Chapter Text
Donnie placed a tin sign with the print of the bisexual flag at his lab’s door that said: ‘With a preference for science and being left alone.’
He proudly nodded to himself.
New York was more of a jungle than ever before … With lush green giant trees, growing in the middle of the road. Vines and exotic flowers and mushrooms everywhere. Colorful birds, insects, butterflies and monkeys swinging from the buildings.
“Hi,” Leo greeted Usagi at their workplace, the carriage wash.
“Have a minute?”
“Sure,” Usagi said, wide-eyed.
Leo leaned on to a wall and sighed: “ Look I slayed that giant snake thing … and it didn't feel good ... I mean it felt right but not gratifying. I remember your words about the dragons not having entirely bad intentions. Yeah they could restore the planet, but would never do that FOR the humans. And who could blame ‘em?! Humans are ungrateful and they would just keep destroying the environment instead of caring and protecting what the dragons had rebuilt.
This war situation is new to me. I'm used to destruction versus life but this is life versus life.
Also - news flash - I don’t enjoy striking creatures that actually bleed.”
Yuichi raised his eyebrows so high, they disappeared under his bangs.
“Yeah that's a pretty odd statement from a ninja,” Leo added. He began to massage his temples. “I'm sorry that I said you weren't willing to fight. I myself only sliced up paper warriors and robots and slimy aliens which you couldn't even slice to begin with.”
Usagi exhaled in amusement.
“Hey, that's not funny,” Leo snapped. “There's a living thing that doesn't bleed pixels or special effects are something, but real blood!”
“Duh!” Usagi smirked.
Leo let himself sink down from the wall to the ground.
The rabbit sat down next to him: “If this comforts you, you can’t really kill dragons,” he told Leo. “When you slay a dragon, it just weakens them. You still have to bind the dragon's power to an item by a ritual, to keep them from regenerating.”
“So they can come back after being defeated?” Leo asked in surprise.
Usagi looked at him, nodding.
“And you tell me that now?!” he cried.
“Sorry, I totally forgot to mention that detail,” Yuichi laughed, sheepishly.
“What is this ritual?” he wanted to know.
“Honestly, I dunno,” his friend admitted. “The keystone never told me. I guess we have to do our own research.”
“Off to the mystic library!” Leo declared, pulling Usagi with him.
“Hey! I've got a shift to work,” the rabbit protested.
Casey was at his hockey training at the ice stadium with his teammates. Suddenly a few people applauded. As he looked into the direction where the clapping sounds came from, he spotted Bonesteel, Moze and Betty sitting in one of the ranks.
“Great work,” Simon shouted.
Casey looked both confused and annoyed but didn't say anything.
“Who let those guys in?” one of his teammates complained.
“We let ourselves in,” Bonesteel replied.
“How's your concussion Casey?” Moze asked. “I would have liked to give this a second look. Have you seen a doctor?”
“I - uh - I know someone who is savvy with the medical stuff,” Case answered, sheepishly.
“You know these people?” another one of his homies asked, irritated.
“Be careful with feeding the homeless, they might start following you around like raccoons,” a third team mate giggled, which earned him a punch in the neck from another guy.
“Did you miss your phone?” Simon teased Casey Jr..
“Since you stole it - sure. Had to borrow one till I can buy me a new phone,” Jr. snorted, fed up.
“Would you like to have it back?” Simon smirked, holding Case’s phone high up into the air.
“Whu- where have you hid it?” the boy from the future asked.
“In Amsterdam,” Simon grinned. Without waiting for an answer to his question, he went down to the ice rink. Case slided into his direction when he saw that Bonesteel had ice skates on and stumbled over the eyes, flailing his arms in the air: “Whoaaaa ooooh…”
“Wait! Stop!" Casey cried.
“What ‘n idiot, “ another player mumbled.
“Just hold onto the banisters and stop moving,” Casey instructed Simon.
“I can't,” the man yelled.
