzu and their jiejies had no further need of him, and then...

And then Shizun wouldn't belong to Shunlei anymore.

His spirits sank. He squeezed Shizun's palm, not knowing whether he wanted his teacher to sleep on or wake up and comfort him.

But at that moment, two words shaped themselves upon Luo Shunlei's lips; and before he could bite them back, he found himself saying them aloud.

"Imperial Mother?" he whispered, hugging his Shizun's arm. "Muhou, Shun'er is...is...."

And then—like a ray of white sunlight spearing through a blanket of clouds—his Shizun smiled, though he had not woken, and kissed Luo Shunlei's pudgy hand in his sleep.

"Hush, my baobao," he breathed, already sinking back into his dreams. "Don't cry. Mother is here."

#svsss #bingyuan #prompt fill #my fic #!!!!!!!! bingyuan shenanigans are back #this is set in the same verse as “a wife by any other name”#if anyone was wondering

179 notes · View notes

roseverdict · 2 months ago

Text

Normally this would be the part where I put the title of the fic, but for Pacing Reasons I'm not gonna yet. Yeehaw.

In the year 2012, in a universe where adult mutant ninja turtles have an impressive world-saving resume dating back to when they were just teenagers, Mikey has a scheduled patrol as his part-time hero persona, the Turtle Titan.

In the year 2018, in a universe where magic is always plucking at the edges of the world and where a supernatural library serves as both a pillar of reality and a safe place for powerful magical artifacts, the staff of that very library all look forward to what will hopefully be an uneventful day with no danger of any kind.

It sure would be a shame if an old enemy from someplace adjacent to the turtles turned up alive, well, and ready to cause multidimensional trouble.

The Turtle Titan is an official member of the Justice Force! Of course, I'm only on duty every third Wednesday of every fourth month. And February 29th... when there is one.

- Michelangelo Splinterson, TMNT 2003 S5E6 "Membership Drive"

(You can also read on AO3 if that's your thing! I do a little fiddling with work skins in that one too so it'll look a smidge different at one specific part :D)

〜

"Where is it you are going in such a hurry, my son?"

Mikey paused in the middle of his mad dash for the lair's entrance, his superhero gear halfway between "in his arms" and "in place on his body." "It's February 29th, Sensei, so the Turtle Titan is on patrol tonight."

Splinter's eyebrows rose, and his ears fell back down from an alert position. "Ah, I see. Well, don't let this old rat keep you."

Mikey quickly wrangled his gear the rest of the way on, and the Turtle Titan gave his father a quick, tight hug. "I'll kick plenty of shell, don't worry."

"That, at least, has never been a fear of mine," chuckled Splinter, patting the Turtle Titan's shell before releasing him.

There came a distant yelp of frustration from Raph, and the Turtle Titan snickered and darted off. "Be back in the morning!"

"MIKEY, WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU-!"

"Love you too, Raphy!" called the Turtle Titan over his shoulder as he sprinted away, Raph's sais stuck in his belt right where he'd stashed them next to his nunchaku.

He left Raph's annoyance behind with a spring in his step, and he took the first opportunity he could get to hop topside and take to the rooftops. The Turtle Titan didn't need to hide in the shadows, not like Michelangelo Splinterson still did; the Turtle Titan was a known member of the Justice Force and someone people would be happy to see!

After the whole Time Travel Mess Of 2005-And-Or-2105, Mikey'd had an idea, though; if the Turtle Titan could be accepted so quickly, and if he and his brothers were supposed to wind up accepted by society by the turn of the century, then maybe the Turtle Titan was at least one reason why the Splintersons were able to walk around under the sun a hundred years into the future.

Man, his life was weird.

The Turtle Titan gave himself a little shake and started his run to Meeting Point Delta-Omega- or rather, the roof of the pizza place on Laird Avenue that had opened up a few years back.

His patrol partner was already there by the time he showed up, and the Turtle Titan broke into a grin. "Nano! How's it hanging, Squirt?"

