Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Leonardo didn’t want to die.

 Honestly, he was just as tired of the lone turtle routine as his brothers were. He wanted to live. There was so much to live for, tv shows, comic books, ninjutsu, a seventeenth mutation day, his friends, his family…his brothers.

But that’s what the problem was, wasn’t it. At the end of the day, a world where he failed his family, his brothers, where he had to live without any of them, was so much scarier than death. He’d had to do it once…he couldn’t do it again.

He ignored Raph’s shouts, unintelligible over the sound of the cannon powering up. The Kraang weren’t fighting him, more concerned with getting away than preventing him from going to his possible death. Still, they were in the way, and he didn’t have time to keep pushing around them. He sliced a fleeing Kraang droid across the middle, using his momentum to kick off its falling upper half and onto the shoulders of another. He jumped from droid to droid, praying to go faster.

Mikey, who was usually so active, always moving, always expressive, never still, was frozen in shock, wide-eyed, pupils constricted to pinpricks from the blinding light headed his way.

Speed.

That’s what he needed. Speed and momentum.

“Mikey, shell!” he cried, feeling a spike of loving pride that even in his shocked state his little brother instinctively trusted him, retreating into his shell.

Hitting the last droid in his path, he bunched his muscles, willing as much power into his legs as he could, then shot off. He intercepted Mikey, catching him midair, and wrapped himself around his shell-bound little brother.

Everything seemed to slow down in that moment. There was only a second before the laser hit, he could feel the intense heat on his shell and skin, traveling closer impossibly fast. He closed his eyes tight and clenched his jaw so that he wouldn’t scream, tightening his hold on his brother. If the plan worked, his body would act like a shield for Mikey, while his momentum carried them out of the lasers path.

But there were so many what ifs Leo hadn’t planned for, hadn’t had the time to consider. The laser could vaporize them both instantly, the force of its blast could change their course, carrying them forward instead of out…

No.

He had to have hope. Mikey would be okay…he had to be.

Leo felt a tear slip down his face. He would miss eating pizza with his brothers.

The roar of the laser engulfed them.

                                                                                       __________

Donatello stared numbly, rooted to the floor.

He was shivering despite the sweat dripping down his face and every muscle feeling like it was on fire.

An alarm, interspersed with automated recordings of his voice, blared, but he couldn’t hear it, couldn’t even squint his wide eyes as another bright pulse of lightning-like energy came from the center of the room, arcs of power striking the containment field, temporarily disrupting the purple hue the emergency lighting bathed everything in.

He was panicking, logically he knew that.

He knew he should move; with each strike the circular containment field was weakening, and if it went down there would be nothing protecting the room, or anyone in it.

Still, he couldn’t force himself to do anything but stare.

Another burst emanated from the epicenter of the storm, but before it could strike the field, it seemed to freeze, then in a matter of milliseconds, all of the energy was sucked back into the source. Everything fell still, almost unnaturally, as though nothing at all had happened there.

It was quiet, and as the room brightened once more, the emergency lights replaced by the average everyday ones, he glanced down at his tech gauntlet, realizing he had unconsciously turned off the alarm and reset the system.

The sound of panicked breathing made him flinch as it cut through the loaded silence.

It wasn’t coming from him; he was barely breathing. He glanced to the only other inhabitant of the room.

Leonardo looked haunted, no better than Donnie was sure he looked himself. With each second that passed the slider’s shaking got worse, his chest rapidly rising and falling with each shallow, desperate breath. Donnie knew he should do something, snap out of his own shock and help his brother, but all his rigid muscles could produce was a twitch. At the movement, Leo’s eyes snapped to him before ripping back to the center of the room.

“Donnie,” he breathed, staring at the once again quiet, still, Key.

Chapter Text

Goodness the days had begun to bleed together into an ugly mismatched painting of pain and sorrow, and so much rage.

When did it start?

No, that was the part it wasn’t easy to forget, the part he’d always remember like an ugly, disgusting, aching scar. Rapheal knew he’d never be free of the memory. He’d always remember the beginning and...  

All it took was three minutes.

 Three measly minutes and his entire world was torn apart once again.

You’d think he’d be used to it by now.

 It had started usual enough. An enemy that refused to stay down, stay a memory, stay gone. They’d had their fair share of those.

Fair share…now wasn’t that funny. Frankly there was nothing, had never been anything fair about it, any of it, somebody out there just liked to try and rip their shells off every chance they got.

So, they’d been fighting an old foe in new form. Raph had personally thought that his family had heard the last of the Kraang when Prime and Subprime were fried by the space dinos.

 The Utrom had assured them that the Kraang were no longer a threat, just confused brainwashed creatures that the Utrom would round up and rehabilitate. The Hamatos would never hear from them again, at least that was how it was supposed to go.

See, the thing about brainwashing is it tends to breed fanatics, and even if there were only a few… fanatics could be more dangerous than an entire army. The Utrom really hadn’t taken that into account, and somebody had to pay the price for it. As usual his family was stuck with the bill.

 You’d think as much as his family had done for the Utrom they’d at least have the decency to, if not keep them in the loop then at least give them a heads up. It would have been nice to get a “Oh hey, some of the guys we’re trying to fix have gone rouge and are planning something in an undisclosed location, most likely Earth, that involves a whole bunch of stolen alien tech, just thought you should know.”

But they didn’t get that, they didn’t even find out about the rogue splinter cell until Donnie picked up a weird energy reading on one of his sensors posted throughout the city. No, they’d had to contact the Utrom to get any clue about this problem that had been at their doorstep for, apparently, weeks now. The Utrom were cagey and frustratingly bureaucratic with the info exchange. They’d said they would handle it, it was their people and their problem, the Hamatos didn’t need to get involved, the Utrom would handle it.

Except, the readings Donnie was getting showed that whatever this splinter cell was doing it would soon be the entire city’s, if not the world's problem. Because that was always the end game wasn’t it.

Leo had made the call, everyone else agreed. The Utrom would be to slow, and something needed to be done fast.

An hour later Raph was in the warehouse district, or rather miles under it, knuckles deep in rogue Kraang. They’d definitely had an upgrade, but his family was nothing if not good. The plan had been simple, Donnie would work on stopping whatever was causing the energy readings, and everyone else would keep the rogue Kraang off of him until that could be done. It was a good plan; Raph liked the plan. Frankly any plan that allowed him, even required him, to beat things into a pulp was a plus in his book. It didn’t matter that the thing causing the energy burst was a giant cannon looking thing hooked up to engines that by some process, that Donnie had explained but Raph hadn’t heard over the sound of his sai ripping into metal bodies and his fists pounding gross slimy, pink flesh, converted pure mutagen into energy. Or even that the cannon was pointed straight down to the Earth’s core. The plan was working…until it wasn’t.

It had taken three minutes, that felt so much longer, for everything to go wrong.

It started with a small missile fired at Mikey, he’d hit it off course with his chucks towards a wall then took the Kraang that fired it down, nothing that he hadn’t done before. However, instead of hitting the wall and exploding, the missile was redirected. A fanatical Kraang had jumped on it changing its course.

It hit the cannon.

