Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first thing Hamato Leonardo was aware of was the pounding within his skull, it was a deep throbbing ache that made him wonder if he’d been listening to Donnie’s idea of “relaxing” music on full blast for three days straight.

The second thing he was aware of, was that he wasn’t on his bed. Or even on the cot in the Med Bay, even though he felt like perhaps he should be there as more aches and pains throughout his body began to announce themselves. No, he was lying on the floor, the cool feel of it against his cheek was making him shiver. But he just couldn’t find the energy to do anything about it as he continued to take stock of the rest of his body.

Alongside the deep rooted headache, which he was pretty sure was borderline migraine territory, his left shoulder was throbbing in a familiar unpleasant way. Like it had been dislocated then popped back into place but wasn’t being supported properly.

His knee, which had given him problems since being trapped in the prison dimension with Krang Prime, was also throbbing in a familiar unpleasant way. In fact, now that he was giving his attention to it, he didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed that pain first.

He secretly hoped that the patella hadn’t been dislocated again, Donnie would have him back in that uncomfortable knee brace before Leo could count to three. It had taken forever for him to convince his paranoid twin that he no longer needed the brace after the last time the patella had become displaced, and even then the pain had lasted for months even with Donnie’s meticulous rehabilitation schedule.

Leo tested the injury carefully by trying to stretch out the leg from its semi-bent position, only to be rewarded with a white hot pain that nearly had the blackness taking over his vision again as he inhaled on a sharp hiss.

Ok, bad idea. When his head stopped pounding he was going to have to take a closer look and see what damage had been done.

But right now, the very thought of opening his eyes was laughable. Well, if he wanted to laugh. In reality there was nothing about this situation that Leo found funny.

Another sharp throb of pain from his right knee had his teeth grinding together, his fingers closing into a fist. A single fist.

A single fist?

He felt like his thoughts were trudging through sludge as he tried to recall why the sensation of a single fist seemed so wrong.

He was lying on his right side, which in reality was not helping with the ache in his leg. Perhaps he just wasn’t feeling his right hand because he’d been lying on it for so long that it had fallen asleep.

But something distant in his brain told him that wasn’t right either. Something felt off, in fact something felt wrong.

The panic of it was enough to make him crack open his eyelids, only to immediately squeeze them shut again against the onslaught of brilliant white light burning into his corneas.

His head gave another nasty throb as he drew in a deep breath through his nose as he amped himself for a second try.

He was more ready for the bright light this time, although expecting it did nothing to help ease the intensity of the pounding in his head at the sharp contrast. His eyes stupidly watered uncontrollably and he found himself having to close his eyes again after only a few seconds.

He took a deep breath, trying to breathe through the pain so he could gain better control of himself and get an idea of where he was and what was going on.

Breathe in, hold, exhale, and repeat.

Leo walked himself through the process, moving the pain from his head and throbbing right knee to the back of his mind where he could deal with them later before he cracked open his eyes again.

The bright light still forced him to squint, but was more tolerable the third time around as his eyes slowly took in the brightness of the room. A room he didn’t recognize.

The jolt of realization this thought brought sent a surge of adrenaline shooting through his veins, making his headache and sore right knee an afterthought as his eyes widened in alarm.

Without giving it conscious thought, Leo suddenly found himself in a sitting position, the sound of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears as dread and fear twisted his insides into knots.

His first initial thought was relief in not finding himself tied down, no ropes, no chains, nothing. He was just in a room. The relief faded rapidly as the reality of his situation really started to sink in. He might only be in a room, but this was a room he’d never seen before. He wasn’t at home, or Casey or April’s – not even Hueso’s. He had no idea where he was, and unlike any of those places, this room held no feeling of comfort or safety.  

The floor he was sitting on was solid concrete, the walls all the same shade of white. In the corner of the room sat a toilet with a roll of toilet paper sitting on the tank, along with a bucket of water he presumed was for washing with.

The only piece of furniture in the room was a ratty old mattress, devoid of any sheets or blankets. The blue material was stained with something dark and brown, something that looked suspiciously like dried blood.

Leo’s stomach did an uncomfortable flip-flop.

Whatever this place was, it wasn’t good.

Another shiver ran down his body as he shifted to get his feet beneath him. Wherever he was, he wasn’t eager to stick around to see what horrible things his captor had in store for him.

His right knee threatened to buckle as he shakily got to his feet, instinctively, Leo compensated for the injury by shifting more of his weight onto his left leg, only to find himself overbalancing which forced him to stumble into the closest wall to keep himself upright.

The feeling of being lopsided had him immediately looking down at his right arm and groaning. His prosthetic was missing. He wasn’t really surprised that he hadn’t thought about it until this moment, for the past few months he had slowly been acclimating himself to the new arm Donnie had meticulously spent months working on for him.

It hadn’t been an easy adjustment, after a year of getting used to having no arm on his right side, Leo had found the titanium prosthetic heavy and uncomfortable at first. Despite the fact he’d been thrilled to have two arms again. But that didn’t mean the ache in his upper arm or shoulder was any less painful after bearing the weight.

Despite his annoyed protests at Donnie’s insistence he take his time with it, letting his muscles adjust to the added weight by wearing it for only a few hours at a time, Leo hadn’t been able to deny the wisdom of his brother’s advice.

Leo had started off with wearing the prosthetic for a couple of hours two or three times a day, then had slowly increased that time frame over the following weeks as his muscles had adjusted and the pain became more tolerable.

Now Leo could wear the arm for just over half a day before he would start to feel the tired ache in his shoulder. He still found it frustrating that it was taking as long as it was, but Donnie had assured him that in time his muscles would be so acclimated that he wouldn’t even notice he was wearing it.

He had been wearing it earlier. He remembered putting it on when he’d gotten ready for the day. But he didn’t recall taking it off. At least not on his own. Which meant one of two things, either one of his brothers had taken it off for some reason, which he doubted, or whoever was keeping him here had removed it before putting him in this room.

The thought of the arm that Donnie had gifted to him being in the hands of some stranger made his blood boil. That arm was his. Donnie had made it for him. He didn’t like the idea of someone messing or tinkering with it.

He felt the familiar spark of ninpo igniting within his chest at the thought, his family power just waiting for him to call upon it.

Not for the first time was Leo grateful for his form of ninpo power. His portals, while unreliable at times when he had a hard time controlling his emotions, had proven to be quite useful over the past few years. Especially when he had been named leader of the team and he and Raph had bickered almost nonstop. His portals had made a nice getaway for him when he’d gotten tired of listening to his big brother’s lectures about responsibility and taking things more seriously.

But right now, in this moment, Leo would listen to Raph drone on and on about responsibility for the next two weeks straight without complaint. Anything was better than this place.

First things first, he had to find his arm and…

Oh…

His sword he always kept strapped to his shell was gone. He supposed he should have thought of that. Of course whoever had put him in here wouldn’t leave him with his weapon.

He silently berated himself for dismissing Draxum’s lectures about the brothers relying too heavily on physical objects on the many occasions he’d accompanied Mikey to his training sessions with the yokai.

He knew Mikey was quickly mastering the art of summoning his ninpo without his weapons, having done it a year ago when they’d found themselves in yet another life or death battle against several giant bipedal wolf creatures, one of whom had removed Leo’s arm. Leo hadn’t seen the fight for himself, though he had gotten a play by play from Mikey himself when he’d finally asked about it.

Mikey had said the feeling had felt like setting his ninpo free. Leo had watched, with mixed feelings of pride and self-loathing as he’d watched Mikey’s mystic training advance far beyond his own over the past year. In fact, Mikey’s mystic abilities had gone past what Draxum alone had been able to teach, which was why Mikey had left with the alchemist and their father a few weeks ago to meet with some mystic master snow leopard yokai in Asia.

Leo tried not to let the sting of his baby brother’s absence distract him as his eyes roamed about the room, searching for something, anything, he could use his ninpo on to create a new sword.

The room was as empty as it was before. No spare metal, not even a toilet paper rod was attached to the wall.

He supposed he could dig into the toilet’s tank and try to break something off in there, but if he couldn’t he didn’t like the idea of having his hands covered in toilet water with no soap to wash them with.

That would have to be a last resort.

Perhaps he needed to take a page out of Mikey’s book and try freeing his ninpo. Sure, Mikey had been pumped full of adrenaline the first time he’d done it, but surely being held against his will in this small dingy room was enough motivation for Leo to try.

He squeezed the fingers of his left hand into a fist, holding it tight as he closed his eyes, teeth grinding together.

His ninpo was still right there in his chest. Burning with the familiar warmth he was used to. He focused on it. He had grown used to the way his ninpo worked now. The color, the feel, even the smell of it were all second nature to him.

He concentrated on the glow, the warmth, imagining himself enclosing it in his hand but keeping it close to his chest. Keeping it safe, protected.

The warm little spark flickered against his fingers, growing hotter the longer he held it.

He had it right where he wanted it, all he had to do was open his hand and…

Pain unlike anything he’d ever felt before blinded him to every sensation. His ninpo vanishing in a puff of blue smoke.

He could feel his limbs curling in toward his plastron involuntarily as he thumped hard onto the solid, unyielding floor. Any new pain from the fall didn’t even register in light of the pain that was sending every nerve in his body into overdrive.

He opened his mouth to scream but his throat was too dry. He could do no more than manage a weak groan while he was forced to writhe in white hot agony for what felt like hours before the pain finally stopped.

His limbs twitched in the aftermath, his lungs straining as breaths ripped up and down his sore throat. His heart was thundering away in his chest, while his vision was spinning so much it was making him dizzy.

He closed his eyes again, pressing his forehead against the cold floor as he lay there, waiting for his tense muscles to relax.

“I suggest…” an unexpected and unfamiliar voice said rather calmly from the opposite side of the room, “that you refrain from trying to use those powers of yours. As you have just discovered the side effects of doing so are rather… unpleasant.”

Leo didn’t need to look up to know whoever was talking found his current predicament amusing.

Despite the ache that thrummed through every inch of his body, he craned his neck back so he could get a glimpse of his captor.

A man was looking through a viewing window into his room. He was tall, with slicked back black hair, wearing a suit and despite the fact that he was inside, sunglasses. The man was indeed smirking as he pushed his sunglasses higher up onto the bridge of his nose.

“Wha...?” Leo tried, but found speaking practically impossible.

“Ah, yes, I’m sure you have many questions for me, including how I know about your fascinating mystic abilities. But your questions are inconsequential, I know all about you and your family. I’m also aware that you turtles are the ones who were responsible for stopping the alien invasion a couple years back, along that giant portal in the sky last year. You and your so called brothers have been quite a matter of interest to me for some time now. It hasn't been easy finding you, but I knew it would only be a matter of time until we did. Of course we had to take precautions regarding your particular abilities. You won't be going anywhere so you might as well get comfortable. Welcome to your new home, turtle."

Leo groaned, ignoring the aches and pains in his muscles as the man turned to go, desperation pushing the words from his sore throat. “Wh… who are you?”

The man paused, glancing at Leo from the corner of his eye, lips pursing in consideration for a moment before he turned to face him again. His smirk returned as he fiddled with the dark glasses on his nose. “I go by many names, but if you must address me, you may call me Bishop.”

Chapter Text

Three weeks earlier

“You’re leaving?” Leo demanded, grip tightening so hard on the fork in his hand that it began to bend as his eyes darted from Mikey to Draxum then Splinter before landing on Mikey again.

Mikey squirmed a little uncomfortably in his chair, his own dinner untouched. “It would only be for six months. A year tops. It’s not like I wouldn’t come back.”

“A year?” Leo’s insides were tying themselves into horrible knots. What little he’d eaten of his dinner was threatening to make a reappearance. “You’re just going to take off and disappear for a whole year?”

“I’m not just taking off!” Mikey argued defensively, setting down his chopsticks and leaning back in his chair. “And I won’t be alone. Draxum is coming with me.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Leo snarked sarcastically.

“Blue,” Splinter warned with a sharp look that warned him that he was walking on thin ice.

He didn’t care. The idea of just watching Mikey walk away from their family, being so far away, didn’t sit right with him.

Ok, yeah, they weren’t little kids anymore. But Mikey had only turned seventeen two months ago, it wasn’t like he was an adult. Yet not only was he ready to leave their home and family behind, but he wanted to go live in a whole different country for an entire year?

“Michelangelo’s mystic abilities have grown far beyond my capabilities of teaching him,” Draxum said calmly as he used his chopsticks to lift the chicken chow mein to his mouth. He chewed carefully for a moment as Leo turned blazing eyes on him, but didn’t otherwise react as he swallowed and patted his mouth with his napkin. “Your brother’s mystic powers are beyond what I could have ever expected. While impressive, if he is not trained on how to properly use them, it could have disastrous results. We’ve already seen a small glimpse of what could happen with them in the past. I’d rather avoid having a repeat of that incident, or something worse.”

Mikey twitched, unconsciously rubbing at his arms where the faded, yet still visible, lightning like scars marred his skin. Permanent reminders of just how dangerous Mikey’s powers could be.

Leo ignored the small spark of guilt that flickered somewhere in his already aching stomach. He didn’t want to go back down that rabbit hole when it had taken him several months, and the advice from an alternate version of himself, to climb out of it.

As hard as it was for him to accept, he knew he wasn’t responsible for Mikey’s past choices. Those decisions had been Mikey’s and Mikey’s alone to make.

But this, this was different. This time Leo wasn’t trapped in a cage with a monster hell bent on killing him, or bleeding out from a life altering injury. This time he was aware and capable of voicing his opinion on what he felt was a very bad decision.

“Isn’t there some other mystic master that can help who’s from around here? There has to be more than one in the world.”

“While your assumption is not incorrect, I think you’d be surprised at how very few mystic masters there are. Mastering the art is not easy, most die in the attempt.” Draxum sounded very bored, as if this news was no more interesting than the color of his socks.

“Oh yeah, that makes me feel a lot better,” Leo snarled, clenching his teeth together so hard that his ears popped.

“But,” Draxum continued as if Leo hadn’t spoken at all, “while I did find another mystic arts master that was closer, I have no doubt that Michelangelo would excel better under the guidance of Master Takesharra. You need to understand that this was not a decision I made lightly, Leonardo, but there is no arguing that Master Takesharra is by far the best there is. We were lucky that he agreed to train Michelangelo at all. It took me months to make contact with him and even then, he was only interested when I explained what your brother had already accomplished without formal training.  He has graciously agreed to further instruct your brother on how to master his mystic powers, as long as we were willing to go to him. It is in your brother’s best interests that he learn to fully control his abilities.”

A small part of him was telling him that Draxum was right, but it was being drowned out by every big brother instinct inside of him that was screaming this was wrong, wrong, wrong.

This wasn’t Mikey wanting to do a solo mission somewhere off in the city where the rest of them could be by his side in just a few minutes. He would be thousands of miles away, on an entirely different continent, where they would have no idea if he was in trouble or not.

Even with the aid of Leo’s portals, reaching Mikey in a timely manner if he should need them was questionable.

Leo’s portals had been wonky for months after the invasion, and even though they were more dependable now, Leo relied on knowing the geography when making them. Otherwise, he was limited to line of sight. Since he was unfamiliar with where Mikey would be staying, it would be almost impossible for Leo to portal them there.

It was something that all four brothers were uncomfortably aware of.

Not to mention that the four of them had never spent longer than a night or two away from each other, so the idea of not seeing Mikey for six months, with the possibility of that extending out to an entire year, was not sitting well with him.

Splinter, it seemed, had already been aware of this subject ahead of time as he had not seemed bothered at all by Mikey’s announcement. In fact, their father had seemed rather uninterested in the entire conversation, but appeared to be more worried if there would be enough food for second helpings than the fact his youngest was talking about leaving.