Nano turned to greet him, a grin of his own on his metallic face. "I am still seven inches taller than you, Turtle Titan."

"Six-point-nine inches, and I'm still gonna catch up to you one of these days!" The Turtle Titan wagged his finger at Nano with a smirk. "It's my prerogative as your cool older brother-ish to butt heads with you on this, remember?"

"Don't you mean 'butt your head against my armored shoulder?'" asked Nano too-innocently.

The Turtle Titan cackled and gave Nano's back a hearty smack. "You've learned well, my padawan!"

Nano chuckled with him, then gestured out towards the rest of the city with his head. "Shall we commence patrol?"

"Sure thing, Tiny!" The Turtle Titan charged over the edge of the roof with a whoop, his grappling hook whirring as it yanked him up to the neighboring rooftop.

Nano lifted off and flew after him, and the two of them spent the first ten, maybe fifteen minutes of their shift in amicable silence, save for occasionally dropping in to stop a mugging or a bank heist they happened across.

Then Nano turned to the Turtle Titan on an empty rooftop and asked, "Wasn't the Foot Clan HQ abandoned in 2010?"

The Turtle Titan blinked, and Mikey turned a grim look to Nano. "Yeah, as far as we know. After that whole thing with too many Shredders and the multiverse almost collapsing back in '09, Karai said she was gonna have the Foot 'go back to their roots' or something. Why do you ask?"

"Because there seems to be a massive influx of energy at the top of the building," said Nano, pointing over Mikey's shoulder.

Mikey whirled around, his Turtle Titan cape swishing behind him, and he immediately caught sight of the ball of sickly energy crackling right where Nano said it would be.

"Oooooh, Mikey no likey," said he with a grimace.

The two of them shot off for the allegedly-abandoned skyscraper without another word.

There was no motion at the base- at least, not outside the usual late-night NYC traffic- and there were no lights on inside or silhouettes in the windows.

The only light came from the crackling ball of energy on what had once been the helipad.

And right as he and Nano landed on the outermost part of the roof, even the crackling ball of energy fell dim.

And

Mikey

froze.

The person standing in the middle of the array of machinery that decidedly did not belong there wasn't human, turtle, AI, or even space alien.

The person standing in the middle of the array of machinery that decidedly did not belong there was a rat that he'd last seen either less than an hour prior or the better part of a decade ago, depending on one's point of view.

The Sliver looked somehow more unkempt than the last time Mikey had seen him, with his warlord getup hanging on by a thread and his overachieving mane of fur matted in places that Splinter had never allowed to go unwashed on his own body, even in Mikey's earliest memories. Mikey would even dare to say he looked mangy.

The Sliver hadn't seemed to have noticed Mikey or Nano yet, preoccupied with taking stock of himself as he was.

At the edges of his vision, using the prototype messaging system Donny had put together as a favor for the Justice Force that Mikey kept in his Turtle Titan hood, Nano asked, You know him?

Mikey nodded grimly and subtly reached for his left glove, typing back a response: the whole Thing back in 09 wasnt my first or only brush with the multiverse. meet an evil version of my dad from a universe where my bros and me fill the role of the justice force- the Sliver. last i saw him, he was supposed to be dead, and good riddance tbqfh.

Nano's jaw hardened.

The Sliver brought a hand to his head with a groan as he pushed himself to his feet, lit brightly enough by the machinery around him that it was child's play for Mikey (in his dark Turtle Titan gear) and Nano (quickly camouflaging to the dim hues of the city below) to sneak around and get a good look at the main screen of the hodgepodge of metal the Sliver had brought with him.

At its center, there sat an oldsy-timesy compass-looking thing with a generic plane shape in place of a needle, and as the duo watched, the outer rim slowed from a wild whirling to something more easily legible, showing…a completely normal compass rim thingy.

Mikey really wished Donny was there to help identify whatever the thingy was. Heck, Leo knew enough about solo navigation that he might have had an idea.

Honestly, any of his brothers would have been a blessing right then.

