Another amazing screencap edit by  oscarvanderhof featuring a certain scrawny brainiac turtle getting noticeably less so ;)

Enjoy!

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>>> Please Hold

>>> Initializing

>>> Please Hold

>>> Initializing

“Come on, come on, COME ON…!” Donnie sputtered impatiently. He was a busy guy; he didn’t have time for this! The purple-banded turtle had to use everything in his power to not flat-out smack the apparatus before him as it whirred to life. Of course, it was that impatience and desire to remove distractions in his life so he could focus on his undeniably important lab work that had led him to this moment.

>>> Preparing NanoDonBots

Donnie knew that the name was a little clunky but still his ego forced him to name-brand his latest creation.

>>> Linking to NanoDonBot Iterative Computing Core

Donnie was very proud of the AI construct he developed. Though N.I.C.C. was specifically designed to manage the NanoDonBot fleet he had been meticulously manufacturing all week, it was the sheer number of the microscopic robots and their hyper-specific, complex functions that required such an adaptive decision-making program to organize, operate, and coordinate: altering multicellular biology in real time was no small feat.

The entire project had been born from Donnie’s growing annoyance with the limitations of his corporeal form, namely how much fuel he had to consume to power it. Of course, Leo had chastised him for referring to “eating regular and healthy meals” in that cold manner, but Donnie saw his body as a tool, and in the most reductive sense, his tool needed power and he was sick of having to seek out that power. If he could reduce the annoyance of having to eat meals or what were essentially forced interruptions by his health-conscious bros, then he could actually get some work done. Thus, the NanoDonBots were derived.

They were designed to be able to reprogram his cells, down to their genetic code and composition, giving them the capacity to optimize his metabolism and reduce his need to feed down to once a week or even once a month, like a snake or crocodile. Despite the complexity of that program, Donnie was self-assured that his coding skills would give N.I.C.C. ample ability to pull off such a large task, but there was only one way to find out.

>>> Preparation Procedures Complete

>>> Standby For NanoDonBot Deployment Authorization

“Authorize! Deploy! Get those suckers into me!” Donnie exclaimed excitedly as he stood back from the lab bench, right behind the yellow line seemingly marked in a rush on the floor.

>>> Authorization Confirmed.

>>> Deploying NanoDonBots

Donnie closed his eyes. A smug grin spread across his face as the soft hiss of a mist filtered out through a series of small, vented pipes angling down out of the N.I.C.C. apparatus. Despite the cool sensation on his skin, he didn’t feel wet, as he knew that each particle in the cloud was one of his carbo-silicon contraptions; no water was involved. A shiver went up and down his spine as he felt the mist settle on his skin, tingling as the NanoDonBots easily passed through the layers of his skin to enter his circulatory system, in mere seconds spreading across his entire body.

>>> NanoDonBots In Position

Everything is going according to plan, Donnie thought with a conceited smirk; because of course, it was. HE had designed it after all!

>>> Initiating Protocol 28-NV9

Donnie felt a soft warmth emanating from deep within his core working its way from his toes to his skull as the NanoDonBots set to work. The thought dawned on Donnie that with all the nanites integrating with his cells that technically, at that moment, he could be considered the world’s first cyborg. It was a thought that pleased the turtle genius but also served to distract him from monitoring N.I.C.C.’s progress, for if he had, he would have noted that the process was not going as he had intended. Sure, the NanoDonBots were active, they were starting to sculpt his biology, and they were coordinated at the central access point that was N.I.C.C., but it was the details that were starting to deviate from Donnie’s initial plans.

While Donnie had spent an inordinate amount of time developing both the NanoDonBots’ functionality and N.I.C.C.’s machine learning processing power…

>>> Retrieving Protocol 28-NV9 Primary Directive Prompt:

>>> >>> Make It So That I [Subject Donatello] Am Not Bothered By The Whole Food And Eating Thing

>>> End Prompt

…He had been a bit hasty when developing the actual prompt given to the AI from which to operate. While Donnie had intended for the machine to utilize its genetic and molecular engineering capabilities to eliminate his biological need for food, the AI, within the subtle stochastic nature of its decision-making node assembles, had decided to take a different approach.

>>> Restructuring Cognitive Neural Networks

N.I.C.C. interpreted Donnie’s request to mean that he wanted to be unbothered with food and eating with the emphasis on the higher-order cognitive processing aspect of the phrase, not the underlying biological requirements. Thus, it decided the best way to make him unbothered was to remove his actual annoyance with the activity altogether! After a few re-wired circuits, the AI had finished its job.

