Chapter Text
It was supposed to be an easy patrol night. Sure, there had been some unusual Krang activity, but it wasn’t anything that Leonardo and his brother’s weren’t used to. They had stopped countless Krang robberies, kidnappings and strange experiments by now, and Leo didn’t expect this to be any different.
Donnie had intercepted a message that the Krang were transporting new technology from one of their labs to the main TCRI building, so the four of them were waiting on top of a roof, looking down on the entrance to the lab.
They had been waiting in the cold November night air for about an hour and a half by now, and Leo was really wishing he wasn’t cold-blooded. And judging by the exhausted looks on his brother’s faces, they were feeling just as sluggish as he was. At least Donatello was able to keep his mind awake by theorizing and hypothesizing about what the new technology the Krang had would be.
‘It doesn’t look like a weapon,’ Donnie had said before they had left for the mission. ‘It doesn’t have the usual guards accompanying the shipment’
Leo glanced at Donnie now. The two of them were standing at the edge of the roof, watching the building closely. Donnie was muttering to himself, too quiet for Leo to make out, but every once in a while, the muttering would slow to a crawl, and Donnie’s head would fall and his eyes would droop, before he jolted back awake, and continued his thoughts.
Leo looked back at Raph and Mikey, who were waiting underneath a billboard, like they usually did on stakeouts like this. Raph was leaning against one of the support beams, arms folded and head bowed. His eyes were closed. This in itself wasn’t that unusual for him, he usually would stand like that, casual and aloof, but ready to snap into action at a moment’s notice. But tonight, Leo would see that the usual tension that accompanied this stance wasn’t there.
Mikey was doing an even worse job of hiding his tiredness. Sitting down, he was resting his head in his hands, eyes closed, and breathing deeply. Leo wouldn’t be surprised if he was asleep already.
They weren’t ready to fight like this. They had been out in the cold too long, and it was affecting all of them. Even Leo could feel his movements were slower than they usually were, and it took all of his energy to get his limbs to cooperate. An uneasy feeling pulled at his gut.
He was just about to call off the mission when the sound of a garage door being open screeched throughout the night air.
“The Krang are here,” Donnie said, turning back towards the others.
Raph took a deep breath, and pushed himself off of the post he was leaning on, pulling out his sai. Mikey blinked a few times before jumping up to his feet.
The uneasy feeling swirled around in Leo’s stomach as his brothers prepared to go into the fight. He wanted to call them back away from the ledge, but in their usual rebellious nature, they didn’t wait for his signal before jumping down to intercept the aliens.
Leo rolled his eyes with a groan, and jumped down after them.
“You know you guys are supposed to wait for my signal, right?” He said as he pulled out his katana.
The Krang dropped the box they were carrying and pulled out their guns.
“Why do you need to tell us to pound these bots into the ground?” Raph said with a cocky grin. “We’re gonna do that anyways.”
The Krang began blasting, and Raph leapt forwards, jamming his sai into the neck of one of the Krang bots. Mikey followed with a whoop, nunchuck whirling around as he fought.
Leo dashed towards the box, wanting to get it away from the battlefield before the Krang could steal it away, but he was intercepted. He slashed one of them down, but before he could whirl around to face the bot he could hear behind him, it grabbed his arm.
Leo snarled and tried to pull away, but his muscles screamed in protest. All he could feel was the cold.
And then the Krang bot squeezed his wrist with impossible strength and Leo cried out, dropping his sword. Distantly he heard Raph yell his name, but he blocked out the sound and focused on mustering his energy to rip his arm out of the bot’s grasp.
He wrenched his arm free, but now there were two bots facing him, guns pointed at his face. On instinct, Leo jumped away, just as their shots hit the ground where he was standing. He kicked one of them back, and sliced through the other one with his remaining sword. He turned to face the one who had grabbed him,and made quick work of him, slashing at the metal body. He watched the pink alien body run away screeching. He was panting heavily.
They needed to get out of here.
He turned around to order his brothers to retreat, when he saw Donatello get slammed against a wall.
