Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mikey woke up suddenly, head shooting up as a loud sound startled him.

 “Ah, sorry senior, I did not mean to startle you.” 

Mikey looked at the voice and his eyes widened.

 It was a talking skeleton.

“H-Hello.” Mikey stammered, “How long have I been here?”

 The skeleton tapped a bony finger to his chin in thought.

“Maybe half an hour or so. You stumbled in and fell asleep and I didn’t have the heart to wake you.” He said.

 “Thank you… Senior Hueso.” Mikey said, looking at the skeleton’s tag.

“Now that you are awake, is there anything you would like to get from the menu?” The skeleton asked.

 Mikey took the menu and read it over.

“I- I don’t have any money.” Mikey said, trying to give the menu back. Hueso held up a hand.

 “Until you do, you may order for free.” He said graciously.

“T-thanks, in that case, I’ll get the pizza with the horrors on it.” Mikey said, “The smallest size.”

 Hueso nodded and walked to the back to prepare Mikey’s pizza. Mikey occupied himself by watching the people coming and going through the restaurant.

 It was cool and it looked like everybody knew each other.

But nobody spared Mikey a glance and he didn’t see his brothers come through the doors either.

 “One small horror topped pizza.” Hueso announced, setting the pizza in front of him. Mikey grinned at the toppings.

 “Thank you, it looks amazing!” He said, smiling at the skeleton man. Hueso nodded and went to serve other guests, leaving Mikey to his own devices.

 The pizza was interesting, despite the living eyeball creature on top of it, although Mikey had always loved foods that seemed out of the ordinary.

 The meal also helped him feel less drowsy and more awake, which allowed him to get an even better look around the restaurant.

 There were pictures on the walls of different mutant people, Mikey refused to believe that these were all mutants, and most of the tables were filled with happy patrons eating pizzas.

 A few of the patrons didn’t look too happy though. And they were shooting him hate filled looks.

 What did I ever do to you? Mikey wondered as he finished off the pizza and nodded to Hueso in thanks.

 Hueso smiled and waved him out.

Nice skeleton man.

 Where to now?

There seemed to be different doors to the restaurant. Looking out some, Mikey found himself staring into a world he could only dream up in his imagination. Through others, the human world, ordinary ol’ New York.

 Mikey felt more comfortable in the New York setting, so he let himself out and followed the alley to a ladder to the top of a building, bathed in moonlight.

 It was about midnight, a couple hours from when they all would wake up. Maybe it hadn’t been a whole lot of time since he stumbled out of the lair in a half asleep state. He could only guess why he did, so he decided to ignore the nagging feeling for a moment.

 And if he was awake, then his siblings certainly would be. Leo was an early riser and Rose was a loud one.

 Mikey turned suddenly, eyes scanning over the rooftop. He didn’t know what was there, but he had gotten the feeling that he wasn’t alone anymore.

 “Look at this, Hueso’s pity project.” 

Out from behind a shadow cast box was a mutant looking dude. Mikey smiled slightly, despite his intense anger at being called anything ‘pity’.

 “What do you want?” Mikey asked pleasantly, subtly preparing to defend himself from an attack.

 “We want you to get off our turf and stop taking all of Hueso’s handouts from us!” another of the first mutant’s gang roared.

 Mikey winced and looked down at the bright streets below.

None of the humans seemed to care, not even sparing a glance at the building. Mikey breathed a sigh of relief.

 Some of Leo’s paranoia must have rubbed off on him.

“I don’t think Senior Hueso would give me any choice in the matter of taking the food.” Mikey said, trying to calm the others.

 He didn’t want to kick anybody’s butts before he found his siblings.

“You’ll just have to do it anyway.” the first mutant hissed.

 Mikey narrowed his eyes.

“No.”

 The mutant lunged and Mikey expertly dodged out of the way, only to trip over the other mutant’s tail.

 “Shell!” He shouted, rolling and dodging a war hammer.

Where the actual heck did that one get a war hammer from?!

 His break in focus made him lose track of the other guy and he only barely managed to dodge a punch to the head that would have knocked his head off.

 “How about this-” Mikey started, trying to reason as he jumped from air conditioning unit to air conditioning unit.

 “You have refused our offer and now we wil destroy you!” The second mutant roared and Mikey sighed.

 He really needed to find his family and these guys were holding him up. 

Time to execute plan B. Attack with the intent to incapacitate. 

 Mikey smiled thinly as he swung around a clothes line pole and kicked out, landing a solid hit to the second mutant’s head and knocking him clean out.

 The first mutant was a bit harder to deal with. Once he had realized that his friend was down, he glared as pulled out a large hunting knife.

 “This is your last warning.” Mikey said, “If you attack me with that, I will not hesitate to hurt you tenfold.”

 The mutant laughed and threw the knife in the spot Mikey was a moment before. The turtle jumped behind the large mutant and snap kicked his head forward.

 He dropped like a brick and Mikey landed lightly, walking away without a care in the world.

 Now it was time to find his family.

But before he could get very far, he heard a faint rattling sound coming from an alley a little ways below.

 Too curious for his own good, Mikey dropped down to take a closer look.

Chapter Text

 The ladder wasn’t hard to find in the dark, and Mikey easily climbed down it.

He quietly landed in the alley and started stalking closer towards the rustling sounds in the dark.

 “Hello?” Mikey called out and the rustling sound stopped.

He heard the sound of quick breathing and he sighed internally.

 Shell, I scared the poor person.

“I’m coming closer,” Mikey said as he slowly stepped closer, trying to see the person in the dark. He just had to wait for a couple clouds to scoot away from the moon.

 “No!” 

Mikey froze as the person in the alley shouted, the rustling starting up again.

 “I won’t hurt you.” Mikey whispered.

“And how do I know that for sure?” the other person’s voice was shaky and Mikey sighed.

 “Because I don't hurt people that don’t hurt me first.”

That’s the best he could do with a stranger. 

 The other person laughed incredulously and Mikey frowned.

“I can beat you if you think of touching me.” 

 And the clouds finally moved away from the moon and Mikey was able to get a better look at the person in the alley.

 They were tall, fur sprouting around a pointed snout. Their large ears poked out from under the mat of black hair on their head.

 Mikey could see the moment they saw what he looked like, the other person’s eyes widened and he gulped.

 “You’re not human-” he whispered.

Mikey opened his mouth, just as the other non-human leapt forward and Mikey took a step back into a defensive stance.

 But he didn’t get hit. Instead he was given a box as the non-human vanished around a corner and into the big city of New York. The only thing he heard from the non-human was “sorry”.

 The hell?

Sorry for what?

“Wait!” Mikey shouted, trying to call the non-human back.

It was too late and Mikey was left standing in the middle of a dank alley with a box.

Said box seemed to be filled with a blanket.

Maybe it had been the non-human’s possessions that he didn’t need anymore.

Why had he been so suspicious when he had given it to him though? Why did he run?

“Oh well. Maybe I’ll head back to Hueso’s. See if I can get a free bed for the night.” Mikey muttered, “Or I’ll break into an empty apartment and sleep there.”

 He shrugged and made to set the box down, but was stopped when the sky started to drip on him.

 “Great now it’s raining.” Mikey mumbled, looking for a better place to set the box.

He stopped when he heard a faint chirp from inside the blanket inside the box.

 Mikey stared wide eyed at the box and watched as a small head poked out of the box.

“What the fuck?!” he shouted, holding the box a little ways away from his body in shock.

[~+~]

 Mikey groaned as he rested his head on the soft pillow of the bed Hueso had graciously given him.

 The skeleton man seemed much too happy to have Mikey staying with him, but ikey didn’t feel like complaining at the moment.

 He glanced at the warbling box and rolled over, closing his eyes as he tried to imagine himself with his siblings.

 His eyes shot open when a particularly loud growl emanated from the box and he got up to rush over. 

 He gently picked up the growling turtle and held her against his plastron.

She was vibrating with each tiny growl and he chuckled.

“So much anger for such a tiny body!” He cooed.

The little orange freckled turtle hissed and he smiled.

 “So angry.”

Then he churred, the sound quieting and calming not only the mutant turtle in his hands, but the other turtles in the box.

 “I wonder why that guy gave you guys to me.” Mikey whispered, brushing his beak to the baby’s tiny curls.

 She chirped and nuzzled against his chin.

“How about I get you guys out of that box now. Who knows how long you’ve been in there.” Mikey said, scooping the blanket up and placing the bundle down on the bed.

 The fabric fell away from the other four turtles, each one in varying stages of sleep.

“Hey babies.” Mikey smiled, curling around the small turtles protectively, his shell facing the door of Hueso’s guest room.

 The little unmarked turtle chirped and crawled to the cozy little space under Mikey’s chin where his sister was being held.

 It was weird, he was the only one without colors, but was the spikest of the group. The purple marked turtle had a small crest over his head, but that was it.

 The yellow marked turtle, the other female, also had small black curls.

“You guys are so cute.” Mikey smiled, “you all sound like my cta, Klunkers. She can sound like a car engine when she wants to.”

 The little yellow turtle answered by making a sound close to a cat’s purr and mikey laughed.

 “Like that Allie, very good.”

He’d been thinking of names for each of them and had come up with a couple nicknames for the time being.

 The biggest was Gigi, with her little orange freckle scales and black curls.

Rara was the spiky turtle and looked to be the same size as Allie, the other female.

 Dee and Lee were the smallest and Mikey figured the shortest names should be given to the smallest babies.

 “You guys are perfect.” Mikey cooed like a proud father. Well, it turns out that he happened to be a proud father now.

 Maybe that’s why the non-human gave me the box. He might have thought these were my kids. 

 Honest mistake, he didn’t mind.

He was going to give these kids the best life he could.

 He was about to fall asleep when he heard a quiet whoosh behind him.

Mikey opened his eyes and sat up, making sure the pile of sleeping turtles was undisturbed, and surveyed the room.

 He blinked in the blue light of a portal as it faded out of existence.

In its place was a slip of paper.

 Mikey got up to read it.

Chapter Text

 “There are enemies around every corner,” Mikey whispered, holding the paper close to his face in the dim light.

 That was slightly concerning, but he shrugged it off as a weird coincidence, crawling back into his bed and curling around the turtle tot pile.

 Mikey closed his eyes and slipped into dreams.

The trees waved their branches as a soft breeze blew through them, creating a rustling that was the background to the conversation Mikey was listening in on. He was high in the branches, looking down on the two humans as they talked.

 “Have you heard that the city’s doing an investigation into the sewers?”

“Oh, yeah! Finally, there’s been things going on down there for years now. Do you think they’ll find anything?”

 “Whatever they find, I hope it brings us peace from all this craziness.”

Mikey rolled his eyes as he watched the two humans walk away.

 It wasn’t his fault that Donny had accidentally caused a big enough explosion in his lab to warrant a search of the sewers, but here he was. 

 He sighed and slouched over, messing with the tails of his mask.

Then Mikey sat straight up, a chill running down his shell.

 He turned to look behind him and-

The warehouse led out onto a dark alley, the moon covered by the dark rain clouds pouring cold water down into the sewers below. 

 Mikey walked along the wall of the alley, frowning as he swung his nunchucks and remembered how abysmal the turnout of the patrol had been.

 Getting yelled at wasn’t fun, but then Mikey had gotten whacked by Donny’s bo staff on accident.

His brother apologized, but then Raph started teasing him mercilessly even when Rose tried to make him stop.

 He put his nunchucks back in his belt and rubbed the back of his neck, turning down another alley and glancing back over his shoulder because he could swear that he saw-

 Mikey was holding a box of softly snoring turtles, looking warily around him as he walked down the slightly mucky tunnels of the sewers, the shadows jumping out at him like vengeful vectors.

 He shuddered as the feeling of being watched intensified.

Mikey didn’t know what was happening, or why he felt like this, but he knew with every fiber of his being that he needed to protect these little turtles, to keep looking around the corners-

 But he found-

The darkness crawled from the shadows and out came-

 He tired to take a step back but the shadows grabbed the box and he tried to fight of but-

Mikey woke up abruptly to the sound of baby turtles chirping and giggling, small bodies pushing at his side.

 “What are you doing, little ones?” Mikey asked as he opened an eye, smiling and quickly forgetting his dream as they all froze and blinked owlishly back at him.

 “‘Ungry.” Gigi growled, smiling through sharp teeth. Mikey blinked at her.

“Was that your first word?” He asked, a broad smile spreading across his face again, “Where did you learn that?”

 “‘Ungry!” The orange flecked turtle giggled.

“Yes, yes, I’ll get you some food, hold on.” Mikey said, grabbing the blanket from the box and tying it like a sling around his neck before gently putting the five turtles inside.

 Then he headed down to Huesos’s restaurant for breakfast, hoping the skeleton man’s hospitality hadn’t worn out.

[~+~]

 Mikey sighed as he lay on his shell in the middle of the floor of his new, empty, and very expensive house. It was on the outskirts of the city, but close enough where he didn’t feel completely homesick.

 He wasn’t sure how he had even figured out how to convince the realtor to let him buy this thing for far less than what it was worth.

 But it was big, big enough for him and his kids to live in comfortably, and with a good amount of yard to let them run around once they got big enough.

 But for now he had to keep a close eye on the babies, mainly Gigi, who had been crawling around looking at everything curiously.

 Lee and Dee had been sleeping since the morning, but Mikey knew that they would be awake soon to eat before falling back asleep. Allie was content with sitting in one place and annoying the shell out of Rara.

 “Gigi, get out of that.” Mikey sighed, pulling the orange turtle out of the box she had tried climbing into.

 Gigi hissed angrily at him, muttering “‘ungry, ‘ungry.”

“I don’t know if that’s a threat or not, but I’m going to assume that you aren’t happy with me.” Mikey smiled, setting the angry child on the floor so that she could continue exploring.

 Allie shrieked and Mikey whirled around, fear stabbing his heart before he realized that Rara had hit her and they were both fine.

 “Rara, don’t hit your sister. Allie, that’s what you get for annoying him.” Mikey chuckled, walking over to the make-shift crib and checking on the smallest two. They were fine.

 All in all, the move had been successful and everyone was happy and healthy and most importantly, they were safe.

 That paper might have affected me more than I originally thought.

But Mikey brushed off the thought and the memory of the paper that he had lost, conveniently, and decided to flip through the small wallet Hueso had given him, seeing how much money he had left.

 “About 500… should be enough for groceries for a while if I do this right.” He muttered, grabbing a notepad and pen and writing down the things he needed.

 “It wouldn’t be bad to also get things to make a garden… I’m sure I can grow a couple things in that room with all the windows…” Mikey muttered, then paused because Gigi had crawled up to him and used his arm to stand to look at the paper.

 “Do you agree? Think we should grow some plants?” Mikey asked, smiling. Gigi blinked, seeming like she was processing what he said.

 “Plant!”

Mikey burst out laughing, patting Gigi’s head, “Exactly!”

 “Plant!”

How old is she? Should she be saying things or is it going to be different because she isn’t human? What if she’s broken and I can’t fix it? What if it’s something I did?

 “Plant!”

“Yes, yes, plant, I’ll get you some plants to grow, don’t worry.” Mikey reassured, scooping Gigi up onto his lap.

 He picked his pen up to keep writing, but was stopped by another cry from Allie, who was trying her best to crawl to him.

 “Allie, you don’t need to be an overachiever too, leave that to Gigi…”

The little yellow turtle’s hands fell out from under her and she landed on her plastron.

 There was a brief moment of silence before she started wailing.

“Shh, shh, you’re ok, come on you can come write this list too, I’m sorry Allie-” Mikey soothed, picking the yellow turtle up and running a gentle finger down her shell.

 The baby hiccuped and latched onto her sister, churring as she was now in her father’s lap and she could now see the thing he had been writing on.

 Not that she could read it.

“Ok, now that that has been solved-”

 Rara was now left all alone and he didn’t want to be, so he made sure to let Mikey know. 

Mikey sighed and picked up the spikey turtle too, then went back to making his list, hopeful that he could finish it before the last two turtles woke up with tears.

 He had a couple things left when that hope was shattered.

“Oh, come on! You couldn’t wait a couple more minutes?” Mikey cried in exasperation, the shrill cries of the no longer sleeping babies splitting the air.

 Gigi giggled and Allie chirped.

“No, this is not funny, stop laughing.” Mikey said grumpily, poking the orange turtle’s side gently, but only receiving more giggles.

Chapter Text

 “Ugh… Gigi, did you let Rara into the pantry… again?” Mikey asked, peaking around the corner to fix Gigi with a stern look.

 Gigi flushed and nodded, “He was hungry.”

“Alright. But that means we need to go shopping. Gather the hoard and get them ready for me, ok? I’m going to make sure the portal is working.” Mikey instructed.

 “Yessir!” Gigi chirped, running off down the hall calling, “Ra, Allie! Help me with DeeDee and Lee!”

Mikey chuckled and unlocked the portal room door, stepping inside to start drawing the symbols.

 Senior Hueso had shown him how to create a portal in this specific room of his house. He had also told him to be very careful of having it in the house with children.

 I wonder why the man likes me and the kids so much. He’s done more than enough for me, but he never seems to think so.

 The portal came to life just as Gigi knocked on the door calling, “Everyone’s ready, can we come in?” 

 “Yep!” Mikey called back, opening the door.

They all stepped through the portal and opened their eyes in a small building just off the Hidden City Marketplace.

 “Can we get new toys?” Allie asked timidly. Mikey shrugged and led them out into the busy market.

Lee and Dee were in the pet carrying backpack slung across Mikey’s shell, Allie’s and Rara’s hands firmly in his and Gigi within sight.

 “Hello Kappa Family! Good to see you again!” A vendor called, waving a hand at Mikey.

“Hey Shirk, got any deals for me?” Mikey asked, mentally counting his budget. I won’t get my paycheck for a couple more days. Maybe 150, save a couple hundred for next week.

 “I’ve got some fresh produce that nobody wants to try. Demand ain’t high so prices are low.” Shirk, the skink yokai, said, “Only 50 cents each.” 

 “Nice deal.” Mikey whistled, “I’ll-”

“Uh, is that your kid?” Shirk asked, pointing somewhere behind him.

 “My…?” Mikey looked over his shoulder and noticed that Gigi had wandered to the water fountain in the middle of the square and was climbing the statue in the middle.

 “Ah shell, she is.” Mikey cursed, grabbing Allie and Rara and running through the crowd, “Gigi, get down from there!” 

 The turtle looked back at him with a proud smile on her face, meaning she was blindly reaching for a handhold that wasn’t there. She squeaked in surprise when she slipped off her high perch.

 “Gigi!” Mikey cried, quickly sitting his kids on the edge of the fountain and catching the little turtle before she could hurt herself.

 They sat in the water together for a moment, but Gigi got distracted and started trying to grab for the coins at the bottom of the pool. 

 “Nope, you aren’t thieving anything, young miss. You are in trouble.” Mikey sighed, lifting her out of the water and collecting his kids, taking a quick head count.

 “Sorry about that, Shirk.” Mikey said, shivering, “I’ll take some of that produce.”

“Alright. You might wanna go somewhere to dry off soon, that water has been stagnant for years.” Shirk said, handing the bag over.

 “Ugh,” Mikey shuddered, “I don’t even want to think about it.”

Shirk waved the family off, Gigi waving back from her perch on Mikey’s neck.

[~+~]

Senior Hueso kindly accepted the family into his restaurant, watching the kids while Mikey took a quick shower.

 “Thank you so much, Hueso.” Mikey breathed as he passed the skeleton man, drying off his scales with a borrowed towel.

 “It is no problem, Mikey.” The bone man smiled, continuing to play with the children, “You are welcome anytime.”

 Mikey nodded, still feeling cold, even after the heat of the shower.

“I also ordered some groceries so that you can go home, the littlest two are ready for their nap.” Hueso said, holding up a bunch of bags.

 “Oh, you didn’t have to-” Mikey protested, collecting his kids and all their stuff.

“It was my pleasure. I know you’ve told me about the struggle with your job and the slow money.” Hueso said, “And it’s still not too late to switch and work here.”

 “I’m already in your debt, Senior, I don’t know…” Mikey sighed, remembering Leo and all his honor with repaying huge debts. It had gotten them all into trouble in the past, but he didn’t think Hueso had any ulterior motives.

 “I am kidding, don’t worry. You have no debt that needs to be paid. I help you because you remind me of myself.”

“Fleshless?” Mikey tensed, a sleepy Allie now in his arms.

“Ha, very funny my friend. No, I mean, alone and without help. And your children are adorable, making babysitting them all the more enjoyable.” Hueso said, patting the turtle’s shoulder.

 Mikey smiled, nodding his thanks as he left, children and newly acquired groceries.

They all stepped through the portal back in their home, Mikey tasking Rara with helping Gigi with putting the new groceries away while he put the other turtles to bed.

 He read a quick story before putting Allie in her big girl bed, her words not Mikey’s.

Mikey turned to close the door, looking back into the quiet room.

 “Papa?” Allie chirped, her words slurred and her eyes half closed.

“Yes, flower?” Mikey smiled.

 “Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

 Mikey shivered violently as he quietly closed the nursery door, feeling miserable and planning on taking some cold medicine.

 I don’t think getting sick is supposed to be this quick… Last time any of us got sick, it was Don and it took a while for it to feel this bad.

 He coughed, frowning miserably.

“Daddy!” Gigi squeaked, pulling Mikey’s attention to the kitchen.

 He sprinted into the kitchen, ready for any attacker that would make Gigi, the most fearless and hard headed turtle he’d ever met besides Leo and maybe Raph, sound terrified.

 Mikey stepped in front of his kids, taking note of how Rara was with his sister, and whirled his nunchucks. Every feeling of being sick pushed down and ignored.

 “Who’s there!” Mikey shouted, looking around for the threat.

Something has to be here, Gigi knows not to-

 I can sense it, but I don’t see anything.

He blinked and watched in awe and horror as the air in front of him started to glow, forming a rip that slowly grew. It was a portal unlike anything Mikey had seen before.

 Mikey stepped back, grabbing his kids and hiding them behind the island, using his body as a shield if anything tried attacking them. His only priority was to protect them at that moment.

 The rip closed as quickly as it had formed, expelling a stumbling figure, and Mikey motioned for his kids to stay hidden and to go to the nursery. Gigi nodded and grabbed Rara’s hand, sticking to the shadows and pattering off.

 Now, to focus on the threat.

“Who are you?” Mikey asked, a low, protective growl spilling from his throat.

The new person flinched, their broken sword held tightly in their hand, but they didn’t answer.

Maybe they can’t.

 Mikey stepped closer, more concerned than angry now, protective for another reason.

“Kid?”

 The stranger swayed heavily and Mikey launched himself forward to catch the kid before he collapsed completely.

 Which was how Mikey found himself staring down at the bleeding and battered form of a young turtle with a dark blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

Chapter Text

 “What the shell?” Mikey breathed, standing and holding the kid close to his chest and walking down a hall into a guest room.

 The kid was pale, probably from blood loss and Mikey could see the stress fractures on his plastron. When he turned the stranger over to look at his shell, he was met with huge cracks and gashes in the hard surface, some bleeding more than others.

 “What the shell happened to you?” Mikey wondered, quickly leaving to grab medical supplies before hurrying back.

 The turtle was still out cold and it took all of Mikey’s skill and experience to even start patching him up.

 I may not be Donny, but thank fucking shell that I at least payed attention when he was patching us up.

 The kid had a couple broken bones, the horrendously cracked shell, a pretty bad concussion, and a very, very deep cut on his arm.

 Mikey stepped back after a long quiet moment of surveying his handiwork and took a deep breath, pushing down the nausea and the unpleasant memories.

 “Ok, I need to check on my kids, and explain what’s going on.” Mikey whispered, washing blood off his hands and cleaning up the room. 

 Once all the sharp objects were picked up off the floor Mikey headed to the nursery, knocking on the door in the secret way he had taught his children and receiving a quiet, “Come in, daddy.”

 He pushed open the door and smiled at Gigi, who was sitting in her bed with a book open on her lap, reading quietly to Rara and Allie, who was awake far too soon.

 It was quiet for a moment, Mikey thinking wildly on how to explain what had just happened to his young children.

 “What was in the kitchen, daddy? Is it ok to go out now?” Gigi asked, scooting out of the bed and walking up to her father, her siblings stayed sitting on the bed, looking at the book Gigi had been reading. Mikey smiled and knelt to her level.

 “Yeah.”

“Is there something else wrong?” Gigi asked, her eyes wide and curious, but her words seemed too old for her five-year-old mind.

 “Well, that weird thing in the kitchen was a portal.” Mikey started.

“Like the one to Tio Hueso’s house!” Gigi chirped. 

 “Yes, but this one was different. A very injured person came through the portal and I had to help him. I’m going to have to check up on him very often for a while to make sure he’s ok.” Mikey explained, “And I don’t want you being in the same room as him until I can figure out who he is.”

 He could already guess who the turtle was, just by the color of his scarf, but Mikey found it odd that the kid didn’t have a bandana or a mask.

 “Okay daddy.” Gigi nodded.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

[~+~]

 Leon gulped in a deep breath of air to stop himself from crying out in pain.

Everything hurt and all he could feel was fire raging over all his limbs and digging into his shell, bringing tears to his eyes, burrowing into his bones and his soul-

 Leon took another deep breath and forced the pain to die for a moment, letting his heart slow and helping his mind clear.

 He sat up creakily, looking around as he did so.

He was in a clean room, a couple pieces of hospital equipment surrounding the soft bed he had been lying on. He looked at the wall above his head and blinked when he saw cards that all seemed to say ‘get well soon’ written in wobbly, child-like handwriting, and bright drawings scribbled in crayon.

 Where am I?

Leon swung his feet off the edge of the bed and smiled when he felt the cool floor below his feet.

 That’s when he noticed the armchair that was pushed up against a bedside table thing, and the person sleeping in it.

 They looked sickly and Leon could see the deep eyebags carved into their face. He also noticed the green hue to their skin and the scuffed plastron under the robe and blanket covering their frame.

Leon quickly padded past, as silent as a ghost.

 The home he had been housed in was quiet and very homey, children’s toys and books strewn around messily.

 Leon hadn’t seen anything like this house in… it's been years now.

 A long couple of years, at least.

He sighed and rubbed his face, pushing down the memories and continued to explore.

 Leon wasn’t sure how he had gotten here, the last thing he remembered was…

Was…

 Cold expanse that never seemed to end, but wasn’t big enough for him to hide in. A huge red eye searching, ready to finally kill him. His broken sword clutched tight in his hands, shaking from the tremors that the cold, the forever cold, caused, never going away, and then the warm blinding swirling portal, and finally the faint, faint feeling of safety-

 Leon pulled himself out of the memory and looked at his hands now, still shaking, but not from the cold.

