Chapter Text
“Alright, all we need to do is find ‘The Art of the Blade,’ look through the book, find the symbol, possibly look for other sources, and check the book out afterwards,” Donnie whispered, listing off of his fingers.
“And not get caught by the hush bats,” Mikey added, poking Donnie’s arm, “Raph would kill us if we got caught,”
“Yes, great idea. So, let’s start this trip off by not immediately screaming at the top of our lungs,” Donnie eyed Mikey, and his head shot in Donnie’s direction.
“That was one time! I’m not a baby, I know the stakes,” Mikey scream whispered, turning to look at Donnie accusingly. Then, his eyes narrowed, “Wait, didn’t the hush bats get you too?”
Donnie quickly looked away, “No clue what you’re talking about! Now, come on,”
Donnie and Mikey began to walk through the library, and its ancient wooden shelves towered over the two of them. It was just as magnificent as every other time Donnie had visited, maybe even more so. Every time he came, it felt like entering another world as he explored the ancient histories and impossible realities that seemed so commonplace among the Hidden City. If only he could just live here, where he could learn something new every day and not have to worry about sticking out like a sore green thumb among a bunch of humans. Unfortunately, his brothers had limited his library trips to ten hours a week unsupervised after a particularly concerning week. That, and he had other hobbies to explore. Still, Donnie couldn’t help but marvel at the place whenever he had the chance, especially as they walked towards the catalog orb.
Donnie held the orb in his hands, shaking it a bit as he envisioned the book he needed in his mind. He imagined The Art of the Blade, with its gold title and swoopy cursive as Mikey had described it. Sure enough, his mind was immediately filled with directions around the library, popping into his head as if they had always been there. He still found that so cool, the clear and concise nonverbal communication of the catalog orb. He wondered if he could harness a power like that for quicker communication with their allies outside of their immediate family.
“Donnie, where is it?” Mikey asked, and Donnie was brought back to the present.
“Up that ladder, corridor O, through a hatch, past a stone,” Donnie repeated back, pointing to a nearby ladder. Mikey nodded, signalling for Donnie to lead the way. They made their way up the ladder, which, like all things in the library, was weird and oddly long, and began walking on the thin pathway towards the next area. One side of the path was lined with rows upon rows of bookshelves, shifting oddly like a moving maze, while the other side had a tall drop to the bottom floor of the library, with nothing but a small, thin railing stopping someone from potentially falling. The whole library was a giant safety hazard, but Donnie presumed that somewhere unseen, they had some sort of mystic safety measure that he couldn’t be bothered to look for right now. He was a man on a mission.
“Up the ladder go to corridor O, through the hatch in the cove and past the wizard’s stone,” Donnie mumbled to himself as he looked out for their next marker, remembering the song he had concocted earlier to memorize their directions, “Find the blue glowing tree and go through the hole, across the bridge in section five eight four,”
Donnie felt a hand on his shoulder, and he paused to look behind him, only to be met with Mikey’s gaze, which was so intense it could burn a hole through his skull.
“ Boy if you don’t want us to get caught you’ll shut your ass up right now, ”
Donnie quickly turned back around and shut himself up.
They walked in silence most of the way, not willing to risk talking in case one of them got carried away. Donnie kept his comments to himself as he led them through the library, in silent awe as they passed through different areas. The most impressive area of all, however, only came once they got to a little cove in corridor O. When they had finally made it past all of the bookcases, there was an indented area in the wall, its only notable feature being a small circular wooden door sitting in the center. Donnie opened the door, cringing as it creaked loudly. Behind the door was a tight, dark tunnel, the end unseen.
“Are you sure this is the right way? The door is so small, and it looks like nobody’s been through in ages,” Mikey whispered, pointing out the cobwebs through the tunnel. Donnie shrugged.
“It's what the orb said. Let’s just be glad we didn’t bring Raph,” Donnie replied. Raph would have gotten stuck immediately, then worry his shell off while he waited outside. With his ninpo, he formed a feather-dusting contraption on one shoulder of his battle shell, making it about as big as the tunnel. On the other shoulder, he summoned a small flashlight. Hesitantly, he climbed in, and Mikey climbed in after him. It was a bit of a tight fit; he just barely had enough room to be comfortable, but he definitely didn’t have enough room to turn around if they needed to. Donnie sighed, continuing forward. According to the orb, they were headed the right way, so it shouldn’t be horribly long in the tunnel anyway. At least he didn’t have to deal with the cobwebs, thanks to his feather duster.
Lucky for them, it was only about a minute crawl through the tunnel until it started to slope upwards, and Donnie saw another closed hatch in front of him. He pressed on it, pushing it open with a little more force than he was expecting. He crawled out of the tunnel, emerging in what looked like a dark, glowing forest. Vines weaved between trees on the path in front of him, each leaf faintly glowing a different color, making a dull rainbow. The leaves on the trees, however, were black, and their trunks a dark, dark brown. Behind him, Mikey emerged from the tunnel, which appeared to be a hatch coming out of a particularly large tree’s roots. Mikey seemed in awe of the area around them. Donnie had to admit, it was impressive, especially for a library.
Together, they walked along the path, the dull light of the vines guiding their way. As they walked, the light from the vines became brighter and brighter, and they soon emerged into a large clearing, bright with colors and leaves. In the center of the clearing stood a stone statue of what looked to be a yokai wizard on a pedestal. Surrounding the statue were seven large, distinctly colored glowing trees, a large hole in each of them as if they were all entrances to different pathways. Donnie approached the statue, bending down to read the inscription on the pedestal.
“Dedicated to Ledrick the Proud, the library flourishes with ancient knowledge because of you,” Donnie read.
“I think I might remember him from that project Barry had me do,” Mikey said, peering up at the statue with a hand on his chin, “I’m pretty sure he developed some sort of mystic preservation technique,”
“Preservation technique?” Donnie echoed, and Mikey nodded.
