Chapter Text
“Uh Leo, are you sure we can climb that?”
“Of course we can, mi hermano. We have our rad ninja skills to get to the top.” Leo put an arm around his younger brother, and then pointed at Donnie, “Plus a super awesome intelligent brother who made us magnets to climb up.”
Said brother rolled his eyes as he finished tightening the straps on Raph’s hands, ensuring the fisticuff-like objects with huge magnetic plates on the palms would stay, “Let it be known that I only had an hour to make these, so if anyone falls, it’s on Leo.”
“Which is why Raph will be below us, DonTron,” Leo confidently said, “and above him, you. And then me and Mikey, that way we can all catch each other.” “I think you’ve gotten too comfortable with heights.” “And I think you’re not confident enough, Mr. I-Have-WIngs-In-My-Shell. Trust me guys!” He walked to the edge of the rooftop they were on, and looked out to the sleek, white skyscraper in front of them, “This is gonna go great. As long as we stick to the plan.”
He turned his head to look at his brothers, “We remember the plan, right?” Donnie and Mikey both nodded, and Raph walked up to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him close.
“Are you sure about this plan?” Raph whispered, “It’s crazy dangerous, even by our standards, and we barely even know half of what’s inside there.”
Leo sighed with exasperation, “Yes Raph, I’m sure. That’s why I’m going in first and you know that. Also, you agreed to it too back there! If you didn’t have faith in my plan, you wouldn’t be here.”
“It’s not that I don’t have faith in ya, Leo.” Raph sighed, and put one of his magnet-covered hands on the smaller’s head, “I’m just worried that yer gonna get hurt just going in first guns blazing. Are ya sure we can’t try to stealth our way from inside?”
Leo grabbed Raph’s hand off of his head and patted it with a certain smile, “I’m sure, big guy. Look at you, you’re too big to stealth in anyways. What would we do, put you in a big box marked ‘SPECIAL DELIVERY’?”
That earned a huff of amusement from the snapper, and Leo nodded, “That’s what I thought. Mikey—” the youngest brother turned his head from Donnie to Leo— “you got the ventilator masks?”
“Yup!” The smallest beamed, and dropped the large duffle bag he had been carrying around, and then dropping down to it right afterwards to unzip it and pull out a few ventilator masks, “I was worried that Karai wasn’t going to let us use them at first but she just let us take them! I wonder why she didn’t want to go with us though. I was thinking she liked infiltrating buildings and doing stuff like this.”
Leo grinned, walking up to the four masks in decent-condition, “Well you know how being the second-in-command of a ninja clan is. She told me that she had to stay to watch some of the new Foot Recruits’ training.”
Now that was the truth. Karai had told him that the Shredder, as to discipline her — when Leo knew it as a punishment from Daddy Dearest — sent her to oversee the sparring between the Foot Clan’s newest ninja. What hadn’t been the truth was why Karai let Mikey take the ventilator masks — Leo had told her that they were going to sneak out and do some vandalizing together and if she wanted to join. She had let Mikey take the masks thinking they were just going to get themselves in some trouble, when really they were going to raid a building run by aliens.
Leo thought it was best to lie to her. After all, her getting involved with Kraang technology is what led to Donnie’s breakdown and Raph’s small irritation towards her. That, and while he was still slightly angry with her for what she did with Donnie, he knew she was in trouble with her dad — did he say dad, he meant leader, totally — and her sneaking out with them to mess with aliens meant more trouble. Plus, there were only four masks, and seeing as the building was filled with toxic gas — as per Donnie’s scouting with a small drone he did beforehand — he didn’t trust her kunoichi mask to protect her. He didn’t like the idea of Karai getting hurt by the Kraang.
(Well really he didn’t like the idea of anyone getting hurt by the Kraang, but seeing as Donnie had shown them photos of the small, brain-like creatures, Leo was sure they could face them. That, and they needed that power cell.)
“Now let’s mask up.” Leo snapped the ventilator mask over his face while his brothers grabbed their own. “Donnie, you got the gloves and the smoke bombs?”
His brother nodded, his battle shell opening up for two metal claws to extend outwards, one holding round, small smoke bombs and the other holding a pair of gloves that had steel spikes along the inner hand, similar to the gloves car thieves would use to break open windows. Of course these were modified by dear Donatello to break reinforced skyscraper glass.
