Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Maybe Leo made a mistake.

“SIEZE HIM!”

For half a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath.

Then the shadows moved. They poured out of the darkness, boots slamming against metal grates, armor clattering, weapons flashing red with corrupt mystic light. A dozen became two. Two became many. Dozens of Foot soldiers surged toward him in a tightening ring, weapons raised and eyes burning.

It felt like barely a second before they were on him.

Leo’s swords came up on instinct. Steel met steel with a shriek that rang through the chamber, sparks bursting like brief stars as the first strike glanced off his katana. He pivoted, barely avoiding a spear aimed for his ribs, then twisted his torso and drove his elbow into the soldier's throat, and the man went down choking.

No time. No space.

Another blade slashed from the side. Leo ducked, the edge skimming the top of his shell, and swept his leg out, dropping the attacker hard. He sprang off the fallen body, feet skidding on damp metal as he flipped backward over a lunging soldier, landing in a crouch and slashing low. The cut took a knee. The scream was swallowed by the roar of the sigil beneath them.

More came.

Always more.

Leo moved because stopping meant dying. He ran up the curved wall of the chamber, kicked off hard, and twisted midair, blades flashing as he came down. One sword bit into a shoulder. The other caught a wrist. Weapons clattered to the floor.

Pain flared through his body as he landed badly, knees screaming in protest. His breath tore out of him in ragged bursts, lungs burning like he’d been sprinting for miles—which, in a way, he had. Endless nights. Endless fights. Endless giving and scraping from an empty barrel. Pouring from an empty cup. Trying to give in order to make up for what was lost.

Leo’s heart hammered violently.

Too many. There’s too many! What had he been thinking? The sigil—they’re going to take her, or kill her, or—

And you’re failing. Again. You always fail when it matters.

He barely blocked another strike, and the impact rattled his teeth. His hands shook. Sweat soaked into his mask and stung his eyes. Blood, his or theirs, he couldn’t tell, slicked the grip of his katanas.

You walked right into this, a bitter voice snarled in his head. You should have known better.

Mistakes repeated and lessons unlearned.

He shoved the thought aside and kicked off a pillar, flipping through the air to avoid a cluster of blades. His foot connected with a masked head. Another soldier staggered back as Leo slammed his shoulder into their chest, driving them into the wall hard enough to rattle the pipes.

He didn’t stop moving.

He couldn’t.

The exhaustion was there, but he couldn’t let it hold him back. He’s fought harsher conditions, run on less fumes than he is now, so he’s not going to stop.

A staff caught him across the plastron. The blow knocked the air from his lungs in a brutal exhale. He stumbled, vision flashing white at the edges, and a fist cracked against his jaw before he could recover. Leo went down to one knee. Hands grabbed him immediately, scrabbling against his arms, the edges of his cloak, his shell, trying to pin him and drag him down.

“No–!” He snarled, fury igniting through the pain. He surged upwards with a roar, blades slashing in a wide arc. One soldier reared back, clutching their face and shrieking in agony. Another took a kick square in the chest and crashed into the grating. Leo rolled under a spear thrust, came up behind the wielder, and drove his pommel into the base of their skull.

Down.

Up again.

He was dizzy now. He couldn’t breathe. The air was tight, thick with the stench of blood and sewage. Heavy with the ever-present darkness that came with the Foot Clan. The sigil beneath his feet throbbed with every heartbeat, clawing at his ninpo, fogging his thoughts, making every decision feel slow and wrong. It was like fighting underwater. Like his body was a second behind his mind.

Focus. Karai had said. Breathe. Slow your thoughts, look for the still point in the midst of chaos.

Another blade sliced across his back, tearing his cloak and biting into his shell. Leo gasped sharply, pain flaring hot and bright.

There was no still point. There was no peace in chaos. There was only fear and motion.

Another lesson forgotten.

He vaulted off a fallen body, dodging two attackers, twisting around, and landing in the middle of them like a dropped blade. His swords moved in clean, practiced arcs, years of training carrying him when strength failed.

But for every soldier that fell, two more filled the space. They boxed him in, pressed him back. Gave him no room to breathe. A blow slammed into his shoulder. Another caught his hip. Something cracked painfully against his shell. Leo stumbled, barely keeping his footing as a katana tore a shallow line across his plastron.

Too slow.

He twisted to block a downward strike and missed. The impact jarred his arm numb, his katana knocked clean from his grasp. It skidded across the metal grates and disappeared under a tangle of boots. For a split second, panic flared sharp and cold.

No—

He shoved it down and kept moving. He didn’t have time to panic, didn’t have time to think. One sword was enough. It had to be. He fought closer now, driving his elbows and knees into solid forms, headbutting, using bodies and walls and momentum. He rolled under a lunging soldier, coming up behind him, and drove his blade into the back of his knee. He grabbed another by the collar and used their weight to slam a third into the floor. His vision swam. His arms burned. His body hurt, and every breath scraped like broken glass.

You can’t stop now. If you stop—

He caught a glimpse of the girl between bodies, slumped and unmoving. Black lines still creeping across her skin as the sigil fed.

And wasn’t that a horrible realization? One Leo should have put together a long time ago. Why were people going missing. Why the Foot were capturing innocent bystanders. The same reason they had sigils stained across the city. To feed off of and corrupt. To drain their energy and use them as some sort of living battery. But for what? The mystic weapons? All this just for a small amount of power? A slight upper hand? The sick feeling in his gut worsened and made the guilt pulse all the more heavy. Made him feel even more of a failure. All those missing people, taken and drained and probably gone.

Gone just like everything else.

Get up. Get to her. You have to.

His gaze flickered to the four Foot Elites. They hadn’t moved. Still stood at the edge of the sigil, watching with cold, unreadable stillness as he fought and fell and rose again. Like he was a test. Like he was a little bug for them to study as he squirmed.

Why aren’t you attacking? The thought snarled. What are you waiting for?

Something inside him twisted violently, and he wanted nothing more than to go over there and show them that he was a threat and not a spectacle. To tear those dumb hats off their heads and beat them until they told him what he wanted to know. Where Shen was. What were her plans? What’s her sickening end goal, and why the hell did she have to take everything away from him to achieve it?

Leo has felt a lot of anger over the past few weeks since he’s been back in New York. More than he’s ever felt in his entire life. But he’s never been angrier than he was at that moment. Narrowed eyes stared at the Elites as they watched him fight for his life, as they stood over a helpless person and sucked the life from her body. Just as they have done with countless others.

He felt so sick.

A heavy strike caught him square in the chest, breaking him out of his thoughts, and sent him sprawling. Leo hit the floor hard, metal grates rattling beneath him and scraping against his shell as he slid. Pain exploded through his body.

Hands were on him again instantly. He screamed, in rage or fear; it didn’t matter. He lashed out blindly, blade flashing. Someone cried out. Someone fell. But he didn’t care. Leo dragged himself back to his feet, swaying, blood dripping from his chin. Another blow cracked into his ribs. Leo staggered, but he didn’t fall. He planted his feet, raised his remaining katana, and met the next rush head-on.

