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Chapter Text

The Terror of Life

Prologue

2017 at the arcade of their sweet old lair: The turtles were celebrating their most recent victory - cheering, eating pizza and toasting to each other with their soft drinks.

"Aw, I wish I could have fought along with you guys," Mickey exclaimed. Now tell me all about this cooperation thingy they wanted to force us into."

"Uh, there's not much to tell," Leo replied, smiling lazily. "Ya' know - help 'em commiting crimes, ruling New York's underworld, gaining respect and acceptance in an alternate society despite this whole situation, yadda, yadda, yadda …”

Mickey sighed in boredom: "Geez, these crime syndicates are all the same!"

Leo started a burping contest, Mickey won because Raph let him. Then he smiled: "I'll get us dessert," and went off to the kitchen.

As soon as their baby brother was out of sight, a visible amount of pressure wore off of Raphael and Leonardo.

"Thank goodness they kept Mickey out of THAT," the eldest sighed.

"Uh - uh - uh - uh," Leo scolded him, one fist on his hip, wagging his other hand's index finger in front of Raph's face, "THAT thing never happened. I thought we all agreed on that. Repeat after me -" he took a deep breath and moved his hands above his head like a conductor, "It never happened … it never happened …"

"While I'd love to erase that moment of utter humiliation from my memory," Donnie stated, not looking up from the screen where he was busily battling zombie unicorns, "I have to remind you: No one but you agreed on that, Nardo."

Raph let out a wheeze of despair, "He's coming back!"

"Careful!" said their youngest brother happily entering the room with a griddle of muffins, " - still hot. - Wait," he added, putting the muffins down, "I forgot the ice cream,"

"How plot-convenient," Leon remarked.

"When they find out we fooled them, they'll get back at us," Raph hissed, "and this time they might come for Mickey too!"

"They came for him in the first place," Leo shrugged.

"You know EXACTLY what I mean," Raph snapped.

"The most important thing is," Donnie declared, "that - if the two of you followed my instructions correctly -" only to get interrupted by the blue one:

"I find it deeply disturbing and alarming what you carry with you in your battle shell on a daily basis."

Don ignored him and concluded: "- then all they got from us is as valuable as grilled cheese."

"I think everything's better with grilled cheese!"

The three brothers flinched as they heard Mickey's bubbly voice.

This was the end of their conversation.

A few months later, the turtles would discover the hidden city, inherit their mystic weapons and get tangled up in all kinds of adventures which would make them actually forget about this unpleasant incident - completely without Leo's stupid mantra.

Chapter 1
Of Champions and Cheaters

2020 on a Friday at the ice hockey stadium where Casey's highschool team, the Rumblin' Rhinos had a match against the Whirlwind Warthogs. The score counted 3 to 4 for Casey's team. The turtles, hiding their faces under hoodies, Splinter in his infamous teenager disguise and of course April all sat in the ranks cheering for him. But someone important was missing.
They all looked at the empty seat between them and exchanged worried looks. Also Casey's eyes wandered to the empty seat during a short break. He frowned and kept playing.

Suddenly the visitors in the ranks above the mutants started to gasp, shriek and complain. Our friends turned around to see Cassandra jumping and flipping over people's heads, stepping on hands and kicking popcorn bags away. She had bruises and scratches to her body and face and cuts in her clothes. Cassandra held up a bag of fresh brownies like a holy grail she had to protect.
As she finally made it to her seat, April still spotted a little flame on a streak of Cass' short hair and quickly put it off.

Raph Leo and Mickey had not enough time to say, "Oooooh brownies!", before Cassandra hit their greedy fingers with her stick, yelling: "These are not for you!!!"
Then she jumped up and screamed across the stadium: "Go kick their butts, Casey!!!"

For a split second his face lit up and he looked much younger than he actually was.

"Dude, that aunt of yours 's scary," his teammate noted.

The boy from the future just smirked.

He shot the two goals his team needed to win - of course. Later all of the Rhinos were munching on aunt Cass' special victory brownies.

This eve, the turtles and April celebrated the winning of Casey Jr.'s team at Run Of The Mill Pizza.

"Guys - seriously - what's the dealio?" he laughed. "It's not like I'm team captain or something."

"Oh, I think, this is just a matter of time", Raph smiled, patting Jr.'s shoulder.

"Yeah, you're a mad hot hurricane of a player,"Mickey agreed.

"Thanks man," the boy from the future replied, a little overwhelmed by all the praise.

Only Leo pouted: "Awww, you don't call any of us master anymore."

Casey took a sip from his soft drink and responded: "Because you're not and probably never will be. You're my friends now and it's good this way."

Leo was obviously not happy with this answer. After a couple more soft drinks, he got up.
"I'll be right back," he said, heading for the restrooms he still found confusing. There were 5 restrooms with different diagrams. "I come here for so long and I still don't know what these diagrams mean and no one bothers to tell me", he sighed. " Let's hope I don't get kicked out today. Eenie, meenie, miney, moe …"

As he crossed the restaurant walking back to their table, he heard Hueso exclaim: "We're proud to have a new champion!"

Leo turned around to see a group of animal yokai at a table smiling for the camera with their pizza and saying: " Dragolicous!"

When the photographers ran off, the bunny of the gang leaned over the table and shouted: "You have to write dragolicious under the picture - this is really important. - Do you hear me? Guys!" He looked pretty worried about this stupid word.

"What a dork," Leo thought.

A cat in a red jumpsuit held the bunny back. "Uhm, Usagi, better let me handle this - okay?"
She walked after the photographers while this Usagi guy sank down onto his seat next to a rhino and a fox.

Needless to say who this gang of anthropomorphic animals were …

"This is so weird," Gen murmured to Usagi, "to be surrounded by all these yokai and pretend to be one of them."

Yuichi sighed, "Let's just hope, Chizu can make sure, they put the keyword under the picture, so this whistleblower finds us."

"Jeeeep," Spot made, sitting on his owner's shoulder.

Suddenly the leader of the Ninja Turtles planted himself in front of their table: "Dragolicous - hu? Why do you guys let this pigeon-chested nerd pick a catchphrase when you certainly contributed more to your final victory than him?"

Irritated, they glared at Leo.
"And this is your business becauhausssse?" Kitzune asked back.

"We are all good fighters," Gen said, "but only Usagi could take the challenge, since his sword is not a magical weapon."

"Yes, I'm a great Samurai," Usagi declared proudly. "And my ancestor was -" he paused cautiously, "an … even greater samurai." Who knew if the yokai of this realm had heard of Usagi Yojimbo and would maybe not respond so well to his name.

Leo broke into a roaring laughter. Wiping off tears, he wheezed: "Priceless!"

"What's going on?" Chizu asked, returning.

"This guy has way too much free time on his hands," Kitzune answered, nodding to Leo.

"Floppy ears fuzzball here, claims to be a samurai," the turtle cried in amusement.

"Uhm, yeah?" Usagi said, annoyed.

"Oh, I'm sure you can make a hard man surrender with that adorable pink twitching nose of yours," Leo snickered. Kitzune and Gen looked at him in disgust.

"What is wrong with that guy?" the rhino asked.

"He's a speciest of the worst kind," Kitzune answered.

"Before you start making assumptions about others, you should at least put on some clothes," Gen remarked.

"Excuuuuuuuuseeeeee me!" the face man said, "what do you think what that is - dramatic shading?" He pulled at something on his thighs that turned out to be made of black spandex. "These are biker shorts", he declared.

"A fashion sin every girl committed at some point in her life," Kitzune quipped.

"Also I'm a real ninja and I can prove it. Can you prove that you are samurai?" he dared him

"I don't need to prove you anything," it came unimpressed from Usagi.

"Oh yeah?" the turtle teased him, "afraid I might chop off your fuzzy cottontail or your floppy ears? Ha! It's a lost cause. You're a totes chicken!" He began to imitate a chicken.

The gang just frowned at him. Suddenly Usagi's eyes widened as a thought crossed his mind. He reached out, shook Leo's hand and affirmed: "I accept the challenge."

"Whuuuuuuuut?!?!?" his friends shouted.

No, no, no, no!" senior Hueso said strictly, who just came out of nowhere. “No duels in my restaurant!"

As he was gone, Leo smirked. "Maybe not in the restaurant, but in the interdimensional winter garden. it's not officially opened yet," he explained.

As Usagi followed Leo, Chizu grabbed his shoulder and asked: "What are you doing?"

He's our man, Chizu," he said, winking.

"You sure?" she asked.

"At least he's a reptile. And who in his right mind would be such a jerk about nothing?"

The interdimensional Winter Garden was surrounded by thick milk glass. You saw the blurred lights of New York but couldn't make out any other outside shapes. There were tables and benches and unlit lanterns looking like scary masks and faces and vines with rather poisonous looking flowers. One of these flowers even swallowed a hapless moth and belched afterwards.

"Well," Usagi said awkwardly, waiting for his whistleblower to reveal himself but since he was gravely mistaken here, this didn't take place. Instead Leo pulled out his double katanas that send out some blue rays of lightning.

"Whoa, whoa - wait!" he objected,"one sword and no magic".

"You're making the rules now?" the ninja asked, unpleased.

"Samurai tradition made the rules," Usagi stated.

So, we're playing by ancient samurai rules now," Leo scoffed. "Let's compromise - no magic, two swords!" Before the rabbit could complain again, Leo just attacked. He was indeed surprised to see that this nerd knew how to wield his sword.

Their blades clashed and clashed while Usagi jumped to avoid getting cut by Leo's second katana. They whirled through the air, flipped back and forth and ran over benches and tables.

Then in a ray of blue light, Leo was gone. Yuichi turned his head in all directions. Aside from the sounds of the city and the buzzing of big moths, there was nothing to hear. Then his fine ears catched an electric humming. He turned around and his blades clashed again with Leo's crossed katanas.
"You look even cuter when you're scared, bunny boy," he smirked.

"You're cheating!" Usagi cried.

"You'd have known better, if you had taken a look at the wall of cheaters," Leo laughed, "and I'm a darn goooooood cheater".
He nailed Usagi with his crossed katanas to one of the tables but the rabbit used his strong legs to push the turtle away.

"I'll get it now," he shouted, "you are not our informant! In fact, there is no informant!"

"Huh?" Leo said, confused.

"You guys are just playing with us, mocking us, but we won't let you take over the 12 realms.”

Dude, whatcha talkin' about?! - was pretty much written all over Leo's face. But then he made up his mind and decided to play along for fun. "Oh," he said sinisterly, "but I doubt there's anything you can do about it." In another flash of blue light, he was gone.

"Where on Earth is Leo?", Raph asked inside at the table.

"Guess, he picked the wrong restroom again," April shrugged.

Then Leo crashed, retracted into his shell, through a window nearby into the restaurant! His friends came running up to him. "Are you alright?" they asked.

There Usagi came in, through the broken window and also asked unsure: "Is he okay?", one of Leo's katanas was still attached to his glowing khakishi yoyo.

Now his buddies came onto the scene too.

“Usagi! What have you done?" Kitzune scolded him.

"Nothing!" he defended himself. “This guy is a cheater and I only dodged one of his magic attacks.”

“Just for the record,” Leo mumbled, “I am no informant nor do I want to take over the 12 realms - whatever those are.”

“So you are a very ordinary speciest,” Chizu said curtly.

"What even IS a speciest?" Leo asked tiredly.

"The worst," Kitzune said, "someone who reduces others to their species."

"Who will pay for my window now?!" Senior Hueso demanded to know. "And have you damaged my winter garden too?"

“Your garden thing is fine," Yuichi answered.

Don't you have insurance or something?" Raph asked.

"Si," Hueso answered, “but it doesn't cover damage caused by samurai - ninja duels."

"Ralph," Donny said, while he began to glow purple, "be a doll and tell the guests not to move.”

"NOBODY MOVEEE!" his big bro yelled, that the restaurant went shaking. Don produced a purple energy field that absorbed every single shard and glass particle in the restaurant and fused it back into the window. Some guests actually started applauding.

Only Hueso made a sour face. "The window is tinted purple now."

"This will wear off," Donnie explained. To Raph and Mikey he stated proudly, "Those re-constructive mystic powers come in handy sometimes. "

Addressing Leo, who was still laying on the floor, he murmured: ''You owe me."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know, I know, you’re disappointed that I threw Leo through a window without harming him. Oh trust me - I already DID harm the boys … in a way you’ll hate me for …

Chapter Text

- No the background is no AI but a photo of one of the kryptas under the Ulm Minster I ran through too many apps ...

Saturday night: A black-latino delivery guy stood with a stash of pizza boxes at a bus stop next to an old out-of-order phone booth, filled with used books for people to lend and share. 

"It's one of these odd spots. Could be your lucky day", he nodded to a woman hiding in the shadows.

"And when it's not?" she asked. 

He shrugged. "Who knows ... This is New York. We get a ton of orders to strange places."

She sighed.

"Cé est la vie,"  he said. All we can do is wait and pray," he added with a tad of mockery.

"I'm an atheist," she replied. 

"An idiot who's not" he grumbled. 

"Hush!" he made abruptly. The woman didn't hear anything, but the sounds of the city. Then a sudden shadow whirled through the air and whisked away the stash of pizza crades. The delivery guy held his hand open and a crunchy ball of cash holding a weight in its middle, landing in his palm. He shook his head "No respect for the money. Now it's your turn"

The woman gave him her bundle of cash. 

Leo arrived with the stash of pizza boxes in the lair and called for his brothers in Spanish. He placed the crades on the counter and left the kitchen. Of course Mikey was hiding in a corner and sneaked up to the stash of steaming, hot cheese covered delights. He lifted the lid of the box on top and found himself looking at the oddest pizza topping ever - a laminated group photo. The first words coming to his mind as he picked up the page were 'scam' 'trap' and 'AI' - hence these fingers. He and his brothers all had three fingers. These little beings in the photos had mostly four fingers or even webbed hands with claws. I mean Mikey was an artist and he recognized AI manips when he saw them. The youngest turtle turned the page and found another photo of a woman with a friendly round face and a letter: 

'Dear Turtles, 

I'm Dr. Onur Yildiz of the biological faculty in Freiburg -'  

Oooooh - not a Nigerian prince for a change!

" Mickey!" boomed Raph's voice. 

Angelo shrieked and retracted into his shell.

 "Don't eat all the pizza!" His brother continued.

"I didn't," he yelped. 

"But you were about to," Raphael rightfully determined.

Later that night the young box turtle returned to his room. Yes, his room which was no longer a bandwagon. Their current residence was one of the many abandoned sanatoriums of New York. They inhabited its underearth morgue and bath house to be precise. While their second lair in the subway hadn't been wrecked beyond repair, its location got exposed to the Foot and therefore was no longer safe. They had done their best to make it feel like home, but it would take time to really get accustomed to this place.

As Mikey sat down on his bed, he flinched and pulled out the letter from his shell. Why didn't he tell the others? They'd probably have gotten a good laugh out of it. but something had stopped him. 

He read on:

'What you see in this picture is a secret weapon in progress, breed from your own genotype, under the control of a dangerous cult. They plan for an army of hundreds. Dr. Søren Birkelund and I had to work on this project against our will, after having been abducted separately at airports in between flights three years ago.'

Oh sure, Mickey thought to himself, everybody can tell you, that they're a scientist and that some evil cult is cloning you. 

'We were just returning home from an international project for the conservation of endangered species in the field of reproductive biomedicine in Malaysia. Now we went for an unwanted 3-year 'vacation' to Thailand via sea. A month ago I escaped the mountains region and the jungle, leaving behind Dr. Birkelund, who wasn't found yet. I'm risking my life by reaching out to you. There's a 48 hour window (a 36 was written over the 48 with an Edding marker) left to meet up and discuss a solution before my departure. I hope you can make this possible. I've got documents at hand to prove everything I claim. Please consider: I am not your enemy, just a bearer of bad news. Please don't shoot the messenger. I know that you are no monsters but the protectors of New York and meanwhile even of the world. Maybe you are willing to take care of this problem too.

Kind regards' 

A phone number followed.

Michaelangelo really didn't know how to feel about all that. He turned the sheet around, looking again at the group picture. It showed babies old enough to sit upright and young toddlers not older than two years. All of them being alligators snapping- red eared slider-  and soft shell turtle mutants. Mikey wondered whether there was something among these scientific terms that could determine if this letter was genuine or not. Reproductive biomedicine sounded pretty specific. He unlocked his phone and typed the term into his search engine. Just after scrolling down the first page of results, Mikey realized this had very little to do with cloning and also that his brothers definitely would KNOW the truth. He just had to ask them. Easier said than done. He would have loved to save this conversation up for tomorrow. He was great at procrastination. But 36 hours were not an eternity. And what if this cult actually caught wind of Dr Yildiz mission and sent a sniper after her? So he buckled up and went to their new semi-competent leader’s room.

He knocked and softly asked, “Leo?” He waited, knocked harder but either his brother was fast asleep or couldn't be bothered. "Okay”, Mikey said to himself, not unhappy that he could dodge that awkward conversation for today, “at least I tried.” He started to run for his room in case Leo still might have gotten up to open the door - So he blindly ran into said brother!
Leo had been holding a carafe of water and a glass he now threw into the air. Being a ninja, he did a backflip, catched the glass, the carafe and the water out of the air. He sighed in relief and raised a non-existing eyebrow at his youngest brother.

“Mickey, what are you doing, running around at 1 am?” The faceman with a face cream mask nonchalantly poured water into his glass. “Don't tell me, you want to show me an art project.” He pointed to the laminated sheet in Angelo’s hand.

 “Oh, no, no, no!”, the box turtle stuttered. He usually never had qualms about confrontations or giving someone a piece of his mind. But he just hated family conflicts and he sensed that a full fledged family drama was just ahead.

“I - I actually wanted to talk to you. You know … it's probably a really stupid fraud, a paper thin attempt to lead us into a trap … totally easy to expose - you guys can tell! But I went to you first, because you're our new leader and-”

“Michael, get to the point!” Leo pushed.

“There was a message for us in one of the pizza boxes, I hid from you,” Mickey gushed out.

“What?! But why?” the team leader exclaimed.

“I - I dunno,” Mickey admitted, “just look.” He held up the page, showing the children's group picture.

A crashing of glass and a splash of water followed. The carafe and glass laid scattered around in shards in a puddle of water. Okay, not a good sign. Mikey went fetching a dust pan and swap and left the laminated page to Leo, while cleaning up the mess.

“Is this photoshop?” his older brother laughed nervously. 

“If anything, it’s AI,”the box turtle corrected him. But Leonardo wasn’t listening. He started to read the letter and began to sweat profusely.

“Oh Mikey, Mikey, you’d believe any Nigerian prince, would you?” he mocked him. 

“I never said, that I believe-” began Michelangelo, just to get interrupted by the team leader:

“This is so stupid and cringy, we should put this letter right into the blender.”

“Leonardo, no!” he yelped and stepped into his way.

From the moment on, his brother had started to act nervously, these little beings in the group picture had turned inside Mikey's mind from a mere photo manipulation into his nieces and nephews - and he felt very protective of them. They fought over the page.

“So, you admit, you believed this crap in the first place,” Leo yelled.

“I believed it, since you confirmed it” 

“Did not!” his brother complained.

 "Yes, you did!” Mike snapped.

They heard Donny fuming: “can't you guys at least let me work at night on my projects?! It’s bad enough I can’t have a soundproof lab anymore, because of safety issues!” Don might have been the most unhinged of the turtles, but maybe he would act a tad more mature about this than his disaster twin.

“Here Donnie, catch!” Mickey said and passed the sheet over to him like this was some kind of ball game. He got it text-first straight into the scientist’s face. Quickly running down the text, his expression turned more and more desperate. He fell into a stupor and began to repeat in an endless loop: “But we damaged the samples, we damaged the samples, we damaged the samples …” 

No further questions, your honor.

“Why can't one get some sleep in this house?!” They now heard Raph’s voice booming. He saw Mikey and Leo wrestling on the floor while Donnie had turned it into a broken record. Raph simply fetched the laminated paper out of Donnie's hands, going for the photo first and exclaimed: ”What?! What is this?!”
Leo struggled himself free from Mickey and jumped for the paper. While it was not a good idea to pick a fight with their oldest brother, his weakness was still that he never fought back with full force, since he was afraid to injure them with his superior strength. 

“Give me that back!” he cried, more surprised at Leo's behavior than angry.

 “Oh, trust me, this is just a stupid scam - a trap Leo,” quipped.

“Let me see it, '' Raph demanded. 

“Nope!” was his brother's response. Raph got hold of the page, but Leo kicked it out of his hands.

“What is going on here?! Can't an old man watch nightly reruns of his favorite shows in peace?!” Finally Splinter had gotten out of his armchair. The laminated document just landed in front of his feet. Raph and Leo watched on in horror, as he picked it up …

“We are sooooo disowned,” Leo said. 

We are dead,” Raph whispered.

Chapter Text

Soon later, Mickey sat at the kitchen table and miserably watched the family drama unfolding. Splinter chased Leo and Raph around the table, throwing carpet slippers at them.

Donatello.exe had stopped working. He sat on the floor rocking back and forth unresponsive.

“Dad,” Leo cried, "have you even read the whole letter? If so, I’d be sure, it would occur to you that this didn’t happen the common way! You can’t actually blame us for this - Okay, I blame Donnie as soon as he gets out of his catatonic state.”

“Not helping, Leo!” Raph shouted.

Splinter just angrily continued to throw slippers, pick them up and throw them again. As he grew tired of this game, he grabbed the swab - thanks to Mickey now luckily free of any glass particles - and attacked them again ninjutsu style. They jumped and ducked to dodge his blows.

“C’mon, you know us, dad!" Leo tried again to reason with his father. “We’ve been such good boys! Well, maybe not generally morally speaking - but if you look at it from a teenage angle, we’ve been prim and proper: No drugs, no booze, no hookups, no tattoos. I mean seriously! Raph has always been the bigger person - no that’s no dig at your weight, bro. Then look at Mister Allergic-to-physical-contact over there. And I - um … uh …” Leo didn’t really know how to put that into words.

“Self-explanatory!” Splinter yelled.

“But I didn’t-” Leo began.

“I said self-explanatory!” the rat man hissed.

“Leon! For Gram-Gram’s sake! JUST-STOP-TALKING! You’re makin’ it WORSE”! The alligator snapping turtle cried desperately.

“Oh you silly boys! Don’t you understand?!” Splinter shouted. “I wish this would have happened the common way!”

“What?!?!?” Both brothers exclaimed and stopped in their tracks, which resulted in Leo getting the wet swab right into his face.

“I’m not mad at you because of whatever happened there - I’m mad that you never talked to me in all these years!” Their father angrily explained.

While Raphael lowered his gaze with guilt, Leonardo tilted his head and asked: “Can you blame us?”

“Of course I blame you,” the rat man fumed, “I’m your father! You should trust me!”

The only response he got was silence. Splinter’s ears dropped with sadness. There seemed to be a fleeting moment of genuine understanding and compassion. But Hamato Yoshi spectacularly ruined it by asking: “Did they offer you money for this?”

“NO!!” It came from an outraged Raph.

“Money?” Leo asked. “They didn’t even offer us paper towels - wait … did I just say that out loud?”

“And you’re surprised we don’t confide in you lil’ ol’ man”, his biggest brother dared to scold their insensitive father. 

Then something else caught his attention.

“Ooooooooh - I know this face! Mikey! Whatcha doin’?!”

And Indeed: Mickey’s eyes were shining with creative spirit. He had the tip of his tongue sticking out of the crack of lips and was obviously typing on his phone under the table.
“Oh, I just made an appointment with Dr. Yildiz for tomorrow”, he answered innocently. Raphael and Leonardo came over and were about to lift the table.

“And maybe - just maybe,” Mike added nervously, “I animated a cute gif I sent everybody we know to spread the good news.”

“Traitor!” Leo hissed.

Uh-oh! Did Mickey ACTUALLY expose something so problematic and delicate to just freakin' EVERYBODY they know - just because he’s sooo happy to be an uncle now? You’ll learn more in chapter 8!

Chapter Text

Author’s note: 
I'm seriously surprised myself, how I was able to keep up that cartoony pacing and flippant attitude for the first 3 chapters. Now that life as they knew it ended for the boys, also the pacing will slow down a bit. Everything else would be inappropriate. But don’t get too used to it … 

“What the Chuck Norris?! When did you guys plan on telling me that I’m an aunt?!?!?!?”

Most of the turtles’ friends and acquaintances were either asleep or thought of Mickey’s unclehood announcement as a joke and ignored it.

Not so much April and Todd. Since the 3 teenage mutant ninja dads had turned their devices off, Mickes had to play chat secretary and answer the many questions of their oldest friend and the kind hearted capybara, as best as he could.

Meanwhile Raph, Leo and Donnie all handled that night of emotional turmoil their own way. Spoiler: No one knew how to handle it!

Raph did what he had done most years of his young life: Staring at the wall and racking his brain about what to do. As always, he pushed pathetic little feelings like self-pity aside to focus on the important stuff. There was this mean cult that was holding sway over his wee little kids, nieces and nephews, training them to become a mutant army. Not to think of what would have happened in the future, if they never had received this letter! They would have learned the hard way about their fatherhood by once having to face their own children in a combat situation! That mere thought caused Raph so much anger and agony! He saw these serious little faces from the group picture in his mind. They didn’t look like they had much fun in life ... Oh no - nononononono! He already got all sentimental over these little beings he just saw on a photo with low resolution. He felt his eyes welling up. There was no time for this! He had to be strong, he had to keep a clear mind! He and his brothers had to get their kids out of the clutches of those creeps. But there were so many of them! Where should they all live? Could they even feed those many hungry mouths?

No, Raph had no plan for how to protect and care for this baby army. Strategies were Leo’s field. But - so Raph thought, he currently was way too busy feeling pretty sorry for himself.

And that’s exactly what his successor in leadership was doing right now: Laying on his bed, wallowing in self-pity, mourning his old, carefree life. Not so long ago - while not actually intentionally, but pretty much subconsciously - he had tried HARD to convince everybody he was not fit to lead. He had finally embraced his new place in the team just to find himself in a role that completely clashed with his concept of a leader: The role of a teenage dad! And worst of all: It WASN’T his fault! So many, many things had been his fault. But now his whole life went down the drain because of that one thing he hadn’t done wrong! He felt so robbed of his youth  - of being his own man, making his own choices. He hated to feel this powerless. It was so unfair!

And everytime he took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, that impotant fury came with all force and got hold of him. An impotant fury … impotent … as if … The cruel irony in the meaning of this idiom’s words in THIS situation hit him hard. He broke into an unhappy, maniacal laughter and only snapped out of it by slapping himself in the face. This was not the time to go nuts! He had to find anything in his mind that gave him consolation. Jupiter Jim comics! Oh, forget about that … This guy had been an letdown like most heroes - himself for instance … Stop that! This was not helping. He needed to think of something nice - Unicorns maybe. But what came to his mind instead was … fuzzy white fur … floppy ears and that twitching pink nose. What was wrong with him?!?!? He certainly had to be a speciest! Sure, bunnies are all fluffy and adorable - feral non-sentient ones! How could he reduce a young samurai of great swordsmanship to his animal features?! Leo himself would be so mad if anyone dared to reduce him to being a turtle, saying something along the lines of: ‘A ninja turtle! How adorable! I’m sure you kick ass … when fighting a sloth.’ Leonardo couldn’t help, but chuckle. Oh man, he really couldn’t be earnest for once in his life - right?

Just like Raph he told himself to focus. Okay … what had gone wrong in the first place? As reluctant sperm donors they had freakin’ BOILED their samples! It was absolutely impossible that any of these thingies could still have moved their tails. Yet, there was a legion of healthy mutant toddlers! It was probably unfair to blame Donnie, but who else was there to blame? 

Speaking of …
Donnie had made the most sensible choice of all his brothers for the rest of the night: He knew he had too little information to properly work with. 

Instead of going through emotional turmoil or hurting his brain, he had decided to completely zone out. With his huge, noise reducing headphones on, listening to his favorite playlist, he played an ego shooter game, nubbing down any harmful thoughts and feelings, protecting his sanity till the next day … 

Chapter Text

Author’s note: It's really odd to spend days of intense research on a subject of actual scientific and technologic background - like reproductive biomedicine in the field of the conservation of endangered species - just to combine it with B-Movie logic in the end. Well, this is what I did here. I really tried to put as few details in this chapter as possible and as much as necessary. Plus, that mentioned 2015/2016 project in Graz actually existed. (linked article is in German - website translator is you friend)

What can I say? Trigger warning for all survivors of sexual assault/abuse! While I keep things rather subtle throughout the whole story, there’s a lot of darkness you can find reading between the lines. 

Chapter 5
The Blame Game

Sunday: It was a stubby, short woman with a round face April had portalled with Mayham’s help to the morgue. 

"You must be Dr. Yildiz” Splinter greeted her. He took a respectful bow. “Welcome to the home of the Hamatos.”

Dr. Yildiz seemed surprised but repeated the bow and said: “Thank you for having me.” She added: “Please excuse my English. It might be a little stiff and plain and it sure worsened throughout my years in Thailand.”

“Oh I think it will turn out fine,” the head of the Hamato clan assured her, just enjoying another member of human society not freaking out at meeting his mutant family. “Now let me introduce you to my sons.”

This would all have been pretty weird, if Mickey hadn’t prepared her. As Splinter led Yildiz to the kitchen where all the turtles sat at the table, their baby brother beamed and waved at her: “Hey Doc!” She waved back shyly.

The red-eared slider in the middle sat slouched in his chair like a stubborn teen at the principal's office and gave her this angry pout she had seen so often on his children. He just hit an open wound as he slowly remarked: “Soooooo … you’re the one that helped to ruin our lives.” It earned him a puff into the side by Raph and a death glare from April. 

Mickey smiled brightly at Dr. Yildiz, saying: ”He doesn’t mean it. He’s a little stressed out.”

“I- I’m sorry,” Onur stuttered, “I had no choice!”

“Oh yeah?!” Leon yelled, jumping up from his chair with so much force that it fell to the ground. 

Just a few seconds ago Raph had sat there like he was carrying the weight of the whole world on his shoulders. Now he stepped into big brother action. He picked up the fallen chair, pushed Leo onto its seat and growled: “Leo! You now will stay in your chair and listen to what the lady has to say!”

Donnie on Leo’s right didn’t say or do anything. He appeared to be dead inside. 

“Please doctor, take a seat,” Raph encouraged her. 

“Would you like a cup of tea?” their father asked politely. 

Dr. Yildiz nodded gratefully. “I’m not quite sure where to start.” She took folders from her bag and spread them across the table. “I thought it would be best to prove my identity first.” She opened the first folder, showing them her ID and documents from the faculty in Freiburg from before her capture in 2017 and after her return. Also there was a multi-language missing persons report. It was the only paper they could actually fully read. On all the other documents they couldn’t make out anything beyond the doctor’s name and some dates, since they were all written in German. The report showed a picture of her and a young, lanky, white biologist with curly, strawberry blonde hair - Dr. Søeren Birkelund. Then she handed them another fully English paper: The print out of the international invitation to a project in Malaysia. It was filled with such pesky terms as: endangered species, wildlife preservation, breeding and of course reproductology… Onur began to reminiscent: 

“In 2017 I’ve got the great opportunity to participate as an assistant on a international breeding project for a species of tortoises that were formerly believed to be extinct. The point is,” she said slowly but clearly delving into her subject, forgetting that she was talking to teenage half-turtle hybrids sitting at a kitchen table with their DAD! of all people, “while it is common to use frozen semen for animal breeding, since you can ship it worldwide and store it for years without putting the animals themselves under stress-”
Someone was coughing awkwardly. Unfortunately Onur didn’t get the subtle hint. Instead she went on: “For decades this was no option for the breeding of turtles and tortoises since their spermatozoa-” Another one in this room couldn’t help but snort at this term. Completely oblivious to this, Dr. Yildiz finished her sentence: “-wouldn’t survive the freezing process. So when preserving the population of an endangered species, the only option was bringing examples together for mating or - in case of an almost extinct species - finding biologically compatible mating partners from a subspecies. Unfortunately, some candidates tend to be decidedly uncooperative” she added with a chuckle.

“What a surprise”, Donnie hissed through gritted teeth in a murderous tone. It was the first full sentence he had spoken this morning. Raph meanwhile heavily transpired dying-of-embarrassment stink, Mickey suffered in silence and Leo had retracted half of his head into his shell. 

“Well,” Onur continued a little too cheerful, “all this changed after a groundbreaking project for reproductive research in Graz in 2016, where several different freezing techniques were tested. They finally figured out the right method that allowed a full 5% of the preserved material to survive! It was a also a-”

“FAS-CI-NATING!” April cut her off. “Now this is what these creepy cult weirdos needed you and this Birkelund guy for.”

“Oh, uhm, yes,” Dr. Yildiz stuttered, flustered.

“Good,” April said firmly. “Can we talk ‘bout the urgent stuff now? ‘Cuz this was WAY more reproductive bio-mayonnaise than anyone here needs right after breakfast - no offense. What more can you tell us about this cult and their ninja nursery project?” she continued the questioning. 

“Well,” Onur sighed thoughtfully, “their leader is an utterly obnoxious German conspiracy theorist that lives in Thailand for tax reasons. He has no scruples to engage in whatever fishy business you can think of, in order to make money. Don’t ask me why, but he has loyal disciples all over the world. His name’s Lothar Eddaneid and it’s easy to do research on him. He’s a viral phenomena too. So I won’t waste time talking about him. Now he no longer needs me or Dr. Birkelund to continue breeding an army, but recently he ran into some … logistical problems … So this project is on hold at this moment - The perfect time to stop him!” 

“Easier said than done,” Raph sighed sadly. 

“He’s right,” Leo agreed. “I mean, taking down some evil cult is easy as pie. We handled petty crooks, mystic creatures, ancient ghosts, aliens … But-” he wildly gestured with his hands, “how should we care for - how many kids are that again?”

“Oh - 49,” answered Dr. Yildiz.

"FORTY NINE!!!" the 3 teenage mutant ninja dads yelled unisono. 

Onur simply shrugged, looking a little helpless. 

Leo spotted something from the corner of his eye, turned to their dad and scolded him: “Don’t! Just don’t! There’s no reason to look so proud! This is an absolute tragedy, señor.”

Mickey cleared his throat and dared to ask that question seemingly no one bothered: “Who are the mothers?”

“I think … ” Onur began unsure, “you have to find out for yourselves.”

“Who cares!” Leo scoffed. 

Donnie apparently had the sudden urge to make himself relevant again by counting down possibilities: “Either yokai, mutants, aliens … Likely creatures that have webbed hands and more fingers than us.”

“Raph shrieked: “A Pterodactyl!”

Everybody just looked at the not so bright big brother.

“Speaking of-” Leo said looking the doctor in the eyes, “aside from breeding them -” he made quote-unquote signs in the air “have you actually spent time with our … offspring?” 

“I changed their diapers for years,” she replied. Then she held up another folder and asked with sparkling eyes: “Can we look at the baby photos now?” 

“Yay! Baby photos!” Mikey shouted.

“No!” Leo shut them both down. “Tell me, did you recognize anything … ODD on our children? Do they - I dunno, glow in the dark or something? Anything weird that doesn’t come from their mothers’ side?”

Dr. Yiliz laughed and waved it off: “No, no, no - just the usual mutant matters.” 

“And that would be?” he asked sternly.

“Ah! Fast recovery from paper cuts, scratches and bruises, incredible night sight, super sonic hearing - things that are completely natural to mutants like you.”

Folding his arms, Leo looked firmly at her and said very slowly: “We-have-none-of-these-abilities …” Then he turned to Donatello, who tried to look as innocent as possible and stated: “Donnie … you and I know what actually happened: instead of damaging the samples this procedure of yours further mutated them !!!” 

“But that wasn’t my intention!” Donnie snapped back at his brother.

Meanwhile Splinter looked like he was about to burst with pride. Poor Donnie! Of all the great things he had achieved in his young life, THIS should be that one thing that would fill his father’s heart with pride?

“You know what your problem is, Donnie?” Leo asked, “- Overkill. You’re not happy with destroying things - you need to destroy destroy them!” he spat.

“WRONG!” his brother gnarled, jumping off his chair. “Especially on this occasion! If I had had my tech bo and not that stupid prototype, these creeps would have been grilled cheese! It’s easy for you to talk, but what were the choices I had? This was the only chemical compound in granola form I had with me, sealed into practical tiny bags I could switch to you undetected. And I hoped that additionally using the button tasers on the samples would ensure that there was no life left in them! I had to make a decision, ‘cuz you guys were out of ideas! We could only choose between assault and humiliation. So I picked humiliation in an attempt to keep us in control. The other option was getting tranquilized, put on an operation table and getting … getting extracted!” 

“Well,” stuttered Dr. Yildiz, “this is what Dr. Birkelund and I would have been forced to do.”

“I tried and failed - doesn’t that get into your thick head!?!?!” Don shot at Leo and stormed out of the room.

Leo knew he had made a mistake. Soon later there was a crashing sound and then an explosion!

“Don’t tell me, Donnie’s destroying his lab!” Raph shouted.

Leonardo was about to run after him. But April held him back: “Thanks, but you already did enough damage. "I handle that.”

The young leader let his head sink. “Dad,” he began, “you asked us what we got in return… They gave us Mickey back.”

“What?” Michelangelo gasped. 

“Yeah, they were holding him hostage,” Raph added sadly.

“I-I think, I should go now,” Dr. Yildiz murmured. She left two folders on the table. “This one” - she placed her hand on one of them, “includes all data on your children’s location and circumstances. Also she drew a brown vial with a tag written in Thai on it, from her bag. “This is a solution made from herbs and flowers. It has a soothing effect. You can either rub it onto your temples or take in four drops in water. I - I’m so sorry.” She stood up. 

Splinter said, gently placing a hand on her shoulder: “Even when my sons are currently not in the best state, we are deeply grateful and appreciate the courage and effort it took you to reach out to us.You did nothing short of risking your life and was willing to meet up with us despite us being strangers and having a questionable reputation fabricated by the media.”

She nodded, while tears were filling her eyes. “This was no act of selflessness,” she stated. “Look, I was held captive for three years, forced to do all kinds of work. I often was denied food, water, sleep and basic hygiene. But I can’t take legal action. I have no proof I could show to a jury or a lawyer.”

“Yup!” Mickey said, “Even I took the photo for AI.”

“I hope that you will stop this man and his mad disciples,” Onur perorated.

Raph had opened the two files: One was filled with coordinates and data … the other one with the baby photos. While he was a little simple minded, he immediately understood why Dr. Yildiz truly had reached out for them - not for revenge, not for justice, but because of these innocent children. He got up from his chair and hugged a surprised Onur. 

Leo was gone. No one had noted when he had retracted to his room. He sat there on his bed, bearing his head in his hands. 

April kneeled in the trashed lab, holding a sobbing Donnie.

As the doctor from Freiburg had left with Mayham’s help, also Raph let the tears flow; finally looking at the baby photos while both Mickey and Splinter were holding his hands. 

Chapter Text

Casey and the girl scouts spent this Sunday’s noon painting the walls of the camp’s cafeteria. Eventually things got out of hand. The teenage boy was working on the ceiling as one girl used her paint roll to smear paint on the scout next to her. This one in return attacked her with her brush and soon the two were fencing with painting tools. Also other girls got carried away either by starting a paint fight too or drawing shapes on the walls instead of properly applying paint. Casey didn’t notice until one scout pushed his ladder.

“Woah!” he exclaimed, getting back his balance. He looked down and saw the girls messing around “Hey! Stop that! Counselor Jones Sen. will roast us on an open fire like marshmallows!” He got off the ladder and tried to stop the girls which resulted in him getting splattered with paint. 

“That’s not even funny!” he laughed. In fact, he found the situation way more amusing than he should. The whole concept of having fun was still rather new to him. 

Sure, back in the future there had been sportive competitions and duels in combat. But resources had been sparse. So no such things as food fights. Exploring the area unsupervised was highly dangerous and a mud fight was only fun till some mean kids started to throw mud balls with hidden rocks in them. 

Dumb, childish crap like a paint fight was just the kind of fun he had missed in his childhood. 

Now the door of the cafeteria got kicked open and there stood Cassandra in her camp counselor uniform and hat, blowing into her whistle. 

“What’s going on here?!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. 

While the girl scouts started to point at each other claiming, “She started,” Casey still smiled like an idiot. He began some diplomatic talk: “Sorry aunt C, I think we all got a little carried away and -”

But Cassandra wasn’t listening anymore. Dumbfounded, she stared at her adoptive son from the future. It was one of these moments she hated so much but strangely missed them, as soon as they were gone. They sent her back into a time she seeked to forget.
For the blink of an eye, Casey looked way younger than 16. Cassandra’s mind traveled back to the same blissful smile, the same little tooth gap, in a face much rounder and smaller, smeared all over with finger paint, framed by the same yet black hair - but shorter - and the carefree laughter of a little boy … This apparently happy imagery in her mind caused her chest to tighten up, a lump in her stomach and her heart to race. With all force she shook off these haunted memories and threw a tantrum till everybody’s ears were ringing. 

“Ooooooooooh neato,” Leo said, staggering into Donnie's lab. “ Thought, you destroyed it.”