The claws extended to hand Leo the pair of gloves and Mikey the smoke bombs, and the two took their respective items, strapping them to their belts. As they did so, Raph went to the edge of the rooftop, observing the outside ground of the rectangular spire, “Huh, it’s quiet. You’d think for a buncha aliens they’d have some outside security.”
“My guess is that they probably saw Donnie’s drone flying around earlier and they’re waiting for us inside.” Leo shrugged casually, remembering what Mikey told him about his eavesdropping on the other versions of them earlier, “Either that or they’re dealing with some problem about our counterparts.”
“Isn’t that bad?!” Mikey asked, “Should we be doing this if they’re expecting us?”
“ Mi hermano, relax.” Leo put an arm around his brother, “We got nothing to fear. What we know is that they got some poison gas up there and they probably know we’re aware of that. They most likely think we have enough common sense not to raid a building without much of a plan. Unfortunately for them, we’re insane.”
Leo broke into a grin, and he whooped, walking up to the edge of the rooftop, “NOW LET’S RAID THESE LOSERS!”
Then he jumped down the apartment building, but not before hearing Donnie talk.
“This is going to go wonderfully, he said without sarcasm.”
The skyscraper was surprisingly easy to climb up. Well, of course it was, anything would seem easy when compared to fighting alternative versions of aliens that almost killed you and threw the world into an apocalypse, but that wasn’t the point. The skyscraper was entirely a light gray metal, some steel or other material that was conveniently magnetic and allowed Leo to quickly hatch the idea of climbing it with magnets. It was chilly, and Leo wasn’t going to lie when he got vertigo from the mixture of wind and accidentally looked down a few times, but it was fine. Leo’s got thrown from heights double the size with deadly force, and this time Raph would be here to catch him! It had been completely and utterly fine.
(He did not think about how Raph didn’t have his ninpo so he wouldn’t be able to break the fall. If Leo could survive being thrown around by the Kraang Raph could’ve handled a small, hundred foot drop. It had gone fine, it had gone wonderfully. Leo hadn’t doubted his plan once at all.)
To his relief As per his expectations, they made it to the top third of the building just fine, all of them climbing up and pausing right underneath the line of glass to regain their breath and study the area. Leo wasn’t dumb enough to just go in without getting a look of the area in person. Donnie’s photos may have been good, but they hadn’t gone into much detail with the little time Leo had given him to build the drone and scout the place.
The walls were the same light gray steel of the building, with glowing magenta triangular shapes along the walls. Around the room there were glass pods and decks sticking out of the walls, holding small hovering shuttles that held the creatures. Some on the decks, others flying around and surrounding a glass pod, a few observing a pile of what looked like weapons. Tiny brain-like aliens, ants compared to their wasps of Krang. While yes, they looked disgusting and some were piloting robotic droids with rectangular, gun-like weapons (although they were more akin to laser blasters such as in Jupiter Jim, as Donnie had told Leo), they weren’t giants with the power of mutate people and buildings that controlled monstrous armor.
The most notable features of the room were these: the large screens along one of the walls, showing one of the awful creatures growling at the Kraang in the shuttles — probably giving them orders — a large machine that had a circular platform and three giant cannon-like structures (they reminded Leo of the circular portal guns used in Portal) , a smaller machine set into the wall across the elevator, and finally, the poison gas filling the room, giving everything a green tint.
No sign of the power cell.
Leo narrowed his eyes. The room was surprisingly empty and looked easy to search. Once they broke in and the gas started to escape, they would be weak and caught off guard. The aliens would be easy to kill, and Leo was hoping Donnie would be able to figure out whatever weapon that thing was. Raph could cover the elevator along one of the walls with the glass containers, and they would be mostly safe from backups. If they searched the room and the power cell was there, they’d just start to make their way down through the building.
It was here somewhere. They’d just have to kill enough of the Kraang and search the place to find it.
Leo turned his head to his little brother, giving him a nod. Mikey nodded back, taking his hands off the building to push off one of the magnetic gloves to grab his smoke bombs at the ready. The slider then turned and nodded his head at the other two, signaling he was going to break the glass.
He leaned against the building, removing his magnetic gloves and counting on his balance as he carefully replaced them with the steel-tipped gloves.
