Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

April's POV

"Go topside, they said. It'll be fun, they said!" April O'Neil grumbled as she, Cassandra Jones, and her son from the future, Casey Jones, sat in police custody.

A more accurate statement might be that April and Casey sat in government custody. Cassandra was hitting and kicking the bars as a policeman confiscated her bent naginata, Casey's tech-saw, and April's bat, shouting at levels previously thought not to be possible by human(?) lungs. 

The only good thing about it was that the policeman couldn't hear a single word from the other two. 

Or, rather, he wouldn't have been able to. Casey hadn't said a single word since being pulled over.

April nudged the future boy. 

"You doing okay, Jones?"

"I think all the police were dead by the time I was born."

It was a very good thing Cassandra was making so much noise. Unless they had much more open minds since April had last been pulled over, then it would have been a very interesting conversation.

On April's last bout to the police station, it hadn't been her fault.

It had been Donnie and Sunita's fault.

April made a mental note to check if her friends could pass for humans as well as drive in a non-apocalyptic fashion that happened to spare any and all adjacent fire hydrants.

The policeman walked up to the temporary cell they had been placed in, apparently unperturbed by Cassandra's incessant screeching until she decided to spare her lungs. April looked at the officer 

"Can we have our phone call?"

April tugged on the cord gently as the phone rang. Cassandra glowered at a man who was clearly actually incarcerated, and Casey's leg twitched as he shifted anxiously on a cold, hard bench.

"Chello~?"

April could make out Mikey's voice through the receiver and frowned slightly. She had called Donnie, right? But a garbled voice on the other end confirmed her suspicions.

"Mikey! Stop 'Chello~'ing a possible enemy!" That was (probably) Raph.

"And stop stealing my things!" Definitely Donnie...

"Hey, Donnie's stuff is fair game!" Leo.

"When did we decide that?" Donnie again. April sighed on her end and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Guys!" she said in a tone just below a shout.

"April!" Mikey exclaimed over the other end.

"Why are you calling from a station phone? I gifted you a Genius Built tech - trademarked, obviously - phone for a reason, April."

April cleared her throat and rolled on the balls of her feet. "Welp," she began, drawing out the 'e' in 'welp' before deciding to just bite the bullet and do it. "Remember when I said I'd take Casey and Casey topside to teach 'em driving?"

"Yes, we have the you-know-what all ready for them upon your return..." Donnie said skeptically.

"Well... We might've gotten into the smallest little crash ever," April could feel the crushing, expecting silence as her voice trailed off as someone dropped something. "And Casey jumped out of the window of the driver's seat, so Cass grabbed the wheel so we wouldn't crash into a pet store, and we crashed into a fire hydrant."

Silence on the other end. April chanced a glance at Cassandra and Casey and saw that Casey seemed to be expecting the electric chair. Cassandra, on the other hand, wasn't paying attention at all and was about five seconds from turning a staring-contest-turned-battle-of-wits into an actual fistfight with a definitely actually incarcerated prisoner.

"Is Casey okay?"

April nodded before she realized that they couldn't see her.

"Yeah, he's good. This lady shouted at him for a bit for jumping out of a car window and in front of her car, but he's fine now."

After a moment in which her friends on the other end seems to be taking the information in, April continued: "In any case, we still have a car with a busted hood, one grand to pay for the fire hydrant, and another three hundred apiece to Cass and Casey for driving without licenses. Mine's been revoked for a couple of weeks. If we can pay the fines now, then maybe we can get off without either of them serving any time," April explained.

"If Michael would give me my phone, then you'll be out before Pizza Week." April knew full well Donnie didn't need his phone to pay their fines, but there was no use bargaining with Donnie once you stole his phone. "Nay, within the hour!" Donnie amended, and April bet the first slice that he was posing dramatically if Leo's snickers were anything to go by.

"Thanks, Donnie. See ya in a few," April said as she placed the phone on its base.

Casey looked up at her with mild interest and pulled his jacket around himself slightly. 

"Everything's fine. Knowing Dee, we'll be out in about an hour. We'll just have to stay off the roads for now, and maybe we can practice your and Cass's driving in Repo Mantis' junkyard if Mikey can convince him."

That seemed to placate him enough, although he still looked plenty guilty as his feet shifted awkwardly.

"Sorry about the car." If April hadn't seen his lips move, then she likely wouldn't have heard him.

"Pssh, it's fine. I'm sure Donnie would have lost his mind with all his genius energy and nothing to do with it if nobody ever broke anything. Think of it as us three keeping him sane." 

Casey allowed himself to smile as April eased Cassandra out of her confrontation (fight?) by covering the ex-foot general's eyes and dragging her back by her hoodie, smiling awkwardly at the convict.

"Unhand me, O'Neil!"

April sighed as Cassandra allowed her to guide her to their holding cell.

"Good news is we're out in an hour or so. Donnie's taking care of the fees."

Cassandra pried April's hand from her eyes so that she could cast the convict one last glare, and pointed at her own eyes with two fingers, then flicking them to the convict, in an 'I'm watching you' gesture. However, even as her feet dragged on the cold floor, she allowed April to move her, which April supposed was a good sign.

As the lock clicked behind Casey, and April relinquished Cassandra, the latter sat with her legs crossed. April lay on her back with her legs propped up against the stone wall. She was suddenly exceptionally glad that they all had jackets on them, even if Casey's 'just in-case' hand warmers had been confiscated, along with everything else in their pockets and hands.

April supposed there were worst times to have been arrested, not even counting if any of them had been caught from the pictures taken during what Mikey had abbreviated to the 'Krangvasion' because boy would that have been a loaded conversation. At least by now, her human friends had learned to dress like humans, even if they couldn't drive like them.

Casey had situated himself in a corner, every few seconds his eyes would make repetitive rounds around the cell as if he were waiting for Krang to slither through the barred windows or the vents in the ceiling and floor. April sighed to herself -- the future boy hadn't given up his paranoid behaviors for anything since the invasion, barring pizza dinners and whenever the future boy played Mario Kart.

It was almost curious - Casey seemed to be trying to look for every conceivable problem known to humans, turtles, rats, or yokai whilst looking out for all of the aforementioned.

Looking back to Cassandra, April saw that the former seemed to have given up on demanding that their weapons be returned, as retrieval was imminent. Cassandra had situated herself nearest the bars in a perch-like stance.

An embarrassingly small amount of things followed in the stretching silence, especially since these were the two oddest, funniest humans she knew.

April supposed it was to be expected, especially considering that she hadn't exactly given the turtles the full story. The crash hadn't been strictly Casey's fault, and even so, he had reacted as April would have expected.

What had shocked Casey happened to be a relatively small portion - only about a foot or two in length, no more than half a foot tall - of Krang slime had emerged from a manhole.

If the phone call was anything to go by, none of the turtles were aware of it. Leo was the only one remotely capable of lying, and when it came to the Krang, the most popular reaction was to either break something or end up in a turtle pile - sometimes both, sometimes with the latter including their human friends. Either way, the turtles didn't know about the Krang's small return, and April intended to keep it like that unless Casey deemed it important enough to share.

Of the three of them, it was more his grounds for revelatory truths than April or Cassandra's.

However, after a numbing silence that stretched itself out, leaving recent events to linger with the three of them for who knows how long, April heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, girl!"

She sat up and saw Sunita - her slime yokai friend who so happened to be a cute fantastic friend and fighter - with her cloaking brooch on securely this time around, walk up to the holding cell as the hatch popped up, and she swung the door open by proxy.

"Sunita!" April cheered, and the Joneses' looked up as well. "Cass, you remember Sunita, you fought her when Leo and Donnie were dressed like old ladies and we were playing Lazer tag, remember?"

"I do recall. Lazer Tag is sacred." April and Sunita nodded.

"What's Lazer Tag?" Casey asked in a small voice, and Sunita's gaze flicked to him.

"Oh, you poor soul! I'm taking you to Lazer Tag. Saturday good?" Sunita asked instantly, and Casey blinked.

"Is it?" he responded in a tone of slight hysteria, like he wasn't sure if Saturday was cursed or not.

"Yes, you need to get out more," Cassandra said before turning to Sunita. "You were a worthy opponent, friend of April O'Neil," Cassandra said and extended a hand for Sunita to shake. "I am Cassandra Jones. You may call me Cassandra, Cass, or Casey."

"Nice to meetcha on the same side, Cassandra! I'm Sunita," the yokai said with a dashing smile that caused April to feel a little warm around the general region of her face, even if it wasn't directed at her. "Maybe you wanna come with me and your friend to Lazer Tag?"

"I shall attend!" Cassandra announced and pumped her fist into the air.

"And you've already met the other Casey," April continued, drawing Sunita's attention to her as she gestured to Casey, who was standing up as he watched Sunita carefully. Not unkindly, April made sure to note as she spoke. "Bit of a long story, so we'll tell you on the ride back."

Sunita waved to Casey, who waved back after a moment, as if realizing that was the appropriate thing to do, before offering a slightly belated smile of his own.

"Nice to meet you, Casey. Leo and Donnie are waiting for us with their ride, so we just gotta grab your stuff before heading out!"

Upon doing so, all three of them were significantly disenchanted upon the realization most of their weapons and tools had all been tampered with.

Cassandra's naginata had been visibly bent back into its original shape, although she re-bent it almost immediately.

Casey's hockey stick's chainsaw function had been removed, the small blades on their track removed separately, and he gathered them in a bag for reassembly.

Casey also managed to keep several weapons on his person, the same as his mother. Upon determining from fingerprinting that neither of them had committed any war crimes, Casey's grappling hook and Cassandra's blades were all returned, although promptly thrown out by the two, both claiming that any sort of tracer was dangerous. Besides, as Casey was quick to point out, they had a surplus back at the lair.

April's bat, it appeared, had remained untouched. She counted herself lucky Casey had used up his stash of the herbicide chemical that April had taken from one of Eastlaird's biochemistry labs that turned out to be lethal against the Krang, and the very same that Donnie had been replicating for such an occasion as today. If he hadn't, then there surely would have been questions, none of which any of them could safely answer.

But, one part of April's brain reminded her, Donnie would notice that Casey, the one whom you could count on to use resources sparingly, if nothing else, was out of the chemical, and he was the only one who had left the lair with any.

April had only just realized it as they stepped over the threshold, and saw the turtle tank within walking distance from the parking lot.

"Casey," she whispered to the future boy, and he leaned over to hear her properly. "I think we're going to have to tell Dee about the you-know-what. You're out of the chemical from my school that kills it, and you know how he gets about using it for anything short of another apocalypse."

Casey seemed to be slowing down as he took it in. "So, it's either we tell them or Donatello finds out."

April nodded. Cassandra had also slowed down, and April supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that her former enemy had been listening to the entire exchange.

"Do you want to tell them, or should Cass and I?" April whispered back, and Casey shrugged subconsciously before delivering his answer.

"I'll tell them. I crashed the car, after all."

April shared a small glance with Cassandra before Sunita turned around to look at them.

"Are you three doing good?"

"You betcha, Sunita!" April hurried to supply as the other two rushed to confirm it and picked up the pace. April could see the tank more clearly now, next to a car dealership. The large doors opened, and the four of them all checked a rough 360 degrees before entering, Cassandra pulling up the rear, and walking backward.

Casey's POV

Casey was currently regretting absolutely everything. The only good news he could gleam was that inventory wasn't ever taken until Donatello could spare more than ten minutes, back at the lair.

"Hey, could you drop me off at the Met? I've got a project I should get started on over there," Sunita - Commander O'Neil April's friend asked Donatello. Casey couldn't recall a Sunita from the apocalypse, so he figured she was either frequently gone, or had been one of the first to be killed or lost abroad.

Donnie must have nodded or something of the like because Sunita started heading towards a seat with a smile. As April and Mom Cassandra started towards the area where he assumed Sensei Leo was, he figured that was likely a better option than standing by the doorway. The retrieval was done, and he wasn't even the one retrieving, he was the one to be retrieved.

"Well, Case, good job," Casey turned abruptly and saw Leo standing there with an expression portraying vague pride, smugness, and utmost correctness. "You crashed your first car!" He held a three-fingered fist up but didn't follow through on what Casey had been sure would be a soft hit to his shoulder.

"What are you-"

"It's a fist bump, Case." Leo was looking at him like... Well, Casey wasn't sure how  Leonardo was looking at him. It wasn't a face he'd ever seen the ninja make before, closer to a soft grimace than anything else.

"You make a fist," Leo waited for Casey to follow through, "and bump it against mine!" 

Tentatively, Casey brought his fist against Leonardo's, and the latter grinned smugly, like always.

"Good job. Sometimes people do an explosion with a fist bump -" As he saw Casey's expression move in time with his rampant confusion (why would anyone have a bomb for a fist bump) he moved to explain: "Not an actual explosion! Like this, watch."

Casey did so as he lowered his fist, and Leo brought his own two fists together in a soft bump before drawing them away from each other, expanding his fists into open-palmed hands and making an exaggerated explosion sound.

Casey raised his fist again, and they brought their fists together, making that exaggerated explosion noise again.

"Nice," Leo said. Casey smiled to himself with the knowledge that he had done it right.

"Sincerest apologies for the interruption, but crashing a car is not an achievement, Nardo!" Donnie called from the driver's seat, spinning in it so that for about half a second, you could see a glaring softshell from any given angle.

"Hey, we've all done it, hermano.  That makes it an achievement."

"Since when have I ever crashed a car, dearest brother?"

"Since you tried the auto-drive program on this very tank that you came up with, as I do recall!"

With a huff, Donnie spun his chair back to the windshield. "Well, I didn't give that elderly woman a heart attack, who is, might I remind you, the same woman whose 95th birthday our dear, dear brother Raphael ruined."

"Oh yeah, how's she doing?"

"Dead! Very, very, dead, Leo! Deader than the deadliest death that has ever been accosted by you dum-dums!"

The tank came to an abrupt stop, and Casey could see from his limited view of the windshield that they were in front of a grand building, the paint job on the upper-east region looking like it had been scrubbed with a giant piece of sandpaper, due to the Krang that had, until recently, been doomed to reside on it, and very nearly did so for more than a few hours.

"Your stop," Donnie said, spinning slightly to look at Sunita, who chirped out a 'thank you' to Donnie and a 'goodbye' to the rest of them before disappearing into the crowd.

"So... How was prison?" Leonardo asked, leaning back so he had Casey, Cassandra, and April all in his line of sight.

"It wasn't prison, blue one. We were briefly contained," Cassandra spat back, with a sour look on his face.

"In a jail cell. That goes on the record, you know."

"Whatever you call it, it was boring," April said, leaning even further back and landing on her back. Casey took the moment to pull her up, and they caught each other's eye, exchanging a glance with anxious overtones.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked without hardly moving her lips.

After a small pause, Casey nodded, equally inconspicuous.

"What's everyone whispering about?"

Apparently not as inconspicuous as they had both apparently thought, as Leonardo leaned over to better hear their conversation.

"Uh- Nothing! Just something Casey's gotta talk to you guys about!"

Casey swallowed nervously. Now there really isn't a way out of this, he thought to himself. He sent April a small glare, to which she gave him a look reminiscent of one he recalled Commander O'Neil using several times whenever anyone was being particularly dense.

"Alright. Don-Tron! Casey's got something he wants to tell us."

Donnie spun around, raised an eyebrow, held a soda can, and offered it to Leo.

"Spittake," he explained. Well, there was definitely going to be a use for that, Casey thought as his internal struggle increased. "Just don't get it remotely near the controls or I will dropkick you out of this tank."

Ignoring the threat (if it was even a threat anymore), Leo just nodded before responding: "Good thinking, hermano. Watcha got for us, Case?"

Casey took a deep breath as he chanced a glance out the window - the tank was maybe two minutes out from the lair. At least that was good.

"Well... It's about the crash. It-"

Leo cut over him before Casey could deliver the blow.

"It's fine, I don't know a single person who hasn't crashed a car. If they can drive a car, they've crashed it."

"It's not the fact that we crashed a car, it's..." Casey paused and tried to think if there was any way to sugarcoat what he was about to say, dress it up and soften the blow. He decided that there was not any sort of way to do so and that the only way was to bite the bullet and spit it out. "It's the 'why.' The car crashed because we came in contact with a small portion of Krang--"

If anyone ever cared to check the Turtle Tank's camera footage, they would be able to time it down to the exact second that everything spiraled out of control.

Casey paused mid-sentence to gauge the two turtles' reactions as to whether or not he should continue. As it happened, he discovered that he should not, thank you very much, as of about two seconds later, and the tank descended into the lair. Donnie inhaled as Leo continued to stare at Casey as if he had been Krangified.

"I'm sorry, for a second there I thought you said that the Krang are back?" Donnie asked, and his voice shook at the name.