 He clenched his hands into a fist and continued exploring.

He didn’t get farther than the kitchen, stopping in his tracks when he spotted two dimly glowing pinpricks of light in his path down the hall.

 They vanished for a moment, then reappeared and Leon realized that these were eyes, tiny eyes for a probably tiny creature in this otherwise normal house.

 “You’re a stranger.” A young voice whispered from the dark, “Are you going to hurt me?”

Leon felt shivers run down his achy shell, trying to see the little thing in the dim light.

 “No.” Leon rasped, his voice crackly and small. His throat had been permanently fucked since- since- nevermind.

 “You sound like a fifty-year-old smoker.” The child said and Leon blinked in surprise.

“O-oh?”

 “Yep. Are you hungry? I’m hungry so I was going to get some food.” 

Leon felt a small, warm hand on his leg and recognized that there were only three fingers on the little hand.

 “I guess.” Leon breathed, following the sounds of little feet pitter pattering across wood and tile.

The refrigerator opened, nearly blinding Leon with the sudden light in the dark and he spotted a small, tiny, baby turtle tot, standing on tippy toes to try and reach an apple that was just out of her reach.

 She sighed as she rocked back on her feet, crossing her arms as she contemplated this new challenge.

 Leon smiled and grabbed the apple, handing it to her with a tiny, very raspy, coo of happiness.

“Thanks Stranger!” The little girl chirped, then she paused, looking him over critically, “Wait, daddy says to not take anything from strangers.”

 “That is good advice.” Leon breathed, chuckling airily.

“But you were grabbing it for me so I guess it’s fine. And daddy’s been taking care of you for a while.” The little turtle said, taking a bite of the apple and closing the refrigerator.

 Leon’s eyes were a little better adjusted to the dark now and he was able to follow the little turtle as she wandered to the living room.

 He felt like a lost puppy following the kid around, but he still didn't know where he was or how he had gotten there.

I don’t even know if this is some vile trick. At least the little girl hasn’t jumped out to attack me yet. Better keep my guard up though.

 “What’s your name?” Leon asked the little girl, slowly lowering himself into a cushy armchair, raising an eyebrow ridge when the child climbed up into his lap, still munching on her apple.

 “Gigi.” She said, licking apple juice off her beak, “What’s yours?”

“Leon.”

 “Cool. Are you still very hurted? You slept a lot and I don’t want my new best friend to still be hurted.” Gigi trilled, resting her warm head against Leon’s cool plastron.

 “I’m… fine.” Leon said, hesitating slightly when his shell sent another manageable wave of pain through his body, “Just fine, Gigi.”

Chapter Text

Mikey… could not believe it.

 The first night he had actually fallen asleep in a long time so happens to be the night he had lost the kid he had been tirelessly looking after.

 “Crud, oh crud-” Mikey hissed, looking through each room of the hall before moving on to another after a quick “Good morning” to Gigi and then stopped when he remembered that he had put the turtle to bed the night before.

 “Did you have a nightmare?” Mikey asked, walking over and trying to figure out why she would have left the room she shared with her siblings. 

She could have left to find him for something and fell asleep on the couch.

“Nope. I was hungry.” Gigi answered, blinking at him like she had just woken up. Well, she had, so the description wasn’t false.

 “Do you know where-” Mikey stopped when he noticed the kid he had been looking for curled around his daughter, “Well, nevermind.”

 “This is Leon and he says that he’s not hurted anymore and he’s my new best friend.” Gigi cooed, patting Leon’s head, waking him up.

 He flinched away from the small orange turtle’s hand before shaking his head and blinking up at Mikey.

 “Sorry.” He said, his voice scratchy and painful sounding.

“Oh, don’t be.” Mikey smiled, gently lifting both Leon and Gigi out of the chair and carrying them back to Leon’s room, “I should have known you wouldn’t stay in one place for too long and that Gigi doesn’t fully understand stranger danger.”

 The little girl rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly and bit her lip, “Sorry daddy. But he got me an apple and said he wasn’t going to hurt me.”

 “It’s ok.” Mikey sighed, gently resting Leon back in his bed and wrapping a blanket around his shoulder, “But I want you to go see if your siblings are awake and then pour yourself some breakfast.”

 Gigi nodded and ran off giggling under her breath.

“And cookies aren’t breakfast! Pour yourself cereal!” Mikey shouted after her. He sighed when he heard a peal of laughter and knew that he would have to bake more cookies soon.

 “She’s really sweet.” Leon said quietly, smiling as he heard more evil cackling.

“Yes, but still a gremlin that will be on a sugar high and so will the others when they realize that she got cookies.” Mikey sighed, smiling as he did.

 “‘The others’?” Leon asked.

“My other kids. Gigi isn’t an only child, although she probably does give me more trouble than the rest.” Mikey chuckled, “But that’s probably because she is the oldest. I can only imagine how much trouble the rest will give me when they get older.”

 “Huh.” 

“What about you? Any siblings?” Mikey asked, knowing the answer already.

 “Yeah… three.” Leon answers.

“Only three? I have four. Three brothers and a sister, but I haven’t been able to… see them for a while.” Mikey sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

 “Yeah. I’ve just got three brothers and I haven’t seen two of them in… a long time too.” Leon said, curling into himself. Mikey patted his shoulder comfortingly.

 “Hey bud, it’s alright. Want me to change the subject?”

Leon nodded.

 “Ok then. Do you know about that portal that dropped you in the middle of my kitchen?” Mikey asked, noticing how Leon seemed to curl even further into himself. Oops. 

 “My- my littlest brother made it t-to get me out-” Leon stammered, his claws starting to dig into his arms.

 Mikey’s eyes widened and he gently grabbed the kid’s hands, pulling them away from his arms, clicking in concern at the small drops of blood rising to the surface of his skin.

 “It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me. I just needed to know if I was going to have more portals randomly popping up.” Mikey said.

 “You won’t.” Leon said, a kind of finality in his voice that made mIkey think that something really wrong happened back where he came from, “At least, not from any of my brothers.”

 “Alright.” Mikey said, putting an arm over the kid’s shoulder and pulling him into his side, making sure to be gentle around Leon’s injuries.

 “You hungry little man?” Mikey asked, smiling down at Leon.

“I guess.”

 “Good, because I think Allie just broke one of my new bowls.” Mikey sighed, hearing the crash from the direction of the kitchen and wincing, “And that was brand new too…”

[~+~]

 Leon was starting to fit into the family very nicely.

Mikey was very proud of the kid, and he was getting to the point where he would almost call him his kid. His oldest son.

 But… Leon hadn’t really ever said he would appreciate being a part of Mikey’s little family, and Mikey didn’t want to replace the one that he was pretty sure was dead.

 “Leon… you need to let that cut in your arm heal before trying to forge yourself new katana.” Mikey sighed, tucking the pouting teen under his arm and carrying himself back inside.

 It was strikingly similar to how his own Leo did that after they had to go to the farmhouse for the first time. His brother would mope around and try to work with the metal before he was ready and would hurt himself further.

 “But I want to, I don’t like staying in the house all day.” Leon complained. 

“You can be outside, you just can’t go into the shed until your arm is healed.” Mikey chuckled, but he wasn’t even sure Leon’s arm would heal all the way. 

 “Uggghh.” Leon groaned, burying his face into the couch where Mikey dropped him.

“It’s only sensible. You have no need to fight here, and if you did, I have a storage room full of pointy things for you to have fun with.” Mikey said, pointing to the room that had turned into Mikey’s weapon room and portal room.

 “And it’s the only room you won’t let me go into.” Leon sighed.

“That’s because it’s also the portal room and you have PTSD, and don’t even try to deny it.” Mikey pointed out.

 “Thanks, Captain Obvious.” Leon frowned.

Mikey rolled his eyes and looked around for the littles.

 “Allie! Where’s Lee and Dee?” Mikey asked, spotting the little yellow turtle as she tried to sneak around a corner.

 She froze in place and looked around comically.

“Yes, I’m talking to you, where are the twins?” Mikey asked again.

 “Sleeping.” Allie said, not meeting Mikey’s eyes.

“Allie, what-” Mikey was interrupted by a loud shrieking laugh that made Leon jump up and share a concerned look with Mikey.

 Mikey sprinted to the nursery and looked in, blinking when he saw Lee and Dee laughing uproariously with tiny little crowns on their head, sitting at a small table that Mikey had seen Gigi and Rara working together to set up.

 There were little teacups set on the table, filled with the lemonade from the bottle sitting in the middle of the table.

 “Al… are you playing tea party?” Leon asked the little turtle in his arms. Allie giggled and nodded.

“Ok, now that we know where the little divas are, where are your older siblings?” Mikey asked the giggling turtle.

 Allie pointed to Leon and smiled.

“Right there.”

 Leon blushed a muddy green and Mikey blinked.

What’s he gonna do? What’s he gonna say?

 “I think he meant your other older siblings, Allie.” Leon chuckled, nuzzling the little turtle.

“Oh, uh-” Allie tapped her chin, “They’re playing in the bathroom, making a potion!”

 “With all the soaps I just bought?” Mikey asked.

Allie nodded and smiled.

 “Wonderful.” Mikey sighed, facepalming.

“I’ll go check on them and you can play tea party with these three.” Leon offered, handing Allie over and walking off.

 “Do you think Leon would make a good big brother?” Mikey asked Allie.

“Yep.”

 “Very nice.” Mikey grinned, sitting down to drink lemonade with his children. Lee kept dipping his little fingers in his cup and giggling, sticking out his tongue at Mikey when he tried to tell him to stop, and Dee kept slurping the drink loudly, giggling after he burped.

 “You guys need to be proper!” Allie protested, pouring Dee more lemonade.

“Aw, let them be babies Allie, they don’t know any better.” Mikey said, patting Allie’s shell.

 “They sure do!” Allie protested, “Look at those smug little faces!”

Mikey looked closely at the twins and shook his head, “I don’t see it Al.

 Lee and Dee were just under a year old at this point, and had refused to say anything, much to their older sibling’s frustration. Mikey was fine with them not talking, he felt like they were growing up too fast.

Chapter Text

 “Ok, I need you guys to be good for Tio Hueso,” Mikey instructed, patting Hueso’s shoulder bones, “You know the drill.”

 “Uh… I don’t.” Leon said quietly, looking at him pleadingly as Rara napped in his arms.

“And you didn’t tell me that you have another kid!” Hueso said accusingly, turning to Mikey.

 Mikey rubbed the back of his neck and smiled.

“Yeah, that’s why I couldn’t see you for a while. Was making sure Leon was healing.” Mikay said.

 “And how did you come across such a wonderfully polite young man?” Hueso asked angrily as Leon blushed.

 “He fell through a portal in my kitchen.” Mikey chuckled.

Hueso immediately deflated, tapping his chin. Mikey suddenly knew where Allie learned that from.

 “Random portals are not good, it means the fabric that separates space is getting thin.” Hueso said, all playful anger and teasing gone.

 “How about you talk about it with me later. I’ve got to get to my job in the next five minutes.” Mikey reminded.

 “Ah, yes, yes, have fun.” Hueso chuckled, shooing Mikey off.

“What does he do for a living?” Leon asked Hueso as Mikey walked out the door.

 “Eh, he’ll tell you when he gets back. Now! How about you help me make tiny pizzas for these bright little babies.” 

 Mikey smiled as he sprinted to the club and clocked in.

“Good evening ‘Angelo!” one of his coworkers chuckled, “Those kids givin’ you a tough time?”

 “Nope, just asking questions.” Mikey answered, pinning his badge to his plastron and smiling brightly.

 “I don’t know how a guy as nice as you got a job as a bouncer.” Jimm the bartender smiled.

“I’m just strong looking.” Mikey answered.

 “And willing to take on Saturday clubbers every week.” Anthony added.

“I only work that one night, I can’t leave my kids for any more days.” Mikey admitted.

 “It works for everybody, man. Your situation’s tough.” Terry said.

Mikey shrugged and took his place in front of the bar doors, waiting for the inevitable crowd of people to start showing up.

 It was slow at first, but then the flow picked up and Mikey actually had to start paying attention, watching the people and making sure no younger kids tried sneaking in.

 Each fake ID was more ludicrous than the last.

It was strikingly similar to the way human kids would try to sneak into bars back in his home dimension.

“What do you think this is?” Mikey asked, holding up a leaf.

The yokai in front of him shifted on their feet, their hands clasped behind their back.

 “This is a leaf, if you couldn’t tell, with… Bob, written on it? Kid, this isn’t an ID.” Mikey sighed, handing the leaf back and shooing the kid away.

 The yokai grumbled under their breath, but went without a fight.

The line pretty much never completely disappeared, but Anthony came to relieve him after an hour or two so that he could take a break and call Hueso and check in on the kids.

 “Senior Hueso, are you there?” Mikey asked.

‘I picked up, didn’t I? Of course I am here.” Hueso said in mock anger, “I am going to start getting Allie to bed. Lee and Dee fell asleep ten minutes ago. Ra and Gigi are playing quietly with the brilliant young man named Leon.’

 “Good, good. How’s Leon settled in? He hasn’t been giving you trouble?” Mikey asked.

‘Oh, no, he is a delight to watch over.’ Hueso said, and Mikey could tell that he was smiling over the phone, ‘Promise me that you will bring him over more often. Maybe he could teach the littlest babies how to act.’

 “The twins are… something else. They don’t abide by any rules.” Mikey chuckled.

“‘Angelo!” Jimm called, peeking through the door of the breakroom, “Terry wants you to go back out and walk through the crowds, it’s a busy night tonight. There’s already mummers of a few kids getting angry at each other.”

 “I’m coming!” Mikey called back, “Bye Hueso. Duty calls.”

‘Yes, yes, have fun intimidating clubbers.’ Hueso sighed, hanging up on him. 

 “It’s almost like he disapproves of my work choice.” Mikey chuckled, nodding to Jerry as he stepped out of the back room.

 “Oh, Hueso? I think he’s just miffed that you didn’t take a job in his kitchens. He’s an outcast and clings on to anybody that will let him.” Jimm chuckled, wiping another glass and putting it away.

 “Don’t talk about him like that,” Mikey frowned, turning to walk through the crowds.

Mikey had been working at the Pied Piper Club and Bar for a couple of years at this point, and had gotten to know his coworkers pretty well, and he knew there was something in the past that Hueso had done to make himself an outcast from the Hidden City, but nobody would tell him what.

 Not that it really mattered. Mikey didn’t really care about the past.

Because then they would probably have to talk about Mikey’s past and everything he’s done.

 Mikey smiled to himself, keeping an eye out for any trouble as the people in the bar got tipsier and louder.

 Some of these guys were regulars and were quiet drunks. Mikey didn’t mind any of them, as long as they minded their own business.

 Some of the new faces were younger kids that had recently turned twenty-one, and they didn’t exactly know how to handle being drunk or intoxicated.

 It was usually the younger crowd Mikey had to escort out.

Speaking of…

 “It’s not my fault we lost the damn house key! You were the one that was supposed to have it last!” A lizard yokai hissed, pushing her friend hard.

 Mikey started making his way over while catching Terry’s eye and nodding.

“That fucking key isn’t the goddamn problem, bitch!” Her friend shouted back, shoving her friend just as hard.

 “Hey, hey, break it up.” Mikey stepped between the two while keeping an eye out for any weapons they might have on them.

 It was a weird world out there and these kids usually had a knife or two under their shirts.

“No I-” the lizard hissed, but a cold look from Mikey shut her up.

 “Are you two going to keep causing a scene and make me take you two outside, or are you going to resolve this here and now?” Mikey asked.

 The two yokai seemed to calm for a moment, but then the lizard yokai’s friend grabbed a beer bottle from her table and threw it at the lizard’s head.

 “Nope.” Mikey growled, snatching the bottle from the air and grabbing the two young ladies’ shoulders and started dragging them out.

 There was a crowd surrounding the small fight now, but they made way when Mikey stomped through.

 He threw the two outside and closed the door, nodding to Anthony and turning away.

“Impressive.” Terry whistled, patting him on the back, “But I wouldn’t have given them the choice.”

Mikey shrugged and waved over the rest of the two girls’ group, “You guys go take care of your friends.”

 The group bustled out of the club.

“Well handled.” Jimm smiled, sliding him a water bottle.

 “Thanks bro.” Mikey laughed, “Just doing my due diligence.”

The night continued on, and people talked and laughed and danced on the dance floor to the beat of the music playing.

 Mikey just walked around the people slowly and kept an eye out.

Raph would love it here. Alcohol and the potential to cause a scene. Leo would hate it, Rose would only come for the dancing, and Don would probably spend the entire time calculating how much he should drink to avoid getting drunk.

 It was a thought Mikey had often, and it was true, but it only made him a little lonely.

Funny, I’ve only been old enough to drink for a couple years.

 He breathed out a small laugh through his nose and nodded to Jimm on his second or third walk around the club.

 A scream from the dance floor made him look over and he saw a rip in the air over the floor, a familiar glow lighting up the dimly lit building as people started running around and screaming in fear.

 The other bouncers and Jimm did their best to keep everyone calm and help them out while Mikey directed people around the rip that was slowly forming.

 Much slower than last time. Is something wrong? 

“Angelo, what’s going on?” Anthony asked, when all the patrons had been directed out of the building.

 “It’s… I’ve only seen this happen once, but there's something different.” Mikey muttered, his eyes wide as he watched the rip grow bigger.

 “What is it?” Terry insisted, putting a hand on Mikey’s shoulder.

“No, stay back, it’s like… a portal, but I don’t know what’s gonna…” He trailed off as something called him to walk forward.

 Mikey put his hand up to the middle of the seam and blinked as the orange glow traveled up his arms and his body filled with chi.

 “Angelo!” Mikey distantly heard Anthony shouting, but… he didn’t really feel like listening right now.

He needed to pull this rip open further because whatever was on the other side was begging him to help.

 So he did. He pulled the two edges apart and smiled when the portal widened.

Which might not have been the best idea because as soon as the rip got big enough there was an explosion from the other side and Mikey was blown off his feet and into the opposite wall.

 “Mikey, are you alright?” Jimm asked, pulling him to his feet.

“Yeah-”

 He was cut off by two people falling through the portal, which closed up as soon as they were through.

 Suddenly there was nothing but the lingering smell of the end of a firework and two people on the ground, the club suddenly dim after the bright light.

 “Wait, let me!” Mikey shouted, stopping Anthony or Terry from getting any closer.

One of the forms was glowing slightly, but with each passing second it was dimming.

 Jimm helped him hobble over and he kneeled at one of the kids’ sides, taking their pulse and grimacing when it was faint.

 “Who are they?” Terry asked.

“I don’t know, but they had kappa ancestry. See their shells?” Anthony pointed out checking the other kid’s pulse, the bigger, spiker one.

 They don’t just have kappa ancestry, they are mutant turtles.

Mikey blinked and sighed.

 “I’ll take care of them.” He said.

“I take it that you won’t be coming to work next week?” Jimm asked, cocking an eyebrow and smiling slightly.

Chapter Text

 Mikey was exhausted.

Leon could tell, even when he raced after Rara as he tried to avoid bath time, even though the little turtle absolutely loved taking baths.

 “Leon? Can you help me?” Allie asked, before handing him Lee and Dee and running away to play with Gigi.

 “What?” He croaked in surprise, looking down at the small turtles and smiling, “Hey little ones.”

“Hi!” Lee chirped, nuzzling his beak against Leon’s thumb.

 “Lee’s annoning.” Dee scowled.

“Don’t look angry, your face is going to get stuck like that.” Leon teased, booping Dee’s snout and getting tiny giggles from the turtle.

 “Who told you dat?” Lee asked, blinking up at Leon with wide eyes.

“My dad.” Leon answered, quickly shoving any unpleasant thoughts away before he could start crying.

 “Dada doesn’t tell nonnonnsense.” Dee insisted, sticking out his tongue.

“Wha-” Leon blinked and realized that Dee was talking about Mikey.

 Dee thought Mikey was Leon’s dad, because Mikey was Dee’s dad. Which in turn would make Leon Dee’s brother.

 And as long as Leon was here, he probably would be.

Leon hummed and tucked the twins to his chest and carried them to the bathroom to give them a bath.

 “Oh, thanks kiddo, but I coulda done that.” Mikey sighed, scrubbing the dirt and crumbs from under Rara’s spikes.

 “You’ve been running yourself ragged with taking care of the babies and the two new guys. I figured I could help.” Leon smiled, running a soft cloth over Dee’s shell and grinning when the turtle started purring.

 “Wait, if you have the twins- what are the girls doing?” Mikey asked.

“Playing with dolls, the last time I saw them.” Leon said, “Don’t worry, Gigi’s responsible enough to make sure Allie doesn’t get hurt.” 

 “Kids always find ways to get hurt,” Mikey sighed, rubbing a hand over Rara’s head.

Leon nodded and sighed internally when the older turtle got up to continue running around, never stopping to rest or focus on himself.

 Mikey was exhausted, spreading himself too thin, and Leon was going to change that.

He had a plan and he hoped he could just pull it off.

 So, later that night, while Mikey was sitting in the room that he had turned into an infirmary, Leon nodded to Gigi.

 The little orange turtle nodded back and tightened the bandana Leon had given her back when he had first woken up.

 She grabbed her favorite story book and opened the door, peeking in and looking back at Leon.

“What? You can go in.” Leon breathed.

 “Papa’s sleeping.” She whispered back.

“He is?” He wondered out loud.

 “Yep. Can you move him to his bed so that he doesn’t feel hurted when he wakes up?” Gigi asked.

“Of course. You are very sweet.” Leon murmured back, walking in on silent feet and lifting Mikey out of his chair.

 “Jeez, what does he eat? He’s heavy!” Leon breathed.

“Rocks.” Gigi deadpanned, opening Mikey’s bedroom door for Leon.

 “Ok, say goodnight to dad and then go to sleep.” Leon whispered, lifting her up so that she could plant a kiss to Mikey’s forehead before wiggling out of Leon’s hands like a cat and falling to the ground with a thump.

 “Gigi!” He hissed, holding his hands to his chest in fright as he looked between Mikey and the child on the floor, thankful that the old turtle didn’t wake up, and even more thankful that the child wasn't hurt.

 “Night Leon!” Gigi whisper-shouted as she took off, running down the hall.

Leon rolled his eyes and padded softly back to the infirmary and sat in Mikey’s armchair, wrapping himself in the heavy blanket that Mikey kept there.

 Then he settled down to watch over the two sleeping kids in the beds.

[~+~]

Umber whined quietly as he was pulled from sleep by Russet’s hand, shaking him awake and making his veins feel like they were filled with fire before the sensation dulled.

 “What do you want?” He whimpered, trying to see his older brother’s face in the dark.

“We need to go, I don’t like this.” Russet answered, his teeth clicking nervously.

 “Why?” Umber asked. He was quite comfortable in this bed and his limbs felt heavy. He didn’t really want to move.

 “Because we’re in a house. I think the Purple Dragons stashed us somewhere and will be coming back soon to get information.” Russet hissed, pulling Umber to his feet and looking around for their weapons.

 “You two need to go back to bed.” A voice rasped from an armchair Umber hadn’t noticed until that second.

 “No.” Russet growled, pushing Umber behind him and shielding him from potential injury.

It’s not like we’re not already hurt.

 A lamp clicked on and Umber peaked around Russet’s arm and bit back a smile as the person groaned as they momentarily blinded themselves.

 “You’re a turtle?” Russet asked quietly, his eyes wide.

“Yep.” The mysterious turtle smiled, rubbing his throat a little as he yawned, “And you guys are supposed to be sleeping.”

 “Wha- did- did you drug us or something?” Russet asked.

“Uh… no? Unless you count pain meds as a drug? Which I guess it technically is, so yes?” The turtle shrugged, “But I think it’ll be wearing off soon, especially with you up and out of bed now.”

 “How did we get here?” Russet hissed, glaring at the turtle despite his obvious attempts at humor and reassurance.

 “Into my home or into this universe?” The turtle asked.

Russet clicked his teeth in agitation and Umber could feel the pain in his arms double.

 “Well, my- Mikey carried you guys home after he helped tear a hole in the transversal fabric of the universe or something. It’s all gibberish that I don’t understand.”

“Who’s Mikey?” Russet asked, glaring at the mystery turtle.

 “Oh, we haven’t been able to introduce ourselves yet… uh… hi. I’m Leon. Mikey is the oldest turtle of the house and there are five other little turtle babies running around at most hours of the day, but are sleeping now.” The turtle smiled.

 “Did we fall into a universe full of turtles or something?” Russet asked.

“While I understand how you can see that, no. Mikey and I are from different dimensions and the kids are the turtles from this dimension.” Leon answered, shrugging.

 “Where are your siblings then?” Russet asked, “How can we trust you? How do we know this is all for real and not some Purple Dragon trick?”

 “My siblings are… not here.” Leon sighed, “And you don’t have to trust us just yet. That’s your decision to make. And this is all real because I doubt dreams or hallucination could cause physical pain.” 

 Russet glanced down at Umber and Umber nodded back.

“If we want to leave, would you let us?”

 Leon blinked and furrowed his brows.

“I mean, you can, but I don’t recommend it. This house is in the middle of nowhere, the portal room is locked, and I don’t want Mikey to have a heart attack over you guys going missing. I mean, I literally only went to the living room when I first woke up and he nearly did then.”

 “So we can leave.” Russet said.

“Sure.” Leon shrugged, rubbing his throat again and blinking tiredly.

 Russet made to take a step to the door, but Umber grabbed his hand and shook his head.

As much as he didn’t like being in a strange place surrounded by strangers, they didn’t have anywhere to go and nobody to go back to.

 And Leon had been right when he said the pain meds would wear off soon.

“Is your little brother ok? He hasn’t said anything.” Leon asked, getting to his feet to grab a bottle that Umber could only hope is filled with tylenol or something.

 But with Leon’s attention on him, he could feel his face burning in a deep blush and he tried to hide himself behind Russet.

 “He… doesn’t like to sometimes.” Russet hissed, grabbing Umber’s hand comfortingly.

‘Doesn’t like to’ is the understatement of the century. Anytime there was attention on him that wasn’t from a family member or a trusted person, Umber would freeze up and hide, usually in his shell.

 The rest of his brothers were like that too, all but Russet, who would not only shield his younger siblings from physical attacks, but the attention too.

 “That’s alright. How about you help him into bed again and have him take these.” Leon said gently, handing a small plastic cup with two small pills in it along with an unopened bottle of water.

