Chapter Text
He was nauseous as he closed his eyes, the muscles of his chest shivering with despair as he raised Leo's fallen katana to his head, resting his forehead against the chilled metal of the blade. Casey felt empty, lost, and heartbroken. He failed his master, he got the key and stopped the Krang, but his master was as good as dead.
He felt so weak, his entire body being weighed down by the burden of his heart. He couldn't think about anything else. He failed, he failed, he failed.
Leonardo was gone, forced to sacrifice himself again to save Casey and the world. Was he destined to be the cause behind his master's death no matter what timeline he was in? He fought the urge for his lip to tremble, clutching Leo's sword tighter as he held it to his head. His eyes burned, but he forced back the pressure of tears trying to well up in his eyes, squeezing them shut tighter.
He couldn't bring himself to. He hadn't fully taken the time to cry yet, he refused to start now. At least not for a little while longer, not when he still had others to look out for.
Casey took slow, albeit shaky, calming breaths as he lowered the sword from his head, his grip never loosening. He couldn't bring himself to do much else but stare at it, looking into his own eyes in his reflection on the pristine surface. It was all he had left of him. A small part of him remarked in the back of his mind that it was more than he had left from his original Leo, his heart squeezing sorely in his chest.
He would keep the sword, he decided, unless the others asked for it. Casey did his best to calm himself as his chest continued to coil, finally letting one hand off of the weapon, raising it to his ear to activate his communicator. He needed to check on the others.
“R-raph.” He squeezed his eyes shut again as his voice trembled, his lip following suit for just a moment. He needed to get a grip, he needed to stay strong, for Leo, for himself. He breathed in again, releasing it with more conviction. He tried again after no response.
“Raph, are you there? How are the others?” Casey asked again, his voice still not as convincing as he wanted it to be, but he doubted anyone would be in a better state.
“Casey!” Raph’s voice rang out through the communicator, nearly throwing him off balance from the pure joy in his voice, "Mikey is-is doing some mystic mojo with his hands! I think he is opening a portal to get Leo back!" He could hear the smile on Raphael's face, but it was the opposite of Casey's own. His heart lurched in fear, the hairs on his back standing as even more horrible emotions roiled through his body. A portal? That was how Master Michelangelo died.
"You have to stop him! It will kill him if he makes it!" Casey nearly screamed over the connection, losing himself in his emotions. He couldn't lose another master; he couldn't fail again. His arms began to tremble as his fear and dread set in, the anguish he felt when Master Michelangelo and Leonardo died settling into him all over again, his blood running cold.
He didn't hear a response from Raph, doing his best to stand on his wobbling legs. He had to find them, even if he didn't make it in time, he had to try. Casey didn't bother trying to sheathe Leo's sword somewhere, holding it firmly at his side as he desperately looked for somewhere to grapple, raising his shaking arm, aiming for the tallest pile of rubble he could see.
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Raph's face fell the moment he heard Casey's message. Mikey was going to die if he made this portal? He looked over at his baby brother, now really noticing the mystical cracks aligning his hands, stretching and branching up his arms. His heart twitched with fear as he saw them crackle, growing larger and deeper the longer he channeled the energy.
He and Donnie had their hands on his shoulders, bright orange cracks riding up their hands as well. He only then began to realize how much they burned, a feeling so warm and deep in his flesh that he thought it could touch his bones. How did he not notice? Was Mikey feeling this too?
Like the sun was consuming him?
Raph stopped hesitating when he saw cracks appearing on Mikey's face, crawling up his cheeks as mystic energy ignited from within them. He couldn't risk losing one brother for another. Raph spun to hook Mikey on his arm, hoisting him into the air by catching him around his gut, shoving him away from the portal.
Mikey let out a gasp before a small cry left him when he fell and hit the ground, the portal disappearing and the effects of his bright marigold magic fading from his body. Raphael felt the burn worsen in his hand that had been on Mikey's shoulder, hissing as he clutched it with his other one. It hadn't hurt like this when the magic was active, now it was buzzing with a constant pain and a feeling of rawness.
Michael hugged his arms to his chest, tears building in his eyes, squeezing them shut as he curled up on the ground. Donnie was stunned for a short moment, staring at his orange brother before throwing an exasperated look at his red one, his hands already flying around in his irate confusion. He didn't seem to have noticed the damage to his own hand.