On his left, Donnie had his eyes glued to his phone, his own dinner mostly untouched as his fingers tapped furiously away. Not unusual for Donnie when it came to mealtimes, but normally his shoulders weren’t so tense. So even though he was feigning disinterest, it was obvious that his twin was just as upset about this as he was.  

Raph, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during their whole exchange, finally looked up from his plate where he’d been busy moving his noodles around with his chopsticks to lock eyes with Mikey.

“You’d still be able to call us though, right? Or facetime or something? Just so we know you’re ok?”

Mikey opened his mouth, then closed it again, dropping his eyes to his plate as his shoulders hiked up to his ears.

“The reception where Master Takesharra lives is questionable at best,” Draxum answered for their brother once again. “He also requested that such devices be left behind as he has found them to be a distraction. For your brother’s training to be completely effective there will be minimal communication.”

“You have got to be kidding!”

“Leonardo…”

“Dad, you can’t be serious! You’re telling me that you are ok with Draxum just taking Mikey off to some middle east country and not hearing from him for an entire year?!”

“Draxum and I have been talking about this for a while now. We have come to the conclusion that I too will accompany your brother and stay close by in the neighboring village. I trust that you boys are old enough now that you will be fine here on your own. I will remain in contact with you boys so you will receive updates on your brother’s progress and well-being.”

Although that did ease some of the tightness in his belly, Leo still couldn’t say he was happy about this. But it was obvious that the decision had already been made. Whether or not he approved of it. Despite being named leader of their team, their father was still the head of their family and had the authority to pull rank when it came to decision making.

Leo pushed away from the table, no longer interested in trying to attempt eating. He needed time to think. He needed some air.

He could feel the eyes of his family on him as he stormed out of the kitchen, barely noticing that his fingers were still tightly clenched around the fork in his hand.

He was pretty sure Raph tried to call him back, but the pulsing of his own blood in his ears was deafening.

His body was moving on autopilot as it took him out of the sewers, scaling the fire escape to the closest rooftop then racing his way across the city.

The ache in his leg muscles was the first thing that broke through the numb fog that had seemed to take over his senses. He had no idea how long he’d been running for, but more discomforts were starting to make themselves known now that the fog was fading. The dry ache in his throat, the burning sensation in his lungs, the sharp pain in his right knee.  

He slowed his pace to a crawl, fighting to control his breathing and slow the rapid thumping of his heart in his chest. Sweat was rolling down the back of his neck and pooling in the lip of his shell. He wiped it away with his hand, grimacing a little as he made his way to the edge of the building while reaching into his belt for his phone to see how long he’d been out here for, only to find the pocket where he kept it empty.

He made a face, remembering that he’d left his phone in his bedroom to charge when he’d gone to join his family for dinner. No doubt that’s where it still was.

He doubted that it would take his family long to realize that Leo didn’t have his phone, though that didn’t mean they didn’t have a way of finding out where he was – thanks to Donnie’s subdermal trackers. He had no doubt he’d upset them by just taking off the way he had, he doubted it would take them long to find him here.

He sat down on the edge of the building, staring down at the city below.

Things had changed for him and his family over the past few years, more changes than Leo honestly felt comfortable with. He had never handled changes well, although he normally handled them better than Donnie. But the changes over the past few years were changes that Leo hadn’t liked.

Being named leader, the invasion and the fallout that had followed, having to face yet another cataclysmic event with Savanti Romero, his dark warriors and combination of a time scepter and war staff that had threatened to not only destroy their world but obliterate all dimensions tied to theirs. If it hadn’t been for the aid of their dimensional counterparts, he probably would have succeeded.

Meeting their alternate duplicates had been a surreal experience, one that Leo, even having lived it, still had trouble wrapping his mind around. Donnie’s dimensional duplicate had said that he and his brothers had visited several dimensions before their own, which had led to many unasked questions for Leo.

Donnie too had been curious about this and for months had done a lot of research into the multiverse trying to understand just how vast it was. But his research had yielded in little results, eventually Donnie had lost interest and had moved on.

Leo, however, thought about his own dimensional duplicate often. Leonardo had been the embodiment of everything Leo himself would expect in a leader. Calm, strategic, confident, smart, skilled and experienced. In a word, everything Leo had found himself lacking in.

Although the two of them had not exactly seen eye to eye in the beginning, Leo had come to like and respect the older turtle, his biggest regret was not allowing himself to learn more from him sooner.

In the year since their counterparts had returned to their own dimension, Leo had done a lot of self-reflecting. He’d spent a lot of time meditating, even though he’d found it difficult to quiet his mind in the beginning. But he’d found that the harder he’d tried, the easier it had become for him to do. He didn’t do it all the time like Leonardo had, but slipping into the dojo once or twice a week seemed to be sufficient.

He'd found that meditation would help calm his frazzled nerves, help him reflect on and strengthen his shortcomings and in general had soothed his soul.

He doubted that it would help in this situation though. Not even meditation would help him feel better about the fact that his brother was leaving.

He flexed the fingers on his prosthetic arm, a little surprised to find he was still holding the fork he’d been using at dinner.

Leo had been getting used to his prosthetic. Although he’d found it hard in the beginning, he had slowly been adjusting to the disorienting lack of textures he could feel with his left hand. Fortunately for him, thanks to the tactile feedback sensors Donnie had installed into the prosthetic he was at least able to feel contact or recognize pressure when someone touched it.

It had taken time, but Leo was now able to wield two katana once again, although he had yet to be able to make a portal with his right arm. Donnie had sworn that he had done extensive research to allow Leo’s ninpo to flow through it, but so far Leo’s attempts had been fruitless.

There were a few other things Leo had yet to master, like some finer motor functions, such as holding chopsticks. It was why Mikey had given him the fork at dinner.

His fingers clenched around the utensil, teeth grinding together as he squeezed his eyes shut against the tears he could feel forming.

He listened to the sounds of the city around him, unmoving, for what felt like a very long time. He could feel his breaths hitching in his chest as he fought to control the tears that were burning under his closed eyelids.

The faintest sound alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone just seconds before he heard Casey’s familiar voice hesitantly call out from behind him.

“Master Leonardo?”

Leo held his breath for a moment before releasing it on a shaky exhale, then slowly opened his eyes but didn’t turn to look at his friend.

He could hear Casey’s shoes on the tarmac and rustling of his jeans as his friend closed the distance.

“Donnie call you?” Leo asked when Casey sat down beside him.

“Mikey actually, they were pretty upset when they couldn’t reach you and said they found your phone in your room. Donnie texted me your location since I was the closest.”

Leo had expected as much. “I’m assuming he told you what happened?”

“He didn’t go into details,” Casey confirmed a little hesitantly, “just said you were really upset and took off when he told you he was leaving. They wanted to make sure that you were… well, that you were safe.”

Leo’s eye twitched but he couldn’t fault his brothers for worrying. The look of horror on all of their faces when he’d told them about his previous suicide attempt not long after Leonardo had arrived would forever be etched in his memory. So of course seeing him take off when he was so visibly upset would be cause for concern.

He knew he was in a better place mentally than he was back then, but that didn’t lessen the justified fears his family might be feeling.

“Sorry about that – I just needed some air. Needed to think.”

“Some things never change; you did that a lot in the future too. Especially when you got bad news. It wasn’t always easy to find where you’d snuck off to either, Donnie was usually the one who would track you down. But after he was gone…” Casey trailed off when Leo’s shoulders went rigid. He cleared his throat a little awkwardly and began playing with a loose thread on his shirt as he changed the subject. “Want to talk about it?”

“It won’t help; it won’t change the fact that he’s leaving.”

Casey was quiet for a beat, tugging harder on the loose thread before finally snapping it free with a firm tug. He wrapped the thread around his forefinger, chewing on his bottom lip as he seemed to think Leos’ words over.

“He won’t be gone forever though, right?”

“He’s still leaving.”

“Did he say where he’s going?”

“Asia somewhere… Draxum wants him to train with Master Takesharra.”

“Wow, the Master Takesharra? Master Michelangelo talked about him all the time when I was little. Told me a lot of stories about the battles they’d fought together, said he was one of the greatest mystics that he’d ever known, and what an honor it had been to have been one of his students.”

Leo turned his eyes to Casey, eye ridges pulling together. “Wait, you knew him?”

“I know of him. I never got to meet him myself. He was killed in the great battle of 2026. I was still a baby but from what Master Michelangelo told me, Master Takesharra used his mystic powers to contain a nuclear Krang missile that we dubbed the “ash maker” because once one was detonated the following explosion left nothing but ash and devastation for nearly three miles. They were one of the Krang’s scariest weapons. Master Michelangelo said a lot more lives would have been lost that day if it wasn’t for him. He was given the highest honors for his sacrifice and everyone else always talked about him with respect.”

“You never brought him up before, you always said Draxum trained Mikey.”

“Oh, he did, but Master Michelangelo was as good as he was because he was taught by many masters of the arts. At least that’s what I was told. You told me once that not long after the invasion started, when the resistance began to form, that yokai and people were forced together for necessity from all over the world, which led to a lot of new opportunities to meet those who exceled in all disciplines. You were always more focused on the physical side of things. You expanded your fighting styles out from ninjitsu and soon mastered jiu-jitsu, karate, judo and kendo. Master Raphael was more interested in kickboxing and kung fu. Master Michelangelo focused on the mystic arts; he was taught by different masters from all over the world. Master Donatello kept his focus on weapon engineering and military systems. It’s how he was able to keep our bases undetectable most of the time. But we all depended on each other to survive, because we didn’t stand a chance against the Krang otherwise.”

Leo nodded as he looked away from his friend, staring down at the city as he thought about this. If Mikey really had become the greatest mystic warrior the world had ever known, it would make sense that he would need to learn from multiple teachers. But still, that didn’t make him feel any better about the situation now.

The invasion was over; there was no immediate threat they needed to worry about. Plus Casey hadn’t said anything about Mikey going away to train with these mystic masters, but rather had made it sound as if they had still all been together, forced into close proximity because of their situation.

This was completely different.

“This isn’t the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. But there must be a reason they’ve decided to do this now, isn’t there?”

Leo wanted to say that it was because Draxum was a busy body who thought he knew what was best for everyone, but instead swallowed the words. The truth was he’d been so upset by the announcement that he couldn’t remember if there had been an explanation as to why this was happening now or not.

He shrugged one shoulder in answer, not bothering to look at the kid as he began fidgeting with the fork, passing it back and forth between his flesh and metal hand.

“I didn’t stick around long enough to find out,” he admitted after a few long awkward minutes of silence.

“Don’t you think you at least ought to give Master… er… Mikey the chance to explain then?”

“I don’t want him to leave! It doesn’t feel right – even if Draxum and Splinter are going with him it just… it feels wrong.”

Casey twiddled his fingers in his lap. “You never did like change much. But there’s something that Master Leonardo used to tell me that I’ll never forget, “The hardest thing about being leader is having faith in the team you lead and trust in their choices”.”

Leo stopped his fidgeting, gripping the fork tighter in his flesh hand. “What does that have to do with…”

“During the war, Master Leonardo couldn’t be on every mission, no matter how much he may have wanted to. He knew he needed to go where he was needed the most. Even if that meant that it wasn’t where he wanted to go. A lot of the time, especially when I was younger, you guys didn’t always all go on the same missions. Master Michelangelo would tell me all kinds of stories about the early days of the war, when you were chosen to be leader of the resistance, and some of those raiding missions you and your brothers would go on. He told me you weren’t happy when you guys first started splitting up, but as the resistance grew, it wasn’t practical to always stay together. Sometimes missions required more stealth, others required brute strength with no need for strategy. Master Donatello didn’t really start going on missions regularly until I was six or seven. He was needed back at base, it was a constant battle keeping our systems upgraded and far enough for them to remain undetected by the Krang, not to mention our bases’ defense systems needed to be in top shape in case we were discovered.

You and Master Raphael would often go on missions together, but there came a time when it wasn’t feasible to always stick together. Master Michelangelo said it was one of the biggest fights you two ever had. But in the end, it was Master Raphael who convinced you by asking you to have faith in him. I’m not sure you always had faith in yourself, but even I could see that you always had faith in your brothers.”

“I do have faith in my brothers, and I know Mikey will have family close by. I don’t know why I feel this way I guess it’s just… just… everything keeps changing. It’s all happening so fast.”

“You always taught me that the world around us changes constantly. That we needed to learn to adapt to change, no matter how hard it is. The world I grew up in might not be the world you know, but the world around us changes every day. Just in a more positive way. I’d never seen snow before this past winter, or the rain. I didn’t know there were so many birds and animals out there, even right here in the city. The city itself changes on a daily basis. Change is just a part of life.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“No, but even if you don’t like it, it doesn’t mean you can stop it either.”

“So, you’re saying I should just let him go?”

“I’m saying, he’s going to go either way, but the last time he sees you and the memory he takes with him are up to you. He can either leave knowing you’re upset with him – or leave knowing you support him.”

“I… I’m not sure I can do that.”

“You might not think so, but I know you can. Master Leonardo was able to do all kinds of things he didn’t think he was strong enough for.”

“I’m not him, Casey. I might look like him, might remind you of him, but I’m not him.”

“No, you aren’t him. But you’ve already proven yourself to be a lot like him, and you’ve shown us all you won’t hesitate to do what it takes to get the job done. You’ve proven yourself to your family, they have faith in you. But they need you to have faith in them too.”

Leo’s mouth felt incredibly dry, eyes burning, while his heart pounded hard against his ribcage. “I… I do.”

“Then you need to show them that, especially Mikey. He might not say it, but he really looks up to you. You two were so connected in my time, sometimes all you had to do was just give him a look and he would know exactly what you wanted him to do. It was pretty frustrating to some of the other troops.”

Leo chuckled dryly, loosening his hold on the fork that was burning in his hand. He hadn’t noticed until now that it had begun to glow with his ninpo. But as his grip loosened, the metal cooled and the glow faded. “Yeah, I’m sure it was.”

On the street below, a familiar tank made a tight turn around the corner coming to a roaring stop in the alley below.

“One of these days I’m going to find where he planted those trackers,” Leo grumbled.

“You won’t be able to reach it when you do,” Casey grinned as he got to his feet and held a hand out for Leo to take. “Master Donatello was always two steps ahead of you.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the strategist of the family,” Leo complained as he allowed Casey to help him to his feet, only to immediately feel his bad leg threatening to buckle under his weight.

Casey, having seen this, moved closer but did not offer his support unless asked. Much to Leo’s appreciation. “Oh, you are, Donnie just started to think more like you when it came to your trackers. He got tired of you finding them and hiding them around the base. That was before you saw the real practicality of them of course.”

Leo laughed as he took a trembling step toward the fire escape, testing his weight gingerly before allowing his full weight to shift onto his bad knee. “Of course. You know, I think I’m really starting to like this ‘Master Leonardo’, perhaps we do have a few things in common after all.”

Casey smirked, climbing down the first few rungs ahead of him, just as the door opened and a very irate Donatello emerged from inside.

“’Nardo, I swear if you messed up that leg again I’m going to…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Leo cut him off before he could finish his threat, “I’ve heard your idol threats before. Don’t get your shell in a knot, it’s no worse off than it usually is.”

“Which is why I can see you limping from down here!” Donnie snapped back.

“Think I’ll fit in one of Mikey’s suitcases? Suddenly a trip to Asia does sound nice.”

Casey chuckled, “Since when do you run?”

“Since Donnie added those new upgrades to his tech bo – trust me, if you’re smart you’ll stay away from the lair for the next week.”

“Sure thing, Sensei.”

Chapter Text

Donnie insisted that Leo sit on the cot in the tank on the way home so he could poke and prod at Leo’s already sore knee until he was completely satisfied that Leo hadn’t ruined over a year’s worth of rehab with his stupidity.