“Yeah. I think this forest might actually be the preservation technique, it feels like this place is overflowing with magic,” He commented. Donnie couldn’t feel anything himself, but he knew that his brother was a lot more sensitive to everything mystic compared to him.
“Fascinating. If you remember the details, you’ll have to tell me later,” Donnie noted, smiling over to Mikey, “As of right now, though, I think we’re supposed to go through this tree,”
Donnie walked forward towards a tree on the right side of the statue, its bright leaves glowing blue like bioluminescent plankton on a beach. He ran his hand along the underside of the large tree as he walked through the tunnel, the bark rough and cool under his fingers. When they stepped into the room, they seemingly emerged into a blue-tinted bog. Trees densely packed the sides of the room where he knew the other rooms began, and large vines wove between those trees to seal the rooms apart from each other. The room in front of him, though, was filled with dark blue mangrove, glowing blue flowers speckling their black leaves. The roots of the mangrove trees in the room curved into each other to act as shelves, holding books that looked to be hundreds of years old on them. The floor was mostly water, but the path they stood on bent and curved through the room to pass by the mangrove shelves, eventually leading to an arched wooden bridge with even more shelves on the other side.
It was safe to say, the botanical part of Donnie’s brain was going crazy. It was way too bad that he had to focus.
They made their way towards the bridge, as per Donnie’s directions song. As they walked, teal will-o’-the-wisps appeared and disappeared, dancing around the room. The floor- or… the dirt under their feet was surprisingly dry for a bog, but Donnie was very thankful he didn’t have to deal with the squelching that would make his skin crawl. They crossed the bridge, its wood creaking from its years of use as water passed idly under it. The two continued further into the room until finally, Donnie spotted a section of mangrove shelves that had the numbers five eight four etched onto the top.
The light was low, but with the glow of the flowers, he could just barely make out the titles on the spines of the books. He peered at them, his eyes gliding over the different titles.
“I found it!” Mikey whispered from beside him, gently pulling a book from the shelf. He held it in his hands, and Donnie leaned over to look at it. It certainly didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary, that was for sure. The book was a dull blue, the title The Art of the Blade written in cursive on the front with now chipped gold paint. It was incredibly old looking, the pages uneven, and the spine looking like it was about to fall off. It probably would have by now if it wasn’t placed in this preservation area.
“I don’t know if I should need to say this, but be careful with it,” Donnie said. Mikey frowned.
“It didn’t look this beat up in Leo’s memory,” he mentioned, and Donnie sighed.
“Oh, our brother is such a dum dum,” he said with as much disappointment as he could muster, “Did he accidentally damage an ancient library book?” Mikey only shrugged in response, and Donnie facepalmed. Because of course his brother would destroy a priceless artifact. Why wouldn’t he? It was Leo, after all.
Mikey opened the book, holding it incredibly gently as he flipped through the uneven pages. Donnie summoned a small flashlight from his battleshell, propping it between the two of them. The inside was mostly what Mikey had said before: small, swoopy, hard-to-read cursive with the occasional drawing of a weapon here and there. From what he made of the pictures as the pages flipped by, this was mostly a book about different types of blades, ancient yokai sword techniques, and mystic enchantments that went well with swords. Additionally, the book was most likely a journal, considering that every now and then, there would be a crossed-out word or a smudged sentence. Finally, once they had gotten near the end of the journal, Donnie saw the symbol on the page they had turned to, and he sucked in a breath. It was, truly, the same symbol as the one on the black sheet that Leo had come home with, sketched out in black ink. Donnie began reading the page (to the best of his abilities).
“‘Entry number two hundred and three,” Donnie began aloud, “On our quest for knowledge on the blade, my comrade and I came across the tale of a great warrior who came just before our time. It is a wonder that we did not hear of his legacy sooner, as it is much to be proud of, especially as masters of the blade ourselves. He was the inventor of many great techniques, and could perfectly wield even the most queer of weapons.’ Points for outdated writing,”
“Donnie,” Mikey eyed him.
“Sorry. Ehem! ‘This great warrior was called Tigerclaw, and he was one of the strongest warriors yokai kind had seen in centuries.’ Blah blah blah, they talk about how great this guy was…uh… AH! ‘When my comrade and I had come to learn of him, we had been thrilled. We would seek out his guidance to learn how to be better warriors and swordsmen. With him as our master, we would be unstoppable. Unfortunately, we soon after learned of his demise. He had made enemies as a swordsmaster, some of whom were unforgiving. Out of jealousy, one of Tigerclaw’s enemies caught him off guard in battle, sealing him away into a pocket dimension.’” Donnie paused, “Okay, this next part just goes on about how unjust the whole situation was, so we’ll skip that too,”
“‘Using his story, my comrade and I tracked down the key to the great master’s pocket dimension, a black sheet lined with gold symbols. The key uses the symbol shown on the page to weaken and trap him, forcing him into submission. We discovered that to access the master, all one must do is recite the words on the page, sacrifice an object of great value to them as an offering, and open a portal,’”
“Did Leo spend the month and a half he was missing with this Tigerclaw master guy?” Mikey asked, his tone hinting disbelieving.
“It's too uncertain at the moment to tell for sure,” Donnie said, “Let's go to the next page, this one’s almost over,”
Mikey flipped the page. On the other side was one page of writing, but the other page? Almost completely empty. Up until this point, every space of the book, every margin had been filled with notes, entries, and pictures. Suddenly, there was only a page and a half left.
“Is there anything after that? Is this it??” Donnie asked. Mikey turned the page again, then again to reveal more emptiness, and Donnie frowned. Mikey returned to the last page.