 “Thanks.” Russet nodded, turning his attention away from the striped turtle and onto Umber, “here, buddy.”

 Umber took it willingly and rested his head back on his pillow and looked up at the wall above his bed, blinking when he spotted bright cards of childish drawings.

 “What are those?” He whispered, raising a shaky hand to point at the cards, frowning when his hand didn’t completely obey.

 “The kids drew those for you. You can meet them in the morning if you want.” Leon whispered back, a stuttering trill coming from the older turtle’s direction as he curled up under the blanket.

“Thanks for helping us.” Umber breathed.

“No problem kid.”

Chapter Text

 Mikey woke up in his bed, which was not where he fell asleep.

He rubbed his eyes as he stumbled into the kitchen and blinked in surprise when the two kids that had been previously unconscious were sitting at his kitchen, eating quietly as the younger turtles ran around, chasing each other.

 “Leon…” he asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

“I don’t need to explain myself.” Leon said, waving his spoon at the older turtle and smiling.

 “What… is going on?” the older of the two new boys asked, a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder.

 “Nothing. Big Blue here isn’t in trouble.” Mikey smiled, patting Leon’s shell and tugging gently at his scarf.

 “Oh.” 

Mikey chuckled and sat in his chair with a bowl of cereal, eating it as he watched Lee pointing at words in a book for Gigi to read out loud for him.

 Dee was laying on his plastron and using a small screwdriver to take apart Hueso’s old phone while Rara watched and fiddled with a pen and notebook.

 Allie was playing in Leon’s lap, which Mikey hadn’t noticed earlier, and was messing with one of her stuffed animals, making it walk around as Leon ate.

 “Mikey, are you going to ask who these guys are?” Leon asked after a moment of watching Mikey eat.

 “I was going to eventually, I just wanted to eat.” Mikey said, blinking up at his eldest son.

“My name is Russet.” The older brother of the two turtles in question said, smiling gently.

 “Hello Russet.” Mikey smiled, “What’s your brother’s name?”

“Umber.” Russet said, instead of Umber himself.

 “Hi Umber. When did you two wake up?” Mikey asked.

“Around midnight last night.” Leon answered, “I persuaded them to stay and not give you a heart attack when you woke up.”

 “Thanks.” Mikey sighed, “Although it would have been fine, the portal room is locked.”

“What’s this portal room you guys keep talking about?” Russet asked.

 “And I can pick locks.” Umber muttered, speaking up for the first time.

“You can?” Leon asked, raising an eyebrow at the kid. Allie warbled and looked to, but shrugged and went back to playing.

 “Yep, my dad kept things out of our hands by locking them into cabinets and such, and when I found this out I started messing around and found out how to unlock them.” Umber shrugged.

 “I’m impressed.” Leon whistled.

“I still want to know what the portal room is.” Russet interrupted looking accusingly at Mikey. 

 “The portal room is the room of this house that is most closely tied to the Hidden City, and when I draw the right rune, a portal will open up and we can go through. I usually use it for shopping and getting to work.” Mikey explained.

 “You aren’t going to work this weekend, right?” Gigi asked from her spot on the couch.

“No, I'll be taking this weekend off.” Mikey chuckled, “Tio Hueso’s going to miss you guys though.”

 “Good, I wanna be with you!” Gigi cried, grinning wildly. Lee frowned at his oldest sister and smacked her to get her attention and pointed at another word, “Ow, Lee, that’s ‘tomorrow’.”

 “There’s also a lot of weapons in that room too, so you guys and replace the ones you lost.” Leon suggested, pointing to the handles of his katana that were peaking over his shoulder.

 “Oh… we don’t need to-” Russet started, his voice hesitant, “We didn’t necessarily lose them-”

“We got it covered.” Umber said simply, holding out his hand and a shimmer of orange appeared, revealing a couple nunchaku solidly in his hand.

“Woah, that’s sick.” Leon said, his eyes wide, “I wish I could do that!”

Mikey was just as amazed, but he was also concerned with the blatant show of chi usage. It was obvious that these kids, or just Umber at least, knew how to use their chi, but Mikey really didn’t want Umber to overuse his.

 “It takes a ton of practice. Our youngest brother, Azure, was the first to figure it out.” Umber smiled.

Mikey was getting even more concerned by the second. 

 There’s a kid that’s even younger than Umber using chi?

“All I can do is make small single dimensional portals, and that’s only if I have the proper conduit.” Leon shrugged.

 “Azure could do that too, but he preferred to ride on Mauve’s jetpack.” Russet smiled, as if he were remembering fond memories.

 “Wait, let me get this straight, you guys can all use chi without amulets and it doesn’t negatively affect you?” Mikey asked, raising and putting down his spoon.

 “Chi? Oh, Leon said you came from another dimension. We’re talking about how our mystic abilities manifest.” Umber said, snapping his fingers before wincing. Russet noticed and grabbed his hand and looked it over before letting go.

 “I also know that I don’t usually get negatively affected until I overuse my portals, and the only thing I usually need are a set of swords or weapons that are created from mystic metal.” Leon nodded.

 “Same here, unless it’s an interdimensional portal.” Umber said.

“I bet you can probably use yours if we unlock it, I wonder how it’ll manifest.” Russet grinned, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

 “Please don’t, it’s perfectly fine being locked.” Mikey said, waving a hand.

“I’m really good at unlocking things.” Umber said, his voice a little unhinged. 

 “No.” Mikey said sternly, raising his eyebrow ridge.

Umber wilted and Leon laughed loudly, breaking off coughing. Allie looked up at him in concern and patted his neck.

 “Ouch.” Leon breathed after a second.

“Are you ok man?” Russet asked.

 “Define ok.” Leon sighed. 

“The full form of ok is termed 'Olla Kalla', a Greek term which means All Correct. Whenever someone uses ok during a conversation, it means, all correct which means everything is fine.” Dee said, drawing all the attention to him. He looked up from his tinkering and frowned, “What, you want the definition of ok.”

 “You need to stop eating dictionaries.” Mikey groaned.

“I did not physically eat the dictionary! I just read it!” Dee cried, sitting up and crossing his arms.

 “It’s a phrase, kid.” Leon chuckled.

“You aren’t off the hook. Go drink some tea or warm water.” Mikey instructed.

Leon grumbled, but did what he was told, getting up with Allie still in his arms. 

“Ew, warm water?” Umber squeaked.

 “It helps with sore throats sometimes, and we’ve found it works on him.” Mikey smiled.

“What happened?” Russet asked.

 He saw the scar then.

“Leon is using his right to privacy and not telling me.” Mikey sighed, “but I think it has something to do with his nightmares and the fact that his younger sibs are dead.”

 “Ours are too.” Umber said sadly.

Russet hissed and nudged his younger brother. Umber looked up at him and glared, as if saying ‘what?’.

 “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Mikey said gently, standing and holding out his hands placatingly.

 “Thanks-” Russet started, but was interrupted by Umber.

“No. You have a right to know. You were the one that helped pull us through that portal.” Umber looked at him with wet eyes, “You saved us.”

 “Umber…” Russet hissed.

“Nope, shut. Big Mike, you might want to sit down for this.” Umber smiled, “Our tragedy starts with our purple brother and his machines.”

 “Mauve?”

“The very same. He wanted to be around people with a level of intellect that rivaled his own, because spending time with us dumb-dumbs wasn’t enough for him.” Umber let out a small laugh before continuing, “So he went looking and ended up finding the Purple Dragons.”

 “The Purple Dragons?” Mikey asked, remembering his own version of the gang, hoping their version wasn’t as bad.

 Judging by the fact that their other two brothers are dead, I think it was.

“Yep. The thing was, Mauve didn’t know what he was getting himself into. For a turtle that liked knowing absolutely everything about everything, he didn’t do any research on them.”

 “And that’s what put us in the most danger.” Russet cut in.

“It was good for Mauve at first, because he was finally building things that he thought was going to help people through people that will use it all for good.” Umber sighed.

 “It didn’t stay like that,” Russet said, tears in his eyes.

“The Dragons asked Mauve to build something that would have caused a lot of death and would have hurt a lot of people. Our brother had already been building questionable things by that point, but he flat out refused then.”

 “And then they turned on him. On all of us.”

“They started hunting us, using the machines that Mauve had built for them to try to kill us. They would ambush us on food runs, break through the portals to the Hidden City using the trackers Mauve built for them.”

“And they didn’t stop when they killed Azure.” Russet said quietly.

“They had used a piece of tech that redirected portals and ended up pulling our youngest brother to him, and the ensuing fight ended up with Azure fatally wounded. We only got there to hear his last words.”

“‘Don’t cry for me guys, I’m not gonna be far’.” Russet muttered, his eyes misty and not seeing anything in front of him. Mikey took his hand and rubbed it soothingly.

“They kept coming after us, even when Azure was gone. They got dad when they blew up the lair, and then Mauve himself when he turned himself over to keep us alive.” 

“It didn’t stop them.” Russet said, burying his face in Mikey’s shoulder as he let Mikey hug him completely.

“I found one of dad’s old scrolls in one of his locked cabinets one day, and at first, I was just surprised that it had survived the bombing. Then I read them and found that, with a mastery of mystic arts, I could open a doorway to somewhere else, similar to how Azure had done before.”

 “And you figured it out?” Mikey asked gently.

Umber nodded.

 Mikey held out an arm for Umber to tuck himself under and the young turtle sobbed into Mikey’s chest.

 “I got you two now. They can’t get to you here.” Mikey trilled soothingly, “I got you.”

“What happened in here?” Leon asked, stepping back into the kitchen.

 “Why did heating up water take you so long?” Mikey asked, a little upset that the moment had been ruined. 

 “Well, I finished drinking my tea and then Allie wanted me to play dollies with her, so I had to do that.” Leon shrugged, sitting at his seat and finishing his bowl of oatmeal, “Ew, it’s cold.”

 Umber giggled wetly, his face squished against Mikey’s plastron.

[~+~]

Mikey blinked awake to the sound of chirping birds outside his window.

Or was it the chirping of baby turtles that wanted his attention?

 He… couldn’t tell at this point.

Mikey did know that if it was baby chirping turtles, they would be taken care of by Leon or Russet, both of which had proven themselves to be great babysitters for when Mikey had to go out and work.

 He still spent his Saturday nights at the club with the kids all at Hueso’s but he decided that he needed to pick up more jobs throughout the rest of the week because he now had two more mouths to feed.

 Which brought another issue.

Hueso was getting a little worried about the fabric of this dimension. 

 Sure, one rip spitting out a traumatized teen was just a coincidence, as was the fact that he managed to fall through directly into Mikey’s kitchen.

 But two incidents where the fabric ripped while in Mikey’s vicinity, and with both expelling traumatized turtles that have experienced unspeakable horrors?

 It was much less of a coincidence, that’s for sure.

Mikey should probably get out of bed.

 He sighed and sat up, blinking at the small turtle that rolled off his plastron and squeaked in offence.

 “Lee?” He asked, half awake.

“Daddy!” He chirped, grabbing onto the lip of his father’s plastron and hanging on like a little leech.

 “What’s wrong buddy?” Mikey asked.

“Umber’s being scary.” Lee muttered, his face buried in Mikey’s neck.

 “He’s … what?” Mikey wondered, getting to his feet and pushing the door open, and following the sound of commotion into the living room that he was surprised that he hadn’t noticed.

 When Mikey turned the corner, his heart damn near dropped out of his ass as he saw a terrifying sight in front of him.

 Umber was literally floating in the middle of the living room with his eyes a solid glowing orange.

Russet was curled in the corner around the younger turtles, biting his lip and cupping a hand over a sizable burn on his arm.

 Leon was passed out on the floor, the same kind of burns on the scales of his palms.

In the one or two months that Russet and Umber had lived under his roof, this had never happened. Sure, Umber used his mystic powers every now and then for slightly mundane tasks, but Mikey wasn’t about to tell him otherwise.

 He wasn’t Leo.

But now he was kind of regretting it.

 “Russ, what the shell is going on here?” Mikey asked, running to Leon’s side and pulling him on the couch while checking him over for any other injuries.

 The blue turtle was fine, other than his burnt hands.

“I-I don’t know! We were just watching some tv when Umber started glowing, which is normal sometimes, but-” Russet stammered, his eyes wide.

 “Then he kind of flailed for a second, hitting Russ’s arm, which burned him.” Rara pipped up, crawling out of the pile and running over to cling to Mikey’s legs.

 “Rae’s right, and after that, he started floating, his spots glowing brighter and brighter and Leon tried to grab him to pull him back to the ground-” Gigi continued, but was pushed out of the way by Allie, who had also crawled out of the pile and ran to Leon’s side.

 “And when Leon grabbed Umber, his stripes lit up really bright and he fell to the ground and Russ grabbed us. Lee got away and went to get you.” Allie finished, “Is Leon gonna be ok?”

 “He’ll be fine. His chi- mystic core was overloaded, but he should wake up soon, once he reaches equilibrium again.” Mikey said, then turned to Russ, who was clinging on to Dee, the small turtle only begrudgingly letting the older turtle do so, “Has this happened before?”

 Russet shook his head.

“Ok. So we’re going in blind.” Mikey muttered, taking a small step closer to Umber, which was greatly hindered by the children clinging to his legs, “Guys, let go. He needs help.”

 “But you could get hurted too!” Gigi cried, her face wet with new tears.

“I’ll be fine, baby, trust me.” Mikey said calmly, kneeling and putting Lee down on the ground next to Gigi and Rara.

 “I trust you.” Gigi muttered, hugging Lee close.

Mikey nodded and smiled, standing and walking over to Umber.

 He reached deep inside of himself and pulled at his chi, letting it fill him as he grabbed Umber’s arms.

 As he did, his head was filled with visions of a young female turtle

“What is this?” Mikey asked, his hand clasped tightly onto Umber’s shoulder. He was scared that he might lose the kid in the swirling fog of the visions.

 “I… don’t know.” Umber muttered, pulling Mikey’s hand off of his shoulder and holding it tight in his own, “All I know is that she needs our help.”

 Mikey frowned. He wasn’t so sure, the kid looked like she was handling things on her own just fine.

She had four younger turtles at her side, and Mikey was surprised to see that one of them had nearly completely brown scales instead of green. The kids stood proudly on top of a building overlooking the great city of New York before an explosion went off behind them. The yellow turtle was nearly thrown off the roof from the blast.

 The next vision was of only four turtles, all with white plasters covering their bodies. Mikey wanted to know what had happened to the smallest one, but one look at Umber told him all he needed to know.

 Another vision swirled into view and the young turtle only had one kid by her side, the mussy brown one, and they were huddled together under a bridge with their hands clasped over their ears as explosions went off above them, making the structure shake.

The two watched as the yellow turtle struggled against a demon. She was all by herself in this vision.

 “I think something happened to her brothers.” Umber breathed, his eyes wide as he watched the other turtle get batted into a wall by a taloned fist.

 He was right.

The next vision was of the turtle kneeling inside of a family crypt, tears soaking her mask as a tiny glowing hologram of a geometrical turtle floated above her right shoulder.

 There was a flurry of more visions after that, each one a scene of the young turtle fighting as hard as she could against various gangs and that same demon.

 “We have to help her.” Umber said, his voice determined, but Mikey grabbed his arm before he could lift it.

 “How? If you try to make another portal, you could get seriously hurt.” Mikey protested, “And she looks like she’s doing fine.”

 The last vision was of the turtle looking very much not fine. She was sobbing in the crypt again, her chi, or ‘mystic energy’, was swirling in a storm around her, and Mikey could feel the heat through the veil between her and them.

 “Mikey, you want to help everybody, you are kind and caring, and you can’t just leave her! She called to me!” Umber shouted.

 Mikey looked down at the kid and sighed, nodding.

“Ok. But you have to let me help.”

 “Of course.”

Back in the real world, a portal started to open in the middle of the living room, right in front of Mikey and Umber.

 Gigi watched in horror as her dad’s arms started to crack, light poking through like glass that was badly repaired.

 “Umber!” Russet yelled, seeing the cracks spread from the ones that were already on Umber’s arms.

 “What’s going on?” Leon said groggily, hugging Allie to his chest as he sat up with a wince, “Why are dad and Umber glowing?”

 “Umber’s opening another portal and using Mikey as a battery, we have to stop them!” Russet cried, setting Dee down next to a frozen Lee and running over to try and pull Mikey’s hands off of Umber’s arms. 

 “Wait!” Leon yelped, but the warning was too late as Russet cried out in pain, his hands burnt like Leon’s, “We have to let them do this.”

 “They’re hurting.” Gigi whispered, reaching out for Leon, who picked her up. She buried her face into Leon’s plastron, a hand patting Allie’s shell.

 “They’ll be ok.” Loen whispered back, watching as the portal grew.

Suddenly it expanded rapidly, dropped a person onto the floor and vanished entirely.

 Mikey opened his eyes and caught Umber before he could fall, the younger turtle’s eyes already closing in exhaustion.

 “Leon, help me get Umber and the kid to the infirmary.” Mikey instructed, already bustling off with Rara, Lee, and Dee following him like a line of ducklings.

 Leon nodded.

Chapter Text

 Mikey was not as experienced with healing chi-related injuries as Leo or Donny might be, but he could still figure it out.

 The burns on Leon and Russet were easy to take care of, but their healed scales still carried an odd bronze-gold sheen. It looked like a tan, if turtles like them could tan.

Mikey’s arms were also easy to manage, the pain from the small golden cracks in his scales minimal and Gigi was very happy when he told her that.

The only real issue he had was that he was exhausted, and he still had Umber and the new turtle to take care of.

Mikey let Leon handle Umber in the room that the little orange turtle shared with Russet, mainly because he wasn’t sure he could do it on his own, but also because the poor kid was almost begging him for something to do. 

Russet was playing with the other kiddos, save Gigi, who was glued to Mikey’s side.

Not ideal, as he really needed both hands to bandage the new kid, who’s previous bindings were already soaked through with blood and done sloppily.

 He decided to let her sit on his foot, which was apparently the next best place to sit.

 I really need to stop adopting traumatized kids.

Actually, I think I need to just stop adopting kids in general, I don’t know how this keeps happening.

 “Daddy?” Gigi asked as she watched her dad quietly.

“Yeah baby?” He asked, glancing at her.

 “You scared me.” She whispered, shoving her face into his hip.

He set down his needle after tying off the last suture and picked his daughter up in his arms and hugged her close.

 “I’m sorry kiddo.” He muttered into her bandana, rocking her slowly from side to side.

“What if you had really cracked all the way?” She asked, her voice slightly muffled by his plastron.

 “Then I’ll have pieced myself together again, like how I fix the bowls and things that Allie drops.” He smiled.

 “She breaks so many bowls.” Gigi giggled wetly, “I feel a little bad. Can she not hold them good enough?”

 “I think she’s just a little clumsy.” Mikey chuckled. 

“Promise you won’t leave, even if you break into a bunch of pieces?” Gigi asked, looking up at him with wide eyes.

 “Promise.” Mikey smiled.

“Well, this has certainly been sweet, but I’d like to get out of here.” A new voice hissed.

 Mikey pulled his attention away from the little turtle in his arms, who had curled closer to him, and focused on the turtle that he had pulled out of the other dimension.

 Wow, I really did pull her to me. Did I pull all of them to me?

Am I the reason that the fabric is being torn? I wonder if Hueso will have an answer.

 Ah, crap, I gotta tell Hueso about this new kid… he was concerned when I showed him Russet and Umber.

The turtle had a yellow metal shell attached to her back, and at this moment, it seemed to be the thing preventing her from sitting up completely. It looked heavy.

 “Are you just gonna sit there staring, or are you gonna f’cking help me?” The turtle asked,her eyes narrowed under her mask.

 Mikey sighed and stood, debating whether or not Gigi would let him set her down, and walked to the turtle’s side when he decided that Gigi would probably dig her sharp little claws into his arms rather than let him set her down.

 “You could have just asked.” Mikey sighed, helping her sit up and slide her legs over the side of the bed, “Do you want to take off your metal shell? You’re really weak right now, and it’s dragging you down.”

 “If you touch my shell, I will tear your hands from your body.” The girl threatened, her teeth bared in anger.

 Mikey blinked and quickly covered Gigi’s head to block her ears. She whined in protest before letting out a sigh and resting her head against Mikey’s chest.

 I am too tired for this.

It is literally only seven in the morning, I woke up thirty minutes ago, and now I have to word this delicately without getting me or Gigi hurt. 

 And from what I’ve seen her do during her fights with her demon, I don’t want her destroying my house.

 “I know you’re scared, angry, and you don’t want me near your weakness, but I want to help.” Mikey clicked his tongue, “And you need to keep the swearing and violent threats to a minimum, I have young impressionable kids.”

 The kid blinked, pondering for a moment.

Then she hissed at him again and he sighed.

 “Do you want me to leave? I can go, and nobody else will be able to come in without your permission.” Mikey asked.

 The turtle nodded and Mikey stood.

“Aren’t you gonna try to ask her name?” Gigi asked as they left.

 “I don’t think she wants to talk to me right now, Gibee.” Mikey chuckled.

“Are you gonna make us something to eat? I’m hungry.” Gigi asked.

 “I- Yeah, I’ll make you something.” Mikey sighed, ignoring how his eyes seemed to want to close and how his eye bags were heavy.

 “What are you gonna make?” Russet asked from the living room, looking a little better than he had earlier.

 “I think I’ll just reheat some of the slices of leftover pizzas from Hueso’s.” Mikey smiled.

“Pizza?” Lee chirped, looking up at his father with bright, excited eyes.

 “Yeah baby, pizza!” Mikey chuckled, scooping the toddler up in his arms and kissing his forehead.

“Can I help?” Allie asked.

 “I wanna help too!” Rara cried.

“I help too!” Dee warbled, peeking out from under Russet’s large red blanket that Leon had bought him a while ago.

 “You… can all help by getting your own dishes.” Mikey said, rubbing his eyes and nodding.

He immediately regretted it when he was nearly toppled over by three eager kids running to the kitchen, swinging open the cabinet that contained the plastic dishes and dropping them all over the place.

 “Mikey?” Russet asked, gently grabbing Mikey’s arm and catching his attention.

“Yeah?”

 “Are… you alright?” 

“I’ll be fine.” Mikey shrugged.

 I am starting to sound more and more like Leo as time goes on, what is this? I am supposed to be carefree.

 But you’re never carefree as soon as you get kids.

“Dad?” 

 Mikey blinked at Russet and smiled slightly.

“Yeah bud?”

 “Do we have any meat lovers slices left?”

Mikey burst out laughing and Russet joined him a couple moments later.

 “Yeah kid, we have a couple left.”

[~+~]

Rosa sat with her battle shell pressed against the headboard of the bed she had woken up in.

 It was dark outside the window now, it had been for a while now, but she was too high strung to attempt to sleep.

 The day hadn’t even started out that well to begin with.

It was the anniversary of Carmine’s death, her right hand turtle, the brother that had died last because of her mistake.

 She had just been praying to her ancestors to let her see her brothers when she had opened her eyes, not to the mindscape of the afterlife, but to the family crypt and a circle of bright sparkles.

 The light was orange, a contrast against the dimly flickering green light of the candles she had lit.

She remembered thinking, Sienna’s opening a portal for me, I wonder what other dimension he was able to look into this time.

 And then she remembered that Sienna was dead and this portal should not be opening.

She had fallen through a moment later, passing out as she traveled through, and had woken up in a bed that felt very different to her own.

 Rosa felt a little better about her situation when she spotted a familiar shade of an orange mask across the room, but her heart dropped when she realized that there were two turtles with the color on them, and both were either too young or two old to be Sienna.

 She had lashed out when she realized that, but now she was lonely and she kind of regretted it.

Well, being alone isn’t an unfamiliar feeling.

 “Sheldon, are you there?” She whispered.

“As always, Rosa.” The glowing purple projection came to life above her shoulder, reminding her of her brother a little.

 “How full is your battery?” She asked.

“64%. I have over a day left, maybe three or four if you put me on battery saving mode. Do you plan on going out into the wilderness again? Do you want me to activate the solar panels in your shell?” Sheldon asked.

 “No.” Rosa answered.

“Do you want me to play white noise?” Sheldon asked.

 “Maybe.” Rosa sighed.

“Do you need me to be here and continue talking?”

 “Yes.” Rosa whispered, burying her face in her knees and closing her eyes tight.

Sheldon was her brother’s design. 

 He made it when he had gotten sick for the last time, to help Rosa come to terms that it was going to really be the last time.

 Sheldon had helped her through a lot.

He was the one that helped her design her battle shell after she had lost Carmine.

 Under Sheldon’s quiet droning voice, Rosa heard tiny footsteps just outside her door. Her body tensed as she prepared herself to fight.

 The big turtle promised that he wouldn’t let anybody in until I said I wanted it.

Is he going back on his promise?

 It would make him like every other adult in my life, except it might hurt more because he’s a turtle, like me.

 I’ve never met any turtle yokai, Carmine heard that there were none left.

But he had a younger turtle kid with him, and he said there were others. 

 Maybe I was dropped into a dimension with a bunch of living turtle yokai or something.

She waved her hand to make the small projection of Sheldon quiet and watched the door, listening to the hesitant steps from outside.

 The footsteps sound small, so they must be from a younger kid.

The door slowly opened after a long few minutes, and a small silhouette stood in the small crack, lit only by the small night light in the hallway.

 “Are sleeping?” the voice of a toddler said, their little voice in the kind of quiet whisper that young kids have.

 “No.” Rosa answered.

“Can I come in?” 

 Rosa hesitated before sighing.

“Yeah.”

 “Thanks!”

The silhouette disappeared from the doorway as the tiny kid padded further into the room, and Rosa heard the determined little chirps under the kid’s breath.

 The blankets that spilled over the edge of the bed shifted a little and Rosa leaned a little ways away from the headboard to watch as the tiny figure tried to use the fabric as a makeshift ladder.

 They slipped and fell to the floor with a small thud and let out a small whine of frustration.

“Want some help?” Rosa asked.

 “Yis.” The child answered.

She leaned over and scooped them off the floor, slightly surprised that the small child was heavier than she expected.

 They were smaller than the other little turtle that she had seen earlier that day, and the adult was carrying her with no issue, so she just figured that this kid wouldn’t weigh too much.

 Rosa heafted the kid onto her bed and sat back, watching what they would do, using the light of the moon to see them.

 “Name?” The toddler asked.

“Rosa. What’s yours bud?” She answered.

 “Lee!” He chirped, proud of himself.