The brain of the team, meanwhile as calm and collected as we know him, typed data into his super computer’s keyboard.

“I did,” he replied. “Also I don’t remember inviting you in.”

“You ... rebuild this all … with the mystic power of your mind?” his brother asked, looking around. 

“With that only,” Don responded. 

“Dang, this is pretty impressive”, came it breathlessly from Leo. 

“Actually I came here to tell you that I’m sorry. None of what I said was fair. You tried your best and I just blamed you for everything.”

“ Why thank you - he said unimpressed and unconvinced,” Donnie quipped sarcastically. He did not need to turn away from his massive screen to notice, something about Leo was … off. And not just because he praised him and apologized.

“I don’t think you came here to tell me all that, but because you are sick,” Donatello stated. 

“It’s more like being sick made it easier for me,” the young leader explained frankly.

“Did you steal Papa’s saki from the cabinet?” his brother asked. 

“Oh, c’mon, I’m already in big trouble - don’t need more,” Leo said.

“Did you drink the medical alcohol from the first aid kit?” Donatello kept on guessing.

“I’m not that reckless,” Leo huffed. 

Finally the scientist turned away from his screen to glance over his brother, who stood there, a little crooked, pressing a hand to his stomach, while looking back at him in a daze.

“Sigh,” Donnie said, “ just spit it out! What did you consume? Perfume, aftershave, window cleaner?”  

“Close enough,” Leo smiled, “but only dad - or more precisely - Randal is occasionally shaving and he’s allergic to aftershave.”

“Leonardo!” Donnie actually sounded angry and worried. 

“Okay, okay, at least it was no window cleaner - happy now?” Leo responded quickly. 

His twin was just tired. 

“Look Don,” Leo began, changing the subject, “it’s really depressing. Today we’ve got all these mystic powers and skills. But back then we were just 13, clumsy, worried about Mickey and helpless.”

Depressing?! "DEPRESSING!?" Donnie fumed. “Today I could build a tank with my mere thoughts and pulverize these pigs! But back then all I had was that dumb, malfunctioning prototype!” He paused and said: “Oh no …” Knowing his brother, he realized what he had just done. 

Too late. Leo wheezed with laughter, bending over holding his aching stomach. 

“Don’t say it…” Donnie demanded.

“Then you say it,” the faceman snickered. 

“Fine by me,” the genius sighed. Then he said with the most monotone voice possible:
“Oh golly gee, too bad this was the only thing malfunctioning.” 

Leonardo rolled on the floor hollering. “Ow,” he whined, "my stomach hurts!”

“Serves you right,” Donnie sneered. “Also the correct term in this instance would be dysfunctioning not malfunctioning.”

“Whatevs,” Leo chuckled.

Author’s note: No, that pun is not funny - especially not in this context and considering what the boys went through. But it's Leo's way to cope and Don tolerates that. 

Chapter Text

Later Raphael and Mickey dragged their father against his will into the lab. 

“I miss the newest episode of Celebrities Spooked!” he complained. 

“You can watch it later online,” Raph remarked, unimpressed.

“I can promise you, papa,” Donnie said, typing on his supercomputer, “what you are about to witness will be far more haunting than any reality soap.”

“Yeah dad,” Leo said, resting with a hot water bag to his stomach on some pillows on the floor, “instead of C and D class celebs with C and D cups, you get to see that piece of work that was out and about to force docs to sexually abuse your sons.”

Splinter was used to his sons being quite blunt with him, but this was a tad too blunt. Irritated, he stared at Leonardo: “Blue! How do you talk to your father!”

“He’s drunk, your honor,” Donnie explained.

“Oh,” Splinter said.

“He did something very stupid and also very girly,” Don continued. “Ever heard of perfume alcoholism in Victorian and Edwardian women? -No? Well, our dear boy here drank that whole bottle of herbal extract, since he figured, it contained alcohol.”

“Just fire me already”, mumbled Leo. “I’m sweet 16 and already a father of over a dozen kids. I pick fights with samurai-”

”Ooh…” made his father, sounding quite impressed.

“I’m a speeez - speciesist? - Specist! And I get drunk!” Leo closed. “I'm a crappy leader and I vote for April.”

“Nardo, do us all a favor and stop talking,” Donnie insisted.

On his computer’s screen now appeared the picture of a greasy white guy with several double chins and thinned out, long gray hair, wearing a batik shirt and a turban on his head.

“Lothar Eddaneid, born 1957 in the tiny village of -” Donnie began.

“Hey!” Mickey cried, pointing at the screen, “I know this guy! He’s pretty much a meme!”

“That’s right, Micheal, " Donatello replied in a teacher’s tone. “But he’s not the funny new age santa clause people take him for. As much as I hate to agree with Leo - especially when he’s drunk - I have to admit, he chose the right words to introduce you to this man.”

“Mickey gulped and asked, devastated: ”You tell me … that dude -?”

Donnie just nodded. 

“Noooooooooo!!!” Mickey yelled dramatically and fell down to his knees. “Internet memes are supposed to cheer me up and make me happy!!”

“Oof,” Donnie said and continued his TED talk: “Eddaneid started out as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Later he came up with his own diet nutrition powder, made people invest in bonds and stocks and sign up for insurances that did not even exist.

Finally he made it in the new age biz and founded the Blessed Mountain Society.

Like about every head of a cult, Eddaneid claims to be the incarnation of several historic religious leaders and expects his disciples to call him His Holy Sovereign of Enlightenment. Though having ties to other sects and the German Reichsburger movement and being involved in numerous lawsuits, he somehow always got off the hook. He recently became a viral phenomena - as Dr. Yildiz and Mikey rightfully noted.”

Donnie looked around. “Soooo … Everybody still awake? Excellent! I managed to hack myself into one of Eddaneid’s members only streams on his own platform from two years ago. Mickey, did you get everything on the list?”

Their baby brother frowned thoughtfully: “Uh, wait - I’ve got hot cocoa, pillows, rugs, stress balls -” 

“-  And a punching bag for Raph,” Don added. “I almost forgot that.”

He pushed a button and a punching bag just slowly came down from the ceiling. 

“You will need all the comfort you can get, since there’s nothing to prepare you for this video message,” Dee stated.

“Whu ... what are we gonna see, Donald?” Mikey asked frightfully. "Decaptivations? Torture?”

“A mad man that holds your wee little nieces and nephews in his grip”, his scientist brother said with a blank expression and started the stream …

There he sat at a table in pompous robes wearing a golden headdress - Lothar Eddaneid!

“My dear children,” he began, speaking with a plump accent.

Now it was on Raph to point at the screen:

“That - THAT voice! That came from the speakers … I remember it like it was yesterday!”

Don paused the stream, nodding: “I’ll never forget that dirty old man’s voice either…”

As he restarted the video, the cult leader continued:

“We live in frightening times. Over the past years I received many, many messages from you. I really appreciate you confiding in me about your fear of the ruthless democratic - notice - democratic means demonic - governments of the countries you live in and your constant worry for the wellbeing of your children and families.”

“What a sob!” Mickey said.

“I understand that it takes nerves of steel,” Eddaneid babbled on, “to sleep at night, while knowing that there are monsters walking the streets in bright daylight, that feast on the blood of innocent children!”

Raph, Mikey and Splinter gazed puzzled at the screen.

Like he had seen the confusion on their faces Eddaneid dramatically revealed: “They call themselves politicians, lawyers, doctors, teachers, actors … But we know it better - They’re REPTILOIDS!”

Anybody in the room except for Don just moaned and rolled their eyes.

“What a shame there wasn’t actual poison in that bottle,” Leo remarked. 

“Is that why you took it?!” Raph asked him alarmed but was hushed down to silence. 

“Trust me,” smiled Eddaneid on the screen, “I listened to all your concerns and pleas for guidance. And I as your leader found a solution! As the brave pilgrims of the new world once learned, you can only fight fire with fire -” 

Donatello was out of patience. He pressed fast forward and turned the video mute. “Oh shut up, Dr. Franken-Reichsburger!” he gnarled. 




Back at normal speed, still without sound, they saw something that made all of them but Donnie hold their breath: Eddaneid held up one of Raph’s babies! Puzzled, the little one moved his feed dangling in the air, trying to get away. 

It was one thing to see images of his children, but another to actually watch them moving and in the clutches of this creep. The young father that, just in this moment, felt as helpless as his kid on screen, hit the punching bag hard.




Finally Eddaneid put the baby down on the table and scooped up another offscreen: a red-eared-slider baby that was busy trying to fetch his own tail like a puppy. 

This was the moment Leo had avoided since yesterday. No, he didn't want to look into these little faces in the group picture … He ran away from the baby photos. But now his eyes were glued to the screen.
A flood of contradictory feelings washed over him as he felt himself sobering up. 




Eddaneid also put down Leo’s kid but he placed him on his back. The baby didn't mind. It rocked back and forth in his shell like it was a cradle and tried to catch his tail.

The next baby, a shivering ball of fear, an eggheaded, tiny softshell, constantly snapping after the creep’s hands that were holding them. It cried and struggled.




Donnie sat there with his eyes closed. He had seen the stream before, he didn’t need to see it again. 

But Raph again got so angry, his mystic powers already formed a giant force field fist.
Everybody except Don threw themself on Raph trying to hold him back from smashing the screen. 

“No-no-no-no-no,” Mickey begged, “Donnie already had to rebuild his lab today.”

“Well,” Dee stated calmly, “it’s worth watching till the end.”




Eddaneid meanwhile had placed Donnie’s frantic little offspring on the table, on his back.

Raph’s baby got bored and tried to nibble on the orchid sitting on the table. 

The tiny softshell tried to get back on his feet by biting into the red velvet of the table cloth and struggling to turn himself around. It benefited from having a more lightweight shell than its siblings and actually got to its feet. Now it started to climb down the table cloth.

Raph’s baby, frustrated that it couldn’t reach the flowers, thought this to be a fun game and joined in.

The slider baby could just retract into its shell, as its siblings were pulling the velvet off the table. Also the orchid in its plant pot came down.

Eddaneid angrily jumped up from his chair, shouted and gestured for someone to stop the recording.  

Raph sighed, “I think, we all had enough for today.”

Chapter Text

TRIGGER WARNING for discussion of self harm!

Cassandra drove the camp van with all the tired and sleepy girl scouts home that had spent the weekend painting the camp rooms. Casey on the passenger’s seat winded down the window to catch the last fresh breezes before they would reach the big city again.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Cass shouted over to her girls, “don’t fall asleep yet! I won’t carry you home.”

“Aw, aunt C, let ‘em have a li’l power nap,” her surrogate son tried to cool her down.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” She whispered. “We already HAD the carry home situation.”

He couldn’t help, but snicker which earned him a death glare from his adoptive mom. He shrugged and turned on the radio switching through the programs. He found a 70’s rock anthem and turned up the volume. 

“Live as long - as long as you can

follow your gut - not world’s plan” it hollered out of the speakers and Casey jammed to it like no one was watching on. 

To Cassandra it was just another overplayed glam rock tune. She already noticed that her son had an unusual taste in music for his age. She wondered where he got that from …
In a dangerously sweet tone she said: “Turn this off - or you can walk back home.”

Casey just smiled leniently and turned it off. Then his mom activated her black metal playlist.

Back in their small New York apartment, Case leaned out the window and blissfully smiled at the moon that peaked through between the buildings. He was happy … happy about the dumbest things. Like going back to school tomorrow, seeing his homies. If he was honest, he didn’t even mind the test they would have on Monday. Mr. Carmichael was pretty chill for a teacher. Casey was happy to be alive … in a city that was alive … as simple as that … 

He closed the window and crawled under his blanket. All the things he experienced now, he had only seen in movies before. Glitching old DVDs, he, Sensei, commander ‘O Neal and sometimes others, had used to watch on movie night. The world he had witnessed there, had appeared unreal to him. Now he lived in this very world. It was … like a dream … With these thoughts, slowly Casey dozed off …

He found himself fighting a black clad ninja in a wood glade, surrounded by a burning forest. He saw his mother battling another opponent in all black, his face covered. 

During one of the other ninja's attacks, he brushed her shoulder and Cassandra pulled out something thin, gleaming in the light of the burning flames around. 

While he was busy fighting his own opponent, Case kept an eye on his mother. But she seemed more and more unfocused and her movements became uncoordinated. Casey went for an aggressive blow against his enemy. He had to defeat him fast - even if he had to cheat. Casey was taller and stronger, probably a grown man. He surged his opponent closer to the trees standing in fire. And luck was with him: a heavy burning branch fell down, hitting the fighter in black!

Casey ran towards the staggering Cassandra. Seeing his tough as nails mom this helpless, made him blaze with rage. Against his own principles, he attacked the man from behind and sent blow after blow, till the enemy stopped moving. He probably had killed a man and didn't even care. All Case could think about was getting them out of this cauldron of hellfire. Supporting his mother walking, he looked for a way out. Cass repeatedly called his name choking. 

"It's okay, mom," he heard himself saying with a deep, strong voice, "I'll get us outta here'" - then he saw it: His hands and arms turned transparent and seemed to fade into thin air …!

Drowning in sweat, Casey started up from his sleep. He looked at his hands - everything was normal … Case violently shook his head. What a bunch of BS! Ominous black ninjas - the most stereotypical baddies you can think of … a burning forest - sure, they just came back from the forest this eve. Himself being a tall strong warrior - wish fulfillment. His adoptive mom - Cassandra Jones - the raging woman of steel - spiked and intoxicated - laughable! This was all because of that dumb rabbit hole he fell down researching for this assignment in history class! Also none of this would work with what Donatello had taught him about time branches. If he wasn’t conceived in this timeline, it wouldn’t affect him having been born in another! He turned around, hoping to fall asleep again.

Meanwhile at the Winnipeg art gallery in Toronto:

Usagi and his friends were hiding away from the night guard, between the exponents. 

"Usagi! Stay here!" Gen hissed, grabbing the rabbit by the ears. 

"But over there's a really cool boat," he whispered, "maybe we can hide in there."

"No, we stay right here with the magical artifact the enemy is looking for," the rhino made it clear. 

"What is that even supposed to be?" Yuichi wondered. "A fish? A worm?"

"It's probably a religious item," Chizu explained. "An amulet from the pre-dorset culture of the inuit, made from walrus ivory."

This amulet was a wedge with carved-in painted lines and ornaments. 

"Waiting here all night is boring," Usagi complained. 

"Isn't patience one of the virtues of the samurai?" Gen teased him.

Being caught, Yuichi changed the topic: "Why do you guys refuse to tell me about the meeting? What was our whistleblower like?"

"If you hadn't run off to duel this jerk, you'd have found out yourself," Kitzune quipped.

The rabbit sighed. "But I was so sure, it was him."

"Well, you were wrong," Chizu pointed out. "Now be quiet!"

During their banter, the night guard was on a different floor with his flashlight, as a few shadows sneaked up on him from behind, and pressed a cloth with chloroform against his nose and mouth! Unconsciously, he sank down to the ground.

The shadows had been the black clad ninja with glowing eyes, our friends awaited - and there were plenty of them in the building. One group had defeated the night guard, another was manipulating the alarm system and a third group approached the piece of ancient inuit art our friends were protecting. Usagi and the others attacked immediately. But the ninja came prepared. They fought Chizu’s arrows off with metall vans and other weapons. 

Two very bulky ninjas attacked poor Gen with very un-Asian weaponry: A warhammer and a humongous morningstar. He did his best to fight them both simultaneously.
Kitzune fought with her van against katanas.
Another ninja disarmed Usagi, flinging a kusarigama around his sword. But with the aid of his yoyo he got back very quickly.

“Oh, no, look!” Kitzune exclaimed. “They’re already stealing the artifact!” She was right. One of the other groups was replacing the wedge of walrus ivory with an identical copy. But our friends were surrounded by attackers. They were just too many. 

“I really would need my Neko ninjas now!” Chizu hissed. 

Now unexpectedly some ninjas had re-activated the alarm system. On all floors of the art gallery sirens went off. The ninjas disappeared in all directions. 

“Darn, how could this go so wrong?!” Usagi cried.

“C’mon let’s scram!” Kitzune urged them.

Monday morning at the turtles’ lair: 

As Leo walked to the bathroom, he checked himself in the mirror. He felt like he had aged a decade this weekend. Please note the difference: aged not matured . But he just looked like always. He didn't even have a hangover.

“Here, dissolve this in a glass of water and drink it,” Donnie had told him yesterday. 

“This is for diarrhea,” Leon had complained. 

“It’s electrolytes!” His brother had snapped at him. “We don’t need a leader with a hangover - especially not now.”

“I quit!” Lee had whined.

“Oh, no, you won’t!” had Don’s response been.  

Now the reluctant leader was looking for his floss and couldn't find any. He opened the cabinet under the sink and froze - it was almost empty! He went to the broom cupboard in their lair only to find his suspicions justified.

In the kitchen, he detected his first suspect: Raph.
“Raph,” he began tired, “if you’ve done it - and I know you did - this is ridiculous! You removed every inedible liquid we have - from mouthwash over dish soap to turps.”

“Yup!” His eldest brother said sternly. “After what happened yesterday - and what you’ve said -” he concluded.

“That was a joke!” Leo insisted. He laughed nervously. “I mean, no one here believed that we couldn’t trust Dr. Yildiz and that she would still work for Eddaneid and would try to poison us - right?”

Raphael tilted his head and didn’t look very convinced. “Look Leon,” he said earnestly, “lately you show some erratic behavior. Mickey -”

“Yeah, Doc Feelings - of course!” Leo moaned, rolling his eyes, “I already wondered where you learned THAT vocabulary!”

Ignoring Leo’s reference to his lack of education and, well, intellect, Raph continued: “Mickey has his own theories. I’m not an expert - none of us is. But-”

“Raph, phuleeze!" His brother interrupted him.

“Let me finish!” The eldest demanded. “All I want is to protect you from yourself.”

Lee groaned in annoyance: “And why did you take away the floss? Do you think, I’d try to hang myself with that? Also you don’t treat me like a person that tends to self harm, but a toddler that would put anything in its mouth!” Suddenly Leo paused. He got a dreamy daze on his face. Then he looked at Raph with an askew smile and remarked:
“Like our toddlers …”

Raph looked down to the floor, exhaled and asked with a bittersweet smile: “Calamity dads unite?”

“Calamity dads unite - till we find a better name,” Leo replied. This resulted in a big, brotherly bear hug.

“Awww!” Mickey exclaimed entering the kitchen, followed by Don, “did I miss a special moment?”

“Whatever it was, I don’t want to get involved,” Donnie made it clear. “Also, what happened to my mouthwash?”

“Hmm …” Mike said, fetching the cereals from the cupboard, “there’s something else I missed … Something I wanted to tell you, guys, but I can't remember what. I think, it was important,” he pondered, tapping his spoon against his head.

“The rocket train has arrived,” a robotic voice noted. They used Donnie’s rocket rail that led to the center of NY, only on rare occasions. Portalling was so much more effective. Also April usually took Mayhem’s help to come to their new hideout fast. So, the only person left visiting them this way was -

“CASEY!” The turtles exclaimed unisono.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted them, suddenly standing in their kitchen. “I really needed to check on you before school. Soooo … you’ve got kinda … cloned?” he asked puzzled.

“With emphasis on kinda,” the smart one replied, being not so smart in the morning. 

Mike kicked his leg under the table.

“Mickey told me, that you three were pretty rattled as you learned, that a cult in Thailand fused your DNA with that of some mysterious creatures and artificially bred hybrids for a future army. He said, I shouldn’t expect you to respond to any messages and just wait till you’ve gotten to terms with the situation,” Case stated.

The three teenage mutant ninja dads blinked at him in surprise. 

Donatello was the first one to speak: “That … was very thoughtful of Mickey to tell things exactly like they are.”

“Yeah …” Leo agreed, “because that doesn’t sound embarrassing or unbelievable at all, since this is pretty much how WE were created.”

“Awesome!” Raph cried and quickly added: “I mean - awesomely correct.”

“Uhm, yeah …” Casey frowned, irritated at their reactions.

Then a very sleepy Splinter entered the kitchen. “Good morning, future boy -” was all he could say, before a stampede of turtles shoved him back into the next room for an emergency talk.

The boy from the future could only raise his eyebrows.
As they finally returned to the kitchen with fake smiles on, he said: “Well … I just came to check if you’re alright so far. See you later - maybe?” Since everybody behaved so oddly, he thought, it would be the best thing, to leave them alone for a little longer. 

He turned his back on them, to ride the rocket rail back to NY. Everything was perfect, till … till Leo couldn’t help himself and cheerfully added: “Aside from the fact that we’re robbed of our youth and our lives, everything’s hotsy totsy now!”

Casey stopped dead in his tracks! As he turned around - whoo boi - Leo recognized an expression on his face he knew - and didn’t like …

“I’m fed up!” Casey snapped. 

The turtles were startled and expected their friend to rightfully accuse them of lying to his face. But this was not the case …

“Wherever I go, people complain. About the weather, taxes, their family … My homies whine all day about dumb, meaningless crap - and I have to pretend to agree - just to fit in. Otherwise I’m the outlandish dork and it PISSES ME OFF!!!”

The mutants exchanged confused glances. 

“Take it from someone who spent his childhood during an era, you’d call the apocalypse and his teens throughout the post-apocalypse: There was death and agony all around. People didn’t take life as granted as you do. Actually, I was afraid you’d ask me, why I - coming from the future, haven’t told you about your kids. Take that - I never even HEARD any ‘bout them! Guess why! Do the terms alien invasion and global destruction help you with your imagination? Your children’s nursery was probably eradicated from existence before you could ever even learn about ‘em! You say, your life’s over. Trust me, this is a far better future lying ahead of you than the one I witnessed. In my timeline we had to deal with death! You only have to deal with life! Admittedly a lot of life and responsibility and obstacles. But the version of you, I’ve got to know, never avoided any of these things!”

He looked at the wall clock. “Oh excellent!” he shouted. “Now I’m late, because of you being a baby about having babies!”

“I'll portal you to school,” Leo offered. Without waiting for a response from Casey, he shoved him through a portal, just to get rid of him. “Phew! I really hit a nerve there, didn’t I?” he said.

“Mickey! You’re a genius!” Raph praised their baby brother. “While nobody needs to know what actually happened, we need every help we can get!”

The box turtle proudly nodded. 

“Now it’s about time that you boys make a plan,” Splinter reminded them.

In a village surrounded by a high barb wire fence on a hill in northern Thailand:

In a room with a console filled with the same herbal extracts in little brown vials as the one Dr. Yildiz brought with her, candles on the floor and a Thai drama serial running on TV, there was a being, pouring itself a cup of tea, with webbed and clawed reptile hands.

“They will be here very soon,” it whispered with a female-sounding voice. 

“Oooh,” sneered a red haired Thai teenage girl about 14 or 15 yo, leaning at the wall “did you hear it through the grapevine?”

“I just know it,” the creature answered. 

“Oh yeah?” the girl snapped. “You didn’t know if my granny would get better soon, and you couldn’t tell me anything about my father or if I would get a call back from the casting!”

“I hope you do, because you have a beautiful voice, "the being replied gently. Unfortunately I’m not a psychic. I just sense things sometimes.”

“Only things that concern you” the Thai spat.

“Often not even that,” the reptile sighed. 

Some notes I took for the song’s lyrics. Maybe I will finish this one someday.

Sadly I only finished the song: Train of Joy for this fic

behind the bars that are white piqued fences
your folks mistook for heaven
and the perfect 1 inch grass forlorn …

on your gravestone they will write:

He lived as long as he could
he did what he wanted - not what he should

In the afterlife they’ll greet you like a VIP. Hel and Persphone will dance close to you, sipping champagne
Hades takes out his electric guitar and all the dead will rise to shake their rotting flesh and rattle their bones to the beat and sing for you

He lived as long - as long as he could
He did what he wanted - not what he should

Chapter Text

TRIGGER WARNING for victim blaming regarding the mother by a new character.

Splinter grinned smugly and bit his lower lip, as he and April sat at the dinner table in Draxon’s apartment. He held up the group picture of his grandchildren and remarked. “Also genetically enhanced by my funny one!”
Which caused April to whack him upside the head with her backpack.
“OW!” he whined. “What is wrong about being proud of having such fertile and smart sons?!”
Their surrogate sister groaned and facepalmed.
“Also,” the rat man babbled on, “Blue turns out to be a real son of a gun like his old man. He drinks, he picks fights with samurai-”

“In other words, he’s completely spiraling out of control,” April concluded dryly. “Splints! How tone deaf can someone be! Your boys were sexually assaulted and just dodged full on abuse, when they were only 13 and 14 yo!”

“But Purple said-” the head of the Hamato clan objected.

“He’s in denial!” She shut him down. “Don’t you see it’s far easier for Donnie to look at it as mere humiliation! Plus Leo appears to be unstable since the events of the Krang invasion and the additional stress and shock of this whole baby drama will just increase his mental issues. And all you do is sit here bragging about it!!”

Baron Draxum completely unphased, stirred his coffee. “I suspected it last Thursday when I found a letter addressed to a guy named Larry Paxton in my mailbox,” he sighed tiredly. “At one morning I somehow woke up to another dimension and I’m stuck there since,” he perorated, nonchalantly sipping his coffee.

“GAAAW!!!” April let out a moan of frustration and smacked her forehead against the tabletop.

“That mission was the biggest snoozefest ever!” Mikey complained. “You guys didn’t let me do anything ‘cept for keeping watch!”

The four ninjas were at a medical facility. The both curly and bulky typography on most signs at the walls made it clear - they were in Thailand. More precisely - in ChianMai, the biggest city close to the golden triangle of the jungle and mountain region of northern Thailand.

“Oh Michael, be grateful you were spared some of the worst puns Leo ever made,” a dead-tired looking Don replied.

“I had to, it was so boring, Leon defended himself.

“Because I had to do all the work,” Donnie remarked. “This was less fun than defusing bombs.”

“Oooooh,” Leo grinned stupidly, “I know another one-”

But Raph grabbed his trickster brother and told him warningly: “Not in front of Mickey!”

Lee shrugged and said to his baby brother: “Sorry, chief big brother has spoken. He turned to his “twin”: “By the way, how long will these fakes fool our enemies?”

“Till they unfreeze them,” Dee stated.

Leon opened a portal the others walked through. “What exactly will they see when they do this?” he wondered curiously.

“Sea monkees holding up tiniest signs that say ‘Suckers!’,” the team brain answered casually.

“That is a joke, right?” Leo asked, puzzled. “I mean it’s impossible - or isn’t it? Hey! Wait for me!”

Then the brothers found themselves surrounded by jungle and mountains under a clouded night sky with sparse moon light and few stars peeking through. It was more of the murky shapes and sounds of wildlife that told them where they were.

“Is it always this dark in the jungle at night?”
Leo asked, but Raph hushed him down.

“If you’re this far off from any common civilization and technology - yes,” Donnie informed him, studying a map by Dr. Yildiz with the help of the night-sight function of his goggles. Raph hushed him down too and impatiently pointed at the map. It showed a plan of a camp titled: ‘Fort Salvation’.

Following their tech whiz through the darkness, they reached a big hut on stilts. While Donnie was scanning and feeling up the door, Mikey opened a small portal himself before Dee could get any funny ideas - like using explosives. After they went through that portal, they were finally surrounded by complete darkness inside the wooden building.

“Watch out-!” Don began, but too late! His brothers were already tripping and sliding. “-The floor is littered with marbles,” the scientist added.

Next the turtles were attacked with small wooden blocks! While Donnie produced a tech shield to protect himself, his bros just kept falling and yelling.

The noise the brothers made could be well heard in the next room. There the Thai teen girl leaned at a wall again and suggested dully: "Wanna say 'hello'?"

The creature held a cup of tea in her trembling clawed and webbed hands. On TV a Thai drama ran on mute.

"I think I'll drink another cup of tea first …" she stammered.

Then ropes were flung at the boys. One tied itself around Mike’s legs, another one around Leo’s throat, who wrestled it off. Raph catched one of the ropes with his strong arms. Finally their attackers showed themselves: A sea of gleaming pairs of eyes! Lots of these small creatures jumped at Raph, bit, scratched and crawled all over him. Suddenly Donnie noticed a sweep of water flowing towards his feet and the next thing he knew was that he got electrocuted!

“We need a light source!” Mickey said.

“Of course!” Leo exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of it before!” and focussed on his ninpo that caused the markings on his shell and skin to glow. The others followed his example and began to glow in their own colors, enlightening the room.

The small creatures shrieked and let go of Raph. Only one was still so busy gnawing on his arm, that it didn't notice anything. Raphael’s heart skipped a beat when he saw that it was one of his own little tots.

“Awwwww!” Mickey cried and got sparkly eyes at the sight of his 49 nieces and nephews in their nursery.

“This - is - a quiverful nightmare,” Leo yelped with a shaky voice.

“Oooh …” the eldest dad said with a breaking voice, picking this wee lil’ alligator snapping hybrid from his arm, holding it up carefully with both hands. The toddler started to squeak frantically.
“Nonononono,” he said, trying to calm his kid down. “You don’t need to be afraid. We’re not here to hurt you.”

“Well,” Don said like it was an everyday occasion to suddenly stand in front of a bunch of eggheaded, mostly thick glasses wearing little versions of himself, “I electrocuted you - you electrocuted me … I think we’re even now.”

Raphael had put his kid down to his feisty siblings: “Look, I’m your poppa - I just look like you with my pointy shell and that snaggletooth”
“And I am the daddy of everybody who has these handsome eye bananas!” Leo now declared smarmy.

“And I’m your uncle Mickey!” He introduced himself while wrapped up in jump ropes from his shoulders to his ankles, trying to keep his balance. “Do they even understand our language?” He asked.

“Or … any language?” Leon wondered.

“Cold!” One older turtle tot squealed in excitement on the side of Raph’s attackers. While bearing no resemblance to any of the teenage dads, its purple markings gave away its heritage.

“A)” Donnie began dryly, “-You probably mean ‘cool’.
B) This is your uncle, I am your father and -
C) You’re a dum dum!”

“DONNIE!!!” his brothers scolded him.

“You should take off these goggles and your scary eyebrows,” Leo suggested. “Maybe then your kids will recognize you as one of them.

“Humpf,” Don said, but did as his brother told him, revealing his own egghead and expression-less dinosaur face.

Now his offspring curiously came closer for further inspection.

“Nonononono!” He said, backing off uncomfortably.

"And … how about now?" The redhead asked the mysterious being in the next room.

"I … I think I drank too much tea," she muttered embarrassedly

"That’s what I wanted to hear," the human girl groaned.

Then a curtain at the other side of the nursery was pulled aside and light from the next room emerged. Some of the turtle toddlers turned around and ran towards the silhouette of a short curly haired figure appearing in this door, chirping. It was the Thai teen holding a petrol lamp.

“We-come-in-peace,” Raph said, like they were extraterrestrials. “We’re the biological fathers of these children -”

“-And their uncle!” A joyful, still tied up Mickey piped up.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know who you are,” she grumbled. “Heck, meanwhile the whole world should know 'bout you. Wonder why you still live in hiding anyway.”

“Fame doesn’t solve all your problems,” Leo remarked.

“At least it solves the bigger ones,” she replied, glancing at the ceiling. Then she looked all the boys straight into the eye and said in a matter of fact tone: ”Listen, you know, you don’t have to do this!”

“What?” Raphael asked, appalled.

“Me existing is kinda my dad’s fault,” the girl said. “But THIS mess -,” she stated, stretching out her arms, pointing at the room full of babies, “is not YOUR fault! You can just walk out of this fort and be free!”

“Oh, I get it!” Leo said. “Eddaneid instructed you to tell us so!”

"No-no-no!" She said quickly. “That’s my OWN advice for you! Look, I can’t go anywhere! I’m STUCK! But you still have a choice!”

“Yeah,” Raph said, folding his arms, “and we chose to take responsibility.”

The girl just moaned, rolling her eyes. “You’ve got no idea what you're getting yourself into!” She insisted. “I mean, these creatures are nothing like you! They’re freaks!” She pointed at their kids again.

“HEY!” Leo shouted.

“Watch your mouth!” Raph warned her, while Mickey nodded, looking judgingly at the human.

“You don’t even know WHAT their host is,” she said frustrated. “She’s not as human as you are.”

“Their host?” Leo asked, frowning.

“Have you ever seen something like this?!” The Thai teen set her lamp down, scooped up one of the toddlers, that tamely and trustfully let her reach into its jaw, tilting it wide open.

“Aaaah,” "Ewww," the boys said. Indeed, the inside of the toddler’s jaw wasn’t such a pleasant sight: On one side, milk teeth grew out of its gums. On the other side grew … strange pointy rows. Also there popped up some teeth in places where they clearly didn’t belong …

“I don’t think a brace can fix this,” Donnie yelped, aghast.

“See? They’re demon offspring,” The girl hissed. “Their host is a chiri- a chee-,” she stuttered, then peeked at a note she had written on the inside of her lower arm in Thai and spelled: A chimimoryo. A monstrous creature that inhabits rivers and bodies of water that causes diseases and bad luck.”

Raph and Mickey stared at her wide eyed and shivered with rattling teeth.

“So, she’s a yokai, you say,” Donnie determined, unimpressed.

“Let me get this right,” Leo began, “Eddaneid used the same baby momma for all our rugrats?” His brothers stared at him dismayed. He was the only one who had carefully listened to what this babysitter type had told them.

Every brother had a very different reaction to this. Leo himself just seemed to personally take offense at this choice. Donnie looked disgusted. Raph flustered.

Only kindhearted Mikey gasped concerned: “One mother gave birth to all these children?”

“I’d call her a host, not a mother,” The human kid stated, callously. “I’ve got a mother, so I know the difference.” Now this was some sick burn. “Plus, it was her very fault that Eddaneid ever targeted you!”

“What do you mean?” Leo asked.

Then everybody jumped at the sound of thunder, followed by a cackling. Some of the kids began to cry.

“Oh, what a wonderful family reunion, “ a man’s voice with a plump accent taunted them. It came from the ceiling.

“Eddaneid!” Raph growled.

“You love to talk to us through speakers - don’t you?” Don remarked, hostilely.

“Wait,” Leo said, “you just scared us with some tacky sound effect?”

“We’re here to make you an offer,” Raph said.

“Oh! yeah,” Leo agreed, picking up on the cue, “we agree on giving your growing army a proper warrior training, helping you to overthrow the reptiloids.”

Eddaneid bursted into laughter. “Oh lordy,” he wheezed. “You and I know very well, that reptiloids don’t exists outside the imagination of simple minded people, right?”

The brothers looked at each other in despair.

“Also I’m not interested in your ninja skills, the reichsburger added. Your children are supposed to become an army of honorable shaolin.”

“What?!” The members of the Hamato clan exclaimed.

“But you’re welcome to visit your kids anytime, since I find your company quite amusing,” the old creep giggled.

Well, he wasn't the only one laughing … Deep down under New York - no - not in the hidden city but in a castle underwater, a creature with glowing red eyes looked into a crystal orb, laughing with a deep voice at an internet video by conspiracy theorists, that claimed that the real Paul McCartney died long ago and was replaced by a reptiloid.

“Those foolish mortals! They waste their short life span looking for lizards walking the streets in human skin. Shall we give them a couple of real threats to worry about - hm? What do you think, Phanu?” With a strong, clawed reptile hand, he petted a creature half chinese dragon, half pekinese dog, curled up in his royally clad lap.
“It’s about time,” he growled, “that we take charge of what once had been ours and restore its former health and beauty, curing this world of that disease called mankind!”

Chapter Text

Today's warnings: We visit a medical rape crime scene. And there is one heavy language sentence towards the end. 

“Hey! Who are you?! His Holy Sovereign said, only family is allowed here!” a Thai man barked. He was one of a group of men pointing rifles at the turtles and April.

“I AM family April stated strictly.

“She’s our surrogate sister,” Donnie explained.

“Now step aside! we promised your leader peaceful cooperation - so don’t cause trouble!” Leo ordered.

The man grunted but reluctantly let them pass.

In bright daylight they finally saw the beauty of Thailand’s north - the misty emerald jungle surrounded by majestic mountains. Well ... actually only Mickey paid attention … The turtle tots played outside, running around between the traditional huts.

“Isn’t it strange?” Raph wondered, stopping in his tracks, “We lived our lives and minded our business these three years, not knowing that we had a whole nursery living hidden in these mountains.”

“There weren’t so many of them in the beginning,” Donnie corrected him.

”But they got more and more,” Leo mused. “And Eddaneid wants hundreds. What does he want so many hybrids for?”

April frowned: “Canon fodder.”

For a moment they all stood there in silence. Then April exclaimed: ”Oh! There he is!” She ran up to a few younger babies in a play pen where she had spotted her favorite: An alligator snapping turtle with two heads! She scooped him up. The boys followed her.

"Great what your mutation did, Don,” Leon, who still hadn’t looked at the baby photos, snarled.

“Mutation has nothing to do with that!” April told him. “Being born with two heads is not uncommon in reptiles. Also did you notice that your kids are numbered? She showed them the shell of baby Two-Heads that felt quite fine in April’s arms, and indeed - a 46 was written on his back!

“There’s still so much we don’t know,” Leo stated.

“But I’m very sure, your nanny has answers,” April said to the baby. “Where’s she anyway?”

They found the Thai teen hanging up the laundry and doing some dance routine between the sheets. She counted and cursed in Burmish, wearing in-ears. Then she looked up in surprise.

“Hi, I’m April O Neal,” she introduced herself.

“Our sister, born to another Mrs and Mister!” Mickey added proudly.

The younger girl took out one of her earphones and shook the student’s hand: “My name’s Kaeo”

“Why are the babies numbered?” April asked.

“They’re not supposed to have names. Eddaneid’s order,” Kaeo said. “Dr. Yildiz wrote down short descriptions of every kid’s personality, but the softshells are so smart, they always help the others to trade their numbers to confuse the grownups.

“I expected nothing short of that,” Ape smiled. “Are all these people around disciples of Eddaneid?”

“No,” Kaeo replied. “They are so poor, Eddaneid pretty much owns them. He’s not as rich and powerful as he likes people to think, he just has his ways. One of these way's blackmail.”

“Tell me ‘bout it …” Mickey groaned.

“Ya’ know,” Kaeo continued, “part of the golden triangle is known for its poverty. The people in the villages all around are cultural and religious minorities. Many of them neither speak nor can read Thai. They live more or less isolated from this country’s society and in some way don’t even exist - since they have no ID.”
The turtles and their human friend shared astonished glances.
“Same goes for the people in the village, my mom was born in. They’re all fugitives from Myanmar.” Kaeo said. After a pause she added: Eddaneid promised my mom I could look after children for one of his projects … Sure we thought, I would take care of human babies … I can never tell her or anyone the truth …” Gloomily she looked down at her feet.

“Was taking care of babies something you wanted to do?” Mickey asked, friendly.

“The last time I did want to,” she answered dully, “I was pestering my mom to get me a baby unicorn princess she couldn’t afford. Good thing was, you could take out the batteries and then the doll would shut up. Doesn’t work for your kids … Things were so much better when the doctors were still here,” she moaned. “Sure, this Soeren guy was a lazy ass, but Onur …” Her eyes widened: “She … she’s okay … right?”

Mickey smiled, nodding.

Kaeo sighed and closed her eyes. “I still don’t get why you bother with all that mess. You signed up for this as little as I did.”

“Look,” Raph laid it on the line for her, “our dad didn’t ask for his DNA to be used in our creation. Yet he took us with him and raised us.”

“Yeah and you were like four mutants - THESE ARE FORTYNINE!” Kaeo retorted angrily.

“And if they were 400 - they were still part of our family and we would take responsibility for ‘em!” April clarified.

A malicious little smile played on the redhead’s lips. “You remember how I told you that Eddaneid just pursued you thanks to the host?”

“Host?” April asked, puzzled.

“She means the yokai birth mother,” Mickey whispered to her.

Acting superior, the teen girl pushed her fists into her hips, wagged her head and stated: “Her trusting Eddaneid and showing herself to him in her true form, made him realize in the first place, that stories of beings like you were more than mere urban legends. You really expect someone who lived in this world for 202 years, not to fall for the funny-new-age-santa clause-facade Eddaneid’s.”

Raph, being the voice of reason and conscience said: “If I had a nickel for every time these bozos and admittedly I had trusted the wrong people I had …” He tried to count the events down on his six fingers, gave up and finished: “... a piggy bank full of nickels.”
While Mickey and April nodded in agreement, only the disaster twins were way too absorbed in their own thoughts to pay attention.

“Huh …” Donnie mused, scratching his chin, “I always wondered why - at a time where no one in New York - not even us - was aware of the existence of yokai, other mutants or aliens - a group of individuals would spent time, effort and expenses to ambush us, kidnap Mickey and lead us into their trap.”

Leo folded his arms, frowning: “Who lived for 202 years?”

“She did,” Kaeo chimed.

“Excuse me, but does SHE have a name too?!” April asked, annoyed.

“Whoa - wait! What?!” it came angrily from Leo.

Donnie just gasped then bellowed: “She’s an adult! We're minors!”

“You don’t say,” Mickey sarcastically remarked.

“And three years ago we were minor minors!” Leo fumed.

“Whu- what’s even the problem?” Raphael asked, irritated.