"Only a little bit," April helpfully interjected from a few feet behind Casey.

"What car did you use, I will find it and scour it until I can find how it got in there, it will be gone in a matter of-"

"It wasn't in the car," Cassandra said slowly, cutting Donnie off, and the soft-shelled turtle tapped his hand on Leonardo's shoulder a few times before Leo blinked and took a breath, leaning against the wall of the tank.

"I saw it in the road and kind of freaked out," Casey continued. "Then I grabbed the chemical that Donatello replicated and used it all on the Krang. So, sorry for wasting-"

"Sorry for..." Leo repeated Casey in a low, soft voice before trailing off, and letting out a huff of air. "Casey, we have so much of that stuff, right, Don?" Donnie nodded, looking just as stricken as Leo looked and Casey felt. "Right. So that is the least of our concerns,  mi amigo.  Right now we have to figure out how the Krang got there and found you."

"Right, right," Donnie said distantly, but Casey noted that his death grip on the chair was tightening with each moment. Leo's own gaze was banging off the walls, ceiling, and floor as if expecting the Krang to jump out from nowhere. Casey would be lying if he wasn't paranoid at the moment either, and he cursed the policemen for dismantling his own weapon.

"Well, it came out of a manh-" April cut herself off, and Casey whirled around to look at her, and his mind was firing on all cylinders again, hoping upon hope that he wouldn't see the Krang spreading across her, eyes where eyes shouldn't ever be materializing-

But there was no pink slime, no off-colored or extra eyes, no scalene tentacles or spikes protruding from the wrong places. Just the April O'Neil of twenty-two years ago (or the present, time travel was still so confusing) with a fist closed over her mouth in an expression of deep thinking.

Then her eyes widened, and as Casey reflected on his ex-Commander's words, his own followed suit.

"What? Where'd they come from?" Leo asked, a nervous laugh teetered on the edge of his tone.

Casey cleared his throat of the bile gathering there and prayed that his tone would remain steady.

"Um," Great, one word -- no, not even a word, an onomatopoeia -- in and he'd failed at that. "The Krang are in the sewers."

Chapter Text

Casey's POV

Almost as soon as the knowledge hit, they were on the go even before the tank had parked. Leonardo opened a portal (one of the most recent that didn't have anything to do with heart-wrenching self-sacrifice) and all five of them barreled out.

Donatello shoved communicators into Casey, Leo, April, and Cassandra's hands as they made their way toward the lair at breakneck speed. Both through the communicators and via Donnie's voice on his left, Casey took in the instructions.

"April, grab Dad, as well as a spare projector and fold-out chair if you must." April gave Donatello a thumbs-up and ran in the direction that Casey assumed Master Splinter must be in.

"Cassandra, wake Raph and Mikey, tell them it's an emergency and that we will explain everything later. Have them pack preliminary necessities, if it takes more than five minutes then it's too long! Bring them to the Commons when they've finished!" As she ran off to perform her duty, Casey put on a boost of speed to quicken his stride and keep up with the mutants.

"Nardo, meet us in the Commons to portal everyone and their things into the tank and to wherever we decide to go; Casey, come on."

Casey followed Donatello, right behind the ninja, almost running into the latter's battle shell as he stopped abruptly at the bottom of a narrow staircase.

"Casey, grab all the vials and pack them for us all, then get suited up." Casey nodded without argument, grateful that for the most part, the vials of Herbicide were already bundled. 

When he had finished cramming the surprisingly compact vials into a few fanny packs marked by name, he grabbed them all, dashing up the flight of concrete stairs he and Donnie had descended to get there, and deposited the packs on a coffee table adjacent to Leo. The mutant barely had time to recognize his presence before Casey was already clearing the entrance, and towards his decommissioned subway car, and decided that he'd change properly in the tank or whenever they found a resting place. He knew from experience that it was night impossible to fit most of his gear on with a loose hoodie, and he didn't have time to reconfigure his closet.

Settling for removing his shoes in favor of the (now significantly cleaner) ones he'd arrived in the past wearing, as well as donning the Genius Tech (TM) scarf, a spare wrist-mounted grapple gun, several smoke bombs, a loadable dart gun that currently held Donnie's latest tranquilizer fluid, a flask of poison that one could load in the gun in favor of the tranquilizer if they so chose (that Raph had told him multiple times not to eat), and two knives -- courtesy of Cassandra, who had adamantly stated that no son of hers, would be caught without a weapon in a time of need, no matter how many knives of her own she had to hurl to prove her point.

At the moment, Casey was incredibly grateful for Cassandra's provisions. He should be sure to thank her later.

Cramming most of it into a spare backpack of April's that she had lent him for sakes of both storage and means to sneak onto Eastlaird much more inconspicuously to not only visit her from time to time, as well as teaming up for repeated heists to obtain more Herbicide, as Donnie had recently dubbed the biochemical.

Casey took only enough time to make sure he wasn't missing anything before locking up his car as securely as possible, making sure the door was not only locked but jammed awkwardly so it wouldn't open properly unless it was obliterated before running towards the Commons.

When he arrived, April was arriving with Master Splinter on top of a folded-up fold-out chair and his projector. The rat still hadn't woken up but was beginning to. Cassandra could still be heard shouting various wake-up calls, and no less than a minute of Leo's anxious foot tapping later, she arrived at a run, Raph with a half-asleep Mikey perched on his shell, all three with bags packed. Donnie ran up from the narrow staircase as a miniature lab folded itself up and fit itself into a bag, presumably as per Donatello's instructions.

"Is everyone here?" he asked, and after a quick headcount, Casey nodded in confirmation.

"Great. Brace yourselves," Leonardo said before they all promptly fell through a portal.

As Casey looked up, he found himself to have fallen into the Turtle Tank once more, and Leo made another portal of his own to drop on top of the hood.

"Dee! Where are we going?"

Donnie looked at Casey. "What would you say our best bet is, Casey?"

Statistically, the resistance didn't have many hiding places that they wouldn't have to create from scratch now. But, then again, those hadn't worked for long. But the Hidden City... Up until a resistance member had accidentally allowed the Krang access while fleeing, the Hidden City had worked remarkably well. It would have to do.

"The Hidden City should work. So long as we aren't followed in."

"Hidden City, Nardo!" Donnie called to Leo, who nodded and made a small portal just big enough for himself to fall into, before appearing several feet above the tank, and drawing a portal with his swords that revealed, amidst the blue and white glow, the Hidden City in all its glory.

"Wow..." Casey whispered.

It was both weird and glorious, seeing the place without a single fire where it wasn't supposed to be. It very much was a mystic city. The portal was perched so that it opened on top of a roof overlooking the city from almost a skylight view.

"Why're we going there?" Mikey asked from behind him before gasping in anticipation. "Are we visiting Barry?"

"No," Donatello snipped as the tank warmed up again. No more than a second after Leo touched down inside the tank, the pedal hit the metal, and the tank crashed through the portal. Casey peered out a window at the garage behind them as they passed over the threshold of the portal, and wasn't sure to be relieved or terrified that he couldn't see any magenta goop or yellow eyes.

As the portal closed swiftly, Donnie began jamming buttons on the main console, and going off of the scans produced, he could only guess the genius was checking for evidence of Krang on any of them. He didn't seem to find anything, because he closed the scans with a satisfied grimace.

"Purple? Why did you bring us out here?" Splinter asked suspiciously. Casey could already see Donnie beginning to sweat, cracking under the pressure.

"Yeah, why're we out here if we're not visiting anyone?" Raph asked, eyes narrowed. Donnie didn't want to explain the predicament for fear of how the others might react -- the very same reason Casey hadn't broken the news when Mikey asked the first time. But Leo and April seemed to be physically incapable, and Cassandra looked too murderous at the moment to comprehend speech.

"Because..." Casey mumbled, half hoping they wouldn't hear him, only of course they did all pivoting towards him, "There are Krang in the sewers."

The pandemonium that followed was not unexpected, although it was ear-shattering as the doors opened and Donnie wordlessly walked out as Raph, Michelangelo, and Splinter all preceded to, for lack of a better term, freak the shell out.

"WHAT? HOW?"

"When did they get here? How did they get here?"

"Don't worry Raph, I'll protect you!"

Casey would have been lying if he wasn't a little reassured that the panic he'd been feeling since the Krang first emerged was reflected in the others, even as Raph, with Mikey clinging to his shell, shook him with such force that he wouldn't have been surprised if something internal had shifted.

"But," Casey continued, a little more forcefully to be overheard, and was faintly surprised when Raph stopped shaking him, only instead of letting him go, held him a good foot or two off the ground so they were on eye level.

"But what?" the biggest turtle asked, with a hint of blind, altruistic hope in his voice.

"But," Casey tried once again, "the Hidden City was one of the resistance's most well-wisher bases against the Krang, and it remained that way for four years. With the eight of us, it should be even easier to lay low until we can get rid of them."

"WOO! Yay for Casey!" Mikey shouted from Raph's shell, pumping his fists into the air before nearly falling off.

"What he said," Leo said before propping Mikey back up onto Raph. "But we still need... What's it called? Oh, yeah, a plan."

"That would be ideal," Donnie agreed, and Splinter nodded.

"What have you got, Blue?"

Leo paused for half a second.

Apparently, all Leonardo's thought fast. 

"We're going to have to split up if we want to get anything done before tonight," the blue turtle said, and although Casey knew for a fact that Leonardo was capable of being serious and was liable to have moments akin to the present, it was still a little disconcerting, going from the (seemingly) carefree Leo to Leader Leo.

"Mikey and I will scope out some food options, April and Dad, you two call everyone down here who doesn't hate us and see if they have any tips or places we can stay in the meantime. Don, you and Cassandra go and get everyone's stuff fixed, there's probably a mystic blacksmith-"

"There is, he's a jerk," Donnie frowned.

"Well, grin and bear it for the moment," Leo shot back. "Raph, you look for any hotels or hidey-holes around here on the lower side, Casey, you check the upper side.

"We'll reconvene in three hours, check-ins every twenty minutes."

They all nodded and ran off with the urgency that only caffeine-empowered, sleep-deprived ninjas were capable of.

Casey was fairly adept in spotting things other people couldn't - in the apocalypse, it was something to be proud of.

This was why it was vaguely infuriating that, after two of the three hours had already passed, he couldn't find anything helpful, remarkable, or not.

'Soundcheck, who's still there?' April's voice, sounding a little tired, but active, sounded out from Casey's wrist communicator.

"I'm crossing over... I think the Mystic Library? Still nothing."

'Yeah, that's a no-go unless you want to end up in the kiddie room.' Donatello's voice rang out, and Casey could hear sounds of interference mixed with what he assumed were supposed to be sounds of shuddering turtles.

Casey did not know or have a particular desire to know what the kiddie room was or why to stay out of there.

"Anything on your ends?"

'Raph still hasn't found anything,' Casey could hear the turtle's gruff voice over the comms. At least they were both shooting in the dark. Not ideal, but Casey took comfort in the fact that he wasn't being thrown completely off the deep end this time.

'The purple one has fixed our things, future child!' Casey couldn't help but let out a noise of victory of his own at that news. He'd been feeling on edge, to an intensity he hadn't ever felt before, with his saw out of commission. Several times he'd only made it out alive because of his weapon, and with the Krang supposedly returned, a feeling of helplessness had been ramming his chest.

'I've called Sunita, she's recommended a few places, but they'll all be closed by the time we can reconvene,' April explained, and Casey frowned under his mask.

'Weeeell,' Leo's voice drawled, 'Mike and I are doing a-okay, we're not starving anytime soon.' 

'Expiration dates?'

Someone - probably Mikey - let out a long, dramatic, and wholly deliberate sigh. Donnie let out a 'tch' sound over the comms.

'Two weeks.'

Casey was sure that everyone felt the tense pause as someone - undoubtedly Donnie - took a deep breath.

'We need to fix this, STAT.'

'No, not because the aliens who are very good at possessing people are in our abode, but because our store-bought food expires in two weeks. Loving your logic.'

'Boys!'

Perfect silence. Weird... Casey had never met Splinter, being a rat and as such having an infinitely shorter life span than turtles, so he had only heard stories as a child. Apparently, those stories were true. Their rat dad really could render them all silent whenever he decided to intervene. Casey wondered if it would have done much against the Krang.

'You all need to focus. Check in again after twenty minutes.'

'You got it, Pops.'

The comms went silent again, and Casey sighed before he leaned against a wall for support. To his utter shock, an irregular symbol in the wall began to glow, and the bricks opened around it, providing him with an opening. Casey immediately pressed himself to the side before peering inside the now-open wall. On the other side, he could see a tall building with a huge sign titled 'The Grand Nexus Hotel' from a perch on the continuing rooftop.

'The Grand Nexus Hotel'

Hotel!

Casey gasped and flipped up his mask to see it for himself. The sign indeed read 'The Grand Nexus Hotel', just as his mask lenses had portrayed.

"Yes!" He whisper-shouted to himself before crossing a foot over the threshold, and when nothing terrible happened, stepped over completely.

2034

"And if you throw it like so..." Big Mama, the silver-tongued and silver-haired spider yokai told an impossibly young Casey Jones, a cloaking brooch in place so that the latter could adequately mimic the former's stance as they both held a throwing knife.

Big Mama watched Casey Jones as she swung her arm in a swift, deadly arc, not letting go while her gaze seemed to gently dare the child to do so. Never one to actively disappoint as long as he could help it, Casey followed through, and the weapon nicked the target in the desired spot.

"Oh, how diddly-doodly excellent. Why not have another go?" Big Mama offered and handed her own weapon to the six-year-old. After all, six-year-olds born into a hellscape should know how to properly defend themselves, shouldn't they?

However, before Casey could do so, the pair heard shouts from the hall beyond them. Shouts of a familiar woman, more specifically from an ex-Foot general.

As the door burst open, it was indeed Cassandra Jones, black hair growing in, with a slightly panicked, boarder line fanatic gleam in her brown eyes that, had Splinter still been with them, might have recognized from Cassandra's mental breakdown before aiding the Hamato clan in defeating the Shredder.

She glanced at the scene: The boy whom she had claimed as her child was standing a good five feet from a target, another knife on the floor a few inches from it, presumedly thrown. Cassandra's eyes met Big Mama's who had an eyebrow arched in vague surprise at the interruption.

Casey, on the other hand, seemed to light up at his mother's presence, and hugged her, still holding the knife, while being very careful not to cut her with it.

"Are we required elsewhere?"

Cassandra's eyes snapped to the disguised yokai, and for once, she seemed to be internally deliberating her response. She glanced down at her son, still hugging her around her middle. Cassandra could make out a muffled "You came back!" before she gave him what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze before nabbing the knife from his grip in under a second.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" he asked with wide eyes. Cassandra seemed to hate-love it when he made that face -- then nobody could tell him no.

"Sounds like a tomorrow thing, doesn't it? Why don't you go see if Master Raphael needs any help with the provisions?"

They both knew full well that Master Raphael didn't need any help with the provisions, what with his incredible strength, combined with his mystic powers, while weaker since the Krang's mystic-nullifying screeches had entered the playing field, still made for some impressive feats. But, Raph,  as he had Casey, Cassandra, Commander O'Neil, and the other turtles call him, always liked Casey's presence, and vice versa.

Casey nodded eagerly before running off.

Or, that was what his mother thought he'd done. He wasn't blind to Cassandra's panic and pressed himself against an impossibly small vent to be able to hear them.

Back inside, Big Mama's eyebrow was still arched as Cassandra retrieved the first knife.

"Am I required elsewhere?" Big Mama amended her former statement.

"No. I just returned from a deadly extraction excursion to find that my child is nowhere to be seen. While, to the best of his mentor's knowledge, he was uninjured, none of them knew where he was. Currently, they are a hairsbreadth away from tearing this place apart in the search. Thank the spirits he hasn't been hurt under your watch, or you'd have no appendages to hurt him with."

Cassandra held the knife three inches from Big Mama's good eye, the other having gone into disrepair after a Krang attack.

"I trust that the others know what they are speaking of when they speak of you -- you intend to reopen your accursed Battle Nexus and Grand Nexus Hotel the instant this wretched era passes. I will not allow you to drag my son into it."

On the other side of the wall, a tiny ear pressed to the vent, Casey frowned. He never liked it when his mom got scary like that, and figured he'd better go find Raph, or whoever he ran into first.

It wasn't particularly hard to find the search party, with the ruckus they were causing, Krang invasion and secrecy be darned.

"Casey?" 

Casey looked around and found that Master Raphael's tone was a searching one, the one someone used when they were searching through rubble for survivors.

"Casey?"

Upon a second listening, he found that Master Leonardo was with him too, both of them sounded like they were on the brink of panicking when everyone else would normally have gone to leave the room while they collected themselves.

