Chapter Text
To the outside world, April O’Neil was a single child. Daughter of Kirby and Carol O’Neil, two amazing people who worked in the news and journalism industries and were the main reason she was so passionate about being a reporter. She had no siblings, in fact, she was what one would classify as a surprise baby. Her parents didn’t genuinely plan to have her, she just happened by accident. Not that Kirby and Carol never said that they wouldn’t have children, they did plan on that, but April was a surprise in that she was unplanned.
But she was loved.
And she was a hassle.
Up until her terrible twos, toddler April was the living embodiment of the phrase “nightmare child”. She calmed down significantly after her third birthday, thank goodness, but those two years were enough to convince her parents to have one kid and stop right there.
Hence, April was an only child.
She was fine with this. She felt the natural pang of jealousy any child would get whenever she saw kids her age playing with their siblings – either twins or younger by a couple years – and she did ask her parents for a baby sister once, a week before Christmas, but April remained a single child for the first eight years of her life.
To the outside world – to her classmates, her records, her parents, and to the New York City above ground; April O’Neil was an only child. But to the yōkai of the Hidden City, to the mutant menaces who dared to step one bad foot on her turf, to the ancient Hamato Clan whose founder called her one of their own; April O’Neil had four brothers.
They were her world, her four younger brothers who she met one fateful night when she caught them playing basketball on her rooftop. She didn’t scream when she saw them, in fact, she practically jumped up to them because they looked so cool . What eight-year-old wouldn’t think giant, talking turtles who could play basketball wasn’t going to be the coolest thing ever?
She won them over like that. Just playing basketball with them, treating them like they were normal kids – because, outside of their mutant appearance, they were – instead of something to scream at and run away from.
April learned their names after a couple of rounds; the tall spiky one was called Raphael, or Raph. He was also the oldest. The one with the glasses was Donatello, or Donnie. The colorful one with the bright red markings over his eyes was called Leonardo, or Leo (she also learned then that Donnie and Leo were twins, with Donnie being the oldest). And the round one with the freckles was Michelangelo, or Mikey.
“And what’s your name?” Leonardo asked her, face only inches away from her’s. Up close, April noted how his right eye was blue while the left one was brown. That’s so cool, she remembered thinking.
“I’m April,” she said, a big toothy smile on her face, showing off a couple of missing baby teeth. “April O’Neil! And I’m eight!”
Leonardo blinked for a few seconds, before a wide grin took up half his face. April noticed he had fangs. Leo quickly turned to face the spiky one, Raphael.
“Raph! Raph! She’s older than you!” he shouted excitedly. He jumped over to his brother and shook his arm. “She’s smaller than you and she’s still older!” Leo then burst into a fit of laughter. Donnie pushed up his glasses and leaned on Raph, a smug-looking smile spreading across his beak.
“Looks like your claim of ‘biggest means oldest’ was incorrect, oh dear Raphael.”
Leo’s laughter only got louder as he fell to the floor.
April’s smile fell a little when she felt someone tugging on her shirt. Looking down, she saw that it was Mikey, who was staring up at her with wide eyes.
“Are you really older than Rapha?” he stage-whispered.
April shrugged. “That depends on how old he is.”
“Rapha’s seven.”
“Oh,” April blinked a couple of times. “Then… yeah. I am older.”
Mikey smiled just as wide as Leo, before he too joined his blue-clad brother on the floor due to laughter.
April remembers being told by Leo that that day was the day she cemented herself as their big sister.
April O’Neil wasn’t an only child anymore. She had four younger brothers, whom she loved with all her heart, and who she’d burned the world down for if anything were to happen to them. She’d fight every ancient mystic evil the world would throw at her if it meant keeping them safe. And if she couldn’t be there for them at the moment, she’d be there for them in the aftermath. She was their big sister, their oldest and only sister. Raph was the self-proclaimed protector, but even he needed someone to protect him and to help protect their younger brothers.