He was bleeding. He was exhausted. He was terrified he was going to fail.

And still he fought.

He took two more down in a blur of instinct and desperation, blade sweeping low at an ankle while his shoulder slammed into another’s chest, sending them both crashing to the grating in a tangle of limbs and armor. He didn’t pause to see if they stayed down. Pausing meant dying.

Something moved behind him. Leo spun sharply, vision smearing at the edges, just in time to catch the downward strike aimed for the back of his skull. Steel rang loud and sharp as he parried, the impact jarring his already numb arms. He snarled and lashed out with his foot, heel slamming into the attacker's stomach. The soldier flew backwards, skidding across the floor before disappearing into the mess of bodies.

His breath came out in a broken rasp.

The fight didn’t stop; but for one strange, suspended moment, it slowed.

The Foot drew back into a loose circle around him. Some lay unmoving. Others groaned as they pushed themselves upright, dragging broken limbs, weapons clutched in shaking hands. Still more stood ready, watching him carefully now. Measuring him.

Leo swayed on his feet.

His frame shook openly, exhaustion finally bleeding through the cracks that no amount of adrenaline could plaster over. His sword trembled in his grip, the metal slick with sweat and blood. Every muscle screamed. His head pounded in time with the pulsing sigil beneath him, that cold, parasitic chill crawling deeper under his skin, leeched straight from the floor into his bones. He glanced right, just for a second. Back at the girl and her bound body and the black lines cracking across her skin, draining her piece by piece. Leo couldn’t tell if her chest was rising. Couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

A sharp, helpless fear speared through him.

No. No, no, no—

He tore his gaze away as movement drew his attention back to the situation at hand. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Leo was going to save her. She was fine. She had to be.

Three of the Foot Elites stepped forward, their presence heavy and radiating a sort of untouchable confidence that sent even more anger spiking through him and making his vision blur red for just a moment. The fourth remained by the girl, blade still poised over her neck like a punctuation at the end of a sentence.

Leo shifted to face the three fully, blade lifting higher on muscle memory alone. His stance felt wrong, but he couldn’t fix it. Pain seemed to spark and pulse through his veins, traveling up the base of his spine and through his limbs. He didn’t know where his second katana was, and he’d give anything to have it now. But it was somewhere out of reach and sight. Somewhere useless.

Portalling to it crossed his mind for a split second. But the thought died almost immediately. He’d already drained too much of his ninpo using it on sigils earlier that night, and only strained it further by portalling across the tunnels. He already messed one up earlier, and he couldn’t risk doing so again, surrounded and outnumbered as he was.

Leo puffed out a shaky, silent breath.

He knows he hasn’t been the best at conserving his energy recently. He’s been pushing himself harder than he ever has before, allowing only little periods of rest in between patrols and throwing his ninpo at every sigil he comes across. He knows he’s been stupid and reckless. He knows he’s low on fuel right now, his ninpo suffering because of it; and that angered him to no end—that it couldn’t push through just a little bit of strain. That he couldn’t push through it, even after everything. But that anger doesn’t replace the fact that he was exhausted. It only acted as a brief substitute, a burning fire that snuffed out too quickly and left only smoldering ashes in its wake. But he was okay with being ash, as long as it got the job done.

But right now, he couldn’t burn out completely. No. He needed to save what little ninpo he had left for when it actually mattered. It may be their only ticket out of this mess.

One of the Elites tilted his head, studying him. “You should surrender, Shadow,” his voice echoed lowly across the chamber, a calm rasping sound. “You are already broken.”

The words landed like a blade dragged slowly across old scars. A low, guttural sound escaped him. Something between a snarl and a growl. It vibrated through his chest, raw and animalistic, born from anger and exhaustion and something dangerously close to despair.

Broken.

The word scraped against everything inside him. There was no point in talking. No point in pretending. There’s no mask left to wear. No more hiding behind smirks or jokes or easy confidence. It lies shattered somewhere behind him, cracked beyond repair. He didn’t have the energy to pick up the pieces anymore. Didn’t want to. He didn’t laugh in the face of these Elites, didn’t make a snarky quip or shout in defiance despite the small voice inside of him screaming at him to do so. There wasn’t any need to. Leo just stared at them with burning eyes that had forgotten how to soften.

The Elite continued despite Leo’s sharp glare, his tone low and almost mocking. “You have no hope of escape. Look at you.”

Leo could feel his legs shaking. He could feel his heart hammering itself raw. Could feel the fatigue and ache coursing through his muscles.

I could leave. A traitorous thought whispered. Right now. Portal out, back to his little warehouse, and back to safety. He pictured it, the cool concrete, the crushing silence, and the relief of being able to breathe without poison in the air. He could ruin whatever little plan this was and wipe the smugness right out of this Foot faces’ voice. But he wouldn’t. He would never save himself at the expense of someone else. He knew that, and the Foot Clan knew that too.

His jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. “Yeah?” Leo shot back, forcing steel into his wavering voice. “Big talk from someone wearing a dinner plate for a hat.” His grip tightened on his sword until the muscles in his hands ached. “I’m still fighting,” he said quietly, voice sharp as broken glass.

The Elite’s head tilted again, almost curious.

Leo bared his teeth. “Try and make me stop.” Then he charged.

The Foot soldiers stayed back as he closed the distance, feet slamming against the grates, pain screaming through every joint. The first Elite met him head-on, mystic knives slashing downward in a heavy arc. Leo barely deflected it, the force rattling him to the teeth. Another Elite struck him from the side. He twisted too slowly, and pain flared as the blade skimmed his arm, cutting a large gash through his cloak in the process. He hissed and slammed his shoulder forward, using his weight to knock the attacker off balance. A third blow caught him from behind. He staggered, barely staying upright, vision tunneling as the Elites closed in around him. They moved with terrifying coordination, driving him back step by step, never letting him rest, never letting him breathe.

Leo slashed wildly, catching armor instead of flesh. Sparks flew. A fist slammed into his jaw. Something cracked painfully against his shoulder. He stumbled again, feet slipping on the damp metal.

Too slow. You’re too slow.

Another strike glanced off his shell, another tear in his cloak. Another clipped his thigh. He barely blocked the next one, arms screaming as his strength failed him.

He didn’t see the strike coming from the other Elite, and if he had, he may have been able to postpone the inevitable just a little bit longer, caught by sheer surprise and shock as pain suddenly exploded in his right leg.

A brutal kick slammed into the joint of his knee. Leo screamed—a raw, agonized sound—as muscles pulled and tendons shrieked, an old injury reignited with vicious clarity. His legs buckled, and he collapsed to the floor, teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached, the pain blinding and absolute. A low, keening sound escaped him; a whine that sounded far too young, far too vulnerable. His free hand gripped the injury harshly, hoping the small amount of pressure would lessen the overwhelming yet familiar pain.