“Hi Lee. Are you supposed to be sleeping?” Rosa asked, biting back a smile.

 “Hmm.” the kid hummed, crawling closer to her and patting her leg.

When she didn’t move away, he crawled into her lap and cooed happily, snuggling close and closing his eyes.

 “Did you just want to find a warm place to sleep?” Rosa asked.

Lee churred and she laughed quietly.

 Then she unlatched the battle shell and gently set it off to the side before laying down and tucking herself around Lee protectively.

 She listened to the small child’s slow breathing as he went into a deeper sleep and she smiled, remembering how her brothers used to sound like that.

 Rosa closed her eyes and let sleep pull her under into dreams filled with the memories of those long gone.

Chapter Text

“Ok rules.” Mikey paused, tapping his fingers against his palm, “No talking to strangers-”

 “Dad, my entire job is talking to strangers to see if I can get them to trade pieces of gold for sustenance,” Leon interrupted, rolling his eyes.

 “Fine. No running off with strangers, stay in the restaurant, do what Hueso tells you to, and please don’t accidentally break something that I will have to fix.” Mikey reiterated, crossing his arms.

 “Do you not trust me to do my job and then come home safely?” Leon asked.

Mikey took a deep breath and then let it out in a sigh.

 “I’ll be fine, dad. Senior Hueso wouldn’t let me get hurt, or get into trouble.” Leon grinned, “Besides, he likes me too much to fire me for anything.”

 “I know, I know, it’s just that people are d- complete jerks.” Mikey sighed, “And sometimes the crowd in the Run of the Mill aren’t the nicest. I don’t want you hurt.”

 “I’m not gonna get hurt. I’ve lived through stuff worse than customer service.” Leon joked, but frowned when Mikey’s expression fell a little.

 “You still don’t want to talk to me about it?” The older turtle asked

Leon shook his head, his eyes downcast and a little sad.

“Well, you scoot on to work, I’ll be right behind you.” Mikey smiled.

 “Did you pick up more shifts at the bar or something?” Leon asked as they walked to the portal room together.

 “I’m doing deliveries for a couple friends. They’re providing the truck and everything, I’ve just gotta transport the goods safely.” Mikey shrugged.

 “That sounds fun. Good for your free spirit and all that.” Leon smiled.

“Yes, free spirit, and I forgot to tell Russet that he is in charge and I need to go check on the babies and tell them goodbye.” Mikey said, stepping out of the portal room and walking quickly to the living room. He could hear Leon padding after him.

 “Hey Mikey, what’re you up to?” Rosa asked from her spot at the kitchen table where she was watching Umber draw.

“Heading to work soon. Listen to Russ, you two, he’s in charge.” Mikey said, smiling and hugging them both.

Rosa nodded and Umber smiled.

“Did I hear that I’m in charge?” Russet rumbled, looking over the top of the couch, “Oh, I thought you two left already.”

 “We just need to say goodbye,” Mikey shrugged, kissing the top of Russet’s head quickly, before hugging the twins and kissing all the bitties goodbye.

 “I think he’s stressed.” Leon whispered to Russet behind Mikey’s back and Mikey sighed.

“Ok, Leon, let’s go.”

 They stepped through the portal and out onto the street outside the Run of the Mill, and then they split up. Leon went into the restaurant and Mikey walked deeper into the city.

 Mikey’s new employers seemed excited to have somebody that actually knew how to drive working for them, which was funny because Mikey’s awful skills at driving was actually used as a threat at some point.

 “Ok, here’s the truck, the keys, and the goods. Drop them off at these places and be back before noon for more.” The yokai store owner said, handing him the keys and a long list of places, while also pointing to the truck out in the alley behind the shop.

 “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.” Mikey smiled.

The yokai nodded and shooed him out, and he got started, driving down the narrow paths behind the buildings that made up the Hidden City.

 Now, human designed trucks and cars were not a common sight down in the Hidden City, but sometimes, the yokai found it easier to maintain a truck than to keep a chariot that needed actual animals to work.

 For the convenience of these few automobile users, the city had built roads into the alley systems and through a couple bigger market places.

 Ah, how considerate of them.

After a couple hours of this driving through the hidden roads and getting lost in stupid back alleys, Mikey was getting a little tired. He had already bought a coffee, where all the workers knew him by name which was a little concerning, and had gotten over the thrill of the peace.

 Now he was just tired, bored, missing his kids and slightly worried about them because Russet hadn’t called like he promised, and was almost done with his route before he needed to head back and do it again.

 “Maybe I just need to listen to some music or a podcast or something to make this go by faster.” Mikey mumbled, tapping his steering wheel as he inched through a very crowded market square to get to his last stop, which happened to be one of the stalls in this square.

 “I wonder what kind of podcast I could listen to. I bet there are a whole bunch, but I don’t think I would even know where to start.” Mikey continued to think out loud, “Maybe true crime?”

 He paused and shook his head, watching as more people seemed to push into the square and many little yokai children pointed at his truck with wide eyes, like they had never seen a vehicle like this before.

 “Nah, I don’t think true crime is for me. That’s more Don or Leo’s thing.” Mikey smiled, “I think that if we let Don listen to anything true crime related, he would be able to take what he learned to seamlessly cover up a murder. “

 He blinked and tapped the steering wheel again.

“That’s a scary thought. So no, no true crime for me. Maybe like… a talk show thing? World issues? I sure as shell don’t pay attention to the news as much as I could.” Mikey sighed.

 The crowds didn’t seem to be dispersing at all, and Mikey was pretty close to laying on the horn to get people to move. He wouldn’t though, because he would probably cause a mass panic.

 “Can’t these people just move? I need to go places!” Mikey said, getting a little angry now.

More people were looking suspiciously at him and he didn’t appreciate it. He hadn’t committed any crimes recently!

 Or, maybe he did, but he didn’t know it was a crime because the laws weren’t just posted here. It had happened plenty of times before.

 Mikey grinned as the crowds began to lessen, finally, and he was able to actually get going and pull up next to the stall he was supposed to be delivering to.

 “Hey there Ma’am!” Mikey called, opening the door and starting to unload the yokai’s merchandise, “This should be all for you!” 

 “Why, thank you, young man!” The old armadillo lady yokai smiled.

Mikey waved to her as he got back into his truck and back onto the roads, and focused again on how incredibly bored he was at that moment.

 All thought of being bored was quickly forgotten as he spotted something shoot out in front of his car and he quickly pressed the break.

 “What the hell!?” He yelped, getting out of the car and looking around.

It didn’t appear that he had hit whatever or whoever had jumped out in front of his moving vehicle, but that just raised the question about where the shell the thing went.

 “Is anybody out there?” Mikey called, looking into some darker alleyways, where somebody pounced on him, landing on his plastron.

He cried out as he was knocked back on his shell, and the sudden weight of another person quickly left and he rolled onto his front and got quickly to his feet, his hands out and ready to defend himself.

Mikey blinked when he saw who his attacker was.

They were a younger turtle, maybe younger than Leon, but definitely older than Russet, and wore purple bandana over their eyes.

 This new turtle also had many pieces of technology, including the light, but sturdy, bo staff that was currently spinning in the other turtle’s hand.

 “Uh… hello?” Mikey tried, ducking as the young turtle swung the staff, just barely missing Mikey’s head, “Hey! I’m not a threat, you don’t have to fight me!”

 The staff stopped hissing through the air for a moment as the young turtle hissed, “You are a threat! No other turtle mutant survived and all the kappas were killed thousands of years ago!”

 “Wait, what?” Mikey asked, dodging another swing of the staff and trying to get a little further away from the young turtle because he really didn’t want to hurt her.

“Are you deaf? Or dumb? Why aren’t you attacking?” The young turtle asked, like she expected Mikey to hurt her just because he was a new person.

That pointed to some underlying trauma that made Mikey’s heart hurt.

“Well, that’s quite rude of you. I'm neither deaf nor dumb, and I’m not attacking because I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you.” Mikey said, taking another step back as the young turtle hesitated, “You’re clearly a little disoriented, and you are right, there are no turtle yokai in the Hidden City.”

 “But then… What are you?” She asked, less hostile and more curious.

“I am a turtle mutant, like you, but I don’t know where you got the idea that you were the only one.” Mikey shrugged. He didn’t want to assume anything here, but he could guess that the little purple turtle in front of him was probably from another dimension.

 “I don’t understand.” The young turtle said, tilting her head to the side, her eyes shining with curiosity, although it was hidden by a layer of suspicion.

 “Uh… well, let me start by introducing myself. I’m Mikey, and I’m the single father to nine mutant turtle children, four of which have fallen through rips in the fabric of this dimension, and I can only guess that you have also fallen through one of those rips, which is concerning.” Mikey said, holding out his hands in a peaceful gesture.

 “Huh… Father didn’t tell me that there was a multiverse.” The young turtle mused, leaning on her bo staff like it was a cane or crutch.

 “Do you remember the last thing you were doing before you woke up here?” Mikey asked.

“I was building a portal to pass the time before Father called me to help him with another new project that he needed me to help with.” The young turtle shrugged, “And my name’s Lillac.”

 “Pretty name.” Mikey complimented.

“Thank you. I gave it to myself because I found the designation ‘Lab Assistant One’ to be inadequate.” Lillac said, somewhat proudly.

 “That is really cool!” Mikey smiled, just now remembering that he actually had a job he needed to be doing, but also not sure how he was able to convince Lillac to go home with him without making it sound weird. 

 “You have somewhere you need to be?” Lillac asked, looking at him with cold eyes and noting his change in posture.

 “Well, to be honest, I need to get back to work, and I don’t want you wandering the streets alone, especially when you fell into a new dimension that could be different from your own.” Mikey said honestly, “I have other kids at home that you could meet if you want, but I just need to know that you’re safe until you can make a portal to go back home if you want.”

 By how Lillac had been acting the short time they had been talking, Mikey was not sure he wanted Lillac to ever go back to where she came from, but he wasn't going to stop her if that was what she really wanted.

 “Are you trying to kidnap me?” Lillac asked.

“In all definitions… yeah, I guess, but your alternatives are a lot worse.” Mikey sighed.

 “I have not had a mission where I was kidnapped, this seems like a fun challenge!” Lillac smiled, hopping into the passenger seat of Mikey’s truck and buckling up.

 “What missions have you gone on?” Mikey asked, raising an eyebrow ridge at the teen. Lilac opened her mouth to answer and he felt like he made a mistake by asking that.

For all intents and purposes, the drive back to the shop was interesting, and the rest of the afternoon was even more so as Lillac seemed to get a little bit more comfortable with Mikey.

 But there was still something a little odd about her that Mikey didn’t want to pry about, like it would break her careful shell of well built calm and tempered curiosity.

 And by the time he was ready to head home, he knew for a fact that he was ready to adopt the young turtle if she let him.

 If she let him.

And I thought that I promised myself to stop adopting traumatized kids. I really am not good at keeping promises, am I?

Chapter Text

Leon grinned as he bounced through the doors of the Run of the Mill.

 “Pepino!” Senior Hueso smiled, greeting Leon as he walked around back into the kitchen area.

“Hey, Hueso!” Leon grinned, “I’m here, ready for duty, and excited for my first day at an actual job!”

 “Good, good, because You have much ahead of you. You already know how to wait on tables, yes?” Hueso asked, taking an apron and a small bow tie to give to Leon.

 “You’ve shown me many times before Hueso, how could I forget?” Leon smiled, taking the apron and putting the bow tie snuggly over the scars on this throat.

 “Good, good, that means you are ready to go, Pepino?”

“Yeah!”

 “Then go!” Hueso said, shooing him out of the kitchen with a smile.

Leon smiled widely and went to his first table.

 “Hello you two, are you ready to order, or do you just want drinks for the time being?”

The yokai couple smiled at him and they ordered their drinks.

 They seem like a kind couple of people. I wonder what Dad had been so damn worried about before. Nobody I’ve ever met at the Run of the Mill has ever been particularly nasty to me.

 “Hey, waiter boy!” A loud voice called over the general din of the restaurant. Leon looked up, raised an eyebrow at the older motherly-looking yokai sitting alone, and went back to serving his table their drinks before heading over.

 “You are taking far too long, waiter boy! I waved at you at least ten times, what kind of riffraff is Hueso hiring now?” The lady grumbled, half to herself, and half to Leon.

 He had a sinking feeling in his gut that told him that… maybe Dad had been right to worry, just a little bit.

 “I am truly sorry ma’am, it’s only my first day and I was occupied with another table. I also didn’t notice you at first.” Leon apologized, tugging slightly on the bowtie around his neck.

 “You better be sorry, I’ve been waiting for ages to get my food, do you hear me? Ages!”

Leon winced and covered an ear.

 “You haven’t ordered yet, ma’am, but I can take your order now, and Senior Hueso will have your pizza out quickly.” Leon smiled, just trying to do anything to get the lady to stop screaming at him.

 Sure, he could live through a fucking apocalypse and rip apart aliens with hardly any problem, but faced with one unhappy costumer, he practically crumbled.

 “No, somebody took my order already, and I’m waiting for my food.” The elderly yokai huffed, crossing her spiky arms and Leon wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

 “Uh… ma’am, are you alright? Is your memory intact? Because I can go check for you, but I don’t think you ordered yet.” Leon said in a tone that mocked concern. He was concerned, just for his own safety, not necessarily for this lady too much.

 “My memory is perfectly fine! Get my food!”

“You forgot to say please. And you haven’t ordered.”

 “I ordered a large pizza with the horrors as a topping! Go get it!”

“Thank you ma’am, I will go inform the kitchen.” Leon smiled, quickly writing down the lady’s order and turning back towards the safety of the kitchen.

 “What’s wrong, Pepino?” Hueso asked, looking up from the sauce he was stirring.

Leon smiled sheepishly and held out the slip of paper, and then turned, getting ready to go back out and keep working.

 He was stopped by a bony hand in his.

“Leon… you’re shaking.” Hueso said gently.

 “I- I have to go back to waiting, Senior Hueso, and you h-have pizzas to make.” Leon protested, tugging his hand out of Heuso’s.

 “No.” Hueso stepped in front of Leon and herded him to a chair.

“Hueso-”

 “Tell me what happened, Pepino, you are safe here.” Hueso said, patting Leon’s head and getting him a glass of water.

 Leon bit his cheek, knowing the skeleton wasn’t to give up.

“Here. Now, tell me what happened.” Hueso instructed, handing the turtle the water and nodding him on.

 “Some old yokai lady was… just being really pushy. It’s no big deal, I just wasn’t expecting it, don’t worry.” Leon smiled, taking a sip.

 “It is not okay. I will deal with it, you stay here.” Hueso said, getting up, but Leon followed, “Pepino.”

“I wanna see this.” Leon shrugged, tugging on his necktie.

 Hueso sighed and went out into the dinning area and up to the elderly yokai.

“You! Have you yelled at my employee?” Hueso barked.

 “The idiot forgot that he took my order, and then had the audacity to insult my impeccable memory!” The yokai lady yelled back.

 Hueso seemed to take a deep calming breath… which didn’t make much sense to Leon because he didn’t have any lungs, and it didn’t calm him down very much.

 “You are banned.” Hueso said, his voice filled with cold anger.

“What?!”

 “Leave my establishment.”

She scoffed, but picked her things up and stormed out.

 “T-thanks, Hueso!” Leon smiled, rubbing his hands together nervously.

“Would you like to go on break? My other waiter is ready to start working now.” Hueso said, taking Leon’s arm and leading him into a back room and sitting him down, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

 “I’m good, Hueso, don’t worry about me.” Leon said cheerfully.

“Would you like to read your email to see if you have been accepted into that school?” Hueso asked, pulling out his laptop that he had been letting Leon use for school purposes.

 “Yeah!” Leon said, a real smile on his face now.

He clicked through a couple things first, checking other things before taking a deep breath and clicking on a new notification.

 “So?”

“I got in!” Leon breathed, his eyes wide with delighted surprise, “Holy shit I actually got into college! I never thought I would do it, Hueso, I did it!”

 “I knew you could do it, Pepino, Mikey will be so proud of you.” Hueso smiled, patting the turtle’s shoulder and turning to leave.

 “Thank you for helping me.” Leon said.

“Of course, you are like family to me and I help my family when I can.” Hueso nodded.

 There was a loud crash from the front of the restaurant and Leon sighed, “I’ll go take care of that.”

He walked out into the dinning area and froze.

 “Russet?”

Chapter Text

Russet wasn’t sure how he had gotten so damn lucky with his new family. He had so many younger siblings now and he wasn’t even the oldest anymore.

 But… his younger siblings were… something to try to keep track of.

“Allie, where are the twins?” Russet asked, holding the little yellow turtle out in front of him in air jail.

 “I don’t know.” She chirped, shrugging as well as she could while trapped. She gave a pitiful little whine to try and make him sympathetic, but he just sighed.

“You have to know, you are the orchestrator of all of their crimes- Rae, put that down… how did you even get that? It was on a shelf!” Russet yelped, his attention snapping to Rara and grabbing the vase from Rara’s hands, “Go find Gigi and play with her.”

 “Russ, I wanna make some brownies with Rosa.” Umber called from the kitchen.

“Sure, just make sure you clean up after yourself and she doesn’t pop any stitches!”

 “I have popped stitches before and I won’t die if I do it again!” Rosa yelled.

“Good god, Allie, where are the twins?” Russet sighed, turning his attention back to the squirming turtle in his hands.

 She froze when his attention was turned back onto her and then wilted. She pointed to the kids’ bathroom and pouted.

 “Thank you, but you will not be released from jail, although your sentence will be greatly reduced.” Russet chuckled, tucking her under his arm and carrying her off into the bathroom like a football, where he found the two little turtles giggling as they played with Allie’s dolls in the tub that was mysteriously half filled with water.

 “How did you manage this? You aren’t even tall enough- tch, you aren’t hurting anybody, so I guess you can keep playing.” Russet grumbled, sitting on the floor and letting Allie out of jail to play with the twins.

 Lee waved a doll as Russet and he took it, waving its small plastic arm at him and making him giggle loudly.

 “Hello Miss, I’d love to buy something from your store!” Russet said in a high voice, walking his doll around the bathtub like she was shopping and talking to the doll Dee was holding.

 “This isn’t a store!” Dee cried, splashing his hands down and spraying Russet with water.

“Then what is it?” Russet asked, his voice still comically high.

 “It’s a war zone, get your gun, soldier, we’re advancing!” Dee barked.

“Uh…” Russet muttered, setting the doll back in the tub, “Um… She died… maybe you two shouldn’t be playing war, it’s very scary.”

 “Ok then! Let’s play ‘French Revolution’ then!” Lee chirped.

“How do you even… Rosa’s been teaching you two things, hasn’t she?” Russet sighed, “Allie, you have been released from air jail, you can play with these two heathens.”

 Allie warbled happily and wiggled out of Russet’s hand and dove into the half-filled tub, causing a wave of lukewarm water to splash over the edge.

 “Allie…” Russet groaned, “I’ll clean that up when you three go down for a nap.”

“Can I go to nap too?” Gigi asked, peaking into the bathroom. 

 “Aren’t you playing with Rae, Gibee?” Russet asked, jumping a little at her sudden appearance.

“He’s baking with Umber and Rosa and I got bored watching so I wanted to come play war with the babies.” Gigi said simply, shrugging as she pushed her way in and sat at the edge of the tub.

 “You’re still a baby too, Gibee, just a little bitty turtle!” Russet laughed, pulling her off the edge of the tub and squishing her in a hug.

 “I’m not a bitty! Allie’s a bitty!” Gigi giggled, pushing Russet’s face away when he nuzzled her face.

“I’m not a bitty!” Allie yelled, standing tall with all her seven year old height, “Lee and Dee aren’t babies either, Gigi! They’re six now! Not five!”

 “You’re all bitties to me! I’m the biggest!” Russet laughed standing and towering over Allie, but she just crossed her arms and glared up at him.

 Damn, this kid had a backbone made of steel. She would probably make an amazing business woman.

 “You’re not the biggest, Leon is.” Allie said angrily, stomping her foot and splashing yet more water over the edge.

 “Well, he’s not here, so right now I’m the biggest.” Russet smiled, “And I’m sorry for slandering your favorite brother.”

 “Leon’s not my favorite! As a baby sister, I cannot have favorites! He just gives good hugs and he reads stories really nicely.” Allie frowned.

 “How can he… his throat is messed up… you know what? I’m not gonna question it!” Russet laughed, kissing Gigi’s forehead and setting her on the tiled floor.

 “Where are you going?” Allie asked, her angrily demeanor falling.

“To check on the other three turtles in the kitchen? I need to make sure Umber doesn’t accidentally set himself on fire, stop Rosa from teaching Rae more bad words, and to taste test those brownies that smell really good.” Russet laughed.

 “Can I try some too?” Gigi asked, looking up from her game with the twins.

“No, you wanted to take a nap, didn’t you?” Russet pointed out, “You can have some after you wake up as a treat.”

 “Ok!”

Russet chuckled as he walked to the kitchen, but he was stopped as he noticed a sort of odd light coming from the crack under the door to the portal room.

 “Dad? Leon? Are you guys back already?” Russet asked, grabbing the child-proofed doorknob and pulling it open to reveal… Neither Mikey or Leon.

 Instead, he found the leader of the Purple Dragons standing in front of him with a wide smile on his face.

 Time stood still.

Right in front of him was the man that killed his younger brothers and his dad, and now he was endangering the rest of his family.

All he could think about were the bitties playing in the bathroom.

Umber.

Rosa.

Rara in the kitchen, not a care in the world to weigh down on his shoulders. 

 “Get out of my home.” Russet growled, a pair of sai materializing in his hands, “Go back the way you came and you won’t die.”

 “And here I was thinking I broke your spirit. I certainly broke the purple one’s.” Hun snarked, crossing his arms and grinning at him.

 “Russ, who are you talking too? Did Daddy come home?” Allie asked, grabbing onto Russet’s leg and peaking around it, “Hey… you aren’t daddy!”

 “Oh, well, now I see.” Hun smiled, kneeling down to Allie’s level. Russet took a step back, taking Allie with him.

 “It’s very nice to meet you, little turtle, I can see how you rebuilt this one’s resolve… too bad I have to take you away from him now.” Hun said, a wide smile still on his face as his words sent a chill down Russet’s spine.

 “You aren’t taking me anywhere!” Allie shouted, “Stranger danger! Stranger danger!”

She ran off shouting, leaving Russet to hold Hun off as the rest of the kids in the house did something.

 Hopefully Rosa has enough smarts to collect all the kids and get them out of the house… I think Mikey has a car in the garage that he was planning to use for vacationing.

 “Well, looks like I’ll just have to do this without a pawn.” Hun sighed, getting back to his feet and frowning down on Russet.

 Russet bared his teeth and launched himself at Hun, kicking the man’s chest, hard and landing lightly back on his feet.

 He watched as the Hun doubled over for a moment and then stood straight again, a sort of disturbance in the air surrounding him blurring him.

 “You…” Russet breathed, “That’s Mauve’s tech- take it off and fight me like a real man!” 

Hun shook his head with a small smile and ran at him with impossible speed. Russet barely had time to raise his sais, crossing the tines to block the punch.

 The strength of the punch pushed Russet back, and his arms hurt from the vibrations from his sais.

“I thank Mauve for everything he made… I hope you can tell him once I’m done with you.” Hun smiled, and Russet was really getting sick of that smile.

 He answered by trying to kick Hun’s knees in, but he was met with the force field again and again.

“Russ, oh, you’re busy.” Rosa said, walking past the portal room with Lee and Dee in her arms, “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Rosa, get out of here!” Russet shouted, pulling Hun back as he tried to attack the already injured turtle.

“On it captain!” She yelped, running out of sight and Russet really really hoped she was getting out of the house.

 Russet finally succeeded in throwing Hun back through the glowing portal that was miraculously still open, but he knew the man wouldn’t stay down for long.

 He could already see Hun getting to his feet through the window of the portal, surrounded by the other Purple Dragons, and he knew he only had a couple minutes to act.

 He sprinted through the house, making very sure that there was nobody left and then ran into the garage.

 Rosa was standing next to the passenger side of the old car that was currently running.

“Get in, get in!” Russet barked, ducking into the drivers sighed and buckling up, wincing when his shell made him just a little too big to drive, but he couldn’t deal with that at the moment.

 “You know how to drive?” Rosa asked, sitting down and buckling up as the garage door opened.

Russet floored it as soon as the door was opened just enough, wincing when the top of the car scraped against the bottom of the door.

 “Pops has been teaching me, so yeah.” Russet answered, looking in the rear view mirror at their house shuddered and a couple windows lit up with the portal that was most likely bringing more Purple Dragons into this dimension.

 “Where are you planning on going?” Umber asked.

“Tio Hueso says that his restaurant is connected to the world through different points. One of those points is in New York City, and it’s the closest place I can think of to get into the Run of the Mill and to Leon.” Russet answered.

 “Who were those people?” Gigi asked.

“Do you remember when Dad brought us home?” Umber asked her.

 “Yeah? You guys were really sad and he made you feel better.” Gigi nodded, “Yes, I remember.”

“Those were the guys that made our lives a living hell before Dad helped us.”

 “You said a bad word.” Rara smiled, somewhat oblivious to the high strung emotions in the car right now.

 “Dad said we can use bad words if we really mean them.” Umber told him, “Just… don’t repeat that.”

 “If those guys attacked you in your home dimension-” Rosa started, but was interrupted by Umber.

“Not our home anymore.”

 “Fine. Your first dimension. If they were your problem there, how did they find a way through the barrier to the portal room?” Rosa asked, snapping her teeth at Umber in mock anger.

 “They must have found and used the place where Umber first broke through. Maybe they used something Mauve made? I know Hun’s using his stuff for sure.” Russet sighed, “But that’s the closest thing I can come up with.”

 “The filthy, good-for-nothings are still using Mauve’s tech?” Umber hissed, digging his claws into the upholstery of the back seat.

 “Yeah, and it hurts too. These bruises are gonna be epic.” Russet grunted, waving a hand at his arms.

 “Focus on the road doofus!” Rosa laughed, punching one of those slowly appearing bruises.

“OW!” 

 “Sorry, sorry, STOP SWERVING!” Rosa yelled as Russet laughed.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Gigi groaned in the far back seat, a hand over her mouth.

 “Alright, alright, I’ll stop.” Russet smiled, letting out a breathy laugh as he refocused his attention on the streets that were slowly filling up with traffic.

 They made it to the human version of the Run of the Mill and Russet ushered them all through the doors, freezing when he heard Leon’s voice.

 “Russet?”