>>>Protocol 28-NV9 Complete

…or so it thought…

>>>WARNING: Continuity Error

Donnie may have coded the AI to be exhaustingly rigorous, embedding programs, paradigms, and directives to ensure that any edits or alterations it made to his system were seamless: as if they had always been there. It was from those failsafe directives that the issue arose: the AI hadn’t removed the desire to eat, just made Donnie more complacent around eating and food, implying that he thinks less about what he puts into his body. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have thought about nutrition as much over the years, so all that lingering information about proper vitamin doses, protein sources, and subtypes of cabbage jostling around his brain shouldn’t be there, at least, not as keenly. So, the AI deleted that information for Donnie, to make the prior adjustment congruent; logical.

>>> Removing Incompatible Neural Network Retentions

>>> Registered IQ Change: 240 -> 235

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

Furthermore, if Donnie was unbothered by what he put into his body AND he didn’t have as much nutritional information in his head, he would likely have been snacking on more high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, thus, if that shift in diet was as meager as 10% more inclined towards chips and cookies or celery and hummus, it wouldn’t not make sense for him to have AS skinny a figure that he now possessed. Thus, N.I.C.C. directed a subset of the NanoDonBots towards the scarce pockets of adipose tissue across Donnie’s body and ordered them to augment those energy storage depots.

>>> Initiating Corrective Adipose Augmentation Procedures

Within nanoseconds upon recognizing the issue and computationally determining a course of action, a multitude of procedures were enacted all at once: adipocyte duplication, lipid particle expansion, forced metabolic shifts tilting towards energy storage.

Donnie, still distracted by the strange, warm tingling across his body didn’t even register the new, subtle sensation of pressure percolating across his frame as a thin layer of pudge materialized on his figure, seemingly, and quite literally, from nowhere. His scrawny thighs thickened by half an inch while the bony nature of his knees lessened. His haunches filled out ever so slightly while his abdomen puffed out with only the subtlest of curves; like a balloon inflated just to the point before it stretches. His sharp jawline softened while his dangly arms packed a little more meat onto their slightly less knobby structure.

>>> Registered Weight: 150 lbs -> 165 lbs

The change was nearly imperceptible, yet it was just enough to trigger another issue.

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

If Donnie was slightly heavier now, then he likely would have been a bit heavier in the past too. Thus, at his thicker size, through development, he would have been slightly less active, and thus received less of the cardiovascular benefits on his brain’s development through the years.

>>> Removing Generalized Neural Network Capacity

>>> Registered IQ Change: 235-> 210

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

If Donnie’s brain wasn’t quite as developed, during his work in the lab, he’d have less brain space to attend to and focus on eating healthy, thus would have been more likely to subsist off high-calorie comfort foods like pizza, burritos, and chips, rather than the occasional salad.

>>> Initiating Corrective Adipose Augmentation Procedures

Thus, N.I.C.C. once again directed the NanoDonBots to boost Donnie’s weight again, to make sure it was congruent with all the other features it had modified. His torso puffed out more, forming a noticeable bulge, even if small, while his limbs thickened even more, now hiding all traces of his elbow and knee joints as his frame gained new, soft mass.

>>> Registered Weight: 165 lbs -> 200 lbs

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

But at his heavier size, Donnie would have been less active and thus received less of the cardiovascular benefits on his brain’s development through the years.

>>> Removing Incompatible Neural Network Capacity

>>> Registered IQ Change: 210-> 185

Donnie blinked as he suddenly got the sensation that his head felt… lighter…

Strange…

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

But if Donnie’s brain wasn’t quite as developed and he didn’t know as much about healthy versus unhealthy food, he likely would have drunk more soda than water over the years...

>>> Initiating Corrective Adipose Augmentation Procedures

Donnie’s stomach puff out into a full-on paunch as noticeable curves were added to his hips, making him visibly chubby, not helped by the emergence of a second chin along his softer neck or the fact that his chest plate was started to droop at the edges: the early sign of emerging moobs.