Get up. I have to…get up.

Leo barely had a moment to recover before he was being slammed flat on his back, shell grinding painfully into the grates and the glowing sigil beneath, and felt a hand closing around his throat. The cold of the sigil surged into him as ice water poured straight into his veins. The Elite’s weight crushed the air from his lungs.

For one stunned second, he lay there, mouth open, body trying and failing to remember how breathing worked. Then the pressure around his neck tightened.

The Elite’s hand crushed down against his throat, forcing his head back against the metal. His vision jolted white at the edges. Leo’s hands flew up instinctively, grabbing, clawing, fingers scraping uselessly against an armored gauntlet that didn’t give even a fraction.

Breathe. He needed to breathe.

But the breath that he tried dragging in wouldn’t come.

Panic hit fast, far louder than the roar of the sigil or the rushing water below. His chest spasmed, trying to inhale, but the weight pinning him down crushed every attempt before it began.

The world narrowed. Sound warped into a distant ringing. The edges of the chamber blurred and smeared together. And for a second, it was far too easy to imagine someone much larger and far more scary standing above him, crushing him, choking him, and reminding Leo of just how less than he was.

The word pest whispered in the back of his head, muffled beneath the pounding of his heart.

His knee screamed where it lay sprawled, pain flaring hot and relentless, grounding him just enough to remind him of where he was and how badly he’d miscalculated.

Again.

He wasn’t thinking, and he jumped in without a plan, past charge in, save the girl, and hope for the best!

And here were the consequences of his actions slamming shut around him.

And the irony—the dramatic, hilarious irony—was that he really thought he could do it. That he could save this one person. That he could stop the Foot Clan, save New York, and defeat Shen. That he could avenge his family, his brothers, his father, his sister, his friends who were so wrongfully and brutally taken away from this world. That all his training, this new power he honed and developed, could be the key to finally ending this vicious cycle against the Hamato and the Foot. That maybe he could be enough.

But when has Leo ever been right?

His fingers were growing weak around the Elite’s wrist. His arms felt heavy and slow. Every movement took too long.

No air.

His thoughts fractured, scattering like glass.

The girl. Where was she—

His swords. He needed his swords. He needed a portal. He couldn’t focus, didn’t have the strength to make one without them. He couldn’t feel them. Couldn’t turn his head enough to look.

Above him, blurred shapes shifted. The other two Elite’s stood motionless, watching like spectators. Waiting for him to stop fighting.

Fear punched through him then, raw and sharp and undeniable. Not fear of dying, not really, but of failing. Of coming all this way only to watch someone else suffer because he wasn’t strong enough, smart enough, fast enough—

His chest convulsed again, desperate for oxygen. Blackness crept closer at the edges of his vision, thick and heavy.

This can’t end here. Not like this.

The Elite leaning over him, choking him, tilted his head slightly, amused. “Enough fighting, Shadow. You have lost.”

Leo tried to answer, to bark out a sharp retort and release the anger bubbling inside of him, but all that came out was a strangled, broken sound. He fought anyway; teeth bared, fingers digging uselessly at the hand crushing his throat. Refusing to stop even as his strength bled out of him.

The last thing he saw was a heavy boot lifting into view.

Then it came down.

And the world went black.

Waking was a slow and painful thing. A creeping awareness that spread outward from everywhere at once. It seeped into Leo’s senses like old water, dragging him towards consciousness piece by reluctant piece.

Where was he?

There was cold beneath his plastron. Not smooth stone, but grated metal pressing into him at uneven angles. Each ridge dug into bruised muscles and aching bone, sending dull pulses through his body every time he breathed. His limbs felt heavy, sluggish, like they didn’t quite belong to him. He shifted slightly and pain flared suddenly without permission, a violent spike shooting up from his knee so sharp it stole the air from his lungs. His head pulsed fiercely behind his eyes, and his throat ached.

Leo froze as everything came rushing back to him in an instant. Mind screaming at him to not move, to not react, or let them know that he was awake yet; instinct commanded louder than anything else. He swallowed hard against the noise clawing up his throat and forced his breathing into slow, shallow pulls despite the ache in his ribs. The world swam around him, muffled and distant, his thoughts lagging behind reality like echoes in a tunnel.

The sewer chamber. The fight. The Elites. The sigil. The girl.

A figure standing over him, hands around his throat, crushing, suffocating, stealing the world away while darkness swallowed everything whole and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t—

He lost.

His stomach twisted violently.

Leo kept his eyes closed, fighting through the fog in his mind, forcing himself to listen before he risked looking. Footsteps shifted somewhere nearby, and he could hear the low murmur of voices and the rushing water below the grates. They were still in the sewer tunnels, that much was obvious. But why? How long has he been unconscious? What are they doing?

He carefully eased one eyelid open just enough to see through.

The chamber looked the same. Red light pulsed beneath him in slow, steady waves, bleeding through the grating like a heartbeat. The massive sigil sprawled across the floor cast jagged shadows up the curved walls, its glow painting everything in sickly crimson tones. The air carried the same parasitic cold that followed the Foot Clan—a wrongness that seeped into bone and thought alike.

Leo resisted the urge to flinch.

He needed to focus, to take better stock of the situation he plunged himself into. He wiggled his wrists slightly. Pain flared where the rough rope bit into raw skin. His arms were pulled behind his shell at an awkward angle, his shoulders tight and protesting. He forced himself to keep still, letting his body fall limp again before the movement could draw attention.

Slowly, carefully, he let his gaze drift across the chamber.

Foot soldiers stood spaced around the perimeter again, silent and unmoving, their silhouettes blending into the shadows, and Leo didn’t remember there being so many.

Did more show up? The ones that he left behind in the tunnels?

He squeezed his lids shut, trying to tamp down the pounding beat of his heart, to hold back his panic. That didn’t matter right now. It didn’t matter how many of them there were.

He reopened them to narrow slits and shifted focus towards the far side of the chamber. The four Elites stood together a short distance away, heads bent in quiet conversation. One of them shifted slightly, and Leo’s breath caught in his sore throat.

His twin katanas hung at the Elite's side, one hand resting casually against the hilt like it belonged there. As if it were some kind of trophy.

Heat surged in Leo’s chest, anger hot and immediate, but he shoved it down hard.

Not now. Anger won’t help him now. He needs to be careful. Focus.

Leo dragged his attention away before he’d be tempted to do something rash and let his gaze fall to his left.

His heart stuttered painfully at what he saw.

The woman he’d come to save lay motionless beside him.

Her body looked wrong in stillness—too quiet and heavy against the metal grates. Her face was turned away from him, dark hair spilling across the metal with red light.

Please.

His pulse spiked as he scanned her quickly

Her chest rose.

A shallow, rattling inhale that sounded fragile, almost like it hurt her to breathe. But it had relief crashing into Leo so suddenly it almost made him dizzy.