The blast wasn’t enough to destroy the device, but it did damage the support structure, causing it to partially collapse, and was close enough to knock Donnie away from the control panel and off of the platform. Leo had been at their brother’s side in an instant, and Raph had let out a roar of rage, fighting even harder to make up for the loss in manpower and buy his older brother the time he needed to help their resident genius. Everyone else, Mikey, April and Casey, had taken on their new share of the fight too.

They’d done this routine so many times before it was natural, like breathing. But somehow one of the Kraang had gotten past them and had made it to the control console. Raph didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget the way Leo screamed his name…everything that happened after haunted his nightmares.

Leo had gotten his attention, and Raph had followed his line of sight to see Mikey. Mikey with a slight dopey grin on his face and a laser focused seriousness in his eyes, too surrounded in noise, his own and the Kraangs’ to hear anything…and the cannon pointed right at him.

The collapsed support had caused the cannon to point to the side instead of down, and the fanatical Kraang was powering it up to fire. He knew why Leo had called him; he was closer than the others. He could make it in time to pull Mikey out of the way, getting them both to safety.

He had taken off like a shot, he could make it, he would make it…but he didn’t make it.

He had ended up thrown into a wall by a Kraang weapon and pinned by fallen rubble. It had dazed him, but his vision had cleared just in time to see Leo run for their little brother.

He wouldn’t make it…not in time to get them both out.

Raph couldn’t be sure, all he had to go off of were the words of others and a raw throat, but they say he screamed. He screamed as he watched Mikey turn and see the blast of energy headed his way. He screamed as Leo jumped, grabbing their baby brother who retreated into his shell, and wrapped himself around him as much as he could. He screamed when everything was engulfed in a blinding, burning white light. They say he didn’t stop screaming until the light faded away and the Utrom, who had finally arrived, freed him from the rubble that trapped him.

He’d been told that he ran to the red-hot melted trench that newly marred the floor leading to a hole blown straight through the base’s wall and into the Earth, heedless of his feet burning. He had searched like mad attacking everything that got in his way, that tried to hold him back, eventually he had started to attack everything around him. Nothing was safe, there was no distinction between Kraang or Utrom.

Donatello was out cold, and April and Casey couldn’t calm him. April had told him in tears that she had finally had to psychically knock him out to make sure he didn’t do irreparable harm to himself.

Truthfully, he could barely feel the damage he had done to his body, not the torn skin, fractured bones, or burns, none of it compared to the yawning maw inside of him. All of the physical injuries would heal, had almost healed, but the feeling he wanted gone with a vindictive spite just wouldn’t fade.

The Utrom told him and Donatello that their family had saved the world. But none of that mattered because in the span of three awful minutes, theirs had been ripped apart.

Raph would admit, for the first few days after…after, he’d gone a little crazy. He’d practically attached himself to Donnie like a freaking shadow. He never left him alone, followed him everywhere, and was instantly on edge when anyone else was around them. Maybe it was overkill, dumb even, but he was going to give himself a break on that one. After all, could anyone blame him? He only had one turtle brother left in the world, and he would die fighting with every ounce of his bloody, murderous rage before he let anything take Donnie away.

Besides Donatello didn’t seem to mind. For his part, he was equally as fierce, if more calculated, about staying around Raph, always keeping him within eyesight or arms reach, even as he frantically buried himself in work.

They didn’t talk about it, not really. They didn’t need to, not when they knew each other well enough to understand the meaning behind a look, a touch, the sound of their footsteps.

They were working, both trying to navigate a boat of determined hope stubbornly through a sea of dark emotions to a goal that they refused to even consider impossible. Man, that was almost philosophical, he was really spent wasn’t he.

Anyway, they were going to make things right, get back what was taken from them and never let it go again, regardless of who or what got in their way. The lab quickly became their living space, they locked themselves in it and the rest of the world out. Eventually, on an unspoken agreement between them, acknowledgement that they could use help, and the rest of their family deserved to be involved, Raph had unlocked the door and let April and Casey in…and then Karai, but no one else.

There were sympathetic looks and shared tears, food passed out, and hesitant, eventually welcomed comforting touches that turned into hugs. A broken family, finally all gathered to grieve over what was left.

Nothing was said. There was nothing to say, no words could have possibly made any of it better, could make the hurt anything but consuming…at least that’s what Raph had thought. And now, a week from that day, he stared at Donnie, meeting his tired bloodshot eyes and the frantic almost manic look in them, as he struggled to believe what he was hearing.

 “Did you hear me, Raph? I know it sounds…it sounds impossible, but it’s true. Raph…Raph I think…There’s a chance that they might not be dead.”

Could the nightmare be over sooner than he’d thought?

Chapter Text

Leonardo didn’t think he was dead.

Admittedly, he didn’t know what being dead felt like, even thought he had come pretty darn close several times. Still, the laser instantly killing him was the only explanation his frantic mind could come up with as to why he wasn’t in pain.

Logically, he should be in pain, the laser’s heat had been nigh unbearable when it was close to him, now he had been engulfed by it, even taken the brunt of it. Unless the laser had fried every single one of his nerve endings and he just couldn’t feel pain anymore, but that didn’t make sense.

He could feel Mikey shaking in his arms, tucked so tightly against his plastron that it almost hurt. He could feel where the ridges of Mikey’s shell dug into his skin, and the tear still sliding down his cheek, yet to fall. And the temperature of the laser had changed, becoming cold when the heat was almost at the point of painful, like a patch for sore muscles. He was breathing, panting from his mad dash across Kraang droids.

The dead definitely didn’t need to do that, right?

He didn’t smell cooking turtle, not that he really knew what that smelled like, thankfully.

Deciding to just bite the bullet, Leo inhaled then opened his eyes.

Instantly, he snapped them shut. It was bright, swirling colors unable to differentiate, and much too bright to look at. His eyes watered, and he tried to ignore the spots fading in them as he focused on his other senses to get an idea of what was going on.

Nothing had changed from what he could physically feel, other than that it was strange. His body was telling him that, somehow, he was suspended in midair but also moving, like he was on the roof of a speeding train. He didn’t bother trying to consider how that could be possible when there was a distinct lack of any other sensation indicative of speed, such as wind.

It was Kraang technology, at this point he really shouldn’t be surprised. Besides there were other more important things to figure out.

He was in the middle of trying to come up with a plan to escape, when all of his thoughts ground to a sudden halt.

Pain!

It was unlike any pain he had felt before, and unlike the pain he had expected to feel. It was constricting, like something had surrounded him so quickly that he didn’t notice until it was crushing him. A thousand needles, or stingers, clawed at every single one of his skin cells.

It wanted in.

It wanted into every single thing that made up him. It clawed through his skin, muscles, nerves, boring into his bones.

Everything hurt. 

He wanted to scream, but no sound would come out. His lungs wouldn’t work. He couldn’t breathe.

It was searching.

The pain was searching, setting everything in its path ablaze, as it tried to hunt down something that was eluding it. It found what it was looking for, latching on.

In some unknown part of him he felt it.

He felt the pain pierce it, encapsulate it, consume the very essence of everything he was and would ever be, become a part of it.

The pain stopped.

He gasped, drawing in heaving ragged breaths. He focused on getting as much oxygen as he could without choking on the copper that leaked out of his abused tongue, filling his mouth.

The pain was gone, it was like it had never been there, there was no trace of it, burning, stinging…nothing. The only pain he felt now was from where he bit his tongue. Every muscle he could feel was trembling and he was drenched in sweat.