Leo didn’t argue, he had learned over the years that when Donnie was like this, it was best to just let him have his way. Arguing never went anywhere, the two of them would just go around and around in circles, wasting time and energy until Leo eventually gave in and let Donnie have his way anyway. He found it ironic that Donnie always told him how stubborn and hard-headed he was, yet Donnie always managed to out stubborn him when he was sure he was right about something.

Donnie grumbled under his breath as he manipulated Leo’s leg this way and that, testing the flexibility while checking for any obvious inflammation or swelling.

From his seat in the front, Mikey kept glancing over his shoulder every time Donnie would mutter a curse word under his breath, a crease forming between his eyes.

Leo was pretty sure that Donnie was more irritated over him just taking off than any real damage he might have done to the knee. After all, they were both well aware of the fact that his knee had been so damaged by the Krang that the probability of frequent flareups and chronic pain were both things Leo would have to deal with for the rest of his life.

Leo slumped on the cot, elbow on his good leg, chin in his palm as he watched his brother work, muttering single word answers when Donnie shot questions he wasn’t really listening to in his direction. He knew the routine and he was pretty sure he’d have known for himself if he’d seriously messed the leg up again. Donnie was just being dramatic. Sure, his knee hurt a little more than normal, but the pain was bearable.

A sharp jerk of the tank, followed by a loud honk from another driver had Donnie glaring over his shoulder to snap something at Raph. Leo heard the rumbling cadence of Raph’s response but was too tired to pay attention to what they were saying. He could guess at the conversation anyway. Donnie hated when the tank was handled roughly and knowing Raph all their lives, he knew that his big brother would be fretting about him so it wasn’t surprising that his attention wasn’t on his driving.

Leo’s eyes drifted to the floor, fixing pointedly at a small dark stain there. He wasn’t sure where it had come from, or when it had gotten there. His eyes glazed over, the night’s events leaving him too tired to focus on his fussing twin as his thoughts began to drift. He couldn’t help but think about how different their home was going to be with half their family missing.

It wasn’t that he was all that upset about not seeing Draxum for a while, although he would admit that things had changed between himself and the alchemist over the past few years. He had grown to respect the yokai, although he wouldn’t exactly consider them close. Not in the same way Mikey’s relationship was with him anyway, but he could at least be cordial with him when they saw each other. He had trusted Mikey’s mystic training with him, although the decision to leave was something Leo was struggling to get behind.

Having Mikey and Dad gone just didn’t feel right.

Leo didn’t know what the future held for their family, in Casey’s future they had all stayed together, but the Krang invasion played a huge part in that. Now that that threat was behind them, there was no telling what his brothers would want to do, or if their family would stay together forever.

Leo knew his brothers had their ambitions and dreams; he also knew that they all weren’t compatible with each other. But the thought of their family splitting up had never even crossed his mind until now.

Alright, perhaps the thought had crossed his mind once or twice. He knew that human families didn’t live together all their lives. At least, not usually. It seemed to be pretty common for kids, once they turned eighteen, to leave their family home and strike out on their own in one way or another.

April, for example, after graduating high school, had left her parents’ home later that summer to go to college in a different part of the city. She had found a small apartment up there that was fairly affordable with a roommate, though she’d sent him a few texts telling him how tight her budget was.

Still, that was different.

April hadn’t gone to some foreign country halfway across the world where she would have limited to no contact with her parents. She was still in New York. She could call or text whenever she wanted, and sometimes even came back to spend the weekend with her family, human and mutant alike.

No, this wasn’t the same situation at all.

Even though Leo felt a little more relaxed after talking to Casey, knowing that future Mikey had the same training with this Master Takesharra, it still didn’t make him any happier about him leaving. Future Mikey hadn’t left; he’d trained with Master Takesharra right there with the rest of his family.

He didn’t understand why they couldn’t even contact him. What harm could it really do for Mikey to talk to them? To let them know that he was safe? Or to show them what new things he’d been learning? What if he…

Fingers snapped less than an inch away from his face, making him startle back so hard that he nearly tumbled backward off the cot. He actually might have, had Donnie not grabbed his elbow.

“Geez, Dee, give a guy some warning!” Leo complained as he shook off Donnie’s grip.

Donnie gave him a sharp look in reply, mouth pinching a little in obvious annoyance. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve been telling you?”

“Not really, you are always fussing about something these days and it never seems to be that important.”

Donnie scowled, not looking at all pleased. His right eyelid twitched as his teeth audibly clacked together. “This a joke to you, ‘Nardo?”

“Do I look like I’m laughing? I haven’t found a reason to laugh all night.”

“That’s because there’s nothing funny about this! Do you realize how lucky you are that you won’t have to be wearing the brace again?”

“Like to see you make me,” Leo grumbled back, knowing he was being difficult when his twin was just trying to help, but was in such a grumpy mood he couldn’t stop himself.

“Your knee is swollen and hot to the touch! You’re lucky that it’s not…”

Leo’s night had been long and his patience had worn thin. Donnie’s words were hitting him like a torrent that Leo just didn’t have the energy for and in a moment what little patience he still had snapped.  

“It’s been doing better since the PT; will you get off my shell already?” Leo interrupted, glaring back at his irate twin, “I’m tired of you acting like I’m going to break if I sneeze funny!”

Donnie’s jaw snapped shut, teeth audibly grinding together, fingers curling into fists at his sides as he glared back.

Leo immediately felt a wave of guilt replacing the anger for snapping at his twin. He knew that Donnie was only trying to help, that he was just worried. But Leo was tired of feeling like his brothers were walking on eggshells around him. He couldn’t help but feel as if they saw him as something fragile, that one wrong step would make him shatter into a million pieces.

It was bad enough that he hadn’t felt like he’d measured up to his brothers before the invasion, but at least he was the only one that had seen it. But now, they all saw it. It had only gotten worse after Savanti. Since his arm was…

Leo clenched his teeth together, irritation shoving down the guilt as he stared his twin down. He was supposed to be the leader of this team. He was supposed to be the one they looked up to, not the one they babied.

He could practically feel the anger rolling off his twin. From the corner of his eye he could see Mikey watching them again, his eyes nervously flitting from Donnie to Leo then back again.

After a long few seconds of furious silence, Donnie opened his mouth then quickly closed it again, he shook his head once and turned on his heel before stomping his way to the front and dropped into his usual seat with his arms crossed.

Leo had no doubt that he’d have to deal with the fallout of this later, but that was future Leo’s problem.

He bit back his irritated sigh as he laid back on the cot, glaring up at the ceiling and wondering if Raph was actually hitting every pothole on purpose.

Donnie was the first one out of the tank when they got home, not even bothering to wait for Raph to finish turning off the engine before he was out of his seat and slapping the button that would open the tank’s side door. He pointedly avoided looking at Leo, ducking out from underneath the door as soon as there was enough room before storming off out of sight.

Leo had avoided looking at Raph, not sure if he would see irritation or pity there as he scooted off the cot, just managing to bite back the hiss as his injured knee threatened to buckle.

Ok, perhaps Donnie had been right about him pushing it tonight. Not that he would ever give Donnie the satisfaction of saying “I told you so”.

He could feel Raph hovering behind him, silently fretting about Leo’s pronounced limp and obviously contemplating offering his assistance. Leo had pointedly ignored Raph’s worried stink and had avoided looking at his big brother as the two of them made their way in from the garage.

Mikey was already halfway to the kitchen by the time they entered the atrium, either to talk to Draxum and Dad – or to do the dishes that were more than likely still waiting.

There was no sign of Donnie, although a glance upstairs showed the door to his lab was shut, no doubt that’s where his frustrated twin had stormed off to.

Leo immediately headed in the direction of his bedroom, wanting to get the weight off his aching knee and avoid a very uncomfortable talk with Raph in the process. He really wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

It annoyed him that he could still feel Raph hovering just a few feet away, his worried stink getting stronger with each step Leo took. Leo could feel his frustration bubbling in his belly, but bit it back. He already had one brother upset with him, he really didn’t want to make it two out of three.

He had nearly reached the stairs when, stupidly, he tripped over his own foot making him stumble and nearly go sprawling.

He felt Raph surge forward to grab him, but Leo didn’t want Raph to worry any more than he obviously already was. He rightened himself and waved Raph off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m fine, Raph. Just tired.”

He didn’t need to look at his older brother to know that Raph’s mouth was twisting in disbelief, he could practically feel the worry in Raph’s eyes as he started down the stairs.

Normally Leo would have reassured him, put on his faceman grin and put on such a convincing act that Raph wouldn’t have been able to help believing it. But tonight, Leo just couldn’t gather up the energy to pull off the act convincingly. The best thing would be for him to just get to his room so he could get away from prying eyes and overly concerned brothers.

Right now what he really wanted, was to be alone.

Raph, it seemed, had taken pity on him, because his big brother did not follow him down the stairs to where their bedrooms were. In fact Leo couldn’t even feel his eyes on him anymore.

A quick glance up the stairs showed no sign of Raph, or any of his other brothers, so Leo could only assume that Raph had gone to check on Donnie or Mikey.

No longer needing to keep up the pretense, Leo let his shoulders slump and didn’t try to hide the grimace when his knee gave a nasty throb as he quickly crossed the short distance to his room, sliding the door shut behind him.

He sat on the edge of his bed, massaging his sore knee gingerly, hoping it would alleviate some of the pain that was throbbing through the joint. As the resident medic he had been well aware of what the repercussions were for such an injury, especially since the patella had been dislocated a couple of times since the original injury had occurred. He also knew that Donnie was aware of the long-term risks, which was why his twin had fussed over him in the tank.

Chronic pain, instability, osteoarthritis, reduced mobility, ligamentous laxity, and muscle weakness were all things that had run through Leo’s head when they had first started the physical therapy sessions. He was well aware of the fact that once dislocated, the patella was more inclined to dislocate again unless corrective surgery was done. Something that was out of the question for him as just being mutant turtles made it impossible for him to check into a local hospital and Donnie was no surgeon.

At one point they had looked into the possibility of the Hidden City Hospital, but that too had been ruled out as the resident surgeon had retired not long after Raph’s eye surgery had been done and his replacement had been a resident of Witch Town – someone who unfortunately had a long memory according to Donnie.

For Leo, who wasn’t keen on the idea of being cursed in his sleep while someone who absolutely despised their family operated on him, it meant that chronic pain had just become a part of his daily life.

He had overdone it tonight, he knew that. Most days the pain was tolerable, but the brothers had taken precautions to accommodate him when they’d gone out on patrol. Their routes had been shorter, not going more than a few miles a night, sometimes less if Leo’s leg was really bothering him. They had also stayed in areas where friends or family lived in the vicinity, just in case Leo’s knee gave out and they needed to call it an early night.

It had really irritated him at first, as he had felt that his brothers had been babying him. But now Leo didn’t think twice about it. In fact the physical therapy sessions with Donnie had been helping so much that Leo had slowly started expanding out the area in which they had patrolled, but tonight he had pushed harder than he normally did.

He knew that Donnie had his reasons to worry, from the way his knee was throbbing he was well aware of the fact that he might end up back in the brace, as loathe as he was to admit that he needed the stupid thing.

Ice would probably help with the obvious swelling, and some ibuprofen would help with the pain. The problem was, Leo didn’t think he could manage the walk back upstairs to get them.

Asking one of his brothers was also out of the question. He was too tired to deal with Raph’s anxiety, Donnie’s anger or Mikey’s worry. He really wanted to just sleep.

He scooted back on the bed, ignoring the ache of his knee as he did. He paused only long enough to press the release for his prosthetic, catching it with his left hand and setting it on his bedside table so it would be easily accessible in the morning.

He rolled his stiff shoulder a few times, making a face at the new aches his body was making him acutely aware of, and slumped down onto his pillow.

His lights were still on. He really should turn them off. He could also hear the scurrying sounds in the wall; there must be a rat again. Not that he was bothered by rats like most humans were, not only because his dad was a rat man, but because dealing with cockroaches and rats were something he’d been dealing with all his life. It just came with living in the sewer. But the scurrying sounds in the walls had always bothered him, even when he’d been a tot. There was just something about the sound of their nails in the walls and the grinding sound of their chewing that set his teeth on edge.

His fan would drown out the sound, but he hadn’t turned that on either.

He wasn’t going to be able to sleep like this. Leo had a hard time finding sleep on the best of days, but he had no chance if he didn’t even follow his own comfort requirements. Warm pajamas, lights off, fan on, and the newest addition after the invasion, his blue string lights on.

Before the invasion Leo had required the room to be completely dark in order for him to sleep, but after the prison dimension, Leo had hated the dark. He’d hated the way his mind would conjure that glowing red eye in the darkest corners, the way it would glow and cast him in its horrible hue.

On more than one occasion his screams had summoned his brothers to his room in the middle of the night, resulting in sleepless nights for one or all of them depending on how bad Leo’s panic attack had gotten. On those nights when Leo did manage to sleep, he would wake up with one of his brothers sleeping next to him, or in Raph’s case he’d be on top of him as his bed was too small to accommodate them both comfortably.

It had taken Leo a while to admit what was causing the night terrors to Donnie, who had come up with the solution of the blue lights he’d strung around Leo’s room. The blue hue was soft enough that it hadn’t bothered the resident insomniac, yet had been bright enough to illuminate those dark corners that the Krang always seemed to emerge from. Donnie’s solution had worked and Leo’s night terrors, while not fading entirely, had become less frequent.

He really should fix it. In two minutes he could be back in bed.

But something inside of him just really didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure what it was, or why, but he just didn’t want to move.

Maybe it was his knee? Or perhaps it was the tired ache he could feel sinking into every inch of his body? He wasn’t sure which, but whatever it was, it was keeping him planted firmly where he was.

The knock at his door had him inwardly groaning. He really wasn’t in the mood for company. He had hoped that Raph had taken the hint and was going to just leave him alone. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk to his big brother.

Another knock, a little more insistent this time.

Leo rolled onto his side, shell facing the door. He could feign being asleep. He was a really good actor. If Raph thought he was asleep he wouldn’t want to wake him. It was no secret to his family how poorly Leo slept, so when he did sleep, they usually left him alone.

He deepened his breathing as he heard the door slide open, trying to relax his muscles as much as he could to give off the appearance of being asleep.

He could feel the eyes on his shell but didn’t move. He kept his eyes shut, his breathing steady, body relaxed.

“I know you aren’t sleeping, Leo,” Mikey called softly from the doorway, “you never lie so still.”

Leo sighed and opened his eyes, dropping the pretense, but didn’t look back at his brother.

“Can I come in?”

“I’m tired, Mike.”

“You haven’t gotten into your pajamas yet.”

There was no point in lying. Mikey knew him too well and was well aware of Leo’s required bedtime comforts.

“Yeah, well, my leg hurts.”

“Yeah, figured as much,” Mikey said, voice a little closer telling Leo that his little brother had obviously let himself into the room. Leo listened to the light footsteps as they crossed his room to the small two drawer dresser in the corner.

He heard one of the drawers opening, the shuffling of fabric, then the drawer closing again before his brother’s footsteps approached the bed.

“Can you put them on yourself, or should I get Raph?”

“I’m not a baby; I don’t need help getting dressed!” Leo snapped irritably, shooting Mikey a glare over his shoulder before reluctantly sitting up.

There was a slight sway of vertigo at the change of position that made his stomach swoop, but he ignored it as he carefully began to pull his pajama bottoms over his feet while trying not to look too lopsided as he began tugging them up toward his hips. Something that was infuriatingly difficult to do while sitting on the bed and only having one hand.

“Do you want me to…”

“I’ve got it!” Leo snapped again getting more and more annoyed with the task.

Mikey held up his hands and leaned back, frowning a little but not arguing.

It took a lot more effort than Leo would ever admit, although he was sure Mikey had noticed the beads of sweat that had made their way down his neck at the effort, but Leo successfully managed to get his pajama bottoms on by himself.