She was still alive, but barely.

Thin black lines spread across her skin like fractures, dark veins creeping upward along her arms and throat. They pulsed faintly in time with the sigil beneath them, slowly drinking downward, feeding into the glowing red pattern below like roots drinking from poisoned soil.

Horror crawled up his spine.

The image burned itself into him now that he was still long enough to really look. The grotesque picture of someone’s life literally being pulled from their body in slow, relentless currents.

He squeezed his eyes shut again, jaw tightening.

I’ll save her. I will.

He couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t getting the same treatment. The Foot Clan had him. He was unconscious, vulnerable, for who knew how long. They could have done whatever they pleased with Leo without him putting up any kind of fight. They could have drained him of his own dwindling energy, taken his ninpo. Kill him.

So why was he still here? Why keep him alive?

The questions churned uselessly in his head, spinning in tight circles that went nowhere, but Leo forced them down. Panic wouldn’t help. Overthinking wouldn’t help. Answers weren’t coming right now. He needs to focus on what he can control.

He turned inward instead, cataloging damage the way he drilled into his brothers for years. How to assess, what to prioritize, and to adapt if need be.

The first thing he assesses is that his body feels like it’s been dragged behind the Turtle Tank.

Every muscle ached. Bruises throbbed beneath his skin in layered pulses, some fresh, some older from earlier fights that night. Gashes lined his arms and thighs where mystic blades had cut him, each one burning with that familiar unnatural chill the Foot’s weapons always left behind; like frost setting under skin. But those were familiar pains, ones he could easily push through and ignore.

The real problem was his knee.

Leo shifted slightly, testing the joint and hoping against hope that it wasn’t as bad as he feared it would be, then instantly regretting it as pain exploded upward in a sharp, blinding spike that stole the air from his lungs. His vision flashes white, teeth clamping together hard enough to ache as a strangled noise tries to escape his throat.

Okay, yeah…it was bad.

He forced himself to breathe through it, careful not to move much, and swallowed the instinct to curl around the injury. The pain was a deep, grinding kind of ache that flared with even the smallest movement. Heat and pressure radiated outward, muscles twitching involuntarily like they couldn’t decide whether to lock up or give out entirely. It was a pain he was all too familiar with, and one that he feared.

A flash of memory surged forward before he could stop it.

Cold, heavy metal. Kraang Prime’s limb crashing down. The sickening sound of bone giving way, the world exploding into agony so absolute it erased everything else. His own scream ripping from his throat, raw and broken, louder than he’d ever heard himself before and echoing through the void.

Leo’s breath hitched slightly as the fragments tried to swallow him whole.

No. He thought stubbornly. He was passed this.

He shoved it back, but the ghost of it lingered. The echo of that crushing weight, the helplessness, the certainty that something inside of him shattered beyond repair.

That took nearly a full year of recovery. Of learning how to stand without shaking. How to walk without limping. How to fight without fear that the joint would betray him at the worst possible moment.

Frustration and fear twisted in his chest. All that work. All that pain. If those idiots messed up his knee again, he’ll—

Please don’t let this undo everything.

He didn’t have time to be set back. He didn’t have time to be hurt or to rest. He had a job to do. He couldn’t afford the luxury to sit on his butt while he waited for his knee to heal itself again. He can’t go through that again.

Leo breathed a shallow breath, face still pressed into the metal grates as he forced his tears back down. He had to stay calm right now. The Foot Elites didn’t know that he was awake, and he’s sure if they did, any chance he may have had would go down the drain. Carefully, slowly, he flexed the leg again, trying to get a better feel of the injury, and went for smaller, cautious movements.

He tensed at the pain that still flared, but it wasn’t the catastrophic wrongness he remembered from before. He was sure it wasn’t broken.

He tested it again, jaw clenched, and the joint continued to move, stiff and weak, but intact. Relief and dread tangled together in his chest.

Okay. Okay.

Not shattered.

If he had to guess, muscle damage, maybe a partial tear. Something deep enough to hurt like hell but not enough to completely take him down.

It was still a problem. But it was one that he could ignore for now.

He let out a silent breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He then shifted his attention to the pain in his head. He remembered the Foot strangeling him, then a heavy boot swinging towards him, darkness swallowing everything after.

He tilted his head just a fraction. A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes, spreading across his skull like a tight band, but the world didn’t spin violently. There was no nausea crashing over him, and his vision remained steady…mostly.

Probably not a concussion.

Probably.

He paused, then amended internally.

Hopefully.

Because honestly? He really didn’t need that right now.

Leo exhaled quietly, shutting his eyes just for a moment and forcing himself back into stillness, trying to keep his breathing slow despite the lingering pain buzzing through every nerve.

He was so tired.

But that didn’t matter.

He began working slowly on the ropes behind him. Every movement sent sharp tremors through his injured knee, but he ignored it, biting down on his lip hard enough to taste copper. He flexed his fingers carefully, feeling for the hidden blade tucked beneath his wrappings.

There.

He slid it free with practiced precision, keeping his body limp and unresponsive as he began sawing gently at the rope. They were tight, but a bad choice of restraint for any ninja, and Leo was shocked they underestimated him so. Each fiber parted one at a time while his mind raced ahead.

He needed a plan. A distraction. He needed to somehow get his swords, grab the girl, and portal both of them out of there, all the while avoiding the horde of Foot soldiers and the Elites.

Simple enough, all except for the fact that it wasn’t in the slightest.

His ninpo felt too thin and frayed. Like a rope pulled tight too long, one more strain away from snapping completely. He could feel the hollow ache deep in his chest where his power used to burn bright, now reduced to flickering embers.

He might fail at creating another portal, especially without the help of his swords. The effort would take far more energy than he has left, and he’d probably have to make multiple just to get them out. But he didn’t have many choices here. This was his only choice. Their only escape route.

The sigil beneath him pulsed again. A slow, hungry beat. Cold seeped through the metal and into his skin, creeping past the warmth of his cloak and inside of him like frost spreading across glass. It made his thoughts sluggish, dragging through thick resistance. The sigil—

The Sigil.

The idea struck him so suddenly, his breath hitched.

He could dismantle it.

If he forced his own sigil into the corrupt pattern, he could destabilize the whole thing like he’s done to countless others. That’d have to throw the Foot Clan off for at least a couple of seconds. It may buy Leo just enough time to grab his swords and the girl and get them out of there.

But it was a reckless plan. Creating the sigils and leaving pieces of himself behind drained him far more than his portals ever did. And if he were to do it to one of this size, there’s no telling the kind of backlash he would get from it. It could leave him weak, and that’d make it tricky getting his swords back and carrying her out.

It was dangerous, but it was also the only idea he had. Exactly the kind of insane plan he specialized in.

The final strands of the rope parted silently. One last fiber snapped beneath the hidden blade, and the tension around his wrists loosened enough that Leo almost sagged with relief. But he didn’t move. His arms remained limp behind him, body slack against the grates as if nothing had changed at all.