Mikey was also trembling violently, a faint clack sounding when their plastrons met.

Abruptly, the air was forced out of his lungs as he came to a sudden stop, slamming into something solid and beginning to roll. He wheezed, coughing and gasping, heedless of the copper-colored spittle landing on his cheeks as he finally came to a stop. He rolled onto his back, forcing air into his spasming lungs.

Unthinking, Leo opened his eyes.

With a yelp he tossed his brother away, dodging to the side as a long, large, semi-circular piece of rock and metal slammed down where he had been seconds ago.

He huddled into a ball, arms over his head, as the dislodged earth flipped over him, continuing on, until the noise it made just…stopped.

He didn’t let himself think about the fact he didn’t hear the massive object coming to a stop, instead trying to calm his pounding heartbeat, and once again catch his breath. A ghastly wail pierced his eardrums, causing him to jerk his head up and look around.

Mikey!

His little brother had never made that noise before, none of his brothers had.

Was he hurt?

Had part of the rock hit him? 

Did Leo hurt him when he’d pushed him out of the way?

Spotting the writhing form of his brother, Leo stood, attempted to go to him, only to be slammed to the ground. A horrendous cry clawing its way out of his own throat.

The pain was back!

It was the same but different.

It wanted out now.

Yes, and no.

It wanted to consume, to control. It wanted…

Another inhuman noise bled its way out of his throat. It wanted him to give in, to cocoon, to surround, to be him. And it would be so easy, he just had to sink, to sleep and let himself be protected.

The faint sound of Mikey’s strangled wail reached him, and Leo bucked, heaving himself back up to the surface.

No! He needed to fight! He couldn’t give in to the consuming pain. His baby brother needed him!

 “Rin...P-pyo…” Leo focused every ounce of mental strength he had left on pushing the words, garbled, ill-formed, and wheezed through his raw throat, as his hands barely twitched in the direction of the proper forms.

He didn’t know if the ineffectual movements would work, or if he could even focus long enough to gather the energy behind the mantra. Still, he had to try.

“K-kai…” He gasped, hope building as he began to feel the familiar energy trickle in and concentrate. If he had the strength he would have smiled as the calming spiritual energy built up, providing a direct contrast to the raging pain.

“Z-z…Zen!...” he hissed, managing to move his arm enough for his finger to brush against his torso. The relief was wonderful as the calming energy swept through him like a river, pulling at the pain, mollifying it. Inhaling, Leo struggled to get his hands underneath him, fighting to get to his knees.

Baffled, he glanced over himself, wide-eyed. Despite the pain, he hadn’t been injured. He’d had some scrapes and bruises, which the healing energy had quickly washed away, but nothing to warrant the agony he’d felt.

It didn’t make any sense. If there was nothing causing the pain then why…

Leo jolted, ice running down his shell, something was wrong.

Mikey!

Mikey wasn’t crying anymore.

Leo pushed the confusing questions aside, he could think about them later when he didn’t have a brother to help. Digging his hands into the dirt beneath him, he forced himself to take methodical and deep breaths. He needed to get up, Mikey needed him! With a growl, Leo pushed himself onto his feet and quickly stumbled towards Mikey’s still form, falling a few feet short.

At some point, Mikey had emerged from his shell and was now curled into a tight ball, like he was trying to protect himself. And he…he was so quiet. Mikey was never that quiet when he was hurt.

No!

Please, please don’t let him be to late! He couldn’t see his brother dead, not again.

Leo almost cried when the sound of weak whimpering reached his ears. Crawling the rest of the way, he took stock of his little brother. He was pale and covered in sweat, face scrunched in agony and marred with a combination of tears and snot. Shivers racked his body, and his fingers twitched weakly as though he was trying to claw at something unseen.

“Mikey!” Leo called, placing a hand on his brother’s shell and attempting to move him, looking for injuries. “Mikey, can you hear me? I need you to tell me where it hurts…Mikey! Please…” His brother didn’t react, his eyes tightly shut, and rigid muscles fighting his attempts to move them. Leo felt his heart seize as Mikey gave another whimper, much fainter than the others and his hands stopped moving.

He didn’t have time to waste, his brother didn’t have time! He would just have to deal with an injury when he found it.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Leo said, unsure of which of them he’d said it for. Settling for a quick visual assessment for clues as to where he should focus the healing, Leo began the mantra. It was easier this time, since his hands could form the proper shapes, and he focused on gathering as much of the healing energy as he could. Before the sound of the last word disappeared, Leo snapped his eyes open, placing his now glowing, hands on Mikey’s shell.

At the contact the orange-banded turtle froze, before going lax. Leo released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as Mikey leaned into his touch. When the last of the healing energy had been siphoned into his brother, Leo gently rolled him onto his carapace.

Waiting for him to wake up, he carefully leaned back with a tired sigh and couldn’t help looking over Mikey’s form for injuries he knew he wouldn’t find. Mikey hadn’t been any more injured than Leo, in fact he’d had less scrapes and bruises because he’d been in his shell and Leo’s body had cushioned him from the fall. That could only mean one thing, Mikey must’ve been experiencing the same pain Leo had.

The same pain he still felt.

The pain was still there. Lurking under the surface like a shadow he couldn’t see and could never escape. It would seem the healing hands couldn’t stop it, like he had hoped, which made sense if there was nothing to heal. But what it did do was soothe it, locking it behind a barrier like a caged animal.

Admittedly, a caged animal that was snarling, and throwing itself at the bars, the hinges giving a little with each impact. It promised to come back with a vengeance, even now he could feel it increasing, the simple act of breathing starting to feel like grinding glass onto the inside of his skin.

He would have to do something about that.

Closing his eyes, Leo sat on his knees and began to take deep, calm, methodical breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. He could already tell it wouldn’t completely solve the problem, but maybe he could use some of Master Splinter’s teachings to shore up the cage.

Pain, crippling pain, was nothing new, not after the last few months, and in the past, even before his fifteenth mutation day, he had spent hours, days, practicing to work through hurts he had only ever heard of, could only imagine, even now. He could focus enough to push pain, discomfort, to the back of his mind, lock it away through ancient ninjitsu and modern pain reduction techniques. He could work with this, he would work with this.

He had no other choice.

“L-Leo…” The sound of Mikey’s voice instantly pulled the blue-banded turtle out of his trance.

 “Mikey! Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

“Ugh…What happened?” Mikey asked, cracking his eyes open.

“The…The laser hit us. I’m not really sure what happened. Do you remember the laser?” Leo asked, gently placing his hands on his brother’s shoulders.

“You mean the giant glowing thing in the middle of the room…Woah!” Mikey’s eyes widened and he frantically turned his head, looking around. “Dude! Where are we?”

“What?” At Mikey’s question Leo released him, paying attention to his surrounding for the first time since they landed.

It was, well, it was gray. A circle of white in the distance provided light but wasn’t strong enough to block out the stars. And there were so many stars, but it wasn’t cold like space had been, it was frankly neutral, balanced. There wasn’t any clear sky or ground, just floating islands in a sea of stars. Leo squinted into the distance where the floating islands became black silhouettes, some shapes becoming squished with thin shadows shooting off of or connecting some of them. Like roots, veins…or tentacles. Leo suppressed a weird spike of anxiety as he pushed the thought away, deciding to ponder it at a later time.