But, despite his gut instincts, the only thing that would make them collect themselves would be for Casey to find the room they were in, which was relatively close by. 

"Sensei?" he had asked tentatively, waiting for a response.

"Casey?!" the aforementioned turtle's voice cracked slightly, and as two pairs of feet smacked into the metal flooring, Casey thanked anyone out there that he hadn't gotten cut on a knife.

He could make out a faint 'Did you find him?' before two masked faces popped out from around a wall.

"Casey!" Master Leonardo repeated, and swept him up, off the ground in a firm hug, before Master Raphael caught them both in an even tighter one. "Where were you?" Master Leonardo asked, with a faint laugh in his tone.

"Over there with Big Mama," Casey said, a little confused as to why they were looking at each other like that as he pointed in the general direction. "Then Mama found me, and I think she's mad at her?"

"Why don't you two find Mike, Don, and April, they're all still lookin'," Master Raphael suggested, before starting off in the direction Casey had indicated.

"You got it, big guy."

Present Day

For Casey, even now, no longer six, the strangest thing had been the hostility towards Big Mama after the fact. Having lived through some of the worst days of the invasion, he knew how not knowing someone's location for extended amounts of time could build into a panic, but it had happened plenty of times before - he had once been watching Master Donatello - When he was Uncle Don -  work since he was one of the quietest people in the resistance that Uncle Don trusted well enough to allow in his lab.

However, with both of them so enveloped in their own thoughts, they had forgotten to notify anyone as to where Casey was, and Uncle Don was assumed to be in his lab more often than not. However, when Master Michelangelo had found them, he'd merely made Uncle Don promise that, unless he wanted Doctor Delicate Touch sicced on him (Casey still needed to ask Mikey who that was, whenever he'd asked Master Michelangelo, he'd just smile oddly and change the subject idly, and anyone else would pat his head and say he was better off not knowing) he would tell them whenever anything like this happened ever again.

But after the incident with Big Mama, he'd accidentally overheard several more arguments between her and various resistance members.

But Big Mama ran the Grand Nexus Hotel. Besides, Casey was all but completely out of options.

It was worth a shot, anyways. He'd play it safe and not tell the others who ran the place, no harm no foul.

Chapter Text

Casey knew the vague layout of The Grand Nexus Hotel after a short time of camping out there before the resistance had conceded to retreat further to the Hidden City.

Therefore, he could also sneak around the humans who might have found it odd that a teenager had as many undisguised weapons on their person as he did.

He recalled the Yōkai part of the hotel being idly pointed out to him by the owner herself, though Commander O'Neil had made sure to shuffle him a clear ten feet from Big Mama, not two seconds after the fact.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Casey stopped stock still, pressing himself against two firm beams where rafters would usually be. A smarty-dressed fox Yōkai was looking up at him and glaring. Infinitely glad that his mask was down, therefore hiding his 'oh dear, I've been caught' look, Casey tried to fade back into the shadows, but the Yōkai raised a walkie-talkie.

"Wa-Wait!" That stutter was definitely louder than intended. Dang it Casey, He thought to himself and regretted not taking Donatello up on a voice filter after he got to repairing everyone's tech after the Krangvasion.

"Why should I?" the Yōkai had a strong English accent, similar to what little he remembered of Big Mama.

"I am here on behalf of Lou Jitsu, you know, Master Splinter, and the turtles." After an agonizing silence wherein Casey glanced to the side awkwardly, daring not to move his head, he added: "I'd like to speak to Big Mama."

He raised the walkie-talkie and spoke into it.

"Big Mama, there's a human on behalf of Rat Jitsu and them bleedin' turtles."

Casey could make out a sweet English accent: "Oh, well that won't do, will it? Send the human in."

"I'll be sending you in, then," the Yōkai said with a huff, and Casey made to move towards the doors with a sigh of relief. 

"Great! Then I'll just--"

But the Yōkai tossed a small, purple, circular device at him with a smile that didn't bode well for Casey.

"Now, what do you think you're doing down there?"

Casey looked up and felt for his mask, which was still firmly on his head. Confirming that he wasn't suffering an aneurysm, he stood up shakily as dots flickered in front of his eyes.

"Apologies, Big Mama," Casey stuttered, climbing to his feet.

"No worries. Those portals tend to be a bit disorienting, do they not?"

Casey couldn't help but agree, taking the time to ingest what he was looking at. Big Mama, in her human disguise, was sitting behind an ornate desk in an even more ornate room, watching him.

"Now, who might you be?" she asked.

"Casey Jones, ma'am."

"Is that a common name amongst humans? I've already heard of one Casey Jones, and her fighting prowess is incredible... However, her temper and lack of manners are not something Big Mama would particularly agree with. It doesn't seem that you struggle with those to the same degree, though, yes?"

Casey smiled at the praise a bit before Big Mama spoke again.

"Now, what is it that you need from Big Mama?"

Casey cleared his throat before speaking.

"Well, you've probably heard about the invasion that the Foot Clan caused, right?" Big Mama nodded, prompting him to continue. "Well, as you probably know, it's recently been averted. But, the turtles' home was destroyed in the process and invaded by the same beings that we thwarted. Due to a few complications, we had to evacuate." Casey paused for a moment before deciding it was now or never. "I happen to be aware of your problems with your Battle Nexus, and I was hoping that we could help each other."

Big Mama raised an eyebrow loftily. "Problems? What problems are you suggesting that Big Mama has?"

"Your Battle Nexus contestants. Between the fight with the Shredder and the invasion, there hasn't been a moment to breathe for anyone, and several of your contestants were lost, right?"

"Indeed they were," she admitted. "What exactly are you proposing?"

"I'm proposing an exchange of services," Casey elaborated. "If you allow us adequate rooming in your Grand Nexus Hotel, then I will fight in your Battle Nexus as a form of payment."

Big Mama looked genuinely surprised by the offer. "How extravagant that would be... The last human in my Battle Nexus was one of our best Battle Nexus Champions. However, Big Mama has some terms and conditions of her own."

"Of course," Casey said while trying to hide his nervousness.

"You will not be allowed to speak of our transaction. I shall place you and your comrades in a hotel owned by myself, entirely in the Hidden City. All feeds of your Battle Nexus fights will be omitted from this hotel. However, for each fight that you win, you may take as many provisions as you see fit."

Casey thought about it. In the grand scheme of things, a fairly reasonable deal. Again, it wasn't like he had much of a choice. They were counting on him - after everything, he could at least give them this. Only until they spliced together a plan to eradicate the Krang.

"I think we have a deal."

Big Mama brightened. "How splendiferous! I shall expect you back here at midnight at the latest," Big Mama said and handed him a slip of paper with an address written in loopy penmanship.

Casey knew he was going to be late. It was five minutes after the meet time and climbing, and even if the apocalypse wasn't a threat anymore, Casey would understand if everyone absolutely lost it and went on a long tirade. However, it was similar instincts that kept him from turning his communicator back on -- for fear of hearing the panic in everyone's voices.

Luckily for everyone's vocal cords, Casey's grapple guns had a long range, and he made it to the meeting spot only eight minutes late. He'd been later before. Granted, he'd been several hours late that time, and the response he'd been met with was more one of great relief that he was okay.

Shaking himself out of the memory, Casey landed on a rooftop near the spot where they were supposed to meet up. He noted that Leonardo and Michelangelo both had boxes of pizza, assorted fruits, and other things Casey couldn't quite name, but seemed appetizing enough. Donatello and Cassandra seemed to have gotten all the gear fixed to a working degree, and April, Splinter, and Raphael didn't look hurt.

The only off-putting thing about it was that they were all in the very beginning stages of panic. Casey supposed he should have seen it coming -- the last time someone had gone AWOL, it had been after Casey had come to the past, with Raphael getting temporarily Krangified and Leo throwing himself into the Prison Dimension with Casey's help.

As Casey began making his way towards the group at a run, with the plan of calling out to them once he was within good enough earshot.

April spotted him first and gasped.

"Casey!"

The others looked up, and for a split second, Casey could detect a bout of fear in their eyes as if they were afraid he would be grievously injured. Before he could dissuade their fears, April caught him in a tight hug, her bat lay forgotten. "Aw, Future Boy, you're okay!" she squealed, and Casey couldn't help but smile.

"M'fine," he said, his voice muffled slightly as he extended a thumbs-up toward the others. It had the desired effect of calming them as Mikey all but attached himself to Casey's side.

"You all have to stop doing that," Donnie said, and to the untrained ear, it would come off as nothing but exasperated. However, everyone's ears were very much trained and could decipher the nodes of care, concern, and fear for the safety of the family team.

April finally let him go, although Mikey still kept himself wrapped around Casey. Casey's arms dropped to his sides, and he stared at Mikey. 

"You're stuck with him for a while," Raph said, accurately reading Casey's expression and Michelangelo nodded in confirmation.

"I don't suppose you found anything while you were on... extended leave, did you?" Donatello asked with an eyebrow raised, and Casey was reminded of the innate power that Uncle Don had possessed for most of Casey's time knowing him: One to make anyone ashamed in record time, rivaled only by Doctor Delicate Touch.

"Actually, I did find a hotel for us to stay in." Donnie's cursory glance turned into one of great surprise, and Casey continued. "And I did a bit of... haggling, so room and board, and any provisions we might need are free."

Now, everyone was sharing Donnie's expression.

"Wow, Future Me got good at that," Leo said with a smug expression.

"Leo, the only thing you can talk your way into is a paper bag. It was probably Cassandra," Donnie said with a smug look of his own, and Leo gasped, not offended.

"Yes!" Cassandra shouted and brought Casey in for a tight squeeze. "Now, let us go reap the rewards of your excellent bargaining!" she exclaimed, and Donnie led the way toward the Turtle Tank.

Unsurprisingly, it was fairly hard to move with a mutant turtle fixed around one's waist. However, it is still possible. So, when they found the tank and Casey gave Donnie the slip of paper containing the address, he chose a corner near the back of the tank where he and Mikey could comfortably rest.

Before long, Michelangelo had fallen asleep and Casey sighed. Mikey had decided for the both of them that they were staying put for the remainder of the ride, so Casey took the time to take inventory of his surroundings. Leo was containing the food he and Mikey had brought with them in a hidden compartment in the wall, Raphael was talking to April and Cassandra, the three of them in the available chairs, while Donnie drove in the fourth.

"Here you are." Casey whirled about again and saw Splinter, holding Casey's weapon out for him. He accepted it with a nod.

"Thank you."

"You have done well, Future Boy. Now, you should rest. Don't think I don't know you haven't gotten much of any while you've been here," the rat reminded him. Casey nodded and held his weapon a little tighter as he did so.

"I'll try," he said with acquiescence, wondering if he should respond or not. Master Splinter nodded in return, before moving towards the front of the tank, presumably to check on Donnie and the tank's progress. However, Casey wasn't sure what either party ended up saying, as sleep swiftly claimed him.

"Casey?"

"Casey, it's time to go!"

"Huh?"

Casey sat up slowly and rubbed some sleep gunk from his eyes. The first thing he was aware of was that Michelangelo was no longer attached to his midriff, but sat on top of him, and was shaking him. Casey let out an odd, choked noise at the realization of a face being that close to his face. In the Resistance, that only happened if someone was dead, they were under attack, or both.

He snatched his weapon, and the chainsaw emitted a visceral sound as it was activated. Michelangelo jumped back, off of him, and onto the tank floor.

"Sorry! That wasn't a great idea," the turtle admitted and extended a hand to help Casey up. He took it and deactivated the chainsaw function with a sheepish expression. "But we're here!" Mikey announced with an equally sheepish tone and accompanying jazz hands.

"Sorry about the chainsaw," Casey muttered, and Mikey smiled. 

"Don't sweat it! Cass has accidentally almost decapitated someone so many times, it's normal!"

"It's not my fault none of you know how to wake somebody up!" Cassandra accused him, and Mikey shrugged. Casey peered out of the tank and saw that the hotel was definitely... Grand. Not that he had expected anything else from Big Mama.

"'The Hidden Estate'," Leonardo read aloud. "Class-ey," the terrapin added, enunciating the 'ey' sound.

"Quite. Reminds me of The Grand Nexus Hotel's architecture, if I do say so myself, which I do," Donatello said. "Where did you say you found this place, Casey?"

Oh no. "Someone was handing out the... uh, address!" Casey fumbled, trying to think of a quick escape.

"Weird," April said, and Casey hoped for the sake of their impending homelessness that she didn't press it.

"Big Mama always had a heavy influence on the Hidden City," Master Splinter piped up. "It is possible that this extended to the architecture."

The group approached the door, and the pompous doorman scrunched his snout at the sight of the group while relaxing once he realized they required no assistance with their bags. He opened the door for them, Casey stared at the ceiling, which was one of the tallest he'd ever seen, with a glass dome for the very top, and staircases in the open air.

"Ohmigosh!" Mikey exhaled at the sight. Casey managed not to stop his pace and continued to the check-in counter. Effectively leading the group, he stopped at a desk and attempted to smile at the clerk. The clerk nodded, and instead of asking for the usual things that a clerk would (or at least what he assumed one would ask for, like money), he nodded and handed Casey a piece of paper.

"Floor six, dual room eighteen, both on the right. Have a nice stay, " the clerk said in one breath with a placid expression.

"Thank you, sir," Casey said and backed out as a peacock bellhop seemed to appear from the void.

"Whoa! Hello!" Raph exclaimed to cover his shock, and they all followed Splinter and April's lead, depositing their bags. As April pried Cassandra's naginata out of her grip and onto a padded section of the carrier, along with her bat, Casey, and the turtles figured that they had better do the same.

The bellhop led them to the elevator, and Casey found that almost an entire wall was covered in numbered buttons. The bellhop pressed the button marked '006', and then Casey felt the ground move. 

He let out an involuntary noise and scrambled to balance on the handrail, and braced himself against the wall while holding the overhead sconce for support. The others looked at him in confusion for a moment before April smacked her forehead, and whispered to Raph.

"Casey's never seen an elevator before, much less been in one, Raph!"

Oh. Right.

This was probably something from the past. Maybe this was supposed to happen.

"Case, this is what elevators do," Raph said, and Casey would have believed him, under any other circumstances. But the metal crate they were hurtling around in was still moving, and the floor could definitely still fall out under them, or the crate could just drop -- they'd been rising for long enough that the impact could kill them if nobody responded fast enough.

Donnie seemed to pick up on his worries as Casey's eyes darted in every direction they could. "Elevators, even ones in the Hidden City, are science-based, young Casey. I will show you in great detail once we get to our rooms if you wish." The thing was that Casey did wish so, very much. But technology, well, all technology except for Donnie's, could malfunction.

"And if it breaks?"

Donnie tapped on his wrist screen a few times as the bellhop took on an expression both offended and confused.

"This elevator is structurally sound, and I will be supremely shocked if it does break. However, if it does, Raph and Leo's mystic powers should be sufficient to save us. The only remotely unsafe thing here is hanging on the light fixture," Donnie added pointedly, and Casey descended the handrail carefully.

"You good, Case?" Leo asked, and Casey nodded shakily as the floor continued to move under him. The bellhop struck Casey with a piercing look of judging, but going on how April, Cassandra, and Mikey all whirled to look at him, seconds before the glare dropped, Casey could only imagine what looks he was caught with. Most likely something concerning Doctor Delicate Touch. 

Before he could think on it for too long, the doors opened, and the bellhop carted the carrier out into the hall, led the group down the hall, and stopped in between two rooms marked '618a' and '618b'.

"Alright, so who goes to what room?" Raph wondered aloud.

"New York is still in a state of disrepair, and my apartment won't be ready for a bit. My mom is under the impression I'm staying with normal, human friends, so I've gotta hang around for a while," April said. 

"My home as well," Cassandra confirmed, and that stuck all eight of them in the hotel.

"Wanna room up?" April asked, pointing at her, and Cassandra let out a 'whoop', holding her fists above her head in victory.

"Mind if Mikey and I join you two?" Raph asked, and April gave him a thumbs up.

"Sounds great, bud!"

Which left the second room to Casey, Leo, Donnie, and Splinter.

As the two groups entered their rooms, Leo tried a door directly to the left and revealed a tunnel-like space. He knocked on the expanse of wall, which turned out not to be a wall at all, but a door. 

"Chello~?"

April opened to door and gasped. "You guys, Leo found a tunnel!"

Mikey's voice called out in response: "Awesome! Hi, Leo!"

Casey turned to the rest of the room, which held two beds, a couch, and several comfortable-looking chairs, one of which Splinter immediately hopped into. Donnie sighed and walked into the tunnel.

"APRIL!"

"WHAAAT?"

"Do you have papá's projector?"

April sighed audibly, and after a bit of shuffling around, Donnie emerged with a small rectangular, metal box, which he set up on a stool, and after a bit of typing on his wrist screen, what Casey assumed to be television began to play.

