Chapter Text
“Whoa.”
Casey stared in wide eyed wonder as his Sensei flew through the air. Completely unafraid of the distance slowly shrinking between him and the ground as he twisted and turned like a professional acrobat. Just when it looked like it might be to late, a pool of light opened beneath him, one that swallowed him whole before disappearing in a blink.
Only for the pool to reappear, right behind Raph, Leo’s grin almost as bright as his nimpo as he bursts out from the blue light and nailed his brother right in the upper part of his back.
As much as a beast as Raph was, the hit still sent him tumbling forward, his hands jumping up as they scrambled to grab the other ninja but failing to secure a hold before Leo clutched his head in both hands.
Without wasting a second Leo reefed his brother’s head to the side, forcing Raph to follow, throwing his body weight into it as he twisted around him, dragging Raph down, down, down, and than using Raph’s unbalanced weight to yank him over his hip where he hit the ground hard on his shell.
Casey cheered, whooping alongside Mikey as April let out a groan.
“Raph, how could you lose!” She scolded, Mikey wasting no time in poking her gently in the arm.
“Aaaaapril~.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She grumbled, slapping a twenty in his hand. “There ya go ya gremlin.”
“Wow! That was amazing!”
Walking up to the two as Leo helped his brother back on to his feet, nearly getting tugged down in the process, Casey’s smile couldn’t possibly be any brighter as he approached.
“You guys looked so cool!”
“Ah, why thank you mi peque.” Leon smirked, shooting a ‘finger gun’, as he’d learned they were called, alongside a wink. “It’s all in the wrists.”
Raph gave a snort at his words, but didn’t say anything further on it as he turned to Casey. “Thanks Junior, though Raph knows we still need a lot of training if we wanna catch up to ourselves.”
And he wasn’t wrong.
Even in that short round, Casey could see their weaknesses clearly, the opening in their defenses, the lack of speed and the hesitation in some throws. There were a few times when he wondered why they hadn’t used this move or that, before remembering that they probably hadn’t been taught it yet.
After all, they’d only just started taking their training seriously since the Kraang attack as Casey found out, and their father hadn’t trained them passed the very basics since they were tiny turtle tots.
He couldn’t deny that increasing their training would be highly beneficial, but it wasn’t like they were slouches either.
So, smiling up at his new teammate, Casey rested a hand on the meaty part of his arm in reassurance. “Don’t be too hard on yourself Raph. They have twenty years of full-on war experience on you guys. There’s no need to rush.” He assured before his smile grew bigger as he shared a look between them both. “And they didn’t have their nimpo abilities either, the only one who still had his was Mikey, but he used it so rarely. It’s been really cool to see it in person rather than hearing about it in stories!”
“Ughk.” Leon shuttered, spinning his blades in his hands, the body of the steel flashing blue as his energy sparked and faded in weak pulses. “That was an awful feeling. Never wanna go through that again. No bueno. Felt like part of my soul was ripped out. Thank you, next, ammirit?”
Never having nimpo of his own, Casey couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have felt like to have it locked away like theirs had been.
“Agreed.” Mikey pipped up from behind them, his own fingers twitching when Casey tossed a look in his direction. “I’m so happy to have my razz mataz back.” As he spoke he cradled his hands to his chest like they were babies, cuddling into them with a coo that Casey snickered at before he turned back to his Sensei.
“Hey Sensei,”
“Pupil.”
Casey paused for a moment, his expression freezing on his face at the way Leo arched a brow ridge at him in turn, watching the corners of his lips quirk up in amusement. When he finally got over his slip up, he gave a huff of a chuckle as he lightly crossed his arms over his chest.
“Right, sorry. It’s a… force of habit.”
“I know Junior.” Leo said, twirling one of his swords to rest on his shoulder as he smiled good naturedly all the same. “What was it you wanted to ask?”
“Well, Leo-,”
It felt weird.
Saying his name without any title left a sour taste in his mouth. It felt disrespectful in a way he wasn’t used to, but Leon was right.
He wasn’t Casey’s Sensei or his Master Leonardo. Not in this timeline.
Pushing past the awkwardness of it all, Casey carried on, “I’ve always wondered how your teleporting worked. I know it’s not like Mas- uh, like Miche- like Mikey’s, so, how does it work?”
“Oh.” Leo looked startled by his question, giving a hard blink as his face went blank, nothing showing behind his eyes as he stood there, searching his brain for an answer. Eventually he smiled, “I have no idea.”
“Yeeeah,” Raph agreed, looking a little sheepish as he spoke. “Nunna us really knows how it works. Just that it’s a Hamato… energy thing?”
“Master Splinter never mentioned it?”
“Uh…” All three of them shared glance with one another. April also pulling a bit of a face as she shared a look with Mikey.
It was Leo who stepped forward, his hand flipping this way and that as he gave out a small, forced laugh.
“Weeeeeell, ya know, he wasn’t the best… student, when he was younger and all the family notes kinda… went up in smoke.”
“We’re kinda winging it.” Raph admitted, sheepishly scratching at the back of his neck.
“Total wings baby!” Mikey shouted, Casey letting out a small grunt when he suddenly found a giant box turtle on his back. “We’re playin’ it by ear and learnin’ more every year!”
“Nice rhyming Miguel.” Leon chuckled with a wink at his baby brother who only grinned wider, clinging to Casey who quickly scooped up his legs to keep him from falling.
“Thanks!”
“I guess you’re in the same boat as us.” Tilting to the side, Casey glanced at April as she walked up beside him. “We’re just playing it by ear and testing things out. Except Mikey’s portals.”
As she spoke, she glared at a point just over Casey’s shoulder, and he could feel Mikey sinking back into his shell before he slid off his back entirely.
