#mikey is a bamf

[brightlotusmoon]

The TMNT franchise kept telling us about Mikey's potential for three decades. Rise took that, ran with it, broke a few walls with it, and showed it hardcore.

He's the Battle Nexus Champion, the superhero Turtle Titan, the Holy Chalupa, the Mystic Master.

19-year-old me has been cackling like a witch from 24 years in the past.

[catbowserauthor]

Mikey Rage vs Raph Rage

So, I love talking with @brightlotusmoon because she shares the same ideas on Mikey I do. A sweetheart he might be that just wants to make everyone happy because he IS literal sunshine but he hides his dark side. A dangerous side that even his family rarely sees because he doesn’t let them see it. In a way, he doesn’t want to see it because he knows what he can do with it and it scares him.

That’s another reason he goofs off so much in training. Not just because he can pick things up so quickly and has the most natural talent but because he’s scared what might happen if he were to truly focus. If he were to center that energy and unleash the fighting machine he has inside.

Mikey is scared of himself but threatening his family is one of the few ways that you can get him to let that monster out. Everyone is always citing Raphael as a monster with his rage but that’s not really a fair comparison.

See, Raphael’s anger can be frightening but it’s understood. People have learned over time what to expect if he snaps. They’ve learned ways to bring him back down, to re-anchor him. Much like a fire, there are ways to smother or redirect it, given you learn to warning signs of it coming.

That’s why Mikey’s anger is so different. His has no warning, it has no bring down, it is a complete and utter alien force to even Mikey himself. He doesn’t know what will happen if it’s released entirely so he confines it. He doesn’t even like to acknowledge it exists. He’s not angry, he’s goofy or sad or distracted or literally any other emotion. He buries it and buried it so deep that he doesn’t even recognize it for what it is.

But it will come out. And when it does, it’s a nuclear explosion: wide, chaotic and utterly devastating.

TFS had SSJ2 Gohan comment on himself and I cannot think of anything that fits Mikey in a rage better. Because Mikey in a rage is skill poured into a mold of pure energy. It’s calculated, silent and lethal:

“I hate this. The vibrations of my fists on contact, the taste of blood in my mouth. The sound of my heart in my ears. I hate it. I always have. But right now, in this moment, the only thing I hate more than it...is you.”

[catbowserauthor]

Some Ki-Mastering by Mikey

For @brightlotusmoon I started dipping into some fun writing with this and this is what we got. Eh, I do not argue with the Mikey muses when they come calling. This was fun...

**

Everything hurt.

Absolutely everything hurt. It was a feeling that Mikey had grown accustomed to, him and his brothers had been getting battered, beaten and tossed around for years. You would think after dealing with a literal demon Shredder that dealing with an ambush by the Purple Dragons would be small potatoes but that was the lesson, he supposed. 

Numbers mattered.

“You okay, Mikey?”

Donnie’s voice pried him back to the present and he blinked, once then twice to clear his head. The sounds of the battle sounded very far away and after a moment, he realized that they were in a small broken down balcony. 

“Where’s the others? Where--” Standing up a bit too fast, Mikey winced as a surge of pain erupted from the very base of his skull. He whimpered and leaned back. “Bad plan, bad plan.”

“You’re lucky you’re up at all.” Donnie’s voice would have sounded all anger to anyone else but Mikey heard the concern in it. The relief that they were able to have this conversation at all. “I HEARD that crack.”

“Doesn’t feel like a crack.” Rubbing the tender portion of his skull, he found some bruising and yes, it was definitely going to leave a mark but he seemed otherwise intact. “We hafta help Leo and Raph!”

“Correction, I’m going to help them. I don't want you near that battle. Not until I’ve had a chance to look at your head.”

“Donnie--”

Oh, there was his ‘you’re going to see my temper in a minute’ look. One thing that they all feared and with good reason. He went silent. Slumping back against the wall, he gave a half nod, wincing in the process.

“Try to stay still, okay?”

That was all the warning Mikey got before Donnie vanished and the distinct sound of a wooden bo joining in with metal. There was shouting and screaming and kicks and groans.

Nope. He was not going to just sit here. He couldn’t, not with THAT going on!

Getting up took a minute because his head was convinced it was on a tilt-a-whirl but the rest of him had not been invited. Convincing the two halves to work together was quite a feat.

Getting closer was easier. In fact, each step felt easier. 

He stopped listening and started feeling.

He’d not done it often. Not since that moment when he’d suddenly appeared by April. Had rightly freaked him out but being Mikey, he was not going to just let it sit at that. So, he’d been playing with it. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that it wasn't just people that had that weird feeling. Everything had it. Trees, animals, rivers...everything.

It made his head hurt from all the stimulation if he lingered in there too long.

Now though, as he approached his brothers, he found that while he could feel all these energies--plants, rocks, Purple Dragons, he could focus on just his brothers’. They lit up like Christmas Trees. 

