Chapter Text
“Give me back my daughter,” Sensei ordered, if eyes could kill, shredder would be dead. “You are welcome to rescue her if you can.” The metal man barked as foot bots revealed themselves from their hiding potions. Splinter leaped forward to take on the Shredder as the turtles separated out to take on the foot bots, Kari struggling against her confines as she tried to warn the turtles of the traps that had been set out for them. But they didn’t realize the traps until Donnie was the first to step on one of the cages while fighting a Foot bot, followed by Raph then Mikey. Master Splinter was off fighting the Shredder “Yes! Fight my rat!” Shredder said as he fought with their sensei, who was restrained by the foot bots, yelping as ropes restrained him by his hands and neck.
Leonardo was the last to be captured, stepping into the last trap that was on the floor. Fortunately, his katana got wedged in between the opening of the cage, making it easy for the blue turtle to collapse and escape. Leo ran towards a chain that was attached from the floor to the ceiling and cut. He grabbed onto the chain as it shot him up toward the top of the mutagen tank. “Hang on, Kari!” He called out before landing on the top of the cage that Kari was being held in. Which was being hung by a thin chain, Was Shredder trying to mutate her? Leo thought bitterly to himself as he got the duct tape off her mouth “Thanks.” She said, Leo, nodded. Shredder, filled with rage as his plan was failing used his strength to jump to the top of the tank, hand ready to strick. “Leonardo!” Splinter called out, trying to warn his son. Leo’s head whipped around to see the Shredders blade coming straight toward him. His instinct was to duck, got out of the way, and do anything to avoid the incoming attack but…
The chain .
The Shredders blades came down on him, ripping into the side of his neck, tearing through his throat and neck as the force unbalanced him, throwing him into the mutagen below. “LEONARDO” Splinter cried out again, voice full of pain “Leo!” The three other turtles shouted from the cages that they were trapped in, unable to save their brother from being submerged in the mutagen. “Leo! No!” Kari called out as she felt the tears running down her cheek, watching her younger brother try to keep his head above the mutagen, before finally sinking into the glowing ooze. “Finally.” The Shredder sighed as he freed Kari from her cage and hopped down with her to safety. Splinter yanked the Foot bots towards him and them half, escaping from the ropes that they had put on him “Leo!” Raph cried out, rattling the confines of his cage as he saw a green paw slam against the glass of the tank, Splinter ran up the glass and just stared “He’ll either drown from the mutagen or from his own blood.” Tiger Claw purred as Kari thrashed in Shredder's hold, yelling obscenities at the ninja. Splinter looked at the tank as the paw banged against the glass, becoming more and more of a blue color before the paw slid off to reveal a midnight-blue tail that had neon blue stripes.
Then, a midnight-blue paw slammed against the metal rim of the tank, a hand that seemed to have claws attached to it. Another hand followed before the two pulled a body out from the ooze, the body was mostly midnight blue but had a neon blue strip that ran all the way across it. It was big, the beast had a slender head with a red snout that blended into the darkness. Splinter stared at the monster as it let out a roar that shook the building’s foundation. “Leo…” Kari whimpered as she looked towards the monster that had come out of the mutagen, hearing the Shredder laugh behind her.
The monster went limp and tumbled off of the ledge of the tank and fell downward, Splinter lunged forward to grab his son as Kari bite into the Shredder's exposed arm, causing him to yelp and push her away. Splinter had caught the strange beast as Kari ran to go free her other brothers. “Leo!” Raph cried out once more as he ran to his father's side with the rest of his family. Splinter gazed upon the being he head in his arms, wanting to believe with all of his might that it wasn’t his son, that this… Monster. Was not the child he had raised “Oh… My son.” he whispered at the still monster in front of him, Mikey’s tears dripped onto the metal floor as he asked out “Leo?” In an attempt to get his motionless brother to wake up. Donnie was the only one who realized the tail raise behind them “Um… Guys-” He was caught off by the tail rushing into him, knocking him away. Leo pushed their Sensei away and slithered out of his family's grasp, before looking at them. Leo hissed as he went off to attack the Foot bots that had been surrounding them “Leo!” The three turtles yelled out as they went to try and calm their older brother.
In all the chaos no one noticed the spilling gasoline canaster until a dismembered Foot bot’s body sparked a flame, causing the whole warehouse to go up into a blaze.
“No! My lab!” Stockman cried out as he watched his lab go up in flames, Splinter pushed him to the ground before looking towards Shredder, who was nursing a bleeding bite “You. Oroku Saki. You did this.” He cried out at the man who he once called his friend. “Yes.” Shredder agreed, laughing, “I did do this, you took my daughter, so I took your son!” he stated, Master Splinter hissed as he rushed forward, only being stopped by a piece of rock from the crumbling building “No!” he cried out, before feeling a hand on his shoulder “Father, please, we must go.” Kari Pleaded with her father, “Leave me!” Splinter ordered, whipping around, Kari flinched at the anger in his eyes “I promise you, the Shredder will pay for what happened today!” Kari called back, “But for now, we have to leave, and get my brother home!” “Brother?” Splinter looked at the beast Kari referred to as her brother, and there was once a point where he would have believed her with those words. “I will avenge you, my son.” Splinter promised, with tears in his eyes before he and Kari rushed to meet the three turtles.