Chapter Text

 Mikey strolled through the portal with Lillac at his side and froze.

There were people in his home.

 Like, actual human people, not the lively bunch of turtles he adopted.

Mikey was almost tempted to step back through the portal and say ‘whoops, wrong house,’ but this was the right house.

 Right?

“I thought you said you lived with people like us.” Lillac said, giving Mikey an accusatory look, “Not humans.”

 “Yeah, I thought that too, but I don’t know these people, and I left Russet in charge. I don’t know what’s going on.” Mikey sighed, looking around from the crack of the portal room doorway and watching as a couple guys in purple jackets walked past.

 “Are you trying to lead me into an ambush?” Lillac hissed, “I’ll have you know that I know how to get out of any situation you try to put me in.”

 “Why would I- No, Lillac, I don’t know what’s going on.” Mikey whispered, “And we need to get back through the portal to go get Leon from the Run of the Mill.”

 “Uh… There may be an issue with the proposed plan.” Lillac said, facing the portal that Mikey hadn’t gotten to close yet.

 He turned around and frowned.

The portal was tinted a different color, not the light blue it usually was, and he could see through it to a place he had never seen before.

 He could hear faint voices from the other side.

“Do you think we’ll need the rocket launchers?” 

 “No, we have enough firepower without them. But… we should keep these gravity alterers that that stupidly naive turtle freak made for us.” Mikey shuddered at hearing the familiar voice, even if it sounded a little bit different.

 “You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Hun.” the first voice teased 

“Oh, yes, my apologies to the genius, his gifts furthered us into this new dimension! How could I ever speak ill of his sacrifice.”

 Mikey bit his tongue and tried to make Lillac step away from the portal, but she seemed determined to walk through.

 “What are you doing?” Mikey hissed, grabbing her arm tightly and forcibly pulling her to the other side of the room.

 “I want to see what they’re talking about!” Lillac hissed back, glaring daggers at him, even if he was doing this for her own safety.

“No!” Mikey whisper-shouted, “I know who that is and I think I know what he’s done, we need to find Russet and the others. They’re in danger.”

 “This explanation is adequate enough to prevent me from meeting the human on the other side of the portal.” Lillac sighed, her struggles waning, “I wish to prevent the death of any more turtles.”

 Any more?

They looked back through the door and Mikey nodded at Lillac, pulling her behind him and through the temporarily empty kitchen and living room.

 “Where are we going?” Lillac asked as she ran after him.

“Outside.” Mikey whispered, opening the garage door and sighing.

 There were no unknown people out there, but there was no car where he had parked it the night before and there were crates and boxes he knew for a fact he didn’t put there.

 “Come on, hurry. I don’t know where they all went and I don’t know how long they’ll be gone for.” Mikey said, tugging open the door to the backyard that was blocked by a couple boxes.

 The action made the box on top of the stack topple off and crash against the concrete.

“Shit.” Mikey cursed, quickly trying to shove all the twisted bits of metal that fell out of the box back inside and set it back on top of the stack.

 “Mikey, we need to go- I can hear approaching footsteps.” Lillac whispered, kneeling to pick up the metal, but paused, “Wait, these are… these are metal cast offs from creating an interdimensional portal.”

 Mikey hummed in response, grabbing Lillac’s arm again and pulling her out into the backyard and into the woods beyond.

 He closed his eyes and felt for a spot that made his chi rise to the surface.

“Y-you’re glowing!” Lillac cried, finally wrestling her arm out of Mikey’s hand, “You did not inform me that you are proficient in mystic arts!”

 “Again with the mystic crap.” Mikey sighed, stopping in front of the trunk of a large tree, “Here, don’t move.”

 He pulled out a piece of chalk and started sketching the runes for a doorway. It opened after a moment and Mikey grinned.

 He stepped through with Lillac close behind and started walking through the now empty streets of the market square he frequented.

 “You have a lot of explaining to do, old man.” Lillac growled, almost under her breath, but loud enough for him to hear.

 “What do I need to explain?” Mikey asked, his mind a little more preoccupied with navigating the winding streets of the Hidden City than arguing with the angry purple turtle.

 “Your mystics! And those humans in your house, and where the rest of the turtles you promised you were raising are!” Lillac cried.

 “Russet is probably at the restaurant where my oldest son works with the rest of the kids. It makes the most sense and my car is gone, so he must have driven to get away from the humans.” Mikey said.

 “Who were they? You said you knew.”

“Your memory is impeccable.”

 “Thank you. I was designed this way.” Lillac said, smiling softly for a moment before her features hardened and she glared at him again, “Now answer me.”

 “Those were the Purple Dragons that killed Umber and Russet’s brothers and father. I also knew them in my dimension, and they did their best to tear my family apart as well when we were younger.” Mikey sighed, motioning for Lillac to turn down another footpath, “The Dragons must have used one of Mauve’s pieces of tech to get here. The place the portal was at… looked like where I pulled the two boys through before.”

 “Are you theorizing that these “Purple Dragons” used the mystic traces of previous interdimensional travel to reach this dimension through basically stolen technology?”

 “Pretty much. And if they can get through, that means… everything else can.” Mikey sighed.

“You did not answer me about your mystic abilities. They are quite flashy, but I can tell it is not for show.”

 “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It was not meant to be, but if you take it that way, you may.”

 “Hm. Well, I’ve never really thought about it. If I try hard enough I can usually tell where places hold a lot of chi- mystic energy. I am also stronger, faster, and I can think better on my feet. It’s also a lot easier to access my mystic core here than in my dimension. We had to use special amulets to even activate our powers back in my original dimension.”

 Lillac hummed in acknowledgment, and Mikey caught a gleam in her eye that told him that she was scheming something.

 “What?”

“You are quite fascinating. I have had very rare samples of mutant DNA to test, and I would love to take a sample from you.” She said, her smile showing a little too many of her sharp teeth.

 “No.” Mikey said.

“But-”

 “Lillac.”

She huffed and ducked her head.

 “As you wish. I will refrain from letting my curiosity get the better of me in the future.”

Someone’s hurt this kid, and if I had the time I would hunt them down and slaughter them, but I’ve got nine other children to think about right now.

 Revenge will just have to wait until we rid our home of some pests.

Mikey frowned, but he couldn’t say anything, since they were coming up onto the outskirts of the city and thus, getting close to Huseo’s.

 “Here we are. The Run of the Mill.” Mikey said, a small smile tugging at his lips, “Who knows what we’ll find in here.”

 “Hopefully the rest of the turtles you promised.” Lillac snapped.

“Why are you so caught up on that?” Mikey asked.

 “It is none of your concern.” Lillac shrugged. She crossed her arms and turned her head.

Mikey sighed and pushed open the door, expecting to see a semi full restaurant and not a completely empty and dark one.

 “Hueso?” Mikey called, flicking on a light and looking around. There were no apparent bloodstains, but there was no skeleton man or turtles either, “Hueso, where are you?”

 He walked to the back of the shop where the stairs to Hueso’s home were and climbed them, knocking when he got to Hueso’s door.

 There was a muffled “come in!” and he let himself inside. Lillac slipped in behind him, her fingers tapping nervously on the screen of her wrist computer thing.

 “Pops!” Russet yelled, Jumping up and wrapping bruised arms around Mikey’s neck.

“Hey bud, what happened?” Mikey asked.

 “It appears that your stationary portal has been portal-jacked.” Hueso sighed from his spot on the couch with Lee and Dee sitting next to him as he read them a book in spanish.

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do, so I left and took the car and got everyone here because I knew I couldn't fight with the bitties in the house and I was already too overpowered with just one guy-” Russet stammered, his face pressed into the crook of Mikey’s neck.

 “Hey, you did great, Russ. You got everyone out unharmed and relatively non traumatized.” Mikey chuckled, patting the back of Russet’s head. 

 “Thanks Pops.” Russet sniffed, letting the other turtle go and wiping his eyes.

“Also, what do you mean ‘relatively non traumatized’?” Umber asked from where he was sitting on the floor, leaning against Leon’s shoulder, “I am very traumatized.”

 “Huh?” Mikey said, detecting the note of sarcasm in Umber’s voice, but not knowing specifically what he was sarcastic about.

 “Yes, Russet’s driving was the most traumatic experience I have ever experienced.” Rosa piped up from her spot laying face down on the floor with Gigi laying across her battle shell, probably because the thing was heated.

 “Guys… it wasn’t that bad.” Russet protested, “Was it?”

“I think we almost died, like, six times.” Rara said, grinning a little as he spoke up.

 Everyone in the room burst into laughter and Mikey grinned.

Sure, maybe they’ve all been through a lot, but I’m happy that they can all at least smile a bit longer. God knows how hard it can get sometimes.

 I just hope my kiddos can stay kids for a little longer.

“Daddy, who’s that behind you?” Allie asked, pointing Lillac from her seat in Leon’s lap.

 Mikey blinked and suddenly realized that he hadn’t introduced Lillac to them yet.

“Oh, everyone, this is Lillac, temporary number ten until she decides she’s had enough of us!” Mikey said, gently grabbing Lillac’s hand and pulling her out of the safety of his shadow, “Say hi!”

 “Hi!” The twins cried at the same time.

Umber and Rara waved timidly while Gigi chirped in excitement.

 “New sister!” Rosa smiled, grinning at Allie, who was grinning just as wide back.

“Hello.” Leon waved.

 “Is she older than me too?” Russet asked hopefully.

“Another one?!” Hueso yelped, “How do you- I thought you said no more!”

 “Well uh…” Mikey smiled sheepishly at Lillac, who was pretty much frozen under all of the attention, like she was unused to being noticed in a positive way, “Yeah, it seems I lied.”

Chapter Text

 It had been a busy couple of days and Lillac was starting to feel her lack of sleep.

She usually couldn’t sleep in a new place.

 Or with all the sounds that seemed to fill the small temporary home the turtles had moved to.

Or… alone really.

 Lillac’s own research and testing of her sleeping habits had shown that she slept leagues better with another kind presence around.

 And it had been years since the last time she had one of those.

So Lillac was condemned to a struggle to sleep until she got over this inadequacy, or gave in and asked one of the other turtles that she was currently living with for help.

 But… I hate asking for help. It means that I cannot accomplish a task independently and I am a failure. Asking for help is a weakness.

 Even without taking the lack of sleep into account, Lillac wasn’t sure she liked it here.

Everyone here was all so kind and loud and they all had too much energy. Except for Mikey, who looked even more tired than Lillac felt.

 And there was the feeling like she didn’t belong. She didn’t feel like she fit in, even though she was like the older four turtles in coming from different dimensions and timelines.

 Lillac had been raised differently, it seems.

None of the bitties, as Russet called them, were scared of messing up and getting hit. They played and fell and Mikey or Leon were usually there to pick them up again. Any scars they had were on their knees from scuffing them against concrete sidewalks when they tumbled around.

 Umber and Russet seemed a little shy, but neither of them were scared of how Mikey might think of them because they had inadvertently brought an enemy into their home. Their scars were small, save for a few big ones that Lillac recognized as coming from combat, not ‘training’.

 Rosa was never afraid to speak her mind and her confidence was strong and steady. Lillac envied her ability to say what was going through her head and not be reprimanded harshly for saying it. Her injuries were still healing, but those all seemed to be from clumsiness and carelessness while fighting.

 The only turtles Lillac couldn’t quite figure out were Leon and Mikey.

Mikey was just more difficult because he was older. He was obviously a parent and he didn’t let his past experiences get in the way of his care for his children and their lives.

 But Leon… he was older, true, but he wasn’t that much older. He was loud and rambunctious, and he made corny jokes about anything and everything, but he was quiet sometimes too.

 And all the scars he had made Lillac curious about what he had lived through, because they looked so similar to her own.

 Both from the battle field and from brutal training. Maybe less so from training on Leon’s part, but Lillac wasn’t sure. She would love to ask him to get every bit of information from the red-eared slider that she could, but she had promised Mikey that she would keep her curiosity in check.

 Even if it hurt to do so.

Lillac sighed and tucked her knees to her plastron, tracing a raised scar on her arm with a gentle finger, remembering how she got it.

 Her father, her creator, Baron Draxum was not a very nice yokai, but for a good portion of her life, he had been the only living thing she had met until her version of these loud turtles came along.

 Lillac had been helping in the lab when they were created, and she had overseen their early life care before Draxum had taken her off of the assignment. Before he had though, she slept far better than she ever had.

 He said she had ‘grown attachments’ to the delightful little babies, and when she had openly defended herself for the first time, he had punished her using one of his mystic vines like a whip, causing the wound that was so deep that it was still a scar, years later.

 Lillac never saw her little turtles alive again, but sometimes she would hear their cries from her prison-like room.

 Then one day, while she was looking through some of her father’s notes, long after the cries had gone silent, she found the notes on the little turtles and their… deaths.

 Lillac had earned another scar that day, but she couldn’t remember what she did specifically to make the Baron angry.

 “Hey kid, do you need anything?” Leon asked from the cracked door, even though everybody else had gone to sleep a long time ago.

 “I’m not a kid.” Lillac said quietly.

“You’re younger than me, thus, a kid.” Leon smiled, stepping inside and closing the door behind himself.

 “I have not been a kid in a very long time, Leon.” Lillac sighed, leaning back against the wall, subtly distancing herself from the other turtle.

 “Wanna tell me about it?” He asked, sitting in the chair to her makeshift desk.

Lillac closed her eyes and bit her tongue. She really wanted something, and she knew she could use what Leon didn’t know to blackmail him.

 But doing that to another turtle, to one that looked so similarly to one of her baby siblings… she couldn’t.

 “I get it if you don’t want to talk, but I noticed that you’ve been pulling away and you look down right exhausted-”

 “Would I get in trouble for asking for a DNA sample from you?” Lillac blurted, immediately regretting it when Leon’s head snapped up and he met her eyes. She desperately tried to look anywhere else, but she needed to try to discern what he was feeling. 

 How he was reacting.

Leon’s face was flipping through emotions faster than Lillac could catch, finally landing on polite curiosity.

“I mean… no?” He said at last. Leon shrugged, “Like, My brother’s taken samples from me to try to prove that we weren’t twins… but I was right in the end.”

 “Did you have siblings in your dimension of origin?” Lillac asked, leaning forward, “What did it feel like? Were you all the same species? If not, how can you be twins if you’re not the same species?”

 “Hold on, slow down,” Leon said, forcing a fake chuckle, “I uh- That’s a lot of questions at once and… Uh-”

 “Do you need me to write them down?” Lillac asked, tilting her head and trying to fire out what Leon was doing with his face. He looked like he was trying not to cry, but she couldn’t be sure.

 “No.” He sighed, swiping his hand across his face for no apparent reason, “Look, you wouldn’t get in trouble for asking or taking DNA samples from all of the older turtles. It can only be used for good, no clones or anything, and uh- you’ll have to ask Dad- Mikey to take anything from the bitties, they are legally his kids and you’ll need his permission.”

 Lillac nodded.

“You still haven’t told me what’s bothering you.” Leon smiled, and Lillac could tell very acutely that he was changing the subject.

 “Nothing is bothering me at the moment.” Lillac answered, showing him a toothy grin that glimmered in the dim light of the night as she got up to riffle through her supplies for her kit.

 “You’re still exhausted and even if you’re excited now, you’ll just be closed-off in the morning.” Leon sighed, reaching out and grabbing her arm gently. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough pressure to make her focus.

 “My plans do not require me to stay for long. I plan to reconstruct a portal machine to get me back to my home dimension once I have analyzed the DNA I can collect.” Lillac shrugged, “ I have no reason to get close.”

 Besides, I don’t want to get hurt for being attached to any more little turtles that I’ll have to leave again. I do not want Father to hurt this family, these already hurt turtles. 

 “Why do you need to go back?” Leon asked.

“Because Father, the one you may know as Baron Draxum, will ‘miss’ me, and he will do anything to get his ‘little loyal lab assistant’ back.” Lillac hissed the last part out through clenched teeth.

 “How will he get here?” Leon asked.

“He could come through the portal I created. I faintly recall it being damaged when I activated it, only due to the mechanics not being stable enough to contain the power output.” Lillac said, “It would take a very long time for it to be repaired, but Father will find a way. He’s done so before when I have escaped in the past.”

 “We’ll protect you here.” Leon said sadly, “Dad can be scary protective when he wants to be… and I don’t want you going back.”

 “You do not control me.” Lillac argued.

“No, but I want to help you. I’ve seen your scars, how you hold yourself- the way you were raised is not right. You were abused, and I don’t want you to go back to that. I want you to at least try to be able to be a kid with someone to protect you.” Leon said, standing and holding her shoulders so that she had no choice but to look at her. 

 He was still gentle though, and she didn’t hurt. 

“If I do not leave you will all come to harm.” Lillac said quietly. 

 “I have a feeling that we’ll have to deal with a lot more than a vengeful Barry.” Leon sighed. He let her shoulders go and she took a quick step back. Leon didn’t look angry anymore, but she’d rather not take chances.

 “Can I… still get some DNA?” Lillac whispered and Leon gave her a small smile.

“Sure, but you’ll have to sleep afterwards.”

 She nodded excitedly and sat him down, taking out a tongue depressor.

“Alright, open up!”

 Maybe tonight she'll sleep well.

Maybe… She’ll learn to like it here, with the little turtles that reminded her so much of her own and the kind people that were willing to take care of her.

Chapter Text

Mikey knew that the kids were not aware that the Purple Dragons were still hunting them, otherwise he would have told them sooner that this little ‘vacation’ to a remote island in the Thousands Islands area of upstate New York was just him getting them out of the city to protect them.

 ‘You must inform them. I cannot keep stalling. They’ve ransacked my restaurant and I was only able to get my nephew out moments before they broke through the doors.’ Hueso said through the phone.

 “Is he ok?” Mikey asked, pacing back and forth on the patio of the cabin house he had… ‘borrowed’ from the government.

 ‘He is uninjured, and living with some old family friends. I have cleaned every trace of you being in my life to protect you, but these humans know I know something.’

 “You should have come with us, I should have thought of you-”

‘You have ten children to keep track of. I am one adult skeleton. You need not worry about me. I can take care of myself.’ Hueso reassured him.

 Mikey sighed deeply and dragged a hand down his face.

“Yeah, I know. I still care about you though and I’d hate to have something happen to you because of me and those Purple Dragon fools.” 

 ‘You sound as if you’ve dealt with them before.’ Hueso chuckled.

“In my younger years, I did, and it didn’t end well so many times. I’m not sure how different these guys are to my original version, and I don’t know enough about them to beat them yet.” Mikey sighed again, “And I’m not asking Russet or Umber about it. The little they’ve told me is that the guys are ruthless and basically systematically eliminated their brothers and father.”

 ‘How did they do that?’ Hueso asked.

“By using technology that they made their brother make for them under the guise that the kid was making things to help people.” Mikey growled, his teeth gritting together.

 ‘That is foul.’ Hueso hissed, and Mikey could hear the clear tone of anger in his voice that he was obviously trying to dull for Mikey’s sake.

 “Yeah… and I know it’s only a matter of time before they find us up here.” Mikey sighed, the wave of anger in his chest crashing as quickly as it had come, “I’ll let you go now. Try to make your way out of the restaurant soon and we’ll find you.”

 ‘Goodbye Mikelangelo. Stay safe.’ Heuso said, hanging up on the turtle, leaving Mikey alone with his own thoughts.

 A small tear slipped from his eyes and he quickly brushed it away, turning to head back inside.

As he did, he heard a quiet rustling of leaves behind him and that was the only warning he had before a loud bang went off and he was knocked off his feet by an impact hitting his shell.

 Mikey quickly rolled onto his shell to meet his attacker, but was faced with a couple more bullets screaming past his face.

 He got to his feet and ran for cover, flipping a patio couch up and ducking behind it. Mikey quickly peeked around his makeshift barrier, ducking back with a gasp as a bullet sliced across his snout.

His hand flew to his face and he winced as blood covered his hand, but he had at least gotten a good look at the gunman.

 He was dressed in dark green fatigues, making him able to blend into the surrounding foliage, but the sun glinted off his sunglasses, letting Mikey know exactly where he was.

 He thinks he’s got me pinned.

Cocky amatur.

 Mikey smiled as he crawled to the other end of the couch and very quickly peeked around, took aim, and threw a shuriken at the gunman, not waiting for the resulting gasp of pain before he was up and sprinting into the house.

 “Kids, pack up, we’re leaving!” Mikey shouted, barging into the living room and interrupting the movie marathon that had been going on.

[~+~]

 Leon should learn to expect anything and everything from his adoptive father.

Mikey had come running into the living room with blood running down his face, shouting about having to leave.

 His sudden appearance had startled Leon into action, grabbing the bitties and running to the dock and the boat they had rode in on. Russet and Umber went into the two rooms the kids shared and started grabbing things and shoving them into the bags Senior Hueso had given them. 

 Lillac stood frozen as Rosa attempted to pull her out of the chaos.

“Leon, she’s not moving!” Rosa shouted as Leon ran back into the cottage.

 Leon sighed and grabbed the purple turtle around the waist and picked her up, practically carrying her outside.

 Allie grabbed onto Lillac’s hand and tried talking to her to bring her out of the daze she was obviously experiencing. 

 “Leon, are we ready?” Mikey asked once all the turtles were in the boat.

“Yes captain!” Leon said with a goofy grin on his face, but it quickly slid off as he noticed the men slowly stalking through the place they had been staying in for a couple days.

 “Good. Hang on.” Mikey growled, piloting the boat out into the river, heading to the distant shore of the mainland.

 They all ducked, the older set of turtles doing their best to shield the younger ones, as loud bangs went off from the island and small splashes told Leon that they were being shot at.

 “Papa? What’s going on?” Dee asked, looking out at the water racing past, his voice almost lost over the roar of the engines.

 The little twins were being held tightly by Umber, who still had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

 “A fun boat ride.” Dad smiled, but Leon could tell that he was just faking. Staying strong so that the Bitties weren’t scared.

 “Why did we have to leave our place of residence?” Lillac asked, saying the first thing since the ride started.

 “It was only temporary.” Mikey sighed, “We just needed to move.”

“Does your face hurt?” Rosa asked, raising an eyebrow ridge.

 “Rosa…” Dad groaned, “I was trying to ignore it, thanks.”

They fell silent after that, the engines of the boat filling the quiet.

 The shore came into view and Leon almost let himself smile until he realized that the people that were milling around weren’t tourists.

 “Purple Dragons.” Russet growled, his hands clenched into fists.

“Russ-” Rose started, but was cut off by her own yelp as Umber started glowing.

 “Boys, stay calm.” Dad said, steering the boat away while the sound of rockets being launched followed them.

 The water splashed up, hot and full of debris, as the missiles missed, and the shrapnel cut into their scales.

 “We can’t keep running.” Leon said. Mikey nodded, and grit his teeth as he avoided another missile.

 “You sound like you have a plan.” Lillac said.

“I do.” Leon grinned, “Dad- you keep the Bitties on the boat. Russet, Umber, I’ll teleport you onto the shore and you attack from behind. Rosa, Lillac, I’ll get you further down the shore and you guys have to find a good vehicle. I’ll be a distraction with the frontal assault.” 

 They all nodded and Leon narrowed his eyes, creating three different portals at the same time, each set of turtles jumping through their respective wormholes.

 Leon opened his eyes fully as he jumped through, brandishing his katana with a scary smile on his face.

 “Hello boys, you messed with the wrong family.” He hissed, sending the cowardly humans running.

Leon didn’t particularly like hurting humans, he always reminded himself that they all usually had families and people that cared about them, but he also had people he cared about.

 They were at the same level as the kraang had been, in his mind.

And as he cut down each man, he couldn’t help but slip back in time, seeing the pink monsters instead of normal people.

 At least these guys are easy to kill.

His rampage was stopped when his blade met another.

 “You are very skilled.” The other swordsman complimented.

Leon narrowed his eyes and lifted his blade away and took a step back. He… may need a new plan now.

 The man in front of him was blonde, and his eyes were small. He had a heavy build and Leon could tell that he knew how to fight, both with his hands and a weapon.

 Leon wouldn’t beat him through brute force, but he might be able to win through strategic planning.

The man wasn’t wearing any armor, and he didn’t have Leon’s natural defence of a shell.

 Which means I can get close and cut deep, hopefully without severe injury on my behalf.

Leon bared his teeth and took a couple quick steps forward, ducking under the man’s arm and cutting deep into his side.

 Well, that’s what he tried to do, except his blade glanced off his clothes like they were steel.

“Huh?” Leon breathed, looking down at his katana to make sure the actual blade was still there, “What-”

 “Forcefield.” The man grinned, “And now it’s my turn.”

He swept the blade low, forcing Leon to jump back to avoid losing his feet, and then jabbed, making Leon step back further.

 Leon made a portal and appeared behind the man, but he was already turning to face him head on, their blades clashing as Leon blocked the attack that would have cleaved him in two.

 His arms shook from the strain and he ducked out of the standoff, trying to slice at the man’s ankles, and once again his blade bounced off the man’s skin.

 This time though, he could see the slight purple of the forcefield as it deflected his attack.

Maybe all I need to do is overheat the barrier.

 He smirked slightly to himself and went in to attack again, trying to hit the same spot multiple times, and with each hit the purple got brighter and more visible.

 The man was also starting to tire, but Leon was too, aching from the multiple deep cuts on his arms that he hadn’t been quick enough to dodge.

 “Just. give. UP.” The man hissed as their blades met again, the loud clash eching through the parking lot that had been previously filled with Purple Dragon members.

 Where are Russet and Umber? 

I mean, I can totally keep this up, but I’d like the backup.

 “Never.” Leon bit out, once more ducking out of the hold, hitting the forcefield one more time, letting himself feel a little proud as it went dark purple… before letting out a huge shockwave through his blade and body, sending him stumbling backwards with swimming vision and shaking legs.

 He saw the man run forward through the stars in his eyes, and raised his blade to meet the one falling down on him, but the onslaught was too strong and Leon was too disoriented, and he didn’t raise his katana soon enough.

 The sword was kicked out of his hands and it landed out of his sight.

Leon gasped in pain as he felt the blade grate harshly on his plastron, cutting deep enough to bleed.

 His heart pounded as the sharp metal cut deeper and deeper, and he could only imagine it going into his ribs and-

 “Get away from my son!” A roar of fury broke through the buzz in Leon’s ears that he wasn’t aware of.

 The blade was gone, leaving him gasping for air and feebly trying to steam the blood flowing from his chest.

 A hand took his own, while another pressed down on his plastron.

A wave of agony came of the action and he passed out.