The boy skated towards Bonesteel to stop him. Bonesteel was about to crash into him full front! Case squeezed his eyes shut out of reflex and waited for the impact … but nothing happened …
Well almost nothing. Suddenly a funky bass solo supported by epic strings came from the stadium speakers:
“Steppin’ out the weekend's open wide …
Fill it up, let's blast the jams and ride,” a soft, male voice cooed groovy from the speakers.
“Whoa …” one of his homies said.
“What a troll,” another commented.
As Casey opened his eyes, he saw Bonesteel gliding smoothly over the ice, dancing to the disco tune on his skates like he'd never done anything else. Case just stared at him with an open mouth.
The song, which was Stomp! By the Brothers Johnson from 1980 continued playing:
“While we're cruisin’ around in the street
Listen up for the partyin’ feet …”
“Did you know that this city originally was supposed to be named New Amsterdam” the dancing thief grinned. “That's why I found it funny to hide your phone in Amsterdam.”
“Dude, that's not America Got Talent! I'll get the security,” the team leader said, unimpressed.
“Whoa, whoa, one second,” Simon said, coming to a halt in front of the team. “First of all, here take your phone.” With that, he handed it out to Casey. “Secondly - do you guys know your pal Casey’s living a double life, doing self justice with his gang of hobby ninjas on NY's streets?”
For a moment the Rumblin’ Rhinos just looked at him blank faced. Then everybody but Casey broke into roaring laughter.
“Goody-Two-Shoes-Jones?”
“Class-representative-Jones?”
“A+ student-Jones?”
“Follow the rules-Jones?”
“Go to bed early-Jones?”
“Brush-your-teeth-Jones?”
“Camp-counselor-Jones?”
“Yeah… sure…”
Case looked quite uncomfortable while his homies were almost pissing their pants.
Simon Bonesteel you should have been let down, since his lovely little plan had completely failed. But inside his mind he was flipping through a mental photo album:
He saw himself back in middle school with a baby face, braces and neat, short hair, being assigned class representative and later in high school even school representative ...
He saw himself as a zealous scout …
… Winning first place at his school's science fair for 3 years in a row …
… Supporting his dad by putting together a program at his museum, to make history enjoyable for kids. There had even been newspaper coverage of this program!
Meanwhile the security had arrived to remove the mole people from the building.
After being kicked out of the stadium, Betty said: “Well this was a great success - N O T!”
“You tried, but there is just so much our kind can do. And since the boy has such a flawless rap unlike us -”
“Don't you get it, Moze?” Simon interrupted him. “This kid's in a cult! How else do you explain that he calls his aunt ‘Mom’? This is probably her title as his guardian in this self acclaimed ninja clan. Who knows what happened to his parents!”
“And there lies the problem,” Moze told him. “Since his guardian is in the cult too, it is almost impossible to get him out! I mean what do you want to do? - talk to his principal or the CPS?!”
“At least we saved the chats from his phone,” Bonesteel mentioned.
“Which will prove very little. And after this incident he will certainly change accounts and get a new number, “ the doc made him consider.
Bonesteel groaned: “You're right, Moze,but I just can't accept that such a promising kid throws away his life for a dangerous ideology!”
“Simon be real - this isn't all about the boy …” Moze began sternly.
The thief just flinched.
“You want to save your younger self from the bad decisions you made later,” his friend concluded.
“Okay, okay, “ Simon admitted, “he reminds me of myself and when I was his age - so what! Yet, I was fully responsible for my downfall - this kid’s not! He’s brainwashed and fully believes he's doing the right thing!”
“It is over Simon, deal with it,” Betty insisted.
Deep down under New York's east harbor in the dragon's palace there was a med bay. A humanoid dragon laid there. Most of their body was wrapped in bandages. The Dragon had ivory white, scaly skin and was attached to magical devices. They opened their golden eyes, as lord Apsu himself quietly entered the room.