A flash caught his attention, drawing his gaze, his eyes widening at what he saw. The giant hunk of metal and rock that had nearly crushed him and Mikey was floating. It had flipped off the edge of the island, having at some point broken into several pieces that were now drifting away.

Well…that explained why he hadn’t heard it coming to a stop, and also showed that gravity was different in this place.

So…great.

Leo took a breath, trying to organize his thoughts. This place was odd, but it was oddly familiar. However, it wasn’t like space, or any other planet he’d been on. He turned back to Mikey, drawing his little brother’s attention, as the answer dawned on him.

“It kinda seems like Dimension X.”

“Doesn’t feel like it though…Or look like it,” Mikey said, glancing around with a frown, then beginning to get up.

“That’s a good point, and coupled with the fact we can breathe, I think you’re right, Mikey,” Leo said, helping his brother move. He had no reason to argue, Mikey was the undisputed expert in their family, when it came to Dimension X, having been trapped alone it in for hours the very first time they discovered it. If he said that this didn’t seem like the Utrom’s home dimension, nostalgic feeling or not, Leo was going to believe him, and the evidence agreed to that verdict. But, if they weren’t in Dimension X, then where were they?

A raw yelp snatched Leo from his thoughts.

Mikey froze, trembling and gasping for breath as he began to fall. Reacting on instinct, Leo pulled Mikey to him, placing himself between the orange-banded turtle and the ground, taking the brunt of the impact.

“Mikey?” Leo said, struggling into a sitting position without letting go of his brother and looking the younger turtle over.

“I…it hurts. Why…does it hurt?” Mikey cried against Leo’s plastron around gasps of air.

“I…I don’t know,” Leo admitted. At that moment he hated those three words, hated that he didn’t have the answers. He could feel Mikey’s tears dripping onto his chest and he despised how powerless he was to stop them, to take the pain away, to do anything but hold his brother.

This…this was Leo’s fault.

Not the pain, he had no idea were that came from, but it certainly didn’t come from him. However, he could have warned Mikey, he should have. Leo knew that the healing hands didn’t work on the pain completely. He knew the only reason that he himself could move was because he was suppressing it, pushing it away with a combination of willpower, focus, and technique.

 Mikey had the will power, he could be as stubborn as Raph sometimes, but Mikey didn’t have the techniques, at least not all of them, certainly not all of the ninjitsu ones anyway. Leo had no doubt Mikey could learn them, and the only reason he hadn’t reached that level was because they required intense focus and practice. Focus was something Mikey struggled with. The youngest had trouble when he was required to sit still and clear his mind of his vibrant, boisterous, and imaginative thoughts.

To make sure Mikey didn’t fall behind in his training when they were little Master Splinter had taken to giving him extra sessions, where he could work with him one on one. And Mikey was amazing, despite his challenges he’d made so much progress. In leaps and bounds he caught up enough so that he could perform meditative techniques to slow his breathing or go on a spirit quest, before their father was killed.

Mikey had such raw talent, that Leo was sure he could catch up to the likes of Sensei in no time, except he didn’t like to practice meditation. It wasn’t Mikey’s cup of tea, he simple didn’t like it, certainly not more than comic books, and tv, and cooking, and the myriad of other things he could spend his time on. So, while Leo, who found it calming and interesting, had put in hours resulting in reaching the level of mastery he had, Mikey had only ever practiced meditation when it was a part of their daily training, or Sensei had decided he’d needed some extra help. It was never Mikey’s first option, especially when he was hurt.

Leo knew that.

He should have known Mikey wouldn’t be able to suppress the pain that remained after the healing hands, but he’d gotten distracted. He’d been so engrossed in their surroundings that he didn’t think to warn him.

That could not happen again.

“I’m so sorry,” Leo whispered against the top of his brother’s head, rubbing gentle circles into his shell.

He was debating the merits of moving his prone brother and performing the healing hands again in the vain hope he could stop his pain, when the orange-coded turtle released a hesitant, almost relieved, sigh.

“Mikey?” Leo questioned as he felt his rigid muscles relax, and his breathing begin to even.

“I think…I think it hurts more when I move a lot, or something,” he answered.

“Okay. Okay, then we’ll take it slow when you’re ready.” 

Mikey didn’t answer, but after a few minutes a hesitant nod against his plastron served as Leo’s que. Gently he helped Mikey move onto his knees, leaving his hands on his brother’s shoulders after he was settled.

Mikey looked exhausted. He was pale, sweat dripping down his face. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, and his eyelids sagged, threatening to close. Mikey’s arms trembled from more than just pain, as they propped him up, and Leo wondered if his brother would even be able to hold himself up without his help.

Leo released a sigh, worried, coming to a decision. Slowly, he turned, careful to keep a hand supporting Mikey until the last possible second. Making sure he was as close as he could get, crouched, shell to his brother, Leo finally let go.

“Hop on,” he said, with a small smile, looking over his shoulder.

Mikey met his gaze, confused until his eyes widened in realization. But to Leo’s surprise instead of giving his usual, although tired, grin and happily climbing onto his shell, Mikey’s expression crumpled, filling with determination as he struggled to stand.

“Mikey!” Leo gasped, jerking around in time to steady the orange-coded turtle as he listed to one side.

“Stop! Stop,” Leo pleaded, gently guiding his brother back to the ground before he could fall, despite his weak attempts to get up.

 “What’s wrong? I thought you liked shell rides.” At his words, Mikey stopped struggling, instead pining Leo with an all too familiar gaze that almost made him flinch. Leo often found it funny how much Raph liked to tease him about taking after Master Splinter so much, when that particular look, one all of his brothers had mastered, was every bit their father. Granted, each of his brothers had put their own spin on it, a bit of themselves peeking through, didn’t make it any less effective though.

Leo felt sweat build on his forehead, feeling very much like a bug under a microscope, as Mikey seemed to peer into his soul. Leo watched, perplexed as his expression morphed, into a strange combination that he couldn’t decipher before it disappeared.

“Bro, you’re hurt too.” Mikey said, matter-of-factly.

“I’m fine.”

The response was automatic, like muscle memory, passing Leo’s lips before he’d had any thought about what to say. Mikey leveled him with a look that screamed disbelief, and Leo felt blood rush to his cheeks, ashamed. Maybe he’d become predictable, or maybe it was because they were all so close, but sometimes it seemed like his brothers could read him like an open book.

“Sorry…But I…” Leo mumbled.

“It’s okay dude,” Mikey interrupted with one of his exuberant, if slightly fatigued, smiles, perhaps deciding to have mercy on his brother. “Just give me a minute and I’ll be back to my awesome level of ninjocity, bro.”

“What? No. Look, Mikey, I really am fine. It’s not…”

“No! Stop it! Stop it, Leo,” Mikey cut in, frowning, voice cracking. “No more lone-turtle stuff! You knew! You knew when you jumped…when you shielded me…that… Just no more lone-turtle stuff…please. Besides, I’m not helpless, dude. You don’t need to do everything on your own.”

Leo sighed, unable to describe the emotions that the care and pain in Mikey’s words stirred up but touched by them nonetheless. He placed a hand on his brother’s head, rubbing gently, as a small smile graced his lips.