“She spent 199 years of having a self-determined life, while ours ends before we’re even legal!” Leon cried, while Donnie nodded in agreement.

This degree of pettiness made Raph speechless for a moment.
But April had approached the disaster twins from behind and smacked their heads together.

“OW!!”

“UGH!!”

“Newsflash!” she snapped. “Some bad guys just have no standards. Don’t pretend you had it worse than her, you are ALL victims! Now I’d like to hear the lady speaking for herself. Where is she anyway?”

“At the workshop”, Kaeo answered.

In a hall on the fort’s ground, women were preparing flowers and herbs for the manufacturing of herbal extracts.
“Oh no,no,” the chimimoryo said to the workers, “you have to cut the petals finer.” She turned to a woman standing in the building with her arms behind her back: “Would you translate, please?” The dolmetscher just ignored her. “Well, I come and show you,” she said, approaching the lady cutting the petals. But another worker stretched out a leg and made the birth mother trip and fall. Aside from her clawed hands and feet, her body was completely covered by a Chinese hanfu, but she had the body shape of a human-sized beetle. The women snickered and a few even laughed out loud.

Outside our friends still stood with Kaeo between the hung up laundry.

“Let’s drop by and say ‘hello’!” Michelangelo suggested cheerfully.

“That reminds me,” Donnie stated, “I designed some puzzle toys, I have to bring to my descendants before they die of sheer boredom. If you excuse me-” With that he just flew away.

Leo laughed nervously: “I’m loooong overdue with that father-child-bonding-thing and the whole shebang - toodles!”

Also Raph looked really flustered: “They’re pretty new to childcare, I better check on them before they mess things up - maybe another time”

As all three teen dads had fled a possible confrontation with the mother, April groaned.

“You can’t really blame ‘em,” Mickey noted. “It will be easier for both sides when they don’t meet right away. Can you show us the workshop, Kaeo?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Look, that night the she-demon had one chance to meet up with her children’s fathers and dirty Eddy won’t let her have another … You guys are not supposed to meet - that’s an order.”

“WHAT?!?!” April and Mickey shouted.

In the meantime Donnie had located his kids. “Greetings, descendants! I figured, you must be constantly, mentally underloaded, so I brought you a few puzzles and brain teasers for your intellectual stimulation.”
He gave out purple puzzle and riddle toys in a variety of different shapes, he had exclusively built for his children. The little eggheads with their thick glasses and expressionless faces studied the toys. One baby figured out how it worked. Then all toddlers excitedly began to chirp and approach their inventor dad.

“Nononononononono …” he protested. But before he even understood how that had happened, he was crowd surfing: He laid on his back and 15 little pairs of arms were carrying his battleshell.
Maybe, he thought to himself, he had been completely wrong about seeking the approval of parent-aged adults. The praise and admiration from children was clearly so much easier to obtain - why else were they worshiping him like a freakin’ GOD!?!? This was a feeling he planned to pursue.

Only the ‘Dumb Dumb’ stood there turning the device around in her small hands, cluelessly. On her shell was the number one written. So she was the first born and eldest of all the turtle tots.

April, Mickey and Kaeo were in the garden, tending to the crops as Leo came running up to them, followed by Raph, holding two babies. "Mayday! Mayday!” Leo cried dramatically. You need to dismantle two stink bombs!”

“That’s a great opportunity for you to learn caring for your kids,” April stated.

“Whuuuuuuuuut!” the two ninjas whined.

“I’ll show ‘em where the diapers are,” Kaeo said grimly and led the boys to the nursery again.

When they were alone in the garden, April smiled mischievously at Mickey who responded with a deeply worried look.

At the same time somewhere else in the village, one little softshell got so excited about its new toy, it actually had to jump up squealing, running around, flapping their hands. A tiny smile snuck onto Donnie’s lips. He wasn’t great at self reflection - not at all - but even he couldn't help, recognizing himself in his kid, from when he had been a neurodivergent little toddler. He soon got kicked out of his comfort zone, as the two-year-old tripped, lost its glasses and fell on a not so soft part of the ground and hurt their knee. How often had that happened to him, when he was little! His kid cried like crazy. Donnie sighed and hoovered over to it. Immediately his extended metal hands from his battleshell appeared, one holding sanitizer, another a wipe, a third one a band aid and a forth one stuffed a lollipop into the toddler’s mouth, who just spat it out and ran aways wailing. An annoyed Don followed them, flying.

“April, the whole concept of being stealthy doesn’t work in bright daylight,” Mickey whispered, sweating from fear following her crawling on all fours under one of the huts on stilts.

“Splinter said, become one with the shadows, and the brighter the sun shines, the darker are the shadows!” the savvy girl from the big apple responded.

“We don’t even have Doc Yildiz’s map with us!” he continued to complain.

“I’ve got the map in here,” she smirked, pointing at her head.

Meanwhile Leo desperately held up a cloth - “what am I supposed to do with that?!”

It’s a linnen diaper,” Kaeo said simply.

“Don’t you have wipes?” Raph asked.

“What do you think I boiled water for? Be glad we have baby powder,” the teen girl replied impatiently.

Raph was sweating, like he had an actual bomb in front of him on the changing table, as he unwrapped his baby’s diaper.

“Uuuuuhoohonoooo!” both brothers cried as the source of the stench was unveiled.

“I thought you guys lived in sewers! That means you were surrounded by tons of feces everyday!” Kaeo fumed. “You shouldn’t make such a fuss about a little poop!”

The boys exchanged a blank stare. “I’m afraid, she’s right,” Raph whispered to Leo.

“Well, it's a very smelly little poop,” Leo complained out loud.

“Sweet baby Krishna! Just go on!” Kaeo moaned.

“Don’t you mean, sweet baby Jesus?” Leo wondered.

“NO - Krishna!” she said. Rolling her eyes she added: “My grandparents are totes Lord Krishna devotees. I find every religion ridiculous, but I like my gramps.”

“Oh no - you won’t!” Raph said, stopping his son from crawling off the table. After having cleaned the area, he fought with the cloth diaper. “Gnnnnnnnn - Ha! Finished - like a boss!” he triumphed.

“Wrong side,” Leon said.

“Whoops!”

The little snapping turtle made some confused noises under the diaper around his head …

“You sure, that’s the workshop? Looks like a greenhouse to me,” Mike said.

“100 percent!” it came confidently from April.

“Locked, “ he said inspecting the door.

“How many portals have you opened this month?” his friend checked.

“Three,” Mickey answered.

“Maybe you need to open another one. I better try this, before you have to push your limit,” she took out a hair pin and tried to mess with the lock.

“No, I won’t ask how you got up there,” Donnie stated. He had finally found the little one on the benches of the ceiling of an empty hut. He held the baby’s broken glasses in his hands, mending them with his ninpo. “Huh,“ he made sarcastically, “maybe I should do this for a living.”
He flew up to the ceiling, placed the glasses on his kid’s little beak and picked it up with two of his metal hands and carried the tot back to the ground. Giddy and peacefully again, it reached out its tiny arms for a hug.

“I'm sorry,” he said, gently putting it down. “I can’t hug you. Otherwise your siblings will think, I’m playing favorites. I can’t hug one of you, while the others watch on and get sad and jealous - I speak from experience.”

His little kid looked up to him with big googly eyes, letting out a sad chirp.

“And I can’t hug you hiding in here, since you might tell your siblings about it in your own language and … “ he sighed, “you don’t understand a word I say, do you?”

Another sad chirp.

Donnie shook his head. “I can’t possibly hug all of you, so I can’t hug any of you,” he declared, bittersweet.

“Okay … where’s everybody?” Kaeo asked, returning to the empty garden. Leo and Raph close behind, carrying their babies respectively, shrugged.

“They probably went to Donnie and his kids,” Raph noted.

“They’re lazy asses too!” Kaeo groaned.

“I've got it … almost … I can feel it!” April hissed. With an impatient sigh, Mickey opened a small portal and pulled her with him, despite her protesting vehemently.

Inside the hall everything looked rather … medical … There was equipment in cabinets with doors of frosted glass, a treatment chair, a surgery couch and different machinery covered by sheets, antiseptic paravents and something that looked like … ovens?

“DON’T!” April warned Mikey, “Don’t you DARE to give a misogynistic comment about women and sense of direction!”

“I think, one who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones,” Mickey said, looking at his metallic orange painted fingernails. “What is this anyway, the med bay?”

“You haven’t looked into the folder with the maps and the coordinates”, April determined.

“Nooo…” Mike said sheepishly, “only at the baby photos.”

“Well, this IS a greenhouse … just not for plants …” April stated grimly.

“You mean …” Michelangelo began, rapidly pailing.

“YES, both a crime scene AND the place where our precious little nieces and nephews hatched - right there in these incubators Eddaneid probably got due to good connections to that ostrich farm in Chiang Rai or from somewhere else in that radius,” she said pointing at what looked a bit like ovens.

“Why does it have to be both?!” Mickey cried dramatically.

“Shhhhht,” April made. “Let’s get outta here. We still have to find the mom!”

Around that time, a jeep drove up the path to the village. The guards opened the doors of the fort’s entrance, and the car passed. Out of it stepped a short, chubby, white guy, with long gray hair, wearing a satin robe that probably hadn’t been cheap, but looked cheap and a silly golden hat.

“Oh look, his unholy sovereign honors us with a visit in person! Sneer!” he heard a dull voice say from above. As he looked up, he saw Donnie hovering high over him in the air.

A man with a rifle approached Eddaneid and spoke to him in Thai. Then a group of men came out of a hut, struggling to keep a kicking and hitting April under control. They also carried Mickey who had retracted into his shell.

“What is that?!” What are you doing here?!” Eddaneid yelled.

“How did this even happen?” Leo moaned dramatically. He and Raph now were hand-weeding the garden under Kaeo’s supervision.

“I have no idea,” he murmured.

Their babies crawled around on a rug and enjoyed themselves.

Then both brothers received a call from Donnie on their headsets: “Distress call, distress call, come to the entrance - immediately!!”

“Don, what’s going on?” Leo asked.
“Just come QUICK! I could handle this situation myself,” Donnie said, “but I don’t think you’d like the way I’d handle it …”

Raph and Leo came in time to see April with foam at her mouth lunging for Eddaneid’s throat, shouting the most spiteful insults at him she could imagine. Mickey gushed out an explanation how April was part of their clan, which … was not at all helpful in this situation. Eddaneid looked rather … well-entertained.

“Oh!” he rejoiced when he spotted the brothers dirty from gardening. “I see you boys make yourself useful. Excellent, excellent. You’ve become so big and strong - like your children will be one day. I hope I’ll still be able to witness that.

Raph appeared calm and collected outside, but certainly gave forth ‘Wanna kill this dirty motherfucker right now’ stink.

“You should thank me for giving you these purebred children.” Eddaneid continued. “Who knows what monsters you’d have begotten!”

“Hey! Raph hollered. “Stop talking about us like we were some savage beasts!”

“Yeah,” Donnie agreed we’re just as human as her,” pointing over to April, “and far more civilized than you’ve ever been.”

“In fact, you’re the only savage beast I see here,” April addressed Eddaneid.

“Huh,” Leo finally said. “Mutant-demon-hybrids with severe dental problems are your idea of purebred? Tell me, you’re deranged without telling me you’re deranged.”

“Shut up! Shut up right now!” the short despot screamed, jumping up and down, spitting while speaking. “Did you forget who you are talking to?! I’m the one who holds power over your little cubs! I can forbid you to see them anytime! And if you want war, you can have war!!!”

Leo came closer snickering. “Trust me, you pathetic, snakeoil-selling fraud, with your laughable security of unmotivated villagers, you DON’T want war!” He began to glow in bright blue.

“Yes, we defeated aliens with their superior technology,” Donnie claimed. This wasn’t exactly true, but it sounded impressive, right?

“And something tells me, you just need our help as much as we need yours,” Raph mused.

At the same time deep, deep down under New York’s east harbor, the humanoid dragon sat on his throne, looking into his crystal orb, fondling his pekingese dog dragon and feeding him a treat.

“I’ve been thinking, Phabu,” he said gently, “to keep a low profile for now, until we have regained more of our power, we should outsource some of our tasks to a pawn. This might even give us the opportunity to lead that honorless mole in or ranks into a trap. I just found the right man that fits our requirements.”

A man in his late thirties, Caucasian but with sunburnt skin and hair that looked like he had stuck a fork up a socket, appeared in the crystal orb. He just sat there repairing a crossbow.

“He has all the skills we need and is an absolute numbskull at the same time,” the dragon explained. “It will be a pleasure to watch him doing the dirty work for us.” He let out a deep guttural laugh.

Chapter Text

Author's note: If you feel like the plot is taking a bit of a leap here, It's because I took out a chapter that paced down the story. I moved the crucial info given in that old chapter 10 to the new chapter 11. If you'd like to spend a little more time with the whole Hamato clan at Todd’s place to enjoy banter and a glass of sunshine- you can read it on my tumblr page: Chapter 9 ½ 49 Kids and NOT counting. 

Also the monster in this chapter here was inspired by the legendary Mothra

"Why are you complaining, Donnie?" Mickey asked. "You didn’t want to smile for customers so your costume smiles instead of you."

Don stuck in a happily smiling pineapple suit while Mickey had found new use for his old cucumber costume. 
They did the promotion outside a smoothie bar named "Fruit Bay" while Leo and Raph stood behind the counter. Of course they were in the Hidden City. 

“Guess what? I quit,” Dee said, turning away from Mickey, unzipping his costume. “This was a stupid plan anyway. “Even if we all work hard, we are far from filling 48 stomachs.”

“Donnie! Please, you can’t!” Mickey begged him. “Plus, they're 49.” 

“I figured, Raph’s two-headed baby only has one stomach, so it's 48,” Don remarked.

“Oh, no! You won't back out of ‘dis!” Raph hollered. 

“Listen Dontron,” Leo began seriously, “we’re here in the first place since you’re not willing to tell us how you secretly fund your inventions.” Sharply he added: “You can’t make anyone believe that you built all your shiny tech from scratch.” 

“I recycle a lot and due to the mystic tech powers I developed, I additionally could cut down on costs-," Tello began. 

“As I said - NO ONE - believes your narrative,” Leon interrupted him. 

Dee's expression turned from snobbish to right out annoyed and he informed his fam: "Let me tell you this: I can either afford funding for my inventions OR provide for our kids. And I don't think such sacrifice would be in your interest."

“Anyway, we can't sit around and wait for a benevolent sponsor," their leader sighed, “we have to start somewhere.”

Just next to them was the "Veggie Grill" and they were in for a surprise, when they saw Kitzune dressed up as a veggie burger rattling down unenthusiastically: "I'm a happy, healthy, cruelty free, lactose free and gluten free burger."

"I don't buy the 'happy' part," Donatello said dryly.

It's you guys again!" Leo stated the obvious. And indeed - also Gen, Chizu and Yuichi were working at the grill. 

"Oh, you are properly dressed for a change," Gen grunted.

"We're always properly dressed," Raph snapped back. "We … we just wear as much as necessary."

"Uh huh …" Kitzune said. "Why are you currently a pickle?" she asked, addressing Mickey who proudly declared:

"Because of our Cucumber Special."

"Everything with cucumber sucks!" Chizu commented.

"Not surprised to hear that from a cat!" Mike dared to say.

"Ha! You’re a speciest too!" spat the fox girl.

"I just speak from experience," the box turtle defended himself. 

"Why do you and your buddies have to work anyway?" Leo asked. "Don't samurai get a salary or something?"

Usagi was on the brink of revealing their secret mission. But Chizu interfered, saying: "This is none of your business."

Talking about business - it didn't work out so well for the Fruit Bay on this day. Only a few customers were interested in smoothies, frozen yogurt and the ominous Cucumber Special. Let down, our turtles watched people buying soy-based sausages.

“If the sky wasn’t so clouded up and the sun would get through, maybe we had more customers,” Leo pondered. 

Mickey, exhausted from jumping around and trying to hype people for the Cucumber Special, agreed.

“That’s it!” Donnie said, “I send in drones to dissolve the clouds.”

“Donnie! No!” Raph protested. “We already had the discussion about weather manipulation!”

“C'mon big bro,” Leo tried to talk him down, “we're new at the job and need have to make a good first impression.”

Raphael gave in and Donnie sent up the drones. And lo and behold - as the sun came out shining warm and bright above the hidden city, yokai flocked to their stand and the boys sold more and more!
Seeing that, Yuichi and his friends moaned. 

“If it were snowing, we'd make big business,” he stated. 

Not long after that, the sky became cloudy again. The temperatures sank and actual snowflakes fell down on Kitzune's nose. 

“Usagi! How have you done this?!” Gen asked him reproachfully.

“I - I haven’t done anything Yuichi gushed out with fascination. “Or - or maybe I have … Sure I did- with some special magic mind powers!” He concluded proudly. 

At the same time it was Raph who yelled: “Donnie! What have you done?!” 

“Nothing!” The tech whiz defended himself. I just removed the clouds. That’s all.” 

“I told you not to mess with the weather!” Raph shouted.

“Uh … I hate to admit it, but I don’t think it's Tello's fault,” Leo said, squinting at the sky.  
They followed his gaze and saw … a gigantic fuzzy worm with twelve pairs of shimmering dragonfly wings, hovering over the city like an eel. When it came near any buildings, their roofs hit covered in thick ice. Our ninjas watched wide eyed. 

“That creature threatens the city!” Raph stated the obvious. 

“This is the first real challenge in a looooong time,” Leo remarked. “Don't know ‘bout you guys, but I missed that HARD.” 

They smiled knowingly at each other, threw away their costumes and clerk uniforms and ran!

Also Usagi and his gang were gone - but certainly not into hiding. “Usagi! What are you about to do?” Chizu asked him, rushing through the city together with the others. 

“Yeah,” Kitzune said, “we've got no floating wagons, no giant mecha robot, no heli, no nothin’!” 

“We don’t even have coats!” Gen whined, sneezing. 

Usagi smiled determinedly: “You forget, we're in a city full of yokai and I have this - he pointed to his yoyo.

“You'd blow our cover!” Chizu warned him. 

“Do you really need to see every big city's jail from the inside?!” Gen cried, fed up. 

“Maybe we become heroes again,” Usagi said. Everybody just shuddered from the freezing cold. 

The yokai city was in a frenzy. Everybody screamed and went into hiding. The police tried their best at keeping people from trampling each other. 

“Hey! I need your help!” Usagi called out to a fleeing scorpion yokai. As he didn’t stop, the rabbit said: “That wasn’t a plea but an order,” and lassoed out his yoyo, getting stuck on the scorpion's armor. The scorpion froze.

“Uhm … peace man?” the young samurai asked unsure. “I just wanna save ‘dis city.”

“You idotic little fuzzball! Let me go!” the yokai demanded.

“Yeah, go on, feed into my insecurities,” Yuichi murmured, “but help me to get up these buildings to catch this moth-snake-thingy.” 

“This ‘thing’ will freeze me to a scorpion on the rocks!” the yokai protested.

“I won’t let this happen!” Chizu said, showing off her arrows turning into daggery of fire. 

Reluctantly the scorpion agreed, carrying the friends up buildings and rooftops, trying to get near the monster. 

Meanwhile the turtles were already attacking the eel moth. 

“Cowabunga - feelin’ alive!!” Mickey cheered, shooting multiple flaming chains at it, jumping up high from a rooftop. The creature fought back, sending freeze attacks generated by flapping their dragonfly wings and shouting radio sound waves at them. Raphael protected his brothers with his aura shield. 

Leo portalled himself onto the back of the moth. “Ooooh,” he remarked, you have it warm and cozy up here,” holding on tight to the thick, white fur.
The creature turned around and around screaming sonic radio waves.

At this time the moth flew close to a rooftop with Usagi and his friends on it. Chizu’s flame arrows protected the scorpion yokai and the others from getting frozen over. Usagi expanded his yoyo and lassoed it around the creature's body. While the moth didn’t get stupefied like a yokai, it couldn’t fend off the yoyo and Usagi pulled himself up, grabbing into the moth's fur. Red eyes everywhere - Yuichi pretty much embraced a field of them! 
“Eyes! Waaaay too many eyes!” he gasped in disgust, losing his grip. He had his paw tied around the yoyo's thread, but he was about to let go. In the last moment he regained his self-control and swung himself onto the beast's back. “Ow!” He hit his head at something hard, slipped and got hold of a scaly, leathery limb. 

“Hey,” A familiar voice protested weaklý.

Yuichi opened his eyes and saw that he was holding on to the leg of a ninja turtle!

“Pulling a leg - hu, bunny boy?” he smirked. “You've git guts getting up here.”

“I'm a - uh nevermind!” Usagi began. “What's wrong with you?” 

“Lil’ seasick,” Leo replied simply. 

“You're not a yokai,” Usagi concluded.

“No …” Leo said slowly and swiftly changed the topic: “on your way up here, did you find any weak spots on our fluffy friend?” 

Usagi thought of its many eyes and then he remembered how sharp the ninja's katanas were. “Nope,” he answered quickly. “What is your plan anyway?” 

“To rodeo that thingy back to my baby bro - so that he can burn its the moth butt,” Leo explained. “And yours?”

“I - uh,” Usagi stuttered, “I'm very spontaneous and intuitive when it comes to plans -” 

“So you have none,” Leo deduced.

“Maybe I just try to find out what this creature wants,” the rabbit snapped.

“I'm sorry to break it to you, but aside from making sonic radio waves, this thingy is not very talkative,” Leo quipped, but Usagi didn’t listen. 

He had gone into meditation. The string of the yoyo wrapped around his hand and the moth's body gleamed brighter and brighter and he got a vision:
He saw the melting of the poles, breaking icebergs, starving polar bears … burning woods in Australia with animals being eaten by the flames … coral reefs fading away and dying … He snapped out of his trance and took a deep breath. In this moment another portal opened in the sky with Mickey emerging and sending his burning, fiery chains. The moth's fur caught fire.

“Nooooo,” Usagi shouted, “you just make it angrier!” 

The creature sent out more radio waves and actually seemed to flee the city. Leo and Usagi were thrown around. 

“Get your shiny string off that thing or it takes you with ‘em!”Leo snarled at him. 

Reluctantly Usagi called his yoyo back and with a last: “I am sorry,” to the moth, he got pulled through a portal.

Down on the street Leo appeared out of the portal with Usagi, while his brothers came jumping, running and flying to him. 

“Yeehaw! I rode that thing like a cowboy!” Leo bragged with a terrible Texan accent. 

“Woohoo! I burned its butt!” Mickey cheered. 

“Finally an opponent of my taste,” came it from Donnie.

“We showed ‘dis baddie what we're made of! The Ninja Turtles are back in business, baby!” Raph hollered. 

“I think,” Usagi said gloomily, “you can let go of my hand now.

“Oh … oh sure,” Leo stammered,  sheepishly. 

“You guys just don’t understand!” he snapped. “This creature wasn’t evil! It wanted to tell us something, teach us a lesson!”

“Oh yeah?” Raph asked, “by freezing over the city?” 

“The moth gave me a vision of the destruction of nature and I perceived all its sadness,” Yuichi said.

The turtles just raised their eyebrows at him, unimpressed.
“Guess the air was a lil’ thin up there,” Lee mocked him and earned a death glare from the rabbit. 

“Usagi!” his friends shouted, running up to him. Gen took him into a big bear hug, while Kitzune hit him with her van over the head and said: “Never do this again!” 

“What was that?” Chizu asked.

“A lesson and a warning,” Yuichi said glowering. “And not the last one of this kind.”

“When it comes back, we'll deal with it again,” Leon smiled smugly. 

“With pleasure,” Don added.

The rabbit just shook his head: “You understand nothing …”

“Usagi, what are you talking about?” Gen asked. 

“I'll explain to you later guys,” he said. “We have to go back to work.”

As the two groups reached their shops, they spotted two yokai talking on the street. 

“Hey, that’s our manager!” Kitzune pointed out. 

“He's talking to our manager,” Mickey noticed. 

As they came closer, the two men turned to them with serious expressions on their faces. 
“You're fired,” said the first one.

“All of you,” added the other. 

“Whuuuuuuuut?!?!?!”, was the animals’ and the mutants’ reaction.

“But … we had to save the city!” both teams stated.

“Had you?” asked the smoothie bar manager. 

“As far as I know, your responsibility way to take care of the store,” the veggie grill manager declared.

“But who buys snacks in a city that is freezing over?” Usagi dared him.

“That is not the point, “ argued his boss. 

“Would you do it again?” wanted the other manager to know.

“Anytime!” Raph said proudly.

“See,” replied their boss, “you would always leave your workplace to fight some monster and that’s not the spirit I'm looking for in my employees.”

“That’s so unfair!” Mickey cried.

Later our four brothers sat on the sidewalk.

“Hey,” Mike said encouragingly, “think positive! April was kicked out of so many jobs and she never gave up. There are still plenty of jobs in this city. “

“Mickey's right!” Raph said, “we shouldn’t give up on the first try.”

“But the managers were right too,” Leo said, “we just cannot NOT protect the city.”

“Maybe we're lucky and our enemies attack New York instead of the hidden city while we're at work here,” Donnie pondered. This was probably the most autistic thing he had ever said.

“Seriously Donnie?” Mickey asked dryly.

“You said, ‘think positive’ and I did, “ Don defended himself.

Everybody just moaned.

Chapter Text

Author’s note: some warnings for gross feral turtle facts - at least Donnie finds them very gross. 

Eddaneid sporting a trippy batik shirt, looking like an old hippie, was hosting a public livestream on social media. It was one of his yoga classes. But if you think he himself was doing any asanas here, you’re wrong! He just sat there lazily behind his webcam and bossied participants around:

“Seriously Rob?! Couldn’t you clean up your room before?! Go fix this pig stag and then join the stream again!

No, no, no Malcom! That’s wrong! Look into your pdf again. You’re doing it wrong! You’re moving your leg like an injured frog.

Leila! My Queen! My high priestess! You always bring celestial energy to our stream.

Timothy! Is that a yoga mat from Dollar Tree?! How dare you to defile our sacred stream with unauthorized discounter trash!” He turned as red as a tomato while he yelled at poor Timothy. “YOU CAN ONLY practice with the blessed yoga equipment from MY online shop!!!” He got so angry that he picked up some crystal pyramid from his table and smashed it at the split screen with Tim in it. “Oh shit …” his unholy sovereign murmured, realizing that he had just destroyed his laptop. 

"I shouldn’t doubt a fellow scientist, but how can I trust Dr. Yildiz with the character descriptions when she can't even keep the children in the right order?" Donnie complained to April. He sat in his lab, programming an app that should help properly telling their kids apart. 

"Oh c'mon," April said, "maybe their numbers don't show the exact order in which they hatched, but they're pretty close."

"Oh contrary!"  Donnie disagreed. "The correct order would at least show that there had been one clutch by me, one by Raph, one by Leo, again one by me and so forth.

April frowned: "Err … you’re aware that mothers of several feral turtle species can have babies from different fathers in one clutch? This also applies to dogs …"

Don looked up from his arm-screen and stared aghast at his best friend. He surpressed a gag as he asked: "Why would Eddaneid even try that out."

"I guess he wants to avoid that the different races seperate themselves ," April pondered."The future cannon food should develop as little individuality as possible. Therefore numbers instead of names. 

The brain of the Ninja Turtles still looked very uncomfortable.

"Now put the Doc's baby bios into your app!" She demanded. "You guys know your kids just for a few days. She took care of them over the course of months and years. "

"Well, at least I can use them as the base for more accurate, more refined character profiles," he responded arrogantly. 

"And please don't replace their numbers by QR codes - we need both! You guys and Kaeo have phones for the app. But the mother has none and Eddaneid won’t let her have one", the student insisted. 

Tello just shrugged. "If she can't tell her children appart, she failed at motherhood."

"Gnnnaaaark!!!" April let out a roar of frustration.

"Gnark?" Don asked unimpressed. "What is that even supposed to mean?"

Talking about failing at motherhood … at the same time at Fort Salvation two of the turtle toddlers had started a sandbox fight and now were both crying. Their mother tried to console them. She scooped them up, placed them left and right on her hips, rocked them and spoke soothing words. But the babies just wailed louder. 

Kaeo raised an eyebrow at the scene. Then she yelled: "SHUT UP!!!"

The kids stared with huge and frightful eyes at the 14-yo but stayed silent. 

"See?" the Thai said, "this is how that works. You're a failure!"

Back in New York in a dark alley stood the guy, the dragon on his throne had seen in his crystal orb. He wore a worn out trenchcoat and looked and smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower in weeks - or likely months and whistled a little song. 

Then footsteps were heard. "Uh, it is good to see, you are on time," a velvety voice said that sounded neither clearly male nor female. The next moment a well dressed chubby asian man walked around the corner. He had a unique well-groomed thin and long mustache that fell down his onion-shaped face down to his collar. He had yet black hair that was neatly combed back. "I'm Mr. Tiangou," he introduced himself. "It's a pleasure to meet you," Tiangou offered a hand in a vinyl glove. 

"Hey, It's 'n honor to me. Bonesteel's the name," the neglected man replied, shaking the posh guy's hand violently. "Usually my customers don’t show up in person. That’s pretty neat!" He put his arm around Tiangou and dragged him with him.

The posh man was so disgusted by Bonesteel's smell, he pressed a handkerchief from his chest pocket against his mouth and nose and began to cough. 

"Need a peppermint?" Bonesteel asked, taking a rusty metal box from his coat. Inside it was filled with screws, pins and buttons. He took out a peppermint drop that stuck to a nail, pulled off the nail and offered it a repelled Tiangou. 

"Thank you," he gasped, "but I think, I'm fine now." 

"Goooooooood," Bonesteel said. "So let's go and discuss business - only you, Mary Lou, Miyumi and me."

"Who … who are these ladies?" Tiangou asked warily. 

Bonesteel opened his coat and showed him a crossbow: "This is Mary Lou," he said tenderly, "and this is Miyumi." He pointed to an antique Japanese multi-barrel rifle. 

"Well …" Tiangou said uncomfortably, "we shouldn’t waste any more time."

"Just my thoughts," Bonesteel smiled.

That night Mickey sat on top of a skyscraper, gazing at the lights of the city, as he got joined by April and Mayhem.

"Hey.
"Hey", they greeted each other. 

After they both sat there side by side in silence, Mike took a deep breath and finally asked: "Do you think, our family is cursed to run into megalomaniacs that want to play Dr. Frankenstein? 

"Uh…" she made. That was not a question she had expected. 

"I mean, there's no other explanation!" Mike continued angrily. 
"It's no karma, since the rule of karma is: what goes around comes around. 
It's no destiny 'cuz our clan's destiny's to defeat whatever monster the Foot is currently worshiping. 
Psychology serves no explanation either. Yeah people can't help making the same mistakes their parents made before - but dat's not the case here!
Our dad and my brothers walked into a trap and ended up becoming parents without their consent.
Sure Splinter was forced into that gladiator thing, before he got abducted a second time. This is a whole different beast to unpack. 
But aside from all the different circumstances, you can’t ignore the parallels!"

April couldn’t help but groan. "Mickey, it’s a chain of really odd coinkydinks - but not more than dat. Looking for explanations in psychology or the supernatural won’t make it easier."

Mickey nodded without looking at her. She noticed that he clenched his fists and that his shoulders started to twitch. 

"Mickey?" April asked gently.

"If I hadn't let these people kidnap me in the first place … If I could have managed to escape on my own, my brothers wouldn’t have needed to go through that …" Tears began to run down his cheeks.

"Please don't beat yourself up over this!" April begged him. "You've been a victim yourself. I know there's nothing harder than not being able to help the ones we love. But it wasn’t you who brought 'em into this situation. It were these sickos. It's not the fault of any of us. Mickey …" she said intently, cupping his face, "you're the one of us who's dabbling into psychology : Why does a victim blame themself - like you do right now?"

The box turtle sniffed and kept quietly sobbing  … After a long pause he croaked: "Self blame gives you a false sense of control over your situation. you tell yourself, if I caused it, I can make it unhappen - or at least take the punishment for it - to bring in a lil' justice."

"I'm so proud of you, " April gushed out relieved. 

"But I really, really, really wish it wouldn’t have happened," he cried.

"I know Mickey, I know …" she said, taking him into her arms. 

So April comforted another ugly crying turtle brother, because of Eddaneid’s crimes, high above New York city that night.

Chapter Text

Would you prefer to become a savior figure because you dragged the world into misery in the first place?

- Or to pay the rest of your life for a crime you yourself fell victim to?

Just kidding - you don’t have a choice ...

Today's warnings: Some not so mild language.

Kaeo was pouring April a cup of tea. The girls and Mickey were sitting on traditional kapco pillows on the floor, drinking tea and eating from a cake Kaeo had made. 

"The women in my family took huge pride in their motherhood," April said. "None would ever have denied that they carried their children and went through labor."

"That cake's really good!" Mickey said.

"It's a recipe I got from Dr Yildiz," Kaeo smiled proudly, "it's called Ispanakli Kek."

"What's in it?" Mickey wanted to know. "It looks like pistachio, but tastes WAY better."

"Spinach," Kaeo answered happily. She better hadn’t revealed it. Michaelangelo just spat his mouthful of cake into her face!
April looked just as disgusted as her surrogate baby brother, but forced down the last bite of cake in her mouth. 

"The thing is," April said awkwardly, "it feels absolutely wrong to ask you to keep this a secret … but we can't tell everybody how things actually happened. Cuz, then we have to defend the boys and expose their trauma. And this is core family business only. Case is core family buuuuuut it doesn't feel right to tell him yet …" April explained. 

An annoyed and grossed out Kaeo was still picking wet cake crumbs out of her curly hair. "Fine by me," she grumbled. "If I was you, I'd rather worry 'bout dirty Eddy's big mouth."

"Oh," April smirked, "the boys will take care of that. .."

Outside said dirty Eddy was throwing another tantrum: "Are you kiddin' me?!? How many of your clan are there even?!?! They can't all come up here!!" He referred to Casey who was carefully walking around the playing turtle tots, carrying Mayhem on his shoulder.

"You should at least prepare for two more," Leo replied lazyly, "a rat and a sheep man."

"Whaaaat?!?! Eddaneid fumed. "You're fuckin' me over!!!"

"Not at all," Donnie responded. "But our personal relations are none of your business. Speaking of - we want to have a little private talk with you."

Before the reichsbuerger knew what's going on, he got pushed through a portal followed by the three calamity dads. Things were not so inviting at the place they had traveled to: There was nothing but rocks, vulcans and lava. 

"Wha … what did you do? Where am I?" Eddaneid stammered.

"Listen, dirty old man," Raph said gruffly.

"We told you, you don't want war," Leo told him.

The metal helping hands from Donnie's battleshell appeared and grabbed the tyrant by the collar of his pompous golden robe. Then Don flew with him  up to one of the volcanos. Eddaneid shivered and screamed as he found himself suspended in midair looking down into the cauldron of lava. 

"Have you lost your mind?!! You wouldn’t dare!!" he whimpered.

"Hold still or I might accidentally drop you," Tello warned him sinisterly. "As for our friend Casey … to him our kids are clones - artificially bred in a glass tank. No mention of us being sperm donors or the hatching of eggs or anything alike - understood?!" 

"What BS is that?!" Eddaneid exclaimed in utter disbelief. 

"You heard me right," Donnie assured him. "For Case only the G-rated version of the truth."

"This Is ridiculous!!!" Eddaneid cried. 

"If I was you, I wouldn’t be this obstinate," the scientist said dryly. "Let me put it on a line for you: You'll stick to our little narrative and won’t cause any complications."
An enormous holographic screen appeared next to Donnie and there was actually written: 'No cum-plications' …

Standing on the ground, his brothers noticed this not so little detail. Raph rolled his eyes and slapped his forehead. 

"Rrrrrrrrrrrespect," Leo grinned idiotically. 

"But if you slip up …" Donnie added and let Eddaneid literally slip out of his metal hands! The short man screamed in terror as he fell down the volcano. Don did a nosedive and catched him short before he could plummet into the burning lava.

Donnie’s smug "Whoopsie," was all the despot heard before he fainted. 

So he didn’t witness the two demonic creatures that poofed out of nowhere next to Leo and Raph, saying: "Thank you for joining our vulcano park tour. We hope you had a great time! Don’t forget: Every Wednesday families with children under five years pay half the price and get a free burned pancake with extra chili and hot sauce at our park restaurant." 

As they returned with the unconscious Eddaneid to Fort Salvation, Leo widely smiled at his 'twin': "Bro, if we weren’t related I'd adopt you now."

"Screw you, Nardo," Don replied, placing Eddaneid at a corner between huts. "I had to talk to this creep in a language he understands."

"Sure …" Leo teased him.

In the meantime Casey observed No. 46 - baby Two-Heads, sitting in his playpen one head blissfully chewing on a teether he held with both hands while the other head hung down snoring.
As he accidentally nudged the sleeping head, who woke up and began to whine in frustration,  he let go of the teether and gently patted his brother's head till he fell asleep again. From now on he only held his teether with one baby hand, careful to not wake up his brother again. 

Casey got big sparkly eyes. "Just like his dad," he uttered, moved. 

Later Case was already run over by two red-ears chasing each other. Mayhem portalled himself into safety. First they ran at a normal pace. But then they reached superhuman - err - superturtle speed and crashed together into the wall of the fort! The teen boy was startled - but then he saw, behind the wooden wall was a brick wall camouflaged with old mattresses and behind this brick wall, was a second wall of wooden fences surrounding the fort. Obviously this kind of incident had been happening before. Leo's two toddlers were stuck in the box springs of the mattress. They seemingly didn’t mind the impact with the wall behind but freed themselves, ripping the springs from the mattress; continuing to chase each other, stuck in the springs: boing - boing - boing - boing.

"Just like the father," Case gushed, mesmerized.

He came across a group of softshell tots, wearing thick glasses, playing with the physical riddle toys, tricky pyramids and cubes their dad built them.

"Just like Donnie," Jones smiled, tripping over something in the grass. Mayhem, who meanwhile had returned to his shoulder, regretted this, making an angry cat sound. 

"Oh sorry," the boy said. What he had stumbled over, looked like a softshell's shell, but was surprisingly solid and bony. A head emerged that was shaped like an old tube TV. Some of the turtle tots had either clawed and webbed hands or feet. This baby had both. Many had the pig nose, few had uncanny pink eyes. But this kid had all of these attributes … attributes that pointed to … the mysterious other parent … only the purple markings on its skin pointed at Don being their father. It was No. 1, the Dumb Dumb. 

"Hey, what are you doin' down there? Watching bugs?" Casey guessed.

"Nah!" she replied. "I watch the grass grow!" the Dumb Dumb explained bubbly and added whispering in awe: "It growed a lot." 

"Oooooookay …" Casey said unsure. 

Later the members of the Hamato clan and Kaeo sat together in the kitchen preparing dinner. 

Casey was blissfully munching on the cake. "What is this?" he asked.

"Spinach cake," it came gloomily from Kaeo, who ducked down.

"Cool," he replied simply and ended up eating all the cake leftovers. 

"Oh!" Mickey said, reaching for his phone that wasn't in his shell. "I'll be right back,"he said, leaving the kitchen hut. He went into the empty nursery and headed for the room behind the curtain. As he came closer to the curtain, he heard a sound of crashing porcelain. He froze for a second, immediately understanding what was going on. Shyly he pulled the curtain aside. There was a broken vase on the floor with strayed flowers laying in a puddle of water. What a strange, fateful dejavu…. He wasted no time and ran out of the door of the back porch. The yard behind the hut was empty. Mickey sighed in disappointment. Then he noticed something, a creaking sound. It came out of the well. He took a closer look and realized that the old rope that held the bucket was moving. He went over, looked into the well and …

"Go away! We must not see each other!" 

"Too late!" he piped up friendly. "My name’s Mickey and I'm your brother in - no wait, I'm not, but I'm the uncle of all your children! … unless you have some other children I don't know."

"Please, Mickey, I beg you to leave! It's better this way", the mother pleaded with him, her sad eyes gleaming pink in the dark of the well.

She stood there inside the bucket holding on tight to the rope that began to rip apart thread by thread high above in its metal hook under her weight. 

"No," Mike replied. "I might be young but there's one thing I know for sure: what's wrong is wrong and will never be right, not under any circumstances and no matter how many important people will say otherwise." 

The mother down in the well suppressed a sob, as she replied: "The great Buddah says: No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. He also taught us that pain is certain but suffering is optional," she added, when the rope finally ripped apart and she plummeted into the water. The bucket resurfaced, but there was no hint of the mom. Mickey shouted down the well. Then he just jumped down into the water. He began to glow in golden light, so he could see - and he soon found the scared mom. She swam with ease and obviously wasn't about to accept Mike's help. She opened her long jaw with pig-like nostrils and snapped after the boy! Her mouth was filled with the same sharp spikes his nephews and nieces had mixed up with teeth. Michelangelo didn't know what to do. So he produced a ladder from golden chains that led up to the rim of the well. He looked at her encouragingly before he himself climbed it up. Then he sat on the ground next to the well ,hoping, waiting. But the mom didn’t show up.

"Hey big man, you're okay?" 