“‘Entry number two hundred and four, our plan was a failure. My comrade and I had planned to use the information we had gathered to release Tigerclaw from his prison and have him as our master. It did not work. Instead, my comrade was sucked through a portal into the pocket dimension. Even as I tried to go in after him, the portal closed too fast. It has been multiple weeks since this event, and left without a way to form portals, I cannot go after him myself. All I can do now is mourn his absence,’”
Mikey and Donnie looked to each other, sharing the same concern in their eyes.
“‘I know now that we did not come at the right time, and we were not the right swordsmen to learn from the master. One day, however, that time will come. One day, some yokai will read my journal with the hope of becoming a better swordsman. For you, young yokai, I encourage you to try. The master holds ancient, unbridled wisdom, more than I can offer you with this journal. Your time has just begun. My time, however, is over without my comrade. For now, the key is buried with my comrade, his memory being laid to rest with its wisdom. I have left a map to his grave in the spine of this book. If you seek to be better, seek Tigerclaw,’”
That was the end of the journal. After that was emptiness. Unsettling emptiness. Mikey turned towards Donnie.
“Was… was Leo not supposed to make it home?” He asked. Donnie stared at him, not responding. He couldn’t process that. Leo was home, and the problem was solved; all that was left was to solve the mystery of what happened. But… even just the possibility that Leo wasn’t supposed to come home from wherever he went to that month and a half…
Donnie let out a shaky breath. Things were fine now; he was back, and he didn’t need to worry about possibilities that weren’t real. He needed to focus on the facts and the mission. Where did Leo go? Why did Leo go? How did Leo go? Why is he so aggressive now, and why doesn’t he remember?
“It seems like he did go to this pocket dimension. That would explain why he came back with the sheet and why his tracker completely disappeared. But how did he even get the sheet in the first place, and why would he do that? What part of this story of someone going missing trying to find this guy made him say ‘Oh, that’s a good idea! I’ll go missing too to learn how to use swords I already know how to use?! ’” He yelled, and a hand was slapped over his mouth.
“Donnie! The bats! ” Mikey scream whispered. Shit, he was right, the bats! Donnie had been too engrossed on how much of an idiot his brother had been to care about keeping his voice down. But even as he waited on for the bats to carry him off into the horrors of the children’s area, nothing happened. Donnie removed Mikey’s hand from his mouth.
“I don’t think they’re allowed to come in here,” He said, noting the absence of bats, and Mikey sighed in relief, “Sorry. At the very least, we have a lead now!” He mentioned, faking excitement.
“If we try to talk to him about it, is he even going to listen? Or is he going to storm off again like last night?” Mikey questioned, and he put his free hand to his face, grunting, “Ugh! This is so frustrating!”
“For you and me both, dear brother,” Donnie confirmed. Then he thought, placing a hand on his chin, “It says that the sheet was buried with the author’s friend, and that the map to the grave was placed in the spine of the journal. If the book was in better condition in Leo’s first memory with it, then…” Donnie began, placing the pieces together. As it all clicked, his heart dropped, “Oh… It wasn’t accidental. He did that on purpose.”
“You’re meaning to tell me that Leo looked for the key to the dimension that kidnaps you?” Mikey asked, his voice getting louder with disbelief, “Yeah. once he gets back to normal, we are DEFINITELY having another talk,”
Donnie internally laughed a bit. The thought of getting back to normal at all anymore felt so foreign to him. It felt like a far-off dream. This whole situation was so much more complicated than they had originally thought, even after Leo had just come home. This wasn’t even revenge from some villain that Donnie could channel all of his efforts into defeating. This was… different. Too different for comfort, and way too different for Donnie to have any hope for getting back to normal soon.
“How did he get the sheet in the first place, though?” Donnie asked himself, getting right back to the questions, “I have all of his locations tracked, he never went anywhere suspicious, and he barely ever went anywhere alone,” he scratched his head, trying to think long and hard, but nothing came to mind for him. Gently, Mikey shut the book, tucking it under his arm as he tapped Donnie’s shoulder. When Donnie looked to him, his eyes were wide.
“Do you remember when Leo thought it would be a good idea to go ghost hunting?” He asked simply. Suddenly, memories came flooding back. They went back to a night just under two months ago, when Leo, out of nowhere, decided to get their family together to go ghost hunting in an old Hidden City cemetery. He got Mikey on board first, and Mikey had gotten everybody else on board from there. Still, it bugged Donnie at the time. Leo had never believed in ghosts. In fact, he had been quite adamant that they didn’t exist at all, even in mystic form (he didn’t count their ancestors). In the end, they had separated, gotten back together, hunted some ghosts, and gone home. It was a fun day, and they got to rub it in Leo’s face that ghosts were real, even if he didn’t run into one himself, and even if they were boring and just talked about how they miss the way things were back in the day. After that, Donnie had forgotten about how weird it had been for Leo to suggest that, especially out of the blue.
“Did Leo… lie to us?” Donnie muttered, too many realizations hitting him at once. If he had lied about why he needed to go to the Hidden City graveyard to get the key, what else had he lied about? And what else did he do right under their noses? How long had this really been going on before he went missing? Could they even trust him anymore?
“Now I just feel stupid,” Mikey huffed, crossing his arms, “He doesn’t even like ghosts! How did we not realize something was up sooner?!”
“He’s a master of disguise,” Donnie noted tiredly. He brought a hand up to his face, rubbing his eyes, “Alright, we don’t know what happened while he was gone, but we still learned a lot, so I say we call it here. We still have to report back to Raph and see if Leo’s willing to talk yet,”
“Sounds good to me,” Mikey agreed. He held the disheveled book against his plastron, and they turned around, making their way out of the room.
