#I can't wait for them all to have their happy ending gaaaaah

[acewithapaintbrush]

@somerandomdudelmao s latest update for the Cass apocalyptic series has given me mental damage so I'll make it everyone's problem

🐢🐢🐢🐢

Donatello remembers falling asleep. It's a generous word for dying, but that's what it felt like. Closing your eyes and just drifting off, just a feeling of contentment and peace. As peaceful as dying can be. 

It was painless at least. That's a plus if you ask him. The constant heaviness in his bones, the itching at the back of his eyes, telling him to close and never open them again, the constant buzzing in the back of his head. It all just went away the moment he let go. 

For a second he'd felt weightless. Free. He'd felt young again, had imagined himself jumping over rooftops with his brothers and feeling the wind on his skin. The battle shell a comforting weight on his back instead of the crushing burden it has become during the last few weeks of his life. He'd imagined himself jumping and landing, jumping and landing, effortlessly. Had imagined himself looking to the left and seeing Leo, keeping pace, grinning and whole. Looking to the right and seeing Mikey and Raph, happy and laughing. He'd imagined looking forward again and seeing April and Dad and so many others, standing there, waving at him, their silhouettes stark against the sun lowering behind New York's skyline. 

He'd thought "Ah. This must be heaven" 

And then nothing. 

And then too much, all at once. Like a computer going into overdrive, a hard drive rewriting and deleting itself over and over. He feels torn apart, his body rearranging itself constantly, nothing but a mist of energy one second and in the next blink of an eye a solid mess. When he has eyes and he can look down, he sees hands and arms glowing and glitching, but before he can panic or make sense of anything, he is gone again, just shadow and clouds, scattered across what his world has turned into. 

This is nothing like what Raph described. Donnie expected some mystical mumbo jumbo, thanks to their ninpo and their connection to their ancestors. But what he'd expected had been Gram-Gram and Dad, waiting for him with open arms. 

Not whatever the shell this is! 

Figures! Even in death this mystical stuff manages to screw him over. Paint him surprised. NOT! 

Time seems to be meaningless here. It feels like forever and it feels like just a second before something changes in his new world. The light changes, the texture of his surroundings solidifies. His body is as stable as it ever is, glitching and oozing with overflowing ninpo, but here and real. 

There is a figure in the distance and Donatello can't make out who it is but he knows, knows as instinctively as he knows himself, as he knows his brothers. 

The figure comes closer and they collide and Donnie feels himself rip apart AGAIN, but this time it's different. This time it's like coming home, like breathing in after years of holding it all in. 

And then there is nothing and then there is a lot again. Not too much this time, just the right amount. But confusing and dizzying. Donatello is still not quite back yet, still feels alien to himself, but he's as whole as one can probably be after dying. 

There are many new sensations pressing down on him. All of it familiar yet unfamiliar. The ninpo of his brothers, but much too young. The familiar energy of Casey Jones surrounding him, in contrast older and much more burdened than it should be. 

But no time to panic. Assess and analyze Donatello, it's what you do best. There will still be time to freak out once you have figured out what the hell is going on. 

"You know, I think I might need to invent a new scale to rate this rescue experience."