#Leo’s ninja rap | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sardonic-the-writer · 11 months

Text

𝐒𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞

↳ summary: donatello messes with something he shouldn't have, and now you have to deal with five of him. or; a reader insert of an original plot of mine

↳ warnings: fighting & canon type violence

↳ notes: happy halloween! as a treat have the third installment of this series. this takes place after of rats & men, and picks up before the invasion part one. the usual reminders that the reader is autistic, bad with feelings, and that this is a donnie + reader centered series

↳ taglist: @purplehyacinthx

↳ song: ninja rap—vanilla ice

part one | last part | masterlist | commisions | carrd

Donatello was stumped.

For the past few days, he had been locked in his lab. The heavy metal doors that separated him from the rest of his family only ever opened for food and water to pass through its confinements, swinging shut as soon as the transaction had been completed.

The turtle had been tinkering nonstop with some new Kraang technology. After the most recent bust of one of their warehouses sprinkled across New York, Mikey had spotted an odd glowing staff amongst a pile of junk. It had been labeled in a language Donnie couldn’t decipher, and he snatched it up for later, scolding his brother for playing lightsabers with it. Leo and Raph had waved it off without so much as a second glance, claiming that there were much more important things to do than look at a glorified scrap of metal.

That glorified scrap of metal, so to speak, is what he had been messing with for nearly four days. The detailed engravings on it were starting to blur under his gaze now, and the shine of metal from his room’s dull light left imprints on the inside of his eyelids.

“If I just apply the correct amount of pressure—" He mumbled quietly, rubbing at his eyes slowly. Dark purple bags hung underneath them, and if Raph were there, Donnie was sure he would have made a snappy comment about his appearance.

Without warning, a loud crash from the room over shook his lab. Donnie yelped at the unwelcome surprise and was sent bumping into his work table. Glass tubes clinked against each other noisily while he attempted to balance himself on one foot. From its place on the left of his desk, the staff clumsily teetered off the edge in a crude game of see-saw. With one more sigh from Donatello as the shaking stopped, it tipped, falling to the ground with a clatter.

It was scooped up in one quick motion and placed back on the desks surface, now glowing a faint purple as Donatello handled it. He barely spared it a moment's notice before rushing off in the direction of his doors.

“Mikey!” He yelled angrily through the crack he had made. “Would you keep it down?! You almost broke my experiment!”

“How do you know it was me, dude?” A whiney voice answered back.

“Because you’re the only one stupid enough to make that noise!"

Some more words were tossed back and forth between the two before Donatello ended the conversation by slamming the door on his brother. From behind it, he missed the way Mikey blew a fierce raspberry at him as he went back to his own activities.

Grumbling to himself, the teenager stalked back over to his desk. With a huff he flopped in the one good rolly chair he had left and sat lamely as it squeaked around in a circle. Taking a moment to massage at his temples, he only noticed the empty space on his table after he took out his microscope in preparation for another round of tests.

“Hey. Where did the staff go?”

None of the other brothers noticed the purplish-pink ray of light that shone through the crack of his lab door.

The sewers always stunk when you first climbed down into them. You didn't think that would ever change.

Pinching your nose as you oh so carefully descended into water reeking of filth, you looked down at your cracked phone screen one last time. A very poorly spelled text stared back, the words Michelangelo hovering above its contents. With one more furrow of your brows, you attempted to read it, coming up with nothing for the umpteenth time. All you knew was that it sounded urgent, and had a million exclamation points tacked onto the end. Which, knowing Mikey, could either mean that his favorite show had just been canceled or the world was about to end. You really hoped it was the first this time.

You had been walking downtown when the message came through. The trip was an aimless journey, really. You had nothing to do besides sit up in your room all day and look at the graying clouds. April and Casey were off doing their own things, hockey practice and calculus tutoring taking up time that could have otherwise been spent goofing off with you. Or at least snagging some pizza at Antonio’s.

With the promise of a day full of nothing hanging over your shoulders, you'd grabbed a jacket and set off into New York, sincerely hoping that it didn't start to rain anytime soon. Your umbrella had broken last month after someone ran over it with their bike, and you were still angry about it. The print on it had been green and plastered with the cartoony image of snapping turtles. It was part of the reason you had begged to get it as a child. A bit ironic, now that you look back on it.

