Work Text:
????? - ????? - ?????
Pain.
It shot right through him.
He let out a loud scream.
Blood.
There was crimson pooling underneath his body as he lay on the dirt-covered ground.
He could hear shouts, but his hearing was too muffled to understand them.
He could just tell that they sounded scared.
He felt it too.
He felt the fear coursing through his body.
He didn’t want this.
He didn’t want to die yet.
This was his fault.
He needed to fix this…
He swallowed and looked over to his leftover family, giving them a sad smile.
At least he can try again……
August 6th, 2020 - New York City, Sewers; Turtle’s Lair - 3:03am
He jerked awake, staring up at the ceiling of his train car with wide eyes and gasping for air. He took a moment to realize where he was before gritting his teeth and scrunching his eyes closed, covering his face with his arm.
“I failed again.” He let out a short chuckle. “What should I expect when it’s only been two times…”
He took his arm away from his face and stared at it.
He was able to get further this time.
But no matter what different course of action he took it always ended the same way.
It was almost as if it was meant to happen.
That their future was in fact doomed from the start.
Either it be his fault or completely the fault of the Foot Clan.
It seemed like he wasn’t able to stop what was going to happen.
That and … he was stuck…
He clenched his fist, narrowing his eyes at the arm that he currently held up as if it wasn’t supposed to be there.
That he was so used to seeing either a metal limb or a stump replacing the flesh one.
It was surreal to see it again.
This was nothing like Groundhog Day.
He wasn’t repeating the day over and over again.
No.
He was going back in time to a certain point after he died.
It was like restarting from a save point in a videogame only it gave him multiple chances to fix what was to come.
The only problem was that everything he tried never seemed to work.
Then again it’s only been two times, so he hasn’t technically tried everything yet.
The first time was how they found out about what happened after his little mishap with the artifact.
He had carried that guilt for the next two years until he was swiftly crushed to death by rubble in a building cave-in.
He was with Raph and other survivors at the time and doesn’t know what happened to them in that timeline, but the second time around he ignored the key. He let his older brother grab it instead, but it was then taken from him by the Foot Brute before they promptly vanished once more.
Another failure.
Well, his first death had been sudden, but waking up back in his comfy bed in the lair before the invasion had given his head quite a spin.
He’d been expecting to wake up within the presence of Karai and of his ancestors, but he didn’t.
He instead found himself in a hell that he can’t escape from even through death.
Was he cursed at some point?
He didn’t know.
He just knew that now he restarted before the invasion whenever he died which was brutal, but gave him a chance to one-up the aliens a little bit.
His second time he was able to live a bit longer, but this time it was Raph who held guilt over the apocalypse happening. Leo didn’t feel like his brother should’ve blamed himself for something that was quite clearly his fault in the first place. He was also able to make sure things that happened in the previous timeline didn’t happen again, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have just changed the outcome.
Instead of his death in the building collapse … it was Raph’s.
They still had to go in there for survivors and supplies, but the building’s support beams couldn’t hold anymore. His brother used his body as a shield as everyone escaped while Leo tried to plead with him to come too.
However his older brother was too big to fit through the hole and he could only watch while being dragged away by April as his brother was crushed.
Now he knew how Raph felt in that that other timeline.
His leadership role didn’t last long.
He only had three years in the role of leader of the Resistance before his second death.
He was shot through his plastron with a Kraang laser that was severely close to where his heart was. His remaining brothers, sister and his Dad had surrounded him in his dying moments.
It hurt to see them mourn him.
The first time he didn’t get to see it, but that time it hurt.
All he did was smile because he knew he’d be able to redo all this again.
It might drive him insane to see his family die over and over.
The fact he has to die repeatedly for this to work.
But in the end if he can in anyway stop the invasion from happening then he’ll take it.
He doesn’t know how many times he’ll get, but he’s going to continue to try until he reaches his goal.
He’s going to make sure the invasion doesn’t happen.
He’s going to save his family.
He doesn’t want this to be his future.
No way…
It will never be.
He won’t believe it.
All that destruction and death.
He’s not going to take this lying down.
It may take a few—a lot of tries, but hopefully he’ll eventually get it right.
That future will never be his.
He won’t accept that.