Chapter Text

 Mikey gritted his teeth as he continued blocking strikes from the leader of the Purple Dragons using Leon’s katana, providing cover for Lillac and Russet to get Leon out of there.

 “Your son, eh?” Hun smirked, “well, he put up a good fight. Obviously, as I can see where he learned it from.”

 “Leave me and my kids alone.” Mikey hissed, “We have no quarrel with you.”

“And I you, but,” Hun spun, trying to trip Mikey up, “I’m looking for two turtles, one with a color similar to your bandana and a red one.”

 He’s talking about Umber and Russet.

“Why?” He hated how he almost sounded like a pitiful child when he said it.

 “Because they stole my chance of victory against their bloodline.” Hun growled, “They survived and I can’t have that.”

 “Are you scared that letting two teens live will ruin your reputation?” Mikey said in a mocking tone.

Hun growled and their blades clashed, sending waves of pain up Mikey’s arms.

 “Look around, bud, you’re in a different dimension. Nobody here knows of you or about you, and your ‘reputation’ doesn’t matter.” Mikey hissed, “You have this one chance to pack up your dead, take your toys, and leave my world before you join the worms.”

 They stepped apart from each other, Hun breathing heavily as purple ricocheted around his form from the impacts Mikey and Leon had made on the forcefield.

 From what he had seen, the barrier collected the energy and then redistributed it back at the attacker. The more times it’s hit, the worse the shockwave will be.

 I think I’ve seen this in a movie before.

But the thing was starting to get overloaded, and Mikey could feel small tremors under his feet from the field discharging into the ground with every heavy footfall of the monster of a man in front of him.

 It’s broken.

 Mikey could see the conflict going on behind Hun’s eyes and he hoped against hope that the man would take his suggestion and leave.

 I really want to go home, and I need to make sure Leon is ok.

“Dad!” Russet shouted, running back from the van where he had probably stashed Leon with the other young turtles.

 Shit, Russ, wrong timing!

“Ah, it appears that my quarry is here.” Hun grinned, the evil in the man winning out. 

 The blonde tried to step toward the snapper running up to the two duelers, but Mikey quickly blocked him.

 “You want him? You have to get to me first.” Mikey said, his voice low and threatening.

Hun bared his teeth and lunged, the two blades crashing against each other once more, making Russet let out a small yelp and jump back.

 Mikey scored another good hit and steeled himself against the shockwave that followed, jumping forward immediately afterward and stabbing through the weak shield and into the human cowering behind it.

 Hun gasped, and fell to his knees, the blade in his own raised hand falling to the ground with a clatter.

 Mikey pulled the katana out, wiping it on the fabric of his pants and turning away from the dead man.

 “Dad?” Russet breathed, his eyes wide.

“Is Leon ok?” That was Mikey’s number one priority at the moment, and he felt a little better when Russet nodded.

 “He’s not in the best shape, but Lillac is looking over him. He hasn’t woken up yet, but she says it’ll be a bit, which she also says is a good thing.” Russet said, leading Mikey back to the van, “And Allie is inconsolable, but Rosa and Gigi are trying so hard to help.”

 Mikey nodded, he could already hear Allie’s wails from outside the van.

“We don’t need to go anywhere in a hurry, so we’ll stay for a little while longer before heading home.” Mikey said, pulling open the door and wincing at the strong smell of blood and Allie’s tears.

 “Oh thank the maker.” Rosa breathed, holding the crying child out towards Mikey, who willingly took her in his arms, cooing comfortingly.

 “Le-leon!” She cried into Mikey’s scales, her cries interlaced with watery chirps, “Leon’s hurt!”

“I have already told you that Leon will make a full recovery!” Lillac called from the back of the van.

“He won’t wake up!” Allie sobbed.

“Leon’s just tired, he needs to rest, like when you got sick.” Mikey said, “You didn’t like getting woken up then, so we need to leave Leon alone for now.” 

Allie hiccuped and nodded, her hands still balled tightly into Mikey’s sweatshirt.

“How did you-” Rosa gasped, but she broke off as Gigi flopped against her side, the little twins curled up in the little orange turtle’s arms, “Sleepy?”

Gigi nodded and Mikey huffed a laugh.

“Dad, your face is still bleeding.” Umber pointed out, Rara cradled in his arms, the younger turtle blinking sleepily out the window.

 Mikey blinked, the awareness of his own fatigue and pain hitting him with full force, “Oh.”

He was quickly ushered into the van and the door was closed, and he finally let himself close his eyes and rest for a moment.

 Today was stressful, but at least it’s over.

A loud boom suddenly rattled the glass windows and Mikey groaned. He shouldn't have jinxed it.

 “Give me a goddamn break!”

[~+~]

Leon grumbled as he opened his eyes, sitting up in the swaying grass he had obviously fallen asleep in.

 Which… was odd, because Allie would never let him take a nap and Dee would adamantly remind him that he could still get a sunburn, even if he was a turtle.

 And he also seemed to be alone, which was odd because Mikey protested to even letting him work out of the house, and he would have never stood to leave Leon behind anywhere.

 Did… did they forget him?

He got to his feet, and looked around. There were trees at the far edges of the clearing, the grass was a pleasant length and the tips were swaying in the gentle breeze.

 It wasn’t a place Leon remembered ever visiting before, that’s one thing.

And he was very, very alone.

 It reminded him of that time years ago when he had been the last one for a second before Mikey had saved him.

 Leon shivered and sat back in the grass, grabbing his arms tight to try and fight off the unpleasant memories.

 “Oh, hi!” A young voice chirped and Leon was sharply reminded of how Allie sounded.

“Uhh-” Leon blinked at the sudden appearance of a transparent young turtle standing in front of him, grinning.

 “Who are you? You’re a turtle like my dad and my aunt and my uncles, but you’re also younger, like my brothers. But you’re not my brother, that’s for sure.” The ghost mused, taking Leon’s face in her hands before he could protest, “but you do look a bit like Moon… hmmm. Well, let’s get you to the others!”

 Leon yelped as the ghost pulled him to his feet using strength she didn’t look like she had.

“W-wait, where are we going?!” He cried, yelping as his foot caught on a rock hidden in the grass, tripping and rolling forward.

 “Sunny, what are you doing?” An older voice asked, and Leon was pulled off the ground and set back on his feet, “You alight kid? She doesn’t know her strength sometimes.”

 Leon blinked when he got a good look at the man that had helped him up.

He looked achingly similar to Mikey, but with a purple bandana instead of orange and he was wearing an overcoat over his overalls and there was a bo staff peaking over his shoulder.

 Behind him stood three more turtles, all adults that shared characteristics with Mikey.

“Uh, kid? You alright?” The purple turtle asked.

 “Who are all of you?” Leon asked, fiddling with the scarf around his neck once he had been freed from the purple turtle’s hands. 

“I’m Donatello, and this is my daughter Sunny.” Donatello said, smiling softly and taking Leon’s shoulder again.

 “I’m Leonardo, that’s Raphael, and that’s Rosalnd.” The blue banded turtle said, walking forward to shake Leon’s hand, “And you are?”

 “My name’s Leon and… I- I’m confused. I was just with my dad and- I think he may have left me behind or something?” Leon stammered, quickly letting go of Leonardo’s hand and running his scarf through his fingers again anxiously.

 “Who’s your dad, kid?” The red turtle, Raphael, asked.

“His name’s Mikey, and I don’t know why he would have left me, I mean, I was trying to fight off a guy that wanted to hurt my younger siblings, and I think he was there-”

 “Hey, calm down Sweetie.” Rosland smiled, stepping forward and taking his hands, her yellow mask reminding him of Rosa’s, “From what I remember Mikey being, he doesn't leave people he cares about. But…” She glanced to Leonardo for support, “You are either dead or seriously hurt. This is basically the afterlife.”

 Raphael smacked her, making Leon wince.

“You couldn’t have phrased that any differently? He’s already lost.” Donatello sighed.

 “Being newly dead isn’t that bad.” Sunny shrugged, “Just kinda weird.”

“I’m not dead.” Leon frowned, his brows furrowed, “This isn’t what happens when you die.”

 He… wasn’t sure where that had come from, but he knew it to be true. 

“Huh?”

 “You said ‘seriously injured’- I think… that’s what happened to me.” Leon sighed, “I’m not dead, because Allie would never let me go.”

 “Who’s Allie?” Rosalnd asked.

“My little sister.” Leon smiled.

 “I have a little cousin?” Sunny grinned, grabbing Leon’s hand where Rosalnd had dropped them.

“Actually, you have… ten? At least, that’s how many kids Dad’s adopted.” Leon shrugged.

 “What.” Raphael said, his blink basically audible, “I can hardly handle six and I have somebody helping me.”

 “I can hardly handle four and I have a whole other family helping me.” Donatello gasped, rolling his eyes at Sunny’s offended face.

 “I mean, Dad’s got me and Lillac now to help out with the Bitties, and we’ve got Senior Hueso whenever Dad’s working late shifts or I’m going to school so…” Leon shrugged, “We make it work.”

 “Figures, the most chaotic one gets the biggest brood.” Raphael muttered to Leonardo, grinning as Leonardo rolled his eyes in exasperation.

 “Anyway, it was nice meeting a small part of the rest of my family, but I need to go back.” Leon said, starting to turn away, but Rosalnd caught his shoulder.

 “You can’t leave, not by yourself, not yet. You have to be called back.” She sighed, “Believe me, I’ve had enough alone time with these idiots.”

 “Have you… even tried?” Leon asked.

He needed to get back, he had a feeling that things were about to go wrong and he needed to be alive for it.

 Leon refused to be late to the fight ever again.

“Only a couple times, but yes.” Donatello sighed, “The only one that can freely leave is Sunny, and she can only go back to my dimension.”

 “You can’t stop me.” Leon said with resignation. 

Spiritual barriers be damned, he was going home.

 He fully turned, tugging his hand out of Rosalnd’s grip, and walked into the woods that appeared much closer than they had on first inspection.

 “Remind you of somebody?” One of the adults muttered to the other.

“Only a little.” Another answered.

 Leon scoffed and rolled his eyes, choosing to ignore the adults and focusing on the task at hand.

Getting home.

 He only seemed to walk for a little bit, but each step brought him further into the fog that was starting to wind through the trees.

 The fog was cold, and he shivered, but it was also welcoming, beckoning him forward, back to where he wanted to go.

 It was similar to how his portals felt, just… spread thinner.

But he knew that he was going back to the people that needed him the most.

Chapter Text

 Gigi could feel the emotions of everybody around her explode when the world around the van did.

It hurt her head and there was too much.

 She closed her eyes and hugged the twins to her plastron as tight as they would let her, biting her tongue to stop it all from crashing down on her.

 Rosa’s arms were around her shoulder, the feeling suffocating and grounding at the same time.

“Gigi?” Rosa whispered, her voice too loud and quiet at the same time.

 Gigi just wanted it to all just stop.

For every emotion and feeling to be small and manageable, for it all to go away.

 I don’t want to feel anything anymore, I want it all to be ok, I want. It. To. Stop.

And it did.

 The waves crashing down on her stilled, brushing off her scales like gentle butterfly wings.

“Mikey, I don’t think Gigi’s ok!” Rosa shouted, her claws pricking at Gigi’s scales

 “None of us are ok!” Umber yelled back, squeezing back against the side of the van as Russet climbed over into the front seat and stepped on the gas pedal.

 “W-what’s happening?” Gigi squeaked, wincing as the feeling of her peaceful butterflies disappeared, but everything didn’t feel like too much anymore.

 “Our ordeal is not yet over, young turtle.” Lillac, the new scary purple turtle sighed, continuing to press gauze to the deep wound on Leon’s chest.

 “The pink is spreading.” Rara whispered, his eyes now wide awake and filled with terror, trained on something outside the window.

 Umber turned too.

“Russet, go faster!” He shouted. Russet growled an answer and the van sped up.

 “What’s going on?” Daddy asked tiredly, Allie still clutched to his chest.

“It’s the kraang.” Leon rasped, his face dark and hard, so different than what he usually looked like. Allie’s head shot up at the sound of her favorite brother’s voice, but hesitant to reach out.

 “The what?” Rosa asked.

“The stuff, the pink stuff? That’s what the kraang does to take control of any biological and mechanical things in the vicinity to help swallow any planet they deem full of resources that they can exploit.” Leon hissed, his hand on his chest as Lillac helped him sit up, “And they killed my brothers.”

 “Ok, that was your dimension, so how did they get here?” Umber asked, a hand over Rara’s eyes to try and stop the young turtle from seeing any more disturbing things.

 Gigi knew it was useless though, the butterfly hovering around Rara was the deep color of black and grey.

 “Gibee, what are you looking at?” Rosa asked.

“Butterfly.” She shrugged, not surprised that she was the only one that could see it. Her family was a little odd, as she had discovered.

 “Gigi’s broken.” Lee whispered loudly.

“I am not!” She yelped, baring her teeth at him playfully.

 Lee giggled, oblivious of the danger Gigi knew they were in. Dee, however, seemed to understand that they were not safe, probably since he had seen the blood on Daddy's face that morning.

 “At least you can laugh during all this.” Rosa breathed, pressing a kiss into the bandana over Gigi’s hair.

 “She is experiencing shock.” Lillac pointed out, now neatly tucked under Leon’s arm to support him as the van swerved chaotically.

 “I know that!” Rosa barked, baring her teeth at the purple turtle.

“Do not start fighting.” Daddy warned, his voice heavy with exhaustion and his butterfly was muted and listless.

 “Where are we going?” Russet yelled.

“I don’t know!” Umber shouted back.

 “Take us home, Russ, try not to get swallowed by the pink goo.” Daddy said tiredly. 

“Bit harder done than said, Dad.” Russet growled.

 “Don’t use any of your mystic energy.” Leon warned, “They will sense it and focus on us further.”

“That may be an issue.” Lillac said, pointing at Gigi, “The eldest of the young ones is still glowing.”

 “I am?” Gigi muttered, looking down at her freckled scales, “I am!”

The peach colored scales were glowing gently, and each time a butterfly landed they pulsed a little brighter.

 “How- when did you learn to do that?” Daddy asked, “I missed it!”

Allie blinked at her sister, grinning at the pretty light. The butterfly hovering over the little yellow turtle’s head shimmered a brighter yellow before dimming again as she hid her head in Daddy’s shirt again.

 “She’s been glowing for a bit now…” Rosa said, “I’ve never stayed glowing unless I’m using my powers, Lillac, is this healthy?”

 How am I supposed to know the answer to that?” Lillac asked, “I have not yet been allowed to collect DNA samples from the Bitties, and I have not seen them display such blatant use of mystic energy.”

 “I told you that you can collect DNA once they are older, Lillac.” Daddy said with a smile playing on his face, “You’re just going to have to make an inference.”

 “Well then, I infer that she is still using her abilities if the luminescence is anything to know by.” Lillac said, rolling her eyes as a half awake Leon that seemed to be just barely following the conversation.

 Gigi didn’t really understand what was going on either, and it felt better to just focus on Lee and Dee, who were muttering to each other in order to keep themselves occupied.

 “Gibee?” Dee muttered.

“Yeah DeeDee?” Gigi whispered back, “What’s up.”

 “Why do you think this is all happening?” He asked, twining his fingers with his twin’s, biting his tongue as Lee’s unclipped claws scratched his scales.

 “Daddy is trying to protect us from very dangerous things.” Gigi answered.

“But why? Why do dangerous things happen to us? I want to go home!” Dee whined.

 Gigi bit her lip and nodded.

“When can we go home Gigi?” Lee asked, blinking at her with sudden awareness, “I miss Senior Hueso, and I want to go play with some of my friends.”

 “We’re going home soon, we just gotta… take the long way first, to make sure nothing can get us.” Gigi smiled, noticing how the explanation made brighter colors come back to the twins’ butterflies.

 “Rosa, pass Gigi here.” Lillac ordered, breaking Gigi’s concentration and startling Rosa, judging by the flinch.

 “Yeah, sure.” Rosa muttered, scooping Lee and Dee in her arms while letting Gigi away from her side.

 Gigi wobbled over to Lillac’s side, glancing at Leon as he pushed away from the grumpy purple turtle to sit on his own.

 The butterfly circling Leon’s head was dark and stormy looking with a very deep red hue, a trail of smoke hovering behind it.

“What.” Lillac asked sharply as Gigi hopped up onto the seat next to her, “Why are you staring.

 “I’m not.” Gigi bit back, taking the hostility to mean that Lillac was mad at her for some reason.

“That is false- Nevermind. Do you know what your mystic ability is?” Lillac asked, glancing at Daddy.

 Gigi wasn’t sure what she saw on his face, but whatever it was emboldened her and a determined look grew on her face.

 Gigi also wasn’t sure how to feel about the scary lady sitting next to her, but Daddy and Leon seemed to like her well enough, so she was willing to give calling her a sister a shot.

 “I don’t know a lot about mystic abilities, only that my older siblings all have them, and that Daddy gets really scared when they use them sometimes.” Gigi said.

 “Hmm…” Lillac hummed, taking Gigi’s freckled arm in her hands, being surprisingly gentle as she ran her thumb over the faintly glowing scales.

 While she did it, Gigi looked for the other girl’s butterfly. EVerybody else in the van had one, and she liked seeing how their emotions changed.

 But there was nothing hovering over her shoulders, not at first glance.

“What are you looking for?” Lillac asked, startling her.

 “Nothing.” Gigi breathed, looking down and away briefly in shame. And that’s when she saw it.

A sad and small little butterfly sitting on Lillac’s foot, its wings torn and colors muted so much that they looked almost grey.

 What happened to her butterfly?

“You mentioned butterflies.” Lillac said after a moment, “What did you mean by that?”

 “I was only pointing out the obvious.” Gigi muttered, “Something happened and now I can see little butterflies around everyone.”

 “Oh?” 

“Yeah. Sometimes they change colors, and some of us have bigger butterflies than others.” Gigi said, glimpsing Rara’s huge butterfly out of the corner of her eye, landing on the younger turtle’s shell like a big bow.

 “What colors do they change?” Lillac asked.

“Well, most of ‘em are really dark right now, but that's because everyone’s scared and sad, but sometimes there’s a little bit of yellow or red.” Gigi leaned in closer to Lillac, surprised that the older girl did the same, “Leon’s is really really red right now.”

 “Do you think these ‘butterflies’ are tied to each of our emotions?” Lillac asked, whispering at the same volume that Gigi had.

 Gigi nodded.

“Do- do I have one?” 

 Gigi nodded again, but this time Lillac blinked and drew back, a slight frown on her face.

“Lillac? What’s wrong?” Daddy asked, showing that he had watched the conversation.

 “N-nothing. It appears that this young turtle’s abilities are tied to emotions and empathetic behaviors. It is unlikely that it will be prevented or shut off without serious enchantments.” Lillac reported.

 Gigi blinked at the sudden change of Lillac’s tone, watching her small and broken butterfly closely.

Her eyes widened as she saw the sharp color of purple, of worry, shoot through the broken wings.

 Lillac must not be used to feeling things.

That might be why her butterfly is so sad and tiny.

But why is she worried about it? 

Chapter Text

 Leon was pissed.

Understandably so, his mortal enemy had clawed through a barrier that wasn’t supposed to be tampered with and was threatening the safety of his father and siblings, his new family that he had let into his life.

 Even hours after the initial interaction, back home for the first time in a week, he was steaming, thinking over everything and trying to devise a plan that would take out the kraang before they killed everything.

 The only good thing was that, this time, Leon knew their weaknesses, knew what would kill them, and knew that what they needed still existed.

 And this time, the kraang was moving slowly.

They had not immediately launched a world swallowing invasion, as they had done in Leon’s home dimension, and they didn’t try to follow them past reaching for the speeding van a couple times.

 Mike must have been able to wound them enough to slow them down significantly.

His heart hurt at the thought of his baby brother, and his last moments.

 “Leon?” Mikey asked, peeking through his bedroom door to check on him before the older turtle went to bed.

 The bandage over his nose had been changed, but there were dots of blood already soaking through, and Leon could see the exhaustion hanging off Mikey’s frame.

 “What.” He muttered.

“Do you need anything?” 

 “No. Go to bed. I’m fine.” Leon growled.

Mikey sighed, “Yeah, sure bud. Lillac’s in the living room messing with the first aid kit, the bitties are in bed, and Rosa and the boys are sleeping in a nest in their room.”

 “Thanks.” Leon sighed, “Goodnight dad.”

“I’m proud of you, kid.” Mikey smiled, giving him a hug and kissing his head before leaving, closing the door quietly behind him. 

 “Yeah… proud until you realize I’m the reason we have an alien invasion on our hands.” Leon mumbled, burying his face in his hands and feeling the tears in his eyes.

 He knew what he could do to delay the inevitable.

Leon could go out, find the key at that stupid museum, stop the foot from ever getting it and releasing this dimension’s kraang, and then getting that herbicide that April had…

 That April had found the night the kraang first broke through.

Leon had forgotten how much he had missed his older sister, forgotten that there might be another version here that he hadn’t met yet.

 Not that he could. Mikey had picked a house on the edge of the city, far removed from most of the traffic and people, and Leon knew that April and her mom wouldn’t live this far out.

 He sniffled and rubbed his eyes, pulling a blanket around his shoulders to start to go to sleep, but he knew that his thoughts were going to keep him awake.

 “Leon?” Lillac whispered through the door.

“What the hell do you want?” Leon frowned, glaring at the door and the turtle looking through the crack.

 “Can I ask you a couple questions?”

Leon sighed and nodded. It wasn’t like she would listen to him anyway.

 “What were those pink aliens?” Lillac asked, sitting in his beanbag chair and looking at him with shining eyes, “You called them the kraang?”

 “Yeah. They’re aliens from another place that escaped the prison dimension where they were placed by my ancestors years ago to stop them.” Leon gave her a small smile, “They escaped, where I come from, and decided to take over my life, killing everybody and everything.”

 “How did they break through?” Lillac asked, “To both here and there.”

“They are a powerful enemy, with abilities I only know about because they used them on me and my family. They also had a group of loyalists living in the city, looking for a kind of key that would open a portal to let their ship through.”

 “Do you think there is a key to here?”

“No. I think they broke through using the fragments of my little brother’s mystic energy that were scattered when he portaled me to Mikey. They must have pieced it together to make an incomplete portal.” Leon sighed.

 “How do we kill them?”

“Good question. I… am not completely sure.” Leon said, looking at Lillac through the dark, “We could never figure it out, and we never had the resources, even after a couple months. We know they could be incapacitated by our nimpo, but none of us were able to get strong enough, and the herbicide we needed didn’t exist by the time my twin found that it would melt them…”

 “It sounds like you were fighting a losing battle from the beginning.” Lillac commented, migrating to sit next to him on his bed.

 “We were. We were too late to catch them as they came through that window, and we were too late to get everything we needed before it was gone. I could only hold onto hope that we would die quickly and not have to suffer long.” Leon said, hiding his tears from the observant purple turtle sitting next to him.

 “You mentioned your twin and little brother. What were they like?” Lillac asked. Leon looked up at her. He hadn’t even told Mikey about them yet, and he’d known the man for a couple years.

 Lillac had shown up a week before, asking what Mikey had asked, and Leon didn’t know-

“They were… something else.” He said, speaking before he realized what he was saying, “Mike was strong, almost as Alphie, and he had the strongest grasp on his powers, even though he was the youngest. He was an artist and had this mind for creation.”

 “He sounds like Gigi.” Lillac smiled.

“Yeah. She reminds me of her sometimes. And then my twin, Donna, he was tech savvy and could find anything as long as it was on the wide web. He was smart, but couldn’t handle emotions. It was fine though, because Mike helped.”

 “Emotions are not fun to deal with.” Lillac nodded.

“Tell me about it.” Leon snorted, “And then there was Alphie. He was the biggest brother, and he basically raised us. It was his job to protect us, and he made sure we felt loved.”

 He sighed and buried his face again.

“I miss him.”

 Lillac did not say anything for a long time, and Leon felt comfortable enough to just drop off into sleep right here and now, barring the pain he was starting to feel from the wound in his chest.

 Meds must be wearing off. I’ll take a couple more when Lillac leaves.

“May I ask how they died?” Came Lillac’s whispered question, and Leon could feel her curiosity and trepidation.

 “That would require the whole story.”

“We have time.”

 “It’s really long, and frankly very sad.”

“You need to talk about it. And I’m curious. The more we know about our new enemies, the better.”

 “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

 Leon heaved a sigh, flopping back onto his bed and wrapping a couple more blankets around his shoulders. Lillac shuffled over, sitting with her shell pressed against the wall, her knees tucked against her plastron and her arms crossed over them.

 “It starts with the foot clan. They were the throw away lackeys of both the Shredder and the kraang, and they would do the dirty work to bring them both to my dimension.”

 “Did you know they would use the key you mentioned?”

“We didn’t even know the key existed before they used it. We only found out because we turned on the news the next morning and saw that the surface was in shambles. We ran to the hidden city and tried to gather people to try and fight this threat.”

 “Yokai are formidable warriors, that was a good idea.”

“We thought so too, but during our first assault on the kraang, we lost nearly half our group. After that, we focused more on surviving to the next day than fighting an enemy that was unkillable.” 

 “They were unaffected by mystic weapons?”

“Yeah. The only one that actually managed against them was Mike, and it took a huge toll on him, so we couldn’t use him too much. And while we were hiding, trying to make it, they found our base, killing Alphie and my father as they tried to hold them off.”

 “What happened to the humans?”

“Most of them died immediately, but we helped the ones that weren’t immediately killed or transformed into kraang zombies. They came from all over, trying to find safety again, and that’s when Donna found out something that could destroy the kraang entirely.”

 “Leon, don’t leave me in suspense!” Lillac joked, and Leon blinked in surprise at her. She hadn’t shown any other emotion other than curiosity and that had been rare.

 “It was an herbicide that had destructive properties.”

“Did you manage to use it?”

 “It had been destroyed before we found out about it, but April did manage to keep a couple vials, and Donna used the base to make more, even though it was limited and not as strong. We were too late again, missing our opportunity of ending it earlier, before more people died.”

 “Something tells me your fortune didn’t last after that discovery.”

“You would be correct. Donna was out scavenging when he was ambushed and abducted, used to find the location of our base and to crack through our defenses. He was killed while being tortured.” Leon rubbed tears off his face, flinching as he remembered how he had found out, “They told me that they had done it as they ensnared my people, killing them and turning them into zombies. No remorse.”

 Lillac had been subtly shifting closer, and even though she had been raised by a horrible man, she could still be kind.

