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It had all started so well.
Four brothers were on their way to their go-to pizza joint. The pizza joint was in no way their favorite, it was simply their go-to because it was owned by a Yokai and therefore they could dine in for once and enjoy an atmosphere that wasn’t a sewer. They adored their home and all, but no windows and the same view day in and day out would be a bummer to any free spirited teen. So off they went for some well-deserved pizza and socialization on the same night that the universe decided that today it was going to roll the dice.
It was Mikey that spotted the breaking and entering taking place. The little orange turtle immediately pointed it out, and much to the middle children’s displeasure, Raphael’s moral responsibility steered them to the crimes instead of the pizza. Said displeasure was expressed through groans and claims of “The police can handle it, not every little thing had to be our problem bro”, but was quickly silenced by the reveal of the perps and this week’s villain of the week.
“It’s those flame head guys again. For such a big city, we run into them a lot.” Raph pointed out, scratching his chin as they perched on the building next door.
“I think they have a stealing things obsession--”
“Kleptomania.” The purple turtle interrupted the slider.
“--they’re always breaking and entering when we find them.” Leo ignored his brother.
“I mean, that’s probably in the bad guy job description.” Michelangelo said from his seat on Raph’s shoulders.
“....D’you think they’re hiring?”
“Leo!” Raph scolded and Leonardo immediately shrugged unapologetically.
“ What? It was just a little question.”
“No, you are hereby BANNED from joining the bad guys!” Raph nodded at the finality and jumped to the roof of the break-in-in-progress.
Donatello casually joined his blue banded brother’s side as Raph leaped with Mikey still on his shoulders. Leo glanced at him curiously.
“What do you think the pay’s like? Theoretically.” Donatello asked with an interested tone.
“Better than ours probably, considering we don’t get paid.” Leo crossed his arms to pout. “But Raph said we can’t. Oh well.”
“No,” Donatello smirked and looked at his brother slyly before lightly bonking him on the forehead with his tech bo, “Raph said you can’t.”
“What? Donnie!” Leo gaped as his snickering brother leapt off to join the rest of their quartet. He pouted as he jumped after him, fully intending to snitch on the purple teammate but immediately getting shushed by Raphael upon joining. “I didn’t even--”
“Shh, Leo, look!” Raph gestured to the turning of the knob of the stairway door to the roof. “Hide, now!”
The turtles had just barely all gotten into hiding spots as the door finally swung open, the hand on the doorknob connecting to a large brutish guy. The Brute held the door open for his skinny partner.
“I thought I heard something out here.” The Brute said, suspiciously looking around.
“I told you,” His Lieutenant said, “You need to get your tinnitus looked at.”
“I don’t think it was that Boss, it’s not even that bad.”
“Then you’re being paranoid.”
“I’m tellin’ you, Boss, I’m onto something! Everywhere we go those turtles show up!”
“Hey!” Although Mikey was whispering, he was doing so quite loudly. “They’re talking about us!!”
“Mikey shhh!” Leonardo slapped his hand over his younger brother’s mouth, nervously peeking back around the structure they had both hidden behind. The Foot representatives hadn’t noticed them, and Leo breathed a sigh of relief. He could see Donatello hidden smartly behind the structure with the door the bad guys had walked out of, ready to move counter to their location to remain hidden indefinitely, and Raphael was camouflaged as a gargoyle perched on the corner of the building just out of the light enough to be a vague shape. He looked to his brothers to gauge what the plan was going to be and ignored Michelangelo’s tapping on his wrist.
Were they going to wait out the bad guys and follow them in like real ninjas? Were they going to ambush right here right now? Was Donnie hacking into the building right now to locate what the Foot was even here for?
All of a sudden Leo’s hand was warm and wet . “Ew!” He recoiled his hand back and looked at his little brother, betrayed.
“Hey, who’s there?!”
Leonardo hastily started wiping his hand on his brother’s head, ignoring his quiet protests and peeked out from their hiding spot. Immediately, his eyes met the eyes of the Brute. He yelped and quickly hid again.
“Look! Boss it’s the turtles, I told you!” Brute exclaimed. “They’re here just like always!”
“Enough of your conspiracies, just deal with them!” The Lieutenant commanded as he started folding paper faster than an average human.
Leo swore as the Brute ran towards them and grabbed Mikey by his shell to move him out of the way while he wiped his own spit off of himself. A fist came down on their hiding spot as Leo threw Mikey out of the way and ran the opposite direction to get some distance.