He'd needed his brothers' alternates and his own to even pull the wool over the Sliver's eyes last time, and while he was several years wiser nowadays, so was the Sliver.

"Yes…yes! I am close!" the Sliver chuckled darkly as he interpreted the display. "I am finally in the correct great dimensional tree!"

What is he talking about?

well, given how he was trying to bring his sons to the dark side or kill them for refusing when we presumedly ended up killing him last time, id bet he's trying to get back for revenge reasons or something

*Presumably.

Mikey let his lips twitch into a little grin at Nano's correction before flattening them out again.

he had a machine that would eradicate all life except those lives within a specific area when i first fought him, it was a last-ditch effort to force me and my bros' counterparts to join him. we reversed it to keep the rest of the dimension from being killed, but if he was able to build it once, he could proabbly build it again

*Probably.

And if he gets back to his home dimension, he most likely will.

exactamundo. quick rundown: the alt turtles each had specific powers, but the sliver has all of them- electricity, super strength/size-changing, the ability to turn to goop/shapeshift, and grav manip. ntm he's like. THE Expert on the things. it took all five turtles including me to beat him- we're GONNA want backup.

Mikey and Nano shared a nod, and as Nano sounded the alarm back with the rest of the Force, Mikey let himself fall back into the Turtle Titan and streak forward, actually landing a hit on the Sliver's jaw.

"GAH-!" The Sliver stumbled back, but swatted the Turtle Titan away before he could attack a second time. Only once he seemingly realized what he'd done did he whirl on the Turtle Titan with a snarl. "It cannot be!"

"Can be and is!" The Turtle Titan ground out, matching the Sliver's snarl with a mirthless smirk. "Didja miss me, Slivvy? Admit it, you missed me."

"So this is your homeworld, puny ninja," mused the Sliver. "Perhaps I might stay long enough to teach you a lesson that evaded my own sons!"

He lunged, and the Turtle Titan brought his shield up to bear, catching most of the Sliver's assault against its surface and deflecting the rest to one side. As the Sliver stumbled, the Turtle Titan rushed him, intent on trying to knock him out or something-

-and a goopy green arm slammed squarely into the Turtle Titan's chest, even seeping slightly through his supersuit and reaching the plates of his plastron with a deathly chill.

The Turtle Titan squawked as he was knocked away, barely managing to remember to grab the edge of the rooftop before he flew clean over.

"TURTLE TITAN!"

Nano's panicked shout preceded a heavy thwack and a pained snarl from the Sliver, and the Turtle Titan hauled himself back onto the roof with minimal leg-kicking just in time to watch the Sliver smirk viciously at Nano. "Ah, so the weak little ninja brought a friend to play, did he?"

"If you want to call us apprehending you 'playing,' then yes!" Nano feinted as if to go for a quick kick to the Sliver's side, then hurled himself the opposite direction and slapped his hand against the side of the control panel.

Nothing visibly happened, but the Turtle Titan bit back a knowing smirk as he charged the Sliver again. He couldn't very well let the supervillain have enough time to figure out what Nano was doing, after all. "Usually we're supposed to schedule a playdate, Slivvy, and you're supposed to get my dad's permission!"

His shield-slam went wide as the Sliver leapt up into the air, hovering there for a moment before shooting back down, foot-first.

If asked later, Mikey would truthfully say that he wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten from a worm's-eye view of the Sliver's heel to caught up in some sort of goopy cocoon. However, he'd be willing to wager a guess that the Sliver had kicked him in the head hard enough to knock him out for a few crucial seconds.

He'd just call it a hunch.

The Sliver was in the middle of saying something by the time Mikey- no, no, he was still on the job- by the time the Turtle Titan realized he was trapped. "-not allow you to interfere!"

Some of the metal behind the Sliver started to move, and the Turtle Titan cracked a vicious grin. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're a bit late for that."

A haphazard metal fist with fingers twice as long as the Turtle Titan was tall came slamming down onto the platform, only missing the Sliver by the teensiest fraction of a second as he dodged.