He eyed the Elites again. They were still talking, still grouped with their heads bowed in quiet conversation, probably figuring out where they’re gonna take him or whatever. He didn’t care about that. It didn’t matter.

A part of him argued against him. An angry, vengeful piece. The part that Leo’s let control him since he came back to New York. It argued that they know where Shen is. That they’re going to bring him to her, and Leo would finally have his chance at revenge. He’d finally be able to end this one-man war and avenge his family. He’d finally be able to make the person who took everything away from him pay. He could take everything away from Shen. He'd make her feel scared. He’d make her feel pain and anguish as she watched everything she built around her burn to the ground at his hands. He’d make her feel exactly as she made him feel.

And he wanted that more than anything.

But a smaller voice echoed louder inside of him. One born of reason and honor. Reminding Leo that he had a duty to uphold first. An old part of Leo reminded this hardened version that he had a responsibility to the people of New York, to his home, and to the innocent, because he was a Hamato. And that was their way. That has always been their way.

And Leo knew that he could never go back on that. Deep down, he knew that he wouldn’t want to throw all of that away. All that his whole family and lineage fought for. No matter his anger or pain, Leo would never sacrifice a life for revenge.

He knew this girl would die if he didn't get her out and to a hospital. He knew the Foot Clan would kill her. They are already. Leo wouldn’t trade her life.

He looked away from the Elites, decision made, though it ached.

He could save this one person.

The corrupted sigil wasn’t random. None of them were. They were structured, laid, jagged lines feeding into a central core, energy flowing along specific channels. This was how all sigils worked. And if he introduced interference at a specific point…

He could disrupt the flow and make it collapse from within.

Chaos meant opportunity.

Carefully, Leo let his hands fall to his sides, and he slowly shifted one hand down towards his pouch. The motion so small that it barely disrupted the dust along the grates. His fingers slipped beneath the torn edges of his cloak, searching.

Found it.

A small sliver of chalk, worn down from countless uses.

He slid it free with painstaking precision, keeping his movements minuscule and slow.

The sigil covered nearly the entire floor of the chamber, with everyone in the room resting on a certain point of it, including Leo. Because of this, he had his chance.

His pulse roared in his ears as he lowered his hand to the grating, the chalk touching the metal with the faintest ting.

He paused for a moment, waiting and hoping they didn’t notice his slight movements.

There was no reaction.

The Foot soldiers remained still.

The Elites continued their quiet discussion.

Slowly, Leo started drawing Hearth.

He began with the center. The chalk moved in a tight spiral, each curve deliberate and precise; muscle memory guiding him even through the tremor in his hands. The shape formed gradually over the red lines beneath him, blue dust faint against the glow.

He felt it respond immediately, faint warmth stirring in his chest as if recognizing his own reflection.

Next came the branches.

Four lines extending outward from the spiral, each one drawn with careful intention, a symbol of the people he loved, and anchoring points designed to redirect flow rather than block it.

As he slowly drew his own sigil, Leo tried once more to channel the overwhelming love he felt for his family, to push past the anger and the grief, to just make this work how it should, to make it as powerful as possible.

But it was so hard to try to imagine the faces he loved. Too difficult to separate that love from grief, too easy to replace it with anger. But he couldn’t do that. So instead, Leo thought of his desperation to save this woman, this one person. To protect someone and hope that was enough to build it.

Sweat slid down his temple from the effort, from the fear of being found out.

Would they feel the sigil's power? Would they stop him before he was finished?

Each motion felt impossibly loud.

Each scrape of chalk sounded like thunder to his ears.

He finished the final branch with a slow, careful stroke.

The full sigil lay beneath his palm now, superimposed over the Foot’s corrupted design. And Leo tried for a moment to offer his energy, to let it flow out of him as it should, but it wouldn’t work no matter how much effort he put into it. No matter how much he begs his ninpo to just work, it doesn’t.

It felt like trying to scrape at the empty barrel, to push against an immovable wall. Maybe it was his ninpo’s way of saying enough.

Leo snarls internally, gritting his teeth and forcing his ninpo into the sigil. It didn’t matter if he went past his limit. It didn’t matter if it was wrong, as long as it got the job done. A pressure starts to build in his chest, but he keeps pushing and shoving, giving all of his energy into powering his sigil.

And he does.

It feels wrong to him, his energy moving like thick sludge at a snail's pace, his strength seeping out of him, but he didn’t care because it was working.

Everything started moving really fast then.

Leo shot up from his prone position, not bothered if the Elites saw because the red sigil pulsed sharply throughout the chamber, and he felt it immediately; a pressure pushing back at him like an unseen tide.

Blue light began to glow faintly along his chalk lines as he fed threads of his ninpo into the symbol, then it moved outward into the red structure like veins of lightning creeping through storm clouds.

The corrupted sigil recoiled, just like they all have when Leo draws out Hearth.

But then it did something he wasn’t expecting.

It lashed back.

A violent surge slammed through Leo’s arms like electricity, making him gasp from the pain and shock of it.

Every head turned his way as the two sigils collided.

Red energy erupted upward in jagged tendrils, striking against the growing blue glow with a sound like metal screaming against metal. The chamber shook, grates rattling violently beneath him as opposing forces crashed together.

“What’s he doing?!” one Elite shouted.

Foot soldiers surged forward.

The Elites sped towards him.

But Leo didn’t focus on that. He gritted his teeth and shoved more ninpo into Hearth. Desperation and fear overriding caution, hoping to push back against the corrupt sigil, because now that he started, he couldn’t stop.

“Come on—” he gritted out, voice pained.

The blue light flared brighter.

The red sigil answered with fury.

Energy snapped upward, arcs of power lashing out as if the symbols were fighting for dominance. And Leo had never seen anything like it before. He didn’t understand why this was happening. Why couldn't he just dismantle this one sigil?

Why was it fighting back so much when none of the others had done so?

Pain exploded through Leo’s body. A deep clawing sensation. Nails piercing through his core, its cold hunger sliding into his energy like poison.

“This isn’t—” Leo choked, eyes widening.

It shouldn’t be reacting like this! It should be destabilizing. Not—

The chamber roared.

Red and blue light twisted together in violent spirals, power grinding against power as reality itself seemed to shudder under the strain.

And Leo realized with rising horror as he yanked his hands away, letting them fist against his tattered cloak, that something had gone terribly wrong.

A shadow fell over him.

One of the Elites barreled into Leo, tackling him to the ground. He barely registered the movement before he was yanked violently backward and driven into the floor. The impact rattled through his entire body, head cracking hard against the grates with a metallic clang that burst stars across his vision.

Pain flared, sharp and disorienting, and his injured knee twisted beneath him in a sickening jolt that should have sent a spike of white-hot agony racing up his leg. But he didn’t feel it, not really. Adrenaline burned through him like wildfire, replacing his strength and drowning everything else beneath pure panic.