“You’re right, Little brother.” Leo could concede that point, would happily do so, but he wouldn’t apologize. He couldn’t apologize, even though he wanted to, not for that. It would be pointless, meaningless, because he’d do it again in less than a heartbeat, every time. But as for the rest of it…

“I don’t need to do it all on my own, and I promise that’s not what this is…”

“Promise on…on Space Heroes…and pizza!” Mikey demanded.

Leo’s eyes widened, slightly shocked. Mikey was really serious about all this, going so far as to bring in favorite shows and pizza. Favorite shows were one thing, powerful on their own, but pizza, Mikey never joked about pizza.

“I promise on Space heroes and pizza, this isn’t lone-turtle stuff.” Leo said meeting Mikey’s gaze. He felt relief as Mikey’s frown lessened and the hard edge in his eyes disappeared.

“I’m not hurt, I don’t think, but I am in pain, Mikey. Although, it’s not so bad for me right now.”

“So, it’ll wear off?” Mikey asked, hopeful.

Leo paused, feeling the pain rage at the seams of its temporary prison, and hating what he was about to say.

“I…don’t think so. The Healing Hands takes some of it away, but other than that I’m just essentially ignoring it with methods Sensei taught me.”

“Woah, cool! Then…”

“I’ll teach you them, and you will get them. You’ll be using them in no time.” Of that Leo had no doubt. “But not here, not right now. We need to get moving, get more of an idea where we ended up, and if there’s a way to get back.” Leo said quickly glancing around.

He’d heard the advice that if you ever got lost you should stay where you are, so that someone could come and find you. But, well, did that count in this situation, in any of the situations they’d been in? When one was a ninja, and a mutant, staying in one place and waiting for someone to find you was generally a bad thing. Besides, he wasn’t sure if it was because of his ninja training or because he was a mutant, but he didn’t want to remain out in the open for too long, and he was starting to get the feeling that they needed to move, instincts he’d learned to trust prickling.

Looking back at Mikey, Leo sighed in fond, if stressed, exasperation. The orange-coded turtle’s face had scrunched in dissatisfaction, and he was clearly going to argue. Well, it looks like he’d have to use the last card he had in this fight. Reverse-psychology, or rather using one of the lessons his brothers were always trying to drill into his head, and proving he understood it, to his advantage.

 “Besides, we’re a team, beyond that we’re family. We pick each other up and carry them when needed. We take care of each other.”

“But…” Mikey began, showing his stubborn streak.

“I’ll help you until you can stand on your own and you’re feeling better, Mikey.” Leo interrupted, turning so his shell was to his brother, looking over his shoulder. “And I’ll let you know when I need help, and you can help me. I promise on Space Heroes, and pizza, and ninjaing.”

At his words, Mikey’s eyes softened as he beamed in happy approval. “Bro, I’m gonna help even if you don’t tell me. If you break your promise do I get all your pizza? Oh, once Raph finds out, you won’t be able to watch Space Heroes for at least a year! Krognard marathon, yeah boi!”

“That is not gonna happen!” Leo said, indignant despite the fact he knew his brother was trying to get a rise out of him. In response Mikey laughed, and Leo soon joined chuckling along as he helped Mikey climb onto his shell.

“I missed shell rides,” Mikey mumbled tiredly, nestling his face against Leo’s shoulder once he was in position and secure.

Leo stood, a bittersweet feeling washing through him. Shell rides were a common occurrence when they were little, a simple act of fun, but with all the craziness that had happened since their fifteenth mutation day, some of the simpler things had been overshadowed.

“Yeah, me too,” He said, vowing to work hard to bring back not only shell rides, but also some of the other simple things that had been pushed aside.

Taking a moment Leo surveyed their surroundings, plotting the easiest course forward. Route in mind, he ran, jumping at the last possible second. He felt Mikey’s arms tighten around him, and he was sure the orange-coded turtle would be screaming in glee straight into his tympana if he wasn’t so exhausted.  The first landing was rough. Leo barely managed to keep from landing on his face, as a flare of pain rushed through him. The impact wasn’t hard, he’d had worse from a light run across the New York rooftops. But then he hadn’t had a jackhammer trying to bust its way out of his bones, so he supposed he could keep his pride as a ninja.

With a groan Leo straightened. “Mikey?” he questioned around his brother’s suffocating grip.

“Owie, ow…I’m good, bro,” Mikey said, weakly butting Leo’s shoulder, and thankfully loosening his hold. “Ugh…I’m starting to think gravy hates us.”

For a moment Leo was puzzled, before the orange-coded turtle’s words made sense, and he releases a breathy laugh. “Gravity, Mikey. And I’ll try to make the landings softer.” A quiet groan was Mikey’s reply and Leo started forward again.

It turned out “softer” meant slower, forcing him to take more convoluted routes, sometimes hopping between little islands when he could have made one large leap to his destination. It was worth it if it meant he didn’t have to deal with flares of white-hot pain, and Mikey unintentionally trying to choke him as he dealt with waves of his own.

Progress was progress.

Before long Leo felt Mikey go slack, his plastron rising and falling evenly against his shell and little puffs of breath against his cheek, as he finally gave in to sleep. With a fond smile he slowly adjusted the younger turtle so he didn’t fall.

Checking to make sure the white circle that served as the largest source of light was still in front of them, Leo continued. It was apparent to him, even before he’d made that first jump, that it would be easy to go in circles in this place. Any discernable landmarks he found were easily swallowed by the sea of similarly colored islands and dusky gloom. Even the island they’d first landed on had disappeared, the only way he could find it was by the occasional flash of light off of metal from the pieces that had arrived with them.

The stars weren’t much help either. A quick survey of the…space-void that surrounded the floating islands had yielded zero recognizable constellations. Which, frankly, tracked seeing as they were obviously in another dimension. Landmarks were out and so were the stars, which left the white circle. It didn’t appear to move, thankfully, so as long as he kept it in front of them, he could assume he was going straight.

At least, it was the safest bet he could make at the moment.

A rippled seemed to pass through the air, grinding his thoughts to a halt. Leo froze as everyone of his carefully honed senses flared.

Mikey sensed it to, waking up long enough to groggily look around. He smacked his lips before snuggling against Leo’s shoulder and falling back asleep, as though saying that as long as the blue-coded turtle was there everything was fine. Leo would have felt a bizarre mixture of love, fear, and the intense need to lecture his brother about the ways of the ninja regarding danger, if he hadn’t currently been trying to figure out what the danger was. He turned, third eyelid unconsciously covering his eyes, and fighting the urge to grab one of his katanas.

His breath caught in his throat, and his instincts roared as he finally found what was setting them off.

Dust.

So far away that it looked like a small spot of light fog, or steam, but it couldn’t be anything but dust. A flash of light in his eye made him flinch, and Leo felt a chill drip down his spine.

Their island.

That was their island, and it had a cloud of dust rising from it so large that he could easily see it from so far away.

He stared, unconsciously creeping towards the shadows. It was just dust, it wasn’t dangerous. In fact, it could mean that something may have arrived the same way he and Mikey did. It could be help or a way out.

