TMNT: Realms of Zentai

Glowing beast

"Pop!” Mikey made the sound with his lips, causing Leo to lose his focus yet again. He turned around in annoyance, his expression almost unreadable in a mix of emotion. “Enough! Every time you make a noise it has to be right before I figure out what I’m doing.” Leonardo half yelled, his brows furrowing in slight anger. “Sorry bro, I’m just bored. Don ‘n Raph sent me down here for the same reasons you’re yelling at me now,” Mikey apologized, his voice lacking in any form of guilt. Leo sighed and returned to his task, head lazily watching the clouds go by.

Mikey stared at a pile of rocks, and added a pebble he was holding: one for each time he distracted his brother, which made about 12. Michelangelo sighed and dropped onto his back, eying Leo’s motions carefully before standing up and attempting to perform them himself. Leo let out a long breath, seemingly unaware of Mikey’s presence.

As the blue wearing turtle’s hands began to glow, he lifted them into the sky, muttering words that Mikey didn’t recognize. The youngest copied his brother's motion and lifted his hands towards the sky. They lacked the prominent blue luminesce of his brother’s hands. He began to question this, and tilted his head to the side. Thousands of questions he wanted to ask resonated through his brain.

“Why do your hands glow?” “Why must the stars align?” “Why will one of us die if they do?” “Where do your powers come from?” “What is Zentai really?”

Mikey grunted as his mind began wavering away from the exercise. He opened his eyes, which he hadn’t realized he’d closed, to discover that Leo was meditating, and the sun was beginning to set.

In a panic, Mikey yelled out; “Leo, Leo the sun’s going down, it’s going down and if you don’t stop the stars now one of us will die, one of us will forget to live, and you’re just sitting there!” Leonardo did not respond, he didn’t even lift his head. “Leo wake up, wake up I don’t want to die. I don’t want you or Donnie or Raph or any one of us to die!” Tears rained down like ashes in a fire, and the orange glow of the sun fading behind the clouds promised the end, all to seep away at any moment. “Leo help! I know we’re a bunch of idiots, me most of all, but don’t let us die. Don’t!”

He shook his brother vigorously, his tears coming down like the sunset. “Wake up…” and yet that was Leo’s voice. Leo calling for him to wake up, to return, and then it all depends on what he chooses. He swims up, up above waves and water and stars, and he remembers to open his eyes.

He discovers that Leo is checking him over, stumbling over his own words as he tries to wake Mikey up and perform the ritual all at the same time. Guilt begins to seep into Mikey and quickly he says “I’m awake, don’t worry I’m awake!” Leo sighs, and without a word returns to whatever he was doing. After a moment of hand movement the earth begins to shake. Mikey is not startled by this, for as soon as Leo stops moving his hands the shaking ceases. “I’ve gone far enough. Lunch— I mean, wow it’s time for dinner I suppose.” Leo cuts himself off, and smiles warmly at Mikey, who chuckles nervously in return.

“I’m not hungry,” Mikey admits. Leo laughs softly and glances at the darkening sky. “Me neither. Must be the anticipation,” after a moment of silence, he adds, “I wasn’t sure if my powers would work. I was scared.” He admits, his sapphire eyes gleaming like crystals in the light of the rising moon. “I was too,” Mikey says, nuzzling against his brother, head only barely reaching the shoulder. “Not because one of us was going to die, but because of Zentai. It scares me to wonder what happened to him.”

Leo frowned suddenly, his eyes widening in fear. “What if… what if one of us dies because… because we are Zentai? On the night of alignment he’s born.” Mikey almost choked, his head screaming at him for worrying his brother like that. “Don’t think like that. We’ll be fine,” Mikey reassured him.