"Why would you do that?! He was going to get Leo back, Raph!" Donnie shouted, tears starting to run down his face again. Raph could only manage a look of desperation as he stared at Donnie, he didn't know how to explain why. Maybe his brother was right, but he didn't know if Casey was wrong. He couldn't take that risk. He had to protect the brothers he had here, the ones in arms reach. Donatello stared back, his artificial eyebrows slowly narrowing against Raphael's silence.
Their emotionally intensive stare-down was interrupted by a sob from Mikey, who was trembling on the ground, curled up in a tight ball. Both brothers abandoned their frustrations to help him, the pair sprinting over and kneeling on either side of him. Raph felt tears prick their way into his eyes as he looked down at his brother, hands hovering over him, almost too scared to touch him. Michelangelo's hands were quivering, burns painting his arms as they almost reached his biceps. They were worse on his hands.
Donnie seemed to be in the same state as Raph at the sight of their brother whimpering on the ground but forced himself to assess Mikey's condition. He reached down to put what he hoped would be a comforting hand on Mikey's shell, gently petting him, trying to aid in giving a distraction from what he was certain was immense pain. He had to restrain himself as he felt bile rising in the back of his throat after looking at his brother's injuries.
His hands were scattered with what looked like second-degree burns, they eased into first-degree as they went up his arms. His gloves had remained intact for the most part but looked to be merged with some parts of his skin from the heat. He needed medical attention immediately, they couldn't stay on Staten Island with Mikey like this, he would most definitely get an infection or worse if he didn't get treatment and a controlled clean place to recover.
"We have to get him out of here." Donnie softly forced the words out, looking up to meet Raph's eyes. There wasn't a chance they would ask Mikey to try again, even if Raph didn't interrupt a second attempt. The eldest brother seemed to stay frozen in place, still stunned by everything that was happening, what had already happened. Donnie kept looking at him, wondering if he had even heard him, still petting Mikey's shell slowly. It was all he could think to do to help him right now.
He had already taken note of his and Raph's burnt hands, they would need to get looked at too, but Mikey was logically the priority right now. Mikey shook with another small sob, causing Raphael to finally snap out of his stupor. He quickly scooped his baby brother into his arms, trying his best to be gentle, but sloppily holding him in his panic. Mikey whimpered, trying to shift his arms away from Raph as he accidentally touched them, hot tears slowly streaming down his cheeks with his eyes tightly screwed shut.
"It's okay! We're going to get you fixed up, little bro!" Raphael encouraged as best he could, but he wasn't able to hide the distress in his voice. Donatello grabbed his bo staff and followed Raphael as he took off with their brother.
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Leonardo cradled the only thing he had left of his family close to his heart. He was still coming to terms with what he had done, he knew he sounded cool in the moment, even finding it in him to crack a joke as he watched the world he once knew being "portal-chopped" from him forever, but that was all for theatrics. His tears were still fresh, slowly getting absorbed into his mask or lifting off of his face and floating away in the low gravity of the dimension that was his new home.
He tried to let his frown and trembling lip twist up into a small smile as he watched the salty tears float away like thick globby bubbles. It reminded him of all the times he dramatically cried for a joke, and this was how he imagined his tears looked in those moments, it made it funnier to him to think so. Donnie would roll his eyes and look back at his phone, Mikey would tell him how good of an actor he could be with how well he could do it on command, and Raph would give him a deadpan stare for being dramatic.
His whole body shook as he suppressed another sob, he missed them already. He looked back up when he heard a roar from Krang, the giant mech suit for the chewed-up piece of alien gum was hurtling toward him, a fist pulled back and ready to deliver another blow. Leo thought about taking the hit willingly, maybe he should just let the Krang beat him into dust like everything else in this crumbling place. It might hurt just a little less than being stuck here and missing his family.
"Sacrificing yourself to save such pathetic creatures!" Krang taunted in his rage, his fist starting to swing towards Leo, "Was it worth it? Making me your executioner? All for the rest of your planet's people to continue wallowing around in the mud? Disgusting!" The slider didn't take the chance to defend himself, dodge, or even retort. He took the hit head-on, being thrown even further into the void, steadily flying farther and farther into the unknown. Krang stayed hot on his trail, determined to take out his anger on his new cellmate.
"Locking yourself away with me, do you feel like a hero? Like a champion?" Krang continued in a low growl as Leo floated along in space at a speed that was way too fast for him to keep up with, feeling dizzy from that last hit, "Your brothers are better off without such a fool among them!" Krang roared once more as he came barreling at Leo again. A small part of Leo agreed with his statement, knowing that everything that had happened with the Krang so far had been all his fault, maybe it was better this way, even if he did save them in the end by dooming himself.