"Oh! Thank you, Purple," Splinter said, and Donatello nodded with another sigh and frown.

"Yes, yes, papá." He turned to Casey, and his eyes brightened instantly with manic determination. "Now, come, Casey, and I shall treat you to the mechanical wonders of the elevator!" Donnie led Casey up a short flight of stairs to a loft area. "But I must say, you must be excellent at striking deals, this is an excellent hotel and room deal."

Casey smiled proudly and tried not to think about how Donnie might react should he know how Casey made the deal in the first place. As the pair ascended the stairs, Donatello threw himself into a spinning chair and brought up a 3-D holographic display of a rectangular crate with several wires and cords protruding from it. 

"Sit, Casey," Donnie instructed and pointed to one of the loft's two beds.

Casey obeyed and leaned his weapon against the bedpost.

"Now, Casey, all elevators, mystic or human in origin, contain a motor at the top of the shaft that turns a sheave -- in layman's terms, I suppose a pulley -- that raises and lowers cables attached to the cab and a counterweight. Gears connect the motor and sheave in slower systems. Faster elevators are gearless; the sheave is coupled directly. In mystic elevators, the cables are reinforced with mystic energy from..." he paused and pursed his beak in a grimace, "Witch Town. As purely unscientific as the practice is, it does its job, and the chances of an elevator in the Hidden City failing is half that of an elevator failing topside."

"How big of a chance is it?" Casey asked nervously. Donnie looked like he hadn't been expecting a question at all, and his clipped, bored tone took on a more rejuvenated node.

"Why, I'm glad you asked, Jones. The chance in human elevators is approximately one-thousandth percent, so the chance of failure in the Hidden City is approximately five millionth percent." as he spoke, two holographic numbers appeared next to the model -- '0.001%' and '0.000005%'. Granted, the small odds did make Casey feel a little better.

"How do they know which floor to go to, and when to stop?"

If possible, the turtle's eyes got even bigger, and Casey could almost feel his sheer glee at Casey's interest by proxy.

"Every good modern-day elevator has an automatic landing system on elevator control where the elevator stops at each floor. Whether the elevator system utilizes geared or gearless traction, hydraulic lifting technology, or mystic power, all elevators use a landing system that controls the leveling of the elevator. However, the technology used will vary based on the age, application type, the speed of the elevator, and whether it's in the Hidden City or human territory. The landing technology may include systems that utilize switches or magnets in the hoistway, or selectors in the machine room driven by cables or tapes. In the case of the Hidden City, numerous spells and the like resort to levitation and cushioning spells. From the push of a button, the electrical signal will run through the cords and redirect the car to its allotted position."

"Is it possible for an elevator to get stuck?"

"Theoretically, although it's incalculably small. To escape, you would need to either pry the doors open, assuming the doors on the other side were within reach and open as well. If not, you should then make a hole in the ceiling of the car, and climb to a set of doors, and pry those open." Casey smiled a bit, but Donnie wasn't done. "Elevators used to free fall in the event of a power outage, but nowadays, they all have their own power sources enough to keep the lights on and stop the car completely until power is restored to the facility."

"Wow."

"Yes, yes," Donatello said, and his expression read like he had ridden an emotional high, and was now crashing down to Earth once again. "Now shoo, I've hit my social quota until dinner in a few hours."

Casey stood up and snatched his weapon with a small smile. "Right! Thank you, Donatello!"

He could have sworn he heard Donatello mumble something about formality and 'the respect was nice the first few times, but he's practically family, for Galileo's sake'.

"Alrighty, mi familia, dinner's up!"

Casey looked up with a start and saw Leo, dragging Donnie from the loft and into a portal, which, if the blue light from the passageway was any indication, led to the other room. Casey hesitated a moment and decided to leave his weapon by the couch for once. He could still snatch it if things went south... Besides, weapons were left out of meals, whenever Michelangelo managed to corral everyone for one.

Casey walked through the tunnel after Splinter (Donnie had turned the projector off from through the tunnel) and saw that Mikey had pressed some chairs and side tables together by the couch, giving the illusion of a dinner table.

He took a seat next to Cassandra and April as Leo transported numerous pizza boxes with his portals.

"Alright, cowards--"

"'Excellent start to dinner,' he said sarcastically," Donnie deadpanned, and Leo shook him off.

"As I was saying, cowards, we're trying every single pizza Run of the Mill had, has had, or ever will have so we can get Case and Cass' favorite pizzas for Pizza Week!"

"What's Pizza Week?" Casey asked, and Raph frowned.

"Pizza Week is--"

"In three weeks, and we shall not speak of it until then, Raphaela," Donatello said.

Wait... Leonardo had said 'favorite pizzas'...

"Is there more than one kind of pizza?"

"But of course, young Casey. Currently, there are roughly six hundred and eighty-seven types of pizza and several subcategories."

"BUT-" Mikey began, "Run of the mill didn't even have a hundred. Only fifteen! Something about 'the option to consume that much oil and cheese being hazardous to anyone's general well-being'," he finished with the last statement on mocking quotation marks.

"Cowards," Cassandra growled darkly.

"Exactly. Until we can find all pizza ever made, this will have to do."

There was a lot of pizza in the world. There were fabled styles of pizza like Chicago Pizza (pizza could be places?), Greek Pizza, and Neapolitan Pizza.

But none of those were available or affordable, given that Donatello's 'definitely legally acquired money, thank you very much' was locked away in a series of continuously smaller safes, not unlike Matryoshka dolls, in the lair.

The pizza Leo and Mikey had managed to acquire had been due to several well-placed coupons and favors to Señor Hueso for saving the world.

Casey still (for now) preferred pepperoni pizza, but it could just be attributed to trying to eat fifteen slices in three hours.

After muttering some good nights, the groups separated once again. 

Casey checked the time.

8:14 PM.

Plenty of time.

When Leo, Donnie, and Splinter were asleep, he checked again and rolled onto his back on his bed to sit up.

9:52 PM.

He crept, as silently as possible, towards his weapon. Logically, he knew that Donatello would have placed a tracker not only on his weapon but Casey himself.

Sneaking out of a hotel room packed to the brim with actual ninjas was a loaded enough task, and Casey had no idea how he'd managed it.

He supposed that had he not been taught some ninjutsu of his own by his Sensei, he wouldn't have.

Evading hotel security was an easier feat. 

Until it wasn't.

"Kid! What do you think you're doing?"

Was it that obvious he was a kid? He had his mask on.

"You're that human Big Mama has signed up for the next few fights."

Casey turned around, and a hotel staff member was holding up a candid picture of Casey. 

He had to get better at stealth.

"Yes, sir."

"Follow me."

So he did.

The staff member led him down a long hallway, and into a door marked 'STAFF ONLY'.

The employee flicked a switch, and sickeningly dingy lights flickered on. The employee walked to a technical-looking control board and pressed a few buttons in quick succession. Casey leaned over to see the employee type in 'Battle Nexus' on the circular keys, and from a slot rolled out a small, purple sphere.

Oh, no.

Portals.

Why did it have to be these portals?

Chapter Text

Casey's POV

After yet another aneurysm-inducing portal experience, Casey straightened up again and made sure all his weapons were securely where they were meant to be. 

"Why, aren't you early?" 

Casey pivoted and found Big Mama, but not as a lean, if not slightly bony, woman -- as a large spider of imposing stature with wide jaws, tall jowls, and scraggly green hair. 

"Yes I am, ma'am," Casey swallowed and braced himself. Big Mama smiled in what Casey assumed was meant to be a genial fashion.

"Good, good. You will be allowed into the arena in five minutes. I take it you do not have a stage name?"

What the shell was stage name? "Uh..."

"I thought not. Not to worry. All you need to worry about is fighting in there."

That was fine. That was easy.

He could do this. 

Casey was idly aware of an odd violet mist filtering into the room but paid it no mind as Big Mama departed. 

All he had to do was keep this a secret from the turtles, and he would be fine. Better yet, he'd be bringing in some more food, so Leo wouldn't have to stack an abnormal amount of coupons and favors to get pizza for practically free. He'd done enough for them, all Casey had done was lock him in the Prison Dimension with no hope.

But he could make up for that, hopefully. All he had to do was win, and he was very good at that.

It was one of the few things at the time that he knew how to do.

In no time at all, the doors swung open, and Casey pulled his mask over his head as he ran into the arena.

The only thing he could glean from his situation was that he seemed to be the only one in the arena to the naked eye, but his mask scans were picking up an extra life form.

Then something caught him in the small of the back.

Casey crashed down to the ground, and his mask was the only thing keeping him from eating the sand. Planting his weapon into the ground and digging it in as hard as possible, he pulled himself up and hit a button on the side of his mask, improved after Donnie had insisted on upgrading everything Casey owned.

He recalled the turtle insisting that it was due, and they had nigh-infinite resources at his disposal anyways. Since the invasion, Casey's mask had several vision filters that Donnie had on his goggles for mystic energy and several variants of electromagnetic vision, including infrared vision.

Which was exactly what he needed. Being invisible didn't render someone's body heat null, which was something that had been learned the hard way in the future after Uncle Don had perfected cloaking tech. It was stupid to run in front of the Krang, even if you weren't strictly visible.

As Casey's vision switched over, he could see a hulking figure, pulling back for a second hit with a large fist. Casey threw himself out of the way by twisting his weapon like a pole, tugging it out of the ground and landing on his opponent's back, and brought the blunt end down on what he could only hope was the figure's head. It connected, and Casey could hear a yell of pain as he was thrown down. Unfortunately for Casey, there was no good place to grapple, as the place was open air. Well, nuts.

It was all Casey could do to fall small, in as tight a ball as he could pull himself into. He pulled out of the roll with one knee on the ground. He turned back while mentally thanking every Hamato ancestor he could think of, and fired his grapple gun at the ankle of the brutish fighter. Casey pulled and used his hockey stick as leverage to brace himself. Casey pulled the line taught with his free hand, and surprisingly enough, his opponent fell to the ground.

Casey smiled behind his mask, scrambling up, and drove a boot in between his opponent's eyes.

He didn't get up. Alive, if the short huffs of gasping breath were any indication.

The stands promptly burst into cheers, and Big Mama must have announced Casey as the winner, not that he could hear over the deafening noises surrounding him.

The doors swing open again, and a burly man dragged the once-invisible fighter out of the arena, and another beckoned him to follow. Casey did so, sparing only one glance back at the crowd. As he did so, he could only pray that whatever Big Mama was using to block this footage from the turtles would work. Mentally apologizing to his Senseis and Master Splinter, he turned back to the doors and headed through.

The man nodded towards a corridor. "You can get your provisions through there. Last door on the right. Back here tomorrow night, same time."

Casey nodded in gratitude and began a steady jog down the hall. Taking the last right, he opened the door to another lobby, complete with several portal stations. He supposed that the portals were just one thing he'd have to bite the bullet and do.

He snatched some sustenance and enough medical supplies to last them all a day or two, boxing it up as fast as possible. No matter how many airtight deals he struck, he was only doing this for the others. Fighting in an arena with literal gladiators wasn't really on his to-do list. 

Just for another week or so. 

Then he could go back with the others and pretend this never happened.

Thankfully, Casey's return was easier than his exit. Bracing the door to exit as slowly and quietly as possible, he set his packages of food and medical supplies by the table where April and Mikey had dumped anything remotely useful and resolved to flop on top of his bedding. He idly recalled that one was meant to lay under a few layers of bedding, but he was far too tired to care. Besides, it wouldn't do to trip over the various blankets delegated to him if trouble arose.

If it did, that meant it was on him.

This hotel had been his call, after all.

And so, with only his weapon and worries for comfort, Casey fell into a doze.

"Case?"

The tone was in such a way that a node of fear ran through Casey. That tone was only needed when someone was injured, sick, dead, or otherwise decommissioned.

Casey sat bolt upright, and almost head-butted Master Leonardo. Taking another route, he rolled, pressing his hockey stick to his body, and stood up as his eyes flicked around for a possible threat. Everything (and everyone) seemed to be okay, if not a little confused. Donatello peered inside the room and raised his eyebrows.

"Everyone is perfectly fine, Casey," he said in a low tone, his voice carrying despite being across the (fairly large) room.

It took a moment for Casey to take the words in, and even longer to fight the urge to find the others and lock them all in the room if not to just keep them all safe. However, after almost half a minute, the feeling passed, and Casey realized that Donatello had held his gaze the entire time when most people would have looked away from the awkwardness of it all.

Then again, Donatello, in Casey's timeline or this one, never seemed to care about such trivial things as an uncomfortable amount of eye contact.

Casey's shoulders sagged, and Donatello nodded, returning to whatever he was doing. Leonardo stood slowly, and Casey looked down at his hockey stick before leaning it against the wall.

"You with me, Case?"

"I-- Yes."

"Awesome. Nightmare?"

Casey supposed that could be a working explanation for the next week, or however long this took. He nodded, and Leonardo took a few slow steps closer.

"Are you feeling up to breakfast? Mikey's pulling something together," he offered, and Casey sniffed the air. There was a certain aroma, now that he stopped to think about it. A good one, he decided.

"That could be nice," he decided, and Leonardo's usual smug grin returned, in the genial way that Casey had taken to mean that all was well.

Casey peeked around the corner and winced as he became aware of the pain in his back and thighs -- no doubt a result of his Battle Nexus fight after hitting the arena floor. The makeshift table was filled with so many things that Casey didn't have names for. One thing he was sure of was that it all smelled amazing.

"Smell something you like?" Leonardo asked, and Casey could only nod. "Yeah, that's what you get when you combine Mikey with expensive hotel food." After another moment, Leo clapped Casey on the back lightly and headed through the makeshift kitchen. "Good talk. Get some food in you."

When Casey did eventually make his way through the kitchen to the tables and couch that served as a dining area, Mikey was there to greet him, and upon discovering that Casey couldn't do more than vaguely describe what looked good, took him on a culinary tour, telling him all the different names for the food, and what they went well with, whether or not it was smart to microwave it, when you should disregard microwave rules, and what you could use ranch and ketchup with. 

The consensus was to not take advice from Donnie on food, which both April and Leonardo agreed to.

The only thing that Mikey hadn't told him was what was a favorite of the others. Not wanting to overstay his welcome in that regard (not like he had anywhere else to go) he took a muffin from a plate that looked largely untouched after the others had been forcefully roused. Casey also didn't want to intrude, painfully aware that he was more on the outside than any of the others, Cassandra included. He perched himself on a tall stool, ignoring the open space on the couch that nobody seemed to have occupied once seated.

If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that Raphael looked downtrodden and a bit abashed by his decision.

"You sure you're not gonna grab anything else, Case?" the largest turtle asked, and everyone's eyes turned to him like moths to a flame. Because apparently, moths were a thing that existed and liked fire. Michelangelo's eyes narrowed at him, and climbed over everyone on the couch, leaving Donatello and Cassandra with partially seething glares as he perched himself on top of Raphael, who looked considerably less annoyed, and peered at Casey's near-barren plate.

"Boy, you gotta eat more!" he declared, and Casey was sure that if he were a turtle, then he would have retreated into his shell.

However,  instead of launching into a tirade aided by Donnie, Mikey just shifted on his feet and looked him in the eyes.

"Casey, if you wanna kick Krang butt, you gotta eat an actual meal! Or Raph'll bench you. Raph, back me up here!"

"Sorry, Case, but you gotta eat," Raphael agreed with a sympathetic glance.

Casey felt his internal organs shift uncomfortably. If he was benched, he couldn't help, and if things were similar enough to his timeline, he'd be under lock and key. 

Being under lock and key would mean that he was barred from going to fight in the Battle Nexus. That would get them kicked out, homeless, and Casey most likely exposed.

None of those things could be allowed to happen.

Needless to say, Casey ate what Mikey dubbed an acceptable breakfast.

"I should weaponize people's insecurities more often!" Mikey thought out loud. 

"Absolutely not!" Donnie bit back.

"But it still worked," Mikey beamed. "And I didn't have to break out Doctor Delicate Touch!"

Casey shuddered. Doctor Delicate Touch had been certifiably terrifying when facing the Krang. Casey always wondered why the aliens never turned tail and ran for the hills after the fact. 

Unfortunately, the following day was fruitless for them all. Well, except for Donnie, who had procured more Herbicide. And so, after a meal that, if Casey wasn't lying, was a tad overwhelming, and he was sure the others were asleep, he crept out of the hotel room again.

Down the now familiar route, Casey met a janitor who was conspicuously mopping one square inch of floor repeatedly. The janitor nodded and walked Casey to the same cramped closet. He supposed he was either getting used to the portals or becoming desensitized to them.

