Chapter Text
The air in the city was quiet, with only enough wind to shift the leaves on the taller trees. There was little traffic, each car smoothly reaching their destination without delay. With a practically non-existent temperature, and just enough noise to be heard, but not bother, New York was unremarkable that night.
Well, unless you count the inherent conspicuous nature of the four mutant turtles on the roof of an apartment complex.
“Still no unusual activity detected, and since it’s nearly one in the morning I imagine there won’t be anything noteworthy tonight.” Donnie checked the radars for what felt like the hundredth time that night.
“Really, again? This is like, the fifth boring patrol in a row.” Leo groaned as the other two sat on the edge of the building, dangling their legs over the side.
“Shouldn’t that be a good thing? I mean there’s no crime, no weird mystics, no foot clan, nothing to worry about.” Raph listed off on his fingers.
“I mean, yeah, but can’t there be, I dunno, a thief or something? Maybe those two ‘magic partners’ getting up to shenanigans.” Leo put air-quotes for emphasis.
“You know, you can quell your boredom with other activities, ‘Nardo. I, for one, would love to get back to my lab to finish working on my-”
“Yeah, no, listening to your monologue is somehow more boring than wandering aimlessly.” Donnie scoffed at his twin, who was taking his katanas out of their sheaths. “Although you have a point with the whole ‘other activities’ thing.”
“What are you implying?”
“Well, my dear brothers, I say we take a small vacation and test just how far my portals can take us.” Leo smirked, spinning his katanas in his hands.
“Ooh, can we go to Hawaii, or Japan! Or maybe Spain?” Mikey rapidly suggested.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Raph inquired, tapping his fingers on the wall.
“When have my portals ever let you down, Raphie?”
“Do you want the list chronologically or in order of severity?” Donnie looked up from his phone and raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t asking you Donnie.” He pointed one of his katanas vaguely in his twin’s direction, then rested it on his shoulders. “Anywho, I’m a fan of Mikey’s first suggestion. To Hawaii!”
Leo grabbed his twin by the arm and created a portal, pulling the two of them down, their brothers following shortly afterwards.
Through the other side of the portal, Donnie fell on top of Leo, knocking them both to the ground. The cold, rough concrete that made up the surface didn’t make for a very comfortable landing for either of them.
“I don’t think this is Hawaii, Leon.” Donnie looked up to see they were still in New York, although it seemed somehow duller than before. “In fact, it looks like your portal took us approximately ten blocks north of our initial location.”
Leo looked up to see what his twin brother was talking about, and noticed the same thing Donnie had. The city seemed duller, almost muted, compared to what he was used to. He hoped his science-enthusiast brother had some sort of explanation for it. He turned around to see if Raph and Mikey had noticed the same thing, just to be greeted with an empty street.
“Uh, Dee, where are Mikey and Raph?”
“Shouldn’t they be right behind-” Donnie turned around “oh. Great, not only did your portal not take us to the correct location, it has also separated us.”
“Well I’m sorry Mr. Perfect, why don’t you make a portal next time.” Leo pointed at him before picking up his katanas and attempting to reopen a new portal. The swords glowed briefly, sparking with a small amount of mystic energy, and then faded. He tried a couple more times, ultimately leading to the same result. “Shit… Donnie can you check the mystic stuff around with your goggles.”
“Uh… sure?” Donnie, who had been typing on his gauntlet about to open his trackers, turned his focus to Leo. He pulled down his goggles and attempted scanning for mystic energy, only to receive an error. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“My scanners are sending me an error. There’s something interfering with our mystic technology here… which is strange because we are in New York, and they were working perfectly fine before. Have you tried portalling?” He looked down to Leo’s hands to see his swords, and then back up to his face.
“Yeah, just started sparking and then faded. That’s why I asked you to check.” Leo explained as Donnie reopened his tracker to try finding their brothers. The tracker seemed to be bugging out though, showing the purple and blue blinking trackers but no map or red and orange.
Donnie started troubleshooting, but made little progress as they heard footsteps and whispering behind them. The twins shared a look before turning around to check for danger. The empty street glowed with the light of the streetlamps, but there was nothing else to be seen. They heard more whispering though, and realised it was coming from one of the alleys nearby. Wordlessly, the two decided to follow the sound of the voices, careful not to be seen.
