Chapter Text
Leo loved astrology.
Whether or not he believed in it didn't matter, but he'd always felt a draw to the stars. Even as they came and tried to steal everything and everyone he'd ever loved, he still reached out and basked in their light as they shone upon him in the dojo.
Tonight, Gemini lit up the sky, Mercury was as bright as ever, and Leo prayed that the pillars would hold him up, just as they'd always done. He tightened his grip on his katana ever so slightly.
The bō staff Ryan carried put him off-guard. Sure, Donnie had always wanted some kind of - what did he call it? - a tech-bō, and Leo supposed it was cool to see what that might look like, but the sheen on the metal and the purple accents reminded him of the Kraang a little too much.
An irrational side of him said that this was the Kraang returning, coming to resume their take-over of the earth, despite the control the Utroms seemed to have over what was left of the Kraang empire.
Hah.
What a fearless leader he was.
Cassandra made the first hit, swiping and missing at Casey, but with a notable speed that felt almost inhuman. The black mist she left behind didn't help that feeling much. Casey returned with a punch, as he had no time to pull out any of his weapons, but missed.
Seeing Cassandra and Casey fight was definitely something. Even with the little time he had, as he balanced studying Cassandra and alternate Donnie - Ryan - he noticed they had eerily similar yet entirely different fighting styles. Casey was scrappy, yet diligent from his years with Leo and the others. Cassandra seemed as though she'd been training for years, with excellent, practiced form, but still had a certain charm with it that screamed Casey.
Ryan was also...something. He seemed oddly defensive for someone on the attacking end, but somehow, it worked. He had his counterpart on the ground faster than one could even say so, and was able to put his attention in multiple places at once. That made his style seem so Donnie, the patience and practice with defense and the expert way he twirled his bō staff around felt so familiar and yet so foreign.
Then there were the guns, and Leo suddenly realized very few of his fights ever contained them. This was going to be difficult.
As the fight seemed to climax, Ryan and Cassandra joined forces, ebbing and flowing quite nicely with Cassandra's more offensive style and Ryan focusing on defense. It really seemed like they'd rehearsed this dance, over and over, but the mistakes they made told another story. Leo had to admire the skill for just a moment, even as his katana made a clean slice in Cassandra's left cheek.
Yet, still, even with everyone's years of training and experience, Leo and the others found themselves laying on the ground, defeated. Raph still tried to get in a few more jabs, but Cassandra kicked away his sai with an amused huff.
Ryan's shell - a metal hunk of armor that seemed to hold the answers to the universe itself in it - procured a strange device, the likes of which Leo couldn't recognize. It held a strange aura about it that felt both exactly like April and the strange powers these alternate versions of them had and yet was still so alien. It was like Donnie explaining a stand of code, or Mikey talking about the difference between regular olive oil and virgin olive oil, or Raph rambling about how much better alcohol-based markers were compared to water-based ones.
Leo knew he was completely out of his field when he saw that device. Cubical in nature, and the way Ryan fiddled with it felt like a rubix puzzle. When he tossed it on the ground, a magenta colored portal suddenly lit up the space, a fuzzy sort of feeling emulating from it.
Cassandra hauled April upward and onto her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, grinning when she looked back at the others. "Well, that was fun."
"Sure," Ryan remarked, tapping his necklace and returning to his human form. "I have what I need. Let's go."
"Harsh. Ow."
"Sorry." Ryan held up his hands defensively, then gestured to the portal. "Ladies first."
Cassandra snorted, hopping into the portal with April in tow. Ryan stepped closer to the portal, turning back with one final wave, then picked up the cube and left through the closing hole in space and time.