Darkness.
Then, pain. A dull, throbbing ache, spreading through his skull like molten lead.
His first instinct was to curse—except his mouth didn't quite respond the way he expected. It was as if his body itself wasn't his own. The sensation was foreign, awkward. He felt...smaller?
Panic tried to take root, but his mind, sharp and conditioned, quickly clamped down on the rising fear. First, assess. He forced his eyelids open, and the world snapped into focus—only it wasn't the world he had known.
He was lying in an old, battered bed in a small, cluttered apartment, dimly lit by a flickering ceiling lamp. Papers and blueprints were scattered across a rickety desk in the corner, next to an ancient computer tower humming with life. His gaze swept across the room, and his breath caught as he spotted something unmistakable—an old TCRI logo on a research folder.
His heart pounded. No way. No. Freaking. Way.
Scrambling out of bed, he stumbled into the bathroom, gripping the sink as he looked into the mirror. The face staring back at him wasn't his own—it was Baxter Stockman's. A younger, pre-cybernetic, unbroken version, but unmistakably him.
The realization hit him like an Arc Reactor explosion. He wasn't just in some random world—this was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003. And he was Baxter freaking Stockman.
A manic grin spread across his face.
This... could be fun.
---
Memories poured in, merging seamlessly with his own. He had all of Stockman's knowledge, his experiences up to this point—brilliant, yes, but flawed. Arrogant. Short-sighted. A man who would eventually become a pawn of the Shredder, only to be disassembled and discarded like a faulty piece of machinery.
Not this time.
He wasn't just Baxter Stockman—he was better.
His mind surged with equations, blueprints, algorithms. He had the knowledge of Tony Stark—engineering, physics, weapons development, AI, robotics. He understood cybernetics on a level far beyond what this world had seen.
And that meant one thing.
He was going to rewrite the future.
No serving the Shredder. No being Krang's lackey. No blind arrogance. This was his world now, and he would carve his name into history—not as a mad scientist doomed to failure, but as the man who would bring about a new technological revolution.
But first, he needed resources. Connections. Power.
And perhaps... a suit of armor.
A very advanced one.
With a chuckle, he sat at his desk, pulled out a blank blueprint, and began to sketch.
The Turtles had no idea what was coming.
Neither did the Shredder.
And he couldn't wait to see the look on their faces.
End of Chapter 1.