Your footsteps slowed as you reached the entrance to a hallway that you were slowly getting more and more familiar with. Light breached your vision as you pried at a large metal door in the shape of a circle. A proud smile spread across your face as you stepped back enough to let it fully give way. The first time you’d tried that on your own, you’d ended up flat on your backside as Casey laughed nonstop from his place over you.

Climbing into the lairs entrance was the easy part. Making it a step further was the problem.

“Good! You’re here!” You just barely managed to catch a glimpse of a frantic green figure running around, chasing after someone that would occasionally let out a happy giggle.

“Raph?” You questioned the one out of the two you could recognize. Your brain felt as if it was running at half the speed it normally did. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

Raphael grunted as he went to answer your question, but foregoed the notion to tackle the figure he had been chasing to the ground. A loud oomph left his lips, and you wondered why he hadn’t just used his sais to corner them.

“No time to explain.” He snapped with a huff. “Just help me find the other Donnies.”

“Other Donnies?”

You blinked, watching closer this time as he struggled to keep a hold on the happily squirming figure underneath him. Once you got past the initial shock of having Raph body slam someone to the ground two seconds after you showed up, you got a better look at the person he had pinned. Sure enough, it was Donatello. But at the same time, much much different.

Instead of a purple bandana, a yellow one sat wrapped around his eyes, right above the happiest smile you’d ever seen come from someone. You noticed he also seemed to be devoid of his usual bo staff; something he almost never left without.

He had a faint spray of freckles underneath his eyes, and it reminded you of his younger brother. His normally pristine elbow pads were smudged with soot and water. You recalled a time he had gotten upset with Leo for messing with his leather accessories.

Your eyes continued to sweep over this new addition to the Hamato family. It was like someone had taken your friend and molded him into someone completely new.

“Tag! You’re it!” This new version of Donnie happily laughed, coming up and hitting Raph between the head with a soft boop. His brother's eyes crossed for a moment before growing and looking at you.

“Get the idea now, genius?” He glowered.

“Am I supposed to believe that he—" You limply gestured at the yellow Donnie “—is your brother?”

“No! That’s the whole point! I don’t know what Donnie did with that Kraang thing, but now we’ve got five of him running around and, they’re all crazy!”

When he mentioned the Kraang, you winced. You’d run into them and their oddly humanoid bots a few times before, and were not eager to repeat the process. Last time, it had ended up with a batch of glowing green liquid just barely missing your face.

“So there’s four more of them?” You asked. By now you were approaching Raph, who was tying up the giggling Donatello with rope he pulled from who knows where.

“Yeah.” He tied off the end of a knot gruffly. “Mikey and Leo are handling some of the others right now, but there’s not enough of us.”

“So you called me.” The tone of your voice was very unimpressed as you stared down at him. He returned the look mockingly.

“Yeah, idiot. It’s not like we know anyone else that can help with this.” He stated like it was a fact.

“Uhm, hello? April? Casey? Your dad of all people?”

“Splinter is in a deep meditation session today. And I don't think April or Casey would want to help with this too much.” Raphael brushed off the edges of his shell as he stood. You wanted to tell him that it didn’t do too much, considering the giant crack zigzagging down the front of his plastron, but thought better of it.

“How do you figure?” Was what you settled on.

“Have you seen the way Donnie looks at April?” Raph squinted at you knowingly. “He’s practically a lovesick puppy when it comes to her. We don’t need that right now. It’ll probably end with a turf war between the five of them over her.” A pause. “And Casey would just end up messing things up more than helping.” He added the last part as an afterthought, and you shrugged as if to say ‘fair enough’.

“April? Oh, I love April!” The Donatello lookalike on the ground gasped. Both you and Raph glanced down at him. Besides a few bubbly giggles, he had been so quiet the past few minutes that you’d almost forgotten he was there.

“We know wise guy.” Raphael pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Or, at least what you thought was the bridge of his nose. You really couldn’t tell with them.

“Yeah!” Yellow Donnie beamed. “She’s such a great friend! I’m so lucky to have met her.”

At the word friend, your eyes widened. Slowly, as if you had imagined it, you turned to look at Raph in shock, finding him doing the same thing.

