Chapter Text
"When I say 'Girls,' you say 'Night!' Girls!"
"Night!"
"Girls!"
"Night!"
April whooped and slung her arm over Sunita's shoulder. They cheered as Cassandra flipped and brandished her staff with another fervent cry of 'Girls Night!'
"So what does one do on this 'Girl's Night?'" Cassandra asked as she fell into step with the other two girls, raising a skeptical brow.
"Oh, you know, like, cool stuff," April shrugged as she led them around the corner and toward the lair's garage.
"Specifically tonight," Sunita said with shining eyes, "we have tickets fooooor 'RABID 'COON'S RALLYYYYY!'"
Cassandra and April oohed and stared at the tickets with stars in their eyes as Sunita triumphantly struck a pose and held them in the air.
"This is gonna be so awesome!" April pumped her fists. Cassandra took one of the tickets and brought it unnecessarily close to her narrowed eyes.
"What is this 'rally' and who is this 'Coon?"
"He's a raccoon yokai. He's like, a dude from the outskirts of the Hidden City who does races and stuff," April said.
"And tonight just so happens to be his bi-monthly all-out brawl at the DOOM DOME!" Sunita shook her fists, trembling as if holding in a scream. "Fifty drivers! One pit! No one exits until EVERYTHING is DESTROYED!"
April smiled as Sunita's eyes burned with flame, and sparkles surrounded Cassandra's wide eyes. She looked at the ticket in her hand with new reverence.
"We thought you'd like it."
"I am MOST GRATEFUL FOR YOUR INVITE!" Cassandra yelled, offering them a ninety-degree bow. Standing ramrod straight, she added eagerly, "Are we allowed to participate?"
April rubbed the back of her head.
"Oh, ah, not this time, Casey—"
"Because I will be using the tank tonight."
The girls startled as Splinter seemed to pop out of thin air in front of them.
"Huh, Splints?"
"Master Lou Jitsu!"
"Oh, hello! Pardon the intrusion…"
April crossed her arms as Cassandra bowed, and Sunita became sheepish. April raised a brow at the smiling rat.
"What exactly do you need the tank for, Splints? Aren't you usually glued to your infomercials around this time?"
Splinter jutted a pointer finger into the air, off of which the tank keys dangled on a ring.
"Yes, but tonight is the annual Lou Jitsu film festival in Boston. So I will need the tank to drive there to visit all my adoring fans."Splinter spun the keys in his hand, gave them a toss, and caught them.
"So sorry about your thing, but you can do it the next bi-monthly month."
The girls frowned, grouping together shoulder to shoulder to look down at the dismissive rat.
"Oh, come on, Splints. We don't need it the whole night. We just need a ride there and back!"
"The Hidden City public transport system is notoriously bad," Sunita agreed.
"So we are not participating?" Cassandra said regretfully. "Do none of you hunger for glory?"
"I already did," Splints shrugged, ignoring the other two girls and pointing at a trophy gleaming in a case in front of the garage. A picture of Splinter, Donatello, and Mikey grinning up at the camera with the trophy shoved between their faces was propped against it.
Cassandra oohed and moved to study the words 'NO GUTS, NO GLORY' inscribed under 'DEATH TUBE DEMOLITION DERBY' as April scowled.
"You can just drop us off!"
"It takes three hours to drive there!" Splinter insisted.
"It's only four o'clock! What time does it start?!"
"Nine."
"Then you can spare twenty minutes to take us to the rally!"
Splinter and April butted heads, lightning shooting between them as they squared up.
"Parking goes quickly! I need to be early!"
"Parking a bit away won't hurt you! You can just walk!"
"I always forget something in the car! I need it to be close by!"
"What are you forgetting?! You don't even have anything to bring!"
"But what about my lip balm and mints?!" Splinter shook the can of breath mints in April's face. She slapped them away and poked him in the chest with a finger.
"You don't need them! Give me the keys!"
April reached for the tank keys and Splinter slapped her hand away.
"No!"
"Give them to me!"
"I need good parking!"
"Splints!"
April struggled to reach for the keys, pushing Splinter's head down as her fingers grasped at the keys dangling from his tail. He flipped, and both jumped back, landing in fighting poses. April swung a fist. Splinter ducked, falling into a kick to establish some distance between them.