Okay, he was going to have to be stealthy but quick about this. They had to catch them by surprise. Things were about to get frantic.
They had to kill the Kraang, find that power cell.
Kill the Kraang, find the cell.
Like lightning, Leo practically launched himself upwards, legs scrambling for magnetic purchase against the metal as he started to slam the steel tips against the glass. His brain registered the panicked squeals of the Kraang and Mikey climbing up to his side just as the glass shattered into the building, the green gas pouring out as if it too was trying to escape its own toxicity. In a flash of adrenaline Mikey threw the smoke bombs, hitting the floor and creating a thick dark gray cover. More squeals of confusion and metallic movement filled the air as the four brothers scrambled into the building, Leo’s eyes watering as he kicked off the magnets on his feet and heard his brothers unsheath their weapons and do the same.
With a loud scream one of the Kraang in their small shuttles came at Leo, who ducked down with a shout to avoid it. He quickly turned to slice the thing’s drone mid-air, making the thing drop to the floor. It squealed and ran away just as sharp sounds filled the air, like cracks of lightning. Leo turned to barely avoid the lasers shooting at them, his twin and younger brother quickly running to the left to avoid them. Leo let out a yelp as he felt his shell being picked up by Raph, who threw him over his shoulder and dived behind an empty circular glass tank for cover.
The three droids that had been shooting at them turned towards the tank and pointed their guns at them. Raph scowled, holding up his sai, “Leo, ya better have a plan—”
CRACK!
The glass tank shattered, and Leo shouted, “GO HELP DONNIE AND MIKEY! I got these guys!”
“WAIT LEO—”
Without hesitating Leo threw himself away from the small cover of the shattered tank, and started running at the droids, pure adrenaline fueling his veins. He barely avoided their bright magenta lasers, one of them slicing off his mask tails and almost making him lose his agility over the heat of it. He narrowly twisted himself out of the lasers’ way, and literally thinking on his feet threw one of his swords to the side, it loudly clattering as it hit the floor.
The distraction worked, making the droids stupidly turn their heads to see the source of the sound, and like lightning Leo sliced his other katana down, cutting them in half.
The katana had gone through them like paper, a clean diagonal cut across all of them. All three droids dropped to the ground, with only one of the poor creatures crawling out alive as the other two wee sliced corpses, their pink and mushy bodies oozing magenta blood. Leo tore his sight away from them and to his sword, which he gagged at the sight of it covered with the alien’s blood.
He was just about to flick it to get the blood off when he heard a whoop behind him and turned to see his three brothers taking out the other Kraang easily. Mikey was on one of the aliens’ shuttles, crashing it into another one and making the Kraang fly off from the resulting crash, hitting the opposite wall with a disgusting yet satisfying splat. Donnie was blocking their lasers through spinning his tech-b ō (bless his high-grade titanium) and managed to get a few hits in between, causing the Kraang to fall from their shuttles and droids. And Raph was doing what Raph did best: smashing. Without mercy he crushed the Kraang in his fists and smashed their shuttles together, pink splattering onto his fists as his alligator snapper shell took the blasts like they were nothing.
Leo grinned just as they finished them out, and took a quick detour to grab his other katana before going over to them.
Raph grimaced, looking at the blood splattering his hands, “Ew.” Mikey gagged, frantically shaking his hands of blood, “Oh god this smells horrible!” “Ditto, brother.” Leo ordered, “Okay, it's best we try to find that power cell as quickly as we can so we can go back to HQ and get ourselves cleaned and stuff. Raph, I want you to guard the elevator as we search, maybe cover it up with some of the tanks to shield us. Donnie you go check out whatever that giant machine is—”
“Leo,” Donnie interrupted him, eyes almost comically wide for him as he looked up past his shoulder, “I think we have other things to worry about.”
Leo narrowed his eyes as he turned to see what had Donnie so expressive, “What are you talking…about.”
His eyes met with the blue-gray eyes of a mutant turtle in a glass tank above them.
The eyes of four mutant turtles in fact, each with different colored eyes and masks, all of them just as equally shocked.
Ah, their counterparts.
Well shit, Leo didn’t actually expect them to be here.
His eyes flashed to the pile of weapons he saw earlier. A pair of swords, sai, a wooden bo, and nunchucks.
Oh. He should’ve registered that as important earlier.
His shoulders dropped. This was great. How was he going to handle this?
