Chapter Text
They were right, this was definitely better than training.
Mikey had completely missed when the record of “carrying a large stack of pizza boxes on your head while you climb up to the top of the brooklyn bridge” had been set, but now they were about to witness it being broken!
Well, possibly. They had all hope for Leo beating Donnie’s record – Donnie very much did not. But Mikey was supposed to be the one that made sure neither of them lied about it, so it was very important they kept their eyes on the pizza box stack at all times. They were the unbiased spectator!
..
Mostly unbiased spectator.
Sure, they were supposed to be training and Raph was probably wondering where they were right now, but it’d be fine! They’d skipped training before. And it wasn’t like they really had to fight any big bad guys anymore.
Now they just had silly villains like Repo and those crab guys. Way easier to fight, especially after having dealt with the Shredder. Things had been calm for a year and a half! Almost two years!
“You’re not gonna make it,” Donnie said after a brief period of silence.
By this point, Leo was halfway up. His face was absolutely covered with sweat and he appeared to be trying his literal hardest not to fall directly off of the bridge. His teeth were clenched tightly together, and Mikey worried that if he tightened his jaw any more than it already would he’d break them all.
Despite this, he was still able to laugh to himself, “just you watch, Donnie! I’m gonna beat your record and you’re gonna have to face defeat. One hundred and twenty five boxes!”
Donnie rolled his eyes, “yeah sure. Not gonna happen, in your dreams!”
“You say it can’t be done but look who’s doing it,” Leo said, “moi! You know that’s Spanish for Leo?”
Donnie blinked at him, “that… yeah that’s really not right. At all. Do I need to start using Duolingo as a distraction for you again?” He shook his head, “anyway- you’re not even at the top yet! My record still stands until you are.”
He turned to look up at the top of the bridge, “and according to my calculations on wind speed, barometric pressure, and dew point, the idea of you getting there is highly unlikely.”
Despite Dona’s statement, Leo continued to advance up the bridge. Mikey swung one end of their kusari-fundo and waited until it wrapped around the chunk of the bridge Leo had just passed. Once it was securely wrapped around, Mikey looped themself around one side of the bridge until they were just behind their older brother.
Leo wobbled a bit, but nothing significant. Mikey laughed a bit at Donnie’s words now that they’d caught up. “Well according to my calculations,” they said, teasingly copying their sibling’s tone, “as long as you believe in yourself, you can do anything!”
“Yet again that is not how calculations work,” Donnie muttered.
Leo just continued his advance up the bridge, and Mikey followed behind him. “Thanks Mikey,” Leo said, “not to worry, nobody believes in himself more than me!”
“Yeah, that’s the spirit!” Mikey cheered, “Leo! Leo! Leo! Leo!”
As Leo continued to climb higher and higher up the bridge (getting very close to the top and Donnie’s imminent defeat), Mikey continued to chant. Only after a couple repetitions of his name did Leo join in as well.
And that seemed to be the final thing that pushed him to the very top of the bridge, standing painfully still as he tried to keep his feet from wobbling. After a second of this, he was able to stand up straight with the pizza boxes firmly still atop his head.
“HAH!” Leo laughed, disappearing from beneath the stack of boxes in a flash of blue light, quickly reappearing just beside them as they hit the ground. By some miracle none of them fell over onto the ground. “YES! I beat your record, Donnie!”
Donnie finally caught up to Leo and Mikey at the top of the roof. He looked completely dumbfounded at the fact that Leo had managed to actually make it all the way up. “Wh- How the heck did you do that? No, no, I call a rematch.”
“Rematch of what?” Mikey asked, “he did it! You saw!”
“Yeah,” Leo laughed, “you’re just a sore loser!”
Donnie mumbled something to himself but ultimately dropped the topic. Leo popped a portal into the air in front of him, and it dropped one of the boxes of pizza into his hands. “I say it’s time to celebrate, what do we think about that? Celebrating my success!”
Unfortunately their celebration was cut short when another voice cut in. “There you are!”
Mikey turned their attention from Leo to the new voice, belonging to Raph of course. Uh oh, we’ve been caught.