—
Donnie and Mikey left the library after they checked out the book, making sure to be extremely quiet the whole time. They made their way back towards the lair, walking through the cold sewer tunnels until they came across a small waterfall covering a pipe. Donnie moved forward, lifting a small, slightly hidden panel next to the waterfall to reveal a button underneath. He pressed it, and the waterfall dissipated in front of them, allowing them to enter the tunnel. Together, they climbed through, crouching a bit to fit in the smaller tunnel. This wasn’t necessarily the best entrance to their house, but it was the one they were the closest to.
They finally stepped out of the tunnel, emerging into their lobby area. Raph usually spent a lot of his time in here, playing games or just sitting at the bar area on his phone. However, as they walked in, it seemed that the entire room was abandoned. A few arcade games blinked idly, but nobody was in the room other than Donnie and Mikey. Another inconvenient thing about their new home was that it was impossible to find anyone.
“Raph!” Mikey shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth to make himself louder.
“In here!” they heard Raph shout back from the direction of the kitchen, his voice echoing off the walls. They followed the sound, and when they entered the kitchen, they saw Raph sitting down at the table, his phone in his hands. He set it down as they entered, looking up at them.
“Sooooo… how’s Leo?” Mikey asked cautiously, immediately getting into it. In response, Raph sighed, propping his head up with his hand.
“You wanna ask him ? I’ve seen him once the whole time you guys were gone. He came out for a bathroom break, and when he passed me, he glanced over to me and just started mumbling some garbage,” He huffed, scowling.
“Yeah, sounds about right,” Donnie noted, and Mikey nodded.
“So, how’d things go with you then? Find anything?” Raph asked. Donnie and Mikey looked at each other once, and Donnie began to delicately pull The Art of the Blade out of his battle shell with a spider arm. At the sight of the book, Raph lit up, “You found it! It… looks a bit beat up, though,”
“Our running theory is that it’s Leo’s fault,” Donnie shrugged
“You blame everything on Leo,” Raph said, narrowing his eyes, and Donnie just continued to stare at him, “Whatever, did you guys get caught by the hush bats at all?”
“No problems from us! Just in and out,” Mikey said pridefully, crossing his arms as he nodded.
“Surprisingly,” Donnie added, “You should’ve seen it, though, the section the book was in is beautiful , the use of mystic trees created such an aesthetic, I only wish I could get my hand on a seed or two someday-”
“Alright, alright, you can tell us all about the library later,” Raph cut him off, and Donnie frowned, “Right now, I wanna know what you guys found in the book,”
“Ugh, who cares about finding out what happened to Leo? Can’t I recount our fantastical adventure through a mystical library forest?” Donnie asked, rolling his eyes.
“ Later ,” Raph and Mikey replied at the same time, and Donnie sighed, grabbing the book out of the grasp of his spider arm.
“Fine. You all hate me so much,” He said, and Raph and Mikey both began to speak before he cut them off, “So, basically, the book is actually a journal written by these two yokai sword-fighting enthusiasts maybe hundreds of years ago. They heard about this great master at sword fighting called Tigerclaw, who had recently been trapped in a pocket dimension, found the key, and tried to free him. Unsurprisingly, it backfired, and one of the two authors got sucked into the pocket dimension. The other, then, buried the key at his friend’s grave, and left a map to the key in the spine of the book. Since Leo first found the book, it has been badly damaged at the spine, he has had us all go to the Hidden City cemetery, and he has gone missing. I’ll let you put the pieces together,”
Raph stared at them for a moment, then stared at the book, visibly putting the puzzle pieces together in his head. A second passed, and Raph put a hand to his head.
“Wait wait wait, back up, you’re saying that Leo went missing to train to be a sword master with a really, really old Tiger? Knowing that he might never come back?” Donnie and Mikey looked at each other.
“ Well- ” Mikey began.
“Essentially, yes,” Donnie said, “We don’t know anything about this ‘Tigerclaw’ guy other than the fact that he’s really good at using basically any weapon and he’s stuck in a pocket dimension. The key to which Leo was holding when he came home,”
Raph moved the hand on his head to his chin, holding it in thought. His face shifted to one of deep concern.
“If he read the book enough to want to go find this great master and know how to do it, he had to have known the consequences of what he was gonna do,” Raph pieced together, “So why? Why do all of this- risk it all… just to learn how to fight better?”
The three of them stood there in the kitchen, the air turning solemn. Leo had to have known that he would go missing. He must’ve. How would he not? It was written there in the same stupid loopy ink as the instructions that told him how to get the key. Just how stupid was Leo? He didn’t even like training, how could he have ever thought that this would be a good idea? It was, to say the least, incredibly difficult for Donnie to believe.
“Should we show him the book? Maybe it’ll jog his memory and he can explain all of this himself,” Raph said, feigning hope. Donnie rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.
“Scoff, not likely. When I showed Leo the key he came back with, he just clammed up even more,” Donnie mentioned, thinking back to their time together in the medbay. He had sounded so scared when he saw the black sheet, and he looked even more like an animal than he normally does. It had frightened him, “I say we hide it. We’ll still need it for reference, or just in case we do need to show it to him. But for now… I can hide it in my lab, and I’ll look through it in depth later,” Donnie was already thinking of how he could upload the journal digitally and translate it into a different font, saving himself the headache of trying to understand this cursed handwriting.
“So, we have a lead, we learned a bit about the situation, basically know what happened to get here, but still can’t get anything out of Leo?” Raph asked.
“Pretty much,” Mikey sighed.
“All of that, and he’s back to acting like a jerk,” Raph said, huffing, “I want to help him, but none of us can if he doesn’t let us. And doesn’t know not to kill people.”
“His time away is probably just affecting him subconsciously, despite him not remembering what happened,” Donnie shrugged, “Especially considering all of his… injuries…”
A shiver went up Donnie’s spine just thinking about it. Although they were almost entirely healed now, it was still so unnerving to see how little Leo was concerned about his new scars. There were so many of them, and they were all so big. And yet, despite this, he acted almost as if they had always been there, or rather if they didn’t exist. Despite the days that had passed since Leo came home, he was still just as uninterested in their origin as he had been before. It was concerning, to say the least.