“Raph,” he nodded towards the elevator, “go guard that. Donnie, get them out. And Mikey?” He put his hand on his little brother’s shoulder as the other two did what they were told. “Yeah?” The box turtle smiled up at him. “Let’s not be like, immediately be friendly with them, okay?” The smaller furrowed his non-existent brows, but then he blinked and smiled, “Got it.”
The orange-banded turtle moved out of the way just as the sound of glass shattering came, and Donnie lowered himself to the ground, his jet-pack folding back into his battle-shell and the glass-cutter he had used returning back into his bow.
As Raph pushed some glass tanks against the elevator, Leo stepped forward and looked up at their silent and hesitant counterparts with a casual demeanor, “So you coming down or what?”
That broke the silence. With an energetic whoop Mikey’s counterpart — the shortest of them with freckles and baby-blue eyes — pushed his brothers out of the way and jumped down with a grin, “That was sick dudes!”
Leo’s counterpart stared down at Mikey’s counterpart, “Mikey, wait, we don’t know who they are—”
“You were like BAM! And the Kraang were like PEW PEW! And you absolutely killed it! That was so cool!” Mikey’s counterpart grinned, eyes so bright that Leo couldn’t help but smile a bit, reminded very much of his own little brother, “Thanks.”
“Ugh, well great, he’s talkin’ to them now.” An irritated groan came from above, and the other turtles dropped, with Leo’s counterpart narrowing his eyes at him with suspicion. The other two were clearly Donnie and Raph’s counterparts, although the difference between them was hilarious. Donnie’s counterpart had red-brown eyes and was lanky and tall, looking more curious and shocked than the unimpressed sarcasm Leo was more used to. And Raph’s counterpart? Short as hell. Although his toxic-green eyes and unmoving scowl made him seem aggressive, whereas his older brother was always more gentle (except for when he occasionally got irritated with them).
“Who are you?” Donnie’s counterpart seemingly couldn’t help but blurt out, “ What are you? Are you turtle mutants like us? Are you aliens? Why do you have our weapons and our masks? Why are you here? Did you come here to help us? That bo of yours—” he turned to Donnie, eyes practically shining— “is absolutely brilliant! The way it morphed into a saw to cut the glass was ingenious, how was it able to block the Kraang’s lasers? Did you create it yourself? How did you get the materials—”
“Hey,” Leo’s counterpart interrupted, elbowing the taller, “shh.”
The taller went frigid, eyes wide as he went quiet and stared at the others, and Leo gulped, remembering what Mikey said. They were after the power cell too.
He side-eyed Donnie. His twin nodded, understanding him silently in that way all twins did.
So Leo threw on a grin, playing up his confidence and friendliness as Donnie melted behind him to silently find the cell before they did, “Calm down, guys. There’s no need for hostility! You hate the Kraang, we hate the Kraang, so the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?”
His counterpart narrowed his eyes at him even more (which apparently was possible) and he asked, “Who are you? What master do you serve?’
“Tch, what am I supposed to say to that, Jesus Christ?” Leo jokingly said, offering his hand, “The name’s Hamato Leonardo. And I’m you from another universe, believe it or not.”
His counterpart’s eyes widened at that, and Donnie’s counterpart gasped with a manic grin, “Oh my gosh THE MULTIVERSE EXISTS!”
Leo finger-gunned at him, “He gets it.”
“I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!” His twin’s alternate practically squealed with excitement, “After all those years of reading theoretical studies the multiverse actually exists this is so awesome how did you guys get here I mean you would have to break the laws of physics—”
“Will someone please explain what the nerd’s goin’ on about?” Raph’s counterpart crossed his arms, and his brother Donnie grinned at him, “These guys are us from another universe! Another Earth, different from ours! That guy—” he pointed at Leo— “is Leo. The smaller one’s Mikey—” “Hi!” Mikey smiled and waved at him— “and that guy over there is—woah he’s huge.”
The four alternates turned to see Raph standing in front of the elevator, arms-crossed and slightly intimidating (despised the amused look he had on). The red-bande alternate’s jaw dropped, and Mikey’s alternate broke out in laughter, “He’s huge! Raph’s so small compared to him!” “Ay!” Mikey’s alternate merely laughed as his brother hit him on the shoulder, and even Leo’s counterpart smiled with slight amusement, “Way to be jealous Raph.” “I AIN’T JEALOUS!” Raph’s alternate yelled, and Mikey’s alternate grinned, “Right, and I’m the Queen of England!”
