Chapter Text
“Leo, a little help here!” Donnie shouted, swinging his bo staff in a wide arc as three Krang units closed in on him, their mechanical limbs whirring and crackling with electric energy.
“I’m a little busy!” Leo shot back, his twin katanas slicing through two Krang droids with clean, fluid motions. Another lunged at him from the side, and he barely ducked in time. “It’s like they just keep coming!”
“Tell me about it!” Raph growled, grabbing one Krang by its tentacled face and slamming it into the pavement. He twisted and kicked another in the chest, sending sparks flying. “I’ve taken down six of these freaks and I still can’t catch my breath!”
A shriek echoed through the alley.
“Guys, a little help?!” Mikey yelped as one Krang droid tackled him to the ground. “Agh, get off!” Another leapt onto his back, and then a third pounced, pinning him under a pile of cold metal limbs and rubbery tentacles. “Why is there so many?!” he cried, flailing wildly beneath the pile.
“We’re working on it!” Leo called, sprinting toward his brother. He flipped into the air, blades flashing as he landed directly on top of the nearest Krang, crushing its head unit beneath his heel.
Donnie grunted, blocking a stun rod just inches from his face. “We need a strategy! This is getting out of hand!”
“No kidding!” Raph snapped, his sai embedding into the chest of another Krang before he ripped it free with a snarl.
Mikey finally wriggled out from under the pile, panting and clutching his nunchucks. “I vote we run! Like, now!”
Leo looked around at the seemingly endless swarm closing in from both sides. His jaw clenched. “Fallback to the rooftops! We regroup and strike from above!”
The team moved, blades slicing, fists flying, the clash of metal and shouts of brothers echoing into the night. But even as they fought with all they had, the Krang just kept coming.
All four brothers stood back-to-back, shells pressed together as the circle of enemies closed in tighter. The whirring and clicking of Krang machinery echoing all around them.
“Uh, guys?” Donnie said, scanning the swarm with wide eyes. “I have no idea how we’re getting out of this. There’s gotta be hundreds of them.”
“They just keep coming,” Raph muttered, gripping his sai tightly.
Then, with a low mechanical growl, the crowd parted. A massive Krang war machine was wheeled to the front, towering, armored, and humming with power. Its core pulsed like a heartbeat, red and angry.
Mikey’s eyes bulged. “So... should we be worried about that?” he asked, pointing at it with one trembling finger.
The machine gave a shrill mechanical hiss, and then lit up, blinding lights flaring to life along its frame.
“Brace yourselves!” Leo shouted, instinctively throwing an arm in front of his face.
A deafening hum filled the air. The light surged, swallowing them whole.
The first thing the brothers noticed when the blinding light finally faded… was the smell.
It wasn’t exactly worse than New York, but it was definitely different. Damp pavement, mildew, smoke, rotting garbage, and the ever-present sting of sewage hung heavy in the air. Familiar, yet off, like a twisted version of home. It clung to their nostrils, thick and metallic.
Mikey gagged theatrically. “Oh my God, are we dead? Is this what death smells like?”
“No, Mikey,” Leo said, scanning their surroundings with narrowed eyes. “We’re not dead.”
“Then what the hell was that?” Raph demanded, fists clenched, “What did they do to us?”
Donnie stepped forward slowly, adjusting his goggles as he studied the shadowy buildings around them. Towering spires, iron-wrought balconies, gargoyles leering from rooftops, the entire city loomed in a way that was both ancient and oppressive.
“Judging by the architecture... the air pressure... even the ambient lighting,” Donnie muttered, “I’m not sure what they did... but I do know one thing, we’re definitely not in New York anymore.”
“Oh really? I couldn’t have guessed that,” Raph snapped, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he wrinkled his nose. “The smell alone wasn’t a dead giveaway or anything.” His scowl was aimed at Donnie, but the frustration simmering beneath it had nothing to do with his brother.
Donnie ignored the jab, pulling out his T-Phone and tapping at the screen. “No shell service,” he muttered, lips tightening.
“Of course not,” Raph grumbled.
Donnie slid the device back into his belt and looked to the others. “Alright, we should head underground for now. Once it’s safe, we can try to access a library or some kind of public computer system, see if we can get any information on where we are.”
Leo nodded, already scanning the dark alley for a manhole cover. “Agreed. First, we get our bearings. Then we figure out a strategy to deal with the Krang, and whatever that machine was. We’ll need to destroy it before they use it again.”
Mikey raised a hand. “Just throwing it out there… can we not let it light up next time? My eyeballs still feel crispy.”
Leo sighed, already moving toward a nearby grate. “Let’s go. We’ll regroup and figure this out. One step at a time.”
Leo led his brothers to a rusted manhole cover tucked away in the shadows of the alley. With a grunt, he pried it open and slipped down into the dark. One by one, the others followed, the clank of the cover sealing them away from the unfamiliar city above.
Once underground, the silence wrapped around them like a blanket, thick, damp, and heavy.
“Anyone hurt? Any injuries I need to know about?” Leo asked, turning to face them. He knew none of his brothers would speak up unless directly asked. They never did.
The turtles glanced at one another, then shook their heads in unison.
“Good,” Leo said. “For now, let’s find a place to lay low. We’ve had a long day. We’ll search for a library or something useful in the morning.”
Raph immediately bristled. “Are you serious? We can’t just kick back and relax! We have no idea where we are, how we got here, or what that machine did!”
“Raph,” Donnie said, voice calm but firm, “none of us have slept in over 36 hours. If we push ourselves any harder, we risk making stupid mistakes, and that’ll just get us killed.”
“Yeah,” Mikey chimed in with a tired yawn, rubbing his eyes. “Even ninjas need naps, dude. I vote we find a place that doesn’t smell like feet and crash.”
Leo nodded, already moving forward through the tunnels. “Rest first. Then we plan. That’s an order.”
Raph didn’t respond right away, but after a tense pause, he fell into step with the others, grumbling under his breath but not arguing
Before long, Leo found a clear, dry stretch of concrete tucked beneath a rusted maintenance platform. He gave it a once-over and nodded. “We’ll sleep here,” he said, already setting down his gear and claiming a spot against the wall.
The thing about the ninja turtles, what most people didn’t realize, was that despite being brothers, they weren’t all the same species. Not even close.
Raph, for instance, was an alligator snapping turtle, the biggest and toughest of the four, but he was also the only one who couldn’t retract into his shell. Unlike Leo, Mikey, and Donnie, who could curl in and conserve body heat, Raph was left exposed in cold environments like this one.
Which meant nights like these followed a familiar pattern.
Leo lay down first, followed by Donnie and Mikey, and finally Raph grumbled his way into the center of the group. Without a word, the four turtles pulled close, forming the tight-knit snuggle pile they’d defaulted to since they were little. Warmth and comfort shared in silence.
Even now, no matter how tall or strong they got, Master Splinter always found the sight of his sons curled together like this extremely adorable.