"Mikey, you and I are fighting today," Raph said during breakfast.
He grinned at his oldest brother. "Great! Leo, what are we doing after?"
"I don't know," Leo said thoughtfully. "Hang around until night? Then go on patrol? Same as yesterday, I guess. Why?"
"I was just wondering if I could go out for today."
Donnie's head jerked up. "To where? And when?"
"Well, I wanted to walk around the city after training," he answered slowly.
"Bad idea," Leo said harshly. "Knowing you, you would find a way to attract attention to yourself. I would not even let Donnie go."
"Hey!"
"And he is the smartest," Leo said, ignoring Don. "So, no, you may not."
"Ugh, fine," Mikey grumbled, leaning his arm against the counter. "It just gets boring around here."
"We could train extra," Leo offered.
Mikey paused, thinking. The man last night had said he was weak. Why not show him he was wrong by getting stronger? So he nodded. "I'd like that."
His brothers gasped. "That's a first!" Raph declared.
"Well, I would rather practice more than sit in my room the entire day."
His siblings looked at each other and tensed up. "That actually sounds like a great idea," Don said.
Mikey smiled wanly and placed his dishes in the sink. "I'll be in the Dojo if anybody wants me," he said, walking away.
As he slipped through the doors, he made sure to leave it open slightly. A few seconds later, he could hear his brothers talking.
"Donnie, can you check on Mikey after he is done training?" Leo asked. "Something is up with him."
"That bozo probably finally figured out that he's too weak to carry his own in a battle, which showed yesterday," Raph scoffed.
"He has a thick head," Leo shot. "I doubt that the thought ever entered into his head. The fact that he would rather workout than play video games is a huge fed flag."
"Not that he would have been able to concentrate on his games anyway, thanks to us," Donnie grumbled. "But sure, I will check him out."
"Hey, this is your fault, Don--"
"Not again!" Mikey flinched at the rage in his brother's voice, and backed away from the door. "I did NOT touch him!"
"Something that is dangerous should never be in your lab, Don!" Leo said sternly. "You know Mikey likes to go in there to see what you are working on now."
"I read a lot of papers on the thing. Mostly everybody was perfectly fine, even the sick ones that were tested! How should I have known that Mikey would react to it when he is a literal picture of health? I tried to find a relation to everybody who got zapped by it, but there was none!"
Mikey grabbed his nunchucks and started to spin them without really thinking. His brothers started arguing again, but the whirr of the handles slicing through the air muffled their words together. It calmed him down a little and he took a breath, before lashing out at a nearby wall. On it was a button that Donnie had installed a few years ago. When clicked, it would release a robot that they had to win in a battle in order to get out of the Dojo.
When he clicked it, the door to the Dojo closed and a metal door slid over it. Mikey had to take several breaths to remind himself that he was not caged in forever. Then, a piece of the wall popped open and a silver robot taller than Mikey, like everything was, walked into the room, surveying everything. When its blue eyes found him, they blinked and it took up a fighting stance. A whirring sound filled the room while two katanas protruded from its wrists.
Watching it, Mikey suddenly remembered why he did not usually battle the robot. It stalked up to him, watching him for movements. Gulping, he stepped backwards, and he knew that the robot was watching him better than a hawk.
"Shoot, what did I do?" he wondered out loud, watching it slowly come closer. "How do you defeat this thing?"
The robot said nothing. It just walked closer.
Watching it, Mikey tried to find a weakness. Did it have a messed up leg? A messed up arm? Were there a few wires poking out? Were there rules to this battle? As he tried to figure it out, the robot leapt at him.
Startled, Mikey held up his weapons, but the robot ran right into him, throwing him to the floor. He grunted at the impact, quickly rolled to the side. A katana pierced the floor right where he used to be, and Mikey gasped, quickly jumping into a semi-squat. The robot tugged at the sword, trying to get it out of the floor. Using this opportunity, Mikey lunged forward, about to strike, when the sword burst out of the floor and at his face.
It all happened so fast, Mikey had to pause for a moment to figure out what direction was up and which was down. A searing pain chomped at his shoulder and he looked over. A thick red line greeted him. Seething, he moved his arm and looked around. The injury stung, but he instantly forgot about it when he saw the robot halfway across the room, shakily standing up.
"That was good, Mikey," it commented in a dry male voice. "Whatever you did, that was good." And then it ran at him.
"Wha--?" He dove out of its way, trying to figure out exactly what he did. Hearing the whirr of the robot behind him, he did a spiral jump, throwing his nunchucks at the figure. They hit the robot in the chest and knocked it over. It lay there when Mikey straightened and he cautiously walked over, thinking, Did I get it?
When he was about a foot away, its arm lashed out and grabbed his ankle. With a short scream, he was picked up and thrown at the floor. The swords sliced at his legs and he was delivered a punch in the gut before being tossed to the other end of the room.