Donnie’s worried spiral of thoughts was cut off as he heard footsteps approaching the kitchen. He summoned a spider arm from his battle shell, letting it grab the book from his hands and gently tuck it away. From the sound of the steps, they could all already tell it was Leo. The three of them waited in silence, and Donnie was already anticipating a classic-not-classic Raph Leo fight. Donnie whipped out his phone, trying to look as distracted as possible. He did NOT want to be a part of this.
Leo walked through the kitchen doorway, walking behind Donnie and towards the fridge. Donnie couldn’t see what the scene looked like from where he was, but he knew it at least felt awkward as hell. He tried to ignore it, finding something interesting on his phone, but he still cringed at the silence of the room. Leo put something in the microwave, pressing a few buttons before a distinct hum filled the air as the microwave came to life. Raph, Mikey, and Donnie all glanced at each other, waiting to see if anyone would say anything. It was a long minute as they all waited for Leo’s food to be done, and Donnie almost let out a sigh of relief when he finally heard the beeping of the microwave. Leo pulled his food out, stirring it a bit before hesitantly approaching the table they were gathered around.
“Look,” Leo began, cutting straight through the silence, “I know it’s only my first meal on the clock, but I’m officially ending my rest time,”
“You-you’re ready to talk?” Raph asked, the confusion laughably clear in his voice. Donnie lowered his phone, forgetting about looking distracted.
“Yeah, I am. I’m sorry about last night,” Leo said, and Donnie could practically hear Raph’s jaw fall to the floor. If he was being honest, even Donnie wasn’t expecting this turn of events, especially with how aggressive Leo had been just the night before. At the very least, he was expecting Leo to pretend nothing had happened. This was new.
“I got carried away during the fight, and I didn’t think rationally.” He continued, setting his food down and sitting down at the table with them, “I almost caused some serious damage, and I’m so glad you guys caught me. I promise, from the bottom of my heart, that it won’t happen again,”
They sat there in stunned silence for a moment. Donnie knew Leo was good at apologies, but… well, damn, that was exactly what he had wanted to hear. And on top of that, he actually sounded genuine about it, like he had spent his rest time for once doing something productive, like thinking over his actions. However, despite how much this whole situation affected all of them, his fight had originally been with, of course, Raph. If there was anyone who deserved the next say, it was him. Donnie turned to Raph, awaiting his response, and Mikey joined him. Raph noticed them waiting on him, and sighed.
“Okay. I’m sorry for yelling at you last night. You were really stressing me out, you know? I understand getting carried away with what you’re doing. Almost killing two people? Not so much,” He said, choosing his words carefully, “I’m not happy with what you did last night. I don’t think any of us are. You’re scaring us, man! But, just this once, I’ll give you the pass. You’ve clearly thought it over, and I respect you apologizing for it. I know it’s been a bit of a hectic week, so I won’t make you explain yourself unless you want to. BUT! ” Raph poked Leo’s plastron, “Just know that if anything like this happens again, I won’t go so easy on you,”
“You got it. Nothing,” Leo replied, raising his hands in surrender. He sounded a bit tired. Raph smacked the table, bringing the attention back to him.
“You know what I think we need to get the mood back up? A-”
“A sleepover!” Mikey finished for him, and Raph scowled at him.
“I was gonna say pizza,” He grumbled, then seemed to reconsider, “But, you know, that works too,”
“Are we sure this is the best idea? Maybe we could try just chilling out for the day?” Donnie tried, and Mikey placed a hand on his hip.
“And I just invited everyone!” He said, his phone somehow already in his hand.
“Everyone?” Donnie asked, prompting him to go on.
“Yup! April, Sunita, the Caseys… This is going to be great!”
“Yeah, great…” Leo said tiredly. He began to pick at his now lukewarm food. Raph and Mikey sat cheerfully, talking about plans for the sleepover. Leo and Donnie, on the other hand, sat in silence.
—
“Come on, just guess already!” Cassandra shouted, throwing her hands out.
“Is it… an elephant eating a croissant?” Mikey guessed, snapping.
“Guess correctly!” Cassandra screamed in response, “It is SO OBVIOUS!!!”
Cassandra stood over a whiteboard, drawing something too confusing to name on it with the dry-erase marker in her hand. They were supposed to be guessing what it was. Pictionary, usually you try to draw well enough so that the other team can guess it. Apparently not this time. With every new line Cassandra added, the picture got even more confusing, despite her insistence that it was perfectly clear. April, her teammate, stood off to the side, her head in her hand.
“How about… a hamster swimming?” Mikey tried again, resting his head on his fist. Cassandra pointed her marker at him accusingly.
“You aren’t even trying! Someone else guess!” She shouted, desperately looking around the room. One by one, everyone glanced away, the only one daring to look her in the eyes being Casey. He just shook his head and shrugged.
“Aaaaaaand time,” Donnie said as the timer on his wrist went off. Cassandra grumbled loudly, and the room let out a sigh of relief at the round finally being over.
“What was it then?” Sunita asked curiously.
“A cat riding a skateboard,” April answered, dragging a hand down her face.
“Obviously!” Cassandra started, “Can’t you guys see? These are the ears, that's the whiskers, and this is the skateboard!” She said, pointing to each location of the messy drawing with her marker. Donnie squinted at it. The more he looked at it, the more his brain hurt.
“I guess if you look at it just right and squint your eyes, it does kinda look like that,” Raph commented supportingly, nodding, but Cassandra looked offended instead.
“ KINDA??? ” She shouted, putting a hand to her chest, and Raph raised his hands in front of him.