 “That’s how I found out about my twin’s death. He had only been missing for a day, but I was still too late to find him, so save my right hand man, and after that we were on the run, trying to escape long enough to live another day.”

 He took a deep breath.

“It didn’t last. I was out, trying to find at least something to use to help, maybe medicine or bandages, blankets or clothes, but I was finding nothing. I got the alert too late, our temporary home had been ambushed again, and there were even less people alive than before.”

 Lillac’s head was resting on Leon’s shoulder, distracting him from the growing pain in his chest.

“Mike was still with me, but he was badly injured, his soul literally being drained by the amount of power he was using to keep us from being eaten by the kraang. He was the reason I launched our final assault. We both knew we weren’t coming back from it, that nobody was coming back, and we made peace with it. We all did.”

 Another deep breath. There’s a reason I never told Mikey this…

“We were ready to let go of our feeble revolution, but we weren’t going to go down without a fight. It was better than hiding in a hole and waiting to die!” Leon laughed sadly, “But I guess Mike wasn’t ready to see me die just yet. Once it was just us left on that battlefield he used the last of his energy to create a portal and basically shoved me through.”

 “And you met Mikey?”

“Yeah. My baby brother died to bring me home to my second family. And then the kraang must have used the fragments he left behind to get themselves here.” Leon growled, wrapping his arms protectively around Lillac. She didn’t wiggle away, thankfully, and relaxed into his arms.

 “I see my brothers in the bitties sometimes. I see them in Umber and Russet and Rosa…” Leon didn’t bother elaborating, Lillac nodded like she understood.

 “I used to have little siblings too.” Lillac breathed, “My father killed them, but I remember them and I miss them.”

 “It’s like a phantom pain. They aren’t there, but you want to turn to them and share something funny with them, to share a look or a joke, or to just see them-” Leon’s breath hitched and he hissed in pain.

 “Your meds are wearing off.” Lillac said, her voice monotone and business-like as she sat up, pulling her comfort from Leon’s side.

 She quickly handed him a full cup and a couple white pills, of which he gratefully took.

“What do you think we’re going to do about the kraang?” Lillac asked.

 “I have no clue.” Leon sighed.

“What if we found that herbicide?” Lillac suggested, blinking at him.

 “It would exist… and, it would be potent enough. I think I even remember the chemical compound that we found, you could even make it if I found the right ingredients.” Leon hummed, “Maybe we can beat them this time. We have mystically powerful kids now, and I’m rested and ready for round two-”

 He broke off with a cough, a hand over the bandages on his chest.

“I believe that you should rest before this ‘round two’.” Lillac smiled, “We have a plan, and we have information.”

 “And I refuse to be late this time.” Leon muttered, closing his eyes and falling asleep.

Chapter Text

 Mikey could tell that something was up.

Sure, he hadn’t known Lillac for too long, and he hadn’t met Leon until he was at least seventeen, but he could tell the two were planning something.

 Something that included diagrams of portals, research on mystic powers, and late night talks behind closed doors that Mikey could only hear because he couldn’t sleep through the night without nightmares anymore. 

 And then there was the glowy stuff.

He was cleaning Leon’s room while he worked to help clean up Hueso’s restaurant, with the blue turtle’s permission of course, and found vials of the green glowing liquid that he could feel the heat radiating from.

 “Lillac?” He called, hoping that she respected him enough to come when called.

“What?” She shouted back, appearing with Lee tucked at her hip. Mikey caught the smug look on the little turtle’s face and Mikey knew that Lee was enjoying being carried like Allie usually was by Leon.

 “What… are you doing with the twins?” Mikey asked, his question momentarily forgotten.

“I was teaching them the art of biology and engineering.” Lillac smiled, “Bioengineering.”

 “They’re six.” Mikey deadpanned.

“They are only two though?” Lillac said, tilting her head.

 “No, no, you misunderstand, they are only six years old and the science behind the topic you are trying to teach them is highly advanced and not suitable for them.” Mikey sighed.

 “But I like learning about planes and what makes them stay up!” Lee protested, “and DeeDee likes learning about gen-tics.”

 “Genetics, my young pupil.” Lillac gently corrected, “And they are highly intelligent, they must be taught what they wish to learn.”

 “Ok, I get it, yes, but-” Mikey grumbled, holding out one of the vials, “What is this?” 

Lillac froze, blinking at him with a look like a deer caught in headlights.

 “Lillac.”

“It is a science project.” She blurted.

 It was Mikey’s turn to blink in confusion now, because neither of them were enrolled in formal education, and Lillac’s preferred flavor of science was genetics, and all that equipment was in her room.

 “For what?”

“To defeat Leon’s mortal enemy.” Lillac said, her head down, as if she expected Mikey to hit or yell for even thinking that helping Leon was a good idea.

 “The kraang?” Mikey asked, thinking back to the pink goo that had sent his eldest into an angry spiral that only seemed to be resolved when Lillac started hanging out with him.

 Now that I think about it, it makes sense. Leon was probably worried that we would end up dead like his brothers because of the kraang, and this glowing stuff is probably what he is going to use as a safety net.

 I kind of wish they got to meet my utroms. They may look similar, but were much kinder to us.

“Yes. What you are holding is a severely acidic herbicide that Leon’s twin brother, Donna, found to be highly effective against the kraang.” Lillac muttered, setting Lee down and waving him away.

 The little turtle sighed sadly and walked away, going to join his twin in the living room.

“That’s… kinda cool.” Mikey hummed, looking back at the glowing solution, trying to diffuse Lillac’s fear, “But, you two could have told me that’s what you were doing. I’ve been worried.”

 “But why?” Lillac asked, “We kept it from you to specifically not worry you! How could you have known we were doing something?”

 Mikey sighed and Lillac flinched, making him just a little angry as the girl’s ‘father’.

“I knew because I could tell that you two were acting off. I worry because you guys are my kids and that’s just what I do when my two eldest decide to refuse sleep because they’re either doing something illegal or doing something that will give me a heart attack.” Mikey smiled, putting a gentle hand on Lillac’s shoulder.

 “I am not your child.” Lillac said sadly, “You share no DNA with me, and you don’t know me well enough to know that I am not a good daughter.”

 Mikey’s heart hurt to know that Lillac’s ‘father’ had put this doubt in her, but he didn’t let it show.

“Lillac, I don’t need to share DNA with you to call you my daughter. I don’t even have to know you to know that you’re a kind and compassionate person that I want to take care of and watch grow.” Mikey said, tucking the herbicide in his pocket and taking both Lillac’s shoulders.

 She opened her mouth to try and protest, but Mikey cut her off.

“Family is not always blood, it’s the people you want around you.” He said, “None of my children are biologically mine, but I love them all unconditionally.”

 “How could you do that?” Lillac whispered, “How could you not want anything but to see us grow? How could you not expect anything more of us than to be good people?”

 “Because I care. I care about your health, your futures. I want the best for you because I’m your dad.” Mikey said, “That’s… the best way I can put it.”

 “My father did not think this of me.” Lillac mumbled.

“Your father is simply the one that created you.” Mikey sighed, “He hurt you like no parent should, and it is not right. I love you Lillac, but that means you have to trust me, talk to me. I am always going to be here for you.”

 Lillac took a deep breath, tears starting to fall from her eyes, her hard defensive shell starting to crack away.

 She fell forward into his arms, her own clasping tightly around his neck as she sobbed into his shoulder. Lillac finally let herself feel like the teenager she was, not the adult her excuse for a father tried to make her be.

[~+~]

“Let me get this straight, you told Dad everything we were planning and he actually agreed to let us?” Leon asked, crossing his arms.

 “Well, he kind of caught you two in a lie… and it ended in a lot of tears from Lillac.” Rosa shrugged.

“We will never speak of that again.” Lillac growled, “Mikey simply said things that touched a bit of trauma.” 

 “Ok, I don’t care about how it all came out, I just want to know why Dad agreed to let us go back and kill those stupid slimy bitches.” Leon interrupted, putting a hand on Lillac’s shoulder to stop her from swiping at Rosa.

 “I think he said it was because we’re a bit older, we have experience with things like this, and he wants us to have a bit of trust in him so he’s going to put a bit of trust in us.” Rosa smiled.

 “How do you know all of this?” Leon asked, “You’re younger than Russet, and was very clearly not a part of any of this until now.”

 “I was eavesdropping and Dad caught me, so now I have to go with you. Russet’s staying here because Dad also wants ‘at least one responsible turtle here to watch everything while I work’, so yeah.” Rosa shrugged.

 “Really?” Leon asked, raising an eyebrow ridge at Lillac, who rolled her eyes right back.

“Yes, this is all true.” Lillac confirmed, “But I still don’t agree with it.”

 “I can take care of myself!” Rosa protested, “I lived on my own for two years after my brothers died, and I fought my own enemy non stop while at it!”

 “I am not even going to start unpacking all those problems,” Leon groaned, “I’ve gotten information that the kraang is on the move, and I don’t want to waste the permission that we’ve been granted.”

 “Have you told Hueso that you won’t be at work for a bit?” Rosa asked.

“Yeah, I’m officially on leave for a week, Russet knows what’s going on, and we should be all packed.” Leon nodded, glancing at the small backpacks he and Lillac had packed.

 “We are prepared.” Lillac smiled thinly.

“No we aren’t.” Leon muttered, taking out his katana and slicing a portal into existence, using the signature of his dimension to locate the kraang.

 The three of them stepped through the blue circle and into… hell.

The trees around them were sickly and covered in pink goo, the river tinged maroon, the sky tinged pink, but there was no sign of the kraang.

 It’s odd, like something stopped them from expanding.

“I thought you said they would swallow everything.” Rosa whispered as they walked through the devastated land, stepping around the rotting dead Purple Dragons still laying on the ground.

 “I thought they would.” Leon muttered, senses on high alert despite there being nothing.

“It’s almost like they encountered a bioweapon that made them disintegrate all over everything.” Lillac said, looking at the edges of the pink mess, observing the plants already fighting to regain the space, “It appears that the dead matter is dense in nutrients by how healthy these plants look. I want to take samples.”

 “I don’t understand.” Leon breathed.

“Look out!” Rosa shouted, alerting Leon to movement and giving him enough time to duck the spire of pink goop that would have taken his head off.

 It shriveled as soon as it hit the ground, and Leon portaled to the place the spire came from, stabbing deep into the flesh of Kraang Prime.

 “The pest has come back to die.” the alien hissed weakly, tentacles throwing Leon off, even in its weakened state.

 “This pest has come back to kill you.” Leon growled, getting back to his feet and pulling out a vial of herbicide, feeling his sisters running to stand at his sides.

 “What do you have that you think could even touch us?” The kraang asked, the wound in its face already healing over.

 “This.” Leon grinned, throwing the vial at the alien, dodging out of the way as a bit of the acid splashed back at them. 

 The kraang screamed and wailed as its flesh melted, but soon it was dead and Leon could breath a little easier.

 “I’m sorry to be disrespectful, but that was really easy.” Rosa said.

“No, it really was…” Leon breathed, “It’s not supposed to be that easy- it never was that easy!”

 “They must have been severely weakened by Mike’s attacks, and they may have been actively rejected from this realm.” Lillac suggested, grabbing Leon’s arm, “Are we still going to grab that relic, the one you called the key?”

 “What key?” Rosa asked.

“You didn’t eavesdrop on that part, did you?” Leon smiled, brushing away his sadness.

 “No… was I supposed to?” Rosa asked, tilting her head.

“Just… come on.” Leon said, rolling his eyes and ruffling his little sister’s hair, “It’s in a museum.”

Chapter Text

 Baron Draxum paced his lab restlessly.

His lab assistant had been missing for months and the work piling up on him was starting to show it.

 The turtle had always been the one to do the paperwork, manage the fees and finances, take care of his specimens… he was falling apart without her.

 The Baron’s mind wandered to the other turtles that he had created. He stopped pacing and let himself wonder, for only a moment, what they would have been like.

 Would they have been as devoted and loyal as his assistant had been?

Would she have stayed loyal if he hadn’t killed them?

 No, that was pointless to think, she was too advanced to have things such as feelings. 

Draxum had made sure to stamp that out before it could grow. He could not have his little warrior having feelings on the battlefield.

 But he wasn’t going to have a warrior if he couldn’t figure out how to get this stupid portal working.

Number One had built this machine out of his scraps, and had powered it with a heinous combination of electricity and mystics.

 Draxum could not discover where Number One would have found the textual information to guide her to this achievement, but he would get that information out of her when he got her back.

 But it would have to wait until after her punishment.

Draxum clenched his fist tight, remembering what he had told the young mutant the last time she had run away.

 “You have broken every rule I have put in place for you.” 

“I know, I will do better in the future.”

 “If you ever try to run away from me again, I will remove your privilege of mobility. Permanently.”

“Oh, what are you going to do, Father? Cut off my legs?”

 “Yes.”

“You wouldn’t. I need to move to do your work for you, you helpless old goat man.”

 “We’ll see.”

He growled and turned back to the machine. 

 Number One hadn’t left clear blueprints, only scribbles sketched onto a few pieces of paper, the only things left after the machine had tried to tear itself apart, taking nearly half the things in the room with it.

 “Why is that one so desperate to escape me?” Draxum wondered, “Does she not realize I am the best home she’ll ever have?”

 He sighed, burying his face in his hands, running his fingers through his hair, as if it would turn over some new answers.

 “I wonder if the Bat gave Number One books on portals.” Draxum hummed, pulling his hands out of his hair after a moment, “I should have known better than to let her leave the castle. The outside world gave her ideas.”

 He stormed out of his lab, muttering under his breath.

“Damned turtle is too smart for her own good.” 

 He grabbed a cloak and threw it over his shoulders, sweeping from his castle like a vengeful spirit.

“I should have made a stupider one to start, then work my way up. I didn’t need a smart lab assistant, just one that could run errands for me.” 

Draxum pushed open the doors to the Mystic Library and stepped onto the dais, rising gently to the level of the tall podium.

 “Ma’am, you remember me, yes?” Draxum asked politely.

The Bat glanced up at him and nodded.

 “Do you remember my little lab assistant, right? The little turtle?”

Another nod.

 “Can you tell me if she came here on her own and checked out books on interdimensional portals and studies on melding technology and mystical arts?”

 The Bat paused and thought for a minute, and then nodded again, producing a slip of paper for him to follow.

 He accepted it, disappearing into the library.

The paper led him to the sections he suspected she had visited, and he found all the books that she had checked out.

 An hour or so later, he left the building with a tall stack of books and headed back to his castle.

Once Draxum was back in the lab he got to work, slowly but surely rebuilding the portal, but with a couple differences.

 He accounted for the large energy output that had destroyed the machine in the first place, as well as creating a compass to lead him to Number One’s unique dimensional signature, hoping it would lead him to her in one shot.

 Soon the gateway was functional, and after a couple quick tests Draxum powered it up and smiled. He was finally going to get his experiment back.

[~+~]

 Some say it was a mindless monster, one that hunted its prey until it was dead under its claws.

Others say it was a demon, risen from the depths of hell to punish the world for all its wrong doings.

 It was actually a corrupted spirit of a man trapped in armor that was actively consuming him, and all he could do was hunt the remainders of the family that he once called his own.

 He had almost gotten the last of them too, but something had pulled her away before he could get to her.

 The Shredder sat at his throne, listening to the squabbling of the foot soldiers in the room.

He couldn’t help but think that he was surrounded by idiots at times, even though the leaders sometimes had helpful insights.

 They were the ones that devised the plan to kill off a few of his descendants, leaving the sickly one and the girl.

 The sickly one had died before Shredder could get to him, and his death left the girl alone.

He thought it was going to be easy killing the last one, she didn’t have a support system anymore and she was young.

 Oh, how wrong he was.

Shredder didn’t even know a spirit could feel pain, but she had proved that he still could. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, a pang of pain running through his body under his armor.

 But now that she was gone, he felt incomplete. He could not complete his task, and he couldn’t help but feel that there was still a way to get to the girl.

 “Sir, you are receiving communications from the league of world leaders.” One of his generals said, pulling him out of his thoughts and back to the present.

 Yes, he had this meeting with the human leaders of the world. They were hoping to negotiate with him to let them remain in power when he finally established full control over everything.

 He had no intent to let them continue ruling, even under him.

“I remember.” Shredder nodded, getting up off his throne and following his general into a room designed with these kinds of meetings in mind. It was filled to the brim with the new technologies of this planet, ones that he wasn’t too fond of yet.

 ‘Thank you for joining us, Mister Shredder.’ one of the heads on the screen said, trying to butter him up before they even completely started.

 A cowardly tactic of survival, and one that would not work on him.

“You are here to negotiate with me to hopefully retain the power you hold.” The Shredder said, “And I am going to say this as plainly as possible; you will not remain in power.”

 ‘You are based in the Americas, you have no control over our countries, nor enough manpower to stage a hostile takeover.’ another leader said, crossing his arms like he had won.

 Shredder simply sighed, holding up a hand, a sign not for the other leaders to understand.

There was a gunshot over the speakers of the video call, and the leader that had spoken last fell forward, dead.

 “I have people everywhere. Now, you will each be killed and your thrones will be abandoned for me to take over, or you will each step down and live, returning to the peasant life you had before.” Shredder said, giving them a choice that wasn’t exactly a choice.

 There was a general murmuring over the call and the Shredder smiled under his helmet at each new leader saying that he or she was stepping down.

 Eventually the call was empty and he was left as the leader of many nations, and he still could not feel like he was complete.

 The turtle he had missed was still tugging at his thoughts, and he could feel himself falling into a trap of his own making.

 The only way to solve this was to find where she had gone, requiring him to return to the crypt she had vanished from.

 “Do you need a guard, sir?” a general asked.

“No. I am guard enough for myself.” The Shredder replied, “You are in charge until I return.”

 “How long do you plan on staying away?”

“However long I need.” 

 With that, he left, traveling quickly and silently through the empty streets of the once bustling city.

The humans that lived here now only reside in their homes, refusing to leave and become a slave for the Shredder to use.

 He did not mind. It was easier to get things done without people getting in the way.

Shredder arrived at the crypt, a heavy blanket of nimpo and mystic energy covering everything, as well as the scent of despair.

 This was where the girl had vanished, and by the amount of residual energy, she had probably slipped through a dimensional rip.

 It was rare to find one, even rarer to find one accidentally.

The Shredder could have spent his entire life looking for one this big and strong, and he would have been empty handed by his death.

 And this girl had found one without any problems, here in this crypt, surrounded by the names of the dead.

 He growled, the energy reacting to his own power and lighting up, becoming solid.

The Shredder dug his claws into the light, tearing a hole in the fabric of this dimension, and falling through into the next.

 The light faded once he was gone, a gentle breeze blowing a couple dead leaves into the crypt, making it look like nobody had been there in a long time.

Chapter Text

 Mikey sighed as he finished his rounds, finally stepping through the portal back home, smiling at the sounds of his loud house.

 “I’m home!” He called, grinning as Rara came hurtling out of his room and into his arms, “Hey Rae, I missed you!”

 “It’s no fair!” Dee wailed, running and hugging onto Mikey’s legs, “Rae had a head start!”

“Nuh-uh.” Rara said, sticking out his tongue at his little brother.

 “Uh-huh!” 

“Actually, I win.” Lee said, crossing his arms as he sat on Mikey’s shoulder.

 “Ack!” Mikey squeaked, flinching and catching the little turtle as he almost slid off his father’s shoulder, “H-how did you get there?”

 “I climbed,” Lee shrugged, “and I kinda wanted to hear you say a bad word. Allie thinks she can learn more than me, but she doesn’t know that I can read now and-”

 “You could just ask Lillac to teach you.” Rara said matter-of-factly, “She taught me-”

“And I’m stopping this conversation right now.” Mikey said, “You do not need to know bad words, and you are not allowed to go asking Lillac.”

 “What about Rosa and Sheldon?” Lee asked.

“Sheldon? Who- no, no asking Rosa, Lillac, Russ, Leon, or Umber.” Mikey sighed.

 “What about Gigi?” Dee asked.

“Does she know any curse words?” Mikey asked, raising an eyebrow ridge.

 “Yep.” Rara nodded.

“Ok, I’ll have to ask her later, but right now, no bad words and I’m going to go eat a snack because I’m hungry.” Mikey said, walking to the kitchen with Dee still hanging onto his leg.

 “Hey Dad!” Rosa smiled, looking up from her laptop with a little wave, “Have you seen Lillac yet today?”

 “I just got home kiddo, but I think she’s in her room, if she’s not out here.” Mikey answered, setting Lee and Rara on the counter to check on what Rosa was doing, “How was your day?”

 “Mm… not bad, Lillac was helping me program a couple things into Sheldon earlier, But I haven’t really seen her since.” Rosa smiled, tilting her laptop to show him her work. The little design on the screen waved at him.

 “That’s Sheldon, huh?” Mikey smiled, waving back, “I don’t think I've met him extensively yet.”

“I’ve never shown you Sheldon?” Rosa asked, “I’ve been living with you for almost half a year now, and you’ve never asked about the glowing purple projection above my shoulder?”

 “I didn’t feel like it was necessary to ask. If you didn’t tell me naturally, then it probably wasn’t a huge deal.” Mikey shrugged, pouring himself a glass of orange juice, “Want some?”

 Rosa shook her head, watching as Mikey poured the twins and Rara some juice.

“Sheldon is a program that my little brother made for me before he passed away.” She said, “He was at my side, literally, and he was my best friend when everybody else died.”

 Mikey put the juice pitcher back in the refrigerator and took a seat on the stool right next to his daughter.

 “Umber’s been talking with me, telling me that… that it wasn't all my fault.” Rosa sighed, rubbing her arms and looking up at Mikey with a small smile, “And Leon’s been telling me about all the things that were actually his fault. He says that if I can forgive him, I can forgive myself.”

 Mikey leaned over and hugged her tight, his heart hurting that she had been carrying all of that by herself.

 “Daddy, Can Gigi and I go to Senior Hueso’s?” Allie asked, her head poking through the crack in her doorway.

 “Is this your idea, or Gigi’s?” Mikey asked, smiling over Rosa’s head, “And yes, you may go, as long as you keep Gigi’s phone on and call Leon to tell him you’re showing up.”

 Allie grinned, her smile showing her front teeth gap.

“Where is Umber and Russ?” Mikey asked, letting go of Rosa so that she could go back to her laptop and he could drink his juice.

 “I think they said they were going to mess around in the woods? Something about training and a brother bonding experience.” Rosa shrugged, “They’re responsible, so I wasn’t too worried.”

 “Umber can also start fires with no trouble, and the woods is a naturally flammable place.” Mikey sighed, pulling out his phone and shooting off a quick text.

 He didn’t expect either boy to respond, knowing cell reception in the woods was spotty at best, same with calls going into or out of the Hidden City.

 Lillac and Leon had tried to figure out what it was, as neither of their dimensions had this issue. Mikey figured it was either disastrous communication satellites or the layers of rock the Hidden City was under.

 “Bye, Dad!” Gigi called, leaving her and Allie’s room, giving him a quick hug goodbye as the two girls ran to the portal room.

 “Love you, stay safe!” Mikey shouted after them.

“Can we go too?” Rara asked, setting his empty cup in the sink.

 “No, I don’t want to overwhelm Leon. How about you go turn on some cartoons on the TV?” Mikey suggested, smiling faintly when the three boys cheered and ran to the living room.

 “You know what? I wanna watch too.” Rosa decided, shutting her laptop. The small projection of Sheldon flickered to life over her shoulder, reminding Mikey that she was still wearing her battle shell.

 Both she and Lillac had one, Rosa because of nasty scars that weakened the integrity of her already weakened shell, Lillac because she had a softshell, like Dee.

 Mikey almost wanted to ask Lillac if she could make Dee one once he started the Bitties’ actual training, but he didn’t really want to encroach on her other projects.

 “Rosa, you’re in charge until Lillac comes out of her room. Tell her that Leon’s got Allie and Gigi, and I’m going to find Russ and Umber in the woods.” Mikey called, grabbing his jacket and stepping outside.

 He heard a faint “got it!” before the door closed, and he smiled.

The trek to the clearing the older turtles used for training purposes wasn’t too long, but it was a little chilly in the early spring weather, and Mikey was tired from a long day of work.

 “Boys?” He called, stepping out onto the short grass and churned dirt.

“Hiay Dad!” Umber smiled, turning with his eyes literally glowing and his arms held out with fire rising from them.

 Mikey could remember the first time he saw Umber like that, and he wasn’t proud to say that he freaked out and got a couple burns on his hands.

 “Hey kiddo.” Mikey smiled, waiting for the fire to die before hugging him, “Where’s your brother?”

“Right there.” Umber smiled, pointing across the clearing at the multiple clones of the tall snapper. They faded as the original Russet ran in for a hug too.

 “Wanna come back to the house and help me make dinner?” Mikey asked, “I was planning pizza.”

“Yes!” Umber cheered as Russet nodded enthusiastically.

 They walked together back to the house, Mikey laughing along as the two younger turtles told him all about their day.

 About halfway back, he got a call from Rosa.

“Rosa? What’s wrong?” He asked, grateful that he was able to actually get the call.

 ‘D-Dad, you need to get home now, there’s something going on in the Hidden City and New York. It’s on the news, a-and I can’t get a hold of Leon or Gigi.’

Chapter Text

 Leon wiped his forehead, chuckling as he swooped in to stop Hueso from dropping a stack of pizza boxes.

 “Ah, gracias, Pepino.” He smiled, patting Leon’s arm.

“I’m just doing my job.” Leon grinned, “You are paying me a substantial amount, far greater than any other starter job.”

 “Eh, You and your father need money, and you have college to get to.” Hueso shrugged, “It is not a problem.”

 “We are still entirely grateful.” Leon said, giving the pizza boxes to the delivery boy with the list of orders and addresses, “You’ve done so much for us.”

 “When are you and Mikey going to stop bringing that up?” Hueso said, rolling his eyes, “You are family! I help my family, and this is just that.”

 Leon rolled his eyes right back and pushed through the kitchen doors back out to the dining room, checking on his tables with practiced ease.

 He had been balancing his job, online college courses, and home life. It was difficult to do medical school online, and he had in person lessons once a week. Hueso helped him by making sure he got to and from those classes, and Lillac helped by teaching him her large amount of medical and anatomical knowledge.

 He only got a couple hours of restless sleep most nights, after studying and helping Dad put everybody to bed, and sometimes even that was cut short by the patrols he would go on with Rosa or Umber occasionally.

 Getting into medical school used to be out of his sights, both with trying to hide, and then the apocalypse, and he never even earned a high school diploma.