Despite that line of reasoning, his instincts knew, senses he had been born with and senses he had honed to a fine point, both screamed that it was dangerous. With an inaudible gulp he turned, ripping his eyes away from the dust cloud. Quietly and with every ounce of stealth he had, he needed to get himself and Mikey as far away from that island as possible.

Leo was very glad they hadn’t waited for someone, or something, to find them.

Chapter Text

At first, Donatello had been frozen, everything had stopped after he had been told the news. Shock his brain would later supply when he could think again.

Then he had refused to believe it, any of it. It couldn’t be real, Leo and Mikey couldn’t be gone. Denial, his brain knew, but it also knew that his oldest and youngest brothers were some of the most skilled ninja he could name. They had been through almost impossible odds and pulled through alive, if not entirely unscathed.

It had to be a trick by the Kraang, or a lie. April and Casey wouldn’t intentionally lie, not about something like this, but the Utrom might, for whatever reason they could justify.

No, he wouldn’t believe it, not without proof.

Proof came in the form of video surveillance recorded from the Kraang base. The Utrom showed him the blast, readings taken from the video, and taken by various devices after…and the science, the data…it made sense. It made sense in a way that couldn’t have been faked, not with the time frame, not with so many other things.

The Utrom had expressed their sympathies then hung up the call while Donnie’s last desperate - because that’s what it was after all, in every sense of the word - hope was ripped from him and his world rent asunder. Once again he had been frozen, barely conscious of Raph sitting next to him with an almost painful grip on his hand, the only other person in the room since everyone else had been refused entry.

And…it wasn’t enough.

There should be more…the sound of more breathing, the sound of more heartbeats, the sound of more leather rubbing against scales, there should be more. There should be four, not two. They were never meant to be just two.

He had barely noticed the tears that had run down his face mirroring Raphael’s.

He was done.

Donnie decided then and there, his teeth gritted and squeezing his brother’s hand just as hard as his was being squeezed. He was done being the punching bag for the world! He was done letting whatever it was that kept ripping his family apart and putting it back together, like Frankenstein's monster just for kicks and giggles, get its way. They had already lost so much, their childhood, their innocence, their peace of mind, their father! He was done letting things be taken from them. It was time for him to start taking back. They were meant to be four parts forming a whole, and if he had something to say about it they would be whole. He would make their family complete again, and goodness help anybody who got in his way.

He hadn’t needed to say anything to Raph for him to understand what they were doing or to wholeheartedly agree to help. They were going to get their brothers back, the how was for Donnie to figure out and Raphael would be there to do everything in his power to make it happen. And Donnie had many how’s run through his brain, each getting systematically eliminated until he landed on time travel.

Time travel made sense. He knew it was possible. He and his family had done it many times before, and they even knew a time traveler. However, Donnie didn’t bother entertaining the scenario of asking Renet to help, even if they could contact her. While she had broken rules before, it was mostly because she was a klutz and was trying to save the world from Savanti Romero. He had no doubt that going back to the past for the sake of changing something – that never should have happened – simply because it wasn’t a desirable outcome, would be one rule that she wouldn’t be allowed to break if she tried…Even if all he was asking for was the chance to pull Leo and Mikey out seconds before the cannon hit them.

It wasn’t fair after everything his family had done for the world, but he’d long since learned that dwelling on the unfairness of their lives was an exercise in futility. It left him tired, frustrated, and with nothing to show for it. So, he focused on cracking the code to time travel himself, after all he’d studied under one of the brightest minds of the known universe, and had multiple chances to look at the time scepter. If there was anyone on Earth who could figure out time travel there was an exponential chance that it would be him.

More than that, more than the scientific odds, if time travel was the only thing that stood between him and his brothers he would crack it. And he had managed to make some progress, small as it was, until he found that he might not need to figure out how to go back in time and save his brothers from getting killed…because there was a chance they weren’t dead.

Donnie landed silently on the floor of the abandoned Kraang base, a wave of slight vibrations and the beam of a flashlight the only clues that Raph had landed behind him. It was raining on the surface, had been for the past few days, precipitation oscillating between deluge and sprinkle. The world seemed determined to make everything wet, not even this place, buried miles under the ground was spared. The sound of slow-leaking water droplets plinking into puddles echoed through the cavernous, dead space.

He stood up, grabbing his T-phone and using it as a sensor as he began to pick his way through the debris that lined the floor, playing a high-stakes game of hot and cold. The base was, frankly, a mess. Trashed Kraang droids littered the place, some even embedded in the walls and ceiling due to April’s psychic outburst after…well after. The bulk of the cannon’s giant mass still took up the middle of the room, only now the twisted mass of crumpled metal that had been the supports on one side had collapsed further, leaving it almost touching the floor. The cannon’s outer casing had been ripped away, and it’s guts were strewn on the ground, evidence of a hasty job on the Utroms’ part to put it out of commission for good. The Utrom clearly hadn’t begun to disassemble it or the base yet, and besides the cannon the room looked exactly the way it did at the end of the video he had been given.

He loathed that video. He despised this base.

Raph had told him, after a particularly bad nightmare, that he wanted to burn the place to the ground, wanted to watch until there was nothing but ashes left. For as much as Donnie shared that sentiment then, and still did now, he was glad they hadn’t done it that day. Because now they needed this room, or more specifically, something inside it.

He turned away from the cannon, sweeping his T-phone around him until he found a sign of what he was looking for, then began to walk again. He paused, turning back when the beam of the flashlight didn’t follow him. Raphael’s face was cast in shadow, but Donnie didn’t need to see it to know where he was refusing to look, and didn’t need to see his expression to know how he was feeling. Every muscle in his brother’s body was taunt, his fists clenched tight. The metal flashlight casing groaned threatening to break as Donatello took the few steps back to his brother, wrapping him in a hug. In his haste to gather information he had neglected to consider how much Raph would feel. Emotional regulation had never been the red-banded turtle’s strong suit, though he’d gotten better in the past few months. Donnie understood, it could be considered a blessing really that he was unconscious during… But Raph, Raph had seen the whole thing. Raph had seen the before, suffered through knowing what was about to happen while being unable to stop it, and the after.

Rapheal didn’t have to come, Donnie had told him several times, but he was stubborn and had insisted. And, honestly, Donnie hadn’t pushed the issue as much as he should have. Truthfully, as selfish as it was, he was glad for the company. He hadn’t wanted to go alone. Still, like Mikey, Raph was very much ruled by his emotions, his just tended to come out as bursts of anger and sarcasm, and this room wasn’t doing him any favors. It was a reminder of Raph’s failure…his too.

“We’re going to get them back, Raph,” Donnie said, giving a final squeeze then pulling away, resting a hand on the flashlight to try and spare it from destruction. “Then we can burn this place to the ground, Kraang base or no Kraang base.”

Raph gave a mirthless chuckle and met his gaze with a smirk. “Nothing but ash.”

“And molten slag.” Donnie agreed, turning to once again follow the growing signal on his T-phone.

Pausing when he reached the bank of a ditch, Donnie studied it for a moment. The cannon’s beam had left a smooth perfect, five-meter-wide half-circle gouged into the floor, which became a full circle where it met the wall. The beam had cut through any metal it touched like a razor-sharp scalpel, the earth that had been exposed underneath it had turned into basalt. 

He didn’t know what the cannon was for, hadn’t had the time to figure it out then and didn’t care to now, but the beam it fired was deadly…at least the outside of it.  