So that’s why, when she watched the portal close up, slicing the Technodrome in half, stopping the Kraang for good, knowing that he was trapped back in that prison dimension, April O’Neil felt her heart break into hundreds, thousands, millions of little pieces.
Because her brother was the one who did that. Leo. Leonardo. Neon Leon. The one who could inspire his whole family with either a small speech made with nonsensical words or a grand one filled to the brim with hope, belief, and confidence. Leonardo, who was so, so much smarter than he always let on, never truly showing just how intelligent he was because "Donnie was the smart twin, and he was the cool twin”. Leonardo, who was there for her to make sure her need for one normal day went as she wanted.
Leonardo – impulsive, fearless, cocky, intelligent and protective Leonardo – was the one who sealed Kraang away back into the prison dimension.
Along with himself.
“When I get to the other side, you close that door.”
April O’Neil was one to never be afraid. In the face of ghosts, an evil Barron Draxum, Shredder, the Kraang themselves, April wasn’t afraid. Not once, not ever. She was confident, she was fearless, she laughed at the face of danger and made sure to hit it hard with her trusty baseball bat.
But hearing him say those words… hearing her little brother say those words made April O’Neil experience what true fear was for the first time.
The future boy – Casey – said something, but April couldn’t focus on him. All she could focus on was her brother’s voice, and what he was saying.
“Casey, it’s the only way. He’s too strong. He’s not gonna stay on the other side unless I keep him there.”
April looked up to see Splinter – the man, or rat, who over the years, she began to consider as her second father. The look on his face as Leo’s words registered was one that would haunt her forever. Leonardo was her brother, but he was also Splinter’s son. His child. His baby blue. The teenage mutant turtle who he held and raised ever since he was just an itty bitty baby. April was feeling fear at his words, but she couldn’t even imagine what his father was feeling.
Raph spoke up, but April still couldn’t focus on what he was saying.
A chuckle. An empty, sardonic chuckle from the only person April knew could ever give that kind of tone. “You’re one to talk, big bro. Hero moves are totally your style.”
Ah.
There it was.
That word.
Hero.
It’s what Raph always tried to push Leo into being. What he came into her room at three in the morning to rant about. How Leo was never taking the hero life seriously, how, despite being the leader now, Leo still goofed and slacked off any and all responsibility. How he needed to start being a hero and stop being Leo .
April never said anything during those rants. She knew how important being a hero was to the snapper, how being one could maybe change the way New York would see mutants. How, if they showed how they protected the city, they might be able to proudly show their faces out in pure daylight; no disguises, no hoodies, no clumsily put-together excuses as to why they looked the way they do.
Being a hero was important to Raph, April knew this.
Just how she knew that in that very moment, hearing Leo say those words, Raph never hated being a hero just as much as he did now.
Splinter fell to the ground, and April fell with him. The comms were still on. They could hear the familiar static of one of Leo’s portals opening, the familiar sound of him throwing one of his swords. April wished that it meant that he was escaping, that he reconsidered what he was about to do and stop. But no. The sound of him yelping in pain, the sound of him hitting the ground enough to hear loud and clear how the ground broke, the sound of him screaming for a moment, followed by a horrifyingly wet cough…
It was enough to make Splinter curl himself into a ball. April tried to soothe him, but it was pointless. Her brother was being tortured right now, and none of them could do anything to stop it.
“Hey.”
April looked at her wrist.
“Future me would be real proud of you. I’m proud of you.”
Those words weren’t for her. They weren’t for his dad, or his brothers.
It dawned on April where Casey was. Her brain deciding to make her memory work again to somehow make this terrible situation even worse.
Casey was at Metro Tower, about to pull the key.
About to close the portal.
Leo was consoling him. In his own way, telling him that it’ll be okay.
April wanted to scream. She wanted to go up there, help him, save him, anything.
But she was stuck here, in an empty construction site, her ninpō locked away, hearing her little brother about to sacrifice himself to save the world, to save them, and she couldn’t do a thing. She was useless.