"I would like to offer you a word of advice," called Nano from his place next to the control panel, a shimmer of silvery-yellow nanobots flowing from where his hand touched the panel and into the Sliver's machine. "Do not build weapons of mass destruction out of the same kind of thing your enemies are made of."

The metal fist lifted and came down again, this time splattering the goopy arm holding the Turtle Titan in place. The Turtle Titan quickly began flinging the goo off of himself while the Sliver recoiled and reconstituted his fur-covered arm out of what goop he had left.

(Something in the back of the Turtle Titan's mind snapped to attention: the Sliver hadn't had any issues with separated goop when last they'd met.)

"ENOUGH!" thundered the Sliver, lightning crackling from his opposite hand as he slapped it to the floor-

"NANO, PULL BACK-!" The Turtle Titan screamed, already running for his patrol partner-

-and Nano shrieked as the electricity overloaded his systems, the metal fist creaking to a halt halfway above the ground and Nano's main body convulsing by the control panel, sparks flying from every seam, joint, and outward-facing component-thingy.

The Turtle Titan bodily tackled Nano off the Sliver's platform, the two of them tumbling a short ways to the edge of the roof before coming to a stop, Nano still twitching but blessedly not shrieking in bloodcurdling agony.

"I have more important business to attend than dealing with a ninja playing dress-up!" growled the Sliver, rushing to the control panel and flipping switches along its sides.

There came the whine of power building up at the edges of the Turtle Titan's hearing, and he felt his heart stop.

"Nano, Nano, Nano, c'mon, wake up, dude-!"

"I-I am aw-wake," mumbled Nano with a shake of his head, his voice skipping and starting ever-so-slightly as he sat up. After a second or so, though, his eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet. "The Sliver-! He's-!"

"Yeah," said the Turtle Titan grimly, getting to his own feet. "Somebody needs to take him down, but we can't just disappear without any explanation."

"Turtle Titan, you stay," Nano decided. "I have a backup at HQ-"

"And it won't change the fact that you'll be lost to the multiverse if you can't get back!" The Turtle Titan tugged him back and started trudging for the Sliver's machine. "My family and me at least have the whole chi-meditation thing going for us-!"

"But what if it does not function as interdimensional communication, Turtle Titan?!" demanded Nano, yanking him away and leaping back onto the platform.

The Turtle Titan scowled and jumped after him, grabbing his arm and spinning to chuck him to safety. "Don't make me exercise my rights as the older brother-ish-!"

-and Nano screamed as the nanobots of his arm were forcefully disconnected from the main mass of his systems, which went tumbling to the corner of the helipad before finally coming to a stop.

The dimensional travel machine, the Sliver, and the Turtle Titan were nowhere to be found.

Nano felt dread pool in his processors. "This is not going to end well, is it?"

〜

In a place that was everywhere and nowhere at once, the Turtle Titan screamed as a wall of light severed Nano's arm and sent both him and the arm tumbling back into the "safe zone" of the machine.

"NO! You'll throw off the calculations, you FOOL!" the Sliver howled, already going to swipe at the Turtle Titan with an elongated, goopy arm.

The Turtle Titan dodged away from the attack, and as Nano's arm started reassembling into- what was that, a gauntlet?- around his non-shield hand, he flung the shield into one of the important-looking bits of tech, sending sparks flying. "All according to plan, you walking offense to dads everywhere!"

The Sliver roared and charged him again, and he nearly bowled the Turtle Titan over entirely. It was all the Turtle Titan could do to grab onto a piece of metal sticking out at an odd angle and hang on for dear life as-

-"Now the eye's back! Now the hand! THE EEEYYYEEE!"-

-all he could see was an ever-growing mass of turtles-

-"I thought he said 'squirrel' formation!"-

-they extended out to infinity in every direction in blues and reds and purples and oranges-

-"Doctor Delicate Touch feels nothing."-

-they extended out forever-!