“We have to get out of here!” Donnie said frantically as he looked around the building that was slowly filling with smoke. Raph stepped forward, tears forming in the red turtle's eyes “Not without Leo!” He stated. Sensei nodded in argument before stepping forward “Leonardo, you must listen to me! We must go!” He said, but as soon as the beast's attention snapped to him, he felt as though getting the beast's attention was a bad idea. Leo zipped to where his father was, and wrapped his tail around him, suffocating him as a snake does with his prey. Raph brought out his sai, ready to charge at the monster suffocating his father, only to stop in horror that this was still his older brother, and he could not harm him. “My son… Please.” Splinter pleaded with the creature, whose pupils dilated as he reared back “Ar… Ar…” The creature was trying to speak, Splinter looked to the creature with a hopeful smile, but then he saw the gash in the creature's neck that had Leo’s exposed vocal cords which had been mangled when the Shredder had landed his attack on his boy… “Oh… My child…” Splinter breathed out as the tail uncurled around him, he could see the sadness in his boy’s eyes… There was pain as well, but Splinter didn’t even want to begin to think about the amount of pain his child must be going through.
Leo slithered away from Splinter, making his way to the exit “Wait Leo!” Raph ran in front of his elder brother to try and reason with him, only to get hit in the face with venom. Raph cried out in pain as he went to the ground, allowing Leo to escape from the building and out to the other side, “Wait! No!” Kari called out as she chased her older brother out and into new york city, Mikey and Donnie caring Raph out and Splinter following behind her. They had made their way onto the rooftops when they had lost sight of Leo, having no clue as to where he had gone off towards. “Take it easy Raph,” Donnie said as he tried to help Raph clear his eyes of the venom their brother had spat into them. “Arg, enough! I can see fine now.” Raph complained. Splinter looked out onto the city, he had not felt this much pain since the day that his love, Tang Shen, had died. And yet Leonardo is not dead. It was clear his mind was no longer with him, turning him into nothing more than an animal.
A predator.
“We will find you, my son, I promise,” Sensei whispered out into the city, hoping with all of his might that it may help his son find comfort out there. “Father…” Kari said, quietly. “We should go home now, my family,” Sensei stated before walking off. Donnie held Mikey close to him. “Do you think that you can fix Leo?” Mikey said in between sobs “Honestly Mikey? I don’t know…” Donnie couldn’t even look his crying brother in the eyes as he admitted this, knowing that it was the truth, and knowing that all it did was hurt Mikey more. They all walked in silence as they made their way back to the Lair.
Off in the distance, a Snake-like figure slithered from rooftop to rooftop, just trying to… Get away? Maybe? But from what? The creature didn’t know, it was all a blur, nothing more than a fuzz in his mind as he tried to remember what just happened to… It? Him? Him sounds right? Ish? Maybe? The creature didn’t know, where did it come from? What was that place? And why was there so much Pain? The Creature finally came to a stop on top of another roof, away from… That… That Place, that horrible place, and the horrible people inside. They did this to the creature. The gray one. The bigger gray one… caused pain. The creature looked at itself in the puddle, it was a dark blue color with stripes and a metal body. But the metal body and dark blue were soaked with a blood red from the gash in the side of his neck. The gray one did this. He did this to the creature. He was the reason why the creature was in pain.
It roared again as it tried to remember, it didn’t like the rain. It was too much. He could hear the sounds of the rain, it could feel its bones. Everything was too loud, why was it loud? The creature slithered away once more. It just needed to go. To where? It didn’t know. It remembered that there was once a place that was safe for it to go, it had things that he loved, but he didn’t remember where it was. It could be far, and its snake tail touching the ground was already too much.
It slides into a seemingly abandoned warehouse. The window was relatively easy to get through. The creature roared again as its body began to shift until it was much smaller. He looked into the mirror nearby to see that he was… Some kind of turtle? He had the same midnight blue, glossy body with that same strip, only this time his red snout had turned into red strips across his eyes, which glowed a bright yellow in the darkness of the warehouse. His Sciera were a light yellow, his pupil had a blue outer ring with a sea soam inner ring. His irises were black slits, fitting for a snake.
The creature was exhausted. He turned over to Lay on his metal shell, and as sleep slowly pulled him in, the last thing it saw was the silhouette of a figure, with two bunny ears looming over him.
Serpent Leo art!:
