Chapter Text
Donnie and Mikey were falling.
Donnie and Mikey were falling.
Donnie and Mikey were falling.
Leo froze for the briefest moment, knowing in a moment that they were losing their last hope. Casey was running for the key, Pops and April were god knows where, Raph had been through hell and back, barely functioning even with the adrenaline Leo knew was practically oozing out of him, and Mikey and Donnie were falling.
Too fast for him to catch them with a portal, too fast for Leo to grab them.
Another mistake in his never-ending day of mistakes.
Another mistake for his brothers to suffer from, and he to watch uselessly.
“Raph, go!” Leo cried, turning to his exhausted brother with stinging eyes.
Raph nodded, stumbling to his feet and launching forward into Leo’s waiting portal. “On it!” Leo couldn’t watch what happened from there, too focused on the matter at hand.
He was alone. They’d lost.
He couldn’t reach his brothers; a blessing and a curse, each selfish in their own right. On the one hand, his brothers were safe from the finality of Leo’s failure, no one to see the end of this fight. No one to see if Leo fell or fled or cried. No one to be hurt any more in this fight.
Because it had to end. Today.
On the other hand, Leo was alone in this. No one to stop him, no one to help, no one to know that he was still fighting to win.
And they wouldn’t know any of it. Not the ache in his very bones at the thought of having to keep away while his family waited with bated breath, nor the fear making his arms shake when he jammed his sword into the suspended rubble at the mouth of the gateway.
What they also wouldn’t know was that there was a plan. The moment Raph leapt after their brothers, an idea brimmed in Leo’s mind. The gateway wouldn’t close fast enough to contain the Kraang if Leo somehow managed to beat them back into it (a hilarious idea, truly: he and his brothers with all their mystic powers combined couldn’t even hit the alien. Leo on his own? He’d be lucky if he even got a swing in), and Leo didn’t have the focus to try and trick the Kraang or outsmart him.
All he had was two swords, no allies, and one singular goal. There was no leaving this fight if he didn’t accomplish it, and he would take no chances, no shortcuts, no easy solutions. Either he closed that portal and returned to his brothers, or he didn’t return at all.
There, ahead of him, framed by a burning, sparking ring of horror and desolation, stood the Kraang Brother. Leo heaved himself to stand, stumbling an instant later with a yelp.
C’mon, ‘Nardo.
Either you close that portal and go home, or you don’t go home at all.
C’mon.
Close that portal.
He wouldn’t be able to do anything until he knew what his time frame was.
“Casey. Casey, come in!”
“Sensei, I’m here!” Casey answered. “And I’ve got eyes on the key! Tell me when you’re home free, and I’ll pull the plug.”
Oh, so, no time needed, and the proverbial door was open for anything Leo wished. Leo’s family was safe, on the surface, the end was in sight. The other Kraang leaders had fallen silent, Casey was in position, the portal was right there. Everything was in order.
Except for him. Leo wasn’t in order. Because once again, Leo didn’t stand a chance against a Kraang Brother alone and already flagging.
But this wasn’t about Leo. And Leo finally thought that he was beginning to understand how far that understanding could take him. It was going to be the end of this horrible, terrible, no good, very rotten day.
Because what he did in the next moments, whatever way his quickly forming plan went, it wouldn’t be about what Leo did. It would be about what the Kraang couldn’t.
Close the portal. Stop the Kraang. This isn’t about you.
Okay.
Leo set his face, bracing for the shitstorm he knew he was about to release upon himself and quickly shoved all thoughts of what would come next far away from his focus. Instead of thinking about that, he turned his gaze up to his enemy, advancing slowly. A metal tail whipped through the air with menacing deliberation as metal feet pounded against the concrete held at the mouth of the portal.
All jokes aside, this Brother was ugly.
U-G-L-Y ugly. And massive. And nothing I’m ever going to be able to take down.
And here, Leo knew what was going to have to happen, finally figuring out the final piece to his solution. It would work. It had to.
But in the same breath, Leo realized he had a choice: he was far enough away from the still approaching Kraang that he could explain his plan and remain unheard. He could prepare Casey, selfishly put that burden upon the boy who’d never once wavered in his faith in the Master Leonardo Leo so desperately wished he could compare to. Intentionally hurt his family, just so they’d know and be forced to stand helpless, knowing what was going down. Or worse yet, give them an opportunity or motive to try and reach Leo before he could make sure that his mistake couldn’t hurt them or anyone else anymore.
Or, he could save them a little agony. Tell them only when he absolutely had to. What had to happen next wasn’t about him. It was about them. It was about making sure no more bad could happen anymore. Leo wasn’t going to lie: he’d rather it be him than any of the others, and though he knew they’d hate it, he also knew that this was in fact the best choice. This was Leo’s chance at redemption, chance at doing something that only he could.
But it wasn’t about him. So they didn’t need to know. It couldn’t be about him if he never gave them cause to look up. And they could hate him and they could be angry, but they could do it alive and well because Leo was making them the priority for once.
So instead, Leo forced himself to chuckle casually. “Alright, Case,” he said, “be ready. We’re going to wrap this one up quick.”
“Yes, Sensei!”
“Leo,” Raph called, sounding unsure, “be careful!”
“Don’t worry, Big Bro! You taught me well; I got this.” Cocky, confidant, complimentary, every Leo needed to be if he was going to pull this off. And he’d manifest it until the last possible second if he had to.