“Okay. Something is very wrong with him.” You stated carefully. Like you were talking to a tiny child. Raph nodded, outwardly cringing as he looked back down at the copy and paste of his brother.

“Come on.” He poked at them with the edge of his foot, “Let’s find the others. See if we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

The best way you could adjust to the scene in front of you was with a few seconds of poorly timed surprise.

Raph didn’t stop as you tripped over your own feet, tugging the yellow Donatello along behind him and into the originals lab. Briefly you wondered if there was a better name you could give the new turtle, and filed the thought away fo later.

A part of you had hoped that Raphael was lying, and that this whole thing had been a giant misunderstanding. You wouldn’t put it past the four brothers to get themselves into a load of trouble, only to realize after that it had been entirely their fault. Again.

Four more carbon copies of Donatello sat in various spots around the room. In a weird way, it was like you were looking at a mirror maze with Donnie in the center of it all—his outline projected into each corner of the room. All but one of them were tied up, and you took a moment to get a good look.

Michelangelo was crouching next to someone with a deep blue bandana; not yellow or purple this time. It threw you for a loop to see that color on anyone but Leo, and you took a moment to get used to it. Besides that, the Donatello didn’t appear to be doing anything besides pouting in his confines. His eyes were glassy, and it looked like he was on the verge of tears.

Opposite the room was another version of Donnie. He had on a bright green bandana that stood out against his more muted skin tone. No one stood next to him as he clutched his legs to his chest tightly—not that he had much of a choice, considering the rope around them. He made small rocking motions, going back and forth while his eyes darted around the room frantically. A little pang of sympathy struck you, and you immediately squashed it.

Raphael tossed the smiling Donnie he had caught down next to someone else you couldn’t see. Positioning your neck to crane over Raph’s shoulder, you grimaced at the sight of an extremely dopey looking Donnie. He seemed to be a more tame version.

Much like his yellow counterpart, he was smiling impossibly wide. Looking at him made your face ache.

Instead of insisting on a game of friendly tag, he appeared to be staring off into the distance, occasionally mumbling something to himself as he practically made heart eyes at a brick wall.

“What’s his deal?” You murmured. Raph looked back with a shrug.

“He ran out of here looking like that. Asked where you were when we found him. Been pretty quiet ever since.” He offered. One of your eyebrows practically shot into your hairline at his words, and stayed there as he glanced at you from the corner of his eye.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Raph rolled his eyes. “I know just as much as you do, toots.”

Sticking a finger into your mouth, you pretended to vomit at the nickname. Raph hit you on the top of the head, and you quit the theatrics to take a swipe at him.

“Raph.” A stern voice interrupted both of you, bringing your attention over to a more familiar face. Although, at this point, you were getting plenty familiar with Donnie’s.

“Sorry Leo.” Raphael addressed his brother with a grunt. In the second he took to answer, he seemed to become more stiff, and you instinctively felt the urge to mimic it. Following his line of sight from behind his shell, you found the source of his discomfort.

A fifth and final Donatello sat on top of the originals desktop, legs spread and arms propped gallantly on top of them as he glowered at everything. A singular, vibrant strip of fabric encased his face, and it looked more like a stripe of fresh blood than a mask.

His eyes flickered from each corner of the room to the next. The shade of rusty red you’d gotten used to seeing in Donnie’s eyes felt more lethal now. Cold and calculating. Like the red dot snipers used to scope out their next kill.

This one gave you more of a pause than any of the other Donnies had. A stray finger twitched as you felt the urge to grab at your tazer, and you pushed that feeling down just in time for his steely gaze to land on you. It flickered away a mere second later, and if it had been any faster, you would have thought you imagined it.

“Good. We’re all here.” The mutant spoke firmly. It was identical to the tone that your friend used, but filled with ill intentions. So much so, that your skin crawled with unease at the sound. Silently you willed it to go away.

Leonardo stood off by the red Donatello’s side. His eyes were narrowed in concentration. He barely even nodded in your direction as a greeting before going back to watching the newcomer like a hawk. Tension sparked between them, and your mouth began to feel as dry as their air.

“I see you got stabby here to calm down.” Raph deadpanned as he spoke to Leo and Mikey, nodding once again at red Donnie; whose face had begun to sour. The copycat said nothing as he bore holes into the side of Raphael’s head.

