Chapter Text
It's easy really, especially if you've been observing and analyzing the people around you for as long as Michelangelo has been. It's especially easy when you know how to manipulate people like said young turtle. And it's so very easy when no one has any idea.
The youngest of four, an innocent goofball with not that much going on up there. Oh silly Mikey, he's just not too fast on the uptake. No one notices the... coincidences. A yawn there, a comic book placed in the right spot, the TV just a bit too loud. Causing arguments, resolving arguments. His brothers are Michelangelo's favorite game, a game in which he's the only one aware that it even exists.
Back to the initial question, how does one make another lose their mind?
Ask Casey Jones.
No one would've believed him about everything he had seen. No one would've taken it seriously. They'd think, "Ha! That's a good one Casey! Mikey being some kind of evil genius about people? Ha!"
Isolation.
No one would believe him, he said. Not always explicitly, but it was there, hung in the air above Casey's head, a looming guillotine. He wasn't aware of it's existence at first. It was so high up that he couldn't even see the blade. Of course it's only when it's so close that he can feel the coolness of the metal blade at his neck that he's suddenly made hyperaware of his position.
Casey learns to be observant too. Not to Mikey's degree, but he starts to notice it, Mikey's game. He starts to see the strings, pulling at the other three, so gently that they never feel it, never notice it.
They'd never believe it, Mikey would never allow that. It's Mikey's blade he feels, sending shivers down his spine, that cold metal.
What Casey never saw nor realized is that Mikey had a new game, Casey's game.
So how do you make someone lose their mind? Well, Mikey was curious, and wanted to see the answer for himself. A hand firmly on the guillotine blade, he tested, pushed and did what he did best, observe.