His knee was positively throbbing now, aggravated no doubt by the way Leo had been twisting his lower half to accommodate for the angles he’d needed to accomplish the task.

But that was fine, the top would be easier.

Mikey handed him the top of his pajamas, which, much to Leo’s dismay, were unbuttoned. He would either have to put his prosthetic back on to button it himself, or…

“I can’t do the buttons up on my own,” Leo admitted reluctantly.

“Want some help?” Mikey offered, not at all condescending.

Leo shrugged, it was the closest he was going to admit he needed the help without actually voicing it.

Mikey, used to this by now, responded to this as the request that it was by moving closer. “Here,” he said as he handed over a blue icepack, still cold from the freezer, “figured you might need this. Donnie said your knee was pretty swollen.”

Leo thanked him with a grimace but draped the pack over his aching knee with his left hand while Mikey maneuvered the right sleeve of Leo’s shirt over his stump before he tugged on it a little to straighten it and started doing up the buttons.

“I’m not abandoning the family you know, Leo,” Mikey said when he reached the third button.

Leo’s jaw clenched, left hand closing into a fist. “Then why are you leaving?”

Mikey sighed, keeping his eyes firmly on his hands as he pushed the button through the hole and moved onto the next, fingers trembling a little. “Because I’m scared.”

Of all the things that Leo had been expecting, scared hadn’t been one of them. His eyes fixated on his little brother’s face, noting the way Mikey was biting on the inside of his cheek and the way his mouth wobbled as tell-tale tears began brimming in his eyes.

What anger Leo had been harboring vanished in the blink of an eye. He hated seeing Mikey upset, it hurt him to know that Mikey was scared. Every big brother instinct in him was urging him to wrap Mikey up in a tight hug, to hold him close, to keep him safe. He wanted to let him know that as long as he was there that Mikey had nothing to be afraid of just as he had done since a little three-year-old Mikey had climbed into his bed after having a nightmare.

But a small part of him told him that it wouldn’t be enough this time.

“Scared of what, Mikes?”

Mikey’s mouth wobbled as a single tear spilled down his cheek, fingers stilling on the button he was holding. He took a deep breath, then another, as if trying to hype himself up for what he was about to say. Then, after a too long moment, he finally finished with the button and moved onto the next.

“I’m afraid of hurting someone. Ever since that night on the roof… my powers have been… well, they’ve been different. They’ve felt different. I’ve been different. The last time Draxum told me to try levitating, I nearly went through his ceiling. When he told me to summon my chains… one grabbed him. I almost wasn’t able to stop it. It’s like… it’s like I’m not fully in control of them anymore. I can’t help but feel that ever since I released the full force of my ninpo, it’s taken on a life of its own. And I’m worried that next time I lose control – I won’t be able to stop it. I don’t want that to happen, I don’t know what I would do if it happened while I was out with you guys while we were out on patrol and I couldn’t stop it. What if I hurt you? Or Raph? Or Donnie?”

Leo, admittedly, had not accompanied Mikey on any of his training sessions for a while, but this was something he had never thought was even possible. Their ninpo powers were a part of who they were, a part of their connection to their family, the thought of their powers being used against them had never even occurred to him.

“Mike, why didn’t you say something? You know you could have talked to us about this…”

Mikey sniffed and shrugged as he buttoned up the last button then moved to Leo’s right sleeve, tying it up short so it wouldn’t dangle. “I guess I thought it would stop? It was just little things at first, levitating to the left instead of the right, chains missing and grabbing the wrong object in the room. It didn’t seem like a big deal… I thought I’d be able to stop it with further training. But the last few sessions… well, it’s felt different. I mean, I knew that my powers were still getting stronger, I could feel it – but I didn’t think I’d ever lose control of them like that. When I couldn’t get them to stop… it… it really scared me, Leo.”

“When did it happen?”

Mikey sniffed again, avoiding Leo’s eyes as he finished tying the sleeve. “It’s been getting worse for months – but if you’re asking about when I almost hurt Draxum… last week.”

Leo’s brow furrowed as he tried to recall how Mikey had looked the last time he’d come back from Draxum’s, but was drawing a blank. He was pretty sure he had been in Donnie’s lab when Mikey had come home, Donnie running some tests on his prosthetic to see why Leo’s ninpo still wouldn’t channel through it, so he wasn’t aware of Mikey’s mood when he’d come home.

“You could have come to me, Mikes, you used to tell me everything.”  

“I know… and I wanted to. But I guess I was worried about what you’d think. That you’d be afraid of me.”

A muscle in Leo’s jaw twitched. “That would never happen.”

“You don’t know that… I don’t know that. You weren’t there, Leo… you didn’t see what I…”

Leo reached out, gently tilting Mikey’s chin so his little brother would have to meet his gaze. “It would never happen, Mike – no matter what you did. There’s nothing in this world that could ever make me afraid of you.”

Mikey sniffled fresh tears splashing down his cheeks, mouth quivering.

Leo gently stroked a tear away with his thumb, softening his voice a little when he spoke again. “What happened last week – is that why Draxum is insisting that you go now? Why he wants someone else to teach you? Does he think you’ll hurt someone?”

“He has his concerns, but he’s been suggesting that I see a mystic master for almost a year now. From what he’s been able to sense, he figures that when I released the full potential of my ninpo on the roof that night that it was like I hit the fast-forward button. He told me that our ninpo powers are tied to us, that they grow and get stronger in sync with our bodies, making it possible for us to control them. But, because I hit the fast-forward button it has thrown my ninpo and my body out of sync – my ninpo advancing to the level it would have been when I’d been in my mid to late twenties, while my body had firmly stayed fifteen. He said my ninpo has become discordant with my body, or something about my teenage self not being able to contain it properly. Not without further training from someone who has a deeper understanding of the mystic arts than he does. He’s worried that if I don’t gain control, and soon, that my ninpo would continue to get stronger and more uncontrollable. He said if that happened, there’s no telling what they’d do. They could kill me – or you guys? He said my powers are strong enough that if I were to lose control it would be stronger than a nuclear bomb. I could easily wipe out most of New York, and part of New Jersey too.”

“Well, at least some good would come out of it,” Leo joked lightly, though his smile fell flat at the devastated look on Mikey’s face. Making a mental note to kick Draxum’s butt later for dumping this on his baby brother he cleared his throat a little awkwardly and tore his eyes away from Mikey’s face. “So that’s where Master Takesharra comes in?”

“Yeah, Draxum knew he would have to find someone who’s mystic abilities would be able to match my own, so they could be contained if I ever…” Mikey trailed off, tear spilling down his cheeks freely now, body trembling with barely contained sobs.

Leo immediately opened up his single arm, an invitation for a hug, which Mikey quickly accepted. He wrapped his arm around his trembling little brother as Mikey wrapped both of his around Leo’s middle, squeezing painfully tight as he sniffled into Leo’s pajamas. Leo tightened his hold the best he could around his brother with his singular arm, tucking Mikey’s head under his chin as he held him close.

“I… I don’t want to leave, Leo… I don’t want to be without you guys…”

Leo squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a sharp pang of guilt in his heart from Mikey’s obvious misery. He gently ran his hand up and down Mikey’s shell, breathing in his little brother’s comforting scent as tears of his own built behind his closed eyelids.

“I don’t want you to go either, Mike – none of us do. But at least now I understand why.”

Mikey buried his face into the fabric of Leo’s pajamas, shoulders quivering as he silently dampened the material with his tears.

Leo let his brother cling to him, needing this moment just as much as Mikey did. The two brothers who had never been apart for as long as Leo could remember – knowing that soon they would be separated for an unknown amount of time. Neither of them liking it, but both of them understanding that it needed to happen.

“Hey, Leo?” Mikey finally whispered after what felt like a very long time, voice hoarse from crying.

Leo hummed softly, slowly opening his eyes.

“If I’d have come to you and told you about all this – and Master Takesharra, would you have been as upset about me going?”

Leo thought about this as he resumed the shell rub, mouth twitching as Mikey relaxed into the touch.

“No, probably not,” he finally admitted, albeit reluctantly, “not if you’d told me why. I’d be lying though if I told you I’m happy about it. I don’t like the idea of you leaving – or not being able to talk to you at all.”

“I know. I don’t like it either. I asked Draxum if we could ask Master Takesharra to make an exception so I can still talk to you guys – but he said it would be rude and disrespectful to make requests before we even arrive – especially since he was generous enough to agree to train me in the first place and Draxum’s positive that he’s the only one who can help me. But maybe after a month or two I can talk to him about it? It’s going to be really lonely not having you guys around for six months.”

Or longer, Leo didn’t voice the thought aloud as he held his brother tighter, knowing Mikey was thinking the same thing. “It’s going to be lonely around here too without you, Mikes. It isn’t going to feel the same without either of you.”

He knew Mikey understood that Leo meant him and Splinter, not Draxum.

“We are coming back, Leo, you know that right?” Mikey asked.

“Better be, or I’ll have Donnie hunt you down,” Leo forced a smile that Mikey couldn’t see from his position, but it got the desired reaction anyway when Mikey laughed.

“Don’t think it’ll be that hard with those trackers he put on us.”

“Yeah, well, I know he said his range is limited – but I wouldn’t be surprised if he expands that out using satellites or something so he can keep an eye on you. I swear one of these days I’m going to find where he put that thing on me, and when I do I’m planting it on the next rocket to Mars.”

“Don’t you think Donnie will figure out what’s going on if you do that?”

“Maybe, maybe not. You know… I haven’t really tested the limits to my portals in a while – and Donnie knows they’ve been a little unpredictable for a few months. I think if my tracker suddenly showed up on Mars he’d think they went wonky again.”

Mikey laughed. “You trying to give him a stroke?”

“Nah, just want to see how big that forehead of his can get before it explodes.”

“Well, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that while I’m gone. I’d like to come home to all my brothers.”

“No promises. I have a reputation to keep of giving our brothers a hard time – I’m not going to stop just because you’re skipping out on some fancy vacation for the next six months.”

Leo could practically feel his brother’s disbelieving eyeroll. “It’s not a vacation.”

“Yeah, sure – call it what you want. But I know what’s really going on here. You and pops concocted this scheme to go on vacation without the rest of us – you even roped Draxum in on it to come up with this cockamamie excuse of training to throw us off the trail…”

Leo grunted as Mikey slapped his plastron. “You’re such a jerk.”

Leo chuckled as he tightened his hug around his little brother. “I’m going to miss you too, Mikes.”

Mikey pushed in closer, squeezing Leo so hard that he oofed as the air was forced from his lungs. Leo smiled as he planted a kiss on top of Mikey’s head. “We’ll always be here for you, Mike. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, we’ll always have your back – and we’ll be right here waiting when you get home ready to see all the cool new things you learn while you’re over there.”

“Thanks, Leo…” Mikey whispered into Leo’s chest, managing to snuggle in still closer. “I love you.”

Leo tucked Mikey’s head back under his chin, trying hard not to let the fresh tears he could feel in his eyes fall as he thought about how much he was going to miss his baby brother. “Yeah… I love you too.”

Chapter Text

The next two days seemed to pass in a haze of activity for the Hamato family.

Before Leo felt like he could even catch his breath, he found himself gathered with the rest of his family, including April, to say goodbye to Mikey and Dad for the next six months. Draxum had opted to skip out on the sentimentality, informing Mikey and Splinter that he would arrive later once he had finished making arrangements and they were ready to go. Not that Leo was upset with the news that he would have to spend less time with Draxum before they said goodbye.

Leo was doing his best to put on a show for the rest of the family, smiling, laughing and even contributing to their casual conversations, even though he wanted to hide himself in his room until the tremendous pit he could feel in his stomach went away.

Despite his conversations with both Casey and Mikey, it didn’t make the fact that his little brother was leaving any easier.  

Leo was happy that April had made it to the party, despite her hectic college class schedule, not to mention her new internship as a journalist at Newsday, his sister just didn’t seem to have much time for them anymore. Not that he would ever come right out and admit that, but he knew the rest of his family missed her just as much as he did.

April seemed to have grown another inch over the past year. She had also traded in her pigtails, yellow skirt and green jacket for a singular bun, yellow blouse and black jeans. He supposed it gave her the more sophisticated look she was obviously going for, but he missed the old April. The one who wore her hair in pigtails and had time to hang out, to join them for family movie nights, or paint his fingernails on their “girls’ nights” together.

With April’s new internship she seemed to be busier than ever. Although she still sent her stories to Donnie just like she did when she’d been in high school. Donnie would always read them out loud so the rest of them could hear, then would send their shared input back to April who would turn it in to her editor.

Leo knew that April had had a rough start with her internship. A few of the other reporters had been less than friendly with her, skeptical of her abilities because of her age and lack of experience. But April had been determined to show her worth, hoping that by proving herself as a valuable asset to the team her internship might lead to a more permanent position.

Her first story that had been newsworthy had been a short four paragraph column that had been squeezed into the last page of the paper. But April hadn’t cared, she had excitedly called them up and invited them all out for dinner to celebrate her first “real” article in an actual newspaper. The Hamato family had been just as excited as she was and was eager to go celebrate their sister’s success.

Several more of April’s stories had been published since then, none of them front page newsworthy and not all of them were of particular interest to Leo. Still, it filled him with joy to know that their sister was fulfilling her dream of becoming a real journalist.

“Anything new in the world of journalism, sis?” Raph asked as the six of them settled into various beanbags in the TV room.

“Actually, there is something going on I think you guys should know about. We’ve heard about a few yokai now who have been snatched off the streets.”

Donnie raised one eyebrow inquisitively. “Someone is kidnapping yokai?”

“A few eyewitnesses called in saying they saw men in black suits loading a bulldog yokai into a black van with the words EPF on the side of it.”

“EPF?” Leo asked frowning. “Who are they?”

“The Earth Protection Force, they were assigned to help clean up after the Krang invasion. I saw a few of their trucks around the city gathering up Krang tech, along with the people who had been mutated on the news,” April informed them, looking somewhat troubled. “When we got the tip about the yokai being taken I tried to do more digging, but there’s not much to find. Whoever they are, the government wants them kept under wraps.”

“But yokai aren’t aliens, why take them?”

“We have no idea, I asked my editor if I could have the assignment. He wasn’t too happy about it, he said something about how digging into a secret government agency would be a great way to ruffle feathers in all the wrong places, but I promised to keep my head low and only print facts that I can back up with actual evidence.”

“You sure this is safe, April?” Leo asked, shooting a glance over at Donnie whose troubled expression was mirroring his own. “It doesn’t sound like this is something you should really be digging into. At least not until we know more about who they are and what they’re up to.”

“I don’t think this is something we should sit around on, not when he’s snatching yokai off the streets, Leo. We have no idea where he’s taking them or what he’s doing with them once he gets them there. If I can expose what the EPF is doing and get it printed in the paper, there would certainly be a big enough public outcry that they would be forced to stop what they’re doing.”

“Or they may just come after you instead,” Leo disagreed, scowling at his sister. “This isn’t the school paper you’re writing for anymore, and exposing something like this is bound to have  repercussions.”

 “What other choice do we have? Should we just let the EPF keep doing what they’re doing?” April snapped back, face flushing with anger.

“That’s not what I said, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go exposing whatever shady things this EPF may be doing to the general public just yet. Not until we know more.”

“I hate to agree with the dum-dum here, but Leo has a point, April,” Donnie interrupted before April could continue arguing. “At least give me some time to do some digging, see what I can find out. I did some research on the EPF after the invasion as I wanted to know who was keeping the Krang contained, but I admittedly didn’t dive too deep into it as I had other things on my mind at the time.”

“There’s not much to find online, at least not from what I’ve found so far.”

“If they are trying to keep what they are doing out of the public eye, especially if it is unethical, then I doubt they will be posting much about this department on any official government sites. But there are ways around that.”