Her arms were crossed as she stepped closer to the three, “I’ve been lookin’ all over for you guys!”
“Oh!” Leo said, seemingly completely unaware of the very clear disapproval on Raph’s face, “Raphi, guess who broke Donnie’s record!”
For just a second Raph’s expression changed to one of surprise, “wait, ya did? How many did you-” and then she was right back to disappointed. She rubbed her face with her hand and muttered something, “stop distraction’ Raph! Did you guys forget that we were supposed to be training? I told you like a week ago. Mikey, I literally sent you out here to remind them!”
Mikey avoided meeting their sister’s gaze. Because yeah, that was true. That was what they were sent out here to do, and they just hadn’t done it.
“Umm,” Donnie started, “okay so you see we were gonna come back to the garage for training– and I promise that I tried to talk them out of this– but Leo decided that he wanted to try and break my record and Mikey wanted to see it happen.”
“I had full confidence that I’d win,” Leo nodded, “and that I’d create the coolest record ever.”
Donnie raised an eyebrow, “haven’t you called the record stupid many times?”
“No I never said that.”
“He’s right he never said that.” Mikey nodded while very clearly and obviously lying
“You,” Donnie said, pointing at Mikey, “are just saying that ‘cus Leo’s your favorite sibling.”
Mikey innocently batted their eyelashes, “who? Me? I don’t play favorites!”
That was a lie. They were lying.
“But anyway– it did happen!” Leo said, “I beat the record, Donnie lost it, and blah blah we lost a few minutes of training. Big deal!”
Mikey nodded, “yeah! And it’s not as if we’ve actually faced anything that we’ve needed training for since the Shredder. And even then we were doing that off of like two training sessions– and help from our ancestors– I’m pretty sure we’re fine!”
“Yeah Raphi, relax!” Leo agreed, “come on and celebrate my victory with us! And how ‘bout you, Donnie, ready to accept defeat yet?”
Before they could see if Donnie would, in fact, accept defeat, Raph cut back into the conversation, “one of these days we are gonna have to deal with something that’s gonna be a bigger deal than people like Meat Sweats and that worm guy whose name I can’t remember. One of these days it’s gonna be something big!”
“Aaannnd,” Mikey drew out the word, “that day is not today!”
“Yes, yes,” Leo nodded, “today is for record breaking!”
Donnie shrugged, pulling his phone out, “we can still finish up training now that it’s over with- I mean it’s only.. Oh nevermind it is nine PMt. Yeah, maybe starting training this late isn’t such a good idea. We all already have very messed up sleep schedules as is.”
“Couldn’t you guys have chosen to do this on like.. ANY other day?” Raph asked.
Leo took a bite of the pizza slice in his hand, “it wouldn’t have been as funny on any other day, so no.”
Raph groaned and rubbed her eyes, “it wouldn’t have been as inconvenient on any other day.. You guys just don’t get it! I was really hopin’ that with the confirmation that we were gonna try to pick up the slack on dealin’ with criminals that you’d take training more seriously.”
It was pretty obvious that Raph was about to elaborate further, but whatever she was about to say got cut off as a loud beeping sound forced the conversation to a close.
The four of them started looking around, trying to figure out what the sound was. “What the heck is-” Donnie started, before pausing half way through his sentence and looking down at his left arm. The screen embedded into the prosthetic was flashing a bright blue color, at the same time as the beeping. “Nevermind. It’s me. My bad.”
He tapped the screen and swiftly typed a code into it. Within seconds it was displaying a projection just above the screen itself. Mikey couldn’t read it (both because it was backwards and because Donnie’s stuff was almost always in code and Mikey could never read it), but Donnie clearly was. “Looks like we’ve got a 317-39.4 in progress!”
The other three turtles all shared a look between each other. A very clear “we have no idea what the heck that means”.
Donnie crossed his arms, “oh come ON, did you guys really not read ‘Donnie’s Big Book of Bad-Guy Codes’? REALLY?”
Leo clicked his tongue, “yeah– never gonna happen.”
“Really?” Donnie raised an eyebrow, “none of you? Not even you, Mikey?”