“Very. Very much so!” He corrected himself, and she nodded.
“Alright, that's game,” April said, the tiredness evident in her voice, “Okay, so that's ten points for Raph and Mikey, eight points for Casey and Sunita, four points for Leo and Donnie, and one point for Cassandra and me. That means, whaddaya know, Raph and Mikey’s team wins. Woohoo.” she waved her fist tiredly in the air, her face flat.
“Who’s surprised?” Donnie asked absently. Mikey was incredible at drawing, so every time it was his turn to draw, someone was sure to guess it correctly every time. On top of that, he had very unique guesses to other people's pictures, some of which somehow turned out to be right. If he wasn’t already a decent ninja, Donnie would say that Mikey had a strong future playing professional pictionary.
“Woooo! Yeah we did!” Mikey grinned, giving Raph a high five. Raph smiled back at him, pumping his fist in celebration.
“Wow, we wouldn’t have gotten nearly as many points without you, Casey. How are you so good at this game?” Sunita asked, putting a hand to her face in surprise. Casey shrugged.
“Eh, you could call it an apocalypse trick. You needed to know how to silently communicate with others to survive, or else the krang would hear. That, and I grew up playing the game a lot,” Casey explained, so easily turning the air of the room from light to desolate, back to something more fun. He had a habit of doing that, just casually dropping something insane about the future before carrying on. He put a hand to his chin, “I could never understand Cassandra’s drawings, though, not even in the future…”
“I feel a bit betrayed,” Cassandra said, putting a hand to her chest. April side-eyed her.
“You couldn’t have tried a little harder?” She asked, and Cassandra huffed, crossing her arms.
“You know I always give a hundred and ten percent!”
“Are you sure it’s not three hundred?” Leo asked quietly, his arms crossed, sitting further back into the couch he and Donnie were sitting on. It didn’t seem like anyone really heard him, apart from Donnie. He had really hoped that after his apology, Leo would start to act more like himself again, and they could slowly get back to their previous balance of Leo saying he didn’t go missing and Donnie correcting him again. They could forget last night ever happened and not have to worry about Leo acting strange and distant. However, that was way too wishful of a thought process, especially for Donnie, and had not been the case at all.
Leo hadn’t been acting aggressively or anything again, but he was back to being a bit distant. When it wasn’t his turn to try to draw, he sank into the couch, staring off, usually until his next turn or until someone called him back. Donnie had never seen Leo this out of it, even when he was sick. It was honestly kind of scary, and the others had definitely caught on that something was up with him. Except for Cassandra. She was as clueless as ever. The others, though, sent over worried glances to Leo, then looked to Donnie for a silent explanation. All he could do was give a small shrug in response.
“Since that game’s over, what’s next?” April asked, looking out to the room. Everyone went silent, trying to think of another game, activity, or anything that they could do next. Being honest, Donnie had about five different ideas, but he didn’t really care what came next. Instead, he just stayed silent, waiting for someone else to have an idea.
“How about… a nice game of would you rather?” Raph suggested, and Mikey lit up.
“Oh! Yes! I have the perfect question for this!” He said, immediately jumping up to the center of the room. April and Cassandra sat down, and he erased the whiteboard. On it, he wrote a question.
“Would you rather never watch a Lou Jitsu movie again, or never watch a Jupiter Jim movie again?” He asked.
“Hmm, that's a hard one…” Raph said, putting a hand to his chin in thought, “I’m going to have to say never watch a Lou Jitsu movie again.”
“What!?” Cassandra yelled.
“Care to explain your thought process there, Raph?” April asked, crossing her arms as she glared at him.
“Look, look, nothing against him!” He said, waving a hand, “Kinda,”
“Not helping your case,” April glared harder.
“What! He fell off a little after we found out he was our dad! Lou Jitsu is still so cool! I love the guy, and I love all of his movies. But… ” Raph grimaced, “Knowing that Lou Jitsu loves to eat cake and watch soap operas until he passes out kinda ruins the image. Plus, we already know every movie by heart thanks to him, we could just act it out instead of watching it,”
“Okay, you kinda got a point there,” April said, returning a grimace.
“Wha- no, he does not! Anything that Lou Jitsu does is majestic!” Cassandra said.
“You didn’t think so when you kicked Splinter out of the living room three hours ago,” Mikey commented, putting a hand to his hip. Cassandra stuttered for a moment before closing her mouth and resting her elbows on her knees, contemplating.
“Have you even watched any Lou Jitsu movies other than Punch Chowder?” Raph asked flatly. She didn’t respond, and he sighed.
“Personally, I would go with ‘never watch a Jupiter Jim movie again.’ I love JJ, but Lou Jitsu is the greatest of all time! Even as our dad! I know someone here would care to disagree, though,” Mikey tried, glancing heavily at Leo. It took Leo multiple seconds to even notice that Mikey was looking at him, and even longer to respond with a simple “Hm?” and Mikey’s face fell flat.
Donnie could join in with his own opinion (never watch a Lou Jitsu movie again), but Raph had already made most of his points for him (surprisingly), and he really didn’t feel like getting into it at the moment. Instead, he stayed silent. This couch was starting to feel like a buzzkill.
“I think I’m starting to get how this game works. Could I give a question?” Sunita asked, and Mikey gestured for her to join him.
“Go ahead!”
“Alright, so…” She started, writing her question below his, “Would you rather have a banana pepper pizza or a black olive pizza?”
Everybody in the room stared at her blankly. Even Leo, who wasn’t really paying attention, had a face with just a hint of confusion. Mikey cleared his throat, putting a hand on Sunita’s shoulder as her smile faded.
“Sunita… I don’t think you know how the game works quite yet,”
“I… don’t?” She asked, tilting her head.