“How long will it take?”

“Give me a few days, I’ll forward whatever information I find to you. But ‘Nardo has a point, it would be safer if we knew what we were getting into before we find ourselves neck deep in it.”

“And while Donnie is doing that, Leo and I can patrol the city,” Raph offered as he cracked his knuckles. “If we tail them long enough, we might get more information on what they’re doing -or where they’re taking these yokai they’re kidnapping.”

“My sons,” Splinter cautioned, his tail twitching restlessly, “I advise that you proceed carefully. Your brother, Draxum and I will be too far away to assist you should you run into trouble. Even though I don’t doubt that under normal circumstances you boys can look after yourselves, the fact that this government agency is snatching yokai off the streets regardless of eyewitnesses troubles me.”

“We’ll keep our distance, Dad,” Raph promised, “intel only until we know exactly what these guys are up to. Whatever Leo and I find out we can send back to Donnie.”

“Your gauntlets have recording devices in them, they’re voice activated. So if you are within hearing distance of these EPF guys it should catch anything they’re saying.”

“Donnie, I thought we talked about you deactivating those,” Raph growled.

“We did talk about it, you said I needed to deactivate them – you didn’t say when. ”

Raph looked ready to argue but Leo held up his hand.

“This is actually a good thing, Raph, Donnie is right – that way the audio recordings go straight to his system. How close do we have to be, Dee?”

“Once activated they can pick up anything within sixty-five feet. I’ve been working on expanding their range, but other projects have been taking priority.”

“Doesn’t give us much distance,” Raph pointed out uncomfortably.

Donnie sighed, annoyed. “I can work on extending out the range within the week, but unless you want to wait you guys will just have to stay out of sight.”

“Whenever you have time to work on those upgrades would be great, Donnie,” Leo cut in before Raph could argue. “In the meantime we’ll go stealth, Raph. Should we bring Casey in on this?”

“Bring Casey in on what?” Casey asked as he entered the room carrying a large stack of hot pizzas he had just picked up from Run of the Mill.

“Casey! You made it!” Mikey cheered.

“Course I did, I told sens… er… Leo that I’d pick up some pizza on my way. Didn’t he tell you?”

“Thought he’d enjoy the surprise.”

“Or you forgot,” Donnie muttered quietly.

Leo shot his twin a betrayed look before quickly hiding it behind his faceman smile. “How much do we owe you for the pizza?”

“Don’t worry about it, I told Hueso this was for Mikey’s farewell party and he said to consider this to be his goodbye gift for one of his favorite customers. Said he never did pay you for being such a great waiter for him when he needed you to step in and figured this would make up for it.”

“If I remember right, he didn’t pay us because we helped wreck the place,” Leo stated flatly as he lifted an eye ridge skeptically.

Casey shrugged. “Guess he was just trying to be nice then.”

“Don’t question free pizza, Leo,” Mikey complained as he flipped open the lid on the top box and helped himself to a slice.

Leo decided Mikey was right, it wasn’t every day that Hueso gave them free pizza, besides they had probably earned it considering how many stamps they had on their frequent buyer card. He joined his family in helping himself to a couple slices of pizza then settled back onto his beanbag, leaving just enough room for Casey to join him.

“What were you guys talking about when I got here? You were talking about bringing me in on something?” Casey asked, happily accepting the spot Leo had offered and settled down next to the younger version of his former sensei.

“April was telling us about the new story she’s working on. Some government agency that is snatching yokai off the streets in broad daylight in front of eyewitnesses.”

Casey frowned, chewing slowly. “I thought that yokai were protected after what happened with the invasion.”

“Accepted isn’t the same thing as being protected,” Donnie corrected.

“Right – so you guys know who it is?”

“April said the van had EPF printed on the side of it.”

“EPF? You mean the Earth Protection Force?”

“Wait, you’ve heard of them?” Leo asked, pizza frozen halfway to his mouth, already forgotten.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about them. Master Michelangelo told me once that they were one of the first groups that the resistance joined forces with when the invasion started. It had been obvious to everyone that the Krang threat was too big for human or yokai forces to fight on their own, their only hope was to set their differences aside and come together. From the stories I was told it was Master Raphael’s idea to join forces, but he let Master Leonardo lead in their negotiations when they were discussing their alliance. Said if anyone could get Bishop to join them it would be him, since Master Leonardo was the best at calling people out on their bull shi…”

Raph cleared his throat loudly, cutting off the rest of the swear, making Mikey snort with laughter and Donnie roll his eyes.

“Uh… “ Casey’s ears went pink as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “I mean Master Leonardo was really good at making people get over themselves so we could all fight the Krang together. It’s why he was eventually elected to be leader of the resistance. He had a mind for battle plans and his strategy skills were unmatched – plus he was really good at persuading people to do things they didn’t necessarily want to do. Master Michelangelo once told me that Master Leonardo had a silver tongue – whatever orders he gave were followed, and whatever he said we believed – even if it wasn’t true.”

“Good to know ‘Nardo doesn’t stop being a liar in the future,” Donnie muttered sarcastically which got another snort of laughter out of Mikey and a betrayed glare from Leo.

“Anyway,” Casey quickly continued, “the leader of the EPF, Agent John Bishop, agreed to work with the resistance under the circumstances that he had final say on all operations. From what Master Michelangelo told me, Master Leonardo wasn’t thrilled about the conditions, but he was still really young and knew they would thrive under Bishop’s extensive military knowledge so he agreed.”

“John Bishop is the head of the EPF?”

“He was, at least he was at that point. It was before my time. Master Michelangelo didn’t tell me too much about it, but when I asked Master Donatello he told me that Master Leonardo didn’t condone the way Bishop ran things. Bishop never seemed to care how many lives were lost as long as their missions were accomplished, which was something that you guys didn’t agree on. Especially Master Leonardo, he always took every loss to the Krang seriously. Human or yokai. Everyone mattered to him, no matter who you were or what your position. He said every life mattered, while Bishop thought the opposite, as far as he was concerned yokai were expendable and human casualties were just an inevitable part of war. Master Donatello said there were a lot of fights between them, but they never did see eye to eye on things. So eventually they parted ways. I don’t know what happened to Bishop, but I did hear that a year or two later their base was found completely destroyed when Master Raphael had been heading out on a scouting mission with a small troop. They never saw them again, Master Leonardo didn’t seem that upset about it.”

“So you don’t know much about this Bishop guy then?”

Casey shook his head. “Not really, Master Leonardo refused to talk about him and he was the one who dealt with him the most. He only ever said one thing about Bishop when I asked him about the EPF - that we were fighting enough monsters and we didn’t need to add men like Bishop to the list. He refused to tell me anything else and forbade the subject if he was in the room.”

Leo’s stomach squirmed uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure what it was, but suddenly a sense of foreboding seemed to have settled on their little family.

No one was really eating anymore.

Donnie had abandoned his own slice of pizza entirely, his eyes glued to his phone, eyebrows meeting in the middle of his forehead, mouth pulling down in a pinched scowl.

Raph’s eyes were locked on the floor, his face looking troubled. He took small nibbles from his pizza slice, as if on autopilot, but it was obvious that his thoughts were on anything but food.

Mikey too looked upset by this new piece of information. He was shifting restlessly where he sat, his eyes bouncing from brother to brother before landing on his dad as if waiting for something before repeating the pattern. From the worry written all over his face it wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking.

“Dad,” Mikey spoke after a few seconds of contemplative silence, “maybe we should wait. It sounds like we are needed here right now.”

“I would suggest not delaying your training, Michelangelo,” Draxum said from the entryway to the TV room, carrying in his bag and setting it down next to Splinter’s armchair before fixing the youngest with a firm scowl.

“Oh great, Draxum is here,” Leo muttered having completely lost his appetite. Too bad really because Hueso really did make the best pies in town.

Draxum ignored him, keeping his eyes fixed on Mikey. “Not only do I seriously doubt that Master Takesharra would offer such an opportunity again, but with the way your powers have been acting over the past few training sessions, I fear what the repercussions would be should we postpone.”

“Even though it pains me to agree - Draxum is right, my son. We have already accepted Master Takesharra’s generous invitation.”

“But you just said that if something happened, we’d be too far away to help!”

Draxum lifted an eyebrow, his gaze roaming around the small family gathered together before landing on Leo. Obviously waiting for an explanation.

Leo sighed, setting down his half-eaten pizza slice into the closest box before squaring off against Draxum. “We’re aren’t looking for trouble, just more information on the EPF.”

Of all the reactions Leo might have been expecting, an eye roll - or perhaps a snort of dismissal, he hadn’t expected the alchemist’s nostrils to flare or his eyes to widen in alarm.

“I know you turtles are often foolish, but please tell me you have more sense than to try and take on the EPF on your own.”

Leo was pretty sure that his look of surprise was mirrored on every other face in the room as he stared at the alchemist.

“You know of them?”

“Of course I know of them! Agent Bishop was one of the main reasons I wanted to wage my war on the human race in the first place! He and those who work directly under him have been a threat to my kind for decades! Ever since they discovered the existence of yokai and learned of a hidden underground city Bishop has been hunting for it relentlessly, determined to wipe us all out. When I first crossed paths with him over twenty years ago, it was by mere chance. The young kudu yokai I managed to save from that place succumbed to his wounds within twenty-four hours. He told me what information they’d tortured him for, what things Bishop had demanded to know. But, as with all kudu yokai, this young one had been brave and, despite his torturous treatment, he had refused to give them what they’d wanted. But I had known then that the humans had declared war on my people, and I was not going to sit and wait for them to show up at my door! I was determined to take the war to them!”

“Yeah, well we all know how well that turned out,” Leo snarked.

Draxum fixed those unsettling yellow eyes on him for a long moment, then continued as if Leo hadn’t spoken. “I think it would be wise if you kept your distance from the EPF and Agent Bishop. Although I have not encountered them myself since our initial meeting, I have no doubt that Bishop has continued with his own plans of finding and destroying the Hidden City. Although I have my doubts that you turtles will heed my advice, it would be wise for you to lay low and try to stay off of the EPF’s radar. No doubt that the images leaked of you from the invasion and the more recent…” his eyes lingered momentarily on Leo’s prosthetic arm, “events have caught their attention.”

“So we’re just supposed to do nothing while he’s snatching other yokai off the street?” Raph demanded.

“It is better them than you.”

“How does that make us any better than he is?”

“Word that the EPF are snatching yokai will spread quickly, those that are wise will return to the Hidden City where they will be out of his reach. There are also several safe houses hidden throughout this city for yokai who do not have that option for one reason or another, they may take refuge there. Not to mention there are many yokai establishments that are not easy for humans to gain access to unless they are aware of them in the first place. Like your skeleton friend’s filthy restaurant.”

Leo’s teeth audibly snapped together as a growl ripped up his throat, hands balling into fists.

“Like you’re one to talk! I’ve seen your cafeteria!”

“Leonardo, that’s enough,” Splinter warned.

“Dad, I’m sorry but I agree with Leo on this one. If we sit back and do nothing knowing Bishop is snatching yokai off the streets, that makes us no better than he is. Not when we can do something about it,” Raph argued.

Splinter sighed, ears flattening against his head. “My sons, you are no longer children. I cannot tell you what to do. This situation troubles me, even more so with the complication of your brother and I being so far away should something go wrong.”

“We’ll be careful, Dad, and we’ll stick together, right, Leo?”

“Yeah” Leo agreed as he finally turned his burning eyes away from Draxum, “we’ll stick together.”

“If you children insist on doing this, allow me to offer a word of advice. Bishop is not all that he seems, do not underestimate him and do not assume that he will fight fair should you engage him. From what I have seen, when it comes to reaching his goals there’s no obstacle he isn’t willing to break through, no matter what it takes to do it. Do not be overconfident, I know that Donatello did a thorough sweep to erase what leaked images he could find of you four, but Bishop has his own resources, and I’m sure that he and the EPF have been working hard to find out all they can about the four of you, including your mystic abilities.”

Raph’s eye ridges furrowed. “How bad is that?”

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. But seeing what he’s done in the past, and with technology advancing along with his resources, there’s no telling what he’ll be able to do. Replicate it, channel it, contain or possibly even destroy it. I don’t know what he is doing with the yokai that are currently in his hands, but I can guarantee that most of them will not make it out of there alive. I will reach out to my contacts in the Hidden City now that I know Bishop is after the yokai up here, getting that information to the right people will allow them to send out alerts to everyone else. At least then they’ll be warned about the danger. I will also inform them of your intents, as well as a way for you to reach them, should you need assistance while we are gone.”

“That would be great,” Raph agreed.

“April, you said that the EPF were the ones who were in charge of the cleanup after the Krang invasion, how much were they in charge of exactly?”

“From what I can tell they took care of everything, anything from Krangified humans to Sister Krang herself along with whatever they could salvage from the technodrome after it exploded when the portal closed on it.”

That’s what Leo was afraid of, his gaze snapped back to Draxum, body tense as he met the alchemist’s eyes. “What would he want with all that stuff?”

Draxum too looked troubled by this information. “With the Krang’s technology in their hands, the potential for what they can do with it is unlimited. Superior weapons, upgrading their technology, possibly making it strong enough that it could make them unstoppable - even to the government they supposedly work for. But I can promise you that whatever they are doing, Bishop is doing to serve his own purposes – whatever they may be, and that does not bode well for anyone or anything that stands against him.”

“Well then,” Leo said determinedly as he looked at his family, “looks like we have some work to do.”

Chapter Text

Turns out that tailing a secret government agency was in a word… boring!

Leo was fairly positive that watching the paint dry on Mikey’s canvases would be a more productive use of his time rather than tailing EPF agents around the clock.

The fact was, that in the two and a half weeks that he and Raph had been going on these patrols – they were no closer to finding the EPF base or any new information on Bishop.

At first things had looked promising – even though it had been a little annoying that Raph had insisted they stick together, despite Leo pointing out they would cover more ground if they split up.

Raph had been firm. He wasn’t about to let Leo run around the city chasing EPF agents with a bum knee.

Annoyed, but not daring to argue in case Raph benched him – which was totally within his rights to do being the eldest still at home, and the fact that Splinter had left him in charge, Leo had reluctantly gone along with Raph’s plan to patrol around the city together.

In hindsight it made sense on why Raph had been so reluctant to let Leo go off on his own. His knee had significantly slowed his pace, and despite Leo’s best efforts – their patrols only lasted for a few hours at a time before the pain became too distracting to ignore and they’d had to call it quits.

Donnie had offered them the use of the turtle tank, which would have spared Leo’s knee more wear and tear, but Raph and Leo had both thought it was too conspicuous to be of practical use on New York’s streets.

Unfortunately, thanks to their lack of transportation, and Leo’s injury, it made it hard to patrol a large area.

While he and Raph had come across several EPF vehicles, especially in the first week, there were simply too many for them to follow without splitting up.

Raph had kept almost in constant communication with April – who had access to a police scanner thanks to her internship at the newspaper.

Unfortunately, even with April’s help and Leo’s portals, a few more yokai had been snatched off the streets since Mikey and Splinter had gone off with Draxum.

A skunk, a rabbit and a fox yokai were all snatched off the streets, none of them within close proximity and none of them close to any Hidden City entrances that any of them knew about.

Leo suspected that news had quickly spread throughout the yokai community after that, as the only yokai that April heard of being taken was a tiger yokai just outside of Big Mama’s hotel.

Of course Raph and Leo had immediately headed that way to question her about it, Leo opening a convenient portal right into her penthouse office.

Big Mama, of course, had been completely uncooperative. In fact, she seemed more annoyed that they had just portaled into her office than the fact that one of her hotel staff had just been kidnapped.

When she finally tired of their questions, she refused to admit that any of her staff had gone missing and wouldn’t allow them access to any of her security footage before calling a few of her brute bellboys to forcefully escort them off the premises.