Mikey looked away, “in my defense– you printed the words really, really small.”
“Wouldn’t be a problem if you’d just wear your freaking glasses like you’re supposed to,” Donnie rolled his eyes, “it’s Warren Stone and Hypno, dum-dums! They’re robbing the artifacts exhibit!”
Leo blinked, “WHO and Hypno?”
“The worm guy!”
“Ohh. Why is the code that specific??”
A loud crash rang through the air, and the origins of it sounded not too far from where the turtles were standing. Mikey ran over to the edge of the platform and peered over it. A bit in the distance, they could see a large van speeding down the street. What remained of the artifacts exhibit left behind as fast as the vehicle could possibly get away.
“We should probably deal with that, huh?” Leo asked.
Raph huffed, jumping over the edge of the ledge to slide herself to the bottom. Well. That’s one way to get down… Mikey followed her.
They hit the ground, running in the direction of the van, presumably containing a stolen artifact or two. Mikey swung their kusari-fundo and launched themself up to the top of the nearest building. Vantage point. Their siblings were quick to follow: Leo with his portals, Donnie with his hover shell, and Raph by just straight up jumping up there.
“So,” Donnie started, “how do we plan to retrieve what they stole?”
“We gotta cooperate,” Raph said, “and come up with a plan together. Last time the entire mission was almost compromised.”
Leo snorted, “seriously Raphi, have a bit more faith in us.”
He ran towards the edge of the roof, “c’mon guys, let’s go get that stolen thingy!” He jumped off the roof, disappearing in a flash of blue light.
“Leo!” Donnie shouted, “jumping off the roof is not a plan!”
Leo did not pop back onto the roof.
Raph sighed, “guess we’re doing this mission without Leo.”
“Maybe we should wait to hear out whatever his plan is?” Mikey suggested, “ I mean, maybe he actually has one.”
Donnie gestured towards the air where Leo had poofed out of existence in, “hear him out from where? He is gone.”
I guess that is very, very fair. “OKAY,” Mikey said, “Raph, what are we doing?”
“You two implement maneuver twelve,” Raph said, “and I’ll grab whatever it is that they stole.”
Mikey and Donnie nodded, hopping down to the next building, “on it Raph.” Donnie said.
The two of them followed Leo’s lead, this time under Raph’s instruction, and jumped off the roof. Donnie kept himself in the air through the power of his battle shell, and Mikey swung the chain of their kusari-fundo so it would wrap around Donnie’s staff. Donnie held out the bo staff in front of himself, allowing Mikey to twist around and launch themself off of it.
Mikey could see Leo now, zipping between the cars on the road. But by this point it was too late. Leo was trying to implement his own plan, but the other three were already well into theirs. Hopefully he’d get the hint.
They were sure that Leo HAD a plan. He almost always did.His problem was that he never stopped to communicate that plan with everyone else. Mikey had no idea if their brother expected them all to be mind readers, but whatever he was expecting they clearly did not have that ability.
Once Mikey was back in the air, Donnie shot forward. The staff began to glow with purple energy, and constructs materialized on it using that energy. Mikey ducked down just as a bright purple rocket shot by their head, and swung their own weapon out to wrap around the base of the van the villains were driving. By now, Leo had grabbed ahold of the van and transported himself inside of it. Not enough time to stop and think about what Leo was trying to do.
Donnie’s constructs created a barrier in the road, and the villains had no choice but to turn around to avoid crashing into it and dealing significant damage to their vehicle anyway. This assisted Mikey in latching onto the van, and the glowing orange chain wrapped twice around. The spiked end dug into the metal casing, and with a quick yank of the handle the entire top of the van was ripped clean off.
The force of the move almost launched the three mutants in the van right out of it. Warren and Hypno grabbed onto the seats of the van, and Leo quickly grabbed a hold of one of the sides. “Mikey what the heck??”
Donnie caught up to Mikey, and looked into the van with a frustrated expression, “you didn’t tell us your plan, idiot! What the heck else were we supposed to do?”