He couldn't be sure what Big Mama said to him. He could only focus on the mist announcing his presence, with his head nodding of its own accord every few minutes. Big Mama gave him a firm pat on the shoulder with her spindly, disguised hand. The gates opened, and Casey took affirmation in the fact that he could properly see his opponent. A bear-like Yōkai with multiple heads. Not the worst odds he'd ever faced.

Promptly, without much thinking behind it, to the extent that Casey wasn't even sure he'd moved until he saw the Yōkai's many heads flick to him from above as the saw on Casey's weapon drove into it.

Whether or not the Yōkai was dead, Casey couldn't be too sure.

Somehow, he found that he didn't much care. By a stretch of logic, he could truthfully say that this Yōkai was standing in the way of the continued shelter and resources that the others needed to reconvene and best the Krang.

So, technically, this Yōkai had been, for all intents and purposes, allied with the Krang. 

He knew that had the Mad Dogs heard his train of thought, they'd have something to say about it, but that was the problem. They weren't here. Because they could not be allowed to know.

Blinking any vague guilt from his expression, he found himself in the lobby.

How had that happened?

Casey shook his head and retrieved a few containers of strong pain meds.

Somehow, Casey blinked again and found himself climbing into his bedding, with the meds still in his hand, clenched unreasonably tight. He allowed his grip to slacken as an uncomfortable feeling crept up his spine. He tossed the meds into the pile of supplies.

He wouldn't have to do this much longer, he told himself.

He wouldn't have to do this much longer, he told himself a little over a week later.

Casey pulled himself out of the room for the tenth night in a row.

Much more Herbicide has been synthesized- Ergo, he was in the final stretch.

He nodded to the janitor as he was led into the supply closet, the predictable pattern of buttons pressed.

Casey found himself behind the gates, and the only thing he could see was that purple mist...

Leonardo's POV

As nice as the hotel was, it was tripping more alarm bells in Leo's head with each passing day. Why hadn't he vocalized those alarm bells, one might ask. 

For one, Mikey seemed convinced that Casey needed the boost of self-esteem, and Leo agreed that the future boy deserved a win.

For another, his family was full of very literal learners, and they likely wouldn't believe him without cold, hard, proof.

So Leo had temporarily let it go.

He sat up in his bedding and looked at the clock. Almost nine in the morning. At least he wouldn't have to wake anyone up. Stumbling into the makeshift kitchen, still blinking the sleep from his eyes, he couldn't help but take a head count. Mikey and Cassandra were in the kitchen, the former trying to teach the latter to cook.

Well, wasn't that wasn't a recipe for disaster. Raph, Donnie, Splinter, and April were by the couches, communicating mostly via miscellaneous grumbles.

"Morning, Leo!" Mikey exclaimed as he and Cass carted a few plates of food from the kitchen.

"Hola, mi familia," Leo grinned impishly.

"Could you go wake Casey? He hasn't ever slept this late, so I was gonna leave him, but it's a normal time now," April said like it was the first thing she'd said today.

Leo offered her a mock salute and departed once more. And usually, it wouldn't be a problem. Casey seemed to be integrating himself well-ish, with a few bumps along the way, but he was making it. As a product of it, they were all learning how to interact with Casey out of the field, which the future boy didn't have a lot of experience in.

Upon learning such a thing, the Mad Dogs, Leo included, all took the forefront in getting Casey to experience the non-apocalyptic world. world But there was a problem this time.

Casey wasn't there. 

Frowning, Leo checked the whole hotel room, and feasible spots that Casey might like to hide. He knocked on the bathroom door and checked the other room. Still no Casey Jones.

Casey Jones was missing.

Chapter Text

Leo's POV

Leo rounded the couch, and landed on his side, an arm propping his head up. "So..." he trailed off, and Cassandra raised an eyebrow.

"So... What?"

"So... I can't find Casey..."

"You lost him?!" Cassandra shriek-shouted, and Leo was suddenly reminded of how she'd come off as Foot Recruit with all her shouting. "You. Have. An actual. PORTAL SWORD!" she yelled, and wrenched him upright, shaking him violently.

Raph, April, and Donnie peered in next. Oh boy. The whole kitten caboodle.

"What did Leo do?" Donnie asked with half-lidded eyes.

"He. Lost. CASEY!"

"How did you lose Casey?" April griped, and Leo rolled his eyes. 

"I didn't lose him, Apes. Do you really think so low of me?" he smirked.

"Yes. Indefinitely," Donnie deadpanned. "Only you could lose a person in a confined hotel room, Leonardo."

Ouch.

"I maintain that I did not lose him! He was already gone! I just noticed."

"It doesn't matter who lost him if we lost him!" Raph shouted.

"I digress. We gotta find him."

"YO, POPS! MIKEY!"

"WHAT?!"

"LEO LOST CASEY AND WE GOTTA FIND HIM!"

"I DIDN'T LOSE HIM!"

"Whatever. Leo and Donnie hang back here in case he finds his way back, we need backup, or we get communication on the other side of the Hidden City," Raph said, and Leo shrugged.

"You're the boss, boss-man," Leo said, idly recognizing that he didn't even have to enact a definitely real plan himself.

"Also because Leo definitely lost him."

"What part of 'he was already gone' do you not get?!" Leo shouted exasperatedly.

But go they did, so Leo and Donnie stayed.

"Remind me, dear brother, how did you lose a teenager in a hotel room?" Donnie said with a smug smile and raised a drawn-on eyebrow.

"Oops," Leo said in a sing-song voice and shoved Donnie off the couch.

Donnie gave a mock gasp. "You wound me." Regardless of whether or not Donnie was, in fact, wounded, the legs of his spider shell stood him up and supported him in a recreation of a chair as he tapped his wrist screen. Leo swung around the couch so he could see, and Donnie tapped Casey's name, and the option 'force-stop communicator preferences'. Moments later, continuous static was emitted from it. Nobody picked up.

Both of them frowned and glanced at each other, quarrel forgotten. Donnie typed rapidly a bit more and selected the tracker option. As a holographic map popped up, they scanned the scene for an icon depicting Casey as the icons for Raph, Mikey, April, Cass, and Dad spread out, and even Leo and Donnie's own icons could've viewed. But no matter how far out Donnie zoomed, Casey's tracker couldn't be seen anywhere.

"How'd he take it out? I injected it into his bloodstream, by Galileo!" Donnie exclaimed.

"How'd you do that..." Leo asked nervously. "Know what, forget that. This means wherever he is, he either doesn't want to be found or someone else doesn't want him to be found."

Donnie nodded absentmindedly. "I can't believe these words are about to leave this body, but I do think I'm at a loss."

"Eugh. That's bad."

For a moment, they were both silent.

"Think the Hidden City has a missing person's channel?" Leo asked.

"Until inspiration strikes," Donnie said like he was quoting some old, dead guy. 

The hotel room had a TV, but it had exactly three channels. Which really sucked when you needed a pick-me-up.

Donnie wedged himself into the space between the TV and the wall. Upon realizing that he couldn't see squat of what the other ninja was doing, Leo stepped back, in view of the TV.

"Try channel three," Donnie's muffled voice called out.

Leo flicked to the channel and was met with a soprano opera singer. "Soap Opera."

Donnie let out an annoyed hum, and a few sparks illuminated his face. "Channel seven."

"Trashy romance flic."

"Hallmark channel, I assume. Annoyed sigh. Try channel ten."

"Reality show."

"Channel thirteen?"

Roars of applause rang out, different from the canned laughter of the reality show.

"The Battle Nexus," Leo blurted before he could register the fighters. One of them bore a resemblance to-

And the screen returned to static.

"Duly noted," Donnie muttered.

"Wait, back it up."

"To the Battle Nexus?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's crazy," Donnie muttered, but did it anyway, and peered out of his rut in the wall for the heck of it. Leo had been right, and he did recognize someone from the screen.

Casey Jones, with his mask down. He ran at two tag-teaming mutants, without any of the fluidity he usually did. His movements were rigid and exact, almost like they were pre-planned.

"What did you do, Jones," Donnie said, and Leo could only shrug blankly.

"We need to get him out."

"Well, leader, do we wait for the others to return?"

"What? Course not, we're headed out now. We'll let Raph know so he doesn't... Pull a Raph," Leo thought out loud and snatched his katanas.

Donnie spoke into the comms but was met, again with static.

"Nardo. We've been made."

"So we make an escape, hermano. We'll write Raph a note.

Minutes later, there was in fact, a note, taped to the front door of the second room reading:

Nardo and I have caught a lead and we're going out. Communicators are shot, so don't bother. With luck, we will return with Casey by tonight. Don't wait up.

Donatello

"Nice."

"It's to the point!"

"I said it was nice!"

Casey's POV

Casey wasn't sure of much anymore. He'd come to himself in a holding cell one second and find himself over another Nexus champion the next.

He couldn't explain it away or justify it to himself, but there was one undeniable fact:

He had to get out of here.

Curiously enough, whenever he found himself attempting to formulate anything resembling a plan, consciousness would, once more, pass him by.

This was one of those times. He sat in the holding cell -- whether or not it was consistently the same one was a mystery to him -- and found himself wishing that he had somehow slipped up and that the turtles would find him.

That Leonardo or Master Splinter would give him advice.

But being trained by the greats meant that you could easily fool the past greats.

Casey faded from consciousness again, and nobody came.

His last fleeting thought was that he would have given anything to be in trouble.

Chapter Text

Donnie's POV

Two years ago, Donnie would have called his current situation both foolish and impossible.

Now he just called it foolish.

Not that it deterred Leo in the slightest.

Granted, it didn't deter Donnie either, as he rapped on Big Mama's door. The door in question swung open, and there was Big Mama, the stealer of tech, future boys, and (somehow) papá's heart.

Love was an odd thing, wasn't it?

Donnie and Leo shared a look -- Double Bad Cop Method -- trademarked by Donatello -- was a go.

Normally, Raph and Mikey would play the two good cops. In Donnie's opinion, this way would be much more enjoyable.

"Hello, turtly-boos. What can Big Mama do for you?"

Donnie smacked his hand on the table.

"We know what you've done with Jones!"

Big Mama blinked at him for a moment and snapped her spindly fingers as if she didn't know exactly what Donnie was talking about.

"Oh! Your other human! The new one."

"Casey."

"Yes, yes, that." 

Leo and Donnie both narrowed their eyes at Big Mama.

"He's quite the exemplary fighter," she continued.

"Yeah. He's also a, quote, unquote, 'Mad Dog', endquote, patent pending. So, we'd like to have him back."

The spider Yōkai frowned. "I don't think I can do that, deary-doo's. He's one of the best fighters my Battle Nexus has had since Lou Jitsu. One of the fastest, too.

"And you know what they say," she went on. "Those who burn brightest burn fastest."

Donnie and Leo both jolted a bit, before regaining their respective composure.

If Donnie didn't know for a fact as undeniable as the fact that two negatives made a positive that the only thing he, Leo, and Big Mama could agree on was that Casey Jones needed to survive, then he'd have thought that Casey's life had just been threatened.

"Big Mama! Mamma mia!" Leo interjected with the same stupid smirk that clued Donnie into the generalization that whatever Leo was about to say would be abhorrently idiotic.

"Look, you got someone we want, and we got a couple-a someone's that you might want. Collab-or-at-ion! Let's make a deal!"

Donnie's official evaluation: They were doomed.

"Nardo, over here a moment," Donnie said with a pained smile as he dragged the other turtle over to a corner. In a harsh whisper, he all but yelled: "What in the name of the broken space-time continuum happened to the Double Bad Cop Method?"

"Well, Donatello," Leo said in the voice he used whenever he wanted to sound smart, which never worked, "I've gotten in and out of the Battle Nexus before. C'mon, you can trust ol' Neon Leon, yeah?"

Donnie pulled a face. "Fine," he conceded, for some reason, drawing out the 'i' in 'fine'. "But if, and, or when this backfires -- because it will -- I take absolutely no responsibility and concede all fault to you."

"I can live with that. Now let me do the talking."

They pulled back from their huddle and returned to Big Mama's desk. Leo put his elbow on the desk. "Where was I? Oh right, deals! Unless you're feeling nice and wanna give us Casey from the get-go, then we would be fully willing to compete in your Battle Nexus! If we become total CHAMPIONS, then we get to withdraw and take Casey home with yours trulies. How's that sound?"

"Both of you would be competing?" Big Mama said with intrigue in her voice.

"As your newest dynamic duo, obviously!" Leo said, hooking an arm around Donnie with another stupid smirk.

Donnie's head turned on a dime to look at Leo. He couldn't possibly mean for the two of them to fight in the Battle Nexus, even if it was for Casey? Of course he did, it was Leo. Donnie decided he was leaving everything to April.

"Hmm... That would definit-oodly bring in quite the crowd..." Big Mama thought out loud and clapped her hands together pleasantly as Leo opened his mouth a bit to add onto their already heavy wager, and Donnie kicked him. "Yes, that will do nicely!"

Donnie felt his last bit of hope die inside.

"Oh yeah, if we die, April's leader and Cass gets to lead the revenge mission."

Donnie's head whipped towards Leo. "What."

"If we ninja right, we'll be fine!"

Donnie doubted their ability to ninja in and out of the Battle Nexus, with a possibly delirious or otherwise incapacitated Casey Jones, even if all of their 'mad skillz' had been significantly improved. Be that as it may, they made their way down a corridor where Big Mama awaited them for their first match.

"Now, what shall your stage name be?"

"Ooh! I got this one, I got this one, I got this one!" Leo repeated exuberantly.

"Don't make it anything too bad," Donnie sighed. 

Leo scoffed. "I would never! I got this!" Donnie doubted that immensely. "How's about... The Disaster Twins?"

Now, an important thing to understand was that Donnie and Leo weren't twins, the term was merely a formality. Nobody, not even Draxum (Donnie had checked) was sure of any of their actual birthdays, only that Raph was the oldest, and Mikey was the youngest. It put Donnie and Leo in the awkward position of middle children. Neither was too sure how old the other was, so Splinter had proclaimed them twins, and Leo had gone with it, full force. Since the discovery that they shared some of the same DNA, and accepting that Leo wasn't ever going to let it go, Donnie had just gone with it.

But this was different.

Leo was using the technically incorrect term as a stage name for them. As Donnie whirled to look at the traitorous turtle he called his brother, Big Mama smiled sourly again.

"Splendiferous!"

Oh NO.

"You are dead to me."

"Yeah, yeah, yuh-huh, you'll be thanking me when we get Casey, safe and sound, all due to my glorious plan and our glorious name, nobody the worse for wear."

"I'll believe that when Cassandra has one calm conversation to her name."

Donnie didn't think he was being over dramatic when he caught the glisten on malicious gleam in Big Mama's eyes and knew they were, if not doomed, definitely in for it. He counted his blessings that the first thing he rebuilt, aside from the Lair's crucial functions, was his tech bo. After getting his ninpo locked, the massive beatdown cleared a few things up for Donnie. It had reminded him of what April said to him in Witch Town: 'I don't think mystic powers is better than science. If anything, they're stronger together!' 

Therefore, it was only logical that Donnie should have a more offensive backup, should his ninpo fail again. As a potential countermeasure, he had rebuilt his tech bo/multi-tool. Besides, if he had to be stuck in the Battle Nexus, he needed as much of a grasp on what he was doing as he could manage, and he had one of the most impressive grasps on technology in living memory (of the Hamato Clan).

"Dead to me," he muttered. Leo shrugged, and Big Mama ascended a set of stairs above them, and the pearly gates of no return opened.

The pair walked into the empty arena. Donnie felt his grip tighten on his staff. 

Truth be told, he felt the opponent land via the ground vibrations before he saw it. That tracked, as the figure seemed to be a glorified boulder.

"Oh, nuts."

The glorified boulder in question brought its hand down on top of Leo, but one flash of blue later, and the would-be crushed turtle appeared on Donnie's left. He and Donnie held their weapons to their sides, glanced at each other, and nodded. They moved at the same time, running in opposite directions. A portal in front of Donnie appeared, and he jumped through, rolling to a stop on the boulder yokai. He ran up the rocky terrain that was his opponent's arm and swung at what he assumed was its face.

The hit connected, and even as he leaped from the yokai and towards the ground, he felt gravel shower him in all of his bodily regions. 

Ow.

He turned to find Leo, just as he dove through a portal, and in midair, sliced one of his katanas through the air. A portal sliced through their opponent's midriff, and as Leo rolled to a standstill in the dusty sand beneath their feet, the second portal opened, and a small rock slide cascaded down a small hill. From a few paces away, Donnie figured someone around Mikey's size would be able to bury themselves in it comfortably if it didn't happen to be made of rocks.

Donnie was then suddenly aware of all the gasps and subsequent cheers from the onlookers as Big Mama's voice boomed from the speakers overhead, declaring Donnie and Leo the winners. He bristled as the noise grew, and dug his fingers into his staff as a means to divert his attention. Casey couldn't have burned through many opponents while here. Deep down, Donnie knew that was wrong. Casey was the future son of Cassandra Jones - the queen of receiving an inch and taking a mile. If he was anything like her, he'd already be at five miles.