“His name's Ronnie!” Michelangelo piped up before Leo would even get in a word. From the sigh that the leader let out, you could only deduce that they’d already had a fight over Mikey's inability to not nickname something for more than five seconds. The older turtle had apparently lost this round.

“Creative.” Raphael said sarcastically.

“Thanks dude!” Mikey preened, not catching onto the tone. “I call him that because red and Donnie makes Ronnie!”

“Wouldn’t that make his full name Ronatello?” You snickered to yourself at the sound of it, successfully bringing the attention of the so called Ronnie to yourself. You let your laughter pitter out under his gaze.

“Enough small talk. We have much to discuss.” He frowned. You repeated the action back in his direction; admittedly with a bit more attitude than you probably needed to.

Looking away from you with a huff, he jumped off the table in one smoke motion. For the first time, you noticed him twirling a shiny object in his hands. It resembled the bo staff that the Donatello you knew constantly hauled around; granted with a lot of modifications. Glowing purple symbols ran up and down the sides, and the color scheme immediately reminded you of the Kraang.

At the sight of you looking, Ronnie held it tighter.

“Listen.” He began harshly. “I don’t know why I’m here. Why we’re here. But I know we don’t belong. If any of my other counterparts had a brain, I’m sure they’d agree with me.” He sighed at the reference to everyone else in the room. Boredom crept in through his voice like a poison.

“Do you have any idea how to fix this?” Leo cleared his throat in a business like fashion. You almost applauded him for being so calm about this, and then noticed how he’d occasionally glance at the blue Donnie’s mask with a hint of distaste. Fair enough. That was his brand, you suppose.

“No, I don't.” Ronnie bit out as the answer to Leo’s question, looking upset at just having to admit it. “If I had to guess, this had something to do with it.”

He held out the stick you’d been paying attention to earlier with conviction. Leo positioned his palm outward as if expecting Ronnie to drop it in his hands, and awkwardly drew it back when he realized that they weren’t letting go of it anytime soon.

“Donnie was messing with that a few days ago!” Mikey mentioned from somewhere next to you. He was still low to the ground, talking to the blue Donatello— who looked less like crying, and more like he was pouting.

“I saw an episode on TV like this once.” You cut in. “This is Kraang technology, right? In the show, some guy touched a, uh, alien thing he shouldn’t have and ended up with, like, split personalities. In this case I guess they ended up turning into real people. Er, turtles.”

“Oh great. Thanks for the help. Now we know exactly what we have to do.” Raph rolled his eyes and said your name. This time you were the one to deliver a hearty slap to the back of his shell. Somewhere below you, a strangled gasp sounded. Looking down, you discovered that the pink Donnie had moved his staring contest from the wall to you, mouth open wide enough to catch a dozen flies. You crinkled your brow suspiciously and made a face back.

“Stop it guys.” Leo directed a stern look at the both of you. You broke uncomfortable eye contact with the Donnie clone just to point at Raph as if to say he started it. Ronnie watched on, his gaze on you growing more and more unimpressed by the second.

“However juvenile the explanation, your friend may have a point.” Ronnie eventually concluded. While you most certainly didn’t appreciate the tone in which he said it, you grinned sardonically at him. Somewhere behind you someone— who you were sure was the yellow Donnie —praised you for doing a good job. You ignored him.

“So, what? We’ve got Donnie’s different personalities running around?” Raph chewed at his bottom lip in thought. You nodded, taking your TV show theory and running with it.

“If I had to guess, you guys are all based on his different emotions.” You directed your words to Ronnie. He raised an eyebrow and nodded, a silent motion to continue.

“Yellow probably means happiness.” A finger came up as you physically counted the doppelgängers surrounding you. “Blue for sad, hence all the crying, green for nerves, and pink for affection. But I’m spitballing on the last one.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of paranoia for the green guy.” Raph snorted. You briefly looked back at the subject of your conversation, now finding him in the fetal position, and shrugged.

“Yeah that checks out.” You nodded. “If I had to guess, Ronnie over here is something along the lines of anger or annoyance.”

At the mention of his name, Ronnie blinked blankly at you. You scoffed.