Mike flinched, startled by his big bro's voice. He turned to him and made some wild gestures trying to hush him down. But Raph didn’t understand. "You haven’t even taken your phone out of the solar charger and what's up with the broken vase?" 

Mickey gave up. Half sighing, half sobbing he fell into his surprised brother's arms. 

"Oh Raph, I missed her … or not … but she won’t come out of the well. It's all so sad and wrong!" 

The snapping turtle just looked more puzzled: "Who's she?"

"The mother! The mother of your kids.”

"The pterodactyl?!" he shrieked, pailing. "I mean, the chirimomo?" 

"She’s not a monster," Mickey reminded him, "just a being like us. So I saw her, she hid in the bucket in the well, the rope ripped apart and she fell into the water."

"She drowned?!?!" Raph panicked. 

"No, she swims fine. But she refuses to come out. Seems she can breathe underwater or something. That’s why I produced the ladder but -" he sighed and strangely fell into his Dr. Feelings persona:
"A therapist can only offer a ladder. He must not force their client to climb it up … also she’s not even my client"

Raph gave him a concerned look. Every one of his brothers had a different way to cope with stress, Donnie used statistics, Leo dumb jokes and his youngest one … developed alternate personalities??? He never had really thought about it. Raph coped with smashing stuff. 

As though he had read his thoughts, his baby brother told him: "Raaaaaph, don’t even think about smashing the well." 

"But we can't leave her down there!" he insisted. 

"We can't force her to get help," Mickey said, lowering his head. 

Raph was thinking hard. Then his face lit up. "Wait, here Mickey!" he told him, running off. 

After a while, he returned with April. "Remove the ladder," she instructed the box turtle. Mickey followed her order. 

"Sorry Raph, but Mickey's right - you can’t force anyone to get help." she said, taking something green and small out of her baseball jacket. "You can only trick them into getting help." With that she threw the green item into the well. 

Raph ghasped as he realized what it was: A baby turtle in its shell! 

"Shshshshsh!" April hissed. "Don't freak out! Just step aside and watch the motherly instincts work their magic." 

And indeed! Soon the mother surfaced on the water, nervously talking to her baby in Mandarin. She shrieked and clutched her baby to her chest as April peeked over the well's rim greeting her: "Cheerio! Sorry, your son wanted to show his aunty April how deep he can dive … Don’t you like to introduce yourself?"

The mom sighed in deep frustration: "I am JingYi and you made a grave mistake." 

This were my first designs for the turtle tots and their mother. The babies were a little more on the creepy side back then. Meanwhile I succeded in making them cuter. 

Chapter Text

Noooo ... this is is not a giant lego brick he's pointing at you, but a vintage, Japanese multi-barrel rifle, Bonesteel named Miyumi. I'm just not a better artist. 😎 

 

 

A castle by night: Someone shot a hook on a rope from a crossbow to one of its towers. A figure with wild hair and a worn out Columbo trench coat, climbed the facade of the castle. It was Bonesteel and he hummed and yammed to a song in his head: “Tha tha dadadadada - doodoodoo - nanamama.”

As he reached one of the windows, under the crenellation, he swung himself in and opened the next door with the help of a lock pick. He arrived at the staircase and slided down the banisters till he spotted the electricity room. 

A bored security guard sat in a building nearby, sipping his coffee, keeping an eye on security monitors, as the screens went black. Immediately he left the control room and headed for the castle.

Inside these ancient walls were a museum now. 
“Yeah all cameras in the castle got deactivated - hold on - no … someone shut the whole power source down,” said the guard talking on his phone. Casting the ray of his flashlight in all directions. “Yeah, I'm in the building … no, haven’t checked on the electricity room yet.”

He didn’t observe the intruder dancing closer to him - Yes - I said dancing. Without making a sound, Bonesteel walked like an Egyptian and did the Robot. He sneaked up on the guard, who was still busy talking on the phone and checking the windows and exhibits. The professional thief drew a taser from his coat and used it on the unexpecting security. 

"Oh, Beatrice!" You’re electrifying, “ he said smugly, kissing the taser, which resulted in him catching a small electric bolt. No wonder, his hair looked like that. He began to sing askew: “There’s music in the air an’ lovin’ everywhere, so gimme the night - ohoo, ohoo.” he Saturday-Night-Fevered and limboed to a mannequin, wearing medieval, noble clothing. He had his eyes on the mannequin's celtic belt buckle, that looked like the head of a snake … or a dragon … He removed and replaced it with a pretty good copy. Then he heard police sirens. Bonesteel shrugged. On one of his dirty fingers sat a ring decorated with runes. The thief turned its plate and seemingly vanished into thin air! 

The police entered the castle and found the unconscious guard. 

“Circle the area!” the lieutenant ordered the other police patrols. “Whoever did this must still be in or around the building.”

“Hey!” one of the officers cried. “Why do you do that?!” 

“Do what?” asked another and then said: “Ouch - stop that!”

“I did nothing, you hit me,” claimed the first one.

“Yeah sure …” scoffed the second officer.

“You're always messin’ with me like that.”

“Hey, hey, hey! Cut it out!” their lieutenant interrupted the fight.

Meanwhile another policeman outside the castle rubbed his eyes in utter disbelief as he saw a rope hanging from the tower and moving on its own like someone was climbing it down. 

“Hate these night shifts,” he moaned.

Outside on the street, the Bonesteel became visible again. He took a piece of chalk and drew a hopscotch on the pavement. As he stepped on the squares, they lit up in bright colors like a disco dancefloor. He began to jump and dance and then whirled around himself and apparently sank into the asphalt. The hopscotch squares turned dark and all that was left were the chalk lines drawn on the ground. 

Tiangou stood in an alley in a dangerous part of New York, observing his fingernails. 

“Hello Mister,” he was greeted by the unkempt thief, “I'm a lil’ early,” he smirked, holding up the belt buckle. 

Tiangou looked at his watch: “I'm impressed, Mister Bonesteel” he stated nonchalantly. “Let me see it.”

“Ta - ta - ta - ta - first the payment,” Bonesteel demanded.

“As you wish,” the other smiled. Instead of an ominous briefcase, he took out his phone. 
Bonesteel did the same, watching how Tiangou sent him some cryptocurrency. 

“Ha!” he exclaimed victorious and added smugly: “It's a pleasure to do business with you, Sir.” He handed the posh Chinese the Celtic buckle. “It's the real thing,” he pointed out.

“I feel it,” Tiangou uttered in a menacing voice.

As he wanted to grab it, Bonesteel took it away, asking mischievously: “Aren't you afraid to deal with me all alone in a dark back alley of this part of the city?” 

“Oh”, Tiangou replied with a snide smile, “only because you don’t see my men, it doesn't mean they aren't here to protect me.” 

Bonesteel clucked his tongue, winking and pointing at Tiangou, “I like this,” finally giving him the belt buckle. 

“A numbskull indeed,” the shady gentleman sneered, as his partner - or better- lackey in crime was gone.

In the spare light casted at the walls of the alley one could see Tiangou's shadow turn into that of a small dog, trotting down the streets! 
As the shadows of some aggressive stray dogs stepped into the tiny pouch's way - his figure shifted … Tiangou's shadow expanded and stretched, grew a giant jaw with pointy teeth, a hunched back with spikes and a strong, reptilian tail! 
Terrified, the shadows of the other dogs fleed and Tiangou's shadow shrunk down to that of the harmless little canine again. 

Chapter Text

At night in the museum in Cairo: Usagi and his special unit waited for another robbery of their opponents - the red eyed ninjas. And this time they didn’t have to wait for long: Suddenly they were surrounded by these very ninjas like … well, like the ninjas had been waiting for THEM! A fight ensued. Our friends battled the attackers as good, as they could, but …

“Is it just me,” asked Gen, “or do these ninjas get more and more?” 

“You’re right!” Chizu hissed.

"I wish we had Kyoko with us!” Kitsune cried. 

The ninjas had outnumbered them in the first 5 minutes, keeping them in place with their weapons. Usagi and his friends were holding their breath as they heard heavy footsteps - certainly not the way a ninja would walk, but a war commander. The tall, royally dressed humanoid dragon appeared. He looked both so ancient Near Eastern noble man, with his richly embroidered fabrics, armor and yet black hair neatly tied into lots of delicate braids and also so frightening dragon with all the spikes on his face and back and his red glowing eyes. 

“Lord Apsu,” Usagi called him by his name. 

“Well, well, well, " the lord said with an elegant gesture of his clawed hand, “Our escape from the mirror dimension and future plans will have an impact on all of the twelve realms, but the only ones stepping in our way are three fuzzballs and a hypochonder, “ he smiled while making the clicking sounds of an alligator, nodding to Gen. 

“Seems like the Key Stone was the first and only force that even noticed your escape,” Yuichi pointed out.

“I have to say, I am impressed,” the dragon lord admitted solemnly. “When she’s so attentive, why didn’t she understand that we’re only antagonistic towards mankind? We were only about to … improve … the other eleven realms …”

“The Key Stone will never tolerate genocide,” the young samurai hissed.

“Then she’s very small-minded,” the dragon scoffed. “The erasure of humanity would only be for the greater good. But that sentimental Key Stone and a naive little bunny like you might not understand this.”

“I AM A RABBIT!” Yuichi shouted.

“Take them away!” Lord Apsu ordered his disciples.

“Jeep - jeeeep,”  whined Spot hiding between the exhibits of the museum.On his back he carried a richly decorated Japanese spoon on a string around his small body. As the dragons had left with his captured friends, he took the spoon’s handle in his mouth and stirred it in the air. In a flash of bluish-purple light, the tiny dino and the spoon were gone!

At Fort Salvation: JingYi startled up from her sleep. She looked at the clock: it was 4 am. It was always either 3 or 4 am when something jerked her out of her sleep with a racing heart, like a nightmare she couldn’t remember. And it would take up to 2 hours for her to fall asleep again - if at all! She stumbled out of the hangmat, still dressed in the hanfu she wore yesterday, to her collection of herbal essences on the sideboard. She took a few drops from this vial and a few drops from that vial. Then she looked for the remote control and switched on the TV on mute, slipping back under her sheets. JingYi zapped around, till she found an infomercial. That was just perfect - bright colors and people that got paid for smiling. There she laid in her hangmat, praying for a little more sleep. 
Finally she dozed off.

7:23 am she opened her eyes again. A wave of guilt washed over her. It would have been right to jump out of bed and to start preparing breakfast for the kids. But she felt weak and shaky like every morning. How odd! She observed her hands: Though she felt shaky, she saw no actual signs of tremors. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. Perhaps she was just lazy. By the mighty Buddah! She had been taught to overcome her thoughts and master her mind! Getting out of bed and forcing herself to do her duties would be as easy as pancakes! … or was it waffles? Oh, these tricky English idioms! However! She jumped out of her hangmat to her feet - staggered a couple of steps … baaaaaaad idea! She literally fell back into her hangmat. No, it wasn’t just her imagination. Not only did her legs feel like jelly - they actually wouldn't obey her. 
The strange thing was: As soon as one of her children began to cry from the next room, a sudden strength would take control of her body and JingYi would function for the rest of the day. But she couldn’t force it by will power - despite being taught as a Buddhist nun. 

It was wrong! Her children shouldn't have to cry first before she would tend to them. That’s not what a good mother does - not that she ever had aspired to be one. Anyway, this was not the question. 
‘If anything is worth doing,’ the great Buddah said, ‘do it with all your heart.’ 
Before JingYi could dwell any longer in the teachings of Buddah, one of her children actually began to wail in the next room. Her adrenaline and maternal instincts kicked in and she rushed out of bed to her daily chores like a windup toy. 

At the turtle lair: The boys sat at their kitchen table and were busy typing on their devices. April looked over every turtle’s shoulder, pointing at their displays and gave advice. 

Only Splinter sat there with an angry twitching eyebrow over Leo’s phone and complained: “Considering the fact that April got kicked out of all her jobs, I don’t understand why you’d rather take her advice for your job appliances than mine!”

“Hm?” Donnie made.

“Before I became a famous actor, I worked a couple of steady jobs!” the head of the Hamato clan insisted. “Also don’t forget my training tapes on business success,” he added not without pride. 

“Later dad, we need to prepare our job appliances,” Leo said. “Keep watching the baby videos for a while.”

“You’re not even listening to me!” the rat man fumed. “Also I’m tired of watching phone videos!! I want to see my grandchildren for real!”

“Uh - did you say something, pops?” Raph asked, looking up from his tablet. 
His father literally jumped onto the table, so his sons wouldn’t ignore him anymore: “I ask you why you don’t seek my help!” he said frankly. “If you don’t want my input for your job appliances, can I at least look over my grandchildren? I want to play with them and read them goodnight stories. Wouldn’t that help too?” he asked with sad, begging eyes. 

His boys looked at him, obviously struggling inside. They all and April had the same images in their head: Splinter meeting Eddaneid at Fort Salvation. Splinter trying to keep calm, but as soon as Eddaneid would start to talk crap, Splinter would lunge for him and beat him to a pulp. 

“Dad, we talked about this before,” Leo sighed painfully, “currently this is not a good idea. We need a little more time. Then we will have Eddaneid where we want him.”

“I hope this will still be in my lifetime,” his father muttered, both stubbornly and sadly. 

Later our friends stood with April in an alley of the big apple.

“Gee - thanks again for your help, April,” Mike said.

At this moment something lizard-like jumped on Leo’s head. “Aaaaaah!” Chickening out, Leo waved his arms in the air. 

“Leo don’t!” Mickey yelled, remembering what happened to Warren Stone. 
This seemed a sign for the creature to leap from Leo’s head onto the box turtle's neck and to flee inside his shell!
“Nooo - no - no stop!” Mickey laughed being ticklish. He retracted with his head and arms into his shell and came out again holding Spot. “Ooooh, you’re a real little dinosaur!” he beamed at Usagi's pet. Spot responded by licking his cheek when Mike held him close to his face. 

“Hey, I saw this lil’ guy before,” Leo exclaimed. “It's the pet of bunny boy.  Just thought he's some lizard thing.”

Donnie put on his goggles, taking a closer look: “Fas-ci-nating - you'd think, they're extinct.”

“And you didn’t take me seriously when I brought up pterodactyls,” Raph huffed.

“It's prolly some kinda yokai, so it's not that special,” April remarked. 

“Jeep! Jeep-jeeeeap!” Spot made alarmingly.

“Are … your friends in trouble?” Mickey guessed.

“Don, you are an expert in animal communication,” Leon said.

“Hm …” Donnie replied and began making some sign language gestures towards Spot. But the small dino just knocked his tail on Michelangelo's shell and tilted his head. 

“I don't think he understands me,” Tello stated. 

Spot whipped his tail harder and harder against Mickey's shell. 

“Oooh, morse code,” Don realized, “fine by me … He says, his friends were captured by bad people and that he can lead us there.”

Spot took the spoon’s handle in his mouth, stirred it in the air and a circle of light appeared above Mickey's head.

“Check ‘dis out! The fancy spoon's a portal key!” Lee pointed out.

Meanwhile Splinter sat alone in the lair's kitchen with a pretty miserable expression over Leo's phone. Caught up in his thoughts, he had forgotten to touch the screen in a while. Now the phone demanded a pin. With a sudden mischievous smile, Splinter typed in a pin. Aside from Donnie's self-improved ones, the boys’ devices had no finger print keys because of their reptile hands. Hamato Yoshi knew all the old and new pins of his sons, just by observing their hand movements. He was a true blood ninja after all. But then a system message appeared on the screen - probably something Purple had cooked up:
“Sorry, Dad,” it said, “no more snooping on our devices! Love - your sons” 
Under the text was a chibi illustration of his boys - obviously done by Mickey. 

He was caught.

“This is why we don’t confide in you, lil’ ol’ man,” he heard Raph’s voice in his head.

“Dad … you asked us what we got in return … They gave us Mickey back,” he heard Leo setting the record straight.

Now his conscience made April talk: “He's completely spiraling out of control … Leo appears to be unstable since the events of the Krang invasion and the additional stress and shock of this baby drama will just increase his mental issues - and all you do is sitting here, bragging about it!”

His mind shifted towards his funny one:
“I had to make a decision … We could only choose between assault and humiliation. So I picked humiliation in an attempt to keep us in control!”

“He's in denial,” the old sensei remembered April's words. “Don't  you see it’s far easier for Donnie to look at it as mere humiliation … Your boys were sexually assaulted and just dogged full on abuse when they were only 13 and 14!” 

His body started to shake and his lower lip began to tremble. Finally Hamato Yoshi remembered himself talking to his sons on this infamous Saturday night: “Of course I blame you. I'm your father - you should trust me!” and then his blue one just looking at him in such a detached manner- not saying a single word …

I think - I'm losing them,” he whispered. Tears fell down on the darkened phone display. 

Plick-plock dropped water from a leak in the ceiling into a puddle on the cold stone floor. Gen counted the falling drops sitting in this gloomy dungeon with his friends, since there was nothing else to do.

Usagi was deep in meditation, looking for solutions. He saw himself as a traveling messenger, protecting a scroll, hiking mountains, walking through rain- and snow storms. Finally he climbed a stony platform and was awaited by a group of people. The majority of them no humans. Some pretty big, even gigantic. He couldn’t clearly make out their faces since the sun was just rising and threw dramatic shadows at the mountain's platform. The people stepped aside, forming a gateway to their leader, a very tall, athletic, masculine figure standing close to a cliff, observing the sunrise. Xe wore a long cloak, floating in the fresh morning breeze. Xe turned around and Usagi saw a reptilian profile and white glowing eyes, as he handed out the scroll to the leader … 

Well, next to the meditating rabbit Gen started to complain: “What was the keystone thinking? We have so many strong allies and friends in Neo Edo, but she just sent us four to this realm to fight dragons on our own! We couldn’t even take Ushibuasha with us.”

“Yeah,” Kitsune agreed bitterly, “no vehicle, no giant robot … Kyoko could help us a lot if she was here … I miss her.”

Chizu sighed: “We could achieve so much back then when we were all working together, saving the keystone, finding common ground with yokai and the gangs of Neo Edo - even avoiding an alien invasion. But what can the few of us accomplish here?”

“A messenger never comes heavily armed,” they suddenly heard Usagi's calm voice. They threw their heads around to see him still deep in meditation. As he opened his eyes, they glowed in the purple-ish blue of the keystone along with his kakyshi yoyo at his belt. 
“This is not our battle,” he continued in the same detached tone,  “but that of those who stand right in the middle between mankind and otherkin.”

“Uh - Usagi?” Gen asked. His friend sounded like someone else was talking through him. 

“Our task is to reach out to those and to aid them in their mission,” the rabbit added in his trance. 

Then Chizu caught a sound from the corridor - a painful moaning and a guard's body hitting the floor. She saw more dragon ninjas coming to help as the guards were seemingly attacked by burning, golden chains. The animals heard the clashing of blades and gasped as a giant, glowing, red fist tipped more ninjas over, like they were nothing but figurines on a chess board! Then everything turned silent. 

“Jeep - jiep - jiep!” they suddenly heard Spot running up to their prison cell. Excitedly they called the tiny dino by his name, as he rushed through the bars and jumped onto his owner's shoulder, licking his cheek, making him snap out of his trance. 
“Spot!” he cried. “So glad you’re alright!” 
Everybody jumped as two giant red force field hands bent the dungeon bars to the sides. 

“Need a lift?” Mickey smirked.

Chapter Text

Splinter was still bawling his eyes out alone in the kitchen. Wet, crumbled up napkins were piling up on the table, as a circle of blue light appeared above it. The rat man could just hurdle to the side before his sons and four other non-human teenagers fell from the portal and broke the table. 

“Hi dad, guess who's coming for dinner!” Leo greeted him.

Splinter turned away so Blue wouldn’t see his swollen face and reddened eyes. 

“Sorry we just went on a rescue mission and then picked up some groceries without telling you.”

“You … you forgot your phone,” his dad said with a tear stricken voice. Offering the phone while  still standing with his back to his son. 

“I didn't forget it,” he responded puzzled, “you know I left it with you ‘cuz -” Noticing his dad's strange behavior and trembling voice, he asked gently: “Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, son!” Hamato Yoshi said quickly and fled to the living room. Leo stood there shook.  His brothers and their guests from Neo Edo were lively chatting, hustling and bustling in the kitchen. Dee currently used his reconstructive mystic powers to put the table back together. 

Leo placed his hand on Raph’s shoulder, who helped Gen to wash and chop vegetables: “I have to check on dad - he's not okay,” he told him under his breath. 

His big brother looked at him worried, but just nodded.

Leo followed his dad into the living room and found him sobbing in his armchair. 

“Dad,” he said, kneeling down in front of him, “we're sorry we made you feel left out. Look … this isn’t all so easy for us either and we just don’t want to make an irreversible mistake.”

To his huge surprise, his father also apologized: “I'm so sorry, I didn't want to see it.”

“Huh?” Leo made.

“I wish I could have protected  you more.”

Mickey peeked around the corner. He entered the living room followed by Raph and Donnie. 

“I'm aware you four had to raise yourselves and each other for a majority of your time, growing up, because I couldn’t care for you as you'd needed it. And you especially did a marvelous job on that.”

Leo turned around to see it was Raph standing right behind, his father had addressed. 

“When you threw yourself into danger from a young age on, I looked the other way and told myself that everything will be fine, even though you're all I have", Hamato Yoshi went on.

 “Ah the good ol times,” Mikey reminisced, “goofin’ around the apple catchin’ crooks by cheer accident - just bein’ kids.”

"But …” Splinter’s voice broke and new tears welled up in his eyes, “I never imagined this could happen to you and that you wouldn’t come to me afterwards. I didn't even notice Orange had been kidnapped!”

“It's okay dad,” Leo said with a warm smile, placing his hands on his father’s arms. “It also didn’t help that we were not so keen on thinking back to our time in the … voting booth …”

Mickey noticed that this seemingly harmless term had a strong impact on his brothers: Raph lowered his gaze and all of a sudden looked so hurt and ashamed. It seemed as if he had aged down from seventeen to seven. Donnie’s posture stiffened while his face reflected an array of strong, unpleasant emotions. Michelangelo was pretty terrified to see the damage these events had caused his brothers’ mental health.

“The worst thing is,” Splinter sobbed, squinting “though I never told you, secretly this is all I ever wished for. I always dreamt of becoming a grandfather. But I never wanted you to pay THIS price,” he uttered, hiding his face in his hands.
Okay this was a whole new layer of unjustified guilt.

“Most every parent wishes for grandkids. That has nothing to do with what happened to us, “ Raph told him.

“Besides papa, we would always have given you grandchildren,” Don stated out of the blue. Everybody stared at him irritated.
“What?” he asked. “I can create perfectly healthy clones, as fast as Mickey can bake cupcakes. Of course I wouldn’t have done it without everybody’s consent.”

“Oh come here!” their father cried and they all came hugging him. 

“Jeeeeap!” it suddenly came from above their heads. Spot had climbed the armchair and curiously watched them. 

“What is that?” Splinter wanted to know. 

“A tokage,” Mickey answered.

“Nonsense!” his dad said. “This is a dinosaur - kýarýu.”

“I guess, in Neo Edo they don’t know the difference between newts (tokage) and dinos,” Donnie suspected.

“Why don't you let this lil’ guy keep you some company while we look after our guests in the kitchen?” Leon suggested. “Otherwise they might think, we just saved them in order to cook us dinner. “ 

Chapter Text

"I never met or heard about ninjas like you,” Chizu said with a touched smile. “ Your family gives me hope to raise our orphans in a positive environment. Mickey, who struggled with the seasoning for the tofu, smiled back at her. 

“Well this guy over here is a pretty typical ninja, if you ask me,” Usagi pointed out, sourly nodding to Leo. “He just wanted to chop off limbs because he didn’t like the codeword our whistleblower gave us.”

“Nonononono,” Leon denied, “I just wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“About what?” Gen spat.

“That you can’t be a samurai when you are a rabbit?” Yuichi asked. “You should have met my auntie. She fought in the war and was my first teacher ever.”

“Yeah, this sweet old lady can kick butt - and that with only one leg!” Gen agreed. 

Leonardo looked very guilty. “So um … why don't we talk shared enemies?” our bully leader changed the topic quickly, as they all sat down to eat.

“Well, they are not our enemies,” Usagi said. “Maybe they wouldn’t be enemies to mankind, if there would be some negotiations.”

“Whatcha talkin’ about?” Gen wondered. 

Usagi told them again about his telepathic connection with the giant dragon moth - the pictures of the dying and destruction of the planet and that incredible sadness he perceived.  “I don't think they're evil, just really mad about what humans do to their former home world,” he closed. 

“Then why did they attack the Hidden City?” Raph wanted to know. 

“Looked like a power demonstration to me,” Chizu pondered.

“It was,” Usagi admitted. “But also they wanted to raise awareness. I guess the dragons hope to convince the yokai to form an alliance with them against humanity - by force if necessary.” 

“I dunno,” Mike stated, “Baron Draxon tried something along these lines but realized early on, that the high yokai council would never support his plans and that he had to create an army of his own -”

“Which also failed,” Leo added.

“But these baddies here already are their own army!” Raphael remarked. 

“Right,” Yuichi said.

“Usagi, what negotiations do you have in mind?” Chizu asked him.

“Think of the yokai in our realm,” he replied, “for centuries we fought and hunted them. Now that we let them have their freedom, they live peacefully among us. 

“Aaaaaaand?” Kitzune asked. 

“All we have to do is to convince mankind to stop destroying the environment. Then the dragons will see that humans aren't so bad after all,” the young samurai triumphed.

Raph, Donnie and Leo almost fell from their seats laughing uncontrollably. 
“Whoooooh - that’s a good one,” wheezed Leo, wiping tears from his eyes. 

“Whut - what did I say?” Yuichi asked, puzzled.

“Sorry,” but that won’t happen any time soon,” Michelangelo explained, uncomfortably.

“But … why do humans destroy their own world in the first place?” Usagi cried.

“Good question, next question,” Leo said. “What are the twelve realms you guys keep babbling about?”

“They are not dimensions - are they?” Don asked. “Because I happen to know that there is a multitude of dimensions.”

“I've got noooooo freakin’ idea whatsoever,” Yuichi stated. “I just know that. We come from one realm, and this is another.”

They would keep talking deep into the night, even after Splinter had kicked them out of the kitchen. They talked Makenei and Krang, Neo Edo and New York and about pretty much anything. 

The brothers had made themselves made-shift beds on the floor, so their guests could sleep in their beds - except for Donnie. He would only share a room with April and no other person from any realm or dimension.  
But Mickey didn’t mind sharing his room with Chizu and Kitzune. 

“You're basically telling me,” Leo said, frowning, “every single mistake you made, turned out to be just what the doctor ordered? No long term consequences? No trauma? No losses?”

“Well, uhm …” his fluffy new roommate replied scratching his ear, “except for these crops I destroyed. It took auntie months to re-grow them.”

“No wonder you’re so naive and believe there's a peaceful solution for everything,” Leo snapped, hotheaded. “I know that good things can come off something bad, but in my world we always have to pay a price … even for things that weren’t our fault,” he added, bitterly. 

He knew his old dad now sat in front of the tv - his antidepressant of choice that kept his mind busy while shutting out all painful thoughts, feelings and memories. As long as his father lived, he would never recover from all he had been through. That was the price he had paid for having his beloved sons. And Leo himself? He definitely had paid for every valuable lesson in his young life. 

“I don't think this always has to be this way,” the young samurai dared to disagree. “Our country went through a lot of wars, but none of ‘em was necessary.”

“Oh yeah?!” Lee shot back. “But they took place anyway! What kind of samurai are you even, when you're not willing to fight?!”

“I AM willing to fight!” Usagi shouted. “I'm … just not keen on … killing anybody … I mean, when I was young, I dreamed of defeating yokai but then I learned they were no monsters … they were people like me. But I'd never hesitate to kill invasive alien forces like the Makenei or the Krang.” 

But Leo had already ended the conversation. On his make-shift bed on the floor, he had retracted into his shell. 

“Leo?” the rabbit asked. No response. “This guy's moody, right Spot?” He smiled at the dozing little pet dino on the pillow next to him and switched off the lights.

That night it happened again: Casey sat straight up in his bed, soaked with sweat. He panted, then clenched his fists: “This is idiotic! Why won't this nightmare go away?! I have to talk to someone … but who?!”

Chapter Text

"Duuuude! Are we trippin’?! Are we totally retarted?!” Yelled one white twenty something-guy.

“You're using ableist language,” his pal told him. 

“The cameras aren't recording yet,” the first guy barked. “Here's the cemetery and over there should be that sanatorium!”

The second guy zoomed the map on his phone and looked around, cluelessly.

They stood there this perfectly misty morning with all their filming equipment.

“Hell”, the first guy fumed, “we have a sponsor and our patreons wait to see a super haunted, creepy sanatorium!”

“It must be here somewhere,” the other one said, calmly and followed his phone's directions. Just after a few steps, he hit his head at metal barns - at least, this is what it felt and sounded like, but … there was absolutely nothing to see except for grass, bushes and banks of mist. He tucked his phone away and stretched out his hands. And there he felt them … withered metal barns. He looked at his fingers and indeed there were smudges of dirt and rust on them … “Shawn … “ he said slowly, "come over here.”

With an angry huff, this Shawn guy followed him. 

“Do what I do,” he instructed him.

“I'm not in the mood for some dumb game - I'm pretty pissed!” he snapped back but did as his buddy told him anyway. 

“That … that is the fence right?” the other guy asked with a shaky voice. 

Shawn felt and saw the dirt between his fingers. His eyes widened in horror. 

They stood there staring at their hands and each other panting. Then one after the other, they started screaming and ran away, hardly taking their equipment with them. 

Indeed, there were still the ruins of the old sanatorium surrounded by a high withered, rusty metal fence. 
The wild growing garden around was filled with solar cells enforcing a set up of countless little spots, creating a complicated web of lights that actually made the building invisible to onlookers. 

In one of the glassless windows of its forefront - the backside had mostly fallen apart over the centuries - sat Leo and gazed lost in thought at the wildly growing ivy and the morning mist and the gloomy sky.

Down there in the lair, someone else was just as scared stupid at the two lost places vloggers:
“Why did no one tell me that I sleep in a morgue!” Gen gasped shivering. 

“Well, but you slept fine in it, right, buddy?” Raph smiled, patting his back.

Gen just glared at his hefty new friend. 

“Of course you guys can portal yourself everywhere you want. But if you like, you can use my rocket rail,” Donnie offered their guests. 

“Ro … rocket rail?” Gen stuttered. 

“Sounds awesome!” Usagi stated excitedly.

“It will transport you to the center of New York in no time,” Donnie elaborated proudly. 

“We … we're sorry, Leo didn’t show up to say ‘goodbye’ to you,” Raph began unsure. “Heee's …” 
been through a lot?
traumatized?
None of these statements seemed appropriate to give to that group of people they literally met the third time. Some of their own hardships and mental states were family business only. So Raphael didn’t know how to go on. 

“A speciest?” Kitzune guessed.

“A bully?” Gen suggested.

“Pretty moody in general?” Usagi asked.

“A leader in training,” they suddenly heard a familiar voice.

“Leo?” Mickey and Raph asked in surprise.

“I - uh - I hope we can put our differences aside and work together to stop the dragons,” he stated, walking towards Yuichi. He meant it, but he didn't really sound like himself. “And - err - I'd like to meet your auntie,” he added with a half-smile. 

Usagi's face lit up and both leaders shook hands. 

“See you guys soon,” he said, hopping into Don's rocket rail wagon.

“Can’t we just use the portal spoon?” G3n asked, whimpering. 

“And skipping all the fun? Oh c'mon!” Kitzune commented.

As Donnie activated the rail, she and Usagi cheered: “Whoooooohooo!!!”
While Chizu and Gen screamed. 

As they were gone, Raph chuckled: “Leader in training - hu?”

Leon shrugged: “Leader in training, dad in training, hustler in training … you have to start somewhere.” He winked at Raph .

“Protector of Earth in training?” Mickey teased him.

“Nonononono!” Leo disagreed. “I'm already fabulous at that - no improvement required.”

Raph catched him in a friendly sleeper hold and rubbed his head with his fist. Everybody laughed. Donnie at least exhaled in slight amusement. 

“Oh boys,” they suddenly heard the concerned voice of their father, “fighting the most powerful dragons that ever reigned the world, is like fighting the elements itself.”

“But dad!” Leo waved him off, “our life's already been a disaster movie! How worse can it get?” 

“Much worse …” Hamato Yoshi said lowering.

Chapter Text

Samoa:
There was a tourist group standing at a sparkling, pristine turquoise laguna, surrounded by the leafage of lush green trees and bushes; a waterfall nearby and an indigenous travel guide was talking and talking.
The tourists shot many photos of the sea turtles, swimming in the clear water or even crawling up the rocks, so the people could feed them with fruits and vegetables.

“Turtles have a deep meaning in our culture. They found their way into songs, poetry and art,” the guide went on, “they symbolize luck, fertility and longevity. It was believed they would lead fishermen back home, who had gone lost at sea. Once they were the most precious gift you could give a tribe’s chief. I’m sure you all heard the fairytale  about the turtle of the shark - it’s very popular. If not, you certainly should look it up. But -” now he began to talk in a conspiratorial tone, “there is a very rare legend you probably never heard about before … There were many creation myths regarding turtles around the world - so this might hark back to a similar mindset.” The travel guide took a decisive pause. “ … The ancient people of Samoa believed that one day a mysterious turtle woman would rise from the sea and give birth to an undefeatable army of hundreds that would control the fate of mankind. These powerful warriors would have been created with love, fear, hatred, passion and agony. If you would make them your friends, they would protect you from any enemy and every threat. But if you would try to fight them … they’d DESTROY you …”

Later at the tour bus, the driver who had his teenage nephew sitting in  the passenger's seat, commented on that story to the guide in Samoan: “Seriously Sefa, you dug up that old tale?”

“What, Hayeh!” replied Losefa. “I haven’t told this one in years and I can’t constantly come up with something new!”

“Wait … you guys just make up … legends?!” the boy asked, perplexed. 

“Of course we do, silly,” his uncle told him.

“There are just so many recorded tales,” Losefa explained, “ and tourists always want to hear something new.”

Fort Salvation, Thailand:
"For how long have you been here?" April wanted to know from JingYi. The NY student, Mikey and Kaeo, were doing chores at Fort Salvation - cleaning the nursery to be precise. Except this time, JingYi stood amidst them. And Kaeo looked not very happy about this … 

 "For about a good two years," the turtle yokai answered. She was indeed the spitting image of the Dumb Dumb, with a longer jaw, about a head taller than Leo and Donnie and bulky, as you remember - shaped like a beetle, and looking so tired and worn out with dark puffy shades under her eyes. "Though I had been under Eddaneid’s care for a couple of years prior. I should have sensed that this man was up to no good," she moaned. "Of course it appeared to me as if something about him was quite strange, but I couldn’t exactly put my toe on it.” 

Don't you mean, finger?" April helped her.

"Oh! Yes! Thank you!" the yokai replied.

“As I said - 202 yo and still a complete bimbo!” Kaeo quipped.

April narrowed her eyes looking back and forth between the teen and the yokai. "How … have you and Eddaneid met in the first place?" she asked.

The mother sighed: "As the great Buddah says: Our life is the creation of our mind. I really wonder what my thoughts were that caused this turn of events in my life …" She trailed back in her memories and described the incident to April and Mickey as follows:

It was a nice secluded little spot in the wilderness, where JingYi sat in the body of an ordinary turtle in the shadow of a rock embedded in the soft grass.
Suddenly voices came near. All she could do was retracting into her shell. It were Eddaneid and a camera guy filming him that came along the way. 

"Ah!" made the cult leader, "here it is! My special spot where I use to meditate and reconnect with nature and its elements," he sighed dreamily.

"But boss, didn’t you find this place just yesterday?" the camera man asked.

Eddaneid formed a silent 'SHUT UP' with his mouth. Then he continued out loud: "You have to do this yourself now and then in your daily life." He headed for the rock and as he was about to sit down in the grass, he spotted JingYi the turtle. "Ooooh! We have a very special guest today, who traveled long and far too! It's a merit turtle! Hello little fella," he said, tapping on her shell. 

"If you ever been to Thailand yourself, you might have heard about it," he began to elaborate, looking at the camera. "Close to the Wat Rakhang temple in Bangkok they sell animals for merit release - a Buddhist practice exclusive to Thailand. There's the belief that you can gain merit in the afterlife by releasing captured animals into the wild. Does this remind you of the church offering wealthy Christians to buy themselves free of their sins back in medieval times? You see, it's a lucrative business! The worst part is - aside from not gaining any bonus points in afterlife - the released animals don’t actually find release. The birds you free from their cages fly back to their owners that will sell them again the next day. 

And the turtles- very popular animals for merit release - will never get far after being set into the Chao Phraya river. There are prepared nets. And as the sun goes down, the boys of the district come and collect the turtles."

Inside her shell JingYi's eyes welled up. She flinched as she realized that the old man was scooping her up to show her shell to the camera. 

"See that piece of tape?" he asked the potential viewers of his video. "Some turtles get writings on their shells. Others get labeled with ducktape. At the Wat Rakhang they offer visitors to meditate their sins onto a turtle. These markings are the signs of this ridiculous practice. You can say, they use these animals as scape goats - packing their sins onto their backs in a figurative sense."

JingYi started to sob so hard that it made her whole body shake. 

"There, there," Eddaneid softly said, who just assumed that the turtle was trembling with fear. 

"Now you see," addressing his audience again, "this brave lil' guy achieved the impossible- he actually gained release! 

And you, my dear friends, can achieve the same! Just like this turtle you can break out of your daily treadmill, you can free yourself from toxic people that use you as their scapegoat, by finding your inner path. Let this lucky turtle be your shining example-" he lifted JingYi over his head "- and change your life today!"

Then there was a 'plopp' sound and Eddaneid broke down under the weight of a tall clunky yokai!

"I - I can’t exactly explain how this happened," JingYi ended her story. "Sure, I was exhausted, my magic was weakening and I let my guard down."

April frowned at the mother's retelling of the fateful event. Mickey just looked sad. 

"Now there was no way back,” the water spirit stated. "Eddaneid had seen what I was and I did not have the strength to shapeshift again. I let him take me with him. He seemed to be a funny, kind hearted grandpa that told me all these legends and myths about turtles and we talked Buddhism for hours.” 

"I wouldn’t trust some fuggly ass old white creep who picks me up in the middle of the jungle and talks to me about religion," April muttered to herself under her breath.

"Also," Kaeo pointed out, "that story she told you, sounds a lot like the stories I heard from countless girls that once had been homeless kids on the streets of Bangkok. And their stories didn’t end as nicely as hers …" 

"Hold on -nicely!?" April asked furiously. "Are you kiddin' me?! That’s a woman's nightmare!"

"Maybe to some fancy girl from the Big Apple," Kaeo scoffed, "but trust me, the girls I know, saw other evils."

"Can we stop these victim olympics, yall?" April asked impatiently. "Those girls you’re talkin' about are victims, my bros are victims, she is a victim! There’s no gold medal to win here. Maybe you should catch some fresh air and do something productive, if that calms you down."

"So you wanna kick me out?!" Kaeo asked, daringly. 

"Maybe," April responded.

"Oh I see, I'm reduced to the chambermaid now that you can talk to poor, poor princess fortune cookie slot machine! Good enough to do chores, not good enough to sit with you!" the teen snapped. "Everything was better when Onur was still here!" She stormed out of the door to the porch. 

"Okay … what's her problem?" April asked, raising an eyebrow. 

The yokai sighed. After a pause she explained: "When the doctors were here, she could go visit her mother and friends in Bangkok and play football at her grandparents' village."

"And now she can't go anywhere," Mickey said, remembering her words at their first encounter with her in the nursery that night. 

Outside Kaeo sat down and scrolled on her phone, re-reading a chat message from a few days ago:

'We are sorry that you declined our invitation for the audition, but we respect your reasoning. We hope you will apply again next year …'

She clenched her jaw and tears of anger spilled from her eyes. She got up, let out roars of frustration, kicked the grass and the air. As she came across a turtle toddler chilling in the grass retracted into its shell, she kicked it like a ball, sending it high up into the air across the fort! When Kaeo saw the shell against the bright sun in the sky, she finally realized what she had done and began to run! She rolled herself through under one of the huts on stilts. 

"Get out of the way!!" she screamed in four different languages, as she saw the legs of some guards in their way. Since they didn’t move an inch, she made them trip. "Sorry, gotta go!" She shouted behind her to the ticked off men.  

Kaeo swung herself from a laundry line up to a roof but a couple of armed guards got into her way. She literally stepped over their heads in the air. "Sorry, sorry, in a hurry!" So she got onto the roof in time to catch the shell. It hit her like a cannonball, pushing her from the roof to the ground where she rolled over the lawn pressing the turtle protectively to her chest. As she finally came to a halt covered in dirt and grass, she was surrounded by guards pointing their rifles at her. The little red-eared slider in her arms stuck out its head and limbs, clapping its hands, squealing in delight. The men frowned at the girl on the ground, who smiled sheepishly back. 

Meanwhile in the hut, April, Mikey and JingYi were still cleaning and talking. 

"So, when you say, your magic is fading you're referring to your ability to shapeshift" April checked.