-and a metal something-or-other slammed into the back of the Turtle Titan's throat, making him flinch and lurch back to relatively solid ground, coughing and hacking to get the whatever-it-was out of him.

The onslaught of voices went slightly quieter around him, with one of the voices yelling about somebody being "super fly" before fading into the masses.

"You…" hissed the Sliver. "You are lucky you do not send us careening out of the great terrapin dimensional tree!"

The Turtle Titan finally managed to hork up the thingy- some kind of jewelry, for reasons beyond him- and stowed it in his utility belt for the time being. "Me? Lucky? Perish the thought!"

"Indeed! Look around you, foolish ninja!" The Sliver broke into a downright dastardly smirk, holding his hands out to gesture grandly at their surroundings.

Surroundings which, as the Turtle Titan watched, were slowly becoming more and more solid and more and more like the Shell of Justice that he'd visited all those years prior.

"Oh, shell!" he breathed.

"Shell, indeed! Shell of Justice, indeed!" The Sliver began cackling louder and louder.

An alarm sounded in the Shell of Justice, but the Turtle Titan just turned to the Sliver and lunged.

The Sliver's head met the control panel of his device at the same moment that the superturtles came running into view, and the Turtle Titan could only manage a brief wave of greeting before the world around them erupted back into a whirlwind of color and light.

He shoved the Sliver along the control panel, setting off buttons and bells and whistles he hadn't even known were there, and the blues and reds and purples and oranges all flared into minty green with a deafening shriek before being replaced by an unfamiliar star-like pale yellow.

The Sliver shrieked in rage, and he probably said something as he did, but the Turtle Titan couldn't make it out over the worrying creaking of the dimension-jumping machine, the two arches crossed over their heads beginning to visibly warp.

The Turtle Titan's footing slipped, and he had to grab onto a metal outcropping one more time or risk being lost to the-

-"Welcome to endless wonder."-

-there weren't any turtles-

-"Let's go steal a-"

-why weren't there any turtles-

"-the Serpent Brotherhood from-"

-he'd thought the multiverse would collapse without any turtles-

-and the whirlwind vanished from all around him, leaving him with only the natural laws of physics spinning him, the machine, and the Sliver in circles as they plummeted from a clear blue sky.

"YOU IMBECILE!" the Sliver shrieked as they fell. "We are further now than I have ever been!"

The Turtle Titan hauled himself back onto the platform, pulling against the spinny force threatening to chuck him clear across the sky if he slipped. "Sucks to be you then, huh?"

The Sliver snapped his teeth furiously at the Turtle Titan, but then his eyes widened and he leapt from the platform entirely.

The Turtle Titan only managed to see the approaching sea, process that it was getting scary close, scary fast, and take the deepest breath he'd ever taken in his life before he and the Sliver's machine crash-landed into the ocean in a splash big enough that it would probably make for breaking news in a few minutes.

If this dimension even had the concept of breaking news, anyway.

As the Turtle Titan made sure what little he had of Nano hadn't shorted out in the water, and as he pushed away from the machine and started swimming for a promising-looking sewer-like tunnel in the distance, he wondered idly in the back of his mind-

-where exactly might the news of their crash-landing break first?

〜

In the annex of a library accessible from a bridge in Portland, Oregon, a book began to glow an almost panicked pale yellow, and the caretaker of the annex couldn't quite shove down the grimace that rose to his face.

"And here I thought we might, just possibly, have a quiet day."

#rosie writes #tmnt 2003 #2003 tmnt #the librarians #tmnt mikey #tmnt nano #tmnt 2003 reality check #id in alt text #'and the point of salvation' rewired my brain same-as-it-never-was-style lmao #so when i realized i needed a librarians-style name for a tmnt 03 crossover. well. :)#idk whether to tag jenkins here since he only shows up like right at the end lmao #also. this is that thing i mentioned at some point (i think) where multiverse shenanigans have invoked a light sprinkling of warehouse 13.#as in mikey and the sliver have each wound up with something from outside their dimensions now. nano doesnt count bc he's a person

3 notes · View notes