Chapter Text
The Krang lost.
And Leo was going to die.
He’d honestly prefer it if only the first fact was true, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. They’d tried everything else - destroying the key, the Technodrome, the Krang themselves, heck Future Leo and Co. even tried time travel - but in the end the only plan that had a permanent solution also meant…a permanent end. To Leo.
Because he was trapped in the prison dimension with Krang Prime, weaponless and exhausted and drained of ninpo, already bruised and battered from their hours of nonstop efforts to counter the Krang and free Raph. And Krang Prime had seen him smile at the little treasure in his hand, the photo Casey had brought back from the future with his whole family posing cheerful and beautiful and encompassing everything he was trying to protect, and—
—he just—
—wouldn’t—
—stop—
—well. It wasn’t the first time Leo’s smug grin had ticked an enemy off. But it was…probably going to be the last.
Krang Prime slammed him down on the floating island of debris with such force Leo went straight through. The cold air clashed against the molten river of pain in his carapace. His shell had been cracked.
That’s going to be a pain to treat, he thought absently. He’d have to get one of his brothers to help him. Not Raph — he wouldn’t be able to get as delicate as needed. Depending on the day Donnie might be the best choice. If he wasn’t feeling up to it, then Mikey would surely do well with his deft artist’s fingers — as long as the break didn’t look too nasty.
Hmm. No use worrying about it. Dead people don’t need medical attention.
Krang Prime snatched him out of the air with metal claws, whirling around and yeeting him into an upside-down petrified tree. He took the impact with his shoulder this time, and the limb popped right out of the socket.
OUCH.
At least it wasn’t the arm holding the photo. He wanted to keep that last morsel of comfort with him for as long as possible.
Leo drifted aimlessly, taking slow measured breaths to lessen the pain. The Krang was just toying with him now, crouched on a floating chunk of land with its armor’s long tail lashing like an angry panther as it leered at him.
He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and something warm sparked to life behind him.
“Leo!”
Mikey?
He twisted around.
It was…a portal. Bright orange flames whirl-pooling into a pure white center. He couldn’t see what laid on the other side, but his brothers’ voices echoed through it, muffled and distorted like they were underwater.
Metal scraped against rock. The Krang in its mech suit was soaring towards him and the portal. It might as well have been in slow motion.
“Leo never gave up on us.”
When Leo was having trouble controlling his own portals, he’d quickly learned it was much safer to only enter them if he could see through to the other side, at least until he was better at actually making them go to where he wanted them to lead. Of course, there wasn’t always time to follow safety procedures. Hence the…many, many incidents such as the space leviathan.
“I’m…”
This was one of those times. But hopefully not one of those incidents.
“..not…”
The Krang’s razor sharp fingers inched through the air towards Leo. They were close enough to touch, now.
“…giving up…”
He curled his legs to his chest and kicked off the metal before the claws could clamp down on his feet.
“…on him!”
He somersaulted straight towards Mikey’s portal. He stuck his tongue out in Krang Prime’s vague direction. Flashed a peace sign.
And with his last breath before he went through:
“Sayonara, suckah!”
.
.
.
“Mikey, I’m sorry, but you have to stop!”
“But—”
“Stop! Please! I don’t—I don’t want to lose you too!”
“…okay. O-okay.”
.
.
.
Ugh.
So.
It seemed Mikey’s aim might have been…a little off. Unless his brothers were hiding out in this random…what was this, a fabric store? Or a tailor’s shop. Did those even exist nowadays?
At least he had something soft to break his landing.
He hissed as his shell twinged in protest of being the first thing to hit the ground, even if it was something soft, and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the room’s unlit interior. A sewing machine, shelves of fabric, and mannequins in various states of dress lined the cozy little shop’s interior. Bright moonlight shone through the window of the door, which had a sign hanging from it flipped so that it read ‘Open’ to the turtle inside.
Yeah, no brothers here. Was he even in New York? Mikey really needed some portal pointers from his awesome big bro if he wasn’t.