Mikey's POV

If a day could be the most boring while being the most exciting without any life-threatening encounters, then this day would be it. 

Whatever it was, it rendered Mikey completely exhausted.

"YO, DONNIE! LEO!" Raph shouted, and to his surprise, neither of their brothers called out in acknowledgment.

"Prolly just salty we left 'em here," April assured Raph, and peered into the room Mikey had last seen the two in. When she drew her head back, she frowned, and her lower lip jutted out.

"BLUE ONE! PURPLE ONE! SHOW YOUR COWARDLY FACES!" Cassandra screeched, and Mikey could swear he heard her voice crack. She must have been under a lot of stress, aside from the obvious wonder of the consequences reaped from her infamous betrayal of the Foot Clan that had gone down in Mikey's memory of 'Irreplaceable, Badass Moments', right next to Mikey and his brothers unlocking their ninpo.

But Donnie and Leo didn't pop out of whatever hidey-hole they had disappeared to. 

Which was probably because they weren't in one.

As Mikey rounded into the second room and gave the place a cursory glance, he noticed something that hadn't been there before - a note attached to the door. He gave it a quick read-through.

"APRIL!"

April stepped backward into the room with a raised eyebrow. She read the note.

"RAPH!"

Raph pulled a pair of reading glasses from seemingly nowhere, and after finishing with them, threw them across the room and cupped a hand around his mouth to shout. 

"POPS!"

Splinter, looking maybe even more tired than Mikey felt, gave the piece of paper a read. But before he could declare a verdict, Casey Sr.'s voice shook the walls.

"Why are the blue and purple ones in the Battle Nexus?!"

"WHAT?" all four of them shouted, and darted towards Cassandra's voice, which was attached to Cassandra, who was standing in front of the TV.

Sure enough, in all their glory, Leo and Donnie decimated a pair of eel yokai. Mikey could just stare. But why would they go to the Battle Nexus, the note had said they were getting Casey Jr. back...

Oh.

Mikey glanced at the note, and he felt his mouth turn into a line. 

"Orange one! You know something!" Casey Sr. declared, correctly, and fixed Mikey with a hard stare.

"Wha-- Know something? I don't--" he tried to scoff, and Casey Sr.'s glare intensified. "Casey's in the Battle Nexus," he caved in a high-pitched voice and sunk into his shell a bit until he could barely see anything above it.

"What?"

"Casey's in the Battle Nexus," Mikey repeated.

"We must retrieve him at once!" Casey Sr. declared and raised a fist.

"But we don't know where in there he is," April said. "If we're stealing Future Boy, Leo, and Donnie from the Battle Nexus, we gotta be prepared."

"April is correct," Splinter said, and Mikey frowned. It made sense that they were right and all, but that didn't change the fact that he wanted to hurl another boat or maybe a building.

Casey's POV

Casey wasn't aware of a whole lot, and, quite oddly, he wasn't sure he wanted to be aware. His recurring moments of consciousness after an untold amount of time trying to pry some sense of clarity from whatever was inhibiting him were always either standing over a broken, often bleeding, body, or lying on the cold floor of a small room.

On that hand, it wasn't really worth fighting.

But on the other, the darkness brought forth things that Casey knew wasn't possible. 

His sensei, Master Michelangelo, his mother -- but not as they were. Not even in this new timeline, his brain groggily reminded itself. Different-bad. 

But he could never exactly get his brain to correlate what the different-bad was, or what it meant. 

All he knew, whenever he tried to think of them, past or present, was that he had no idea where they were, or if they knew where he was. He supposed that if he gave up, he wouldn't have to think anymore.

Memories would blur past him, and pain -- real or phantom -- would be nothing more than a momentary itch, while the oppressive force did its own dirty work. Fighting with sheer will wasn't working, clearly, and Casey didn't have enough of a moment to breath to recuperate.

Besides, he thought to himself, Master Leonardo had told him to get the key, stop the Kraang, and grab a slice. He'd done all of those. Technically speaking, he'd done all he'd been told.

Donnie's POV

Casey had apparently gotten very far. Donnie and Leo had burned through solos, duos, trios, quartets, and a fair few quintets within the span of less than twenty-four hours. Technically, they could have called it a night five hours ago, but Donnie and Leo knew as well as Big Mama did that Casey hadn't been home, or whatever they could call the hotel, in days, and if they wanted him back, they would have to resort to similar tactics.

He popped his knuckles and picked up his Tech-Bō, which had been knocked out of his grip in the last fight. He hadn't had to use his mystic powers yet, which might serve as a testament as to how Junior had moved through enemies so quickly.

"YO, DON! YOU GOOD?" Leo yelled across the arena, and Donnie lifted his Tech-Bō by means of a thumbs-up. "COOL!"

A portal opened a few feet from Donnie, and Leo jumped out of it as three new opponents emerged. None of them were Casey Jones. Donnie felt his shoulders sag a bit, and Leo shook his arms out. "If the next one isn't Casey, then we'll lie down for a bit," Leo assured him, and Donnie nodded.

Without further ado, they both ran for the enemy. Donnie noted that none of them were completely static with their physical features, with a few defining enough to differentiate them from each other. The one he was running at had twin chipped horns. Leo was taking a serpentine Yōkai, and the third seemed to be made entirely of smoke. Donnie figured it would take a heavy duty fan for twin propellers to take that one down.

He tacked his Yōkai head on, and they pulled out several throwing knives. Donnie managed to evade the stabs and block those he couldn't with his Tech-Bō. He delivered a kick to their knees, and they went down for a moment before knocking Donnie down in a sweeping kick. Once he managed to get his legs under him, Donnie backpedaled, flipping away from them, and triggered the rockets on either end of his staff, flinging it. His aim was true, and hit the horned Yōkai head-on. 

The staff returned to him, and he smirked. "Checkmate."

"Is it?" was all the painfully annoying Yōkai responded with.

"Uh, pretty sure. You're down. I'm up. That's called winning."

As it happened, these Yōkai seemed to have an entire deck of cards, comprised entirely of aces, up their sleeves. Because no later had Donnie spoken, then a voice that he was sure he'd never hear again spoke.

"You really think you won? The thoughts of fools. Strength always prevails, you wretched, little PEST!" Donnie whipped his head about, and gaped as Krang Prime, in the mech, emerged out of one of Leo's portals. Leo was on the ground, pinned by the serpentine Yōkai, some sort of tendrils digging into his temples. His swords were scattered in opposite directions, far out of reach, as the mech's clawed hand reached for Donnie's brother.

"LEO!" he screamed, and scrambled to get away from the horned Yōkai, and kicked them in the face.

He crossed the distance between the groups in almost no time at all, and swung his Tech-Bō into the stomach of the serpentine Yōkai, and grabbed Leo under the armpits as the tendrils retracted into the Yōkai. He began to run, as well as he could, to buy them time. He readjusted his hold on Leo, keeping a firm grip on his shell. Leo's head dipped momentarily, and Donnie glanced down as Leo came back up with one of his blades.

"How did he--" Donnie began, but Leo was already shaking his head.

"I don't know," he responded, sounding breathless.

"Must be some sort of fear-seeker, or mind reader," Donnie thought out loud. "The horned one was just a distraction, though."

Leo groaned, and when Donnie turned to him, pointed at a mass of smoke from the other side of one of his portals. A small mass of smoke, half transformed into Krang Prime. Donnie gaped, and Leo continued to stare, dumbfounded at the odd sight.

"A shapeshifter!" he gasped, and Leo turned to him slowly, a slow smile creeping onto his features.

"Oh, HO, YEAH, BABY!" Leo cheered, and twirled his swords. Donnie retracted the barrier, and twirled his Tech-Bō to his side. Leo dashed out from cover, just as flamboyant as ever, diverting attentions as he took on the serpentine Yōkai, kicking the Yōkai across the arena, and drawing the attention of the horned Yōkai. Donnie ran at the other side of the portal, where the smoke Yōkai was, still partially transformed into Krang Prime. This one was getting the special treatment. 

It was one thing to fight them, Donnie couldn't fault them for that. It wasn't like any of them knew that he and Leo were here to rescue Casey, or even who Casey was. But it was a whole other thing to use people's memories against them. Donnie turned one end of his Tech-Bō into a rocket, and kept into the air, aiming for the Yōkai.

"FIBONACCI!" He yelled, and slammed it into the back end of the Yōkai. It was surprisingly tangible, and the rocket completely disrupted the form of Krang Prime that the Yōkai had been assuming. The Yōkai proceeded to counter-attack, the clawed hand of the Krang mech swiping at him ferociously, and Donnie ducked, sweeping around it, and stabbing his Tech-Bō into the eye of the sentry.

Someone let out a horrendous screech of a scream, and Donnie whirled about, seeing the serpentine Yōkai screaming, holding their eyes. Leo was about three arms lengths away from the Yōkai, looking confused as he turned to Donnie, and saw his Tech-Bō buried deep in the half-transformed Yōkai.

"YO DONNIE! I THINK THEY'VE GOT SOME SORT OF HIVE MIND!" Leo shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"So it's a mutual butt-kicking, then? Nice!" Donnie muttered to himself, gave Leo a thumbs-up, and popped his knuckles. He grabbed his staff, and twisted it in deeper before wrenching it out. The smoke writhed, and Donnie could see the horned Yōkai sent hurtling into the wall through a portal.

The smoke Yōkai shifted into a hand waving a white flag, and the crowd let out a chorus of 'boos' in slightly concerning volumes. Donnie even caught some sort of Hidden City smoothie tossed in the vague direction of the Yōkai waving the flag. Donnie did the mature thing, and poured the contents on the Yōkai before wrenching his staff out, and wiping the residue the Yōkai had left on it off, and slinging it over his shoulder. Leo slid, from seemingly nowhere, right next to him, and put an arm around him.

"Doing good there, Don?"

"Doing beautifully," he responded in a dry tone as the three Yōkai were dragged off by Battle Nexus staff. One Yōkai stepped up to them.

"Are you two staying for another fight or heading out back?"

"We're gonna hang around, you know why not continue the streak, ey, buddy? You know how it is," Leo said with a wide grin. The Yōkai looked at him with tired eyes, nodded and wrote something on a form, walking off without another word.

"I bet he's fun at parties," Leo quipped, and Donnie elbowed him in the plastron. Not enough to really hurt, but enough to nudge him. "Alright, alright! Last one for tonight, then we'll take a breather."

"Think he got injured? Maybe there's a different bracket if you lose," Donnie offered, and Leo removed his arm from around Donnie.

"Alright, new plan. If this next one isn't Casey, then we take a short breather, and then we go do a little poking around for Casey. We know Big Mama isn't letting him go home, so he's gonna be somewhere around here."

Donnie had to admit, for the total lack of information they had, it was a decent plan. "Sounds half-baked."

"Do you wanna wreck shop or not?"

"Oh, shop is going to be wrecked. Shop will be eviscerated by us, Nardo," Donnie raised a fist for bumping, and Leo smacked his against Donnie's, manic grins growing across their faces.

Almost on cue, purple mist poured from the gate where new opponents entered. Leo's grip on his swords shifted, and Donnie held his staff perpendicular to his body.

He could only just make out a pair of glowing green eyes, roughly level with his own, inside the mist. Whoever owned the eyes ran from the mist, dashing at almost superhuman speeds. It took Donnie a second to register their opponent, and he flicked his goggles down. His identification system registered the figure as none other than Casey Jones Junior, and as Donnie flicked the goggles up, Leo had come to a similar conclusion, his face lighting up. Donnie felt his shoulders relax. Finally, they could get out of here. They just had to calm Casey down.

"Casey!" Leo exclaimed, and sheathed his swords before jogging towards his friend. Casey was also running at him, his weapon at his side. Donnie frowned, and started at a run. As Casey and Leo were nearing each other, he grabbed Leo, and pulled him to the side.

"Donnie! What the heck, it's Casey--" Leo started, with anger in his voice, but it died in his throat when he looked at the space where he just was. Casey's hockey stick had been plunged there by its owner, the chainsaw buzzing with enough force to take any of their heads off.

"Casey?" 

The future boy in question slowly turned to them. The same shade of purple as the mist that had announced Casey's entrance seemed to have infected his eyes. It was a nice shade, he'd give them that.

Regardless, Casey Jones was out for blood.

Chapter Text

Leo's POV

Why was it always Leo who got stuck with the mind control stuff? And he never even got to be on the unassuming end of it, he just had to let the other person kick the crap out of him until someone let loose some sort of tell, and extrapolate from there.

So, as Casey Junior’s weapon came crashing down on the space where he’d stood mere moments ago, Leo thought he was entitled to one, singular, Dad-approved swear.

“Aw, fudgenutters.”

Donnie gave him an appalled look, and Leo extracted his katanas again and twirled them in his hands.

“Are you serious, Leo? We can’t just charge in.”

“Well, hermano, if you have a better idea, I would be delighted to hear it.”

Predictably, Donnie didn’t answer, and instead trained his gaze on Casey, who was staring at both of them again, but instead of the green glow in the eyes that Leo had started growing used to, a purple sheen bore into him. Only it wasn’t the hue of purple that Donnie favored – this one was alien to Leo, a sickly kind that he could tell didn’t belong inside of anyone, least of all Casey.

“Good talk, let’s do it again sometime,” Leo quipped, and Donnie shot a glare at him as Leo dove through a portal, and met Casey’s hockey stick with both of his swords. Also predictably, neither weapon broke. Between the mystic properties of Leo’s swords and Future Donnie’s apparent dedication to making everything nigh indestructible, it wasn’t exactly a huge shock.

Donnie, apparently following Leo’s lead, slid in and attempted to take Casey out with a simple hit to the head, but the human whirled about and ducked the hit, his clash with Donnie very nearly ending with the latter losing his Tech-Bō.

What did come as a shock, however, were the four shouts of a battle cry that Leo vaguely recalled.

“COW!”

All three of them whirled around just as one of Raph’s projections, its owner having shouted the beginning of the phrase, touch down, impossibly huge.

“A!”

April O’Neil, her bat glowing with its trademark green flame, landed on Raph’s shoulder as she shouted.

“BUNG!”

Mikey’s chains touched down before he did, and the smallest turtle slid on the ground, the aforementioned chains encircling him as he landed on the ground next to Raph.

“GA!”

The loudest shriek of the battle cry came from none other than Cassandra Jones, Casey Sr. herself. 

Her naginata plunged into the ground as the brought it into the land in front of the other three in a satisfying arc, and led it in a circle, switching hands as she slung it over her shoulder, just as she had after her complete 180 while helping defeat the Shredder. Only, this time, she wore a mask identical to her son’s, barring the red stripes. Leo would figure out what that meant later.

Perhaps the best part was that none of them had that sheen of purple in their eyes.

“Holy mackerel,” Donnie breathed out with a smile on his face.

“You didn’t die!” Mikey cheered and threw his hands into the air.

“HA! You have all survived!” Cassandra began with a beaming grin, and Casey’s grip on his hockey stick shifted as he started towards her. 

For one blissful second, Leo wondered if the awesome entrance of the others had forced Casey to come to his senses, but as he glanced at Donnie, he didn’t suppose it mattered. Donnie’s eyes widened in shock, and Leo heard the familiar buzzing of Casey’s chainsaw. No longer familiar and slightly comforting, even though the noise hadn’t changed in the slightest. But Casey Sr. was running at her future son, presumably to hug him.

Leo watched as realization dawned on Cassandra, and her manic glee transformed into confusion, which melted into concern and worry, which gave way to the closest thing to fear that Cassandra had ever expressed. She dropped to her knees and slid to safety across the arena floor as the chainsaw sliced through the space where her head had been with frightening accuracy.

Cassandra took a kneel next to Donnie as she pulled her legs in a circle to spin away from Casey’s attack, kicking up dust in the action.

Raph, Mikey, and April all brought themselves to the other three, keeping careful eyes on Casey.

“Well, won’t we look at this hullabaloo!” Big Mama’s voice crooned over a speaker, reverberating in Leo’s ears. Casey’s head turned, with almost eerie speed, and Leo was surprised that Casey didn’t visibly get whiplash. “Seems you’ve found your query! And brought your own cavalry. Well, that simply won’t do, will it?”

The arena gates opened, and what looked like all of the Battle Nexus contestants came spilling through, cheering loudly. 

“Hmm… Let’s say… One favor and champion status to whoever manages to subdue the turtles and the other newcomers,”  Big Mama decided, and Leo’s shoulders sagged. “Grab our newest champion, if you will,” she added. “No harm is undue.”