“Wait for me to show you? I don’t know, anything other than RIPPING THE VAN APART??”
“I thought ripping the van apart was cool,” Mikey muttered.
“WELL-” Donnie said, “either way Raph’s gonna destroy the whole van. That was the plan, we’re just making it easier. Leo, you should probably get out of there.”
Leo pointed at the two villains still trying to drive away, “I haven’t even gotten the thing yet!”
“Then hurry up!” Mikey told him.
Leo did, in fact, hurry up. He swung his sword with an almost clumsy force, but it opened two portals beneath each of the villains. They dropped down through the floor of the van and onto the road a few meters away.
Then the next few events happened fast. Very fast.
Leo made a move to grab the stolen thingy, weirdly placed in the van’s cup holder, but he was very quickly interrupted from that action. His main priority very quickly became “get out of the van NOW”.
Why? Oh yeah. Raph.
What remained of the van was now crushed, bent, cracked, or otherwise destroyed. Leo was stumbling on the road a few feet away from the van, just barely having got out in time. Shoot, is he okay? He just jumped out of a semi-moving van onto the road, that doesn’t sound good.
Leo wasn’t the only thing on the road. So was the thing that Warren and Hypno had stolen. Some kind of cylinder. Grey. There were some carvings on the side, Mikey was pretty sure. They couldn’t see it very well.
But it was fine, Leo had it.
Or.. Raph had it??
Oh.
Neither of them had it.
Leo had opened a portal under the stolen thing, another in the air just above his held out hand.
But Raph had also moved to grab it. Her red projected fist had managed to grasp the thing before it had fallen through the portal. Which was a problem, because the portal was still open.
Of course, since she was moving fast, Raph didn’t stop at grabbing the stolen item. She was still going forward, which meant she went straight through the portal. Out on the other side, less than 10 inches away from Leo’s face.
Leo, reasonably, panicked. He clutched his odachi in his hands and ducked, which both effectively got him out of the way of their sister’s fist, but also closed the portal and severed the projection from the rest of Raph.
The red glowing hand clunked to the ground a few feet away, sparking as it did so.
“DUDE??” Raph turned to Leo, “WHAT WAS THAT?”
“Excuse ME for not wanting to be MAGIC PUNCHED IN THE FACE!”
“I HAD IT!”
Leo frowned, scrunching his beak a bit, “I had it!! Did you not see the very obvious neon blue portal? Or the fact I was already in the van trying to GRAB IT before you launched it into the air?”
“Well right now NEITHER of you have it!” Donnie said, an exasperated tone to their voice, “so can we wrap this up and GRAB the-”
Too late.
The finger’s of Raph’s severed projected hand unfurled as the whole thing disintegrated. The cylindrical item rolled on the ground, before it was lifted off of it by an oddly familiar figure.
Well.. that was a face Mikey never thought they’d have to see again.
“The old foot lieutenant?” Donnie asked, dropping down to the road. “And the brute.. What, was retirement not an option?”
The old lieutenant completely ignored Donnie’s comment, simply rotating the item in his hands. “Finally.. After all of these centuries, this is ours!”
Hypno sat up from where Leo had dropped him off on the road, “yes, well, of course, thanks to us delivered safe and sound. No problem-o partner!”
The hippo mutant paused for a second before whispering something to the lieutenant that Mikey was not close enough to hear. Whatever he said, it apparently warranted an eyeroll from the lieutenant.
Before any of the turtles could make a move to grab the stolen item back from the former Foot Clan leaders, they were gone. Just POOF. Away in a puff of smoke. Literally. Oddly enough, so were Warren and Hypno.
Why were they working together, anyway? You’d think after they tried to destroy the entire world people would be a bit hesitant about that. But their introduction to Hypno was him trying to get some magic journals to bend reality and possibly also destroy the world. So who knows, maybe villains just didn’t care about that type of thing.
“Eugh..” Mikey started, “that thing must have been really dangerous if those guys want it!”
They turned to Raph, who was very openly glaring in Leo’s direction. “You think?”
Leo finally figured out that Raph was staring at him, and he blinked a couple of times.
“What?”
END