Leo and Donnie’s alternates laughed at that, and Raph’s alternate scowled, his glare moving on from his brothers to Leo and his brothers, “Yeah yeah—-HEY! Where’s their Donnie?!”
Precisely at that moment the sound of sawing came, and they all turned to the wall behind them, where Donnie held up his saw to glass, which behind it held a cylinder container holding a large, glowing crystal.
“Uh…” Donnie awkwardly raised a brow, “Salutations?”
“Hey, they’re tryin’ ta steal the power cell!” Raph’s alternate pointed at Donnie, and Leo’s alternate turned to glare at him, “What about that whole ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ bit?”
Leo shrugged, “Sorry man, but we need that more than you do.”
He unsheathed his katanas, the tips still stained with the Kraang’s pink blood, and his alternate scowled, head whipping to the side where their pile of weapons were.
Leo nodded his head towards the pile, “Mikey.”
His little brother obeyed, and in a blink of an eye was in front of the weapons, swinging his nunchucks, “Now look guys, we can do this civilly. Just let us have the power cell, and we won’t have to fight!’
“If I were you I would listen to him,” Leo said, meeting his alternate’s eyes with a casual smile, “Mikey can get scary when he fights. We all can.”
“So can we.” His alternate scowled, turning his head to Raph, “Go grab the weapons—”
A loud thrumming interrupted him, and they all turned as the gigantic machine with the cannon-like structure started to glow along its side. Energy beams shot out of the cannons, creating a large glowing sphere, and Donnie’s alternate gasped, “The portal! We’re too late!”
“That’s a portal?!” Leo’s eyes widened as he turned to the other turtles, and his alternate scowled, “Look! We could’ve stopped the Kraang if it wasn’t for you! We need our weapons, Raph—”
“Uh, guys?” Mikey’s eyes widened as he took a step back from the pile of weapons and pointed at the portal, “I think something’s coming through!”
They all turned back towards the portal just in time to see it collapse in on itself in a flash in blue, and in its place, revealed a strange, gigantic creature, growling as it stood up. Its entire body was made out of black rock, cracks along its body and chin revealing bright orange lava, which filled its eyes and mouth. They all stared at it as it fully stood up, its head almost scratching the ceiling, and it roared.
It started to stomp forward, shaking the ground, and Leo yelled at his twin, “DONNIE! Your rockets!”
“My rocket launcher doesn’t work, Leo!” Donnie yelled back, “I haven’t fixed everything!”
“Damn it!” Leo turned towards Mikey, “Okay! Mikey, I want you to climb along those walls and climb on that thing—AH!”
The slider yelped as he was suddenly grabbed and thrown over a shoulder the second time, bumping against spikes as he was taken away from their alternates and the monster, “TOO DANGEROUS! We’re leaving now!”
As Raph grabbed Donnie and Mikey and threw them on top of him, Leo hit against his shell, “Wait Raph, no! We need that power cell!”
“NOPE!” Raph shot forward, and Mikey yelped as they barely avoided a stomp from the giant creature. From behind him, Leo could hear his alternate shout, “SCATTER!”
The ground shook again as the monster stomped down, and Raph said, “I ain’t riskin’ our lives for a power cell with that thing here!”
“We’ve dealt worse!’ Leo protested, desperately trying to pull himself from Raph’s grip, but the snapper was holding onto him too tightly, “C’mon! Raph, please! That’s our only chance at getting home!”
“We’ll find it again Leo. Not now!”
Leo heard the monster roar again, and something hitting the walls. “Watch out for the lava barf!” Raph’s alternate yelled.
“Maybe you’re right, okay?!” Leo admitted, eyes widening as he got a peek of actual lava melting through the floor in one corner, “But put us down! We need to find a way to get out of here!”
“NO!” Raph yelled against the monster’s roars and their counterparts shouting, “That’ll take too long! We gotta get out NOW!”
“WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO?!” Leo yelled back, “Jump out of here and hope you’ll survive the fall?!”
His brother’s silence was all that needed to be said.
Leo punched his brother again, “Raph, are you craz—AHHHH!”
He screamed the entire way down.