“Come on man. You’ve practically been staring daggers at everyone this entire time.”

“And he tried to kill us!” Mikey supplied you with way too much enthusiasm.

“I’m ignoring that in favor of moving on.“

As you turned back to look at him, Ronnie didn’t look any kind of soothed by your words. If anything his glowering only increased.

“Well maybe if I wasn’t surrounded by such simpletons—"

“Alright guys.” Leo butt in with his eyes screwed up. “We can argue later. For now, let’s focus on getting things back to normal.”

“More normal than living in the sewers?”

“Mikey, I think I like you better when you’re quiet.”

“Aw, you’ve been saying that for years big bro!”

Ignoring the exchange between Raphael and Mikey, Ronnie’s gaze was still locked on you. It took a bit of unrelenting eye contact for him to back down first.

You didn’t feel any better afterwards.

“Fine.” Ronnie huffed. With a one last survey of you all, he turned to the more cluttered part of Donnies lab.

“Does anyone know where to find a good microscope around here?”

It had been five hours since Ronnie had started his research with Leonardo, and you were this close to tearing your hair out.

After calming the other personalities down— and having them promise that they wouldn’t run the second you untied them —they had been released from the ropes. True to their words, none of them sprinted in the nearest direction of an exit. In fact, most of them looked pretty content to stay sat shoulder to shoulder in the living room—all gathered around a rerun of some sitcom. Green was the only exception. He hadn’t stopped chewing at his nails ever since being let out, and flinched at any approach you made to invite him over.

It was like trying to babysit four extremely tall toddlers. One minute you were calming Blue down— you had given up on nicknames beyond the colors of their masks —and the next you were shaking Pink off your leg. For some reason, that one really didn’t like to get too far from you. At this point you were considering just strapping him down again.

“I am going to kill something if they don't hurry up.” You had complained to Mikey after being sent for snacks in the kitchen. He shrugged sheepishly and went back to feeding Ice Cream kitty with sprinkles in a high pitched voice. Tossing the chilly mutant a slight wave, you pushed past the two to gather up as much food in your arms as possible.

Yellow gave you a large gapped tooth smile when you returned to drop a bag of chips into his lap. It crinkled faintly.

“Salt and vinegar.” He ogled at the blue bag like it was the holy grail. “My favorite!”

“I know.” You said blandly while handing the rest of the bags out. “For some reason that’s always been Donnie’s choice. With how much he talks about Mikey’s bad eating habits, he sure does choose the worst flavor possible.”

Yellow rewards your spiel with a happy hum. Chip crumbs already dotted the outside of his mouth, and you resisted the urge to reach over and bat them off with your sleeve. You might have done that with Donnie, but he wasn’t here right now. Just a bunch of strange versions of him.

You didn’t like the way your heart seized at that.

“So what’s up with you and us? Or Donatello. The other Donatello.”

The lairs ceiling came into brief contact with your head as you practically jumped five feet in the air. Sometime during your talk with yellow, Green had shuffled over to loom silently over your shoulder. Different Donnie, same bodies, and same freakish height difference.

He repeated the question again, although significantly quieter.

“Give me a minute to get used to my new concussion.” You grumbled without any real malice. He shrunk away at that and wrung his hands anxiously.

Once you got over the initial spook, your brain booted back up to fully process the question.

“What do you mean?” A hand thrust itself out from your person and offered Pink, who had found his way to your side again, another bag of chips. He took it with a breezy giggle you’d only heard from Donnie when he talked to April. You looked at him suspiciously before moving on.

“You seem to have a strong relationship with him.” Greens reiterated. He appeared to have settled on talking about his original with a separate tense.

You made a face in his general direction as a response. Combing through the last few days in your mind, you came up with nothing, offering an unbothered shrug.

“He’s friends with my friends. And a talking turtle. It’s not like I can really go to anyone else for the crazy stuff that happens to me.”

Green squinted at you. It was the closest emotion other than fear that he’d shown so far. He might have added more to the conversation, if the way his mouth opened told you anything, but his brief inhale was cut short by a sudden noise. It startled him so much, this time he was the one to jump up in the air and scurry away.

“Guys, I think we’ve found something.”