Signaling for Raph to wait, Donnie jumped into the gouge, landing with a crunch as some of the weaker basalt structure gave way. For a moment all he could do was wait and furiously pray.

Please, please…please.

He straightened, eyes shooting to the screen of his T-phone, and the air was punched out of his lungs.

“I was right.”

“What?” Raph asked, his voice cracking with barely held hope.

“I was right, Raph. This is it!” 

Donnie had been sleep-deprived, suffering from situational insomnia, when the thought had slipped through the logical defenses of his mind, forming an idea that at the time was nothing short of ludicrous.

It had been the middle of the day…maybe. Truthfully night and day had ceased to have meaning, other than another metric of time he had to pass to reach his goal. Raph had been asleep, finally having crashed after days of stoically trying to avoid nightmares, and Donnie, well he was working. However, with nothing needing his immediate attention, he had unconsciously fallen into mindlessly watching the computer replay the security footage the Utrom sent. Gathered data and calculations from each playthrough scrolled on an open window right beside it, normally intriguing but far too fast for his tired eyes to track. On the twentieth replay the computer had isolated and zoomed in on the moment the cannon fired, replaying it again…and again. It was…painful and as fuzzy as his brain had been, Donnie remembered being infinitely grateful that he could take advantage of Raphael sleeping to spare his brother the pain of seeing it one more time, seeing orange and blue disappear over…and over…and over again.

Frankly, in his haze it had been necessary, to put himself, not Raph, through that, to feel every emotion it brought until he was nothing but hollow and numb. Well, logically he knew he didn’t have to watch it himself. The program he designed was more than capable of getting the necessary readings and data, the information he would need to pull his brothers out at the last possible second if he wanted to avoid the theoretical consequences messing with time could cause. But still, the less logical, the emotional, instinctual, maybe even primal, part of him knew it felt wrong. It felt wrong for someone not to be watching as two people who did so much for their ungrateful planet, universe, two people he loved, just…disappeared.  

So, he was tired, and maybe a part of him was desperate for something to do other than try not to feel. He had noticed the odd readings that came from the center of the beam but had written them off. It had made sense after all, the Kraang were firing a damaged weapon, cobbled together from parts that should not have logically worked together, that hadn’t even had the proper time to warm up, and the readings were only there for a few seconds before they were replaced. It was simply a power fluctuation nothing else. But the idea that had formed in his mind made him question what if.

What if it wasn’t a simple power fluctuation?

So, he had entertained the idea and had watched the video again, focusing on the readings. By the twenty-third replay, the idea had formed a frantic buzzing hypothesis in his mind, and against all logic he had begun to hope.

Donnie hadn’t wanted to tell Raph, not until he was sure that he wasn’t just seeing what he wanted to see, that there was a chance he was right. However, Raph had taken the choice out of his hands. The red-coded turtle had woken up, hours later, while Donnie was to absorbed in his hypothesis to notice and had seen the look on his face. Donatello really didn’t stand a chance after that. Now as he stared at the screen of his T-phone confirming what he was seeing over and over, tears began to leak from his eyes, and he felt happiness for the first time in days.

The beam of the flashlight bounced, throwing erratic shadows around the room as Raphael practically threw himself into the ditch. Donnie didn’t fight as his T-phone was taken, instead using his now free hands to scrub at the tears that had soaked through his mask and were falling down his cheeks. Raph looked at the T-phone’s screen frantically, then back at Donnie, turning the screen to the genius.

“What does this mean?” he asked, his vibrant green eyes seeming to glow brighter than the electronics he held.

Donnie released a breathless laugh as he pulled a round device he had quickly cobbled together, just in case, out of his belt and set it on the ground, turning it on. The device beeped, then a green light began to slowly, pulse rhythmically.

“It means my crazy, Mikey-levels of crazy, hypothesis might just be right! Somehow, the cannon punched a hole through space, only the outer radius, maybe five inches in width, of the beam was lethal in temperature.”

“Mikey and Leo jumped; they were in the air, higher than five inches. They were practically in the middle of the freaking thing...So. So, they really are alive! Right, Donnie?” Raph questioned, holding on to Donnie’s shoulder like it was his only anchor in a storm.

Donatello felt an icy shard pierce his chest as the possibility that his brothers hadn’t survived the “spatial punch”, let alone the potentially harmful conditions inside the beam, crossed his mind, the odds he had already calculated popping up against his will. There were so many variables, so many things that could have been lethal or gone wrong. Forcing the thoughts away, Donnie met Raph’s hopeful gaze.

Hope, that’s what he was choosing regardless of the numbers and possible what ifs bouncing around in his head, besides he knew what his brothers were capable of, what all of his family was capable of. Alone his older brother and younger brother had each survived worse odds, together doubled their chances.

“Yeah, there’s a really good chance. According to everything I’ve found so far, it all suggests that the interior of the beam acted like a portal. So, everything past those five inches inwards wasn’t destroyed…just transported somewhere else.”

“How…Where?”

“Well, to answer the first one, I don’t know. Heck, the Kraang probably wouldn’t even know.” Donnie glanced at the cannon, nothing but an ugly misshapen silhouette in the dark. He grimaced, even in the event the cannon hadn’t hurt his family, it would still offend him, as a lover of advanced technology, on a personal level. “According to the Utrom all the things the Kraang stole were from so many different alien races that it’s amazing they even managed to cobble it into something functional without blowing themselves up.”

“Unfortunately for us. I think I’d have preferred that outcome”, Raphael sneered, vitriol dripping from his words.

Donnie quickly took his T-phone from Raph’s tightening grip and knelt down to compare the information on the screen with that on the device. To his relief the device had easily locked on to the same trail the sensor on his phone had found, and the periodic pulsing had begun to get faster.  

“Agreed. Now, the second question…I also don’t know.” At the look on Raph’s face Donnie quickly held up a hand, hoping to stall his brother’s building emotional outburst. “But we can find out.”

“Explanation, Donnie,” Raph said, taking a calming breath then giving him a critical look with a raised brow.

Donnie reveled in the bright burst of warmth that bloomed in his chest at the small display of Raph’s familiar attitude. Oh, he had missed that, he had missed Raph, and joy, and so many things that, if he had a say, he would soon have back, sooner now than he had initially predicted.

“The beam, metaphorically… Well, actually, quite literally punched a hole through the spatial matter that makes up the outer layers of this dimension. Evidence suggests that the space and matter inside the beam were isolated and pulled along with the force the initial burst created, while the outside of the beam, the deadly part, decayed rapidly, especially once the cannon was shut down. Which would explain why the beam, though initial readings show that it was powerful enough to do so, didn’t keep going straight through the Earth. Only the outside was in this dimension and once that was gone there was…”

“Donnie…” Raph warned, pinching the space between his eyes in a rare show of patience.

“Sorry, sorry. Okay, the inside of the beam acted like a portal that sucked anything past that five-inch perimeter through it. Now, let’s say the “fabric” that separates dimensions is very much like that, fabric, albeit highly elastic. And when the Kraang, or Utrom, or whoever is using known dimensional-traveling technology, creates a portal, what they’re doing is grabbing some of the threads, that are normally close together, and pulling them away from each other. This creates a hole, or portal that they can go through.” Donnie demonstrated with his hands, pulling them away from each other, then sticking a hand through the empty space. He glanced at Raph, and received a nod showing that the red-banded turtle was following along.