He rolled back and smirked at her, moving to open the garage door. April looked up and smiled, opening her fist to reveal the silver keys in her palm. Splinter's smile dropped as he launched at her.
"COMBAT!"
"Go, April!"
Their onlookers cheered, drawing the attention of Donnie, who was on the other side of the open garage door.
Donnie slid out from underneath the tank and raised a brow at the scuffle outside his garage. He accepted a clean rag from S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. and toweled off the oil and grease on his hands as he got the jist of why his family was arguing this time.
Yet another pointless argument, it would seem.
Shaking his head, he walked forward, unnoticed by the members of the chaotic scene.
"You cannot have them! You are years away from defeating me, April. Give up!"
"Uh-huh? Heard that before. Just try and stop me, Splints!"
Both combatants eyed the keys, which had dramatically slid to the middle of the battlefield, an exact distance between them. Their narrowed eyes slid back and forth to each other and the keys, watching for the slightest movement.
Splinter's tail twitched. April's eyes widened.
They threw themselves forward, yelling battle cries. Arms reaching forward, they—
"Right, then," Donnie said.
—crashed into a pile as S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. flew in and whisked away the keys.
Splinter and April scrambled to get upright, shoving each other away, and looked up at Donnie, who claimed the keys from S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. with a fond pat on the drone's head. S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. leaned into the attention and blew April a raspberry.
She rolled her eyes. The drone would never forgive her for forgetting to change his dang coolant on her first Girl's Night with Sunita. She'd never live it down.
Donnie handed the keys to one of his robot arms and put his hands on his hips. Their eyes followed the keys as the robot arm stored them in Donnie's shell.
"Donnie, we need the tank for—!"
"Purple, I need to borrow—!"
"Neither of you are using my baby," Donnie said coolly, "She's in maintenance. Which you all would already know if you checked her schedule."
Donnie stuck a thumb at the calendar haphazardly hung by the garage door, full of purple, red, orange, and blue sticky notes and propped up by no less than five thumbtacks. Across the entirety of this week, the word 'MAINTENANCE' had very obviously been written in Donnie's handwriting in bold purple ink.
"She's a very busy lady!" S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. said with a proud lift of his chin, earning another fond pet behind the ears from his creator, which he happily nuzzled into.
Their heads swiveled back to the purple turtle as he turned around, robot arms withdrawing, and began walking back to the tank.
"I would add that you wouldn't even need to have any variation of this argument if you all would just use the schedule properly! " he called over his shoulder as the garage door slowly descended behind him.
"So, should we just take a bus?" Sunita sighed as she slumped over the kitchen counter with her head in her hands. April paced the floor, glaring at her phone.
"Is it that far from the nearest portal? We cannot just walk?" Cassandra asked.
"The Death Dome is a franchise owned by Big Mama. The one we're going to is outskirts outskirts, she revamped some abandoned, old castle, so it'd take us at least three hours to walk. It starts in two. By the time we get there, the rally will be over!"
"Aha!"
Sunita and Cassandra turned their heads to April, who held up her phone triumphantly."Donnie keeps the spare keys in his lab closet!"
Sunita tilted her head and exchanged a puzzled look with Cassandra."How do you know that?"
"Mikey," April said, wiggling the phone at them.
[Hey Mikey 💚😘]
[think the tank keys got lost]
[do u know where D's spares are??? 🧐🔎👀]
[Sure! theyre in his closet! 😃😘🥰]
[Have a fun trip! 🧡🧡🧡]
April's smile turned mischievous."Now, who's ready for a Girl's Night heist?"
Identical grins, vicious and manic, tore across all three girls' faces. As they donned Cassandra's black ninja masks and slipped into the shadows, it was very clear how these three had become friends.
[You know it! ;) Girl's Night!!!]
April peeked into the lab and squinted her eyes. She made eye contact with Sunita, who stood on the other side of the doorway and nodded.
Sunita signaled, and Cassandra swooped inside, landing silently in a battle pose. She looked left and right and sheathed her dagger, giving the all-clear behind her back. She kept watch as Sunita and April crept into the lap, carefully stepping between tables filled with glass beakers, blueprints, wrenches, and various tools and parts. Sunita took a picture of a weird blob floating in a suspiciously glowing liquid with her phone before April caught her attention, gesturing to a door.
The three girls slunk in front of the lab closet door.