“I just wanted to see if I could open portals like Leon does.”
“Ay, sorry Mimi. You can float aaaaall you want. Only the Faceman gets to portal from here to there.”
Mikey continued to pout as Leo dropped his arm over his shoulders, spinning his sword again as he pointed it upwards before swishing it down. As if to prove a point, a tiny portal opened up just wide enough to fit his hand through. With a flourish, he shoved his sword in its sheath before shoving his hand into the tiny blue pool. With his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth he fished around for a bit, everyone watching his shenanigans.
“Ah ha!”
A smile lit up on his face, his hand retreating back to his body, now clutching a fresh slice of pizza.
“Here ya go amigo!”
Without further ado, Leon plopped the piece right into Mikey’s palm, the little box turtle chomping down on it grumpily, Raph narrowing his eyes at his blue banded brother from just over his shoulder.
“Leo, how did you pay for that?”
April snickered as a sweat drop rolled down Leo’s face, a nervous force of laughter hiccupping out of his throat as his eyes darted off to the side.
“Oh, well, you know, Hueso knows I’m-,”
“Leo.”
“Uuuugh, fiiiiine.” Dropping his arm from Mikey shoulders back to his side with a roll of his eyes Leo went to unzip his fanny pack, letting out a small tisk not even a second later. “Drat. Outta, well, everything.”
“Leo…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it big daddy.” Leon brushed off, leaning into his brick wall of a brother as if he was an actual wall. “Dontron owes me for the last bet we made. I’ll just get him to cough it up, no problemo. Oi, Junior, ya wanna try a portal ride?”
“Really?”
Perking right up Casey couldn’t help the sound of excitement in his voice. He’d always wished he could try out portal travel, one that preferably wasn’t made in a life or death situation where he had to…
On the rare occasion that Master Leonardo did talk about the portals that he used to be able to make, it always sounded so cool.
“Why not?” Leon said, taking out his sword and rolling his shoulders before holding it before himself. “I’ll portal ya over to Donnie boy, you can grab my cash and than get back here in time to see me beating Raph three for three.”
“Don’t hold your breath. You’re going down this time little man.”
“Ya, ya. Keep dreaming, because that’s the only place you’ll win.”
As Raph growled, Leo ducked out of the lazy swipe his brother took at his head, bouncing over to Casey and lightly bumping into his side.
“Ready?”
“Oh!” Casey took a look down at himself, and then around them briefly. “Do I… need to do anything or…?”
“Just make sure to land on your feet!” Leo grinned, spinning his blade, “And have fun!”
“Land on my-.”
His eyes blew wide, a feeling of weightlessness hitting him for all of two seconds before-
Casey let out a yelp, the world slipping away as he plummeted into- nothingness.
He was chucked into the darkness, the world above him disappearing as the blue ring zapped out. He was sure he was still screaming, but there was absolutely no sound, and the silence pressed down on him from all sides. His eyes remained wide, but there wasn’t even the smallest shred of light to offer him the slightest bit of what was around him.
Was this what portal traveling was like? Was it supposed to last this long? Sensei had never spoken about it like this before. He’d said it was like stepping through a warm breeze, a whole new world just waiting on the other side.
This was cold. Cold and long and dark.
It was endless.
He felt like he was just falling deeper and deeper and deeper and-
The wind was knocked out of him, his whole body ripped to the side so violently he would have vomited if he was given even a moment to register it.
There was nothing he could do to stop himself or slow himself down. He felt like a fish caught on a hook, being dragged to some unknown location with no way to fight back.
Not until he slammed hard into some immovable surface, a sudden and to bright light blinding him as he gasped for the air that was knocked out of him.
That’s it. He hated portal travel.
“Holy Chalupas!”
Casey groaned, the voice sounding way to loud, his head pounding from both the fall and the sudden sensation of- everything.
“What the heck! Where did you come from?”
“Sorry Donald,” was it normal to want to throw up after portal travel? Leon always looked fine, and so did all his brothers. Maybe Casey just wasn’t built for that kind of travel. Pushing himself to sit up he rubbed a hand over his head, hissing at the sore bump he knocked into.
Looks like he might need Leo to look him over once he got back. The last thing he needed was a concussion, or some sort of portal traveling sickness.
“Leo sent me to collect the money you owe him. He need it for a slice of pizza he got for Mikey.”
Ugh, why was his head still spinning. Or was it the world that was spinning like a top?
“What?”
Why did Donnie’s voice sound so weird? Maybe his ears had been damaged during his time in the portal.
Stumbling to his feet on legs that felt a little shaky, Casey grabbed at a… white desk?
Pushing the change of aesthetics aside, he rubbed his fingers deeply against his forehead in hopes it would help ease the restless throbbing.
“He says it’s money you owe him from a bet? Raph is-.”
As he lifted his eyes, his mouth snapped shut at the sight of black shoes just underneath a set of blindingly white pants.
Pants?
Sure. It wasn’t uncommon for his uncles to wear clothes, though they didn’t wear them daily like they had in the future Casey knew them, they still were willing to throw on an outfit when a situation called for it.
Confused he continued dragging his eyes up, growing more and more uncertain at the lack of familiarity in the shape, the rest of his explanation drying up and dying on his tongue as he came face to face with a turtle mutant that was definitely not his Uncle Donatello.
Was he a turtle mutant? Yes. Was he wearing a purple mask? Yup.
But he also looked older, older than the teens that Casey had met, but younger than the middle-aged mutants that had raised him. Even his eyes were different, gone were the opposite blue and purple that Donald had, replaced with a soft red brown. He even had a small gap in his teeth, something that Casey could only see because of how wide his mouth was hanging open.
“Uh. Hi?”
“Bishop! Leo!"