They were better off without him.
Leo had the wind knocked out of him as Krang spun and hit him with his suit's tail, changing his path of trajectory, and sending him straight into the center of a debris field they had been approaching. His back hit a large hunk of metal, forcing him to take a gasp of air. It wasn't as painful as it could have been, but the force still rocked his body, leaving him stunned in a daze. He tried to blink his eyes, holding his head with one hand as he tried to regain focus. Krang seemed to be taking his time to approach him again, almost casually drifting towards him through the desolate space.
Without warning an orange mystical crack in space violently appeared to the side of them, causing both prisoners to snap their heads in the direction of the light. It slowly grew, smaller cracks branching off of it. Leo felt his heart swell at the sight, it had to be Mikey, there was no way he was going to stop believing in the convenience of their color coordination.
But just as it appeared, it vanished, the light flickering out before disappearing altogether in an instant. Leonardo and Krang both continued to stare at the spot where it appeared, the silence turned tense between them as the seconds ticked past. Leo felt his spirit slightly rejuvenate, even if just for a moment. His brothers could save him, he could be with them again, they were trying to rescue him!
That was all he needed to know, that’s all the encouragement he needed to keep fighting for them. He wasn’t going to give Krang the satisfaction of killing him. How could he have entertained the idea in the first place?
Leo tucked away his picture as he scrambled along the surface of the rubble he had been knocked into, awkwardly floating his way across, grabbing a corner, and thrusting himself around it. Krang took notice a moment later, he could hear the alien’s big metal body shooting after him. He was scrambling to think of ideas for an escape, a diversion, hell even a weapon! He didn’t stand a real chance against Krang’s strength, but something to block with would honestly be super comforting right now! His mind raced as he desperately tried to adjust to the new gravity, pushing off of anything floating near him, shocked he didn’t feel claws cutting across the back of his shell yet.
Something caught his eye as he took a turn towards denser debris, hoping to use his smaller size to obscure himself from his pursuer. His heart lurched in his chest as he could finally understand what he was looking at, grabbing onto a large chunk of random metallic wreckage to slow himself down, hiding in between two large remains of what Leo could only understand to be old spaceship parts.
It was one of his swords! Krang had violently ripped them from his hands not even five minutes ago, and here he was, defying Donnie’s “luck isn’t real” statistics all over again. It was lodged into a chunk of a spaceship plate, at least that was what Leo was going to think of it as, ready and available for his use.
Maybe he could portal out of this place? He would have to figure that problem out once he solved the issue of reclaiming it.
He needed to come up with a plan to get it, he couldn’t go straight for it, Krang was the better space flyer in this scenario. If he saw the sword before Leonardo got to it, there was no chance he could beat the deranged pink play-doh monster to it by launching himself off of the rubble.
He kept looking around as he saw Krang in his peripheral, he needed to start making moves now or he would lose any opportunity of the distance he already had with this guy. Leo spotted a thin rectangular hunk of metal, a smirk formed as the spotless but unrefined cogs of his brain began to turn. He took his chance and pushed out of his hiding spot, aiming for a larger chunk of debris to land on, grabbing the thin metal he saw along the way and got ready for the ride of his life.
The moment his feet touched the platform, Leo did his best to run on it, trying to build as much momentum as he could, jumping off and doing a handstand on the scrappy piece he had acquired. He wasn’t an 8 consecutive-year first-place winner of the Handstand Hill Bomb event for no reason, might as well put those skills to use when you have nothing to lose. As expected, Krang spotted him immediately, and Leo twisted himself to go just off-course enough from the blade to keep him none the wiser about what he was planning.
That part of his plan went without a hitch, as much as it terrified him to hear the ear-splitting screech coming from the monstrous robot body chasing after him. He veered off to the side, shooting directly toward another dense area of dilapidated metal tubes and parts that resembled silver guts strewn all over the place. Leo made a face as he realized some of those things did resemble pictures in one of Donnie’s anatomy books that he totally didn’t steal for fun and read (flipped through and only looked at pictures) out of pure curiosity.
He began looking around again, maybe he could lose him and cause a distraction to create a window for him to get to his sword. He spotted a tube not far off that he could probably fit through, it looked like it led to an even denser area of forgotten wreckage, it was the best option he had to try what he had in mind. Leo did his best to bend himself back down onto his new space hoverboard, crouching on it as he pitched it down towards the entrance of the tube he had been eyeing.