"It's password protected," Cassandra cursed.
"I got it," April said, reaching into his pocket and taking out her wallet. She took something out and fiddled with the door.
"The purple turtle tells you his passwords?" Cassandra asked.
"Nah," April smiled as the door clicked open, "just not my first time breaking in."
The girls ducked inside. Cassandra peered out at the darkness of the lab as she stepped into the closet, glaring at the cameras on the ceiling.
"This entire place is bugged," she whispered harshly as she closed the door behind them.
"Of course, it is. It's Donnie. He records everything," April rolled her eyes, "As long as he doesn't find out until after I get something to make it up to him, we'll be fine. Now, where are those keys?"
"Looking for these?"
Three heads whipped around. They instinctively fell into battle stances, looking upward at the shadowed figure hanging from a shelf. Splinter crouched above them, dressed head to toe in black, his own mask covering his face. Silver keys dangled from his fingertips.
"Amateurs. Professionals wouldn't be seen by cameras. But thanks for taking the fall for me."He jumped and grabbed onto the edge of an open vent. April cursed as he started scrambling into it.
"Dang ninja rat! Give us those keys!"
"You'll never take me alive!" Splinter said.
"Grab his feet!" April said.
Sunita's left shoulder hit the shelf behind her as a quiet scuffle broke out. She cursed as items rocked side to side from the impact of her body and lunged to grab them before they fell.
Cassandra tried to deck Splinter across the face only to receive a tail whip to her side, followed by a kick to her midsection that launched her back. She crashed into the door with a grunt, thankfully missing another shelf, and threw herself right back in to help April pin the rat down.
He was a slippery beast. They struggled to pin him as Splinter kept shooting for the vent, throwing kicks and punches with precision and force. Meanwhile, Sunita scrambled around the room on her hands and knees, trying to keep glass vials from breaking and falling boxes from making any noise.
"You're all going to get us caught!" She tried to tell them as loudly as she dared.
"TASTE MY VENGEANCE!" Cassandra yelled.
"Cassandra!" Sunita hissed, diving forward to save another vial full of a dark blue sparkly liquid. She quickly shoved the items in her hand onto the shelf and was moving to drag April and Cassandra away when the door clicked open.
They all froze—all except Sunita, who was mid-step and full of adrenaline. Instinctively, she threw whatever was in her hands at the opening door, the vial of the strange blue liquid. Time slowed as they watched it rotate midair.
Sunita made eye contact with the person in the doorway. Her eyes widened in horror, recognizing Leo's confused gaze.
"Hey, guys—?" Leo was saying.
April turned pale as a sheet, watching the vial spin through the air. Cassandra and Splinter looked up from the ground where they had been wrestling in stunned realization. The vial spun and spun—
"—what ar—?"
—and shattered on impact to Leo's face. The blue turtle blinked, stunned. Then, unceremoniously, he fainted.
"Oh my god!" April shouted. All at once, the room bowled forward to be the first to reach the downed turtle. They crouched over his unconscious form, staring at the glass and spilled blue liquid with terrified eyes.
"He's bleeding," Sunita said.
"Of course, he's bleeding! Look at all this glass! What if it cut his eyes?!" April reached toward Leo and thought twice, looking at the blue liquid. "What even is this stuff? His mouth was open, and he has cuts. There's no way it didn't get into him! What do we do?!"
"Chemical shower! Chemical shower!" Sunita urged, whipping her head back and forth. "We learned this in chemistry. Does Donnie have lab safety stuff?"
"In the corner! I got a towel!" Splinter said, squeezing between them, "Let's drag him over to it."
Between the four of them, it was quick work to drag Leo's unconscious body across the floor and stick him under the shower head, which promptly unloaded an absurd amount of water on top of him.
"He's going to drown!" Cassandra cursed.
"Don't just let him lie there! Stand him up!" Sunita said.
"Why isn't he waking up?! Do you think he has a concussion?! What do we do?!" Splinter asked.
"Stop shaking him, first of all!" April hissed.
Once the chemicals were all rinsed off Leo, the group hurried to treat his cuts and wrap him in towels. They circled around Leo's passed-out form and googled what to do.
"They don't have anything for something this specific!" April angrily waved off Splinter's reaching hands from her phone, "And I can't tell what the label says. It's written in Sharpie and the vial's all broken!"