The Elite hauled him up by the front of his cloak, trying to pin him down again, but Leo reacted before he could. He twisted sideways, grabbing the Elite's arm and using the momentum to roll.

They crashed across the floor together, limbs tangling and jagged armor screaming against the grating. Leo’s shoulder slammed into something hard; his breath bursting out of him in a sharp grunt, but he kept moving, scrambling desperately, fingers clawing for leverage.

Everything felt wrong.

It was too loud. Everything was moving too fast, and it was all so bright.

The chamber shook violently as power surged, sending shockwaves through the floor. Dust rained from above, fragments of stone breaking loose from the ceiling and crushing anyone unlucky enough to be beneath them.

The Elite struck again, a brutal blow that grazed Leo’s side, but he kicked out blindly, his heel slamming into the armored chestplate hard enough to force space between them.

He shoved himself backward, scrambling away, feet slipping against the vibrating grates. He forced himself onto unsteady feet, balance wavering dangerously as the world tilted beneath him.

The tunnel was coming apart. Stone cracking and metal warping.

The red light of the corrupted sigil flashed wildly, unstable and furious, while his blue Hearth sigil flickered like a stubborn flame refusing to die.

But it was dying. Leo could feel it, like poison in his veins. A small flame being slowly snuffed out by an even larger one, and there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t know what to do or how to possibly stop what he started.

Foot soldiers were scrambling in every direction, some screaming or crying out in pain, others falling silent while the Elites surged forward, closing in around him with terrifying coordination. Screaming words at him that he couldn’t hear over his own panic.

His breaths wheeze loudly in his ears, air tearing its way in and out of his lungs in rapid succession. He couldn’t think. Everything was too overwhelming, happening all at once—the noise, the light, the collapsing tunnel, the approaching Elites, the screaming, the dark pools of energy whipping through the chamber.

What did I do?

What did I do!?

Panic clawed at his chest. He staggered backward, his knee nearly giving out from under him, though he still couldn’t feel any pain, all senses numb from adrenaline. His vision swam as the energy clash intensified.

There were no words to describe the next moment that happened.

The sigils screamed.

Power erupted outwards violently, red overtaking blue in one horrible surge, and Leo felt the pain inside of him like a physical blow as Hearth was snuffed out.

Time slowed for Leo as white light detonated outward.

Heat roared like an inferno, swallowing sound and air alike as the blast expanded away from its center with unstoppable force.

Impulse took over.

Portals.

He needed to make two portals.

His hands moved before conscious thought caught up, blue rings snapping into existence with desperate precision. His own ninpo, ignoring his body’s exhaustion, scraping the bottom of that barrel.

One in front of him.

One in front of the girl.

The blast hit.

Energy slammed into them, bending and warping as space twisted under the strain. And, for a heartbeat, it worked. The portals catching the worst of it, redirecting part of the surge to another space, but the backlash still struck Leo like a hammer of fire.

Leo ignored the pain and flicked his gaze to the second portal he created, to the girl's unconscious form, and his eyes widened in horror as it flickered along the edges, stuttering once, then twice. And Leo could feel his energy draining, his control slipping through like fine sand between his fingers.

There was nothing he could do but watch as his portal flared once before shattering like glass and vanishing entirely. The oppressive light swallowing her.

“No—!”

It happened too fast to stop, too fast to process or fix. His own portal held for just a split-second longer than the other before it shattered too, the force tearing him free and hurling him backward through the air like a ragdoll. Leo screamed, the sound tearing from his raw throat, and he couldn’t tell if it was from the anguish he was feeling at his failure or from the fire of the sigil, the heat of the energy so hot it circled back to cold. His nerves screamed. The world spun.

His shell slammed against the wall with bone-jarring force, cracks spiderwebbing through his senses as pain finally broke through the adrenaline. His head struck stone, and light exploded behind his eyes. A fresh wave of pain rolled through his whole body, slicing down his shell like knives.

Everything went dark for a second.

Leo didn’t know how long he lay there, crumpled to the ground, unable to move, unable to breathe. Time had unraveled into something shapeless, seconds stretching into eternities, moments collapsing into nothing. He was only aware of the pain overwhelming him and the soundless roaring inside his skull.

Leo felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Black spots swarmed the edges of his vision, pulsing in rhythm with the pounding in his head. Every heartbeat felt too loud, too heavy, echoing through bone and shell like a hammer striking metal. His chest hitched uselessly, lungs stuttering as if they’d forgotten how to work. Pain surged through him in waves, as crushing as an ocean.

His knee screamed as he tried to move, familiar agony that tore a broken gasp from him. Fire shot up his leg, raw and electric, and he curled instinctively around it even though the movement made everything worse. He could feel burns stinging along his arms and legs, worse in places where the battered cloak didn’t cover. The skin felt tight and blistered, a cold, biting heat that reminded him too much of corrupted mystic energy.

His head throbbed viciously as his mind scrambled, fumbling for purchase, trying to figure out what just happened. Something warm trickled down the side of his face, and Leo squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the nausea threatening to drag him under again.

Breathe.

In.

Out.

In—

The world tilted as clarity crashed back into him.

The sigil. There was an explosion. His portals—

The girl.

Leo’s eyes snapped open, panic hitting him like a blade through his ribs.

He forced himself to move then. His body trembled violently as he pushed against the ground, muscles screaming in protest. The metal beneath him was warm and uneven, dust and debris coating his palms. He slipped once, vision blurring hard enough that he nearly collapsed again.

“No…no…”

His voice came out hoarse, barely more than air. He tried dragging his knees under him, but pain detonated in his right leg, hot and nauseating. A strangled sound escaped him, teeth grinding together as he forced himself upright anyway. He swayed, the tunnel spinning in slow, nauseating circles around him, and Leo was afraid he’d be sick.

During the time he was down, the violent shaking had stopped. Silence settled over the ruined space, heavy and unnatural. Both sigils lay dark beneath the rubble, their light extinguished, their power drained to nothing. The red lines were cracked and dead, and the faint blue remnants of his sigil had faded completely.

Leo didn’t see any of the Foot soldiers, any of the Elites. Just broken stone and dust hanging thick in the air. He was sure they were buried beneath the rubble, hidden behind it where he just couldn’t see them. But he didn’t care about them. He didn’t care if they were okay or hurt; his mind focused on only one thing.

Where was she?

His gaze darted wildly, panic clawing up his throat until his eyes caught on something that stood out against the rubble: a shape half buried beneath fallen debris.

The wave of panic surges once more, and this time he feels tears sting the edges of his eyes. “No—”

Leo stumbled forward; each step sent a strike of pain through his body. His knee barely held him, threatening to collapse with each shift of weight. The burns along his limbs pulled painfully as he reached out, pushing aside chunks of concrete and twisted metal. His hands shook so badly he could barely grip anything.