And a couple other things too”, the yokai sighed. “Let me just show you what is left of my magic." 
She led them into her room and sat down on another kapok mat in a lotus seat. "Some Buddhist monks and nuns practice building mandalas in their mind during meditation," she stated. Without further elaboration, she began to meditate.

"Uuuh …" April went. She did not know what to make of that. 

Suddenly a mist that looked like the milky way filled the room. And lo and behold! In the corners of the room our New Yorkers observed something: A giant ring of growing flowery vines! 
April grimaced - like the tomboy that was pulled by her mom against her will into the pink section of the toy store. These ornaments of flowers, gleaming crystals and fluttering butterflies of light were waaay too glitzy for her taste. Only Michelangelo watched on in awe. 
Not long and the flower vines dried up, the crystals darkened and dying butterflies rained down to the floor.

"Eww," April yelped, getting some into her hair and the unfinished mandala turned into a dust cloud, covering the whole room in black ash! 

"See?" the yokai asked, opening her eyes.

"See?! I've caught that in my lungs," April complained, choking on magic dust. “You better don’t expect us to help you clean up THIS mess.”

Outside Donnie sneaked up on a peacefully sleeping snapping turtle baby - sanitizer in one of his extended metall hands, a pad in another and something that looked like a laser gun. He lifted the baby’s shell a bit and sprayed the medical sanitizer on some spot between the shoulders. The baby already opened one eye. Don placed the gun-thing between its shoulders. There was only a soft ‘thud’ sound as he pulled the trigger, but the baby began to cry anyway. 
“Shshshshsh,'' he made, frantically cradling the baby with his electronic hands. But Raph's kid really didn't like that, crying louder. Finally he took the baby in his real arms and placed its head on his battleshell that covered his shoulders. At least it stopped crying. Donnie sighed in relief until he noticed that a huge shadow was casted on him. As he turned around - whoo boi … he directly faced the wrath of Raph …

“Donnieeee …” he said glowering, “what-are-you-DOING?!”

“I-I-I” stuttered his brother with shaking legs. 

Then they heard April throwing a tantrum in front of Eddaneid who apparently had arrived at the fort. The turtles went to see what was happening.

“I won’t allow it!” Eddaneid spat. 

“Oh yeah?!” April shot back. “Then you might need a new babyfactory soon. Cuz yours on the edge of a full fledged burnout.”

Kaeo was approaching the scene, raising an eyebrow, wondering what was going on. April spotted her and winked at her. 

“As far as I know, she's an immortal magical being,” the old man scoffed. 

“There’s not much magic left!” The student stated. “If you want her to function again, you let her have some days off - outside this damn fort!” 

The reichsbuerger turned as red as a tomato and looked like he was  about to burst. Eventually he doubled down: “ FINE! But if you don’t bring her back the same day then …!” He threatened.

“Then WHAT?!” Mickey hissed.

“You're aware that one can inflict a lot of pain on immortal - or semi-immortal beings without actually harming them - right?” The cult leader asked. Diabolically smiling, he scooped up a baby turtle that was just crawling in the grass.

“Let the kids out of that!” Raph roared.

“I guess even you can already take … A LOT … Eddaneid said with a sadistic grin. 

It felt like a vacuum that took Leo back - back, back into the prison dimension to all the hits and blows he had endured in absolute hopelessness. He couldn’t think straight as his legs began to run a sharp curve and his hands grabbed Eddaneid’s thick neck! 
-Then he sank down moaning, as April had knocked him out with her bat. 
They were already surrounded by the guards pointing their rifles at them, while Eddaneid laughed and clapped his hands in amusement. “It's all fine boys,” he told them. “We're just having a lot of fun!” He continued to laugh: “You turtles are just as amusing as three years ago, locked into that warehouse! So angry, so righteous and helpless!”

“What happened?” JingYi asked, alarmed, arriving on the scene. 

“Other people get in trouble speaking up for you and you're absent! I suppose the oh-so honorable lady had something better to do like leading a snake oil workshop”, Donnie reproached her.

First she was startled. Then she folded her hands and looked down to her feet in shame. 

 Observing that, Mikey frowned, rubbing his chin. “Someone here def lacks a backbone …” he murmured to himself. 

“Wanna be next?” April asked Donnie, weighting her baseball bat in her hands. To Eddaneid she said sternly: “We have a deal - right? “She can go outside if she’s back before midnight.”

“Otherwise she turns into a pumpkin,” it came silly from the ground. Everybody stared down at Leo who had regained conscience again.

“Sorry - couldn’t resist,” he said sheepishly.

Chapter Text

Leo sat again in the frame of one of the glassless windows in the ruins of the sanatorium's forefront. 
He could have portalled himself anywhere, but he knew, there was no escape from this conversation. So he just sat there buying himself some time stargazing. 

His brothers were approaching. Mickey signaled them to let him go first. 

“I already heard you coming.” Leo announced him without turning around. 

“Leo, we're not here to blame you,” his baby brother began. 

 “You're not?!” It came daringly from our unstable leader.  “First I tell Dad that he can't come visiting his grandchildren, since we all know he would try to kill Eddaneid and then I do EXACTLY that myself! I could have ruined everything! And we need this goddamn fort in the middle of nowhere more than ever now that some ancient dragons seek to regain their powers and to destroy civilization. The further our kids are away from civilization when the big battle will ensue, the better!”

“And that’s why you have to face your problems and accept help!” Mickey pleaded. 

“Leon, the more you deny it, the worse it gets,” Raph said, finally raising his voice. “I went through that myself and all of you with me. I know, you don’t want to burden anyone, but what you actually do is harboring demons you can’t control.”

“Now that was a smart and fancy sentence you certainly quoted from a TV show, cuz you'd never come up with that yourself,” Leo quipped callously. 

But Raph stayed completely calm. “You're still doin’ it,” he stated simply. “I didn't understand it in the beginning, but Mickey explained it to me. You mock and you hurt. You perform poorly on purpose. You never wanted to be the leader and you tried everything to convince us that you can’t do the job till you had no other chance than to accept it.”

“I was in shock!” Leo snapped. “Nothing ever prepared me for this role. I'm fine with it now.”

“But recently you begged us repeatedly to fire you,” Donnie remarked.

“You know, you’re not alone in this,” Mike reminded him. “But we can't help you when you won’t let us.”

"Stop it! Just stop it!” Leonardo shouted beside himself. “I'm tired of you and Raph exchanging worried looks behind my back! I'm tired of you adding potential symptoms to your list. I'm so tired of you guys secretly pitying me! For the last time: I DON’T HAVE PMS!”

“Nothing would surprise me anymore,” Donnie commented dryly. 

Raph said nothing, since this term didn’t ring a bell for him.

“Aaah - uh …” Mickey made awkwardly. 

Leo blinked in confusion. He realized that he probably had switched up a word again like once when he thought they were part of the Tomato clan … This slip up certainly stole his thunder. I said something stupid, did I?”

Mickey came over to him and patted his shell: “Hey, hey, PMS - PTSD … it's really easy to switch up these abbreviations. Could happen to anybody. Why don't you come down with us and drink some hot cocoa. It's pretty chilly up here. You don’t want to catch a cold - do you?” 

Leo behaved and let his youngest brother lead him back down to the lair.

Casey stood in front of Draxum's apartment door, frowning. He pressed the doorbell and sighed in discomfort. At one point the door opened- seemingly by itself. The boy entered hesitantly.
“Uh - Mr. Draxum …?” He asked. 
No answer. He crossed the living room and observed a great variety of tropical looking plants and flowers Draxum was growing here. 

“Ah - Jones the 2nd!” Barry finally greeted him without turning around, standing in his small kitchen bend over the counter, obviously working on an experiment. 

“Hm, hm, hm!” Casey made frantically.

“For a young man that grew up during the apocalypse you let your guard down way too quickly,” the yokai remarked. 

And indeed: the vines of one of Draxum's plant’s had wrapped Casey into a tight cocoon.  Barry casually walked over to a trumpet-like flower attached to the plant that was wrestling the boy, stroked it gently like a pet and fed it a one-eyed eel-like creature. The plant let go of Casey who had turned blue in the face and gasped for air. 

“Thank you Mr. Draxum,” he croaked. “Sorry, I'm a lil’ late. Did I disturb you while working on an experiment?” 

“You did not respond to any of my messages either,” Draxum pointed out. 

“My battery died,” Case explained. Then he realized: “ Oh … I understand what you mean …”

“You grew negligent, Jones,” Draxum stated. 

“Now, what are you working on?” The box asked curiously. 

“A solution that will restore the diner- and kitchen floor to its former glory!” The yokai responded pompously. 

“Oh, uh - a … cleaner?” Case stuttered underwhelmed. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that the greatest alchemist in the resistance now spent his time being an overzealous lunch lady. 

“The first one was a bit too strong,” Draxon mentioned. “But no one will notice the hole in the projector room's ceiling. That part of this criminally underfunded school building is already in a dire condition. Also - I put a rug over it. Now, what is this small favor you asked me for?” 

Casey looked down to the floor. “A DNA test,” he answered.

“As simple as that?” Barry wondered, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Casey replied. “It would help me to determine if and what kind of crime had been committed in my past and in my future in this timeline. 

Draxum seemed mildly interested : “And whose DNA should I analyze?”  

“That of me … and my mom…” Case uttered ashamed.

“Has this … something to do with your upcoming findday?” the yokai asked further.

“Actually it's because of a recurring nightmare,” Casey admitted. "Maybe even a vision. Never had any visions before though. It's something I really need to know.”

Draxum didn’t let loose. “To know for what?” he demanded to know. He spoke in the same detached manner as always, but dang! Did Casey have some kind of heart to heart with Baron Draxum of all people?!

The box sighed: “For either to prevent me from killing my own parents or to avoid being conceived in the first place …”

This night, there was an explosion at a betting shop in the city. Luckily, it had closed at this hour. Bonesteel stood in a safe distance in a back alley leaning on to some trash cans. 
 “This is what you deserve for ruining people's lives,” he chuckled.

A police patrol spotted the incident and put on the sirens. 

“I think I'll take a short cut, “ the thief mused and disappeared through a manhole. Whistling he strolled through the sewer. There he heard a tiny bell ringing. Silence … then it rang again and again … With his flashlight in his hand he turned left and right, till he found the source: a ginger kitten playing. 
“Hey fella, that’s no place for a wee lil’ kittie like you,” the man said. Since the cat showed no interest in any of the noises he made nor him stretching out his dirty hand, Bonesteel took a can of tuna from his coat and opened it. The kitten sniffed, but rejected the fish. 
“Hey you picky furball, I offered you my dinner,” he huffed. 

Then he heard a blood curdling sound - The hissing of a crocodile! He casted the light of his torch in the direction it came from and there it was … A giant alligator-like creature … probably one of these mutants that popped up all over the city since the past two years. Bonesteel fetched an ancient Japanese multi-barrel rifle out of his coat. His knees and hands trembled. But he tried to sound determined: “Back off mutant! Before you chew on some cute kittie, you have to taste the lead-heavy kisses of Miyumi!!” 

The croc broke into a deep baritone laughter: “Oh what a hero,” he teased him. The tiny bell rang again and Bonesteel saw the small furball jumping onto the replite's back. The cat climbed up to his head and hissed at Bonesteel!

“Ever heard of the man that wanted to save the lil’ boy after he had fallen into a river?” The croc asked. “Well … The boy could swim, the man couldn’t ... Go on - I can take a few bullets.” 

Bonesteel's full body was shaking with terror. Protecting some adorable kitten would have given him some strength. But now that he knew HE was the only endangered being here, he turned pale under his dirt and simply fainted. 

The mutant looked down on him. He sighed: “He obviously doesn't meet the requirements …  Let's go home Klunk.” With that the crocodile swam away with Klunk curling up and purring on his head. 

Next chapter we learn about Bonesteel's past. We witness how he becomes a bounty hunter and we'll meet Hypno, Warren Stone and the Mud Dogs again.

Chapter Text

Yeah, didn’t post on tuesday - had an important date because of my landlord and also worked on this background:

There will be more notes at the end of the chapter.

Chapter 21

Unfortunate Encounters

Another night, another museum, another heist. But this time no dancing, no high spirits.

“I never wanted to come here again,” Bonesteel uttered to himself. He looked around. With every exponate he recognized, he heard the fuzzily voice of a man in his head, going into long winded historical and archeological digression on that item - sometimes interrupted by the curious questions of an eager child. He took a deep breath closing his eyes and finally laid down on his back to stare at the pompous high ceiling. After a while he got up again. He had a task to fulfill and there was still so much to do. On his way to the electricity room, he passed the curator's office. Bonesteel couldn't resist but had to pick the lock and enter it. The desk inside had a name template on it that said Prof. Carlyle. The thief ran his fingers over the desk and picked up a framed family photo of a mom, a dad and two little boys. He gazed at the wall behind filled with boards and racks of countless folders. There was another framed picture - a graduation photo - but to its left there was a darker shade at the wall where another picture frame had been removed. Bone Steel placed his hand on the empty spot … 

His heart skipped a beat as he heard echoing steps and a man clearing his throat outside. Immediately he turned his invisibility ring. The short man in his 60s was unpleasantly surprised as he observed the office door to be unlocked.

“Tz tz tz, did Tony forget to look up again?” he muttered. The man was the dad from the family photo, just much older. He was looking for something in particular inside the drawers of his desk. Bonesteel stood there pressed to the wall of folders, breathing as carefully as one can then their heart races like it wanted to burst out of their chest. 

“Good heavens!” the professor stated sniffing. “What is this horrendous smell! Has Tony left a rotting sandwich in his drawer?! But it comes from here…”  

He turned around and stepped closer and closer to the invisible Bonesteel. The thief's body started shaking in sheer panic. He pressed his eyes shut, tears emerging at their edges. He could already feel Carlyle's breath and hear the rustling of his jacket’s fabric, as the short man turned his head to the open door. There was circus music, a pompous voice and nasty laughter. Alarmed, the professor ran out on the corridor.

The intruders were pretty loud indeed, like they had nothing to fear. As he stood at the gallery’s bannister, he saw their night guard frozen, staring at a Hypnopotamus' hypnotic device, while his roomy/ best friend/ assistant/ whatever Warren Stone laughed maniacally. Carlyle gasped as he heard roo roos and flapping above his head. Pigeons! Pigeons in a museum full of irreplaceable treasures! Anything but pigeons!

“Hunter! Stop staring! Do something!” he hollered in a voice so entitled and irascible you wouldn’t have expected it from this short, thoughtful man and pretty stupid for a professor. 

“Ah, more audience,” Hypno said, jovially. 

“ How dare you to bring pigeons to these sacred halls of history,” Carlyle ranted, like these mutants were no threat to him.  

“Dad no!” the invisible Bonesteel hissed under his breath not far behind him, slapping his forehead in frustration.

“Oh ho ho,  we have rabbits too!”  Stone rejoiced.

 “I forbid you ill-mannered monsters to wreak havoc at this museum!” Bonesteel's father yelled.

 Hypno whipped some tears of laughter from his eyes: “Oh great Houdini, it's sheer joy listening to you delusional little man, but we still have to get business done tonight. “  With that he directed The hypnotic device at the professor, putting him into a trance. 

Bonesteel wrapped his arms around his dad's chest from behind and dragged the unconscious one into the safety of his office. He placed him on the carpeted floor behind his desk.

“You're still the same, stubborn, old man,” he said, shaking his head. He took his father’s hand into his own for a brief moment. Then he left him behind.

Meanwhile Hypno and Warren had gotten unexpected company:”Thank you for dumbfounding those silly humans! We take it from here,” a sneaky voice said. The hippo turned around to see Dastardly Danny. 

“What!” Hypno cried outraged.

“You heard the man, you can go home now,” loathsome Leonard scoffed. 

“And if you don't wanna,” Menacing Mikey said, “we'll make you,” generating some electric static.

“We'll see about that,” Hypno said, directing his hypnosis device at them. 

“We're prepared,” the matchdog said in chorus, putting on some crazy looking glasses. “Big Mama gave us these anti-hypnotation lenses.”

 “Not bad," Hypno admitted. Then he suggested: “You three are probably not after the same item we are. Sooooo … why don't we work together?”

Now Warren Stone made big, sad googly eyes: “But - but - but I wanted to try out my new rocket dispenser,” he sniffed. 

“Aaaaaaaaaaawwww,” Hypno said, clasping his hands and getting googly eyes too, “of course you can. So, let's fight!”

 “That's the spirit!” Loathsome Leonard said. 

This is when the still invisible Bonesteel returned to observe the scenario, standing on the balustrade. 

Hypno produced a triangle from his pocket. He hit it shouting: “Code Hitchcock!” With that the Legion of pigeons attacked the mud dogs pecking at them. Mickey electrocuted them and then electrocuted his co-criminals, so the doves let go of them too. 

Dastardly Danny threw knives after hypno:” I'll make you dance!”

Hypno actually did some ballet moves and chuckled:” I love dancing”. 

Meanwhile the doves had attacked again, carrying Loathsome Lenny away, who lovely loudly protested.

Bonesteel watched on, eating some salted peanuts. 

Now Danny got near the hippo, still doing jumps and pirouettes, took out a huge machete and hit him with a blow! The next moment Hypno stood there in his underpants printed with poker card symbols. “Oooh,” he blushed, tiptoeing away to hide behind a pillar.

Bonesteel looked annoyed upon those slapstick charades. Then Warren Stone let out another maniacal laugh and finally fired a rocket at the Mud Dogs. But the back impact of the shot sent the tiny worm flying across the museum. Bonesteel stopped chewing on his salted peanuts and frowned, alarmed. He had to finish his own Job before those meatheads wrecked the whole place. He went down to a glass case with a Norse relic: A huge wine horn, decorated with rubies. Bonesteel was about to replace it with an identical copy as Stone launched a second rocket that catapulted him across the museum cheering: “woo-hoo!!” The worm hit the human thief and crashed into the wall behind him. Simon fell. As he got up, he saw the two drinking horns rolling over the floor. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Warren laid on the ground, unconsciously, eyes crossed, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and looking pretty dense in general

“Monsters and mutants all over the city,” Bonesteel growled, “getting into other people's business and causing chaos!” He picked up the two horns and walked up to the unresponsive mutant: “There's a nice little reward on your and your partner’s head,” he snarled, “I certainly could need, when you ruin this job for me,” he added looking back and forth between both of the golden horns.

Meanwhile the Mud Dogs continued to battle Hypno who threw his razor rings and fountains of bladed playcards at them. 

“That’s what Big Mama gave us the anti-polar-magnet for,” Dastardly Danny said, taking a magnet as big as himself out of a bag, that sent the sharp weapons flyings backwards in Hypno’s direction, who got himself out of harm’s way. Now he was out of patience. He attacked the yokai trio again with smoke bombs and his whip. He even let out the aggressive rabbits.

Finally his opponents lost their glasses given by Big Mama and could get hypnotized.

“We succeeded, magical assistant/ roomie/ bestie!” he triumphed and then paused, looking around worried: “Partner?” he asked meekly, “Warren …? Goldilocks?” 

Silence. Now a huge net was thrown over him from the gallery.

 “Ahhhhhhrg,” he said, “who are you and what have you done to my assistant?!”

“Oh he's fine. He’s knocked out himself,” Hypno heard Bonesteel saying, but couldn't see him. Next thing he knew was, he was seeing stars! The thief had hit him in the head with the flat side of an ancient Aztec club sword - a macuahuitl. 

“Ah Itsy,” he cooed alluring to his weapon, “I know you're burning to make heads roll, but I still need those meatheads. They’re worth a sweet little fortune. “Maybe,” he mused,” I found myself a side hustle. Now I just need a proper alias for this new occupation … something that rolls off the tongue … What about Jack Savage Monster Hunter? Oh yeah, I could see that on a business card.”

Author's notes:

A macuahuitl was a heavy wooden club with sharp obsidian glass blades on its sides, reported to be strong enough to decapitate a horse. Itzpapalotl was an Aztec goddess of sacrifice. Translated into English, her name means: obsidian butterfly which fits this weapon perfectly. So I think Bonesteel named the weapon after the goddess.

Jack Savage is a combination of (Jack) Marlin from the Mirage comics and the 2003 series and Dirk Savage from the 1987 cartoon.

Chapter Text

Good News:

I've got holidays/paid leave days from my job this July and will be able to type more handwritten chapters into my google docs and therfore post more.

Bad News: 

When season 1 is fully posted, it will take me more time for me to post, since I'm still working on season 2. There are a lot of written down scenes but I especially have to work on the action and battle parts which increase in SE2.

I admitt that SE1 mostly had the function to set up SE2 and establish stuff and that I also might have started too many subplots. And The thing about me is, I never abandon a subplot as some writers (other genres than tmnt) do, but pick them all up again, when the main plot allows for it.

Yes this is more stress, but I wanted these subplots, so I have to complete them. 

Also there were subplots I had in mind, but scraped since they didn’t support the main plot. 

For instance, Big Mama was supposed to pick Kendra as the heir of her full crime and hustle empire since she is the only woman in NY as ruthless and cunning as Big Mama herself. Together they would have been like the fourth enemy to the turtles in this fic. Feel free to write that Kendra as Big Mama's protégé fanfic yourself. 

More notes at the end of the chapter. 

Chapter 22

Reluctant Recruits

“I don’t wanna go to human prison,” Loathsome Lenny complained, sitting in a cell with the rest of the Mud Dogs and the mutant crime duo.

“Leonard … this is nothing you have to worry about,” Dastardly Danny responded dryly. 

Hynopotamus let out a joyless laughter. Then he said: “At some point you’ll dream of going to human prison - trust me.”

“Huh?” the ogre yokai made, cluelessly.

“Cuz that - oh so respectable - Earth Protection Force will take care of us,” Menacing Mikey explained to their dimwitted leader. 

“But they fuzz about aliens, I thought,” Lenny wondered. 

“On the surface for sure,” the hippo sneered.

Warren Stone just played a moody tune on a harmonica.

“You mean, they’ll take us and use us as guinea pigs and stuff?” Lenny whimpered. 

“He finally got it,” Danny sighed.

“But I don't wanna be a guinea pig,” Leonard whined. “Don’t wanna get cut open! I hate needles! I hate razors! I -”

Mikey just electrocuted him.

“Ah, thanks man, I needed that,” Lenny said.

“”You’re welcome,” the eel yokai replied. then the five captives remained in silence for the next hours. 

Two men in suits stepped out of a van with darkened window shields, accompanied by a security entourage. 

As they entered the police station, they showed the officers and investigators their IDs. Without much further ado, they were led to the yokai and mutants waiting in their cell. 

Their IDs said that they came from the Earth Protection Force, but one of the two men in charge was … Mister Tiangou!

The other was a tall, athletic and handsome brown guy with a black, curly ponytail and dark glasses. 

As soon as the cops had left them alone, Tiangou greeted the inmates in their cell:

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

They all looked at him frantically, while Hypno scooped up Warren and held him close to his heart. 

“I heard, you call yourselves the … Mud Dogs,” Tiangou continued, suavely.

“Dat’s right,” Lenny said.

“Now and here you have a chance to choose your destiny. Choose wisely.” Having said that, Tiangou held up a scalpel with his right. He turned it in his hand, so that it gleamed in the light of the ceiling lamps. 

The yokai and mutants looked uncomfortable. Hypno gulped.

Then the posh Asian reached with his left into his pocket and produced an ancient Chinese jade pin in the shape of a dragon.

“Before we make our decision,” Danny said, carefully, “tell us - what’s the catch?”

“Well,” Tiangou smiled, “when you choose this -” he moved the jade pin in his hand, “you vow unquestioning obedience.”

“To whom?” Mikey asked.

“Oh,” Tiangou said, “an organization that has the opposite in mind to this one -” he held up the fake Earth Protection Force ID. 

“Ya always speak in riddles?” Leonard asked, annoyed. 

“Gentlemen, we're not alone in this building,” Tiangou reminded them, raising his eyebrows impatiently. He sighed: “This respectable department here wishes to clean the streets of yokai like you … While this honorable dynasty seeks to erase …?” Now turning the jade pin in his left. 

“Streets?” Leonard asked dumbfounded.

"Humanity, Lenny! Humanity!” Danny hissed into the ogre’s ear. 

Tiangou nodded and smiled. 

“We can’t vow you obedience,” Mike remarked. “Big Mama won’t like that - not one bit.”

“And who is this Big Mama?” Taingou sneered.

A gummy yogurt you don’t wanna mess with,” Leonard said.

“A JOROGUMO!!!” the other two Mud Dogs corrected him.

“Oh and will she come and get you out of this pickle?" the posh man teased them.

“No …” Danny admitted, looking at the floor. Currently we’re nothing more than dead weight to her.” 

“You can truly count on us!” Hypnopotamus finally said. 

“I’m not even talking to you,” Tiangou scoffed. “Now your DNA might be fused with that of an animal, but you still have the heart and soul of a human. Therefore we won’t do business with your kind.”

“But you make a big mistake!” Hypno tried to convince him. “I’m far more capable and competent than these bumbling meatheads!” pointing at the Mud Dogs, ignoring their angry protests. “My magic is even stronger than theirs. Just look at our criminal records!”

Tiangou exchanged a look with the taller man.

"Yes!" Warren agreed, “You haven’t seen a criminal magician like him!”

“And you are?” Taingou asked.

“Warren Stone!” He triumphed.

“My roomy/ bestie / personal assistant/ partner in crime till the end,” Hypno explained. “Either you pick us both or none of us.”

“We’re inseparable!” the worm mutant added. 

“Without him I’m not half as powerful and vice versa,” Hypno claimed. “If you choose only me, I’ll refuse. 

I’ll never leave you behind,” the criminal magician said googly eyed, holding Warren close to his face and gently rubbing his cheek against him.

“Me neither”, Stone said dramatically.

“Eugh - what a sob!” Dastardly Danny commented while his pals made disgusted faces. 

The man behind Tiangou just raised his eyebrows, while Tiangou smiled knowingly, looking back and forth between the mutant couple and his boss, wagging his onion-shaped head. 

“If that’s the only way, I will die with you on the dissection table!” Hypno bawled, while Stone was already weeping fountains.

Tiangou still looked very amused. His boss noticed it and elbowed him in the side. Then he took off his glasses, revealing a pair of amber eyes with reptilian pupils that gleamed reddish. 

“Give them a promotion and they lose all respect,” he complained in a deep voice, glancing at Tiangou. Then he sighed: “Fine. You can all join and serve the Jade clan.”

Author’s note :

I'm well aware that pupils are black, because they are holes. I just took that idea of them glowing reddish from the deep from 90's original Witches, Witches. Witches having purple pupils makes just as little sense - but I like the idea of them being holes glowing purpleish from deep inside the soul. 

Chapter Text

Author’s notes: Today’s chapter is pretty cartoony. And the end scene in the Blue-Bell-Baby-Boy-Bill-Bar might feel like an old Silly Symphonies/Merry Melodies cartoon with its Carmen Miranda/ Esther Williams parody. That’s because I originally created the Bill Bar for Toon Town and not for the Hidden City. As a tween I was obsessed with Toon lore as depicted in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Disney’s Bonkers and such media. Speaking of Bonkers, the Rubber Room club featured in the show was also a heavy inspiration. 

 Chapter 23

Ladies Night Of Terror

It was dark outside. April wore a military uniform, holding a powerpoint presentation in a hall at Eastlaird U. The only students attending were an excited Sunita and an annoyed Cassandra. On the screen appeared a layer showing a stereotypical stock photo of skinny girls in skinny jeans, laughing and raising their cocktails.

“Girls’ night outs are overall right out boring. Most participants just don’t realize this becauhaaaaaaaaause???” April asked.

“They’re morons?” Cass guessed.

“Err - close,” April replied. “Sunita?”

“Because they’re normal?” her friend answered.

"Almost," April said and activated the next layer that still depicted skinny, celebrating girls, but those looked more unhinged: One had a black border over her chest, since she wore her bra on her head. Another one was already throwing up. 

“Because they’re getting so wasted, they no longer notice,” the young journalist stated simply. “Since this is no option for our night out as the majority of us is under 21 and mommy shouldn’t drink much either, we have to plan out an unforgettable ladies night that is everything but boring!”

“Yay!” Sunita cheered.

“Please, someone shoot me,” Cassandra groaned.

“Shooting! That’s the cue!” April exclaimed and activated the next layer of her presentation …

Back at Fort Salvation: Leo stood at the changing table. 

“Watch and learn,” he told onlookers Mikey and Donnie. He threw two happily squealing babies into the air. Then he flung two cloth diapers, holding them both at one end, around the kids and moved so fast that it was impossible for the human eye to see what he was exactly doing. When the kids came down freshly waddled, Leo catched each of them in one hand, bowed like an acrobat and promised: “Next time with three babies.”

“Woooooaah,” Mikey gushed out, applauding with big eyes. Don gave an aristocratic palm  clapping with a neutral expression. 

“Not even with one again!” Raph growled, slapping the backside of Leo’s head and taking the kids out of his hands. 

“Ow! Hey! I had everything under control," the red slider complained. 

“I don’t care!” Raph’s voice boomed.

“Aye, how did your job interviews go?” Casey asked, who just had entered the nursery.

“Spectawsome!” Leo smiled.

"Telling you, ‘ we call you back’ when they didn’t even ask for your phone number is neither spectacular nor awesome,” Donnie commented.

“Actually,” Mikey admitted unenthusiastically, “only Raph’s interview went fine.”

In the next room April carrying Mayham on her shoulder, cheered: “We will have so much fun!” 

“Fun sounds exhausting,” JingYi worried.

April was looking around: “Where’s Kaeo - doesn’t she want to join us?”

“She departed yesterday morning to visit her mother and friends,” the yokai explained.

“I see,” the student replied, let’s not waste any more time!”

“Hesitantly YingJi’s eyes wandered through her room - her hangmat, the kapok pillows on the floor, the cozy rugs, her candles, the console with her vials with herbal extracts and the TV …  She sighed and followed April.

Kaeo stood in her mother's tiny apartment in Bangkok and picked up a framed photo that sat on a drawer. The picture had been taken at a bar and showed her young mother at the arm of a lanky white man with curly, strawberry blonde hair. She scoffed. Keao was so caught up in her own thoughts, that she didn’t hear her mother calling. Finally she snapped out of her musings,replied impatiently in Thai and smashed the frame so hard on the top of the drawer that its glass shield broke …

“Hellooo? Girls! Where are you? Where’s your surprise?” JingYi was walking in a safety suit and a helmet over an area with bars of sand sacks. Little did she know she was monitored through a target lens on a gun’s barrel that followed her every step. 

Then a shot! 

She gasped as it hit her arm. As she pressed her hand against it, she noticed yellow paint. Now followed by another shot to her chest that flung her from her feet. Pink paint this time. Right after she got two more shots to her legs.

“Owww!”

“SURPRISE!!!” Sunita and April shouted, jumping up behind banks of sand sacks. But Cassandra kept shooting paint balls at JingYi, laying on the floor, whining:

“Ow! Argh! Stop!”

“Err … Cassandra?” Sunita asked, but their friend was on a shooting spree. 

Later the four stood in other suits at a cliff. 

“What are these ropes for?” JingYi asked about those that had been attached to her.

“You’ll see,” April smirked.

“I don’t like the way you’re saying thaaaaaaaat!” The student had pushed her over the cliff. 

I think, you’re right,” she shouted down to the Chinese yokai, “Bungee jumping is boring ‘cuz you don’t really fall!! I’ve got something better in mind!!”

“No - no - no - no - whatever it is please no!” JingYi cried, dangling over the abyss.

The next thing she did was screaming her lungs out, skydiving. 

“Wheeee!” “Wohooo!” Sunita and April cheered, while Cassandra took selfies with her phone.

At the end of the day Sunita said: “Here it is! The best alcohol-free drinks in town!”

They were in the Hidden City in front of a huge neon sign.The letters said: ‘Blue Bell Baby Boy Bill Bar’. The three friends had to pull and push JingYi who was grabbing onto the wooden door frame of the bar.

“We promised you that you will have fun today whether you want it or not!” April groaned. 

“I’ll remove the term ‘fun’ from my vocabulary!” JingYi hissed.

Together they finally got her off the door frame, where she had left long marks from her claws, into the bar. They were led to a table by a shrimp yokai waiter who gave them the menu. 

“This place’s most famous specials are whale-cheese and cayman soup!” Sunita stated excited now being in her natural slime form. 

“Whale-Cheese?” April asked weirded out.

“You’re aware whales and dolphins are no fish but mammals?” Sunny asked, frowning. 

“Sure, sure,” April said quickly, “but cayman soup? Is this a recipe from the Cayman Islands or is it actually made of cayman?” 

“Welllll … let’s just say, no cayman was harmed in the cooking process,” Sunita revealed, winking. 

Meanwhile in the kitchen: 

A yokai with a chef's hat on, chilled in a big cauldron over a mystic blue fire, surrounded by floating vegetables, herbs, a toy ship and a rubber ducky. His long tail hung out and he was stirring his ‘bath’ with a huge spoon. 

“How far's the soup?” asked a waiter.

The cayman took a sip with his spoon and replied: “Almost ready.”

“But first we should get ‘Flies in the soup’,” Sunita decided at the table.

“Eww … who's gonna eat dat?!” April complained.

“EAT?!?!” Sunita cried, taken aback. “How barbaric! No! You’re not supposed to EAT the flies - They are the bar's biggest attraction!” 

She ordered ‘Flies in the Soup’ and a live band began to play something latino and swingy. There was also an armada of violins, making it sound like a tune from one of these old travel comedies with Bob Hope or Dean Martin. 

The waiter brought for each of the four ladies a set of cards with numbers printed on. 

Then a soup plate was served. In the soup flowers were floating and on the plate's rim there was a dance group of fly yokai with long dip hem skirts and huge headdresses on. 

“ Choo - choo - choo - choo - choo ,” their lead began to sing.

“ Join me on the train of joy

That’s our very secret ploy

Drop your sorrows off the next stop

Leave gloomy valley, ride to the top.

From Nirwana over Walhalla 

From Shangri La over Shambala

We pick you up and make you stop -”

“Stop what?” Asked one of the dancers.

“Being a sad lone twat!” the lead sang.

Aye aye aye aye

Choo - choo - choo - choo - choo …

Now a group of flamenco-like dressed yokai came in, shouldering the cauldron with the cayman chef in, like a litter. He scrubbed his back with a brush and squeezed his rubber ducky to the rhythm of the music. Then the fly performers threw away their skirts and headdresses and now wore swimming caps and bathsuits. Elegantly they jumped into the soup, forming figures, doing synchronized swimming with their lead in the middle, singing in angelic choruses. Finally they built a pyramid with the lead at the top singing: 

“Join the train of joy

Aye aye aye aye”

The band stopped playing and the whole room of guests started applauding. Sunita held up a card with 10 points. April did the same. 

JingYi nervously flipped through her cards and held up a 10 upside down. An unimpressed Cassandra held up a measly 3 points. 

“Seriously?” Sunita asked.

“What?! I hate the song!” Cass snapped. 

The shrimp waiter came back to their table. 

“We like to order our drinks,” Sunita said. “We're all underage - but our friend here -” she pointed to JingYi “ - is old enough to get an alcoholic drink. It’s just … she lost her ID and driver's license and everything when skydiving with us today. But we swear she’s 202!”

The waiter raised his eyebrows and sneered: “More like 402,” at JingYi.

For a split second JingYi's eyes gleamed like those of her children. But she awkwardly replied: “Well, with 49 kids you don’t break a catch.”

“Catch a break”, April corrected her. 

“My sistah has sree hundred five and she never complains,” the shrimp scoffed at the turtle.

Another burning gleam in JingYi's eyes. “Just - bring - me - the - card - with - the - booze,” she gnarled through her teeth in a foreboding voice, completely uncharacteristic of her usual demeanor. 

Chapter Text

“ … aaaaaaand the little elephants all got ice cream and lived happily ever after,” Raph recited and closed the book. 

His children, nephews and nieces laid together in groups in a variety of hangmats suspended on different heights from the ceiling of their nursery; secured by several nets underneath and connected by hang ladders and ropes.  
Also there were cute little mobiles - some with tiny boats or animals.

“Another! Another!” the Dumb Dumb demanded.

“Nonononono,” Leo said, who had done some shadow puppeteering together with Mikey, illustrating the bed time story, “no more story, no more shadow plays! Time to sleep!”

The tots began to chirp and chatter. Some began to ask for their ‘mûqín’ and ‘nicing’ - old fashioned Mandarin for ‘mother’.

Leo sighed annoyed: “Your mom will come back tomorrow - tonight you've got us!”

The chatter turned into whining and angry fits.

“Hush, hush, hush - your mommy's fine. She'll be back when you wake up. Your dads are cool too, ain't they? Aw c'mon …!”

Mikey was covering his ears from the angry crying of his nieces and nephews. 

“What are we gonna do?!” Raph asked, desperately.

“Huh … these kiddos never spent a single night without their mom,” Leo stated, thoughtfully.

“Wait, is this piano music coming from the speakers?” his big bro asked, puzzled.

“Oh no! Not Eddaneid again!” Mikey cried, still covering his ears. 

Then there it was: a gentle male voice - certainly not Eddaneid - singing:

“Quiet …” 

Pause.

The children were still crying and throwing tantrums. 

There the voice rose up again:

“Like silence, but not really silent …” 

Something about this voice sounded familiar, but none of the boys could pinpoint it. 

“Just that still sort of quiet 
Like the sound of a page being turned in a book”, the mysterious singer went on. 

A few tots actually had gone quiet listening with awe. 

“Okay,” Leo began slowly, “where’s Donnie?”

“Reading in the next room, I think,” Raph replied. 

“Quiet …” the guy sang on.

Mikey immediately began to climb up to the nets above them. Soon he returned and gestured to the others to follow him. As they reached the net right under the ceiling, their jaws dropped!

“ …like silence, but not silent
Just that nice kind of quiet 
Like the sound when you lie upside down in your bed
Just like the sound of your heart in your head …”

IT WAS DONNIE!!!

He had hacked himself into the speakers system and sang through a microphone to an instrumental. Well that wasn’t surprising. Also breaking into song without warning was pretty common for Don. 
But for Gram-Gram’s sake, he couldn't sing a quiet song if his life depended on it! He was the grande overture type - singing at the top of his lungs. 
But there he sat, singing so softly into the mic, that his voice was barely recognizable.

“And though the people around you
Their mouths are still moving
The word they are forming
Can not reach you anymore …”

The singing tech wiz turned to them with raised eyebrows and formed ‘what took you so long?’ in sign language, throwing 3 small bluetooth microphones and song sheets over to them. 
Now this was crazy, it seemingly worked. The kids were calming down.

“And it is quiet
And you are warm
Like you've sailed
Into the eye of the storm”

The song began again and this time all four brothers joined in.
Mikey slid down the ropes and carefully pushed the hangsmats with his nieces and nephews so that they slowly began to swing, making him feel like Quasimodo, moving the bells of Notre Dame.
By and by the tots peacefully dose away.

Finally the turtle brothers climbed down to the floor. As they stared at Don, he responded: “What? You know I like musicals.” 

“Donald, that was beautiful,” gasped Mikey.

“Yeah, that was amazing,” agreed Raph under his breath. 

“Seems you actually made some progress, going from destroying to mending stuff,” his twin admitted, adding: “And I mean that both - in the literal and the figurative sense.”

“We’re very proud of you,” Raph smiled.

With that, his brothers went into the next room. Donnie stayed behind. A sinister smile formed on his lips as he murmured to himself: “There are different ways to destroy …” 

Meanwhile Kaeo sat with her friends at a bubble tea shop. But the mood was terrible: Her friends were all laughing at her. 

“You always thought of yourself as something better than us,” one girl scoffed. 

“Maybe I am … ” huffed Kaeo, “one day you’ll see on every screen and hear my voice from all speakers! I’ll be at the top and all of you’ll be sorry!”

“That won’t happen,” another girl stated.

“You’ll never become an idol. You’ll end up like us and your mom!”

“No, I won’t!” Kaeo hissed beside herself with rage. “Don’t you see?!?! I already have a proper job - unlike you - caring for kids!!” 

“how come you never showed us a single photo of these children?” One of her - so called - friends, asked.

“Cuz she can’t show us pictures of something that doesn’t exist,” giggled another ‘friend’.

“I told you, it’s a secret project of Eddaneid,” Kaeo spat.

“C’mon,” sneered the first girl, “tell us what you’re really doin’ for Eddaneid!”

“It’s just the way I said - I look after children as part of a secret project of Eddaneid. That’s all I can tell you,” Kaeo justified herself, with the result that her ‘friends’ broke into spiteful laughter.

The natural strawberry blonde gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. In her mind she heard Eddaneid’s warnings: 

‘If you ever dare to share any photos from the fort with anyone, I’ll make you deeply regret this. Not only can I replace you any time - no, no no … I’ll make your beloved mommy personally pay for this. Trust me, you don’t wanna know how …’

Meanwhile at Fort Salvation our ninjas were spending their time in JingYi’s room.

Since there was no wifi, everybody had to kill time a different way:

Donnie read books April had gotten him from the human library.

Mikey was drawing on his tablet.

Leo chilled in JingYi’s hangmat and played on his Nintendo Switch.