Leo had known Big Mama was deceitful and often stubborn, but he thought she would have shown more concern over the fact that someone was kidnapping yokai all over the city. But Big Mama had dismissed the matter as if it wasn’t important.

Thankfully for them, most of the yokai community did not feel the same way.

Hueso had been a big help to the brothers, as well as the yokai community in general. Even though business was booming at Run of the Mill, the skeleton had temporarily reduced business hours so he could focus more on aiding stranded or excommunicated yokai who were unable to return to the Hidden City.

In fact, the restaurant itself had become somewhat of a refuge to the yokai community. Hueso had turned his staff and storage rooms into temporary housing until he could help any stranded yokai get to one of the better protected safe houses hidden around the city.

When the brothers had let Hueso know what they were up to, the skeleton had promptly offered the invitation to bring any yokai they found to his restaurant and he would take over from there.

So far they hadn’t gotten to any of the yokai they’d heard about on time. But it had become almost routine to check in with Hueso every few days to see if there were any updates from the Hidden City, or if any of Hueso’s contacts knew anything about Bishop or the EPF.

Fortunately, one thing seemed to be in their favor. Thanks to Draxum’s warnings and news spreading about the missing yokai, word had reached the Council of Heads (whoever they were) and it had been decided for the sake of the yokai community that all portals would be disabled until the threat had passed. That meant that any yokai down in the Hidden City were safe, even if it left others that were already topside stranded.

But at least they wouldn’t need to worry about any more yokai coming up here for now.

After the Council of Heads had closed the Hidden City portals, things had significantly decreased with EPF activity. Yokai had stopped showing up on the streets, which had left the EPF with very little to do. And while Raph had insisted that the two of them should stay together at first, Leo had finally convinced his big brother that it made more sense to split up. With yokai becoming scarcer on New York’s streets – they needed to cover more ground to ensure that the EPF didn’t find any yokai who made the unfortunate mistake of showing themselves. He’d even gotten Raph to agree to patrol in shifts, that way the city was being watched around the clock.

Raph, being larger than Leo and was more conspicuous in the daytime, had reluctantly agreed to take the night shift. Leo had pointed out that it made more sense for him to take the day shift with his portals as he could easily cross the city in the blink of an eye should he run into trouble, and while obviously not entirely happy about it Raph had agreed that it was the smarter choice.

Leo had had his own reasons for wanting the day shift. His portals were less conspicuous in the day time – something he’d pointed out to Raph, even though he’d conveniently left out the part that he was barely using them. Not to mention the fact that there were usually more EPF vehicles patrolling the streets during the day – and Leo secretly hoped that Agent Bishop was in one of them. There was also the fact that Leo’s patrols, though significantly shorter than Raph’s, always gave him just enough time to stop at Run of the Mill to check in with Hueso and see if there were anymore updates from the Hidden City before heading home to have dinner with his brothers before Raph left for his patrol.

Unfortunately, there was a downside to Leo’s daily patrols. While Raph had insisted that Leo keep his patrols under five hours, it didn’t stop the constant flareups that were occurring in Leo’s knee. For the past six days it had become a daily occurrence, something that Leo was determined to hide from his brothers as Raph would either insist that Leo shorten his patrols or worse stop him from going out every day – not to mention what Donnie would do should he find out.

Leo had done his best to keep any pain off his face whenever he was around either of his brothers and had learned that if he focused hard enough, he could even walk without limping. He had been doing his best to control the flareups with over the counter pain medications and ice packs every night knowing that Donnie was too busy in his lab to notice. He also ensured that Raph was long gone before heading to the Med Bay to avoid any suspicion.

He knew his brothers already had enough on their plates without worrying about him. Raph’s chasm had become a permanent fixture on his head ever since Mikey had left – and Donnie’s caffeine fueled all-nighters, which had produced very little in finding out more about Bishop or the EPF, had made Donnie testy for weeks.

Donnie had been complaining just last night about how little there was to find on Bishop when the brothers had sat down for dinner.

‘It’s like the guy doesn’t even exist!’

It had seemed that despite Donnie’s incredible hacking skills, there simply wasn’t anything to be found.

Donnie, stubborn turtle that he was, refused to stop trying.

‘There has to be something about it somewhere. No program no matter how classified it is, is ever fully off the books. I just haven’t gotten into the right system yet.’

The worried look that Raph had shot Donnie’s way hadn’t gotten past Leo, but he had no intention of trying to stop his stubborn twin.

For one thing – it would be a wasted effort. When Donnie was determined to do something, there was no force on earth powerful enough to stop him. But Leo also believe that if Donnie was able to find anything on the EPF that it would be able to help them.

He’d pretended not to see the obvious looks Raph had given him, poking at the leftover tuna casserole April had brought down two days ago with no real appetite before excusing himself to do some stretches in the dojo.

Not long after that Raph had headed out on his patrol, thankfully seeming to come to the same conclusion that Leo had since he didn’t stop by the dojo to ask Leo to have a talk with their brother.

It had seemed like Donnie had had somewhat of a lucky break last night, as surprisingly he’d been in the kitchen when Leo had come up for his morning coffee. He’d told Leo that he’d managed to get around the White House’s security systems and had hacked into the president’s personal computer.

If it had been anyone else but Donnie, Leo would have been worried about the hack being traced back to them. But Donnie had assured Leo years ago that all of his hacks were untraceable. Leo didn’t doubt it considering all the security measures Donnie had programmed into his systems.

As it was, however, he was curious about exactly what it was Donnie had managed to find on the president’s computer.

Donnie had admittedly not had much to tell, as he’d had limited time to download as many files as he could before his hack had been detected and the whole system had shut down. He had planned on going through the files throughout the day and would inform both Leo and Raph if he found anything interesting that night at dinner.

Leo had given his brother a slight salute before he’d headed back to his room with his mug of coffee, deciding it would be a good idea to let his leg rest as much as possible before he headed out on patrol.

To his chagrin he’d fallen back asleep not long after returning to his room and had been late leaving for his patrol. Thankfully neither of his brothers noticed, or at least Donnie didn’t point it out since he was keeping a sharp eye on the location of their trackers, when Leo portalled directly out of his room he had stepped out onto a restaurant roof four blocks away and had quickly begun to look for a target to follow.

Leo just barely managed to suppress a yawn as he leaned against the ledge of the roof he’d been standing on for the last hour. Despite his short nap this morning, he could feel the ache of sleep deprivation deep down in his bones and was finding that fighting his heavy eyelids was becoming a constant battle.

Truth was that his knee had been bothering him so much last night that Leo had barely slept at all. He had hoped that the coffee would help, but if anything, it seemed to have just made him more tired. Not to mention that he’d forgotten to take more pain killers before he’d left and within the first hour of his patrol his knee was so sore that he had debated about going home for the knee brace.

As it was, Leo had hobbled around on only a few rooftops before he’d found an EPF van to tail and had had resorted to using his portals as he had followed them around the city, not trusting his leg to not fully give out on him if he tried the jumps.

Unfortunately for him, the pair he had decided to follow were about as interesting to listen to as Donnie was when he was talking about sparkplugs.

Leo had been a little relieved at first when the pair had gotten out of the van to go into a little coffee shop, just because it allowed him the chance to rest for a few minutes. His knee was seriously hurting, and although he would never mention it to either one of his brothers – having to make so many portals was leaving him feeling completely depleted.

A few minutes later the two men had returned, holding pastries in deli tissue and each having a to go cup. Instead of returning to their van, the two of them had decided to sit at one of the tables just outside of the coffee shop. They’d sipped at their coffees and gossiped about a few members of the EPF, although there was no mention of Bishop.

Leo had been extremely attentive at first, as this was the first conversation they’d heard much about the EPF at all – but after listening to the constant gossip about who’s wife cheated on who, or who’s kid flunked what classes, Leo was seriously debating about what he should do from here.

He wasn’t getting anything useful out of these two, the most logical thing he should be doing was leaving these two here and try and find another van to follow.

He glanced down at his phone and sighed when he saw the time. Even if he left now, by the time he found another van there was no way he’d find out anything useful before it would be time to head home again.

Leo tucked his phone back into his hip pouch then shifted his weight onto his left leg, trying to get more comfortable as his eyes returned to the two agents below him.

Guess he would stick around here for a little bit longer, then maybe he’d head to Hueso’s and see if his friend had anymore updates for him before heading home.

“I gotta take a leak,” the larger of the two men below announced, rather unnecessarily Leo thought as he stood up from the table, “don’t eat my donut.”

Leo rolled his eyes as the man, instead of going back into the coffee shop, made his way down the alley. Why did people treat alleyways like their own personal bathrooms?

“Hey Frankie,” the second agent called after the other as he reached across the table to help himself to the forbidden donut, “you hear about Nicky?”

“What did the idiot do this time?” The first agent, apparently Frank, shouted back.

Helping himself to a bite of donut, the agent still at the table leaned back in his chair as he brushed a few crumbs off the front of his uniform. “Maddie said he got cut up real bad last night – guess he was in with that tiger yokai.”

Leo, who had been debating on whether or not he should grab some pizza from Hueso to take home for dinner, found his mind snapping sharply to attention at the mention of the tiger yokai. His eyes narrowed as he frowned down at the agent below who had returned a half-eaten donut next to his friend’s coffee and was licking the residual sugar off his fingers.

“Dummy should have known better,” Frank barked with a harsh laugh from the alley. “How many times does he need to be told that they’re dangerous wild animals?”

“From what I heard – he wasn’t given a choice. The thing had gone completely wild and had to be contained. Guess a few of them were sent in there – Nicky was just the unlucky schmuck the thing went after.”

“Dumb idiot – you won’t catch me going in with one of those things – don’t care who tells me to do it. Feel bad for all the other guys that had to go in with him – bet he didn’t even remember to put on all his gear.”

“No idea, Maddie didn’t go into a lot of details, just said he was cut up really good. Guess it got him with its claws. Thankfully the others were able to pull it off him before it could get its teeth in his throat.”

“Might have been better off if it had,” Frank said dryly as he zipped up his zipper and tugged down the hem of his shirt before wiping his hands on the black material. “You remember what happened to the last guy who got torn up by one of those things? Bloody mess. Probably would’ve been less painful if Bishop had shot him and put him outta his misery – instead of dying the way he did. Probably would’ve been less paperwork too.”

“You’re a real jerk, you know that?”

“Casualties are a part of war, Matt – you know that as well as the rest of us… HEY!” Frank had stepped out of the alley and had obviously spotted his half-eaten donut. “I told you to not eat my donut!”

“Relax, big guy, next donut is on me, ok?”

Frank huffed an agreement but continued to glare at his friend as he picked up the half-eaten donut and shoved the whole thing into his mouth chewing noisily. On the other side of the table Matt calmly finished his coffee.

“Think we’ve been here too long – Carlos said the vans are being monitored now. Think we should get going.”

Frank swallowed loudly, then washed the last of his pastry down by downing the rest of his coffee. “Big waste of time if you ask me. There’s been no sign of any of those freaky animals for days.”

“I’m with you, buddy, but you know Bishop keeps saying there’s more of them out there.”

“Filthy cockroaches!” Frank snapped as he irritably tossed his empty to go cup toward the closest trashcan. The cup hit the rim, bounced onto the sidewalk and rolled slowly towards the gutter. Frank made no move to pick it up, too busy reaching into his pocket to retrieve a cigarette. He fumbled around in his pockets for a few seconds before finding a lighter and lit the foul smelling stick, pulling in a long drag. After a moment the tension slowly left his shoulders. “You know, the sooner we find those abominations and get them off the streets, the better I’ll sleep.”

“You’d sleep better if you stopped smoking those things – thought you said you quit.”

“You always believe everything you’re told?” Frank grumbled back as he knocked some ash off the end. “’Sides I did quit – but I started again. Don’t have Nancy to nag me about the smell anymore.”

“Guess she was serious about the divorce then, huh?”

“Yeah, but good riddance. Better off without her anyway,” Frank grumbled as he reached into another pocket to retrieve the keys to the van. “Where we heading anyway?”

“Just got a text from Maddie. Said there was a sighting of something weird on the east side of Central Park. Should we go check it out?”

“Man, you know I hate Central Park!”

“Gotta go where the freaks are, Frankie.”

Frank grumbled back a response that Leo didn’t quite catch as the two agents climbed into their van and pulled into traffic.

Leo waited until the EPF van was completely out of sight before he risked opening a portal. He had no idea if a yokai actually had been spotted in Central Park, but if it had – there was no way he was going to let the EPF get their hands on it. He was going to get there first!

Donnie was pretty sure that Raph was going to carve a groove into the floor from his constant pacing. He had his phone practically glued to the side of his head with the volume turned up so loud that Donnie was able to hear it the moment it went to Leo’s voicemail again.

“He’s still not answering!” Raph ended the call without bothering to leave another message. “Do you think something could’ve happened to him?”

“Doubtful,” Donnie disagreed as he watched Leo’s icon move across the projected screen of his gauntlet. “In fact, from the eradicated pattern of his movements, I would say that Leo just portalled.”

“He did?” Raph asked, stepping closer and squinting at the screen as if to bring it into better focus. Something that had Donnie frowning. Were Raph’s eyes bothering him again? Perhaps he needed to take a look and ensure that the replacement eye wasn’t having issues…

“Indeed,” Donnie confirmed, watching as Leo’s little icon continued to bounce around in what seemed to be a concentrated area, “correction – he’s still making portals.”

“To where?”

“Looks like he’s in Central Park. But he’s made at least five portals in the last three minutes, in fairly close proximity to each other.”

“You think he’s in trouble?”

Donnie tried to keep any emotion off his face as he watched Leo’s icon bouncing around. He and Raph were both accustomed to Leo’s fighting style, and the way Leo was moving around did mimic the way he would portal in and out while fighting more than one enemy. Using so many portals not only allowed Leo the element of surprise since they made it impossible to anticipate where Leo’s next attack would come from. It also made it more convenient when the four of them fought together, as Leo could easily move them around to where they were needed.

“He hasn’t hit his panic button – but it could be possible that he can’t, depending on what ‘Nardo has gotten himself into.”

“Well, I’m not going to wait around and find out what that is. Not with those EPF all over the place,” Raph growled.

“I concur,” Donnie didn’t look away from the screen as one of his spider arms extended out from his shell and dropped a set of keys into Raph’s waiting hand. “Take the tank – I’ll go ahead with my hover shell and see if I can’t spot him from the air.”

Raph froze, clearly not liking the idea of splitting up. “Donnie, we have no idea what Leo has gotten himself into. He could be hurt – or, or he could be fighting these EPF guys, or…”

“Or it could be something else entirely, but whatever the situation we don’t have time to stand here and argue about it. If ‘Nardo is in trouble, then at least I can go and help hold them off until you get there. You are too heavy for me to carry and my hover shell is the fastest way to get there. The longer you stand there arguing with me, the longer it will take us to go help him.”

Raph, clearly still unhappy about this, but thankfully seeing Donnie’s logic, snapped his beak shut but spun on his heel and jogged off to the garage.

Donnie kept the map on his gauntlet open as he returned to his lab to change out his spider shell for his hover shell, silencing his notifications when an alert popped up informing him there was a security breach as Raph’s icon left the garage. Obviously Raph had triggered something but Donnie would deal with that later.  

Despite his calm charade, Donnie was just as worried about Leo as Raph was.

It didn’t necessarily bother him that Leo hadn’t answered any of Raph’s calls when Raph had first come to the lab. Or even that Leo had been late coming home from patrol.

Donnie had taken notice of the fact that Leo had often stopped by Run of the Mill at the end of his patrol to check in with Hueso. Donnie wasn’t sure if Raph was aware of this or not, but he also knew Raph struggled with most technology and avoided using the map app on his phone so he wouldn’t get frustrated and accidentally crush it… again.