“Excellently repressed sigh. The sheer audacity,” Donnie complained. “She said if we found Casey, we could keep him!” He tossed his hands up before folding them tight to his chest. “And we sure as shell found him.”

“It is Big Mama, you fool,” Cassandra growled.

Before Donnie could snap back with a retort, their fellow Battle Nexus contestants started towards them. Leo let forth a guttural sigh from the depths of his throat as his brothers activated their ninpō. Counting heads mentally, he found them to be one Hamato short.

“Where’s dad?”

“In the tank,” Raph answered, and used mystic clones to activate his mystics projections, forcing the horde back, although they both knew it wouldn’t hold. “Just outside the arena in case we end up needing backup.”

“Call him,” Donnie said with zero hesitation as Casey lunged once again, and he was met with April’s bat, who barely managed to shove him back.

And so Raph activated his communicator and shouted phrases indistinct to Leo’s ears, on top of the yelling Yōkai. However, it must have made sense to their father, because the Turtle Tank crashed through the stands, over the crowd, and into the arena, not a second too soon.

“Oh-ho, yeah!” Leo cheered, and portaled Casey a safe distance away, giving them a clear shot to the tank as the top hatch opened.

Mentally doing a headcount as they disappeared into the tank, once again, he found himself to be short a couple of heads. April and Mikey were too far away, busy batting away some Yōkai who were slipping through the cracks. 

Leo lifted his left leg as he threw a katana with his right. The sword hit its mark and returned to its owner. Mikey had tangled a group up in his mystic chains, and the duo made a run for it. Leo motioned for Donnie to close the hatch, but not before the purple turtle glared at him as if saying: ‘If you pull something stupid again, I am going to pulverize you where you stand’.

Leo gave a little mock salute, and darted over to Mikey and April, portalling the fist of a Yōkai into the face of another.

“C’mon,” he called to the two, and both gave him identical beaming grins.

“Cowabunga, baby!” Mikey cheered, and April pumped the fist holding her flaming bat as the sweet blue sheen of a portal opened directly below them.

From inside the tank, Leo could attest that Raph’s ninpō had deactivated, and as such, lots and lots of Yōkai were banging away at the tank, trying to tip it. But, as it was a tank, one that Donnie had modified, no less, it wasn’t giving.

“My children,” Splinter said, addressing them all. “What has happened? And where is Future Boy?”

“Big Mama messed him up, big-time,” Raph supplied, and Splinter’s brow creased.

“How so?”

“He keeps trying to kill us,” April said nonchalantly.

“The only honorable way to go – killed by my own kin,” Cassandra said gravely.

“Nobody is going today!” Donnie proclaimed and proceeded to smash the tank’s controls. As an apt way to ensure that nobody went to an early grave, the walls disappeared.  Great job, Donnie,  Leo thought to himself with a twinge of annoyance, though it was succinctly overridden by fear. 

“DONNIE!” Leo and Raph shouted simultaneously, sending almost identical glares at the tech whiz, who merely waved them off.

“It’s one-way transparency. Ergo, we can see them, but they cannot see us. Capiche?”

Oh. That was probably fine, then.

“Alright,” Leo began, as a plan began to piece itself together in his mind. “Everybody, huddle up. I’ve got a master plan that is bound to save our shells.” Realizing that several of their party didn’t have shells, he amended. “And other back organs.”

They did, in fact, huddle up, in a loose half-circle by the wall facing Casey Junior.

“First, I’ll portal Dad up there,” he pointed behind them into the Nexus building. “Where he’ll keep security chasing their tails. Literally, in the case of Gus and that one bellhop.” His brothers and father grimaced at the mention of the dog. 

“After security’s distracted, Dad gives the signal, then Donnie and Mikey are headed into Big Mama’s office. Use whatever means necessary to get information out of her without making a deal.

“April and Casey Sr. are taking the Yōkai horde over there,” Leo continued, and pointed out the rear of the tank, “to divert attention from Raph and me. I’ll be keeping Casey over there,” he pointed to the clear other end of the arena, “to keep him from seriously hurting anyone else, so he won’t have to angst about anything. Raph’s covering me so nobody can get at either of us. We good with that?”

Mikey’s hand went up, and Leo sighed. “Yes, Mikey?”

“Can Doctor Delicate Touch come?”

“Is the Doctor a means?”

“I guess.”

“Answered your own question there, hermano.”

Donnie’s hand went up. 

“Yes, Donald?”

“Can I go semi-lethal?”

“If you at least try to negotiate like people first.”

Both Mikey and Donnie grinned widely like Leo had given them the license to kill. Which, he realized, he might have. Oh well. All’s well that ends well.

“Alright. Any other questions?”

There were none.

“Great. You’re up, Daddy-o!” Leo cheered, and sliced a portal open, displaying the interior of the Nexus building. His father ran in after a nod to his children.

“Good luck to all of you!” he called as the portal closed.

After a moment of silence, Mikey whispered: “How long do you think until security’s distracted?”

As if on cue, Gus the Guard Dog crashed down into the dirt of the arena.

“I think we’re good,” Leo decided, and created another portal, this time for Donnie and Mikey, and looked up at Raph. “Go ahead, Big Guy, you can say it.”

Raph looked mildly surprised at the acknowledgment and then beamed brightly. “Alright Mad Dogs, roll out!”

April let out a ‘whoop!’ and Casey Sr. cackled in a manner that was reminiscent of Donnie’s self-proclaimed ‘evil laugh’. April clapped Donnie and Mikey on their backs. “Good luck, fellas!”

“See ya, April!” Mikey chirruped, and Donnie nodded sagely.

“Farewell, my brethren. I bid you adieu and wish you luck,” the latter proclaimed with the expected dramatic flair as he and Mikey stepped through the portal and disappeared into the shadows in a very ninja-like way. 

Dad would be proud, Leo thought. He’d have to bring it up to him later.

“Alright, lessgo!” April shouted impatiently, gripping her bat as she opened the floor hatch. Casey Sr. looked at Leo and Raph, nodding and smiling.

“I shall see you both later! We should get ice cream after this. And it will be SPECTACULAR!” she declared, pointing to the heavens with her naginata. Leo clicked his tongue and nodded.

“Definitely! We deserve it. Junior’s gonna love it.”

April pulled all of them into a quick hug before she and Cassandra crawled under the tank, and Raph shoved the top hatch open as Leo closed the bottom one.

“Any time, Leo!” Raph called as he sucker-punched a screeching Yōkai. Through the transparent walls, Leo could track Casey Junior’s movement, who seemed to be picking a fight with anyone and everyone.

“In a second!” he shouted back, and shot up the hatch, stomping it shut behind him without removing his eyes from Casey. 

He felt around, eventually finding Raph’s shoulder, and pointing to Casey. He felt Raph hum as he heard it.

“And there’s the fear stink,” Leo groaned as he lept away.

“You know Raph can’t help it!” his older brother shouted back as he jumped after him.

Leo proceeded to full-body tackle Casey to the ground, managing not to get sliced and/or diced by the other’s chainsaw. “Gotcha, Case,” he mumbled.

Donnie’s POV

With their father distracting security, sneaking into Big Mama’s vicinity was a piece of cake. On a slightly related note, Donnie decided they all deserved cake after all this. He and Mikey hid behind the wall next to Big Mama’s door.

“Stick to the shadows,” Donnie whispered, and Mikey nodded as he flashed a pair of glasses (where had he gotten those?), with a sheen of light temporarily blinding Donnie. 

He pushed Mikey’s head down and darted to a corner where the ceiling and wall met. Mikey pressed himself into the position parallel to him, both facing Big Mama’s desk. Upon it, center stage was a mic equipped with its own stand, and a small viewing sphere overlooking the Nexus, figures too small for Donnie to make heads or tails of the fight, although this was combated with the window that took up most of the wall behind the desk. He and Mikey would likely be concealed by the mass of curtains they had taken refuge in.

The crime boss hadn’t made an appearance yet, but the announcer's mic couldn’t be left unattended for long. 

And, just as expected, Big Mama, clad in her human disguise, just as Donnie had seen before, trod in, every step calculated, none to her detriment. However, instead of picking the mic up, she merely sighed.

“If you did need something, turtley-boos, all you had to do was ask,” she smiled, and Donnie cursed his un-ninja-ness. 

Silently, of course. Swearing while trying to be stealthy wasn’t very ninja-like. He let himself fall in a controlled descent and landed on one knee, his other leg stretched to the side. 

Mikey dropped down next to him, and held his head almost comically high, pushing the glasses up his non-existent nose. The tape that had them in place was doing its job, though the placement was slightly off-center. Mikey straightened them out and smiled.

“And how very splendiferous it is to see you both!” Big Mama said in a cheery tone. “However, I do have a show to be running, so why don’t we save the claptrap for later, then?”

Mikey smiled in a fashion that Donnie found to be particularly ominous. The smile was faint, a mere twitching upwards of his beak. But Mikey’s eyes were wide, barely blinking, hardly leaving Big Mama.

“What exactly, in the name of dad, didja do to Junior?!” Donnie’s younger brother demanded, hopping on top of the desk so that he was crouched in an admittedly ninja-esque way in front of Big Mama, who only raised an eyebrow. The action seemed to serve the same purpose in Doctor Delicate Touch that would have been accomplished if she had begun burning incense right there and then.

“Who?”

“Casey! Casey Junior!” Doctor Delicate Touch demanded, a three-fingered hand clenching halfway into a clawed hand. “Yay tall,” he waved his free hand at an extremely rough approximation of Casey’s height. “Awkward, probably had a hockey stick?”

“Oh, my newest champion!” Big Mama snapped her fingers in recognition. “I was unaware there were two, I might very well like to meet them.”

“Scoff of apprehension. Hard pass,” Donnie interjected, and Big Mama frowned.

“Curious, isn’t it? How my very best champions have all been humans? I rather think I’ll be keeping this one. You seem fond of him, don’t you?”

Mikey blinked, Doctor Delicate Touch evaporating as quickly as Donnie thought he could see fear emerge in the younger.

“Well, yeah! He’s our brother!”

“He doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo, now, has he?”

“He will.” Donnie hoped his tone left no room to be questioned. Mikey seemed to have taken it as such and beamed. “So, allow us to reiterate. What have you done to him?”

“It’s a rather simple toxin, really. Simple, yet far too potent in certain hands. Your friend has been dragged to the deepest depths of his subconscious, left only amongst his worst fears. Whatever he sees or experiences is through a lens of terror.”

That tracked, so far.

“How do we free him?”

“You can only get so much for free, dears.”

Donnie frowned, and tugged Mikey back, frown deepening. He adjusted his grip so that Mikey was pushed back lightly. He tapped his tech bo against the ground twice. His ninpō activated, a crackling burst appeared beneath his Tech-Bō, and the wooden staff appeared in his unoccupied hand. Donnie stored his Tech-Bō in his battle shell and passed the bō staff to his dominant hand.

He rolled his shoulder back and pointed his mystic staff at Big Mama. A small militia was aimed at her, and he idly registered Mikey’s quiet squealing. He smiled and twisted the staff in his hand. A purple jet of mystic might obliterated the window above their heads, glass raining down in a sharp shower.

Big Mama actually broke composure and whirled about to stare behind her in shock as Donnie smirked.

“So… How about that?” Mikey chirruped gleefully as the last shards of glass adorned their heads.

Leo’s POV

Leo was not having a good time, nor was he making much progress. The only so-called victory he could lay claim to was the fact that Casey had not escaped.

From an outside standpoint, he should be breezing through this, after fighting a Kraangified Raph not months ago. But Casey was a lot smaller and nimbler than Raph. He also didn’t have any sort of unresolved encounters that Leo could bring to the table.

Casey elbowed Leo harshly in the ribcage and literally climbed over him to get away, pushing off of his face like a springboard.

“Really, man? Geez, maybe Raph’s onto something with that anger management stuff,” Leo groaned, standing as he rubbed his face before running back at him. 

He sheathed his katanas, opting to tackle the younger boy. Casey’s chainsaw swung up, and Leo instantly regretted storing his weapons and retrieved one to force the hockey stick back. Leo brought up a leg to smack Casey in the face with his knee, and the latter’s mask fell a good ways away.

Casey’s eyes seemed to be watered down in a pale purple sheen, not much different than the eyes of his mask. Somehow, whatever Casey had gotten in his system had burned through whatever cool setting Future Donnie had probably stuck the mask full of.

Casey’s gaze flicked to Leo, side-eyeing him. The glance was cautious, but very unlike the one Raph would give small puppies – this one was filled with fear and seriousness that was unmatched to date.

“Okie dokie, Case, we just gotta–” But then he was running again. “Eugh,” Leo muttered, and dove to the left as his eyes widened, and Casey aimed a kick where Leo had just been. Rolling to a controlled stop, Leo frowned. This was going to be quite the day. Or was it night? He wasn’t too sure – it had been early morning when he and Donnie had set out, but that definitely wasn’t true anymore. 

He didn’t get much time to dwell on it, though, as Casey Junior was up  again,  somehow. Under any other circumstances, he’d have commended his future self internally for how skilled Casey had proved himself to be. Casey had leaped into the air, and Leo didn’t have enough time to draw his swords and slid across the sandy ground to avoid him. 

“HEY, LEO!”

Leo turned to the source of the noise on instinct and saw Mikey and Donnie sprinting toward him.

“HEY, MIKE! DON!” Leo shouted back before Casey switched directions, and Leo caught Casey’s fist, kicking him in the chest. 

“We figured it out!” Donnie shouted in triumph, beaming. “In layman’s terms, Casey has been dragged into the depths of his subconscious and is residing with his greatest fears. Anything he sees will be augmented to fit those fears.”

“Wow. Big Mama does not mess…” Leo sighed. “She didn’t happen to tell you how to stop it, did she?”

“Unhelpfully,” Donnie said. 

“Yeah, and that makes total sense,” Leo grunted as Casey’s chainsaw buzzed painfully close to his face, and he dumped his time-displaced through a portal.

“The working theory is that you must do something so reminiscent of yourself or us that it could never be faked, and must be you, genuinely, who proves themselves.”

Eugh boy.

“Basically: Be yourself!” Mikey piped up cheerfully, with the widest of grins on his face.

“Wonderful. I’ll die slightly slower now.”

“See? You’re already getting it!”

“Yes, yes, ta-ta, now,” Leo waved them off. “Go help Sr. and April.”

Speaking of which, the two were doing marginally better than Leo had expected, given that both were only human, against a crowd of deadly Yōkai, and making their victories loudly known with a series of chants, taunts, and fistbumps.

“You got it, Mr. Leader Man!” Mikey yelled as Donnie gave a mock salute, and the two ran off toward the chaos.

“Alrighty, let’s try this again,” Leo muttered to himself and looked Casey in his creepy eyes. They were blown wide, and he didn’t seem to be capable of blinking. “Good thing I have such a distinct personality,” he grinned.

Casey seemed to have entirely switched tactics, now keeping as much distance as possible. He fired his grapple line, and before Leo knew what had happened, it was wrapped around his wrist. 

Then, Casey pulled. Hard.

Pain sprung to his hand, and with his other hand, managed to grab the wire and flip its owner over, sending Casey sprawling, his body flying over Leo. Casey landed a good three feet from him. Leo drew his swords and exhaled.

The human sprang up almost instantly, and his hockey stick was in Leo’s face before he could register what was happening. Leo ducked, and just in time, too, because a foot swept through where his rib cage had just been.

Casey had apparently put an ungodly amount of force into the kick, as he stumbled shortly after the fact, and Leo could only block a desperate hit with his swords. He knew what Casey would be afraid of most – the Krang. But if what Mikey and Donnie said was true, then most things Casey perceived would be augmented.

Trail and error it was, then.

—————

Trial and error wasn’t working, and Leo was getting a bit annoyed, to say the least. They were roughly evenly matched, with Casey’s raw fear, desperation, and lack of planning and foresight meeting Leo’s own distress, lack of planning, and unwillingness to seriously injure him.

“Come on, Casey! You love pizza! You always eat whatever weird pizza concoctions Mikey makes because he wants to figure out if you even  have  a gag reflex! You watch Donnie in his lab and he lets you, which is insane. Raph always saves a spot for you during movie nights, and you let him ramble about the massive discourse over the best Lou Jitsu movie! You let me make a bazillion mazes of portals and actually run through them if I ask because I also  want to find out if you have a gag reflex!”

He was running out of things to talk about, Leo realized. To his credit, conversation starters were stiff when you were fighting the person you were trying to talk to and trying not to die.

“You and Cass always put the most insane obstacle courses together that not even Mikey can clear in one go. For fun!” Leo’s hands were moving in wild gestures as he animatedly described the memories.

Casey had finally, finally, stopped moving, stopped attacking. Leo took the opportunity to snatch a breath of air in a deep inhale.

