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Lavinia blinked at the spots in her vision, and rubbed her eyes with one hand, making sure to maintain a steady grip on her blade with the other. Once she was more or less sure she wasn’t about to go utterly blind, she squinted and carefully looked around.
“Mh,” she hummed nervously, and promptly tapped at her earpiece. “Problem.”
There was no response, only the buzz and pop of a feedback loop.
She shifted in place with a displeased grumble. She would be on her own, then.
She lifted her gaze again to the loud and bright New York - a stark contrast to the one she had been living in for nearly five years now. Beside her, she made out the ethereal form of Leo who looked out at the city with undisguised shock.
“Leo?” She asked. She hadn’t seen that look on his face since they came face to face with the Shredder. Then again, he had burst out into full bodied laughter right after. Literally, he had popped into existence and then proceeded to roll around giggling on the floor of her adopted family’s nemesis for nearly five minutes.
This was a different form of shock, Lavinia thought as she reached over to tap at his shell. “Leo.”
“Lavinia,” Leo said hollowly. “Do you recognize where we are?”
Full name. Not good.
Lavinia glanced back at this different New York. It was bright, loud and too colorful. Nothing about it was familiar to her.
She shook her head, and shifted back, thumbing at the hilt of her sword.
He let out a choked laugh and then tilted his head back with a watery smile. “Right. Right. Makes sense.”
She looked at him in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Really,” Leo assured her, making the tension that had built in her body disperse. He glanced back at the city with an expression of longing. “It’s all… good.”
Lavinia watched him for a moment and shifted her gaze towards all the lights and colors and noise.
She had a moment of realization, but whereas back when she was thirteen with nothing to lose, now, at eighteen, she had everything. Brothers, a father, and a sister.
She looked over at Leo, and the words slipped out without much effort.
“You could… stay.”
He whipped around to stare at her with an expression of panic that faded at whatever her face was doing. From the hot feeling in her eyes, it was probably doing something sad.
He stepped towards her and hugged her tightly. “Nah. This city can’t handle two of me, kiddo.
“You’re stuck with me.”
Lavinia smiled into his plastron, even as her earpiece buzzed back to life, Raphael’s voice screeching at her to, “Hurry the shell up and make a damn portal before I claw through the universe my own damn self!”
With Leo at her back, she did just that.
And as they stepped through, she couldn’t help but glance back at the world she had only ever seen in ruins.
And as she looked over the many buildings, her gaze met a pair of wide eyes, the red markings on them telling her exactly who it was.
The portal began to close, and she smiled at the younger version of her older brother.
“Look after everyone for me, yeah?” She said, waving.
And then they were gone.