Beside the fact that Leo kept his phone on silent while he was out on patrol and there was a good chance he hadn’t felt the vibrations, Donnie was also aware that Leo could be in a delicate situation where a phone call could give away his location.

Answering texts, however, well that was different.

Of all his brothers, Leo was usually the first one to look at and respond to texts. Usually because he liked to respond with a stupid pun or obnoxious emojis that annoyed Donnie and cracked Leo up.

Donnie was sure that Leo had his phone on him, as Leo always had his phone and made a point to ensure it was fully charged whenever he went out. So at first, Donnie hadn’t been worried.

But when Leo had failed to answer the first text, or the second, or third that Donnie had sent – he had felt a small twinge of anxiety creeping up his spine.

It was just so out of character for Leo that the worst case scenario had immediately turned Donnie’s insides to ice.

What if one of those EPF agents had spotted him? What if a whole fleet of them were now chasing Leo down?

Draxum had warned them that Bishop would know about their powers by now. So would the rest of the EPF be aware of what Leo could do as well?

He mentally berated himself for not taking Draxum’s warning more seriously. The alchemist had told them that Bishop’s technology was bound to be more advanced thanks to their salvaging efforts after the invasion. He had said that it wouldn’t be impossible for Bishop to control, contain, channel or even destroy their powers.

“S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N!” Donnie barked as he hit the release for his spider shell and typed in a command on his gauntlet to activate his hover shell.

The drone activated with a loud beep, rising into the air.

“Have all my tech on standby, just in case,” Donnie ordered.

“Sure thing, Dee!” The drone promised, but Donnie didn’t hear him as he was already flying out of the room as fast as his rotors would let him, hoping he would get to his brother before it was too late.

Chapter Text

Leo watched as Raph scooped the steaming rice into a serving bowl, pointedly avoiding looking back at him. Every muscle was tense, his jaw tight. Leo was pretty sure that the last time Raph’s neck vein had been this big was when he had single-handedly tried to lift a bus.

He knew Raph was upset. Actually, Donnie was pretty upset too. His twin had pointedly not talked to him at all on the ride home once Raph had shown up to pick them up in the tank.

Leo had been really surprised when Donnie had suddenly shown up in the park, only to get an earful of Donnie’s anger for apparently not answering any of their calls or texts.

Leo honestly hadn’t even known he’d missed them. But after glancing at his phone’s home screen and seeing the dozens of texts and over half a dozen missed calls, he guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised that Donnie had been so worried, even if he wouldn’t admit to it.

Leo had had plenty of time to tell Donnie what he’d been up to by the time Raph showed up in the tank twenty minutes later – but it seemed as if his explanation had only made Donnie angrier. So angry in fact that when Raph had pulled up, Donnie had stomped his way into the tank and had taken his usual seat without a word to either of them.

Raph had watched their techy brother with one eye ridge raised before turning his inquisitive gaze to Leo, obviously expecting an explanation.

After Donnie’s reaction, Leo was a little reluctant to repeat it – but Raph wasn’t taking no for an answer.

The quiet that had followed was the loudest quiet Leo had ever heard. The tension was thick and the vein in Raph’s forehead had been pulsing so hard that Leo worried Raph might actually give himself an aneurysm.

Deciding it was best to give his brothers time to cool off before dinner, Leo had quickly made himself scarce by disappearing into his room until Raph had sent him a text that the food was ready.

Donnie had already been at the table when Leo had come in, not bothering to look up from his phone when Leo sat in Mikey’s usual seat across from Donnie instead of his own.

Raph carried the bowl back to the table and sat down at Leo’s usual place next to Donnie before sliding the serving bowl in Leo’s direction.

Leo really wasn’t hungry, but he knew that saying as much would not help with Raph’s already sour mood, so reluctantly he pulled the bowl closer and helped himself to the smallest amount of rice he could get away with while Raph did his best to burn a hole into Leo’s chest with the force of his stare.

“Why, Leo?” Raph asked at last, picking up the conversation right where they’d left it back in the tank.

Leo could feel his shoulders automatically begin to tense and had to concentrate to make them relax as he shoved the serving spoon back into the rice before shoving the bowl in Donnie’s direction. “Do we really need to do this right now?”

“Yes, we do – because I want to know what was going through your head that made you think that following two EPF agents into Central Park with no backup was such a good idea, and I don’t trust that you won’t sneak off to avoid talking about this later.”

“We’ve been following EPF agents all over the city for weeks, Raph,” Leo pointed out, keeping his eyes fixedly on his plate.

“From a distance! We were gathering information only, not trying to engage – which is the OPPOSITE of what you were doing tonight!”

Leo’s fingers curled into his palm, nails digging uncomfortably into his scales as he scowled. Ok, perhaps that was true – but he was pretty sure Raph would have done the same thing if he’d been there. “I already told you why, I wasn’t going to let them get their hands on anyone else.”

“You should have called me, Leo!”

“There was no time!”

“You have portals! Even if you didn’t think there was time to come get me, you could have used your portals to get there first!”

Leo locked his jaw, refusing to meet Raph’s angry glare. Of course he could have used his portals – but Leo had already been tired before the two agents had headed for the park. And even though his brothers knew that Leo had been struggling to be as consistent with his portals as he had been before he’d lost his arm, what he hadn’t told them was how quickly it tired him out.

Teleporting didn’t require as much ninpo output as portals did, but with him unable to channel his ninpo through his prosthetic arm, well it kind of took that option away from him.

The truth of it was, that Leo was pretty much running on empty and had considered calling Raph for a pick up, rather than taking the chance of collapsing in front of his brothers in the lair if he risked another portal when Donnie had shown up.

Leo knew his twin well enough to know that Donnie had seen just how exhausted he was with a single look and he hadn’t been pleased. His face had only gotten stonier with Leo’s explanation and by the time Raph had shown up, Donnie was frustrated enough he’d been nonverbal.

So Leo knew he’d really screwed up. While Donnie wasn’t normally one to hold back when he was upset with them, if he was too angry to yell at them for doing something stupid – well, it meant that Donnie was beyond pissed.

“Well?” Raph prompted at Leo’s continued silence.

“What do you want me to say, Raph?” Leo grumbled as he finally tore his eyes away from his plate to glare at his big brother. He knew that Raph and Donnie had every right to be upset with him, but he was tired and sore and having to go through this again was starting to wear on the already tedious grip he had on his patience.

“I want to know that this isn’t going to happen again! That you aren’t going to go try and play the hero on your own and risk getting yourself hurt or captured because you think you don’t need to call for backup!”

Leo flinched a little, nails digging little crescents into his palm as he locked his jaw. “Raph…”

“Do you have any idea what was going through my head when we couldn’t reach you tonight, Leo? What would I have told Dad if he called and something had happened to you?”

“He hasn’t called since they left.”

“That’s not the point, Leo!” Raph snapped slamming his hand down on the table, making Leo jump and look up at him in surprise. Raph drew a shaky breath and pinched the skin between his eyes. “Leo, you… you really scared us tonight. I thought we were doing this as a team. You promised stealth only – but then you…”

“I know, ok – I’m sorry,” Leo cut him off, his voice a little sharper than he intended. Raph lowered his hand, leveling a hard glare on him. Leo checked himself, mentally giving himself a kick for snapping when he knew his brothers had just been worried. He cleared his throat before trying again. “I’m sorry – I’m sorry that I worried you guys. I guess I wasn’t thinking about that – I wasn’t really thinking at all. I just didn’t want the EPF to get their hands on someone else. But I won’t do it again – not without backup, ok? I promise.”

Raph seemed to size him up for a moment, as if trying to sniff out a lie – but after a moment his shoulders relaxed. Leo sighed, relieved. Raph, at least, seemed to believe him – though a glance at his twin told him that Donnie was still upset.

“Should we check out the park tonight then?” Leo asked, tearing his eyes away from his twin when Raph passed him the bowl of teriyaki chicken.

Raph froze, fork halfway to his mouth as he looked at Leo over his chicken. “We? You just got back, Leo – and from the look of you, I don’t think you’re up to going back out tonight.”

Leo hated that his big brother was probably right, but he wasn’t about to show it. “You just got after me for doing things on my own. Do you really think it’s a good idea for you to be doing it without backup?”

“What data do you have that even confirms that the lead those agents were after was even valid?” Donnie asked before Raph had the chance to answer. “Most of the yokai has gone into hiding or returned to the safety of the underground. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that there hasn’t been a sighting of any yokai out in the open for weeks then suddenly this one pops up out of no where in a place like Central Park where it was bound to be spotted?”

Raph frowned, eye ridges meeting in the middle of his forehead. “What are you saying, Donnie?”

“I’m saying – that this “lead” they were supposedly following could have been a trap to lure our dumb-dumb brother there. That they might have caught on to the fact that they are being followed. I’m sure by now that they know the yokai community have been warned as to what they’re up to. Especially since we have no record of them capturing any other yokai in over a week. They certainly aren’t the brightest bulbs in the bunch – but they aren’t dim enough to not know that something is up. If they suspected they are being followed, then they could have been leading ‘Nardo over there right into a trap.”

“You willing to risk letting them get their hands on another innocent yokai while we sit around trying to get data collection, Donnie?” Leo barely bit back the snarl as he glared at his twin brother. “Hueso said that there’s no way to make sure every yokai in the city received the alert! We don’t know how many yokai are still out there, or if they are even aware of what’s going on, but I for one am not willing to let Bishop get his hands on anyone else!”

Donnie’s eyebrows pulled together, his mouth twisting into a scowl as he glared at Leo, which made Leo’s tedious hold on his patience snap as he glared right back.

“Look,” Raph interjected, “Raph can just check it out – scout around to see if there’s any EPF agents still hanging around, if there’s not I’ll do a thorough sweep of the park to see if there really is any yokai out there. If there is, I’ll get them to Hueso’s so he can get them to one of the safe houses. But if there are any EPF still hanging around, Leo and I can check out the park together tomorrow, alright?”

“It might be too late by then,” Leo pointed out stiffly.

“We’ll have to hope that it’s not. Either way I think it’s best if we keep as low a profile as we can while we’re tailing these guys. We still don’t know much about them and we don’t know how much they have on us. If we can pull this off without needing to engage them, I think we’re better off. The less they know the better.”

Leo worked his stiffening jaw as he poked at his chicken with the prongs of his fork, having no real interest in eating it. Raph’s plan wasn’t what he wanted, but at least his big brother was willing to take the lead seriously. “Fine,” he agreed, albeit rather reluctantly.

The tension in the room melted a little, the silence broken by the sound of Raph’s fork on his plate since neither Donnie nor Leo were eating their dinner.

“Was the possible yokai sighting in the park the only thing you got out of those agents today, Leo? You said you were tailing them most of the day.”

Leo shrugged one shoulder with a frown. “Pretty much, they seemed more interested in trash talking everyone else than actually discussing business. I’m starting to feel like tailing these guys is getting us nowhere, we’re no closer to finding their base’s location, or Bishop, or even what they’re doing with the yokai that they…”

Raph looked up from his food when Leo trailed off midsentence, straightening in his chair a little as Leo’s brow furrowed in concentration.

“What is it, Leo?”

“Actually, they did say something that seemed a little weird tonight. They were talking about a tiger yokai attacking one of the agents.”

“A tiger yokai? Is it the one from Big Mama’s hotel?”

“I don’t know – they just said something about it going “wild” and needing to be contained.”

“Wild?” Raph asked shooting a glance at Donnie.

“That’s what they said.  Apparently it roughed up one of the agents pretty bad.”

“Well, if it was the tiger from Big Mama’s hotel I can’t say I’m really all that surprised,” Donnie grumbled sounding rather bored, “the yokai she hires there seem to be more brawn than brain anyway. The yokai we’ve met there aren’t exactly what I would call civilized, especially the ones who are involved in that barbaric battle nexus of hers.”

“Speaking as the only one of us here who has actually seen the Battle Nexus – I think you’re wrong. Big Mama’s employees might not be the brightest yokai in the barrel, but they’re at least capable of reasonable thinking. From the way these two were describing what happened it almost sounded like this tiger was entirely savage. Described it as a dangerous wild animal.”

“It probably thought it could fight its way out.”

“Even if it did, why didn’t it fight all of the agents instead of locking onto just the one? It doesn’t make sense. It almost sounds like it was hunting and was locked in on a target rather than trying to fight its way out. Otherwise a lot more agents would have been injured in its attack.”

Donnie’s eyebrows pulled together, mouth pinching as he thoughtfully drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I suppose that does make sense… when a large predator, a tiger for example, selects its target it stays locked on that target unless it finds something easier, or it feels the need to protect itself. It almost sounds like this yokai has allowed his animal instincts to take over.”

“Is that even possible? Yokai aren’t really animals,” Raph pointed out.

“No, they’re not, but there must be a link somewhere as a lot of their traits are so similar between them and their animal counterparts. But what could the EPF have done to elicit such a primal reaction?”

“Being locked up and tortured by a bunch of government agents isn’t enough?” Leo snarked grumpily.

“Not for that level of response. The only thing I could think of that could even make that possible would be some sort of neurological damage that destroyed the yokai’s ability for cognitive thought. Something that can be surgically done of course, but that is far riskier than other means, like psychological torture for example. But that, of course, takes months or years to have that kind of effect, not weeks. Not that I’ve ever heard about at least.”

“I’m not sure if I even want to know how you know that,” Raph grumbled.

Donnie ignored that, his fingers drumming even faster on the table. “From the documented cases I’ve read about where such neurological damage was achieved by the tormentors, it took at least six months of nearly constant torture. However, the EPF have gotten their hands on Krang technology – we have no idea what Bishop is doing with that, or if he’s somehow found a way to speed up such processes. Being able to torment your captives into near madness in weeks rather than months could be beneficial if they were trying to gain information.”

Leo didn’t like what he was hearing. “Can it be reversed?”

“Possibly, depending on the cause and level of severity. But there have been known cases where the victims were able to recover. Although, there were still some lingering side effects which didn’t make it easy for them to mingle back in with society. Actually, in most case studies they found that psychological torture is actually more damaging than physical, with lingering negative effects lasting long after the victim was no longer in those conditions. Anxiety, depression, distorted sense of reality, emotional detachment, mental health disorders, cognitive impairments, night terrors or insomnia – and in more extreme cases it has even led to weakened immune systems, hypertension or other cardiovascular problems and permanent dementia.”

Leo felt like he might be sick. These yokai may not be people, he might not even like all of them, but that didn’t mean that he felt like any of them deserved that. And if what Donnie was hypothesizing was true, Bishop could have very well have found a way to speed up the process using Krang technology.

“Was there anything about what Bishop might be doing in those files you downloaded earlier, Donnie?” Raph asked, his voice sounding rather strained as if he too was feeling a little queasy.

“Unfortunately, no. In fact there was nothing in any of those files that is of any benefit to us that I could make out. Bishop seems to be really good at giving the president just enough information that questions aren’t asked, but there was enough information in between the lines to see there’s some things he doesn’t want the president to know. I doubt it is anything ethical if he wants to keep the president in the dark about it. However, he did put in the request for more funds for a new project they are working on called “The Black Bishop”, but the details he gave were infuriatingly vague. Since the president said he would wire him the funds, I’m assuming that the president actually has more information on this project than what Bishop’s recently been telling him – or they’ve made some kind of deal and are keeping it under the table.”

“What kind of deal?”

“I have no way of knowing since, as I’ve already said, the details I was able to pull up didn’t give me a lot to go on. But I think you both should know, that whatever this project is – it has to do with the Sister Krang.”

Every muscle in Leo’s body immediately locked into place, his fingers gripping the edge of the table so hard that his knuckles went a sickly ashen gray. He was pretty sure from the way his stomach had plummeted to his toes that he was about two seconds away from throwing up all the nothing he’d eaten today.