April O’Neil felt useless.
She made a promise to protect them, to keep them safe, as any big sister should, and she failed.
She failed to keep any of them safe.
First with Raph.
Now Leo.
A crunching noise came from the comm on her wrist, and April wanted to throw up.
She’s broken a few bones before, either in baseball or in fights. She knows what the sound of bones breaking sounded like. That was it.
“What you fail to understand is… I missed on purpose !”
April couldn’t concentrate anymore.
She curled up to Splinter, trying to shield him with her body. She needed to comfort him, she needed to make sure that he knew she was there. Because they both knew what was coming. They both knew what was about to happen.
But the knowledge of the future only made the pain worse.
“Casey, close the portal now!”
Splinter began to shake. April bit the side of her tongue to keep the sob that was building up in her throat at bay. Not now, she thought. Not now not now not now not now not nownotnowpleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-
“Casey!” A sickening crack was heard. “ Please!”
A blinding pink light came from the Metro Tower, and April made the mistake of looking up.
The image of the portal closing for good burned itself into her mind. A haunting reminder of what she just lost.
If April O’Neil we're asked to describe what dying felt like, she’d have to say that what she felt at that moment, watching the debris of the Technodrome fall to the ground, caused by the portal, knowing that her little brother was on the other side, never to be seen again, hugged again, loved again…
She’d say that’s what dying felt like.
Splinter let out one sob, and April’s already broken heart broke even more.
She just lost a best friend, a brother.
Splinter lost a son, a family member.
April wanted to scream. She wanted to climb to the top of Metro Tower and let out all her grief, her anger, her rage at the unfairness of it all for all of New York – hell, maybe even the world – to hear.
Leo was sixteen.
Sixteen.
Two whole years younger than her. He had so much time, so much potential to do great things...
And he was gone now.
Locked away in a prison dimension where no one could get to him.
And it was her fault.
It was her idea to lock the Kraang away again when it became clear they couldn’t defeat them the normal way. It was her idea they went with. It was her idea that made Leo, Donnie, and Mikey go into the Technodrome to get Raph back for her idea to work.
It was her idea that got her little brother killed.
She killed her little brother.
Ugly laughter rose its way up behind her. April looked back.
Sister Kraang looked at her with her one remaining ugly eye.
And laughed.
April got up. She picked up her bat.
She felt something under her skin begin to pulse.
She walked over to Sister Kraang, making sure to show her rage in every step.
Green lightning began to spark up from her hands.
She was staring at the ugly bitch, who still dared to laugh.
Something inside of her was starting to break.
April lined up her bat, making sure that Sister Kraang saw what she was about to do.
“It’s not going to do anything to me!” she cackled. “But go ahead, human! Hit me! It’s not going to save that thing from my brother’s wrath! It’ll die there, and you can’t do a thing about it!”
It broke.
Green flames engulfed her bat. April’s eyes glowed as the familiar power of her ninpō wrapped around her. She could feel the presence of the other Hamatos, all of them wrapping their hands around her own, giving her their strength for this one cathartic act. A bright green light exploded into the sky as April swung her bat.
As the wooden weapon made contact with Sister Kraang’s face, April screamed.
“FUCK! YOU!”
A shockwave knocked off her feet for only a second. April ignored the smoke coming off of her. She ignored how her arms were beginning to feel sore.
Sister Kraang was laying all the way over to the other side of the construction site, knocked out, a big ugly and red welt forming where April hit her, covering the other half off the bitch’s face.
The joy at having shut her up left April as her eyes landed on Splinter.
He was still curled up into a ball, not noticing what just happened.
April made her way over to him on wobbly legs and hugged him again.
And this time, she allowed herself to cry.
April O’Neil was an only child in the eyes of New York above ground. But to those who knew her – truly knew her – she was the proud older sister of four amazing boys.
And April O’Neil allowed herself to remember that title. Four amazing boys.
Now, it was just three.
April wished, as she and her father cried together in grief, that she had been a better sister.