“Leo! Mikey!” Raphael sprung into action as the Brute turned to pursue his blue brother. A trio of origami soldiers poofed into existence and cut him off. “We were supposed to be stealthy!”
“ He licked me! ” Leonardo complained as he dodged a swing and backflipped onto the roof of the doorway. “It caught me off guard!”
“Mikey!” Raph scolded as he blocked a punch and threw one of his own.
“I couldn’t breathe ! He wouldn’t move his hand off of my face!” Michelangelo defended as he ran to assist his eldest brother.
“All of my brothers are evil!” Leo continued on his drama streak.
Donatello emerged from his hiding spot in the shadows and landed a surprise attack on the Brute, his tech bo in its hammer format and sent the bad guy to the ground momentarily. “Can we save the family bickering until after we are no longer in combat?!”
“Why do you say that like this is a game?” The Brute, flat on his back, asked casually. “This is real life, kid, we could really hurt you.”
“Roll for initiative!!” Donnie yelled as a battle cry, using his bo to vault himself over the Brute and toward the Lieutenant, smacking into a hastily made Origami soldier instead while Raph hurried to cover him.
Combat was successfully initiated. Origami soldiers were created and fists continued to fly.
“As much as I love the impromptu field test of my new tech bo addition,” Donatello swung his bo with a manic grin, the chainsaw application tearing apart the paper soldiers like they were butter, “We’re going to be here all night if we don’t focus on the source!”
“Oh yeah,” Michelangelo thoughtfully added, “Like the spawners in Minecraft! They’re just gonna keep coming forever.”
“I mean, we actually have a decent handle on this. Plus I’m kinda having fun shredding these bozos!” Leonardo had taken the opportunity to practice some more extravagant swings and flourishes. Since upgrading to a single sword he’s been curious about pulling off one of those fancy spin-attacks he’s seen on some fighting games.
“Yeah I’m down with downing more of these paper pawns!” Mikey agreed, eyes alight as he set some origami soldiers ablaze with his mystical kusari-fundo.
“Ok so we got two for having fun with these jerks for once, how about--”
“Raph would like to hurry and be done here!” Raphael yelled from his side of the battlefield, punching a stray origami soldier as he dodged another punch from the Brute.
“You didn’t have to crash our outings, y’know.” The Brute mumbled.
Donatello sighed as he shredded another group of paper soldiers into confetti before activating his battle shell to initiate hover mode. He flew above the field, his younger brothers immediately picking up his slack and cutting through his share of soldiers, and zeroed in on the Lieutenant frantically making origami man after origami man like a well-oiled machine. Honestly, the speed in which he pumped those out was admirable. But, Donatello wanted pizza and he was bored shredding the same kind of enemy multiple times a minute.
Spinning his tech bo back into its bo format, Donatello dove towards the Origami-spawner and swung, narrowly missing as the Lieutenant jumped out of the way. The jets of the Battle Shell whirred as he hovered back into the air, glaring down at the man with a cocky grin. A better challenge than the Origami Soldiers, which the flame-headed human kept folding and throwing into the battle as he dodged Donnie’s dives.
Donatello swung again and the Lieutenant ducked and blew a raspberry, much to Donnie’s annoyance. He could feel his eye’s want to twitch but honed his willpower to keep it at bay, honing in on taking this disrespectful villain down.
His tunnel vision left him blindsided by the paper hand that grabbed his ankle and slammed him back to the ground, another immediately jumping into his shell jet pack to sabotage any attempts to flee to the skies. He glared up at the human puppeteer, grin replaced by a frustrated frown.
“Not so tough without your little gadget, are you?” The Lieutenant rasped, now the one with the cocky grin. He circled the turtle, examining the spluttering jets shredding the fingers of the paper soldiers holding it down. “Why does a turtle need a fake shell anyway? Is it like a crutch?”
The “crutch” in question immediately sprang free from the purple turtle’s back, sending it and the paper man attached to it directly into the Lieutenant. Donatello immediately swung his bo to swat his legs free of soldiers and jumped to his feet. His glare upon the man sharpened.
“I don’t need a crutch.” He growled, softshell open to the evening breeze. It wasn't a sensation he was used to, but capable of ignoring nonetheless. He raised a judgmental eyebrow at the twitch of the Lieutenant's hands on paper. "Do you?"
The Flame Head immediately halted his folding and narrowed his otherworldly eyes at the teen. He knew he was being baited--he did the same thing to the kid--but he couldn't back down lest his honor and ego take a hit.
Lou Jitsu would meet the challenge head on.
The Foot Lieutenant tossed his paper to the side and took a defensive pose.