Leonardo had been the one to interrupt your conversation with a loud thump. From his place across everyone in the living room, he looked disheveled. His mask tails were laying over each of his shoulders, and looked like a very weird version of pigtails.

Wordlessly, you looked up at him from his sudden appearance, nodding curiously in the direction of the others. It was a silent question.

Leo shook his head back at you in the form of an answer, and you ended the mental exchange with a pat to your legs.

“Hey Mikester!” You yelled loud enough to where it would reach the kitchen. Five pairs of eyes followed your gaze. “I’ve got to use the bathroom! Watch the others!”

“That’s not the way to the bathroom—"

You completely ignored Blue as you slipped through the doors to Donnie’s workplace. With a creak, they swung shut, and you were left staring at two stiff turtles.

“Do you really have to be that obvious?” Ronnie’s lips dipped into frown territory as he commented on your less than graceful departure. He was sitting yet again on the desk's countertop, balancing a clean test tube on his knee pad as he messed with a metal scrap.

You noted the pairs of gloves and safety goggles he wore—equipment that Donnie had personally modified to fit his body. The ease at which they were worn on someone else sent a spark of emotions through your bloodstream.

“Do you really have to be such an asshole?” You deadpanned after a moment of tense silence.

The look-a-like glared at you, but said nothing else.

“Listen up,” Leo said your name, clearly not entertained by the conversation that had just played out in front of him. “We think we’ve found a way to get Donatello back.”

Strolling up to the station that they were standing around, you peeked past the katanas on Leo’s shell to see the silver staff from earlier. It was propped firmly on the table, and a few pieces of its outer shell had been stripped away, revealing an internal structure of wires zigzagging over one another.

If the way he was twitching anxiously said anything, Ronnie didn’t exactly like it.

“I’m listening.”

Leo launched into a fumbled explanation of what they had been tinkering with. From what you could pick up, they had been looking at the inside of it to get a feel for how the device worked, and now Ronnie had a general idea of how to send all five of them back to wherever they had come from.

Overall, the choppy explanation was filled with words you were sure he didn’t understand; and neither did you. Normally you would stop to ask Donatello what most of them meant, and if he was feeling bold he’d launch into an entire explanation. As you side eyed Ronnie from your spot next to him, you didn’t think you’d be doing that anytime soon.

“So my hypothesis, or whatever it’s called, was right?” Your hoodie pockets were filled with the absentminded fiddling of your hands as Leo paused to consider your words. He nodded at you in conformation.

“We think that the staff was meant to multiply Kraang bots. Making them stronger and faster than before.”

“Oh oh wait, let me guess. It didn’t work.”

“Obviously not.” Ronnie sighed at your obvious sarcasm. His tooth gap created a whistling noise that you had heard many times before. “Instead of dividing one organism into multiple, stronger organisms, it simply split the subject into parts of itself.”

It was strange. How such a small, skinny device could cause so much ruckus in just one day. You had been looking for some entertainment, but nothing that involved this level of calamity. Or effort, if you were being honest. You liked the guys, but you also liked really long and really uninterrupted naps.

“Do you know how to reverse it?”

Ronnie fell silent. Observing him through the pair of tinted lab goggles around his face proved difficult, but you picked up on the way his jaw clenched dangerously. A lone vein strained against his neck.

“Yes. He does.” Leo answered for him, awkwardly glancing between you and the other member in the room. You didn’t take your eyes off the duplicate long enough to notice.

“What do we have to do then?” Came your eventual query. “Gather all of them up and force ‘em back together?”

“I think it’d be a bit more intense than that.” Leo tilted his hand sideways and shook it in a wavy motion, symbolizing the difficulty of the situation. You resisted the urge to mimic the action curiously.

Craning your neck, you turned to look at Ronnie expectingly.

“Well? Come on smart guy, what’s the plan.”

He had angled himself away from the both of you. The expanse of his shell rose and fell as he breathed, and it was oddly quiet. Scars of all kinds dotted the back of his shell, and you couldn’t recall ever seeing them on Donatello’s before.

“Ronnie?”

“The plan—" He clutched at the staff tightly. You didn’t remember him even reaching for it. “—is to get rid of them.”

You exchanged a wary glance at Leo, and saw that he was slowly reaching for the katanas at his back. The hilt unsheathed with a cool hiss.