Donnie struggled against the robot arms that held him there, but Leo could tell he didn’t have enough energy to free himself. Leo was rushing to help, and could see Raph had the same idea, but they were too slow. Before either of them could reach him, one of the krang bots slammed his body weight against Donnie’s awkardly pinned arm.
There was a sickening crunch and Donnie cried out in pain. Leo reached Donnie and attacked the bot holding him, cutting through the metal easily. The other bot dropped Donnie to face Leo, and Donnie crumpled to the ground. Raph was there in a flash, helping Donnie back to his feet as Leo destroyed the Krang bot.
Leo whirled around to see Mikey fighting off several bots of his own. He was still moving, which was good. Leo was about to call to him to retreat, when suddenly he was tackled from behind.
“Look out!” Raph yelled as he shielded Leo’s body with his own.
Leo twisted around to see the box they were trying to stop the Krang from getting burst open, sending an explosion of a strange powder flying up into the air.
He could feel the fine particles of whatever had been in the box hit his face, even as Raph shielded him, and it immediatly started to burn. He instinctivly covered his eyes, but not before the powder had coated his hands. His eyes began to sting, and he grunted in pain.
Raph rolled off from on top of him.
“Dudes!” Mikey called out from the other end of the alley. “What is this stuff?”
Leo tried to scream at him to get back, away from the cloud of dust that was making its way through the air, but the dust entered his mouth as soon as he opened it, and it left him coughing violently as his lungs burned.
Mikey rushed forwards, trying to help, but as soon as the strange powder touched him, he doubled over, falling to the ground.
Leo heard Donnie say something, but his mind was starting to cloud over as the burning only got worse. Suddenly a sharp stabbing feeling pierced its way deep into Leo’s bones, and his vision blacked out.
He lost track of time as the pain got worse, his skin feeling like it was melting, his bones feeling like they were crushed, and his whole body feeling like it was on fire.
He lay on the pavement, focusing on the only thing he could control. His breathing. Splinter’s meditation lessons came flooding into his brain, and he spent several moments trying to bring himself back to focus.
Suddenly, the pain stopped. Entirely. One moment, all Leo could do was breathe, and the next, he felt completely fine. It happened so suddenly Leo’s first thought was that he had died. Which caused him to snap open his eyes and scramble to his feet to make sure he was actually alive.
The first thing he noticed was that everything looked bigger than it should have. The second thing he noticed was that his brothers were nowhere to be seen. The third thing he noticed was that his body was not cooperating at all. Everything felt out of place and uncoordinated as he tried to stand, and he fell back to his side twice before he gave up.
“Guys?” He called out, looking around. The buildings on either side of him towered above, blocking most of the electrical light from the street. There were several dark shadows, which looked like lumps of fabric. The truck the krang were using was still on, spilling out exhaust into the air, and the now empty box was laying innocently on the ground.
He couldn’t see any of his brothers, and he began to panic remembering Donnie’s possibly broken arm.
“Guys? Where are you?”
“I’m here bro, where are you?” Mikey’s voice called back. It sounded close, close enough that Mikey should be visible.
He looked around again and saw some movement from where Mikey’s voice came from, but he couldn’t get a good look at it.
Leo rolled onto his stomach, and carefully pushed his arms underneath him, once again trying to get up.
It was then he actually looked at his hands, and panic flooded through him again.
They weren’t his hands. They weren’t even hands at all, rather furry black paws. He twisted his head around to try and look at the rest of his body, and that only confirmed what he was seeing. Small, dark, covered in fur. He tried pushing himself up again, this time trying to land in more of a crawling position, and it worked. He looked back again, and gave his tail an experimental flex. His tail was usually short, and hidden. Now, a long, thick, furry tail swished back and forth behind him. There was a pale white spot on the end.
‘Great.’ Leo thought sarcastically. ‘At least I’m not all bad luck’
“Hey Leo?” Mikey called again.
“Yeah?” Leo replied, trying to walk towards Mikey’s voice.
“Are you a cat too?’
“Looks like it.”