They climbed up onto the roof of one of the buildings and listened again for the whispering, making their way towards it. Donnie attempted to peek over the side of the building, but it was too dark to make out anything other than four figures standing in the alley.
“-only two of them. Shouldn’t there be four, y’know, like us?”
“You sure you looked?”
“Maybe they got separated?”
“Yes, I definitely looked, Raphael. Why don’t you check for yourself?”
“Don’t scare them off, I want to ask about his tech. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Yeah! I totally need to leave a good first impression.”
Leo was crouching next to Donnie now, listening to their conversation. After eavesdropping for a decent part of it, the two backed up and sat on the roof.
“You heard that too, right?”
“Yes, Leo. If I’m understanding correctly, you have somehow managed to portal us into an alternate universe, with alternate versions of ourselves who are aware of our existence, and have no way of getting us back home.” Donnie stated while inputting all the details and readings he could gather into his gauntlet.
“Okay, ignoring the ‘no way home’ part, isn’t this so cool? We get to meet another version of ourselves. That’s sick.”
“I feel like the ‘no way home’ part is the last thing we should be ignoring, but okay.” Donnie stood back up, rolling his eyes at his brother.
“Awe c’mon Dee loosen up. I’m sure with two of your nerd brains you’ll figure out a way back in no time.” Leo stood, walking over to the side of the building and climbing down. Donnie followed him down cautiously, staying a couple steps behind with his tech-bo on standby.
“Well hello fellow mutant ninja turtles.” Leo did a half-bow and smiled at the group. “I see we have… accidentally gotten ourselves stuck in your universe. Somehow.”
“Yeah, obviously.” One of the others, who Leo assumed was their Raphael, rolled his eyes at him. “What do you want us to do about it?”
“Uh… I was kinda hoping you could maybe help us figure out how to, y’know, leave?” He pointed vaguely with his thumb while Donnie walked up beside him.
“I’m sure we can help you figure it out. This isn’t our first rodeo.” Their Leonardo walked forward and spoke. “For now, you can stay with us. I’m assuming you’re Leonardo and Donatello?”
“You know it baby!” Leo smiled and winked, and Donnie nodded silently.
“Where are the other two?” Michelangelo asked.
“Unfortunately we seem to have gotten separated from them after someone messed up on his portal locations.” Donnie glared briefly at Leo.
“Hey! How was I supposed to know I could portal us to another dimension?! I was just trying to test if I could get us to Hawaii and back. If I’d known I could do that a year ago I wouldn’t have been in a coma for two weeks!” Leo retorted while the other four watched in surprise.
“Sorry, you can use portals just for fun? How? I mean I saw your technology seemed advanced but that’s a whole other level!” Donatello walked over, looking over Donnie’s tech in astonishment.
“Yeah Dee’s tech is cool or whatever but that’s nerd stuff. My portals are their own thing. We’ve got cool mystics abilities that let us use our weapons to focus it. I make portals and teleport, Raph can make a mystic ‘exoskeleton’ thing and clones of himself, Mikey can extend his nunchuks and he threw a train once, and Donnie can recreate mystic versions of his tech.” Leo gestured to emphasise his explanation.
“Mystic abilities which do not seem to work in your universe, might I add.”
“Woah, that’s so cool. I wish we could have cool magic powers.” Mikey was enthralled by the concept.
Leonardo and Raph shared a confused look over Leo’s animated personality, and Leonardo gestured for everyone to follow him back. The walk was reasonably short, but it left enough time for Leo and Mikey to start bonding, and for Donatello to ask Donnie every question he could think of about his tech.
They entered the lair, and Leo and Donnie looked at each other, silently communicating their thoughts on the place. It was too clean, it seemed like it hadn’t really been lived in. Everything was nicely placed where it should be, there was hardly any art or graffiti, and everything seemed too dark. They sat down on the couch with the rest of them, adjusting to their new surroundings.
“So… First thing, do you guys have something else we could refer to you as? Having two Leo’s and two Donnie’s will probably get confusing.” Leonardo asked the twins.
“You can call me Neon Leon.” Leo pointed at himself smirking, earning him a smack from Donnie, and he put his hands up defensively. “My bad, my bad. Leon is good though, shouldn’t be too hard to remember.”