Only Raph’s switch was out of charge and he had settled for watching Thai TV on mute and was respectively bored. 
“Can I see what you draw, big man?” he asked.

“Nuh - uh!” Mike responded. “That’s a WIP for Casey Jr.’s ‘findday’.

“Aw c’mon, you can show it to us,” Raph tried. 

“No chance,” Mikey said curtly.

As Donnie adjusted his pillow, his science book slipped out of his grip and revealed underneath …

“Donnie! You’re reading a book on turtles as pets?!” Raphael exclaimed.

Everybody stared at Don.

“Oh … uh, well,” he stuttered. “It has a very good picture-by-picture tutorial for trimming beaks - even so simple that you dummies can understand and the illustrations are not as creepy as those on WikiHow. Also there’s all information collected in one place, I would have to pick together from different pet care forums. It saves me a lot of time.”

Curiously Mikey fetched another book from Donnie’s stash. 
“Dancing with kids?” he read the title aloud.

“Give that back!” the genius demanded. 

They got interrupted by Leo: “Heeey … aren’t these the same kind of vials I got drunk on?”

“Indeed,” Donatello pointed out, “at Eddaneid’s workshop JingYi teaches women how to manufacture the snake oil, so that he can sell it in his onlineshop …  Don't you guys find it … most peculiar … that she does such cooperation with her … oppressor …?” 

“I think the word you’re looking for is not cooperation but exploitation,” Mikey replied confused and slightly alarmed at what Donnie might be up to.
“Ever heard of slave labor?” he asked him. “Kids ‘n adults bein’ forced to work at coal mines and factories or on fishing boats against their free will?”

Dee folded his arms and looked around in the room demonstratively: “Oh I dunno …” he began snobbishly, “this doesn’t look like the living conditions of a slave … rather like a nice Airbnb.”

Raph and Mikey stared at him in utter disbelief. 

“Have you recently hit your massive head really hard?” his big bro asked, visibly irked, while Mikey wondered: “Seriously Donald, do we have to discuss what the room of a victim is supposed to look like?”

“It occurs to me, we have to,” Don stated. “I mean this is quite an impressive TV set Raph is looking at.”

“You just prove that you aint know nothin’ about true crime!” Mikey ranted. “A tv is part of the locked-into-some-creep’s-basement starter pack.

“What do you know ‘bout true crime?” Raph addressed Mike sternly. 

“Oooooh - uh … nothing!” he stuttered.

“You’re way too young to be exposed to such content!” the snapping turtle hollered at his baby brother.

“I - I haven’t been - I … just know … what .. April told me about,” he claimed nervously.

For a moment Raph eyed him suspiciously. Then he uttered: “I have to have a word with April.”

Don cleared his throat and went on: “And do you have an idea what a single cup of that tea set costs?” pointing at said tea set. “Every piece is painted by hand and plated with pure gold.”

“I already broke two cups and the creamer of this,” Leo commented amusedly. 

“It’s a freaking tea set,” Angelo responded annoyedly. 

“And then look at the stunningly beautiful view!” Don stated, pulling the curtains to the porch aside. 

“There IS no other view all around,” Raph grumbled. 

But his third younger brother kept on lecturing them: “Now look at this lovely traditional Thai inlay work - “ presenting them JingYi’s wardrobe.”

“Let me guess - it is expensive and handmade,” Mikey replied dully. 

“Well, yes Michael,” Dee said in the tone of a pleased teacher, “and I bet, so is its content.”
With that he opened the wardrobe and looked through the different hanfus. 
“These are made from fine materials - oh  … oooooh …” he said, picking out two pieces he really liked, as he was grabbed by the rim of his battle shell and found himself dangling in the air. 

“What’s gotten into you! You were raised better than that!” Raph cried, holding him with one hand, sounding more taken aback than angry, while pulling the hangers with clothes out of Don’s hands and putting them carefully back into the wardrobe and closing it again. He placed his brother back on the ground and took him by the shoulders: “What is your problem?” he wanted to know.

“I could ask you the same,” Donnie replied politely. “Why do you act so oddly protective of Miss Buddah-said-so?”

“What?!” Raph gasped.

“You were about to smash the well in order to save her, amirite?” Dee smiled, observing his metallic purple painted fingernails. 

“I just protect good manners!” Raph snapped. “And yours are horrible right now!” 

In this moment someone parted to curtains in the door to the porch from outside: It was April with Mayhem on her shoulder. “Hellohoo! Help needed!” she called.

Raph opened the door to the porch. April and Sunita entered, carrying an unknown Asian looking woman in her early twenties inside. 
Cassandra stayed behind, leaning in the door frame blowing bubblegum bubbles, enjoying the show.
The boys looked puzzled.

“Who's dis and where'd you leave JingYi?!” Leo demanded to know. “Eddaneid will never make any other deal with us when we don’t return her before midnight!” He snapped, still sitting in the hangmat.

“This IS JingYi!” April shot back. “Don't you recognize the puffy dark shades under her eyes?!”

“Now that you’re mentioning it …” he stated, rubbing his chin.

Since he didn’t make any efforts to leave JingYi’s hangmat, April toppled it over, so that he fell out. Now the girls placed the woman in.

“Wait! She can shapeshift?! That’s not fair!” fumed Donnie, flapping his hands in the air.

“Well, it's not perfect,” April said.

Indeed, she still had the same clawed and webbed hands, ears like the creature from the black lagoon and a turtle beak instead of teeth inside her mouth. 

“Oh c’mon,”Donnie said, “we’re wearin’ paperthin disguises since we were little and it worked out well for us so far. Compared to that, this is perfect!”

JingYi’s eyes were still closed as she mumbled: “Chou, chou, chou, chou chou.”

Leo rubbed the back of his head and asked: “Is she … DRUNK?!” 

“She had only one drink,” April claimed.

The leader of the turtles glared at her. 

“Maybe two,” she admitted, “but who would have thought, this could knock her out like that!”

Donnie used everybody's distraction to open the wardrobe behind him with his extended metal hands, snatch the two hanfus with the patterns he liked and let them disappear into his battleshell.

“Now look at her,'' Leo exclaimed angrily, “you let her go out one single night and she get’s completely wasted! What an irresponsible mother!”

“- Says the guy that used his babies as stunt props,” commented Raph with a judging expression.

“- Says the guy that wanted to put the only existing evidence of his children into a blender,” Mikey hissed.

Leon looked very guilty and miserable now.

“No doubt,” Donnie stated nonchalantly, “Leo’s a terrible father. But that doesn't make her any less of a terrible mother.”

April frowned at her best friend: “She had like TWO freak'n drinks!”

Sunita gasped, pointing at the muted tv: “Look! Guys look!” drawing everybody’s attention to the screen.

Even without a word, the footage shown told them everything:
At an expo in Tokyo a hologram had - allegedly - inflicted severe burn injuries on a student. 
Of course, the tech company behind that programmed and installed the dragon hologram swore and proved that this was impossible. 
There even was a phone video recorded by a bystander depicting the incident. It showed that the dragon head that had spilled fire at the student didn’t even look the same as the hologram. 
The journalists had no explanation for this, but our friends knew exactly what had happened.

“Why are they doing this?!?” April shouted. “Why are they playing with unexpectant humans in such a cruel way?! What do they earn from that?”

“Another power demonstration …” Leo said seriously, “just as Usagi suspected.”

“But to whom?” Mikey asked vigorously.

“Probably the high yokai council … ” Leon pondered, “small acts of terrorism …”

Last time they just threatened the citizens of the hidden city. That moth-dragon thing showed Usagi that the dragons are only at odds with humans and their destructive treatment of the planet. Now they hurted a human for the first time … in a way that only yokai and mutants will know what actually happened …”

“But … this is so random,” Raph remarked.

“That’s the thing about terrorism,'' Leo replied, “it looks like sheer madness … But trust me - there’s method to the madness …”

Author’s notes: I made Don sing one of the ultimate Autism Anthems - Quiet from the Matilda musical. I just had to.

Yeah … he’s misdirecting his anger at Eddaneid onto JingYi since taking revenge on Eddaneid is currently not an option and Don is not even aware of his unhealthy behavior. He also has this master plan of making his kids adore him and he sees the mother as a rival who takes away their attention from him. So being the logical guy he is, he’s convincing himself first that he is in the right. Of course this will lead to a disaster in the future … 

Chapter Text

Author’s notes: This is the start of a two chapter ark - the Neo Edo ark. And YES I’m going for heavy leosagi vibes here! It’s about time that at least ONE of the two realizes the true nature of their feelings :D i post the second chapter later today.

Also this is the last short chapter. From now on, I turn always two short chapters into one - this is why the chapter number in total melted from 39 down to 35

TRIGGER WARNINGS:  Some more gross B-Movie type conclution about the mutated samples - the last info of this type and there’s a power puff girls reference.

Chapter 25
What About Fun?

“Woe-kay,” Leo said, pointing at a chaotic looking flip chart page, “Update on the current situation:
That whistleblower dragon of our furry friends from the big-smart-shiny-rock realm became useless after the dragons changed their strategy and stopped stealing mystic artifacts - which makes no sense at all, since they need those to regain their full power. They might try to put some pressure on the yokai government. But that’ssssss not much more than mere speculation at this point,” he admitted.
“Though Donnie placed several bugs at the dragon lord’s headquarters during our rescue mission, we don’t know anything about their plans since they all got destroyed immediately. Seriously Dee, what was wrong with these?! Were they huge? Did they blink? Did they play music?”

“None of these attributes applied,” Don said in a calm but foreboding voice. 

“Then explain to me why the dragons found them so fast!” Leo demanded to know.

“Oh sweet Galileo, I have not the slightest idea,” Donnie shot back. “If you are so distrusting of my decisions, why don’t you hire another mystic tech genius? Oh wait … I forgot - you won’t find one! You are dependent on me, whether you like it or not!!!” He had gone louder and louder to finally yell the last sentence.

Raph and Leo exchanged insecure glances. The problem was, Leo's suspicions were valid. You could never tell when Donnie was focussed on the success of a mission and when he would put his ego first. you only knew AFTERWARDS.

“I am sick and tired of you guys taking all my work for granted!” their scientist was shouting. 

“I was not planning on bringing that up ‘cuz of the gross out factor,” Mikey began, “buuuut when it helps to de-escalate this situation … I had a few more chats with Dr. Yildiz -”

His brothers had ‘Stop-talking-stop-talking-stop-talking’ written all over their faces but Mike went on: 

“Aaaaaaaaand both of you were right. Your treatment actually destroyed half of the samples, Donnie.”

Don looked pleasantly surprised.

“Buuuuuuuut,” Mikey continued awkwardly, “the other half totes mutated just like Leo guessed. Those lil’ thingies split and multiplied during that whole preparation process and even after gettin’ unfrozen. The doc just didn't question it ‘cuz mutants.” The other three turtles looked both disgusted and terrified.

“Eeeeeeeww!” Leo made. 

“That’s why I had to work after hours replacing them all with facsimiles! But how is that even possible?” Donnie asked indignantly. 

“Uh-oh,” Raph uttered, a sudden realization reflected on his face. Now all eyes were set on  him. “At some point,” he elaborated, “I ran out of your chemicals. From then on I could only use the button tasers on the samples,” he remembered.

“Me too!” Leo cried. 

“You ran out of them?” Donnie asked in disbelief.

“Guess we first took too much of ‘em and later we had nothing left,” Raph explained. 

“So while the tasers actually killed the probes - in connection with the chemical compound they caused the mutation,” Leo thought out loud.

“Perfect comic book and b-movie logic,” Mikey agreed.

“That means … you succeeded because you miscalculated,” Donnie realized unhappily. 

“Look at it from the bright side, Donald,” Mike said, “it's still rad that you accidentally discovered chemical X.”

“Chemical X?” he asked back.
 
“Ya know,” Michelangelo smiled, “sugar and spice and everything nice.” He began to hum: “Pam pam pa da da dam dam …pam pam pa da da daaa …”

Also Leo and Raph recognized the theme tune and joined in. 

Leo sighed: “The timespan between enjoying the Power Puff Girls and having some of our own was just way too short. That brings me to the next point.” 
He turned the page of the flipchart pad and then they saw another talentless illustrated page filled with rainbows, stars and unicorns. In the middle there was written in bubbly letters: ‘What about fun?’
“What was the last time you had real fun?” he asked his brothers. “I don’t mean ‘had a great day with the kids’ kinda fun or ‘kicked that baddy’s butt’ fun but real, careless, airheaded fun.”

Silence. 

After a pause Mikey suggested: “When Casey’s team won the match?”

“Maybe … ” Leo replied. “That was the very weekend our life changed forever. I mean, we can sit and watch the shows and movies we love since we were small. but it brings back all the heavy memories …”

His brothers knew what he meant … traumatizing battles … temporary losses like those of Raph and Leo … final ones like those of Sheldon, their origami pal and Karai … Them spending the past three years fleeing the foot clan and the monsters they worship; having left behind their childhood home in the sewer and an abandoned subway they had given a sweet makeover … just to eventually be forced to seek shelter in a morgue. 

“We need to go to a place we’ve never seen before to clear our minds. Usagi’s invitation to Neo Edo still stands. At the moment there’s nothing we can do here. So we should take that chance before hell breaks loose on Earth and the dragons cause a Roland Emmerich movie to happen for real.”

Chapter Text

[insert yokai world council meeting here] No, really, I actually wanted to have a scene from the yokai world council meeting at the beginning of this chapter. I picked a variety of mythological creatures from all over the world … and then I found out that I had no idea how to make this meeting compelling. So the dragons threaten the united yokai nations, have committed several small acts of terrorism and no one truly has a plan. In my head this was some impressive star wars jedi council, but not on paper. Maybe I will try to draw this meeting one day, but I can’t write it. Who knows …

Chapter 26

Neo Edo 

Neo Edo, the Murakami home in the daytime: Toshiko and Gen were waiting in the yard. 

In a flash of purple-ish-white light Kitzune appeared with Spot and our four turtles.

“Oh, I’ve got wifi,” Donnie said.

They greeted and introduced each other. 

“Where are the others?” Mikey was the first one to ask.

“Chizu is checking on the dojo and Usagi meditates since this morning with the Ki-Stone, seeking answers - at least this is what he said,” Kitzune replied. “We pick ‘em up later.”

“First things first,” Gen said, “You guys really need to get some clothes!”

“Yeah, in the past few months the citizens of Neo Edo changed their minds about a lot of matters, but -” Toshiko began, “ - there are three things they still really don’t like: 1) Scantily clad people. 2) Ninjas and 3) Scantily clad ninjas. 

“I get the clothes part,” Leo said, “but when it comes to the ninja thing - what do you mean in particular?”

“Off with the masks!” was the response from the rhino siblings. 

Raph gasped: “But masks are an integral part of our personalities!”

“It’s okay bud,” Leo told him, patting his shoulder. “I guess we should be no ninjas for today.”

“Awww,” Kitzune chimed, tongue in cheek, “but I thought you could give a lil’ ninjitsu presentation at the dojo for the orphans - showing that ninjas that grew up in a loving and warm environment can totally kick butt too!”

Raph and Mikey got sparkly eyes hearing that.

“You can count on us,” the big brother said.

“Yeah, let’s go slayin’ for the orphans, baby!” Mikey cheered. 

“Uh uh uh - clothes first,” the fox girl stated sternly. 

“I know a great place to rent some,” Gen told them excitedly. 

Donnie let out a war cry: “Fashion makeover time!!!”

Everybody stared at him. 

Later they hovered through the streets of Neo Edo in the Ashibasha. The boys had their faces glued to the windows, marveling at the city. 

“This is the most magnificent blend of New York, Tokyo and a couple of other cities I’ve never been too”, Donnie uttered mesmerized.

As they entered the fashion rental, he stormed towards his size section - actually there were sections from mice to elephants - and picked up all the fabrics he liked; gushing about them. 

“Wow, Leo stated, “26 chapters in and I haven’t seen Donnie this excited yet.”

Now everybody had a great time, picking out an outfit … except for Donnie … When he finally had tried on some clothes and had seen himself in the mirror, he stood there frozen - all joy faded away. 

Mikey noticed it. “Poor Donnie,” he said to Toshiko. 

“What’s wrong with him?” she wondered, while observing the young scientist slumping down on a couch, letting his chin sink. 

“I’m not sure if it is masking or full-on dysphoria,” Mikey pondered. “Either he feels like he has to hide himself under his mask, goggles and painted eyebrows - or he doesn’t feel like himself without ‘em … It’s hard to tell …”

“Maybe you offer him a hat?” Gen’s sister suggested simply. Also I’m sure Kitzune will lend him her brow pencil.”

Later they went to Chizu’s dojo, putting on a little performance show for the orphans. They small neko ninjas cheered, making Leo’s, Raph’s and Mikey’s eyes sparkle.

Then the boys had to answer many questions:

“Are you real brothers?”

“Did you actually grow up together?” 

“Did you have to train hard?”

“How was your sensei like?”

“What do you do, when you don’t train or fight?”

“Is New York different from Neo Edo?”

And so on and so on and so on.

“I wish”, Chizu said, moved, “the other neko ninja could witness that. But except for you -” she turned to the only grown neko ninja that had stayed at the dojo, “they all ran over to Lady Fuwa.”

Kitzune quietly took Chizu’s hand.

“And?” Tetsujin asked. 

“Nothing,” Usagi said. “At least nothing new. The Ki-Stone just repeats to give me the images and answers she gave me before and expects me to decipher those.”

“She will have her reasons,” Tetsujin replied. 

“I guess so,” Yuichi murmured. “But who are those that stand right in the middle between the humans and the otherkin? What even are these otherkin?” he asked desperately.

“You’ll find the answer,” the last Kakishi said “- or the dragons will take over the twelve realms - one or the other,” he added casually.

“Dude, you really don’t understand how motivational speeches work - do you?” the rabbit asked.

“Ghost bear!” Raph exclaimed in despair as he arrived with the others at the temple. 

“Nah … he can’t be in this realm” Mike tried to calm his big bro down. “ - or can he?” He wondered, unsure.

“No! Real ghost bear!! Look!!!” Raph pointed behind the backs of his brothers. 

“Whaaaaa!! Ghost bear!!!” Leo and Don cried. 

“Welcome to the Ki-Stone temple!” Tetsujin greeted them, floating towards the turtles, sipping on a huge cup of bubble tea.

The boys were still shaking with fear. “Well, I might fly, I may glow, I might be translucent - but I’m not a ghost,” he explained. “I’m the last of the Kakishi - keepers of the Ki-stone.”

“Is Usagi still meditating?” Gen asked.

“He just finished,” the bear responded.

“How do you like our city?” he asked, looking at the turtles.

“It’s a town,” Donnie stated.

“Don’t you mean ‘what a town’?” Mikey asked.

“Nononoooo, that’s reserved for New York,” Dee said curtly. 

“Wait till you see the arcade!” they heard Usagi saying, emerging from the temple’s entrance.

“But first I’ll show you my skills on the drums,” Tetsujin demanded. They indeed had a lot of fun being catapulted from drum to drum.

Later at the arcade they practiced on the fight machine and were pretty surprised that the three inu shiba doctors were still better at ducking, jumping and kicking than our professional ninjas.

“Maybe we should recruit them,” Leo smirked.

Raph won a huge, cute plushie, hitting targets.

“Whoohoo!” Leo cried, riding the motorcycle in a race against Usagi.

They shouted and hollered and laughed, just being teens, no protectors of worlds, interdimensional balance or the twelve realms.

Leon smiled at Usagi - but that was a mistake. He looked right into the rabbit’s eyes that shimmered like hot fudge in the light of the video game screens and Leo’s brain seemed to turn to fudge itself. He lost control over his vehicle and trailed off the game's treadmill, crashing into a slot machine that now spat out prices.

“Hey, you’re okay?” Usagi asked, helping him up.

“How often will you ask me that again?” Leo quipped.

“Uh oh, gotta go,” the samurai said, seeing that customers happily picked up the free prices, while the security was approaching. 

Giggling, the two boys fled the arcade. 

“What now? Leon asked.

“Let’s go for a real ride,” Usagi replied. So they drove on the rabbit’s scooter out of the big city.

“Remember how you said, you’d like to meet my aunt?” Yuichi asked.

“Look at the road, man!” Leo warned him, grabbed the handles and maneuvered them around a rock they almost had collided with.  

“Whoops, sorry,” his new ally said.

“Your world’s beautiful,” Leo heard himself gushing a while later, looking at the foliage of the trees above; leaves and flower petals raining down on them. 

They passed a cornfield shining in blue and red with cornflowers and poppies; fresh air blowing into their faces. 

“Well, we protect our environment, unlike the folks of your realm,” Usagi stated.

Leo felt happy, even blessed. Mikey would have said, like a sun was rising in his chest and her warmth expanded into his whole body. 
He felt so light. That didn’t make any sense since the road was uneven and shook them through. Leonardo had to hold on tight to Usagi’s hips and often got either his floppy ears or the soft, fuzzy fur on his cheeks into his face.

As they finally arrived at his aunt’s farm, he felt disappointed, the ride was over. 

Aunt and nephew embraced each other. 

“So you are that pompous bully from the other realm,” she teased Leo.

“Aunty! Usagi scolded her. 

She chuckled charmingly. 

“It’s okay, I like old ladies that talk back,” Leo smiled.

“I figured that you might hesitate to fight your old aunty with a sword,” she stated, glazing over to her nephew with a scheming look to her face. “So I refurbished our old training weapons,” she added, lifting up two wooden sticks with padded up ends. 
“Now we can teach big-city-boy here a lesson!”

“Aunty, You’re awesome!” Usagi exclaimed. 

So they put on a fight presentation. 

“Whoa! Go go granny!” Leo cheered. 

Finally she defeated her nephew.

“He’s much better than that,” she told Leon, winking at him. “he just doesn’t want to defeat his first teacher.” 

“I know”, the turtle smiled.

“Let me show you my old room,” the younger rabbit said excitedly, “introducing you to my great ancestor - is that okay, aunty?”

“Of course!” she laughed.

But as they wanted to go, she held Usagi back: “Can I talk to you for a minute?” 

“Uh - yeah, sure …” it came surprised from her nephew. 

“You can go ahead,” he told his guest. “First go straight forward then turn left, then right and left - the other left! - yeah, that’s the door.”

When Leo had shut the Japanese paper doors behind him, the rabbit asked his aunt:” What’s wrong?”

She tilted her head with such a mixed expression on her face: happy, touched, cumbersome … usually Usagi knew that look from times when she told him about his late parents. 

“There is something people don’t warn you about as much as about other things  … not even in the big city …” she uttered gently. “But you really need to know …”

The young samurai made big eyes at his aunt. He expected her to tell him something truly profound.

It almost flung him from his feet as she finally said:”I’m sorry if I - as you young people call it - kill the mood, but reptiles sometimes carry salmonella. They might not know, since they are immune to them, but this can be very. very unpleasant for us mammals.”

“Whu … uh … why are you telling me that!?” her nephew stuttered, flabbergasted. “It’s not like we eat from the same bag of chips.or something!”

“I just wanted you to know,” she responded, softly. “And … is it alright if I bring you some tea … later?” she asked, carefully.

Usagi finally suspected his aunt to become old and wondrous. “Why not?” he asked back, his eyes trailing back and forthY,” she suggested, innocently. 

“Aunty!” he said, irritated.

She couldn’t help, but laugh at his sheer oblivion. “Just go and tell him about Usagi Yojimbo,” she chuckled.

As Usagi had vanished into his room, she sighed: “Oh Yuichi … he’s looking at you like your uncle once looked at me when we were young … But you have no clue …”

Now Usagi would learn that it wasn’t so smart to leave a curious turtle alone in his room. 

“Aww, so cute!!!” Leo cried, as the rabbit entered the room. 

When he saw what the ninja was holding in his hands, he blushed and protested: “Put ‘em back! How did you even find them?!”

“Oh, I was just curious what those keys were for,” he responded casually. 

“How did you find the keys in the first place?” Usagi moaned.

“I was bored,” Lee shrugged. “But seriously, they’re freak’n adorable!” He held up a paper mache doll, dressed in royal attire. 

Yuichi sighed: “These actually belonged to aunty and my mom. And they got them from their mom. These are old hinas and ishimatos’.

“Aaaaaaaaaaand what are they doing in your room?” Leo teased him.

Usagi gave up: “Maybe I liked ‘em when I was small and aunty gave me them …  But this one here’s still pretty cool -” He held up a poseable warrior doll. “My dad had him when he was a boy. 

“Wicked!” Leo said, “I’ve got lots of action figures. But it’s okay to like cute stuff too - even when you’re a samurai …” He gave Usagi a warm smile.

“Yeah, your Raph and Gen both have a thing for plushies,” the rabbit said shyly. 

“And I really love unicorns,” Leo stated. I might not have them on display, but I own a few … When we were little, Donnie used to poke fun at my baby unicorn princess - till I found out he secretly borrowed her from time to time.”

The two boys smiled at each other. 

“Okay,” Usagi said embarrassed, “let me introduce you to my ancestor.”

For the next hour Usagi showed Leo lots of old richly illustrated books about Usagi Yojimbo and yokai and rambled on and on. In between his aunt came in smiling knowingly and serving them tea. 

Leo learned that his grand-grand-grand-grand-grand and so on -uncle was to Usagi what Lou Jitsu and Jupiter Jim  had been to him and his brothers.

“One day,” Yuichi said, “I want to be a samurai as great and as strong as Yojimbo.” He sighed: “I guess, I really have to train much, much more … You guys are just about my age and you’re just so freak’n ripped!”

Leo felt himself blushing. “Honestly”, he stuttered, “only Raph is really training hard. Mikey’s doin’ a lot of cardio and yoga though. Donnie has developed his own interactive training lessons. But sometimes he spends days just programming and sitting in his chair. And I … I actually lifted more comic books than weights in my life. Look, we’re mutants. We were genetically designed to become killing machines. Our creator was planning on building an army he could pit against humanity. So … it’s no surprise we were already athletic when we were still crapping into our diapers.”

Usagi had listened with his mouth gaped open: “You mean,” he began, “these sick biceps of yours grow themselves?!” 

“Partly,” Leo mumbled.

“NOT FAIR!” the rabbit cried. 

“Hey,” Leo comforted him, “you’ll get more muscular eventually. Stick to a training routine, ask Gen or Raph for advice and be a little patient.”

“Do you think I can get as strong as you?” Usagi asked hopefully. 

“Dude! Again! I’m a mutant, But yeah, you can look as strong as me one day. And sorry for calling you pigeon-chested,” the turtle apologized.

“Aw, that’d be so awesome!” Yuichi cried, yearning. 

At this moment Leon caught himself wondering what hard muscles under soft fur might feel like. 
Where the hell came this thought from?! Nervously he poured himself another cup of tea. 

Why on earth was he imagining what Usagi’s hypothetical future muscles might feel like?

Why didn’t he get annoyed listening to his ramblings for hours?

Why did his brain turn to mush when he looked too deep into that rabbit’s eyes?

Why was he so ridiculously happy around him?

Why was he so obsessed with his adorable rabbit features? 

- Sure, soft fur, a pink, twitching nose and floppy ears are cute - but seriously!

Why had he lost control over himself and had turned into a complete jerk at their first meeting?

Leo heard Donnie’s voice in the back of his head: “Dumb dumb …”

Great pizza supreme in the sky! The realization hit Leonardo like the iceberg the Titanic!

Immediately he jumped to his feet. “I - uh - need to … get some fresh air … I’ll be right back!” With that he walked out of all the doors down the stairs to the crops. 

Nooooo - he wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown in a field of cabbage. But he would have a breakdown - there was no way around. 
So he took out one of his katanas and portaled himself into his favorite window frame in the ruins of the sanatorium … 

Leo had felt broken, hopeless and undeserving before … 

That feeling wasn’t anything new - like a dreaded, old relative that sometimes invites themself into your home when you’re too weak to say ‘no’.

He hadn’t cried since the events of the Krang invasion but now … he was in floods of tears while sobs made him shake uncontrollably.  

It really was the final straw. 

“Seriously!” he shouted, “What kind of leader am I?! I’m a mentally unstable jerk, I have as many kids as life years - I tried to dodge custody for - while still being a minor - with a woman that is a complete stranger to me and I have lost my heart, mind and body to a samurai!”
He covered his face with his hands, sobbing again. 

“Ohhh … to me this sounds like countless other historic leaders,” an echoing female voice chuckled. 

Slowly Leo lifted up his head with a disturbed look on his face. “Who … who said this?” he asked.

An echoing giggle of at least one woman and two men was the response. 

“Am I losing my mind or is this sanatorium actually haunted?” he whispered, fearful. Our turtle almost fell out of his beloved window as a couple of green Hamato ghosts appeared! And more and more followed! 

“That ‘You’ll never alone’ thing starts to get a whole new meaning - and I don’t know if I like it,” Leo exclaimed. “Are you guys really always there? Do you see and hear everything?!” 

“Oh, please spare us,” said a noble-looking lady, “no ghost wants to see and hear everything.”

“We only appear to our living descendants in times of grave, looming danger at a global scale.” Whoever ghost had said this, Donnie certainly had inherited his vocabulary from him.

“And there is no time to waste,” another male ghost added.

“Sometimes it is important to be humble and practice humility,” the lady said, “but at other times you simply have to lower your high ideals. You still have to learn a lot, but the facts you mentioned do not make you any different from countless young men who led and conquered nations and established whole dynasties.
What made them so powerful was the ability to put their minds to their goals and everything that hindered them aside. 
If you want to protect the Earth and everyone you love, you have to do the same …”

, 

“Valid question: You have wifi, smart homes, floating vehicles and solar powered robots, but you still morse telegrams! Why didn’t you invent phones?! You’d never have a situation like this if you had phones!” Donnie pointed out.

Leo’s three bros, Gen, his sister, Chizu, Kitzune, Kyoko and Usagi were all back at the Murakami residence. 

“Calm down, Dee,” Raph said, “you know as well as we do, that Leo portaled himself back home.” 

Mikey looked very worried. The umbrella yokai tried to comfort him by patting him on the shell with his long tongue.

“You might not understand this,” he stated heavy hearted, “but … the last alien invasion took a toll on Leo’s mental health. I mean … on all of us … but he was the last one who accepted help.”

“Why shouldn't we understand this?” Toshiko asked, agitated. 

“Yeah, there have been many wars in our world too,” Chizu added.

“You mean, he’s like those old people that went to fight in the war and never came back the same?” Usagi asked carefully. “Sure, you never come back from war the same, but I mean … those peeps that are suddenly silent and angry and … hopeless … a bit crazy … or a bit more crazy sometimes.”

“What you describe is a form of post traumatic stress disorder - PTSD for short,” Mikey explained. “And yes, this is what Leo has.

Yiuchi looked absolutely devastated upon learning that. 

At this moment a bright blue circle appeared in the air and Leo emerged from a portal. 

“Oh look! Little turtle lost!” Kyoko quipped.

Only Donnie had the nerves to demand an answer from him: “Where have you been?!”

“Sorry, sorry I just vanished, I had to figure out some … leader stuff,” Leo said.

“The audacity!” Donnie replied. 

But Leon simply clapped his hands and said: “Okay kids, fun time’s over. We need to discuss our new Earth protection system.
Some of you have mystic powers, others have mystic weapons - but all of you are important. Donnie”, he addressed his ill-tempered twin, “What’s your verdict on Kitzune’s super robots?”

“Adorbs,” he stated unimpressed.

“Could they fight the 5 elements?” Lee asked further.

“Nuh … Don made.

“Okay, Donatello,” his brother said earnestly, “I need you to build 4 super war robots, also Gen, Usagi and Chizu can operate.”

Dee gave Nardo an odd look. “Aren’t you worried that - oh, i don’t know - my robots might destroy NY on their own?”

“Well, as you said before,” Leo responded, “I am dependent on you. The whole world is dependent on you. So I have to trust you with this.”

“Did I ever mention how much I hate your manipulation skills?” Donnie sighed.

Kitsune sadly looked down at the stony yard floor. 

“Kitzi, what’s wrong?” Chizu asked.

“It’s just … I understand that we need everybody’s help but … being the only one able to operate the robot made me … useful …”
“Kitsune, you are ALWAYS useful - you're so much more than that!” Chizu laid her paws on the fox girl’s shoulders and smiled at her, encouraging. 

Kitsune shyly smiled back.

Chapter Text

Chapter 27

Patty And Hortense Stricke Back!

In New York’s underground two dirty male hands put a 12 inch vinyl of Rose Royce’s ‘At the Car Wash’ on a record player. It was Bonesteel who jammed to the track. cleaning  the barrels of his beloved Miyumi.

Much, much deeper into the earth there was hustling and bustling at an actual car wash - or more precisely - a flying carriage wash. The ‘Icarus Pro Limited’. 

“You washed my boar!!” yelled a beetle yokai at Usagi who was a clerk there. The yokai held up one of his two wild boars. His other boar still had burning eyes and flames coming from his nostrils. The boar in his arms looked unhappy and he could only belch a few black clouds.
“I can’t start with only one fiery boar!!” the customer fumed.

“No problem, I’ll fix that in no time,” Usagi promised and took the heavy boar.
He could hardly walk under the magic beast’s weight and whispered to Spot:
“Emergency plan 9”

The small dinosaur stirred his portal spoon in the air and brought the 3 of them to vulcan park, where the turtles had threatened Eddaneid before - namely the park restaurant.

“Your hottest chili - five portions, “ Yuichi ordered.

As he placed the five chilis in front of the mopey boar, the creature sniffed at them and soon sucked them in like a vacuum cleaner. Immediately his eyes began to burn and little flames came from his ears and nostrils. 

Thus Usagi could return him fully functioning to his owner, so that he could start his flying carriage. 

Meanwhile in the kitchen at the turtle lair:

“I’m at the end of my ropes,” April said, “we tried everything, but JingYi’s a hopeless case - a total stick in the mud, a party pooper, a killjoy!
The only thing she enjoyed that night ws to fill herself up!”

“Sounds pretty normal to me, “ Splinter commented. 

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” April concluded, “she is TOO normal!”

“Well,” Mikey proudly declared, “we figured out the perfect way to chillex for a burned out, depressed, average mom.”

“Yeah, but I’m out,” April cleared things up. “This is just too girly for me.”

“That’s why YOU will accompany her, Leon,” Mikey said, solemnly.

His brother was so caught off guard, he snorted his soft drink out of his nose. 
“MEEEEEEEE!?!?!?!?” He yelled.

“Yeah,” Ape stated, “cuz there’s nobody else I know who could spend a whole lazy girls’ day out, hanging around a pool, going to the sauna, having a massage or getting their nails done.”

“Wait - you want me to take her to the spa?” Leo cried. “Why can’t she go by herself?!”

“You know, she can’t,” April told him, sternly. 

“You guys are aware I’m a persona non grata at any spa in the Hidden City?” the red eared slider checked.

“Not in Neo Edoooo …” Mikey triumphed. 

“I guess we can spend a few hours staying out of each other's way,” his older brother groaned, reluctantly. 

April and Mike smirked and winked at each other. 

Later when Leo wanted to go to his room, he got ambushed by Donnie who grabbed by the shell and hissed in his face: “This is counterproductive! This whole helping-JingYi-to- decompress mission is counterproductive!”

“Get off me, Dee!” Leo demanded, “You’re giving me a heart attack!”

But his older twin already tagged him along into his lab.

He pulled on a string and a poster that illustrated the inner workings of feral turtles came down.

“Ever heard of kangaroo mothers’ bodies being able to encapsulate an embryo mid development for continuing pregnancy in times of less environmental stress and higher nutrition security?” Donnie asked in a teacher’s tone.

“No! I don’t watch Animal Planet like Mikey,” Leo almost protested. 

“Well, from day one on I found it very suspicious how whole-heartedly Eddaneid welcomed our efforts in taking care for the kids and helping out JingYi. 
Raph was right when he pointed out that Eddaneid needed our support. He just didn’t know what for … 
Dr. Yildiz mentioned ‘logistic problems’ which can mean almost everything. Well I figured it out,” Don declared in a superior tone. 

“You read that book on pet turtles, “ Leo blurted out, bluntly.

“What?!” Don gasped. “Nooo - I did extensive research.”

“”You read it in the book,” Leo stated unwaveringly. 

“Okay - fine!” his brother admitted through gritted teeth. He sighed: “We finally destroyed all the samples but there still might be a remaining stash stored inside JingYi’s very body.”

“EEEEEEWWWWWWW ! ! !” Leo exclaimed. “Duude! Couldn’t you warn me!”

“There are specific storage canals to her uterine tubes; which means that the remaining semen might remain fertile inside JingYi for seven up to ten years - probably even longer considering that she’s an immortal demon,” Donatello went on.

Leo looked like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to cry or puke. “I always thought girl anatomy’s gross, but I had no idea HOW gross!”

Donnie continued his lecture: “Insemination and eventual pregnancy won’t occur as long as we keep her stressed out.”

“But we can’t keep her stressed out for an unknown timespan,” Leo insisted. “This would be way too stressful for US.”

“Good thinking, Nardo,” his twin acknowledged. “This is why we’ll have a little chat with an expert ...”

In the Hidden City:
Leo and Donnie disguised as Patty and Hortense observed the entrance of a building with a sign saying: ‘Dr. M.Ustard  - Wizard for Women Medicine’ .

“Why is my wig different today? Leo asked.

“Because we’re Patty and Hortense - menopause edition,” Donnie explained. “Now let’s go!”

“One thing, Don-Tron -,” Leo began to remind him.

“I know!” the soft shell sighed, “they hate science down here as much as they hate magic in Dubai. So no talk about science.”

“Right,” Leo said and opened a portal for them. Soon they landed in two seats in the witchdoctor’s waiting room. 

Don puffed his brother into the side: “The doc’s our man - look!” He nodded to a kind of yokai Leo never had seen before:

She had a shell and plastron - not so different from feral turtles, froggish limbs, a short beak and a monk’s fringe of hair - and in its middle - a pond … no seriously, she was carrying water in the middle of her head! That’s why she had to hold the magazine she was reading in an odd angle, so the water wouldn't spill over. 

“Does she even have a brain?” Leo wondered.

Dee shrugged: “The majority of people seem to come by fine without one.”

Leon snickered. He fetched a leaflet made from lighter paper among the info pamphlets on a table nearby, folded it into a tiny boat and placed it - moving faster than the eye can see - on the small pond in the lady’s head.

The boys giggled. That earned them stern looks from the other patients. The two smiled sheepishly and began to whistle to the tune of The Sailor’s Hornpipe. 

“There!” Don suddenly said, pointing through the glass of the waiting room to a door on the corridor. 

“Now or  never!” Leo portaled them into the doc’s office.

The blinds were drawn and there was little light inside but what Don could make out on the chair behind the desk made his blood curdle: a tube-shaped being with lots of moving tentacles!

Donnie screamed at the top of his lungs, jumping at Leo,making his wig slip into his eyes!

“What's going on?!?! I can't see!!!” his twin cried. It was probably better this way.

“I don't think,” said a suave voice, “we have an appointment.”

The creature pulled up the blinds and mustard-yellow skin and two moving eyes on feelers came into sight. Don let go of his brother and panted. No utron!

Leonardo drew his katanas: “You don't need an appointment for interrogation!”

“Pardon?” the tentacle monster asked.

 “We have weapons and need answers!” Don stated, posing with his mystically enhanced bo.

“I understand that it is hard to get an appointment at my office, but do you really have to use armed force?” Dr M. Ustard asked gently.

“Oooh!” Leo made distracted by a Newton's pendulum he had spotted on the desk and began to play with it.

“Leo! Please!” Don began but then said : “Oh no - the hypnotic power of metal balls on nylon strings!”

Soon they began a little match against each other, making the balls clash and the nylon threats tangle up into a lump.

The tentacle monster followed confused with his eyes and also got his feelers entangled. 

He shook his head: “Ladies, the dementia clinic is in the next building.”

“We are no ladies!” Leo said, snapping out of trance. They both threw away their costumes.

“ Oh I see, you're teenage boys!” the doc uttered in surprise. “When you break into my office and threaten me with weaponry to get answers, sex education must have hit a new low,” he said leniently. 

“Okay, for how many years will the semen inside a Chinese turtle demoness’ body remain fertile?” Don demanded to know. 

“Ah, it can take up to 30 to 40 years till they lose their fertility," was the answer.

“Can’t you just magically … poof them away?” Leo asked, desperately. 

“Technically, yes,” said the Doc slowly. “But it is not a common practice to do that …” 

“And what can you do if insemination happens,  resulting in pregnancy?” Donatello asked.

“What is there to do?” The doc asked back.

“I mean, how can pregnancy be avoided?" he asked impatiently.

“Oh, you should have considered protection before- ,” the doc began judgmentally.

“But we didn’t -” protested Leo, just to be hushed down by his twin brother.

“Is there any way to stop it?” Dee begged, careful not to use the bad A-word. 

“Do you ask for a legal way?” the monster asked, raising his non-existing eyebrows.

“Of course a legal way!” Don snapped.

“I'm very sorry,” the doc said snobbishly.

“But she already had 49 babies !” Leonardo sighed.

“Such things happen,” the doc said.

“And we really can't provide for more.” Don added.