“This method of travel is relatively safe and stable, and doesn’t leave much of a trail because when the portal is closed the threads are released, and barring any complications, they snap back into place fairly quickly. The threads are attracted to each other and naturally draw tightly back together. You can’t trace the portal because, within -maybe, I haven’t had the chance to time it- a matter of picoseconds it’s like the hole never existed,” he continued, leaving out several theories he didn’t think Raph would appreciate.

“However, the beam didn’t pull the threads apart. Like I said, it punched a hole through the fabric, maybe even cutting some of the threads. Thankfully, due to the nature of the threads, the hole was relatively patched up, otherwise…Well, we don’t have time for that. Anyway, this has not only left a weak spot in the dimensional fabric but also left traces that…”

“That we can track! It’s a trail that’ll lead us right to Mikey and Leo!” Raph interrupted, excitedly, wrapping Donnie in a fierce hug.

“Well, it’ll lead use to the place they landed. But yeah we can track it,” Donnie chuckled, happy to see the fierce light in Raph’s eyes once again, despite the uncharacteristic displays of affection. “I’ve isolated the traces left behind at their strongest point, unsurprisingly this ditch, and am condensing them into a frequency that I believe we can use to open a portal to the last place the decaying beam punched through, the dimension they landed in.”

Donnie didn’t comment on the drops of warm liquid he felt on his shoulder, or the way Raph had started to tremble, truthfully not far from that state himself. He gave a soft smile and reached to pat Raphael's shell in comfort, but stopped when his brother suddenly froze.

“…Raph?” Donnie asked, confused as the red-banded turtle’s grip tightened.

“They knew…” Raph growled.

“What?”

“The Utrom! Those slimy, pink balls of flesh knew!” 

Raphael pushed himself away from Donnie as he jerked his arms out angrily at his sides, needing to move, unable to remain still with the rage coursing through him. If the storm of rage that brewed in his brother’s glare had been for him, Donnie was sure he would have backed away, but it wasn’t, and, frankly, he understood.  

However…

“It’s not their fault…”

“What!” Raph screeched, causing the purple-banded turtle to wince at the pain in his voice.

“Don’t get me wrong!” Donnie quickly defended, resentment leaking into his own words. “The Utrom are very much to blame for…a lot of this. And they know it. But not for missing the portal, I doubt they even noticed that.”

“Oh, really. They’re a race of technologically advanced aliens, and they missed it? You only have access to scraps of their machines, and you didn’t!”

Donnie turned, not only to inspect the progress of his device on the ground, but also to escape his brother’s accusing gaze as he defended the aliens they had both come to resent. It’s not like Donnie wanted to defend them and their actions, but he had to, would have, even if he didn’t believe that the Utrom had made a mistake. Because he knew Raphael, knew what his hot-headed brother would do if he didn’t.

If Raph was left to believe that the Utrom had purposefully kept him from his family, had intentionally let them believe their brothers were dead, Donnie had no doubt he would wage a one-turtle assault on them. He couldn’t let his brother endanger himself like that. Besides, they didn’t have time for it, not if they wanted to get Leo and Mikey back and prevent further complications for their friends and family in the future.

“True, but it took me watching the cannon fire over twenty times and being thoroughly tired and desperate to even start to consider the portal hypothesis. Besides, the Utrom are no doubt desperate for this whole thing to go away.” At his words, Raph growled but before he could say anything Donnie continued.

“Think about it Raphael, by concealing the fact that the Kraang had become a problem again, the Utrom committed a major diplomatic faux pas. Not only do they have to smooth the ruffled feathers of the alien races that were stolen from, but they also have to deal with the consequences of putting Earth in danger.”  

Donnie paused as the device on the ground trilled, the pulsing light becoming so rapid it now looked solid. Comparing the readings on his T-phone with those of the device, he nodded slipping his phone into his belt. After turning the device off, he carefully grabbed it and turned to look at his brother. Raph stood rigid with his arms crossed, but there was a thoughtful look in his eyes. It was clear that some of the rage had cooled, and he was starting to consider Donnie’s words.

“The Utrom can’t sweep this under the rug. It’s too late for that. So they’re just trying to make it go away as soon as possible while minimizing the consequences to themselves. It was easy for them to gloss over strange readings, not only because those readings were minimal and faint, but also because the only thing they were concerned about was deactivating the cannon and making sure it hadn’t released any harmful substance that they could get further called out on.” Donnie said, holding the device securely against his plastron with one hand, moving to place the other on his brother’s shoulder.

At his touch, Raph’s shoulders hunched, but he didn’t shake Donnie’s hand off. That was a good sign. “So, then what’s their excuse now, huh?” Raph asked, his anger still there but better under control. Donnie sighed, giving his brother's shoulder a gentle squeeze and glanced around the room.

“If I had to guess, the same excuse it was then. They messed up, badly, and that doesn’t go away in a matter of days. Honestly, that’s probably why they haven’t disassembled this base yet. Besides, if they’ve already told whoever they work with on Earth that the cannon was just a giant death laser, it wouldn’t exactly inspire trust if they came back to say that it was something else and they just didn’t look enough into it in the beginning to find out. The cannon’s been label as another Kraang super laser, and for the Utrom that’s all it can ever be.”

“Fine,” Raph said, stepping out of Donnie’s grasp more from reaching his tolerance limit of displays of physical affection than anger. “But when this is all said and done, I’m having a serious talk with them. Now let’s get out of this hole, it’s making me itchy.”

Donnie waited until Raph was out of the ditch and the flashlight beam was steady again before climbing out himself. “I’ll call April and let her, and Casey, know to meet us in my lab," he said, pulling out his phone as he picked his way back across the rubble strewn floor. “Some of the stuff on the list I gave them is going to be pointless now, but I think we have enough time before dawn to make up for it. There’s a junk yard a couple miles from here and we can…”

“Your lab?” Raph interrupted, confused. “Why not here? We’re just going to have to lug everything they found here anyway.”

“What?” Donnie paused, his finger hovering over the call button as he tried to understand what Raph was talking about. “Oh…Oh, I get it. No, we’re not building the machine here.”

“Why not? You said a trail was left behind. It makes sense to follow it where it begins and is the freshest, which is that hole back there. That’s tracking one-o-one, nerd boy.  Besides you said the fabric of the world was weak or something there anyway.”

Donnie glanced back at the ditch but continued to walk away. “I’m fairly certain the Utrom are going to make sure this base won’t be here for much longer, and with how unstable this mess has made their political alliances, I doubt they’d let us build the machine if they knew about it.”

“I’d like to see them try and stop us!” Raph snarled, kicking a shredded Kraang robot out of his path.

“Besides,” Donnie continued before his brother could work himself up again. “We don’t need to build it here.” The purple-banded turtle stopped, once he was sure he had Raphael’s attention, and showed him the device he held. “Like I said, I’ve isolated the traces into a frequency. This device has been attuned to it…”

“And that means in English?” Raph interrupted, eyeing the round device. Donnie suppressed a sigh, but still rolled his eyes.

“It means that as long as we have this device, and it’s working, we can find where they landed. The frequency will be our north, and this device is our compass.”