“I suppose Dee is fine. That’s what Leon calls me half the time anyways.” Dee shrugged, bringing his legs up to sit criss-cross on the couch.
“Yeah, when I’m not calling you ‘nerd’ or ‘loser’.” Leon poked fun at his twin, who rolled his eyes in response.
“Leon and Dee. That’s fine. Now, since it’s late and I don’t need Donnie trying to pull another all-nighter, why don’t we get basic questions out of the way and whatnot.”
“Sounds good to me.” Mikey smiled “What’s your family like? Leon is soooo different from Leo, are the others just as different?”
“Raphael is definitely much taller in our universe, but-” Dee was abruptly cut off by Raph.
“What’s that supposed to mean!?”
“It means you are literally shorter in stature than our Raph. He is over 6 feet tall. You are shorter than both myself and Leon, and the shorter of us is 5 ‘6.”
Leo managed to get Raph to chill out after that, and the twins continued to explain their family dynamics.
“Mikey’s about the same to be honest, you guys would definitely get along.” Leon smiled, leaning back on the couch. He was starting to miss Mikey and Raph, and was wondering where they’d ended up. Hopefully not in another universe like them. “You can see for yourself how myself and Dee compare. Uh, what else? How old are you guys?”
“We’re 17 years old.” Leo responded.
“Like… all of you? You’re quadruplets or something?”
“Yeah pretty much. I’m technically the oldest, followed by Raph, Donnie and then Mikey’s the youngest. But really, we’re basically the same age.”
“Huh, weird…” Leon was met with confused looks from the rest of them, and Dee quickly spoke up to explain.
“We’re not quadruplets, and Leon is not the oldest. I think we’d all be dead if he was. Raph is 18, Leon and I are 17, and Mikey’s 16.”
The four of them seemed shocked by this information, but Donnie had another question about it.
“But you and Leon are twins?” He pointed between the two of them.
“Yes!” “No.” They responded at the same time, glaring at each other briefly over their constant disagreement.
“We’re not twins. It’s biologically impossible, since we’re completely different species of turtle.” Dee explained, much to Leon’s dismay. The two had been arguing about their status as twins since they were old enough to understand it.
“Oh, c’mon Dee, we’re basically twins. We shared a bedroom until we were twelve and literally share a birthday.”
“Wait… different species?” Leo questioned.
“Oh yeah, we’re all different. Raph’s an alligator snapping turtle, I’m a red-eared slider, Dee’s a spi-” Leon stopped mid-sentence when Dee started glaring at him. He’d forgotten that he hates when strangers, which despite being alternate versions of themselves, these people were strangers, knew about his shell. Leon sneezed to cover it up and then continued, “sorry, and Mikey’s an ornate box turtle.”
“Wouldn’t that not make you siblings then?” Raph asked a little harshly.
“We are still biologically related, since we were all mutated via the same human DNA, which would technically make us half-siblings.”
“From DNA tests I suspect we’re diamondback terrapins with some amount of box turtle and slider DNA mixed in, plus the obvious human part. But we’re all full siblings.” Donnie explained in return. “That would make us most closely related to Leon and maybe Mikey? Although I didn’t catch what species he said you were, Dee.”
“How unfortunate. Anyways, I think it’s time for Leon and I to go to bed, since it’s been a very long and stressful day.” Dee stood up abruptly, grabbing Leon by the arm. Leo stood up to show the two of them to the guest room, however Dee caught the suspicious stares he was receiving from Donnie and Raph.
The twins got settled in their new room, and Leo left shortly after making sure they both had everything they needed.
“You gonna take that off, Don-tron?” Leon noticed he was lying in the bed with his battle-shell still on, despite stripping the rest of his tech. After the shredder and Kraang, Dee had gone a couple weeks without taking it off and it destroyed his back and shoulders, and Leon didn’t particularly want to deal with that again. “You know it’s not good for you to wear it for more than like 10 hours at a time.”
Leon received a pointed glare in response and decided this was not the hill he wanted to die on. Plus, he kind of understood why he wouldn’t feel comfortable taking it off. It was the same reason he was keeping his katanas right next to his bed.