“Good heavens!” the doc gasped, looking back and forth between both boys. “Wait - aren't you a Battle Nexus champion?” he asked Leo who just groaned in annoyance. 

“Tz tz tz - this is how you ruin a promising future.”

Leo gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. 

The monster sighed leniently: “Well, I could give you a list of demons to summon,” he gave in.

“Do they perform abortions?” Leo gushed out hopefully, which made his brother smack his forehead. 

“They devour newborns and fetuses”, the doc replied to our boys’ sheer horror.

“There must be a less barbaric way,” Don demanded.

Dr. M. Ustard was thinking hard … “Oh, I forgot, your kind lays eggs, so you could bring them legally to the OFTN!” he chimed.

“What does OFTN stand for?” Leo asked cautiously.

“Omelets for the needy,” the doc blurted out.

Without a further word, Leo grabbed Donnie by the rim of his shell and dragged him out of the doctor’s office …

Author’s note: 

Not so fun fact: there ARE demons, goddesses and deities for miscarriage in mythology, but they are all pretty cruel and violent. Think of Mesopotamian Lamashtu, Filipino Manananggal, good ol’ Lilith and many others. 
If you already have children and you don’t want more, summoning any of these spirits could result in the loss of all your children born and unborn and even your own life. 

Chapter Text

Author’s note:
Dig, dig dig digga tunnel … You can dig and never get done- uh ... quick before the hyena comes - dig!  
No seriously, every time Groundhog in the pizza week episode talked about digging, I had this song from Lion King 1 ½ in my mind. I mean, you have to admit, this song is a bop! Especially the dance remix …
But yeah, back to business, the following chapter has its serious moments.

Chapter 28
Happy Findday

“Happy findday to you,
happy findday to you!
Happy findday dear Casey!
Happy findday to you!”

Everybody sang, for better or worse.

Then Prairie Dog played a sick guitar solo, while Groundhog slammed the drums.

After they finished, Splinter said: “Now make a wish, Future Boy!”

There was a sad little smile on Casey’s face before he blew out the 17 candles on Mikey’s cake and all guests applauded. 

“Can I go digging now?” Groundhog asked. “Digg, digg, digg, digg digg!”

“Yesss …” Todd said slowly, “but not here … I’ll show you the canyon.” 

They were at Todd’s puppy rescue station. 

“Now I’m just one year younger than you,” Case grinned at his mom.

“Enjoy your three months of difference,” she said firmly.

As soon as Groundhog had left her drums behind and Prairie Dog and Honey Badger had joined the party, Kitsune gave it a try and jammed it on the drums and at the percussion. She played wilder and wilder.

“Hey, don’t break other people’s stuff!” Gen warned her while Chizu cheered:

“Whooohoo! Go Kitzi!” And Usagi joined in.

“Oh me, oh my,” Donnie said dryly, “If one wouldn’t know better, they could take this for an innocent TV special.”

Casey’s eyes wandered to the gift table searching for something specific … there it was - a simple envelope - Draxum’s results.

“Awww,” Todd smiled, “isn’t it great that everybody could come?” He spoke to Baron Draxum, who stood there holding his glass of lemonade with a detached expression on his face, like he was attending a stiff cocktail party. 

“Everybody?!” huffed Splinter. “We're 28 chapters in and I still haven't met my grandchildren!” He ranted.

“And theeeeeeeere the facade cracks,”  Donnie remarked.

Leo immediately stepped into action. He fetched one of the mics on the stage and yelled in:
 “It’s pinataaaaaaaah tiiiiiiiiiime!!!” 

“Guys, this is my seventeenth findday, not my seventh one,” Case chuckled. He didn’t actually mind a silly lil’ pinata game, but he wanted to have a moment alone by himself to open the envelope.

“Yeah and that’s why the horse will fight back this time,” Leo replied.

The turtles began to drag Casey Jr. away from the party.

“Wait, is this some kind of ninja lesson?” he asked excitedly. “Fighting my opponent blindfolded? We had this training numerous times in the future.” 

“Dude, you’re already a more experienced ninja than all of us together,” Leon remarked.

“Yeah, what you will need is a special protection suit - not a blindfold - since the horse is shooting lasers,” Donnie mentioned casually. 

“Ooooooooh,” Mikey made, impressedly. 

“Can we watch?” Usagi asked as he came running after them, excited for some laser horse action. 

“Sure thing, Usagi,” Leonardo smirked. This was exactly what he had intended; luring their new friends away from the grown ups, talking tricky topics … like teenage fatherhood. 
Usagi didn’t need to know about that so soon. Also Leo really didn’t like the available options. 

Option #1 was to tell him Mikey’s sanitized version, the majority of their friends and acquaintances had been told. 

Option #2 was to reveal the whole truth.

None of these options were very  satisfying. 

The nine teenangers had left the party not a single minute too early, because Todd cheerfully picked up the sore topic again: 
“Such a bummer they can’t be here today. They’d sure have so much fun playing with the puppies. Also what is the other parent like?”

“Boring,” Sunita answered helpfully, “Boring, bland, average,” she counted down in the sweetest, most sincere tone, “but kinda nice, I guess.”

“Suuuuuunyyy!” April chimed and stuffed some of the snacks from the buffet into her mouth. “You really have to try the finger food! Mikey has outdone himself!”

Ironically none of the guests aside from Todd even cared about those 49 turtle tots and their ‘other parent’. 

“Uuuuuuuuhhh -” Hamato Yoshi began, thinking on his feet, “have I ever told you about that crazy thing that happened on the set of Chop Suey Minute?”

This actually got a reaction out of the guests.

“Madre de la insalata!” Hueso exclaimed.

“I stopped counting!” Red Fox sighed.

“Over and over again!” Piebald moaned.

The old rat man smiled. He successfully had stopped Todd from asking more questions. 

Meanwhile Raph had helped Casey into his protection suit.

Then the ground shook!
A giant Robert horse was approaching. It shot laser beams from his eyes and flew with the power of its rocket-propelled hoofs.

“His only weakness is his stomach”, Donnie pointed out to Casey.

While Casey was ducking and jumping around the Cyber horse, the friends from Neo Edo were watching in awe.

 Mikey asked:” did you build this exclusively for Casey's findday?”

“Actually Angelo, This is a technology test run for the battle robots”, Dee explained in a matter of fact tone. “I will take the horse apart and re-use its components for the bots.”

“Is Casey's suit really safe?" Raph worried.

“That's what I'm testing out,” Donnie revealed.

Finally the boy from the future got under the horse's stomach and cut it open with his chainsaw hockey stick. Now confetti, paper streamers and candy rained down on him. 
Everybody applauded and the horse turned off.

“Yay! Awesome game!” Kitsune shouted. “What’s next?”

“Keep the forest clean, “ Leo said, handing out brooms to her and her friends. “Todd said that all the confetti has to be picked up again to protect the environment.

Usagi and his friends threw the brooms right back at Leo.

“Your horse, your mess,” Chizu remarked. 

“C'mon we return to the party,” Gen said.

Back at the puppy rescue, Casey was eager to get to the gift table, his eyes on Draxum's envelope. 

But then April cried: “Open mine first!”

“No! Mine,” Leo shouted.

“No way, MINE!” Cassandra hissed.

And so Case first had to open everybody else's present. As he stood up to his knees in wrapping paper, he reached for the envelope, but hesitated. 

Did he really want to know? 

What had Donatello told him about time branches? 

Had he created a new separate timeline by traveling back to the past?

Would he even be affected by never being born in this timeline?

Was him fading into thin air just some utter nonsense that only would happen in a Hollywood movie?

Before he could make up his mind, Mikey approached him. 
“Look,” he began shyly, “we really tried to throw you the greatest findday party ever -”

"Yeah, we still have so many more surprises in store,” Leo promised proudly. “ But,” he added earnestly, “we understand that it will never be again like the parties you had with … your family.”

“While we're theoretically the same people, we're not,” Raph agreed. “We're so much younger and will most likely never go thru the same stuff and earn that experience.

“Listen good,” Leo said, placing his hands on Casey’s shoulders, “because I won’t say it again, I'm not that humble: There’s prolly more Sensei in you than I'll ever have in me.”

Case looked at him wide eyed.

“And that’ssssss - perfect transition here - “ Mikey stated smugly, “why I'll give you back a teensy tiny bit from your past - my project is finished!”

The boy from the future beamed at him. 

Mikey got a little flustered again, as he led all the guests to a canvas on a stand, hidden under a sheet.
“The print arrived,” he said. “Of course you'll get the digital original and all the sketches too,” he promised Casey fast. With that, he pulled off the sheet. 

Casey’s eyes widened. He covered his mouth with his hands, unable to speak.

All onlookers stood there quietly. You just could hear a few gasps and whispers. 

Only Donnie remarked cheerfully: “Oh! My forehead doesn’t come off as so massive anymore!”

“How?!” asked Case breathlessly. “How could you make that just from my descriptions?!”

“I dunno,” Michelangelo replied, bashfully. “I just saw ‘em in my mind, when you told me about them.”

“You are already mystic!” Casey gushed out, making the youngest turtle brother blush.

There they were - caught on canvas - their versions from Casey’s timeline: 

Raph was a giant of monumental proportions. Currently his family already perceived him as a rock amidst them, but present Raph was no comparison to THIS. 

April resembled a post-apocalyptic Pan Grier - determination in every fiber of her existence. 

If you thought today’s Cassandra was one you shouldn’t mess with - whoo boi … You hadn’t seen THIS Cassandra! She had a fire in her eyes that could burn into your soul. 

Baron Draxum and Big Mama pretty much had remained the same after all these years.
It was odd to see the spider yokai and part-time enemy on their side, next to an older Sunita - brave and loyal.

There was even a badass warrior version of Todd!

Wise and at peace with Heaven and Earth, a vast prematurely aged Master Michelangelo - the powerful with streaks of white hair, looked down at the viewer.
So strange that their baby brother would end up aging faster than all of them. 

And at the center of the picture was him … sensei …

If Leo had ever suspected that they were entirely different people at their core - now he was convinced. 

These eyes had seen a lot … they gave the proud smile on his face, something very bittersweet. There was an aura of true humility and honor about him, Leon could never see in himself. 

While Mikey’s masterpiece had a strong impact on many of the guests, none was like that it had on Usagi. It hit him like a bolt of thunder. He felt like he was sucked back into his vision of being a messenger, reaching his destination at a mountain top. 

Suddenly all the faces of the bystanders got illuminated by the rising sun … and they were THEM ! 

And their leader, observing the dawn in the sky and accepting Yuichi’s delivered scroll, was none other than this future version of Leo!

“Usagi, what’s going on?” Gen whispered, seeing his friend petrified and his eyes blank. He shook him a little by the shoulder. 

Panting, Yuichi snapped out of his vision and replied: “The mutants … it’s their battle! They are the one we were sent to. Those that stand right in the middle between humans and the otherkin. Despite lookin’ like yokai they still have human blood running through their veins. 

“Oh,” Gen simply said.

Usagi now had even more questions: 
Why did he see their future aged selves in his visions?
Would the war with the dragons go on for so many years?
Would the turtles control the fate of Earth at some point - like in that other future the boy Casey had come from?

But the strangest emotion in Usagi was feeling inferior. Compared to THIS guy even Usagi Yojimbo was not much more than a mohair kidney warmer for old ladies.

That dude didn’t waste time lifting weights, Leo thought to himself. He probably carried rocks and dragged old trucks through the desert till the attached chains broke, as his daily training routine. And Donnie doesn't look far behind in the competition. 

Funny how both - Usagi and Leo stood there feeling deeply intimidated by Leonardo’s future self.

What is wrong with me? the rabbit wondered. Why do I feel like I have to compete with Leo? He’s not even from my realm! He’s a mutant! He has his mystic powers. Why do I want to be equal to him soooo badly? 

Casey was moved to tears. He hugged Mikey and let out a few sobs. As he had collected himself a bit, he let go of Mike and stepped in front of the canvas, looking around at his friends and the other guests.
“This is such an amazing gift,” he said, with his voice still a little tear stricken, “But you guys yourselves are the greatest of all gifts. And there’s something else … Sure, you are not the same ones who raised me but actually … I don’t want you to be like them …”

There was a longer pause. Guests looked at each other in surprise and murmured questions. 

“Look, this might be hard for you to understand,” Case continued. “Yeah, you were absolutely badass and honorable. And it was awesome that the apocalypse united all remaining humans, mutants and yokai to fight the Krang side by side … And sure, we had our own way of happiness … But I want you to find R E A L happiness!”

The turtles stared dumbfounded at Casey and he realized it. “Listen,” he smiled, a little anxious to pick the right words. “You prolly don’t see it that way, but … being  N O T  tough as nails, being silly and goofy, sometimes even whiny or messy … these all were luxuries you guys couldn't afford in my time.” He chuckled. “That doesn’t mean, I want you to grow up to become mindless, selfish jerks,” he added, causing some guests to laugh.

“Woah-key,” Leo declared, “this is the perfect end to an awkward, unscripted, birthday speech and now let’s paaaaaaaaaaarty!!!”

Donnie catched up on the cue and activated the drone-powered mixing console lying up to Mikey who started to DJ. The light machine went on and there were pyrotechnics. 

“Awwww, I said no pyrotechnics!” complained Todd. 

“C’mon, it’s Future Boy’s big day,” Hamato Joshi calmed him down.   

As people were getting loose on the dance floor and the sun went down, Casey snuck away from the party life and hid behind the electricity hut of the puppy Park. He took Draxum’s envelope from his jacket, opened it and finally read the test under his phone's torchlight. He ran over Draxum’s unnecessary listings of data to find the final info at the end of the last page. 

Suddenly the music seemed to be far away, nothing left of it but the beats he felt rattling in his bones. Casey was surrounded by absolute Darkness as he sank down to the earthly ground. his back leaned on to the wooden hut. He sat there, he did not know for how long. It took a while till he could see the sparkling stars in the sky again. If his mother had lied to him she must have had good reasons … very good reasons … 

The images of her almost collapsing during the fight after being spiked by her opponent in his dream came to his mind and all the things he had learned about war times in his history class: “the troops fell upon the village, pillaged and burned it”. That's what always happens in these kinds of scenarios … plunder, arson and -

Casey began to freeze. Was the night really this cold? 

“There you are!” Leo cried.

 Casey jumped and tugged the test results away as fast and smooth as only in Ninja can.

“Raph sent me to look after you,” the blue one explained. 

“You still take orders from your predecessor?” Casey taunted him.

 “You won't object to chief Big Bro,” Leo smiled.

“isn't that culturally inappropriate?” Case teased him further.

“I don't know,” Leo replied. “Our turtle ancestors were indigenous to this continent.

“dude! your green not red!” the human laughed. 

“I'm Japanese too and I swear there's a little Latino in me,” Leo smirked.

They sat there a while in silence looking at the night sky.

“did you really mean it,” Leonardo asked, “ that you wanted us to be rather happy than great?”

“you'll be great anyways,” Case replied, “ but I want you to lead a normal life.”

 Leo gave him an odd look.

“As normal as possible,” Jones smiled sheepishly.

“Do you think this is even remotely possible?” Leo asked meekly.

“I hope so, since I really want that for you guys,” Casey stated.

“Hey, you guys are alright?” Raph asked worriedly, just coming around the corner.

 “Yeah, yeah, sure,” they replied quickly.

 “Good,” big bro said, "bother returning to the party?”

Chapter Text

Author’s note: Today we have a lot of Looney Tunes/ Tom and Jerry-type antics which are not actually funny in this context. Do you know these moments in life, when bad things happen to you, but everything borders so much on absurdity, it is almost funny, so you don’t know whether to laugh or to cry? I guess the following chapter is a comical catharsis of this.

Also I have to push the plot, further conflicts and disaster forward.

Trigger warning: Leo has never been a jerk like in THIS chapter. You might either hate me or Leo after this - probably both. 

Chapter 29
Doom's Day Out

That spa would have been a sweet location to hang out… would … Leo liked Neo Edo. He felt this City's vibes. In fact he felt totally relaxed in this beautiful realm that, unlike the hidden city, accepted both: magic and technology. A world where he had no enemies yet and could travel completely incognito.

“Leading a normal life…” Casey's words echoed in his head. If there was a place to lead a relatively normal life it was this realm. A soundproof glass separated the spa from an adventure park for families. Leo watched the screaming and laughing kids of a beaver family trailing down water slides, playing and swimming, simply having a good time.
A warm smile snuck onto his face. their kids would absolutely love this… wait! Was he beginning to think like a dad?! it seemed so … this wasn't a family with 16 children like he had - not to speak of 49 - but 8. and the whole beaver family Dynasty seemed to help with raising them. there were the parents, two couples of grandparents and even more adult beaver uncles and aunts probably. This was exactly what they would have needed - a huge well off family with seniors that could look after the kids and provide him and his brothers with their knowledge and life experience and to cover their backs by giving them time and space to protect New York … and for other things. 

Leo spotted 2 male antelopes. their antlers weren't fully developed, so they were obviously teens - maybe about his age. and there was no doubt they were a loving couple. how they looked into each other's eyes, smiled and teased each other and shared a grass-filled burrito. Leo's gaze lingered on them for a little eternity. That was exactly what he wanted.

In a perfect world this would be him and Usagi.

“ Leo! ... Leo? …. LEO!!'' a female voice made him snap out his thoughts. Begrudgingly he turned towards their pig nosed new family member, he refused to consider ‘family’.

“there you are", JingYi said, a little too upbeat. “I still struggle with orientation: all signs here have only pictures on them, no words.”

“And that actually makes it easier to understand …?" Leo remarked slowly with a lingering judgemental look at the mother.

”I … um uh," she stuttered sheepishly. 

What did Donnie say about her giving their kids ‘stupid genes’? He was probably correct that this she-demon wasn't exactly the brightest candle on the cake, so Leo thought.

She looked pretty stupid to him how she stood there, slightly hunched ( seriously who hunches when they already have a shell that naturally looks like a hunchback?!?) clasping her hands like an idiot in that borrowed swimsuit she wore over her shell that made her appear even more like an old hag. Leo could have sworn she even BREATHED stupidly. 

And her simple mind was not the only unfortunate thing she had passed onto their children ... That fugly pig nose! Well it still looked rather cute on those of their kids that had inherited it. Who knew how it might turn out later when they grow older? 

How dare she to mix up his handsome genotype with a pig nose!

“ Fine! Whatevs”, he snapped, “if you have a problem ask me.”

“Thank you,” she replied unsure. “I think I will swim a few laps in the pool.”  

Leo was not even looking at her anymore. 

Sure, she knew what a pool is from TV, but she never had been in one. Her last experience with swimming were her many fruitless attempts to escape the bacteria-invested Chao Phraya river. They all ended in a net with many other turtles - until that one day where she got out through a hole in the net into the big sea. 
The following escape had been more exhausting and fear-ridden than enjoyable. 

YingJi dipped her toes into the pool's mid-tempered water. Finally she let herself slip into the pool and began to swim and dive. As she swam loops and whirled around in the water, a small giggle escaped her gut. Was this … fun? … non-exhausting fun? 

But it wouldn't last long … 

Leo had sneaked into the control room. He switched the adjusts of the pool’s whirlpool system and reprogrammed its timer.
Soon the whole pool turned into a cauldron of hundred geysers! Bubbling and bursting over! JingYi got washed up to the surface, struggling, gurgling and coughing.

“Oooooooh ", Leo said, casually strutting by, “lo and behold! A water demon that can’t handle a lil’ whirlpool Who would have thought! U sure ur even a turtle?” he checked mockingly.

Little did she know, he caused this pool eruption, but her eyes started to gleam. 

Later she entered the sauna, hoping to find a little rest day there …

But again, Leo got his hands on the heat controller and turned it on full volume! 
He hesitated for a second but then shrugged it off with "she is an immortal" and went on exploring the spa and came across a nail care center …

Meanwhile it got hotter and hotter inside the sauna… Jingyi tossed  more water onto the  coals. Now she had enough! she went to leave and lifted the wooden bar on the door... but the door was blocked from the outside! 

The mom increasingly panicked!

The temperature was rising and there wasn’t much water left in the bucket. JingYi hammered her fists against the door, scratched with her claws and screamed for help, all while Leo got a pedicure.

She glanced at the small scar she had inherited from burning the side of her palm on the hot kettle some months ago. Normally such an injury would have vanished within hours. But it seemed her immortality had faded together with her magic. How was she getting out of here alive?!?

Her eyes wandered to the gleaming coals … trying to burn down the door would probably literally backfire - but did she have anything to to lose? With a wet towel she fished the coals out of the bin and placed them at the thick wooden door.

But what was that?! Outside the door got unblocked!!! A dog spa caretaker came in - and stepped right on the burning coals! She cursed and yelled at Jingyi. As fast as she could she fled the sauna wing. 
She did not even make an attempt to explain herself, since she was used to getting blamed. 

She ran through the spa, looking and calling for Leo but couldn't find him.
“Why is everybody refusing to give me one of these phones?" she fumed. Nervously she sat down and one of the lounging chairs, hidden behind a huge palm tree in a plant pot. She peeked through its leaves - looking out for the scatterbrained teen father and the angry dog lady.

“Wheeow!! Wheeow!! Wheeow!!” Yelled a tuna nurse with a blonde perm, running on her fins, shoving a massage table on wheels in front of her. JingYi startled, as the nurse took a turn and barely run over the palm tree,driving her massage table over to her 
“I sense someone in urgent need for a chillaxing massage” she took the pig nosed turtle by surprise.

“Uh - I - uh …Thanks, but I'm not actually the massage type,” she stuttered. “I find these treatments rather exhausting than relaxing …” 

But then she spotted the angry dog caretaker looking for her. 

“Never mind," she said quickly, “a massage won't be so bad after all.”

“Then hop on!” the nurse sang. 

JinYi followed her order and: “Wheeow!! Wheeow!! Wheeow!!” the tuna nurse drove her out of the pool wing into a room of the massage parlor! 

Soothing music, scented candles, the lapping of an indoor fountain … JingYi sighed. Maybe she would finally find a little rest here. 

“Lay down on your stomach my child and close your eyes, unclench your jaw, breathe in and breathe out and juuuuuuuuuust listen to the calming sound of spluttering water," the nurse chimed sweetly. 

JingYi followed those instructions. Grave mistake…! 

The tuna nurse drew a katana, opened a portal and kicked the rolling massage table right through it!!

JingYi just got herself between two more Sumo ringers wearing blindfolds!! 

As she was pushed back through the portal by another blow, her table massage was damaged and she looked pretty beaten up - literally!
 
“Isn’t that nice, dearie?” The ‘nurse’ asked,sickly sweet. 

JingYi breathing heavily. She was seeing stars but forced herself up from the table and ran to the door! 
Locked! Why was every damn door at this cursed place locked once shut?!?! She rattled at the door knob, but then picked its lock with her claw and escaped. She jogged through the corridors, slided over wet floors and almost ran into people - also the angry dog caretaker lady. JingYi was out of patience. She did a somersault, kicked the poor caretaker in the head, sending her into an open locker; shoving in her limbs and turning the key!

She finally found Leo leaning next to the fruit bar, slurping an alcohol-free cocktail. She stopped dead in her tracks, panting: 
“Oh Leo, please let us go home! This place is awful!”  

He lifted his aviator glasses, he only wore for aesthetic purpose and raised his non-existing eyebrows:
“Sorry, but I promised my folks to bring you back fully compressed and you look … more compressed than ever well”

“Well,” she remarked, breathlessly, “I already told your friend April that what common people consider ‘FUN’, is way too exhausting for me.” 

“Duh!” Leo teased her, “you freely admit, you're a whiny sissy!” 

“Oh I am sure you would even enjoy traveling from China to Thailand, sealed into a tiny, water filled plastic bag!” she huffed. 

“I always wondered how you got there in the first place,” he yawned.

They had a short staring contest. 

Then Leo tried another manipulation strategy: in his softest and most trustworthy tone he said: 
“Look, dontcha want to relax and have a good time?”

She turned away from him, so he wouldn't see her eyes welling up. “Of course,” she said in a tear stricken voice. 

“What about a little face mask?” he asked gently.

“Are you sure that doesn't … hurt?” she asked meekly and flinching.

he tilted his head, smiled leniently at her and said in with the most sincere voice: “Nooo."

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ! ! ! …” JinYi yelled as the two arrived back at Fort Salvation through a portal.

“Leo! Jing! What's happened?!” Raph asked, walking towards them.

“Look I've got my nails done,” his younger brother greeted him, showing off some sick rockstar nail art with a thunderbolt, a ying yang and skull on the nails of every hand. 

But he ignored him and looked concerned at the shaking and panting mother. North him and looked concerned at the shaking and panting mother. 

“What is that on your upper lip?" April asked, frowning. 

“Oh that's a weird one,” Leo began, like he was about to do a stand up, “she was supposed to get a nice relaxing face mask but somehow the beautician claimed that someone booked permanent make-up for her.”  

“That - that looks like …” April began, but wasn't able to finish the sentence.

Dr. Delicate Touch not so much: “That's half a Hitler-mustache!” he cried appalled.  

“Yeah - who would order to get a permanent ‘stach like that?”  Leo remarked.

JingYi paved her way through the group, furiously sobbing. As she reached the door of the nursery and her chamber, she turned around with gritted teeth: 
“Don't you guys ever again tell me to have ‘fun’ or to ‘chillex’ , to ‘loosen up’ or to ‘decompress’! The world out there and all the other realms are scary places. I never ever want to leave this mountain top again!” she hissed. “If you need me, I'm in my room meditating.” 

“But … you really have to care for your kids now,” MIkey said, “we looked after them the whole day!” 

“and I have looked after them for the past three years! Last time I checked, they were semi-immortal so they will survive another 40 minutes without me!” With that, she slammed the door shut. 

This eve, Leo victory danced into Donnie's lab. 

“does that mean, you was successful, Nardo?” his brother asked, suavely.  

“Successful? SUCCESSFUL?!?! Boom!! I smashed it!” Leo cried. “The old hag even declared that she never wants to leave the fort again!”

”Are you exaggerating?” Donny asked, raising an on-drawn eyebrow.

“If you don't believe me, ask April!” Leo shouted. 

Now also Donnie cheered: “Whoohoo!” He flapped his hands and spun around on his chair. He gave Leo both - a high three and a fist bump with the robotic arms of his battle shell. Then he jumped off and joined his twin’s victory dance, even pushing their hips together which was a rare thing for him to do. 

But as you can guess, nothing good would come of this …

Chapter Text

“Welcome to Icarus Pro Limited. What can we do for you?” Mikey greeted the customers at the drive in booth, wearing a cap and a uniform. 

“My windshield is tinted purple now,” another customer complained to Donnie. 

“That will wear off in a few seconds, Sir,” Donnie responded, annoyed.  “Bon voyage.”
As the customer had taken off with his carriage, he grumbled: “Be glad you HAVE a windshield again … I hate customers ...” 

Raph whistled a little ditty, cleaning a carriage. Suddenly he held one of its doors in his hands and desperately tried to put it back into its frame.

“Shhht - Donnie “ - he whispered, frantically approaching his younger  brother. 

“Not again …” this one moaned.

Leo just missed that the very tiny customer was still sitting in his carriage, as he cheerfully tossed a whole bucket of soap water over him.

“Raph, that was the last time! I am a man of science, not an idiot that repairs everything for free,” Donnie scolded Raph as he had repaired the door. 

Meanwhile Leo was pumping soab water out of the almost drowned unconscious yokai ‘s lungs. 

In a cave at a canyon in Australia:
The Dragon Lord and his Jade clan viewed ancient stone carvings of the Aborigines. One of his warriors placed their hand on the depiction of a giant snake. While most dragons had a green skin and red eyes this fighter showed white skin and golden eyes peeping out under their mask. Lord Apsu walked over to them and placed his clawed hand on their shoulder: “Soon you will regain your full form and power,”  he assured them, respectfully.

Meanwhile back at their lair, Mikey was pestering Raph: “Oh phuleeeeeeezzze! The art! The liberty! The history! The culture! The self-expression!  The uplifting feeling of ally-ship!”

“No, Mikey, you won’t go!” Raph said, strictly. 

“But it won't be dangerous! To blend in is as easy as at any comic con,” Mikey pleaded with him.

“That's not the point,” Raph made it clear. “There is too much that is not suitable for your young eyes.”

“Well then,” Mikey said sneakily, “someone has to accompany me, who makes sure I close them at the right moment.”

 “April, Sunny and Cass will certainly not think of that,” the snapping turtle huffed.

“I was thinking of you,” Mikey smilded. 

“M E ?!?!” Raphael yelped.

“Okay, I'm curious now,” Leo stated, crossing the kitchen, coming from the shower, “where on earth does Mikey want to go? The carnival in Rio?! 

“Close enough,” Raph responded.

“Christopher Street day,” the baby brother cheered.

“Oh forget it, Hermano,” Leo said, "Raph won't let you go before you turn 21.”

“Why don't we all go?” The box turtle suggested. 

“Listen big man: we have lots of other problems to mind. We finally landed jobs with the help of our friends, we need to keep. We have to stay on guard for the next attack of the dragons -” Raph listed.

“Which probably won't take place any time soon,” Mikey interrupted him, cheekly.

“Donnie just finished the first test run of the super robots and don't forget about the whole fatherhood thing.” his big bro continued.

 “Just excuses,” Mikey stated.

“Besides, you're the only one here who wants to go,”  Raph told him, folding his arms.

“But we always enjoyed dressing up as aliens, didn't we?” Mikey tried again. “There's no limit to being whoever and whatever you want to be.”

“I think, you compare that way too much to Comic Con,” Raph said unimpressed. “The only aliens accepted at that event are queer ones only, I guess.” 

“Queer aliens is a classic sci-fi trope,” Mikey mentioned.

“Whatsoever, this discussion is finished.” Raph dismissed his baby brother. 

Completely ignoring him, Leo brought himself into the conversation stating: “And you know who the most legendary queer alien was? 
- David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust! Did you know he even played a reptilian alien years later in a movie?” 

“Don't encourage him Leo! Also why are you still here?” Raph warned the faceman.

“Cool trivia,” Mike stated. “That's what I meant: you could be a bedazzling, glamorous being, like a rockstar alien or a shakespearean sprite or a fantasy creature; not bound to gender concepts. You can find your special spot to shine. 

“I said the discussion is over, that is my final verdict,” Raph growled. 
“Also I know exactly why YOU want to go!” he snarled, pointing at Leo.

 “You do?” the red-eared slider gasped, frantically.

“You're looking for a poor excuse to wear a wig again!” Raph added. 

“Oh,” Leo said, relieved, “you caught me.” 

“Did someone talk about shining and dazzling?” Donnie asked,  startling their Big Brother.

 “Where do you come from?!” he asked, angered. 

Now Mikey and Leo began to gush simultaneously about all the possibilities.

Donatello swooned over some fabrics he saw in Neo Edo. 
And as Mikey said something along the lines of- “there are no limits but those of your own imagination and that of a glue gun,” Raph knew he had been overruled.

Later alone in his room, Mikey smiled mischievously to himself. Rubbing his hands he quoted Prospero from Shakespeare's ‘The Tempest’ freestyle:

“Oh, Ariel, you tricksy, little spirit … Bravely, my diligence! Thou shalt be free.”

Author’s note: 
Ooooooooh, I think you saw through Mikey’s precious lil’ ruse, didn't you ?

Chapter Text

Author's Note: it is not easy when you are a middle aged woman, writing about something you probably shouldn't write about in the first place - teen boys struggling with puberty, keeping a decent distance to the characters and also being funny at the same time. Leo suffering in silence here is the juiciest this fic will get. Respect that, please. I'm so old, I could be the mother of most of the protagonists in this series - heck I'm the age of the parents of most people in the whole Rise community! I'm borderline problematic already!

Today's trigger warning: depiction of a slightly gory, bloody movie scene in a mob boss film, on movie night - though not very detailed … more RL- Stine -Fear- Street -YA -novel- level. 

And Kaeo playing victim olympics again. So if you get triggered by anything SA related - (why are you reading this fic anyway?) Skip the paragraphs set at Fort Salvation. 

Chapter 31
Cracking Facades

“You guys sure, you've been playing this since you were kids?” April asked in disbelief, “because you suck!”

She stood in a canyon with Mayhem on her shoulders and observed gigantic Mecha robots, playing a ball game that resembled soccer. They were in the desert and she talked into a headset.

Donnie stood next to her and watched the game through a transparent holographic screen that was constantly calculating stats and parameters. 

One of the robots crashed down, which resulted in an eruption and enormous sand cloud.

The eruption shook the other three robots, but they could balance it out and keep their stance, while Don and his adoptive sister were flung from their feet.

“Usagi! If we were in an actual city, how much damage would you have laid to it now?!” Chizu asked him via headset from her robot.

“Ugh! I just can't handle all these levers and buttons!” he complained.

“Oh c'mon! it's not that hard,” Kitsune said, kicking the ball in the air and then paddling it a while on her left then on her right knee, kicking it up onto her robot's head and balancing it there.

“For a professional puppeteer probably not,” he grumbled.

“Look, I never played that game in my life, but I still don't crash land my robot,” even Chizu agreed. 

“No, you walk around stiffly, and hardly do anything,” Usagi shot back. 

Kitsune let the ball fall and navigated her robot over to Usagi’s Mecha, who finally had gotten back on his feet. She grabbed his robot by the shoulders, shook him and yelled into her headset: “Chizu has endured hard training, when you were still playing in the sandbox!” 

"Kitsi! Stop!" Chizu cried into her headset. 

“Whoah, whoah, woah,” Gen said and went between the robots, “someone here drank one too many energy drinks today”.

“I'm sorry, you guys are right,” Yiuchi murmured, “I have to focus harder.”

“Yeah and I really shouldn’t get so much caffeine, “ Kitsune admitted.

“Guys, I know you are stressed out - we all are,” April interfered, “but this is not about any of us but the 12 realms - whatever those are. I thought you guys are used to saving the world!” 

“Yes,” Chizu responded, soberly, “but the last time we all had the chance to use our unique abilities to this purpose's advance. Now we have to work against these qualities.” There was a tinge of frustration in her tone. 

“Maybe, maybe not, Chizu," Usagi said, brightening up, “actually all we have to do is transfer our special qualities to the machine. That’s like … already being a super cool comic artist, having to learn to draw with the left hand,” he added excitedly.

Chizu and Gen groaned.

“In other words - it's hopeless,” the former bounty hunter said.

“Okay, let's take a break,” Kitsune suggested.

At this moment a blue portal of light opened next to April and Leo appeared together with Raph and Mikey. 

“Hey ya, snooping on your super secret training session,” Lee greeted them.

The three other turtles gazed overwhelmed at the four humongous Mechas; their shiny metal glistening in the desert sun.

“Whoah,” Rafael whispered.

“Beautiful,” Michelangelo yelped.

“Freaking beautiful,” Leo gasped.

They all got big googly eyes and totally went into fanboy mode.

“How is it going, Dontron?” Leon asked, breaking the no touchy rule and patting his twin on the upper arm. 

Donnie responded by pushing him away, fuming:” I'm surrounded by amateurs! I can't work like this!”

“So, you're not in the mood for compliments now.” Leo deducted.

“Guess you need a break too, Donnie,” April suggested, dully.

First Kitzune made her Mecha robot bend down, opened the lid on his head and climbed out.

As Leo noticed the tight emerald-green suit she was wearing to operate the robot from inside, he got nervous.
As Chizu followed in a similarly tight fitting auburn-red suit, he panicked. 

His heart jumped as he heard Usagi: “Dang, it's even hotter outside!”

“What'd you expect in the desert?” Chizu teased him.

Leo felt like he shouldn't have come here in the first place. What had he been thinking?! In pretty much every single show, where robots were involved, their operators inside wore skin tight suits. Was this even practical? Sure, in the show those suits were more or less fanservice. Why on earth had Don designed such suits?? He probably had watched too much Jupiter Jim - like all of them.

Like he had heard Leon's thoughts, Gen complained: “This suit will kill me!”

“This is highly functional fabric,” Donnie claimed.

“And I react highly allergic to it,” Gen retorted.

“But I haven't seen any red spots on You, lately,” Yuichi said.

“No, but the material itches!” Gennosuke snapped.

Leo looked down at his feet. Whatever he did, he couldn't look at the rabbit. He heard the ‘ffffffft’ of soft drink cans getting pushed open and the sound of gulping. He wondered what was worse: the reality of Usagi standing there in a super tight, sexy suit in the heat of the desert; hastily swallowing down some lemonade or his imagination of that scene. 

“Leo, you're alright?” Raph asked.

Lee heard the irritation in his voice. He must have looked like an idiot, standing there, staring at the ground. 
“Uh …yeah … yeah… it's just … I should have brought sunglasses.”

“I've got you covered!” Mikey revealed, gladly. “Aviator style, baby!”

Leo cursed his baby brother inwardly, even though his own horniness was no one else's fault. He'd better curse mother nature. He accepted the glasses and hoped nobody would realize that he squinted his eyes behind the shades. But was that a solution for his growing unease? Maybe the reality wasn't as tantalizing as his fantasy? He just had to find out and looked right at Yuichi.  
B i i i i i i i i i i i i i i g  mistake … to everyone else this was just a rabbit in a ridiculously tight suit. but in Leo this sight caused feelings he didn't even know existed until then.

Suddenly April broke into laughter: “Sorry,” she said, “this is pretty speciesist as you guys say - but these suits totally remind me of these overalls the vet put on pets after operations and it looks sooo funny!” She typed on her phone and showed them an image of a fluffy white cat, wearing a tiny overall with all her fur sticking out.

“Lady Fuwa!" Kitsune cried and Chizu couldn't help, but laugh.

‘’If I get out of my suit later I look like that cat too,” Usagi stated.

“But you are not so fluffy - are you?” Mikey asked.

“No, but the electric charge from the fabric makes our fur go ‘poof’.”

Kitsi giggled.

Like that, “ Yuichi said, and began to unzip his suit in the back.

No no no no ! ! !”  was Leo thinking. One part of his brain wanted to close his eyes but the other part wanted to see his secret crush to strip down.

P O O F! The moment Uzagi had pulled off the sleeves, his fur on his upper body poofed up, so that he looked like a mohair rabbit or a chinchilla.

The rhino snorted at that sight, that the lemonade came back out of his nostrils. 

Mike and Raph hollered and laughed. 

Some people were easy to amuse. As Usagi got his upper body back into the suit, tucking in his poofed up fur, he looked up at Leo and said: “Dude, drink something! you're not looking well.”

“Leo I always told you, you have to drink  W A Y  more - especially in the desert!” preached Raphael.

“Got it, Chief Big Bro, “  Leo replied and fetched himself a coke.

Northern Thailand:
JingYi was sitting in her room, watching a Thai drama serial on TV, when Kaeo stormed in, grabbing the dial and ordered her: 
“shoo shoo, clean the kitchen and sweep the nursery. I'm going to watch ‘Dance Against Time’ now.” 

“But…” YingJi began, puzzled, “this is a rerun. You watched it already yesterday.” 

"So what!” Kaeo shot back. 

YingJi did not know what to say. 

“You complain way too much anyway, Kaeo snapped. “Your room is bigger than our apartment and you get everything handed to your ass for free. Trust me, my mom would love to do your job!” 

"Enough!" It came from the turtle woman. ”You don't know what you're saying child!“

”I’m not a child anymore,” the teen hissed.  

”Your mother has agency and her own free will!”

Kaeo broke into unhappy laughter. “Oh yeah? Eddaneid pretty much owns her! Just like you and me. And you don't know her clients and what they demand. You know nothing about the risks she has to take! You only have to spread your legs for the sanitized hands of doctors in a medical environment!” 

JingYi’s eyes began to glow and outside at the yard, the water in the well rose up, loudly splashing over the rim on its own.

“Also as far as I know, they left you alone for the past few months,” Kaeo mused. “What are you waiting for? Get thee behind me, demon!” the 15 year old shooed the yuangai away with a movement of her arms.

This night, April, Sunita and Cassandra enjoyed girls’ movie night. Currently they watched a film about mob bosses and their clan wars. 

One Mafioso stormed into his mansion; a giant, luxurious, four-story building with lavish, broad marble stairs and floors. The man panted and froze in his tracks. The white marble was splattered with blood; bodies scattered all over the great hall.

 Servants, confidants, brothers, sisters …

But he actually didn't really care. He was looking for someone in particular … 

He just shortly stopped for a woman in a cocktail dress, laying on the side in a pool of blood; her face covered completely by entangled, blonde hair.

“Federica,” he uttered, but wouldn't bend down to her. 

He was still searching for someone.

As he saw him, the film began to run in slow motion. You could hear the man's heartbeat, as he darted forward for the small body whose heart had stopped beating.
The man picked up the little boy and turned him around. The slow motion ended abruptly. Surrounded by curly, dark hair was no face left - just a mash of bloody, raw flesh and fractured skull pieces. 

The mob boss let out a scream like a roar; streams of tears running down his face. 
He cursed in Italian slang with subtitles:

“You'll pay Pietro! By God, I'll make you suffer, like no man had suffered before! I’ll roast your nuts! I'll crush your skull like you crushed my son’s! I'll rip out your guts!”

Sunita was blissfully munching popcorn. April chilled with Mayhem in her lap. But Cassandra - tough as nails Cassandra - sat there hunched and stiff. 