The hair on the back of your neck stood up.

“Alright.” You took a slow step backward in the direction of an exit. “And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” Ronnie positioned the staff in front of him as he spoke. The top end of it peaked over the crest of his head. With a nervous swallow, you watched as he methodically placed the scraps of metal that had been torn off of it back on. “Unfortunately, they seem to be a little late.”

Without warning, Ronnie whipped around and launched himself off of the table. Red and green mixed together in a blur of ugly brown before your eyes. You didn’t waste time seeing if he was heading for you or Leo—you just kicked your legs into gear, fumbling to keep your balance as you ran.

Blood began to pool in the lower corners of your mouth. Without having to feel around, you knew you’d bit down on your tongue. The throbbing pain was almost as bad as the burst of purple light that skimmed by the side of your head. It was close enough for you to feel the whoosh it left behind, as well as the scorching heat. Your pulse began to thrum louder.

“It’s always the weird ones!” You half screamed, half heaved over the sound of fighting. Leo offered no response other than a few grunts and a clashing of metal versus metal. It offered you no relief—other than the fact that a giant angry mutant wasn’t at your heels.

Okay, so a little relief. Sorry Leonardo.

“Don't bother trying the doors.” Ronnie smiled widely in your direction. He threw his arm back for another strike, and it landed in the middle of Leo’s plastron with an oomph.

You, being stupid, tried the doors anyway.

“Alright, alright, alright. I guess I’m doing this today.” You sucked in a sharp breath of when they refused to give way. Turning from the handles and glancing around the room, you looked for something that could possibly help. Leo appeared to be holding his own against the parallel version of his brother, but you had no idea how long that would last. Especially with the threatening glow coming from his staff.

While you scrambled to think of something— of anything —a fat drop of sweat rolled down the expanse of Leo's neck.

His footing was growing increasingly sloppy as Ronnie pushed him further and further back to the wall. Each lunge was as fierce as the last, and trying to strike back was like hitting a brick wall. A brick wall that was coated with concrete and surrounded by titanium. Either Donnie had been working out lately, or the staff had given him some serious upgrades

“Why are you doing this?!” Leo was just barely able to speak over it all. Even still, Ronnie pushed on.

“Donatello is weak.” He snarled. The corners of his lips curled up in tandem with a sweep at Leo’s legs. The leader barely managed to jump over it while blocking yet another jab from the Kraang staff. It was humming loudly now, and the noise unnerved him.

Leonardo was faintly aware of the yelling and desperate banging coming from the opposite side of the nearby door. It sounded like the rest of his brothers had caught on to what was happening and were trying in vain to get in. Leo wondered why the hell he hadn’t insisted on Raph staying with him now.

“Your brother is a joke!” Ronnie continued angrily. He landed a hit on Leo’s shoulder this time.

“He won’t stand a chance against the villains out there. He wouldn’t stand a chance against me! None of you could! I should be the one protecting this city. The only one. I’m the better version of you; unbothered by junk food and affection.” He spat the last part like it was the name of a disease.

“Leave April out of this!” Leo stepped back enough to point the end of one of his katanas at Ronnie, his mouth pulled into a thin line of anger. It made the red-masked foe pause as his face dropped.

“You all are more idiotic than I thought.” He gritted his teeth with obvious annoyance. “I was not referring to that human—"

Without another word, Ronnie begins to jolt in place. Wide eyed, Leonardo watches as the enemy seemingly glitches, arms spasming and body glowing in a nearly see-through manner. He manages to get out a few more violent spasms before collapsing to the floor in a heap of limbs and shell.

Behind his folded figure stands you, chest heaving. A very different looking tazer sits heavily in your hand.

Leo says nothing. He simply looks between you, then the tazer, then you, and then back at the tazer again. After a moment of eyeing the new chunks of technology nestled along its sides, he slowly lowers his gaze to look at Ronnie.

“Sorry. I was going to let him finish his evil speech, but he sounded too much like ‘Tello and it was starting to freak me out.”

You step over Ronnie’s body cautiously and quickly make your way over to Leo’s side. Silence encompasses the two of you, and each one wonders what the other is thinking.

“So new weapon, huh?”

“Don had some stuff lying around. I figured it was time for an upgrade.”