“The question is supposed to get you thinking. Usually, the game is choosing between two hard choices. It can be two of something you want, two of something you don’t want, or just two options that different kinds of people will choose,” Raph tried to explain, but Sunita still looked confused. Mikey chuckled a bit, taking his hand off of her shoulder and grabbing the marker.
“I guess we did come off a bit strong there. We can do an easier one for practice. How about this?” Mikey turned to write his question on the board under Sunita’s: “Would you rather have the ability to fly or turn invisible?”
“I think… I would rather be able to turn invisible. I’ve flown before, and it is not for me,” Sunita answered.
“ I would rather fly. Being invisible is overrated,” Mikey commented.
“Oooooh! I think I get the game now!” Sunita smiled, and Mikey winked at her.
“Mikey, you can fly. We can both already fly,” Donnie finally spoke up, tiredly glancing over to him in the middle of the room. Mikey nodded.
“Good point, good point. But! We can also basically go invisible as well, if there are enough shadows,” He argued. Cassandra sat up, apparently done contemplating now.
“Just think of all the stuff you could steal if you could go invisible,” She said, a new fire in her voice that wasn’t there before.
“Being able to turn invisible would be pretty useful for sneaking around,” Casey commented, and April scoffed.
“You’re already too good at that,” She laughed a bit, and he smiled. Donnie sat back against the couch. He had already said what he had wanted to say, and knowing the rest of them, they would all take the question way too far. He sighed.
“This is what I don’t get,” Leo began, slightly leaning over to Donnie. Donnie jumped a little, it was the first time Leo had spoken in a while, “How are we supposed to get anything out of this? Nobody’s taking this seriously, and none of this would actually happen,”
Donnie glanced at Leo. This was the weird behavior he was talking about. Leo was infamous for exaggerating situations until they were blown out of proportion, taking hypotheticals way too far, and just being crafty in general. For him to just casually say something that out of character was wrong.
“Well, I like to think of it as teambuilding,” Mikey said, suddenly appearing next to them. He was cheerful as always, a smile on his face, even though Donnie saw that Mikey knew what was wrong too, “Helps me get to know everyone just a bit better!”
In response, Leo sank deeper into the couch. Mikey sighed, his smile dropping just a little bit. He got up, rejoining the discussion that was still going on between flying and invisibility. Just hearing some of their absurd explanations for their choices made Donnie tired. He also sank further into the couch.
“Teams just slow me down,” Leo suddenly mumbled. If Donnie weren’t right next to him, he wouldn’t have heard it. Clearly, nobody else heard it either, as they continued their discussion as if everything were normal. But that? That was far, far, far from normal, even for Leo. Leo was the leader of their team. After invasion day, it was something he took pride in, and even before that, Leo was the one who insisted that they were a ‘team’ and not just siblings horsing around. Leo had been acting so un-Leo-like for days, and this was just icing on the top. Leo would never say that. Donnie turned his head to look at Leo, and he was sure his concern was evident on his face. Leo didn’t see it, though. He looked forward, deadset, and serious.
Raph clapped his hands, scaring Leo out of his expression and Donnie out of his thoughts, “Alright! New question! Would you rather fight Draxum at his prime, or Big Mama at her prime?”
Donnie was about to scoff, stay silent, and continue worrying about Leo, but… oddly enough, he had thought about this exact scenario before. He leaned forward.
“Is this with or without all of their resources? Mystic weapons and artifacts? Connections and friends?” Donnie asked, narrowing his eyes.
“They both have everything. Your only objective is to get away. Which are you choosing?” Raph asked.
“Draxum, hands down,” Donnie stated immediately, “Big Mama has a whole army on her side. Draxum may know mystic really well, but he barely ever uses spells, and when he does, he’s pretty slow and methodical with it. His only threat is his vines and last-second plot twists to throw us off guard. Big Mama, however, has multiple mystic artifacts in her possession, her webs, natural strength, size, and Gus,”
“That's right, Barry did have a lot of plot twists back then! Was that really one of his only defenses?” Mikey asked, sounding genuinely confused, and Donnie shrugged.
“You guys were also pretty weak and inexperienced back then,” He pointed out.
“And what about you?” Raph asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ve always been this good,” Donnie smirked. The others scoffed, sighed, and made quiet comments about his perfect response. Donnie turned to Leo, but his spot on the couch was empty. Looking around the room, Leo was nowhere in sight.
“Wait, where’s Leo?” Donnie asked, which prompted everybody else to look around in the same way Donnie had just done.
“He was here just a second ago,” Sunita said, looking worried.
“I think he left during your monologue,” Casey noted. Donnie frowned.
“Drat. My monologues always distract me,” Donnie huffed.
“So,” April began, crossing her arms, “Anybody wanna tell me what’s going on and why I wasn’t informed of this before right now?”
Mikey, Raph, and Donnie looked away sheepishly. They had just been so busy dealing with Leo that they hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Plus, they were planning on telling the group as a whole tonight, while they were all together.
“Right, well… I suppose this is about as good a time as any,” Raph began, chuckling to himself a bit.
“You two tell them what’s going on. I’m gonna go find that dum-dum,” Donnie said, pushing himself up. Mikey looked worriedly at him.
“You sure?” He asked, and Donnie nodded.
“I’ll be fine, how bad could it be?” He asked.
“It’s Leo,”
“And I’m leaving now, bye,” Donnie crammed out before Mikey could continue debating with him. He quickly walked up the stairs, stopping once he was just out of sight. Leo would probably be in his room if he just left out of the blue like that. Something was wrong with him, but old habits die hard. Additionally, now that he was out of the living room and it was just the two of them, maybe Donnie could get some information out of Leo. If he wanted to do that, though, he’d need a bribe.