“Wait, she’s still alive?” Raph asked in complete disbelief. “Didn’t April say that the EPF took her into custody two years ago? Would have thought they’d have dissected her or something by now.”

“Apparently they found her too valuable a specimen to dispose of. In fact, a subject of great interest between Bishop and the president seems to be the Krang’s advanced weaponry along with the Krang hivemind…”

Leo was having a hard time concentrating on what Donnie was saying. There was an odd ringing in his ears that was rapidly getting louder, which made it almost impossible to hear anything else, and a strange burning sensation had started in his lungs even though he could feel the air scraping up and down his throat with each inhale.

Neither of his brothers had noticed that something might be wrong. Raph’s eye ridges were pulling together in concern as his snaggle tooth dug into his bottom lip, while his fingers tightened around the fork he was still holding.

Donnie’s attention had turned to the projected screen of his gauntlet, which was covered in text. Apparently checking his notes. After a moment he stopped his scrolling and lifted his eyes to look at their big brother, his mouth moving even though Leo couldn’t make out what was being said.

Raph shifted a little in his seat and rubbed the back of his neck nervously with his free hand before he said something back.

Probably answering a question Leo had missed.

Was the air in the room getting hotter?

It was getting harder to draw air into his already straining lungs, which was bad since it already felt like he was trying to breathe through a clogged straw. The ringing in his ears was getting louder and the edges of the room were beginning to blur together.

His prosthetic hand banged down hard on the table, making rice and teriyaki chicken go flying off his plate, and immediately drawing his brothers’ attention to him.

Donnie’s eyes immediately widened and in an instant both he and Raph were by his side, Donnie crouching down in front of him, his mouth moving even though Leo still couldn’t hear him through the ringing in his ears.

Raph’s big hands settled on Leo’s shoulders, large, warm, comforting. Leo pushed into the touch, but kept his eyes on his twin as Donnie continued to mouth something to him. He watched his twin take an exaggerated inhale and hold it before exhaling slowly.

Leo knew what was expected of him. He tried and failed to follow Donnie’s rhythm, his breath stuttering in his clogged throat.

Raph gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze, encouraging him to try again.

Donnie inhaled, so did Leo. He still couldn’t match Donnie’s rhythm, and couldn’t hold it for half the time Donnie did, but Donnie gave him a small nod and started again.

After several more tries, Leo felt his chest relaxing as he was finally able to get in a good lungful of air. The ringing in his ears was fading enough that he could hear the comforting churrs coming from Raph’s chest behind him.

“There you go, ‘Nardo, one more time – in…”

Leo breathed in with his twin, feeling his body sagging a little in sheer exhaustion but relieved to feel his lungs fully inflate this time.

“Good, hold… now exhale…”

Leo continued to follow Donnie’s pattern, exhaling slowly and drawing in another deep breath without further prompting.

“There you go – feel better?”

“Sister is still alive?” Leo asked instead of answering Donnie’s question.

Donnie’s eyebrows furrowed, expression hardening a little. “Leo, I don’t think we should talk about this right now considering what just happened.”

Leo shook his head once. “You’re telling us that for the past two years the EPF has been keeping Sister Krang down in their basement like some sort of sick pet? Don’t they care that she almost helped start the entire apocalypse?”

“Leo, I think Donnie is right – maybe we should talk about this tomo…”

Leo shrugged off Raph’s grip, glaring daggers at his twin as anger quickly began to replace his panic.

“Answer me, Donnie!”

Donnie’s expression was icy. “Yes, they have been keeping her in a containment unit at the EPF base for the past two years.”

“And the key?”

“No, they don’t have the key.”

“They could! How do you know they didn’t find it somewhere when they were salvaging all that Krang tech?”

Donnie hesitated, his eyes flickering up to look at Raph for a moment before returning to lock with Leo’s. “Because we have it.”

The room did another sickening tilt at this horrible revelation. Leo gripped the edges of his chair to stop himself from tipping over the edge when all the air rushed out of his lungs in a woosh. He felt Raph’s hold on his shoulders again, not hard enough to bruise but obviously trying to convey comfort, even though Raph’s stress stink was permeating through the fog in his brain. Leo focused on the grip, letting it ground him.

“How…” Leo’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth, his throat incredibly dry. He swallowed thickly and drew a shaky breath as he tried to blink the gray away from the corners of his vision as he met Donnie’s gaze. “How long?”

“Since the invasion.”

“Two years?! You’ve had it for two years and didn’t think that maybe I should know we were harboring something that could literally end the world if it was to fall into the wrong hands?!”

Donnie sighed as he sat back on his heels, giving Raph an “I told you he would react this way” look before rubbing the skin between his eyes. “We were going to tell you, ‘Nardo. But things were pretty chaotic after the invasion and it just never came up.”

Leo’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as his hands balled into fists. He could feel his body shaking, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this angry.

Ok, sure, when he’d woken from his coma he hadn’t even thought about what had happened to the key – but finding out that his family was in possession of it, that it could have been in the lair this whole time…

Suddenly Raph’s touch was no longer comforting, but suffocating. Leo shrugged it off with a growl, and was glad that Raph didn’t try to hold on.

“Two years, Donnie! Surely you could have told me we had it at some point!”

“We weren’t trying to hide it from you, Leo!” Donnie snapped back dropping his hand and glaring at Leo. “We weren’t conspiring to keep this a secret behind your back! We just had other priorities at the time, like keeping you alive. Do you have any idea what it was like to watch you…”

Donnie trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut as if trying to push down a very unpleasant memory.

Raph shifted behind Leo, his stress stink becoming more potent as it shifted to his worry stink.

“We almost lost you, Leo! After we stole that truck so we could get home, I was hard pressed to keep you alive long enough for us to get back to the lair – and you… you were determined to fight me on that. You could barely breathe and your heart rate was all over the place! I wasn’t sure you’d live long enough for us to even get you home, let alone patched up!”

Donnie’s hands were trembling a little as he took a steadying breath before continuing.

“Casey, Dad and April had already made it back when we got you home – it took a while for us to get you patched up, and even then, I wasn’t sure you’d even make it through that first night. At the time I hadn’t given the key a second thought, because all I could focus on was keeping you alive. It was only when April was with me in the Med Bay a few days later that she told me that Casey still had it. He’d held onto it after he… after he closed the portal and he wasn’t quite sure what they should do with it. April told me everything they’d done to try and destroy it, but nothing they’d tried had even left a scratch in it. So, we came to the conclusion that if the key couldn’t be destroyed, our next best option would be to hide it somewhere.”

It was obvious that this subject was upsetting his twin, but with his own anger still pumping adrenaline through his veins, and the betrayed feeling of being kept in the dark about the key – he wasn’t exactly feeling sympathetic.

“Where, Donnie? It better not be in your lab somewhere or I’m…”

“It’s not,” Donnie interrupted quickly, working his jaw and meeting Leo’s eyes determinedly. “It’s not in the lair at all. It’s at Draxum’s.”

“Draxum’s?”

“We felt that he would have the best chance of hiding it down at his old lab in the Hidden City. We couldn’t think of a place topside that we felt would be secure enough, or secret enough, where no one would ever be able to find or use it again. We even debated about keeping it on us and taking turns with it – but we all agreed that it was too risky to just carry it around. When Draxum said he would keep it in his vault in the lab he was rebuilding we agreed it was the best place. I even added a few extra security measures to ensure that no one can get it.”

“Is Bishop looking for it?”

Donnie shook his head. “There’s no indication from anything that I’ve been able to find that he’s interested in opening the portal to the prison dimension. He’s more interested in what advancements can be made with the technology they were able to salvage – and the connection between Sister and the people they mutated. They call it the hivemind.”

“The hivemind?”

“Raph remembers that – I could hear their voices in my head. Telling us what to do. We were all connected to one another, but we didn’t really have individual thoughts. It was like…” Raph rubbed his forehead with a slight frown, “like we were individual pieces of a whole – we all wanted the same thing.”

“To destroy the world, we know,” Leo grumbled.

Raph flinched and looked away from his brothers, his snaggle tooth digging into his bottom lip.

Donnie, however, looked interested, clearly Raph had never brought this subject up before. “You said you were all connected – but you didn’t have individual thoughts, but wanted the same thing. How do you know that? How did the connection work?”

Raph shrugged uncomfortably. “I dunno… I just remember a lot of feelings mostly. The only voice I could really make out was Prime’s. Whatever he told us to do, we all had a desire to do it.”

“But you had no will of your own? No desire to want to disobey what you were being told?”

Raph shook his head. “No, we didn’t see a reason to. I know I didn’t feel that way until I heard Leo talking to me – and even then it was hard. It was like when the Krang took over it took away any will I had to fight it.”

Donnie’s eyebrows furrowed together as he straightened, mouth thinning in thought.

Leo recognized the look. “What is it, Donnie?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t doubt that the EPF’s interest in the Krang’s hivemind would be used for anything but a nefarious purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Bishop were able to replicate the Krang’s hivemind somehow, he would basically be removing a person’s inner will to disobey any direct order they were given. They would do whatever they were told blindly without thought or question.”

Leo frowned, not liking where this was going. “They’d basically be like those weird puppets with the strings with Bishop controlling them.”

“Marionettes, and yes – exactly. Bishop would be able to control every thing that person would do – and if he did it to more than one person like the Krang did….”

“He’d have a whole army doing whatever he wanted,” Leo finished catching on to what Donnie was implying.

Donnie’s face was grim as the horrible implications of what that might mean sank in.

“But it is possible to break free from the hivemind, right? Raph did it.”

“Only because you gave me a reason to, Leo – and even then it wasn’t easy. I don’t think most people would even try.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Leo growled, “so what do we do?”

“Right now, nothing. We don’t have any evidence showing that Bishop has been able to successfully duplicate the Krang’s hivemind. Just that he’s interested in it. I think it would be best if we keep doing what we’ve already been doing.”

“That isn’t getting us anywhere, Donnie! We’re no closer to finding out any more about the EPF today than we were three weeks ago!”

“Unless you have a better plan, ‘Nardo, it would be best if we don’t tip them off to the fact we’ve been tailing them.”

“Maybe we need to switch it up to a more hands on approach then, actually get a hold of one of these agents and make him talk.”

“And how do you suggest we do that? I doubt that these guys are just going to tell us everything they know because we asked nice!”

“So maybe we need to not ask nice! The longer we do nothing, the longer the yokai still in the city are in danger. Not to mention the ones they’ve already captured!”

“And you think throwing ourselves into the fire will help them?”

“Some of our best friends are yokai, Donnie!”

“You think I don’t know that?! But I don’t see how we’re of any good to any of them if we get caught ourselves!”

“We can’t sit back and do nothing anymore either! It could be Hueso next, or Sunita!”

“I didn’t say we shouldn’t do nothing; I don’t like what they’re doing any more than you do! But we are clearly outnumbered here! Trying to take the EPF on our own is suicide! We might as well walk into a government facility and check ourselves in for an extended stay! That would be just as useful as what you’re suggesting.”

“Donnie… “ Raph started but anger was boiling in Leo’s veins and he wasn’t in the mood for Raph to play peacemaker.

“At least if we did that, we might get more information on these guys than we have in the past few weeks! Because we sure aren’t getting anywhere looking on our own!”

Donnie’s scowl deepened, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You saying this is my fault? Or maybe you think that you can do better. Well, brother, be my guest – if you think that you can…”

“ENOUGH!” Raph snapped stepping between the two furious twins and glaring at them both. “Both of you knock it off! Blaming each other is not getting us anywhere!”

Leo clenched his jaw, continuing to glare at Donnie who was glowering right back. His twin was breathing hard; fingers balled into fists so tight that his knuckles had gone a rather sickly looking yellow. He was trembling, and the markings on his upper arms were alight with his ninpo. Something Leo hadn’t even noticed until now.

Leo tore his eyes away from his brother, scowling at the table, trying and failing to calm his angry breathing.

He could feel Donnie’s gaze burning a hole into his shoulder for several long uncomfortable minutes before his twin turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen without another word.

Raph sighed as Donnie’s lab door slammed shut, turning back to look at Leo. “You know that wasn’t fair, Leo. He’s doing his best.”

Raph sounded so tired, so defeated that Leo’s shoulders sagged as he let the anger drain out of him as fast as it had come. He suddenly felt so exhausted.

“I know, I’m sorry, Raph. Tonight’s just been a lot…”

It was a lame excuse and he knew it. But it was the truth. Between what he’d overheard with the EPF, his brothers being angry with him, and then finding out about the key. Well, it was more than what Leo had the energy for.

Truth be told all he wanted right now was to curl up in his bed and try to get some sleep.

A big hand gently squeezed his shoulder. “I know it has, bud, and I know you’re worried. But I think Donnie is right about not rushing into this. Not when we still don’t know much about these guys.”

“I know he is; I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Raph squeezed his shoulder a little tighter this time. “We’re going to do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen, Leo. I’ll follow up on that lead like I said and check out the park if I can. I promise if I find anyone, I’ll take them straight to Hueso’s. If there’s still EPF hanging around, you and I will go together tomorrow. Ok?”

“Thanks, Raph…”

“Of course – now, why don’t you head to bed. You look exhausted. It’s been a rough night.”

Leo sighed but nodded, slowly rising from his chair. “I think I should go apologize to Donnie first…”

“Actually, I think it might be better if you give him some time to cool off. You know how he gets. I think tonight was the breaking point for him, he’s been pretty high strung for weeks.”

Leo flinched guiltily, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily. He shifted off his bad leg as Raph gathered up the dinner plates and carried them over to the sink. He then walked over to the refrigerator, opened the freezer door and pulled out a blue packet, tossing it in Leo’s direction. Leo caught it with his prosthetic instinctually, and stared at the ice pack.

“Go on,” Raph ordered as he pulled Tupperware out of one of the cupboards, “go get that knee iced and get some sleep.”

Leo wasn’t surprised that Raph had noticed his knee had really been bothering him, so he didn’t try to argue as he turned to leave the kitchen. “Yeah, I will. But call me if you need me.”

“I promise. Raph will be careful though.”

“I know. Goodnight, Raphie. I love you.”

“Love you too, Leo.”

Leo smiled as he limped across the atrium, pausing only long enough to look upstairs at Donnie’s closed lab door. Hopefully by tomorrow morning Donnie wouldn’t be so angry and Leo could apologize. But Raph was right, for now it was best to let Donnie have his space. He and Donnie could never stay mad at each other for too long, he was positive by this time tomorrow everything would be back to normal.  

Chapter Text

Sorry for the late delay. I've been wrestling with this decision over the past week and a half and as hard as it is for me to admit. I've lost my motivation for working on this. I write stories for myself because I love telling stories. I share because it is fun to see others enjoying it. This story is taking up a lot of my time and energy. I'm a very busy woman with a family, a house, a full time job, and fifteen animals to care for. Normally I don't mind putting what free time I can into writing my stories, but this one has just not peaked enough interest for me to have the motivation to continue at the moment. 

While I have never, nor will I ever leave a story unfinished. I am finding trying to keep myself motivated enough to try and write future chapters, edit chapters that were already done, or make changes physically and mentally draining. I haven't even been able to start the second half of the chapter I split. Every time I've sat down to do so I just stared at my word document before deciding I don't want to and shutting off my computer. 

So, this story is on hiatus for now until I find the motivation to finish it - or delete it entirely. I haven't decided what I will do yet. I have this entire story outlined but it may just be finished and kept in my own personal files. I've made some decisions to change and edit it, toning down a few things here and there so the rating has changed. But as of right now, I have no plans to work on this in the near future. 

I apologize to those of you who have been enjoying it. Thank you for your support, kudos and comments really are a writer's lifeblood and I have cherished them all. It may very well be that I get back to this at some point next year. But it doesn't look like anymore will be added in 2025.