Journey to the Center of Mikey's Mind - Alternate Story

The Brotherly Berating

"We've got a surprise for you Mikey. Some old friends of yours. Although, I don't think they're very happy to see you." Leo's malevolent smile never faltered. "We'll be back. If you survive, of course."

"Better say our goodbyes now then." said Raph with a wicked smirk and with that the three turtles stepped backwards into the smokey wall around them, disappearing.

"I'll show you!" Mikey shouted after them, "I'm not useless! I don't need you!" He realised that he was just repeating himself and internally kicked himself for not thinking of a better comeback.

An ungodly screeching cut through his tempered reflection and his head jerked around to seek out the source, but he already knew exactly what would be waiting for him. His heart dropped like a brick into his stomach and his skin prickled with fearful anticipation. He froze.

"Oh no. Please no. Anything but that!" 

***

The darkness immediately closed in around Leo, Raph and Donnie as they crept cautiously into the room. They each watched the slinking vapour that surrounded them warily at first but when nothing untoward occurred they ignored it. The teens stared out as far as they could, which wasn't far at all, but there was no sign of their youngest brother.

"Mikey?!" The thick mist swallowed up Raph's thundering call. "Geez, this ain't at all what I imagined Mikey's head to look like." he said looking around into the haze.

"How are we supposed to know where to go? There aren't any landmarks or noteworthy locations..." said Donnie exasperatedly. 

"Well don't ask me brainiac, you're the one who's s'posed to know about stuff!"

"Yeah, but we're in Mikey's head! Who knows in what kind of bizarre way things work in here? I mean if dimension X made sense to -"

"Shh." Leo cut Donnie off. 

"Wha-"

"SHH!" He shot his brothers a serious look and then went back to listening. He could have sworn he'd heard somethi- 

"There! Voices!" he whispered and signaled for his brothers to follow him. As the team got closer the voices got louder and as the voices got louder they also grew more recognizable.

"Hey, that's..."

"Us"

The turtles strained themselves to make out the words being spoken, but when they heard what was being said they instantly regretted it.

"You are an idiot!"

"You're just a big screw up."

"Ugly, like Mikey."

"We'll call you "The B Team"!"

"Useless"

"Some ninja"

"What if it melts his brain?

It won't. And even if it did, who would know the difference?"

"We can't trust ya to do anything right!"

"Careless!"

"Stupid!"

"MIKEY!!!"

All these phrases and many more were meshed together into a roaring mess of anger, spite and impatience. Even after the brothers had stopped approaching the voices grew louder until they were all holding their hands over their heads, feeling as though the noise would cause them to blow.

"Aaagh, how do we get out of here?!" yelled a very frustrated and overwhelmed Raph. The ninjas looked desperately around themselves for some sort of exit, but it seemed they were trapped. That is, until Donnie noticed something strange.

"Guys! Over here!" He shouted, waving an arm to catch his brothers' attention and wincing as the sound of insults penetrated his exposed ear. His older brothers followed him as he lead the way. He winced again as he lifted a hand from his head to point to what he had seen. Raph and Leo had to strain their eyes but then they saw what Donnie has spotted; a gap in the dark twisting clouds. Here, there was only black space. 

They ran through the gap, pumping their legs as hard as they could in an attempt to escape that hellish experience. Eventually the voices faded out and became little more than a distant murmur, an uncomfortable memory.

The three brothers stopped and hunched over. For a while nothing could be heard except for their breaths, which gradually became less and less frequent as the gang rested their tired lungs. Then Donnie said what everyone had been thinking.

"Did we really say all those things to him?" A guilty sensation crept up on the turtles which made their stomachs squirm.

"I can't believe he remembers all that..." croaked Leo. Actually, it was more like Leo didn't want to believe it. He knew that Mikey got a hard time from Raph and so he always tried to be patient with the youngest, but even Leo lost his cool sometimes and he knew that words always hurt more when they came unexpectedly.

Donnie noted that Raph hadn't said anything, even though a large majority of the abuse had come from the red-masked turtle himself. The hot-headed turtle just looked angry as he stared at his feet. He muttered something that Donnie couldn't quite hear, something about "sensitive", and then strode off.

Raph didn't want to listen to the whispers in the background anymore. He tried to push away the unwelcome shame that had taken hold and revert to his usual tactic of replacing it with anger, but he kept coming back to the same thought. He wondered how many times Mikey had gone to that part of his mind, how many times he had re-lived the moments that his brothers had belittled and insulted him. He grimaced and then called back for his brothers.

"Come on, let's go." he grunted.Leo and Donnie exchanged an unsatisfied glance but made a silent agreement to leave him be. There was no point starting an argument right now; they had a brother to find.