“Dad turned his shows off and helped us make a pillow fort because you and Cass haven’t ever had one before! You and April stick random stuff in the blender to see if it will blend, and stick it in the oven because it’s fun. Tastes horrible, and I’m pretty sure it could poison Raph, and I mean, he’s got an iron stomach, so it must be real bad, but you guys love it!”

Leo pointed at Casey as he continued: “You love it! You love us, and vice versa! You better be listening, because I am not repeating all of this, hear me, Junior?”

But Casey hadn’t moved. He was still crouched, on one knee, one hand bracing his fall. Then, slowly, he stood, and inched towards Leo, cautiously. He slid one foot across the sand and extended a fist.

But he didn’t follow through with a punch. The fist just… lingered there, in mid-air. The fist was extended vertically, his top-most knuckle poking out a bit through the glove.

“Ohmigosh…” Leo muttered and slowly bumped his three-fingered fist against Casey’s. Slowly, to not surprise him too much, Leo expanded his fist and pulled it back, making an explosion noise.

Casey parroted the noise back. “Bwah…”

Leo barked out a loud laugh, and Casey let loose a soft exclamation of his own.

“Ya there, Case?”

Casey blinked and looked at his gloved hand, which Leo only then realized had a small amount of blood on it. He didn’t seem very surprised by it.

“I… Think so? For now, anyway. It doesn’t really stick,” he explained with a so-so gesture and an odd turn of his lips.

“Welp, staying here won’t be doing you any good. Grab your stuff, we’re getting outta dodge.”

Casey nodded and winced as he went to collect his mask. Leo’s face tightened, and he mentally took note to have Donnie scan Casey for injuries once they got back to the tank. He, Casey, and Leo probably had their fair share of wounds from the fights, especially considering they were back-to-back for at least half a day, each.

“HEY, RAPH!” Leo yelled, turning to his older brother, just in time for the latter to put a Nexus contestant in a headlock. “I FIXED CASEY, PACK IT UP!”

“Nice!” Raph cheered, and waved to Casey, pinning the Nexus contestant with his foot. “HI, CASEY!”

Casey waved back, and pulled his mask back on his head, flipping it up so that his face was still visible. “Hi, Raphael!”

“I’ve told ya a million times, just call me Raph!” Raph called back with a smile. Casey grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Sorry, Raph!”

“Nah, you’re good!”

“RAPH!” Leo reminded him, twirled one finger in a circle, and with his other arm, squeezed Casey in a one-armed hug when he returned next to Leo, hockey stick in hand, chainsaw deactivated. “Pack it up, Big Man.”

“Right! Raph’s on it!”

Leo grinned and gestured to where Donnie, Mikey, April, and Cassandra were fighting. “C’mon, let’s give them the good news.”

He took Casey’s wrist and pulled him along as April nailed an opponent square in the jaw with her bat. The poor guy’s face was alight with green flame as Cassandra caught him with a kick to the facial region.

“Hey, fellas! We got Junior all set, let’s wrap things up here.”

“You did?!” Cassandra and Mikey shouted at the same time, and Casey smiled awkwardly.

“He– OOF!” Cassandra had launched herself at Casey with full force, taking both of them to the ground. “Hi, Mom!” he said weakly.

“Do not do that again! What were you thinking? Were you even thinking?” Cassandra demanded, bringing their faces so close that Leo doubted either of them could properly see the other before shaking him.

“Cass, chill. Dude just got mind controlled, give him a bit,” he tutted.

“Don’t think you’re in the clear either. That goes for you and Donnie,”  April reprimanded lightly, and the faces of the two in question became very strained.

“Eugh… Instead of unpacking all that, I’ll just grab Dad and we’ll scram, yeah? Sounds great, great conversation, people!” Leo exclaimed, and Donnie gave me that look that said: Do not leave me here with these maniacs, Hamato Leonardo, I swear on Gram-Gram if you leave me here I will send you back from whence you came!

Needless to say, Hamato Leonardo did leave Donnie with the so-called ‘maniacs’ as he let himself tip through his portal.

Also, needless to say, his father had caused more than his fair share of chaos. And more than his fair share of ‘Lights-Off Jutsu’. Mikey would probably be bummed he missed out on such an event.

“HEY, DAD!”

Distantly, a voice called back to him: “There are no fathers here!” then, much quicker, it added: “But if there were, I am sure if there were then he would want to know what you would need.”

“We got Junior, we’re headed out,” Leo replied with a glance at a terrified security guard. “Hey, man.”

The security guard waved back.

Then, Splinter dropped down from the rafters. “That is excellent news, Leonardo! Great work. Are the others alright?”

“Yep. Junior, Don, and I probably all need to sleep for a week  but nobody’s dying.” Leo leaned back through his portal and shouted: “NOBODY’S DYING, RIGHT? DAD’S ASKING!”

“ALL GOOD OVER HERE! YO, RAPH, YOU ALIVE OVER THERE?” Mikey hollered.

“RAPH’S FINE!” Raph shouted distantly.

“RAPH’S FINE!” Mikey repeated.

“GREAT!”

“HOW’S POPS?”

“HE’S GOOD!”

“THEN C’MON!”

Leo rolled his eyes, but abided nonetheless, right after his dad, closing the portal behind them.

The sight before him was relatively similar to when he had left – The others fighting their hardest, while still trading gripes and wits. Just the way he liked it.

Dropping from the portal, he realized a violet portal had opened.  One of Big Mama’s,  he realized. He and his father made their way in front of the other Mad Dogs, both frowning.

“Uhm, a distraction would be great! Anything, at all!”

“Anything?” Cassandra asked suspiciously.

“Yes! Anything! That’s what   ‘anything’   means!”

“Excellent! Orange one! I shall require assistance!”

“Aw, you know it!” Mikey cheered, and Leo looked back in time for Mikey to hurl both Cassandra and himself in Big Mama’s general direction.

“Donnie, does Casey have any mystic still in him?”

“To be determined momentarily,” Donnie called back, whipped around, and brought his goggles over his eyes, staring right into Casey’s at an uncomfortably close distance, especially for Donnie.

After a moment of adjusting the goggles, he backed up, gave Casey a clap on the back, and shouted: “He’s clean!” before adding, “Maybe a little too clean… One might say suspiciously clean!”

“Purple, leave him be!” Splinter sighed, and Donnie shrugged, flipping the goggles back up. “It is good to have you back, Casey,” their father continued, and Casey smiled.

“It’s nice to be back.”

“DISTRACTION ACHIEVED!” Cassandra shrieked from where she and Mikey were fighting Big Mama, the latter of which was weirdly good with knives. Fortunately for them, so was Cassandra.

“Oh, nice, a good old-fashioned knife fight!” Donnie cheered, before giving a devilish grin. “I seem to have found my gun!”

“Oh, chillax, they’re fine!” April rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

Donnie groaned, and his snout drooped. “So I can only use mystic guns for the big bads? I see how it is.”

April exhaled forcefully and blew her poofy bangs from her eyes. “Jeez, Don.”

“Uh, you guys? Back up? ¿Por favor? Leo, am I doing that right?”

“A-ok, hermano!” Leo yelled back, as Cassandra let out a yell, and her mask fell to the ground. 

“You! You’re that Foot member who destroyed my Battle Nexus, aren’t you!” Big Mama exclaimed with vindictive shock, and promptly transformed into her giant, mildly terrifying, spider form.

“And that’s our cue! Senior! HEADS UP!” Leo shouted and tossed his sword in a spinning arc. It ricocheted off the ground and embedded itself in the wall.

Casey Junior, on the other hand, ran to his mother's aid with urgency and unsheathed a knife from who-even-knew-where.

“You know what, I am not surprised,” Donnie muttered with raised eyebrows as Mikey skidded to a stop next to him.

“KNIFE FIGHT! KNIFE FIGHT! KNIFE FIGHT!” the younger chanted, and April chortled.

“Two types of people.”

Although Donnie would engage in a knife fight, Leo teleported to his sword in time for Casey Junior to whip out some dank knife-fight moves while Casey Senior watched.

“Did you teach him that?”

“Nope. Did you?”

“If I taught him, why would be I asking you?”

“Touche,” Leo said and pulled her through a portal.

Once on the other side, he saw Raph cup a hand around his snout. “HEY, CASE! TIME TO GO!”

“Speaking of which, where are we going?” Donnie piped up.

“Back to the hotel, I guess,” April replied.

“We can’t do that!” Casey shouted as he and Big Mama came to a standstill.

“Why?” Donnie asked suspiciously. Casey went silent and glanced down at his feet for half a second.

“Yeah, why can’t we go back?” Mikey chimed in. Casey still refused to give, and Big Mama smiled.

“Well, isn’t this a handy little bout of kerfuffle?” Upon receiving the guarded stares of the others, she continued. “Your newest human here struck a deal with me – his servitude in this very Battle Nexus in exchange for housing in the Nexus Hotel’s sister hotel, as well as food and other provisions.”

“You did WHAT?” Splinter, Raph, and April yelled, all completely shocked, and Casey had the decency to look ashamed and abashed.

“Y’know what? Fine. I’d say we’ve done worse,” Leo cut in, and under the guise of a cough, added: “Cassandra.”

“HEY!”

“What? You hear something? I said nothing. Nope. Not a word.” After a brief pause, he turned to Donnie. “Hey, Dee, is the tank ready, I think we’re all good to get the heck outta dodge.”

“We’re good to go,” the latter confirmed with a nod.

“Great. Casey heads up!” Leo called, cupping a hand around his mouth, and Casey kicked off from the ground, flipping back from Big Mama. 

Leo realized that the fabric around his neck and shoulders was charred and ripped in more places than had been a week ago. Probably came with getting mindlessly thrown into fight after fight, he thought. Leo flung one katana, and it stuck in one of the support pillars near Casey, a portal in its wake.

Casey dashed into the construct and tore Leo’s katana from the pillar in the process. The second portal opened behind Splinter, who nodded at the arrival of the final member of their party. He offered Leo his katana, who accepted it as Big Mama commanded the Battle Nexus fighters to capture them once again, and shot a web at Raph, who ducked the hit.

“Alright, bunch up, fellas! Donnie, fire at will!” Leo directed with as much gusto as he could muster.

“Oh, this will be fun!”

Leo rolled his eyes, and stuck one sword in the ground, running in a vague circle around them. Once he reached the halfway mark, he dragged the second one along, backtracking slightly, before heaving it. The sword completed its arc, and curved at the right time, digging into the starting point.

The portal birthed into being was at a bit of an angle, appearing to the backs of everyone.

“Alright people, ¡vamanos! ¡Muy rápido!” Leo waved, gesturing towards the thing, narrowly dodging one of the mutant silverfish. They all stared after it.

“Well,” Leo started again. “That was a – say it with me now – flop. You know? Because it's a silver fish?”

“Boo!” Mikey shouted. “Bad joke!”

Donnie looked at him from where he stood, blasting away at the Yōkai, and shook his head with half-lidded eyes. “I second that emotion!”

“Jeez! Tough crowd! Just get in the dang portal!” Leo replied, twirled his swords, and shooed them in.

Once on the other side, portals closed, he was aware of just how cramped the tank was, with all of them. Or maybe that was because half of them were stacked on top of each other.

“Alright, everybody off!” April shouted, and, slowly but surely, they all rolled off each other.

A moment of silence echoed through the tank, although Yōkai of all manners was attempting to tip the tank, with little success just outside. Then Casey Junior broke the silence when Leo gave him a cursory glance.

“I –” his words came out forced and strained as if he were fighting to get a single word out. Eyes flicked to him, which probably didn’t help a ton. “I’m sorry. For all of this. I didn’t – I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t want this to happen.”

Splinter sighed, sounding exhausted, and Casey’s nervous eyes bounced to Leo’s rat father. “But why, what reasoning could anyone have procured for running into the Battle Nexus to be the best option?”

Casey went silent for a moment, and in that moment, Leo blissfully wondered if he didn’t have much of a reason. That it was just Casey being a few cells short of a brain. But it was only a moment.

“We didn’t have anywhere else to go. The Krang could have been in The Lair, and I had to do  something.  I don’t really know what to do in this time, but I knew Big Mama back in my timeline. I figured things wouldn’t change much.” He averted his gaze, casting it downwards. “Only that didn’t really work out…” he trailed off before his eyes widened a smidge. “Oh, spirits, maybe that’s why nobody liked her.”

“Wait, let’s back that up, you knew Big Mama?” Leo interjected, and Casey nodded.

“Yeah, she taught me how to throw knives!”

“DUDE! Big Mama taught you knife fight stuff?!” Mikey exclaimed and bounced up and down.

Casey let out a short, small, laugh. “Y-Yeah. It was pretty cool. Mom didn’t like it, though. I always thought she was just mad she didn’t get to teach me to knife fight first.”

“No, I destroyed her livelihood about five months ago,” Cassandra said simply with a satisfied expression. Casey looked taken aback.

“Whoa.”

“Yes! It was EXCELLENT!”

“How did you figure out where I was anyways?” Casey asked.

Donnie piped up: “Hacked the viewing orb and found the Battle Nexus fights. Not a lot of places show those, and we saw someone who may have been you.”

“And then we saw that, because you guys didn’t change the channel,” Mikey added.

Casey frowned. “But Big Mama said all footage of my fights would be wiped.”

“I guess I’m just too good, then,” Donnie shrugged. “However, we do still need to find a place to go, if we haven’t forgotten.”

“Oh, yeah,” Raph said helpfully, and they delved into silence again.

“What if we went to Barry’s?” Mikey asked. Leo grimaced.

“Do we have to?”

“You’re the leader, remember?” Raph reminded him with arms crossed and a soft smile.

“Unless we want to crash in on Todd or Sunita, we don’t have many other options,” Donnie said with a frown, clearly not wanting to engage with Draxum any more than he did.

Leo groaned loudly, head slumped, and looked at the others before adding a sigh to the mix. “ Fine.  We’ll go to the sheepman's. But we’re not giving him a heads-up. He hasn’t earned that one yet.”

“Yay!” Mikey cheered, and Donnie typed a few keywords into the tank’s console for a moment. Leo blinked as a Yōkai hit the tank, parallel with his eyes, just as the walls ceased transparency.

“Alrighty, we are en route, gentlemen. And ladies. And dad.”

“Good job, Don,” Raph said, rubbing his face.

“How about we all get a nap in?” April suggested.

“Sounds amazing,” Casey yawned, sounding about as tired as Leo felt.

“An excellent idea, April!” Splinter commended her with a smile before he was interrupted by a heavy blanket catching him in the face.

“Sleep, fools,” Cassandra said with a dry smile, launching a pillow at Donnie’s face.

The others all announced their general muffled approval, and as the tank began to move, out of the hole from where his father had made upon his entry, Leo curled himself up in a blanket thrown at his face by Cassandra.

Raph was in what was apparently the defined middle of the pile, with Mikey on top of him, and April on her side, laying against Raph’s right side, while Splinter was on his left. Donnie leaned against the back wall of the tank and was in the process of removing his goggles. Leo sat down next to him with a smile, which Donnie returned wryly. Casey Senior tossed herself haphazardly next to Splinter and was out like a light.

Casey Junior, on the other hand, looked a little uncertain as he glanced at the pile of weapons, holding his hockey stick a tad too tight.

Leo sighed, and stood up, walking over to his friend, holding the blanket around his shoulders.

“C’mon, get some sleep, dude. It’ll still be here when you wake up. This one’s non-negotiable,” he sighed with a wry smile of his own.

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t someone keep watch or–”

“Dude,” Mikey yawned. “It’s a tank. She’s pretty good on defense, right, Dee? Dad?”

“I can attest to that,” Donnie nodded.

“What Donatello said,” Splinter added sleepily.

Leo raised an eyebrow and gestured to the pillow Casey was also clutching with an iron grip. A corner of Casey’s mouth was brought up in a soft smile as he looked at it, then to Leo, and to the others, and back again. He rested his hockey stick on top of the pile and followed Leo.

Leo sank down next to Donnie once more, and the genius had begun to elicit quiet snores. Casey tenderly sat on Leo’s other side and winced slightly. 

Note to self, Leo thought to himself, check Casey’s leg. Amongst other things. He was bound to have some injuries, no matter how well he’d been trained. Casey used his ratty cape as a blanket, but Leo suspected it was better suited for surviving the elements than for comfort.

He unbundled himself from his blanket, and brought one side across the top of his body, and offered the other side to Casey, with plenty of space between them.

As Leo drifted off, he recognized the slight tug as Casey Junior curling up in his offered olive branch. Leo smiled to himself with a sense of victory in more sense than surface level.

At the very least, Barry would have to deal with not only several battle-worn Hamatos but also several battle-worn Hamatos who had only a single hour of sleep in the past twenty-four hours.

Quite possibly the best of Mikey’s plans that he’d agreed to thus far.