He lifted the front of the board just as he got sight of the entrance of the tube and flew straight into it. He had to duck his head, praying his bandana didn’t get stuck on anything, as he shot through it. Once he got back, he needed to tell his brothers about this, they needed to get some hoverboards pronto.
Once he got out, his plan became less of a plan, and more of a goal. He was forced to leap off of the board when he couldn’t get a tight enough turn to avoid face-planting into a wall, landing on another one just to push off to the first opening he saw. Krang seemed to only roughly know where he was, but he wasn’t going to hesitate.
He needed to emulate Raph a little here as he frantically looked around for another opening. He froze in his tracks, latching onto the corner of a hole in one of the walls, his wrist aching from the stopped momentum. He scrambled to shove himself into it, spotting Krang as he dashed overhead.
Leo watched him for a hot minute, his pursuer was circling the area looking for him. Okay, distraction planning time. He looked around for anything he could use, being careful not to stick his head out too far into the open in case his blue bandanna gave him away.
The idea hit him instantly as that worry crossed his mind. He spotted a few shards of broken glass floating nearby, and he waited until Krang turned away from his general direction as he flew a hand out to grab one. He didn’t have the time to worry about cutting his hand, but his gloves seemed to protect him well enough.
He had a nice big chunk, testing the edge on the side of the wall of the hole he was hiding in. It had had enough of an effect, creating a scratch on the wall, Leo gave it a nod of approval. He looked around for something to use as his decoy, hoping he could either find something miraculously turtle-shaped or something that could be spotted as easily as him in a crowd.
He spotted it, a weird mesh of broken parts tangled together by a weird fleshy-looking rope that he did not want to stare at for too long, that looked almost hourglass-shaped. He quietly watched Krang fly by again, his search seeming to frustrate him more as he started slapping anything around that was in his reach, grumbling loudly to himself. Leo took his chance and pushed off from inside the hole, heading straight toward the new member of the Hamato clan.
Leo wrapped his legs around the middle to hold himself steady against it, taking his glass shard and grabbing the back of his bandana. He always thought he could pull off shorter tails like Mikey and Don anyway, slicing one of them in half. He quickly tossed the glass shard and tied the piece of bright blue bandana around the bulge of parts on top of it.
Leo took a second to give a small salute to his replica, and kicked off of it, sending it flying in the opposite direction of his goal.
“See ya later, you big pink gelatinous cube!” Leo shouted with cupped hands as he took cover under a bundle of metal pipes, watching as both of Krang’s heads whipped around towards his voice, spotting his decoy’s iconic blue bandana fluttering in the air and rocketing off straight after it. Leon let a shakey breath out that he didn’t realize he was holding, quickly sprinting and bounding off of his hiding spot and towards his sword.
Just as he was almost halfway there, the wind was knocked out of him once more. Krang had caught onto his fake, the decoy having hit a wall early into the chase, and he returned to search again only to see the real Leonardo taking off in the opposite direction. The force launched him at the sword faster, but it was too fast.
Leo turned as he realized he was going to face plant if he didn’t, taking the blunt force to his shell. This time it hurt, it really really hurt. He thought he might’ve died for a moment, hearing a sickening crack from behind him as it felt like someone drove a giant nail into his back with a sledgehammer.
He couldn’t make a sound as his mouth hung open, his eyes going wide as the muscles in his arms and legs seized. He tried to gasp, but it felt like his lungs were on lockdown, not allowing anything to enter or leave his throat. Hot tears appeared at the bottom of his eyes, reminding him that he was still alive, giving him enough cognitive thought to register Krang still flying at full speed at him.
He needed the sword, it was the only way he was making it out of this one-sided fight alive. Leo looked over at the big beautiful polished sword to his right, powering through the immense pain that wracked through his back and shoulder as he forced his arm to reach out and grab the handle. The runes ignited instantly, thrumming to life with more mystic energy than Leo had ever seen before.
Maybe it was the adrenaline finally kicking in. The slider ripped the sword out, a cry leaving him as he felt like he might have dislocated his shoulder, but continued to force his body to move. He slashed through the air, his destination: ANYWHERE BUT HERE!
His signature bright blue portal spun to life next to him, and he rolled into it, hearing Krang’s claws slam into the spot where he was just lying, the portal closing after he fell out onto the other side.