 That had been taken care of when he was adopted by Mikey. He both made Leon officially his in City records, as well as helping him through school at twice the speed.

 And now he was getting closer to his dream of becoming a doctor. He had most of the knowledge self taught when he was younger, he just needed a degree to practice.

 His phone rang, breaking him out of his internal monologue.

“Hello?” He asked, picking up. It was Gigi, and he was surprised the call even went through.

 ‘Leon! Allie and I are coming to hang out for a bit. Daddy says yes, and we’re going through the portal now.’ She said.

 “Alright, I’m coming, don’t leave the general area of the portal.” Leon said, hanging up and turning back into the kitchen, “Hueso, we’ve got two Bitties incoming and I’ve got to go collect them!”

 “‘Aight, go ahead!” Hueso shouted back. Leon smiled and pushed through the front door.

“You know that I have to work right?” Leon laughed, hugging Gigi and Allie when he saw them a couple minutes later.

 “Yep!” Allie giggled, “It’s fun to play customers with you!”

“And to see you use your huge textbook!” Gigi grinned.

“You know, you can ask Dad to get you one of your own. He’d love to get you one.” Leon said, “And it could be about something other than medical stuff, literally anything.”

“Yeah, I know, but I want to read things with you.” Gigi pouted. Leon sighed, remembering that he had been in her life basically since she could remember, and that she would look up to him.

 I’ve gotten to see them grow up…

Wait, I’m technically an adult.

 “Leon, are you ok?” Allie asked, tugging at his hand.

“Uh… Yeah, I just realized that I’m twenty three years old.” Leon smiled, “And Lillac must be a little over twenty two.”

 “Really? Because Daddy says that she’s eighteen… or seventeen, I wasn’t really paying attention.” Gigi shrugged, “I wonder why that is.”

 “She’s never really told us how old she is, has she? But Dad might have just assumed because she’s slightly smaller than she would be at twenty two. Or because he’s all old.” Leon said, “It’s an interesting thing to think about.”

 Allie nodded and tugged her sister into the restaurant that they had arrived at.

It does make me wonder though. What kind of things has she been put through if she is that small at twenty two.  

 Malnutrition can do so much harm to a growing kid, and so can mistreatment.

“Tio Hueso!” Allie chirped, hugging the skeleton with a huge smile, “Hi!”

 “Hello, little Sunspot.” Hueso smiled, opening his arms for Gigi’s hug too, “it is good to see you both again!”

 “You saw them two days ago.” Leon chuckled, rolling his eyes and shooing his sisters into the break room, “Now, hang tight, I’ve got a couple tables to take care of and then I’ll come back and play with you.”

 “Can we follow?” Gigi asked, her eyes wide and begging.

Leon closed his eyes and sighed.

 “Sure.”

“Hey Leon!” One of his new friends, Jaymi, called, waving at him with a grin, “Looks like you’ve got a tail!”

 “Hey man.” Leon said, taking the small group’s orders, “These are my sisters, Gigi and Allie.”

Allie waved enthusiastically at the three yokai sitting in the booth, but Gigi stayed slightly behind Leon, watching carefully.

 “Aw, cute!” The youngest of the friend group, Ben, cooed, “I didn’t know you had siblings.”

“Yeah, I didn’t take you for a babysitter.” The leader, Seth, said, rolling his eyes, “Kind of a sissy job in my opinion.”

 “I didn’t ask for your opinion. Grow up Seth.” Leon rolled his eyes, noticing how Gigi hid further behind him, “Be nice to them, or you don’t get a discount anymore.”

 “You wouldn’t do that to us.” Seth said, his voice sounding hurt and betrayed, but it was fake.

I’ve always had misgivings about Seth, but I like the other two.

 This small group had been coming almost daily for a couple months at this point, and they had become pretty good friends with Leon and the other waiter.

“Seth, leave the man alone, he’s just doing his job.” Ben sighed, “Besides, you know he doesn’t bluff. Remember last time?” 

Seth frowned. He had tried to fight Leon at one point, and Leon had understandably won.

“What happened last time?” Allie asked, trying to get herself into the conversation.

“I decked him.” Leon smiled, picking her up and putting her on his hip, “Your orders will be out soon, m’kay?”

The three at the table nodded and Leon smiled, taking Gigi’s hand and walking back to the kitchen.

“Hueso, you’ve got an order for three small pizzas, cheese.” Leon called, “I’m going on break to play with the girls, can Usagi hold down the dining room for now?”

“Of course I can!” The rabbit yokai called back, bustling out of the break room while retying his apron.

Leon stepped inside of the now vacated break room, setting Allie down on the floor. She giggled and ran over to the beanbag chair in the corner, flopping down on it.

“Gibee, are you ok?” Leon asked, kneeling and taking the little girl’s shoulder. She was unusually subdued and Leon was worried. He was always worried, but even more so now.

“Those guys were scary.” She whispered.

“My friends?” Leon asked.

 “Mhmm.” She nodded, “One of their butterflies was dark and scary and it was trying to eat the other ones, and it was scary.”

 “You don’t have to go out and meet them again, alright?” Leon reassured her, pulling her into a hug.

 “I don’t want you to meet them again either, I don’t want your butterfly to die, it's really pretty and you should always have a butterfly.” Gigi insisted.

 “What’s with you and butterflies?” Allie asked, tilting her head.

“They’re special.” Gigi said.

 “Do not start fighting.” Leon threatened, “Or I’ll send you two home and you’ll have to talk to Dad.”

Gigi opened her mouth to argue, but she was interrupted by a huge boom, the sound rattling the pictures on the walls and opening cracks in the ceiling.

 “That wasn’t good.” Leon breathed.

Chapter Text

 Allie didn’t know what was going on. 

Leon was scared, she could see that, and Gigi was sobbing, she wasn’t sure from what.

 Maybe it was because her ears were hurting. Allie’s were and she felt like crying too.

“L-leon?” She asked, her hands over her ringing ears, “W-what w-was that?”

 “Bad news.” Leon answered, scooping her up in his arms and running out into the kitchen where Tio Hueso was trying to control the raging fires of both panicking customers and the fryer oil that had somehow ignited. 

 “Hueso, do you need help here?” Leon shouted over the chaos, backing away from the flames.

“No, I’ve got this under control.” Tio Hueso hissed, throwing a lid over the fire, trying to quench it.

 Allie knew he was lying, but it was one of those lies that adults told to help protect one another and themselves from shame or something.

 “Leon!” One of the yokai that Leon claimed was his friend called, “Leon, we need to get out of here-”

 “I know.” Leon said with gritted teeth, “I know Ben, but I can’t get to the front door without trampling anybody.”

 “Let me take one of the girls.” Ben offered, but Leon shook his head.

“Clear me a path. I need to get to the portal to send them home.” Leon said, waving the younger yokai off. Ben nodded and did as he was told.

 Allie buried her face into Leon’s shoulder, trying not to remember all the bad things that happened just like this before.

 I don’t like loud noises like that, they usually mean bad things are gonna happen.

Gigi was holding Allie’s hands tightly in her own, and every so often she would feel the gentle brush of butterfly wings.

 “We’re almost there,” Leon muttered, “We’re almost home-”

He was thrown off his feet by a falling rock that had exploded upon impact with the ground, Allie and Gigi’s cries of fear and pain mingling together as they fell from Leon’s arms.

 “Leon!” Gigi shouted, the first to get to her feet and run to their unconscious brother’s side. Allie was up on her feet in the next moment, falling at Leon’s side and hugging his neck.

 “He’s still alive, Al.” Gigi whispered, “but it’s really dangerous out here and we need to go somewhere safe.”

 “We need to find Papa and Lillac!” Allie sobbed, hardly able to see her big sister’s face through the smoke and tears in her eyes.

 “I’ll try calling him when we find a hole to hide in, but I can’t guarantee-”

“Allie, Gigi!” Tio Hueso called, running up to them from the direction of his smoking restaurant. He quickly understood the situation and grabbed Leon under the armpits, dragging him into a nearby store that was completely empty.

 “Where are all the other yokai?” Gigi asked, looking through the glass door with her phone in hand, trying to call Papa.

 “The smarter ones might have gone deeper into the city, and the ones that are panicking are slowly being killed by the ceiling collapsing.” Tio Hueso said, tying gause around Leon’s limbs and patching up his cracked shell.

 “I wanna go home.” Allie whimpered, curling under Leon’s limp arm and praying that he was going to wake up soon.

 “I can’t get to Dad, the cell lines are completely crowded-” Gigi hissed, wincing as more debris fell in on the city, clacking against the roof and making the whole place shudder violently, “We shoulda asked Lillac to help fix them when we had the chance-”

 “Now is not the time to dwell on what ifs and what could have been.” Tio Hueso reprimanded lightly, “We must get you and your brother to safety.”

 “What’s going on?” Allie asked quietly, her ears still ringing.

“Something must be happening to the city on the surface.” Gigi said, rubbing her arms and smearing her and Leon’s blood all over without realizing.

 “How do we get home if the portal is broken?” Allie wondered, looking to Tio Hueso for answers.

“We go to the surface and take shelter there. We avoid what’s attacking and try calling your father then.”

 “But Papa said that if we’re ever lost or have no way home, we stay in one place so he can find us.” Gigi argued.

 “That is if you are alone and not in a huge cave that is actively collapsing in on us.” Tio Hueso countered, “You are with me, I’ll keep you safe.”

 Allie sniffed and curled closer to Leon.

He should be awake now. He needs to be awake now.

 “Leon? How are you feeling?” Tio Hueso asked, announcing that the older turtle was now awake. Allie could have told him that because he had started moving around a moment earlier.

 “Like a squished grape.” He groaned, trying to move the arm that Allie had been holding tightly, “Allie, sweetie, I need that.”

 She shook her head.

“Pepino, do you think you could portal you and your sisters home?” Tio Hueso asked.

 Leon got to his feet determinedly and summoned his katana from negative space, slicing through the air confidently.

 The portal fizzled out as soon as it was cast, its color weak and its light dim.

Leon doubled over with exertion, after only one attempt.

 “I- I don’t think I can get us home.” He panted, “We need another way-”

A huge crash sounded from the roof and part of it caved in, thankfully not that part they were all standing under, but it was close and the wave of dust made Allie cough harshly.

 “To the surface.” Tio Hueso ordered, “We will go through my restaurant.”

[~+~]

“The portal isn’t letting me through.” Lillac growled, slamming her fist into the wall that the chalk had been on for years, “this stupid thing!”

 “We can’t drive to the city, it’ll take too long.” Russet hissed, “We need to find another way.”

“You two aren’t coming with me.” Mikey said, growing deeply as he tightened the sheath across his shell, “You will stay here and attempt to get that portal working to pull me, Leon, and the girls out.”

 “Yeah, and how do you plan on getting there?” Lillac snapped.

“Umber can make portals.” Mikey said, “And in theory he can make one that’ll take me straight to the three of them.”

 “His portals aren’t like Leon’s though-” Russet tried to argue, but Mikey shook his head.

“It’s the fastest way there that we have at the moment, and I can’t risk them dying.” Mikey said, leaving the portal room and running out into the yard where Umber was waiting with Rosa at his side.

 “It’s only a transport portal, not a rip in the multiversal fabric.” Rosa was saying, her hand on Umber’s shoulder, ready to lend him her mystic energy, “It doesn’t have to be big.”

 “I know.” Umber said through gritted teeth, “Dad, are you ready?”

Mikey nodded and Umber’s eyes lit up, filled with pure orange light.

 A crack appeared and slowly grew until it was just big enough for Mikey to step out on the other side, but before it could close behind him Rosa let go of Umber’s shoulder and shot through, closely followed by Lillac, who looked like a purple blur.

 “What are you two thinking?!” Mikey shouted, grabbing the two girls by their shoulders to stop them from running out into the street, “I told you that you guys weren’t coming with me!”

 “You can’t go alone, you can’t fight whatever’s here by yourself!” Rosa shouted back. Lillac nodded with narrowed eyes, just as determined as her adopted sister.

 “I’ve fought worse with less, I don’t need you putting yourselves in danger for me!” Mikey said, gritting his teeth. He wanted nothing more than to tear open the portal and send them both home, “If you get hurt because you decided to follow me, I will never forgive myself. If you die-”

 He was interrupted by something smashing through the building above them, sending concrete and building materials falling down on them.

 “Get under cover!” Mikey shouted, pushing the girls down and pulling up a manhole cover for them to duck into the sewers.

 They sat and waited in the darkness as the concrete above shook and shuddered from the impact of the rubble falling.

 “We need to… to do something.” Rosa whispered, “We can’t wait here, in the dark, for something to come to kill us.”

 Lillac opened her mouth to open with a classic sibling argument when the sewer just to the left of their hiding spot collapsed inward, engulfing them in dust and pebbles.

 Out of the dust rose two figures grappling with each other in a fierce battle, one with shining silver armor and the other with dust blue armor and who seemed to wield vines to hold off his attacker.

 “What the shell?” Mikey breathed, his arms out to protect Rosa and Lillac and to hold them back from attempting to run into the frey.

 At the sound of his voice the two combatants froze, their heads both turning to look at him in eerie unison.

 “Number One?” Came the low drawl of the blue armored monster.

Lillac froze completely and Mikey hissed, pulling her closer because this was her ‘father’, the man that abused Lillac so badly that she was a twenty-two year old mutant that was the size of a seventeen year old.

 And he knew from Leon that mutants were supposed to grow much larger, depending on their species, and as turtles, they could get pretty big.

 Lillac, although she was a girl, should have been taller than Rosa, who was about five or six years younger.

 “Number One, come here, we’re going home.” The yokai said, trying to step forward, away from the opponent he had been fighting.

 The demon grabbed the yokai’s wrist and pulled him back , but the yokai broke free using his vines as leverage.

 “That is my quarry.” The silver armored demon said, his voice sounding husky and dry, like he needed a good drink of water.

 “Your quarry?” The yokai asked.

“Yes, the one with yellow markings.” The demon nodded.

 “Ok, I hate to break up this pretty little chat, but these are my kids, and I am sure as hell not letting either of you get to them.” Mikey interrupted, getting the two combatants’ attention.

 “...Your children?” The yokai repeated as if it were a foreign concept to him, “They are not biologically ‘yours’ though. They have come from different dimensions, and we must return them to protect the stability of your own dimension.”

 It was a tactic to get Mikey to let Lillac and Rosa go, to let the two monsters do what they wanted with them, prying on his heroic nature and trying to make him think he was doing the right thing.

 But I’m not Leo and I know where my allies and loyalties are.

They are not getting my children.

 “I am giving you one chance before I kill you to leave and never think about coming back.” Mikey said quietly, his voice dangerous and his eyes cold.

 Rosa squeezed his arm quickly before clinging onto Lillac, trying to bring her out of her dissociation.

 “You think you can kill me, Kappa?” The demon laughed, but Mikey was done.

He pulled the odachi from its sheath on his back and charged, his battle cry merely the pained cries that he caused.

Mikey hadn't trained exclusively with nunchucks when he was young, but they had been his main focus for a long time. But once he had found himself without Leo’s swords or Rose’s daggers, he needed to train with a weapon more… sharp.

 So he had picked the odachi after Leon had mentioned in passing that he had once used one.

It was effective, but slightly limited in the smaller space, and Mikey couldn’t always retaliate quick enough to stop a vine from getting past his defense, or a dangerously spiked glove cutting deep.

 Mikey gave as good as he got, but soon he was pinned against the wall, his odachi pulled from his hands and thrown aside.

 “That was a good fight, kappa, but now you’ll die.” The yokai hissed, his sharp clawed gloves pressing into his neck. Mikey’s vision started to go black as he struggled to breath.

 “Papa!” 

The yokai suddenly dropped Mikey, leaving him coughing on the ground as he turned to face Lillac, who was staring with fearful eyes at Mikey with Rosa at her back.

 “Number One- it has been so long since you have called me that.” The yokai sounded grossly satisfied, “And now that you have recognized that you are mine-”

 “I wasn’t talking to you!” Lillac shouted, her face a picture of fury as she met the yokai’s eyes, “You may think you are my father, Baron Draxum, but all you did was create me! You never loved me, and that’s the only thing that matters!” 

 Mikey’s chest hurt as he forced out another cough and he tilted his head to the side to try to find his odachi while keeping an eye on both enemies and the girls.

 “You will regret talking back to me, Number One.” Draxum said coldly, “But if you come with me now, you may retain the use of two of your limbs-”

 “Back off.” Mikey growled, activating his nimpo and suddenly appearing in front of the yokai with his odachi raised. The demon behind him stepped back in surprise and seemed to be content in just watching this family drama. “Her name is Lillac and you do not threaten my child.” 

 The Baron’s eyes widened as a sword grew out of his back, his dying breath rattling out of his chest as he collapsed.  

 Mikey stood with a blood covered sword where the yokai fell, staring at the demon.

“You’re the Shredder.” He said.

 “Yes.” The demon answered, although it wasn’t a question.

“You have killed Rosa’s family, or have caused their deaths in some way.”

 “They were weak-”

Mikey leapt forward, giving the demon no time to finish as he hacked through the metal encasing the corrupted spirit.

 The demon tried to attack back, but Mikey gave him no room, opting instead to cut deep and quick.

Soon he too, was dead and Mikey was able to stand and rest, the chi lines fading as Lillac and Rosa ran forward to grab onto his arms again.

 “Let’s go get Leon and the girls now.” He breathed, turning away from the bodies and leading his two daughters down the sewer to where he knew a manhole would lead to the Run of the Mill entrance, “Let’s hope those monsters didn’t accidentally crush them while they were fighting.”

 “What if they are?” Rosa whispered.

“Then I’m going to go back and kill the bastards again.” Mikey growled, “But that’s not going to happen, Hueso would never let anything hurt them. You know that.”

 Rosa nodded and Lillac rested her head on Mikey’s shoulder, opting to stay quiet.

I… may have traumatized them.

Chapter Text

 “Dee Splinterson, if you turn that into another water gun I will confiscate your metal scraps and you will be grounded from listening to Lillac’s lectures for a week.” Mikey warned, looking over at the little softshell because he had just gone too quiet.

 “DAD!” Rosa shouted through the screen door, “Umber’s on fire again!”

“Again?” Mikey cried.

 “No he’s not, Leon just put him out.” Lillac countered, also shouting through the screen door, “But uh… the pool might be too hot to swim in now.”

 “Goddamnit!” Mikey cursed, “I just bought that!”

“I don’t know why you did,” Gigi said, speaking up from the beanbag chair she had set up in front of the TV to play video games, “it’s not even big enough for Russet.”

 “But it’s big enough for me!” Lee shouted, flopping across her lap and making her screech in disgust, since the little blue turtle was still soaking wet from said pool.

 “Actually, it’s too big for you.” Allie said.

“‘Actually’ there’s no such thing as too big!” Rara laughed, teasing her as he ran past her with a poofy dress from Russet’s room where the two snappers had been trying things on while blasting rock music, “There’s just a thing of being too small!”

 “Rae, be nice.” Russet rumbled as he followed his little brother with an equally puffy dress tied neatly around his spikes where Rara’s was all tangled.

 “Russet you need actual sunlight, not your replicas.” Mikey sighed, throwing the stress ball he had been playing with at the taller snapper and smiling as it went straight through. He had been getting better and better at guessing when Russet was duplicating himself.

 “Ok, you got me.” Russ grumbled, ducking out of his room and scooping Rara up to go pretend to be princesses out in the woods.

 “Be back before dinner!” Mikey called after them, sighing when they were out of earshot, “I don’t know why he keeps trying to avoid going outside.”

“Dad, I want to request to no longer be the oldest.” Leon sighed heavily as he fell onto the couch next to Mikey.

 “Oh? What now?” Mikey hummed, raising an eyebrow ridge in amusement.

“Lillac can take my spot.” Leon suggested hopefully, “That way she can deal with a fire Umber without dealing with vaporized chlorine water-”

 “Do not go into that pool.” Mikey groaned, finally getting to his feet to see the disaster that was outside, but got distracted by Dee, who had just made a water gun, “Deedee, what did I just say?”

 “Sorry.” Dee hummed, making the gun disappear in a purple flash.

“Leon, keep the twins and the rest of the bitties inside, I need to make sure the pool isn’t going to explode.”

 “The pool’s going to explode?!” Rosa shouted through the screen door, her snout pressed against the mesh.

 “No-” 

“Lillac, the pool’s going to explode!”

 “Really?!” Came Lillac’s faint reply, as well as Umber’s excited whoop.

“DO NOT TRY TO EXPLODE THE POOL!” Mikey roared.

 Leon laughed uproariously as Mikey tried to wrangle his three disaster turtles that had no business being so excited to explode the pool that he already had to try to empty and refill to stop anybody from getting sick from it.

 “Maybe you should just invest in getting a saltwater pool.” Lee suggested, showing Mikey the pretty pools on the laptop he had brought outside that Mikey knew he did not search up himself.

 “How about you talk to Lillac about it, see if you two can come up with something that isn’t full of chemicals to the point where it might be dangerous if Umber gets thrown in.” Mikey suggested, “And I heard Dee likes building things.”

 “Hey Dad?” Leon called, poking his head out of the door, “Can I go get pizza from Tio Hueso’s for dinner?”

 “Sure.” Mikey smiled, “I didn’t have anything planned anyway.”

“Cool! I’ll get going now!”

 “Make sure you get everybody’s order before you leave!” Mikey shouted, “and get at least two of each kind so that we have some leftovers for lunch for the next couple of days.”

 “Those pizzas won’t last for a couple days.” Rosa snorted, migrating outside now that Leon wasn’t there to stop her and Mikey had taken care of the pool problem.

 “I know.” Mikey sighed, “it’s wishful thinking at best, but not having to make meal plans for the next couple of days sounded nice.”

 “I can make things if you want me to.” Umber said, smiling brightly as he made Rosa move over in the chair she had picked so that he could read her book with her.

 “Maybe. I don’t want my kitchen on fire, and I actually enjoy cooking, but a break would be nice.” Mikey thought out loud over Rosa and Umber’s bickering, “And a lot of you are legal adults and I would like to send you out with some semblance of worldly knowledge.”

 “Is that a yes or a no?” Umber yelped as Rosa shoved him down onto the patio.

“Alright, go ahead.” Mikey grinned, “Make a meal plan for this week and I’ll pick up the ingredients. I’ll help you cook everything if you need me too. And then we can have someone else pick meals next week.”

 Umber beamed and Rosa smiled.

Yes, Mikey was doing a good job.

[~+~]

Leon munched on his pizza as he turned his last in person lesson over in his head. Keeping the secret was getting harder and he was getting a little tired of it.

 Mikey could get really mad at me for going to medical school without consulting him or even telling him.

The entire thing of cheese on his pizza slipped off and he tried to catch it with his mouth, but it was too hot.

 “That’s not how you eat pizza!” Lee giggled, teasing him as pizza sauce covered his own little face. Leon scrunched his face in a silly expression to get another giggle from his baby brother.

 He wouldn’t though, he’s done nothing but support me since he found me. He’s my dad when he didn’t even have to be.

 Tio Hueso even said that Mikey has the biggest heart of anybody he knows.

“Is something on your mind, Kiddo?” Mikey asked, catching his thoughtful expression as he went back to eating.

 “I- uh…” Leon froze like a deer caught in headlights, his mind whirling as he put his pizza down on his plate, “Um.”

 Lillac raised an eyebrow ridge at him from across the table, right next to Mikey, and Russet gave him a small thumbs up on the other side.

 He had told them both as soon as he had gotten the acceptance letter and had been subtly covering for him ever since.

 “Leon…” Mikey said in that tone that he always used when he wanted to know something, but didn’t want to completely destroy privacy barriers.

 “I got accepted into medical school a few months ago and I haven’t told you yet.” Leon blurted, his hands clapping over his mouth almost comically as silence fell over the table.

 Mikey blinked and opened his mouth.

“I’m sorry, please don’t be mad, I just wanted to be a doctor,” Leon apologized, cutting his father off, “A-and Tio Hueso helped me get in after I mentioned it once and then everything happened and I couldn’t tell you, but now that nothing’s happening-”

 He blinked and Mikey had pulled him out of his seat and trapped him in a shell crushing hug.

“I’m so proud of you, Leon.” Mikey hummed easily, like it was the truest thing he had ever said, “So, so proud. I’m so happy you told me.”

 “You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be?” Dad laughed, “You got into medical school and have been performing great at work. You’re doing a balancing act that you’ve been handling really well. You're going to be a doctor!”

 Leon cracked a smile and Allie started a cheer as Mikey hugged Leon tightly again, grinning like a madman.

 “Now, let’s get back to eating this good pizza while it’s hot and then we’ll go get some dessert in the city afterwards, m’kay?’ Mikey said, sitting Leon back down and putting his pizza back in his hand before sitting back down in his own chair.

 “I told you that you had nothing to worry about.” Umber smiled as he leaned over to whisper. He had known for a couple months, ever since Russet had told him.

 “Thanks.” Leon smiled back, biting down on his pizza happily.

Nothing could ever ruin this moment, sitting with his big family, eating pizza, knowing he had no more secrets to keep from them all.

 Well, until the house shuddered and his heart dropped, dread filling his stomach as the lights flickered, allowing the shadows around them to grow and spread like ink.

 “What now?” Rosa groaned as Dee wailed in fear. Mikey grabbed the screaming softshell and his twin, who had frozen.

 “Shadows are not supposed to do this.” Lillac said, her eyes blank and her voice in damage control mode. She didn’t like letting fear get to her, so she shut down when something unexpected happened, going cold at a moment's notice.

 Gigi shuddered and winced, pulling her knees up to her chest as the shadows reached out from under the table, “It’s got eyes, Daddy, the shadows have eyes!”

 “Stay calm, it’s just a flux in the magic of the dimension,” Mikey said reassuringly, completely selling it other than the fact that he was reaching for the odachi he always had sheathed over his shell now, “It’ll go away in a minute-”

 “It touched me!” Rosa yelped, jumping out of her chair, knocking it backward and falling almost directly into another puddle of darkness that had formed while the lights flickered, the lights staying off for longer each time, “I’m sinking!”

 And she was.

Leon was paralyzed as he watched Rosa get swallowed whole by the shadows, her scream fading as she did, it all happening in less than a couple seconds.

 The lights shut off completely and their markings all lit up in the dark, reflecting off the all encompassing eyes staring back at them.

 The last thing Leon heard before being swallowed were the screams and cries of his siblings.

I should have been more aware.

Leon closed his eyes against the darkness and let them take him. It turns out something could ruin the moment.

[~+~]

Fin.