"Should we call an ambulance?! Find a doctor?!" Splinter panicked, hands hovering over his son.
"Splints! He's a turtle, and you're a rat!"
"Should we call a vet then?!"
"We can find a Yokai doctor?" Cassandra said.
"Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh, I can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry!" Sunita said, staring at Leo and repeatedly checking for his pulse despite his visible breathing. Besides a cut on his cheek and the fact that he was asleep, Leo seemed fine.
As the group continued to panic, they failed to notice Leo's frown.
Mystic energy pulsed around the turtle, turning the air cold. A faint blue glow began to shine around Leo's form, unnoticeable under the piles of towels they had put him under. It began to take noticeable effect as it encompassed the turtle's body.
Leo started to shrink.
"That's it!" Splinter said, "We have to tell Purple!"
"He'll kill us!" April said, "You need to calm down, Splints. Donnie doesn't put anything dangerous anywhere he knows that we'll find it."
"Well, I'm sure Purple didn't expect Blue to get it dumped all over him with his mouth wide open!"
"No, I think that's exactly what Donnie would expect from his brothers," April said.
Sunita looked nervously back and forth between the two arguing ninjas. Feeling anxious, she reached down to take Leo's pulse again, and her hand met nothing. Sunita's breath caught. She moved her hand, and again—nothing. It wasn't that the pulse was gone.
Leo was.
Sunita moved the towels. Her hands started to shake. Her frantic search drew Cassandra's attention. Cassandra's eyes widened at the lack of unconscious mutant turtles on the floor. The two girls made eye contact and immediately began tearing the towels away. Expressions panicked, they looked down at the concrete floor of Donnie's lab, nothing on it but Leo’s sword and mask left behind.
"Guys!" Sunita said.
"O'Neil! Lou Jitsu!" Cassandra hissed.
Splinter and April continued arguing, deaf to their calls. Sunita and Cassandra took April and Splinter by the shoulders, bodily forcing them to meet their eyes.
"He's gone!"
All eyes shot to the flung towels and the space at the center, empty except for Leo's stuff.
The room went silent. Hearts stopped beating. They stared at the empty floor.
" Blue? " Splinter said. His knees gave out with a thud, bringing him to the floor. He began patting the bare space, hoping his son had become invisible and hadn't disintegrated into dust. "Leonardo?!"
Sunita stepped back and tripped over a stool, hitting her back against a nearby desk. Papers fell from the table as she fell onto her butt, staring at the shaking rat calling his son's name.
"Leo?! Leo?!" April joined in, eyes filling with tears as panic gripped her. Her head snapped left and right. Her breathing came fast as she stared into the shadows of Donnie's lab. "Turn on the lights!"
"Ok," Cassandra said solemnly, the calmest out of the group. Her face was blank as she moved across the room and flipped the switch. They all flinched from the bright light, but their eyes remained locked on the space where Leo's body had just been.
Dilated pupils and heavy breathing.
"Leonardo?! Leonardo?!"
A sob was about to force its way out of Splinter when a hand gripped the sleeve of his robe. Splinter whipped his head around, about to scream at whoever touched him when he met doe eyes under red stripes.
A little boy, a blue mask loose around his face, tugged at Splinter's robe with his thumb in his mouth, looking at him curiously.
"What, Dad?"
Leo glanced up and saw three people dressed in black staring at him, masks hiding their faces. He shifted nervously under their stare and stepped closer to his father. He looked up at his dad, a pout on his face, and said timidly:
"It wasn't me. It was Donnie."
Then he blinked and fell forward, lying prone on the floor.
"Omigosh, he's dead!" Splinter yelled.
The entire room screamed, pointing at the boy and grabbing their heads.
"Wait, wait, stop. My bad," Splinter said, sighing in relief as he moved the boy and saw his tiny snoring face, "He is just sleeping."
April's hands dropped from her head. She looked at the trash can where they had discarded the remains of the blue liquid's vial. The blue liquid.
"I just wanted to change its color! I swear it worked just fine before that. It just wasn't blue."
Donnie's accidental de-aging potion. April stared at Leo's child self, sleeping on the floor.
"I guess five-year-old Leo hadn't developed insomnia yet," April mumbled.
Splinter met her eyes and nodded with a slight uptick to his lips, something like nostalgia in his eyes.
"And it is nap time."