Donnie walked towards the kitchen, turning on the stove and filling the kettle as soon as he entered. He grabbed a mug, as well as a pack of chamomile tea out of the cabinet, setting it on the counter across from the stove. As the kettle began to hiss, he turned the stove off, picking up the kettle and pouring the water in. Finally, he placed the tea bag into the mug and picked it up. It was Leo’s favorite tea. Not only did it help calm him down sometimes, but it also just tasted nice. Hopefully, this would help. Donnie walked to Leo’s room.
When he got there, he immediately spotted Leo through the open door. He was right inside of his room, and the closer it got, the more it looked to Donnie as if he were just standing there, looking around. Almost as if the place were foreign. Leo stared at a wall for a bit longer than necessary, and although Donnie wanted to wait until Leo noticed him, that would never happen at this rate. He knocked on the frame of Leo’s door, and Leo turned to look at him.
“I brought you a gift,” Donnie said, holding out the mug of tea. Leo grabbed it and stepped out of the way, a silent invitation into his room. Donnie took a couple of steps in, stopping when he was just inside Leo’s room.
“How nice. What’s the catch?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No catch,” Donnie said. Leo looked him up and down once, and took a sip of his tea.
“I don’t believe you,” he stated.
“There’s no catch! I just want to know what’s wrong!” Donnie said, raising his hands in surrender. Leo clicked, setting his tea down on his desk.
“There it is. I knew I wasn’t safe,” Leo huffed, putting a hand on his hip.
“You’re never safe,” Donnie said, rolling his eyes, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong now?”
“Nothing’s wrong,”
“Something is clearly wrong,”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Donnie narrowed his eyes at him, “Why did you step out of the living room?” He asked.
“I just needed some space. I don’t know if you can tell, but everyone together can be kind of a lot,” Leo said, shrugging.
“Are you sure that was it?” Donnie asked, and Leo scoffed.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d know, considering I’m the one who did it. You don’t need to read into my every move, you know?” He asked back. Donnie sighed.
“Yeah, I know. Is it alright for me to just be worried?” He asked in a monotone voice.
“ Worried? That’s a new one, coming from you,” Leo commented.
“Not exactly when you’re saying stuff like ‘teams hold you back.’ What does that even mean?” Donnie questioned, and Leo huffed.
“It was a joke, okay? Like I said, don’t read so far into it,”
“You don’t joke like that,” Donnie continued.
“Yes, I do. I would know,” Leo said, scowling.
“If you know so much, then who’s Tigerclaw?” Donnie asked, a bit louder than he had intended. He knew he shouldn’t have asked it as soon as it slipped out. He had been wanting to ask since the moment he read the name, but it wasn’t safe, considering how Leo reacted the last time. Looks like he messed that up.
Leo paused, flinching back. He looked at Donnie with worry- no… Terror in his eyes. It wasn’t like last time when Donnie showed him the black sheet. Last time, he looked like a scared feral animal. This time, however, Leo was fully there, the sudden panic evident in his face, posture, and the slight tremble of his hands. But then, after a couple of seconds, a deep scowl emerged over his face, and he drew himself to his full height. Donnie couldn’t help but shrink down a little. Leo pushed past him to walk towards the entrance to his room, taking a second to linger there.
“I’m going to the dojo. Don’t follow me.” He said, and he walked away. Donnie was left to stand there in the middle of Leo’s room, slightly in shock.
By the time he looked out the doorway, Leo was already long gone. Donnie began to walk back towards the living room.
That went about as well as he could’ve expected it. He accidentally told Leo exactly what he didn’t want to tell him, and Leo had the exact reaction Donnie predicted that he would.
Well…
Donnie would say that, but the sheer terror held in Leo’s eyes at just the mention of the name had been frightening to him. He’d never seen anything like it on Leo before. And now, once again, Leo was acting weird and refused to talk. For the second night in a row.
Donnie rubbed his eyes as he entered the living room. Raph, who was up at the whiteboard looking like he was giving a lecture, looked up at Donnie as he descended the stairs, and everyone else in the room turned to watch him as well. It felt weird.
“So… How’d it go?” Mikey tried, standing on the other side of the whiteboard. On it, there were hastily drawn sketches of Leo, the black sheet, the symbol on the black sheet, two stickman figures (probably the authors of The Art of the Blade ), and a gravesite, all connected to each other via different colored lines swooping all over the board. It looked like quite a mess.
“Ehhhh… He’s in the dojo. Said not to follow him. So… not great?” Donnie said, shrugging. He flopped down on the couch, lying across the entire width of it and resting his feet on the armrest.
“What happened?” Raph asked, trying to get Donnie to continue.
“I asked him why he left, he gave another bullshit excuse, and I might’ve asked him about Tigerclaw. A little.”
“You what? ” Raph asked quickly. Donnie really didn’t want to get into it right now.
“Did he tell you anything?” Mikey prodded, and Donnie scoffed.
“As if. He just looked at me all angry and left,” He explained, “But before he got angry, he looked really, really scared, two reallys, and not like last time. It was different,”
Everyone in the room continued to stare at him, and he threw an arm over his eyes.
“This is all so confusing,” April huffed, and Donnie threw up a thumbs-up with his free hand.
“Welcome to the club,”
“Yeah, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t think it was this wrong,” Casey commented.
“The worst of it has only been going on for about a day or two. I just hope that it doesn’t get worse from here,” Raph said worriedly.
“Don’t jinx it.” April said sternly.
“Weird stuff like this happens in the Hidden City, albeit a bit uncommonly. They might have something to help you there,” Sunita suggested.
“Is that our next stop then?” Raph asked. Donnie shrugged.
“We might as well. Whatever’s going on with him is clearly mystic, and someone there might know about Tigerclaw,” He said, mumbling a bit, “And if that’s decided, I’m going to take a nap now,”
“Sleep tight!” Mikey said, and Donnie let out a dry chuckle.
“Yup,”