At long last, the Kraang Brother finally came to a stop, laughing. “Outmatched and alone, yet you persist. For what? Honor, redemption,” he mocked, taking a moment before continuing, “sacrifice? All meaningless.”
“We’ll see about that,” Leo decided, tightening his hands on his odachi and moving. He was lucky enough to be in-tune enough with his mystic powers that the flurry of portals and complicated dodges were something of second nature at this point. And god he’d missed his mystic powers. Fighting without them just felt… wrong. Plenty efficient, sure, but without the energetic passion that coursed through his veins with each bright, swirling gateway that he summoned.
Adrenaline pounded in Leo’s blood as he slid beneath an attack, darting into a portal and flying out another preceded by a deadly blade spiraling faster than the average eye could track. The blade flew through the air, missing the Kraang and disappearing in the depths of the prison dimension just meters away.
Leo paid it no mind. Not just because he was in The Zone; rather, more importantly, he immediately found himself snatched out of the air by a massive metal claw and held in a crushing grip.
That ended up taking priority in Leo’s mind for the time being.
The Kraang Brother took a step forward for power, and transferred that energy into the motion of his arm’s arc as he threw Leon to the ground, ignoring the crater Leo created and bounced out of in favor of stomping the turtle down into one of his own doing. Shrapnel and shards of stone flew out of sight, and Leo choked on his breath as agony became his entire worldview.
This isn’t about you.
“C’mon,” Leo wheezed, grasping his remaining blade in his hand.
“Leo!?” Raph cried. “What’s happening up there? Donnie, what can we do--”
“Hey, hey,” Leo interrupted, trying his best to keep his voice even given the circumstances. “No one is coming up here. Let me do this Raph, please.”
“But what are you doing?” April pressed.
This isn’t about you.
Luckily, the Kraang Brother seemed to have enough of Leo’s attempts at avoiding telling his family what was actually going down. Unluckily, he showed this in tightening the claws holding Leo fast and pressing.
Harder, harder, harder--
Help.
“Weak words,” the Kraang Brother spat, “weak actions. I have forever known what you fail to understand; strength always prevails!”
Leo gasped and groaned through the blinding pain, doing his best to fight through the agonizing fog beginning to cloud his judgment. Maybe this wasn’t his best idea. Maybe he should tell them what’s about to happen.
Maybe the truly selfish move is not facing the consequences his actions will have on them.
Maybe Leo doesn’t know how to do what Raph wanted him to learn. Maybe Leo’s not the hero he hoped he was.
It’s too late for that, because the Kraang Brother mistakenly gave him the perfect line to reveal his daring plan.
Leo grit his teeth, driving the blade in his hand through the densest section of the Kraang’s clawed foot. “What you fail to understand is I missed on purpose.”
And then it’s go time. Leo feels his blood raging and roaring as the odachi lights up in brilliant blue, searching for her sister blade. Deep in the portal bearing down upon Leo, he felt the answer thrumming in his veins and he gathered every ounce of pain, anger, grief and every other negative emotion pounding intensely in his mind and poured it into dragging the Kraang Brother with him to meet her in the Prison Dimension.
Too quick for Leo to process, the Kraang Brother snaps, snarling “No; enough of your little tricks.” He smacks the weapons from Leo’s hands and wraps the turtle in the bruising grip of his own, crushing him as the two hurtle through endless void and rubble.
None of this matters at the moment though because Leo got the Kraang in the portal. It’s time.
It’s time.
This part isn’t going to be very good.
“Casey,” Leo gasps, “I’m clear! Close the portal now!”
“You are?” Casey asks, confused. “Where are you?!”
Damn that brilliant, observant future boy.
“What?!” the Kraang Brother shouts, enraged.
“I’m clear! I’m heading to the surface now!” Leo dives forward as the Kraang Brother attempts to escape back to the portal entrance, pulling and grabbing at anything he can reach in an attempt to hold the monster back.
At this point he’s just hoping the others can’t hear the Kraang Brother howling and yelling.
“You can’t be up there when the portal closes- the force of the explosion caused could kill you!” Donnie protests, sounding somewhat dazed, likely from his fall earlier.
This isn’t about me, Donnie.
“I’m safe!” Leo gasps, “I’m safe! Casey--” the Kraang Brother slams his fist into Leo’s skull, furiously trying to dislodge the slider but only succeeding in making Leo’s vision fuzzy and unreliable-- “please!”
“Okay! I’ve got it! ” Bless that wonderful, wonderful Casey. The portal begins to fizzle and crackle, and the Kraang Brother and Leo watch as the portal begins rapidly closing around the obstructing ship and platforms.
“Wait, Case--” Raph begins to protest, April saying “Leo, what’s--” in tandem.
Leo cuts them both off. “I love you all,” he says, eyes filling as he realizes what he just did. “And I’m so sorry.”
“What-- Sensei--?!”
"MY SON--"
“Leo?! LEO--” the connection to the comms cuts out in time with the explosion that rages through the Prison Dimension, sending Leo careening back through rubble and rock. Leo can see the Kraang Brother soaring after him, rage clear in his ugly, pink face that there was hell to pay for his actions.
All Leo could think about, though, is that he forgot to tell Casey that he was proud of him.