"Ugh," Mikey complained, getting to his hands and knees. He pressed his arm to his stomach, shutting his eyes. "What level is this beast on?" he shouted at the room.
A small whirr alerted him to the presence of the robot and he jumped up, glaring at it as it made its way towards him. His fists were balled up, tightly clutching his melee weapons.
"If you are too weak to continue this fight . . ." the robot started.
"I am NOT WEAK!" Mikey screamed at it, throwing himself against it, his weapons a-spinning. Kicking it in the chest, he landed on top of it, driving the weapons against its body. Jumping off, he waited while the robot struggled to get up before lashing out at its head. It jerked to a side and the lights blinked slightly.
"I was going to say, you have no choice but to win me," it said, slowly getting up.
Tensing up, Mikey lunged at the robot again, hitting it repeatedly. Every time he drove it down, he waited for it to get back up again before attacking it to the floor again. His breathing was ragged and he felt hot everywhere, but he set his eyes on his goal and continued to fly at it.
Finally, the robot got the idea, and the next time it tried to get up, it twisted its body and grabbed Mikey's arm and started twisting.
Screaming, Mikey tried to pull his arm away, but it only intensified the pain. He tried to hit the robot repeatedly, but with its other hand, it grabbed one of the nunchucks.
Realizing that there was no way he was going to win this fight without hurting his arm, he screamed again and threw himself at the robot. More than anything, rage was his push factor. Rage at the robot. Rage at his brothers for always fighting. Rage at the man who had called him weak. Rage at the knowledge that he was weak.
Even though his arm felt like it would fly off at any moment, Mikey tried to rip the robot's head off. Its eyes had blinked when he hit it hard earlier, so it seemed to be a weak point. He kept hitting it with his last nunchuck, kicking it, trying to break something while the robot kept twisting his arm.
Hot tears started to line his eyes, but he didn't bother them. Nothing he was doing was working. No amount of hitting was lessening the burn on his arm. He stopped, took a breath, and started spinning his nunchuck. One last time. He was going to try to break it one last time or just give up.
Looking at it through blurry eyes, he imagined it wearing a cruel grin. Seething, he glared at it and spun his weapon faster. And without any last thoughts, he whipped the weapon at its head.
The loud crack was all he got to know that he had finally defeated the robot. Breathing heavily, he shakily stood up and straightened his left arm. It stung like crazy and he desperately hoped that nothing was broken already. Looking down, his eyes widened when he saw half of the robot's head blasted across the room.
The door blocking the Dojo started to rise. Seeing that, he limped over, finally feeling the fire from every wound. Before he even made it halfway across the room, the Dojo door burst open.
"MIKEY! What the flip were you thinking?" Leo shouted at him, running towards him. Raph was hot on his heels and Donnie rushed in last, carrying a bunch of medical things that threatened to spill out.
Seeing them, Mikey groaned. Leo stopped in front of his youngest brother and opened his mouth to continue to berate him, when Raph pushed him aside. "Leo, let him be for now. You can shout at him later." Mikey thought he saw a flicker of worry in his brother's eyes, but it flashed away.
"Mikey," Don said, putting everything on the floor and running his hands over everything, "what were you thinking?"
He shrugged, then winced. "I just wanted to try it out."
"That level is too hard for you! It was programmed for the rest of us! If I knew you would be fighting it, I would have told you about the little button on its side that you could have pressed before, well, this happened."
Mikey groaned and stalked to sink to the ground. Noticing this, Raph grabbed his younger brother and helped him down.
"You mean there was a button?" Leo asked.
Don nodded. "Of course! Not all of my inventions are aimed to only hurt others." He gave him a glare.
"All right, all right, I get your point." Leo sighed. "Change of plans. Mikey, you sit out training. We saw your battle, and it looks like you went through enough. And you should probably stay home when we go patrolling tonight too."
"What!" Mikey started to stand up but Raph held him down. "No, I am going to patrol. I can do it," he added.
"Can you win a fight against Donnie right now?" Leo asked calmly. Mikey nodded. "Catch this." Quickly scooping up a bandage roll, he threw it at his brother. Mikey flinched when he felt it hit him, and glared at the failed test as it rolled away from him. Don picked it up and patted his shoulder lightly.
"Mikey, we know you want to do this. But you just won a hard battle. If we encounter anyone out there and need to fight, your left arm will not be healed enough to fight them properly.
"How did you even see the battle anyway?" he mumbled, looking at the floor.
"You've never noticed the cameras in the room?" Raph asked.
Mikey's only response was a groan.
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Hi guys! How are you liking the story so far? Is it missing anything? If it is, let me know! I hope you guys are enjoying this story. Let me know who your favorite character is! I love Mikey. XD This is slightly different from the movie, because I do not think the turtles have a training bot in the Dojo, but I wanted to add it.
*Note, I do not own TMNT or ROTTMNT. I just steal their characters for myself. (I'll stop doing this. I think you get the point.)