There was a strange sensation in her stomach and her chest felt tied up. She couldn’t remember a single moment in her life where she had felt like that before. But the scene on screen had appeared real and eerily familiar to her. 

She didn't want the others to notice what was going on, since she herself didn't even know what it was.

“Excuse me, I have to leave for the restroom,” she said and left Sunny and Ape exchanged a look. 
“At least she doesn't bow anymore when she says it,”  Sunita commented with a full mouth.

Cass staggered to the bathroom. Her legs hardly obeyed her. She had splashed her face with cold water several times, looked in the mirror and told herself repeatedly: “This is ridiculous, this is not me, this is not me …” 

She had watched splatter movies unfazed, even had laughed at the unrealistic effects. 

Now she stood here, shaking desperately, holding on to the sink. 

Images flashed before her inner eye: pompous marble stairs and hall, splattered with blood and riddled with bodies … running around, frantically looking for someone … slipping on a puddle of blood, hitting a decorative pillar without feeling any pain …

She never had been at a place like that in all her life … Sliding and tripping on blood- how stupid!

“My life was perfect,” she told herself, demandingly. “I was trained since I was 7 and I got into every clan I applied to. I was a little protege.”

How long was she standing there? The others would figure that something was wrong with her. But she really didn't feel like going back. Heck, she didn't even feel like walking on her own. But wait!  No one would expect her to feel disturbed by a movie. She was tough-as-nails Cassandra after all! Spoiled brat foot recruit Cassandra. A young woman without much of a past … 
A woman without a past …

“Silly, little Claire. You and your imagination! Go play with your dolls,” she heard the sound of a deep, booming voice in her mind.

Who’s Claire?

There was a knock at the bathroom door. 
“Cass? You're okay?” April asked.

“Uuuuuuuuhhh- no! I think it was the anchovies, she replied quickly.

“But you didn't have anchovies,” April stated.

 “Then it was something else,” Cassandra said,  angrily. 

“Should we call a doctor or something?” Apes wondered.

“Not necessary!” Cassandra answered. “Just give me a liiiiiiiiiittle more time.” 

“Kay?” April said, unsure outside the door, shaking her head in confusion.

Author’s note: when “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" came out, I watched it in theaters. I liked how the movie depicted that you might be able to suppress or ‘erase’ memories, but that the emotions connected to the memories will never go away. 

Chapter Text

Leo looked as cool and sleazy as always, sporting his new royal blue jumpsuit and cap, chewing bubblegum, leaning against a wall, reading messages on his phone.

He was approached by Usagi, who greeted him: “shift change.” without looking up from his phone, he gave him a fist bunch bump and left wordless.

The rabbit scratched himself behind the ear, while looking puzzled after Leo: “Why can't this guy behave normal? And why do I care?”

Turning his back to Usagi, the turtle looked pretty let down:

”Now we are actually coworkers and can't work the same shifts, cuz of those damn dragons,” he muttered to himself "I wish they'd finally attack, so all these efforts are worth something.”

This eve Mikey sat with a pillow in his back, with his tablet on his lap in one of the windows of the sanatorium, designing.

He was approached by a hesitant Raph.

“There you are, big man,” he said with a shy smile.

Mikey turned to him, taking out one of his in-ears. That wasn’t Chief Big Brother worried for his safety or well-being. That was just Raph.

“Ya know,” he began, smiling and averting his gaze, “all of you guys already have a plan for your costumes and … and … I was thinking … what if I don’t  dress up as some alien but … a star constellation?”

“Sure, that is a beautiful idea!” Mike encouraged him.

“Do you think that's okay?” Raphael added hopefully.

"Totes!" his baby brother assured him.

Raph sat down on the floor, next to the window and looked into the night sky. There's the Great Bear,” pointing to the constellation, “she's always up there, all year with her lil’ baby bear. All the other constellations - they come and go. But she? You can rely on her.”

He hugged his legs, looking up. It was the second time in the past few weeks his big bro looked like a little boy again. He must have felt very alone as a kid … Back then Raph had replaced their father and mother, since their dad could not fill these roles.

Being the parent himself, he hadn't had anyone above him.

Had a sparkling mama bear in the sky given him comfort? Did he/she/ they identify themselves with a strong, protective bear mother?

Did Raph know about the tragic Greek myth behind this asterix? Probably not.

And Michelangelo understood that Kalisto's story would hit WAY too close to home. Maybe one day Mikey could use the myth in his  therapeutic lessons. But honestly … As much as he felt that his brothers needed help, Mikey was afraid of taking that step.

They were still working on the trauma caused by the events of the Krang invasion but he didn't feel in the right position to help his older brothers with the damage Eddaneid had caused - especially since they were still deeply in denial about that damage's true nature.

He was just their baby brother after all! But what should he do? There was absolutely no other therapist available!

Raph dragged Michael out of his thoughts, as he carefully asked: “Is there a way to turn a star constellation into a costume - I mean, that still makes sense in daylight?”

“I told you, there's no limit to your imagination,” Mike said. “I promise you, we can make it work in daylight and make it cool too!”

Chapter Text

“Soooo you're a sparkling tofu?” Leo asked, himself being dressed in an iconic Ziggy Stardust costume inspired by David Bowie.

“No,” Mikey answered, annoyed.

“You're a sparkling tofu beyond its expiration date?” Lee asked further.

“No!” His baby brother snapped.

“You're what happens when a sparkling tofu and a coral have a baby?” his leader guessed, still clueless.

“No no no no!” Mike told him, “ I am Ariel - the sprite from Shakespeare's The Tempest!” 

Before the faceman could make another stupid comment, Donnie walked up to them, stating: “And you called me the theater kid of the family.”

Well he sounded like Donnie but was mostly unrecognizable. His twin just stared at him with his mouth gaped open: “Dee, whu - what are you wearin’?” 

He stated: “Oh, I thought to myself, steampunk is dead. So why don't go baroque?”

Mikey was bursting with pride. He certainly was heavily involved with the creation of his Tello’s costume. 

Don looked strictly baroque, with a porcelain-white makeup, Geisha-like lips, gloves, a white wig and a parted coat; but made of an Asian type of fabric (the two hanfus he stole from JingYi’s wardrobe). Donny's left half looked more masculine, with a steampunk-like golden mechanical eye with a red lense and clad in knickerbocker pants. On the right, his wig looked more feminine,  with a tiny, feathered hat on top. He wore dramatic blue eyeshadow and a beauty mark on the right half of his face. And the leg of his right pants was cut like a petticoat skirt. From his knees on, he wore golden armor-like boots. Just to put his look to full perfection, he produced a feathered van.

As aforementioned, Mikey looked pretty white and sparkly, with delicate artificial tree branches on his head, shoulders, legs and shell; strongly inspired by Roddy McDowall's 1960s TV performance as Ariel, which still inspires stage costumes for Ariel today.

“Donnie, Mikey, you both look absolutely awesome!” Raph cried, excitedly. He appeared in a metallic full body armor. Under his arm he carried a matching helmet, which he held up and admired over and over again.

In his full costume he looked like a mecha space bear, with a mouth full of silvery fangs. His armor had a nice, auburn red surface, with a brushed steel look finish. 

“I call this design ‘Comet Codak’”, Mikey stated, proudly.

“I finished it in a nick of time,” Donnie added. “It has 9 different light show programs and pyrotechnics.” 

“Pyrotechnics?” Raph asked, slightly scared. 

Now Leo felt pretty ordinary in his David Bowie costume.

“You might be unrecognizable as mutants. But please be careful, buh- boys…” their father said. Seeing Donatello in his gender-defying costume, constantly waving his van like it was his new favorite stim toy, splinter wasn't so sure if ‘boys’ was still an appropriate term to address them. “An event like this, still generates a lot of hate from certain people. And aside from that … bad apples are everywhere.” 

“Dad, this event is safer than any church choir or Christian summer camp,” Leo replied.

Splinter sighed deeply. ”Also -” he began and his children chanted unisono: “- the dragons can attack any day”

So they rode with donny's rocket rail to the heart of NY, since it was more fun than just teleporting, they met up with April, Sunny and the two Caseys at the parade. 

The girls all wore shirts with the lesbian flag on. Casey Junior sported a hoodie with a rainbow print that said: ‘who's afraid of the big bright rainbow?’

Donatello put a pair of cyber glasses on an unexpected Mikey and declared: “This is the Sight Censor 5,000. The lenses of these special glasses can get shut open or close. Mikey can't take them off because of a super secure lock on the back of his head. There are three remote controls for us to shut Mikey's lenses close, so he can only see what's appropriate for him.”

“Uh-Oh …” Mikey made. He should have known that Don would come up with something like that. And just before the next wagon drove by, Mikey's lenses shut off close!

 “That was a test,” Tello said and his baby brother sighed.

“When does this parade finally end and the games begin?” Cassandra asked April, impatiently.

 “There are no games,” her friend replied.

WHAT!” the former food recruit cried. “But I want to see our team win!” She had clearly mistaken this for a sports event. She stood there with lesbian flags painted on her cheeks and forehead, gritted teeth and the lesbian colored scarf, aggressively waving her flag. 

“This is not how pride works,” April said slowly. “There's no competition. At least there shouldn't be.” 

Cassandra stared shocked at her. She was not the only Casey that had trouble grasping the concept of Pride. Her son looked pretty annoyed.  

“Everything alright?” Leo asked. 

The human boy sighed: “In my future we no longer had gender norms or these social standards you have to deal with now. I understand that one wants to break out of those and set themselves apart but … with a clown Parade?!” he said grimacing.

“Oh Case, Case, Case,” Leo smiled, petting his shoulder. “I see that you come from a time when everything was pretty grim and serious. But trust me, if they had had the freedom and the resources they had have clown parades too,” he told him, making quote - unquote signs in the air.

Next on came a great Gatsby themed wagon, with people of all kinds of genders, doing a glamorous show routine, dressed in suits with drawn on Dandy mustaches to electro swing.

“You probably expected something like a Stonewall play,” Lee guessed. “Sure, this is what peeps in most cultures do: they reenact historic events. Either they glorify the defeat of an opposite party or they celebrate a tragedy. - Sometimes both. But this is what the LGBTQ+ community sets apart: just unapologetically celebrating what they are and not taking themselves too seriously.”

Casey nodded reluctantly. At this moment, his mom shouted: 

“Go saphos! Go! 

some attendees stared at her in confusion. April facepalmed, while Sunita giggled. 

In the meantime a shady guy with a frown, sneaked around in a black and white bird costume that had seen better days. 

“Gaww! My skin's still itching,“ he grumbled, “have been invisible for too long.” 

He looked around, scheming: “This is a perfect event for all kinds of monsters to seamlessly blend in with the crowd. And I'm going to find those that will earn me a reward,” he snickered. 

Of course this was Simon Bonesteel.

“Captain!” a scantily clad sailor peeping through a telescope reported, standing on a ship wagon, “straight non-ally up to no good, on five o'clock!”

“Load the donut canon!” ordered the ‘captain’. “We won't let this scoundrel destroy the peace at sea.”

“Aye, aye, captain!” His crew replied.

“And this guy is a tech store clerk in real life?” one sailor whispered to another, nodding to the captain.

“He just takes his role very seriously,” the other responded.

So Bonesteel got buried under a full canon load of sealed colorful donuts.

The sailors did a ‘scrub the deck’ type of dance, in their sparkling short costumes and stylishly swept sweat from their foreheads. Of course, Mikey saw nothing of that, since one of his brothers had shut his lenses again.

Every few minutes someone asked Donatello for a selfie. Also Comet Kodak Raph and the mostly blind Mikey got requests. But no one cared for Leo's Ziggy Stardust. As a wagon filled with people,  masked as ogres, gargoyles And Goblins drove by,  our friends saw and heard that DIGG was among them, playing live. The Gang cheered for them. Digg’s really important, Sunita emphasized, “they are some of the few mutants the media and society accepts.” 

“A shame so many criminals turned into mutants, giving us a bad rep,” Raph commented.

“Nah, it's not that simple,” April said, “it's more like the government and military won't put their hands on a beloved rock band that is backed up by fans and media. But it's just a matter of time, they will try to frame them.”

 “What!” Sunita gasped, startled by this dark theory.

“Well come on, come on, we've really got a good thing going” 

Leo heard a voice coming nearer, trying to sing over the loud music of the parade and the noise of the crowds. His face lit up as he saw another Ziggy Stardust, struggling to make his way towards him. The mutant dived right into the crowd, making himself a path to the human Ziggy cosplayer, joining into the song:

“Well come on, well come on, 

If you think we gonna make it, you better hang on to yourself

We can't dance we don't talk much, we just ball and play

But when we move like tigers on vaseline

Well the bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar

You’re blessed, we're the Spiders From Mars”

They reached each other and sang the last lyrics together in a duet. They laughed, hugged and gushed about the genius the late David Bowie had been and took selfies.

Though he didn't see much of the parade. Mikey was happy. his brothers more and more loosened up to the event, cheered and danced like going to the CSD had been their own idea in the first place. 

Rafael even stated: “Mikey you were right, people are really creative here. I've got so many ideas for my costume next year.” 

His baby brother was so moved to hear that, he couldn't help but shed a few happy tears.

But then - the sky darkened … The crowd looked up, gazing at the seemingly endless moving stomach of a gigantic rainbow-colored snake, flying over the parade without wings. People just gasped and held up their phone cameras. 

Just a few months prior, our friends would not have been any smarter than the other citizens of New York. But now they knew that this was no commercial pride month hologram - but a threat! Automatically they came close together. 

“We have to step into action, before people panic!” April hissed. 

The snake was gone. The sun shone bright in the blue sky again, like nothing had happened, as they heard screams, crashing cars and sirens coming closer. Then they saw it: apparently the jungle was growing in the city. Vines wrapped themselves around buildings, plants just magically burst through the asphalt and vastly grew into giant rainforest trees in the middle of the road. 

The jungle came closer to the pride. Now the people went into a frenzie and if this wouldn't have been bad enough, the snake came back, slithering through the air over the street, close to people's heads, causing a storm!

“Everybody come to me,” Raph ordered the gang through their headsets. They all came close and he produced his protective aura, keeping them all from being trampled over by panicking citizens.

“Where's Casey?!” Cassandra shouted. She yelled it into her earpiece: “Casey!!!” 

“Mom … I'm here, I'm fine,” it came reluctantly from Casey Jr. “We have to evacuate the people and defeat this snake. You guys should protect the city, not yourselves,” he snapped. 

“Casey, we can't evacuate the whole city on our own,” Leo said, seriously into the head piece. A building? -Yes! An amusement park? - Sure -” 

“Leo!! Get to the point!” Raph snapped. 

“Casey, we can't help anyone when we are as flat as a pizza.” Leo finished. 

“Fine”, Casey hissed, “stay in your protective bubble, while I save the people!”

“Move your sentimental ass back in here!!!” his mom yelled at the top of her lungs into her earpiece.

Casey just switched off his headset. He kept swinging himself from his steel rope from building to building and now even from tree to tree, to help up people before getting trampled to death by others. He had just gotten an old lady into safety, as he saw something huge, black, white and feathery laying on the asphalt and being constantly run over by people. Casey swung himself down. He stood protective over the person in feathers, swaying his hockey stick. 

As the man on the ground turned around, hissing in pain, he was intimidated, looking into the green glowing eyes in the ninja's hockey mask. 

“Gimme your hand,” Case urged him. He let the boy help him up. 

“Hold on”, was the next order. So the guy in the bird costume held on to the steel rope. 

Casey got them both safely onto the branch of a rainforest tree.

Of course it was no other than Simon Bonesteel who now held his chest, panting. 

“You're okay?” Case asked, worried. “You should see a doctor.”

"Eugh! I will never step into a hospital!” Bonesteel scoffed. “Just some concussions and broken ribs! We‘ve always taken care of ourselves”

“Oh yeah?” Casey snapped. “Without me, you'd be ostrich pancake now!”

“I'm sorry,” Bonesteel said, “that wasn’t addressed to you.”

“Ugh” Case uttered, covering the lower part of his mask with the fabric of his hoodie's sleeve. “Dude! Ever heard of basic hygiene?!”

“Trust me,” Simon replied, “a horrendous stench and rotten look sometimes will protect you, when you can't protect yourself.” 

“Well it didn't protect you today,” Casey quipped. “If you'll excuse me,” With that, Casey left Bonesteel behind on the tree.

“Hey kid!” he called after him to no avail. 

Casey made his way through the city, looking for people in trouble. He spotted a burning and crashed cars. he wanted to get closer to see if there was still help for the people, as the snake returned, flying close to the ground, causing another storm and more plants breaking through the asphalt. Casey had to let go of his steel rope. Otherwise he would have gotten dragged away. so he fell and slammed into a lamp pole, slumping down, unconsciously …

Meanwhile Raph let his brothers and friends step out of his aura. 

“Okay,” Leo said, “April Sunita and Cass look for Casey. We handle the snake thing. No rodeo this time.  We will try the same triple attack you guys used on the Krang.”

“I'll grab that oversized worm and throw it all the way back where it came from,” Raph growled. In his giant aura he flew attached by Mikey's chains to Donnie's equally huge mystic tech turbines, chasing after the Rainbow snake. He grabbed the monster and wrestled it. The snake turned its enormous jaw to them, with fangs like spikes in a drip stone cave.  

“Taste rockets!!” Donny snarled, firing rockets from his mystic cannons right down her throat. 

The snake contorted itself in the air with pain.

Leo portaled himself into the air and slashed the Monster's stomach with his katanas, causing green blood to spill out.

Raph got hold of the suffering snake again and though she was so long and therefore bigger than his aura, he hurled her across the sky into the Hudson River!

When our brothers landed back on the ground, they panted and exchanged looks. 

“We did it - didn't we?” Ralph asked unsure.

 “And how we did it!!” Donnie shouted, vigorously.

Leo's legs trembled as you looked at the green liquid that ran down the blades of his katanas. 

“Could we … could we have acted faster?” he asked Raph. 

“Not among these masses of freaked out people,” his big bro stated.

Mikey looked down and blinked away some tears. 

The city was damaged. People were injured - some probably even fatally. In contrast to the destruction, lush green jungle grew out of the asphalt. Among The sound of sirens there were the calls of foreign animals while parrots flew by over their heads.

Then April called Leo over his earpiece: “We can't contact Casey! 

“What!” Leo gasped. 

“He doesn't answer on his headset and his phone is shut off!” 

Mikey covered his mouth and suppressed a sob.  

“If anything happens to my baby, I’ll skin you Leonardo!!!” Cassandra screamed into his ears and Leo knew she meant it. 

Never before she had spoken so affectionately about her surrogate son. Little did any of them know, she actually was his biological mother - herself the least.

“Donnie,” he said, “I really hope you are still the Old control freak.”

“You betcha, Donnie uttered, typing on his wrist screen …

Author’s notes:

You think, this fight was WAY too short and easy?

You’re right … and that will become a problem in the next season of the fic …

Ugh, one year later and I still find some hidden grammar and spelling errors I had to correct.

I wanted to pick queer icons for our turtles’ costumes. Ziggy Stardust for Leo was a no brainer, after I watched some video essays (before I watched the show itself past year, I watched the video essays) 

I picked gay icon Roddy McDowall both, because I'm a lifelong fan and learned about queer history the first time, by doing research on Roddy. Also I thought his humorous and playful, yet generous and kind nature fits Mikey perfectly. 

Despite Donnie basically cosplaying as a member of Ziggy Stardust's fictional band “The Spiders from Mars “ in the Albertoland episode, I wanted to pick something more glamorous for him. And since I found no fitting icon, I made Donnie himself the icon. It is almost canon that Donnie's bi because of the colors of his uniform. Yeah … it's red, blue and purple instead of magenta, blue and purple. But it is so darn close, like Mikey almost wearing the colors of the pan flag on his shell stickers and the spots on his skin. The show plays so often with colors of pride flags. 

Also Don being nonbinary is such a popular headcanon and his costume plays with both aspects - the gender and the attraction.

Raph suppresses himself (or herself?) so much, (s)he still feels most comfortable inside an armor.  

Bonesteel's unidentifiable black and white feathery disguise is a reference to the Next Mutation Rave episode. There he went to an animal themed rave party (hosted by the Turtles) in this disguise, in order to catch mutant turtles. And in this chapter he wants to catch yokai.

Chapter Text

Casey opened his eyes. He touched his forehead and found it patched up. He felt dizzy, a little nauseous; but aside from that, he seemed fine. Case looked around. That was a train wagon and it felt … familiar? 
People lived in here - obviously but now they weren't home. Casey got up. His phone or his hockey club were nowhere to be found. 

He left the wagon and walked onto the train platform. There he spotted tents and drying laundry. Now he recognized this place: it was the turtles’ former lair, now inhabited by mole people. Sure - it's still had electricity, access to fresh air and running clean water.  So though they took all of their personal things with them, this was still an attractive place to live for the homeless. 

He climbed up the broad stairs. There was still the old bar counter, now filled with people drinking tea and coffee, talking and laughing. One guy with his hair in a towel, wearing a worn-out but clean bathrobe over PJs, waved to him. As Casey came closer, he realized, that he was the smelly, neglected man in the Ostrich costume, he had rescued. Another mole person brought a bar stool made from beverage crates, so that the boy could sit among the group. 

Bonesteel leaned over to him and shook his hand violently. 
“Casey, right?” he asked. 

“Uh - yeah”, Case replied.

“Simon,” he introduced himself, adding, “and that is even my real name! Meet my chosen family !” he stretched out his arms, pointing at the people at the counter. “This is Moze, our doctor. He patched you up.” 

A black a black man in his 60s waved at Casey.  

“Uh … thanks,” the boy said shyly. He was confused - everybody here wore worn and mended clothing but looked clean and groomed. Why was this Simon guy such a dirtbag? 
“I see my comment made you consider basic hygiene,” he remarked. 

Bonesteel smirked and took out a perfume bottle he sprayed in Casey's direction. Case coughed and panted for breath. Everyone at the bar laughed at him. 
“Wait … you intentionally put on a rotten look and smell for … reasons?" the boy guessed.

“You got it, Kid,” Bonesteel smiled. 

 “Well, I think I should go home now,” Casey Jr. uttered, nervously. My fam will be worrying themselves to death over me and I don't think you guys want authorities to locate my phone here and storm this place.”

“Trying to locate you by your phone would lead nowhere,” Simon said, unphased.

“So you left it behind,” Case pondered. 

“Nooo …” Bonesteel said, slowly, “but currently it's no longer in the country. Speaking of -” he began, looking earnestly at Casey. 

“This might sound weird, coming from us, since we already failed Society -” Moze stated. 

“- But you still have all the chances in life,” a white woman, probably in her 50s, with her whole face tattooed over and ruby-red dyed hair, added.

“We think you should at least talk with someone about your secret Life in a gang that does self-justice on the streets of NY,” Bonesteel said, seriously. “I don't mean us but a teacher maybe and that someone has to have a word with your aunt, who seems to be part of that gang too!” 

Casey moaned in frustration and snapped: “You hacked into my phone and read the messages!” 

“No, we just unlocked it with your fingerprint,” Simon stated. 

“This all is none of your business. I can't take care of myself and I know what I'm doing!” Case shouted. “I'm fuck’n 17!”

Bonesteel gave him an askew smile and said: “Well, I have twice as much experience in doin’ dumb shit.”

“The man's right,” the red-haired woman agreed.

“You don't understand, " Casey grumbled, rubbing his temples, impatiently. “We are not a gang. We carry the legacy of a centuries-old ninja clan! Our duty is to protect humanity from all kinds of evil!” 

Then an alarm went off.

"Intruders!" Moze hissed. 

Some members of The Colony fled onto the train platform. The others took out weapons and prepared for the attack. 

As the ‘intruders’ stormed in, the first thing their leader said was: “Wait … this is not a Foot Clan situation … these are mole people!” 
It was Leo, still in his Ziggy Stardust costume, minus the wig, accompanied by his siblings, April, Cassandra and Sunny in her slime form.

“Yeah and they don't pay rent,” Mikey mentioned.

“Mom, I'm fine!” Casey shouted, only to slap himself on the mouth afterwards.  

“For the last time, don't call me mom in public!” She screamed.

“What a shame,” Don stated. “I wanted to test out my new weapons.” He had two fans now. And hidden behind their soft feathers, they could extend sharp blades. 

Seeing Leo's face and Sunita's true form, Bonesteel exclaimed: “You hang around with Monsters!” 

“They are no Monsters!” Casey snapped. “They are to me what your chosen fam is to you!” He jumped up and ran over to the turtles.

“Hey kid - wait!” Bonesteel called after him. Case turned around.
Simon whistled. Another mole person brought Casey's chainsaw hockey stick. He handed it to Simon and this one gave it back to its owner. 

“I never thank you for saving me,” Casey said.

“Neither did I,” the man smirked. “We‘re even now,” he concluded, patting the boy on the shoulder. 

“C'mon!” Leo hurried his human friend and they left their old lair.
 

Author’s notes:

When I wrote the chapter above in August 2023, I saw tbis type of bar stool made of beverage crates at our local carnival and I knew I had to have it in this chapter. This year, I went to the carnival again and finally took photos of the bar stools:

Chapter Text

Leo’s Ziggy Stardust Cosplay 

The turtles and April were still at the morgue, while the Jones’ and Sunita had already parted ways with them for today. 

“71 injured in 4 people found dead yet,” April said, reading on her phone.

“Usually at that part we already defeated the enemy. But in this case it has just started,” Leo said.

Raph had followed the conversation - if you could call it that - only with his eyes. He hadn't spoken in a while. 

Donnie nervously played with one of his costumes’ gloves. they're dad still wasn't aware of any of the current events. He peacefully snored, sitting in his armchair.

Mikey stood there in front of his brothers, staring at the floor clenching his fists as heavy sobs began to shake his body. “This is all my fault,” he uttered, "if I hadn't brought you to Pride, we wouldn't have had to protect ourselves from the frantic crowd and could have acted faster.”

“Mikey that's not true,” their big brother said.

“Raph's right, “ Leo agreed, “convincing us to go there, was the greatest thing you could do. otherwise we would have come much later onto the scene and we could protect April, Sunita and the Caseys’” Raphael added.r

“Really?” Mikey asked,looking up, sniffing. 

“Hey, I'm the expert in portaling and pacing,” Leo said with a bittersweet half smirk.  

“I - I feel so stupid,” their baby brother said, lowering his head again.

“You shouldn't”, Leon said gently.

April tilted her head and acknowledged: “The only stupid thing would be to back out of this, since not everything went according to plan.”

“April, it's over,” Mikey replied, shaking his head.

“Oh - no - you won't!” she stated, determined. “Don't let some oversized lizards mess up this moment you worked so hard for!” 

“April, please,” it came tiredly from Michael. 

She stared stubbornly at him.

Raphael frowned. The twins looked back and forth between Mikey and April. 

The latter finally sighed: “Maybe you're right, it's not the time. Guess we all should rest for now and clear our minds.” 

“Thank you, Apes,” Mike sighed, full of relief. 

“Let’s meet up tomorrow,” she said to the others. With that, she disappeared with the help of Mayhem.

“Okay … this was interesting, he said without any irony,” Donnie uttered.

At this moment April reappeared with a bucket of icy cold water and tossed it at Mikey! Where the cold water had touched his white body paint, it began to sparkle in magenta, yellow and cyan.

“Ta - da!” chimed April and vanished for good.

“Look,” explained Mikey hesinstantly, “I never bothered to come out to you, since I don't think I have ever been closeted in the first place - plus it wasn't important for me to go to CSD. 

All I wanted was to encourage and inspire you to come to terms with what you are - to take pride in and celebrate it. Especially since what happened to you three years ago and that whole fatherhood thing that pushes you into some role just makes it harder for you to live your truth,” 

“Mikey …” Raphael whispered.

“I know Raph, you'd tell me that this is not the right time - but when IS the right time to be yourself?” Mikey asked, raising his voice. “I might be the youngest, but I am old enough to understand that the most peaceful years might lay behind us. Maybe we will defeat these dragons in a few months or maybe this will take a couple of years from our lives. And what comes next? Another Alien Invasion? Another -”

“Don't say it!” demanded Leo.

“- Another apocalypse?” his baby brother shouted, daringly. 

Silence.

“How much longer will you wait?” Mikey asked, pleading. “Maybe you think this is easy for me to say,” he added with tears in his voice, “but since the events of the Krang invasion, I work with you on your different traumas. I'm glad it eventually helped you and I'll keep doing it as long as you let me. But when it comes to the damage Eddaneid did to you, I'm no longer in the position to help you. I read hundreds of articles listened to podcasts and videos. I even attended some online courses with a fake identity Donnie had created for me. but at the end of the day I'm just your 15 year old brother. I'm not a real therapist and there's only so much I can do and should do.” he broke down crying and his brothers came over to hug him.

“Thank you for holding this mess of a family together,” Leo whispered. “And thank you for keeping us sane. You literally always wore your True Colors on the outside and we never noticed. Guess what’s crazy? I did the same without even knowing,” he smiled, pointing to his face, “blue and green”. 

 “Uh, c'mon,” Donny scoffed, “you can spare your breath. Everybody knows how you swing, Mr Baby-Unicorn-Princess.”

“If you say so, Mr I-borrow-your-unicorn-princess,” was Leo's comeuppance. 

“Hey!” said Raph, “collecting cute things doesn't make you - well - non-straight by proxy. 

“Nooo …” Mikey said, slowly.

“Well I did the same -” Donny began, “- I mean, wearing my True Colors. April already knows but … there are still some details I haven’t figured out yet. Sooo - I waited with an official statement.”

“You don't have to have everything figured out,” Mikey smiled. “So you can hang up that tin sign April gave you any time.”

“She told you!?” Don asked, disappointed. 

At this moment their dad entered the morgue, stretching his limbs and yawning. He joined the group hug and declared, sleepy: “I love all my sons and daughters and everything in-between.” 

“ D A A A A A A D ! ! ! “ the turtles yelled in embarrassment.

Mikey as Shakespeare's Ariel

Many thanks to You!

Now here we are ... the final chapter of the first story in this series and my first ever fully English fanfiction. Thank you all for being here and reading my fic. 

Every comment, kudo and bookmark means a lot to me. ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

I 'm aware, that I have to set up a new upload schedule for the next part, but I still don't know which days I should pick, since my work shifts are still so chaotic.

Also I want to post more often then once in a month ... but I might not be able every week. Maybe every second week - I have to figure it out. 

But for now I send you digital hugs and all the best wishes ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Chapter Text

Donnie placed a tin sign with the print of the bisexuality flag at his lab’s door that said: ‘With a preference for science and being left alone.’ 

He proudly nodded to himself.

New York was more of a jungle than ever before … With lush green giant trees, growing in the middle of the road. Vines and exotic flowers and mushrooms everywhere. Colorful birds, insects, butterflies and monkeys swinging from the buildings. 

“Hi,” Leo greeted Usagi at their workplace, the carriage wash. 

“Have a minute?” 

“Sure,” Usagi said, wide-eyed.

Leo leaned on to a wall and sighed: “ Look I slayed that giant snake thing … and it didn't feel good ... I mean it felt right but not gratifying. I remember your words about the dragons not having entirely bad intentions. Yeah they could restore the planet, but would never do that FOR the humans. And who could blame ‘em?! Humans are ungrateful and they would just keep destroying the environment instead of caring and protecting what the dragons had rebuilt. 

This war situation is new to me. I'm used to destruction versus life but this is life versus life. 

Also - news flash - I don’t enjoy striking creatures that actually bleed.”

Yuichi raised his eyebrows so high, they disappeared under his bangs. 

“Yeah that's a pretty odd statement coming from a ninja,” Leo added. He began to massage his temples. “I'm sorry that I said you weren't willing to fight. I myself only sliced up paper warriors and robots and slimy aliens which you couldn't even slice up to begin with.”

Usagi exhaled in amusement. 

“Hey, that's not funny,” Leo snapped. “There's a living thing that doesn't bleed pixels or special effects are something, but real blood!” 

“Duh!” Usagi smirked. 

Leo let himself sink down from the wall to the ground. 

The rabbit sat down next to him: “If this comforts you, you can’t really kill dragons,” he told Leo. “When you slay a dragon, it just weakens them. You still have to bind the dragon's power to an item by a ritual, to keep them from regenerating.”  

“So they can come back after being defeated?” Leo asked in surprise.  

Usagi looked at him, nodding.

“And you tell me that now?!” he cried. 

“Sorry, I totally forgot to mention that detail,” Yuichi laughed, sheepishly. 

“What is this ritual?” he wanted to know.

“Honestly, I dunno,” his friend admitted. “The keystone never told me. I guess we have to do our own research.” 

“Off to the mystic library!” Leo declared, pulling Usagi with him. 

“Hey! I've got a shift to work,” the rabbit protested. 

Casey was at his hockey training at the ice stadium with his teammates. Suddenly a few people applauded. As he looked into the direction where the clapping sounds came from, he spotted Bonesteel, Moze and Betty sitting in one of the ranks. 

 “Great work,” Simon shouted.

Casey looked both confused and annoyed but didn't say anything.

 “Who let those guys in?” One of his teammates complained.

“We let ourselves in,” Bonesteel replied.  

“How's your concussion Casey?” Moze asked. “I would have liked to give it a second look. Have you seen a doctor?” 

“I - uh - I know someone who is savvy with the medical stuff,” Case answered, sheepishly. 

“You know these people?” Another one of his homies asked, irritated.

“Be careful with feeding the homeless, they might start following you around like raccoons,” a third team mate giggled, which earned him a punch in the neck from another guy.

 “Did you miss your phone?” Simon teased Casey Jr..

 “Since you stole it - sure. Had to borrow one till I can buy me a new phone,” Jr. snorted, fed up.

 “Would you like to have it back?” Simon smirked, holding Case’s phone high up into the air. 

 “Whu- where have you hid it?” The boy from the future asked.

 “In Amsterdam,” Simon grinned. Without waiting for an answer to his question, he went down to the ice rink. Case slided into his direction when he saw that Bonesteel had ice skates on and stumbled over the ice, flailing his arms in the air: “Whoaaaa ooooh…”

“Wait! Stop!" Casey cried. 

“What ‘n idiot,“ another player mumbled.

 “Just hold onto the banisters and stop moving,” Casey instructed Simon.  

“I can't,” the man yelled.

The boy skated towards Bonesteel to stop him. Bonesteel was about to crash into him full front! Case squeezed his eyes shut out of reflex and waited for the impact … but nothing happened … 

Well almost nothing. Suddenly a funky bass solo supported by epic strings came from the stadium speakers: 

“Steppin’ out the weekend's open wide …

Fill it up, let's blast the jams and ride,” a soft male voice cooed groovy from the speakers.

“Whoa…”  one of his homies said.

 “What a troll,” another commented.

As Casey opened his eyes, he saw Bonesteel gliding smoothly over the ice, dancing to the disco tune on his skates like he'd never done anything else. Case just stared at him with an open mouth. 

The song, which was Stomp! By the Brothers Johnson from 1980 continued playing:

“While we're cruisin’ around in the street

Listen up for the partyin’ feet …”

“Did you know that this city originally was supposed to be named New Amsterdam” the dancing thief grinned. “That's why I found it funny to hide your phone in Amsterdam.” 

“Dude, that's not America Got Talent! I'll get the security,” the team leader said, unimpressed. 

“Whoa, whoa, one second,” Simon said, coming to a halt in front of the team. “First of all, here take your phone.” With that, he handed it out to Casey. “Secondly - do you guys know your pal Casey’s living a double life, doing self justice with his gang of hobby ninjas on NY's streets?”

For a moment the Rumblin’ Rhinos just looked at him blank faced. Then everybody but Casey broke into roaring laughter.

“Goody-Two-Shoes-Jones?”

 “Class-representative-Jones?”

 “A+ student-Jones?” 

“Follow the rules-Jones?”

 “Go to bed early-Jones?” 

“brush-your-teeth-Jones?”

“Camp-counselor-Jones?”

 “Yeah… sure…”

 Case looked quite uncomfortable while his homies were almost pissing their pants.

Simon Bonesteel should have been let down, since his lovely little plan had completely failed. But inside his mind he was flipping through a mental photo album:

He saw himself back in middle school with a baby face, braces and neat, short hair, being assigned class representative and later in high school even school representative ...

He saw himself as a zealous scout … 

… Winning first place at his school's science fair for 3 years in a row …

… supporting his dad by putting together a program at his museum, to make history enjoyable for kids. There had even been newspaper coverage of this program!

Meanwhile the security had arrived to remove the mole people from the building. 

After being kicked out of the stadium, Betty said: “Well this was a great success - N O T!” 

“You tried, but there is just so much our kind can do. And since the boy has such a flawless rap unlike us -”

 “Don't you get it, Moze?” Simon interrupted him, “this kid's in a cult! How else do you explain that he calls his aunt ‘Mom’? This is probably her title as his guardian in this self acclaimed ninja clan. Who knows what happened to his parents!” 

“And there lies the problem,” Moze told him. “Since his guardian is in the cult too, it is almost impossible to get him out! I mean what do you want to do? - talk to his principal or the CPS?!” 

“At least we saved the chats from his phone,” Bonesteel mentioned.  

“Which will prove very little. And after this incident he will certainly change accounts and get a new number, “ the doc made him consider.

Bonesteel groaned: “You're right, Moze, but I just can't accept that such a promising kid throws away his life for a dangerous ideology!” 

“Simon be real - this isn't all about the boy …” Moze began sternly. 

The thief just flinched. 

“You want to save your younger self from the bad decisions you made later,” his friend concluded.

“Okay, okay, “ Simon admitted, “he reminds me of myself and when I was his age - so what! Yet, I was fully responsible for my downfall - this kid’s not! He’s brainwashed and completley believes he's doing the right thing!” 

“It is over Simon, deal with it,” Betty insisted.

Deep down under New York's east harbor in the dragon's palace there was a med bay. A humanoid dragon laid there. Most of their body was wrapped in bandages. The Dragon had ivory white, scaly skin and was attached to magical devices. They opened their golden eyes, as lord Apsu himself quietly entered the room.  

He sat down on a stool next to the patient's bed and took their clawed hand that wasn't wrapped in bandages into his own.

“I am so sorry,” he uttered in agony. 

The injured one just slowly shook their head. “Please don't trouble yourself over this, my lord,” they said in a female voice.  

“I promise to you,” he told her earnestly, “next time we will make them pay for this,” 

“Yes we will,” she whispered smiling before she fell asleep. 

Meanwhile at the mystic library:

 “I never thought I would come here for answers,” Leo mumbled.

Yuichi gasped and reached out for a book on one of the shelves. 

“Found something?” Lee asked on guard.

 “A book about the history of yokai,”  Usagi gushed out like a true fan boy.  

“Is it about dragons too?” the turtle asked. 

“Not in particular, I guess.” Then the rabbit gasped again and grabbed another book.

 “What is it?” Leon asked, breathlessly.

 “An enchanting cookbook,” Yuichi replied. Not long after, he took out a third book from a shelf and flipped through its pages in awe. 

“What is it about?” Leo asked.

“I have no idea,” his companion answered, “I can't even read those glyphs.” Leo peeked over his shoulder and indeed - these were letters he had never seen before.

 “I don't think this is the right section,” he growled. Annoyed, he took Usagi by the ears and simply dragged the rabbit with him. Yuichi was so invested in his book, he didn't even protest. 

Around the corner sat Foot Lieutenant and Foot Brute at a table among piles of books, also searching for something in particular.

 “My eyes hurt,” Foot Brute complained. 

“Then take eye drops! We can't give up yet,” Foot Lieutenant hissed at him. “We need a new master to summon and worship. But it must be a really cool one. Here, try this pile”, he shoved one book pile over to Foot Brute who gave in and picked up the first book from top of the pile and read in it.

“I hate books”, Leo moaned, leaning back into his seat looking up from the book he was just skimming through for helpful information.

“They’re just like comics, minus the pictures,” Usagi said, calmly. 

“This is a pretty far stretch,” Leo disagreed, “especially since this is non-fiction." 

“Can't you make up the missing pictures in your mind?” Yuichi asked.

“Can you?” Leo asked back.

 The rabbit nodded. “Maybe I'm just weird,” he added with a bashful half-smile.

Leo was bored out of his mind, but he couldn't help admiring how deeply invested the yokai fanboy Yuichi was in this literature. Behind him the library's waterfall was spluttering. Usagi moved his ears as reaction to what he was currently reading and he absentmindedly began to chew on his own whiskers.

Gazing at the fluffy samurai, Leo's mouth curled up into a soft smile.

Suddenly the rabbit looked up and scolded him: “Hey don't fall asleep! It was your suggestion in the first place that we come here to look for a ritual that can bind the powers of the dragons again. Don't expect me to do all the research on my own!” 

Leo flinched. He was just relieved that Usagi had read his expression as sleepy and not as something else. “Yeah … yeah … right …” He quickly read on in his book.

Author’s notes:

“Buy myself a new one” would be grammatically correct. But writing tutorials taught me to write dialogue like it was spoken by a real person. Now imagine the Monkeys’ song “I'm gonna buy me a dog” would be titled “I'm gonna buy myself a dog”. It had a totally different vibe and would sound less angry. Casey’s supposed to feel fed up with the situation here.