Especially Leo.

Donnie and Raph were like flickering candles, blazing bright and fierce for a moment then fading away to a dull throb that cast a half shadow. Leo though...his was steady and bright. 

Yet still dull and unlike Mikey, he did not move. 

Oh his body moved but aside from a sudden surge in brightness when he gave a ‘hi-ya!’ Leonardo’s ki stayed the same.

Mikey was astutely aware that his was moving, shifting changing. If his brothers were solid rocks, he was the river water that flowed around them. 

Was that why everything was moving so slow?

As he made his way forward, the pain of his body faded until it was little more than a twang in the back of his mind. Like a fly buzzing about in a room full of blenders. You could hear it if you tried but it was insignificant so why bother?

Now, as he looked around, slipping under attacks that seemed to come as if through frozen ice they were so slow, he could see colors painted throughout the Purple Dragons.

After all, they had ki too.

And he could see...the places in their bodies where ki was most vulnerable. As if they were dancing around with clear targets painted on their skin. And the closer he got to the targets, his hands and legs and whole body felt hot and alive. 

He didn't even have to connect with the first one when the energy seemed to pour out of his palm at will. The human didn’t even react but the ki in him turned dark and cold as he hit and passed through the stone walls of the nearby apartment building.

Mikey turned and struck the next.

Same result.

They were moving so ridiculously slow but so were his brothers for that matter. He knew he was the fastest but this gave new meaning to the word ‘slow.’ They might have well as been standing still.

Or...he pondered suddenly am I just moving too fast?

One after another, the Purple Dragons fell to him, as if he were doing a video game on demo mode. Nearly no resistance as ki went dark until finally it was only him and his brothers left. He turned around, looking, seeking out more enemies but there were none left. What had started as a near mini-army sized force was lying limp on the ground. 

Surrounded by cars split in half. Buildings half shattered onto the ground. Lamp poles with broken lights and metal so tightly sliced it looked like a knife had plowed through it. 

All of it had passed so simply for him but he got the distinct impression, judging by the reaction of his brothers’ energy, that it had been microseconds for them. How had...how had he moved so fast, been so strong...

He realized abruptly that the buzzing in the back of his head was louder and nearly deafening. His entire body felt like lead, as if he had been running miles and miles for hours. His lungs burned, his heart was pounding. 

Everything was hot. Everything was like...like a fire inside him was bursting out, all at once. 

At least this time he was glad to pass out. 

[brightlotusmoon]

I...I got a comment on an old fic that insisted Michelangelo "wouldn't know big words like ingratiating or amenable, that's why he's the goofy youngest" and I deleted it without responding, but I did inhale very deeply and pinch the bridge of my nose before exhaling in laughter.

[brightlotusmoon]

I want to make angst for 1987 Mikey fanfic wise but I can't think of any good moments in the show that would work other than Maybe the ep were he has to seduce a plant into liking him which makes him uncomfy. Do you have any suggestions from the show I could use that you remember?

What about the episode "What's Michelangelo Good For?"? It's literally an episode that focuses on his usefulness to the team.

Ages ago, a friend here and I collaborated on a bunch of fun 1987 mini fics on Tumblr, and you can find them if you look for tags like "empath Mikey" and Mikey is a bamf" and the 1987 tag. I can see about just finding them all in a collection.

What with our creepy new anon stalker sending death threats over how we explore canon moments like the Lead Pipe Incident, the Grudge Match teasing, etc etc, I'm going to be slightly cautious about this. Other authors don't need the grief.

[brightlotusmoon]

During a discussion about writing Leonardo in different ways:

Big Brother Leo coming to realize that he hurt Mikey in some way is my jam I guess. Mikey being so perceptive and insightful that being called sensitive makes him wince.

It's that plus when Donnie and Mikey get on the same infodumping wavelength from different perception directions.

People still don't appreciate how word-witchy Mikey can get when he's really inspired. Writers love to joke that Michelangelo is the dumb one who can't even spell his own name* let alone discuss quantum entanglement, but remember that comic versions of Lord Of The Rings and Discworld exist and Mikey's a very visual and kinetic learner.

(let's see you handle ADHD, audio and sensory processing disorders, and hypersensitivity that might as well be ESP, you'd say exquisite mouth flavor words like "sporadic" too.)

@ulisabarbic-blog has a whole bunch of oneshots regarding 87 Mikey and 03 Mikey being psychic enough to beat Splinter and compassionate enough to be more intelligent than all of them.

[catbowserauthor]

I need a creepy Empath Mikey

So as I’m searching for ideas for Empath Mikey, I totally stumble across this from Disney. @brightlotusmoon What say you? I’m picturing a completely freaked out Donnie and Leo shaking and poor Raph doesn’t know what to do:

[brightlotusmoon]

Hey @catbowserauthor I'm trying to archive all your Mikey stories that you wrote on Tumblr, using the tags. Most of those posts have me tagged anyway.