It was then that the lab doors decided to burst open, providing its mostly conscious inhabitants with a bunch of yelling mutants. Somewhere in the entanglement of green limbs, you thought you saw Yellow trip and fall on his face.

“Mikey, put the pizza box down. We already got it.”

At the request of his older brother, Michelangelo sheepishly lowered the greasy cardboard box. Ice cream kitty had been resting on its yellowed surface; looking very melted and very fierce as she bared her tiny chocolate fangs.

“What the hell happened!” An angry voice shouted. Its owner shoved past the mini crowd that had gathered around Ronnie, and Raph stormed forward. His sais were pointed in the direction of the ground, but you couldn’t help thinking he looked angry enough to use them.

“We were just talking about how I should probably start training.” You rolled your eyes and expertly avoided the question.

Ignoring the way that Leonardo sent you a very ‘I told you so’ look, you scoot forward slightly to nudge at Ronnie’s leg. It rolls with the force of the action before motionlessly falling back into place.

“How did you know that would stop him?” Leo clears his throat to ask. The group watches him in joint confusion at his words. He simply points at the upgraded tazer in your hand to clarify.

“I didn’t.” You frowned. “I just grabbed some of the leftover scraps from the table you were messing at, and put it on this.” You held your trusty weapon up with a small shake, jumping slightly when it sparked in your hand.

“I don’t spend so much time around a bunch of nerds without picking up a few things, dude.”

“Guys—" Mikey spoke up. He sounded shaken, and everyone saw as he crept toward the door when they looked up.

“As much as I love cool sticks, I think that one has something seriously wrong with it.”

You looked at the only cool stick in the room, yelping as it shook violently in place. A giant purple ring had surrounded it sometime during your impromptu catch-up, and looked like the definition of bad news.

“Everyone out!” Raph yelled, pointing at the nearest exit while making a dive for it himself. You barely managed to make it out the doors after him, throwing your arms in front of your face as you landed face down on the cold concrete below.

A large explosion sounded from behind you just as you managed to lift your head. The smell of gunpowder and something more acidic filled your nose as you coughed. You wouldn’t be surprised if it was your nose hairs burning. It was probably your nose hairs burning.

“Where are the other Donnies?”

It was almost as if Leo’s question had summoned him. Well, maybe. You didn’t know. What you did know was that a grating noise began to fill your ears— making you feel like this living hell was finally complete —before a pair of charred lab doors peeled back to reveal a burnt looking Donatello.

His face was covered in soot from top to bottom, and the rest of him looked the same. He had on singed knee and arm pads where they previously lay spotless. The strap around his chest was black at the edges. Confusion peppered his face.

But most importantly, that familiar lilac mask was back where it belonged.

“Yes!” You shouted your name with a whoop. All of the turtles turned to look at you on the ground, observing the triumphant smile stretching from ear to ear. “I save the day, and the turtle! Again!”

Mikey, Raph, Leo, and Donnie all let you have your moment of victory. The latter of them all looked confused and equally as tired. Still, he waited for you to tire yourself out, which didn’t take long.

“Should I even ask.” He coughed as you calmed down. Leo shook his head while Raph scoffed.

“I thought dealing with one of you was bad enough.” Raphael snorted. Despite his harsh words, a glimmer of relief swam to the surface of his gaze, and Donnie pretended not to notice.

You fully retired from the conversation as Master Splinter eventually entered the room, looking frustrated to no end.

“What is all this noise?” His tone bordered on harsh. “You broke me out of my seven days of meditation.”

You focused on melting into the cool sewer floor as the four turtles stumbled over each other's explanations. Leo yelped out something about sparring, while Mikey cut him off with his own explanation. The only time you tuned back into the conversation was when Raph mentioned your name.

With a snicker, you propped yourself up from the floor to look at everyone.

“Sorry Master Splinter. We were just beating the shit out of Donnie’s evil clone.”

Everyone around you immediately exploded into yelling.

You weren’t able to make eye contact with any of the boys for the rest of the night without laughing—set off by their look of utter betrayal.

“I can’t believe you’d rat us out.”

“That’s what you get for making me babysit four of Donnie, asshole.”

They all forgave you when you showed up with pizza the next day.