“Hey—hey—” His voice cracked, soft and desperate.

He cleared rubble frantically, uncaring about the sharp edges slicing into his palms.

Her body lay twisted beneath a slab of broken stone, skin marred with the same kind of burns he had. Thin, fractured lines from the corrupt sigil still traced across her like the cracks in the rock around them.

Leo’s breath stuttered in his chest as he shoved the last piece of debris aside and slid his arms beneath her shoulders, dragging her carefully onto flatter ground. His knee nearly buckled from the effort, pain flashing so vividly he saw stars.

He ignored it. His pain didn’t matter. His own injuries didn’t matter at the moment.

He pressed trembling fingers to her neck.

Nothing.

He quickly shifted to her wrist.

Nothing.

He blames it on his trembling appendages and presses his ear to her chest, but there was no beat. Her heart is silent, and her lungs are still.

“No…come on…” His voice rose, thin and frayed.

Panic clawed up his throat, choking him as he lowered her gently and started compressions, hands pressing against her chest, counting without thinking, his own breaths coming out sharp and uneven as he let muscle memory drive him.

He could fix this. He had to fix this.

“Come on…come on…”

He forced air into her lungs.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Nothing.

Her chest stayed still. Her body remained cold beneath his hands. Leo’s movements grew frantic, losing rhythm as desperation took over.

“No, no…please—” his voice broke.

He stopped, scared eyes staring down at her still form as he waited, hoping and listening. But her chest didn’t move, her lungs didn’t expand. And Leo’s mind scattered as he tried to come up with a reason why. Her neck wasn’t broken. There was no head wound. She wasn’t losing enough blood to go into hemorrhagic shock. Her ribs had felt intact. Was there internal damage that he couldn’t see? Was the energy depletion that great?

The realization hit slowly, and with it, Leo’s hands finally stilled. The world narrowed to a pinpoint. All sound vanished, and static filled his ears, loud enough to hurt. He stared at her slack face, at the burns and black lines, and suddenly it wasn’t her anymore.

It was Mikey. His small body broken and still.

It was Donnie, goggles cracked, unmoving.

It was Raph, his massive yet gentle frame collapsed and silent.

Splinter.

April.

Casey.

Cassandra.

Draxum.

All of them, his whole family, everyone he held dear, flashing before his eyes in brutal succession.

Dead.

Gone.

All because of him.

Leo squeezed his eyes shut hard, pain shooting through his skull.

“No.”

The word came out hollow.

The tunnel groaned around him, reality forcing itself back in. Rubble started to shift nearby, stone scraping against stone. Foot soldiers trying to dig their way out from the rubble.

Leo opened his eyes again, expression empty now. A heavy feeling of numbness settled over him like a weighted blanket, dulling the sharp edges of panic and grief.

He didn’t know where his katanas were, didn’t know where the Elite was who had them. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care much. The heavy numbness and static filled his limbs and washed over his senses. What did it matter if his swords were gone?

A tiny, unheard part of him whispered that he might be going into shock.

He swallowed hard.

Carefully, he slid his arms beneath the girl again.

She felt heavier now. Or maybe Leo was just weaker.

His knee screamed in protest as he lifted her, his head spun, and his body ached, but it was all easy to ignore, a small noise in the background.

He clenched his jaw, breath shallow. He didn’t think. Thinking hurt. Feeling hurt. He simply acted.

Blue light flickered weakly around his hand as he summoned another portal. It wavered violently, unstable and barely keeping shape.

He didn’t care where it went. Anywhere but here. Anywhere away from this.

The ring snapped open with a strained crackle of energy.

Leo staggered forward, nearly falling as numb legs crossed the threshold, clutching her tightly against his chest.

Behind him, the tunnel continued to collapse. Stone continued to shift, and dust still floated heavy and thick in the air.

The portal snapped shut, swallowing the destruction and leaving silence in its wake.

Two hours later

The stone was cold against Donnie's soft shell.

He could feel every uneven ridge as he leaned against the wall, knees pulled tight to his plastron, arms wrapped around them in a posture that looked almost defensive; if anyone bothered to look too closely.

He stared through the bars of the cell without really seeing them.

The air in the cell was damp and stale, humming faintly with mystic energy that prickled against his skin. Donnie’s wrists twitched unconsciously, the cuffs tight against his raw skin. Thick steel linked by short chains that didn’t allow for much movement. Intricate sigils were carved deep into the metal, glowing faintly, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Each pulse tugging at him, draining him.

Draining all of them.

Shen lounged across the room, leaning against the wall as if she owned the place.

Which, Donnie supposed bitterly, she did.

She had taken to visiting them nearly every day, sometimes more than once, never with a clear purpose beyond watching. Studying. Lingering like a predator that had already snapped its prey’s spine but wasn’t quite ready to eat it yet.

It made his skin crawl.

She leaned against the far wall now, one shoulder braced casually against the stone, arms loosely folded, fingers idly toying with the amulet around her neck. Her expression held the same faintly amused disinterest that made Donnie’s teeth grind together.

Like they were specimens already dissected, bodies sprawled against the operating table, dead and cold to the touch.

And he knew they were at her mercy. He understood that with clinical clarity. But knowing didn’t make the fury any easier to swallow. His gaze shifted to Mikey laying curled on the floor, still asleep and head pillowed against Raph’s thigh. Long cuts traced across his arms and plastron, shallow but numerous, angry red lines that stood out starkly against his green skin.

Donnie’s hands curled tighter around his knees, making the cuffs clink together. His anger spiking sharp and suddenly.

Mikey had been thrown back into their cell hours ago, literally thrown. Foot soldiers dragged him by the arms as he weakly struggled against them before tossing him inside like discarded scrap.

They had all panicked, despite being used to each other getting taken away and then dragged back in, bloody and exhausted. Raph had cushioned Mikey’s head before it could crack against the ground, and Splinter shot up faster than he’d seen him move in days.

Mikey was a blubbering mess, barely coherent and crying, words tumbling over each other as he spouted utter nonsense; something about Leo and a trap, about him reaching, and then he passed out in Raph’s arms.

Donnie’s jaw tightened at the memory.

Mikey wasn’t even supposed to be using his ninpo. He shouldn’t be able to use it. And that frustrated Donnie because he didn’t understand how he did it, how he did it when none of them could.

And maybe he was a little jealous about it.

But it was still stupid. A dumb-dumb move, and he kept doing it. Despite Donnie having told him over and over again, at first calmly, then desperately, that using his ninpo, especially with the mystic cuffs on, was draining him faster than his energy reserves were able to reproduce. It was dangerous.

Donnie has even gone as far as yelling at Mikey about it, shouting at him that it wasn’t even working. That Leo couldn’t feel him, couldn't hear him at all.

But Mikey was as stubborn as he was full of heart. Stupid and painfully so. And he kept trying anyway, despite his family’s pleads at him not to.

Donnie swallowed hard, forcing his breathing to slow.