He sat down on a stool next to the patient's bed and took their clawed white hand that wasn't wrapped in bandages into his own.
“I am so sorry,” he uttered in agony.
The injured one just slowly shook their head: “Please don't trouble yourself over this, my lord,” they said in a female voice.
“I promise to you,” he told her earnestly, “next time we will make them pay for this,”
“Yes we will,” she whispered smiling before she fell asleep.
Meanwhile at the mystic library:
“I never thought I would come here for answers,” Leo mumbled.
Yuichi gasped and reached out for a book on one of the shelves.
“Found something?” Lee asked on guard.
“A book about the history of yokai,” Usagi gushed out like a true fan boy.
“Is it about dragons too?” the turtle asked.
“Not in particular, I guess.” Then the rabbit gasped again and grabbed another book.
“What is it?” Leon asked, breathlessly.
“An enchanting cookbook,” Yuichi replied. Not long after, he took out a third book from a shelf and flipped through its pages in awe.
“What is it about?” Leo asked.
“I have no idea,” his companion answered, “I can't even read those glyphs.” Leo peaked over his shoulder and indeed - these were letters he had never seen before.
“I don't think this is the right section,” he growled. Annoyed he took Usagi by the ears and simply dragged the rabbit with him. Yuichi was so invested in his book, he didn't even protest.
Around the corner sat Foot Lieutenant and Foot Brute at a table among piles of books also searching for something in particular.
“My eyes hurt,” Foot Brute complained.
“Then take eye drops! We can't give up yet,” Foot Lieutenant hissed at him. “We need a new master to summon and worship. But it must be a really cool one. Here, try this pile.” He shoved one book pile over to Foot Brute who gave in and picked up the first book from top of the pile and read in it.
“I hate books,” Leo moaned, leaning back into his seat looking up from the book he was just skimming through for helpful information.
“They’re just like comics, minus the pictures,” Usagi said, calmly.
“This is a pretty far stretch,” Leo disagreed. “especially since this is non-fiction
“Can't you make up the missing pictures in your mind?” Yuichi asked.
“Can you?” Leo asked back.
The rabbit nodded. “Maybe I'm just weird,” he added with a bashful half-smile.
Leo was bored out of his mind, but he couldn't help admiring how deeply invested the yokai fanboy Yuichi was in this literature. behind him the library's waterfall was spluttering. Usagi moved his ears as reaction to what he was currently reading and he absentmindedly began to chew on his own whiskers.
Gazing at the fluffy samurai, Leo's mouth curled up into a soft smile.
Suddenly the rabbit looked up and scolded him: “Hey don't fall asleep! It was your suggestion in the first place that we come here to look for a ritual that can bind the powers of the dragons again. Don't expect me to do all the research on my own!”
Leo flinched. He was just relieved that Usagi had read his expression as sleepy and not as something else. “Yeah … yeah … right …” He quickly read on in his book.
Author’s notes:
Guys, seriously, if you see some really weird words or sentences, please don't hesitate to tell me! Some stuff is just ignored by the auto-correction. Other words are ADDED by the autocorrection. Some words end up being half English and half German. The most hilarious errors I found in this chapter months after posting:
Monkeys swimming from the trees
Leo mumboldt (I have no idea who that Mumboldt guy is, but he certaintly doesn't belong into this fic)
Yuichi is deeply invested in his literwier
And Betty all of a sudden turns into Patty.
“Buy myself a new one” would be grammatically correct. But writing tutorials taught me to write dialogue like it was spoken by a real person. Now imagine the Monkeys’ song “I'm gonna buy me a dog” would be titled “I'm gonna buy myself a dog”. It had a totally different vibe and would sound less angry. Casey’s supposed to feel fed up with the situation here.
And yes I further minimized the character tags. I mean, I have a ton of characters in this series, but few have a lot of "screentime". If someone looks specifically for stories centered around - let's say Splinter or Mayham, they'd disappointed to find mine.
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