>>> Registered Weight: 200 lbs -> 250 lbs

Donnie furrowed his brow: why’d his feet suddenly hurt? Like he had been standing on them all day? His body just felt so sluggish and oddly… heavy…

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

If Donnie was this heavy now, with all those pounds and kilos of extra flabby mass draping off his inner, and former, skeletal figure, then he would have been in the past too and thus received less of the cardiovascular benefit…

>>> Removing Generalized Neural Network Capacity

Alarm bells began to ring in the back of Donnie’s mind. Something was wrong, but…

>>> Registered IQ Change: 185 -> 140

…Before Donnie could react, at the speed of the most advanced supercomputer in the world, he felt his head grow lighter and airy…

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Initiating Corrective Adipose Augmentation Procedures

The sensation of his gut exploding forth again disrupted his train of thought.

>>> Registered Weight: 250 lbs -> 300 lbs

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

What was he worried about again? Oh yeah, it was…

>>> Removing Incompatible Neural Network Capacity

>>> Registered IQ Change: 140-> 100

…no wait, it was…

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Initiating Corrective Adipose Augmentation Procedures

As N.I.C.C. slipped further into its feedback loop, Donnie’s body continued to expand while a duller and duller expression grew on his rapidly fattening face.

>>> Registered Weight: 300 lbs -> 375 lbs

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

Donnie’s lower limbs surged with ballooning lard, the once scrawny appendages now brushing up against each other in the center while the bulk of his hips and haunches combined into single flabby entities that drooped down over his knees.

>>> Registered IQ Change: 100 -> 80

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered Weight: 375 lbs -> 475 lbs

One moment his knees were visible, the next mostly obscured, the following completely encased in sagging thigh fat, the next buried in the seemingly unending merged thigh-calf fat pad. His bony calves were now bulbous and sloshing down themselves over his newfound cankles, the settling rolls of pudge starting to encroach on his thinking feet and plump toes. His gut pushed inch by inch further out of his torso until it collapsed under its own weight, sagging down over his pelvis and dangling closer and closer to where his knees had once been.

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered IQ Change: 80 -> 65

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered Weight: 475 lbs -> 600 lbs

His chest rapidly softened and drooped down his sides, the expanding, pillowy moobs joining the array of thickening fat folds along his sides as a washboard of love handles. His chicken-bone arms were far more porcine now, completely blanketed by sagging, cellulite-riddled pudge that wobbled over his missing elbows while thick creases formed at the edges of his wrists as his bloating forearms continued to expand past their former confines, soon becoming thicker than his legs had once been all on their own with weighty blubber.

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered IQ Change: 65 -> 45

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered Weight: 600 lbs -> 725 lbs

Pudge plastered to his face as well, filling out his thin, lanky neck into a single halo of rising lard-incarnate, on which a pair of melon-sized chipmunk cheeks settled, the squared lines segmenting his upper and lower face having dulled and fully vanished as the NanoDonBots amplified fat in any place it could. Even his eyelids grew heavy, forcing his eyes to attain a half-closed, dull aesthetic, though only part of that was fueled by the weighty mass of the blubbery itself.

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered IQ Change: 45 -> 25

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

>>> Registered Weight: 725 lbs -> 850 lbs

Donnie’s once titular intelligence had been siphoned away, deemed incompatible with his new form, going from a state of continuous overlapping complex calculations to simply existing on autopilot, one that wanted nothing more than his next bite of food; it was all his feeble neurons could handle now.

>>>Continuity Levels Stable

Eventually, N.I.C.C.’s processes reached an equilibrium, and the all-too-critical halt function was reached.

>>>Protocol 28-NV9 Complete

As the system powered down, Donnie merely stood in place, his legs wobbling from the newfound, gelatinous weight on his system. His deep, ambient wheezing breath echoed about the lab for one unending minute after another as his vacant mind struggled to determine what to do next.

A distant clock chimed, signaling the start of family dinner, though Donnie didn’t move, his mind barely registering the once-familiar sound. Eventually, his curious bros slowly made their way to the lab, freezing in place upon seeing the enormous turtle before them.

>>> Motion Detected

“Don, what the hell happened to you?!”

“How’d you get so fat?!”

N.I.C.C. noted the incongruity of the other turtles’ responses upon perceiving their purple-banded brother. Their surprised tones implied that Donnie had not always been this way, that he hadn’t always been the low IQ, lazy, sweaty blob of turtle flab that he was. That was incongruent with N.I.C.C.’s primary objectives.

>>>WARNING Continuity Error

The other turtles would have to be brought on board as well with the corrected history of their brother, of their family. Of course, if they accepted Donnie as their fat, dumb brother from the beginning, they too likely had lax attitudes toward their own figures…

>>> Deploying NanoDonBots

There was much to correct…