Chapter Text
Hamato Donatello was not easily impressed.
At this point, in his–admittedly short existence–he and his family had gone on adventures worth several lifetimes.
He had been to space, saw a black-hole devour earth only to then travel through time and different worlds, had been chased by kaiju sized turtles, classical monsters and even traveled to alternate dimensions all aided with just his wits, trusty weapon and family at his side.
So when all four Hamato brothers started to wake up–with numerous pained groans thanks to the pink portal basically spitting them out on cold concrete–Raphael had the honor to vocalize what everyone was thinking. "Now what?"
Leonardo sighed heavily and was the first one to stand up, or at least try to. "Where are we?"
"By the familiar smells I would say we are still in New York," Donnie said massaging the side of his head. "Or at the very least, we are in a big city."
"We need to stop messing with Krang technology." Raph hissed, rotating the arm he hit on the fall.
"It wasn't my fault."
"Never said it was."
"Calm down, team" Leo said tiredly before their argument could escalate. "Let's go find out where we are."
At that moment the freckled turtle ran "Wow!" Mikey exclaimed now at the edge of the building. "Guys, come look at this!"
With a heavy sight, Donatello went to get his bō-that luckily had landed a couple of meters away in the same roof-and went to stand at Mikey's side.
And finally understood his excitement.
A nice mixture of purple, blue and pink hues were dropped in the picture of a big cityscape. Lights and shadows all moved along the busy looking people and fast vehicles, restless and quick, too into their own world to really look up. The sun had been down for what he assumed was a couple of hours and yet it seemed like the buzz had no intention to stop.
It felt shifting, moving, and alive in a way Donnie was not used to.
"It's beautiful." Mikey said with a dreamy expression.
"It's gonna burn my retinas," Raph grumbled at his side, but continued to stare almost as entranced as Mikey.
Once the initial awe had passed, Donnie tried to see if he recognized his surroundings. He was struck by an almost familiar feeling, recognizing the patterns on the buildings and streets in New York before being fully hit by the uncanny valley.
Old well known places were almost identical but with one building too tall or a corner store was painted a different color, or even the order of the open business were now mixed between each other.
"We are in New York, just not our New York."
Raph groaned. "So it's another of those interdimensional travel bullsh-"
"In that case-" Leonardo interrupted. "I think our best bet is to find the turtles of this dimension and ask for assistance."
He then started to advance to the edge, easily jumping to the other roof in the direction their own lair was located. The three remaining ninjas followed him, easily getting into formation.A bit of routine while surrounded by something unknown was welcomed.
"But what if the turtles of this dimension are evil?" Chimed Mikey, jumping through the buildings with more spins than necessary..
"Then we will deal with it." Was Leo’s curt response.
"Or-or maybe they are not turtles, but frogs! Or rats that were raised by a wise turtle master-"
"Maybe this universe has a quieter Mikey." Raph cut him off from behind. Donnie was not able to look at his brother’s face but he could practically hear the eyeroll.
He heard it just as well as the smirk in Mikey’s face. "Or a tall Raph."
The hard smack followed by bickering was so familiar that he just needed to close his eyes to feel in his dimension, don’t get him wrong he was ecstatic to explore this place but there was so much to see and so many things, colors and sounds demanding his attention. It was definitely beautiful but he was starting to feel overwhelmed.
“So, where exactly are we going?”
“To the lair.”
“You know there is a possibility our counterparts' lair is located somewhere else,” Donnie noticed, that brilliant head of his starting to come with possibilities that amazed him and filled him with anxiety at the same time. “There may be even a possibility of them not even being in New York, they could be in Mexico, or Japan or even a new city we don’t have in our own world!”
“Mumbattan!”
The other turtles stopped on their tracks and turned to stare at their brother in orange.
Mikey stood in front of them, a big smile on his face completely excited to share in his reasoning, “Ya know, like a mashup of Manhattan and Mumbai!”
He received a deadpan look from the others but Donnie was able to see the change in Leo’s expression, carefully considering the name.
“I’m mostly surprised you even know Mumbai exists.”
Leo was about to speak again until a shift was felt in the air, it was but a mere sound of steps but in a strange dimension like this it was enough to get the four brothers in high alert.
“Gotta’ admit, I like the name.”