Who was he kidding, of course he wasn’t in New York. It was dead quiet and he could see the moonlight instead of it being drowned out under neon advertisements.
He tensed as his wounds pulsed in unison. First things first, make sure he wasn’t dying. Then he could call his brothers to let them know Mikey didn’t drop him off in the void of space or something equally fatal and after that he could fix up noncritical injuries and figure out where he was.
Leo gingerly pushed himself off the pile of discarded linen he’d landed on and prodded his limbs with his good hand, keeping the photo held awkwardly between two fingers to keep it away from blood. Dislocated shoulder, gash on the left leg in need of stitches, possibly cracked and/or fragmented shell, and - oooh a broken rib or two which was not good. If those stabbed any of his delicate insides he would need a hospital.
Okay, okay, so just don’t let his insides stab each other. Easy peasy. No immediate danger of death, so he could call his brothers. Good.
He checked his pouch and thank the Pizza Supreme his phone was still in it and intact. Donnie’s icon was the one he clicked on first, because if anyone’s phone had survived an alien invasion it would be his dear twin’s. Also, Donnie totally had a tracker on him so maybe he could tell Leo where he was without him having to go poking around human civilization.
Except — “Bzzt.” The call didn’t go through. Not even the ‘Sorry-not-sorry, but this is the sound of me ignoring you!’ that was Donnie’s current voicemail message.
Huh. Guess Donnie’s phone didn’t survive an alien invasion. Weird. He tried again, just in case, before attempting the rest of his contact list.
Neither Raph’s nor Mikey’s worked. Same for April’s and Dad’s. Not too surprising since, again, alien invasion and all that. Maybe they all broke their near-indestructible Donnie-approved phones.
Oh, who was he kidding. There was no way out of all of them only Leo had a functioning phone. Maybe his phone wasn’t as functioning as it looked? He poked around, checking the WiFi and data, which were on but alarmingly enough disconnected. As soon as he noticed this, an automated message popped up on his screen with an emoji of Donnie’s disapproving face frowning at him.
< Where are you, a whole different galaxy? Networks unidentifiable. Performing security check, try not to die of boredom while waiting… > The emoji stuck its tongue out right before a loading bar with an estimated time remaining replaced the message.
“Two hours!?” Leo yelled in disbelief. “I know hacking takes longer than movies pretend it does, but that’s just ridiculous!” He groaned dramatically as he tried to assess his options. The loading bar could be minimized so he could still use the phone but it wasn’t much use if he couldn’t access the internet or call his family so he simply turned on the inbuilt flashlight to look around the shop with, careful not to shine it straight out the windows. He could see fabric, some half-embroidered clothing, etc. Plenty of material to wrap his wounds with, but was there a first aid kit? A bathroom? At least he would be able to find a needle somewhere to stitch up his leg if it came to that.
He did a quick search and didn’t find a kit stowed anywhere, but there was a small bathroom in the back that had a roll of sterile bandages, aspirin, and a bottle of antiseptic in the cupboard.
He immediately washed down two pills of the aspirin with the sink water and cleaned up his leg while he waited for them to take effect. When he was ready he went through the extremely uncomfortable zero-star-rated process of putting his arm back into its socket. Once that was over - or rather, once he was no longer in danger of fainting from the pain the aspirin did a terrible job of quelling - Leo patched the rest of himself up the best he could. His leg got the deluxe treatment of sewing needle and embroidery thread sutures topped with the sterile bandages while his smaller cuts were left open to the air, albeit cleaned up. He stashed the remnants of the bandage roll in his pouch just in case, and after a second figured he might as well steal the other stuff too.
His carapace…would hopefully be fine. He couldn’t get a good look at it in the dinky bathroom mirror but the cracks were thin and he didn’t see any loose fragments. He cleaned out what he could reach, but he would try again in a more secure location when his arm had recovered from its former dislocation.
“Okay Neon Leon,” he muttered to himself. “Time to skedaddle! The world was saved and I’ll bet your brothers are sorely missing your medical mojo right now. Let’s figure out where you’re at and get the heck back to them.”
And so a shadow slipped out into the night.