Mikey was alive and fine. None of Shen’s little sessions with them ever left them heavily damaged. She needed them alive after all.

The thought didn’t comfort him nearly as much as it should have.

Raph and Splinter sat huddled together across from Donnie, speaking in low voices. Raph’s massive frame curved protectively inward, his head bent towards their father as they talked about something just to pass the time, while his thumb gently stroked the top of Mikey’s head.

They were all doing that lately, talking about anything and everything just to fill the silence.

Donnie dragged his gaze back towards Shen.

Hatred coiled tight in his chest. He had never hated anyone like this before. Not the Shredder. Not the Kraang, though that was a close second, because neither of them had kept them in a cell for months, draining their strength slowly and painfully, borderline torturing them nearly every day while she sent ninja out to hunt down their lone brother.

And Donnie could do nothing but sit here, trapped and utterly useless. While Leo probably ran himself ragged across New York searching for them, fighting the Foot Clan alone.

His hands trembled.

He clenched them into fists.

He thought about April, Casey, and the others. Worry gnawed at him constantly for them, but Shen never spoke about them, never brought them up, so Donnie thinks he was safe in assuming that she didn’t care about them.

No. That attention was focused solely on them. On Leonardo.

She brought his blue-clad brother up often, irritation clear when she would go another day without him in her grasp, though she tried to hide the tension.

Donnie smirked behind the cover of his arms. Nardo had always been good about giving people the slip, for better or worse.

A sudden crash shattered the silence as two Elite Foot soldiers slammed the heavy prison doors open, making him and the rest of his family jump, and Mikey snapped from his slumber.

The two Elites looked wrecked. Their armor was cracked and scorched in several places, kasa hats were burnt to a near crisp. Dust coated them, clinging to their cloaks like ash. Their gates were uneven, limping as if they were injured.

Looks like they were buried alive. Donnie thought as his smirk grew wider.

Shen straightened immediately. “What happened?” she demanded as she glanced between the two sharply. “Where is Leonardo?”

The Elites both dropped to one knee, heads bowed in submission as they withered under Shen’s icy stare.

“The plan…failed.”

Silence fell heavily.

Donnie felt his heart slam against his ribs, hope flaring.

Failed?

The Elite continued quickly, voice a tight rasp. “Leonardo resisted. We believe he attempted to interfere with the sigil, like he has done with many others before, by placing another structure onto it. The energies reacted violently…and the tunnels collapsed.

Donnie's stomach both dropped and soared at the statement as he leaned forward, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see his family doing the same.

“He escaped before we could secure him,” the Elite finished. “Several were killed in the collapse, but many others were merely injured.”

Shen’s expression darkened slowly, shadows beginning to leak from her like smoke, creeping across the floor to the kneeling soldiers. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

“But,” the Elite added quickly as the other shifted, “he was injured before the blast, and…”

Donnie's breath caught, stuttering in his chest, as the Elite lifted something towards Shen.

Two sheathed katanas.

Two familiar sheathed katanas.

“He is now weaponless,” the Elite said.

Shen’s hand reached forward, snatching the swords from his hands as she studied them, drawing one and letting her eyes flick over beautiful metal, before she hurled them aside with a violent motion. They struck the stone floor with a sharp metallic clang that echoed through the chamber. Donnie glared at her, and he heard Raph stifle a shout at the rough treatment of their brothers’ beloved weapons.

“Useless,” Shen hissed as she loomed over the two Foot Elites, her dangerous aura spilling out and flooding the room. Her shadows lashed outward, curling towards the Elites like striking serpents. Both soldiers stiffened, fear evident even behind their masks, though they didn’t move an inch.

“Send every unit,” she snapped. “Every soldier. Forget the weapons. Forget the sigils. Forget the pathetic people of this city.” Her eyes burned. “From now on, your sole purpose is to bring me Hamato Leonardo.” She pointed to Leo’s katanas, “and destroy these weapons, they are of no use to me.”

Fear twisted cold in Donnie's chest, all four of them tensing at the sheer fury directed at their brother.

The Elites bowed deeply, one going to grab the swords, before scrambling from the chamber.

Silence returned to the chamber, heavy and thick.

Donnie stared at Shen’s back, and despite the cold knot of fear twisting through him, a smirk crept onto his face.

“Well,” he said lightly, voice edged sharp as glass, “that went…poorly for you.”

Raph shot him a warning look, but Donnie ignored it.

Shen went still at his words, freezing in place with fists clenched at her side, before slowly turning towards him.

Her shadows struck without warning. They branched from the darkness of their cell, wrapping around his torso like iron bands, yanking him forward. Donnie shouted as his body slammed against the bars, metal biting into his plastron as the force pinned him there.

“Donnie!” Raph roared.

Shen crouched in front of him, bringing her face level with his.

Her gold eyes burned.

“You mistake resilience for victory,” she murmured dangerously. “Be careful, Donatello.”

Donnie barred his teeth.

“You’ll never be untouchable,” he snarled. “No matter what you take, you’ll never stop fearing us.”

Donnie could practically feel his family tense behind him, shocked by his bold words. And he could hear Raph struggling against his chains, trying to get to him. But he wasn’t focused on them.

Shen was silent as she stared at him, jaw clenched.

Her eye twitched.

A slow, dangerous smile spread across her face as she leaned closer, face mere inches away from Donnie's own, and he instinctively tried to pull back, but the shadows held him fast.

“You’re a smart young man, Donatello,” she said softly. “So tell me…do you truly see fear in my face right now?”

He met her gaze without flinching.

“Yes.”

The word left him steady and certain.

Her smile vanished.

“Fools,” she spat as she stood. “I assure you, Donatello. I do not fear the Hamato Clan. I take your power because it will be my gain, nothing more.”

Her hand lifted absently to the golden amulet at her throat, fingers tightening briefly around it. Then she turned away.

“Soon,” she said coldly, her back to them, “Leonardo will be mine. And the Hamato Clan will be reunited.”

She turned her head back to glare over the family in the cell, gaze flickering between them, and smiled.

“Are you not excited?” she asked lightly. “After so long?”

Donnie glared at her, fiercer than ever.

Then she turned back towards the entrance, large doors slamming shut behind her as she left.

The shadows vanished around Donnie, dropping him hard towards the floor, breath punched from his lungs, though he still scrambled back away from the bars, chest heaving.

“Donnie!” Raph reached him first, pulling him into a tight, crushing embrace; one that he accepted readily, tucking his face in the gap in his brother's neck. Mikey was there a second later, tucking himself under Raph’s other arm and leaning into Donnie. Splinter followed, pulling hard against the chains as he placed a steady hand on Donnie's head.

None of them moved for a while after that. All of them huddled in an uncomfortable pile, their chains pulling and clanking awkwardly around them. Donnie’s heart was still pounding violently in his chest, despite being wrapped in the arms of his family.

This was all such a mess, one that he had no clue how to fix.